King Constantine, while on a visit to Berlin, stood up at a banquet and told the Kaiser and the German generals that the fine work of the Greek soldiers in the two wars just fought had been due to help which he had received from German military men.  This statement angered the French very much, for you will remember that it was French generals who had trained the Greek army officers.  Venizelos, very shortly after this, made a trip to Paris and there publicly stated that all credit for the fine condition of the Greek army was due to the Frenchmen who had trained its officers before the war of 1912.  This was a direct “slap in the face” of the king but it was the truth and everyone in Greece knew it.  From this time on it was evident to everybody that Venizelos was friendly to the French and English, while the King was pro-German.

Accordingly, in March, 1915, when Venizelos urged the Greek government to join the war on Turkey, the king refused to give the order.  Venizelos, who was prime minister, straightway resigned, broke up the parliament, and ordered a general election.  This put the case squarely up to the people of Greece and they answered by electing to the Greek parliament one hundred eighty men friendly to Venizelos and the Triple Entente as against one hundred forty who were opposed to entering the war.

Venizelos, once more prime minister as a result of this election, ordered the Greek army to be mobilized.  At this time the fear was that Bulgaria, in revenge for 1913, would join the war on the side of the Germans and Turks and attack Greece in the rear.  In order to keep peace with Bulgaria Venizelos was willing to give to her the port of Kavala, which Greece had cheated her out of at the close of the second Balkan war.  He felt that his country would gain so much by annexing Greek territory now under the rule of the Turks that she could afford to give up this seaport, whose population was largely Bulgarian.  Constantine opposed this, however, and the majority of the Greeks, not being as far-sighted as their prime minister, backed the king.  When the attack by the Central Powers on Serbia took place, as has been told, Venizelos a second time tried to get the Greek government to join the war on the side of France and England.  He said plainly to the king that the treaty between Greece and Serbia was not a “scrap of paper” as the German Chancellor had called the treaty with Belgium, but a solemn promise entered into by both sides with a full understanding of what it meant.  The king, on the other hand, insisted that the treaty had to do with Bulgaria alone and that it was not intended to drag Greece into a general European war.  As a result, he dismissed Venizelos a second time, in spite of the fact that twice, by their votes, the Greeks had shown that they approved of his policy.

Now Greece is a limited monarchy.  By the terms of the constitution the king must obey the will of the people as shown by the votes of a majority of the members of parliament.  In spite of the vote of parliament the king refused to stand by the Serbian treaty.  From this time on he was violating the law of his country and ruling as a czar instead of a monarch with very little power, as the Greek constitution had made him.