Surrender of the Greek IV Corps at Kavala

On the evening of 11 September 1916, or 29 August by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, most of the Greek IV Corps, surrounded in Kavala, laid down its arms and gave itself up to the Germans so as not to fall into Bulgarian captivity. This date is given by the British official history of the operations in Macedonia and by George F. Abbott and Paxton Hibben, and the Bulgarians entered the town the next day, 12 September. The British chronology of the war records the surrender of the corps only under 18 September, and the British official history of the naval war states that the formal surrender of the garrison took place on 19 September.

A corps in a trap

IV Corps, with its headquarters at Kavala, guarded Eastern Macedonia, won by Greece in the Balkan Wars. After the June demobilisation it numbered, according to the Greek official history, about 600 officers and 8,500 men. When in the second half of August the Bulgarians, supported by German units, advanced deep into Eastern Macedonia, the government in Athens forbade any resistance. Colonel Christodoulou, acting commander of the 6th Division, wanted to defend Serres, but lacked the strength to do so. He withdrew towards the coast, picking up the corps’ field artillery from Drama on the way, and on 4 September entered Kavala. The forts around the town were already in Bulgarian hands.

The corps commander, Colonel Ioannis Hatzopoulos, discussed with the Allied naval command the evacuation of his troops by sea. According to the British official history he refused when he learned that the men were to be taken to Salonika, where they would probably be urged to join the Venizelist revolt. The British writer George F. Abbott, sympathetic to the King, says that on 6 September the Bulgarians demanded that the Greeks hand over the hills above the town, and on 9 September British sailors destroyed the wireless station in Kavala. The corps was cut off from everything.

Ultimatum and panic

On 10 September a German officer demanded that Hatzopoulos surrender the town and his troops within 24 hours. Abbott says that the German invoked Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and demanded that the Greek units be assembled at Drama. Hatzopoulos called a council of officers, which decided to attempt an escape and, should it fail, to give themselves up to the Germans on condition that they were taken to Germany, not to Bulgaria. The colonel also asked, through the British, who controlled Kavala’s communications with Athens, for permission to surrender to them and be interned on the island of Thasos. The Minister of War, General Konstantinos Kallaris, ordered him to sail with the whole corps to Volos, on Greek ships or, if need be, on any others. According to Abbott and the American journalist Paxton Hibben the order arrived too late, and the British allowed on board their ships only those who agreed to join the movement in Salonika.

During the night of 10–11 September panic broke out in the town. Greek soldiers seized barges in the harbour and tried to reach Thasos, but in the morning the sea threw them back, and according to Abbott many drowned. Colonel Christodoulou, a supporter of the Entente, managed to embark part of the troops. The British official history speaks of about 2,000 men and ten batteries, Hibben of about 3,400 men and 80 officers, whom the French carried to Thasos. On the morning of 11 September a German officer handed Hatzopoulos a telegram from Hindenburg, which guaranteed the Greeks transport to Germany with their arms and treatment as guests. According to the British official history the rest of the corps, about 8,000 men, surrendered in the evening with the remaining artillery and fortress guns. The soldiers were marched to Drama.

What came next

The Bulgarians occupied Kavala, a port they had coveted since the Balkan Wars. The same day in Athens the Prime Minister, Alexandros Zaimis, resigned, leaving the country without a government for several days. According to modern Greek studies the Germans took the Greeks by rail between 15 and 27 September to Görlitz in Silesia. According to research by the Greek historian Gerasimos Alexatos, 464 officers and 6,373 men were interned there. The British official history stresses that they were not treated as prisoners of war. The Greek government, which according to Abbott learned of everything only after the first transport had arrived in Germany, protested in Berlin and demanded that the soldiers be sent home through Switzerland.

For supporters of the Entente the surrender became proof of treachery. In a leading article of 19 September the London Times wrote of “mutiny, perjury and treason”, and the Allied press spoke of 25,000 or even 40,000 soldiers handed over to the Germans and blamed it all on King Constantine I. According to Greek studies the events at Kavala drove more officers into the camp of Eleftherios Venizelos. The internees remained in Görlitz until the end of the war. Hatzopoulos died there in April 1918, and most of his soldiers returned home only in 1919, where the Venizelists long regarded them as traitors.