"This astonishing phrase was allowed to reach the King of Greece, and having been applied to his own brother on a mission which was anything but unauthorised, naturally gave the greatest possible offence.
"As a matter of fact, the Treaty was much more comprehensive than is generally supposed. Under its provisions the _casus foederis_ arises not merely in the event of a Bulgarian attack on Serbia, but also of an attack from any other quarter also; and therefore Greece, in not coming to Serbia's aid against Austria-Hungary in 1914, had already broken her pledge. Hence Sir Edward Grey, who must have been well aware of this fact, was surely running a very grave risk when he relied upon Greek constancy in a situation which his own diplomatic failures had rendered infinitely less favourable. On September 23rd Bulgaria mobilised against Serbia; yet on September 27th Sir Edward Grey practically vetoed Serbia's proposal to take advantage of her own military preparedness and to attack Bulgaria before she could be ready. Next day (September 28th) in the House of Commons he uttered his famous pledge that, in the event of Bulgarian aggression, 'We are prepared to give to our friends in the Balkans all the support in our power, in the manner that would be most welcome to them, in concert with our Allies without reserve and without qualification.' At the moment everyone in England, and above all in Serbia, took this to mean that we were going to send Serbia the military help for which she was clamouring; but on November 3rd Sir Edward Grey explained to an astonished world that he merely meant to convey that after Bulgaria had joined Germany 'there would be no more talk of concessions from Greece or Serbia.' The _naïveté_ which could prompt such an explanation is only equalled by the confusion of mind which could read this interpretation into a phrase so explicit and unequivocal. Greece's failure in her Treaty obligations towards Serbia alone saved Britain from the charge of failure to fulfil her pledge to Greece. Nothing can exonerate Greece's desertion of her ally, but in view of our tergiversation and irresolution, some allowance must be made for King Constantine's attitude towards the Entente. Sir Edward Grey, throwing to the winds all his public pledges to Serbia, definitely urged upon the French Generalissimo complete withdrawal from Salonica and the abandonment of the Serbs to their fate. General Joffre replied with the historic phrase: 'You are deserting us on the field of battle and we shall have to tell the world.' General Joffre carried his point, and in the biting phrase of Sir Edward Carson, 'the Government decided that what was too late three weeks before was in time three weeks after.' But those three weeks, which might have transformed the fortune of the campaign, had been irretrievably lost through Sir Edward Grey's lack of a Balkan policy. Even then our hesitation continued. In Paris the question is being asked on all sides why Sir Edward Grey, after such repeated fiascoes, did not follow his late colleague, M. Delcasse, into retirement, and what everyone is saying in Paris, from the Quai d'Orsay to the Academie Française, surely need no longer be concealed from London. The German Chancellor was unwise enough to hint this in his speech, when he ascribed Germany's Balkan success in large measure to our mistakes. The fall of Sir Edward Grey, as the result of a demand for a more energetic conduct of the war and for still closer co-operation with our Allies, and the substitution of a man of energy and first-rate ability, would be far the most serious and disconcerting blow which the Germans had yet received."