Meanwhile the Greeks seemed eager to carry on their campaign in Asia Minor, without even waiting for the definite settlement of the treaty. According to information sent from Greece,[33] the Hellenic army, having reached all its objectives, was waiting for the decisions of the Spa Conference, and if the latter wished her to carry on her operations in Asia Minor, her fourth objective would probably be Eskishehr, the nucleus of the Anatolian railways, which commands all the traffic and revictualling of Asia Minor, and whose fall would perhaps bring the war to an end. The Allied answer to the Turkish request for further delays and to the Turkish remarks was handed to the Ottoman delegation on July 17. In this answer, the main lines or perhaps even the very words of which had been settled at Spa, the Allies only repeated their previous arguments—some of which were ineffective and others unfounded; and both the letter and the spirit of the answer were most unconciliatory. The assertion that “Turkey entered into the war without the shadow of an excuse or provocation,” recurred again in it and was fully enlarged upon. The events that had taken place lately and the character they had assumed since the end of hostilities did not seem to have taught the writers or instigators of the answer anything at all. We do not wish here to mitigate in any way the responsibilities of Turkey or her wrongs to the Allies; yet we should not overlook the most legitimate reasons that drove her to act thus, and we must own she had a right to mistrust the promises made to her. For the policy that the Allies pursued at that time and that they have not wholly repudiated obviously proved that they would give a free hand to Russia to carry out her ambitious schemes on Constantinople and Turkey-in-Asia, as a reward for her energetic share in the war.