Excerpt from Constantine I and the Greek People From the first contact, Latins and Greeks looked upon each other with mistrust, and the fundamental antagonism which separated the two civilizations was manifest in mutual suspicions, continual difficulties, incessant conflicts and reciprocal accusations of violence and treachery. . . . It was easy to see that Greek hospitality did not inspire the crusaders with unbounded confidence. It must be admitted, however, that the Latins were extraordinarily uncomfortable guests. . . . The westerners, moreover, complained bitterly of the ingratitude, the perfidy, the treachery of the Greek emperor and his subjects, and they held Alexis solely responsible for all the final failures of the crusade. As a matter of fact, that is a pure legend, carefully fostered by all the enemies of the Byzantine monarchy, and the echo of which, transmitted down the ages, explains so many injustices and stubborn prejudices which even to-day unconsciously persist against Byzance. In reality, once Alexis had treated with the crusaders, he was true to his word, and if the rupture came, its cause should be sought above all in the bad faith of the Latin princes. Charles Diehl, "Figures Byzantine," vol II. What appears to have happened a thousand years ago between the Crusaders and the Greek emperors of the Byzantine Empire has repeated itself to-day between the Allied forces in the Near East and the Greek King Constantine. It would be difficult to construe a more faithful characterization of the spirit of events in Greece in the last five years than that given by Mr. Diehl, writing of the Byzantine Empire. The pages which follow were written in the spring of 1917. I had been in Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia since the summer of 1915. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.