Italians occupy Ioannina

On 8 June 1917 Italian units from southern Albania crossed the Greek border and occupied, without a fight, Ioannina, the chief town of Epirus. This date is given by the British chronology of the war, the British official history of the Macedonian campaign (Falls) and John Buchan. According to Falls the Italians pushed on rapidly southwards and on 10 June took the port of Preveza at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf. This happened only five days after General Giacinto Ferrero had proclaimed at Gjirokastër the independence of Albania under Italian protection.

Ioannina was a special city for the Greeks. In March 1913, during the Balkan Wars, it was taken after a long siege by the Greek army commanded by the then Crown Prince, later King Constantine I. In the spring of 1917, however, Epirus was almost defenceless. After accepting the December ultimatum, royalist Greece had had to move its troops from Epirus and Thessaly to the Peloponnese, and Allied control officers had been stationed in Ioannina since the winter. The Greek soldiers and gendarmes put up no resistance.

Why the Italians entered Epirus

The move was timed to coincide with the operation the Allies were preparing against King Constantine. Just then the French High Commissioner Charles Jonnart was arriving in Greece, and General Sarrail’s troops were preparing to enter Thessaly and land on the Isthmus of Corinth, as agreed at the London conference. Officially the Italians cited military reasons. Buchan writes that the occupation of Ioannina cut the last open line of communication between Athens and the Central Powers, which ran through Epirus to the Austrian lines in Albania.

Falls, however, has no doubt that something else was at stake. The Italians entered Epirus without warning Britain and France, and their move was obviously aimed at the claims to southern Albania attributed to Eleftherios Venizelos. Modern Italian studies take a similar view: the main aim was to forestall Greek and French aspirations to Northern Epirus. The Venizelists welcomed the French entry into Thessaly with joy, but took the Italian occupation of Ioannina as badly as the royalists did. According to the American annual New International Year Book, the city was occupied despite Greek protests.

An awkward ally

The affair complicated the already strained relations among the Allies. The British and French, who were just about to force Constantine out, now had to reckon with the Greeks, including those well disposed towards the Entente, seeing the operation as part of a partition of their country. Falls writes that the situation was rather tense until Italy agreed to withdraw its troops as soon as the Entente forces left Athens and Thessaly. Even then a final settlement of the matter required long negotiations.

The Italians remained in Ioannina throughout the summer. The French left Athens at the end of July, and according to some studies the Italian units did not leave Greek Epirus until the turn of August and September 1917. The impression made by their entry, and the dispute over Northern Epirus, long weighed on Greek-Italian relations.