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Greece, after Venizelos's retirement, returned to the narrow creed and foolish pranks of her unregenerate days, sinking deeper into anarchy. More than once in her history she had been saved from her enemies and once from her friends, but from her own self there is no saviour.
He actually proposed, in return for the recognition of the right of the Cretan deputies to sit in the Greek chamber, that Greece should pay on behalf of Crete an annual tribute to the Porte. Happily for Mr. Venizelos's government the Young Turk party who then governed the Ottoman Empire rejected all these proposals.
And yet it is worth recording that a Bulgarian journal announced with the permission of the governmental censor that the American missionaries in Bulgaria and the professors of Robert College of Constantinople had so primed the American delegates at the Conference on the question of Thrace, and generally on the Bulgarian problem, that all M. Venizelos's pains to convince them of the justice of his contention would be lost labor."
At the same time King Constantine, yielding to German importunity and to personal emotions, adopted a series of measures of which the effect would have been to discredit in the eyes of the nation Venizelos's patriotism as a minister and his veracity as an individual.
But before Venizelos's readiness to compromise could be utilized as a practical element of the negotiations, the Bulgarian Cabinet had applied for and received an advance of 150 million francs from the two Central empires on conditions which, in the judgment of the Greek Premier, rendered further dealings with that State nugatory.
Venizelos felt it proper to communicate to the Greek people the history of the negotiations by which the Greek government had bound their country to a partner now felt to be so unreasonable and greedy. Feeling in Greece was running high against Bulgaria. The attacks on Mr. Venizelos's government were numerous and bitter.
It was Mr. Venizelos's conclusion that Greece could not avoid participating in the struggle. Neutrality would have entailed the complete bankruptcy of Hellenism in the Orient. There remained only the alternative of co-operation co-operation with Turkey or co-operation with the Christian states of the Balkans. How near Greece was to an alliance with Turkey the world may never know.
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