-that the stain
upon Greek honor can be washed away. It is only our army that can save
us, and that is why we have been so impatient of the delay there has
been in equipping it and getting it to the front. The one division we
have in the trenches now, and the two others that are ready to go, are
not enough, but they are about all we have been able to raise so far.
Thessaly is for us (as you may have seen in traveling across it), and
would give us two more divisions at least; but our Allies have not yet
seen fit to allow us to go there after them."

[Sidenote: Venizelos determines to aid the Allies.]

M. Venizelos spoke of a number of other things before I left him
(notably of the extent to which the Russian revolution and the entry of
America had helped him in his fight to save Greece), but it was plain
that the problem uppermost in his mind was that of wiping out the score
of the Allies against his country by giving them a substantial measure
of assistance in the field.

"Do not fail to visit our force on the ---- sector before you leave the
Balkans," was his parting injunction. "There may be a chance of seeing
it in action before very long, and if you do, you will need no further
assurance of the way in which we shall make our honor white before our
Allies and all the world."

[Sidenote: Unenviable position of the Venizelists.]

[Sidenote: Elaborate precautions against treachery.]

The Serbian and two or three other Armies have been worse off in a
physical way, but no national force since the outbreak of the war has
been in so thoroughly an unenviable position on every other score as was
that of the Venizelists at this time. The Serbs and the Belgians had at
least the knowledge that the confidence and the sympathy of the Allies
were theirs. Also, they had chances to fight to their hearts' content.
The Venizelists had scant measure of sympathy, and still less of
confidence; and when their first chance to fight was at last given them,
they were allowed to face the foe only after elaborate precautions had
been taken against everything, from incompetence and cowardice on their
part to open treachery. That this was the fault neither of themselves
nor of their Allies, and had only come about through the perfidy of a
King to whom they no longer swore fealty, did not make the shame of it
much easier to bear for an army of spirited volunteers who had risked
their all for a chance to wipe out the dishonor of their country