[19] Zographos to Greek Legation, Paris, 15/28 May, 1915.
[20] Communication of Entente Powers to Greek Premier, 21 July/3 Aug.;
Greek Premier's reply (No. 8118); Alexandropoulos, Nish, 23 July/5
Aug.; 25 July/7 Aug.; Communication by British Minister at Athens, 23
July/5 Aug., 1915.
[21] See the Nea Hellas, 20, 21 March (O.S.), 1915; Orations, passim.
[22] Journal Officiel, p. 76. To appreciate the community of sentiments between M. Venizelos and M. Delcassé fully, one must compare the above statement with that in Orations, pp. 68-9. The differences are equally instructive. The Venizelist orator, prudently suppresses from a Greek audience the fact that his Chief frustrated the General Staff's efforts to co-operate with Servia; he boldly surmises, on the other hand, that behind the General Staff's stipulations as to the sphere of Greek military action lurked the arrière pensée to confront the Allies with the risk of provoking Bulgaria, whom they still regarded as a potential friend: so the stipulations were, as they were intended to be, unacceptable. Again, while M. Delcassé, addressing a French audience nervous about the Western Front, reckoned that the Entente contingents demanded by the Greek General Staff would amount to at least 600,000 or 800,000 men, M. Politis, less fantastically, estimates them at 450,000 men: this force, which Greece deemed necessary for success, it will be seen, was not far removed from that which France and England eventually wasted in failure.
[23]Prince George to King Constantine, Paris, 28 April/11 May, 1915.
[24] See M. Poincaré's statement to the Matin, reproduced in the Balkan Review, Dec., 1920, p. 386; Deville, pp. 161, 168-9.
{50}
CHAPTER V
On 23 August, M. Venizelos returned to power as a result of the General Elections held on June 13. The outcome of those elections proved how great his popularity still was. True, in 1910 he had obtained 146 seats out of 182, and now only 185 out of 314. But the majority, though diminished, remained substantial enough to show that he still was, for most people, the man who had cleansed Greece. Nor did M. Venizelos imperil his popularity by revealing his differences with the King. On the contrary, in his own country, his attacks were carefully confined to the statesmen and soldiers opposed to him: the King, M. Venizelos proclaimed, far from sharing their narrow, unpatriotic, pro-German views, "did not exclude exit from neutrality under given conditions, but accepted it in principle as imposed for the serving of the national rights." [1] By his organs, too, the King was described as "a worthy successor of the Constantines who created the mighty Byzantine Empire—imbued with a sense of his great national mission—Greek in heart and mind." [2] So anxious, indeed, was M. Venizelos not to lose votes by any display of ill-feeling against the popular sovereign that he even took some pains to have himself photographed calling at the Palace to inquire after the King's health.
As to policy, it is difficult to determine the part which it played in the contest. M. Venizelos refrained from publishing any sort of programme. His opponents asserted that a vote for Venizelos meant a vote for war. But his most prominent supporters declared that such was by no means the case: although, at a certain moment, he was ready to participate in the Gallipoli enterprise, circumstances had changed, and his future course would depend on the situation which he would find on returning to {51} power. This vagueness, though not very helpful to the voters, doubtless helped the voting; for there was hardly any pro-war feeling among the masses. The noble ideals emblazoned upon the Entente banners produced little impression on their minds. The experience of two thousand years has taught the Greeks that Governments never fight for noble ideals, and, if they relieve a small nation from a foreign yoke, it is, as often as not, in order to impose a new one. To them the War was a struggle for power and plunder between two European groups. It was matter of common knowledge that Constantinople had been allotted to the Russians, and the Greeks were not particularly keen on shedding their blood in order to place a Tsar on the Byzantine throne. Nor did the Smyrna bait attract them greatly, since it involved parting with Cavalla. At the same time, the lurid accounts of German frightfulness disseminated by the Entente propaganda, instead of inflaming, damped still further their enthusiasm.[3] The Venizelist candidates were, therefore, wise in repudiating the allegation that their victory would inevitably mean intervention in the conflict; and, on the whole, the people who voted for the Cretan statesman seem to have paid a tribute to his personality rather than to his policy.