The only discordant note was struck by the Venizelist Press, which made no attempt to conceal its disappointment. And suddenly, just as the withdrawal of the royal troops from the north was about to begin, the troops of the Provisional Government attacked Katerini on the southern frontier of Macedonia. M. Venizelos had dropped the pose that his movement was directed solely against the Bulgars: he marched on Old Greece. Did he by this move try to force the hand of the Allies, as formerly by bringing them to Salonica he had tried to force the hand of the King? And was he encouraged in this move by those who were secretly opposed to an accommodation with the King? Admiral Dartige did not know. What he did know was that this _coup de force_ was designed to compromise the arrangement with Athens; and as he could neither play nor appear to play a double game, he immediately telegraphed to Salonica demanding the retreat of the Venizelists. At the same time the King informed the French and British Ministers that he could not withdraw his troops from Thessaly until all danger was removed, and asked them to do everything that depended on them to remedy this state of things. Whereupon General Roques, the French Minister of War then at Salonica, disavowed the Venizelist action, and to prevent similar exploits in future decided to create a neutral zone under French occupation and administration. The Athens Government was not pleased to see part of its territory passing into French hands; but, after some demur, bowed to the decision.[21]
Not so the Salonica Government. M. Venizelos keenly resented this barrier to his impetuosity. The neutral zone, he complained, by blocking off his access to Thessaly, forbade all extension of his movement and prevented him from "carrying with him three-fifths of Greece and levying important contingents such as would have made him the absolute master of the country." [22] But the Allies were no longer to be deluded. They had discovered that "the mass of the people of continental Greece was hostile to the Chief of the Liberals." An extension of his movement could only be effected by overwhelming force, and as M. Venizelos had neither the men nor the arms required for the enterprise, the Allies would have to provide both. In other words, civil war in the rear of their armies would not only jeopardise their security but entangle them in a campaign for the conquest of Greece: a thing which they could not afford to do even to oblige M. Venizelos. They preferred a subtler and safer, if slower, way to the success of their common cause.