Modern Greece

The Greek state evolved from an absolute monarchy to democracy, but not without more than a few bumps in the road.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Jen 0:02

The station at Aigion was opened on March 1st, 1919, and was operated for two months. It was established for the purpose of caring for a group of refugees about 1,300 in number, who had been driven from their homes and Eastern Macedonia and Thrace over four years before and had been kept in Bulgaria under conditions, which reduced them to a deplorable state. After the signing of the armistice, they had made their way through Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia, and had been put aboard ship at Fiume and brought to Aigion where they had been established a few days before our attention was drawn to their condition. Quote. "The committee for relief of the refugees at Aigion, which included Mr. Messenessi, a currant merchant of the town. And Mr. Coutoulas, the government representative, established them in warehouses on the waterfront and then each family had a certain amount of floor space in which to live. Some of the more fortunate had brought boxes or bags of old treasures, rugs, old clothes, and even seeds, and with these, had built a barricade around their little spot and had spread their bright rugs and blankets on the floor. Others had nothing, but the rags they wore; perhaps a blanket or two and a brass pot." End quote. From Miss Horsford's Report on Aigion Station. By May 1st, most of the refugees had found work in the fields and were getting regular wages and the government expected to return them shortly to their homes. So the station was closed. This is from the Final Report, Department of Civilian Relief by the American Red Cross Commission to Greece. July 1st, 1919 I'm Jen Glaubius, and this is The Helonaki Deep Dive, a podcast about mapping and analysis for historical and archeological research. In this episode I'll finish up the survey of Greek history. by looking at Greece after the War of Independence. So Greece in the 19th and 20th centuries. Let's dive in. Before we get started. I just want to mention that this will be the last episode until this fall, since I'm leaving for Greece soon to work on an excavation. But on my trip, I will be spending a few days in the Vostitsa area. And I'll release dispatches from my time in Vostitsa, for all supporters of the podcast on Patreon. You can get access to those dispatches and other sneak peaks for the podcast by joining the Patreon at any level. And you can do that at patreon.com/helonaki that's Patreon, P A T R E O n.com/ H E L O N A K I. Now with that, let's pick up where we left off last time. Which was at the end of the Greek war of independence. Where the great powers of Europe had stepped in and stopped the fighting and said, Greece is independent now. And then they found a German prince to be king and brought him in. If you look at the map on the cover for this episode, it has the expansions of Greece. The main part of Greece. In blue is the kingdom of Greece as established in 1832. And this includes all of the Peloponnese. Including the Vostitsa area. And that's going to be the core, kind of the stable part of Greece. But you can see on the map that they add different pieces through time. And we're going to be talking about that expansion. But that first line between Greece and what's labeled as Thessaly. That line was drawn by British surveyors. And they did it by looking at the landscape. So they looked at ravines and peaks and drew their lines that way. Completely disregarding any human aspects of use of that landscape. And so people lived in one place, but the areas where they had taken their livestock for pasturage would be on the other side of the line. It was a bit of a mess. And you also have this issue where you do have Greek peoples in most of the areas that you see that Greece acquired. And sometimes had to give back through time. They weren't necessarily the majority, but there were Greek people or at least Orthodox people, even if they don't necessarily speak Greek or think of themselves as Greek, in most of those areas. And so. This region is going to be contested through time because Greece really wanted to expand. What they called how they want to expand was the Megali Idea or Great Idea where they wanted to basically get some of the boundaries of the Byzantine empire. But. Other countries. Other nations that were being established in the breakup of the Ottoman empire. They also put claims on parts of this area especially Macedonia. And we'll be talking about that later. So expansion of the Greek state is one of the themes we're going to be talking about today. Another of the themes is what system of government is there in Greece. And what is the role of the monarchy? And that's going to change through time and we're going to track that. We're also going to look at how the people of Greece are divided through time. So we know that there were civil wars during the Greek revolution. There was division even when they were trying to fight against the Ottoman empire. And these divides continue through time. As happens in any place. But these divisions. At certain points in Greek history are very, very serious. And because of those divisions, there are a number of military coups. And foreign interventions that sometimes make those divisions even worse. So in 1833, Greece was an absolute monarchy ruled by King Otho who had been placed on the throne by the great powers of Europe. And keep in mind that the absolute monarchy means that there was no elected legislature at all at the beginning of Greece as a modern state. And this is despite the fact that the Greeks themselves had convened national assemblies, which didn't always work very well, but they had convened their own national assemblies during the war of independence. And so. They really wanted a say in their government. In addition to this Otho brought along German advisors. He was a minor when he came to the throne and there were three Regents. And even after he came of age, he still kept a lot of advisers who are not Greek around him. And that caused a lot of tension. So some of the things that Otho had to do from the very beginning is. Repair all the devastation from the war of independence. There's also a lot of debt from the war of independence, borrowed from different European countries. In addition, there were a lot of Greek people who didn't have land. There were still the large landowners. They had been able to keep their land. Of course. But many of the peasants wanted to actually acquire land. So in 1835, there was a 'Law for the Dotation of Greek families'. Which basically was that these families could get a mortgage of 2000 drachmas, which they could use to buy up to four hectares of land. Now four hectares of land is not that much. And certainly in Greece. Four hectares is not enough, really, even for subsistence. So the families would get sometimes much, much less than four hectares and have to try to feed themselves on it. And it wasn't really workable. Plus they had to pay back these 2000 drachmas and these families went into debt So due to ongoing unrest and dissatisfaction with a lack of representative government. In 1843. So a decade after Otho comes to the throne. There's a coup. The upshot of it was that a constituent assembly was elected. To write a Greek constitution that made Greece into a constitutional monarchy. So they were like, we'll keep the king, but we're going to have two chambers. In a legislature. The Monarch can dismiss ministers. He can dissolve the parliament. He can veto legislation. But it ended this decade of Otho, just having absolute power over Greece. Things still didn't go well for Otho. A decade after that during the Crimean war, Greece tried to expand northwards. But here we have intervention by the French and British who landed at Piraeus, which is the port of Athens, and then occupied Athens itself to keep the Greeks from actually trying to expand northwards into Thessaly. So there's anger about that. General debts people unhappy. And so in the middle of October, 1862, King Otho and his wife Amalia. Left Athens to go on a tour of the Peloponnese and they left by ship. Now, Otho and Amalia had been married for years, they didn't have any children. Neither of them had converted to the Greek Orthodox religion. They weren't not super liked at this point. And so when they tried to come back to Athens and they tried to dock at Piraeus, the Royal Navy blocked them. A provisional government seized, power and Otho and Amalia never set foot in Greece again. Otho died about five years later in Munich. Otho was the first king that Greece broke up with. He would not be the last. So with Otho gone. The European powers looked around at all the German princes to find a new king for Greece. The man they found was Prince Christian William Ferdinand Adolphus George of Holstein- Sonderberg- Glucksbrug. Who is crowned as George the first. He had some advantages over Otho. He didn't convert to Orthodox Christianity, but he did marry Olga who was Russian Orthodox. And they named their first son Constantine, which as you'll remember is a nice Greek name, going back to the Romans and Byzantines. George also didn't bring foreign administrators with him. So he was working with the Greeks more. But. Greece did draft a new constitution in 1863 that gave more power to the people. This constitution also changed the parliament from having two chambers to just one. The king could still appoint and dismiss ministers. He could dissolve parliament and disperse funds. Declare war sign treaties. He still had a lot of power. And George used this power in the first decade. He was on the throne. Between 1865 and 1875. There were seven general elections. And 18 different administrations that formed because George kept dissolving parliament. Greece also gained. The Ionian islands from Britain when George came to the throne. Britain had been in charge of the Ionian islands, including Corfu, but the people there did not really want the British around anymore. And the British thought that George coming to the throne was a good time for them to give Greece these islands. In 1877. There was a general uprising in the Christian parts of the Balkan. So Bosnia, Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Romania, which were still under increasingly weak Ottoman control. This war quickly became Russia versus Ottoman. But the Russians, since the Greek war of independence had changed from being all pro Orthodox religion. To only being pro Slavic peoples, which excluded Greece. So Greece wasn't especially enthused about getting involved in this war and trying to help Russia. But Greece did try to expand territory by sending bands of guerillas, to Thessaly, Epiros, and Macedonia to try to get land. Greece. finally decided that they should mobilize the army get official troops into the areas that they had taken in the fighting. But three hours later after they've mobilized the army, an armistice was declared between the Ottoman and Russian empires. Because Greece didn't have any official troops in the land that they had taken. They could not officially claim any land. The Ottomans ended up having to give up Serbia, Montenegro and Romania. A few years later in 1881, however, Greece did get Southern Epiros and Thessaly and added a lot of territory to the Greek state. But it still wasn't enough. So they still had this great idea that should expand. And the area that was most under contention was Macedonia. Which was claimed by Greece, by Serbia, by Bulgaria. And by the Ottomans who technically still held that area. And that's because Macedonia has a lot of very rich agricultural land. And it also contained. And still contains the large city of Salonika Thessaloniki. And so Macedonia would be an ongoing issue. In the late 18 hundreds. Greece has been in debt. But they know, they need to modernize things. So. They drain the Kopaic basin and Boeotia, something that had not been done since the Late Bronze Age. There's also a canal. Cut through the isthmus at Corinth, that shortens time for shipping. And the first railways are constructed. But to do all this modernization. Greece had to take out loans. And they really didn't have much for industry. They did have agricultural produce. But what they really relied on were harvests of currant grapes. And they were able to do this through the 1870s and 1880s because the currents had a really high price. And this is because. Vineyards in France, Italy and Spain had been destroyed by these insects that originally came from North America that ate the leaves off of the vines. Greece wasn't affected. And so they Cultivated more and more of these currants. Vostitsa had always been an area where currants were grown. But other parts of Greece expanded the number of currants that they. Grew because they were able to make a nice, nice profit off of it. But the good times ended in 1893. When prices of currants fell sharply. And that's because France, Italy and Spain were able to get vineyards re-established and then they put in protective tariffs for their own vineyards and stopped. Importing so many Greek currants. And this is the time where you also have California grapes starting to emerge into the world market. Government revenue was really based on the price of currants. And so when the price fell. The amount of money that the Greek government had also fell and the government was bankrupt at this point. There was migration of half a million people from Greece between 1890 and 1920. Because conditions were so dire. But in 1897 Greece got into a war of the Ottomans, trying to expand into Epiros and Thessaly.. It did not go well for Greece. they Lost territory. And very quickly, the great powers stopped this and made the Ottomans and Greeks sign an armistice. Where Greece owed. The Ottoman empire money, which they didn't have. And so they had to borrow more money. One bright spot was that Crete was still part of the Ottoman empire, but then became an autonomous province. And Greece had a bit of a say of what was going on. This did not satisfy the people of Crete who wanted to join with Greece, but it was something. The Greek people really blamed the monarchy for this defeat. And it's especially because the crown prince Constantine led the military and they got beaten so badly. So things were not going well. As the 20th century began. Things muddled along in Greece until 1909. When a Military League Let a coup that took over the Greek government. None of their demands were met because really they wanted controls on the Royal family. But they decided to return the government to civilian hands, which is very unusual. This military league decided that they wanted Eleftherios Venizelos to be the leader of this new government. Now Venizelos was born in Chania on Crete. He had studied law at the university of Athens, but he was very active in the Cretan independence movement. And this included leading a revolt in 1905 against prince George of Greece, who was the high commissioner of Crete. But Venizelos had to stop because the great powers intervened. But throughout his life, Venizelos and the Greek Royal family would not get along at all. With big consequences for Greece itself. So the military league picked Venizelos. And his party won election in 1910. And Venizelos brought in a lot of reforms reformed the judiciary, legislature, the monarchy itself. Worked on education. Was good for labor relations and legalized trade unions set up a national health insurance system. There was land reform. They instituted a graduated income tax, which was huge and restructured the military. So they were doing pretty well. But among all of these really good things that happened, Venizelos also had some authoritarian measures put in place, including suspending civil rights, such as protection from arbitrary seizure, right to trial by jury. And need for, cause for search. Curtailed freedom of the press and the rights to public assembly. So tried to shut down ways that anyone could protest against them. But except for these authoritarian measures. Venizelos in general was really, really liked. And his government did a good job, such a good job that by 1912, the Greek treasury actually had a surplus Which went away. With the Balkan wars, which occurred between 1912 and 1913. These were two separate wars. Over territory in Macedonia and all the countries that were still under Ottoman rule in the Balkans. So the first war. Was basically. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece against the Ottoman empire. In this war, Greece ended up in control of Thessaloniki, which is something they wanted. After this war. The area was divvied up. But none of these countries were happy with it. And the second Balkan war started in late July, 1913. When Bulgaria attacked Serbia. So this time instead of being against the Ottoman empire. All the countries were against Bulgaria. So it was Greece Romania, Serbia and the Ottomans attacking Bulgaria. Bulgaria lost, had to give up territory to Greece, Serbia, Romania, and the Ottomans and the country of Albania was basically set. But the Balkan wars were a horrible humanitarian disaster. Besides all the casualties of the fighting, there were also paramilitaries conducting ethnic cleansing, especially of Muslims in the area. So you end up with a lot of Muslims from this region going into the Ottoman empire and being very, very much in favor of nationalism in Turkey. Another thing that happened. In 1912 during The Balkan wars after Greece had gained control of Thessaloniki. Was that king George, the first, when he was out for his daily walk along the waterfront in Thessaloniki. Was assassinated. George's son Constantine then became king. A few years later, world war one broke out. King Constantine I had a lot of ties to Germany. He'd had his military training in Germany. His wife queen Sophia actually was the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm. And so he was very sympathetic to the triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy. This Alliance that the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria would join. Venizelos and most of Greece, however, were in favor of the side of Britain, France and Russia. Because those countries had consistently helped Greece in the past. Constantine recognized that, and he tried to keep Greece, neutral. But Venizelos worked with the British and French, invited them in to open up a front, tried to force Constantine's hand. It ended up. That Venizelos formed a provisional government in the city of Thessaloniki. And the French and British supported this provisional government because Venizelos was going to help them. And so France and Britain put pressure on Constantine to abdicate in favor of his son, Alexander. at least until the war was over. To put pressure on Constantine to abdicate, France and Britain blockaded Greek ports in central and Southern part of Greece. This blockade led to food shortages and starvation, a lot of misery, which turned a lot of people in central and Southern Greece away from. France and Britain. But Constantine eventually abdicated for his son, Alexander. At the end of world war one, Venizelos attended the Paris peace talks. And so he spent a few years away from Greece And during those peace talks, he got permission for Greek troops to occupy Smyrna, which is the Turkish city of Izmir. On the coast of Asia minor. This is an area that had a lot of local Greek people. and so Greece had been looking to acquire this area as part of the Great Idea. Greek troops arrive in May 1919, but there are clashes from the beginning with Turkish troops. In 1920, the treaty with Turkey gives. Greece Eastern Thrace, an area they called Ionia near Smyrna. But. Things just. Happened very quickly then. Right after the treaty was signed Venizelos was about to make his way back to Greece when he was shot. By two Naval officers who supported the monarchy. and this kept Venizelos away from Greece. Supporters of Venizelos attacked buildings that had pro monarchy newspapers in them. And then opponents of his party were assassinated in the streets. So there's violence going on in Greece. In early October. So a few weeks later, king Alexander, while walking his dog at his estate of Tatoi near Athens. He was savaged by monkeys. And he held on for a little over three weeks, but then died from his wounds. Alexander's brother did not want the throne. So the only real claimant to the throne was Constantine who had been forced out during world war one. In November. So just a couple of weeks later, a pro monarchy party won the elections. And Venizelos leaves into self exile. Constantine is able to return in December. But there are consequences for Constantine returning. France and Britain had promised to give Greece millions of dollars in credit. Money that they needed because world war one had been very expensive as all wars are. But with Constantine back on the throne, they refuse to give Greece that money. There are other consequences. France and Britain takeaway their support for Greece in general. Now when the. Pro monarchy party came in. Then. There was a purge of supporters of Venizelos in the government and in the military and this military, that's in Asia minor. Now has commanders who are pro royalist. Venizelos had been pretty aggressive pushing this Great Idea to expand Greek territory, but this new government. Decided to go for more. Despite the fact that they were no longer getting support from France and Britain. And so in March of 1921, the Greek army in Asia minor launched a two-prong attack to expand their territory. And at first all looks like it's going well. But. This is the time when the Ottoman empire is finished and the Turkish Republic is now forming under Mustafa Kemal. Who is better known as Ataturk And Kemal was originally from Thessaloniki. He'd been part of the military and he was in charge of the Turkish forces that lured the Greek army deeper and deeper into Anatolia. He was getting help from France and Italy. While the Greeks were running out of ammunition and supplies and they couldn't buy more because they didn't have any money. Late in August, 1922, Kemal launched a counter offensive that destroyed much of the Greek army. And what was left of the Greek, military and local Greeks in the area. Racing for Smyrna because it was the only port under Greek control. Turkish forces arrived at Smyrna on the 9th of September, 1922. There was A lot of killing and looting. A few days later, Smyrna was on fire. There were tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians who were trapped there and who died. And thousands of refugees who did get away and made their way to Greece. So in late September. After this disaster at Smyrna, there's a military coup by supporters of Venizelos who demanded that king Constantine abdicate again. Constantine agreed. And his brother George was sworn in as George the second. Now that Venizelos supporters were in government, they purge the military and the administration of royalists. They also had a trial of the leaders of the Asia minor campaign, charging them with high treason. And six of those charged were hanged in November of 1923. Venizelos was not the prime minister, but he coordinated talks with the agreement signed. That Greece gave up all their territory in Asia minor. Returned Eastern Thrace to Turkey. One of the big things that happened with this agreement though, was that there was an exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece. 350,000 Muslims in Greece. Were sent to Turkey. While 1.3 million Greeks. Meaning that they followed the Greek Orthodox religion. But did not necessarily speak Greek. Were sent to Greece. There had already been a refugee crisis before this exchange. In 1919, the American Red Cross had been involved. And that's, what I read in the intro. But this refugee crisis. Became so much worse with 1.3 million people coming into Greece. Some. Of the people from Asia minor who were agriculturalists, they were sent to Macedonia. There were many, many refugees in the cities of Thessaloniki, Athens and the port of Piraeus. They brought in industries that they had done in Asia minor, such as cigarette and cigar rolling. Carpet weaving, textile manufacture. And they also brought in Rembetiko music. In 1923 king George, the second was exiled to Romania. Between 1924 and 1928, there was chaos. There were 10 prime ministers. A number of military coups. Things stabilized the 1928, when Venizelos came back into power. His government improved agriculture and public works. But it also passed this 1929 Special Law that cracked down on any protests, tightened laws on trade unions, because there is a lot of fear of communists and communism, especially with the formation of the Soviet union after world war I. And, the Venizelos government, arrested or deported to remote Greek islands, labor leaders, trade unionists, and communists. With the financial crisis of 1930 and 1931 Venizelos lost support. And after taking part in a failed coup in 1932. Venizelos retired to the island of Rhodes and then to Paris where he died in 1936. But he was such a huge figure in Greece. If you ever fly into Athens, the airport is named after him. Eleftherios Venizelos. George, the second was returned to the throne in November of 1935 The next year. King George put a man named Ioannis Metaxas into power. Metaxas had been in the military for a long time. He had grown close to George's brother Constantine. When Constantine was the crown prince during the Balkan wars And Metaxas was very much. Right-wing. So Metaxas. Consolidated his. Base of power in the military and then on a pretext, he staged a coup and seized power with George's blessing. And suspended the constitution. So from 1936, There was the Metaxas dictatorship. As dictator, he did a lot of public works. Drainage works. He had a debt moratorium in the countryside to try to help out people there. And for industrial workers, he as set wage rates and a five day work week. But he was an authoritarian dictator. He outlawed strikes. Any unions were suppressed and he used a secret police. So they sent communists and any other leftists into prisons and concentration camps or to remote islands. And there was torture of people in these prisons and concentration camps. As world war two started, Metaxas tried to stay neutral since he really saw Germany and Italy as close friends but he'd be threatened by the British Navy. But Italy had other plans. Italy had expanded into Albania. And then the Italian ambassador gave him Metaxas an ultimatum on the 28th of October, 1940, that he was to allow Italian forces onto Greek soil or else. Metaxas replied Oxi ,no. And that's why October 28th is Oxi day. In Greece. And so Greece was at war with Italy but Metaxas died three months later in January of 1941. When Greece entered the war. At first, they did a really good job. They pushed the Italians out of Greece and into Albania by December of 1940, with help from the British. But then Hitler teamed up with Bulgaria and they invaded Yugoslavia and Greece and trapped the army. Which the Greek general surrendered without a fight in April of 1941. And that general then offered to serve in the occupation government. Athens itself fell at the end of April. And king George, the second, the civilian government and the remaining army fled first to the island of Crete. And then when the Germans invaded Crete in May they fled to Cairo where the government was in exile throughout the war. The Germans took the major cities, Athens, Thessaloniki Crete and a border zone in Thrace. The Bulgarians took other part of Thrace and Eastern Macedonia while the Italians were in control of the rest of the country. The puppet government under Axis control, rounded up communists and supporters of Venizelos. And basically. The occupiers took any minerals they could, they took food crops. They made Greece pay for foreign troops. This wasn't helped by a British blockade. Which led to famine with. Hundreds of thousands dead. And in addition, Jewish people of Greece, especially in the city of Thessaloniki were deported to concentration camps There was a very strong resistance. There were many groups. That resisted against the Axis occupation of Greece. One of the largest organizations was led by the communists. Partly because the communists after being suppressed and detained by Metaxas dictatorship. They were really good at clandestine operations for some reason. What's important to keep in mind. Not everyone in their organization was communist. This resistance was able to help out the British a lot. And they took back parts of the country. Italy had been in charge of most of the Greek countryside, but once Mussolini was no longer in power in the summer of 1943, the Germans took charge. And everything became a lot worse. There were a lot of reprisals for any attacks by the resistance. So there's a strong resistance, but then there are also collaborators. So-called Security Battalions, which were formed of. Criminals who just like to be thugs. But also military and policemen who were die hard royalists. Even though the king was in exile. But they collaborated with the Germans. So you have. Resistance going on, mostly backed by the British. But the British were not happy that the main resistance were communists. The British were very anticommunist despite, teaming up with Stalin. The British also had a problem with the Communists because the communists did not want the king back at all. Whereas Churchill. Really, really thought that Greece needed to be a monarchy And so the British. Remove their support for any communist resistance groups and only gave arms to non-communist groups. And so you end up with a civil war between resistance groups in the countryside. As German troops had to retreat in October of 1944 The resistance group stopped fighting each other and they harassed the German troops. And then once the Germans were gone, the resistance groups started fighting each other again. Things after the war just continued to be a mess. This civil war between resistance groups was just a full-out civil war. The British brought Greece under their sphere of influence and Churchill really wanted, King George, the second to be back as monarch. The government was formed, that was pro royalist. And they also, instead of going after any collaborators with the Nazis. They instead went after any communists and leftists which just exacerbated the civil war. There were atrocities on both sides of the civil war. But the communists, eventually lost support because they were terrorize anyone who didn't help them. They forced men and women to be conscripted into their forces. George, the second. Was not brought back. His brother, Paul took over in 1947 But there's still heavy fighting going on in the civil war. But by 1949, the communists had lost support. They were pushed out of the Peloponnese entirely. And they were pushed into the mountains in the north part of the country. As they left. They took children, hundreds, maybe thousands of children into the communist bloc, which is a horrific thing that they did. After the civil war ended. The Greek countryside was absolutely devastated. At least 5,000 villages had been destroyed, much of the land was uncultivated. One third of the forest had been destroyed and there were 2 million internal refugees. Thousands had died just during the civil war. Which you remember happened right after world war II, or actually began during world war II. So you had thousands who died, thousands who had been put in prison or executed and up to 100,000 that fled Greece to go to the Communist bloc because they feared reprisals after the Communist side lost. Things, mostly calm down. But the Communist party itself was outlawed at this point. But people left the countryside going mostly to Athens, the city of Athens, and some left Greece entirely going to Canada or Australia or to Northern Europe. Greece was able to join NATO. And were working on joining the European Economic Community. In 1964. King Paul died. And his young son was crowned Constantine the Second. In that year, a left-wing government was elected on the promise of releasing political prisoners who were still imprisoned since the civil war. And looking to put more control over the military which had become more and more independent from the rest of the government. The right wing military did not like having a left-wing government trying to take away their independence. So on the 21st of April, 1964. There was a coup not by generals as usually happened, but this time by a group of Colonels and they're known collectively as the Colonels. On the 21st of April, 1967, tanks were in Athens and point their guns at parliament in Syndagma Square in the center of Athens. Then they arrested centrist and left-wing politicians. The king Constantine, the second at first, agreed to cooperate with the Colonels. But then he disavowed them. And he called for a counter-coup in December of 1967, which failed miserably and Constantine had to flee into exile. And this is the last time there would be a king of the Greeks. And just. In case you lost count. Exiled were Otho, Constantine, the first who was actually exiled twice George, the second who fled from the Germans, and then went into exile and now Constantine the second. Also in the count was George the first who was assassinated. And this isn't even counting Alexander who died after being savaged by monkeys. The monarchy did not have a good run in Greece. Let's just say that. And this was the end of them in 1967. The Colonels of the Junta brought in a new constitution in May of 1968, which of course had fewer civil liberties. They didn't want anyone protesting against them. But they waited to actually abolish the monarchy until 1974. And it's very ironic that the right wing. Military who usually propped up the monarchy and had them brought back, in this case, they were the ones who finally abolish the monarchy. The Junta stayed in power until 1974. There was a student uprising at the Polytechnic university in Athens. Demonstrations from early in 1973, then students occupied the campus in October of 1973. Until they were absolutely crushed on the 17th of November. But the final downfall happened when the Colonels tried to assassinate the president of Cyprus. The Colonels of course wanted control over Cyprus, and they ordered the assassination in July of 1974, which failed. Five days later, Turkey invaded Cyprus. And the Greek military didn't mobilize when the Colonels called them. And so the Junta was effectively finished on the 24th of July 1974. And of course, this led to the division of Cyprus into Turkish and Greek parts. Which still exists today, although restrictions have loosened. After the Junta fell, the top three leaders were tried for high treason. And although they were sentenced for death, those sentences were commuted. Many in the military and police were convicted of criminal charges and universities had to be purged of Junta sympathizers after this. So once again, Greece got a new constitution in 1975, which formally got rid of the monarchy. And the communist party was legalized. So that they would be part of the process instead of completely outside of government. Greece of course joined the European Union. And switched its currency from Drachmas to Euros around 2002, 2003. In 2004. Greece hosted the Olympics in Athens, and won Eurovision. But what Greece has been known for in recent years was the debt crisis after 2008. And on top of the debt crisis was the huge crisis of Syrian refugees. But Greece has shown in recent years that it can change without military coups. Greece still stands. And when we come back in the fall, we'll start looking at Vostitsa specifically again, now that we have this background of Greek history through the last nine episodes. And we'll look at questions about population, economy, landownership in Vostitsa. Using geographic analysis of various data sources. For end notes. I have some book recommendations. Related to topics in this episode. I highly recommend the book. Salonica City of Ghosts by Mark Mazower, who also wrote the book on the Greek revolution. I recommended. In the last episode. And this book talks about Thessaloniki and especially the Jewish population of Thessaloniki that was decimated by Nazi occupation during World War II. I also recommend reading for fiction, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, read the book. So that you actually. Get information about what was going on during the civil war. Which does not come up in the movie. The book is much better. And finally I recommend the book called The Flight of Ikaros: Travels in Greece During the Civil War. This is by Kevin Andrews, who. Was traveling in Greece in the late 1940s during the civil war doing. Research on his dissertation, which later became Castles of the Morea, which talks about Venetian, and other castles in the Peloponnese. It's a really good book. For a view of what was happening in parts of Greece, including the Peloponnese. Thanks for listening! Email questions or comments to deepdive@helonaki.com or ask them on the Helonaki Deep Dive Facebook page. Show notes with links to resources mentioned in this episode will be available at helonaki.com. That's H E L O N A K I.com. You can also find ways to support the show now, including merch such as t-shirts mugs and stickers with the Helonaki Deep Dive logo at helonaki.com/support. My thanks to Patreon supporters at the geospatial analyst level, Leah Varrell and Janice and Jerry Farrell. Your support keeps the Helonaki Deep Dive going. The Helonaki Deep Dive is written and produced by me, Jen Glaubius of the Helonaki. The theme music is Deep Ocean Instrumental by Dan-o of danosongs.com additional sounds from zapsplat.com. Thanks for listening.