NO LANGUAGE can be too strong for the denunciation of the executions [of former government ministers and a general] at Athens. Western minds sicken at the slaughter of men who happened to be in office during a crisis of their country’s fortunes, one of whom at least might have been spared for his ill-health, and another for that very imbecility which brought disaster upon his army. And those who love Greece for the glory that was hers in every field of art, and thought, who think of her long slavery to the Turk and her heroic war of liberation, who believe — in spite of all — in her future, are for the moment smitten into silence. They remember, of course, that the political life of the Eastern Mediterranean is not as ours, and that those who engage in it know that they play a game in which the stakes are high. But that this should happen at the moment when the Conference at Lausanne approaches a point critical for the future of Greece is for every phil-Hellene a grievous blow. They may take refuge in the knowledge that the crime cannot justly be laid to the charge of the Greek people as a whole. It does not appear that the King gave his assent. It was not the act of a responsible Government, for no Government exists. It was the deed of the military revolutionary committee, acting through a court-martial.

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