Greece and the Allies, 1914-1922

by G. F. Abbott

To him the peace arranged through the instrumentality of the Entente Ministers was but a "sorte d'armistice." He had agreed to it only in order to extricate himself from his present difficulties and to gain time for resuming hostilities under more favourable conditions. He and his men, he tells us with an engaging candour, were at the mercy of the Greeks: had he not accepted the King's offer—outnumbered, surrounded, and without food or water for more than twenty-four hours—they would have been ignominiously arrested. Besides, the configuration of the ground sheltered the Greek troops from the naval fire, while the Legations both of the Entente and of neutral Powers lay exposed to it. Lastly, a continued bombardment might have driven the Greeks to exasperation and perhaps to a massacre of Entente Ministers and subjects. It was imperative to give the Allies and neutrals time for flight and himself for serious war preparations. The delivery of the whole stock of arms had been fixed by his Ultimatum for 15 December. In that fortnight he proposed to obtain from his Government the forces necessary {164} for a battle, and permission to bombard Athens in earnest—with or without notice to its inhabitants, but, of course, always with due regard for its monuments historiques.

Such was his plan. General Sarrail embraced it with ardour; the Paris Government sanctioned it; troops began to arrive and French and British residents to flee (3-5 Dec.). But very soon difficulties became manifest. The transports had brought men and mules, but no provisions for either. Greek volunteers and regulars mustered in defence of their capital. The British Admiral declined to take part in any war operations. The French Minister dreaded open hostilities. In the circumstances, Admiral Dartige found it expedient to "give proof of his spirit of self-denial," by renouncing his heroic dream of vengeance "immédiate, retentissante," and by advising Paris not to set up a new front at Athens: after all, the matter was not really worth a war. He now proposed, instead, a pacific blockade; and, Paris assenting, he proclaimed the blockade as from 8 December.[3]

With this act Admiral Dartige du Fournet's career came to a sudden end. A few days later the French Government deprived him of his command and placed him on the retired list. After a decent interval, the British Government decorated him with the Grand Cross of the Bath.[4] Whether his conduct entitled him to a decoration, his character should certainly have saved him from disgrace; for of all the men engaged in these transactions, he seems to have been the most respectable. No impartial reader of his book can fail to see that he blundered because he moved in the dark: it was never explained to him what political designs lay beneath the pretended military necessities; and the constant incongruity between the avowed aims of his employers and the steps dictated by his instructions tended to bewilder a mind devoid of all aptitude or appetite for diplomacy.

Admiral Dartige gone, the blockade was carried on by his successor, Admiral Gauchet. The Greeks took it as an accustomed evil. "This measure," wrote one of their {165} leading journals, "cannot terrify a population which has faced with serenity and fortitude much greater dangers. The Hellenic people did not hesitate, when the need arose, to come into collision with four Great Powers in defence of its independence and honour. It did so without hate, without perturbation, but calmly, as one performs an imposed and unavoidable duty. It deliberately chose to risk annihilation rather than see its fatherland disarmed and enslaved. It preferred a hopeless struggle to degradation. To-day it is threatened with the spectre of famine. It will face that spectre with serenity and fortitude. The menace is aimed at its stomach: very well, the people will tighten its belt." [5]

At the same time, Paris, London, and Petrograd were vigorously discussing the demands which were to be enforced by the blockade; but, owing to the wide divergences of opinion existing between the various Cabinets, decisions could only be reached by degrees and dealt out by doses. Not until 14 December did the Entente Governments deliver themselves of the first-fruit of their travail: Greece was to keep the arms of which she could not be despoiled, but she should remove them, as well as her army, from the northern regions bordering on Macedonia. The Hellenic Government was given twenty-four hours in which to comply; refusal would constitute an act of hostility, and the Allied Ministers would forthwith leave Athens.[6]

To show that they were in earnest, the French and British Ministers embarked on two ships moored at the Piraeus, where they awaited the Hellenic Government's reply; and, before the time-limit expired, the French Admiral, by a notice put up at the Piraeus town-hall, warned the inhabitants to close their shops and retire to their homes by 4 p.m. in view of an impending bombardment of Athens.

The Hellenic Government acceded to the contents of the Ultimatum, and immediately gave orders for the removal of troops and war material.[7] This prompt compliance was received by the people of Greece with {166} loud disapproval. They criticized vehemently their rulers' readiness to yield as pusillanimous and injudicious. The Government, they said, instead of profiting by the events of 1 December to clear up the situation, drifts back into the path of concessions which led to those fatal events: it encourages the Entente Powers to put forward increasingly exorbitant pretensions, and, forgetting that it is for us to complain and claim better treatment, it creates the impression that they are in the right and we in the wrong. For some time past such had been the tone even of moderate critics; and upon this fresh submission there was a general outcry of alarm. It is true, the Allies in their Note averred that they demanded the removal of troops and guns simply and solely "in order to secure their forces against an attack." But the Greeks were less inclined than ever to treat the alleged danger to the Allied army in Macedonia as anything more than a pretext: the true object, they maintained, was to secure M. Venizelos's return and the expulsion of King Constantine.

The conduct of the Entente representatives hitherto had given only too much ground for such bitter suspicions, and the search of Venizelist houses had recently produced concrete evidence, in the form of a letter from the Leader to one of his adherents stating, among other things, that a definite agreement concluded between him and the representatives of the Entente Powers assured his speedy domination of Athens through the whole strength of the Entente. The publication of this document, with a photographic facsimile,[8] had confirmed the apprehensions which had long haunted the popular mind. Nor did M. Venizelos's indignant denial of its authenticity, or the Entente Ministers' emphatic protestation that never, since the Cretan's departure from Athens, had they done anything to facilitate his return, shake the conviction that the big coup was planned for 1 December.

If any doubts as to the Allies' ulterior aims still lingered, they were dispelled by their Press, the most serious organs of which, on the eve of Admiral Dartige's landing, pointedly referred to the great error committed by the Powers in allowing King Constantine to dismiss M. Venizelos in September, 1915, and urged that the time had come to {167} remedy that error, informing their readers that England, France and Russia were not bound to guarantee the possession of the Greek throne to any individual sovereign, irrespective of his constitutional behaviour. The coup having failed, the same organs, in commenting on the Allies' present Ultimatum, still declared that the true remedy for Greece was to place her under the control of M. Venizelos; but, as such a course was not possible in the presence of a hostile King and an over-excited army, the first necessity was to eliminate the Greek army.[9]

However, the Greeks submitted to it all with sullen resignation: they had learned that the wisest thing for the weak is to control themselves.