Venizelist coup in Salonika

On 30 August 1916, or 17 August by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, a revolt by supporters of Eleftherios Venizelos broke out in Salonika. A group of officers and politicians of the Liberal Party set up a committee, which proclaimed that Greek Macedonia was siding with the Entente and renounced obedience to the government in Athens. The movement took the name National Defence (Ethniki Amyna). At its head stood the officers Konstantinos Mazarakis and Epameinondas Zymvrakakis. The British official history of operations in Macedonia calls it the “Committee of Public Safety”. The following night there was an exchange of fire with the garrison loyal to the king, and the matter was decided by the attitude of General Maurice Sarrail, commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in the city.

The Bulgarians in Macedonia

The immediate cause of the revolt was the Bulgarian offensive. From 17 August Bulgarian troops were attacking at Florina in the west, and from 18 August they were entering Greek Eastern Macedonia, as far as the Struma and the neighbourhood of Kavala. The government of Alexandros Zaimis, which had only just demobilised the army, forbade the troops to resist, just as in May, when the Bulgarians and Germans took Fort Rupel. Lands won in the Balkan Wars were being handed to the old enemy almost without a shot. The British official history writes that the invasion, and still more the cruelty of the invaders, who burned and looted Greek villages, spurred into action the Liberals in Salonika, who had long wanted Greece to enter the war.

The British journalist Gordon Gordon-Smith, who was living in Salonika at the time, described daily protest meetings at the White Tower, at which for the first days people confined themselves to loud demonstrations and threatening resolutions. In Athens on 27 August Venizelos himself addressed a great rally. He called on King Constantine I, even at the last moment, to put himself at the head of the nation and defend its honour and territory, and warned that if his call was ignored, his supporters would not look on passively as disaster approached. The king did not reply.

A revolution at three in the afternoon

According to Greek accounts, a secret committee of Liberals from all over Macedonia had been active in Salonika since the end of 1915; it recognised Venizelos as its leader and sought support among army officers and in the Cretan gendarmerie. The day before, 29 August, Lieutenant-Colonel Mazarakis had tried to take over a mountain artillery battalion and lead it to the front, but the chief of staff of the Greek III Corps sent two companies to the barracks and forced him to back down. The next day his comrades decided to act.

Gordon-Smith remembered that day with a certain irony. When he went down to lunch in the restaurant of the Olympus Palace hotel, he heard that the revolution would begin at two. At the next table the excited leaders of the movement were eating hurriedly, drafting proclamations on the backs of the menus. At two they had still not got to their coffee, so the revolution was put off until three. At that hour crowds began to flow through the streets, and about two hundred Cretan gendarmes marched along Venizelos Street to inform Sarrail that Salonika was no longer subject to King Constantine. Greek accounts speak of about 600 Cretan gendarmes and three companies of volunteers, who surrounded the headquarters of III Corps. According to the British official history the movement was also supported by an artillery regiment, the gendarmerie and the police. The committee appointed a commission to take control of the Greek administration. The prefect waited for instructions from Athens and did nothing, and the day passed without disorder.

The night and Sarrail

Blood was shed early on 31 August, when supporters of the committee clashed with soldiers loyal to the king. Gordon-Smith wrote that an infantry regiment shut the barracks gates against the insurgents, and they opened fire. The number of casualties varies in the sources: according to a dispatch from General George Milne, commander of the British forces at Salonika, there were six casualties; according to Sarrail, three killed and five wounded. The firing stopped after French officers intervened. The garrison commander declared that he would surrender to the French but not to the insurgents, and after talks between the committee and Sarrail French Zouaves disarmed the royal soldiers. Some of them joined the movement; the rest were sent under French escort to a camp and then to southern Greece.

Sarrail did not suppress the revolt, although since June it was he who held real power in the city. The king’s supporters accused the French of instigating the movement, and the British official history admits that the matter is still disputed. What is certain is that Sarrail had long been keen to see Greek volunteers alongside the Allies, and the disarming of the garrison meant that there were no longer any troops in Salonika obedient to Athens. The British minister in Athens, Francis Elliot, reported on 31 August that the committee had intended to proclaim the autonomy of Macedonia but had given up the idea for fear that the king would abdicate.

What came next

Venizelos at first hesitated to put himself at the head of a movement that was splitting the state. The revolt in Salonika, however, was the beginning of a rift that could no longer be stopped. At the end of September Venizelos left Athens and, by way of Crete, arrived in Salonika in October, where together with Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis and General Panagiotis Danglis he formed a provisional government of National Defence, rivalling the royal government in Athens. The National Schism divided Greece into two states.