Orphic_Hymn
04-24-2008, 10:07 AM
A couple of abstracts from Rene Puaux's 1918 "The sorrows of Epirus"
Corfu, 1st May, 1913.
YESTERDAY, April 30th, the last
of the Epirotes left Corfu for their
coast villages, from which they were driven
during the Albanian " fury " last
November.
Ten thousand of them had then flocked
to this blissful island, whose roses and
orange trees make it an earthly paradise
at this season of the year. The cir-
cumstances of the Epirote exodus had
been utterly deplorable. The Turks and
Albanians had burnt their homes over
their heads, and it was only the devotion
of their Greek brethren of Corfu, and,
indeed, of all Greece, which saved them
from utter despair. .........................
...........This world had for the time being shaken
off its habitual torpor. It really seemed
that a great vision, the Hellenic vision,
possessed them. The long nightmare was
over. The Epirotes were about to realize
the dream of generations, union with
Greece, their fatherland by history and
sympathy.
They could not bring themselves to
believe that they would be joined to an
artificial Albania, alien to them in tongue,
civilization and religion. All these people,
from Cape St. Vasilio to Cape St. Joannis,
were Greeks, and every man to whom
I spoke, related to Greek families in
Corfu, Patras and Athens, refused to have
any doubts as to the decision of Europe.
They returned to Epirus confident of
the triumph of a cause for which they
had endured so much.
If the real meaning of the question of
Epirus is to be grasped, a pre-
liminary axiom must be accepted : it is
not the Greek Government which wants
to annex Epirus, but the Epirotes them-
selves who claim reunion with Greece.
The opponents of this reunion, in their
academic desire to draw a satisfactory-
map of Albania, never seem to have
given a single thought to this side of the
question, which is none the less a vital
one. Some have seen in the Greek Empire
a danger for Italian naval power. They
have suggested that, by extending that
Empire to the north of Corfu, it would
enable Greece to transform the Corfu
Channel into a closed sound in which the
Russian, French and English fleets could
shelter in case of an international conflict
and threaten Italy in the Adriatic.
This is to forget that the Adriatic
only begins at the Straits of Otranto,
and that the coast of Epirus, whether in
Greek or Albanian hands, is only about
two kilometres distant from the northern
end of Corfu, so that a few mines could
make it an impregnable lair for the
fleets whose highly problematical schemes
Rome appears to dread so much. Be-
sides, so long as Greece remained friendly
to the Entente she could place so many
excellent harbours in the Ionian Islands
at the disposal of the Allied fleets that
it is really rather absurd to see opposition
based on such slight grounds.
The other opponents of the reunion of
Epirus with Greece — and these, too, are
to be found in Italy — seem to have
retained, of the treaty of 1897 which
settled the boundaries of the Austrian
Hellenic National Sentiment in Epirus
and Italian zones of influence in Albania
and Epirus, only the hopes of an eventual
conquest of the whole eastern shore of
the Adriatic. By thus refusing to
recognize existing facts and persisting
in the creation of an artificial kingdom
of Albania, whose endless unrest would
furnish the excuse for future intervention
and possible annexation, they show that
the Marquis di San Giuliano's imperialism
has still some fervent devotees.
If Epirus were a res nullius, sl piece of
territory without a national soul which
any conqueror could automatically make
his own, the Italian policy might be
regarded as not incomprehensible. But
the truth is quite otherwise. The districts
of Epirus which Rome wishes to see
drawn into the future Albania are the
hotbed of uncompromising Hellenism.
" They are more Greek than Greece her-
self," one of the most eminent professors
of Athens University once said to me,
and it is certainly the fact that the attach-
ment of the Epirotes to the national
cause has been displayed in the most
striking fashion for years.
Corfu, 1st May, 1913.
YESTERDAY, April 30th, the last
of the Epirotes left Corfu for their
coast villages, from which they were driven
during the Albanian " fury " last
November.
Ten thousand of them had then flocked
to this blissful island, whose roses and
orange trees make it an earthly paradise
at this season of the year. The cir-
cumstances of the Epirote exodus had
been utterly deplorable. The Turks and
Albanians had burnt their homes over
their heads, and it was only the devotion
of their Greek brethren of Corfu, and,
indeed, of all Greece, which saved them
from utter despair. .........................
...........This world had for the time being shaken
off its habitual torpor. It really seemed
that a great vision, the Hellenic vision,
possessed them. The long nightmare was
over. The Epirotes were about to realize
the dream of generations, union with
Greece, their fatherland by history and
sympathy.
They could not bring themselves to
believe that they would be joined to an
artificial Albania, alien to them in tongue,
civilization and religion. All these people,
from Cape St. Vasilio to Cape St. Joannis,
were Greeks, and every man to whom
I spoke, related to Greek families in
Corfu, Patras and Athens, refused to have
any doubts as to the decision of Europe.
They returned to Epirus confident of
the triumph of a cause for which they
had endured so much.
If the real meaning of the question of
Epirus is to be grasped, a pre-
liminary axiom must be accepted : it is
not the Greek Government which wants
to annex Epirus, but the Epirotes them-
selves who claim reunion with Greece.
The opponents of this reunion, in their
academic desire to draw a satisfactory-
map of Albania, never seem to have
given a single thought to this side of the
question, which is none the less a vital
one. Some have seen in the Greek Empire
a danger for Italian naval power. They
have suggested that, by extending that
Empire to the north of Corfu, it would
enable Greece to transform the Corfu
Channel into a closed sound in which the
Russian, French and English fleets could
shelter in case of an international conflict
and threaten Italy in the Adriatic.
This is to forget that the Adriatic
only begins at the Straits of Otranto,
and that the coast of Epirus, whether in
Greek or Albanian hands, is only about
two kilometres distant from the northern
end of Corfu, so that a few mines could
make it an impregnable lair for the
fleets whose highly problematical schemes
Rome appears to dread so much. Be-
sides, so long as Greece remained friendly
to the Entente she could place so many
excellent harbours in the Ionian Islands
at the disposal of the Allied fleets that
it is really rather absurd to see opposition
based on such slight grounds.
The other opponents of the reunion of
Epirus with Greece — and these, too, are
to be found in Italy — seem to have
retained, of the treaty of 1897 which
settled the boundaries of the Austrian
Hellenic National Sentiment in Epirus
and Italian zones of influence in Albania
and Epirus, only the hopes of an eventual
conquest of the whole eastern shore of
the Adriatic. By thus refusing to
recognize existing facts and persisting
in the creation of an artificial kingdom
of Albania, whose endless unrest would
furnish the excuse for future intervention
and possible annexation, they show that
the Marquis di San Giuliano's imperialism
has still some fervent devotees.
If Epirus were a res nullius, sl piece of
territory without a national soul which
any conqueror could automatically make
his own, the Italian policy might be
regarded as not incomprehensible. But
the truth is quite otherwise. The districts
of Epirus which Rome wishes to see
drawn into the future Albania are the
hotbed of uncompromising Hellenism.
" They are more Greek than Greece her-
self," one of the most eminent professors
of Athens University once said to me,
and it is certainly the fact that the attach-
ment of the Epirotes to the national
cause has been displayed in the most
striking fashion for years.