On 10 October Admiral Dartige de Fournet resumed his activities by launching on the Hellenic Government an Ultimatum. Greece was summoned, within twenty-four hours, to disarm her big ships, to hand over to him all her light ships intact, and to disarm all her coast batteries, except three which were to be occupied by the Allies. In addition, the port of the Piraeus, the railways, and the police were to be placed under Allied control.
The demand for her Fleet, Greece was told, arose from uneasiness about the safety of the Allied armada--a pretext that exposed itself: the Greek Fleet consisted of only five battleships dating from 1891-2, except one whose date was 1908; two cruisers, dating from 1911 and 1914; and a microscopic light flotilla. "To see there a serious danger, it would be puerile," says Admiral Dartige himself; and far from feeling elated at the success of the operation, he tells us that he "suffered at being constrained by events to use force against a neutral and weak nation." But he had to do it: though not a matter to be proud of, it was a precaution not altogether unjustifiable. He could, however, neither justify nor qualify the other measures. They involved, he says, a high-handed encroachment on the internal affairs of the country--an abuse of power pure and simple: "We admitted officially the right of Greece to neutrality, and yet we laid hands upon part of her national life, even upon the secrets of the private life of every Greek. It was the execution of the plan which the admirals assembled at Malta had repelled in March, 1916. Well might the Germanophiles point out that Germany did not act thus in Denmark, in Sweden, in Holland; that a victor would not have imposed { 142} harder terms of armistice." These measures were entirely the work of the French Government: the French Admiral himself disapproved of them as much as did the Ministers of England and Russia.[4]
The Hellenic Government could not be deceived by pretexts which their very authors despised. But neither could it argue with persons accustomed to
"Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery, And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks."
The Hellenic people proved less discreet. What could be the motive of such measures? they asked. Were they intended to prevent or to provoke troubles? The answer lay under their very eyes. From the moment when M. Venizelos left Athens, the Allies did everything they could to assist his partisans in following the Leader to Salonica. Their warships patrolled the coast picking up rebels, and giving them a free passage: even entertaining the more important among them as the personal guests of the Commander-in-Chief on his flagship. But now they took the movement openly under their direction. With an excess of zeal which the British Minister deplored and the French Admiral himself condemned, the French Secret Service at Athens organized convoys of insurgents which defiled through the streets of the capital escorted by French marines under French officers in uniform.[5]