Easing of pressure on Greece

The British chronology of the war records under 13 December 1915, that is 30 November by the Julian calendar, that the British government ordered a partial easing of economic pressure on Greece. This followed from the agreement that the Entente ministers had reached in Athens three days earlier with the prime minister, Stefanos Skouloudis. Greece had not, it is true, handed over Salonika, but it promised not to hinder the Allies in defending the city, and its V Corps was to move away to the east. In return the ministers promised that the difficulties would vanish as soon as the military put the arrangements into effect.

The ships sail

The first to act were the Italians, who at the beginning of December had joined the pressure from London and Paris. The foreign minister, Sidney Sonnino, as early as 11 December, after the news from Athens, ordered Greek mail steamers to be released from Italian ports and their services to the Dodecanese restored. Britain allowed Greek steamers to leave ports of the United Kingdom. Ships detained at Malta could also continue their voyages. On 14 December the Havas agency reported from Athens that, according to the Greek press, the Entente ministers had officially informed Skouloudis of the lifting of economic restrictions and of the release of ships detained in Allied ports. France released Greek ships that were not carrying contraband.

Only partly

The easing did not, however, mean a return to free trade. The British, as the Italian ambassador in London, Guglielmo Imperiali, reported on 14 December, preferred “to proceed gradually along the path of concessions” on supplies to Greece. The French feared that the Greeks would build up stocks of grain and other goods that could reach the Central Powers. According to information from the French government, many empty Greek ships were sailing to America at that very moment, most probably for grain. Paris therefore proposed a quota system like the one introduced earlier for Switzerland. An international commission in Paris was to fix the monthly quantities of wheat, flour, maize, paraffin, coal and fats “strictly necessary” for Greece, and Allied warships in the Mediterranean and customs offices were to track cargoes bound for Greek ports. Once the limit was reached, further shipments would be stopped.

Sonnino was more cautious. He believed that new and delicate negotiations on quotas would only cause more friction, and that the Allies lacked even reliable data. For the time being it would be enough to watch how much the Greeks imported along the two routes they had to use anyway, through Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, and to prevent large stocks from being built up. The French prime minister, Aristide Briand, proposed at the same time that the Allies give Athens an advance of some 8–10 million out of the 40 million that Skouloudis had asked for.

A brief détente

The détente did not last long. In Macedonia the military on both sides kept clashing. Sarrail complained of obstruction by the Greek authorities, and the Greeks of the fortifications that the French and British had begun digging on Greek soil. As early as 15 December the ministers of the four powers handed Skouloudis a sharp note of protest, aimed among other things at the Greeks’ disarming of some 1,500 Serbs in the area of Korçë. Skouloudis called it an ultimatum. From then on ships and goods became a permanent instrument of Entente pressure on Greece: the economic leash was slackened when Athens gave way and tightened when it resisted.