Thrace in Flames

A new and (shock for recent months) post-1900 TL! An assasination attempt fails and the history of the Balkans, and of Europe, is changed dramatically.

On the 18th March 1813, Greek police in newly-liberated Salonika took one Alexandros Schinas into custody. Schinas was in a bad way. He had been beaten by a crowd in the streets and had had an arm broken and his nose smashed. He was covered in blood. Not far away, a local woman was being taken into hospital with a gun wound to the shoulder inflicted by Schinas.

The reason she was thus injured was because he had missed his target. Thanks to a timely intervention by a local, Schinas's shot had been deflected as he attempted to gun down King George I of Greece. King George himself had escaped entirely uninjured, if extremely shocked. Of all the places that Greek royalty could end up being assassinated, it had seemed more likely that the frontline would have been the place, where Crown Prince Constantine was fighting the Balkan War.

"I shall not sanction it. I shall NOT sanction it!"

Thus were the words of King George of Greece to his Prime Minister, Venizelos several days after the attempted assassination. Venizelos's suggestion that the socialists such as Schinas be rounded up until the Balkan War ended was rejected.

Schinas himself would not be rounded up, as he was to fall out of a police station window a night later-or more accurately, he would follow the example of Sultan Abdulaziz a generation earlier and be "suicided".

Elsewhere, the Balkan War was dying off. But Greece would not be the great long-term winner.

Sounds good so far.

SteveW said:

...
On the 18th March 1813, Greek police in newly-liberated Salonika took one Alexandros Schinas into custody. Schinas was in a bad way. He had been beaten by a crowd in the streets and had had an arm broken and his nose smashed. He was covered in blood. Not far away, a local woman was being taken into hospital with a gun wound to the shoulder inflicted by Schinas.
...

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That would be 1913, right?

Interesting

MUC said:

That would be 1913, right?

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Embarassingly, that would indeed!

On the 19th March, the Serbs and Bulgarians finally broke through into Adrianople and occupied the city. The Ottoman troops managed to break out of the city, however, and pull back to defensive positions at Havsa. But it was quite clear that the war was over.

But for the Greeks, there was a last sting in the tail. On the 21st March, the Ottoman ship Hamidiye unexpectedly emerged at night and sank the supposedly unsinkable Greek Avelof off the coast of Thassos. The Turks, unexpectedly, were not entirely beaten in the Aegean.

At this step, the Great Powers stepped in. On 29th March 1913, Sir Edward Grey called on the Balkan League to make peace with the Ottomans. This was a position that was increasingly making sense: the Bulgarians and Serbs were now themselves besieged in Adrianople as they had no control over the hinterland, and the Greeks were suddenly having to mobilise to fight them at sea (even though the threat was greatly exaggerated, outraged public opinion demanded action).

The Bulgarians were the first to agree, to the great fury of her allies. On the 4th April, a ceasefire was agreed between the Ottoman Empire and the nascent empire to her west. The Montenegrins followed suit a day later. The Serbs in Adrianople, incensed, fled towards home, bitter at the perceived betrayal.

My only comment is that I don't understand why the Serbs would be anywhere near Adrianople - they certainly weren't in OTL.

Also, Hamidiye would have to be incredibly lucky to sink Averoff - I'm not sure her guns could penetrate A.'s armor even at close range, so it would have to be an ambush and lucky torpedo hit. I suppose stranger things have happened, and Hamidiye was a very lucky ship...

Abdul Hadi Pasha said:

My only comment is that I don't understand why the Serbs would be anywhere near Adrianople - they certainly weren't in OTL.

Also, Hamidiye would have to be incredibly lucky to sink Averoff - I'm not sure her guns could penetrate A.'s armor even at close range, so it would have to be an ambush and lucky torpedo hit. I suppose stranger things have happened, and Hamidiye was a very lucky ship...

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I agree, fairly unusual, but I wanted a nice butterfly effect here, and that involved the Greeks getting a surprise and not getting things entirely her own way.

As for the Serbs, Misha Glenny's 'Balkans 1804-1999' suggests that a large number of Serbs were fighting at Adrianople alongside the Bulgarians. But why is anyone's guess...Nonetheless, it will have no effect on the future of this TL.

More later today!

The Greeks continued to refuse to sign a ceasefire. Venizelos was adamant that he could pres home the advantage and seize as much Ottoman land as possible.

But King George was less convinced. And Crown Prince Constantine, returning from the front, was equally unconvinced. How, they challenged their Prime Minister, could they occupy more land when they could not even pacify Salonika entirely, and when the Bulgarians had occupied most of the land around that? Where else was there to go?

In the meantime, the Great Powers were getting fed up of Greek intransigence and gave Venizelos an ultimatum- agree to a ceasefire and peace talks, or the division of land would be in somebody else's favour.

On 19th May 1913, the war was over. The Greeks had given up the idea of continuing the war a month previously- they could hardly try invading Anatolia, and the continuing war at sea had become a stalemate. The parties involved were by now all in Lucerne in Switzerland for peace talks.

Under the auspices of Sir Edward Grey, Gottlieb von Jagow of Germany, Stephen Pichon of France, Sergei Sazonov of Russia and a representative from Austria-Hungary, the peace was painfully planned out. Bulgaria was the winner, taking swathes of Macedonia and now with access to the Aegean and Black Seas. Serbia made some territorial games but fewer than expected. Montenegro had done relatively well but had not been awarded all of the coastline it had hoped for. Greece had been granted Salonika and all its gains in that part of the world, but still felt aggrieved and irritated by Bulgaria's success.

Albania was finally to become a state in its own right. But the Great Powers had a plan ready. After long deliberations, they pressured the Albanian delegation to accept a King from amongst their number.

And this is how a second country came to be ruled by the House of Bernadotte.

Bernadotte? Bernadotte?

Wait, let me guess...
Prince Karl of Sweden, Duke of Västergötland, and proposed, probably on the expectation that it would be denied by the Swedes, as King of Norway?

LordInsane said:

Bernadotte? Bernadotte?

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seconded

The very same, LordInsane! An inoffensive country's inoffensive prince- probably a better choice than William of Wied was IOTL. ITTL, the Great Powers are a little more keen on imposing swift order-William of Wied dithered for ages before accepting.

Prince Karl was somewhat surprised by the offer, but was keen to accept. Admittedly he knew very little about Albania and could obviously not speak Albanian, but when you are the scion of a French family ruling Sweden, it is hardly a difficult proposition. The Albanian delgation were glad to have him, hoping for international prestige. And so it was, in June 1912, that Karl and his wife Ingeborg arrived in Durres in their new guise as King Karlo and Queen Ingeborg of Albania (the new king altering his name on governmental advice to evoke Karlo Thopia, the medieval king).

Further south, jealous eyes were being cast upon Bulgaria. Overstretched and with hostile forces on all sides, Sofia was a city living in fear. Serbia and Turkey were desperate to attack, as was Venizelos.

Venizelos was in favour of taking on Bulgaria. After all, the Serbs were too. But King George was not so sure- and Constantine was becoming outright hostile to the idea. The Germans were leaning on him in particular to avoid any more conflict-they had dreams of making Bulgaria a client.

So the stage was set. Either the monarchy or Venizelos would triumph. But, with tension rising, the result was going to be far from clear-cut.

Trouble was brewing. The Serbs and Greeks, peeved at the Treaty of Geneva, decided that it was time to attack the exhausted Bulgarians. Romania, for now, was to stay aloof.

Tired of waiting for the Bulgarians to make a move, the Serbian Army staged an incident along the border on 14th July 1913 and marched into Bulgarian Macedonia. King Peter of Serbia sent word to the Greeks to follow suit.

Venizelos went to King George and indicated that he intended to take part in the attacks and declare war. But George, more concerned about stabilising the gains they had already made, refused. Crown Prince Constantine agreed- a Germanophile, he was happy to sit it out and watch two Russian allies weaken each other. To boot, neither were afraid that if Venizelos scored another victory, they would never be rid of him.

In response, on 18th July 1913, Venizelist officers in the army attempted a coup. Venizelos himself was kept in the dark. The army stormed the Tatoi summer palace and dragged George from his bed. Constantine was not present.

George was declared deposed and a republic declared. Keeping Venizelos as Prime Minister, Andreas Michalakopoulos was declared President of the Second Hellene Republic. But as Serbia battled Bulgaria high in the mountains, it was even less likely than before that Greece could intervene-the Venizelists had made a decision in good faith, but one that would prove fatal to their hopes.

On the 22nd July, Constantine re-emerged in Salonika-at the head of an army of monarchist volunteers. Across the country, monarchists and republicans were skirmishing. The only exception was Crete, newly reunited with the mainland.

The next day, the Bulgarians smashed the Serbs at Vinitsa. The Romanians were trying to decide whether to attack Dobruja, and the Turks to retake Adrianople-but as things stood, nobody was willing to take on the Bulgarians.

On the 28th July, King George formally recognised his deposition and left on a Danish merchant ship, arriving at Bari several days later. There, he declared that he did not recognise the actions of the Venizelists, and declared his son to be King Constantine I.

The Great Powers were by now extremely worried. They did not want to see Greece in chaos, especially the Philhellenes present in all of those countries. To boot, the war to the north (now christened the Second Balkan War) was a source of concern.

Salonika decared for the new King on the 25th July 1913. In the two days following, Corfu followed suit, as did a number of smaller islands.

Venizelos was worried. He hadn't wanted this coup, and he hadn't wanted it now. Could it all go wrong?