I had just come up from Athens, where I had found the Allied diplomats still smarting under the memories of their ignominious experiences following Constantine’s spectacular coup of the previous December, and it was by no means the least of these who had told me point-blank that he could not conceive how it would be possible that Saloniki should be returned to Greece after the war.  Of course it was the Royalist Government that my distinguished friend had had in mind when he spoke, but there was not much to indicate at this time that the Greece of Constantine and his minions was not also going to be the Greece of after the war.

It was with this state of things in mind, and recalling his well known ambitions to found a Greater Greece—­by extending Epirus north along the Adriatic, and bringing the millions of Greeks of Asia Minor at least under the protection of the Government at Athens—­that I mustered up my courage and asked M. Venizelos offhand if he felt confident of being able even to maintain the integrity of his country as it existed before the war.

[Sidenote:  What Greece must do for the Allies.]

“Not unless those of us Greeks who have remained faithful to the cause of humanity and our honor are ultimately able to lend the Allies material help in a measure sufficient to counterbalance the harm the action of the Royalists has caused them,” was the prompt reply; “and by material help I mean military aid.  We must fight, and fight, and keep on fighting, for it is only with blood—­with Greek blood—­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.]