Stepping Stone to Asia Minor

Shipping passing Lemnos by

Today, the world passes Lemnos by.

The Marine Traffic app shows how the cargo vessels and container ships spewing from the Dardanelles, ride the maritime highway, passing between the island and Turkey enroute to Athens, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Gibraltar, and beyond.

Although there’s an airport, this sleepy island is still not that touristy, despite its nature, history, wonderful beaches and water-sports. And not so many yachts arrive here, partly because it’s a 45+ NM passage to the nearest Greek mainland or island. It’s mostly liveaboards, with very few charter yachts in range. You are out in the north Aegean, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

And yet, my perception is a modern one. Since the Bronze Age, Lemnos has been a key stepping stone to from Europe to Asia Minor and the Black Sea.

Amcient theatre of Iphaestia

We have just visited an ancient Greek sanctuary on the north if the island. It lies on a rocky headland below which is the cave of Philoctetes. This renowned archer held the ‘weapons of Heracles’. He was part of the Achaean expedition that sailed from the Peloponnese towards Troy to bring Helen back to Mycenae. When the fleet anchored at Chryse (now a sunken archaeological site (a few km east of Limnos) to offer a sacrifice, a snake bit Philoctetes’ foot. His foot went putrid, so his fellow Achaeans decided to abandon him on Lemnos. Philoctetes survived by healing his wound with 'Lemnian earth’. Ten years later, Odysseus took Philoctetes to Troy to fulfil a prophecy that the Achaeans would win the Trojan War only if they used the Heracles’ weapons! Anyway...

View of Myrina port from the fortress

...More concrete evidence of the island’s ancient importance can be found in the acropolis and fortifications above Myrina, the main port. Myrina lies on the west if the island, and is where Missy Bear is now moored up. Although the present fortress is mainly an Ottoman affair, it was founded in the middle ages (1186) by eastern Roman, Greek-speaking Andronikos Komnenos. But, there are also remnants of Cyclopean polygonal masonry here, similar to that found in the acropolis of Athens, and at Mycenae, i.e. concurrent with the Trojan wars.

Myrina was important as it lay on the Mediterranean route to Constantinople and the Black Sea, and it controlled entry to the Dardanelles. After the sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade (1204), the Venetians took the island and enhanced the fortress. The Venetians’ main interest was securing their maritime trade from the Black Sea to western Europe.

When the eastern Romans (aka Byzantines) fought off the Venetians and regained the island, the Venetians’ arch-rivals - the Genoese - held sway here for a while, as they also did on Lesbos further south. These maritime republicans were sea-faring merchants trading between east and west.

But, from 1479 until 1912 the fortress of Myrina was Ottoman and much enhanced. Their capital was Istanbul, and Lemnos would have effectively been a fortified gate-house protecting the path to their front door!

As the Great (‘Entente’) Powers circled around the declining corpse of the Ottoman empire, the Balkan war saw Lemnos liberated from the Ottomans in 1912. WWI then saw the transformation of the huge bay of Moudrou - on the south if the island - into a British/French naval base ready to launch the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. The idea was to sail up the Dardanelles to the Ottoman’s front door, and bombard them thus cutting them off from the Mediterranean and their Asia Minor hinterland.

In short, the Ottoman batteries along the Dardanelles were stronger than had been believed, and the minefields had not been properly cleared. Ships and many lives were lost in this badly-planned and ultimately doomed attempt. In the subsequent amphibious campaign, the Ottomans defences (led by Mustafa Kemel, ‘Ataturk’) had more and better artillery than had been believed, and the Entente powers had given their enemy too much time to dig themselves in.

Moudrous Bay and its proximity to the Dardanelles

The rest, as they say, is history – the next step after Lemnos was not success in Asia Minor, but a slippery stone, leading to a heavy splash in the water, and a severely bruised ego! 

On 30 October 1918, the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on board the ship while she was anchored here