Our Man in Athens

Many describe Athens as the peaceful city of great ancient monuments, elegant neoclassical buildings and large avenues with sparse motor traffic; the capital of a neutral country during the Great War. Nonetheless, the city was a secret battlefield. British and French spymasters, gentlemen officers of colonial wars yet utterly amateurs and Prussian hard-trained infantry officers were unable to understand the game of espionage and waged their war in order to turn Greece to their own side. In parallel, the Anglophile Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos aimed for the country to join the Entente against the Central Powers. In contrast, King Constantine demanded that Greece remain neutral, to the strategic advantage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose sister, Sofia, Constantine had married. Political philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote of ‘the war all against all’. Indeed, in Athens and Salonica espionage and intrigue was the game of all against all; from watchful street informers, cunning ambassadors, reckless spymasters, Machiavellian politicians, adventure-seeking arms dealers, to prime ministers and members of the royal family. No doubt, the history and characters of the secret war for Greece surpasses fiction.