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 GREECE BEFORE THE WAR OF 1 897. 205 bers would have felt that their foreign troops were too numerous and much too expensive (they cost 20,000,000 francs in two years) for a permanent royal guard. These Bavarian troops received higher pay than the Greek. Ba- varian officers were promoted in rank, while Greek officers and Philhellenes were reduced. This was the first cause of the complaints of the Greeks and Philhellenes against V^at was called the Bavarian system of the army'. The men of the regency were incapable of either under- standing or appreciating the quick and fiery, but honest and enthusiastic nation. The Greeks, elated by victory, ridiculed the pedantic forms and vain regulations to which the Bavarians en- deavored to reduce them, and which were diametrically opposed to their habits, and use- less in reality. The Bavarians, instead of hu- moring, exasperated them by a show of force. The Bavarians insisted, and men who had fought for their country and had endured untold privations for years past, in order to obtain liberty, and who by their heroism had obtained immortal fame, now found themselves dragged into prison and treated with contempt by men who had no title to power but what chance had given them, and who individually were nonenti-