One of the ministers assured me that the King with tears in his eyes begged to be excused from going.

He had never been popular in the country, and this failure to realize a step in the Panhellenic policy made him for the time the object of all the popular indignation.

But he probably realized that nothing was ready for such a movement and that it was certain to end in disaster.
The real cause of failure was in the general indifference to all preparation, in which the government was supported by the nation.

The overweening confidence in themselves, which was so great as to permit them to believe that without any organization or discipline they were more than a match for the Turkish army, has always been their fatal weakness.

One of the leaders of the war party said to me a little later, "The Greeks are so clever that they do not need to be trained; they can fight without it well enough to beat the Turks." We saw at Corfu how ill-prepared they were, for the classes were called out to go to the frontier of Epirus, and those of Corfu marched through the streets to the place of embarkation weeping as if they went to death.