The Serbian and two or three other Armies have been worse off in a physical way, but no national force since the outbreak of the war has been in so thoroughly an unenviable position on every other score as was that of the Venizelists at this time.  The Serbs and the Belgians had at least the knowledge that the confidence and the sympathy of the Allies were theirs.  Also, they had chances to fight to their hearts’ content.  The Venizelists had scant measure of sympathy, and still less of confidence; and when their first chance to fight was at last given them, they were allowed to face the foe only after elaborate precautions had been taken against everything, from incompetence and cowardice on their part to open treachery.  That this was the fault neither of themselves nor of their Allies, and had only come about through the perfidy of a King to whom they no longer swore fealty, did not make the shame of it much easier to bear for an army of spirited volunteers who had risked their all for a chance to wipe out the dishonor of their country.

[Sidenote:  Spies sent in the guise of deserters.]

The thing that for a while made it so difficult for the Allies to know what to do with the Venizelist army was the almost ridiculous ease with which, under the peculiar circumstances of its recruitment, it lent itself to spying purposes.  All the Royalists, or their German paymasters, had to do to establish a spy in the Saloniki area was to send over one of their Intelligence Officers in the guise of a deserter from the Greek army to that of Venizelos, and there he was!  To send back information, or even to return in person, across the but partially patrolled “Neutral Zone” was scarcely more difficult, and it was the wholesale way in which this sort of thing went on that made it so hard for the Allies to decide just who the bona fide Venizelists were, and just how far it would be safe to trust a force to which the enemy still had such ready means of access.

[Sidenote:  Tact and common sense used.]

There was nothing else for the Allies to do but “go slow” and “play safe” in dealing with the Venizelist army, and, under the circumstances, there is no doubt that a difficult situation was handled with a good deal of tact and common sense.  Just how trying the situation of the Venizelists was, however, I had a chance to see one day when I happened to be at their Headquarters arranging for my visit to the Greek sector of the Front.  Their troops had acquitted themselves with great credit in some gallantly carried out raiding operations, which must have made it doubly hard for them to put up with a new restrictive order just promulgated by the Supreme Command as a further precaution against the leakage of information to the enemy.

Just as I was about to take my departure, a copy of the new order was delivered to the Staff Officer with whom I had been conferring about my visit to the Front.  He read it through slowly, his swarthy face flushing red with anger as he proceeded.