It was upon those enemies that Royalist wrath satiated itself. On 2 December, veritable battles took place in many parts of Athens; suspect houses, hotels, offices, and shops being assailed and defended with murderous fury. The house of M. Venizelos, as was fitting, formed the centre of the conflict. Twenty Cretan stalwarts had barricaded themselves in it and held out until machine-guns persuaded them to surrender. Within was discovered a small arsenal of rifles, revolvers, hand-grenades, dynamite cartridges, fuses: among them a bundle of weapons still wrapped in the French canvas in which it had arrived. Tell-tale articles of a similar nature were discovered on the premises of other conspirators, who were led off to prison, pursued by crowds hooting, cursing, spitting at them, so that their escorts had the greatest difficulty in saving them from being lynched. Although not comparable to parallel scenes witnessed by many a Western city under analogous circumstances, the event was an exhibition of human savagery sufficiently ugly in itself: it did not require the legends of massacre and torture with which it was embellished by pious journalists anxious to excite in the Allied publics sympathy for persons whom the Allies' own advance had instigated to violence and their precipitate retreat had exposed to a not unmerited vengeance.[19] [1] Du Fournet, pp. 188-9. [2] Du Fournet, pp. 151, 179-80, 182-3, 190-1. [3] Du Fournet, pp. 195-7. [4] Zalocostas to the Entente Legations, Athens, 7/20 Nov, 1916. [5] Guillemin, Elliot, Bosdani, Demidoff, Athens, 8/21 Nov., 1916. [6] Mirbach, Szilassy, Passaroff, Ghalib Kemaly, Athens, 8/21 Nov., 1916. [7] Lambros to Dartige du Fournet, Athens, 9/22 Nov., 1916. Cp. Du Fournet, pp. 192-4. [8] Du Fournet, p. 187. [9] Du Fournet, pp. 197-9. [10] Du Fournet, pp. 201-4. [11] Du Fournet, pp. 202-3. [12] Du Fournet, pp. 208-9. [13] Du Fournet, p. 205. [14] Romanos, Paris, 15/28, 16/29 Nov.; Gennadius, London, 16/29 Nov.; Panas, Petrograd, 17/30 Nov., 1916. [15] Zalocostas to Ministers of the United States, etc., Athens, 14/27 Nov. [16] Lambros to Dartige du Fournet, Athens, 17/30 Nov., 1916. [17] Du Fournet, p. 204. [18] Du Fournet, pp. 210-51; Paxton Hibben, pp. 440-80; _Resume du Rapport Official sur les Evenements du 18 novembre/1 decembre_, 1916. [19] According to the Hellenic Government, the losses of the Royalists in this civil strife amounted to 13 soldiers killed and 24 wounded, 6 civilians killed and 6 wounded, besides 5 killed (including 3 women) and 6 wounded (including 4 women) by the insurgents accidentally; the Venizelist losses were limited to 3 killed and 2 wounded.--Zalocostas to Greek Legations abroad, Athens, 27 Nov./10 Dec. 1916. {162} CHAPTER XV