title: John Ruskin

text: Ruskin's biographers disagree about the allegation of "paedophilia". Tim Hilton, in his two-volume biography, asserts that Ruskin "was a paedophile" but leaves the claim unexplained, while John Batchelor argues that the term is inappropriate because Ruskin's behaviour does not "fit the profile". Others point to a definite pattern of "nympholeptic" behaviour with regard to his interactions with girls at a Winnington school. However, there is no evidence that Ruskin ever engaged in any sexual activity with anyone at all. According to one interpretation, what Ruskin valued most in pre-pubescent girls was their innocence; the fact that they were not (yet) fully developed sexual beings is what attracted him. An exploration of this topic by James L. Spates declares that "whatever idiosyncratic qualities his erotic expressions may have possessed, when it comes to matters of sexual capability and interest, there is every reason to conclude that John Ruskin was physically and emotionally normal."


title: John Ruskin

text: Ruskin was not a fan of buying low and selling high. In the "Veins of Wealth" section of "Unto This Last", he wrote: "So far as I know, there is not in history record of anything so disgraceful to the human intellect as the modern idea that the commercial text, 'Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,' represents, or under any circumstances could represent, an available principle of national economy." Perhaps due to such passages, Ruskin is frequently identified as the originator of the "common law of business balance"—a statement about the relationships of price and quality as they pertain to manufactured goods, and often summarised as: "The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot." This is the core of a longer statement usually attributed to Ruskin, although Ruskin's authorship is disputed among Ruskin scholars. Fred Shapiro maintains that the statement does not appear anywhere in Ruskin's works, and George Landow is likewise sceptical of the claim of Ruskin's authorship. In a posting of the "Ruskin Library News", a blog associated with the Ruskin Library (a major collection of Ruskiniana located at Lancaster University), an anonymous library staff member briefly mentions the statement and its widespread use, saying that, "This is one of many quotations ascribed to Ruskin, without there being any trace of them in his writings – although someone, somewhere, thought they sounded like Ruskin." In an issue of the journal "Heat Transfer Engineering", Kenneth Bell quotes the statement and mentions that it has been attributed to Ruskin. While Bell believes in the veracity of its content, he adds that the statement does not appear in Ruskin's published works.


title: John Ruskin

text: Early in the 20th century, this statement appeared—without any authorship attribution—in magazine advertisements, in a business catalogue, in student publications, and, occasionally, in editorial columns. Later in the 20th century, however, magazine advertisements, student publications, business books, technical publications, scholarly journals, and business catalogues often included the statement with attribution to Ruskin.


title: John Ruskin

text: In the 21st century, and based upon the statement's applicability of the issues of quality and price, the statement continues to be used and attributed to Ruskin—despite the questionable nature of the attribution.


title: John Ruskin

text: For many years, various Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlours prominently displayed a section of the statement in framed signs: "There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that man's lawful prey." The signs listed Ruskin as the author of the statement, but the signs gave no information on where or when Ruskin was supposed to have written, spoken, or published the statement. Due to the statement's widespread use as a promotional slogan, and despite questions of Ruskin's authorship, it is likely that many people who are otherwise unfamiliar with Ruskin now associate him with this statement.


title: Showgirls

text: Showgirls is a 1995 erotic drama pulp noir film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas. The film stars Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and Gina Ravera.


title: Showgirls

text: Produced on a then-sizable budget around $45 million, significant controversy and hype surrounding the film's amounts of sex and nudity preceded its theatrical release. In the United States, the film was rated NC-17 for "nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, some graphic language, and sexual violence." "Showgirls" was the first (and to date only) NC-17-rated film to be given a wide release in mainstream theaters. Distributor United Artists dispatched several hundred staffers to theaters across North America playing "Showgirls" to ensure that patrons would not sneak into the theater from other films, and to make sure film-goers were over the age of 17. Audience restriction due to the NC-17 rating, coupled with poor reviews, resulted in the film becoming a box-office bomb, grossing just $37 million.


title: Showgirls

text: Despite a negative theatrical and critical consensus, "Showgirls" enjoyed success on the home video market, generating more than $100 million from video rentals, allowing the film to turn a profit and became one of MGM's top-20 all-time bestsellers. For its video premiere, Verhoeven prepared an R-rated cut for rental outlets that would not carry NC-17 films. This edited version runs 3 minutes shorter (128 minutes) and deletes some of the more graphic footage. "Showgirls" was a critical failure upon release, panned for its acting (particularly Berkley's), characters, dance numbers, directing, plot, screenplay and sex scenes and consistently ranked as one of the worst films ever made. Despite this, "Showgirls" has become regarded as a cult film and has been subject to critical re-evaluation, with some notable directors and critics considering it a serious satire worthy of praise.


title: Showgirls

text: Nomi Malone is a young drifter who hitchhikes to Las Vegas hoping to make it as a showgirl. After a driver who picked her up robs her, Nomi meets Molly Abrams, a costume designer who takes Nomi in as a roommate. Molly invites Nomi backstage at "Goddess", the Stardust Casino show where she works, to meet Cristal Connors, the diva star of the casino's topless dance revue. When Nomi tells Cristal she dances at Cheetah's Topless Club, Cristal derisively tells her that what she does is akin to prostitution. When Nomi is too upset to go to work that night, Molly takes her dancing at the Crave Club. Nomi is arrested after causing a fight involving James, a bouncer at the club. James bails Nomi out of jail, but she pays him little notice.


title: Showgirls

text: Cristal and her boyfriend, Zack Carey, the entertainment director at the Stardust, visit Cheetah's and request a lap dance from Nomi. Although the bisexual Cristal is attracted to Nomi, her request is based more on her desire to humiliate Nomi by proving she engages in sex work. Nomi reluctantly performs the lap dance after Cristal offers her $500. James happens to be at the strip club and sneaks a peek at Nomi's lap dance. He visits Nomi's trailer the next morning and tells Nomi that what she is doing is no different from prostitution. Nomi and James have a brief fling; the affair ends when James gives the dance routine he choreographed for Nomi to Penny, a former coworker of Nomi's whom he gets pregnant.


title: Showgirls

text: Cristal arranges for Nomi to audition for the chorus line of "Goddess". Tony Moss, the show's director, humiliates Nomi by asking her to put ice on her nipples to make them hard. Furious, Nomi abruptly leaves the audition after scattering ice everywhere in a fit. Despite her outburst, Nomi gets the job and quits Cheetah's. Cristal further humiliates Nomi by suggesting she make a "goodwill appearance" at a boat trade show, which turns out to be a thinly disguised prostitution set-up.


title: Showgirls

text: Undeterred, Nomi sets out to get revenge against Cristal and claim her mantle. She seduces Zack, who secures an audition for her to be Cristal's understudy. Nomi wins the role, but when Cristal threatens legal action against the Stardust, the offer is rescinded. After Cristal taunts her, Nomi pushes her down a flight of stairs, breaking her hip, and replaces her as the show's lead. Although Nomi has finally secured the fame she sought, she alienates Molly, who realizes she pushed Cristal down the stairs.


title: Showgirls

text: Molly later relents and attends Nomi's opening-night celebration at a posh hotel, where she meets her idol, musician Andrew Carver. Carver lures Molly to a room, where he brutally beats her and leads his bodyguards in gang-raping her. Molly is hospitalized after the assault. Nomi wants to report the assault to the police, but Zack tells her that the Stardust will bribe Molly with hush money to protect Carver, their star performer. Zack then confronts Nomi about her sordid past: Her birth name is Polly, and she became a runaway and prostitute after her parents' murder-suicide. She has been arrested several times for drug possession, prostitution, and assault with a deadly weapon. Zack blackmails Nomi by vowing to keep her past quiet if she will not tell the police about the assault.


title: Showgirls

text: Unable to obtain justice for Molly without exposing her past, Nomi decides to take justice into her own hands. She gets Carver alone in his hotel room and beats him severely. Nomi then pays two hospital visits, one to Molly to let her know that Carver's actions did not go unpunished, and another to Cristal to apologize for injuring her. Cristal admits she pulled a similar stunt years ago. Because her lawyers secure her a large cash settlement, Cristal forgives Nomi, and they exchange a kiss. Nomi leaves Las Vegas and hitches a ride to Los Angeles, coincidentally with the same driver who stole her possessions when she arrived, whom she robs at knifepoint.


title: Showgirls

text: The soundtrack of the film featured songs specially composed for the film by artists such as David Bowie, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Killing Joke and No Doubt. The "Showgirls soundtrack" was released on September 25, 1995.


title: Showgirls

text: Eszterhas came up with the idea for "Showgirls" while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. During lunch in Beverly Hills, Verhoeven told Eszterhas that he had always loved "big MGM musicals", and wanted to make one; Eszterhas suggested the setting of Las Vegas. Based on the idea he scribbled on a napkin, Eszterhas was advanced $2 million to write the script and picked up an additional $1.7 million when the studio produced it into a film. This, along with the scripts for both Verhoeven's previous film "Basic Instinct" (1992) and "Sliver" (1993, also an erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone), made Eszterhas the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood history. Verhoeven deferred 70% of his $6 million director's fee depending on if the film turned a profit.


title: Showgirls

text: "I wrote "Showgirls" at the single most turbulent moment of my life," said Eszterhas later. "The stuff I've done since then has more warmth, more humor, is more upbeat."


title: Showgirls

text: A long list of actresses was considered for the role of Nomi Malone, including Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Marcil, Jenny McCarthy, Denise Richards, and Charlize Theron, but they all turned it down before Elizabeth Berkley, following the cancellation of "Saved by the Bell", signed on to play the role. Madonna, Sharon Stone, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and Finola Hughes (who allegedly turned down the script because she thought it was sexist) were considered for the part of Cristal Connors before Gina Gershon became available.


title: Showgirls

text: Kyle MacLachlan says Dylan McDermott was the first choice for the character of Zack Carey, but he declined and MacLachlan was then cast. MacLachlan recalled, "That was a decision that was sort of a tough one to make, but I was enchanted with Paul Verhoeven. Particularly "RoboCop", which I loved ... It was Verhoeven and Eszterhas, and it seemed like it was going to be kind of dark and edgy and disturbing and real."


title: Showgirls

text: Eszterhas and Verhoeven interviewed over 200 Las Vegas strippers and incorporated parts of their stories into the screenplay to show the amount of exploitation of strippers in Vegas. Eszterhas took out a full-page advertisement in "Variety" in which he dubbed the film a morality tale and denounced the advertising of the film as "misguided", also writing, "The movie shows that dancers in Vegas are often victimized, humiliated, used, verbally and physically raped by the men who are at the power centers of that world."


title: Showgirls

text: The film's stark poster was adapted from a photograph by Tono Stano. The photo had originally been featured on the cover of the 1994 book "The Body: Photographs of the Human Form".


title: Showgirls

text: Gina Ravera said her rape scene was traumatic. "When you do a scene like that, your body doesn't know it's not real," Ravera said of the sequence, which took over nine hours to film.


title: Showgirls

text: Clearly we made mistakes. Clearly it was one of the biggest failures of our time. It failed commercially, critically, it failed on videotape, it failed internationally. . . . In retrospect, part of it was that Paul and I were coming off of "Basic", which defied the critics and was a huge success. Maybe there was a certain hubris involved: "We can do what we want to do, go as far out there as we want." That rape scene was a god-awful mistake. In retrospect, a terrible mistake. And musically it was eminently forgettable. And in casting mistakes were made.


title: Showgirls

text: I was absolutely gobsmacked. I said, "This is horrible. Horrible!" And it's a very slow, sinking feeling when you're watching the movie, and the first scene comes out, and you're like, "Oh, that's a really bad scene." But you say, "Well, that's okay, the next one'll be better." And you somehow try to convince yourself that it's going to get better… and it just gets worse. And I was like, "Wow. That was crazy." I mean, I really didn't see that coming. So at that point, I distanced myself from the movie. Now, of course, it has a whole other life as a sort of inadvertent… satire. No, "satire" isn't the right word. But it's inadvertently funny. So it's found its place. It provides entertainment, though not in the way I think it was originally intended. It was just… maybe the wrong material with the wrong director and the wrong cast.


title: Showgirls

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 23% based on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Vile, contemptible, garish, and misogynistic – and that might just be exactly "Showgirls" point." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 16 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Showgirls

text: Roger Ebert, following a relatively lukewarm review (2 stars out of 4), wrote that "Showgirls" received "some bad reviews, but it wasn't completely terrible".


title: Showgirls

text: The film was the winner of a then-record seven 1995 Golden Raspberry Awards (from a record 13 nominations, a record that still stands) including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Elizabeth Berkley), Worst Director (Paul Verhoeven), Worst Screenplay (Joe Eszterhas), Worst New Star (Elizabeth Berkley), Worst Screen Couple ("any combination of two people (or two body parts)") and Worst Original Song (David A. Stewart and Terry Hall for "Walk Into the Wind").


title: Showgirls

text: Verhoeven gamely appeared in person at the Razzies ceremony to accept his award for Worst Director; "Showgirls" would later win an eighth Razzie Award for Worst Picture of the Last Decade in 2000. It was soon tied with "Battlefield Earth" for winning the most Razzies in a single year, a record broken when "I Know Who Killed Me" won eight trophies in 2008 and then again when "Jack and Jill" won 10 awards in 2012.


title: Showgirls

text: At the 1995 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, the film received three nominations: Worst Picture, Worst Actor for MacLachan, and Worst Actress for Berkley. Of the three, its only win was for Worst Picture.


title: Showgirls

text: Due to "Showgirls" poor reception, "Striptease", a 1996 film about nude dancers starring Demi Moore, was distanced from "Showgirls" in advertisements; "Striptease" nonetheless won the next year's Razzie Award for Worst Picture. Rena Riffel, who played Penny/Hope in "Showgirls", was also cast in "Striptease", as Tiffany Glass.


title: Showgirls

text: The term ""Showgirls"-bad" has been adopted by film critics and fans to refer to films considered guilty pleasures, or "so-bad-they're-good". To date, "Showgirls" is the highest-grossing NC-17 production, earning $20,350,754 at the North American box office.


title: Showgirls

text: "I met Paul Verhoeven and he was just so charismatic," remarked Toni Halliday, who contributed to the soundtrack. "He wowed me into this horrible film, selling it as some intellectual comment on the sex industry. I walked out after 45 minutes. The screen went dead every time that woman was on it."


title: Showgirls

text: While the film's theatrical run was underwhelming and did not recoup its budget, it went on to gross over $100 million in the home-video and rentals markets, and as of 2014, the film is still one of MGM's highest-selling movies.


title: Showgirls

text: Elizabeth Berkley was dropped by her agent Mike Menchel following the film's release. Other agents refused to take her telephone calls.


title: Showgirls

text: "Showgirls" has achieved cult status. According to writer Naomi Klein, ironic enjoyment of the film initially arose among those with the video before MGM capitalized on the idea. MGM noticed the video was performing well because "trendy twenty-somethings were throwing "Showgirls" irony parties, laughing sardonically at the implausibly poor screenplay and shrieking with horror at the aerobic sexual encounters".


title: Showgirls

text: In the United States, "Showgirls" is shown at midnight movies alongside such films as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". It is heralded as one of the best "bad movies", a camp classic in the vein of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". Although the film was not successful when first released theatrically, it generated more than $100 million from video rentals and became one of MGM's top 20 all-time bestsellers. Verhoeven accepted the film's unexpected cult status, saying "Maybe this kind of ritualistic cult popularity isn't what I intended, but it's like a resurrection after the crucifixion." Eszterhas, however, maintains that the humor was intentional: "What Paul [Verhoeven] and I had in mind was something darkly funny. We went through the script line by line, and we were really laughing at some of it. I defy people to tell me that a line like, 'How does it feel not to have anybody coming on you anymore' isn't meant to be funny."


title: Showgirls

text: In Ireland, the film was banned on November 8, 1995. The Irish Film Censor Board chair Sheamus Smith provided no explanation for the ban, but it had been speculated that the ban was owed to the film's rape scene, which was initially cut in the United Kingdom. In fact, Smith banned the film upon initial release because of the line, "I got bigger tits than the fuckin' Virgin Mary and I got a bigger mouth, too." Smith's objection was specifically to the diction "fuckin' Virgin Mary". The film was passed uncut for its video release on October 23, 2017.


title: Showgirls

text: The rights to show the film on television were eventually purchased by the VH1 network. Because of the film's frequent nudity, though, a censored version was created with black bras and panties digitally rendered to hide all exposed breasts and genitalia. Also, several scenes were removed entirely, shortening the movie by at least 45 minutes. Berkley refused to redub her lines because MGM refused to pay her fee of $250, so a noticeably different actress's voice can be heard on the soundtrack.


title: Showgirls

text: As revealed on the DVD release, a sign showing the distance to Los Angeles in the last shot of the film hinted at a sequel in which Nomi takes on Hollywood. The film was ranked number 36 on "Entertainment Weekly"s 'The Top 50 Cult Movies' list.


title: Showgirls

text: The film was mentioned a few times on hit network TV shows in the late 1990s, with a mix of affection and sarcasm. On NBC's NewsRadio, a running joke where billionaire WNYX owner Jimmy James has a running list of potential wives made a reference to "Showgirls" when James is asked by station manager Dave Nelson about the wives' list. James then says it's one number shorter than previously noted because "You know that nice girl who was on "Saved by the Bell"? She went and made a dirty movie!" In a Season 11 episode of "The Simpsons", Homer and Marge go out on a date night to see the film, with Marge remarking later she liked the relationship between "Showgirl and her costume designer."


title: Showgirls

text: Australian rapper Iggy Azalea paid homage to the film in the music video for her 2013 song "Change Your Life" featuring T.I.. Many visuals and costumes were recreated or inspired by the film, including the Cheetah's club setting.


title: Showgirls

text: Critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum and Jim Hoberman, as well as filmmakers Jim Jarmusch, Adam McKay and Jacques Rivette, have gone on the record defending "Showgirls" as a serious satire. In a 1998 interview, Rivette called it "one of the great American films of the last few years", though "very unpleasant: it's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's Verhoeven's philosophy". Quentin Tarantino has stated that he enjoyed "Showgirls", referring to it in 1996 as the "only ... other time in the last twenty years [that] a major studio made a full-on, gigantic, big-budget exploitation movie", comparing it to "Mandingo".


title: Showgirls

text: "Showgirls" has been compared to the 1950 film "All About Eve" as a remake, update, or rip-off of that film. For Jonathan Rosenbaum, ""Showgirls" has to be one of the most vitriolic allegories about Hollywood and selling out ever made". "Verhoeven may be the bravest and most assured satirist in Hollywood, insofar as he succeeds in making big genre movies no one knows whether to take seriously or not", Michael Atkinson has written.


title: Showgirls

text: In "Slant Magazine"s four-out-of-four-star review, Eric Henderson rejects the "so-bad-it's-good" interpretation and lauds the film as "one of the most honest satires of recent years", stating that the film targets Hollywood's "morally bankrupt star-is-born tales." Henderson draws from a round-table discussion in "Film Quarterly" in which others argue its merits. Noël Burch attests that the film "takes mass culture seriously, as a site of both fascination and struggle" and uses melodrama as "an excellent vehicle for social criticism." In the same round-table, Chon Noriega suggests that the film has been misinterpreted and the satire overlooked because "the film lacks the usual coordinates and signposts for a critique of human vice and folly provided by sarcasm, irony, and caustic wit."


title: Showgirls

text: "The Guardian" commented in 2020: "With "Showgirls", the target was the American dream itself – and the dishonest 'star is born' narratives churned out to sustain it."


title: Showgirls

text: Despite its poor critical reception, "Showgirls" is regarded as a cult classic and performed much better on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray, becoming one of MGM's top 20 best-sellers, grossing over $100 million in the US home media market alone.


title: Showgirls

text: On December 26, 1995, "Showgirls" was released on VHS in two versions: A director's R-rated version for rental outlets (including Blockbuster and Hollywood Video), and an NC-17-rated version. The NC-17 version was also released on LaserDisc that year.


title: Showgirls

text: "Showgirls" was released on DVD for the first time on April 25, 2000. In 2004, MGM released the "V.I.P. Edition" on DVD in a special boxed set containing two shot glasses, movie cards with drinking games on the back, a deck of playing cards, and a nude poster of Berkley with a pair of suction-cup pasties so viewers can play "pin the pasties on the showgirl". In 2007, MGM re-released the V.I.P. Edition DVD without the physical extras, as the "Fully Exposed Edition".


title: Showgirls

text: On June 15, 2010, MGM released a 15th Anniversary "Sinsational Edition" in a two-disc dual-format Blu-ray/DVD edition.


title: Showgirls

text: In 2016, "Showgirls" was restored in 4K from the original negative. The image restoration was carried out by the Technicolor laboratory and the sound restoration by the L.E. Diapason laboratory, under the supervision of Paul Verhoeven and Pathé. The restored version was released on blu-ray following a theatrical run.


title: Showgirls

text: A sequel focused around minor character Penny was released in 2011. Titled , it was written, produced, edited, and directed by and starred Rena Riffel, who was the only character returning, apart from a cameo by Glenn Plummer.


title: Showgirls

text: In 2013, an off-off-Broadway parody called "Showgirls! The Musical" was mounted by Bob and Tobly McSmith of Medium Face Productions. Originating at the Krane Theater in New York City, critical and audience response was overwhelmingly positive. It was moved to a 200-seat off-Broadway theater, XL Nightclub. The production continued to be successful; its original run was extended through July 15, 2013. Actress Rena Riffel reprised her role in the film as Penny for one month of the production.


title: Showgirls

text: The show closely mimics the film's plot and often directly incorporates dialog. As the title suggests, it is a musical. Highly satirical while staying true to the source's campy nature, the original off-Broadway production starred April Kidwell as Nomi, whose performance has been critically lauded. Andy Webster of "The New York Times" stated "The coltish April Kidwell, as Nomi, is a wonder. Amid an exhausting onslaught of often obvious ribaldry, she is tireless, fearless, and performing circles around Elizabeth Berkley's portrayal in the movie. Her vibrant physicality and knowing humor are a potent riposte to the story's rabid misogyny."


title: Showgirls

text: It takes several characters and condenses them for the stage. The characters of Marty and Gaye have been combined to one character, simply called 'Gay'. The characters of Molly and James are both portrayed by actor Marcus Deison. Zack Carey is simply called Kyle MacLachlan. With sexually explicit language and nudity throughout, the tagline is "Singing. Dancing. Tits".


title: Showgirls

text: The original cast featured Kidwell as Nomi, Rori Nogee as Cristal, John E. Elliott as Kyle McLachlan, Marcus Deison as Molly and James, Philip McLeod as Gay, and Amanda Nicholas, Natalie Wagner and Israel Vinas as the ensemble.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Kingdom of Greece ( ) was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Kingdom of Greece was dissolved in 1924 and the Second Hellenic Republic was established following Greece's defeat by Turkey in the Asia Minor Campaign. A military "coup d'état" restored the monarchy in 1935 and Greece became a Kingdom again until 1973. The Kingdom was finally dissolved in the aftermath of a seven-year military dictatorship (1967–1974) and the Third Hellenic Republic was established following a referendum held in 1974.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantine Empire, which ruled most of the Eastern Mediterranean region for over 1100 years, had been fatally weakened since the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Ottomans captured Constantinople with ease in 1453 and advanced southwards into the Balkan peninsula capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, but by 1500 most of the plains and islands of Greece were in Ottoman hands. While in contrast, the mountains and highlands of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In the context of ardent desire for independence from Turkish occupation, and with the explicit influence of similar secret societies elsewhere in Europe, three Greeks came together in 1814 in Odessa to decide the constitution for a secret organization in freemasonic fashion. Its purpose was to unite all Greeks in an armed organization to overthrow Turkish rule. The three founders were Nikolaos Skoufas from the Arta province, Emmanuil Xanthos from Patmos and Athanasios Tsakalov from Ioannina. Soon after they initiated a fourth member, Panagiotis Anagnostopoulos from Andritsaina.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Many revolts were planned across the Greek region and the first of them was launched on 6 March 1821, in the Danubian principalities. It was put down by the Ottomans, but the torch had been lit and by the end of the same month the Peloponnese was in open revolt.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In 1821, the Greek-speaking populations of Peloponnesus revolted against the Ottoman Empire. Following a region-wide struggle that lasted several months, the Greek War of Independence led to the establishment of the first autonomous Greek State since the mid-15th century.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In January 1822, the First National Assembly of Epidaurus passed the (part of the country's First Constitution), which affirmed the sovereignty of Greece. However, the new Greek State was politically unstable and lacked the resources to preserve its territoriality in the long-term. Most importantly, the country lacked international recognition and had no robust alliances in the Western world.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Following the recapture of the Greek territories by the Ottoman Empire, the Great Powers of that time (the British Empire, the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of France) saw the Greek counter-offensive as an opportunity to weaken the Ottoman Empire further and in essence increase their influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Great Powers supported Greece to regain its independence and following a decisive battle in the Navarino Bay a cease fire was agreed in London (see Treaty of London (1827)). The autonomy of Greece was ultimately recognised by the London Protocol of 1828 and its full independence from the Ottoman Empire by the Protocol of London of 1830.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In 1831, the assassination of the first Governor of Greece, Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, created political and social instability that endangered the country's relationship with its allies. To avoid escalation and in order to strengthen Greece's ties with the Great Powers, Greece agreed to become a Kingdom in 1832 (see Treaty of London (1832)). Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was initially the first candidate for the Greek throne; however, he turned down the offer. Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King. Otto arrived at the provisional capital, Nafplion, in 1833 aboard a British warship.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Otto's reign would prove troubled, but managed to last for 30 years before he and his wife, Queen Amalia, left the way they came, aboard a British warship. During the early years of his reign, a group of Bavarian Regents ruled in his name and made themselves very unpopular by trying to impose German ideas of rigid hierarchical government on the Greeks, while keeping most significant state offices away from them. Nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, but he suffered from two great handicaps, his Roman Catholic faith, and the fact that his marriage to Queen Amalia remained childless. Furthermore, the new Kingdom tried to eliminate the traditional banditry, something that in many cases meant conflict with some old revolutionary fighters (klephtes) who continued to exercise this practice.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Bavarian Regents ruled until 1837, when at the insistence of Britain and France, they were recalled, and Otto after that appointed Greek ministers, although Bavarian officials still ran most of the administration and the army. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution. Greek discontent grew until a revolt broke out in Athens in September 1843. Otto agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November. The new constitution created a bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly ("Vouli") and a Senate ("Gerousia"). Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, most of whom had been commanders in the War of Independence against the Ottomans.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. Greeks dreamed of liberating all the Greek lands and reconstituting a state embracing them all, with Constantinople as its capital. This was called the Great Idea ("Megali Idea"), and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, notably Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia. During the Crimean War the British occupied Piraeus to prevent Greece declaring war on the Ottomans as a Russian ally.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: A new generation of Greek politicians was growing increasingly intolerant of King Otto's continuing interference in government. In 1862, the King dismissed his Prime Minister, the former admiral Konstantinos Kanaris, the most prominent politician of the period. This dismissal provoked a military rebellion, forcing Otto to accept the inevitable and leave the country. The Greeks then asked Britain to send Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred as their new king, but this was vetoed by the other Powers. Instead, a young Danish prince became King George I. George was a very popular choice as a constitutional monarch, and he agreed that his sons would be raised in the Greek Orthodox faith. As a reward to the Greeks for adopting a pro-British King, Britain ceded the United States of the Ionian Islands to Greece.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Church was a part of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Ottoman authorities who were Muslim did not interfere with the church. With the establishment of the Greek Kingdom, however, the government decided to take control of the church, breaking away from the patriarch in Constantinople. The government declared the church to be autocephalous (Independent) in 1833 in a political decision of the Bavarian Regents acting for King Otto, who was a minor. The decision roiled Greek politics for decades as royal authorities took increasing control. The new status was finally recognised as such by the Patriarchate in 1850, under compromise conditions with the issue of a special "Tomos" decree which brought it back to a normal status. As a result, it retains certain special links with the "Mother Church". There were only four bishops, and they had political roles.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In 1833 Parliament dissolved 400 small monasteries having fewer than five monks or nuns. Priests were not salaried; in rural areas he was a peasant farmer himself, dependent for his livelihood on his farm work and from fees and offerings by his parishioners. His ecclesiastical duties were limited to administering the sacraments, supervising funerals, the blessings of crops, and exorcism. Few attended seminaries. By the 1840s, there was a nationwide revival, run by travelling preachers. The government arrested several and tried to shut down the revival, but it proved too powerful when the revivalists denounced three bishops for purchasing their office. By the 1880s the "Anaplasis" ("Regeneration") Movement led to renewed spiritual energy and enlightenment. It fought against the rationalistic and materialistic ideas that had seeped in from secular Western Europe. It promoted catechism schools, and circles for the study of the Bible.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: At the urging of Britain and King George, Greece adopted a much more democratic constitution in 1864. The powers of the King were reduced and the Senate was abolished, and the franchise was extended to all adult males. Nevertheless, Greek politics remained heavily dynastic, as it had always been. Family names such as Zaimis, Rallis and Trikoupis repeatedly occurred as Prime Ministers. Although parties were centered around the individual leaders, often bearing their names, two broad political tendencies existed: the liberals, led first by Charilaos Trikoupis and later by Eleftherios Venizelos, and the conservatives, led initially by Theodoros Deligiannis and later by Thrasivoulos Zaimis.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Trikoupis and Deligiannis dominated Greek politics in the later 19th century, alternating in office. Trikoupis favoured cooperation with Great Britain in foreign affairs, the creation of infrastructure and an indigenous industry, raising protective tariffs and progressive social legislation, while the more populist Deligiannis depended on the promotion of Greek nationalism and the Megali idea.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greece remained a quite impoverished country throughout the 19th century. The country lacked raw materials, infrastructure and capital. Agriculture was mostly at the subsistence level, and the only important export commodities were currants, raisins and tobacco. Some Greeks grew rich as merchants and shipowners, and Piraeus became a major port, but little of this wealth found its way to the Greek peasantry. Greece remained hopelessly in debt to London finance houses.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: By the 1890s Greece was virtually bankrupt, and public insolvency was declared in 1893. Poverty was rife in the rural areas and the islands and was eased only by large-scale emigration to the United States. There was little education in the countryside. Nevertheless, there was progress in building communications and infrastructure, and elegant public buildings were erected in Athens. Despite the bad financial situation, Athens staged the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, which proved a great success.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The parliamentary process developed greatly in Greece during the reign of George I. Initially, the royal prerogative in choosing his prime minister remained and contributed to governmental instability, until the introduction of the "dedilomeni" principle of parliamentary confidence in 1875 by the reformist Charilaos Trikoupis. Clientelism and frequent electoral upheavals, however, remained the norm in Greek politics and frustrated the country's development. Corruption and Trikoupis' increased spending to create necessary infrastructure like the Corinth Canal overtaxed the weak Greek economy, forcing the declaration of public insolvency in 1893 and to accept the imposition of an International Financial Control authority to pay off the country's debtors.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Another political issue in 19th-century Greece was uniquely Greek: the language question. The Greek people spoke a form of Greek called Demotic. Many of the educated elite saw this as a peasant dialect and were determined to restore the glories of Ancient Greek. Government documents and newspapers were consequently published in "Katharevousa" (purified) Greek, a form which few ordinary Greeks could read. Liberals favoured recognising Demotic as the national language, but conservatives and the Orthodox Church resisted all such efforts, to the extent that, when the New Testament was translated into Demotic in 1901, riots erupted in Athens and the government fell (the "Evangeliaka"). This issue would continue to plague Greek politics until the 1970s.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: All Greeks were united, however, in their determination to liberate the Greek-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Especially in Crete, a prolonged revolt in 1866–1869 had raised nationalist fervour. When war broke out between Russia and the Ottomans in 1877, popular Greek sentiment rallied to Russia's side, but Greece was too poor and too concerned about British intervention, to officially enter the war. Nevertheless, in 1881, Thessaly and small parts of Epirus were ceded to Greece in the context of the Treaty of Berlin, while frustrating Greek hopes of receiving Crete.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greeks in Crete continued to stage regular revolts, and in 1897, the Greek government under Theodoros Deligiannis, bowing to popular pressure, declared war on the Ottomans. In the ensuing Greco-Turkish War of 1897 the badly trained and equipped Greek army was defeated by the Ottomans. Through the intervention of the Great Powers, however, Greece lost only a little territory along the border to Turkey, while Crete was established as an autonomous state with the High Commissioner being Prince George of Greece.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Nationalist sentiment among Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued to grow, and by the 1890s there were constant disturbances in Macedonia. Here the Greeks were in competition not only with the Ottomans but also with the Bulgarians, engaged in an armed propaganda struggle for the hearts and minds of the ethnically mixed local population, the so-called "Macedonian Struggle". In July 1908, the Young Turk Revolution broke out in the Ottoman Empire.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Taking advantage of the Ottoman internal turmoil, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. On Crete, the local population, led by a young politician named Eleftherios Venizelos, declared "Enosis", Union with Greece, provoking another crisis. The fact that the Greek government, led by Dimitrios Rallis, proved unable likewise to take advantage of the situation and bring Crete into the fold, rankled with many Greeks, especially with young officers. These formed a secret society, the "Military League", with the purpose of emulating their Ottoman colleagues and seek reforms.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The resulting Goudi coup on 15 August 1909 marked a watershed in modern Greek history: as the military conspirators were inexperienced in politics, they asked Venizelos, who had impeccable liberal credentials, to come to Greece as their political adviser. Venizelos quickly established himself as an influential political figure, and his allies won the August 1910 elections. Venizelos became Prime Minister in October 1910, ushering a period of 25 years where his personality would dominate Greek politics.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Venizelos initiated a major reform program, including a new and more liberal constitution and reforms in the spheres of public administration, education and economy. French and British military missions were invited for the army and navy respectively, and arms purchases were made. In the meantime, the Ottoman Empire's weaknesses were revealed by the ongoing Italo-Turkish War in Libya.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Through spring 1912, a series of bilateral agreements among the Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia) formed the Balkan League, which in October 1912 declared war on the Ottoman Empire.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Ottoman intelligence had disastrously misread Greek military intentions. In retrospect, it would appear that the Ottoman staffs believed that the Greek attack would be shared equally between the two primary avenues of approach, Macedonia and Epirus. The 2nd Army staff had therefore evenly balanced the combat strength of the seven Ottoman divisions between the Yanya Corps and VIII Corps, in Epirus and Macedonia respectively. The Greek Army also fielded seven divisions, but, having the initiative, concentrated all seven against VIII Corps, leaving only a number of independent battalions of scarcely divisional strength in the Epirus front. This had fatal consequences for the Western Group of Armies, since it led to the early loss of the strategic centre of all three Macedonian fronts, the city of Thessaloniki, a fact that sealed their fate. In an unexpectedly brilliant and rapid campaign, the Army of Thessaly seized the city. In the absence of secure sea lines of communications, the retention of the Thessaloniki-Constantinople corridor was essential to the overall strategic posture of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. Once this was gone, the defeat of the Ottoman Army became inevitable. To be sure, the Bulgarians and the Serbs played a significant role in the defeat of the main Ottoman armies. Their great victories at Kirkkilise, Lüleburgaz, Kumanovo, and Monastir shattered the Eastern and Vardar armies. However, these victories were not decisive in the sense that they ended the war. The Ottoman field armies survived, and in Thrace, they actually grew stronger day by day. In the strategic point of view these victories were enabled partially by the weakened condition of the Ottoman armies brought about by the active presence of the Greek army and fleet.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: With the declaration of war, the Greek Army of Thessaly under Crown Prince Constantine advanced to the north, successfully overcoming Ottoman opposition in the fortified Straits of Sarantaporo. After another victory at Giannitsa on , the Ottoman commander Hasan Tahsin Pasha surrendered Thessaloniki and its garrison of 26,000 men to the Greeks on . Two Corps HQs (Ustruma and VIII), two Nizamiye divisions (14th and 22nd) and four Redif divisions (Salonika, Drama, Naslic and Serez) were thus lost to the Ottoman order of battle. Additionally, the Ottoman forces lost 70 artillery pieces, 30 machine guns and 70,000 rifles (Thessaloniki was the central arms depot for the Western Armies). The Ottoman forces estimated that 15,000 officers and men had been killed during the campaign in Macedonia, bringing total losses up to 41,000 soldiers. Another direct consequence was that the destruction of the Macedonian Army sealed the fate of the Ottoman Vardar Army, which was fighting the Serbs to the north. The fall of Thessaloniki left it strategically isolated, without logistical supply and depth to manoeuvre, ensuring its destruction.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Upon learning of the outcome of the battle of Yenidje, the Bulgarian high command urgently dispatched their 7th "Rila" Division from the north in the direction of the city. The division arrived there a week later, the day after its surrender to the Greeks. Until 10 November, the Greek-occupied zone had been expanded to the line from Lake Dojran to the Pangaion hills west to Kavalla. In southern Yugoslavia however, the lack of coordination between the Greek and Serbian HQs cost the Greeks a setback in the Battle of Vevi on , when the Greek 5th Infantry Division crossed its way with the VI Ottoman Corps (a part of the Vardar Army consisting of the 16th, 17th and 18th Nizamiye divisions), retreating to Albania following the battle of Prilep against the Serbs. The Greek division, surprised by the presence of the Ottoman Corps, isolated from the rest of Greek army and outnumbered by the now counterattacking Ottomans centred on Bitola, was forced to retreat. As a result, the Serbs beat the Greeks to Bitola.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In the Epirus front the Greek army was initially heavily outnumbered, but due to the passive attitude of the Ottomans succeeded in conquering Preveza (21 October 1912) and pushing north to the direction of Ioannina. On 5 November, Major Spyros Spyromilios led a revolt in the coastal area of Himarë and expelled the Ottoman garrison without facing significant resistance, while on 20 November Greek troops from western Macedonia entered Korçë. However, Greek forces in the Epirote front had not the numbers to initiate an offensive against the German-designed defensive positions of Bizani that protected the city of Ioannina, and therefore had to wait for reinforcements from the Macedonian front.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: After the campaign in Macedonia was over, a large part of the Army was redeployed to Epirus, where Crown Prince Constantine himself assumed command. In the Battle of Bizani the Ottoman positions were breached and Ioannina taken on . During the siege, on 8 February 1913, the Russian pilot N. de Sackoff, flying for the Greeks, became the first pilot ever shot down in combat, when his biplane was hit by ground fire following a bomb run on the walls of Fort Bizani. He came down near small town of Preveza, on the coast north of the Ionian island of Lefkas, secured local Greek assistance, repaired his plane and resumed flight back to base. The fall of Ioannina allowed the Greek army to continue its advance into northern Epirus, the southern part of modern Albania, which it occupied. There its advance stopped, although the Serbian line of control was very close to the north.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: On the outbreak of hostilities on 18 October, the Greek fleet, placed under the newly promoted Rear Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, sailed for the island of Lemnos, occupying it three days later (although fighting continued on the island until 27 October) and establishing an anchorage at Moudros Bay. This move was of major strategic importance, as it provided the Greeks with a forward base in close distance to the Dardanelles, the Ottoman fleet's main anchorage and refuge. In view of the Ottoman fleet's superiority in speed and broadside weight, the Greek planners expected it to sortie from the straits early in the war. Given the Greek fleet's unpreparedness resulting from the premature outbreak of the war, such an early Ottoman attack might well have been able to achieve a crucial victory. Instead, the Ottoman Navy spent the first two months of the war in operations against the Bulgarians in the Black Sea, giving the Greeks valuable time to complete their preparations and allowing them to consolidate their control of the Aegean.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: By mid-November Greek naval detachments had seized the islands of Imbros, Thasos, Agios Efstratios, Samothrace, Psara and Ikaria, while landings were undertaken on the larger islands of Lesbos and Chios only on 21 and 27 November respectively. Substantial Ottoman garrisons were present on the latter, and their resistance was fierce. They withdrew into the mountainous interior and were not subdued until 22 December and 3 January respectively. Samos, officially an autonomous principality, was not attacked until 13 March 1913, out of a desire not to upset the Italians in the nearby Dodecanese. The clashes there were short-lived as the Ottoman forces withdrew to the Anatolian mainland so that the island was securely in Greek hands by 16 March.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: At the same time, with the aid of numerous merchant ships converted to auxiliary cruisers, a loose naval blockade on the Ottoman coasts from the Dardanelles to Suez was instituted, which disrupted the Ottomans' flow of supplies (only the Black Sea routes to Romania remained open) and left some 250,000 Ottoman troops immobilized in Asia. In the Ionian Sea, the Greek fleet operated without opposition, ferrying supplies for the army units in the Epirus front. Furthermore, the Greeks bombarded and then blockaded the port of Vlorë in Albania on 3 December, and Durrës on 27 February. A naval blockade extending from the pre-war Greek border to Vlorë was also instituted on 3 December, isolating the newly established Provisional Government of Albania based there from any outside support.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Lieutenant Nikolaos Votsis scored a major success for Greek morale on 31 October: he sailed his torpedo boat No. 11, under the cover of night, into the harbor of Thessaloniki, sank the old Ottoman ironclad battleship "Feth-i Bülend" and escaped unharmed. On the same day, Greek troops of the Epirus Army seized the Ottoman naval base of Preveza. The Ottomans scuttled the four ships present there, but the Greeks were able to salvage the Italian-built torpedo-boats "Antalya" and "Tokat", which were commissioned into the Greek Navy as "Nikopolis" and "Tatoi" respectively. On 9 November, the wooden Ottoman armed steamer "Trabzon" was intercepted and sunk by the Greek torpedo boat No. 14 under Lt. Periklis Argyropoulos off Ayvalık.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The main Ottoman fleet remained inside the Dardanelles for the early part of the war, while the Greek destroyers continuously patrolled the Straits' exit to report on a possible sortie. Kountouriotis suggested mining the straits, but was not taken up for fear of international reactions. On 7 December, the head of the Ottoman fleet Tahir Bey was replaced by Ramiz Naman Bey, the leader of the hawkish faction among the officer corps. A new strategy was agreed, whereby the Ottomans were to take advantage of any absence of the Greek flagship "Averof" to attack the other Greek ships. The Ottoman staff formulated a plan to lure a number of the Greek destroyers on patrol into a trap. A first such effort on 12 December failed due to boiler trouble, but the second try two days later resulted in an indecisive engagement between the Greek destroyers and the cruiser "Mecidiye".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The war's first major fleet action, the Naval Battle of Elli, was fought two days later, on . The Ottoman fleet, with four battleships, nine destroyers and six torpedo boats, sailed to the entrance of the straits. The lighter Ottoman vessels remained behind, but the battleship squadron moved on north under cover of the forts at Kumkale and engaged the Greek fleet, coming from Imbros, at 9:40. Leaving the older battleships behind, Kountouriotis led the "Averof" into independent action: utilizing its superior speed, it cut across the Ottoman fleet's bow. Under fire from two sides, the Ottomans were quickly forced to withdraw to the Dardanelles. The whole engagement lasted less than an hour, in which the Ottoman suffered heavy damage to the "Barbaros Hayreddin" and 18 dead and 41 wounded (most during their disorderly retreat) and the Greeks one dead and seven wounded.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In the aftermath of Elli, on 20 December the energetic Lt. Commander Rauf Bey was placed in effective command of the Ottoman fleet. Two days later he led his forces out, hoping again to trap the patrolling Greek destroyers between two divisions of the Ottoman fleet, one heading for Imbros and the other waiting at the entrance of the straits. The plan failed as the Greek ships quickly broke contact, while at the same time the "Mecidiye" came under attack by the Greek submarine "Delfin", which launched a torpedo against it but missed; the first such attack in history. During this time, the Ottoman Army continued to press upon a reluctant Navy a plan for the re-occupation of Tenedos, which the Greek destroyers used as a base, by an amphibious operation. The operation was scheduled for 4 January. On that day, weather conditions were ideal, and the fleet was ready, but the "Yenihan" regiment earmarked for the operation failed to arrive on time. The naval staff nevertheless ordered the fleet to sortie, and an engagement developed with the Greek fleet, without any significant results on either side. Similar sorties followed on 10 and 11 January, but the results of these "cat and mouse" operations were always the same: "the Greek destroyers always managed to remain outside the Ottoman warships' range, and each time the cruisers fired a few rounds before breaking off the chase."


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In preparation for the next attempt to break the Greek blockade, the Ottoman Admiralty decided to create a diversion by sending the light cruiser "Hamidiye", captained by Rauf Bey, to raid Greek merchant shipping in the Aegean. It was hoped that the "Averof", the only major Greek unit fast enough to catch the "Hamidiye", would be drawn in pursuit and leave the remainder of the Greek fleet weakened. In the event, "Hamidiye" slipped through the Greek patrols on the night of 14–15 January and bombarded the harbor of the Greek island of Syros, sinking the Greek auxiliary cruiser "Makedonia" which lay in anchor there (it was later raised and repaired). The "Hamidiye" then left the Aegean for the Eastern Mediterranean, making stops at Beirut and Port Said before entering the Red Sea. Although providing a major morale boost for the Ottomans, the operation failed to achieve its primary objective, as Kountouriotis refused to leave his post and pursue the "Hamidiye".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Four days later, on , when the Ottoman fleet again sallied from the straits towards Lemnos, it was defeated for a second time in the Naval Battle of Lemnos. This time, the Ottoman warships concentrated their fire on the "Averof", which again made use of its superior speed and tried to "cross the T" of the Ottoman fleet. "Barbaros Hayreddin" was again heavily damaged, and the Ottoman fleet was forced to return to the shelter of the Dardanelles and their forts. The Ottomans suffered 41 killed and 101 wounded. It was the last attempt of the Ottoman Navy to leave the Dardanelles, thereby leaving the Greeks dominant in the Aegean. On , a Greek Farman MF.7, piloted by Lt. Moutousis and with Ensign Moraitinis as an observer, carried out an aerial reconnaissance of the Ottoman fleet in its anchorage at Nagara, and launched four bombs on the anchored ships. Although it scored no hits, this operation is regarded as the first naval-air operation in military history.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: General Ivanov, commander of the 2nd Bulgarian Army, acknowledged the role of the Greek fleet in the overall Balkan League victory by stating that "the activity of the entire Greek fleet and above all the "Averof" was the chief factor in the general success of the allies".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Treaty of London ended the war, but no one was left satisfied, and soon, the four allies fell out over the partition of Macedonia. In June 1913, Bulgaria attacked Greece and Serbia, beginning the Second Balkan War, but was beaten back. The Treaty of Bucharest, which concluded the war, left Greece with southern Epirus, the southern-half of Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean islands, except for the Dodecanese, which had been occupied by Italy in 1911. These gains nearly doubled Greece's area and population.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In March 1913, an anarchist, Alexandros Schinas, assassinated King George in Thessaloniki, and his son came to the throne as Constantine I. Constantine was the first Greek king born in Greece and the first to be Greek Orthodox. His very name had been chosen in the spirit of romantic Greek nationalism (the "Megali Idea"), evoking the Byzantine emperors of that name. Besides, as the Commander-in-chief of the Greek Army during the Balkan Wars, his popularity was enormous, rivalled only by that of Venizelos, his Prime Minister.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: When World War I broke out in 1914, despite Greece's treaty of alliance with Serbia, both leaders preferred to maintain a neutral stance. However, when, in early 1915, the Allied Powers asked for Greek help in the Dardanelles campaign, offering Cyprus in exchange, their diverging views became apparent: Constantine had been educated in Germany, was married to Sophia of Prussia, sister of Kaiser Wilhelm, and was convinced of the Central Powers' victory. Venizelos, on the other hand, was an ardent anglophile, and believed in an Allied victory.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Since Greece, a maritime country, could not oppose the mighty British navy, and citing the need for a respite after two wars, King Constantine favoured continued neutrality, while Venizelos actively sought Greek entry in the war on the Allied side. Venizelos resigned, but won the next elections, and again formed the government. When Bulgaria entered the war as a German ally in October 1915, Venizelos invited Entente forces into Greece (the Salonika front), for which he was again dismissed by Constantine.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In August 1916, after several incidents where both combatants encroached upon the still theoretically neutral Greek territory, Venizelist officers rose up in Allied-controlled Thessaloniki, and Venizelos established a separate government there. Constantine was now ruling only in what was Greece before the Balkan Wars ("Old Greece"), and his government was subject to repeated humiliations from the Allies. In November 1916 the French occupied Piraeus, bombarded Athens and forced the Greek fleet to surrender. The royalist troops fired at them, leading to a battle between French and Greek royalist forces. There were also riots against supporters of Venizelos in Athens (the "Noemvriana").


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Following the February Revolution in Russia, however, the Tsar's support for his cousin was removed, and Constantine was forced to leave the country, without actually abdicating in June 1917. His second son Alexander became King, while the remaining royal family and the most prominent royalists followed into exile. Venizelos now led a superficially united Greece into the war on the Allied side, but underneath the surface, the division of Greek society into Venizelists and anti-Venizelists, the so-called National Schism, became more entrenched.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: With the end of the war in November 1918, the moribund Ottoman Empire was ready to be carved up amongst the victors, and Greece now expected the Allied Powers to deliver on their promises. In no small measure through the diplomatic efforts of Venizelos, Greece secured Western Thrace in the Treaty of Neuilly in November 1919 and Eastern Thrace and a zone around Smyrna in western Anatolia (already under Greek administration since May 1919) in the Treaty of Sèvres of August 1920. The future of Constantinople was left to be determined. But at the same time, a nationalist movement had arisen in Turkey, led by Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), who set up a rival government in Ankara and was engaged in fighting the Greek army.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: At this point, nevertheless, the fulfillment of the "Megali Idea" seemed near. Yet so deep was the rift in Greek society, that on his return to Greece, an assassination attempt was made on Venizelos by two former royalist officers. Even more surprisingly, Venizelos' Liberal Party lost the elections called in November 1920, and in a referendum shortly after, the Greek people voted for the return of King Constantine from exile, following the sudden death of Alexander. The United Opposition, which had campaigned on the slogan of an end to the war in Anatolia, instead intensified it. However, the royalist restoration had dire consequences: many veteran Venizelist officers were dismissed or left the army, while Italy and France found the return of the hated Constantine a useful pretext for switching their support to Kemal. Finally, in August 1922, the Turkish army shattered the Greek front, and took Smyrna.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Greek army evacuated not only Anatolia but also Eastern Thrace and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos (Treaty of Lausanne). A compulsory population exchange was agreed between the two countries, with over 1.5 million Christians and almost half a million Muslims being uprooted. This catastrophe marked the end of the "Megali Idea", and left Greece financially exhausted, demoralised, and having to house and feed a proportionately huge number of refugees.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The catastrophe deepened the political crisis, with the returning army rising under Venizelist officers and forcing King Constantine to abdicate again, in September 1922, in favour of his firstborn son, George II. The "Revolutionary Committee", headed by Colonels Stylianos Gonatas (soon to become Prime Minister) and Nikolaos Plastiras engaged in a witch-hunt against the royalists, culminating in the "Trial of the Six". In October 1923, elections were called for December, which would form a National Assembly with powers to draft a new constitution. Following a failed royalist coup, the monarchist parties abstained, leading to a landslide for the Liberals and their allies. King George II was asked to leave the country, and on 25 March 1924, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaimed the Second Hellenic Republic, ratified by plebiscite a month later.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: On 10 October 1935, a few months after he suppressed a Venizelist Coup in March 1935, Georgios Kondylis, the former Venizelist stalwart, abolished the Republic in another coup and declared the monarchy restored. A rigged plebiscite confirmed the regime change (with an unsurprising 97.88% of votes), and King George II returned.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: King George II immediately dismissed Kondylis and appointed Professor Konstantinos Demertzis as interim Prime Minister. Venizelos meanwhile, in exile, urged an end to the conflict over the monarchy given the threat to Greece from the rise of Fascist Italy. His successors as Liberal leader, Themistoklis Sophoulis and Georgios Papandreou, agreed, and the restoration of the monarchy was accepted. The 1936 elections resulted in a hung parliament, with the Communists holding the balance. As no government could be formed, Demertzis continued. At the same time, a series of deaths left the Greek political scene in disarray: Kondylis died in February, Venizelos in March, Demertzis in April and Tsaldaris in May. The road was now clear for Ioannis Metaxas, who had succeeded Demertzis as interim Prime Minister.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Metaxas, a retired royalist general, believed that an authoritarian government was necessary to prevent social conflict and, especially, quell the rising power of the Communists. On 4 August 1936, with the King's support, he suspended parliament and established the 4th of August Regime. The Communists were suppressed and the Liberal leaders went into internal exile. Metaxas' regime promoted various concepts such as the "Third Hellenic Civilization", the Roman salute, a national youth organization, and introduced measures to gain popular support, such as the Greek Social Insurance Institute (IKA), still the biggest social security institution in Greece.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Despite these efforts, the regime lacked a broad popular base or a mass movement supporting it. The Greek people were generally apathetic, without actively opposing Metaxas. Metaxas also improved the country's defences in preparation for the forthcoming European war, constructing, among other defensive measures, the "Metaxas Line". Despite his aping of Fascism and the strong economic ties with resurgent Nazi Germany, Metaxas followed a policy of neutrality, given Greece's traditionally strong ties to Britain, reinforced by King George II's personal Anglophilia. In April 1939, the Italian threat suddenly loomed closer, as Italy annexed Albania, whereupon Britain publicly guaranteed Greece's borders. Thus, when World War II broke out in September 1939, Greece remained neutral.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Despite this declared neutrality, Greece became a target for Mussolini's expansionist policies. Provocations against Greece included the sinking of the light cruiser "Elli" on 15 August 1940. Italian troops crossed the border on 28 October 1940, beginning the Greco-Italian War, but were stopped by a determined Greek defence, and ultimately driven back into Albania. Metaxas died suddenly in January 1941. His death raised hopes of a liberalisation of his regime and the restoration of parliamentary rule, but King George quashed these hopes when he retained the regime's machinery in place.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In the meantime, Adolf Hitler was reluctantly forced to divert German troops to rescue Mussolini from defeat, and attacked Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria on 6 April 1941. Despite British assistance, by the end of May, the Germans had overrun most of the country. The King and the government escaped to Crete, where they stayed until the end of the Battle of Crete. They then transferred to Egypt, where a government in exile was established.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The occupied country was divided into three zones (German, Italian and Bulgarian) and in Athens, a puppet regime was established. The members were either conservatives or nationalists with fascist leanings. The three quisling prime ministers were Georgios Tsolakoglou, the general who had signed the armistice with the Wehrmacht, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, and Ioannis Rallis, who took office when the German defeat was inevitable, and aimed primarily at combating the left-wing Resistance movement. To this end, he created the collaborationist Security Battalions.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greece suffered terrible privations during World War II, as the Germans appropriated most of the country's agricultural production and prevented its fishing fleets from operating. As a result, and because a British blockade initially hindered foreign relief efforts, a wide-scale famine resulted, when hundreds of thousands perished, especially in the winter of 1941–1942. In the mountains of the Greek mainland, in the meantime, several resistance movements sprang up, and by mid-1943, the Axis forces controlled only the main towns and the connecting roads, while a "Free Greece" was set up in the mountains.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The largest resistance group, the National Liberation Front (EAM), was controlled by the Communists, as was (ELAS) led by Aris Velouchiotis and a civil war soon broke out between it and non-Communist groups such as the National Republican Greek League (EDES) in those areas liberated from the Germans. The exiled government in Cairo was only intermittently in touch with the resistance movement, and exercised virtually no influence in the occupied country.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Part of this was due to the unpopularity of the King George II in Greece itself, but despite efforts by Greek politicians, British support ensured his retention at the head of the Cairo government. As the German defeat drew nearer, the various Greek political factions convened in Lebanon in May 1944, under British auspices, and formed a government of national unity, under George Papandreou, in which EAM was represented by six ministers.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: German forces withdrew on 12 October 1944, and the government in exile returned to Athens. After the German withdrawal, the EAM-ELAS guerrilla army effectively controlled most of Greece, but its leaders were reluctant to take control of the country, as they knew that Stalin had agreed that Greece would be in the British sphere of influence after the war. Tensions between the British-backed Papandreou and EAM, especially over the issue of disarmament of the various armed groups, leading to the resignation of the latter's ministers from the government.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: A few days later, on 3 December 1944, a large-scale pro-EAM demonstration in Athens ended in violence and ushered an intense, house-to-house struggle with British and monarchist forces (the "Dekemvriana"). After three weeks, the Communists were defeated: the Varkiza agreement ended the conflict and disarmed ELAS, and an unstable coalition government was formed. The anti-EAM backlash grew into a full-scale "White Terror", which exacerbated tensions.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Communists boycotted the March 1946 elections, and on the same day, fighting broke out again. By the end of 1946, the Communist Democratic Army of Greece had been formed, pitted against the governmental National Army, which was backed first by Britain and after 1947 by the United States.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Communist successes in 1947–1948 enabled them to move freely over much of mainland Greece, but with the extensive reorganisation, the deportation of rural populations and American material support, the National Army was slowly able to regain control over most of the countryside. In 1949, the insurgents suffered a major blow, as Yugoslavia closed its borders following the split between Marshal Josip Broz Tito with the Soviet Union.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: In August 1949, the National Army under Marshal Alexander Papagos launched an offensive that forced the remaining insurgents to surrender or flee across the northern border into the territory of Greece's northern Communist neighbours. The civil war resulted in 100,000 killed and caused catastrophic economic disruption. Moreover, at least 25,000 Greeks were either voluntarily or forcibly evacuated to Eastern bloc countries, while 700,000 became displaced persons inside the country. Many more emigrated to Australia and other countries.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The postwar settlement saw Greece's territorial expansion, which had begun in 1832, come to an end. The 1947 Treaty of Paris required Italy to hand over the Dodecanese islands to Greece. These were the last majority-Greek-speaking areas to be united with the Greek state, apart from Cyprus which was a British possession until it became independent in 1960. Greece's ethnic homogeneity was increased by the postwar expulsion of 25,000 Albanians from Epirus (see Cham Albanians).


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The only significant remaining minorities are the Muslims in Western Thrace (about 100,000) and a small Slavic-speaking minority in the north. Greek nationalists continued to claim southern Albania (which they called Northern Epirus), home of a significant Greek population (about 3%–12% in the whole of Albania), and the Turkish-held islands of Imvros and Tenedos, where there were smaller Greek minorities.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: During the Civil war (1946–49) but even more after that, the parties in the parliament were divided into three political concentrations. The political formation Right-Centre-Left, given the exacerbation of political animosity that had preceded dividing the country in the 1940s, tended to turn the concurrence of parties into ideological positions.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: At the beginning of the 1950s, the forces of the Centre (EPEK) succeeded in gaining the power and under the leadership of the aged general Nikolaos Plastiras they governed for about half a four-year term. These were a series of governments having limited manoeuvre ability and inadequate influence in the political arena. This government, as well as those that followed, was constantly under the American auspices. The defeat of EPEK in the elections of 1952, apart from increasing the repressive measures that concerned the defeated of the Civil war, also marked the end of the general political position that it represented, namely political consensus and social reconciliation.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The left, which had been ostracised from the political life of the country, found a way of expression through the constitution of EDA (United Democratic Left) in 1951, which turned out to be a significant pole, yet steadily excluded from the decision making centres. After the disbandment of the centre as an autonomous political institution, EDA practically expanded its electoral influence to a significant part of the EAM-based Centre-Left.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The developmental strategy adopted by the country was embodied in centrally organised five-year plans; yet their orientation was indistinct. The average annual emigration, which absorbed the excess workforce and contributed to extremely high growth rates, exceeded the annual natural increase in population. The influx of large amounts of foreign private capital was being facilitated, and consumption was expanded. These, associated with the rise of tourism, the expansion of shipping activity and with the migrant remittances, had a positive effect on the balance of payments.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The peak of development was registered principally in manufacture, mainly in the textile and chemical industry and in the sector of metallurgy, the growth rate of which tended to reach 11% during 1965–70. The other large branch where distinct economic and social consequences were brought about, was that of construction. Consideration, a Greek invention, favoured the creation of a class of small-medium contractors on the one hand and settled the housing system and property status on the other.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: During that decade, youth came forth in society as a distinct social power with the autonomous presence (creation of a new culture in music, fashion, etc.) and displaying dynamism in the assertion of their social rights. The independence granted to Cyprus, which was mined from the very beginning, constituted the primary focus of young activist mobilisations, along with struggles aiming at reforms in education, which were provisionally realised to a certain extent through the educational reform of 1964. The country reckoned on and was influenced by Europe – usually behind time – and by the current trends like never before. Thus, in a sense, the imposition of the military junta conflicted with the social and cultural occurrences.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The country descended into a prolonged political crisis, and elections were scheduled for late April 1967. On 21 April 1967 however, a group of right-wing colonels led by Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos seized power in a coup d'état establishing the Regime of the Colonels. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Several thousand suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands. Alleged US support for the junta is claimed to be the cause of rising anti-Americanism in Greece during and following the junta's harsh rule.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: However, the junta's early years also saw a marked upturn in the economy, with increased foreign investment and large-scale infrastructure works. The junta was widely condemned abroad, but inside the country, discontent began to increase only after 1970, when the economy slowed down. Even the armed forces, the regime's foundation, were not immune. In May 1973, a planned coup by the Hellenic Navy was narrowly suppressed but led to the mutiny of the , whose officers sought political asylum in Italy. In response, junta leader Papadopoulos attempted to steer the regime towards a controlled democratization, abolishing the monarchy and declaring himself President of the Republic.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The first constitution of the Kingdom of Greece was the Greek Constitution of 1844. On 3 September 1843, the military garrison of Athens, with the help of citizens, rebelled and demanded from King Otto the concession of a Constitution.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Constitution that was proclaimed in March 1844 came from the workings of the "Third of September National Assembly of the Hellenes in Athens" and was a Constitutional Pact, in other words, a contract between the monarch and the Nation. This Constitution re-established the Constitutional Monarchy and was based on the French Constitution of 1830 and the Belgian Constitution of 1831.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Its main provisions were the following: It established the principle of monarchical sovereignty, as the monarch was the decisive power of the State; the legislative power was to be exercised by the King – who also had the right to ratify the laws – by the Parliament, and by the Senate. The members of the Parliament could be no less than 80, and they were elected for a three-year term by universal suffrage. The senators were appointed for life by the King, and their number was set at 27, although that figure could increase should the need arise and per the monarch's will, but it could not exceed half the number of the members of Parliament.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The ministers' responsibility for the King's actions is established, who also appoints and removes them. Justice stems from the King and is dispensed in his name by the judges he himself appoints.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Lastly, this Assembly voted the electoral law of 18 March 1844, which was the first European law to provide, in essence, for universal male suffrage.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Second National Assembly of the Hellenes took place in Athens (1863–1864) and dealt both with the election of a new sovereign as well as with the drafting of a new Constitution, thereby implementing the transition from constitutional monarchy to a Crowned republic.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Following the refusal of Prince Alfred of Great Britain (who was elected by an overwhelming majority in the first referendum of the country in November 1862) to accept the crown of the Greek kingdom, the government offered the crown to the Danish prince George Christian Willem of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg, who was crowned constitutional King of Greece under the name "George I, King of the Hellenes".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Constitution of 1864 was drafted following the models of the Constitutions of Belgium of 1831 and of Denmark of 1849, and established in clear terms the principle of popular sovereignty, since the only legislative body with reversionary powers was now the Parliament. Furthermore, article 31 reiterated that all the powers stemmed from the Nation and were to be exercised as provided by the Constitution, while article 44 established the principle of accountability, taking into consideration that the King only possessed the powers that were bestowed on him by the Constitution and by the laws applying the same.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Assembly chose the system of a single chamber Parliament (Vouli) with a four-year term, and hence abolished the Senate, which many accused of being a tool in the hands of the monarchy. Direct, secret and universal elections were adopted as the manner to elect the MPs, while elections were to be held simultaneously throughout the entire nation.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Additionally, article 71 introduced a conflict between being an MP and a salaried public employee or mayor at the same time, but not with serving as an army officer.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Constitution reiterated various clauses found in the Constitution of 1844, such as that the King appoints and dismisses the ministers and that the latter are responsible for the person of the monarch, but it also allowed for the Parliament to establish "examination committees". Moreover, the King preserved the right to convoke the Parliament in ordinary as well as in extraordinary sessions, and to dissolve it at his discretion, provided, however, that the dissolution decree was also countersigned by the Cabinet.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Constitution repeated verbatim the clause of article 24 of the Constitution of 1844, according to which "The King appoints and removes his Ministers". This phrase insinuated that the ministers were practically subordinate to the monarch, and thereby answered not only to the Parliament but to him as well. Moreover, nowhere was it stated in the Constitution that the King was obliged to appoint the Cabinet in conformity with the will of the majority in Parliament. This was, however, the interpretation that the modernizing political forces of the land upheld, invoking the principle of popular sovereignty and the spirit of the Parliamentary regime.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: They finally succeeded in imposing it through the principle of "manifest confidence" of the Parliament, which was expressed in 1875 by Charilaos Trikoupis and which, that same year, in his Crown Speech, King George I expressly pledged to uphold: "I demand as a prerequisite, of all that I call beside me to assist me in governing the country, to possess the manifest confidence and trust of the majority of the Nation's representatives. Furthermore, I accept this approval to stem from the Parliament, as without it the harmonious functioning of the polity would be impossible".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The establishment of the principle of "manifest confidence" towards the end of the first decade of the crowned democracy, contributed towards the disappearance of a constitutional practice which, in many ways, reiterated the negative experiences of the period of the reign of King Otto. Indeed, from 1864 through 1875 numerous elections of dubious validity had taken place, while, additionally and most importantly, there was an active involvement of the Throne in political affairs through the appointment of governments enjoying a minority in Parliament, or through the forced resignation of majority governments, when their political views clashed with those of the crown.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The Greek Constitution of 1911 was a major step forward in the constitutional history of Greece. Following the rise to power of Eleftherios Venizelos after the Goudi revolt in 1909, Venizelos set about attempting to reform the state. The main outcome of this was a major revision to the Greek Constitution of 1864.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The most noteworthy amendments to the Constitution of 1864 concerning the protection of human rights, were the more effective protection of personal security, equality in tax burdens, of the right to assemble and of the inviolability of the domicile. Furthermore, the Constitution facilitated expropriation to allocate property to landless farmers, while simultaneously judicially protecting property rights.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Other important changes included the institution of an Electoral Court for the settlement of election disputes stemming from the parliamentary elections, the addition of new conflicts for MPs, the re-establishment of the State Council as the highest administrative court (which, however, was constituted and operated only under the Constitution of 1927), the improvement of the protection of judicial independence and the establishment of the non-removability of public employees. Finally, for the first time, the Constitution provided for mandatory and free education for all, and declared Katharevousa (i.e. archaising "purified" Greek) as the ""official language of the Nation"".


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greece entered its period of new-won independence in a somewhat different state than Serbia, which shared many of the post-independence economic problems such as land reform. In 1833, the Greeks took control of a countryside devastated by war, depopulated in places and hampered by primitive agriculture and marginal soils. Just as in Serbia, communications were bad, presenting obstacles for any wider foreign commerce. Even by the late 19th-century Agricultural development had not advanced as significantly as had been intended as William Moffet, the US Consul in Athens explained:


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: ""agriculture is here in the most undeveloped condition. Even in the immediate neighbourhood of Athens, it is common to find the wooden plough and the rude mattock which were in use 2,000 years ago. Fields are ploughed up or scratched over, and crops replanted season after season until the exhausted soil will bear no more. Fertilizers are not used to any appreciable extent, and the farm implements are of the very rudest description. Irrigation is in use in some districts, and, as far as I can ascertain, the methods in use can be readily learned by a study of the practices of the ancient Egyptians. Greece has olives and grapes in abundance, and of quality not excelled, but Greek olive oil and Greek wine will not bear transportation.""


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greece had a strong wealthy commercial class of rural notables and island shipowners, and access to of land expropriated from Muslim owners who had been driven off during the War of Independence.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Land reform represented the first real test for the new Greek kingdom. The new Greek government deliberately adopted land reforms intended to create a class of free peasants. The ""Law for the Dotation of Greek Families"" of 1835 extended 2,000 drachmas credit to every family, to be used to buy a farm at auction under a low-cost loan plan. The country was full of displaced refugees and empty Ottoman estates.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: By a series of land reforms over several decades, the government distributed this confiscated land among veterans and the poor, so that by 1870 most Greek peasant families owned about . These farms were too small for prosperity, but the land reform signalled the goal of a society in which Greeks were equals and could support themselves, instead of working for hire on the estates of the rich. The class basis of rivalry between Greek factions was thereby reduced.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The series of wars between 1912 and 1922 provided a catalyst for Greek industry, with a number of industries such as textiles; ammunition and boot-making springing up to supply the military. After the wars most of these industries were converted to civilian uses. Greek refugees from Asia Minor, the most famous of which was Aristotle Onassis who hails from Smyrna (modern Izmir) also had a tremendous impact on the evolution of Greek industry and banking. Greeks held 45% of the capital in the Ottoman Empire before 1914, and many of the refugees expelled from Turkey had funds and skills which they quickly put to use in Greece.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: These refugees from Asia Minor also led to rapid growth of urban areas in Greece, as the vast majority of them settled in urban centres such as Athens and Thessaloniki. The 1920 census reported that 36.3% of Greeks lived in urban or semi-urban areas, while the 1928 census reported that 45.6% of Greeks lived in urban or semi-urban areas. It has been argued by many Greek economists that these refugees kept Greek industry competitive during the 1920s, as the surplus of labour kept real wages very low. Although this thesis makes economic sense, it is sheer speculation as there is no reliable data on wages and prices in Greece during this period.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greek industry went into decline slightly before the country joined the EC, and this trend continued. Although worker productivity rose significantly in Greece, labour costs increased too fast for the Greek manufacturing industry to remain competitive in Europe. There was also very little modernization in Greek industries due to a lack of financing.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Budgetary problems caused the Greek government to begin an interesting economic experiment, the dichotomization of the drachma. Unable to secure any more loans from abroad to finance the war with Turkey, in 1922 Finance Minister Protopapadakis declared that each drachma was essentially to be cut in half. Half of the value of the drachma would be kept by the owner, and the other half would be surrendered by the government in exchange for a 20-year 6.5% loan. World War II led to these loans not being repaid, but even if the war had not occurred, it is doubtful that the Greek government would have been able to repay such enormous debts to its own populace. This strategy led to large revenues for the Greek state, and inflation effects were minimal.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: This strategy was repeated again in 1926 due to the government's inability to pay back loans incurred from the decade of war and the resettlement of the refugees. Deflation occurred after this dichotomization of the drachma, as well as a rise in interest rates. These policies had the effect of causing much of the populace to lose faith in their government, and investment decreased as people began to stop holding their assets in cash which had become unstable, and began holding real goods.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: As the reverberations of the Great Depression hit Greece in 1932. The Bank of Greece tried to adopt deflationary policies to stave off the crises that were going on in other countries, but these largely failed. For a brief period, the drachma was pegged to the US dollar, but this was unsustainable given the country's large trade deficit, and the only long-term effects of this were Greece's foreign exchange reserves being almost totally wiped out in 1932. Remittances from abroad declined sharply and the value of the drachma began to plummet from 77 drachmas to the dollar in March 1931 to 111 drachmas to the dollar in April, 1931.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: This has been particularly harmful to Greece as the country relied on imports from the UK, France and the Middle East for many necessities. Greece went off the gold standard in April 1932 and declared a moratorium on all interest payments. The country also adopted protectionist policies such as import quotas, which some European countries did during the time period. Protectionist policies coupled with a weak drachma, stifling imports, allowed Greek industry to expand during the Great Depression. In 1939 Greek Industrial output was 179% that of 1928.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: These industries were for the most part "built on sand" as one report of the Bank of Greece put it, as without massive protection they would not have been able to survive. Despite the global depression, Greece managed to suffer comparatively little, averaging an average growth rate of 3.5% from 1932 to 1939. The fascist regime of Yannis Metaxas took over the Greek government in 1936, and economic growth was strong in the years leading up to the Second World War.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: One industry in which Greece had major success was the shipping industry. Greece's geography has made the country a major player in maritime affairs from antiquity, and Greece has a strong modern tradition dating from the treaty of Kuchuk-Kajnardji in 1774, which allowed Greek ships to escape Ottoman domination by registering under the Russian flag. The treaty prompted a number of Greek commercial houses to be set up across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and after independence, Greece's shipping industry was one of the few bright spots in the modern Greek economy during the 19th century.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: After both world wars the Greek shipping industry was hit hard by the decline in global trade, but both times it revived quickly. The Greek government aided the revival of the Greek shipping industry with insurance promises following the Second World War. Tycoons such as Aristotle Onassis also aided in strengthening the Greek merchant fleet, and shipping has remained one of the few sectors in which Greece still excels.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: It was during the 60s and 70s that tourism, which now accounts for 30% of Greece's GDP, began to become a major earner of foreign exchange. This was initially opposed by many in the Greek government, as it was seen as a volatile source of income in the event of any political shocks. It was also opposed by many conservatives and by the Church as bad for the country's morals. Despite concerns, tourism grew significantly in Greece and was encouraged by successive governments as it was a straightforward source of badly needed foreign exchange revenues.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: The resolution of the Greco-Turkish War and the Treaty of Lausanne led to a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which also had massive ramifications on the agricultural sector in Greece. The tsifliks were abolished, and Greek refugees from Asia Minor settled on these abandoned and partitioned estates. In 1920 only 4% of land holdings were of sizes more than , and only .3% of these were in large estates of more than . This pattern of small scale farm ownership has continued to the present day, with the small number of larger farms declining slightly.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greece suffered comparatively much more than most Western European countries during the Second World War due to a number of factors. Heavy resistance led to immense German reprisals against civilians. Greece was also dependent on food imports, and a British naval blockade coupled with transfers of agricultural produce to Germany resulted in famine. It is estimated that the Greek population declined by 7% during the Second World War. Greece experienced hyperinflation during the war. In 1943, prices were 34,864% higher compared to those of 1940; in 1944, prices were 163,910,000,000% higher compared to the 1940 prices. The Greek hyperinflation is the fifth worst in economic history, after Hungary's following World War II, Zimbabwe's in the late 2000s, Yugoslavia's in the middle 1990s, and Germany's following World War I. This was compounded by the country's disastrous civil war from 1944 to 1950.


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Greek economy was in a deplorable state in 1950 (after the end of the Civil War), with its relative position dramatically affected. In that year Greece had a per capita GDP of $1,951, which was well below that of countries like Portugal ($2,132), Poland ($2,480), and even Mexico ($2,085). Greece's per capita GDP was comparable to that of countries like Bulgaria ($1,651), Japan ($1,873), or Morocco ($1,611).


title: Kingdom of Greece

text: Over the past 50 years, Greece has grown much faster than most of the countries that had comparable per capita GDP's in 1950, reaching a per capita GDP of $30,603 today. This can be compared to the previously stated countries, $17,900 in Portugal, $12,000 in Poland, $9,600 in Mexico, $8,200 in Bulgaria and $4,200 in Morocco. Greece's growth averaged 7% between 1950 and 1973, a rate second only to Japan's during the same period. In 1950 Greece was ranked 28th in the world for per capita GDP, while in 1970 it was ranked 20th.