Greece and the Allies, 1914-1922

by G. F. Abbott

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At the same time, there was little he would not do to remove those fears and suspicions which were perpetually pleaded as reasons for coercion. The surrender of the Fleet had allayed once for all the Allies' uneasiness about their forces at sea. There remained their uneasiness about their forces on land. In spite of his repeated declarations that under no circumstances would Greece take up a hostile attitude, the King was credited with a treacherous design—to mass in Thessaly 80,000 men, lay up munitions and provisions, wait until the Allied Army should march on Monastir, and then attack it from behind.[14] After reading M. Venizelos's own avowal of his intention to follow up the conversion of Macedonia with an attack on the rest of Greece, particularly Thessaly,[15] one hardly needs to be told at whom King Constantine's precautions were aimed.

Yet, wishing to prove his good faith in a practical manner, the King called the British Minister and offered to reduce his army to less than half by disbanding about 35,000 men and to withdraw certain units from Thessaly. The British Minister, delighted by this spontaneous offer, thanked the King, expressing the hope that his action would be greatly appreciated, that all mistrust would vanish, and that the Powers would moderate their coercions. With a remark from the King, that the one thing he would not tolerate was a descent of rebels on Thessaly and the rest of Old Greece, and that he would attack them if they appeared, Sir Francis Elliot fully concurred.

Instead of the return which the King expected to this spontaneous proof of his sincerity, he received (20 October) an intimation that the Powers not only demanded what he had already granted, but in addition things which he could not possibly grant—the internment of the small remnant of his army in the Peloponnesus and a surrender of arms and war material equivalent to a complete disarmament. These measures, while exceeding all requirements for the security of the Allies, put the security of Greece in danger by leaving her a prey to revolutionary agitation. The King, therefore, begged the Powers not {146} to insist on concessions which neither could he make nor would his people let him make.[16]

Nothing, indeed, was better calculated to excite to the highest degree the passions fermenting against the Allies than an insistence on total disarmament at a moment when M. Venizelos at Salonica and his partisans at Athens were arming. Fortunately a mediator appeared in the person of M. Benazet, a French Deputy and Reporter of the War Budget, who was passing through Athens on his way to Salonica to inspect the sanitary condition of the Army. His connexions had brought him into touch with the most influential leaders of both Greek parties; and with the sanction of M. Briand, procured through M. Guillemin, who, himself no longer received at Court, saw an advantage in reaching it by proxy, he undertook to negotiate an amicable arrangement between King Constantine and the Entente.

M. Benazet's idea was to obtain from the King not only tangible pledges which would eliminate all possibility of danger from the Allies' path, but also positive reinforcements for them in arms and men; and as a price he was prepared to guarantee to Old Greece her neutrality, her liberty in the management of her internal affairs, and her immunity from aggression on the part of M. Venizelos. Young, eloquent, and refined, the spokesman brought into an environment corrupted by diplomatic chicanery a breath of candour. His manner inspired and evoked confidence. The King readily agreed, besides the reduction which he had already offered, to transfer the remainder of his army to the Peloponnesus, to hand over to the Allies a considerable stock of guns, rifles, and other war material, and to allow all men who were released from their military obligations, and all officers who first resigned their commissions, to volunteer for service in Macedonia. M. Benazet, on his part, made himself guarantor for the French Government as to the pledges which the King required in exchange.[17]

This agreement met, at least in appearance, with the approval of M. Briand, who sent a telegram of congratulations {127} to M. Benazet,[18] and with that of M. Guillemin, who was at last received by the King. Both the French Premier and his representative at Athens expressed themselves enchanted with the new turn of affairs, and even the fire-breathing Head of the French Secret Service declared that the result of the negotiation surpassed all hopes. As to Admiral Dartige, he could not but rejoice at an arrangement so consonant with his own ideas.[19] Thus all outstanding differences seemed happily settled, and the removal of mutual misunderstandings was celebrated by inspired pens in Paris and London.[20]

The only discordant note was struck by the Venizelist Press, which made no attempt to conceal its disappointment. And suddenly, just as the withdrawal of the royal troops from the north was about to begin, the troops of the Provisional Government attacked Katerini on the southern frontier of Macedonia. M. Venizelos had dropped the pose that his movement was directed solely against the Bulgars: he marched on Old Greece. Did he by this move try to force the hand of the Allies, as formerly by bringing them to Salonica he had tried to force the hand of the King? And was he encouraged in this move by those who were secretly opposed to an accommodation with the King? Admiral Dartige did not know. What he did know was that this coup de force was designed to compromise the arrangement with Athens; and as he could neither play nor appear to play a double game, he immediately telegraphed to Salonica demanding the retreat of the Venizelists. At the same time the King informed the French and British Ministers that he could not withdraw his troops from Thessaly until all danger was removed, and asked them to do everything that depended on them to remedy this state of things. Whereupon General Roques, the French Minister of War then at Salonica, disavowed the Venizelist action, and to prevent similar exploits in future decided to create a neutral zone under French occupation and administration. The Athens Government was not pleased to see part of its territory passing into French hands; but, after some demur, bowed to the decision.[21]

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Not so the Salonica Government. M. Venizelos keenly resented this barrier to his impetuosity. The neutral zone, he complained, by blocking off his access to Thessaly, forbade all extension of his movement and prevented him from "carrying with him three-fifths of Greece and levying important contingents such as would have made him the absolute master of the country." [22] But the Allies were no longer to be deluded. They had discovered that "the mass of the people of continental Greece was hostile to the Chief of the Liberals." An extension of his movement could only be effected by overwhelming force, and as M. Venizelos had neither the men nor the arms required for the enterprise, the Allies would have to provide both. In other words, civil war in the rear of their armies would not only jeopardise their security but entangle them in a campaign for the conquest of Greece: a thing which they could not afford to do even to oblige M. Venizelos. They preferred a subtler and safer, if slower, way to the success of their common cause.