Places
Tripoli
27 events
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4 August 1715
The army leaves over the pass towards Achladokampos
On 4 August 1715 the Grand Vizier left the camp at Tziveri for Modon (Methoni). Brue describes an hour through fairly flat land and then three hours over a narrow, difficult pass through rocky mountains: the road from…
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1775–1799
'Les Moulins', a junction on the road to Tripolitsa
In the late 18th century 'les Moulins' was a junction of roads in the northeastern Peloponnese. From Tripolitsa a road came down via Achladokampos to the Mills and went on to Argos and Nafplio, while another road ran…
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19 July 1809
Tithe wheat goes from Myloi to Tripolitsa
A tax account dated 7 July 1809 (old style) records 'the wheat that was taken from Myloi to Tripolitsa' in the name of Nikolos Meletis, at 30 para a measure. It was the tithe wheat of the district of Argos, from 52…
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1831
Work begins on the road from Tripoli to Myloi
Under Kapodistrias work began on a road from Tripoli over the mountains down to Myloi, the nearest landing place for Arcadia. It took almost thirty years to finish.
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1857
Carts on the road from Myloi to Tripoli
By the mid-1850s the road from Tripoli to Myloi could be used by carts. A Tripoli newspaper reported in 1858 that about ten freight carts a day travelled it, carrying goods between the landing place at Myloi and Arcadia.
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12 November 1859
The road from Tripoli to Myloi is finished
A Tripoli newspaper reported that the road from Tripoli to Myloi, begun in 1831, had been completed in 1859. It made Myloi the port of Arcadia until the railway came.
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November 1862
A stagecoach between Tripoli and Myloi
From November 1862 a diligence was announced to run three times a week between Tripoli and Myloi.
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16 December 1865
No customs house at Myloi
Goods landed at Myloi for Tripoli still had to be cleared at the customs house in Nafplio, 'there being no customs house at Myloi'. A Tripoli newspaper complained about the detour this caused for the trade of Arcadia.
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31 July 1886
A French engineer plans a line from Myloi to Kalamata
Even before the train reached Myloi, the French chief engineer Gotteland handed the ministry a study for a railway from Myloi via Tripoli to Kalamata. The line would be 185 km long and cost 21 million drachmas.
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April 1887
Trikoupis proposes a line from Myloi into the mountains
In April 1887 Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis proposed building a railway from Myloi via Tripoli to Kalamata at state expense. Myloi was chosen as the starting point because it lay at the end of the existing line,…
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2 December 1887
Parliament gets the bill: 'The line leaves from Myloi'
Minister Lomvardos sent parliament a bill to build a metre-gauge line 'from Myloi of Nafplia via Tripoli to Kalamata' at state expense. The attached survey said the line would leave Myloi, climb along the stream valley…
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30 July 1889
Boomtown Myloi: holidays, wine and brawls
'It is a fine sight,' wrote the Nafplio paper: from Myloi to Tripoli crowds of workers of every nationality and language, and carts bringing rails and sleepers. But on holidays and days off this whole crowd gathered in…
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June 1890
The mail coach from Myloi to Tripoli plunges into a ravine
Before the trains ran to Tripoli, passengers and mail went on by road from the station at Myloi. In June 1890 the mail coach from Myloi to Tripoli fell into a ravine near the bridge of Achladokampos; four people died.
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13 January 1891
The Belgian engineer Couzin goes home; Rolin takes charge
Victor Couzin, who had directed the works on the Myloi–Kalamata line for two years for the firm Couzin–Génis, had gone back to Belgium with his wife. The original contractor, Ernest Rolin, now took over the direction of…
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13 February 1891
Myloi–Tripoli almost ready: only an iron bridge to go
Answering a question in parliament, the government said that the section from Myloi towards Tripoli had been built and was 'almost completely finished'; only the assembly of one iron bridge remained.
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6 July 1891
A derailed royal carriage nearly stops the opening
Two days before, heavy rain had damaged the line near Tripoli and the royal carriage had derailed on a test run, partly because carriages with unequal buffers had been coupled together. The prefect of Arcadia telegraphed…
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6 July 1891
Soldiers along the line, because of stolen materials
On the opening day soldiers of the engineers stood at intervals along the line to prevent any attack on the railway by some local people. According to the paper, materials worth about 200,000 drachmas had been stolen…
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8 July 1891
Opened, but no trains yet
Two days after the opening the paper Akropolis wrote that services would not start at once, probably in about 15 days, because the staff was not yet complete. On the opening day an agreement had been signed handing the…
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10 July 1891
Newspapers abroad report the opening
A telegram from Athens of 7 July appeared in the Lodzer Tageblatt in Poland: the section Myli–Tripolis of the Myli–Kalamata railway had been opened 'yesterday in the presence of the King, the ministers and numerous…
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17 August 1891
Regular trains from Myloi to Tripoli
From 17 August 1891 (5 August old style) the line was open to the public. The Southern Greece Railways' timetable had a train leaving Myloi at 5.05 pm, arriving in Tripoli at 7.55, with stops at Andritsa, Achladokampos,…
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September 1891 – October 1891
Works halted: hundreds of unpaid, hungry workers
In the autumn of 1891 the works on the line beyond Tripoli came to a halt. Hundreds of workers, most of them Italians and some French, were owed their daily wages; the papers spoke of 900 to 2,000 men, and of workers…
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27 February 1892
The train from Myloi stops before a damaged bridge
The train from Myloi stopped in front of the damaged bridge of Maskena: the driver did not dare to cross. The 'much-plagued' line had a difficult start.
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10 April 1900
'Every attempt to build a pier at Myloi came to nothing'
N. Triantafyllakos, MP for Tripoli, protested that Myloi lay at the start of the line and a good pier there would make goods for Tripoli cheaper. Theotokis answered: 'Every attempt to build a pier at Myloi came to…
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25 April 1941
Australian 2/2nd Battalion lies up at Myloi during the day
The war diary of the Australian 2/2nd Infantry Battalion records: arrived Myloi at 06:00 on 25 April 1941, lying up during the day, and left at 20:00 for Kalamata via Tripoli. On 26 April the men were embarked at…
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25 April 1941
The Australian column leaves Myloi at 8 p.m.
Orders came in the afternoon of 25 April 1941. At 20:00 the Allen Group set off from Myloi over the mountain road to Tripoli and on to Kalamata, where the troops were to be taken off by the Navy. Australian military…
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October 1944
The Security Battalions of Tripoli are disarmed at Myloi and shipped to Spetses
Under an agreement made at the end of September 1944, the collaborationist Security Battalions of Tripoli under Dionysios Papadongonas marched in formation, with their personal weapons, to Myloi. There they handed their…
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June 1948
Partisans blow up a railway bridge between Myloi and Tripoli
The army communiqué of 19 June 1948 reported that partisans of the Democratic Army had blown up a railway bridge on the line between Myloi and Tripoli. In the fighting one government soldier and nine partisans were…
People
- Benjamin Brue Interpreter of the King of France at the Ottoman court, eyewitness of 1715
- Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha Ottoman grand vizier (1713–1716), conqueror of the Morea in 1715
- Abel Gotteland French chief engineer
- Charilaos Trikoupis Prime Minister of Greece
- Konstantinos Lomvardos Minister in the Trikoupis government
- Victor Couzin Belgian engineer, director of the works 1889–1890
- Ernest Rolin Belgian contractor of the Myloi–Kalamata railway
- George I of Greece King of the Hellenes (1863–1913)
- Georgios Theotokis Prime Minister of Greece
- Arthur Samuel Allen Australian brigadier, commander of the Allen Group (1941)