Noemvriana

The Noemvriana (Greek: Νοεμβριανά, "November Events") of December [O.S. November] 1916, also called the Greek Vespers,^[i] was a political dispute, rooted in Greece's neutrality in World War I, that escalated into an armed confrontation in Athens between the Greek royalist government and the Allies.

Tensions began in May 1916, when the Greek fortress of Roupel was surrendered to the Central Powers, mainly Bulgarian forces, raising concerns among the Allies of a secret alliance between the Greek government and the Central Powers. This potential alliance threatened the Allied forces bivouacking in Thessaloniki since late 1915.^[1] Diplomatic negotiations between King Constantine I and the Allies took place throughout the summer, with the king advocating for Greek neutrality, which would favor the Central Powers. The Allies, however, demanded that Greece demobilize its army and surrender the war materials lost at Roupel to ensure Greece's neutrality.^[2] However, the failed negotiations by the end of the summer and the Bulgarian Army's advance in Macedonia led to a military coup by Venizelist officers in Thessaloniki. Supported by the Allies, former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos established a provisional government in northern Greece to form an army to reclaim territories lost to Bulgaria, thus splitting Greece into two factions.^[3]

The involvement of the Hellenic army alongside the Allies and the country's division sparked anti-Allied protests in Athens. In late October, King Constantine and the Allies reached a secret agreement, but pressure from his military advisers forced the king to abandon it. On 1 December [O.S. 18 November] 1916, the Allies landed a small contingent in Athens to enforce their demands but met with organized resistance. An armed confrontation ensued until a temporary compromise was reached. The next day, after the Allied forces evacuated, royalist mobs rioted in Athens, targeting Venizelos's supporters. The violence lasted three days and became known as the Noemvriana, named after the November date in the Old Style calendar. This event drove deep social cleavage between the two sides and marked the height of the National Schism.^[4]

After Noemvriana, the Allies intensified efforts to remove King Constantine I. A naval blockade was imposed, isolating royalist areas, leading the population of Athens to starve. Following Constantine's abdication in June 1917, his son, King Alexander, ascended the throne, and Greece was united under Venizelos's leadership. Greece then joined the Allies in World War I, providing the numerical superiority on the Macedonian front. By 1918, the Greek army helped secure an Allied victory in the Balkans, contributing to the liberation of Serbia and the defeat of the Central Powers.

Greece emerged victorious after the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars, almost doubling its territory and population.^[iv] However, the unstable international political climate of the early 20th century placed Greece in a difficult position. The ownership of the Greek-occupied eastern Aegean islands was contested by the Ottoman Empire, which claimed them as its own. In the north, Bulgaria, defeated in the Second Balkan War, was engineering revanchist strategies against Greece and Serbia.^[5] The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. This caused Germany and Austria-Hungary to declare war against countries allied with Serbia, i.e., Triple Entente, starting World War I.^[6]

Greece, like Bulgaria, initially maintained neutrality during the conflict. The Greek leadership was divided between Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who supported Great Britain on the side of the Allies, and King Constantine, who was educated in Germany and married to the Kaiser's sister and had strong sympathies for the Central Powers. Admiring Prussian militarism and anticipating a quick German victory, the king wanted Greece to remain neutral in the conflict, a strategy favorable to Germany and the Central Powers.^[v][6][7] Both men aspired to the prevailing Greek irredentist ideal, known since the mid-19th century as the Megali Idea. Venizelos adopted an aggressive stance, recognizing the unique opportunities for territorial expansion created by the ongoing war in Europe, while the king favored a conservative approach encapsulated in the vision of "a small but honorable Greece".^[8]

In early 1915, Britain offered Greece "territorial concessions in Asia Minor" if it would participate in the upcoming Gallipoli Campaign. Venizelos supported this idea, while the king and his military advisers opposed it.^[vi][9][10] Dismayed by the king's opposition, the prime minister resigned on 21 February 1915. A few months later, Venizelos's Liberal Party won the May elections and formed a new government.^[11] By that time, the Gallipoli campaign was faltering, and Serbia was in a precarious military situation.^[12]

When Bulgaria mobilized against Serbia on 23 September 1915, Venizelos persuaded the king to sign a decree for a Greek counter-mobilization as stipulated by the Greek–Serbian Alliance of 1913 and asked the Anglo-French army to defend Thessaloniki and aid Serbia.^[11] The Allies, led by General Maurice Sarrail, began landing on 22 September 1915 and entrenched around the city as it was vulnerable against a German–Bulgarian advance; it was reinforced at the end of the year with troops withdrawn from the Gallipoli campaign.^[13] The Greek parliament gave Venizelos a vote of confidence to help Serbia; however, the king refused to abandon the neutral position of Greece, which forced the prime minister to resign and led to the dissolution of parliament. The Liberals considered the king's actions unconstitutional, and they boycotted the December elections, escalating the animosity between the king and Venizelos as well as their loyal followers.^{[14][15][16][17]}

After the resignation of Venizelos, the caretaker government under Alexandros Zaimis adopted a policy of "sincere benevolent neutrality" toward the Allies. Following the December elections, the government of Stefanos Skouloudis pledged to maintain this stance. In practice, however, his administration's decisions sought to appease the king and, by extension, aligned with German interests.^[16] The first indication of this took place in April 1916, when Skouloudis refused an Allied request for Serbian troops stationed in Corfu to use the Greek railways from Corinth to Thessaloniki for their transfer to the Macedonian front.^[18][16]

A month later, the German Supreme Command, concerned about the Allied General Sarrail's movements, ordered Chief of the German General Staff Erich von Falkenhayn to occupy strategic positions inside Greek territory, specifically Fort Roupel.^[19] On 9 May 1916, Falkenhayn informed Athens of the imminent advance of German–Bulgarian forces. In reply, Athens minimized the importance of General Sarrail's movements and requested Falkenhayn to change his strategy.^[20] On 23 May, Falkenhayn guaranteed that Greece's territorial integrity and its citizens' rights would be respected. On 26 May, despite an official protest by the Greek government, 25,000 Bulgarian soldiers led by German cavalry invaded Greece. The Greek forces at Fort Roupel unconditionally surrendered.^[16][21] Despite the assurances of Falkenhayn, Bulgarian soldiers immediately began to forcibly round up the Greek population into large cities, namely Serres, Drama, and Kavala.^[viii] German attempts to restrain Bulgarian territorial ambitions were partially successful, yet on 4 September, Kavala was occupied by the Bulgarian Army.^[22]

The surrender of Fort Roupel caused the Allies to believe that the German–Bulgarian advance was a result of a secret agreement between Athens and the Central Powers, as they were assured that no Bulgarian force would invade Greek territory. The Allies saw this as a violation of Greek neutrality and a disturbance in the balance of power in the Balkans.^[23] The Allied press, especially in France, demanded swift military action against Greece to protect the Allied forces in Macedonia.^[1] On 3 June, General Sarrail declared martial law in Thessaloniki, effectively stripping the Greek government of control over the city.^[24] Additionally, Italian concerns about relying on Greek forces to protect its flanks revoked the presence of Greek troops from Northern Epirus, resulting in Greece's loss of another region.^[25][16]

For Venizelos and his supporters, the surrender of Fort Roupel signaled the loss of Greek Macedonia. On 29 May, Venizelos proposed to Sir Francis Elliot (senior British diplomat in Athens) and Jean Guillemin (senior French diplomat in Athens) that he and General Panagiotis Danglis should establish a provisional government in Thessaloniki to mobilize the Greek army to repel the Bulgarians. Venizelos pledged that the army would not move against the king and the royal family. According to Elliot's report, Venizelos hoped that the "success of his action and pressure of the public opinion might at the last moment convert His Majesty".^[26] The proposal had French support. However, it met with strong opposition from Britain, forcing Venizelos to abandon the plan.^[27]

On 9 June, the Allies held a conference in London to examine the reasons for the rapid surrender of Fort Roupel and favored the complete demobilization of the Greek army and navy.^[2] King Constantine anticipated the results of the conference and ordered a partial demobilization on 8 June. The tension between the royal government and the Allies continued since 'anti-Allied activities' in Athens were ignored by the Greek government. On 12–13 June, a mob destroyed Venizelist newspapers: Nea Ellas, Patris, Ethnos, and Estia. The mob proceeded to the British Embassy as police idly stood by without interfering.^[28] This incident gave France the political ammunition to persuade Britain that more extreme measures were needed. On 17 June, the London conference decided "that it was absolutely necessary to do something to bring the king of Greece and his Government to their senses".^[29]

On June 21, the Allies demanded that the Greek government and parliament be dissolved, new elections be held, and the Greek army be demobilized.^[24] The government complied by beginning the army's demobilization, initially scheduling elections for August before postponing them to October. The demands intended to re-establish Venizelos as head of government; instead, polarization intensified. Both factions organized demobilized soldiers into reservist groups: the royalist National Reservists League, organized by Captain Ioannis Metaxas, and the Venizelist National League of Greek Reservists, organized by General Danglis.^[30]

On 27 August 1916, Venizelos explained his disagreements with the king's policies during a demonstration in Athens. Venizelos said that the king had become a victim of his advisers, whose aims were to destroy the goals of the Goudi revolution. Additionally, he appealed to the king to pursue a policy of benevolence and true neutrality. He ended his speech by stating that "if this proposal does not lead to success, then there are other means to protect the country from complete catastrophe". The king refused to accept any compromise, including meeting with a committee sent by Venizelos.^[31]

Two days later, army officers loyal to Venizelos organized a military coup in Thessaloniki and proclaimed the "Provisional Government of National Defence". Despite the support of the army, the provisional government was not officially recognized by Venizelos nor the Allied powers. Venizelos criticized this course of action, noting that without the support of the Allied army, the movement would fail immediately.^[32] This further polarized the population between the royalists (also known as anti-Venizelists) and Venizelists. The newly founded separate "provisional state" included the "New Lands", lands won during the Balkan Wars,^[iv] whose population broadly supported Venizelos, while the pre-1912 "Old Greece" (mainly Athens and Peloponnese) was mostly pro-royalist.^[8] Venizelos, Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, and General Danglis formed a triumvirate provisional government and, on 9 October, moved to Thessaloniki to assume command of the National Defence. They directed Greek participation in the Allied war effort in direct conflict with the royal wishes in Athens.^[33] According to a British diplomat:

Not only has Mr. Venizelos' action put a fresh spirit in its promoters here [Thessaloniki], but it has encouraged recruits to come forward from Macedonia where, as I have reported, very little enthusiasm had hitherto been manifested... The Committee of National Defence must now have at its disposal nearly twenty thousand men.^[33]

From the very beginning, Venizelos continued his appeals to the king to join forces to liberate Macedonia jointly.^[34] He wrote:

...I think that the political orientation of the movement is very clear. We want to build an army in order to recover... the territories occupied by our hatred enemy and fulfill our treaty obligations to Serbia, and thus removing the stigma from the face of our nation. After this, and naturally, when the war is over, we shall request the convocation of a [national] assembly, not to change the structure of the state, or the dynasty, or restrict the prerogatives of the Crown as stipulated in the constitution, but in order to explain, elucidate, and safeguard these prerogatives as much as possible so that no king in the future will tell the representatives of the popular sovereignty that in the great national questions, he was right to disregard the popular will and to impose his own views because he considers himself responsible before God.^[34]

Despite Venizelos's moderation, he failed to convince many citizens who, while wary of the king's policies, were equally fearful of Venizelos's perceived anti-monarchy ambitions. It was only after the Noemvriana that he pushed for a radical solution to end the stalemate.^[35]

After the creation of the provisional government in Thessaloniki, negotiations between the Allies and the king intensified. The Allies wanted further demobilization of the Greek army and the removal of military forces from Thessaly to ensure the safety of their troops in Macedonia. The king wanted assurances that the Allies would not officially recognize or support Venizelos's provisional government, and he wanted guarantees that Greece's integrity and neutrality would be respected.^[36] After several unproductive negotiations, on 23 October, the king suddenly agreed to some of the demands required by the Allies, including the removal of the Greek army from Thessaly. The king also volunteered war materiel and the Greek navy to assist them. In exchange, the king requested French Deputy Paul Bénazet to keep this agreement secret from the Central Powers.^[36]

On 3 November, Vice-Admiral Du Fournet, commander-in-chief of the Allied Mediterranean fleet, used the sinking of two Greek merchant ships by a German submarine, as well as the secret agreement, to demand the surrender of the docked Greek warships and took command of the Salamis naval arsenal.^[37] The Greek government yielded, and on 7 November,^[38] the partial disarmament of Greek warships began. The Allies towed away 30 lighter craft.^[39] Three weeks later, the French took over the Salamis naval base completely and began using Greek ships operated by French crews.^[40][41][42]

The Constantine–Bénazet agreement was short-lived due to Venizelos's military plans and pressure exerted by the military in Athens, led by the king, regarding the forced Greek disarmament.^[43] The army of the Defence confronted the royalist army at Katerini (and by January 1917, had taken control of Thessaly). This action at Katerini met with some disapproval among the Allied circles and his own associates in Athens. Answering these criticisms, Venizelos wrote:

I am certainly very sorry that our advance to Katerini has caused displeasure among the foreigners [the Allies] and criticism among our friends there. But our friends should allow me to say that they are suffering from incurable conservatism, which, had it influenced us, would have rapidly succeeded in stifling our movement due to lack of life. For the foreigners, whose friendly feelings I do not doubt, it is natural to think only of their own difficulties and to ignore ours.^[44]

The Venizelist advance was not an attempt to undermine the king's pact with Bénazet since it had been planned long before that. The failure of the secret agreement was caused by subversive activities within segments of the royalist government in Athens to paralyze and disrupt the Thessaloniki provisional government.^[43]

The seizure of Greek ships by the Allies, the Katerini incident, and the Franco-British violations^[vii] of Greece's territorial integrity offended the national honor of a segment of "Old Greece" and increased the king's popularity.^[45][33] The king refused to honor his secret agreement with Bénazet, and soldiers who requested to fight against the Bulgarian occupation were charged with "desertion to the rebels".^[46] A growing movement amongst the low-rank officers within the army, led by Metaxas and Sofoklis Dousmanis, was determined to oppose disarmament and any assistance to the Allies.^[38]

Diplomacy failed despite continuing pressure applied by the Allies against Athens, prompting Du Fournet to alert all diplomats of hostile states to leave Athens on 19 November 1916.^[47] On 24 November, Du Fournet presented a seven-day ultimatum demanding the immediate surrender of at least ten Greek mountain artillery batteries.^[48] Du Fournet was instructed not to use force to take possession of the batteries.^[48] The admiral made a last effort to persuade the king to accept France's demands. He advised the king that he would land an Allied contingent and occupy certain positions in Athens until Greece accepted all the demands.^[48] The king said that the citizens of Greece, as well as the army, were against disarmament and only promised that the Greek forces would not attack the Allies.^[49]

Despite the gravity of the situation, neither the royalist government nor the Allies made any serious effort to reach a diplomatic solution. On 29 November, the royalist government rejected the Allies' proposal, and armed resistance was organized. By 30 November, military units and royalist militia (the epistratoi, "reservists") from surrounding areas had been recalled and gathered in and around Athens (in total over 20,000 men^[50][51]) and occupied strategic positions, with orders not to fire unless fired upon.^[49] The Allied commanders failed to assess the situation, disregarding Greek national pride and determination, causing them to conclude that the Greeks were bluffing. The Allies thought that in the face of a superior force, Greeks would "bring the cannons on a platter" (surrender), a viewpoint that Du Fournet also shared.^[49]

On the early morning of 1 December [O.S. 18 November] 1916, the Allies landed a 2,500-strong^[ii] French and British marine force in Piraeus and headed towards Athens.^[47][39] When the Allied troops reached their designated positions, they found them already occupied by Greek troops. For more than two hours, both sides stood facing each other. Sometime in the morning, an unknown-origin rifle shot was fired, and the battle of Athens began.^[52] Each side blamed the other for firing first. Once the battle spread throughout the city, the king requested a ceasefire, proposing a solution and reaching a compromise. Du Fournet, with a small contingent of troops, was unprepared to encounter organized Greek resistance and was already short of supplies, so he readily accepted the king's compromise. However, before an agreement was finalized, the battle resumed. The Greek battery from Ardittos Hill fired a number of rounds at the entrance of Zappeion, where the French admiral had established his headquarters. The Allied squadron from Phaliron responded by bombarding sections of the city, mostly around the stadium and near the palace.^[53][52] Discussions soon resumed, and a final compromise was reached. The king compromised by surrendering just six artillery batteries camouflaged in the mountains, instead of the ten that the Allied Admiral demanded.^[52][54][54] By late afternoon the battle was finished. According to historian George Leon, the Allies had suffered 194 casualties, dead and wounded, and the Greeks lost 82, not counting civilians;^[52] later analysis provide different numbers.^[iii] By the early morning of 2 December, all Allied forces had been evacuated.^[52]

Witnesses and historians have intensely contested the role of the Venizelists during the battle. Vice Admiral Louis Dartige du Fournet wrote that Venizelists supported the Allies and attacked passing Greek royalist army units.^[53] Venizelists' participation was allegedly so extensive that Admiral du Fourne wrote in his report that he had been involved in a civil war.^[55] The Venizelists continued fighting after the evacuation of the Allied marines until the next day, when they capitulated. The royalists claimed that large caches of weapons and ammunition were found in their strongholds packed in French military containers. Venizelists were led to prison surrounded by a furious mob, and supposedly, only the royal army escorts saved them from being murdered by the angry citizens.^[55] Other historians deny that the Venizelists collaborated with the Allied forces: Pavlos Karolidis, a contemporary royalist historian, argues that no Venizelist attacked their fellow citizens and the only weapons found during the raids on prominent Venizelists' houses were knives.^[56]

The authorities used the pretext of the events to claim that the Venezelists had staged an insurrection with the support of Allied troops and proceeded, with the help of the Reservists, to extensive arrests and reprisals against them. The entire operation was led by two army generals; troops of the military district of Athens took orders from General K. Kallaris, and the soldiers of the active defense were commanded by General A. Papoulas (later commander-in-chief of the Asia Minor expedition). The terror and destruction that followed soon went out of hand, making even the respectable conservative newspaper Politiki Epitheorisis (Greek: Πολιτική Επιθεώρηση, Political Review), which at the beginning urged Greek "justice" to "smite mercifully the atrocious conspiracy" and to purge all followers of the "arch-conspirator of Salonika [Venizelos]", in the end, urge "prudence".^[57] During the following three days, the houses and shops of Venizelists were ransacked, and 35 people were murdered and 980 expulsions.^[58][59] Mourelos estimates that 14 civilians were killed and another 14 were wounded during the Noemvriana.^[60] Chester says that most of those who were murdered were refugees from Asia Minor.^[61] Many hundreds were imprisoned and kept in solitary confinement; historian Giannis Mourelos estimates the number of imprisonments to 922.^[62] Karolidis characterizes the imprisonment of certain prominent Venizelists, such as Emmanuel Benakis (mayor of Athens), as a disgrace.^[56] Some authors argue that Benakis was not only arrested and imprisoned but also disrespected and ill-treated.^[57] Seligman describes that they were only released 45 days later, after a strong demand contained within the Entente ultimatum, which was accepted on 16 January.^[63] Opposing reports also exist, e.g., Abbot asserts that during the evacuation of the Allied forces, many "criminals" and "collaborators" on the payrolls of different Allied spy agencies slipped out of Athens at night after allegedly "terrorizing the city for nearly a year".^[54] Due to his failure, Vice-Admiral Dartige du Fournet was relieved of his command.^[64]

This incident became known in Greece as Noemvriana (November events, using the Old Style calendar) and marked the culmination of the National Schism.^[65] Despite the localized nature of the events, the consequences that followed changed the tide of the Great War.

On 2 December [O.S. 19 November] 1916, Britain and France officially recognized Venizelos's government as the only lawful government of Greece, effectively splitting the country.^[66] On 7 December [O.S. 24 November] 1916, Venizelos's government officially declared war on the Central Powers.^[67][68] Meanwhile, in Athens, Constantine praised his generals. There were also in circulation various pro-royalist and religious brochures calling Venizelos a "traitor" and "Senegalese goat". A royal warrant for the arrest of Venizelos was issued, and the Archbishop of Athens, pressured by the royal house,^[69] anathematized the prime minister (in a special ceremony with the crowd throwing stones at an effigy of Venizelos).^[70][71]

In France, the premiership of Aristide Briand, a leading proponent of engaging with Constantine to reconcile the two Greek administrations, was threatened by the events in Athens, leading to the reorganization of the French government.^[72] In Britain, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey resigned and were replaced by Lloyd George and Arthur Balfour. The change in the British leadership proved to be particularly important for Greece since Lloyd George was a known Hellenophile, an admirer of Venizelos, and dedicated to resolving the Eastern Question.^[73][74]

After Noemvriana, the Allies continued their naval blockade of Athens to pressure the king to accept their demands, causing food shortages in the Athenian population.^[75] The king resisted despite the rise in the number of deaths by starvation. The fall of Tsar Nicholas II in Russia, who refused the French proposals for Constantine's removal from the throne, caused France and Great Britain to take more drastic measures against King Constantine.^[76] In June, they decided to invoke their obligation as "protecting powers" and demanded the king's resignation;^[77] Charles Jonnart, authorized by the Allied governments, directed French forces to take control of the Isthmus of Corinth and Thessaly, ensuring the upcoming harvest would not fall into the hands of the king.^[78][79] Constantine accepted the demands on 12 June 1917 and went into exile in Switzerland.^[80] His son Alexander became the new king of Greece instead of Constantine's elder son and crown prince, George, who was considered to have German sympathies.^[81][82] The king's exile was followed by the deportation of many prominent royalist officers and politicians considered pro-Germans, such as Metaxas and Dimitrios Gounaris, to France and Italy.^[83]

The events paved the way for Venizelos to return to Athens on 29 May 1917. Greece, now unified, officially joined the war on the side of the Allies. The entire Greek army was mobilized (though tensions remained inside the army between supporters of Constantine and supporters of Venizelos) and began to participate in military operations against the Central Powers on the Macedonian front.^[84]

By the fall of 1918, the Greeks, with 150,000 soldiers,^[85] were the single largest component of the Allied army on the Macedonian front.^[86] The Greek army gave the much-needed advantage to the Allies that altered the balance between the two sides on the Macedonian front. On 14 September 1918, under the command of French General Franchet d'Esperey, a combined Greek, Serbian, French, and British force launched a major offensive against the Bulgarian and German army. After the Battle of Skra-di-Legen, the Bulgarian Army gave up its defensive positions and began retreating towards their country. On 29 September, the armistice with Bulgaria was signed by the Allied command.^[87]

The Allied army pushed north and defeated the remaining German and Austrian forces. By October 1918, the Allied armies had recaptured all of Serbia and were preparing to invade Hungary. The offensive was halted because the Hungarian leadership offered to surrender in November 1918, marking the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This also ended the First World War since Germany lacked the forces to stop the Allies from invading Germany from the south. The participation of the Greek army at the Macedonian front was one of the decisive events of the war, earning Greece a seat at the Paris Peace Conference under Venizelos.^[88][89]

• Media related to Noemvriana at Wikimedia Commons
• The dictionary definition of Noemvriana at Wiktionary