Greece and the Allies, 1914-1922

by G. F. Abbott

Then came the sterile pourparlers through Paris. Here, again, political difficulties explain without justifying the attitude of the Entente Powers. Their refusal of the guarantee demanded by Greece as an essential condition of her entry into the war was, of course, a natural result of their Bulgarian policy—a policy for which very little could be said. Time perhaps was, at the beginning of the War, when Bulgaria might have been won; for it is not necessary to adopt the Graeco-Servian view that she had from the first decided to join the enemies of the Entente and that no amount of reasonable concessions would have satisfied her ambition; the Bulgars are a practical people, and there was at Sofia a pro-Entente party which might have prevailed, if the Entente Powers had, without delay, defined the proposed concessions and proceeded to press Greece and Servia to make them—to expect from either {44} State a voluntary self-mutilation was to expect a miracle. By not doing so, by shilly-shallying at Athens, Nish, and Sofia, they only lost the confidence of Greeks and Serbs without gaining the confidence of the Bulgars, who could hardly take seriously proposals so vague in their formulation and so uncertain of their fulfilment. If, on the other hand, the Allies were unable to define the concessions or afraid to shock public opinion by forcing them upon Greece and Servia, then they ought to have dropped their hopeless scheme, without wasting valuable time, and worked on the lines of Graeco-Servian co-operation against Bulgaria. Instead, they squashed, as we saw, every attempt which the Greek General Staff made to that end.

But it is not the only aberration with which history will charge our statesmen and diplomats.

Greece was going through an internal crisis; and those who know Greece will know what that means. In private life no people is more temperate, more moderate, than the Greek: a sense of measure always seasons its pleasures, and even the warmest passions of the heart seem to obey the cool reflections of the brain. In public life, by way of compensation, the opposite qualities prevail; and as citizens the Greeks display an astonishing lack of the very virtues which distinguish them as men. The spirit of party burns so hot in them that it needs but a breath to kindle a conflagration. That spirit, whose excesses had, several times in the past, brought the fundamental principles of the Constitution into question, and the country itself to the brink of ruin, was once again at work. Former friends had become deadly enemies: the community was rent with dissensions and poisoned with suspicions. Preposterous falsehoods were freely scattered and readily snatched at on both sides: the side of M. Venizelos and the side of M. Gounaris. Politicians who had been eclipsed by the Cretan's brilliance, came forth now to regain their lustre at his expense. For like all men who have played leading parts on the world's stage, M. Venizelos had gathered about him as much animosity as admiration; and hate is more enterprising than love.

M. Venizelos and his partisans were at least as resourceful as their opponents. The Cretan had never been able to bear contradiction. If his greatness had created him {45} many enemies, his pettiness had created him more. His tone of prophetic and impeccable omniscience was vexatious at all times, but particularly galling at this agitated period. It was now his constant cry that the situation called for the work of a statesman and not of an international lawyer or strategist. There were times when he declaimed this thesis in so violent a fashion that no self-respecting man could work with him. He had lost all the able collaborators of the great Reconstruction era, and nothing could make him forgive these "apostates." Everybody who could not see eye to eye with him was to M. Venizelos a traitor. It was impossible for M. Venizelos to admit that others besides himself might be actuated by patriotic as well as by personal motives; that he did not possess an exclusive patent of sincerity any more than of vanity. He found it easier to believe that the alpha and the omega of their policy was to undo him. He would undo them—even at the cost of the cause he had at heart: to see Greece openly on the side of the Entente. It is not that he thought less of the cause, but he thought more of himself. His egoism was of that heroic stature which shrinks from nothing. His nature impelled him to this labour; his privileged position as the particular friend of the Entente supplied him with the means.

M. Venizelos had taken a long stride towards that end when he insinuated that King Constantine's disagreement with him was due to German influence. Henceforth this calumny became the cardinal article of his creed, and the "Court Clique" a society for the promotion of the Kaiser's interests abroad and the adoption of the Kaiser's methods of government at home. M. Streit, though no longer a member of the Cabinet, was represented as its mainspring: a secret counsellor who wielded the power, while he avoided the title, of Minister; M. Gounaris, though in name a Prime Minister, was in reality a mere instrument of the sovereign's personal policy—so were the members of the General Staff—so was, in fact, everyone who held opinions at variance with his own: they all were creatures of the Crown who tried to hide their pro-Germanism under the mask of anti-Venizelism. Their objections to his short-sighted and wrong-headed Asiatic aspirations—objections the soundness of which has been amply {46} demonstrated by experience—were dictated by regard for Germany, the patron of Turkey. Their offers to fight for the dissolution of Germany's protégé were not genuine: the conditions which accompanied them were only designed to make them unacceptable. The Entente should beware of their bad faith and learn that M. Venizelos was the only Greek statesman that could be trusted.[21]

The Powers who had long since adopted M. Venizelos found it convenient to adopt all his theories. M. Delcassé, when called upon to explain why the Greek offer met with such scant ceremony, did so by saying that it came from M. Gounaris, who was the instrument of the personal policy of the sovereign, and who combated among the electors M. Venizelos, the champion of rapprochement with the Entente; that the proposal for the dispatch of large contingents to the East, involving as it did a depletion of the Western Front, was calculated to please the imperial brother-in-law of King Constantine; that the territorial guarantee demanded by Greece would have become known to Bulgaria, thrown her into the arms of Germany, and precipitated her against Servia, whom King Constantine intended to leave to her fate; the trick was too gross to deceive the Allies, and they gave it the reception it deserved. Likewise in squashing the Greek efforts to concert with Servia measures for mutual safety against Bulgaria, while there was yet time, the Allies, said M. Delcassé, acted on the advice of M. Venizelos, who told them that the Graeco-Servian Treaty was purely defensive: that it did not provide for action unless Bulgaria attacked; and what a misfortune if Servia, by such measures, should appear to take an initiative which would give Bulgaria an excuse for the aggression she meditated. Therefore, they bade Servia devote her whole attention to the security of her Austrian frontier and not play Bulgaria's game by furnishing her with a pretext for attack.[22]

{47}

On this side of the Channel the inventions of M. Venizelos, it would seem, were accepted as discoveries with equal solemnity. During the Paris pourparlers, according to the French Ambassador in London at all events, England was much annoyed by the Greek Government's hesitations, which she attributed to King Constantine's opposition, and asked herself whether she could either then or in the future treat with a country governed autocratically. She was persuaded that Greece lay under the influence of Germany, and asked herself whether she could in future support a country which let itself be guided by Powers whose interests were absolutely contrary to her own.[23]

The Entente Ministers at Athens, as was natural, had greater opportunities of displaying their solidarity with M. Venizelos. They would perhaps have been better advised had they followed the example of their colleagues at Rome. It can hardly be questioned that the discreet and decorous aloofness of the Entente diplomats from the long-protracted struggle between the Italian advocates of war and neutrality, assisted by Prince von Bülow's indiscreet and indecorous participation in that struggle, facilitated a decision in our favour: nothing does so much to alienate a high-spirited nation as an attempt on the part of outsiders to direct its internal affairs. In Greece the need for discretion was even more imperative. All controversy at such a juncture was injudicious. But if preference had to be shown, it would have been better to have taken the King's side, for all that was valuable to us from the military point of view rallied round him; and, in any case, since the hopes of the Venizelists for oversea expansion depended on the goodwill of the Sea Powers, {48} they were tied to us securely enough: so if the land school represented by the General Staff could have been satisfied, the country would have remained united and on our side. Instead of adopting this sane attitude, the local agents of the Entente ostentatiously associated themselves with the Venizelists and boycotted the others, thus gratuitously contributing to a cleavage from which only our enemies could profit.

And that was not all. Having begun by endeavouring to influence the Greeks, they ended by being entirely influenced by them. Forgetting that no correct perception of facts or estimate of motives is possible without a certain mental detachment, they allowed themselves to be swallowed up, as it were, in the atmosphere of suspicion and slander generated by party friction: they ceased to have any eyes, ears, or minds of their own; they saw and heard just what M. Venizelos willed them to see and hear, and thought just as M. Venizelos willed them to think. If the King refused to enter the War, his refusal was inspired by the desire to serve the Kaiser; if he offered to do so, his offers were prompted by the desire to dish M. Venizelos.[24]