s could not
always remain in control does not seem to have occurred to them. Nor
that he might not always be content to be a mere puppet in their hands.
Murmurs at his pro-British leanings were indeed heard occasionally.
But on the whole the Cretan possessed in an adequate measure the
faculty of adapting himself to rival points of view, of making each
Power feel that her interests were supreme in his regard, and of using
the ambitions of both to promote his own. As long as he remained in
control, France, with whatever reservations, felt sure of her share of
influence.

The collapse of M. Venizelos and the demand of the Greek people for
King Constantine's return, came to French statesmen as a painful
surprise. That they had for several years been laboriously building on
illusions could not be disguised, and being made to look absurd before
those of their own compatriots who had all along advocated a policy
based on the preservation and exploitation of Turkey, rendered the
situation doubly awkward. Unable to rise above personal pique, they
would fain veto the return of a prince whom they hated and whom they
had wronged beyond hope of conciliation. England, however, free from
petty animosities, and sensible that, under whatever ruler, Greece
would be with her, refused to sanction lawlessness in the midst of
peace; and her view that, if the Greeks wanted Constantine, it was
their business and not ours, prevailed. But, on the other hand, by way
of compromise, France obtained that he should return to an empty
treasury, with foreign credits cut off, and the loans made by the
Allies to the Venizelist Government, to facilitate the waging of a
common war against Turkey, revoked.

It was an impossible position which King Constantine was called upon to
face: a position none of his own making, {234} yet one from which there
was no retreat. The Greek people's imperialism had been roused. The
leaders who once criticized M. Venizelos's Asiatic policy as a
dangerous dream, opposed to economic, strategic, and ethnic realities,
might still hold those views and mutter in secret that Smyrna would
prove the grave of Greece; but they no longer dared express them, out
of deference to public opinion. To the masses M. Venizelos's wild game
of chance seemed vindicated by its results, and while they rejected the
man they clung to his work.

The Greek Government had no choice but to carry on the conflict under
enormous disadvantages.