1 00:00:02,250 --> 00:00:09,090 So much. 2 00:00:09,330 --> 00:00:12,540 Welcome to Session two of the symposium. 3 00:00:12,540 --> 00:00:23,129 Today, the three co convenors decided that there were three sort of key stories coming out of the the period run up to the First World War, 4 00:00:23,130 --> 00:00:32,580 the war itself and the peace conference. One, of course, was the creation of Yugoslavia, which, thanks to Ivo, we've looked at in some detail. 5 00:00:33,180 --> 00:00:40,410 The second story, big story, is of Turkey arising from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. 6 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:51,810 And the third story, the third big storyline is the vicissitudes of Greece, and in particular the what led up to the Greek disaster. 7 00:00:53,700 --> 00:01:01,560 So session one covered the first of these stories, and we've already lost one of our empires, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 8 00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:10,530 In this session, we're going to look at the other two stories, and we're going to lose another of our empires, the Ottoman Empire. 9 00:01:10,530 --> 00:01:13,830 But I mustn't steal using thunder. 10 00:01:14,910 --> 00:01:23,880 Turning to our speakers, Eugene Rogan is university lecturer in the modern history of the Middle East under fellow St Antony's. 11 00:01:25,140 --> 00:01:29,850 He's author of The Arabs A History and his forthcoming book, 12 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:40,850 The Fall of the Ottomans The Great War in the Middle East 1914 to 1920 is scheduled for publication in 2015, so you can order your copy now. 13 00:01:41,250 --> 00:01:49,080 But then there's Vasily or Basil. Gunner is Professor of Modern History of the Department of History and Archaeology, 14 00:01:49,260 --> 00:01:55,110 Aristotle University and the Dean of Humanities at the Hellenic International University. 15 00:01:55,320 --> 00:02:04,500 Both of those institutions being Thessaloniki. He's also for many years been director of the Centre for Macedonian History and Documentation. 16 00:02:05,130 --> 00:02:08,610 So we have two really excellent speakers to talk to us. 17 00:02:09,360 --> 00:02:17,340 Each will speak for about 30 minutes, which means we will then have about 45 minutes available for question and answer discussion. 18 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:23,550 And I think it's very important that we have the full 45 minutes because just looking at the audience, 19 00:02:23,820 --> 00:02:28,139 I can see that there are many distinguished experts present in the audience 20 00:02:28,140 --> 00:02:33,420 today and we'd love to hear from you also mentioned a few in his introduction, 21 00:02:33,420 --> 00:02:37,890 but there are others as well. Indeed, just looking around the room, 22 00:02:38,070 --> 00:02:46,410 I see we could have put together another two or three panels on the basis of just present here today, but I think probably we won't. 23 00:02:46,620 --> 00:02:49,140 Perhaps another time, perhaps another time. 24 00:02:49,260 --> 00:02:55,410 I mean, after all, the First World War lasted for four years, so there's plenty of opportunities for more symposium. 25 00:02:57,030 --> 00:03:01,020 Right. Eugene, you have the floor. 26 00:03:03,830 --> 00:03:08,220 David, thank you so much and I'd like to thank the organisers for the honour of the invitation. 27 00:03:08,700 --> 00:03:15,270 I feel as though I should be saying thank you to the organisers on behalf of the Ottoman Empire for inviting us back to the Balkans. 28 00:03:16,920 --> 00:03:25,650 That's it. I do also feel a bit of an interloper because I really am far much more a stranger to Balkan history than most of you in the audience. 29 00:03:26,790 --> 00:03:30,270 But having been flattered by the invitation, I couldn't say no. 30 00:03:31,110 --> 00:03:34,979 And so what I'd like to do is discuss the issues that before, 31 00:03:34,980 --> 00:03:41,190 during and after the war really shaped the impact of the fall of the Ottoman Empire on the Balkan states. 32 00:03:41,790 --> 00:03:49,410 If we were to look at the big issues that divided the Ottoman Empire from the Balkan states, they all had to do with demography and territory. 33 00:03:50,190 --> 00:03:54,960 But before, during and after the Great War, Thrace, 34 00:03:55,890 --> 00:04:03,510 Macedonia and the Aegean Islands wetlands heatedly contested between the Ottomans and their Balkan neighbours. 35 00:04:04,860 --> 00:04:10,740 To some extent, those disputes were violently resolved through the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913. 36 00:04:13,010 --> 00:04:20,450 And Balkan nationalist movements had impressed on both Turkey and its neighbours a false sense of incompatibility between 37 00:04:20,450 --> 00:04:30,200 Muslims and Christians that led implacably towards a homogenous Christian Balkans and a homogenous Muslim Anatolia. 38 00:04:31,370 --> 00:04:36,410 The means used were called population transfers at that time. 39 00:04:36,980 --> 00:04:41,300 Today, of course, we would refer to them as ethnic cleansing. Whatever the rhetoric, 40 00:04:42,650 --> 00:04:48,049 the devastating consequences for the populations involved have left enduring scars that by 41 00:04:48,050 --> 00:04:54,410 far transcended the period of the Great War and paved the way for a Greco Turkish antagonism. 42 00:04:54,860 --> 00:04:59,810 That was really to be one of the enduring feature of the international relations of the Mediterranean world right through the 20th century. 43 00:05:02,290 --> 00:05:06,880 In the early months of 1914, just before the outbreak of war, 44 00:05:07,930 --> 00:05:15,010 the European powers tried to broker peace negotiations to resolve the outstanding differences between the Ottoman Empire and its Balkan neighbours. 45 00:05:17,260 --> 00:05:23,950 To some degree, the injection of foreign capital helped and France's loan of $100 million to assist in economic 46 00:05:23,950 --> 00:05:31,180 reconstruction in the Ottoman Empire went a long way to dust the Ottomans to accept their losses in Albania, 47 00:05:31,450 --> 00:05:36,910 Macedonia and Thrace by promising through this for an injection of capital. 48 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:41,370 Real economic growth after two terrible wars. 49 00:05:42,570 --> 00:05:47,910 But even after the peace agreements had been signed and the terms of the loan concluded, 50 00:05:48,570 --> 00:05:52,800 there remain very significant issues outstanding between Istanbul and Athens. 51 00:05:54,620 --> 00:06:01,100 The peace agreements left Greece in possession of three key Aegean islands seized from Turkey in the Balkan wars. 52 00:06:02,060 --> 00:06:09,320 Chios and Mytilene, dominating the entry to smear no of modern Izmir, were within sight of the Turkish mainland. 53 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:15,230 So these are not islands. It seemed remote from Turkey. They seemed very much on the horizon when viewed from the mainland. 54 00:06:16,340 --> 00:06:22,460 Lemnos, with the strategic harbour of Budrus, was less than 80 kilometres from the Strategic Straits of the Dardanelles. 55 00:06:23,800 --> 00:06:33,340 The port never accepted the loss of these islands and was unwilling to live with Greece dominating its coastal waters through these islands. 56 00:06:35,090 --> 00:06:38,690 While Ottoman diplomats sought European support. 57 00:06:39,780 --> 00:06:42,629 For the Government's claims for the restoration of the Aegean Islands, 58 00:06:42,630 --> 00:06:47,760 Ottoman War planners worked to shift the balance of naval power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean instead. 59 00:06:49,820 --> 00:06:57,510 The Ottoman government. Commission to state of the art dreadnoughts as their solution to the naval imbalance in the Eastern Mediterranean. 60 00:06:59,820 --> 00:07:05,910 The British shipbuilders, Vickers and Armstrong, took the commission in August 1911 for delivery three years later. 61 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:12,390 The orders were placed as part of a British naval mission to help modernise the Ottoman fleet. 62 00:07:14,180 --> 00:07:21,290 The two ships, the Sultan Osman and the Irish are due name for the first and the last or latest. 63 00:07:21,410 --> 00:07:25,320 Ottoman sultans were a tremendous drain on the Ottoman Treasury. 64 00:07:25,340 --> 00:07:31,730 These were very expensive state of the art warships appealing to Ottoman patriotism. 65 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:35,960 The government funded the ships in large part through public subscription. 66 00:07:36,620 --> 00:07:39,679 Turkish schoolchildren were encouraged to contribute their pocket money, 67 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:47,899 and fundraising stands were opened across Ottoman cities in which if you made a contribution, you should have five passengers. 68 00:07:47,900 --> 00:07:52,639 You allowed to drive a great big name into a very large block of wood and somehow the sea to capture 69 00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:56,750 what it meant to be getting these dreadnoughts from the Ottoman Empire at the individual level. 70 00:07:58,220 --> 00:08:04,520 While the ships became a focus of Ottoman pride redressing the Empire's naval 71 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:09,650 forces after the defeats of both the Libyan War of 1911 and the two Balkan wars, 72 00:08:11,210 --> 00:08:14,510 Greece and Russia were much less enthusiastic about these developments. 73 00:08:16,180 --> 00:08:20,500 The massive battleships that give the Turkish Navy the advantage over the Russian Black Sea fleet, 74 00:08:20,980 --> 00:08:23,890 but would also dramatically shift the balance of power in the region. 75 00:08:26,850 --> 00:08:31,110 The Aegean Islands dispute and the impending delivery of British Dreadnoughts to the Ottoman 76 00:08:31,110 --> 00:08:37,980 Navy raised a real prospect of war between Greece and Turkey in the first half of 1914. 77 00:08:39,630 --> 00:08:43,410 Officials in Greece were calling for pre-emptive strikes against the Ottoman Navy before 78 00:08:43,410 --> 00:08:46,350 they took delivery of these two dreadnoughts that would change the balance of power. 79 00:08:47,700 --> 00:08:54,240 And the Ottomans, for their part, prepare their citizens once again for war by sending around through sealed envelopes. 80 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:59,880 The mobilisation posters, which village headmen were told to keep sealed until further notice. 81 00:09:00,780 --> 00:09:05,250 As it turned out, those mobilisation posters would not be used for war against Greece. 82 00:09:05,970 --> 00:09:11,790 That, of course, would be torn open when the Ottomans mobilised for the Great War in August that year. 83 00:09:15,060 --> 00:09:23,380 On August 2nd, 1914, the Ottoman Empire concluded a secret mutual defence pact with Germany, which was, for all intents and purposes, a war pact. 84 00:09:23,430 --> 00:09:30,540 Given the circumstances, the Turks presented the Germans with their war aims four days later, 85 00:09:30,930 --> 00:09:39,120 when the Germans desperately sought entry for two of their naval vessels into the neutral and sealed Straits of the Dardanelles. 86 00:09:40,470 --> 00:09:44,190 In a pre-dawn meeting with Ambassador Wang and Heim on the 6th of August, 87 00:09:44,850 --> 00:09:50,820 Prime Minister Syed Haleem Pasha laid out his government's conditions for allowing the Govern and Breslau to enter the straits. 88 00:09:52,260 --> 00:09:59,370 Syed Haleem presented six demands of Germany that represent, in a sense, the earliest statement of the Ottoman War aims of the Great War. 89 00:10:00,330 --> 00:10:05,880 Two of St Helen's conditions addressed recent Ottoman losses in the Balkans. 90 00:10:06,860 --> 00:10:11,870 First, the Ottomans were determined to secure agreements with Romania and Bulgaria 91 00:10:11,870 --> 00:10:15,680 before entering into any hostilities with the triple against the triple entente. 92 00:10:16,830 --> 00:10:22,080 To ensure that his Balkan neighbours would not threaten Turkish Thrace or Istanbul. 93 00:10:22,750 --> 00:10:31,350 So they needed to have Germany give iron packed guarantees of good behaviour by Romania and Bulgaria. 94 00:10:31,950 --> 00:10:36,750 As we all know, Bulgaria, after much wavering, ultimately does join with the central powers. 95 00:10:37,770 --> 00:10:43,560 In October of 1915, Romania, which ultimately sided with the entente, 96 00:10:44,070 --> 00:10:49,620 was the only country in the First World War that the Ottomans actually declared war on the 97 00:10:49,620 --> 00:10:53,040 Ottomans on the receiving end of many declarations of war without ever reciprocating. 98 00:10:53,370 --> 00:10:56,790 But the one country that the Ottomans actively declared war on was Romania. 99 00:10:57,180 --> 00:11:09,209 On the 30th of August 1916, footnote back to St Helen's conditions of Ambassador Vang and Heim to allow these two fugitive vessels into the straits. 100 00:11:09,210 --> 00:11:11,670 The second well, second part of the first condition. 101 00:11:12,330 --> 00:11:18,510 The Grand Vizier sought German assistance both in concluding indispensable understandings with Romania and 102 00:11:18,510 --> 00:11:27,660 Bulgaria and in negotiating a fair agreement with Bulgaria for an equitable division of possible spoils of war. 103 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:37,830 So what Saint Halim Pasha was doing was laying out the possibility that if a war went particularly well for the Ottoman Empire and his German allies, 104 00:11:38,340 --> 00:11:44,280 that they might actually be able to recover some lost territory in the Balkans. Thinking back to 1912, 1913. 105 00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:51,990 Secondly, should Greece enter the war on the side of the entente powers and be defeated? 106 00:11:52,770 --> 00:11:59,730 Germany would assure the return of the three Aegean Islands girls Mytilene, Lesbos and Lemnos to Turkish sovereignty. 107 00:12:00,980 --> 00:12:03,180 Okay, so much for the geographical issues. 108 00:12:04,170 --> 00:12:14,340 Equally serious were the demographic divides between Muslims and Christians in the Balkans and Anatolia in their short time in power. 109 00:12:14,940 --> 00:12:18,960 The Young Turks had overseen extensive population transfers. 110 00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:27,209 Territorial losses in the Balkans drove waves of destitute Muslims to seek refuge 111 00:12:27,210 --> 00:12:33,840 in Ottoman domains without the resources to address this humanitarian crisis. 112 00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:41,940 The Turkish leadership created space for these Balkan refugees by deporting thousands of Ottoman Christians to Greece. 113 00:12:43,950 --> 00:12:49,620 A government committee then oversaw the reallocation of the houses and fields and workshops. 114 00:12:50,740 --> 00:12:56,180 Of deported Ottoman Christians to help with the resettlement of Muslims coming from the Balkans. 115 00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:05,450 These quote unquote population exchanges were regulated by formal agreements concluded between the ports and the Balkan states. 116 00:13:06,230 --> 00:13:10,370 So you had, in this sense, ethnic cleansing with an official seal of approval. 117 00:13:12,130 --> 00:13:17,470 The deportation of ethnic Greeks from the Ottoman Empire served several purposes. 118 00:13:19,210 --> 00:13:24,100 Deportation not only freed up homes and workplaces for the resettlement of Balkan Muslims, 119 00:13:24,820 --> 00:13:31,660 but it also allowed the Ottomans to expel thousands of citizens that they saw as being of questionable loyalty to the Ottoman state. 120 00:13:31,780 --> 00:13:36,220 So there is a political motive behind the kind of human resettlement motive, 121 00:13:37,870 --> 00:13:42,760 tensions over the Aegean island that threatened renewed war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. 122 00:13:43,060 --> 00:13:47,920 In the first six months of 1914 had left Ottoman Greeks vulnerable and exposed. 123 00:13:49,090 --> 00:13:52,989 So the population exchanges initiated after the Balkan wars had provided the 124 00:13:52,990 --> 00:13:57,280 kind of internationally sanctioned solution to the Empire's Greek problem. 125 00:13:59,700 --> 00:14:04,380 So what started as a controlled exchange of border populations between belligerents 126 00:14:05,100 --> 00:14:09,790 evolved into a systematic expulsion of ethnic Greeks from Ottoman lands. 127 00:14:09,810 --> 00:14:16,560 Generally, though, there are no precise figures for these deportations. 128 00:14:17,670 --> 00:14:23,760 Several hundred thousand Christians and Muslims were forcibly relocated before and during the First World War. 129 00:14:25,110 --> 00:14:29,370 The deep of the deportations were applied within Asia minor. 130 00:14:31,740 --> 00:14:36,840 The more the government had to rely on violence and intimidation to achieve their ends. 131 00:14:38,590 --> 00:14:44,640 Ottoman Christian villagers in Anatolia, very far from the troubled Balkans, resisted the state's efforts to uproot them. 132 00:14:44,650 --> 00:14:48,520 These were their homes and villages, the feel that they and the generations before them it formed. 133 00:14:49,750 --> 00:14:54,550 Gendarmes rounded up. Villagers beat up. The men threatened to kidnap women. 134 00:14:55,610 --> 00:15:03,259 Even killed Ottoman Greeks who resisted deportation. Foreign consuls appalled by the violence against Christians. 135 00:15:03,260 --> 00:15:06,750 Civilians reported dozens killed. In some villages, 136 00:15:06,780 --> 00:15:14,630 you see an exchange of very alarmed reports between the different European and American consular agents working in Anatolia at the time. 137 00:15:16,430 --> 00:15:24,860 But the thing is this. The expulsion of the Greeks from Anatolia could be carried out with a relatively low level of violence against individuals, 138 00:15:25,250 --> 00:15:29,510 precisely because there was a Greece to which you could deport these people. 139 00:15:30,260 --> 00:15:38,630 And this, I would argue, is the primary difference between the fate of the Ottoman Greeks uprooted, deported, but not subjected to mass murder. 140 00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:44,330 And the Armenians who because they did not have a country to which they could be deposited, 141 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:52,640 of course, faced genocide with the defeat of the Ottomans in October 1918. 142 00:15:53,930 --> 00:15:58,160 These issues were only exacerbated by the terms of the peace treaty. 143 00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:04,220 As Margaret Macmillan has so eloquently written in her earlier work, Peacemakers. 144 00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:09,200 Greek Prime Minister Venizelos had, from the very start of the Paris peace conference, 145 00:16:09,800 --> 00:16:15,170 pressed Greece's claims to Anatolia, but arguably with mixed success. 146 00:16:16,130 --> 00:16:22,190 He gave dodgy statistics to try and argue that the demography of the coastline 147 00:16:22,190 --> 00:16:27,830 of Turkey was overwhelmingly Greek and that if you took the area around Smyrna, 148 00:16:28,550 --> 00:16:31,700 that basically Turks were an absolute minority in their own land. 149 00:16:33,260 --> 00:16:37,940 Venizelos was particularly adamant in making a claim to the port of Smyrna, 150 00:16:38,450 --> 00:16:43,370 Izmir to the Turks, one of the Mediterranean boomtowns of the 19th century. 151 00:16:43,970 --> 00:16:47,660 The pre-war population of Izmir was 250,000. 152 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:50,760 And more Greeks lived there than in Athens itself. 153 00:16:52,340 --> 00:17:01,580 But his bid for Izmir and its hinterlands reaching deep into western Anatolia, created the Greek province with a huge number of non Greeks, 154 00:17:02,030 --> 00:17:10,130 as well as a very long line to defend for anybody who might choose to attack it from the Anatolian hinterlands. 155 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:21,169 But Venizelos reinforced his claims to Smyrna and its hinterlands by reporting that Turks were massacring Greeks 156 00:17:21,170 --> 00:17:27,380 and in this way got an authorisation from the Big Three to send a Greek cruiser off the coast of Smyrna. 157 00:17:27,830 --> 00:17:32,629 This was followed by the decision taken fatefully on the 6th of May 1919 to 158 00:17:32,630 --> 00:17:36,890 dispatch Greek troops to protect the civilians of Smyrna and its hinterlands. 159 00:17:38,030 --> 00:17:41,510 As we know, the landing of Greek soldiers on the 15th of May. 160 00:17:41,930 --> 00:17:45,710 Far from calming, a tense situation inflamed it. 161 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:54,320 And there were riots, shooting and violence on that day that left three between three and 400 Turks dead and certainly no less than 100 Greeks dead. 162 00:17:56,930 --> 00:18:04,280 However, destabilising to the peace of Western Anatolia. The Greek claim to Izmir was formalised in the treaty itself, 163 00:18:04,700 --> 00:18:12,260 imposed by the victorious allied powers on the defeated Ottoman Empire and was signed on the 10th of August 1920. 164 00:18:12,980 --> 00:18:19,670 It, section four of the treaty has said that treats the issues surrounding the future of Smyrna. 165 00:18:23,640 --> 00:18:30,060 It creates a kind of Greek condominium written in a diplomatic doublespeak that the 166 00:18:30,060 --> 00:18:36,480 great powers seem to have mastered to make the unpalatable seem positively reasonable. 167 00:18:38,500 --> 00:18:47,410 In a. New formula. Smyrna was to remain under Turkish sovereignty, but Turkey was to transfer to the Greek government. 168 00:18:47,800 --> 00:18:52,960 The exercise of her rights of sovereignty over Smyrna and its influence to sovereignty is still Turkish. 169 00:18:53,290 --> 00:19:01,299 But Turkey cedes its right of sovereignty to Greece. The Greek government was made responsible for the administration of Smyrna and 170 00:19:01,300 --> 00:19:05,620 would name its own officials to oversee the port and the territories behind it. 171 00:19:07,620 --> 00:19:13,200 The Greeks were allowed to garrison soldiers in this manner for the maintenance of order and public security as many soldiers as they saw fit. 172 00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:21,310 They would oversee the creation of a local parliament. To be filled by people elected. 173 00:19:22,630 --> 00:19:27,160 From the local population in a process that was to be approved by the League of Nations. 174 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:36,050 And relations between the Greek administration. So the oversight of the port, an area would be under a Greek appointed administration. 175 00:19:36,740 --> 00:19:44,960 Their relations with the local parliament would be regulated within the terms of the Greek constitution in five years time. 176 00:19:45,260 --> 00:19:50,600 The local parliament could petition the League of Nations for the incorporation of Smyrna into the Kingdom of Greece. 177 00:19:51,050 --> 00:19:54,470 At which point Turkish sovereignty would cease. Well, 178 00:19:54,470 --> 00:20:00,680 you didn't have to be a radical Turkish nationalist to see in the formula of the Treaty of Sevilla everything it took 179 00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:07,820 within a five year period to formalise a transfer of a central part of Asia minor from Turkish to Greek control. 180 00:20:09,210 --> 00:20:15,970 The terms of the treaty duly signed by the powerless Ottoman government, set in motion the Kemalist rejection that would lead to war. 181 00:20:16,830 --> 00:20:21,990 The creation of the Turkish Republic. And the expulsions of the remaining Greek population from Anatolia. 182 00:20:24,020 --> 00:20:31,280 They took until the 10th of September 1922, before Ataturk entered Smyrna and declared it Izmir once and for all. 183 00:20:32,210 --> 00:20:37,370 The city was sacked and burned and those who survived dispersed as refugees towards Greece. 184 00:20:38,750 --> 00:20:45,620 The war had created such antagonisms between Turks and Greeks in Anatolia that villages 185 00:20:45,620 --> 00:20:51,110 across the and Asia minor abandoned their homes to join this exodus from Turkish territory. 186 00:20:52,010 --> 00:20:56,780 This population transfer was formalised by an agreement concluded between the governments of Greece and Turkey. 187 00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:03,440 Which arranged for a compulsory exchange of populations involving some 1.3 million. 188 00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,480 Greeks from Anatolia and Thrace. 189 00:21:07,050 --> 00:21:16,170 The only exception to this expulsion were those Greek residents of Istanbul or Constantinople who had been living in the city since before 1918. 190 00:21:16,890 --> 00:21:18,210 Otherwise, every Greek, 191 00:21:18,780 --> 00:21:27,900 from every village and every town in Anatolia was to be forcibly deported and about a half million Turks to be expelled from Greece. 192 00:21:28,440 --> 00:21:30,150 Except for those living in Western Thrace. 193 00:21:30,750 --> 00:21:38,550 So you had, by formal agreement, the forced displacement of nearly 2 million people as a consequence of these actions. 194 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:47,310 Thus, the demographic differences were bridged by ethnic cleansing and the territorial differences. 195 00:21:47,790 --> 00:21:52,230 By war, Turkey achieved statehood in all of Anatolia. 196 00:21:52,950 --> 00:21:59,310 But to this day, Greece still holds those three disputed islands in the Aegean immediately off the coast of Turkey. 197 00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:04,850 Lesbos. Joe's sending us. 198 00:22:08,290 --> 00:22:15,639 And the enduring legacy. One need only point to the typical Greek antagonism, 199 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:20,830 which had at so many points provoked crisis in the eastern Mediterranean, not least around places like Cyprus, 200 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:29,440 to see that the false emotions of peace had left an enduring legacy of trouble from the fall of the Ottomans in the First World War. 201 00:22:29,620 --> 00:22:34,430 Thank you. Down with the empire. 202 00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:44,170 Ladies and gentlemen, let me thank the organisers for inviting me. 203 00:22:44,930 --> 00:22:48,559 Bringing me back home to St Anthony's, where so many things have changed by the spirit. 204 00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:55,960 This is the same. I was really honoured because I'm not a specialist in World War One unlike all the other speakers. 205 00:22:57,460 --> 00:23:05,260 So I it took me some time to, to decide which was going to be my point of view in this presentation. 206 00:23:05,260 --> 00:23:10,930 And considering that it was going to be presented, I thought, 207 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:19,690 to do something different and explain why what all one is and the unwanted legacy for Greece. 208 00:23:19,690 --> 00:23:23,139 And through that, to make certain arguments about Greece. 209 00:23:23,140 --> 00:23:31,600 And as a modern nation, I have very vivid memories from my school days and they hold it against me. 210 00:23:31,990 --> 00:23:36,070 But the past has always been for me to be last topic of discussion. 211 00:23:37,660 --> 00:23:40,959 This preference, however, had nothing to do with my school classes, 212 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:46,750 but my my grandfather fought in three different was his first experience was in the Great War. 213 00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:57,130 Another one supporter of Felicitas Venizelos, he left Greek, eastern Macedonia and his unit on a boat in early September 1916 to escape captivity. 214 00:23:57,730 --> 00:24:04,150 And thus he missed the opportunity to flirt to German girls and go together with the rest of the fourth Greek Army Corp. 215 00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,910 But instead, he was injured at the Battle of RAF in there fighting with the French and the British. 216 00:24:11,170 --> 00:24:15,700 My grandmother also had very vivid memories dating back to 1908 when Greek and 217 00:24:15,700 --> 00:24:20,080 Bulgarian armed bands were still clashing throughout Ottoman held in Macedonia. 218 00:24:20,740 --> 00:24:25,060 She also kept telling me about the Bulgarian invasion of 1916. 219 00:24:25,570 --> 00:24:32,260 Her village was captured by the Bulgarian army. Her father and brother were deported to Bulgaria and spent some time doing hard labour. 220 00:24:32,980 --> 00:24:38,440 She was 12 years old at the time and her strong anti Bulgarian sentiments marked my childhood. 221 00:24:40,210 --> 00:24:44,500 One of her favourite stories was about the glorious lion statue of Amphipolis, 222 00:24:45,100 --> 00:24:50,440 parts of which were discovered by English soldiers digging trenches along the south, the flow of the stream river in 1916. 223 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,190 And to be honest, archaeology was my first choice. But history one me. 224 00:24:54,190 --> 00:24:59,290 Eventually, I apologise for having bothered you with my family stories. 225 00:24:59,290 --> 00:25:06,850 I just wanted to make clear that what war one at least for me, was not a vaguely known or ill digested historical event. 226 00:25:07,510 --> 00:25:16,089 I grew up not only with fairy tales, but also with lower doses of history, and I became addicted to my surprise. 227 00:25:16,090 --> 00:25:23,530 However, at school I was taught nothing about the Great War until I was in the third grade of high school. 228 00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,610 And my case, I think, often mentioned that as well. 229 00:25:28,450 --> 00:25:32,770 We're talking to the same age it looks so. 230 00:25:36,060 --> 00:25:41,310 My case is not exceptional, considering that at the time the history of Greece after 1821, 231 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:47,700 after the War of Independence, was not a compulsory part of any history course. 232 00:25:48,930 --> 00:25:53,010 There was never enough time to allow us to go beyond independence to much history. 233 00:25:54,270 --> 00:25:58,230 More important, though, was the absence of World War One from public history. 234 00:25:58,950 --> 00:26:03,120 There were impressive celebrations for the declaration of the Greek Italian war in 235 00:26:03,120 --> 00:26:09,810 1940 and for the defence against the Germans at the Metaxa line in April 1941. 236 00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:17,820 We knew a lot about the heroic death of Pavlos Milan's, the pioneer of the struggle for Macedonia against the Bulgarians 1904. 237 00:26:18,810 --> 00:26:25,050 We could see the monuments. There were films on all these topics with well-known cinema stars. 238 00:26:25,950 --> 00:26:30,960 We also knew about the crash of the Communists in 1949 that ended the Greek civil war. 239 00:26:31,140 --> 00:26:42,300 Although we learned little about communism itself. So let me start by reminding you very crudely of some milestones of the crucial decade 1912, 1922. 240 00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:46,920 Some of them already mentioned in 1913, following the Balkan wars. 241 00:26:47,310 --> 00:26:52,890 Greece had expanded to create the June Islands, Epirus and Macedonia. 242 00:26:53,700 --> 00:26:59,760 But the outbreak of World War One, it was still debateable, whether she could defend her new positions on her own. 243 00:27:00,510 --> 00:27:04,830 As we all know, territorial promises were crucial for the formation of alliances in the Balkans. 244 00:27:05,490 --> 00:27:07,110 But by 1915, 245 00:27:07,590 --> 00:27:17,280 the course of the war and the multifaceted diplomacy render it impossible to decide which side or neutrality was the obvious choice for Greece. 246 00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:22,770 There were convincing arguments for any choice, but none without a very big risk. 247 00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:25,890 Yet there was no time for contemplation. 248 00:27:26,790 --> 00:27:33,630 Inability to decide and reluctance to take a unanimous risk resulted in a heated political debate and a constitutional crisis. 249 00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:40,470 King Constantine and Premier League theatres. Many sailors drifted irrevocably apart after two elections in 1915. 250 00:27:41,610 --> 00:27:44,910 The political season and the pressing necessities of the war, 251 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:55,590 the Gallipoli campaign and the collapse of of Serbia led the entente powers to occupy parts of Greek, Macedonian, Epirus and some islands. 252 00:27:56,370 --> 00:27:59,640 Greece was divided not only politically, but also geographically. 253 00:28:00,150 --> 00:28:08,280 Just two years after she had received those lands. On top of this, in 1916, Venizelos established the provisional government in the. 254 00:28:09,780 --> 00:28:19,020 That was a full scale national scheme. Reunification of the two Greek parts, the so-called old Greece and the new lands was violent. 255 00:28:19,740 --> 00:28:25,110 It was accomplished under tremendous allied military pressure. And the king was forced to abdicate. 256 00:28:27,180 --> 00:28:30,180 Greece joined the entente in time to fight some big battles. 257 00:28:30,180 --> 00:28:35,310 But the officers scope was divided and the army's morale did not fully recover. 258 00:28:36,150 --> 00:28:41,730 The deficit in war effort was balanced by participating in the Ukrainian campaign against the Bolsheviks. 259 00:28:42,420 --> 00:28:52,440 Eventually, Venizelos, rather than Greece, was awarded with spoils such as eastern and western freys and the the region as was destined as a minor. 260 00:28:53,160 --> 00:29:00,480 In any case, too big and too fragile to handle. Eastern three since many were lost after the disaster as a minor catastrophe. 261 00:29:01,020 --> 00:29:07,600 And what constituted the essence? The essence of the national catastrophe was not the military disaster, but what was mentioned, 262 00:29:07,620 --> 00:29:13,840 the approaching of 1.3 or 1.5 million Greek Orthodox civilians in one decade. 263 00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:17,400 Greece march from the absolute triumph to absolute disaster. 264 00:29:18,450 --> 00:29:25,620 It is a series of historical events that went wrong. They could not and should not be analysed separately, I think. 265 00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:34,710 But if we are to see the period as a whole, the whole debate at this point, one could reasonably ask, 266 00:29:35,670 --> 00:29:42,330 given the course of European diplomacy before, during and after the Great War, undecided until the American entry. 267 00:29:42,990 --> 00:29:46,590 Was the outcome of the decade an unmitigated disaster for Greece? 268 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:52,710 Was the king right and should have stayed neutral? Did we turn at the wrong turning point? 269 00:29:55,080 --> 00:30:01,230 Definitely not. In addition to Western phrase, all the territorial gains of the Balkan wars were confirmed, 270 00:30:01,650 --> 00:30:05,129 while hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Bulgarians populations, 271 00:30:05,130 --> 00:30:09,030 which Greece could hardly ever absorb, were evacuated or forced to flee, 272 00:30:09,030 --> 00:30:16,620 never to return north in Greece after the influx of the Asia minor, refugees looked impressively homogenous. 273 00:30:17,100 --> 00:30:22,680 This was not a negligible development. All Asia minor had been sacrificed not in vain, 274 00:30:23,070 --> 00:30:28,950 considering that preserving Macedonian face on behalf of Greece was not the priority of any great power until then. 275 00:30:30,510 --> 00:30:36,600 Why then has this significant outcome of the Balkan and the Great Wars combined 276 00:30:36,900 --> 00:30:43,770 been eradicated from our collective memory since I left school in the late 1970s? 277 00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:52,200 Things have not changed much, although eventually the history of the 20th century got the attention of Greek educational planners. 278 00:30:52,470 --> 00:31:01,080 The legacy of World War One is regarded as a complicated academic topic that has remained the exclusive preserve of specialists. 279 00:31:01,410 --> 00:31:05,840 Why? Some reasons are more obvious than others. 280 00:31:06,470 --> 00:31:12,290 Tracing them down, I hope, will facilitate to understand the long term repercussions of the Great War for Greece. 281 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:20,910 The key person in the 19 tens and 1920s was Venizelos from 1909 through his death in 1936. 282 00:31:21,390 --> 00:31:28,170 To be exact, he was involved in whatever happened during this 25 years in his presence or in his absence. 283 00:31:29,190 --> 00:31:34,530 Although he had resisted the Constitutional Assembly in 1911, which might have led to a Republican regime, 284 00:31:35,190 --> 00:31:41,820 it was only after his clash with King Constantine that he developed into a leading figure of the Republican regime, 285 00:31:42,180 --> 00:31:47,940 eventually established in 1924, and certainly into an emblem for the Greek Democrats ever after. 286 00:31:49,500 --> 00:31:55,900 Greece, however, was a kingdom under the same dynasty of Constantine sons George and Paul. 287 00:31:55,920 --> 00:32:04,620 From 1935 to 1974, the dynasty was aware that the popular support that they had accumulated during World War two, 288 00:32:04,740 --> 00:32:09,120 the Civil War and the Cold War, had not neutralised the provincial feelings. 289 00:32:09,930 --> 00:32:13,530 It was only out of fraud and necessity rather than love that George. 290 00:32:13,530 --> 00:32:17,430 The second could have been restored in 1935 and in 1946, respectively. 291 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:23,880 The king was the head of state, but Venizelos was the true leader of the nation, if not his. 292 00:32:25,970 --> 00:32:31,190 Glorifying his achievements was impossible before World War Two and undesirable after the war. 293 00:32:32,060 --> 00:32:37,340 The two emblems, the Royal Crown and Venezuela's famous silk sidecar were incompatible. 294 00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:43,400 To give you an example, the 50th anniversary of the First Balkan War in the 50th. 295 00:32:43,580 --> 00:32:51,290 In 1962, an impressive volume was published presenting the evolution of Salonika as a Greek city after 1912. 296 00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:58,700 It is amazing by all means that there were no chapters in this book for the post 1912 political events, 297 00:32:59,210 --> 00:33:06,090 only presentations by subject education after 1912, Urban Planning, Health Care, Boy Scouts, Santamaria, 298 00:33:06,170 --> 00:33:11,120 etc. The 20th century history of Salonika, the capital of Venizelos Provisional Government, 299 00:33:11,300 --> 00:33:20,680 the headquarters of the front and Greece was an embarrassment for the king, whose large scale portrait covered the first page of that huge volume. 300 00:33:21,890 --> 00:33:26,930 The story of the Great War could not be reassessed by academic historians without offending him. 301 00:33:28,310 --> 00:33:35,420 In the second edition of The Great Greek Encyclopaedia, which is 28 Volume Encyclopaedia. 302 00:33:35,900 --> 00:33:39,890 The Book of Reference in Greece and the second edition was in the early 1950s 303 00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:44,990 under the subject illustrators Venizelos once director of his political office. 304 00:33:45,110 --> 00:33:52,010 What is to move out of presenting his contribution to the great and dear the unification of Hellenism, but not his clash with the king? 305 00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:53,900 Absolutely not. Not a word about that loss. 306 00:33:55,460 --> 00:34:02,510 Nor was the memory of Venizelos diplomatic initiatives and confrontation useful in terms of post-World War Two politics? 307 00:34:03,170 --> 00:34:09,860 To start with, in the 1940 and 1950s and early 1960s, many of the interwar protagonists were still politically active. 308 00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:15,200 Among them, Venizelos, youngest son, Sophocles. But were not always in good terms with each other. 309 00:34:15,980 --> 00:34:25,580 The Liberal Party of Venizelos split not the first time in 1946 and was reunited in 1947. 310 00:34:27,060 --> 00:34:34,350 It is impossible to analyse here the party politics of the Liberals until they were defeated by Marshall election was papyrus in 1952. 311 00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:40,350 But I could argue that although the legacy of Venizelos was extremely important for them, 312 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:46,830 reference to World War One was counterproductive during the Civil War and mindless afterwards. 313 00:34:47,010 --> 00:34:52,980 Since a commonly accepted prerequisite of being national minded, less incoherent, was to be loyal to the king. 314 00:34:53,220 --> 00:34:57,959 Apart from being a fervent anti-communist, even the Asia minor refugees, 315 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:02,190 the four excellent supporters of the Liberal Party scattered in the Greek Macedonian 316 00:35:02,190 --> 00:35:06,660 hinterland that turned pro royalists under the threat of communist guerillas and brigands. 317 00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:15,210 The example of Venizelos Protective Premiership from 1928 to 1932 was still inspiring politicians, 318 00:35:15,510 --> 00:35:20,850 even, of course, some time Karamanlis in the late 1950s and the 1960s. 319 00:35:21,270 --> 00:35:25,140 He had been impressed by the work produced by Venizelos, 320 00:35:25,740 --> 00:35:30,180 but this did not imply any wish to steer out of the passions which World War One had 321 00:35:30,180 --> 00:35:34,500 introduced in Greek politics at a time when the nation suffered a new version of Squeeze, 322 00:35:34,740 --> 00:35:43,170 this time between the left and the right wings. To sum up, the legacy of World War One constituted a major political trauma. 323 00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:47,820 Healing could be achieved more effectively and conveniently through amnesia. 324 00:35:48,720 --> 00:35:53,610 In fact, healing this political blood felt was meaningless for the Greek society. 325 00:35:54,150 --> 00:35:58,440 Since then, Greeks had learned and were used to seeing in glad. 326 00:36:01,260 --> 00:36:05,550 At this point, one could possibly ask whether and why the Army itself, 327 00:36:05,860 --> 00:36:14,000 a powerful factor in post World War Two events was also indifference to the memory of significant military events. 328 00:36:14,010 --> 00:36:21,420 For example, the memory of the victorious World War One battles of spaghetti legend or a ravine that, as I mentioned. 329 00:36:22,830 --> 00:36:30,690 Was it not a political capital to be treasured? The Army history section published its version of World War One military events in 1958. 330 00:36:31,530 --> 00:36:39,600 In the face of this two volume edition, general conglomerate confessed that 40 years after the event, 331 00:36:39,750 --> 00:36:46,050 the major challenge they had to face as historians was how to be objective in the study of military events, 332 00:36:46,230 --> 00:36:49,440 which could not be separated from the dramatic political background. 333 00:36:50,490 --> 00:36:55,650 To achieve this, he said, he wrote, they had relied on objective sources, 334 00:36:56,040 --> 00:37:01,200 but also on the assumption that time had dissolved the haze created by hatred. 335 00:37:02,130 --> 00:37:10,920 However, the first page of this book was also covered, surprisingly by King Constantine's portrait, thus living my few chances of objectivity. 336 00:37:11,870 --> 00:37:15,449 I am not saying that that this book is a liberal against the Venizelos, 337 00:37:15,450 --> 00:37:22,649 but the deliberate plan of the office is obvious to focus on the achievements of the soldiers and to 338 00:37:22,650 --> 00:37:27,900 leave aside or to be critical of the politics which have brought this war effort to victorious end. 339 00:37:30,430 --> 00:37:37,420 Two additional points should be made here. First, World War One was not the type of war that produces great heroes. 340 00:37:38,350 --> 00:37:45,640 Our pattern of war heroes includes only those who fought irregular wars on the mountains as volunteers in the service of some great idea, 341 00:37:45,970 --> 00:37:51,670 not the reservists or the professional soldiers bound by legal obligations, no matter how heroically they fought. 342 00:37:52,870 --> 00:37:59,770 So the Great War produced no heroes, because great heroes are not to be found in trenches, and they are not dressed in uniforms, but in kilts. 343 00:38:01,300 --> 00:38:05,530 Not to mention that the abovementioned Army history publication made clear that the 344 00:38:05,530 --> 00:38:10,030 reservists had been dragged to this war and many of the deserters had been executed. 345 00:38:12,010 --> 00:38:15,130 My second point has to do with the role of the Entente powers. 346 00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,700 I will return to the international relation factor later on, 347 00:38:18,700 --> 00:38:24,430 but here it must be stressed that when the Army history of World War One was written in the late 1950s, 348 00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:29,140 heroes of the traditional type were being produced in Cyprus, 349 00:38:29,770 --> 00:38:35,920 where the struggle for a union with Greece was in full swing, surely attached to Washington. 350 00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:40,360 Sorry, securely attached to Washington. And not always in best terms with Paris. 351 00:38:40,900 --> 00:38:47,979 Greece had not any particular reason to cover up the violent way in which French and British forces that 352 00:38:47,980 --> 00:38:53,770 imposed their military presence in 1915 and how they had established Venizelos regime in Athens in 1916. 353 00:38:54,580 --> 00:39:00,040 Nor could this respect for the sneaky Italians be hidden. 354 00:39:01,060 --> 00:39:10,960 As far as Greece was concerned in the 1950s, and Tant was no longer cordial and no longer treasured the such, especially the Cyprus question, 355 00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:17,020 the small idea which replaced the great one undermined seriously Greek British relations, 356 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:24,520 not to mention the decisive role the British had played in December 1944, which the Greek left never forgot. 357 00:39:25,540 --> 00:39:29,260 The legacy of the grant or medallion was unwanted by all. 358 00:39:31,180 --> 00:39:33,360 Which brings me to another reason for believing. 359 00:39:34,930 --> 00:39:40,630 As I said, the special role Salonika had played in the national season was an embarrassment for my city. 360 00:39:41,110 --> 00:39:45,580 Otherwise conservative, royalist and national minded. But it was more than that. 361 00:39:46,630 --> 00:39:48,910 The memory of World War One, Salonika, 362 00:39:49,270 --> 00:39:56,920 and that of the Macedonian front was related to some non-conventional historical events which did not fit well in the post-war national narrative. 363 00:39:58,390 --> 00:40:04,270 Salonika, before the Great Fire of 1917, was not a predominantly Greek city in terms of demography. 364 00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:12,340 Muslims and Jews formed a majority of the population. And it was exactly this colourful picture and multilingual environment that have captured 365 00:40:12,340 --> 00:40:16,870 the attention of European soldiery and was presented in their diaries and written memories. 366 00:40:17,890 --> 00:40:24,580 Post World War Two, Salonika was a different city, no longer the Jerusalem of the Balkans, but the mother of the refugees. 367 00:40:24,910 --> 00:40:34,390 This unwritten refugees had competed bitterly with the Jews, suspected this probable Gharyan had moved into the Muslim quarters, 368 00:40:35,110 --> 00:40:39,250 had and still have no particular interest in this multicultural past. 369 00:40:40,510 --> 00:40:45,520 If they had one recollection, it was in 1920 and eventually a vote of this minorities, 370 00:40:45,730 --> 00:40:48,970 which brought the Christian Premier down at the peak of his triumph. 371 00:40:49,330 --> 00:40:53,120 After the Treaty of Seven, the Jews had stopped in the back. 372 00:40:53,140 --> 00:41:02,710 That's what they thought anyway. There was nothing else for them to recall from Ottoman Cellar Nick, which had been purified by the 1917 fire. 373 00:41:05,090 --> 00:41:13,010 And it might have come to your attention that recently this costly bust created many tensions between our mayor and our bishop. 374 00:41:13,220 --> 00:41:17,680 So it's it's the cleavage. 375 00:41:19,430 --> 00:41:24,380 No more interesting for the national narrative were developments in the Macedonian hinterland. 376 00:41:25,610 --> 00:41:31,129 After World War One, Greece's allies committed themselves to the territorial integrity of Athens, 377 00:41:31,130 --> 00:41:34,520 northern provinces where the majority of the refugees had been settled. 378 00:41:35,510 --> 00:41:37,730 Bulgarian revisionism was a threat. 379 00:41:38,300 --> 00:41:46,130 Serbian Greek relations could have been seriously injured during the war, and Greece was a defeated and exhausted state. 380 00:41:48,950 --> 00:41:55,520 May I say here that now that you talked about the issue of the Aegean Islands, that's the reason that Greece did not support Serbia, 381 00:41:56,210 --> 00:42:04,740 was that Serbia did not back up when there was the war was imminent with Turkey in 1914 before the war. 382 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,160 The future of Greek Macedonia was debateable. 383 00:42:07,610 --> 00:42:14,810 Even Venizelos participated in this unholy diplomatic bargain, which included the return of eastern Macedonia to Sofia. 384 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,220 The task to assimilate a predominantly Slav speaking population, 385 00:42:19,610 --> 00:42:24,470 in addition to half a million Muslim peasants and officially recognised remaining minority, 386 00:42:24,830 --> 00:42:29,960 was a challenge to tough to be handled by a state which had not accomplished yet its own modernisation. 387 00:42:30,950 --> 00:42:37,310 In any case, in 1915, when war fell upon Greece, the process of integration had not started yet. 388 00:42:38,030 --> 00:42:42,650 The Greek state was an alien and a predator, more often coming to ask God to give. 389 00:42:43,610 --> 00:42:48,200 All minorities were tempted and flirted with propaganda promoted by friends and foes alike. 390 00:42:49,340 --> 00:42:58,040 Armbands had reappeared. Crimes committed during World War One were added to a very long list of massacres dating back to 1900s. 391 00:42:58,790 --> 00:43:07,100 These were not pleasant episodes. Fortunately, the mutual exchange of minorities between Greece and Bulgaria to some degree alleviated the distress. 392 00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,000 Yet it created two long lasting effects. 393 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:18,680 The first was the Bulgarian desire to retaliate and then murder the Japanese. 394 00:43:19,820 --> 00:43:24,170 I wish there would be no peace as long as the threat of an EU stance, 395 00:43:25,430 --> 00:43:32,060 a wish which undermined the inter-war plan for a Balkan Federation and was fulfilled in in bloodbath during World War Two. 396 00:43:33,470 --> 00:43:38,450 The second was the dominant role of the refugees from Asia minor. 397 00:43:38,660 --> 00:43:41,660 Sometimes Turkish speakers were called to play in Greek Macedonian. 398 00:43:42,380 --> 00:43:46,130 They became the national gods of the north, a frontier in a new homeland. 399 00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:55,250 They could not afford to lose again. And this fear of yet another uprooting made them even more sensitive to the threat of an alleged internal enemy. 400 00:43:55,460 --> 00:43:59,840 The local Slav speakers who had opted to stay rather than flee to Bulgaria. 401 00:44:02,610 --> 00:44:08,250 The same could be argued for, by the way, for Yugoslavia, Macedonia, the present Republic of Macedonia. 402 00:44:08,370 --> 00:44:12,210 World War One events also caused some confusion. 403 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:20,100 The region was annexed by the Bulgarian army, who was welcomed as a liberator, and after the Bulgarian defeat, 404 00:44:20,130 --> 00:44:26,070 defeated was colonised by the Serbs and suffered the same grievances of integration experienced in the big part. 405 00:44:26,550 --> 00:44:35,970 In my view, it was this cleavage between locals and refugees, combined with the elimination of the Imre Federalist leaders in 1924, 406 00:44:36,330 --> 00:44:41,640 which supported and accelerated the formation of Macedonian ethnic identity that you mentioned before. 407 00:44:42,510 --> 00:44:51,520 Conflict. Macedonia was strengthened by the World War One treaties and tormented Greece for decades, 408 00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,900 combined with the threat of communism, especially during German occupation, 409 00:44:56,290 --> 00:45:03,399 during the Greek civil war, an ideology which bore fruit in socialist because Latvia after World War Two and as we all know, 410 00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:12,520 this is not the most popular story in Greece. Nevertheless, in my view, it is connected directly, though not exclusively, with World War One. 411 00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:20,620 The importance of expatriated Slav Macedonians vision of of Greater Macedonia. 412 00:45:20,620 --> 00:45:28,090 The lost homeland could be compared with the extremely popular Greek public history legacy of the Asia minor catastrophe. 413 00:45:29,250 --> 00:45:37,440 The catastrophic memory overshadowed World War One achievements, even the importance of territorial acquisitions. 414 00:45:38,370 --> 00:45:44,340 Apparently, the scale of the disaster was paramount by NATO military, social, demographic, or ideological. 415 00:45:44,970 --> 00:45:50,280 The final death of the great idea, which had nourished the modern Greek state since 1844, 416 00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:54,480 left a vacuum which the antagonistic vision of modernisation could not replace. 417 00:45:55,290 --> 00:46:04,230 This blow was so heavy and so clear that it became an integral part of domestic politics determine to a great extent by the refugee vote, 418 00:46:04,470 --> 00:46:05,580 especially in northern Greece. 419 00:46:06,270 --> 00:46:13,200 What had been lost following the Great War was for them more important than what had been gained through the war efforts. 420 00:46:14,100 --> 00:46:21,330 The disparity between spoils and losses was the measure of judging the opponents of the liberals and find them guilty and incompetent beyond doubt. 421 00:46:22,230 --> 00:46:29,190 It was also the measure to evaluate and to prioritise the effort needed to alleviate the distress of this destitute newcomers. 422 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,480 Needless to say, the refugees drama was real and their needs are immense. 423 00:46:34,020 --> 00:46:38,880 But even when the process of settlement was accomplished, even after World War Two was over, or even today, 424 00:46:39,450 --> 00:46:44,730 the manipulation of that drama, the drama of the ancestors, the decimation of the pontic creeks, 425 00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,990 the burning of the infidel as minor are heavily exploited in terms of Greek politics, 426 00:46:49,830 --> 00:46:55,139 the pressure for an officially recognised genocide which renders impossible and impious. 427 00:46:55,140 --> 00:46:58,560 Any reconciliation with the Turkey is the best example of this practice. 428 00:46:59,220 --> 00:47:07,920 What happened in 1922 has created a long lasting moral debt, as if the great idea must live in the sacred memory of its sudden death, 429 00:47:08,190 --> 00:47:16,230 so sacred that can sanctify any demand or petition, no matter how relevant in the name of the lost homelands. 430 00:47:17,190 --> 00:47:23,459 This is a tool that has been and is still being used extremely effectively by the third generation refugee 431 00:47:23,460 --> 00:47:30,840 associations to recall and rest on their famous pilgrimage to the Monastery of Punishment Line 1983, 432 00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:33,960 the strongest transplanted symbol of Pontic tradition in Greece. 433 00:47:34,590 --> 00:47:37,870 In other words, the memory of World War One games. 434 00:47:38,220 --> 00:47:46,080 Games is less functional than that of the losses which followed simply because bitterness creates more cohesive and lasting bonds. 435 00:47:47,100 --> 00:47:48,479 Comparing gains and losses, 436 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:57,780 reducing the symbolic size of the catastrophe and therefore is redundant since I have already made reference to unrest through Pontic connection. 437 00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,129 I must now expound a bit on the selective reprisal of Venizelos memory. 438 00:48:02,130 --> 00:48:07,320 In the 1980s, in what was a plot fiasco, the population decayed. 439 00:48:08,910 --> 00:48:13,830 To my knowledge, this is a question that has not been thoroughly researched, if touched at all. 440 00:48:14,460 --> 00:48:21,840 In any case, PASOK promoted the idea that it was a revival of the Vangelis tradition, and this was widely believed, at least in Crete. 441 00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:29,970 Judging from the rhetoric and the electoral campaigns and the amazing results for decades, roughly speaking for Andreas Papandreou, 442 00:48:29,970 --> 00:48:36,870 Lasseter's zealous legacy was of paramount importance in order eight to engulf what was left of the centre in the 1970s, 443 00:48:37,380 --> 00:48:43,590 beat to defeat the Conservatives, who were conveniently projected by PASOK as descendants of the Royalists. 444 00:48:44,550 --> 00:48:52,590 Education planners were encouraged accordingly to incorporate more 20th century in the curriculum of all great issues like the October revolution, 445 00:48:53,160 --> 00:49:00,270 World War Two resistance, the labour movement, the capitalist system in order to make the new generations more sensitive to 446 00:49:00,270 --> 00:49:04,530 class struggle and thus to undermine the national minded history of war events. 447 00:49:05,550 --> 00:49:14,760 In the first history book of this kind, published in 1982. Greece's participation in World War One featured as a 40 page long chapter where Venizelos 448 00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:19,560 choice of side is analysed extensively and fully justified compared to Constantine, 449 00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,430 who appears to be motivated only by his pro-German feelings and German marriage. 450 00:49:24,630 --> 00:49:28,920 What is also interesting is that the politics of the entente powers towards Greece 451 00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,330 during and after the war are presented in a manner which promotes a critical, 452 00:49:33,330 --> 00:49:41,010 if not negative, stance. My point is that Venizelos in the 1980s was useful for PASOK without his Western allies, 453 00:49:41,580 --> 00:49:46,440 and that was also in line with Andreas, anti-NATO and Anti E.C. policy. 454 00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:50,160 It was exactly the opposite for new democracies conservatives. 455 00:49:50,730 --> 00:49:54,240 As the party was shrinking and the centre had been absorbed by the Socialists, 456 00:49:54,420 --> 00:50:00,870 Karamanlis himself and his successors who attempted and gradually claimed a part of Venizelos, liberal and pro-European tradition. 457 00:50:01,620 --> 00:50:06,450 It was the key to an important pool of votes which had to be repatriated to New Democracy, 458 00:50:06,720 --> 00:50:10,470 then featuring as a centre wing party, centre, right wing party. 459 00:50:12,180 --> 00:50:19,800 But again, as in the case of PASOK, the image of being zealous was a vague symbol of Greece's fundamental Western orientation. 460 00:50:20,130 --> 00:50:24,180 A symbol purified from his involvement in military coups. 461 00:50:26,430 --> 00:50:28,800 Purified from his risky politics. Disconnect. 462 00:50:28,950 --> 00:50:36,599 From his responsibility in the 1930 to bankruptcy, or for having been an admirer of so many things like that, 463 00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:41,850 never mentioned this purification would be unattainable without the paramount assistance of public 464 00:50:41,850 --> 00:50:48,000 history and the manipulation of education with the consent and joint action of both major parties. 465 00:50:48,720 --> 00:50:54,440 His canonisation, of course, made imperative the exclusion of the most influential diaspora Greek ever, 466 00:50:54,540 --> 00:50:57,630 a vessel to have from all Greek history textbooks. 467 00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:07,580 There is no reason to talk about him right now. No, 468 00:51:08,010 --> 00:51:17,219 he was a major financier of the Liberals and of the anti royal royalist campaigns and the 469 00:51:17,220 --> 00:51:23,310 broker of deals between Venizelos and Lloyd George and of the Roman Damnatio Memoria. 470 00:51:23,310 --> 00:51:27,120 So he does not mention his I mean, even my colleagues in the department don't know him. 471 00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:37,319 Before I reach my final argument and in order to make it more credible, I should stress that even during the days of the present financial crisis, 472 00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:43,049 the example of Venizelos attachment and commitment to his Western allies in World War One is constantly 473 00:51:43,050 --> 00:51:48,210 used to encourage the Greeks to stick to the European Union or even to the Balkan friends and neighbours. 474 00:51:48,240 --> 00:51:52,440 We must never walk alone again because another catastrophe will follow. 475 00:51:53,070 --> 00:52:00,210 It may sound simplistic or even naive, but the argument is in line with the tendency of respectable modern Greek historians 476 00:52:00,450 --> 00:52:04,630 to consider Venizelos as part of a pedigree dating back to election dismal record. 477 00:52:04,690 --> 00:52:11,340 That was the leader of the English Party in the 1930s, followed by having lost recouping the reform of Constantine Karamanlis, 478 00:52:11,460 --> 00:52:16,470 the other being the last branch in this three of the Greek nations liberal modernisers. 479 00:52:17,670 --> 00:52:25,170 Here, the final question must be pressed. Is there a deeper meaning in our willingness as a nation either to forget all about World 480 00:52:25,170 --> 00:52:31,379 War One or to use selectively whatever is appropriate to cover our current needs socially, 481 00:52:31,380 --> 00:52:34,890 ethically, that the entire national excuse becomes incomprehensible. 482 00:52:36,060 --> 00:52:40,440 Since the constitutional dilemma has been removed for good. 483 00:52:41,010 --> 00:52:49,810 Greece will not be a kingdom again. We must now look deeper into the nature of our national psyche in terms of public history and school history. 484 00:52:49,830 --> 00:52:57,240 As I said before, this history is regarded as a clash between a pro-German king carried away by his wife and the premier, 485 00:52:57,450 --> 00:53:00,630 who acknowledged the common interests of Greece and Britain in the Near East. 486 00:53:01,590 --> 00:53:06,209 More elaborate analysis like the school textbooks of the socialist period made popular. 487 00:53:06,210 --> 00:53:11,670 The oldest interwar Marxist approach that a further expansion to the East suited 488 00:53:11,670 --> 00:53:15,060 best the interests of the capitalist urban class which supported Venizelos. 489 00:53:16,110 --> 00:53:23,310 In any case, the drama lies in the fact that the alleged united body of the nation was cut into two parts. 490 00:53:24,390 --> 00:53:26,850 If we shift from public history to academic history, 491 00:53:27,060 --> 00:53:34,800 we must focus on the works of writers and reporters who have given us all the necessary evidence for an in-depth analysis. 492 00:53:35,430 --> 00:53:40,350 Let me state here that the making of this year's clash between evangelists and anti-federalists 493 00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:44,459 stretches beyond the end of World War One and beyond the catastrophic and includes, 494 00:53:44,460 --> 00:53:52,620 for example, the attempt against Venizelos in 1920. The execution of the six 1922 attempted assassination of Venizelos in 1933. 495 00:53:53,100 --> 00:53:57,300 The execution of three evangelist officers, 1935. Plot of events. 496 00:53:58,380 --> 00:54:03,720 Such events contributed heavily to the alienation of the two parts of the nation. 497 00:54:04,020 --> 00:54:08,310 But the regional cleavage, all agreed, was a product of World War One. 498 00:54:09,180 --> 00:54:19,819 Or was it not? I'm not implying simply the construction of party mechanisms in the 19th century which were in place before World War One, 499 00:54:19,820 --> 00:54:27,170 and they were ready to be mobilised and support partition. Others has referred to various considers by Poland confrontations. 500 00:54:27,590 --> 00:54:32,180 Greek Orthodox versus minorities, refugees versus locals. 501 00:54:32,570 --> 00:54:35,810 Old Greece versus New Greece, traders versus manufacturers. 502 00:54:36,470 --> 00:54:40,930 He pointed out that the overlapping of these bowls, to the extent it happened, 503 00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:45,440 increase the intensity of the confrontation by creating wider camps in the place of parties. 504 00:54:46,070 --> 00:54:50,240 The same could be argued in terms of clash analysis. 505 00:54:50,570 --> 00:54:57,810 The two camps did not overlap with clashes. The cleavage cut through the urban class, the bourgeoisie, the labour class and peasantry. 506 00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:07,700 Professor, of course Athos argued convincingly that the nationalism could and should be studied as a crisis in the process of national integration. 507 00:55:08,330 --> 00:55:15,800 Greece was not in a position to integrate, administer the three expanded territories, nor to assimilate numerous minorities. 508 00:55:16,820 --> 00:55:23,000 When war fell upon her. Greece was reluctant to accept the challenge of further expansion and insecure of her positions. 509 00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:29,510 The tension increased when refugees were added to the minorities as the mismatch between the people, 510 00:55:29,510 --> 00:55:32,600 the nation and the state became too apparent to be neglected. 511 00:55:33,650 --> 00:55:36,680 When you referred to a nation, including all the new Greece, 512 00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:43,640 as well as the unredeemed the state of two continents and five seas, his opponents to a small but honourable state. 513 00:55:44,270 --> 00:55:47,630 In theory, both camps were adherents of irredentism. 514 00:55:47,900 --> 00:55:51,590 But in matters of practice, they were antagonists in the same course. 515 00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:58,250 This antagonism as to which was the best way to get to something noble was deeply rooted. 516 00:55:58,940 --> 00:56:06,140 Bavarians trying to modernise Greece by using outsiders, educated Greeks of the Ottoman Empire and the Diaspora. 517 00:56:07,790 --> 00:56:17,300 But in 1844, after the constitutional revolt, the local notables, the popular Russian party, won the parliament and ousted the newcomers or outsiders, 518 00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:23,240 Bavarians and Greeks alike, who had disregarded the natural route and derailed the Greek nation. 519 00:56:23,810 --> 00:56:31,400 As in 1850s and 1960s, the supporters of an Eastern Orthodox Federation blamed the Western allies for deliberately undermining 520 00:56:31,400 --> 00:56:36,590 the unity of the Orient through the use of nationalism and the infiltration of an alien culture. 521 00:56:37,070 --> 00:56:37,910 European culture. 522 00:56:38,810 --> 00:56:45,860 In the 1980s, the group's opponents supported the view that the King, if necessary, should be able to resist the majority of the parliament. 523 00:56:46,010 --> 00:56:54,410 To temper the growing tendency for democracy, especially if democratisation was in favour of the plutocrats of the diaspora or of the bourgeoisie. 524 00:56:55,040 --> 00:57:00,590 They maintained that the emphasis on material goods and the development of mechanisms assisting the accumulation of capital, 525 00:57:00,800 --> 00:57:06,650 destabilised social cohesion and widened injustice for their ostentatious consumerism. 526 00:57:06,650 --> 00:57:11,510 Such plutocrats were called caviar eaters and golden flies the Golden Boys. 527 00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:16,490 Such novelties were not compatible with Greek values and morals. 528 00:57:18,170 --> 00:57:23,360 Not that the opponents of the cookies had an alternative economic plan to a state driven expansion. 529 00:57:24,260 --> 00:57:31,700 By 1915, after some decades of intensive modernisation with fewer apps and more downs, discontent was mounting. 530 00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:36,500 Nobles from the Seven Islands staffs, officers, university professors and judges. 531 00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:42,200 The crown itself were all threatened by the rise of a Western oriented liberal business class. 532 00:57:43,100 --> 00:57:50,090 Capitalist growth also threatened or had expelled a part of the petty rosey from the labour market, the public sector or trade. 533 00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,390 In the same was true for the dependent workers. 534 00:57:54,110 --> 00:58:03,019 Farmers of some standing who had depended on the export trade of carrots were gradually losing the financial and social privileges to small farmers, 535 00:58:03,020 --> 00:58:11,570 growing grain for local consumption. There were many Greeks in old Greece relaxing to sustain twins and modernisation, 536 00:58:11,750 --> 00:58:17,750 which required more taxes for armaments and for the growing public sector and longer military service of the front. 537 00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:24,560 The rising pressure of the army against the non-evangelical parties after the 1909 military coup, 538 00:58:24,980 --> 00:58:32,960 which escalated into a dictatorship of the Liberals in 1916 with the support of the armed forces and was bound to bring down the dynasty, 539 00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:37,130 was sufficient reason for the social tension to explode violently. 540 00:58:37,790 --> 00:58:42,079 If this outward or bellicose policy bringing wealth to their opponents and 541 00:58:42,080 --> 00:58:46,220 misery to them was to suggest that the road was moved out of Constantinople, 542 00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:50,990 then there were many who had absolutely no interest in this great war of Venizelos. 543 00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:55,070 It was not their war, not their great idea. 544 00:58:56,270 --> 00:59:00,440 Regardless of all the complicated motives behind the scheme, 545 00:59:00,890 --> 00:59:06,469 what is particularly interesting is the specific rhetoric used by the Athenian press to present and make 546 00:59:06,470 --> 00:59:13,100 comprehensible or digestible the objection or the support to Greece's participation in World War One. 547 00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:21,530 For the events, at least, the state of Athens had been transformed into an ally of the nation's most despised and traditional enemies, 548 00:59:21,740 --> 00:59:28,970 the Turks and the Bulgarians, guilty of high treason. Beyond any doubt, this constituted an internal aggression. 549 00:59:29,270 --> 00:59:37,700 A full the composition of the modern Hellenic body to describe best what was the real essence of Vangelis policy in the eyes of their opponents. 550 00:59:37,850 --> 00:59:43,460 Let me translate to a very brief but revealing passage from a newspaper in December 1916. 551 00:59:44,330 --> 00:59:48,890 Venice. Elisabeth was not, but the imitation of the Franks. 552 00:59:49,190 --> 00:59:54,380 The Franks being in general, the Western as the Catholics, the Protestant, the imitation of the Franks in politics. 553 00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:58,580 Under a healthy surface, it was the most lethal disease. 554 00:59:59,060 --> 01:00:02,270 Under the pretence of realism, it bargained Greece's. 555 01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:06,560 It bargained Greece like a load of onions under the title of progress. 556 01:00:07,220 --> 01:00:10,520 Individual and group atavism was excited. 557 01:00:10,970 --> 01:00:12,740 Under the facade of Renaissance, 558 01:00:12,740 --> 01:00:21,830 Venizelos tried to achieve the negation of all traditions under the pretext of an alliance such to settle the front in the head of Greece, 559 01:00:22,790 --> 01:00:26,570 in fact wanted another general edited by the rumours. 560 01:00:26,690 --> 01:00:34,670 When he was himself did not look like a manly Greek, but like a Jew of a special kind with a feminine intellect. 561 01:00:35,450 --> 01:00:39,559 This gross and blatant propaganda was disseminated nationwide and infiltrated. 562 01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:46,880 The Army rooms, as we all know, was executed in 1920 by Vangelis, having served as a diplomat in Macedonia, 563 01:00:47,060 --> 01:00:52,340 offered many works and a flagrant nationalism, and declared openly his anti-Semitism. 564 01:00:53,140 --> 01:00:59,020 The rooms have developed into a major symbol of pure Hellenism, deeply rooted in the Byzantine Orient, 565 01:00:59,020 --> 01:01:06,430 and was acknowledged as the ideal Greek hero by many ultranationalist fascist and neo nazi Greek organisations and parties, 566 01:01:06,610 --> 01:01:09,720 including the notorious Golden Dawn heresy of him. 567 01:01:11,950 --> 01:01:12,639 Ladies and gentlemen, 568 01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:21,100 I have tried to answer the question why the Greek war as a whole has been eradicated from Greek collective memory after World War Two, 569 01:01:21,670 --> 01:01:25,420 although selective parts of it are come in handy from time to time. 570 01:01:26,020 --> 01:01:33,070 In my presentation, I referred to the whole 19 1222 war case in order to make my arguments more plausible. 571 01:01:33,580 --> 01:01:42,940 Although I risk distancing myself from our main topic, The Great War, the presented reasons for believing and the misuse vary from time to time. 572 01:01:43,510 --> 01:01:51,250 Before 1974, one could points to the regular regime, which could not claim a single share in World War One achievement, 573 01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:57,910 but many of the making of the ugly national excuse and says post-war Greece was thrown ended by another scheme between left and right. 574 01:01:58,270 --> 01:02:03,550 Talking about the first one was not the wise, since not even the army was very proud of its deeds. 575 01:02:04,750 --> 01:02:10,690 The fluctuating relations between Greece and its Western European allies was also part of the nation's memory problem. 576 01:02:10,990 --> 01:02:17,380 And this is true for today as well. The dubious impact of World War One on the Macedonian question also complicates the narrative. 577 01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:26,020 It looks that it helped to eradicate minorities, but in the same manner strengthened the memories and determination to vanish. 578 01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:30,250 This is more than true for Pontic and Asia minor refugees, especially the former, 579 01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:38,740 who have turned the catastrophe into a powerful tool in the politics of memory, not only of memory of which the preceding war is an important detail. 580 01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:45,490 My last argument focussed on the nature of the national history and event of paramount importance, 581 01:02:45,490 --> 01:02:49,480 which will endlessly overshadow Greek participation in World War One. 582 01:02:50,170 --> 01:02:55,480 I argued that in spite of the complexity in the formation and composition of the two camps, 583 01:02:56,050 --> 01:03:03,160 one can clearly see the perpetual struggle between two competing political and ideological cultures a pro-Western and oppressed them. 584 01:03:03,700 --> 01:03:12,010 They are unable to realise or to recall that they are the two sides of the same coin, two virgins of the same self, alas, and Greece. 585 01:03:12,700 --> 01:03:20,919 To make the difference meaningful, the two camps demonise each other by neutrally projecting images of our outside enemies the France, 586 01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:25,390 the Turks, the Bulgarians, the Jews, the Slavs, the Americans, the Germans. 587 01:03:26,500 --> 01:03:29,049 And if I am not wrong, then the national excuse me, 588 01:03:29,050 --> 01:03:36,580 of 1916 was just another episode of a birth trauma that Greece had decided to bury and to pretend to amnesia, 589 01:03:36,580 --> 01:03:43,810 rather than to talk about it, frankly, and be cured. And if you follow Greek news, then you know that this tale of dualism still goes on. 590 01:03:44,580 --> 01:03:44,980 Think of.