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CHAPTER XIII
M. Venizelos had unfurled the standard of rebellion in the true spirit of his temperament and traditions. To him civil war had nothing repulsive about it: it was a normal procedure—a ladder to power. Naturally, he persuaded others, and perhaps himself, that he acted purely with the patriotic intention of devoting to the public benefit the power which, for that purpose only, it became his duty to usurp. Moved by the ambition to aggrandize Greece, he felt at liberty to use whatever means might conduce to so desirable an end. The sole question that troubled him was, whether this old ladder would serve him as faithfully as in the past. And once again the answer depended on the attitude of the "Protecting Powers."
Those Powers had hitherto blundered in all their Balkan dealings with depressing uniformity. First came the mistake about Bulgaria. The hate of the Greeks for the Bulgars was a psychological force which, properly estimated and utilized, could without any difficulty have been made to do our work for us. But that force was never properly estimated by our diplomacy. The Entente Governments, instead of enlisting it on their side, ranged it against them; thereby sacrificing Servia and estranging Greece. To that initial error was added a second. Until the truth could no longer be ignored, the Allies persisted in the egregrious [Transcriber's note: egregious?] fallacy that the popularity of King Constantine was as nothing compared with the popularity of M. Venizelos—to our detriment. "Two years before," observes Admiral Dartige du Fournet, "all the Greeks were the friends of France; in October, 1916, two-thirds of them were her enemies." That was the fact; and, according to the same witness—who described himself, not without reason, as "a Venizelist by profession"—the cause was this: "The mass of the people of continental {140} Greece was hostile to the Chief of the Liberals. When that mass saw that M. Venizelos started a sedition and that we supported him, it became plainly hostile to us." [1]
The Admiral mentions also German pressure, but he rightly regards it as a subsidiary cause. The Germans did little more than "blow on the fire kindled by our own clumsiness and violences." Baron Schenck, the director of the German propaganda at Athens, watched our coercion of King Constantine with that apparent indignation and secret joy which the faults of an enemy inspire, and when expelled by the Allies, said that he did not mind going: the Allies could be trusted to carry on his mission. They did.
What their plan was will appear from their actions. We cannot penetrate into the minds of men, and we cannot always believe their words; but their actions are open to observation and speak more truly than their lips.
As soon as he settled at Salonica, M. Venizelos applied to the Entente Powers for official recognition of his Provisional Government. They refused him this recognition: but instructed their Consuls to treat with the Provisional Government "on a de facto footing";[2] and, while pouring cold water upon him with one hand, with the other they gave him money. This mode of action was the result of a compromise, achieved at the Boulogne Conference, between France and her partners. A feeble and inconsequent way of doing things, no doubt. But to be consequent and powerful, a partnership must be bottomed on some common interest or sentiment; and such in the Greek question, as already explained, did not exist.
At Athens the action of the Allies was less open to the criticism of tameness.
After a life of three weeks passed in fruitless efforts to enter into relations with the Entente Powers, even by proposing to discard the Ministers obnoxious to them, the Calogeropoulos Cabinet resigned (4 Oct.), and King Constantine, having exhausted his stock of politicians, sought a candidate for the Premiership in circles which, remote from party intrigue, might have been thought immune from suspicion. Professor Lambros, who accepted the {141} mandate (8 Oct.), was known as a grave savant, generally esteemed for his kindly nature as much as for his intellectual eminence and administrative capacity. But Professor Lambros laboured under the universal disability of not being a Venizelist. Therefore, he was "believed to be Germanophile," and it was "questionable whether his Cabinet will be recognized by the Entente Powers." [3] However, in less than a week, he "established contact" with their representatives. It was "contact" in a sense of the term more familiar to soldiers than to statesmen.
On 10 October Admiral Dartige de Fournet resumed his activities by launching on the Hellenic Government an Ultimatum. Greece was summoned, within twenty-four hours, to disarm her big ships, to hand over to him all her light ships intact, and to disarm all her coast batteries, except three which were to be occupied by the Allies. In addition, the port of the Piraeus, the railways, and the police were to be placed under Allied control.