Keffalonia Page 9
The next 760 years
found Kefallonia a victim of the machinations of the Normans, The Vatican
and the Venetians who were the most successful. Their Pirate-Robber-Count
Matteo Orsini founded a particularly heinous dynasty at the end
of the 13th Century.
In 1483 the expanding Turkish Empire captured Kefallonia only to lose it again in 1504 to the Venetians and their Spanish allies under Gran Capitan Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba who captured the the fort of Aghios Georgos and slaughtered the Turkish garrison. After repairing the fortress the nearby town became the Venetian capital but was destroyed and later abandoned after the earthquake of 1636. Argostoli became the capital in 1759.
The nascent Greek
War for Independence brought Lord Byron to Kefallonia in 1823
as an agent for the London based Greek Committee. He subsequently went
to Messolonghi to lead troops against the Turk but was smitten by fever
and died. Greeks love Lord Byron and name many of their children 'Vyron'.
Even a whole neighborhood in Athens (Vyronas) is named after
after him.
The British occupied Kefallonia and the Ionian islands for many years after the Turkish withdrawal and when in 1849 the Kefallonians revolted and demanded union with Greece.
In 1943, during WW II, upon Italy's surrendered to the Allies, the occupying Italian Acqui Division joined the Kefallonian Greeks in fighting the Nazis and for eight days fought off the invasion until all were subsequently massacred in mass executions ordered by The Furher himself. Greeks call them the Martyrs of Keffalonia. Their bodies were burned to hide the evidence but estimates are that between 5 000 and 10,000 Italian soldiers were killed.
For 5 days in August 1953 Kefallonia was rocked by a series of earthquakes. In all, 113 tremors turned almost all of Kefallonias' 350 villages and towns into rubble with the force of 60 Atomic bombs emanating from the very first quake. Europe rallied, as did the many Kefallonians who lived abroad and money came pouring in to help the survivors and to rebuild.
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