THE BALKANS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17089, 22 August 1917, Page 5

THE BALKANS

MONASTIR BOMBARDED.

MANY CIVILIAN VICTIMS.

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association and Reutcr.

LONDON. August 20. Serbian official: The Bulgarians violently bombarded Monastir. A great many buildings wore destroyed. There were numerous civilian victims, and many women and children are homeless

FIRE AT SALONIKA.

HALF THE CITY DESTROYED.

EIGHTY THOUSAND HOMELESS

PEOPLE,

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association,

NEW YORK, August 20. Advices received here state that a great nre has devastated Salonika, and half the city is burnt. Renter's Telegrams. LONDON, August 20. A fire occurred at Salonika on August 18, and 80,000 people are homeless. The loss of life is unknown. By the evening of August 19 the fire was under control. RAPID SPREAD OF THE FLAMES. OLD SALONIKA DESTROYED. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. PARIS, August 27. (Received Aug. 22, at 0.10 a.ui.) The Salonika correspondent of Le Temps states that the fire started in the Bulgarian quarters, and, despite the efforts of the Greeks and the allied troops, it spread immediately. The entire commercial district was involved.

Forty thousand Jews are homeless, and the whole of Old Salonika has been razed.

RECENT TREACHERY IN GREECE.

EXPOSURE OF INFAMY.

»Australian and N.Z. Cable Association,

ATHENS, August 20. The Foreign Minister, while tabling in the Chamber the diplomatic documents concerning the Graco-Serbian Treaty and the enemy invasion of Macedonia, declared that they constituted tangible proof of the moral degradation and infamy of recent Ministers, forming the blackest page in Greece's history.

EX-KING'S SYMPATHIES.

ENFORCED NEUTRALITY.

ATHENS, August 20. Among the diplomatic documents found here was a despatch from ex-King Constantino, dated July 25, 1914 (old style), replying to the Kaiser's despatch, dated three days earlier (new style, August 2, 1914), in which the KaiEer had proposed that Greece should range herself on the side of the Central Powers.

Constantine's reply said: "The Emperor well knows that my personal sympathies and political opinions will attract me to this proposal, but it is impossible to understand how Greece could be useful, as the Mediterranean is at the mercy of the Anglo-French navies, which could prevent any concentration of our troops. We should be wined off the map. Therefore neutrality is lnippsed upon us." Von Jagow, then Foreign Minister in Germany, told the Greek Mmister at Berlin that the Kaiser would understand the necessity for Greece's neutrality.