Macedonia Committee

The Macedonian Committee (Μακεδονικόν Κομιτάτον) was a Greek irredentist organization with the aim of liberating Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire (in the vilayets of Monastir and Salonika). It formed in 1903 under the leadership of wealthy publisher Dimitrios Kalapothakis; its members included Ion Dragoumis and Pavlos Melas. The committee organized the sending of freedom fighters to Macedonia — the so-called Macedonian Fighters — during the Macedonian Struggle.

Following the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate, Greeks and Bulgarians were engaged in a struggle for the allegiance of the inhabitants of Macedonia. Following the abortive Ilinden Revolt in August 1903 by the Bulgarian IMRO, in 1903 the Macedonian Committee organized to preserve Greek interests in the region. The Bishop of Kastoria, Germanos Karavangelis, sent to Macedonia by the ambassador of Greece Nikolaos Mavrokordatos and the consul of Greece in Monastiri, Ion Dragoumis, realised that it was time to act in a more efficient way and started organising Greek opposition of Macedonia. While Dragoumis concerned himself with the financial organisation of the efforts, the central figure in the military struggle was the capable Cretan officer Georgios Katechakis. Bishop Germanos Karavangelis animated the Macedonian Greek population against the Bulgarian IMRO and formed committees to promote Greek national interests.

Taking advantage of the internal political and personal disputes in IMRO, Katechakis and Karavangelis initially succeeded in recruiting some IMRO members and in organizing guerrilla groups, which were later reinforced with people sent from the free Greece and thus mainly comprised ex-officers of the Hellenic Army, volunteers brought from Crete, from the Mani area of the Peloponnese, as well as Macedonian Greeks, such as Evangelos Natsis from the village of Asprogia, Lazaros Apostolidis from Kastoria, Captain Giaglis from Ierissos, Konstantinos Kottas from Florina (former IMRO), Michael Sionidis, Captain Ramnalis, Pantelis Papaioannou, Stefanos Papagalos from Veria, Dimitrios Dalipis from Kastoria, Pericles Drakos from Kavala, Christos Dellios, Christos Argyrakos and many more.

The rebel fighters who fought for the Macedonian cause were known by the Greeks as Makedonomachoi - Μακεδονομάχοι - "Macedonian fighters". Greek writer Penelope Delta portrayed them in her novel "Τά μυστικά τοῦ Βάλτου" - The Secrets of the Swamp, and Germanos Karavangelis recalls them in the book of memoirs Ὁ Μακεδονικός Ἀγών - The Macedonian Struggle.

Greek Struggle for Macedonia

The Macedonian Struggle was a series of social, political, cultural and military conflicts between Greek and Bulgarian subjects living in the Ottoman vilayets of Monastir, Salonika and around between 1893 and 1912. The conflict was part of a wider rebel war in which revolutionary organizations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs all fought over Macedonia. Gradually the Greek & Bulgarian bands gained the upper hand, but the conflict was ended with the liberation of Thessaloniki, capital city of Macedonia, in 1912.

Initially the conflict was waged through educational and religious means, with a fierce rivalry developing between supporters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Greek speaking or Slavic speaking who generally identified as Greek), and supporters of the Bulgarian Exarchate, which had been established by the Ottomans in 1870.

As Ottoman rule in the Balkans crumbled in the late 19th century, competition arose between Greeks and Bulgarians over the multi-ethnic region of Macedonia. The defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 was a loss that appalled Greeks. The Ethniki Eteria was dissolved by Prime Minister Theotokis.

Greek–Bulgarian relations in Ottoman Macedonia

In 1894, a Bulgarian organization known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which did not claim the ancient history or the name of Macedonia; but only the territory as centuries old conflict between Greeks which defend Macedonia and Bulgarians trying to expand since their arrival in the region in the 6th century AD, had been founded and self-identified as being representative of all nations in Macedonia, with the aim of liberating Macedonia and Thrace from Ottoman rule, potentially to join Bulgaria. IMRO was declared as a organization open to all ethnic groups in Macedonia and, earlier on, IMRO claimed that it was fighting for the autonomy of Macedonia and not for annexation to Bulgaria. However, according to some authors and historians, it later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics with the aim of eventually uniting the entirety of Macedonia with Bulgaria, first in struggles against the Ottoman Empire and later against the Serbian-led Yugoslav successor state controlling the territory north of the vilayet of Salonika and the Greek state which controlled most of Macedonia. One major event representating the culmination of these actions is the assassination of the Serbian King of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes during the inter-war period by an IMRO sniper, likely working for Bulgarian interests. In practice, most of the followers of the IMRO were locals of Bulgarian descent. Many of the members of the organization saw autonomy of the region as an intermediate step to unification with Bulgaria.
Already from 1895 the Bulgarian Committees were formed in Sofia in order to reinforce the Bulgarian actions in Ottoman Empire. One of Komitadjis first activities was the capture of the predominantly Greek town of Meleniko (today Melnik, Bulgaria), but they couldn't hold it for more than a few hours. Bulgarian bands destroyed the Greek Pomak village of Dospat, to which enforce Bulgarian, where they massacred local inhabitants. This kind of activity alerted Greeks and Serbians.

Greek villagers after the massacres of Strentza (near Monastiri) during the Macedonian Struggle. National Historical Museum, Athens. Photo 1903-1908

The situation in Macedonia became heated and started to affect European public opinion. In April 1903, a group called Gemidzhii with some assistance from the Bulgarian IMRO blew up the French ship Guadalquivir and the Ottoman Bank in the harbour of Thessaloniki. In August 1903, IMRO managed to organise an uprising (the Ilinden Uprising) in vilayet of Monastiri and Adrianople. After the Bulgarians forming of the short-lived Kruševo Republic, the insurrection was suppressed by the Ottomans with the subsequent destruction of many villages and the devastation of large areas in the vilayet of Monastiri and around Kırk Kilise near Adrianople. The failure of the 1903 insurrection resulted in the eventual split of the IMRO into a left-wing (federalist) faction and a right-wing faction (centralists) which weakened the organization additionally.

Macedonian Response

In order to strengthen Greek efforts for Macedonia, the Macedonian Committee was formed in 1903, under the leadership of wealthy publisher Dimitrios Kalapothakis; its members included Ion Dragoumis and Pavlos Melas. Its fighters were known as Makedonomachoi ("Macedonian fighters").

Under these conditions, in 1904 a vicious guerrilla war broke as response of IMRO activities between Bulgarian and Greek bands within Ottoman vilayets of Monastir and Salonika. The Bishop of Kastoria, Germanos Karavangelis sent the ambassador of Greece Nikolaos Mavrokordatos and the consul of Greece in Monastiri, Ion Dragoumis, realised that it was time to act in a more efficient way and started organising Greek opposition. Bishop Germanos Karavangelis animated the Greek population against the Bulgarian IMRO and formed committees to promote the Greek national interests. Taking advantage of the internal political and personal disputes in IMRO, Katehakis and Karavangelis initially succeeded to recruit some IMRO former members and to organize guerrilla groups, that were later reinforced with people sent from free Greece and volunteers.

Gonos Yiotas (Γκόνος Γιώτας, 1880–1911) was a Slavophone Greek Macedonian Fighter in the Macedonian Struggle from Plugar, a village near Giannitsa.

Macedonian Fighters

Greek activity, the band of slavophone Gonos Yotas fought with the Greek side. The Greek state became concerned, not only because of Bulgarian penetration in Macedonia but also due to Serbian interests, which were concentrated mainly in Skopje and Monastir area. The rioting in Macedonia and especially the death of Pavlos Melas in 1904 - he was the first Greek officer to enter Macedonia with guerrillas Freedom Fighters and was killed in battle with the Ottoman army - caused intense patriotic feelings in Greece. This led to the decision to send more guerrilla troops in order to thwart Bulgarian efforts to bring all of the Slavic-speaking majority population of Macedonia on their side with the pretext of language. Many Greeks became slavophones during the Ottoman population distribution centuries old policy and settlements to create mixed population vilayets in order to prevent revolts.

The Greek General Consulate in Thessaloniki, under Lambros Koromilas, became the centre of the struggle, coordinating the Macedonian troops, distributing military material and nursing the wounded. Fierce conflicts between the Greeks and Bulgarians started in the area of Kastoria, in the Giannitsa Lake area, and elsewhere. During 1905, guerilla activity increased and the Macedonian Fighters gained significant advantage within 10 months, extending their control towards the areas of Mariovo and East Macedonia, Kastanohoria (near Kastoria), the plains north and south of Florina and the routes around Monastiri. However, from early 1906 the situation became critical and the forces of the Macedonian Fighters were forced to withdraw from various areas. Their manpower during that period was reduced from 1,000 to ca. 200, perhaps a little more than the Bulgarian Komitadjis, but nevertheless the groups of Tellos Agras and Ioannis Demestichas had some success in the marsh of Giannitsa.

Macedonian Fighters

Guerrilla groups confronted the Ottoman Army on the same time. War crimes were committed by both sides during the Macedonian struggle. According to a 1900 British report compiled by Alfred Biliotti, starting from 1897, the members of the Exarchist committees had embarked upon a systematic and extensive campaign of executions of the leading members of the Greek side. Moreover, Bulgarian Komitadjis, pursued a campaign of extermination of Greek and Serbian teachers and clergy. On the other hand, there were attacks by Greek Andartes on many Bulgarian villages, with the aim of forcing their inhabitants to switch their allegiance from the Exarchate back to the Patriarchate.

According to British reports on political crimes, including the above-mentioned Biliotti report, during the period from 1897 to 1912 over 4000 political murders were committed (66 before 1901, 200 between 1901 and 1903, 3300 between 1903 and 1908 and 600 between 1908 and 1912), excluding those killed during the Ilinden uprising and the members of the Bulgarian and Greek bands. Of those who were killed, 53% were Bulgarians, 33.5% were Greeks, Serbs and Aromanians together 3.5% and 10% were of an unknown nationality.

These conflicts ended with the liberation of Thessaloniki, capital city of Macedonia, in 1912.



Consequences

The success of Greek efforts in Macedonia was an experience that gave confidence to the country. It helped develop an intention to libarate and annex Greek-speaking areas, and bolster Greek presence in the still Ottoman-ruled Macedonia.

The events in Macedonia, specifically the consequences of the conflicts between Greek and Bulgarian national activists, gave rise to pogroms against the ca. 70,000-80,000 strong Greek communities that lived in Bulgaria, who were considered to share responsibility (including the support given to the guerrillas by some Bulgarian Greeks) for the actions of the Greek guerrilla groups.

Legacy

The fight for freedom of Macedonian Fighters, the liberation of Macedonia and the unification with the rest free Greece inspire Hellenism at the time which resulted in the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.

Visit also the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle in Thessaloniki or Kastoria.
Website: http://www.imma.edu.gr