Leonardopoulos, Georgios

Georgios Leonardόbulos was born in 1867 in the city of Corinth . In 1884 he entered the Military School of Evelpids , which he graduated in 1889 with the rank of junior lieutenant of the engineering corps ^[1] . He took part in the Greek-Turkish war of 1897. Being a competent officer, and having only the rank of lieutenant, Leonardopoulos taught architecture at the school of evelpids in the period 1902-1907 ^[4] .

In the First Balkan War (1912-1913) Leonardopoulos commanded an engineering company of bridge builders and was wounded in the battle of Komanos ^[1] . The dissatisfaction of the Bulgarians with the results of the First Balkan War led to a clash with former allies, Serbs and Greeks . In the Second Balkan War against the Bulgarians (1913) Leonrdopoulos took part as the staff of the III division, Major General Konstantin Damianos . Towards the end of the war and on the outskirts of the Bulgarian capital, Major General Damianos assumed command of a group of Greek forces consisting of III and X divisions. In July 1913, during a two-day fierce battle in the Pechovo region, the Damianos group, which covered the left flank of the Greek army, repelled the advance of the superior Bulgarian forces and enabled the Greek army to go on the offensive ^[5] ,

After the victorious end of the war, Leonardopoulos was a member of the border determination committee with union Serbia ^[1] . Upon completion of the commission, he was appointed chief of staff of the VIII division.

With the outbreak of World War I and the ensuing National Schism , Leonardopoulos succeeded Prime Minister Venizelos in Thessaloniki and initially headed the headquarters of the army corps. Subsequently, he headed the management of the personnel of the Ministry of War of the interim government in Thessaloniki ( 1916 ) ^[1] . After the reunification of the Greek state (1917), Leonardopoulos took over as deputy chief of the general staff. In 1918, he took command of the ΙΧ division. After the war ended, the 3/40 Guards Regiment of the Evzons ΙΧ Division, Major General Georgios Leonardopoulos, occupied the city of Xanthi in Western Thrace on October 3, 1919, putting an end to the occupation of the city, and then the whole of Western Thrace by the Bulgarians ^[6] .

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 ^[7] . 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.

Christ Dzinzilonis writes that the Greek army that landed in Smyrna had almost no freedom of action. The decisions of its actions were taken by the military authorities of the Middle East, where the main criterion was the satisfaction of the requirements and needs of the foreign policy of the imperialist forces, especially the British. For each action of the Greek army, “confirmation of Admiral Kaltorpe (Somerset Gough-Calthorpe), or, in his absence, the commander of the Allied fleet in Smyrna” was necessary ^[8] .

On May 6, 1919, the Inter-Allied Council, composed of US President Wilson , Prime Ministers of Great Britain David Lloyd George , France Georges Clemenceau and Italian Foreign Minister Sydney Sonnino , held an emergency meeting. The Greek Prime Minister Venizelos seized the moment and asked for permission to expand the Smyrna bridgehead in order to get an opportunity to repel the Turkish couple and to ensure the return of 300 thousand refugees who took refuge in the Greek islands after the massacre of the Greek population during the First World War . Permission was granted and the Greek army, in the words of the historian Janis Kapsis, was ready to “liberate the sacred lands, after 5 centuries of occupation by foreigners” ^[9] .

Liberation of East Thrace

During the campaign, according to Christ Dzindzilonis, the Greek army lost its national character and turned into an expeditionary force of the Ministry of the colonies of England. A telegram from Venizelos from London to Commander Paraskevopoulos is characteristic: “The British Minister of War authorized General Milne to allow our troops, in case of a Turkish attack, to pursue them for more than three kilometers, provided that after the operation is completed, our troops will return to the line occupation. " Permission to occupy East Thrace was obtained only in the summer of 1920. The IX division of Leonardopoulos, without much difficulty, defeated the VII Turkish corps near Adrianople in July 1920 and captured its commander Jafer Tayyar (Cafer Tayyar E ^] ilmez) ^[10] . The liberation of almost the whole of East Thrace followed and the division of Leonardopoulos stopped 50 km from Constantinople. The entry of the division into the city was forbidden by the Allies.

In Asia Minor

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. 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. Leonardopoulos was among the venizelist officers whom the monarchists had left in the army at command posts. He became a divisional commander of the X division, which was part of the III (northern) corps of the army of General Aristotle Vlahopoulos . Commanding the X Division, Leonardopoulos took part in the 1921 Spring Offensive. X Division, together with two other corps, came out of the city of Bursa . In a three-day battle, the corps took Kovalitsa, but Avgin could not take it and retreated ^[7] .

Separate Division Commander

A separate division was formed in July 1921 in the occupied by the Greek army of East Thrace . Parts of the Greek army stood 50 kilometers from the occupied allied fleets, including the Greek, of Constantinople . In an atmosphere of deteriorating relations with the allies, the monarchist government hatched a plan for the sudden occupation of Constantinople by the forces of two divisions, one of which was a separate division ^[11] . The first division commander was Major General G. Leonardopoulos ^[12] . The division included the 51st, 52nd and 53rd infantry regiments, one field division and one mountain artillery division. On August 4, 1921, when 7 divisions of the Asia Minor Expeditionary Force were preparing to march on Ankara , the division received orders to cross the Asian coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara, to Kios ( Gemlik ). The division landed in Chios on August 10 and made a march to the city of Dorileon ( Eskisehir ), where it arrived on September 2 ^[1] and became part of the III Army Corps. The division was ordered to clear the Turkish forces east of the city. On September 8, having suffered heavy losses, the division recaptured the town of Seyit Gazi from the Turks ^[13] . The division established 3 defense lines in the region and raided enemy territory. However, Leonardopoulos became seriously ill and by October 1921 transferred the command of the division to Colonel Dimitris Theotokis.

The reign of the monarchists ended with the defeat of the army and the Malaysian catastrophe . After the subsequent anti-monarchist rebellion of the Greek army on September 11, 1922 ^{[14] [15]} Major General Leonardopoulos was recalled to the army and was appointed commander of the IV Army Corps for the reorganization of the “Evros Army” ^[1] .

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 “Army of Evros”. Under the leadership of General T. Pangalos 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 ^[15] . 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 , Major General P. 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 subordinates, Major General P. Gargalidis and G. Leonardopoulos.

The merits of Garglidis, both in the creation of the Evros Army and in the prevention of the putsch of Pangalos, were not taken into account by the Revolutionary Committee and General A. Ottoneos was appointed commander of the Third 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 by virtue of their authority in the army and by the fact that they were venizelists ^[14] .

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 ” ^[14] . 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 ^[1] , Gargalidis accepted the conditions of surrender presented to him by Plastiras. The putsch was crushed ^[15] . 1284 officers who participated in the coup or sympathized with the coup were expelled from the army ^[14] . Among them was the adjutant of the king, Nikolaidis. On November 15, the “Field Tribunal” formed in Eleusis unanimously sentenced the generals Gargalidis and Leonardopoulos to death and deprivation of the officer rank, together with Lt. Col. Avrampoulos and Nikolareos ^{[1] [3] [2]} . It took the intervention of many governments, including Pope Pius XI , so that the executions would not take place. Subsequently, those sentenced were amnestied and the Revolutionary Committee limited itself to their expulsion from the army ^{[3] [1] [2]}

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 putsch of Gargalidis-Leonardopoulos was characterized by the "monarchist movement" ^[14] and received disproportionate significance with the goals of its organizers in the subsequent political events ^[16] . The intensified anti-monarchist tendencies led to the proclamation of the Second Hellenic Republic on March 25, 1924 ^[17] .

Leonardopoulos was rehabilitated in 1935 . He died the following year, 1936 .

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