Romania refuses guarantees for Greece

The British chronology of the war records under 6 December 1914 that the government of Romania refused to guarantee the security of Greece. This was the answer to the efforts of the Entente, which was seeking help in the Balkans for embattled Serbia. The chronology speaks of a guarantee “against a German attack”, but other sources show that the threat in question was much closer to hand, namely Bulgaria.

Greece in a trap

Greece and Serbia were bound by a defensive alliance concluded in June 1913 in Salonika, directed above all against Bulgaria. When Serbia found itself in a difficult position, however, the Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, refused to send it troops. He explained that if the Greek army marched north, Bulgaria, which had lost Macedonia to its neighbours in the Second Balkan War, would attack Greece or Serbia from the rear. He therefore made his help conditional on an undertaking from Romania that it would hold the Bulgarians in check. Romania alone could threaten Bulgaria from the north, and in 1913 it had stood together with Greece and Serbia on the victorious side.

According to Greek diplomatic documents, the Entente ministers in Bucharest asked the Prime Minister, Ion I. C. Brătianu, point-blank whether he would guarantee Bulgaria’s neutrality towards Greece if Greece hastened to the aid of the Serbs. Brătianu assured them of the greatest goodwill towards Greece and the Entente, but refused such an undertaking. The Greek minister in Bucharest reported this in a dispatch dated, according to the sources, 6 November 1914. The date in the British chronology, shifted by exactly a month, may therefore be the result of an error, or may refer to a repetition of the same refusal in December, when the Entente renewed its efforts.

Brătianu’s caution

The refusal came as no surprise. As early as the beginning of 1914 Brătianu had rejected proposals by Venizelos and the Serbian Prime Minister, Nikola Pašić, to conclude a regional alliance against Bulgaria. After the outbreak of war Romania declared its neutrality, and although in a secret agreement with Russia it had promised Russia benevolent neutrality, it did not want to be drawn into the war prematurely. Its main aim lay in Transylvania, not in Macedonia. Brătianu also feared that Bulgaria would want to recover southern Dobruja, lost in 1913. The Romanian command assumed that in the event of war the army would remain on the defensive on the Bulgarian border and direct its main forces against Austria-Hungary.

At the same time Brătianu did not intend to give the Bulgarians a free hand. According to Romanian historians, in the autumn of 1914 he withdrew his earlier assurances that Romania would remain neutral if Bulgaria attacked Serbia. This uncertainty worked in the Serbs’ favour. In December the Bulgarian minister in Berlin explained to the Germans that his country sympathised with the Central Powers, but could not strike at Serbia without guarantees in case of a joint counter-attack by Romania and Greece.

No change

Romania’s refusal settled that Greece would remain neutral. Venizelos believed that without Romanian support his country was diplomatically isolated in the Balkans. The same obstacle returned in January 1915, when the Entente again asked Greece to help Serbia. Bucharest once more gave an answer too evasive for Athens to rely on. Romania entered the war on the side of the Entente only in August 1916, and Greece in June 1917, after King Constantine I had been removed from power.