Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles

Part 1
Paris Gare de Lyon train station July 30th 1920 (old calendar)/August 12th (new calendar)

Eleutherios Venizelos, prime minister of Greece was on his way to Marseilles. In Marseilles a Royal Hellenic Navy warship was waiting to bring back the prime minister in Greece. Venizelos was, not without justification, proud of himself. Just two days before at Sevres he had signed on behalf of Greece the peace treaty between the allies and the Ottoman empire assigning Eastern Thrace to Greece and giving it control of Smyrna and its hinterland with a referendum for its annexation to Greece to follow in 5 years time. He had no doubt what would be the results of the referendum when it took place. When he had first become prime minister back in October 1910 Greece was 63,211 square km, regularly threatened by Turkey and ignored by everyone else. Now it was 150,176 square km and as soon as Smyrna would be formally annexed would reach 168,038 square km. But far more importantly than the territory itself, now Greece was a fast modernizing country, one of the victors of the Great war and had brought most Greeks within the borders of the kingdom.

Lieutenants Apostolos Tserepis and George Kyriakis, waiting for the prime minister in the station were of a rather different opinion. Both staunch royalists that had been cashiered from the navy and the army respectively, when the tyrant returned on the bayonets of the Senegalese to evict the king, they where determined to save Greece from Venizelos once and for all. The treaty signed at Sevres mattered not. What mattered was for Venizelos to be gone. As soon as Venizelos showed up they opened up with revolvers firing over 10 shots against the prime minister. Thankfully only a single bullet lightly wounded Venizelos in the shoulder. In February 1921 French courts would condemn the two former officers to 5 years in prison each, with prince Christopher of Greece covering their legal expenses. Two years later, at the behest of Venizelos they would receive a pardon and released from prison. Tserepis would become manager of prince Christopher's estates and die aged 92 in 1980. Kyriakis would end life broadcasting German propaganda in WW2, starting his broadcasts every time with "Dear Greek listeners, Greece freed in 1821 was struggling since 1915 against Anglo-French tyranny. Remember the crimes of Sarrail's hordes in Macedonia. Remember...". He would be executed for treason after the war. [1]


Athens, July 31st, 1920 (old calendar)/August 13th (new calendar)

News of the assassination attempt against Venizelos would reach Athens one day late with rumours that Venizelos had been actually killed. In short order mobs of Venizelist partisans gathered, first attacking the offices of monarchist newspapers, as well as these of the communist Risospastis and then the shops and homes of prominent monarchists, before police could put the situation under control. The theater of Marika Kotopouli suffered some damage with her and Ion Dragoumis, in a relationship since 1912 fleeing to their home to the suburb of Kifisia. From there Dragoumis would try to return to Athens to publish an article in his magazine "Political Review" to condemn the assassination attempt against Venizelos. Unfortunately his car would break down outside Marousi on the way to Athens and Dragoumis would manage to get back to Athens only the next day. His article would get published in August 2nd. By then thanks to news that Venizelos had been only lightly wounded things had relatively calmed down, but Dragoumis article would help to further defuse the situation...

[1] In OTL he would get away with collaboration more or less scot free.
 
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Does the Corfu incident still happen as per OTL?
Or do the Greek detectives manage to catch the Albanian perpetrators ITTL?

Aren't we going a little bit ahead of ourselves here? I mean we are still in August 1920. There's a Greek election first and a war to end first. :angel: That said Italy was not liable to be particularly friendly to Greece at this point and poor Tellini was supposedly not very friendly to the Mussolini regime. So I'm inclined to give credence to the theory that Mussolini ordered a false flag operation here. After all he ordered the Regia Marine to start preparing for the Corfu operation in July and Tellini got killed in late August..
 
Aren't we going a little bit ahead of ourselves here? I mean we are still in August 1920. There's a Greek election first and a war to end first. :angel: That said Italy was not liable to be particularly friendly to Greece at this point and poor Tellini was supposedly not very friendly to the Mussolini regime. So I'm inclined to give credence to the theory that Mussolini ordered a false flag operation here. After all he ordered the Regia Marine to start preparing for the Corfu operation in July and Tellini got killed in late August..
Guess I'm just going to wait and see here.
 
Part 2 Of lost monkeys and unlost elections
Tatoi Royal Estates, Greece, September 17th, 1920 (old calendar)/ September 30th, 1920 (new calendar)

Alexander, king of the Greeks, was trying to kill time by running around the estates in his motorcycle till the time came to visit hid friend Christos Zalokostas for lunch. For a moment he thought about making a stop for the house of the Sturm family, Sturm the German born agronomist of the estate always was well supplied in European magazines, but he changed opinion. Yesterday evening he had to read the latest issue of Dragoumis "Political review", Christos was liable to try discussing about it and he did not want to appear as a complete ignoramus, that was enough reading for now. Better to run some more along the trees with the motorcycle and Fritz his dog. Fritz was the luckier of the two, he did not need to be bothered with politics or anything else unlike his master. Why couldn't they leave him alone with his two true loves, Aspasia and cars?

At lunch as he predicted Zalokostas start discussing about Dragoumis article and the coming election next month. Then he had a quiet evening with Aspasia. Another boring day in the life of the king had passed...


Athens, Greece, October 25th, 1920 (old calendar)/ November 7th, 1920 (new calendar)

Finally election day. Eleutherios Venizelos was pretty confident the Liberals would win in a landslide. After all he was the man who had single-handedly created the "Greece of two continents and five seas" while former king Constantine and his clique were driving the country to ruin. He had had to take some extreme measures after his return in 1917 and his lieutenants had often proven less than stellar but he had been the first to admit it during the elections and promise to remedy any issues. The fanaticism of several of his Royalist opponents as seen in the assassination attempt against him back in July had further turned moderate opinion in his direction. Some of the Royalists had even tried to campaign for a return of Constantine but this hadn't gone too far. After all the country had a king in Alexander, so openly campaigning for his removal was impractical. Young Alexander was a very convenient king. At the same time popular and knowing his place, unlike his father he had no illusions that the king was supposed to actually rule instead of merely reigning.

When in the evening result start coming in though, they were something of a shock as the "United opposition" the coalition of the Royalist parties did far better than it had any right doing. Particularly in "old Greece" the pre-war kingdom the Royalists had handily won. Venizelos himself had been elected in Attica but thanks to the first past the post electoral system most of the Liberal candidates had lost, after all Zavitsanos, the speaker of the parliament was right when he had proposed to break the heavily Venizelist Athens and Piraeus to a separate electoral district from the rest of Attica and Boeotia that had voted just as heavily for the Royalists. The Liberals had courted disaster. Thankfully it had been avoided even if by a relatively thin margin. The Liberals had won 195 seats. The United Opposition 176. It wouldn't do with the Turkish nationalists still fighting against the Allies to have a repeat of Charilaos Trikoupis electoral defeat in 1895.


Gyumri, Republic of Armenia, November 7th, 1920


The Turkish nationalist army under Kazim Karabekir captured the city and continued its advance towards Yerevan. The embattled Armenians would be forced to sign a cease fire with the Turks in November 18th, only for the Soviet 11th army to invade Armenia in November 29th. The future of the fledging republic looked bleak. And neither the Greeks in the west nor the French in Cilicia were likely to save it from destruction...
 

formion

Banned
A Lascaris timeline with twin PODs in the Greco-Turkish War?

This is bound to be more than interesting!

Forth!

@Lascaris were any OTL discussions on buying cheaply suprlus french material after the French Army's demobilization? Or perhaps the British Army as it would shrink to its post-war tiny size, so the artillery, machine guns and mortars of dozens of divisions were surplus.

Needless to say I m subscribed.
 
A Lascaris timeline with twin PODs in the Greco-Turkish War?

To be a bit pedantic, strictly speaking the POD is Ion Dragoumis failing to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm inclined towards the theory Benakis was involved in his death even if neither Penelope Delta nor Natalia Mela ever wanted to believe it. So played it safe and had his car break down in Marousi, hardly difficult in 1920. Then Alexander failing to be bitten by that monkey is a butterfly... because how likely is it to happen if you alter things even slightly, ad Ion not being assassinated is more than slightly changing things.

Of course that is another way of saying I wanted both Ion and Alexander alive, when each of them living could easily get you its own TL, so constructed a POD accordingly to claim with a straight face I'm using only a single one. ;) One reason is that just keeping Alexander alive was perhaps too obvious. Another that this way you also avoid the radicalization Dragoumis death caused, by my calculation when I researched the available elector results fro the Venizelos archive you needed about 5-10% of the United Opposition voters shifting to the Liberals to get an electoral victory given first past the post, the combined effect of both Alexander and Dragoumis living should suffice to get you that. Besides I find Dragoumis a fascinating character in his own right.

This is bound to be more than interesting!

Forth!

@Lascaris were any OTL discussions on buying cheaply suprlus french material after the French Army's demobilization? Or perhaps the British Army as it would shrink to its post-war tiny size, so the artillery, machine guns and mortars of dozens of divisions were surplus.

Needless to say I m subscribed.

Why more than discussions. Leaving aside what the post November governments bought from France which was likely French surplus, that 20,000 Lebel rifles bought were not likely to be new, the Greeks got a goodly chunk of the armee d'orient air force stores literally for scrap in OTL and then start assembling aircraft from it while at the time of the elections they were supposed to get material to equip at least 3 more divisions with British arms and French artillery... for free. See here Paraskeuopoulos telegram to Venizelos in August 1920.


The rifles would be I suspect p14 Enfield, as late as 1924 Greece was offered 100,000 of these for free by Britain as long as the Greeks were willing to pay the 1.5 million pounds for the 100,000,000 rounds of ammo that had been produced for them back in 1917-18, which was one of the reasons the offer was declined.


Then there are also admiral Kelly's naval mission efforts to get used Royal Navy ships to the Greek navy . The proposals called for selling to Greece the 2 Chester class light cruisers, 6 S class destroyers, 2 H class submarines and two admiralty trawlers. The admiralty initially asked for 3 million pounds, the Greeks flat out refused and the British came up with in September 1920 with a 50% discount to 1.5 million pounds to be paid in two annual instalments should the Greeks agree. Since the elections happened, we don't know what would had come out of this.

Of course TTL Greece's economic situation under Venizelos is radically different, Greece had about 25 million pounds in approved wartime loans from France, Britain and USA available, which after the return of Constantine the allies froze.
 

formion

Banned

Here is thenorder of battle of the Entente artillery in the Salonica Front. I would argue the most valuable additions would be the rest of the available french 65mm and 75mm guns, as they served already in the greek army and logistics would be easier. The numerous 155mm guns would be a most important addition as the greek army didn't have any heavy artillery. The 152 british Stokes mortars would give the greek infantry significant firepower. Lastly, those 49 french 75mm AA guns would provide air cover for airfields and railway marshalling yards.

Since the elections happened, we don't know what would had come out of this.
Frankly, I think they would have been bought. 1,5 million seems a pretty good price. Moreoever, the old 350 ton destroyers needed replacement as they had little fighting value. The Town class light cruisers would be incredibly better than Elli and after all had been in the Navy plan since 1914. The 2 H class submarines would replace Delphin and Xifias. Last but not least, if the Greek Navy wanted to blockade the turkish Black Sea ports, more ships would be needed.
 

Here is thenorder of battle of the Entente artillery in the Salonica Front. I would argue the most valuable additions would be the rest of the available french 65mm and 75mm guns, as they served already in the greek army and logistics would be easier. The numerous 155mm guns would be a most important addition as the greek army didn't have any heavy artillery. The 152 british Stokes mortars would give the greek infantry significant firepower. Lastly, those 49 french 75mm AA guns would provide air cover for airfields and railway marshalling yards.

Some of the French material had already gone to the Serbs, or to the Greeks for that matter. What I'm interested and have no good answer is what happened to the 80 58mm mortars shown here in Greek inventory. Post that in effect the Greeks for every practical purpose were organizing one or two additional corps (depending if they would stick to 3 or 4 division formations) in the hope of decisive operations in 1921. And since we are talking about the 1917-1920 high command here it's all too reasonable to assume they'd be following the ww1 organisation they were familiar with. Which means at a minimum one more regiment of heavy artillery and possibly two. These British 6in guns look tempting...

Frankly, I think they would have been bought. 1,5 million seems a pretty good price. Moreoever, the old 350 ton destroyers needed replacement as they had little fighting value. The Town class light cruisers would be incredibly better than Elli and after all had been in the Navy plan since 1914. The 2 H class submarines would replace Delphin and Xifias. Last but not least, if the Greek Navy wanted to blockade the turkish Black Sea ports, more ships would be needed.

That's a pretty good point about a blockade. The price is effectively buying the S class ships as new, they WERE new of course and everything else at scrap value. Post that was proposing 4 C class cruisers and 12 S class destroyers as the core of the future fleet. If you add in the existing units it means in effect a navy consisting of 2 flottilas of large destroyers and a third of the small coastal destroyers. That force structure is found all two often in the Greek naval thinking of the interwar years, Greek naval laws into the mid 1930s called exactly for that only differing on cruisers and whether a battleship was needed or not.
 

formion

Banned
These British 6in guns look tempting...
Dont forget the surplus material from Allenby's Army. There were 5 Territorial Divisions in Palestine and Syria during 1918, not to mention the Cavalry Corps and the Indian brigades. Hundreds of machine guns, artillery pieces and mortars.

There is a big question coming up in the same week after the elections. What is going to happen with the Whites and Wrangel's Fleet. The Derzky-class destroyers were not bad ships, even though they would be a nightmare for the quartermasters. The good thing is that they can be bought more cheaply than any british boats: Land and citizenship instead of pounds sterling.

In Lemnos island 50,000 starving Cossacks were interned by the Entent authorities. There was a russian documentary some years ago that described the hardships of the White refugees. Most of the ex-soldiers were veterans. A Cossack cavalry division in Anatolia?

 
Dont forget the surplus material from Allenby's Army. There were 5 Territorial Divisions in Palestine and Syria during 1918, not to mention the Cavalry Corps and the Indian brigades. Hundreds of machine guns, artillery pieces and mortars.

There is a big question coming up in the same week after the elections. What is going to happen with the Whites and Wrangel's Fleet. The Derzky-class destroyers were not bad ships, even though they would be a nightmare for the quartermasters. The good thing is that they can be bought more cheaply than any british boats: Land and citizenship instead of pounds sterling.

In Lemnos island 50,000 starving Cossacks were interned by the Entent authorities. There was a russian documentary some years ago that described the hardships of the White refugees. Most of the ex-soldiers were veterans. A Cossack cavalry division in Anatolia?


Cossacks? No. Nope. These are going nowhere near the Greek Asia Minor army. I've seen nowhere any plan either before or after the November election to recruit any former Whites in the Greek army. I suspect that any such idea died before even birth, from what the Greek officers in Ukraine were likely reporting back. But if there are any actual citations for anything of the short they'd be interesting.

Then I'll point to this...

 

formion

Banned
But if there are any actual citations for anything of the short they'd be interesting.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any citations.

Then I'll point to this...
The best case senario is the formation of a Caucasian micro-state in the South Marmara coast, under the protection of Greece and Britain. Ibrahim Hakki Bey would be the obvious choice for a leader. Give a couple of years of having the Circassians living behind the frontlines and afraid that they would either be annexed by Greece or being returned to the turkish nationalists as traitors and they might develop a statelet of their own with Venizelos' blessing.

 
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Alexander, king of the Greeks, was trying to kill time by running around the estates in his motorcycle till the time came to visit hid friend Christos Zalokostas for lunch. For a moment he thought about making a stop for the house of the Sturm family, Sturm the German born agronomist of the estate always was well supplied in European magazines, but he changed opinion. Yesterday evening he had to read the latest issue of Dragoumis "Political review", Christos was liable to try discussing about it and he did not want to appear as a complete ignoramus, that was enough reading for now. Better to run some more along the trees with the motorcycle and Fritz his dog. Fritz was the luckier of the two, he did not need to be bothered with politics or anything else unlike his master. Why couldn't they leave him alone with his two true loves, Aspasia and cars?

At lunch as he predicted Zalokostas start discussing about Dragoumis article and the coming election next month. Then he had a quiet evening with Aspasia. Another boring day in the life of the king had passed...
I Hope Alexander faires better than He did in OTL given that he was a Prisoner in his own Palace,Honestly while it is true that Constantine and Venizelos fougth each other,Alexander is not Konstantinos,the King also has responsibilities as The Head of State of Greece and Keeping Up this Rivalry between the Venizelists and the Royalists will only hurt Greece in the long run

Is there any chance of North Epirus having an Enosis with Greece?From what I remember the Greece still held at this point in time

Honestly I cannot see any reason why the Greek Military would not invade Anatolia Ittl given that once the turks are done with the east they are going to want to push Greece out of Asia Minor,Perhaps with Better leadership the overextension that Happened otl doesnt happen and the greek army fairs better
 
I Hope Alexander faires better than He did in OTL given that he was a Prisoner in his own Palace,Honestly while it is true that Constantine and Venizelos fougth each other,Alexander is not Konstantinos,the King also has responsibilities as The Head of State of Greece and Keeping Up this Rivalry between the Venizelists and the Royalists will only hurt Greece in the long run

Is there any chance of North Epirus having an Enosis with Greece?From what I remember the Greece still held at this point in time

Honestly I cannot see any reason why the Greek Military would not invade Anatolia Ittl given that once the turks are done with the east they are going to want to push Greece out of Asia Minor,Perhaps with Better leadership the overextension that Happened otl doesnt happen and the greek army fairs better

Greece did not hold North Epirus but its fate is up in the air. In OTL it was decided by the four great powers (Britain, France, Italy and Japan) later in 1921. At which point Britain backed Greece, Italy and France opposed it and Japan kept out of it. France at the moment is up in the air...

To the rest I'll only say... no comments. :angel:
 
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Part3
Athens, old parliament building, November 8, 1920 (old calendar), November 21, 1920 (new calendar)

The new parliament came to session for the first time. Rather if someone was to get technical the 3rd National Assembly came to session for the first time, since the new parliament had been elected with a mandate to amend the 1911 constitution, which had proven lacking after the shenanigans of the former king who had dismissed the elected parliament twice during the war, the second time right after an election, claiming he was within the spirit of the law. If it was an awkward moment for the leaders of the opposition, they did not show it. They were almost all there. Demetrios Rallis, the senior among them and several times prime minister before the 1909 revolution. Nikolaos Stratos, a former Liberal who had broken up with Venizelos ove reordering battleship Salamis to a larger design, still a moderate with connections with the Liberals who now led the third largest party in parliament. In retrospect it was probably wrong to break with him over Salamis. And of course Ion Dragoumis, the intellectual among them and perhaps the least predictable. With variations they all said the same thing. Yes Venizelos had won the election. But this did not make the arbitrary actions of his government and the persecution of the opposition after 1917 right. All the excesses should be redressed. The one notable absence was Demetrios Gounaris. Arguably the the true leader of the opposition, a good man that never knew what was the right decision at the right time, Gounaris once more had failed to raise to the occasion. Following electoral defeat he had refused to take his seat in parliament and from his Italian exile had accused Venizelos once more of being a dictator who had won the election solely by widespread of electoral fraud with the vote in Thrace and the army.

Then it was the turn of Venizelos. His message was simple. The people of Greece had decided with their vote for the national schism. And had decided his policy had been the right one, as proven of course by the results of the war. Now it was the time to mend the differences and restore national unity. As for the excesses his opponents accused him of, some unfortunate incidents had taken place of course. Others had been necessary, Greece could not afford in the middle of war in 1917-18 the army mutinies and mass desertions Constantine's faction had tried to incite only for them to get mercilessly crushed by the government. But he repeated his electoral promise that any injustices and excesses would be redressed. After all he had won the election, he could be magnanimous. Rather given the electoral scare it was obvious political necessity to be magnanimous. Particularly in the middle of a war, that public celebrations about Sevres aside now was entering its most decisive phase.

Athens, November 15, 1920 (old calendar), November 28, 1920 (new calendar)

Greece was negotiating with Britain over what had to be done about the Turkish nationalists already before the elections. The Greeks, Venizelos rather, had actually been blunt. Either Britain would support Greek operations to destroy the Kemalist army or Greece was not in position to sustain the current situation indefinitely and would pull back around Smyrna, thus exposing the British hold of the straits. Greece did not want troops, although RAF and Royal Navy support would be more than welcome. It wanted war material and financial support and the Greek army would finish the job. After all if the Greek army was to do the fighting on behalf of the allies, the least the allies could do was to provide it with the tools to fight for them.

Lloyd George had been as usual sympathetic to the Cretan's argument. Churchill felt that Britain was morally obliged to support its ally[1], besides as a practical matter it did not cost much to do so. Thanks to the war Britain was standing upon literal mountains of war material that where well beyond her post-war requirements, only in Palestine and the Balkans the British had ended the war with more and better equipped divisions than the whole Greek army possessed. It would cost little to sell some of it to the Greeks at low prices while the Greeks did the actual fighting and dying. Lord Curzon was more resistant to the wiles of Venizelos but still could not dismiss the logic of the argument. So Britain conditionally agreed. One last effort at negotiation would be made early next year with a new conference held in London, after all large scale operations in Anatolia in the middle of winter were not entirely practical. If the Turks again proved reticent Venizelos would get his free hands. In the meantime the Greeks would start receiving additional war material to be ready for operations if the negotiations broke down. At a price of course albeit one far lower than the one if it was newly built equipment. As for financing, there London was less forthcoming. Greece still had about 25 million pounds in unused war credits. They should more than suffice for the immediate future. The Greeks only got a promise that Britain would agree to back a 15 million pound loan in the London market if the existing war credits were exhausted. [2] As for naval support Greece should accept the offer the Admiralty had already made it back in August at the behest of the British training mission to sell Greece 2 Chester class cruisers, 6 S class destroyers, 2 H class submarines and 2 Admiralty trawlers for 1.5 million pounds. The ships should go quite a way towards reinforcing the blockade of the Turkish coast and behind the scenes some pressure had actually been exerted upon the Greek government to take up the offer.

It should suffice for now. Greece might not had gotten all that it wanted but had gotten enough, even if Venizelos had effectively had his hand forced to accept a naval deal he was not entirely keen on [3] . Only the warships sale would be officially announced for now. Venizelos was off to Paris two days after. It would not do for Greece to be seen as a mere puppet of Greece. The balances and good relations with the other great Western democracy had to be maintained...

Gyumri, December 3, 1920

The city was better known by its Russian name of Alexandropol. The name didn't much matter as Alexander Khatisian, the foreign minister of the republic of Armenia put his signature in the peace treaty, that surrendered more than half the territory of the republic to Turkey. Armenia had lost. Two days latter it would also cease to exist as an independent country as the Soviet backed Armenian revolutionary committee entered Yerevan and what remained of the republic was rolled into the Soviet Union.


Appendix 1. The ships sold to Greece in December 1920 and their names in Greek service

A. Chester Class cruisers
1. Katsonis
2. Kountouriotis

B. S class destroyers
1. Kriti
2. Chios
3. Samos
4. Lesvos
5. Doxa
6. Keraunos

C. H class submarines
1. Delfin
2. Xifias

[1] To quote him from chapter XVIII in World crisis after several strongly pro-Venizelos pages "If Greece was free, everyone was free. Greece had in fact become a liberator. Just at the moment when her needs were greatest and her commitments were becoming most embarrassing to herself and to others, she had of her own free will sponged the slate. It is not every day that moral creditors are so accommodating."

[2] In 1918 Greece was provided 750 million gold franks (30 million pounds) in war credits by the three western allies (250 million franks for France, $50 million from USA and 10 million pounds from Britain). An additional 4 million pounds were given by Britain and France in 1919 (half from each). Of these at the time of the November election about 25 million pounds were still unused. France and Britain froze their part of the credits when Constantine returned to the throne. The US did not freeze theirs... but the new government refused to confirm to the US that the Greek king had been changed, the official Royalist line was that Alexander was only the surrogate of his father, so the US credits could not be used either. In the meantime the war credits agreement Greece had signed did not let it raise new loans without allied consent... which the allies refused despite having frozen the war credits, till summer 1922 when Britain agreed to allow Greece to try raising a 15 million loan in the London market. Nothing of that here...

[3] Just like OTL Venizelos was a firm believer in the benefits of naval power but somewhat loath to overspend on the navy, although he reserved his opposition particularly to battleships, as he was a strong proponent of a flotilla navy and air power.
 
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formion

Banned
Regarding the economics of the war, I would like to quote from this article

"the Great Powers were quite lenient on Bulgaria, reducing the sum of
Bulgarian war repayments from £90,000,000 to £20,000,000. This decision, however, was legitimate under the provisions of the Neilly Treaty of 1919."

A smart Venizelos would be able to obtain more repayments from Bulgaria in the form of war surplus that would not affect the bulgarian civilian economy, while they could support the greek war effort:
- Cavalry horses (not draft horses from the civilian economy
- Horse tack
- Horse-drawn Ammunition Carriers (without the horses)
- Field kitchens (gulaschkanonen)
- Razor wire
- Sandbags
- Entrenching tools
- Field hospitals
- Cavalry sabers
- Telescopes
- Field telephones and telephone wire
- Blankets

The list is endless. The same can be argued for the British Army equipment in in Palestine. I don't know what happened to the bulgarian surplus artillery guns: the 75mm would be useful.



. Venizelos was off to Paris two days after. It would not do for Greece to be seen as a mere puppet of Greece.
To quote from the previously mentioned paper:

"between April and June 1921, the following military items were purchased from France:
3,500 Manlincher type rifles, 20,000 Lebel type rifles, 150 machine guns, 40,000,000 ammunition rounds, and 500,000 artillery shells. The cost of the artillery ammunition
exceeded the amount of 45,000,000 French Francs (FF).

The greatest diplomatic coup regarding french policy, would be to persuade Paris not to Kemal with equipment:

"Thus, France gave Turkey 80,000 rifles, 10,000
uniforms, 2,000 horses and 1,505 boxes with war material. According to another source,
France only left the following material in the town of Adana: 4,489 Turkish rifles with
574 ammunition boxes, 3,865 German rifles, 1,370 large caliber rifles, 10 Manlicher rifles, 247 Μauser ammunition boxes, 101 Gra-type rifles ammunition boxes, 577 Schneider-Creusot rifle ammunition boxes, 6 additional ammunition boxes, 10 aeroplanes, 10 aeroplane shelters, 4 aeroplane engines, and 3 telecommunication stations.

On 15 March 1922, the Ottoman steamship, Erigund Reis under the French flag, transported the following material from the Ottoman government from Constantinople to Kemal Ataturk escorted by French navy ships: 48,000 rifles, 490 boxes of ammunition, 95 sub-machine guns, 148 boxes of bombs, 20 artillery guns, 1,980 artillery shell, 8,000 pistols, 18,000 bullets, 7,000 pistols of the former Montenegro Army, 9,000 bullets, 7,000 swords, 20,000 bayonets, 280 telescopes of the former German army, 1,440 benzin kits, 850 saddles.

According to a third source, French military aid was granted in two parts. The
first delivery occurred during May 1921 and consisted of 48,000 Mauser-type rifles with
their ammunition, 20 Skoda artillery guns with 148 ammunition boxes, and 95 machine
guns. The second part of the aid arrived in the summer of 1922, just before the great
August Turkish attack and included 1,500 machine-guns with 400 army vehicles, providing massive mobility for the Turkish army."

Did Venizelos have any suggestions to coordinate with the French in Cilicia, the last armenian homeland?
 
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