This report is taken from a panegyric on the speaker: _Eleutherios Venizelos_, by K. K. Kosmides, D.Ph., Athens, 1915, pp. 56-7. On p. 58 of the same work, occurs another reply by M. Venizelos to a charge of anti-Parliamentarism, dated 14/27 Nov., 1913.
[9] _The Balkan Review, loc. cit_. Cp. _The New Europe_, 29 March, 1917, where M. Venizelos expressly admits that "in February, 1915, the King's action might be regarded as constitutional."
[11] His opponents then acted as he did now: to avoid exposing their weakness, they pronounced the dissolution unconstitutional and boycotted the new elections. For a full account of these events see another panegyric: _E. Venizelos: his life--his work_. By Costa Kairophyla, Athens, 1915, pp. 73-82.
[13] _Eleutheros Typos_, 23 Oct./5 Nov., 1916; _Orations_, p. 102.
It was in order to defend himself against this grave charge that M. Venizelos denied in the Chamber and out of it, that he had "invited" the Allies to Salonica. Just as it was in order to avoid the charge of violating International Law that Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons (18 April, 1916) and M. Briand in the Chamber of Deputies (20 June, 1916), affirmed that the Allies had been "invited." From the account of that affair already given, the reader will easily see that, for forensic purposes, both the denial and the affirmation rest on sufficient grounds. The discrepancy might be removed by the substitution of "instigated" for "invited."
[15] J. M. N. Jefferies, in the _Daily Mail_, 23 Nov., 1915. The testimony is all the more notable because it comes from an avowed partisan of M. Venizelos: "the only man in Greece with a policy."
A momentous question--upon the answer to which depended, among other things, the fate of Greece during the War--confronted the Allies as soon as they realized that their Balkan campaign had come to an untimely beginning.
The dispatch of troops to Macedonia originally was based on the agreement that M. Venizelos would get Greece to join. Once M. Venizelos failed to do so, the plan fell to the ground. Again, the object of the expedition was to rescue Servia; and Servia being already conquered, the expedition had no longer any purpose. Such were the views of the British Government, and similar views were held in France by many, including M. Delcassé, who resigned when Bulgaria's "defection" sounded the knell of his Balkan policy. But other French statesmen, with M. Briand at their head, saw in Macedonia a field which promised great glory and gain, if only the noble British nation could be brought to understand that there were interests and sentiments at stake higher than agreements.[1]