Balcanica XLIX 2018 PDF

SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS
INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES
XLIX 2018
BALCANICA
Y. MOURÉLOS, Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre: enjeux et
stratégies • A. D’ALESSANDRI, Italian Volunteers in Serbia in 1914 •
M. KOVIĆ, The British Adriatic Squadron and the Evacuation of Serbs
from the Albanian Coast 1915–1916 • M. MILKIĆ, The Serbian Army
in the Chalkidiki in 1916: Organization and Deployment • D. FUNDIĆ,
The Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Serbia as a “Civilizing Mission”
(1915–1918) • S. N. DORDANAS, German Propaganda in the Balkans
during the First World War • D. CAIN, Conflicts over Dobruja during
the Great War • T. KREMPP PUPPINCK, De la Grèce rêvée à la
Grèce vécue. L’armée d’Orient dans une interculturalité complexe • V. G.
PAVLOVIĆ, Franchet d’Espèrey et la politique balkanique de la France
1918–1919 • S. G. MARKOVICH, EleftheriosVenizelos, British Public
Opinion and the Climax of Anglo-Hellenism (1915–1920) • D. BAKIĆ,
The Great War and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia: The Legacy of an Enduring
Conflict • I. D. MICHAILIDIS, A Ten Years’ War: Aspects of the Greek
Historiography on the First World War • R. THEODORESCU, What
Exactly did Romanian Post-War Nationalism Mean? • V. VLASIDIS, The
Serbian Heritage of the Great War in Greece • F. Ţ URCANU, Turtucaia/
Toutrakan 1916 : la postérité d’une défaite dans la Roumanie de l’entre-
deux-guerres • E. LEMONIDOU, Heritage and Memory of the First
World War in Greece during the Interwar Period: A Historical Perspective
• D. DUŠANIĆ, Du traumatisme au roman. Mémoire et représentation
de la Grande Guerre dans l’œuvre de Rastko Petrović (1898–1949) g
ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

ISSN 0350-7653
UDC 930.85(4-12) BELGRADE 2018 eISSN 2406-0801
http://www.balcanica.rs
BALCANICA XLIX
BALCANICA XLIX, Belgrade 2018, 1–276
UDC 930.85(4–12) ISSN 0350–7653
eISSN 2406–0801
ACADÉMIE SERBE DES SCIENCES ET DES ARTS
INSTITUT DES ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES
BALCANICA
XLIX
ANNUAIRE DE L’INSTITUT DES ÉTUDES BALKANIQUES
Rédacteur en chef
VOJISLAV G. PAVLOVIĆ
Directeur de l’Institut des Études balkaniques
Membre s d e l a R é d a c t ion
DRAGAN BAKIĆ (Belgrade), ALBERTO BASCIANI (Rome),
JEAN-PAUL BLED (Paris), LJUBOMIR MAKSIMOVIĆ (Belgrade),
ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ (Londres), DANICA POPOVIĆ (Belgrade),
SPYRIDON SFETAS (Thessalonique), GABRIELLA SCHUBERT (Iéna),
SVETLANA M. TOLSTAJA (Moscou)
BEL G RAD E
2018
UDC 930.85(4–12) ISSN 0350–7653
eISSN 2406–0801
SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS
INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES
BALCANICA
XLIX
ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES
Editor-in-Chief
VOJISLAV G. PAVLOVIĆ
Director of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
E d itor i a l B o a rd
DRAGAN BAKIĆ (Belgrade), ALBERTO BASCIANI (Rome),
JEAN-PAUL BLED (Paris), LJUBOMIR MAKSIMOVIĆ (Belgrade),
ZORAN MILUTINOVIĆ (London), DANICA POPOVIĆ (Belgrade),
SPYRIDON SFETAS (Thessaloniki), GABRIELLA SCHUBERT (Jena),
SVETLANA M. TOLSTAJA (Moscow)
BEL G RAD E
2018
Publisher
Institute for Balkan Studies
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbia, Belgrade, Knez Mihailova 35/IV
www.balkaninstitut.com
e-mail: [email protected]
www.balcanica.rs
 
The origin of the Institute goes back to the Institut des Études balkaniques foun-
ded in Belgrade in 1934 as the only of the kind in the Balkans. The initiative came
from King Alexander I Karadjordjević, while the Institute’s scholarly profile was
created by Ratko Parežanin and Svetozar Spanaćević. The Institute published
Revue internationale des Études balkaniques, which assembled most prominent
European experts on the Balkans in various disciplines. Its work was banned by
the Nazi occupation authorities in 1941.
The Institute was not re-established until 1969, under its present-day name and
under the auspices of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. It assembled a
team of scholars to cover the Balkans from prehistory to the modern age and in a
range of different fields of study, such as archaeology, ethnography, anthropology,
history, culture, art, literature, law. This multidisciplinary approach remains its
long-term orientation.
 
Accepted for publication at the 10th regular session of

the SASA Department of Historical Sciences of 26 December 2018
Volume XLIX of the annual Balcanica is printed with financial support from the Ministry of
Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
Yannis Mourélos, Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre: enjeux

et stratégies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Antonio D’Alessandri, Italian Volunteers in Serbia in 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Miloš Ković, The British Adriatic Squadron and the Evacuation of Serbs
from the Albanian Coast 1915–1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Miljan Milkić, The Serbian Army in the Chalkidiki in 1916:
Organization and Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Dušan Fundić, The Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Serbia as
a “Civilizing Mission” (1915–1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Stratos N. Dordanas, German Propaganda in the Balkans during
the First World War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Daniel Cain, Conflicts over Dobruja during the Great War . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Thérèse Krempp Puppinck, De la Grèce rêvée à la Grèce vécue.
L’armée d’Orient dans une interculturalité complexe . . . . . . . . 91
Vojislav G. Pavlović, Franchet d’Espèrey et la politique balkanique
de la France 1918–1919 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Slobodan G. Markovich, Eleftherios Venizelos, British Public Opinion
and the Climax of Anglo-Hellenism (1915–1920) . . . . . . . . . . 125
Dragan Bakić, The Great War and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia:
The Legacy of an Enduring Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Iakovos D. Michailidis, A Ten Years’ War: Aspects of the Greek
Historiography on the First World War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Răzvan Theodorescu, What Exactly did Romanian Post-War
Nationalism Mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Vlasis Vlasidis, The Serbian Heritage of the Great War in Greece . . . . . . 189
Florin Țurcanu, Turtucaia/Toutrakan 1916 : la postérité d’une défaite
dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Elli Lemonidou, Heritage and Memory of the First World War in Greece
during the Interwar Period: A Historical Perspective . . . . . . . 221
Dunja Dušanić, Du traumatisme au roman. Mémoire et représentation
de la Grande Guerre dans l’œuvre de Rastko Petrović (1898–1949) 237
IN MEMORIAM
Boris Milosavljević: In memoriam, Djurica Krstić (1924–2018) . . . . . . . . . 247
REVIEWS
Anja Nikolić: Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History . . . . . . . 251
Dragan Bakić: Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary
at War, 1914–1918 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Konstantin Dragaš: Dominic Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Boris Milosavljević: Stéphane Courtois, Lénine, l’inventeur du totalitarisme . . . . . . 258
Rastko Lompar: Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović: Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Religion and Politics
in the Orthodox World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Dušan Fundić: British-Serbian Relations from the 18th to 21th Centuries,
ed. Slobodan G. Markovich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Miloš Luković: Studia Balkanica Bohemo-slovaca VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Instructions for authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849007M
UDC 94(495)"1914/1918"
Original scholarly work
Yannis Mourélos
Université de Thessalonique
Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre

Enjeux et stratégies*
Résumé : Le front d’Orient initialement était conçu comme le moyen d’aider la Serbie a ré-
sister à l’attaque conjointe des forces austro-hongroises, allemandes et bulgares. Or, après
que l’avancée bulgare avait rendu vains les efforts alliés, il fut maintenu pour assurer la pré-
sence alliée dans les Balkans. La présence des forces alliées dans les Balkans, après la prise
de Monastir, fut justifiée par la pression sur la Grèce afin qu’elle se décide de se joindre à
l’Entente. Seulement, après que la Grèce avait rejoint les Alliés il fut possible d’envisager
une offensive d’envergure, comme celle qui en septembre et octobre 1918 obligea d’abord la
Bulgarie et ensuite l’Empire ottoman à demander la fin des hostilités.
Mots-clés : Front d’Orient, Grande Guerre, stratégie
E n ces années de commémoration du centenaire, il faut bien se rendre à l’évi-

dence. Dans le contexte de la Grande Guerre, Salonique n’est qu’un théâtre
marginal. La mission de celui-ci se dresse sous des traits plutôt modestes: se
mettre en situation de s’engager afin de faciliter les opérations des autres fronts.
A travers l’ouverture et l’organisation stratégique de ce théâtre, modelées
toutes deux au gré des circonstances, c’est le principe même de la conduite de la
guerre qui se met en vigueur avec ses multiples prolongements : le jeu complexe
des alliances, l’inhabileté d’établir une ligne d’action commune à longue échéance
à cause de la diversité des intérêts en jeu, les courants internes de la vie politique
et leur portée sur le processus décisionnel, la stratégie périphérique avec l’impor-
tance accordée aux fronts secondaires dans le contexte d’un conflit généralisé,
l’unité de commandement, bref, des composantes éternelles de toute guerre de
coalition.
Quelle est la justification de la présence d’un corps expéditionnaire allié
à Salonique ? Jean Delmas en détermine successivement plusieurs.1 La justifi-
* Le présent texte fut l’objet d’une publication dans le cadre du volume collectif : Cahiers de
la Villa « Kérylos » № 26, La Grèce et la guerre, Actes du XXVe colloque de la Villa Kérylos,
3–4 octobre 2014, éd. M. Zink, J. Jouanna et Ph. Contamine (Paris : Académie des Inscrip-
tions et Belles Lettres, 2015)
1 Jean Delmas, « Les opérations militaires sur le front de Macédoine », in La France et la
Grèce dans la Grande Guerre (Université de Thessalonique, 1992), 3–11.
8 Balcanica XLIX (2018)
cation initiale est simple : voler au secours des serbes, dont la situation devient
intenable lorsque la Bulgarie entre en guerre en octobre 1915. A la lumière de la
défaillance serbe, deux mois plus tard, et devant l’impossibilité d’établir la jonc-
tion sur le Haut-Vardar, les avis divergent quant à l’avenir de l’expédition.
A Paris, les partisans de la stratégie indirecte se prononcent en faveur du
maintien et de l’organisation du dispositif allié dans les environs de Salonique.
La valeur principale de cette région, disent-ils, est plutôt celle d’une place forte
de défense, permettant l’entreprise d’actions offensives en temps et lieu oppor-
tuns. Choix d’autant plus impératif qu’il permet de se mettre à l’abri de tout
fléchissement intempestif de la Roumanie et de la Grèce, fournissant à l’adver-
saire l’occasion de réaliser ses ambitions impérialistes en Orient. On reproche
même au gouvernement d’assister inactif à l’anéantissement de la Serbie. Menés
par Clemenceau, les « occidentaux » s’opposent, quant à eux, à tout engagement
prématuré, même dans le cas favorable, peu probable pourtant, d’un alignement
grec. Faisant l’objet d’attaques de tous les côtés, le gouvernement Viviani est rem-
placé, fin octobre, par un cabinet Briand, mieux disposé face à un éventuel main-
tien de l’expédition.2
C’est un refrain tout différent que l’on entonne sur les bords de la Tamise.
Chercher la victoire sur le théâtre principal en y consacrant le maximum des
moyens disponibles, limiter, par ailleurs, l’effort en Orient à la stricte défense des
possessions britanniques, telle est l’idée maîtresse devant présider à la direction
des opérations. C’est l’avis d’Asquith, Balfour et Curzon. Colonial de carrière et
résolument opposé au principe des side shows (théâtres secondaires), Kitchener
suggère le repli sur l’Égypte, où il compte pouvoir réunir 15 divisions, une par-
tie desquelles proviendrait justement des Balkans.3 Seule une minorité guidée
par Lloyd-George se prononce en faveur d’un envoi de renforts en Macédoine.4
Aristide Briand a toutes les peines du monde pour avorter ce projet. Il y par-
vient, mais de justesse, en mettant en avant un argument de poids : exercer pres-
sion sur la Grèce, très attachée à une neutralité incertaine et équivoque, et tâcher
de l’entraîner dans la coalition de l’Entente.
De nouveau le problème fera-t-il l’objet d’un tour d’horizon entre Fran-
çais et Britanniques du 9 au 11 décembre 1915 à Paris, où le gouvernement de
Sa Gracieuse Majesté dépêche d’urgence les deux ministres compétents, Grey et
Kitchener, avec pleins pouvoirs pour fixer les mesures à prendre en vue d’une re-
traite des forces alliées et de la mise en état de la défense de la ville-même de Sa-
2 Yannis Mourélos, « Le front d’Orient en 1916. Enjeux et strategies”, in The Salonica Theatre
of Operations and the Outcome of the Great War (Thessalonique : Institut for Balkan Studies
et National Research Foundation Eleftherios K. Venizelos, 2005), 38.
3 Maurice Larcher, La Grande Guerre dans les Balkans, Direction de la Guerre (Paris : Payot,
1929), 101.
4 David Lloyd-George, War Memoirs (Londres 1933–1936), t. 2, 531, et t. 4, 3200.
Y. Mourélos, Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre 9
lonique. On tombe d’accord sur la nécessité d’occuper les positions stratégiques

autour de la ville sans préjuger la durée, plus ou moins longue, de l’occupation.
Formule qui ménage toutes les hypothèses, mais qui dissimule à peine le malaise
anglais.5 C’est ainsi que, le mois de décembre courant, le corps expéditionnaire
exécute un mouvement de repli, tout en se groupant à l’intérieur d’un périmètre
autour de Salonique. Envoyé sur place en mission spéciale, le général de Castel-
nau conclut sur la possibilité de tenir les positions occupées.6
Reste à régler l’unité de commandement. Théoriquement, celui-ci est as-
suré à la fois par le général commandant en chef de l’armée française d’Orient,
le commandant supérieur des forces britanniques dans le même secteur et le
vice-amiral commandant l’escadre des Dardanelles. La campagne de Serbie, où
le rôle de chaque associé avait été déterminé par Joffre n’étant plus en cours,
l’unité de commandement s’impose. Une étape dans ce sens semble avoir été
franchie lors de l’inspection du général de Castelnau. L’ordre était parvenu de
Londres au commandement britannique local de déférer aux propositions de
l’émissaire en matière d’organisation défensive de la place. Nulle part ailleurs que
sur un terrain étroit, à effectifs limités, dont la défense peut dépendre de la rapi-
dité de concentration de tous les moyens sur le point de l’attaque, la question se
pose. Pressenti dans ce sens le 23 décembre, Londres acquiesce. Il se déclare, par
surcroît, disposé à outrepasser au principe d’après lequel la supériorité numé-
rique comporte l’exercice du commandement (le contingent britannique étant
à l’époque le plus nombreux) « en raison de l’influence prépondérante de la France
dans les décisions concernant les opérations ».7 Transfert judicieux de responsabi-
lités ? Manœuvre habile permettant un futur désengagement militaire ? Quoi
qu’il en soit, le commandement sur le front d’Orient sera unifié à partir de jan-
vier 1916 et son titulaire français (Sarrail, puis Guillaumat et Franchet d’Espe-
rey) procède désormais comme s’il était unique et intégré.8
5 Ministère de la Guerre, Les armées françaises dans la Grande Guerre (dorénavant AFGG),
vol. VIII, t. 1, annexe 3, No 850. Larcher, La Grande Guerre, 104 ss ; William Robertson,
Conduite générale de la guerre (Paris : Payot, 1929), 429 ss.
6 AFGG VIII, 1, 3, Nos 1013, 1027. Service Historique de la Défense (Section Armée de
Terre), carton 5 N 147, Rapport du général de Castelnau sur la défense de Salonique, 24 et

25 décembre 1915 ; Maurice Sarrail, Mon commandement en Orient (Paris : Flammarion,
1920), 71 ss.
7 AFGG, VIII, 1, 3, Nos 1017, 1054, 1057.
8 Jean-Claude Allain, « Le commandement unifié sur le front d’Orient. Théorie et pratique
en 1918 », Guerres mondiales et Conflits contemporains 168 (1992), 38. Sur la question du com-
mandement consulter également Gabriel Terrail dit « Mermeix », Le commandement unique.
Sarrail et les armées d’Orient (Paris : P. Ollendorff, 1920), ainsi que la thèse volumineuse
de Gérard Fassy, Le haut-commandement français en Orient (1915–1918) (Paris : Economica,
2003).
Une fois le corps expéditionnaire maintenu sur place, il faut bien lui assi-
gner une mission. C’est la deuxième justification de la présence militaire alliée
dans cette région. Cette mission se dresse comme suit : causer à l’adversaire le
maximum d’inquiétude par la menace constante d’une attaque partant de Salo-
nique. C’est du bluff pur et simple aussi longtemps que cette action ne se traduit
pas par une préparation réelle d’offensive, ce qui présuppose un réajustement
favorable des forces en présence.
En somme, la question est plus politique que militaire, la nouvelle donnée
dans cette affaire étant désormais la Roumanie avec qui la coalition de l’En-
tente engage des pourparlers qui traînent en longueur. A la volonté d’établir un
front oriental continu exprimée par Paris, Bucarest oppose sa préférence en fa-
veur d’une offensive en direction de la Transylvanie. Ainsi, la fonction attribuée
à l’armée d’Orient varie-t-elle selon les diverses hypothèses. Protagoniste dans
le cadre d’un effort simultané, destiné à faire sauter le maillon bulgare, elle se
voit automatiquement reléguée au second rang, chargée d’une simple manœuvre
de diversion : enchaîner la liberté d’action de l’armée bulgare pour permettre à
son homologue roumaine de se concentrer et pouvoir passer en action face aux
Autrichiens.9
L’attaque allemande sur Verdun bouleverse la situation. Le comman-
dement de Salonique reçoit l’ordre d’envisager une action agressive, destinée à
fixer l’adversaire, ce qui soulagerait indirectement le front français. Pour les Bri-
tanniques, absorbés par leurs problèmes en Mésopotamie, pareille initiative est
hors de question. De ce fait, Sarrail est sollicité de faire savoir s’il s’estime en
mesure de remplir cette mission avec la seule participation des forces françaises
et serbes. Celui-ci répond que l’exécution comportera une préparation métho-
dique et lente. Autrement dit, l’armée d’Orient est fatiguée. L’état sanitaire (pa-
ludisme en particulier) a brusquement fléchi et son moral s’en trouve atteint.
Malgré l’affaiblissement, le commandant en chef conçoit un plan rationnel avec
ou sans le concours des contingents britanniques, qui consiste à prendre pied
sur la frontière, mais sur un front agressif aussi étendu que possible. En attirant
son dispositif, il espère pouvoir retenir le maximum des forces bulgares. L’at-
taque principale aurait lieu sur la rive droite du Vardar, des attaques de diversion
dans la plaine, au pied du mont Bélès. Les Serbes s’engageraient vers l’ouest, en
direction de Monastir. On espère, ainsi, obtenir un succès local, permettant de
s’orienter et marcher vers l’avance roumaine.10
Cette réponse n’a vraiment pas de quoi satisfaire. Cependant, Paris baigne
dans l’optimisme. L’offensive victorieuse des Russes en Galicie et en Volhynie,
9 Jean Delmas, « Les problèmes logistiques de l’armée roumaine, 1916–1917 », in Les Fronts
invisibles, éd. Gérard Canini (Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1984), 143 ss.
10 AFGG, VIII, 1, 3, Nos 1349, 1351, 1381, 1387 ; Mourélos, « Le front d’Orient en 1916 »,
44–49 ; Sarrail, Mon commandement, 135 ss.
le recul des Autrichiens en Italie, le développement de la bataille de la Somme

justifient, dit-on, un nouvel examen de la question de l’offensive dans les Balkans.
En tout cas, la Roumanie semble assurée contre toute attaque sur son flanc méri-
dional.11 En conclusion, il suffit de faire agir l’armée d’Orient contre les Bulgares
et toutes les principales conditions formulées par la Roumanie pour se joindre à
l’Entente se trouveraient remplies. A lire Robertson, le nouveau chef de l’EMG
Impérial, « comme lors d’autres occasions d’examen des affaires de Salonique, les
ministres français considéraient beaucoup trop les avantages et beaucoup trop peu
les inconvénients ». Il ne faut guère, poursuit-il dans un effort destiné à modérer
l’élan de Paris, perdre de vue que toute action entreprise sur les pourtours doit,
en fait comme en principe, être subordonnée aux opérations sur les fronts prin-
cipaux dont les besoins en hommes et en munitions doivent être satisfaits avant
tout autre. En conséquence, l’étendue de la coopération sera proportionnée à la
puissance et au degré d’organisation des contingents britanniques dans le secteur
de Salonique.12
Réunis à Chantilly le 22 juillet 1916, les hauts-commandements français
et britannique trancheront par un compromis : initialement, la mission à rem-
plir par les armées alliées en Orient consiste à couvrir la mobilisation roumaine
par des opérations sur toute la longueur de la frontière grecque. Ultérieurement,
lorsque la Roumanie aura commencé ses opérations au sud du Danube, l’armée
d’Orient, combinant son action avec les forces russo-roumaines, s’efforcera à ré-
aliser la destruction de l’armée bulgare. Autrement dit, la nouvelle mission assi-
gnée au corps expéditionnaire allié, une fois de plus ne dépasse pas les normes
d’une simple manœuvre de diversion.13
A peine fermées à Londres, les écluses ouvrent, cette fois-ci, du côté de
Bucarest. Non seulement l’armée d’Orient doit-elle participer au complet aux
opérations, mais on parvient de subordonner l’entrée en guerre de la Roumanie
au déclenchement de cette offensive. Dans la convention militaire du 17 août, il
est spécifié que les forces de Salonique attaqueront le 20 août, l’armée roumaine
n’entrant en campagne qu’une semaine plus tard seulement.14 Comble d’infor-
tune, ce sont les Bulgares qui anticipent en attaquant dès le 18 sur toute la lon-
11 JeanDelmas, « La place de la Roumanie dans la stratégie française (1915–1916) », com-

munication présentée dans le cadre du Colloque International d’ Histoire Militaire, tenu à
Bucarest et à Sibiu en septembre 1996.
12 AFGG, VIII, 1, 3, Nos 1374, 1376, 1377, 1382, 1384. Robertson, Conduite générale de la
guerre, 445.
13 AFGG, VIII, 1, 3, No 1392 ; Ministère des Affaires étrangères, série Guerre 1914–1918,
carton No 989, Protocole sur les conditions d’entrée en guerre de la Roumanie signé le 11
août 1916 au Quai d’Orsay entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne.
14 AFGG, VIII, 1, 3, No 1457, Texte de la convention militaire du 4/17 août 1916 entre la
France, la Grande-Bretagne, l’Italie et la Russie.
gueur du front. La réaction alliée sera extrêmement lente, la ville de Monastir

n’étant atteinte qu’en novembre seulement. L’attitude docile des autorités hellé-
niques à l’égard des Germano-Bulgares dans la partie orientale de la Macédoine
pose, en même temps, pour le corps expéditionnaire un problème persistant de
sécurité. L’effondrement roumain, en décembre, bouleverse la situation. Le camp
retranché de Salonique redevient ce qu’il était auparavant : le plus grand camp
d’internement allemand.
Une lueur d’espoir persiste, malgré tout. La crise interne de la vie poli-
tique grecque, troisième et dernière justification de la présence alliée à Salo-
nique. Une brèche qui sera exploitée à fond grâce à une dynamique implacable
et à de moyens déconcertants, dans un effort d’entraîner en guerre un pays dont
on estime préférable de l’avoir à ses côtés, plutôt que de le maintenir dans une
neutralité incertaine et équivoque. Exemple typique de diplomatie conjonctu-
relle et inégale.
Quiconque scrute plus attentivement doit nécessairement tenir compte
de certaines composantes qui font de l’affaire grecque des années 1914–1918
un cas hors pair, à commencer par la question de la neutralité. Prêchée par la
société conservatrice et, en grande partie, germanophile, cette neutralité n’est, en
fin de compte, que simple choix tactique, produit d’une réflexion mûrie sur les
conséquences d’un alignement éventuel aux côtés des empires centraux et sur
les dangers d’une riposte dynamique provenant du camp adverse. La nature du
dialogue implanté par les puissances de l’Entente constitue le deuxième volet de
cette étrange neutralité grecque. Elle en forme, en quelque sens, le contrepoids.
En effet, à partir de 1916, on ne procède que par ultimata remis aux autorités
d’Athènes sous la menace des canons de l’escadre. Langage surprenant à l’égard
d’un neutre ! Sans doute se voit-il justifié par la présence militaire alliée dans le
nord du pays et les problèmes découlant de la sécurité de l’armée d’Orient. Il
reste, pour autant, que l’on est témoin d’une dynamique implacable : on ficelle
progressivement le pays, le prive de ses moyens de résistance, l’engage de vive
force dans la voie de l’intervention armée. Ultime point de référence, la crise elle-
même. Sociale à l’origine, politique par la suite, constitutionnelle enfin, à partir
du moment où, dans un effort pour consolider sa propre position face à une
classe moyenne en pleine mutation depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, le roi Constan-
tin s’acquittera délibérément de ses fonctions de surarbitre afin de se lancer, en
tant que chef de parti, dans l’arène des conflits politiques. Cette crise se verra
amplifiée par le jeu dangereux d’un homme politique, Eleuthérios Vénizélos, qui
n’hésitera guère à torpiller un régime national de l’intérieur en relation étroite
avec la coalition de l’Entente.
Propagande et action subversive serviront de pointe à la réalisation de
cette politique. Quand la propagande détient le monopole de l’information, elle
tisse un réseau de pressions psychologiques qui fait que le monde se débat dans
un climat d’artifices, de fausseté et d’arbitraire. Elle dégénère graduellement en
un art subtil de persuasion qui prétend modeler à son gré le vrai ou le faux.
En même temps, elle laisse du champ libre aux improvisations de quelque pro-
vocateur insidieux, agent de renseignements. C’est très exactement ce qui se
produira en Grèce.15 Face à une propagande allemande solide, coûteuse et à
direction unique, les Français n’ont à opposer, en Grèce, qu’une activité ponc-
tuelle, conduite sans concentration par différents services. Pourtant, comme
Jean-Claude Montant le signale fort bien, la partie sera gagnée grâce au rôle des
auxiliaires. La dynamique de la propagande française, propagande de contre-of-
fensive, sera donnée non par les diplomates, mais par les attachés militaires et
navals, mieux entraînés dans ce genre d’action.16
La question paraît, donc, incontournable. L’immixtion alliée dans les af-
faires internes grecques constitue-t-elle un exemple d’expansion impérialiste ou,
tout simplement, une relation dictée par les nécessités d’une guerre ? La réponse
n’est pas facile. Tout compte fait, c’est la deuxième explication qui devrait l’em-
porter. Le phénomène le plus éclatant en est l’abolition, dans les mois qui suivent
l’entrée en guerre du pays, de tous les contrôles établis à l’intérieur du territoire
hellénique, restituant au pays son indépendance administrative, politique et mi-
litaire tout en lui permettant, ainsi, de reconquérir son identité. On y voit, in-
contestablement, les signes d’une diplomatie conjoncturelle. Quoi qu’il en soit,
l’adhésion finale de la Grèce, en juillet 1917, modifie les données stratégiques.
Salonique peut, désormais, servir de base de départ pour des opérations plus
ambitieuses.
C’est justement la tâche confiée aux deux successeurs de Sarrail à la tête
de l’armée d’Orient : Guillaumat et Franchet d’Esperey. Le premier, met en
chanter une opération combinée, à objectifs limités, le long du Vardar et sur la
Strouma qu’il pense, néanmoins, ne pouvoir lancer avant l’automne 1918. Son
commandement atteint à peine une durée de six mois. Du coup, il est considéré
comme étant transitoire. A tort ! Pendant son court séjour à Salonique, Guil-
laumat procède à une réorganisation radicale du commandement des Armées
Alliées d’Orient, étape essentielle, voire même déterminante, pour comprendre
l’issue victorieuse des opérations militaires dans ce secteur. Grâce au travail de
fond, qui a précédé son arrivée sur les lieux, Franchet d’Esperey parvient à ac-
15 Sur l’activité du Service de Renseignements consulter Nicolas Dujin, « Un attaché naval
dans la Grande Guerre. Le commandant de Roquefeuil à Athènes (1915–1917) », Guerres
mondiales et Conflits contemporains 224 (2006), 95–109, et Yannis Mourélos, « A l’ombre de
l’Acropole. Espionnage et contrainte politique en Grèce pendant la Grande Guerre », Rela-
tions Internationales 78 (1994), 175–184.
16 Jean-Claude Montant, « Les attachés navals français au début du XXe siècle », Relations
Internationales 60 (1989), 424–442 et « Aspects de la propagande française en Grèce pendant

la Première Guerre mondiale », in La France et la Grèce dans la Grande Guerre (Université de
Thessalonique, 1992), 61–87.
tionner les forces placées sous ses ordres comme un seul ensemble, chose qui ne
s’était jamais produite auparavant.17
Le 27 mai 1918, une nouvelle offensive allemande se déclenche près de
l’Aisne, à partir du Chemin des Dames, où, l’année précédente, les Français
avaient échoué dans une attaque meurtrière. L’offensive s’arrête pourtant dix
jours plus tard, en raison de l’épuisement des assaillants, mais ceux-ci ont avancé
de 45 km, enlevé Château-Thierry et sont à une distance de 70 km seulement
de la capitale. Clemenceau rappelle en catastrophe Guillaumat à Paris, un des
rares généraux en qui il a toute confiance. Le général Franchet d’Esperey, qui
commandait justement le groupe d’Armées dans le secteur du front où la percée
allemande s’était produite, est envoyé à Salonique, presque en mission de dis-
grâce. Pendant la première quinzaine du mois de juillet, le nouveau commandant
en chef élabore un plan d’attaque générale sur le front des Balkans. Cette fois-ci,
l’action principale de rupture aura lieu là où personne ne l’attend, c’est-à-dire
dans le secteur central du front, en pleine montagne et face à des positions ad-
verses fortifiées et bien taillées dans le rocher. Le choix de Franchet d’Esperey
correspond à sa volonté de menacer directement les voies de communication de
l’armée bulgare, celle de la vallée du Vardar et celle de l’axe Monastir–Prilep–
Gradsko. De son côté, Clemenceau tient à exploiter militairement aussi bien
que politiquement un éventuel succès rapide de l’offensive, au-delà de la mise
hors cause de la Bulgarie, maillon le plus faible du dispositif ennemi dans les
Balkans.18
L’offensive se déclenche le 14 septembre par une préparation foudroyante
d’artillerie. Cette attaque ouvre immédiatement des brèches, à travers lesquelles
les fantassins s’infiltrent dès le lendemain. A la tombée du 16 septembre, la
brèche mesure une profondeur de 25 km sur une longueur de 11 km. Succès
qui dépasse les prévisions les plus optimistes. Entre le 15 et le 23, l’avance est
de l’ordre de 50 km de profondeur sur l’ensemble du front. Avant la fin du mois,
Français et Serbes atteignent la ville d’Uskub, alors que sur leur droite, les uni-
tés britanniques et grecques pénètrent en profondeur à l’intérieur du territoire
bulgare. Le 27, le gouvernement de Sofia demande un armistice. Il sera signé le
surlendemain à Salonique et entrera en vigueur à partir du 30, à 12h00.
C’est la goutte d’eau qui fait déborder le vase. Un mois plus tard, le 30
octobre, à Moudros, c’est le tour de l’Empire ottoman. Suivront, en l’espace de
quelques jours seulement, l’Autriche-Hongrie, le 3 novembre, à Villa Giusti et,
finalement, l’Allemagne, le 11 novembre, à Rethondes. La coalition des empires
17 GérardFassy, « La réorganisation du commandement des Armées Alliées d’Orient par le

général Guillaumat (janvier – mai 1918) », in The Salonica Theatre of Operations, 143–152.
18 Bruno Hamard, « Le rôle des troupes de Salonique dans la victoire alliée de 1918 », in The
Salonica Theatre of Operations, 309–319.
centraux, nous affirme Jean-Claude Allain, se désintègre dans l’ordre inverse de

sa formation, illustrant, avant même son énoncée, la théorie des dominos.19
Ainsi, d’un front secondaire est partie une attaque qui s’avère capitale
dans la conclusion de la Grande Guerre. Franchet d’Esperey y doit son bâton
de maréchal. Il est l’instigateur d’une manœuvre audacieuse. Il dirige personnel-
lement cette manœuvre et lui imprime une vitesse qui bouscule l’adversaire et
l’empêche de se regrouper. Il obtient la décision par une rupture de front, réalisée
en pleine montagne, suivie d’une exploitation rapide dans la brèche qui dépasse
toute prévision. Une véritable guerre de mouvement en somme. Franchet d’Es-
pèrey réalise, en l’occurrence, un rêve caressé vainement par ses collègues Fran-
çais, Britanniques, voire même Allemands sur le front principal, pendant quatre
longues et sanglantes années de guerre de tranchées presque inutile.20
Se concentrer donc à l’ouest, tout en menant quelques actions isolées sur
les pourtours, octroyées, il faut bien le reconnaître, d’une dose renforcée d’im-
provisation, telle est la mission assignée au théâtre secondaire de Salonique, qui
l’est, certes, dans cette perspective, tout en se révélant fort essentiel dans l’appli-
cation d’une stratégie de victoire.
Sources
Service historique de la Défense, Château de Vincennes, l’Armée de Terre, 1915

Archives de Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Série Guerre 1914–1918, Balkans
Bibliographie
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Dujin, Nicolas. « Un attaché naval dans la Grande Guerre. Le commandant de Roquefeuil à
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19 Jean-Claude Allain, « Lesarmistices de la Grande Guerre de l’Orient à l’Occident », dans

The Salonica Theatre of Operations, 343–353.
20 Jean Delmas, « Les opérations militaires sur le front de Macédoine », 10–11.
Fassy, Gérard. Le haut-commandement français en Orient (1915–1918). Paris : Economica,

2003.
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Imprimerie nationale, 1924.
Montant, Jean-Claude. « Les attachés navals français au début du XXe siècle ». Relations
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— « Aspects de la propagande française en Grèce pendant la Première Guerre mondiale ».
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pendant la Grande Guerre ». Relations Internationales 78 (1994), 175–184.
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Robertson, William. Conduite générale de la guerre. Paris : Payot, 1929.
Sarrail, Maurice. Mon commandement en Orient. Paris : Flammarion, 1920.
Terrail, Gabriel dit « Mermeix ». Le commandement unique. Sarrail et les armées d’Orient.
Paris : P. Ollendorff, 1920.
Fassy, Gérard. « La réorganisation du commandement des Armées Alliées d’Orient par le
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https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849017A
UDC 355.087.2(=131.1)(497.11)"1914"
94(497.11)"1914/1918"
Antonio D’Alessandri* http://www.balcanica.rs
University Roma Tre
Department of Political Studies
Italian Volunteers in Serbia in 1914
Abstract: Seven Italian volunteers decided on 29 July 1914 to join the Serbian army re-
sponding to a proclamation issued by the son of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Ricciotti. They were
Republicans and Anarchists, and saw their engagement as the advance party of Italian
volunteers that would eventually force Italy to join the ranks of the Entente in order to
accomplish the last phase of the Italian Risorgimento by liberating Trento and Venezia
Giulia with the city of Trieste. Five of them were killed on the Drina river, while the re-
maining two returned soon afterwards to Italy. Nevertheless, their memory was honoured
as the first Italian participants in the Great War and as the tangible proof of the Italian
engagement in favour of Serbia, and later Yugoslavia.
Keywords: Great War, Serbia, Italia, volunteers, Ricciotti Garibaldi
T his contribution deals with a lesser-known episode that occurred in the

first months of the European war in the summer of 1914. More generally,
it should be construed through the framework of the historical phenomenon of
international voluntarism during the so-called “long” nineteenth century. More
specifically, it is linked to the tradition of the Garibaldian movement, one of the
most famous models of non-State military mobilization in Europe.1
On the 29th of July 1914, just one day after Austria had declared war on
Serbia, a small group of Italian volunteers left their homes to join the Serbian
Army in the fight against those they saw as the eternal enemy of the Italian na-
tion: the Habsburg Empire. There were only seven of them. Most came from
neighbouring villages around Rome; one came from an important and wealthy
family of Salerno, Southern Italy, not far from Naples. They were, for the most
part, republicans; more importantly, though, they were closely associated with
the Garibaldian movement, led in that period by one of the sons of Giuseppe
Garibaldi (1807–1882), Ricciotti (1847–1924).2 The names of these seven vol-
* [email protected]
1 For the typologies and a comprehensive historical analysis of war voluntarism see Nir Ari-
elli, From Byron to bin Laden. A History of Foreign War Volunteers (Cambridge, MA / Lon-
don: Harvard University Press 2018).
2 See G. Monsagrati, “Ricciotti Garibaldi e la fedeltà alla tradizione garibaldina”, in I Garibal-
di dopo Garibaldi. La tradizione famigliare e l’eredità politica, eds. Z. Ciuffoletti, A. Colombo

and A. Garibaldi Jallet (Manduria/Bari/Rome: Piero Lacaita 2005), 81–124.
unteers were Mario Corvisieri, the brothers Cesare and Ugo Colizza, Arturo
Reali, Nicola Goretti, Vincenzo Bucca and Francesco Conforti.
The Garibaldian movement had long-standing ties with the Balkans. Fol-
lowing his exploits in Italy between 1848 and 1866, and in particular the Expedi-
tion of the Thousand in the summer of 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi emerged as a
revolutionary icon. Thus, in Europe, particularly in the most radical circles, he
became the focus of widespread expectation: during the following years there
was no end to planned insurrections that foresaw his involvement. In relation
to the last phases of the Italian Risorgimento, plans to organize a Garibaldian
expedition across the Adriatic, to exhort the Balkan populations to rebellion,
and then to return to the peninsula and advance to the north in order to strike
at the heart of the Habsburg Empire, thereby resolving the Venetian question,
and possibly the Roman one,3 were never accomplished. There were Garibaldian
volunteers in the Cretan uprising in 1866/67, the revolts in Bosnia and Herze-
govina in 1875/76, and the Greek-Ottoman war in 1897. On those occasions the
romantic, patriotic and national components of voluntary commitment in the
Balkan liberation wars were also enriched by social ideas. European transnation-
al solidarity then began to be extended from national struggles to those relating
to social reform.4 Furthermore, the Garibaldian movement, now led by Ricciotti,
undertook initiatives in favour of the Albanian cause, though without achieving
any substantial results.5 Finally, during the Balkan wars, a group of volunteers
came to Greece to fight in the war of 1912.6 It was this tradition of political com-
mitment that animated Italian volunteers in Serbia in 1914, to which they, more-
over, added the ferment of political and social regeneration that swept through
Italian society at the beginning of the twentieth century. In analyzing their story,
it is therefore necessary to keep this cultural background in mind.
As previously noted regarding the experience of 1912, there were three
members of the group that went to Greece who would go also to Serbia two
years later: Francesco Conforti, Mario Corvisieri and Cesare Colizza, fought
3 A. Tamborra, “Questione veneta e progetti di azioni garibaldine dalla Dalmazia all’Europa

centrale (1861–1866)”, in Conferenze e note accademiche nel I centenario dell’unione del Veneto
all’Italia (Padua: Università degli studi di Padova – Accademia patavina di scienze, lettere e
arti, 1967), 81–95.
4 A. Tamborra, Garibaldi e l’Europa. Impegno militare e prospettive politiche (Rome: Stato
Maggiore dell’Esercito – Ufficio storico, 1983), 132.

5 F. Guida, “Ricciotti Garibaldi e il movimento nazionale albanese”, Archivio storico italiano
CXXXIX (1981), 97–138.

6 F. Guida, “L’ultima spedizione garibaldina in Grecia”, in Indipendenza e unità nazionale in
Italia e in Grecia (Florence: Olschki 1987), 191–220. See also N. A. Anastasopoulos, “Volun-
tary Action in Greece During the Balkan Wars: The Case of the Garibaldini in Ioannina in
1913”, Ricerche storiche XLVII (2017), n. 3, 61–72.
A. D’Alessandri, Italian Volunteers in Serbia in 1914 19
in the Battle of Drisko against the Ottomans.7 They had republican leanings,
except Colizza, who was an anarchist;8 their future companions of 1914, Nicola
Goretti, Vincenzo Bucca, Ugo Colizza (Cesare’s younger brother) and Arturo
Reali9 were also anarchists. These young men were of different social back-
grounds, but already somewhat politicized. When the conflict between Serbia
and Austria-Hungary broke out, they felt the need to engage in person.
Their experience and sacrifice in Serbia have been studied by a number
of scholars. Some brief references to them can be found in some of the most im-
portant Italian studies on Italian neutrality and in Eva Cecchinato’s10 excellent
research on the subject of the Garibaldian movement after Italian Unification.
More recently, Colonel Antonino Zarcone, head of the Historical Section of the
Italian General Staff, has studied this topic,11 availing himself of a dossier held
in the Italian Military Archives. As a result of such work, the story has become
more widely known. The group left Italy in late July and reached Greece and
Salonika by sea; then they arrived in battleground along the Drina river valley
– up to a point, they retraced a part of the journey that some of them had made
two years earlier.
For them the dream of Garibaldian intervention in the Balkans was still
very much alive. For most of them the Balkans was the symbol of national bat-
tles for liberty, a sort of traditional space where the secular struggle between the
liberty of nations and the imperial despotic power – and also between national
rights and dynastic power – was fought. Italian neutrality seemed a cowardly
choice to many Italian democrats. For all of these reasons, the seven men de-
cided to go to Serbia. They were men of action and strongly believed in the key
role of the Italian nation in the Balkans and remained deeply convinced of the
possibilities of a war fought by volunteers.
In the hectic days of July 1914 and, in particular, in the hours that fol-
lowed the Serbian reply to the ultimatum of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
several Italian politicians, particularly Republicans and Anarchists, approached
Ricciotti Garibaldi with the need to organize a group of volunteers to assist the
Serbian people. The general then made some initial contacts with the Serbian
7 C. Marabini, Dietro la chimera garibaldina… Diario di un volontario alla guerra greco-turca

del 1912 (Rome: Sacchi & Ribaldi, 1914), 6–7, 16.
8 R. Sassaroli, “Oro di Serbia e anarchici italiani”, Camicia rossa XXXIV (2014), 14–15.
9 Some biographical information in A. Mannucci, Volontarismo garibaldino in Serbia nel 1914
(Rome: Associazione nazionale veterani e reduci garibaldini, 1960).

10 E. Cecchinato, Camicie rosse. I garibaldini dall’Unità alla Grande Guerra (Rome–Bari: La-
terza, 2007), 284, 355.

11 A. Zarcone, I Precursori. Volontariato democratico italiano nella guerra contro l’Austria: re-
pubblicani, radicali, socialisti riformisti, anarchici e massoni (Rome: Annales, 2014).
Legation in Rome to find out whether Italian volunteers would be welcome to

join the Serbian Army.12
Therefore, on the day of Austria’s declaration of war on Serbia, the 28th
of July, General Ricciotti Garibaldi launched a proclamation to the youth of Italy,
encouraging them to support the Serbian people. In the proclamation, Ricciotti
defined the actions of the Habsburg Monarchy as potentially dangerous for the
unity and freedom of Italy. Therefore, Ricciotti stated, “I invite, in the name of
Garibaldi, the Italian youth to join existing bodies and to create new organiza-
tions in order to defend, in case of an offensive, Trento and Trieste, with the
slogan: Every nation master in its own house. Long live the Serbian people!”13
The evocation of the irredentist Association of Trento and Trieste was not ac-
cidental and had some foundation.
Indeed, at the beginning of August, in Florence, a committee was set up
with the purpose of finding volunteers to be sent to Serbia. The promoters of
those initiatives were once again local Republican circles. According to the infor-
mation of the local governmental authority, this committee was soon dissolved.
It is interesting to note that this project received a small financial contribution
from the Trento and Trieste Association.14 Even in Milan the authorities re-
ceived reports of secret meetings for the enlistment of young volunteers to be
sent by sea to Serbia’s aid.15 The purpose of this activity was to undermine rela-
tions between Italy and Austria, and to put an end to the state of neutrality, and
force Italy to enter the war against Austria. For these reasons, the Italian Minis-
try of the Interior soon ordered the local authorities of the main cities along the
Adriatic coast – Venice, Ancona, Bari, Lecce and Brindisi – to monitor the ports
to prevent any kind of movement towards the Balkans and Serbia.16
However, this invitation was not met with enthusiasm by most of the
young Italian democrats. Many of them decided to wait and see how the politi-
cal situation would develop. Even the initiative by Ricciotti Garibaldi in favour
of Serbia was itself weak and poorly organized. It was just a proclamation that
12 C. Premuti, Come Roma preparò la guerra (Rome: Società tipografica italiana, 1923), 79.
13 Archivio centrale dello Stato, Rome (hereafter ACS), Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione
generale Pubblica sicurezza, Divisione Affari generali e riservati, A5G (Prima guerra mondi-
ale), b. 14, fasc. 20, s.f. 9, ins. 24: the prefect of Rome to the Ministry of the Interior, Direzione
generale della P.S., Rome, 7 August 1914.
14 ACS, A5G, b. 14, fasc. 20, s.f. 9, ins. 8: reports of the prefect of Florence to the Ministry of
the Interior, Direzione generale della P.S., Florence, 8 and 10 August 1914.
15 ACS, A5G, b. 103, fasc. 225, s.f. 1: telegram of the prefect of Milan to the Ministry of the
Interior, Cabinet of the Ministry, Milan, 28 July 1914.

16 ACS, A5G, b. 14, fasc. 20, s.f. 9, ins. 12: telegram from the Ministry of the Interior to the
prefects of Venice, Ancona, Bari, Lecce, 4 August 1914.
had little prospect of being put into action.17 In general, Brunello Vigezzi wrote:
“Garibaldian followers do not enjoy much sympathy in the revolutionary ranks;
[...]. Distrust is felt instantly and Ricciotti’s proclamation is not welcomed with
enthusiasm.”18
In the Italian republican movement, however, the Serbian cause was
viewed with some sympathy, but it was quite impossible to make any serious
plans to come to its aid at the time. Only those seven men responded to Ricciot-
ti’s first proclamation and decided to depart for Serbia; they were convinced that
they would soon be followed by hundreds of other volunteers. However, within
a few days the war escalated and came to involve not only Serbia but also four
great powers, Germany, Russia, France and Great Britain. On the 6th of August,
Ricciotti Garibaldi issued another call upon Italian volunteers inviting them to
avoid any kind of action in Serbia and ordering those few still remaining there to
return to Italy. This call was decided together with the Serbian diplomatic mis-
sion in Rome: “Serbia has no need for men and the epicentre of the battle fought
today has shifted to other borders. The remaining volunteers should therefore
return to their homeland.”19 After the spread of the conflict, Ricciotti Garibaldi,
his sons and close collaborators began putting together a voluntary Garibaldian
legion to fight in France; the plan was completed in the following months and
a large group of volunteers left for France, where two of Ricciotti’s sons, Bruno
and Costante, lost their lives on the Argonne front.20
What about the seven brave volunteers in Serbia? Disobeying Garibaldi’s
call to return to Italy, they decided to continue their mission. As Francesco Con-
forti recounts, they were remarkably well received by the Serbian Legation in
Athens and were given a letter of recommendation for a Serbian General Staff
colonel residing in Salonika, who was tasked with being of assistance to them.21
In Salonika, the group was informed by the Italian consul that “a dozen Italians
passing by stated that they were going to fight for Serbia, and that they would
17 ACS, A5G, b. 14, fasc. 20, s.f. 9, ins. 24: prefect of Rome to the Ministry of the Interior,
Direzione generale della P.S., Rome, 7 August 1914.
18 B. Vigezzi, L’Italia di fronte alla Prima guerra mondiale, vol. I: L’Italia neutrale (Milan/Na-
ples: Ricciardi, 1966), 166.

19 “Niente volontari in Serbia”, Il Messaggero, 6 August 1914.
20 See H. Heyriès, Les garibaldiens de 14. Splendeurs et misères des Chemises Rouges en France
de la Grande Guerre à la Seconde Guerre mondiale (Nice: Serre, 2005). See also Camillo Mara-
bini, La rossa avanguardia dell’Argonna (Rome: Anonima Tipo-Editoriale Libraria, 1935).
21 Francesco Conforti to his brother Antonio, Athens, 3 August 1914, in F. Belmonte, Un
eroico cavaliere dell’ideale. Francesco Conforti (Salerno: Linotyp. M. Pepe, 1964), 34. In this
volume several letters and documents in the possession of the Conforti family have been
published.
soon be followed by a few hundred of their countrymen”.22 It is interesting to

note that the Italian consul spoke of some ten volunteers; from Athens, Conforti
reported that there were in the Greek capital twelve Italian volunteers (whom he
had met on board the steamship that had brought them to Greece) and that they
all were about to join the Serbian army.23 However, the presence of only seven
Italian volunteers on the Serbian front is documented with certainty. It is not
known if there were others and, if there were, their identity remains unknown.24
It may be assumed that they were Italians from Venezia Giulia, Dalmatia or
other regions of the Habsburg Empire, as Conforti reported in another letter to
his brother a few weeks later, in which he explained that a “Garibaldian company
would be formed, entirely made up of Italian and Dalmatian students: all intel-
ligent and well-meaning people who speak Italian”.25
From Salonika, they reached Skopje, then Niš and Kragujevac where they
were finally enlisted in the Serbian Army. Conforti was convinced, although he
had no news of the war in Europe, that in the following weeks the group would
reach other Italians on the Adriatic to fight together against Austria.26 Their
last letter, from Užice, is dated 17 August. Cesare Colizza wrote to a friend in
Italy that they were heading for the Bosnian border. The unit was made up of
volunteers: those seven Italians, but also students from Montenegro and Bosnia,
as well as other Italian irredentists who had deserted from the Austro-Hungar-
ian Army. Colizza and Corvisieri, the most experienced men, veterans of the
Greek campaign, were in command of this group, attached to a larger komitadji
unit.27 These were groups of volunteers, trained mainly by Serbs, not subject to
conscription or from territories of the Habsburg Empire, who wanted to fight
alongside Serbia. They were soon joined by other South-Slav volunteers (Bos-
nians, Montenegrins, Croats, etc.).28 Cesare Colizza wrote in the letter of Au-
gust 17: “We wear a bizarre uniform, somewhere between military and hunting
outfit in style, and opanak […] on our feet. In order not to renounce our Garibal-
dian identity, we wear a band of red silk around one arm to distinguish ourselves
22 ACS, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, Guerra europea, b. 26, fasc. 17.1.11: telegram
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of the Interior, Rome, 17 August 1914.
23 Francesco Conforti to his brother Antonio, Athens, 3 August 1914, in Belmonte, Un eroico
cavaliere, 34.
24 Itis also worth noting that Premuti, Come Roma, 79, reports of an eighth volunteer who
left for Serbia, Enzo Polli of Vicenza; no news was ever obtained concerning his fate.
25 Francesco Conforti to his brother Antonio, Užice, 11 August 1914, in Belmonte, Un eroico
cavaliere, 41.
26 Belmonte, Un eroico cavaliere, 41–42.
27 See Marabini, La rossa avanguardia, 233.
28 A. Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918 (London: Hurst, 2007), 81.
from the others.”29 Unfortunately, just three days later, on 20 July, five of them
died in battle on the boundary between Serbia and Bosnia, near Višegrad, in a
place called Babina Glava (or Babina Gora, Borna Gora, as it is named in some
sources).30 Two of them (Ugo Colizza and Arturo Reali) survived and returned
to Italy in the following months.31
The seven Italian volunteers in Serbia soon became a symbol for the
democratic interventionist movement. They were considered the very first Ital-
ians to fall in the Great War and, more importantly, a sort of desperate patrol
of the Italian interventionist movement. Therefore, their sacrifice soon became
the focus of political propaganda aimed at supporting the campaign for Italian
intervention in the First World War against the Central Powers.
The first large commemoration ceremony for the five men fallen in Serbia
took place in Rome on the 14th of September 1914. According to information
held by the prefecture, the event would be a pretext to attempt demonstrations
in favour of France. Moreover, “the republicans, in particular, have it in mind to
give greater impulse to the agitation against the neutrality of Italy in the current
conflict [for] the purpose [of ] creating complications”.32 Of great interest is an
anonymous report held by the police authorities that provides an account of
the ceremony. The event was held at the Casa del Popolo (in Via Capo d’Africa
near the Colosseum) and had a predominantly republican overtone, including
the participation of representatives of reformist socialism and anarchism. The
speakers who took the floor rallied against the monarchy because of its alliance
with the Central empires, praising the war from which the social republic re-
sponsible for the redemption of the peoples should emerge. None of them, after
a few words dedicated to the memory of the five fallen men, held back from
denouncing the Savoy dynasty, the government and their political opponents,
arguing that the republicans wanted war because that would mean the collapse
of the House of Savoy.33 An account of the meeting was also published in the
29 Published in Mannucci, Volontarismo garibaldino, 28.

30 On the name of the place of the battle where the five Italian volunteers fell, see O. Bruni,
“I garibaldini di Babina Glava”, Camicia rossa XIV (1938), n. 3–4 (March–April), 51–52; see
also U. Onorati and E. Scialis, Eroi in Camicia rossa combattenti nel 1914 per la libertà dei popoli
(Marino/Rome: A.N.P.I. – Sezione “Aurelio Del Gobbo”, 2017), 29–30.
31 See Mannucci, Volontarismo garibaldino; A. Bandini Buti, Una epopea sconosciuta (Milan:
Ceschina, 1967), 163–165; Zarcone, I Precursori, 43–50; Onorati and Scialis, Eroi in Camicia
rossa.
32 ACS, A5G, b. 118, fasc. 242, s.f. 1: phonogram of the Prefecture of Rome to the Ministry
of the Interior, Rome, 13 September 1914.

33 ACS, A5G, b. 118, fasc. 242, s.f. 1: anonymous report dated 15 September 1914, Rome.
Roman newspaper Il Messaggero, including the names of various persons who

had participated and the groups present.34
The majority of those present belonged, as mentioned, to republican cir-
cles. This is understandable in the light of the political creed of the volunteers
who had left for Serbia that summer, but also because the republicans were the
first to take a stand to prevent a war alongside Austria and to call for the align-
ment of the country with republican France. As Alessandra Staderini wrote, “for
the republican component, the war could finally bring about, without the media-
tion of parliamentary democracy, a non-Savoy tradition, with an impassioned
content that went back to the legacy of Mazzinianism”.35 The sacrifice of the
five Italian volunteers, therefore, lent itself perfectly to the reaffirmation of these
political objectives.
The volunteers in Serbia were evoked again on 10 September 1917, when
a public ceremony was held, in Rome organized by interventionist parties in
honour of the war disabled, in which a Serbian military delegation handed over
honours to the families of the fallen and the two survivors, Ugo Colizza and
Arturo Reali.36
After the end of the Great War they remained part of the Garibaldian
legacy, which was subsequently manipulated by the Fascist regime. Mussolini
wished to be seen as a sort of continuation of the Italian Risorgimento and,
more specifically, of the Garibaldian tradition. In 1925, for example, he referred
to the 1914 volunteers in France as the forerunners of Italian intervention and
the Fascist revolution.37 The link of continuity between the Garibaldian move-
ment and Fascism was also established by one of Ricciotti’s sons, Ezio, who had
spoke of the Argonne “as the resumption of the battles of the Risorgimento,
destined to continue in the First World War and then to lead to the advent of
fascism”.38 It is also interesting to remember when the story of the seven Italians
became a focus of attention again. After the Agreement between Italy and Yugo-
slavia, signed by Galeazzo Ciano and Milan Stojadinović in 1937, the sacrifice of
those five men in 1914 was perceived as a possible symbol of friendship between
the two countries and a sign of the renewed peace in the Adriatic.39 On the oc-
casion of Stojadinović’s visit to Italy in December of 1937, in the columns of the
34 “Per gl’Italiani caduti in Serbia. Una solenne commemorazione alla Casa del Popolo”, Il
Messaggero, 15 September 1914. See also L’Illustrazione italiana, 20 September 1914.
35 A. Staderini, Combattenti senza divisa. Roma nella grande guerra (Bologna: Il Mulino,
1995), 56.
36 See Il Messaggero, 9 and 10 September 1917; Il Giornale d’Italia, 9 and 10 September 1917.
37 Referred in the article “Babina Glava”, Camicia rossa XIII (1937), n. 12 (December), 228.
38 M. di Napoli, “Ezio Garibaldi e la ‘Camicia rossa’ negli anni del fascismo”, in I Garibaldi
dopo Garibaldi, 179.

39 “Per gli eroi garibaldini di Babina Glava”, Camicia rossa XIV (1938), n. 2 (February), 47.
newspaper Il Telegrafo of Livorno, the journalist Giovanni Ansaldo once again

recalled the episode and wrote, addressing the head of the Yugoslav government:
“you implement the collaboration between Italy and Yugoslavia, which is based
mainly on the reality of political facts and economic interests. And this is very
fair. But you know that populations respond especially to ideal bonds, created by
blood and tightened by sacrifice. And this is why today, Your Excellency, we did
not want to greet you with the names and with the memory of the five of Babina
Glava, fallen for you and for us.”40
Nonetheless, the memory of those men was expunged in the following
years; only recently can we perceive a certain interest in this story.
In conclusion, what is the meaning of this small episode of the First Word
War in South-Eastern Europe?
In the case of the Italian volunteers in Serbia in 1914, it must be said that
their aim should have been the revival of the Italian Risorgimento through the
liberation of the lands still under Habsburg rule in North-Eastern Italy, Trenti-
no and Venezia Giulia with the city of Trieste. In the first months of war, beside
the formation of a group of volunteers for Serbia, someone in certain republican
circles also envisioned an expedition to Dalmatia. The aim was always the same:
provoke Austria and push Italy into the war;41 Italian neutrality was seen as
an act of cowardice. More broadly, the republicans saw the war as a unique op-
portunity to make the democratic tradition of the nineteenth century triumph
over monarchic and moderates forces. They could not believe that, at last, a war
against the eternal enemy had been set in motion. For many of them that mo-
ment was probably the beginning of a broader revolution and it was mandatory
to engage somehow in the fight.
As George Mosse has pointed out, the volunteers of 1914 were placed in
the tradition of the romantic voluntarism of the nineteenth century. As in the
previous century, they were not mercenaries, they mostly came from the middle
class, they were quite well educated and they fought for an ideal, for the liberty
of nations, also conceived as liberty for themselves. Patriotism, the search for a
purpose in life and the love of adventure were just a few of the many motivations
behind their engagement as volunteers in a war.42
The seven Italian volunteers in Serbia at first, and then the Garibaldian
Legion in France were symbols of an entire generation rooted in the roman-
40 G. Ansaldo, “Icinque di Babina Glava (lettera aperta a S. E. Stojadinovic)”, Il Telegrafo, 5

December 1937.
41 ACS, A5G, b. 12, fasc. 20, s.f. 1, ins. 7: report of the prefect of Rome to the Ministry of the
Interior, Rome, 30 September, 1914; ACS, A5G, b. 103, fasc. 225, s.f. 1: report of the prefect
of Milan to the Ministry of the Interior, Milan, 7 December 1914.
42 G. L. Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1990).
tic tradition of war and the politics of the Risorgimento as well as the struggle
of nations against the despotism typical of nineteenth century. They could not
imagine that the war which had just broken out in the summer of 1914 was a
completely different one. They imagined a brief war that would mark the fi-
nal accomplishment of the struggles of the previous century. They soon became
aware that this was an illusion.
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https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849029K
UDC 355.48(497.11)"1915/1916"
94(497.11)"1914/1918"
Miloš Ković* http://www.balcanica.rs
University of Belgrade
Faculty of Philosophy
Department of History
The British Adriatic Squadron and the Evacuation

of Serbs from the Albanian Coast
1915–1916
Abstract: Unpublished sources and archival material can still shed fresh light upon the his-
tory of the evacuation of the Serbian Army and civilian refugees from the Albanian coast
in 1915–1916. Among them are reports to the British Admiralty written in 1915 and 1916
by the commander of the British Adriatic Squadron, Rear Admiral Cecil Fiennes Thursby.
These documents deposited in the National Archives in Kew Gardens have never been
used in reconstructing the evacuation operation. Written on an almost daily basis, Thurs-
by’s reports of 1915 and 1916 constitute a unique source not only for the history of the
evacuation of Serbs but also for the history of the South-East Europe in the Great War.
Keywords: Serbia, Albania, British Adriatic Squadron, Corfu, evacuation, Entente
Powers
I n the autumn of 1915, Serbia and Montenegro were attacked by the com-
bined force of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. Decimated by the
battles of 1914 and devastating epidemics of 1915, the Serbs fought and gradu-
ally retreated, expecting the Allies’ help. However, it would not be an exaggera-
tion to say that they were left to their fate, since the Entente Powers failed to
fulfil their promises.
Especially clear among Allied officials’ reassuring messages1 was Sir Ed-
ward Grey’s House of Commons announcement of 28 September 1915 con-
cerning Bulgarian mobilisation on the eve of the attack on Serbia:
* [email protected]
1 See D. R. Živojinović, Nevoljni saveznici: Velike sile i Solunski front (1914–1918) [Unwill-
ing Allies: The Great Powers and the Salonika Front (1914–1918)] (Belgrade: Zavod za
udžbenike, 2008), 121–148; D. R. Živojinović, “Velika Britanija i ‘moralna podrška’ Srbiji
(decembar 1915 – mart 1916)” [Great Britain and “Moral Support” to Serbia (December
1915 – March 1916)], Nadmeni saveznik i zanemareno srpstvo: Britansko-srpski odnosi (1875–
1941) [Domineering Ally and Neglected Serbdom: British-Serbian Relations (1875–1941)]
If, on the other hand, the Bulgarian mobilization were to result in Bulgaria as-
suming an aggressive attitude on the side of our enemies, we are prepared to
give to our friends in the Balkans all the support in our power, in the manner
that would be most welcome to them, in concert with our Allies, without re-
serve and without qualification.2
David Lloyd George realised immediately what had been done to Serbia.
As a minister in Herbert Henry Asquith’s government, he was vainly trying to
induce Grey and other colleagues to stick to their promises. In his memoirs,
he wrote extensively about this “deception practised upon Serbia”.3 Another
minister in the Asquith government, Edward Henry Carson, was even more
“disgusted”.4 In his House of Commons speech of 20 October 1915, Carson
stated that he resigned from the government because of its broken promises,
Edward Grey’s in particular:
The statement made by the Foreign Minister, under the sanction of the Cabi-
net, in this House, appeared to me to have announced a policy of the highest
importance in our obligations in the Balkans, involving our prestige and our
honour.5
However, Serbian Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjević, Nikola Pašić’s
Cabinet and Vojvoda (Field-Marshal) Radomir Putnik’s Supreme Command
were united in refusing to surrender even after the Bulgarians cut off the Ser-
bian Army’s route to Salonika, where the dilatory landing of insufficient Allied
forces started. After the epic and tragic winter retreat through the mountains of
Montenegro and Albania, in December 1915 the remnants of the Serbian Army
numbering, according to Serbian official sources, nearly 152,000 soldiers, as well
as some 15,000 civilian refugees and more than 22,000 Austro-Hungarian pris-
oners of war,6 reached the Albanian coast, where the aid of the Allied fleets was
(Belgrade: Albatros Plus, 2011), 391–402; M. Ković, Jedini put: Sile Antante i odbrana Srbije
1915. godine [The Only Way: The Entente Powers and the Defence of Serbia in 1915] (Bel-
grade: Filip Višnjić, 2016), 85–95; M. Ković, “ ‘Obmana Srbije’ 1915. godine: Nekoliko bri-
tanskih svedočenja” [“Deception Practised upon Serbia”: A Few British Testimonies], Srpska
politička misao 51/2 (2016), 271–284.
2 Hansard, vol. 74, 732. On Grey’s attitude towards Serbia see M. Ković, “The Peace Initia-
tive of Sir Edward Grey and his Proposal for Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Belgrade
(29–31 July 1914)”, in The Serbs and the First World War 1914–1918, ed. D. R. Živojinović
(Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2015), 299–307.
3 D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs, vol. I (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson Ltd, 1933),
489–529.
4 Ibid. 513.
5 Hansard, vol. 74, 1813.
6 C. Stoyanovitch and M. Savtchitch, Rapport sur les Dommages causés à la Serbie et au Mon-
ténégro présenté à la Commission des Réparations des Dommages (Paris: Impr. slave, 1919), 14.
M. Ković, The British Adriatic Squadron and the Evacuation of Serbs 31
expected. As the enemy forces approached Albania, the starving and dying Ser-
bian soldiers, civilian refugees and enemy prisoners had to be evacuated. For the
Allies, the state of affairs in the Balkans now became more urgent.
II
All Balkan countries and Great Powers were involved in the evacuation of
Serbs from Albania. In December 1915, the Serbs found themselves on Alba-
nian soil, where Italy, Montenegro and Greece, as well as Serbia itself, had their
own interests and territorial claims. The Allies chose the island of Corfu as a
base for the recuperation and reconstruction of the Serbian Army and the next
step was to transport the Serbs to Greek territory. Before that, about 10,000
Serbian soldiers had been evacuated to Bizerte, Tunisia. The transport of some
189,000 Serbs and Austro-Hungarian prisoners by Italian, French and British
ships, under the constant threat of Austro-Hungarian and German submarines,
warships and aeroplanes, happened to be the largest sea evacuation in the First
World War. Historians have found that it was even “the largest sea evacuation in
history until Dunkirk”.7
These topics have been explored by many generations of Serbian histo-
rians, but in historiography in general, Balkan battles and fronts (with the ex-
ception of Gallipoli) are, along with the Eastern front, largely neglected topics.
Some basic facts about the 1916 evacuation remain uncertain even in Serbian
historiography, including chronology, the exact number of evacuated soldiers
and civilians, or the role of Italian, French and British fleets in the evacuation.
There are still many unpublished sources and archival material that can
shed new light upon these events. Among them are reports to the British Admi-
ralty written in 1915 and 1916 by the commander of the British Adriatic Squad-
ron, Rear Admiral Cecil Fiennes Thursby. These documents are deposited in
the National Archives in Kew Gardens, and they have never been used in recon-
structing the evacuation of Serbs from the Albanian coast.8
Written by one of the main participants on an almost daily basis, Thurs-
by’s reports of 1915 and 1916 constitute a unique source not only for the history
of the Serbian evacuation but also for the history of the South-East Europe in
the Great War. An accomplished officer and acute observer, Admiral Thursby
7 D. T. Bataković, “Serbia 1914–1918: War Imposed, Martyrdom, Resurrection”, in: Serbia

in the Great War: Anglo-Saxon Testimonies and Historical Analysis, ed. D. T. Bataković (Bel-
grade: National Library of Serbia, 2014), 33.
8 The National Archives, UK (TNA), Admiralty (ADM), 137/780, Adriatic, Reports of
Proceedings of the Rear Admiral Commanding British Adriatic Squadron, 18 May 1915
to 28 February 1916; Ibid. 137/781, Adriatic, Reports of Proceedings of the Rear Admiral
Commanding British Adriatic Squadron, 29 February to 20 December 1916; Ibid. 137/833,
List of Charts Submitted with Reports of Proceedings, British Adriatic Squadron.
had substantial experience with the eastern Mediterranean. He was commander

of a detached squadron during the Adana massacres in 1909, of the Internation-
al Squadron in Crete in 1910, of the 5th Battle Squadron in the Dardanelles and
of the 2nd Squadron landing ANZAC forces in Gallipoli in 1915. At the time
of the evacuation of Serbs, he commanded the British Adriatic Squadron. Later
that year he became commander-in-chief of the East Mediterranean.
III
According to Admiral Thursby’s reports of December 1915, when exhausted
Serbian soldiers and civilian refugees were dying on the Albanian coast, the Al-
lies had no plan or clear idea about what to do with them. “At present we do not
know how it is intended to deal with the Serbian refugees and the Serbian army”
– this is what Thursby writes on 28 December.9
Moreover, from 1 to 11 December, the Italians were focused on the trans-
port of their own troops to Valona. The British believed that the main goal of
the Italians was the defence of their sphere of influence against what they had
perceived as the Serbian threat. Thursby reported that Italian warships, being
occupied with transporting their troops, could not provide escort to the steam-
ers carrying provisions from Brindisi to the Serbs at San Giovanni di Medua
and Durazzo. These ships were under constant threat from Austro-Hungarian
destroyers, cruisers, submarines and aeroplanes coming from nearby Kotor; it
took submarines only one hour to get from Kotor to Medua, and aeroplanes,
about half an hour.10
British and French cruisers and destroyers provided escort to the Ital-
ian supply ships carrying food and provisions for the Serbs. Coming from the
naval base in Brindisi, they were chasing and attacking Austro-Hungarian sub-
marines. The Gulf of Drin was the site of frequent skirmishes between British,
French and Italian ships and the enemy’s submarines. At the same time, British
net drifters were employed to protect the landing of Italian troops at Valona.11
British and French ships sought to prevent the advance of enemy forces
from the naval bases in Kotor, Šibenik and Pula with limited success.12 Enemy
vessels had free passage up and down the Dalmatian coast, since the British
and French at that time had no submarines capable of patrolling the Quarnero
and further off the Dalmatian islands. The Austro-Hungarians were able to re-
turn from Medua and Durazzo to their naval bases before being cut off by any
9 Ibid. 137/780, Rear Admiral Cecil F. Thursby to Secretary of the Admiralty, Report of
Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 28 December 1915.
10 Ibid. 1 December 1915.
12 Ibid.
force sent from Brindisi. The difficulties of keeping the naval force at sea instead
of sending them from Brindisi were obvious, because the Allies could not de-
termine in advance the strength of the approaching enemy forces, and because
many large German submarines were operating in these waters. On 5 December
1915 a strong group of Austro-Hungarian cruisers and destroyers managed to
enter the port of Medua, sinking the Italian steamer which had just unloaded
food for the Serbs, the Greek steamer Thira carrying ammunition for Monte-
negro, and a number of small vessels at Medua and, a little later, at Durazzo.13
After the attack of 5 December, no supplies were despatched to the starv-
ing Serbs until the last Italian troops were embarked at Valona on the 11th.
Only after that were Italian cruisers and destroyers, together with British and
French ships, engaged in protecting supply transports. The harbour in Medua
was still blocked with sunken vessels. However, two steamers brought about 700
tons of supplies to Durazzo on the 13th.14
The bulk of the Serbian army retreating through Montenegro and north-
ern Albania reached Scutari and Alessio between 15 and 21 December. On the
same day, 21 December, the Serbian Timok Army left Elbasan for Durazzo and
Valona. Austro-Hungarian prisoners had already reached Valona. From Scutari,
Serbian Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjević repeatedly sent messages to
the Allies requesting urgent evacuation of his starving and dying soldiers. They
were threatened from the north and east by the approaching Austro-Hungarian
and Bulgarian armies.15
On 21 December Admiral Thursby estimated that there were between
80,000 and 120,000 Serbian soldiers in Albania, mainly in the Scutari and El-
basan areas.16 Thursby reported that small steamers were carrying food to Du-
razzo and Medua, but “the whole question is much complicated as no definite
decision has been arrived at as to what is to be the ultimate fate of the Serbian
army”.17
13 Ibid.
15 Veliki rat za oslobodjenje i ujedinjenje Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (VRS), vol. XIII [The Great
War for the Liberation and Unification of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes] (Belgrade: Štamparija
Skerlić, 1927), 306–365; M. Zelenika, Rat Srbije i Crne Gore 1915 [The War of Serbia and
Montenegro in 1915] (Belgrade: Vojno delo, 1964), 444–465, 511–513; Ž. G. Pavlović, Rat
Srbije sa Austro-Ugarskom, Nemačkom i Bugarskom 1915. godine [Serbia’s War with Austria-
Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria in 1915] (Belgrade: Medija centar “Odbrana”, 2017), 868-
893; M. Dj. Nedić, Srpska vojska na Albanskoj Golgoti [Serbian Army on Albanian Golgotha]
(Belgrade: Finegraf d.o.o., 2018), 69–114.
16 TNA, ADM, Rear Admiral Cecil F. Thursby to Secretary of the Admiralty, Report of

17 Ibid.
The evacuation of Serbian soldiers was postponed again. Italians had first
to supply their own troops in Valona. Then they decided to evacuate “refugees
of all nationalities, who have been serving with the Serbian army”, and Austro-
Hungarian prisoners, who, as Thursby noted, were “in a dreadful state of disor-
ganisation, disease and starvation”.18 According to Thursby, there was a total of
24,000–25,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners.19 On 5 January, he reported that
about 25,000 prisoners had been transported, noting that the steamers which
had transported them had to be put in quarantine because of many cases of
cholera. As a result, the evacuation of Serbian soldiers had to be delayed again.20
From 21 to 28 December four small steamers, each carrying 300 to 400
tons of provisions for the Serbs arrived in Medua and Durazzo. In Medua they
were attacked by Austrian aeroplanes, bombs hitting even the hospital ship Pan-
ama evacuating Red Cross personnel from Medua.21
Admiral Thursby collaborated with the officers of the British Adriatic
Mission sent from Britain to help the Serbs, and with Admiral Ernest Trou-
bridge, who had retreated with the Serbs and was now in charge as commander
of the harbour of Medua.22 A few days later Thursby met French Lieutenant
General Piarron de Mondésir as well. Not knowing that the purpose of Mondé-
sir’s mission was to take charge of the entire operation, Thursby assumed that he
was to report on the situation.23 Obvious lack of coordination, together with the
fact that on 28 December Thursby noted again that “at present we do not know
how it is intended to deal with the Serbian refugees and the Serbian army”,24
demonstrated that the Allies were in fact unprepared for the evacuation opera-
tion, despite the fact that, back in Serbia, their officials had encouraged and even
threatened the Serbs not to surrender but instead to retreat to the coast.25
18 Ibid.
20 Ibid. 5 January 1916.
23 Ibid. 28 December 1915. On Piarron de Mondesir’s mission see P. de Mondezir, Albanska
golgota: Uspomene i ratne slike [Albanian Golgotha: Memoires and Images of War] (Belgrade:
Prosveta a.d., 1934); M. Živanović, “O evakuaciji srpske vojske iz Albanije i njenoj reorgani-
zaciji na Krfu (1915–1916) prema francuskim dokumentima” [On the evacuation of the Ser-
bian Army from Albania and its reorganization in Corfu (1915–1916) according to French
documents], Istorijski časopis 14–15 (1963–1965), 272–294. See V. G. Pavlović, De la Serbie
vers la Yougoslavie: La France et la naissance de la Yugoslavie, 1878–1918 (Belgrade: Institut des
Études balkaniques, 2015), 254–259.

25 M. Ković, Jedini put, 188–199.
On 29 December, the Allied force defending the lines of supply between

Brindisi and Albania had to fight its biggest battle in the Adriatic since the be-
ginning of the war.26 On its way from Kotor to the Albanian coast, an Austro-
Hungarian squadron consisting of a light cruiser and five destroyers destroyed a
French submarine, and then appeared in front of Durazzo harbour. After shell-
ing the town, and sinking some small boats, the squadron run into a minefield,
losing two destroyers. Then an Allied force composed of two British light cruis-
ers, two Italian light cruisers, five French destroyers and four Italian destroyers
left Brindisi to chase the Austrian squadron which was retreating back to its
naval base. In support of the squadron, an Austrian armoured cruiser and a light
cruiser were despatched from Kotor. The Allies caught up with the Austrians,
damaging another enemy destroyer in a long-range gunnery duel. After that, the
remaining Austrian force managed to reach Kotor.27
How dangerous these routes and waters could be was proven on 8 Janu-
ary 1916, when the Italian merchant cruiser Città di Palermo, transporting Brit-
ish and Italian troops to Valona, hit a mine in the vicinity of Brindisi and sank
drawing down a number of soldiers who were on board. Two of the drifters
picking up survivors also hit mines and were blown to pieces.28 The previous day
the steamship Brindisi struck a mine at Medua, sinking with 266 Montenegrin
volunteers from Canada and the USA.29
On 5 January Thursby reported that three British and two French cruis-
ers were ready to escort, together with Italian forces, the transports of Serbian
troops. Allies’ submarines were now able to patrol the Austrian-held coast all the
way to Cape Planka, near Šibenik. From Venice, British submarines patrolled in
the northern Adriatic.30
According to Thursby’s report of 10 January, about 1,000 Serbian soldiers
had already been transported by the French cruiser Jules Michellet from Medua
to Brindisi and then to Bizerte in Tunisia. Thursby wrote that the original plan
approved by Mondesir was to evacuate 88,000 Serbian soldiers in the area of
Scutari from Medua, 45,000 men in the Elbasan area from Durazzo, and about
10,000 recruits in Fieri from Valona. Admiral Troubridge, however, reportedly
warned that this port, being too close to the enemy base in Kotor, was unfit for
26 P. G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London and New York: Naval Institute
Press, 1995), 156.
Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 5 January 1916.

29 Ibid. According to other sources, the number of “Brindisi” casualties was 402: I. Petrović,
Brodolomnici pod Medovo [The Shipwrecked off Medua] (Podgorica: Književna zadruga Srp-
skog narodnog vijeća Crne Gore, 2015), 151–190.
Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 5 January 1916; Ibid. 10 January 1916.
the mass and safe evacuation of Serbian soldiers. Thursby relayed Troubridge’s
concerns to the Admiralty, although he believed that “no doubt it could be done
in time”.31 Already on 10 January he “understood” that the Allies decided that the
Serbian Army would have to march again, this time all the way from Medua to
the comparatively safe harbours at Durazzo and Valona.32
“Plans are being changed daily, but since the capitulation of Montenegro,
plans for the evacuation of the Serbian army seem to be getting more settled,”
Thursby reported on 19 January.33 On the same day he expected that steam-
ers would evacuate the Serbian Crown Prince and government, together with a
part of the Montenegrin government. In the evening the King of Montenegro
and Admiral Troubridge were to be transported. Three hospital ships, British,
French and Italian, were ready to evacuate the sick, wounded, women and chil-
dren from Medua and Durazzo. After them, “the reminder of the Serbian army,
estimated at 140,000, will be evacuated from Medua and Durazzo…”34 Around
10,000 recruits have, according to Thursby, already been evacuated from Valona.
The island of Corfu, occupied by the French, was ready for the reception of the
Serbian Army. Two thousand Serbian soldiers had already been sent there. The
main body of about 50 British drifters, supported by two destroyers, were now
protecting the transport route from Valona to Corfu.35
On 19 January, Thursby sent to the Admiralty the list of vessels, mostly
Italian along with three British and two French cruisers, which had been to Me-
dua and Durazzo since 10 December, dispatching and escorting provisions to
the Serbs and evacuating them from Albania on their way back. According to
him, from 10 December to 18 January, 5,823 tons of provisions had been dis-
charged, and 6,283 passengers evacuated on the return journeys.36
By 25 January, the total number of the evacuated was approximately
20,000 Serbian soldiers, 24,000 Austrian prisoners and 6,000 “sick, wounded
and refugees”.37 The British Admiralty ordered that “British hospital ships must
31 Ibid.; Ibid. Troubridge to Thursby, Medua, 6 January 1916. See M. Ković, “Admiral Ernest
Trubridž: Uzroci srpskog poraza (1915)” [Admiral Ernest Troubridge: The Causes of Ser-
bian Defeat (1915)], Srpska politička misao 51/1 (2016), 239–251.
Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 10 January 1916.

34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid. Rear Admiral Cecil F. Thursby to Secretary of the Admiralty, Report of Proceedings,
H. M. S. “Queen”, 25 January 1916.
not be used for evacuating women & children unless sick”,38 and Thursby had
to assure his superiors that he was acting in compliance with the order.39 The
rate of evacuation was only 2,000 persons per day, since all ships were engaged in
transporting provisions not only for the Serbs in Medua, Durazzo and Valona
but also for the Italian troops in Valona and Durazzo.40 By 20 January, “a total
of 5100 men have been taken to Bizerta, making 9741 troops all told”.41 By 25
January, the Allies had evacuated the King of Serbia, the King and Queen of
Montenegro, the Serbian government, a part of the Montenegrin government,
the foreign diplomats who had retreated with the Serbs, the English hospital
units attached to the Serbian Army, Admiral Troubridge and his mission.42
The last transports left Medua on 22 and 23 January. This port was now
in the Austrian hands, and Thursby warned that Durazzo might be the next to
fall to the enemy. At the same time, Serbian troops were marching from Medua
to Durazzo and Valona.43 On 22 and 23 January, the ships Regina Elena and
Cordova managed to evacuate 4,087 Serbian soldiers from Valona, and on 23
January four small steamers transported 2,300 from Durazzo. Thursby reported
that most of the Serbian troops embarked on fifteen Italian and French ships in
Durazzo would first be transported to Valona, and the rest directly to Corfu.44
From Valona to Corfu Serbian troops were to be evacuated by thirteen Italian
and French ships.45
On 1 February Thursby noted that the evacuation from Durazzo was
considerably expedited. The traffic to and fro between Durazzo and Valona was
“now practically continuous”. Within seven days, from 25 January to 31 January,
23,450 Serbian soldiers were transported from Durazzo to Valona by twelve
small steamers. Another 1,500 soldiers were evacuated from Durazzo directly
to Corfu. Nine huge boats had already evacuated 31,187 Serbian soldiers from
Valona to Corfu.46
38 Ibid. Secretary of the Admiralty to Rear Admiral Thursby, London, 24 January 1916; Ibid.
Telegram, 1 February 1916.


40 Ibid.
41 Ibid. Attached, General Intelligence, 25 January 1916.

43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid. 1 February 1916.
The safety of the transports depended upon Allied fleets. The British,
French and Italian submarines divided the coast from Dubrovnik southwards
into their respective zones of responsibility. Five British and three French cruis-
ers, sixteen Italian and nine French destroyers escorted transports of the Serbs,
occasionally making sweeps north, chasing enemy submarines and ships. The
fleet of seventy-seven British net drifters defended the route from Valona to
Corfu against enemy submarines.47
However, the evacuation operation entailed serious losses. On 2 Febru-
ary, the French steamer Jean Bart transporting Serbs from Durazzo to Valona
struck a mine or was torpedoed, leaving only five survivors. On the same day two
aeroplanes attacked Valona, killing some twenty Serbian and Italian soldiers and
a few sailors. Two days later, the Italian steamer Assiria carrying Serbs from
Durazzo to Valona was hit by a submarine torpedo, which, however, failed to
explode.48 According to Thursby, on the same day, 4 February, Serbian troops
repulsed some 8,000 Austrians on the Ishmi river, north of Durazzo, inflict-
ing heavy losses on them and taking some prisoners.49 According to Serbian
sources, this battle took place a day earlier, on 3 February.50 Parts of the Serbian
Army were still a fighting force, obviously capable of defending themselves and
winning battles.
On 8 February Thursby reported that since 1 February 51,256 Serbian
soldiers had been evacuated from Durazzo and Valona to Corfu. 28,793 were
transported from Durazzo to Valona, 8,121 from Durazzo directly to Corfu,
and 43,185 from Valona to Corfu.51 According to Thursby, evacuation from
Durazzo was to be completed on 9 February, and the remaining Serbian troops
were to be transported from Valona the following week. In his estimation, the
total number of Serbian soldiers in Corfu, exclusive of the wounded, sick, refu-
gees, women and children, would be about 130,000.52
In his report of 16 February, Thursby updated these figures. From 9 Feb-
ruary to 16 February, 25,942 Serbian soldiers were evacuated from the Albanian
coast. All troops were transported from Valona, since the evacuation from Du-
razzo was completed on 9 February, with the transport of the last 2,500 soldiers
47 Ibid.; Ibid. 28 December 1915; 8 February 191616 February 1916.

48 Ibid. Attached, General Intelligence, 8 February 1916.
49 Ibid.
50 VRS, vol. XIV, 249–250. See Ch. E. J. Fryer, The Destruction of Serbia in 1915 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997), 123–124.
51 TNA, ADM, Rear Admiral Cecil F. Thursby to Secretary of the Admiralty, Attached,
Transport of Serbian Troops, 8 February 1916.
52 Ibid. Report of Proceedings, 8 February 1916.
directly to Corfu. With the previously reported numbers, the total of Serbian
soldiers evacuated to Corfu by 16 February was 119,483.53
“There are still between 15,000 and 20,000 more Serbians in addition
to cavalry and horses to be evacuated from Valona,” Thursby wrote.54 A more
precise number of Serbian troops in Albania that were yet to be evacuated was
given in the General Intelligence document attached to Thursby’s report: 7,685
at Valona, and 29,000 “at Vojussa”, on route for Valona, with 18,000 horses.55
On 23 February Thursby reported that the evacuation was completed,
with the exception of the cavalry and horses. According to him, the total number
of Serbs transported to Corfu was 130,000.56 The General Intelligence docu-
ment of the same date offered an estimate of 10,000 men and 16,000 horses yet
to be evacuated to Corfu.57
Writing about the completed operation of evacuating Serbian troops
and refugees on 28 February, Admiral Thursby stressed “the very creditable part
taken in it by the British Cruisers and Drifters”. According to him, British cruis-
ers of the “Town” class were the only Allied cruisers capable of dealing with the
best enemy cruisers, and they had usually chased them back to Kotor. Naval
drifters have kept off submarine attacks, and “saved many lives from ships which
have struck mines or been torpedoed”. Since October 1915, six drifters were lost
while on service. “No praise is too high for them,” Thursby concluded.58
***
As it was demonstrated in this article, Admiral Thursby’s 1915 and 1916 reports
to the Admiralty offer many important facts considering especially the role of
the Allied naval forces in the evacuation of Serbs from the Albanian coast, its
precise chronology and the numbers of the transported soldiers. They obviously
are a very useful source for the reconstruction of this huge historical event, large-
ly neglected in the historiography of the First World War.
53 Ibid. Attached, Transport of Serbian Troops, 16 February 1916.

H. M. S. “Queen”, 16 February 1916.

55 Ibid. Attached, General Intelligence, 16 February 1916. However, the “Transport of Serbi-
an Troops” document mentioned only 15,000–20,000 remaining Serbian soldiers in Valona.
H. M. S. “Prince of Wales”, 28 February 1916.

57 Ibid. Attached, General Intelligence, 23 February 1916. Cavalry Division of the Serbian
Army will be transported to Corfu between 22 March and 5 April 1916.

H. M. S. “Prince of Wales”, 28 February 1916.
Sources and bibliography

Unpublished sources
The National Archives, UK, Admiralty

— 137/780, Adriatic, Reports of Proceedings of the Rear Admiral Commanding British
Adriatic Squadron, 18 May 1915 to 28 February 1916
— 137/781, Adriatic, Reports of Proceedings of the Rear Admiral Commanding British
Adriatic Squadron, 29 February to 20 December 1916.
— 137/833, List of Charts Submitted with Reports of Proceedings, British Adriatic
Squadron.
Published sources
Hansard. Vol 74.

Lloyd George, D. War Memoirs, vol. I. London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson Ltd, 1933.
Mondezir P. de [P. de Mondésir], Albanska golgota: Uspomene i ratne slike [Albanian Gol-
gotha: Memories and Images of War]. Belgrade: Prosveta a.d., 1934.
Stoyanovitch C. and M. Savtchitch. Rapport sur les Dommages causés à la Serbie et au Mon-
ténégro présenté à la Commission des Réparations des Dommages. Paris: Impr. slave, 1919.
Veliki rat za oslobodjenje i ujedinjenje Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca. Vol. XIII [The Great War
for the Liberation and Unification of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes]. Belgrade: Štamparija
Skerlić, 1927.
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UDC 355.1(497.11)"1916"
94(497.11)"1914/1918"
Miljan Milkić* http://www.balcanica.rs
Strategic Research Institute, MoD

Belgrade
The Serbian Army in the Chalkidiki in 1916

Organization and Deployment
Abstract: The transportation of the Serbian Army to the Chalkidiki and deployment on
the Salonika front was part of the unique process of reorganizing, equipping, training and
engaging the Serbian Army within the Allied coalition. Combining unpublished archival
documents and the literature, this article analyzes military reasons and diplomatic circum-
stances in which the Serbian Army was deployed to the Chalkidiki and became part of
the Allied military forces on the Salonika front. The most important part of this research
are details related to the activity of the Serbian Military Mission in the Chalkidiki, which
was tasked with making arrangements for receiving, accommodating and supplying the
Serbian Army in the peninsula.
Keywords: Serbian Army, Chalkidiki, organization, formation, Serbian Military Mission,
Salonika (Macedonian) front
T he combined invasion by Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian forces

in the autumn of 1915 forced the Serbian Army to withdraw south across
Albania, reaching the Adriatic coast,1 from where it was evacuated to the island
of Corfu by Allied ships. The exhausting march across Albania had taken a heavy
toll in lives.2 The numerical strength of the Serbian Army in August 1914 had
been 319,979 men according to the army enlistment records, or 286,686 men
on the ground. Based on the report put together by the Adjutant Division in
late December 1915, it had a total of 142,164 combatants and non-combatants.
According to the data the Supreme Command submitted to the army minister
on 23 February 1916 the Serbian Army had a total of 147,000 men, of whom
110,800 combatants and 36,200 non-combatants. According to the surviving re-
ports of April 1916, there were 113,814 combatants and non-combatants on the
* [email protected]
1 Andrej Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918 (London: Hurst and Company, 2007),
151–161.
2 Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, vol. XIV: 1916. godina,
Treći period: Opšte odstupanje srpske vojske, IV faza: Prebacivanje iz Albanije na ostrvo Krf
(Belgrade: Istorijsko odeljenje Glavnog đeneralštaba, 1928).
spot, while a month later there were 116,954.3 French sources recorded that on
22 February 135,000 Serbs were evacuated to Corfu and 9,010 to Bizerte. At the
same time, in the vicinity of Valona, the Cavalry Division comprising 13,068
men and 10,144 horses awaited evacuation, which was carried out in early April.
To be added to this number of men and animals are about 4,000 men who had
withdrawn with the French from the southern parts of the Kingdom of Serbia
to Greece.4 According to the data of the Central Supply Section, the numerical
strength of the Serbian Army at the beginning of the enemy offensive in Octo-
ber 1915 was about 420,000.5 The same source suggests that between 290,000
and 300,000 people reached Kosovo, while about 220,000 withdrew towards the
Adriatic coast through Montenegro and Albania. A total of 150,000 were evacu-
ated by sea. Research conducted by Milivoje Alimpić suggests that the exact
numerical strength of the Army is difficult to establish because of the mixing
of soldiers between units and because of several evacuation and disembarka-
tion ports (Corfu, Algeria, Tunisia).6 According to a report of the Serbian Su-
preme Command cited by Alimpić, the numerical strength of the Army before
the evacuation from Albania was 145,000 men, while on 24 February 1915 the
Supreme Command informed the army minister that the Allies could count on
146,000 Serbian soldiers for the upcoming operations in the Balkans. According
to General Petar Pešić, Assistant Chief of the General Staff, the total numerical
strength was 151,920, of whom 110,000 combatants and 41,920 non-combat-
ants. French records for 25 February provide the figure of 164,618 men (10,000
near Valona, 134,000 in Corfu, 10,624 in Bizerte, 4,584 in Salonika, about 2,000
in French and Greek hospitals, and about 3,000 in Epirus). The figures provided
for 30 May 1916 by French and Serbian military sources pretty much tally:7 the
French produced the figure of about 146,800 men, while the Serbian Supreme
Command recorded about 144,000 men. According to the research by the his-
torian Dušan Bataković, in May 1916 the Serbian Army had 6,025 officers and
124,190 soldiers.8
3 Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, vol. XV: 1916. godi-
na. Reorganizacija srpske vojske na Krfu i prebacivanje u Solun i okolinu (Belgrade: Istorijsko
odeljenje Glavnog đeneralštaba, 1929).
4 Milivoje Alimpić, Solunski front (Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački zavod, 1967), 59–60.
5 Ibid. 60.
6 Ibid. 68.
7 Ibid. 68, 69.
8 Dušan T. Bataković, “Serbia in the Great War 1914–1918: War Imposed, Martyrdom,
Resurrection”, in Serbia in the Great War. Anglo-Saxon Testimonies and Historical Analysis, ed.
Dušan T. Bataković (Belgrade: National Library of Serbia, 2015), 33.
M. Milkić, The Serbian Army in the Chalkidiki in 1916 45
From Corfu to the Chalkidiki

The issue of deploying Allied forces to Salonika and establishing the Salonika
front was tied to the issue of Greece’s participation in the war. The possibility
of an Allied attack on Greece precipitated the Greek government into assenting
to the Allied landing in Salonika, which was followed, on 27 September 1915,
by Prime Minister Venizelos request to the British and French governments to
send troops.9 A day later the French war minister ordered deployment of parts
of the 156th Division to Salonika, and Lord Kitchener ordered the transfer of
the 10th Division from Gallipoli to Salonika. French General Sarrail was ap-
pointed commander of the expeditionary forces in the Balkans, and he disem-
barked in Salonika on 12 October.
After the recuperation and reorganization in Corfu, the Serbian Army
was deployed to the Chalkidiki. The deployment of the Serbian Army was a
subject of intensive negotiations between the Serbian General Staff and the
French Supreme Command, the role of the main intermediary being played
by General Piarron de Mondésir, head of the French Mission to the Serbian
Army. On 20 February the general announced the imminent deployment of
Serbian troops to the Chalkidiki, assuring the Serbian General Staff that the
Serbian troops on the Salonika front would not be absorbed by Allied units but
rather that it would be able to operate independently. He also announced that
the Serbs would be armed by the Allies in the Chalkidiki.10 It was planned to
form no more than six divisions of twelve battalions each with a total of 140,000
men. On 17 March 1916 the Serbian Supreme Command suggested to the war
minister to reach an agreement on the disposition of the Serbian Army in the
Chalkidiki and its use in the upcoming operations. Convinced that the Serbian
Army should be able to operate independently, the Supreme Command insisted
that it be given a specified direction of advance and a specified sector of the front.
General Mondésir informed the Serbian Supreme Command that the first ech-
elon of Serbian troops would soon be transferred to Salonika.11
On 9 April, after the disembarkation of horses and cavalry equipment in
the Chalkidiki began, the Serbian Supreme Command ordered the transporta-
tion of the corresponding units from Corfu to the Chalkidiki. The first to be
transported were the staff of the food supply column of each division and a sec-
tion of the division food supply column. The transportation began on 12 April
from the port of Govino for the units of the 1st Army, and from Moraitika for
those of the 2nd and 3rd Armies. These units were tasked with preparing camps
in the Chalkdiki and receiving the first transport of horses. On 13 April the Su-
9 Alimpić, Solunski front, 8.

10 Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje, vol. XV, 14–15.
11 Ibid. 148–149.
preme Command ordered the transport of 1st Army units. On 15 April the com-
mander of the Cavalry Division was ordered to have all healthy horses sent to
the port of Corfu for transport to the Chalkidiki. At the Inter-Allied conference
held at Chantilly on 12 March 1916 it had been decided to reorganize and trans-
port the Serbian Army to Salonika.12 The decision suited the Allies because they
wanted to reinforce their forces with a reorganized Serbian force, and it suited the
Serbian Army to be deployed to the Salonika front because it opened the shortest
route home. The Allies insisted on deploying the regiments one by one, as soon
as reorganized and ready. They believed that the opening of the Salonika front
would precipitate the entry of Romania and Greece into the war.
About 112,000 men and 8,300 horses were transported from Corfu to
Salonika.13 Since it was a highly risky operation because of the presence of en-
emy submarines in Greek waters, the French and British ambassadors suggested
to the Greek prime minister, Stefanos Skouloudis, that the Serbian troops be
disembarked in the port of Patras and then transported by rail to the town of
Ekaterini in the region of Thessaly, from where they would proceed to Salonika
on foot.14 Prime Minister Skouloudis rejected the suggestion as detrimental to
Greece’s political and economic interests and as compromising her neutrality.
The rejection had an adverse impact on the relations between the Athens gov-
ernment and the Allied governments.
The transportation operation plan was developed by the French Navy,
which also provided means of transportation and convoy protection.15 In order
to preclude any confusion and delays in unloading materiel from ships, infantry
units were to be transported in the order of divisions and armies, and the rest in
the order in which the materiel intended for them arrived in the port of Mikra
near Salonika. The operation took forty-eight days, as opposed to only thirty
days had the idea of the landing at Patras been accepted.
The first Serbian units that had embarked in Corfu on 12 April disem-
barked at Mikra on 18 April.16 The main phase of transportation began on 18

13 Ibid.
14 Efpraxia S. Paschalidou, “Greece’s Prolonging Neutrality Perception during WWI. Stance
towards Serbia”, in The First World War, Serbia, the Balkans and Great Powers, eds. Srđan
Rudić and Miljan Milkić (Belgrade: Institute of History and Strategic Research Institute,
2015), 134.
16 Ibid. 78; Miladin Milošević, Srbija i Grčka 1914–1918. Iz istorije diplomatskih odnosa
(Zaječar: Istorijski arhiv “Timočka krajina”, 1997), 205. Reports on the first Serbian troops in
the Chalkidiki kept in Vojni arhiv Ministarstva odbrane Republike Srbije, Belgrade [Military
Archives, Ministry of Defence, Republic of Serbia, hereafter: VA], Belgrade, Register 3, box
388, file 2, document 2/5.
April.17 Troops from the 1st Army and the Cavalry Division embarked in the
port of Govino, and those of the 2nd and 3rd Armies in the port of Mariotika.
Before embarkation the soldiers underwent medical examination and were given
new clothing. The embarkation of the 1st Army took from 18 April to 7 May,
of the 2nd from 6 to 17 May, of the 3rd from 17 to 21 May, and of the Cavalry
Brigade from 24 to 26 May.
On 23 May, by order of General Sarrail, the Volunteer Unit of Vojvoda
Vuk (Vojin Popović) was deployed to the Florina area – where some smaller
French units had already been dispatched – with the task of preventing arms
smuggling.18
The Staff of the Serbian Supreme Command embarked the ship, Ingoma,
for Salonika on 14 May 1916. Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command, Assis-
tant Chief of Staff, Chief of the Operation Section and Chief of the Intelligence
Section left for Salonika the following morning. They arrived in Salonika at
14:00 on 16 May. The Staff of the Serbian Supreme Command and the French
military mission headed by General Piarron de Mondésir arrived in Salonika to-
gether, and the Staff was accommodated there.19 General Mondésir’s successful
mission ended with the completion of the transportation of the Serbian Army
to the Chalkidiki. He was recalled on 24 April 1916 by order of General Joseph
Joffre.20 The Staff of the 1st Army was headquartered in the village of Yenikey,
the Morava Division was encamped near the village of Surukli/Souroti, and
the Vardar Division near the village of Zahardji. The Staff of the 2nd Army ar-
rived in the port of Mikra on 15 May and set its headquarters in the village of
Loutra, the Timok Division was encamped near the village of Zoumbata and
the Šumadija Division near the village of Loutra. The Staff of the 3rd Army
set its headquarters in the village of Vasilika, the Danube Division and Drina
Divisions were encamped near the village of Talatishte. The Cavalry Division
was encamped near the village of Redesa. Regent Alexander Karadjordjević,
Commander-in-Chief, stayed behind in Corfu awaiting the solution to the is-
sue of command authority on the future front. Command over the troops that
remained in Corfu was assumed by the war minister on 13 May.
The transportation of the Serbian Army was completed in perfect order
and according to plan. Owing to the measures taken by the French Navy, not
a single case of torpedoing had occurred. Once in the Chalkidiki, the Serbian

18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. 79.
20 MiljanMilkić, “Serbia and Allies in 1916”, in The Year of 1916 and the Impact of the World
War Dynamics. Romania’s entry into the Great War, ed. Dr. Mihael E. Ionescu (Bucharest:
Institutul pentru studii politice de aparare si istorie militara, Editura militara, 2017), 45.
troops were equipped with arms and materiel shipped from France.21 Training
was an important step in the process. The infantry training plan developed by
the Serbian Supreme Command in Corfu on 16 May 1916, envisaged a two-
month timeframe for producing an efficient and disciplined armed force.22 At
the same time, Serbian military chaplains provided moral instruction.23 On 1
March 1916, in the camp at Govino in Corfu, the French military organized a
training of Serbian officers and non-commissioned officers in handling a new
type of rifle. The training in handling the French St Etienne Mle 1907 machine-
gun that had begun in Corfu was completed in the Chalkidiki. A few manoeu-
vres were also carried out. After the arrival of the Serbian troops that had been
evacuated to Bizerte, the formation of the Serbian Army was finally completed
in the Chalkidiki.24
The Serbian Mission in the Chalkidiki

By order of the Chief of Staff of the Serbian Supreme Command of 20 February
1916, Captain 1st Class Aleksandar Stojanović and Major Velimir Tomašević
were transferred from Corfu to Salonika.25 Stojanović was assigned the task
of selecting locations for the encampment of Serbian soldiers in collaboration
with a member of the French Mission, Lieutenant-Colonel Broussoud. Maj.
Tomašević, commander of the Cavalry Depot, and his men were tasked with the
reception of horses from all units of the Serbian Army. On 27 February 1916,
the Serbian Supreme Command set up a special mission tasked to organize the
accommodation of Serbian troops and sent it to Salonika.26 The Mission was
composed of Colonel Petar Todorović as its head, Colonel Miloš Jovanović as
his deputy, Colonel Radisav Zečević, medical doctor Colonel Dragutin Petković,
and supply officer Colonel Stanoje Ristić. The Mission was to act in compli-
ance with the Supreme Command’s written instructions of 4 March and oral
instructions received from the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command and
chiefs of some sections of the Supreme Command.27 The Mission was to ensure
the tactical, sanitary and economic functioning of the camps. The order of the
Supreme Command instructed the Mission to limit itself to assigning encamp-

22 Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje, vol. XV, 115–123.
23 Miljan Milkić, Verska služba u srpskoj vojsci u Prvom svetskom ratu (Belgrade: Medija centar
Odbrana, 2016), 204–207.

25 Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje, vol. 15, 17–18.
27 VA, 3, 388, 2, 2–5.
ment sites to divisions, parts of armies and parts of the Supreme Command.
It also had to address all other issues relating to the landing and reception of
troops and materiel. Its special duty was to ensure regular meals and water for
the troops upon disembarkation. The type of problems the Mission had to ad-
dress may be illustrated by the fact that the distribution of troops had to take
into account the capacity of water sources in each area of encampment. The
Mission acted as an institution of the Supreme Command. Upon arriving in
Salonika on 10 March and coming into contact with French authorities, the
Mission was based at Sedes, where it analysed the earlier reports of French Lt.
Col. Broussoud and Serbian Maj. Stojanović, and put together a memorandum
on general and particular issues concerning different fields (supply service, medi-
cal service, artillery and engineering). The Mission submitted its report on these
issues to the Supreme Command on 19 March 1916.28 As far as the selection
and organization of encampment sites was concerned, the Mission followed the
instructions of the French military. At its first meeting with the delegate of the
French Eastern Army, Colonel Descoins, and its first meeting with General Sar-
rail, the Mission was told that the area designated for encamping Serbian troops
was the valley of Vasilika.29 The Mission was ordered to move to Vasilika in
order to prepare the camp at Surukli, which it did as early as 13 March and, at
the request of Col. Descoins, immediately set to work. According to the earlier
plan by Lt. Col. Broussoud and Maj. Stojanović, the camp at Surukli was to be
the first to accommodate a division. The Mission generally accepted the earlier
suggestions of the two officers, but rejected encampment away from main roads.
Analysing the area assigned for the encampment of Serbian troops, the Mission
concluded that its low population density, limited water supply and lack of good
roads required that inhabited places be chosen as encampment sites and that the
Mikra–Galatista road be the main line of supply for Serbian troops. The Mis-
sion’s first decision concerning the distribution of Serbian troops was as follows:
– At Sedes: Cavalry Division with the Cavalry Depot, and the central
hospital
– At the villages of Surukli and Loutra: 1st Army on both sides of the Mi-
kra–Galatista road and the headquarters at Loutra
– At the village of Galatista: the 2nd Army with all its parts
– In the area of Yenikey–Zakardja–Zumbat: the 3rd Army
– At Vasilika and in its environs, on both sides of the main road: the staff
and departments of the Supreme Command.
The camps were to be set up in the order laid down in this plan of the
Serbian Mission, but the plan had to be changed. According to General Sarrail’s
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
order of 16 March, the sequence of entering the camps was to be as follows:

Sedes, Surukli, Zakardji, Galatista, Zumbat, Loutra (where the French 17th
Colonial Division was stationed at the time) and, possibly, the area between Ak-
sakan and Agia Paraskevi.30 The latter was a swampy area with few roads and
an inadequate number of usable wells. A further inconvenience was that such a
sequence of establishing camps would break up the armies and cause consider-
able communal and administrative difficulties. Therefore, the Mission promptly
requested to be assigned the area north of and around Loutra unless occupied
by the 17th Colonial Division, in which case the Loutra camp would be second
in line. But the request was denied, and it was even made clear to the Mission
that unless it withdrew the request the 17th Division would leave its camp at
Loutra and cease the ongoing construction of communications. Such a prospect
would have made it impossible for the Mission to fulfil its assignment. The few
workers it had at its disposal would not have been able to prepare the Surukli
camp, let alone to resume the construction of communications. As a result, the
Mission was compelled to comply with General Sarrail’s order. Since it refused
to use the area between Aksakan and Agia Paraskevi, the camp at Galatista had
to accommodate two divisions instead of one. That meant that the Serbian 6th
Division could be accommodated there only after the departure of the 17th Co-
lonial Division. The problem was presented to Col. Descoins. The reply came on
21 March. General Sarrail decided that the Serbian Division encamped at Su-
rukli be deployed to the front as soon as it was armed, thus making way for the
division that would arrive last. But these decisions concerning the distribution
of Serbian troops were not definitive. The ensuing period saw frequent changes,
at times completely contrary to the earlier plans. The lodging of the Supreme
Command was a particularly delicate issue for the Serbian Mission. Based on
General Sarrail’s order of 16 March, the Supreme Command was to be head-
quartered at Vasilika. When General Mondésir arrived on 2 April, his chief of
staff, Colonel Douchy, stated to the members of the Serbian Mission in a private
conversation that the Serbian Supreme Command would be lodged in the east-
ern part of Salonika and that the Serbian military would be in charge of Mikra.
Col. Descoins, on the other hand, went on claiming that the Serbian Supreme
Command would be in Vasilika and that the Cavalry Division would arrive last.
He insisted that the construction of barracks for the Serbian Supreme Com-
mand should be stepped up even though the elementary school in Vasilika had
been designated for the purpose. On 12 April the Serbian Mission began the
construction of barracks for the Supreme Command in Vasilika since it failed to
obtain private buildings from the local municipal authorities. Later on the issue
of the accommodation of the Serbian Supreme Command became the subject
of direct talks between the Serbian Army delegate Colonel Dragomir Milojević
30 Ibid.
and the Staff of the French Eastern Army and was finally settled in April. The
distribution of troops and the sequence of entering the camps were also subject
to change. Upon the arrival of General Mondésir the Serbian Mission was in-
formed of the imminent arrival of Serbian troops and the need to prepare all
camps simultaneously.
Pursuant to the order of 3 June 1916, the Serbian Mission submitted a
full report on its work.31 The report, received on 7 June, states that the Mission
was met with a cold reception from the French military representatives at their
first meeting and that the Staff of the Eastern Army had made no preparations
for the arrival of Serbian troops. Instead of getting answers to its many ques-
tions, the Mission was told not to expect to ever get them. The answers to some
general questions it did get were so vague that they were of no use. The problem
was in that the Mission could not learn what of the equipment and furnish-
ings for the camps it could expect to get from the French military and what it
had to procure itself. It was only after the arrival of the Morava Division that
the Mission was informed of the Supreme Command’s order of 20 April which
specified in more detail what of the material was allocated to which unit. There
was also the problem of transportation of the material. Another of the Mission’s
objections was the fact that not a single automobile had ever been placed at
its disposal; by contrast, every member of the French Mission (“even a second
lieutenant”) had one at his disposal. So they had to do their work on horse or
on foot. This problem became particularly acute once the Serbian troops began
to disembark at Mikra. The Mission was unable to tend to the disembarkation
and the preparation of the camps at the same time. The troops arriving in the
Chalkidiki were completely unprepared and needed not only lodging and meals
but also all manner of instructions and explanations, which the Mission fre-
quently was unable to give them. The information given to the Mission did not
specify the allocation of materiel among units, which caused many problems and
compelled them to ask questions over and over again.
One of the Mission’s assignments was to designate the sites for shoot-
ing exercises. A shooting ground was assigned to every infantry division in the
vicinity of its camp. Grounds for artillery practice had to be limited to two sites:
in the environs of the camp at Galatista, with a 4-km shooting range, and at Big
Karaburun, with a range of 11.5 km.32 Each division commander was shown
the encampment site and the location of water sources, the layout of his divi-
sion’s camp, diet plans, the operation procedure for the medical staff, the exercise
ground. The units whose camps were not yet ready to receive them were tempo-
rarily accommodated in the provisional camp at Sedes.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
The first camp to be set up was the one at Surukli and preparatory work
began on 14 March,33 involving sixty-four railway workers and three engineers
the Mission had brought from Corfu. All the necessary material and tools were
requested from the French military. A few days later, on 18 March, two 3rd-line
companies of the 1st Combined Regiment were brought to build a road between
Vasilika and Surukli. Namely, the building of roads by the French 17th Colonial
Division had begun before the Mission’s arrival. The Mission also worked on
establishing telephone communications. The plan was to establish communica-
tions between Vasilika and Salonika (for communication between the Serbian
Supreme Command and the commander of the Eastern Army), Vasilika and
Galatista (for communication with one of the armies), Vasilika and Zumbat
(where an army was to be headquartered) and Vasilika and Loutra (for com-
munication with the 3rd Army headquarters). But by 20 March the Mission
was informed by the Telephone Department of the 17th Colonial Division that
there were no technical conditions for establishing new telephone lines and was
advised to take over the 17th Colonial Division’s lines once it left the camp.
The preparation of the camp ran slowly because of delays in the delivery
of material and tools by the French. Time went by, often without any reply to
the Mission’s requests or the delivery of the necessary material. The Mission
was therefore compelled to try to procure the material on its own, and it was re-
quested of the Supreme Command to dispatch engineer units to the Chalkidiki
as soon as possible. Deliveries by the French began to arrive fifteen days after
the request from the Mission. The delivery of building material was still awaited
and it was only on 3 April that blacksmith tools and the tools for installing water
pumps arrived. General Piarron de Mondésir visited the camp at Surukli on 1
April and promised the necessary labour but it did not arrive by the time the
first Morava Division troops began to be lodged in the camp. Preparations of the
camp at Surukli were nearing completion when, on 7 April, preparations began
at Yenikey and Zakardja. Preparations of the Surukli camp ran in parallel with
those of the camp at Sedes. At the express request of Col. Descoins, the Serbian
Mission did not take part in the preparations of this camp, intended for the 1st
3rd-line Combined Regiment, which began on 20 April, the date when engineer
units arrived. Preparations of the camp at Zakardja were followed by those of
Zumbat and then Galatista. Preparations of the camp at Loutra, which was now
placed at the disposal of the Serbian Mission, ran concurrently. Although 17th
Colonial Division had been encamped there, the Serbian Mission assessed that
it needed additional furnishing.34
The supply of drinking water for Serbian troops involved chemical analy-
sis of the existing sources, their covering to prevent contamination and instal-
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
lation of pumps. Bacteriological analyses began on 27 March. The Loutra and

Galatista camps were equipped with various installations, drinking fountains
and water tanks.35
By the time of the arrival of Serbian troops, preparations of the camp
and in particular the maintenance of roads were covered by the French 17th
Colonial Division. After their departure from the Chalkidiki, the organization
of the work was resumed by the Serbian Mission in collaboration with the Brit-
ish Mission.36
Among the issues addressed by the Serbian Mission was the one of
food.37 The issue had not been considered by the command of the Eastern Army,
and the chief supply officer of the French Army was surprised by the Serbian
Mission’s questions and requests. It was necessary to develop a diet chart and a
plan for the upkeep of Serbian troops. The French chief supply officer stated,
however, that the provisions for the Serbian soldiers would be the same as those
for the French. The allowance of hay and straw for bedding and the consump-
tion of coffee were cancelled, and the rations of cooked vegetables and firewood
cut down. At a meeting held on 21 March, the main principles of supplying
the Serbian Army were presented: the Serbian Army would be supplied in the
same way as the French; a central base would be set up at Mikra which would
supply food to the Serbian camps; the Serbian divisions were allowed to keep
only a day’s supply of food in storage. One of the conclusions of the meeting was
that the French supply service would do all the work, while the Serbian supply
officer should only organize the reception and distribution of food deliveries.
The Serbian Mission objected on the grounds that transportation difficulties
in case of bad weather might leave the troops without food and suggested the
establishment in each area of a division depot holding two-day food supplies.
The Mission also requested the urgent dispatch of Serbian bakery units to the
Chalkidiki. The provision of food for Serbian troops became the Mission’s most
important task and many others fell in the background as a result. The Mission’s
effort to have food and clothing depots set up for each division ended in success.
A few days after the arrival of the Serbian Mission, the command of the
Eastern Army requested of the Serbian Supreme Command to send horses to
the Chalkidiki, first those from the Cavalry Division and then from the other
divisions. The horses began to arrive on 30 March, but there were no condi-
tions for their accommodation and care. All that was needed for horse care and
maintenance, including blacksmiths and their materials, was yet to come from
Corfu, and so the Serbian Mission tried to procure the necessary material in the
Chalkidiki.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
On 5 May 1916 the Serbian Mission requested of its Supreme Com-

mand to provide interpreters to facilitate its communication with representa-
tives of the Allied armies.38 Twenty-eight members of the Serbian Army speak-
ing one or several foreign languages – French, English, German, Greek, Russian,
Spanish, Turkish, Italian, Romanian, Czech, Hungarian and Dutch – applied
for the duty. On 31 May the Mission asked for another ten interpreters for
French to be engaged in the French military hospitals in the Chalkidiki.
During its term the Mission had a budget of 200,000 drachmas.39 It was
used to pay the rent for the buildings where the Serbian Supreme Command
was accommodated, for salaries and various allowances, food provisions and
various materials for furnishing the camps. Despite all difficulties, the Serbian
Mission managed to have the camps prepared for the accommodation of Ser-
bian troops. Having fulfilled its assignment, the Mission ceased to operate on 4
June 1916 by order of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command.40
The disposition of the Serbian troops on the Salonika front

The Serbian Army stayed in the Chalkidiki for about two months, where its
reorganization was completed, and it was armed and equipped. At its meeting
of 24 June 1916 the Serbian government accepted General Sarrail’s request for
the deployment of the Serbian Army to the front, with the proviso that it should
operate as a single force.41 The area where Serbian troops were deployed was
bounded by the rivers Kodjidere and Vardar in the east, the two Prespa Lakes
in the west, in the south by the road from Salonika to Yannitsa and Edessa, then
the railway to Ostrov (Arnisa) and thence the line Katranitsa–Aitos–Turnovo
villages on the Florina–Kastoria road. Their deployment in the assigned area
was carried out under the protection of parts of the French Army. The Ser-
bian troops were in fact to block the possible penetration of the enemy towards
Edessa, which would make it easy for them to reach Salonika. The 1st Army was
deployed between the Kodjidere and Vardar rivers and the river Moglenitsa, the
2nd Army between the Moglenitsa and the line Kaimakchalan–Drushka (east
of Ostrov), and the 3rd Army between the line Kaimakchalan–Drushka–Ka-
tranitsa and the two Prespa Lakes. During the transfer from Salonika to the
front, General Sarrail assigned some Serbian divisions to secure a bridge on
the Salonika–Edessa–Bitola railway and road. At first the task was assigned to
the Šumadija Division, and from early July it was replaced successively by the
38 VA, 3, 263, 10, 8/31.

39 VA, 3, 388, 2, 2–5.
40 VA, 3, 388, 2, 2-4.
41 Alimpić, Solunski front, 94, 95.
Timok, Morava and Vardar Divisions. Military experts are of the view that this
was an unnecessary assignment because the Salonika–Edessa–Bitola line had
already been protected by the disposition of French forces along the Vardar.42
After long negotiations, which ended in late July 1916, the issue of com-
mand over the Serbian Army was settled. While in the Chalkidiki, it had still
been under Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjević as commander-in-chief,
and then General Sarrail took over. The 1st Army, headquartered in the village
of Goumenissa, completed the deployment of its Morava Division by 31 July
and of the Vardar Division by 7 August. The 2nd Army was headquartered in
the village of Dragomantsi (Apsalos); its Šumadija Division completed deploy-
ment by 24 July and the Timok Division by 28 July. The Drina Division of the
3rd Army completed deployment in the area of Ostrov (Arnisa), where the 3rd
Army was headquartered, by 24 July, and the Danube Division by 5 August.43
The Cavalry Division, temporarily reassigned as an infantry unit by order of
the Supreme Command of 24 July, left the camp at Sedes on 18 July, and was
deployed to two positions. The 2nd Cavalry Brigade Staff and the 2nd Cavalry
Regiment were transferred to Edessa, where the latter was assigned to secure the
Salonika–Amyntaio (Sorovič) railway. The rest of the Cavalry Division, includ-
ing its Staff, was sent to Gorno Vrbeni to protect the left flank of the Danube
Division. The British 17th and 156th Divisions were also deployed in the course
of July. In that way, the Salonika front was fully formed.
The deployment of Serbian troops on the Salonika front was carried out
smoothly and without disturbance on the part of the enemy. The inclusion of
the Serbian Army into the Allied force boosted the morale of Serbian troops.
The Serbian government and Supreme Command succeeded in their effort to
preserve the Army’s national character and to get it employed as a unified force
along a defined operational direction, along Greece’s northern border. The Army
was now near its occupied homeland and the fact aroused hopes of its imminent
liberation.
Vojni arhiv Ministarstva odbrane Republike Srbije, Belgrade [Military Archives, Ministry of
Defence, Republic of Serbia], Belgrade
— Register 3
Alimpić, Milivoje. Solunski front. Belgrade: Vojnoizdavački zavod, 1967.

Bataković, Dušan T. 2015. “Serbia in the Great War 1914–1918: War Imposed, Martyrdom
Ressurection“. In Serbia in the Great War. Anglo-Saxon Testimonies and Historical Analy-
sis, ed. Dušan T. Bataković, 9–36. Belgrade: National Library of Serbia.
42 Ibid. 95.
43 Ibid. 96–97.
Milkić, Miljan. ”Serbia and Allies in 1916”. In The Year of 1916 and the Impact of the World
War Dynamics. Romania’s entry into the Great War, ed. Dr. Mihael E. Ionescu, 37–52.
Bucharest: Institutul pentru studii politice de aparare si istorie militara, Editura militara,
2017.
— Verska služba u srpskoj vojsci u Prvom svetskom ratu. Belgrade: Medija centar Odbrana,
2016.
— “Serbian Army in 1914: Tradition, Religion and Moral”. Hadtörténelmi Közlemények
(Quarterly of Military History) 2 (2017), 396–404.
Milošević, Miladin. Srbija i Grčka 1914–1918. Iz istorije diplomatskih odnosa. Zaječar: Istorijski
arhiv “Timočka krajina”, 1997.
Mitrović, Andrej. Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918. London: Hurst and Company, 2007.
Paschalidou, Efpraxia S. “Greece’s Prolonging Neutrality Perception during WWI. Stance
towards Serbia”. In The First World War, Serbia, the Balkans and Great Powers, eds. Srđan
Rudić and Miljan Milkić, 125–136. Belgrade: Institute of History and Strategic Resear-
ch Institute, 2015.
Veliki rat Srbije za oslobođenje i ujedinjenje Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca. Vol. XIV: 1916. godina,
Treći period: Opšte odstupanje srpske vojske, IV faza: Prebacivanje iz Albanije na ostrvo Krf.
Belgrade: Istorijsko odeljenje Glavno Đeneralštaba, 1928. Vol. XV: 1916. godina. Reorga-
nizacija srpske vojske na Krfu i prebacivanje u Solun i okolinu. Belgrade: Istorijsko odeljenje
Glavno Đeneralštaba, 1929.
This paper results from the project of the Institute for the Recent History of Serbia Serbs
and Serbia in Yugoslav and International Context: Internal Development and Place in European/
Global Community (no. 47027) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Techno-
logical Development of the Republic of Serbia.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849057F
UDC 94(497.11)"1914/1918"
Dušan Fundić*
Belgrade
The Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Serbia

as a “Civilizing Mission” (1915–1918)
Abstract: This paper analyses the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia during the First
World War and the activity of the occupation administration of the Military Governorate
in the context of its “civilizing mission”. It points to the aspects of the occupation that reveal
the Austro-Hungarians’ self-perception as bringers of culture and civilization as conducive
to creating an ideological basis for a war against Serbia. The paper also presents their
outlook on the world in the age of empires and their idea of establishing what they saw as
a more acceptable cultural basis of Serbian national identity shaped primarily by loyalty
to the Austro-Hungarian Emperor and King and the ideals of order and discipline. The
process is studied through analysing the occupation policies aimed at depoliticizing the
public sphere by closing the pre-war institutions of culture and education and introducing
educational patterns primarily based on the Austro-Hungarian experience in Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Keywords: Serbia in the First World War, Austro-Hungarian occupation 1915–1918, Impe-
rial and Royal Military Governorate, civilizing mission, cultural and educational policies
in the First World War
A fter the ultimately abortive Austro-Hungarian invasions of 1914 and early

1915, the exhausted Serbian forces were unable to resist the new attack by
the Central Powers, this time joined by Bulgaria. In the late autumn of 1915,
the Serbian armies started to retreat across Montenegro and Albania.1 In the
months following the occupation of the Kingdom of Serbia, most of its terri-
* [email protected]
1 The decision to withdrew across Albania was made between 25 November and 1 Decem-
ber, see D. T. Bataković, Srbija i Balkan. Albanija, Bugarska i Grčka 1914–1918 (Novi Sad:
Prometej, and Belgrade: RTS, 2016), 58–60; M. Ković, Jedini put: Sile Antante i odbrana Sr-
bije 1915. godine (Belgrade: Filip Višnjić, 2016), 218–229; A. Mitrović, Srbija u I svetskom ratu
(Belgrade: Stubovi kulture, 2004), 208-216; M. Radojević and Lj. Dimić, Srbija u Velikom
ratu 1914–1918: kratka istorija (Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga and Beogradski forum za
svet ravnopravnih, 2014), 183–185. For a detailed overview of military operations see Živko
G. Pavlović, Rat Srbije sa Austro-Ugarskom, Nemačkom i Bugarskom 1915. godine (Belgrade:
Naučno delo, 1968).
tory was, after strenuous negotiations, divided between Austria-Hungary and

Bulgaria, while Germany took control over some strategic points and resources,
keeping it throughout the war.2
The future fate of defeated Serbia was yet to be determined. During the
war the political and military elites of Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria
considered various solutions, ranging from the abolition of its status of a sov-
ereign state and partition to partial annexations to the unification of smaller,
landlocked, mountainous parts of Serbia and Montenegro into a petty kingdom
ruled by the Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, brother of the Emperor and
King Karl.3
Common to all this political and strategic planning was the destruction
of Serbia’s ability to pursue an independent foreign policy after the war. For
example, in the spring of 1917, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, István
Burián, summed up the aims of the occupation: to establish a harsh regime
which would break “Serbentum” (Serbdom) and thwart its aspirations for as
long as possible. The Austro-Hungarian Joint Ministerial Council with Burián
presiding found that the main trouble with the Serbian question was its “na-
tionalpolitische” (national-political) nature because of the strong influence of
“grosserbischen Agitation” (Greater Serbian agitation) among the people.4
In practice, the Austro-Hungarian occupation zone encompassing the
northern, western and most of the central pre-war Kingdom of Serbia, consisted
of eleven counties, including the capital, Belgrade, and the other larger towns ex-
cept Niš and Skoplje. The “k. und k. Militär-Generalgouvernement in Serbien”
(Imperial und Royal Military Governorate General in Serbia), which was its
official name, separated the military and civil administrations with the principal
aim to establish control over the population and ensure material resources for
the war effort of the Danube Monarchy.5
2 M. B. Fried, Austro-Hungarian War Aims in the Balkans during World War I (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 111–118; A. Mitrović, Prodor na Balkan i Srbija 1908–1918 (Bel-
grade: Zavod za udžbenike, 20112), 470–478.
3 Mitrović, Srbija, 273–280.
4 Ibid. 317; Protokolle des Gemeinsamen Ministerrates der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Mon-
archie (1914–1918), prefaced and compiled by M. Komjáthy (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó,

1966), doc. 15, 355–356. The occupiers approached it by “eradicating national politics” using
the establishment of “discipline and order”, J. E. Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse of Em-
pire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914–1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 62.
5 D. Djordjević, “The Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime in Serbia and Its Break-down
in 1918”, Balcanica XLVI (2015), 110–111, originally published as „Austro-ugarski okupa-

cioni režim u Srbiji i njegov slom 1918. godine, in Naučni skup u povodu 50-godišnjice ras-
pada Austro-ugarske monarhije i stvaranja jugoslavenske države (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska aka-
demija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1968), 205–226; M. Ristović, “Occupation during and after the
war (South East Europe)”, in 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World
D. Fundić, The Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Serbia as a “Civilizing Mission” 59
The first military governor, from late 1915, officially from the beginning
of January 1916, was Johann Ulrich Count of Salis-Seewis (1862–1940), while
the first civilian commissioner, from 17 January, was Lajos Thallóczy. After July
1916, Salis-Seewis was succeeded by Adolf Baron von Remen. The administra-
tive division of the occupied zone was based on pre-war Serbia’s counties and
the administrative structure had four chief departments: military, political, eco-
nomic and judicial.6 As has been noted, the main objective of the occupiers was
economic exploitation. The Austro-Hungarians found it to be successful since
even in a largely depopulated Serbia subjected to draconian measures they ob-
tained a food surplus which contributed not just to the Austro-Hungarian war
effort but also to the starving home front.7
Upon arriving in Serbia, Governor Salis-Seewis described the Austro-
Hungarian soldiers as pioneers of Central European culture which was being
opened to Serbia by their victories.8 Apart from pursuing material interests
from the beginning of the occupation, the Austro-Hungarian administration’s
self-labelled “civilizing mission” was designed to denationalize the population
by closing the institutions of education and culture and by supressing the in-
tellectuals. It should be underlined that the definition of an intellectual was a
very broad one. In an official document of the Governorate, the targeted persons
ranged from railway clerks to members of the Royal Serbian Academy.9 So, why
can the Austro-Hungarian occupation be defined as a civilizing mission in the
context of the Age of Imperialism? First, as pointed out by Edward Said in his
book Culture and Imperialism, the culture of imperialism was never secret; it was
War, eds. U. Daniel et al. (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2014–10–08. DOI: 10.15463/
ie1418.10481), 3–4.
6 Djordjević, “Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime”, 111.
7 Mitrović, Srbija, 273; M. Rauchensteiner, The First World War and the End of the Habsburg
Monarchy (Vienna–Cologne–Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2014), 732–733. Although the “brutal

terror” abated by the spring of 1916, fierce measures were never ceased and deportations of
people were constant, Mitrović, Srbija, 313.
8 Beogradske novine/Belgrader Nachrichten (Belegrade Newspaper, hereafter BN) no. 4, 9 Ja-
nuary 1916. Serbia was also considered as a country which had barely passed from an uncul-
tured age to a “so-so” civilization in the nineteenth century, BN no. 10, 23 January 1916.
9 Arhiv Srbije [Archives of Serbia], Belgrade, Vojno-generalni guvernman [Military-Gene-
ral Governorate; hereafter VGG], VIII/1168, Statistische Daten über die Serbische Intel-
ligenz im Bereiches Militargeneralgouvernement in Serbien. Also VGG, VIII/647, Stati-
stische Daten über die Intelligenz, Nr. 7042, 22 August 1916. The collected data included
every person’s workplace, age, religion, marital status, role in political life, material situation
and knowledge of foreign languages. See also B. Mladenović, “Srpska elita u Prvom svetskom
ratu”, Istorijski časopis XLIX (2002), 249.
public and open about its goals.10 It had a space in public discourse shaped by
the concepts such as “inferior and conquered races”, “dependence” and “submis-
sion of peoples”.11
It was definitively so in the case of occupied Serbia, while the analogous
policies of, for example, Bulgaria can be characterized as forced Bulgarization.12
The Austro-Hungarian occupiers openly described themselves as bringers of
culture (“Kulturträgers”) and European civilization.13 In European context,
Serbia was part of “internal colonialism”, which can also be traced in the regions
such as Ireland, Brittany, the Balkans or southern Italy.14
If we look at the other occupation regimes in Europe, we can see that the
German occupation of Belgium, for example, was marked by a strong insistence
on Belgian culture being inferior to German “Kultur”.15 The same status was
reserved for the Slav populations of Eastern Europe, Polish, Ukrainian and Be-
larusian, which were subjected to an authoritarian colonial-style occupation and
racial stereotyping. The German occupation strategy promoted the concepts of
“Ordnung” (order) and “Bildung” (best understood as “proper” education) in or-
der to establish “Kultur” (German-shaped national identities). So, in the Ger-
man “Ober Ost” the civilizing role of the German Empire in Eastern Europe
was to shape local cultures through new educational institutions. Such cultural
policies also sought to instil a sense of mission in German soldiers.16 In a similar
manner, the Italian authorities had a patronizing attitude towards the Slove-
nians based on the notion of a presumed superiority of Italian culture.17 I would
10 “Imperialism’s culture was not invisible, nor did it conceal its worldly affiliations and in-
terests. There is a sufficient clarity in the culture’s major lines for us to remark the often
scrupulous notations recorded there, and also to remark how they have not been paid much
attention”, E. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage books, 1994), xxi.
11 Ibid, 50.
12 Bataković, Srbija i Balkan, 308–310; D. R. Živojinović, “Serbia and Montenegro: The
Home Front, 1914–1918”, in East Central European Society in World War I, eds. B. K. Kiraly
and N. F. Dreisziger (New York: East European Monographs, 1985), 251; Ristović: “Occupa-
tion during and after the War”, 7.
13 Mitrović, Srbija, 318.
14 A. Porter, European Imperialism, 1860–1914 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994) 7.
15 G. Corni, “Occupation during the War”, in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of
the First World War, eds. U. Daniel et al. (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2014–10–08. DOI:
6.10.15463/ie1418.10119), 6.
16 V. G. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German
Occupation in World War I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 113–115.

17 P. Svoljšak and B. Godeša, “Italian interwar administration of Slovenian ethnic territo-
ry: Italian ethnic policy”, in Frontwechsel: Österreich-Ungarn “Großer Krieg” im Vergleich, eds.
W. Dornik, J. Wallezek and S. Wedrac (Vienna–Cologne–Weimar: Böhlau Verlag, 2014),
304–305.
argue that the Austro-Hungarian occupation had similar goals. This was clearly
outlined in the Beogradske novine/Belgrader Nachrichten (Belgrade Newspaper),
the official gazette of the occupying force.18 The mission was fed on Austro-
Hungarian elites’ pre-1914 beliefs about Serbia as a nation of “king slayers”, a
semi-Oriental country ranking below Central-European cultural standards.
Among the Governorate’s first measures taken in the field of cultural and
educational policies was the prompt closure of the University of Belgrade. At
the same time, the central national institutions such as the Royal Serbian Acad-
emy, the National Museum and the National Library were robbed of historical
artefacts and art collections in their possession. These were transferred to Gov-
ernorate administration buildings or shipped out of the country.19 The after-
math of the closure was marked by a dispute between the military authorities,
which wanted the seized artefacts to be sent to Vienna, and the civil authorities,
especially those in Budapest, Zagreb and Sarajevo, which wanted a share for
themselves in order to be able to compete for the position of a new South-Slav
cultural centre.20 Furthermore, the existing elementary and high schools were to
be shut down and replaced with new ones which would operate with different
curricula.21
Besides the formal dissolution of all Serbian cultural institutions and
various public associations, the method of the civilizing mission included a
ban on the use of the Cyrillic alphabet and its replacement by the Latin al-
phabet.22 The Cyrillic alphabet was labelled as “staatsgefährlich” (dangerous to
18 In 1918, for example, the newspaper had a circulation of 120,000 copies in Serbian and
30,000 in German, T. Scheer, “Manifestation österreichisch-ungarischer Besatzungsmacht in
Belgrad (1916–1918)”, in Der Erste Weltkrieg auf dem Balkan. Pespektiven der Forschung, ed. J.
Angelow (Berlin: be.bra wissenschaft verlag, 2011), 302.
19 VGG VIII/1759, 8 November – 10 December 1915, letters exchanged between the presi-
dent of the Hungarian government and the High Command on setting up a commission
tasked with searching for and classifying museum artefacts; Scheer, “Manifestation österre-
ichisch-ungarischer Besatzungsmacht”, 299; V. Stojančević, Srbija i srpski narod u ratu i oku-
paciji 1914–1918. godine (Belgrade: Gutenbergova galaksija, 2016), 95; Mitrović, Srbija, 322.
20 C. Marcheti, “Zwischen Denkmalpflege und ethnographischem Interesse. Die Erfor-
schung von Kunstdenkmälern in den besetzten Balkangebieten durch österreichisch–unga-

rische Wissenschaftler während des Ersten Weltkriegs”, in Apologeten der Vernichtung oder
“Kunstschützer”? Kunsthistoriker der Mittelmächte im Ersten Weltkrieg, eds. von R. Born and
B. Störtkuh (Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2017), 255–269; Ristović, “Occupa-
tion during and after the War”, 5.
21 VGG VIII, no. 64, 17 March 1916, on a plan to establish elementary schools with the
request to local commands to determine the number of schools and teachers.

22 VGG VIII, no. 597, 2 June 1916. The official ban was to be put in force as of 1 January
1917, B. Trifunović, Život pod okupacijom: čačanski okrug 1915–1918 (Čačak: Međuopštinski
the state).23 All books that were designated as suspicious were removed from
bookstores and not only from public but from private libraries.24 The read-
ing material perceived as questionable dealt with subjects from Serbian history
or Austro-Serbian relations. Moreover, the number of bookstores in pre-war
Serbia was described as too numerous in proportion to the economic strength
and cultural level of Serbian society.25 Secret agents were sent out in search of
prohibited volumes and a possible underground book market.26 Schoolbooks
and books in French, English, Russian and Italian were also banned. Also, all
printing presses in Belgrade were confiscated and transferred to the premises
of the Beogradske novine, and Cyrillic printing press type letters were systemati-
cally destroyed.27 The decision to replace the Julian calendar, in force in pre-war
Serbia, by the Gregorian one was described by the Beogradske novine as an act
of ushering the Serbian people in the civilized world, in contrast with their
previous “cultural backwardness”.28
As part of the campaign against the political consciousness of Serbian
citizens, all Belgrade streets named after the persons perceived as significant for
national identity were given new neutral names such as Lower, Narrow or Gar-
den Street.29 All street names containing toponyms located in Austro-Hungar-
ian lands, Montenegro and Albania were also to be changed and so were those
named after members of the Karadjordjević dynasty and their supporters, espe-
cially those who had fought in the first phase of the Serbian revolution against
the Ottomans led by Karadjordje Petrović, the founder of the ruling Serbian
istorijski arhiv, 2010), 44–45; B. Mladenović, Grad u austrougarskoj okupacionoj zoni u Srbiji
od 1916. do 1918. Godine (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2000), 111.
23 Djordjević, “Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime”, 118–119.
24 E.g., the Orthodox Prayer book, which among other things contained a song dedicated
to Saint Sava of Serbia and mentioned some territories of Austria-Hungary, was banned
being seen as a part of “Greater Serbian propaganda”, VGG VIII, no. 2696, 1 March 1916;
Mladenović, Grad, 151.
25 Such a large number of bookstores was explained away as an instrument of Serbian ex-
pansionist plans, Mladenović, Grad, 152; D. Milikić, “Beograd pod okupacijom u Prvom svet-
skom ratu”, Godišnjak grada Beograda V (1958), 306.
26 L. Lazarević, Beleške iz okupiranog Beograda 1915–1918 (Belgrade: Jasen, 20102), 74;
Mladenović, Grad, 153.

27 Predrag Marković, “Razaranja Beorada u Prvom svetskom ratu”, in Srbija 1918. godine i
stvaranje jugoslovenske države, ed. Ljiljana Aleksić-Pejković (Belgrade: Istorijski institut,

1989), 49–50.
28 BN no. 22, 20 February 1916.
29 VGG VIII/1757, Polizeikomando, no. 1309, Verzeichnis sämmtlicher Strassen, Gassen
und Plätze Belgrads mit der Deutung der Namen derselben und beanragten Neubennenung;
B. Mladenović,“Promena naziva ulica u Vojno-generalnom Guvernmanu“, Istorijski časopis
XLV–XLVI (2000); Mladenović, Grad, 53; Milikić, “Beograd pod okupacijom“, 304.
dynasty.30 The purpose of removing the aforementioned toponyms was to frag-

ment the mental framework of Serbian national identity, reducing it to the area
under occupation. The other set of changes was focused on dismantling the dy-
nastic allegiances of Serbian citizens.
The main role of the “civilizing mission” was the education of the Ser-
bian youth that was to be instilled with loyalty to the Emperor and appreciation
for the greatness and might of the Monarchy.31 The opening of the first new
school in Belgrade was announced in a Beogradske novine article which described
it as bringing “real knowledge” and “real culture” in Belgrade for the first time
– a “lesson that Serbian society did not understand during the reign of Peter
Karadjordjević”.32 In the last year of the occupation there were eight grammar
and 135 elementary schools in the Governorate.33 As governor Salis-Seewis put
it, the main goal was to enforce the spirit of hard discipline rather than scholarly
knowledge.34
The teachers had previously attended a pedagogical course held in Bel-
grade in 1916 under the tutelage of Lajos Thallóczy, the civil commissioner of
the Governorate and a well-known historian.35 Following the course, Thallóczy
put together a book providing guidelines for the future educators of the Serbian
youth. The leitmotif of the book was that the central problem in Balkan politics
was the “Greater Serbian idea” with its aspirations for annexing the Serb-inhab-
ited areas of the Monarchy to Serbia.36 On the other hand, Austria-Hungary’s
Balkan policy was presented as having no territorial expansionist agenda, quite
unlike Serbia which, as a result of its “unhealthy internal development”, nur-
30 Belittling the Karadjordjević dynasty was common in the occupation press. On the occa-
sion of the 200th anniversary of the Austrian conquest of Belgrade of 17 August 1717, the
armies of Eugene of Savoy were likened to the k. und k. troops of 1915, whereas King Peter
and the Serbian defenders of the city were equated with the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III
and his army depicted as backward occupiers of Europe which the Habsburg dynasty had
defended then as it did now, BN no. 225, 17 August 1917.
31 T. Scheer, Zwischen Front und Heimat. Österreich-Ungarns Militärverwaltungen im Ersten
Weltkrieg (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang 2009), 90; Ristović, “Occupation during and after
the War”, 6. The chief aim of this policy was the “denationalization” of the Serbian youth,
Gumz, Resurrection and Collapse, 74.
32 BN no. 19, 13 February 1916; Djordjević, “Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime”, 118.
33 Djordjević, “Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime”, 130.
34 VGG VIII, no. 64, 14 February 1916.
35 Mladenović, Grad, 121.
36 L. v. Thalloczy, Oesterreich-Ungarn und die Balkanländer mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das
okkupierte Serbien. Historisch-politische Vorlesung gehalten an dem ersten k. u. k. militärischen

Verwaltungskurse in Belgrad (Belgrade: k.u.k. Gouvernement-Druckerei in Belgrad, 1916), 3.
tured the Greater Serbian idea.37 Thallóczy also pointed out that the House of
Habsburg had ever since the sixteenth century pursued the “welthistorischen
Mission” of protecting not just Central Europe but Europe as a whole against
the Ottoman invaders.38 Thallóczy described the Slavs, the Serbs included, as a
community lacking any state-building potential,39 and he also claimed that dur-
ing the existence of the Habsburg Kingdom of Serbia (1718–1739) nothing had
been done to tie the “Bosnian, Serbian or Wallachian” elements to the Danube
Monarchy. The administration had been focused solely on fiscal policy and ma-
terial gains, which, in Thallóczy’s opinion, had been a mistake that should not be
made again. As a result, he believed, the Serbs (and the rest of the Balkan Chris-
tians) had not been exposed to the influence of Western Europe from which
they were even more remote than their Turkish masters.40 Such a development
gave rise to the aforementioned “unhealthy” Serbia. Finally, the ongoing conflict,
Thallóczy concluded, was set off by “ungrateful” Serbia which owed its culture
to the Monarchy and whose very foundation and sovereignty was the product
of the benevolence of the Danube Monarchy.41 These views were to be the ba-
sis of education and of the creation of a new political and cultural model for a
Habsburg Serbia. The Danube Monarchy was portrayed as a benevolent power,
the protector of Europe and its civilization which made Serbia indebted to it
throughout history and would now succeed in bringing Serbia in the imagined
circle of European culture.
Teachers were recruited almost exclusively from the ranks of Austro-
Hungarian non-commissioned officers; later on, teaching staff was brought
from the Monarchy. History was banished from the curriculum and the name
Serbia was not mentioned at all.42 The importance that the occupiers attached
to their educational policy can be seen from the fact that Serbian personnel
were not hired even amidst the most drastic shortage of teachers.43 The only
exception were religion classes: they were taught by Serbian Orthodox priests
37 For a short summary see V. Stojančević, “Lajos–Ludwig von Thallóczy as Head of Peda-
gogical Course in the Occupied Belgrade”, in The Serbs and the First World War 1914–1918, ed.
Dragoljub R. Živojinović (Belgrade: SASA, 2015), 337–340.
38 Thallóczy, Oestereich-Ungarn und die Balkanländer, 60. There was also his “companion
book” with the relevant literature: Zur Geschichte Serbiens. Anhang zu den Vorlesungen des
k. u. k. Verwaltungskurses vom 1. August – 25. November (Budapest: Magyar Királyi Állami
Nyodda, 1916).
39 Thallóczy, Oestereich-Ungarn und die Balkanländer, 20.
40 Ibid. 83.
41 Ibid. 107–108.
42 Mladenović, Grad, 147; Gumz, Resurrection and Collapse, 76.
43 In some cases a Serbian teacher could teach a class but only in the presence of a “Croatian-
speaking” officer, VGG VIII, no. 242, 3 February 1916; Gumz, Resurrection and Collapse, 76.
but in the mandatory presence and under the supervision of Austro-Hungarian

army chaplains; moreover, the language of instruction was not Serbian but Old
Slavonic. At first schoolbooks were brought from Croatia and Slavonia, and
then from the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina.44 High school students were
often described as poisoned by state and dynastic sentiment that had to be sup-
pressed. The overall conclusion was that the ideal educational model for Serbia
would be the one used in the province of Bosnia-Herzegovina.45
What were the limitations of the civilizing mission? The harsh occupa-
tion regime, from drastic deportations to the seizure of artworks and rare books,
gave little assurance that the Governorate cared about the “cultural level” of the
population. Understaffed schools were not efficient enough, and some of the
teaching personnel, such as Slovak officers or Croat female teachers, often fo-
cused merely on formal teaching instead of on instilling loyalty, which, overall,
undermined the official educational policy. Moreover, 105,000 children could
not attend school at all because of a lack of space.46 One of the most striking
measures, the ban on the use of the Cyrillic alphabet, was most efficiently imple-
mented in Belgrade as a result of the presence of the central occupation institu-
tions in comparison with the rest of the occupied territories.47
In conclusion, what makes the Austro-Hungarian “civilizing mission” in
Serbia during the First World War an important research topic is the fact that it
opens up the possibility of understanding the premeditated motivations of the
occupation administration. In this paper it has been looked at in the broader
European context of wartime cultural policies and as part of the discourse rep-
ertoire of European imperialism.
44 In the meantime, textbooks produced in Serbia were to be stripped of all political, histori-
cal or dynastic content, VGG VIII, no. 78, 27 January 1916. For the use of textbooks from
Bosnia see VGG, VIII, no. 337, 19 February 1916; VGG VIII, no. 360, a letter to the govern-
ment in Sarajevo requesting elementary and high school textbooks in the Latin alphabet; Lj.
Popović, “Osnovno školstvo pod okupacijom”, in Srbija 1918. godine i stvaranje jugoslovenske
države, ed. Lj. Aleksić Pejković (Belgrade: Istorijski institut, 1991), 39.
45 VGG VIII/1409, no. 1428, 26 July 1916; R. Okey, Taming Balkan Nationalism. The Hab-
sburg “Civilizing Mission” in Bosnia, 1878–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
252–255.
46 D. Djordjević, “The Austro-Hungarian Occupation Regime in Serbia”, 130.
47 The ban was eventually lifted for practical reasons – the need to communicate with the
population more efficiently – even though the occupiers lacked sufficient personnel profi-
cient in reading the Cyrillic alphabet, T. Scheer, “The perfect opportunity to shape national
symbols? Austro-Hungarian occupation regimes during the First World War in the Adriatic
and the Balkans”, Acta Histriae 22/3 (2014); Milikić, “Beograd pod okupacijom”, 304.

Sources
Arhiv Srbije [Archives of Serbia], Belgrade

— Vojno-generalni guvernman [Militär-Generalgouvernement]
Beogradske novine/Belgrader Nachrichten 1916–1918

Lazarević, Luka. Beleške iz okupiranog Beograda 1915–1918, 2nd ed. Belgrade: Jasen, 2010.
Protokolle des Gemeinsamen Ministerrates der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie (1914–
1918), prefaced and compiled by M. Komjáthy. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1966.
Thalloczy, Lajos v. Oestereich-Ungarn und die Balkanländer mit besonderer Rücksicht auf das ok-
kupierte Serbien. Historisch-politische Vorlesung gehalten an dem ersten k. u. k. militärischen
Verwaltungskurse in Belgrad. Belgrade: k.u.k. Gouvernement-Druckerei in Belgrad, 1916.
— Zur Geschichte Serbiens. Anhang zu den Vorlesungen des k. u. k. Verwaltungskurses vom 1.
August – 25. November. Budapest: Magyar Királyi Állami Nyodda, 1916.
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https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849069D
UDC 32.019.5:355.48(=112.2)(497)"1914/1918"
94(497)"1914/1918"
Stratos N. Dordanas* http://www.balcanica.rs
Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies

University of Macedonia
Thessaloniki
German Propaganda in the Balkans during the First World War
Abstract: Immediately after the outbreak of the First World War Germany mobilized hu-
man resources from all fields and put up all the necessary funds to counter British and
French propaganda. In a very short period of time, it was in a position to organize its
own propaganda networks abroad, to a large extent, by using the respective commercial
networks and the pre-war enterprises operating in various countries. It was the neutral
countries around the world that were among the primary targets of German propaganda.
In the Balkans particular effort was made to create a favourable climate for the Central
Powers and prevail over the adverse British and French influence. With the assistance of
commercial circles and the appropriation of large sums of money, newspapers, journalists
and publishing groups were bought off, information offices set up, agents recruited, politi-
cal parties and politicians bribed, and pro-German parties founded. The aim was to influ-
ence public opinion, promote the German version of war developments, and manipulate
political leaders to give up their stance of neutrality and make the decision for their coun-
try to take part in the war on the side of Germany. However, even though Berlin focused
its attention on the Balkans where the major propaganda networks were organized, the
propaganda campaigns proved to be essentially ineffective. Following Bulgaria’s entry into
the war on the side of the Central Powers and the destruction of Serbia, first Romania and
then Greece joined the Entente, finding themselves on the winning side at the war’s end.
Keywords: German propaganda, German Foreign Ministry, neutrality, Greece, Rumania,
Bulgaria, newspapers, Freiherrn Garl Schenck von Schweinsberg, Ludwig Roselius, Agen-
tia Romana-Germana de Informatii, public opinion
I t was immediately after the outbreak of the war, and because of the vilifying
way the British Consulate in Constantinople had portrayed the German na-
val defeat, that Berlin realized, uneasily, the enemy had already formed the orga-
nizational basis for its propaganda presentation of the war to European public
opinion and, in particular, to the neutral countries. It was, therefore, imperative
that Germany use the same means, as soon as possible, in order to counteract the
campaign of “false information” and “slander” which the British had launched.1
* [email protected] and [email protected]

1 Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts [hereafter PA AA], R 20936: Wangenheim(;) an
Reichskanzler Freicherrn von Bethmann-Hollweg, Berlin, 18 August 1914.
Commercial circles stressed the need to radically alter the prevailing view that
German diplomacy was unable to refute British claims of atrocity.2
For a coordinated German propaganda campaign that would literally
have worldwide effect, it was necessary to establish a unified operational centre
based in Berlin but with the Middle East as its focal point. This was not only for
the sake of the battle for the “soul of the Middle East” but also, and more impor-
tantly, for conducting the war, and for defending vital economic interests in the
Ottoman Empire. It was a golden opportunity for the Germans to strike a blow
to the British Empire. In this way, they would be able to force it to agree to peace
talks in order to relieve pressure that it would be facing from the uprisings of its
Muslim subjects in India and Egypt.3
Of course, Germany and its ally, the Sultan, would help instigate the
rebellion. However, for this to happen, certain conditions were necessary: or-
ganization, the mobilization of all available means and resources, realistic mili-
tary plans, and operational propaganda which would present Germany to these
populations as a defender against the enemy, as a crusader of honour and truth
and as a supporter of self-determination. The support of the Turkish govern-
ment at all costs and the preservation of their common goals had, thus, become
fundamental to fulfilling German political and military plans in the East.4
It was a given fact that the German press would be used to publish and
distribute military commentary and news reports to all European countries,
which would then be translated for press outlets in Africa and the Middle East.
The publication of German press releases in the newspapers of the region, the
bribing of journalists and publishers, in fact the buying off of entire publishing
houses, also meant the involvement of the local embassy and consular authori-
ties, the recruitment of suitable agents, as well as the allocation of the neces-
sary funds. An entire body comprising translators, teachers (both German and
natives) from the seminar for the East in Berlin and from the Institute for the
Colonies in Hamburg would staff these places.5
People from every position, field and profession were called to contribute
to the success of the German international propaganda campaign: bankers and
representatives of large merchant houses abroad, Baghdad railway staff, Ger-
man schools and Christian missionaries, members of the Jewish communities,
2 PA AA, R 20936: Verband Deutscher Handlungsgehilfen zu Leipzig an das Ministerium

des Auswärtigen Amtes (Berlin), Mannheim, 19 August 1914.
3 PA AA, R 20936: Wangenheim (;) an Reichskanzler Freicherrn von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Berlin, 18 August 1914.


S. N. Dordanas, German Propaganda in the Balkans during the First World War 71
exiles and foreign communities in Europe, in the East and in America. Members
of independence movements, inter alia, constituted the manpower behind the
counterpropaganda, as well as being responsible for active propaganda, which
– wherever needed – rerouted public opinion and strengthened pro-German
sentiments in order to gain new supporters.6
The incitement and the steady feeding of the pan-Islamist movement
with ideas, weapons, men and money as a way to force England into a peace
agreement; the instigation of an insurrection in Russia by its Muslim and Jew-
ish populations; the exploitation of independence movements such as the Irish,
were all actions which represented one element of the German counterattack
against the allegations made by its enemies. The other element consisted of
comprised the need to fortify the military camp of the Central Powers by brow-
beating the neutral countries into the war, or to quote: “In every neutral country,
we must have our agents, who will have won the trust of the country and its
people, so that a favourable stance towards us is formed. This too is a service to
the fatherland.”7
The main objective was for all to contribute to the fatherland in order to
deal swiftly with the enemy who had the upper hand in the propaganda game.
In this, the role of the German entrepreneurs and business giants was decisive
for providing the capital and the networks abroad. Persil, Henkel, Odol, Maggi,
among others, with an advertising turnover of about 30 to 50 million marks a
year, received a proposition from the Foreign Ministry to participate on a com-
mittee to help national propaganda that would establish and fund propaganda
networks in the form of war offices of information.8
For anyone who might have had doubts about the connection between
advertising and propaganda,9 the Foreign Ministry had plenty of suggestions
from prominent entrepreneurs about the organization of propaganda on busi-
ness bases. Here, the key was to understand the psychology of the masses and

7 PA AA, R 20936: Verband Deutscher Handlungsgehilfen zu Leipzig an das Ministerium
des Auswärtigen Amtes (Berlin), Mannheim, 19 August 1914.

8 PA AA, R 20937: Ludwig Roselius an Unterstaatssekretär Zimmermann, Berlin, 5 Janu-
ary 1915. The instigator of the proposal, a merchant himself and owner of the firm Kaffee-
Handels-Aktiengesellschaft, with its headquarters in Bremen, was the mastermind behind
German propaganda in the Balkans, organizing a wide-ranging network based in Bucharest.
9 Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda, trans. Dimitris Tannis (Athens: Nefeli Publishing, 2015).
Bernays, a member of the Wilson government’s Committee on Public Information during

the First World War, realized early on that the mechanisms of control and manipulation of
public opinion could likewise be implemented during peacetime. Adapting his knowledge of
advertising, he was the initiator of the women’s smoking campaign: cigarettes as beacons of
freedom were directly associated with women’s emancipation.
the mechanisms of persuasion, which created the belief in the masses that they
were not forced into anything but that whatever they adopted corresponded
fully to their beliefs and was in their best interest. By adopting the practices of
advertising, marketers and entrepreneurs had the tools to point out rule number
one to the politicians, which was none other than the total identification of poli-
tics and business interests with propaganda. And for anyone who was concerned
about the principles of promoting propaganda, the businessmen had a ready
answer was simple and to the point: “The foundations of propaganda are lies,
defamation and immorality.”10
The main propagandist of German interests in Greece did indeed come
from the business world. Freiherrn Carl Schenck von Schweinsberg, better
known as Baron Schenck, had already been living in Athens as the represen-
tative of Krupp when the war broke out. This event forced him to stop nego-
tiations with the Greek government for the purchase of four submarines, a
battleship and ammunition, and for Krupp to terminate its cooperation with
him abroad.11 Although the company expected him to return to head office, it
received a notice from the Foreign Ministry that the Krupp employee would
now be engaged by the Embassy in Athens, responsible for Press matters and
other intelligence issues.12
Without a doubt, of decisive importance was his association with the
Greek royal couple, while he was already doing an excellent job on propaganda
in the Greek press. Soon Baron Schenck’s room at the Hotel Grande Bretagne
was transformed into an informal press office and propaganda centre, which he
staffed with Greek agents in collaboration with the secret police. Proof that Ger-
man money intended for propaganda purposes, handled by the then ambassador
through bank transfers from Berlin to accounts with the Greek National Bank,
had been put to good use was the sudden pro-German turnaround of certain
newspapers in the Greek capital, which indicated their having been bought off.13
10 PA AA, R 20937: Ludwig Roselius, “Ein Kapitel über Organisation”, Bremen [Ludwig
Roselius an Baron Langwerth von Simmern, Berlin, 6 January 1915].
11 PA AA, R 7465: Various documents. For the last attempts made by German industry
for market share gain over its competitors of the Greek arms market before war broke out
and the role of Schenck as Krupp’s representative in Athens see Kostas Loulos, The German
policy in Greece, 1896–1914, trans. Katerina Liaptsi (Athens: Cultural Institute of Agricultural
Bank of Greece, 1990), 200–212.
12 PA AA, R 19891 (Weltkrieg vom 20 August 1914): K. Gesandte (Quadt) an Auswärtiges
Amt, no. 345, Athens, 20 August 1914 and R 7465: Friedrich Krupp, Aktiengesellschaft, an
das Auswärtige Amt, no. 1776, Essen/Ruhr, 26 August 1914.
13 Stratos Dordanas, “This traitor should not have survived the attempt of June 21st: Anti-
venizelism and German Propaganda in Greece of the National Schism”, in 1915–2015: 100
years since the National Schism, Conference, Municipality of Argos/Mycenae-Philologists
Association of Argolis, Cultural Centre of the Municipality of Argos/Mycenae, Argos, 7–8
The German Embassy in Athens became the centre for propaganda,

where an entire operation funded by Berlin was set up. The main objective of
the propaganda mechanism was to buy off Greek newspapers and journalists,
and use them to promote German interests by influencing public opinion. There
were newspapers, which after being bought off by the embassy, changed their
political line completely; from being pro-Entente, they overnight became pro-
German. Likewise, there were journalists who were paid to publish the Ger-
man General Staff ’s communiqués. In the propaganda war in neutral Greece,
competition between the Entente and the Central Powers was fierce. Both rival
alliances sought to win the country over to their side and steer public opinion by
disseminating what was often censored information about the war. In particular,
the large amounts of money spent by Germany for this purpose revealed the
importance attached to this tactic. German propaganda very quickly made up
the top news in Greece, raising a major political and ethical issue in the spheres
of journalism and politics.14
However, Greece was not at the centre of German designs because the
country had already been won over when the Greek king, from the outbreak of
the war, showed a commitment to benevolent neutrality. The only assurance that
he needed was not to be left entirely without help should difficulties arise. If, in
the same period, one looks just a little further north, more exactly at Bucharest,
one can see millions of German marks being made available for specific pur-
poses, including the purchase of the Romanian grain production, and the buying
off of newspapers and leading political figures, all this in order to overturn the
country’s neutrality from the outset of the war.
Recruited from the very beginning of the war, Ludwig Roselius, a re-
nowned merchant from Bremen, zealously set up the propaganda machine in
Bucharest, which extended all the way to Sofia, and which was continually sup-
plied with millions of German marks, a part of which was financed from the
respective government coffers in Vienna. To be able to do this implies that the
political contacts needed to prepare the ground had already been made. Having
received German assurance that after the end of the war Romania would get
Bessarabia, King Carol informed Roselius that in the event of Bulgaria attacking
Serbia, Romania would not intervene. In response, the German propagandist
November 2015 (in press). By the same author: “In the German Embassy: diplomatic agents
and invisible key players of German Politics and Propaganda”, in Aspects of the First World
War in the Balkan Peninsula, Workshop, Hellenic National Defence General Staff/Hellenic
Committee on Military History, Thessaloniki, 7 October 2017.
14 On this issue see Despina Papadimitriou, “The Press and the Schism, 1914–1917” (PhD
thesis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1990); also (Sir) Basil Thomson,
The Allied Secret Service in Greece (in Greek) (Athens: Logothetis Publishing) (English origi-
nal, London: Hutchinson, 1931).
explained that his mission was not directed against the dynasty or the state,
but rather at winning the very best of the Romanian people for the German
cause. What exactly was the German cause? With the participation of North-
ern Europe and the Balkans, except Serbia, Germany continued to fight for the
creation of the United States of Europe as a shield against Russian and English
aggression. In this union, all peoples would have equal rights regarding educa-
tion, religion and ethnicity; furthermore, the inviolability of the dynasties would
be assured.15
On receiving the king’s indirect approval, Roselius put to use the people
at his disposal who had sound knowledge of Romanian reality, and wasted no
time in taking control of certain newspapers; he not only acquired entire pub-
lishing groups but also bought off top politicians. The attainment of these objec-
tives was actually based on a very simple but effective reasoning: by paying more
for the grain than its real value, access was automatically granted to Romanian
markets, and to the political offices as well.16
With Take Ionescu’s son-in-law playing a key role in many of these trade
agreements, it did not take long for the politician and his party, the Conservative
Democrats, to join the ranks of neutrality, although at first he was strongly in
favour of the Entente. Proud of its significant achievements in Romania, Berlin
acknowledged that this practice brought the best results; to quote: “We gain the
trust of those behind the ministers, who eventually succumb to the pressure of
their own people. In order not to buy off Ionescu directly, even though he badly
wants it, we use his people. [...] There are many incompetents who maintain re-
lations with ministers and party leaders, to whom we daily give a few thousand
leu, asking them for something in return. This is how we gain adherents on a
daily basis.”17
The press was the main instrument for influencing public opinion in Bu-
charest18 and Sofia (40 million was the amount spent for buying off the news-
papers Ziua, Minerva and Seara), which were constantly fed with news reports
15 PA AA, R 21196: “Unterredung Roselius mit Seiner Majestät dem König”, Bucharest, 6
September 1914 [Kaiserlich Deutsche Gesandtschaft in Rumänien an dem Reichskanzler
Freicherrn von Bethmann-Hollweg, no. 267, Bucharest, 7 November 1914.]
16 PA AA, R 21196: Kaiserlich Deutsches Konsulat an das Auswärtige Amt, no. 1–8, Bucha-
rest, 26 September 1914.

17 PA AA, R 21196: Kaiserlich Deutsches Konsulat an das Auswärtige Amt, no. 1–8, Bucha-

18 Ibid. no. 9: “Reading a Romanian newspaper one gets the impression that the Germans
and the Austrians are defeated daily, that in these countries there is starvation, that the Ger-
mans are destroying cultural monuments, that our Kaiser can be compared only with Attila
and many other such things. One can talk with serious and educated people and realize their
certainty that the Hindenburg army has achieved not even a small victory, that the German
and Austrian army have not had a single victory in this war”.
from the News Office, Agentia Romana-Germana de Informatii. Along with

politicians willing to be bribed,19 this resulted in the establishment of a small
Germanophile party that was also in need of financial assistance in order to
win more supporters from the wider society.20 In Romania, the Germans used
agents from Jewish circles for the purposes of propaganda and espionage, being
impressed by their honesty and credibility.21 After all, the recruitment of agents
was one of the responsibilities of the News Office.22
Furthermore, the German-Romanian News Office played a key coordi-
nating role because, on the one hand, it controlled the newspapers that had been
bought off, and, on the other, it promoted the publication of news on the war
depicting events in a decidedly pro-German light. It also published brochures,
maps and cards of Bessarabia, which had a sentimental effect on the Roma-
nians. With the help of a telegraph network, information arrived from the war
correspondents on the battlefields, which was then sent to the embassy and the
consulates for processing in order to end up in the newspapers. The Agentia Ro-
mana-Germana de Informatii was so successful that besides the Bucharest office,
there were plans to establish branches in Constantinople and Sofia.23 Towards
this end, contact was made with the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Radoslavov
himself, as well as his influential circles. Bulgarian participation was agreed in
the form of a joint Romanian-Bulgarian committee that for propaganda pur-
poses would travel to Berlin, as well as to the battlefields; it would send press
releases to Bucharest and Sofia, as well as distribute propaganda to other neutral
countries.24
19 The most important politicians in Romania were Ion I. C. Brãtianu and Emil Costinescu
(former director of Banca Generala Romana/Berliner Diskonto-Gesellschaft). Brãtianu sup-
ported the king’s political stance, which was completely pro-German, while Costinescu, who
was a former newspaper editor and came from a poor background, became one of the richest
people in Romania with the assistance of German capital and due to the support he provided
for business deals between the two sides. It is well known that in Romania the cabinet min-
isters had invested their capital in industry, as did Costinescu, whose main investments were
in the sugar industry, with which his entire family were involved. As finance minister and
responsible for the economic policy-making of the state, his continued backing of German
interests, with personal economic gain, was considered a foregone conclusion. That is why,
despite his age and weak health, the Germans had decided to make use of him.
20 PA AA, R 21196: Kaiserlich Deutsches Konsulat an das Auswärtige Amt, no. 5, Bucha-


22 PA AA, R 21196: Ludwig Roselius, “Deutsche Propaganda-Rumänien”.
23 PA AA, R 21196: Ludwig Roselius, “Deutsche Propaganda-Rumänien”.
To make sure that the propaganda machine in Romania and Bulgaria

would continue to operate even under the most adverse conditions Roselius
bought large quantities of paper in the event that the overseas supply was sus-
pended. Under his orders, agents were ready to sabotage the publication of
printed matter that was hostile to the Central Powers, and organize trade union
protests and peasant demonstrations in support of “peace” and the king.25
Two Bulgarians that had been bought off had the task of sending pro-
German accounts to the Bulgarian press. One was a priest, who received fund-
ing for his church, and the other was a correspondent who received a healthy
check.26 In turn, the Chief of Police of Ruse in Bulgaria banned the circulation
of all non-Germanophile newspapers.27 His agreement with the Chief of Police
in Sofia was to arrest anyone involved in actions against the government’s stance
of neutrality. Having previously received the money agreed on, some newspaper
editors of the Bulgarian press were willing to publish news items given to them
directly by the German and Austrian consulates.28
What did the Germans think about Romanian society and the reading
public? And how did they present the buying off of newspapers to promote
their propaganda? According to Roselius and his superiors in Berlin: “In times
of peace, a newspaper can simply serve the economic and commercial interests
of Germany. But in these crucial moments that we are living in, a newspaper
under German control and serving German interests, can, under the right con-
ditions, produce the same effects as our army, with substantially fewer losses.”29
The Romanian newspapers that had been bought off had, therefore, to adapt
their contents according to the instructions of their new employers, as well as
the needs of their readers.
German comments regarding the readers were not very flattering: “The
Romanian reading public likes sentimentality and lies; they do not want to learn
the truth of the events, but in the spirit of battle and the rattling of the machine
guns, they want to see blood flow. This is not only the case in Romania but in
every place where newspapers are sold on the street like, for example, in Paris,
Copenhagen, et cetera. This type of press depends on the nation and on state
lobby groups. At this late moment, for the Reich to be able to compete with Rus-
sia and France, it is necessary to make money available – in no case does it need
to be the high amounts that the enemy is spending – but it needs to offer money

26 PA AA, R 21196: “Bericht”, 17/30 September 1914.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 PA AA, R 21196: (Ludwig Roselius;) Bericht no. 6, “Angelegenheit Universul”, Bucharest,
9 October 1914.
that ends up in the pockets of journalists [journalistischer Strauchdiebe] so as to

prevent further sacrifices in German blood and materials.”30
Ultimately, just how this huge amount of money and the well-organized
structure connecting Berlin to Bucharest and Sofia, including Athens, contrib-
uted to fulfilling German pursuits, was clearly demonstrated by the subsequent
political and military developments in the Balkans. Bulgaria, after having se-
cured promises of territorial concessions against Serbian and Greek Macedo-
nia, and the granting of a loan, took part in the Central Powers’ autumn attack
against Serbia,31 whereas Romania entered the war in August 1916 on the side
of the Entente.32 At around the same time, in Greece, the conflict between King
Constantine and the Anglo-French supported by the former Prime Minister
Venizelos, split the country in two and soon led to open warfare, taking on the
character of a civil war.33
To conclude, in any event, German propaganda against the neutral coun-
tries in the Great War was based on the words of Otto von Bismarck, and that
meant using every available means to get across the German version of the
“truth” on the war. This “truth” must, of course, be read as “lies” which is told
by hunters and politicians especially during elections, and – as in our case – by
propagandists during war.
Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin
Bernays, Edward L. Propaganda. New York: H. Liverlight, 1928. Greek ed. transl. by Dimitris
Tannis. Athens: Nefeli Publishing, 2015.
Dordanas, Stratos. “This traitor should not have survived the attempt of June 21st: Anti-
venizelism and German Propaganda in Greece of the National Schism”, 1915–2015: 100
years since the National Schism, Conference. Municipality of Argos/Mycenae-Philologists
Association of Argolis, Cultural Center of the Municipality of Argos/Mycenae, Argos,
7–8 November 2015 (in press).
— “In the German Embassy: diplomatic agents and invisible key players of German politics
and propaganda”, Aspects of the First World War in the Balkan Peninsula, Workshop, Hel-
30 Ibid.
31 For Bulgaria during the First World War see Richard C. Hall, Bulgaria’s Road to the First
World War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
32 For Romania after the defeat from the Central Powers see Lisa Mayerhofer, Zwischen Fre-
und und Feind. Deutsche Besatzung in Rumänien, 1916–1918 (Munich: Verlagsbuchhandlung,

2010).
33 For Greece during the First World War see George B. Leon, Greece in First World War,
1917–1918 (Athens: Cultural Institute of National Bank, 2000) and, by the same author,
Greece and the Great Powers 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974).
lenic National Defence General Staff/Hellenic Committee on Military History, Thessa-

loniki, 7 October 2017.
Hall, Richard C. Bulgaria’s Road to the First World War. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996.
Leon, George B. Greece in the First World War, 1917–1918. Athens: Cultural Institute of Na-
tional Bank, 2000.
— Greece and the Great Powers 1914–1917. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974.
Loulos, Kostas. The German policy in Greece, 1896–1914, trans. Katerina Liaptsi. Athens: Cul-
tural Institute of Agricultural Bank of Greece, 1990.
Mayerhofer, Lisa. Zwischen Freund und Feind. Deutsche Besatzung in Rumänien, 1916–1918.
Munich: Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2010.
Papadimitriou, Despina. “The Press and the Schism, 1914–1917”. PhD thesis. Athens: Na-
tional and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 1990.
Thomson, (Sir) Basil. The Allied Secret Service in Greece. London: Hutchinson, 1931. Greek
ed. Athens: Logothetis Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849079C
UDC 94:355.48(498.71)"1914/1919"
94:327(497.2:498)"1914/1919"
Daniel Cain* http://www.balcanica.rs
Institute for South-East European Studies
Romanian Academy
Bucharest
Conflicts over Dobruja during the Great War
Abstract: A sensitive topic for decades (for ideological reasons), Dobruja is still a challenge
for many Romanian and Bulgarian historians. A peripheral and hardly populated region,
this territory lying between the Danube and the Black Sea became the major source of
dispute between Bucharest and Sofia at the dawn of the last century. After 1878, legal his-
tory and statistics were the pillars of the new identity of this former Ottoman territory di-
vided between Romania and Bulgaria, as a result of a decision made by the Great Powers.
In order to meet the specific requirements of young national states, Dobruja underwent
a colonisation process (whose intensity differed in the two parts of the region). Ethnic
diversity caused much concern, particularly in the critical moments that endangered the
relations between the two neighbouring countries. The Balkan Wars represented the mo-
ment when the Dobruja question officially emerged. Romania’s decision to annex South-
ern Dobruja would traumatise Bulgarian society, which would look forward to retaliating.
This moment occurred earlier than many Romanian politicians expected. The spirit of
revenge explains why the fighting on the Dobrujan front was so intense in the autumn of
1916. Dobruja was the first province of the Romanian Kingdom that fell under the Central
Powers’ occupation. The documents stored in Romanian archives are too few to make it
possible to accurately reconstruct the history of this province during its military occu-
pation by the Central Powers. This is not an easy challenge: Romania, Bulgaria, Russia,
Serbia, Germany, Turkey and Austro-Hungary were in some way involved in the events in
Dobruja in the autumn of 1916.
Keywords: Dobruja, Bulgaria, Romania, First World War, military occupation, minorities,
territorial disputes
O nly a few days after Romania had entered the Great War, Dobruja became
the Romanian army’s Achilles’ heel. For the Bucharest authorities the ter-
ritory between the Danube and the Black Sea had to play a secondary role in the
unfolding of the military campaign. Blinded by the image of a poorly defended
Transylvania, Romanian politicians and generals relied too much on the aid they
had been expecting from their new allies in order to secure the border with Bul-
garia. A potential offensive triggered by the Allied Army of the Orient on the
Salonika Front and the deployment of Russian troops in Dobruja were thought
to be enough to immobilize the Bulgarians who, like Romanians, were facing
* [email protected]
the same option of a two-front-war.1 The experience of the Second Balkan War
definitely played an important role in making such a decision. First of all, we can
say that Romania’s supremacy in the Balkans was an illusion if we think of it as
the arbiter of this part of Europe. Its southern territorial expansion was seen as
the first step in fulfilling its national ideal. Deprived of the possibility to gain real
experience on the battlefield, the Romanian army had the ill luck of becoming
part of a triumphalist discourse. The flaws noticed during its short campaign
in Bulgaria were simply overlooked. The price paid for its success was the only
thing that stirred the interest of public opinion.2 Consequently, the strategy ad-
opted by the Romanian government comes as no surprise after the outbreak of
the Great War: repeating the tactics employed in 1913, yet at a larger scale. Ac-
cording to this scenario, maximal success was to be achieved with a minimum of
sacrifice. However, this plan was marred by the fast and intense answer given by
the Central Powers. The lack of experience on the battlefield was a crucial factor:
the panic caused by the first blows on the Dobruja front put an end to the offen-
sive in Transylvania and finally led to the transformation of the 1916 Romanian
campaign into a disaster. Some explanations that can still be found in Romanian
historiography help us understand what happened on the Dobruja front in the
autumn of 1916: the Russian troops’ lack of reaction and the allies’ refusal to
fulfil the commitments undertaken by the military convention with Romania.3
Blaming the allies for the Romanian army’s defeat in the autumn of 1916 needs
a much more nuanced approach to what a coalition war means. Western histo-
rians are straightforward: Romania did not join the Great War so as to help its
allies, but to pursue its national interest.4 The reality of this simple truth was
most harshly experienced by the Serbian kingdom. While waiting for the right
moment to enter the war, Romania preferred to forget about its commitments
undertaken by the Treaty of Bucharest in August 1913. The Romanian govern-
1 The Military Convention signed with the Entente on 4/17 August 1916 compelled Roma-
nia to declare war against Central Powers on 15/28 August 1916, at the latest. During this
period, its new allies had to launch an offensive both on the Salonika Front and in Bukovina.
Also, to counteract the Bulgarian danger Russia committed itself to deploying three divi-
sions in Dobruja. For further details about Romania’s entry into the Great War, see Glenn E.
Torrey, Romania and World War I. A Collection of Studies (Iași/Oxford/Portland: Center for
Romanian Studies, 1998), 95–153.
2 See Daniel Cain, “L’illusion de la suprématie dans la Péninsule Balkanique: le Royaume de
Roumanie entre le Traité de Bucarest et Sarajevo (août 1913 – juin 1914)”, Revue des études
sud-est européennes LII (2014), 171–192.
3 Comisia Română de Istorie Militară [The Romanian Commission of Military History],
România în anii Primului Război Mondial [Romania in the First Years of the First World
War], vol. II (Bucharest: Editura Militară, 1987), 578.
4 Michael B. Barrett, Prelude to Blitzkrieg. The 1916 Austro-German Campaign in Romania
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 304.
D. Cain, Conflicts over Dobruja during the Great War 81
ment’s policy was clear: the disputes between its Balkan neighbours were not
a sufficiently serious reason to renounce its neutral status. Prime minister Ion
I.C. Brătianu was aware that Romania’s interests could not always be the same
as those of some countries like Serbia or Greece.5 Moreover, though part of the
same camp, Serbia was excluded from the talks held by Brătianu over Romania’s
entrance into the Great War. The Great Powers’ acknowledgement in writing
of as many territorial claims of Romania as possible was crucial to Brătianu.6
During the Paris Peace Conference, the absence of direct negotiations with the
Serbian government during the entire year of 1916 led to the emergence of dis-
putes over the division of Banat.7
In the autumn of 1916, Dobruja unquestionably became a bloody theatre
which involved civilians too. Romanians, Russians and Serbians fought side by
side on this initially 140-km-long front against the Bulgarian, German, Turkish
and Austro-Hungarian troops. Irregular fighting and excesses against the civil-
ian population occurred during the four months of war in Dobruja. Exacerbated
nationalist feelings explain the atrocities committed on both sides during these
months of war waged on the Dobruja battlefront. History provides an explana-
tion for this matter of fact. A border region with a mixed population, Dobruja
became a territory disputed between Romania and Bulgaria at the beginning of
the past century, as long as the Balkan borders began to change. For the Bucha-
rest authorities Bulgaria gradually began to be viewed as a problematic state, as
well as a competitor to Romania’s supremacy in the region. The rift between the
two states was caused by the Romanian government’s decision to take advantage
of Bulgaria’s military and diplomatic difficulties in order to modify their com-
mon border in Romania’s own interest in the summer of 1913. The need for a
strategic border with Bulgaria was brought into discussion in order to justify
the annexation of Southern Dobruja (nearly 8,000 km2 in area). Even if Roma-
nians amounted to 5 per cent of the population of the new territory (estimated
to nearly 300,000 inhabitants, particularly Turks and Bulgarians),8 people in
Bucharest were hopeful of the successful integration of this region into the Ro-
5 I. G. Duca, Amintiri politice [Political Memoirs], vol. II (Munich: Jon Dumitru Verlag,
1981), 25.
6 Keith Hitchins, Ion I.C. Brătianu. Romania (London: Haus Publishing Ltd., 2011), 82.
7 Sherman David Spector, Rumania at the Paris Peace Conference (New York: Bookman As-
sociation, Inc., 1962), 123–126.

8 George Georgescu, Județul Caliacra din punct de vedere administrativ, financiar, economic,
social și cultural [Caliacra County from an Administrative, Financial, Economic, Social and
Cultural Point of View] (Bucharest: Institutul de Arte Grafice Carol Göbl, 1915), 3; Ion N.
Cămărășeșcu, Durostorul. Expunerea situațiunei județului la 1 decembrie 1914 [Durostor. The
County’s State of Affairs on 1 December 1914] (Bucharest: Tipografia Ion C. Văcărescu,
1915), 20.
manian Kingdom. The manner in which Northern Dobruja was colonized and
transformed after 1878, when it was annexed to Romania by the Congress of
Berlin, fuelled the Romanian authorities’ trust in the success of their mission.9
Therefore, an exceptional regime was the solution for this new Romanian ter-
ritory. The Romanian Parliament held open discussions of the different issues
when the two parts of Dobruja were annexed. Take Ionescu, former minister
of the interior, provides a necessary explanation: in 1878, we annexed a Turk-
ish province with a rare population. In 1913, we received a strip of land with
a population that led a constitutional life for three decades. As a result, warns
Ionescu, we should show those whom we uprooted from their homeland that we
are superior to their former sovereigns by our tolerance and civilization.10
Despite the Bucharest authorities’ optimistic attitude, the territory an-
nexed by Romania in the summer of 1913 proved to be a real time bomb, not
only because of the feelings experienced by the Bulgarian minority, but also of
the feelings of rage and revenge the Romanian campaign across the Danube pro-
voked in Bulgarian society. Shortly afterwards, Romania was to be perceived as
a treacherous neighbour that deprived Bulgaria of the possibility to harvest its
victories won during the First Balkan War.11 Resentments escalated until the
armies of the two countries faced each other on the battlefield. In the autumn of
1915, the decision of Bulgaria to join the Central Powers enhanced the Roma-
nian government’s distrust. All the war plans drafted by the Romanian General
Headquarters both before 1913, and particularly between 1914 and 1916, con-
sidered Bulgaria a hostile state.12 Special attention was paid to the monitoring of
Bulgarian propaganda among the inhabitants of Southern Dobruja.13
In November 1915, prime minister Ion I.C. Brătianu approved a detailed
action plan that had to be put into execution by the Romanian authorities in the
territory annexed after the end of the Second Balkan War, in the event of a war
with Bulgaria. Essentially, the plan contained the steps that the civil and mili-
9 See Constantin Iordachi, “The California of the Romanians: Integration of Northern

Dobrogea into Romania, 1878–1913”, in Balázs Trencsényi et al., eds., Nation-building and
Contested Identities: Romanian and Hungarian Case Studies (Budapest/Iași: Regio Books/
Polirom, 2001), 121–152.
10 Desbaterile Adunării Deputaților [The Deputy Assembly Debates], Sesiunea ordinară 1914
[Ordinary Session], no. 30/29 March 1914, ședința din 27 martie 1914 [meeting of 27 March
1914], 400, 404.
11 Anastas Ishirkov, Кŭsi napŭtni belezhki vŭrhu Dobrudzha i Moravsko (Sofia 1917), 16.
12 Ministerul Apărării Naționale [The Ministry of National Defence], România în Războiul
Mondial [Romania in the Great War], vol. I (Bucharest: Imprimeria Națională, 1934), 83–84.
13 See, e.g., Arhivele Naționale ale României [National Archives of Romania], Serviciul
Arhive Naționale Istorice Centrale [The Central Historical National Archives Department,
hereafter SANIC], Direcția Poliției și Siguranței Generale [Police and General Security Di-
vision], files 132/1914, 556/1914, 243/1915.
tary authorities from Southern Dobruja had to follow during the week before
the Romanian army was to be mobilised. The plan aimed to put in requisition
all that was deemed as necessary for the army’s needs (animals, food products,
transportation means). They had to be shipped over to the other side of the
Danube. Also, all the suspects had to be detained and then deported along with
“all men of foreign nationality aged between 18 and 60” who lived in the area
of Romanian fortresses. The remaining population (women, elderly people and
children) had to be warned over the consequences of “any act of hostility or trea-
son” for the Romanian troops. More specifically, not only the culprits, but also
their relatives would pay with their life.14 The events that unfolded in August
1916 show that the Romanian authorities enforced the measures that had been
agreed upon nine months before.15 Official statistics say that between August
1916 and April 1918 the Romanian government decided to intern about 38,000
civilians. There were three categories of civilians interned by the Romanian au-
thorities: those who held the enemy states’ citizenship, those who had obtained
Romanian citizenship and those who had not. The deportations, as well as the
requisition and arson of villages during the retreat of the Romanian army show
that the Bucharest authorities saw Southern Dobruja as a hostile territory. This
is easily explained by the lack of trust in the loyalty of the new subjects. Statistics
are clear in this respect: ethnic Bulgarians (over 60%) and ethnic Turks (almost
15%) are the most numerous interned civilians who were Romanian subjects.
On the other hand, the number of interned civilians – Romanian subjects – was
double compared to that of civilians from enemy countries.16
Romania’s war plan (the so-called Hypothesis Z) included an offensive
across the Carpathians and a defensive in Dobruja. Subsequently, an offensive
was to be launched in Dobruja as well. Three quarters of the Romanian troops
were engaged in the Transylvania offensive. It was expected that in 40 days’ time
the Romanian army would reach the Hungarian Plain. Once a new offensive was
launched, the Romanian troops based in the south had to reach the Ruse-Varna
line in only a few days.17 It seems to have been an easy campaign won from the
very start. Yet this successful plan depended on two questionable factors: 1) Was
14 SANIC, Mihail Berceanu Personal Fonds, file I Ca 39, 1–19.

15 George Georgescu, Fapte, împrejurări și amintiri în timpul neutralității și războiului. 1914–
1919 [Facts, Circumstances and Memories during the Neutrality Period and the War. 1914–
1919] (Bucharest: Cartea Românească, 1933), 22–23.
16 Bogdan Negoi, Mărturii documentare: Lagărele de prizonieri din România în timpul primului
război mondial [Documentary Testimonies: The Romanian Prison Camps during the First
World War] (Geamăna-Argeș: Tiparg, 2009), 214.
17 Comisia română de istorie militară [The Romanian Commission of Military History],
Proiecte și planuri de operațiuni ale Marelui Stat Major Român (până în anul 1916) [Projects
and Operation Plans of the Romanian General Staff ], (Bucharest, 1992), 178–191.
the military operation coordination between the allies possible? 2) How would
the enemy general headquarters react?
Due to the extension of the Russian front, Dobruja was the territory of
the first direct military collaboration between Russia and its allies. The Roma-
nian prime minister considered that the presence of Russian troops in Dobruja
was compulsory so as to secure the southern border of the country. Some politi-
cians from Bucharest and Petrograd believed that the Bulgarians would not dare
shoot those who liberated them in 1877 from Ottoman rule.18 This reasoning
was not shared by the commander of the Russian troops that were to be sent in
Dobruja. General Andrei Zayonchkovski was suspicious of the troops of Serbi-
an-Croatian volunteers he led, i.e. the famous Serbian First Division led by Col-
onel Stevan Hadžić.19 Above all, he did not trust the former Austro-Hungarians
soldiers’ capacity to fight. Besides, he feared that the Bulgarian-Serbian antipa-
thy would be stronger than the Bulgarian-Russian sympathy.20 There were also
the Russians’ doubts about the operational capacity of the troops dislocated at
the border with Bulgaria, as Romanians lacked any real war experience.
While Brătianu was holding final negotiations over the country’s entrance
into the war, the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian general headquar-
ters began to elaborate an action plan for this scenario in July 1916. A month be-
fore Romania’s entrance into the war, the Central Powers had already approved
a concrete action plan for the new frontline. Briefly, first they aimed at attracting
as many troops as possible in Transylvania, followed by a massive offensive of
the Bulgarian troops in Dobruja and, eventually, the crossing of the Danube
and the advancement to Bucharest.21 The concrete details of this plan sparked
off disputes between the allies. The Bulgarian Chief of Staff, General Zhostov,
objected to the Bulgarian troops’ crossing of the Danube and their fast advance-
ment to Bucharest. There were few troops available for such an undertaking
and the danger of a Romanian offensive in Dobruja was too high. Zhostov was
reticent to allow the presence of Turkish divisions in Dobruja, and to accept that
Field-marshal August von Mackensen could take over the lead of the Bulgarian
troops that would fight against Romania.22 His unexpected death on the very
18 Duca, Amintiri, 266.

19 Information (including information contained in the Romanian archives) on the presence
of this division on the Dobrujan front can be found in Miodrag Milin, “Voluntari sârbi pe
frontul românesc din toamna anului 1916” [Serbian Volunteers on the Romanian Front in
the Autumn of 1916], Analele Banatului XXI (2013), 439–453.
20 Barrett, Prelude, 70.
21 See Ministerstvo na voĭnata, Bŭlgarskata armiia v Svetovnata voĭna, 1915–1918, vol. VIII:
Voĭnata sreshtu Rumŭnia prez 1916 godina (Sofia: Dŭrzhavna pechatnitsa, 1939), 60–75.
22 Gen. Sava Savov, gen. Konstantin Zhostov, Intimnite prichini za pogromite na Bŭlgariia
(Sofia: Izadtelstvo Zemia, 2000), 143–155.
eve of the outbreak of the war with Romania smoothed these disputes. Mean-
while, the Bulgarian troops had taken over control on the Salonika Front, thus
hampering the likelihood of any offensive launched by the Allied Army of the
Orient. Consequently, a key condition for Romania’s entrance into the war was
missing just days before the Romanian army was mobilized. From that moment
on, the German and Bulgarian authorities could plan the counteroffensive at the
southern border of Romania in case the latter declared war against the Central
Powers. The first movements of the Bulgarian troops from the Salonika Front
to the border with Romania began prior to the mobilization of the Romanian
army.23
On the evening of 14/27 August 1916, Romania declared war only
against Austro-Hungary. Brătianu was reluctant to declare war against Bulgaria
straight away. The head of the Bucharest Cabinet believed that during the first
days of the Romanian campaign the military effort was required only in Tran-
sylvania. Of course, if the Bulgarian troops had attacked the Romanian or the
Russian troops in Dobruja, the prime minister would have been forced to de-
clare war against Bulgaria too.24 The Bulgarian government needed four days
to react. In fact, Bulgaria was the last ally of Austro-Hungary that declared war
against Romania. This generated an exaggerated felling of enthusiasm in Bucha-
rest. It was believed that the presence of Russian soldiers in Dobruja was the
reason for the Bulgarian troops’ inactivity.25 The Bulgarian government’s lack
of immediate reaction irked the German general headquarters that considered
their ally to be reluctant. In order to make a political decision, the Bulgarian
sovereign summoned the Crown Council.26 Prime Minister Vasil Radoslavov
was anxious not only about the difficulty in waging a two-front war but also
about the ever-growing number of Russian troops on the Dobruja front. For a
society divided into Russophiles and Russophobes such a presence could exert a
strong influence on the political life of the Bulgarian state.27 Finally, the last dis-
putes over an offensive in Dobruja were resolved. Surprise was the key element
of this offensive. A moral victory was expected before mobilizing more troops
in Dobruja. The Bulgarian general headquarters objective was to immediately
23 Glenn E. Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in World War I (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 2012), 30–44.

24 General Vasile Rudeanu, Memorii din timpuri de pace și de război, 1884–1929 [Memoirs of
Peace and War, 1884–1929] (Bucharest: Cavallioti, 2004), 180.

25 Constantin Argetoianu, Memorii [Memoirs], vols. III–IV (Bucharest: Editura Machi-
avelli, 2008), 34.

26 Georgi Markov, Goliamata voĭna i bŭlgarskiia mech nad balkanskiia vŭzel, 1914–1919, vol. I:
Zaplitaneto (Sofia: Izdatelstvo Zahariĭ Stoianov, 2016), 412–413.

27 D-r Vasil Radoslavov, Dnevni belezhki 1914–1918 (Sofia: Izdatelstvo UI “Sv. Kliment
Ohridski”, 1993), 195–196.
take control of the major Romanian fortifications in Southern Dobruja and to

establish the front along the Cernavodă–Constanța line. Much easier to defend,
this line covered the shortest distance between the Danube and the Black Sea
(approximately 50 km).28
Almost two months of bloody war were needed for the troops of the
Central Powers to achieve their goals on the Dobruja front. The occupation of
the strategic railway between Constanța and Cernavodă deprived the Romanian
army of the possibility to launch massive operations in Dobruja because of its
lack of infrastructure. Controlling the shortest distance between the Black Sea
and the Danube, the troops of the Central Powers enjoyed great strategic advan-
tages: they could defend this part of the front more easily and could also dislo-
cate a part of the troops. In late November 1916, a part of these troops crossed
the Danube and joined the units that entered Wallachia after having crossed the
Carpathians. By the end of the year, the Bulgarian troops managed to conquer
the rest of Northern Dobruja, which was only defended by Russian troops.29 A
new chapter in the tumultuous history of this land began. This time the emerg-
ing disputes were related to the economic exploitation of the Romanian territo-
ry occupied by the Central Powers. Sharing the spoils of war was an important
stake, as was the region’s economic exploitation, a real breath of fresh air for the
ailing economies of the countries that had been at war for years. The grievances
were caused by the disproportion between the contribution to conquering this
region and the quota share of the spoils of war. The oil and grain reserves in
Constanța, as well as the railway which connected this port to Cernavodă were
of paramount importance to the Germans, who dismissed the idea of a Bul-
garian civil and military administration in Northern Dobruja. It was declared
an occupation military zone that was briefly under German administration. In-
stead, the German general headquarters decided to leave Southern Dobruja un-
der Bulgarian administration. Austro-Hungary and Turkey were also interested
in exploiting Dobruja’s economic potential.30
Much to the Bulgarian authorities’ dissatisfaction, this status quo was
maintained until the spring of 1918. After the collapse of the Russian front, ac-
cepting the tough conditions imposed by its victors was Romania’s only chance.
28 Bŭlgarskataarmiia v Svetovnata voĭna, 270–331.

29 Torrey, Romanian Battlefront, 110–117.
30 Information about the Central Powers’ Administration in Dobrogea can be found in a
memorandum signed by the German General Kurt von Unger, published in Constanța in
1917. In 2012, this brochure was reedited in a bilingual edition: Valentin Ciorbea, Constan-
tin Cheramidoglu and Walter Rastätter, eds., Denkschrift der Deutschen Etappen Verwaltung
in der Dobrudscha Abgeschlossen Mitte April 1917/Memoriu al administrației germane de etapă
în Dobrogea. Întocmit la mijlocul lui aprilie 1917 [Memorandum of the German Stage Admin-
istration of Dobruja Issued in Mid-April 1917] (Constanța: Ex Ponto, 2012), 1–123.
The Peace Treaty of Bucharest signed on 24 April/7 May 1918 stipulated that
Romania “cedes to Bulgaria the Bulgarian territory which had fallen to it as a
result of the peace treaty of Bucharest of 1913” with a small rectification of the
frontier in favour of the latter. Also, Northern Dobruja, which Romania ceded
to the Central Powers, was to be administered as a condominium. In exchange,
the Central Powers pledged that Romania would get “a guaranteed commercial
road to the Black Sea” by way of Cernavodă and Constanța.31 Visibly dissatisfied
with the new status of Northern Dobruja, the Sofia government hoped that this
formula would help the Bulgarians play first fiddle and would thus be subse-
quently able to take control of the whole province. It was only in September that
a new agreement was reached on Northern Dobruja, which passed under com-
plete Bulgarian control in exchange for certain commitments undertaken by the
Sofia Cabinet towards its allies. This is, however, a legally unimportant act, given
that Bulgaria was forced to surrender a week later.32 This was the beginning of
the end for the Central Powers. Only a day before the capitulation of Germany,
the Romanian government entered the war again. This symbolic gesture, which
pointed to the forthcoming peace treaty, placed Romania in the victorious camp.
The Central Powers’ administration in Dobruja was replaced by that of the En-
tente, which mediated the return of the Romanian authorities. The Bulgarian
troops were urged to pull out of Dobruja up to the border drawn in the summer
of 1913. This situation gave rise to new feelings of resentment. The return of the
Romanian authorities faced the opposition of the Bulgarian population. French,
English and Italian troops were deployed in Dobruja so as to secure peace in the
region until a new peace treaty was signed. Unfortunately, the Treaty of Neuilly
(27 November 1919) failed to put an end to the violence that occurred at the
Romanian-Bulgarian border. The wounds of war were too fresh to be healed by
a diplomatic treaty alone. Throughout the interwar period, Dobruja was a trou-
blesome issue both for the Romanian and for the Bulgarian authorities. When
the Second World War broke out, an exchange of population and a recreation
of the old border established in 1878 were the last resort. During the time that
elapsed from the signing of the Treaty of Craiova (7 September 1940), the two
parts of Dobruja irreversibly lost their ethnic and confessional diversity, which
caused many problems to the inflexible politicians in Sofia and Bucharest.
31 For the English translation of the Peace Treaty between Romania and the Central Powers,
see United States, Department of State, Texts of the Roumanian “Peace” (Washington, DC:
United States Government Printing Office, 1918), 5–28.
32 Antonina Kuzmanova et al., eds., Istoriia na Dobrudza, vol. IV (Veliko Tŭrnovo: Izdatels-
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Văcărescu, 1915.
Ciorbea, Valentin, Constantin Cheramidoglu and Walter Rastätter, eds. Denkschrift der
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— Proiecte și planuri de operațiuni ale Marelui Stat Major Român (până în anul 1916) [Projects
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[Ordinary Session 1914], no. 30/29 March 1914.
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cial și cultural [Caliacra County from an Administrative, Financial, Economic, Social and
Cultural Point of View]. Bucharest: Institutul de Arte Grafice Carol Göbl, 1915.
— Fapte, împrejurări și amintiri în timpul neutralității și războiului, 1914–1919 [Facts, Circum-
stances and Memories during the Neutrality Period and the War, 1914–1919]. Bucha-
rest: Cartea Românească, 1933.
Hitchins, Keith. Ion I. C. Brătianu. Romania. London: Haus Publishing Ltd., 2011.
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into Romania, 1878–1913”. In Balázs Trencsényi et al., eds. Nation-building and Contested
Identities: Romanian and Hungarian Case Studies. Budapest/Iași: Regio Books/Polirom,
2001.
Ishirkov, Anastas. Kŭsi napŭtni belezhki vŭrhu Dobrudzha i Moravsko. Sofia 1917.
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sreshtu Rumŭniaa prez 1916 godina. Sofia: Dŭrzhavna pechatnitsa, 1939.
Ministerul Apărării Naționale [The Ministry of National Defence]. România în Războiul
Mondial [Romania in the Great War], I, Bucharest: Imprimeria Națională, 1934.
Milin, Miodrag. “Voluntari sârbi pe frontul românesc din toamna anului 1916” [Serbian Vo-
lunteers on the Romanian Front in the Autumn of 1916]. Analele Banatului XXI (2013).
Negoi, Bogdan. Mărturii documentare: Lagărele de prizonieri din România în timpul primului
război mondial [Documentary Testimonies: The Romanian Prison Camps during the
First World War]. Geamăna-Argeș: Tiparg, 2009.
Radoslavov, D-r Vasil. Dnevni belezhki 1914–1918. Sofia: Izdatelstvo UI “Sv. Kliment Ohrid-
ski”, 1993.
Rudeanu, Vasile. Memorii din timpuri de pace și de război, 1884–1929 [Memoirs of Peace and
War, 1884–1929]. Bucharest: Cavallioti, 2004.
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Sofia: Izadtelstvo Zemia, 2000.
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ted States Government Printing Office, 1918.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849091K
UDC 355.11(=133.1)(495.622)"1915/1918"
316.72
Thérèse Krempp Puppinck* http://www.balcanica.rs
École des Hautes études en sciences sociales
De la Grèce rêvée à la Grèce vécue

L’armée d’Orient dans une interculturalité complexe
Résumé : Après l’échec subi aux Dardanelles, les Alliés décidèrent d’envoyer des troupes en
Grèce et les premiers contingents de l’armée d’Orient débarquèrent à Salonique au mois
d’octobre 1915. L’armée d’Orient se déploya à travers la Macédoine grecque jusqu’en jan-
vier 1921. Cette région abritait des populations variées : Turcs, Bulgares, Serbes, Albanais,
Tziganes, Koutso-Valaques, Juifs sépharades, Grecs, chacun s’exprimant dans sa propre
langue. Ainsi l’armée française d’Orient s’imposa sur un territoire au peuplement très di-
vers, qui de surcroît venait de quitter l’empire ottoman pour être rattaché à la Grèce. Ce
caractère multiculturel rendit le contact entre l’armée d’Orient et le pays particulièrement
complexe. En arrivant dans la rade de Salonique, les soldats avaient inévitablement mo-
bilisé leurs référents culturels ainsi que tout un imaginaire nourri de stéréotypes. Rat-
tachaient-ils la Grèce à son passé antique prestigieux, ou se tournaient-ils plutôt vers un
orientalisme considéré comme plus attirant car plus fantasmagorique ? Les clichés véhicu-
lés dans l’esprit des soldats français par la culture classique des humanités et par le courant
orientaliste ont-ils pu résister au choc d’une interculturalité polysémique ? L’analyse de la
Revue franco-macédonienne, écrite par les soldats de l’armée d’Orient, et l’étude de souvenirs
publiés ou inédits, laissent largement apparaître la profonde déception des soldats français,
qui ne comprirent pas la configuration culturelle du territoire macédonien, et qui restèrent
prisonniers d’impressions subjectives et de réactions émotionnelles. La Grèce rêvée avant
le départ ne résista pas à la confrontation avec la réalité, qui fut alors rejetée de façon viru-
lente par de nombreux soldats.
Mots clés : Première guerre mondiale, armée d’Orient, Grèce, Salonique, Macédoine, inter-
culturalité, altérité, orientalisme, philhellénisme
À la fin de l’année 1915, les Alliés envoyèrent des troupes en Grèce pour
porter secours aux Serbes et conserver, après l’échec de l’expédition des
Dardanelles, une influence dans le sud-est européen. Les premiers contingents
de l’armée d’Orient débarquèrent à Salonique au mois d’octobre 1915. Cette
entrée sur le territoire grec amplifia une crise interne qui commençait à secouer
le pays. La Grèce était en effet partagée entre les partisans du roi Constantin,
beau-frère de Guillaume II, qui défendait l’idée d’une neutralité bienveillante
à l’égard de l’Allemagne, et ceux du Premier ministre Éleuthère Vénizélos, qui
souhaitait s’engager du côté de l’Entente. Vénizélos autorisa les Alliés à débar-
* [email protected]
quer à Salonique mais Constantin le désavoua et le contraint à la démission.

Les Alliés n’en poursuivirent pas moins leur installation dans ce pays officiel-
lement neutre, mais en réalité profondément divisé entre germanophiles et
ententistes. La tension s’exacerba jusqu’à précipiter le pays dans une situation
de guerre civile lorsque Vénizélos institua à Salonique un Gouvernement pro-
visoire de défense nationale (octobre 1916). Ce gouvernement fut établi avec le
soutien des Alliés (et particulièrement de la France), qui reconduisirent ainsi
une politique interventionniste héritière des pratiques d’avant-guerre. Fina-
lement, sous la pression de l’Entente, Constantin fut obligé d’abdiquer en fa-
veur de son fils. Vénizélos redevint alors Premier ministre et la Grèce s’engagea
dans la guerre le 30 juin 1917.1
Une partie des troupes s’installa à proximité de Salonique, dans le camp
retranché de Zeitenlik, avec les bureaux d’état-major à Salonique même. Le
reste de l’armée d’Orient se déploya dans la Macédoine grecque,2 sur un front
de presque 400 km qui suivait plus ou moins la frontière du pays. La Macé-
doine abritait des populations très variées : Turcs, Bulgares, Serbes, Albanais,
Tziganes, Koutso-Valaques, Juifs sépharades, Grecs, chacun s’exprimant dans sa
propre langue. Ainsi l’armée d’Orient s’imposa sur un territoire au peuplement
très diversifié, qui de surcroît venait juste de quitter l’empire ottoman pour être
rattaché à la Grèce.3
Ce caractère multiculturel rendit le contact entre l’armée d’Orient et le
pays particulièrement complexe ; il est intéressant d’analyser comment les sol-
dats français ont appréhendé la Grèce et sa population, et comment fonction-
na le rapport entre la Grèce rêvée et la Grèce vécue. Les clichés véhiculés dans
l’esprit des soldats par la culture classique des humanités et par les phantasmes
d’un Orient mystérieux ont-ils pu résister au choc d’une interculturalité polysé-
mique ? Pour proposer des éléments de réponse, cette étude s’appuie sur des té-
moignages et correspondances de soldats, publiés ou inédits ; sur des articles de
Marcelle Tinayre, femme de lettre qui passa plusieurs mois à Salonique ; sur la
Revue franco-macédonienne, revue publiée à Salonique par un groupe de soldats
de l’armée d’Orient en 1916 et 1917.4 En arrivant dans la rade de Salonique les
1 Sur l’entrée en guerre de la Grèce voir Yannis Mourelos, L’intervention de la Grèce dans la
grande guerre, 1916–1917 (Athènes : E.F.A., 1983).
2 La Macédoine grecque est comprise entre le Nestos à l’Est, la chaîne du Pinde à l’Ouest et
le mont Olympe au sud. Au nord c’est la frontière qui marque la délimitation. Avec l’avancée
militaire la zone investie s’étendit progressivement jusqu’à Florina, puis Monastir, puis s’étend
vers l’ouest jusqu’aux confins albanais (région de Koritza).
3 Salonique et une partie de la Macédoine devinrent grecque après les guerres balkaniques
de 1912–1913.
4 Les souvenirs publiés pendant la guerre ou dans l’immédiat après-guerre se ressemblent
beaucoup au point de perdre parfois de leur intérêt. Les sources inédites ou publiées long-
T. K. Puppinck, De la Grèce rêvée à la Grèce vécue 93
soldats avaient mobilisés leurs référents culturels ainsi que tout un imaginaire
nourri de stéréotypes. Il convient d’analyser si cet univers mental, qui se déclinait
en termes de philhellénisme et surtout d’orientalisme, résista à la confrontation
avec le pays et sa population ; et quels sentiments la découverte de l’altérité et
de la contemporanéité de la Grèce suscita parmi les soldats de l’armée d’Orient.
La Grèce rêvée
En 1915, l’image que les soldats français avaient de la Grèce était le fruit
d’échanges historiques et de productions artistiques qui avaient mis à l’honneur
l’hellénisme en France durant le XIXe siècle. Pendant la révolution grecque,
entre 1821 et 1829, un vaste courant philhellène s’était développé en Europe et
particulièrement en France. Un double lien filial avait rattaché les deux pays :
les intellectuels et les artistes français avaient le sentiment d’être les héritiers des
anciens Grecs ; d’autre part, la volonté hellène d’indépendance se rattachait au
principe des nationalités qui se diffusait dans toute l’Europe et qui était héritier
des idées de la Révolution française. En 1830, en vertu du traité de Londres, la
Grèce devint un État indépendant sous la protection de la France, de l‘Angleterre
et de la Russie. La charge de protecteur de ce nouvel État vint alors s’ajouter au
sentiment de filiation culturelle des Français. Le philhellénisme5 se développa
considérablement en France, grâce à de grandes œuvres littéraires ou picturales,
mais aussi grâce à de nombreuses œuvres mineures – plaquettes, brochures – qui
permettaient à ceux qui ne pouvaient voyager de se représenter la Grèce. Il était
d’ailleurs souvent mâtiné d’orientalisme. Est-ce à dire que la Grèce appartenait
à l’Orient dans l’imaginaire des Français ? Le philhellénisme rejoignait-il l’orien-
temps après la mort de leur auteur peuvent alors apporter un éclairage neuf. Ces textes nous
renseignent sur le ressenti des soldats ainsi que sur leur perception de la Grèce. La relation de
souvenir permettait aux soldats de fixer leur expérience du front d’Orient. Pendant la guerre
les sources d’information n’étaient pas fiables : mensonges et fausses nouvelles avaient envahi
la société française. Face à cet usage du faux qui devint « une composante structurelle » de
la guerre, se fit ressentir l’impérieuse nécessité de rétablir la vérité. Les soldats, acteurs de la
guerre, furent ainsi sollicités et devinrent alors témoins, chargés d’établir ou de rétablir la
vérité. C’est ainsi que doit se comprendre l’étendue des témoignages publiés pendant et juste
après la guerre. Voir sur ce sujet Christophe Prochasson et Anne Rasmussen, éd., Vrai et faux
dans la grande guerre (Paris : La Découverte, 2004), 18–19.
5 Au sens strict du terme, le philhellénisme est réservé « à la désignation du mouvement de
sympathie pour la cause des Grecs, entraîné par la guerre d’indépendance », pour reprendre
la définition de Sophie Basch dans son ouvrage. Pourtant ce terme, sorti de son contexte
historique, a été constamment réutilisé dans un contexte différent par les écrivains et les voya-
geurs. Il acquit alors un sens plus général : toute sympathie ou tout intérêt porté à la Grèce.
Sa mauvaise utilisation, fréquente, engendra d’ailleurs une certaine méfiance à son égard. Voir
Sophie Basch, Le Mirage Grec. La Grèce moderne devant l’opinion française depuis la création
d’Athènes jusqu’à la guerre civile grecque : 1846–1946 (Athènes et Paris : Hatier, 1995).
talisme ? Edward Saïd, dans son étude sur l’orientalisme,6 ne traite guère de la
Grèce et semble de ce fait ne pas combiner les deux. Jean-Claude Berchet, par
contre, consacre à la Grèce une partie de son anthologie Le Voyage en Orient.7 Le
terme Orient n’a jamais défini une entité géographique précise. C’est par rapport
à son altérité face à l’Occident que l’Orient a été imaginé. Comme l’écrit Edward
Saïd, « l’Orient est une idée qui a une histoire et une tradition de pensée, une
imagerie et un vocabulaire qui lui ont donné réalité et présence en Occident et
pour l’Occident ».8 Dans ce schéma d’analyse, une distinction s’impose d’emblée
entre Orient et Grèce. En effet, même si les Français avaient développé, pour
les deux, un système de représentations codées, ces idées stéréotypées restaient
confuses pour l’un alors que la connaissance de la culture grecque classique les
rendait bien plus précises pour l’autre. Ainsi, de prime abord, la Grèce peut
être considérée comme un pays à part, qu’il ne faut pas inclure dans le terme
générique Orient. Mais cette analyse était l’apanage d’une minorité formée aux
humanités classiques, qui mobilisa ses référents culturels issus d’une connais-
sance livresque de l’Antiquité grecque. En revanche, le mythe de l’Orient était
beaucoup plus présent dans la société française au début du XXe siècle. Large-
ment nourri par le mouvement littéraire et artistique de l’orientalisme, en vogue
depuis le XVIIIe siècle en France, il influença considérablement la plupart des
témoins. Les références aux œuvres d’Eugène Delacroix et de Pierre Loti sont
omniprésentes dans les souvenirs publiés pendant la guerre et dans l’immédiat
après-guerre.
La littérature et la peinture orientalistes imposèrent aux hommes, avant
même leur départ, un certain conditionnement à l’Orient, et ils ne sont pas partis
sans bagage référentiel, même si celui-ci était probablement très souvent réduit
à sa plus simple expression. L’univers mental des soldats se rapportant à l’Orient
était extrêmement flou car alimenté par une vision artistique : il était dominé par
l’imaginaire, et non pas par des connaissances précises d’un Orient qui, de toute
façon, est par nature non-définissable. C’est ainsi que certains hommes, parmi
ceux qui n’avaient jamais quitté leur environnement avant la guerre, reconnais-
saient déjà une manifestation de l’Orient avant même d’avoir quitté le territoire
national. En effet, le climat et les paysages du sud de la France leur paraissaient
un dépaysement suffisant pour les qualifier de turcs, terme utilisé de façon géné-
rique, faute de connaître et de maîtriser un vocabulaire plus spécifique.9
L’attrait du voyage, de l’exotisme, était d’ailleurs très présent chez les sol-
dats volontaires pour le front d’Orient, comme Drieu La Rochelle qui s’imagi-
6 Edward Saïd, L’orientalisme. L’Orient crée par l’Occident (Paris : Seuil, 1980).
7 Jean-Claude Berchet, Le Voyage en Orient. Anthologie des voyageurs français dans le Levant
au XIXe siècle (Paris : Laffont, 1985).
8 Saïd, L’orientalisme, 17.
9 Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, La Comédie de Charleroi (Paris : Gallimard, 1934), 128.
nait « transporté dans un pays de rêve ».10 Marcel Brochard reconnaissait « la

curiosité de faire un beau voyage, tout simplement ».11 Même si la plupart des
hommes n’étaient pas volontaires, ils reconnaissaient volontiers être attirés par
la nouveauté que constituait ce voyage. Ils espéraient en outre une guerre plus
facile, une guerre de mouvement qui les sortirait des tranchées, dans un pays
au climat plus agréable.12 Malgré cela, au moment du départ, l’inquiétude et
la peur de l’inconnu étaient très présentes dans leur esprit. La correspondance
d’Édouard Divry illustre parfaitement cette ambivalence : « Malgré les nom-
breux inconvénients et la misère certaine qui nous attend là-bas, je pars content
dans l’espoir de voir un autre genre de guerre et du nouveau pays. Si nous pou-
vons aller jusque Constantinople ; quelle fête !! ». Au fur et à mesure que le
départ se rapprochait, il s’inquiétait : « Nous nous demandons tous ce qui nous
attend en Orient : est-ce la misère ou une vie à peu près supportable ? » Avant
de s’embarquer il envoya même un mot à tous ses correspondants pour leur dire
un adieu déguisé : « Rien de bon en perspective mais j’espère que nous nous
reverrons quand même ».13 L’embarquement signifiait déjà pour les hommes le
début de l’aventure car la traversée était une première pour nombre d’entre eux.
Elle matérialisait en outre le passage vers l’ailleurs inconnu, tout à la fois attirant
et inquiétant.14
De l’exaltation à la désillusion
La première vision que les soldats eurent de Salonique se fit depuis les bateaux
qui arrivaient dans la rade. Les premières impressions de la ville furent plutôt
positives. Les hommes étaient heureux de percevoir des éléments sécurisants :
une ville considérée comme normale, sans aucune trace de la guerre : « La ville
grandit à nos yeux à mesure que nous en approchons. Enfin, pensons-nous, voilà
un pays civilisé où il existe une population civile et dont les maisons ne sont
pas démolies ».15 De prime abord, le séjour à Salonique apparaissait bien plus
agréable que les tranchées de Gallipoli ou du front occidental, et les hommes
avaient l’impression de partir à la découverte d‘un Orient merveilleux : « Et les
arrivants disaient : c’est donc cela Salonique ! Les imaginations aventureuses de
10 Ibid. 126.
11 Marcel Brochard, souvenirs inédits, 19 janvier 1917.
12 Les premiers départs pour Salonique s’effectuèrent à l’automne 1915 et les hommes étaient
heureux d’échapper aux rigueurs d’un hiver dans les tranchées.

13 Edouard Divry, correspondance inédite, lettres du 15 octobre 1915, du 22 octobre 1915, du
24 octobre 1915.
14 De surcroît, l’intensification de la guerre sous-marine en Méditerranée rendait le voyage
par bateau assez dangereux et les hommes appréhendaient le naufrage.
15 Service Historique de la Défense, Ernest Stocanne, souvenirs inédits, 5N150.
l’Armée avaient si longtemps rêvé de Stamboul ! Pour l’avoir on avait souffert

aux Dardanelles. Une plus petite princesse était devenue l’héroïne de la nouvelle
aventure. On approchait d‘elle, tout de même, avec la ferveur et l’émoi des croisés
qui découvraient les cités de l’Orient ».16 « Dans son ensemble, au premier coup
d’œil, c’est bien la ville féerique des légendes arabes, la perle de la Chalcidique,
la reine de l’Egée ».17 Ces clichés récurrents et codifiés apparaissent dans la plu-
part des souvenirs publiés après la guerre. Remarquons que dans plusieurs cas
les soldats semblaient bien conscients qu’ils ne trouveraient pas trace du rêve
hellène. Ils se préparaient à débarquer dans une ville de culture encore ottomane
et espéraient davantage nourrir leur imaginaire orientalisant que leur imaginaire
hellénisant.
Toutefois, dès le débarquement, la déception s’empara des hommes. En
premier lieu, l’architecture de certains quartiers s’apparentait à celle des villes
d’Europe occidentale. C’était le cas du centre-ville, près de la mer et du port.
Cette analogie avec la ville occidentale était à la fois réconfortante et décevante.
« L’on pénètre en ville par l’avenue Counderitis (sic), large artère mais bordée
d’immeubles médiocres (…) le coin vert de la Tour Blanche surprend agréable-
ment et le quartier de Kalamaria enchante. Mais tout cela c’est encore le chez
nous, ce sont là maisons, rues, visages à l’européenne ou presque, et l’on brûle
de connaître l’autre Salonique ».18 Ainsi certains soldats furent déçus de ne pas
avoir la sensation d’arriver au cœur d’une ville orientale. Cependant, dès qu’ils
s’éloignèrent du centre pour se diriger vers des quartiers à l’architecture plus tra-
ditionnelle, qui auraient pu de ce fait satisfaire leur soif d’exotisme, la déception
sembla parfois encore plus grande. Ce monde qu’ils venaient d’aborder présenta
rapidement pour eux des caractères répulsifs et les mots ne furent pas assez durs
pour le décrier. « L’aspect extérieur [de Salonique] est aussi beau que l‘intérieur
de la ville est lamentable ».19 La ville apparaissait comme « une agglomération
lépreuse de masures et de cabanes serrées au bord d’un golfe putride, un ghet-
to malsain ; en somme un cloaque baigné de lumière ».20 La déception toucha
également les soldats plus cultivés, qui se référaient à leur culture d’helléniste.
Passant en bateau au large de la Thessalie, l’abbé Louis Cadoux décrivit le pay-
sage et s’intéressa particulièrement aux hauts lieux de l’Antiquité. « Voici le mont
Pelion, puis le mont Ossa. Vraiment, ce n’est que cela ! et les poètes grecs disaient
qu’il suffirait de transporter le mont Ossa sur le mont Pelion pour atteindre le
16 Étienne Burnet, La Tour Blanche (Paris : Flammarion, 1921), 6.

17 H. Libermann, Face aux Bulgares. La Campagne française en Macédoine serbe (Paris : Ber-
ger-Levraut, 1917), 47.
18 Pol Roussel, Impressions d’Orient au temps de la Grande Guerre (Paris : E. Chiron, 1925), 93.
19 Capitaine F.-J. Deygas, L’armée d’Orient dans la guerre mondiale 1915–1919 (Paris : Payot,
1932), 179.
20 Roussel, Impressions d’Orient, 92.
ciel ! Et nous, pauvres élèves qui avons peiné à traduire ces choses, nous avons
naïvement pensé qu’elles avaient au moins quelque vraisemblance avec la réalité.
Hélas ! nous qui regardons ce matin même Ossa et le Pélion avec nos yeux d’al-
pins, nous ne voyons que des cônes insignifiants ».21
La majorité des hommes semblèrent terriblement déçus. « Quel Orient !,
lit-on dans la préface du livre de Julien Arène, et que nous sommes loin de ces
splendeurs orientales que nous nous figurions, d’après des lectures plus ou moins
romanesques ».22 Les hommes retournèrent alors leur ressentiment sur ceux qui
étaient considérés comme responsables de leurs désillusions : les orientalistes,
à la tête desquels on retrouve Pierre Loti, auteur le plus attaqué dans tous les
commentaires. « Le tendre mensonge de Loti chantait dans toutes les mémoires
(…). Tous, tous, tous et même les plus raisonnables, ils se laissaient aller, vertigi-
neusement, vers le mirage le plus radieux, mais aussi le plus faux, le plus fuyant
de tous ! Les mensonges des poètes avaient intoxiqué toute l‘armée d’Orient ».23
Sur un mode plus humoristique et moins lyrique, on peut lire dans un journal de
tranchées : « Aussi pourquoi diable ces farceurs d’Orientalistes nous avaient-ils
dépeint l’Orient sous de si chatoyantes et si captivantes couleurs ? »24
Quelques hommes dans leurs souvenirs retracèrent de façon positive leur
rencontre avec l’Orient en ajoutant dans leur récit un peu de couleur locale :
« On peut se représenter facilement l’arrivée dans ces charmantes oasis [les fon-
taines] des femmes aux robes voyantes, portant sur leurs épaules les cruches élé-
gantes de terre rouge ».25 Mais remarquons que notre témoin ne voyait pas ces
femmes, il les imaginait seulement. Une fois de plus, les représentations engen-
drées par l’imagination vinrent dénaturer le contact avec les réalités. Cependant,
les commentaires positifs sont rares et la plupart des récits révèlent un grand
désenchantement. Celui-ci est si constant dans les souvenirs publiés pendant et
juste après la guerre qu’on assiste à l’émergence d’un véritable topos. Le dénigre-
ment des orientalistes, la dépréciation systématique de la Grèce, l’exhibition de
ses déconvenues devinrent des éléments incontournables dans les témoignages
publiés.
Soulignons toutefois que, bien souvent, le poilu de l’armée d’Orient ne
connaissait pas les notions d’Orient ni d’orientalisme. Une petite nouvelle de
21 Abbé Louis Cadoux, Et la foudre tomba (Paris : Debresse et Rennes : Impr. réunies,
1959), 144.
22 Julien Arène, En Macédoine. Carnet de route d’un sergent de l’armée d’Orient (Paris : Crès,
1916), 3.
23 G. C. Richard, « L’Amour à l’armée d’Orient », Les Œuvres libres 133 (juillet 1932),
238–239.
24 « Les désenchantés : Impressions d’un poilu d’Orient », La Bourguignotte 15 (1917), 2. Le
titre de l’article parodie le livre d’un ouvrage de Pierre Loti, Les désenchantées, paru en 1906.
25 Dr. Pierre Maridort, En Macédoine 1915–1917 (Paris : Fischbacher, 1918), 8.
la Revue franco-macédonienne, écrite à la manière de Loti, imagine un dialogue

entre Aziyadé et Lidoire, soldat français.26 Entre les deux personnages, l’incom-
préhension est totale. Lidoire, paysan « rustique », ignorant tout du philhellé-
nisme et de l’orientalisme, ne connaît pas la charmante héroïne et il ne la com-
prend pas lorsqu’elle tente de lui décrire les charmes de l’Orient. Il lui explique
qu’il est complètement dérouté par la ville de Salonique et qu’il n’aspire qu’à une
chose : rentrer en France et retrouver les siens.27
Profondes semblent ainsi les désillusions de ces soldats-voyageurs mal-
gré eux. Ils ont en vain cherché en Macédoine des éléments venant conforter
leurs rêves fabuleux. Les admirateurs de l’Antiquité ne songeaient qu’à retrouver
les traces de Homère et de Périclès. Ils se trouvèrent confrontés à une Grèce
contemporaine transformée par l’influence ottomane. Face à la distorsion dérou-
tante entre le mythe hellène et la réalité, la première réaction de ces hommes fut
de plonger dans un mishellénisme virulent.28 Pour les autres, la déception fut
peut-être encore plus rude, puisque chacun avait développé son propre imagi-
naire oriental qui évidemment ne pouvait correspondre à la réalité. Le contact
avec la population locale ne permit pas d’atténuer ce jugement.
Premières confrontations avec la population

L’espace macédonien, sur lequel l’armée d’Orient se déploya, avait été l’enjeu
de multiples rivalités nationales. Les guerres balkaniques et plusieurs années
d’insurrection terroriste en avaient fait un territoire désorganisé, fragilisé et
appauvri.29 La configuration ethnico-linguistique de Salonique était tout aussi
composite que celle de son hinterland. Elle était à la fois un reflet de cette région
balkanique, mais aussi le souvenir de certaines contingences historiques.30 En
26 Aziyadé est le titre du premier roman de Pierre Loti. L’intrigue se passe en Turquie et met
en scène une histoire d’amour entre une jeune turque, Aziyadé, et un officier français. Ce ro-
man est emblématique du courant orientaliste qui a marqué la littérature et les arts en France
durant tout le XIXe siècle.
27 Jean de Tournes, « Lidoire et Aziyadé », Revue franco-macédonienne 1 (Salonique, 1916),
26–29.
28 Ce mishellénisme rejoint celui des voyageurs français qui se rendirent en Grèce à partir des
années 1830 et qui furent également déçus par la découverte de la Grèce contemporaine.
29 Depuis 1897, l’ORIM, mouvement autonomiste bulgare, avait mis sur pied une insur-
rection locale – à l’encontre des autorités turques mais aussi des communautés grecques et
serbes – qui agita la Macédoine pendant plus de 10 ans. À partir de 1904, la Grèce et la Serbie
commanditèrent elles-aussi dans la région des bandes armées pour combattre l’ORIM et
limiter l’influence bulgare.
30 En effet au XVe siècle, avec l’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne, 20 000 séfarades s’étaient instal-
lés dans la ville en apportant leurs coutumes et leur langue, le judéo-espagnol. Cette impor-
tante communauté participa très largement au grand essor commercial de Salonique.
1913, près de 40 % de la population salonicienne était ainsi constituée de Juifs

sépharades, les 60 % restant représentaient les Grecs, Turcs, Arméniens, Slaves,
Tsiganes. Cette disparité, habituelle dans l’empire ottoman, allait à l’encontre de
l’évolution politique en Europe occidentale, où des États-nations forts étaient
censés être ethniquement et linguistiquement homogènes.
Le cosmopolitisme et l’interpénétration d’une multitude de nationalités
et d’une multitude de langues furent causes de stupéfaction pour ces soldats
français habitués à un système référentiel simple et clair en la matière. La re-
marque d’Édouard Julia illustre ce sentiment : « Et les Saloniciens ? Que sont les
Saloniciens ? Personne ne saurait le dire. Grecs, Turcs, Juifs, amalgamés sans se
fondre ni se confondre ont donné les Saloniciens. »31 Cette situation inédite dé-
sorienta fortement les soldats, comme le note l’auteur d’un article paru dans La
Revue franco-macédonienne : « l’armée française est étrangement impressionnée
par ces pays nouveaux pour elle, malgré les auteurs anciens dont on a imprégné
l’esprit et le cœur des écoliers français. »32 Les hommes cherchèrent vainement,
à leur arrivée, à identifier les Grecs en tant que ressortissants. Appliquant leurs
critères occidentaux, ils pensaient que Salonique, ville grecque, devaient logique-
ment et nécessairement être peuplée par une majorité de Grecs, ce qui n’était pas
le cas. De ce fait, ils confondirent souvent les Grecs et les Juifs, ce qui rend d’ail-
leurs l’analyse des témoignages parfois un peu délicate. Ainsi, l’absence de carac-
tère national clair au sein de la population macédonienne fut l’un des éléments
les plus déconcertants pour les hommes de l’armée d’Orient, élément auquel se
greffa la confusion qui existait entre religion et identité nationale.33
La présence importante de musulmans fut un autre facteur d’incompré-
hension. Pour les soldats français, la Grèce était un pays orthodoxe, les musul-
mans ne pouvaient qu’être sujets ottomans et donc ennemis des troupes alliées.
Ce schéma de pensée rudimentaire correspondait à leur connaissance limitée
de la région et de son histoire récente. En débarquant à Salonique, les hommes
furent confrontés à une société plurielle où trois religions cohabitaient : le ju-
daïsme, le christianisme et l’islam. Les soldats ne comprenaient pas la présence
des musulmans dans la région, musulmans qui furent d’ailleurs souvent quali-
fiés de Turcs dans leurs souvenirs, entretenant ainsi la confusion entre religion
et nationalité. Plusieurs études s’attachèrent à expliquer et justifier la présence
de cette population à Salonique, voulant démontrer que ces musulmans étaient
des Dönme, Juifs convertis à l’islam au XVIIe siècle mais qui avaient conser-
31 Édouard Julia dans L’Illustration, 17 février 1917.

32 « Impressions d’Orientaliste », Revue franco-macédonienne 1 (1916), 34.
33 En effet, le système ottoman du millet, en vigueur dans la région jusqu’en 1913, donnait à
l’affiliation confessionnelle une dimension qui excédait la simple religion et qui fondait l’iden-
tité nationale.
vé secrètement leurs traditions juives.34 Marcelle Tinayre précisa qu’ils étaient

certes musulmans, « au moins en apparence » mais qu’ils n’étaient pas Turcs,
et elle rajouta qu’il n’y avait presque plus de « vrais Turcs » à Salonique (sans
préciser d’ailleurs ce qu’est un « vrai Turc »).35 Ces articles sur les Dönme furent
très certainement écrits dans un souci pédagogique mais aussi avec une volonté
d’apaisement face aux sentiments d’inquiétude des soldats. Un autre article de
la Revue franco-macédonienne36 rapproche les musulmans de Macédoine de ceux
des colonies d’Afrique du Nord, analogie qui permettait de les dissocier de l’Em-
pire ottoman et de les faire accepter par les troupes qui auraient pu s’inquiéter
de voir les supposés Turcs aussi nombreux. En s’appuyant sur l’histoire de la
région, l’auteur de cet article insista sur la présence positive de l’islam et rappela
la tolérance turque en Macédoine. Il ne distingua pas musulman et Turcs mais
souhaita désamorcer la méfiance des soldats français en insistant sur leurs pré-
sumés « amour de la France » et désintérêt de la politique.37
Les soldats de l’armée d’Orient se retrouvèrent ainsi confrontés à une so-
ciété multi-ethnique et multi-linguistique au sein de laquelle il était impossible
de déceler un quelconque sentiment d’appartenance nationale. Au début de la
guerre, une vision ethnique, ou plutôt raciale, du conflit s’était développée dans
les pays occidentaux, mais ce schéma mental ne correspondait pas à la réalité
macédonienne et, une fois sur place, les repères occidentaux des soldats volèrent
en éclat.38 La pluralité de la dimension ethnique et l’absence de dimension na-
tionale de la population macédonienne provoquèrent certainement une véritable
commotion dans l’esprit des soldats français.
Du rejet au mépris
La confrontation avec l’altérité fut trop brutale pour des soldats français qui vi-
vaient déjà l’expérience éprouvante du déracinement ainsi que l’immersion au
34 Notamment un article intitulé « Les Deunmés ou Sabetaïstes » dans la Revue franco-ma-
cédonienne 1 (1916), 48–59. Bien sûr vivaient aussi à Salonique des musulmans qui n’étaient
pas d’origine juive.
35 Marcelle Tinayre, « Un été à Salonique : avril-septembre 1916 », La Revue des deux mondes,
15 janvier 1917, 334.

36 « Impressions d’Orientaliste : L’âme musulmane en Macédoine », Revue franco-macédo-
nienne 2 (1916), 49–60.

37 Cette attitude doit être rattaché à la turcophilie qui s’était développée au sein de l’armée
française dans le courant du XIXe siècle.

38 Cette vision raciale fut développée et entretenue par les savants occidentaux. Elle autorisait
un manichéisme primaire et la segmentation des pays belligérants entre « barbares » et « civi-

lisés ». Voir Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau et Annette Becker, 14–18, retrouver la Guerre (Paris :
Gallimard, 2000), 164–181.
sein d’une situation politique et militaire confuse et préoccupante. La majorité

de ces hommes ne tentèrent pas de comprendre l’histoire troublée et complexe
de la région. Ils ignoraient que le principe des nationalités n’avait émergé que
depuis peu dans les Balkans, et que la Macédoine venait juste de passer dans les
mains d’un nouvel État, sans d’ailleurs que sa population n’ait été consultée. Un
sentiment de mépris à l’égard de cette population jugée incapable de se définir
selon les critères occidentaux naquit alors au sein de l’armée. À ce mépris s’ajouta
un sentiment de supériorité, engendré par l’exacerbation du nationalisme liée au
conflit, ainsi que par le sentiment, issu de l’impérialisme colonial, d’appartenir à
une civilisation supérieure.39 Cette certitude, sans doute en latence au moment
du départ, fut dévoilée et renforcée après la rencontre avec la population locale.
Cet état d’esprit était également subordonné à la déroute des rêves orientaux et
l’amère déception qui en découla.
Sous ses formes les plus extrêmes, ce mépris se révèle plutôt dans les cor-
respondances et journaux inédits ou publiés longtemps après la fin de la guerre
et la mort de leur auteur, même si on en trouve aussi traces dans le livre du géné-
ral Sarrail.40 Ainsi Jean Leymonnerie évoqua dans son journal ses rapports avec
la population salonicienne. Le 30 octobre 1916, il était de garde avec d’autres
sentinelles sur la route qui menait au camp retranché de Zeitenlik afin de stop-
per les marchands qui voulaient vendre de l’alcool dans le camp militaire : « Il y a
aussi les mercantis. Ceux-là, on les arrête ; on leur fait mettre leur bazar sous un
marabout, on leur colle un balai dans les mains, et on leur fait faire la corvée de
quartier. S’ils ne veulent pas on leur flanque des coups de pieds au derrière. C’est
la manière forte mais c’est la seule qui soit effective, et de plus, on a une excuse,
ce sont des Grecs. C’est ainsi que je me fournis en allumettes, en briquets et
papier à lettres. »41 Cette anecdote illustre parfaitement l’arrogance d’un certain
nombre de soldats et leur irrespect à l’égard de la population locale. Dans les
témoignages publiés pendant la guerre, le sentiment de supériorité trouva son
illustration à travers une critique des modes de vie et de l’économie du pays. Le
système agricole de la Macédoine paraissait au soldat français très insuffisant ;
la terre, bien que riche, leur semblait mal cultivée, avec des moyens considérés
comme inadaptés.42 Marcelle Tinayre rapporta également une anecdote à ce su-
jet : un soldat français s’émerveillant devant la terre et blâmant la population
locale, incapable, selon lui, de lui donner le meilleur rendement43.
39 Sur ce sujet, voir l’étude toujours d’actualité de Raoul Girardet, L’idée coloniale en France de
1871 à 1962 (Paris : La Table ronde, 1972.

40 Général Sarrail, Mon commandement en Orient (Paris : Flammarion, 1920).
41 Jean Leymonnerie, Journal d’un poilu sur le front d’Orient (Paris : Pygmalion, 2003), 192.
42 Divry, correspondance inédite, Lettre du 15 novembre 1915.
43 Tinayre, « Un été à Salonique : avril-septembre 1916 », 347.
L’attitude dédaigneuse du général Sarrail fut, quant à elle, liée à la poli-

tique. Dès son arrivée en Grèce, il se positionna dans une attitude de méfiance,
puis d’hostilité à l’égard du gouvernement royal, attitude dont il ne se départit
jamais. Il n’acceptait pas que la Grèce pût rester neutre et refusait de prendre
en compte les réalités matérielles du pays. Épuisée après les deux guerres balk-
aniques, l’armée grecque était mal équipée et ne disposait pas de l’encadrement
nécessaire pour instruire les soldats. De surcroît, le gouvernement n’avait pas les
moyens financiers de renouveler les équipements de base. Malgré cela, l’état-ma-
jor français à Salonique faisait preuve d’un parti pris systématique contre la
Grèce et développait une vision très anxiogène de la situation de l’armée d’Orient
dans le pays. En dépit des appels à la modération de plusieurs bons connaisseurs
de la situation locale, les opinions radicales du commandant en chef de l’armée
d’Orient finirent toujours par s’imposer. L’attitude de défiance et d’hostilité à
l’égard des populations locales fut en partie tributaire de la situation politique :
la neutralité grecque apparut pour beaucoup comme une traîtrise et suscita tout
d’abord incompréhension et déception, puis indignation.
Les tensions politiques eurent des répercussions importantes sur l’atti-
tude des hommes de troupe. Du fait de la neutralité grecque, la population ne
pouvait être considérée ni comme amie ni comme ennemie, les soldats s’en mé-
fièrent et développèrent un sentiment d’insécurité assez prégnant. « On ne can-
tonne pas dans les villages car l’on se méfie de la population qui nous est plutôt
hostile car elle n’est composée que de Turcs », écrivit Edouard Divry à l’un de ses
correspondants.44 Albert Masson, quant à lui, se souvient qu’au nord du pays
les hommes se méfiaient des comitadjis bulgares, « et surtout des Grecs, surtout
des Grecs ».45 Par ailleurs, la déficience du ravitaillement des troupes dispersées
sur le front macédonien rendait la question des vivres à la fois fondamentale et
lancinante pour les soldats.46 Elle les incita à considérer le territoire macédonien
comme un territoire ennemi pour pouvoir se servir sur place, volant les denrées
qui leur faisaient défaut. Brochard relata, son journal, que ses soldats avaient volé
un poulet pour le manger, ainsi que le chaume d’une ferme habitée pour faire
de la paille de couchage. Pour tenter de justifier ce comportement, il concluait
44 Divry, correspondance inédite, Lettre du 15 novembre 1915.

45 Jean-Noël Grandhomme, Ultimes sentinelles : Paroles des derniers survivants de la grande
guerre (Strasbourg : La Nuée bleue, 2006), 84. Les comitadjis sont des insurgés terroristes
partisans du rattachement de la Macédoine à la Bulgarie. Pendant la guerre, ils s’en prirent
aux troupes de l’armée d’Orient.
46 Marcel Brochard et Edouard Divry, lors de leur séjour en premières lignes, se plaignaient
continuellement de la faim dans leur correspondance : « La famine est ici beaucoup plus
à craindre que les Bulgares », écrivit Divry le 18 novembre 1915. Une grande partie de ses
lettres est d’ailleurs uniquement consacrée à ses plaintes sur la nourriture et à ses demandes
de colis.
sa lettre ainsi : « nous les laissons faire tellement ils sont malheureux. »47 De
manière plus allusive, Divry raconta que ses camarades furent contraints, par
manque de nourriture, « de tuer les chèvres qu’ils avaient capturées » et qu’ils
gardaient pour leur lait.48
Il est possible de trouver, chez certains de nos voyageurs, quelques ten-
tatives de dépasser la déception de l’arrivée et de s’intéresser au pays dans sa
réalité multiple. Ainsi l’abbé Louis Cadoux, après avoir décrié l’Ossa, le Pélion et
l’Olympe, sembla regretter son attitude très négative : « avec mon imagination
de Savoyard, j’avais eu la maladresse de comparer mes montagnes altières et mes
glaciers inaccessibles aux dimensions relativement médiocres du séjour de Ju-
piter. »49 La Revue franco-macédonienne participa aussi de cet effort : il apparaît
très clairement qu’un de ses principaux objectifs était d’expliquer aux soldats
français certaines coutumes et traditions locales, ainsi que de leur apprendre
à découvrir et respecter le fonctionnement de cette société dont ils ignoraient
tout et qu’ils n’avaient pas la curiosité de découvrir. Dès le premier numéro de
la revue on peut lire : « concluons qu’il faut voir un orientalisme beaucoup plus
moderne dans toute chose et chez tous les gens qui nous entourent, sans cher-
cher par trop à renouer la chaîne du passé. »50 Marcelle Tinayre, elle aussi, tenta
de rectifier aux yeux de son lectorat l’image négative véhiculée sur Salonique et
la population macédonienne. Elle cherchait systématiquement l’explication d’un
comportement ou d’une situation donnée. Rapportant la remarque d’un soldat
qui reprochait aux habitants de ne pas savoir cultiver leurs terres, elle rajouta
ce commentaire : « opinion simpliste qui ne tient pas compte du climat […],
de l’insécurité qui, depuis des siècles, paralyse l’effort du cultivateur, en ces mal-
heureuses contrées balkaniques. »51 Marcelle Tinayre poursuivit sa démarche
analytique en proposant à ses lecteurs d’accepter la Grèce contemporaine dans
sa réalité et dans sa complexité, sans se laisser « éblouir par les plus beaux fan-
tômes ».52 Cette attitude d’ouverture à la Grèce contemporaine reste cependant
exceptionnelle et ne se trouve que très rarement dans les souvenirs publiés par
les soldats.
47 Brochard, souvenirs inédits, janvier-février 1917.

48 Divry, correspondance inédite, Lettre du 12 avril 1916.
49 Cadoux, Et la foudre tomba, 198.
50 « Impressions d’Orientaliste », 36–37.
51 Tinayre, « Un été à Salonique : avril-septembre 1916 », 347.
52 Ibid. 340.
Conclusion
Pour la plupart des soldats de l’armée d’Orient, l’attirance vers la Grèce antique
et l’Orient mystérieux fut remplacée par un sentiment de déception, voire de
rejet, doublé d’une rancœur à l’égard des orientalistes qui, à l’instar de Pierre
Loti, furent rendus responsables de ce désenchantement. Cette expérience de
l’altérité fut pour eux bien décevante. De plus, la vision des soldats français sur
la Grèce fut largement tributaire de la situation politique internationale. La plu-
part des hommes restèrent prisonniers d’impressions subjectives et de réactions
émotionnelles, sans entamer aucune démarche étiologique pour comprendre
ce pays tellement différent de la France. Les soldats ont découvert une guerre
menée selon une configuration culturelle très différente du front occidental. En
Grèce, leurs repères étaient brouillés : comment savoir qui est grec, qui est juif,
qui est turc, qui est neutre, qui est ennemi ou allié ? C’est cette polyculturalité
qui a fourni aux soldats français leur véritable expérience de l’interculturalité.
Cette expérience ne fut pas menée selon un mode binaire, mettant en rapport un
peuple avec un autre, mais dans une relation déséquilibrée confrontant la culture
homogène française à une pluralité de cultures. Immergés dans cette région déjà
fortement interculturelle, le soldat français y perdit non seulement ses repères,
mais aussi son identité : il n’était plus qu’un élément parmi beaucoup d’autres.
Paradoxalement, alors que le soldat français se trouvait face à une Ma-
cédoine indéfinissable car polysémique, il contribua malgré lui à transmettre et
faire perdurer la mythologie de la Grèce orientale à la Loti, vision qu’il consi-
dérait pourtant comme erronée. En effet, comme l’a montré Francine Saint-Ra-
mond-Roussane,53 les cartes postales envoyées par les hommes à leur famille
véhiculaient certains clichés de type exotique : femmes en costume d’apparat, mo-
numents locaux (églises, restes archéologiques), représentations de certains quar-
tiers de Salonique. Alors que les cartes postales envoyées par les soldats du front
occidental représentaient des villes françaises ruinées, les cartes envoyées depuis
la Grèce ne reflétaient pas la guerre, mais présentaient un Orient pittoresque,
identique à celui des orientalistes français. De ce fait, elles associaient les soldats
à des voyageurs et ne rendaient pas compte des conditions réelles d’existence de
l’armée en Grèce. C’est ainsi que les familles des soldats ont eu une perception
très faussée du front d’Orient et ces soldats furent dévalorisés après la guerre,
leur front considéré comme secondaire, et leur guerre mésestimée au point d’être
parfois considérée presque comme une expédition touristique. L’ambition des té-
moignages publiés dans l’immédiat après-guerre fut de restaurer l’image des poi-
lus du front d’Orient en démontrant que le rêve oriental n’était qu’un phantasme
d’occidental et que la réalité avait été, pour eux, beaucoup plus décevante.
53 Francine Saint-Ramond Roussane, « La campagne d’Orient 1915–18, Dardanelles, Macé-
doine, d’après les témoignages de combattants, des premiers vers les Dardanelles à l’armistice
bulgare » (Thèse Lettres, Paris I, 1997), 613–615.
Bibliographie et sources
Service historique de la Défense

— Marcel Brochard, souvenirs inédits
— Edouard Divry, correspondance inédite
— Ernest Stocanne, souvenirs inédits
Arène, Julien, En Macédoine. Carnet de route d’un sergent de l’armée d’Orient. Paris : Crès, 1916.
Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane et Annette Becker. 14–18, retrouver la Guerre. Paris : Gallimard,
2000.
Basch, Sophie, Le Mirage Grec. La Grèce moderne devant l’opinion française depuis la création
d’Athènes jusqu’à la guerre civile grecque : 1846–1946. Athènes et Paris : Hatier, 1995.
Berchet, Jean-Claude, Le Voyage en Orient. Anthologie des voyageurs français dans le Levant au
XIXe siècle. Paris : Laffont, 1985.
Burnet, Étienne, La Tour Blanche. Paris : Flammarion, 1921.
Cadoux, Abbé Louis, Et la foudre tomba. Paris : Debresse et Rennes : Impr. réunies, 1959.
Deygas, Capitaine F.-J, L’armée d’Orient dans la guerre mondiale 1915–1919. Paris : Payot, 1932.
Drieu La Rochelle, Pierre, La Comédie de Charleroi. Paris : Gallimard, 1934.
Girardet, Raoul. L’idée coloniale en France de 1871 à 1962. Paris : La Table ronde, 1972.
Grandhomme, Jean-Noël, Ultimes sentinelles : Paroles des derniers survivants de la grande
guerre. Strasbourg : La Nuée bleue, 2006.
Julia, Édouard dans, L’Illustration, 17 février 1917.
Leymonnerie, Jean, Journal d’un poilu sur le front d’Orient. Paris : Pygmalion, 2003.
Libermann, H, Face aux Bulgares. La Campagne française en Macédoine serbe. Paris : Ber-
ger-Levraut, 1917.
Maridort, Dr. Pierre, En Macédoine 1915–1917. Paris : Fischbacher, 1918.
Mourelos, Yannis, L’intervention de la Grèce dans la grande guerre, 1916–1917. Athènes : E.F.A.,
1983.
Prochasson, Christophe et Anne Rasmussen, éd. Vrai et faux dans la grande guerre. Paris : La
Découverte, 2004.
Richard, G. C, « L’Amour à l’armée d’Orient ». Les Œuvres libres 133 (juillet 1932), 238–239.
Roussel, Pol, Impressions d’Orient au temps de la Grande Guerre. Paris : E. Chiron, 1925.
Saïd, Edward, L’orientalisme. L’Orient crée par l’Occident. Paris : Seuil, 1980.
Saint-Ramond Roussane, Francine, « La campagne d’Orient 1915–18, Dardanelles, Macé-
doine, d’après les témoignages de combattants, des premiers vers les Dardanelles à l’ar-
mistice bulgare ». Thèse Lettres, Paris I, 1997.
Sarrail, Général, Mon commandement en Orient. Paris : Flammarion, 1920.
Tinayre, Marcelle, « Un été à Salonique : avril-septembre 1916 ». La Revue des deux mondes,
15 janvier 1917.
Tournes, Jean de, « Lidoire et Aziyadé ». Revue franco-macédonienne 1 (Salonique 1916),
26–29.
« Impressions d’Orientaliste ». Revue franco-macédonienne 1 (1916).
« Impressions d’Orientaliste : L’âme musulmane en Macédoine ». Revue franco-macédonienne

2 (1916), 49–60.
« Les désenchantés : Impressions d’un poilu d’Orient ». La Bourguignotte 15 (1917).
« Les Deunmés ou Sabetaïstes ». Revue franco-macédonienne 1 (1916), 48–59.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849107P
UDC 355:929 Д’Епере Ф.
327(497:44)"1918/1919"
Vojislav G. Pavlović*
Institut des Études balkanique
Académie serbe des sciences et des arts
Belgrade
Franchet d’Espèrey et la politique balkanique de la France

1918–1919
Résumé : L’arrivée du général Franchet d’Espèrey à Salonique, en tant que commandant des
troupes alliées sur le front d’Orient, en juin 1918 a créé les conditions pour que les armées
alliées, menées par les divisions serbes et françaises, réussissent à percer la ligne du front
le 15 septembre et obligent la Bulgarie à signer l’armistice le 29 septembre. La victoire
alliée à Salonique fut à l’origine de la décision de l’État-Major allemand d’exiger la fin des
hostilités vu que l’écroulement du front dans les Balkans avait rendu vains tous les efforts
pour gagner la guerre. Or, le gouvernement de Georges Clemenceau se refusa d’exploiter
les fruits de la victoire au-delà de ses retombés sur les affaires balkaniques. L’armistice avec
l’Empire Ottoman et la libération de la Serbie furent ses objectifs principaux. La rentrée
de la Roumanie dans la guerre fut, en revanche, l’objectif d’une portée plus grande, car à
travers elle fut prévue de rétablir les contacts avec les forces anti-bolchéviques en Russie.
Mots-clés : Franchet d’Espèrey, les Balkans, la Serbie, front d’Orient
L ors de la réunion du cabinet allemand, le 3 octobre 1918, Paul von Hinden-

burg, chef de l’État-major allemand, exige qu’il soit mis fin aux hostilités :
« L’État-major maintient sa requête du lundi, le 29 septembre de l’année en cours
d’envoyer à l’ennemi une demande de conclusion de la paix. Comme conséquence
de l’échec du front en Macédoine qui a eu pour conséquence l’affaiblissement de
nos forces dans l’Ouest et compte tenu de l’incapacité de compenser les pertes
graves encourues ces derniers jours, notre seule conclusion est qu’il n’existe plus
la possibilité d’obliger l’ennemi, par la puissance d’armes, à conclure la paix. »1
Hindenburg, chef de l’État-major allemand et l’homme fort de l’Alle-
magne au cours des deux dernières années de la guerre, a qualifié, sans ambi-
guïté, la victoire des Alliés au front de Salonique comme décisive pour l’issue
de la Grande guerre. En contraignant la Bulgarie à demander l’armistice et à se
retirer de la guerre, les forces alliées ont remporté une victoire définitive dans
les Balkans et elles ont ouvert une brèche sur le front des Puissances centrales,
* [email protected]
1 Erich Ludendorff, My War Memoirs 1914–1918 (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1919), 729.
désormais impossible à combler.2 Dans les Balkans il n’y avait plus de divisions
austro-hongroises et allemandes pour la combler, et celles envoyées du front oc-
cidental et de l’Ukraine n’ont fait que ralentir l’avancement des Alliés. Les voies
vers Constantinople et Vienne étaient ouvertes, ce qui contraindrait d’abord la
Turquie et ensuite l’Autriche-Hongrie à demander l’armistice. Mathias Erzber-
ger, le ministre des Finances du Reich, fut appéllé à réaliser les prévisions de
Hindenburg et de signer, avec le maréchal Ferdinand Foch, le 11 novembre 1918,
l’armistice qui mit fin à la Grande guerre.
La voie qui menait à l’armistice de Rethondes commence le 29 juin 1918
sur la ligne du front de la IIe armée serbe de Voïvode Stepa Stepanović, dans les
hauteurs de Flok (à 2 300 mètres d’altitude). Le nouveau commandant en chef
des forces alliées sur le Front d’Orient, le général français Franchet d’Espèrey, ce
jour-là a fait le tour des positions de l’armée serbe. La stratégie victorieuse fut
élaborée suite à cette reconnaissance du front et aux consultations de Franchet
d’Espèrey avec l’État-major serbe. Le commandant en chef allié dans les Balkans
la décrivait ainsi dans ses notes journalières :
« Au lieu d’une opération locale ce sera une attaque décisive à laquelle
participera toute l’armée serbe renforcée de deux divisions françaises qui bri-
seront la croûte. Quand j’annonce aux Serbes que je relèverai leurs escadrons à
pied, leur détachement de Prilep : les divisions Morava et Timok, et qu’indépen-
damment de toute l’artillerie lourde française disponible, je leur donnerai deux
divisions françaises, ils sont emballés. Mišić me demande si les deux divisions
françaises seront sous leurs ordres. Sur ma réponse affirmative, le Prince se lève
et, sans mot dire, vient me serrer la main. L’accord est complet. »3
L’accord conclu rapidement entre le chef de l’État-major serbe, le général
Živojin Mišić et le Prince - régent de Serbie, Alexandre, d’une part et le général
français de l’autre, fut rendu possible grâce à l’intérêt que d’Espèray démontra
pour les Balkans dès le début de la guerre. Lors de la visite au front en France
de Raymond Poincaré, président de la République française, en octobre 1914,
Franchet d’Espèrey lui présente le plan d’une offensive décisive dans les Balkans,
avec le point de départ à Salonique.4 Quatre ans plus tard, en qualité de général
commandant en chef du front d’Orient, Franchet d’Espèrey pouvait mettre en
œuvre son plan. Il décida d’attribuer le rôle principal dans la future offensive aux
armées serbes, en dépit du terrain difficile et montagneux sur leur ligne de front,
convaincu de l’importance capitale de leur désir de libérer définitivement leur
patrie. L’État-major serbe était favorable à une grande offensive décisive capable
de mener à la libération de la Serbie après trois années d’exil.
2 Ibid. 712–721.
3 Mémoires du Maréchal Franchet d’Espèrey, Département historique de l’armée française à
Vincennes, microfilm, (Kmi 44), 30.
4 Ibid. 1–3.
V. Pavlović, Franchet d’Espèrey et la politique balkanique de la France 109
Franchet d’Espèrey avait l’esprit vif, le sens de l’action et les convictions

fermes, ce que lui permit d’imaginer une action courageuse de grande envergure
dans les Balkans. La guerre des tranchées n’était pas conforme au tempérament
et l’expérience personnelle du Franchet d’Espèrey. Depuis les débuts de sa car-
rière, chaque fois lorsque l’occasion s’y prêtait, il choisissait de servir dans les
territoires d’outre-mer et colonies françaises. L’homme de grande culture et de
curiosité intellectuelle encore plus importante, il chercha toujours les nouvelles
expériences plutôt que de bâtir sa carrière dans les garnisons en France où dans
les couloirs de l’État-major de l’armée et des ministères à Paris.
En suivant les traces de son père, militaire de carrière, Franchet d’Espèrey
s’inscrit à l’académie militaire française à Saint-Cyr, qu’il termine comme 6e de
classe, choisissant, en 1876, conformément à la tradition familiale, de servir en
qualité de sous-lieutenant au 1er régiment d’infanterie coloniale (tirailleurs afri-
cains), stationné à Alger. En 1881, Franchet d’Espèrey est admis à l’École de
guerre à Paris. Cependant, son 1er régiment d’infanterie coloniale étant dési-
gné à participer dans la campagne en Tunisie, d’Espèrey demande d’être admis
à l’École de guerre l’année suivante, en 1882, pour pouvoir participer avec son
régiment dans les combats en Tunisie, qui donnent lieu à l’établissement du pro-
tectorat français. Après la première année à l’École de guerre, d’Espèrey tente
de revenir dans son régiment pour participer à l’expédition en Asie du Sud-Est.
Cette tentative échoua et il revint à l’École de guerre où il fréquente les cours
ensemble avec Maurice Sarail, son futur prédécesseur à la position du général
allié commandant en chef au front de Salonique.5 Il arrive pourtant en Asie du
Sud-Est, en 1885, au terme des études à l’École de guerre, faisant partie des
renforts envoyés à son 1er régiment d’infanterie coloniale qui lutte au Tonkin
contre des troupes chinoises. À la fin du séjour de deux ans en Asie du Sud-Est,
d’Espèrey demande à revenir à la métropole, obtenant antérieurement une per-
mission pour voyager en Chine.6
À son retour en France, d’Espèrey est affecté au 4e bureau de l’État-ma-
jor, chargé des transports, mais après deux ans de séjour à Paris, il demanda
à revenir dans son régiment d’infanterie coloniale, avec le grade de capitaine.
Fort des bonnes évaluations par ses supérieurs, d’Espèrey continue ensuite sa
carrière d’abord au cabinet du ministre de la Guerre de Fressinet et ensuite dans
les garnisons dans l’est de France, où il se trouve, en 1899, à l’État-major du 69e
régiment d’infanterie à Nancy, avec le grade de lieutenant-colonel.7 Vif d’esprit,
d’Espèrey demanda, cette année, là, permission de visiter l’académie militaire
italienne à Modène et l’école de cadets à Trieste, ce qui lui servit de prétexte
5 Paul Azan, Franchet d’Espèrey (Paris : Flammarion, 1949), 12–17.

6 Dossier personnel de Franchet d’Espèrey, Département historique de l’armée française à
Vincennes, GR 9 YD 534.
7 Ibid.
pour visiter la côte dalmate, la Bosnie-Herzégovine, le Monténégro et l’Alba-

nie. Pendant son voyage, il s’intéresse aux questions militaires, mais aussi au
système scolaire, l’humeur des habitants, l’histoire et la géographie des régions
qu’il traversait et il visite Zagreb, Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Kotor, Cetinje et Shko-
dër.8 L’expérience acquise en voyage était l’un des avantages qui le qualifie pour
la nomination à la fonction de l’adjoint au commandant de l’académie militaire
à Saint-Cyr. Après seulement trois mois passes à l’académie, pendant lesquels
il part encore en voyage, cette fois en Allemagne, en août 1900 il fut nommé au
corps d’expédition en Chine, pendant que le soulèvement des boxeurs battait son
plein.9 Après un an de séjour en Chine, d’Espèrey ajoute à la liste de ses voyages
les États-Unis aussi, parce qu’il choisit cette voie pour revenir en France.10
Pendant la première décennie du XXe siècle, d’Espèrey se trouve dans
les garnisons à l’Est et au Nord de France. À cette époque, en 1906, il est en
mission en Espagne et au Maroc pendant la conférence d’Algésiras. En 1910, il
visite l’Autriche et la Grèce, où il rencontra, entre autres, le colonel Danglis, le
futur commandant de l’armée grecque au front de Salonique. L’année suivante il
se rend en Allemagne.11 Avec seulement 55 ans, en mars 1912, Franchet d’Es-
pèrey est nommé commandant de la 28e division alpine, stationnée à Chambéry,
avec le grade de général.12 Cependant, quelques mois plus tard, il est nommé au
poste de commandant des troupes au Maroc occidental. Le protectorat français
est établi en mars 1912 et d’Espèrey reçoit l’ordre de supprimer l’insurrection
des tribus marocaines, qui refusent de l’accepter. Sa mission au Maroc durait 18
mois et elle eut une importance particulière pour d’Espèrey. Il mena les cam-
pagnes audacieuses et déterminées luttant contre le manque d’effectifs et des
moyens. Outre la responsabilité militaire, il assume aussi celle politique, en un
mot, il acquiert des expériences précieuses qui lui seront très utiles pendant son
séjour dans les Balkans.13 Après avoir réussi à calmer l’insurrection des tribus
marocaines, de retour en France, en octobre 1913, d’Espèrey devient le comman-
dant du 1er corps d’armée, et, en septembre 1914, pendant que la Grande guerre
battait son plein, il devient le commandant de la Ve armée.14
D’Espèrey participe en qualité de commandant du 1er corps dans les ba-
tailles des frontières en août 1914 et en qualité de commandant de la Ve armée
dans la bataille de Marne, où il lui revient le mérite pour le tournant grâce au
8 Azan, Franchet d’Esperey, 35–38.

9 Dossier personnel de Franchet d’Espèrey.
11 Ibid.
lequel l’offensive allemande est repoussée. Il est nommé commandant du groupe

d’armées de l’Est, en 1916. En octobre 1917 il gagne la bataille de Malmaison.
Vers la fin de 1917, d’Espèrey apprend que du Président du Conseil, Georges
Clemenceau veut l’envoyer dans les Balkans en qualité de commandant en chef
du front de Salonique. N’étant pas prêt à reprendre le commandement à l’insu
de son ami de classe de l’École de guerre, le général Sarail, d’Espèrey soutint que
le remplacement d’un général d’orientation gauchiste, telle que Sarail, par un
royaliste et catholique de souche comme lui, aurait des sérieuses conséquences
politiques, car les radicaux et les radicaux-socialistes de l’Assemblée le considé-
reront comme une nomination politique. Après cette déclaration de d’Espèrey,
Clemenceau envoie à Salonique le général Adolphe Guillaumat.15
Le groupe d’armées nord, sous le commandement de Franchet d’Es-
pèrey, subit le revers important lors de la bataille du Chemin des Dames (27
mai – 3 juin 1918), permettant aux Allemands, tout comme en 1914, d’arriver
à la Marne. La défaite soulève la question de la responsabilité personnelle de
Franchet d’Espèrey. Lorsque le 6 juin déjà il est relevé de son commandement
et nommé le commandant en chef du front de Salonique, Franchet d’Espèrey
cette fois accepte la nomination. Il s’empresse d’expliquer à Clemenceau, qu’il ne
s’agisse pas de dégradation, comme cela pouvait sembler au premier égard, mais
de la promotion, vu l’autonomie décisionnelle dont bénéficie le commandant en
chef du front de Salonique.16 D’Espèrey arrive à Salonique avec le désir d’appor-
ter sa pleine contribution aux efforts de guerre des Alliés, sans que le comman-
dement supérieur lui fasse entrave. Son expérience d’officier de l’armée d’Afrique
et ses qualités personnelles lui donnent des raisons de croire que les Balkans
sont l’endroit où il pourra réaliser sa conception stratégique.
Franchet d’Espèrey appartenait à l’armée d’Afrique, ce qui était le syno-
nyme pour les officiers français qui avaient passé la plus grande partie de leur
carrière dans les troupes coloniales. Pour ce groupe d’officiers était caractéris-
tique l’autonomie dans la prise des décisions, l’expérience dans les situations di-
plomatiques complexes, la capacité d’agir dans un environnement international,
le penchant pour la guerre en mouvement, c’est-à-dire, toutes les qualités né-
cessaires pour pouvoir commander les troupes autant diversifiées que celles qui
étaient rassemblées au front de Salonique. Il faut souligner qu’outre les unités
serbes, grecques, italiennes, russes, britanniques et françaises, au front de Salo-
nique combattaient aussi, au sein de l’armée française et de l’armée britannique,
des unités sénégalaises, indiennes et vietnamiennes. Les nombreux voyages de
d’Espèrey témoignaient de l’étendue des domaines qui l’intéressaient, de la dis-
position de connaître les expériences d’autrui et, avant tout, de la capacité à les
interpréter et évaluer sans idées préconçues, ce qui lui permit de confier à l’armée
15 Franchet d’Espèrey, Mémoires (Novi Sad : Prometej, 2018).

16 Ibid. 35.
serbe le rôle-clé dans la rupture du front de Salonique. Son prédécesseur à Salo-

nique, Guillaumat, à la différence de d’Espèrey, était d’avis que seules les unités
françaises et britanniques avaient la qualité nécessaire pour effectuer la frappe
principale, tandis que les autres armées nationales ne pouvaient jouer que le rôle
des troupes auxiliaires. À la différence de son prédécesseur, d’Espèrey accepta sa
nouvelle position sans idées préconçues, mais aussi sans instructions précises, ne
les ayant pas obtenus ni à l’État-major ni au gouvernement, car le gouvernement
de Clemenceau et l’État-major français étaient concentrés sur les batailles en
cours sur le front occidental.
D’Espèrey arrive à Salonique le 18 juin, sans rencontrer son prédéces-
seur, le général Guillaumat, qui quitte Salonique, quelques jours auparavant. Il
ignore tout sur la nature des relations entre les armées des nationales sous son
commandement. Il n’était pas non plus conscient de l’existence des conflits terri-
toriaux existants, par exemple, entre les Italiens et les Serbes en Albanie. Privé de
tout objectif politique, il pouvait se consacrer exclusivement à son devoir princi-
pal, c’est-à-dire, l’organisation d’une offensive à grande échelle.17
Dès son arrivée à Salonique il s’empressa à connaître personnellement
l’étendue de la ligne du front ainsi que les États-majors des nations alliées pré-
sentes sur le front d’Orient. Lors de sa visite à l’État-major serbe, le 29 juin,
il rencontre le Voïvode Živojin Mišić et le Prince-Régent Alexandre. Monar-
chiste convaincu, il s’est immédiatement entendu avec le Prince-Régent.18 Il est
impressionné par la détermination et la combativité des Serbes. À la différence
de son prédécesseur, il établit des bonnes relations avec les Serbes. Le recent
remplacement du chef de l’Etat-major serbe rend cette coopération plus facile.
Le voïvode Mišić remplace le général Bojović à la tête du Commandement
suprême serbe en juin 1918. Après les grandes victoires de la seconde moitié de
1916 et la libération de Bitola, des désaccords survinrent entre le L’État-major
serbe et le commandement des forces alliées à Salonique. Les généraux français,
commandants en chef au front de Salonique, d’abord Maurice Sarail et ensuite
Adolphe Guillaumat, étaient partisans de la stratégie visant à épuiser l’ennemi
par une série d’attaques à portée et les objectifs limités. Le chef de l’État-major
serbe, le général Petar Bojović, qualifiait une telle stratégie d’erronée et parti-
culièrement dangereuse pour l’armée serbe. Les résultats réalisés ne pouvaient
pas justifier les pertes importantes d’effectifs que les armées serbes ne pouvaient
pas compenser. Ce type d’opération détériorait sérieusement le moral de son
armée. Les soldats serbes arrivaient même à croire que les Alliés ne voulaient
pas organiser une offensive générale, qui leur permettrait de revenir dans leur

18 Surle front de Salonique voir Petar Opačić, Srbija i Solunski front (Belgrade : Književne
novine, 1984); Gérard Fassy, Le Commandement français en Orient (octobre 1915 – novembre
1918) (Paris : Economica, 2003).
patrie. En revanche, ils obtinrent l’impression qu’ils mourraient pour des objec-
tifs limités sans conséquences visibles. Bojović constata une réduction alarmante
des troupes. L’armée serbe fut la seule armée alliée sans possibilité d’obtenir des
renforts, sans prendre en considération les volontaires yougoslaves. Le général
Guillaumat exigea en 1918 que l’arme serbe elargisse l’étendue du front sous son
contrôle afin de créer une réserve générale des troupes alliés. Bojović dans un
prémier temps refusa, évocant le manque des effectifs, pour ensuite se plier aux
ordres de Guillaumat à la demande explicite du gouvernement serbe.19 Les rap-
ports entre Bojović et Guillaumat devinrent tellement tendues que le ministre
français auprès du gouvernement serbe, le vicomte de Fontenay demandait à plu-
sieurs reprises le remplacement de Bojović.20 En juin, finalement, il prit la place
de Mišić à la tête de la première armée serbe.
Le voïvode Živojin Mišić, le nouveau chef de l’Etat-major serbe et l’auteur
de la victoire dans la bataille de Kolubara en 1914, fut privé de toute ambition
politique. D’où les bonnes relations entre lui et d’Espèrey. Leurs entretiens se li-
mitaient exclusivement aux questions militaires. Le ton des entretiens fut donné
par le général français, venu examiner les possibilités de l’attaque dans le secteur
serbe. Il apporta la réponse favorable à la seule demande serbe – l’organisation
d’une offensive générale. En plus, il donna à l’armée serbe le rôle le plus impor-
tant, mais aussi ingrat de percer le front ennemi dans le secteur montagneux
de Dobro Polje, dont les cimes dépassaient l’altitude de 2000 mètres. Finale-
ment, il a assuré l’aide à l’armée serbe avec deux divisions françaises et l’artillerie
lourde française presque dans sa totalité. Il confia à Mišić le commandement de
ce groupe de divisions. Mišić et le prince-régent n’attendaient qu’une telle pro-
position pour mobiliser toutes les ressources de l’armée serbe, pour une dernière
attaque qui les mènerait vers Belgrade.
Le plan d’offensive des Alliés prévoyait l’attaque dans le secteur tenu par
les Serbes, dans le domaine de Dobro Polje. La chaîne de montagnes Moglena et
Kozjak dominaient sur la vallée de Crna reka et la plaine où sont situées Kava-
darci, Gradsko et Prilep. La victoire des Serbes devait ainsi permettre au groupe
franco-serbe, prêt pour l’attaque, de descendre dans la vallée de Vardar au niveau
de Gradsko et de couper le front ennemi en deux. Le but était de séparer la XIe
armée allemande (il s’agissait, en fait, de l’armée bulgare, sous le commandement
des officiers allemands), concentrée autour de Bitolj de la Ie armée bulgare, qui
se trouvait dans la vallée de Vardar. La simplicité du plan et la confiance en soi
de l’armée serbe convainquirent d’Espèrey de la bonne perspective de sa réussite.
Non seulement d’Espèrey se décida pour l’attaque dans un secteur presque inac-
cessible, mais il prévoyait aussi une offensive générale visant à éliminer la Bulga-
19 Opačić, Srbija i Solunski front, 96, 97.

20 La lettre de Fontenay à Pichon, Salonique, le 4 juin 1918, Les Archives du Ministère fran-
çais des Affaires étrangères (par la suite, AMAE), Série Z, Yougoslavie, vol. 44, p. 4.
rie de la guerre et à permettre aux armées alliées à parvenir jusqu’aux frontières

de l’Autriche-Hongrie. Ce projet ambitieux demandait un grand nombre de
troupes, d’un côté et le soutien diplomatique de l’autre. Tous les deux éléments
manquaient au nouveau commandant des alliés.21
À son arrivée à Salonique, le général d’Espèrey dut faire face aux de-
mandes de réduction des troupes alliées. Après le début de l’offensive allemande
d’avril, l’État-major britannique demandait le retour de 12 bataillons d’infante-
rie du front de Salonique. Suite à la retraite des divisions britanniques en août
1917, il fut convenu à la conférence à Londres qu’une telle décision ne pouvait
pas être prise sans un accord avec la France. Ainsi, le Conseil supérieur de guerre
allié, réuni le 1er mai à Abbeville, décida d’envoyer une commission, composée
des généraux Gramat et Woolcombe, pour examiner, avec le général Guillaumat,
les possibilités de réduction des troupes alliées à l’Orient. À la réunion du 31
mai, les trois généraux décidèrent d’accepter le retrait des 12 bataillons britan-
niques. Leur retour à la patrie commença en juin et se termina le 8 juillet.22
À la conférence à Londres, le 28 mai, l’armée française se vit accorder
le droit de retirer une ou deux divisions du front de Salonique. Clemenceau
soutenait une telle solution et il ordonna le 22 juin à d’Espèrey d’augmenter
le nombre de soldats qui reviennent au pays à 5 000 par semaine, ajoutant que
même si certains d’entre eux souhaitaient rester dans les Balkans, cela ne de-
vrait pas leur être permis.23 Il s’agissait des soldats qui servaient plus de 18 mois
dans les Balkans. D’après la loi Mourier du 18 août 1917, en raison du climat
difficile, tous les soldats ayant passé 18 mois dans les Balkans avaient le droit de
retourner en France.
À son retour en France, Guillaumat s’opposa à l’affaiblissement de l’armée
qu’il venait de quitter. Rappelant la possibilité d’offensive en octobre, il deman-
da, le 29 juin, de limiter le nombre de soldats revenant dans le pays à 2 500 par
semaine, de sorte que la France a 200 000 personnes à l’Orient à partir du 1er
août.24 Finalement, il réussit à limiter le nombre de soldats retournés dans le
pays à 5 000 par mois. De cette manière, entre le 1er juin et le 1er octobre, l’ar-
mée française à l’Orient diminua de 232 000 à 209 000 personnes.25 C’est ainsi
qu’intervint la modification du nombre respectif des soldats Alliés sur le front
oriental. Les armées française et britannique réduisirent le nombre d’hommes
sous armes de 35 mille, tandis que l’armée grecque augmenta le nombre de sol-

22 Voir Les Armees francaises dans la Grande guerre (par la suite AFGG), t. VIII, vol. 3, 17–24.
23 Lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 22 juin 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, Annexes
vol. I, 521–522.
24 Le rapport de general Guillaumat, Paris, le 29 juin 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, Annexes
vol. 1, 592, 593.

25 Voir AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, annexes vol. 1, tableau 8, 921.
dats de 50 000. Ainsi, en dépit des changements de rapport de forces entre les
armées alliées, d’Espèrey disposait des forces nécessaires pour l’organisation de
l’offensive désormais souhaitée par l’État-major français aussi.
Les offensives allemandes se succédant en mai et juin 1918 au front
d’Ouest incitèrent l’État-major français à essayer de réduire la pression par l’or-
ganisation d’une offensive dans les Balkans. Le général Guillaumat et le maré-
chal Foch embrassèrent cette idée sans réserve. Par le télégramme du 23 juin,
Clemenceau ordonna à d’Espèrey d’entamer les préparatifs pour l’offensive, sur
la base du projet laissé par Guillaumat et les instructions arrivant de Paris, fon-
dées sur une série d’attaques se transformant, avec le temps, en une offensive
générale. Des instructions détaillées dans ce sens arrivèrent à Salonique le 2
juillet. Cependant, le 13 juillet, d’Espèrey envoya à Paris son projet d’offensive
dans le secteur serbe du front. Il se prononça comme partisan d’une offensive
décisive qui contraindrait la Bulgarie à se retirer de la guerre.26 Outre le Haut
commandement des Alliés, il avait besoin de l’accord des gouvernements Alliés.
Les Britanniques accueillent avec l’indignation le projet français de l’offensive
dans les Balkans.
Les Alliés ne sont pas revenus à la question du front de Salonique de-
puis la conférence à Abbeville. Alors était confirmée la conclusion des repré-
sentants militaires permanents au Conseil supérieur de guerre, du 23 décembre
1917, prévoyant une stratégie défensive au front de Salonique. L’utilisant comme
prétexte, le représentant militaire, général Sackville-West, demanda, le 13 juin,
d’examiner en détail la possibilité de la retraite totale des Balkans. L’État-major
suprême britannique ne cachait pas son intention de réduire sa présence sur le
front de Salonique, voire à l’abandonner complétement. Guillaumat critique fer-
mement la demande britannique, qui fut finalement rejetée par Clemenceau. Les
optiques différentes des alliés concernant le front de Salonique s’exacerbèrent
lorsque Sackville-West apprit l’existence du plan français de l’offensive dans les
Balkans,27 ce qui provoqua un débat vif entre Lloyd George et Clemenceau pen-
dant la session du Conseil supérieur de guerre allié qui eut lieu du 2 au 4 juillet
à Paris.
Le Premier ministre britannique remarqua que la décision d’entreprendre
l’offensive fut prise sans consultation avec son État-major. Il se plaignit égale-
ment de ne pas avoir été consulté lors de la nomination de général d’Espèrey,
pour accuser ensuite le gouvernement français de mener une politique autonome
dans les Balkans. Lloyd George et Arthur Balfour, secrétaire d’État britannique
s’opposèrent, en principe, à l’offensive générale dans les Balkans. Cette question
26 Voir AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, 74–77.

27 Ibid. 152–154.
fut finalement reportée tant que ses aspects militaires et diplomatiques n’avaient
pas examiné en détail.28
Pendant la réunion à Versailles le 11 juillet, quand il était débattu des
aspects diplomatiques de l’offensive dans les Balkans, lord Robert Cecil, adjoint
au secrétaire d’État britannique chargé des affaires étrangères, a dévoilé la cause
de l’opposition britannique. Il s’est exprimé en faveur des négociations, dont l’ob-
jectif serait de conclure une paix séparée avec la Bulgarie.29 Balfour fut partisan
d’une paix séparée avec la Bulgarie. Il essaya de convaincre les États-Unis de
déclarer la guerre aux Bulgares, afin de les contraindre à conclure la paix séparée
avec les Alliés. Il n’hésitait même pas à leur offrir des concessions territoriales, au
détriment de la Serbie et de la Grèce.30 Il était nécessaire que le ministre français
des Affaires étrangères, Stéphane Pichon confirme que le gouvernement français
s’était déjà engagé envers ces deux gouvernements Alliés afin que Cecil accepte
de laisser la décision sur l’offensive aux soldats. Leur devoir était de calculer la
probabilité suivant laquelle l’offensive générale contraindrait la Bulgarie à sortir
de la guerre. Ainsi, le général Guillaumat, déjà présent à Versailles, dut défendre
le projet de son successeur par une série de mémorandums et en personne de-
vant les représentants des armées alliées. Finalement, le 3 août, les représentants
militaires alliés au Conseil supérieur de guerre décidèrent d’approuver le plan
de d’Espèrey, lui laissant le soin de déterminer le moment propice pour son
lancement.31
Avec le temps, et laissant sa vanité de côté, le général Guillaumat accep-
ta et défendit le plan d’offensive de d’Espèrey sur la partie serbe du front. Il a
réussi d’abord à obtenir l’approbation de l’État-major français, sous condition
que l’offensive soit accompagnée par l’attaque des troupes françaises et britan-
niques sur la ligne Vardar-Dojran. À Paris, on croyait toujours en la supériorité
des troupes françaises et britanniques.32 Il était nécessaire ensuite d’obtenir l’ap-
probation des gouvernements britannique et italien et le gouvernement français
envoya, début septembre, Guillaumat à Londres et à Rome. Pendant la réunion
du 4 septembre à 10, Downing Street, il réussit à convaincre les Britanniques
de la justesse du plan de d’Espèrey. Son argument principal était qu’une vic-
toire potentielle rendrait possible la retraite des Balkans. Ensuite, il exposa le
28 Procès-verbal des reunions du conseil superieur de la guerre, Versailles, les 2–4 juillet
1918, AMAE, Serie Y Internationale, vol. 13, 133–145.
29 Procès-verbal de la reunion de la conference diplomatique, Versailles, le 11 juillet 1918,
AMAE, Serie Y Internationale, vol. 13, 66–82.

30 Victor H. Pothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914–1918 (Oxford : Clarendon
Press, 1971), 215–221.

31 Le rapport des représentants militaires près le Conseil supérieur de guerre, Versailles, le 3
août 1918, AMAE, Serie Y Internationale, vol. 13, 157–159.

32 Fassy, Le Commandement francais en Orient, 499–501
plan de l’offensive au gouvernement de Vittorio Orlando. Enfin, le 10 septembre,

Clemenceau informa d’Espèrey qu’il pouvait entamer les opérations lorsque ses
armées seront prêtes.33
L’offensive longuement attendue sur le front de Salonique commença le
15 septembre, par l’attaque des forces unies, serbes et françaises, sur les positions
bulgares dans le massif des montagnes de Dobro Polje. Seulement douze jours
plus tard, les émissaires bulgares apparurent devant les lignes anglaises dans
l’ouest du front des Alliés, demandant la mise à fin des hostilités. Le succès ful-
gurant des armées alliées sous commandement du général Franchet d’Espèrey a
ouvert la porte des Balkans aux Alliés. Pour cette raison, le général d’Espèrey à
Salonique et le Premier ministre Georges Clemenceau avec l’État-major général
durent alors décider de la direction des opérations suivantes dans les Balkans.
La voie vers Niš et Belgrade était ouverte, ce qui leur permettait de menacer la
double Monarchie du côté sud. Dans le même temps, l’avancement des alliés vers
Constantinople et les détroits leur permettait de compter sur la neutralisation
de la Turquie.
Après de courtes hésitations, Clemenceau choisit la troisième solution. Il
ne croyait pas que la guerre pouvait être remportée dans les Balkans. Pour lui, le
succès initial des Alliés représentait la possibilité pour le retrait des troupes fran-
çaises des Balkans, en laissant le front de Salonique aux alliés des Balkans, les
Grecs et les Serbes. Déjà lorsque l’armée serbe traversa Vardar, se rapprochant de
Štip (le 24 septembre 1918), Clemenceau craignait que l’offensive sur Sofia n’em-
pêche les troupes françaises de revenir chez eux.34 Afin d’arrêter la progression
de l’armée de Franchet d’Espèrey, il pensait envoyer en un moment envoyer de
nouveau le général Guillaumat à Salonique, en qualité de commandant en chef,
avec l’ordre d’examiner les modalités suivant lesquelles les opérations pourraient
être arrêtées afin de pouvoir faire retourner les divisions françaises et anglaises
sur le front Occidental.35 L’arrivée des parlementaires bulgares élimina la crainte
sur la faisabilité de l’offensive contre le territoire bulgare et le général d’Espèrey
obtint l’ordre de poursuivre son avancement vers Sofia, dans le cas où la Bulgarie
n’accepterait pas les conditions françaises de l’armistice.
Après la signature de l’armistice avec la Bulgarie, le 29 septembre à Sa-
lonique, la stratégie balkanique de Clemenceau obtint des contours plus précis.
Le 30 septembre, le général d’Espèrey reçut l’ordre du Ministère de la Guerre
d’interrompre tout approvisionnement de l’ennemi à travers le Danube et d’ap-
paraître, sans délai, avec son armée sur la Mer noire, plus précisément, près de
33 Ibid. 538–540.
34 Raymond Poincaré, Au Service de la France. Victoire et armistice 1918, vol. X (Paris : Plon,
1933), 357.
35 Ibid. 359.
Constanţa.36 Dans le même temps, Clemenceau l’informa qu’il enverra le géné-

ral Berthelot à Yashi pour réorganiser l’armée roumaine.37 Donc, le but fonda-
mental de la stratégie de Clemenceau était de faire revenir la Roumanie dans la
guerre.
Avant de communiquer à d’Espèrey, sa stratégie pour les Balkans, Cle-
menceau lui demanda de l’informer sur la suite des plans des armées alliées,
après la conclusion de l’armistice avec la Bulgarie.38 Les intentions de général
d’Espèrey étaient décidées immédiatement après la signature de l’armistice. Il
prévoyait une grande offensive, qui visait d’abord à libérer la Serbie et ensuite
d’attaquer l’Autriche-Hongrie du côté sud. C’est ainsi qu’il ordonna, le 30 sep-
tembre à la Première armée serbe de se diriger rapidement vers Niš.39 La Deu-
xième armée serbe fut transférée dans la région de Kumanovo et de Vranje, avec
l’ordre d’avancer vers le nord-ouest.40 Les instructions obtenues de Paris, lui or-
donnant de diriger les armées sous son commandement vers le Danube et la
Roumanie, n’avaient pas changé son plan. Continuant à concentrer ses troupes
pour l’offensive contre l’Autriche-Hongrie, il répondit au Ministère que l’état
actuel des chemins de fer bulgares ne permettait pas l’envoi des troupes sur le
Danube.41 Sa marge de manœuvre fut augmentée par des ordres parfois contra-
dictoires venant de Paris. Par exemple, à une occasion, le Ministère de la Guerre
le dirigeait vers la Turquie.42
En essayant d’harmoniser les instructions et les ordres qu’il obtenait de
Paris avec son projet d’offensive contre l’Autriche-Hongrie, Franchet d’Espèrey
conçut le 5 octobre le plan de l’offensive générale dans les Balkans sur quatre
fronts – vers l’Autriche-Hongrie, la Turquie, la Roumanie et l’Albanie. La dis-
position des troupes témoignait de l’importance primordiale qu’il accordait à
l’offensive contre l’Autriche-Hongrie. Les armées serbes (six divisions), l’armée
d’Orient française (quatre divisions françaises, une Italienne et trois grecques)
ainsi que l’armée britannique (trois divisions) étaient prévues pour le front du
Nord, avec le but de libérer la Serbie et de menacer l’Autriche-Hongrie. Les
forces prévues pour les autres fronts étaient considérablement inférieures. Seu-
lement une division française fut envoyée au front roumain pour couper la com-
36 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 30 septembre 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3,

annexes 2, no. 1244, p. 1000.
37 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 30 septembre 1918, ibid. no. 1245, p. 1000.
38 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 1er octobre 1919, ibid. no. 1246, p. 1001.
39 Franchet d’Espèrey, L’ordre aux armées, Salonique, le 30 septembre 1918, ibid. no. 1254, p.
1010.
40 Franchet d’Espèrey, L’ordre aux armées, Salonique, le 1er octobre 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol.
3, annexes 3, no. 1275, p. 7.

41 Voir AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, p. 362.
42 Ibid. 369.
munication entre les Puissances centrales et la Turquie. Les forces désignées

pour le front turc consistaient en une division française et une division anglaise
et leur but était de rendre possible l’entrée de la flotte alliée dans les détroits.
Enfin, l’opération contre les forces austro-hongroises en Albanie, l’aile droite des
forces alliées, fut confiée à une division française et les détachements serbes et
grecs.43
Le projet d’offensive de d’Espèrey fut largement contesté à la réunion du
Conseil supérieur de guerre, qui a eu lieu les 7 et 8 octobre 1918 à Paris. Les Al-
liés reprochèrent au général d’Espèrey que son plan tenait compte exclusivement
des intérêts français. Lloyd George protesta contre la décision de d’Espèrey d’at-
tribuer le commandement des troupes alliées sur tous les quatre fronts aux gé-
néraux français. Encore plus important, il s’opposa à la stratégie de d’Espèrey, car
elle prévoyait, n’ayant pas obtenu au préalable l’accord du gouvernement britan-
nique, de transférer les divisions britanniques du front turc, où elles étaient sta-
tionnées dès le début de la campagne des Balkans, au front serbe. Il la percevait
comme l’intention des Français de rendre impossible à son armée de cueillir les
fruits de sa lutte contre la Turquie, qu’elle menait depuis trois ans en Palestine
et dans les Balkans. Lloyd George accusa même d’Espèrey que grâce à son plan
d’opérations, le gouvernement français se servait tacitement des troupes des Al-
liés pour réaliser ses objectifs politiques dans les Balkans. Pour cette raison, il
menaça de retirer les troupes britanniques qui étaient sous le commandement de
d’Espèrey. De son côté, Orlando protestait contre l’intention de d’Espèrey d’en-
voyer les troupes françaises, à la place des Italiennes, en Albanie, compromettant
ainsi les intérêts vitaux italiens dans les Balkans.44
Clemenceau fut appelé à défendre les intérêts français et le plan de d’Es-
pèrey, mais comme il les voyait différemment, il lui était d’autant plus facile de
renoncer au plan de l’offensive. Afin de préserver l’unité des Alliés, il accepta
d’ordonner à d’Espèrey de laisser les forces alliées dans la partie de front où elles
se trouvaient depuis le début de la guerre.45 C’est ainsi que les Britanniques pré-
servaient leur primauté sur la partie du front vers la Turquie et les Italiens en Al-
banie.46 Les positions des gouvernements allies, exposées au Conseil supérieur
de guerre permettaient de conclure, sans aucune ambigüité, que la seule voie
ouverte pour les troupes françaises menait vers le Nord. Cette conclusion straté-
gique fit objet des interprétations différentes au sein du gouvernement français.
43 L’ordre aux armées, Salonique, le 5 octobre 1918; la lettre de Franchet d’Espèrey à Clémen-
ceau, Salonique, le 6 octobre 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, annexes 1347, 1351.
44 Procès verbal de la réunion du Conseil Supérieur de la Guerre, Paris, le 7 octobre 1918,
AMAE, Serie Y, vol. 14, 85–90.

45 Ibid.
46 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 7 octobre 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, an-
nexes 3, doc. 1381, 126.
Stéphane Pichon était convaincu qu’il a été créé une opportunité pour l’attaque
sur l’Autriche-Hongrie et, à travers elle, sur l’Allemagne aussi. Selon lui, l’arrivée
des armées alliées sur le Danube, créeraient les conditions pour le rétablissement
du front roumain ou l’incitation des troubles intérieurs en Hongrie, et pour ai-
der ainsi le front italien, en forçant l’Autriche-Hongrie à retirer les divisions du
front pour établir l’ordre à l’intérieur du pays.47
D’après Clemenceau, la possibilité de rétablissement du front roumain
constituait l’avantage principal de la victoire des Alliés. Le jour même de la ré-
union du Conseil supérieur de guerre, il établit enfin la stratégie des opérations
alliées dans les Balkans et le projet de l’expédition en Roumanie. Clemenceau
ordonna au général d’Espèrey de poursuivre d’abord avec la libération de la Ser-
bie, d’établir ensuite le contact avec la Roumanie et la Russie du sud, mettant en
place progressivement une ligne défensive depuis l’Albanie jusqu’au Danube et
la Mer noire, en créant une barrière à l’expansion allemande. Il ordonna d’isoler
la Turquie sur la terre et la mer et il envisagea la possibilité d’une opération
militaire contre elle dans le cas où l’armistice ne serait pas rapidement signé.
Clemenceau confia alors au général Berthelot le commandement de l’expédi-
tion en Roumanie, avec le devoir d’introduire la Roumanie dans la guerre et
de réorganiser l’armée roumaine, et ensuite de prendre contact avec les forces
anti-bolcheviks en Russie et d’examiner les possibilités d’une coopération.48 À
son arrivée à Salonique, le 13 octobre, Berthelot informa d’Espèrey de la nou-
velle stratégie française dans les Balkans. D’Espèrey ne reçut pas jusqu’alors des
nouveaux ordres, sauf de céder le front turc aux Britanniques, le front albanais
aux Italiens et de continuer à préparer l’offensive en Serbie, cette fois seulement
avec les troupes serbes, français et une division britannique.49 Son activité en
qualité de commandant allié dans les Balkans fut désormais sujette au contrôle
strict, parce que son esprit vif et sa capacité de concevoir les projets d’offensive
de manière autonome étaient contraires aux stratégies strictement nationale-
ment orientées des gouvernements des Alliés. Dans le futur, il avait l’obligation
d’informer régulièrement Paris de la mise en place des troupes alliées et de leur
mouvement.50 Ce n’est qu’après l’arrivée du général Berthelot à Salonique que le
projet de l’offensive de l’armée alliée fut transformé conformément aux idées de
Clemenceau. D’Espèrey informa Clemenceau qu’il avait renoncé à l’intention
d’attaquer l’Autriche-Hongrie et soulever sa population. En respectant les ins-
tructions qu’il a obtenues, il précisa que les forces alliées en Serbie se limitaient
47 La note de Stéphane Pichon, Paris, le 8 octobre 1918, AMAE, Serie Y, vol. 14, 4.
48 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Plan des operations militaires dans les Balkans, Paris,
le 7 octobre 1918, AFGG, t. VIII, vol. 3, annexe 3, 1378, 120–124.

49 Franchet d’Espèrey, L’ordre aux armées, Salonique, le 10 octobre 1918, ibid. no. 1429,
168–170.
50 La lettre de Clémenceau à d’Espèrey, Paris, le 8 octobre 1918, ibid. no. 1393, 137
désormais à sa libération et à la constitution du front de défense sur la Save et

le Danube. Dans le même temps, il mit à disposition au général Berthelot trois
divisions pour les opérations en Roumanie.51
Clemenceau était convaincu que le front d’Orient ne mènera pas à une
victoire générale dans la guerre et c’est pour cette raison, qu’il lui accordait l’im-
portance secondaire. Selon lui, la défaite de la Bulgarie a ouvert les portes de
Bucarest et de la Russie, tandis que la voie vers Berlin commençait en France
et non pas à Salonique. La stratégie de Clemenceau et la conception étroite des
intérêts nationaux des gouvernements alliés ont rendu impossible à d’Espèrey de
mettre en œuvre son plan d’offensive globale dans les Balkans.
Le gouvernement de Clemenceau non seulement n’avait pas de politique
définie pour les Balkans, mais ne considérait pas, en fait, que les Balkans revê-
taient quelque importance que ce soit pour l’issue de la Grande guerre. Pour
cette raison, non seulement qu’aucune importance ne fut accordée à la victoire
sur le front Salonique, mais la presse de Paris et les rumeurs dans les couloirs des
ministères attribuaient les mérites pour la victoire aux autres généraux, et, en un
moment, d’Espèrey risquait même d’être remplacé. À son retour de Salonique,
le général Guillaumat fut nommé gouverneur militaire de Paris, après la défaite
dans la bataille de Chemin des dames, lorsqu’on pensait que Paris était menacée
comme, en 1914. C’est pour cette raison que Clemenceau le fit venir des Balkans.
Cependant, ce danger s’étant estompé rapidement, sa position perdit l’impor-
tance, parce qu’elle se situait dans l’arrière-plan du front.
La victoire dans les Balkans donna à Guillaumat une occasion pour re-
venir dans le focus de l’attention, et il s’y employa à le faire en tant que censeur
suprême de la presse dans la capitale. En présentant cette victoire comme la
conséquence du travail et du plan qu’il a laissés derrière lui à Salonique, Guillau-
mat préparait le terrain pour son retour dans les Balkans. Il profitait du désir du
Premier ministre d’éviter que la rupture du front de Salonique ne soit le début
d’une longue offensive qui bloquerait les troupes françaises dans les Balkans. Se-
lon Clemenceau, il fallait les faire revenir, une fois le travail exécuté, sur le front
d’Occident, où se jouait le sort de la guerre. Dans cette perspective, le devoir de
Guillaumat consistait à limiter justement ces opérations et à rendre possible le
retour des troupes, tout en cédant les Balkans aux armées balkaniques. L’armis-
tice avec la Bulgarie rendit inutile la mission de Guillaumat, mais ne proclama
pourtant pas d’Espèrey vainqueur dans les Balkans, sans même parler de l’issue
de la Grande guerre.
La décision de Clemenceau réduisit les Balkans au champ de bataille
d’ordre secondaire, sur lequel la France n’avait pas d’intérêts particuliers et, par la
suite, de politique définie non plus. L’attention du gouvernement et de l’opinion
51 Lalettre de Franchet d’Espèrey à Clémenceau, Salonique, le 18 octobre 1918, ibid. no.

1541, 285–287.
publique britannique était concentrée sur Constantinople et les détroits, tandis

que le gouvernement italien dirigeait son énergie vers l’Albanie. D’Espèrey, en
tant que commandant des armées alliées, n’avait ni les instructions ni les moyens
pour mener une politique particulière et les défis ne manquaient pas.
Il fut appelé à représenter l’autorité alliée dans les parties orientales de
la défunte Double Monarchie après la conclusion de l’armistice de Villa Giusti
le 4 novembre 1918. Les termes de l’armistice ont été définis lors du Conseil
supérieur de guerre tenu à Versailles du 29 octobre à 4 novembre 1918. Or,
l’application des termes de l’armistice vu la disparition de l’administration de
l’Autriche-Hongrie posa des énormes problèmes. Par exemple, on attendait de
lui qu’il applique en Hongrie les conditions de l’armistice conclu avec les repré-
sentants de l’Autriche-Hongrie. En conséquence, un armistice fut signé sous son
égide avec le nouveau gouvernement hongrois de Michail Karolly, ce qui provo-
qua le mécontentement du Quai d’Orsay. Selon Stéphane Pichon le gouverne-
ment de Karolly n’avait aucune légitimité pour signer un armistice particulier,
et qu’il fallait simplement appliquer l’armistice de Villa Giusti. Or, d’Espèrey ne
reçoit aucune instruction dans ce sens.52
D’Espèrey ne reçut pas d’instructions sur ce qu’il devait faire au sujet des
ambitions territoriales des états voisins de l’Autriche-Hongrie qui grandissaient
au fur et aux mesures que l’état austro-hongrois disparaît. Ainsi, il fut appelé
à régler le conflit potentiel entre la Serbie et la Roumaine dans le Banat, sans
rien savoir des dispositions territoriales du traité conclu par la Roumanie avec
les alliés avant l’entrée en guerre de cette dernière en 1916. Il fut témoin de la
politique italienne agressive sur la côte Est de l’Adriatique et du conflit survenu
à ce propos avec le gouvernement serbe et les autorités locales, sans, pour autant,
connaître, les dispositions du traité de Londres.
Son devoir se limitait à assurer l’approvisionnement des Balkans et l’ordre
intérieur. Il fut chargé de prendre soin des communications et des prisonniers de
guerre, de maintenir la discipline dans les unités qui avaient hâte de revenir à la
métropole après plusieurs années passées dans les Balkans. Il fut obligé de jouer
le rôle d’arbitre entre les intérêts particuliers des armées nationales qui relevaient
de son commandement et qui revenaient, l’un après l’autre, sous le commande-
ment direct de leurs gouvernements. Une fois sous commandement nationales
les alliés d’hier devenaient les ennemis potentiels dans la lutte pour le partage
de l’héritage des Habsbourg. La visite de d’Espèray à Paris en 1919 ne changea
pas sa position. Ce fut une série de visites de protocole, tandis que Clemenceau,
Poincaré et Foch n’avaient aucune instruction pour lui, parce que les Balkans ne
les intéressaient pas vraiment, ou, au moins, pas dans la mesure de s’y engager
d’une manière active.
52 Clemenceau à Franchet d'Espèrey, Paris, le 1er décembre 1918, AMAE, Série Z, Hongrie,
vol. 109.
L’accord conclu sur les hauts de Flok permit aux armées serbe et française
de mener les forces alliées dans la bataille pour la libération des Balkans, mais
ne leur accorda pas le prestige des vainqueurs de la bataille décisive de la guerre.
L’importance de la bataille de Dobro Polje ne réussit pas à dépasser le cadre du
champ de bataille des Balkans, c’est-à-dire, un champ de bataille d’importance
régionale. Le constat d’Hindenburg que la guerre fut perdue dans les Balkans
resta imperceptible à l’époque et même après la publication de ses mémoires. Ac-
corder aux Balkans le rôle décisif dans la victoire alliée signifia mettre en retrait
l’énorme effort et les millions de victimes qui ont péri sur le front français, ce qui
fut inconcevable. La Grande guerre n’éclata pas dans les Balkans et ne s’y termina
pas non plus, mais l’étincelle qui déclencha les évènements prit feu dans les Balk-
ans, de même que la victoire, qui rompit durablement l’équilibre des forces dans
la Grande guerre, eût lieu dans les Balkans.
Dans la conscience des contemporains et des générations qui les
succédèrent, le front de Salonique connut le sort des nations balkaniques qui y
combattaient. Des petites nations qui le plus souvent apparaissent sur la scène
internationale comme coupables de leurs faits, sans que les mérites ne leur
soient jamais reconnus. Leur histoire eut le même destin que le front sur lequel
leurs ancêtres combattaient, c’est-à-dire, elle resta régionale. La célébration
du centenaire de la victoire au front de Salonique fut objet des célébrations
seulement régionales. Les mérites de la victoire de Franchet d’Espèrey et de
ses alliés serbes lors de la bataille de Dobro Polje restaient même aujourd’hui
peu connus dans les Balkans victimes de la successive relecture de l’histoire
de la Grande guerre dans l’optique des histoires nationales. La Grande guerre
n’apporta pas la paix dans les Balkans, mais signifia le commencement d’une
longue période de réorganisation territoriale et nationale.
Sources
Les Archives du Ministère français des Affaires étrangères, Séries-Y Internationale, vol. 13
Les Archives du Ministère français des Affaires étrangères, Série Z, Yougoslavie, vol. 44
Dossier personnel de Franchet d’Espèrey, Département historique de l’armée française à
Vincennes, GR 9 YD
Les Armées françaises dans la Grande guerre, t. VIII, vol. 3
Bibliographie
Azan, Paul. Franchet d’Espèrey. Paris : Flammarion, 1949.

Fassy, Gérard. Le Commandement français en Orient (octobre 1915 – novembre 1918). Paris :
Economica, 2003.
Franše d’Epere, Luj. Memoari : Solunski front, Srbija, Balkan, Centralna Evropa : 1918–1919.
Novi Sad : Prometej, 2018.
Ludendorff, Erich. My War Memoirs 1914–1918. London : Hutchinson & Co, 1919.
Opačić, Petar. Srbija i Solunski front. Belgrade : Književne novine, 1984.
Poincaré, Raymond. Au Service de la France. Victoire et armistice 1918, vol. X. Paris : Plon,
1933.
Rothwell, Victor H. British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914–1918. Oxford : Clarendon
Press, 1971.
Cet article émane du projet de l’Institut des Etudes balkaniques L’histoire des ideés et insti-
tutions politiques dans les Balkans aux 19e et 20e siècles (no. 177011) financé par le Ministère
de l’Education, Science and Développement Technologique de la République de la Serbie.
UDC 327(495:410)"1915/1920"
32:929 Венизелос Е.
32.019.5(410)"1915/1920"
Slobodan G. Markovich* Original scholarly work
School of Political Sciences
University of Belgrade
EleftheriosVenizelos, British Public Opinion

and the Climax of Anglo-Hellenism
(1915–1920)
Abstract: The paper analyses the construction of a more than favourable image of Eleftheri-
osVenizelos in Britain in 1915–1920. Although Venizelos was highly praised and popular
in Britain since at least 1913, his effort to bring Greece to the side of the Entente in 1915
made him exceptionally popular in Paris and particularly in London. Traditions of Brit-
ish philhellenism have been analysed, particularly the influence of two associations: the
Hellenic Society founded in 1879 and, especially, the Anglo-Hellenic League established
in 1913. The latter helped boost Venizelos’s image in Britain, but it also paved the way for
Anglo-Hellenism, the belief of some influential Britons that the fate of modern Greece
is inseparably linked with Britain. The Times leaders/editorials and key articles on Veni-
zelos in 1915–1920 have been analysed to demonstrate the level of support and admiration
that Venizelos gradually attained. The role of Ronald Burrows and the group of experts
around The New Europe is particularly analysed in terms of how the image of Venizelos
and Venzelist Greece was constructed. The degree of admiration for Venizelos in Britain
has been dealt with through a number of periodicals and newspapers published in Britain
during the Great War and through Venizelos’s biographies published in Britain with an
aim to show how he became a widely respected super-celebrity. The views of leading Brit-
ish statesmen and opinion makers also indicate a quite high degree of identification with
both Venizelos and Greek war aims in Britain in 1915–1920. The climax and the collapse
of Anglo-Hellenism in 1919–20 are analysed at the end of the paper. When Venizelos lost
the elections of November 1920, Anglo-Hellenism disappeared as a relevant factor in Brit-
ish politics, journalism and diplomacy.
Keywords: Eleftherios Venizelos, Ronald Burrows, Anglo-Hellenism, Anglo-Hellenic
League, The Times
D uring the Great War the Kingdom of Greece was one of the small coun-
tries for which the British public showed great enthusiasm, especially in
the period of 1915–1920. This kind of sympathies did not characterise the pre-
ceding period in which philhellenes were many but unable to dominantly shape
British public opinion.
* [email protected]
What was Greece’s image in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth

century? There were many influential philhellenes in Britain on the eve of the
First World War, gathered particularly around the Hellenic Society, but there
was also an opposite trend, especially observable in the works of David George
Hogarth. Arnold Toynbee came to believe, in 1912, in “the soundness of racial
prejudice” and began to “religiously preach mishellenism” to any philhellene he
came across, although his real aversion to modern Hellenism arose only in 1920.1
Modern British philhellenism was at its peak in 1915–1920. What was
peculiar about this phenomenon was that it did not come as a result of affection
for a modern Greek writer or an artist, but for a politician. The politician was
EleftheriosVenizelos. His political rise was meteoric. In August 1910, he entered
the Hellenic Parliament, in October, he was prime minister of Greece. He im-
mediately enforced new elections and in December 1910 won a landslide victory
having secured 307 out of 362 seats in the Hellenic Parliament, as head of a new
party – the Liberal Party.2 From then on, he remained an unavoidable factor in
Greek politics. He headed Hellenic governments six times (Oct. 1910 – Mar.
1915; 23 Aug. – 5 Oct. 1915; June – 20 Nov. 1917; 24 Jan. – 19 Feb. 1924; July
1928 – May 1932; and Jan. – Mar. 1933).
Although he demonstrated no bellicose inclinations whatsoever on the
eve of the Balkan Wars, once the Great War proved to be a world conflict Veni-
zelos looked for a chance to bring the Hellenic Kingdom into the war on the
side of the Entente. This, naturally, made him popular in London and Paris. He
had already been noticed and highly praised for his integrity during the London
Conference of 1913. When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in
November 1914, the Entente was compelled to strike back by launching, in Feb-
ruary 1915, the Dardanelles Expedition. This encouraged Venizelos to attempt
to bring Greece into the war. The opposition he met from King Constantine
resulted in his resignation on 6 March 1915.3
In June 1915, however, Venizelos won the parliamentary election, taking
184 out of 317 seats, and was back in power before the end of August. How
good his reputation was in Britain at that time may be seen from the cartoon
“The Return of Ulysses” published in the Punch of 23 June 1915 in which he was
depicted as a new Odysseus. Upon Bulgaria’s entry into the war, Venizelos de-
1 Cited in Richard Clogg, “The British School at Athens and the Modern History of
Greece”, Journal of Modern Hellenism 10 (1993), 95.
2 Helen Gardikas Katsiadakis, “Venizelos’s Advent in Greek Politics, 1909-1912”, in P.
Kitromilides, ed., EleftheriosVenizelos: the Trials of Statesmanship (Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press, 2006), 99–100.
3 See Richard Clogg, A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002), 85; N. Petsalis Diomidis, Greece at the Paris Peace Conference (1919) (Thes-
saloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1978), 34.
S. G. Markovich, EleftheriosVenizelos and British Public Opinion 127
cided that the 1913 Military Agreement with Serbia became enforceable. King
Constantine, however, considered that Greece was under no obligation to Serbia
since a world war was in progress, and the Agreement of 1913 could not have
envisaged such a course of events. Faced with the resistance not only of the King
but also of the General Staff, by early October Venizelos had decided to resign
again, which caused dissatisfaction in the Entente camp.
The most important consequence of the dispute between Venizelos and
King Constantine was that the Allies accepted his suggestion to send in troops,
and their disembarkation near Salonika began on 3 October 1915. That was the
basis for the subsequent Salonika or Macedonian Front.
Venizelos, British pro-Hellenic sentiments and the Anglo-Hellenic League

Pro-Hellenic societies had substantial pre-WW1 traditions in Britain. On 16
June 1879, the Hellenic Society was formed at Freemason’s Tavern in London.
It had 112 original members and additional fifty who joined at the found-
ing meeting. Although it was a society interested in Hellenic antiquities, it
also promoted modern Greece. Among the Society’s five aims number 2 and
3 were: “(2) To be a medium for the publication of Memoirs on all things
Greek, both ancient and modern. (3) To promote the study of the ancient and
modern Greek language and literature.”4 The first governing body of the So-
ciety elected in January 1880 included the Bishop of Durham as its president,
the Earl of Morley, J. Gennadios and the Master of Trinity College among its
vice-presidents. Among its Council’s members were a bishop, several clergy-
men and Oxbridge professors, four MPs, including A. J. Balfour, and Oscar
Wilde.5 Among forty-three officers of the Society only one was ethnic Greek:
J. Gennadios. The Society supported very much the establishment of the Brit-
ish School at Athens in 1886, and later.
At least since the time of Byron there was a line in British public opinion
that connected ancient with modern Hellenes, and the same was the case in
other European countries. During the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s
Western publics sympathised with the Greek rebels, and they were joined by
1,100 foreign volunteers. Among them more than a hundred were Brits, and at
least twenty-one of them lost their lives.6 Arnold Toynbee aptly summarised the
connection of modern Western civilisation with ancient Hellas:
4 George A. MacMillan, “An Outline of the History of the Hellenic Society”, Part 1, Journal
of Hellenic Studies 49/2 (1929), ii.
5 Ibid. iv.
6 William St. Clair, That Greece Might Still Be Free. The Philhellenes in the War of Inde
pendence (London: OUP, 1972), 355–356.
That portion of contemporary humanity which inhabits Western Europe and

America constitutes a specific society, for which the most convenient name is
‘Western Civilization’, and this society has a relationship with Ancient Greek
society which other contemporary societies – for instance, those of Islam, India,
and China – have not. It is its child.7
This kind of perception was certainly not restricted to Britain. Cultural
elites in other centres of Western civilisation (Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Paris
or Washington) felt the same way since the age of Classicism. What gave ad-
ditional flavour to British identification with Hellas was the Oxbridge system
of education with very developed classical studies and very wide knowledge of
Homer, Thucydides and Plutarch among its students. To identify with modern
Hellenism was therefore not theoretically too difficult. What prevented this to
happen between the 1830s and 1880 was Britain’s Turkophile policy. Once it
was abandoned, after Gladstone’s electoral victory in 1880, there was more un-
derstanding in Britain for Greece and other Balkan Christian states and increas-
ingly less for the Ottoman Empire. The very establishment of the Hellenic So-
ciety came just after the Agitation, a movement in British society that identified
with the liberation of Balkan Christians and against the positions of the Disraeli
government, which had been in office in 1876–1880.
A part of the same stream was the Anglo-Hellenic League. In 1963, on the
occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Anglo-Hellenic League, Sir Steven Run-
ciman properly echoed feelings of British philhellenes: “For many centuries, even
before the days of Lord Byron, the British have felt a special sympathy and debt
to Greece, the mother of our civilization and the inspiration of our poets.”8 The
League was an important pro-Hellenic association which was to play a major role
in the pro-Hellenic and pro-Venizelist propaganda efforts during the Great War.
It was founded in 1913 in London. Its main initiator was Ronald M. Burrows
(1867–1920), principal of King’s College London in 1913–1920. In this capacity
Burrows “became powerhouse of academic propaganda in favour of national self-
determination for the peoples of Eastern Europe.”9 The League whose aim was
to defend the “just claims and honour of Greece” assisted in boosting a wave of
Hellenophilia that developed in Britain during the Great War.
To change Greece’s image one needed to personalise it. Burrows and
other British philhellenes found a hero symbolising both ancient Hellas and
modern Greece who was suitable for being presented to the British public. He
7 Arnold Toynbee, “History”, in R. W. Livingstone, ed., The Legacy of Greece (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1924), 289.
8 Sir Steven Runciman, “Foreword”, in Views of Greece by James Skene (London: Anglo-
Hellenic League, 1963), 3. In 1962 the League had about 500 members.
9 Richard Clogg, “Politics and the Academy: Arnold Toynbee and the Koraes Chair”, Mid-
dle Eastern Studies 21/4 (Oct. 1985), 3.
was EleftheriosVenizelos. His participation at the London Conference in 1913

earned him a good reputation and provided him with the opportunity to estab-
lish good connections in Britain. His personality and diplomatic abilities were
noticed both by British statesmen and by other Balkan politicians and diplo-
mats. Chedomille Miyatovich/Čedomilj Mijatović, who joined the Serbian del-
egation semiofficially, observed:
Of all the Balkan delegates, Greece’s first delegate, Mr. Venizelos, made the
best impression in diplomatic circles and in London Society. He looked a born
gentleman, of fine manners, consideration for others, dignified, yet natural and
simple.10
Some British journalists were equally impressed:
I recall that famous dinner given to the Balkan delegates in London in the
midst of the First Balkan War when all our hopes were so high and I remember
how the personality of the man [Venizelos] stood out from the commonplace
figures of his colleagues.11
How high was Burrows’s esteem for Venizelos may be seen from his poem
in 42 lines entitled “Song of the Hellenes to Veniselos the Cretan”, published in
Manchester University Magazine in January 1913. The song was prompted by the
First Balkan War, the liberation of Aegean Greek islands and the entry of Greek
army into Salonika:
Veniselos, Veniselos,
Do not fail us! Do not fail us!
Now is come for thee the hour,
To show forth thy master power.
Lord of all Hellenic men,
Make our country great again.12
At the end of the song Burrows likened Venizelos to Pericles:
Great in war and great in peace,
Thou art second Perikles!13
The Anglo-Hellenic League was focused primarily on British Greeks.
Ever since its inception in 1913, one of the leading things that the Anglo-Hel-
lenic League was doing was actually promoting Venizelos in Britain. Between
1913 and the end of 1918 the Anglo-Hellenic League published 37 pamphlets
10 Chedomille Mijatovich, The Memoirs of a Balkan Diplomatist (Cassel and Co., 1917),
237.
11 A G. G., “M. Venizelos and his Conflict with the King”, The Daily News and Leader, 17
Apr. 1915.
12 George Glasgow, Ronald Burrows: A Memoir (London: Nesbit & Co., 1924), 161.
13 Ibid. 162.
and in most of them Venizelos was mentioned and celebrated and four of them
were exclusively dedicated to Venizelos.14
The Anglo-Hellenic League defined its five aims in Article 3 of its rules:
1) To defend just claims and honour of Greece.
2) To remove existing prejudices and prevent future misunderstanding
between the British and Hellenic races, as well as between the Hellenic
and other races of South Eastern Europe.
3) To spread information concerning Greece and stimulate rest in Hel-
lenic matters.
4) To improve the social, educational, commercial and political relations
of the two countries.
4) To promote travel in Greece and secure improved facilities for it.15
Burrows offered the shortest possible definition of the League’s goals, call-
ing it “a fighting society of keen friends of Greece” in a letter written in April 1919.16
A list of officers of the League from 1915 indicates that the patron of the
League was Prince Nicholas of Greece, its chairman William Pember Reeves,
director of the London School of Economics, and among members of the Ex-
ecutive Committee were, in addition to Reeves, Dr. Ronald Burrows, Principal
of King’s College, and Prof. Gilbert Murray of the University of Oxford. In the
very process of the League’s establishment main initiators were also two Anglo-
Hellenes, D. J. Cassavetti and A. C. Ionides. The League had a special branch in
Athens, established in December 1914,17 and a Ladies Committee. The list of
the League’s members published in 1915 takes up sixteen and a half pages con-
taining 613 names, including 36 life members who paid subscription for this dis-
tinction in the amount of 10 pounds.18 The next list published for 1916 covers
577 members, including Arnold Toynbee.19 By the end of the war the number
of members remained stable (580), with some new prominent members such as
Sir Arthur Evans.20
14 Pamphlets of the Anglo-Hellenic League: Pamphlet no. 19, “EleftheriosVenizelos and

English Public Opinion” (1915), 29 p.; no. 28, “Speech of Mr. E. Venizelos to the people
delivered in Athens on Sunday, August 27, 1915 [Greek and English]” (1916), 15 p.; no. 30,
“Venizelos and his fellow countrymen, by P. N. Ure” (1917), 14+1 p.; and no. 35, “England’s
Welcome to Venizelos” (1917), 20 p.
15 Rules of the Anglo-Hellenic League, 3.
16 Quoted in Richard Clogg, “The ‘Ingenious Enthusiasm’ of Dr. Burrows and the ‘Unsati-
ated Hatred’ of Professor Toynbee’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook IX (1993), 79.
17 Statutes of the Anglo-Hellenic League. Athens Branch, 1914.
18 The Anglo-Hellenic League. List of Members, 1915, 1–17. Rules of the Anglo-Hellenic
League (s. l., s. a.), 7 p.

19 The Anglo-Hellenic League. List of Members, 1916, 1–16.
20 The Anglo-Hellenic League. List of Members, 1919, 1–18.
The League’s members were mostly British Greeks. Among 36 life mem-
bers in 1915 one finds the most prominent Greek families in the Isles including:
Calvocoressi, Embricos, Eumorfopoulos, Ionides, Pallis and Ralli. Greeks from
Greece accounted for only about two per cent of the membership. The fact that
the League was very much an organisation of Greek diaspora in Britain was
not something that boosted its influence. It, however, strengthened the claims
that Greeks overwhelmingly supported Venizelos. If the most influential British
Greeks supported overwhelmingly Venizelos, then the claim of Burrows and
The Times that most of Greeks in Greece did the same persistently during the
Great War seemed very plausible. The League served to support the rising star
of Venizelos. But his star was not created by the League. It emerged as a senti-
mental response based on long traditions of classical scholarship in Britain, but
also from the need to personalise the allies.
Unavoidable British comparisons between the modern Greeks and the
Hellenes did not always produce very favourable results for the former. Ancient
Roman satirical writers produced a comic version of Greeks, the so-called grae-
culi (little Greeks), an image that was still in the air on the eve of the Great
War and occasionally (mis)used by comparing the modern with the ancient
Hellenes.21 Venizelos, however, could easily be imagined as a modern copy of
Odysseus, and had a typically Hellenic beard known to British admirers of an-
tiquity from the busts of the Antonine era. His manners and education were
within the best standards of Victorian England and he himself displayed An-
glophile sentiments. Taken together his physical appearance, his way of conduct
and manners, and his openly displayed Anglophilia, made an excellent combina-
tion for the creation of his public image in Britain. Through the activities of the
Anglo-Hellenic League as a kind of his PR agency, his positive image was easily
strengthened and disseminated in the British press.22
The membership of the League was mostly Greek, but its British mem-
bers were quite influential and it was them that launched something that could
be termed Anglo-Hellenism: the belief that the fate of modern Greece was in-
separably tied to England and that England had a mission to support the revival
of modern Hellenism. During the Great War, when the activities of the League
and of The New Europe magazine overlapped, Anglo-Hellenism influenced this
21 See e.g. D. G. Hogarth, “The Eastern Mind“, The Monthly Review 15 (Apr. 1904), 113–
128. David G. Hogarth, A Wandering Scholar in the Levant (London: John Murray, 1896).
In the latter text (p. 191) Hogarth compares the Greek Cypriots with the ancient Hellenes
and finds them to be similar to graeculi who passed down “the road of racial decay these two
thousand years.”
22 Slobodan G. Markovich, “Anglophiles in Balkan Christian States (1862–1920)”, Balcanica
XL (2009), 127.
weekly as well. This meant that several relevant opinion and even decision mak-
ers got imbued with the spirit of Anglo-Hellenism.
The Times on Venizelos

The leading British quality daily played a very important role in the establish-
ment of an excellent image of Venizelos in Britain. The Cretan had been known
to the readers of The Times at least since 1901, when the newspaper began re-
porting on his Cretan activities. The Times Digital Archive records that by the
end of June 1914 the London daily had mentioned him in at least 406 articles.23
Between July 1914 and the end of 1918 Venizelos was mentioned in additional
633 different articles in The Times. In terms of quality rather than quantity, he
was mentioned twenty-nine times in leaders and editorials, all of which depicted
him in superlatives in the period between March 1915, when he was mentioned
for the first time in a leader during the Great War, and the end of the war, and in
some twenty letters mostly written by members of the Anglo-Hellenic League,
particularly by Burrows and Sir Arthur Evans.
As early as 1901 The Times mentioned Venizelos as “a man of remark-
able ability”.24 When in December 1910 he won elections for the Revisionary
Chamber, J. D. Bourchier, correspondent of The Times, called him “master of the
situation in Greece”, and noticed that he was welcomed “as the saviour, the regen-
erator of Greece, and has even been compared with the long expected Messiah”,
concluding that a “gigantic task” was laid “before the Cretan Hercules”.25
23 Using four different spellings: usually Venezelos, less frequently Venizelos, three times
as Venezelo, and only once as Veniselos. The numbers of articles mentioning Venizelos in
The Times in the chart contain all four spellings. This number is not the same as the actual
number of articles, which is higher. This is due to the system of optic character recognition
which is still not fully efficient for articles from the nineteenth century and the first decades
of the twentieth century. The same goes for the British Newspapers Archives.
24 “Crete”, The Times, 5 Apr. 1901, p. 3 e.
25 “M. Venezelos” (From Our Correspondent in the Balkan Peninsula)”, The Times, 13 Dec.
1910, 5.
However, special interest in Venizelos developed, as the chart above sug-

gests, only in the winter of 1915, with the Dardanelles Expedition. Venizelos’s
readiness to enter the war on the side of the Entente made him very popular
in Britain. When he failed to do that, he resigned, and The Times was disap-
pointed at the downfall of “the great Minister who saved the country and the
Monarchy five years ago”, but concluded: “all the news available tends to show
that Mr. Venezelos will be supported by the whole force of national opinion.”26
The question that then appeared was what his next move would be. In April, a
leader in The Times encouraged his re-activation: “The character and the history
of the only great statesman whom modern Greece has yet produced forbid us to
imagine that he can prefer his own tranquillity and ease to the public good”, and
expressed hopes that in the coming elections “the nation whom he has saved”
would “reaffirm the confidence they showed him in the great constitutional crisis
of 1910”.27 The previous analysis was confirmed by William Knight’s letter to
the editor informing the readers that the late King of the Greeks George likened
Venizelos to Pericles.28
The Greek elections held in June 1915 were followed with huge attention.
One should bear in mind that The Times had appreciation for King Constantine
and just before elections it stated in its leader: “King Constantine, it need hardly
be said, understands the duties and the position of a Constitutional Monarch
in a highly democratic State too well not to bow to the considered will of the
country.”29 When the news appeared that Venizelos won another landslide vic-
tory, satisfaction was openly displayed: “For Great Britain and her Allies the
chief cause for satisfaction lies in the knowledge that the destinies of Hellenic
people will again be controlled, in so far as any one man can control them, by
an experienced patriot of proved ability and farsightedness.”30 He was called “a
statesman with insight into the real issues of the European struggle”, as someone
who will work for Greece “and for Europe”.31
Venizelos took up the position of Prime Minister of Greece again in Au-
gust 1915. In early October a new conflict with King Constantine emerged. On
4 October, Venizelos addressed the Hellenic Parliament and said that Greece
might automatically implement the stipulations of its military alliance with
Serbia from 1913 “without any necessity for waiting a declaration of war by
26 “The Crisis in Greece”, The Times, 10 Mar. 1915, 11.

27 “M. Venezelos in Retirement”, The Times, 10 Apr. 1915, 9.
28 “M. Venezelos”, The Times, 13 Apr. 1915, 9.
29 “The Greek Elections”, The Times, 14 June 1915, 9.
30 “The Decision of Greece”, The Times, 17 June 1915, 9.
31 “M. Venezelos and his Rivals”, The Times, 22 June 1915, 9.
the Central Powers in accordance with the precedent set by Italy”.32 His pro-
Entente attitude encouraged France and Britain to begin the landing of Allied
troops at Salonika, although Venizelos made a formal protest. His resignation
on 6 October 1915 prompted the London daily to publish his character sketch
of a man “of irresistible charm in conversation”. He “wielded a personal influence
that went far to secure recognition for his high moral character and steadfast-
ness of purpose”. Yet, a man of such qualities was forced to resign, and The Times
claimed in a rather worried tone that the sequel could show if his patriotic ef-
forts would “remain solely as an isolated episode to remind future generations of
Hellenes what their country might have been”.33
In early November The Times summarised the situation in Greece where
King Constantine had “twice over baffled British diplomacy and compromised
British military schemes”, and assessed it as notorious that “in Greece, as in oth-
er Balkan kingdoms, Governments depend more on the Sovereign than on the
Parliament.”34 In December both King Constantine and Venizelos addressed
the British public. On 5 December 1915, special correspondent of The Times
had an audience with King Constantine who gave him an interview.35 Two days
after the publication of the interview Venizelos also gave an interview to the
same correspondent.36 Reaction of The Times, published at the same page with
Venizelos’s reply, indicated that the Greek king was still held in esteem in Brit-
ain, and the British daily somewhat naively put a question: “If Sovereign and
statesman can collaborate in contributing to our columns important declara-
tions upon the position and policy of their common country, is it too much to
hope that they may even now find some way to work together for the welfare
of the Hellenic cause, which we believe them, each in his separate way, to have
equally at heart?”37
It became obvious very soon that there would be no joint policy of the
Greek king and Venizelos. In April 1916, The Times mentioned “renewed activ-
ity of the Venizelists”.38 It also reported that the new organ of the Liberal Party
Kirix reached “an unprecedented circulation for Athens”.39 The surrender of
strategically important Fort Rupel to the Bulgarians on 26 May 1916 provoked
32 “Allied Troops at Salonika”, The Times, 6 Oct. 1915, 9.

33 “M. Venezelos. A Character Sketch”, The Times, 7 Oct. 1915, 11.
34 “A Deplorable Ambiguity”, The Times, 4 Nov. 1915, 9.
35 “Attitude of Greece. The King on his Policy. Special statement to The Times”, The Times,
7 Dec. 1915, 9.
36 “M. Venizelos. A reply to King Constantine”, The Times, 11 Dec. 1915, 9.
37 “King Constantine and M. Venizelos”, The Times, 11 Dec. 1915, 9.
38 “M. Venizelos’s Return to Public Life”, The Times, 21 Apr. 1916, 3.
39 “Late War News. A Venizelist Campaign”, The Times, 4 Apr. 1916, 7.
the blockade of Greek ports by the Entente and the Greeks were warned: “Their
friends in the West may only hope that they will weigh well the consequences of
their decision before it is too late.”40 Relations to the King cooled in June when a
“significant incident” was reported. On that occasion rioters in Athens attacked
Venizelists and their newspapers and Greek secret police attacked an employee
of the British Legation in Athens.41
In late August 1916, The Times reported on “Great Athens Protest Meet-
ing” against the Bulgarian invasion, and it offered a chance to Venizelos to address
the protesters and to repeat his pro-Entente positions and as it was reported his
appearance provoked “a tremendous outburst of cheering.”42 Several days later
correspondent of The Times for the Balkans expressed hopes that Romania’s
entry into the war on the side of the Entente lent “confidence to the party of M.
Venizelos”, and that it would “hasten the inevitable participation of that country
in the war on the side of the Entente.”43 It is characteristic of Venizelos that just
before leaving Athens with Admiral Condouriotis to lead the movement that
would secure Greece’s alliance with Britain, France and other allies, he sent a
special message to the British public through The Times. The newspaper called
the message “a supreme appeal”. It was actually a statement written by Venizelos
and given to “the well informed correspondent at Athens” who had already been
known for his pro-Venizelist stance. In the statement he wrote:
It has long been known that my policy as head of the Liberal Party aimed at the
intervention of Greece on the side of the Entente Powers against their attack-
ing enemies. I have always maintained that the interests and fortunes of Greece
were dependent upon her traditional friendship with the Entente Powers.
Then he repeated the history of his efforts to bring Greece into the war,
mentioned the betrayal of Kavala and the loss “of the greater part of Greek Mace-
donia”, and claimed that he urged the king to rescue his country and even offered
to retire. Obviously aware of the deep distrust in Britain of antimonarchical and
revolutionary movements, he insisted: “Do not think that I am heading a revolu-
tion in the ordinary sense of the word. The movement now beginning is in no
way directed against the King or the Dynasty.” He tried to assure the British
public that everything was to induce the King to “come forth as King of the Hel-
lenes” and, once he had done it, “all of us, shall be only too glad and ready at once
to follow his Flag as loyal citizens…” At the end of the statement he revealed
the real purpose of this “supreme appeal”: “I feel sure that we may count on the
40 “The Bulgarians in Greece”, The Times, 30 May 1916, 7.

41 “A Significant Incident”, The Times, 16 June 1916, 9.
42 “King Constantine’s Policy. Great Athens Protest Meeting”, The Times, 30 Aug. 1916, 6.
43 From Our Correspondent in the Balkan Peninsula, “Nearing a Climax in the Balkans”,
The Times, 5 Sep. 1916, 9.
sympathy and good will of the free English people towards us in the mission we
are setting out to accomplish.”44
The next day The Times published Reuter’s news from Canea (Chania) in
Crete about the Proclamation of the Provisional Government by Venizelos and
Condouriotis.45 Some ten days later G. Ward Price informed the readers of the
leading London daily that Venizelos arrived in Salonika, that the crowd shouted
“zito” (“long live”), and that “M. Venizelos was engulfed by his admiring fellow-
citizens directly he landed, and he was borne along in the heart of the jostling
throng”.46 On 21 November, four weeks after the first message of Venizelos, The
Times published another one in which it called the Greek statesman “leader of
the National Defence movement”. In this second statement Venizelos thanked
the Allies and expressed his “sincere gratitude to the Allied Press and peoples
who have been so ready with their keen and sympathetic support of our national
struggle”. Again he was careful not to make impression of any anti-dynastic pol-
icy. At the end of the letter he defined Greece’s national aims:
We wish to fight of our national interests side by side with our natural and tra-
ditional friends.
We wish to make good, as far as we can, the harm that we did to heroic Serbia
by the nonfulfillment of our obligations.
We wish finally to ensure in the future the right to be a free people, the masters
of our own destinies.
In a word, we are struggling for precisely those principles, for the triumph of
which over Prussian militarism the Allied Powers are waging their great war.
Venizelos’s message ended with an appeal to the great powers to grant
Greece “that material and moral support of which we are in need to enable us to
bring our struggle to a successful conclusion”.47
Britain and British opinion makers found themselves in an awkward po-
sition. Since March 1915 they had campaigned for Venizelos to be head of gov-
ernment, but of the government in Athens. Instead they got him as the head of a
government in Salonika that gathered pro-Allied Greek officers and politicians,
but who were all hostile to the official government in Athens, the only one in
Greece that Britain officially recognised. This duality could not last long.
On 1 and 2 December 1916, incidents with casualties took place in Ath-
ens when Allied troops disembarked upon the refusal of the Athens government
to accept the ultimatum of French Admiral Dartige du Fournet. Even a century
later it is not easy to know what exactly happened on the ground in central
Athens. For the purposes of this text it is not of prime importance who deceived
44 “M. Venizelos. Message to The Times. A Supreme Appeal”, The Times, 27 Sep. 1916, 9.
45 “Greek Provisional Government”, The Times, 29 Sep. 1916, 6.
46 G. Ward Price, “M. Venizelos’s Arrival at Salonika”, The Times, 11 Oct. 1916, 8.
47 “M. Venizelos”, The Times, 21 Nov. 1916, 9.
whom and who provoked the shooting around the Zappeion. What is more
important is how the events in Athens were perceived in the Entente capitals.
The events of 1 and 2 December were described as “treacherous attacks made by
King Constantine’s troops”.48 They were seen in such light by all the sections of
British public opinion, “and the last vestiges of respect” for the Greek king were
destroyed in London and Paris.49 The Times later summarised the events as they
were seen in Britain: “Dec. 1, 1916. – Allied troops landed at Athens fired on by
King Constantine’s troops; several killed. Reign of terror at Athens. Venizelists
tortured.”50
Burrows was very explicit after the events of 1 and 2 December, offering
his answer to the question, “What should we do?” He demanded, first, that the
Isthmus of Corinth be seized, second, that all of Greece north of the Pelopon-
nesus be evacuated by the Athens government, and third: “to recall Venizelos to
Athens, with or without a Regency, and to acknowledge his government fully
and absolutely as a Sovereign Power.”51
In December 1916 the friends of Hellas, in a letter to The Times, de-
manded action in favour of Venizelos, essentially the dethronement of King
Constantine. Their letter appeared ten days after the formation of the new Brit-
ish government headed by David Lloyd George. It was signed by Lord Cromer
and nine scholars, who apologised for not passing it on to be signed by other
scholars due to the urgency of the situation. Among the signatories were Ronald
Burrows, J. B. Burry, Arthur Evans and James Frazer. It starts in a sentimental
vein: “We, whose love of Greece, is founded in gratitude for all that Europe owes
to Greek literature, art, and history…” That lyrical introduction is followed by a
clear political programme defined for Greece. To them, Venizelos “represents the
views and wishes of a sound majority of the Greek people at home and abroad.
We have therefore sympathised most keenly with him, as patriot and statesman,
in his heroic endeavour to maintain the leadership, rightfully his, in face of a
Court cabal… We feel the strongest indignation and disgust at the barbarity
with which his followers have been maltreated.” Since the king and his advisors
“have sinned beyond reparation… the Protecting Powers should take the one
course which justice, honour, and prudence alike dictate, of insisting on such
changes in the political arrangements of Greece as shall once more place the
direction of affairs in the hands of M. Venizelos.”52 This was an appeal of cru-
cial importance. It was not Venizelos that demanded his own reinstatement or
48 “Another Note to King Constantine”, The Times, 2 Jan. 1917, 9.

49 Alan Palmer, The Gardeners of Salonika (London: Andre Deutsch, 1965), 106.
50 “End of Greek Crisis”, The Times, 13 June 1917, 7. For a more balanced view see Palmer,
Gardeners of Salonika, 104–107.

51 Ronald M. Burrows, “The Greek Rebuff ”, The Times, 4 Dec. 1916, 10.
52 Letter to the Editor, “M. Venizelos and Great Britain”, The Times, 16 Dec. 1916, 8 e.
Constantine’s dethronement. Very respected Brits who enjoyed the reputation

of regional experts asked for it. From that moment the removal of the Greek
king was not a less than polite suggestion in Britain, but rather something that
could be championed openly.
A de facto recognition of Venizelos’s provisional government by Lloyd
George followed only three days later, and The Times leader was quick to sup-
port the prime minister emphasising that it was “the best step that could have
been taken, and the one most closely in accordance with public feeling in this
country”.53
Prior to the recognition, Ronald Burrows acted as Venizelos’s public re-
lations officer. He persistently supplied the British press, particularly The Times,
with details from the cables he received from Venizelos and was instrumental in
creating the atmosphere in Britain that the situation in Greece was critical and
that all pro-Entente action would be ruined unless the Allies took immediate ac-
tion in Greece on behalf of Venizelos. “Two cables have just reached me from M.
Venizelos”, or “I had just had a cable from Mr. Venizelos” were typical phrases in
Burrows’s letters and in that way he created the impression in the British public
that he was the best informed person in the world on what was happening not
only with Venizelos but with the whole Venizelist movement in Greece. As his
biographer G. Glasgow noticed: “those cables were sent almost daily from the
beginning of Venizelos’s revolutionary movement in 1915 till the settlement of
the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres just before Burrows died.”54
Unsurprisingly, when Venizelos’s Provisional Greek Government was
established in Salonika, Burrows was asked to become a “semi-official repre-
sentative” of Venizelos in London, the “logical outcome of an already existing
situation”.55 He indeed was an unofficial representative of Venizelist Greece in
Britain from October 1915 until at least December 1916, when the official dip-
lomatic envoy of the Hellenic Kingdom in London, Joannes Gannadios, submit-
ted his resignation to join the Venizelist camp.56
For Burrows the de facto recognition of the Provisional Government was
only the beginning of his activities. He wanted to see Venizelos as prime min-
ister back in Athens already in his letter of 4 December 1916. In the spring of
1917 he informed the British public about the activities of the royalist govern-
ment with a clear aim to encourage Britain to depose the king. On 5 May he
53 Editorials, “The Allies and M. Venizelos”, 20 Dec. 1916, 9 b.

54 Glasgow, Ronald Burrows, 237. Burrows died in May 1920, a few months before the Trea-
ty of Sèvres was signed (10 August), but just after the San Remo conference in April 1920.
55 Clogg, “The ‘Ingenious Enthusiasm’ of Dr. Burrows”, 81; Glasgow, Ronald Burrows, 238.
56 “M. Gennadius Resigns”, The Times, 5 Dec. 1916, 8. Cf. Donald M. Nicol, Joannes Gan-
nadios – The Man. A biographical sketch (Athens: American School of Classical Studies at
Athens, 1990), 21–22.
warned: “bands of irregulars, organized and financed by the Royalist Party, ter-
rorize Thessaly, and threaten our line of communication.” Therefore, he champi-
oned “a drastic solution of the Greek question”. He insisted: “Popular feeling in
both England and France is overwhelmingly strong against the King. There is,
indeed, no one living man who has done so much to check and thwart our plans.”
He also urged that all twenty torpedo boats taken from the Athens government
be given to Venizelos.57
Finally, Constantine fell in June 1917 and left Greece for Switzerland. The
Times was happy to inform its readers in its editorial that the new king, Alex-
ander, Constantine’s son, was understood “to be free from the Potsdam concep-
tions of monarchy”. As far as the Protecting Powers (Britain, France and Russia)
were concerned, The Times was confident that: “a statesman with a large views
and the devoted patriotism of M. Venizelos will gladly work with them and with
the new king for the unity and the liberty of the Greek nation.”58 When Veni-
zelos arrived in Athens, The Times enthusiastically reported on the impression
he had made on his supporters. People of Piraeus came out into the streets to
greet their leader and “scenes of almost religious enthusiasm which M. Venizelos
always evokes were renewed”.59
Lloyd George’s Hellenophilia and England’s welcome to Venizelos

Positions of Burrows and Venizelos were strengthened when a British Helleno-
phile, David Lloyd George, took the office of prime minister on 6 December
1916. He remained in office until October 1922, throughout the period of cru-
cial events for Greece. Relations between the two statesmen had been estab-
lished during Venizelos’s first visit to Britain in December 1912, and they “served
as the basis of his [Venizelos’s] policies for the next eight years”60. It has been
assessed that Lloyd George’s “romantic radicalism had been fired by the image of
Venizelos”.61 Good relations between the Welshman and the Greek culminated
during the talks on Smyrna in 1919, when Lloyd George supported Greek and
Venizelos’s aspirations.62
57 Ronald M. Burrows, “The Situation in Greece”, The Times, 8 May 1917, 5.

58 “King Constantine’s Fall”, The Times, 14 June 1917, 7 a.
59 “M. Venizelos Acclaimed”, The Times, 25 June 1917, 6.
60 Michael Llewellyn Smith, “Venizelos’s Diplomacy, 1910–23: From Balkan Alliance to
Greek-Turkish Settlement”, in Kitromilides, ed., Eleftherios Venizelos, 148.

61 Palmer, Gardeners of Salonika, 24.
62 The two statesmen had dinner together on 19 May 1919. Frances Stevenson, Lloyd
George’s personal secretary, noted: “The two have a great admiration for each other, and
D.[avid] is trying to get Smyrna for Greeks, though he is having trouble with the Italians
One of the closest associates of Lloyd George was Sir Arthur Crosfield
(1865–1938), a liberal MP. He was married to Domini (nee Elliadi/Iliadi), her-
self “a dear personal friend of Madame Veniselos.”63 When Arthur Crosfield was
created a baronet in 1915, she became Lady Domini. She was known for enter-
taining the most prominent liberal politicians in her home.
Lloyd George held Venizelos in high esteem and he expressed it on sev-
eral occasions. On 8 August 1917, at the meeting of the Serbian Society of Great
Britain, Lloyd George greeted the prime minister of Serbia:
It is not without note that two of the greatest statesmen in Europe at the pres-
ent moment have been produced by two comparatively small nations of the
East – M. Pashitch and M. Venizelos, to whose far-seeing patriotism we owe
so much at the present moment and far more than it is possible for us even to
reveal as to the prospects of the future. His steadfastness, his courage, and his
insight have kept the soul of Greece alive under most trying conditions.64
Venizelos’s image in Britain saw a shiny moment during his visit to Lon-
don in November 1917. Two months earlier Punch had made a tribute to Veni-
zelos, portraying him and Kerensky as liberators in the style of Ex oriente lux.
To a worried Kerensky, Venizelos said with determination: “Do not despair, I
too went through sufferings, before achieving unity.”65 Venizelos was finally able
to visit Britain in his capacity as prime minister of the country that joined the
Entente powers. On 13 November 1917, he came from Paris with Lloyd George.
There was no time to organise a public welcome, but The Times wanted to as-
sure him that “the people of this country think it no small thing to have him in
their midst”, and that “in M. Venizelos they recognize a singleness of mind that
appeals to their profoundest instincts”.66 The next day The Times published the
Anglo-Hellenic League’s announcement of a public meeting to be held at Man-
sion House. It was topped by huge letters: “WELCOME TO VENIZELOS
(Prime Minister of our Ally Greece).”67
over it.” Cf. A. J. P. Taylor, ed., Lloyd George. A Diary by Frances Stevenson (New York and
London: Harper & Row, 1971), 183.
63 Frank Owen, Tempestuous Journey. Lloyd George his life and times (London: Hutch-
inson, 1954), 196. Crosfield was also very active in the Anglo-Hellenic League. “Madame
Veniselos” referred to in the quotation was Venizelos’s second wife, Helena nee Stephano-
vitch Schilizzi, whom he married in 1921. She came from a wealthy Anglo-Hellenic mer-
chant family. She had supported the establishment of the Venizelos Fund in London in the
spring of 1917: “Venizelos Fund”, The Daily Mirror, 5 Apr. 1917.
64 “The Freeing of Serbia. Mr. Lloyd George’s declaration”, The Times, 9 Aug. 1917, 4.
65 “Liberators”, Punch or the London Charivari, 5 Sep. 1917.
66 “M. Venizelos in London”, The Times, 14 Nov. 1917, 7.
67 “Welcome to Venizelos”, The Times, 15 Nov. 1917, 10.
On 16 November 1917, the public meeting in Venizelos’s hon-

our took place in the Egyptian Hall of Mansion House. It was “crowded
to the doors and hundreds of people were unable to enter”.68 The meet-
ing was organised under the auspices of the Anglo-Hellenic League.
Apart from the lord mayor, it was attended by leading British politicians
such as Arthur James Balfour (foreign minister), Lord Curzon and Winston
Churchill (minister of munitions), by Mr and Mme Gennadius, Mr and Mme
Burrows, and many other distinguished figures. At the beginning Ronald Bur-
rows read the message of the archbishop of Canterbury and then the lord mayor
yielded the floor to A. J. Balfour:
Mr. Venizelos has now been travelling through Allied countries for some time.
He has seen Rome, he has seen Paris, ha has finally come to London; and I do
not think that in any Entente capital will he find a warmer welcome than he
will find in the capital of the British Empire. [cheers.] And that is not merely
because he has shown qualities greatly admired by our race – moderation, cour-
age, love of liberty – but also because he has, from the very beginning of these
hostilities, seen with a sure and certain intuition that the cause of nationalities
and the cause of international freedom lay in the keeping of the Entente Pow-
ers. [Cheers.]69
Venizelos knew how to approach Britain’s highest classes and to win their
hearts for the Greek cause. It can be seen from an excerpt from his speech:
What, therefore, I ask of you, the people of this great country, is not to judge
the Greek nation as responsible for the personal policy of the dethroned
king, nor to consider the violation of treaty with Serbia as reflecting upon us.
[Cheers.] I can assure you that during that protracted and painful crisis, the
great majority of the Greek people never approved of that treacherous policy.
The good opinion of your great Empire is a precious asset for the Greek people.
Ever since their resuscitation to a free political existence, the Greeks have
looked for guidance to the great and splendid lessons which British political
life offers. In it we have found harmoniously blended personal liberty with that
order which ensures progress. All the public men of modern Greece, worthy of
that name, have been unanimous in their belief that the edifice which has been
reared by the genius of the British people, and which is known as the British
Empire, or the British Commonwealth, is the grandest political creation in the
life of man. [Cheers.]70
68 “London Welcome to M. Venizelos”, The Times, 17 Nov. 1917, 5.

69 AHL Pamphlet no. 35, England’s Welcome to Venizelos (London: the Anglo Hellenic
League, 1917), 3, 5–6.
70 Ibid. 15.
Opinions on Venizelos as statesman in the British public

In January 1915 Venizelos addressed two letters to King Constantine explain-
ing why Greece should join the Allies. Reactions in Britain were more than
enthusiastic. Such eulogies were written on the Greek prime minister that the
Anglo-Hellenic League felt it appropriate to issue a special publication titled
EleftheriosVelizelos and English Public Opinion. The editors of this pamphlet were
so overwhelmed by positive feelings about Venizelos in Britain that they wrote:
The appreciation shown by the English Press for Greece’s great statesman has
amounted to an outburst of admiration quite unusual in this country. It would
not be easy to recall the name of any foreign statesman to whom such a tribute
has been paid in England during his lifetime. A spontaneous and quite inde-
pendent display of respect so marked and unanimous is not to be passed over
lightly, and must afford some consolation to the friends of M. Venizelos for the
loss of his country and race caused by his withdrawal.71
Naturally, when he was forced to resign the British press wrote very posi-
tive of him but expressed some doubts about modern Hellenes. A characteristic
article was published in The Manchester Guardian: “Now the Greece of to-day
owes more to M. Venizelos than to any single man, and if she cannot recognise
her debt and her need and insist on his return to power no one from outside can
help her.”72
When the Hellenic Kingdom failed to join the Entente Powers twice,
in March and in October 1915, its image immediately deteriorated. The whole
thing with the image of Greece in Britain was not merely geostrategic but also
contained emotional overtones. As Ronald Burrows pointed out in 1916: “From
the moment the war began, there was not a doubt in either country [France
and Great Britain] that Greece was a friend, a good friend, and a brave friend…
There was no question then in the Western mind of anyone in Greece being
pro-German. Up to the beginning of 1915, there was no nation more trusted
and believed in than Greece.”73
Yet, there was one exception to this general trend. Venizelos’s efforts
throughout 1915 to bring Greece into the war on the side of the Entente strength-
ened his good reputation in Britain. The following paragraph is characteristic:
For Greece knows that in him she has touched greatness, and that through him
she has caught a vision of a nobler destiny than has been hers since the Turk
brought his blight upon the Balkans. Venizelos is for the Allies for no mean
71 AHL Pamphlet no. 19, EleftheriosVenizelos and English Public Opinion (London: The
Anglo-Hellenic League, 1915), 1.
72 “M. Venizelos”, The Manchester Guardian, 13 Apr. 1915.
73 Ronald Burrows, “Philhellenism in England and France”, Contemporary Review ( July
1916), 163.
thing. He is for them because he knows that with all their deficiencies they
stand for freedom, for the moral law in the world against the law of Krupps
and that in their triumph is the hope of liberty, of democracy and of the small
nationality all over the world.74
By the time of his parliamentary victory in 1915 Venizelos had become so
popular in Britain that journalists began a search for his noble ancestors, tracing
his origin back to the famous fifteenth-century family of Benizeloi (Venizeli).75
When he took the office of prime minister, the British press was even more
sympathetic. The periodical World reminded its readers that it had described
Venizelos as “one of the most striking personalities among European statesmen”
on the occasion of his visit to London in January 1914. In August 1915, it went
even further:
No one, however, then thought that all Europe would be watching with painful
anxiety the line of policy he might elect to pursue in the course of a great inter-
national struggle. Eighteen months ago, therefore, he was a celebrity; now he is
almost a super-celebrity.76
When he established the provisional government in October 1916,
the mood was revived, and this was very much supported again by Ron-
ald Burrows. He praised Venizelos in several articles and championed him
through his many and influential private contacts and in frequent letters to
all major London dailies, The Times in particular. Many others soon followed
suite. Burrows, of course, had paved the way, writing as early as May 1915:
The one thing that can be said with certainty is that in the eyes of Europe Veni-
zelos is the greatest asset Greece has possessed since she became a kingdom,
and that it will be many years before his successors win, as he has done, the im-
plicit confidence of the statesmen and the people of England and France.77
To Britain’s monarchist public, however, the legitimate government was
in Athens as long as there was a legitimate king in the Hellenic capital, and
they naturally tended to assume the subjects’ loyalty to their sovereign. Only
one day before Venizelos was forced to submit his second resignation to the
King, Crawfurd Price, expecting that Greece was just about to enter the war on
the side of the Entente, wrote in The Pall Mall Gazette: “There are a great many
writers in England today who owe a profound apology to King Constantine of
Greece. No personality has been more persistently maligned and misrepresent-
74 A G. G., “M. Venizelos and his Conflict with the King”.

75 A letter signed by “A Greek” as a reaction to the previous text of Guardian’s correspond-
ent, The Manchester Guardian, 21 June 1915.
76 “Celebrities at Home”, The World no. 1787, 24 Aug. 1915.
77 Ronald M. Burrows, “Venizelos and the Greek Crisis”, The Contemporary Review (May
1915), 552.
ed in this country throughout the duration of the war.”78 He repeated similar

points in mid-November.79 Crawfurd Price was one of the British journalists
who changed sides in line with official British policy. Once a champion of King
Constantine, he completed a book on Venizelos in November 1916 and called
for Allied action in support of Venizelos:
If we are sincere in our devotion to the cause of freedom, justice and righteous-
ness, then this Venizelist movement is one which ought to receive our unstained
support and full official acknowledgment. If we are determined in our intention
to crush militarism in Europe, then it is illogical to us to support any offshoot
of it in the Balkans.80
The very existence of a royal government reluctant to take any decisive
step towards Greek participation in the war produced in some sections of Brit-
ish public opinion an unfavourable image of the Greeks as a nation,81 which not
even Venizelos’s arrival in Athens to take the office of prime minister of a unified
Hellas could change. Burrows criticised some British journalists:
No Philhellene can fairly complain of the attitude of the English Press as a
whole. There has been a tendency, however, natural enough, to throw Venizelos
into high relief by contrasting him with his fellow countrymen. It is a left-hand-
ed compliment to one who is Greek of the Greeks, and, above all men, stands
for the solidarity of the race. So able a war correspondent as Mr. Ward Price
found nothing in the welcome given to the Allied troops by the population of
Thessaly, but a proof that ‘the Greek mind has little consistency, and no shame
at suddenly renouncing one allegiance to embark on the opposite’.
Burrows was just as displeased with the Daily Chronicle’s interpretation
of the shift of allegiance from King Constantine to Venizelos as a develop-
ment that “does not impress one with the strength of Hellenic character. The
nation … has shown, on the whole, more resemblance to the Greeks of Juve-
78 Crawfurd Price, “Why Greece Held Back. King Constantine’s Answer to the Kaiser”, The
Pall Mall Gazette, 4 Oct. 1915.
79 “King Constantine was not pro-German; he was before everything pro-Greek. His failure
to agree with M. Venizelos was due to the fact that King Constantine is a military man, able
to appreciate the situation, while the former is a politician.” “Greek King not pro-German”,
The Evening Standard, 15 Nov. 1915.
80 Crawfurd Price, Venizelos and the War. A Sketch of Personalities & Politics (London:
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd, 1917), 9.

81 In a letter to Burrows of 17 November 1916, Venizelos noted that the Entente powers
had warned his movement that it “must not assume an anti-dynastic character”. Venizelos
believed that “the preservation of the dynasty should be thought a sufficient concession to the
‘sentiments très respectables des Souverains des Alliés de la France’.” Glasgow, Ronald Bur-
rows, 243, 246.
nal than to those of Pericles!”82 The same ambiguous attitude can also be seen
from an article of the famous anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, who de-
scribed the anathema on Venizelos by the archbishop of Athens as a “barbarous
ritual” common to “savages all over the world”.83 This article was intended to
portray monarchists in the most unsympathetic way, but it did not help the im-
age of Greeks.
Another important element in pro-Hellenic, pro-Czech and pro-Serbian
propaganda was the launching in 1916 of the journal The New Europe by R. W.
Seton Watson, Ronald Burrows, T. Masaryk and two influential journalists of
The Times, Henry Wickham-Steed and Harold Williams.84 It supported the
cause of small nations in Europe and, in the Balkans, the war efforts of the King-
dom of Serbia and Venizelist Greece. A. W. A. Leeper wrote, in November 1916,
an Allied portrait of Venizelos for The New Europe, describing him as “the man
who was to prove the most stalwart opponent to Prussianism in S. E. Europe”,
and “in truth, a prophet”.85 In December Leeper warned about “the growth of
anti-Venizelism” in Greece, denouncing the Athens government: “There can be
no further compromise with such a Government.”86
Leeper’s opinion carried additional weight since he was placed in charge
of the Balkans in the Intelligence Bureau of the Department of Information.
He also wrote for The New Europe under the pseudonym “Belisarius”, mostly
on Bulgaria. Since May 1917 R. W. Seton-Watson and Lewis Namier were in
charge of Central and Eastern Europe in the same department.87 In that way
contributors to The New Europe got a special role in shaping public opinion in
Britain, particularly the opinion of decision makers. Not infrequently, however,
their points favoured the small nationalities of Central and South-East Europe,
including Greeks and Serbs, much more than the Foreign Office was in a posi-
tion to accept.
Harold Nicolson, explaining later what contributors to The New Europe
had in mind when promoting small nationalities, admitted that he himself “was
overwhelmingly imbued” with the ideas of this journal. Old European states
seemed obsolete concepts, new small nationalities were concepts that their emo-
tions were centred on. Speaking of the peacemakers of the Paris Peace Confer-
82 Ronald M. Burrows, “Venizelos in Athens”, The New Europe, 5 July 1917, 373.
83 Sir J. G. Frazer, “The Cursing of Venizelos”, The New Europe no. 19, 22 Feb. 1917, 174.
84 Glasgow, Ronald Burrows, 198–199.
85 A. W. E. Leeper, “Allied Portrait: (I) EleftheriosVenizelos”, The New Europe no. 6, 23
Nov. 1916, 183, 186.

86 A. W. E. Leeper, “The Growth of Anti-Venizelism”, The New Europe no. 10, 21 Dec. 1916,
314.
87 Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Europe. R. W. Seton-Wat-
son and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary (London: Methuen, 1981), 207.
ence he remarked “that the concepts ‘Germany,’ ‘Austria,’ ‘Hungary,’ ‘Bulgaria,’ or

‘Turkey’ were not in the forefront” of their minds. “It was the thought of the
new Serbia, the new Greece, the new Bohemia, the new Poland which made our
hearts sing hymns at heaven’s gate.” He admitted that among the writers of The
New Europe “bias there was, and prejudice”, but added: “But they proceeded, not
from any revengeful desire to subjugate and penalise our late enemies, but from
a fervent aspiration to create and fortify the new nations, whom we regarded,
with maternal instinct, as the justification of our sufferings and of our victory.”88
The British Newspaper Archive digitises British historical newspa-
pers and makes them available online. Throughout the 2010s its content grew
monthly. The chart below shows the number of articles available at the end of
2017 in which Venizelos was mentioned. This rather incomplete list indicates
that Venizelos was mentioned in nearly 13,000 British newspaper articles in the
period 1914–1918. Only if one reads at least a few hundred of virtually thou-
sands of articles on Venizelos published in the British press of 1915–1920 can
one gain some insight into the admiration showered on him by the British press
in that period.
One can only offer a selection of characteristic comments about Veni-

zelos, and an article in The War Budget collected several of them:
“The greatest living statesman in Europe” is a colossal claim to make for a man
who was almost unknown out of his own country a few years ago. But the claim
has been made for EleftheriosVenezelos by a far-sighted English journalist, who
has seen and tested samples of all the diplomatic schools.
Another writer, who knows this man even more intimately, says that no other
single character has inspired so many of the events which have been written
permanently in the history of modern Greece as has M. Venezelos, who first
88 Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking (London: Methuen, 1964), 32–33.
planned and then strove with zealous patriotism and most remarkable ability to
carry them through.
He is a quiet, reserved, dignified lawyer, who hates war and despises the petty
politics beloved of the modern Greek. But as a patriot he has few equals, and
certainly no superior in any hand.
Another great title earned unconsciously by this unassuming loyalist is “the
Man of the Twentieth Century,” a title that sounds too big for any mortal mix-
ture of earth’s mould to wear. 89
As has already been mentioned, the Anglo-Hellenic League did its best
to promote Venizelos. The League’s annual meetings could not go without ex-
pressions of admiration for Venizelos, often pronounced by very prominent
Brits. In July 1918 the main speaker was Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of
Greek at the University of Oxford. His speech was reproduced in the League’s
last wartime pamphlet. He could not fail to mention the Hellenic prime minis-
ter, likening him to Themistocles:
It is a remarkable thing and curiously characteristic if other points about
Greece that at this moment, when on the whole European statesmanship has
not shown very brilliantly… that at a time like that such a small State as Greece
should have a statesman quite obviously of the first rank, a statesman whom
the greatest Nations in the world would be proud to possess as a leader. [Hear,
Hear.] It reminds one of the story of Themistocles, that for the really great
career of a statesman you want both the great man and the great nation. It is a
hard thing when the great man has not a corresponding strength and extent of
territory behind him.90
In April 1920, Bonar Law, the leader of the Conservative Party at the
time, echoed the opinion about Venizelos created among British politicians dur-
ing the Great War when he said in the House of Commons: “No single states-
man has supported the Allied cause through good report and ill so strongly as
M. Venizelos.”91
Venizelos was so popular in Britain that the other Balkan statesmen who
wrote their recollections at the time his popularity was at its peak found it ap-
propriate to include a chapter of admiration devoted to him. Thus, Take Jones-
cu, a leading Anglophile among Romanian politicians during the Great War and
Venizelos’s personal friend, thought that the Greek statesman was very much
89 “Venezelos the Statesman. A Prophet in the Mantle of the Great Athenians”, The War
Budget, 12 Oct. 1916.
90 AHL pamphlet no. 37, “Annual General Meeting of the Anglo-Hellenic League, Thurs-
day, 11 July 1918. Address of Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of
Oxford...” (1918), 15.
91 S. B. Chester, Life of Venizelos (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1921), 202.
like Shakespeare, and considered him “a true example of human greatness, and
of a greatness such that one may unreservedly admire it”.92
British biographies of Venizelos and a novel

Within a span of only six years during and immediately after the First World
War, 1915–1921, four biographies of Venizelos appeared in Britain, an unprec-
edented gesture of honour not only to a Hellenic statesman but to any Balkan
statesman of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The first biography, from the pen of C. Keroflas, was completed in Greek
in August 1915 and then translated into English. Keroflas’s sympathies for Veni-
zelos were more than open, as shown by his preface: “Carlyle would assuredly
have included him among his ‘Heroes’,” since he is a man “who, finding his coun-
try in the throes of a military revolution, restored it and raised it to the highest
triumphs of victory.”93 Take Jonesco’s admiration for Venizelos was shown in his
foreword to the book. The Morning Post commented: “It is, indeed, one of the ro-
mances of history that the Near East should have produced such a man,” and ex-
pressed regret that England did not have a man of such quality: “…What would
we not give in England for a statesman who could tell his fellow-countrymen the
truth and the whole truth and be prepared to lay down power without regret.”94
Venizelos even became the model for a character of a book of adventure
fiction. In October 1915 the writer and politician John Buchan, who wrote war
propaganda pieces during the Great War, published his novel The Thirty-nine
Steps. The hero of the novel, Richard Hannay, feels “almost debilitating spleen
and like Byron, contemplates a cure in the Balkans”.95 Hannay read in news-
papers about the Greek Premier Constantine Karolides, his incarnation of
Venizelos. Karolides “played a straight game too, which was more than could
be said for most of them. I gather that they hated him pretty blackly in Berlin
and Vienna, but that we were going to stick by him, and one paper said that he
was the only barrier between Europe and Armageddon”.96 The novel is about a
German-sponsored conspiracy to assassinate Karolides. In the last months of
1915 alone the novel sold 25,000 copies.97 Given the wide coverage of Venizelos
92 Take Jonescu, Some Personal Impressions (London: Nisbet and Co. Ltd, 1919), 239–240.
93 Dr. C. Keroflas, Eleftheriois Venizelos. His Life and Work, transl. by Beatrice Barstow
(London: John Murray 1915), xv.
94 “Venizelos. (Published to-day)”, The Morning Post, 15 Oct. 1915.
95 Vesna Goldsworthy, Inventing Ruritania. The Imperialism of the Imagination (New Ha-
ven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 88.

96 Ibid.
97 Ibid. 89.
in the British press of that time, the readers could have hardly failed to grasp
whom Buchan used as a model for Karolides. The novel confirms the assessment
of The World that by August 1915 Venizelos became “almost a super-celebrity”
in Britain.
The second biography, from the pen of Crawfurd Price, a strongly pro-
Hellenic and pro-Serbian British journalist, was completed in mid-November
1916. Its publication in January 1917 took place at the time when the national
schism in Greece was at its height but with Crawfurd Price who changed sides
and became a supporter of Venizelos. Inspired by Venizelos’s departure from
Crete to Salonika, it was an attempt to strengthen pro-Venizelist feelings in
Britain. In conclusion to his preface Price noted: “If we are sincere in our de-
votion to the causes of freedom, justice and righteousness, then this Venizelist
movement is one which ought to receive our unstinted support and full official
acknowledgement.”98
The other two biographies, published shortly after the First World War,
were written by Vincent J. Seligman and S. B. Chester. Seligman’s biography was
intended as a study of Greek politics from 1910 to 1918, and it is a clear eulogy of
Venizelos. In his dedication of the book to EleftheriosVenizelos Seligman stated
that it was meant as “a small tribute of the author’s respect and admiration”.99
Finally, Chester’s book was published after Venizelos had lost his pre-
miership. It is prefaced by his hero’s letter and its last paragraph also includes a
reference to Carlyle:
Napoleon thought that in a country of large population a man would always be
found to meet any national emergency. Since 1914 all the principal nations have
been passing through a series of upheavals, but few leaders have come to light,
either in the council chamber or in the field, for posterity to rank with the great.
In Venizelos the Greeks had at their head one who has given new colour to the
principle de la carrière ouverte aux talents, or, as Carlyle paraphrased it, “the tools
to him who can wield them.”100
It speaks a lot about Venizelos’s ability to understand the importance of
public relations that he found time to discuss issues of his life with his biogra-
phers who were all naturally very thankful to him for that.
98 Price, Venizelos and the War, 9.

99 Vincent J. Seligman, The Victory of Venizelos. A Study of Greek Politics, 1910–1918
(London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1920), 5.
100 S. B. Chester, Life of Venizelos (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1921), 321. One should
also add a very sympathetic American biography of Venizelos by Herbert Adams Gibbons,
Venizelos (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920).
Anglo-Hellenism on trial in 1920

British sympathies for Venizelos and the Hellenic Kingdom were particularly
helpful during the negotiations in Paris in 1919. At the negotiations the Greek
statesman “emerged as one of the giants of the Conference”.101 It was at the very
end of the Great War that philhellenic sentiments of some British diplomats
mattered. This Anglo-Hellenism was felt in the new Political Intelligence De-
partment (PID), established in March 1918. It included Sir Eyre Crowe, Allen
Leeper, Harold Nicolson and also, at that stage, Arnold Toynbee. Their goals in
the Eastern Mediterranean seemed to correspond with those of Venizelos; in
other words, the establishment of a Greece of two continents and five seas. The
PID team was of crucial importance during peace negotiations in Paris in 1919.
Needless to say, Leeper, Nicolson and Toynbee were all affiliated with Seton-
Watson’s New Europe. The philhellenes reverted to the British Turkophobia of
the age of Gladstone, which developed in the 1880s, was the dominant force
in British foreign policy until 1908 and was only paused in 1908–1912 when
Britain supported the Ottoman governments after the Young Turks took power.
As in London in 1913, so in Paris in 1919 Venizelos was again the star
of the conference. He presented Greek claims on 3 February 1919, and his pre-
sentation was received so well that Allen Leeper remarked: “We all thought it
was the most brilliant thing we’ve ever heard, such amazing strength and tactful-
ness combined.”102 In Paris British delegates sometimes acted almost as direct
representatives of Venizelos and in championing Hellenic aims clashed with
Italy and, to their surprise, they came quite frequently into direct collision with
American delegates. However, the main supporter of Greek claims was British
Prime Minister Lloyd George or, as Llewellyn Smith, put it: “The Lloyd George
factor was crucial in assigning to Greece the mandate to occupy Smyrna.”103
Greek troops began the occupation of Smyrna on 15 May 1919, and that was the
climax of Venizelos’s foreign policy. The Treaty of Sèvres gave Greece almost all
of Thrace including the whole Gallipoli Peninsula, the Aegean islands including
Imbros and Tenedos, and a mandate over the zone of Smyrna, Tireh, Odemish,
Magnisa, Akhissar, Berghama and Aivali. It was stipulated that this zone could
become Greek after a five-year period. The Dodecanese, with the exception of
Rhodes, were transferred by Italy to Greece.104
Harold Nicolson wrote an early analysis of how peacemaking was con-
ducted in Paris in 1919. It was unavoidable that he should mention Venizelos,
101 EricGoldstein, “Great Britain and Greater Greece 1917–1920”, The Historical Journal
32/2 (1989), 344.
102 Quoted in Goldstein, “Great Britain and Greater Greece”, 345.
103 M. Llewellyn Smith, “Venizelos’s Diplomacy”, 161.
104 Chester, Life of Venizelos, 319–320.
whose diplomatic abilities were usually cited as something that contributed very
much to the success of the Greek delegation in Paris. Nicolson believed that
there was objectivity in decision making in Paris, but had to acknowledge Veni-
zelos’s special qualities. “Far be it from me to diminish in anyway the legend of
M. Venizelos’ consummate mastery of diplomatic technique, or in any way to
underestimate the triumph which the personal magnetism of that statesman
achieved.” Comparing him with Romanian Prime Minister Bratianu, who had
all the qualities opposite to Venizelos, Nicolson used the example of Roma-
nia to claim that the decisions of the Supreme Council were made “on wholly
impersonal grounds”.105 Bearing in mind the special affection of Lloyd George
and some other Brits imbued with Anglo-Hellenism for Venizelos and Greece,
Nicolson’s claim does not seem justified. It should be noted that The Times obit-
uary of Venizelos called him “a dominant figure” of the Paris Peace Conference,
and added: “it sometimes seemed that his personal influence was such that he
had but to ask and all would be given to him.”106
It was widely expected that after such diplomatic performance of Britain
on behalf of Venizelos the Greek statesman would remain a hero of the Greek
masses and that he would rule for many years enabling Britain to exert a strong
influence in the Eastern Mediterranean with Venizelist Greece as her strategic
and chief ally. Venizelos’s victory in the 1920 election was taken for granted.
The fact was overlooked that he was absent from Greek politics for too long
from the end of 1918 until the Treaty of Sèvres was finally signed in August
1920, and that the mobilisation of Greeks for various military operations was
not very popular. Also conducive to Venizelos’s defeat were the assassination of
Ion Dragoumis by Venizelists on 13 August and the death of King Alexander
on 25 October 1920.107
The news of Venizelos’s electoral defeat on 14 November 1920 caused
shock and disappointment both in London and in Paris, and was even seen as
offensive. The Liberal Party won only 118 out of 369 seats in the Hellenic Par-
liament.108 The Times in its leader claimed: “We cannot recall since the days of
Aristides a more signal example of popular ingratitude or a popular folly.” The
London daily believed that the Greek voters had had a clear choice between two
men of opposite qualities. Venizelos – “the man who saved nation, dynasty, and
army in 1910”, “the enlightened champion of constitutional freedom at home
and of the principles of the Allies and Associates abroad” – was the one they
rejected. Instead, they chose the ex-King, “whose long continued treachery and
105 Nicolson, Peacemaking, 136–137.

106 “Venizelos”, The Times, 19 Mar. 1936, 19.
107 Thanos Veremis and Helen Gardikas-Katsiadakis, “Protagonist in Politics, 1912–20”, in
Kitromilides, ed., EleftheriosVenizelos, 129–130.
108 Ibid. 130–131.
flagrant disregard of the Constitution… compelled the Allies to insist upon his
resignation”.
The message of The Times to the Greek electoral majority was more than
clear. The Allies “did not sanction the creation of a Greater Greece for a benefit
of a brother-in-law or a nephew of the ex-Keiser.” It was openly admitted: “The
confidence of the Allies has received a rude shock. They were quite unprepared
for such an exhibition of unsteadfastness, unwisdom and ingratitude.” A clear
warning was sent to the Greeks: “If the Greeks ratify the course they have cho-
sen at the polls, they must take the consequence on their own shoulders.”109
As has already been observed, “Venizelos’s guiding principle was to asso-
ciate Britain with his main goals”.110 Similarly, Britain associated her goals in the
eastern Mediterranean with Venizelos’s expected long tenure as prime minister
of Greece. His electoral defeat therefore signalled the end of Britain’s staunch
commitment to a Greater Greece.111 Once the new Odysseus, Pericles and The-
mistocles was no longer prime minister of Hellas, British regional plans which
counted on new Greece as a key ally in the eastern Mediterranean collapsed.
Both Britain and Venizelist Greece won twice in 1918–20: on the battle-
field and at the end of the Great War, at the Paris Peace Conference. But in
1920–22 they both were defeated in their aspirations in the Eastern Mediterra-
nean. In the early 1920s Britain had to face the following situation in the Balkans
and its vicinity: 1) the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the creation of
which Britain had very much helped at the end of the war, was abandoned to
the French sphere of influence; 2) a disillusioned Bulgaria saw the results of the
peace treaties as the final abandonment of the Gladstonian admiration for Bul-
garians and therefore could not look at Britain in a friendly way; 3) an offended
and nationalistic Turkish Republic emerged and its creation was undermined
by Britain in every possible way; and 4) the country that was supposed to be
the British main regional ally, Venezelist Greece, found itself heavily defeated by
Turkey, abandoned by Britain, with its pro-British liberals now in the Opposi-
tion, and with the British new Odysseus, Venizelos, in exile in 1920–22.
Ronald Burrows died on 14 May 1920. The Times titled his obituary
quite appropriately “a champion of Greece”.112 By the end of the same year Veni-
zelos would leave Greece. Thus, in 1920 the great British enthusiasm for modern
Hellenism suffered two major blows. Anglo-Hellenism, so prominent among
British intellectuals, journalists, diplomats and politicians in 1916–1920, sud-
denly evaporated, and the strong and prominent interest in the fate of mod-
109 “The Greek Elections”, The Times, 17 Nov. 1920, 13.

110 Robert Holland and Diana Markides, The British and the Hellenes. Struggles for Mas-
tery in the Eastern Mediterranean 1850–1960 (Oxford: OUP, 2008), 180.

111 Cf. Goldstein, “Great Britain and Greater Greece”, 356.
112 “Death of Dr. Burrows. A champion of Greece”, The Times, 17 May, 1920, 16.
ern Hellenism displayed in Britain during the Great War and its immediate
aftermath was eclipsed by other domestic and foreign issues. That interest was
concentrated on the person of Venizelos, and without the main protagonist in
command it disappeared even quicker than it had emerged.
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Price, Crawfurd. Venizelos and the War. A Sketch of Personalities & Politics. London: Simpkin,
Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. Ltd, 1917.
Runciman, Sir Steven. “Foreword”. In Views of Greece by James Skene, 3–4. London: An-
glo-Hellenic League, 1963.
Seton-Watson, Hugh and Christopher. The Making of a New Europe. R. W. Seton-Wat-
son and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary. London: Methuen, 1981.
Seligman, Vincent J. The Victory of Venizelos. A Study of Greek Politics, 1910–1918. London:
George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1920.
St. Clair, William. That Greece Might Still Be Free. The Philhellenes in the War of Independence.
London: OUP, 1972.
Taylor, A. J. P., ed. Lloyd George. A Diary by Frances Stevenson. New York and London: Har-
per & Row, 1971.
Toynbee, Arnold, “History”. In R. W. Livingstone, ed. The Legacy of Greece, 289–320. Oxford:
At the Clarendon Press, 1924.
Veremis, Thanos, and Helen Gardikas Katsiadakis. “Protagonist in Politics, 1912–20”. In
Paschalis M. Kitromilides, ed. EleftheriosVenizelos: the Trials of Statesmanship, 115–133.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
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No. 19: EleftheriosVenizelos and English Public Opinion (1915), 29 p.

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[Greek and English]” (1916), 15 p.
No. 30: Venizelos and his fellow countrymen, by P. N. Ure (1917), 14+1 p.
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King’s College Archives

AHL 1–7 – Anglo-Hellenic League, Newspaper Cuttings, March 1915 to August 1919
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849157B
UDC 94(497.1)"1918/1941"
327(497.1)"1918/1941"
Dragan Bakić* http://www.balcanica.rs
Belgrade
The Great War and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Legacy of an Enduring Conflict
Abstract: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, officially named Yugoslavia after
1929, came into being on the ruins of the Habsburg Empire in 1918 after the immense war
efforts and sacrifices endured by Serbia. The experience of anti-Habsburg struggle both
before and after 1914 and the memory of some of the most difficult moments in the Great
War left a deep imprint on the minds of policy-makers in Belgrade. As they believed that
many dangers faced in the war were likely to be revived in the future, the impact of these
experiences was instrumental to their post-war foreign policy and military planning. This
paper looks at the specific ways in which the legacy of the Great War affected and shaped
the (planned) responses of the Yugoslav government to certain crises and challenges posed
to Yugoslavia and the newly-established order in the region. These concern the reaction
to the two attempts of Habsburg restoration in Hungary in 1921, the importance of the
Greek port of Salonica (Thessaloniki) for Yugoslavia’s strategic and defence requirements,
and military planning within the framework of the Little Entente (the defensive alliance
between Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Romania) in the early 1930s. In addition, it is ar-
gued here that the legacy of Serbo-Croat differences during the war relating to the manner
of their unification was apparent in the political struggle between Serbs and Croats during
the two decades of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia’s existence.
Keywords: Great War, Yugoslavia, legacy, Habsburg restoration, Salonica (Thessaloniki),
military planning, Serbo-Croat conflict
T he Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (officially called Yugoslavia af-

ter 1929, although the Yugoslav name was used even earlier for both the
state and the South Slavs) was one of the successor states that rose from the ash-
es of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of the Great War.1 Essentially formed
by victorious Serbia, although it included former parts of Austria-Hungary, the
newly-fledged country rested on the Serbian tradition of anti-Habsburg strug-
gle that preceded the Great War. However, Yugoslavia was perhaps the most
* [email protected]
1 For a long view of the creation of Yugoslavia see M. Ekmečić, Stvaranje Jugoslavije 1790–
1918, 2 vols (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1989); D. Djordjević, ed., The Creation of Yugoslavia (Santa
Barbara: Clio Books, 1980); D. T. Bataković, “The Balkan Piedmont. Serbia and the Yugoslav
Question”, Dialogue 10 (1994), 25–73.
complex country in Europe in terms of her ethnic and religious structure, as well
as cultural and economic diversity. This was the legacy of the two vanquished
empires, the Habsburg and the Ottoman, in whose place Yugoslavia emerged
in the Balkans. The vestiges of Austria-Hungary, together with the precarious
international situation in interwar Europe, in which Yugoslavia was especially
exposed as it was surrounded with the revanchist neighbours, ensured that the
long shadow of the Great War was cast on the Yugoslav Kingdom throughout its
existence. This was equally true in the realm of foreign policy, military planning
and internal politics, especially in relation to the Serbo-Croat conflict, in which
the memory of the war and the lessons it offered left a deep imprint. It is the
purpose of this paper to look more closely at the ways in which the legacy of the
war haunted Yugoslav, particularly Serbian, policy-makers and how they dealt
with the challenges it posed.
The most obvious danger to Yugoslavia and the newly-established order
in Danubian Europe came from the possibility of a Habsburg restoration, which
did not seem altogether unrealistic in the wake of the war. This peril was linked
with Hungarian irredentism and revanchist aspirations. The Treaty of Trianon
was not signed before 4 June 1920 and the Hungarian ruling circles denounced
the dismemberment of the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. Yugoslavia was
unsettled with sizeable Magyar and German national minorities that would be
naturally attracted to a Habsburg monarchy to which, after all, they had pledged
their allegiance for centuries. All other malcontents, especially separatists in
Croatia, could also rally under the Habsburg banner to further their aims.2 In
the spring of 1919, the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris peace conference refused
the demand of the Entente Powers to contribute troops to suppress the Bolshe-
vist revolution in Hungary, since they suspected a plot to restore the Habsburgs
and revive some sort of a dual Austro-Hungarian state. Nikola Pašić, the most
prominent Serbian statesman and head of the delegation, was adamant that to
assist such a development in Hungary would be a “colossal sin that would de-
stroy our unity and freedom”.3 In early 1920, there seemed to be a real danger
of an attempt to reinstate the Archduke Joseph Habsburg, and Belgrade and
Prague joined forces to bring pressure to bear on the Entente Powers to prevent
it. On 2 February 1920, the Allied Ambassadors in Paris accepted the resolution
2 B. Hrabak, “Frankovačka emigrantska secesionistička organizacija i Hrvatska legija u

Madjarskoj (1919–1921)”, Zbornik Matice srpske za istoriju 56 (1997), 97–123.
3 M. Milošević and B. Dimitrijević, Nikola Pašić – Predsedniku vlade, strogo poverljivo, lično,
Pariz, 1919–1920: Pašićeva pisma sa konferencije mira (Zaječar: Zadužbina “Nikola Pašić,”
2005), doc. 20. Delegation to Prime Minister, str. conf. no. 13, 14 April 1919; for a discussion
of the Habsburg problem see A. Mitrović, Jugoslavija na konferenciji mira 1919–1920 (Bel
grade: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika, 1969), 186–192.
D. Bakić,The Great War and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia 159
stating that the restoration of the Habsburg dynasty would be “neither recog-
nised nor tolerated” by the Allied Powers.4
The ex-emperor of Austria-Hungary, Karl I Habsburg – who had reigned
in Hungary as King Károly IV – was in exile in Switzerland and he intended to
reclaim his throne. It was with a view to preventing a Habsburg restoration and
safeguarding the status quo that Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia signed on 14 Au-
gust 1920 a defensive treaty directed against Hungary, thus initiating the alliance
which came to be known as the Little Entente. Italy and Yugoslavia concluded
their own anti-Habsburg convention which formed part of the Rapallo Treaty,
setting down the frontiers between the two countries.5 The Little Entente soon
came to be tested when on 24 March 1921 Karl Habsburg sneaked out of his
exile and reached Hungary via Austria. The escapade was met by a firm attitude
on the part of Pašić who embarked on an energetic action in order to evict Karl
from Hungary. He immediately proposed to Czechoslovakia, Romania and Italy
to make a joint demarche in Budapest to the effect that their ministers would
be recalled from Hungary if Karl did not leave the country; to jointly request
from France and Britain to support their action in Budapest; and to lodge a
protest in Bern because it allowed Karl to endanger European peace.6 How-
ever, the Hungarian Regent, Miklós Horthy, persuaded the ex-emperor to leave
Hungary, which the latter eventually did under the protection of officers of the
Entente Powers.
Karl’s adventure had an important and lasting consequence insofar as
Romania joined the Little Entente: she signed an agreement with Czechoslova
kia just eighteen days after Karl’s expulsion from Hungary (23 April). On 7
June 1921, Pašić and the Romanian Prime Minister, Take Ionescu, concluded
an agreement on the same lines in Belgrade. As Pašić put it to Beneš, this was
“a significant accomplishment the purpose of which is to maintain peace and
secure the peace treaties which are the foundation of the future of our coun
4 Documents on British Foreign Policy, ed. E. L. Woodward and R. Butler (London: HMSO,
1946–), ser. I, vol. XII, no. 80, Derby to Curzon, Paris, 2 February 1920; the text of the reso-
lution is appended.
5 C. Sforza, Diplomatic Europe since the Treaty of Versailles (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1928), 101–102; I. Lederer, Yugoslavia at the Paris Peace Conference: a Study in Frontier-
making (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 307.
6 Arhiv Jugoslavije [Archives of Yugoslavia; hereafter AJ], Belgrade, London Legation, 341,
folder I, confidential archive for 1921, Pašić to Prague, Rome and Bucharest Legations [for-
warded to London Legation], 2 April 1921, conf. no. 4130; for an account of the Habsburg
restoration attempts see Dj. Knežević, “Kraljevina Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca i dva neuspela
pokušaja restauracije Habsburga 1921. godine”, Vojnoistorijski glasnik 18/1 (1967), 117–138,
and V. Vinaver, Jugoslavija i Madjarska 1918–1933 (Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju,
1971), 153–160.
tries”.7 However, on 21 October 1921, Karl and the ex-empress Zita flew to
Hungary, gathered some loyal troops and again descended on Budapest. Horthy
reacted with force and stopped him after a minor skirmish on the outskirts of
the capital. The Little Entente reacted even more decisively than in March and
mobilization was ordered and implemented in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia,
though not in Romania. The Conference of Ambassadors struck a balance be-
tween Hungary and her neighbours: Budapest was requested to declare all the
Habsburgs barred from wearing the crown of St. Stephen and the Little Entente
to refrain from military measures. In early November, the Hungarian National
Assembly passed a law that excluded the House of Habsburg from the throne.
Karl was removed from Hungary on a British vessel and later interned on the
Portuguese island of Madeira where he died in April 1922. But the prospect of
a Habsburg restoration not just in Hungary, but also in Austria continued to
daunt Yugoslavia and her allies. As late as December 1936, the Yugoslav govern-
ment suspected that preparations for that purpose were underway in Vienna
under the aegis of Italy and Vatican.8 Indeed, the Habsburg issue was regularly
discussed in foreign ministries of the Great Powers and remained a matter of
diplomatic exchanges for the rest of interwar period, but it never again created
such an acute crisis.
Another controversy in Yugoslav foreign and military policy that essen-
tially derived from the painful experience of the Great War concerned the rela-
tions with friendly Greece. Athens was anxious that Yugoslavia might seek an
outlet to the Aegean Sea by taking from her the port of Salonica (Thessaloniki),
whether alone or in conjunction with Bulgaria. The Yugoslav demand for a free
commercial zone in Salonica with extensive rights that infringed on the Greek
sovereignty was a major theme behind Belgrade’s denouncing the 1913 pact of
friendship with Greece in 1924 ‒ it would be resumed five years later. In reality,
Yugoslav interest in Salonica was grounded in strategic considerations rather
than economic necessity and it concerned defense requirements unrelated to
any alleged plans for territorial aggrandizement. The importance of Salonica in
Yugoslav strategic thinking stemmed from the retreat that the Serbian Army
had had to undertake in the fall of 1915 after having been exposed to the com-
bined offensive of the much stronger Austro-Hungarian, German and Bulgarian
forces. As it became clear that the army would have to retreat from Serbian terri-
tory or capitulate, the plan was to withdraw southwards down the Vardar valley
and join the Franco-British troops which had occupied Salonica and its sur-
7 AJ, London Legation, 341, folder 1, confidential archive for 1921, Pašić to Gavrilović, 8
June 1921, conf. no. 7222; also Pašić to Gavrilović, 31 May 1921, str. conf. no. 486; Gavrilović
to Pašić, 3 June 1921, no number.
8 AJ, London Legation, 1936, I-4 (Austria, Hungary), Stojadinović to Grujić, 25 December
1936, str. conf. no. 2063/V.
roundings.9 The Bulgarian attack in the rear cut off the envisaged fallback route
and compelled the Serbian army, accompanied by considerable number of civil-
ians, to retreat over the inhospitable Albanian mountains under difficult winter
conditions. The Serbs suffered horrific losses until they had reached the coast
and had been transported by the Allied shipping to the island of Corfu. This
traumatic collective memory was termed the “Albanian Calvary” and remained
alive in the minds of policy-makers after the war. The recuperated Serbian Army
launched, along with its French and British allies, an offensive from Salonica
which ended not just in the liberation of Serbia, but was also a decisive cam-
paign of the war as it forced both Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary to capitulate.
The prominent Yugoslav diplomat and later minister at the Court, Milan
Antić, succinctly explained the importance of the fighting at Salonica for both
the past and the future: “The Salonica front in the First World War left such a
deep impression … in our army that it became an integral part of our struggle
for liberation and unification and its history. Salonica entered into strategy and
became an integral part of operational necessity of our army in defence of the
country.”10 Such an impact was amplified by the strategic position of the new
Yugoslavia which was surrounded from the west, north and east by hostile or
potentially inimical revisionist neighbours. The only frontiers that seemed safe
were those with the allied Romania and Greece. In addition, as early as dur-
ing the Paris Peace Conference, Italy, the most dangerous neighbour, made sus-
tained efforts, later to be continued and crowned with success, to entrench itself
in Albania at Yugoslavia’s flank.11 From the strategic point of view the Yugoslavs
were frightened of the peril of the Italians linking from Albania with the Bul-
garians across the Vardar valley in Serb Macedonia, thus cutting off the vital
Belgrade–Salonica railway in much the same fashion as the Bulgarian army had
done in 1915. This consideration was central to Yugoslav military planning. At
the time of considerable tension in relations with Rome, Major Antoine Bé-
thouart, French military attaché in Belgrade, was told by the assistants of the
chief of the Yugoslav General Staff that neutralisation of Bulgaria would be a
primary goal of the army in case of a general war, even at the price of a tem-
porary withdrawal at the western front against Italy. Another military attaché,
Colonel Moritz von Faber du Faur from Germany, was of opinion on the eve
of the Second World War that Yugoslavia viewed Greece as a bridge to Britain
9 A. Mitrović, Srbija u Prvom svetskom ratu (Belgrade: Srpska književna zadruga, 1984),
252–253.
10 Arhiv Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti [Archives of the Serbian Academy of Sciences
and Arts; hereafter ASANU], Belgrade, Milan Antić Papers, 14387/8662, undated Antić’s
note.
11 D. Bakić, “The Italo-Yugoslav Conflict over Albania: A View from Belgrade, 1919–1939”,
Diplomacy & Statecraft 25/4 (2014), 592–612.
which she did not want to burn and it was this consideration that informed
the attitude towards Salonica.12 He was no doubt accurate in his assessment
of the Yugoslav frame of mind. Aleksandar Cincar-Marković, Yugoslav foreign
minister, argued in mid-February 1941 that it was better for Yugoslavia to fight
the Germans than to let them have Salonica in which case they would “strangle
us completely”.13 It was Belgrade’s strategic preoccupation with the Greek port
that lay behind negotiations with Germany about Salonica in 1941 with a view
to preventing other powers to take it from Greece and block Yugoslavia’s access
to the Aegean Sea.
The notion of another general European war modelled on that of 1914–
1918, which seemed increasingly likely to Belgrade in the 1930s, was also central
to military planning against Hungary ‒ and Bulgaria ‒ within the framework of
the Little Entente. On 11 May 1931, the Little Entente countries concluded a
new tripartite military convention at Bucharest, which replaced all previous con-
ventions and their annexes and modifications.14 This document also introduced
a substantial change in the planned reaction of the Little Entente to potential
Hungarian aggression. While heretofore no preparatory measures had been
contemplated prior to a Hungarian attack on a member-state, the new conven-
tion went so far as to call for mobilization in anticipation of military action on
the part of the enemy. This change was brought about by a new frame of mind
in which the Hungarian danger was perceived in an entirely different context.
Whereas during the 1920s conflict with the Magyars was considered a local af-
fair, the grim outlook in Europe in the early 1930s suggested the possibility of
a European war. Should that be the case, Hungary would naturally be expected
to come down on the side of a German-led revisionist bloc but she would not
present the main threat to the Little Entente. She would rather be a nuisance
launching an attack to the rear of the Little Entente forces, the vast majority of
which would be engaged elsewhere. In the view of the Little Entente’s military
planners, such a contingency dictated a rapid full-scale attack that would knock
Hungary out of war and enable the three allied countries to concentrate all their
available troops against other more powerful enemies.
Simultaneously with the tripartite military convention, a new military
convention between Yugoslavia and Romania dealing with the Bulgarian danger
was concluded and annexed to the former instrument (ratified on 14 October
1932).15 The conventions were supplemented with operational plans designed to
12 D. Bakić, “The Port of Salonica in Yugoslav Foreign Policy, 1919–1941”, Balcanica XLIII
(2012), 197.
13 Ibid. 211–212.
14 M. Vanku, Mala Antanta 1920–1938 (Titovo Užice: Dimitrije Tucović, 1969), 358–361.
15 Vojni arhiv [Military Archives; hereafter VA], Belgrade, register 17 [Army of the King-
dom of Yugoslavia], box 105, folder 4, doc. 12.
meet different contingencies. The first plan was devised to respond to a Hungar-
ian attack on Romania while the other two allies were not engaged elsewhere;
the second one, between Yugoslavia and Romania, provided for coordinated ac-
tion against Bulgaria were she to menace either country.16 In addition, a detailed
plan was drawn up in case of a combined attack on the part of Hungary and
Bulgaria on Romania.17 Once again, the assumption was that the conflagration
would become a general one, and the aim was to defeat first the Magyars and
then the Bulgarians, thus allowing a free hand for action on other fronts. The
urgency of preparation for armed conflict seemed to be all the greater in light of
the erroneous conviction that the other side had already reached a formal under-
standing for joint action. The Yugoslav military attaché in Budapest assured his
superiors in Belgrade that a military alliance of some sort had been concluded
between Hungary and Italy following Dino Grandi’s, Italian foreign minister’s,
visit to Budapest and the return visit to Rome of General Gyula Gömbös, the
Hungarian Defence Minister, in 1929.18 This assumption was commonly held to
be true among the diplomatic corps in Budapest because close relations existed
between the two General Staffs. The latest preoccupations of the Little Entente’s
military commanders reached their logical denouement at the Prague meet-
ing of 14 December 1931 in the drafting of the first war plan for a full-blown
general conflict on the pattern of the Great War.19 The work of the General
Staffs’ representatives was continued in Belgrade where another two versions
of general conflict plans were adopted on 17 November 1932. The worst-case
scenario for Belgrade envisaged a simultaneous attack on Yugoslavia by Italy,
Hungary, Albania, and Bulgaria, together with Soviet and Bulgarian aggression
on Romania and an Austro-German offensive against Czechoslovakia. Another
plan assumed Bulgarian neutrality, while Hungary would attack Yugoslavia in-
stead of Czechoslovakia.20 All this meticulous contingency planning eventually
amounted to nothing, but it clearly demonstrated that the military leadership of
16 VA, register 17, box 105, folder 4, doc. 14 and 15 respectively. Both scenarios were deemed
highly unlikely except as an attempt to provoke a wider conflict.

17 VA, register 17, box 105, folder 4, doc. 16.
18 AJ, Bucharest Legation, 395-22-220, confidential no. 22389, subject: Checking news of a
military alliance between Italy and Hungary, Political Department of the Foreign Ministry
to Minister, 12 November 1930.
19 VA, register 17, box 105, folder 4, doc. 20. Hypothetical situation presaged in “Projet No 1
CG [Conflit Generale]”: Czechoslovakia was being attacked by Germany, Austria and Hun-
gary, while Yugoslavia was being invaded by Italy, Albania and Bulgaria, and Romania by the
Soviet Union and Bulgaria.
20 VA, register 17, box 106, folder 1, doc. 6, “Projet No 3 CG” and doc. 7, “Projet No 2 CG”
respectively. See doc. 2 in the same folder for a protocol on delimitation of the three occupa-
tion zones that were to be used to carve Hungary up in case of war.
Yugoslavia, just like those of Czechoslovakia and Romania, regarded the repeti-
tion of an armed conflict with their former enemies highly likely and spared no
effort to meet it prepared.
As for the internal struggle between the Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia, it
has been noted that it was essentially “an issue of the Jacobin state versus the old
Habsburg constitutional complexity of historic units”.21 The Serbs had lived in
their independent national and unitary state for decades before the First World
War (since the 1878 Congress of Berlin) and saw no reason to change that in
a new state which was predicated on the national unity of South Slavs (Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes) expressed through slogans “one people with three names”
or “the three tribes of the same [Yugoslav] nation”, reflecting their common eth-
nic origins and language ‒ as opposed to religious differences. For them, the
complex constitutional solutions advocated by Zagreb smacked too much of the
hated and dismantled Austria-Hungary and were not compatible with the no-
tion of a strong and powerful state. In contrast, the Croats had been part of the
multinational Habsburg monarchy for centuries and used to having their status
arranged through negotiations and contracts such as that of 1868 concluded be-
tween them and the Hungarians (Nagodba) on the pattern of the Compromise
between the Austrians and Hungarians concluded a year earlier. In their deal-
ings with Budapest and Vienna, the Croats had based their autonomous status
on the concept of Croatian state right, an equivalent of the Hungarian historical
claim to the lands of St. Stephen that took no account of ethnic structure of the
territories that Hungary comprised. Regardless of the fact that much of Croa-
tian historical and state rights were, in fact, nominal and that the Croatian Diet
(Sabor) had dissolved itself prior to the creation of Yugoslavia, political elites
from Zagreb clung to their concept of Croatia’s status in a common state with
the Serbs.
A cleavage in the vision of a prospective Yugoslav state was apparent dur-
ing the First World War and it was reflected in a clash between the Serbian
government headed by Pašić and the Yugoslav Committee, an organization of
the Yugoslav exiles from Austria-Hungary. It was Pašić who initiated the forma-
tion of the Yugoslav Committee, which he envisaged as a purely propaganda
bureau that was supposed to facilitate the achievement of a Yugoslav union,
Serbia’s proclaimed war goal after December 1914. He also financed the activi-
ties of émigrés gathered in the committee, with the notable exception of two
Croat politicians from Dalmatia, Frano Supilo and Ante Trumbić. However,
these two Croats were the leading members of the Yugoslav Committee and
held their own distinct views on the constitutional arrangement of a prospective
Yugoslav state that was supposed to preserve the autonomous rights of Croa-
21 S.
Trifković, “The First Yugoslavia and Origins of Croatian Separatism”, East European
Quarterly 26/3 (1992), 355.
tia.22 Although Supilo died during the war, Trumbić was the president and most
influential member of the committee, and he gradually came to oppose the of-
ficial Serbian policy embodied in Pašić. In July 1917, the Serbian government
and the Yugoslav Committee held a conference on the Greek soil and issued
the well-known Corfu declaration that confirmed their dedication to the for-
mation of a Yugoslav state, whereas details of constitutional arrangement were
left to be resolved later by a constitutional assembly. This glossed over the dif-
ferences that existed between Pašić and Trumbić for the sake of presenting a
united front against Italian pretensions on the Slovene- and Croat-populated
lands and impressing the Entente Powers.23 It is interesting to note that even the
name of Yugoslavia was a matter of contention, since the Croats favoured it on
the grounds that it emphasised the Yugoslav as opposed to an exclusively Serb
character of a future state. Pašić and his Radicals, on the contrary, took a dim
view of the Yugoslav name as it echoed the Austrian concept of Yugoslav unity
within the trialist framework of the Habsburg Monarchy. This practically meant
that the unification of Yugoslavs in Austria-Hungary would be carried out con-
trary to Serbia’s ambitions and goals, even in respect of the Serb population
outside Serbia. Therefore, the Serbian Radical government frowned upon such
name as being an Austrian brainchild “directed against the Serb name”.24 Fear-
ing Serbia’s predominance, Trumbić and his supporters came into open conflict
with Pašić in 1918 and advocated something of a dual confederation under the
Karadjordjević dynasty, in which pre-war Serbia and the Yugoslav lands of the
former Habsburg Monarchy would be two equal constituent units. This was
the background against which the Geneva declaration was made in November
1918 resulting from a conference between Pašić and the representatives of the
newly-formed National Council from Zagreb, a revolutionary government of
the Yugoslav-populated Habsburg lands, Serbian opposition parties and the Yu-
goslav Committee. Having been isolated, Pašić was forced on that occasion to
accept the requests of the Yugoslav Committee in order to preserve the appear-
ance of Yugoslav unity before the Entente Powers and European public opinion.
He accepted the principles of an essentially confederal constitution, which was a
negation of his own unitary conceptions.25 But ministers in his government re-
22 A. Dragnich, Serbia, Nikola Pašić and Yugoslavia (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1974); Dj. Stanković, Nikola Pašić i jugoslovensko pitanje, 2 vols (Belgrade: BIGZ,
1985).
23 D. Janković, Jugoslovensko pitanje i Krfska deklaracija 1917. godine (Beograd: Savremena
administracija, 1967).
24 Krfska konferencija (Belgrade: Štamparija “Skerlić”, 1934), 82, 84.
25 B. Krizman, “Ženevska konferencija o ujedinjenju 1918. godine”, Istorijski glasnik 1–2
(1958), 3–32; D. Janković, “Ženevska konferencija o stvaranju jugoslovenske zajednice 1918.

godine”, Istorija XX veka 5 (1963), 225–262, and “Još o Ženevskoj konferenciji o stvaranju
signed in protest and thus invalidated the Geneva agreement. It was the Serbian
military victory and the prospect of annexation of large parts of Croat territory
by Italian troops that decided the matter and brought about the Yugoslav unifi-
cation on 1 December 1918 under the Serbian terms.
During the peace conference in Paris, the Serbs and Croats in the Yu-
goslav delegation presented a united front, despite their occasional frictions, in
order to secure the best possible territorial settlement. The conflict continued
nevertheless with the Croat opposition to the centralist St. Vitus (Vidovdan)
constitution of 1921 both before and after its adoption. The Croat opposition
took the shape of passive resistance of the Croat Peasant Party (CPP), which be-
came a virtual Croat national movement led by mercurial Stjepan Radić, to the
very existence of a unitary Yugoslavia.26 In 1925, Radić came to an agreement
with the Pašić government and it seemed that Serbo-Croat internecine strife had
been finally brought to an end. However, Radić’s death at the hands of a Serbian
member of parliament in 1928 led to Croats’ abandoning state institutions and
disputing once again the legitimacy of a unitary Yugoslavia. The introduction of
King Alexander’s dictatorship next year and the imposition of integral Yugoslav-
ism, an ideology aimed at supressing Serb, Croat and Slovene national identity
alike, only exacerbated the situation in the country. Radić’s successor, Vladimir
Maček, refused any cooperation with the government in the existing constitu-
tional framework: he wanted a highly autonomous status of Croatia within Yu-
goslavia, or alternatively an independent Croatia.27 On 7 November 1932, the
Croat opposition issued the Zagreb Points (Zagrebačke punktacije) that called
for the return to the pre-constitutional situation of 1918 from which a negoti-
ated settlement between the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes would determine the
internal composition of the country. The resolution vaguely mentioned “the as-
sociation of interests” based on the freely expressed will of the constituent units.
Trumbić, the author of the text and now formally a member of the CPP, claimed
that such a state would not be a federation, “even such as Switzerland”.28 Clearly,
the Croat demands increased radically and surpassed those made by Trumbić
and Supilo during the war; they most resembled a kind of personal union in
which constituent parts of the country would be nearly independent and only
jugoslovenske zajednice 1918, godine”, Zbornik radova Pravnog fakulteta u Novom Sadu 3–4
(1966), 247–264; M. Stefanovski, “Nikola Pašić na Ženevskoj konferenciji 1918. godine”, in
Nikola Pašić: život i delo (Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike, 1997), 331–354.
26 B. Hrabak, “Stjepan Radić i HPSS 1918–1920. godine”, Zbornik Matice srpske za istoriju
59/60 (1999), 71–105.

27 Lj. Boban, Maček i politika Hrvatske seljačke stranke, 1928–1941: iz povijesti hrvatskog pitanja,
2 vols (Zagreb: Liber and Rijeka: Otokar Keršovani, 1974).

28 Lj. Boban, “Geneza, značenje i odjek Zagrebačkih punktacija”, Časopis za suvremenu pov-
ijest 1 (1971), 153–209.
a few, carefully limited functions be left to the central government in Belgrade.

This political platform had the air of a confederal structure of the defunct Aus-
tria-Hungary which reflected the mentality and traditions of Croat political par-
ties. For that reason, it was deeply distasteful to Serbians who regarded it as an
undoing of their military victory and a request to abandon the Serbs of Croa-
tia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to Zagreb. To be true, the Serbian-dominated
governments never showed themselves capable of at least trying to initiate some
compromise solution with the CPP. The Serbian opposition parties did reach
an understanding with CPP in 1937 and formed the election coalition, but they
failed to appreciate that for Maček, unlike for themselves, the national question
was far more important than restoring democratic rule in the country.
Following King Alexander’s assassination in Marseilles in 1934, the
regime of Prince Paul, Regent of Yugoslavia, had to deal with the Croat op-
position in the increasingly volatile international situation. It was Prince Paul’s
anxiety to consolidate the country at the outbreak of the Second World War
that led him to give way and reach an agreement with CPP, which resulted in
the formation of Banovina Hrvatska, a Croat province with extensive autonomy,
in 1939.29 This was the realisation of Croat demands, including their rather
excessive territorial ambitions, and it also meant that considerable number of
Serbs found themselves within the Croatian province. The views of Trumbić
and other Croat leaders grounded in the experience of a confederal union of
Austria-Hungary appeared to have triumphed twenty years after the Great War
and the demise of the Habsburg Empire. A Serbian legal expert remarked that
the Croats “imagine the relationship between Banovina Croatia and the [Yu-
goslav] state as a relationship between two equal authorities which constantly
make agreements”.30 This description of the Croats’ attitude of mind regarding
their status in Yugoslavia clearly shows that they perceived it as stemming from
another compromise (nagodba) on the pattern of those that had constructed
Austro-Hungarian political edifice. With such solution of the Croat question,
it turned out that Serbia failed to achieve even the integral unification of all the
Serbs, despite the preserved Yugoslav state. It seemed that Serbo-Croat relations
came full circle: while there had been a consensus in 1918 that the Serbs and
Croats (and Slovenes) constituted a single Yugoslav nation, which had served to
justify the creation of Yugoslavia on the nationality principle, the formation of
Croatian banovina was a return to the notion that they were two separate na-
tions. The Yugoslav interwar experience with nationalities conflict proved to be
reminiscent of Austria-Hungary’s difficulties to put its house in order. The 1939
Serbo-Croat agreement offered a prospect for Yugoslavia to settle her thorniest
29 Lj. Boban, Sporazum Cvetković-Maček (Beograd: Institut društvenih nauka, 1965).

30 M. Konstantinović, Politika sporazuma: dnevničke beleške 1939–1941: londonske beleške 1944–
1945 (Novi Sad: Agencija “Mir”, 1998), 42, 551, 564.
issue, but such hopes were not fully justified immediately after establishing of
the Croatian province due to somewhat provisional character of the settlement.
What its long-term effects would be, however, can only remain a matter of spec-
ulation, since Yugoslavia’s involvement in the war brought about the destruction
of that country.
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Vojni arhiv [Military Archives], Belgrade
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— Maček i politika Hrvatske seljačke stranke, 1928–1941: iz povijesti hrvatskog pitanja. 2 vols.
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— “Stjepan Radić i HPSS 1918–1920. godine”. Zbornik Matice srpske za istoriju 59–60
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Habsburga 1921. godine”. Vojnoistorijski glasnik 18/1 (1967), 117–138.
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1945. Novi Sad: Agencija “Mir”, 1998.
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UDC 94(100)"1914/1918":930(495)
94(495)"1914/1922"
Iakovos D. Michailidis* http://www.balcanica.rs
Aristotle University
Thessaloniki
A Ten Years’ War

Aspects of the Greek Historiography on the First World War
Abstract: This article tries to provide an evaluation of the Greek historiography on the First
World War (WWI) and to illustrate its various research stages and trends. It is argued
that the Greek historiography mainly approaches WWI and Greece’s involvement not as
an international, but as a domestic phenomenon. Greek involvement in WWI has been
looked at through the lens of the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922, an episode of the ten-
year war of the Greek army starting with the triumphant Balkan Wars and ending with the
defeat in the Asia Minor Campaign in 1922.
Keywords: historiography, Greece, National Schism, Eleftherios Venizelos, King Constan-
tine, Entente, Central Powers
I n 1962, the Greek historian Polychronis Enepekidis, professor at the Univer-

sity of Vienna, published his book Η Δόξα και ο Διχασμός 1908–1916 (Glory and
Discord 1908–1916), which was mainly based on Austrian archival sources. En-
epekidis argues that the period of 1909–1918 was dramatic for Greece because
the country suffered a lot as a result of the National Schism, and the failure to
establish a liberal state such as those of Western Europe.1 Enepekidis begins
his account with 1909, the year when a military coup d’état led to the arrival in
Athens of a young Cretan lawyer, Eleftherios Venizelos, who soon emerged as
the most inspired political leader on the Greek political scene. Venizelos saw
national integration as the main goal of Greek foreign policy at the beginning
of the twentieth century. According to Enepekidis, he was a man who was able
to realize the Greek “Great Idea”, i.e. Greece’s territorial expansion and incor-
poration of territories – such as Asia Minor, Constantinople, Eastern Thrace,
etc. – where thousands of Greeks had been living for centuries. Through the
pages of his book, Enepekidis unrolls his line of thought clearly, approaching
historical events through a spectrum of national expansionist priorities. There-
fore, he considers the resignation of Venizelos in 1915 to have been a disaster,
* [email protected]
1 Πολυχρόνης Ενεπεκίδης, Η Δόξα και ο Διχασμός. Από τα μυστικά αρχεία της Βιέννης 1908–1916
(Athens: Mpiris, 1962), 11.
arguing that the “great national dreams for a resurrected Greek Asia Minor and
a Constantinople in the hands of the Greek army were destroyed”.2 Enepekidis
goes one step further when he makes a clear correlation between the expulsion
of the Greek Christian population from Asia Minor and the political debates in
Athens, accusing Berlin of having designed the persecutions.3 He also accuses
King Constantine and the anti-Venizelist politicians of national betrayal leading
to the occupation of Greek eastern Macedonia by the Bulgarian army in1916.4
Enepekidis was not the only scholar to make such observations. In this
article, I shall try to point out that the participation of Greece in the First World
War (WWI) has been perceived by most Greek historians not as a distinctive
period in its own right, but rather as an episode in Greek expansionist policy,
which reached its peak during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
Moreover, Greek historiography focuses on Greek involvement in the Great
War more in relation to national ambitions, much less with regard to its Eu-
ropean dimensions and perspectives. The National Schism arose in 1915 as a
result of the conflict between Venizelos and Constantine over the orientation
of Greek foreign policy. This dispute has been considered to be the main reason
behind the Greek catastrophe in Asia Minor in 1922, and still remains the main
criterion for evaluating all political developments during these years.
Greek historians began to explain Greek involvement in WWI through
the lens of the National Schism as early as during the war itself. The roots of this
tendency may be found in the necessity to respond to the propaganda mecha-
nisms of the opponents. During the interwar period, historiography was turned
into a “propaganda weapon”, and a “vehicle to justify” the policies of the Venizel-
ists or the royalists. Moreover, the trauma caused by the execution of six leading
officials belonging to the anti-Venizelist camp who were found guilty for the
Asia Minor Catastrophe in November 1922 enriched the so-called “war of his-
torians” with a moral pressure on pro-royalist historians to work intensively for
the vindication of the “innocent victims”. In addition, the Asia Minor Catastro-
phe and the refugee issue facilitated the consolidation of the period 1908–1923
as a domestic issue in terms of modern history.
Georgios Ventiris, an editor at the time of the Great War and a close
friend of Eleftherios Venizelos, published in 1931 a two-volume work on the
events of 1910–1920.5 Ventiris compares the 1910–1920 period to that of
1820–1830, when the Greek War of Independence led to the creation of the
first Modern Greek nation state. Like Enepekidis and all historians supporting
2 Ibid. 231.
3 Ibid. 305.
4 Ibid. 332.
5 Η Ελλάς του 1910–1920. Ιστορική μελέτη [Greece 1910–1920. Historical Study], 2 vols.
(Athens: Pyrsos, 1931).
I. D. Michailidis, A Ten Years’ War 173
Venizelos, he argues that the second decade of the twentieth century was crucial
because it was for the first time in Greek history that a fully independent and
homogenous state was achieved. It is easy to understand the innermost thoughts
of Venizelist authors. The policy of national expansion and the twofold increase
in Greek territory after consecutive wars was the result of a foreign policy de-
signed by Eleftherios Venizelos himself. But the architect of the Greek “Great
Idea” or the “Greece of two continents and five seas” lost the 1920 elections to
the royalists, despite military success. These election results proved disastrous
for Greece since the royalists who formed the new government failed in the Asia
Minor Campaign and were held responsible for its disastrous outcome in 1922.
During the National Schism and the catastrophe of the Greek Army
in Asia Minor, as well as during the interwar period, the controversy between
royalists and Venizelists continued in the field of historiography. With recent
tensions still high, the vast majority of the Greek bibliography on WWI was
nothing more than propaganda leaflets and pamphlets or memoirs written by
supporters of the Entente or the Central Powers. Representing the Venizelist
camp, in 1916, the Anglo-Hellenic League, led by some of closer friends of Veni-
zelos, published a pamphlet in English which included reproduced newspaper
articles in an effort to support the goal of Venizelos to join the Entente. In 1917,
Crawfurd Price, a British war correspondent during the Balkan Wars, focused
his analysis on the personality of Venizelos and described him as a “remarkable”
politician.6
Turning to the royalist camp, we have to mention the French historian
Edouard Driault, who was the most eminent historian supporting the policy
of King Constantine. In 1936, Driault published a volume on the reign of King
Constantine, in which he likened the king to a hero and a martyr.7 Driault’s sym-
pathy for the king was also clear in the fifth volume of his Greek History, where
he presented and analyzed the events from the Young Turk Revolution (1908) to
the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). The publication of this book was banned by the
Venizelist interwar governments and it was published in Greek only in 2000.8
But the aforementioned events aroused suspicions that the Venizelists had some-
thing to hide. In this book, Driault argues that King Constantine was stable and
sincere in his policy of neutrality and that it was Venizelos himself who pressed
for Greece’s immediate entry into the war without any substantial offer from
the Entente Powers. Spyridon Fokas Kosmetatos was also a strong supporter
6 Crawfurd Price, Venizelos and the War. A Sketch of Personalities and Politics (London:
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Company, 1917), 17.
7 Edouard Driault, Le Basileus Constantin XII. Héros et Martyr (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1936).
8 Edouard Driault, Histoire Diplomatique de la Grèce de 1821 à nos jours, vol. 5 (Paris: Les
Presses universitaires de France, 1926).
of King Constantine. Since 1921, Kosmetatos published three monographs to

refute the claims that the king was responsible for the National Schism.9
As a result of such publications, the dispute between royalists and Veni-
zelists concerning the orientation of Greece continued in the literature. It was a
transformation of the National Schism into a historiographical schism, where
the focus of most publications was on propaganda mechanisms used by the two
main Greek political parties. A highly emotional approach also prevailed, with
the use of phrases such as “martyr” or “diablo” prohibiting moderate approaches.
The evaluation of WWI started to change shortly after the end of the
Second World War; understandably so because the historical archives holding
documents from WWI gradually opened their treasuries during the Cold War.
It was also a period when WWI generation started to withdraw, so historians
were able to proceed without any conscience-related reservations. Historio-
graphical production began with the presentation of the military operations of
the Greek army on the Salonika Front, which have been analyzed in an official
two-volume edition by the Greek General Staff.10
Despite an intensification of the historiographical production at the be-
ginning of the Cold War, it is during the last thirty years that interest in WWI
has undoubtedly increased. The main reason has been that historians and other
experts have been allowed access to previously closed archives. Alexander Mi-
trakos published a pioneering work on France’s policy in Greece during WWI,
using French and Greek archives.11 The Institute for Balkan Studies in Thes-
saloniki was probably the most active Greek centre with regard to this issue. In
1983, the Institute organized, in cooperation with King’s College, a conference
on relations between Greece and Great Britain during WWI.12 Four years later,
another conference focused on the relationship between Greece and Serbia dur-
ing WWI.13 The last such conference was organized in 2002 by the Institute and
9 S. Cosmin, Diplomatie et presse dans l’affaire grecque (Paris: Société mutuelle d’édition,
1921); L’Entente et la Grèce pendant la Grande Guerre, vol. 2 (Paris: Société mutuelle d’édi-
tion, 1926); Dossiers Secrets de la Triple Entente. Grèce (1914–1922) (Paris: Nouvelles éditions
latines, 1969).
10 Γενικόν Επιτελείον Στρατού/Διεύθυνσις Ιστορίας Στρατού, Ο Ελληνικός Στρατός κατά τον
Πρώτον Παγκόσμιον Πόλεμον [Greek Army during WWI], vol. 2 (Athens: Greek Army Ge-
neral Staff, 1958), 1961.
11 Alexander S. Mitrakos, France in Greece during World War I: A Study in the Politics of
Power (New York: Boulder, East European Monographs, 1982).

12 Greece and Great Britain during World War I. Papers read at the First International Sym-
posium organized in Thessaloniki by the Institute for Balkan Studies and King’s College
(December 15–17, 1983) (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1985).
13 Proceedings of the Fifth Greek-Serbian Symposium, 1. Serbia and Greece during the First
World War. 2. The Ideas of the French Revolution, the Enlightenment and the Pre-Romantic Pe-
riod in the Balkans, 1780–1830. Organized by the Institute for Balkan Studies and the Serbian
the National Research Foundation “Eleftherios K. Venizelos” and devoted to the

Salonika Front.14 Most speakers came from Balkan countries and described the
Salonika Front in all its diplomatic dimensions and in relation to the political
priorities of the Balkan nation states. Moreover, the Provisional Government
which settled in Thessaloniki in 1916, and the role of Eleftherios Venizelos,
was the general topic of a series of lectures organized by the National Bank of
Greece.15
The Institute for Balkan Studies in Thessaloniki also provided a forum
for scholars to publish their work. For instance, Ch. Theodoulou published a
book on the relations between Greece and the Entente Powers,16 while G. Leon
continued in the same context.17 Professor Leon used a variety of sources, and
conducted extensive research in the historical archives of the Greek, French,
English and German foreign ministries. He was also the main author of a chap-
ter on Greece and WWI in the multi-volume History of the Greek Nation.18
The number of related works has increased in recent years. A new genera-
tion of Greek historians has searched for different answers in the documents.
New historiographical trends represent a systematic effort to evaluate the conse-
quences of political events in Greek society at the crucial time when the Entente
Powers violated Greek sovereignty.19 Moreover, they highlight some previously
ignored aspects of the dispute between royalists and Venizelists. Historians
George Mavrogordatos and Ioannis Mourelos, two of the most eminent Greek
experts on WWI, describe the dramatic events of the Noemvriana, when the
Academy of Sciences and Arts in Thessaloniki and Volos, 9–12 October 1987 (Thessaloniki:
Institute for Balkan Studies, 1991).
14 The Salonica Theatre of Operations and the Outcome of the Great War. Proceedings of the
International Conference organized by the Institute for Balkan Studies and the National
Research Foundation “Elefterios K. Venizelos” in Thessaloniki, 16–18 April 2002 (Thessa-
loniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2005), 446.
15 National Bank of Greece, ο Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Η προσωρινή Κυβέρνηση
1916–1917 [Eleftherios Venizelos in Thessaloniki. The Provisional Government] (Thessa-

loniki: National Bank of Greece, 1994).
16 Christos Thedoulou, Greece and the Entente, August 1, 1914 – September 25, 1916 (Thes-
saloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1971).

17 George B. Leon, Greece and the Great Powers, 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Bal-
kan Studies, 1974); Η Ελλάδα στον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο 1917–1918 [Greece in WWI
1917–1918] (Athens: Morfotiko Idryma Ethnikis Trapezis, 2000).
18 Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Έθνους [History of the Greek Nation], vol. 15 (Athens: Ekdotiki
Athinon, 1978), 8–46, 52–55.

19 A. Tounda-Fergadi, “Violations de la neutralité grecque par les Puissances de l’Entente
durant la Première Guerre mondiale”, Balkan Studies 26/1 (1985), 113–129.
tension between the Entente Powers and King Constantine reached its peak,20
while D. Portolos focuses on Greek foreign policy.21 Gerasimos Alexatos, on the
other hand, explains a controversial issue, the surrender of the Greek Fourth
Army Corps to the Germans in 1916 and its transportation to Görlitz in Upper
Silesia.22 Turning to a more recent generation of Greek historians, Elli Lemoni-
dou discusses aspects of the relationship between Greece and France.23
The centenary of WWI gave a new impetus to the historiographical
production in Greece. It can be described as close to an explosion since inter-
est in WWI has not been restricted to the community of historians but also
reached the public sphere. Conferences,24 colloquia,25 public debates and articles
in newspapers26 added to the Greek contribution to the commemoration of the
events. It is true that public debates in Greece did not have the same intensity as
in other countries, and expectedly so because Greece had not been involved in
the outbreak of WWI and its more widely debated aspects. But Greece followed
20 Γ. Μαυρογορδάτος, Εθνικός Διχασμός και Μαζική Οργάνωση. Οι επίστρατοί του 1916 [National
Schism and Mass Organization. The Reservists of 1916] (Athens: Alexandreia, 1996); Γιάν-
νης Μουρέλος, Τα ‘Νοεμβριανά’ του 1916. Από το αρχείο της Μεικτής Επιτροπής Αποζημιώσεων των
θυμάτων [Noemviana of 1916. From the Archives of the Joint Committee for the Compensa-
tion of the Victims] (Athens: Patakis, 2006).
21 D. Portolos, “Greek Foreign Policy from September 1916 to October 1918” (PhD thesis,
University of London, 1974).

22 Γεράσιμος Αλεξάτος, Οι Έλληνες του Γκαίρλιτς 1916–1919 [Greeks in Görlitz 1916–1919]
(Thessaloniki: Ekdoseis Kyriakidi, 2010).

23 Elli Lemonidou, “Les volontaires grecs au service de la France pendant la Première Guerre
mondiale”, Revue Historique des Armées 240 (2005), 112–122; Elli Lemonidou, “Des écri-
vains grecs engagés durant la Première Guerre mondiale”, La Lettre R 2-3 (2005), 160-169;
Elli Lemonidou, “Entre information et propagande: la Grèce dans la presse britannique et
française de la Première Guerre mondiale”, La Revue LISA IV/3 (2006), 17–28, accessible
at: http://lisa.revues.org/1982 (24/2/2018); Elli Lemonidou, “La politique britannique en
Grèce durant l’année 1916”, in 1916. La Grande-Bretagne en guerre, eds. Henry Daniels and
Nathalie Collé-Bak (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2007), 45–61; Elli Lemonidou,
“Propaganda and Mobilizations in Greece during the First World War”, in World War I and
Propaganda, ed. Troy Paddock (Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2014), 273–291; Elli Lemonidou, “La
Marine alliée en Grèce pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”, in Making Waves in the Medi-
terranean, eds. Michela d’Angelo, Gelina Harlaftis and Carmel Vassallo (Messina: Istituto di
Studi Storici Gaetano Salvemini, 2010), 139–143.
24 See e.g. https://www.imxa.gr/ebooks/Thessaloniki%20government_volume.pdf (ac-
cessed 24/2/2018).
25 See e.g. https://www.britishcouncil.gr/sites/default/files/salonika-remembers-presenta-
tion-programme.pdf (accessed 24/2/2018).

26 See e.g. http:// www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid=556115, http:// chronosmag.eu/
index.php/sl-p-g-e-ths-pgs-pl.html; http:// www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=62136,

http://www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=654750 (accessed 24/2/2018).
these debates and new historiographical narratives through Greek translations

of the best known books, such as The Sleepwalkers of the Australian historian
Christopher Clark.27 In October 2015, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
in collaboration with the University of Macedonia and the Institute for Balkan
Studies in Thessaloniki organized an international conference under the title
“The Salonica Front in World War I”. Historians and other experts from in-
volved countries presented their work on the Macedonian Front.28 As stated by
the President of the Organizational Committee Ioannis Mourelos, the confer-
ence tried to restore the Salonica Front into the general framework of the other
military fronts. This conference was actually the most systematic effort to focus
on the participation of Greece in WWI as an international, and not a domestic/
local issue. In the same direction, in December 2014 the Kalliopi Koufa Founda-
tion for the Promotion of International and Human Rights Law organized an
interdisciplinary colloquium, “World War I – Centenary”, in order to evaluate
the causes of the war and discuss its legacies and memories.29 Some aspects of
Greek involvement and the memory of the Great War were also discussed in a
colloquium organized by the Institute of International Relations in Athens.30
The public interest in WWI is also evident in public history. In this respect, the
most noteworthy work is “Thessaloniki during the First World War”, a continu-
ing publication series with more than 15 titles thus far.31 In the same framework,
we may also mention the book ‘Η Θεσσαλονίκη στον Α’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και
η γενικότερη ελληνική εμπλοκή (Thessaloniki in the First World War and Greek
Intervention).32 In December 2015, the Greek journal Archeiotaxio devoted an
issue to WWI and the participation of Greece in it.33
But despite the aforementioned fresh approaches, the memory of WWI
in Greece is still mostly associated with the National Schism and the catastro-
27 Christopher Clark, Οι υπνοβάτες. Πώς η Ευρώπη πήγε στον πόλεμο το 1914, Greek translation
(Athens: Alexandreia, 2014).

28 For more details see http://www.hist.auth.gr/en/macedonianfrontconference (accessed
24/2/2018).
29 See http://www.koufafoundation.org/december-wwi/ (accessed 24/2/2018).
30 See http://www.idis.gr/?p=4654 (accessed 24/2/2018).
31 https://www.ebooks.gr/gr/%CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%81%CE%B1-%CE%B7-
%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE%B9%C
E%BA%CE%B7-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD-%CE%B1-%CF%80%CE%B1%CE
%B3%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BF-%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B
B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%BF-11816 (accessed 24/2/2018).
32 Γαβριήλ Ν. Συντομόρου, Η Θεσσαλονίκη στον Α’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και η γενικότερη ελληνική
εμ πλοκή (Thessaloniki: Zitros, 2016).

33 Αρχειοτάξιο 17 (Decem ber 2015).
phe of the Greek army in Asia Minor.34 Focusing on the National Schism, Pro-
fessor Mourelos argues that WWI was only the peak of it, describing it also as
a conflict between the traditional Greek elites loyal to King Constantine and the
newly emerged bourgeoisie led by Venizelos.35 Generally, Greek participation
in WWI is being seen as a compact period which started with the triumphant
Balkan Wars and ended with the dramatic events in Smyrna. This interpreta-
tion seems to be inevitable. Since the Great Idea policy was dominant, it is easy
to understand that national integration seemed more appealing than any other
option – especially because Greece’s involvement in WWI was short, actually
lasting less than one and a half years. The country declared war against the Cen-
tral Powers in June 1917, shortly after King Constantine’s dethronement and
the establishment of Venizelos’s government in Athens. Only the troops loyal
to Venizelos had joined the operations of the Entente on the Macedonian Front
from the middle of 1916, but even in this case the military operations in Mace-
donia cannot be compared to what was happening on other fronts, especially
the Western Front. The “gardeners of Salonika”, as the soldiers of the Entente
Powers sent to the Salonika Front were known, became famous more for their
achievements in the Macedonian countryside during a peaceful period than for
their military feats.
The trend to evaluate Greece’s involvement in WWI through the lens of
the National Schism is clear even in recent works. The sixth volume of the His-
tory of New Hellenism covers the period 1909–1922 under the title “The Nation-
al Integration”. In this volume, Greek participation in WWI is included in the
same chapter as the Balkan Wars and the Greek military campaign in Ukraine.36
Moreover, John Koliopoulos and Thanos Veremis, two leading Greek historians,
in their book Greece. The Modern Sequel, include WWI in the ten years’ war
(1913–1923).37
The First World War proved to be a great catastrophe for almost all of
the participants. It was not only the loss of lives on battlefields; it was also the
legacy of this war, the collapse of ideals, Europe’s lost generation. Greece re-
mained on the margin of the events in 1914–1918. The Great Powers did not
consider Greece to be as important as the other Balkan states. But in 1919, when
34 Γιώργος Μαυρογορδάτος, 1915. Ο Εθνικός Διχασμός [1915. The National Schism)] (Ath-
ens: Patakis, 2015), and Αθηνά Κακούρη, Τα δύο Βήτα [The two B] (Athens: Kapon Editions,
2016). Both books. presenting interpretations of the Venizelists and of the supporters of
King Constantine respectively, have become bestsellers in Greece.
35 Μουρέλος, Τα Νοεμβριανά, 18.
36 Ιστορία του Νέου Ελληνισμού (1770–2000) [History of New Hellenism 1770–2000], vol.16
(Athens: Ellinika Grammata, 2003).

37 Θάνος Βερέμης & Γιάννης Κολιόπουλος, Ελλάς. Η σύγχρονη συνέχεια από το 1821 μέχρι σήμερα
[Greece. The Modern Sequel from 1821 onwards] (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2006), 328-362.
the rest of the world entered a short, twenty-year period of peace, Greece faced
its real war in Asia Minor. The Asia Minor campaign proved a real catastrophe
for the Greek Army. On the outskirts of Ankara, Greeks experienced their own
havoc like the other Europeans had on the Somme and in Verdun. Paying trib-
ute to its own lost generation, Greek historiography has included the period
of 1914–1918 into its own national historical narrative which started with the
triumphant Balkan Wars in 1912 but closed dramatically in the ashes of Smyrna
in 1922.
Αλεξάτος, Γεράσιμος. Οι Έλληνες του Γκαίρλιτς 1916–1919 [Greeks in Görlitz 1916–1919].

Thessaloniki: Ekdoseis Kyriakidi, 2010.
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dreia, 2014 (Greek translation of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914).
Cosmin, S. Diplomatie et prese dans l’ affaire grecque. Paris: Société mutuelle d’édition, 1921.
Cosmin, S. L’Entente et la Grèce pendant la Grande Guerre, vol. 2. Paris: Société mutuelle
d’édition, 1926.
— Dossiers Secrets de la Triple Entente. Grèce (1914–1922). Paris: Nouvelles éditions latines,
1969.
Driault, Edouard. Histoire diplomatique de la Grèce de 1821 à nos jour, vol. 5. Paris: Presses
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— Le Basileus Constantin XII. Héros et Martyr. Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1936.
Ενεπεκίδης, Πολυχρόνης. Η Δόξα και ο Διχασμός. Από τα μυστικά αρχεία της Βιέννης 1908–1916
[Glory and Discord 1908–1916]. Athens: Mpiris, 1962.
Γενικόν Επιτελείον Στρατού/Διεύθυνσις Ιστορίας Στρατού, Ο Ελληνικός Στρατός κατά τον Πρώ-
τον Παγκόσμιον Πόλεμον [Greek Army during the First World War], vol. 2. Athens: Greek
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mondiale”. Revue Historique des Armées 240 (2005), 112–122.
— “Des écrivains grecs engagés durant la Première Guerre mondiale”. La Lettre R 2-3 (2005),
160–169.
— “Entre information et propagande: la Grèce dans la presse britannique et française de la
Première Guerre mondiale”. La Revue LISA IV/3 (2006), 17–28. Accessible at: http://
lisa.revues.org/1982 (24/2/2018).
— “La politique britannique en Grèce durant l’année 1916”. In 1916. La Grande-Bretagne en

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Nancy, 2007.
— “La Marine alliée en Grèce pendant la Première Guerre mondiale”. In Making Waves in the
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Messina: Istituto di Studi Storici Gaetano Salvemini, 2010.
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and Propaganda, ed. Troy Paddock, 273–291. Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2014.
Leon, George. Greece and the Great Powers, 1914–1917. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan
Studies, 1974.
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First World War 1917–1918]. Athens: Morfotiko Idryma Ethnikis Trapezis, 2000.
Μαυρογορδάτος, Γιώργος. Εθνικός Διχασμός και Μαζική Οργάνωση. Οι επίστρατοί του 1916 [Na-
tional Schism and Mass Organization. The Reservists of 1916]. Athens: Alexandreia,
1996.
— 1915. Ο Εθνικός Διχασμός [1915. The National Schism]. Athens: Patakis, 2015.
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New York: Boulder, East European Monographs, 1982.
Μουρέλος, Γιάννης. Τα ‘Νοεμβριανά’ του 1916. Από το αρχείο της Μεικτής Επιτροπής Αποζημιώσε-
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Compensation of the Victims]. Athens: Patakis, 2006.
Ο Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Η προσωρινή Κυβέρνηση 1916–1917 [Elefterios Veni-
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niki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1991.
Συντομόρου, Ν. Γαβριήλ. Η Θεσσαλονίκη στον Α’ Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο και η γενικότερη ελληνική
εμπλοκή. Thessaloniki: Zitros, 2016.
The Salonica Theatre of Operations and the Outcome of the Great War. Proceedings of the
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Research Foundation “Elefterios K. Venizelos” in Thessaloniki, 16–18 April 2002. Thes-
saloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 2005.
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la Première Guerre mondiale”. Balkan Studies 26/1 (1985), 113–129.
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Βερέμης, Θάνος & Γιάννης Κολιόπουλος. Ελλάς. Η σύγχρονη συνέχεια από το 1821 μέχρι σήμερα
[Greece. The Modern Sequel from 1821 Onwards]. Athens: Kastaniotis, 2006.
https://www.imxa.gr/ebooks/Thessaloniki%20government_volume.pdf
https://www.britishcouncil.gr/sites/default/files/salonika-remembers-presentation-pro-
gramme.pdf
http://www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid=556115
http://chronosmag.eu/index.php/sl-p-g-e-ths-pgs-pl.html (accessed 24/2/2018)
http://www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=62136
http://www.tovima.gr/culture/article/?aid=654750
http://www.hist.auth.gr/en/macedonianfrontconference
http://www.koufafoundation.org/december-wwi/
http://www.idis.gr/?p=4654
https://www.ebooks.g r/g r/% CF%83%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%81%CE%B1-%CE%B7-
%CE%B8%CE%B5%CF%83%CF%83%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%BD%CE
%B9%CE%BA%CE%B7-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%BD-%CE%B1-%CF%8-
0%CE%B1%CE%B3%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%B9%CE%BF-%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B-
B%CE%B5%CE%BC%CE%BF-11816
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849183T
UDC 323.1(=135.1)"19"
323.1(=135.1:=163.41)"19"
Răzvan Theodorescu* http://www.balcanica.rs
Romanian Academy
International Association of South-East European Studies (AIESEE)
Secretary-General
What Exactly did Romanian Post-War Nationalism Mean?
Abstract: In the last century nationalism as a spiritual element – according to the 1919 state-
ment of the historian, archaeologist and philosopher Vasile Pârvan – was a blessed plant
grown on Romanian soil during the ’48 revolution, the ’59 union under Prince Cuza, the
’77 war of independence and the preparation of such a national project as the Union with
the Romanian Kingdom of several Romanian-speaking provinces dominated by two em-
pires – the Austrian and the Russian – epitomized by Transylvania which came finally to
the motherland on the 1st of December 1918, the same day when the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes was born. In the nationalism project, the Union Transylvania was a
political priority. But we must add immediately that in the events of 1914–1916 in the
neighbourhood of Romania a symbol of the national struggle became what Nicolae Iorga,
in a famous lecture of 1915, called “the heroic and martyr Serbia”.
Keywords: nationalism, Romania, Transylvania, Nicolae Iorga
U sed for the first time on the 4th of July 1892 by Maurice Barrès in his
article “La querelle des nationalistes et des cosmopolites” in Le Figaro, the
word “nationalism” was employed by the interwar and post 1945 dictatorship
regimes of Central and Eastern Europe on several occasions in the twentieth
century. The same word, becoming a concept, reappeared in national enthusi-
asm in the former communist countries after the collapse of so-called “proletar-
ian internationalism”. After 1990 this “nationalism” was quickly denounced in a
superficial if not malevolent manner by West-European print and audio-visual
media, which entirely ignored an important body of academic literature, from
Ernst Gellner’s Nations and nationalism (Oxford 1983) to Michel Winock’s Le
XXe siècle idéologique et politique (Paris 2009).
In that way politicians and journalists of the West – obsequiously imi-
tated by some politicians and journalists of the countries in question – ignored
“nationalism” as a positive and patriotic doctrine including in its history the Ital-
ian and German “unifying nationalism” of the time of Cavour and Bismarck, the
“republican nationalism” of General de Gaulle, the Jewish, Armenian and Greek
“diaspora nationalism”, completely different from “populist nationalism” which
has recently emerged in France, the Netherlands, England and Austria, from
* [email protected]
Fascist and Nazi nationalism or from the “totalitarian nationalism” of the Iron
Guard in Romania.
In the last century nationalism as a spiritual element – according to the
1919 statement of the historian, archaeologist and philosopher Vasile Pârvan
– was a blessed plant grown in Romanian soil during the 1848 revolution, the
1859 union under Prince Cuza, the 1877 war of independence and the prepa-
ration of such a national project as the Union with the Romanian kingdom of
several Romanian-speaking provinces dominated by two empires – the Austrian
and the Russian – epitomized by Transylvania which finally came to the moth-
erland on the 1st of December 1918, the same day when the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes was born.
In the nationalist project, the Union Transylvania was a political priority.
But we must add immediately that in the events of 1914–1916 in the neighbour-
hood of Romania a symbol of the national struggle became what Nicolae Iorga,
in a famous lecture of 1915, called “the heroic and martyr Serbia”.
The struggle of the South-Slav people of the West Balkans against the
invasion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – the same that dominated the Ro-
manians in Transylvania, Banat and Bucovina – was, from the 28th of July of
1914, when Serbia was attacked, followed with sympathy and solidarity by the
Romanians led by the already mentioned professor Nicolae Iorga.
The list of Iorga’s lectures and articles devoted to Serbia is most impres-
sive. On 10 November 1913 – not many months before the outbreak of the
world war – he spoke at the Royal Serbian Academy about historical relations
between Serbs and Romanians.1 “Les deux nations serbe et roumaine sont par-
ticulièrement faites pour s’entendre et se soutenir” was the statement of Iorga
who, a year later, on 21 November 1914 – when Belgrade was on the verge of
being seized by the Austro-Hungarian army – delivered a speech at the Insti-
tute of South-East European Studies about the history of the Hungarian and
Austrian pretensions towards the Balkan Slavic world, from the Anjou dynasty
to the Peace of Karlowitz.2
A week later, on 28 November, at the Romanian Academy, Iorga evoked
again the Romanian-Serbian contacts and underlined the fact that “our relations
with the Serbs in fear and hope are closer than ever”.3 The place of national cul-
ture in Serbia was commented in a lecture at the “Casa Şcoalelor” (The House
of Schools) in Bucharest,4 and the dual face of the same Serbia – “the Adriatic”
1 Nicolae Iorga, Relations entre Serbes et Roumains (Vălenii de Munte 1913).

2 Nicolae Iorga, Politica austriacă față de Serbia (Bucharest: institutuluĭ Sud-Ost-Euro-
pean, 1915).
3 Nicolae Iorga, “Din legăturile noastre cu Serbia, Corespondența românească a voie-
vozilor din Cladova”, Bucharest 1915, 3.

4 Nicolae Iorga, “Pagini despre Serbia de azi”, Bucharest 1914.
R. Theodorescu,What Exactly did Romanian Post-War Nationalism Mean? 185
and the “Rascian” Serbia – was the topic of another lecture at the Romanian
Academy on 9 October 1915.5
Two weeks later, on 24 October, at the Romanian Athenaeum, amidst
an overflowing enthusiasm, Nicolae Iorga gave his famous lecture devoted to
Serbian courage and martyrdom,6 greeting the “sublime unfortunate heroism in
the face of the triumphant impudence of a stronger enemy”.
A month later, in Craiova, Iorga gave a charity lecture for the benefit
of “Serbian refugees” about the contacts of the Romanian province of Oltenia
with Serbia,7 whose “noble people” was living through a tragic moment, and ex-
claimed: “Serbia can live only undivided… I believe, gentlemen that Serbia can-
not die.”
Even in more general debates on such a moment of European tensions,
Iorga, speaking about the Balkan peoples at the Romanian Athenaeum on 13
December 1915, or about the ongoing war on 21 December, constantly proved
his friendly feelings for the Serbs “who are the enemies of our enemies”.
The symbolic meaning of Serbian resistance in the struggle for the na-
tional idea was turned by Iorga into a symbolic Romanian meaning.
If Serbian nationalism confronted with Austro-Hungarian imperialism
became a major impulse for the completion of Romanian nationalism embodied
at a highest level by the “national teacher” Nicolae Iorga, the main nationalist
project of the Union of Transylvania was the absolute priority in the neutrality
years, during the war and – once the project was carried out – a recurrent theme
in the national debate to a certain extent. The reason was that, twenty years af-
ter 1918, the Transylvanian tragedy (August 1940) made the intra-Carpathian
space the main topic of reflection for several Romanian historians, men of let-
ters, thinkers and politicians.
Again and again Nicolae Iorga spoke with a strong and decisive voice,
when he evoked (8 September 1914) “the unifying vision of Transylvania”8 or
when he spoke (December 1915) about “a part of our nation which is bleeding
today in Transylvania”.
The Union achieved, Iorga welcomed on behalf of the Romanian Acad-
emy, on 31 May 1919, the return of Bessarabia and Transylvania to the national
body and remarked the perfect geographical unity between the Dniester and the
Tisza, “the two great rivers from East and West running in the same direction
5 Nicolae Iorga, Sârbi, bulgari și români în Peninsula Balcanică în evul mediu (Bucharest
1915), 8.
6 Nicolae Iorga, Serbia eroică și martiră (Vălenii de Munte 1915).
7 Nicolae Iorga, Oltenia și Serbia (Vălenii de Munte: Neamul Romănesc, 1915).
8 Nicolae Iorga, Războiul actual și urmările lui pentru viața morală a omenirii (Vălenii
de Munte 1916), 36.
like the rivers flowing between, compose one of the most perfect geographical
configurations in the world, imposing a political unity without fail.”9
In the year of the Romanian national triumph, the young Eugen Lovi-
nescu, destined to become a prominent literary critic and historian and dra-
matically opposed to Iorga in the following period, saluted the national victory
with an explanatory sentence: “The Carpathian mountains disappeared”, from
a separating wall they became the backbone of our space, virtually chairing “the
great feast of the Romanian nation, gathered from everywhere in a commanding
Latin unity”.10
Even before the war, some European studies issued from the so-called
“Völkerpsychologie” inspired Romanian scholars and, above all, the future presi-
dent of the Romanian Academy, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru. As early as 1910
he wrote that the Romanian people as seen by others was a “religious and nation-
alist people”11 and later, in 1924, that the State itself must favour the doctrine of
nationalism “grown from the soil of the country”.
Ten years after 1918, Iorga’s article “What Transylvania received and
what it gave” commenced the work on the book in three volumes and 1600
pages, with several Romanian and foreign contributors, devoted to the western
provinces incorporated into Romania.12 Twenty-two years after the moment of
jubilation in Alba Iulia, the Vienna Dictate caused a national trauma by the rape
of northern Transylvania. That is why the Romanian intellectuals once more,
from 1940 to 1944, made Transylvania the main topic of the nationalist debate
and movement, where we find side by side such outstanding personalities as
the Transylvanian priest-academician Ioan Lupaș and the philosopher Vasile
Băncilă, born in a Danubian town.
The former, in a lecture – initially forbidden – in November 1940, with
the provocative title “To whom does Transylvania belong?”13 – and three years
later (after his La Transylvanie, cœur de la vie roumaine, 1942), in his fundamen-
tal study devoted to Transylvania as the vital centre of the Romanian spirit,14
9 Nicolae Iorga, “Drepturile românilor asupra teritoriului lor național unitar”, Bucha-
rest 1919, 4.
10 Eugen Lovinescu, În cumpăna vremii. Note de războiu (Bucharest 1919), 5–6.
11 Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, “Sufletul neamului nostru. Calități bune și defecte”
(1910), 14.
12 Transilvania, Banatul, Crișana, Maramureșul. 1918–1928 (Bucharest: Cultura
Națională, 1929), among foreign authors being Emmanuel de Martonne and R. W.

Setton-Watson.
13 Published six years later: Ioan Lupaș, “Cui aparține Transilvania? O conferință nero-
stită”, Revista Economică 24–25 (1946).

14 Ioan Lupaș, Importanța istorică a Transilvaniei ca centru vital al românismului (Sibiu
1943).
R. Theodorescu,What Exactly did Romanian Post-War Nationalism Mean? 187
considered the troubled province as “the cradle of the Romanian people”, a kind
of a “beehive” from where Transylvanians swarmed, from school teachers to
shepherds, and concluded: “Transylvania ... is the most essential part of the terri-
tory and ethnic capital of the Romanian State, which is the basis of the existence
and future of the State.”
The latter was a thinker whose place in the cultural history of Romania is
assured with his essay The Significance of Transylvania (Semnificația Ardealului)
written in 1936–1939 and published in 1944. It is a text which I compare with
the final chapter of George Călinescu’s History of Romanian Literature of 1941
devoted to the “national specificities”, where the famous critic evoked the “specific
primordial note of the writers from Transylvania”, just after an important state-
ment he made in 1940: “my idea is that the centre of our literature is Transylva-
nia” and “I prove that Romanian literature has its headquarters especially in oc-
cupied Transylvania”.15 Returning to Vasile Băncilă, I think that The Significance
of Transylvania is an outstanding text of Romanian nationalism, writing about
“the mystic of Transylvania”, about the medieval origins where “Wallachia and
Moldavia became the delegates of Transylvania in history”; saying that “Tran-
sylvania is history”, “Transylvania is a Romanian essential form”, that “Moldo-
Wallachian heroism in 1916–1918 ... is a quite normal tribute of gratitude to
Transylvania, is a result of our love and appreciation for the province which was
for us the beginning of history”, because “at the basis of the Union of Transyl-
vania with Romania lies the most profound thing in human life: pain. And the
most beautiful: youth”.16
Certainly, wars and revolutions were, in the twentieth century, a catalyst
of European nationalism. For sure, in the Romanian case, the attack on Serbia
was, at the outbreak of the First World War and in the neutrality years, an im-
pulse for the Romanian national idea. But – more than Bessarabia, more than
Bucovina – with the tradition of the Memorandist movement at the end of the
nineteenth century Transylvania became the stimulus of Romanian nationalism
and, in the age of the Vienna Dictate, the supreme issue of struggle and debate.
In a way, it is the last such topic in Romanian history. Because a theme
involving national projects and aspirations was entirely missing in the totalitar-
ian age and, unfortunately, is entirely missing in post-communist period too.
15 Corespondența lui G. Călinescu cu Al. Rosetti (1935–1951), ed. Al. Rosetti (Bucharest,
Eminescu, 1977), 134, 142.
16 Vasile Băncilă, Semnificația Ardealului (Bucharest 1944), 10, 16, 23, 33, 59, 61.
Băncilă, Vasile. Semnificația Ardealului. Bucharest 1944.

Corespondența lui G. Călinescu cu Al. Rosetti (1935–1951), ed. Al. Rosetti. Bucharest: Emine-
scu, 1977.
Iorga, Nicolae. Relations entre Serbes et Roumains. Vălenii de Munte 1913.
— Politica austriacă față de Serbia. Bucharest: institutuluĭ Sud-Ost-European, 1915.
— “Din legăturile noastre cu Serbia, Corespondența românească a voievozilor din Cladova”.
Bucharest 1915.
— “Pagini despre Serbia de azi”. Bucharest 1914.
— Sârbi, bulgari și români în Peninsula Balcanică în evul mediu. Bucharest 1915.
— Serbia eroică și martiră. Vălenii de Munte 1915.
— Oltenia și Serbia. Vălenii de Munte : Neamul Romănesc, 1915.
— Războiul actual și urmările lui pentru viața morală a omenirii. Vălenii de Munte 1916.
— “Drepturile românilor asupra teritoriului lor național unitar”. Bucharest 1919.
Lovinescu, Eugen. În cumpăna vremii. Note de războiu. Bucharest 1919.
Lupaș, Ioan. “Cui aparține Transilvania? O conferință nerostită”. Revista Economică 24–25
(1946).
— Importanța istorică a Transilvaniei ca centru vital al românismului. Sibiu 1943.
Rădulescu-Motru, Constantin. “Sufletul neamului nostru. Calități bune și defecte”. 1910.
Transilvania, Banatul, Crișana, Maramureșul. 1918–1928. Bucharest: Cultura Națională, 1929.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849189V
UDC 94(=163.41)(495)"1914/1918"
94:725.94(495)"1914/1918"
Vlasis Vlasidis* http://www.balcanica.rs
Department for Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies
University of Macedonia
Thessaloniki
The Serbian Heritage of the Great War in Greece

Abstract: During the First World War Serbian soldiers were encamped or fought in different
parts of Greece. Many of them died there of diseases or exhaustion or were killed in battle.
This paper looks at the issue of cemeteries of and memorials to the dead Serbian soldiers
(primarily in the area of Corfu, Thessaloniki and Florina) in the context of post-war rela-
tions between Greece and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia), at
the attitude of post-Second World War Yugoslavia towards them, and the Serbs’ revived
interest in their First World War history. It also takes a look at the image of Serbs in the
memory of local people.
Keywords: First World War, Serbia, heritage, Greece, Corfu, Thessaloniki, Aridea, Vidos,
Zeitenlik, monuments
D uring the First World War, Serbia and Greece were allies fighting against
the Germans and the Bulgarians. But after the war ended their govern-
ments parted ways. Serbia managed to unite the Southern Slavs in a new state,
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SCS), which dominated the Bal-
kan region during the interwar period. Greece, on the other hand, was defeated
in the Greek-Turkish War in Asia Minor and became the recipient of the largest
part of the Christian population of Asia Minor. Greece and Serbia may have had
shared common interests during the interwar period, but the Kingdom of SCS
looked at Greece not as its equal, but as a minor ally.1
In 1923, the Kingdom of SCS tried to raise all the issues its government
was concerned with, such as the issue of a Serbian free trade zone in the port of
Thessaloniki,2 the use of the Thessaloniki–Gevgelija railway line and the recog-
* [email protected]
1 A. Koulas, “Οι Ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις από το 1923 έως το 1928” [Greek-Jugoslav
Relations 1923–1928] (Ph.D. thesis, Thessaloniki 2007), 17; E. Hatzivasileiou, Ο Ελευθέριος
Βενιζέλος, η ελληνοτουρκική προσέγγιση και το πρόβλημα ασφάλειας στα Βαλκάνια 1928–1931
[Eleftherios Venizelos, Greek-Turkish approach and security issues in the Balkans 1928–
1931] (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies 1999), 38, 39.
2 For the Serbian Zone at Thessaloniki Harbour see Diplomatic and Historical Archive of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece (DIAYE), 1923, f. 52 s,f. 5; 1928, f. 7, s.f. 1; Εφημερίς
nition of the Slavic-speaking minority in Greek Macedonia as a Serbian minor-

ity, utilizing its authority as a regional power.3 The Greek state made extensive
concessions to Serbia over the Serbian free trade zone in the port of Thessa-
loniki, since its goal was to join the Little Entente, but the foreign minister of the
Kingdom of SCS did not accept the Greek request at the conference of the Little
Entente held at Sinaia, Romania.4
When Greece recognized the Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Greek Mace-
donia as ethnic Bulgarians and guaranteed their protection (pursuant to the
Politis-Kalfoff Protocol of 29 September 1924), the government of the Kingdom
of SCS expressed its strong opposition. The Kingdom of SCS claimed that the
Slavic-speaking residents of Greek Macedonia were, in fact, Serbs rather than Bul-
garians, and that only Serbs lived in Serbian Macedonia. On 2 February 1925, the
Greek parliament refused to ratify the protocol, because of strong pressure from
the Kingdom of SCS (which threatened to renounce the Greek-Serbian alliance
treaty signed in 1913). The negotiations lasted several months, until 10 June 1925,
when the League of Nations nullified it.5
Throughout the interwar period, the Kingdom of SCS would continue
to regard the Slav Macedonians in Greece as Serbs, thus raising the Greek gov-
ernment’s suspicion of Serbian intentions in Greek Macedonia. All of the above
conclude the historical context of that time dictating the nature of relations be-
tween the two nations.
In the subsequent years, after the First World War, the Serbian authori-
ties, war veterans and civilian organizations wished to visit the locations where
the Serbian Army had achieved glory in battle. They fulfilled their wish by visit-
ing the cemeteries of fallen Serbian soldiers. The sites of interest to the Serbs
were Corfu, Thessaloniki, the geographical line from Mt Dzena, through Dobro
Pole, to Kaimakchalan and Florina. Descendants of Serbian fallen soldiers vis-
ited the cemeteries quite often and used to replace the wooden crosses on their
ancestors’ graves with tombstones.
Individuals and the Serbian press, especially the daily Politika, published
articles claiming that the Serbian cemeteries located between Thessaloniki and
της Κυβερνήσεως [Government Gazette] no. 317, 2 Nov. 1923, ch. A.

3 Koulas, “Οι Ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις ”.
4 DIΑΥΕ, 1923, f.89, s.f. 2, Royal Hellenic Legation in Bucharest to Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Sinaia, 29 July 1923.

5 For the protocol Politis-Kalfoff and its impact, see A. Τούντα-Φεργάδη, Μειονότητες στα
Βαλκάνια. Βαλκανικές διασκέψεις 1930–1934 [Minorities in the Balkans. Balkan conferences

1930–1934] (Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1994); K. D. Kentrotis, “International status of mi-
norities: The case of the Balkans”, Balkan Studies XXXVIII/2 (1997), 355–377; I. D. Michai-
lidis, “Traditional Friends and Occasional Claimants: Serbian claims in Macedonia between
the wars”, Balkan Studies, XXXVI/1 (1995), 103–108.
V. Vlasidis, The Serbian Heritage of the Great War in Greece 191
Florina had suffered severe damage. Authorities of Kingdom of SCS submitted

verbal notes to the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs concerning this issue.6
However, most of the damage had been the result of the passage of time and ex-
posure to harsh winter conditions, in addition to low-quality materials used for
constructing temporary cemeteries (wooden crosses, stone and barbed wire).7
The issue was a complicated one, since there were 213 temporary cem-
eteries in Greek Macedonia and another 27 on Corfu, according to the authori-
ties of the Kingdom of SCS.8 The constantly arising difficulties in supervising
the maintenance of and taking care of such a large number of cemeteries, most
of which were located in mountainous regions, led the government of the King-
dom of SCS to think of having the remains of deceased soldiers relocated and
two permanent central cemeteries and ossuaries constructed, in Thessaloniki
and Corfu respectively. In 1924, the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the King-
dom of SCS set up a special commission whose purpose was to visit the Serbian
cemeteries in Greece, make inquiries and decide whether the construction of
two permanent cemeteries was the most appropriate solution.9
In late 1926, the government of the Kingdom of SCS decided and an-
nounced that a mausoleum and ossuary were to be created in Zeitinlik (City
of Thessaloniki) to hold the remains of 7,000 Serbian soldiers who either had
remained unburied or had been buried in temporary cemeteries in Greek Mace-
donia.10 The Greek government was officially informed of that decision in July
192711 and raised no objections.12 The amount of material (cement, steel, mar-
ble, granite) imported from Serbia for the construction of the mausoleum and
6 DIΑΥΕ, 1932-1934, A/5/3, Mavroudis to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade, 4 Apr.

1924, no. 51; DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation du Royaume Serbes, Croates et Slovenes
en Grèce, Note Verbale, Athens, 12 Jan. 1926, no. 88/3; DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Léga-
tion du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovenes en Grèce, Note Verbale, Athens, 28 Mar.
1926, no. 308.
7 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, P. Sarigiannis, Head of the Greek Army to Ministry of For-
eign Affairs, Athens, 11 Mar. 1926, no. 2563/563.

8 DΙΑΥΕ, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation Royale de Yugoslavie en Grèce to Ministry of For-
eign Affairs. Note Verbale, Athens, 12 June 1930, no. 24156.

9 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Royal Hellenic Legation in Belgrade to Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, Belgrade, 30 May 1924, no. 884; DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Deputy Governor of
Macedonia to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thessaloniki 31July 1924, no. 15247.
10 “Spomenik-kapela u Zejtinliku kod Soluna. Projekt g. A.Vasica”, Politika, 17 Nov. 1926;
Vlasis Vlasidis, “Τα στρατιωτικά νεκροταφεία του Α’ Παγκόσμιου Πολέμου στη Μακεδονία”
[First World War cemeteries in Macedonia], Θεσσαλονίκη VIII (2013), 332–333.
11 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croats et Slovenes en
Grèce, Note Verbale, Athens 27 July 1927, no. 467.

12 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, G. Vrontamitis, Deputy Head of the Greek Army to Minis-
try of Foreign Affairs, Athens 30 Nov. 1927, no. 6359/150, conf.
the mausoleum’s large size caused worries and aroused questions,13 but careful
investigation showed that all of the material was indeed used for the construc-
tion of the mausoleum.14
In 1930, the Yugoslav Legation requested Greek permission to have the
remains of 6,000 Serbian soldiers transferred from 213 sites between Florina
and Thessaloniki to the Zeitinlik cemetery; the Greek government granted per-
mission without delay.15 After the inauguration of the mausoleum, the remains
of Serbian soldiers kept in other locations were transferred to the ossuary-crypt.
The transfer took place during the first months of 1931.16 A year earlier, in 1930,
the remains of Serbian soldiers had been gathered from various temporary cem-
eteries on Corfu and transferred to the island of Vidos, where a mausoleum was
to be constructed.17
The ownership of the land on which temporary Serbian cemeteries in
Greek Macedonia had been established was a complicated issue, since in some
cases it belonged to local communities and in some to private owners, in which
case the owners were compensated. This is why the Governor General of Greek
Macedonia, Stylianos Gonatas, recommended that the now vacated land be re-
turned to communal and privates owners without any publicity. If monuments
existed there, their maintenance was to be the landowners’ responsibility.18
The construction of a similar memorial ossuary for Serbian soldiers on
Corfu was not such a simple matter. As early as 1916, the Serbian authorities
requested of the Greek government to be allocated a large tract of land on the
13 DIAYE, 1927–1938, A/5/3 (A26), Ministry of the Economy to Ministry of Foreign Af-
fairs, Athens, 25 June 1932, no. 4688; DIAYE, 1927–1938, A/5/3 (A26), General Staff of the
Army, 2nd Dept. to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, 9 Aug. 1934, no. 2793/237.
14 DIAYE, 1927–1938, A/5/3 (A26), General Staff of the Army, 2nd Dept. to Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Athens, 3 Dec. 1934, no. 3342/405, conf.; DIAYE, 1927–1938, A/5/3 (A26),
General Staff of the Army, 2nd Dept. to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, 11 Jan. 1935, no.
25/33, conf.
15 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croats et Slovenes en
Grèce to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, 13 May 1930, no. 433; DIAYE, 1932–1934,
A/5/3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croats et Slovenes
en Grèce, Athens, 12 June 1930, no. 24156.
16 For the exhumation and transfer of the Serb soldiers from the villages of Florina district,
see DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Report of the Head of Sitaria village, Sitaria, 1 Dec. 1931;
DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Report of the Head of Vevi village, Vevi, 1 Dec. 1931; DIAYE,
1932–1934, A/5/3, Report of Antoniadis, Head of Achlada village, Achlada, 29 Nov. 1931;
DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Report of the Head of 3rd Army camp, Meliti, 2 Dec. 1931.
17 DIAYE, 1932, A/45/9, Jokovic, Yugoslav military attaché to Corfu Prefect, Corfu, 2 Sep,
1930, no. 103.

18 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Stylianos Gonatas, Governor-General of Macedonia to Min-
istry of War, 2nd Dept. Thessaloniki, 28 Mar. 1932, no. 39215.
island of Vidos for a cemetery and a memorial.19 Prime Minister Eleftherios

Venizelos had agreed to the creation of a memorial on Vidos.20 The govern-
ment of the Kingdom of SCS restated its request for a memorial on Vidos in
1920. The Greek government accepted it and recommended to the Legation of
the Kingdom of SCS that technical staff should be sent from Serbia to Corfu
to negotiate with the Prefect of Corfu.21 Nevertheless, the agreement remained
unfulfilled due to obstructions by the Kingdom of SCS.
In 1925, the government of the Kingdom of SCS decided that it was
necessary to exhume and transfer all the remains from the temporary cemeteries
on the islands of Corfu and Lazareto to Vidos, where a mausoleum with an os-
suary was to be built.22 The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs disagreed mainly
because the requested area was too large.23 Local societies and the Municipality
of Corfu also protested strongly.24
The Greek government offered to allocate an area of 1,600 m2 on the is-
land of Vidos for the creation of a memorial,25 but the government of the King-
dom of SCS requested a tract of 12,000 m2 in the area of the already existing
military cemetery.26 In order to apply more pressure on Greece and to show the
importance of Vidos for the Serbian nation, the fleet of the Kingdom of SCS
paid two friendly visits to Corfu, in 192927 and in 1934 respectively. In fact, on
its second visit a delegation set up a 3.85-m-high cross on Vidos. The delegation
setting up the cross was accompanied by 114 members of the lower and upper
19 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation de Serbie to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, 15
Oct. 1916, no. 1237.

20 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Petmezas to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Corfu, 10 Nov.
1917, no. 8799.
21 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères to Légation du Royaume
des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes en ville, Athens, 9/22 Oct. 1920, no. 30466.
22 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes to
Ministry of Naval Affairs, Athens, 23 Oct. 1925, no. 654.

23 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Corfu Prefect, Athens, 13 Nov.
1925, no. 35823/35714, conf.; DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to
Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes, Athens, 20 Jan. 1926, no. 38422/1297.
24 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Telegram to all Greek authorities, Corfu, 26 Dec. 1925; DI-
AYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Garrison Headquarters of Corfu to General Staff of the Army,
Corfu, 2 Jan. 1926, no.1.
25 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Légation du Royaume des
Serbes, Croates et Slovènes, Athens, 20 Jan.1926, no. 38422.

26 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Légation du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Athens, 3 Aug. 1928, no. 443.

27 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Corfu Prefecture, Athens, 25
Apr. 1929, no. 4662, conf.
chambers of Yugoslav Parliament, along with the former finance minister Milan
Stojadinović and twelve journalists.28 Eventually, the mausoleum was designed
by the Russian-born Serbian architect Nikolai Krasnov and built under the su-
pervision of the local engineer Joseph Cohen. Construction began in 1936 and
was completed in 1939.
Apart from taking care of the cemeteries, the Kingdom of SCS tried to
organize a series of events in commemoration of the First World War on Greek
soil, but without success. More important was the request for an official com-
memoration of the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Kaimakchalan under the
auspices and in the presence of King Alexander of Yugoslavia at the top of the
mountain. The Greek state was cautious about the request of Kingdom of SCS,
but the harsh weather put an end to such concerns, preventing the commemora-
tion from taking place.29
Corfu
Memories of the Serbian wartime presence were preserved by local people, in
addition to the official preservation of the memory by the Kingdom of SCS
itself through the erection and maintenance of numerous monuments on the lo-
cations where the Serbian Army had been encamped or fought. These locations
were the regions of Corfu, Thessaloniki, Aridea and Florina. Initially, the locals
of Corfu did not perceive the exhausted and starved Serbian soldiers, who had
crossed Albania, as a regular army.30 But the discipline shown by the Serbian
soldiers and their kind behaviour towards the locals changed their impressions
of them completely. That resulted in many mixed marriages and the vital as-
sistance of several locals to the Serbian Army and administration during the
war. The Serbian government, which remained in the city of Corfu until the
end of the war using various public buildings, made a good impression on local
communities. An expression of good faith of the local people and authorities
towards the Serbian refugees was the allocation of schools for their children’s
education, in 1917 and 1918, and of three churches for worship.31 The plays by
28 DIAYE, 1932–1934, A/5/3, Melas to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgrade, 12 May 1934.
29 See DΙΑΥΕ, 1926, f. 69 s.f. 7, Thessaloniki Press Bureau, Commemoration of the Battle of
Kaimakchalan.
30 J. Tomašević, Ο Α΄ Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος και η Ελλάδα στα μάτια του ξενιτεμένου σερβικού
στρατού [First World War and Greece in the eyes of the Serbian army abroad] (Thessaloniki:
MA, 2013), 23. N. Randjelović, Srpski parlament na Krfu 1916–1918 (Niš: Zograf, 2003),
61–63, 161.
31 D. Janković, “Serbian pupils in Greece during the First World War”, Η Καβάλα και τα
Βαλκάνια: από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι σήμερα 2 [Kavala and the Balkans: from Antiquity until
the present] (Kavala: ILAK, 2004), vol. II, 545–562.
the Serbian author and actor Brana Cvetković, the Serbian songs composed and
sung in Corfu and the Serbs’ participation in local festivities created an even bet-
ter image in the eyes of the Corfiots.32 The Serbian Army’s rapid transfer from
Corfu, commenced in April 1916, left only good memories. It is reasonable to
assume that the situation would have probably been different had the Serbian
Army remained in Corfu for a longer time.
As a result, the positive impression the Serbs made amongst the locals
lasted for years to come. Mixed marriages contributed to this by strengthen-
ing family ties. They were also conducive to Serbian officials, journalists and
families paying visits to Corfu to commemorate their dead in the subsequent
years. On the occasion of King Alexander’s visit, in May 1922, he inaugurated
the first memorial to the dead Serbian soldiers, a stone cross set up by the Navy
of the Kingdom of SCS.33 The local people of Corfu saw very positively any
Serbian reaction to the Tellini incident, the bombardment and short occupation
of Corfu by the Italians, or so interpreted the attitude of the Serbs.34
During the next few years, the Greek authorities and some local organi-
zations were worried about the motives underlying the request of the Kingdom
of SCS for permission to build a huge memorial on Corfu, although the Corfiots
did not share their reservations. Contrary to what happened in other parts of
Greece, the memory of the Serbs remained alive there after the Second World
War. Perhaps it faded away elsewhere because Socialist Yugoslavia was not in-
terested in preserving this kind of memory.35 The most important issue at that
time was Socialist Yugoslavia and the Partisans. Indeed, when Tito visited Corfu
in 1954, he himself reportedly removed the symbols of interwar Yugoslavia from
the ossuary on Vidos.36 Between 1950 and 1990 visitors were few.
In the 1900s the Municipality of Corfu donated a downtown building
for the Serbian House. Every year more and more Serbs come to Corfu to visit
the Serbian House and the ossuary on Vidos. More and more of them are go-
ing to Corfu in order to find their own Serbian identity. In 2001, Corfu and
32 Tomašević, Ο Α΄ Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος, 36–37.

33 V. Vlasidis, Μεταξύ μνήμης και λήθης. Μνημεία και κοιμητήρια του Μακεδονικού Μετώπου [Be-
tween memory and forgetfulness. Monuments and Cemeteries of the Macedonian Front]
(Thessaloniki: Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, 2016), 161.
34 Koulas, “Οι Ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις”, 44–45. For the Corfu incident see I. Papaflora-
tos, Η ελληνοϊταλική κρίση του 1923/Το επεισόδιο Tellini/Κέρκυρας [The Greek-Italian crisis of
1923. The Tellini/Corfu incident] (Athens: Sakoulas, 2009).
35 V. Vlasidis, “Rediscovering the First World War Serbian Monuments in Greece – From
Ignorance to Consideration of the Cultural Heritage”, in Zbornik radova sa medjunarodne

konferencije Arhiv, mediji i kultura sećanja u Prvom svetskom ratu, Novi Sad, 29–30. oktobar
2014, ed. Dragana Ćiraković and Miroslav Jaćimović (Novi Sad: 2014), 310.
36 Interview with Ljubomir Saramandić, Corfu, 18 Apr. 2018.
Vidos were visited by 4,000–5,000 Serbs, and in 2017–2018 the number rose to
30,000–40,000 visitors. Some of them come as tourists but become pilgrims and
some Serbs even perceive Vidos as their own Jerusalem.37
Thessaloniki
The situation in Thessaloniki was different. After the Second World War the
Yugoslav consular authorities did not show much interest in the preservation
and presentation of the First World War monuments on Greek soil; as a matter
of fact, they did exactly the opposite. As a result of neglect, most monuments
either were completely gone or fell in ruin. Memory of the war was preserved by
veterans, who continued taking trips to Thessaloniki and to the battlefields in
Yugoslavia.38
Serbian First World War veterans, popularly known as Solunci (Saloni-
kans), never stopped visiting the tombs of their dead fellow soldiers in Thessa-
loniki, with one exception: the period of 1940–1953. Even when the last of the
veterans died, their children and grandchildren continued to come. However,
by the time the last veteran died, that is to say, the late 1980s, the Macedonian
(Salonika) Front became well known in Serbia once more, through the books of
Milivoje Alimpić and Petar Opačić. Many Serbs started to travel to Greece in
order to visit the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos, the Zeitenlik
cemetery in Thessaloniki and the one on Vidos. In fact, the Zeitenlik cemetery
keeper, Djordje Mihailović, the descendant of a Solunac, would always welcome
them wearing the Serbian army uniform. During the Yugoslav wars of the 1900s,
Zeitenlik became even more important to the Serbs, as shown by the fact that
many communities, associations and individuals leaf there flags, hats, uniforms
and photographs of Serbs killed in the wars fought in Croatia and Bosnia.
Today hundreds of people from Serbia visit Zeitenlik every week, where
the new keeper, Predrag Nedeljković, serves as their guide. Each year, at the end
of September, major events take place, with the participation of many veteran
associations and many visitors from Serbia and the Republika Srpska.39
Local authorities have always had reservations about these numerous vis-
its to Zeitenlik, often seeing them as Serbia’s display of power and of its interest
in Thessaloniki and its hinterland. However, they have always been more con-
cerned about the issue of the Serbian zone in the port of Thessaloniki than about
the veterans’ visits.40 The local inhabitants never cared about Allied cemeteries.
37 Ibid.
38 Interview with George Mihailović, Thessaloniki, 18 Mar. 2013.
39 Interview with Predrag Nedelković, Thessaloniki, 27 July 2017.
40 E. Kofos, “Ελληνικό κράτος και μακεδονικές ταυτότητες (1950–2005)” [The Greek state
and Macedonian identities 1950–2005], in Μακεδονικές ταυτότητες στο χρόνο. Διεπιστημονικές
They had more important problems to deal with. Thessaloniki was complete-
ly destroyed by the Great Fire of 1917 and then underwent great population
changes. During the interwar period Bulgarians and Muslims left the city and its
large Jewish community was exterminated during the Second World War. On
the other hand, many Greek refugees from the Black Sea, Eastern Thrace and
Asia Minor settled in Thessaloniki, mostly in the western part of the city, some
near or around Zeitenlik. But they were always more interested in their own lost
homeland than in Serbian, French and British soldiers of the First World War.41
After the Second World War, most of them did not even know that the Allied
cemeteries were the last resting place of the dead of the First and not the Second
World War. This situation has changed a lot in recent days.
Aridea (former Subotsko) District

Until the 1930s there were in this region many monuments and cemeteries ded-
icated to the First World War, including Kaimakchalan, Vetrenik, Golo Bilo,
Dzena, Dobro Pole. Some monuments are still standing, such as those in Exa-
platanos and the city of Aridea.42 However, the monument by the French sculp-
tor Marcel Canguilhem set up by the French and Serbian Association d’Anciens
Combattants du Front de Macédoine at Dobro Pole in 1938 was destroyed by
the Bulgarians in 1942.
The region of Aridea was inhabited also by Muslim populations until
1924, when they departed for Turkey as part of the population exchange dictated
by the Treaty of Lausanne. Before leaving, several Muslims had buried their gold
near or under Serbian monuments, mainly drinking fountains and tombstones.
When their descendants began to return in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the
locals suspected that they were digging for the gold. As a result, many Serbian
monuments were destroyed, because the locals themselves began digging for the
Muslim gold. The most significant were the demolition of the Serbian fountain
and the Timok Memorial in the village of Slatina (now Hrysi) in Aridea.43
προσεγγίσεις [Macedonian Identities through Time] ed. Ioannis Stefanidis, Vlasis Vlasidis
and Evangelos Kofos (Athens: Patakis, 2008) 365–380; K. Katsanos, Το ανύπαρκτο ζήτημα.
Οι ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις και το Μακεδονικό 1950–1967 [A non-existent issue. Greek-
Yugoslav relations and the Macedonian Question] (Thessaloniki: Epikentro, 2013).
41 V. Vlasidis, “This is not our War. Salonika Front War Memory”, in World War I in Central
and Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture and Society, Conference proceedings, School of His-
tory and Archives, University College of Dublin, Dublin, May 9–10, 2014, ed. Judith Devlin
(Dublin, in press).
42 Vlasidis, Μεταξύ μνήμης και λήθης, 113, 114.
43 Ibid. 110.
The region’s inhabitants nowadays are both natives and refugees. No

one remembers Serbian soldiers of the First World War. By contrast, there is a
memory of Tito’s Partisans supporting the Greek Communist guerrillas during
the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). Therefore, their impression of the Serbs is
similar to what their stance was during the Greek Civil War. However, in recent
years, after many personal visits to the area and the discovery and identification
of monuments and cemeteries, the locals have a very positive view of the Serbs’
fighting on the Macedonian Front to reclaim their homeland and they respect
the ruins and monuments.
Florina
In Florina, where the headquarters of the French Armée d’Orient was located in
the period of 1916–1918, there was a substantial Serbian presence throughout
the war. As a result of its close proximity to the border with Serbia, many Greek
residents from Monastir and the surroundings came to Florina as refugees in
1912, after the First Balkan War, and in 1915, after the Serbian Army’s retreat
and the capture of Monastir by the Bulgarians. Therefore, there was a significant
refugee population in the city. Thus, a Serbian civilian administration was cre-
ated and a French-Serbian school was established in 1918/19, in which all the
refugees’ children from Monastir were compulsorily enrolled.
At the same time, many postcards were printed showing a cityscape of
Florina and the name Florina or Lerin (in Serbian) on the front side and vari-
ous sentences in the Cyrillic alphabet on the back.44 All this indicates that, had
the war not ended successfully for the Serbs, some of them would have claimed
residence in Florina.
The presence of Serbs in Florina, as French allies, was not welcome by
the Greek local authorities and inhabitants. Florina was an area where pro-King
Constantine and anti-Venizelos sentiment prevailed. In 1915, Ion Dragoumis
was elected as the anti-Venizelist party’s deputy for Florina.45 Therefore, the
inhabitants of Florina regarded Greece’s participation in the war as a hostile
act of the Venizelists and the presence of the French and Serbs in the city as an
act of French domination or even occupation. After the war and the offensive
of the French and Serbian troops towards Belgrade, the situation changed. The
French-Serbian school was shut down. The postcards continued to circulate,
but the word “Serbie” was erased. The Greek administration, education and
44 D. Mekasis, “Το πέρασμα των Σέρβων από τη Φλώρινα” [The passage of Serbs from Flo-
rina], Florineanews, 9 Nov. 2013, http://florineanews.blogspot.gr/2013/11/blog-post_9846.
html (downloaded 20/4/2017).
45 For more information see The American School of Classical Studies in Athens Archives,
Ion Dragoumis Processing History, Parliamentary Activities-Exile.
banking systems and all the institutions expanded not only to Florina but to the
surrounding villages as well. However, the French and the Serbs left a cultural
imprint on the local population. Many of those who had attended the French-
Serbian school recalled the Serbian Army, along with the French, and even more
so the visits of Alexander of Serbia, and in many cases, passed on the same feel-
ings to their children.46
Also, during the interwar period, several Slavic-speaking people resid-
ing in the region defined themselves as Serbs in order not to be considered as
Bulgarians by the Greek authorities. Therefore, there was a vivid memory of the
Serbian army and administration in Florina. That changed radically after the
Second World War and the Greek Civil War. At that time, Tito’s Yugoslavia and
his support to the Greek Communist Party was the main and only collective
memory, which wiped out any recollection the local people had of the Serbian
Army and Serbia in the First World War and the interwar period.47
The population of Florina has only in recent years begun to learn about
the French and Serbian presence in the region during the First World War. In
fact, a photographic exhibition pertaining to the presence of French and Serbian
armies in Florina took place there in 2013, and some articles were published in
academic journals and local newspapers.48 But the memory of the Great War is
not strong even now and most researchers and residents are much more inter-
ested in the Second World War and the Greek Civil War.
Conclusion
This is, in general, the Serbian First World War legacy in Greece. In spite of
Serbia and Greece traditionally having friendly relations in the Balkan region,
their goals in the interwar period and after the Second World War diverged,
causing tension in their relations more than once. Nevertheless, Greece agreed
to the founding of monumental Serbian cemeteries in its territory and the visits
of Serbs throughout the interwar period. The impact of the Serbian heritage
46 Interview with Theodoros Vosdou, Florina, 16 Nov. 2007; Interview with Nikos Tolios,
Florina, 16 Nov. 2007; Interview with Thanasis Georgoulas, Florina, 23 Jan. 2008.
47 Kofos, “Ελληνικό κράτος”, 360–380; I. Manos, “Σύγχρονες εκδοχές της μακεδονικής
ταυτότητας στην περιοχή της Φλώρινας” [Current aspects of Macedonian identities in the Flo-
rina region], in Μακεδονικές ταυτότητες στο χρόνο. Διεπιστημονικές προσεγγίσεις [Macedonian
Identities through Time], ed. Ioannis Stefanidis, Vlasis Vlasidis and Evangelos Kofos (Ath-
ens: Patakis, 2008), 419–436.
48 Exposition photographique “Première Guerre Mondiale. L’Armée d’Orient à Florina”, 27
photos from the French Ministry of Culture; 25 from the War Museum collection; 4 from
the Thessaloniki History Centre; and 13 recent photos, Vlasis Vlasidis City of Florina, Con-
sulat Général de France à Thessalonique, Florina, 7 Jan. 2013, and War Museum, Athens, 6
Mar. 2013; Mekasis, “Το πέρασμα των Σέρβων από τη Φλώρινα”.
varies from one region of Greece to another. Where there was no other kind of
contact and no conflict of interests, such as on Corfu, the image of the Serbs
remained positive and vivid. In Greek Macedonia, where Tito was involved or
even interfered in the Greek Civil War by helping the Communist guerrillas,
the memory of Serbia’s role in the Great War was extinguished and replaced
by that of the Yugoslav involvement. In Thessaloniki, where people had to deal
with many problems involved in the settlement of refugees, the frequent visits of
Serbian veterans were sometimes looked at with suspicion and indifference, but
they were never a major event for the city and its inhabitants.
Diplomatic and Historical Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece

— 1923, f. 52; f.89
— 1928, f. 7
— 1932–1934, A/5/3
Εφημερίς της Κυβερνήσεως [Government Gazette] no. 317, 2 Nov. 1923.
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ασφάλειας στα Βαλκάνια 1928–1931 [Eleftherios Venizelos, Greek-Turkish approach and
security issues in the Balkans 1928–1931]. Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies
1999.
Janković, D.“Serbian pupils in Greece during the First World War”. Η Καβάλα και τα Βαλκάνια:
από την αρχαιότητα μέχρι σήμερα 2 [Kavala and the Balkans: from Antiquity until the pres-
ent]. Kavala: ILAK, 2004, 545–562.
Katsanos, K.Το ανύπαρκτο ζήτημα. Οι ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις και το Μακεδονικό
1950–1967 [A non-existent issue. Greek-Yugoslav relations and the Macedonian Ques-
tion]. Thessaloniki: Epikentro, 2013.
Kentrotis, K. D. “International status of minorities: The case of the Balkans”. Balkan Studies
XXXVIII/2 (1997), 355–377.
Kofos, E. “Ελληνικό κράτος και μακεδονικές ταυτότητες (1950–2005)” [The Greek state and
Macedonian identities 1950–2005]. In Μακεδονικές ταυτότητες στο χρόνο. Διεπιστημονικές
προσεγγίσεις [Macedonian Identities through Time] ed. Ioannis Stefanidis, Vlasis Vlasi-
dis and Evangelos Kofos, 365–380. Athens: Patakis, 2008.
Koulas, A. “Οι Ελληνογιουγκοσλαβικές σχέσεις από το 1923 έως το 1928” [Greek-Jugoslav Rela-
tions 1923–1928]. Ph.D. thesis, Thessaloniki 2007.
Manos, I. “Σύγχρονες εκδοχές της μακεδονικής ταυτότητας στην περιοχή της Φλώρινας” [Cur-
rent aspects of Macedonian identities in the Florina region]. In Μακεδονικές ταυτότητες
στο χρόνο. Διεπιστημονικές προσεγγίσεις [Macedonian Identities through Time], ed. Ioan-
nis Stefanidis, Vlasis Vlasidis and Evangelos Kofos. 419–436. Athens: Patakis, 2008.
Mekasis, D. “Το πέρασμα των Σέρβων από τη Φλώρινα” [The passage of Serbs from Florina].
Florineanews, 9 Nov. 2013, http://florineanews.blogspot.gr/2013/11/blog-post_9846.
html (downloaded 20/4/2017).
Michailidis, I. D. “Traditional Friends and Occasional Claimants: Serbian claims in Macedo-
nia between the wars”. Balkan Studies XXXVI/1 (1995), 103–116.
Papafloratos, I. Η ελληνοϊταλική κρίση του 1923/Το επεισόδιο Tellini/Κέρκυρας [The Greek-

Italian crisis of 1923. The Tellini/Corfu incident]. Athens: Sakoulas, 2009.
Randjelović, N. Srpski parlament na Krfu 1916–1918. Niš: Zograf , 2003.
“Spomenik-kapela u Zejtinliku kod Soluna. Projekt g. A.Vasica”. Politika, 17 Nov. 1926.
Tomašević, J. Ο Α΄ Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος και η Ελλάδα στα μάτια του ξενιτεμένου σερβικού
στρατού [First World War and Greece in the eyes of the Serbian army abroad]. Thes-
saloniki: MA, 2013.
Tounta-Fergade, A. Μειονότητες στα Βαλκάνια. Βαλκανικές διασκέψεις 1930–1934 [Minorities in
the Balkans. Balkan conferences 1930–1934]. Thessaloniki: Paratiritis, 1994.
Vlasidis, Vlasis. “Τα στρατιωτικά νεκροταφεία του Α’ Παγκόσμιου Πολέμου στη Μακεδονία” [First
World War cemeteries in Macedonia]. Θεσσαλονίκη VIII (2013).
— Μεταξύ μνήμης και λήθης. Μνημεία και κοιμητήρια του Μακεδονικού Μετώπου [Between mem-
ory and forgetfulness. Monuments and Cemeteries of the Macedonian Front]. Thessa-
loniki: Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, 2016.
— “Rediscovering the First World War Serbian Monuments in Greece – From Ignorance to
Consideration of the Cultural Heritage”. In Zbornik radova sa medjunarodne konferen-
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— “This is not our war. Salonika Front war memory”. In World War I in Central and Eastern
Europe: Politics, Culture and Society, Conference proceedings, School of History and Ar-
chives, University College of Dublin, Dublin, May 9–10, 2014, ed. Judith Devlin. Dublin,
in press.

Interview with Ljubomir Saramandić, Corfu, 18 April 2018.
Interview with George Mihailović, Thessaloniki, 18 Mar. 2013.
Interview with Predrag Nedelković, Thessaloniki, 27 July 2017.
Interview with Theodoros Vosdou, Florina, 16 Nov. 2007.
Interview with Nikos Tolios, Florina, 16 Nov. 2007.
Interview with Thanasis Georgoulas, Florina, 23 Jan. 2008.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849205T
UDC 355.48(498:497.2)"1916"(093.2)
94(498)"1916"
Florin Țurcanu* http://www.balcanica.rs
Institut d’Etudes Sud-Est Européennes

Bucarest
Turtucaia/Toutrakan 1916 : la postérité d’une défaite dans

la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres
Résumé : La défaite subie à Turtucaia, la tête de pont roumaine sur la rive sud de Danube,
en septembre 1916, a laissé une marque indélébile dans l’opinion publique roumaine dans
l’entre-deux-guerres. Les tentatives d’expliquer cette défaite sans appel au tout debout de
l’engagement roumain dans la Grande guerre se succédaient en ajoutant son lot de ru-
meurs sur les atrocités commises par les troupes bulgares victorieuses. La question de la
responsabilité pour la défaite fut une question brulante aux niveaux politique et militaire
déjà pendant la guerre et notamment après les retours des officiers et soldats roumains
après la signature de la paix séparée en mai 1918. La victoire et la création de la Grande
Roumaine créa les conditions pour les enquêtes officielles, mais aussi pour la transposition
du sujet dans la littérature, témoignage poignant de son importance et de son actualité.
Défaite emblématique et difficile à évacuer de la mémoire collective, défaite porteuse d’un
permanent avertissement sur la fragilité de la victoire finale et de ses acquis, défaite conver-
tible en réquisitoire sur une scène politique en pleine transformation à partir de 1918,
Turtucaia, ne devait s’effacer de la conscience publique roumaine qu’après l’instauration
du communisme.
Mots-clés : Roumanie, Turtucaia, Grande guerre, défaite
E ntre le 1er et le 6 septembre 1916, l’armée bulgare, secondée par un déta-

chement allemand, infligeait une défaite sans appel aux troupes roumaines
composant la garnison du camp retranché de Turtucaia/Toutrakan sur la rive
sud du Danube. Il s’agissait d’une bataille d’entrée en guerre : la Roumanie venait
de rejoindre le conflit le 27 août 1916. Une bataille qui devint pour longtemps
synonyme de traumatisme de la défaite pour l’armée et pour l’opinion publique
roumaine.
Ce que l’on appelait à l’époque la « tête de pont » de Turtucaia se trou-
vait dans la Dobroudja méridionale, annexée par la Roumanie par le traité de
Bucarest de 1913. Le camp retranché était constitué par deux lignes de défenses
formant des demi-cercles concentriques dont le diamètre était formé par le Da-
nube. La ligne secondaire de défense se trouvait à quelques 4 km de la ville tan-
dis que la principale ligne de défense, éloignée de 6 à 7 km de la ville, formait
un front d’environ 30 kilomètres. Elle était jalonnée par 15 ouvrages fortifiés en
terre avec des tranchées et des abris renforcés. Ces « centres » fortifiés, distants
* [email protected]
de un à deux kilomètres les uns des autres et reliés par des tranchées profondes,
était complétés par d’autres positions de tir pour l’artillerie et l’infanterie, des
abattis et des réseaux de barbelés. Certains des centres étaient dotés de tourelles
blindées dont plusieurs ne sont pas achevées quand la guerre éclate. La garnison
comporte environ 26 000 hommes dépourvus de toute expérience au combat et
l’effectif montera jusqu’à 39 000 pendant la bataille. L’artillerie de la place forte
compte quelques 160 pièces de différents calibres dont à-peu-près une vingtaine
sont inutilisables. S’y ajoutent 66 mitrailleuses.
A la fin de cette bataille épique pour l’armée bulgare, les pertes sont
lourdes, des deux côtés : 2546 militaires bulgares morts, quelques 7800 blessés,
tandis que du côté roumain on dénombre, avec moins de précision, autour de
7000 morts et blessés.1 Pour les Roumains, le choc vient, avant tout, du grand
nombre de prisonniers capturés par les Bulgares : plus de 28 000, dont 480 offi-
ciers.2 Quelques 2200 militaires roumains se sont sauvés, parfois dans des em-
barcations de fortune ou à la nage, sur la rive opposée du Danube ou en prenant,
sous le feu des mitrailleuses bulgares, la direction de la ville de Silistra, en aval
de Turtucaia.3 Parmi eux, le commandant de la garnison, le général Teodorescu,
qui a traversé le fleuve sur un monitor roumain4 en abandonnant ses troupes
quelques heures avant l’arrêt des combats.
« La souffrance serre mon cœur, note peu après, dans son journal, le gé-
néral Alexandru Averescu qui allait devenir un des commandants célèbres de
la campagne de 1916–1917. Nous commençons la guerre en écrivant une page
affreuse, qui demeurera à jamais. »5
1 Petur Boychev, Geroite na Tutrakanskata epopeia (Sofia : IK Gutenberg, 2016), 15.

2 G. A. Dabija, Armata română în Războiul Mondial (1916–1918) (Bucarest : I. G. Hertz
[s.d.]), t. I, 246–247. Dans ses mémoires, l’homme politique roumain Ion G. Duca, membre
du gouvernement au moment de l’entrée en guerre, parle de 6160 morts et blessés du côté
roumain (Ion G. Duca, Amintiri politice, t. II [Munich : Jon Dumitrescu Verlag, 1981], 14).
A peu-près 350 militaires roumains seraient morts des suites de leurs blessures dans l’hôpital
de Turtucaia après l’occupation de la ville par l’armée bulgare, voir Colonel Constantin Zago-
riț, Turtukaia (Ploiești : Institutul de Arte Grafice Concurența, 1939), 523.
3 Constantin Kiritescu, Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României 1916–1919, t. I, 2e éd.
(Bucarest : Cartea romaneasca, 1925), 398 ; Dabija, Armata română, 246. L’histoire militaire
officielle de la participation de la Roumanie à la Grande Guerre retient un nombre différent
de prisonniers roumains capturés à Turtucaia : 500 officiers et 22 000 soldats, voir Ministerul
Apărării Naționale [MAN], M.St. Major – Serviciul Istoric, România în Războiul Mondial
1916–1919, t. I (Bucarest : Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului, 1934), 552.
4 42 officiers et 2166 soldats de la garnison se seraient sauvés, voir MAN, M.St. Major –
Serviciul Istoric, România în Războiul Mondial, 552, n. 1. Le général Dabija, Armata română,
247, évoque 3500 militaires roumains qui se seraient sauvés de Turtucaia.
5 Gen. Constantin Teodorescu, Turtucaia. Studiu tactic și cauzele înfrângerii (Brașov : Ti-
pografia Unirea, 1922), 123. Le général Teodorescu aurait quitté la garnison en vertu d’un
F. Țurcanu, Turtucaia/Toutrakan 1916 207
Comment est-ce que cette bataille que l’historien américain Glenn Tor-
rey appelait « an embarrassing tactical defeat but in itself of little strategic im-
portance »6 a pu produire tout de suite une impression si profonde dans les
rangs des élites et de l’opinion roumaine ? Et pourquoi cette forte impression
initiale a-t-elle engendré par la suite des ondes de chocs mémorielles – mais
aussi politiques – avant même la fin de la guerre mais aussi après ?
Plusieurs observateurs contemporains, comme le général Dabija, ancien
attaché militaire de la Roumanie à Sofia à l’époque des guerres balkaniques et
officier d’Etat-Major sur le front du Sud en septembre 1916, privilégient la di-
mension psychologique des effets de la défaite : « …La défaite de Turtucaia,
écrivait-il dans les années 1930, fut grave non pas du point de vue stratégique,
mais du point de vue moral. […] Après Turtucaia, le moral du commandement
supérieur a subi une chute qui s’est transmise de manière fulgurante aux éche-
lons inférieurs jusqu’aux troupes. »7
Bien que dans les premiers jours la presse roumaine ait cherché soit à
investir la chute de Turtucaia de l’aura d’une défaite glorieuse soit à calmer le pu-
blic en relativisant les conséquences du désastre,8 ce qui s’est fortement imposé
dans l’opinion fut un mélange de stupéfaction et d’humiliation. « L’impression
dans la capitale est désastreuse. Etre battu par les Allemands n’est pas une honte,
mais être battu par les Bulgares… », note un avocat bucarestois du haut de ses
préjugés ethniques partagés par nombre de ses compatriotes.9 Le journaliste
Constantin Bacalbașa dénonçait, en 1921, cet état d’esprit lorsqu’il écrivait qu’en
1916 « il n’y avait que très peu, très peu de Roumains qui pouvaient s’imaginer
que l’armée roumaine pouvait être battue par les Bulgares » ce qui ne l’empê-
chait pas de croire qu’à Turtucaia « le mérite des Bulgares a été médiocre » car
ils avaient combattu là-bas dans une coalition commandée par le général von
Mackensen où entraient des Allemands, des Austro-Hongrois et des Turcs.10 A
un autre niveau d’analyse, l’homme politique Ion G. Duca, confirme cette cécité
collective devant le potentiel militaire du voisin sud-danubien : « Certains, ha-
ordre reçu du Grand Quartier Général [GQG] Roumain, voir MAN, M.St. Major – Ser-
viciul Istoric, România în Războiul Mondial, 550 ; Glenn Torrey, The Romanian Battlefront in
World War I (Lawrewnce :University Press of Kansas, 2011), 72). Le général Teodorescu,
Turtucaia, 122–123, ne mentionne pas dans ses souvenirs un tel ordre qu’il aurait eu intérêt à
invoquer en sa défense mais seulement l’approbation que son geste a reçu ultérieurement de
la part du GQG roumain.
6 Gen. Alexandru Averescu, Răspunderile (Ligii Poporului, 1918), 32.
7 Torrey, Romanian Battlefront, 74.
8 Dabija, Armata română, 258.
9 Nicolae Iorga, « Lupta de la Turtucaia », Războiul nostru în note zilnice, t. II (Craiova :
[s.d.]), 105 ; Constantin Mille, « Fleoarțe », Adevărul, 27 août/9 septembre 1916.

10 Vasile Th. Cancicov, Jurnal din vremea ocupației, t. I, (Bucarest : Humanitas, 2015), 49.
bitués aux succès faciles de la campagne de Bulgarie [de 1913, n.n.] concevaient
difficilement l’idée d’une défaite immédiate et notamment d’une défaite provo-
quée par les Bulgares que nous avions tellement l’habitude de mépriser. »11
Le lieu même de la défaite brouillait une solide carte mentale collective
qui faisait des contrées sud-danubiennes un espace où la Roumanie avait joué à
deux reprises – en 1877–1878 et 1913 – le rôle de puissance victorieuse et aussi
celui d’arbitre mettant fin à la 2e Guerre Balkanique. Les Bulgares n’avaient-ils
pas évité de se battre contre l’armée roumaine qui envahissait leur pays en 1913
en se rendant même en grand nombre à plusieurs occasions aux troupes du roi
Charles Ier ? Le nord de la Bulgarie était devenu une terre de récits d’héroïsme
et de succès militaires placés au cœur même du processus de construction natio-
nale, qu’il s’agisse des victoires contre les Turcs en 1877–1878 ou de la campagne
contre la Bulgarie en 1913. « Quel malheur fut pour nous la facilité de la cam-
pagne de 1913, les riches présent qu’elle nous a apporté ! » s’exclame l’historien
Nicolae Iorga le lendemain de la défaite.12
A la confusion et à l’humiliation d’une débâcle infligée par un ennemi qui
avait été manifestement sous-estimé s’ajoutent très vite les rumeurs sur les atro-
cités subies par les prisonniers roumains, les exécutions en masse ou des mutila-
tions dont une partie d’entre eux auraient été victimes.13 Ces rumeurs confortent
l’opinion roumaine au moins sur un point – l’image de l’infériorité fondamen-
tale, définitive, de l’ennemi aujourd’hui victorieux – et constitue un antidote,
très imparfait, au sentiment collectif d’humiliation. Les rumeurs rejoignent aussi
les rangs de l’armée roumaine qui combat en Transylvanie, comme le note, une
semaine après la bataille de Turtucaia, le jeune officier Grigore Romalo lors de la
discussion d’un plan d’attaque avec ses camarades : « Sur beaucoup de visages se
lisent certaines émotions. Ce qui les émeut le plus […] je crois, c’est le massacre
de Turtucaia, le massacre des prisonniers. Et ils ont raison. »14
Ces rumeurs n’étaient pas complétement dépourvues de fondement. Plu-
sieurs cas où des militaires roumains grièvement blessés avaient été achevés par
les soldats bulgares victorieux furent consignés par des survivants15 tandis que
11 Constantin Bacalbașa, Capitala sub ocupația dușmanului 1916–1918 (Brăila : Alcalay &
Calafeteanu, 1921), 6–7.
12 Duca, Amintiri politice, 18.
13 Iorga, « Lupta de la Turtucaia », 107.
14 Regina Maria a României, Jurnal de război, t. I (Bucarest : Humanitas, 2016), entrées
du 25 août/7 septembre et 26 août/8 septembre 1916 ; Grigore Romalo, Carnete de război

1916–1917 (Editura Corint, 2017), 26, 35 et 39 ; Vasile Th. Cancicov, Impresiuni și păreri perso-
nale din timpul războiului României, t. 2 (Bucarest : Atelierle Societății Universul, 1921), 426 ;
Arabella Yarka, De pe o zi pe alta. Carnet intim 1913–1918 (Bucarest : Compania, 2010), 96;
Iorga, Războiul nostru în note zilnice, 112 et 122.
15 Romalo, Carnete de război, 35.
l’assassinat de certains prisonniers, fraîchement capturés – comme celui, deve-

nue emblématique, du major Ioan Dervescu, tué devant des centaines d’autres
camarades d’infortune pour avoir refusé de se laisser dépouillé de sa montre
– devaient frapper les esprits et entrer dans la narration historiographique et lit-
téraire.16 Il n’y eut pas, cependant, d’exécution en masse « à la mitrailleuse » des
prisonniers roumains comme l’a voulu une croyance vite répandue dans les rangs
de l’opinion roumaine et dont s’est fait l’écho avec une certaine prudence, dans
son journal, la Reine Marie.17 L’origine de cette dernière rumeur réside vraisem-
blablement dans les exécutions simulées auxquelles furent soumis certains des
prisonniers par les militaires bulgares immédiatement après la capitulation de la
place forte.18 Cette rumeur d’exécution en masse ne sera partiellement démentie
qu’en 1918 lorsque le retour des prisonniers roumains capturés à Turtucaia rem-
placera les légendes populaires avec les relations et les rapports, beaucoup plus
précis, de l’expérience, souvent très dure et traumatisante, de la captivité dans les
camps bulgares.19
Enfin, la défaite de Turtucaia ne pouvait même pas être considérée comme
une défaite glorieuse – les contemporains l’ont vite compris et jamais il n’y a eu
dans l’entre-deux-guerres, de tentative sérieuse d’attribuer à cette bataille l’aura
d’une magnifique tragédie. Ni la résistance acharnée du 79e régiment d’infanterie
qui, situé sur la direction principale de l’attaque bulgare, perdit trois quarts de
ses soldats tués ou blessés, ni les actes isolés, souvent individuels, d’héroïsme
ne rachetèrent dans la perception publique et dans la reconstitution historique
la conviction générale d’une catastrophe honteuse. Dans la rangée de noms de
batailles qui orne l’Arc de Triomphe de Bucarest, érigé en 1936, le nom d’une
défaite « glorieuse » comme celle de Neajlov – déroulée du 29 novembre au 3
décembre 1916 et qui entraina la chute de Bucarest – a pu trouver sa place, chose
impensable pour la bataille de Turtucaia.
« Et puis, en pleine ébullition de bravoure, quand les communiqués mi-
litaires venant du Nord étaient tellement généreux – surgit Turtucaia. […] Des
rumeurs pesantes, des regards qui cherchaient, fébrilement, le dernier commu-
niqué, devenu laconique, la foule silencieuse, la joie tuée sur les visages. »20 L’écri-
vain Cezar Petrescu décrivait ainsi dans son roman de 1927 intitulé Assombris-
16 Zagoriț, Turtukaia, 7, 147, 159, 172, 193, 194 et 389.

17 Kirițescu, Istoria războiului, 394 ; George Topirceanu, Amintiri din luptele de la Turtucaia.
Pirin-Planina (episoduri tragice și comice din captivitate) (Bucarest : Humanitas, 2014), 79.
18 Regina Maria a României, Jurnal de război, entrée du 25 août/7 septembre.
19 Mémoire dactylographié de Constantin Zagoriț intitulé « Tratamentul ofițerilor români
prizonieri în Bulgaria » et datée 1919, p. 2, Académie Roumaine, Section des manuscrits,

Fond Nicolae Iorga ; Topîrceanu, Amintiri din luptele de la Turtucaia, 32.
20 Cancicov, Impresiuni și păreri personale, 426; Zagoriț, « Tratamentul ofițerilor români pri-
zonieri în Bulgaria », 2.
sement, le seuil psychologique franchi par une société qui ne bascule vraiment
dans la guerre que sous le choc d’une débâcle militaire. Dans les mémoires du
ministre Constantin Argetoianu, Turtucaia marquait aussi une ligne de partage
des eaux dans l’histoire politique roumaine : « Avec Turtucaia a débuté, chez
nous, la haine contre les partis politiques [car] Turtucaia a montré au grand jour
l’inanité des gens auxquels le pays avait confié son sort… . Avec Turtucaia est née
chez nous une mentalité nouvelle.»21
Sans publicité aucune – chose explicable sous le régime de la censure de
guerre – les responsables militaires initient dès le mois de septembre 1916 une
première enquête sur les conditions dans lesquelles une fraction de la garnison
– et notamment des officiers – a pu se sauver de la ville assiégée.22 La tension se
fait sentir dans les rangs de l’armée. Les tentatives de trouver des responsables
menant aux premières accusations d’abandon de poste et de désertion en pré-
sence de l’ennemi engendrent une procédure de justice militaire qui n’aura pas
le temps de se développer à l’automne 1916 à cause des revers militaires et de la
défaite de l’armée roumaine dans le sud du pays en novembre et décembre 1916.
Ce n’est que dans le contexte de 1918, avec le retour de la paix et des
passions politiques que Turtucaia acquiert pleinement sa signification symbo-
lique. 1918, année de la paix séparée signée le 7 mai entre la Roumanie et les
Puissances centrale, année d’une importante démobilisation partielle de l’armée
roumaine est aussi l’année où commence une recomposition du paysage poli-
tique qui annonce déjà l’entre-deux-guerres. Ce contexte, enrichi par le retour au
pays d’une bonne partie des prisonniers roumains – y compris ceux détenus en
Bulgarie – engendre une massive libération de la parole – notamment dans les
rangs des militaires – qui agit comme une lentille grossissante sur le cas de Tur-
tucaia. Afin d’en réduire les effets, un ordre émis en avril par le Grand Quartier
Général interdisait formellement les discussions sur « les opérations militaires
passées » et sur « les différents succès ou insuccès de nos ennemis, de nos amis
et de l’armée roumaine elle-même » en invoquant les risques liés à l’espionnage.23
L’issue défavorable, militaire et politique, de la guerre, au début de 1918,
contribue au retour du thème « Turtucaia ». Celui-ci devient un abcès de fixa-
tion mémoriel et politique, qui participe au doute, à la colère, à la demande de
comptes qui se font entendre. Un de ceux qui entendaient raviver alors la mé-
moire de Turtucaia était le général Alexandru Averescu, héros de la guerre qui
se lance en politique comme l’homme qui, à la fois, assume des responsabilités
– il est brièvement premier ministre en février-mars 1918 – et qui demande pu-
21 Cezar Petrescu, Intunecare (Bucarest : Litera, 2010), 207.

22 Constantin Argetoianu, Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri, t. III, 5e
partie (Bucarest : Humanitas, 1992), 36.
23 Archives Militaires Roumaines (AMR), Fonds « Comandamentul Capului de Pod Turtu-
caia », D. 6, 13, 15, 23, 44.
bliquement des comptes aux dirigeants politiques et militaires compromis par

l’issue de l’engagement du pays dans le conflit.
L’explication politique du désastre de Turtucaia émerge comme un thème
qui bénéficie de l’encouragement des germanophiles roumains – maintenant au
pouvoir – mais aussi de certains responsables de l’armée intéressés à substituer,
au moins en partie, à l’explication militaire du désastre une explication politique.
Un comité d’enquête parlementaire est constitué afin d’amasser les preuves né-
cessaires à l’inculpation du gouvernement Brătianu pour mauvaise préparation
de l’entrée en guerre. Le général Aslan, ex-commandant de la 3e armée, large-
ment considéré comme le principal responsable pour la défaite,24 met en cause à
cette occasion l’ensemble de l’équipement de l’armée en 1916 y compris, explici-
tement, l’armement obsolète et la pénurie de munitions de l’infanterie roumaine
à Turtucaia.25 C’est la ligne de défense qu’adoptera son ancien subordonné, le
général Teodorescu, lorsqu’il proclamera quatre ans plus tard : « Avec l’armée
[roumaine] de 1916 on ne pouvait pas faire mieux, peu importe la valeur et la
bravoure des généraux. »26
Pour le général Averescu, qui se trouve en rivalité avec d’autres hauts res-
ponsables de l’armée, la culpabilité pour l’échec de l’entrée en guerre est partagée
entre les politiques et certains militaires habitués des faveurs gouvernementales.
Ceci est valable aussi dans le cas de la défaite de Turtucaia. A ses yeux, à la mau-
vaise préparation de l’entrée en guerre s’ajoute une double absurdité : celle de la
médiocre valeur stratégique de la forteresse et celle de l’ordre de résistance à ou-
trance transmis à la garnison au plus fort des combats : « Pourquoi ? Pourquoi ?
s’exclame Averescu. Qu’avions-nous à défendre à Turtucaia ? La fameuse tête de
pont sans pont ? »27
C’est, finalement, l’écroulement des Puissances centrales à l’automne 1918
et la fin de leur emprise sur la Roumanie suivie du triomphe du projet national
roumain qui reléguèrent au second plan la question des responsabilités du gou-
vernement Brătianu pour la défaite. Mais, comme le remarque l’homme poli-
tique Ion G. Duca, fidèle compagnon politique de Brătianu, la mémoire de Tur-
tucaia continuera d’être associée, dans les années 1920, avec le nom du premier
ministre qui avait assumé la responsabilité de l’entrée en guerre de la Roumanie :
« Le pauvre Brătianu fut attaqué des années durant à ce sujet. Il avait accompli
l’unité du pays et on continuait de lui jeter à la figure ‘Turtucaia’ ! qui était invo-
24 AMR, Fonds « Comandamentul general al etapelor », D. 172, f. 304.

25 Regina Maria a României, Jurnal de război, entrée du 25 décembre 1916/7 janvier 1917.
26 Déposition du général de division Mihail Aslan datée du 4 octobre 1918, AMAE, Bu-
carest, Fonds 71-1914, E2, partea a II-a (Judecarea Ministerelor Brătianu 1914–1924), t. 56, f.
319–322.
27 Gen. Teodorescu, Turtucaia, 140.
quée pour prouver notre impréparation militaire. »28 Le futur premier ministre

Duca, solidaire de l’establishment du Parti National Libéral qui s’identifiait ex-
clusivement avec la victoire finale et la création de la Grande Roumanie, rejette
dans des paragraphes entiers de ses mémoires la responsabilité sur les militaires
roumains et sur l’inaction de l’allié russe en Dobroudja.29 Le rapprochement
que fait Duca entre la bataille de Turtucaia et celle de Charleroi, déroulée en
août 1914 au début de l’offensive allemande sur le front de l’Ouest et soldée
par la défaite de l’armée française est représentative d’une tentative subtile de
dédouaner le gouvernement libéral de l’époque dont le chef était aussi ministre
de la guerre. Les deux batailles sont, aux yeux de Duca, des batailles d’entrée
en guerre plus susceptibles de tourner au désastre que les batailles ultérieures.
« L’armée française, tellement merveilleuse et brave, fut à Charleroi en dessous
de toute critique. […] Avons-nous oublié qu’à Charleroi les commandants fran-
çais se sont montrés tellement incapables que Joffre fut obligé de limoger plus de
70 généraux ? »30 Pour Duca, les équivalent roumains de ces généraux français
sont les généraux Aslan, Teodorescu et Basarabescu, limogés eux-mêmes après
Turtucaia et qui représentent « des manifestations d’un phénomène général »
repérable dans tous les débuts de guerre.31
Au-delà des accusations d’ordre politique qui fleurissent en 1918 et qui
ne disparaitront jamais complétement, la question de l’explication militaire de
la défaite demeurait et, bien que mue par des raisons partisanes, le réquisitoire
que dressait quelqu’un comme Averescu permettait le glissement de l’explica-
tion politique vers l’explication proprement militaire du désastre. Le besoin
d’une telle explication était douloureusement ressenti par l’armée et ceci dès
avant l’armistice du 11 novembre avec, notamment, le retour des prisonniers de
Turtucaia à partir du printemps 1918. Le malaise de l’institution militaire et le
besoin d’évaluer le comportement des officiers – aussi bien pendant les combats
de Turtucaia qu’à l’époque de la captivité – donna naissance à deux commissions
spéciales d’enquête, l’une constituée le 9 juin1918 et dirigée par le général Eremia
Grigorescu32, l’autre, qui lui succéda, entre décembre 1918 et avril 1919, sous la
direction du général Istrati.
Le très grand nombre d’officiers roumains tombés prisonniers à Turtu-
caia – 480 sur un total de 55033 – créait une caisse de résonance particulière
pour la mémoire de la défaite. Pendant la dernière année de captivité en Bulgarie
28 Gen. Averescu, Răspunderile, 32.

29 Duca, Amintiri politice, 16.
30 Ibid. 14–17.
31 Ibid. 16.
32 Ibid. 17.
33 AMR, Fonds « Comandamentul General al etapelor », D. 395, f. 1-2.
les camps de Kîrdjali, Sliven et Haskovo comptaient – en chiffres approximatifs,

selon un rapport roumain – 100, 150 respectivement 470 officiers roumains.34
Les grandes concentrations de ces officiers dans les différents camps bulgares
ont favorisé les discussions, les interrogations et les mises en causes critiques
du déroulement d’une bataille à laquelle la majorité de ces hommes avaient par-
ticipé. Certains d’entre eux ont entrepris ce qu’un document de la commission
Grigorescu appelait des « enquêtes personnelles » auprès de leurs camarades.35
Les officiers de Turtucaia se savaient acteurs d’un moment de déshonneur col-
lectif, intimement lié à leur condition de prisonniers, et tout en cherchant le
sens de l’événement exceptionnel auquel ils avaient pris part ils réalisaient qu’au
moins sur le plan moral, ils auraient des explications à fournir voir des comptes
à rendre une fois de retour dans leur pays. En même temps, les quelque dizaines
d’officiers rescapés du désastre faisaient tous l’objet d’un soupçon légitime à com-
mencer par le général Teodorescu, dont la fuite de Turtucaia était devenue un
véritable symbole.
Quatre mois après avoir commencé son activité – et peu avant de l’ar-
rêter – la commission Grigorescu, avait reçu et étudié 225 dossiers d’officiers
ayant combattu à Turtucaia, en remarquant que beaucoup de ceux sur lesquels
planaient des soupçons ou des accusations s’étaient soustrait à l’enquête où s’y
étaient soumis avec retard. Un nombre de 103 officiers furent considérés sus-
ceptibles d’une enquête approfondie à cause de leur comportement pendant la
bataille ou dans les camps de prisonniers.36
Un des officiers qui, bien que n’ayant pas participé à la bataille elle-même
avaient fait sa propre enquête sur Turtucaia parmi ses compagnons d’infortune,
prisonniers des camps bulgares, était le capitaine Constantin Zagoriț qui sera
aussi intégré dans la commission Grigorescu. Zagoriț, promu major peu après
son retour de Bulgarie, va consacrer toute sa vie à la reconstitution de ce qui
s’était passé à Turtucaia. D’après son témoignage, pendant sa captivité il aurait
recueilli autour de 1000 relations de quelques 500 militaires roumains tombés
prisonniers lors de la bataille. Notées d’une écriture minuscule sur des feuilles de
papiers cachées soigneusement dans quelques boites de conserves, ces relations,
sauvées des perquisitions des autorités bulgares, furent apportées en Roumanie
et servirent de base à la rédaction, entre 1918–1923 d’un ouvrage original et
important pour la reconstitution de l’événement.37 Zagoriț a aussi visité plu-
sieurs fois le champ de bataille pour affiner sa reconstitution et il a soumis son
manuscrit à la lecture d’autres officiers. A travers sa démarche on assiste à un
34 Kiritescu, Istoria războiului, 398 ; Dabija, Armata română, 246.

35 Zagorit, « Tratamentul ofițerilor români prizonieri în Bulgaria », 6.
36 Voir plus bas, note 37.
37 AMR, Fonds « Comandamentul General al etapelor », D. 395, Rapport daté du 12 oc-
tobre 1918, f. 135–136, 152–164, 169.
double effort. D’une part celui d’utiliser, tout en les dépassant, les différentes
perspectives individuelles, forcément limitées, de la bataille en essayant d’aller
outre le verdict de certaines de ses sources selon lesquelles « il sera impossible
de déchiffrer quelques chose du chaos qui régnait là-bas. Car, en réalité, il n’y au-
rait pas eu des combats proprement-dits mais un enchevêtrement infini d’unités,
dispersées et perdues dans les champs de maïs et dans les forêts ».38 D’autre part
Zagoriț associe l’effort d’explication militaire de la défaite à la tentative de rendre
palpable – témoignages à l’appui – l’expérience directe du champ de bataille,
l’expérience du combat, de la retraite, de la liquéfaction de toute autorité et de
tout esprit de résistance. Cette expérience ne peut être ignorée lorsqu’on cherche
une cohérence explicative qui doit se placer, parfois, au ras du sol du champ de
bataille. D’ici découle un autre trait du travail de Zagoriț : le besoin de retrouver
et de reconstituer les actes d’héroïsme, individuel ou collectif, dans les rangs des
troupes roumaines – autant de moments susceptibles de servir de points d’appui
pour une tentative limitée de justice mémorielle et de rédemption morale collec-
tive. Il s’agit, proclame-t-il sur la couverture même de son livre, d’un « ouvrage
écrit à la gloire des soldats qui par leur bravoure et par le sacrifice de leur vie ont
sauvé l’honneur de l’armée et du peuple roumain dans les combats de Turtu-
caia ».39 Point de vue singulier qui nuance l’image d’une défaite unanimement
abhorrée et qu’on préfère oublier, semble-t-il, à la fin des années 1930, à l’image
de l’écrivain Geo Bogza, auteur, en 1939, d’un reportage sur la ville de Turtu-
caia où le visage souriant de la bourgade danubienne l’emporte complétement
sur le souvenir, évoqué en passant, du « massacre qui lui avait conféré une si
douloureuse célébrité ».40 Pour Zagoriț, qui était maintenant colonel en réserve,
l’année 1939 marque la fin, qu’il s’impose lui-même, du chemin qu’il avait com-
mencé dans les camps bulgares en recueillant les témoignages de ses camarades
sur une tragédie qui laissait, apparemment, indifférent le jeune Bogza. Sentant
la nouvelle guerre approcher et afin de contribuer, selon ses propres mots, à la
formation des officiers de l’armée roumaine pour le conflit à venir, il publie son
ouvrage ainsi qu’un atlas des combats de Turtucaia.
Le caractère, à la fois original et marginal de l’entreprise de Zagoriț dis-
tingue d’une part, ses écrits, des brochures publiées entre 1918–1923 par des
généraux comme Aslan et Teodorescu, considérés responsables de la défaite et
qui mélangent explications militaires et autojustification et, d’autre part, du tra-
vail historique canonique de Constantin Kirițescu, auteur, au milieu des années
38 AMR, f. 5, Note datée du 14 (27) juin 1918 adressée au capitaine Zagoriț lui demandant
de donner aux autorités militaire « le mémoire ou le travail que vous avez rédigé concernant
Turtucaia à la suite de l’enquête personnelle que vous avez entrepris parmi les officiers prison-
nier durant votre captivité ».
39 Zagoriț, Turtukaia, 4.
40 Ibid.
1920, de l’ouvrage classique, en trois volumes, sur la participation roumaine à

la Grande Guerre, « which vividly portrayed both the agony and ecstasy of the
war and inspired a generation of young Romanians »,41 comme l’écrit Glenn
Torrey. Dans le chapitre consacré à Turtucaia, Kiritescu évoque dans un style
passionnel une « page de souffrance et de honte », une « défaite désastreuse,
humiliante » qui « a eu l’effet d’une paire de gifles en faisant saigner nos cœurs »,
qui « nous a exposé aux sarcasmes de l’ennemi et nous a compromis aux yeux des
amis ».42 L’auteur, qui avait lu en manuscrit l’enquête de Zagoriț,43 décrit dans
un crescendo narratif bien conduit la montée inéluctable d’une tragédie en y
insérant un réquisitoire auquel n’échappent ni commandants, ni simples soldats.
Les épisodes de résistance ou de contre-attaques héroïques qu’il consigne avec
soin, ne rachètent pas la médiocrité du commandement et la fragilité psycholo-
gique et morale d’une garnison dont le comportement est jugé par l’historien à la
lumière des défaites glorieuses ou des victoires ultérieures de l’armée roumaine
dans la campagne de 1916–1917. Les lamentations et les imprécations bibliques
de Kirițescu, l’image qu’il donne du général Teodorescu abandonnant « sous un
blizzard de malédictions » ses soldats pris au piège participent à un véritable
verdict et ne manquent pas d’impressionner jusqu’à nos jours.
Mais la description la plus saisissante de ce que fut ce « Caporetto » rou-
main reste celle d’un témoin de première main, l’écrivain George Topîrceanu qui
publia, en 1918 et en 1936, ses souvenirs de participant direct à la bataille et de
prisonnier dans les camps bulgares.44 Sergent dans l’artillerie, Topîrceanu, fait
le portrait le plus vivant et le plus terrifiant de toute la littérature roumaine du
phénomène de la panique collective – celle qui s’est saisie des masses de soldats
vaincus, piégés sur les bords du Danube par l’avancée ennemie, incapables de
repartir au combat et réduits à choisir entre la captivité et la noyade. « Tel des
bêtes effrayées ils se jetèrent sur le pont, sur le ponton, ils inondèrent le bac en se
pressant sauvagement, en se frayant le chemin à coup de poing et en piétinant les
blessés, pris par surprise et écrasés de tous les côtés. On entendait un cri déchi-
rant, des lamentations d’hommes à l’agonie, des gémissements de poitrines écra-
bouillées sous les bottes, de gens dont les têtes étaient broyées sous les talons,
d’estropiés aux blessures sanglantes, incapables de se défendre. Et cette cohue
grandissait continuellement…; ils se pressaient, se poussaient avec acharnement
[…] montaient les uns sur les épaules des autres, roulaient et revenaient à la
charge avec des visages grimaçants sous l’emprise d’une unique pensée et d’une
41 Geo Bogza, Țări de piatră, de foc și de pământ (Bucarest : Fundația pentru Literatură și
Artă Regele Carol II, 1939), 134.
42 Torrey, Romanian Battlefront, 256.
43 Kiritescu, Istoria războiului, 362 et 403.
44 Zagoriț, Turtukaia, 10.
poussée instinctive : qu’il échappe, lui, à tout prix, qu’il attrape une place sur le
pont du navire. »45
La valeur en tant que source historique des souvenirs de Topîrceanu –
qui ne furent que discrètement republiés à l’époque communiste dans un recueil
d’œuvres afin de ménager les relations « fraternelles » roumano-bulgares – est
susceptible de s’accroître par un recoupement de son récit avec des documents
d’archives encore très peu mis en valeur. La véridicité des scènes qu’il décrit mé-
rite l’attention de l’historien car Topîrceanu se veut avant tout un témoin et va
jusqu’à pratiquer parfois l’analyse rétrospective de l’événement. Je mentionne
seulement les épisodes qui attestent la brutalité de l’armée roumaine envers les
civils dans le contexte de la bataille ou la manière de surprendre la dangereuse
fluidité du moment où la condition du combattant bascule dans celle de prison-
nier de guerre susceptible de subir spontanément la haine de l’ennemi fraîche-
ment victorieux et encore mû par la dynamique meurtrière du combat.
L’écrivain Cezar Petrescu, témoin littéraire d’une atmosphère bucares-
toise marquée par le début de la guerre, tente de restituer, une décennie plus
tard, un autre état d’esprit collectif, celui des civils en proie aux rumeurs et aux
représentations dantesques de la bataille de Turtucaia. Celles-ci sont alimentées
par les militaires rescapés dont la vue, dans les rues de la capitale, « serraient
subitement les cœurs et faisait pleurer les passants ». Après les premiers convois
de prisonniers austro-hongrois capturés au tout début de la guerre, apparaissent,
faisant contraste dans le paysage de la ville, « les soldats des régiments de Turtu-
caia, avec leurs bras enveloppés de bandages blancs à travers lesquels montait la
couleur rouge du sang, des hommes qui ne pouvaient donner aucun éclaircisse-
ment, portant dans leurs regards des visions de terreur, parlant de façon confuse
de quelques chose de terrible qui s’était passé là-bas : la chair humaine écrabouil-
lée par le canon et des chevaux jetés dans le Danube, des commandants aban-
donnant leurs postes, des blessés massacrés par l’ennemi, des enfants aux mains
coupées, des officiers se brûlant la cervelle après avoir fait tirer le dernier obus
de leur batterie… »46 La véridicité de cette reconstitution littéraire peut être
mise, au moins en partie, en question ne serait-ce qu’à cause de la présence du
fantasme des « enfants aux mains coupées » par l’ennemi, un thème visiblement
emprunté au répertoire des rumeurs qui circulent en France et qui sont ampli-
fiées par la presse pendant l’exode des civils réfugiés devant l’avancée allemande
d’août 1914.47 Toujours est-il que la littérature illustre à sa manière le poids de
l’obsessionnelle défaite dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres.
On ne peut laisser de côté l’écho de la défaite dans l’art roumain à tra-
vers, notamment, les œuvres du peintre Nicolae Tonitza, capturé à Turtucaia et
45 Topirceanu, Amintiri din luptele de la Turtucaia.

46 Ibid. 44.
47 Petrescu, Intunecare, 207.
prisonnier dans le camp de Kîrdjali.48 Les desseins et les tableaux de Tonitza,

œuvres d’observation, de réflexion et de mémoire, rejoignent par le biais spé-
cifique de l’art du peintre, les souvenirs de captivité publiés dans l’entre-deux-
guerres par d’anciens prisonniers roumains en Bulgarie. Tonitza participe ainsi
à un courant qui autonomise l’expérience de la captivité et lui confère ses pleins
droits à la mémoire et à la compassion avec, en toile de fond, la débâcle militaire
emblématique et obsédante. Tonitza est le peintre des colonnes de prisonniers
dépenaillés qui prennent, le dos voûté, le chemin des camps, des blessés qui
marchent, épuisés, en s’épaulant mutuellement, des morts en captivité, enterrés
humblement par leur camarades. A partir des desseins et des croquis réalisés
dans le camp de Kîrdjali il va peindre, après son retour en Roumanie en 1918,
plusieurs tableaux dont les thèmes résonnent avec l’impression inéluctable de
catastrophe humaine qu’a légué en Roumanie la bataille de Turtucaia : Sur la
route de Turtucaia, Convoi de prisonniers, Enterrement d’un prisonnier roumain en
Bulgarie.
La mémoire des victoires militaires roumaine de l’été 1917 et celle de l’ac-
complissement du projet national fin 1918 n’ont jamais effacé complétement le
souvenir de Turtucaia dans la Roumanie de l’entre-deux-guerres. Défaite emblé-
matique et difficile à évacuer de la mémoire collective, défaite porteuse d’un per-
manent avertissement sur la fragilité de la victoire finale et de ses acquis, défaite
convertible en réquisitoire sur une scène politique en pleine transformation à
partir de 1918, Turtucaia, ne devait s’effacer de la conscience publique roumaine
qu’après l’instauration du communisme. Le statut de bataille menée contre l’ar-
mée d’un pays devenu, entre temps, un « pays-frère » à l’intérieur du « camp
socialiste » ainsi que l’issue désastreuse de cet épisode ont poussé à la dispari-
tion du nom « Turtucaia » des ouvrages historiques et des manuels de l’époque
communiste. L’exhumation limitée de cette bataille dans certains ouvrages pu-
bliés pendant la phase finale, la plus virulente, du national-communisme de
Ceaușescu49 ne lui a pas permis de revenir au cœur de la mémoire collective de
la Grande Guerre. Cette éclipse est, vraisemblablement, irréversible car rien ne
prouve, même après 1989, que le nom de la plus grande défaite subie par l’armée
roumaine dans la Grande Guerre puisse redevenir un repère pour la mémoire
collective des Roumains dans le postcommunisme.
48 John Horne et Alan Kramer, 1914. Les atrocités allemandes. La vérité sur les crimes de guerre
en France et en Belgique (Paris : Editions Tallandier, 2005), 307–310.
49 Laura Sânziana Romanescu Cuciuc, « Nicolae Tonitza, the painter from Turtucaia », Re-
vista Română de Studii Eurasiatice IX/1–2 (2013).
Académie Roumaine, Bucarest

Section des manuscrits
— Fonds Nicolae Iorga
Archives Militaires Roumaines, Bucarest

— Fonds « Comandamentul Capului de Pod Turtucaia »
— Fonds « Comandamentul general al etapelor »
Archives de Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Bucarest

— Fonds 71-1914, E2
Argetoianu, Constantin. Pentru cei de mâine. Amintiri din vremea celor de ieri. Tome. III, 5e
partie. Bucarest : Humanitas, 1992.
Averescu, Gen. Alexandru Răspunderile. Editura Ligii Poporului, 1918.
Bacalbașa, Constantin. Capitala sub ocupația dușmanului 1916–1918. Brăila : Alcalay & Ca-
lafeteanu, 1921.
Bogza, Geo. Țări de piatră, de foc și de pământ. Bucarest : Fundația pentru Literatură și Artă
Regele Carol II, 1939.
Boychev, Petur. Geroite na Tutrakanskata epopeia. Sofia : IK Gutenberg, 2016.
Cancicov, Vasile Th. Impresiuni și păreri personale din timpul războiului României. Tome 2.
Bucarest : Atelierle Societății Universul, 1921.
—Jurnal din vremea ocupației. Tome I. Bucarest : Humanitas, 2015.
Dabija, G. A. Armata română în Războiul Mondial (1916–1918). Tome I. Bucarest : I. G. Hertz
[s.d.].
Duca, Ion G. Amintiri politice. Tome II. Munich : Jon Dumitrescu Verlag, 1981.
Horne, John et Alan Kramer. 1914. Les atrocités allemandes. La vérité sur les crimes de guerre en
France et en Belgique. Paris : Editions Tallandier, 2005.
Iorga, Nicolae. Războiul nostru în note zilnice. Tome II, Chap. « Lupta de la Turtucaia ».
Craiova : [s.d.].
Kiritescu, Constantin. Istoria războiului pentru întregirea României 1916–1919. Tome I, 2e éd.
Bucarest : Cartea romaneasca, 1925.
Mille, Constantin « Fleoarțe », Adevărul, 27 août/9 septembre 1916.
Ministerul Apărării Naționale, M.St. Major – Serviciul Istoric. România în Războiul Mondial
1916–1919. Tome I. Bucarest : Monitorul Oficial și Imprimeriile Statului, 1934.
Petrescu, Cezar. Intunecare. Bucarest : Litera, 2010.
Regina Maria a României, Jurnal de război. Tome I. Bucarest : Humanitas, 2016.
Romalo, Grigore. Carnete de război 1916–1917. Editura Corint, 2017.
Romanescu Cuciuc, Laura Sinziana. « Nicolae Tonitza, the painter from Turtucaia ». Revista
Română de Studii Eurasiatice IX/1–2 (2013), 53–61.
Teodorescu, Gen. Constantin. Turtucaia. Studiu tactic și cauzele înfrângerii . Brașov : Tipo-
grafia Unirea, 1922.
Topirceanu, George. Amintiri din luptele de la Turtucaia. Pirin-Planina (episoduri tragice și
comice din captivitate). Bucarest : Humanitas, 2014.
Torrey, Glenn. The Romanian Battlefront in World War I. Lawrewnce :University Press of

Kansas, 2011.
Yarka, Arabella. De pe o zi pe alta. Carnet intim 1913–1918. Bucarest : Compania, 2010.
Zagoriț, Colonel Constantin. Turtukaia. Ploiești : Institutul de Arte Grafice Concurența,
1939.
https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849221L
UDC 94(100)"1914/1918":930(495)
94(495)"1918/1941"
Elli Lemonidou* http://www.balcanica.rs
University of Patras
Heritage and Memory of the First World War

in Greece during the Interwar Period
A Historical Perspective
Abstract: The memory of the First World War in Greece has suffered throughout the years
a gradual decline, which is comparable to the case of many other countries, mostly in ar-
eas of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. The Great War mattered somehow for poli-
ticians, the press and public opinion in Greece only in the interwar years. During that
period, discourse about the First World War included the echo of traumatic events re-
lated to Greek involvement in the war (such as the surrender of Fort Roupel to Cen-
tral Powers forces and the bloody clashes of December 1916 in Athens after the landing
of Entente troops) and the efforts to erect war memorials as a tribute to the sacrifice of
fallen soldiers, both Greeks and foreigners. At the same time, the Greek people had the
opportunity to learn a lot about the international dimension of the war through news-
papers, where translated memoirs of leading wartime figures (of both alliances) were
published. After the outbreak of the Second World War, interest in the previous major
conflict (including the Greek role in the hostilities) significantly diminished in the country.
Taking into consideration the ongoing experience of the centenary manifestations, the au-
thor proposes a codification of the main types (existing or potential) of WWI memory in
Greece and suggests new ways of approaching this major historical event. The final chapter
addresses some possible causes of the troublesome relation of Greeks with the First World
War, which is mainly due to the very particular circumstances of Greek involvement in the
war and the determining role of later historical events that overshadowed memories of the
earlier conflict.
Key words: First World War memory, Greece and the First World War, National Schism,
Eleftherios Venizelos, Ioannis Metaxas, Constantine, King of Greece
O ne hundred years after the massive catastrophe of the First World War and
all the turbulent years that preceded or followed it, the whole world has
turned its attention to this major milestone of world history through a lengthy
list of commemorative events, publications, academic gatherings and many oth-
er types of activities. If the great interest caused by the centenary was surely to
be expected in countries like France or the UK, where the Great War has always
been a strong point of reference in the national memory narratives, special atten-
* [email protected]
tion must be paid to a number of countries where, for most of the previous cen-
tury, the presence of the First World War in both public and academic dialogue
had been surprisingly and disproportionately meagre. The universal focus on the
First World War has constituted in such cases a unique (and perhaps unrepeat-
able) challenge in order to reinvigorate their overall interest in the Great War
and inspire new historiographical and memorial approaches.
The case of Greece is highly indicative of the difficulties encountered in
such a challenge – as the end of the quadrennium is approaching, it is difficult
to arrive at a clear verdict over the real impact of this anniversary in the country.
No one can claim that the First World War centenary passed unobserved; few,
though, would insist that it has brought a real turnover regarding the visibility
of the First World War inside Greek society. This complex reality makes it nec-
essary to review once again the issue of the reception and thorny survival of the
First World War in Greek public opinion and academic society alike, where only
a very small percentage of people are aware of the full dimensions of that war
and its real implications for the history of the country. This situation, as we men-
tioned before, is not specific to Greece; it characterizes a number of countries
and nations, especially (but not exclusively) in the broader area of Eastern and
Southeastern Europe. In all these cases, the impact of the First World War at
social, political and academic levels does not correspond, for a variety of reasons,
to the real importance of the event, which proved to be crucial even for the very
existence of some of these states, created after the dissolution of old empires by
the end of the war.
In the Greek case, the 1914–1918 period ranks among the most com-
plex, controversial and decisive in the history of the modern Greek state.1 At
the military level, the direct engagement of the Greek army in the hostilities,
even if materialized only in the final year of the war, is considered to have of-
fered an important contribution to the final Allied victory on the Macedonian
Front. In the diplomatic field, in the early years of the war Greece found itself
in the focus of the attention of the two rival alliances, as each of them sought in
multiple ways to secure Greek support for its own cause. This resulted in mul-
tiple violations of the initial neutrality of the country, in continuous threats to
1 For the history of Greece during the First World War, see G. B. Leon (Leontaritis), Greece
and the Great Powers. 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974); G. B. Le-
ontaritis, Η Ελλάδα στον Πρώτο Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο. 1917–1918 [Greece in the First World War.
1917–1918] (Athens: MIET, 2000) [revised edition of the book: Greece and the First World
War: From Neutrality to Intervention, 1917–1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)];
Y. Mourélos, L’intervention de la Grèce dans la Grande Guerre (1916–1917) (Athens: Institut
Français d’Athènes, 1983); E. Lemonidou, “La Grèce vue de France pendant la Première Guerre
mondiale; entre censure et propagandes” (PhD, Université Paris IV, 2007); G. Th. Mavrogorda-
tos, 1915. O Εθνικός Διχασμός [1915. The National Schism] (Athens: Patakis, 2015).
E. Lemonidou, Heritage and Memory of the First World War in Greece 223
its territorial integrity,2 as well as to a painful schism on the domestic political

scene, where King Constantine was a firm supporter of Greece’s (pro-German)
neutrality, while Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister during the first year of
the war, adopted an explicit pro-Entente stance. At the culmination of the crisis,
the situation in the country was pretty much similar to that of a civil war, with
many incidents of violence and bloodshed. The most significant and well-known
case is the bloody clashes that erupted between Greek soldiers and Allied troops
in the centre of Athens on 1 and 2 December 1916,3 followed, in the next days,
by scenes of extreme violence between supporters of the two rival camps on the
Greek political scene.4 Last but not least, a further significant aspect of the war
lies in the fact that many soldiers from other countries lost their lives in various
military or other violent incidents inside the Greek state or in its near periphery.
Taking all the above into consideration, it becomes clear that the limited
Greek interest in the First World War in no way corresponds to its real impor-
tance for the history of the country. This is not a new finding, though. In the
search for the origins and causes of this phenomenon, which includes a histori-
cal overview of the issue, it is useful to concentrate on the interwar years, the last
period in which the memory of the First World War still mattered somehow in
Greece. This paradigm offers useful keys to understanding the typology of the
memory of the war, as well as to explaining some of the factors that contributed
to the aforementioned long-standing disinterest shown by the Greeks.
2 A. Tounda-Fergadi, “Violations de la neutralité grecque par les Puissances de l’Entente

durant la Première guerre mondiale”, Balkan Studies 26.1 (1985), 113–129. Lemonidou, ibid.
3 The events are known in Greek historiography and public discourse as “Noemvriana”
(“November events”), since, according to the Julian calendar then in use in Greece, they took
place in the month of November 1916.
4 For the events which took place on 1 and 2 December 1916 see SHM (Historical Service
of the French Navy – France / Service historique de la Marine nationale – France), SS X

f 9, Roquefeuil to Lacaze, “Rapport sur les événements qui se sont déroulés dans les pre-
miers jours de décembre 1916”, "no. 533 of 9 December 1916; L. Maccas, “Les événements
d’Athènes des 1er et 2 décembre 1916”, Revue des Deux Mondes 38 (March-April 1917), 96–
135; L. Dartige du Fournet, Souvenirs de guerre d’un amiral (1914–1916) (Paris: Librairie Plon,
1920), 210–273; G. Boussenot, « Le Drame du 1er décembre 1916 à Athènes”, Revue d’His-
toire de la Guerre Mondiale 1 ( January 1938), 1–27; Y. Mourelos, Τα «Νοεμβριανά» του 1916.
Από το αρχείο της Μεικτής Επιτροπής Αποζημιώσεων των θυμάτων [The “November Events” of
1916. From the Archive of the Mixed Commission for Indemnities to the Victims] (Athens:
Patakis, 2007).
The First World War memory in the interwar period

In the first years that followed the end of the hostilities, the Great War was
expectedly still present in a strong way in Greek public life, as evidenced by an
overview of the Greek press of the time.
A large part of the references concerned the international post-war scene,
which was about to take its definitive shape during the peace negotiations in
Paris. The Greek claims, predominantly, but also the international dimensions
of this process appeared regularly in Greek dailies. The contribution of Greece
to the Allied victory was highlighted in many ways, in coordination with the
efforts of the country’s leadership to maximize gains in the ongoing diplomatic
procedures. In the first months of 1919, articles and various references focused
much more on the milestone of 14 July (and not on 11 November). In that year
this important date acquired an additional symbolic dimension, as the National
Day of France was directly related to the victory in the Great War that had end-
ed a few months earlier. The particularly impressive celebration of 14 July 1919
in Paris, with the Greek Army participating in the great military parade, pro-
vided an excellent opportunity to promote the role of Greece as an indispensable
member of the Entente alliance, as well as to stress the particular importance
and good momentum of Franco-Hellenic relations in that period.5
Another important type of references concerned the domestic dimen-
sions of the war in Greece and more precisely some highly disputed issues of the
war period. A couple of trials that took place in 1919, concerning two traumatic
pages in the Greek history of the few previous years, caught huge attention and
coverage in the daily newspapers of that time. The first important trial, in May
and June 1919, concerned the bloodshed of December 1916 in the city of Ath-
ens, and the second one, some months later, was related to the surrender of Fort
Roupel (in northern Greece) to the Central Alliance forces in May 1916.
In both cases, but especially in the case related to the 1916 turmoil in Ath-
ens, the press provided extensive coverage, reporting on the trials on a day-to-
day basis. This is proved very clearly by the example of the daily Embros, where
news about the trial dominated its domestic news agenda for many weeks, with
detailed reports of the court hearings on the front page. The verdict dramatically
sealed the debate on this event, imposing the death penalty on four culprits.
The penalty, however, would not be executed on any of the convicts, for several
reasons. Similar attention was paid, a few months later, to the trial of the former
members of the Army General Staff accused for the surrender of Fort Roupel.
It is interesting to see that in this second trial, according to the daily reports in
5 In the newspaper Embros, for example, a number of articles in the month of July 1919 are
dedicated to the celebration of 14 July 1919 in Paris, to the preparations for the arrival of
Prime Minister Venizelos in the French capital and to the participation of the Greek Army
in the glorious parade on the French National Day.
the newspapers, one can also trace references to the aforementioned issue of the
December 1916 clashes – in practice, the two issues are closely connected. Both
are episodes related to the National Schism and the foreign interventions that
plagued the country in the middle of the war period. It has to be mentioned that
this rich material published in the daily press has still a lot to offer in the study of
the period, as it can shed further light and clarify specific aspects of existing his-
torical knowledge gathered from archival sources and other published evidence.
The work of justice concerning the December 1916 clashes did not finish
with the big trials of 1919. In the early months of 1920 newspapers still pub-
lished small pieces of news concerning accusations against more persons for the
same issue. It is only after the middle of that year that things seem to change,
with the appearance of news about amnesty granted to some of the accused and
some debates regarding the extent of this act of lenience.
Despite the apparent calming of the spirits, however, the memory of the
1916 urban clashes in the Greek capital would remain vivid for the entire inter-
war period, as confirmed by sporadic, yet very characteristic mentions in the
press, in published memoirs or in other types of written testimonies left by per-
sons with a personal experience of the events.
It is very interesting to note that some of the press references are fo-
cused not on the post-war quest for heroes and villains inside Greece, but on
another dimension of the events, which is their echo in France. The death of
numerous French soldiers in the clashes shocked French public opinion and
remained part of later discourse about these events in various ways.6 Another
interesting aspect regards the viewpoints of people who played an active role
or simply witnessed the events. Towards the end of 1920 a couple of press ref-
erences cover declarations of King Constantine and Ernst von Falkenhausen,
former Military Attaché of Germany in Athens, each offering, among other
things, his own version on this particular issue.7 Besides the press, it is very
interesting to examine the after-war memoirs or other types of testimonies
left by leading figures having direct knowledge of the December 1916 events,
6 On 18 November/1 December 1920 Makedonia newspaper publishes the news about a

memorial ceremony for the French victims to be held at the port of Piraeus and attended by
the Ambassador of France to Greece; a few weeks later, on 29 December 1920/11 January
1921, the Greek public learns through the same newspaper that a Greek shipowner decided
to donate an important sum to the families of French victims; last but not least, in an article
published in the Makedonia in the early 1930s (4 July 1931) it is claimed that the strong sup-
port of France for the Turks after 1921, to the detriment of Greek interests in Asia Minor,
was directly linked to the negative repercussions of the 1916 events in French public opinion.
7 Reference to the declarations of Falkenhausen is found in the Makedonia of 1/14 Septem-
ber 1920, while the same newspaper publishes a report about the declarations of King Con-
stantine – who used the term “accidental” for the December 1916 events – on 23 December
1920/5 January 1921.
either as participants or as observers. References to what happened vary very

much, according to each author and his/her political beliefs. Supporters of
Venizelos are usually very harsh in their judgments about the role of King
Constantine and his followers in the matter. For example, Georgios Ventiris
devoted more than thirty pages to the events in his historiographical work,
giving the title “The Slaughter of Athens” to the respective chapter and claim-
ing that what happened in the days after 1 December 1916 was a “state revolt”,
which harmed seriously national aspirations in the following years.8 On the
other hand, Ioannis Metaxas, one of the closest consultants and collabora-
tors of King Constantine, despite being very prolific and eloquent about many
other aspects of the war – both in his diaries and in his exchange of newspaper
articles with Eleftherios Venizelos in 1934–1935 – remains curiously silent
about the 1916 riots in Athens. For his part, royalist Viktor Dousmanis, head
of the Army General Staff until August 1916, makes only a brief mention of
the events in his memoirs, implying in a clear way the joint responsibility of
Venizelists and the Entente forces for the “attack against Athens”.9 Another
fragmental, though important source of information about the echo of the
events is the material left (and published posthumously some decades later)
by the famous novelist Penelope Delta, a prominent figure in Greek social life
at the time of the clashes with close family connections to both opposing sides
in Greek politics – the introduction to a volume of her diary, as well as various
entries in it testify to the long-standing traumatic memory of the events for
the author and for people from her close social environment.10
A few years after the end of the hostilities, a new factor began to occupy the
public sphere in Greece in relation to the Great War, influencing public opinion
and the image Greeks had of this war. It was the issue of paying tribute to the
fallen soldiers of the war and building war memorials in Greek territory. This issue
concerned not only victims of Greek nationality but also soldiers of other coun-
tries who had lost their lives in Greece or in neighbouring geographical areas. It is
important to remind that the construction of war memorials became quickly one
8 G. Ventiris, Η Ελλάς του 1910–1920: Ιστορική μελέτη [Greece in the years 1910–1920: A
Historical Study], 2nd edition (Athens: Ikaros, 1970), vol. 2, 242–275. General Leonidas
Paraskevopoulos, however, himself also a prominent supporter of Venizelos, remains almost
silent about the events in his personal memoirs published in 1933 – see L. Paraskevopoulos,
Αναμνήσεις 1896–1920 [Memoirs 1896–1920] (Athens: Pyrsos 1933), 320.
9 V. Dousmanis, Απομνημονεύματα: ιστορικαί σελίδες τας οποίας έζησα [Memoirs: Pages of His-
tory that I Lived] (Athens: P. Dimitrakos, 1946), 148–149. The book of Dousmanis, pub-
lished in 1946, is a compilation of various texts written by the author during the interwar
years.
10 P. Delta, Ελευθέριος Βενιζέλος: ημερολόγιο, αναμνήσεις, μαρτυρίες, αλληλογραφία [Eleftherios
Venizelos: Diary, Memoirs, Testimonies, Correspondence], ed. P. Zannas (Athens: Ermis,

1978), xx–xxi, 42, 237–238.
of the major issues of interest in several ex-belligerent countries during the after-
war years, as the immense human losses suffered during the war required new
ways of commemorative expression for the acts of heroism and sacrifice.11
In this context, the Greek state began efforts to build monuments, tombs
or steles, though only after the end of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, in
order to honour the dead not only of the First World War but of all recent wars,
including the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, the Great War and the Greco-Turkish
War. Thus, after 1922 the bones of the Greek soldiers who had fallen during the
Balkan Wars and had been buried in Bulgaria (in Gorna-Dzhumaya) and in
Albania were transferred to Greece. A large loan was made available to the Min-
istry of Military Affairs for the erection of monuments, while it was ordered that
each city or community should build, until the end of 1925, their own tombs or
monuments at the places where Greek soldiers had fallen. Memorial columns
were also erected for the Greek officers and soldiers killed in foreign territories
– such as those killed during the Great War in Pirot, Serbia;12 lastly, and only in
1932, the Greek monument to the Unknown Soldier was inaugurated in front
of the Greek Parliament on Syntagma Square.13
At the same period, foreign governments also mobilized to build me-
morials to their fallen soldiers on Greek soil during the Great War. On 20 No-
vember 1918 an agreement was signed between the Governor-General of Sa-
lonica and the generals of the Allied countries on the Macedonian Front. This
agreement regulated all matters concerning the military cemeteries of foreign
countries in Greece. The British, French, Italian and Serbian authorities were
supposed to propose the sites to be allocated as permanent burial places for
the soldiers of their armies, while the Greek Government was to acquire the
11 In France, e.g., most of the monuments were built before 1922, mainly thanks to large state
grants to local authorities. Until 1922, in France, Great Britain, Belgium and Italy monu-
ments were also erected in honour of the Unknown Soldier, to commemorate all unidentified
men fallen “for the Homeland”. See F. Cochet & J.-N. Grandhomme, eds., Les soldats inconnus
de la Grande Guerre. La mort, le deuil, la mémoire (Saint-Cloud: SOTECA - 14-18 Éditions,
2012).
12 Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece (hereaf-
ter AYE), 1931, A/15/5, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes to Legation of Greece in Belgrade, no. 62208 of 9 December 1924; Legation of
Greece in Durrës to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no. 1380 of 3 August 1925, and Legation of
Greece in Sofia to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sofia, no. 1082 of 27 September 1925; Official
Gazette, no. 68 of 19 March 1925; Greek Minister of Military Affairs to Greek Minister of
Foreign Affairs, no. 11031/430 of 14 April 1926.
13 AYE, 1931, A/15/5, Ministry of Military Affairs to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no. 22526
of 13 February 1926. E. Lemonidou, “Le Soldat inconnu grec”, in Les soldats inconnus de la
Grande Guerre. La mort, le deuil, la mémoire, ed. François Cochet and Jean-Noël Grand-
homme (Saint-Cloud: SOTECA, 14-18 Éditions, 2012), 153–169.
proposed land, in accordance with Greek laws.14 The French government took
care of the cemetery in Florina and that of Zetinlik in Thessaloniki, the Serbs
of the cemeteries in Thessaloniki, Kaimakchalan and Corfu, while the Impe-
rial War Graves Commission (created in 1917, renamed the Commonwealth
War Graves Commission in 1960) took care of British cemeteries scattered in
several places in Macedonia, but also in Neon Faliron (a suburb of Athens),
on the islands of Lemnos and Syros, in Souda (on the island of Crete) and in
Alexandroupoli.15
Throughout the interwar period, the press remained the main source
through which Greeks could remember the war – and broaden their knowledge
about it. As already mentioned, special attention must be paid to the publica-
tion – on the front page of newspapers and in instalments published over several
months each time – of the memoirs of leading figures in the war from the two
opposing sides and various other sources regarding further aspects of the war,
either related to Greece or not. In the press of the early after-war period one
can find, for example, the minutes of the sittings of the French Assembly before
the Battle of Verdun or even the memoirs of the former French ambassador to
Greece, Gabriel Deville,16 both published in the newspaper Embros. The publi-
cation of this type of material in the Greek press would continue for most of the
rest of the interwar period, offering interpretations of what the war had been
for a number of leading personalities, a narrative of the Great War as seen “from
the top”. Thus, one could read the memoirs of Raymond Poincaré, President of
the French Republic,17 those of the German Chancellor Bernard von Bülow18
14 AYE, 1937, A/18/3, text of Law 2473 which ratifies the agreement of 7/20 November
1918 concerning the British, French, Italian and Serbian military cemeteries in Greece. AYE,
1935, A/18/3, Minister of Military Affairs to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Note no. 308294
of 22 December 1922.
15 AYE, 1931, A/15/5, Governor of Gendarmerie in Florina to Public Security Office, Note
no. 2847/8 of 21 January 1928. AYE, 1939, A/5/3, Ambassador of Greece in Belgrade to
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Undersecretariat of State for Press and Tourism), unnumbered,
of 16 September 1938. AYE, 1935, A/18/3, Official Gazette of 14 April 1922 and British
Embassy in Athens to Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Verbal Note no. 203 of 23 October
1928 and Note no. 81 of 14 April 1922; minutes of the 1st meeting of the Anglo-Greek Mixed
Committee of the Imperial War Graves Commission.
16 G. Deville, L’Entente, la Grèce et la Bulgarie. Notes d’histoire et souvenirs (Paris: Eugène
Figuière, 1919).
17 Excerpts from the first volume of Poincaré’s memoirs were published from 1 March 1931
in the newspaper Ethnos (Nation), while in December the same year parts of the eighth vol-
ume were published in the same paper.
18 In the newspaper Ethnos, from November 1930 to 23 July 1931; the publication of von
Bulöw‘s memoirs was followed by that of his secret correspondence with the Kaiser in the
same newspaper, from 26 July 1931.
or of German lieutenants (Max Wild and Alexander Bauermeister), who were

officers of the German secret intelligence service,19 a biography of Paul von Hin-
denburg, Chief of the General Staff of the German Imperial Army, written by
Emil Ludwig,20 as well as the memoirs of several other personalities. A history
of the war “from below” also existed, albeit much more limited, through descrip-
tions of life in the trenches and particularly successful short stories or novels
about the underwater war, the role of pirates or the lives and actions of spies,
men and women.21 Only the Rizospastis (The Radical), the official newspaper of
the Greek Communist Party, dared speak of peace, publishing the famous novel
All Quiet on the Western Front as early as autumn 1929, only a few months after
its publication in Germany. Through all these readings it is true that the Greeks
could learn almost everything about the European version of the Great War
and, conversely, almost nothing about its Greek dimension. For this to happen,
one had to wait until 1934.
In October 1934 the former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos took
the initiative to publish a series of articles in the newspaper Eleutheron Vima
(Free Tribune), in order to describe and explain the events of the National
Schism of 1915. Ioannis Metaxas, Deputy Head of the General Staff during
the First World War and one of the most emblematic figures of the Schism –
the closest collaborator of King Constantine and the most active opponent of
Venizelos – decided to reply by a series of articles published in the newspaper
Kathimerini (The Daily). This newspaper duel lasted thirteen months, until No-
vember 1935. All the articles of Metaxas were published in 1935 in the editions
of the newspaper Kathimerini, while twenty years later (in 1953) the Historical
Archive of the newspaper Ethnikos Kyrix (National Herald) published the entire
press correspondence of the two men.22
On 18 March 1936 Venizelos died; a few months later, on 4 August 1936,
Ioannis Metaxas proclaimed his dictatorship, sanctioned by King George II, son
19 In the newspaper Ethnos between December 1932 and April 1933 for the memoirs of
Wild and from 26 February 1934 for those of Bauermeister.
20 In the newspaper Eleutheron Vima from February 1934.
21 See in the newspaper Ethnos the following novels: “The Black Boat”, which in March 1930
became “The Black Boats“; “Corsair. The Black Pirate. The Most Adventurous and Dramatic
Narration on Espionage”, whose publication began on 7 December 1933; “Spy Women. The
Tragedy of their Lives“, published on the front pages of the newspaper from June 1934; also,
“The Spy. The Most Dramatic and Adventurous Narration of the Dark Scenes of the Great
War“, in June-July 1936.
22 In 1994 a new edition was realized by the Greek publishing house Kyromanos in Thes-
saloniki, see Eleftherios Venizelos and Ioannis Metaxas, Η ιστορία του Εθνικού Διχασμού κατά
την αρθρογραφία του Ελευθερίου Βενιζέλου και του Ιωάννου Μεταξά [The History of the National
Schism according to the Articles of Eleftherios Venizelos and Ioannis Metaxas], 2nd edition
(Thessaloniki: Kiromanos, 2003).
of King Constantine; this regime ended with the death of Metaxas in January
1941. The dictatorship of Metaxas was the last – and perhaps the only – period
during which the Great War had a central role in the public sphere, becoming
one of the most important issues of public life in the country. Of course, the
issue at stake was not the European war – after all, November 11 meant noth-
ing to the new regime, which had created 4 August as a new “national holiday“.
Metaxas tried to settle his accounts with the past by imposing his personal view
of the National Schism. That is why in November 1936, four months after the
establishment of his regime, Metaxas organized the transfer of the remains of
King Constantine, Queen Sophia and Queen Mother Olga from Italy, to be
buried in Greece, in the royal cemetery of Tatoi, location of the summer resi-
dence of the royal family. King Constantine had left Greece for Italy after his
overthrow in 1922, for the second time after his first removal from the throne
in June 1917. Metaxas, formerly a close collaborator of Constantine, forced the
Greek capital – better said: the whole country – to live for five days (from 15 to
19 November 1936) in the rhythm of this transfer of royal remains. Everything
was feverishly prepared for the reception of the remains, their lying in state at
the Cathedral of Athens, the ceremony and the second burial of members of the
royal family at Tatoi.23 The press of those days hailed the burial of the venerated
relics in the land of Greece as the liquidation of a debt of the nation to its kings;
Greeks should henceforth be happy and satisfied “with regard to history and to
themselves“.24
Two years later, on 9 October 1938, a second episode of the series “Re-
habilitation of Constantine” took place: the inauguration of an imposing statue
of Constantine at the Champs de Mars in Athens. All public buildings, but also
houses and shops were decorated from sunrise until sunset, parades and reli-
gious ceremonies were organized across all of Greece, followed by solemn ad-
dresses of mayors or other officials; it was an opportunity for the entire Greek
people to celebrate.25 The new statue was meant to symbolize, like the royal
tombs, the brotherhood and union of Greeks under the new reign of George II
and the governance of Metaxas.26
The Second World War and the Civil War that followed the dictatorship
of Metaxas erased almost all traces of the Great War. Faced with the problems
of post-war reconstruction and with the painful reality of a new ideological divi-
sion in the place of the old National Schism, the country lost almost all interest
in the earlier global conflict. For all the next decades, discourse about the First
23 Ethnos, 17 November 1936, 1 and 8. See also Petit Parisien, 23 November 1936, 5.
24 Ethnos, 16 November 1936, 1.
25 Ethnos, 10 October 1938, 8.
26 Ethnos, 9 October 1938, 1.
World War has been confined to a number of historians, who have studied the
most important – though not all – aspects of the Greek dimension of the war,
and to rare references in the press, mainly occasioned by anniversary dates or
major commemoration milestones, like the iconic handshake of the leaders of
France and Germany at Verdun in 1984. In this way, the First World War has
remained for Greeks a largely unexplored land, sealed with stereotype references
to the trenches of the Western Front, as far as the international dimension is
concerned, and to the National Schism that dictated the domestic front at the
same time.
Defining existing or potential types of First World War memory in Greece
Taking into consideration the historically limited interest of Greeks in the First
World War (and the ambiguous impact of the centenary), we are going to ex-
amine some of the reasons and explanation that lie behind this phenomenon.
Before moving to this chapter, however, it would be useful to further outline the
complexity and, at the same time, the importance of this issue, by distinguishing
and codifying a number of existing or potential memory schemes about the First
World War in Greece.
The first and most traditional form of remembrance regards the heroic
national memory, that is the tribute to the Greek soldiers who lost their lives in
military operations throughout the war. This memory is served by monuments
to the fallen, erected either at their birthplaces or close to the war front; also, by
special commemorative activities, usually on anniversary occasions. Even though
this type of memory is inevitably restricted, due to the limited extent of involve-
ment of Greek troops, there is space for greater public visibility of all related
events or initiatives, as well as for an overall reassessment of the role of Greece
in the war in the context of early twentieth-century Greek history.
A second memory line is linked to the memory of the soldiers of other
nations fallen during the war and buried in Greece. An important number of
monuments are scattered all over Greece, often ignored by Greeks themselves.
Besides the great importance of these monuments for the concerned nations
(one could mention, for example, the importance of Zetenlik cemetery in Thes-
saloniki for Serbs, or the highly symbolic participation of Australians and New
Zealanders in yearly memorial activities at the Allied Cemetery in Lemnos),
this type of memory can work efficiently also for the Greek public, serving as a
bridge of awareness for the international dimension of the war and its links with
the Greek case.
A third aspect concerns specific aspects of the Greek experience of the
First World War, such as the National Schism and all traumatic experiences
of the 1914–1918 period, including the surrender of Fort Roupel to Central
Alliance forces, the foreign occupation of Greek territories, the bloody riots of
December 1916 in Athens and the dramatic consequences of the Allied block-
ade for the home front in Greece. A lot of work has still to be done in order to
trace the memory of these traumatic events in interwar Greece, especially at lo-
cal societies’ level, while a further challenge for academic historiography and, at
a later stage, public diffusion of historical knowledge lies in contextualizing these
dramatic aspects of war in Greece (civil riots, blockade, famine) in the frame of
contemporary wartime landscape in many places throughout Europe.
Another dimension concerns the glorious memory of the Allied victory
and the participation of Greece in this commemorative process. This memory
scheme was, as shown before, extensively present in the first years after the war;
it has faded, however, over the following years because of the overwhelming im-
pact of later major events at domestic and international level.
Finally, a very important type of memory covers the First World War in
its universal dimension as a major catastrophe with horrible consequences at
moral, ethical and humanitarian level. This viewpoint, now almost universally
accepted in discourses about the war, first emerged in Greece during the inter-
war period, more or less at the same time as in the rest of Europe, mainly thanks
to literature and cinema.27 A special reference has to be made to the warm recep-
tion shown by the Greek public to the already mentioned classical novel of Erich
Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front.28 It would probably not be an
exaggeration to claim that the Greek public – and most likely it is not a unique
case – has formed over the years its knowledge and image of the First World
War much more through this literary work than through any other source of
academic or public history. Concerning this last point, it is very important to
highlight that, unlike other countries, in Greece the presence and impact of the
First World War in the fields of cinema and television has been rather scarce,
especially when compared with the audiovisual presence of the Second World
War and other major events of contemporary history.
27 J. Winter, Remembering War. The Great War Between Memory and History in the Twentieth
Century (New Haven – London: Yale University Press, 2006), 118–134, 183–200; Chris-
tophe Gaultier et al. eds., Une guerre qui n’en finit pas. 1914–2008, à l’écran et sur scène (Paris:
Éditions Complexe, 2008).
28 A preliminary research on the Greek editions of this book has given convincing results
both for its immediate reception in Greece, as for its lasting impact on the Greek public.
Besides the two serialized publications of the novel in the daily press of the inter-war period
(mentioned earlier in this text), there are no less than six single translated editions of the
novel in book form, with numerous republications, in the later decades.
Why is the First World War a forgotten war in Greece?

In an effort to explain the reluctant attitude of Greeks towards the First World
War, a number of factors have been examined, which can be summarized in the
following three arguments:
a) Greece’s involvement in the First World War – even the long, bloody
and traumatic conflicts of the years 1914–1917 – constituted, as most historians
have pointed out, only part of a series of important events for the Greek history
that took place in the frame of a whole decade, from 1912 to 1922. This period
was inextricably linked first to the apogee and the glory, then to the tragic failure
and collapse of the “Great Idea” for the expansion of the Modern Greek state to
all neighbouring territories inhabited mainly by ethnic Greek population. The
events at both ends of this decade, that is the Balkan Wars in the early 1910s –
that offered important territorial gains to the Greek state – and the defeat of the
Greek Army in the Greco-Turkish War in 1922,29 were marked by a particularly
strong symbolic impact over the years. They almost completely overshadowed all
intermediate events directly or indirectly linked with the participation of Greece
in the Great War, no matter how important they may have been.
b) The role of Greece in the armed conflicts of the First World War was
largely and for a long time indirect and distant. This resulted in a rather limited
number of heroic or traumatic pages arising from purely military action. The
successes of the Greek army on the Macedonian Front did find their place in the
pages of Greek military history, but it was clear that they counted much less in
the collective memory when compared to the Balkan Wars or the disastrous de-
velopments on the Asia Minor Front in 1922. Among the factors for this down-
grading of Greek military successes, tensions on the domestic front caused by
the National Schism should not be underestimated – for numerous supporters
of ex-King Constantine, the war on the side of the Entente was considered an
almost personal issue of Prime Minister Venizelos. Royalists also continued to
feel rage and disapproval for the Entente tactics that had resulted in the removal
of their beloved King in 1917. Moreover, in the years after the war Greece saw
repeatedly its contribution to the Great War challenged not only by its enemies,
but also by its allies30 – this reality had lasting negative effects on the image and
memory of the Greek military achievements even inside the country.
29 This event is known in Greek historiography as the “Catastrophe of Asia Minor”, signify-
ing the final phase of the Greco-Turkish war that culminated in the massacre or expulsion of
Greeks from the provinces of the formet Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor.
30 Until the end of the interwar period there were offensive comments in the French press
about Greece’s contribution to the Great War, which repeatedly provoked the reaction of
the Greek authorities – see AYE, 1938, A/3, Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs to Greek
Legation in Paris, no. 17633 of 12 August 1938. A similar attitude was observed from the
part of Serbia – on many interwar occasions, when there was discussion about the Allied
c) Historical events in Greece during the following decades were so force-

ful and dramatic, that they almost erased remembrance of the Great War. The
1940s, in particular, are dominating until nowadays the field of contemporary
Greek history, whether in academic research and historiography, or in terms of
public interest and debate. The famine of the winter of 1941/2 and, more gener-
ally, the hardships suffered under the German and Italian occupation overshad-
owed the memories of the corresponding moments of 1916–1917. The urban
clashes of December 1944 in Athens ousted the events of 1916 from the collec-
tive memory. The new dividing line between Right and Left, which took a clear
form in a very painful way in the 1940s, rendered obsolete the conflict between
Venizelists and Royalists, which was at the origin of the 1915 National Schism
and remained active in various ways throughout the interwar period. It is very
characteristic that in 2014, an anniversary year for many important moments of
Greek history, debates, conferences and publications about December 1944 had
clearly the upper hand in comparison to the centenary of the Great War or to
the much more recent milestone of 1974, which meant the definitive transition
to democratic rule in Greece after the fall of the military dictatorship. Even four
years later, no signs of change to this tendency can be traced.
Conclusion
In our analysis, we have focused on two different dimensions of WWI memory
in Greece. The first one regards the persistently troublesome reception of the
First World War in both its national and international aspects. The second one
is linked to the multifaceted presence of this war, in various forms of public dis-
course, in the sole case of interwar years. This latter dimension, though already
studied in the past, has still a lot to offer in terms of academic studies and public
knowledge – throughout our text, a number of issues were highlighted which
can offer fertile ground for further research. This prospect becomes even more
important by taking into consideration the recent rise in scholarly interest for
the inter-war years. The other issue is surely much more complicated. The First
World War, in all its dimensions, is deeply connected to Greece – it has been
confirmed by the analysis of many particular aspects in this text. Hard work is
required, though, in order to discover traces of the war in Greece, both material
contribution to the liberation of Serbia and the sacrifices suffered by the Allies in the Great
War, references to Greek participation, when made, where full of contempt. All efforts to
highlight and promote the role of Greece on the Macedonian Front provoked a controversy
on the part of the Serbian press, which recalled the non-execution of the Greco-Serb alliance
treaty in 1915 and the resulting disaster in Serbia – see AYE, 1931, A/15/5, Greek Legation
in Belgrade to Minister of Foreign Affairs, no. 806 of 27 May 1925, and no. 1574 of 12 Oc-
tober 1925; Military Attaché at the Embassy of Greece in Belgrade to Army General Staff in
Athens, no. 156 of 27 May 1925.
and intangible, and raise public awareness at all possible levels about its overall
importance and its specific significance for Greek history. Even if the passage
of time seems to be an obstacle, the path is still open and full of challenges for
researchers and all interested people. Even in its final stages, the centenary –
which, after all, in the wording of the renowned historian John Horne, must be
regarded as an “open-ended” perspective31 – and its legacy offer a vital opportu-
nity for launching a series of initiatives which could contribute to building a new
relation of Greeks with this major event of national and world history.
Abbreviations for archive sources
AYE: Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece –
Athens, Greece
SHM: Service historique de la Marine nationale (Historical Service of the French Navy) –
Vincennes, France
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https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC1849237D
UDC 821.163.41.09 Петровић Р."
Dunja Dušanić*
Faculté de Philologie
Université de Belgrade
Beograd
Du traumatisme au roman.
Mémoire et représentation de la Grande Guerre dans l’œuvre
de Rastko Petrović (1898–1949)
Résumé : Cet article se penche sur la relation entre la mémoire de la Grande Guerre dans
la culture serbe et sa représentation dans l’œuvre de Rastko Petrović. Profondément mar-
qué par la guerre, mais surtout par les événements de la retraite par l’Albanie, Petrović a
passé presque toute sa vie à essayer de briser son silence initial et d’exprimer ce qu’il avait
vécu pendant l’hiver 1915. Partant d’un long poème narratif, « Le Grand compagnon »
(1926), en passant par un roman court, Huit semaines (1935), jusqu’à son dernier ouvrage,
Le sixième jour (1955), une véritable fresque épique, l’écriture de Petrović porte la double
trace d’un travail de mémoire intime et d’une quête artistique visant à représenter un trau-
matisme à la fois personnel et collectif. En décrivant les différentes étapes de ce travail,
j’essaierai de démontrer les aspects dans lesquelles il correspond aux représentations of-
ficielles de 14–18, ainsi qu’à la mémoire collective de ce conflit.
Mots-clés : Rastko Petrović, 1914–1918 dans la littérature serbe, témoignage littéraire, ro-
man de guerre, mémoire de la Grande Guerre
L a relation entre la mémoire de la Grande Guerre et sa représentation dans

l’œuvre de Rastko Petrović, dont je tracerai ici les grandes lignes, fut com-
plexe et changeante. Petrović, comme d’ailleurs beaucoup d’artistes de son
époque, entretenait une profonde ambivalence envers la guerre de 14–18. D’après
les témoignages de ses plus proches amis, Milan Dedinac, Aleksandar Deroko
et Dušan Matić,1 la Grande Guerre marqua un épisode hautement traumatique
* [email protected]; [email protected]
1 Voir Matić dans Prepiska Rastka Petrovića [Correspondance de Rastko Petrović], compilée
et éditée par Radmila Šuljagić (Belgrade 2003 : édition à compte de l’auteur), 155 ; Dedinac
dans Rastko Petrović, Dan šesti, Dela Rastka Petrovića [Le sixième jour, Œuvres de Rastko
Petrović], t. IV (Belgrade : Nolit, 1961), 620 ; Deroko dans A ondak je letijo jeroplan nad Beo-
gradom. Sećanja [ Jadis un avion survolait Belgrade. Souvenirs] (Belgrade : Narodna knjiga,
1983), 157. Petrović échappa belle à la mobilisation et il quitta Belgrade comme réfugié de
guerre en novembre 1915. Déjà orphelin, cette même année il perdit son frère, Vladimir, ainsi
que ses deux sœurs, Dragica et Nadežda. Pendant son voyage à travers les paysages farouches
du Monténégro et de l’Albanie, il vit des hommes, des femmes et des garçons de son âge mou-
rir du froid et de la famine. Évacué avec les autres réfugiés de guerre destinés à la France, il se
dans la vie de Petrović, qu’il essaya de déguiser en adoptant une posture avant-
gardiste et une philosophie vitaliste. Ses débuts littéraires furent marqués par
un nihilisme joyeux dans la veine des dadaïstes et des surréalistes, couplé d’une
tendance de « taire la guerre », selon l’expression d’Aragon.2 Pourtant, dans la vie
de Petrović la guerre marqua aussi un rite de passage, dont les résonances dans
son œuvre dépassent de simples réminiscences biographiques. En effet, c’est par
son caractère double – traumatique et initiatique – que la Première guerre mon-
diale s’imposa comme l’expérience cruciale à partir de laquelle Petrović formera
ses positions sur l’art et la littérature.3
D’ailleurs, c’est précisément comme expérience initiatique que Petrović
présentait la Grande Guerre dans ses textes critiques. Déjà dans ses essais des
années vingt, ses réflexions sur l’expérience de la retraite par l’Albanie, et plus
généralement de la guerre, rejoignent ses réflexions sur son métier de poète. C’est
surtout dans un essai de 1924, « Données générales et la vie du poète », que
Petrović développe cette idée d’une connexion substantielle entre l’expérience
collective de la guerre et la naissance de l’impulsion créatrice chez le jeune poète.
Il y raconte, à la troisième personne, ses propres souvenirs de 1915, qu’il présente
comme des expériences typiques d’un artiste de sa génération :
Il fuyait à travers l’Albanie, où il mangeait du pain moisi, où il se réchauffait
appuyé adossé aux autres et où il regardait des personnes qu’il avait respectés
hier et qui se disputaient maintenant un peu de place près du feu. Toutes les
lois sociales avaient été abrogées ici. [...] C’était le retour aux règles du troupeau,
retrouva à Nice, où il rentre dans le lycée et obtient son baccalauréat. De cette époque datent
ses premiers vers, traitant des sujets de l’histoire médiévale à l’instar de la poésie patriotique
des années 1912–1914. Un nouveau chapitre de sa vie commence à Paris, où il étudie le droit,
s’enthousiasme pour la peinture moderne et fréquente les cercles d’avant-garde. De retour à
Belgrade, il publie son premier roman, Burleska gospodina Peruna boga groma [Le Burlesque
de Monsieur Péroun dieu du tonnerre, 1921] et devient vite une des plus importantes figures
de la vie littéraire de l’entre-deux-guerres.
2 « Négliger la guerre était de notre part un système, faux sans doute mais dirigé contre la
guerre. Nous pensions que parler de la guerre, fût-ce pour la maudire, c’était encore lui faire
de la réclame. Notre silence nous semblait un moyen de rayer la guerre, de l’enrayer. […]. Si
taire la guerre nous paraissait efficace contre elle, cela ne fait que souligner la force de notre
croyance en la chose écrite. Pour nous, tout écrit était une réclame, on dirait aujourd’hui
propagande. Breton appelait la religion une réclame pour le Ciel. » L. Aragon. Œuvres roma-
nesques complètes, t. I (Paris : Gallimard, Pléiade, 1997), 10. Cette stratégie de révolte avant-
garde a été analysée notamment par Annette Becker dans « Le combat avant-garde », 14–18
aujourd’hui, today, heute 3 (2000), 108–125.
3 J’ai déjà abordé ce sujet en analysant l’œuvre de Petrović dans le cadre de la littérature serbe
de l’entre-deux-guerres : D. Dušanić, « Esprit de cataclysme et naissance de la littérature mo-

derne serbe. L’expérience de la Grande Guerre dans l’œuvre de Miloš Tsernianski, Ivo Andrić
et Rastko Petrović », Histoire@Politique 28 (janvier–avril 2016), https://www.histoire– poli-
tique.fr/documents/28/dossier/pdf/HP28_Dossier_DunjaDusanic_def.pdf.
D. Dušanić, Du traumatisme au roman 239
règles surgies du temps des cavernes. Il s’en était indigné mille fois, mais il vou-
lait continuer à vivre. Ce n’était qu’à ce moment-là qu’il a commencé à écrire
des poèmes, et que chaque mot qu’il prononçait lui semblait incroyablement
précieux [...]. C’est comme ça qu’ils ont grandi ensemble : lui et sa patrie ; lui et son
talent ; l’un étant inséparable de l’autre.4
Cette explication biographique ne suffit toutefois ni à la compréhen-
sion de la signification que la guerre a eu dans son écriture, ni au pourquoi de
l’apparition des résonances de cette expérience après les années 1920 et même
après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. En effet, l’écriture de Petrović porte la double
trace d’un travail de mémoire intime et d’une quête artistique visant à représenter
un traumatisme à la fois personnel et collectif.
Petrović essaya d’écrire la guerre d’abord en son nom propre, à travers un
long poème intitulé « Le Grand compagnon ». Publié en 1926 à l’occasion du
dixième anniversaire de la retraite, ce poème est dédié au souvenir de trente mille
des plus jeunes recrues serbes qui trouvèrent la mort en Albanie.5 Au lieu de
lamenter leur disparition, le poème est focalisé sur le souvenir de la nuit de som-
meil que Petrović passa dans une cabane dans les montagnes enneigées, adossé à
un homme inconnu, dont la présence et la chaleur corporelle lui sauvèrent la vie :
Celu noć leđa sam grejao
Prislonjen uz tuđe pleći,
Celu noć sneg na smetove je vejao,
Po stopama mojim, po sreći.
Nit mišljah, koji je prijatelj taj koji kraj mene spava
Da često teža od sudbe na grudima mi njegova glava,
I da trudno dišem: no trpeh, jer dahom kao da zgrevaše mi grudi;
Tako prođe bolno život, dok zora ne poče da rudi! 6
4 R. Petrović, « Opšti podaci i život pesnika », Svedočanstva 3 (1924), 4–5. (Sauf si indiqué
autrement, toutes les traductions du serbe sont les miennes, DD.)

5 Il s’agissait des plus jeunes recrues serbes, nés entre 1897 et 1898. Évacués en octobre 1915
des secteurs occupés par l’ennemi, ils ont péri faute à la mauvaise organisation de la retraite et
le manque de coopération entre l’état-major serbe et les troupes italiennes pendant l’évacua-
tion. Leur disparition fut le sujet de plusieurs enquêtes consécutives, qui n’ont pas donné de
résultats. Dans la mémoire collective, le nombre des morts s’élève à trente et même quarante
mille, mais il est peu probable que ce soit un chiffre exact. Voir D. Šarenac, Top, vojnik i sećan-
je. Prvi svetski rat i Srbija 1914–2009 [Le canon, le soldat et la mémoire. La Première guerre
mondiale et la Serbie 1914–2009] (Belgrade : Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2014), 130–151.
6 R. Petrović, « Veliki drug », Vreme 1456 (1926), 21. Dans la seule traduction, littérale et
dépourvue de rimes, qui existe en français, la beauté de ces vers est perdue, même si le sens
est plus ou moins le même :
Toute la nuit j’ai chauffé mon dos
Appuyé contre les épaules d’un autre,
Toute la nuit la neige s’amoncelait,
Sur mes pas, sur le bonheur.
L’aube lui découvre la vérité dans toute son horreur : l’inconnu auprès
duquel il dormait est mort pendant la nuit. La narration de ce souvenir est im-
bue d’images poétisées de la souffrance des réfugiés que le poète rencontre en
voyageant – hommes, femmes et enfants affamés et défaillants qui ressemblent
à des spectres – et de la nature – féroce, destructrice, impitoyable. Au fond, le
poème note le ressenti d’un garçon de dix-sept ans qui, confronté à la mort en
masse et à la dissolution de toutes les relations sociales connues, s’efforce à sur-
vivre. Malgré sa dédicace, « Le Grand compagnon » n’est pas une élégie pour
les morts, mais plutôt un témoignage poétique sur la situation extrême dans
laquelle s’est trouvée une vaste population civile.7
Sur le plan idéologique, certains aspects du poème correspondent aux
représentations partagées de la retraite comme « Golgotha albanais » [Albanska
golgota], c’est-à-dire comme un calvaire, dont le dénouement serait la résurrec-
tion du peuple serbe. Suivant une interprétation largement répandue, sinon of-
ficiellement propagée par les Karageorgévitch, la retraite de 1915 est souvent
représentée dans la poésie de guerre comme un nouvel Exode, qui se terminerait
par l’arrivée des Serbes en Terre Promise.8 Cette terre, qui bientôt prendra la
forme du Royaume des Serbes, Croates et Slovènes, serait l’incarnation même
de la liberté, dans laquelle vivront les générations futures. Dans « Le Grand
compagnon », le poète rencontre le regard de ces descendants heureux à trav-
ers les ventres de leurs mères, rendus transparents par la faim. Contrairement
à sa réputation de jeune poète iconoclaste, Petrović inclinait en 1926 vers une
interprétation qui s’inscrit dans le cadre des représentations populaires et of-
ficielles de la retraite de 1915. Cependant, son poème ne saurait être réduit à une
simple élaboration versifiée de celles-ci. Non seulement y sont réunis, de façon
subtile, le destin individuel du poète et celui de son peuple, mais aussi le ton et
le choix d’images sont fort différents de ce qui, à l’époque, passait pour poésie
commémorative. C’est surtout par la manière drastique, voire grotesque, dont la
Je ne savais pas quel était l’ami qui dormait près de moi,

Dont la tête plus lourde souvent que le destin reposait sur ma poitrine,
Et je respirais lourdement : mais je le supportais, car, de son souffle, il réchauffait ma
poitrine.
Ainsi passe douloureusement la vie, jusqu’à ce que l’aube se mette à poindre !
Voir R. Petrović, « Le Grand compagnon. En souvenir de 30 000 de mes camarades qui
trouvèrent la mort en Albanie en 1915. Noël 1926 », Les Nouvelles Yougoslaves I/24 (1929), 5.
7 En ce qui concerne la poésie de témoignage voir A. Rowland, Poetry as Testimony: Witness-
ing and Memory in Twentieth-century Poems (Londres & New York: Routledge, 2014).
8 L’exemple le plus fameux de l’interprétation biblique de la retraite se trouve sans doute chez
Milutin Bojić (1892– 1917). Son recueil de poésie de guerre, Pesme bola i ponosa [Poèmes de
douleur et d’orgueil, 1917], s’ouvre par une invocation du psalmiste, suivie des poèmes dans
lesquelles la souffrance des Serbes est comparée à celle du Job (« Sejači » [Semeurs]) et leur
exil à celui du peuple d’Israël (« Kroz pustinju » [À travers le désert]).
chute physique et morale des réfugiés serbes y est représentée, d’habitude plus
fréquente dans les témoignages en prose, que « Le Grand compagnon » se dé-
tache de la majorité des poèmes traitant des événements de l’hiver 1915–1916.
Petrović ne renonce pourtant ni au paradigme biblique ni au registre pathétique :
malgré leur dégradation, l’apothéose des exilés est suggérée par une vision de leur
ascension au ciel.
Cependant, il sentait que quelque chose manquait à cette solution. Un
article publié en 1930 dans le journal Vreme, cherchant à résumer les efforts lit-
téraires de la décennie précédente, témoigne du mécontentement général que
Petrović ressentait face à la production littéraire après 1918. S’interrogeant sur
sa propre contribution à une plus grande compréhension de l’expérience de la
guerre pour des millions de ses compatriotes, il conclut que la nouvelle littéra-
ture yougoslave n’a pas encore donné de grands ouvrages qui seraient dignes de
la terrible grandeur de cette époque.9 Une série d’articles qu’il a ensuite publiés
dans le même journal, sur Henri Barbusse, Roland Dorgelès, Erich Maria Re-
marque, Ludwig Renn, mais aussi sur des écrivains serbes et croates tels que
Stanislav Krakov, Miroslav Krleža, Miloš Tsernianski et Dragiša Vasić, appro-
fondissent encore ses réflexions et annoncent, en même temps, les solutions qu’il
apporterait à la représentation de la guerre dans le roman qu’il était en train
d’écrire.10
À cette fin, Petrović créa un alter ego fictionnel, Stevan Papa-Katić, futur
héros du roman Le sixième jour. Une première version de ce roman, sous le titre
Huit semaines, devait paraître en 1935, avant que Petrović ne quitte la Yougosla-
vie et ne parte en tant qu’attaché diplomatique en Amérique, dont il ne reviendra
jamais. Le récit de Huit semaines correspond en fait à la première partie du Six-
ième jour. Située en hiver 1915, elle suit Papa-Katić – un lycéen belgradois, issu
d’une famille bourgeoise – en route à travers les montagnes du Monténégro et les
marais d’Albanie. Séparé de sa famille et de ses amis, Papa-Katić se trouve perdu
dans le cauchemar de l’Histoire, lui révélant que la guerre n’est qu’un retour à
l’ordre tribal de la horde. Ce récit d’inspiration nettement autobiographique est
entremêlé d’histoires secondaires dont les porteurs – soldats, ouvriers, prosti-
tués, prisonniers, lycéens socialistes, jeunes filles à marier et même un chien – se
trouvent tous dans la même situation, « obsédés » par l’« hallucinante idée » de
9 Voir R. Petrović, « Dvanaest godina naše književnosti » [Douze années de notre littéra-
ture], Vreme 3185 (1930), 4.
10 Une deuxième version élargie du poème « Le Grand compagnon », publiée après sa mort
dans le recueil Ponoćni delija [Le héros de minuit, 1970], fut probablement écrite à la même
époque. Accompagnée de commentaires qui expliquent les événements et les scènes auxquels
certains vers font allusion, cette version témoigne également de son désir de rendre son expé-
rience plus communicable.
« rester en vie, n’importe comment ».11 Contraint malgré lui de partager leur

sort, Papa-Katić devient témoin non seulement de la destruction d’un monde
et d’une société mais aussi de la fragilité de la bonté humaine, de sorte que la
première partie du roman se termine avec son rejet total de l’humanité entière.
En comparaison avec « Le Grand compagnon », la structure mosaïquée
du Sixième jour, composée de différents micro-récits, permit à Petrović d’intégrer
sa propre histoire à une histoire plus large – celle de la nation – sans rien perdre
de l’authenticité, de « l’effet de vrai »,12 du témoignage personnel. Si l’on compare
cette structure avec celle de la Trilogie serbe de Stevan Jakovljević, le roman de
guerre le plus populaire de l’époque, le procédé utilisé par Petrović semble pr-
esque postmoderne. À la différence des écrivains de guerre tels que Jakovljević,
Petrović ne cherchait pas à imposer aux récits personnels une superstructure
narrative qui correspondrait à la mémoire collective de la guerre. Au lieu de
présumer que la vérité de la guerre est enclavée dans la mémoire d’un groupe
particulier, comme les anciens combattants de Jakovljević, Petrović créa une
histoire polyphonique, dans laquelle se croisent et se confrontent de multiples
expériences de la guerre. Cependant, à ses yeux, ce procédé manquait une moti-
vation plus profonde, voire une mise en perspective plus large des événements de
1915–1916. Autrement dit, Petrović ne pouvait pas se contenter de simplement
constater, comme le fait son héros, que la guerre n’est pas une occurrence isolée
dans l’histoire humaine, une exception monstrueuse et donc insensée. Il fallait
aussi assimiler cette notion, la démontrer à travers la structure narrative de son
œuvre. Ceci était le but principal de la deuxième partie du Sixième jour, dont
l’action se déroule aux États-Unis, juste avant le début de la Seconde Guerre
mondiale. On y retrouve Papa-Katić, devenu entretemps paléontologue célèbre,
qui revient de son isolement grâce à l’amour pour une jeune fille.
Envisagée comme un homologue de la première, la seconde partie du
roman cherche à démontrer comment les événements tragiques et violents de
la guerre sont répétés et variés dans des conditions de paix. L’objectif de cette
réécriture était de créer un canevas suffisamment étendu au sein duquel la guerre
et la mort n’apparaîtraient pas comme des événements isolés, mais comme les
étapes des cycles récurrents d’événements cosmiques et de l’histoire naturelle. À
cet égard, la solution pour laquelle Petrović a finalement opté s’inscrit dans la lig-
11 Petrović, Dan šesti, 20.

12 Par cette expression Michel Riffaterre, « Le témoignage littéraire », Cahiers de la Villa Gillet
3 (novembre 1995), 38, désigne la capacité du témoignage littéraire de paraître authentique,

au-delà de sa factualité : « Il ne suffit pas que le témoignage soit vrai, il faut qu’il en ait l’air.
Il ne suffit pas qu’il ait l’air vrai, il faut encore qu’il contrôle notre attention et notre interpré-
tation, qu’il nous émeuve, et le cas échéant que la cause qu’il sert fasse du lecteur un converti
ou un sympathisant. Il ne suffit pas qu’il intéresse, il faut encore qu’il fasse plaisir, offrant
au lecteur sous l’apparence du vrai les émotions sans risque qu’il trouve d’habitude dans la
fiction ou la poésie. »
née des romans européens des années trente et quarante, dans lesquels, comme
Maurice Rieuneau l’a bien constaté :
La guerre n’est plus racontée comme une expérience limitée et achevée, formant
un tout isolable, intelligible ou absurde, mais suffisant. Elle devient plutôt
l’ouverture ou le tremplin vers une philosophie totale de la vie, l’expérience
cruciale qui met en question l’idée du bonheur, de l’action, de l’histoire, de la
société.13
Chez Petrović, comme chez d’autres écrivains modernistes marqués par
la Grande Guerre, tels que Ford Madox Ford ou D. H. Lawrence, elle suscita la
découverte d’une philosophie d’histoire, qui repose sur une vision cyclique du
temps.14 Cette vision est quasiment omniprésente dans Le sixième jour, mais ce
n’est que grâce à la seconde partie du roman qu’elle revêt une signification uni-
verselle. Le dernier monologue d’un des amis de Papa-Katić en est un exemple
typique :
J’ai dix-sept ans et je meurs. Quand je regarde autour de moi, tant de souvenirs
s’agitent instantanément, ainsi que des miasmes et des pintades et des hydres
morveuses, et tant de formes extraordinaires. Je ne sais plus ce que ce corps a
vraiment vécu ou non, ce que les autres ont vécu et moi appris par la suite et ce
que j’ai, en apprenant, posé dans chacune de mes petites cellules, dans ma pro-
pre expérience. […] J’ai vécu en préhistoire, dans des cavernes, dans des guerres.
J’ai lu l’Histoire du développement.15 Si je pouvais seulement trouver encore des
images qui s’y trouvaient, ici en Albanie, j’y verrai mes propres images. Nous
étions tous des fœtus et nous sommes passés par des formes qui ressemblent
tant aux transformations des espèces, mais nous étions en même temps toutes
les étapes de ces espèces.16
Une métaphore autopoétique se dégage de cette image des transforma-
tions des espèces et des métamorphoses de différents « je ». Elle correspond
aux transformations du même matériau autobiographique – partant d’un long
poème narratif, en passant par un roman court, vers une fresque épique – et
témoigne que des aspects clés de l’œuvre de Petrović sont nés de ses efforts de
trouver une solution artistique apte à représenter un traumatisme personnel et
collectif.
En résumant, on pourrait dire que trois étapes se dessinent dans le travail
de mémoire de Petrović. Certaines facettes de ce travail coïncident avec le dével-
13 M. Rieuneau, Guerre et révolution dans le roman français de 1919 à 1939 (Paris : Klincksieck,
1974), 341.
14 Voir à ce propos L. B. Williams, Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics,
and the Past (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002).
15 Il s’agit ici du titre de l’ouvrage de J. W. Draper, Histoire du développement intellectuel de
l’Europe.
16 Petrović, Dan šesti, 199.
oppement de la littérature de guerre en Europe,17 ainsi qu’avec l’évolution de la

mémoire de la guerre dans le contexte local de l’entre-deux-guerres18 – même
si il ne s’agit pas toujours des mêmes facettes. Après un silence initial qui cor-
respond à la démobilisation et au déclin d’intérêt pour la littérature de guerre,
la fin des années vingt et le début des années trente ont apporté un resurgisse-
ment des pratiques commémoratives partout en Europe. Dans le contexte lo-
cal, ce memory boom prit l’aspect d’un remodelage, puisqu’il coïncidait avec la
création de la Yougoslavie en 1929, qui marqua un tournant dans la représenta-
tion officielle de la Grande Guerre.19 Par leur effort de représenter l’évènement
clé de la mémoire serbe de la guerre, et non par la date de leur composition, le
17 Voir N. Béaupré, « De quoi la littérature de guerre est-elle la source ? Témoignages et fic-
tions de la Grande Guerre sous le regard de l’historien », Vingtième siècle. Revue de l’histoire
112/4 (2011), 44–46, ainsi que N. Béaupré, Écrire en guerre, écrire la guerre. France–Alle-
magne 1914–1920 (Paris : CNRS Éditions, 2006), pour une analyse plus détaillée, S. Hynes, A
War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture (Londres : The Bodley Head, 1990) ;
L. Riegel, Guerre et littérature. Le bouleversement des consciences dans la littérature romanesque
inspirée par la Grande Guerre (littératures française, anglaise, anglo-saxonne et allemande) 1910–
1930 (Paris : Klincksieck, 1978) ; Rieuneau, Guerre et révolution dans le roman français ; W. G.
Natter, Literature at War 1914–1940: Representing the “Time of Greatness” in Germany (New
Haven : Yale University Press, 1999) ; K. Vondung, éd., Der Erste Weltkrieg in der literarischen
Gestaltung und symbolischen Deutung der Nationen (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht,
1980), surtout l’article de K. Prümm, « Tendenzen des deutschen Kriegsroman », 215–217.
Le développement de la littérature serbe de la Grande Guerre était différent de celui de la
littérature française, anglaise et allemande, surtout en ce qui concerne les œuvres en prose.
Les circonstances étant peu favorables à la publication des romans durant le conflit, leur
première véritable « éruption » n’eut lieu qu’en 1921–1922, quand apparaissent les ouvrages
désormais classiques de la littérature de guerre en serbo-croate : le Journal de Tcharnoïevitch
de Tsernianski (1921), les romans de Stanislav Krakov (Kroz buru [À travers la tempête,
1921] et Krila [Ailes], 1922), les histories de Dragiša Vasić (Utuljena kandila [Les veilleuses
éteintes], 1922) et de Miroslav Krleža (Mars, dieu Croate, 1922). Une seconde vague, qui se
produisit au début des années trente, apporta une quinzaine de romans publiés entre 1931 et
1940, parmi lesquels se trouvèrent des ouvrages volumineux tels que les trilogies de Miroslav
Golubović (Teška vremena [Les Temps difficiles], 1932) et de Stevan Jakovljević (Srpska trilo-
gija [La trilogie serbe], 1935–1937).
18 Voir V. Pavlović, « La mémoire et l’identité nationale : la mémoire de la Grande Guerre
en Serbie », Guerres mondiales et conflits contemporains 228/4 (2007), 51–60, et Šarenac, Top,
vojnik i sećanje, 153–241.
19 Pavlović, « La mémoire et l’identité », 51. En ce qui concerne les représentations visuelles,
surtout les monuments, voir A. Ignjatović, Od istorijskog sećanja do zamišljanja nacionalne

tradicije. Spomenik neznanom junaku na Avali [De la mémoire à l’invention de la tradition
nationale. Le monument du soldat inconnu sur le mont Avala] (Belgrade : Institut za noviju
istoriju Srbije, 2006), et O. Manojlović Pintar, Arheologija sećanja: spomenici i identiteti u Sr-
biji 1918–1989 [L’archéologie de la mémoire : monuments et identités en Serbie 1918–1989],
(Belgrade : Čigoja štampa, 2014).
« Grand compagnon », ainsi que le manuscrit de Huit semaines, s’inscrivent dans

la logique de ce memory boom. Il ne faut pas cependant pousser cette comparai-
son trop loin. Le « Grand compagnon » relève, avant tout, de la poésie ; le fait
que ce soit une poésie narrative le rend davantage plus original parmi les œuvres
de son époque, à la fois comme témoignage et comme poésie de guerre. Par con-
tre, le récit de Huit semaines se situe dans la lignée des récits autobiographiques
romancés de la fin des années vingt, tels que Good-Bye To All That de Robert
Graves (1929) ou les Undertones of War d’Edmond Blunden (1928), ou bien,
des récits d’inspiration vaguement autobiographique, comme À L’Ouest rien de
nouveau de Remarque (1928/1929) ou le Voyage au bout de la nuit de Céline
(1932). La troisième phase de ce développement – celle des synthèses plus am-
bitieuses dans les romans de Ford Madox Ford ou de Roger Martin du Gard,
par exemple – correspond au travail sur Le sixième jour. Pour des raisons à la
fois biographiques et historiques, ce roman n’a pas vu le jour dans la Yougoslavie
de l’entre-deux-guerres. Il reste toutefois un des rares exemples d’une approche
décidément moderniste à la représentation de la Grande Guerre dans la littéra-
ture serbe.
Partant d’un long poème, en passant par un roman court, de nombreux
essais et articles, jusqu’à son grand roman inachevé, Petrović a cherché presque
toute sa vie à surmonter le traumatisme primordial placé au cœur de son écriture.
Pourtant, le but de ce travail de mémoire n’était pas de revivre à maintes reprises
un souvenir douloureux. Petrović ressentait qu’il était obligé, en tant qu’artiste,
de « faire quelque chose pour des millions de ses compatriotes », autrement dit,
de trouver de nouveaux moyens pour écrire la guerre – un nouveau langage, qui
correspondrait à l’expérience de cette première guerre moderne.
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— « Le Grand compagnon. En souvenir de 30 000 de mes camarades qui trouvèrent la mort
en Albanie en 1915. Noël 1926 ». Les Nouvelles Yougoslaves I/24 (1929), 5.
— « Dvanaest godina naše književnosti ». Vreme 3185 (1930), 4.
— Dan šesti. Dela Rastka Petrovića t. IV. Belgrade : Nolit, 1961.
— Ponoćni delija. Belgrade : Prosveta, 1970.
— Prepiska. Ed. Radmila Šuljagić. Belgrade : auto-édition, 2003.
Aragon, L. Œuvres romanesques complètes. T. 1. Paris : Gallimard, Pléiade, 1997.

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Éditions, 2006.
— « De quoi la littérature de guerre est-elle la source ? Témoignages et fictions de la Grande

Guerre sous le regard de l’historien ». Vingtième siècle. Revue de l’histoire 112/4 (2011),
41–55.
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1983.
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de la Grande Guerre dans l’œuvre de Miloš Tsernianski, Ivo Andrić et Rastko Petrović ».
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1910–1930. Paris : Klincksieck, 1978.
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bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
IN MEMORIAM
Djurica Krstić
(1924–2018)
M y memory of Djurica Krstić is that of a fine gentleman, a tall, slender

man in his nineties who, if seated, would get up, quite effortlessly and
casually, to greet his much younger colleagues, one of them being me. Djurica
Krstić was the son of Orestije Krstić, a fighter pilot of the First Serbian Squad-
ron on the Salonika Front, a reserve Air Force major, member of the Skopje
Aero-Club, editor of the aviation magazine Naša krila (Our Wings), founding
member of the Serbian Cultural Club, advisor with the Ministry of Forestry
and Mining of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, for a while, mayor of Tetovo.
In his memoirs, his son speaks of his love of nature. Djurica Krstić was born in
Skopje, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, in 1924, and his early child-
hood memories include Vodno, the mountain overlooking the town, and later,
two other mountains, Šara and Jablanica. His mother, Zora, was an engineer of
agronomy. It was much later that Djurica Krstić, now a fellow of the Institute
for Balkan Studies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, was able to com-
bine his interest “in the lifestyle and customs of highlanders with a penchant for
spending time in nature”: “I couldn’t imagine that my new job would take me to
the mountains, where the Shakespearean thought about business and pleasure
would become a reality to me.” Most of his work at the Institute was “fieldwork
aimed at tracing the relics of customary law in the last third of the twentieth
century” in South-East Europe. His research began from the Serbian Kuč and
Vasojević clans in Montenegro. His family history and his father’s biography
speak volumes about his own interests and worldview. As if his father’s careers
in aviation and forestry – the father authored a poetic plea “The Forest’s Prayer”
– were intertwined somehow within his personal and professional choices along
with a particular love of freedom. Djurica Krstić travelled by plane for the first
time as a four-year-old, in 1928, on the inaugural flight of the Yugoslav airline
Aeroput (Airway) from Skopje to Belgrade. A lovely photograph of his getting
on the plane has survived as a testimony to his first flight. A few times he was
aboard the plane flown by his father as a reserve Air Force pilot. It was not an
accident that Djurica Krstić took his PhD in international aviation law. At the
Institute for Comparative Law, where he worked before joining the Institute
for Balkan Studies, he headed the aviation law and astronautic law group. He
participated in international astronautical congresses and served on the Serbian
Academy of Sciences and Arts’ Committee on Astronautics, Space Law Section.
He spent a summer in London on the British Council’s research grant, and then,
as a grantee of the Fulbright and the Ford Foundations, went to the United
States, where he began his postgraduate studies at Princeton and completed
them at the University of Chicago.
During the Second World War Djurica Krstić and his brother were
members of the Yugoslav Ravna Gora Youth, Avala Corps, HQ no. 501, tasked
with running off copies of the paper Glas Avale (Voice of Avala) on a gestetner
machine: “It can be said that the intellectual youth of Belgrade – with the ex-
ception of a negligible number of phoney communists, an even more negligible
number of Ljotić’s followers and somewhat more numerous bon vivants, mostly
from above-average affluent families – had national-democratic leanings. They
embraced the ideas of the pre-war Cultural Club of Slobodan Jovanović, Dragiša
Vasić and other distinguished figures of pre-war Belgrade. Some of them were
inspired by the Democratic Community of Ljuba Davidović, Milan Grol and
others: “To us, this choice,” as recorded by Djurica Krstić’s brother Uglješa, “was
not at all a for-or-against choice. This was simply a natural participation in the
historical continuity of national-democratic and homeland-defending tradi-
tions.” Speaking of his generation, Djurica Krstić recorded with regret that most
best students of the Third Belgrade High School had ended up abroad: “A huge
majority of the ablest students from my class went abroad to find shelter from
the large cloud of totalitarianism that had begun to spread over Europe.” The
one-sided way of thinking that came with the new authorities was utterly alien
to them. As a good analysis noted: “The Soviets were accustomed to the one-
party regime and unanimity on all political issues, and it was therefore quite
beyond them that anyone should care about nuances and gradations common in
In memoriam Djurica Krstić 249
parliamentary democracies. Whereas the political spectrum in a parliamentary

system ranges from the red [radical left] to the dark blue [conservative] colour,
the Soviet spectrum has only two colours – black and white. You’re either for or
you’re an enemy spy.” Unaware of this new logic, many relatives and friends of
Djurica Krstić paid a price after the war.
Djurica Krstić was a fellow of the Institute for Balkan Studies from 1972
until his retirement in 1988, leading the project on customary law and self-gov-
ernments in the Balkans and the countries of South-East Europe, and actively
participating in the work of the Serbian Academy’s Committee on the Sources
of Serbian Law. He was also a member of the Association of Literary Transla-
tors of Serbia and a certified court interpreter for English.
Boris Milosavljević
REVIEWS
Pieter M. Judson, The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge and

London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018, 567 p.
Reviewed by Anja Nikolić*
Pieter M. Judson, currently professor of Facts are not of vital importance for this
nineteenth- and twentieth-century his- book even though it offers a chronological
tory at the European University Institute account of key events such as Maria The-
in Florence, focuses his research on Central, resa’s reforms, the Napoleonic Wars, the
Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and, in revolution of 1848, the Austro-Hungarian
doing so, is concerned with changing the Compromise of 1867, the introduction of
way in which contemporary historiography universal manhood suffrage in the Austrian
tends to see the history of Central Europe. part of the country in 1907, the First World
The book reviewed here is a product of such War. What is important is that the author
concerns. It consists of an introduction, six interprets the key moments of Habsburg
chapters and an epilogue. It begins with the history in a different way from the one he
accession of Maria Theresa to the throne regards as being entrenched. That is the new
and ends with the year 1918 and the collapse history referred to in the title. Judson’s book
of the Habsburg Empire. It is the absence of belongs to the trend in historiography that
a date that would mark the end of the em- seeks to revise the history of the Habsburg
pire that the author believes to be important Empire. Instead of the dominant under-
for understanding the Dual Monarchy. As standing of the Dual Monarchy as a scene of
he himself says, the First World War de- a conflict between the empire and nations,
stroyed the Habsburg state “by eroding any he offers a different interpretation.
sense of mutual obligation between people As Judson himself writes, “this book is
and state; popular and dynastic patriotism about how countless local societies across
withered away, calling into question the very central Europe engaged with the Habsburg
raison d’être of empire” (p. 441). This state-
ment perfectly illustrates what Judson wants
to demonstrate in his book. * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
dynasty’s effort to build a unified and unify- in the area under occupation failed. Al-
ing imperial state from the eighteenth cen- though Judson describes it as the attempt
tury until the First World War” (p. 4). He of government bureaucrats to create “a non-
wants to examine how the imperial institu- national Bosnian identification for Bosnian
tions and cultural programmes shaped dif- Muslims” (p. 331), it in fact was an identity
ferent societies across the Empire from the experiment which failed to take root.
late eighteenth century to the demise of the Judson notes that many nationalists
Habsburg Monarchy. He stresses that the were happy working in Austria-Hungary.
empire itself should be made the focus of The First World War, however, changed the
research rather than “linguistic groups or situation completely. The Habsburg Mon-
ethnically defined nations”. In that way a archy disappeared and was replaced with
different narrative for the history of Central national states. The ties upon which the au-
and Eastern Europe emerges and a revised thor insists throughout the book, especially
history of the empire is produced. What the the ties between state and society, obviously
author finds to be important is the relation- were not strong enough to keep the Monar-
ship between state and society because he chy together.
believes that they built the Habsburg Em- The purpose of this book is to re-exam-
pire together. This is why this is, in a way, ine the views of the history of the Habsburg
a history from below. The focus is not only state, it raises new questions and offers new
on the processes started by those on the top ideas. The author was not primarily con-
of the hierarchy but also on the multitude cerned with delving into politics or facts.
that constitutes the society of the Dual His is a revisionist reading of the history of
Monarchy. the Habsburg Monarchy. Some of his bold
As a result of Judson’s approach and at- views are subject to debate, and some objec-
titude to the Habsburg Monarchy, the main tions have been raised here, especially the
antagonist in his account is nationalism and specific understanding of nationalism and
the national movements of the peoples living national movements. Nonetheless, it gives
under Habsburg rule. The thesis the author researchers some interesting ideas to think
insists on in several places is that it was the about.
laws of the Empire that made the national
movements possible, because in certain ar-
eas and certain periods it permitted the use
of vernacular languages. According to Jud-
son, it was the elites who created national
identities, but he overlooks the presence of
linguistic and cultural traditions that the
elites drew from in their work on enlighten-
ing the people.
As far as the building of nation and
national feeling is concerned, an especially
interesting case is the case of Bosnia-Her-
zegovina under Austro-Hungarian occu-
pation (1878). The author claims that the
colonial regime established in Bosnia-Her-
zegovina sought to overcome the dangers of
nationalism and that it failed. The Austro-
Hungarian attempt to introduce a Bosnian
nation aimed at overcoming the differences
Reviews 253
Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War,

1914–1918. London: Penguin Books, 2015, xv + 788 p.
Reviewed by Dragan Bakić*
Alexander Watson (Goldsmith, Univer- for war was won and maintained”, “how ex-
sity of London) has produced a lengthy and treme and escalating violence … radicalized
wide-ranging book on the Great War that German and Austro-Hungarian war aims
received much acclaim as evidenced by a and actions, and … the consequences of this
number of awards ‒ the Wolfson History radicalization” and “the tragic societal frag-
Prize and Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in mentation caused by the First World War”,
Military History in 2014 and the Distin- which carried on in interwar central Europe
guished Book Award from the Society for (pp. 4-5). And indeed, he delivers the goods.
Military History in 2015. It thus secured a Watson’s thorough and thought-provoking
prominent place amongst a deluge of works analysis is supported by impressive array of
that emerged on the centenary of the out- the ever growing literature and, especially
break of the war and not without good rea- relevant to his approach, archival research
son. The author had already explored the conducted in five countries in which indi-
topic of the 1914-1918 ordeal in his previ- vidual stories and local experiences feature
ous monograph.1 Watson has described this prominently in diaries and letters.
book himself as “the first modern history to In discussing the war’s origins, Wat-
narrate the Great War from the perspective son comes down on the side of those who
of the two major Central Powers, Germany dismiss Frantz Fischer’s thesis of the main
and Austria-Hungary” (p. 1). This is an ex- German culpability. He recognizes that it
aggeration as Holger Herwig wrote such a was the leadership of Austria-Hungary that
study nearly two decades earlier.2 But the single-mindedly wanted and planned for
two books are different in their approach: a war, albeit a local one with Serbia rather
while Herwig explored traditional diplo- than a general European conflagration, but
matic and military history, Watson’s work, fully aware that the latter might easily spark
although by no means neglecting high poli- from aggression against Serbia. He un-
tics, international relations and military derscores, however, that it was fear for the
campaigns, pays close attention to what the survival of the Dual Monarchy rather than
experience of war meant for the populations aggressive designs that prompted its leaders
of the two Central Powers, reflecting a more to embark on a war. This is no doubt true to
recent innovative turn in historiography. a great extent, but the crux of the problem is
His analysis thus belongs to the thriving that security concerns are often the breed-
genre of a “history from below” and herein ing ground for plans of preventive wars and
lies its strength. More specifically, the author Serbia was too small a country to justify the
addresses three main themes: “how consent excessive Austro-Hungarian dread of South
Slav (Yugoslav) irredentism. Coupled with
the conspicuous lack of understanding for
1
Alexander Watson, Enduring the Great War: the position of Imperial Russia, the author
Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German seems to be too much lenient to the role
and British Armies, 1914–1918 (Cambridge:
played by Central Powers in the run-up to
Cambridge University Press, 2008).
the war. It is revealing in this respect that he
2
Holger Herwig, The First World War: Ger-
many and Austria-Hungary, 1914–1918 (Lon-
don: Edward Arnold, 1997). * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
errs in claiming that Germany and Austria- be interpreted in a way that encompasses a
Hungary sacrificed more than other bellig- range of popular attitudes, from enthusiasm
erents, including Serbia which lost a quarter to listless compliance and obedience. And
of her population. of course, popular attitudes in the Habs-
But the central argument of the book is burg Monarchy varied from one national-
that popular consent was rallied solidly be- ity to the other. Contrary to the author, the
hind the Hohenzollern and Habsburg war present reviewer doubts that a propaganda
efforts and made them possible. This was campaign would have raised the morale of
manifest in the smooth mobilization of their Czech troops leaving for the front (p. 251),
who had good reasons to feel alienated from
armies in the summer of 1914. For Germany,
the Habsburg war effort.
it was necessary to attain national consensus
The real gems of this book, however,
across the political spectrum, namely to en-
relate to the experiences of ordinary Ger-
sure the consent of Social Democrats, and
man and Austro-Hungarian soldiers, their
that was done in large measure due to skilful
conduct on the front and especially towards
politics of the Kaiser and German govern-
populace in the enemy territory, and civil-
ment. In a multiethnic society such was the
ians who did their best to cope with noto-
Habsburg Empire, in which the Slav part rious food shortages caused by the British
of population was politically subdued and naval blockade and support their loved ones
discriminated in the south of the country, in the army. Especially engaging is Watson’s
it appeared doubtful that national solidarity discussion of the war crimes committed
could be expected. But, contrary to expec- against civilians in Belgium, East Prus-
tations, both reservists and civil society at sia, Austrian Galicia and Serbia. He shows
large readily responded to the call to arms. that much of atrocities did not result from
Watson explains this success as stemming any premeditated action, but rather sprung
from what he calls “double mobilization”, a from the affects that a new combat situation
congruity between loyalty to the Habsburg had on the still untried soldiers. For exam-
state idea, and especially to the venerable ple, grossly exaggerated fears of spying and
Franz Joseph, and national aspirations of civilian irregulars prompted the occupying
different ethnic communities, which until forces to resort to summary and brutal re-
the late stage in the war were content to re- prisals in breach of international law. This
alize their ambitions within the Habsburg is in line with Gumz’s account of the Hab-
framework. In this strain, Watson believes sburg troops’ massacres of Serbian civilians
that the Austro-Hungarian authorities fell in 1914 on which Watson heavily relies.3 The
victim to “the illusory nature of the govern- similarities of such atrocities on both sides of
ment’s fears that the South Slav lands were the front and in different regions populated
seriously tempted by a greater Serbia” (p. by different peoples are striking and offer
60). If the suspicions of South Slavs’ fidelity considerable evidence for the author’s con-
were unfounded, as it has been claimed, then tention. Much more controversial is Wat-
the suspicions of Czechs, for example, must son’s interpretation of the atrocities against
have been paranoid. The author reinforces civilians in the eastern “bloodlands”4 of the
his argument by stressing that the extraor-
dinary feature of the war was the enduring
3
support of Habsburg nationalities, despite Jonathan Gumz, The Resurrection and Collapse
the horrendous casualties at battlefields of Empire in Habsburg Serbia, 1914–1918 (Cam-
and hardships at the home front. Although bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
there is much to be said for this contention, 4
A reference to Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands:
its validity ultimately hinges on how we de- Europe between Hitler and Stalin (New York:
fine “popular consent”, because that could Basic Books, 2010).
Reviews 255
continent in 1914-1918 as antecedents of In the way of an epilogue, Watson dis-

the Nazi campaigns of extermination in the cusses the woeful legacy of the ordeal that
Second World War. He singles out Russian more than four years of bitter fighting left to
atrocities from the opening phase of the war Europe, rearranged at the end of the conflict
in East Prussia and Galicia as “the closest and at the Versailles peace conference. His
link between the campaigns of 1914 and the remark that “the old continent of empires
genocidal horrors of the mid-twentieth cen- was giving way to one of imperfect nation
tury” (p. 205). Apart from geography, it re- states” (p. 535) is instructive of his lack of
mains unclear why that would be a case given sympathy for the new international order.
that the author concedes that the scale of He shares this view with Margaret Mac-
violence committed by “Tsarist troops” was Millan, whose work he deems engaging,6
“no different than that of the more famous and some other historians, but many would
contemporaneous German atrocities in Bel- strongly disagree. Still, returning to his
gium and France” (p. 171). In terms of their theme of social fragmentation, Watson is
scale and savagery proportionately to the right in pointing out that class and racial
size of and the number of population in the differences, so dramatically inflamed during
invaded territory, Austro-Hungarian crimes the war, remained to plague most societies
in the north-west of Serbia were probably after 1918, both in the old and successor
the worst of all during the Great War. Those states. It is important to remember that the
also owed much to the vicious pre-war existential threats of war, including hunger,
propaganda which dehumanized the “cultur- crushed inter-ethnic and inter-religious tol-
ally inferior” Serbs, as another recent study erance within communities, such as that of
shows and, incidentally, refutes Gumz’s and Cracow for instance, with Jews being par-
Watson’s insistence on the purely reactive ticularly exposed to violence.
nature of war crimes generated by fear of Overall, Watson’s painstakingly re-
comitadji irregulars.5 Watson seems to waver searched and highly readable book contrib-
himself in his appreciation of Nazi anteced- utes most to our understanding of human
ents, especially when he assesses the German suffering and day-to-day experience of the
occupation regime in the Baltic (Ober Ost) Great War with its richness in detail to
and the part of Polish land designated for which the constraints of a space in a review
annexation to the Reich; he finds that Ger- do little justice. A Balkan specialist should
man plans for colonization “appear to point bear in mind that the discussion of Balkan
towards the larger, genocidal racial organiza- and South Slav matters does not match the
tion of the east desired a quarter of a century detailed treatment of Galicia, which is, to
later by the Nazis” (p. 398). Further research a great extent, conditioned by the author’s
might test the argument that the impetus research in Polish archives. With its many
for German war plans, which increasingly admirable qualities, this study is certain to
included radical schemes for annexation and generate much interest both among scholars
settlement, based on racial precepts can be and general readership.
reduced to the trauma of experiencing Rus-
sian invasion in 1914 (p. 266).
5
See Hannes Leidinger’s chapter on the esca-
lation of violence in Hannes Leidinger et al.,
eds., Habsburgs schmutziger Krieg (Vienna:
6
Residenz Verlag, 2014); this edited volume is Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: Six
published in Serbian: Prljavi rat Habzburga Months that Changed the World (London: John
(Novi Sad: Prometej, 2016). Murray, 2009).
Dominic Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and
Revolution. New York: Penguin Books, 2015, 443 p.
Reviewed by Konstantin Dragaš*
The foreign policy of Tsarist Russia, its power”. The inabilty to overcome the dis-
goals, scope, contradictions as well as its crepancy between the plans of the elites and
prominent protagonists – diplomats, min- the people’s lack of motivation for war, i.e.
isters, advisors – and their diverse views the failure to achieve unity in terms of com-
on international relations in the decade mand, level of modernization and homog-
preceding the outbreak of the First World enization of the nation around clear goals,
War constitute the core of Dominic Lieven’s was one of the factors that led to the collapse
interesting monograph on Russian history of the Russian monarchy; by contrast, the
based on documentary sources – The End wars with Napoleon or Hitler were fought
of Tsarist Russia. It is a book which seeks with a clear internal cohesion of ideas, aims,
to answer the question of what challenges, plans and economic strength. Moreover, the
problems and confusions the Russian Min- author introduces the concept of the Second
istry for Foreign Affairs and, above all, Em- World for certain states that were insuf-
peror Nicholas II, and many figures in his ficiently industrialized and economically
entourage, faced in 1900–14 in the light of competitive before 1914, among which he
Russia’s defeat in the war against Japan of includes Russia, Spain, Italy.
1905, the creation of an alliance with France The focus of attention, however, is on
and Britain, growing Austro-Hungarian the protagonists and priorities of Russian
and German expansionism and the collapse foreign policy from the end of the nine-
of the Ottoman Empire. In other words: to teenth century to 1914. Russian foreign
what extent did personal views, inclinations policy had to balance between two oppos-
and political comments of the diplomats ing parties – one inspired by the principle
influence the shaping of Russian foreign of loyalty to the dynastic ties between the
policy? monarchies in Europe, the other, by strong
Slavophilism. Emperor Nicholas II contin-
What makes this study original is above
ued his father Alexander III’s Slavophile
all the author’s interesting understanding of
policy towards the Balkan Slavs, but paid
the causes of the First World War, which
much more attention to the Far East, Japan,
include civilian society, nationalism, grow-
expansion into Asia and the maintenance of
ing literacy (for example, among the popula-
stable relations with Germany. The primary
tion of eastern Europe) but also the inabil- goal of Russian diplomacy was the conquest
ity of the executive branch of the autocratic of Constantinople, the achievemnt of eco-
regimes to control public opinion, whose nomic and military dominance in the Black
influence on the shaping of political devel- Sea and the strengthening of Russian pres-
opments was not at all negligible. Another ence in the broader area of Euroasia – the
feature is reflected in the view that the Rus- idea on which the Russian diplomats agreed
sians lost the war of 1914–17 because of the in principle.
failure of Russian government (the execu- An important question raised by
tive and, later, the legislature – the Duma) Lieven’s book is whether Russian foreign
to get the peasantry and most of the con- policy in the period of 1900–14 was based
scripted army to believe in what Lieven calls
“abstract” war aims, such as the conquest
of Constantinople or “European balance of * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Reviews 257
on Slavophile traditions. Influential advo- Nevertheless, although stressesing the “guilt”

cates of collaboration with Germany and of the Austro-Hungarian “war” party for the
Austria-Hungary, realistic “pragmatists” and outbreak of the war, the author does not pay
critics of Slavophile policy were, for exam- due attention to the factor of German diplo-
ple, Nikolai Girs (foreign minister 1882– macy’s long-term goals regarding the poten-
95), Vladimir Meshcherskii (editor of the tial colonization of Russian territory.
Grazhdanin/Citizen), Roman Rozen (Rus- In the period of 1900–14, and espe-
sian ambassador to Japan 1903–1905), Al- cially after 1904, Russian diplomacy was
exander Girs. On the other hand, Sergei Sa- compelled to adjust to Germany’s constant
zonov (foreign minister 1910–1916), Alex- fear of the potential policy of encirclement.
ander Nelidov or the Grand Duke Nikolai Many diplomats warned that good rela-
Nikolaievich Romanov were Slavophiles tions with Germany would be sacrificed in
and advocated Russia’s strong support to the favour of a loose Anglo-Russian agreement
Balkan Slavs. Both parties had an equal fol- the Germans sought to thwart. This adjust-
lowing among the ruling aristocracy; Lieven ment was not an easy matter both because
claims in his conclusion that the predic- the Russian diplomats did not understand
tions of the “realistic” party would prove to fully the German foreign policy plans and
be correct in many aspects. Many Russian because they wanted to maintain good rela-
diplomats, such as Alexander von Benck- tions with both. This did not go easily be-
endorff in London or Count Nicholas von cause of diverging interests as regards the
Osten-Sacken in Berlin, had sympathies for Ottoman Empire, Persia and Afghanistan,
the politics of the country they served in and but also because of a good trade exchange
sought to synchronize the goals of the coun- (especially with Germany). As a result of
try they represented with it. A special place Russian diplomacy’s being anxious not to
in this study is held by the politician Grigo- make rash moves as regards the status quo
rii Trubetskoi, who believed that the Straits in the Balkans, it frequently yielded to Ger-
and Constantinople could not be taken or man and Austro-Hungarian influence. The
naval dominance in the Black Sea achieved complaisant policy towards Germany and
without Russia’s strong and unquestionable Austria-Hungary may also be explained by
support to the Balkan Slavs.1 the nationalist factor in eastern Europe, no-
After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia, tably the issue of the Ukranian population
militarily weakened and hit by a revolution in Austrian and Russian Galicia: the nations
and strikes, sought to renew its armies. The whose fate was tied to the westernmost bor-
poor armament, the plan for an alliance of der of the Russian Empire were strongly
Balkan Slav states, the insecure western disliked by the Russian autocracy and their
border (especially with Austria-Hungary separatism was not easy to control.
and the Ukranian population which inhab-
ited a large part of it) and the system of bi-
lateral agreements (with Italy, for example)
made Russia back down in the Annexa-
tion crisis (1908–9) and the Balkan Wars
(1912–13). As a result, the Russian govern-
ment was frequently crticized by the cadet,
liberal, “nationalist” and Slavophile press.
1
D. Lieven, The End of Tsarist Russia: The
March to World War I and Revolution (New
York 2015), 130–131.
Stéphane Courtois, Lénine, l’inventeur du totalitarisme. Paris: Perrin,

2017, 502 p.
Reviewed by Boris Milosavljević*
Essentially a political biography of Lenin Petersburg, found guilt for leading a “terror-
(1870–1924), Stéphane Courtois’s book ist faction” of the People’s Will organization
looks at the important theoretical and prac- (Narodnaya Volya) and of participating in an
tical principles which underlay the revolu- attempted assassination of emperor Alexan-
tionary system ran by the main leader of the der III in 1887. The sentence laid a stigma
October Revolution and which justify his on the entire family and had a tremendous
being considered as the architect of totali- effect on Lenin personally. The author de-
tarianism. Courtois demonstrates why the picts the political and intellectual climate in
dominant idea that seeks to absolve Lenin Russia in the second half of the nineteenth
of all responsibility for totalitarianism and century, the influence exerted by Nikolay
lay the blame on Stalin is deeply erroneous. Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, the socialist
Based on Lenin’s political beliefs put into ideologue credited with, or responsible for,
practice, he shows the consistency of the the revival of the revolutionary spirit, and
theory and practice that produced the totali- Sergey Gennadievich Nechaev, a hero of
tarian system in the twentieth century. His revolutionary violence who inspired Fyodor
book is one of a number of books on Lenin Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, appalled by the
published in the last twenty or so years. Its murder of the student Ivanov who tried to
goal is not to present any previously un- leave Nechaev’s group, for the character of
known sources or information about Lenin’s Pyotr Verkhovensky in his novel Demons
life, nor is it to rebut some of the proposed (pp. 53–54).
interpretations or to check the trustworthi- Seeking to establish the date of forma-
ness of some data. Its specific goal is both tion of the basic tenets of Lenin’s ideology,
to offer a political biography of Lenin’s and the author points out that Lenin, while in
to present the reasons behind the assertion Bern in 1914 and 1915, read with particular
made in the book’s title that it was Lenin attention the Prussian general and military
who invented totalitarianism. theoretician Carl von Clausewitz’s book On
War, which depicts war as an instrument of
Courtois points to Vladimir Ilyich Uly-
politics (p. 306).
anov’s unclear mixed ethnic origin (Russian,
Courtois describes as prophetic the
Kalmyk or Kyrgyz-Mongolian, German-
words the former interior minister Pyotr
Swedish (Lutheran) and Jewish (converted
Nikolayevich Durnovo addressed to the em-
to Christianity) and his family’s social sta-
peror in 1914. He spoke of the revolution-
tus of nobility (dvoryanstvo). Lenin’s father,
aries stirring up the masses with socialist
a mathematician and physicist, was granted
slogans, the army that had lost its best men,
personal and then hereditary nobility being the demoralized forces that were supposed
a deserving civil servant. He was the son of a to protect law, order and institutions, the
merchant coming from a peasant serf family intellectual opposition parties incapable of
in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. The gaining popularity, all of which threatened
author gives an account of Lenin’s privileged to throw Russia into the state of anarchy
childhood and youth, discussing also the and hopelessness (p. 318).
family and personal tragedy – the death sen-
tence by hanging pronounced on his elder
brother, a student at the University of Sankt * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Reviews 259
Courtois points out that Erich Luden- brother Alexander, who had been sentenced
dorff, who served as Deputy Chief of Staff to death, had not been much of a revolution-
under Paul von Hindenburg at the time the ary because he had been too carried away by
United States declared war on Germany science and research, the author suggests
(1917), recognized the possibility of fo- that a considerable role in Lenin’s decision
menting a revolution which would destroy to have the whole imperial family murdered
Russia’s military power and buy Germany must have been played by the emotional
the time (some three months) to suppress motive of revenge.
the British and French before the Americans Lenin destroyed all proprietor classes,
could get to Europe (p. 324). This, Courtois including the rich peasants, thereby causing
suggests, led to the unnatural alliance be- the first famine in the Soviet era. Such fa-
tween the German aristocracy and Russian natical ideological undertakings could only
revolutionary socialism. Revolutionaries be carried out by a particular kind of people,
were transported in sealed carriages from the one that Dostoevsky portrayed with Ne-
Switzerland to Russia via Germany to start chaev in mind (p. 411).
a revolution, which would put an end to Courtois finds that Lenin is responsi-
Russia’s war against Germany. All previous- ble for supressing socialism committed to
ly set boundaries were gone, which meant democratic culture in favour of commu-
that now everything was permitted because nism, which is totalitarian both in essence
only victory counted whatever the cost. In a and in practice (p. 446). Stalin simply took
letter of August 1918, Lenin speaks of the up where Lenin left off. In terms of efficacy,
coincidence of interests: “We would’ve been functionally speaking, the most successful
idiots not to seize the opportunity” (p. 324). politician of the twentieth century, as the
The author rightly points to Hannah author describes him, given that he spread
Arendt’s interpretation of the Bolshevik par- his communist ideology over nearly one-
ty as a party of the declassed from all classes quarter of the world. Almost one-third of
(p. 348). Lenin set up a paramilitary or- the world population lived in socialist com-
ganization (some 6,000–7,000-men strong) munist countries.
called the Red Guard, which mounted a Apart from Lenin’s political biography
coup and took the strategic points in the and his role in the world’s history, Courtois
capital, Petrograd. As the author suggests, takes a look, in several places in the book,
Lenin’s (October) November proclamation at the French reception of communism and
introduced the first totalitarian regime in Leninism, mentioning the controversial
history (p. 349). Roger Garaudy and other writers such as,
The book speaks of a number of rebel- for example, Jean-Paul Sartre, but we believe
lions that Cossacks and the peasantry raised that he should have offered an assessment of
against Lenin’s revolutionary government the even more controversial Louis Althusser
(Bolshevik dictatorship), and of a true war and his understanding of Lenin’s philosoph-
of the Bolshevik party against the peasantry ical importance.
(pp. 397 and 398). In quelling the Cossack Marx said that “the philosophers have
rebellions Lenin followed Friedrich Engels’s only interpreted the world in various way;
thought that no revolution can tolerate a the point, however, is to change it”. As we
Vendee. In 1919 the Central Committee all know, however, he left no instructions
adopted a secret resolution on beginning as to how. As we also know, Lenin drew on
a merciless struggle, massive terror against the methods of the French Revolution, the
the wealthy Cossacks; they were to be Jacobin methods. The book speaks of the
physically destroyed to the last man. De- French radical revolutionaries, Robespierre,
spite Lenin’s well-known statement that his Saint-Just, Babeuf nicknamed Gracchus.
Courtois draws from François Furet and last but not least – the terror of the masses
refers to him in several places as well as to used as an instrument of rule (p. 24). It may
Mona Ozouf and Raymond Aron, but also be assumed that the author believes that it
to some writers who are not considered to was only with Lenin that totalitarianism
be completely reliable. He indirectly points achieved all the features required to fit the
to the totalitarianism of the French Revo- definition, although he refers to the French
lution, the topic addressed by some earlier revolutionary roots of totalitarianism more
writers, for example, by Jacob Talmon (The than once in the book.
Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, first pub- It is known that Courtois has drawn a
lished in 1952). The logical question, then, is parallel between the Nazi “race genocide”
why the honour of being called the inventor and what he calls, following Ernst Nolte,
of totalitarianism is conferred on Lenin and “class genocide”, and that he has advocated
not on a French revolutionary. the establishment of an equivalent of the
Perhaps the answer to this question Nuremberg Tribunal which would try the
should be sought in the author’s definition communists responsible.
of totalitarianism. It is understood above There is also a personal touch to the
all as the monopoly over politics of a single book, because the author used to be a
party headed by a charismatic leader; in that communist (like Furet, at that), and of the
way, the party becomes the state, absorbing Leninist-Maoist type (1968). He evokes his
the state prerogatives of government and memories and describes the feelings he had
administration; it is also the monopoly of a as a young man and then, much later, dur-
single ideology that commands all areas of ing his visit to Moscow in 1992. Stéphane
knowledge and creativity (through method- Courtois (born in 1947) is a French histo-
ology) – from philosophy, history and sci- rian and university professor, Director of
ence to art, as well as the media (through Research at the French National Centre for
censorship); it is also the monopoly of the Scientific Research (CNRS) and Professor
party-state over all means of the produc- at the Catholic Institute of Higher Educa-
tion and distribution of material goods in tion (ICES). He specializes in the history of
order to suppress private ownership; and communist movements and regimes.
Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train. London: Penguin Books, 2016, 353 p.
Reviewed by Rastko Lompar*
Months before the centenary of one of the no clear path when describing events, and
most influential and controversial train therefore the book is neither chronologically
rides in history, the British historian and nor thematically organized. The structure is
writer Catherine Merridale published her quite loose and resembles much more that
take on Lenin’s trip to Russia in April 1917. of a novel than of a history book. The de-
The book is not aimed at fellow histori- scription is also rich with author’s personal
ans, but rather at the general public eager observations and impressions as well as nu-
to learn more about the events surround- merous hypothetical excurses. That does
not, however, mean that it is not based on
ing and preceding the ascent to power of a
man who left his mark on the history of the
world like few others. The author followed * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Reviews 261
a solid foundation of historical sources and In Merridale’s portrayal of Lenin one

literature. It certainly is. Merridale clearly can point out two very important character-
chose this manner of writing in order to istics of the future Soviet state. Firstly, his
make the book more appealing to the gen- readiness to use violence in order to trans-
eral public. That choice dictated the type of form society, and secondly, his propensity
sources that were used: archival documents for excessive legislation and bureaucratiza-
are overshadowed by memoirs, hard data tion. The author does a good job in point-
and statistics with colorful quotes and bitter ing out why Lenin cannot be disassociated
allegations. The book is impeccably written from the Soviet crimes and terror, as his
and difficult to put aside. apologists often do. Already in Switzerland
Although the book, as the title sug- he was absolutely committed to transform-
gests, is about Lenin, the narration does not ing the “imperialist war” into a civil one. If
always follow the Russian Bolshevik in his that meant the death of thousands, so be it,
humble exile in Zurich. The story is told by thought the future Soviet dictator. Merrid-
multiple historical figures, from the British ale describes Lenin fuming at the thought
spy Samuel Hoare and the French diplomat of the pacifist left, which he saw as treason
in St. Petersburg Maurice Paléologue to of the proletariat. The second point au-
other Russian revolutionary figures. Little thor proves whilst describing the train ride
space is devoted to the “ordinary man”, the to Russia. Lenin forbade his followers to
worker or the soldier; he is relegated to the smoke in the carriages, and so they had to
margins. The main protagonist is always in go to the only toilet to smoke. However, that
sight, but often in the background. There- created big problems for those passengers
fore the main storyline serves as scenery on who wished to use the toilet, for they were
which Lenin emerges triumphantly when he forced to queue with the smokers. Lenin’s
arrives on the Finland Station in St. Peters- solution to the apparent toilet crisis was
burg. So, what is Merridale’s Lenin like? She equally confusing as it was humorous. He is-
admits she does not want to describe the sued two types of tickets, one for those that
complete personality of the Russian revo- actually needed the restroom, the other for
lutionary. No space is given to his alleged smokers. This did not improve the situation
love of music, young children or dogs; she greatly, but it did lead the Bolsheviks into
does not attempt to portray him as a man a debate about which physical urge should
of flesh and blood. “I want to find the man have primacy.
with the consuming, merciless cold fire,” Merridale also covers the main contro-
Merridale explains. The Lenin she depicts versies surrounding Lenin’s trip to Russia,
is completely devoid of petty human traits, namely how involved Germany was in the
he is ascetic and fully devoted to his cause. whole affair, and whether Lenin was fi-
Sleep and food are almost a burden to him. nancially supported by the Germans. The
He is a “coiled mass of energy” which is author very skillfully places Lenin’s trip in
“thinking only of revolution”. He is not keen the context of German wartime subversive
on compromises and authority, as his feuds propaganda. The German foreign ministry
with the most notable Marxists (Plekhanov, was convinced as early as 1915 in the value
Bebel etc.) of his time showed. His total of sparking unrest in the enemy’s vulnerable
dedication to the cause is what drives him, spots. Both the British and the Russian em-
and what makes him take a risky and dan- pires were susceptible to separatist propa-
gerous German offer of safe passage to Rus- ganda (in Ireland, India or in the Baltic and
sia, which his compatriots from the ranks of Caucasus), while France was to pacifist ide-
the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries as (Germany funded four leading pacifist
declined. French journals). Therefore, by the end of
the war, the Germans spent more than 382 (both from right and left) as a German spy
million marks on various covert actions in and a saboteur. He chose to lie. As Mer-
the enemy’s rear. In the Russian case, anoth- ridale concludes: “Instead of trusting the
er useful tool was the left, both in the coun- masses with the truth about his German
try and in emigration. The main German funds, Lenin opted to lecture them. Instead
agent tasked with carrying out revolution in of confiding in them, he lied.” Lenin acted
Russia was the famous Bolshevik Alexan- with the support of Germany, but he was
der Parvus (Israel Lazarevich Helphand). not a German agent, their causes were com-
His mission was to unify all anti-war Rus- plementary but not identical. When Lenin
sian leftists and topple the tsarist regime arrived in St. Petersburg a German agent
with their help. However, it proved much sent a cheerful message to Berlin: “Lenin’s
more difficult than Parvus had hoped. The entry into Russia successful. He is working
seven million marks he received proved of exactly as we would wish.” What they both
little use, for most Russians (Lenin includ- wished was for Russia to exit the war, but
ed) refused his proposal. The Germans did their visions of its future were drastically
provide the Bolsheviks with a sizable sum, different.
hoping to sway Russian public opinion to- In conclusion, Lenin on the Train pro-
wards peace. The train Lenin took was not vides the readers with a riveting description
full of gold, as many contemporaries al- of events surrounding the Russian Bolshe-
leged, but the Bolshevik leader was aware viks’ ascent to power. The book is well writ-
of where some of the party’s financing came ten and hard to put aside. What it lacks in
from. However, he could not admit it for he original research it makes up in compelling
had already been attacked by his adversaries storytelling.
Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Religion and Politics in the Orthodox World. The

Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Challenges of Modernity. London and New
York: Routledge, 2018, 130 p.
Reviewed by Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović*
The relationship between religion and poli- with the author’s preface and introduction,
tics, church and state, in different historical the book is divided into seven chapters. In
periods was complex and prone to change. his foreword, the Metropolitan points to
The newly-published book Religion and the chronological coverage of the book “ana-
Politics in the Orthodox World by Paschalis lyzing changes endured by the Orthodox
M. Kitromilides, a historian specializing in Church in the transition from the Ottoman
particular in the Enlightenment in South- imperial role to the age of nationalism” (p.
east Europe and Professor at the University vii). Professor Kitromilides follows the evo-
of Athens, covers these complex relation- lution of the Church in several important
ships in the Orthodox world. The book was historical periods, especially the period of
published in 2018 in the Routledge special forming new nation-states in Southeast Eu-
series Religion, Society and Government rope. Using the example, or the case study,
in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet
States. Foreworded by Ioannis Zizioulas,
Metropolitan of Pergamon, and furnished * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Reviews 263
of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the senior modern secular thought, confrontations be-
Church in the communion of Orthodox tween the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the
Churches, the author seeks to illustrate “a forces of secularization and national moder-
dissenting view pointing to the incompat- nity. Kitromilides argues that “Nationalism
ibility of Orthodoxy and nationalism” (p. was a force of change transforming Euro-
4). Chapter 1, “The Orthodox Church and pean societies in the direction of moder-
the Enlightenment”, is devoted to the rela- nity and modernity meant fundamentally
tionship between the Orthodox Church secularization. Ipso facto therefore the nexus
and the movement of intellectual change of modernity-secularization-nationalism in-
and cultural secularization (p. 12). During volved a confrontation with the Church” (p.
this complex period, an example of the En- 45). In the period of drastic changes South-
lightenment within the Church is associated east-European societies were undergoing
with Patriarch Cyril V, who in the late 1740s between 1830 and 1880, relations with the
founded a school on Mount Athos, and Ecumenical Patriarchate were changing as
many others whose contribution was sig- well. The newly-established nation-states
nificant in developing Greek education and in the Balkans sought to integrate the Or-
culture. In this chapter, Kitromilides offers thodox Church into their nation-building
examples of the interplay between Ortho- projects, declaring their autocephaly. The
doxy and the Enlightenment, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not reject their
correspondence between two important fig- autocephalous status, but they were strug-
ures of the time, Ignatius of Ungrowallachia gling against the new secular states’ attempt
and G. P. Vieusseux. to impose their will on the Church (p. 46).
Chapter 2, “The Orthodox Church in Providing a detailed account of the histori-
modern State formation in Southeastern cal development of the Ecumenical Patriar-
Europe”, reconsiders the role of the Church chate and the governance of the Orthodox
in the formation of new states in this part community in the Ottoman Empire, the
of Europe. It is especially important to point author ends this chapter with an analysis of
out that the author offers the reader a his- the Church, Orthodox identity and the Ot-
torical background to the position of the toman state.
Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire The first decades of the twentieth cen-
and its transformation from an institution tury in the history of the Ecumenical Pa-
of the Ottoman imperial order into national triarchate are described in Chapter 4, “The
churches in the newly-created nation-states end of Empire, Greece’s Asia Minor catas-
(p. 29). He conducts a comparative analysis trophe and the Ecumenical Patriarchate”.
of the attitude and response of the Church This was a period of significant changes for
to the national liberation movements in the Church of Constantinople. In the first
Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and the Roma- decade of the twentieth century, the Church
nian principalities. By the beginning of the of Constantinople comprised eighty-four
twentieth century, there had been several dioceses in Asia Minor and the Balkans (pp.
autocephalous national churches in South- 60–61). “The proliferation of the number of
eastern Europe. He discusses the entangle- dioceses in Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace
ment of Orthodoxy with nationalism as was a clear indication of the rising Ortho-
part of the nationalist projects of each new- dox population in these regions which, after
ly-formed state and a significant element of the detachment of major parts of the Bal-
their respective homogenization. kans from the jurisdiction of the Church of
The chapter “Ecumenical Patriarchate Constantinople with the advent of the new
and the challenge of nationalism in the nine- autocephalous churches in the course of
teenth century” deals with the challenges of the nineteenth century, formed the primary
territorial basis of the Ecumenical Patriar- the Orthodox world”, the author describes
chate,” Kitromilides argues (p. 61). The re- two phenomena – pilgrimage and monas-
vival of Orthodox Christianity was observ- ticism, giving these two examples of an
able in church architecture even in the deep expression of religious life and unity. The
interior of Asia Minor and in re-emergence chapter ends with an overview of contem-
of monasticism. After the age of flowering, porary initiatives towards an Orthodox
as the author describes the first decade of International after the Cold War and the
the twentieth century, the years between international role of the Ecumenical Patri-
1912 and 1922 brought tragedy and crisis, archate under the leadership of the incum-
persecution and displacement. In these tur- bent Patriarch Bartholomew (1992−). The
bulent years of “the Asia Minor catastrophe concluding chapter of the book covers very
and the expulsion of the largest number significant developments in the Orthodox
of Orthodox flock from Turkey”, the Ecu- world after the communist period includ-
menical Patriarchate had a significant role ing the rise of ethnic conflicts in the former
as a non-national Church sharing common Yugoslavia and prejudices associated with
belonging to Orthodox tradition (p. 69). religion and conflict in the Balkans.
In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne ended the The book of Professor Kitromilides is
period of military confrontation between a very useful source for a more profound
Greece and Turkey and a new period in the understanding of the history of the Ortho-
history of the Ecumenical Patriarchate be- dox Church in Southeastern Europe in the
gan. This period was marked by the contin- modern period. Pointing to the most impor-
uous struggle with “the Turkish authorities tant historical events, it provides in-depth
to recognize international character of the explanations for the issues of entanglement
Ecumenical Patriarchate and its role as the between Orthodoxy and nationalism in
senior see in the Orthodox Church” (p. 98). newly formed nation-states in the Balkans.
Chapter 5, “The Ecumenical Patriar- This book is not just another historical
chate during the Cold War (1946–1991)”, monograph on the Orthodox Church. It
shows that under communism in Eastern offers an interdisciplinary understanding of
Europe, the Orthodox Churches operated the complexity of international and national
as national churches despite persecution relations between religion and politics, both
and marginalization. As for the Ecumeni- past and present. It will make useful read-
cal Patriarchate, it “by contract remained ing for those interested in matters of religion
free of state entanglements and this allowed and church, especially the Orthodox world
it to cultivate unconditionally its canonical today and the future prospects of the Ecu-
conscience and to make this the basis of its menical Patriarchate.
primacy in the Orthodox world” (p. 89).
Chapter 6, “A Religious International in
Southeastern Europe?”, provides an over-
view of the pre-modern and modern under-
standing of an Orthodox “religious interna-
tional”. Offering clear argumentation, Kitro-
milides explains historical developments
that had an impact on the understanding of
the international element in the Orthodox
Church and creation of “national Orthodox-
ies” which attached religion to the nation-
states of the Balkans. Writing about “pre-
modern forms of religious interculturalism in
Reviews 265
British-Serbian Relations. From the 18th to the 21st Centuries, ed. Slobodan G.
Markovich. Belgrade: Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade &
Zepter Book World, 2018, 521 p.
Reviewed by Dušan Fundić*
Britannia Pacificatrix, the mural adorning the the topics addressed by the contributions are
Ambassadors’ Staircase at the Foreign Office selected in such a way as to cover as many po-
depicts Britain in the guise of goddess Athena litical and cultural phenomena relevant to re-
surrounded by her war allies and the imperial lations between the two countries as possible.
domains, protectively shielding with her left The volume is mostly the result of an interna-
arm three young girls personifying Belgium, tional conference held in Belgrade in January
Serbia and Montenegro. The triumphant de- 2018 under the auspices of the Faculty of Po-
piction of Britain and her allies can also be litical Sciences of the University of Belgrade,
seen on the cover of the book reviewed here: Centre for British Studies, with the support of
British-Serbian Relations: From the 18th to the the British Embassy in Belgrade.
21st Centuries. Referring to the mural, its edi- The book opens with Slobodan G. Mar-
tor, Slobodan G. Markovich, Professor at the kovich’s extensive and thorough overview of
Faculty of Political Sciences of the University British-Serbian political and cultural relations
of Belgrade, author of several important works from the end of the eighteenth century to
in the field of British-Serbian relations,1 writes 1918 (pp. 13–117). Since it makes up almost
in conclusion to his introductory study that a fifth of the volume’s contents it will be paid
between 1915 and 1918 Serbia indeed was due attention here. Markovich chose to begin
“under the mantle of Britannia” (p. 104). Since his analysis with Dositey Obradovich’s2 visit
the First World War is in the middle of the to London in 1784/5 because it made a cru-
period covered by this book, this image is also cial impact on the future work of this leading
symbolic of the road Serbia travelled from be- proponent of the Josephan Enlightenment
ing “hardly detectable” in British public opin- among the Serbs. One of the key focuses of
ion (p. 28) to becoming the powerful empire’s the study is the attempt to reconstruct the
“protégée”. evolution of Serbia’s visibility in British public
The book is divided into four sections: opinion. Cautiously using The Times Digi-
Britain and Serbia: Cultural and Political Re- tal Archive, Markovich finds that the British
lations; Great Britain, the Kingdom of Yugo- public knowledge of Serbia became wider in
slavia and Communist Yugoslavia; Cultural the 1850s and 1860s, reaching its peak in the
and Educational Encounters of the UK and course of the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–78).
Serbia in the 21st Century and Recent Past; A similar conclusion is suggested by various
British-Serbian Contemporary Diplomatic editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica. The 1771
and Political Relations: Challenges and Pros- edition merely mentions “Servia” as “a province
pects. Although a full account of a period of of European Turkey”, and it is only the 1886
more than two centuries (1874–2018) is virtu- edition that gives grounds to claim that Serbia
ally impossible to squeeze into a single volume, became “a known fact in Britain” (p. 21). In the
following decades the British political system
gained considerable currency as a model to
*
Institute for Balkan Studies SASA look up to – primarily through the work of the
1
See esp. his British Perceptions of Serbia and leading Serbian Anglophiles Vladimir Yovano-
the Balkans 1903–1906 (Paris: Dialogue, 2000) vitch, who promoted liberal ideas (especially
and Grof Čedomilj Mijatović. Viktorijanac među
Srbima [Chedomille Myatovich. A Victorian
2
among the Serbs] (Belgrade: Dosije and Prav- The transliteration of names in the review
ni fakultet, 2006). follows the transliteration used by the authors.
Herbert Spenser and John Stuart Mill), Che- towards the Balkan Christians, and especially
domille Miyatovitch, a statesman and Serbia’s towards Montenegro, which benefited from
ambassador in London, and Ljubomir Nedić, the influential statesman’s favour because it
who introduced Serbia to Darwin’s theories. was owing to him that the Ottoman Empire
Therefore, Markovich concludes, the 1880s was forced in 1880 to cede the coastal town of
marked the period of the strongest influence of Ulcinj; and finally, David Norris’s interesting
British culture on Serbian culture.3 Markovich contribution on two important British lega-
also explores the presence of each country in cies to Belgrade: Francis Mackenzie’s urban-
the public opinion of the other, by analyzing ization of a part of the Serbian capital and
important publications about the Serbs in Frank Storm Mottershaw’s camera recording
Britain and vice versa, pointing in particular of the day of the coronation of King Peter
to the travel account of two British women, Karadjordjević in 1904.
G. M. Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, Travels in the The rest of the volume begins with Bojan
Slavonic Provinces in Tureky-in-Europe (1867). Aleksov’s interesting text on British women
Published amidst the Great Eastern Crisis, and Serbs (1717–1945), including the hitherto
its second edition (1877) prefaced by William largely neglected analysis of their motives for
Gladstone gained wide popularity in Britain, visiting a Balkan country, and with a particular
as did Herbert Vivian’s Servia. The Poor Man’s emphasis on the importance that the British
Paradise (1897). political and social context has for understand-
In this part of the book, which in fact has ing their activity within the complex tangle of
the form of a shorter monograph, particular British liberal ideas, Christian solidarity and
attention is paid to the British parliamentary Orientalist constructions, without losing sight
system and to the crisis in relations between of their wish to improve the position of women
the two countries caused by the assassination in Serbia and in the Balkans in general. The fo-
of the Serbian royal couple in 1903. Markovich cus of Zorica Bečanović Nikolić’s contribution
puts a special emphasis on the period of the is on the importance of the works of William
First World War, dividing it into four phases Shakespeare, their translations and reception
based on the British attitude towards Serbia: in Serbian culture. This first chronological sec-
Sympathies for Serbia (Autumn of 1914 – tion concludes with Slobodan G. Markovich’s
Summer of 1915); Glorification of Serbia (Au- contribution devoted to the British ministers
tumn of 1915 – Winter of 1916); Pro-Serbian to Serbia and the Serbian ministers to Britain
Euphoria (April – July 1916); Very positive between 1837 and 1919, furnished with two
coverage of “the brave little ally” (Autumn of useful tables containing basic prosopographi-
1916 – 1918) (p. 66), and pays due attention to cal data.
the role of British medical doctors and nurses The section devoted to relations between
in Serbia during the Great War. Britain and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and
The section devoted to the period until then communist Yugoslavia may in fact be
1918 comprises another three short contribu- described as being composed of two comple-
tions: by Čedomir Antić, on Serbia and Great mentary subsections. One, which discusses
Britain until 1875 with special reference to the various aspects of political and diplomatic
arrival of the first British consul in Belgrade relations between the two countries, would
in 1837; by Saša Knežević, on the attitude of comprise the texts of Dragan Bakić and
the British Prime Minister William Gladstone Eric Beckett Weaver covering the period
until 1941. The other would comprise the
contributions of Vojislav G. Pavlović and
3
Yovanovitch and Miyatovich sought to get the Milan Ristović focused on the period of the
commonly used British spelling “Servia” and final phase of the Second World War and
“Servians” replaced with the more appropriate afterwards. The contributions of Bakić and
one “Serbia” and “Serbians”, but the change did Pavlović provide the reader with overviews
not really take place until after 1914, when the of relations between “two Yugoslavias” and
two countries became war allies. Great Britain, while Beckett Weaver focuses
Reviews 267
on the issue of border change in the interwar cultural relations, Nenad Šebek describes his
period and its influence on Yugoslavia, and experience of working for the BBC for more
also on the consequences of British indiffer- than twenty years, and Vukašin Pavlović
ence to the attempts to subvert Yugoslavia, writes about collaboration with British col-
especially after the assassination of King leagues at the time of international sanctions
Alexander which, in his view, paved the way (1992–2000) imposed on Yugoslavia, singling
for the country’s rapprochement with the out the projects on civil society in Serbia and
Third Reich. For the issue to be viewed in the “Yugoslav-British Summer School for De-
its entirety, it is important to add the thesis mocracy”. The subject of the contribution by
put forward by Bakić that the British foreign Boris Hlebec are English-Serbian and Serbi-
policy makers looked with a certain measure an-English dictionaries, while Vesna Gold-
of goodwill at the problems and challenges sworthy offers an interesting discussion on the
the Yugoslav government faced without ever role of her own books Inventing Ruritania and
giving it their full support. Pavlović points to Chernobyl Strawberries in mediation between
the remarkably prominent role that Britain’s the two cultures. The section concludes with
foreign policy played in international recog- Katarina Rasulić’s concise overview of the his-
nition of Communist Yugoslavia, at first in tory of the Department of English Language
1944, when the Churchill government accept- and Literature of the University of Belgrade
ed Josip Broz Tito as the leader of Yugoslav since its foundation in 1929.
resistance, then in 1951, when Anthony Eden As the previous section, the last, fourth
visited Belgrade, and in 1953, when Tito one is devoted to the contemporary period and
visited London, his first visit to a Western is marked by a strong personal imprint of the
country. Ristović focuses on relations within contributors. Thus Baron Randall of Uxbridge
the Yugoslav-British-Greek “triangle” in the gives “an almost personal view of British-Ser-
period of 1945–49, when the civil war in the bian relations” (p. 407). British Ambassador to
southernmost Balkan country was the domi- Serbia Denis Keefe looks at the events com-
nant issue. memorating the centenary of the Great War
The contribution by Dušan Babac is in 2014–18. David Gowan offers the British
concerned with the development of relations perspective on the two countries’ contempo-
between two dynasties, the Windsor and the rary relations, including a look at his own term
Karadjordjević, while Radmila Radić looks as Ambassador in Belgrade, and Ambassador
at relations between the Serbian Orthodox Branimir Filipović offers the Serbian perspec-
Church and the Church of England, empha- tive. A more academic type of analysis is pro-
sizing the importance of their collaboration vided by Aleksandra Joksimović, whose con-
during the First World War and the nego- tribution covers the period of 2000–5, while
tiations about their possible union after 1918. Christopher Cooker speaks of the issue of
Zoran Milutinović looks at the main charac- security in the western Balkans and the con-
teristics of British society and culture looked sequences of the geopolitical changes taking
up to as models by the Serbian Anglophiles of place over the last five years. Spyros Econo-
the first half of the twentieth century. mides analyzes the consequences of Britain’s
The remaining two sections of the vol- participation in NATO interventions in the
ume are devoted to cultural and educational Balkans. In accordance with the weight that
contacts between Britain and Serbia, and to the Kosovo question has in relations between
their contemporary diplomatic and political the two countries, the volume concludes with
relations, respectively. What gives the former James Ker-Lindsay’s text on the consequences
section a touch of vividness are the authors’ of British policy since 1999. He finds that it
brief and interesting accounts of the events is undoubtedly dominant in relations be-
or processes they participated in themselves. tween the two countries, certainly as a result
Thus Ranko Bugarski writes about “The of, among other things, of Britain’s decreasing
English-speaking Union” in Yugoslavia/Serbia importance in the region after the opening of
as an important aspect of the two countries’ the Brexit process.
With its twenty-seven contributors of they will be able to draw on in the effort to un-
diverse research interests and from different derstand British-Serbian relations in a period
disciplines, the book has an interdisciplin- of more than two centuries. Last but not least,
ary character, which indeed is necessary for a more than two hundred photographs, images,
subject as multifaceted as this. A single volume reproductions of the front covers of important
may seem to be a limiting factor for a compre- books, pamphlets or posters add a remarkable
hensive coverage of relations between any two visual dimension to the text, bringing the read-
countries. For researchers in different disci- er closer to the subject of the volume.
plines, however, this becomes a reference book
Studia Balkanica Bohemo-slovaca VII. Příspěvky přednesené na VII.

mezinárodním balkanistickém sympoziu v Brně ve dnech 28.–29. listopadu 2016,
eds. Václav Štěpánek and Jiří Mitáček. Brno: Moravské zemské muzeum –
Ústav slavistiky Filozofické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity, 2017, 714 p.
Reviewed by Miloš Luković*
The volume reviewed here is the proceed- Pavel Boček, Ladislav Hladký, Pavel Pilch
ings of the 7th International Symposium on and Petr Stehlík, provides background in-
Balkan Studies held in Brno, Czech Repub- formation relevant to understanding the
lic, on 28 and 29 November 2016 under the genesis and nature of the publication.
auspices of three institutions: the Depart- The Faculty of Arts of Masaryk Univer-
ment of Slavic Studies of Masaryk Universi- sity in Brno has a long tradition of Balkan
ty’s Faculty of Arts, the Moravian Museum Studies that dates back to its very founding
and the Institute of History of the Czech in 1919. It was only in the 1960s, however,
Academy of Sciences.1 that this field saw a major boom, and thanks
The volume opens with an introduc- to Professor Josef Macůrek (1901–1992)
tion and the introductory words by the or- and his colleague Josef Kabrda (1906–
ganizers (Tomáš Pospíšil, Ivo Pospíšil, Jiří 1968), a renowned European expert in Ot-
Mitáček and Eva Semotanová) and by the toman and Balkan Studies. It was them who
President of the Czech National Commit- founded in 1966 – at the then Department
tee for Balkan Studies (Miroslav Tejchman), of the History and Ethnography of Cen-
followed by four main sections presenting tral, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe of
the papers presented at the Symposium, and the Faculty of Arts in Brno – the Institute
ends with a list of contributors. for Balkan and Hungarian Studies, which
until 1995 coordinated research in the field
The Introduction (pp. 13–22) in Czech of Balkan Studies at the Faculty. Although
and English, The Tradition of Balkan Studies being a part of a department focused on
Symposia in Brno, by Václav Štěpánek, head history and ethnography, the Institute also
of the volume’s editorial team composed of provided instruction in South-Slavic lan-
guages and produced scholarship concerned
1
See Symposium Programme at: http://www. with Balkan literatures. The Institute is
hiu.cas.cz/cs/download/konference/2016/
program-balkanisticke-sympozium-brno2016.
pdf * Institute for Balkan Studies SASA
Reviews 269
closely tied to the history of Balkan Stud- Seventh Balkan Studies Symposium fol-
ies symposia as well. At first these meet- lowed in this tradition. Held in Brno on 28
ings were envisaged as nationwide, that is and 29 November 2016, it brought together
Czechoslovak-wide events, and therefore sixty-five scholars from the Czech Republic,
their published proceedings were titled Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Po-
Studia Balkanica Bohemoslovaca. Their pri- land and Serbia, working in three sections:
mary initial objective, which, in fact, has on history, ethnology and political science;
not changed, was to recapitulate the state on linguistics; and on literature and cultural
of Czech and Slovak scholarship in the field studies. The first of these sections was fur-
of Balkan Studies and to outline possible ther broken down into subsections focused
future research focuses and activities. The on the history of the Balkans until the end
first symposium held in December 1969 laid of the nineteenth century; the Balkans in
the groundwork for and the structure of all the twentieth century; and Czech-Slovak-
future symposia. The Fifth Balkan Stud- Balkan relations. In the plenary session, the
ies Symposium, held in May 2001, differed attendees had the opportunity to hear re-
from the previous four in many respects. All ports on the state and results of each Balkan
five of the Balkan studies symposia were or- Studies discipline in the Czech Republic
ganized or co-organized by Professor Ivan and Slovakia since 2005, i.e. since the Sixth
Dorovský (Professor Josef Kabrda’s succes- Balkan Studies Symposium. Most of the pa-
sor), and all five proceedings bear his edito- pers have been included in this publication.
rial imprint. All reflect his great erudition In the Introductory Words in Czech
and scope in the field, and the proceedings (pp. 23–32), Ivo Pospíšil, Head of the De-
of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth symposia partment of Slavonic Studies, Faculty of
are also revealing of how rich his network Arts, Masaryk University, Jiří Mitáček,
of scholarly friendships was. For this and Head of the Moravian Museum, Eva Semo-
other reasons, an entire section of the Sixth tanová, Director of the Institute of History,
Balkan Studies Symposium was devoted to Czech Academy of Sciences, and Miroslav
his scholarly activities in the field. This sym- Tejchman, President of the Czech National
posium, held in April 2005, was the largest Committee for Balkan Studies point to the
to date both in the number of participants long tradition and importance of Balkan
and in costs, and is not likely to be outdone Studies among the Czechs, and to Brno as
any time soon. The papers were given by growing into their main centre over the last
115 scholars from the Czech Republic, Slo- few decades. The complex history and the
vakia, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia present reality of the Balkans remain the
and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, lasting inspiration for researchers in differ-
Macedonia and Bulgaria. The objective was ent disciplines in the Czech Republic, and
to present the academic and methodological the field has good prospects.
shifts that had occurred in all four areas of The first section of the volume, Results
Balkan Studies since the demise of the bi- and tasks of Balkan Studies (pp. 33–136),
polar world, during which the Balkans un- contains 12 contributions: Ivan Doro-
derwent tumultuous changes. The proceed- vský (Brno, Czech Republic), Some basic
ings were published in a two-volume nearly theoretical and methodological questions
1,200-page monograph edited by a group on Balkan studies in the Czech Republic;
of middle-generation researchers.2 The Ladislav Hladký (Brno, Czech Republic),
2
Pavel Boček, Ladislav Hladký, Pavel Krejčí, Štěpánek, red., Studia Balcanica Bohemo-Slo-
Petr Stehlík and Václav Štěpánek, eds., Václav vaca, vol. VI/1–2 (Brno 2006), 1164 p.
Czech historical Slavic Studies in the years “Eternal be the memory of our lady”: the
2005–2016; Martin Hurbanič (Bratislava, Synodikon of Orthodoxy and the piety of
Slovakia), Historical Balkan Studies in Slo- the late Byzantine empresses; Đjura Hardi
vakia in 2006–2016; Damir Agičić (Zagreb, (Novi Sad, Serbia), “Balkan forces” in the
Croatia), Research on Balkan/Southeastern Czech offensives of Hungarian King Bela
European history in Croatian historiogra- IV; Miloš Luković (Belgrade, Serbia), Shep-
phy after 1991; Mira Radojević (Belgrade, herds’ organizations in the Balkans and in
Serbia), The temptations of contemporary Carpathian regions in the late medieval and
Serbian historiography; Zdeněk Uherek early modern period; Maroš Melichárek
(Prague, Czech Republic), Czech ethnol- (Košice, Slovakia), Exaggeration and con-
ogy and anthropology in the Balkans in the troversy: Serbian migration in the seven-
years 2006–2016; Pavel Krejčí (Brno, Czech teenth and eighteenth centuries in the con-
Republic), Czech linguistic Balkan Studies text of modern historiography.
2006–2016; Petr Stehlík (Brno, Czech Re- Subsection C, The Balkans in the twen-
public), Czech and Slovak Slavic Studies on tieth century, contains 11 contributions: Mi-
South Slavic literatures in the last decade; had Mujanović (Prague, Czech Republic),
Konstantin Tsivos (Prague, Czech Repub- Muslims, not Muhammadans! the roots of
lic), Modern Greek Studies in Czecho- the Bosniak national movement in 1878–
slovakia: their role in constructing the na- 1918; František Šístek (Prague, Czech Re-
tional identity of Greek immigrants; Orkida public), The Battle of Mojkovac, 1916–2016:
Backus Borshi (Prague, Czech Republic), narratives of World War I in Montenegro;
The Albanian language: present viewpoints Hana Dvořáková (Brno, Czech Republic),
and perspective; Vladimir Penčev (Sofia, Ethnographers behind the front line: the
Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria), The instruction of Great War in the Balkans from the perspec-
Slavic Studies, ethnological, and anthropo- tive of contemporary scholars; Miroslav
logical disciplines at Bulgarian and Czech Tejchman (Prague, Czech Republic), Col-
universities in the nineteenth and twentieth laboration in the Balkans during World War
centuries. II: different perspectives and assessments;
The second section, History, Ethnology Karin Hofmeisterová (Prague, Czech Re-
and Political Science (pp. 137–495), divided public), Jews in Socialist Yugoslavia: a quest
into four subsections, A, B, C and D, com- for a new Jewishness; Jan Pelikán (Prague,
prises 26 papers. Czech Republic), Ethnic relations in the So-
Subsection A, Theoretical Bases, consists cialist Republic of Serbia in 1971 as reflect-
of one contribution: Helena Bočková (Brno, ed in the daily Politika; Magdalena Najbar
Czech Republic), The Balkans as an ethno- Agičić (Koprivnica, Croatia), Difficulties in
logical area in a Central European perspec- research on the socialist period in Croatia
tive: a contribution to European cultural demonstrated on the example of research
diversity. on the history of journalism; Lukáš Vomlela
Subsection B, The history of the Balkans (Opava, Czech Republic), Political changes
until the end of the nineteenth century, con- in Bosnia and Herzegovina before the 1990
tains six contributions: Soňa Hendrychová elections; Richard Stojar (Brno, Czech Re-
(Brno, Czech Republic), The study of early public), The deployment of Czech troops
medieval jewelry in the Balkans; Martin as part of the UNPROFOR and UN-
Hurbanič (Bratislava, Slovakia), “Expurgate CRO missions in the Republic of Serbian
vetus fermentum graecorum...”: the religious Krajina in the context of the development
dimension of Bohemond of Tarento’s cam- of this entity; Ondřej Žíla (Prague, Czech
paign against Byzantium of 1107–1108; Republic), The exodus of Serbs from Sara-
Petra Melichar (Prague, Czech Republic), jevo after the end of the conflict in Bosnia
Reviews 271
and Herzegovina; Barbora Machová (Brno, texts of contemporary Slovak authors; Aljaž
Czech Republic), Bulgarians in Macedonia: Koprivnikar (Prague, Czech Republic),
possibilities for ethnological research on the An examination of Nietzsche’s impact on
“business with identity”. Slovenian and Czech literature: the case of
Subsection D, The Czech-Slovak-Balkan Ladislav Klima’s The suffering of Prince Stern-
Relations and Contacts, contains eight con- enhoch and Vladimir Bartol’s Alamut and Al
tributions: Pavel Zeman (Brno, Czech Re- Araf; Zvonko Taneski (Bratislava, Slova-
public), Czechs in Sofia in the 1880s and kia), Slovak novelists Jana Beňova and Juraj
their social composition; Jaroslav Vaculík Šebesta in the Macedonian cultural context;
(Brno, Czech Republic), Czechs in Bul- Alica Kulihová (Bratislava, Slovakia), The
garia after World War I; Kateřina Kalářová tricky task of translating Zvonimir Balog;
(Brno, Czech Republic), The activities Nora Nagyová (Bratislava, Slovakia), The
of the Czechoslovak-Yugoslav League in poetics of Marija Havran’s costume design
south Moravia in the interwar period; for Slovak and Czech stage and her collabo-
Eva Škorvánková (Bratislava, Slovakia), ration with director Dino Mustafić.
Slovak-Yugoslav relations in 1939–1941; The fourth section, Linguistics (pp. 607–
Lubomíra Havlíková (Prague, Czech Re- 704), contains eight contributions: Miroslav
public), “Always first woman”: feminism in Dudok (Bratislava, Slovakia), Disappearing
congratulations sent to Czech historian Mi- South Slavic languages and their revital-
lada Paulová; Milan Sovilj (Hradec Kralove, ization in diasporas; Katarina Mitrićević
Czech Republic), Two nearly forgotten Štěpanek (Belgrade, Serbia), Verbal pre-
figures in intelligence and resistance ac- fixal derivatives in the Serbian language in
tivities in Czechoslovak-Yugoslav relations comparison with Czech; Snežana Popović
during World War II: František Hieke and (Belgrade, Serbia), Phraseological Colloca-
Aleksandar Gjurić; Ondřej Vojtěchovský tions in Czech and Serbian; Nikola Košćak
(Prague, Czech Republic), Yugoslav work- (Zagreb, Croatia) & Paulina Pycia-Košćak
ers in Czechoslovakia during normalization, (Katowice, Poland), Figures of writing in
1969–1989; Samuel Jovankovič (Bratislava, Croatian and Polish advertising discourse;
Slovakia), The Association of Slovaks from Przemysław Fałowski (Krakow, Poland),
Yugoslavia, 1945–1949. The status, frequency, and function of some
The third section, Literature and Cul- Turkish loanwords in modern Croatian;
tural Studies (pp. 497–606), contains 9 Helena Stranjik (Prague, Czech Republic),
contributions: Miroslav Kouba (Pardubice, The quantity of Czech vowels within words
Czech Republic), An unknown nephew: Dr. in the speech of members of the Czech
Vasil Beron and a network of intergenera- minority in Croatia; Kristina Đorđević
tional inspiration in the Bulgarian national (Bratislava, Slovakia), Error analysis of Slo-
revival; Marcel Černý (Prague, Czech Re- vak native speakers at the basic level of learn-
public), On the underappreciated Bulgarian ing Serbian as a foreign language; Marina
studies works of František Rut Tichý, also Protrka Štimec (Zagreb, Croatia), Critical
known as Zdeněk Broman (1886–1968); pedagogy in teaching (national) literature.
Vladimir Martinovski (Skopje, FYR To sum up, apart from four introductory
Macedonia), Re-actualizations of medi- texts, this two-volume publication contains
eval culture in contemporary Macedonian fifty-five contributions in different areas of
poetry; Jarmila Horáková (Prague, Czech Balkan Studies and Slavistics presented at
Republic), Romanian literature as a politi- the Symposium. Most are in Czech (31) and
cal instrument; Erika Lalíková (Bratislava, this language was also used by some foreign
Slovakia), Presentation of autobiographical participants and foreigners temporarily or
memory in the literary and philosophical permanently employed in Czech scholarly
institutions. Eight contributions are in Slo- Jagiellonian University and one from Kato-
vak, nine in Serbian or Croatian, two in wice University. Such a composition of par-
Macedonian, one in Slovenian, one in Pol- ticipants in the Symposium suggests well-
ish, and two in English. developed ties between the Czech organiz-
The List of Contributors (pp. 705–712) ers and scholarly institutions in the Balkan
contains 59 names and their affiliations. and other countries where there is research
Most come from the Czech Republic (36), in the field of Balkan and Slavic Studies.
but some are foreign citizens working in Among the contributors residing tem-
the Czech Republic or are of Balkan origin. porarily or permanently in the Czech Re-
Eighteen contributors come from Prague public or Slovakia, seven are originally from
(10 from Charles University, six from the South-Slav or Balkan countries, including
Czech Academy of Sciences, one from the the doyen of Czech Balkan Studies Profes-
Czech National Committee for Balkan sor Ivan Dorovský, who arrived in Czecho-
Studies, and one is a freelance translator); slovakia as a child together with refugees
16 contributors come from Brno (12 from from northern Greece, i.e. Aegean Macedo-
Masaryk University, one from the Czech nia, fleeing from the civil war of 1946–49. In
Academy of Sciences, Brno Department, a way, this is an illustration of the openness
two from the Moravian Museum, one from of Czechs and Slovaks towards people from
the University of Defence); and one comes the Balkans.
from each of the universities in other Czech The Czechs’ long-standing interest in
cities: Pardubice, Hradec Králové and Opa- the countries and peoples of South-East
va. All of this speaks of a broad interest in Europe was transparently shown by the
Balkan Studies in the Czech Republic. Nine book The Czechs’ Relations with the Nations
contributors come from Slovakia (two of and Lands of Southeast Europe published in
them being foreign nationals), mostly from 2010.3 The proceedings of the 7th Balkan
Bratislava (six from Comenius University, Studies Symposium held in Brno – which
one from the Theatre Faculty, one from the have been presented here – confirm the con-
Association of Slovaks from Yugoslavia) tinuity of this old scholarly and cultural tra-
and one from the University of Košice. Five dition in the Czech Republic.
authors come from Serbia, of whom four
from Belgrade (three from the University
and one from the Institute for Balkan Stud-
ies, Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts).
Four authors come from Croatia: three from
Zagreb University, one from Koprivnica 3
Ladislav Hladký et al., Vztahy Čechů s ná-
University. One author comes from Bulgaria rody a zeměmi jihovýchodní Evropý (Prague:
(Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia), Historický ústav, 2010), 367 p. See also my re-
and one from Macedonia (University in view of the volume in Balcanica XLIV (2013),
Skopje). Two come from Poland: one from 463–464.
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Godišnje. - Drugo izdanje na drugom medijumu: Balcanica (Online) = ISSN

2406-0801
ISSN 0350-7653 = Balcanica (Beograd)

COBISS.SR-ID 6289154

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SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS

INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

BALCANICA XLIX, Belgrade 2018, 1–276

Accepted for publication at the 10th regular session of

Yannis Mourélos, Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre: enjeux

Le Front d’Orient dans la Grande Guerre

E n ces années de commémoration du centenaire, il faut bien se rendre à l’évi-

Grèce dans la Grande Guerre (Université de Thessalonique, 1992), 3–11.

lonique. On tombe d’accord sur la nécessité d’occuper les positions stratégiques

Terre), carton 5 N 147, Rapport du général de Castelnau sur la défense de Salonique, 24 et

44–49 ; Sarrail, Mon commandement, 135 ss.

le recul des Autrichiens en Italie, le développement de la bataille de la Somme

11 JeanDelmas, « La place de la Roumanie dans la stratégie française (1915–1916) », com-

France, la Grande-Bretagne, l’Italie et la Russie.

gueur du front. La réaction alliée sera extrêmement lente, la ville de Monastir

Internationales 60 (1989), 424–442 et « Aspects de la propagande française en Grèce pendant

17 GérardFassy, « La réorganisation du commandement des Armées Alliées d’Orient par le

Salonica Theatre of Operations, 309–319.

centraux, nous affirme Jean-Claude Allain, se désintègre dans l’ordre inverse de

Service historique de la Défense, Château de Vincennes, l’Armée de Terre, 1915

19 Jean-Claude Allain, « Lesarmistices de la Grande Guerre de l’Orient à l’Occident », dans

Fassy, Gérard. Le haut-commandement français en Orient (1915–1918). Paris : Economica,

Italian Volunteers in Serbia in 1914

T his contribution deals with a lesser-known episode that occurred in the

di dopo Garibaldi. La tradizione famigliare e l’eredità politica, eds. Z. Ciuffoletti, A. Colombo

3 A. Tamborra, “Questione veneta e progetti di azioni garibaldine dalla Dalmazia all’Europa

Maggiore dell’Esercito – Ufficio storico, 1983), 132.

CXXXIX (1981), 97–138.

7 C. Marabini, Dietro la chimera garibaldina… Diario di un volontario alla guerra greco-turca

(Rome: Associazione nazionale veterani e reduci garibaldini, 1960).

terza, 2007), 284, 355.

pubblicani, radicali, socialisti riformisti, anarchici e massoni (Rome: Annales, 2014).

Legation in Rome to find out whether Italian volunteers would be welcome to

Interior, Cabinet of the Ministry, Milan, 28 July 1914.

prefects of Venice, Ancona, Bari, Lecce, 4 August 1914.

ples: Ricciardi, 1966), 166.

soon be followed by a few hundred of their countrymen”.22 It is interesting to

29 Published in Mannucci, Volontarismo garibaldino, 28.

of the Interior, Rome, 13 September 1914.

Roman newspaper Il Messaggero, including the names of various persons who

dopo Garibaldi, 179.

newspaper Il Telegrafo of Livorno, the journalist Giovanni Ansaldo once again

40 G. Ansaldo, “Icinque di Babina Glava (lettera aperta a S. E. Stojadinovic)”, Il Telegrafo, 5

University Press, 1990).

Bibliography and sources

Archivio centrale dello Stato, Rome

Camicia rossa, 1937 and 1938

Marabini, C. La rossa avanguardia dell’Argonna. Rome: Anonima Tipo-Editoriale Libraria,

The British Adriatic Squadron and the Evacuation

7 D. T. Bataković, “Serbia 1914–1918: War Imposed, Martyrdom, Resurrection”, in: Serbia

had substantial experience with the eastern Mediterranean. He was commander

Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 21 December 1915.

Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 28 December 1915.

On 29 December, the Allied force defending the lines of supply between

Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 5 January 1916.

Proceedings, H. M. S. “Queen”, 10 January 1916.

Telegram, 1 February 1916.

H. M. S. “Queen”, 25 January 1916.