WITH US OR AGAINST US?

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 798, 15 October 1915, Page 6

WITH US OR AGAINST US?

Constantine in a Corner.

" & iIE you with us or against us?" Ada That is the question which a French, paper, the "Echo de Paris," very properly suggests should be put to King Constantine. It is a question to which the Greek King, for all his kinship with the Kaiser, for allr his private and secret negotiations with the treacherous Bulgarian Tsar, will have -M

answer before the world isS many weeks, perhaps even many da,ys, older. German gold and promises of ( German Iron Crosses have surely not corrupted the Greek nation as a whole, whatever effect they may have had upon 'a section of the .Greek statesmen and politicians. To stand aloof from the war, to allow Turkey. Greece's ancient, hereditary, ever cruel and determined enemy, so chuckle over the new obstaclei placed in the n.ath of the former State's , enemies by the turn Bulgarian policy has taken, is surely not a policy which can win the approval of the Greeks as a people. If so, then must they be prepared to shacre the just execration of Russia, and in time, also, to face the just wrath and vengeance of that great power.

At the same time it must be admitted that the actual intentions of Greece remain somewhat of a mystery. She allows thej Allies to land troops at Salonika, contenting herself with a "protest," which is palpably a farce. Aid she has now completed her mobilisation: Against whom, or with whom, are her armies to be ranged ? Against Turkey and with the Entente Allies ? Then this can only mean ah open defiance of the Kaiser^—and the Kaiser's sister! Agathe Allies of the Entente P Then, in that case, she risks the bombardment of the Piraeus, the ruin of what maritime commerce she has got, and, • ultimately, the loss of Macedonia, which would go to Servia. and of the larger islands in the Aegean Sea, which would probably fall to Italy. Whichever way King Constantine answers the fateful question, he is running serious risk of danger. But Greece —putting King Constantine on one side as she mav yet do—has far less to lose from an espousal °f the Entente cause than that of the Huns. He is a slippery customer is Constantine, but, sooner or later, frs choice must be made. All the world i<j awaiting the decision.