Treaty of Paris and the Dodecanese

On 10 February 1947, the Allied powers and Italy signed the Paris Peace Treaty, which transferred the Dodecanese islands from Italy to Greece. The Dodecanese, a group of islands in the southeastern Aegean including Rhodes, Kos, Kalymnos, Leros, Patmos, Karpathos and Symi, had a mostly Greek population but had been under Ottoman rule for centuries before Italy seized them in 1912. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 confirmed Italian control. Under Italian rule, especially in the 1930s under the Fascist regime, the islanders faced pressure to adopt the Italian language and culture. After Italy surrendered in 1943, the islands were occupied by Germany, and they were liberated in 1945, when they came under British military administration. The Paris Peace Treaty officially ceded the islands to Greece and required them to remain demilitarized. On 7 March 1948, the islands were formally united with Greece in a ceremony in Rhodes. The Dodecanese were the last major territory added to the modern Greek state, completing its current borders. The Italian period left its mark on the islands' architecture, especially in Rhodes and Leros.