The Domino Effect Part 1: Some Damn Foolish Thing in the Balkans
At the beginning of 1918, Russia was in a state of chaos. She was in the midst of a civil war while still maintaining a frontline against the Central Powers. Despite that, the frontline was simply quiet. At a small town in Byelorussia, the Bolsheviks and the Germans were in the process of negotiating a peace treaty. A peace that Lenin so desperately needed.
While most of them would have preferred any kind of peace, Leon Trotsky was against such a thing. He wanted to spread the revolution even if it meant continuing a useless war against the Germans. When the Germans sensed an impasse by the Bolsheviks, they simply marched their armies forward.
For 11 days, they had captured the whole of Ukraine, the Baltics, most of Byelorussia, and all of Finland. By the time they were done, the Germans were nearly within reach of Petrograd. This spooked the Bolsheviks into ultimately acquiescing to whatever peace terms the Germans offered.
Thus, on March 3rd, 1918, the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. Russia was out of the war and had lost huge swathes of land in Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, and Finland. Germany and Austria-Hungary could now move their huge numbers of divisions to the other fronts.
Romania, as well, signed a peace with the Central Powers. In the treaty of Bucharest, they gave up huge areas of land to Austria and Bulgaria while gaining Bessarabia as compensation.
With the big giant out, it was now time to take out the weakest link in the Entente. And that weak link was Greece.
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While Greece had been in the war since last year, it was one of reluctance. While the King had ties to the German Kaiser, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos wasn't a fan of the Central Powers. He openly sided with the Allies in the hope of gaining more land for Greece at the expense of her neighbors.
Things would change, however, as more men and equipment arrived towards the Bulgarian frontlines. This became a concern for the melting pot that was the Allied forces in Greece as they feared the Bulgarians were about to launch an offensive.
This became true on April 10, as a combined offensive was unleashed on the Allies in Macedonia. Having been unprepared for the number of enemy divisions that were attacking them, the Allies are pushed back. As they are pushed back, the city of Salonika falls to the Bulgarians. Now they could advance down across Greece towards Athens. Despite putting up hastily organized defenses, the Greeks could not slow down the tide of the advancing Central Powers. The Austrians had advanced through Albania and to Epirus. The Bulgarian, on the other hand, were poised to march into Thessaly.
Fearing that the end is near if they don't act quickly, King Alexander sacks Venizelos and appoints Dinitrios Gounaris as the new PM. 2 days later, Greece requests an armistice. The Macedonian front had fallen silent and another Entente member had bitten the dust. Now it was time to deal with the backstabber, Italy.
Greek frontlines in May 1918