Martial law in Salonika

On 3 June 1916, or 21 May by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, General Maurice Sarrail, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces at Salonika, declared a state of siege. The French état de siège meant martial law in practice: the Allied military took over authority in the city and the Greek administration lost its powers. The British chronology of the war records that the commander-in-chief proclaimed martial law “in the town of Salonika”, but the letter Sarrail handed that day to the commander of the Greek III Corps, General Konstantinos Moschopoulos, and to the prefect of Salonika spoke of a state of siege “in the whole of Macedonia”. It was the first clear consequence of the surrender of Fort Rupel to the Bulgarians and Germans.

Approval from Paris

Sarrail had long wanted to be master at Salonika rather than a guest, but until then General Joseph Joffre had not allowed it. After the loss of Rupel, Paris changed its mind. According to the British official history of the operations in Macedonia, drawing here on the French one, on 1 June Aristide Briand’s government authorised Sarrail to take whatever steps he considered necessary for the security of his troops. The commander of the British Salonika Army, General George Milne, had no instructions in the matter. He considered that the state of siege was not justified by the military situation and that banning the celebration of the king’s name day was tactless. He had no time to receive an answer from London, however, and placed some British military police at the disposal of the French, thereby acquiescing in the whole operation. A telegram showing that he had acted in accordance with the wishes of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, William Robertson, arrived in the afternoon, when it was all over.

Three hours

According to the report of the American consul at Salonika, John E. Kehl, French, British and Serbian patrols had been moving about the city since early morning, while cavalry and artillery stood ready in the suburbs. Before noon twelve armoured cars drove into the main streets. Within three hours of the notification being delivered to the Greeks, Allied troops occupied the prefecture, the customs house, the port, the post office, the telegraph, the wireless station, police headquarters and the headquarters of the Greek gendarmerie. At the post office the Greek guard put up passive resistance, but when French infantry and cavalry surrounded the building, it was ordered by its own commander to withdraw. The commandant of the gendarmerie, the chief of police and the chief inspector of posts and telegraphs were removed from their duties and replaced by French officers. The local press was placed under French censorship, and the Allies also took control of the railways.

The French cut the telegraph wires so that for a day or two Athens would not know what was happening in Salonika. This did not entirely work. Kehl described how the director of the Greek telegraph service sent a motor boat to the Greek wireless station south of the city, near Katerini, before the Allies got there, and the Greek government quickly learned everything. The city was calm. The British official history notes that the day passed without incident.

The royal name day

The date caused the most feeling. 3 June was the feast of Saints Constantine and Helen, and thus the name day of King Constantine I, celebrated throughout Greece. Salonika was decorated, and a thanksgiving service, a parade, a concert and an evening torchlight procession had been prepared. According to Kehl, the Greek authorities cancelled the celebrations as soon as they realised what the Allies were doing. The British official history writes that it was Sarrail who decided to ban the torchlight procession. Briand later assured the Greek chargé d’affaires in Paris that Sarrail had informed General Moschopoulos that the feast could be celebrated as usual, and that it was the Greek general himself who had cancelled it. The British writer George F. Abbott, sympathetic to the king, regarded the choice of day as a deliberate insult. As early as April Sarrail had written that it was necessary to “strike at the head”, that is, at the king. The official history replies that the charge has little foundation: Sarrail received approval on 1 June and acted as quickly as he could.

The response from Athens

The government of Prime Minister Stefanos Skouloudis protested that the French general, forgetting the rules of courtesy and hospitality, had chosen such a moment and had not even warned the Greek authorities. Athens saw it as an insult to the monarch and a breach of the agreement of December 1915, which laid down the terms of the Allied presence at Salonika. Meanwhile in the capital the name day turned into a demonstration against the Entente. The British minister, Francis Elliot, reported on 4 June that the German minister had been greeted with great applause, evidently to order, and that the king had conferred the Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer on a member of the government who a few days earlier had violently attacked France and Britain.

Consul Kehl predicted that the Allies would tighten the screw in Macedonia still further and in time remove all the more important Greek officials. He was right about the direction. The state of siege was only the beginning. A few days later Allied warships began stopping Greek ships, and in the second half of June the Entente powers demanded that Greece demobilise its army and change its government.