historyWikipedia1912 · Thessaloniki, Greece

Thessaloniki passed from Ottoman to Greek rule in 1912 after 482 years

the gist

On 12 November 1912 King George I of Greece made a triumphal entry into Thessaloniki, ending 482 years of Ottoman rule. It happened in the First Balkan War (October 1912 to May 1913), when the Balkan League, made up of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro, attacked the Ottoman Empire. The allied armies overcame the Ottoman forces quickly. The Ottomans lost 83% of their European territory and 69% of their European population in the war.

so what

The war ended almost five centuries of Ottoman presence in most of the Balkans, but the winners quarrelled over the spoils. Bulgaria's attack on its former allies in June 1913 started the Second Balkan War, and tensions in the region fed into the First World War. The war also led to the creation of an independent Albania.

the bigger pattern

The unstable Balkans before 1914 were a case where quick shifts in borders created grievances that outlasted the original war.

fun fact

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, was born in Thessaloniki, then an Ottoman city.

Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo: Avidius ( talk ), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons