In November 1973, the Athens Polytechnic uprising broke out. The student uprising is generally believed to have been spontaneous, started with purely student demands at first, and not orchestrated by any political groups in Greece. (Initially, it was condemned by the parties of the Greek Left, which had been banned by the ruling "junta". There were suspicions at the time that the uprising was an act of provocation orchestrated by factions within the military regime opposed to the process of political normalization and would use the uprising to derail it.) The student protests in front of the Polytechnic, within a few days, evolved into a clearly political, quite vocal and rather widespread, albeit peaceful, rebellion against the dictatorship. After approximately three days and nights of continuous mass gatherings in front of the Polytechnic, the protests were put down by force, through the use of tanks and army units which stormed the building during the night of November 17. On November 25, 1973, Taxiarkhos Dimitrios Ioannides used the events as a pretext to stage a countercoup that overthrew Papadopoulos, and put a dramatic end to Papadopoulos and Markezinis' attempt for a transition to democratic rule. Ioannidis arrested Markezinis, cancelled the elections, and fully reinstated martial law. His regime in turn crumbled in July 1974, after the coup against Makarios III by the Greek "junta" of Ioannidis which led to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.