[11] White Book, Nos. 158-60.
[12] White Book, Nos. 161-5.
[13] "The King, having no illusions as to the result of an election," says M. Venizelos, in the New Europe, 29 March, 1917, "organized, in connivance with the Germans and Bulgarians, the invasion of Western and Eastern Macedonia. As the Liberals thus lost about sixty seats, the King might hope . . . to secure at least some semblance of success at the coming elections." On the first opportunity that the people of Macedonia, Eastern and Western alike, had of expressing their opinion—at the elections of 14 Nov., 1920—they did not return a single Venizelist.—See Reuter, Athens, 15 Nov., 1920.
[14] For the Greek original, see the Hesperia, 1 Sept., 1916. A much longer text, apparently elaborated at leisure, with a colourless English translation, was published by the Anglo-Hellenic League.
[15] Sarrail, pp. 152-4; Official statement by the Revolutionary Committee, Reuter, Salonica, 31 Aug., 1916.
[16] Du Fournet, pp. 99-104, 122-4, 127, 129.
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CHAPTER XI
Rumania's policy had always been regarded by the Greeks as of capital importance for their own; and as soon as she took the field, King Constantine, though suffering from a recrudescence of the malady that had nearly killed him in the previous year, set to work to consider whether her adhesion did not make such a difference in the military situation as to enable him to abandon neutrality. Two or three days before the arrival of the Allied Fleet he had initiated conversations in that sense with the Allied Ministers.[1]
Simultaneously the question of a war Government came up for discussion; the actual Cabinet being, by order of the Allies, a mere business Ministry charged only to carry on the administration until the election of a new Parliament.