The komitadji's assassination of a Romanian professor opposed to the arguments of the commission and their capture of a female American missionary forces Austria and Russia to suggest reforms in the vilayets (administrative divisions) of Salonika, ...

Some in Macedonia want full unification with Greece, others want a separate Macedonian state, and still others want Macedonia to be included in a Serbian or Albanian or Bulgarian state.

This issue is appallingly divisive, and the choice often is literally a matter of life or death.

Guerrilla fighters and propagandists enter Macedonia from Greece and all the other countries of the region.

Athens actively supports the irredentist movement in Macedonia with money, materials, and about two thousand  troops.

Thessaloniki becomes more of a Greek city as non-Greek merchants suffer boycotts and leave.

Greece's lack of access to this key port heightens tension with the Slavic neighbors.

Under these circumstances, all the Great Powers have become more involved in the Macedonian problem in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Britain pressures Greece to curb guerrilla activities.

When the Young Turks took over the government of the Ottoman Empire with a reformist agenda in 1908, a short period of cordial negotiations with the Greeks has been chilled by reversion to nationalist, authoritarian rule in Constantinople.

New Ottoman intransigence over Crete and Macedonia combine with Venizeos' demand for complete reunification to raise the prospect of war in 1910.

… while the Greeks take Salonika (now Thessaloníki), …

The Allies, driven back over the Greek frontier, are by mid-December occupying merely the Salonika region.

In the spring of 1916, French, British, and some Russian troops, as well the revived Serbs from Corfu, reinforce the Allies at Salonika …

… and transfers it early in October to Salonika, which, like most of “New Greece,” is passionately loyal to Venizélos.

Prince Aleksandar, commander in chief of the expatriate Serbian Army, brings the leaders of the Black Hand to trial on dubious charges at Salonika in 1917 in order to eliminate his rival Dimitrijevic.

In May, Dimitrijevic is sentenced to death with six other officers: he and two others are executed, and more than 200 are imprisoned.

For the past two years, Entente armies have remained inactive at Salonika, where the Allies' politically ambitious but militarily ineffective commander in chief, General Sarrail, had been replaced at the end of 1917 by General Guillaumat, who had in turn been succeeded in July 1918 by General L.-F.-F. Franchet d'Esperey.

Now that the Central Powers have begun to disintegrate, D'Esperey launches a major offensive in September with six Serbian and two French divisions against a seven-mile front held by only one Bulgarian division, which is thoroughly demoralized by antiwar propaganda and harsh conditions.

The same day, Bulgarian delegates sign the Armistice of Salonika, accepting the Allies' terms unreservedly; …