of Greek blood, was scheming night and day for the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe.  You have been told how the Russian diplomats astonished the world by inducing Bulgaria to unite with the Greeks and the Serbs, two nations for whom she had no love, in an alliance against the Turks.  Many people felt that this combination would never have been possible without the far-seeing wisdom of of Venizelos.  In fact, some historians give him the credit of first planning the alliance.

His greatest trouble was with his own countrymen.  The Greeks, as you have been told, have always claimed Macedonia as part of their country, whereas, in truth, there are more Bulgarians than Greeks among its inhabitants.  Venizelos, having agreed before the attack on Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this was fair.  In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the combination.  The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of Constantinople, brought on the second war.  Bulgaria was not willing to give up Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, and her troops made a treacherous attack on her former allies (June, 1913) which brought on the declarations of war referred to.

At the close of the second war, when Bulgaria, attacked by five nations at once, had to make peace as best she could, the Greeks took advantage of her by insisting on taking, not only Salonika but also Kavala, which by all rights should have gone to the Bulgars.  Venizelos was willing to be generous to Bulgaria, but the Greeks had had their heads turned by the extraordinary successes of their armies over the Turks and Bulgarians and as a result insisted upon being greedy when it came to a division of the conquered lands.

Let us return now to events in Greece after the world war had begun:  In March, 1915, when the great fleets of France and England made their violent attack on the forts of the Dardanelles, intending to break through and bombard Constantinople, Venizelos was eager to have Greece join the conflict against the Turks.  He felt sure that Turkey, in the end, would lose the war and that her territory in Europe would be divided up among the conquering nations.  He wanted to get for Greece the shores of the Dardanelles and the coast of Asia Minor, where a great majority of the inhabitants were people of Greek blood.  The king of Greece, Constantine, as has been explained, is a brother-in-law of the German Kaiser and has always been friendly to Germany.  He and Venizelos had been good friends while both were working for the upbuilding of Greece, but a little incident happened shortly after the Balkan wars which led to a coolness between them.