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Hellenic Republic
Ελληνική Δημοκρατία
Timeline: 1983: Doomsday
Subdivision of Greece
Flag Coat of Arms
Flag Coat of Arms
Location of Hellenic Republic
Number 1, in orange
Capital Heraklion
Largest City Heraklion
Other Cities Volos, Chalcis, Lamia, Salamina, Kórinthos
Language Greek
President Geórgios Papandréou
Prime Minister Ioannis Kourakis
Area approx. 30,900 km²
Population approx. 1,889,400 
Admission Founding member of the Confederation of Greece: 1994, Statehood in Greek Federation: 2009

The Hellenic Republic is a major state within the Greek Federation. Consisting of the island of Crete, a few Aegean islands, and the Thessaly and Attica portions of the mainland, it is the direct successor to the pre-Doomsday Greek Republic. They are often referred to as Hellas, or even Crete, by most people.

History[]

Pre-Doomsday[]

After the Greek War of Independence, successfully waged against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the London Protocol in 1830. The Great Powers installed a monarchy under Otto, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm of Denmark, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain.

As a result of the Balkan Wars in the early 20th century, Greece increased the extent of its territory and population. They would spend the First World War largely on the fence, so to speak. In the aftermath of the war, Greece fought against Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal, a war which resulted in a massive population exchange between the two countries under the Treaty of Lausanne. Instability and successive coups d'état marked the following era, which was overshadowed by the massive task of incorporating 1.5 million Greek refugees from Turkey into Greek society.

On 28 October 1940 Fascist Italy demanded the surrender of Greece, but Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas refused and in the following Greco-Italian War, Greece repelled Italian forces into Albania. The country would eventually fall to German forces. After liberation, Greece experienced a bitter civil war between communist and anticommunist forces. The next 20 years were characterized by marginalisation of the left in the political and social spheres but also by rapid economic growth.

Dismissal of the government by the King in July 1965 prompted a prolonged period of political turbulence which culminated in a coup d'état on 21 April 1967 by the Regime of the Colonels. The brutal suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising on 17 November 1973 sent shockwaves through the regime, and a counter-coup established Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis as dictator. On 20 July 1974, as Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus, the regime collapsed. On the 14 August 1974 Greek forces withdrew from the integrated military structure of NATO in protest at the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus. The first multiparty elections since 1964 were held on the first anniversary of the Polytechnic uprising. A democratic and republican constitution was promulgated on 11 June 1975 following a referendum which abolished the monarchy. Greece rejoined NATO in 1980.

Doomsday[]

While the fledgling Hellenic Republic was not considered a serious threat by the USSR, its membership in NATO assured its being targeted by Soviet missiles irregardless. Because of the small threat posed by the state, only four sites were targeted by atomic weapons: Athens, the capital and military headquarters, Thessaloniki, headquarters of the Hellenic navy, Patra, headquarters of the Ionian fleet, and Larissa, headquarters of the Hellenic air force. Members of the ruling party were warned of the impending strikes and managed to evacuate Athens before it was struck and moved government operations to Heraklion, on the island of Crete. The President, several members of Cabinet, and a few members of the legislature managed to flee in time. The Prime Minister, most of the Cabinet and Legislature, and the Supreme Court all perished in the attack on Athens.

A gathering order was soon sent out with what radios survived the EMP from the blasts, calling for all surviving Greek forces to make their way to the government on Crete.

Post Doomsday[]

With the carnage of Doomsday, the Greek government lost control over much of its territory, ending up with shaky authority over the Peloponnese Peninsula, Crete, and some of the more southern Greek Islands, within a short distance of Crete.

Military units responded from parts of Northern Greece, and were told to make their way to Crete, if possible; few managed to make it through there alive through the chaos, and some also took refuge at Mount Athos. Only a few isolated units from central Greece managed to receive the message and regroup in the south, however. As a result, the Greek government lost all authority over the North of Greece, for now.

Soon, a charismatic nationalist began speaking out against the government in the Peloponnese, blaming them for all the hardships they were facing, with great success. The government on Crete also began sending out expeditions to find out if any other parts of Greece had survived.

Contact was made with several provisional governments in the Ionians and the Aegean, as well as surviving towns in parts of Attica. The towns readily put themselves under the authority of the government, but before the provisional governments could be put back under their control, events in the Peloponnese forced the expeditions back to Crete.

Rumble in the Peloponnese[]

The expeditions being sent out, while positive in the eyes of the government of the Republic on Crete, had the opposite effect on the Peninsula. There, the growing nationalist movement condemned the actions as "the last gasp of a failed republic." This gained them even more followers - so many that they declared the independence of the region as the "Despotate of Morea," named after the Byzantine state.

With the support of a fairly substantial portion of the population, this state quickly took over a large portion of the peninsula. Extremely dismayed by the situation, the Republic withdrew its forces, hoping to take out easier targets farther north and build themselves up to take out the Morean state. But, this emboldened the Moreans, who quickly took most of the peninsula, and even some nearby islands, by 1985.

Hellenic forces moving north quickly took control over what remained of Attica, and the island of Euboea. All the while, they fought a quasi-war against the Moreans, with frequent periods of "hot" relations. For a number of years around this time, the state was referred to as "Crete" by outsiders.

Over the next few years, they would fight no less than five different mini-wars with Morea.

Greek Confederation[]

In 1993, amidst more saber-rattling - and likely, another round of open warfare - between The Hellenic Republic and the Despotate, diplomats from the Delian League approached both with the idea of working together for the greater benefit of Greece rather than trying to force reunification through armed conflict, which was obviously not going to work without destroying both. Tired of losing forces in skirmishes and outright fighting, both nations eventually agreed to talks over their issues.

Relations between the two slowly improved over the next while, and peace reigned. In 1994, both states, as well as the other Greek survivor states, agreed to come together in the Confederation of Greece, a military and economic alliance, with its capital on the partially-abandoned island of Skyros, at a new city, to be named New Athens.

In 1995 the Despotate, in tune with its imperialistic ambitions and in response to leaders from Mount Athos, the Dodecanese Republic, and the Delian League calling for humanitarian expeditions to be sent out, offered to send an expedition into Thrace, hoping to return Greek control to the area lost to both the Ottoman Empire and the effects of Doomsday. Not wanting them to gain the territory, the Republic - by now largely referred to as Hellas - joined the mission. While no material support could be given, moral support was also given to the efforts of the other members in Cyprus.

Strikes on cities in the area, and the destruction caused by refugees in their aftermath, had killed off most of the population. Greek troops landed at the still-intact - but abandoned - town of Ereglisi, and began to set up operations from there. As they expanded the zone of control, the area - the Thrace Reclamation Zone - and its capital, Ereglisi, but now usually called by its Greek name Heraklea, began to slowly resettle the region. Forts were also established along the Anatolian coastline at the narrowest points of the straits, to ensure their safety - towns would soon start to grow around these forts.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the mainland, Hellenic forces slowly advanced northward from Attica into Thessaly, and beyond, acting in cooperation with the other members of the Confederation.

By 2003, the members of the Confederation had largely completed the project on Cyprus, and for the most part, their economies and infrastructure had vastly improved.

Sicilian interference around Gibraltar, and later around Malta, greatly aggravated the Republic and its merchants - today they are one of the most vocal anti-Sicilian states of Greece.

Greek Federation[]

By the late 00s, the Confederation government had become very centralized at New Athens. The question of some sort of reunification began to be brought up, and much rambunctious debate occurred over what form it would take. A proposal put forward by the League, and seconded by Hellas, to institute a series of "People's Assemblies," where the opinion of the people would be heard on the matter, was instituted. Eventually, it was decided by all the members - very grudgingly - to do a referendum in December 2009 of the people, asking the question "Do you support the reformation of the Confederation of Greece into a unified Federal State?".

By a margin of 74% to 26%, the citizens of the Republic supported the endeavor, which passed in all areas.

With the onset of the Second Sicily War - and the attacking of Hellenic merchant ships that started the ball rolling - the Republic quickly moved to a war footing, deploying much of its reserve fleet near Corfu to support Heptanesian and federal forces there. These forces, along with vessels from Morea, defeated the Sicilian Navy off Cape Matapan. Unfortunately, their pursuit of the fleet afterwards opened a passage that made the Sicilian attack on the Ionians much easier than it should have been. Their fleet moved back there as soon as they could and remained in that region for the remainder of the conflict, and their army primarily fought there as well.

Currently, Hellas disputes the island of Kythira, the seventh Ionian island, with Heptanesa. Negotiations are underway in Morea over the matter, but it is expected that some sort of agreement, with Hellas trading the island for territorial concessions of some sort in Thessaly, will come about eventually.

Government and Politics[]

The Hellenic republic is a multi-party, parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister is the head of government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Hellenic Parliament at Heraklion. Since the restoration of democracy prior to Doomsday, the party system is dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the social-democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement, which managed to be rebuilt on Crete after Doomsday, and to a certain extent the National Hellenic Group, a coalition of nationalist parties founded in the early 1990s, and the Union of the Democratic Center, a centrist party. In recent years the royalist-leaning members of the other parties have split off into their own party, taking the old National Alignment name, which is small but very vocal in their goals. Voting in elections is compulsory.

The President is elected by a super-majority in Parliament, and splits executive powers with the Prime Minister.

Currently, the Panhellenic Socialists control Parliament, in concert with the centrists. The current president, Geórgios Papandréou, is the son of the Prime Minister at Doomsday, and had fled with the President, is of this party, as is the Prime Minister, Ioannis Kourakis, a former mayor of Heraklion.

Economy[]

Of all the members of the Federation, Hellas is probably the strongest economically. Like the majority of the members of the Federation, trade and shipping is the major industry of the republic. However, its possession of much of the good farmland in Greece has also meant that it does a brisk trade in related commodities, most namely olives and wines.

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