GREECE'S PENALTY OF AMBITION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3147, 11 December 1922, Page 7

GREECE'S PENALTY OF AMBITION.

(By Frank H. Si mo i ids.)

Now that the Near East question has passed to the stage of negotiation and the immediate dangers of conflict liavo been happily eliminated, it is possible to consider in some detail what will bo the definite changes which will 1 follow.

To take the case of Greece first, .t is plain that Greece will lose all her possessions l on the mainland of Asia; M inor. lu point of fact these are already gone. Jn addition two great powers already have assured Turkey they will be responsible for the evacuation of Eastern Thrace by the Greeks up to the ivest bank of the M.aritza; river within 30 days from the Mndania Conference.

In Asia Minor, Greece occupied, under the Smyrna mandate, tlie old territory of lonia and she had in the course of military operations last year pushed out to the Bagdad railway, occupying the region .south of the straits and constituting the hinterland of Smyrna. This territory was, however, mainly outside of the Greek mandate, which had an area somewhat smaller than that of the State of New .Jersey, say 7000 square miles, and .a population of perhaps a million. In Eastern Thrace, Greece loses approximately the same area, with a population of around 600.000, By the Treaty of Sevres the Greek frontier came right up to the famous Chotalja lines, the outer and only real defensive position of the land side of Constantinople. She now retires behind the Maritza and thus loses geographical contiguity to Constantinople. So much for the actual loss, which may bo reckoned as amounting to rather more than to.ooo square miles and something in excess of 1.500,000 people. Ten years ago. at the outbreak of the first Balkan war. Greece had an area of 25,000 square mile® and a population of 2,600,000. She added 17.000 square miles as a result of the two Balkan wars, the first with Turkey and tile sdeond with Bulgaria. The population of tins territory was 2,000,000. Thus at the outbreak of the world wa'■ Greece had ai population of 4.600,000 and an area of 42,000 square miles. It seemed unmistakable that certain acts of justice should he done Grecce. She went into Asia Minor on the direct invitation of Great Britain with the tacit consent of France. Her misfortunes arc the result of having been caught in the jam of Anglo-French rivalries. She is now ordered by France and Great Britain to get out of Western Thrace, and it seems certain that she also will lie asked to resign to Bulgaria a corridor west of the Maritza leading to the Aegean. Stub concessions certainly entitle her to ask coml>snsation. because left to her,sell, it is highly likely she could put up a fight in Thrace, which, whatever the outcome. would terriblv embarrass the Allies. If compensation were allowed the Greeks, they then would e comply with Allied term's. Greece would then be left a country with an area of some. 50,000 square miles and something; more than 5.000,000 inhabitants, she would thus have doubled both her area, and her population in the past decade and might for a considerable time devote her attention to devolving the rich prize which would remain. That the dream of expansion in Asia, Minor will wholly disappear or the aspiration to revive in Constantinople the old Byzantine legend die automatically, is too much to believe. But. «u the other hand, recognising, the justice oT many of the Greek claims, it nevertbe--1 rets'seems to me that in the present world situation, it would be a misfortune for a small country like Greece to undertake so dangerous a role as that of occupying Constantinople. Recent events have shown that the ancient city remains an apple of discord in the world. The Anglo-French rivalries and Italian ambitions t here must be added Russia, if and when Bus* si a- resumes 1 her place as a great power, in her hundred years of freedom Greece lias made long steps toward the rcbitalising of her oldest traditions. She has Athens and Balonica. Half of the 16.(1(10,000 Greeks in the world are now gathered under their own Hag. and il she has lost Symriia, she lias held and lost it many times since the Persian wars. _ r \ cnizt’lcßS one of the low statesmen of the moment, the only other public man in the field of foreign affairs who can fairly be compared to him is Benes of Czccho-Slovakia. .Ho took Greece after the fiasco of the Turkish war and made possible the acquisition of Saloiiica and Janina. In turning from the Cretan statesman to the Danish King, Greece made one of the. greatest blunders in all history. In

turning back to Vcnizclos she has taken the only possible course and what can be saved, whatever courage and statesmanship can accomplish, Vcnizelbs will achieve.