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Updated: June 20, 2025
Submarine mines, stored as if ready to be launched, were discovered at the mouth of the Vardar River, and the fort at the entrance to the upper Gulf of Saloniki had been secretly strengthened and heavy guns mounted. The port swarmed with German and Austrian and Bulgarian spies; its atmosphere was heavy with hostility to the Allies.
Added to this the favorable position of the Allies from a strategic point of view, it was obvious, by the middle of August, that if active hostilities were to break out on the Saloniki front very shortly, the initiative would most likely come from the Allies. Throughout the early part of March, 1916, military operations on the Italian front were very restricted.
From this time on the situation in Greece ceased to be a source of serious trouble to the Allied commanders at Saloniki. It was learned on January 17 that a German sea raider, which had succeeded in slipping through the cordon of British ships, had been preying on commerce in the south Atlantic for six weeks.
It betokened a more intensive preparation for the prosecution of the war by England and her Allies. It also pointed to the swelling tide of supplies flowing from America. France was to sustain the supreme affliction of the war at sea on February 26, 1916. La Provence was sunk that day. She had sailed from Marseilles with 3,500 soldiers and a crew of 500 men, bound for Saloniki.
At any moment the enemy at Saloniki might strike, and to guard against such a possibility, the Austro-Germans would have to maintain larger forces along the railroad than they could spare. At all costs the Serbians must be prevented from joining the Allies.
One notable feature of the raid was that the squadron had to contend with a forty-mile gale from abeam during the whole trip and they had also to fly over mountains 6,000 feet in height. By noon both sections of the squadron had returned to Saloniki.
And now, after the failure of the French troops to join up with the Serbians in Babuna Pass, arose the probability of withdrawing their forces in Serbian and Bulgarian territory across the frontier to Saloniki. Thus arose the question: How would Greece comport herself on their retirement? Would she give them complete freedom of communication south of the frontier to Saloniki?
Wrecked near Stavanger on May 3. Unnamed airship. Destroyed by British warships off Schleswig on May 4. Unnamed airship. Brought down by Allied warships at Saloniki on May 5. Burned and wrecked near Enfield, September 3. L-32 and L-33. Brought down in Essex, September 24. Airship brought down at Potter's Bar, October 1. Two airships brought down in flames off the east coast, November 27-28.
Thus what is known to international law as a "measure of constraint short of war" was instituted. The pressure was at once felt. At Saloniki particularly the people were obliged to live from hand to mouth, the supply boats being able to bring in only enough flour to last two days.
At the same time she worried the Greek government about the future of Saloniki, and that at a time when the Greek people were criticizing Mr. Venizelos for having allowed the Bulgarians to occupy regions in Macedonia and Thrace inhabited by Greeks, notably Seres, Drama, and Kavala, and the adjacent country between the Struma and the Mesta.
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