ABSTRACT
Greece, under Venizelos’s leadership, emerged as a significant regional naval power in the eastern Mediterranean and positively responded to the explicit British interest in some form of naval cooperation in case of war. With the end of the Balkan Wars, Greece desperately needed peace; however, the Great War broke out, ushering in the dilemma of which foreign policy to follow. The outbreak of the Great War made any prospect of stability in the eastern Mediterranean appear unlikely. The people who shaped that very policy were faced with a series of dilemmas. The first was related to the fact that Greece was bound by the Greek–Serbian Friendship Treaty of 1913, which was accompanied by a military accord stipulating that military assistance was to be provided in case one of the two signatories were attacked without cause by a third country. The outbreak of the Great War made any prospect of stability in the eastern Mediterranean appear unlikely.
