TRENDEFRARAtlas of the Sultans · Cities and countries
13 cities
The lands of today's Greece joined the Ottoman state piece by piece from the late 14th century and left it piece by piece between 1830 and 1913.
Serres and Thessaloniki were taken in the 1380s, Athens in 1456, Rhodes in 1522 and Crete in 1669 after the long siege of Candia. After the uprising of 1821, an independent Greek state was founded in the south in 1830; Thessaly was ceded in 1881. Thessaloniki, Ioannina and the Aegean islands were lost in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913.
Ottoman troops under Deli Balaban Bey and Lala Şahin Pasha conquered the city.
Gazi Evrenos conquered eastern Thessaly including the town (sources give different dates); the Ottomans refounded it.
Troops under Çandarlı Hayreddin Pasha and Gazi Evrenos took the city after a long blockade.
Bayezid I took Kavala in September 1390 and had its walls torn down.
Under the Treaty of Gallipoli between Emir Süleyman and Byzantium the city passed to Byzantium.
Murad II took the city from Venice on 29 March 1430.
The city surrendered to Sinan Pasha, governor of Rumelia, in October 1430.
Turahan Bey, governor of Trikala sent by Mehmed II, took the city in May 1456.
In September 1462 the army of Mehmed the Conqueror and Mahmud Pasha's fleet took the island after a short but fierce siege.
Mehmed the Conqueror, leading the army in person and supported by Mahmud Pasha's fleet, besieged and took the city from Venice.
On Bayezid II's orders, troops under Mustafa Pasha, governor of Rumelia, took the town from Venice in summer 1499.
After fierce fighting Süleyman the Magnificent took the island and city from the Knights of St John on 20 December 1522.
Under the Ottoman-Venetian treaty of 3 October 1540 the town and its fortress were ceded to the Ottomans.
Piyale Pasha's fleet took the island from the Genoese; the Genoese rulers were sent to Istanbul on 14 April 1566.
After a blockade and siege of about twenty-three years Venice surrendered the city by agreement on 6 September 1669.
In the Venetian siege the garrison held out three or four weeks before surrendering.
After long resistance in the wars of 1683–1699 the town fell to Venice in July 1687.
Venice held the fortress until a year after the Treaty of Karlowitz and then handed it back.
Turkish forces besieged and recovered the town on 20 July 1715.
Kolokotronis, a leader of the Greek uprising, seized the town; the first Greek National Assembly met here.
The town passed to Greek rule.
Held by the Ottomans throughout the Greek uprising, the city was handed to Greece in 1831 after the peace took effect.
Ruined by the fighting, the city was handed over to the Greeks in 1833 and soon became the new state's capital.
Ottoman rule ended when Thessaly was ceded to Greece; until then it was among the ten largest Ottoman cities in Europe.
With Crete's autonomy the Ottoman troops left the city; after November 1898 the Turkish flag was no longer raised.
In the Balkan War the city fell to the Bulgarians; in 1913, just before they handed it to Greece, it was burned and ruined.
Governor Hasan Tahsin Pasha surrendered the city to the Greeks on 26 October 1912; the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest confirmed it.
In the Balkan War the Bulgarian army occupied the area in autumn 1912; the Treaty of Bucharest of 10 August 1913 gave the city to Greece.
In autumn 1912 the island was taken by the Greek army and navy.
During the Italo-Turkish War Italy occupied the island on 17 May 1912.
The Greeks landed on the island on 25 November 1912; the Ottoman garrison surrendered on 3 January 1913.
After Esad Pasha's defence of almost six months the city fell to the Greek army on 6 March 1913.
Source: TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, article “YUNANİSTAN” (in Turkish) and the atlas's city pages. Present-day borders are used.