d.
M. Briand was bent on bringing Greece into the War, not because he
thought her help could exercise a decisive influence over its course,
but because he wanted her to share in the spoils under French auspices:
he considered it France's interest to have in the Eastern Mediterranean
a strong Greece closely tied to her.[19]

{104}

That programme France intended to carry through at all costs and by all
means. England and Russia, for the sake of the paramount object of the
War, acquiesced and co-operated. But the acquiescence was compulsory
and the co-operation reluctant. The underlying disaccord between the
three Allies reflected itself in the demeanour of their representatives
at Athens.

M. Guillemin, the French Minister, stood before the Greek Government
violently belligerent. Brute force, accentuated rather than concealed
by a certain irritating finesse, seemed to be his one idea of
diplomacy, and he missed no conceivable opportunity for giving it
expression: so much so that after a time the King found it impossible
to receive him. Sir Francis Elliot, the British Minister, formed a
pleasing contrast to his French colleague: a scrupulous and courteous
gentleman, he did not disguise his repugnance to a policy involving at
every step a fresh infringement of a neutral nation's rights. As it
was, he endeavoured to moderate proceedings which he could neither
approve nor prevent. Prince Demidoff, a Russian diplomat of amiable
manners, seconded Sir Francis Elliot's counsels of moderation and
yielded to M. Guillemin's clamours for coercion.[20]

It is important to bear this disaccord in mind in order to understand
what went before and what comes hereafter: for, though for the most
part latent, it was always present; and if it did not avert, it
retarded the climax.

[1] _Orations_, p. 155; Skouloudis's _Semeioseis_, p. 36.

[2] _White Book_, Nos. 70-4, 79, 81, 84, 86-90.

[3] _White Book_, Nos. 92, 93, 96-102.

[4] _White Book_, No. 104.

[5] _White Book_, Nos. 106, 111, 113.

[6] _White Book_, Nos. 110, 112, 116.

[7] _White Book_, Nos. 117-20, 134, 135; Skouloudis's _Apantesis_, pp.
25-6.

[8] _White Book_, Nos. 95, 105, 126, 130-33, 137. The instructions of
27 April had been issued chiefly in consequence of information that
bands of Bulgarian irregulars (_Comitadjis_) were at that moment
preparing to cross the frontier. Skouloudis's _Apantesis_, p. 23.

[9] The charge was supported by garbled