The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned Sale as a city bulit by the Samothrakians when describing how the Persian king Xerxes I gathered his army and ships at nearby Doriskos (Δορίσκος) in 480 BC to evaluate the size of his enormous invasion force before his unsuccessful attempt to conquer Greece. The discovery of an ancient inscription on a boundary stone marking the territory of Samothraki near Alexandroupoli appears to confirm Herodotus' remarks. He also wrote that the area along the coast originally belonged to a Thracian tribe known as the Kikones (Κίκονες). [1]

Thrace and Macedonia had been under Persian control since its conquest by Xerxes' predecessor Darius I in 514-513 BC. (see History of Stageira and Olympiada Part 4), and it took several years after the the Battle of Salamis (480 BC) before the Greeks drove the last Persian forces from the European mainland. In 477 BC Athens and its allies formed the confederacy now known as the Delian League with the object of protecting Greek cities from the Persians, and Sale became a member, paying an annual tribute.

During the 4th century BC the Macedonians became the dominant power in Greece and Thrace due to the military victories and politcal cunning of Philip II and his son Alexander the Great. Following Alexander's death in 336 BC his successors fought several wars against each other for the control of parts of his vast empire, and Lysimachus was the first of several Hellenistic rulers who styled themselves king of Thrace. However they mostly controlled only coastal areas which were often under threat of Thracian tribes in the hinterland.

Much of the Thracian coast and several Aegean islands, including Samothraki, came under the control of the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt until the territories were seized by Philip V of Macedonia between 204 and 200 BC.

The constant warring among the various Hellenistic kingdoms made it relatively easy for Rome to increase its influence and power in the Eastern Mediterranean from the late third century BC.

At the end of the Second Macedonian War, following the Battle of Kynoskephalai in 197 BC, the Romans issued a general declaration of "freedom" of Greek cities which had been under Macedonian control in 196 BC. The Thracian cities were conquered by the Seleucid king Antiochus III in 194 BC, but following his defeat by the Romans at Magnesia in 190 BC, they were once again declared free.

Sale's larger neighbouring city Maroneia (Μαρώνεια, originally a colony of Chios, founded in the 7th century BC) became autonomous and the dominant local city on this stretch of the Thracian coast, controlling the strategically important military and trade routes. According to the Roman author Livy, by 188 BC Sale was a village belonging to Maroneia and the location of a Roman military camp. [2]

The area was again occupied by Philip V in 188/187 BC, during the Third Macedonian War. Local inhabitants were massacred following their appeal to Rome for help, however, Philip was forced to withdraw his forces in 185/184 BC.

Having defeated the Macedonians and Seleucids, and inherited the territories of Pergamon from Attalus III (see History of Pergamon), the Romans now controlled Greece, Macedonia, Thrace and Anatolia (Asia Minor). Following a period of autonomy, Thrace was made a Roman province (Romana provincia Thracia) in 46 AD, during the reign of Claudius.

Sale became a road-station (mutatio) along the section of the Roman Via Egnatia between Philippi and Traianopolis. However, at some point it was either destroyed or abandoned, the fate of several other ancient settlements in the area.

Not much is known about the place between the Roman period and the mid 19th century, except that it appears to have been a landing place for local fishermen and people from Samothraki.

The later Eastern Roman Empire (known today as the Byzantine Empire) became Christian, and Thrace and Macedonia were invaded by several foreign forces, including Serbian and Bulgarian Slavs. By the mid 15th century the Muslim Ottoman Turks finally conquered the Byzantine territories and went on to expand their empire through the Balkans and into central Europe. Various ethnic groups settled (or were settled by the Ottomans) in the region, including Albanians, Bulgarians, Turks and Jews from Hungary and the Iberian Peninsula.

At the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821 people of several settlements in Thrace, including Ainos (Enez), Samothraki and Maroneia, rebelled but the Turks brutally suppressed the uprisings. On Samothraki alone 1,000 inhabitants were massacred. The Greek populations of Thrace were too small, isolated and ill-equipped to continue the war here, and while much of the southern mainland and several islands formed the new Greek state, Macedonia and Thrace were to remain part of the Ottoman Empire for almost a century.

By 1860 there was a small fishing village here known as Dedeagach (Greek, Δεδεαγάτς; Turkish, Dedeağaç). According to legend it was named after a tree (Turkish, ağaç) under which a wise old Dervish (dede, grandfather) lived and was later buried. One theory is that the Dervish may have been from the monastery (tekke) of the Bektashi Order (Bektaşi) at the Baths of Traianopolis. Presumably, the tree and the dede's grave have long since disappeared.

Travellers who visited the area in the 19th century reported that it was marshy, malarial and lacked drinking water, and that travel on the Thracian Sea was dangerous.

In the mid 19th century the Ottoman government decided to build railways connecting Constantinople (Istanbul) and Thessaloniki with Vienna, in an ambitious attempt to modernize the ailing empire and improve trade with Europe. The new railway of the Chemins de fer Orientaux would also enable the Turkish military to move troops and supplies more speedily. Dedeagach was to be an important station on this new rail network and the plan included the building of a port for the shipping of grain, tobacco and timber.

Construction of the branch line to connect with the main line from Constantinople to Edirne (Adrianople) and on through the Balkans to Austria began at Dedeagach in 1871, and was completed in 1873. It took a lot longer to build the port, and although another branch line was built at the same time from Thessaloniki northwards to Serbia, the line connecting Thessaloniki and Edrine, via Serres, Drama, Xanthi, Komotini and Dedeagach, was not completed until 1896.

The building of the railway and port brought workers to Dedeagach, and as it grew into a town it also attracted merchants and businesses. The new settlers included Greeks, Turks and Armenians, the latter being among the first to build their own church here (see page 5: sights in Alexandroupoli).

Russia was one of the European powers which encouraged nationalism in the Balkan lands of the Ottoman Empire, mostly to advance its own geopolitical ambitions, and there were several conflicts between the forces of the Russian tsars and the Turkish sultans. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 the Russians captured Dedeagach, and although they were only able to hold onto it for a short time they initiated several improvements in the town, including the laying out of streets using the grid system which can still be seen today.

The terms of peace with Russia, laid down in treaties thrashed out at a number of international conferences among the Great Powers, meant that Turkey had to give up much of its territory, including Bulgaria, but Dedeagach and Western Thrace returned to Ottoman control.

Dedeagach continued to grow and prosper, facilities at the port were gradually improved and the lighthouse was built in 1880 by a French company. In 1884 the town was made the capital of the new province, the Sanjak of Dedeagach (part of the larger province, the Vilayet of Edirne), replacing the Sanjak of Dimetoka centred at the ancient city of Didymoteicho which had been strategically and symbolically important for the Ottomans since they conquered it in 1359.

Administrative offices and foreign consulates were established in the new local capital, including delegations from Russia and Greece. This meant the building of new offices and houses, and more work for the craftsmen and labourers who built them. Increasing exports of local products such as tobacco, timber and silk also added to the prosperity of the town.

Meanwhile nationalist tensions continued to increase throughout the Ottoman Empire as various ethnic groups struggled for independence. The main actors in the Balkans lands still controlled by the Turks (then known as Turkey in Europe) were Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, Greek forces attempted to capture Macedonia but were defeated by the Turkish army. A decisive factor in the Turkish victory was their abilty to move troops quickly by rail. The war was a disaster for Greece which was forced to cede even more territory and pay reparations.

During the First Balkan War of 1912-1913, the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro) gained considerable territories from Turkey. Bulgaria claimed Western Thrace and occupied Dedeagach in 1912. However, the Balkan League members quickly fell out among themselves over claims to the captured lands, particularly Macedonia and Thrace, which led to the Second Balkan War of 1913 between the former allies.

In August 1913 Greek and Ottoman forces captured Western Thrace from Bulgaria, and in a curious case of cooperation between the two arch-enemies, they declared the Provisional Government of Western Thrace (later known as the Independent Government of Western Thrace) as an independent republic of Turks, Greeks and Pomaks, with its capital at Gümülcine (Komotini). The great powers refused to recognize the government and by October the area was handed back to Bulgaria.

The Balkan crises were a major factor leading to World War I (1914-1918), and while Bulgaria sided with the Central Powers, Germany, Austria and Turkey, Greece finally entered the conflict on the side of the Allies, Britain, France and Russia. As a result of further international conferences, in 1919 the Bulgarians were forced to leave Western Thrace which became a French protectorate, and in 1920 part of the Greece.

The official handover of Western Thrace from France to Greece took place in the post office of Dedeagach on 14th May 1920. King Alexander of Greece (1893-1920, ruled 1917-1920) visited the city on 9th July, and shortly after it was renamed Alexandroupoli (City of Alexander) in his honour.

At the time of his visit, Alexander was on his way to join the Greek army's attack on Edirne. The Greeks were determined to take Eastern Thrace, including Constantinople, from Turkey, as part of their "Megali Idea" (Μεγάλη Ιδέα, Great Idea), the dream of reuniting Greek populations living throughout the old Byzantine territories. This dream soon turned into a nightmare when Greek forces embarked on a disastrous military campain in western Anatolia in 1919, sparking off the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22) which ended with the Greeks - soldiers and civilians - being driven into the Aegean Sea at Smyrna (Izmir) by the Turkish army in 1922.

Whatever claims to moral justification Greece may have had for military expansionism, the dream ended at Smyrna. The Great Powers had enough of war and were now facing their own enormous political and economic problems nearer to home; and the leader of the new Turkish Republic, Atatürk, stood firm and refused to cede more Turkish territory.

The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, fixed Greece's borders [6], and Western Thrace remained part of the nation, despite continuing claims and objections by Bulgaria. However the treaty also required an enormous exchange of Christian and Muslim populations between Greece and Turkey.

The civilian populations of all the ethnic groups caught up in the Balkan wars had suffered persecution, massacres, dispossession and forced expulsion at the hands of the various armies. Now Muslims in Greece were forced to move to Turkey and many Christians in Turkey had to go to Greece. There were exceptions, including many of the minority Muslims in Western Thrace, such as the Pomaks. However, the loss of Turks living in Greece and the influx of enormous numbers of ethnic Greeks from Turkey caused severe political, economic and social problems for the fledgling Greek state, to say nothing of the terrible personal tragedies caused by the uprooting of people whose families had lived in towns and villages for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Alexandroupoli and the other settlements of Western Thrace took in many thousands of refugees, and all inhabitants would now share in the fate of Greece, which over the coming decades would include invasion by fascist Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, famine, dictatorships and civil war.

In World War II Bulgaria once again attacked Macedonia and Thrace, and occupied Alexandroupoli from 1941 to 1944. During the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), the Communist forces were dominant in Macedonia and Thrace, but were eventually defeated by the US-backed right-wing army. Many of the left-wing fled into exile, including tens of thousands of children who were sent for safety to Eastern European countries.

During the 1980s Greece returned to democracy and became a member of the European Union. Life has definitely improved throughout the country, despite the present economic crisis which continues to have an enormous adverse effect on the lives of working and middle class people. The more isolated areas such as Thrace suffer most, since they do not have the income from tourism enjoyed by Athens and some of the resorts and islands in the south of the country. East Macedonia and Thrace remains primarily an agricultural region and must compete on the global market to sell its products. Many young people are forced to leave the area in search of work.

Having said all that, as we can see from this brief history, the Thracians are strong and tough, and have seen much worse times. Somehow, most manage to keep smiling and getting on with life. They deserve a brighter future. God knows, they have already paid for it several times over.


See also: A brief history of Thrace