National Schism

The National Schism (in Greek Ethnikos Dichasmos) is what the Greeks called the rift that split their country into two hostile camps during the First World War. On one side stood Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who wanted war alongside the Entente; on the other King Constantine I, who favoured neutrality. From the autumn of 1916 to June 1917 Greece had two governments, and the division long outlived the war.

Roots of the dispute

The dispute had many layers. Venizelos, the architect of victory in the Balkan Wars, counted on the war being won by the powers that ruled the Mediterranean, and on the break-up of Turkey allowing Greece to fulfil the Great Idea, the union with Greece of the Greeks living under Turkish rule. Constantine, trained at the Berlin military academy and married to the sister of Emperor Wilhelm II, expected Germany to win and wanted to save the gains of 1912–1913. Behind him stood the officers of the General Staff and the old parties, pushed out of power by the Liberals. The Greek historian Loukianos Hassiotis also sees in the conflict a dispute over the constitutional rights of the Crown and a rivalry between old and new elites.

The first clash came in March 1915. The king rejected the plan to send troops to the Dardanelles, and Venizelos resigned. The Liberals won the June election, but on 5 October, the day Entente troops were landing at Salonika, Constantine again forced the prime minister out, although a few hours earlier parliament had given the government a vote of confidence. Both sides appealed to the constitution. The Venizelists argued that the king could not reject the policy of a government with a majority; the royalists, that it was the monarch who decided on war. The Liberals boycotted the December election, and their supporters were purged from the administration and the army.

Two governments

In May 1916 the garrison, forbidden by the government to resist, handed Fort Rupel over to the Bulgarians and Germans. The anger in the army was seized on by the officers of National Defence, who on 30 August took power in Salonika thanks to the stance of General Maurice Sarrail. Venizelos at first thought the movement premature, but after the surrender of a Greek army corps at Kavala he left Athens and on 9 October took charge in Salonika of a provisional government together with Admiral Kountouriotis and General Danglis. This government took control of the north of the country, Crete and the Aegean islands, declared war on Germany and Bulgaria in November, and the Entente recognised it only de facto.

The rift turned into a war of nerves, and at times into violence. On 1 December 1916 an Allied landing party clashed in Athens with royal troops, the next day the royalists attacked the Venizelists, and a blockade of the coast brought hunger to the capital. The Archbishop of Athens laid an anathema on Venizelos. In June 1917 France and Britain forced Constantine to leave; he left the throne to his son Alexander, though he did not formally abdicate. On 27 June Venizelos took power in Athens, and his government broke off relations with the Central Powers.

What remained

The unity was only apparent. The new government sent the leaders of the royalist camp into exile, and mobilisation was hampered by mutinies of royalist officers and by the propaganda of Constantine’s supporters, run from Switzerland. Even so, in May 1918 Greek divisions took Skra di Legen and fought in the September offensive. In 1920 Venizelos lost the election and Constantine returned to the throne, only to lose it after the defeat in Asia Minor in 1922. The mass mobilisation of supporters of both camps, Hassiotis writes, marked Greek political conflicts for the rest of the century.