Chapter XX.

Back to the Balkans

The troubles of Crete.—The bigotry of the “Young Turks.”—Venizelos in Greece.—The pro-German king.—The new government at Salonika.—The downfall of Constantine.—The ambitions of Roumania.—Pro-Germans in Russia.—Roumania declares war.—Russian treachery and German trickery.—The defeat of Roumania.

Greece

You will remember the name of Eleutherios Venizelos, the prime minister of Greece, who tried to get that country to stand by her bargain from Crete with Serbia (pages 239-240). Now Venizelos had originally come from Crete, a large island inhabited by Greeks, but controlled by Turkey for many years (see map). In 1897 the Turks had massacred a number of Greek Christians on the island, and this act had so enraged the inhabitants of Greece that they forced their king to declare war on Turkey.

Poor little Greece was quickly defeated, but the war called the attention of the Great Powers of Europe to the cruelties of the Turks, and they never again allowed Crete to be wholly governed by them. For over a year Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy had their warships in Cretan ports and the government of Crete was under their protection.

Finally they called in, to rule over the island, a Greek prince, Constantine, the son of the king. Eight years later he had become very unpopular through meddling with Cretan politics—on the wrong side—and had to leave.

The It was at this time that Venizelos came to the front. The Cretan government was really independent, like a little kingdom without a king, and he was its true ruler. Now all the Greeks had looked forward to the time when they might be united in one great kingdom. The shores of Asia Minor and the cities along the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles were largely inhabited by Greeks. Crete and the islands of the Aegean had once been part of Greece and they never would be content until they were again joined to it. The Cretan government was ready to vote that the island be annexed to Greece, when in 1908 there came the revolution of the “Young Turks” which drove the old Sultan from his throne (page 186).

The Young Turks at the outset of their crusade against the government were tolerant to all the other races and religions in their country. At first the Armenians, the Jews, the Albanians, the Greeks, and the Bulgarians in the Turkish Empire were very happy over the result of the revolution. It looked as if a new day were dawning for Turkey, when it would be possible for these various races and different religions to live side by side in peace.

No sooner were the young Turks in control of the government, however, than they began to change. “Turkey for the Turks, and for the Turks only” became their motto. With this in mind they massacred Bulgarians and Greeks in Macedonia (page 85) and Armenians in Asia Minor. The thought of the loss of Crete roused their anger and they began scheming to get it back under Turkish rule.

In 1910 Venizelos, seeing the danger of his beloved island, left for Greece, hoping there to stir up the people to oppose the Turks and annex Crete. His wonderful eloquence and his single-hearted love for his country soon made him as prominent on the mainland as he had been in his island home. Before long he was chosen as prime minister of Greece.

He found the country in a very sad condition. The military officers were poorly trained. What was worse, they did not know this, but imagined that their army was the best in the world. The politicians had plundered the people and there was graft and poor management throughout the government.

Venizelos made a wonderful change. He sent to the French republic for some of their best generals. These men thoroughly made over the Greek army and taught the Greek officers the real science of war.

Venizelos soon showed the politicians that he could not be frightened, controlled, or bribed. He discharged some incompetent officials and forced the others to attend to business. In fact he reorganized the whole government service in a way to make every department do better work. Few countries in Europe were as well managed as was Greece with Venizelos as its prime minister.

Every Greek hates the Turks and looks forward to the time when no man of Greek descent shall be subject to their cruel rule. You have been told how the Russians have looked forward to the day when Saint Sophia, the great mosque of the Turks, shall once more become a Christian cathedral. In the same way the Greeks have passionately desired to see Constantinople, which was for over a thousand years the capital of their empire, freed from the control of the Turk. Little by little, from the time when the Greeks first won their independence from Turkey in 1829, the boundary of their kingdom has been pushed northward, freeing more and more of their people from the rule of the Ottomans. Venizelos, aiming to include in the kingdom of Greece as many as possible of the people of Greek blood, was scheming night and day for the overthrow of the Turkish power in Europe. You have been told how the Russian diplomats astonished the world by inducing Bulgaria to unite with the Greeks and the Serbs, two nations for whom she had no love, in an alliance against the Turks. Many people felt that this combination would never have been possible without the far-seeing wisdom of of Venizelos. In fact, some historians give him the credit of first planning the alliance.

His greatest trouble was with his own countrymen. The Greeks, as you have been told, have always claimed Macedonia as part of their country, whereas, in truth, there are more Bulgarians than Greeks among its inhabitants. Venizelos, having agreed before the attack on Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this was fair. In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the combination. The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of Constantinople, brought on the second war. Bulgaria was not willing to give up Macedonia to the Greeks and Serbs, and her troops made a treacherous attack on her former allies (June, 1913) which brought on the declarations of war referred to.

At the close of the second war, when Bulgaria, attacked by five nations at once, had to make peace as best she could, the Greeks took advantage of her by insisting on taking, not only Salonika but also Kavala, which by all rights should have gone to the Bulgars. Venizelos was willing to be generous to Bulgaria, but the Greeks had had their heads turned by the extraordinary successes of their armies over the Turks and Bulgarians and as a result insisted upon being greedy when it came to a division of the conquered lands.

Let us return now to events in Greece after the world war had begun: In March, 1915, when the great fleets of France and England made their violent attack on the forts of the Dardanelles, intending to break through and bombard Constantinople, Venizelos was eager to have Greece join the conflict against the Turks. He felt sure that Turkey, in the end, would lose the war and that her territory in Europe would be divided up among the conquering nations. He wanted to get for Greece the shores of the Dardanelles and the coast of Asia Minor, where a great majority of the inhabitants were people of Greek blood. The king of Greece, Constantine, as has been explained, is a brother-in-law of the German Kaiser and has always been friendly to Germany. He and Venizelos had been good friends while both were working for the upbuilding of Greece, but a little incident happened shortly after the Balkan wars which led to a coolness between them.

King Constantine, while on a visit to Berlin, stood up at a banquet and told the Kaiser and the German generals that the fine work of the Greek soldiers in the two wars just fought had been due to help which he had received from German military men. This statement angered the French very much, for you will remember that it was French generals who had trained the Greek army officers. Venizelos, very shortly after this, made a trip to Paris and there publicly stated that all credit for the fine condition of the Greek army was due to the Frenchmen who had trained its officers before the war of 1912. This was a direct “slap in the face” of the king but it was the truth and everyone in Greece knew it. From this time on it was evident to everybody that Venizelos was friendly to the French and English, while the King was pro-German.

Accordingly, in March, 1915, when Venizelos urged the Greek government to join the war on Turkey, the king refused to give the order. Venizelos, who was prime minister, straightway resigned, broke up the parliament, and ordered a general election. This put the case squarely up to the people of Greece and they answered by electing to the Greek parliament one hundred eighty men friendly to Venizelos and the Triple Entente as against one hundred forty who were opposed to entering the war.

Venizelos, once more prime minister as a result of this election, ordered the Greek army to be mobilized. At this time the fear was that Bulgaria, in revenge for 1913, would join the war on the side of the Germans and Turks and attack Greece in the rear. In order to keep peace with Bulgaria Venizelos was willing to give to her the port of Kavala, which Greece had cheated her out of at the close of the second Balkan war. He felt that his country would gain so much by annexing Greek territory now under the rule of the Turks that she could afford to give up this seaport, whose population was largely Bulgarian. Constantine opposed this, however, and the majority of the Greeks, not being as far-sighted as their prime minister, backed the king. When the attack by the Central Powers on Serbia took place, as has been told, Venizelos a second time tried to get the Greek government to join the war on the side of France and England. He said plainly to the king that the treaty between Greece and Serbia was not a “scrap of paper” as the German Chancellor had called the treaty with Belgium, but a solemn promise entered into by both sides with a full understanding of what it meant. The king, on the other hand, insisted that the treaty had to do with Bulgaria alone and that it was not intended to drag Greece into a general European war. As a result, he dismissed Venizelos a second time, in spite of the fact that twice, by their votes, the Greeks had shown that they approved of his policy.

Now Greece is a limited monarchy. By the terms of the constitution the king must obey the will of the people as shown by the votes of a majority of the members of parliament. In spite of the vote of parliament the king refused to stand by the Serbian treaty. From this time on he was violating the law of his country and ruling as a czar instead of a monarch with very little power, as the Greek constitution had made him.

Things went from bad to worse. In the meantime the French and English had landed at Salonika in order to rush to the aid of the hard-pressed Serbs. You have already been told how Venizelos arranged this. Their aid, however, had come too late. Before they could reach the gallant little Serbian army it had been crushed between the Austrians and Germans on one side and the Bulgarians on the other, and its survivors had fled across the mountains to the coast of Albania. The French and English detachments were not strong enough to stand against the victorious armies of Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria. They began to retreat through southern Serbia. King Constantine notified the Allied governments that if these troops retreated upon Greek soil he would send his army to surround them and hold them as prisoners for the rest of the war. France and England replied by notifying him that if he did this they would blockade the ports of Greece and prevent any ships from entering her harbors. This act on the part of France and England, while it seemed necessary, nevertheless angered the proud Greeks and strengthened the pro-German party in Athens. The king took advantage of this feeling to appoint a number of pro-Germans to important positions in the government. Constantine allowed German submarines to use certain ports in Greece as bases of supply from which they got their oil and provisions. The Greek army was still mobilized, and the small force of French and English, which had retreated to Salonika, were afraid that at any moment they might receive a stab in the back by order of the Greek king.

In May, 1916, the Germans and Bulgarians crossed the Greek frontier and demanded the surrender of several Greek forts. When the commander of one of them proposed to fight, the German general told him to call up his government at Athens over the long distance telephone. He did so and was ordered to give up the fort peaceably to the invaders. We have already seen what the answer of the Belgians had been on a like occasion. To be sure, the French and English were already occupying Greek soil, but they had come there under permission of the prime minister of Greece to do a thing which Greece herself had solemnly promised that she would do, namely, to defend Serbia from the Bulgars.

This surrender of Greek territory to the hated Bulgarians was too much for Venizelos. He gave out a statement to the Greek people in which he declared that the king had disobeyed the constitution and was ruling as a tyrant; that he was betraying his country to the Germans and Bulgars and that all loyal Greeks should refuse to obey him. At Salonika, under the protection of the British and French, together with the admiral of the Greek navy and one of the chief generals in the army, Venizelos set up a new government—a republic of Greece.

Shortly after this the commander of a Greek army corps in eastern Macedonia, acting under orders from King Constantine, surrendered his men to the Germans, along with all their artillery, stores, and the equipment which had been furnished to them by the French to defend themselves against the Germans! In the meantime, the Bulgarians had seized Kavala.

The control of the Adriatic Sea had been a matter of jealousy between the Italians and Austrians even during the years when they were partners in the Triple Alliance. Even before Italy entered the war on the side of France and England, her government, fearing the Austrians, had sent Italian troops to seize Avlona. The Prince of Albania, finding that he was not wanted, had deserted that country, and there had been no government at all there since the outbreak of the great war. However, the presence of this Italian garrison prevented the forces of the central powers from advancing southward along the Adriatic coast.

Gradually, France and England increased their forces at Salonika. The gallant defender of Verdun, General Sarrail, was sent to command the joint army. During the summer of 1916, Italians came there to join the French and British. A hundred thousand hardy young veterans, survivors of the Serbian army, picked up by allied war ships on the coast of Albania, were refitted and carried by ship around Greece to Salonika. Here they joined General Sarrail’s army, rested and refreshed, and frantic for revenge on the Germans and Bulgars. Several thousands of the Greek troops, following the leadership of Venizelos, deserted the king and joined the allies.

Meanwhile, in Athens one prime minister after another tried to steer the ship of state. The people of Greece were in a turmoil. The great majority of them were warm friends of France and England—all of them hated the Turks. The pro-German acts of the king, however, provoked the French and English to such an extent that they frequently had to interfere in Athens. The Greek people resented this interference and on one or two occasions fights broke out when allied sailors marched through the streets of the capital. Matters reached a climax in June, 1917. The governments of France, England, and Italy felt that they could stand the treacherous conduct of King Constantine no longer. They knew that he was assisting Germany in every possible way. They knew that their camp was full of spies who were reporting all their movements to the Bulgarians. They felt that at the first chance he would order his army to attack Sarrail in the rear. They finally sent an ultimatum to him ordering him to give up the throne to his second son. The oldest son, the crown prince, having been educated in Germany and sharing King Constantine’s pro-German sentiments, was barred from succeeding his father. This seemed a high-handed thing to do but there was no other way out of a difficult situation. Constantine had allowed his sympathies with his wife’s brother to prevent his country from carrying out her solemn treaty; had ruled like an absolute monarch; had plotted with all his power for the overthrow of Russia, France, and England, the three countries which had won Greece its independence in the first place and which still desired its people to have the right to rule themselves.

The guns of the allied fleet were pointed at Athens. More than half of the Greek people favored Venizelos and the Entente as against the king and Germany. A second[8] time within four months a European monarch who was out of sympathy with his subjects was forced to resign his crown.

[8] The first was the Czar of Russia, as is told in a later chapter.

With Constantine out of the way, there was nothing to prevent the return to Athens of Venizelos. With great enthusiasm the people hailed his coming, as, once more prime minister, he summoned the members of parliament lawfully elected in 1915, and took control of the government.

In July, 1917, the Greek government announced to the world that, henceforth, Greece would be found in the war on the side of France, Great Britain, and the other nations of the Entente.

Roumania

You will recall that when Bulgaria attacked Serbia the Serbs hoped for help from Roumania. For they knew that Bulgaria had a grudge against Roumania also, because of the Bulgarian territory which she had been compelled to give up to her neighbor on the north at the close of the second Balkan war. They expected this fear of Bulgarian revenge to bring the Roumanians to the rescue.

You have read how Roumania wished for certain lands in Russia as well as in Hungary that are inhabited by her own people. For a long time the government at Bukharest hesitated, fearing to plunge into the war before the time was ripe, and dreading the danger of choosing the wrong side.

The key to the situation was Russia. If Roumania were to go to war she would have to count strongly on the help of her great neighbor to the north.

Meanwhile, strange things were happening in Russia. You will remember that there are two million Germans living in that part of the Russian domain which borders the Baltic Sea. (The states of Livonia and Courland were ruled in the olden times by the “Teutonic knights.”) These Germans are much better educated, on the whole, than the Russians; they are descendants of old feudal warriors and as such are men of force and influence in the Russian government. It was a common thing to find German names, like Witte, Von Plehve, Rennenkampf, and Stoessel among the list of high officials and generals in Russia. In this way there were a great many people prominent in the Russian government, who secretly hoped that Germany would win the war and were actively plotting with this in view. “There is a secret wire from the czar’s palace to Berlin,” said one of the most patriotic Russian generals, explaining why he refused to give out his plans in advance. Graft and bad management, as well as treachery, were all through the nation. Train-loads of ammunition intended for the Russian army were left piled up on the wharves at the northern ports. Guns sent by England were lost in the Ural mountains. Food that was badly needed by the men at the front was hoarded by government officials in order to raise prices for their friends who were growing rich through “cornering” food supplies.[9]

[9] When a group of men buy a sufficient amount of any one article so as to keep it from being sold in great quantities and make it appear that there is not enough to go around, they are said to “corner” the market. Three or four men in America at various times have been able to corner the wheat market or the corn market or the market for cotton.

The czar of Russia truly desired his country to win the war. On the other hand his wife was a cousin of the Kaiser, a German princess whose brothers were fighting in the German army, and she had little love for her adopted country. The poor little Czarevitch, eleven years old, remarked, early in the war, “When the Russians are beaten, papa weeps; when the Germans are beaten, mamma weeps.” In spite of her German sympathies the Czarina had great influence with her husband, and the scheming officials who were secretly plotting the downfall of Russia were able to use this influence in many ways.

In 1916, a new prime minister was appointed in Russia—a man named Sturmer, of German blood and German sympathies. The Russians, after their long retreat in 1915 had gradually gotten back their strength, and had piled up ammunition and gathered guns for a new attack. This began early in June, 1916, when General Brusiloff attacked the Austro-Hungarians in Galicia and Bukowina and drove them back for miles and miles, capturing hundreds of thousands of prisoners. You will remember that the Bohemians, although subjects of Austria- Hungary, are Slavs and have no love for the Austrians of German blood who rule them. Two divisions made up of Bohemian troops helped General Brusiloff greatly by deserting in a body and afterwards re-enlisting in the Russian army.

In northern France, the British and French had at last gained more guns and bigger guns than the Germans had, and by sheer weight of metal were pushing the latter out of the trenches which they had held for over two years. It seemed to Roumania that the turning point of the war had come. With the Russians winning big victories over Austria, and the French and English pushing back the Germans in the west, it certainly looked as though the end were in sight.

Now the king of Roumania, as you have been told is a Hohenzollern, a distant cousin of the Kaiser of Germany, but, just the opposite from the case in Greece and Russia, his wife was an English princess, and she was able to help the party that was friendly to France and Great Britain. The man who had and worked early and late to get his countrymen to join the Entente was Take Jonescu, the wisest of the Roumanian statesmen, the man who predicted at the close of the second Balkan war that the peace of Europe would again be broken within fourteen months.[10]

[10] As an actual fact, there was only twelve and a half months between wars.

By the summer of 1916, the Roumanians had at last decided that if they wanted to get a slice of Bessarabia from Russia and the province of Transylvania from Hungary, they must jump into the war on the side of the Entente. It is claimed by some that they had planned to wait until the following winter in order to get their army into the best of condition and training, but that the treacherous prime minister of Russia, Sturmer, when he found that they were determined to make war on Germany and Austria, persuaded them to plunge in at once, knowing that they were unprepared and that their inexperienced troops would be no match for the veterans of the central powers. At any rate, about the first of September Roumania declared war on Austria and joined the Entente.

The French and English had wished the Roumanians to declare war first on Bulgaria and, attacking that country from the north while General Sarrail attacked it from the south, crush it before help could arrive from Germany, much in the fashion in which poor Serbia had been caught between Austria and Bulgaria a year previously. The Roumanians, however, were eager to “liberate” their brothers in Transylvania, and so, urged on by bad advice from Russia, they rushed across the mountains to the northwest instead of taking the easier road which led them south to the conquest of Bulgaria. (See maps.)

Germania, Turkey, and Bulgaria at once declared war on Roumania. The battle-field in France, owing to continued rains and wet weather, had become one great sea of slimy mud, through which it was impossible to drag the cannon. General Brusiloff in Galicia had pushed back the Austrians for many miles but a lack of ammunition and the arrival of strong German re-inforcements had prevented his re-capturing Lemberg. The Russian generals on the north, under the influence of the pro-German prime minister, were doing nothing. The Italians and Austrians had come to a deadlock. The country where they were fighting was so mountainous that neither side could advance. North from Salonika came the slow advance of General Sarrail. His great problem was to get sufficient shells for his guns and food for his men. All the time, too, he had to keep a watchful eye on King Constantine, lest the latter launch the Greek army in a treacherous attack on his rear. For the time being, then, the central powers were free to give their whole attention to Roumania.

Profiting by the mud along the western front and trusting to the Russians to do nothing, they drew off several hundred thousand men from France and Poland and hurled them all together upon the Roumanians. At the same time, another force composed of Turks, Bulgarians, and some Germans marched north through the Dobrudja to attack Roumania from the south. Thus, the very trick that the French wished Roumania to work upon Bulgaria was now worked upon her by the central powers. France and England were helpless. They sent one of the best of the French generals to teach the Roumanians the latest science of war, but men and guns they could not send. Look at the map and see how Roumania was shut off from all help except what came from Russia. Here Sturmer was doing his part to help Germany. Ammunition and troops which were intended to rescue Roumania, never reached her. The Germans had spies in the Roumanian army and before each battle, knew exactly where the Roumanian troops would be and what they were going to do.

The German gun factories had sold to Roumania her cannon. On each gun was a delicate sight with a spirit level—a little glass tube supposed to be filled with a liquid which would not freeze. Slyly the Germans had filled these tubes with water, intending, in case Roumania entered the war on their side, to warn them about the “mistake.” When the guns were hauled up into the mountains and freezing weather came, these sights burst, making the guns almost useless. Overwhelmed from both the northwest and the south, the Roumanian army, fighting gallantly, was beaten back mile after mile. Great stores of grain were either destroyed or captured by the Germans. The western part of Roumania where the great oil wells are, fell into the hands of the invaders, as did Bukharest, the capital.

Sturmer had done his work well. Germany, instead of being almost beaten, now took on fresh courage. Thanks to Roumanian wheat, Roumanian oil, and above all, the glory of the victories, the central powers were now in better shape to fight than if Roumania had kept out of the war. The German comic papers were full of pictures which declared that as England and France had always wanted to see a defeated Hohenzollern they might now take a long look at King Ferdinand of Roumania.

Questions for Review

What was the great disappointment connected with the rise to power of the “young Turks”?

What would you say was the secret of the success of Venizelos in Greece?

What mistake did the Greeks make at the close of the war of 1913?

What was the real cause of the strife between Venizelos and King Constantine?

Would King Constantine have been justified in holding as prisoners the French and British troops who were driven back upon Greek soil?

What right had Venizelos to set up a republic?

Was it right for the Entente to force the resignation of King Constantine?

What made Roumania decide to join the Entente?

How was the Roumanian campaign a great help to the Central Powers?