Ionian Islands in Venetian hands since 1238. The islands thus became the only part of the Greek-speaking world to escape Ottoman rule, which gave them both a unity and an importance in Greek history they would otherwise not have had. Corfu was the only Greek island never conquered by the Turks. Under Venetian rule, many of the upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in some cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the majority remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. In the 18th century, a Greek national independence movement began to emerge, and the free status of the Ionian islands made them
Greek destroyer Niki (1906) back on escort duty under Greek colors, mainly in the Aegean Sea. "Niki" saw action in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). In 1919, she conducted escort missions in the Black Sea carrying Greek refugees from Pontus. Later, while covering the Greek Army's disorganized retreat after the fall of Smyrna on September 4, 1922, "Niki"s commander, Lieutenant Commander D. Hatziskos was killed by a sniper. After the war, "Niki" was refurbished from 1925 to 1927. She also participated in the Second World War, first carrying supplies in the Ionian Sea and after surviving the German invasion of April 1941, "Niki" served in