CONFLICT BETWEEN KING AND PARLIAMENT 245

views. To this the king replied that he was ready to admit that in respect to questions of domestic policy the will of parliament was supreme, but that so far as the conduct of foreign affairs was concerned the will of the king must prevail, and that he was responsible to God alone for the manner in which he conducted the foreign policy of the State.1 Venizelos thereupon again resigned, although still possessing the confidence of the Greek parliament, and two short-lived ministries representing the royal will followed. The king then dissolved the chamber and ordered new elections, in which the liberal party by way of protest refused to take part. A "fiction of a chamber" was elected, and the arbitrary unconstitutional regime continued.2 Greece had now ceased to be a constitutional monarchy, and the country was governed personally by the king with the aid of a small group which disclaimed all responsibility to the parliament, and which appears to have been strongly condemned by the country.

§ 468. Attitude of the Guaranteeing Powers. The situation had now reached a point where the allied governments felt that further measures were justified with a view to reëstablishing the constitutional government which they had many years before guaranteed to maintain. Greece, it was said, in fact owed her liberty and free constitution to the intervention of Great Britain, France, and Russia. They were the sole signatories to the treaties of 1827 and 1832, by which the kingdom had been brought into existence, and of the treaty of 1863, which guaranteed its independence and the maintenance of its constitutional institutions; they were, therefore, in a sense its guardians and protectors. That the three guaranteeing powers never intended that an absolute monarchy under the leadership of a prince who claimed to rule by divine right should be set up in Greece was evident, they contended, from the utterances of British and French statesmen before and after the election of Otho as king

1 Ion, "The Hellenic Crisis," Amer. Jour. of Int. Law, January, 1917, p. 70. When Venizelos waited on the king and urged him to come to the aid of Servia in accordance with the treaty, and when the king returned the above quoted reply, Venizelos is reported to have answered: "You are enunciating the doctrine of the divine right of kings, with which we have nothing to do in Greece. Your father was freely elected by the Greek people to be their king and you are his successor. There is no divine right in that title; it is based on the mandate of the people." 2 Cf. the letters of John A. Huybers in the Nation, Vol. 103, Nos. 2664 and

in 1832. The father of Constantine owed his election not only to the will of the people of Greece, but to the choice and suggestion of the protecting powers. One of the conditions under which he was placed on the throne was that the kingdom should be a constitutional monarchy. The guarantee clause (article 3) described the kingdom as a "monarchical, independent and constitutional State." 2

§ 469. The Allied Ultimatum of June, 1916. On June 21, 1916, an ultimatum was addressed by the ministers of the three protecting powers to the government of Greece demanding the immediate demobilization of the Greek army; the substitution of a new cabinet "devoid of any political prejudice and presenting all the necessary guarantees for the application of the benevolent neutrality toward the allied powers to which Greece was pledged"; the dissolution of the chamber and the holding of new elections, and the dismissal of certain police officials who had permitted, if they had not encouraged, insults to the allied legations and assaults upon Greek sympathizers with the allied policy.3

The ultimatum declared that the protecting powers would "continue to be inspired with the utmost friendliness and benevolence toward Greece" and that they did not ask her to abandon her neutrality, as proof of which they placed foremost among their demands the complete demobilization of the Greek army in order to insure to the Greek people tranquillity and peace. They charged that the attitude of the Greek government had not been in conformity with repeated engagements, nor even with the principles of a legal neutrality; that it had fomented the activities of certain foreigners who had striven

1 Extracts from a number of utterances to this effect by Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, M. Guizot, and others may be found in Mr. Ion's article cited above, pp. 52 ff.

* It is evident from the history of the Greek constitution and the related diplomatic instruments, says Professor Ion (p. 65), that the Greek nation and her protectors aimed at establishing and maintaining on the classical soil of ancient Hellas, not an absolute monarchy but a constitutional kingdom, and one of the most liberal type; and while living under the rules of such a regime, "the people expect to derive all the benefits accruing from such liberal institutions, the most important of them being the free choice of their governing body to carry out the national will without any obstruction or arbitrary interference."

Text in London weekly Times, June 30, 1916, and in a British white paper, Misc., No. 27 (1916), Cd. 8298. Italy signified her assent to the demands.

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to lead Greek public opinion astray, to distort the national feeling, and to create hostile organizations which were contrary to the neutrality of the country; that the entrance of Bulgarian forces into Greece and the occupation of Fort Rupel and other strategic points with the connivance of the Greek government constituted a new menace for the allied troops and made new guarantees necessary, and finally that

1

"universal suffrage had been impeded, the chamber had been dissolved a second time within a period of less than a year against the clearly expressed will of the people, the electorate had been summoned to the polls during a period of mobilization with the result that the present chamber only represented an insignificant portion of the electoral college, that the whole country had been subjected to a system of oppression and of political tyranny, and had been kept in leading strings without regard for the legitimate representations of the Powers."

To this ultimatum the king yielded and shortly afterwards signed an order for the demobilization of the Greek army. By a note dated June 23, M. Zaimis, prime minister, gave an undertaking to carry out the terms of the ultimatum in their entirety.

§ 470. Other Allied Demands upon Greece. Other demands upon Greece, equally extraordinary in character, soon followed. In September, 1916, an ultimatum containing the following recital and demands was addressed by the allied governments to the government of Greece.

1. The two allied governments, hearing from a sure source that their enemies receive information in divers ways, and notably through the agency of the Greek telegraphs, demand the control of the posts and of the telegraphs including the wireless system.

1 Fort Rupel, said to be one of the strongest fortifications in the world and dominating the valley of the Struma, was surrendered to the Bulgarians by the Greek garrison practically without resistance, and later in the year the Bulgarians occupied the Greek seaport of Kavala, and the garrison of 10,000 Greek soldiers was handed over to the Germans with its provisions and munitions of war. The surrender of Fort Rupel the Entente powers regarded as evidence of a deliberate agreement by the Greek government with the Central powers to shut up the allied troops in Saloniki. They must, therefore, take precautionary measures. The facts regarding the surrender of Fort Rupel I have obtained from Le Messager of Athens, especially the issues for June 23/5, 1916, and June 24/6, 1916. This journal charges that the fort was delivered over to the Bulgarians without resistance and upon the order of the Greek government. Cf. also Ion, 12 Amer. Jour. of Int. Law, 796, who remarks that the surrender of Fort Rupel was "rightly considered by the guardians of Greece as a hostile act directed against them and demanding the adoption of appropriate measures for the security of their armies on the Balkan front."

2. Enemy agents employed in corruption and espionage must immediately leave Greece and not return until the conclusion of hostilities.1

3. The necessary measures must be taken against such Greek subjects as have rendered themselves guilty of complicity in the above-mentioned corruption and espionage.

These demands were promptly complied with. In October, 1916, the admiral of the allied fleet in the Mediterranean demanded that the Greek fleet, with the exception of three vessels, be handed over to the keeping of the Entente powers. He further demanded that the three warships to be retained by Greece should be disarmed; that the forts on the sea-coast should be dismantled, and that the Piraeus-Larissa railroad should be placed under the control of the Anglo-French authorities. These demands, like the others mentioned above, were promptly complied with, although the Greek government addressed a protest to the government of the United States and presumably to the governments of other neutral powers.2

In the following month, November, 1916, the French admiral demanded of the Greek government that it surrender to the allies 18 batteries of field artillery and 16 batteries of mountain artillery with 1000 shells for each battery; 40,000 Mannlicher rifles with 220 cartridges for each rifle; 140 machine guns with ammunition, and 50 motor vans, this for the purpose of restoring the equilibrium which had been disturbed by the cession of war material to the German and Bulgarian authorities and in order to maintain the system of benevolent neutrality which the Greek government had promised. The Greek government protested that the amount and character of war materials thus demanded were in excess of that taken by Germany and Bulgaria, but nevertheless it yielded and complied with the admiral's demands.

In the following month another note was presented to the Greek government demanding the removal of all troops in continental Greece and all armament and munitions to the Peloponnesus except such as were absolutely necessary to maintain order;

1 This demand was aimed specifically at Baron von Schenck, the head of the German propaganda in Greece since the outbreak of the war. Von Schenck's activities in Greece had been carried out on an extensive scale, his expenditures in the interest of the German propaganda having assumed lavish proportions. 2 Text in New York Times, December 3, 1916.

3 London weekly Times, December 1, 1916.

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a prohibition of all meetings and all assemblies of reservists in Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth; the vigorous enforcement of the measures prohibiting all civilians from carrying arms; reëstablishment of allied control of Greek public services; the immediate release of all prisoners held for political reasons or on charges of high treason, sedition, or similar offences; the removal of the commander of the first army corps, and the presentation by the Greek government of apologies to the ministers of the allied powers which should include a formal salute of the British, French, Italian, and Russian flags on a public square of Athens in the presence of the minister of war and the assembled garrison. At the same time the Greek government was informed that military necessity might lead the protecting powers shortly to land troops at Itea, on the gulf of Corinth, and take them to Saloniki by the Larissa railroad, and it was likewise informed that the blockade of the Greek coasts would be maintained, "until satisfaction has been accorded on all the points indicated above." 2 After some hesitation the government of Greece agreed to comply with the demands, its decision having been hastened by an ultimatum on January 9 giving it forty-eight hours in which to return a reply.3

§ 471. The Abdication of the King. The last of the measures of the allied governments was a demand in June, 1917, for the abdication of King Constantine, this on the ground that he had practically overthrown the system of constitutional government which the guaranteeing powers had pledged themselves by the treaty of 1863 to maintain; that he had acted against the liberties of the people of Greece, and that in the face of the popular will he had prevented the country from fulfilling its treaty obligations to Servia and had aided and encouraged Bulgaria and Germany in violation of the pledge of benevolent neutrality. The demand was presented to the Greek premier by M. Jonnart, a special commissioner selected for the purpose, and like the other demands it was promptly complied with.4

1 These prisoners were the supporters of Venizelos who, it was alleged, were being persecuted by the government then in power.

2 Text in London weekly Times, January 5, 1917, and New York Times, January 20, 1917.

Text of the reply to the allied note, New York Times, January 21, 1917.

Cf. a book by M. Recouly entitled M. Jonnart en Grèce et l'Abdication de Constantin (Paris, 1918).