Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

Venizelos was an outstanding figure among the statesmen gathered at Paris. He had the ear of Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Wilson. The American President eagerly enlisted his support in drafting and forcing the adoption of the League of Nations Covenant. Orlando, worried to the breaking-point by the Adriatic question, intimated his willingness to meet the Greeks half-way or more in the questions of Epirus and the Dodecanese. Resisting the evident intention to put him off until after Germany and Austria were dealt with, Venizelos succeeded in getting before the Council of Ten and later the Big Four the aspirations of Hellenism.

What little measure of success the Greek premier attained, however, was due to his personal influence and not to affection for Greece, nor to gratitude or confidence. French intrigues against Greece were second only to those of the Italians, who had a natural reason for opposing Greater Greece with as much energy as Greater Serbia. The latter was a more real danger for Italy, as it would bring the Slavs to the Adriatic; but the former was viewed with alarm as a commercial and naval rival in the eastern Mediterranean. Despite the Saloniki revolution and the tardy entrance of Greece into the war, the French were not ready to forgive the so-called massacre of December 1, 1916, when their marines, entering Athens, were greeted by a rain of bullets. Powerful influences at work in British as well as French diplomatic circles, were felt at the Conference, to prevent the despoiling of Turkey at the expense of Greece, for fear of offending Mohammedan sentiment in India and North Africa.

The withdrawal of the Italians in a huff after Wilson’s sensational Fiume declaration gave the Greeks an unexpected opportunity to anticipate the formal decision of the Conference on their claims in Asia Minor. Lloyd George heard that the Italian Government was planning to send an expeditionary corps to Smyrna in order that the Peace Conference might be confronted with a fait accompli. He persuaded Clemenceau and Wilson that the only way of preventing the contemplated Italian coup would be to have Greece occupy Smyrna and the immediate hinterland in the name of the Allied and Associated Powers. Venizelos was summoned suddenly to the Quai d’Orsay, and the proposal was put before him. Lloyd George urged its acceptance. Venizelos agreed. The plans were secretly worked out by the British, French, American, and Greek military advisers.

Greek troops were landed at Smyrna on May 14, 1919, and, after seven weeks of disorders and some severe fighting, the Greek army was in possession of the Smyrna region and had extended its occupation along the railway lines to the limits of the province of Aïdin. The press was fed with lurid stories of massacres by both Greeks and Turks, for which, on both sides, there seemed unfortunately to be substantial foundation. The Greek army asserted that it was fired upon in Smyrna, and had to retaliate. The soldiers undoubtedly got out of hand. But order was quickly restored. Most of the atrocities in the province seemed to have been due to the local native population, Mohammedan and Christian.

After the occupation of Smyrna a whole year passed before Venizelos was able to get the Entente Powers to agree upon the terms of peace to be imposed upon Turkey. In the meantime, as is recorded in the next chapter, a formidable Turkish Nationalist movement was allowed to get under way, in the interior of Asia Minor, which added to the difficulties of the negotiations and began to menace the Greek hold on Smyrna. The Paris Conference adjourned in November, 1919, without having adopted a draft for the Turkish treaty. Holders of Turkish bonds, actual and expectant holders of concessions in Constantinople and Asia Minor, and British and French officials interested in the Mohammedan colonies, brought constant pressure to bear to prevent the partition of the Ottoman Empire. After a brief visit home, Venizelos was compelled to return to Europe to participate in the continuation conferences.

Not because they were agreed or believed they had discovered a satisfactory solution of the Turkish question, but because it was impossible to delay decisions further, the Entente premiers adopted at San Remo, in April, 1920, a draft treaty that had been over a year in the making. The Turkish treaty terms had become a matter of bargaining. France and Italy assented to the draft, which seemed to favor Great Britain, because Lloyd George promised to back France in putting the screws down on Germany both as to disarmament and reparations and to let Italy settle the Adriatic question by direct negotiations with Jugoslavia. The Treaty of Sèvres, whose [main terms] we gave in an earlier chapter, was signed on August 10, 1920, after much haggling.

The Nationalists had refused to recognize the authority of the Constantinople Government to enter into a treaty in the name of the Turkish people, and had for several months been defying both the Sultan and the Entente Powers. They had attacked the British, who were occupying and running the Anatolian Railway from Constantinople to Eski Sheïr, and had driven the British troops back to the Gulf of Ismid, within sight of Constantinople. In this emergency the Entente Powers called upon Greece, who was to be the principal beneficiary of the treaty. In June the Greeks marched northeast from Smyrna and, in a short campaign, came to the aid of the British. They occupied Brusa on July 8. The Turkish Nationalists were also defying the Entente in Thrace. After the victories in Asia Minor, the Greeks moved part of their army across the Ægean Sea and occupied all of Eastern Thrace. King Alexander entered Adrianople on July 25.

By the Treaty of Sèvres the Greeks were awarded Smyrna, with a generous hinterland, and Thrace almost up to the defenses of Constantinople. Constantinople and the Straits were to enjoy a special status, under international protection, with only the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan. Greece was confirmed in possession of all the islands of the Ægean, except those at the mouth of the Dardanelles. Italy retained only Rhodes, with the proviso that a plebiscite should be held fifteen years after the cession of Cyprus by Great Britain to Greece. Since the British had made no promise to cede Cyprus, however, the main object of the Greek fight for the Dodecanese was not attained.

The Treaty of Sèvres, had it been maintained, would have been a great step forward in the realization of the Greek dream to revive the Byzantine Empire. What it actually gave Greece was not, however, as much as the Treaties of St.-Germain, Trianon, and Neuilly had given her Balkan allies, Serbia and Rumania. If the awards to Greece were absurdly generous and unjustified and ought not to have been made at the expense of a vanquished nation, what shall we say of the awards to Serbia, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland? If the Treaty of Sèvres had been applied, neither in territory and mineral and other wealth nor in alien population would Greece have received nearly as much as these other smaller states.

Greece’s titles, as recognized by the Treaty of Sèvres, were not only more just but better earned than the titles of the other states under the other treaties. What Greece received she had actually conquered by her own efforts. And if the titles were to prove valid and permanent it would also be by her own efforts. As early as March 6, 1920, Venizelos reported to his Government that no British military support would be available to keep Greeks either in Thrace or Asia Minor, and that no assistance could be expected from France or Italy. If or when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, the Greeks would have to rely upon themselves to enforce it. On June 15, two months before the Treaty of Sèvres was accepted by the Constantinople Government, Lloyd George again asked Venizelos if he thought Greece could take over the territories in question and defend them from the Nationalists. The Greek premier’s answer was the triumphant march on Brusa and the expulsion of the Nationalists from Thrace.