occupy Crete. She is sending troops there, and raising volunteers and
filling out her reserve force, to be ready for war, if war comes.

This defiance on the part of Greece is worrying the rest of the Powers.
She is too small and insignificant to attempt to brave the wrath of Europe
alone, and there is an uneasy feeling that some one of the great nations
must be secretly backing her.

As usual, when anything goes wrong in Europe, Russia is blamed. Russia has
so long been the naughty girl of Dame Europa's school, that the moment
mischief is in the air Russia is suspected.

If she is in this new trouble, she will have hard work to escape
punishment. She has been posing as the dear friend and protector of Turkey
for the last few weeks, and has put stumbling-blocks in the way of the
other Powers when they have attempted to force the Sultan of Turkey to do
as they wished.

If she has suddenly veered round, and is now encouraging Greece against
Turkey, her conduct will be hard to explain.

It will be interesting to watch what comes of this, for it seems that the
Bismarck revelations, about which you can read in No. 4 of THE GREAT
ROUND WORLD, have brought many strange things to light in European
politics.

You will remember that it was found that Germany had a secret
understanding with Russia, which quite undid her open agreement with
Austria and Italy--the Triple Alliance, as it was called.