With this act Admiral Dartige du Fournet's career came to a sudden end. A few days later the French Government deprived him of his command and placed him on the retired list. After a decent interval, the British Government decorated him with the Grand Cross of the Bath.[4] Whether his conduct entitled him to a decoration, his character should certainly have saved him from disgrace; for of all the men engaged in these transactions, he seems to have been the most respectable. No impartial reader of his book can fail to see that he blundered because he moved in the dark: it was never explained to him what political designs lay beneath the pretended military necessities; and the constant incongruity between the avowed aims of his employers and the steps dictated by his instructions tended to bewilder a mind devoid of all aptitude or appetite for diplomacy. Admiral Dartige gone, the blockade was carried on by his successor, Admiral Gauchet. The Greeks took it as an accustomed evil. "This measure," wrote one of their {165} leading journals, "cannot terrify a population which has faced with serenity and fortitude much greater dangers. The Hellenic people did not hesitate, when the need arose, to come into collision with four Great Powers in defence of its independence and honour. It did so without hate, without perturbation, but calmly, as one performs an imposed and unavoidable duty. It deliberately chose to risk annihilation rather than see its fatherland disarmed and enslaved. It preferred a hopeless struggle to degradation. To-day it is threatened with the spectre of famine. It will face that spectre with serenity and fortitude. The menace is aimed at its stomach: very well, the people will tighten its belt." [5] At the same time, Paris, London, and Petrograd were vigorously discussing the demands which were to be enforced by the blockade; but, owing to the wide divergences of opinion existing between the various Cabinets, decisions could only be reached by degrees and dealt out by doses. Not until 14 December did the Entente Governments deliver themselves of the first-fruit of their travail: Greece was to keep the arms of which she could not be despoiled, but she should remove them, as well as her army, from the northern regions bordering on Macedonia. The Hellenic Government was given twenty-four hours in which to comply; refusal would constitute an act of hostility, and the Allied Ministers would forthwith leave Athens.[6] To show that they were in earnest, the French and British Ministers embarked on two ships moored at the Piraeus, where they awaited the Hellenic Government's reply; and, before the time-limit expired, the French Admiral, by a notice put up at the Piraeus town-hall, warned the inhabitants to close their shops and retire to their homes by 4 p.m. in view of an impending bombardment of Athens.