Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Balkan war, 1912 (continued)
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1913] M. VENIZELOS COMES TO SOFIA 139
went to Belgrade and held long conferences with
M. Pachitch, with Hartwig and with the members of
the Royal Family. From Belgrade the Greek President
of the Council, with the tact and courtesy for which he
is noted, announced his visit to Sofia, undertaken in
order to confer with Bulgarian statesmen. He was
only to stay exactly one day, from the morning to the
evening. I greatly wished to make the acquaintance of
M. Venizelos and to converse with him, but I foresaw
that the Bulgarians, under pretext of the too short
duration of the visit, would try to conjure away the
Greek President of the Council from the foreign
representatives, more especially from the Russian one.
Consequently I wrote a note beforehand to my worthy
Greek colleague, M. Panas, to beg him to arrange an
interview for me with Venizelos. We arranged that
after the luncheon that the Bulgarian Ministers were
going to give in honour of their guest at the club in
Sofia, Panas should escort Venizelos to the
reading-room of the club, where he would find me installed.
This was done. At the hour agreed on, the Greek
Minister led M. Venizelos up to me, introduced us to
each other, and then left us alone. We began our
conversation without losing any time.
I have rarely seen a man who, at the first meeting,
has produced such a favourable impression on me as
M. Venizelos did. An astonishing simplicity, an
absolutely frank and open way of expressing his opinions
and convictions—which one feels to be
deep—constituted and still constitute the strength and the prestige
of this true statesman. I felt at once that I was in the
presence, first, of a perfect gentleman and then of a
scrupulously honest politician. No phraseology, no
desire to deceive his questioner were apparent in the
clear, precise and modest expression of his thoughts.
The very fact that he, promptly and without any
preamble, broached the principal question—that of
Greco-Bulgarian demarcation—predisposed me enormously in
his favour.
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