willed it, and we brought
him back" (_Etsi to ethelame, kai ton epherame_)--a distinct expression
of the feeling that the people, by bringing back its sovereign in the
face of foreign opposition, asserted its own sovereignty.

[12] See _The Times_, 20 Dec.; The _Daily Mail_, 21 Dec., 1920.

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AFTERWORD

In default of a Providence whose intervention in human affairs is no
longer recognized, there still is a Nemesis of history whose operations
can scarcely be denied. International morality, strange as the
juxtaposition of the two words may seem, exists no less than the law of
gravity; and a statesman who offends against the one must expect much
the same catastrophe as an engineer who ignores the other. But it is
not often that this law of retribution asserts itself so swiftly as it
has done in the drama for which Greece supplied the stage to French
statesmen during the last few years; for it is not often that a
Government in the pursuit of practical interests overlooks so
completely moral principles, flouts so openly national sentiments, and,
while priding itself on realism, shuts its eyes so consistently to
realities.

The logic of French action is as above reproach, as its motives are
beyond dispute.

Nine decades ago the Duc de Broglie clearly explained that the aim of
France in assisting to liberate Greece from the Turkish yoke was to
have in the Eastern Mediterranean an instrument of her own ambition: "a
State disposed to turn her eyes constantly towards that Power who has
made her free--to watch for us over the ports of the Levant, to guard
with us the mouth of the Black Sea and the keys of the Bosphorus
[Transcriber's note: Bosporus?]";--it followed that the greater the
client, the better for the patron's purpose. After undergoing many
fluctuations and modifications, this idea was revived at the time of
the Balkan wars, when France, together with Germany, supported the
Greek claim to Cavalla, and it was fostered to an unhealthy growth
during the European War. Hence the identification of France with M.
Venizelos, who stood for a policy of expansion at all hazards, and her
hostility to King Constantine who, preferring safety to hazardous
ventures, stood for Greece's right to shape her course without
dictation from Paris any more than from Berlin.

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By the methods which she employed, France succeeded in gaining Greece
and losing the Greeks. Nothing else could have been expected: frien