Press by the Anglo-Hellenic League; letter from _The Times_
correspondent, dated Syra, 23 April, 1917, etc., etc.

[10] Sarrail, p. 238.

[11] For details of this apocryphal scheme see a report from Salonica,
dated 16 May, disseminated by the Anglo-Hellenic League; _The Times_, 8
and 30 May; the _Daily Mail_, 9 and 30 May, 1917.

[12] _The Times_, 14 May, 1917, dispatch dated Salonica 11 May.

[13] _The Hesperia_, 11, 18, 25 May, 1917.

[14] _The Times_, 30 May, 1917.

[15] Sarrail, p. 234.

{186}

CHAPTER XVIII

At the end of May, M. Ribot, accompanied by M. Painleve, Minister of
War, came to London and laid before the British Government his
solution. Again our allies found on this side of the Channel "_des
scrupules_"; and again they set themselves to demonstrate that "_des
scrupules, si legitimes soient-ils_," weigh light against interests.
Even when the principle was conceded, there still lingered some
disquietude regarding the practicability of bringing about the King's
dethronement without bloodshed. But the French did not share this
disquietude, and, after three days' hard talking, they converted the
English Ministers to their point of view. It was agreed that the
operation should be carried out without war. The only measures of a
military nature to which the British Government consented were the
establishment in Thessaly of outposts for the control of the crops, and
the occupation of the Isthmus of Corinth, should King Constantine
attempt to move his army out of the Peloponnesus: unless the King
committed acts of hostility, no violence should be used. Having thus
satisfied their conscience, the British Ministers abstained from any
closer scrutiny.[1]

The task was entrusted to M. Jonnart, a Senator of large African
experience, who, armed with the title of High Commissioner of the
Protecting Powers of Greece, set out at once "to re-establish the
constitutional verity"--such was the formula. "His Majesty King
Constantine, having manifestly violated, on his own initiative, the
Constitution of which France, Great Britain, and Russia are the
guarantors, has lost the confidence of the Protecting Powers, and they
consider themselves released from the obligations to him resulting from
their rights of protection." [2]

With the violation of the Constitution by King Constantine we have
already dealt exhaustively. We must here {187} deal as exhaustively
with the three Powers' claim to act as it