anxious to get rid of a Cabinet that had succeeded
in establishing friendly relations with the Entente, it is impossible
to say. Both conjectures found favour at the time, and both seem
probable.[6] In any case, M. Venizelos made of that incident an
occasion for an attack on the Government's foreign policy, which,
ending in an adverse vote, led to the resignation of M. Zaimis and the
formation of a new Ministry under M. Skouloudis (7 November).

There ensued a dissolution of the Chamber (11 November) and a fresh
appeal to the people; the King, on the advice of M. Skouloudis,
inviting M. Venizelos to the polls, as who should say: When you got
your majority in June, the nation was with you; many things of the
gravest national concern have happened since; let us see if the nation
is with you now. M. Venizelos declined the invitation: "The
elections," he said, "will be a farce. All my supporters are detained
voteless under arms, and the only votes cast will be those of the older
and more timid men." How many supporters he had under arms the near
future was to show. Meanwhile, he and his partizans reinforced this
reason for abstention from the polls with other arguments.

{70} King Constantine, they alleged, was guilty of unconstitutional
behaviour. He had twice disagreed with a Government supported by a
majority of the representatives of the people, and twice within a few
months had dissolved a Parliament duly chosen by the people. Was such
a thing ever heard in a constitutional State? The Constitution had
been violated: openly, insolently violated.

In Greece this cry has always been among the Opposition's common
stock-in-trade: it is enough for a Minister to misapply fifty drachmas
to acquire the title of a violator of the Constitution, and nobody ever
is the wiser or the worse for it. M. Venizelos himself had often been
accused by his opponents of aiming at the subversion of Parliamentary
Government. But in this instance the cry was destined to have, as we
shall see, epoch-making results, and for this reason it merits serious
examination.

The King's supporters denied that any violation of the Constitution had
taken place. The Constitution of Greece, they pointed out, gives the
Crown explicitly the right to dismiss Ministers and to dissolve
Chambers.[7] M. Venizelos himself had, no longer ago than 5 March, at
the second sitting of the Crown Council, declared himself an adversary
of the doctrine that the