The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End, 1917-1923 by Gerwarth Robert

Author:Gerwarth, Robert [Gerwarth, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141976365
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

15

From Smyrna to Lausanne

Italy’s imperial ambitions after 1918 went beyond Fiume. The London Treaty of 1915 had made vague promises about a ‘just share’ of the Ottoman Empire for Rome, should the empire be dismantled at the end of the war. In early May 1919, to make clear that these promises had not been forgotten, the Italians landed troops at the ports of Adalia (Antalya) and Marmaris in southern Anatolia, without consulting their allies. There were also rumours in Paris of Italian vessels approaching Smyrna, the heavily Christian-populated port on the western Anatolian coast that was also being claimed by Greece. 1

On 6 May, Lloyd George suggested that in order to end Italy’s imperial aspirations in Asia Minor, Greece should be allowed to occupy Smyrna and its environs. Even Woodrow Wilson, normally opposed to imperial land-grabbing, approved of the idea, if only to put the increasingly annoying Italian government in its place. Lloyd George then summoned the Greek Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, and asked him to prepare for the landing at Smyrna. 2 Venizelos seemed like an inspired choice for the role of re-establishing a Byzantine Empire with close links to London. Born in Ottoman-ruled Crete in 1864, Venizelos’ wealthy merchant family had been forced to flee to mainland Greece as a consequence of his father’s involvement in the Cretan insurrection of 1886. A lawyer by training, Prime Minister since 1910, and founder of the Liberal Party, Venizelos had favoured his country joining the Allies ever since 1914. This belief brought him into direct conflict with his king, Constantine I. Constantine was a Germanophile who had spent some of his earlier years studying in Germany. He was married to Sophia of Prussia, a sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who accorded him the honorary rank of Field Marshal of the German Army. Although he made no secret of his affection for Germany, Constantine advocated neutrality for his country when hostilities began in 1914. In defiance of the wishes of his king, however, Venizelos invited the British and French governments to send armies to Greece’s recently acquired former Ottoman port of Salonika (Thessaloniki). This led to Venizelos’s dismissal and, in early 1916, the king granted permission for German and Bulgarian forces to enter eastern Macedonia and Thrace. 3

Venizelos and his supporters were appalled and publicly voiced their anger at the king’s pro-German attitude during a mass rally in Athens on 16 August 1916. The confrontation between Constantine and Venizelos ultimately led to the formation of two rival governments, with Athens and Salonika becoming the respective capitals of a de facto divided Greece in August 1916. Venizelos ultimately emerged triumphant from the power struggle when the Allies imposed a punitive naval blockade on southern Greece, causing great economic hardship among the civilian population. Constantine eventually succumbed to the external pressure in June 1917 and abdicated in favour of his younger son, Alexander, who had been the Allies’ choice because of his pro-Western stance. Alexander’s accession to the throne paved the way for Venizelos’ return to Athens and Greece’s full military participation in the war against the Central Powers.

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