CHAPTER XVI

Among the acts sanctioned by International Law, none is more worthy of a philosopher's or a philanthropist's attention than the "pacific blockade." The credit for the institution belongs to all the great civilised communities, but for its pleasant designation the world is indebted to the eminent jurist M. Hautefeuille—a countryman of the ingenious Dr. Guillotin. It denotes "a blockade exercised by a great Power for the purpose of bringing pressure to bear on a weaker State, without actual war. That it is an act of violence, and therefore in the nature of war, is undeniable";[1] but, besides its name, it possesses certain features which distinguish it advantageously from ordinary war.

First, instead of the barbarous effusion of blood and swift destruction which open hostilities entail, the pacific blockade achieves its ends by more refined and leisurely means: one is not shocked by the unseemly sights of a battlefield, and the wielder of the weapon has time to watch its effects as they develop: he can see the victim going through the successive stages of misery—debility, languor, exhaustion—until the final point is reached; and as his scientific curiosity is gratified by the gradual manifestation of the various symptoms, so his moral sense is fortified by the struggle between a proud spirit and an empty stomach—than which life can offer no more ennobling spectacle. Then, unlike crude war, the pacific blockade automatically strikes the nation at which it is aimed on its weakest side first: instead of having to begin with its manhood, one begins with its old men, its women, and its infants. The merits of this form of attack are evident: many a man who would boldly face starvation himself, may be reasonably expected to flinch at the prospect of a starving mother, {173} wife, or child. Lastly, whilst in war the assailant must inevitably suffer as well as inflict losses, the pacific blockade renders him absolutely exempt from all risk. For "it can only be employed as a measure of coercion by maritime Powers able to bring into action such vastly superior forces to those the resisting State can dispose of, that resistance is out of the question." [2]

In brief, the pacific blockade is not war, but a kind of sport, as safe as coursing, and to the educated mind much more interesting. The interest largely depends on the duration of the blockade, and its duration on the victims' physical and moral resources.

When the blockade was proclaimed on the 8th of December, Allied journalists predicted that its persuasive force would be felt very soon. The country, they reasoned, owing to the manifold restrictions imposed upon its overseas trade by the Anglo-French Fleet, had been on short commons for some time past. The total stoppage of maritime traffic would bring it to the verge of famine within a week. And, in fact, before the end of the month Greece was feeling the pinch.[3] As might have been expected, the first to feel it were the poor. Both the authorities and private societies did their utmost to protect them by keeping prices down, and to relieve them by the free distribution of food and other necessaries.[4] But, although the achievement was great, it could not prove equal to the dimensions of the need. The stoppage of all maritime traffic caused a cessation of industry and threw out of employment thousands of working-people. As the factories grew empty of labourers, the streets grew full of beggars. The necessary adulteration of the flour produced epidemics of dysentery and poisoning, especially among children and old people, while numerous deaths among infants were attributed by the doctors to want of milk in their mothers' breasts. Presently bread, the staple food of the Greeks, disappeared, and all classes took {174} to carob-beans and herbs.[5] On 23 February a lady of the highest Athenian society wrote to a friend in London: "If we were in England, we should all be fined for cruelty to animals. As there is no flour, our tiny portions of bread are made of oats, and rather rotten ones, that had been reserved for the cab-horses. Now the poor things have nothing to eat and have become a collection of Apocalyptic beasts. We go on foot as much as we can, as they really could not carry us."

Next to bread, the most prominent article of Greek diet is fish. The French, who in their treatment of this neutral nation gave evidence of a thoroughness and efficiency such as they did not always display in their operations against the enemy, saw to it that this source of subsistence also should, within the measure of their ability, fail their victims. French cruisers stopped the fishing-smacks and asked if their community had joined the Rebellion. When the answer was in the negative, they sank the vessel and confiscated the tackle, often accompanying the robbery of property with violence on the persons of the owners and abuse of their sovereign. To the wretched fishermen's protests, the French commanders replied: "If you want to be left alone, you have only to drive out your King." [6]

These speeches confirmed the general suspicion that the ultimate object of the blockade was to propagate rebellion. Other things spoke even more eloquently. The few cargoes of flour that arrived in Greece now and then were sequestered by the Allies and sent to the Salonica Government, which used them as a bait, inviting the King's subjects through its agents to sell their allegiance for a loaf of bread. Generally the reply was: "We prefer to die." [7] Of this stubborn endurance, the women of modern Greece gave instances that recall the days of ancient Sparta. In a village near Eleusis, on the Sunday preceding Lent, the matrons and maidens set up a dance, and while dancing they improvised songs in praise of Hunger. At the end, {175} the men who stood round listening with tears in their eyes, burst into frenetic cheers for the King.[8]

Never, indeed, in the hour of his triumphs had King Constantine been so near the hearts of his people as he was in this period of their common affliction. Although the operation-wounds in his ribs were still open, he met the emergency with dauntless fortitude, and never for a moment forgot his part, either as a prince or as a man. "The King is wonderful," wrote the correspondent already quoted. "He never complains, and gives us all courage." Many a time, as the weary months dragged on, he went over his past course, asking himself: "Could he have been mistaken, after all?" No; the more he pondered, the more convinced he felt that what he had done was the best for Greece. Now, if the worst came to the worst, his sincerity at least could not be questioned. When his friends ventured to express their admiration of his stoicism, he answered simply: "I know that I am doing right." The great source whence he derived consolation amidst all his calamities was undoubtedly this consciousness of rectitude: a sense which in him seems to have been as free from arrogance as it was from rancour.

The people who had formerly admired their sovereign as a hero, now revered him as a martyr; and the man upon whom they visited their anger was he whom they regarded as the true cause of their misery. After his flight to Salonica M. Venizelos was never mentioned except by the name of The Traitor; after the events of 1 December he was formally impeached as one; and after the blockade had been in force for some weeks, he was solemnly anathematized: on 26 December, the Archbishop of Athens, from a cairn of stones in the midst of a great multitude, pronounced the curse of the Church upon "the traitor, Venizelos." The Government had forbidden the demonstration, but that did not prevent myriads of people from going to add their own stone to the monument.[9] One old woman was heard, as she cast her contribution, crying: "We made him Premier; but he was not content. He would make himself king. Anathema!" Subsequently, every village and hamlet repeated the ceremony. "These {176} spontaneous ceremonies," observes an eye-witness, "were vastly more indicative than any elections could ever have been of the place to which the great Cretan had fallen in the esteem of his countrymen." [10]

Appeals from the Holy Synod of the Greek Church to the Pope and the heads of other Christian Churches availed as little as the appeals of the Greek Government to Allied and neutral Governments. Month after month the blockade went on, and each month produced its own tale of suffering: deaths due directly to starvation; diseases due to the indirect effects of inanition; a whole nation wasting for want of food; horses starved to provide it; mothers praying to God for their daily bread with babes drooping at their desiccated bosoms.[11] Yet of yielding there was no sign: "Give in?" said a woman outside a soup-kitchen at the Piraeus, in March. "We will eat our children first!"

In such a manner this ancient race, which has lived so long, done so much, and suffered so much, bore its martyrdom. By such an exercise of self-discipline it defied the Powers of Civilisation to do their worst. In spite of the licence given to brute force, in spite of the removal of the machinery of civil control, in spite of the internment of the army and its arms, in spite of the ostentatiously paraded support to the Rebel, in spite of actual famine and the threat of imminent ruin, the people held to the institutions of their country, rallied to their King; and expressed their scorn for the usurper of his authority by inscribing over the graves of their babies: "Here lies my child, starved to death by Venizelos."

[1] See the article on "Pacific Blockade" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (10th Ed.), Vol. XXXI, p. 401.

[2] Ibid.

[3] The Times, 9, 19, 21, 30 Dec., 1916.

[4] Among these charitable organizations the foremost place belongs to the "Patriotic League of Greek Women," which, under the competent management of the Queen, was able to distribute 10,000 meals a day, as well as clothes, blankets, medicine, milk for infants, etc.

[5] Zalocostas to Greek Legations abroad, 25 Jan./7 Feb.; 3/16 Feb.; 12/25 March, 1917.

[6] Zalocostas to Greek Legations abroad, 3/16 Feb.; to French Minister at Athens, 16/29 March, 1917.

[7] Zalocostas to Greek Legations abroad, 25 Jan./7 Feb.; 15/28 Feb.; 12/25 March.

[8] The Nea Himera, 15/28 Feb., 1917.

[9] Zalocostas to Greek Legations abroad, 14/27 Dec., 1916.

[10] Paxton Hibben, p. 522.

[11] The Censorship succeeded in keeping these facts, as it kept many others, from the British public; they were not suitable subjects for war propaganda.

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