Soon after—on July 13—M. Scialoja, in the long speech he delivered before the Senate to defend the attitude of Italy in the Peace Congress, declared that Italy could not be held responsible for the serious condition of things now prevailing in Asia Minor and the East, for she had attempted, but in vain, to secure a more lenient treatment for Turkey. Finally, in spite of all the objections raised against the treaty, and the difficulties that would probably ensue, it was decided at the few sittings of the Boulogne Conference that the Ottoman delegation should be refused any further delay in giving their answer, which averted any possibility of revision of the treaty. The Powers represented in the Conference gave a free hand to Greece in Asia Minor, because they had not enough soldiers there themselves—let us add that none of them, not even England probably, cared to rush into a new Eastern adventure. The Greeks had none but themselves to blame; their landing at Smyrna had started the Nationalist movement, and now they bore the brunt of the fight. This new decision implied the giving up of the policy of conciliation which might have been expected after the three weeks’ armistice concluded on May 30 between the French Staff and the Nationalists, which seemed to imply that the French military authorities intended to evacuate the whole of Cilicia, left by the treaty to Turkey. Owing to the serious consequences and infinite repercussions it might have through the Moslem world, the new decision heralded a period of endless difficulties. Even the Catholic Press did not much appreciate the treaty, and had been badly impressed by recent events. The Vatican, which has always sought to prevent Constantinople from falling into the hands of an Orthodox Power, might well dread the treaty would give the Phanar a paramount influence in the East, if Greece became the ruling Power both at Stambul and Jerusalem. In the first days of the war, when at the time of the Gallipoli expedition Constantinople seemed doomed to fall, the Holy See saw with some anxiety that the Allies intended to assign Constantinople to Russia, and it then asked that at least Saint Sophia, turned into a mosque by the Turks, should be given back to the Catholic creed. This fear may even have been one of the reasons which then induced the Holy See to favour the Central States. M. René Johannet, who was carrying on a campaign in the newspaper _La Croix_[32] for the revision of the treaty, wrote as follows: “But then, if Asia Minor is deprived of Smyrna and thus loses at least half her resources, we ask with anxiety where France, the chief creditor of Turkey, will find adequate financial guarantees? To give Smyrna to Greece is to rob France. If the Turks are stripped of everything, they will give us nothing.