TheSecondWar.pl
Timeline
Battles
People
Places
Series
Glossary
pl
Timeline
Battles
People
Places
Series
Glossary
← Timeline
Greece
Tag
(60)
1919
May
15
The Greek landing at Smyrna
On 15 May 1919 Greek troops landed at Smyrna with the consent of the powers. The shooting and killing of Turks that day inflamed Turkish resistance.
November
27
The Treaty of Neuilly
On 27 November 1919 Bulgaria signed peace with the Entente at Neuilly. It lost Western Thrace and access to the Aegean, and its army was cut to 20,000.
1920
August
10
The Treaty of Sèvres
On 10 August 1920 the Sultan's government signed a peace at Sèvres carving up the Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Kemal's movement overturned it by force.
1922
October
11
The Armistice of Mudanya
On 11 October 1922 at Mudanya on the Sea of Marmara, Ankara made an armistice with the Allies. Greece gave up Eastern Thrace and the war with Turkey ended.
1923
July
24
The Treaty of Lausanne
On 24 July 1923 at Lausanne, Turkey made peace with the Allied powers and Greece. The treaty replaced Sèvres and recognised the new Turkish state's sovereignty.
August
31
The Corfu incident
On 31 August 1923 the Italian fleet shelled Corfu and landed troops. Mussolini avenged the killing of General Tellini and defied the League of Nations.
September
27
The end of the Corfu incident
On 27 September 1923 the Italians left Corfu. A day earlier the Conference of Ambassadors awarded them 50 million lire from Greece, its guilt unproven.
1926
January
03
The Pangalos dictatorship
On 3 January 1926 General Theodoros Pangalos, Greek Prime Minister since the June 1925 coup, declared himself dictator. In April he had himself made President.
1934
February
09
The Balkan Pact
On 9 February 1934 in Athens Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania and Turkey guaranteed each other’s Balkan borders. Bulgaria and Albania stayed out of the Entente.
1940
August
15
The sinking of the cruiser Elli
On 15 August 1940 the Italian submarine Delfino sank the Greek cruiser Elli off Tinos. Athens knew the culprit but spoke of an “unknown” submarine.
October
15
Mussolini decides to attack Greece
On 15 October 1940 at the Palazzo Venezia Mussolini agreed a plan to invade Greece with his commanders, setting 26 October as the date despite their fears.
28
Key event
Italy attacks Greece
At 3 a.m. on 28 October 1940 Metaxas rejected the Italian ultimatum. At dawn Mussolini’s troops advanced from Albania into Greece.
November
01
Turkey and the Greco-Italian War
On 1 November 1940 İnönü assured parliament that Turkey would stay out of the war and was studying the situation after Italy’s attack on Greece with Britain.
08
The Battle of the Kalamas
From 2 to 8 November 1940 the Italians assaulted the Greek positions at Kalpaki and on the Kalamas. On 8 November they halted and went over to the defensive.
13
The Battle of Pindus
On 13 November 1940 the Greeks cleared the Pindus. The Julia Alpine Division, which took Vovousa on 2 November, was encircled and repulsed with heavy losses.
14
The Greek counter-offensive
On 14 November 1940 the Greek army launched a counter-offensive at Korçë and in Epirus. Within ten days it drove the Italians out of Greece and entered Albania.
16
British aid to Greece
On 16 November 1940 a convoy with some 4,000 airmen and soldiers reached Piraeus. Churchill sent RAF units from Egypt despite Wavell’s and Longmore’s fears.
22
The Greeks take Korçë
On 22 November 1940 the Greek 9th Division entered Korçë in Albania – the first sizeable town taken from the Axis powers since the war began.
December
08
The Greeks take Gjirokastër
On 8 December 1940 the Greeks entered Gjirokastër, the main town of southern Albania, having taken Delvinë and the port of Sarandë as the Italians fell back.
28
Italy asks Germany for help
By late December 1940 the Greeks held about a quarter of Albania, and the Italians, beaten in Egypt too, pressed Germany ever harder for military help.
1941
January
10
The Greeks take the Klisura Pass
On 10 January 1941 the Greek II Corps took the Klisura Pass on the Vjosa in Albania, opening the road to Berat. An Italian relief division disintegrated.
29
The death of Ioannis Metaxas
On 29 January 1941 Ioannis Metaxas, dictator of Greece since 1936, died in Kifisia. King George II appointed the banker Alexandros Koryzis prime minister.
February
21
The Germans on the Danube
In February 1941 the German Twelfth Army waited in Romania to enter Bulgaria. The Danube bridges were due on 28 February, as Britain readied help for Greece.
March
07
The British land in Greece
On 7 March 1941 the first troops of General Wilson's corps landed at Piraeus. For the Greek expedition Wavell gave up his best units in Cyrenaica.
09
The Italian spring offensive in Albania
On 9 March 1941, with Mussolini watching, the Italians attacked the Greeks in Albania to retake Klisura. After two weeks and 12,000 casualties it collapsed.
26
The raid on Suda Bay
On 26 March 1941 explosive motorboats of the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS raided Suda Bay in Crete and disabled the cruiser HMS York and the tanker Pericles.
April
06
Key event
Germany attacks Greece
On 6 April 1941 the 12th Army struck Greece from Bulgaria. The Metaxas Line forts beat off the first attacks; at night an ammunition ship blast wrecked Piraeus.
12
The Battle of Vevi
On 12 April 1941 men of the SS Leibstandarte took the Klidi Pass near Vevi, held by Mackay Force. Three days earlier the Germans had entered Thessaloniki.
18
The suicide of Alexandros Koryzis
On 18 April 1941, as the Greek front collapsed, Prime Minister Alexandros Koryzis took his own life. The British were already preparing to evacuate.
21
The Army of Epirus capitulates
On 20–23 April 1941 the Greek army of the Albanian front, cut off by the Germans, capitulated. Tsolakoglou surrendered it without government consent.
24
The evacuation from Greece
On the night of 24–25 April 1941 the Royal Navy began lifting the British corps off Greek beaches. By 1 May some 50,000 men had left, without heavy equipment.
25
The Battle of Thermopylae (1941)
On 24 April 1941 New Zealanders at Molos and Australians on the Brallos Pass held the Germans all day, then withdrew at night to the evacuation ports.
27
Key event
The Germans enter Athens
On 27 April 1941 the Germans entered Athens and raised their flag on the Acropolis. The Greek army had capitulated, but the King fought on from Crete.
May
20
Key event
The airborne invasion of Crete
On 20 May 1941 Germany struck at Crete from the air. Paratroopers suffered huge losses, but at night the New Zealanders gave up the hill above Maleme airfield.
28
The evacuation from Crete
On 28 May 1941 the Royal Navy began taking the defeated garrison off Crete. By 1 June it had lifted some 17,000 men, losing ships and almost 2,000 sailors.
June
02
The massacres at Kondomari and Kandanos
A day after Crete fell, the Germans turned on its people. On 2 June 1941 they shot the men of Kondomari; on 3 June they razed Kandanos to the ground.
September
27
The founding of EAM
On 27 September 1941 in Athens the communists and three small left-wing parties founded the National Liberation Front (EAM), the core of the Greek resistance.
28
The Drama uprising
On the night of 28–29 September 1941 Greeks around Drama rose against Bulgarian occupation. The Bulgarians crushed the revolt and shot thousands of civilians.
1942
June
07
The first action of ELAS
On 7 June 1942, in the village of Domnista in Evrytania, Aris Velouchiotis and a dozen partisans announced the start of ELAS's fight against Greece's occupiers.
July
11
The round-up in Liberty Square in Salonika
On 11 July 1942 the Germans herded 9,000 Jewish men into Liberty Square in Salonika, humiliated them for hours and registered them for forced labour.
September
20
The PEAN bombing in Athens
On 20 September 1942 the resistance group PEAN blew up the Athens offices of ESPO, a collaborationist party recruiting Greeks to fight for Germany in the east.
November
25
The Gorgopotamos viaduct blown up
During the night of 25–26 November 1942 British SOE sappers and ELAS and EDES partisans blew up the Gorgopotamos viaduct on the Salonika–Athens railway.
1943
March
12
The liberation of Karditsa
On 12 March 1943 the Italian garrison left Karditsa in Thessaly and ELAS partisans entered. Greeks call it the first free town in Europe.
July
05
The National Bands Agreement in Greece
On 5 July 1943 ELAS joined an agreement with the British Military Mission that placed the Greek guerrillas under a joint headquarters.
September
14
The Viannos massacres
On 14 September 1943 the Germans began a punitive operation around Viannos in Crete. In three days they killed over 460 civilians and burned about 20 villages.
16
The Dodecanese campaign begins
After Italy's surrender the British lost the race for Rhodes, but in mid-September 1943 they occupied Kos, Leros and Samos. The Dodecanese campaign had begun.
21
Key event
The massacre of the Acqui Division on Kefalonia
On 21 September 1943 the Germans on Kefalonia began shooting surrendering men of the Italian Acqui Division. Thousands died, General Antonio Gandin among them.
26
German air raids on Leros
On 26 September 1943 the Luftwaffe opened its air offensive against Leros. The destroyers Vasilissa Olga and HMS Intrepid were sunk in Lakki harbour.
27
The Germans take Corfu
After two weeks of resistance the Italian garrison on Corfu gave in. On 27 September 1943 the Germans shot its commander, Colonel Lusignani, and many officers.
December
13
Key event
The Kalavryta massacre
On 13 December 1943 soldiers of the German 117th Jäger Division shot almost all the men of Kalavryta in the Peloponnese and burned the town down.
1944
March
10
The Political Committee of National Liberation in Greece
On 10 March 1944 EAM set up the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA) in the mountain village of Viniani – a “mountain government” for Free Greece.
June
10
The Distomo massacre
On 10 June 1944 troops of the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division murdered 218 inhabitants of the Greek village of Distomo and burned it down.
September
26
The Caserta Agreement
On 26 September 1944 at Caserta the Papandreou government, ELAS and EDES put the partisans under the government and British General Scobie before liberation.
October
02
The Allies in Crete and the Peloponnese
In autumn 1944 the British entered Patras and Corinth, while the Germans on Crete fell back around Chania, where they held out until May 1945.
09
Key event
The Moscow Conference of 1944
On 9 October 1944 Churchill flew to Moscow. Talks with Stalin brought the percentages agreement on the Balkans, a clash over Poland and a pledge on Japan.
12
The liberation of Athens
On 12 October 1944 the Germans left Athens and EAM and ELAS took the streets; the British arrived on 14 October and Papandreou's government on 18 October.
November
01
The British in Salonika
On 30 October ELAS and a small British unit entered Salonika. By 2 November Army Group E had left mainland Greece; island garrisons held out until 1945.
December
03
Key event
The Dekemvriana begins
On 3 December 1944 police opened fire on an EAM rally in Syntagma Square, Athens. At least 28 people died, and fighting broke out in the city – the Dekemvriana.
28
Churchill in Athens
From 25 to 28 December 1944 Churchill and Eden were in strife-torn Athens. A conference of Greek parties brought no truce but did agree on a regency.
1945
January
15
The Athens truce
On 15 January 1945 a truce between ELAS and the British came into force, ending the Dekemvriana – the battle for Athens that the Greek left had lost.