Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T19:35:13.791Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Geopolitics and Domestic Politics: Greece's Policy Towards the Great Powers During the Unravelling of the Inter-War Order, 1934–1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2011

SOTIRIS RIZAS
SOTIRIS RIZAS*
Affiliation:
Research Centre for the Study of Modern Greek History/Academy of Athens, 14 Anagnostopoulou str., PC 10673, Athens, Greece; [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of Greece's foreign policy from a position of relative detachment to an increasing involvement in international affairs that eventually led to the country's realignment with Britain during the Abyssinian crisis. It is argued that Greece's foreign policy shift was a result of an interplay between a perceived threat of Italian revisionism, Britain's reappearance in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Abyssinian crisis and domestic political dynamics that led to the defeat of Eleftherios Venizelos who favoured a foreign policy detached from combinations of great powers.

Géopolitique et politique interne: l'attitude de la grèce envers les grandes puissances pendant l'effondrement de l'ordre politique de l'entre-deux-guerres 1934–1936

Cette étude se porte sur l'évolution de la politique étrangère de la Grèce qui, partant d'une position relativement détachée et procédant à travers un engagement progressif, a abouti à un réalignement avec la Grande Bretagne à l'occasion de la crise abyssinienne. Nous chercherons à établir que cette réorientation de la politique étrangère hellénique fut le résultat de l'interaction entre la perception menaçante du révisionisme italien, le retour de la Grande Bretagne sur la scène de l'orient méditerranéen lors de la crise abyssinienne, et une dynamique politique interne qui a provoqué la défaite de Venizelos, partisan d'une politique étrangère qui refusait tout engagement avec les Grandes Puissances.

Geopolitik und innenpolitik: die griechische außenpolitik während des zusammenbruchs der internationalen ordnung der zwischenkriegszeit, 1934–1936

Dieser Artikel untersucht die Entwicklung der griechischen Aussenpolitik weg von einer Position relativer Distanz gegenüber dem internationalen System hin zu einer zunehmenden aktive Rolle in den internationalen Beziehungen – ein Wandel, der letztlich während der Abessynien-Krise zu einer Annäherung an Großbritannien führte. Der Autor argumentiert, dass dieser Wandel in der griechischen Aussenpolitik auf das Wechselspiel zwischen der Wahrnehmung eines italienischen Revisionismus, Großbritanniens erneutes Engagement im östlichen Mittelmeerraum sowie auf Dynamiken der griechischen Innenpolitik zurückzuführen ist, welche zur Niederlage von Venizelos führten, welche die Politik der Distanz maßgeblich bestimmt hatte.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , May 2011 , pp. 137 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Salerno, Reynolds, Vital Crossroads. Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 1–10Google Scholar.

2 On the process of territorial expansion and its diplomatic aspects, see Dakin, Douglas, The Unification of Greece, 1770–1923 (London: Benn, 1972)Google Scholar. On foreign influence in Greek politics, see Couloumbis, Theodore, Petropoulos, John and Psomiades, Harry, Foreign Interference in Greek Politics (New York: Pella, 1976)Google Scholar.

3 On elements of Metaxas's strategic and political thinking, see Vatikiotis, Panagiotis J., Popular Autocracy in Greece, 1936–1941: A Political Biography of General Ioannis Metaxas (London: Routledge, 1997)Google Scholar.

4 See Mavrogordatos, George Th., Stillborn Republic. Social Coalitions and Party Strategies in Greece, 1922–1936 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar. See also Kitromilides, Paschalis, ed., Eleftherios Venizelos. The Trials of Statesmanship (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

5 Leon, George, Greece and the Great Powers, 1914–1917 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974)Google Scholar.

6 Smith, Michael Lewellin, Ionian Vision (London: Hurst, 2002)Google Scholar.

7 Veremis, Thanos, Greek Security Considerations. A Historical Perspective (Athens: Papazisis, 1980), 28–30Google Scholar.

8 Barros, James, The Corfu Incident of 1923. Mussolini and the League of Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965)Google Scholar.

9 On fascist imperialism and its underpinnings, see Smith, Dennis Mack, Mussolini's Roman Empire (London and New York: Longman, 1976), 16–22Google Scholar; Mallett, Robert, Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 16–20Google Scholar.

10 On the Balkan and the European contexts affecting Greece's foreign policy, see Svolopoulos, Constantinos, ‘Le problème de la sécurité dans le Sud-Est Européen de l'entre-deux-guerres: A la recherche des Origines du Pacte Balkaniques de 1934’, Balkan Studies, 14, 2 (1973), 248–54Google Scholar. On Venizelos's foreign policy, see also Karamanlis, Costas, Eleftherios Venizelos and our Foreign Relations 1928–1932 (in Greek) (Athens: Papazisis, 1995)Google Scholar, Svolopoulos, Constantinos, Greek Foreign Policy after the Treaty of Lausanne (in Greek) (Thessaloniki: Institute of International Law, 1977)Google Scholar.

11 On Greek–Turkish rapprochement, see Anastasiadou, Ifigeneia, Venizelos and the Greek–Turkish Pact of Friendship of 1930 (in Greek) (Athens: Philipotis, 1982)Google Scholar; Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis, Eleftherios Venizelos, Greek–Turkish Rapprochement and the Security Problem in the Balkans, 1928–1931 (in Greek) (Thessaloniki: Institute of Balkan Studies, 1999)Google Scholar.

12 On Kemal's status quo foreign policy, see Hale, William, Turkish Foreign Policy 1774–2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2000), 56–60Google Scholar; and Barlas, Dilek, ‘Turkish Policy in the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Opportunities and Limits for Middle Power Activism in the 1930s’, Journal of Contemporary History, 40, 3 (2005), 441–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 On this, see Steiner, Zara, The Lights that Failed. European International History 1919–1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 800–1Google Scholar.

14 Koumas, Manolis, Greek Foreign Policy and the Security Question in Southeastern Europe 1933–1936 (in Greek) (Athens: Sideris publ., 2010), 64–8Google Scholar.

15 Dimitrakis, Panagiotis, Greece and the English. British Diplomacy and the Kings of Greece (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009)Google Scholar.

16 On the system of France's alliances in central and eastern Europe as a method to preserve the territorial status quo against the possibility of German revisionism, see Nere, Jacques, The Foreign Policy of France from 1914 to 1945 (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 38–45Google Scholar; Steiner, The Lights that Failed, 288–9, 305, 478; and Jordan, Nicole, The Popular Front and Central Europe: The Dilemmas of French Impotence 1918–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 5–47Google Scholar. On French policy towards the Balkan Pact, see Svolopoulos, ‘Le problème de la sécurité’, 273.

17 On these developments, see Nere, The Foreign Policy of France, 132–53, 173–94; and James Lowe, Cedric and Marzani, F., Italian Foreign Policy 1870–1940 (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), 240–90Google Scholar; Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, France and the Nazi Threat. The Collapse of French Diplomacy 1932–1939 (New York: Enigma Books, 2004), 24–84Google Scholar.

18 Koumas, Greek Foreign Policy, 379–400. The Stresa Front was an agreement made in Stresa, a town on the banks of Lake Maggiore in Italy, between French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval, British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini on 14 April 1935.

19 Panagiotis Pipinelis, Report on our foreign policy during the recent years, 9 Dec. 1935, Constantinos Karamanlis Foundation, Panagis Tsaldaris Archive, f. 3.

20 Ibid., 19–20.

21 Ibid., 46.

22 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens): Annual Report on Greece, 1933, 9 March 1934, FO 371/18399, The National Archives, London (hereafter TNA).

23 Sir John Simon (Foreign Office) to Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens), 11 Jan. 1934, TNA, FO 434/1.

24 Svolopoulos, ‘Le problème de la sécurité’, 271–2.

25 Pipinelis, Report, 79–80.

26 Emile Naggiar (French Embassy Belgrade) to Foreign Minister Joseph Paul-Boncour, 28 Nov. 1933, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932–1939, 1re Serie (1932–1935), tome V, 115–116.

27 Emile Naggiar (French Embassy Belgrade) to Foreign Minister Joseph Paul Boncour, 25 and 29 Jan. 1934, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932–1939, 1re Serie (1932–1935), tome V, 522–3.

28 Emile Naggiar (French Embassy Belgrade) to Foreign Minister Eduard Daladier, 6 Feb. 1934, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932–1939, 1re Serie (1932–1935), tome V, 638–41; Svolopoulos, ‘Le problème de la sécurité’, 280.

29 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Sir John Simon (Foreign Office), 15 Feb. 1934, TNA, FO 434/1.

30 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Sir John Simon (Foreign Office), 3 March 1934, TNA, FO 434/1.

31 Ioannis Stefanidis, ‘Reconstructing Greece as a European State: Venizelos’ Last Premiership, 1928–1932’, in Kitromilides, Eleftherios Venizelos, 193–233.

32 Minutes of meeting of the leaders of political parties and the foreign minister on the Balkan Pact, 28 Feb. 1934, Benaki Museum/Athens, Eleftherios Venizelos Archive, file 306–161.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Pipinelis: Report, 106.

38 Ibid., 110.

39 Albert Kammerer (French Embassy Ankara) to Quai d'Orsay, 1 May 1934, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932–1939, 1re Serie (1932–1935), tome VI, 385–6.

40 Koumas, Greek Foreign Policy, 73–142.

41 Turkes, Mustafa, ‘The Balkan Pact and its Immediate Implications for the Balkan States, 1930–34’, Middle Eastern Studies, 30, 1 (1994), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 Albert Kammerer (French Embassy Ankara) to Quai d'Orsay, 1 May 1934, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932–1939, 1re Serie (1932–1935), tome VI, 387–8.

43 On the military aspects of the coup and its relation to Venizelos's agenda see Veremis, Thanos, The Military in Greek Politics (London: Hurst, 1997)Google Scholar, chapter 8.

44 Sir Nicholas Henderson (British Embassy Belgrade) to Foreign Office, 16 March 1935, TNA, FO 371/19506. On the coup's political consequences and the Anglo-Greek relations following it, see Koliopoulos, John, Greece and the British Connection, 1935–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)Google Scholar, chapter 1.

45 Memorandum O'Malley, 5 March 1935, R 1552, TNA, FO 371/19505.

46 Foreign Office minute, 18 June 1934, R 3357, TNA, FO 371/18393.

47 Pipinelis, Report, 124.

48 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 11 March 1935, R 1685, TNA, FO 371/19505.

49 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 4 March 1935, R 1373, TNA, FO 371/19504.

50 Minute Sir Orme Sargent, 5 March 1935, R 1373, TNA, FO 371/19504.

51 Foreign Office Minute, 7 March 1935, R 1420, TNA, FO 371/19504.

52 Foreign Office Minute, 13 March 1935, R 1715, TNA, FO 371/19505.

53 Foreign Office Minute, 18 March 1935, R 1777, TNA, FO 371/19505.

54 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 16 March 1935, TNA, FO 434/2.

55 Sir Eric Drummond (British Embassy Rome) to Foreign Office, 12 March 1935, TNA, FO 434/2.

56 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 28 March 1935, R 2288, TNA, FO 371/19506.

57 Foreign Office Minute, 18 May 1935, R 3203, TNA, FO 371/19507.

58 Minute Sir Orme Sargent, 25 May 1935, R 3203, TNA, FO 371/19507.

59 Foreign Office Minutes, 16 July 1935, R 4397, TNA, FO 371/19508.

60 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 24 July 1935, R 4672, TNA, FO 371/19508.

61 See memorandum of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Chiefs of Staff Sub-committee, COS 392, 7 Aug. 1935 and Cabinet. Note by the Secretary: Summary of Precautionary Measures Taken Since the Cabinet Meeting of August 22nd, 1935 (Cabinet 42(35)), 20 Sept. 1935, TNA, CAB/24/256. For a general overview of British strategic thinking in the 1930s, see McKercher, Brian, ‘National Security and Imperial Defence: British Grand Strategy and Appeasement, 1930–1939’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, 19, 3 (2008), 391–442CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 Koumas, Greek Foreign Policy, 311–76; Barlas, ‘Turkish Policy in the Balkans and the Mediterranean’, 452–8.

63 Dimitrios Maximos to Panagis Tsaldaris, 21 May 1935, C. Karamanlis Foundation, P. Tsaldaris Archive, file 1.13.

64 Dimitrios Maximos to Panagis Tsaldaris, 8 Aug. 1935, C. Karamanlis Foundation, P. Tsaldaris Archive, file 1.13.

65 Barros, James, Britain, Greece and the Politics of Sanctions: Ethiopia, 1935–1936 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1982), 24–8Google Scholar.

66 Ibid., 75–6, 116–117.

67 Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy, Air Force memorandum, 8 Oct. 1935, General State Archives, Ioannis Metaxas Archive, f. 81.

68 Pipinelis, Report, 126–8.

69 Minute Sir Orme Sargent, 12 Oct. 1935, R 6108, TNA, FO 371/19508.

70 Minute Sir Orme Sargent, 15 Oct. 1935, R 6174, TNA, FO 371/19508.

71 Foreign Office Minute to Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare, 14 Oct. 1935, R 6249, TNA, FO 371/19508.

72 Minute Sir Samuel Hoare, 16 Oct. 1935, R 6249, TNA, FO 371/19508.

73 Koumas, Greek Foreign Policy, 412–20.

74 Sir Sydney Waterlow (British Embassy Athens) to Foreign Office, 11 March 1936, TNA, FO 434/3.

75 Knox, MacGregor, Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime and the War of 1940–43 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 15–21 and 51–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

76 The Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Navy, Air Force report no. 29231, 20 Jan. 1936, General State Archives, Ioannis Metaxas Archive, file 84.

77 Pipinelis, Report, 20.

78 Koumas, Greek Foreign Policy, 436.

79 Eleftherios Venizelos to Constantinos Demertzis, 3 March 1936, Benaki Museum, Alexandros Zannas Archive, f. 10.1.

80 Eleftherios Venizelos to Loukas Roufos, 3 March 1936, Benaki Museum, Alexandros Zannas Archive, f. 10.1.

81 Koliopoulos, Greece and the British Connection, 38–70.

82 Ioannis Metaxas to the Balkan Pact Council, 5 May 1936, Ioannis Metaxas Diary, volume IV, 210–12.