Greco-Turkish War

Greco-Turkish War (1897)
Date 3 February 1897 - 4 December 1897 Location Mainland Greece, mainly Epirus, Thessaly and Crete Result Ottoman victory, Treaty of Constantinople
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire	Kingdom of Greece
Commanders
Ahmet Hıfzı Pasha Ethem Pasha	Crown Prince Constantine Konstantinos Sapountzakis
Strength
121,500 1,300 cavalry 210 guns	54,000 500 cavalry 136 guns
Casualties and losses
1,111 KIA 3,329 WIA 16 POW	672 KIA 2,481 WIA 253 POW

The Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also called the Thirty Days' War and known as the black '97 in Greece was a war fought between the Kingdom of Greece and Ottoman Empire. Its immediate cause was the question over the status of the Ottoman province of Crete, whose Greek majority long desired union with Greece. As a result of the intervention of the Great Powers after the war, an autonomous Cretan State under Ottoman suzerainty was established the following year, with Prince George of Greece as its first High Commissioner. This was the first war effort in which the military and political personnel of Greece were put to test after the war of independence in 1821.

Background

The Ottoman empire according to the Congress of Berlin, in 1878, signed the Convention of Halepa which was asking for the implementation of the organic law of 1868 that the Sultan had signed and was to give Crete a status of semi-independence. The appointed though Ottoman commissioners were ignoring repeatedly the convention causing three successive rebellions in 1885, 1888 and 1889. In 1894 Alexander Karatheodori Pasha was appointed as governor by the Sultan, but his zeal for the implementation of the agreement was met with fury by the Muslim population of the island and led to renewed clashes between the two communities in 1896.

To quell the unrest new provisions arrived from Ottoman empire while Greek volunteers landed on the island to support the Greek population. At the same time the fleets of the Great powers patrolled the Cretan waters leading to further escalation. Nevertheless an agreement was reached with the Sultan and the tensions receded. In January 1897 intercommunal violence broke loose as both sides tried to consolidate their grip on power. The Christian district of Chania was set on fire and many fled to the foreign fleet anchored outside the city. A struggle for independence and union with Greece was declared by Cretan revolutionaries.

Greek prime minister Theodoros Deligiannis met fierce criticism by his adversary Dimitrios Rallis over his alleged inability to handle the issue. Continuous demonstrations in Athens accused the King and the government for betrayal of the Cretan cause. The National Society, a nationalistic, militaristic organization that had infiltrated all levels of army and bureaucracy, pushed for immediate confrontation with the Ottomans.

Prelude to war

On 25 January 1897, the first troopships, accompanied by the battleship Hydra, sailed for Crete, where they disembarked two battalions of the Greek Army under Colonel Timoleon Vassos outside Chania. On 2 February, despite the guarantees given by the Great Powers on the Ottoman sovereignty over the island, Vassos unilaterally proclaimed its union with Greece. The Powers reacted by demanding that Deligiannis immediately withdraw the Greek forces from the island in exchange for a statute of autonomy. The demand was rejected, and on 7 February, the first full-scale battle between Greeks and Turks occurred, when the Greek expeditionary force in Crete defeated a 4,000-strong Ottoman force at Livadeia.

Opposing forces

Mountain gun of Greek army in 1897

Field gun of Greek army in 1897

The Greek army was made of 3 divisions with 2 of them taking positions in Thessaly and one in Arta, Epirus. The heir to the throne Crown prince Constantine I was the only general in the army hence he took command of the forces in 25 March. The Greek army in Thessaly consisted of 38,000 men 500 cavalry and 96 guns while that of Epirus was made of 16,000 men and 40 guns.

The opposing Ottoman army was consisted of 8 infantry divisions and one cavalry. In Thessaly front it could count on 92,500 men, 1300 cavalry and 186 guns while in Epirus it could field 29,000 men and 24 guns. Also the Ottoman army was under the guidance of a German military mission under general Baron von der Goltz. who had reorganized it after the defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). Ethem Pasha had the overall command of the Ottoman forces.

Apart from the evident difference in numbers, the two sides had also significant differences in the quality of armaments. The Ottoman Army was already equipping with their second generation of smokeless powder repeater rifles (Mauser Models 1890 and 1893) while the Greeks were equipped with the much inferior single shot Gras rifle.

The war

On 24 March 2,600 irregulars crossed the Greek border into Ottoman Macedonia in order to provoke disarray behind enemy lines by rousing locals against Ottoman administration. As a result on the 6th of April Ethem Pasha mobilized his forces. His plan was to surround Greek forces and by using river Pineios as a natural barrier to push them back to Central Greece. Nevertheless his rear forces were halted while the center of his formation gained ground altering his initial plans. The Greek plan was calling for a wider open field combat which ultimately would cost heavy casualties against an already superior opponent.

Thessalian front

Officially war was declared on 18 April when the Ottoman ambassador in Athens, Asim Bey, met with Greek foreign minister announcing the cutting of diplomatic ties. Heavy battles occurred between 21-22 of April outside the town of Tyrnavos but when the overwhelming Ottoman forces aligned and pushed together the Greek general staff ordered withdrawal, spreading panic among soldiers and population. Larissa fell the 27th while the Greek front was reorganized behind the strategic lines of Velestino, in Farsala. Nevertheless a division was ordered to head for Velestino thus cutting Greek forces in two,60km apart. Between 27-30 under the command of colonel Constantine Smolenski the Ottoman advance was checked and halted.

On the 5th of May, three Ottoman divisions attacked Farsala forcing an orderly withdrawal of Greek forces to Domokos while on the eve of those events Smolenski withdrew from newly-recaptured Velestion to Almiros.

At Domokos the Greeks assembled 40,000 men in a strong defensive position. The Turks had a total of about 70,000 troops, of whom about 45,000 were directly engaged in the battle.^[1] On May 16 the attackers sent part of their army around the flank of the Greeks to cut off their line of retreat but it failed to arrive in time. The next day the rest of their army made a frontal assault. Both sides fought hard. The Turks were held at bay by the fire of the defending infantry until their left flank defeated the Greek right. The Ottoman formation broke through forcing a renewed withdrawal. Smolenski was ordered to stand his ground at the Thermopylae passage but on 20th of May a ceasefire came in effect.

Epirus front

On the 18 April Ottoman forces under Ahmet Hıfzı Pasha attacked the bridge of Arta but were forced to withdraw and reorganize around Pente Pigadia. Five days later colonel Manos captured Pente Pigadia but the Greek advance was halted due to lack of reinforcements against an already numerically superior opposition. On 12th of May Greek forces and Epirot volunteers tried to cut off Preveza but were forced to retreat with heavy casualties.

The armistice

On the 20th of September peace was signed between the two sides. Greece was forced to cede a small piece of Thessaly and to pay heavy reparations^[2] . In order to pay the latter, the Greek economy came under international supervision. For the Greek public opinion and the military personnel the forced armistice was a humiliation, highlighted the unpreparedness of the country to fulfill its national aspirations (Megali Idea). This awareness laid the seeds for the revolution of 1909 of Goudi which called for immediate reforms in army, economy and society. Eventually Eleftherios Venizelos would came to power and as a leader of the Liberal party, he would instigate a wide range of reforms which would transform the Greek state leading it to the victorious Balkan wars 2 years later .

Casualties

References

External links

• Onwar.com on the first Greco-Turkish war

Bibliography

• Ekinci, Mehmet Uğur. The Unwanted War: The Diplomatic Background of the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897. Saarbrücken: VDM, 2009. ISBN 978-3-639-15456-6.