DOCSLIB.ORG

Charalampos Minasidis

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Charalampos Minasidis Charalampos Minasidis Serving Under the Greek Banner: Minority Citizen Soldiers’ Experiences and Attitudes during the Long Great War (1914-23) The rapid changes the Long Great War (1914-23) brought either confirmed or challenged the state authority and its nation-building policies. The war emerged as a new structure and introduced a new, but still contingent, definition of national consciousness and belonging. It also raised the dilemma to those about to be drafted, between accepting or refusing to serve and fight and offered the opportunity to the dominant group to include or exclude individuals and even whole communities and groups from the imagined community. In this respect, the war evolved into a test of unity and legitimacy for the state and targeted disproportionately the minority citizen soldiers, questioning their allegiances. Based on understudied collections from Greece and Turkey and on published and unpublished memoirs, diaries, interviews and private documents the paper examines minority citizen soldiers’ attitudes towards the war and their service and argues that they did not defer from the majority citizen soldiers’ ones. Of course, many of them had not developed a Greek national consciousness and did not want to serve under the Greek banner, but several others were enthusiastic supporters of the Great Idea, while a third group prioritized their families and their needs and stood against the war either by deserting or trying to find ways to evade the draft. However, contrary to the majority citizen soldiers, most of the minority ones were unable to negotiate a military service under better terms, as they did not know Greek or they could not offer an antagonistic skill. The paper also argues that the Greek state followed a contradictory policy over its minority citizen soldiers. Although it was willing to socialize as many minority conscripts as possible with the Greek Army, it also accepted the initial exemption of certain minority communities from the military service. However, the National Schism and the need of the Provisional Government of National Defence to mobilize as many men as possible negated the previous policies. Even so, the decision to include minority conscripts into the Greek Army’s ranks, did not mean the democratization of war and the socialization of violence for all minority conscripts. As Carl Schmitt’s sovereign, the provisional government decided who is or could be a loyal citizen soldier and who is or could be disloyal, and therefore undesirable to obtain weapons training. Thus, certain minority soldiers’ groups were labelled as untrustworthy and reliable only for unarmed service and were sent to sapper battalions, while a security mechanism was established for those evading the draft or deserting. After the reunification of Greece under the pro-war liberal government and the mobilization of conscripts from Southern Greece, the Greek state offered the opportunity to conscripts from certain minority groups the opportunity to pay and be exempted from service. Still, tens of thousands of minority conscripts continue serving the Greek banner, even under arms. However, for many of them their service, not even an armed one, did not prove enough to protect their citizen status, and after the end of the war they were deported. They were necessary for the war effort, but not for the postwar peace and nation-building process. Charalampos Minasidis is a PhD candidate in the History Department at The University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation entitled War is the Father of All: Citizen Soldiers, Mobilizations and Democratization in the Kingdom of Greece and the Ottoman Empire during the Early 20th Century examines the human landscape of total mobilization via the social category of citizen soldiers as a way to study Greek and Ottoman society at war during the early 20th century. His research and studies have been funded by the French School at Athens, the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius Foundation, the A.G. Leventis Foundation and UT. He holds an MA in The History of Warfare (2008) from King’s College London and an MA in Balkan and Turkish History (2013), a BA in Political Sciences (2014) and a BA in History (2007) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is currently a research fellow of the Research Centre for the Humanities working on a group project on “Greek Soldiers, War and Trauma: The Asia Minor Campaign and the Consequences of a Painful Experience.” He also collaborates with projects, such as the 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War et al., while, in the past, he has conducted several research projects for the Society for Macedonian Studies. He has authored journal articles, book chapters and the book Η Πολιτική των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών στο Μακεδονικό Ζήτημα τη Δεκαετία του 1940 [United States Policy on the Macedonian Question during the 1940s] (Thessaloniki: Epikentro Publishers, 2016.) 4 .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Greek Body in Crisis: Contemporary Dance as a Site of Negotiating and Restructuring National Identity in the Era of Precarity Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0vg4w163 Author Zervou, Natalie Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Greek Body in Crisis: Contemporary Dance as a Site of Negotiating and Restructuring National Identity in the Era of Precarity A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Natalie Zervou June 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Marta Elena Savigliano, Chairperson Dr. Linda J. Tomko Dr. Anthea Kraut Copyright Natalie Zervou 2015 The Dissertation of Natalie Zervou is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments This dissertation is the result of four years of intensive research, even though I have been engaging with this topic and the questions discussed here long before that. Having been born in Greece, and having lived there till my early twenties, it is the place that holds all my childhood memories, my first encounters with dance, my friends, and my family. From a very early age I remember how I always used to say that I wanted to study dance and then move to the US to pursue my dream. Back then I was not sure what that dream was, other than leaving Greece, where I often felt like I did not belong. Being here now, in the US, I think I found it and I must admit that when I first begun my pursuit in graduate studies in dance, I was very hesitant to engage in research concerning Greece.
    [Show full text]
  • The Establishment and Development of the Metaxas Dictatorship in the Context of Fascism and Nazism, 1936–41
    23tmp09a.qxd 04/04/2002 14:43 Page 143 9 The Establishment and Development of the Metaxas Dictatorship in the Context of Fascism and Nazism, 193641 MOGENS PELT In October 1935, Italy launched a fully-fledged attack on Abyssinia, threatening Britains position in Egypt and the supremacy of the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Three years later, in 1938, Germany established her dominance over Central Europe in a series of short-of-war operations, incorporating Austria and the Sudetenland into the Reich by Anschluss and the Munich agreement. The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia dealt a fatal blow to the French security system in south-eastern Europe, la petite entente with Prague serving as its regional power centre. While the credibility of France as a great power almost completely eroded overnight, Vienna and Prague suddenly provided ready-made platforms to an invigorated and resurgent Germany to project her power into south- eastern Europe, and to rearrange that area in line with Berlins plans for a new European Order. This, in turn, gave a boost to national vindication in the revisionist states, Bulgaria and Hungary, while it generated shock waves of national insecurity and internal instability in the status quo states, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia. On 10 October 1935, only a week after the beginning of Mussolinis African enterprise, a military coup détat in Greece reinstated the monarchy, which had been abolished in the wake of the First World War, and some ten months later, on 4 August 1936, King George II established what was meant to be a permanent dictatorship under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas, a prominent royalist.
    [Show full text]
  • The Establishment and Development of the Metaxas Regime in The
    23tmp09a.qxd 04/04/2002 14:43 Page 143 9 The Establishment and Development of the Metaxas Dictatorship in the Context of Fascism and Nazism, 193641 MOGENS PELT In October 1935, Italy launched a fully-fledged attack on Abyssinia, threatening Britains position in Egypt and the supremacy of the Royal Navy in the eastern Mediterranean. Three years later, in 1938, Germany established her dominance over Central Europe in a series of short-of-war operations, incorporating Austria and the Sudetenland into the Reich by Anschluss and the Munich agreement. The dismemberment of Czechoslovakia dealt a fatal blow to the French security system in south-eastern Europe, la petite entente with Prague serving as its regional power centre. While the credibility of France as a great power almost completely eroded overnight, Vienna and Prague suddenly provided ready-made platforms to an invigorated and resurgent Germany to project her power into south- eastern Europe, and to rearrange that area in line with Berlins plans for a new European Order. This, in turn, gave a boost to national vindication in the revisionist states, Bulgaria and Hungary, while it generated shock waves of national insecurity and internal instability in the status quo states, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia. On 10 October 1935, only a week after the beginning of Mussolinis African enterprise, a military coup détat in Greece reinstated the monarchy, which had been abolished in the wake of the First World War, and some ten months later, on 4 August 1936, King George II established what was meant to be a permanent dictatorship under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas, a prominent royalist.
    [Show full text]
  • Balkan Wars Between the Lines: Violence and Civilians in Macedonia, 1912-1918
    ABSTRACT Title of Document: BALKAN WARS BETWEEN THE LINES: VIOLENCE AND CIVILIANS IN MACEDONIA, 1912-1918 Stefan Sotiris Papaioannou, Ph.D., 2012 Directed By: Professor John R. Lampe, Department of History This dissertation challenges the widely held view that there is something morbidly distinctive about violence in the Balkans. It subjects this notion to scrutiny by examining how inhabitants of the embattled region of Macedonia endured a particularly violent set of events: the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the First World War. Making use of a variety of sources including archives located in the three countries that today share the region of Macedonia, the study reveals that members of this majority-Orthodox Christian civilian population were not inclined to perpetrate wartime violence against one another. Though they often identified with rival national camps, inhabitants of Macedonia were typically willing neither to kill their neighbors nor to die over those differences. They preferred to pursue priorities they considered more important, including economic advancement, education, and security of their properties, all of which were likely to be undermined by internecine violence. National armies from Balkan countries then adjacent to geographic Macedonia (Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia) and their associated paramilitary forces were instead the perpetrators of violence against civilians. In these violent activities they were joined by armies from Western and Central Europe during the First World War. Contrary to existing military and diplomatic histories that emphasize continuities between the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the First World War, this primarily social history reveals that the nature of abuses committed against civilians changed rapidly during this six-year period.
    [Show full text]
  • Περίληψη : Γενικές Πληροφορίες Area: 477,942 Km2
    IΔΡΥΜA ΜΕΙΖΟΝΟΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΣΜΟΥ Συγγραφή : Λάνδρος Χρίστος , Λάνδρος Χρίστος , Λάνδρος Χρίστος , Λάνδρος Χρίστος , Λάνδρος Χρίστος , Καμάρα Αφροδίτη , Ντόουσον Μαρία - Δήμητρα , Σπυροπούλου Βάσω Μετάφραση : Παπαδάκη Ειρήνη , Παπαδάκη Ειρήνη , Ντοβλέτης Ονούφριος , Ντοβλέτης Ονούφριος , Νάκας Ιωάννης , Καριώρης Παναγιώτης (23/3/2007) Περίληψη : Γενικές Πληροφορίες Area: 477,942 km2 Coastline length: 163 km Population: 33.814 Island capital and its population: Samos (6.236) Administrative structure: Region of North Aegean, Prefecture of Samos, Municipality of Vathy (Capital: Samos, 6.236), Municipality of Karlovasi (Capital: Neo Karlovasi, 5.740), Municipality of Marathokambos (Capital: Marathokambos, 1.329), Municipality of Pythagoreion (Capital: Pythagoreion, 1.327) Local newspapers: "Charavgi", "Samiakon Vima", "Samiakos Typos", "Samiaki Echo", "Samiaki" Local radio stations:Plus FM (89.4), Rock 9.35 (93.5), Radio Choros (94.2), Metamorfosis (95.0), Face FM (95.6), Samos FM (97.7), 2000 FM (99.8), Top FM (102.4), Armonia (103.2), Radio Vathy (102 FM) Local TV stations: TV Samos, Samiaki Tileorasi, TV 7 Samos Museums: Archaeological Museum of Samos, Archaeological Collection of Pythagoreion, Natural History Museum of the Aegean-Paleontological Museum of Samos-Constantinos and Maria Zimali Foundation, Karlovasi Historical and Folklore Museum, Folklore Museum of the N. Demetriou Foundation, Samos Ecclesiastical Museum, Samian Wine Museum, Pagonda Folklore Museum, Mavratzaioi Historical Museum Archaeological sites and monuments: The Heraion of
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Cycles of the Economy of Modern Greece from 1821 to the Present
    GreeSE Papers Hellenic Observatory Discussion Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe Paper No. 158 Historical Cycles of the Economy of Modern Greece from 1821 to the Present George Alogoskoufis April 2021 Historical Cycles of the Economy of Modern Greece from 1821 to the Present George Alogoskoufis GreeSE Paper No. 158 Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe All views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Hellenic Observatory or the LSE © George Alogoskoufis Contents I. The Major Historical Cycles of Modern Greece II. Nation Building, the ‘Great Idea’ and Economic Instability and Stagnation, 1821- 1898 II.1 The Re-awakening of the Greek National Conscience and the War of Independence II.2 Kapodistrias and the Creation of the Greek State II.3 State Building under the Regency and the Monarchy II.4 The Economy under the Monarchy and the 1843 ‘Default’ II.5 The Constitution of 1844, the ‘Great Idea’ and the End of Absolute Monarchy II.6 Changing of the Guard, Political Reforms and Territorial Gains II.7 Fiscal and Monetary Instability, External Borrowing and the 1893 ‘Default’ II.8 Transformations and Fluctuations in a Stagnant Economy III. Wars, Internal Conflicts and National Expansion and Consolidation, 1899-1949 III.1 From Economic Stabilisation to the Balkan Triumphs III.2 The ‘National Schism’, the Asia Minor Disaster and the End of the ‘Great Idea’ III.3 Political Instability, Economic Stabilisation, ‘Default’ of 1932 and Rapid Recovery III.4 From the Disaster of the Occupation to the Catastrophic Civil War III.5 Growth and Recessions from the 19th Century to World War II IV.
    [Show full text]
  • An Antidote to Anarchy? Images of Monarchy in Greece in the Nineteenth and the Twentieth Centuries Spyridon G
    Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 45 (2) 240–254 An antidote to anarchy? Images of monarchy in Greece in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries Spyridon G. Ploumidis National and Kapodistrian University of Athens [email protected] Since Roman times the representation of monarchy as an antidote to anarchy was a strong form of legitimization for the monarchical institution. In modern Greece, this formula dates back to 1821. The Greek Revolution and its republican constitutions were identified by European statesmen with anarchy and demagogy. Thus, a foreign monarch, alien to Greece’s internal factions, was deemed the ideal remedy for internecine strife, and the best guarantor of internal unity as well as stability in the Near East. This image of monarchy proved its usefulness again during the First World War, when a controversy between the premier Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine over foreign policy and constitutional issues led to the National Schism (1915–17). Keywords: monarchy; anarchy; Eleftherios Venizelos; National Schism; modern Greece Introduction The era of modernity created new ordeals for monarchy. In the late sixteenth century, a large part of the political literature of the Reformation, such as the anonymous Vindiciae contra tyrannos (Basel 1579), put forward new challenges in regard to the legitimacy of Europe’s kings.1 In pre-modern polities the ideals of hierarchy, order and divinely appointed sovereignty were the sole and ubiquitous foundations of royal power.2 For this reason, the entry into modernity required the search for new forms of legitimacy of monarchy. Legitimation by tradition (e.g. noble birth, or Divine Right) was no longer sufficient, and new forms of popular legitimation, of what the political scientist Samuel E.
    [Show full text]
  • The First World War and the Refugee Crisis
    The First World War is at the core of most na- The First tional historiographical narratives, including those of many European countries, the US, World War and Australia and New Zealand. Its centenary has proven that it is a global event.1 Nevertheless, the refugee crisis: is the same event commemorated on the spec- trum of the respective national narratives? A historiography close examination of different national narra- tives that have developed around the Great War and memory in the suggests that it may be more accurate to speak of a range of “great wars” that were fought in Greek context the 1910s rather than of a single, homogenous event that was understood, received and, most importantly, remembered in the same way by all the groups involved. In Greece, one of the major consequences of the First World War was the Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922, the disaster in Asia Minor and the ensuing refugee crisis. It is a memory that has overshadowed the memory of the Great War, serving as a lens through which both the events that preceded and proceeded the military defeat of 1922 were interpreted. The evacuation of the Greek population of Asia Minor in 1922 is one of Emilia Salvanou the main lieux de memoire in the Greek national Hellenic Open University narrative. Asia Minor refugees are perceived as the archetypical victims of a supposed pri- mordial Greek-Turkish enmity – a concept deeply woven into the founding myths of the Greek nation – that culminated after Greece’s defeat in Anatolia. The way they are constructed histo- riographically does not differ very much: they are contextualised within the framework of Greece’s campaign in Asia Minor in 1919, the ensuing Greek-Turkish War and Greece’s mili- tary defeat.
    [Show full text]
  • I: the GREEK COMMUNIST PARTY: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? 1. for the Founding Charter of SEKE See KKE Episima Keimena, 1918-1924 (
    Notes I: THE GREEK COMMUNIST PARTY: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? 1. For the Founding Charter of SEKE see KKE Episima Keimena, 1918-1924 (KKE Official Documents), vol. I (Athens, 1964) pp. 5-13. On the history of the Greek socialist movement see Kordatos, Y., Istoria tou Ellinikou Ergatikou Kinimatos (Athens, 1972); Benaroya, A., I Proti Stadiodromia tou Ellinikou Proletariatou (Athens, 1975); Moskof, K., I Ethniki kai Koinoniki Synidisi stin Ellada, 1830-1909 (Athens, 1973). With the notable exception of the book by Elefantis, A., I Epangelia tis Adynatis Epanastasis: KKE kai Astismos ston Mesopolomo (Athens, 1976), there has been no other scholarly study on the history of the KKE during the inter-war period. 2. For the text of the decision of the National Council see KKE Episima Kei1:nena, 1918-1924, op.cit., p. 31. 3. For the text of the decisions of the Second Congress see KKE Episima Keimena, 1918-1924, op.cit., pp. 61-2,68. 4. For the text of the resolution of the Third Extraordinary Congress see KKE Episima Keimena, 1918-1924, op.cit., p. -499. 5. KKE Episima Keimena, 1918-1924, op.cit., pp. 523-4, 534-42. See also Loulis, J. C., The Greek Communist Party, 1940-1944 (London, 1982) p.1. 6. KKE Episima Keimena, 1925-1928, vol. II (Athens, 1974) pp. 99, 101-2,105. 7. The results of the votes received by SEKE(K)/KKE in the elections held during the period 1923-9 were the following: 1923: 2.25 per cent; 1926: 3.6 per cent; 1928: 1.41 per cent; 1929: 1.70 per cent.
    [Show full text]
  • The Allied Army of the Orient in Thessaloniki, 1915-1918: the City and Its Representations
    The Allied Army of the Orient in Thessaloniki, 1915-1918: the city and its representations. International Conference 28-29 September 2018 Museum of Byzantine Culture Stephanos Dragoumis Auditorium Friday 28.9.2018 9.30-10.00 Greetings- presentation of the exhibition “Into the Vortex of the Great War. Thessaloniki of the Armée d’Orient” Session I: The city and its inhabitants. Chair: Stratos Dordanas (Assistant Professor, University of Macedonia) 10.00-11.00 Keynote Lecture Ioannis Mourelos (Professor, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) Structural characteristics of the National Schism 11.00-12.00: Evangelos Hekimoglou (Curator, Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki) The old residents of the “monumental square”. Marilena Papadaki (Historian, PhD, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) The Armée d’Orient (1915-1919) in the light of legal sources: issues of legitimacy and interaction with local communities. 12.00-12.30 Coffee Break Session II. Soldiers vs residents Chair: Ioannis Mourelos 12.30-14.30 Nestor Bamidis (Director, Historical Archive of Macedonia)- Areti Makri (Historical Archive of Macedonia) Relations developed by the “Gardeners of Salonica” with the City and its Residents. Jasmina Tomasevic (Philologist-Historian) Behind the scenes of the Macedonian Front: Thessaloniki and its residents through the eyes of the Serbian army Francine Saint-Ramond (Historian, PhD, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne) The discovery of the “Orient” by French soldiers, through the example of Thessaloniki 1915- 1918 Elli Lemonidou (Assistant Professor, Univesity of Patras) Inter-war echoes of the presence of the Armée d’Orient in Thessaloniki: The testimonies of the French sources 14.30-16.30 Lunch Break Session III.
    [Show full text]
  • KINGDOM of GREECE Quadrumvirate: Anatolian Wars, 1919 Chaired by Berat Talay
    KINGDOM OF GREECE Quadrumvirate: Anatolian Wars, 1919 Chaired by Berat Talay Session XXII Kingdom of Greece Quadrumvirate: Anatolian Wars, 1919 Topic A: Moving Forward in the Wake of the National Schism Topic B: T he Asia Minor Campaign against the Ottomans Committee Overview Parliamentary Procedure With the end of World War I, the Standard MUN parliamentary Kingdom of Greece finds itself on the procedure will be adhered to in this winning side. While Constantine I was in committee, but may be altered at the exile, the prime minister Eleftherios discretion of the chair to reflect the current Venizelos assumed full control of the state of the crisis. Delegates in this kingdom and joined the members of the committee have certain abilities and powers Triple Entente comprised of the United that can greatly affect debate, and Kingdom, the French Republic, and Russian subsequently, the course of events. This Empire in victory. committee will be following procedures Like others, Greece wants to benefit similar to that of the General Assemblies, from a moribund Ottoman Empire. For the which includes maintaining a speaker’s list first time in centuries, Greece has the and having moderated and unmoderated opportunity to remove the Ottoman Empire caucuses. However, there will be a variety completely out of the Balkans. Approaching of crises that will require the use of mid­1919, the Venizelos government is directives, press releases, and portfolio close to settling its deals with an acquisition powers unique to each delegate. The of land that will expand its territory by committee may use the four tools listed in almost twofold.
    [Show full text]
  • Macedonia in the Great War (1914-1918)
    Macedonian Studies Journal Loukianos Hassiotis Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary History Aristotle University of Thessaloniki The First World War of 1914-1918 -“the Great War to end all wars”- was a period of great importance for Greek Macedonia, a time of dramatic political and military events. Foreign armies fought over its territory, with Greece remaining a neutral at the outset, and cast envious eyes at the possibility of controlling it politically. There was besides the Greek “National Schism”, the split between the supporters of the Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and those of King Constantine, formalized by the setting up of a provisional gov- ernment in Salonica. In September 1918 the Allies made a great drive into Macedonia, with the Greek army now taking part, the Macedonian Front of the Germans was at last broken, and the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt. At this same period Macedonia was in what may be called a transitional state. No longer was it a multiracial province, but it had been transformed into an ethnically fairly homogeneous area, as a result of population movements during and immediately after the Great War. Conditions in Macedo- nia -demographic, social, economic, and political- were described by contemporary observ- ers, Greeks and foreigners, from their various standpoints. It was particularly the foreign observers, the soldiers, diplomats, commercial representatives, journalists, secret agents, and so on, who would leave posterity a valuable picture of Macedonia at this time. Their productions include memoirs, sketches, and even documentary films. But most typical of all were their photographs, which were legion, and many of which can be seen in the form of postcards that made Salonica and its environs familiar throughout the world.
    [Show full text]