The Economic forces of victory versus those of defeat: An analysis of the Greek Economic and Military Mobilization of the 1909-1923 period

摘要

The intellectual aspiration of the paper is to highlight the economic forces, which playedan immense role in the wars in which Greece participated during the 1909-1923 period. Thesewere four major conflicts: The two Balkan wars of 1912-1913 against the Ottoman Empire andBulgaria; the First World War (1914-1918) and the Greek-Turkish war of 1919-1922. The tragicperiod started with Greek victories and ended with the greatest defeat of the modern Greekstate. Although these conflicts were different, there is a clear nexus between them. In the Greekas well as the international bibliography, the majority of studies highlight the strategic, tactical,operational, diplomatic, psychological dimensions of the conflicts of the period, as well as, thepersonal motives of political and military leaders. Under this intellectual framework, theeconomic forces of the conflict are marginalized by most academics. The final conflict of theperiod is primarily known as the ‘Campaign of Asia-Minor’ in the Greek bibliography, whereasin the Turkish bibliography it is considered as ‘the Great Patriotic War.’ Thus in this article weaim to demonstrate that the conflicts of the period are connected and also that the Greek defeatof 1922 was the outcome of a chain of miscalculations which the Greek side has made, butabove all it was the nexus of limited economic resources, diplomatic errors and wrong tacticaldecision making in the front. The structure of the article is as follows: The first sectionhighlights the concept of ‘Megali Idea,’ which defined Greek foreign and defence policy duringthe 1844-1923 period. This section highlights the crucial developments of the 1909-1919 decadejust before the war of the 1919-1922 period and demonstrates that the war developments weredirectly associated with those of the previous decade period. The second section analyses thestrategic and tactical errors by the Greek side during the conflict and associates them with theeconomic forces. The third section highlights the Turkish tactical, economic and diplomaticadvantages and demonstrates how these were associated to economic power. The fourth sectionprovides an analysis based on the options, which the Greek side had but failed to materialize.Conclusions follow. (We point out that all the dates are with the new Gregorian calendar versusthe old Julian calendar).