The party of intervention, however, was still active and full of ardour. Its chief, Take Jonescu, is not merely Roumania's only statesman, but has established a claim to rank as one of the prominent public men of the present generation. Unluckily he has long been out of office, and his party is condemned to the Cassandra role of uttering true prophecies which find no credence among those who wield the power of putting them to good account. M. Bratiano's appropriate attitude may be described as statuesque. Occasionally his Press organs commented upon the manifestations of the interventionists in words barbed with bitter sarcasm and utilitarian maxims. "Roumania's blood and money," the _Independence Roumaine_ explained, "must be spent only in the furtherance of Roumania's interest." Her cause must be dissociated from that of the belligerents. To this Take Jonescu replied[101] that it is precisely for the good of Roumania that her interest should not be separated from that of the Entente Powers in the conflict. For on the issue of this conflict depends the state-system of Europe and also the future of Roumania. If the Germans are triumphant, he added, force and falsehood will triumph with them, the State will acquire omnipotence, the individual sink into serfdom. Neutrality during a war with such issues is, therefore, the height of political unwisdom. [101] _La Roumanie_, July 26, 1915. Greece, after Venizelos's retirement, returned to the narrow creed and foolish pranks of her unregenerate days, sinking deeper into anarchy. More than once in her history she had been saved from her enemies and once from her friends, but from her own self there is no saviour. As soon as the Kaiser's paladin, King Constantine, had dismissed his pilot and taken supreme command of the Ship of State, the portals of the realm were thrown open to German machinations. The weaver in chief of these was Wilhelm's confidential agent, Baron Schenk. According to his own published biography, this gentleman had in youth been the friend of the two sisters of Princess Battenberg, the Grand Duchess Serge and of the Russian Tsaritza. He had served in the German army, become the representative of the firm of Krupps, and been received at the German court. While Venizelos was in office, Baron Schenk flourished in the shade, but as soon as the Germanophile Gounaris took over the reins of power, the secret agent went boldly forward into the limelight and became the public chief of a party, received openly his helpmates and partisans, distributed roles and money and set frankly to work to "smash Venizelos."