National Schism

The National Schism (Greek: Εθνικός Διχασμός, romanized: Ethnikós Dichasmós), also sometimes called The Great Division, was a series of disagreements between King Constantine I and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos over Greece's foreign policy from 1915 to 1922. The central issue was whether Greece should join World War I, with Venizelos advocating for alignment with the Allies, while the king supported neutrality that favored the Central Powers. This personal conflict between the two men had far-reaching consequences, as it raised questions about the king's constitutional role in the state and eventually led to a deep division within Greek society.

After Bulgaria had entered the war against Serbia (already besieged by Germany's and Austria-Hungary's combined attack), in September 1915, Venizelos achieved a vote on October 4 in the parliament for a call to conscription, honoring the alliance treaty between Greece and Serbia. The next day Allied forces landed in Salonika to establish the Macedonian front. The King refused to sign the conscription bill, accusing Venizelos of treason for the 'invasion' in Salonika and forcing him to resign for a second time within that year (1915).

Eight months later, in May and June 1916, the palace counterweighted the grip of the Entente in Salonika with the unconditional surrender of a strong military fort along with half of the eastern part of Macedonia to the German-Bulgarian forces. The disagreements of the two men had now escalated towards a covert civil war. In August 1916, followers of Venizelos set up the Provisional Government of "National Defence", which controlled northern Greece, the Aegean Islands and Crete, and sided with Entente. This act, which effectively split Greece into north and south entities, had the aim of reclaiming the trust of the Entente along with the lost regions of Macedonia, and to regain control over northern Greece, gradually lost after the growing Army of the Orient had landed, one year earlier.