Greek names can be difficult for non-Greeks to pronounce. The problem is compounded because there is no agreed system for representing the sounds of the modern Greek language in the Latin alphabet. Letter-for-letter equivalence worked in antiquity. But since then the pronunciation of Greek has changed, over a period of time when English did not even exist. Rather than trying to reproduce roughly the sounds of the language on the page, I have tried so far as practicable to stay close to the Greek spelling, while avoiding forms that look excessively strange in English.
By applying a few simple rules, you can usually recreate the correct pronunciation of Greek names as they appear in this book:
‘ai’, ‘e’ = ‘e’ (as in ‘yet’)
‘ch’ (as in ‘loch’)
‘d’ = ‘th’ (as in ‘that’ not ‘thatch’)
‘ei’, ‘i’, ‘oi’, ‘y’ = ‘ee’ (as in ‘meet’)
‘g’ before ‘a’, ‘o’ or ‘ou’ = ‘gh’ (like the hard ‘g’ in Spanish or Dutch)
‘g’ before ‘e’ or ‘i’ = ‘y’ (as in ‘yield’)
Position of the stress accent is important too. This is often not predictable, and in written Greek is indicated by an acute accent. To avoid a cluttered appearance I have added these only in the Index, to which the reader may refer for guidance.
Obvious exceptions are those Greek names that have long-established equivalents in English: ‘Athens’ (not ‘Athina’), ‘Salonica’ (not ‘Thessaloniki’), ‘Pericles’ (not ‘Periklis’). Another long-standing convention, followed here, is to represent Greek royal names by their English equivalents: ‘George’ and ‘Constantine’, not ‘Georgios’ and ‘Konstantinos’. Older histories often anglicize other given names too: ‘John Metaxas’, ‘George Papandreou’. All these, following more recent custom, I have restored to their Greek forms: ‘Ioannis’ and ‘Georgios’ respectively.
Until 1 March 1923 the Orthodox Church and the Greek state continued to use the older, Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar) while most Western states had adopted the Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in 1582). Julian dates, commonly referred to as ‘Old Style’, in the nineteenth century fell twelve days earlier than the equivalent Gregorian (‘New Style’) dates, and thirteen days earlier in the twentieth century. So in Athens, Christmas Day in the nineteenth century would be celebrated on the equivalent of 6 January. In the twentieth century, up to and including 1922, the equivalent date would be 7 January. Histories written in Greek still regularly use ‘Old Style’ dates for the period when these were in use, a potential source of confusion. In this book, all dates in the main text are given according to the Western, Gregorian, or ‘New Style’ calendar. (In the notes, dates of documents follow the source cited, and if in Greek they can be assumed to be ‘Old Style’.) Where the ‘Old Style’ date is significant, or frequently cited, I have alerted the reader to the difference – as in the conventional date for the start of the Greek Revolution in 1821: 25 March, which in western Europe fell on 6 April.
No small part in this story is played by diplomats, particularly British ones. Before the Second World War, only the most illustrious foreign missions were granted the title ‘embassies’ by the Foreign Office, headed by ‘ambassadors’. Until then, Great Britain was represented in Athens by a ‘Legation’ headed by a ‘Minister’, strictly speaking a ‘Minister Plenipotentiary’. In the text and notes that follow I use the terminology of the period. There is no difference in role between a ‘Minister’, in this sense, and an ‘ambassador’.