novelSusiti Chapter 294 The Stalemate in Negotiations
Chapter 294 The Stalemate in Negotiations
Chapter 294 The Stalemate in Negotiations
The air in the meeting room of Lancaster House was even heavier than the pervasive fog outside the windows.
The traces of yesterday's diplomatic storm were everywhere. The seat for the Austro-Hungarian representative stood empty, like a scar no one dared to touch. Count Carnoki's deputy sat there, head bowed, his pen moving incessantly across his notebook as if trying to drill a hole through the table.
The Marquess of Salisbury tapped the table with his ivory mallet.
"Thump."
His voice was colder and harder than ever before. His face was expressionless, revealing no emotion whatsoever. He wasted no time on any insincere pleasantries, taking a document directly from his assistant and pushing it to the center of the table.
"Gentlemen," he began, his voice flat as if reading a weather report, "after all-night discussions among Britain, France, and Russia, we have jointly drafted a final solution for the long-term peace of the Eastern Mediterranean."
He paused, his gaze sweeping across the entire room.
"The Kingdom of Greece will receive Crete, but sovereignty must be placed under the supervision of an international commission, with a high degree of autonomy."
"In southern Epirus, the Kingdom of Greece must withdraw more than half of its troops from the region within three months. Its defenses will be taken over by 'peace observers' jointly dispatched by the great powers."
This is tantamount to taking away more than half of the victory that the Greek soldiers won with their blood.
The conference room was deathly silent.
"I object!"
Venizelos abruptly stood up, the chair scraping against the floor with a screeching sound.
He argued from the fairness of international law to the historical inevitability of Balkan national self-determination. His voice was loud and clear, his logic rigorous, and every word was full of passion.
But this time, he was facing a cold, hard wall.
The French representative spread his hands, repeating the cliché of "maintaining the balance of power." The Russian ambassador, in his thick accent, mumbled "for our common, long-term interests."
They were like three pre-programmed machines, giving only formulaic responses to any of Venizelos's arguments.
Constantine remained silent. He simply sat quietly, observing the British Prime Minister, who held the reins of power, in the main seat.
When Venizelos spoke emotionally about the “unbreakable friendship forged in blood” between Greece and Serbia, Constantine noticed a subtle change in the Marquess of Salisbury’s usually placid face.
The Prime Minister's lips were pressed into a straight line, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards very slightly.
That wasn't a smile. It was more like a sarcastic, all-knowing expression.
Constantine understood.
The opposing side had already factored in the "Balkan Unity" card in their hand. They didn't deny its existence; in fact, they were happy to see it played. Then, they prepared to use overwhelming, superior power to flip the card, along with the table, completely.
That evening, the atmosphere in the carriage returning to the official residence was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.
Venizelos remained silent, simply gazing out the window at the street scene rushing past, bathed in the dim yellow light of the gas lamps.
In the study, he slumped into an armchair, took off his glasses, and pressed his fingers hard against his brow. His well-tailored suit now looked somewhat loose, as if all his energy had been drained away.
"Your Highness, we have encountered a wall."
His voice was dry and filled with unprecedented frustration.
"Law, morality, and popular support—all of these are useless in the face of absolute power."
He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes filled with exhaustion and helplessness.
"They had us figured out. They knew our treasury was empty, and they knew we couldn't hold out any longer."
"If we drag this out for another month, without them even having to put pressure on us, we'll be forced to beg them for a respectable surrender due to financial bankruptcy."
Constantine did not speak.
He walked around the desk to the huge Balkan map on the wall. He stretched out his hand, his long, slender fingers slowly tracing the map.
Starting from Athens, crossing the Aegean Sea, traversing the vast European continent, and finally stopping in London.
Then, his finger moved again, pointing northeast across the map, and pressed down heavily on the map representing the Second German Empire.
The finger landed in Berlin.
Venizelos looked at him, puzzled. "Berlin?"
His voice was full of confusion.
"Your Highness, the Germans' attitude at this conference has been ambiguous. They neither oppose us nor have they ever truly supported us."
Constantine turned around. The study light cast two deep shadows in his eyes.
"The official Germany, of course not."
His voice was calm, yet it possessed a strange penetrating power.
"But what about unofficial Germany?"
He looked at Venizelos, who had a blank expression, and uttered a few words clearly, one by one.
"I have one last card."
"An ace up your sleeve, not at the negotiating table in London, but in Potsdam Palace."
He offered no further explanation and went straight to his desk.
Venizelos observed that the Crown Prince did not draft any urgent diplomatic documents or military orders, as was his usual practice.
He took out a stack of simple, elegant personal letter paper from the drawer.
He unscrewed the pen and dipped it in ink. The nib moved quickly across the paper, making a hissing sound.
The flowing handwriting formed a letter.
The letter was addressed neither to any cabinet minister nor to a general at the front.
Instead, it was written to his wife, Sophia, the Crown Princess of Greece, who was far away in Athens.
In the letter, Constantine did not discuss any of the difficult political terms. He described the cold and dampness of London, his exhaustion from facing Salisbury's arrogant face every day, and the desperate predicament of the entire Greek delegation, all in a weary tone that belonged only to a husband, without any pretense.
At the end of the letter, his writing style suddenly changed.
He made that earth-shattering request to Sophia.
He asked her to write a letter, in her own name, to her brother, Wilhelm II, the Emperor of the German Empire.
Constantine even underlined a particular instruction: "My dear Sophie, do not discuss territory and interests with him; such things will only make the monarch greedy and wary."
"You should talk to him about our family, about the glory of the Hohenzollern family."
"Let him feel that if your husband is humiliated here, then it will not only be Greece that is disgraced."
"And she was also William's sister, a Prussian princess."