Ex-King Constantine and the war

Contents

CHAP.

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I. — King Constantine ....

Foreword

Before leaving for the front, I had requested my son to see that, in the event of my falling on the field of battle, nothing I had written should be published until twenty-five years after my death. But yielding to the pressure brought to bear on me by many of my friends, and influenced more especially by the recent odious plot against M. Veniselos and the nation, a plot the object of which was patent to everybody, I decided to commit to paper not, indeed, a complete and orderly record of events, but just such incidents and reminiscences as might happen, from time to time, to come into my mind.

I deem that when a man has occupied a position of trust and has been enabled to see what went on behind the scenes, he is not justified, when he at length relinquishes office, in divulging to all and sundry, the various things which came beneath his notice. There is possibly also something to be said for not destroying the illusions entertained by those whose fives are spent remote from the artificial and misleading atmosphere of Courts and Council Chambers. There are, nevertheless, some things that may be revealed without indiscretion, things that we may say, things that it is our bounden duty to say, despite the aureate quality viii FOREWORD

that is wont to be attributed to silence. The events of November last almost compel me to break the silence that I have hitherto maintained.

Now I wish at the outset to make it abundantly clear that I do not aim at writing the history of King Constantine's reign ; my intention is merely to give publicity to those facts, documents, stories and reminiscences of events of which I have had personal cognizance. Having had occasion to meet M. Veniselos in London, I might have requested him to give me a detailed account of the events herein recorded. I did not do so because I should have diminished the anecdotal value of this book had I restricted myself to a cut-and-dried enumeration of incidents. To do so, moreover, would have been inconsistent with the unambitious character of this work. I cannot too emphatically insist that I do not claim to have written a history ; all I have attempted to do is to make the history of the period more readily understood, by throwing some light — though in such a haphazard way as will certainly earn me the condemnation of the critics — on the principal personages of the drama. I therefore crave the indulgence of the reader, and I shall esteem myself amply rewarded if I succeed in engaging his interest.

Battle Abbey, January, 1920.

IT is not my intention to attempt a minute portrait of the King any more than to write his history. His history, unhappily, he has written himself, and it will perhaps be one day written in still darker characters by posterity. I shall only roughly outline the principal traits that make up the portrait of the man. My intention, indeed, is to give the facts and to leave to the reader the task of portraying for himself the manifold and diverse constituents of which the King's nature was compounded. By this means I shall be assisting to correct the judgment of those people — and they are numerous — who think they know him already. One may well inquire, when one reflects how little their official biographers are sometimes acquainted with them, whether monarchs are ever really known to the world in general.

I quitted the ex-King's service about the end of December, 1915. For more than a year I had striven daily, and with all the energy at my command, to fulfil the hope that sometimes seemed as though it would eventually be realized, of persuading him to abandon his neutrality and declare in favour of the Entente.

From the days of our childhood onwards, that is to say for more than forty years, our mutual intercourse was never interrupted. He invariably displayed great friendliness, confidence and esteem towards me. And even when I was in his service and he knew that I was devoted heart and soul to the policy of the man who, from the very outset, I looked upon as the incarnation of the Hellenic spirit — need I say that I refer to M. Veniselos — even then, I say, he retained me at his side despite all the intrigues of my colleagues, whose jealousy was excited by the royal favours of which I was the object. Nay more, even when, feeling that I could no longer look on unmoved at the betrayal of my country's interests — I should rather say of my country itself — for the sake of Germany and our worst enemies, I handed him my resignation, he sent me word by Colonel Scoumbourdis, his principal aide-de-camp, that he did not accept it, and desired me to remain at my post, the only condition being that I should inform no one that I had intended to resign. I deferred to his wishes. Perhaps I was hoping against hope that things would even then take a different course. But what was chiefly in my mind was that I was his only real friend, and that if I quitted him, I should be delivering him over to the evil counsellors who surrounded him, whose tool in the carrying out of their selfish and nefarious machinations he would inevitably become. But the King, who never could keep a secret, spoke of my resignation to Streit, and possibly also to Dousmanis and Gounaris, told them about his refusal to accept it and how he had made it a condition that the matter was not to be talked about. These gentlemen, who saw in me an adversary ever ready to combat their growing and sinister influence, quickly realized that here was an admirable opportunity for procuring my dismissal from the Court. And so a couple of days later, when I had gone away to spend the holidays with my sister Madame Anna Papadopulo, the Nea Himera, Streit's own particular organ, came out with a flaring announcement of my resignation.

These gentlemen, of course, made haste to convince the King that I had turned a deaf ear to his request, and urged him to sign a decree relieving me of my functions. A report of my dismissal was published in the papers controlled by them, and called forth a heated denial from my brother Constantine, an ex-naval officer, who was then a deputy and fully acquainted with the real facts.

That was the only time King Constantine listened to any intrigues against me. It was a sorry piece of vindictiveness and unworthy of a king. He had just purely and simply to accept my resignation. But the King did not stop there. Shortly afterwards, having gone back to my military duties, I was ordered to leave Athens and to proceed to the Macedonian front. Liveratos, the unscrupulous Liveratos, who was then Procureur du Roi and at

i* the same time one of the Chief of the " Epistrati,"* armed himself with an order from the Government of Athens, and on the strength of it carried out a domiciliary visit at my abode to see if he could find among my papers anything of a compromising nature concerning the ex-King.

When, however, I left his service, I wrote to His Majesty, informing him that he could rely on my discretion. As a matter of fact, before leaving Athens, I had put all my papers in order, destroying such as were of no further use or related to my duties at Court. It is, therefore, not in the least surprising that this egregious functionary and his myrmidons failed to discover the sort of thing they wanted. They consoled themselves for their disappointment by forcing all my locks and carrying away a quantity of articles that had absolutely no connection with the papers in question. The only things that were sent to the King were a few personal mementoes and the entire collection of autographed photographs presented to me by the various members of the Royal family. I subsequently learned through my ex-colleague, M. Roidi, that His Majesty threw the photographs on the fire with his own hand and gave orders that the papers contained in the valise sent to the Palace should be examined.

I have already said that the King could not keep a secret j and that is the truth. It was not that he felt the need to be always talking and opening his heart that is characteristic of the ordinary

* Reservists.

gossip, for a gossip the King was not ; nor, in reality, was he a slave to his feelings. What made him ta]k in the way he did was that he was overconfident, and generally ill-advisedly so, in others, reposing an almost childlike trust in any new-comer. Constantine shared the defect common to most monarchs, the inability, that is to say, to recognize who were really worthy of his confidence, of the confidence of a king. Thus he spoke without reserve to almost anyone to whom he granted an interview, and opened his heart to all and sundry, often without weighing the importance of his words.

It thus often happened that many people, not infrequently foreigners, were much flattered and not a little moved at being, as they might well believe, thus singled out as the repositories of the King's private thoughts and even of important secrets of state.

I know more than one French politician who thus unconsciously allowed himself to be misled by the King into believing himself called upon to play the part of intermediary, with sometimes deplorable consequences. To cite but one instance, the Deputy M. B., who (according at least to what I have heard, for I had quitted the Court long before M. B. went to Athens) left the Royal presence much more of a King's man than a republican. I am quite disposed to believe that it was so, for when General Sarrail was at Salonica and mentioned my name one day to M. B., referring to me by my former title of Secretary to His Majesty, M. B. treated me with exceptional deference.

I could instance several others who, from merely conversing with His Majesty, emerged from the interview more royalist than the King. Among all the various notabilities who passed through Athens in the course of the war, only two were able to withstand the blandishments of the royal presence and to maintain their independence of judgment. Those two were General Sarrail and General Roques, then Minister of War.

Talking of French generals, I cannot forbear to make mention of General Pau, whom the King received in audience on the 3rd February, 1915, when he was passing through Athens on his way to carry out his mission in the Balkans. The King was particularly gracious to General Pau and exceedingly pleased to see him. The General referred to the German Army, and, like a true soldier, did not underestimate the capabilities of his adversary. " They are very fine troops that we have to contend with," said he. The King was delighted. He repeated what the General had said again and again, with some highly eulogistic references to the General himself. " That man is a real soldier," His Majesty remarked to me. " I was genuinely pleased to meet him."

It was in the course of this interview that King Constantine told the General that the right way to Constantinople was not through the Dardanelles but by way of Sofia. It was a view well worth pondering upon. It was the opinion held by our General Staff, who were better able to judge of the matter than anyone else, and it was a perfectly sound one, as subsequent events only too clearly

Ex-King Constantine.

demonstrated. Unfortunately the British Admiralty did not see its way to profit by the valuable advice that was given to it.

While on the subject of Royal audiences, I must mention the interview with the King granted to Lord Kitchener on the 30th November, 1915. In accordance with what generally took place after the King had received a personage of distinction, I was about to make my way into the Royal presence immediately after Lord Kitchener's departure in order that I might hear the King's impressions while the conversation was still fresh in his mind, when I was forestalled by the Queen. Unknown to me, she had been waiting in the billiard-room, which was exactly opposite the King's apartment, watching for the General to go, and chatting the while with the indispensable Colonel Metaxas. She, too, was anxious to learn what the British General had said and what reply the Kaiser's brother-in-law had made to him. She was, above all, desirous of nipping in the bud whatever impression favourable to the Entente might have been left by the interview on her husband's mind.

But Lord Kitchener, according to what I was told by the King, whom I saw immediately the Queen came out, had not vilified Germany. In discussing the situation with His Majesty, he had spoken freely as regards the attitude of Greece. The result was that the King had nothing but good to say about him, and remarked to me that he was " a very straight man." This was not to be wondered at, for Lord Kitchener had expressed his entire approval of the King's neutrality. He disapproved of the Salonica expedition and said it was useless, or at all events too late. Referring to the operations on the Western front, he said that he merely looked on what the British Army was then doing as large scale manoeuvres for training purposes. The army was then in process of formation, and it would, he said, take a good three years to make it a match for the adversaries with whom it had to contend. And, with a laugh, Lord Kitchener asked the King whether he thought three years was a long time to ask for, seeing that it had taken Germany forty years to prepare for the war.

Herein Lord Kitchener showed himself a better prophet than in the case of the Macedonian front. The British Army wrought miracles, particularly when it is remembered that at the outbreak of war it consisted, I believe, of not | more than eleven divisions, and that in the short space of time available it trained several million men for the fighting line. As the chief creator of this army justly observed, the British Army showed that it was equal to the task before it, by the brilliant manner in which it defeated the Germans.

Reverting for a moment to the ex-King's unfortunate inability to keep a secret, I will mention a fact which, although it has no connection with the world war, will afford convincing testimony of the accuracy of my allegation.

In 191 2, while the war against Turkey was in progress, I was sent by General Sapountzakis, during the siege of Jannina, to Philippias, where were the

Headquarters of King Constantine, then Crown Prince and Commander-in-Chief. My orders were to obtain the very latest instructions of the General Staff for the attempt that was to be made on the morrow to take Jannina by assault. When I arrived, I found everybody in a state of inconceivable excitement. Officers were hurrying to and fro ; whisperings here and whisperings there, talk of arresting this person or that ; altogether it was clear that something very grave and very unusual was taking place that morning. At length I managed to button-hole a friend of mine, who was calmer than the rest. Speaking with a great air of mystery, he told me we had been betrayed, that there was certainly a traitor in the camp, that our plan of attack had been divulged and that all the foreign military attaches were already acquainted with the nature of the projected operations, despite the precautions that had been taken to keep them secret. Finally he said that the attack had been indefinitely postponed, seeing that we could no longer count on the element of surprise — an essential element of success. I was dumbfounded.

Let me here remark, by way of parenthesis, that, as orderly officer to the General commanding the army of Epirus and before the Crown Prince arrived on our front, I always allowed the Russian, British and French attaches — Lieut .-Col. Goudine-Lefkowitch, Major Cunliffe Owen and Captain Denvigne — to accompany me to the most advanced positions, while I put every sort of obstacle in the way of their German, Austrian and Italian confreres. As to whether I had a presentiment of what was to come,

I cannot deny that I may have had some sort of foreboding. At any rate, it is a fact that these gentlemen were furious, and went back to Athens after complaining about me to the General.

In the afternoon of that same day I took leave of His Royal Highness, who seemed just as aghast as all the rest of the staff at the indiscretion that had been committed. Before returning to the front, I went to take a cup of tea with Mademoiselle P., a charming lady who was " honorary " correspondent to a foreign newspaper, and who was at that time honoured by the friendship of the Crown Prince, who paid her frequent visits. Mademoiselle P. also spoke to me of the projected attack, and that in the presence of other persons, among whom were some foreign military attaches. She referred to the matter in such minute detail that I was literally taken off my feet. Concealing my astonishment, however, I asked her how she was able to refer with such an air of certitude to matters that were still in the air, and made every endeavour to induce her to change the topic. She insisted, however, on returning to the subject, and, deeming that I was less accurately informed than herself, ended by remarking in the most natural manner in the world :

" But, cher ami, I am in any case better posted than you are, for it was the Crown Prince who told me all about the matter the day before yesterday ! "

I slipped away as soon as I could find an excuse and hurried off to Headquarters, where the explanation of the whole business had also just become known. From that day^ forth, by order of the

Chief of the General Staff, all the officers maintained a respectful silence in the presence of the generalissimo regarding the prospective operations. The plans were radically altered and the attack postponed. As is well known, it was a brilliant success, and, as is usual in such cases, all the credit went to the Royal generalissimo. I mention this for the enlightenment of those who imagine that because a man is born to a throne he is also necessarily born a strategist.

Another trait in the King's character, and it is with much regret that I put it on record, is his rancour. The King never forgets an injury or a slight. His kindness of heart may lead him to forgive, but he never completely forgets. I am fully aware that by writing this book and setting forth the plain facts, I am making a mortal enemy of him. King Constantine is one of those men who, whatever else they may pardon, never forgive those who unmask them to the world. Constantine never appreciated the truth of Plato's dictum, that states could never know happiness unless they had philosophers for kings or unless their kings were philosophers. There could be no more conspicuous, no more public proof of the King's unforgiving nature, than the fact that he suffered his name to be used as a rallying cry on the occasion of a demonstration during the municipal elections in February, 1914, his purpose being to take his revenge on one of the two candidates, M. E. Benachi, who, as Minister a few years previously, had incurred the displeasure^of j^the King, then

Crown Prince, by refusing to grant a certain favour to an undeserving protege of the latter. This circumstance, despite the manifold good works consistently wrought by M. Benachi since he came to Athens, was quite enough to predispose the King in favour of the other candidate, Mercouris, the well-known future chief of the Epistrati. With the permission of the King, or at all events with his knowledge, since I myself reported the matter to him, the partisans of Mercouris paraded the streets of the capital, shouting : "It is the King's wish ; he said it ; Mercouris is the man to vote for." I had a shock when I heard this sort of thing being shouted about the streets. I pointed out to the King how dangerous it was to let the populace make use of the Sovereign's name and person in party disputes and electoral quarrels. As a constitutional monarch in a country where universal suffrage was in force, his personal interference was highly improper. I went so far as to ask His Majesty's permission to put a paragraph in the Press officially denying that he had any preference for either candidate. To escape from the dilemma, the King replied that he always refrained on principle from issuing denials. I do not know whether that is good policy for a King, but I ventured to press my point, remarking that in any case it was exceedingly unwise thus to make use of his prestige and popularity in a mere municipal election, and to mix up his name with such a contest, a contest in which he so far lowered himself as to tear down with his walking-stick the posters displaying the portrait of the Veniselist candidate.

King Constantine is

However, when, despite the Royal opposition, the latter was elected Mayor by a large majority, I succeeded, at all events for the time being, in reconciling His Majesty with the new Mayor of Athens ; so successful indeed were my efforts that the King had himself invited one day to dine at Madame Benachi's at Kifissia, after the holding of a charity bazaar organized by Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Helena.

An explanation of the King's rancour may perhaps be found in his prodigious memory. When he had read a book through once, he knew it practically by heart. After an audience he could repeat every word that had been spoken. During the first few months of the Great War, when I never used to let a day go by without endeavouring to persuade him to abandon his neutrality, I even went so far as to import Machiavelli into the discussion. One morning I went into his room with the " Education of Princes " under my arm. I wanted the King to read Chapter XIX. and, particularly, Chapter XXI., where the Italian lays it down that a state should always espouse one cause or the other whenever two neighbouring states are at war on its frontiers, as was then our case, Serbia and Bulgaria being then at grips.

" 1 know Machiavelli by heart ; you needn't worry about the book, I know exactly what you want to show me," said the King, and so we proceeded to discuss the chapter in question. So not even Machiavelli, notwithstanding the Teutonic flavour of so many of his views, was of service to me in that juncture. Nevertheless, as I went out, I left the book lying on his table, hoping he would open it at the page marked, and so refresh his memory.

A thing that rather struck me with regard to my idea of having recourse to Machiavelli was that when M. Denys Cochin came to Athens a few months later, in November, 1915, and was received in audience by the King, he also mentioned Machiavelli and referred to the same chapters, so, at least, the King told me. I remember I felt very flattered at the time at having had the same idea as the eminent French Hellenophil.

It has always been said that Constantine was extraordinarily obstinate, and that when once he got an idea into his head nothing could induce him to alter it. I say, however, that, contrary to the popular view, his apparent obstinacy was owing to people not knowing how to go to work with him. I often persuaded him to reverse his decisions. Many and many a time has he yielded to my arguments, and I was always able to discuss matters with him without ruffling his temper. However, so deeply rooted in the minds of all classes in Greece was his reputation for pig-headedness that he had been very disrespectfully nicknamed " Duvar Pacha," from a Turkish word used by the common people signifying " stone wall." I do not know whether it was General Dousmanis who was the first to apply, the nickname to him, but I have certainly heard him refer to the King in that way scores and scores of times. And even his obstinate refusal to allow Greece to play her destined part in the war may with more probability be ascribed to his pusillanimity rather than to his self-will. He was the tool of evil counsellors, who, by sheer weight of numbers, overbore his one trusty and far-sighted adviser, M. Veniselos.

Here is another little circumstance to show how widespread was the popular belief in the King's immovable obstinacy. On the ist November, 1916, I chanced to be at the headquarters of the 88th British Brigade, commanded by General Brooke. I was shown a certain mule which had been christened " Constantinos " after the King. The brigade in question comprised a few Greek battalions which had at first been under the command of the French, who had ordered that all draught horses and mules should be given a number and a name. It seems that on coming to a particularly recalcitrant animal, the whole company exclaimed laughingly and with one accord : " This one's always jibbing ; he'll neither go forward nor back. Let's call him Constantine."

There is no doubt that the men were thinking of their recusant King, and his persistent refusal to abandon his neutrality. The British liaison officer who told me the story, although greatly shocked, had nothing for it but to give official sanction to what was, in fact, a conspicuous reflection by the men upon their former King.

The King's credulity sometimes bordered on the puerile. He believed everything he was told. One day in January, 1915, after carefully verifying some information I had received, I remarked, as I was strolling with him in the Royal garden, that Schenk (who was the real German Minister at Athens — especially since he had procured the recall of Count von Quadt-Wykradt-Isny, notwithstanding the latter's relationship to the Kaiser, and the appointment in his stead of the Count von Mirbach Harff, who was subsequently assassinated in Moscow, and who when at Athens was completely dominated by Baron Schenk von Schweinberg) — I remarked, I say, that Schenk was showing signs of a desire to buy over the Press, and that he had already advanced 15,000 francs to a miserable little rag at Patras, which, in return, had taken up the cudgels in Germany's behalf, displaying particular hostility to M. Veniselos. I did not disguise from the King that I recognized in this the first tentative step in a movement which was bound to have serious consequences if it extended so far as to mean the buying up of the leading Athenian newspapers and the directing of popular opinion into channels inimical to the real interests of Greece. The King began by denying the fact, and with heat, but as I respectfully pointed out to him that I never made a statement without being sure of my ground, and, moreover, that the very manner of his denial was but a further proof of the accuracy of the report, he sharply retorted : " It's not a matter of buying the Press, as you appear to imagine; the whole thing is purely and simply a loan that Baron Schenk has had the generosity to advance to a poor devil of a journalist."

I pretended to believe this story (it is possible he himself believed it), without proceeding to inquire how it came about that Schenk had happened to discover this little Patras journalist, who, though obscure, also happened to be a friend of Gounaris. That same evening I was dining at the British Legation and I reported the matter to Sir Francis Elliot, as I had done to the French Minister, whom I had chanced to meet that very afternoon. Unfortunately these gentlemen would not recognize the danger or the strength that would accrue to German propaganda by the purchase of a section of the Press. Sir Francis especially, with his characteristically British straightforwardness, was literally shocked when I advised him to employ the same weapons against his adversaries in order to circumvent the machinations of Schenk. When, several months later, these gentlemen confessed themselves convinced, it was already too late. The evil was done, and the price asked by these unprincipled Athenian journals had reached a figure which the Ministers considered far too high.

I must here pay a tribute to the healthy section of the Greek Press which remained loyal to its principles and to the Entente, and refused Baron Schenk's agents admittance to their offices, despite the manifold persecutions to which they were subjected by the King's faction.

The remark I made above concerning British straightforwardness reminds me of an almost identical reply I received when the Germans began, to our horror and amazement, to employ poison-gas. I then expressed the hope that the Allies would lose no time in doing likewise. " Never will