The Noemvriana (Greek: Νοεμβριανά, "November Events") of November–December 1916 was a political dispute, which led to an armed confrontation in Athens between the royalist government of Greece and the Allies forces over the issue of Greece's neutrality during World War I.
Friction existed between the two sides from the beginning of World War I. The unconditional surrender of Fort Rupel, in May 1916, (a significant military fort in Macedonia) to the Central Powers' forces, mainly composed of Bulgarian troops, was the first event that led to Noemvriana. The Allies feared the possibility of a secret pact between the Greek royalist government and the Central Powers. Such an alliance would endanger the Allied army in Macedonia bivouacking there since the end of 1915. Intensive diplomatic negotiations between King Constantine and Allied diplomats took place throughout the summer. The king wanted Greece to maintain her neutrality, a position that would favor the Central Powers plans in the Balkans. While the Allies wanted demobilization of the Greek army and the surrender of war materiel equivalent to what was lost at Fort Rupel as a guarantee of Greece's neutrality. By the end of the summer of 1916, the failure of negotiations, along with Bulgarian army attacks against the Greek population in Macedonian, led to a military coup by Venizelists military officers in Thessaloniki with the support of the Allies. The Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who from the very beginning supported the Allies, established a provisional government in northern Greece. He began forming an army to liberate areas lost to Bulgaria, but this effectively split Greece into two entities.
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