Venizelos was warmly welcomed at a meeting held by the
Anglo-Hellenic League at the Mansion House on Friday week. Mr. Balfour and Lord Curzon, on behalf of the Government, attended to pay their tribute to the great Greek-atatesman. M. Venizelos, who spoke in English, said that he had. proposed. to send a Greek army to support the Allies at the outset of the Gardanellea ex- pedition. That army could have occupied the unfortified Gallipoli Peninsula in a week, and the moral effect on Constantinople would have been so great as to compel Turkey, in all probability, to make a separate peace. Russia could then have been supplied- with guns and rifles, and would have been spared the disastrous retreat of 1915. Bulgaria would not have dared to move, and "peace might have been secured in the course of 1916." Such were the possibilities of the proposal which King Constantine rejected, in the interests of his German brother-in-law. The King's refusal at a later stage to fulfil his treaty obligations and go to the help of Serbia was a second fatal stroke. IL Venizelos asked that- the Greek people should not be held responsible for the treason of their ex-King. They trusted in "the inflexible will and the unbending character of the British people " to secure the ultimate victory of the Allies.
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