Latin Empire Imperium Latinicum Αυτοκρατορία των Λατίνων | |||||||||
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| 1918–1920 | |||||||||
 Flag
 Coat of arms
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| Capital | Athens | ||||||||
| Official languages |
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| Religion | Christianity(State Catholicism) | ||||||||
| Demonym(s) | Latin | ||||||||
| Government | Absolute Monarchy under Military administration | ||||||||
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| Legislature | No Legislature | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
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The Greek mainland under French Occupation[]
After the joint Franco-Bulgarian offensive in Epirus and Macedonia, the defences across Olympus protecting the plains of Thessaly collapsed. Coordinated artillery attacks and solid air support proved decisive in pushing back the Rhomanian army and sending it on the retreat, guaranteeing an Entente victory in the Balkan Theater of the war. The capture of the region proved strategically vital as it housed the main base for the Italo-English Mediterrenean operations room, and its loss was a heavy hit for morale, as it was part of the Rhomanian homeland, mainland Greece itself.
A Ghost From the Past[]
The Latin Empire, referred to as the Imperium Constantinopolitanum, was a feudal crusader state founded in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Eastern Roman Empire. Protected by the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Principality of Achaea and the thalassocracy of Venice, the state was propped up as a replacement of the Orthodox Greek Rome, a violent institution of Latin Catholic rule in the East, with its emperor Baldwin IX of Flanders as the enforcer of this rule. The Latin Empire proved to be a failed state, as it quickly declined soon after its creation and was subsequently reconquered by the Nicean Empire under Michael VIII Palaiologos, which recovered Constantinople thanks to the efforts of Alexios Strategopoulos, and restored the Roman Empire in 1261. The last Latin emperor, Baldwin II, abandoned the city before its reconquest and fled into exile, but the imperial title survived with several pretenders to it for centuries to come.
The French revival of the Latin state
Count Albert of French Flanders, a subordinate to Emperor Jean III of France, also known for his status as the Roi-Chevalier (Soldier King), was a prestigious general who had won several battles against the Continental Dutch army in the Brabantine front of the Great War. For his achievements he was invited to Versailes to be coronated as the new Latin Emperor of the Greeks, The despot of a new puppet regime under French military oversight.
Initially reluctant, Albert caved into Bourbon demands, as the Emperor hoped that Albert could prove a beacon of stability, the bedrock that would lay the foundation for a new prosperous Francocratic regime deep in former enemy territory. In the eyes of French leadership, the Second Latin Empire had great prospects to become a Catholic bastion and French colony. Albert was coronated in Paris on June 16 and sent to Athens via ship.
The Government and the 'Dosilogoi'[]
occupations troops arrive in central Athens
Albert's new government consisted of a closely tied courtly oligarchy, composed of French intellectuals, military commanders and parts of the French aristocracy. The most prominent members of the regime were general Louis François, frigate captain and future admiral François Darlan, military captain Edgar Puaud, the intellectual Fernand de Brinon and the young aristocrat Jacques de Bernonville. Outside of this clique, there also existed a number of Greek collaborators, known as the "dosilogoi" (δοσίλογοι). Rhomans who actively worked with the Second Latin Empire to further their own interests. Prominent examples included the businessman Ektor Tsironikos, the notorious colonel Georgios Poulos and the doctor Konstantinos Logothetopoulos who served as a personal advisor to Albert. The revival did not go as far as it was envisioned in practice, as the newly established realm soon found itself besieged on all sides, isolated as the Bulgarian army withdrew from the Thessalian front to cover its gaps in Thrace. Albert's court was entirely dependant on generals Louis François and his direct appeals to the French State for aid.
Growing Insubordination and Discontent[]
"Lègion Charlemagne brigades in the town of Pelargos
On the home front, the Second Latin Empire proved to be a failed experiment like its Medieval counterpart, in both being Latin and an Empire. The administration was entirely Flemish-led, with a French orientation pushed on by the military men still present in the region. The country was given autonomy to oversee its economy and social structure on its own, but direct command from Paris was always put above everything else. The state effectively functioned as a colony for France to extract resources from, and as an aerial and naval battleground for Entente-Imperial Power forces. Its leadership was in constant infighting, as François Darlan constantly came to blows with Ektor Tsironikos and Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, viewing them as bad influences to Albert that only destabilised the regime further. Albert himself was but a figurehead, kept mostly in the dark as his French ministers commanded the country and exploited the land. The state proved extremely unpopular amongst the local people, who suffered under the brutality of its occupation, with mass killings and torture of dissidents being commonplace.
Perhaps the biggest weakeness was its disadvantageous position in the south. The failure to secure the Isthmus of Corinth by the French forces only motivated the entrenched Rhomanians who guarded the Peloponnesse, contributing furthermore to French military stress.
Revolutionary Formations[]
The term 'Η Κατοχή' (the occupation) means to possess or to have control over goods. This was an explicity shameful and dishonorable term, used by locals and foreigners alike to describe the humiliation and expolitation Greece was subjected to under French occupation. The occupation ravaged the regional Greek economy and brought immense hardships to the Greek civilian population. Few Greeks actively cooperated with the French. Most chose either the path of passive acceptance or active resistance. The locals formed resistence groups, encouraged by the Rhomanian State. An underground movement surged in popularity and prominensce, subverting supplies and arms under the Latins' noses. With this, the resistence cells maintained themselves on smuggled goods and foreign support, until they finally had an equal ground to fight back against their occupiers. The Second Latin Empire unsuccesfullly tried to wipe out the resistence through military strength and scorched earth tactics. Edgar Puaud and Georgios Poulos became especially violent in their attempts to impose order, wiping entire villages off of the map under mere suspicions of cooperation with the resistence. Together they formed "Légion Charlemagne", a military brigade composed of the most ruthless of French soldiers and former Greek convicts. This Légion would go on to commit the infamous Veria Holocaust in which the town was torched and around 240 men and women were massacred, as their children were forced to dig their own parent's graves. This event, along with similar massacres commited by the Lègion proved a catalyst that led to the formation of three main revolutionary groups:
The HELA (Hellenic Emergency Liberation Army) or ΕΑΑΣ, was the prime organisation leading the liberation cause. Led by Alexandros Svolos and composed of civilian militia, small in numbers but brave in spirit. Their fighters gathered local support by fighting Bulgarian regiments in Epirus, and waging a campaign of guerilla warfare. The CSR (Communalist Syndicate of Rhomania) or KKR, a previously banned political group that allied with HELA and fought the French in the countryside around Central Greece and Attica, while espousing a hardline syndicalist ideology. The right wing paramiliatary group composed of former Akritoi, renamed to the GDFC (Greek Democratic Free Coalition), better known as EDES, led by colonel Dimitrios Psarros and operated in Epirus and Macedonia.
Post Liberation[]
Operation Argos and the Collapse of the Regime[]
Following the success of Operation Argos, and the British-Rhomanian landings in Epirus, Arta and Preveza, the Allied Coalition broke the exhausted French army and the weakened Latin units, recapturing old positions and pushing back the invading forces.The Allies soon blietzkrieged their way to Attica, quickly liberating Athens and capturing Albert inside his own palace, as his court fled the city. The navy led by François Darlan was decimated in the naval Battle of Saint George Island, while the Latin armed forces were pushed back following the Thessaly Breakout that begun on June. Edgar Puaud was killed in the fighting, while the rest of Albert's court boarded on ships and fled from the port of Leukada torwards France. As Lamia, Larissa and Volos were liberated by Allied forces throughout July and August, the last Latin garrisons had their last stand in the mountains of Epirus, where they were systematically destroyed in the following months. The collapse of the Pindus Line, the liberation of Epirus and the push into Macedonia, culminating in the decisive Battle of Vardar Gorge on August 1921, secured the fate of the Second Latin Empire as a mere historical footnote. The title of Latin Emperor was formerly abolished by the Treaty of Tourraine in 1923.
Aftermath and Rebuilding[]
Following the liberation of the Greek mainland, there came a long period of rebuilding. The revolutionary factions, initially keen on continuing the fighting amongst themselves were instead forced by the Allied Coalition to cooperate and were later legitematised as Rhomanian political parties following the war. Many Latin collaborators were sentenced by Rhomania to life in prison or death for their crimes, but most had escaped to France and from there to distant corners of the globe. Most were given an amnesty to return back to Greece in 1943.
Albert's court was hunted down by the Rhomanian government, and figures like Poulos, Logothetopoulos and Tsironikos were captured, sentenced to death and executed for their crimes in 1922, 1923 and 1935 respectively. As for Albert, he argued that he had limited to no control over his goverment and had no knowledge to the crimes his regime was commiting. He was sentenced to life in prison, which was later reduced to 25 years. While in jail and after release, he published a number of books of his life and regularly visited victims of the regime, eventually cleaning his public image. He lived the rest of his life in Rhomania and passed away in 1955.
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