WAR-SHADOWED ISLANDS of the AEGEAN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23839, 14 December 1940, Page 10 (Supplement)

WAR-SHADOWED ISLANDS of the AEGEAN

THE extension of the war area to Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean has caught many of us napping geographically. Koine of the places in the news nowadays might be on another planet, for all we know of them! Argyrokastron. Konispoli, Philastronia- —who ever heard of them before last month I Then that other name, the tantalis- ! ing. elusive Dodecanese, that has been ! cropping tip incessantly ever since Musi solini turned his bandit s glare toward ! the East. Where and what are the j Dodecanese? How many ot them are | there, and why are they constantly in jthe news? 1 They are in the news for the very ; good reason that as hostilities move i ever closer toward Syria and the east. iJtaly stands waiting behind the heavily ! fortified naval bases, military aeroI dromes that she has been busily con- ! strueting on these isles of the Aegean 1 for the past fifteen years. Without I them, she would he utterly powerless I to strike in the east. And the grimly j ironic truth is. that England and ! France gave them to her, under the ! Treaty of London, as the price of her j entry into the Great War at a time I when the Allies were urgently in need jof assistance. Little could they have | foreseen the harvest of dragons' teeth I they were sowing on that fateful day in I 1923, when, under the Treaty of I Lausanne, this agreement was confirmed. and Italy given control of these j immensely important strategic points in the eastern Mediterranean! Isles, of Peace and Beauty The Dodecanese, twelve in number, j with one added later for good measure, |lie in a close-packed group, with an i almost entirely Greek population, just j off the coast of Asia Minor, the largest | and most famous being the Island of ! Rhodes, whose history goes back to the | days of the Crusaders, j Through long centuries, the isles of i the Aegean drowsed and dreamed, as ! the unchanging years drifted slowly ! by. The brown hills and wooded valleys | were bright in spring with asphodel ' and anemones; the peasant tilled his j bit of stony land; grapes, olives and

By ELSIE K. MORTON

melons ripened and flourished summer alter summer. Then, in 1911. clouds began to gather, and events moved swiftly toward tlie cataclysm of the (('real War. Italy, in t!ic initial stages of a vain-glorious dream of Imperial expansion, demanded from Turkey her consent to Italian military occupation of a portion of .North Africa then held by the Turks, now an important centre of hostilities, as the Italian colonv of Libya, T urkev refused, and by way of reprisal. Italy attacked and seized Rhodes in 1912, and assumed control of the Dodecanese, which bad been under Turkish domination since 1(552. 1 She declared her occupancy was only temporary, and from that time onward, there was played one of the most complicated games-of international politics, spiced with secret treaties, diplomatic intrigues, plotting and counter-plot-ting. that has ever kept the nerves of diplomatic Europe on edge. Russia, Morocco. Turkey, Britain. France, Greece, Italy—all were involved, the varying alignments of allied and enemy Powers swinging the balance <>i power in the Eastern Mediterranean first toward one. then anothi-r. Finally Italy was given the right to annexe the Dodecanese, and two other important islands, Mitylene and Chios, were given to Greece. So appalling was the muddle into which European politics had fallen, however, that it was only the swift action of Britain and France in another crisis that prevented the Italians from also establishing themselves in the town of Smyrna, almost opposite Athens, and a vitally important strategic point in the Aegean. The Coming Storm In the years that followed Mussolini's rise to power. Italy tightened her control on the Dodecanese. The entire Greek population was compelled to adopt Italian nationality; .Rhodes and other islands were fortified, and a strong naval buse was established in the land-locked harbour of Leros. When the cruise ship in which our party was making a tour of the Mediterranean passed down through the Aegean, in the spring of 19:58, we heard many rumours of increasing military activity throughout the Dodecanese. We were unable to land at Rhodes, but an Italian aeroplane flew out to have a look at our ship, and there seemed to be a general feeling of apprehension throughout other islands we visited as to what might be afoot. This uneasi-

ness was increased, a year later, by news that German ships were constantly unloading military stores at Rhodes, while I'atnios and Leros had been eompulsorily evacuated. Then came word that a force of 50,000 Italians had landed in the islands, and that a large number of aeroplanes and ammunition, loot from Czechoslovakia, had been sent by Germany to Rhodes and Leros, the most strongly fortified islands in the Dodecanese. But these things were hidden from us as we passed down through the Levant in that beautiful springtide three years ago, and we looked out day after day on the peaceful waters of seas through which the triremes and galleys of Persians, Greeks and Romans had once sailed to the conquest of new worlds . . Greek Soldiers at Mitylene At Mitylene. the larger of two isles now in Greek possession, there was no hint of the bitter storm that even then was brewing behind a little cloud "no bigger than a man's hand." Serene and lovely lay the old. old town by the shores of the harbour, backed by purple-shadowed bills, a town that was young and beautiful when immortal Sappho sang her songs to a world that is dead.

A sweet tinkle of music sounded as we walked round the wide road that edges the harbour. A blind musician sat on a little stool by the roadside, twanging a mandolin zither, and singing "Rule, Britannia!" But up in the huge Byzantine fortress that crowns the hilltop above the town, now a Greek barracks, there were sentries posted at the gates of both the outer and inner walls; another sentry kept watch from the ancient tower, and soldiers were drilling in the vast, stonepaved courtyard. As I looked out through the medieval arches at the shining blue seas, I thought ol all the blood that had flowed in these wartorn isles from th* dawn of time—surely the roar of battle would not be heard again in this lovely, dreaming corner of the world? The trumpels have sounded. Throughout the Isles of the Aegean, soldiers stand to arms. Italian bombs have fallen on Mitylene, British naval forces have attacked enemy bases in the Dodecanese at many points, and have already destroyed large numbers of aeroplanes and military objectives . . And so 1910 is retrieving the grievous mistake of 1923. and hastening the day when the Greek Hag of liberation wiil fly proudly over the Dodecanese.