But the union was illusive and transient. Between these two men, so strangely flung together by destiny, there existed no link of sympathy; and propinquity only forced the growth of their mutual antagonism. The seeds of discord had already borne fruit upon the common ground of their Balkan exploits. Immediately after the defeat of Turkey a quarrel over the spoils arose among the victors. King Constantine, bearing in mind Bulgaria's long-cherished dream of hegemony, and persuaded that no sacrifices made by Greece and Servia could do more than defer a rupture, urged a Graeco-Servian alliance against their truculent partner. He looked at the matter from a purely Greek standpoint and was anxious to secure the maximum of profit for his country. M. Venizelos, on the other hand, aware that the Western Powers, and particularly England, wanted a permanent Balkan coalition as a barrier against Germany in the East, and anxious to retain those Powers' favour, was prepared to concede {6} much for the sake of averting a rupture. Not until the Bulgars betrayed their intentions by actual aggressions in Macedonia did he withdraw his opposition to the alliance with Servia, which ushered in the Second Balkan War and led to the Peace of Bucharest. He yielded to the pressure of the circumstances brought to bear upon him; but the encounter represented no more than the preliminary crossing of swords between two strong antagonists. {7} CHAPTER I From the moment when the rupture between Austria and Servia, in July, 1914, came to disturb the peace, Greece deliberately adopted an attitude of neutrality, with the proviso that she would go to Servia's assistance in case of a Bulgarian attack upon the latter. Such an attitude was considered to be in accordance with the Graeco-Servian Alliance. For, although the Military Convention accompanying the Treaty contained a vague stipulation for mutual support in case of war between one of the allied States and "a third Power," the Treaty itself had as its sole object mutual defence against Bulgaria.[1]