The conduct of the Greek Government is explained by some retrospective history. M. Venizelos, although convinced of the erroneous policy pursued by King Constantine, hesitated to promote an open rebellion against him, also because he saw much weakness and indecision among the Allies. The King had dissolved the Chamber in June 1915, and whereas in that Parliament, which had been elected by 750,000 voters, the majority was in favour of Venizelos, in the new Chamber, elected by only 200,000 voters in December in an illegal manner under Government pressure and threats, the majority was hostile to him. But independently of these illegalities, Greek public opinion was to a great extent opposed to the policy of Venizelos, who desired the intervention of Greece in favour of the Entente, not only in order to meet Greece’s obligations of honour towards Serbia, but also in the higher interests of Greece herself. Facts have proved that he was right, but in 1915 the policy of Constantine might well have been deemed the more prudent. Serbia was, like Belgium, invaded and devastated; Bulgaria and Turkey allied to Germany and Austria; one half of Albania occupied by the Austrians and the other half by the Italians--the latter undesired neighbours of Greece--and German terrorist propaganda, which in Italy had failed so miserably, in Greece achieved the success of fear. “Should we throw ourselves into this conflict and run the risk of seeing our country invaded and devastated?” the Greeks asked themselves, and most of them came to the conclusion that it was better to remain neutral and to make money through war trade; from the point of view of their immediate interests, they were not altogether wrong. It is not true, however, that the whole population was pro-German. The King and the Queen (sister of the Emperor William) were pro-Germans, and so also were nearly the whole of the General Staff, and the majority of the generals and field officers educated in Germany or at least trained according to German methods. The masses were indifferent to the respective moral merits of the two groups of belligerents, and did not want war, and as Constantine would have found it extremely difficult to make war in open alliance with the Central Empires, he tried to help them by remaining neutral. In the popular mind Venizelos consequently came to be synonymous with intervention and Constantine with peace; the people preferred peace. Further, as the army was still mobilized there was a good deal of discontent, and the people regarded Venizelos as responsible for this state of things. Another reason in favour of neutrality was that if Greece had intervened she would have found herself in alliance with Italy, against whom she was much irritated owing to the question of the Dodecannese and Southern Albania. Finally, she had reason to believe that the Allies had offered a considerable part of Macedonia to Bulgaria in September