y General Pau,
visited all the Balkan capitals and tried to bring about a mutual
agreement.

At about that time another important military event occurred,
especially affecting the Balkans; the warships of the Entente began
bombarding the forts in the Dardanelles and it seemed that
Constantinople was presently to fall into their hands. Not long after
Venizelos stated, in an interview, that he was privy to this action
and proposed to send 50,000 Greek soldiers to assist the Allies by a
land attack on the Turks.

The Greek General Staff, however, immediately declined to support
Venizelos. Such a campaign, it declared, was impossible unless Greece
first had strong guarantees that Bulgaria would not take the
opportunity to invade Greek Macedonia and fall on the flank of the
Greek army operating against the Turks. Venizelos thereupon approached
Bulgaria and was told that Bulgaria would remain neutral if Greece
would cede most of her Macedonian conquests, which would include
Kavalla, Drama, and Serres, which stretch so provokingly eastward
along the coast and hold Bulgaria back from the sea.

Venizelos attempted to compromise, and here he was caught between two
obstacles. Bulgaria absolutely refused to recede one inch from her
demand; and, on the other hand, the Greek governing clique suddenly
refused to consider any proposal that would mean the cession of any
territory at all to the hated Bulgars. What probably stiffened the
opposition of the other members of the Greek Government to the Turkish
campaign was the growing suspicion on their part that the Allies were
also negotiating with Italy for her support. Now it was obvious that
if Italy was to fight in the Near East, she meant to demand a good
price. And this looked bad for Greece. Greece and Italy had already
nearly come to blows over their clashing interests in southern
Albania, yet even this was a small matter compared to rivalry in the
AEgean and Asia Minor. What deepened these suspicions was the fact
that the Allies refused to indicate definitely just what territory
Greece was to have in return for her support against the Turks. Their
promise of "liberal compensation" was not at all definite enough. Only
Venizelos was satisfied with this promise; he was in favor of trusting
implicitly to Anglo-French gratitude.

To bring this deadlock to a conclusion King Constantine called a Royal
Council, and by this body the matter was thoroughly discussed during
the first fe