GREECE;

GREECE HISTORICAL CONFLICTS

Wars were very common in ancient Greece. The Greeks lived in little city-states, each one like a small town in the United States today, with no more than about 100,000 people in each city-state. These city-states - Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes - were always fighting each other over their borders. Often they would get together in leagues, a lot of city-states together, to fight as allies.
 * Side note for Ancient Greek Wars***

It al started with the King of Sparta (Menelaus) being angry at the Prince of Troy (Paris) for stealing his beloved wife (Helen). Angry at that, Menelaus gathered up all the Greek descendents like the Achaeans and many other contingents from Greece as Paris gathered up all the Trojans and the Trojan allies for a war against the two powers. It was difficult for the Spartan side to get through the gate of Troy, so they decided to build a giant wooden horse to be delievered to Troy so they would be let in through the gates. And that wooden horse was hollow so that the Greek soldiers could stuff themselves inside it and attack the Trojans by surprise. After receiving the wooden horse, the Trojans didn't know what to think. But despite objections to this descision, it was decided to bring the horse inside. Then late at night, while the Trojans were asleep, the Greek soldiers broke through the wooden horse and destroyed the city-state Troy and everything in it. There were barely any survivors, and Menelaus, who had been determined to kill his faithless wife, was soon taken by Helen's beauty and seductiveness that he allowed her to live.
 * The Trojan War:**

Ionian cities revolted against Persian rule, and were aided by the Athenians. The revolt was successful at first, but eventually crushed by the Persians, who then turned to punished Athens for trying to help them out.
 * Ionian Revolt (499-493 BC):**

Darius, the King and ruler of Persia, wanted a larger empire. And to do so, he conquered all the Greek states, excluding Athens and Sparta, which caused Greece to dislike Persia for taking their land.
 * First Persian War (490 BC):**

The Persians desperately wanted to capture Athens from the Greek because it was such a famous city, and do so, they asked the Hippias, who were originally Greeks but were banished, to join the Persian force. Seeking revenge on Greece, they agreed. After finding its enemies' plans out, the Greek gathered up many soldiers and attacked them by suprise, which helped them win the battle. This battle showed the Persians and Hippias that Greece was not one to mess with.
 * Battle of Marathon (490 BC):**

The Persian emporer, Xerxes, sent a large army to Greece to continue its punishment for helping the Ionians. They had their first battle at Thermopylae, where the Athenian soldiers were surrounded by Persian soldiers. The Athenian soldiers fought to the last death to delay the Persians. Then at Salami, another battle was held on water. The outnumbered Athenian fleet defeated the Persian fleet because of its superior speed and maneuverability, and Athens had won the war.
 * Second Persian War (480-479 BC):**

(3 PHASES OF THIS WAR BELOW)
 * The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC):**

This war was a combination of 3 wars. This long war was fought against the Athenian empire and the Peloponnesian league, consisting of the Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta, led by the Spartans. After years and years of fighting, Athens finally surrendered. The after-effects of the war was tremendous. It remodeled the entile Greek state. The Athenian empire, which was the strongest city-state of Greece, was reduced to a mere vulnerable slave of Sparta, so vulnerable, that Athens could never gain its lost posperity that they took such pride in before the war. Since Athens' power went down, Sparta's power went up and became the ruling state of Greece. The war destroyed the economies and brought poverty and suffering to the state.

With the exception of Corinth, both Sparta and Athens were land-ruling powers. The war named after Sparta's king Archidamus II, started with Sparta accessing the regions surrounding Athens i.e. Attica. Athens mainly consisted of the peninsula of Attica and islands in the Aegean Sea. Sparta thought that attacking the productive land of Attica would pressurize Athens to come forward to start the battle in a formal manner, and so they attacked. But this attack did not have much effect of Athens's because; their food supply mainly came from Egypt and Crimea. The Spartan's attack on Athens lasted just forty days in 430 BC, because the soldiers wanted to go back home during the harvest season. Then again in 430 BC, Athens was hit by an outbreak of Plague. Nearly 1/4th of its population died along with General Pericles (who lead the first two years of the war) and his sons. Manpower was considerably reduced and no one came forward to help fearing infection. Even the Spartan invasion was kept on hold for the same reason. After hte death of the Pericles, Athens attacked. This attack hit the Spartan. In the fierce war, many leaders died, leading to a truce.
 * a. The Archidamian War:**


 * b. The Sicilian War:**

Sicily was attacked by Syracuse in 416 BC. Under the guidance of Alcibiades, and Athenian general, they dreamt of conquering the whole of Sicily. Athens could steal from Sicily, as it was a flourishing region. But then Alcibiades was held for crimes against religious statues. Alcibiades was allowed for the Sicilian expedition but on arriving he was called back to Athens for trial. He fled to Sparta and Nicias became the new leader. Nicias delayed the attack and Syracuse was left with no harm. The delay helped Syracuse who raised forces with the help of Sparta and other Sicilian cities. They defeated the Athenian's and prevented them from entering Syracuse. Demosthenes from Athens joined Nicias for help to attack Sicily. But the Athenian's were defeated once again. Nicias and Demosthenes fleet was faced a major and embarrassing defeat.

Sparta re-continued the war against Athens by conquering the Athenian silver mine, leaving Athens poor and vulnerable. The Athenian empire started to fall apart due to attack after attack. Then Persia, an enemy of Athens since the First Persian War, entered the war to support Sparta. So the Athenian navy called back Alcibiades, who came to help them. As the war went on, Athens faced victories against attacks by Spartans and Persians. Sparta needed a new leadership that bonded with the Persians so Lysander was given the position. Lysander along with the Persian leader, Cyrus, started to build a new armada against Athens. But Lysander was called for trial, so Callicratidas took over. He attacked the Athenian harbor, so Athens sailed their fleet in the battle of Arginusae where Sparta lost. During that battle, Callicratidas died of drowning. Tired of all their leaders suffering, Sparta offered peace but Athens refused. Lysander got called back, and with his help, Sparta was able to capture the entire Athenian fleet and brought the war to an end in just one attack. Then the Spartan army went and cut off the Athenian food suppy. With its naval forces and food blocked, Athens surrendered to Sparta under their ruling. But eventually, Athens was able to get their city-state back from Sparta.
 * c. The Ionian or Decelean War:**

Following the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire, most of Greece came under Ottoman rule. During this time, there were numerous revolts by Greeks attempting to gain independence. In 1814, a secret organization called the Filiki Eteria was founded with the aim of liberating Greece. The first of these revolts began on 6 March 1821 in the Danubian Principalities, but it was soon put down by the Ottomans. The events in the north urged the Greeks in the Peloponnese in action and on 17 March 1821 the Maniots declared war on the Ottomans. By the end of the month, the Peloponnese was in open revolt against the Turks and by October 1821 the Greeks under Theodoros Kolokotronis had captured Tripolitsa. Tensions soon developed among different Greek factions, leading to a two consecutive civil wars. A couple years later, three Great Powers, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, decided to help the Greek out. With the help of a French expeditionary force, the Greeks drove the Turks out of the Peloponnese and proceeded to the captured part of Central Greece by 1828. As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in May 1832. The Revolution is celebrated on 25 March by the modern Greek state, which is a national day.
 * Greek War of Independence:**

Two successive military conflicts that deprived the Ottoman Empire of almost all its remaining territory in Europe. The First Balkan War was fought between the members of the Balkan League--Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro--and the Ottoman Empire. The people of Balkan states had suffered a long and cruel 5 centuries. Christian people hated their previous masters and wanted back the territories which belonged to them before Seljuk turks' invasion in 12th century. The Christian league was able to field a combined force of 750,000 men. Montenegro opened hostilities by declaring war on Turkey on October 8th, 1912, and the other members of the league did too. The Balkan allies were soon victorious. The Balkan league won many battles over the Ottoman Empire, and under a peace treaty signed in London on May 30, 1913, the Ottoman Empire lost almost all of its remaining European territory.
 * The First Balkan War:**

The Second Balkan War began when Serbia, Greece, and Romania argued with Bulgaria over the division of their joint conquests in Macedonia. On June 1st, 1913, Serbia and Greece formed an alliance against Bulgaria, and the war began at night on the 30th, 1913, when King Ferdinand of Bulgaria ordered his troops to attack Serbian and Greek forces in Macedonia. Romania and the Ottoman Empire took the opportunity to intervene against Bulgaria and make territorial gains. In the resulting Treaty of Bucharest, Bulgaria lost most of the territories gained in the First Balkan War.
 * The Second Balkan War:**

At first, Greece wasn't for the Central Powers, which was an alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria, especially because it didn't have great relationships with those countries, but wasn't against them either. But with the Central Powers surrounding Greece, Greece felt pressured to pick a side. King Constantine, whose support was clearly with the Central Powers, believed that Greece's interests could best be served by maintaining neutrality. Prime Minister Venizelos, on the other hand, wasn't interested in joining the Central Powers. So throughout the war, Greece argued with itself over to join the Central P owers or not. Greece ended up joining the Allies.
 * World War I:**

**World War II:** Greece's entry into World War II as an Allies was caused by the Italian invasion on October 28, 1940. Despite Italian superiority in numbers and supplies, determined Greek defenders drove the invaders back into Albania. Hitler was forced to change the German troops' course to protect his southern army and overran Greece in 1941. Following a very severe German occupation in which many Greeks died (including over 90% of Greece's Jewish community) German forces withdrew in October 1944, and the government-in-exile returned to Athens.

Greece has recently confronted an increase in domestic terrorism after dismantling groups that had been active from the 1970s to the early 2000s. In the summer of 2002, Greek authorities captured numerous suspected members of the terrorist group "November 17." In 2003, 15 members of the terrorist organization, which since 1975 had killed many prominent Greeks and five U.S. Mission employees, were found guilty and convicted of a number of crimes, including homicide. In 2007, a court freed two of the defendants, but otherwise largely upheld the results of the initial trial, leaving the leadership of the shut-down group serving multiple life sentences and others serving long prison terms. Very recently, a domestic terrorist group called "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei" has claimed responsibility for a number of bomb attacks of different sizes. Two suspects believed to be connected to the group were arrested for taking part in an October 2010 attack designed to send over a dozen bombs via mail to foreign offices in Athens and political leaders in Europe. Unknown domestic terrorists carried out bomb attacks that killed a 15-year-old Afghan immigrant boy in March 2010 and an aide to the Minister of Citizen Protection in June 2010.
 * Domestic Terrorism:**