Gargalidis, Panagiotis

Gargalidis was born in 1870 in the city of Messini , Messenia . After graduating from high school in September 1887, he entered a technical school on the island of Kerkyra . In 1896 he was admitted to the College of non-commissioned officers of the army. As a cadet, he took part in the Greek-Turkish war of 1897. He was seriously wounded in the head by a fragment of a shell. After treatment, he returned to the school, which he graduated in 1899, with the rank of junior infantry lieutenant.

In the First Balkan War (1912-1913) Gargalidis initially fought in the rank of captain. Having distinguished himself in the battles against the Turks, Gargalidis was promoted to the rank of major, and he was entrusted with the sector of the city of Nigrit , which covered the capital of Macedonia, the city of Thessaloniki and was in direct contact with the Bulgarian army at that time. Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction of the Bulgarians with the results of the First Balkan War led to a clash with former allies, Serbs and Greeks . Border conflicts in the Gargalidis sector were continuous.

On May 8/21, Bulgarian forces launched a large-scale operation against the Greek positions on Mount Paiko And in the Nigrita sector ^[2] , and on May 15/28 launched a powerful attack in the area of ​​the city of Gevgeliya , trying to wedge between the allied Serbian and Greek armies ^[2] . Gargalidis, commanding his battalion, was at the epicenter of these events, successfully repelled the attack of the three-time Bulgarian forces and refused to comply with the order of the General Staff to withdraw.

The General Staff demanded that he be punished for his "initiative", but the commander, King Constantine , suspended the case and awarded Gargalidis the Order for Military Merit, for the courage shown to him personally and his battalion.

On the second day of this undeclared war, the Greek army went on the offensive, during which it took Nigrit ^[2] . Gargalidis distinguished himself in the capture of the city.

Gargalidis, commanding his battalion, took part in subsequent Greek victories over the Bulgarians at Mosteni, at Kilkis and Lahanas , in the Kresnensky Gorge , at Gorn Dzhumaya . In this last battle, 100 km from the Bulgarian capital, Gargalidis was seriously injured ^[3] .

With the outbreak of World War I and the ensuing National Schism , Gargalidis succeeded Prime Minister Venizelos in Thessaloniki . With the entry of Greece into the war, he was entrusted with the command of the 35th Regiment of the 2nd Division. During the allied offensive of September 1918, with the aim of breaking through the German-Bulgarian defensive line, thanks to the rapid attack that Gargalidis launched commanding his regiment, he managed to occupy the Preslap massif. This attack led to a breakthrough of the entire Macedonian front of the German-Bulgarians. The success of Gargalidis was so significant that he was awarded the French Military Cross with a gold star on the battlefield and was marked in the order for the allied army by the French commander d'Espere . Some sources write that later he was also awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor .

With the end of World War II, in 1919, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau appealed to the Prime Minister of Allied Greece with a request for support in the intervention in the south of Soviet Russia. The Greek prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos , responded positively, proposing a whole corps of a small Greek army, consisting of 3 divisions, that is, forces exceeding the French. Venizelos's proposal was made in exchange for supporting Greek territorial claims in East Thrace and Asia Minor , territories that retained their native Greek population ^[4] . In Greek historiography, the participation of the Greek army in this intervention was named the Ukrainian campaign ^[5] . Gargalidis is noted by historiography for his actions on the front line, near the city of Kherson . On March 9, a general attack of the Red Army infantry units against Kherson was launched, using armored trains, which resulted in the occupation of the railway station, after which the Greek forces (1st battalion of the 34th Greek regiment) gathered at the fortress, and the French forces (1 company) at coast. The situation for the defenders became critical. At noon, 2 Greek battalions from the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Division approached, under the command of Colonel Gargalidis. Gargalidis managed to rescue the encircled Greek battalion, but the subsequent street battles, in which the residents of the city took on the side of the Red Army, firing from the windows, forced the Allies to a general retreat ^[3] . On the morning of March 10, the Greek and French units left the city and were transported by sea to Odessa.

In 1919, under the Entente’s mandate, the Greek army occupied the western coast of Asia Minor . The Sevres Peace Treaty of 1920 secured the temporary control of the region over Greece, with the prospect of deciding its fate in 5 years at a referendum of the population ^[6] . The battles with the Kemalists that began here began to take on the character of a war that the Greek army was forced to wage alone. Of the allies, Italy from the very beginning supported the Kemalists, France, solving its tasks, began to also support them. However, the Greek army firmly held its ground. Gargalidis took part in the Asia Minor campaign as part of the II division. In the period from December 1919 to February 1920, he repeatedly replaced Major General Nikos Vlakhopoulos as a division commander ^[7] . For his courage in liberating the city of Philadelphia , Gargalides was promoted to the rank of Major General in 1920 , after which he was entrusted with command of the в division in the Kydonies and Magnesia sectors. However, in the same year, the geopolitical situation changed radically and became fatal for the Greek population of Asia Minor after the parliamentary elections in Greece in November 1920. Under the slogan “we will return our guys home” and having received the support of the significant Muslim population at that time, the monarchists won the election. Gargalidis was among the officers, supporters of Venizelos, forced to leave the army. He transferred the XI division to the colonial monarchist Nikolaos Kladas , under whose command the division became "the worst of all the divisions of the Malaysian army" ^[8] . Although Gargalidis, unlike other officers of Venizelos supporters, did not take any action against the government of the monarchists, in the summer of 1921 he was questioned. The interrogation was political persecution. The return to the country of Germanophile King Constantine freed the Allies from their obligations to Greece. Already in a different geopolitical setting and not having resolved the issue with the Greek population of Ionia , the monarchists continued the war. The rule of the monarchists ended with the defeat of the army and the massacre and the expulsion of the indigenous population of Ionia . Nikolaos Triandafillakos , the last prime minister of the monarchists, who remained at the head of the government for only a month, in his attempt to strengthen the Greek corps in East Thrace , recalled Gargalidis to the army.

Major General Gargalidis took part in the subsequent anti-monarchist uprising of the Greek army on September 11, 1922 and entered the leadership of General Pangalos , together with generals Mazarakis , Meletopoulos, Manetas , Tserulis ^{[4] [9]} . Under pressure from their former allies, in October 1922, Greece was forced to sign the Mudani Armistice , leave East Thrace (today's European Turkey) without a fight, and withdraw its troops across the Evros ( Maritsa ) River. Since a peace agreement had not yet been signed and the resumption of hostilities was not ruled out, one of the primary tasks of the Revolutionary Government was to strengthen the so-called Evros Army. The command of the 3rd Army Corps of Evros was entrusted to Gargalidis. Under the leadership of General Pangalos, a well-equipped and efficient army of 100 thousand bayonets was created. The English historian D. Dakin writes that if at that moment a decision were made to resume hostilities, the army of Evros could have reached Constantinople with lightning speed and the Turks were not able to stop it ^[9] . However, E. Venizelos, who led the Greek delegation at the Lausanne Peace Conference, used the Evros Army as a threat and diplomatic weapon, but signed on to leave East Thrace within the new Turkish state. This provoked the wrath of General Pangalos who decided to use the Evros Army to establish a military dictatorship and resume military operations in Eastern Thrace. As a personal friend of the leader of the revolution N. Plastiras , Gargalidis warned him of the threat. Plastiras obtained the support of other officers of the Evros Army with lightning speed, dismissed Pangalos and appointed in his place Major General Pirakos-Mavromihalis .

Most Greek historians attribute the “Miracle of Evros” (that is, the creation of the Evros Army in a short time) to General Pangalos, thereby belittling the contribution of his subordinate major generals Gargalidis and Leonardopoulos.

The merits of Gargalidis, both in creating the Evros Army and in preventing the putsch of Pangalos, were not taken into account by the Revolutionary Committee and General A. Ottoneos was appointed commander of the 3rd Army Corps. This brought Gargalidis closer not only to the venetian officers who were indignant at the signing of the Lausanne agreements , but also to the monarchists. In the created motley coalition of dissatisfied with the Revolutionary Committee, the monarchists, the so-called The “Major Group”, led by Colonel G. Ziras, left the leadership to Major General Gargalidis and Leonardopoulos both because of their authority in the army and the fact that they were venizelists ^[4] .

In October 1923, Greece entered the pre-election period. Elections were scheduled for December 2. The coup of Gargalidis - Leonardopoulos took place on the night of October 21-22. The coup’s intention was to force the government to resign without armed violence, the creation of an interim government that would hold “fair elections”. The putschists announced their intentions in 3 newspapers: “The army confirms that it will not interfere in political life, nor in the formation of a new government, nor in the activities of this government. She confine herself to keeping order and her military duties ” ^[4] . The putschists performed in the provinces, leaving the capital, Thessaloniki, and several other provincial centers to the government. The reaction of the Revolutionary Committee was lightning fast. At the same time, the putsch was met with hostility by local authorities, the church and political parties. Despite their numerical superiority, the putschists did not take the initiative and wasted time. By October 25, the Revolutionary Committee returned to its control the whole of Northern Greece. The forces of Gargalidis-Leonardopoulos on the Peloponnese Peninsula, numbering 4,500 people, gathered in the city of Corinth , planning to go to Athens . The ships of the Navy, which remained faithful to the Revolution, threatened Corinth with shelling, which forced the commandant to surrender the city without resistance. On October 27, after a short clash in the area of ​​Mount Kiferon, Gargalidis accepted the conditions of surrender presented to him by Plastiras. The putsch was crushed ^[9] . 1284 officers who participated in or were sympathetic to the coup were expelled from the army ^[4] . Among them was the adjutant of the king, Nikolaidis. On November 15, the “Field Tribunal” formed in Eleusis unanimously sentenced Gargalidis to death and deprivation of officer rank, together with Leonardopoulos and Lt. Col. Avramposos Nikolaareos. It took the intervention of many governments, including Pope Pius XI , so that the executions would not take place. Subsequently, the condemned were amnestied and the Revolutionary Committee limited themselves to their expulsion from the army. The elections took place on December 16 and became a triumph of parties close to Venizelos. Monarchists refused to take part in the elections. The coup of Gargalidis-Leonardopoulos was characterized by the "monarchist movement" ^[4] . and received disproportionate importance with the goals of its organizers in subsequent political events ^[10] . The intensified anti-monarchist tendencies led to the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic on March 25, 1924 ^[11] .

After his liberation, Gargalidis became a supporter of the return of the monarchy and became a "red rag" for venizelists.

However, in October 1926, trying to reconcile the country, the government decided to review the affairs of 500 officers in order to withdraw them into the army. Gargalidis was appointed a member of the committee that reviewed the cases of these officers as a person acceptable by all parties. Major General Gargalidis was rehabilitated in 1935 . Due to age and disease, Gargalidis did not take part in the Greco-Italian war of 1940-1941. Major General Gargalidis took measures during the triple, German-Italian-Bulgarian occupation of Greece in the city of Kalamata in 1942 ^[3] .

• "Εγκυκλοπαίδεια Πάπυρος Larousse Britannica" τομ.16ος, σελ.193.
• "Νεώτερον Εγκυκλοπαιδικόν Λεξικόν Ηλίου" τομ.5ος, σελ.26.
• Δήμος Βρατσάνος "Ιστορία των Επαναστάσεων" σελ. 213.

1. ↑ Γαργαλίδης, Παναγιώτης (Μεσσήνη, 1870 - Καλαμάτα, 1942) - Εκδοτική Αθηνών Α.Ε
2. ↑ ^{1 2 3} Σόλων Γρηγοριάδης . Οι Βαλκανικοί Πόλεμοι 1912-13, Ο ΤΥΠΟΣ Α.Ε., 1979, Αθηνα
3. ↑ ^{1 2 3} Υποστράτηγος Παναγιώτης Γαργαλίδης (1870-1942): μια βιογραφία - Θέματα Ελληνικής Ιστορίας
4. ↑ ^{1 2 3 4 5 6} Τριαντάφυλος Α. Γεροζήσης, Το Σώμα των αξιωματικών και η θέση του στη σύγχρονη Ελληνική κοινωνία (1821-1975), εκδ. Δωδώνη, ISBN 960-248-794-1
5. ↑ Δημήτρης Φωτιάδης, Ενθυμήματα, εκδ. Κέδρος 1981
6. ↑ Δημήτρης Φωτιάδης, Σαγγάριος, εκδ.Φυτράκη 1974, σελ.16
7. ↑ Ιστορια Των Ελληνικων Ενοπλων Δυναμεων
8. ↑ Δημήτρης Φωτιάδης, Σαγγάριος, εκδ.Φυτράκη 1974
9. ↑ ^{1 2 3} Douglas Dakin, The Unification of Greece 1770-1923, ISBN 960-250-150-2
10. ↑ Ξεφυλίζοντας την Ιστορία: Κίνημα στο ... κίνημα, πριν 80 χρόνια: Ξεφυλίζοντας την Ιστορία: Κίνημα στο ... η
11. ↑ Αφιερώματα - Το Κίνημα Γαργαλίδη - Λεοναρδόπουλου