s, their provisions and munitions were not
sufficient for a prolonged struggle. Under these conditions, she
added, only a speedy attack by the Germans could afford Greece the
opportunity of fighting for deliverance from a frightful situation.
But Von Hindenburg did not see his way to promise an attack.
Meanwhile, the pressure of the blockade increased. By 2 January, the
Queen, as her indignation cooled, prepared to resign herself to the
situation: "We have bread only for a few days more, other provisions
are also running short," she telegraphed, "consequently war against the
Entente is out of the question now. I consider the game lost." Her
husband concurred.[13]

The King and his Ministers also knew that, unless they accepted the
Allies' terms, worse would be forced upon them by starvation. Clearly,
the first thing to be done was to have the blockade raised. So far the
little ship had contended with the gale hardily--in fact,
foolhardily--coming out of the contest with scarce a sail. Captain and
crew at last decided to give up the unequal struggle: the gale appeared
to have almost spent itself: conversations for peace were at that
moment in progress between the belligerents: at the worst, things would
go on much as they had been going on, until the end of the War put an
end to the sorry drama. So, on 10 January, after an all-night sitting
of the Crown Council, Greece made her {171} unconditional surrender:
she would drain the cup of humiliation to its bitterest dregs.[14]

To all seeming, the pledges given by both sides formed a solid basis
for a _modus vivendi_: the King gave guarantees thoroughly safeguarding
the Allies against any danger, real or imaginary; and the Allies gave
guarantees equally safeguarding the King against seditious intrigues.
All that remained was that the Allies should exact from the King a
fulfilment of his engagements, and fulfil their own. They did not fail
in the first part of the programme. The transfer of troops and
armaments to the Peloponnesus was scrupulously carried out under the
supervision of an Allied Military Commission, which counted and
examined every man, every gun, every rifle and cartridge both at the
point of departure and at the point of arrival. The Reservists'
leagues were dissolved, and the people, in so far as such a measure is
possible, were compelled to give up the firearms, mostly obsolete, in
their possession. The foreign Controls, so far as the Hellenic