On June 12, 1917, the king abdicated. He left the country with some thirty of his political followers who were expelled, and his younger brother Alexander succeeded him.1 Venizelos returned to power, the Anglo-French blockade was raised, and "the constitutional rights and unity of Greece were reëstablished." Subsequently Greece formally entered the war on the side of the Entente allies.

8472. The Anglo-French Measures Compared with the German Invasion of Belgium. Such were some of the measures carried out on the territory of Greece by the governments of the contending belligerents. It would be hard to justify on strict legal principles these grave infringements upon the sovereignty of a neutral State. The whole situation, however, was anomalous and, it is believed, without precedent.2 It was frequently asserted by German sympathizers that the AngloFrench occupation of Greece and the other measures which followed were no different in principle from the German occupation of Belgium.3 Those whose sympathies were on the side of the Entente powers, however, contended that while technically there was a similarity between the acts, there were points where the analogy broke down, the circumstances under which the occupation of Belgium and Greece took place as well as the purposes which the occupying belligerents had in view being entirely different. In the first place, the neutrality of Greece, unlike that of Belgium, had not been placed under the special guarantee of the powers, and consequently the occupation of a portion of its territory by France and England did not involve the repudiation by one of the parties of a special treaty, as did

1 M. Jonnart issued a proclamation regarding the measures of the allies in which he said: "They have no intention of tampering with the constitutional prerogatives; they have other aims, namely, to assure the regular and constitutional progress of the country, to which the late King George of glorious memory has always been scrupulously faithful but which King Constantine has ceased to respect."

The London Law Times of January 15, 1916 (p. 224), compared the allied occupation of Greece with the occupation of Mexico in 1862 by the English, French, and Spanish forces; the occupation of Crete by various powers in 1897; the occupation of Syria in 1860-1861, and the occupation of Mexico by France in 1864. The analogy, however, is not very striking. Cf. also the London Law Times of October 23, 1915, p. 523.

The German Chancellor in a speech in the Reichstag on December 9, 1915, referred to the parallelism between the Anglo-French occupation of Saloniki and the German invasion of Belgium.

GERMAN AND ALLIED MEASURES COMPARED 251

the German invasion of Belgium. To this argument, however, it will be replied that the immunity of a neutral State from occupation by a belligerent is not dependent upon special treaties, but is guaranteed by the Hague convention as well as the customary law of nations. While, therefore, the AngloFrench measures may have been less flagrant in degree, they were none the less a violation of the law of nations. In the second place, the Entente governments argued that since Greece was bound by a treaty with Servia to come to the latter's aid, and since Servia was an ally of Great Britain and France, the refusal of the Greek government, on account of the unconstitutional attitude of the king, to fulfil its obligations under the treaty justified Servia's allies in occupying the territory of Greece for the purpose of defending a common ally.2 The Venizelos ministry, a large majority of the Greek parliament, and apparently a majority also of the people of Greece were in favor of coming to the aid of Servia in fulfilment of the obligations of the treaty. The king, however, maintained that the obligation to defend Servia applied only in case of a Balkan war and not in case of a general European war in which Servia's adversaries included non-Balkan States. Specifically, the king admitted that the casus foederis would arise if Bulgaria attacked Servia when the latter power was at war with Austria-Hungary and Germany, but he denied that Greece was bound to assist Servia in a war with two great powers unless she was attacked by Bulgaria acting alone and not in combination with those powers.3

1 Cf. Headlam, Belgium and Greece, p. 4; also a statement handed by Sir Edward Grey on December 9, 1917, to the Associated Press, and De Visscher, La Belgique et les Juristes Allemands, pp. 9-10.

? The terms of the treaty between Greece and Servia appear never to have been officially made public. They are, however, generally known. The Paris Temps claims to have obtained a copy which was subsequently published in its columns. According to the published version, the provision which imposed on Greece an obligation to come to the aid of Servia reads as follows: "In the event of war between one of the contracting parties and a third power, or in the event of important Bulgarian forces- at least two divisions-attacking the Greek army or the Servian army, Greece and Servia engage themselves reciprocally that Servia will assist Greece with all her armed forces, and that Greece will assist Servia with all her forces on land and sea."

* Professor S. P. Duggan in an article entitled "Balkan Diplomacy" in the Political Science Quarterly (Vol. 32, pp. 240 ff.) expresses the view that it was not considerations of neutrality that really moved Constantine and his adherents in taking the attitude which they did, but rather the prestige and power of the Central Empires, for they sincerely believed that Greek intervention in behalf of Servia

If the published version of the treaty is correct, the king's interpretation of the treaty hardly seems justified. In any case, the Entente protagonists argue, it was the interpretation of the ministry and of parliament which should have prevailed. Thus the action of the king in preventing the government from fulfilling the treaty obligations of the country as they were interpreted by the parliament and the ministry was contrary to the constitution, and the intervention of the protecting powers was merely to "neutralize" the effect of the unconstitutional action of the king.1

In the third place, the occupation of Greece differed from the invasion of Belgium in that the sympathies of a large majority of the people of Greece, at least 80 per cent of them according to the admission of the king himself, were from the outset on the side of the Entente powers,2 and that the allied troops landed at Saloniki with the permission, if not at the invitation, of the Venizelos ministry, notwithstanding the fact that it went through the formality of addressing a protest to the British and French governments. The ministry, it is would result not only in the rapid overrunning of Servia by the Central powers, but in the occupation of Greece by their armies. The facts regarding the treaty and the controversy over its meaning are explained admirably and in detail by Mr. Theodore Ion in an article entitled "The Hellenic Crisis from the Point of View of Constitutional and International Law," in the Amer. Jour. of Int. Law, Vol. 12, pp. 312 ff. Mr. Ion shows quite conclusively that the interpretation placed upon the treaty by the king was not well founded, and that Greece was legally bound to come to the aid of Servia in the recent war. Cf. also an article by L. Maccas entitled La Grèce et l'Entente in 25 Rev. Gen. de Droit Int. Pub. (1918), pp. 29 ff. and 154 ff.

1 On this point Sir Edward Grey said in his statement to the Associated Press on December 9, 1917: "The unconstitutional behavior of King Constantine, his refusal to abide by the terms of the Greek treaty with Servia, and the flouting of the decisions of M. Venizelos and his parliamentary majority hardly admit of denial, even by the Germans themselves, who content themselves with saying that he acted for what he believed to be the best interests of his country. As Great Britain, France, and Russia have uniformly acted together, the whole matter of their landing troops to neutralize the king's unconstitutional action was both their right and duty." Cf. also Headlam's brochure Belgium and Greece, pp. 7–11. 2 Cf. Ion, Amer. Jour. of Int. Law, January, 1917, p. 66.

Sir Edward Grey in his statement to the Associated Press on December 9, 1917, referred to above, thus stated the Anglo-French case: "Objection may possibly be brought that the arguments up to this point rest on technicalities in old treaties, and in order to justify our action, at any rate morally, we must show that we were not acting against the wishes of the Greek people. To this may be replied absolutely, without the possibility of controversy, that our troops went to Saloniki with the express approval of the then head of the Greek government,

THE ANGLO-FRENCH DEFENCE

253

alleged, even fixed the number of troops which was considered necessary for the protection of Greece and to enable her to fulfil her obligation under the treaty with Servia.1

If Greece was a constitutional monarchy with a system of government by ministers responsible to the legislature, as the treaty of 1863 was intended to establish and guarantee, the ministry was undoubtedly within its constitutional rights in granting permission to the Anglo-French troops to land. The effect of the opposition of the king to the fulfilment by Greece of her obligations under the treaty with Servia and of his attempt to control personally the foreign policy of the country in defiance of the will of parliament and the nation was to subvert the constitutional arrangements of 1863 and to convert the constitutional monarchy into an autocracy. The intervention of the guaranteeing powers, so far at least as it was necessary to restore the constitution and reëstablish the supremacy of parliament, would appear, therefore, to have been defensible.

8473. The Purpose of the Allied Measures. The Entente powers never demanded of Greece that she should fulfil her obligations under the treaty with Servia. Although they would have been entirely justified in doing so, they never attempted to force her to abandon her neutrality. What they did ask was that they should be allowed to use the port of Saloniki and the

and that he had himself suggested the stipulation in the Greek-Servian treaty for a provision by which the Servian government's needs could, in view of the default of Greece on this point, be fulfilled by the despatch into Greek territory of an equivalent force by Great Britain and France." Professor Ion, who has made a careful study of the Anglo-French occupation of Greece, says, after a detailed consideration of the facts, that the Entente powers did not obtain the actual consent of the Greek government, nor were the troops landed at the invitation, properly speaking, of the Greek authorities. Nevertheless, he adds that the British and French governments believed that their proceeding, although irregular in form, had the tacit approval of both the Greek cabinet and legislature at the time. It is also probable, he further adds, that Great Britain and France would not have landed their troops at Saloniki had they believed that the Greek government intended to carry out the obligations incumbent upon it by the treaty of alliance with Servia. Finally, he adds that Venizelos and his adherents were far from considering the landing of the troops as an evil. On the contrary, they hailed them from the beginning as a benefit to Greece, because they reasoned that had it not been for the timely arrival of the Entente troops in Macedonia, the Austro-Germans would have firmly established themselves in Saloniki. See his article entitled "The Hellenic Crisis," Part IV, in the Amer. Jour. of Int. Law., Vol. 12, pp. 562 ff.

1 De Visscher, Belgium's Case, p. 11.

railway for the conveyance of troops for the assistance of Servia,1 this on the principle that their ally Servia was by treaty also an ally of Greece. That is to say, they demanded an attitude of benevolent neutrality toward them in their effort to rescue Servia. Whatever may be said in justification of this demand, the Venizelos ministry promised to grant it, and it was only the refusal of the "unconstitutional" ministries which governed after his dismissal, to accord the benevolent neutrality promised, that made necessary most of the subsequent extraordinary measures on the part of the allies. At first the occupying authorities refrained from interfering with the domestic affairs of the country, and it was not until it had become evident that the Greek government, under the domination of the king and a small group of politicians, was working in secret agreement with Germany, Austria, and Bulgaria that the allies were compelled to resort to the extreme measures detailed above.2

The territory of Greece, it was alleged, was being used as a source of supplies for the enemy; German and Austrian submarines were using the coasts and territorial waters of the country as bases of operations against the Anglo-French fleet; an extensive German propaganda against the allied cause was being carried on with the approval, if not the encouragement, of the Greek government; demonstrations of insult against the allied legations were openly permitted by the police; large quantities of arms and munitions were furnished to the central Empires; the strongest fortification in the country was surrendered to the Bulgarians with the consent of the Skouloudis ministry; an entire army corps of forty thousand men with its equipment was handed over to the Germans at Kavala for "friendly internment" in Germany; and other similar acts took place that were incompatible with the attitude of benevolent neutrality which the government had pledged itself to observe.3

1 Cf. Headlam, op. cit., p. 11.

Professor Duggan, a well-informed student of the Balkan situation, thinks that an overwhelming majority of the Greek people were in favor of Greece's taking the side of the Entente allies at the outbreak of the war, but that this feeling gradually developed into resentment in consequence of various measures which served to hurt their pride. Article cited above, p. 250.

Cf. Headlam, p. 12. Sir Edward Grey in his statement referred to above, adverting to the failure of the unconstitutional Skouloudis ministry to accord the