The "State of National Defence"
Venizelos himself proceeded from Crete through the Aegean islands to Thessaloniki. Upon his arrival there, the "Revolutionary Committee" handed over power to him. On September 16, Venizelos formed a "National Triumvirate" with General Panagiotis Danglis and Admiral Pavlos Koundouriotis, and proceeded to form a government. On 29 September, Maj Gen Emmanouil Zymvrakakis was appointed Army Minister (replaced on December 6 by Maj Gen Konstantinos Miliotis-Komninos) and on October 3 Nikolaos Politis was appointed Foreign Minister. On 6 October other ministries, euphemistically called "General Directorates" were established:
- Themistoklis Sophoulis, Interior Minister
- Miltiadis Negrepontis, Finance Minister
- Thalis Koutoupis, Minister of National Economy
- Dimitrios Dingas, Justice Minister
- Georgios Averof, Education Minister
- Alexandros Kassavetis, Transport Minister
- Leonidas Embeirikos, Minister for Supply and Food Distribution
- Spyridon Simos, Minister for the Refugees
- Andreas Michalakopoulos, Minister for Public Estates and Resettlement
The first tasks of the new government were the establishment of an army to fight alongside the Allies, and the consolidation of its rule in as much of Greece as possible. The Provisional Government declared war on the Central Powers on November 24 1916, and set out to recruit divisions for the Macedonian Front, something which was achieved with speed and often ruthlessness. Despite calls by some officers to abolish the monarchy and declare a Republic, Venizelos chose a more moderate path. He had declared: "we are not against the King, but against the Bulgarians". Nonetheless, the reluctant and uneasy coexistence of the two Greek states was not destined to last, as the Noemvriana riots against Venizelists in Athens clearly illustrated that a rapprochement was now impossible.
The division of the country lasted for 9 months. On June 15, 1917 a Venizelist ultimatum forced King Constantine to abdicate in favour of his second-born son, Alexander, and, with the rest of his family, leave the country for Switzerland. Venizelos returned to Athens, as head of a superficially reunified Greece, and led it to victory alongside the Allies in World War I, but also in its entanglement in the subsequent Asia Minor Campaign. As such, the immediate aims of the "National Defence" were met. But the revolution was also an expression of the wide rift between the quasi-republican, progressive Venizelists and the conservative Royalists/Anti-Venizelists, and its outbreak marks also the beginning of the Greek National Schism which would leave a troublesome legacy to the country, as it continued in various forms up to the 1970s.
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