In the former, the Treaty of Berlin had sanctioned the cession; in the latter, there was only the bare impudence of Mr.Deliyanni to move the powers.

The ministry called out class after class of the reserves and sent them northward, but made no effective preparation for war; the men were ill-clad, worse provided, and everything was lacking to make them ready for a campaign.

The casual observer could see that war was not intended, and that Deliyanni was silly enough to believe that the agents of the powers did not see through his sham, and thought that he could frighten them.
The men on the frontier finally amounted to about 45,000 men, kept there as a scarecrow to the powers at an expense, ascertained from the safest authorities, of 1000 deaths per month.

The powers insisted on demobilization.

Deliyanni replied by waving his torch and threatening to set fire to Europe if they did not give him a province; and meanwhile the Turkish government was gathering a solid force of about 40,000 men on the menaced frontier, and preparing silently to march on Athens.
The common people of the city, ignorant of everything connected with war, and inflamed by the jingo official press, conceived that nothing was needed but to set the Greek army in motion to insure a triumphant march on Constantinople, and were shouting for the troops to cross the frontier.