HISTORY
THE MODERN GREEK NATION
1924–34
Greece is proclaimed
a republic and King
George II leaves Greece.
The Great Depression
counters the nation’s
return to stability.
Monarchists and
parliamentarians under
Venizelos tussle for
control of the country.1935
The monarchy is
restored and King
George II is reappointed
to the throne. Right-
wing General Ioannis
Metaxas adopts the
role of prime minister
while introducing
dictatorial measures of
governance.1940
On 28 October
Metaxas famously
rebuff s the Italian
request to traverse
Greece at the
beginning of WWII. The
Italians engage Greek
forces and are driven
back into Albania.1941–44
Germany invades
and occupies
Greece. Monarchists,
republicans and
communists form
resistance groups
that, despite
infi ghting, drive out
the Germans after
three years.little to improve the situation on the ground. The DSE continued to be
supplied from the north (by Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and indirectly by the
Soviets through the Balkan states), and by the end of 1947 large chunks
of the mainland were under its control, as well as parts of the islands of
Crete, Chios and Lesvos.
In 1949 the tide began to turn when the forces of the central govern-
ment drove the DSE out of the Peloponnese; but the fi ghting dragged on
in the mountains of Epiros until October 1949, when Yugoslavia fell out
with the Soviet Union and cut the DSE’s supply lines.
The civil war left Greece politically frayed and economically shattered.
More Greeks had been killed in three years of bitter civil war than in
WWII, and a quarter of a million people were homeless.
The sense of despair became the trigger for a mass exodus. Almost a
million Greeks headed off in search of a better life elsewhere, primarily
to countries such as Australia, Canada and the USA.Reconstruction & the Cyprus Issue
After a series of unworkable coalitions, the electoral system was changed
to majority voting in 1952 – which excluded the communists from future
governments. The November 1952 election was a victory for the right-wing
Ellinikos Synagermos (Greek Rally) party, led by General Alexander Papa-
gos (a former civil-war fi eld marshal). General Papagos remained in power
until his death in 1955, when he was replaced by Konstandinos Karamanlis.
Greece joined NATO in 1952, and in 1953 the USA was granted the right
to operate sovereign bases. Intent on maintaining support for the anticom-
munist government, the USA gave generous economic and military aid.
Cyprus resumed centre stage in Greece’s foreign aff airs. Since the 1930s
Greek Cypriots (four-fi fths of the island’s population) had demanded union
with Greece, while Turkey had maintained its claim to the island ever since
it became a British protectorate in 1878 (it became a British crown colony
in 1925). Greek public opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of union,
a notion strongly opposed by Britain and the USA on strategic grounds.
In 1956 the right-wing Greek Cypriot National Organisation of Cypriot
Freedom Fighters (EOKA) took up arms against the British. In 1959, af-
ter extensive negotiations, Britain, Greece and Turkey fi nally agreed on
a compromise solution whereby Cyprus would become an independent
republic the following August, with Greek Cypriot Archbishop Makarios
as president and a Turk, Faisal Kükük, as vice president. The changes did
little to appease either side. EOKA resolved to keep fi ghting, while Turk-
ish Cypriots clamoured for partition of the island.
Back in Greece, Georgios Papandreou, a former Venizelos supporter,
founded the broadly based Centre Union (EK) in 1958, but elections in
1961 returned the National Radical Union (ERE), Karamanlis’ new nameThe best-seller
Eleni, written by
Nicholas Gage,
tells the gripping
personal account
of his family’s
life in the village
of Lia, and the
events leading to
the execution of
Gage’s mother
by communist
guerillas during
the Greek Civil
War.