the law of his country and ruling as a czar
instead of a monarch with very little power, as the Greek constitution
had made him.

Things went from bad to worse. In the meantime the French and English
had landed at Salonika in order to rush to the aid of the hard-pressed
Serbs. You have already been told how Venizelos arranged this. Their
aid, however, had come too late. Before they could reach the gallant
little Serbian army it had been crushed between the Austrians and
Germans on one side and the Bulgarians on the other, and its survivors
had fled across the mountains to the coast of Albania. The French and
English detachments were not strong enough to stand against the
victorious armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria. They began to
retreat through southern Serbia. King Constantine notified the Allied
governments that if these troops retreated upon Greek soil he would
send his army to surround them and hold them as prisoners for the rest
of the war. France and England replied by notifying him that if he did
this they would blockade the ports of Greece and prevent any ships
from entering her harbors. This act on the part of France and England,
while it seemed necessary, nevertheless angered the proud Greeks and
strengthened the pro-German party in Athens. The king took advantage
of this feeling to appoint a number of pro-Germans to important
positions in the government. Constantine allowed German submarines to
use certain ports in Greece as bases of supply from which they got
their oil and provisions. The Greek army was still mobilized, and the
small force of French and English, which had retreated to Salonika,
were afraid that at any moment they might receive a stab in the back
by order of the Greek king.

In May, 1916, the Germans and Bulgarians crossed the Greek frontier
and demanded the surrender of several Greek forts. When the commander
of one of them proposed to fight, the German general told him to call
up his government at Athens over the long distance telephone. He did
so and was ordered to give up the fort peaceably to the invaders. We
have already seen what the answer of the Belgians had been on a like
occasion. To be sure, the French and English were already occupying
Greek soil, but they had come there under permission of the prime
minister of Greece to do a thing which Greece herself had solemnly
promised that she would do, namely, to defend Serbia from the Bulgars.

This surrender of Greek territor