e War, without regard to
ways and means, might prove tantamount to burning one's blanket in order
to get rid of the fleas: while saving Greece from the coercion of the
French and the British, it might expose her to subjugation by the Germans
and the Bulgars: the plight of Rumania afforded a fresh warning. They
therefore adopted the only course open to sane men.

On 19 September Greece formally offered to the Entente Powers "to come in
as soon as by their help she had accomplished the repair of her military
forces, within a period fixed by common accord." But, "as her armed
intervention could not, obviously, be in the interest of anyone
concerned, unless it took place with chances of success, the Royal
Government thinks that Greece should not be held to her engagement, if at
the time fixed the Balkan theatre of war presented, in the opinion of the
Allies' General Staffs themselves, such a disequilibrium of forces as the
military weight of Greece would be insufficient to redress." [6]

Russia received these advances with cordiality, her Premier declaring to
the Greek Minister at Petrograd that she would be happy to have Greece
for an ally, and that the Tsar had full confidence in the sentiments of
King Constantine. He added that he would immediately communicate with
Paris and London.[7] There was the rub. French and British statesmen
affected to regard the offer as a ruse for gaining time: they could not
trust a Cabinet three members of which they considered to be ill-disposed
towards the Entente: a "national policy" {127} should be carried out by a
"national Cabinet"--that is, by M. Venizelos.[8]

While frustrating his country's efforts to find a way out of the pass
into which he had intrigued it, the Cretan and his partisans did not
neglect other forms of activity. We have seen that rebellion had already
broken out at Salonica. In Athens itself the walls were pasted with
Venizelist newspapers in the form of placards displaying headlines such
as these: "A LAST APPEAL TO THE KING!" "DRAW THE SWORD, O KING, OR
ABDICATE!" It was no secret that arms and ammunition were stored in
private houses, that the French Intelligence Service had a depot of
explosives in a ship moored at the Piraeus, and a magazine of rifles and
grenades in its headquarters at the French School of Athens.[9] The
Royalist journals threatened the Venizelists with condign punishment for
their treasonable designs. The Venizelist journals, far fr