The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
HISTORY
OF ATHENS
Greco-Turkish
War
Asia Minor Campaign
Immediately after World War I Greece became involved in the Asia
Minor campaign. Nation-wide exhaustion from continuous military
involvements, took its toll in political affairs in Athens. In
return for the contribution of the Greek army in the war effort,
the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, which ended the First World
War in Asia Minor and in parallel determined the future of the
Ottoman Empire, assigned eastern Thrace and the millet of Smyrna
to Greece.
Around
that time Mustafa Kemal, the leader of a group of Turkish
revolutionaries, was forming the Turkish National Movement
in Anatolia. The revolutionaries refused to acknowledge the
Treaty of Sèvres and prepared
for defence of what they believed was their national land given
up by the weak Ottoman government to the enemy.
On
May 15 May 1919, Greek troops landed at Smyrna (Izmir) and occupied
the city and the surroundings under cover of the Greek, French,
and British navy. The Greeks already occupied Eastern Thrace.
The
Greeks of Smyrna and other Christians, who formed the majority
of the city's population, greeted the Greek troops as liberators.
By contrast, the Turkish population saw this as an invading force
as they resented the Greeks and preferred to be under Turkish
rule. The Greek landings were met by sporadic resistance, mainly
by small groups of irregular Turkish troops in the suburbs. However,
the majority of the Turkish forces in the region either surrendered
peacefully to the Greek Army, or fled to the countryside.
During
the summer of 1920, the Greek army launched a series of successful
offensives in the directions of Meaneder (Menderes) Valley,
Peramos and Philadelphia to create a defence zone for Smyrna..
Therefore, the Greek zone of occupation was extended over
all of Western and most of North Western Asia Minor.
Greek expansion
In
October 1920, the Greek army advanced further east into Anatolia.
This advance began under the liberal government of Eleftherios
Venizelos but, soon after the offensive began, Venizelos lost
the general elections of December 1920 and was replaced by Dimitrios
Gounaris, who appointed inexperienced monarchist officers to senior
commands. King Constantine assumed personal command of the army
at Smyrna (Izmir). The objective was to defeat the Turkish Nationalists
and force Kemal into peace negotiations. The advancing Greeks
met little resistance as the Turks managed to retreat in an orderly
fashion and avoid encirclement.
The
Greek advance was halted for the first time at the First Battle
of Inonu on 11 January 1921. This development led to Allied proposals
to amend the Treaty of Sevrès 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 by the Greek government who believed
that they still had the strategic advantage and could negotiate
from a stronger point. The Greeks initiated another attack on
24 March (second Battle of Inonu), to be resisted fiercely and
finally defeated by the Kemalist troops on 30 March 1921. The
British favored a Greek territorial expansion but refused to offer
any military assistance in order not to provoke the French. The
Turkish forces however received significant assistance from the
Soviet Union.
In
June 1921, a reinforced Greek army advanced afresh to the
River Sakarya (Sangarios in Greek), less than 100 km (62 miles)
west of Ankara. 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. Meanwhile, the new Turkish government at Ankara
appointed Mustafa Kemal as the commander in chief. The advance
of the Greek Army faced fierce resistance which culminated
in the 21-day Battle of the Sakarya (or Sangarios in Greek)
(23 August - 13 September 1921). The ferocity of the battle
exhausted both sides to such an extent that they were both
contemplating a withdrawal, but the Greeks were the first
to withdraw to their previous lines.
That
was the furthest in Anatolia the Greeks would advance, and within
few weeks they withdrew orderly back to the lines they held in
June, intending at least to protect the Smyrna area.
Outcome of the Greek offensive
The
Greek defeat can be largely attributed to a lack of whole-hearted
Allied support, as King Constantine was reviled by the British
for his pro-German policies during WWI (in contrast to former
Prime Minister Venizelos). By contrast, the Kemalist Turks enjoyed
significant Soviet support. The Turks also received significant
military assistance from Italy and France, who threw in their
lot with the Kemalist against Greece which was seen as a British
alley. The Italians used their base in Antalya to arm and train
Turkish troops to assist the Kemalists against the Greeks.
However,
the main reason for the Greek defeat was the poor strategic and
operational planning of this ill-conceived advance and attacks.
Although the Greek Army was not lacking in men, courage or enthusiasm,
it was lacking in nearly everything else due to the poor Greek
economy, which could not sustain long-term mobilization and had
been stretched beyond its limits. Very soon, the Greek Army exceeded
the limits of its logistic structure and had no way of retaining
such a large territory under constant attacks by regular and irregular
Turkish troops fighting in their homeland.
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. Parallel to their decision, with successive treaties,
Italian and French troops evacuated their positions leaving the
Greeks exposed.
In
March 1922 the Allies proposed an armistice but Kemal feeling
that he now had the strategic advantage, declined any settlement
while the Greeks remained in Anatolia and intensified his efforts
to re-organize the Turkish military for the final offensive against
the Greeks. At the same time, the Greeks strengthened their defensive
positions but were increasingly demoralized by the inactivity
of remaining on the defensive and the prolongation of the war.
The Turkish offensive was launched on 26 August, defeating the
Greeks at the Battle of Dumlupinar near Afyon on 30 August 1922
(celebrated as the Victory Day and a national holiday in Turkey).
Turkish offensive
Having
breached the Greek defences, the Turks advanced very rapidly
to Smyrna (Izmir), which they captured after the withdrawal
of the Greek troops. During the confusion and anarchy that
followed, a great proportion of the city was set on fire.
The fire in the city expanded from the burning of Greek and
Armenian Quarters of Smyrna by the Turkish Army and the properties
of the Greeks were pillaged.
A
massacre of a significant part of the Christian population,
including the lynching and brutal murder of the Greek Orthodox
Bishop Chrysostomows of Smyrna by the Turkish Army, occurred
during the days remembered by the Greeks as "the Catastrophe
of Smyrna". However,
the majority of the Greeks managed to seek refuge on Greek and
Allied ships at the harbor of Izmir (Smyrna) and other coastal
towns.
With
the possibility of social disorder once the Turkish Army occupied
Smyrna, Kemal was quick to issue a proclamation, sentencing any
Turkish soldier to death who harmed non-combatants. Few days before
the Turkish invasion of the city, Kemal's messengers gave out
leaflets with this order written in Greek. These orders were largely
ignored, and Nasruddin Pasha, the commander of Turkish forces
in the Smyrna district gave orders contradicting those of Kemal.
Nasruddin Pasha's orders were largely followed and the Greek and
Armenian civilian population of Smyrna suffered heavily at the
hands of the Turkish army.
Asia Minor Catastrophe
The
Armistice of Mudanya was concluded on 11 October 1922, with the
Allies retaining control of east Thrace and the Bosporus but the
Greeks evacuated these areas. The agreement came into force starting
15 October, one day after the Greek agreed to sign it. The Armistice
of Mudanya was followed by the Treaty of Lausanne, under which
a significant provision was the exchange of populations.
This
exchange of populations involved some two million persons, most
forcibly made refugees and denaturalized from homelands for centuries
or millennia, in a treaty promoted and overseen by the international
community as part of the Treaty of Lausanne.
The
document about the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations was
signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, between the
governments of Greece and Turkey. The exchange took place between
Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion living in Turkish
territory and of Greek nationals of the Muslim religion living
in Greek territory.
Many
huge refugee displacements and movements occurred in the upheaval
following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and its evolution
into modern Turkey, especially following the Balkan Wars, World
War I, and the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), which was part of
the Turkish War for Independence. These included smaller exchanges
of Greeks and Slavs, and Turks and Bulgarians.
In
Greece this was called the "Asia Minor Catastrophe"
as it involved the expulsion of about one third of the Greek population
from millennia old homelands. While the populations which were
expelled suffered greatly, both the nation states of Greece and
Turkey, as well as the international community, saw the resulting
ethnic homogenization of their respective states as positive and
stabilizing.
The
remnants of the Greek Army made their way to the islands of the
Eastern Aegean, where the Army's resentment at the political leadership
in Athens resulted in the outbreak of the 1922 Revolution on 11
September led by Plastiras, Colonel Stylianos Gonatas and Commander
Phokas.
Having
the support of the Army, the (mostly Venizelist) Navy, and the
people, the Revolution quickly assumed control of the country.
Plastiras forced King Constantine to resign, called upon the exiled
Venizelos to lead the negotiations with Turkey which culminated
in the Treaty of Lausanne, and set about to reorganize the Army
to protect the Evros line against any Turkish advance into Western
Thrace. One of the most controversial acts of the revolutionary
government was the trial and execution of six royalist politicians,
including former PM Dimitrios Gounaris and the former Commander-in-Chief,
General Hatzianestis, on 28 November 1922 as those mainly responsible
for the Asia Minor Disaster, in the infamous "Trial of the
Six".
Plastiras
faced multiple challenges in governing Greece. The 1,3 million
refugees from the population exchange had to be catered for in
a country with a ruined economy, internationally isolated and
internally divided. The Corfu incident and a botched Royalist
counter-coup in October 1923 were evidence of this.
After
the failed royalist coup, King George II was forced to leave the
country. Nonetheless, he managed to restore some order to the
state and to lay the groundwork for the Second Hellenic Republic.
After the elections of December 1923 for the new National Assembly,
he resigned from the Army on January 2, 1924, retiring to private
life. In recognition of his services to the country, the National
Assembly declared him "worthy of the fatherland" and
conferred to him the rank of Lieutenant General in retirement.
As
part of the Treaty of Lausanne almost all Greeks (including Turkish
speaking Christian population in
middle Anatolia), about 1.5 million from Turkish Anatolia and
Turkish Thrace were expelled or formally denaturalized and about
500.000 predominantly Turks (including Muslim population from
Crete speaking a dialect based on Greek language with additional
Turkish words, Muslim Roma, Pomaks, Cham Albanians and Megleno-Romanians)
were expelled from Greece. The Greeks of Istanbul, Gökçeada
(Imbros in Greek) and Bozcaada (Tenedos in Greek), as well as
the Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from
this transfer.