Reports of an Entente loan to Greece

The British chronology of the war records under 8 November 1915 the conclusion of a loan by the Entente powers to Greece of £1,600,000 sterling, or about 40 million francs, and refers to a further one, concluded in July 1916, for £800,000. In the available studies and diplomatic documents, however, it has not been possible to confirm that any agreement was signed on that day. What is certain is that Greece urgently needed money and that it was in November that London and Paris began to dole it out as a means of pressure.

The source of the trouble was mobilisation. Since the end of September 24 classes of reservists had been under arms, and their upkeep was swallowing all the state’s revenue. France had supported Greece with money before: according to the British Annual Register, by March 1915 it had paid her advances of £800,000. At the beginning of October the French minister in Athens, Jean Guillemin, told the new prime minister, Alexandros Zaimis, that the promised subsidy would be paid only on condition that the army remained mobilised. The Allies wanted the Greek army to be able to face the Bulgarians if necessary, even though Athens had declared armed neutrality and had no intention of helping Serbia.

The situation changed after the fall of the Zaimis government. His successor, Stefanos Skouloudis, did profess benevolent neutrality, but on 10 November he told the Entente ministers that Allied troops withdrawing from Serbia onto Greek territory would have to be disarmed and interned. Two days later the French ambassador in Rome, Camille Barrère, informed the Italian Foreign Minister, Sidney Sonnino, that Paris had proposed to London a naval demonstration and the slowing down of all supplies and remittances of money to Greece. The same day Edward Grey told the Italian ambassador that he was holding back supplies until clear assurances were received from Athens. According to the historian Stavros Stavridis, Grey warned the Greek minister in London that without a clear undertaking on the treatment of withdrawing troops there could be no question of any loan. The British official history of the Macedonian campaign adds that ships carrying supplies for Greece were held at Malta and in Egyptian ports and export licences were withdrawn.

The Greeks kept looking for money. On 20 November the Germans offered them a loan of 40 million marks, without political conditions, as Skouloudis later claimed. The Skouloudis government negotiated it in secret, and the money reached Athens in March 1916. They did not stop asking the Entente, however. In December Skouloudis sought 40 million in Paris and London, and the French prime minister, Aristide Briand, as the Italian ambassador in London reported on 14 December, proposed to the Allies an advance of some 8–10 million out of this sum. At the beginning of 1916 Athens was already asking for 150 million francs, but France and Britain set conditions that Skouloudis was unwilling to accept, and did not grant the loan.

The sum in the chronology, about 40 million francs, thus matches the amount the Greeks sought in the following weeks. Nothing indicates that Paris and London paid them such a sum in November 1915. It is possible that an advance was agreed on 8 November and its payment stopped immediately afterwards, but the available sources do not confirm this.