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on the opposite mainland, but will be able to stretch out her hand over the Anatolian coast and its hinterland,
and compensate herself richly in this quarter for the territorial sacrifices which may still be necessary to a
lasting understanding with her Bulgarian neighbour.
The shores that dominate the Dardanelles will naturally remain beyond her grasp, but she may expect to
establish herself on the western littoral from a point as far north as Mount Ida and the plain of Edremid. The
Greek coast-town of Aivali will be hers, and the still more important focus of Greek commerce and
civilization at Smyrna; while she will push her dominion along the railways that radiate from Smyrna towards
the interior. South-eastward, Aidin will be hers in the valley of the Mendere (Maiandros). Due eastward she
will re-baptize the glistening city of Ala Shehr with its ancient name of Philadelphia, under which it held out
heroically for Hellenism many years after Aidin had become the capital of a Moslem principality and the
Turkish avalanche had rolled past it to the sea. Maybe she will follow the railway still further inland, and plant
her flag on the Black Castle of Afiun, the natural railway-centre of Anatolia high up on the innermost plateau.
All this and more was once Hellenic ground, and the Turkish incomer, for all his vitality, has never been able
here to obliterate the older culture or assimilate the earlier population. In this western region Turkish villages
are still interspersed with Greek, and under the government of compatriots the unconquerable minority would
inevitably reassert itself by the peaceful weapons of its superior energy and intelligence.
The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey 85
4. If Greece realizes these aspirations through Venezelos' statesmanship, she will have settled in conjunction
her outstanding accounts with both Bulgaria and Turkey; but a fourth group of islands still remains for
consideration, and these, though formerly the property of Turkey, are now in the hands of other European
powers.
_(a)_ The first of those in question are the Sporades, a chain of islands off the Anatolian coast which
continues the line of Mitylini, Khios, and Samos towards the south-east, and includes Kos, Patmos, Astypali�,
Karpathos, Kasos, and, above all, Rhodes. The Sporades were occupied by Italy during her war with Turkey
in 1911-12, and she stipulated in the Peace of Lausanne that she should retain them as a pledge until the last
Ottoman soldier in Tripoli had been withdrawn, after which she would make them over again to the Porte. The
continued unrest in Tripoli may or may not have been due to Turkish intrigues, but in any case it deferred the
evacuation of the islands by Italy until the situation was transformed here also by the successive intervention
of both powers in the European War. The consequent lapse of the Treaty of Lausanne simplifies the status of
the Sporades, but it is doubtful what effect it will have upon their destiny. In language and political sympathy
their inhabitants are as completely Greek as all the other islanders of the Aegean, and if the Quadruple Entente
has made the principle of nationality its own, Italy is morally bound, now that the Sporades are at her free
disposal, to satisfy their national aspirations by consenting to their union with the kingdom of Greece. On the
other hand, the prospective dissolution of the Ottoman Empire has increased Italy's stake in this quarter. In the
event of a partition, the whole southern littoral of Anatolia will probably fall within the Italian sphere, which
will start from the Gulf of Iskanderun, include the districts of Adana and Adalia, and march with the new
Anatolian provinces of Greece along the line of the river Mendere. This continental domain and the adjacent
islands are geographically complementary to one another, and it is possible that Italy may for strategical
reasons insist on retaining the Sporades in perpetuity if she realizes her ambitions on the continent. This [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]