The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 29, May 27, 1897 A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls

Excerpt

The settlement of the terms of peace between Turkey and Greece promises to be a very long and tedious matter.

It has been announced that Turkey offers to conclude peace, provided Greece pays her $15,000,000 to cover her war expenses, gives her certain strategic points in Thessaly, and turns over to her the Greek fleet until the war expenses are paid.

The Sultan has begun the negotiations by asking for everything he could think of, but this was just what people expected he would do.

England regards Turkey's demands as unfair, and will oppose them. She thinks that Greece should merely be made to withdraw her troops from Crete, and give Turkey a reasonable sum of money as war indemnity.

It is a pity that England did not show some of this sympathy sooner, instead of standing idly by until Turkey had brought Greece to her present piteous plight.

That Greece should have been so easily beaten is still a cause of wonderment.

If all accounts are true, the Crown Prince Constantine deserves a good deal of the blame of the disaster. He was not experienced enough to take command of an army in an important campaign, and should not have undertaken so difficult a task unless he was sure of himself.

It is said by all the newspaper correspondents who were with the Greek army, that the shameful flight from Larissa was the cause of the series of defeats that followed it. These men declare that after Larissa the Greeks lost confidence in their commanders, and had no hope of success.

It is claimed that if the Greeks had pushed forward instead of retreating, the Turks must have been beaten.

Up to the evening of April 23d, when the retreat occurred, the Turks were in a desperate condition. Edhem Pasha, the general in command of the Turkish army, had decided that it was impossible to break through the Greek lines, and had ordered a retreat to Elassona. That very night he telegraphed the hopelessness of his situation to Constantinople, and a special messenger left for Athens, bearing a message from the Sultan, asking for peace.

The retreat on Larissa changed the whole fate of the war.

There are many rumors why this retreat was ordered, but no one seems to understand the matter clearly.

One report says that the Turks were actually falling back on Elassona, and one of the Greek generals, seeing the movement, mistook it for an attempt to surround the Greeks and cut their army to pieces. He is said to have galloped to the Crown Prince with this mis-information, and assured him that unless he ordered a retreat they would all be sacrificed. The Crown Prince did not attempt to assure himself of the accuracy of this statement, but at once issued the fatal order.

If this account be true, the two armies must have been fleeing from each other at the same moment.

Edhem Pasha, being a good general, soon discovered what had happened. He at once saw his opportunity and took advantage of it.

The Greeks, unfortunately, had no general who knew thoroughly the art of war, and so their mistake was not understood.

In reviewing the short Greek campaign, some interesting comparisons have been made between the war in Greece and the war in Cuba....