Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)

Conflict	Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 (Interwar period)
Partof	the Turkish War of Independence
Caption	Trench warfare during the Greco-Turkish War
Date	May 1919 – October 1922
Place	West Anatolia
Casus	Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire
Territory	Lands initially ceded to Greece from the Ottoman Empire are restored to the Republic of Turkey. Population exchange between the two nations.
Result	Decisive Turkish victory; Treaty of Lausanne.
Combatant1	Turkish Revolutionaries
Combatant2
Commander1	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk İsmet İnönü Fevzi Çakmak
Commander2	Leonidas Paraskevopoulos Anastasios Papoulas Georgios Hatzianestis
Strength1	50,000 (1919) 450,000 (1922) (if irregulars included)
Strength2	Maximum deployed, 12 Divisions~200,000 (without including irregulars)
Casualties1	10,885 dead 31,173 wounded in the battlefield, 22,690 dead from disease 34,885 dead all Turkish War of Independence
Casualties2	19,362 killed18,095 missing*48,880 wounded4,878 died outside of combatca 10,000 prisoners*Total: ~101,215
Notes	* according to Turkish sources 20,826 Greek prisoners were taken. Of those about 10,000 arrived in Greece during the prisoner exchange in 1923. The rest presumably died in captivity and are listed among the "missing".

The Greco–Turkish War of 1919–1922, known as the Greek campaign of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey and the Asia Minor Campaign () or the Asia Minor Catastrophe () in Greece, was a series of military events occurring during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922. The war was fought between Greece and Turkish revolutionaries of the Turkish National Movement that would later establish the Republic of Turkey.

The Greek campaign was launched because the western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. It ended with Greece giving up all territory gained during the war, returning to its pre-war borders, and engaging in a population exchange with the newly established state of Turkey under provisions in the Treaty of Lausanne.

The collective failure of the Greek military campaign against the Turkish revolutionaries, coupled with the expulsion of the French military from the region of Cilicia, forced the Allies to abandon the Treaty of Sèvres. Instead, they negotiated a new treaty at Lausanne. This new treaty recognised the independence of the Republic of Turkey and its sovereignty over East Thrace and Anatolia.

Background

Geopolitical context

The geopolitical context of this conflict is linked to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire which was a direct consequence of World War I and involvement of the Ottomans in the Middle Eastern theatre. Greeks received an order to land in Smyrna by the Triple Entente as part of the partition. During this war, the Ottoman government collapsed completely and the Ottoman Empire was divided amongst the victorious Entente powers with the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920.

There were a number of secret agreements regarding the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The Triple Entente had made contradictory promises about post-war arrangements concerning Greek hopes in Asia Minor.

At the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Eleftherios Venizelos lobbied hard for an expanded Hellas (the Megali Idea) that would include the large Greek communities in Northern Epirus, Thrace and Asia Minor. The western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire if Greece entered the war on the Allied side. These included Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (İmroz, since 29 July 1979 Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna, which contained sizable ethnic Greek populations.

The Italian and Anglo-French repudiation of the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne signed on April 26, 1917, which settled the "Middle Eastern interest" of Italy, was overridden with the Greek occupation, as Smyrna (İzmir) was part of the agreements promised to Italy. Before the occupation the Italian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919, angry about the possibility of the Greek occupation of Western Anatolia, left the conference and did not return to Paris until May 5. The absence of the Italian delegation from the Conference ended up facilitating Lloyd George's efforts to persuade France and the United States in Greece’s favor to prevent Italian operations in Western Anatolia.

According to some historians, it was the Greek occupation of Smyrna that created the Turkish National movement. Arnold J. Toynbee for example argued that "The war between Turkey and Greece which burst out at this time was a defensive war for safeguarding of the Turkish homelands in Anatolia. It was a result of the Allied policy of imperialism operating in a foreign state, the military resources and powers of which were seriously under-estimated; it was provoked by the unwarranted invasion of a Greek army of occupation."

The Greek community in Anatolia

{| cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width=180 align="right" rules="all" style="margin: 1em; background: #ffffff; border: 2px solid #aaa; font-size: 75%;" |- bgcolor=#DDDDDD | colspan=8 align="center" | Distribution of Nationalities in Ottoman Empire (Anatolia),Ottoman Official Statistics, 1910 |- bgcolor=#f0f0f0 align="center" ! Provinces ! Turks ! Greeks ! Armenians ! Jews ! Others ! Total |-align="center" | Istambul (Asiatic shore) || 135,681 || 70,906 || 30,465 || 5,120 || 16,812 || 258,984 |-align="center" | Ismid || 184,960|| 78,564 || 50,935 || 2,180 || 1,435 || 318,074 |-align="center" | Aidin (Izmir) || 974,225 || 629,002 || 17,247 || 24,361 || 58,076 || 1,702,911 |-align="center" | Bursa || 1,346,387 || 574,530 || 87,932 || 2,788 || 6,125 || 1,717,762 |-align="center" | Konya || 1,143,335 || 85,320 || 9,426 || 720 || 15,356 || 1,254,157 |-align="center" | Ankara || 991,666 || 54,280 || 101,388 || 901 || 12,329 || 1,160,564 |-align="center" | Trebizond || 1,047,889 || 351,104 || 45,094 || -|| -|| 1,444,087 |-align="center" | Sivas || 933,572 || 98,270 || 165,741 || -|| -|| 1,197,583 |-align="center" | Kastamon || 1,086,420 || 18,160 || 3,061 || -|| 1,980 || 1,109,621 |-align="center" | Adana || 212,454 || 88,010 || 81,250 || – || 107,240 || 488,954 |-align="center" | Bigha || 136,000 || 29,000 || 2,000 || 3,300 || 98 || 170,398 |- bgcolor=#f0f0f0 align="center" | Total
%|| 8,192,589
75,7% || 1,777,146
16,42% || 594,539
5,50% || 39,3700,36% || 219,4512,03% || 10,823,095 |- bgcolor=#DDDDDD | colspan=8 align="center" | Ecumenical Patriarchate Statistics, 1912 |- bgcolor=#f0f0f0 align="center" | Total
% || 7,048,662
72,7%|| 1,788,582
18,45% || 608,707
6,28% || 37,523
0,39 || 218,102
2,25% || 9,695,506 |- |}

One of the reasons proposed by the Greek government for launching the Asia Minor expedition was that there was a sizeable Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian population inhabiting Anatolia that needed protection. Greeks have lived in Asia Minor since antiquity and before the outbreak of the First World War, up to 2.5 million Greeks lived in the Ottoman Empire. The suggestion though that the Greeks constituted the majority of the population in the lands claimed by Greece has been contested by a number of historians. Cedric James Lowe and Michael L. Dockrill also argued that Greek claims about Smyrna were at best debatable, since Greeks constituted perhaps a bare majority, more likely a large minority in the Smyrna Vilayet,"which lay in an overwhelmingly Turkish Anatolia." Precise demographics are further obscured by the Ottoman policy of dividing the population according to religion rather than descent, language or self-identification. On the other hand contemporary British and American statistics (1919) support the point that the Greek element was the most numerous in the region of Smyrna, counting 375,000, while Muslims were 325,000.

Nevertheless, the fear for the safety of the Greek population was a well-founded one; In 1915, an extreme nationalist group called the Young Turks enacted genocidal policies against the minorities in the Ottoman Empire, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people. While the Armenian Genocide is the best known of these events, there were also atrocities towards Greeks in Pontus and western Anatolia. The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos stated to a British newspaper that: Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic Ottoman Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks.

To an extent, the above danger was overstated by Venizelos as a negotiating card on the table of Sèvres, in order to gain the support of the Allied governments. For example, the fact that the Young Turks were not in power at the time of the war makes such a justification less straightforward. Most of the leaders of that regime had fled the country at the end of World War I and the Ottoman government in Constantinople was already under British control. Furthermore, Venizelos had already revealed his desires for annexation of territories from the Ottoman Empire in the early stages of World War I, before these massacres had taken place. In a letter sent to Greek King Constantine in January 1915, he wrote that: "I have the impression that the concessions to Greece in Asia Minor... would be so extensive that another equally large and not less rich Greece will be added to the doubled Greece which emerged from the victorious Balkan wars"

Ironically, the Greek invasion might instead have precipitated the atrocities that it was supposed to prevent. Arnold J. Toynbee blamed the policies pursued by Great Britain and Greece, and the decisions of the Paris Peace conference as factors leading to the atrocities committed by both sides during the war: "The Greeks of 'Pontus' and the Turks of the Greek occupied territories, were in some degree victims of Mr. Venizelos's and Mr. Lloyd George's original miscalculations at Paris."

Greek nationalism

One of the main motivations for initiating the war was to realize the Megali (Great) Idea, a core concept of Greek nationalism. The Megali Idea was an irredentist vision of a restoration of a Greater Greece on both sides of the Aegean that would incorporate territories with Greek populations outside the borders of the Kingdom of Greece, which was initially very small. From the time of Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830, the Megali Idea had played a major role in Greek politics. Greek politicians, since the independence of the Greek state, had made several speeches on the issue of the "historic inevitability of the expansion of the Greek Kingdom." For instance, Greek politician Ioannis Kolettis voiced this conviction in the assembly in 1844: "There are two great centres of Hellenism. Athens is the capital of the Kingdom. Constantinople is the great capital, the City, the dream and hope of all Greeks."

The Great Idea was not merely the product of 19th century nationalism. It was, in one of its aspects, deeply rooted in many Greeks' religious consciousnesses. This aspect was the recovery of Constantinople for Christendom and the reestablishment of the universal Christian Byzantine Empire which had fallen in 1453. "Ever since this time the recovery of St. Sophia and the City had been handed down from generation to generation as the destiny and aspiration of the Greek Orthodox." Greek soldiers landed in Smyrna and took control of the city and its surroundings under cover of the Greek, French, and British navies. Legal justifications for the landings was found in the article 7 of the Armistice of Mudros, which allowed the Allies "to occupy any strategic points in the event of any situation arising which threatens the security of Allies." The Greeks had already brought their forces into Eastern Thrace (apart from Constantinople and its region). soldiers taking their posts in Smyrna () amidst the jubilant ethnic Greek population of the city, 15 May 1919.]]

The Christian population of Smyrna (mainly Greeks and Armenians), according to different sources, was either forming a minority or a majority compared to Muslim Turkish population of the city. Official Ottoman state census statistics of the time illustrate that the population was majorly Muslim and Turkish. The majority of the Greek population residing in the city greeted the Greek troops as liberators. By contrast, the majority of the Muslim population saw this as an invading force and some Turks resented the Greeks as a result of a long history of conflict and antagonism. Nevertheless, the Greek landings were received by and large passively, only facing sporadic resistance, mainly by small groups of irregular Turkish troops in the suburbs. The majority of the Turkish forces in the region either surrendered peacefully to the Greek Army, or fled to the countryside. .

As Greek troops advanced to the barracks, where the Ottoman commander Ali Nadir Pasha has been ordered to offer no resistance, a Turk in the crowd fired a shot, killing the Greek standard-bearer. Greek troops started firing both at the barracks and the government buildings. Between 300 to 400 Turks were killed or wounded, against 100 Greeks, two of whom were soldiers, on the first day. or Greece.

Greek advance (October 1920)

In October 1920, the Greek army advanced further east into Anatolia, with the encouragement of Lloyd George, who intended to increase pressure on the Turkish and Ottoman governments to sign the Treaty of Sèvres. This advance began under the Liberal government of Eleftherios Venizelos, but soon after the offensive began, Venizelos fell from power and was replaced by Dimitrios Gounaris. The strategic objective of these operations was to defeat the Turkish Nationalists and force Kemal into peace negotiations. The advancing Greeks, still holding superiority in numbers and modern equipment at this point, had hoped for an early battle in which they were confident of breaking up ill-equipped Turkish forces. Yet they met with little resistance, as the Turks managed to retreat in an orderly fashion and avoid encirclement. Churchill said: "The Greek columns trailed along the country roads passing safely through many ugly defiles, and at their approach the Turks, under strong and sagacious leadership, vanished into the recesses of Anatolia."

Change in Greek government (November 1920)

During October 1920, King Alexander was bitten by a monkey kept at the Royal Gardens and died within days from sepsis. This incident has been characterized as the "monkey bite that changed the course of Greek history". Venizelos's preference was to declare a Greek republic and thus end the monarchy. However, he was well aware that this would not be acceptable to the European powers.

After King Alexander died leaving no heirs, the general elections scheduled to be held on November 1, 1920 suddenly became the focus of a new conflict between the supporters of Venizelos and those of King Constantine. The anti-venizelist faction campaigned on the basis of accusations of internal mismanagement and authoritarian attitudes of the government, which, due to the war, had stayed in power without elections since 1915. At the same time they promoted the idea of disengagement in Asia Minor, without though presenting a clear plan as to how this would happen. On the contrary, Venizelos was identified with the continuation of a war that did not seem to go anywhere. The majority of the Greek people were both war-weary and tired of the almost dictatorial regime of the Venizelists, so opted for change. To the surprise of many, Venizelos won only 118 out of the total 369 seats. The crushing defeat obliged Venizelos and a number of his closest supporters to leave the country. To this day many question the rationale for his decision to call elections at that time.

The new government under Dimitrios Gounaris prepared for a plebiscite on the return of King Constantine. Noting the King's neutrality during World War I, the Allies warned the Greek government that if he should be returned to the throne they would cut off all financial and military aid to Greece. A month later a plebiscite called for the return of King Constantine. Soon after his return, the King replaced many of the World War I veteran officers and he appointed inexperienced monarchist officers to senior positions. The leadership of the campaign was given to Anastasios Papoulas, while King Constantine himself assumed nominally the overall command. In addition, many of the remaining venizelist officers resigned appalled by the regime change. The Greek Army which had secured Smyrna and the Asia Minor coast was purged of Venizelos's supporters while it marched on Ankara.

Battles of İnönü (December 1920 – March 1921)

By December 1920, the Greeks had advanced on two fronts, approaching Eskişehir from the North West and from Smyrna, and had consolidated their occupation zone. In early 1921 they resumed their advance with small scale reconnaissance incursions that met stiff resistance from entrenched Turkish Nationalists, who were increasingly better prepared and equipped as a regular army.

The Greek advance was halted for the first time at the First Battle of İnönü on January 11, 1921. Even though this was a minor confrontation involving only one Greek division, the political significance for the fledging Turkish revolutionaries cannot be overestimated. This development led to Allied proposals to amend the Treaty of Sèvres at a conference in London where both the Turkish Revolutionary and Ottoman governments were represented.

Although some agreements were reached with Italy, France and Britain, the decisions were not agreed to by the Greek government, who believed that they still retained the strategic advantage and could yet negotiate from a stronger position. The Greeks initiated another attack on March 27, the Second Battle of İnönü, where the Turkish troops fiercely resisted and finally defeated the Greeks on March 30. The British favoured a Greek territorial expansion but refused to offer any military assistance in order to avoid provoking the French. The Turkish forces received significant assistance from the newly formed Soviet Union.

Shift of support towards Turkish Revolutionaries

By this time all other fronts had been settled in favour of the Turks, freeing more resources to focus on the main threat of the Greek Army. The French and the Italians concluded private agreements with the Turkish revolutionaries in recognition of their mounting strength. Turkish revolutionaries bought equipment from Italy and France, who threw in their lot with the Turkish revolutionaries against Greece which was seen as a British client. The Italians used their base in Antalya to assist, especially from the point of view of intelligence, to the Turkish revolutionaries against the Greeks. There emerged a friendly relationship between the bolshevik RSFSR and the Turkish Revolutionaries, which was solidified under Treaty of Moscow in March 1921. The RSFSR supported Kemal with money and ammunition: in 1920 alone, the Lenin government supplied the kemalists with 6.000 rifles, over 5 million rifle cartridges, 17.600 projectiles as well as 200.6 kg of gold bullion; in the subsequent 2 years the amount of aid increased.

Battle of Afyonkarahisar-Eskishehir (July 1921)

Between 27 June and 20 July 1921, a reinforced Greek army of nine divisions launched a major offensive, the greatest thus far, against the Turkish troops commanded by Ismet Inönü on the line of Afyonkarahisar-Kutahya-Eskishehir. The plan of the Greeks was to cut Anatolia in two, as the above towns were on the main rail-lines connecting the hinterland with the coast. Eventually, after breaking the stiff Turkish defences, they occupied these strategically important centres. Instead of pursuing and decisively crippling the nationalists' military capacity, the Greek Army halted. In consequence, and despite their defeat, the Turks managed to avoid encirclement and made a strategic retreat on the east of the Sakarya River, where they organised their last line of defence.

This was the major decision that sealed the fate of the Greek campaign in Anatolia. The state and Army leadership, including King Constantine, prime minister Gounaris, and General Papoulas, met at Kutahya where they debated the future of the campaign. The Greeks, with their faltering morale rejuvenated, failed to appraise the strategic situation that favoured the defending side; instead, pressed for a 'final solution', the leadership was polarised into the risky decision to pursue the Turks and attack their last line of defence close to Ankara. The military leadership was cautious and requested for more reinforces and time to prepare, but did not go against the politicians. Only few voices supported a defensive stance, including Ioannis Metaxas. Constantine by this time had little actual power and did not argue either way. After a delay of almost a month that gave time to the Turks to organise their defence, seven of the Greek divisions crossed east of the Sakarya River.

Battle of Sakarya (August and September 1921)

Following the retreat of the Turkish troops under Ismet Inönü in the battle of Kutahya-Eskisehir the Greek Army advanced afresh to the Sakarya River (Sangarios in Greek), less than 100 km (62 miles) west of Ankara. Constantine's battle cry was "to Angora" and the British officers were invited, in anticipation, to a victory dinner in the city of Kemal. It was envisaged that the Turkish Revolutionaries, who had consistently avoided encirclement would be drawn into battle in defence of their capital and destroyed in a battle of attrition.

Despite the Soviet help, supplies were short as the Turkish army prepared to meet the Greeks. Owners of private rifles, guns and ammunition had to surrender them to the army and every household was required to provide a pair of underclothing, sandals. Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament, not happy with the performance of Ismet Inönü as the Commander of the Western Front, wanted Mustafa Kemal and Chief of General Staff Fevzi Cakmak to take control.

The advance of the Greek Army faced fierce resistance which culminated in the 21-day Battle of Sakarya (August 23– September 13, 1921). The Turkish defense positions were centred on series of heights, and the Greeks had to storm and occupy them. The Turks held certain hilltops and lost others, while some were lost and recaptured several times over. Yet the Turks had to conserve men, for the Greeks held the numerical advantage. The crucial moment came when the Greek army tried to take Haymana, 40 kilometers south of Ankara but the Turks held out. Greeks also had their problems, advance into Anatolia lengthened their lines of supply and communication and they were running out of ammunition. The ferocity of the battle exhausted both sides but the Greeks were the first to withdraw to their previous lines. The thunder of cannon was plainly heard in Ankara throughout the battle.

That was the furthest in Anatolia the Greeks would advance, and within few weeks they withdrew in an orderly manner back to the lines that they had held in June. The Turkish Parliament awarded both Mustafa Kemal and Fevzi Cakmak with the title of Field Marshal for their service in this battle. To this day no other person has received this five-star general title from the Turkish Republic.

Stalemate (September 1921 – August 1922)

Having failed to reach a military solution, Greece appealed to the Allies for help, but early in 1922 Britain, France and Italy decided that the Treaty of Sèvres could not be enforced and had to be revised. In accordance with this decision, under successive treaties, the Italian and French troops evacuated their positions, leaving the Greeks exposed.

In March 1922, the Allies proposed an armistice. Feeling that he now held the strategic advantage, Mustafa Kemal declined any settlement while the Greeks remained in Anatolia and intensified his efforts to re-organise the Turkish military for the final offensive against the Greeks. At the same time, the Greeks strengthened their defensive positions, but were increasingly demoralised by the inactivity of remaining on the defensive and the prolongation of the war. The Greek government was desperate to get some military support by the British or at least secure a loan, so they developed an ill-thought plan to force diplomatically the British, by threatening their positions in Constantinople, but this was never materialised. The occupation of Constantinople would not have been an easy task at this time because of Allied troops garrisoned there.

Voices in Greece were increasingly calling for withdrawal, and demoralizing propaganda spread among the troops. Some of the removed Venizelist officers organised a movement of "National Defense" and planned a coup to secede from Athens, but never gained Venizelos endorsement and all their actions remained fruitless.

Historian Malcolm Yapp wrote that:

After the failure of the March negotiations the obvious course of action for the Greeks was to withdraw to defensible lines around Izmir but at this point fantasy began to direct Greek policy, the Greeks stayed in their positions and planned a seizure of Constantinople, although this latter project was abandoned in July in the face of Allied opposition.

Turkish counter-attack (August 1922)

with the Turkish revolutionaries before the counter-attack.]] The Turks finally launched a counter-attack on August 26, what has come to be known to the Turks as the Great Offensive (Buyuk Taarruz). The major Greek defense positions were overrun on August 26, and Afyon fell next day. On August 30, the Greek army was defeated decisively at the Battle of Dumlupınar, with half of its soldiers captured or slain and its equipment entirely lost. This date is celebrated as Victory Day, a national holiday in Turkey and salvage day of Kütahya. During the Battle of Dumlupınar, Greek General Trikoupis and General Dionis were captured by the Turkish forces. General Trikoupis only after his capture learned that he was recently appointed Commander-in-Chief in General Hatzianestis' place. On September 1, Mustafa Kemal issued his famous order to the Turkish army: "Armies, your first goal is the Mediterranean, Forward!" Balikesir and Bilecik were taken on September 6, and Aydin the next day. Manisa was taken on September 8. The government in Athens resigned. Turkish cavalry entered into Smyrna on September 9. Gemlik and Mudanya fell on September 11, with an entire Greek division surrendering. The expulsion of the Greek Army from Anatolia was completed on September 14. As historian George Lenczowski has put it: "Once started, the offensive was a dazzling success. Within two weeks the Turks drove the Greek army back to the Mediterranean Sea."

Re-capture of Smyrna (September 1922)

With the possibility of social disorder once the Turkish Army occupied Smyrna, Mustafa Kemal was quick to issue a proclamation, sentencing any Turkish soldier to death who harmed non-combatants. A few days before the Turkish capture of the city, Kemal's messengers distributed leaflets with this order written in Greek. Kemal said that Ankara government can't be held responsible in the case of an occurrence of a massacre.

During the confusion and anarchy that followed, a great portion of the city was set ablaze in the Great Fire of Smyrna, and the properties of the Greeks were pillaged. Most of the eye-witness reports identified that troops from the Turkish army set the fire in the city. Moreover, the fact that only the Greek and Armenian quarters of the city were burned, and that the Turkish quarter stood gives credence to the theory that the Turkish troops burned the city.

Chanak Crisis

After re-capturing Smyrna, Turkish forces headed north for Bosporus, the sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles where the Allied garrisons were reinforced by British, French and Italian troops from Constantinople. The British government also issued a request for military support from its colonies. The response from the colonies was negative (with the exception of New Zealand). Furthermore, Italian and French forces abandoned their positions at the straits and left the British alone to face the Turks. On September 24, Kemal's troops moved into the straits zones and refused British requests to leave. The British cabinet was divided on the matter but eventually any possible armed conflict was prevented. British General Harington, allied commander in Constantinople, kept his men from firing on Turks and warned the British cabinet against any rash adventure. The Greek fleet left Constantinople upon his request. The British finally decided to force the Greeks to withdraw behind Maritsa in Thrace. This convinced Kemal to accept the opening of Armistice talks.

Resolution

.]]

The Armistice of Mudanya was concluded on October 11, 1922. The Allies (Britain, France, Italy) retained control of eastern Thrace and the Bosporus. The Greeks were to evacuate these areas. The agreement came into force starting October 15, 1922, one day after the Greek side agreed to sign it.

The Armistice of Mudanya was followed by the Treaty of Lausanne, a significant provision of which was an exchange of populations. Over one million Greek Orthodox Christians were displaced; most of them were resettled in Attica and the newly-incorporated Greek territories of Macedonia and Thrace and were exchanged with about 500,000 Muslims displaced from the Greek territories.

Factors contributing to the outcome

The first year of the war the Greeks were helped by the fact that British occupation of the Straits, the richest and most populous part of Turkey, and the occupation of the Levant, Syria, and Cilicia by the French military in the autumn of 1919. This constituted as great a level of support as Greece could have asked for, so soon after the end of the war. The Kemalist forces scored their first significant victory when they invaded and crushed the Republic of Armenia. The victories on these fronts allowed the Kemalists to turn their energies on the Greek intrusion in larger numbers.

The major factor contributing to the defeat of the Greeks was the withdrawal of Allied support beginning in the autumn of 1920. The reasons why the Allies shifted so drastically in their policies are complex. One often quoted reason for the apparent lack of support was that King Constantine was reviled by the Entente for his neutral policies during World War I, in contrast to former prime minister Venizelos who brought Greece in the war on their side. Most probably this just served as a pretext. A more plausible explanation was that exhausted from 4 years of bloodshed, no Entente power had the will to engage in further fighting to enforce the Sèvres treaty. Recognising the rising power of the Turkish Republic, France and Italy preferred to settle their differences with separate agreements, abandoning their plans on the Anatolian lands. Even Lloyd George, who always had voiced support for the Greeks, following Venizelos's lobbying, could do little more than give promises, bound by the military and the Foreign Office 'real politik'. That left Greece to fight practically alone after 1921. The consequences were dire. Greece not only could not expect military help, but also all credit was stopped immediately. In addition, the Allies did not allow the Greek Navy to effect blockade, which could have restricted Turkish continuing imports of food and material.

Having adequate supplies was a constant problem for the Greek Army. Although it was not lacking in men, courage or enthusiasm, it was soon lacking in nearly everything else. Due to her poor economy and lack of manpower, Greece could not sustain long-term mobilisation and had been stretched beyond its limits. Very soon, the Greek Army exceeded the limits of its logistical structure and had no way of retaining such a large territory under constant attack by regular and irregular Turkish troops fighting in and for their homeland. The idea that such large force could sustain offensive by mainly "living off the land" proved wrong.

As the supply situation worsened for the Greeks, things improved for the Turks. Initially, they enjoyed only Soviet support from abroad, in return for giving Batum back to the Soviet Union. On August 4, Turkey's representative in Moscow, Riza Nur, sent a telegram saying that soon 60 Krupp artillery pieces, 30,000 shells, 700,000 grenades, 10,000 mines, 60,000 Romanian swords, 1.5 million captured Ottoman rifles from World War I, one million Russian rifles, one million Mannlicher rifles, as well as some older British Martini-Henry rifles and 25,000 bayonets would be delivered to the Kemalist forces. The Soviets also provided monetary aid to the Turkish national movement, not to the extent that they promised, but almost in sufficient amount to make up the large deficiencies in the promised supply of arms. The Turks in the second phase of the war also received significant military aid from Italy and France, who threw in their lot with the Kemalists against Greece which was seen as a British client. The Italians were embittered from their loss of the Smyrna mandate to the Greeks and they used their base in Antalya to arm and train Turkish troops to assist the Kemalists against the Greeks.

Regardless of other factors, the contrast between the motives and strategic positions of the two sides contributed decisively to the outcome. The Turks were defending their homeland against what they perceived as an imperialist attack. Mustafa Kemal was an intelligent politician, that could present himself as revolutionary to the communists, protector of tradition and order to the conservatives, a patriot soldier to the nationalists, and a Muslim leader for the religious, so he could recruit all Turkish elements and motivate them to fight. In his public speeches, he built up the idea of Anatolia as a "kind of fortress against all the aggressions directed to the East". The struggle was not about Turkey alone but "it is the cause of the east", he said. Turkish national movement attracted sympathizers especially from the Muslims of the far east countries, who were living under colonial regimes and who saw nationalist Turkey as the only independent Muslim nation. The Khilafet Committee in Bombay started a fund to help the Turkish National struggle and sent both financial aid and constant letters of encouragement:

The main defense doctrine of the First World War was holding on a line, so this command was unorthodox for its time. However it proved successful.

On the other side, the Greek defeat directly derived from gradual loss of momentum, the National Schism and poor strategic planning of their ill-conceived advance in depth. The Greek Army was fighting on the background of constant political turmoil and division at the home front. Despite the majority belief into the "moral advantage" of irridentism against the "old enemies", they were not few among them that could not see the point of continuing and they would rather preferred to be back to their homes. The fact that thousands of young men from old Greece were being sacrificed for Asia Minor, while recruitment from the local population was minimal, also caused resentment. The Greeks were advancing without clear strategic targets, wearily following months of bitter fighting and long marches. The main strategy was to manage a fatal blow that would cripple the Turkish military for ever and make the Treaty of Sèvres enforceable. This strategy might have made some sense back then, but in hindsight it proved a fatal miscalculation. The Greeks were instead attacking against an enemy that could continuously retreat to renewed defensive lines, avoiding encirclement and destruction.

Atrocities and claims of ethnic cleansing by both sides

Greek massacres of Turks

British historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that there were organized atrocities since the Greek occupation of Smyrna on the 15 May 1919. Toynbee also stated that he and his wife were witnesses to the atrocities perpetrated by Greeks in the Yalova, Gemlik, and Izmit areas and they not only obtained abundant material evidence in the shape of "burnt and plundred houses, recent corpses, and terror stricken survivors" but also witnessed robbery by Greek civilians and arsons by Greek soldiers in uniform in the act of perpetration. Toynbee wrote that as soon as the Greek Army landed, they started committing atrocities against the Turkish civilians, as they "laid waste the fertile Maender Valley", and forced thousands of Turks to take refuge outside the borders of the areas controlled by the Greeks.

Historian Taner Akçam noted that a British officer reported:

"The National forces were established solely for the purpose of fighting the Greeks...The Turks are willing to remain under the control of any other state...There was not even an organized resistance at the time of the Greek occupation. Yet the Greeks are persisting in their oppression, and they have continued to burn villages, kill Turks and rape and kill women and young girls and throttle to death children".

James Harbord, describing the first months of the occupation to the American Senate, wrote that: "The Greek troops and the local Greeks who had joined them in arms started a general massacre of the Mussulmen population in which the officials and Ottoman officers and soldiers as well as the peaceful inhabitants were indiscriminately put to death" Harold Armstrong, a British officer who was a member of the Inter-Allied Commission reported that as the Greeks pushed out from Smynra, they massacred and raped civilians, and burned and pillaged as they went. Marjorie Housepian wrote that 4000 Smyrna Muslims were killed by Greek forces. Johannes Kolmodin was a Swedish orientalist in Smyrna. He wrote in his letters that the Greek army had burned 250 Turkish villages. In another case of atrocity, in one village the Greek army demanded 500 gold liras in order not to pillage the village, however, after the payment of the amount the village was sacked.

Inter-Allied commission and M. Gehri, the representative of the Geneva International Red Cross, have presented two different reports in regard to the atrocities Greek forces committed in the Yalova-Gemlik Peninsula in the year 1921. In their report of the 23rd May 1921, Inter-Allied commission stated that:

"A distinct and regular method appears to have been followed in the destruction of villages, group by group, for the last two months, which destruction has even reached the neighbourhood of the Greek headquarters. The members of the Commission consider that, in the part of the kazas of Yalova and Gemlik occupied by the Greek army, there is a systematic plan of destruction of Turkish villages and extinction of the Muslim population. This plan is being carried out by Greek and Armenian bands, which appear to operate under Greek instructions and sometimes even with the assistance of detachments of regular troops".

Inter Allied commission also stated that the destruction of villages and the disappearance of the Muslim population might have at its objective to create in this region a political situation favourable to the Greek Government.

"...The Greek army of occupation have been employed in the extermination of the Muslim population of the Yalova-Gemlik peninsula. The facts established -burning of villages, massacres, terror of the inhabitants, coincidence of place and date- leave no room for doubt in regard to this."

Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that they obtained convincing evidence that similar atrocities had been started in wide areas all over the remainder of the Greek occupied territories since June 1921.

Greek scorched-earth policy

According to a number of sources, the retreating Greek army carried out a scorched-earth policy while fleeing from Anatolia during the final phase of the war. Historian of the Middle East, Sydney Nettleton Fisher wrote that: "The Greek army in retreat pursued a burned-earth policy and committed every known outrage against defenceless Turkish villagers in its path" Norman M. Naimark noted that "the Greek retreat was even more devastating for the local population than the occupation".

James Loder Park, the U.S. Vice-Consul in Constantinople at the time, who toured much of the devastated area immediately after the Greek evacuation, described the situation in the surrounding cities and towns of İzmir he has seen, as follows:

"Manisa...almost completely wiped out by fire...10,300 houses, 15 mosques, 2 baths, 2,278 shops, 19 hotels, 26 villas...[destroyed]. Cassaba (present day Turgutlu) was a town of 40,000 souls, 3,000 of whom were non-Muslims. Of these 37,000 Turks only 6,000 could be accounted for among the living, while 1,000 Turks were known to have been shot or burned to death. Of the 2,000 buildings that constituted the city, only 200 remained standing. Ample testimony was available to the effect that the city was systematically destroyed by Greek soldiers, assisted by a number of Greek and Armenian civilians. Kerosene and gasoline were freely used to make the destruction more certain, rapid and complete. Alasehir, hand pumps were used to soak the walls of the buildings with Kerosene. As we examined the ruins of the city, we discovered a number of skulls and bones, charred and black, with remnants of hair and flesh clinging to them. Upon our insistence a number of graves having a fresh-made appearance were actually opened for us as we were fully satisfied that these bodies were not more than four weeks old.[the time of the Greek retreat through Alasehir]"

Consul Park concluded:

It is estimated some 3,000 lives had been lost in the burning of Alaşehir alone. In one of the examples of the Greek atrocities during the retreat, on 14 February 1922, in the Turkish village of Karatepe in Aydin Vilayeti, after being surrounded by the Greeks, all the inhabitants were put into the mosque, then the mosque was burned. The few who escaped fire were shot. The Italian consul, M. Miazzi, reported that he had just visited a Turkish village, where Greeks had slaughtered some sixty women and children. This report was then corroborated by Captain Kocher, the French consul.

Turkish massacres of Greeks and Armenians

The British historian and journalist Arnold J. Toynbee stated that when he toured the region he saw numerous Greek villages that had been burned to the ground. Toynbee also stated that the Turkish troops had clearly, individually and deliberately burned down each house in these villages, pouring petrol on them and taking care to ensure that they were totally destroyed. There were massacres throughout 1920–1923, the period of the Turkish War of Independence, especially of Armenians in the East and the South, and against the Greeks in the Black Sea Region. There was also significant continuity between the organizers of the massacres between 1915–1917 and 1919–1921 in Eastern Anatolia.

A Turkish governor, Ebubekir Hazim Tepeyran in the Sivas Province said in 1919 that the massacres were so horrible that he could not bear to report them. He was referring to the atrocities committed against Greeks in the Black Sea region, and according to the official tally 11,181 Greeks were murdered in 1921 by the Central Army under the command of Nurettin Pasha (who is infamous for the killing of Archbishop Chrysostomos). Some parliamentary deputies demanded Nurettin Pasha to be sentenced to death and it was decided to put him on trial although the trial was later revoked by the intervention of Mustafa Kemal. Taner Akcam wrote that according to one newspaper, Nurettin Pasha had suggested to kill all the remaining Greek and Armenian populations in Anatolia, a suggestion rejected by Mustafa Kemal. For instance, according to the London based Times, "The Turkish authorities frankly state it is their deliberate intention to let all the Greeks die, and their actions support their statement." According to the newspaper the Scotsman, on August 18 of 1920, in the Feival district of Karamusal, South-East of Ismid in Asia Minor, the Turks massacred 5,000 Christians. On February 25, 1922 24 Greek villages in the Pontus region were burnt to the ground. An American newspaper, the Atlanta Observer wrote: "The smell of the burning bodies of women and children in Pontus" said the message "comes as a warning of what is awaiting the Christian in Asia Minor after the withdrawal of the Hellenic army." The Christian Science Monitor wrote that Turkish authorities also prevented missionaries and humanitarian aid groups from assisting Greek civilians who had their homes burned, the Turkish authorities leaving these people to die despite abundant aid. The Christian Science Monitor wrote: "the Turks are trying to exterminate the Greek population with more vigor than they exercised towards the Armenians in 1915." as the Pontian Genocide. According to a proclamation made in 2002 by the then-governor of New York (where a sizeable population of Greek Americans resides), George Pataki, the Greeks of Asia Minor endured immeasurable cruelty during a Turkish government-sanctioned systematic campaign to displace them; destroying Greek towns and villages and slaughtering additional hundreds of thousands of civilians in areas where Greeks composed a majority, as on the Black Sea coast, Pontus, and areas around Smyrna; those who survived were exiled from Turkey and today they and their descendants live throughout the Greek diaspora.

By 9 September 1922, the Turkish army had entered Smyrna, with the Greek authorities having left two days before. Large scale disorder followed, with the Christian population suffering under attacks from soldiers and Turkish inhabitants. The Greek archbishop Chrysostomos had been lynched by a mob which included Turkish soldiers, and on September 13, a fire from the Armenian quarter of the city had engulfed the Christian waterfront of the city, leaving the city devastated. The responsibility gor the fire is a controversial issue, some sources blame Turks, and some sources blame Greeks or Armenians. Some 50,000 to 100,000 Greeks and Armenians were killed in the fire and accompanying massacres.

According to the population exchange treaty signed by both the Turkish and Greek governments, Greek orthodox citizens of Turkey and Muslim citizens residing in Greece were subjected to the population exchange between these two countries. Approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Turkey and about half a million Muslims from Greece were uprooted from their homelands. M. Norman Naimark claimed that this treaty was the last part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to create an ethnically pure homeland for the Turks Historian Dinah Shelton similarly wrote that: "the Lausanne Treaty completed the forcible transfer of the country's Greeks".

Larger part of the Greek population had been forced to leave their ancestral homelands of Ionia, Pontus and Eastern Thrace between 1914–22. These refugees, as well as the Greek Americans with origins in Anatolia, were not allowed to return to their homelands after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne.

See also

Population exchange between Greece and Turkey

Aftermath of World War I

Turkish-Armenian War

Franco-Turkish War

Menemen massacre

Chronology of the Turkish War of Independence

Greek–Turkish relations

Timeline of modern Greek history

Greek refugees

Ottoman Greeks

Greek genocide

Armenian genocide

Notes

Further reading

Dobkin, Marjorie Housepian (1972). Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-9667451-0-8.

Fromkin, David (1990). A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Avon Books

Vryonis, Speros (2007). "Greek Labor Battalions in Asia Minor" in The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. Ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, pp. 275–290. ISBN 1-4128-0619-4.

In literature and the arts

Tasos Athanasiadis, The children of Niobe (Τα Παιδιά της Νιόβης), novel which was later serialized on Greek television

Louis de Bernieres, Birds Without Wings, 2004

Thea Halo, Not Even my Name, memoir 2000

Ernest Hemingway, On the Quai at Smyrna, collected in In Our Time, 1925.

Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, novel (won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2003)

Panos Karnezis, The Maze novel 2004 shortlisted for 2004 Whitbread First Novel Award.

Elia Kazan, America, America film 1964 Oscar nominated for Best Picture

Elia Kazan, Beyond the Aegean, a 1994 novel

Nikos Kazantzakis, Christ Recrucified (Ο Χριστός ανασταυρώνεται), novel 1948

Bohuslav Martinů, The Greek Passion (Řecké pašije), Opera 1961

Dido Sotiriou, Farewell Anatolia (Ματωμένα Χώματα, 1962), Kedros 1997

Category:Aftermath of World War I