In spite of this, and with the excuse of the King's illness, Veni zelos was not recalled to power until after the meeting of the Chamber in Aug. and by that time the situation had become seriously modified. The mobilization of Bulgaria on Sept. 29, 1915 brought into operation in equity if not in law, the Greco Serbian Treaty of 1913 and bound Greece to help Serbia. A few days later, Venizelos extorted from the King reluctant consent to a Greek mobilization and to a Greek request that the Allies should furnish an army of 15o,000 men to take the place of the contin gent Serbia should have supplied under the Treaty.
Immediately after the original Allied landing at Salonika on Oct. i Venizelos secured a vote of confidence during an historic and stormy meeting of the Chamber, when he declared that if in aiding Serbia Greece was brought into contact with Germany she would act as her honour demanded. In spite of a formal pro test against the Allied passage through Hellenic territory, this speech led to the second dismissal of Venizelos and to the open and final rupture between that statesman and the King, who, it would seem, always intended to withdraw his consent to an Hellenic entry into the War. Zaimis, the new Prime Minister, maintained his position for a month as a result of the patriotism of Venizelos, his friend from Cretan times, but, with the accession of Skouloudis to power, on Nov. 6 the Chamber was dissolved and a new elec tion ordered for Dec. 19. Venizelos' party abstained from the polls in protest, M. Gounaris securing an overwhelming majority for his policy of neutrality.
Venizelos spent that winter and spring (1915-16) in endeavour ing to compel the King to change his point of view. But the sur render of Eastern Macedonia to the Bulgarians in the summer of 1916 and the delay in the success of the Allied Campaign at Salonika had strengthened the position of Constantine, and on Sept. 25, 1916, Venizelos, together with his principal supporters, sailed for Crete, whence he sent out proclamations calling upon all true patriots to flock to the standard of the Entente. Pro ceeding thence to Salonika, early in Oct. he founded a Provisional Government, which was recognized about two months later by Great Britain and France, though not by Italy. A call for volun teers was answered generously by the inhabitants of those parts of Greece not in Constantinist hands, but the Royalist Government countered this and other developments by causing a solemn ana thema to be pronounced against Venizelos by the Archbishop of Athens.
After the dethronement and enforced departure of King Con stantine, Venizelos returned to Athens on June 26, 1917, and took over the Government of the whole country. The June 15 Chamber was convoked, general mobilization was ordered, and Greece for mally opened up hostilities upon the Allied side. But the removal of the King, the successes of the Central Powers, particularly in the Balkans, and an increased Greek desire for neutrality, backed up by German propaganda, were responsible for a great diminution of the Prime Minister's popularity, and the officers and function aries retired on account of their political views formed a dangerous element in an opposition which became ever more active.
Between the Armistice of Nov. 1918 and his fall two years later, Venizelos and his colleagues, who represented Greece at the Peace Conference, were almost continuously absent in Paris and London and, during this period, they seemed to be reaping for Greece har vests beyond her dreams. About the end of April 1919 the Greeks were permitted, or encouraged, to land at Smyrna ; a year later the Conference of San Remo promised large areas to Greece, and the Treaty of Sevres (Aug. Io, 192o) coupled with the earlier Treaty of Neuilly (Nov. 27, 1919) gave Greece extraordinary advantages. During this period, too, the Hellenic representative won such admiration and played so brilliant a part that he became a leading figure in the counsels of the Allies. Nevertheless, at a moment when his triumph appeared to be complete, an attempt was made upon his life at a Paris station (Aug. 192o), and three months later (Nov. 14) he received a crushing defeat at the hands of the Greek electorate.
Many factors were present in this : the unpopularity of the war in Asia Minor and the continued mobilization, the maintenance of martial law, the bad administration of Venizelos' subordinates and injustices practised by the Corps de la Sarete. Further, there was Venizelos' own continued absence; recollection of the foreign support on which he had called so largely, and Con stantine's own increasing popularity. After the unexpected death of the young king Alexander, immediately before the election, the dynastic question, open mention of which had previously been prohibited, was brought into the forefront of the political struggle and, in what then became the direct issue between Constantine and Venizelos, the King won an overwhelming victory.