intention to make Greece depart from her neutrality, M. Venizelos
proclaimed that he still adhered to his bellicose programme, and that
he was more confident of victory than ever[7]: had not the Reservists
been set free to vote, and were not those ardent warriors his
enthusiastic supporters? With this cry--perhaps in this belief--he
entered the arena.

It was a lively contest--rhetoric and corruption on both sides
reinforced by terrorism, to which the Allies' military authorities in
Macedonia, and their Secret Service at Athens, whose efficiency had
been greatly increased by the dismissal of many policemen obnoxious to
them, and by other changes brought about through the Note of 21 June,
contributed of their best.

But even veteran politicians are liable to error. The Reservists left
their billets in Macedonia burning with anger and shame at the
indignities and hardships which they had endured. The Allies might
have had among those men as many friends as they pleased, and could
have no enemies unless they created them by treating them as such. And
this is just what they did: from first to last, the spirit displayed by
General Sarrail towards the Greek army was a spirit of insulting
distrust and utterly unscrupulous callousness.

Unable to revenge themselves on the foreign trespasser, the Reservists
vowed to wreak their vengeance on his native abettor. They travelled
back to their villages shouting: "A black vote for Venizelos!" and
immediately formed leagues in the constituencies with a view to
combating his candidates. The latter did all they could to exploit the
national hate for the Bulgars and the alarm caused by their invasion.
But fresh animosities had blunted the edge of old feelings: besides,
had not the Bulgarian invasion been provoked by the Allies' occupation,
and who was responsible for that occupation? For the rest, the
question, as it presented itself to the masses, was no longer simply
one of neutrality or war. Despite M. Venizelos's efforts, and thanks
to the efforts of his adversaries, his breach with the King had become
public, and {108} the division of the nation had now attained to the
dimensions of a schism--Royalists against Venizelists. Nor could there
be any doubt as to the relative strength of the rival camps.

Thus, by a sort of irony, the action which was designed to clothe
Venizelos with new power threatened to strip him of the last rags of
prestige that still clung to his name.