which had been most bitterly attacking Greece.

"The only forum of public opinion open to me is that of the United States. The situation is far too vital for me to care a snap about royal dignity in the matter of interviews when the very life of Greece as an independent country is at stake. I shall appeal to America again and again if necessary for that fair hearing which is denied to me by the countries of the Allies.

"Just look at the list of Greek territories already occupied by the allied troops-Lemnos, Imbros, Mytilene, Castelloriza, Corfu, Saloniki, including the Chalcidice Peninsula, and a large part of Macedonia. In proportion to all Greece it is as if that part of the United States which was won from Mexico after the Mexican war were occupied by foreign troops and not so much as 'by your leave!' What matters that they promise to pay for the damage done when the war is over. They cannot pay for the sufferings of my people driven out of their homes. They plead military necessity. It was under the constraint of military necessity that Germany invaded Belgium and occupied Luxemburg.

"It is no good claiming that the neutrality of Greece was not guaranteed by the powers now violating it as was the case in Belgium, for the neutrality of Corfu is guaranteed by Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and yet that has not made any difference in their action. And what about that plea of military necessity? Where is the military necessity of destroying the Demir Hissar bridge, which cost a million and a half drachme, and which was the only practicable route by which we can revictual my troops in Eastern Macedonia? The bridge was mined; it could have been blown up on a moment's notice at the enemy's approach. It is admitted that there was no enemy anywhere near the bridge, and no indication that any was coming. What military reason was there, therefore, to blow up the bridge now, except to starve out the Greek troops around Serres Drama?

"Where is the necessity for the occupation of Corfu? If Greece is the ally

of Serbia, so also is Italy, and transportation of Serbs to Albania and Italy would be simpler than to Corfu. Is it because Italians are refusing to accept Serbs, fearing a spread of cholera, that the Allies think that the Greeks want to be endangered by cholera any more than the Italians?

"They say that they are occupying Castelloriza, Corfu, and other points in search for submarine bases. The British Legation at Athens has a standing offer of $10,000-a great fortune to any Greek fisherman-for information leading to the detection of a submarine base, but never yet received any news about a submarine base in Greece, and never yet have any submarines been supplied from Greece.

"The history of the Balkan politics of the Allies is a record of one crass mistake after another, and now, through pique over the failure of their every Balkan calculation, they try to unload on Greece the result of their own stupidity. We warned them that the Gallipoli enterprise was bound to fail, that negotiations with Bulgaria would be fruitless, and that the Austro-Germans would certainly crush Serbia. They would not believe, and now, like angry, unreasonable children, the Entente powers turn upon Greece. They have deliberately thrown away every advantage they ever had of Greek sympathy. At the beginning of the war 80 per cent. of the Greeks were favorable to the Entente. Today not 40, no, not 20 per cent. would turn their hand to aid the Allies."

[A semi-official reply to King Constantine's protest was made in Paris by "the highest French authority," stating that the circumstances of Germany's invasion of Belgium were widely different from those of the Allies' occupation of points in Greece. The Allies, he said, were acting in defense of small nations, and their presence in Greece was temporary. They went to Saloniki only to succor Serbia, Greece's ally, and the Greek people received them cordially. Greece's neutrality has from the beginning been a benevolent one toward the Allies, he added, and the Allies have been so informed officially by M. Venizelos and others; yet the Greek Government has allowed Ger

mans and Austrians to violate its neutrality by using the Greek coasts and islands as a base for provisioning submarines. The French "highest authority"

remarked in concluding that the Allies were continuing, at King Constantine's request, to advance money for the mobilization of the Greek Army.]

M.

TAKE JONESCU (the leader of the pro-Allies party) writes that Greece, Rumania, and the Quadruple Entente are those responsible for the Serbian disaster. What has Greece or Rumania to do with the tragedy of Serbia? M. Jonescu affirms that the Quadruple Entente knew of a treaty which bound Greece to support Serbia. This is not exact. The Quadruple Entente has known, since the outbreak of the AustroSerbian war, that Greece would never have come to the assistance of Serbia. Greece had declared her neutrality. The character of the general European conflict has not at all been changed by the Bulgarian intervention against Serbia. The interpretation given by Greece to the Serbian treaty was accepted by the Entente powers, and it was on this account that Venizelos was able from the beginning of the war to declare that Greece would remain neutral.

The Entente powers are responsible for the Serbian defeat, because Serbia before beginning the war expected substantial help from England, Russia, and France, which never came; France and England then suggested that Rumania and Greece help Serbia. This had to be done through certain concessions to these two Balkan States, but to such concessions Russia objected, and so nothing came out of that suggestion M. Jonescu says that Rumania also is responsible for Serbia's doom, on account of a certain treaty that bound Rumania to support Serbia; but this also is inexact. In face of the facts, M. Jonescu, an exMinister of Rumania, affirms what is only a deliberate falsehood. Rumania never had any such treaty with Serbia; Rumania is not a coward nation, and

would keep her word, had she first given it. Rumania gave every imaginable help to Serbia in her trouble, moved by a humanitarian spirit. Serbia fell because she was abandoned by her allies and friends of the Entente, and chiefly by Russia, and on Russia will fall to-. morrow the anathema of the entire Serbian Nation, so sacrificed by the Muscovite autocracy.

An opposite view is held by the leading Bucharest daily, Adeverul, which said in its issue of Dec. 13:

It has been said that Premier Bratianu has done well in not having Rumania enter the war; but we repeat that Bratianu has committed a political crime against our national cause ― to say nothing of the interest of the Balkansand he is also guilty of felony toward Serbia; he made no effort to stay the hand of Bulgaria when this latter country was about to strike the Serbs. It would have been enough at that time to take an energetic step in Sofia, when Bulgaria was about to join the Central Powers. A warning from Rumania would have been enough at that time to destroy any Bulgarian attempt against Serbia. Those who say that, had Rumania warned Bulgaria, she would in her turn have been attacked by Germany, are simply exaggerating the dimensions of the Teuton bluff. If we had adopted that policy Venizelos too would have triumphed, and Greek intervention would have been a fact. These being the facts, it is high time for us to turn the light on the entire policy of Premier Bratianu regarding our intervention in the war, a policy which has done an immense harm to the national cause. This Government has been unable to cope with the present situation, and has besides compromised the country, which otherwise would have been assured an enormous profit from this same situation.

*

*

I

"

HAVE received a letter from a spirited octogenarian. "Directly peace is declared," he says, "I intend to take a prolonged tour over the battlefields of Europe."

My young-hearted octogenarian had better reconcile himself to postponement of his tour as a celebration of his ninetieth year. Not until about then will Europe be able to receive him with such comforts as even nonagenarians appreciate. Europe would rather that he and all other tourists stayed at home for several years after the war is over. For directly the war is over there will be a placard over the gates of almost every familiar travel route of Europe; its legend will be "Admission on business only."

There are forecasts of a mighty crossing of American tourists directly after the war for "conducted" explorations of that tangled Golgotha that stretches from the sea to Switzerland and among the blackened remains of the war-ravaged cities of Belgium and Northern France. But if the tourists are hardy enough to come they will be like visitors who descend upon a host who has just seen his walls go down in an earthquake, and whose family and servants are straining with rope and pickaxe among the ruins. If the tourists want to make sure of their tour they will have even now to charter their ships, because after the war tonnage will be precious and staterooms and saloons will remain dismantled for the cargoes of the rebuilders and the foodstuffs for empty granaries. The tourists should bring also their own motors or wagons for land transport. Half of the railway lines in the "touring" district are twisted wreckage, twothirds of the rolling stock lies in war's great scrap heap. The tourists should also bring tents and camping equipment, and even their own commissariat. Towns

left inhabitable will be overcrowded during the rebuilding epoch; hotel life will not have been reorganized; millions of the lean and hungry and dispossessed will have first claim on shelter and slowly increasing food supplies.

One tourist only will be welcomed after Arınageddon. He will carry plans and drawings instead of camera and picture postcard album. His name will appear in contracts rather than in visitors' lists. His luggage will be spades, trowels, and iron girders. The traveler's tucked-up shirt sleeve is going to be more fashionable than the traveler's dinner jacket for a generation to come.

We easy British will feel the draught of the new travel discomforts, even when we visit our good allies, even in leaving or entering our own free country, even in traveling in our own country. If there is one Continental restriction we have derided and disliked more than any other it is the passport. But we have a strict passport system ourselves today in war time, and it is certain that we will continue it in peace time, just as we will be sane enough to continue the safeguard of national registration. For our eyes are now opened to the Teutonic meaning of "peaceful penetration," our ears have heard the Teutonic whisper of "the war after the war," we know now what was the meaning of that chain of excellent German hotels that linked all our coast resorts and strategic and naval and military towns, and the mission of all their alert, courteous, and attentive German proprietors and German staffs. The passport will henceforth help us to sift out our alien settlers and visitors and sort out the natives of that country whose emigrants and travelers will henceforth be lepers among civilized men.

Even travel at home will for long not be as easy and comfortable as it was in the old days. It is scarcely likely to be

as cheap again. The excursionist has seen his zenith, and the week-ender is in his nadir. How long will it be before all those canceled trains, all that choice of swift expresses, creep into the time tables again? How long before there will again be so many trains, and such long trains, that the third-class, longdistance passenger will be able once more to feel resentment when he cannot get a corner seat? The railway companies have much to build up; the war has taught them the meaning of wasteful competition "; they have pooled traffic; they have pooled rolling stock; they have found that three expresses two-thirds empty, starting from three different London termini at almost the same hour for Birmingham or Edinburgh, can be substituted by only one express from one of the termini. Railway companies are human concerns, with very human instincts of self-interest. Whatever happens to the railways, the traveler's golden days are gone.

With the shrinkage of travel will come a shrinkage of all the paraphernalia, the pomp, and the ceremonies that hung upon the people who could afford the magic carpet. It is safe to say that, for many a year, Europe will see no more rebuilding of mammoth palace hotels and shining kursaals.

Snobbery is another thing that has

suffered by war. It still is not dead, but it is badly wounded. We of the new world must see that it walks not again. The bill that is passing through Parliament now is the cruelest blow that snobbery ever had. There are two sorts of compelling that the Compulsion bill will achieve. It will not only compel the British man of all classes to serve his country; it will compel the British man of whatsoever class to prove for himself, in the rough test of field fellowship, the equality to himself of the man who is as good a man as he. It will open up the biggest era, the greatest social vista, of all the changes that the new world brings. A narrower world? Yes, but for all that a wider world. A world you will find of workers and horny hands and shirt sleeves, and a surprising number of great gentlemen. A strange era for us British, because we, the home-givers aforetime to so many Continental nations, are likely to turn out a race of Continental émigrés ourselves. There will be a new Britain in France and Russia and Belgium, just as today one can hear the voices of the new France and the new Belgium in England today. When the great time of rebuilding comes many of the strong hands and the great brains and muscles of England, as well as of our allies, will be wanted among those ruins of France and Flanders.

mothers! to a very great extent the future of our fatherland lies in your hands. While our glorious army protects the frontiers of our country, while our men wield the weapons of the war god Mars, at home the women hold high the banner of charity to guard the inner life of the nation, to prepare for the future."

Almost as soon as mobilization took place there arose a large organization with the view of looking after the families of the soldiers, and also to care for the returned wounded heroes. No official edict, no centralized machinery, was responsible for the creation of this body; no agitation was necessary to bring it into existence. Love of country, humane enthusiasm, sympathy for one's fellow-men, these joined to battle against the most dreadful of enemies, misery and want.

Humanitarianism and love of country are the driving wheels of this organization, but the Hungarian women are the active factors who are giving themselves in the service of the various institutions devoted to the task of aiding the fatherland.

At the head of this splendid army stands the noble-minded Grand Duchess Auguste, the wife of the Grand Duke Joseph. From the very moment the war broke out her brilliant court, which in times of peace drew to itself the most exalted among the Hungarian aristocracy, changed its tenor to conform with the seriousness of the situation. Grand Duke Joseph, one of our most gifted soldiers, around whom a whole series of legends has been built, took the field. On that same day Grand Duchess Auguste gave the initiative to the Hungarian benevolent co-operation which has proved such a blessing.

The majestic figure of the Grand Duchess is robed in the pearl-gray garments of the nurses, and wherever she goes she appears in this characteristically patriotic costume. She herself declines every luxury and reproaches it in others. Her entire strength is given over to soothe the sorrowful and lessen pain.

Every morning at an early hour she leaves her palace accompanied by a lady in waiting, and visits one after the other of the many hospitals, where she comforts the wounded. For each suffering one she has a loving word, and her exemplary activity is spurring the ladies of the aristocracy to imitate her labor.

In the organization of the sanitary work she is also playing a conspicuous part. Besides her public activity, the Grand Duchess in her own home circle displays a no less sacrificing love. The Nayta Polcssanyer castle has been transformed into a hospital, where eighty wounded soldiers are being constantly cared for under the personal supervision of the noble owner.

Grand Duchess Stefanie is another woman of princely birth whose name will go down in Hungarian history by reason of patriotic sacrifice. The wife of the late Crown Prince Rudolf always held the love of the people who looked forward to her assuming the royal ermine with intensest interest. Merciless fate, however, shattered the beautiful dreams of the Hungarian Nation. In the place of the Countess Elemer Lonyay the people gained Sister Stefanie. Through the length and breadth of the land Stefanie Lonyay is now known by that humble title. Her heart, her soul, her every thought belongs to the Hungarian Nation. She is like an angel among us. By night and day she lives only to minimize suffering.

I know from personal observation that her expenditures amount to a fortune.