The summons to demobilize was met by a point-blank refusal, when the fleets of the powers--Russia and France excepted--entered on the scene, and the blockade of the Greek coast was declared.

This saved the credit of the ministry with the country; and Deliyanni, protesting against intervention as a measure on behalf of the Sultan, and hostile to Greece, resigned, but gave no orders to his commandants on the frontier to withdraw, and the skirmishing went on.

The King in this crisis behaved well, and put Deliyanni in the alternative of demobilizing or resigning; and, when he chose the latter course, the King called Tricoupi to form a ministry.
Tricoupi's position was difficult.

He protested against the blockade as an unwarrantable interference with the freedom of action of Greece, as he considered that the government should have been allowed on its own responsibility to make war and take the consequences, as the only method of teaching the Greeks how to fulfill their international obligation.

But the withdrawal of the diplomatic representatives of the great powers, whose fleets were blockading the coast, had left him without any channel of communicating with the powers, either for protesting or for yielding, and the fighting was increasing in extent if not in intensity.