111-585: Dimitrios Gounaris ( Greek : Δημήτριος Γούναρης ; 5 January 1867 – 28 November 1922) was a Greek politician who served as the prime minister of Greece from 25 February to 10 August 1915 and 26 March 1921 to 3 May 1922. The leader of the People's Party , he was the main right-wing opponent of his contemporary Eleftherios Venizelos . He studied law at Athens University and continued his studies in Germany, France and England, before returning to his native Patras . He
222-505: A Greek population of 299,096. While the sanjak of Muğla had a Greek population of 19,923. One of the reasons proposed by the Greek government for launching the Asia Minor expedition was that there was a sizeable Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian population inhabiting Anatolia that needed protection. Greeks had lived in Asia Minor since antiquity, and in 1912, there were 2.5 million Greeks in
333-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
444-673: A delay of almost a month that gave time to the Turks to organise their defence, seven of the Greek divisions crossed east of the Sakarya River. Following the retreat of the Turkish troops under İsmet İnönü in the battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir the Greek Army advanced afresh to the Sakarya River (Sangarios in Greek), less than 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Ankara . Constantine's battle cry was "to Angira" and
555-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
666-508: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
777-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
888-511: A letter sent to Greek King Constantine in January 1915, he wrote that: "I have the impression that the concessions to Greece in Asia Minor ;... would be so extensive that another equally large and not less rich Greece will be added to the doubled Greece which emerged from the victorious Balkan wars." Through its failure, the Greek invasion may have instead exacerbated the atrocities that it
999-560: A plebiscite called for the return of King Constantine. Soon after his return, the King replaced many of the World War I Venizelist officers and appointed inexperienced monarchist officers to senior positions. The leadership of the campaign was given to Anastasios Papoulas , while King Constantine himself assumed nominally the overall command. The High Commissioner in Smyrna, Aristeidis Stergiadis , however
1110-791: A population exchange . The geopolitical context of this conflict is linked to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire which was a direct consequence of World War I and involvement of the Ottomans in the Middle Eastern theatre . The Greeks received an order to land in Smyrna by the Triple Entente as part of the partition. During this war, the Ottoman government collapsed completely and the Ottoman Empire
1221-559: A strategic retreat on the east of the Sakarya River , where they organised their last line of defence. This was the major decision that sealed the fate of the Greek campaign in Anatolia. The state and Army leadership, including King Constantine, Prime Minister Dimitrios Gounaris, and General Anastasios Papoulas , met at Kütahya where they debated the future of the campaign. The Greeks, with their faltering morale rejuvenated, failed to appraise
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#17329014430081332-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
1443-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
1554-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
1665-484: Is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic Ottoman Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." To an extent, the above danger may have been overstated by Venizelos as a negotiating card on the table of Sèvres, in order to gain the support of the Allied governments. For example,
1776-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
1887-995: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Greco-Turkish War (1919%E2%80%9322) Turkish victory [REDACTED] Turkish National Movement [REDACTED] Kingdom of Greece Disputed numbers of Turkish civilians killed. 30,000+ buildings and 250+ villages destroyed and burnt by
1998-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
2109-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
2220-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
2331-612: Is the capital of the Kingdom. Constantinople is the great capital, the City, the dream and hope of all Greeks." The Great Idea was not merely the product of 19th century nationalism. It was, in one of its aspects, deeply rooted in many Greeks' religious consciousnesses. This aspect was the recovery of Constantinople for Christendom and the reestablishment of the Christian Byzantine Empire which had fallen in 1453. "Ever since this time
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#17329014430082442-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
2553-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
2664-576: The Young Turks were not in power at the time of the war, which makes such a justification less straightforward. Most of the leaders of that regime had fled the country at the end of World War I and the Ottoman government in Constantinople was already under British control. Furthermore, Venizelos had already revealed his desires for annexation of territories from the Ottoman Empire in the early stages of World War I, before these massacres had taken place. In
2775-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
2886-518: The "Middle Eastern interest" of Italy, was overridden with the Greek occupation, as Smyrna (İzmir) was part of the territory promised to Italy. Before the occupation the Italian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, angry about the possibility of the Greek occupation of Western Anatolia, left the conference and did not return to Paris until 5 May. The absence of the Italian delegation from
2997-460: The 12th century, when the first Seljuk Turk raids reached it. The National Schism in Greece was the deep split of Greek politics and society between two factions, the one led by Eleftherios Venizelos and the other by King Constantine, that predated World War I but escalated significantly over the decision on which side Greece should support during the war. The United Kingdom had hoped that strategic considerations might persuade Constantine to join
3108-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
3219-464: The Allies "to occupy any strategic points in the event of any situation arising which threatens the security of Allies." The Greeks had already brought their forces into Eastern Thrace (apart from Constantinople and its region). The Christian population of Smyrna (mainly Greeks and Armenians), according to different sources, either formed a minority or a majority compared to Muslim Turkish population of
3330-663: The British officers were invited, in anticipation, to a victory dinner in the city of Kemal. It was envisaged that the Turkish Revolutionaries, who had consistently avoided encirclement would be drawn into battle in defence of their capital and destroyed in a battle of attrition. Despite the Soviet help, supplies were short as the Turkish army prepared to meet the Greeks. Owners of private rifles, guns and ammunition had to surrender them to
3441-643: The Conference ended up facilitating Lloyd George's efforts to persuade France and the United States to support Greece and prevent Italian operations in Western Anatolia. According to some historians, it was the Greek occupation of Smyrna that created the Turkish National movement. Arnold J. Toynbee argues: "The war between Turkey and Greece which burst out at this time was a defensive war for safeguarding of
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3552-579: The Entente. Greek military forces (though divided between supporters of the monarchy and supporters of " Venizelism ") began to take part in military operations against the Bulgarian Army on the border. The act of entering the war and the preceding events resulted in a deep political and social division in post–World War I Greece. The country's foremost political formations, the Venizelist Liberals and
3663-538: The Greek Kingdom, joined the Central Powers . Though Constantine did remain decidedly neutral, Prime Minister of Greece Eleftherios Venizelos had from an early point decided that Greece's interests would be best served by joining the Entente and started diplomatic efforts with the Allies to prepare the ground for concessions following an eventual victory. The disagreement and the subsequent dismissal of Venizelos by
3774-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
3885-574: The Greek government, who believed that they still retained the strategic advantage and could yet negotiate from a stronger position. The Greeks initiated another attack on 27 March, the Second Battle of İnönü , where the Turkish troops fiercely resisted and finally halted the Greeks on 30 March. The British government supported Greeks with 6in howitzer during Second Battle of İnönü . The Turkish forces received arms assistance from Soviet Russia . By this time all other fronts had been settled in favour of
3996-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
4107-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
4218-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
4329-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
4440-431: The Greeks was to cut Anatolia in two, as the above towns were on the main rail-lines connecting the hinterland with the coast. Eventually, after breaking the stiff Turkish defences, they occupied these strategically important centres. Instead of pursuing and decisively crippling the nationalists' military capacity, the Greek Army halted. In consequence, and despite their defeat, the Turks managed to avoid encirclement and made
4551-610: The Hellenic Army. * 20,826 Greek prisoners were taken. Of those about 740 officers and 13,000 soldiers arrived in Greece during the prisoner exchange in 1923. About 7,000 presumably died in Turkish captivity. ** Greece took 22,071 military and civilian prisoners. Of those were 520 officers and 6,002 soldiers. During the prisoner exchange in 1923, 329 officers, 6,002 soldiers and 9,410 civilian prisoners arrived in Turkey. The remaining 6,330, mostly civilian prisoners, presumably died in Greek captivity. The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922
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4662-503: The Kemalists with 6,000 rifles, over 5 million rifle cartridges, and 17,600 shells as well as 200.6 kg (442.2 lb) of gold bullion. In the subsequent two years the amount of aid increased. Between 27 June and 20 July 1921, a reinforced Greek army of nine divisions launched a major offensive, the greatest thus far, against the Turkish troops commanded by İsmet İnönü on the line of Afyonkarahisar - Kütahya - Eskişehir . The plan of
4773-466: The King resulted in a deep personal rift between the two, which spilled over into their followers and the wider Greek society. Greece became divided into two radically opposed political camps, as Venizelos set up a separate state in Northern Greece, and eventually, with Allied support, forced the King to abdicate. In May 1917, after the exile of Constantine, Venizélos returned to Athens and allied with
4884-531: The Kingdom of Greece, the provision was made that the League of Nations would hold a plebiscite to decide on such matters. The treaty was never ratified by the Ottoman Empire nor Greece. In October 1920, the Greek army advanced further east into Anatolia, with the encouragement of Lloyd George, who intended to increase pressure on the Turkish and Ottoman governments to sign the Treaty of Sèvres. This advance began under
4995-637: The Liberal government of Eleftherios Venizelos, but soon after the offensive began, Venizelos fell from power and was replaced by Dimitrios Gounaris . The strategic objective of these operations was to defeat the Turkish Nationalists and force Mustafa Kemal into peace negotiations. The advancing Greeks, still holding superiority in numbers and modern equipment at this point, had hoped for an early battle in which they were confident of breaking up ill-equipped Turkish forces. Yet they met with little resistance, as
5106-518: The North West and from Smyrna, and had consolidated their occupation zone. In early 1921 they resumed their advance with small scale reconnaissance incursions that met stiff resistance from entrenched Turkish Nationalists, who were increasingly better prepared and equipped as a regular army. The Greek advance was halted for the first time at the First Battle of İnönü on 11 January 1921. Even though this
5217-589: The Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Census of 1906–1907 gives a higher figure for the entire Greek Orthodox population including Orthodox Albanians , Slavic-speakers , Vlachs, Arab Orthodox Christians , of the empire amounted to 2,823,063. According to the Ottoman Census of 1914 the Greek Orthodox population of Ottoman Empire after losing its Balkan & Aegean Island provinces, including 188,047 Arab Orthodox Christians from modern-day Syria, Lebanon and Israel
5328-408: The Ottoman policy of dividing the population according to religion rather than descent, language, or self-identification. On the other hand, contemporaneous British and American statistics (1919) support the point that the Greek element was the most numerous in the region of Smyrna, counting 375,000, while Muslims were 325,000. Greek Prime Minister Venizelos stated to a British newspaper that "Greece
5439-538: The Royalists, already involved in a long and bitter rivalry over pre-war politics, reached a state of outright hatred towards each other. Both parties viewed the other's actions during the First World War as politically illegitimate and treasonous. This enmity inevitably spread throughout Greek society, creating a deep rift that contributed decisively to the failed Asia Minor campaign and resulted in much social unrest in
5550-615: The Turkish National Movement and returned to its pre-war borders, thus leaving Eastern Thrace and Western Anatolia to Turkey. The Allies abandoned the Treaty of Sèvres to negotiate a new treaty at Lausanne with the Turkish National Movement. The Treaty of Lausanne recognized the independence of the Republic of Turkey and its sovereignty over Anatolia, Istanbul , and Eastern Thrace . The Greek and Turkish governments agreed to engage in
5661-418: The Turkish homelands in Anatolia. It was a result of the Allied policy of imperialism operating in a foreign state, the military resources and powers of which were seriously under-estimated; it was provoked by the unwarranted invasion of a Greek army of occupation." According to others, the landing of the Greek troops in Smyrna was part of Eleftherios Venizelos 's plan, inspired by the Megali Idea , to liberate
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#17329014430085772-486: The Turks could see them coming. Food supplies were 40 tons of bread and salt, sugar and tea, the rest to be found on the way. The advance of the Greek Army faced fierce resistance which culminated in the 21-day Battle of Sakarya (23 August – 13 September 1921). The Turkish defense positions were centred on series of heights, and the Greeks had to storm and occupy them. The Turks held certain hilltops and lost others, while some were lost and recaptured several times over. Yet
5883-406: The Turks had to conserve men, for the Greeks held the numerical advantage. The crucial moment came when the Greek army tried to take Haymana , 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Ankara, but the Turks held out. Greek advances into Anatolia had lengthened their lines of supply and communication and they were running out of ammunition. The ferocity of the battle exhausted both sides but the Greeks were
5994-427: The Turks managed to retreat in an orderly fashion and avoid encirclement. Churchill said: "The Greek columns trailed along the country roads passing safely through many ugly defiles , and at their approach the Turks, under strong and sagacious leadership, vanished into the recesses of Anatolia." During October 1920, King Alexander , who had been installed on the Greek throne on 11 June 1917 when his father Constantine
6105-534: The Turks, freeing more resources for the main threat of the Greek Army. France and Italy concluded private agreements with the Turkish revolutionaries in recognition of their mounting strength. They viewed Greece as a British client, and sold military equipment to the Turks. The new Bolshevik government of Russia became friendly to the Turkish revolutionaries, as shown in the Treaty of Moscow (1921) . The Bolsheviks supported Mustafa Kemal and his forces with money and ammunition. In 1920 alone, Bolshevik Russia supplied
6216-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
6327-443: The almost dictatorial regime of the Venizelists, so opted for change. To the surprise of many, Venizelos won only 118 out of the total 369 seats. The crushing defeat obliged Venizelos and a number of his closest supporters to leave the country. To this day his rationale to call elections at that time is questioned. The new government under Dimitrios Gounaris prepared for a plebiscite on the return of King Constantine . A month later
6438-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
6549-402: The army and every household was required to provide a pair of underclothing and sandals. Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament, not happy with the performance of İsmet İnönü as the Commander of the Western Front, wanted Mustafa Kemal and Chief of General Staff Fevzi Çakmak to take control. Greek forces marched 200 kilometres (120 mi) for a week through the desert to reach attack positions, so
6660-421: The cause of the Allies, but the King and his supporters insisted on strict neutrality, especially whilst the outcome of the conflict was hard to predict. In addition, family ties and emotional attachments made it difficult for Constantine to decide which side to support during World War I. The King's dilemma was further increased when the Ottomans and the Bulgarians , both having grievances and aspirations against
6771-413: The cities of Manisa , Balıkesir , Aydın , Kütahya , Bursa , and Eskişehir . Their advance was checked by Turkish forces at the Battle of the Sakarya in 1921. The Greek front collapsed with the Turkish counter-attack in August 1922, and the war effectively ended with the recapture of Smyrna by Turkish forces and the great fire of Smyrna . As a result, the Greek government accepted the demands of
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#17329014430086882-483: The city. The Greek army also consisted of 2,500 Armenian volunteers . The majority of the Greek population residing in the city greeted the Greek troops as liberators. During the summer of 1920, the Greek army launched a series of successful offensives in the directions of the Büyük Menderes River (Meander) Valley, Bursa (Prusa) and Alaşehir (Philadelphia). The overall strategic objective of these operations, which were met by increasingly stiff Turkish resistance,
6993-430: The continuation of the advance towards Ankara , which was however stopped in the Battle of Sakarya . After the Greeks retreated to form a new front, he appealed to the Allies, and especially to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , for assistance and mediation. Although Gounaris threatened the British with unilateral withdrawal, his government maintained the Greek Army's positions, not being able to shoulder
7104-408: The defendants, Gounaris among them, guilty of treason. He was executed along with the others at Goudi on the same day of the verdict, on 28 November. Although Gounaris undoubtedly bears a measure of responsibility for the military and diplomatic actions that led to the Greek defeat in 1922 , his trial and execution are widely perceived to be more an act of scapegoating in order to vent the anger of
7215-428: The disaster of August 1922 and the rout of the Greeks by Mustafa Kemal 's forces, the remnants of the Greek Army revolted in September, and the government was deposed. The predominantly Venizelist rebels, under the leadership of Colonel Nikolaos Plastiras , formed a military tribunal to try those that were considered as responsible for the catastrophe. The so-called " Trial of the Six ", convened in November 1922, found
7326-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
7437-448: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
7548-453: The expense of the Ottoman Empire , recently defeated in World War I . Greek claims stemmed from the fact that Western Anatolia had been part of Ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire before the Turks conquered the area in the 12th–15th centuries. The armed conflict started when the Greek forces landed in Smyrna (now İzmir ), on 15 May 1919. They advanced inland and took control of the western and northwestern part of Anatolia, including
7659-433: The expense of the Ottoman Empire if Greece entered the war on the Allied side. These included Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (İmroz, since 29 July 1979 Gökçeada) and Tenedos ( Bozcaada ), and parts of western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna, which contained sizable ethnic Greek populations. The Italian and Anglo-French repudiation of the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne signed on 26 April 1917, which settled
7770-528: The fate of the Ottoman Empire. Henceforth, the Ottoman Empire would no longer be a European power. On 10 August 1920, the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Sèvres ceding to Greece Thrace, up to the Chatalja lines . More importantly, Turkey renounced to Greece all rights over Imbros and Tenedos, retaining the small territories of Constantinople, the islands of Marmara, and "a tiny strip of European territory". The Straits of Bosporus were placed under an International Commission, as they were now open to all. Turkey
7881-497: The first to withdraw to their previous lines. The thunder of cannon was plainly heard in Ankara throughout the battle. That was the furthest in Anatolia the Greeks would advance, and within a few weeks they withdrew in an orderly manner back to the lines that they had held in June. The Turkish Parliament awarded both Mustafa Kemal and Fevzi Çakmak with the title of Field Marshal for their service in this battle. To this day no other person has received this five-star general title from
7992-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
8103-401: The government, which, due to the war, had stayed in power without elections since 1915. At the same time they promoted the idea of disengagement in Asia Minor, without though presenting a clear plan as to how this would happen. On the contrary, Venizelos was identified with the continuation of a war that did not seem to go anywhere. The majority of the Greek people were both war-weary and tired of
8214-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
8325-631: The inter war years. The military aspect of the war began with the Armistice of Mudros . The military operations of the Greco-Turkish war can be roughly divided into three main phases: the first phase, spanning the period from May 1919 to October 1920, encompassed the Greek Landings in Asia Minor and their consolidation along the Aegean Coast. The second phase lasted from October 1920 to August 1921, and
8436-571: The large Greek populations in the Asia Minor. Prior to the Great Fire of Smyrna , Smyrna had a bigger Greek population than the Greek capital, Athens . Athens, before the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey , had a population of 473,000, while the central kaza of Smyrna, according to Ottoman Census, in 1914, had a Greek population of 73,676 and the entire Aydın Vilayet including modern day İzmir , Manisa , Aydın and Denizli provinces had
8547-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
8658-579: The main motivations for initiating the war was to realize the Megali (Great) Idea, a core concept of Greek nationalism. The Megali Idea was an irredentist vision of a restoration of a Greater Greece on both sides of the Aegean that would incorporate territories with Greek populations outside the borders of the Kingdom of Greece , which was initially very small – roughly half the size of the present-day Greek Republic . From
8769-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
8880-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
8991-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
9102-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
9213-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
9324-655: The people, as well as being mostly motivated by the hatred of the Venizelist faction towards him. Gounaris together with some conservative politicians were the first to propose amendment to the Greek Constitution to allow women's suffrage rights. The amendment ultimately failed to pass. Gounaris was the uncle of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
9435-552: The political cost of abandoning Asia Minor and the many Greeks living there to Turkish reprisals. The deepening political crisis caused the fall of Gounaris' government in May 1922, after marginally surviving a vote of confidence, but the predominance of his followers in the National Assembly meant that he only exchanged the post of Prime Minister with that of Justice Minister in the government of Petros Protopapadakis . Defunct After
9546-461: The recovery of St. Sophia and the City had been handed down from generation to generation as the destiny and aspiration of the Greek Orthodox." The Megali Idea, besides Constantinople, included most traditional lands of the Greeks including Crete , Thessaly , Epirus , Macedonia , Thrace , the Aegean Islands , Cyprus , the coastlands of Asia Minor and Pontus on the Black Sea . Asia Minor
9657-520: The strategic situation that favoured the defending side; instead, pressed for a 'final solution', the leadership was polarised into the risky decision to pursue the Turks and attack their last line of defence close to Ankara. The military leadership was cautious and asked for more reinforcements and time to prepare, but did not go against the politicians. Only a few voices supported a defensive stance, including Ioannis Metaxas . Constantine by this time had little actual power and did not argue either way. After
9768-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
9879-523: The support of the British, did not liquidate some Venizelist officers. The British continued to promise that they will give 850,000,000 golden franks. After the summer offensive of 1920 , the Turkish irregular forces attacked the Greek Army which is under the command of Constantinos Matenas. Even though the offensive was successful, the opportunity of sieging the and destroying of the 13th Infantry Division of Greece (the division had nearly ~15,000 men)
9990-497: The time of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, the Megali Idea had played a major role in Greek politics. Greek politicians, since the independence of the Greek state, had made several speeches on the issue of the "historic inevitability of the expansion of the Greek Kingdom." For instance, Greek politician Ioannis Kolettis voiced this conviction in the assembly in 1844: "There are two great centres of Hellenism. Athens
10101-532: Was 1,729,738. The suggestion that the Greeks constituted the majority of the population in the lands claimed by Greece has been contested by a number of historians. Cedric James Lowe and Michael L. Dockrill also argued that Greek claims about Smyrna were at best debatable, since Greeks constituted perhaps a bare majority, more likely a large minority in the Smyrna Vilayet , "which lay in an overwhelmingly Turkish Anatolia." Precise demographics are further obscured by
10212-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
10323-533: Was a minor confrontation involving only one Greek division, it held political significance for the fledgling Turkish revolutionaries. This development led to Allied proposals to amend the Treaty of Sèvres at a conference in London where both the Turkish Revolutionary and Ottoman governments were represented. Although some agreements were reached with Italy, France and Britain, the decisions were not agreed to by
10434-472: Was able to return to Greece only in 1920, as to partake in the crucial November elections as the de facto leader of the "United Opposition", amidst the ongoing 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War . After Venizelos' defeat, Gounaris controlled most deputies in the parliament, and was the main driving force of the following royalist governments, but himself only assumed the office of Prime Minister in March 1921. Although he
10545-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
10656-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
10767-587: Was an admirer of the Bismarckian German social laws), his conservative political thinking turned him into a leading opponent of Eleftherios Venizelos . He was appointed Prime Minister after Venizelos' first resignation in 1915 by King Constantine I . For his anti-Venizelist, pro-neutrality role he was exiled with other prominent anti-Venizelists to Corsica in 1917 after Venizelos' return to power in Athens . He managed to escape to Sardinia , Italy, in 1918, but
10878-573: Was an essential part of the Greek world and an area of enduring Greek cultural dominance. In antiquity, from late Bronze Age up to the Roman conquest , Greek city-states had even exercised political control of most of the region, except the period ca. 550–470 BC when it was part of the Achaimenid Persian Empire . Later, during Middle Ages, the region had belonged to the Byzantine Empire until
10989-592: Was characterised by Greek offensive operations. The third and final phase lasted until August 1922, when the strategic initiative was held by the Turkish Army. On 15 May 1919, twenty thousand Greek soldiers landed in Smyrna and took control of the city and its surroundings under cover of the Greek, French, and British navies. Legal justifications for the landings was found in Article 7 of the Armistice of Mudros, which allowed
11100-523: Was divided amongst the victorious Entente powers with the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920. There were a number of secret agreements regarding the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The Triple Entente had made contradictory promises about post-war arrangements concerning Greek hopes in Asia Minor . The western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George , had promised Greece territorial gains at
11211-488: Was elected deputy for Achaea in 1902 and distinguished himself as an orator and a member of the so-called " Japanese Group " that opposed the Georgios Theotokis government in 1906–1908. Gounaris himself, however, joined the government in 1908 as Finance Minister, hoping to implement a reformist program, thereby causing the dissolution of the group, although he was soon forced to resign. Despite his progressive views (he
11322-549: Was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I , between 15 May 1919 and 14 October 1922 . This conflict was a part of the Turkish War of Independence . The Greek campaign was launched primarily because the western Allies , particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George , had promised Greece territorial gains at
11433-492: Was furthermore forced to transfer to Greece "the exercise of her rights of sovereignty" over Smyrna in addition to "a considerable Hinterland, merely retaining a 'flag over an outer fort'." Though Greece administered the Smyrna enclave, its sovereignty remained, nominally, with the Sultan. According to the provisions of the Treaty, Smyrna was to maintain a local parliament and, if within five years time she asked to be incorporated within
11544-656: Was gone because of the arbitrary behaviours of the Kuva-yi Seyyare under the command of the Çerkes Ethem . Because of these events, the Grand National Assembly of the Turkish Nationalists started to create a regular force . The regular forces was going to lose the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir only against the Greek Armed Forces. By December 1920, the Greeks had advanced on two fronts, approaching Eskişehir from
11655-588: Was not removed. The British and French government promised Greeks to give 850,000,000 golden franks ,but because of the government change in Greece, and heavy losses in Cilicia , the French government stopped supporting the Greeks until a small period between the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and the end of the Battle of the Sakarya . The British government were also uneasy, but they preferred to wait. The Greeks, afraid of losing
11766-571: Was pushed into exile by the Venizelists, was bitten by a monkey kept at the Royal Gardens and died within days from sepsis . After King Alexander died without heirs, the legislative elections scheduled to be held on 1 November 1920, suddenly became the focus of a new conflict between the supporters of Venizelos and the Royalists. The anti-Venizelist faction campaigned on the basis of accusations of internal mismanagement and authoritarian attitudes of
11877-477: Was supposed to prevent. Arnold J. Toynbee blamed the policies pursued by Great Britain and Greece, and the decisions of the Paris Peace conference as factors leading to the atrocities committed by both sides during and after the war: "The Greeks of 'Pontus' and the Turks of the Greek occupied territories, were in some degree victims of Mr. Venizelos's and Mr. Lloyd George's original miscalculations at Paris." One of
11988-417: Was to provide strategic depth to the defence of Smyrna. To that end, the Greek zone of occupation was extended over all of Western and most of North-Western Anatolia. In return for the contribution of the Greek army on the side of the Allies, the Allies supported the assignment of eastern Thrace and the millet of Smyrna to Greece. This treaty ended the First World War in Asia Minor and, at the same time, sealed
12099-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
12210-551: Was willing to compromise with the Turks, as he showed in the London talks in early 1921, in order to step up pressure on the Kemalist Turks, he agreed to the launch of the Greek offensive of March 1921. The Greek Army was not prepared, and the attack was repulsed in the Second Battle of İnönü , resulting in the first Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War . After the successful Greek advance towards Eskişehir and Afyon in July, he urged
12321-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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