On the day, too, on which Tricoupi accepted the charge, the Turkish commander had received his orders to cross the frontier on the next day and march on Athens if the annoyance were not stopped.

A great extent of the frontier was not provided with the telegraph, and the chosen partisans of Deliyanni were in command, and determined to force a conflict.

The blockade prevented Tricoupi from sending officers by sea to take over the command, and there was not time to send them by land.

General Sapunzaki was the only general officer on whom the minister could depend to obey orders, and he could reach only a part of the line on which the fighting was going on.
There was no subordination and no general plan in the offensive; but each detachment of troops on the frontier made war on its own responsibility, and the Turks contented themselves with repelling attacks.
I went to the telegraph office to get the late advices in the afternoon of the last day of the fighting, when it had become very general all along the frontier.

Tricoupi had sent imperative orders to cease hostilities, but the telegraph had been cut, probably by some one who wanted the war to ensue, and when I found Tricoupi at the telegraph in the afternoon in conversation with Sapunzaki over the wire, he turned to me with an expression of intense distress, exclaiming, "They are fighting again all along the line, and if it cannot be stopped at once we are lost." "Can I do anything ?" I asked.
He replied, "I should be glad if you would go to Baring" (who had been sent to take charge of the legation, but with no diplomatic powers or relation with the Greek government) "and tell him the position, and ask him to telegraph to his government to urge Constantinople to send word to Eyoub Pasha that the Greek government had given stringent orders to stop the fighting, and ask him to coperate." It was an intensely hot day in the end of May, and the streets of Athens, deserted by the population, were an oven; not a cab was to be found on the square or in the streets.