But, in spite of such encouragement, the capital--or, indeed, any part of Old Greece--had never appealed to M. Venizelos as a starting-point of sedition. He knew that only in the recently acquired and as yet imperfectly assimilated regions--regions under the direct influence of the Allies--he could hope to rebel with safety. His plan embraced, besides Salonica, the islands conquered in 1912, particularly his native Crete. In that home of immemorial turbulence his friends, seconded by British Secret Service and Naval officers, had found many retired bandits eager to resume work. Even there, it is true, public opinion was not strikingly favourable to disloyalty; but the presence of the British Fleet in Suda Bay had much of persuasion in it.[11]
Our diplomacy did not openly commit itself. Sir Francis Elliot still nursed the hope of effecting a reconciliation between the ex-Premier and his King. When, in August, a conference was secretly held at Athens between M. Venizelos and a number of Cretan conspirators, the latter carried back the depressing intelligence that British official sympathy with their project lacked the necessary degree of warmth. And again, on 11 September, when the British Consul of Canea went over to Athens with some of those conspirators, he was ordered by the British Legation to stay there, so as to avoid any suspicion of complicity. This attitude of correct reserve on the part of the British Foreign Office, however, did not prevent the British naval authorities on the spot from working out, in concert with the insurgents, a plan of operations under which some chieftains were to invest the coast towns on the land side, while our men-of-war patrolled the sea in their interest.[12]
France, on the other hand, made no distinction between diplomatic and naval action. On 18 September M. Guillemin informed Admiral Dartige du Fournet that M. Venizelos was sailing for the islands, and orders were given for a French escort. But at the last moment M. Venizelos did not sail. He hesitated. The French Secret Service urged the National Leader to lead, instead of being prodded from behind; but he resisted their pressure and their plain speaking.[13] When questioned by the Associated Press Correspondent if there was any truth in the reports that he was going to put himself at the head of the revolutionary forces, he replied: "I cannot answer now. I must wait a little while yet and see what the Government propose to do."