HISTORYTHE MODERN GREEK NATION1900
Sir Arthur Evans
begins excavations
at Knossos, quickly
unearthing the palace
and stunning the
archaeological world
with the discovery of
the advanced Minoan
civilisation.1912–
The Balkan Wars erupt
when Greece and
Serbia initially side
with Bul garia against
Tu r key ove r Macedonia.
Then Greece and
Serbia fi ght for the
same territory against
Bulgaria. Greece’s
territory expands.1914
The outbreak of WWI
sees Greece initially
neutral but eventually
siding with the Western
Allies against Germany
and Turkey on the
promise of land in Asia
Minor.1919–
Greece embarks on the
‘Great Idea’ to unite the
former Hellenic regions,
including those in Asia
Minor. It fails and
leads to a popu lation
exchange between
Greece and Turkey in
1923, referred to as the
Asia Minor catastrophe.leftherotikon Metopon (EAM) and the Ethnikos Dimokratikos Ellinikos
Syndesmos (EDES). Although ELAS was founded by communists, not all
of its members were left-wing, whereas EAM consisted of Stalinist KKE
members who had lived in Moscow in the 1 9 30s and harboured ambi-
tions of establishing a postwar communist Greece. EDES consisted of
right-wing and monarchist resistance fi ghters. These groups fought one
another with as much venom as they fought the Germans, often with
devastating results for the civilian Greek population.
The Germans began to retreat from Greece in October 1944, but the com-
munist and monarchist resistance groups continued to fi ght one another.
Civil War
By late 1944 the royalists, republicans and communists were polarised by
interparty division and locked in a serious battle for control. The British-
backed provisional government was in an untenable position: the left
was threatening revolt, and the British were pushing to prevent the com-
munists from further legitimising their hold over the administration –
infl uence the communists gained during the German occupation – in an
eff ort to augment British hopes to reinstate the Greek monarchy.
On 3 December 1944 the police fi red on a communist demonstration
in Plateia Syntagmatos (Syntagma Sq) in Athens, killing several people.
The ensuing six weeks of fi ghting between the left and the right, known
as the Dekemvriana (events of December), marked the fi rst round of the
Greek Civil War. British troops intervened and prevented an ELAS-EAM
coalition victory.
In February 1945 formal negotiations for reconciliation between the
government and the communists fell fl at, and the friction continued.
Many civilians on all political sides were subjected to bitter reprisals at
the hands of leftist groups, the army or rogue right-wing vigilantes, who
threatened political enemies with widespread intimidation and violence.
The royalists won the March 1946 election (which the communists had
unsuccessfully boycotted), and a plebiscite (widely reported as rigged) in
September put George II back on the throne.
In October the left-wing Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) was formed
to resume the fi ght against the monarchy and its British supporters. Under
the leadership of Markos Vafi adis, the DSE swiftly occupied a large swath
of land along Greece’s northern border with Albania and Yugoslavia.
In 1947 the USA intervened and the civil war developed into a setting
for the new Cold War theatre. Communism was declared illegal and the
government introduced its notorious Certifi cate of Political Reliability
(which remained valid until 1962), which declared that the document
bearer was not a left-wing sympathiser; without this certifi cate Greeks
could not vote and found it almost impossible to get work. US aid did
On 25 November
1942 a coalition
of Greek resist-
ance groups,
aided by the Brit-
ish, blew up the
Gorgopotamos
railway bridge
near Lamia in
Sterea Ellada,
sabotaging for
weeks German
supply routes
through the
country.