Admiral Dartige could not very well endorse the breach of faith legend. He knew that the engagement about the delivery of arms was reciprocal, and that, as France had failed to ratify it on her part, King Constantine rightly considered himself free from all obligations on his part. He also knew that, far from being lured into landing by false assurances of surrender, he had been emphatically warned against it by categorical refusals and intimations of resistance. Yet, human nature being what it is, the honest sailor, maddened by his discomfiture, called the inevitable collision a "_guet-apens_" and, even whilst negotiating for release, he meditated revenge.
To him the peace arranged through the instrumentality of the Entente Ministers was but a "_sorte d'armistice_." He had agreed to it only in order to extricate himself from his present difficulties and to gain time for resuming hostilities under more favourable conditions. He and his men, he tells us with an engaging candour, were at the mercy of the Greeks: had he not accepted the King's offer--outnumbered, surrounded, and without food or water for more than twenty-four hours--they would have been ignominiously arrested. Besides, the configuration of the ground sheltered the Greek troops from the naval fire, while the Legations both of the Entente and of neutral Powers lay exposed to it. Lastly, a continued bombardment might have driven the Greeks to exasperation and perhaps to a massacre of Entente Ministers and subjects. It was imperative to give the Allies and neutrals time for flight and himself for serious war preparations. The delivery of the whole stock of arms had been fixed by his Ultimatum for 15 December. In that fortnight he proposed to obtain from his Government the forces necessary { 164} for a battle, and permission to bombard Athens in earnest--with or without notice to its inhabitants, but, of course, always with due regard for its _monuments historiques_.
Such was his plan. General Sarrail embraced it with ardour; the Paris Government sanctioned it; troops began to arrive and French and British residents to flee (3-5 Dec.). But very soon difficulties became manifest. The transports had brought men and mules, but no provisions for either. Greek volunteers and regulars mustered in defence of their capital. The British Admiral declined to take part in any war operations. The French Minister dreaded open hostilities. In the circumstances, Admiral Dartige found it expedient to "give proof of his spirit of self-denial," by renouncing his heroic dream of vengeance "_immédiate, retentissante,_" and by advising Paris not to set up a new front at Athens: after all, the matter was not really worth a war. He now proposed, instead, a pacific blockade; and, Paris assenting, he proclaimed the blockade as from 8 December.[3]