Hellenic Gendarmerie

Ministry	Ministry of Public Order
Established	1833
Abolished	1984

The Greek Gendarmerie (Greek: Ελληνική Χωροφυλακή, Elliniki Chorofylaki) was the national gendarmerie and military police force of Greece.

History

19th Century

The Greek Gendarmerie was established in 1833 as the Royal Gendarmerie and its decree was based on the French Gendarmerie decree after the enthronement of King Otho. It was at that time formally part of the army and under the authority of the Defence Ministry (later the entirety of the organization including the Police Academy was brought under its authority). The city police force (Αστυνομία Πόλεων, Astynomia Poleon) was also established but its role remained a secondary one in comparison to the Army's role (mainly dealing with illegal gambling, a severe problem at the time), several foreign advisers (particularly from Bavaria, which emphasized elements of centralization and authoritarianism), were also brought in to provide training and tactical advice to the newly formed Police force. The main task of the police force under the army as a whole during this period was firstly to combat theft but also to contribute to the establishment of a strong executive government.

The army's links to the police and the nature of the structure of the police force and its hierarchy (that of being similar to the army) was maintained throughout the 19th century for a number of reasons. Largely the socio-political unrest that characterized the period including disproportionate poverty, governmental oppression, sporadic rebellions and political instability. As a result of this, as well as the input of the armed forces, the police force remained a largely conservative body throughout the period, there was also a certain amount of politicization during training as the police force were trained in military camps..

20th century

In 1906 the Greek police force underwent its first major restructuring at an administrative level. It acquired its own educational and training facilities independent of those of the army (though still remaining titularly part of the armed forces). Despite this the Gendarmarie still maintained a largely military based structured based on its involvement in the Macedonian Struggle, and the Balkan and First World Wars, as a result it tended to neglect civilian matters and was partially unresponsive to the needs of Greek society at the time. However, together with the establishment of a civilian city police force for Attica in 1920 (which would eventually be expanded to the entire country), it set a precedent for further change that came in 1935 because of rapid technological, demographic and economic changes which helped it to become more responsive to civilian policing needs of the time.

However, modernization of the police force was stunted by the successive periods of political instability. The dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas, compounded with both the Second World War and the Greek Civil War led to a retardation of reform throughout the late 1930s and early to mid 1940s. After the war however, British experts were brought in to help reform the police along the lines of the British Police, as a result, after 1946 the police force ceased to be a part of the Defence Ministry, however even then it did not abandon its military features and was still prevalently a military based institution. The Civil war of the period also contributed to excesses on both sides (Royalist and Communist), torture and abuse of human rights were widespread especially during the early periods of the war when parts of the country where in a state of near lawlessness. Despite this, after the war the police force did reach a respectable level of civilian policing throughout the mid 1960s which was stunted by the rise to power of the Military Dictatorship of the Colonels from 1967 to 1974 where it was largely employed as a method of quelling popular discontent along with the newly established Greek Military Police force of the dictatorship.

After the fall of the Colonels the Greek Military Police was eventually disbanded and Greece became a Republic. Despite strong opposition from the Gendarmarie, in 1984 both the city police and the Gendarmarie were merged into a single unified Greek Police Force which maintained elements of a military structure and hierarchy. Because of the long tradition of militaristic elements within the structure of the police even the Council of State of Greece ruled that the police should be regarded as a military body and that members are not civilians but members of the military engaged in a wider role together with the Armed Forces to supplement the Army in defence of the homeland. This has however in recent years been relegated to policing duties such as border patrols and combating illegal immigration and is not reflective of any de facto military duties outside of that of a defensive role in the event of an invasion. Today the Greek Police assist in training other emerging Balkan police forces and Greece has one of the lowest crime rates within the European Union.

Notes

• After the War was Over, Mark Mazower (Reconstructing the family, nation and state in Greece).

^ Law 1481/1 October 1984, Official Journal of the Hellenic Republic, A-152