Movement of National Defence

The Provisional Government of National Defence (Greek: Προσωρινή Κυβέρνηση της Εθνικής Αμύνης) was a parallel administration set up in the city of Thessaloniki by former Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and his supporters during World War I, in opposition and rivalry to the official royal government in Athens.

The establishment of this second Greek state has its origins in the debate over Greece's entry into the war on behalf of the Entente, as advocated by Venizelos, or a Germanophile neutrality as preferred by King Constantine I. This dissension soon began to divide Greek society around the two leaders, beginning the so-called "National Schism". In August 1916, as parts of eastern Macedonia were not defended by the royal government against a Bulgarian invasion, Venizelist officers of the Hellenic Army launched an Entente-supported coup in Thessaloniki. After a brief hesitation, Venizelos and his principal supporters joined the uprising and began the establishment of a second Greek government in the north of the country, which entered the war on the side of the Entente. The National Defence government endured until June 1917, when the Entente powers forced Constantine I to abdicate, and allowed Venizelos to return to Athens as Prime Minister of a unified country. Nevertheless, the establishment of the National Defence government deepened the rift of the National Schism, which would plague Greek political life for over a generation, and contribute to the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

Greece had emerged victorious from the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars, with her territory almost doubled, but found itself in a difficult international situation. The status of the Greek-occupied eastern Aegean islands was left undetermined, and the Ottoman Empire continued to claim them, leading to a naval arms race and mass expulsions of ethnic Greeks from Anatolia. In the north, Bulgaria, defeated in the Second Balkan War, harbored revanchist plans against Greece and Serbia. The two countries were bound by a treaty of alliance which promised military assistance in case of a Bulgarian attack, but in August 1914, the danger would emerge from a different quarter altogether: the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand led to the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary on Serbia and the outbreak of the First World War.

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