A Concise History of Greece

A Concise History of Greece

An Analytical Essay

            In his critically acclaimed book, A Concise History of Greece, Richard Clogg presents the reader with a brilliant, if not thoroughly detailed, historiographical text recounting the development of Greece in the modern and post-modern era. Clogg, Senior Research Fellow at St. Antony’s College in Oxford, England, specializes in Modern Greece. This period of Greek history covers events after the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire to present. His work was awarded the Runciman Prize for the best book on a Hellenic topic published in 1992. In this work, Clogg attempts to retrace the history of Greek national development from the first days under Ottoman rule until the late twentieth century and their incorporation, along with the Republic of Turkey, in NATO. Professor Clogg draws from nearly one hundred other texts in his presentation of Greek history, and while his complete bibliography is too large and unwieldy to recap for the purposes of this paper, it should suffice to say that there has been no shortage of research in the compilation of his work. The book’s central argument has a very interesting dichotomy. On the one hand Richard Clogg attempts to show, by retracing its modern development from an occupied territory to a sovereign nation, that the single most important factor in Greece’s progression was its enormously influential heritage and history. On the other hand, however, he also – very subtly – points to a shared path between Greece and Turkey as inseparable and symbiotically connected.

            Clogg begins exactly where a modern Greek historian would be expected to begin: at the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and jumps directly into the fray that was Ottoman rule in Greece. While it is unsurprising, it is also disappointing that Clogg did not spend his first chapter introducing the classical and Byzantine heritage that he intends to prove was so significant in its modern development. By beginning at the beginning of the modern period, it seemed as though he robbed the text (and, subsequently, the reader) of a sturdy foundation for his thesis. It could be said that his expectation in the writing of this text was that he believed the reader would come to it with even the most meager knowledge of medieval and ancient history, as he addresses previous periods with the kind of familiarity that only an educated reader would be able to identify with. It is also particularly disappointing that, in many respects, Clogg “glosses over” – in one chapter – 368 years of Greek history under Ottoman rule. In thirty-nine short pages, Clogg – expertly enough – reduces the Ottoman period into a mere backdrop for the revival of Greek national consciousness during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. As to the hegemony of the Ottoman Sultan in Greece itself, Clogg seems to condense it to – at best – a welcome buffer from potentially dangerous social innovations in Western Europe or – at worst – a mild irritation. This is all to say, of course, that Clogg’s views in this book – while thorough and concise, as the title suggests – are unsurprisingly philo-Hellenic. Despite that, however, Clogg does provide an even-handed appraisal of Ottoman rule in Greece on historiographical terms. He cites the cosmopolitan approach of Mehmed II in the creation and fostering of ethno-religious millets, and also accurately portrays the contrast of Ottoman Muslim respect for Orthodox Christianity versus European Catholic pressure for “reunification.” He skillfully incorporates the various imperialistic power struggles that played themselves out in the Balkans (whether they be Ottoman, Habsburg, or Russian) and conveys a correct picture of the Balkans as being caught in a near-permanent state of “frontier” between major powers, a theme that is carried even into the twenty-first century. Moreover, Clogg provides an interesting appraisal of the Phanariot class. These Phanariots were, especially in the nineteenth century, beneficiaries from the new class of ayan within the Empire. They were politically conservative in orientation, favoring the status quo of Ottoman imperial administration to the national dialogue of independence and populism, and they attained great prestige and power within the Ottoman bureaucracy as they were responsible – in the least sense as interpreters – for helping to shape foreign policy.

            Clogg is able to draw, perhaps unintentionally, a close comparison between eighteenth-nineteenth century Greece and fifteenth-sixteenth century Tuscany. Both societies, due to skilled economic and mercantile maneuvering, were able to make special use of their Mediterranean ports in order to dominate sea trade from east-to-west. Many of these sea merchants used their new fortunes in order to procure first-class educations for their children in Western Europe, especially in German universities. It was through this academic diaspora that the subsequent generations of Greek leaders were first introduced to the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, of “romantic nationalism”, and – most especially – of “the extraordinary hold which the language and civilization of ancient Greece had over the minds of their educated European contemporaries” (27). The emergence of national and cultural consciousness in Greece was a two-edged sword for the Greeks. One the one hand it aided in their attempts to understand their own cultural and ethnic distinctiveness from their Ottoman overlords, but it also helped to reinforce other Balkan ethnicities and cultures to understand their distinctiveness from the Greeks. This was illustrated not only by Serbia and Bulgaria’s precocity in rejecting Ottoman rule (29), but also by their successful insistence to break from Greek Orthodox and create their own national and ethnic churches, separate from the Patriarchate of the Greeks (67).

            The Greek War of Independence (1821-1827) was, for the Greeks, both well timed and, ironically, almost completely out of their own hands. I was initially concerned that Clogg would attribute much of the Greek successes to their own ingenuity and efforts. Wisely enough,however, Professor Clogg attributes, by and large, the success of Greece in its struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire on two things: the rebellion of Mehmed Ali Pasha in Egypt and Syria and the interventionist policies of the so-called “Great Powers” of Europe, especially Britain, France and Russia. Ali Pasha’s rebellion in Egypt and Syria was a two-fold boon for Greece. The Greek rebellion, tied closely to other contemporary Balkan rebellions, was initiated and sustained by skillfully timing their window of opportunity with unrest elsewhere in the Empire for maximum effect. The preliminary leaders of the rebellion, as Clogg tells it, were not men of means or power within the existing structures of authority. On the contrary, these men were mostly part of the developing middle-class in Greece that organized, with varying degrees of success over the six-year period, different campaigns against the Ottomans. When the political upheaval in Egypt and Syria began, the rebel Greek leadership capitalized on the existing window of opportunity. On the one hand, the Sultan had chosen Ali Pasha as the primary threat, both in chronological terms as well as in the threat to the Empire, and on the other hand it forced Europe to mediate. The Sultan understood all too well that Ali Pasha not only wanted independence from Ottoman suzerainty, but also to capture Istanbul and depose the regime. This represented the primary threat for both the Sultan and for the Powers who wanted to keep a strict balance of power as a check on the political ambitions of the various regional empires. The Greeks got the open window they desperately needed when the Sultan ordered a staggering percentage of Ottoman soldiers to quell the rebellion to the southeast. After initial efforts by Greek nationalist forces began to progress against the Ottomans, the Sultan bribed Ali Pasha into invading Morea and crushing the Greek uprising. The Great Powers were greatly distressed by the significant revolts of Ali Pasha and the Greco-Balkans and resolved to intervene in the matter in order to maintain the balance of power in the region – a reaction against the post-Napoleonic fears in Europe and West-Central Asia (like Russia and the Caucasus). After crippling Ali Pasha’s forces in Morea, the Powers resolved to impose an “autonomous, though not sovereign, Greek state” on the Sublime Porte. The contention over the Treaty of London, 1827 led to open war between Russia and the Ottomans and in May of 1832 the Kingdom of Greece was established, with Frederick Otto of Wittelsbach as the first king.

            The Kingdom of Greece was essentially a protectorate of the Powers, with Russia and Britain primarily vying for controlling interests. The phil-Hellenic attitudes of many British notables led to close relationships between the two countries for over one hundred years, until the Americans adopted Greece as a buffer state against communism in the wake of World War II. The Bavarian court of King Frederick found itself frequently at odds with its Greek constituency. The “Great Idea” of a transcendental Hellenic “greater Greece” in the Near East, very important to many Greeks in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, was an impossible goal for Frederick, who – despite his best efforts – found it difficult enough to simply hold his new kingdom together. He consistently found himself at odds with both the Ottomans as well as from rivals within his own country that had different designs. Much like the courts of the Ottoman sultans that the Greeks had replaced, essentially two parties formed to help direct the evolution of the Greek state: one made up of revolutionary soldiers and officers that preferred to create, not surprisingly, a military oligarchy and the other that wanted to recreate Greece in the form of a Western, liberal, constitutional state (35-37). What became the Greek government was, in a sense, a compromise of both. Under the king was – like in Britain – a parliament that “advised” him on matters of domestic and foreign policy.

            Prior to World War I Greece was regularly involved in some sort of regional conflict, mostly due to her efforts to realize the “Great Idea” of greater Greece. Under King George I, Greece increased its role in determining the fate of the region as they clashed with the Ottomans on behalf of – and, often, in conjunction with – their Great Power protectors. Their territorial holdings in the region increased as land ceded by the Ottomans was divided up between the Bulgarians (a chief rival of the Greeks), the Greeks, and the Serbs. In 1897, however, Greece suffered a “crushing defeat” by the Ottomans and this, according to Clogg, led to “a period of introspection and self-doubt” (69). In 1912, on the even of World War I, Greece, along with its Balkan allies of Bulgaria and Serbia, declared war on the Ottoman Empire and succeeded in taking Macedonia, Thessaly, and a number of islands in the Aegean. The Ottoman Empire agreed to these territorial acquisitions with the Treaty of London of 1913 (79).

            When World War I started, Greece found itself in a serious position and was torn between competing loyalties as well as competing politics. King Constantine was “an honorary Field Marshall in the German army and married to the sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II”, but the nation itself – as indicated by the position of Prime Minister Eleftherios Venezios, the “maker of Modern Greece” – owed a great debt of loyalty to Great Britain. Initially Greece resolved to stay neutral, both to keep away from the potential wrath of the Central Powers as well as to not inspire Bulgaria from fighting against Britain to spite Greece. Internal politics over involvement in World War I forced a revolt within Greece against Constantine in favor of a government headed by Venizelos and the allied powers of France and Britain ensured that they succeeded in sending Constantine to exile. After the dust of World War I was settled, the Ottoman Empire lay permanently defeated and its future was in the hands of the allied governments, which included Greece and was led by Britain and America. The Interwar Period was marred by conflicts between Greece and the new Republic of Turkey, led now by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). Most notably, and most importantly, was Greece’s attempted, yet only temporarily successful, invasion of Smyrna (Izmir) in which began in May of 1919. The Greeks, inspired by renewed conceptions of the “Great Idea” and capitalizing on the vulnerability of their neighbors in the Turkish War for Independence, invaded and occupied Smyrna – the western coastal city in Anatolia that housed the greatest ethnic Greek population in Turkey – and occupied it for three years until the end of the so-called Greek campaign in 1922. The significance, not to mention the ironic role-reversal of the two regional powers, cannot be understated. In the same vein of that idea, it is certain that Professor Clogg adequately discusses this conflict, but its lasting impact on Greco-Turkish relations does not seem to be given its full due in the book. On the one hand, Clogg does provide some insight into how these conflicts affected internal Greek politics, but not much more beyond that. It is here that Clogg appears to divert his attention internally on the inner workings of Greek politics at the expense of capitalizing on, what I feel, is his strongest message: the perpetual interconnectedness of Greece and Turkey. To be sure, as Clogg informs the reader, these skirmishes with Turkey eventually cost Venizelos his control of Greece as well as his own seat within the Parliament and a return of royalist power. The military and ideological defeat cast a pall on Greek national pride, bruising the sentiments of Greek national greatness and the “Great Idea”, which is, most certainly, the single most important factor in the ousting of the Venizelos regime. Moreover, the ceasefire with Turkey led to further negotiations to force a major migration from each power. Under these provisions 300,000 Muslim Turks were made to emigrate from Greece back into Turkey and 1,200,000 Orthodox Greeks to emigrate back to the Kingdom from the surrounding areas. Clogg does well not to comment on the traumatizing nature of this exchange with modesty. According to Clogg, not only was this population exchange a reaction of the two respective governments in the wake of the Turkish War for Independence, but was also conducted for the safety of these minority groups in mind. This change in population allowed for a major shift in political power, especially in Macedonia and Thrace where many Muslim Greek citizens were exchanged for Turkish-speaking Christian Greeks. As would be expected with a major population shift in a parliamentary system, the constituency was radically altered and the incoming populations favored reconciliation with the new Turkish Republic, a position the Venizelos supported. Accordingly, the monarchy in Greece was officially abolished in 1924 and a republic was formed with Venizelos back in power as Prime Minister in 1928. In 1930 Venizelos made reconciliation with Turkey a primary goal of his administration and – to a great extent – he achieved it (107). It is here that Clogg’s opinion of Venizelos is given weight. It is evident in the text – especially in comments made on pages 69-71 – that he believes that the path of Greece, in many respects, is tied irrevocably to the path of Turkey; that despite their troubled history together, peace between them is the highest aspiration. After 1935 Venizelos was exiled to France and the republic was abolished. While there were several other changes of power during this period, the end result was the formation of a quasi-fascist dictatorship in Greece under General Ioannis Metaxas in 1936. As World War II crept upon war-weary Europe, Metaxas made sure that Greece was to be an important theatre and was prepared for Mussolini’s assault in 1940. While Metaxas dictatorship was fascist in nature, Clogg makes special point that it was neither racist nor inherently opposed to Britain. On the contrary, when hostilities were renewed in 1939, Greece’s position as a member of the Allied Powers was all but certain.

            In the wake of General Metaxas’ death, his successor, Alexandros Koryzis, threw the full weight of Greek support into the Allied war effort and Greece paid dearly for it. Hitler, intending to secure “his Balkan flank” against the Soviets established a sound occupation of Greece in 1941. During Axis occupation, the previously laughable Communist Party in Greece filled the vacuum and became the foremost organizer of armed resistance against the Nazis. This seizure of power, while expedient for the occupation, was the foundation for a disastrous and catastrophic civil war that lasted until 1974. All the while, after Hitler was defeated in 1945, the Allies worked tirelessly to come to terms about the balance and nature of democratic and communist states, and Greece was fortunate to have been singled out by Churchill and Truman as a Western protectorate (137).

            After World War II and in the first days of the new Cold War, Greece and Turkey both became prime beneficiaries of the so-called “Truman Doctrine”, which sought to reinforce western democratic governments against the encroachments of Soviet communism. The ensuing civil war for the “soul” of Greece kept the country from enjoying, in nearly every respect, the prosperity that was experienced by and large across the globe. Instead of rebuilding its infrastructure, reinvesting in peacetime innovations, or simply putting conflict aside for a time, the nation was embroiled in a conflict that would see no end until 1974, when Konstantinos Karamanlis returned from exile in France and was sworn in as president once again. The presence of Greece and Turkey in NATO as allies in principle against communism, while neither being anywhere near the “north Atlantic” and both countries being anything but allies in fact, was certainly both symbolic of their strategic importance against the Soviets but also, as Clogg seems to suggest so delicately, indicative of their shared heritage together and their indivisible future together. Clogg does well to present, aptly, a concise modern history of Greece. There are a few noteworthy criticisms that should be addressed in this book. Primarily, as was mentioned before, Clogg would have served the average lay reader well by including an opening chapter that could have introduced a very brief overview of the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greece, if only to serve as a simple foundation for the overt thesis of the book which relies on the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the magnificent pre-Ottoman history of Greece. There is, of course, certain mitigation in this respect as it is understandable that the inclusion of such introductory information would result in an unwieldy presentation for the reader or even “information overload.” Furthermore, Clogg rotates his presentation of Ottoman rulership in Greece between ambivalence and annoyance. This would be understandable from a phil-Hellenic point of view, but the presentation of Greek history in this respect should be decidedly impartial. Lastly, his presentation of the early twentieth century Greek political system became, at times, very labored and tedious. Instead of leading the reader to broad and sweeping statements about the nature of Greek politics, Clogg demonstrates his intimate familiarity with the subject matter at the expense of its readability. All of those criticisms notwithstanding, however, A Concise History of Greece is a well-organized account of the formation of the modern Greek state. Clogg does, despite some small shortcomings, present a compelling case to support his argument that modern Greece was intrinsically tied to its glorious past while at the same time leaving the reader with a very optimistic appraisal of Greece’s future.