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A MANŒUVER ON BOARD THE TURKISH IMPERIAL ARMORED FRIGATE "MAHMOUDÍE."
Reproduced from "Le Monde Illustré."
future. There was no evidence of disorder while I was in Athens, but on every hand there was great depression. The people were gathered in groups before the telegraph offices and news depots, reading the bulletin boards, or sitting together in the streets and parks; and everywhere they discussed the war. Some of them evidently looked for the onward march of the Turkish army, and dreaded the horrors which they believed would follow its occupancy of the city. Many were defiant, and loudly argued for fighting to the bitter end; others were hoping for an interposition of the Powers which, if it left the country humbled, still would prevent the Turks from appropriating it altogether.
What they were suffering was the only possible result to be expected from an unaided struggle of their army with such a highly organized military power as Turkey. To begin with, Greece has a population of only about 2,200,000. The age at which a young Greek becomes liable to service is twenty-two—one year later than in Turkey. While in Turkey 120,000 men are registered for service every year and fully 65, 000 incorporated into the army, in Greece only about 22,000 are liable to service and perhaps 12,000 are incorporated. The actual army when the war broke out, that is, the army which was paid by the government, was only about 23,000 men; but it was believed that the war footing was fully 200,000 men—nearly ten per cent, of the population, it will be noted. This army was not well disciplined, and was poorly equipped and poorly officered. There was only a limited amount of ammunition on hand, and as for horses, every squadron was short and in many cases the animals used were too old to be serviceable.
When war actually broke out, and no European power came to the aid of Greece, her weakness rapidly developed. The Turks overwhelmed and out-manœuvered the little army and only stopped their march at the interposition of the Czar of Russia. The armistice granted at his request had not expired when I reached Athens, and the Greek and Turkish armies which were facing each other near Lamia, the scene of the last engagement of the war, were still under its conditions.
