Ανατροπή ισορροπιών στα στενά : Η μυστική συμφωνία της Κωνσταντινουπόλεως του 1915
Part of : Δελτίο Κέντρου Μικρασιατικών Σπουδών ; Vol.8, 1990, pages 123-141
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123-141
Parallel Title:
Reversal of balance in the straits : The secret treaty of Constantinople of 1915
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Articles
Abstract:
No sooner the question of the eastern Aegean Islands remained unsettled atBucarest in 1913, than the Russians suspected a Greek expansion over theStraits and Constantinople, with the tacit approval of Britain. This expansionseemed more certain, when, at the outbreak of the Great War, the Turks closedthe Straits and isolated Russia: The British proposed to use Greek troops andships for an attack on Gallipoli. This raised the old ghost of a revived Byzantineempire and the Czar made it a sine qua non condition that no Greek forcesshould participate in an attack on the Straits, or in any settlement concerningthat question. He demanded that the Straits and the adjoining territory beincluded within his empire. Neither the British, nor the French, or the Greekswished to see the Czar seated on the Bosphorus. But only when the Russiansthreatened to withdraw from the alliance, did Britain and France agree toRussia’s claims on condition «that the war was carried to a victorious conclusion». The abortive secret treaty of Constantinople of 1915 was formally concludedat the monent when Venizelos, the initiator of the Greek participationin the Straits question, had resigned.Nevertheless, the presence of the Russians in the area was never before thatimportant and played such a principal role as in 1915. But also the presence ofthe Greeks in that same area neither had nor did become ever again of such aconsequence in the history of contemporary Europe.
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