place for covering purposes or subsequent offensive
action; it was not trained to Balkan fighting; it was not equipped for
mountain warfare; and, coming to the same ports as the Greeks, it would
have delayed the process of concentration. But, be that as it may, the
promise was not kept. What is more, it could not possibly have been
kept. Politicians casting about for arguments wherewith to back their
views may leave their hearers to imagine that Great Powers keep armies
ready to be planked down at any point at a moment's notice; but the
fact is that an army, even if it can be spared from other tasks, is a
cumbrous affair to move about, requiring all sorts of tiresome
things--food, arms, ammunition--the provision of which requires, in its
turn, complicated processes, before the army is potentially effective
for the role assigned to it in the creative mind of an excited orator.
Something of the sort had, indeed, been intimated to the Hellenic
Government by the Entente Powers themselves when they wished both
Greeks and Serbs to avert Bulgarian hostility by territorial
concessions--namely, that, as after the commitment of troops to
Gallipoli, none remained to rescue Servia, there was nothing for it but
to conciliate Bulgaria. Of course, it may be asked, such being the
facts, what value had the promise of 150,000 men? This {64} is a
question which M. Venizelos would have done well to ponder, as King
Constantine and his military advisers pondered it. As it was, when
that afternoon the Allied forces turned up at Salonica, the Greek
people had the mortification to find that they amounted to 20,000. Nor
did they approach the stipulated figure for months after.

The arguments which had prevailed with many some hours before were
suddenly exploded, and to the feeling of confidence which had prompted
the Chamber's vote immediately succeeded a feeling of panic. What!
cried everybody at Athens, are we to stake our liberty--our national
existence--on such a chance: 150,000 Greeks, _plus_ 200,000
half-exhausted Serbs, _plus_ 20,000 Allies, against 200,000
Austro-Germans, _plus_ 300,000 Bulgars, _plus_ 100,000 Turks? Nay, if
the French and the English love gambling, we don't: we cannot afford
the luxury. Venizelos has allowed himself to be duped, said some;
others, Venizelos has tried to dupe us.

Such were the circumstances under which the Allies landed at Salonica.
Their action has been pronounced immoral and perfidious by s