"Moreover, the great emotion caused in the public by the recent speech of Sir Edward Grey compels the Royal Government to demand from the Entente Powers certain preliminary assurances. While people here expected to see the Powers, after the Bulgarian mobilization, proceed to decisive acts, and at the very least to a declaration that the territorial promises made to Bulgaria in August would be cancelled if within a very short time she did not agree to co-operate with the Entente, they were stupefied to see that to the most evident proof of Bulgarian duplicity and disloyalty they replied by redoubling their solicitude and goodwill. Sir Edward Grey's speech, followed closely by the visits made without notice at Salonica by the representatives of the French and British Staffs, gives birth to the fear that certain Entente Powers may harbour the design of using the troops which would be sent to Servia as the fittest instrument for giving practical effect to the territorial ambitions of the Bulgars in Macedonia. Well or ill founded, this fear exercises over people in Greece, and we have reason to believe in Servia also, a demoralizing effect and threatens to compromise the success of our mobilization.
"The Royal Government finds itself confronted with a situation created much against its will, which imposes upon it the duty, in order to calm as soon as possible the alarms of the people now in arms, of asking the Powers to dispel the fears inspired by their attitude towards Bulgaria by declaring, if possible, that the offers made to her are henceforth null, and that the eventual dispatch of international troops to Servia would in no case be turned to the detriment of the territorial integrity of Greece and Servia. Only formal assurances in this sense could justify in the eyes of Greek public opinion the Government which, while protesting for form's sake, would agree to facilitate the landing at Salonica and the passage across its territory of international troops destined for Servia.
"Please speak to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the sense of this telegram." [13]
From the tenor of this interesting document we gather that, while fully aware of the King's attitude, M. Venizelos {61} went on negotiating with the Allies for immediate action; and that the Allies proceeded to act before any agreement had been reached. To judge by its tone, M. Venizelos seems to have been annoyed at the Allies' haste as at an unwarrantable attempt to commit him irretrievably without heeding his conditions or waiting for his definite consent: so grave a breach of propriety could not but pain him. But, however annoyed he might be on the surface, at bottom he was doubtless pleased: the move supplied the best means for the conversion of his Sovereign—no argument is so persuasive as an accomplished fact. That was what really mattered—the manner was a detail; and it is impossible to suppose that he meant to let his annoyance stand in the way of his high purpose.[14] Themistocles, to whom the Cretan statesman bears some affinity, it will be remembered, forced the Greeks to fight at Salamis by a similar stratagem.
This, of course, does not exculpate the Allies. Their conduct merits at least the appellation of irregular. But when foreign diplomats and native politicians become fused into a happy family, it would be strange, indeed, if irregularities did not occur. The whole of the Greek story is so thoroughly permeated with the spirit of old-fashioned melodrama that no incident, however startling, seems out of place.
What follows is something of an anticlimax. Next day, the French Minister—from this point onwards France takes the lead and England recedes into the second place—had the honour to announce to his Excellency the Greek Premier the arrival at Salonica of a first detachment of troops, declaring at the same time that the Entente Powers sent it to assist their ally Servia, and that they counted on Greece, who had already given them so many proofs of friendship, not to oppose measures taken in the interest of a country to which she also was allied.[15]
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In reply, the Greek Premier had the honour to declare to his Excellency the French Minister that, being neutral, Greece could not authorize measures which violated her neutrality. The Hellenic Government was therefore obliged to protest against the passage of foreign troops through Greek territory. The circumstance that those troops were destined solely to the assistance of Servia, who was Greece's ally, nowise altered the case; for, before the casus faederis was realized, the neutrality of Greece could not be affected by the danger which menaced Servia.[16]
To return from formalities to realities. On the same day (2 Oct.), the Bulgarian forces began to mass on the Servian frontier, while the Austro-German battalions were fighting their way across the Danube; and on the 4th Russia launched her ultimatum on Bulgaria. This rapid fulfilment of their own prognostications roused the Greeks to the highest pitch of excitement. But all faith in the Entente had not yet been extinguished. On the very day on which the Petrograd Government delivered its tardy and ineffectual ultimatum at Sofia, at Athens the Chamber held a historic debate, in which M. Venizelos for the first time proclaimed that the Graeco-Servian Treaty imposed an absolute obligation upon Greece to make war on Bulgaria and Turkey; adding—in answer to a question, what he would do if on going to Servia's assistance he met the German and Austrian armies—that Germany and Austria must be fought as well, if necessary, and backing his thesis with those appeals to honour which, whether pertinent or not, seldom fail to move a popular audience. The debate lasted till four o'clock in the morning and ended with a vote of confidence in M. Venizelos's military policy—a policy which M. Venizelos, a civilian, expounded to an assembly of civilians as a settled plan, without waiting for the consent of the King and in defiance of the technical advice of the General Staff. In fairness to the Chamber, it should be added that the motion was carried on the assumption that the King was in agreement.[17]
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