Greece

Greece, or as its known by its formal name: The Hellenic Republic, is a multi-continental parliamentary Republic. Centered in Thessaloniki, it experienced a boom as a result of the Partition of the Ottoman Empire, but, as with almost every other state experienced a massive decline from the late 1920s and is still in that decline by 1936.

## **The Kingdom of Greece, 1832-1895**

Due to centuries of Greek nationalism and anti-Ottoman sentiment, the Greeks rose up in 1821 in a long and bloody war of independence lasting 9 years. In the end however, the Ottomans were forced to cede southern Greece, including Athens to the new Greek state. After their liberation, Greece was proclaimed as a Kingdom, under King Otto reigned for 30 years until the early 1860s. As life went on without the Ottomans, however, many began to oppose the King's rule until in 1862 due to a military provocation after he dismissed the Greek Prime Minister he fled the country and King George I was replaced to the throne. In 1864 Greece adopted a much more democratic constitution, but as time went on more animosity between different ideologies would build, beginning the long conflict between Republicans and Monarchists in Greece.

But another issue was brewing: the Megali Idea. The Megali Idea was an irredentist claim that made the stance that Greece should conquer all of then majority and historically important Greek lands. Most prominently was the claims of Western Anatolia and Constantinople. Theodoros Deligiannis who would serve as the Greek prime minister until his death in 1905. He was a supporter of the Megali Idea and a staunch conservative.

Tensions were growing as in 1894 Pontic Greeks began to rebel against the Ottomans, but the King George I refused to mobilize for war. Due to his beliefs in the Melli Idea Theodoros gained massive popularity and rallied pro-Republican forces against the king.

## **The Greek Civil War**

In late 1894, when news came to Greece that western Anatolian Greeks began to also rebel against the Ottoman State, Theodoros gave an ultimatum to the king for him to formally declare war against the ottomans, or face a civil war. When he still refused, wanting to stay staunchly neutral, the King gave the order to arrest Theodoros. But it was revealed that he actually fled from Athens to Patras. In the city he rallied the people towards the Megali Idea and against the King, and on the same day declared the Hellenic Republic, with the intention of fully realizing the Megali Idea and denouncing the king on January 5th 1895. May had refused to mobilize for the king due to his decision for neutrality in the Ottoman rebellions. The few that did, faced full rebellions against them. By February of the declaration of the Republic most of the Peloponnesse fell to the republicans and strategic parts of Thessaly was in the hands of the republicans as well. The British sent supplies to the King but it wasn’t enough to tip the balance in the war. Many Greek islands were secured and Athens was vulnerable by March of the same year. In early April the first clashes took place in Athens where the king fled to Malta. Once Athens finally fell the remaining loyalist forces declared the loss of the Kingdom and the rest of the country fell into Republican hands. Many major cities were left largely unscathed and as a result Greece was largely intact. As a result, after the civil war major clashes were taking place in Smyrna and Salonica actually fell to Greek separatists.

## **The Greco-Ottoman War of 1895**

In order to not let the Greek rebellion die, the republic declared war on the Ottomans a mere 3 weeks after the civil war concluded. The Republic began to invade several small Aegean Islands and poured in material aid to rebels in Crete, Smyrna and Salonica. Without their aid, those rebellions would have most likely died off, but the renewal of supplies aided Greek separatists to seize most of Crete, the Dodecanese, and in august of 1895 Smyrna finally falls to Greek rebel forces. Alexandroupoli also was a win for Greek troops as they managed to secured most of the Aegean coast before Bulgarian forces could arrive. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed on all fronts, the Greeks directly landed on Anatolia and began to push into ottoman territory, capturing Bursa on the 23rd of January, 1896. And from late January to March of the same year, Constantinople was put out on siege by various European armies, succumbing to the siege in late March, prompting the remainder of the Ottoman government to capitulate. In the end, the Greeks would be invited to the Treaty of Baku, in Baku, Russia to discuss what territories the Greeks should receive. All in all, to put it mildly the Greeks were not happy with the terms of the treaty. The Treaty of Baku only concluded 6 ml this after it began, due to the fact that everyone had overlapping land claims. One of the biggest issues was the Bulgarian and Greek claims. The Greeks claimed all of Salonica, parts of Northern Macedonia and Plovdiv, whereas the Bulgarians claimed parts of the Aegean coastline and even Salonica itself. However the Greek representatives knew that Russia was very powerful and could win them over diplomatically. Eventually, it worked to some extent. Russia backed Greek claims to some extent, but many claims were forcibly abandoned by the Greeks, enraging the representatives. In the end the Treaty of Baku granted Greece a miniscual amount of territory they once claimed. They annex: all Aegean islands once occupied by the ottomans, directly annexed Crete, Ottoman Thessaly, almost all of Epirus and all south coast parts of Macedonia, including Salonica but stopping at the beginning of the Marmara Sea. As well as a long costal strip of western Anatolian land, including Smyrna. But what angered the Greeks most was no control over Bursa or the Marmara Sea. Instead it was to be made into a new demilitarized state.