Great Idea

The Great Idea (in Greek modern Μεγάλη Ιδέα / Megáli Idéa ) was the expression of the national feeling then Greek Nationalisme with 19th and 20th centuries. It aimed at linking all the Greeks in only one State-nation with for capital Constantinople. It took above all the form of a Irrédentisme. The term was invented in 1844 by Ioannis Kolettis, Prime Minister of the king Othon. The Great Idea dominated all the foreign policy and consequently the interior policy of the Greece. war of independence in the Years 1820, with the Cypriot problem of the Years 1970 while passing by the Balkan Wars of the beginning of the 20th century, the main adversary of Greece in his realization of the Great Idea was the Ottoman Empire then the Turkey.

The national feeling

The weight of the Othoman occupation

The Othoman armies successively seized Constantinople in 1453, Athens in 1458 and Mistra, located very close to old the Sparte, in 1460. Any form of independent Greek State disappeared then. However, the Othoman administration recognized that there was a population that one could regard as “Greek”. The Othoman system of the “ millets ” (nations) organized the various populations of the Empire: there were thus a Othoman millet and a Jewish millet for example. There existed also a millet-I Rum or Greek millet . In fact, this one included all the Orthodoxes, whether they were of Greek language, Bulgarian or Rumanian. This ambiguity played a part later in the definition of the limits of the Greek nation. The mark of subjection was mainly the tax haradj . Until the end of the 17th century, the paidomazoma was added to it (obligation to provide Janissaire S). These taxes, and especially the cascade of the taking away of wages carried out above by the many civils servant were very badly seen of the local population. Various revolts, as the Révolution of Orloff often involved an increase in the taking away as a punishment. The Klephte S, whose exactions were a form of resistance to the tax are often regarded as the precursors of the liberation movement main road.

The Greek millet was directed by the hierarchy of the orthodoxe Église. The Patriarch of Constantinople was regarded by the Othomans as the chief of the “Greek nation”. The capacity of the orthodoxe Church was thus very related to the Othoman capacity. This one was thus interested in the survival and the maintenance of the Othoman capacity, on which its interests depended. That mainly discredited it with the eyes of the population.

To define a State-nation

As for all the national movements of the 19th century, the Great Idea wanted to gather in a single State-nation all the Greeks. It took its source in the thought of the Lumières and the French revolution. Thus, the Declaration of the Human rights and the citizen of the August 26th 1789 proclaimed the right of the people to have themselves. The Greeks, subjected to the Othoman , wished, them also, to have themselves and to have a “emanating government of the assent of controlled”, as proposed it the Déclaration of independence of the United States of America . The ideas of the Lights touched the Phanariotes which by their administrative offices and governmental (whose roles of interpreters for the Door) were very in contact with the Occident. Greek intellectuals were also in exile in Western Europe: Adamántios Koraïs passed all the French revolution to Paris; Rigas Fereos was him with Vienna; there were merchants of the diaspora with Odessa, Venice or Marseilles. Newspapers (like the erudite Mercury of Anthimos Gazis, in addition serving of an orthodoxe parish of Vienna, published in Vienna in 1811 and 1812) and circles intellectual had been set up by these Greeks. In 1803, appeared in Paris the Mémoire on the actual position of civilization in Greece ; in 1806, was published in Leghorn a Discours on freedom . These works conveyed the ideas of the Lights on the Freedom or the right of the people to have themselves.

But, the definition even of which was “Greek” or of what was “Greek” posed problem (see for example the article Noms of the Greeks). Which principle of applying: the “Greek” Ethnos group, the orthodoxe religion “Greek”, the “Greek” language, the Geography, the History?

Iakovos Rizos-Neroulos declared at the time of the first conference of the Greek Archaeological Company, in 1838, on the Acropole in Athens:

“Sirs, these stones, thanks to Phidias, Praxitèle, Agoracrite and Myros, are more invaluable than diamonds or agathes: it is with these stones that we owe our political rebirth. ”

It evoked the role of the Western travellers here, often in Grand Turn, in the birth of the Greek national feeling at the end of the 18th century. Their interest for the ancient monuments showed to the Greeks scholars, but also to the local populations which there existed another Greece of reference that Greece of the orthodoxe Church subjected to the Othoman capacity. Were born then in Greece a progonoplexia (obsession for the ancestors) and a arkhaiotreia (fascination of the antique). One started to give the children, to the great displeasure popes, first names with the antique. One made in the same way for the names of ships. The question of the Greek language also arose: the vernacular language was regarded as “polluted” by foreign words (Turkish especially). It was necessary to find a “pure” language: one chooses the Attique 5th century before our era. Antiquity thus became the new reference to define “Greece”.

The maximum extension of this State-nation would be, for more the extremists, the extension of the Greek world according to Strabon, the selected historical reference: Sicily and the Italy of the south (Large Greece), with Cyprus; north of the Black Sea (Euxine Sea) with the Crete, while passing by continental Greece itself, the Épire, the Macedonia (Kingdom of Macedonia) and the minor Asia (Ionie). That corresponded to the extension of the Byzantine Empire of the time of the Dynastie Macedonian.

It is indeed necessary to add to this feeling the political and religious traumatism of the Prise of Constantinople by the Othomans in 1453. Constantinople was the religious capital of the Orthodoxie and the political capital of the Byzantine Empire. Its catch coincided with disappearance of Greece and with the subjection of the Greeks. Their freedom and their existence as a nation could pass only by the reconquest of the “City”.

In 1796, whereas it was with Vienna, Rigas, the precursory poet of the insurrection against the Othomans, had published a chart of Greece ( Χάρτας της Ελλάδας ), envisaged at the beginning to illustrate the Voyages of the Anacharsis young person in Greece of the French Jean-Jacques Barthelemy. If this immense chart (it makes 4 square meters) were centered on ancient Greece (the ancient history is the only history represented on the chart), it included Constantinople, and the Valachie; but also the Bosnia, the Serbia and the current Albania. Greece thus described included/understood in fact all Balkans and the Romania. The language of this entity was to be the Greek, element basic of the definition of nationality. The chart of Rigas suffered from the execution of its creator, but in 1800, Anthimos Gazis, published a simplified version of it, by adding Large Greece and Cyprus to it.

Disappointments after the war of independence

Independence

The Guerre of Greek independence was initially a war of liberation, a fight against the Othoman oppression. The principal movements took place in the Peloponnese and around Athens. There were also combat in Épire (especially because of Ali Pasha de Janina). The final victory was obtained thanks to the support of the great powers, France, the United Kingdom and Russia, (which became then “Protective Powers” of the young person Greek kingdom) with, inter alia, the Bataille of Navarin and the French forwarding in Morée. The Greeks were not able to obtain all that they wanted during the negotiations which followed the end of the conflict. In order to still spare the Ottoman Empire, the Conference of London of 1830 fixed the borders of the new State. Greece was to be satisfied with the Peloponnese, part of the Roumélie (the border went from Arta to the west to Volos to the east) and of some islands close to the continent like Égine or Hydra and part of the Cyclades. 700 000 of the three million those considered as Greeks were found in the new State whereas Constantinople with it only gathered 200 000 Greeks. The great arts centres, religious and economic were all out of the kingdom which did not count any big city: the first three capitals (Égine, Nauplie and even Athens) did not exceed the 5 000 inhabitants. The disappointment of the Greek patriots in and out of this State was very large.

Autochtones and hétérochtones

After the Coup d'etat of September 3rd, 1843, during the difficult negotiations for the drafting of the Constitution, the Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis was made the champion of the rights of the “ hétérochtones ”, Greek nationals born out of the borders of the Kingdom. Its family was originating in Valachie and itself had been born in Épire, two areas not yet attached to the Greek fatherland. He thus considered that Greece was to include the “ autochtones ”, those born in the kingdom and the “ hétérochtones ”. There were according to him two centers of the hellenism: Athens and Constantinople (“the dream and the hope of all the Greeks”). He declared with the constituent Assembly the January 14th 1844 in a speech which gave rise to the “Great Idea”:

“Having the East on its line and the Occident on its left, Greece is predestined by its rebirth to clarify the East as it was it by its rise to light Occident.
In the spirit of this great idea , I always saw the representatives Nation to agree it to decide not only fate of Greece but of the Greek nation as a whole. How much vaster and broader was this great idea than we had fatherland, and than we had found expressed for the first time in the song of Rhigas '' Thourios ''. ”
“The Greek kingdom is not the entirety of Greece, but only the one smallest part, and the poorest part. A Greek is not only somebody who lives within the limits of the kingdom, but also somebody which lives with Ioannina, in Thessalie, with Serrès, Andrinople, in Constantinople, with Trébizonde, in Crete, with Samos and in any ground associated with the history or the Greek race. ”

There were then populations which one could regard as Greek, not only according to the definition of Kolettis, but also for reasons of language, religion or ethnic origin because of the migrations:

in the Balkan Peninsula until Valona in current Albania in the west and Varna in current Bulgaria in the east;
along the Marmara Sea and Constantinople;
along the coast of minor Asia, mainly with Smyrna;
in Anatolia, especially in Cappadoce and along the northern coast, on the Black Sea, in the pontic Alps, but also until in Arménie;
in the north of the Black Sea, in Russia, where had settled certain Greeks pontic and of the merchants “ autochtones ”, around Odessa.

Some of these Greeks of outside, especially the peasants, differed little from their neighbors not-Greeks. If they were savagely orthodoxe, they spoke the local vernacular language. Thus, 400 000 Greeks of Anatolia (and Constantinople), which spoke only Turkish, were called “ karamanlides ”. One of the big families of Greek politicians of the 20th century is the family Karamanlis. Certain family names originating in Anatolia start still today with “ Hadji ” (the type-setter Manos Hadjidakis, the painter Nikos Khatzikyriakos-Ghikas or the founder of EasyJet Stelios Hadji-Ioannou) recalling that one of the family members made his pilgrimage with Mecque and became thus “ Hadji ”.

To seek to join together these “nationals” in Greece was one of the constants of the policy and the Greek diplomacy at the 19th century.

In same time, one also sought to purify Greece and his “ autochtones ” of any foreign influence. D-helléniser was needed Greece. The “purification” of the language with the creation of the Katharévousa was one of the examples of this political will.

First territorial extensions

King Othon was far from popular, except when he embraced the cause of the Great Idea, as at the time of the Crimean War. The realization of the Great Idea was often done thanks to the various wars of second half of the 19th century which made it possible Greece to annex increasingly many territories.

The release of the Crimean War, Greece accepted capacity to benefit from the initial difficulties (before the Western intervention) of the Ottoman Empire. As at the time of the war of independence, of the armed bands partly made up of Klephte S and directed by members of the higher classes of the company, here of the student , regained the shape of action of guerilla and went to sow the disorder on other side of the border, in Thessalie, Épire and Macedonia. The France and the Great Britain, parallel to their intervention against the Russia in the Crimea, sent a fleet to occupy Pirée between March 1854 and February 1857. Greece had to yield to the pressure. Despite everything, a Legion of Greek volunteers, ordered by Panos Koronaios, left to reinforce the Russians besieged in Sébastopol.

A first true territorial extension took place in May 1864: Great Britain reassigned in Greece the République of the Seven-Islands (the Ionian islands). A referendum had indicated in 1863 a British prince to succeed Othon after the revolution, but the Protective Powers had refused to endorse the choice and had imposed a Danish prince. In compensation and to celebrate the crowning of Georges I {{er}}, the United Kingdom had separated from its protectorate.

The Bulgarian insurrection of 1876 and the Russo-Turkish war which followed (1877) balanced by the Traité of San Stefano which created Large Bulgaria under Russian protection. Large Bulgaria was an obstacle with the Great Idea. The United Kingdom, the Austria-Hungary and the Serbia could not either accept this treaty which favoured Russia in the Balkan area. Greece could plead its cause and be made hear with the Congrès of Berlin of 1878. Greece was not formally invited, but a Greek delegation was accepted. She included/understood, inter alia, Theodoros Deligiannis and Charilaos Trikoupis. The Othoman delegation was directed by Alexandros Karatheodoris Pasha, an Othoman Greek. Thessalie and part of Épire was given to Greece at the conclusion of a new round of negotiations at the time of the Conference of Constantinople in 1881. Other side of its northern border was now Macedonia, new objective (see chart).

The Crete

The “large Island” was considered in Athens and regarded itself as Greek. The union ( Enosis ) of Crete in Greece seemed an obviousness. Many revolts took place throughout the 19th century: 1841,1858,1866-1869, 1877-1878, 1888-1889 and 1896-1897. Greece as for it had tried to force the union. In 1868, Athens sent helps to insurgent the crétois. The Door protested and organized the blockade of Ermoúpoli, port of Syros, and especially main port of travellers and goods of the Aegean Sea. The mediation of the Protective Powers settled the disagreement. In 1885, benefitting from a new crisis, the Prime Minister, Theodoros Deligiannis sent a fleet in Crete. The Protective Powers again founded a maritime blockade of Greece.

Deligiannis was again with the capacity in 1897, at the time of the insurrection crétoise. Under the popular pressure, it sent a fleet and soldiers towards the Large Island. The general mobilization was issued and, in April, the war started against the Ottoman Empire in Thessalie. It was the war known as Thirty Days, a Greek demolished cuisante. Despite everything, Greece did not leave itself there too badly. The peace treaty granted autonomy, under Othoman suzerainty, in Crete. Georges, the second wire of king Georges Ier was named High commissioner in Crete. Some adjustments in favor of the Ottoman Empire were made along the border in Thessalie.

The principal lesson of the humiliation of the Thirty Day old war was that Greece would be never able, only, to carry out the Great Idea. The Ottoman Empire, even declining, constituted a too considerable adversary.

Crete was going to provide to Greece one its principal politicians and craftsmen of the Great Idea: Eleftherios Venizelos .

Balkan wars

If the population were rather homogeneous in the south of Greece, the ethnic limits in north were difficult to determine. The various ethnos groups were very mixed in Balkans and different the State-nations being created at the 19th century asserted certain areas, populated, at least partly of those which they regarded as their nationals. Macedonia was one of these areas: it was populated Greeks, the Bulgarian ones, the Serb ones, of Albanian, Turks and Wallachians.

Macedonia

Greece as of the years 1890 had started to act there as writing pad. Again, as at the time of the war of independence or during the Crimean War, of the autoproclamées bands “combatants of freedom”, the “ Makedonomakhoi ”, took the weapons to claim the fastening of Macedonia to the Greek kingdom. The first pretext had been the creation of an orthodoxe exarchat in Bulgaria which entered in competition with the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The “Exarchistes” were thus Bulgarian and the “Patriarchistes”, Greeks. The conflict was monk and political, with for final goal control of the area. The various armed bands were organized. The Revolutionary Organization Macedonian founded in 1893 was supported by the Bulgarian ones. The Ethniki Etairia , (National company), Greek, helped the Makedonomakhoi . The government of Athens brought a more or less direct help to them: financing via its consular agents, framing by military advisers. Of Crétois also took part in the operations of guerilla (in its novel Alexis Zorba , Níkos Kazantzákis makes evoke the massacres by its hero). The partisans of Greece took little by little the ascending one and were in strong position, which prepared the annexation in Greece at the time of the Balkan Guerres of 1912-1913.

In 1908, the revolution of the Young person-Turks in Constantinople involved various changes. Bulgaria declared itself completely independent of the Ottoman Empire. Austria-Hungary annexed the Bosnia-Herzégovine which had been placed under its protectorate in 1878 in Berlin. Crete decided the enosis then.

The Greek soldiers organized a coup d'etat: the blow of Goudi in 1909, and placed Venizelos at the head of their movement because, of origin crétoise, it was not marked by the political “corruption” of the kingdom. Crétois, Venizelos was also a savage partisan of the Great Idea. It followed, thanks to a very vast parliamentary majority, a policy of modernization of the country.

The first Balkan war

The italo-Turkish Guerre of 1911 weakens the Ottoman Empire. The countries of Balkans benefitted from it. Venizelos hesitated before engaging Greece, because its “nationals” were dispersed too much in the Ottoman Empire not to be at the thank you of Turkish reprisals. However, while not intervening, Greece was likely not to take part in the division of the spoils. October 18th, 1912, Serbia, Bulgaria, the Montenegro and Greece, gathered in the Balkan Ligue declared the war with the Ottoman Empire, thus starting the First war Balkan.

The Greek troops seized at the beginning of November Salonique, leaf of a few hours the Bulgarian troops. The Greek navy, modernized by the United Kingdom thanks to Venizelos, establishes its supremacy in Aegean Sea and seized Chios, Lesbos and Samos. Ioannina, capital of Épire was conquered in February 1913. The Turks recognized these annexations at the time of the treated of London of May 1913.

The second Balkan war

Linked against the Othomans, the winners tore in connection with Macedonia at the time of the second Balkan war. Serbia and Greece decided to divide Macedonia, at the expense of Bulgaria. The Romania intervened to obtain its share. The war was short and Bulgaria was crushed. The Traité of Bucharest (1913) gave Salonique and all Macedonia of the south to Greece. However, Bulgaria preserved the port of Dedeagatch (now Alexandropoulis) on Égée and the creation of Albania had prevented the Greek annexation of Épire of north.

The Great Idea in spite of had very become reality. On the whole, the Balkan wars increased the Greek territory of 70% and its population passed from 2,8 million to 4,8 million. When Constantin went up on the throne of Greece in 1913, it was hoped that it adopted the titulature Constantin XII, thus placing in the direct succession of Constantin XI Paleologist, last Byzantine Emperor. The reconquest of Constantinople seemed close. But Constantin was satisfied to be Constantin Ist.

All the inhabitants of the annexed areas were however not Greek. In Salonique, the Juifs sépharades constituted the majority of the population. Elsewhere, of the Moslem Turks, of the Wallachians speaking Rumanian or Slavic were present.

The Great Idea played a fundamental role in the “ Ethnikos Dikhasmos ” (“Great Schism”) during the First World War.

The “great Schism”

The Great Idea had initially been a will to gather the Greeks in a single State-nation, but its political exploitation had many other consequences.

The choice of alliance

The Great Idea was indeed not only one foreign policy. She played a determining role in the interior policy of the Greek kingdom. She was thus presented like the main thing, even only, objective of the successive governments. All insisted on the need for the national unit in order to carry out the Great Idea. One did not have, under penalty of being regarded as antipatriote, mentioning the other political problems (slow development, corruption, subjection to the Protective Powers…). The Great Idea was to pass above all, and was thus used to divert the attention of the interior problems. Thus, after Charilaos Trikoupis declared the country in bankruptcy in 1893 and that the country had been inserted in the economic crisis, one used the Great Idea and the businesses crétoises to divert the attention of the population, which led to the Thirty Day old war and the Greek defeat.

But it is during the First World War that the Great Idea leads to one of the more serious attacks of interior policy which Greece knew. When the war burst, Greece declared itself initially neutral. But to remain out of the conflict was not the only reason with this neutrality. More the high summit of the State was indeed divided in connection with the most capable camp to support the objectives of the Great Idea.

Venizelos, the Prime Minister, intended to remain the ally of Serbia, as during the Balkan wars, in order to dismember Bulgaria, allied definitively central Empires. It thus wished to approach the Entente.

King Constantin, brother-in-law of Kaiser Guillaume II, and honorary Feld-Marshall of the German army, leant rather towards alliance with Germany and thus Bulgaria, in order to be turned over against the old Serb ally and to seize its territories.

In October 1915, the king returned Venizelos and made inform the Bulgarian government that its country would not intervene in the event of attack of Serbia. There he used a clause of the treaty of alliance with Serbia of 1913, which provided that Greece would help Serbia if it were attacked by Bulgaria, except if this one were allied with two other powers (here Germany and Austria-Hungary).

The British, to however attract Greece in the Agreement, proposed to the successor of Venizelos to give Cyprus to Greece in exchange of its assistance. The Prime Minister Alexandros Zaimis refused, proof that the Greek government had chosen to firstly dismember the old ally, Serbia, and not the Ottoman Empire.

Complication for this project, Venizelos had authorized right before being dislocated of its functions a task force anglo-italo-French of 250 000 men ordered by the Sarrail general to be settled in Salonique. 150 000 survivors of the Serb army, evacuated initially towards Corfou, occupied to this end by the Agreement, joined Salonique in April 1916 (not without king Constantin and his new Prime Minister Stephanos Skouloudis prohibiting to them to borrow the Canal of Corinth). The Greek government authorized even the Bulgarian troops (enemy of the agreement) to advance towards Salonique in their granting the fortified towns of Serrès and Kavala.

Rupture

After having tried a last conciliation near the sovereign who refused to receive it, Venizelos left Athens to turn over to Crete. It then published (September 27th 1916) a proclamation with “the whole hellenism” asking him to take in hand its own destinies and “to save what could be saved” while cooperating with the Agreement so that “not only Europe is delivered German hegemony, but also Balkans of the Bulgarian claims to supremacy”. In November, Venizelos organized in Salonique a provisional government of National defense ( Ethniki Amyna ), rival of the government faithful to the king carried out by Spyrídon Lámpros. It was the “ Ethnikos Dikhasmos ”. Thessalie and Épire, as well as part of the army, followed Venizelos.

A neutral zone between Greece of north and the “Greece old woman” was organized by the Agreement, which supported politically and financially the Venizelos government. A Franco-British fleet, ordered by the admiral Dartige of Fournet, occupied bay of Salamine to make pressure (as at the time of the Crimean War or 1885) on Athens, to which various successive ultimata, relating to mainly the disarmament of the Greek army, were sent. Nicolas II refused however that Constantin was deposited.

December 1st, 1916, king Constantin yielded to the requirements of the French admiral, and the troops of Dartige of Fournet unloaded in Athens to seize the required pieces of artillery. The army faithful to Constantin had however secretly mobilized, and had strengthened Athens. The French were accommodated by a heavy fire. The admiral had to take refuge in Zappéion, and could flee only with the favor of the night. The massacre of the French soldiers was called “Greek Vespers”. The king congratulated his minister on the war and the Dousmanis general.

The Agreement does not act immediately. Russia, but also the Italy, hesitated. It was only the June 11th 1917 which the abdication of Constantin was required. June 12th, under the threat of an unloading of 100 000 men in Pirée, it left in exile, without officially abdicating. Its second wire Alexandre went up on the throne. Its faithful, whose Dousmanis general and the colonel Ioánnis Metaxás, were off-set in Corsica. June 21st, Venizelos formed a new government in Athens, and the 26, troops of the Agreement settled there. Greece, with a purged army of its elements favorable to Constantin, entered in war, on the side of the Agreement, against Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire.

The “great Catastrophe”

Consequences of the First World War

At the summer 1918, 300 000 Greek soldiers took part in the engagements on the Eastern face under the command of the general Franchet d' Esperey. Bulgaria capitulated on October 29th, Turkey the 31. The Greek participation in the victory enabled him to practically obtain all of which the Great Idea dreamed.

Greece sent also two divisions near the white Armées ordered by Vrangel in the south with Russia to protect the 600 000 “Greeks” pontic but also with an aim of placing itself like the new orthodoxe great power.

Italy did not await the decisions of the treated of Versailles to try to dismember the Ottoman Empire. It made unload its troops with Antalya and made them go towards Smyrna. To avoid an early collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom, France and the USA authorized Greece to occupy Smyrna militarily. The May 15th 1919, protected by the British fleet, the Greek troops carried out their unloading. Atrocities and massacres were made. 350 Turks perished in the confrontations. The scuffles and skirmishes continued, until the release of a true armed conflict. This occupation of Smyrna was indeed the catalysis of the nationalist revolution of Mustafa Kemal.

Treaty of Sevres

In August 1920, the treaty of Sevres granted to Greece the Thrace, the islands of Imbros and Ténédos and Smyrna (which then had more Greek inhabitants than Athens) like any sound postpones country. This hinterland was placed under mandate of the Société of the Nations before a referendum planned for 1925.

However, the Great Schism was not finished. With the legislative elections of 1920 clashed the monarchists (faithful to Constantin, not in Alexandre who had just died, bitten by his monkey) and the liberals of Venizelos. The monarchists made countryside for the demobilization and peace, proposing “small, but honourable Greece”. The liberals pushed with the resumption of the conflict to create “Large Greece embracing two continents and five seas (Mediterranean, Aegean Sea, Ionian Mer, Marmara Sea and Black Sea). ” The royalists gained the elections and restored Constantin. The army was purged of its elements venizelists.

The application of the Treaty of Sevres decided events. Contrary to the city, the back-country of Smyrna Turkish and was mainly opposed to the Greek domination. The monarchists with the government disavowed their electoral program and under cover of maintenance of law and order started an expansionist policy. It was a news gréco-Turkish Guerre. However, since the return to the capacity of Constantin, the Westerners were wary of Greece. This one could not count any more on same help but in 1918. All the weapon, loan applications, of ammunition, even of vivres were rejected. Turkey, carried out by Mustafa Kemal opposed a strong resistance. Greek nationalism ran up against Turkish nationalism. The Greek offensive on Ankara in March 1921 was a disaster. In March 1922, Greece was declared ready to accept the mediation of the Company of the Nations. The attack conducted by Mustafa Kemal the August 26th 1922 obliged the Greek army to be folded up in front of the Turkish army, which massacred all the Greeks present in the area. Smyrna, evacuated on September 8th, was burnt. It is estimated that 30.000 Christians were then killed.

Treaty of Lausanne

The treaty of Lausanne which followed was unfavourable in Greece, which lost Eastern Thrace, Imbros and Ténédos, Smyrna and any possibility of remaining in Anatolia. The Greeks were rejected of Asia Mineure after 3.000 years of presence. The Great Idea would never be carried out.

To avoid all new territorial claims, one carried out an exchange of populations, which one will call the “Great Catastrophe”. During the conflict, 151 892 Greeks had already fled Asia Mineure. The Treaty of Lausanne moved 1 104 216 Greeks of Turkey, 40 027 Greeks of Bulgaria, 58 522 of Russia (because of the defeat of Vrangel) and 10 080 of other sources (Dodécanèse or Albania for example). On the whole, the Greek population increased by only one blow of 20 %.

In exchange, 380 000 Turks left the Greek territory for Turkey and 60 000 Bulgarian of Thrace and Macedonia joined the Bulgaria. The immediate reception of the refugees cost Greece 45 franc million, then the Company of the Nations organized a loan of 150 Franc million for the installation of the refugees. In 1935, Greece had spent 9 billion Francs in all. The Great Idea had cost very expensive, and its partial failure erased it foreground of the political life for a time. In 1930, Venizelos went even in official visit in Turkey and proposed Mustafa Kemal for the Nobel Prize of peace.

The Great Idea at the 20th century: Cyprus

The Great Idea had not completely disappeared. It continued, without really saying its name, to be useful, either the propaganda of a government, or to divert the attention of the population.

Thus, after its coup d'etat of the August 4th 1936, Ioánnis Metaxás proclaimed the advent of the “Third Hellenic Civilization”, after the Civilization of ancient Greece and Byzantine Civilization. The Italian attack since the Greek Albania and victories made it possible Greece to conquer during the winter 1940-1941, Épire of the north which was then managed like a Greek province, before the German offensive of April 1941.

The occupation, resistance then the civil war pushed back the Great Idea with the background. The annexation of the islands of the Dodécanèse in 1947 does not have besides anything to see with this one. It is right the result of the Italian defeat and owing to the fact that Greece belonged to the camp of the winners.

The exchange of population in 1922 had not been completely total. Indeed, of the Greeks had remained in Constantinople, become Istanbul. One counted still also 120 000 Turks in Greece. Until the years 1950, especially thanks to the pressure of NATO, Greece and Turkey had maintained the cordial relations. Cyprus, occupied by the United Kingdom, became the “bone of contention”. In 1955, the colonel of the Greek army but of Cypriot origin Georges Grivas launched a civil disobedience campaign, then of attacks, of which the goal was initially to drive out the British, then in the long term the enosis with Greece. Greek the Prime Minister, Alexandros Papagos was not unfavourable there. The British played the Cypriot Turks against the Cypriot Greeks. At the request of enosis of the Greek population (80% of the Cypriot population), the 20% Turkish answered by a request for “ taksim ” (partition). The Cypriot problems had effects on the continent. In September 1955, reacting at the request of enosis of the Cypriot Greeks, of the riots anti-Greeks took place in Istanbul: 4 000 stores, 100 hotels and restaurants and 70 churches were destroyed or damaged. That involved the vague large last of migration of Turkey towards Greece.

The agreements of Zurich of 1959 led to the independence of the island within the the British Commonwealth. The inter-ethnic confrontations starting from 1960 involved a famous intervention of the president of the United States, Lyndon Johnson and the sending of a force of interposition of the the United Nations in 1964.

The Cypriot situation was recovered by the Dictature of the colonels. This one presented its coup d'etat of the April 21st 1967 like the only means of defending the traditional values of civilization helléno-Christian woman. The sergeant-general Stylianos Pattakos declared in 1968:

“Young people of Greece… You conceal, in your chests and your faith, this deep feeling of the sacrifice. It goes back to “Come to take them! ” of Leonidas, with “I will not give you the City. ” of Constantin XI and with “Not! ” of Metaxás. It is in the “Halt or I draw! ” of April 21st, 1967. ”

Size of Greece of Antiquity with Byzance, then that of the various dictators remade surface. The Great Idea was not far.

The oil crisis of 1973 envenima gréco-Turkish relations. Oil was discovered close to Thasos. Turkey required to be able to prospect in zones which it disputed with its Greek neighbor. The situation of the colonels worsened. The students had revolted in November 1973 and the junta had sent the tanks to take again the Polytechnic school. The Great Idea then was again used to divert the attention of the internal problems.

On bottom of oil crisis in Égée, the Ioannidis Sergeant-General tried, in July 1974, to deposit Cypriot President Makarios and to proceed to the enosis of Cyprus. That involved an immediate reaction of Turkey. It invades the north of the island, with Turkish majority. The two countries carried out a general mobilization. However, the Greek dictatorship did not survive this new failure. The Great Idea still had repercussions in interior policy.

In stabilized Europe, the Great Idea indeed seems to have disappeared, even if, of the disagreements gréco-Turkish in connection with frontier zones recall still certain claims Greek irredentists. But, the economy (oil or fishing) became the main cause of these arguments.

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