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In the early months of 1821, the Greeks declared their independence but did not achieve it until 1829. The Great Powers first shared the same view concerning the necessity of preserving the status quo of the Ottoman Empire, but soon changed their stance. Scores of non-Greeks volunteered to fight for the cause, including Lord Byron. On October 20, 1827, a combined British, French and Russian naval force destroyed the Ottoman and Egyptian armada. The Russian minister of foreign affairs, Ioannis Kapodistrias, himself a Greek, returned home as President of the new Republic. The first capital of the independent Greece was Aigina (1828–1829) and the second was Nafplio (1828–1834). After his assassination, the European powers helped turn Greece into a monarchy; the first King, Otto, came from Bavaria and the second, George I, from Denmark. In 1834, King Otto transferred the capital to Athens. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, Greece sought to enlarge its boundaries to include the ethnic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. Greece played a peripheral role in the Crimean War. When Russia attacked the Ottoman Empire in 1853, Greek leaders saw an opportunity to expand North and South into Ottoman areas that had a Christian majority. However, Greece did not coordinate its plans with Russia, did not declare war, and received no outside military or financial support. The French and British seized its major port and effectively neutralized the Greek army. Greek efforts to cause insurrections failed as they were easily crushed by Ottoman forces. Greece was not invited to the peace conference and made no gains out of the war. The frustrated Greek leadership blamed the King for failing to take advantage of the situation; his popularity plunged and he was later forced to abdicate. The Ionian Islands were returned by Britain upon the arrival of the new King George I in 1863 and Thessaly was ceded by the Ottomans. As a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, Epirus, southern Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean Islands were annexed into the Kingdom of Greece. Another enlargement followed in 1947, when Greece annexed the Dodecanese Islands from Italy. Modernization In the late 19th century, modernization transformed the social structure of Greece. The population grew rapidly, putting heavy pressure on the system of small farms with low productivity. Overall, population density more than doubled from 41 persons per square mile in 1829 to 114 in 1912. One response was emigration to the United States, with a quarter million people leaving between 1906 and the start of the World War I in 1914. Entrepreneurs found numerous business opportunities in the retail and restaurant sectors of American cities; some sent money back to their families, others returned with hundreds of dollars, enough to purchase a farm or a small business in the old village. The urban population tripled from 8 percent in 1853 to 24 percent in 1907. Athens grew from a village of 6000 people in 1834, when it became the capital, to 63,000 in 1879, 111,000 in 1896, and 167,000 in 1907.[14] In Athens and other cities, men arriving from rural areas set up workshops and stores, creating a middle class. They joined with bankers, professional men, university students, and military officers, to demand reform and modernization of the political and economic system. Athens became the center of the merchant marine, which quadrupled in size from 250,000 tons in 1875 to more than 1,000,000 tons in 1915. As the cities modernized, businessmen adopted the latest styles of Western European architecture.[15] World War I and Greco-Turkish War Main article: Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) A map of Greater Greece after the Treaty of Sèvres, when the Megali Idea seemed close to fulfillment, featuring Eleftherios Venizelos. Greek cavalry attacking during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). The outbreak of World War I in 1914 produced a split in Greek politics, with King Constantine I, an admirer of Germany, calling for neutrality while Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos pushed for Greece to join on the side of the Allies.[16] The conflict between the monarchists and the Venizelists sometimes resulted in open warfare and became known as the National Schism. In 1916, the Allies forced Constantine to abdicate in favor of his son Alexander, and Venizelos returned as premier. Following their victory in the war, the Great Powers agreed that the Ottoman cities of Smyrna (Izmir) and its hinterland, both of which had large Greek populations, be handed over to Greece.[16] Greek troops occupied Smyrna in 1919, and in 1920 the Treaty of Sevres was signed by the Ottoman government, which stipulated that in five years time a plebiscite would be held in Smyrna on whether the region would join Greece.[16] However, Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, overthrew the Ottoman government and organised a military campaign against the Greek troops, resulting in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). A major Greek offensive ground to a halt in 1921, and by 1922 Greek troops were in retreat. The Turkish forces recaptured Smyrna on 9 September 1922, and 4 days afterwards a great fire broke out in the city, incinerating the Greek and Armenian quarters.[16] The war was concluded by the Treaty of Lausanne, according to which there was to be a population exchange between Greece and Turkey on the basis of religion. Over one million Orthodox Christians left Turkey in exchange for 400,000 Muslims from Greece.[16] The events of 1919–1922 are regarded in Greece as a particularly calamitous period of history. Between 1914 and 1923, and estimated 750,000[17] to 900,000[18] Greeks died at the hands of the Ottoman Turks, in what many scholars have termed a genocide.[19][20] [21][22] World War II German artillery shelling the Metaxas Line. Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war, Greece sided with the Allies and refused to give in to Italian demands. Italy invaded Greece by way of Albania on 28 October 1940, but Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle (see Greco-Italian War). This marked the first Allied victory in the war. Primarily to secure his strategic southern flank, German dictator Adolf Hitler reluctantly stepped in and launched the Battle of Greece. Axis forces from Germany, Bulgaria, and Italy successfully invaded Greece, through Yugoslavia, forcing out the Greek and defenders. On 20 May 1941, the Germans attempted to seize Crete with a large attack by paratroops—with the aim of reducing the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt—but faced heavy resistance. The Greek campaign might have delayed German military plans against Soviet Union, and it is argued that had the German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 20 May 1941 instead of 22 June 1941, the Nazi assault against the Soviet Union might have succeeded. The heavy losses of German paratroopers led the Germans to launch no further large-scale air-invasions. On 20 May 1941, the Germans attempted to seize Crete with a large attack by paratroopers, with the aim of reducing the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt, but faced heavy resistance. The Greek campaign might have delayed German military plans against Soviet Union, and it is argued that had the German invasion of the Soviet Union started on 20 May 1941 instead of 22 June 1941, the Nazi assault against the Soviet Union might have succeeded. The heavy losses of German paratroopers led the Germans to launch no further large-scale air-invasions. During the Axis occupation of Greece, thousands of Greeks died in direct combat, in concentration camps, or of starvation. The occupiers murdered the greater part of the Jewish community despite efforts by Christian Greeks to shelter the Jews. The economy of Greece was devastated. When the Soviet Army began its drive across Romania in August 1944, the German Army in Greece began withdrawing north and northwestward from Greece into Yugoslavia and Albania to avoid being cut off in Greece. Hence, the German occupation of Greece ended in October 1944. The Resistance group ELAS seized control of Athens on 12 October 1944. British troops had already landed on 4 October in Patras, and entered Athens at 14 October 1944.[23] Christina Goulter summarizes the devastation done to Greece during the war:[24] "Between 1941 in 1945, over 8% of the Greek population had died; some 2000 villages and small towns had been razed to the ground; starvation was widespread due to the destruction of crops and worsened in many parts of Greece after liberation when agricultural labourers migrated to urban centres to escape politically inspired violence in the countryside; trade either internally or externally had all but ceased; most of Greece’s merchant marine lay at the bottom of the sea; and motorized transport had been confiscated by the axis occupiers." Greek Civil War (1944–1949) Organization and military bases of the "Demogratic Army", as well as entry routes to Greece. The Greek Civil War (Greek: Eμφύλιος πόλεμος Emfílios pólemos) was the first major confrontation of the Cold War.[25] It was fought between 1944 and 1949 in Greece between the nationalist/non-Marxist forces of Greece (financially supported by Great Britain at first, and later by the United States[26]) and the Democratic Army of Greece (ELAS), which was the military branch of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). The conflict resulted in a victory for the British — and later U.S. - supported government forces, which led to Greece receiving American funds through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, as well as becoming a member of NATO, which helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean for the entire Cold War. The first phase of the civil war occurred in 1942–1944. Marxist and non-Marxist resistance groups fought each other in a fratricidal conflict to establish the leadership of the Greek resistance movement. In the second phase (1944), the ascendant communists, in military control of most of Greece, confronted the returning Greek government in exile, which had been formed under the auspices of the Western Allies in Cairo and originally included six KKE-affiliated ministers. In the third phase (commonly called the "Third Round" by the communists), guerrilla forces controlled by the KKE fought against the internationally-recognized Greek Government which was formed after elections were boycotted by the KKE. Although the involvement of the KKE in the uprisings was universally known, the party remained legal until 1948, continuing to coordinate attacks from its Athens offices until proscription. The civil war left Greece with a legacy of political polarization. As a result, Greece also entered into an alliance with the United States and joined NATO, while relationships with its Communist northern neighbours, both pro-Soviet and neutral, became strained. Postwar recovery and military junta A Greek army tank on the streets of Athens on 21 April 1967. In the 1950s and 1960s, Greece developed rapidly, initially with the help of the Marshall Plan's grants and loans, and later through growth in the tourism sector. New attention was given to women's rights, and in 1952 suffrage for women was guaranteed in the Constitution, full Constitutional equality following, and Lina Tsaldari becoming the first female minister that decade. In 1967, the Greek military seized power in a coup d'état, overthrew the centre right government of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos.[27] It established the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 which became known as the Régime of the Colonels. In 1973, the régime abolished the Greek monarchy and in 1974, dictator Papadopoulos denied help to the U.S. After a second coup that year, Colonel Ioannides was appointed as the new head-of-state. Ioannides was responsible for the 1974 coup against President Makarios of Cyprus.[28] The coup became the pretext for the first wave of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 (see Greco-Turkish relations). The Cyprus events and the outcry following a bloody suppression of Athens Polytechnic uprising in Athens led to the implosion of the military régime. An exiled politician, Konstantinos Karamanlis, returned and became interim prime minister on July 23, 1974[29] and later gained re-election for two further terms at the head of the conservative New Democracy Party. In August 1974, Greek forces withdrew from the integrated military structure of NATO in protest at the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus.[30] Restoration of democracy In 1974, a referendum voted 69%–31% to confirm the deposition of King Constantine II. A democratic republican constitution came into force.[31] Another previously exiled politician, Andreas Papandreou also returned and founded the socialist PASOK Party (Panhellenic Socialist Movement), which won the elections in 1981 and dominated the country's political course for almost two decades.[32] Since the restoration of democracy, the stability and economic prosperity of Greece have grown remarkably. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980. Greece joined the European Union in 1981 and adopted the euro as its currency in 2001. New infrastructure funds from the EU and growing revenues from tourism, shipping, services, light industry and the telecommunications industry have brought Greeks an unprecedented standard of living. Tensions continue to exist between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the delimitation of borders in the Aegean Sea but relations have considerably thawed following successive earthquakes, first in Turkey and then in Greece, and an outpouring of sympathy and generous assistance by ordinary Greeks and Turks (see Earthquake Diplomacy). Economic crisis of 2009–2014 Main article: Greek government-debt crisis From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations due to strong increase in government debt levels.[33][34] This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to other countries, most importantly Germany.[35][36] Downgrading of Greek government debt to junk bonds created alarm in financial markets. On 2 May 2010, the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund agreed on a €110 billion loan for Greece, conditional on the implementation of harsh austerity measures. In October 2011, Eurozone leaders also agreed on a proposal to write off 50% of Greek debt owed to private creditors, increasing the EFSF to about €1 trillion and requiring European banks to achieve 9% capitalization to reduce the risk of contagion to other countries. These austerity measures have proved extremely unpopular with the Greek public, precipitating demonstrations and civil unrest. |
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