Sarrail demands the withdrawal of Greek troops from Salonika

On 9 December 1915, or 26 November by the Julian calendar, the commander of the French Army of the Orient, General Maurice Sarrail, and the commander of the British troops, General Bryan Mahon, received a Greek staff officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Pallis, at Salonika. He had been sent from Athens to settle with the Allied military how the Entente’s demands were to be met in practice. Sarrail set them out to him bluntly. The most important of them was that the Greek troops must leave Salonika.

An army in someone else’s city

Since October two armies had been standing side by side at Salonika. French and British troops were passing through the port, while mobilised Greek units, including V Corps, were stationed in and around the city. At the beginning of December the Allied position was dangerous. The French were withdrawing from Krivolak down the Vardar, and the British 10th (Irish) Division was beating off Bulgarian attacks at Kosturino, north-west of Lake Dojran. Behind them lay a neutral state whose king was the brother-in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II and whose Prime Minister, Stephanos Skouloudis, had only a month earlier been talking of interning the retreating troops.

The French government had instructed Sarrail as early as 25 November to begin fortifying Salonika. The general could do nothing, however, not even reconnoitre the ground, because the Greek authorities objected. The general demands had been presented in Athens on 26 November by the French minister, Jean Guillemin, but Prime Minister Skouloudis replied that their implementation should be discussed by the military. Only pressure from Guillemin and the British minister, Francis Elliot, backed by the suspension of supplies to Greece, brought Pallis to Salonika.

Four demands

According to the British official history of the Macedonian campaign, Sarrail repeated what the Allies had already demanded through diplomatic channels. First, the Entente troops must have the right to fortify a position for the defence of Salonika. Second, the Greek troops were to leave the city. Third, a neutral zone was to be created south of Lake Dojran, on both sides of the Allies’ line of retreat. Fourth, the Greeks were to hand over Fort Karaburun and the battery at the mouth of the Vardar, which covered the entrance to the Salonika roadstead. Pallis forwarded these demands to Athens.

Sarrail did not wait for a reply. He ordered reconnaissance patrols to be sent out the next day to choose a line of defence around the city, and General Charles Monro, then at Salonika, who since the end of November had commanded the British forces in the eastern Mediterranean, told Mahon to do the same.

Salonika at a crossroads

The demands came at a moment when the future of the whole expedition was still uncertain. At the Calais conference on 4 December the British had demanded the evacuation of Salonika, and on 8 and 9 December even the disembarkation of the British 28th Division was halted. At the military conference at Chantilly on 6 December, however, the representatives of France, Russia, Italy and Serbia opposed evacuation, and on 9 December Edward Grey and Lord Kitchener came to Paris. They decided not to reopen the dispute over whether to stay and to discuss only how best to secure the troops at Salonika. On 10 December the French ambassador in Rome, Camille Barrère, informed Sonnino that the British and French ministers had agreed in Paris on the steps needed to maintain and defend the expeditionary force. The Entente ministers in Athens were to notify the Greek government, counting on the promise of King Constantine I that the Greek troops would offer no resistance and that he himself would at most protest.

Greece, however, did not want to give up Salonika. It was one of the largest cities of the kingdom and the most important port of its north, won only three years earlier in the First Balkan War, and its evacuation by the army would look like a renunciation of sovereignty. The reply from Athens came two days later.