uld without any difficulty have been
made to do our work for us. But that force was never properly
estimated by our diplomacy. The Entente Governments, instead of
enlisting it on their side, ranged it against them; thereby sacrificing
Servia and estranging Greece. To that initial error was added a
second. Until the truth could no longer be ignored, the Allies
persisted in the egregrious [Transcriber's note: egregious?] fallacy
that the popularity of King Constantine was as nothing compared with
the popularity of M. Venizelos--to our detriment. "Two years before,"
observes Admiral Dartige du Fournet, "all the Greeks were the friends
of France; in October, 1916, two-thirds of them were her enemies."
That was the fact; and, according to the same witness--who described
himself, not without reason, as "a Venizelist by profession"--the cause
was this: "The mass of the people of continental {140} Greece was
hostile to the Chief of the Liberals. When that mass saw that M.
Venizelos started a sedition and that we supported him, it became
plainly hostile to us." [1]

The Admiral mentions also German pressure, but he rightly regards it as
a subsidiary cause. The Germans did little more than "blow on the fire
kindled by our own clumsiness and violences." Baron Schenck, the
director of the German propaganda at Athens, watched our coercion of
King Constantine with that apparent indignation and secret joy which
the faults of an enemy inspire, and when expelled by the Allies, said
that he did not mind going: the Allies could be trusted to carry on his
mission. They did.

What their plan was will appear from their actions. We cannot
penetrate into the minds of men, and we cannot always believe their
words; but their actions are open to observation and speak more truly
than their lips.

As soon as he settled at Salonica, M. Venizelos applied to the Entente
Powers for official recognition of his Provisional Government. They
refused him this recognition: but instructed their Consuls to treat
with the Provisional Government "on a _de facto_ footing";[2] and,
while pouring cold water upon him with one hand, with the other they
gave him money. This mode of action was the result of a compromise,
achieved at the Boulogne Conference, between France and her partners.
A feeble and inconsequent way of doing things, no doubt. But to be
consequent and powerful, a partnership must be bottomed on some common
interest or sentiment; and