June 18, 2022 • 48 mins
The Greek state evolved from an absolute monarchy to democracy, but not without more than a few bumps in the road.
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Jen (00:02):
The station at Aigion was opened on March 1st, 1919, and
was operated for two months.
It was established for thepurpose of caring for a group of
refugees about 1,300 in number,who had been driven from their
homes and Eastern Macedonia andThrace over four years before
and had been kept in Bulgariaunder conditions, which reduced
(00:25):
them to a deplorable state.
After the signing of thearmistice, they had made their
way through Bulgaria, Serbia andBosnia, and had been put aboard
ship at Fiume and brought toAigion where they had been
established a few days beforeour attention was drawn to their
condition.
Quote.
(00:45):
"The committee for relief of therefugees at Aigion, which
included Mr.
Messenessi, a currant merchantof the town.
And Mr.
Coutoulas, the governmentrepresentative, established them
in warehouses on the waterfrontand then each family had a
certain amount of floor space inwhich to live.
(01:06):
Some of the more fortunate hadbrought boxes or bags of old
treasures, rugs, old clothes,and even seeds, and with these,
had built a barricade aroundtheir little spot and had spread
their bright rugs and blanketson the floor.
Others had nothing, but the ragsthey wore; perhaps a blanket or
(01:27):
two and a brass pot." End quote.
From Miss Horsford's Report onAigion Station.
By May 1st, most of the refugeeshad found work in the fields and
were getting regular wages andthe government expected to
return them shortly to theirhomes.
So the station was closed.
(01:48):
This is from the Final Report,Department of Civilian Relief by
the American Red CrossCommission to Greece.
July 1st, 1919 I'm Jen Glaubius,and this is The Helonaki Deep
Dive, a podcast about mappingand analysis for historical and
archeological research.
(02:10):
In this episode I'll finish upthe survey of Greek history.
by looking at Greece after theWar of Independence.
So Greece in the 19th and 20thcenturies.
Let's dive in.
Before we get started.
I just want to mention that thiswill be the last episode until
(02:32):
this fall, since I'm leaving forGreece soon to work on an
excavation.
But on my trip, I will bespending a few days in the
Vostitsa area.
And I'll release dispatches frommy time in Vostitsa, for all
supporters of the podcast onPatreon.
You can get access to thosedispatches and other sneak peaks
(02:55):
for the podcast by joining thePatreon at any level.
And you can do that atpatreon.com/helonaki that's
Patreon, P A T R E O n.com/ H EL O N A K I.
(03:15):
Now with that, let's pick upwhere we left off last time.
Which was at the end of theGreek war of independence.
Where the great powers of Europehad stepped in and stopped the
fighting and said, Greece isindependent now.
And then they found a Germanprince to be king and brought
him in.
(03:35):
If you look at the map on thecover for this episode, it has
the expansions of Greece.
The main part of Greece.
In blue is the kingdom of Greeceas established in 1832.
And this includes all of thePeloponnese.
Including the Vostitsa area.
And that's going to be the core,kind of the stable part of
(03:59):
Greece.
But you can see on the map thatthey add different pieces
through time.
And we're going to be talkingabout that expansion.
But that first line betweenGreece and what's labeled as
Thessaly.
That line was drawn by Britishsurveyors.
And they did it by looking atthe landscape.
(04:19):
So they looked at ravines andpeaks and drew their lines that
way.
Completely disregarding anyhuman aspects of use of that
landscape.
And so people lived in oneplace, but the areas where they
had taken their livestock forpasturage would be on the other
(04:39):
side of the line.
It was a bit of a mess.
And you also have this issuewhere you do have Greek peoples
in most of the areas that yousee that Greece acquired.
And sometimes had to give backthrough time.
They weren't necessarily themajority, but there were Greek
people or at least Orthodoxpeople, even if they don't
(05:03):
necessarily speak Greek or thinkof themselves as Greek, in most
of those areas.
And so.
This region is going to becontested through time because
Greece really wanted to expand.
What they called how they wantto expand was the Megali Idea or
Great Idea where they wanted tobasically get some of the
(05:27):
boundaries of the Byzantineempire.
But.
Other countries.
Other nations that were beingestablished in the breakup of
the Ottoman empire.
They also put claims on parts ofthis area especially Macedonia.
And we'll be talking about thatlater.
So expansion of the Greek stateis one of the themes we're going
to be talking about today.
(05:50):
Another of the themes is whatsystem of government is there in
Greece.
And what is the role of themonarchy?
And that's going to changethrough time and we're going to
track that.
We're also going to look at howthe people of Greece are divided
through time.
So we know that there were civilwars during the Greek
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revolution.
There was division even whenthey were trying to fight
against the Ottoman empire.
And these divides continuethrough time.
As happens in any place.
But these divisions.
At certain points in Greekhistory are very, very serious.
And because of those divisions,there are a number of military
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coups.
And foreign interventions thatsometimes make those divisions
even worse.
So in 1833, Greece was anabsolute monarchy ruled by King
Otho who had been placed on thethrone by the great powers of
Europe.
And keep in mind that theabsolute monarchy means that
(06:58):
there was no elected legislatureat all at the beginning of
Greece as a modern state.
And this is despite the factthat the Greeks themselves had
convened national assemblies,which didn't always work very
well, but they had convenedtheir own national assemblies
during the war of independence.
And so.
They really wanted a say intheir government.
(07:22):
In addition to this Otho broughtalong German advisors.
He was a minor when he came tothe throne and there were three
Regents.
And even after he came of age,he still kept a lot of advisers
who are not Greek around him.
And that caused a lot oftension.
So some of the things that Othohad to do from the very
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beginning is.
Repair all the devastation fromthe war of independence.
There's also a lot of debt fromthe war of independence,
borrowed from different Europeancountries.
In addition, there were a lot ofGreek people who didn't have
land.
There were still the largelandowners.
They had been able to keep theirland.
(08:02):
Of course.
But many of the peasants wantedto actually acquire land.
So in 1835, there was a'Law forthe Dotation of Greek families'.
Which basically was that thesefamilies could get a mortgage of
2000 drachmas, which they coulduse to buy up to four hectares
(08:23):
of land.
Now four hectares of land is notthat much.
And certainly in Greece.
Four hectares is not enough,really, even for subsistence.
So the families would getsometimes much, much less than
four hectares and have to try tofeed themselves on it.
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And it wasn't really workable.
Plus they had to pay back these2000 drachmas and these families
went into debt So due to ongoingunrest and dissatisfaction with
a lack of representativegovernment.
In 1843.
So a decade after Otho comes tothe throne.
(09:05):
There's a coup.
The upshot of it was that aconstituent assembly was
elected.
To write a Greek constitutionthat made Greece into a
constitutional monarchy.
So they were like, we'll keepthe king, but we're going to
have two chambers.
In a legislature.
The Monarch can dismissministers.
(09:27):
He can dissolve the parliament.
He can veto legislation.
But it ended this decade ofOtho, just having absolute power
over Greece.
Things still didn't go well forOtho.
A decade after that during theCrimean war, Greece tried to
expand northwards.
(09:47):
But here we have intervention bythe French and British who
landed at Piraeus, which is theport of Athens, and then
occupied Athens itself to keepthe Greeks from actually trying
to expand northwards intoThessaly.
So there's anger about that.
General debts people unhappy.
(10:09):
And so in the middle of October,1862, King Otho and his wife
Amalia.
Left Athens to go on a tour ofthe Peloponnese and they left by
ship.
Now, Otho and Amalia had beenmarried for years, they didn't
have any children.
Neither of them had converted tothe Greek Orthodox religion.
(10:31):
They weren't not super liked atthis point.
And so when they tried to comeback to Athens and they tried to
dock at Piraeus, the Royal Navyblocked them.
A provisional government seized,power and Otho and Amalia never
set foot in Greece again.
Otho died about five years laterin Munich.
(10:53):
Otho was the first king thatGreece broke up with.
He would not be the last.
So with Otho gone.
The European powers lookedaround at all the German princes
to find a new king for Greece.
The man they found was PrinceChristian William Ferdinand
(11:14):
Adolphus George of Holstein-Sonderberg- Glucksbrug.
Who is crowned as George thefirst.
He had some advantages overOtho.
He didn't convert to OrthodoxChristianity, but he did marry
Olga who was Russian Orthodox.
And they named their first sonConstantine, which as you'll
(11:35):
remember is a nice Greek name,going back to the Romans and
Byzantines.
George also didn't bring foreignadministrators with him.
So he was working with theGreeks more.
But.
Greece did draft a newconstitution in 1863 that gave
more power to the people.
(11:55):
This constitution also changedthe parliament from having two
chambers to just one.
The king could still appoint anddismiss ministers.
He could dissolve parliament anddisperse funds.
Declare war sign treaties.
He still had a lot of power.
And George used this power inthe first decade.
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He was on the throne.
Between 1865 and 1875.
There were seven generalelections.
And 18 different administrationsthat formed because George kept
dissolving parliament.
Greece also gained.
The Ionian islands from Britainwhen George came to the throne.
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Britain had been in charge ofthe Ionian islands, including
Corfu, but the people there didnot really want the British
around anymore.
And the British thought thatGeorge coming to the throne was
a good time for them to giveGreece these islands.
In 1877.
There was a general uprising inthe Christian parts of the
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Balkan.
So Bosnia, Herzegovina,Bulgaria, and Romania, which
were still under increasinglyweak Ottoman control.
This war quickly became Russiaversus Ottoman.
But the Russians, since theGreek war of independence had
changed from being all proOrthodox religion.
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To only being pro Slavicpeoples, which excluded Greece.
So Greece wasn't especiallyenthused about getting involved
in this war and trying to helpRussia.
But Greece did try to expandterritory by sending bands of
guerillas, to Thessaly, Epiros,and Macedonia to try to get
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land.
Greece.
finally decided that they shouldmobilize the army get official
troops into the areas that theyhad taken in the fighting.
But three hours later afterthey've mobilized the army, an
armistice was declared betweenthe Ottoman and Russian empires.
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Because Greece didn't have anyofficial troops in the land that
they had taken.
They could not officially claimany land.
The Ottomans ended up having togive up Serbia, Montenegro and
Romania.
A few years later in 1881,however, Greece did get Southern
Epiros and Thessaly and added alot of territory to the Greek
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state.
But it still wasn't enough.
So they still had this greatidea that should expand.
And the area that was most undercontention was Macedonia.
Which was claimed by Greece, bySerbia, by Bulgaria.
And by the Ottomans whotechnically still held that
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area.
And that's because Macedonia hasa lot of very rich agricultural
land.
And it also contained.
And still contains the largecity of Salonika Thessaloniki.
And so Macedonia would be anongoing issue.
(15:13):
In the late 18 hundreds.
Greece has been in debt.
But they know, they need tomodernize things.
So.
They drain the Kopaic basin andBoeotia, something that had not
been done since the Late BronzeAge.
There's also a canal.
Cut through the isthmus atCorinth, that shortens time for
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shipping.
And the first railways areconstructed.
But to do all thismodernization.
Greece had to take out loans.
And they really didn't have muchfor industry.
They did have agriculturalproduce.
But what they really relied onwere harvests of currant grapes.
(15:57):
And they were able to do thisthrough the 1870s and 1880s
because the currents had areally high price.
And this is because.
Vineyards in France, Italy andSpain had been destroyed by
these insects that originallycame from North America that ate
the leaves off of the vines.
Greece wasn't affected.
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And so they Cultivated more andmore of these currants.
Vostitsa had always been an areawhere currants were grown.
But other parts of Greeceexpanded the number of currants
that they.
Grew because they were able tomake a nice, nice profit off of
it.
But the good times ended in1893.
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When prices of currants fellsharply.
And that's because France, Italyand Spain were able to get
vineyards re-established andthen they put in protective
tariffs for their own vineyardsand stopped.
Importing so many Greekcurrants.
And this is the time where youalso have California grapes
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starting to emerge into theworld market.
Government revenue was reallybased on the price of currants.
And so when the price fell.
The amount of money that theGreek government had also fell
and the government was bankruptat this point.
There was migration of half amillion people from Greece
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between 1890 and 1920.
Because conditions were so dire.
But in 1897 Greece got into awar of the Ottomans, trying to
expand into Epiros andThessaly..
It did not go well for Greece.
they Lost territory.
And very quickly, the greatpowers stopped this and made the
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Ottomans and Greeks sign anarmistice.
Where Greece owed.
The Ottoman empire money, whichthey didn't have.
And so they had to borrow moremoney.
One bright spot was that Cretewas still part of the Ottoman
empire, but then became anautonomous province.
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And Greece had a bit of a say ofwhat was going on.
This did not satisfy the peopleof Crete who wanted to join with
Greece, but it was something.
The Greek people really blamedthe monarchy for this defeat.
And it's especially because thecrown prince Constantine led the
military and they got beaten sobadly.
So things were not going well.
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As the 20th century began.
Things muddled along in Greeceuntil 1909.
When a Military League Let acoup that took over the Greek
government.
None of their demands were metbecause really they wanted
controls on the Royal family.
But they decided to return thegovernment to civilian hands,
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which is very unusual.
This military league decidedthat they wanted Eleftherios
Venizelos to be the leader ofthis new government.
Now Venizelos was born in Chaniaon Crete.
He had studied law at theuniversity of Athens, but he was
very active in the Cretanindependence movement.
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And this included leading arevolt in 1905 against prince
George of Greece, who was thehigh commissioner of Crete.
But Venizelos had to stopbecause the great powers
intervened.
But throughout his life,Venizelos and the Greek Royal
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family would not get along atall.
With big consequences for Greeceitself.
So the military league pickedVenizelos.
And his party won election in1910.
And Venizelos brought in a lotof reforms reformed the
judiciary, legislature, themonarchy itself.
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Worked on education.
Was good for labor relations andlegalized trade unions set up a
national health insurancesystem.
There was land reform.
They instituted a graduatedincome tax, which was huge and
restructured the military.
So they were doing pretty well.
But among all of these reallygood things that happened,
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Venizelos also had someauthoritarian measures put in
place, including suspendingcivil rights, such as protection
from arbitrary seizure, right totrial by jury.
And need for, cause for search.
Curtailed freedom of the pressand the rights to public
assembly.
So tried to shut down ways thatanyone could protest against
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them.
But except for theseauthoritarian measures.
Venizelos in general was really,really liked.
And his government did a goodjob, such a good job that by
1912, the Greek treasuryactually had a surplus Which
went away.
With the Balkan wars, whichoccurred between 1912 and 1913.
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These were two separate wars.
Over territory in Macedonia andall the countries that were
still under Ottoman rule in theBalkans.
So the first war.
Was basically.
Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greeceagainst the Ottoman empire.
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In this war, Greece ended up incontrol of Thessaloniki, which
is something they wanted.
After this war.
The area was divvied up.
But none of these countries werehappy with it.
And the second Balkan warstarted in late July, 1913.
When Bulgaria attacked Serbia.
So this time instead of beingagainst the Ottoman empire.
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All the countries were againstBulgaria.
So it was Greece Romania, Serbiaand the Ottomans attacking
Bulgaria.
Bulgaria lost, had to give upterritory to Greece, Serbia,
Romania, and the Ottomans andthe country of Albania was
basically set.
But the Balkan wars were ahorrible humanitarian disaster.
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Besides all the casualties ofthe fighting, there were also
paramilitaries conducting ethniccleansing, especially of Muslims
in the area.
So you end up with a lot ofMuslims from this region going
into the Ottoman empire andbeing very, very much in favor
of nationalism in Turkey.
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Another thing that happened.
In 1912 during The Balkan warsafter Greece had gained control
of Thessaloniki.
Was that king George, the first,when he was out for his daily
walk along the waterfront inThessaloniki.
Was assassinated.
George's son Constantine thenbecame king.
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A few years later, world war onebroke out.
King Constantine I had a lot ofties to Germany.
He'd had his military trainingin Germany.
His wife queen Sophia actuallywas the sister of Kaiser
Wilhelm.
And so he was very sympatheticto the triple Alliance of
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Germany, Austria, and Italy.
This Alliance that the Ottomanempire and Bulgaria would join.
Venizelos and most of Greece,however, were in favor of the
side of Britain, France andRussia.
Because those countries hadconsistently helped Greece in
the past.
Constantine recognized that, andhe tried to keep Greece,
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neutral.
But Venizelos worked with theBritish and French, invited them
in to open up a front, tried toforce Constantine's hand.
It ended up.
That Venizelos formed aprovisional government in the
city of Thessaloniki.
And the French and Britishsupported this provisional
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government because Venizelos wasgoing to help them.
And so France and Britain putpressure on Constantine to
abdicate in favor of his son,Alexander.
at least until the war was over.
To put pressure on Constantineto abdicate, France and Britain
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blockaded Greek ports in centraland Southern part of Greece.
This blockade led to foodshortages and starvation, a lot
of misery, which turned a lot ofpeople in central and Southern
Greece away from.
France and Britain.
But Constantine eventuallyabdicated for his son,
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Alexander.
At the end of world war one,Venizelos attended the Paris
peace talks.
And so he spent a few years awayfrom Greece And during those
peace talks, he got permissionfor Greek troops to occupy
Smyrna, which is the Turkishcity of Izmir.
(25:06):
On the coast of Asia minor.
This is an area that had a lotof local Greek people.
and so Greece had been lookingto acquire this area as part of
the Great Idea.
Greek troops arrive in May 1919,but there are clashes from the
beginning with Turkish troops.
In 1920, the treaty with Turkeygives.
(25:30):
Greece Eastern Thrace, an areathey called Ionia near Smyrna.
But.
Things just.
Happened very quickly then.
Right after the treaty wassigned Venizelos was about to
make his way back to Greece whenhe was shot.
By two Naval officers whosupported the monarchy.
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and this kept Venizelos awayfrom Greece.
Supporters of Venizelos attackedbuildings that had pro monarchy
newspapers in them.
And then opponents of his partywere assassinated in the
streets.
So there's violence going on inGreece.
In early October.
So a few weeks later, kingAlexander, while walking his dog
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at his estate of Tatoi nearAthens.
He was savaged by monkeys.
And he held on for a little overthree weeks, but then died from
his wounds.
Alexander's brother did not wantthe throne.
So the only real claimant to thethrone was Constantine who had
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been forced out during world warone.
In November.
So just a couple of weeks later,a pro monarchy party won the
elections.
And Venizelos leaves into selfexile.
Constantine is able to return inDecember.
But there are consequences forConstantine returning.
France and Britain had promisedto give Greece millions of
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dollars in credit.
Money that they needed becauseworld war one had been very
expensive as all wars are.
But with Constantine back on thethrone, they refuse to give
Greece that money.
There are other consequences.
France and Britain takeawaytheir support for Greece in
general.
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Now when the.
Pro monarchy party came in.
Then.
There was a purge of supportersof Venizelos in the government
and in the military and thismilitary, that's in Asia minor.
Now has commanders who are proroyalist.
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Venizelos had been prettyaggressive pushing this Great
Idea to expand Greek territory,but this new government.
Decided to go for more.
Despite the fact that they wereno longer getting support from
France and Britain.
And so in March of 1921, theGreek army in Asia minor
launched a two-prong attack toexpand their territory.
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And at first all looks like it'sgoing well.
But.
This is the time when theOttoman empire is finished and
the Turkish Republic is nowforming under Mustafa Kemal.
Who is better known as AtaturkAnd Kemal was originally from
Thessaloniki.
He'd been part of the militaryand he was in charge of the
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Turkish forces that lured theGreek army deeper and deeper
into Anatolia.
He was getting help from Franceand Italy.
While the Greeks were runningout of ammunition and supplies
and they couldn't buy morebecause they didn't have any
money.
Late in August, 1922, Kemallaunched a counter offensive
that destroyed much of the Greekarmy.
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And what was left of the Greek,military and local Greeks in the
area.
Racing for Smyrna because it wasthe only port under Greek
control.
Turkish forces arrived at Smyrnaon the 9th of September, 1922.
There was A lot of killing andlooting.
A few days later, Smyrna was onfire.
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There were tens of thousands ofGreeks and Armenians who were
trapped there and who died.
And thousands of refugees whodid get away and made their way
to Greece.
So in late September.
After this disaster at Smyrna,there's a military coup by
supporters of Venizelos whodemanded that king Constantine
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abdicate again.
Constantine agreed.
And his brother George was swornin as George the second.
Now that Venizelos supporterswere in government, they purge
the military and theadministration of royalists.
They also had a trial of theleaders of the Asia minor
campaign, charging them withhigh treason.
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And six of those charged werehanged in November of 1923.
Venizelos was not the primeminister, but he coordinated
talks with the agreement signed.
That Greece gave up all theirterritory in Asia minor.
Returned Eastern Thrace toTurkey.
One of the big things thathappened with this agreement
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though, was that there was anexchange of populations between
Turkey and Greece.
350,000 Muslims in Greece.
Were sent to Turkey.
While 1.3 million Greeks.
Meaning that they followed theGreek Orthodox religion.
But did not necessarily speakGreek.
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Were sent to Greece.
There had already been a refugeecrisis before this exchange.
In 1919, the American Red Crosshad been involved.
And that's, what I read in theintro.
But this refugee crisis.
Became so much worse with 1.3million people coming into
Greece.
Some.
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Of the people from Asia minorwho were agriculturalists, they
were sent to Macedonia.
There were many, many refugeesin the cities of Thessaloniki,
Athens and the port of Piraeus.
They brought in industries thatthey had done in Asia minor,
such as cigarette and cigarrolling.
Carpet weaving, textilemanufacture.
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And they also brought inRembetiko music.
In 1923 king George, the secondwas exiled to Romania.
Between 1924 and 1928, there waschaos.
There were 10 prime ministers.
A number of military coups.
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Things stabilized the 1928, whenVenizelos came back into power.
His government improvedagriculture and public works.
But it also passed this 1929Special Law that cracked down on
any protests, tightened laws ontrade unions, because there is a
lot of fear of communists andcommunism, especially with the
(32:02):
formation of the Soviet unionafter world war I.
And, the Venizelos government,arrested or deported to remote
Greek islands, labor leaders,trade unionists, and communists.
With the financial crisis of1930 and 1931 Venizelos lost
support.
And after taking part in afailed coup in 1932.
(32:26):
Venizelos retired to the islandof Rhodes and then to Paris
where he died in 1936.
But he was such a huge figure inGreece.
If you ever fly into Athens, theairport is named after him.
Eleftherios Venizelos.
George, the second was returnedto the throne in November of
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1935 The next year.
King George put a man namedIoannis Metaxas into power.
Metaxas had been in the militaryfor a long time.
He had grown close to George'sbrother Constantine.
When Constantine was the crownprince during the Balkan wars
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And Metaxas was very much.
Right-wing.
So Metaxas.
Consolidated his.
Base of power in the militaryand then on a pretext, he staged
a coup and seized power withGeorge's blessing.
And suspended the constitution.
So from 1936, There was theMetaxas dictatorship.
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As dictator, he did a lot ofpublic works.
Drainage works.
He had a debt moratorium in thecountryside to try to help out
people there.
And for industrial workers, heas set wage rates and a five day
work week.
But he was an authoritariandictator.
He outlawed strikes.
Any unions were suppressed andhe used a secret police.
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So they sent communists and anyother leftists into prisons and
concentration camps or to remoteislands.
And there was torture of peoplein these prisons and
concentration camps.
As world war two started,Metaxas tried to stay neutral
since he really saw Germany andItaly as close friends but he'd
(34:18):
be threatened by the BritishNavy.
But Italy had other plans.
Italy had expanded into Albania.
And then the Italian ambassadorgave him Metaxas an ultimatum on
the 28th of October, 1940, thathe was to allow Italian forces
onto Greek soil or else.
Metaxas replied Oxi,no.
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And that's why October 28th isOxi day.
In Greece.
And so Greece was at war withItaly but Metaxas died three
months later in January of 1941.
When Greece entered the war.
At first, they did a really goodjob.
They pushed the Italians out ofGreece and into Albania by
December of 1940, with help fromthe British.
(35:06):
But then Hitler teamed up withBulgaria and they invaded
Yugoslavia and Greece andtrapped the army.
Which the Greek generalsurrendered without a fight in
April of 1941.
And that general then offered toserve in the occupation
government.
Athens itself fell at the end ofApril.
(35:27):
And king George, the second, thecivilian government and the
remaining army fled first to theisland of Crete.
And then when the Germansinvaded Crete in May they fled
to Cairo where the governmentwas in exile throughout the war.
The Germans took the majorcities, Athens, Thessaloniki
Crete and a border zone inThrace.
(35:48):
The Bulgarians took other partof Thrace and Eastern Macedonia
while the Italians were incontrol of the rest of the
country.
The puppet government under Axiscontrol, rounded up communists
and supporters of Venizelos.
And basically.
The occupiers took any mineralsthey could, they took food
(36:08):
crops.
They made Greece pay for foreigntroops.
This wasn't helped by a Britishblockade.
Which led to famine with.
Hundreds of thousands dead.
And in addition, Jewish peopleof Greece, especially in the
city of Thessaloniki weredeported to concentration camps
There was a very strongresistance.
(36:29):
There were many groups.
That resisted against the Axisoccupation of Greece.
One of the largest organizationswas led by the communists.
Partly because the communistsafter being suppressed and
detained by Metaxasdictatorship.
(36:50):
They were really good atclandestine operations for some
reason.
What's important to keep inmind.
Not everyone in theirorganization was communist.
This resistance was able to helpout the British a lot.
And they took back parts of thecountry.
Italy had been in charge of mostof the Greek countryside, but
once Mussolini was no longer inpower in the summer of 1943, the
(37:13):
Germans took charge.
And everything became a lotworse.
There were a lot of reprisalsfor any attacks by the
resistance.
So there's a strong resistance,but then there are also
collaborators.
So-called Security Battalions,which were formed of.
Criminals who just like to bethugs.
But also military and policemenwho were die hard royalists.
(37:38):
Even though the king was inexile.
But they collaborated with theGermans.
So you have.
Resistance going on, mostlybacked by the British.
But the British were not happythat the main resistance were
communists.
The British were veryanticommunist despite, teaming
up with Stalin.
(37:59):
The British also had a problemwith the Communists because the
communists did not want the kingback at all.
Whereas Churchill.
Really, really thought thatGreece needed to be a monarchy
And so the British.
Remove their support for anycommunist resistance groups and
only gave arms to non-communistgroups.
(38:22):
And so you end up with a civilwar between resistance groups in
the countryside.
As German troops had to retreatin October of 1944 The
resistance group stoppedfighting each other and they
harassed the German troops.
And then once the Germans weregone, the resistance groups
started fighting each otheragain.
(38:44):
Things after the war justcontinued to be a mess.
This civil war betweenresistance groups was just a
full-out civil war.
The British brought Greece undertheir sphere of influence and
Churchill really wanted, KingGeorge, the second to be back as
monarch.
The government was formed, thatwas pro royalist.
(39:05):
And they also, instead of goingafter any collaborators with the
Nazis.
They instead went after anycommunists and leftists which
just exacerbated the civil war.
There were atrocities on bothsides of the civil war.
But the communists, eventuallylost support because they were
(39:26):
terrorize anyone who didn't helpthem.
They forced men and women to beconscripted into their forces.
George, the second.
Was not brought back.
His brother, Paul took over in1947 But there's still heavy
fighting going on in the civilwar.
But by 1949, the communists hadlost support.
They were pushed out of thePeloponnese entirely.
(39:48):
And they were pushed into themountains in the north part of
the country.
As they left.
They took children, hundreds,maybe thousands of children into
the communist bloc, which is ahorrific thing that they did.
After the civil war ended.
The Greek countryside wasabsolutely devastated.
At least 5,000 villages had beendestroyed, much of the land was
(40:11):
uncultivated.
One third of the forest had beendestroyed and there were 2
million internal refugees.
Thousands had died just duringthe civil war.
Which you remember happenedright after world war II, or
actually began during world warII.
So you had thousands who died,thousands who had been put in
(40:32):
prison or executed and up to100,000 that fled Greece to go
to the Communist bloc becausethey feared reprisals after the
Communist side lost.
Things, mostly calm down.
But the Communist party itselfwas outlawed at this point.
But people left the countrysidegoing mostly to Athens, the city
(40:55):
of Athens, and some left Greeceentirely going to Canada or
Australia or to Northern Europe.
Greece was able to join NATO.
And were working on joining theEuropean Economic Community.
In 1964.
King Paul died.
And his young son was crownedConstantine the Second.
(41:20):
In that year, a left-winggovernment was elected on the
promise of releasing politicalprisoners who were still
imprisoned since the civil war.
And looking to put more controlover the military which had
become more and more independentfrom the rest of the government.
The right wing military did notlike having a left-wing
(41:43):
government trying to take awaytheir independence.
So on the 21st of April, 1964.
There was a coup not by generalsas usually happened, but this
time by a group of Colonels andthey're known collectively as
the Colonels.
On the 21st of April, 1967,tanks were in Athens and point
their guns at parliament inSyndagma Square in the center of
(42:05):
Athens.
Then they arrested centrist andleft-wing politicians.
The king Constantine, the secondat first, agreed to cooperate
with the Colonels.
But then he disavowed them.
And he called for a counter-coupin December of 1967, which
failed miserably and Constantinehad to flee into exile.
(42:27):
And this is the last time therewould be a king of the Greeks.
And just.
In case you lost count.
Exiled were Otho, Constantine,the first who was actually
exiled twice George, the secondwho fled from the Germans, and
then went into exile and nowConstantine the second.
Also in the count was George thefirst who was assassinated.
(42:50):
And this isn't even countingAlexander who died after being
savaged by monkeys.
The monarchy did not have a goodrun in Greece.
Let's just say that.
And this was the end of them in1967.
The Colonels of the Juntabrought in a new constitution in
May of 1968, which of course hadfewer civil liberties.
(43:12):
They didn't want anyoneprotesting against them.
But they waited to actuallyabolish the monarchy until 1974.
And it's very ironic that theright wing.
Military who usually propped upthe monarchy and had them
brought back, in this case, theywere the ones who finally
abolish the monarchy.
(43:32):
The Junta stayed in power until1974.
There was a student uprising atthe Polytechnic university in
Athens.
Demonstrations from early in1973, then students occupied the
campus in October of 1973.
Until they were absolutelycrushed on the 17th of November.
(43:53):
But the final downfall happenedwhen the Colonels tried to
assassinate the president ofCyprus.
The Colonels of course wantedcontrol over Cyprus, and they
ordered the assassination inJuly of 1974, which failed.
Five days later, Turkey invadedCyprus.
And the Greek military didn'tmobilize when the Colonels
(44:14):
called them.
And so the Junta was effectivelyfinished on the 24th of July
1974.
And of course, this led to thedivision of Cyprus into Turkish
and Greek parts.
Which still exists today,although restrictions have
loosened.
After the Junta fell, the topthree leaders were tried for
high treason.
(44:35):
And although they were sentencedfor death, those sentences were
commuted.
Many in the military and policewere convicted of criminal
charges and universities had tobe purged of Junta sympathizers
after this.
So once again, Greece got a newconstitution in 1975, which
formally got rid of themonarchy.
(44:55):
And the communist party waslegalized.
So that they would be part ofthe process instead of
completely outside ofgovernment.
Greece of course joined theEuropean Union.
And switched its currency fromDrachmas to Euros around 2002,
2003.
In 2004.
Greece hosted the Olympics inAthens, and won Eurovision.
(45:20):
But what Greece has been knownfor in recent years was the debt
crisis after 2008.
And on top of the debt crisiswas the huge crisis of Syrian
refugees.
But Greece has shown in recentyears that it can change without
military coups.
(45:41):
Greece still stands.
And when we come back in thefall, we'll start looking at
Vostitsa specifically again, nowthat we have this background of
Greek history through the lastnine episodes.
And we'll look at questionsabout population, economy,
landownership in Vostitsa.
(46:04):
Using geographic analysis ofvarious data sources.
For end notes.
I have some bookrecommendations.
Related to topics in thisepisode.
I highly recommend the book.
Salonica City of Ghosts by MarkMazower, who also wrote the book
on the Greek revolution.
(46:25):
I recommended.
In the last episode.
And this book talks aboutThessaloniki and especially the
Jewish population ofThessaloniki that was decimated
by Nazi occupation during WorldWar II.
I also recommend reading forfiction, Captain Corelli's
Mandolin, read the book.
(46:45):
So that you actually.
Get information about what wasgoing on during the civil war.
Which does not come up in themovie.
The book is much better.
And finally I recommend the bookcalled The Flight of Ikaros:
Travels in Greece During theCivil War.
This is by Kevin Andrews, who.
(47:06):
Was traveling in Greece in thelate 1940s during the civil war
doing.
Research on his dissertation,which later became Castles of
the Morea, which talks aboutVenetian, and other castles in
the Peloponnese.
It's a really good book.
For a view of what was happeningin parts of Greece, including
the Peloponnese.
(47:28):
Thanks for listening! Emailquestions or comments to
deepdive@helonaki.com or askthem on the Helonaki Deep Dive
Facebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
(47:49):
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
(48:10):
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
The station at Aigion was opened on March 1st, 1919, and
was operated for two months.
It was established for thepurpose of caring for a group of
refugees about 1,300 in number,who had been driven from their
homes and Eastern Macedonia andThrace over four years before
and had been kept in Bulgariaunder conditions, which reduced
(00:25):
them to a deplorable state.
After the signing of thearmistice, they had made their
way through Bulgaria, Serbia andBosnia, and had been put aboard
ship at Fiume and brought toAigion where they had been
established a few days beforeour attention was drawn to their
condition.
Quote.
(00:45):
"The committee for relief of therefugees at Aigion, which
included Mr.
Messenessi, a currant merchantof the town.
And Mr.
Coutoulas, the governmentrepresentative, established them
in warehouses on the waterfrontand then each family had a
certain amount of floor space inwhich to live.
(01:06):
Some of the more fortunate hadbrought boxes or bags of old
treasures, rugs, old clothes,and even seeds, and with these,
had built a barricade aroundtheir little spot and had spread
their bright rugs and blanketson the floor.
Others had nothing, but the ragsthey wore; perhaps a blanket or
(01:27):
two and a brass pot." End quote.
From Miss Horsford's Report onAigion Station.
By May 1st, most of the refugeeshad found work in the fields and
were getting regular wages andthe government expected to
return them shortly to theirhomes.
So the station was closed.
(01:48):
This is from the Final Report,Department of Civilian Relief by
the American Red CrossCommission to Greece.
July 1st, 1919 I'm Jen Glaubius,and this is The Helonaki Deep
Dive, a podcast about mappingand analysis for historical and
archeological research.
(02:10):
In this episode I'll finish upthe survey of Greek history.
by looking at Greece after theWar of Independence.
So Greece in the 19th and 20thcenturies.
Let's dive in.
Before we get started.
I just want to mention that thiswill be the last episode until
(02:32):
this fall, since I'm leaving forGreece soon to work on an
excavation.
But on my trip, I will bespending a few days in the
Vostitsa area.
And I'll release dispatches frommy time in Vostitsa, for all
supporters of the podcast onPatreon.
You can get access to thosedispatches and other sneak peaks
(02:55):
for the podcast by joining thePatreon at any level.
And you can do that atpatreon.com/helonaki that's
Patreon, P A T R E O n.com/ H EL O N A K I.
(03:15):
Now with that, let's pick upwhere we left off last time.
Which was at the end of theGreek war of independence.
Where the great powers of Europehad stepped in and stopped the
fighting and said, Greece isindependent now.
And then they found a Germanprince to be king and brought
him in.
(03:35):
If you look at the map on thecover for this episode, it has
the expansions of Greece.
The main part of Greece.
In blue is the kingdom of Greeceas established in 1832.
And this includes all of thePeloponnese.
Including the Vostitsa area.
And that's going to be the core,kind of the stable part of
(03:59):
Greece.
But you can see on the map thatthey add different pieces
through time.
And we're going to be talkingabout that expansion.
But that first line betweenGreece and what's labeled as
Thessaly.
That line was drawn by Britishsurveyors.
And they did it by looking atthe landscape.
(04:19):
So they looked at ravines andpeaks and drew their lines that
way.
Completely disregarding anyhuman aspects of use of that
landscape.
And so people lived in oneplace, but the areas where they
had taken their livestock forpasturage would be on the other
(04:39):
side of the line.
It was a bit of a mess.
And you also have this issuewhere you do have Greek peoples
in most of the areas that yousee that Greece acquired.
And sometimes had to give backthrough time.
They weren't necessarily themajority, but there were Greek
people or at least Orthodoxpeople, even if they don't
(05:03):
necessarily speak Greek or thinkof themselves as Greek, in most
of those areas.
And so.
This region is going to becontested through time because
Greece really wanted to expand.
What they called how they wantto expand was the Megali Idea or
Great Idea where they wanted tobasically get some of the
(05:27):
boundaries of the Byzantineempire.
But.
Other countries.
Other nations that were beingestablished in the breakup of
the Ottoman empire.
They also put claims on parts ofthis area especially Macedonia.
And we'll be talking about thatlater.
So expansion of the Greek stateis one of the themes we're going
to be talking about today.
(05:50):
Another of the themes is whatsystem of government is there in
Greece.
And what is the role of themonarchy?
And that's going to changethrough time and we're going to
track that.
We're also going to look at howthe people of Greece are divided
through time.
So we know that there were civilwars during the Greek
(06:14):
revolution.
There was division even whenthey were trying to fight
against the Ottoman empire.
And these divides continuethrough time.
As happens in any place.
But these divisions.
At certain points in Greekhistory are very, very serious.
And because of those divisions,there are a number of military
(06:37):
coups.
And foreign interventions thatsometimes make those divisions
even worse.
So in 1833, Greece was anabsolute monarchy ruled by King
Otho who had been placed on thethrone by the great powers of
Europe.
And keep in mind that theabsolute monarchy means that
(06:58):
there was no elected legislatureat all at the beginning of
Greece as a modern state.
And this is despite the factthat the Greeks themselves had
convened national assemblies,which didn't always work very
well, but they had convenedtheir own national assemblies
during the war of independence.
And so.
They really wanted a say intheir government.
(07:22):
In addition to this Otho broughtalong German advisors.
He was a minor when he came tothe throne and there were three
Regents.
And even after he came of age,he still kept a lot of advisers
who are not Greek around him.
And that caused a lot oftension.
So some of the things that Othohad to do from the very
(07:42):
beginning is.
Repair all the devastation fromthe war of independence.
There's also a lot of debt fromthe war of independence,
borrowed from different Europeancountries.
In addition, there were a lot ofGreek people who didn't have
land.
There were still the largelandowners.
They had been able to keep theirland.
(08:02):
Of course.
But many of the peasants wantedto actually acquire land.
So in 1835, there was a'Law forthe Dotation of Greek families'.
Which basically was that thesefamilies could get a mortgage of
2000 drachmas, which they coulduse to buy up to four hectares
(08:23):
of land.
Now four hectares of land is notthat much.
And certainly in Greece.
Four hectares is not enough,really, even for subsistence.
So the families would getsometimes much, much less than
four hectares and have to try tofeed themselves on it.
(08:44):
And it wasn't really workable.
Plus they had to pay back these2000 drachmas and these families
went into debt So due to ongoingunrest and dissatisfaction with
a lack of representativegovernment.
In 1843.
So a decade after Otho comes tothe throne.
(09:05):
There's a coup.
The upshot of it was that aconstituent assembly was
elected.
To write a Greek constitutionthat made Greece into a
constitutional monarchy.
So they were like, we'll keepthe king, but we're going to
have two chambers.
In a legislature.
The Monarch can dismissministers.
(09:27):
He can dissolve the parliament.
He can veto legislation.
But it ended this decade ofOtho, just having absolute power
over Greece.
Things still didn't go well forOtho.
A decade after that during theCrimean war, Greece tried to
expand northwards.
(09:47):
But here we have intervention bythe French and British who
landed at Piraeus, which is theport of Athens, and then
occupied Athens itself to keepthe Greeks from actually trying
to expand northwards intoThessaly.
So there's anger about that.
General debts people unhappy.
(10:09):
And so in the middle of October,1862, King Otho and his wife
Amalia.
Left Athens to go on a tour ofthe Peloponnese and they left by
ship.
Now, Otho and Amalia had beenmarried for years, they didn't
have any children.
Neither of them had converted tothe Greek Orthodox religion.
(10:31):
They weren't not super liked atthis point.
And so when they tried to comeback to Athens and they tried to
dock at Piraeus, the Royal Navyblocked them.
A provisional government seized,power and Otho and Amalia never
set foot in Greece again.
Otho died about five years laterin Munich.
(10:53):
Otho was the first king thatGreece broke up with.
He would not be the last.
So with Otho gone.
The European powers lookedaround at all the German princes
to find a new king for Greece.
The man they found was PrinceChristian William Ferdinand
(11:14):
Adolphus George of Holstein-Sonderberg- Glucksbrug.
Who is crowned as George thefirst.
He had some advantages overOtho.
He didn't convert to OrthodoxChristianity, but he did marry
Olga who was Russian Orthodox.
And they named their first sonConstantine, which as you'll
(11:35):
remember is a nice Greek name,going back to the Romans and
Byzantines.
George also didn't bring foreignadministrators with him.
So he was working with theGreeks more.
But.
Greece did draft a newconstitution in 1863 that gave
more power to the people.
(11:55):
This constitution also changedthe parliament from having two
chambers to just one.
The king could still appoint anddismiss ministers.
He could dissolve parliament anddisperse funds.
Declare war sign treaties.
He still had a lot of power.
And George used this power inthe first decade.
(12:16):
He was on the throne.
Between 1865 and 1875.
There were seven generalelections.
And 18 different administrationsthat formed because George kept
dissolving parliament.
Greece also gained.
The Ionian islands from Britainwhen George came to the throne.
(12:38):
Britain had been in charge ofthe Ionian islands, including
Corfu, but the people there didnot really want the British
around anymore.
And the British thought thatGeorge coming to the throne was
a good time for them to giveGreece these islands.
In 1877.
There was a general uprising inthe Christian parts of the
(13:00):
Balkan.
So Bosnia, Herzegovina,Bulgaria, and Romania, which
were still under increasinglyweak Ottoman control.
This war quickly became Russiaversus Ottoman.
But the Russians, since theGreek war of independence had
changed from being all proOrthodox religion.
(13:24):
To only being pro Slavicpeoples, which excluded Greece.
So Greece wasn't especiallyenthused about getting involved
in this war and trying to helpRussia.
But Greece did try to expandterritory by sending bands of
guerillas, to Thessaly, Epiros,and Macedonia to try to get
(13:44):
land.
Greece.
finally decided that they shouldmobilize the army get official
troops into the areas that theyhad taken in the fighting.
But three hours later afterthey've mobilized the army, an
armistice was declared betweenthe Ottoman and Russian empires.
(14:04):
Because Greece didn't have anyofficial troops in the land that
they had taken.
They could not officially claimany land.
The Ottomans ended up having togive up Serbia, Montenegro and
Romania.
A few years later in 1881,however, Greece did get Southern
Epiros and Thessaly and added alot of territory to the Greek
(14:29):
state.
But it still wasn't enough.
So they still had this greatidea that should expand.
And the area that was most undercontention was Macedonia.
Which was claimed by Greece, bySerbia, by Bulgaria.
And by the Ottomans whotechnically still held that
(14:52):
area.
And that's because Macedonia hasa lot of very rich agricultural
land.
And it also contained.
And still contains the largecity of Salonika Thessaloniki.
And so Macedonia would be anongoing issue.
(15:13):
In the late 18 hundreds.
Greece has been in debt.
But they know, they need tomodernize things.
So.
They drain the Kopaic basin andBoeotia, something that had not
been done since the Late BronzeAge.
There's also a canal.
Cut through the isthmus atCorinth, that shortens time for
(15:34):
shipping.
And the first railways areconstructed.
But to do all thismodernization.
Greece had to take out loans.
And they really didn't have muchfor industry.
They did have agriculturalproduce.
But what they really relied onwere harvests of currant grapes.
(15:57):
And they were able to do thisthrough the 1870s and 1880s
because the currents had areally high price.
And this is because.
Vineyards in France, Italy andSpain had been destroyed by
these insects that originallycame from North America that ate
the leaves off of the vines.
Greece wasn't affected.
(16:18):
And so they Cultivated more andmore of these currants.
Vostitsa had always been an areawhere currants were grown.
But other parts of Greeceexpanded the number of currants
that they.
Grew because they were able tomake a nice, nice profit off of
it.
But the good times ended in1893.
(16:40):
When prices of currants fellsharply.
And that's because France, Italyand Spain were able to get
vineyards re-established andthen they put in protective
tariffs for their own vineyardsand stopped.
Importing so many Greekcurrants.
And this is the time where youalso have California grapes
(17:00):
starting to emerge into theworld market.
Government revenue was reallybased on the price of currants.
And so when the price fell.
The amount of money that theGreek government had also fell
and the government was bankruptat this point.
There was migration of half amillion people from Greece
(17:23):
between 1890 and 1920.
Because conditions were so dire.
But in 1897 Greece got into awar of the Ottomans, trying to
expand into Epiros andThessaly..
It did not go well for Greece.
they Lost territory.
And very quickly, the greatpowers stopped this and made the
(17:46):
Ottomans and Greeks sign anarmistice.
Where Greece owed.
The Ottoman empire money, whichthey didn't have.
And so they had to borrow moremoney.
One bright spot was that Cretewas still part of the Ottoman
empire, but then became anautonomous province.
(18:06):
And Greece had a bit of a say ofwhat was going on.
This did not satisfy the peopleof Crete who wanted to join with
Greece, but it was something.
The Greek people really blamedthe monarchy for this defeat.
And it's especially because thecrown prince Constantine led the
military and they got beaten sobadly.
So things were not going well.
(18:28):
As the 20th century began.
Things muddled along in Greeceuntil 1909.
When a Military League Let acoup that took over the Greek
government.
None of their demands were metbecause really they wanted
controls on the Royal family.
But they decided to return thegovernment to civilian hands,
(18:50):
which is very unusual.
This military league decidedthat they wanted Eleftherios
Venizelos to be the leader ofthis new government.
Now Venizelos was born in Chaniaon Crete.
He had studied law at theuniversity of Athens, but he was
very active in the Cretanindependence movement.
(19:12):
And this included leading arevolt in 1905 against prince
George of Greece, who was thehigh commissioner of Crete.
But Venizelos had to stopbecause the great powers
intervened.
But throughout his life,Venizelos and the Greek Royal
(19:32):
family would not get along atall.
With big consequences for Greeceitself.
So the military league pickedVenizelos.
And his party won election in1910.
And Venizelos brought in a lotof reforms reformed the
judiciary, legislature, themonarchy itself.
(19:55):
Worked on education.
Was good for labor relations andlegalized trade unions set up a
national health insurancesystem.
There was land reform.
They instituted a graduatedincome tax, which was huge and
restructured the military.
So they were doing pretty well.
But among all of these reallygood things that happened,
(20:18):
Venizelos also had someauthoritarian measures put in
place, including suspendingcivil rights, such as protection
from arbitrary seizure, right totrial by jury.
And need for, cause for search.
Curtailed freedom of the pressand the rights to public
assembly.
So tried to shut down ways thatanyone could protest against
(20:41):
them.
But except for theseauthoritarian measures.
Venizelos in general was really,really liked.
And his government did a goodjob, such a good job that by
1912, the Greek treasuryactually had a surplus Which
went away.
With the Balkan wars, whichoccurred between 1912 and 1913.
(21:06):
These were two separate wars.
Over territory in Macedonia andall the countries that were
still under Ottoman rule in theBalkans.
So the first war.
Was basically.
Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greeceagainst the Ottoman empire.
(21:28):
In this war, Greece ended up incontrol of Thessaloniki, which
is something they wanted.
After this war.
The area was divvied up.
But none of these countries werehappy with it.
And the second Balkan warstarted in late July, 1913.
When Bulgaria attacked Serbia.
So this time instead of beingagainst the Ottoman empire.
(21:50):
All the countries were againstBulgaria.
So it was Greece Romania, Serbiaand the Ottomans attacking
Bulgaria.
Bulgaria lost, had to give upterritory to Greece, Serbia,
Romania, and the Ottomans andthe country of Albania was
basically set.
But the Balkan wars were ahorrible humanitarian disaster.
(22:14):
Besides all the casualties ofthe fighting, there were also
paramilitaries conducting ethniccleansing, especially of Muslims
in the area.
So you end up with a lot ofMuslims from this region going
into the Ottoman empire andbeing very, very much in favor
of nationalism in Turkey.
(22:36):
Another thing that happened.
In 1912 during The Balkan warsafter Greece had gained control
of Thessaloniki.
Was that king George, the first,when he was out for his daily
walk along the waterfront inThessaloniki.
Was assassinated.
George's son Constantine thenbecame king.
(22:57):
A few years later, world war onebroke out.
King Constantine I had a lot ofties to Germany.
He'd had his military trainingin Germany.
His wife queen Sophia actuallywas the sister of Kaiser
Wilhelm.
And so he was very sympatheticto the triple Alliance of
(23:19):
Germany, Austria, and Italy.
This Alliance that the Ottomanempire and Bulgaria would join.
Venizelos and most of Greece,however, were in favor of the
side of Britain, France andRussia.
Because those countries hadconsistently helped Greece in
the past.
Constantine recognized that, andhe tried to keep Greece,
(23:39):
neutral.
But Venizelos worked with theBritish and French, invited them
in to open up a front, tried toforce Constantine's hand.
It ended up.
That Venizelos formed aprovisional government in the
city of Thessaloniki.
And the French and Britishsupported this provisional
(24:03):
government because Venizelos wasgoing to help them.
And so France and Britain putpressure on Constantine to
abdicate in favor of his son,Alexander.
at least until the war was over.
To put pressure on Constantineto abdicate, France and Britain
(24:23):
blockaded Greek ports in centraland Southern part of Greece.
This blockade led to foodshortages and starvation, a lot
of misery, which turned a lot ofpeople in central and Southern
Greece away from.
France and Britain.
But Constantine eventuallyabdicated for his son,
(24:46):
Alexander.
At the end of world war one,Venizelos attended the Paris
peace talks.
And so he spent a few years awayfrom Greece And during those
peace talks, he got permissionfor Greek troops to occupy
Smyrna, which is the Turkishcity of Izmir.
(25:06):
On the coast of Asia minor.
This is an area that had a lotof local Greek people.
and so Greece had been lookingto acquire this area as part of
the Great Idea.
Greek troops arrive in May 1919,but there are clashes from the
beginning with Turkish troops.
In 1920, the treaty with Turkeygives.
(25:30):
Greece Eastern Thrace, an areathey called Ionia near Smyrna.
But.
Things just.
Happened very quickly then.
Right after the treaty wassigned Venizelos was about to
make his way back to Greece whenhe was shot.
By two Naval officers whosupported the monarchy.
(25:51):
and this kept Venizelos awayfrom Greece.
Supporters of Venizelos attackedbuildings that had pro monarchy
newspapers in them.
And then opponents of his partywere assassinated in the
streets.
So there's violence going on inGreece.
In early October.
So a few weeks later, kingAlexander, while walking his dog
(26:12):
at his estate of Tatoi nearAthens.
He was savaged by monkeys.
And he held on for a little overthree weeks, but then died from
his wounds.
Alexander's brother did not wantthe throne.
So the only real claimant to thethrone was Constantine who had
(26:33):
been forced out during world warone.
In November.
So just a couple of weeks later,a pro monarchy party won the
elections.
And Venizelos leaves into selfexile.
Constantine is able to return inDecember.
But there are consequences forConstantine returning.
France and Britain had promisedto give Greece millions of
(27:00):
dollars in credit.
Money that they needed becauseworld war one had been very
expensive as all wars are.
But with Constantine back on thethrone, they refuse to give
Greece that money.
There are other consequences.
France and Britain takeawaytheir support for Greece in
general.
(27:20):
Now when the.
Pro monarchy party came in.
Then.
There was a purge of supportersof Venizelos in the government
and in the military and thismilitary, that's in Asia minor.
Now has commanders who are proroyalist.
(27:40):
Venizelos had been prettyaggressive pushing this Great
Idea to expand Greek territory,but this new government.
Decided to go for more.
Despite the fact that they wereno longer getting support from
France and Britain.
And so in March of 1921, theGreek army in Asia minor
launched a two-prong attack toexpand their territory.
(28:04):
And at first all looks like it'sgoing well.
But.
This is the time when theOttoman empire is finished and
the Turkish Republic is nowforming under Mustafa Kemal.
Who is better known as AtaturkAnd Kemal was originally from
Thessaloniki.
He'd been part of the militaryand he was in charge of the
(28:27):
Turkish forces that lured theGreek army deeper and deeper
into Anatolia.
He was getting help from Franceand Italy.
While the Greeks were runningout of ammunition and supplies
and they couldn't buy morebecause they didn't have any
money.
Late in August, 1922, Kemallaunched a counter offensive
that destroyed much of the Greekarmy.
(28:48):
And what was left of the Greek,military and local Greeks in the
area.
Racing for Smyrna because it wasthe only port under Greek
control.
Turkish forces arrived at Smyrnaon the 9th of September, 1922.
There was A lot of killing andlooting.
A few days later, Smyrna was onfire.
(29:10):
There were tens of thousands ofGreeks and Armenians who were
trapped there and who died.
And thousands of refugees whodid get away and made their way
to Greece.
So in late September.
After this disaster at Smyrna,there's a military coup by
supporters of Venizelos whodemanded that king Constantine
(29:33):
abdicate again.
Constantine agreed.
And his brother George was swornin as George the second.
Now that Venizelos supporterswere in government, they purge
the military and theadministration of royalists.
They also had a trial of theleaders of the Asia minor
campaign, charging them withhigh treason.
(29:55):
And six of those charged werehanged in November of 1923.
Venizelos was not the primeminister, but he coordinated
talks with the agreement signed.
That Greece gave up all theirterritory in Asia minor.
Returned Eastern Thrace toTurkey.
One of the big things thathappened with this agreement
(30:17):
though, was that there was anexchange of populations between
Turkey and Greece.
350,000 Muslims in Greece.
Were sent to Turkey.
While 1.3 million Greeks.
Meaning that they followed theGreek Orthodox religion.
But did not necessarily speakGreek.
(30:38):
Were sent to Greece.
There had already been a refugeecrisis before this exchange.
In 1919, the American Red Crosshad been involved.
And that's, what I read in theintro.
But this refugee crisis.
Became so much worse with 1.3million people coming into
Greece.
Some.
(30:58):
Of the people from Asia minorwho were agriculturalists, they
were sent to Macedonia.
There were many, many refugeesin the cities of Thessaloniki,
Athens and the port of Piraeus.
They brought in industries thatthey had done in Asia minor,
such as cigarette and cigarrolling.
Carpet weaving, textilemanufacture.
(31:21):
And they also brought inRembetiko music.
In 1923 king George, the secondwas exiled to Romania.
Between 1924 and 1928, there waschaos.
There were 10 prime ministers.
A number of military coups.
(31:41):
Things stabilized the 1928, whenVenizelos came back into power.
His government improvedagriculture and public works.
But it also passed this 1929Special Law that cracked down on
any protests, tightened laws ontrade unions, because there is a
lot of fear of communists andcommunism, especially with the
(32:02):
formation of the Soviet unionafter world war I.
And, the Venizelos government,arrested or deported to remote
Greek islands, labor leaders,trade unionists, and communists.
With the financial crisis of1930 and 1931 Venizelos lost
support.
And after taking part in afailed coup in 1932.
(32:26):
Venizelos retired to the islandof Rhodes and then to Paris
where he died in 1936.
But he was such a huge figure inGreece.
If you ever fly into Athens, theairport is named after him.
Eleftherios Venizelos.
George, the second was returnedto the throne in November of
(32:47):
1935 The next year.
King George put a man namedIoannis Metaxas into power.
Metaxas had been in the militaryfor a long time.
He had grown close to George'sbrother Constantine.
When Constantine was the crownprince during the Balkan wars
(33:07):
And Metaxas was very much.
Right-wing.
So Metaxas.
Consolidated his.
Base of power in the militaryand then on a pretext, he staged
a coup and seized power withGeorge's blessing.
And suspended the constitution.
So from 1936, There was theMetaxas dictatorship.
(33:32):
As dictator, he did a lot ofpublic works.
Drainage works.
He had a debt moratorium in thecountryside to try to help out
people there.
And for industrial workers, heas set wage rates and a five day
work week.
But he was an authoritariandictator.
He outlawed strikes.
Any unions were suppressed andhe used a secret police.
(33:56):
So they sent communists and anyother leftists into prisons and
concentration camps or to remoteislands.
And there was torture of peoplein these prisons and
concentration camps.
As world war two started,Metaxas tried to stay neutral
since he really saw Germany andItaly as close friends but he'd
(34:18):
be threatened by the BritishNavy.
But Italy had other plans.
Italy had expanded into Albania.
And then the Italian ambassadorgave him Metaxas an ultimatum on
the 28th of October, 1940, thathe was to allow Italian forces
onto Greek soil or else.
Metaxas replied Oxi,no.
(34:43):
And that's why October 28th isOxi day.
In Greece.
And so Greece was at war withItaly but Metaxas died three
months later in January of 1941.
When Greece entered the war.
At first, they did a really goodjob.
They pushed the Italians out ofGreece and into Albania by
December of 1940, with help fromthe British.
(35:06):
But then Hitler teamed up withBulgaria and they invaded
Yugoslavia and Greece andtrapped the army.
Which the Greek generalsurrendered without a fight in
April of 1941.
And that general then offered toserve in the occupation
government.
Athens itself fell at the end ofApril.
(35:27):
And king George, the second, thecivilian government and the
remaining army fled first to theisland of Crete.
And then when the Germansinvaded Crete in May they fled
to Cairo where the governmentwas in exile throughout the war.
The Germans took the majorcities, Athens, Thessaloniki
Crete and a border zone inThrace.
(35:48):
The Bulgarians took other partof Thrace and Eastern Macedonia
while the Italians were incontrol of the rest of the
country.
The puppet government under Axiscontrol, rounded up communists
and supporters of Venizelos.
And basically.
The occupiers took any mineralsthey could, they took food
(36:08):
crops.
They made Greece pay for foreigntroops.
This wasn't helped by a Britishblockade.
Which led to famine with.
Hundreds of thousands dead.
And in addition, Jewish peopleof Greece, especially in the
city of Thessaloniki weredeported to concentration camps
There was a very strongresistance.
(36:29):
There were many groups.
That resisted against the Axisoccupation of Greece.
One of the largest organizationswas led by the communists.
Partly because the communistsafter being suppressed and
detained by Metaxasdictatorship.
(36:50):
They were really good atclandestine operations for some
reason.
What's important to keep inmind.
Not everyone in theirorganization was communist.
This resistance was able to helpout the British a lot.
And they took back parts of thecountry.
Italy had been in charge of mostof the Greek countryside, but
once Mussolini was no longer inpower in the summer of 1943, the
(37:13):
Germans took charge.
And everything became a lotworse.
There were a lot of reprisalsfor any attacks by the
resistance.
So there's a strong resistance,but then there are also
collaborators.
So-called Security Battalions,which were formed of.
Criminals who just like to bethugs.
But also military and policemenwho were die hard royalists.
(37:38):
Even though the king was inexile.
But they collaborated with theGermans.
So you have.
Resistance going on, mostlybacked by the British.
But the British were not happythat the main resistance were
communists.
The British were veryanticommunist despite, teaming
up with Stalin.
(37:59):
The British also had a problemwith the Communists because the
communists did not want the kingback at all.
Whereas Churchill.
Really, really thought thatGreece needed to be a monarchy
And so the British.
Remove their support for anycommunist resistance groups and
only gave arms to non-communistgroups.
(38:22):
And so you end up with a civilwar between resistance groups in
the countryside.
As German troops had to retreatin October of 1944 The
resistance group stoppedfighting each other and they
harassed the German troops.
And then once the Germans weregone, the resistance groups
started fighting each otheragain.
(38:44):
Things after the war justcontinued to be a mess.
This civil war betweenresistance groups was just a
full-out civil war.
The British brought Greece undertheir sphere of influence and
Churchill really wanted, KingGeorge, the second to be back as
monarch.
The government was formed, thatwas pro royalist.
(39:05):
And they also, instead of goingafter any collaborators with the
Nazis.
They instead went after anycommunists and leftists which
just exacerbated the civil war.
There were atrocities on bothsides of the civil war.
But the communists, eventuallylost support because they were
(39:26):
terrorize anyone who didn't helpthem.
They forced men and women to beconscripted into their forces.
George, the second.
Was not brought back.
His brother, Paul took over in1947 But there's still heavy
fighting going on in the civilwar.
But by 1949, the communists hadlost support.
They were pushed out of thePeloponnese entirely.
(39:48):
And they were pushed into themountains in the north part of
the country.
As they left.
They took children, hundreds,maybe thousands of children into
the communist bloc, which is ahorrific thing that they did.
After the civil war ended.
The Greek countryside wasabsolutely devastated.
At least 5,000 villages had beendestroyed, much of the land was
(40:11):
uncultivated.
One third of the forest had beendestroyed and there were 2
million internal refugees.
Thousands had died just duringthe civil war.
Which you remember happenedright after world war II, or
actually began during world warII.
So you had thousands who died,thousands who had been put in
(40:32):
prison or executed and up to100,000 that fled Greece to go
to the Communist bloc becausethey feared reprisals after the
Communist side lost.
Things, mostly calm down.
But the Communist party itselfwas outlawed at this point.
But people left the countrysidegoing mostly to Athens, the city
(40:55):
of Athens, and some left Greeceentirely going to Canada or
Australia or to Northern Europe.
Greece was able to join NATO.
And were working on joining theEuropean Economic Community.
In 1964.
King Paul died.
And his young son was crownedConstantine the Second.
(41:20):
In that year, a left-winggovernment was elected on the
promise of releasing politicalprisoners who were still
imprisoned since the civil war.
And looking to put more controlover the military which had
become more and more independentfrom the rest of the government.
The right wing military did notlike having a left-wing
(41:43):
government trying to take awaytheir independence.
So on the 21st of April, 1964.
There was a coup not by generalsas usually happened, but this
time by a group of Colonels andthey're known collectively as
the Colonels.
On the 21st of April, 1967,tanks were in Athens and point
their guns at parliament inSyndagma Square in the center of
(42:05):
Athens.
Then they arrested centrist andleft-wing politicians.
The king Constantine, the secondat first, agreed to cooperate
with the Colonels.
But then he disavowed them.
And he called for a counter-coupin December of 1967, which
failed miserably and Constantinehad to flee into exile.
(42:27):
And this is the last time therewould be a king of the Greeks.
And just.
In case you lost count.
Exiled were Otho, Constantine,the first who was actually
exiled twice George, the secondwho fled from the Germans, and
then went into exile and nowConstantine the second.
Also in the count was George thefirst who was assassinated.
(42:50):
And this isn't even countingAlexander who died after being
savaged by monkeys.
The monarchy did not have a goodrun in Greece.
Let's just say that.
And this was the end of them in1967.
The Colonels of the Juntabrought in a new constitution in
May of 1968, which of course hadfewer civil liberties.
(43:12):
They didn't want anyoneprotesting against them.
But they waited to actuallyabolish the monarchy until 1974.
And it's very ironic that theright wing.
Military who usually propped upthe monarchy and had them
brought back, in this case, theywere the ones who finally
abolish the monarchy.
(43:32):
The Junta stayed in power until1974.
There was a student uprising atthe Polytechnic university in
Athens.
Demonstrations from early in1973, then students occupied the
campus in October of 1973.
Until they were absolutelycrushed on the 17th of November.
(43:53):
But the final downfall happenedwhen the Colonels tried to
assassinate the president ofCyprus.
The Colonels of course wantedcontrol over Cyprus, and they
ordered the assassination inJuly of 1974, which failed.
Five days later, Turkey invadedCyprus.
And the Greek military didn'tmobilize when the Colonels
(44:14):
called them.
And so the Junta was effectivelyfinished on the 24th of July
1974.
And of course, this led to thedivision of Cyprus into Turkish
and Greek parts.
Which still exists today,although restrictions have
loosened.
After the Junta fell, the topthree leaders were tried for
high treason.
(44:35):
And although they were sentencedfor death, those sentences were
commuted.
Many in the military and policewere convicted of criminal
charges and universities had tobe purged of Junta sympathizers
after this.
So once again, Greece got a newconstitution in 1975, which
formally got rid of themonarchy.
(44:55):
And the communist party waslegalized.
So that they would be part ofthe process instead of
completely outside ofgovernment.
Greece of course joined theEuropean Union.
And switched its currency fromDrachmas to Euros around 2002,
2003.
In 2004.
Greece hosted the Olympics inAthens, and won Eurovision.
(45:20):
But what Greece has been knownfor in recent years was the debt
crisis after 2008.
And on top of the debt crisiswas the huge crisis of Syrian
refugees.
But Greece has shown in recentyears that it can change without
military coups.
(45:41):
Greece still stands.
And when we come back in thefall, we'll start looking at
Vostitsa specifically again, nowthat we have this background of
Greek history through the lastnine episodes.
And we'll look at questionsabout population, economy,
landownership in Vostitsa.
(46:04):
Using geographic analysis ofvarious data sources.
For end notes.
I have some bookrecommendations.
Related to topics in thisepisode.
I highly recommend the book.
Salonica City of Ghosts by MarkMazower, who also wrote the book
on the Greek revolution.
(46:25):
I recommended.
In the last episode.
And this book talks aboutThessaloniki and especially the
Jewish population ofThessaloniki that was decimated
by Nazi occupation during WorldWar II.
I also recommend reading forfiction, Captain Corelli's
Mandolin, read the book.
(46:45):
So that you actually.
Get information about what wasgoing on during the civil war.
Which does not come up in themovie.
The book is much better.
And finally I recommend the bookcalled The Flight of Ikaros:
Travels in Greece During theCivil War.
This is by Kevin Andrews, who.
(47:06):
Was traveling in Greece in thelate 1940s during the civil war
doing.
Research on his dissertation,which later became Castles of
the Morea, which talks aboutVenetian, and other castles in
the Peloponnese.
It's a really good book.
For a view of what was happeningin parts of Greece, including
the Peloponnese.
(47:28):
Thanks for listening! Emailquestions or comments to
deepdive@helonaki.com or askthem on the Helonaki Deep Dive
Facebook page.
Show notes with links toresources mentioned in this
episode will be available athelonaki.com.
That's H E L O N A K I.com.
(47:49):
You can also find ways tosupport the show now, including
merch such as t-shirts mugs andstickers with the Helonaki Deep
Dive logo athelonaki.com/support.
My thanks to Patreon supportersat the geospatial analyst level,
Leah Varrell and Janice andJerry Farrell.
Your support keeps the HelonakiDeep Dive going.
(48:10):
The Helonaki Deep Dive iswritten and produced by me, Jen
Glaubius of the Helonaki.
The theme music is Deep OceanInstrumental by Dan-o of
danosongs.com additional soundsfrom zapsplat.com.
Thanks for listening.
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