Stone
Age
At
least 700,000 years ago, Neanderthals were roaming northern Greece, hunting
animals, collecting fruit and lighting fires. The most substantial evidence
of this is the 700,000-year-old Neanderthal skull found in a cave on the
Halkidiki peninsula of Macedonia. Bones and tools from Paleolithic times
have been found in the Pindos mountains of Greece. During Neolithic
times (7000-3000 BC) an evolutionary "leap" took place when people settled
down to agriculture and community life in the fertile area that is now
Thessaly. They grew barley and wheat, and bred sheep and goats. Pots, vases
and simple statuettes of the Great Mother (the Earth Goddess), who was
worshipped at the time, were molded from clay.
Around
3000 BC, people lived in settlements complete with streets, squares and
mud-brick houses centered around a large palace-like structure which belonged
to the tribal leader. The most complete Neolithic settlements in Greece
are Dimini (inhabited from 4000 to 1200 BC) and Sesklo, both near the city
of Volos.
Bronze Age
Around
3000 BC, Indo-European migrants introduced the processing of bronze (an
alloy of copper and tin) into Greece - the beginning of three remarkable
civilizations: the Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean.
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Cycladic
Civilization
The
Cycladic civilization is divides into three periods: Early (3000-2000 BC),
Middle (2000-1500 BC), and Late (1500-1100 BC). The most impressive
legacies of this civilization are the statuettes carved from
Parian marble - the famous Cycladic figurines. Like statuettes of
Neolithic times they depicted images of the Great Mother. Other remains
include bronze and obsidian tools and weapons, gold jewelry,
and stone and clay vases and pots.
The
peoples of the Cycladic civilization were accomplished sailors who developed
a prosperous maritime trade. They exported their wares to Asia
Minor (the west of present-day Turkey), Europe and north Africa,
as well as to Crete and continental Greece. The Cyclades islands
were influenced by both the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.
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Minoan
Civilization
The
glorious Minoan civilization of Crete was influenced by two great civilizations
of the east: the Mesopotamian and Egyptian. It was more advanced
than anything which had appeared up till then in Europe. Archaeologists
divide the Minoan civilization, like the Cycladic, into three
phases: Early (3000-2100 BC), Middle (2100-1500 BC) and Late (1500-1100
BC).
In the
Early period many aspects of Neolithic life endured, but by 2500 BC most
people on the island had been assimilated into a new and distinct
culture which we now call the Minoan, after the mythical King
Minos. In the Middle period the Minoan civilization reached its peak,
producing pottery and metalwork of remarkable beauty and a high degree
of imagination and skill. The Late period was the civilization
decline both commercially and militarily against Mycenaean
competition from the mainland, until its abrupt end around 1100 BC, when
Dorian invaders and natural disasters ravaged the island.
Like
the Cycladic civilization, the Minoan was a great maritime power which
exported goods throughout the Mediterranean. The polychrome
Kamares Ware pottery which flourished during the Middle period was
highly prized by the Egyptians.
Around
1700 BC the palaces at Knossos, Phaestos, Malia and Zakros were wrecked
by a violent earthquake. The Minoans rebuilt them to a more
complex, almost "labyrinthine" design with multiple storeys,
sumptuous royal apartments, reception halls, storerooms, workshops,
living quarters for staff and an advanced drainage system. The interiors
were decorated with the celebrated Minoan frescoes, now on
display in the Archaeological Museum at Iraklion.
The
Minoans were also literate. Their first script resembled Egyptian hieroglyphs,
the most famous example of which is the inscription on the
Phaestos disc (1700 BC). They progressed to a syllable-based
script which 20th-century archaeologists have dubbed Linear A, because
it consists of linear symbols. Like the earlier hieroglyphs,
it has not yet been deciphered, but archaeologists believe
that it was used to document trade transactions and the contents of
royal storerooms, rather than to express abstract concepts.
Some
historians have suggested that the civilization's decline after 1500 BC
was brought about not just by Mycenaean invaders but by the
volcanic explosion on the Cycladic island of Thira, an eruption
which vulcanologists believe was more cataclysmic than any on record.
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Mycenaean
Civilization
The
decline of the Minoan civilization in the Late Minoan period coincided
with the rise of the first great civilization of the Greek
mainland, the Mycenaean (1900-1100 BC), which reached its peak
between 1500 and 1200 BC. Named after the ancient city of Mycenae, where
the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann made his great
finds in 1876, it is also known as the Achaean civilization
after the Indo-European branch of migrants who had settled on mainland
Greece and absorbed many aspects of Minoan culture.
Unlike
Minoan society, where the lack of city walls seems to indicate relative
peace under some form of central authority, Mycenaean civilization
was characterized by independent city-states such as Corinth,
Pylos, Tyrins and, the most powerful of them all, Mycenae. These
were ruled by kings who inhabited palaces enclosed within massive walls
on easily defensible hilltops.
The
Mycenaeans' most impressive legacy is magnificent gold jewelry and ornaments,
most of which can be seen in the National Archaeological Museum
in Athens. The Mycenaeans wrote in what is called Linear B
(unrelated to the Linear A of Crete), which has been deciphered as an
early form of Greek. They also worshipped gods who were precursors of the
later Greek gods.
Examples
of Linear B have also been found on Crete, suggesting that Mycenaean invaders
may have conquered the island, perhaps around 1500 BC, when many Minoan
palaces were destroyed. Mycenaean influence stretched further
than Crete: the Mycenaean city-states banded together to defeat
Troy and thus to protect their trade routes to the Black Sea, and
archaeological research has unearthed Mycenaean artifacts as far away as
Egypt, Mesopotamia and Italy. The Mycenaean civilization came
to an end during the 12th century BC, when Dorian tribes invaded
Greece and swept all before them.
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Geometric
Age (1200-800 BC)
The
warrior-like Dorians fanned out over much of the mainland, razing the city-states
and enslaving the inhabitants, and later conquered Crete and
the south-west coast of Asia Minor. Other Indo-European tribes
known as the Thessalians settled in what is now Thessaly. Of the
original Greek tribal groups, the Aeolians fled to the north-west coast
of Asia Minor; the Ionians sought refuge on the on the central
coast and the islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios, although
they also held out in mainland Greece – in Attica and the well-fortified
city of Athens.
The
Dorians brought a traumatic break with the past, and the next 400 years
are often referred to as Greece's Dark Age. But it would be
unfair to dismiss the Dorians completely, as they brought with
them iron and developed a new style of pottery, decorated with striking
geometrical designs – although the art historians are still out to lunch
as to whether the Dorians merely copied the designs perfected
by Ionians in Attica. The Dorians worshipped male gods instead
of fertility goddesses and adopted the Mycenaean gods of Poseidon, Zeus
and Apollo, paving the way for the later Greek religious pantheon.
Perhaps
most importantly, the Dorian warriors developed into a class of land-holding
aristocrats. This worsened the lot of the average farmer but also brought
about the demise of the monarchy as a system of government
by about 800 BC, along with a resurgence of the Mycenaean pattern
of independent city-states, this time lead by wealthy aristocrats instead
of absolute monarchs – the beginnings of "democratic" government.
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Archaic
Age (800-480 BC)
By
this time, local agriculture and animal husbandry had become productive
enough to trigger a resumption of maritime trading. New Greek
colonies were established in north Africa, Italy, Sicily, southern
France and southern Spain to fill the vacuum left by the decline of those
other great Mediterranean traders, the Phoenicians.
The
people of the various city-states were unified by the invention of a Greek
alphabet (of Phoenician origin, though the Greeks introduced
vowels), the verses of Homer (which created a sense of a shared
Mycenaean past), the establishment of the Olympic Games (which brought
all the city-states together), and the setting up of central sanctuaries
such as Delphi (a neutral meeting ground for lively negotiations),
giving Greeks, for the first time, a sense of national identity.
This period is known as the Archaic, or Middle Age.
The
city-states were built to a similar plan, with a fortified acropolis ("high
city") at the highest point. The acropolis contained the cities'
temples and treasury and also served as a refuge during invasions.
Outside the acropolis was the agora ("market"), a bustling commercial
quarter, and beyond it the residential areas.
The
city-state was autonomous, free to pursue its own interests as it saw fit,
which inevitably caused bickering and wars between them. As
we have already seen, most city-states abolished monarchic
rule in favor of an aristocratic form of government, usually headed by
an archon (chief magistrate).
Aristocrats
were often disliked by the population because of their inherited privileges,
and some city-states fell to rule by tyrants after Kypselos
started the practice in Corinth around 650 BC. Tyrants seized
their position rather than inheriting it, and were often perceived as having
the welfare of ordinary citizens at heart by instituting improvements
for the benefit of the majority.Athens & Solon The
seafaring city-state of Athens, meanwhile, was still in the hands of aristocrats,
and a failed coup attempt by a would-be tyrant led the legislator
Draco to draw up his infamous laws in 620 BC. These were so
punitive that even the theft of a cabbage was punished by death (hence
the word "draconian").
In 594
BC a remarkable man, Solon, was appointed
archon of Athens with a far-reaching mandate to defuse the
mounting tensions between the have and the have-nots. He canceled all
debts and freed those who had become enslaved because of their debts. Declaring
all free Athenians equal by law, he abolished inherited privileges
and restructured political power along four classes based on
wealth.
Although
only the first two classes were eligible for office, all four were allowed
to elect magistrates and vote on legislation in the general
assembly, the ecclesia. His reforms have led to him being regarded
as the harbinger of democracy.
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Sparta
In
the Peloponnese a very different kind of city-state existed in the form
of Sparta, which was not really a city but a group of free
villages. One of the few states to remain a monarchy, Sparta
was ruled by two kings. The Spartans were descended from the Dorian invaders
who used the Helots, the original inhabitants of Lakonia, as
their slaves, and they ran their society along strict military
rules laid down by the 9th century legislator Lycurgus.
Newborn
babies were inspected, and if found wanting, were left to die on a mountain
top. At the age of seven boys were taken from their homes to
undergo rigorous training to make them ace soldiers. Girls
were spared military training but were forced to exercise vigorously to
attain prime health in order to generate healthy sons. Spartan
indoctrination was so effective that dissension was unknown
and a degree of stability was achieved that other city-states could
only dream of.
While
Athens became powerful through trade, Sparta was the ultimate military
machine. Both towered above the other city-states.
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The
Persian Wars
In
519 BC Darius I ascended the throne of the expanding empire of Persia.
The Ionians along the coast of Asia Minor were under Persian
rule, having been conquered by Emperor Cyrus (ruled 550-530
BC), and were unhappy about their conditions.
In 499
BC Aristagoras, the tyrant of Miletus, organized a revolt of all the city-states
along the coast. Darius managed to subdue things in a five-year
campaign, and became hell-bent on revenge against Athens, one
of the few states outside the area that had helped the insurgents.
He appealed to Sparta to attack Athens from behind, but the wily Spartans
saw straight through his planned conquest of Greece and threw
his envoy in a well.
The
Persian army landed at Marathon in 490 BC. The 10,000 Athenian infantry
were supported only by a small group of soldiers from Plataea
(Sparta procrastinated because it was in the middle of a festival),
nut nevertheless they defeated the Persian arches and cavalry through a
series of ingenious maneuvers.
Darius
died in 485 BC before his plans for another attempt reached fruition, so
it was left to his son Xerxes to fulfill his father's ambition
of conquering Greece. In 480 BC Xerxes gathered men from every
nation of his far-flung empire and launched a coordinated invasion by army
and navy, the size of which the world had never seen. The historian
Herodotus gave five million as the number of Persian soldiers.
No doubt this was a gross exaggeration, but it was obvious Xerxes
intended to give the Greeks more than a bloody nose.
The
Persians dug a canal near present-day Ierissos so that their navy could
bypass the rough seas around the base of the Mt. Athos peninsula
(where they had been caught before), and spanned the Hellespont
with pontoon bridges for their army to march over.
Some
30 city-states of central and southern Greece met in Corinth to devise
a common defense (others, including the oracle at Delphi, sided
with the Persians). They agreed on a combined army and navy
under Spartan command, with the Athenian leader Themistokles
providing the strategy. The Spartan King Leonidas led the army to the pass
at Thermopylae, near present-day Lamia, the main passage from
northern into central Greece. This bottleneck was easy to defend,
and although the Greeks were greatly outnumbered they held the pass
until a traitor showed the Persians a way over the mountains. The Greeks
were forced to retreat, but Leonidas, along with 300 of his
Spartan elite troops, fought to the death. The fleet, which
held off the Persian navy north of Euboea (Evia), had no choice but to
retreat as well.
The
Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies fell back on their second line
of defense (an earthen wall across the Isthmus of Corinth),
while the Persians advanced upon Athens. Themistokles ordered
his people to flee the city: the women and children to Salamis, the men
to sea on the Athenian fleet. The Persians razed Attica and burned Athens
to the ground.
But
by skillful maneuvering the Greek navy then ensnared the large Persian
Ships in the narrow waters off Salamis, where they became easy
pickings for the agile Greek vessels. Xerxes, who watched the
defeat of his mighty fleet from the shore, returned to Persia in disgust,
leaving his general Mardonius to subdue Greece with the army.
A year later, the Greeks under the Spartan general Pausanias
obliterated the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea. The Athenian navy
sailed to Asia Minor and destroyed what was left of the Persian fleet at
Mykale, freeing the Ionian city-states there from Persian rule.
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Classical
Age (480-338 BC)
After
the defeat of the Persians, the disciplined Spartans once again retreated
to their "fortress Peloponnese", while Athens basked in its
role as liberator and embarked on a policy of blatant imperialism.
In 477 BC it founded the Delian League, so called because the treasury
was kept on the sacred island of Delos. The league consisted
of almost every state with a navy, no matter how small, including
many of the Aegean islands and some of the Ionian city-states in
Asia Minor.
Ostensibly
its purpose was twofold: to build and maintain a large navy to retrieve
the Greek city-states that were still occupied by Persia, and
to establish an effective defense against another Persian attack.
The swearing of allegiance to Athens and an annual contribution of
ships (later just money) were mandatory. Thus Athens achieved what has
been its scheme all along: the transformation of the league
into an Athenian empire.
Indeed,
when Pericles became leader of Athens in 461 BC, he moved the treasury
from Delos to the Acropolis and used its contents to begin
a "no-expenses-spared" building program. His first objectives
were to rebuild the temple complex of the Acropolis which had been destroyed
by the Persians, and to link Athens to its lifeline, the port of Piraeus,
with fortified walls designed to withstand any future siege.
Under
Pericles' leadership (461-429 BC), Athens experienced a golden age with
unprecedented cultural, artistic and scientific achievements,
which had germinated in the Ionian cities in Asia Minor almost
two centuries earlier. The city was riding the crest of a wave with rapidly
expanding overseas trade.
Now
that the Aegean Sea was safely under its wing, Athens began to look westwards
for further expansion and came up against the city-states on
the mainland. It also encroached on the trade area of Corinth,
which belonged to the Peloponnesian League dominated by Sparta. A
number of fickle alliances, skirmishes and provocation precipitated the
Peloponnesian Wars.
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First
Peloponnesian War
One
of the major triggers was the Corcyra incident, in which Athens supported
Corcyra (present-day Kerkyra or Corfu) in a controversy with
its mother city, Corinth. Corinth, now under serious threat,
called on Sparta to help. Sparta's power depended to a large extent on
Corinth's wealth, so it rallied to the cause. The First Peloponnesian
War (431-421) had begun.
Athens
knew it couldn't defeat Sparta on land, so it abandoned Attica to the Spartan
invaders, withdrew behind its mighty walls and blockaded the
Peloponnese with its navy. Plague broke out in the overcrowded
city, killing a third of the population including Pericles. Nevertheless,
Sparta couldn't capture Athens-Piraeus and the blockade of the Peloponnese
began to hurt, and the two adversaries eventually reached an
uneasy truce.
The Sicilian
Adventure
Throughout
the war Athens had maintained and interest in Sicily and its grain, which
the soil in Attica was too poor to produce. The Greek colonies
there mirrored the city-states in Greece, the most powerful
being Syracuse, which had remained neutral during the war. In 416
BC the Sicilian city of Segesta asked Athens to intervene in a squabble
it was having with Selinus, an ally of Syracuse. A hot-headed
second cousin of Pericles, Alkibiades, convinced the Athenian
assembly to send a flotilla to Sicily; it could go on the pretext of
helping Segesta, and then attack Syracuse.The flotilla, under the joint
leadership of Alkibiades, Nikias and Lamachos, was ill-fated
from the outset. Alkibiades was called back to Athens on blasphemy
charges arising from a drinking binge in which he knocked the heads off
a few holy statues. Enraged, he traveled not to Athens but
to Sparta and persuaded the surprised
Spartans
to go to the aid of Syracuse, which had been under siege from the Athenians
for over three years. Nikias' health suffered and Lamachos,
the most adept of the three, was killed. Sparta followed Alkibiades'
advice and broke the siege in 413 BC, destroying the Athenian fleet
and army.
Second Peloponnesian
War
Athens
was depleted of troops, money and ships; its subject states were ripe for
revolt and Sparta was there to lend them a hand. In 413 BC
the Spartans occupied Decelea in Attica, from where they harassed
farmers and slowly starved Athens which had begun to feel the loss
of its Sicilian grain supplies. Darius II of Persia, who had been closely
watching events in Sicily and Greece, offered Sparta money
to build a navy, so long as Sparta promised to return the Ionian
cities in Asia Minor to Persia.
Athens
put in one last effort and in the ensuing war even gained the upper hand
for a while under the leadership of the reinstated Alkibiades.
But when Persia entered the fray in Asia Minor and Sparta regained
its composure under the outstanding general Lysander, Athens'
days were numbered. In 404 BC it surrendered to Sparta.
Corinth
urged the total destruction of Athens but Lysander felt honor-bound to
spare the city that had saved Greece from the Persians. Instead
he crippled it by confiscating its fleet, abolishing the Delian
League and tearing down the walls between the city and Piraeus.
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Greece
Under Sparta
The
Peloponnesian Wars had exhausted the city-states. None were to return to
their former glory and only Sparta had retained a semblance
of power, which it now exerted over the rest. During the wars,
Sparta had promised to restore liberty to the city-states who turned against
Athens, but Lysander now installed oligarchies (governments run by the
super-rich) supervised by Spartan garrisons. Soon there was
widespread dissatisfaction.
Sparta
further weakened its position when it began to campaign to reclaim the
cities in Asia Minor from Persian rule. This brought the Persians
and Persian money back to the Greek affairs where they found
willing clients in Athens and increasingly powerful Thebes. Thebes,
which had freed itself from Spartan control and had revived the Boeotian
League, soon became the main threat to Sparta, while Athens
regained some of its former power at the head of a new league
of Aegean states known as the Second Confederacy – this time aimed against
Sparta rather than Persia.
The
rivalry culminated in the decisive Battle of Leuktra in 371 BC, where Thebes,
under the leadership of the remarkable statesman and general
Epaminondas, was victorious. Sparta had never lost a pitched
battle before, and consequently its influence over Greece collapsed while
Thebes filled the vacuum.
In a
surprise about-turn Athens now allied itself with Sparta, and their combined
forces met the Theban army at Mantinea in the Peloponnese in
362 BC. The battle was won by Thebes, but the victory was hollow
since Epaminondas was killed, and without his talents Theban power
crumbled. Athens was unable to take advantage of the situation as the Second
Confederacy became embroiled in infighting fomented by the
Persians, and when the Confederacy collapsed, Athens lost its
final chance of regaining its former glory.
The
city-states were now spent forces and a new power was rising in the north:
Macedon. This had not gone unnoticed by the inspirational orator
Demosthenes in Athens, who, anticipating a Macedonian invasion,
argued fervently for consolidation amongst the city-states. Only Thebes
took heed of his warnings and the two cities formed an alliance.
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The
Rise of Macedonia
While
the Greeks engineered their own decline through the Peloponnesian Wars,
Macedonia was gathering strength in the north. Macedonia had
long been detached from developments in Greece. It had a monarchy,
and in comparison with the Greeks of the city-states the inhabitants
were a backward lot. Many belonged to primitive hill tribes who were only
nominally overseen by the king. The Greeks considered them
barbarians (those whose speech sounded like "bar-bar", which
meant anyone who didn't speak Greek).
However,
with increasing land and sea communications, the culture of the city-states
had begun to penetrate. King Archelaos (ruled 413-399 BC) made
his court at Pella into a cultural center, inviting artists
and poets from the city-states to work there. But the first king of
Macedonia actively to meddle in Greek affairs was Philip II (ruled 382-336
BC).
As a
boy, Philip had been held hostage in Thebes where Epaminondas had taught
him a thing or two about military strategy. After organizing
his rebellious hill tribes into an efficient army of cavalry
and long-lanced infantry, Philip made several forays south, and manipulated
his way into membership of the Amphyctionic Council (a group
of states whose job it was to protect the oracle at Delphi).
In 339
BC, on the pretext of helping the Amphyctionic Council sort out a sacred
war with Amfissa, he marched his army into Greece. The result
was the Battle of Khaironeia in Boeotia (338 BC), in which
the Macedonians defeated a combined army of Athenians and Thebans. The
following year Philip called together all the city-states (except Sparta,
which remained aloof) at Corinth and persuaded them to form
the League of Corinth and swear allegiance to Macedonia by
promising he would lead them in a campaign against Persia. The barbarian
upstart had become leader of all the Greeks.
Philip's
ambition to tackle Persia never materialized, for in 336 BC he was assassinated
by a Macedonian noble. His son, the 20-year-old Alexander,
who had led the decisive cavalry charge at Khaironea, now became
king.
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Alexander
the Great
Alexander,
highly educated (he had been tutored by the great Aristotle), an astute
politician, fearless and ambitious, was intent upon fulfilling
what his father had begun. Philip II's death had been the signal
for rebellions throughout the budding empire, but Alexander wasted no time
in crushing them, making an example of Thebes which he razed
to the ground. After restoring order, he turned his attention
to the Persian Empire and marched his army of 40,000 men into
Asia Minor in 334 BC.
After
a few bloody battles with the Persians, most notably at Issus (333 BC),
Alexander succeeded in conquering Syria, Palestine and Egypt
– where he was proclaimed pharaoh and founded the city of Alexandria.
Hell-bent on sitting on the Persian throne, he then began hunting
down the Persian king, Darius III, defeating his army in Mesopotamia in
331 BC. Darius III fled eastward while Alexander mopped up
his empire behind him, destroying the Persian palace at Persepolis
in revenge for the sacking of the Acropolis 150 years earlier, and
confiscating the well-endowed royal treasury. The following year Darius'
body was found: he had been stabbed to death by a Bactrian
(Afghan) dissident.
Alexander
continued eastwards into what is now Uzbekistan, Bactria (where he married
a local princess, Roxane) and northern India. His ambition
was now to conquer the world, which he believed ended at the
sea beyond India. But his soldiers grew weary and in 324 BC forced him
to return to Mesopotamia, where he settled in Babylon and drew up plans
for an expedition south into Arabia. The following year, however,
he suddenly fell ill and died. At the young age of 33, Alexander
hadn't yet organized an heir, and after his untimely death his generals
swooped like vultures onto his extensive empire.
When
the dust settled by 301 BC, Alexander's empire had fallen apart into three
large kingdoms and several smaller states. The three generals
with the richest pickings were Ptolemy, founder of the Ptolemaic
dynasty in Egypt (capital: Alexandria), which died out when
the last of the dynasty, Cleopatra, committed suicide in 30 BC; Seleucus,
founder of the Seleucid dynasty which ruled over Persia and
Syria (capital: Antiochia); and Antigonus, who ruled over Asia
Minor and whose Antigonid successors would win control over Macedonia
proper.
Macedonia
lost control of the Greek city-states to the south, who banded together
into the Aetolian League centered around Delphi and the Achaean League
based on the Peloponnese; Athens and Sparta joined neither. One of
Alexander's officers established the mini-kingdom of Pergamum in
Asia Minor, which reached its height under Attalos I (ruled 241-196 BC)
when it rivaled Alexandria as the center of culture and learning.
The island of Rhodes developed into a powerful mini-state by taxing
passing ships.
Still,
Alexander's formidable achievements during 13 years on the world stage
earned him the epithet "the Great". He spread Greek Culture
throughout a large part of the "civilized" world, encouraged intermarriage
and dismissed the anti-barbarian snobbery of the Classical Greeks.
In doing so, he ushered in the Hellenistic period of world history, in
which Hellenic ("Greek") Culture broke out of the narrow confines
of the ancient Greek world and merged with the other proud cultures
of antiquity to create a new cosmopolitan tradition.
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Roman
Rule
While
Alexander the Great was forging his vast empire in the east, the Romans
had been expanding in the west and now began making inroads
for Greece. They found willing allies in Pergamum and Rhodes, who
feared Syrian and Macedonian expansionism. The Romans defeated
the Seleucid king, Antiochus III, in a three-year campaign and in 189 BC
gave all of Asia Minor to Pergamum. Several wars were needed to subjugate
Macedon, but in 168 BC Macedon lost the decisive Battle of Pydnaa
and was turned into a Roman province 20 years later.
The
Achaean League was defeated in 146 BC; the Roman consult Mummius made an
example of the rebellious Corinthians by completely destroying their
beautiful city, massacring the men and selling the women and children
into slavery. Attalos III of Pergamum died without an heir in 133
BC, donating Asia Minor to Rome in his will. In 86 BC Athens joined in
a rebellion agains the Romans in Asia Minor, staged by the
king of the Black Sea region, Mithridates VI; the Roman statesman
Sulla invaded Athens, destroyed its walls and took off with its most valuable
sculptures.
Soon
most of Greece was under Roman rule and the area became a battleground
as Roman generals fought for supremacy. In a decisive naval battle
off Cape Actium (31 BC) Octavian was victorious over Antony and Cleopatra
and consequently became Rome's first emperor, assuming the title
Augustus, the Grand One.
For
the next 300 years Greece, as the Roman province of Achaea, experienced
an unprecedented period of peace, the Pax Romana. The Romans had
always venerated Greek art, literature and philosophy, and aristocratic
Romans sent their offspring to the many schools in Athens. Indeed,
the Romans adopted most aspects of Hellenistic culture, spreading its
unifying traditions throughout their empire.
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Christianity
& the Byzantine Empire
The
Pax Romana began to crumble in 250 AD when the Goths invaded Greece, the
first of a succession of invaders spurred on by the Great Migrations,
which included the Visigoths in 395, the Vandals in 465, the Ostrogoths
in 480, the Bulgars in 500, the Huns in 540, and the Slavs after
600.
But
the new religion of Christianity had a much more lasting impact. St. Paul
had made several visits to Greece in the 1st century AD and made
converts in many places. The definitive boost to the spread of Christianity
in this part of the world came with the conversion of the Roman emperors
and the rise of the rise of the Byzantine Empire, which blended Hellenistic
culture with Christianity.
In 324
Emperor Constantine I, a Christian convert, transferred the capital of
the empire from Rome to Byzantium, a city on the western shore of
the Bosporus, which was renamed Constantinople. This was as much
due to insecurity in Italy itself as to the growing importance of
the wealthy eastern regions of the empire. By the end of the 4th century
the Roman Empire was formally divided into a western and eastern
half. While Rome went into terminal decline, the eastern capital
grew in wealth and strength, long outliving its western counterpart (the
Byzantine Empire lasted until the capture of Constantinople by the Turks
in 1453).
In 394
Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion in Greece
and outlawed the worship of Greek/Roman gods, now branded as paganism.
Athens remained an important cultural center until 529, when Emperor
Justinian forbade the teaching of Classical philosophy in favor of
Christian theology, now seen as the supreme form of intellectual endeavor.
The Hagia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom) was built in Constantinople
and many magnificent churches were also built in Greece, especially
in Thessaloniki, a Christian stronghold much favored by the Byzantine
emperors.
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The
Crusades
It
is one of the ironies of history that the demise of the Byzantine Empire
was accelerated not by invasions of infidels from the east, or barbarians
from the north, but by fellow Christians from the west. The First
Crusade set out from France in 1095 – the first of several crusades over
the next two centuries – to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims,
the adherents of Islam who had burst out of the Arabian peninsula
in the 7th century. The crusaders were a rough lot, driven by greed
as much as religious fervor. Not content with merely liberating Palestine,
where they had to keep fighting off the Muslims, they set about conquering
the now weak Byzantine Empire.
When
the Fourth Crusade arrived in Constantinople in 1204, the crusaders sacked
the city and created the so-called Latin Empire of Constantinople,
partitioning much of the Byzantine Empire into feudal states ruled
by self-styled "Latin" princes. Greece now entered one of the most
tumultuous periods of its history. The Byzantines fought to regain their
lost capital and to keep the areas they had managed to hold on to
(the so-called Empire of Nicaea, south of Constantinople in Asia
Minor), while the "Latin" (mostly Frankish) princes fought amongst
themselves to expand their territories.
Meanwhile,
Venice had secured a foothold in Greece. The Byzantine emperor Alexius
had asked Venice to help when the Normans invaded Greece in 1196.
The commercially ambitious Venetians acquiesced on condition that
they could use Byzantine trade routes and be exempt from taxes. Over
the next few centuries they acquired all of the most strategic Greek ports,
including the island of Crete, and became the wealthiest and most powerful
traders in the Mediterranean.
Despite
this disorderly state of affairs Byzantium was not yet dead. In 1259, the
Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus recaptured the Peloponnese
from the Frankish de Villehardouin family, and made the city
of Mystra his headquarters. Many of the most eminent Byzantine
artists, architects, intellectuals and philosophers converged on the city
for a final burst of Byzantine creativity. Michael VIII managed to
wrest Constantinople back from the Frankish conquerors in 1261, but
by this time Byzantium was a shadow of its former self.
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The
Ottoman Empire
Soon
a new power was threatening in the east: the Turkish Ottoman Empire, founded
in central Asia in the late 13th century. The Muslim Turks rapidly
expanded the areas under their control and by the mid-14th century
were harassing the Byzantine Empire on all sides. Western Europe
was too embroiled in the Hundred Years' War to come to the rescue, and
in 1453 Constantinople fell to the Turks under Mohammed II the Conqueror.
Once more Greece became a battleground, this time fought over by
the Turks and Venetians. Eventually, with the exception of the Ionian
islands, Greece became part of the Ottoman Empire.
Much
has been made of the horrors of the Turkish occupation in Greece. However,
in the early years of Ottoman rule Greeks probably marginally preferred
Ottoman to Venetian or Frankish rule. Also, the roman and Byzantine
churches had been growing ever more apart since the pope in Rome
and the patriarch in Constantinople excommunicated one another in 1054,
and Mohammed II was careful to respect the patriarch's authority.
But
life was not easy under the Turks, not least because of the high taxation
they imposed. One of their most callous practices was the taking
of one out of every five male children in a Greek family to become
janissaries, personal bodyguards of the sultans. Many janissaries
became infantrymen in the Ottoman army, but the cleverest rose to high
office including grand vizier. Sometimes young Greek girls were taken
away from their families to become women of the sultan's harem. As
time went on and the Ottoman Empire fell into decline, atrocities did
take place, but generally the occupation was typified more by neglect than
arrant brutality.
The
Ottoman Empire reached its zenith under Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent
(ruled 1520-66), who expanded it throughout the Balkans and Hungary
to the gates of Vienna. In 1570, his successor, Selim the Sot, also
intent upon expansion, invaded Cyprus, which was under Venetian jurisdiction
but inhabited by Greeks. The Ottomans sacked the capital, Nicosia,
and massacred 30,000 of its inhabitants.
This
atrocity shocked and frightened Europe, and strengthened the burgeoning
notion that Ottoman expansionism had to be checked. This was easier
to achieve on sea than on land for the time being, and in the Battle
of Lepanto (1571) off the northern Peloponnese coast the Ottoman
navy was defeated by a combined Venetian and Spanish fleet, breaking Ottoman
naval power in the eastern Mediterranean.
Russian Involvement
The
ineffectual sultans of 16th and 17th centuries hastened the Ottoman Empire's
decline, and anarchy and rebellion became endemic. Corsairs terrorized
coastal dwellers, gangs of klephts (anti-Ottoman fugitives and brigands)
roamed the mountains, and there was an upsurge of opposition to Turkish
rule by freedom fighters who fought one another more than the Turks.
In various enclaves of the Ottoman Empire, however, where intellectual
Greeks had tenaciously preserved Greek culture, there were the first
stirrings of what was to blossom into a more organized national rebellion.
One such enclave was Odessa in Russia.
Russia's
link with Greece went back to Byzantine times, when the Russians had been
converted to Christianity by Byzantine missionaries. The Church hierarchies
in Constantinople and Kiev (later Moscow) soon went separate ways,
but when Constantinople fell to the Turks, the metropolitan (head)
of the Russian Church declared Moscow the "third Rome", the true heir
of Christianity, and campaigned for the liberation of the fellow Christians
in the south. This fitted in nicely with Russia's efforts to expand
southwards and south-westwards into Ottoman territory – perhaps even
to turn the Ottoman Empire back to a Byzantine Empire dependent on
Russia.
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Independence
Parties
When
Catherine the Great became Empress of Russia in 1762, both the Republic
of Venice and the Ottoman Empire were weak. She sent Russian agents
to foment rebellion, first in the Peloponnese in 1770 and then in
Epiros in 1786. Both were crushed ruthlessly – the latter by Ali
Pasha, the governor of Ioannina, who proceeded to set up his own power
base in Greece in defiance of the sultan. In the 1770s and
1780s Catherine booted the Turks from the Black Sea coast, created a
number of towns in the region, including Odessa, and gave them Ancient
Greek or Byzantine names. She offered Greeks financial incentives
and free land to settle the region, and many took up her offer.
In Odessa
in 1814, three businessmen Athanasios Tsakalof, Emmanuel Xanthos and Nikoalos
Skoufas founded a Greek independence party, the Philiki Etairia (Friendly
Society). The message of the society spread quickly and branches
opened throughout Greece. Members met in secret and came from all
walks of life. The leaders in Odessa held the firm belief that armed
force was the only effective means of liberation, and made generous monetary
contributions to the freedom fighters.
Meanwhile
there were also stirrings of dissent amongst Greeks living in Constantinople.
The Ottomans regarded it as beneath them to participate in commerce,
and this had left the door open for Greeks in the city to become
a powerful economic force. These wealthy Greek families were called
Phanariots. Unlike the Filiki Etairia, who strove for liberation through
rebellion, the Phanariots believed that by virtue of their positions they
could effect a takeover from within. Influential Phanariots included
Alexander Mavrokordatos and Alexander and Dimitrios Ypsilantis.
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The
War of Independence
Ali
Pasha's private rebellion against the sultan in 1820 gave the Greeks the
opportunity they had been waiting for. On 25 March 1821 Bishop Germanos
of Patras hoisted the Greek flag at the monastery of Agias Lavras
in the Peloponnese, an act of defiance that marked the beginning
of the War of Independence. Fighting broke out throughout the Peloponnese,
with fearless Maniot freedom fighters, led by Petrobey Mavromichaelis,
governor of the Mani, laying siege to the most strategic Turkish
garrisons and razing the homes of thousands of Turks. The worst atrocity
occurred in the city of Tripolitsa (present-day Tripolis) where 12,000
Turkish inhabitants were massacred.
The
fighting escalated throughout the mainland and many islands. Within a year
the Greeks had captured Monemvassia, Navarino (modern Pylos), Nafplion
and Tripolitsa in the Peloponnese, and Messolongi, Athens and Thebes.
Greek independence was proclaimed at Epidaurus on 13 January 1822.
The Turks retaliated with massacres in Asia Minor, most notoriously
on the island of Chios, where 25,000 civilians were killed.
The
Western powers were reluctant to intervene, fearing the consequences of
creating a power vacuum in south-eastern Europe, where the Turks
still controlled much territory. But help did come from the philhellenes
– aristocratic young men, recipients of a classical education, who
saw themselves as the inheritors of a glorious civilization and were willing
to fight to liberate its oppressed descendants. Philhellenes included
Shelley, Goethe, Schiller, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset and Lord
Byron. Byron arrived in Messolongi an important center of resistance in
January 1824 and died three months later of pneumonia.
The
prime movers of the revolution were the klephts Theodoros Kolokotronis
(who led the siege of Nafplion) and Marko Botsaris; George Koundouriotis
(a ship owner) and Admiral Andreas Miaoulis, both from Hydra; and
the Phanariots Alexander Mavrokordatos and Demitrios Ypsilantis.
If you familiarize yourself with these names, walking along streets in
Greece will take on a whole new meaning as a disproportionate number
are named after these heroes. The long list makes it clear that the
cause was not lacking leaders; what was lacking was unity of objectives
and strategy. Internal disagreements twice escalated into civil war, the
worst in the Peloponnese in 1824. The sultan took advantage of this,
called in Egyptian reinforcements, and by 1827 captured Modon (Methoni)
and Corinth, and recaptured Navarino, Messolongi and Athens.
At last
the Western powers intervened, and a combined Russian, French and British
fleet destroyed the Turkish-Egyptian fleet in the Bay of Navarino
in October 1827. Sultan Mahmud II defied the odds and proclaimed
a holy war. Russia sent troops into the Balkans and engaged the Ottoman
army in yet another Russo-Turkish war. Fighting continued until 1829 when,
with Russian troops at the gates of Constantinople, the sultan accepted
Greek independence by the Treaty of Adrianople.
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Birth
of the Greek Nation
Meanwhile,
the Greeks had begun organizing the independent state they proclaimed several
years earlier. In April 1827 they elected as their first president a Corfiot
who had been the foreign minister of Tsar Alexander I, Ioannis Kapodistrias.
Nafplion, in the Peloponnese, was selected as the capital.
With
his Russian past, Kapodistrias believed in a strong centralized government.
Although he was good at enlisting foreign support, his autocratic
manner at home was unacceptable to many of the leaders of the War
of Independence, particularly the Maniot chieftains who had always
been a law unto themselves, and in 1831 he was assassinated.
In the
ensuing anarchy, Britain, France and Russia once again intervened and declared
that Greece should become a monarchy and that the throne should be
given to a non-Greek in order to frustrate Greek power struggles.
A fledgling kingdom was now up for grabs amongst the offspring of
the crowned heads of Europe, but no-one exactly ran to fill the empty throne.
Eventually the 17-year-old Prince Otto of Bavaria became king, arriving
in Nafplion in January 1833. The new kingdom (established by the
London Convention of 1832) consisted of the Peloponnese, Sterea Ellada,
the Cyclades and the Sporades.
King
Otho (as his name became) got up the nose of the Greek people from the
moment he set foot on their land – firstly, because he arrived with
a bunch of upper-class Bavarian cronies, to whom he gave the most
prestigious official posts; and secondly, because he was as autocratic
as Kapodistrias had been. In 1834 Otho moved the capital to Athens.
Patience
with his rule ran out in 1843 when demonstrations in the capital, led by
the War of Independence leaders, called for a constitution. Otho
mustered a National Assembly which drafted a constitution calling
for parliamentary government consisting of a lower house and a senate.
Otho's cronies were whisked out of power and replaced by War of Independence
freedom fighters, who bullied and bribed the populace into voting in a
way which suited them.
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The
Great Idea
By
the middle of the 19th century the people of the new Greek nation were
no better off materially than they had been under the Ottomans, and
it was in this climate of despondency the Megali Idea (Great Idea)
of a new Greek Empire was born. This empire was to include all the
lands that had once been under Greek influence, with Constantinople as
the capital. Otho enthusiastically embraced the idea, which increased
his popularity no end.
Not
with the Greek politicians, however, who still thought ways to increase
their own power in the face of his autocratic rule. By the end of
the 1850s, most of the stalwarts from the War of Independence had
been replaced by a new breed of university graduates (Athens University
had been founded in 1837). In 1862 they staged a bloodless revolution
and deposed the king. But they weren't quite able to set their own
agenda, because in the same year Britain returned the Ionian islands
(a British protectorate since 1815) to Greece, and in the general euphoria
the British were able to push forward young Prince William of Denmark,
who became King George I (the Greek monarchy retained its Danish
links from that time).
His
50-year reign brought stability to the troubled country, beginning with
a new constitution in 1864 which established the power of democratically
elected representatives and pushed the king further towards a largely
ceremonial role. In 1866-68, an uprising in Crete against Turkish
rule was suppressed by the sultan, but in 1881 Greece did acquire Thessaly
and part of Epiros as a result of another Russo-Turkish war.
Kharilaos
Trikoupis became prime minister in 1882 and prudently concentrated his
efforts on domestic issues, rather than pursuing the Great Idea.
The 1880 s showed the first signs of economic growth, the country's
first railway lines and paved roads had been constructed, the Corinth
Canal (begun in 62 AD!) was completed enabling Piraeus to become a major
Mediterranean port, and the merchant navy was growing rapidly.
However,
the Great Idea had not been buried, and reared its head again after Trikoupis'
death in 1896. In 1897 there was another uprising in Crete, and the
hot-headed prime minister Diliyiannis sent a Greek army which resulted
in open war with Turkey. It was only through the intervention of
the great powers that the Turkish army was prevented from taking Athens,
and Crete came under international administration.
The
day-to-day government of the island was gradually handed over to the Greeks,
and in 1905, the president of the Cretan assembly, Eleftherios Venizelos,
announced Crete's union (enosis) with Greece, although this was not
recognized by international law until 1913. Venizelos went on to
become prime minister of Greece in 1910 and was the country's leading politician
until his republican sympathies brought about his downfall in 1935.
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The
Balkan Wars
At
the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was in its death
throes but was still clinging on to Macedonia. The newly formed Balkan
countries of Serbia and Bulgaria, as well as Greece, were hoping
to add Macedonia to this territory. These territorial ambitions led to
two Balkan wars; in the first (1912) Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece
fought Turkey, and in the second (1913) Serbia and Greece fought
Bulgaria.
The
outcome of these wars was the Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913), which
greatly expanded Greek territory by adding the southern part of Macedonia,
part of Thrace, another chunk of Epiros, and the North-East Aegean
Islands, as well as recognizing the union with Crete. In March
1913, King George was assassinated by a lunatic and his son Constantine
became king.
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WW
I & Smyrna
King
Constantine, who was married to the sister of the German emperor, insisted
that Greece remained neutral when WW I broke out in August 1914.
However, the Allies (Britain, France and Russia) put pressure on
Venizelos to join forces with them against Germany and Turkey. As
the war dragged on, the Allies made heedless promises which they couldn't
hope to fulfill, including land in Asia Minor. Venizelos set up a
rebel government, first in Crete and then in Thessaloniki, and joined
the war on the Allied side. The landing of Allied troops in Greece
forced the king's abdication in June 1917, and he was replaced by his more
amenable second son Alexander.
Greek
troops served with distinction on the Allied side, but when the war ended
in 1918, the promised land in Asia Minor was not forthcoming. Venizelos
took matters into his own hands and, with Allied acquiescence, landed
troops in Smyrna (present-day Izmir) in May 1919 under the guise
of protecting the half a million Greeks living in that city (just under
half the population there). With a firm foothold in Asia Minor Venizelos
now organized an invasion inland.
The
war-depleted Ottoman Empire must have appeared as a pushover to Venizelos,
but this was not to be the case. In 1908 the young Turks movement
had been formed and was pressing for Western-style reforms to bring
Turkey into the 20th century. One of its members was a remarkable
young general, Mustafa Kemal (later to become Ataturk), who believed that
Turkey needed a modern government in place of the absolute sultanate.
The Greek invasion was just the cause he needed to win public
support.
By September
1921 the Greeks were close to Ankara, but the Turkish troops drove them
back to Smyrna and massacred many of the Greek inhabitants. Mustafa
Kemal was now a national hero, the sultanate was abolished and Turkey
became a republic. The outcome of the failed Greek invasion and the
revolution in Turkey was the Treaty of Lausanne of July 1923. This gave
eastern Thrace and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos to Turkey, and the
Italians kept the Dodecanese (which they had temporarily acquired
in 1912 and would hold until 1947).
The
treaty also called for a population exchange between Greece and Turkey
to prevent any future disputes. The Great Idea, which had been such
an enormous drain on the country's finances over the decades, was
at last laid to rest. Almost 1.5 million Greeks left Turkey and almost
400,000 Turks left Greece. Many Greeks abandoned a privileged life in Asia
Minor for one of penury in shantytowns in Greece. But although the
exchange put a tremendous strain on the Greek economy and caused
great hardship for the individuals concerned, in the long term it
was advantageous. The refugees introduced new agricultural and industrial
techniques, and many eventually became prominent in the arts and
business.
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The
Republic of 1924-35
The
arrival of the refugees coincided with, and compounded, a period of political
instability which was unprecedented even by Greek standards. In October
1920, King Alexander had died from a monkey bite, and a plebiscite
in December restored his father, King Constantine. In 1922 a military
coup deposed Constantine and replaced him with his first son, George II,
who became a mere puppet of the military dictators. More coups and
counter-coups led to the proclamation of a republic in March 1924,
followed by more military dictatorships.
A measure
of stability was attained with Venizelos' return to power in 1928. He pursued
a policy of economic and educational reforms, but progress was inhibited
by the international Great Depression. By the early 1930s, power
struggles between Venizelos, who now led the antiroyalist Liberal
Party, and Panayiotis Tsaldaris, who led the monarchist Popular Party,
had reached a height.
In March
1933 Venizelos lost the general elections to the Popular Party, and the
new government began to make preparations for the restoration of
the monarchy. In March 1935 Venizelos and his supporters staged an
unsuccessful coup, resulting in his exile to Paris where he died
a year later. In November 1935 King George II was restored to the throne
by a rigged plebiscite, and he made the right-wing general Ioannis
Metaxas prime minister. Nine months later, Metaxas assumed dictatorial
powers with the king's consent under the pretext of preventing a
communist-inspired republican coup.
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WW
II
Metaxas'
grandiose vision was to create a Third Greek Civilization based on its
glorious Ancient and Byzantine past, but what he actually created
was more a Greek version of the Third Reich. He exiled or imprisoned
opponents, banned trade unions and the KKE (Kommunistiko Komma Ellados,
the Greek Communist Party), imposed press censorship, and created a secret
police force and a fascist-style youth movement. But Metaxas is remembered
chiefly for his reply of ochi (no) to Mussolini's request to allow
Italians to traverse Greece at the beginning of WW II, thus maintaining
Greece's policy of strict neutrality. The Italians invaded Greece but were
driven back into Albania.
A prerequisite
of Hitler's plan to invade the Soviet Union was a secure southern flank
in the Balkans. The British, realizing this, asked Metaxas if they
could land troops in Greece. He gave the same reply as he had given
the Italians, but died suddenly in 1941. The king replaced him with
the timorous Alexander Koryzis, who agreed to British forces landing in
Greece and committed suicide when the Germans invaded.
German
troops marched through Yugoslavia and invaded Greece on 6 April 1941. Despite
ferocious fighting by Greek, British, Australian and New Zealand troops,
the whole country was under Nazi occupation within a month. King
George II and his government went into exile in Egypt. Throughout
the occupation the civilian population suffered appallingly, many dying
of starvation. The Nazis rounded up over half the Jewish population
of Greece and transported them to death camps.
Numerous
resistance movements sprang up. The three dominant ones were ELAS (Ellinikos
Laikos Apeleftherotikos Stratos), EAM (Ethnikon Apeleftherotikon Metopon)
and EDES (Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos). Although ELAS
was founded by communists, not all of its members were left-wing,
whereas EAM consisted of Stalinist KKE members who had lived in Moscow
in the 1930s and harbored ambitions of establishing a postwar communist
Greece. EDES (Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos Syndesmos) consisted of right-wing
and monarchist resistance fighters. Often these groups fought one
another with as much venom as they fought the Germans.
By 1943
Britain had begun speculating on the political complexion of postwar Greece.
Winston Churchill wanted the king back and was afraid there would
be a communist take-over, especially after ELAS and EAM formed a
coalition and declared a provisional government in the summer of
1944. The Germans were pushed out of Greece in October 1944, but the
communist and monarchist resistance groups continued fighting one another.
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