Allies seize German ships at Piraeus

On 1 September 1916, or 19 August by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, the Franco-British squadron of Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet anchored in the afternoon in the Bay of Salamis near Athens. That same evening and night the Allies seized the German and Austrian merchant ships interned in the port of Piraeus and its surroundings. This is how the events are described by the British official history of the war at sea, the American journalist Paxton Hibben and the British writer George F. Abbott. The British chronology of the war records the seizure of the ships under 2 September, the day on which the French and British ministers handed Prime Minister Alexandros Zaimis a note with new demands.

Why the fleet sailed to Athens

After the June note of the powers, relations between Athens and the Entente briefly improved. They were changed by the Bulgarian advance into Greek Eastern Macedonia in August, which the Zaimis government made no attempt to stop. The British official history writes that in Paris, and to a lesser extent in London, it was held that the surrender of forts and stores to the Bulgarians gave the Allies the right to “suitable concessions” from Greece. At the request of Paris the British sent ships to the island of Milos, where the squadron of the French commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean was assembling. On 26 August, however, the Admiralty forbade the commander of the British detachment, Rear-Admiral Hayes-Sadler, to take part in any offensive action against Greece without express orders from London.

The French orders to Dartige du Fournet were far-reaching. The admiral was to immobilise the Greek fleet and the Greek general staff, seize all enemy ships at Eleusis and Piraeus, arrest enemy agents, take control of the post, the telegraph, the wireless stations, the coal and fuel depots and the railways, and even try to cut the railway link between Athens and the Peloponnese. Prime Minister Aristide Briand argued that Greek officers were passing information on army movements at Salonika to the enemy, and that as long as Athens could communicate with the enemy, the Allied offensive was not safe. Paris also wanted to land an infantry brigade near Athens.

The British had doubts. On 30 August the minister in Athens, Sir Francis Elliot, cabled that King Constantine I, impressed by Romania’s entry into the war, was himself considering abandoning neutrality, and that an armed demonstration at such a moment “might do infinite harm”. The War Committee in London nevertheless agreed, reluctantly and for the sake of unity with France, that British ships should sail to Salamis “in support of the demand” for control of the Greek post and telegraphs. It opposed a landing, however, and considered control of the ports and railways not urgent. On 31 August Dartige du Fournet gathered the admirals aboard the battleship Provence and announced that he would first carry out two tasks: paralyse the Greek fleet, especially its submarines, and seize the enemy merchant ships at Piraeus.

The squadron in the Bay of Salamis

The ships began leaving Milos during the night of 31 August/1 September. In the morning the battleships set out: the French, led by the flagship Provence, and the British Exmouth, followed by cruisers, monitors, destroyers, net-layers and minesweepers. Abbott, who drew on the French admiral’s memoirs, writes of seventy-three vessels. In the early afternoon the squadron passed through a swept channel and anchored in the Bay of Salamis, and a net-layer closed its anchorage to submarines. The Greek fleet, the battleships Kilkis and Lemnos, the armoured cruiser Georgios Averof, and torpedo boats and submarines, lay off the Salamis arsenal. According to the British official history, not one ship had steam up and most of the crews were ashore. The Greek fleet could have put to sea only under the guns of the whole squadron, so it was in practice immobilised.

Immediately after arrival Rear-Admiral Biard’s cruiser division seized the enemy ships off Piraeus and towed them to the fleet anchorage. Hibben writes that the same night the French flag was raised on four German and three Austrian merchant ships, interned since the beginning of the war in Keratsini Bay near Piraeus, and their officers and seamen were arrested and taken aboard an Allied warship. Abbott speaks of roughly a dozen ships from the ports of Eleusis and Piraeus and adds that nobody even tried to justify it: the Allies were short of tonnage, so they took it. According to Hibben, officers of the squadron also took over the government wireless station.

The next day: the note

On the afternoon of 2 September the British and French ministers handed Zaimis a note. The two governments, “knowing from reliable sources” that their enemies were receiving information through, among other channels, the Greek telegraph, demanded control of the post, the telegraph and the wireless telegraph. Enemy agents engaged in bribery and espionage were to leave Greece immediately, and “the necessary steps” were to be taken against Greek subjects guilty of such acts. The main target was Baron Schenck, head of German propaganda in Greece and formerly the representative of the Krupp works in the Balkans. Hibben stresses that the Russian and Italian ministers did not sign the note.

The evidence the Allies invoked was never made public. Abbott quotes a complaint by Dartige du Fournet himself that he had not received from Paris a single piece of evidence that would have enlightened him. The blow also came at a peculiar moment. On the same day that the squadron anchored off Salamis, Elliot spoke with the king, who declared that in his view the time had come to declare war on Bulgaria, but that the army was demobilised and needed equipment. On 1 September officers also arrived in Athens whom General Maurice Sarrail had disarmed and sent off under escort after the Venizelist coup in Salonika, and the king thanked them for their loyalty. Elliot believed that this incident did the Allies much harm.

What came next

Athens offered no resistance. The ministers and the admiral settled the details of telegraph control on 9 September: from then on, cipher telegrams could be sent only with the consent of the ministers of the protecting powers, and Allied controllers took their places in Athens, Larissa and Ioannina. Zaimis accepted these terms and a few days later resigned. The squadron remained off Salamis for many months, its guns trained on the capital, and its presence became for the king and his supporters a symbol of foreign pressure. The British official history observes that with the participation of British ships, London became jointly responsible for a policy it largely did not approve of.