The Venizelists had been having a bad time of it from the first, but the
blackest hours of all were those toward the end of last April, when
Constantine was still strong in Athens, and before the Saloniki Allies
had found it practicable or expedient to welcome them to a full
brotherhood of arms. It was during this "dark before the dawn" period
that I had my first meeting with M. Venizelos, a conventional half
hour's interview in the suburban villa, midway along the curve of
Saloniki Bay where the Provisional Government had established its
headquarters.

[Sidenote: The attitude of Constantine.]

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