History, World War I

At the outset of World War I, Venizelos favored Greece’s entry on the side of the Allied Powers, which included Britain, France, Russia, and later, Italy and the United States. The Allies were arrayed against the Central Powers, which included Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria. King Constantine, who was married to a sister of the German emperor, preferred neutrality. Twice forced to resign as prime minister in 1915, Venizelos broke with the king for good in October 1916 by establishing a rival provisional government in Thessaloniki, the principal city of the new territories that he had been instrumental in liberating from the Ottomans. This marked the beginning of the so-called National Schism, or the division of Greece into two rival camps: the supporters of Venizelos and those of Constantine. In time, Britain and France recognized the Venizelos government, and in June 1917 they forced Constantine to resign in favor of his second son, Alexander. Venizelos returned to Athens in triumph as prime minister of all of Greece and brought his nation into the war on the side of the Allies. Royalists suffered in purges carried out by Venizelos’s eager supporters.

The 1919 Treaty of Neuilly awarded Bulgarian territory in western Thrace and Macedonia to Greece. The Treaty of Sevres in 1920 gave Greece eastern Thrace and the Aegean Islands from the Ottoman Empire; it also designated as a Greek protectorate the city of Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) and its hinterland, where there were large Greek populations. However, Greek troops had landed at Smyrna in 1919 with the assent of the French, British, and U.S. governments. There the Greeks met with resistance from Turkish nationalists under Mustafa Kemal (subsequently Ataturk). Another war was soon underway.

In elections held in November 1920, the Liberals lost, and a coalition led by the monarchist People’s Party replaced Venizelos’s government. King Alexander died in 1920, and his father, Constantine, returned to the throne that December despite the disapproval of the Allies. This and other factors led to the withdrawal of Allied support for Greece, and in 1922 Turkish nationalists routed the Greek forces in Asia Minor. In the chaos of defeat, a junta (group of military leaders) deposed King Constantine, and Constantine’s eldest son took the throne as George II. By the terms of the ensuing Treaty of Lausanne (1923), Greece had to surrender all of its territory in Asia Minor, eastern Thrace, and the islands of Imbros (now Gokceada) and Tenedos (now Bozcaada). More than 1 million Orthodox Greeks from Asia Minor were forcibly exchanged for 400,000 Muslim Turks from Greece. The influx of so many refugees placed a great strain on the social fabric of Greece, but eventually the refugees were successfully integrated into Greek society.