The Greek Premier simply said that his Government's passivity was in strict accord with the explicit declarations of its policy and intentions, enunciated at the very outset, ratified by the Agreement of 10 December, 1915, and reiterated _ad nauseam_ to the Entente Ministers--viz., that "should the Allied troops by their movements bring the war into Greek territory, the Greek troops would withdraw so as to leave the field free to the two parties to settle their differences." Far from changing his attitude, he once more, in reply to M. Briand's threat that, "if the Bulgarian advance continued without resistance there might ensue the most serious consequences for the Hellenic Government," emphatically declared: "Resistance is only possible if we abandon our neutrality, and the demand that we should resist is therefore in flagrant contradiction to the oft-repeated protestations of the Entente Powers that they have neither the wish nor the intention to force us into the War." Nor could he understand how they could think of blaming Greece for receiving from the Central Powers the same assurances of eventual restoration as those given by themselves.[11]
M. Skouloudis spoke in vain. Paris had made up its mind to treat the incident as indicating a new and malevolent orientation against which it behoved the Allies to protect themselves. Accordingly, on 1 June, M. Briand authorized General Sarrail to proclaim a state of siege at Salonica.
General Sarrail, who had long sought to be freed from the trammels of Greek sovereignty--"_et à être maître chez moi_"--but had hitherto been denied his wish by the British Government, jumped at the permission, and he improved upon it with a personal touch, trivial yet characteristic. So far back as 27 April he had recommended that "we must strike at the head, attack frankly and squarely the one enemy--the King." Pending an opportunity to strike, he seized the occasion to slight. He fixed the proclamation for 3 June, King Constantine's name day, which was to be celebrated at Salonica as in every other town of the kingdom with a solemn _Te Deum_. { 101} The British General, Milne, who had arranged to assist at the _Te Deum_, after vainly trying to obtain at least a postponement of the date out of respect for the King, found himself obliged to yield. And so on that festal morning martial law was proclaimed. Allied detachments with machine guns occupied various strategic points, the public offices were taken possession of, the chiefs of the Macedonian gendarmerie and police were expelled, and the local press was placed under a French censor. All this, without any preliminary notification to the Hellenic Government, which expressed its indignation that a French General, forgetting the most elementary rules of courtesy and hospitality, thought fit to choose such a moment for inaugurating a state of things that formed at once a gratuitous affront to the sovereign of the country and a breach of the terms of the Agreement of 10 December.[13]