Greco-Turkish War 1919-22

[Peter H]

A fair assessment of this war?

Hostilities between Greek troops and Turkish nationalists first erupted in May 1919, following the occupation of Smyrna (Izmir) and its hinterland by the Greeks as part of the price exacted from the Turks for their support of the Central Powers in World War I. Carried out at the request of Britain, France, and the United States, the operation served to advance Greece's territorial ambitions in Asia Minor. After consolidating its control over a fairly large zone, up to the Allied-designated "Milne Line," the Venizelos cabinet in the spring of 1920 secured London's agreement to expand further the area of occupation. Starting on June 22, several Greek divisions advanced both northward and eastward against limited Turkish resistance, taking Panderma (on the Sea of Marmara) as well as Bursa and Uak.

Once the sultan's government in Istanbul had signed the Peace of Sèvres (which gave Greece possession of Eastern Thrace and supreme authority in the Smyrna region for five years, to be followed by a plebiscite), the Turkish nationalist regime in Ankara, headed by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, vowed to fight back. In November 1920, a more conservative regime was established in Athens under the previously exiled Greek monarch, King Constantine. Early in 1921, the new Greek commander in Asia Minor, General Anastasios Papoulas, launched a reconnaissance in force toward the important rail center of Eskiehir, but Turkish troops repulsed them.

Despite growing dissatisfaction with the Greek role in Asia Minor in Paris, Rome, and other Allied capitals, Papoulas launched new attacks in March 1921, but once again his troops were forced back. Three months later, with his forces swollen to about 200,000 men, he advanced successfully, taking both Eskiehir and Afyon (another important rail center). The Greeks then slowly pushed eastward in the direction of Ankara.

Commanded by Mustafa Kemal in person, the Turks initially lost a lot of ground (Battle of the Sakarya), but by early September the tide had turned, and the Greeks eventually withdrew to a partially fortified line running from the Sea of Marmara to the region east of Eskiehir and Afyon, and thence southwest to the Menderes River. They would stay in those positions, far from their logistical bases, for the next eleven months.

With increasing resources, including war matériel from Soviet Russia, at his disposal, Mustafa Kemal on August 26, 1922, launched a series of major attacks against the central and southern sectors of the Greek front. Though they encountered fierce resistance in some places, the Turks soon made headway in several strategic locations. By September 5, they had reached Bursa; four days later their cavalry entered Smyrna.

The catastrophic rout of the Greek army in Asia Minor triggered a revolution in Athens that culminated in the expulsion of King Constantine and his brother Andrew, and the execution of two prime ministers, three other cabinet members, and the last Greek commander in Asia Minor, General Georgios Hatzianestis. The Greek defeat also led to a Turkish showdown with Britain and the eventual replacement of the Sèvres peace treaty by a new settlement acceptable to the Turks (the Treaty of Lausanne). In the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War, most Greeks living in Asia Minor lost their ancestral homes, either by flight or, later, by a compulsory population exchange negotiated with Ankara.

http://college.hmco.com/history/readers ... urkish.htm

[Peter H]

Photos from the war,courtesy of Corbis.com.

[Peter H]

Turkish victors 1922.

[Kaan Caglar]

Hi Peter,
Here's an article regarding the War. I found it a little biased but covers the subject fine.

Although the Turkish War of Independence was fought mainly against the invading Greeks, it had elements of a civil war as well, since the movement for liberation also opposed Turks who still supported the Ottoman sultan and his government in occupied Istanbul. The Greek War of Independence, fought a hundred years earlier, had not turned up a single super-hero. The Turks had one in Mustafa Kemal and rallied around him. He was to be known later, after his many successes, as Atatürk the Father Turk.

There were British soldiers at Samsun, and Mustafa Kemal and his men went inland for safety's sake, moving quickly toward the heart of Anatolia. Atatürk had authority over the situation there and was bent on saving his country. He began at once to form political and military alliances with other patriots in Anatolia. Within a month, however, the Ottoman government stripped him of his authority and ordered his arrest Against incredible odds, he determined as a civilian to organize political resistance and find a political group that would grant him new authority. The invasion of Anatolia by the Greeks may have helped galvanize local groups to the point where the broken-down, war- weary, and grieving nation could summon up new energy and rally around him.

When his three-car caravan entered the dusty little city of Ankara in the middle of Anatolia, the provincial newspaper reported that:

The dawn of the daylight-creating sun took place in Erzurum.

Glistening in Sivas, it illuminated the nation.

Every place opened its heart and soul to that sun of reality. The

Turkish world was turned entirely into a single mass of radiance.

This clearly indicates that the grieving Anatolians, including many Kurds, who had lived with the Turks for about one thousand years, saw Mustafa Kemal as ushering in the dawn of a new day. A charismatic leader par excellence, he was again and again referred to symbolically as the warming sun.

Ankara became the nationalist centre; it eventually became the capital of modem Turkey. While Mustafa Kemal and his men were adjusting to life in Ankara, the Allies were busy dividing the Ottoman lands, including areas of the Turkish heartland. One Allied misconception was that Mustafa Kemal's nationalist movement had been supported by the Ottoman government in Istanbul. Despite a wish to reduce the harshness of the Treaty of Sèvres, differences among England's most powerful politicians slowed the development of a unified Near East policy. Lloyd George was totally committed to promoting the Megali Idea of the Greeks, but Lord Curzon feared any extension of Greek rule into Asia Minor. Politicians representing British interests in India were concerned that harsh treatment of Muslim Turks might be resented by Indian Muslims.

The Italians, who were promised the Dodecanese Islands and a large part of Anatolia from the Aegean Sea coastal zone south of Izmir to Adana, disapproved of the Greek influence in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. The terntory from Adana to the end of the Italian zone at Sivas was under the French, but the French were also concerned with Syria and suspicious of the British. An independent Armenia was envisaged; its borders were to be determined later by the United States. The autonomy of the Kurds was recognized, and the Ottoman Empire was stripped of all its Arab lands, Iraq being placed in the British zone. Eastern Thrace, including Edirne, was assigned to the Greeks, who were allowed to land at Izmir and move into the heart of Anatolia. In spite of disagreements among the Allies, Mustafa Kemal and his nationalist followers clearly had their hands full, and at last it seemed that no more would be heard of 'the terrible Turks'. The Greeks moved further and further inland, expressing both consciously and unconsciously their centuries-old dislike of Turks and forgetting the comfortable times of 'togetherness'. The unconscious 'togetherness' the two peoples had once experienced had to be extirpated if the Greeks were to find even a newer identity in forming a new Greek empire.

Many issues had to be dealt with before Mustafa Kemal could undertake a major war to drive the Greeks from Anatolia. They had to put down a revolt of Amhenian revolutionaries and make the Russians, who were preoccupied with the Bolshevik Revolution, accept a new Turkish-Russian border and surrender the districts of Kars and Ardahan, according to the Treaty of Gümrü (3 December 1920). Although the Bolsheviks subsequently helped Mustafa Kemal in his struggle for independence, he never adopted communist views.

After settling the border with the Soviets, Turkish forces gained the districts of Malatya, Diyarbakir, and Van; put down a Kurdish revolt; and compelled Iran to acknowledge a new Turkish-Iranian border. Mustafa Kemal then went south to recapture Urfa, Gaziantep, and Adana, coming face to face with French forces on their way to occupy Cilicia. The French chose to relinquish their share of the spoils and signed the Franklin Bouillon Treaty on 10 October 1921. Mustafa Kemal forced the Italians out of Konya in February 1922. While all this was taking place, he faced the Greeks on Anatolian soil but refrained from initiating a major offensive.

Facing the Greeks

After landing at Izmir in May 1919, the Greeks had met with little resistance as they pushed inland; the Turkish troops fell back to Bursa, the first substantial Ottoman capital. Panic gripped Ankara when Bursa fell and an outcry rose against Mustafa Kemal's leadership. Addressing the nationalistic Grand National Assembly from a rostrum draped in black as a sign of mourning, he stated that since the Turkish people were not prepared it was inadvisable to mount an offensive to recapture Bursa at that time. With telling oratory, he stressed the main aim of defending Anatolia.

Meanwhile, the political situation in Greece was undergoing drastic changes. Venizelos, who had been called 'the new Agamemnon', was driven from power by losing an election, no doubt in popular reaction to massive military mobilization that had accomplished so little in the way of permanent territorial expansion. In October 1920, King Alexander died suddenly from the consequences of a pet monkey's bite. In an election during the following month, the Royalists defeated the Liberals, and a plebiscite restored Constantine to the throne. He had few friends among the Allies, but he purged the officer corps of its pro-Venizelos elements and began to prepare for further offensive action in Anatolia.

When the Greeks had commenced their struggle for liberation a hundred years earlier, they had depended on klephts, whom the çetes of Anatolia resembled. Mustafa Kemal, a graduate of an Ottoman military school, wanted nothing to do with çetes and got rid of them. Therefore, when the Greeks began a new offensive on 21 March 1921, they clashed at Inönü with a regular Turkish army and lost the battle. This was the second Turkish success at the same place, under the command of İsmet, who would later adopt the name of Inönü and become the new Turkey's second president following Atatürk's death.

Turkish jubilation over the victory was matched by the determination of the Greeks and their preoccupation with their Megali Idea. When Constantine went to Asia Minor, he was the first Christian ruler to appear there since the Crusades, and he decided to go after Ankara. As the Greek forces moved on Ankara, Greeks who had been living in Turkish territory for centuries were caught up in a frenzy of patriotic fervour for their original homeland and, exploding with hatred for their erstwhile neighbours, committed atrocities against them. To keep his army together and to draw the Greeks farther away from their main base of supplies, Mustafa Kemal ordered a systematic retreat. The Turks crossed the Sakarya River, the last natural obstacle between Ankara and the enemy. The resulting confrontation, in which the Turks were led by Mustafa Kemal himself, ended in a disastrous rout of the invading Greeks.

It took another year for the Turks to complete their preparation for a major offensive. Mustafa Kemal predicted that the 'real saviour sun of the Turks would shine down on the morning of the attack in all its splendor'. The attack that began on 26 August 1922, was followed by a day in which everything seemed to be over for the Greeks and their hope of reversing a history of one thousand years by re-establishing a Greek Empire that would include Asia Minor. The operational commander of the Greek front was captured, and without a leader the Greeks began retreating toward İzmir with the Turks in hot pursuit

Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, was informed by Sir Horace Rumbold, then High Commissioner in still occupied Istanbul, that the Greeks 'went to pieces altogether', leaving behind 'a sickening record of bestiality and barbarity'.19o The Turkish writer Halide Edib, who was following the Turkish army, was stunned by what she saw.

Describing Alaşehir, a small city not far from İzmir, she wrote:

Neither Greeks nor our people had found time to bury the dead, the Turkish army running at top speed to save Turkish cities from being burned. The Greek army in escaping from the fires it started and from atrocities. But each side shows no mercy to the other ... Women mindlessly try to dig the ground with their fingers. It is as though hell had come to earth.

When the Turkish army reached İzmir, the city was full of Greek refugees from the interior. A large contingent of the Greek army had been evacuated just before the arrival of the Turkish army-. However, some Greek troops had been left behind, and these, along with the thousands of refugees, were in a state of confusion. Some jumped into the water in an effort to reach Allied warships that were still in the harbour.

Mustafa Kemal entered İzmir on 10 September 1922 as the hero of the Turks, who made available to him the house in which King Constantine had stayed and where he had trampled the Turkish hag as he entered. A Greek flag was spread out on the marble entrance steps of the house, and Mustafa Kemal was expected to walk on it. He objected, however, saying that a country's honour should not be trodden upon and that he did not propose to follow the erroneous example of Constantine.

Soon İzmir was engulfed in flames; the Turks blamed the fire on the Greeks and the Armenians, who, in turn, blamed the Turks. No one seeing the conflagration could have guessed that, within a few years, Mustafa Kemal and Eleutherios Venizelos, once more returned to power, would make peace.

Regards
Kaan

[Gwynn Compton]

I found this map which shows the extent of Greek advances in 1921


from http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~sctwiseh/Roman/3CompMaps.html

Remarkably, it's very similiar to the Byzantine Empire in 1204


Gwynn

[Kaan Caglar]

Gwynn, its called the Megali Idea.
Megali Idea(Greek for "Great idea") is a concept of Greek Nationalism expressing the goal of re-establishing the Byzantine Empire on her former lands. A major proponent was Eleftherios Venizelos, who expended Greek territory in the Balkan Wars. A major defeat in Anatolia ended this idea but there are many groups in Modern Greece following this utopia.
Best Regards!
Kaan

[Kaan Caglar]

This war has many different sides of view.
Many Turks and Greeks hated each other but many didnt have any hatred for the other.
Turks and Greeks playing together in Karapinar:

Best Regards
Kaan

[Evzonas]

Gwynn, its called the Megali Idea.
Megali Idea(Greek for "Great idea") is a concept of Greek Nationalism expressing the goal of re-establishing the Byzantine Empire on her former lands. A major proponent was Eleftherios Venizelos, who expended Greek territory in the Balkan Wars. A major defeat in Anatolia ended this idea but there are many groups in Modern Greece following this utopia.
Best Regards!
Kaan

Megali Idea or Great Idea was actually a concept for all enslaved Greeks to be liberated and had really little to do with Byzantium.
After over 400 years of slavery and barbaric rule, Greece rebelled the Turkish regime on 25 March 1821 but untill mid 20's only a small portion of Greek inhabitated areas in the wider Balkan peninsula not to mention Pontos (current North Turkey) or Mikra Asia -Asia Minor- were free.

Megali Idea or Great Idea was a mere concept of a Nation trying to stand on its feet after centuries of humiliation, occupation, slavery, murder, rape and robbery.

***edited by Moderator***

[Victor]

Off topic and provocative posts were deleted. Stick to the initial subject and refrain from using insulting generalizations.

[alibegoa]

Since the part with centuries of slavery and rape remained I feel obliged to ask (politely this time) how many greeks there really are? Especially since I know they feel great pride in being hellenic. So can anybody explain to me how come there are so many greeks so dark they cannot be even classified as the Turks. Just to clarify I don't think that there is anything wrong with being dark. But since the previous poster brought this question forward I have the full right to explore this question further.

As the barbaric part goes you have to realize that after 400 years of occupation there must have been many Turkish monuments errected in greece and mosques especially. And where are they now? Not a trace of Turkish presence remains in greece. The only mosque there is now is the one they were obliged to build for the olympics last year and even that was a problem. Don't you think that if the Turks were so barbaric they could not erradicate any greek presence during those 400 years? After all did not the Germans only recently show us how it is done in just 5 years.
And yet there were greeks still left in Asia Minor after 400 years of occupation. They were however removed by a compulsory population exchange negotiated between Athens and Ankara but only after those 400 years and thanks to their 'free' brothers in Athens.

And if our moderator sees the need to remove this post as well I must politely request the following part "humiliation, occupation, slavery, murder, rape and robbery" of previous post be removed as well. Instead it is appropriate to stand "occupation".

[Evzonas]

Since the part with centuries of slavery and rape remained I feel obliged to ask (politely this time) how many greeks there really are?

I am not sure I get this question? You mean how many Greeks are in Greece today or how many people of Greek origin are around the world today as the second number is quite big my friend... Greeks in the US alone count some 2.5 million souls. In Germany, Australia, UK, Russia and Former USSR countries and almost every country of the world there are smaller or bigger Greek comunities... Recently an Italian source wich unfortunately I don't have in hand, stated that it is possible that almost 10% of the modern Italian population is of Greek origin (quite possible since South Italy and Sicely were Greek long before any Italian or even Roman nations exsisted).

The most recent count from the Hellenic Board for Greeks living abroad, states that around the globe there are more than 20.000.000 people of Greek origin and also keep the Greek heritage and customs etc. As for what I wrote about Greeks in Turkey, you must learn that several ten-thousand if not hundred-thousand Greeks were given the freedom to either die as Greek-Orthodox Christians or convert to Mulsims and those people still live in Turkey today.. This is something, I think not even Turkey deny! After all, one of the problems for Turkey to enter EU and this is commonly accepted by all EU members is Turkish intollerance for minorities. They hardly recognise they have almost 20.000.000 Kurdish speaking people ... but hey, they forbid them to speak Kurdish so how can they be Kurds after all those years? Turkey also never accepted genocide of Armenians and Greeks of Pontos....

Especially since I know they feel great pride in being hellenic. So can anybody explain to me how come there are so many greeks so dark they cannot be even classified as the Turks.

I don't understand where you are heading with this question... In Greece there are several thousand Gypsies, a very tiny nuclea of Romanians and Pomaks who speak Turkish in the North (claimed to be Turkish by some but of vast different origin and culture). Well, most of these people are somehow darker than averagge Greeks but far from the generalisation you used above.

As the barbaric part goes you have to realize that after 400 years of occupation there must have been many Turkish monuments errected in greece and mosques especially. And where are they now? Not a trace of Turkish presence remains in greece. The only mosque there is now is the one they were obliged to build for the olympics last year and even that was a problem. Don't you think that if the Turks were so barbaric they could not erradicate any greek presence during those 400 years?

There are several unused mosques around Greece... most are ruined though. Also a great number of those mosques were originaly built over Christian Churches as that was common practice for the Turks (See Agia Sofia in Constantinople) so once a place was free again, it was logical that people would get rid of the hatred occupation symbols and return their churches to their original use and status.. so yes, not that many mosques in Greece!!

As for traces of Turkish occupation well, you should know that nomads like Turks rarely built any monuments etc.... instead, they used what they found and even today, they advertise "Turkish antiquities" presenting you and anyone else the Temple Of Effesos and other Greek monuments much older than their presence in Asia Minor!!! The only thing they left us behind are several Turkish words that remained through the years and become part of the Greek language and lots of fatty and most tasty food.

And, friend, Turkish had no interest in eliminating Greek presence whatsoever... where else could they find labour hands with skills they didn't have? Who would build Ships for these nomads? Who would pay them a tax in boys souls every few years to be trained soldiers aka Janissars? Also, Greek spirit infiltrated through them amongst the years and it is true that Ottomans were vastly served and also controled in many ways by their Greek advisors and high officials (aka Fanariotes - an almost completely diplomatic force of Greeks living in Fanari area in Constantinople - Fanari meaning Light!
Turks were indeed barbaric, but also clever enough to take advantage of the Greek culture and Greek qualities!

After all did not the Germans only recently show us how it is done in just 5 years.

Germans commited genocide against Hebrews and Gypsies and anyone they thought Untermensch in WWII but started practicing back in the 20's when the helped Kemal Attaturk (actually born in Thessaloniki, Greece) and instructed his army on how to eliminate Armenians and Greeks in Pontos. And as a comment to this irrelevant intrusion of Germany to this thread, no, they didn't show as how its done in just 5 years... Germany was defeated, Jews got their own country in Israel, Gypsies are still around allover Europe as they did before, and gay or disabled people were never eliminated as Hitler wanted.
Correct me if I'm wrong but from this last expression of yours, I sence you admire this short of actions!

And yet there were greeks still left in Asia Minor after 400 years of occupation. They were however removed by a compulsory population exchange negotiated between Athens and Ankara but only after those 400 years and thanks to their 'free' brothers in Athens.

Greeks where present in Asia Minor and Pontos or over 4000 years, and over 100 years after the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine empire there were several areas like the Empire of Trapezounta in Pontos area of modern North Turkey etc. that were still free. You should read more about the population exchange as it wasn't about Turkish and Greeks ruther Muslims of Greece and Christians of Turkey..... according to the treaty, a number of each population was to stay in their homes but today, muslims in Greece have a healthy and prosperus minority fully recognised and supported, while in Turkey only a couple thousand Greeks are left... extreme elements excist in both sides (I don't belong to them honestly) but Greece has always been more tolerant in minorities while Turkey untill today recognises none!

And if our moderator sees the need to remove this post as well I must politely request the following part "humiliation, occupation, slavery, murder, rape and robbery" of previous post be removed as well. Instead it is appropriate to stand "occupation".

Our moderator did the good think to correct the part of my posting that was a bit outhand... occupation means humiliation, slavery, murder, rape and robbery unless you have another opinion.... I would just like to refresh your historical memory and note that in 1921-22 officially in Turkey lived almost 2 million Greek Orthodox souls... After 1922 less than 500.000 survived the slaughter of the Turkish regular and irregular forces. Hundred of books have been written regarding the cruelty Neo-Turks dealed with the "Greek" issue and untill today, a hardcore military nuclea in the Turkish government sees Greece as number 1 enemy to deal with... actually only this year and only due to their will to enter EU, has Greece been removed from the No1 position of national threat for the Turks (officially!!)..

And to make things just... We have nothing to share with Turkey... if things were different, the two nations could live in harmony together.... as a Turkish general once said, "give me Turkish officers and Greek soldiers and I can conquer the world"....

[Victor]

Get back to the discussion 1919-1922 war. If you want to discuss the Turkish-Greek relations during the Middle Ages do it in another thread in the Pre-WW2 section.

[Ostfront Enthusiast]

Do there exist any Orders of Battle or maps of troop movements for this very interesting conflict?
Also are there any more detailed texts on this war?

[Peter H]

The Greek Army of Asia Minor consisted of 11 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades.Another 2 Greek divisions operated in Thrace,near Adrianople.

The Turkish Army consisted of some 20 divisions in 1919/20,all still bearing the numeric designation carried over from WW1.e.g. the 57th Division at Gallipoli in 1918 was still operating in Anatolia in 1919.However not all these divisions were organised against the Greeks:fighting still was occurring in the Caucasus region.

[Tosun Saral]

There are dark times in every nations fate. May 15th 1919 is one of this fatal days to be remembered. On that day the Greek army invated Izmir. The Christian citizens of the Ottoman Empire especially the Rum of Anatolia jubeled wild the marching Greek soldiers. The Greek soldiers immediately occupied the Turkish Caserne. There were a few soldiers without wepons. They took the commanding officer Miralay (Colonel) Suleyman Fethi Bey prisoner. On the way Miralay Suleyman Fethi Bey forced to shout "Zito Venizalos, Zito Hellas!" He refused to shout for the Greeks. He was bayoneted by civilized (they say barbars to Turks) Palikarias. He died because of wounds a few days later. Col. Suleyman Fethi Bey was a brave soldier. He didn't deserved such a civilized (!) death. Suddenly a young Turk called Hasan Tahsin stood in the middle of the road with a pistole in the hand. The Jubeling horde of Rum and happyly smiling brave greek soldiers stood for a moment silent. Hasan Tahsin fired his pistole and killed 6 greek soldiers who were only able to kill a Turkish officer without a weapon. After firing all his bullets Hasan Tahsin escaped. At a corner he saw a Turkish women. He said these historic words " Mother I am not escaping from the Enemy. I have no bullets. Therefore I am running to get new bullets". But alas! a greek soldier fired and Hasan Tahsin fell dead. He is the first Turk who fired and fell dead during the War of Independence. Those who will visit Izmir can see his statue on the Konak Square where he killed the invading greek soldiers. Years later, between August 26th 1922- September 9th 1922 all the proud greek army was taken prisoner and the rest? The rest were drowned in the seas of Aegean.

Source of Photo: Turk Kurtulus Savasi, p.23 (Turkish War of Independenve) published by Ankara Ticaret Odasi (Ankara Chamber of Commerce)