Cp. p. 217.

[11] His opponents then acted as he did now: to avoid exposing their
weakness, they pronounced the dissolution unconstitutional and
boycotted the new elections. For a full account of these events see
another panegyric: _E. Venizelos: his life--his work_. By Costa
Kairophyla, Athens, 1915, pp. 73-82.

[12] _Orations_, pp. 12-15.

[13] _Eleutheros Typos_, 23 Oct./5 Nov., 1916; _Orations_, p. 102.

[14] See Art. 90 of the Constitution.

It was in order to defend himself against this grave charge that M.
Venizelos denied in the Chamber and out of it, that he had "invited"
the Allies to Salonica. Just as it was in order to avoid the charge of
violating International Law that Sir Edward Grey in the House of
Commons (18 April, 1916) and M. Briand in the Chamber of Deputies (20
June, 1916), affirmed that the Allies had been "invited." From the
account of that affair already given, the reader will easily see that,
for forensic purposes, both the denial and the affirmation rest on
sufficient grounds. The discrepancy might be removed by the
substitution of "instigated" for "invited."

[15] J. M. N. Jefferies, in the _Daily Mail_, 23 Nov., 1915. The
testimony is all the more notable because it comes from an avowed
partisan of M. Venizelos: "the only man in Greece with a policy."

{76}

CHAPTER VII

A momentous question--upon the answer to which depended, among other
things, the fate of Greece during the War--confronted the Allies as
soon as they realized that their Balkan campaign had come to an
untimely beginning.

The dispatch of troops to Macedonia originally was based on the
agreement that M. Venizelos would get Greece to join. Once M.
Venizelos failed to do so, the plan fell to the ground. Again, the
object of the expedition was to rescue Servia; and Servia being already
conquered, the expedition had no longer any purpose. Such were the
views of the British Government, and similar views were held in France
by many, including M. Delcasse, who resigned when Bulgaria's
"defection" sounded the knell of his Balkan policy. But other French
statesmen, with M. Briand at their head, saw in Macedonia a field which
promised great glory and gain, if only the noble British nation could
be brought to understand that there were interests and sentiments at
stake higher than agreements.[1]

The process involved some talking: "I have had my interview with Briand
and Gallieni," wrote Lord Kitchener to