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| Greco-Turkish War (1897) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Painting depicting theBattle of Velestino by Fausto Zonaro | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Abdul Hamid IIEdhem PashaAhmed Hifzi PashaHasan Izzet PashaAhmed Niyazi BeyHasan Rami Pasha |  Crown Prince ConstantineKonstantinos SapountzakisThrasyvoulos Manos Ricciotti Garibaldi | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| 120,000 infantry[1] 1,300 cavalry[citation needed] 210 guns[citation needed] | 75,000–90,000 infantry[6][1] 500 cavalry 2,000 Italian volunteers 600 Armenian volunteers[2] 136 guns[citation needed] | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 999[7]–1,300[8][9] killed 2,064[7]–2,697 wounded[8][9] | 700[10]–832[7] killed 2,481 wounded 253 prisoners[8] | ||||||||
TheGreco-Turkish War of 1897 or theOttoman-Greek War of 1897 (Turkish:1897 Osmanlı-Yunan Savaşı or1897 Türk-Yunan Savaşı), also called theThirty Days' War and known inGreece as theBlack '97 (Greek:Μαύρο '97,Mauro '97) or theUnfortunate War (Greek:Ατυχής πόλεμος,romanized: Atychis polemos), was a war fought between theKingdom of Greece and theOttoman Empire. Its immediate cause involved the status of theOttoman province of Crete, whose Greek-majority population had long desired union with Greece. Despite the Ottoman victory on the field, an autonomousCretan State under Ottomansuzerainty was established the following year (as a result of the intervention of theGreat Powers after the war), withPrince George of Greece and Denmark as its firstHigh Commissioner.[11]
The war put the military and political personnel of Greece to test in an official open war for the first time since theGreek War of Independence in 1821. For the Ottoman Empire, this was also the first war-effort to test a re-organized military system. TheOttoman army operated under the guidance of a Germanmilitary mission led (1883–1895) byColmar Freiherr von der Goltz, who had reorganized the Ottoman military after its defeat in theRusso-Turkish War of 1877–1878.
The conflict proved that Greece was wholly unprepared for war. Plans, fortifications and weapons were non-existent, the mass of the officer corps was unsuited to its tasks, and training was inadequate. As a result, the numerically superior, better-organized, -equipped and -led Ottoman forces, pushed the Greek forces south out of Thessaly and threatened Athens,[12]only to cease fighting when the Great Powers persuaded the Sultan to agree to an armistice.[13][need quotation to verify][14][15] The war is notable in that it was the first to be filmed on camera, though the footage has since been lost.[16]
In 1878 the Ottoman Empire, according to the provisions of theCongress of Berlin, signed thePact of Halepa which entailed the implementation of the organic law of 1868, promised but never implemented by the Ottoman government, which was to give Crete a status of wide-ranging autonomy. The Ottoman commissioners, however, repeatedly ignored the convention, causing three successive rebellions in 1885, 1888 and 1889. In 1894[citation needed] SultanAbdul Hamid II re-appointedAlexander Karatheodori Pasha as governor of Crete, but Karatheodori's zeal for the implementation of the agreement was met with fury by theMuslim population of the island and led to renewed clashes between the Greek and Muslim communities there in 1896.
To quell the unrest, Ottoman military reinforcements arrived 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 inter-communal violence broke out as both sides tried to consolidate their grip on power. The Christian district ofChania was set on fire and many fled to the foreign fleet anchored outside the city. Astruggle for independence and union with Greece was declared by Cretan revolutionaries.
Greek prime ministerTheodoros Deligiannis was subjected to fierce criticism by his adversaryDimitrios Rallis over his alleged inability to handle the issue. Continuous demonstrations inAthens accused KingGeorge I and the government of betrayal of the Cretan cause. TheNational Society, a nationalistic, militaristic organisation that had infiltrated all levels of the army and bureaucracy, pushed for immediate confrontation with the Ottomans.
On 6 February 1897 (according to the modernGregorian calendar; it was 25 January 1897 according to theJulian calendar then in use in Greece and the Ottoman Empire, which was 12 days behind the Gregorian during the 19th century) the first troopships, accompanied by the battleshipHydra, sailed for Crete. Before they arrived, a small Greek Navy squadron under the command ofPrince George of Greece and Denmark appeared off Crete on 12 February (31 January Julian) with orders to support the Cretan insurgents and harass Ottoman shipping. Six Great Powers (Austria-Hungary,France, theGerman Empire, theKingdom of Italy, theRussian Empire, and theUnited Kingdom) had already deployed warships to Cretan waters to form a naval "International Squadron" to intervene and to maintain peace on Crete, and they warned Prince George not to engage in hostilities; Prince George returned to Greece the next day. However, the troopships disembarked two battalions of the Greek Army underColonelTimoleon Vassos atPlatanias, west ofChania, on 14 February (2 February on the Julian calendar). Despite the guarantees given by the Great Powers on Ottoman sovereignty over the island, Vassos upon his arrival unilaterally proclaimed its union with Greece. The Powers reacted by demanding that Deligiannis immediately withdraw Greek forces from the island in exchange for a statute of autonomy.[17][18][19]
The demand was rejected, and so on 19 February (7 February Julian) the first full-scale battle between Greeks and Ottomans occurred, when the Greek expeditionary force in Crete defeated a 4,000-strong Ottoman force at theBattle of Livadeia. Ordered to keep away from Crete's capital Canea (nowChania), Vassos accomplished little thereafter on Crete, but Cretan insurgents attacked Ottoman forces during February and March 1897. The warships of the International Squadron bombarded the insurgents to break up their attacks and put an international force of sailors andmarines ashore to occupy Canea, and by the end of March major fighting on Crete came to an end, although the uprising continued.[20]
The Greek army was made up of three divisions, with two of them taking positions inThessaly and one inArta,Epirus. Crown PrinceConstantine was the only general in the army. He took command of the forces on 25 March. The Greek army in Thessaly consisted of 45,000 men,[21] 500 cavalry, and 96 guns, while that of Epirus comprised 16,000 men and 40 guns.
The opposing Ottoman army comprised eight infantry divisions, largely consisting of Albanians, plus one cavalry division. On the Thessaly front, it consisted of 58,000 men,[21] 1,300 cavalry, and 186 guns, while in Epirus it could field 26,000 men and 29 guns.Edhem Pasha had overall command of the Ottoman forces.
Apart from the obvious difference in numbers, the two sides had also significant differences in the quality of armaments and soldiers. The Ottoman army was already being equipped with its second generation ofsmokeless powder repeater rifles (Mauser Models 1890 and 1893), while the Greeks were equipped with the inferiorsingle-shotGras rifle. There was also the potential for a naval contest. In 1897 the Greek navy consisted of three smallHydra class battleships, one cruiser, theMiaoulis, and several older small ironclads and gunboats.[22] The Greek ships bombarded Turkish fortifications and escorted troop transports, but there was no major naval battle during the war. TheOttoman fleet had seven battleships and ironclads at least as large as the Greek battleships, and although most of these were obsolete designs, theOsmaniye class had been rebuilt and modernized. The Ottoman navy also had several smaller ironclads, two unprotected cruisers and smaller ships including torpedo craft.[23] The Ottoman fleet had not been maintained, perhaps due to the Sultan's fear of a strong navy becoming a power base for plots against the government, and in 1897 when called into action most of the ships were in poor condition and could not contest control of the sea beyond the Dardanelles.[24]
On 24th March, about 2,600 irregulars crossed the Greek border into OttomanMacedonia in order to provoke disarray behind enemy lines by rousing locals against Ottoman administration. As a result, on 6 April Edhem Pasha mobilised his forces. His plan was to surround Greek forces and by using riverPineios as a natural barrier to push them back tocentral Greece. Nevertheless, his rear forces were halted while the center of his formation gained ground, altering his initial plans. The Greek plan called for a wider open field combat, which ultimately would cost heavy casualties against an already superior opponent.There was no serious force left to prevent the Ottoman Army from entering the Greek capital, Athens. Halil Rifat Pasha, askedAbdul Hamid for permission to enterAthens. In agreement with the Great powers, the Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, telegraphed Abdul Hamid himself and demanded that the war be stopped. On 19 May, the Ottoman army stopped its advance. On 20 May 1897, a ceasefire went into effect.
Officially, war was declared on 18 April when the Ottoman ambassador in Athens, Asim Bey, met with the Greek foreign minister announcing the cutting of diplomatic ties. Heavy fighting occurred between 21 and 22 April outside the town ofTyrnavos but when the overwhelming Ottoman forces converged and pushed together, the Greek general staff ordered a general withdrawal, spreading panic among soldiers and civilians alike.Larissa fell on 27 April, while the Greek front was being reorganised behind the strategic lines of Velestino, inFarsala. Nevertheless, a division was ordered to head for Velestino, thus cutting Greek forces in two, 60 km apart. Between 27 and 30 April, under the command of Col.Konstantinos Smolenskis, Greek forces checked and halted the Ottoman advance.
On 5 May three Ottoman divisions attacked Farsala, forcing an orderly withdrawal of Greek forces toDomokos; on the eve of those events Smolenskis had withdrawn from newly recaptured Velestino to Almyros.Volos fell into Ottoman hands on 8 May.
At Domokos the Greeks assembled 40,000 men in a strong defensive position, joined by about 2,000Italian"Redshirt" volunteers under the command ofRicciotti Garibaldi, son ofGiuseppe Garibaldi. The Ottoman Empire had a total of about 70,000 troops, of whom about 45,000 were directly engaged in the battle.[25]
On 16 May 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 ferociously. The Ottomans 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. Smolenskis was ordered to stand his ground at theThermopylae passage, but on 20 May a ceasefire went into effect.
On 18 April, Ottoman forces underAhmed Hifzi Pasha attacked the bridge ofArta but were forced to withdraw and reorganise around Pente Pigadia. Five days later Col.Thrasyvoulos Manos captured Pente Pigadia, but the Greek advance was halted due to lack of reinforcements against an already numerically superior opposition. On 12 May Greek forces tried to cut offPreveza but were forced to retreat with heavy casualties.
On 20 Septembera peace treaty was signed between the two sides. Greece was forced to cede minor border areas and pay heavy reparations.[26] To pay the latter, the Greek economy came under the formal oversight of theInternational Financial Commission. For the Greek public opinion and the military, the forced armistice was a humiliation, highlighting the unpreparedness of the country to fulfill its national aspirations.
Despite the end of the war, the uprising on Crete continued – although with no further organized combat – until November 1898, when the Great Powers evicted Ottoman forces from the island to make way for an autonomousCretan State under thesuzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. Officially founded in December 1898 whenPrince George of Greece and Denmark arrived on Crete to take up his duties asHigh Commissioner, the Cretan State survived until 1913, when Greece formally annexed the island.[27]
In Greece, the public awareness of the country's unpreparedness for war in pursuit of its national aspirations laid the seeds for theGoudi coup of 1909, which called for immediate reforms in the Greek Army, economy, and society. WhenEleftherios Venizelos came to power, as a leader of the Liberal party, he instigated reforms that transformed the Greek state, leading it to victory in theBalkan Wars fifteen years later.
The three pitched battles (Velestin, Catalca, and Domeke) in front of the last Greek defensive line turned out to be decisive. The Greek defenders were beaten in detail and lost any chance to safeguard the road toAthens.
In the Greco-Turkish War, 1897, the Powers intervened, and asked the Sultan to suspend his offensive operations. After some delay [...] [h]ostilities went on, and the Turks soon became masters of Thessaly. The Czar or Russia having made an appeal to the Sultan (as has already been mentioned), an armistice convention was concluded on May 19 for Epirus, and on May 20 for Thessaly.
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