Zaimis resigns

On 11 September 1916, or 29 August by the Julian calendar then used in Greece, the prime minister, Alexandros Zaimis, tendered his resignation. This date is given by a British chronology of the war and by the British publicist George F. Abbott, who drew on Greek diplomatic documents. The American Year Book records the resignation under 13 September, probably by the day the news reached the press. Formally Zaimis headed the government until 16 September, when his successor was sworn in. The departing prime minister had been appointed in June at the demand of the Entente powers, merely to lead the country to elections, and in the last weeks had been conducting talks on Greece’s entry into the war.

Talks on war

Romania’s entry into the war at the end of August revived in Athens the idea of abandoning neutrality. King Constantine I told the British minister, Sir Francis Elliot, that the time had come to declare war on Bulgaria, but that the army was demobilised and needed equipment. According to Abbott, on 2 September Zaimis sounded out London and Paris on whether the powers would give Greece the money and arms needed for remobilisation and to replace the material lost in Eastern Macedonia. Eleftherios Venizelos promised the government his support, and the elections the powers had demanded in June were postponed indefinitely with the agreement of all sides.

The talks, however, made slow progress. London received the Greek proposal favourably but cautiously, and replied that if Greece became an ally, Britain would give it every possible assistance. The French prime minister, Aristide Briand, insisted that Athens first declare war and only then count on help. Zaimis replied that the state of the finances and the army did not allow immediate action. The British official history of the war at sea observes that the whole situation had something unreal about it: a king who a few weeks earlier had handed the Bulgarians forts, arms and territory was declaring his readiness for war with Bulgaria, and Britain was promising money to a government suspected of collusion with the enemy.

Pressure from Salamis

At the same time the pressure grew. Since 1 September the Franco-British squadron of Vice-Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet had been lying off Salamis; it had seized the ships of the Central Powers at Piraeus, and the ministers of the powers were demanding control of the Greek posts and telegraphs. On the evening of 9 September, while the ministers were conferring with the admiral at the French legation, a group of men burst into the courtyard, shouting in favour of the King and against France and England, fired a few shots into the air and fled. Zaimis at once drove to the legation to apologise and agreed to punish the culprits and the soldiers who had been on guard and had not intervened. The French nevertheless landed a detachment of sailors to protect the legation. The British official history sees in this the first step towards armed landings, which London firmly opposed. Abbott, sympathetic to the King, claims that the demonstration was organised by agents provocateurs paid by French intelligence, but offers no evidence for this.

Zaimis finally accepted the conditions for control of the telegraphs and posts, and then stepped down. The British official history writes that he gave as his reason that the new policy of cooperation with the Entente could not be carried out by a cabinet of officials such as his. According to Abbott, the official reason was his health. At their last meeting Elliot pressed him on whether he was leaving because the King was secretly obstructing the government’s work. Zaimis firmly denied it and gave assurances that the King was still “inclined towards cooperation with the Entente, but had not yet made up his mind”.

Differing versions

The reasons for the resignation were disputed from the start. Venizelos later claimed that the King, influenced by a telegram from Kaiser Wilhelm II announcing Romania’s imminent defeat, had returned to the policy of neutrality, and that Zaimis realised he was being used. Zaimis himself wrote to the minister in Paris that in his view the next cabinet would not abandon his political line. Abbott links the prime minister’s decision rather with the attitude of the French, who in his view were not negotiating sincerely. Greek accounts point to the growing demands of the Allies and to the Venizelist coup in Salonika.

The King accepted the resignation reluctantly and first entrusted the task of forming a government to Nikolaos Dimitrakopoulos. As Constantine wrote to his brother, Prince Andrew, on 16 September, Dimitrakopoulos concluded after a conversation with Elliot that the powers would not ease their pressure before mobilisation, and gave up. The country was left without a government for several days. Meanwhile, on the evening of 11 September at Kavala, most of the Greek IV Corps, surrounded by the Bulgarians, surrendered to the Germans. The National Schism was entering its most acute phase.