page_title: National Schism
section_title: Breakout of the National Defence government
hierarchical_section_title: National Schism / The clash and schism of Greece / Breakout of the National Defence government
caption_attribution_description: English: antivenizelist poster, 1916 after Noemvriana events
context_page_description: The National Schism, sometimes called The Great Division, was a series of disagreements between King Constantine I and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos regarding the foreign policy of Greece in the period of 1910–1922 of which the tipping point was whether Greece should enter World War I. Venizelos was in support of the Allies and wanted Greece to join the war on their side, while the pro-German King wanted Greece to remain neutral, which would favor the plans of the Central Powers.
  The disagreement had wider implications, since it would also affect the character and role of the king in the state. The dismissal of Venizelos by the King resulted in a deep personal rift between the two and in subsequent events their followers divided into two radically opposed political camps affecting the wider Greek society.
  With the contrary actions of Venizelos permitting the landing of Allied forces in Thessaloniki and the unconditional surrender of a military fort in Macedonia to German-Bulgarian forces by the king, the disagreements of the two men started to take the form of civil war.
context_section_description: August 30, 1916, saw a coup against the Royalist government by the "National Defence" (Εθνική Άμυνα), a secret pro-Venizelist military organization based in Thessaloniki by Venizelist officers, aiming to defend the Macedonian territory. The principal reason given for the coup was the desire to defend Greek Macedonia from the Bulgarians, and since the king was unwilling to do that, they had decided to take matters into their own hands. The coup succeeded to the extent that a second provisional government of Greece was formed by the group in Thessaloniki. The coup had taken place without Venizelos's knowledge, and he initially disapproved of a course of action that set Greece for a civil war. Venizelos, having worked hard to achieve an enosis of Crete with Greece, was not keen on breaking up Greece. Only after much thought and deliberation did he decide to join the movement in Thessaloniki.
  With the backing of the Entente, Venizelos returned to the Greek mainland from Crete to lead the new provisional government at the head of a triumvirate on 9 October 1916. He declared: "We are not against the King, but against the Bulgarians". Joining Venizelos in leading the new government were General Panagiotis Danglis and Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis. The people on the islands of Crete, Samos, Mytilini and Chios promptly declared their support for Venizelos and soon the revolutionary government had control of all the islands in the Aegean Sea except for the Cyclades (which were part of "old Greece", and therefore royalist). Gendarmes from Crete played a significant role in providing manpower for the revolutionary government, leading them to be hailed in Thessaloniki as the "Antigone of Greece". The first declaration of the revolutionary government reads:
  "A policy, that we won't examine its motives, during the last one and a half year brought so many disasters, that everybody wonders if Greece today is the same state as before. The Palace listening to bad advisors and applying a personal policy, seeked  Greece to step away from her traditional allies and to approach her traditional enemies".
   
  Upon his arrival in Thessaloniki, Venizelos in a speech argued the war was a struggle for freedom and for the right of small nations to exist peacefully. Venizelos found himself having to organise and create a government with only the resources of the islands and part of Macedonia to pay for it all. Despite expectations, Britain and France were slow to support the new government, and only on 20 October 1916 was it announced that Britain and France would subsidise the Thessaloniki government. Despite Venizelos's best effort to appear moderate, many people, especially in "Old Greece", saw the revolutionary government as the beginning of social breakdown. The King in Athens saw the National Defence as an anti-monarchist coup with "the support of Republican France".
  By 1916 Greek had polarized to such an extent that neutrality was not longer possible, and everyone had to take a stand. Because the Orthodox church supported the king, the Venizelist movement took on an anti-clerical character. Opposition to Greece joining the war led the socialist movement to support Constantine. 
  National Defence Army Corps were created to support the Allies at the Macedonian front. This army consisted mostly of volunteers, but in many cases the Venizelist officers of the Defence used violence in their territory against deserters or royalists, or even clergy who supported Constantine, leading to bloody events (Naxos, Chalkidiki etc).
  The royalist governments in Athens, meanwhile, continued to negotiate with the Allies a possible entry in the war, with Constantine asking from them to not recognize the Venizelist government, while the Venizelists from Thessaloniki insisted that Constantine was deluding them and had no intension to join the war.
caption: Antivenizelist poster on the "Anathema", December 1916
exif: {"Image Software": "Google", "Image YCbCrSubSampling": "[2, 2]", "Image ExifOffset": "58", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "396", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "540"}