Theodoros pangalos biography of martin lewis

The whole world seemed to be going up in flames. As the summer of drew to a close, a wave of massacres engulfed the Greek communities of Asia Minor, as the Turkish army advanced towards the coast. Hundreds of thousands of civilians crammed the waterfront of Smyrna as the city burned to the ground behind them. Countless men, women, and children were killed during these apocalyptic days; many more escaped to Greece, terrified and destitute.

The government in Athens seemed utterly paralysed, while a revolutionary committee forced King Constantine to abdicate, and executed six politicians and senior officers deemed responsible for the Asia Minor Catastrophe. The man responsible for prosecuting the overthrown administration was Theodoros Pangalos, a staff officer with a distinguished military career during the Balkan Wars and the First World War.

Pangalos supported Eleutherios Venizelos and had been dismissed from the army after the pro-royalist faction won the elections in He insisted that the revolutionary committee proceed with the execution of the condemned politicians before the British government could intervene on their behalf. As for himself, on 14 November on the eve of the execution he was named Minister for Military Affairs and departed for northern Greece on a mission of the utmost importance.

Born on Aug, 17, , Mr Pangalos was the grandson of a former Greek military dictator.

The war with Turkey had not ended with the destruction of Smyrna. The Greek army had been disastrously defeated in Asia Minor but the situation was quite different in Thrace. The presence of an efficient military force enabled the Greek delegation in Lausanne to overcome Turkish intransigence and contributed to the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in July The Army of Evros was disbanded soon after, but Pangalos remained a potent force in Greek politics.

By then it was evident that the nascent Hellenic Republic was in serious trouble.

The dictatorship of Theodoros Pangalos in –26 sought to revise the Treaty of Lausanne by a war with Turkey.

Financial debts, the cost of settling the refugees, the loss of national purpose, and the relentless animosity between monarchists and Venizelists resulted in chronic political instability; short-lived governments and coup attempts became the norm. Pangalos, never a fan of the parliamentary system, decided to act. On June he overthrew the government in a bloodless coup and remained in power until August , when a counter-coup deposed him.