[The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II by William James Stillman]@TWC D-Link book
The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II

CHAPTER XXXVII
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I ran to the British legation, fortunately found Baring there, and explained the position, saying that Tricoupi, in the absence of any diplomatic relation between them, had begged me to present myself personally to urge intervention.
Baring was convinced that Tricoupi, as well as the late premier, was bent on war, and would not at first believe that his request was sincere, but finally, overpersuaded, did telegraph to London.

I then flew to all the other legations, except the French and Russian, which had been supporting Deliyanni, and repeated the request to the secretaries in charge, winding up with the Turkish minister, whose ship had not yet arrived, and who was therefore still in Athens, pending its arrival, and gave him the fullest explanation of Tricoupi's position and the difficulties of it, and begged him to telegraph Constantinople to order Eyoub Pasha to withdraw from the frontier far enough to leave the bands no outlying detachment to attack.

I succeeded in convincing him that Tricoupi was sincere in his efforts to keep peace, and the good fellow said at once, "If Tricoupi is sincere, I will not stand on diplomatic etiquette, but will go to see him at once." He did so, and found the Greek minister at the war office, as he had taken that portfolio with the premiership, and they arranged between them that the Porte should be telegraphed to, requesting Eyoub Pasha to put a sufficient distance between him and the attacking bands of Greeks to make a conflict out of the question; and before nightfall the white flag was flying along the frontier, and communication established between Eyoub and Sapunzaki via Salonica, and peace was secured.
Eyoub's orders to cross the frontier with his solid column of thirty to forty thousand men, and march straight to Athens if the attacks persisted another day, were peremptory, and there was no force or dispositions of defense to prevent his triumphal movement.

There were no defensive works, for the jingo Greeks ridiculed the idea of needing a defensive preparation against an invasion of the Turkish army, which they were confident of annihilating ten to one.

There was no lack of personal courage on the part of the Greek population, but there was no efficient organization even of the so-called regular army, and there was really nothing to prevent a Turkish walk-over as far as the old frontiers of Greece, and even there there were no earthworks.
The sequence was disgraceful and humiliating.


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