MODERN GREECE: A History since 1821 - Amazon Web Services

THE VENIZELIST DECADE (1910–20) 81
his mentor’s involvement in the plot. 20 The line of argument of
Venizelos’s supporters – namely that the revolt was a spontaneous act of
the local population along with the military stationed in the province –
was also promoted by then Captain Neokosmos Grigoriadis, an early
participant: “Those who organised the revolt had no time to ask for
advice. … Venizelos had not been consulted”. 21
Periclis Argyropoulos, former Venizelist Prefect of Thessaloniki, had
been in contact with French officials in the city as well as with Venizelos.
Early in December of 1915 he was informed by his friend, Alexandros
Zannas, that the French command had given up hope that Constantine
would enter the war on the side of the Entente and had decided to
allow the Serbian king to establish his headquarters in Thessaloniki.
This decision, according to Alexandros Zannas, would depose the Greek
authorities from the province and offer Macedonia to the Serbs. Between
December 4 and December 7, Argyropoulos, Zannas, and members of
the local Liberal club, organised the “National Defence” of Thessaloniki. 22
Not long after the “National Defence” was founded, Venizelos
divulged his worries about the morale of the officer corps to General
Leonidas Paraskevopoulos, influential commander of the 3 rd Army
Corps. His fear was that the fighting spirit of the military had been
undermined by the king and the military was therefore not in a position
to back Greece’s future participation on the side of the Entente. 23
This early indication of Venizelos’s interest in a Thessaloniki-based
provisional government may not have found favor with the British and
was not pressed further. Venizelos however granted his approval to the
recruitment of volunteers by the French army in Macedonia. 24
The capitulation of the Greek Fort Rupel in Eastern Macedonia to the
Bulgarians must have made up his mind to rise against the government
in Athens. However, regular officers joining the “National Defence”
between August 1916 and March 1917 amounted to only 280–300 out of
an officer corps of 4,500. Constantine’s decision to demobilize troops as
a further guarantee of his government’s neutrality caused Venizelos
great apprehension as he saw the futility in a coup without support by
the much reduced army. The outbreak of the Thessaloniki revolt in
August 1916 therefore took him by surprise and Zannas, one of the
instigators, risked a trip to Athens to pacify his leader’s anger. 25
When the revolt began, demobilized troops had not been moved yet
from Thessaloniki. The commander of the demobilized 11 th division,
General Tricoupis, chose to remain loyal to the king and turned his