Lloyd George and the arms dealer
Espionage and expediency made him prime minister but led to catastrophe for Greece
The ingenious bargain
While at the Ministry of Munitions, Lloyd George was once again the friend of big business and the industrial-financial oligarchies with whom he curried favour when at the Board of Trade. He was caught up too deeply in the mesh of international armaments intrigues to be a free agent. For the man to whom he turned for help and advice was Sir Basil Zaharoff, chief agent of the Vickers Company, with a roving commission to go where he liked and sell arms to whomever he could at a commission. When war came in 1914 Zaharoff was at the zenith of his power and, with the aid of Lloyd George, soon filled the role of unofficial chief inter-Allied munitions agent.
With Zaharoff, Lloyd George made an ingenious bargain that enabled the Welshman to show how he was obtaining more shells at lower cost. An essential part of this bargain was that Zaharoff should co-operate in reducing costs on the understanding that he was personally allowed to make larger profits by selling more shells and guns.
Donald McCormick, The Mask of Merlin
Zaharoff was the master of what one biographer has called the "principle of incitement," under which war scares were managed ... as one commentator has observed, if you would see his monument, look about you at the military graveyards of Europe.
Ludwig von Mises Institute
Weaknesses and secrets
Zaharoff ... took steps to find out all about Lloyd George, his weaknesses and secrets, and the man he employed to do this was none other than Arthur Maundy Gregory, the honours tout. Gregory had long been closely associated with Sir Basil Thomson, [Head of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Investigation Branch, the enforcer for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)] on counter espionage work and, according to Thomson, Gregory informed him that he had discovered that sometime during the early nineties Lloyd George had had a brief liaison with Zaharoff s English wife. To what extent Zaharoff used this uncorroborated information to gain influence with LI. G. is not clear, but he seems to have decided that, while Lloyd George could be a dangerous enemy, it would be preferable to come to terms with him.
The Mask of Merlin
The sabotage of Sykes-Picot
Sir Basil Thompson in the course of his probes into Bolshevik activities had discovered documents which incriminated servants of the Crown as secret agents of Sir Basil Zaharoff with the knowledge of Lloyd George. Thomson had certain suspects followed, and then learned that Zaharoff, the man who had lavished presents on the Czar and his family, had established links with the Bolsheviks, It was purely a temporary arrangement by which Zaharoff sought to divert munitions supplies intended for the White Russians so that they could be delivered to Greece and certain Balkan countries for ultimate use against the Turks. Zaharoff had by devious means done his utmost both in London and Paris to call off the campaign against the Bolsheviks. Not, of course, that he was pro-Communist, but simply that he wanted the arms to carve an empire for Greece in the Balkans. Zaharoff knew that if the White Russians won, they might agitate for Constantinople, as promised to them in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. He wanted Constantinople for Greece and he had received an assurance from the Bolsheviks that they would make no claim for this city.
The Mask of Merlin
Constantinople for Greece
The seeds of Venizelos's policy were sown before the Great War in the secret talks he held with Lloyd George, Churchill and Sir John Savridi in late 1912 and early 1913. What animated Venizelos and Lloyd George was the idea of an Anglo-Greek entente. Greece was to be the coming power in the Mediterranean, and in place of the crumbling Ottoman Empire it would be the pillar of Britain's policies and the protector of Britain's imperial communications: the Suez Canal and the route to India. In return Greece would have Britain's diplomatic and material support, vaguely specified but potentially very important.
Michael Llewellyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922
[Venizelos was Prime Minister of Greece 1910-20, 1928-32]
Greece has great possibilities in the Near East and you must be as powerful as possible in the military sense in order to take advantage of them. We are trying to get America to take the mandate for Istanbul and her presence there will in no way prevent Istanbul from coming under Greek Sovereignty in the fullness of time. President Wilson is not against the idea, but he has doubts whether American public opinion and therefore the Senate will approve it. If they don't approve it the only solution which England will accept for Istanbul is for it to go to Greece.
Speech by Lloyd George 9 May 1919, quoted in Eleftherios Venizelos, Diaries
The sower of chaos
I do not want to mention names, but there is one name I shall mention, and that is the name of a very great financier, who is reputed to be the richest man in the world Sir Basil Zaharoff it is said that his very great wealth is derived from this source : that he has owned munitions factories in many countries. He has been one of the strong supporters of the Greek policy. The result of that Greek policy has been that the whole of the East is in chaos, and that Great Britain has made enemies throughout the entire East. Sir Basil Zaharoff is reputed to have paid 4 millions out of his own pocket for the upkeep of the Greek invading force in Asia Minor.
Lieut.-Colonel the Hon.Aubrey Herbert MP, House of Commons, July 17, 1922
The Asia Minor Catastrophe
The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, known as the Western Front of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey and the Asia Minor Campaign or the Asia Minor Catastrophe in Greece, was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922.
The Greek campaign was launched primarily as the western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. The armed conflict started with the Greek occupation of Smyrna on 15 May 1919 and Greek forces occupied several other cities `in Anatolia during the war ... but their advance was checked at the Battle of Sakarya in 1921. The Greek front collapsed with the Turkish counter-attack on August 1922 and the war effectively ended with the re-capture of Smyrna by the Turkish forces.
The Armistice of Mudanya [October 11, 1922] was followed by the Treaty of Lausanne, a significant provision of which was an exchange of populations. Over one million Greek Orthodox Christians were displaced; most of them were resettled in Attica and the newly incorporated Greek territories of Macedonia and Thrace and were exchanged with about 500,000 Muslims displaced from the Greek territories.
Wikipedia
