The Allies armies of the Orient in WWI Greece

Happy New Year! The Canadian Institute reopened last Monday, January 7, and we’ve been hard at work putting together an interesting and varied programme of lectures for the winter-spring. (Look out for details in an upcoming blog post.) Our first lecture of 2019 will take place on Wednesday 16 January, starting at 7.30 pm in the library of the Institute (Dionysiou Aiginitou 7, ground floor, Ilisia. Metro: Megaro Mousikis). Anastassios Anastassiadis (Associate Professor of History & Phrixos B. Papachristidis chair in Modern Greek Studies, History & Classical Studies Department, McGill University) will give a talk entitled, “Writing the global history of a forgotten army: The Allied armies of the Orient in WWI Greece”.

“More than 600,000 Entente soldiers from around the world were at one point camped in WWI Greece. Between 1916 and 1918, there were 250,000 of them stationed in and around Thessaloniki, a city of 170,000 inhabitants at the time. However, the story of these Allied Armies has mostly been cast to oblivion, despite not only their role in terms of the outcome of the war but also their huge impact in terms of the biopolitics, meaning their contacts with the civilian population in a variety of forms: infrastructure, transportation, housing and food logistics, medical care and hygiene and even governance. Based on a current multi-partner research project, this talk will address some of those points and also touch upon the reasons this presence disappeared from the collective memory, both in Greece and in certain Allied countries like France.”

You are all most welcome to join us next Wednesday evening for what promises to be a fascinating presentation.

Jonathan Tomlinson
Assistant Director