Battle of Lemnos (1912)

The Battle of Lemnos took place in October 1912 during the First Balkan War. Following the opening of hostilities in the First Balkan War, the Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos ordered the Commander in Chief of the Hellenic Navy Pavlos Kountouriotis to engage the Ottoman fleet in the Aegean Sea and to:

(i) Restrict its freedom of operations to the Dardanelles,

(ii) Deny the reinforcement of Ottoman forces operating in Macedonia and Thrace by sea, and

(iii) Conduct a naval blockade of Ottoman Aegean trade routes and ports.

Vital to this plan was the capture of the Turkish-held port of Moudros on the southern coast of the island of Lemnos. On the October 8, 1912, Greek marines landed on the island and in combination with naval support defeated the island's Turkish garrison and occupied the port. Moudros became the base for future Greek naval operations for the rest of the war and the launching pad for the Greek recovery of the islands of Psara, Imvros, Tenedos, Chios, Lesvos and Samothraki.