sure. His praises were sung in a tone
almost of adoration by a chorus of
journalists richly bribed by Baron
Schenck, who had come to Greece
originally to sell Krupp guns and had
remained to buy Greek honor. The
way lay open for dictatorship, and on
October I3th, M. Za'imis by Con-
stantine's orders notified Serbia that
Greece could not enter the war against
Germany and Austria-Hungary.
THE ENTENTE MAKES ANOTHER BID
FOR GREEK ASSISTANCE.
The gage was flung; Serbia did not
dare to break off diplomatic relations
with her one-time ally. The Entente
tried to buy Greek support of Serbia
by offering Cyprus. The Greek Cham-
ber protested against the action of the
government by adopting the pro-
gramme of the Liberal party by 147
votes against 114, declaring the declar-
ations of the government unsatis-
factory, and censuring the conduct of
the Minister of War. But Constantine
had prepared the way; the Allies'
offer was coolly declined, as other and
more alluring promises were in his
mind, and he there and then pro-
ceeded to lay the fabric of absolutism
within the country. The Chamber
706
which had voted against him he
dissolved, the minister who had failed
to win the opposition he dismissed,
and nominated in his place M. Skou-
loudis, whom he charged with the
formation of a Cabinet that was
strongly royalist in tone and which
Constantine intended to be both tool
and screen in his personal government.
While the king was thus building
up royal despotism within the country,
in other parts of the peninsula things
were going ill with the Allied cause.
The overwhelming disaster that fell
upon Serbia and the ineffective cam-
paign of the Saloniki contingent are
all told in another chapter (Chapter
XXII). Their effects upon the popular
mind were considerable. The royalists
could affirm that Serbia's fate would
have been that of Greece had she inter-
vened when the Allies wished; Bul-
garia no longer loomed large and
menacing in the public eye, for she
had food for her rapacity. But the
Allied occupation of Saloniki was
used to irritate national pride, and all
the time the grip upon the Venizelist
press grew daily more strangling until
one by one the papers either dropped off
and suspended publication altogether,
or went over to the ministerial side.
^HE SUPPORTERS OF VENIZELOS REFRAIN
1 FROM VOTING.
There was no election campaign;
M. Venizelos requested his friends not
to run for office and advised the elec-
tors not to vote. As a matter of fact,
half of the voters were under arms,
including fifty-three Venizelist dep-
uties, and though the government was
ready to give furloughs to its sup-
porters it withheld them from its
opponents. The June total of voters
had been 750,000, the December elec-
tion only showed 200,000. Constantine
meant this Chamber so unrepre-
sentative and so packed merely to
serve the purpose of a screen for his
unconstitutional acts: he relied on his
military council almost entirely and
used the Cabinet only as their tool.
Through his military council he began
the Germanization of the army. The
leaders of the army needed little en-
couragement in this project.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
''pHE GREEK COMMANDER OF FORT RUPEL
1 SURRENDERS BY ORDER.
In spite of Skouloudis' advertised
"benevolent neutrality" towards the
Triple Entente he announced his inten-
tion of disarming soldiers who might
be driven back on Greek soil, and a
threatening note, a partial blockade,
and a painful discussion were neces-
sary in November to force him to re-
move this menace to the rear of the
Saloniki force. Finally, when some of
the escaping Serbians took refuge
upon Greek soil the ill-treatment .they
suffered contained no measure of
benevolence. To guard against this
ill-will, Allied warships on January 10,
1916, seized Corfu and prepared relief
for such Serbians as had taken refuge
on the Albanian coast. Later in April
when these same Serbians refreshed
and reformed desired to rejoin the
Allies in Saloniki, M. Skouloudis
offered objection after objection to
their passing over Greek soil. The
movement of the Serbians seems to
have alarmed Bulgaria also, for on
the 23rd of May a column of Germano-
Bulgarians advanced over the border
to Fort Rupel in the Demir-Hissar
Pass and summoned the Greek garrison
to surrender. Slight resistance was
offered, but in the night the Greek
troops received an order to withdraw
and the incident was explained in the
Athenian Chamber as a concession to
neutrality!
There was instant reaction from two
directions. The Allied uneasiness at
this threat to their right flank, and the
evident co-operation of the Skouloudis
Cabinet and the king with the Bul-
garians, caused them to send a landing
force to the Bay of Salamis. In Athens
the population rose, protesting that
Greek interests had been sold to the
Germans since the detested Bulgarians
were allowed to occupy the sacred soil
of Greece. Nevertheless, the royal
programme continued. At the end of
May, General Yannakitsas warned his
troops that they must be prepared to
fight, and the king in an address to the
men stated that as soldiers they should
* be obedient to orders and not to senti-
ments. It seemed as if the stream were
at last flowing as William II and Con-
stantine had desired. Athenian hooli-
gans incited by German money dem-
onstrated against the English and
French legations with the apparent
approval of the Chief of Police. On
the 2ist, the Entente struck hard;
they presented an ultimatum which
contained four demands:
1. Immediate demobilization of the
Greek army.
2. The dismissal of the Skouloudis
Cabinet, and its replacing by a business
cabinet without bias.
3. The dissolution of the Chamber
of Deputies to be followed by free
elections, when demobilization was
complete.
4. A change in the police force
whereby certain individuals known to
be in the Austro-German pay were to
lose their places.
>"pHE TERMS OF THE ALLIES ARE RELUC-
X TANTLY MET.
When this note was delivered, British
and French warships appeared before
the Piraeus and a practical blockade
was established. Awed at last by this
show of force and energy, Constantine
submitted for the moment, allowed
M. Skouloudis to be put out and
recalled M. Zaimis who, on June 23rd,
accepted the ultimatum. Six days
later general demobilization of the
army was ordered, and by the end of
July it was on a peace footing. Yet
once again, cunning robbed the move-
ment of its salutary effects by creating
among the returned soldiers in their
own homes Reservists' Leagues whose
object was the defense of their king.
The Chamber was not dissolved
merely adjourned, and still pro-Entente
newspapers were prosecuted. Baron
Schenck and other German agitators
continued their work. In those times
the life of Venizelos was threatened,
but he continued to conduct vigorously
an electoral campaign. Constantine
at the bidding of his imperial brother-
in-law was playing for time, and finally,
to postpone the elections from which
the Venizelists were hoping so much,
contrived the invasion of Eastern
Macedonia by the Germano-Bulgarian
forces.
707
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
During June and July the military
situation at Saloniki had not changed
from the deadlock which had begun in
December, 1915, after the withdrawal
into the zone around the city. An
Allied offensive was planned to take
place early in August by which it was
hoped to influence the Greek elections
in favor of the Liberal party and inter-
vention and also to occupy the atten-
tion of Bulgaria on her southern
boundary so that Rumania, already
secretly committed to the Allies, might
have freedom to complete her mobiliza-
tion. Accordingly, on August 10, an
advance against Doiran was under-
taken by the Allied forces. Suddenly
the scene changed; Bulgaria had cog-
nizance of the advance and meant to
strike first. Where her advance was
met by Serbian or Allied troops it was
checked, but in Eastern Macedonia
the Bulgarians advanced and occupied
the cities of Kavalla, Seres, Doxata
and Drama, together with what
amounted to a whole province. The
Greek troops were ordered by the
government not to resist the Bulgarian
advance, and submitted without strik-
ing a blow to being carried away and
transported to Germany. The Hellenic
Government had admitted the invaders
as guests, so to speak, and promises
had been made to maintain the local
administration and safeguard the se-
curity and tranquility of the in-
habitants.
THE BULGARS COMMIT MANY EXCESSES
IN EASTERN MACEDONIA.
Nevertheless, only a few days after
their entry into Greek territory they
gave themselves up to excesses and
devastations of every sort. Instead of
maintaining the local Greek authorities
for any period of time the administra-
tion was entrusted to well-known
Comitadjis upon whom the Bulgarian
government had conferred military
rank, or to Greek officials who had been
corrupted. Their authority was that
of brigands and criminals as the Report
of the Greek University Commission
upon Atrocities and Devastations clear-
ly proves. Nor was this vandalism
merely the result of Greco-Bulgarian
jealousy. It had the definite purpose
708
of clearing Eastern Macedonia of its
Greek population by famine, by out-
rage, by torture, by deportation, and
by murder. It is anticipating history
only a little to add that when Greece
entered the war the persecution in
Macedonia became even more cruel.
Deportations of public employees and
later of all persons between the ages of
15 and 60 years were made for the
purpose of supplying Bulgaria with
labor for building strategic roads and
the work in the fields. Privation and
maltreatment took fearful toll of these
wretched victims so that the figures
of the report show that more than
four-fifths (at least 70,000 persons)
succumbed to the savagery of their
enemies. Thus was a province of
Greece betrayed by its king who had
based his policy of neutrality upon a
condition of territorial integrity; who
had accepted the guarantees of his
country's hereditary enemies that they
would respect the lives, liberty and
property of his subjects.
This was a severe blow to Con-
stantine's prestige; and a vigorous
movement of protest at once took place
in Athens and other large cities. Be-
fore the house of M. Venizelos an
immense crowd gathered to cheer for
the chief of the Liberal party. To them
the ex-premier proposed that they
should elect a delegation which should
submit to the king an appeal that he
had prepared. He read it to them and
the great concourse approved it en-
thusiastically.
'pHE GREEKS IN SALONIKI RISE IN REVOLT.
All was in vain. King Constantine
refused to receive the deputation,
alleging illness, and on the same ground
delayed the dissolution of the Chamber
and the elections. But he could not
stay the march of events which in the
next few weeks came thick and fast.
The Bulgarian invasion had harmed the
royal cause seriously in that it had cut
in two the army hitherto his greatest
asset. On August 30, a revolution
broke out in Saloniki. The insurgents
were Cretan gendarmerie and Mace-
donian volunteers; a Committee of
National Defense was formed under
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
Colonel Zymbracakis who addressed a
proclamation to the people inciting
them "to cease to obey the authorities
who had betrayed the national honor,"
and exhorting the army to deliver the
fatherland.
After some disorder General Sarrail
interfered to save bloodshed and the
troops of the 5th Division quartered at
Saloniki either joined the Committee
THE DEPOSITION OF THE KING IS SERI-
OUSLY DISCUSSED.
King Constantine experienced great
difficulty in finding a successor. He
sent for M. Dimitracopoulos intending
to form an ordinary political ministry,
but the latter, when he found that the
Allies still insisted upon compliance
with their note of June 21, resigned at
once. Then the king had recourse to
MEMBERS OF THE GREEK ROYAL FAMILY
To the right is Prince Alexander who succeeded his father. He is three years younger than the ex-Crown Prince
George, who together with bis three sisters and Prince Paul, accompanied his parents into exile. Embarked for
Italy, they had not yet reached the residence of their choice when their hopes were dashed, and they had to slip
out of Lugano en route for Switzerland amidst manifestations of public scorn. Ruschin
or were disarmed. Those officers who
resigned were allowed to go to Athens
where the king received and congrat-
ulated them. Franco-British warships
appeared off the Piraeus on September
i, and demanded the dismissal of
Baron Schenck and his followers,
the immediate disbanding of Reservist
Leagues, and control of all com-
munications. On the loth, the Reser-
vists demonstrated against the French
Legation and on the nth, the premier,
helpless against the forces of anarchy
breaking out all over the country,
resigned. He had never been strong
enough to rule Greece.
M. Nicholas Calogeropoulos, a member
of the Germanophile coterie who pro-
ceeded to form a ministry of second-
rate men of noted anti-Venizelist
tendencies. To this ministry the Allies
refused recognition although M. Calo-
geropoulos published his intention of
complying with their note. On Septem-
ber 20, Constantine addressed some
5,000 young infantry recruits in a spirit
of pure absolutism, informing them
that they were "soldiers of the king
owing blind devotion to the will of the
king." On the 22nd, a battalion of the
Greek revolutionary army at Saloniki
left for the front to fight against the
709
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
Bulgars. Two days later the Congress
of Hellenic Colonies, assembled in Paris,
declared the deposition of King Con-
stantine. Early next morning M.
Venizelos and Admiral Coundouriotis
set sail from Phalerum for Crete the
revolution had begun.
In a statement published before he
left, the Cretan patriot reviewed the
injuries suffered by Greek honor, and
added, "Do not think I am heading a
revolution in the ordinary sense of the
word. The movement now beginning
is in no way directed against the king or
his dynasty. This movement is one
made by those of us who can no longer
stand aside and let our countrymen and
our country be ravaged by the Bul-
garian enemy. It is the last effort we
can make to induce the king to come
forth as King of the Hellenes and
follow the path of duty in the protec-
tion of his subjects."
THE ISLANDS ARE FIRST TO RISE IN
REVOLT.
At the same time manifestoes came
in to the king from many of the islands,
Mytilene, Samos, Chios, demanding
intervention, and over seventy Anti-
Venizelist deputies and some prominent
army officers urged the king to enter
the war. The revolution in Crete was
so decided that in ten days the insur-
gents to the number of 30,000 had com-
plete possession. M. Venizelos was
received with enthusiasm at Canea by
the people and the troops and he issued
a proclamation reviewing the disorder
which had resulted from the fatal policy
of the king during the last year and a
half. Immediately adherents flocked
to the cause. In all the larger islands
royal officials were replaced by Venize-
lists, from Athens itself many officers
and men set sail for Saloniki, the Con-
gress of Hellenic Colonies sent their
assurance of support "on the path of
honor and glory," the Committee of
National Defense placed itself at the
disposal of the movement. On the last
day of September a triumvirate con-
sisting of Venizelos, Coundouriotis and
Danglis was formed to direct the
National Movement towards the form-
ing of a Provisional Government.
Meanwhile, unrecognized and inef-
710
fective, the Calogeropoulos Cabinet
felt bound to resign, and King Con-
stantine then called to the head of the
government Professor Spyridon P.
Lambros who proceeded to form a
service Cabinet in accordance with
the Allied note. That same day,
October 9, Venizelos in Saloniki amid
scenes of wildest enthusiasm estab-
lished the Provisional Government
"with full authority to organize the
forces of the country with the object
of joining the Allies and fighting by
their side against all their enemies."
HEAVIER ALLIED DEMANDS ARE MADE
UPON GREECE.
Afterwards a conference called by
the Entente at Boulogne gave the
revolutionary government a qualified
recognition. Only in the Peloponnesus
and in Athens did the king's cause seem
to prosper, and the Allies were laying
increasingly heavy demands as a pre-
caution against treason, for it was
suspected that there was a royalist
plot afoot to send forces to Thessaly to
co-operate with a German army in an
attack upon Saloniki. Early in Octo-
ber Admiral Dartige du Fournet pre-
sented an ultimatum demanding that
Greece should hand over the Greek
fleet entire, save for the armored
cruiser Averoff and the battleships
Lemnos and Kilkis, by I o'clock of the
nth, and even the vessels retained
were to be disarmed and their crews
reduced to one-third, while the forts
on the seacoast must be dismantled
and the two commanding the moorings
turned over to the Admiral. At the
same time the Allies took control of
the police and demanded that Greek
citizens be prohibited from carrying
arms, that the sending of war munitions
to Thessaly be stopped, and that the
embargo on the exportation of Thessa-
lian wheat should be raised.
A period of suspense and delay fol-
lowed. The royalists put off fulfilment
of the conditions prescribed and, en-
couraged by their success in evasion
and the Bulgarian victories in Ruma-
nia, grew more and more insolent,
while the nation in general, because it
was ignorant of the king's German
intrigues but felt the effects of block-
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
ade and of the Allied demands, grew
more anti-Entente. On account of a
slight collision between royalist and
nationalist troops on the frontier,
General Sarrail and the Greek Govern-
ment established the Neutral Zone
between the territories of the Provi-
sional Government and Old Greece,
but it is all of a piece with Entente
diplomacy in the Near East that
Thessaly and Epirus, which devoted
to Venizelos were only waiting the
appearance of Saloniki contingents
to rise, were thus prevented from
doing so. On the iyth of November
Admiral Dartige sent M. Lambros a
new note demanding the surrender of
eighteen field batteries, sixteen moun-
tain batteries with a thousand rounds
of projectiles per battery, as well as of
4000 Mannlicher rifles, 140 machine-
guns and 50 automobile trucks, to make
up for the war material which it had
surrendered to the Bulgarians in Au-
gust. Three days later the diplomatic
representatives of the Central Powers
were ordered to leave Greece, and on
the 22nd an ultimatum demanding the
cession of ten mountain batteries be-
fore the 1st of December and the rest
before the I5th was delivered to the
Greek Government. Athens seethed
with excitement, especially when it
was learned that the Venizelos govern-
ment had declared war on Bulgaria
and Germany.
KING CONSTANTINE HOPES TO AROUSE
POPULAR SENTIMENT.
By December i, nothing had been
done towards surrendering the guns
and Admiral Dartige after an inter-
view with King Constantine went
away with the impression that a show
of force was all that was necessary to
bring about compliance, and that no
resistance was contemplated. It is
evident now that the king was luring
the Allies to their own destruction by
causing them to formulate and enforce
demands irritating to the popular
pride, and influencing them to defeat
their own ends by neutralizing the
efforts of the Venizelists by the creation
of the Neutral Zone. On the night of
the 2Qth the troops of the garrison of
Athens left their barracks and took
up position in the environs of the city,
and a decree was published authorizing
voluntary engagements.
The military authorities were or-
dered not to hinder the Allies in disem-
barking but to follow them in equal
numbers and to prevent the execution
of the Admiral's commands. As Anglo-
French detachments advanced from
the sea along the roads to Athens the
Greek soldiers blocked their way and
opened fire. The landing forces, unpre-
pared for resistance, suffered cruel
losses. All through that day the
fighting continued for through lack of
preliminary arrangements the Allied
fleet remained almost inert. Only a
few shells were fired into the garden
of the Grand Palace. Finally, on
December 2, at 2 A.M. in the morning,
the king proposed to surrender six
mountain batteries instead of ten, and
the Allied troops withdrew from the
city. The day was spent by the
Royalists in hunting out the Venizelists
whom they massacred, tortured and
imprisoned, and also destroyed news-
paper offices of the Liberal press.
THE KING AND HIS PARTY YIELD TO
SUPERIOR FORCE.
On December 7, the Entente an-
nounced a blockade of the Greek
coasts, and on the I4th presented a
note ordering complete demobiliza-
tion of the army, restoration of control
by the Allies over posts, telegraphs
and railways and the release of the
Venizelists who had been imprisoned;
failing compliance, the Allied Ministers
were instructed to leave Greece and a
state of war would begin. The Greek
government thus found itself com-
pelled to choose between peace and war
and accepted the ultimatum, but true
to its nature, began to quibble about
the construction of the terms. On the
3ist, a Second Allied Note was deliv-
ered, containing their demands for
military guarantees and for reparation
for the events of the ist and 2nd of
December, but agreeing not to allow
the Venizelist troops to profit by the
withdrawal of Royalist troops, or to
pass over the Neutral Zone. The
Greek government objected to certain
provisions, especially that referring
711
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
to the immediate release of the Venize-
lists, but on January 9, the Allies
answered the protest by giving forty-
eight hours in which to comply.
This ultimatum was drafted by the
Allied War Council, then sitting in
Rome, and was due to the decision of
Premiers Lloyd George and Briand to
enforce fresh vigor in the handling of
the Greek situation. An important
development was that Italy now came
into full agreement with Great Britain,
France and Russia, in regard to the
whole course of action in the Balkan
Peninsula. Shrewd as ever, the king
recognized that he had reached the
limit of Allied patience and he accord-
ingly accepted their terms. The trans-
fer of Greek troops to the Peloponnesus
as demanded in the Note began, and
on January 24, the Greek government
formally apologized to the Allied
Ministers, and in front of the Zappeion
the flags of the Entente were solemnly
saluted.
THE UNDIGNIFIED ALLIED DIPLOMACY
KEPT GREECE NEUTRAL.
The Allied diplomatic quibbling, un-
dignified and unworthy though it
seems, yet succeeded in keeping Greece
neutral. An attack from the rear on
Saloniki was held suspended as long
as Constantine did not openly join
with the Central Powers. Further-
more, it must be remembered that the
Allies were hampered in their actions
in that they were by no means united
in their views of the situation. Italy
disliked Venizelos, because she feared
the increase of Greek power in the
Mediterranean, and imperial Russia
branded him as revolutionary. So he
was to some extent blocked by the
temporizing of the Allies with Con-
stantine and his advisers. Yet he
held on to his purpose, ready to change
his means as the occasion demanded.
"I have tried," he said, "not to cause
any difficulties for my friends. I am
told to evacuate Katerini I evacuate
Katerini. I am told to abandon
Cerigo I abandon Cerigo. The Neu-
tral Zone is imposed on me, I respect
the Neutral Zone. I am asked to
bring my movement to a standstill
I bring it to a standstill."
712
Thus a seeming peace lay over Greece
in the opening months of 1917, but it
was false and hollow. Constantine
and M. Lambros were employing
every artifice to avoid the execution of
the conditions laid down by the
Entente. "Soldiers transported to
the Peloponnesus made their way back
again in citizen's dress or on military
leave of absence; lies were told about
the contents of cases of weapons, and
arms were cached in the earth. Mean-
while, the Royalist newspapers in-
vented calumny on calumny against
the Allies," and as these were the only
newspapers that did appear the public
was kept in an abnormal state of
ferment by the organs of King Con-