25

Strange Tales of a Monarch and a Novelist

A fortnight later I was sitting in the lounge of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, when a message arrived saying that Tino would like to see me at six o’clock.

It was then a little after four, and the hectic, unnatural pageant of Athenian Society was drifting by in full swing. Look well at that pageant, for Athens, in this January of 1922, seemed a sinking city in a doomed land, and there is a romance about such cities which is denied to the more prosperous metropoles of the West, a romance which comes from the knowledge that everybody is playing a part, and that a hundred undercurrents of intrigue are running between the apparently smooth surface of the waters.

There are several beautiful people in the lounge, and the most attractive of all are Russians. There are, at the time, nearly ten thousand Russian refugees in Athens, and their plight is such that, thinking of them, it is not too easy to sleep at night. The women by now have mostly found ‘protectors,’ accepting with a bored smile a situation which, five years ago, they would have found impossible. Some have attached themselves to rich merchants of the Levant, others have wormed their way into the affections of the military, a few have even achieved the success of an unhappy marriage. And now they are all sitting in this lounge, smoking cigarettes, and blowing out the smoke through purple and impassive lips, waiting.

The men are worse off than the women. Look at this one who approaches me. He was once an officer in the Imperial Guard. To-day he wears a patched white coat, well tied in at the waist, and blue trousers of a common Russian soldier. One thin white hand is grasping a stick, and in the other is a little tray containing his paintings—such pathetic, amateurish paintings, which he is trying to sell. He stands in front of me and tries to smile. It is a grotesque caricature of a smile—a little twitch of the lip. His whole body is trembling as though from a violent chill. Shell shock, and one lung already destroyed.

I buy one of his little paintings, and try to look as though I were buying it because I wanted it. He is of the stuff which gentlemen are made of. If there had been no war, he would have been a smart young fellow playing gentle havoc with hearts in Petrograd.

He passes on, and is lost in the crowd of cosmopolitan adventurers. There is a fat man from Paris, who is reputed to be doing a big deal in raisins, and looks as though he had eaten most of them in a fit of absent-mindedness. There is a little row of very silly soignée Greek women, eyeing each other’s dresses, and pining for Paris. They think it chic to talk French, and to affect to despise this backward, out-of-the-way place that they call Athens. There are several young officers on leave from the front. They stare moodily in front of them, for they, at least, have a tale to tell, having been mobilized, some of them, for seven years, and having seen the army gradually losing its rifles, its boots, and its morale. There are several prosperous-looking Germans, gabbling at the tops of their voices. One of them has a row of enormous volumes on Greek statuary in front of him.

I pay for my tea with a bank-note cut in half—a strange procedure worthy of explanation. Greece was in the direst financial straits. It was quite useless to suggest a new loan, for nobody would subscribe to it. And so an ingenious chancellor suddenly thought of a way by which the peasants could all be made to disgorge half of their savings. Every paper note in the kingdom had to be cut in half. The left half must be immediately given to the bank, where it would be credited to one’s account, with an interest of 5 per cent. The right half might be used as currency. Thus, a note worth a pound automatically became worth ten shillings cash, the other ten shillings being placed in the bank. All this cutting and snipping of notes had to be done in a fortnight.

I arrived at the palace at six o’clock, and was shown up to Tino’s study—a pleasant, English-looking room, with plenty of books, and windows that gave on to one of the prettiest parts of the garden. He was sitting down on the sofa, reading, and as he rose to greet me he seemed enormous. He must have been at least six feet six, and six feet six in a soldier who holds himself well erect is a good deal more than many of the drooping six foot sixers one sees slouching down Piccadilly.

It was characteristic of him, as I afterwards learnt, that as soon as we had shaken hands he almost pushed me into a chair, practically stuffed a cigar between my lips (I loathe cigars) and before I had time to light it, plunged straight into the heart of the controversy which was raging round his throne.

‘You realize,’ he said, ‘that you’re talking to a King who’s disowned by the greater part of Europe, and also by the United States. Don’t you?’

I did realize it.

‘Very well, then. We are therefore in a position to talk quite frankly. I’ve certainly nothing to lose by telling you the truth.’ He paused. ‘However shocking it may be,’ he added with a grim smile, ‘I’m under no sort of illusion as to how they regard me in England. I’ve seen caricatures of myself in every conceivable attitude in the English papers—some of them rather funny as a matter of fact, funnier, at any rate, than the German ones. Perhaps it never struck you that they’d caricature me in German papers? I assure you they do. You see, Germany doesn’t like me any more than England. I am altogether a most unpopular person. Except in Greece.’ Again the grim smile.

‘However, we didn’t come here to talk about caricatures. I just want to give you a few ideas, that’s all. You can verify them afterwards at your leisure. The first thing on which I want you to fix your attention is the beginning of the war. When war was declared I received a telegram from the Kaiser. He writes admirable telegrams, my brother-in-law. It suggested that I should at once throw in my lot with the Central Powers. I was at Tatoy when the telegram arrived, having a very innocent but a very excellent tea. As soon as I had read it I remember saying to my wife “Good God! He seems to forget that Greece is practically an island.” By which, I was referring, you see, to the consummate foolishness of the Kaiser in thinking that any Greek in his right mind—whatever his private sentiments—should consider, even for a moment, declaring war against the rulers of the seas.

‘I then summoned certain ministers, and drafted my reply. If you take the trouble to look it up you will see that it was an emphatic refusal. I tried to make it polite, but apparently the Kaiser didn’t think it was polite enough. In any case, he was particularly rude to my minister in Berlin, Monsieur Theotokis.

‘Nobody has ever quoted that telegram. They probably never will, because it doesn’t fit in with the Tino legend. However, it is there, in all the blue books. Just have a look at it when you get the time.

‘The next thing I want you to consider is my various offers of help to the Allies. I shan’t particularize because you can find them all in the official résumés of diplomatic correspondence which every country publishes. Besides, dates and things of that sort are dull.

‘What was my position at the beginning of the war? What was, rather, the position of Greece? I will tell you. We were in a pretty bad way. We had none too much money. We had been exhausted by a long series of wars. We needed, above all things, rest. However, when the Great War broke out, there were two courses open to us. We could either remain neutral or we could join the Allies. The idea of throwing our lot in with Germany was absolutely out of the question, for, as I have said before, Greece is to all intents and purposes, an island, and it would have been suicidal to fight England, even had any of us wanted to do so.

‘Well, as you will see in the blue books, I offered my assistance. It was refused. Why? Because, according to Lord Grey, it was important not to froisser Bulgaria, not to annoy King Ferdinand!’ He brought his fist down on the table with a bang which quite shattered my cigar ash.

‘I warned Grey,’ he said. ‘I warned your Foreign Office, not once but half a dozen times, that Bulgaria was arming against you, that she was not to be trusted, that she was about to throw in her lot with Germany. I was not heeded. I was either answered with polite shrugs of diplomatic shoulders, or I was not answered at all.’

He stared in front of him gloomily, and when he resumed it was in a quieter voice.

‘You know the next stage. The Dardanelles. Now every third-rate politician and every third-rate staff officer in the countries, not only of the Allies but of the Central Powers, has very decided opinions upon the Dardanelles. They say, “If only Tino had done this,” or “If only Tino had done that,” or “If only the Turks had been a few days later, or the Allies a few days sooner,” or “If only Winston had had his way.” In fact they go on saying “if only” until the whole thing becomes a tragic farce.

‘But I tell you, young man, that I know the Dardanelles. I know the Black Sea. I know that there are certain ways in which Constantinople can be attacked, and certain ways in which it can’t. I know a good deal more about both the military and the naval sides of the question than even your friend Mr. Winston Churchill, and my staff probably know more than I do myself. Don’t you see that for generations the eyes of Greece have been fixed on Constantinople? Don’t you realize that in the heart of every Greek there lies the dream that one day he will be able to throw his cap into the air at the news that Greece has re-entered into the inheritance which every Greek regards as his natural birthright? Why, there is even a legend that when there sits on the Greek throne a monarch of the name of Constantine and a Queen of the name of Sophie, ... Greece will capture Constantinople. A foolish legend, perhaps you may say. But the conditions of it were fulfilled when, thirty years ago, I married my wife. And the coincidence has been working in my people’s imagination ever since.’

He paused, rose from his seat, and went over to the window. And when he went on talking it was with his eyes fixed on the quiet lawns outside.

‘Now,’ he resumed, ‘I’m not saying that this dream is right or wrong. I’m merely telling you that the dream is there. And since it is there, and since the Greeks, though they may be superstitious, are also a practical people, it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that the Greek Officers and Staff, not only of the army but of the navy, should have the whole situation at their finger-ends? Doesn’t it? Tell me. Am I being logical or am I not?’

I reassured him on that point.

‘Very well then,’ he continued. ‘When I first heard of the Dardanelles Campaign, I knew that it was doomed to failure. I knew it in my very bones. I expressed my opinion in public and in private. I was called a pro-German because I would not join it, because I would not send at least 10,000 Greek soldiers to help the Allies. Was I right or wrong? I knew that if I sent 10,000 soldiers that there would be 10,000 widows in Greece in a few weeks. And I was damned if I would do it.’

And then he said something which made me sit up. ‘If I had been pro-German I could have wrecked the whole Allied course in the Near East as easily as I can flick my fingers.’ And he flicked his fingers in my face.

‘How?’

He laughed. ‘You’re an inquisitive youth, aren’t you? Well, I’ll explain.

‘You may remember,’ he said, ‘that in the autumn of 1915 the Allies were in a very bad way. The armies of Austria and Germany were sweeping down through the Balkans like a great black cloud. Serbia was overrun and desolated. The whole of the north was in the grip of the Central Powers. Bulgaria was closing in on the east. The only refuge was—Greece.

‘I had already violated my neutrality in favour of the Allies by allowing General Sarrail, the Allied Commander, to use Salonika as a base for his troops. A fat lot of thanks I got for it—but that is by the way. I was therefore in an exceedingly difficult position. If I allowed the Allies to retreat over my frontier I could hardly, as a neutral monarch, forbid the Germans from doing the same thing. To do so would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Germany.

‘Consider the position if you want to prove that I was not pro-German. Here was the Allied Army retreating into Greece, beaten and exhausted. They were cut off from the north and from the east. My own army was in their rear, fresh and intact. If I had wished to declare War on the Allies could you possibly imagine a more favourable opportunity? I could have wiped out Sarrail without the loss of more than a thousand men. The whole of the Balkans would have been completely, irrecoverably German. And the war would not have ended as it has done.

‘But what did I do? For that I would again refer you, not to the newspapers, but to the official documents. I sent a telegram to the Kaiser stating that if one German soldier advanced a yard over the Greek frontier, I should consider it a hostile act, and should declare war. In other words, I saved the Allies at one of the most critical moments of the struggle.’

He stopped abruptly. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘is all I’ve got to say to you this evening.’

I rose to go, feeling a little bewildered. When I returned to my hotel I wrote down the whole of the foregoing conversation, word for word, and I think it is almost verbally accurate.

And that is all I am going to write about the Greek question, for I have discovered, on bitter experience, that people don’t care a damn about it, and that the whole question bristles with difficulties. I only write to ease my own conscience, and to pay a humble little tribute to two people whom I learnt to regard as friends.

One cannot, however, write about Tino without also writing about Compton MacKenzie. It may seem a long step from the most hated monarch of Europe to a man who used to be one of England’s most popular novelists, but it is not quite so long as you might imagine, for, according to Greek Royalists, Compton MacKenzie was the evil genius of Greece during the war.

In early 1915 (I think it was) he was appointed head of the Anglo-French police in Athens. A curious appointment, one would think, but those days of chaos abounded in curious appointments, and at least one could say about Compton MacKenzie that he had a sense of style. They told me that he fell out of a balloon somewhere in the Near East, and was on the point of being invalided out of the army when this appointment suddenly became vacant. He accepted it with alacrity, for he had very clear ideas on the Greek question. The first of these ideas was that Tino was violently pro-German and as treacherous as they make them. The second was that he himself was called, whatever the sacrifice, to lead a crusade of neo-Hellenism against the Turk, the Bulgarian, the German, or any other nation that got in the way.

His methods of work, they alleged, were remarkable. He is said to have taken a little office, and there concocted his wicked schemes, clad in garments more fitted for the less reputable colleges of Oxford than for His Majesty’s Service. I was told of purple waistcoats, long black walking-sticks, heavy cloaks lined with green silk, black stock ties. It cannot be true, but at least there is something most intriguing in the picture of this young and rather decorative relic of the nineties carrying out Balkan intrigues against a background of classic pillars and traitorous monarchs.

They alleged also (I am scattering that blessed word ‘alleged’ all over the place, as a sort of disinfectant against libel actions)—they alleged that on several occasions he tried to murder King Constantine—rather hot work for the head of the British police stationed in a neutral and officially friendly country. I saw a newspaper cutting of some Greek paper in which there was a photograph of one of the King’s bodyguard, together with a long legend that Compton MacKenzie had bribed him to put poison in the King’s wine. The story ran something like this. MacKenzie, having found out that bombs were too dangerous and that daggers made too much mess, decided that he would employ the more cleanly and efficient aid of arsenic. He obtained the arsenic and also managed, somehow or other, to get hold of a very simple and child-like soldier who was in attendance on the King, at a time when the King’s health was giving rise to grave anxiety.

‘Do you know why the King is so ill?’ he is alleged to have said to the Evson.

‘No?’

‘Because he is bewitched by the Queen.’

Here the Evson began to take keen interest. He knew all about witcheries, and such-like.

‘Yes,’ MacKenzie is alleged to have continued. ‘And the only way in which we can break the spell is for you to put this powder into his glass when he is at dinner. It is a very wonderful powder—the crushed essence of a herb that only grows in England. When he has drunk it you will find that immediately he will be cured.’

After a little persuasion, the story runs, and a rather larger amount of bribery, the Evson departed with the arsenic, promising faithfully that he would give it to the King. But as the evening shadows fell his courage failed him. Supposing that, after all, the herb should not do its work? Supposing that it did his master actual harm? No. It was really a little risky. And so he went to a certain Court official and told him the story. Consternation. Curses against England. Salvation of King Constantine. Tableau.

A childish story of course. But it was believed by a great many otherwise sane people. And it only shows you how careful you must be in the Secret Service.

Another, and even more lurid tale, was told about Mr. Compton MacKenzie. I never saw any newspaper cuttings on the subject, because I don’t think it got into the Press. But I was furnished with a great many strange-looking documents, much thumbed, and decorated at all the available corners with red sealing-wax. This story was also concerned with an alleged attempt by the English novelist on King Constantine’s life—an attempt that, if it had been true, would have been about the most ingenious piece of inventive work that he had ever done.

In the summer of 1915 (I think that is the right date), the King’s Palace at Tatoy—some twenty miles outside Athens—was burnt. For miles round the heath and scrub were devastated by fire. The King was in his Palace at the time and only escaped by a miracle. And even so, several of his bodyguard were burned to death.

All this, the Royalists alleged, was the work of Compton MacKenzie. With devilish ingenuity he was described as having obtained the services of some half-dozen of the riff-raff of Athens, among whom was a German prostitute in the pay of the Allies, of having bought a quantity of petrol and benzine, hired four motor-cars, and set out from a low café at dawn in order to accomplish his dirty work. The plan was to surround the Palace with fire from all sides, so that there should be no possible escape, and with this object some six points had been marked on a map, in the form of a wide circle, which were to be soaked with benzine and set alight. The wind would do the rest.

I myself saw a map which was supposed to have been stolen from Compton MacKenzie’s headquarters, but had, as a matter of fact, been manufactured by my informant. It showed a number of mysterious crosses, and subsequent inquiry proved that fires had actually broken out, almost simultaneously, at all these places, proving beyond a shadow of doubt that the ‘accident’ was not an accident at all. But why poor Compton MacKenzie should have been accused of it I could never quite make out.