its primary objective Athens rather than
Sofia.

For a time French politicians had flattered themselves that their aim
would be attained by an explosion from within. But it was gradually
borne in upon them that the National Movement represented but a small
minority {184} of the nation. That truth first became manifest in the
summer of 1916, when the demobilization set the Reservists loose--the
Reservists upon whom M. Venizelos had miscounted: their verdict was
conclusive; for they were drawn from all districts and all classes of
the community: the tillers of the plains, the shepherds of the hills,
the fishermen who lived by the sea, the traders, the teachers, the
lawyers--they represented, in one word, the whole population of
military age. The disillusion was furthered by the swift suppression
of the seditious attempt on 1 December, and was completed by the
Blockade, which demonstrated the solidarity of the nation in a manner
that utterly upset the calculations and disconcerted the plans of its
authors. Instead of a people ready, after a week or two of privation,
to sue for mercy--to revolt against their sovereign and succumb to his
rival--the French found in every bit of Old Greece--from Mount Pindus
to Cape Malea--a nation nerved to the highest pitch of endurance:
prepared to suffer hunger and disease without a murmur, and when the
hour should come, to die as those die who possess things they value
more than life. This was not what the inventors of the Pacific
Blockade contemplated: this was not sport: this was strife--strife of
strength with strength.

There was nothing left but force--the danger of creating a new front
had been eliminated by the internment of the army, and by the blockade
which had succeeded, if not in breaking the spirit of the people, in
reducing it to such a state of misery that it now offered a safe
subject for attack. M. Ribot, who had replaced M. Briand as Premier
and Minister for Foreign Affairs, adopted this "radical solution." He
proposed to dispatch to Athens a plenipotentiary charged with the
mission of deposing King Constantine, raising M. Venizelos to
dictatorial power, and thus establishing the influence of France
throughout Greece.

There remained some difficulties of a diplomatic character. Russia had
never viewed her ally's uncompromising hostility to King Constantine
with enthusiasm. But the French thought that this attitude was due to
dynastic ties and monarchic sympa