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Greece

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Last reviewed: 17 November 2009

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HISTORY

The city states of classical Greece bequeathed to Europe concepts of political democracy and a high literary culture which remained enormously influential even after their subjugation by Rome in 146 BC. When the Roman Empire was divided, in 395 AD, the Greek lands became part of the Empire of the East the capital of which was, Constantinople. During the medieval period, relations between the Byzantine Empire and Western Europe were soured by religious dissent between the Latin and Orthodox Churches, which culminated in the Great Schism of 1054, and by the sack and occupation of Constantinople in 1204 by Franks and Venetians during the Fourth Crusade. Constantinople was captured by Muslim Turks in 1453.

Modern Greece, as an independent national entity, came into being after a protracted independence struggle against the Ottoman Empire. This became a popular cause in Western Europe, and one of the so-called 'Philhellenes' who fought for Greek liberty was the English poet, Lord Byron, who died at Messolongi in western Greece in 1824. Greek freedom fighters first proclaimed Greek independence in 1822, but the Ottoman government resisted this vigorously until after their defeat at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, when Russia, England and France combined to destroy the Ottoman navy. In 1829 the Great Powers established one Kingdom of Greece which was finally recognised as an independent state in 1830. Its territory was limited initially to the Peloponnese and the area to the south of the Gulf of Volo. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, as a result of increasing Ottoman weakness, Greece succeeded in greatly extending its territory but had difficulty in maintaining political and financial stability. The Greek State aspired to unite under Greek government all the neighbouring lands where the majority of the population was Greek-speaking.


For Greece the 20th century brought an auspicious start followed by a series of disasters.  By 1912-13, Greece had almost completed a process of nation-building, modernisation and territorial expansion – the latter chiefly at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.  Its territory had grown by almost 70% compared to the late 19th century and her population rose from 2,800,000 to 4,800,000.  During the First World War, Greece was at first neutral but joined forces with the Allies against the Axis Powers in 1917. The Allied negotiation of a post-war peace settlement with the defeated Ottoman Government offered Greece an opportunity to claim more territory. Greece also tried to keep open the future of Constantinople (Istanbul) by making it an international city. But this and other Allied plans for the dismemberment of Anatolia aroused fierce opposition among Turkish nationalists. They rejected the 1920 Peace Treaty of Sèvres, which would have fulfilled almost all of Greece’s nationalist aspirations. Greece had been given Allied permission to occupy Smyrna (modern Izmir) in May 1919 and its Army there now received orders to advance into the interior to attack the still badly organised Turkish nationalist army commanded by Mustafa Kemal (later known as Ataturk).

What became known to the Greeks as the 'Asia Minor catastrophe' convulsed Greek political life for years after. In 1922 the Greek army was defeated, Smyrna destroyed and large numbers of Asia Minor Greeks were expelled from Turkey. In Greece itself, there was an army coup. Five political leaders and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army were tried and executed, and the King was deposed. The territorial gains envisaged for Greece in the Treaty of Sèvres were not confirmed by the 1923 Peace Treaty of Lausanne. The simultaneous agreement that Turkey and Greece should exchange their respective minority populations added some 1.3 million near-destitute refugees to an existing Greek population of only 5 million, and exacerbated Greece’s economic problems. After ten years of republicanism, the monarchy was restored in 1935, but the King’s acceptance in 1936 of a fascist–type dictatorship under General Metaxas resulted in a damaging split between monarchists and supporters of parliamentary democracy.


The outbreak of World War Two brought further misfortunes. The Italians invaded Greece in October 1940 but were thrown back into Albania. The Germans overran Greece in April 1941 and forced the evacuation of British defence forces in Greece. From 1942, with British support and participation, rival non-communist  and communist groups maintained a guerrilla war against the Germans until the liberation of Athens in October 1944. Full-scale civil war then broke out in December 1944 between the Communists and their allies and Monarchists and other non-communists lasting, with a brief interval from January 1945 to May 1946, until October 1949 when the Communist forces were finally defeated. Ordinary Greeks suffered terrible privations, and the left-right divisions created by this conflict are still felt in Greek political life today.

In 1947 the USA had pledged itself under the Truman doctrine to support Greek economic reconstruction, and to prevent Greece from passing under the control of the Soviet Union. Greece joined NATO in 1952. A period of relative political stability and economic reconstruction followed, but in the early sixties this gave way to rising political tension. From July 1965 there was a period of unstable governments and intense political strife, mainly centring on the role and position of the royal family, and culminating in April 1967 in a military coup followed by the establishment of a military dictatorship. In December 1967 King Constantine was forced to leave Greece after an unsuccessful counter-coup.

Civilian government was not restored until July 1974, after the military junta fell as a result of its unsuccessful coup in Cyprus against President Makarios, which prompted the Turkish invasion of the island. The former Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile to form a Government of National Unity and, in a referendum of December 1974, the Greek people voted against a return to constitutional monarchy. A new republican constitution was promulgated in 1975. In January 1981 Greece became a full member of the EEC, now the European Union; it continues to enjoy political stability, and economic growth has been above the EU average since the mid-1990s. Greece was in the first wave of EU Member States to adopt the Euro in 2001.

Political

Greece is a parliamentary democracy based on the 1975 Constitution, which marked the passage from a seven-year military regime (1967-74) to parliamentary rule. The 1975 Constitution gave extensive powers to Parliament and the Prime Minister but left some authority with the President of the Republic, especially at times of government instability. It was revised in 1986 by former PM Andreas Papandreou, who strengthened the position of Prime Minister and Parliament.

From 1974 Greek political life was dominated by Constantine Karamanlis and Andreas Papandreou, who personified not only the 'conservative' and 'progressive' elements of the political spectrum but also the opposite ends of most of the major dilemmas facing Greek society at the time (joining the EEC, staying in NATO etc). Karamanlis founded New Democracy, the main Conservative Party (although he retired from politics in 1985, Karamanlis remained a key figure in Greek politics until his death in April 1998). Papandreou founded PASOK (Pan hellenic Socialist Movement). Since 1980 these two parties have dominated the political scene, alternating in power.

Longer Historical Perspective

BBC Timeline of Greece

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