Constantine gives assurances of Greek neutrality

The British chronology of the war records under 6 October 1915 that King Constantine I of Greece assured the British minister in Athens, Sir Francis Elliot, that his country would remain neutral. The Greek mobilisation and the landing of Entente troops at Salonika were, however, to continue. This was one of the first indications of the king’s intentions after the fall of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who had resigned the day before when Constantine refused to back his policy. A new government was only just being formed under Alexandros Zaimis.

An evasive answer

Elliot was received by the king before his instructions from London reached him. On the morning of 6 October the British government deliberated on a situation that had changed within a single day. The foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, instructed Elliot to request an audience and to remind the king that British and French troops had come at the request of the Greek government to help Serbia, and at the same time to help Greece honour her obligations towards her neighbour. Constantine and the new prime minister were to say clearly what they intended to do about the alliance with Serbia and how they regarded the foreign troops on Greek soil. According to the information that the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, Sir Arthur Nicolson, passed on 7 October to the Italian and Russian ambassadors, the minister heard from the king only an evasive answer on the obligations towards Serbia. The British official naval history sums up the Greek reply in a similar way: the question of help for Serbia had not yet been decided.

Only the attitude to the Serbs was evasive. On the question of war with the Central Powers the king left no doubt. The Italian foreign minister, Sidney Sonnino, summarised on 7 October the telegrams reaching Rome: for the time being Greece did not oppose further landings at Salonika and was not halting mobilisation, but the king would not entertain the idea of war with Germany. According to the British official history, Constantine said openly in those weeks that he greatly feared the German army, but no less the Allied fleet, and that no inducement would make him openly side with either.

A problem for London and Paris

For the Allies this was an awkward position. The troops had landed at Salonika with Venizelos’s consent, amid a purely formal protest by the Greek government, in order to help Greece fulfil her alliance with Serbia. Now it turned out that Greece had no intention of fulfilling that alliance. In London it was feared that the new government would protest no longer for show, would demand the withdrawal of the troops or would even use force. In Macedonia stood mobilised Greek divisions, many times more numerous than the first Allied units. The British stopped sending further soldiers to Salonika until the situation was clarified. The French ambassador in London, Paul Cambon, on the other hand wanted to speed up the landing and pay no heed to Greek objections. Sonnino advised the allies to continue the operation calmly, to make no protests or new promises and to leave to the government in Athens the whole responsibility for any change of course.

The Greeks did indeed not interfere. General Maurice Bailloud’s French 156th Division landed all its fighting units within 48 hours of the start of the landing on 5 October. On the same day the first battalions of the British 10th Division came ashore, although the further landing of the British was delayed. Elliot did not ask for a second audience, as he considered it unnecessary. The British military attaché, whom the king received in those days, also heard answers that were “evasive and very reserved”. As early as 8 October the Zaimis government officially announced that Greece would maintain armed neutrality.