At the Peace Conference no representative of a smaller state had a stronger case than Venizelos. In taking territories away from Germany and Austria and Hungary the Conference went back to the Middle Ages to allow historic claims. Ports were taken from the vanquished on ethnological grounds, even when the hinterland was of another character; and where the inhabitants were not of the nationality of the claimant state, ports were taken away on economic grounds, the self-determination argument being justified by the hinterland! In the changes in Europe there could not be adduced the additional argument of Venizelos, that liberation from the vanquished meant security of life and property and a greater degree of prosperity. And yet the Entente Powers, at one in their determination to despoil Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians, hesitated a little about the Bulgarians and a long time about the Turks. In the atmosphere of the Peace Conference none dared say a word in favor of mitigating the harshness and injustice of the terms imposed upon Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians. But a strong current in favor of the Turks set in; and, had there not been the necessity of placating the Serbians to reconcile them to the Italian demands, the Bulgarians would have got off more easily than they did. Venizelos was an outstanding figure among the statesmen gathered at Paris. He had the ear of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Wilson. The American President eagerly enlisted his support in drafting and forcing the adoption of the League of Nations Covenant. Orlando, worried to the breaking-point by the Adriatic question, intimated his willingness to meet the Greeks half-way or more in the questions of Epirus and the Dodecanese. Resisting the evident intention to put him off until after Germany and Austria were dealt with, Venizelos succeeded in getting before the Council of Ten and later the Big Four the aspirations of Hellenism. What little measure of success the Greek premier attained, however, was due to his personal influence and not to affection for Greece, nor to gratitude or confidence. French intrigues against Greece were second only to those of the Italians, who had a natural reason for opposing Greater Greece with as much energy as Greater Serbia. The latter was a more real danger for Italy, as it would bring the Slavs to the Adriatic; but the former was viewed with alarm as a commercial and naval rival in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite the Saloniki revolution and the tardy entrance of Greece into the war, the French were not ready to forgive the so-called massacre of December 1, 1916, when their marines, entering Athens, were greeted by a rain of bullets. Powerful influences at work in British as well as French diplomatic circles, were felt at the Conference, to prevent the despoiling of Turkey at the expense of Greece, for fear of offending Mohammedan sentiment in India and North Africa.