One reason why the Entente had dissuaded the Serbs from attacking
Bulgaria was to prevent the _casus foederis_ with Greece being
jeopardized. This treaty between Greece and Serbia would become
operative by a Bulgarian aggression--and the fox-faced M. Gounaris
when he was Prime Minister of Greece in August 1915 assured the
Allied Powers that Greece would never tolerate a Bulgarian attack upon
Serbia. It was largely on the strength of this assurance that, when, a
little later, the attitude of Bulgaria grew menacing and the Serbian
General Staff suggested marching upon Sofia and nipping the Bulgarian
mobilization in the bud, the then Russian Foreign Minister, M.
Sazonov, supported in this by Sir Edward Grey, warned Serbia not to
take the initiative. Serbia yielded to the demands of her great
Allies, only to see herself abandoned by the Greeks. King Constantine
and probably the greater part of his people were anxious to remain
outside the war. And to free himself from the embarrassing Treaty with
Serbia he declared that it would only have applied if Serbia had been
attacked by the Bulgars. [We may say that it was doubtful whether the
_casus foederis_ arose when Serbia was attacked by Austria; but it
clearly and indubitably did arise when she was attacked by Bulgaria.
When Venizelos spoke of the obligations of Greece towards Serbia, a
certain Mr. Paxton Hibben, an American admirer of Constantine, said in
his book, _Constantine I. and the Greek People_ (New York, 1920), that
Venizelos was making an appeal to the sentimentality of his
countrymen!] So Constantine proclaimed that Greece was neutral--"Our
gallant Serbian allies," he declared some five years later, when he
returned from exile, "Our gallant Serbian allies"; and the Athenian
mob--
August Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might, thy grand in soul?
Gone.[92] ...
--the Athenian mob cheered itself hoarse. One word from Constantine
and they would have wrecked the Serbian Legation and the French and
the British for the terrible bad taste of not exposing their flags.
But Constantine, clutching his German Field-Marshal's baton (or
perhaps it was the native baton given to the royal leader who in the
Balkan War wiped out some of the ignominy with which the previous
Turkish War had covered him), at any rate Constantine restrained
himself. Why the devil couldn't these Serbs understand that they were
his gallant allies! Let them wipe out the unhappy past. Had they
never heard of that magnificent French actress who, being asked about
the paternity of her son, replied that she really did not know?
"Alas!" she said, "I am so shortsighted." Well, it was true that in
1915 he had been neutral and unable to tolerate the presence of
Serbian soldiers on his territory; if they found themselves obliged to
leave their country and retreated by way of Greece he gave orders to
have them disarmed. This was the attitude imposed upon a neutral. And
thousands and thousands of them had unfortunately died in consequence
while passing over the Albanian mountains. "Our alliance with Serbia,"
quoth the King while opening the Chamber in 1921--"our alliance with
Serbia now drawn closer as the result of so many sacrifices and heroic
struggles...." The son of the eagle, as his people call him, stopped a
moment, but could hear no laughter. As for his policy in 1915, he had
been perhaps a neutral lacking in benevolence. If he and his Ministers
did not actually refuse to receive the non-combatant young Serbs they
very certainly did not go out of their way to offer any shelter to
these erstwhile little allies in distress, when the alternative to
Greece was wild Albania. Twenty thousand Serbian children lost their
lives upon those bleak and trackless mountains.[93] It was most
unfortunate. And in the Cathedral of Athens, in the gorgeous presence
of the clergy and the more responsible sections of the population, the
King chuckled to himself as he was acclaimed with cries of "Christos
aneste!" (Christ is risen!). After all, those 20,000 Serbian boys
would not have lived for ever. These excellent Athenians were resolved
that bygones should be bygones. It was perfectly true that British
soldiers and French, entrapped and shot down by his command, were
buried away yonder in Piraeus cemetery. He felt like having a good
laugh, but if you are a King you must be dignified....