Then on July 7 M. Venizelos stated at the Spa Conference that the Greek offensive against Mustafa Kemal’s forces which had begun on June 22 and whose chief objective was the capture of the Magnesia-Akhissar-Soma-Balikesri-Panderma line, had ended victoriously on July 2, when the forces coming from the south and those landed at Panderma had effected a junction, and that the scheme of military operations drawn up at Boulogne, which was to be carried out in two weeks, according to General Paraskevopoulos’ forecast, had been brought to a successful end in eleven days. On July 8 Brusa was occupied by the Greek army, and Mudania and Geumlek by British naval forces. Before the Greek advance began every wealthy Turk had fled to the interior with what remained of the 56th Turkish division, which had evacuated Brusa on July 2. Brusa had been occupied by the Greeks without any bloodshed. A good number of railway carriages and a few steam-engines belonging to a French company had been left undamaged by the Turks on the Mudania line. The British naval authorities, under the pretext that some shots had been fired from the railway station, had had it shelled, together with the French manager’s house, and all that was in these two buildings had been looted by British sailors and the Greek population of Mudania. Some misleading articles in the Greek and English Press, which were clearly unreliable, extolled the correct attitude of the Greek troops towards the inhabitants during their advance in Asia Minor. According to the Greek communiqué of July 17, “the Nationalists, now deprived of any prestige, were being disarmed by the Moslem population which earnestly asked to be protected by the Greek posts,” and “the Turks, tired of the vexatious measures and the crushing taxes enforced by the Kemalists, everywhere expressed their confidence and gratitude towards the Greek soldiers, whom they welcomed as friends and protectors.” At the same time political circles in Athens openly declared that the Greek operations in Asia Minor had now come to an end, and that Adrianople and Eastern Thrace would soon be occupied—this occupation being quite urgent as the Turks already evinced signs of resistance, and the Bulgarians were assuming a threatening attitude. Moreover, as might have been foreseen, the Greeks already began to speak of territorial compensations after their operations in Asia Minor and of setting up a new State. General Milne, whose forces had been reinforced by Greek elements, also undertook to clear all the area lying between Constantinople and Ismid from the irregular Turkish troops that had made their way into it.