CHAPTER IX

When M. Venizelos taunted M. Skouloudis with forgetting that he had promised the Allies "not only simple neutrality, nor simply benevolent neutrality, but most sincerely benevolent neutrality," the aged Prime Minister, who apparently had a sense of humour, replied: "I do not know how there can be such a thing as benevolent neutrality. A neutrality really benevolent towards one of the belligerents is really malevolent towards the other, consequently it is more or less undisguised partiality. Between benevolence and malevolence there is no room for neutrality." He only knew, he said, one kind of neutrality—the absolute neutrality towards both belligerents.[1] And he lived up to his knowledge so conscientiously that he earned the gratitude of neither, but saw himself the sport of both.

No sooner had the Allies begun to fall back from Krivolak, than the German Military Attaché at Athens presented to King Constantine a telegram from General von Falkenhayn, dated 29 November, 1915, in which the Chief of the German General Staff intimated that, if Greece failed to disarm the retreating Entente forces or to obtain their immediate re-embarkation, the development of hostilities might very probably compel the Germans and the Bulgars to cross her frontiers. After a consultation, the Skouloudis Cabinet replied through the King that Greece did not consent to a violation of her soil; but if the violation bore no hostile character towards herself, she would refrain from opposing it by force of arms on certain guarantees: that the Bulgars should categorically renounce every claim to territories now in Greek possession, that simultaneously with their entry into Macedonia Greece should be allowed to occupy Monastir as a pledge for their exit, that in no circumstance whatever should the King of Bulgaria or his sons enter Salonica, {96} that all commands should be exclusively in German hands, and so forth—altogether nineteen conditions, the principal object of which was to ward off the danger of a permanent occupation, but the effect of which would have been to hamper military operations most seriously.

The German Government, perturbed by the extent and nature of the guarantees demanded, referred the matter to Falkenhayn, who would only grant three comprehensive assurances: to respect the integrity of Greece, to restore the occupied territories at the end of the campaign, and to pay an indemnity for all damage caused. On those terms, he invited Greece to remove her army from Macedonia so as to avoid the possibility of an accidental collision. The King refused, giving among other reasons that such a concession had been denied to the Entente. Thereupon Falkenhayn asked, as an alternative to a total evacuation, that Greece should pledge herself to resist Entente landings in the Gulfs of Cavalla and Katerini. Again Greece refused, on the ground that this would involve the use of force against the Entente, whereas she was determined not to abandon her neutrality as long as her interests, in her own opinion, did not compel her so to do.[2]

After this answer, given on 27 January, 1916, conversations on the subject ceased for about six weeks.

Thus it appears that during the period when the Allies were, or professed to be, most nervous about the intentions of Greece, it was the fear of Greek hostility, carefully nursed by Greek diplomacy, that checked the Germans and the Bulgars from following up their advantage and sweeping the Franco-British troops into the sea. It was the same attitude of Greece that made the enemy hesitate to break into Macedonia during the following months, and gave the Allies time to fortify themselves.

On 14 March, Falkenhayn returned to the charge, and was once more met with a list of exorbitant conditions. This time the conversations assumed the character of recriminations; the Greek Government complaining of Bulgarian encroachments on the neutral zone fixed along the frontier, Falkenhayn retorting that the provocative movements of the Entente Forces obliged the Central Powers to fortify their positions and threatening a rupture {97} if the Greek soldiers continued to hinder the Bulgars.[3] Then, after another interval, he announced (7 May) that, owing to an English advance across the Struma, he found it absolutely necessary to secure in self-defence the Rupel Pass—key of the Struma Valley.[4]

M. Skouloudis endeavoured to make the German Government dissuade the General Staff from its project. Falkenhayn, he said, was misinformed as to an English advance—only small mounted patrols had crossed the Struma. He suspected that he was deceived and instigated by the Bulgars who, under cover of military exigencies, sought to realize their well-known ambitions at the expense of Greece. Their frequent misdeeds had already irritated Greek public opinion to such a degree that he could not answer for the consequences, should the project be carried out. The appearance of Bulgarian troops in Macedonia would create a national ferment of which Venizelos and the Entente Powers would take advantage in order to overthrow the present Ministry and force Greece into war.[5]

Impressed by these arguments, the German Government did its utmost to induce Falkenhayn to abandon his scheme; von Jagow even going so far as to draw up, with the assistance of the Greek Minister at Berlin, a remonstrance to the Chief of the General Staff. But it was all to no purpose. The political department had very little influence over the High Command. Falkenhayn insisted on the accuracy of his information, and adhered to his own point of view. He could not understand, he said, why a German move should cause any special excitement in Greece, seeing that it was directed against the French and the English, who paid no heed to Greek susceptibilities, and he irritably complained that, while Greece allowed the Entente full liberty to improve its position day by day, she raised the greatest obstacles to Germany's least demand.[6] In brief, from being more or less pliant, the Chief of the General Staff became rigid: he would no longer submit to rebuffs and denials. Strategic reasons, perhaps, had brought about this change; perhaps the Bulgars were the instigators. It is impossible to say, {98} and it does not much matter. The essential fact is that the man had power and meant to use it.

There followed a formal communication from the German and Bulgarian Ministers at Athens to M. Skouloudis, stating that their troops were compelled in self-defence to push into Greek territory, and assuring him that neither the integrity and sovereignty of Greece nor the persons and property of the inhabitants would in any way suffer by this temporary occupation. M. Skouloudis took note of this decision without assenting to it, but also without protesting: he felt, he said, that a premature protest could only lose Greece the guarantees of restoration and reparation offered. Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof: confronted with powerful Empires in the height of their military strength, he had done all that was humanly possible to ward off their advance, and, though unsuccessful in the end, he had at least obtained a solemn pledge of their ultimate retreat. The protest came a few days later, when the invasion actually took place.[7]

On 26 May, a Germano-Bulgarian force appeared at Rupel. The garrison, in accordance with its instructions of 27 April (O.S.) to resist any advance beyond 500 metres from the frontier line, fired upon the invaders and drove them back. But on fresh orders reaching it to follow the instructions of 9 March (O.S.)—which prescribed that, in the event of a foreign invasion, the Greek troops should withdraw—it surrendered the fort.[8]

In Entente circles it had long been assumed that, let the King and his Government do what they liked, the instant a Bulgarian foot stepped over the border, soldiers and civilians would fly to arms. Nothing of the sort happened. However painful to their feelings their orders might be, the soldiers obeyed them. Among the civilians also the shock, severe as it was, produced no demoralization. The Greek people generally understood that the surrender of Rupel was an inevitable consequence of the landing at Salonica. Nevertheless, the fears of M. Skouloudis that {99} a Bulgarian invasion would place a powerful weapon in the hands of his opponents were abundantly fulfilled.

By representing the event as the result of a treacherous collusion between Athens and the Central Powers,[9] M. Venizelos roused the Allied nations to fury. Their Governments, of course, knew better. Even in France official persons recognized that the occupation of Rupel was a defensive operation which Greece could not oppose by force. Yet they had hoped that she would have averted it by diplomatic action. As it was, they concluded that she must have received from the Central Powers very strong assurances that the occupied territories would be restored to her. In any case, they said, the Skouloudis Cabinet's passivity in face of a move calculated to prejudice the Allies' military position contradicted its oft-repeated protestations of a benevolent neutrality towards them.[10]

M. Skouloudis hastened to vindicate his conduct. He did not tell the Entente Powers, as he might have done, that he had by diplomatic action put off an invasion for six months, and thus enabled them to increase their forces and consolidate their position. Neither did he tell them another thing which in itself formed an ample refutation of the charge of collusion—that on 27 April (10 May) General Sarrail had occupied the frontier fort Dova-tépé with the tacit consent of the Hellenic Government, which had deliberately excluded that fort from the instructions of resistance issued that day to its troops, and that Greek officers urged him at the same time to occupy Rupel, dwelling on the military importance of the fort for the defence of Eastern Macedonia; an advice which the French General had ignored on the ground that Rupel lay altogether outside the Allies' zone of action, and he could not spare the troops necessary for its occupation.[11]

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The Greek Premier simply said that his Government's passivity was in strict accord with the explicit declarations of its policy and intentions, enunciated at the very outset, ratified by the Agreement of 10 December, 1915, and reiterated ad nauseam to the Entente Ministers—viz., that "should the Allied troops by their movements bring the war into Greek territory, the Greek troops would withdraw so as to leave the field free to the two parties to settle their differences." Far from changing his attitude, he once more, in reply to M. Briand's threat that, "if the Bulgarian advance continued without resistance there might ensue the most serious consequences for the Hellenic Government," emphatically declared: "Resistance is only possible if we abandon our neutrality, and the demand that we should resist is therefore in flagrant contradiction to the oft-repeated protestations of the Entente Powers that they have neither the wish nor the intention to force us into the War." Nor could he understand how they could think of blaming Greece for receiving from the Central Powers the same assurances of eventual restoration as those given by themselves.[11]

M. Skouloudis spoke in vain. Paris had made up its mind to treat the incident as indicating a new and malevolent orientation against which it behoved the Allies to protect themselves. Accordingly, on 1 June, M. Briand authorized General Sarrail to proclaim a state of siege at Salonica.

General Sarrail, who had long sought to be freed from the trammels of Greek sovereignty—"et à être maître chez moi"—but had hitherto been denied his wish by the British Government, jumped at the permission, and he improved upon it with a personal touch, trivial yet characteristic. So far back as 27 April he had recommended that "we must strike at the head, attack frankly and squarely the one enemy—the King." Pending an opportunity to strike, he seized the occasion to slight. He fixed the proclamation for 3 June, King Constantine's name day, which was to be celebrated at Salonica as in every other town of the kingdom with a solemn Te Deum. {101} The British General, Milne, who had arranged to assist at the Te Deum, after vainly trying to obtain at least a postponement of the date out of respect for the King, found himself obliged to yield. And so on that festal morning martial law was proclaimed. Allied detachments with machine guns occupied various strategic points, the public offices were taken possession of, the chiefs of the Macedonian gendarmerie and police were expelled, and the local press was placed under a French censor. All this, without any preliminary notification to the Hellenic Government, which expressed its indignation that a French General, forgetting the most elementary rules of courtesy and hospitality, thought fit to choose such a moment for inaugurating a state of things that formed at once a gratuitous affront to the sovereign of the country and a breach of the terms of the Agreement of 10 December.[13]

But this was only a prelude, followed on 6 June by a blockade of the Greek coasts, established in pursuance of orders from Paris and London—pourpeser sur la Grèce et lui montrer qu'elle était à notre merci.[14] Even this measure, however, did not seem to M. Briand sufficient. He advocated intervention of a nature calculated to disarm our enemies and to encourage our friends. His views did not meet with approval in London: Sir Edward Grey had "des scrupules honorables," which M. Briand set himself to overcome by pen and tongue. The Entente Powers, he argued, were protectors of Greece—guarantors of her external independence and internal liberty. The Greek Government was bound to defend its territories with them against all invaders, and it had broken that obligation. Further, it had sinned by violating the Constitution. On both counts the Entente Powers had not only the right but the duty to intervene. Thus only could they justify, in the eyes of the Greek people, the blockade by which the whole population suffered, and which it would otherwise not understand. There was no time to lose: the dignity of France demanded swift and drastic action: the Athenians had gone so far as to ridicule in a cinema the {102} uniform of the heroes of Verdun. If England would not join her, she must act alone.[15]

These arguments—particularly, one may surmise, the last—overcame Sir Edward Grey's honourable scruples; and on 16 June a squadron was ordered to be ready to bombard Athens, while a brigade was embarked at Salonica for the same destination. Before the guns opened fire, hydroplanes would drop bombs on the royal palace; then the troops would land, occupy the town, and proceed to arrest, among others, the royal family. Such were the plans elaborated under the direction of the French Minister at Athens, much to the joy of General Sarrail, who had said and written again and again that "nothing could be done unless the King was put down." [16]

All arrangements for this "demonstration" completed, on 21 June the Entente Powers, "ever animated by the most benevolent and amicable spirit towards Greece"—it is wonderful to what acts these words often form the accompaniment—had the honour to deliver to her Government a Note by which they demanded:

1. The immediate and total demobilization of the Army.

2. The immediate replacement of the present Cabinet by a business Ministry.

3. The immediate dissolution of the Chamber and fresh elections.

4. The discharge of police officers obnoxious to them.

They admitted neither discussion nor delay, but left to the Hellenic Government the entire responsibility for the events that would ensue if their just demands were not complied with at once.

As M. Briand had anticipated, the sight of our warships' smoke quickened the Greek Government's sense of justice. King Constantine promptly complied, the "demonstration," to the intense disappointment of M. Guillemin and General Sarrail, was adjourned, and a Ministry of a non-political character, under the leadership of M. Zaimis, was appointed to carry on the administration of the country until the election of a new Chamber.[17]

The event marked a new phase in the relations between {103} Greece and the Entente Powers. Henceforth they appear not as trespassers on neutral territory, but as protectors installed there, according to M. Briand, by right—a right derived from treaties and confirmed by precedents.[18] Concerning the treaties all comment must be postponed till the question comes up in a final form. But as to the precedents, it may be observed that the most pertinent and helpful of all was one which M. Briand did not cite.

At the time of the Crimean War, Greece, under King Otho, wanted to fight Turkey, and realize some of her national aspirations with the assistance of Russia. But France and England, who were in alliance with Turkey against Russia, would not allow such a thing. Their Ministers at Athens told King Otho that strict neutrality was the only policy consonant with the honour and the interest of Greece: while hostilities lasted her commerce, as a neutral nation, would flourish, and by earning their goodwill she could, at the conclusion of peace, hope not to be forgotten in the re-making of the map of Eastern Europe. For refusing to listen to these admonitions King Otho was denounced as a pro-Russian autocrat, and the Allies landed troops at the Piraeus to compel obedience to their will.

Once more a Greek sovereign had drawn down upon himself the wrath of the Protecting Powers, with the traditional charges of hostile tendencies in his foreign and autocratic tendencies in his domestic conduct, for daring to adopt an independent Greek policy.

This time the three Powers were united in a common cause, which necessitated unity of action on all fronts. But it would be an error to imagine that this unity of action rested everywhere upon a community of views or of ulterior aims. Certainly such was not the case in Greece. France had her own views and aims in that part of the world. M. Briand was bent on bringing Greece into the War, not because he thought her help could exercise a decisive influence over its course, but because he wanted her to share in the spoils under French auspices: he considered it France's interest to have in the Eastern Mediterranean a strong Greece closely tied to her.[19]

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That programme France intended to carry through at all costs and by all means. England and Russia, for the sake of the paramount object of the War, acquiesced and co-operated. But the acquiescence was compulsory and the co-operation reluctant. The underlying disaccord between the three Allies reflected itself in the demeanour of their representatives at Athens.

M. Guillemin, the French Minister, stood before the Greek Government violently belligerent. Brute force, accentuated rather than concealed by a certain irritating finesse, seemed to be his one idea of diplomacy, and he missed no conceivable opportunity for giving it expression: so much so that after a time the King found it impossible to receive him. Sir Francis Elliot, the British Minister, formed a pleasing contrast to his French colleague: a scrupulous and courteous gentleman, he did not disguise his repugnance to a policy involving at every step a fresh infringement of a neutral nation's rights. As it was, he endeavoured to moderate proceedings which he could neither approve nor prevent. Prince Demidoff, a Russian diplomat of amiable manners, seconded Sir Francis Elliot's counsels of moderation and yielded to M. Guillemin's clamours for coercion.[20]

It is important to bear this disaccord in mind in order to understand what went before and what comes hereafter: for, though for the most part latent, it was always present; and if it did not avert, it retarded the climax.

[1] Orations, p. 155; Skouloudis's Semeioseis, p. 36.

[2] White Book, Nos. 70-4, 79, 81, 84, 86-90.

[3] White Book, Nos. 92, 93, 96-102.

[4] White Book, No. 104.

[5] White Book, Nos. 106, 111, 113.

[6] White Book, Nos. 110, 112, 116.

[7] White Book, Nos. 117-20, 134, 135; Skouloudis's Apantesis, pp. 25-6.

[8] White Book, Nos. 95, 105, 126, 130-33, 137. The instructions of 27 April had been issued chiefly in consequence of information that bands of Bulgarian irregulars (Comitadjis) were at that moment preparing to cross the frontier. Skouloudis's Apantesis, p. 23.

[9] The charge was supported by garbled "extracts" from the instructions to the Greek troops (the full texts of which may now be read in the White Book), published in Paris. See the Saturday Review, 10 Sept., 1921, pp. 321-2, citing the Petit Parisien of Dec., 1916.

[10] White Book, Nos. 140, 146.

[11] Sarrail, p. 104. Anyone familiar with the political and psychological atmosphere would have seen that the Greeks were anxious to keep the Bulgars out by inducing the French to forestall them. But Sarrail detected in their advice a subtle contrivance either to find out his plans, or to cast the blame for the loss of Rupel on him!

[12] White Book, No. 142.

[13] Journal Officiel, p. 72; Sarrail, pp. 105-8, 112, 355-7; White Book, Nos. 142, 145.

[14] Sarrail, p. 113.

[15] Journal Officiel, pp. 72-3.

[16] Sarrail, pp. 115-24; Du Fournet, pp. 91-3.

[17] Journal Officiel, p. 99; Sarrail, pp. 125-7; Du Fournet, p. 93.

[18] Journal Officiel, pp. 72, 73.

[19] Romanos to Zaimis, Paris, 26 Aug./8 Sept., 1916.

[20] See Du Fournet, pp. 110-11.

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