This time the three Powers were united in a common cause, which necessitated unity of action on all fronts. But it would be an error to imagine that this unity of action rested everywhere upon a community of views or of ulterior aims. Certainly such was not the case in Greece. France had her own views and aims in that part of the world. M. Briand was bent on bringing Greece into the War, not because he thought her help could exercise a decisive influence over its course, but because he wanted her to share in the spoils under French auspices: he considered it France's interest to have in the Eastern Mediterranean a strong Greece closely tied to her.[19]
{104}
That programme France intended to carry through at all costs and by all means. England and Russia, for the sake of the paramount object of the War, acquiesced and co-operated. But the acquiescence was compulsory and the co-operation reluctant. The underlying disaccord between the three Allies reflected itself in the demeanour of their representatives at Athens.
M. Guillemin, the French Minister, stood before the Greek Government violently belligerent. Brute force, accentuated rather than concealed by a certain irritating finesse, seemed to be his one idea of diplomacy, and he missed no conceivable opportunity for giving it expression: so much so that after a time the King found it impossible to receive him. Sir Francis Elliot, the British Minister, formed a pleasing contrast to his French colleague: a scrupulous and courteous gentleman, he did not disguise his repugnance to a policy involving at every step a fresh infringement of a neutral nation's rights. As it was, he endeavoured to moderate proceedings which he could neither approve nor prevent. Prince Demidoff, a Russian diplomat of amiable manners, seconded Sir Francis Elliot's counsels of moderation and yielded to M. Guillemin's clamours for coercion.[20]
It is important to bear this disaccord in mind in order to understand what went before and what comes hereafter: for, though for the most part latent, it was always present; and if it did not avert, it retarded the climax.
[1] Orations, p. 155; Skouloudis's Semeioseis, p. 36.
[2] White Book, Nos. 70-4, 79, 81, 84, 86-90.
[3] White Book, Nos. 92, 93, 96-102.
[4] White Book, No. 104.
[5] White Book, Nos. 106, 111, 113.