Aim: Discipline

It would hardly do for Greece to have another revolution just as her waters gave hospitality to yachting British King Edward VIII. Yet in Athens last week Greek King George II was conscious of revolution brewing. Soviet newsorgans were boasting openly that Moscow had just sent some $2,400,000 to aid the Reds of Spain, and the Reds of Greece had also begun to flourish. One night last week His Majesty was kept up late by the Greek Cabinet. The Premier, General John ("Little Moltke") Metaxas, has been frankly pro-German ever since he rated high as a young officer student at Kaiser Wilhelm's Military Academy. He has recently made important trade agreements with Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank, and he considers that all Europe is hurtling toward a crisis in which it must choose between forms of Communism and forms of Fascism.

Reds of the Greek trade unions had declared a 24-hour general strike effective at midnight. Against this the General Confederation of Labor in Greece had declared their formal opposition. The strike was supposed to be in protest against a royal decree under which in Greece arbitration of all labor disputes has now been made compulsory. Just before midnight Premier Metaxas successfully scotched a strike by proclaiming martial law throughout Greece. Parliament was dissolved, the Cabinet omitting to proclaim when elections would take place. Liberals felt that King George had, by signing the necessary papers, made General Metaxas his Dictator.

Suspecting the scotched Reds would try to tamper with Athens' electric plant, General Metaxas moved a battleship to anchor nearby. He sent destroyers to overawe Salonika, the Greek city in which Reds are strongest. Greeks woke up to find that their walls had been freshly plastered at dawn with posters reading: "The Government measures were made necessary because the country was on the eve of an outbreak of a subversive and seditious movement fostered by Communist propaganda and aiming at disaffection in the Army and the spread of the spirit of Anarchy."

Added General Metaxas: "I will act with the King for the benefit of the People. . . . Any resistance to the Government's task of Hellenic Renaissance will be immediately repressed. . . . My aim is discipline!"

Bemonocled George II, after calmly receiving protests delivered in person by four leaders of Greek Liberal parties, left everything in the hands of General Metaxas and sailed on a Greek destroyer with the announced intention of taking a fortnight's holiday in Corfu, the island on which stands a beauteous onetime palace owned by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Next door to Greece is Bulgaria. Last week its Little Tsar Boris, also troubled by Reds, was on a swift trip to consult Mussolini in Rome, then Hitler in Berlin. Nebulously an international European Fascist solidarity seemed forming to counter-balance the Communist International.

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