Greece and the Allies | Page 5

the outset every foreign journalist and diplomatist who came his way
was made to feel his fascination: so that, even before leaving his native
shores, the Cretan had become in the European firmament a star of the
third or fourth magnitude. Reasons other than personal contributed to
enlist Western opinion in his favour. Owing to her geographical
situation, Greece depends for the fulfilment of her national aspirations
and for her very existence on the Powers which command the
Mediterranean. A fact so patent had never escaped the perception of
any Greek politician. But no Greek politician had ever kept this fact
more steadily in view, or put this obvious truth into more vehement
language than M. Venizelos: "To tie Greece to the apron-strings of the
Sea Powers," was his maxim. And the times were such that those
Powers needed a Greek statesman whom they could trust to apply that
maxim unflinchingly.
{5}
With the recovery of Greece synchronized, not by chance, the doom of
Turkey: a sentence in which all the members of the Entente, starting
from different points and pursuing different objects, concurred. The
executioners were, naturally, the Balkan States. Russia began the work
by bringing about an agreement between Bulgaria and Servia; England
completed it by bringing Greece into the League. There ensued a local,
which, in accordance with the old diplomatic prophecy, was soon to
lead to the universal conflagration. Organized as she was, Greece
succeeded better than anyone expected; and the national gratitude--the
exuberant gratitude of a Southern people--went out to the two men
directly responsible for that success: to King Constantine, whose
brilliant generalship beat the enemy hosts; and to M. Venizelos, whose
able statesmanship had prepared the field. Poets and pamphleteers vied
with each other in expatiating on the wonders they had performed, to
the honour and advantage of their country. In this ecstasy of popular

adoration the spirit of the soldier and the spirit of the lawyer seemed to
have met.
But the union was illusive and transient. Between these two men, so
strangely flung together by destiny, there existed no link of sympathy;
and propinquity only forced the growth of their mutual antagonism.
The seeds of discord had already borne fruit upon the common ground
of their Balkan exploits. Immediately after the defeat of Turkey a
quarrel over the spoils arose among the victors. King Constantine,
bearing in mind Bulgaria's long-cherished dream of hegemony, and
persuaded that no sacrifices made by Greece and Servia could do more
than defer a rupture, urged a Graeco-Servian alliance against their
truculent partner. He looked at the matter from a purely Greek
standpoint and was anxious to secure the maximum of profit for his
country. M. Venizelos, on the other hand, aware that the Western
Powers, and particularly England, wanted a permanent Balkan coalition
as a barrier against Germany in the East, and anxious to retain those
Powers' favour, was prepared to concede {6} much for the sake of
averting a rupture. Not until the Bulgars betrayed their intentions by
actual aggressions in Macedonia did he withdraw his opposition to the
alliance with Servia, which ushered in the Second Balkan War and led
to the Peace of Bucharest. He yielded to the pressure of the
circumstances brought to bear upon him; but the encounter represented
no more than the preliminary crossing of swords between two strong
antagonists.

{7}
CHAPTER I
From the moment when the rupture between Austria and Servia, in July,
1914, came to disturb the peace, Greece deliberately adopted an
attitude of neutrality, with the proviso that she would go to Servia's
assistance in case of a Bulgarian attack upon the latter. Such an attitude
was considered to be in accordance with the Graeco-Servian Alliance.
For, although the Military Convention accompanying the Treaty

contained a vague stipulation for mutual support in case of war between
one of the allied States and "a third Power," the Treaty itself had as its
sole object mutual defence against Bulgaria.[1]
In the opinion of M. Venizelos, her pact did not oblige Greece to go to
Servia's assistance against Austria, but at most to mobilize 40,000
men.[2] Treaty obligations apart, neutrality was also imposed by
practical considerations. It was to the interest of Greece--a matter of
self-preservation--not to tolerate a Bulgarian attack on Servia
calculated to upset the Balkan balance of power established by the
Peace of Bucharest, and she was firmly determined, in concert with
Rumania, to oppose such an attack with all her might. But as to Austria,
M. Venizelos had to consider whether Greece could or could not offer
her ally effective aid, and after consideration he decided that she {8}
should not proceed even to the mobilization of 40,000 men, for such a
measure might provoke a Bulgarian mobilization and precipitate
complications. For the rest, the