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.
[Illustration: Venizelos (left) with Greek ambassador to England]
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.
[Illustration: What The Allies Wished]
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.)
[Illustration: Messen How Roumania was crushed]
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?