Modern Greece
A Chronicle and a Survey 1800-1931

Excerpt:

VII. The Great War and its Consequences: 1914-1923
 

The decision of the Powers after the Peace of Bucarest, assigning to Greece sovereignty over the Aegean Islands, was not recognised by the Turks, who after signing the Treaty of Athens (November 14, 1913) commenced a boycott of Greek shipping and an organised persecution of Greeks in Asia Minor. Fortified by the opportunity of buying two battleships which would have secured for their fleet the supremacy of the Aegean, Turkey plainly threatened to reopen the war. In June 1914 the situation was indeed so alarming that Venizelos appealed for Serbian support. The Serbs in their reply did not hesitate to recognise the obligations of the Greco-Serbian Alliance; and after pointing out that their immediate participation in a third war was for obvious military and financial reasons extremely undesirable, if not impossible, they proceeded to address such a strongly worded protest to the Grand Vizier at Constantinople as to bluff him into thinking that they were quite prepared to declare war in defence of Greek interests. They also requested the other Powers to use all possible pressure to restrain Turkish provocation. They showed such goodwill in the exercise of these diplomatic measures that on June 22, 1914, Mr. Streit, then Foreign Minister in the Government of Venizelos and subsequently King Constantine's private adviser, telegraphed to Belgrade "the lively gratitude of the Greek Government for the Serbian demarche at Constantinople on the subject of the persecution of the Greeks in Turkey, a demarche which has proved once again the solidarity of our alliance and the bonds of affection which unite the two peoples." Meanwhile Venizelos, having sounded the other Powers and learned that, owing to Germany's refusal to take part, there was no chance of a naval demonstration by the Great Powers in order to compel the Turks to respect the decision of the London Conference with reference to the Aegean Islands, succeeded (July 8, 1914) in buying for immediate delivery two American battleships, which deprived the Turks of any chance of challenging the superiority of the Greek fleet. Turkey at last consented to negotiate; and Venizelos was on his way to meet the Grand Vizier at a neutral capital, when at Munich he was arrested by news of the outbreak of the Great War. There also he received the question from the Serbian Premier as to the attitude Greece would adopt in view of the Austrian invasion. Venizelos declared at once (August 2) that "with regard to the war with Austria he must await fuller information and consultation with his colleagues in the government before he could determine the answer to be given; but that with regard to the possibility of a Bulgarian attack the place of Greece would be at the side of her Serbian ally in order to keep their common enemy at a respectful distance" and ensure the maintenance of the Treaty of Bucarest.

This declaration was officially renewed on his return to Athens.

2.

On August 4, Germany informed Greece both officially and by private telegram from the Kaiser to King Constantine that she had concluded alliances with Turkey and Bulgaria, and invited Greece to join the Germanic Powers in a united campaign against a Slav domination in the Balkans. This invitation was declined by King Constantine in terms of warm personal friendship. Venizelos, on behalf of the Greek Government (August 8), supplemented the King's rather regretful reference to the impossibility of Greek cooperation with Germany owing to the Mediterranean supremacy of the British and French fleets, by suggesting the renewal of a Balkan federation to include Bulgaria for the maintenance of neutrality. The hostile attitude of Turkey, however, now once more strengthened by the entry into the Dardanelles of the German battleships Goeben and Breslau, gave little hope of preventing the war from spreading in the Near East; and on August 23 Venizelos officially declared, with full authority, that "Greece, not merely in consciousness of her indebtedness to the great Guaranteeing Powers, but from a clear perception of her vital interests as a nation, understood that her place was at the side of the Powers of the Entente; and that whereas in the war that was being waged it was not possible for her to take a military part, since she could not, owing to the danger from Bulgaria, reinforce the Serbians, much less send an expeditionary force to France, nevertheless she thought it her duty to declare to the Powers of the Entente that, if Turkey went to war against them, she placed all her forces, naval and military, at their disposal for the war against Turkey, always presupposing that she was to be guaranteed against the Bulgarian danger." The results of this voluntary declaration, made at a time when the Germans were advancing triumphantly towards Paris, were an assurance from the British Government that the Turkish fleet would not be allowed to leave the Dardanelles, the consent of the Three Powers and of Italy to the provisional reoccupation of Northern Epirus by the Greek army, and a cordial telegram from King George V. of England to King Constantine. Shortly afterwards Admiral Mark Kerr, instructed by the British Admiralty to concert plans with the Greek staff for a possible occupation of Gallipoli, was surprised to be told by King Constantine that he had no intention in any circumstances of declaring war against Turkey unless Turkey first attacked Greece. Venizelos in a memorandum to the King (September 7) explained the reasons for forestalling an inevitable Turkish attack, Turkey in her persecutions of the Greek element in Asia Minor "having long been waging a war which had never been declared"; he protested against the King's excessive fear of offending Germany; and finally offered to resign. He was induced to remain in office, but insisted on the resignation from the Government (September 28) of M. Streit, Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was understood to have advised the King without the knowledge of his colleagues; Streit indeed continued to be the private political counsellor at the Palace. A month later Turkey entered the war.

In January 1915, England, on behalf of the Allies, once more invited Greek assistance, not against Turkey but for the relief of Serbia, by a well-meaning attempt to reconstitute the nascent Balkan federation of 1912. Serbia, in the hope of eventually reaching the Adriatic, was to secure Bulgarian cooperation by certain concessions in Macedonia; and if Greece would facilitate these concessions the Three Powers would gladly acknowledge "the right of Greece to very important compensations on the coast of Asia Minor" (January 24, 1915). Venizelos, whose own deepest policy had always tended whenever possible towards a Balkan federation, explained to King Constantine in a memorandum of the same date the necessity of securing the cooperation not only of Rumania but of Bulgaria as well, and declared that in exchange for Bulgaria's active cooperation in a war which must result in "the creation of a real Magna Graecia" he would not hesitate to sacrifice Kavalla (the port in Western Macedonia chiefly coveted by Bulgaria); and in a Third Memorandum (January 17) he defined the territory in Asia Minor,—"a province of 125,000 square kilometres, as large as and on less rich than the whole Kingdom of Greece, and containing 800,000 Greek inhabitants"—which might be secured in exchange for the 2,000 square kilometres of the Kavalla district, the population of which need not necessarily be lost to Greece. These negotiations were frustrated primarily by the attitude of Bulgaria.

On February 19 however, at the time of the preliminary attack by the British fleet on the Dardanelles, Venizelos, realising that a landing force would be required, took up again the question of Greek cooperation. By a Fourth Memorandum (unpublished) he believed that he had succeeded in gaining the King's assent to the mobilisation of one Army Corps to join in the Allied attack on Turkey, but he was checked by the immediate resignation of Colonel John Metaxas, Chief of the General Staff. He therefore called a Crown Council of former Premiers, under the presidency of the King (March 5), at which his proposal was favourably received by the leaders of all parties, including the ex-Premiers Ralli and Dragoumcs. At the suggestion of the ex-PremierTheotokcs a second Crown Council was held (March 6) in order to hear the reasons for the continued opposition of the General Staff. At this meeting Venizelos, influenced by information from Constantinople (February 29) that the Turks were already preparing to evacuate their still unfortified capital, attempted to meet the argument of the General Staff (against denuding the frontier of troops which might be required in view of the possibility of a Bulgarian attack), by proposing that not an Army Corps but only one division should be sent to the Dardanelles. This proposal was unanimously adopted by the Crown Council, and even the ex-Premier Theotokes, who never wavered in his personal preference for neutrality, advised the King that it was his duty to follow the advice of the Government of Venizelos without further hesitation. Nevertheless King Constantine refused, demanded the resignation of Venizelos (March 6), and dissolved the Chamber (April 10).
 

3.
 

A new Government was formed on March 10, 1915, by D. Gounares, who declared that the basis of Greek policy in loyalty to Serbia would remain unaffected by the change of government, and in the following month, when Bulgarian "irregulars" raided the Nish-Salonica railway, associated Greece with the Serbian protest at Sofia. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zografos, "honestly adopted all that was possible of the Liberal Policy, the foundation of which was a very benevolent neutrality towards the Entente with a firm determination never to allow a Bulgarian attack on Serbia"; he continued for some weeks to negotiate with the Governments of the Entente, who on April 11 specifically offered the vilayet of Smyrna, but his sincere proposals were overtaken by the extravagant stipulations attached to them by the General Staff. On the following month further offers of Greek cooperation were made through less formal channels, such as the suggestion (May 2) that Greece would lend the assistance of her fleet if guaranteed against Bulgarian attack. But the French Government, to which at this period most of these offers were addressed, replied that all proposals of assistance must be unconditional. Other offers were left unanswered by the French and British Governments, which were convinced of the insincerity of these proposals; not only because the Government of Gounares had taken office on the specific programme of maintaining Greek neutrality, and was believed to be putting forward these suggestions (as ex-President Poincare subsequently stated, on December 9, 1920) as a manoeuvre directed against the Liberal Party on the eve of the elections . . .