w recruits.
Simultaneously, the fear which the Greek military authorities had
expressed to their Servian colleagues in the previous spring--that
delay might prove fatal--was being realized: from all sides came
intelligence of the concentration of large Austro-German forces towards
the Danube.

In the circumstances, after studying Colonel Vlachopoulos's report, the
Greek General Staff submitted to the Government (14 September) the
opinion that for Greece to embark on a war against Bulgaria, so long as
she was not assured of the co-operation of adequate Servian forces, was
tantamount to courting annihilation; and of such co-operation there was
no prospect: the moment the Serbs found themselves faced by a superior
Austro-German army, the Greeks would have to fight the Bulgars as well
as, in all probability, the Turks alone.

As if in confirmation of this forecast, a week later (21 September),
the Hellenic Government received from Sofia the official announcement
of the conclusion of a Turco-Bulgarian agreement and of Bulgarian
mobilization; the latter measure being, according to the Bulgarian
Premier, purely precautionary: as the Austro-German {53} armies had
just begun an attack on Servia, and the theatre of war approached the
Bulgarian frontiers, his country was obliged to take up an attitude of
armed neutrality.[5]

The news threw M. Venizelos into a fever of excitement. He had,
meanwhile, become most solicitous about Greece-Servian co-operation,
and had not permitted his mind to be impressed by Colonel
Vlachopoulos's report. When Austria and Germany had their hands full
elsewhere, Servia's peril had left him cold; it set him on fire now
when they were ready to hurl their legions into the Balkan
Peninsula--when it was no longer for Greece a question of fighting
Bulgaria only, but Bulgaria and Turkey and the Central Empires. M.
Venizelos was a statesman of broad ideas, a hater of dry facts, and an
impenitent believer in his own star. For the matter of time he cared
very little; considerations of odds did not weigh with him unduly; and
he cherished a sovereign contempt for the cautious attitude of
professional soldiers and other uninspired persons. Never did these
qualities appear more vividly than on this 21st of September.

At 5 p.m. M. Venizelos went to Tatoi, the King's country residence, to
confer with him, having previously arranged that a mobilization Order
should be drawn up and presented to his Majesty f