The Greek is even more engaging and hospitable than the Serbian; but his fluent, flexible, subtle nature does not inspire full confidence. At the outset of the last Balkan war there was one thing that all were sure of: that the Greeks would not fight. All were wrong. The Greeks did exceedingly well in the field, even allowing that they sometimes shaped their campaign quite as much by considerations of jealousy of their allies as of hostility to the common enemy. But it is a fact that the Greek has usually more stomach for politics than for fighting, and that his subtle nature allows him to live comfortably in a state of subjection, which would irk a more robust mind. He is by instinct a trader: and a trader is not an uncompromising patriot as a rule.
The Greeks live side by side with the Turks in Turkey with fair comfort. At Kirk Kilisse, after the Bulgarian occupation, a deputation came to me from the Greeks to assure me that they would much prefer to live under the Turk than under the Bulgar: and asking that England should be urged to support autonomy for Thrace. Well, the Turks are back at Kirk Kilisse, and I suppose my Greek friends are happy. Eloquent, courteous, kind folk they were. I stayed in the house of one for some days, and will remember always the gracious kindness of the man and his wife. I had to leave one morning at four to catch a troop train which would carry me a few miles towards the front. The couple were up and had a fire and tea ready for me. As I had a fever at the time, and a long laborious journey ahead, the whole Greek race seemed good that morning.
Later at Chorlu after I had got permission from the military commandant to go forward to Chatalja, and he had helped me to hire a cart and horses and to stock up my provisions, the permission was withdrawn because Bashi-Bazouks were raiding along the line of communication. I might go later, he said, when a body of troops was moving. I objected that time was precious; and I had my revolver, and there was the driver.
"Ah," he said sweetly, "he is a Greek. He will run away."
After that manner the Bulgarians always spoke of the Greeks. In this case the Bulgarian was possibly right. I finally coaxed permission to go forward, on condition that I took a patrol of one Bulgarian soldier, and I was allowed to borrow a rifle and some ammunition. We met no Bashi-Bazouks: but whilst the Bulgarian palpably was quite content to enter into a plan to give the Bashi-Bazouks a chance of showing themselves at nightfall, the Greek liked the adventure not at all. (Perhaps on the whole he was justified. But I was desperately eager for a "story," and with the Turkish regulars running away so consistently, to encounter irregulars suggested no real danger.)