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130-520: The term appeared for the first time during the debates of Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis with King Otto that preceded the promulgation of the 1844 constitution. It came to dominate foreign relations and played a significant role in domestic politics for much of the first century of Greek independence. The expression was new in 1844 but the concept had roots in the Greek popular psyche, which long had hopes of liberation from Ottoman rule and restoration of

260-573: A "tiny proportion" and Joshua Prawer only some "pitiful remnants" of the original army arrived in the Holy Land. Recent studies suggest that the number was substantial but shy of a majority. Of the 92 named individuals who took the crusader vow in Villehardouin's account, between 23 and 26 of them went to the Holy Land. The rate of "desertion" seems highest among the French faction. Only about

390-440: A contract for transport to Egypt, the stated objective of their crusade; one of the envoys was the future historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin . Earlier crusades focused on Palestine had involved the slow movement of large and disorganised land hosts across a generally hostile Anatolia . Egypt was now the dominant Muslim power in the eastern Mediterranean but also a major trading partner of Venice. An attack on Egypt would clearly be

520-592: A great length of time to prepare this expedition. In addition, about 14,000 men or as many as 20–30,000 men (out of Venice's population of 60–100,000 people) were needed to man the entire fleet, placing further strain on the Venetian economy. Dandolo and the Venetians considered what to do with the crusade. It was too small to pay its fee, but disbanding the force gathered would harm Venetian prestige and cause significant financial and trading loss. Dandolo, who joined

650-524: A majority of all crusaders) continued to Acre . In August 1203, following the siege of Constantinople , Alexios was crowned co-emperor. However, in January 1204 he was deposed by a popular uprising, depriving the Crusaders of their promised bounty payments. Following the murder of Alexios on 8 February, the Crusaders decided on the outright conquest of the city. In April 1204, they captured and plundered

780-599: A maritime enterprise, requiring the creation of a fleet. Genoa was uninterested, but in March 1201 negotiations were opened with the doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo who agreed to transport 33,500 crusaders, a very ambitious number. This was the moment, according to him, for the Venetian Republic to gain wealth, prestige, land, and trading routes in the Holy Land . This agreement required a full year of preparation on

910-469: A matter of debate; he may have realized the Venetians' plans and left to avoid excommunication, or he may have wanted to meet with the Roman prince Alexios IV Angelos , Philip's brother-in-law and the son of the recently deposed Roman emperor Isaac II Angelos . Alexios IV had recently fled to Philip in 1201 but it is unknown whether or not Boniface knew he was at Philip's court. There, Alexios IV offered to pay

1040-799: A reality. So I too conclude with a wish: Next year in Constantinople , in Smyrna , in Trebizond ! Michaloliakos criticized Thessaloniki mayor Yiannis Boutaris for wanting to name a street after Atatürk, who was born in the city when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire. In January 2013, a group of Golden Dawn supporters attacked the car of Turkish consul-general Osman İlhan Şener and hurled insults at Atatürk, during an anti-Turkey protest in Komotini . Mihaloliakos has also called for

1170-545: A result, his domains almost completely surrounded the diminished Crusader states. Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, and aqueducts of classical Rome in working form. At its height,

1300-761: A series of reforms in society, as well as the military and administration, which helped Greece succeed in its goals during the Balkan Wars. Following the Greek gains in the Balkan Wars, the Ottomans began to persecute ethnic Greeks living in the Empire, which led to ethnic cleansing in the Greek genocide . This persecution continued into World War I when the Ottomans declared for the Central Powers on late 1914. Greece remained neutral until 1917 when they joined

1430-435: A serious hindrance to the crusaders. A fierce wind blew from the shore and prevented most of the ships from drawing close enough to the walls to launch an assault. Only five of the wall's towers were actually engaged and none of these could be secured; by mid-afternoon it was evident that the attack had failed. The Latin clergy discussed the situation amongst themselves and settled upon the message they wished to spread through

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1560-669: A significant escalation in longstanding tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. During the crusade, Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa , had almost besieged Constantinople because of the failure of the Byzantine government and Emperor, Isaac II Angelos to provide him with safe passage across the Dardanelles because Isaac was busy fighting a pretender named Theodore Mangaphas . The Byzantines for their part suspected him of conspiring with

1690-609: A tempting target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice . In 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup. Ascending as Alexios III Angelos , the new emperor had his brother blinded (a traditional punishment for treason, considered more humane than execution) and exiled. Ineffectual on the battlefield, Isaac had also proven to be an incompetent ruler who had let

1820-463: A tenth of the knights who had taken the cross in Flanders arrived to reinforce the remaining Christian states in the Holy Land, but over half of those from the Île-de-France did. All told, about 300 knights with their retinues from northern France made it to the Holy Land. Of the contingents from Burgundy, Occitania, Italy and Germany there is less information, but there were certainly defections among

1950-504: A truce with al-Adil of five years and eight months on 1 July 1198. The truce preserved the status quo: Jaffa remained in Ayyubid hands, but its destroyed fortifications could not be rebuilt; Beirut was left to the crusaders; and Sidon was placed under a revenue-sharing condominium. Before the expiration of the new truce on 1 March 1204, al-Adil succeeded in uniting the former empire of Saladin, acquiring Egypt in 1200 and Aleppo in 1202. As

2080-410: A young noble Nicolas Canabus as emperor, in what was to be one of the last known acts of this ancient institution. However he declined the appointment and sought church sanctuary. A nobleman Alexios Doukas (nicknamed Mourtzouphlos) became the leader of the anti-crusader faction within the Byzantine leadership. While holding the court rank of protovestilarios , Doukas had led Byzantine forces during

2210-525: Is enosis . The Byzantine Empire was Eastern Roman in origin and was called the "Roman Empire" by its inhabitants, though often not by the Latin West , which regarded it as Greek . After its fall, Hieronymus Wolf popularized the usage of "Byzantium". An informal cultural division had existed within the Roman Empire for centuries. Although Latin was the official language of the empire, Greek

2340-463: Is merely a part: the smallest, poorest part of Greece. The Greek is not only he who inhabits the Kingdom, but also he who inhabits Ioannina , Salonika or Serres or Adrianople or Constantinople or Trebizond or Crete or Samos or any other region belonging to the Greek history or the Greek race... There are two great centres of Hellenism. Athens is the capital of the Kingdom. Constantinople

2470-684: Is the great capital, the dream and hope of all Greeks." Kolettis voicing his convictions in the National Assembly in January 1844. After the Greek War of Independence ended in 1829, a new southern Greek state was established, with assistance from the British Empire , Kingdom of France , and Imperial Russia . However, this new Greek state under John Capodistrias after the Greek War of Independence was, with Serbia, one of

2600-766: The Allies . Refugees reports of Turkish atrocities as well as the Allied victory in World War I seemed to promise an even greater realization of the Megali Idea. Greece gained a foothold in Asia Minor with a protectorate over Smyrna and its hinterland. Following 5 years of Greek administration, a referendum was to be held to determine whether the territory would revert to Ottoman control or join Greece. Greece also gained

2730-656: The Balkan Wars of 1912–13 — southern Epirus , Crete , Lesbos , Chios , Ikaria , Samos , Samothrace , Lemnos and the majority of Macedonia were attached to Greece. Born and raised in Crete, in 1909 Venizelos was already a prominent Cretan and had influence in mainland Greece. As such, he was invited after the Goudi coup in 1909 by the Military League to become Prime Minister of Greece. Venizelos pressed forward

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2860-718: The Crusader states in the Levant. Jerusalem was lost to the Ayyubids as a result of the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 leading to the calling of the Third Crusade . The Crusader states were then reduced by Saladin to little more than three cities along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea: Tyre , Tripoli and Antioch . The Third Crusade (1189–1193) was launched in response to the fall of Jerusalem, with

2990-552: The Turkish War of Independence ). The war was concluded by the Treaty of Lausanne which saw Greece cede Eastern Thrace, Imbros, Tenedos and Smyrna to the nascent Turkish Republic. To avoid any further territorial claims, both Greece and Turkey engaged in an " exchange of populations ": During the conflict, 151,892 Greeks had already fled Asia Minor. The Treaty of Lausanne moved 1,104,216 Greeks from Turkey, while 380,000 Turks left

3120-588: The War of Independence in the 1820s through the Balkan wars in the beginning of the 20th century. It started to fade after the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) , followed by the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. Despite the end of the Megali Idea project in 1922, by then the Greek state had expanded four times, either through military conquest or diplomacy (often with British support). After

3250-674: The civil war initially put the Great Idea in the background. Nevertheless, another very good diplomatic performance by the Greek side at the Paris Peace Conference, 1946 secured a further enlargement of Greek territory, in the form of the Dodecanese Islands, despite the very strong opposition of Vyacheslav Molotov and the Soviet delegates. The British colony of Cyprus became the "apple of discord" between

3380-470: The Île-de-France , and Burgundy . Several other regions of Europe sent substantial contingents as well, such as Flanders and Montferrat . Other notable groups came from the Holy Roman Empire , including the men under Martin , abbot of Pairis Abbey and Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt , together in alliance with the Venetian soldiers and sailors led by the doge , Enrico Dandolo . The crusade

3510-410: The "Great Fire", which burnt from 19 to 21 August, destroying a large part of Constantinople and leaving an estimated 100,000 homeless. In January 1204, the blinded and incapacitated Isaac II died, probably of natural causes. Opposition to his son and co-emperor Alexios IV had grown during the preceding months of tension and spasmodic violence in and around Constantinople. The Byzantine Senate elected

3640-400: The "liberation" of Northern Epirus. Golden Dawn and its former Cypriot counterpart ELAM support enosis. In 2015, close to 100 Golden Dawn members and leaders were arrested on a range of charges, including murder and racketeering. In 2019, the party's level of support, slumped to less than 2%. In October 2020, most of Golden Dawn's leadership was convicted, including Michaloliakos. As of 2023,

3770-718: The Anatolian interior, cutting the empire off from a valuable source of manpower and tax revenue. In 1204 Constantinople was besieged and sacked during the Fourth Crusade and became the Capital of what has come to be known as the Latin Empire , a French dominated crusader state, until it was liberated by the Empire of Nicaea , the Byzantine state in exile, in 1261. However, Byzantine strength would rapidly diminish towards

3900-597: The Bulgarian refugees ca. 66,000 were from Greek Macedonia. The immediate reception of refugees to Greece cost 45 million francs, so the League of Nations arranged for a loan of 150 million francs to aid settlement of refugees. In 1930, Venizelos even went on an official visit to Turkey , where he proposed that Mustafa Kemal be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . The Greek novelist Yiorgos Theotokas described

4030-559: The Byzantine Empire in July 1261. The Fourth Crusade is considered to have solidified the East–West Schism . The crusade dealt an irrevocable blow to the Byzantine Empire, contributing to its decline and fall as all the unstable governments in the region, the Sack of Constantinople, and the thousands of deaths had left the region depleted of soldiers, resources, people, and money which left

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4160-526: The Byzantine Empire. Πάλι με χρόνια με καιρούς, ( Once more, as years and time go by, once more they shall be ours ). The Megali Idea implies establishing a Greek state, which would be a territory encompassing mostly the former Byzantine lands from the Ionian Sea in the west to Anatolia and the Black Sea to the east and from Thrace , Macedonia and Epirus in the north to Crete and Cyprus to

4290-479: The Crusader army. In January 1203, en route to Jerusalem, the Crusader leadership entered into an agreement with the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos to divert their main force to Constantinople and restore his deposed father Isaac II Angelos as emperor, who would then add his support to their invasion of Jerusalem. On 23 June 1203, the main Crusader army reached Constantinople, while other contingents (perhaps

4420-470: The Crusader forces viciously counterattacked, with most of the defenders being cut down or drowning in the Bosporus in their attempts to escape. The tower was swiftly taken as a result. The Golden Horn now lay open to the Crusaders, and the Venetian fleet entered. The Crusaders sailed alongside Constantinople with 10 galleys to display the would-be Alexios IV, but from the walls of the city citizens taunted

4550-537: The Crusaders back him in attacking the rebellious city of Zadar (Zara) on the eastern Adriatic coast. This led in November 1202 to the siege and sack of Zara , the first attack against a Catholic city by a Catholic Crusader army, despite Pope Innocent III 's calls for the Crusaders not to attack fellow Christians. The city was then brought under Venetian control. When the Pope heard of this, he temporarily excommunicated

4680-457: The Fourth Crusade went to the Holy Land, while only a minority participated in the attack on Constantinople. Villehardouin, however, regarded those who went to the Holy Land as deserters of the main army and its leadership and he may have exaggerated their number in order to magnify the accomplishments of the minority that besieged Constantinople. Modern historians have tended to disregard Villehardouin's claims. Steven Runciman thought that only

4810-547: The Franks" in Greek. The Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. In lieu of payment, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo proposed that

4940-593: The Greek army force from approaching Chania. At the same time their fleets blockaded Crete, preventing both Greeks and Turks from bringing any more troops to the island. The Ottoman Empire, in reaction to the rebellion of Crete and the assistance sent by Greece, relocated a significant part of its army in the Balkans to the north of Thessaly, close to the borders with Greece. Greece in reply reinforced its borders in Thessaly. However, irregular Greek forces and followers of

5070-731: The Greek state, and subsequently revive the Byzantine Empire ; it applied specifically to the Greeks in Epirus , Thessaly , Macedonia , Thrace , the Aegean Islands , Crete , Cyprus , parts of Anatolia , and the city of Constantinople (which would replace Athens as the capital). When the young Danish prince Wilhelm Georg was elected king in 1863, the title offered to him by the Greek National Assembly

5200-566: The Greek territory for Turkey. The transfers ended any further appetite for pursuing the concept of a Greater Greece and ended the 3000 year Greek habitation of Asia Minor. Further population exchanges occurred after World War I, including 40,027 Greeks from Bulgaria, 58,522 from Russia (because of the defeat of the White Army led by Pyotr Wrangel ) and 10,080 from other lands (for example Dodecanese or Albania ), while 70,000 Bulgarians from Thrace and Macedonia had moved to Bulgaria . From

5330-512: The Holy Land (1095–1291) Later Crusades (1291–1717) Northern (1147–1410) Against Christians (1209–1588) Popular (1096–1320) The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III . The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim -controlled city of Jerusalem , by first defeating

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5460-423: The Megali Idea acted without orders and raided Turkish outposts, leading the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Greece; the war is known as the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 . The Turkish army, far outnumbering the Greek, was also better prepared, due to the recent reforms carried out by a German mission under Baron von der Goltz . The Greek army fell back in retreat. The other Great Powers then intervened and an armistice

5590-667: The Occitan and German contingents. A large sum of money raised by the preacher Fulk of Neuilly did reach the Holy Land. Before his death in May 1202, Fulk gave the money to the Abbey of Cîteaux . Abbot Arnaud Amalric sent it to Acre in two installments. It was used to repair walls, towers and other defences that had been damaged by the earthquake of May 1202 . A second wall was even added at Acre sometime before 1212. Several crusaders, instead of going on to Venice, turned south at Piacenza in

5720-577: The Ottoman period, Greek-speaking Christians identified as Romans and thought of themselves as the descendants of the Roman Empire (including the medieval Eastern Roman Empire ). The term Roman was often interpreted as synonymous with Christian throughout Europe and the Mediterranean during this time. The terms Greek or Hellene were largely seen by Ottoman Christians as referring to

5850-557: The Royalist Governments of Greece to save the situation, the failure of King Constantine's attempt to take Constantinople, and the final Catastrophe. In mid-August Mustapha Kemal broke through the Greek front and the Greek army, exhausted by ten years of warfare and the privations of the Asia Minor campaign, was vanquished in two weeks. The Turks, advancing rapidly, recaptured in quick succession Afion-Karahisar, Eski-Shehir, Kiutahia, Brussa, Oushak—and then Smyrna! Once again

5980-623: The St. Romanus Gate, vastly outnumbering the crusaders. Alexios III's army of about 8,500 men faced the Crusaders' seven divisions (about 3,500 men), but his courage failed, and the Byzantine army returned to the city without a fight. The unforced retreat and the effects of the fire greatly damaged morale, and the disgraced Alexios III abandoned his subjects, slipping out of the city and fleeing to Mosynopolis in Thrace . The Imperial officials quickly deposed their runaway emperor and restored Isaac II, robbing

6110-420: The State, flooded as it was by the thousands of fleeting soldiers and refugees who sought shelter on the Greek coasts.The nation was plunged into deep despair... Greece had lost her big gamble and had been uprooted from Asia Minor. St. Sophia remained in the hands of the Moslems. The brilliant plans of 1918 were mocking visions, hallucinations, dreams. And the return of reality was truly heartbreaking. The tale of

6240-409: The Venetians had an appreciation for the art which they discovered (they were themselves semi-Byzantines) and saved much of it, the French and others destroyed indiscriminately, halting to refresh themselves with wine, violation of nuns, and murder of Orthodox clerics. The Crusaders vented their hatred for the Greeks most spectacularly in the desecration of the greatest Church in Christendom. They smashed

6370-401: The Venetians took a section of the wall of about 25 towers, while the Varangian guard held off the Crusaders on the land wall. The Varangians shifted to meet the new threat, and the Venetians retreated under the screen of fire. The fire destroyed about 120 acres (0.49 km ) of the city and left some 20,000 people homeless. Alexios III finally took offensive action, leading 17 divisions from

6500-405: The Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, though there was fighting with the Byzantine infantry. The remaining Anglo-Saxon "axe bearers" had been amongst the most effective of the city's defenders, but they now attempted to negotiate higher wages from their Byzantine employers, before dispersing or surrendering. The crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in

6630-456: The advent of the "Third Hellenic Civilization", similar to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich (influenced by pan-Germanism ). The attack by Italy from Albania and the Greek victories enabled Greece to conquer, during the winter of 1940–1941, parts of southern Albania ( Northern Epirus , as it is identified by Greeks ) which were administered as a province of Greece for a short time until the German offensive of April 1941. The occupation, resistance and

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6760-409: The ancient pagan peoples of the region. This changed during the late stages of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the Greek independence movement. For much of the period of the Tourkokratia , the Russians were viewed by the Greeks as the xanthon genos , a fair-haired race and the sole Orthodox power that would liberate Constantinople from the Ottomans. "The Kingdom of Greece is not Greece; it

6890-428: The army in time. The bulk of the army arrived at Zara on 10–11 November 1202 and the attack proceeded. The citizens of Zara made reference to the fact that they were fellow Catholics by hanging banners marked with crosses from their windows and the walls of the city, but nevertheless the city fell on 24 November 1202 after a brief siege. There was extensive pillaging, and the Venetians and other crusaders came to blows over

7020-403: The army, the leaders of the crusade decided not to inform their followers of this. Regarding the Crusaders as having been coerced by the Venetians, in February 1203 he rescinded the excommunications against all non-Venetians in the expedition. The commercial rivalry between the Republic of Venice and the Byzantine Empire and the living memory of the Massacre of the Latins did much to exacerbate

7150-426: The banners of Islam floated proudly, tauntingly, over the Aegean coast opposite Chios and Mytilene. The whole of Ionia was in flames. Slaughter and pillage descended on the smiling city of Smyrna and in a few short days turned it into a ruin...As day succeeded day, Greece seemed to have become paralyzed, to have lost all will, all ability to resist the blows of fate. The swiftness of the catastrophe completely overwhelmed

7280-425: The breakaway Byzantine provinces of Serbia and Bulgaria as Frederick Barbarossa was on friendly terms with Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of Serbia and also got a letter getting support and fealty from Tsar Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria. King Richard I Lionheart of England also seized the breakaway Eastern Roman province of Cyprus . Rather than return it to the Empire (and realizing his inability to govern it), he gave

7410-533: The city had a population of approximately 500,000 people, a garrison of 15,000 men (including 5,000 Varangians ), and a fleet of 20 galleys. For both political and financial reasons, the permanent garrison of Constantinople had been limited to a relatively small force, made up of elite guards and other specialist units. At previous times in East Roman and Byzantine history when the capital had come under direct threat, it had been possible to assemble reinforcements from frontier and provincial forces. On this occasion,

7540-435: The city was economically independent, under the protection of the King. King Emeric was Catholic and had himself taken the cross in 1195 or 1196. Many of the crusaders were opposed to attacking Zara, and some, including a force led by the elder Simon de Montfort , refused to participate altogether and returned home or went to the Holy Land on their own. While the Papal legate to the Crusade, Cardinal Peter of Capua , endorsed

7670-410: The city was home to an estimated population of about half a million people protected by 20 km (around 13 miles) of triple walls. Its planned location made Constantinople not only the capital of the surviving eastern part of the Roman Empire but also a commercial centre that dominated trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, China, India and Persia. As a result, it was both a rival and

7800-411: The city's enormous wealth. Only a handful of the Crusaders continued to the Holy Land thereafter. Several prominent Crusaders, including Enguerrand III, Lord of Coucy , Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester and Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay , among others, disagreed with the attacks on Zara and Constantinople, refused to take part in them and left the crusade. The conquest of Constantinople was followed by

7930-431: The city, would not have been as cruel as the Latin Christians. The defeat of Byzantium, already in a state of decline, accelerated political degeneration so that the Byzantines eventually became easy prey to the Turks. The Fourth Crusade and the crusading movement generally thus resulted, ultimately, in the victory of Islam, a result which was of course the exact opposite of its original intention. When Innocent III heard of

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8060-463: The city. The crusaders and Venetians, incensed at the murder of their supposed patron, demanded that Mourtzouphlos honour the contract that Alexios IV had promised. When the emperor refused, the Crusaders assaulted the city once again. On 8 April Alexios V's army put up a strong resistance, which did much to discourage the crusaders. The Byzantines hurled large projectiles onto the enemy siege engines, shattering many of them. Bad weather conditions were

8190-626: The city; although it would continue to have a considerable Greek speaking population and the Patriarch of Constantinople continued to reside in the city. Under the millet system which was in force during the Ottoman Empire , the population was classified according to religion rather than language or ethnicity. Orthodox Greeks were seen as part of the millet-i Rûm (literally "Roman community") which included all Orthodox Christians , including beside Greeks also Bulgarians , Serbs , Vlachs , Slavs , Georgians , Romanians and Albanians , despite their differences in ethnicity and language and despite

8320-466: The civilian population of the city were killed and their property looted. Despite the threat of excommunication, the crusaders destroyed, defiled and looted the city's churches and monasteries. It was said that the total amount looted from Constantinople was about 900,000 silver marks. The Venetians received 150,000 silver marks that were their due, while the crusaders received 50,000 silver marks. A further 100,000 silver marks were divided evenly up between

8450-406: The co-emperor's absence in August, rioting broke out in the city and a number of Latin residents were killed. In retaliation armed Venetians and other crusaders entered the city from the Golden Horn and attacked a mosque (Constantinople at this time had a sizable Muslim population), which was defended by Muslim and Byzantine Greek residents . In order to cover their retreat the Westerners instigated

8580-402: The conduct of his pilgrims he was filled with shame and rage, and he strongly rebuked them. The main army that sailed from Venice to Constantinople experienced several waves of defections as men sought to fulfill their vows independently of the leadership. Most of them sailed directly from ports in Apulia (southern Italy) to Acre. According to Villehardouin, the majority of those who set out on

8710-408: The creation of Greece in 1830, it acquired the Ionian Islands ( Treaty of London, 1864 ), Thessaly ( Convention of Constantinople (1881) ), Macedonia , Crete , (southern) Epirus and the Eastern Aegean Islands ( Treaty of Bucharest ), and Western Thrace ( Treaty of Neuilly , 1920). The Dodecanese were acquired after the Second World War ( Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947 ). A related concept

8840-459: The creation of a revanchist climate in Greece, imposed what they thought of as a lasting solution; Crete was proclaimed an autonomous Cretan State . The four Great Powers assumed the administration of Crete; and, in a decisive diplomatic victory for Greece, Prince George of Greece (second son of King George I) became High Commissioner. A major proponent of the Megali Idea was Eleftherios Venizelos , under whose leadership Greek territory doubled in

8970-511: The crusade during a public ceremony in the church of San Marco di Venezia , proposed that the crusaders pay their debts by intimidating many of the local ports and towns down the Adriatic, culminating in an attack on the port of Zara in Dalmatia . The city had been dominated economically by Venice throughout the 12th century but had rebelled in 1181 and allied itself with King Emeric of Hungary and Croatia . Subsequent Venetian attempts to recover control of Zara had been repulsed, and by 1202

9100-402: The crusader army was collected at Venice, although with far smaller numbers than expected: about 12,000 (4–5,000 knights and 8,000 foot soldiers) instead of 33,500. The Venetians had performed their part of the agreement: there awaited 50 war galleys and 450 transports – enough for three times the assembled army. The Venetians, under their aged and blind Doge Dandolo, would not let

9230-403: The crusaders and Venetians. The remaining 500,000 silver marks were secretly kept back by many crusader knights. The eyewitness accounts of Niketas Choniates , Geoffrey of Villehardouin , Robert of Clari , and the anonymous Latin author of the Devastatio Constantinopolitana all accuse the crusaders of egregious rapacity. Speros Vryonis in Byzantium and Europe gives a vivid account of

9360-403: The crusaders leave without paying the full amount agreed to, originally 85,000 silver marks . The crusaders could only initially pay 35,000 silver marks. The Doge threatened to keep them interned unless full payment was made so a further 14,000 marks were collected, and that only by reducing the crusaders to extreme poverty. This was disastrous to the Venetians, who had halted their commerce for

9490-656: The crusaders of the pretext for attack. The crusaders were now in the quandary of having achieved their stated aim while being debarred from the actual objective, namely the reward that the younger Alexios had (unbeknownst to the Romans) promised them. The crusaders insisted that they would only recognize the authority of Isaac II if his son was raised to co-emperor, and on 1 August the latter was crowned as Alexios Angelos IV, co-emperor. Alexios IV realised that his promises were hard to keep. Alexios III had managed to flee with 1,000 pounds of gold and some priceless jewels, leaving

9620-515: The crusaders' fleet, the Aquila (Eagle), broke the chain. A section of it was then sent to Acre to boost the defences in the Holy Land. As the crusaders laid siege to the Tower of Galata, the defenders routinely attempted to sally out with some limited success, but often suffered bloody losses. On one occasion the defenders sallied out but were unable to retreat back to the safety of the tower in time,

9750-479: The decline of the Roman state". Forcing the populace to destroy their icons at the behest of an army of foreign schismatics did not endear Alexios IV to the citizens of Constantinople. In fear of his life, the co-emperor asked the crusaders to renew their contract for another six months, to end by April 1204. Alexios IV then led 6,000 men from the Crusader army against his rival Alexios III in Adrianople. During

9880-402: The demoralised army. They had to convince the men that the events of 9 April were not God's judgment on a sinful enterprise: the campaign, they argued, was righteous and with proper belief it would succeed. The concept of God testing the determination of the crusaders through temporary setbacks was a familiar means for the clergy to explain failure in the course of a campaign. The clergy's message

10010-457: The division of the spoils. Order was achieved, and the leaders of the expedition agreed to winter in Zara, while considering their next move. The fortifications of Zara were demolished by the Venetians. When Innocent III heard of the sack, he sent a letter to the crusaders excommunicating them and ordering them to return to their holy vows and head for Jerusalem. Out of fear that this would dissolve

10140-475: The early decades of independent statehood, the title of prime minister has been the formal designation of the office at least since 1843. On dates, Greece officially adopted the Gregorian calendar on 16 February 1923 (which became 1 March). All dates prior to that, unless specifically denoted, are Old Style . The heads of government of the provisional Greek state during the Greek War of Independence , and

10270-462: The end of the 13th century and evaporated almost entirely during the 14th century, to the extent that by 1400 little remained of the Empire except Constantinople, the city’s immediate surroundings and some small territories in modern-day Greece. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks besieged and captured Constantinople officially marking the end of the Roman Empire and also the end of Greek predominance in

10400-694: The entire debt owed to the Venetians, give 200,000 silver marks to the crusaders, 10,000 Byzantine professional troops for the Crusade, the maintenance of 500 knights in the Holy Land, the service of the Byzantine navy to transport the Crusader Army to Egypt, and the placement of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the authority of the Pope, if they would sail to Constantinople and topple the reigning emperor Alexios III Angelos , brother of Isaac II. This offer, tempting for an enterprise that

10530-462: The fact that the religious hierarchy was Greek dominated. It is not clear to what extent one can speak of a Greek identity during those times as opposed to a Christian or Orthodox identity. In the late 1780s, Catherine II of Russia and Joseph II of Austria intended to reclaim the Byzantine heritage and restore the Greek statehood as part of their joint Greek Plan . During the Middle Ages and

10660-821: The feeling of animosity among the Venetians towards the Byzantine Greeks . According to the Chronicle of Novgorod Doge Enrico Dandolo had been blinded by the Emperor Manuel I Komnenos the Great while part of an embassy to Constantinople in 1171, and accordingly held personal enmity towards the Byzantines. Boniface of Montferrat , meanwhile, had left the fleet before it sailed from Venice, to visit his cousin Philip of Swabia . The reasons for his visit are

10790-559: The fleet's equipment down to the very nails to enrich himself. Pope Innocent III succeeded to the papacy in January 1198, and the preaching of a new crusade became the prime goal of his pontificate, expounded in his bull Post miserabile . His call was largely ignored by the European monarchs: the Germans were struggling against Papal power, and England and France were still engaged in warfare against each other . However, due to

10920-728: The fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire into three states centered in Nicaea , Trebizond and Epirus . The Crusaders then founded several new Crusader states, known as Frankokratia , in former Roman territory, largely hinged upon the Latin Empire of Constantinople . The presence of the Latin Crusader states almost immediately led to war with the Byzantine successor states and with the Bulgarian Empire . The Nicaean Empire eventually recovered Constantinople and restored

11050-486: The goal of recovering the city. It successfully reclaimed an extensive territory, effectively reestablishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem . Although Jerusalem itself was not recovered, the important coastal towns of Acre and Jaffa were. On 2 September 1192, the Treaty of Jaffa was signed with Saladin, bringing the crusade to an end. The truce would last for three years and eight months. The crusade had also been marked by

11180-470: The great city. They won a cavalry skirmish in which they were outnumbered, defeating 500 Byzantines with just 80 Frankish knights. To take the city by force, the crusaders first needed to cross the Bosphorus . About 200 ships, horse transports, and galleys delivered the crusading army across the narrow strait, where Alexios III had lined up the Byzantine army in battle formation along the shore, north of

11310-469: The imperial treasury short on funds. At that point the young emperor ordered the destruction and melting of valuable Roman icons in order to extract their gold and silver, but even then he could only raise 100,000 silver marks. In the eyes of all Greeks who knew of this decision, it was a shocking sign of desperation and weak leadership, which deserved to be punished by God. The Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates characterized it as "the turning point towards

11440-408: The initial clashes with the crusaders, winning respect from both military and populace. He was accordingly well-placed to move against the increasingly isolated Alexios IV, whom he overthrew, imprisoned, and had strangled in early February. Doukas then was crowned as Emperor Alexios V Doukas Mourtzouphlos. He immediately moved to have the city fortifications strengthened and summoned additional forces to

11570-448: The island to Guy of Lusignan , the former king of Jerusalem, who lost the crown to a former Eastern Roman ally, Conrad of Montferrat . Saladin died on 4 March 1193, before the expiration of the truces, and his empire was contested and divided between three of his sons and two of his brothers. The new ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Henry II of Champagne , signed an extension of the truce with Egyptian Sultan al-Aziz Uthman . In 1197,

11700-550: The island, but they were too late. A Greek force of 1,500 men had landed at Kolymbari on 1 February 1897, and its commanding officer, Colonel Timoleon Vassos , declared that he was taking over the island "in the name of the King of the Hellenes" and that he was announcing the union of Crete with Greece. This led to an uprising that spread immediately throughout the island. The Great Powers finally decided to land their troops and stopped

11830-525: The islands of Imbros and Tenedos , Western and Eastern Thrace , the border then drawn a few miles from the walls of Constantinople . Greece's efforts to take control of Smyrna in accordance with the Treaty of Sèvres were thwarted by Turkish revolutionaries , who were resisting the Allies. The Turks finally prevailed and expelled the Greeks from Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) (part of

11960-477: The last great wave of migration from Turkey to Greece. The Zürich Agreement of 1959 culminated in independence of the island with Greece, Turkey and UK as guarantee powers. The inter-ethnic clashes from 1960 led to the dispatch of a peacekeeping force of the United Nations in 1964. The Cyprus issue was revived by the dictatorship of the colonels , who presented their April 21, 1967, coup d'état as

12090-556: The move as necessary to prevent the crusade's complete failure, the Pope was alarmed at this development and wrote a letter to the crusading leadership threatening excommunication . In 1202, Pope Innocent III, despite wanting to secure papal authority over the Roman Orthodox Church , forbade the crusaders of Western Christendom from committing any atrocious acts against their Christian neighbours. However, this letter, delivered by Peter of Lucedio , may not have reached

12220-418: The northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city. While attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire, however, they burned even more of the city. This second fire left 15,000 people homeless. The crusaders completely took the city on 13 April. The crusaders sacked Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Greco-Roman works of art were stolen or ruined. Many of

12350-540: The official language in AD 620. Byzantium held out against numerous invasions over the centuries and during the 10th and early 11th centuries managed to reclaim considerable territory in the Balkans, Anatolia and to a lesser extent Syria. The Turkish invasion of the mid to late 11th century however greatly weakened the Empire and, although it partially recovered under the Komnenos dynasty , it never managed to regain control of

12480-460: The only two countries of the era whose population was smaller than the population of the same ethnicity outside its borders; most ethnic Greeks still resided within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. This version of Greece was designed by the Great Powers , who had no desire to see a larger Greek state replace the Ottoman Empire. The Great Idea embodied a desire to bring all ethnic Greeks into

12610-423: The only way to defend the traditional values of what they called the "Hellenic-Christian Civilization". Brigadier General Ioannidis arranged, in July 1974, to overthrow Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios , and proceed with Enosis (union with Greece). This led to Turkey invading the island in response, with the expulsion of Greek Cypriots in areas controlled by Turkey, and the flight of Turkish Cypriots from

12740-496: The papal letter was suppressed by the clergy, and the crusaders prepared for their own attack, while the Venetians attacked from the sea. Alexios V's army stayed in the city to fight, but when the unpaid Varangians left the city, Alexios V himself fled during the night. An attempt was made to find a further replacement emperor from amongst the Byzantine Greek nobility, but the situation had now become too chaotic for either of

12870-521: The part of the Venetians to build numerous ships and train the sailors who would man them, all the while curtailing the city's commercial activities. The crusading army was expected to consist of 4,500 knights (as well as 4,500 horses), 9,000 squires, and 20,000 foot-soldiers. The majority of the crusading army that set out from Venice in early October 1202 originated from areas within France. It included men from Blois , Champagne , Amiens , Saint-Pol ,

13000-538: The party, which never enjoyed electoral support above 10% of the popular vote, now has no remaining members in either the Hellenic or European Parliament. Prime Ministers of Greece This is a list of the heads of government of the modern Greek state , from its establishment during the Greek Revolution to the present day. Although various official and semi-official appellations were used during

13130-485: The peace was interrupted by the arrival of the German Crusade of 1197. Without the permission of Henry, the Germans attacked the territory of al-Adil I of Damascus , who responded by attacking Jaffa. The sudden death of Henry prevented the relief of the port and the city was taken by force. The Germans did, however, succeed in capturing Beirut in the north. Henry was succeeded by Aimery of Cyprus , who signed

13260-579: The population. Massacres of the Christian population took place in Chania and Rethimno. The Greek government, pressured by public opinion, intransigent political elements, extreme nationalist groups (e.g. Ethniki Etairia ) and with the Great Powers reluctant to intervene, decided to send warships and personnel to assist the Cretans. The Great Powers had no option then but to proceed with the occupation of

13390-495: The powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate . However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople , rather than the conquest of Egypt as originally planned. This led to the Partitio terrarum imperii Romaniae or the partition of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders and their Venetian allies leading to a period known as Frankokratia , or "Rule of

13520-489: The preaching of Fulk of Neuilly , a crusading army was finally organised at a tournament held at Écry-sur-Aisne by Count Thibaut of Champagne in 1199. Thibaut was elected leader, but he died in 1201 and was replaced by Boniface of Montferrat . Boniface was the brother of Conrad of Montferrat and succeeded Conrad as marquis of Montferrat after he had died at Tyre. Boniface and the other leaders sent envoys to Venice , Genoa , and other city-states in 1200 to negotiate

13650-410: The psychological impact of the defeat of 1922: "For a short time, while the Treaty of Serves ran its joyful but uncertain course, it seemed to them that the...long-buried hopes of their ancestors were to be fulfilled. But the terrible summer of 1922 came all too soon. From the hermitage of Arsenios they watched, tense with anxiety, the daily unfolding of the national tragedy, the last desperate efforts of

13780-524: The puzzled crusaders, who had been led to believe that they would rise up to welcome the young pretender Alexios as a liberator. On 11 July, the Crusaders took positions opposite the Palace of Blachernae on the northwest corner of the city. Their first attacks were repulsed, but on 17 July, with four divisions attacking the land walls while the Venetian fleet attacked the sea walls from the Golden Horn,

13910-505: The region vulnerable to attack. Additionally, the empire had badly shrunk as it lost control of most of the Balkans, Anatolia, and Aegean islands. This made the empire, once eventually restored, both territorially diminished and vulnerable to invasions from the expanding Ottomans in the following centuries, to which the Byzantines ultimately succumbed in 1453 . In 1187, the Ayyubid Sultanate under Saladin conquered most of

14040-518: The sack: The Latin soldiery subjected the greatest city in Europe to an indescribable sack. For three days they murdered, raped, looted and destroyed on a scale which even the ancient Vandals and Goths would have found unbelievable. Constantinople had become a veritable museum of ancient and Byzantine art, an emporium of such incredible wealth that the Latins were astounded at the riches they found. Though

14170-518: The silver iconostasis, the icons and the holy books of Hagia Sophia , and seated upon the patriarchal throne a whore who sang coarse songs as they drank wine from the Church's holy vessels. The estrangement of East and West, which had proceeded over the centuries, culminated in the horrible massacre that accompanied the conquest of Constantinople. The Greeks were convinced that even the Turks, had they taken

14300-575: The south. In 1983, the north declared independence and to this day, Turkey is the only country that recognizes Northern Cyprus . The ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party , which had electoral support from 2010 to 2019, supports the Megali Idea, with party leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos stating: For two thousand years, the Jews would say a wish during their festivals, " next year in Jerusalem ", and ultimately after many centuries they managed to make it

14430-490: The south. This new state would have Constantinople as its capital: it would be the "Greece of Two Continents and Five Seas" ( Europe and Asia , the Ionian, Aegean , Marmara , Black and Libyan Seas). If realized, this would expand modern Greece to roughly the same size and extent of the later Byzantine Empire, after its restoration in 1261 AD. The Megali Idea dominated foreign policy and domestic politics of Greece from

14560-666: The subsequent Hellenic State . The heads of government during the period of the Wittelsbach dynasty. The heads of government during the first period of the Glücksburg dynasty. The heads of government during the second period of the Glücksburg dynasty, including the rival governments during the Second World War and the Civil War, as well as the 1967–74 military regime. Fourth Crusade Holy Land: In

14690-510: The suburb of Galata. The Crusader knights charged straight out of the horse transports, and the Byzantine army fled south. The Crusaders followed and attacked the Tower of Galata , which held the northern end of the massive chain that blocked access to the Golden Horn . The Tower of Galata held a garrison of mercenary troops of English, Danish, and Italian origin. On 6 July the largest ship in

14820-542: The suddenness of the danger posed by the Fourth Crusade put the defenders at a serious disadvantage. The main objective of the crusaders was to place Alexios IV on the Byzantine throne so that they could receive the rich payments he had promised them. Conon of Bethune delivered this ultimatum to the Lombard envoy sent by the Emperor Alexios III Angelos , who was the pretender's uncle and had seized

14950-432: The summer of 1202 intending to go directly to the Holy Land from ports in southern Italy. Among them were Vilain of Nully , Henry of Arzillières , Renard II of Dampierre , Henry of Longchamp and Giles of Trasignies with their retinues. They do not seem to have been acting in concert or travelling together. Ultimately, several hundred knights and accompanying infantry reached the Holy Land via south Italian ports. The force

15080-493: The throne from the pretender's father Isaac II. The citizens of Constantinople were not concerned with the cause of the deposed emperor and his exiled son; hereditary right of succession had never been adopted by the empire and a palace coup between brothers was not considered illegitimate in the way it would have been in the West. First the crusaders attacked and were repulsed from the cities of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis , suburbs of

15210-569: The treasury dwindle and outsourced the navy to the Venetians. His actions in wastefully distributing military weapons and supplies as gifts to his supporters had undermined the empire's defenses. The new emperor was to prove no better. Anxious to shore up his position, Alexios bankrupted the treasury. His attempts to secure the support of semi-autonomous border commanders undermined central authority. He neglected his crucial responsibilities for defence and diplomacy. The emperor's chief admiral (his wife's brother-in-law), Michael Stryphnos , reportedly sold

15340-667: The troops and giving the church to the Holy See. Count Boniface agreed and Alexios IV returned with the Marquess to rejoin the fleet at Corfu after it had sailed from Zara. Most of the rest of the crusade's leaders, encouraged by bribes from Dandolo, eventually accepted the plan as well. However, there were dissenters. Led by Renaud of Montmirail , those who refused to take part in the scheme to attack Constantinople sailed on to Syria. The remaining fleet of 60 war galleys , 100 horse transports , and 50 large transports (the entire fleet

15470-409: The two candidates who came forward to find sufficient support. On 12 April 1204, the weather conditions finally favoured the crusaders. A strong northern wind aided the Venetian ships in coming close to the walls, and after a short battle approximately seventy crusaders managed to enter the city. Some were able to knock holes in the walls, large enough for only a few knights at a time to crawl through;

15600-525: The two countries, putting an end to the positive Greco-Turkish relations that had existed since the Kemal-Venizelos agreement in the 1930s. In 1955, a Greek army colonel of Greek Cypriot origin, George Grivas , began a campaign of civil disobedience whose purpose was primarily to drive the British from the island, then move for Enosis with Greece. The Greek prime minister, Alexandros Papagos ,

15730-489: The years was not yet told, then, the historic hour, the fulfillment of the Great Idea, the moment they had longed for with such faith and such anxiety for five tortured, bloody centuries, had not yet come! It was all a lie!" Although the Great Idea ceased to be a driving force behind Greek foreign policy, some remnants continued to influence Greek foreign policy throughout the remainder of the 20th century. Thus, after his coup d'état of 4 August 1936, Ioannis Metaxas proclaimed

15860-606: Was not "King of Greece", the title of his deposed predecessor, King Otto ; but rather "King of the Hellenes ". Implicit in the wording was that George I was to be king of all Greeks, regardless of whether they then lived within the borders of his new kingdom. The first additional areas to be incorporated into the Kingdom were the Ionian islands in 1864, and later Thessaly with the 1878 Treaty of Berlin . In January 1897, violence and disorder were escalating in Crete, polarizing

15990-476: Was designed to reassure and encourage the Crusaders. Their argument that the attack on Constantinople was spiritual revolved around two themes. First, the Greeks were traitors and murderers since they had killed their rightful lord, Alexios IV. The churchmen used inflammatory language and claimed that "the Greeks were worse than the Jews", and they invoked the authority of God and the pope to take action. Although Innocent III had again demanded that they not attack,

16120-421: Was manned by 10,000 Venetian oarsmen and marines) sailed in late April 1203. In addition, 300 siege engines were brought along on board the fleet. Hearing of their decision, the Pope hedged and issued an order against any more attacks on Christians unless they were actively hindering the Crusader cause, but he did not condemn the scheme outright. When the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople on 23 June 1203,

16250-597: Was not unfavourable to this idea. There was increasing polarisation of opinion between the dominant Greek population and the minority Turks. The problems in Cyprus affected the continent itself. In September 1955, in response to the demand for Énosis , an anti-Greek riot took place in Istanbul. During the Istanbul Pogrom 4,000 stores, 100 hotels and restaurants and 70 churches were destroyed or damaged. This led to

16380-436: Was short on funds, reached the leaders of the Crusade on 1 January 1203 as they wintered at Zara. Doge Dandolo was a fierce supporter of the plan; however, in his earlier capacity as an ambassador to the Byzantine Empire and someone who knew the finer details of how the empire's politics worked, it is likely he knew the promises were false and there was no hope of any Byzantine emperor raising the money promised, let alone raising

16510-639: Was signed in May 1897. The war, however, only ended in December of that year. The military failure in the Greco-Turkish war cost Greece small territorial losses along the border line in northern Thessaly, and a large sum of financial reparations that wrecked Greece's economy for years, while giving no lasting solution to the Cretan Question. The Great Powers (Britain, France, Russia, and Italy) in order to prevent future clashes and trying to avoid

16640-540: Was so small that King Aimery of Jerusalem refused to break his truce with the Ayyubids to allow them to go to war, despite the pleas of Renard, who was fulfilling the crusading vow of the late Count Theobald III of Champagne and possessed ample funds. As a result, eighty crusaders under Renard decided to go to the Principality of Antioch , which had no such truce. Advised against such a move, they were ambushed on

16770-588: Was the lingua franca in the East and was regularly used alongside Latin in official business. The division of the Empire following the death of Emperor Theodosius in AD 395 added a formal political layer to the informal cultural division. Following the adoption of Christianity in the 4th century, Greek was also the dominant liturgical language, as exemplified by the fact the New Testament was written in Greek. These factors ultimately led to Greek replacing Latin as

16900-401: Was to be ready to sail on 24 June 1203 and make directly for the Ayyubid capital, Cairo . This agreement was ratified by Pope Innocent, with a solemn ban on attacks on Christian states. There was no binding agreement among the crusaders that all should sail from Venice. Accordingly, many chose to sail from other ports, particularly Flanders , Marseille , and Genoa . By May 1202, the bulk of

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