Το Οχυρό Ρούπελ στο βιβλίο Constantine I and the Greek people,1920
CHAPTER XIV
FORT RUPEL
The by-elections in Chios, Lesbos, and eastern
Macedonia early in May resulted, as had been
expected, in a complete victory for the Venizelists : Elephtherios Venizelos himself was elected,
without opposition, in Lesbos. Even in eastern
Macedonia, part of which Venizelos, when prime
minister, had tried to turn over to Bulgaria, Constantine Jordanou, a Venizelist, carried the country by a small majority. Throughout newer
Greece, come under Greek rule only since the
Turkish war of 1912, Venizelos's policy of further increasing the size of Greece by accretions
in Asia Minor and Thrace appealed to the people.
Many of them had relatives, property, or interests in Asia Minor and Thrace. They wished to
see their friends and families freed of Turkish
rule ; what might happen to Greece as a result of
so large an increase in alien population—an an- nexation of territory extensively inhabited by
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CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
Mussulmans as well as by Greeks—was a matter
of indifference. A Cretan himself, but a short
time in touch with any of the life or ideals of Old
Greece, Venizelos understood only this point of
view; he never appreciated that of the Greeks
proper. It was, therefore, among the newer
Greeks that he counted and still counts his supporters.
But while eager enough to see Greece vastly
increased in size through a general Alhed victory,
the inhabitants of the islands and eastern Macedonia shared the reluctance of the inhabitants of
Old Greece to accomplish this result by their own
unaided efforts. When, therefore, immediately
following elections in which the majority of the
voters had supported Venizelos's policy of a still greater Greece, the Bulgarians began preparations to invade eastern Macedonia, the inhabitants of eastern Macedonia were less pleased with
the prospect.
Meanwhile, the least conspicuous and most
effective of the Entente pressures put upon the
Skouloudis government, to force its resignation,
was having a marked effect. The financial situation of the country was exceedingly precarious,
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and the refusal by France and England to let the
Skouloudis cabinet obtain any monies abroad put
the Government in a desperate case. For this reason during the by-elections, while the Venizelists disposed of unlimited funds, lavishly spent,
the conservatives were unable to meet the ordinary campaign expenses, which are, in Greece,
proportionately greater even than in the United
States. The payments due the army had been
in arrears for some time, and the sums which the
families of mobilized men should have received
had never been paid since the mobilization had
begun. Cut off from the possibility of securing
money from abroad, Finance Minister Rhallys,
therefore, executed an arrangement with the
National Bank of Greece for a loan of one hundred fifteen milhon drachmae (some $23,000,000)
calculated to produce a hundred million drach- mae for the Government's use. Thirty million
of this amount was to be obtained by an additional issue of paper currency which the specie reserve of Greece fully justified, but which the
indebtedness of Greece rendered, possibly, a risky
financial operation. The Greek Government,
however, had no choice.
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CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
The proposed convention with the National
Bank upset the financial interests in France and
England at once. Both countries had financed
Greece for years and both realized fully the advantages which their financial hold on the country gave them in development of their trade with
Greece as well as, in times like the present, when
financial pressure could be brought to bend the
Greek Government to meet the political wishes
of the two larger powers. The Entente members of the International Financial Commission,
therefore, fought the conclusion of the projected
arrangement with the National Bank with every means. Nevertheless, the convention was signed.
The prospect of its ratification, and the conse- quent escape for Greece from their financial grip,
hastened the decision of France and England to
employ drastic measures in dealing with Greece.
The water transport of the Serbs was well on
the way to completion. The Entente diplomatists had lost their fight to force the Skouloudis
cabinet to permit a transport by land. Politically, this was a check to the Allies in Greece;
financially, the convention between the Skouloudis government and the National Bank was
2M
FORT RUPEL
another check. Militarily, the failure of the
Serbian adventure and almost eight months' inactivity of General Sarrail's army in Macedonia
were also prejudicial to Entente prestige in the near East. Every consideration pointed to some
sweeping change of policy on the part of the
Entente to regain the lost ground.
Two courses were possible : to cease supporting
Venizelos and the politicians and reach an agreement with King Constantine and the Greek
general staff for the military cooperation of
Greece with the Allies ; or to seek by force to turn
out the Skouloudis government, demand new
elections and provide Venizelos with every support to enable him to win them. The results in
Chios, Lesbos, and eastern Macedonia convinced
the Entente diplomatists that Venizelos would
sweep the country. They therefore chose the
latter course. From the moment General Sarrail assumed
supreme command of the Allied Orient armies
and the Greeks completed their evacuation of
Saloniki, General Moscopoulos, the Greek commander in Macedonia, had urged the French to
extend their lines to the east of the Struma River
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CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
and to take effective control of the Greek points
of strategic importance in that sector/ He ex- plained repeatedly that the Greeks, cut off from
their base of supplies at Saloniki, partially demobilized at the insistence of the Allies, and dependent upon an open roadstead as a port, were
in no position to resist successfully a strong at- tack from the north. Instead of extending his
line, however, General Sarrail had further emphasized the isolation of the Greeks by destroying
the Demir Hissar bridge, two and a half miles
south of the Greek Fort Rupel, on the east bank
of the Struma. Thus Fort Rupel was as effectually cut off as if it had been located in Bulgarian
territory. All the military embarrassments under which his troops labored, and which King
Constantine had exposed to Lord Kitchener, were ignored. The statement of the French and
British ministers that "the withdrawal of the
Greek troops from Macedonia would leave the
1 One thing is astounding : several months ago both French and
Greek oflScers pointed out to General Sarrail the importance of Fort Rupel and his advantage in taking possession of it. It is rather difficult to understand why this advice vi'as not followed,
the army at Saloniki being plenty large enough to permit this slight extension of the AUied front and numerous other points
having already been previously occupied.—"Gazette de Lausanne," No. 218, 1916.
FORT RUPEL
Allied powers indifferent" seemed to be the keynote of the Entente policy toward the Greek
forces in eastern Macedonia. At bottom the intention was undoubtedly so to weaken the position of the Greeks in this sector that any effort
to resist a Bulgarian advance single-handed
would be fruitless and the Greeks, to defend their
own territory from invasion, would be forced to
join the Allies.
Whether or not this was a deliberate, thoughtout policy on the part of the Entente, counting
for its success on the Greek fear of the Bulgars
and hostility to them, is not material. Certainly
Mr. Venizelos, in discussing an apocryphal declaration alleged to have been made by the Greek
monarch to the correspondent of the "Berliner
Tageblatt," of his conviction that "the Bulgarians
will evacuate the Greek territory when they shall
have driven their enemies out of Greece," showed
that he believed his king could not stand against
the anti-Bulgarian sentiment in Greece, and that a Bulgarian invasion would force the Greek
monarch to join the Allies whether mihtarily
prudent or not. No one seems, however, to have
counted the possible cost to the Allied arms of
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CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
this attempt to thrust the King of the Hellenes
into a corner, whence his only escape would be in
the Entente camp, should it fail. Yet the entire
policy of trying to force Greece into war through
the weakness instead of by the strength of her
military position ran counter to all that Constantine had frankly said to Lord Kitchener and
General Sarrail.
Every logic pointed to a retirement of the
Greeks before a Bulgarian advance. Two
months previously Venizelos had declared to me,
"I know that the orders have gone forth that if hostile armies enter the land we so recently
conquered, the Greek forces must withdraw and
permit the scene of our most glorious victories to
become the battle-ground of strangers." Precisely that took place on May 26. The Bulgarians appeared before Fort Rupel and demanded
its evacuation by the Greek troops, offering a
written guarantee that the fort with all its contents would be restored after the war, that private
property would be protected, and that the territory temporarily occupied would be evacuated
later. Prime Minister Skouloudis accepted the
offer, entering a formal protest against an act
FORT RUPEL
of hostility, which his government communicated
to the Entente ministers. Fort Rupel was
promptly abandoned by the Greek troops, who
first rendered its guns useless ; the Bulgarians oc- cupied the stronghold, precisely as the Allies had
occupied Fort Karabourhou and Fort Dova
Tepe. In speaking of the Government's action.
Premier Skouloudis characterized it as the only
practical course open to Greece.
Resistance, after the condition of helplessness to which
our armies in eastern Macedonia have been reduced by
the disposition the Entente have demanded of them,
would have been ridiculous. The best we could do was
to secure certain written guarantees, which were given us only on condition that we would not attempt resist- ance. Had we resisted, we should have been forced
into war and I fail to see what we should have gained
by it. The Venizelists seized the opportunitj'^ to
organize anti-Bulgarian meetings and to try to
inflame public feeling to war pitch. The French
minister in Athens consulted his government and
General Sarrail, and six days later made it plain
to Prime Minister Skouloudis that the surrender
of Fort Rupel would be taken by the French and
British governments as the ostensible reason for
the adoption of a still more drastic policy in deal229
CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
ing with Greece. M. Guillemin informed the
Greek premier that the Entente considered the
surrender of Fort Rupel a violation of Greece's
promised "benevolent neutrality." He stated
that General Sarrail would take whatever measures the military situation created by this
act of the Greeks required, without previous
warning. On June 3, General Sarrail declared
martial law in all parts of Greece occupied by
the Entente. On June 6, Sir Francis Elliot
told the Greek Government that "if the German and Bulgarian advance into Greek territory continued unresisted, the consequences to
the Greek Government would be most serious."
The advance, however, seemed to halt at Fort
Rupel and the bridgehead of Demir Hissar, as Sir Francis himself admitted. Nevertheless, on June 6, an undeclared blockade of the
Greek ports began with great rigor, and every
effort of the Greek Government to obtain from
the Entente an explanation of the blockade or a statement of the terms upon which it would be
raised proved unavailing.
The Venizelists were more communicative.
They asserted, evidently with the knowledge of
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FORT RUPEL
the Entente, that the blockade was to force the
resignation of the Skouloudis cabinet, the dissolution of the Boule and new elections, which
the Venizelists counted upon carrying. Their
pro-war propaganda at this moment was at its height. In reply to it. King Constantine, admitting the impossibility of defending eastern
Macedonia with the force he was permitted to re- tain and under the military conditions prevailing in that section, ordered on June 8, the demobilization of 150,000 men. At the same time the
French fleet occupied the island of Thassos, oif
Cavalla; but no Entente force was sent across the Struma to prevent any further Bulgarian
advance southward, and no effort was made to
replace the retiring Greeks in eastern Macedonia
by Allied troops.
On June 12, six days after the beginning of
the blockade, the Government decided to order
a complete demobilization. The Venizelist prowar propaganda, violent as all newspaper polemics in Greece are, inspired an equal anti-Venizelist propaganda on the part of the government
organs. Charges and countercharges resulted
finally in an attempt to assassinate King Con231
CONSTANTINE I AND THE GREEK PEOPLE
stantine by a mad Venizelist who cried that the
applause of which the Greek sovereign had just
been the recipient at a function in the Stadium
was "paid for by Baron von Schenck." The at- tempt was followed by a counter-demonstration
against the Venizelists in which a number of
Venizelist newspaper offices were stoned. To
the blockade the Entente added a further turn of
the financial screw by ruling Greek loans off the
London and Paris stock exchanges. The position of the Skouloudis government was plainly
untenable. The king sent to ^gena, where
Mr. Zaimis was spending the summer, and re- quested the former premier to consult with him
concerning the formation of a new cabinet.
At this moment a curious circumstance reveals
the position occupied by the entire Entente policy
in the near East. Neither the Greek sovereign nor his government had been able up to that moment to ascertain in what form the Entente would
make the demands conditional upon lifting the
blockade. But Mr. Venizelos and his followers were in no such ignorance. No sooner had the
king sent a destroyer to fetch Mr. Zaimis than
Mr. E. Repoulis, one of Venizelos's right-hand
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FORT RUPEL
men, wrote the Cretan a hasty note acquainting
him with the fact, and urging the dehvery of the
Entente note at once, before the Skouloudis cabinet could resign and Mr. Zaimis, whose friendship for the Entente was well known, could be
installed as premier. Mr. Respoulis wrote quite
as if not the Entente, but Mr. Venizelos himself, were the author of the Entente ultimatum and
were directing the diplomatic action of the Allies.
His thought was plainly not to see certain guarantees obtained for the Entente, but to draw out
of the embarrassing position of the Skouloudis
government the maximum advantage for Venizelos and his partizans. As far as Repoulis and
Venizelos were concerned, the Entente did not
figure in the situation, save as a mere instrument
to the forwarding of the political fortunes of
Venizelos and his followers. Thanks to the
prompt action of Venizelos, on Mr. Repoulis's
representations, the Entente ultimatum was presented the following day, June 21, before King
Constantine could constitute a cabinet whose
character would render the presentation of any
ultimatum superfluous.
