Entente offers Smyrna to Greece

On 12 April 1915, that is 30 March by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, the ministers of Britain, France and Russia in Athens called on the Prime Minister, Dimitrios Gounaris. They declared that if Greece joined the war against Turkey, their governments were ready to grant her “territorial acquisitions in the vilayet of Aidin”. This was an Ottoman province on the western coast of Asia Minor, with its capital at Smyrna, the largest port on Turkey’s Aegean coast, with a very large Greek population.

Smyrna and its hinterland

Gounaris wanted to know what cooperation was expected of Greece and how far the promised acquisitions extended. The British minister, Sir Francis Elliot, replied that he had no instructions on the matter of cooperation. As for territory, it meant the “very important concessions on the coast of Asia Minor” that the British Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, had promised Greece in January. Pressed by the Prime Minister, Elliot explained that this meant “Smyrna and a considerable part of its hinterland”. His Russian and French colleagues were inclined to agree, though both stipulated that they had no instructions on the matter.

Gounaris also asked whether the ministers had passed on to their governments how his predecessor, Eleftherios Venizelos, who in his memoranda had sketched a vision of a greater Greece in Asia Minor, understood the boundaries of the promised lands. It turned out that they had not. Elliot had heard of this interpretation only semi-officially and had received no reply from London, the Russian had passed on nothing, and the Frenchman knew nothing about it. According to the British historian George Abbott, who wrote on the basis of Greek documents, of the extensive acquisitions Venizelos had spoken of, only Smyrna and its surroundings were thus left.

Why now

The Entente needed Greek troops more than ever. After the fleet’s attack in the Dardanelles was repulsed on 18 March, the British and French were preparing a landing on the Gallipoli peninsula. When at the beginning of March Venizelos had proposed sending Greek troops there, Russia had objected, as it did not want to see the Greeks in Constantinople. After Venizelos’s resignation London urged Petrograd not to reject the help of any state that could give it on reasonable terms. In their March memoranda to the Russian government the British gave assurances that they had no thought of giving Greece any part of the straits, and it was precisely Smyrna that was considered as compensation for her. Russia soon softened its objection, though it still looked unfavourably on strong Greek forces in European Turkey.

Athens considers

The Gounaris government did not reject the proposal out of hand. Since taking office it had maintained that Greece remained friendly to the Entente and differed from the previous cabinet only in its assessment of the risk of entering the war at once. The offer was considered by King Constantine I, the general staff and the government. The greatest fear was Bulgaria, which might attack Greece while her army was fighting the Turks. The best guarantee of security would have been the simultaneous entry of the Bulgarians into the war on the Entente side, but Sofia demanded in return lands that Greece did not want to give up. Two days later Athens replied with a proposal of its own, hedged with conditions.