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The Greek occupation of Western Anatolia 1919-1922

Warships and landing ships at the port of Izmir

On that Thursday morning of May 15, 1919, dark clouds gathered over the skies of the port city of Izmir. Under the escort of warships from Great Britain, France, the USA and Italy, 12,000 soldiers of the Greek occupying army landed at the port of the western Turkish commercial metropolis. The landing ships contained not only Greek soldiers, but also British, French and American units.

The Greek inhabitants of Izmir in particular had come to welcome the Greek army. The former Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Izmir, Chrysostomos Kalafatis, who was known for his hostility towards Turks, spoke in front of a flag-waving crowd in the direction of the Greek soldiers. He said: “Welcome! Oh, the conquerors of Anatolia! When you set foot on Smyrna with your sacred combat boots, the three thousand year longing of the Greek people came to an end.” 1

What the enterprising Chrysostom uttered with this sentence had traumatic consequences for the Turkish-Muslim population that continue to this day. The occupation of Izmir was a consequence of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and the Mudros Armistice Agreement on October 30, 1918. 2
the signal for the invasion of western Anatolia, during which the Greek army burned down entire regions, towns and villages and carried out ethnic cleansing by massacring the Turkish-Muslim civilian population on a large scale.

On November 13, 1918, warships of the victors of the First World War had already occupied the former capital Istanbul. In the written testimonies of Turkish-Muslim civilians who witnessed the massacres by Greek irregulars and regular troops in the 19. and 20th century, the term “Yunan or Rum Mezalimi” (“Greek atrocities”) is often used. In Turkish and Azerbaijani historiography, the term technicus Mezalim has become established for mass violent crimes against the Muslim civilian population.

Inconsistencies in the population figures for Greeks in Izmir

British Prime Minister and philhellene David Lloyd George 3 had proposed to the Allies in February 1919 that Izmir be occupied by the Greeks, which was rejected by US President Woodrow Wilson 4 initially rejected. It was the British Prime Minister in particular who put pressure on the American President to give his consent to the occupation. In order to legitimize the occupation of Izmir, Greek Prime Minister Venizelos presented the Allies with exaggerated figures on the demographic development of the ethnic Greek population in Izmir at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The Greek delegation based its decision on figures provided by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul. 5

The inconsistencies in Izmir’s population figures were also noticed by the Italian journalist Ernesto Vassalo, who had been there since April 1919 and published his impressions in the Italian daily newspaper “Il Tempo”. The historian Mevlüt Çelebi points out the inconsistency of the Greek statistics in his essay “The Occupation of Izmir from the Pen of an Italian Journalist” (title of the original Turkish text: “Bir İtalyan Gazetecinin Kaleminden İzmir’in İşgali”) in the Journal Of Modern Turkish History Studies.

According to Greek data, Izmir had a total population of 416,494, of which 243,879 were Greeks, 96,250 were Turks and the remaining 76,365 were Jews, Armenians and other ethnic groups. Because of his doubts about the accuracy of the Greek statistics, Vassalo compared them with the Turkish statistics.

According to a Turkish census from 1917, Izmir had a total population of 238,179 people. Of these, 111,486 were Muslims, 87,497 Greeks, 24,403 Jews, 12,857 Armenians and the remaining 1,936 Catholics and Protestants. Vassalo also had doubts about the accuracy of Turkish statistics. In his opinion, the Turkish inhabitants of Izmir were in the majority. According to Vassalos, the Turks formed the majority of the population in the then province of Aydın compared to the Greeks, which Greek statistics would also confirm. The Italian journalist calculated a population of 586,000 Greeks and 827,000 Turks in the province of Aydın.6

Turkish statistics show 1,293,000 Turkish and 234,000 Greek inhabitants for the entire province. The economist and statistician Servet Mutlu gives the population figures for Izmir Sandzak (including the city of Izmir) in 1914 as follows: 378,883 Muslims, 214,686 Greeks, 14,273 Armenians and another 32,915. In his book “An Ethnological Map Illustrating Hellenism in the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor”, published in 1918, the Greek historian George Soteriadis identified 219,494 Muslims, 449,044 Greeks, 11,395 Armenians and 74,113 others in the Izmir Sandzak.

According to Erkan Serçe, the Ottoman population statistics of 1914 calculated a population of 639,657 for the Sandzak Izmir , while the French-language company “Annuaire Oriental Limited” assumes a population of 500,000. Serçe also points out the differences between the various population groups, where there are variations. Official Ottoman population statistics give the Muslim-Turkish population of the Sandzak Izmir as 378,894 inhabitants and the number of Greek inhabitants as 217,686. “Annuire Oriental” counted 120,000 Turkish-Muslim civilians and 320,000 Greek inhabitants. The US consulate in Izmir assumed that the total population of Izmir was 400,000, of which 165,000 were Turks and 155,000 Greeks. According to Erkan Serçe, 40,000 of the 155,000 Greeks in Izmir had Greek citizenship. (Serçe p. 163).

Ernesto Vassalo’s skepticism about Greek statistics was based on Italy’s political and economic interests in Anatolia. The journalist was in Izmir on behalf of the Italian government, as Italy itself intended to occupy Izmir and the surrounding region. When Italy went to war alongside Great Britain and France during the First World War, Rome agreed with its allies on April 26, 1915 (London) and on August 8, 1917 (San Giovanni di Moriana) in two secret treaties to occupy the present-day Croatian city of Rijeka and the Turkish city of Izmir after the end of the war.

At least it was promised by London and Paris (Çelebi p. 132), but after the American-British-French agreement on the Greek occupation of Izmir, Italy was unable to implement its plans and left the Versailles Conference in protest. With this step, the Allies hoped to limit Italy’s land gains in the occupation of Anatolia to a certain extent. The ethnic Greek population of Anatolia lived mainly in the coastal areas, especially in Izmir. During the First World War, Greeks living in the coastal areas and in Izmir were resettled inland by the authorities as a precautionary measure. After the signing of the Mudros Agreement, the indigenous Greeks returned to their settlement areas on the coast.

Greek irredentism and the plan to colonize western Anatolia

In the 19. and In the 20th century, the ideology of Greek nationalism propagated the “Megali Idea” (“The Great Idea”), which envisaged the unification of all areas populated by Greeks and is referred to as “Greek irredentism“. This plan envisaged the occupation of parts of Anatolia at the expense of the former Ottoman Empire. With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, the Greek government under Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, who was considered the “greatest advocate” of the irredentist plan at the beginning of the 20th century, saw the opportunity to realize the “Megali Idea”. With the realization of the “Megali Idea”, the old “Byzantium” was to be resurrected, Asia Minor Hellenized and Turkish rule over the Balkans and Anatolia ended.

Irrespective of the statements by the Italian journalist Ernesto Vassalo about contradictory Greek data on the population of Greek origin in Izmir, the Greek side had reasons to present the figures on the Greek population in Izmir as disproportionately high during the negotiations in Versailles in order to have an argument in hand to seize Anatolia by force. The “Megali Idea” was part of Greek foreign policy, which envisaged the unification of all Greek inhabitants in the Balkans and Anatolia.

One of Athens’ first measures during the occupation of Western Anatolia was to change the demographic structures in favor of the Greek population. The objective of settling Greeks in Asia Minor began even before the occupation of western Anatolia. Greeks who left Izmir and the region during the Balkan Wars and the First World War and settled in other regions returned after the signing of the Mudros Armistice Agreement. The Greek government promoted the resettlement of Greeks to Anatolia and adopted a program that provided financial incentives for their return.

A branch of the Greek Central Bank in Izmir announced a loan of 20 million Greek drachmas per person for a term of three years with an annual interest rate of 6 percent. Furthermore, land and estates were promised for Greek settlement. Thanks to the Greek government’s subsidy program, a total of 126,000 Greek emigrants settled in Western Anatolia between 20 October 1919 and 31 December 1920. Although the Ottoman government under Prime Minister Damat Ferit Pasha tried to prevent the exodus of the Turkish population in western Anatolia through appeals, parliamentary resolutions and instructions to the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of War, these steps were of little value as the sovereignty of the occupied territory was under Allied control.

Massacres and war crimes against the Turkish civilian population

After the Greek army occupied Izmir and the surrounding area, Manisa, Turgutlu, Aydın, Nazilli, Ayvalık and other cities in western Anatolia were also taken in the following weeks. The Greek army took cruel action against the Turkish-Muslim civilian population. Local militia units were recruited from among the Greeks living in Anatolia, who together with the Greek army carried out bloody massacres of Muslims. The expulsions, torture and mass crimes of violence committed by the Greek occupying army against the Muslim civilian population were systematic. One day after the occupation of Izmir, local Greeks began to form militia organizations in western Anatolia, particularly in the Söke and Kuşadası regions.

Reports of the occupation of Izmir and the massacres of Turkish civilians committed by the Greek armed forces had frightened the population in the surrounding area and prompted them to flee. A few days before the arrival of the invasion troops in Izmir, there was unrest among the Turkish population of the Izmir region because local and foreign armed Greek militiamen, who had previously been expelled or fled by the Turkish authorities for various crimes, were making the area unsafe. From January 1919, these Greek militias came from the islands of Lesbos (Midilli), Chios (Sakız) and Samos (Sisam).

According to a report by the gendarmerie regiment command of Izmir, the number of Turkish civilians killed by the Greek army on May 15, 1919 in Izmir and in the villages of the Urla peninsula amounted to over 2,000. The regimental command in Izmir sent a situation report to the general command in Istanbul about the mass violent crimes committed by Greek troops against the Turkish Muslim civilian population. Here is an excerpt from the gendarmerie report:

“During the occupation of the city of Izmir by Greek soldiers on May 15, unprecedented murders were committed against the Turkish-Islamic [muslimischen] population. Hundreds of inhabitants, officers, policemen, women and children were killed and the property of most of them was looted and destroyed. The government buildings and barracks were besieged and lay under rifle and machine gun fire for hours. After the fire had ceased, all the government officials and gendarmerie delegations, who had gathered in the presence of the governor, were brought down with bayonets fixed and forced to shout ʻZito Venizelosʼ [Long live Venizelosʼ] by the cruel Greek soldiers and the local Greek population, where even the children were armed, with insults, threats, blows and curses. The Greek soldiers and armed militias forced the people to undress one by one, robbing them of their cash and even their dirty handkerchiefs. Many were stripped of their jackets and shoes […].” 7

Soldiers of the Greek army mocked muezzins in the city of Aydın who called to prayer from the minaret of the mosque, some of whom were arbitrarily killed. The muezzin of the Cuma district, Mehmet Efendi, was taken from the minaret at gunpoint by a Greek army patrol on June 23, 1919 during the call to prayer and stabbed to death with a bayonet. The same fate also befell the muezzin of the Ramazan Pasha Mosque, who was shot dead while calling for prayers. Furthermore, the mosques and the minarets of the Muslim prayer houses were shelled with artillery shells and machine-gun fire. During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the Greek army used violence against Muslims to prevent access to the mosque and traditional prayer. Anyone who tried to enter the house of prayer was threatened and beaten up by soldiers.

On June 29, 1919, the Greek army attacked the Cuma district in the western Turkish city of Aydın. A resident of the neighborhood, Hafız Mustafa Ağa, describes how Greek soldiers began to set fires in several places in the district. The helpless inhabitants tried to flee from their burning houses and were shot by the soldiers of the occupying army posted at the mouths of the streets and alleyways. While the flaming inferno raged, the neighborhood was bombarded with artillery fire from the Greek army. The testimony of Hafız Mustafa Ağa is dated August 1, 1919:

“In our neighborhood, at the Çavuş Bridge, the soap factory of Cretan İbrahim Badorakin, at the tea room and stable of Yalabukoğlu Ahmet, at the house of Canbazoğlu Ali Efendi, in front of the Dükkânönü Cami-i Şerifi mosque, at the house of Hacı Yahya Efendi and at the house of Hacı Ibrahim, they poured kerosene and threw accelerants, causing fires to break out in five places in the district. Greek soldiers were waiting at the mouths of the streets. The buildings were engulfed in flames, and while the people fighting for their lives threw themselves onto the streets, the Greek soldiers opened fire on children and children’s children without regard. Some were killed, some were injured and some survived. Other residents saw the gunfire in the streets but were unable to flee outside out of fear and burned to death in their houses. Our neighborhood consisted of 580 houses and 30 stores. Of these, only 35 houses (households) remained. We know of more than 50 victims, but there are hundreds more of whom we do not know whether they are dead or alive. As the residents of our neighborhood are scattered in the villages and other disaster sites, it is currently not possible to determine the actual number of victims. While the fire inferno was raging at full force, the Greeks fired artillery shells at our neighborhood. The Greek soldiers destroyed the houses, beat the helpless people in the houses and abducted some young girls. We have no knowledge of their fate. Those who survived fled to cities and towns such as Nazilli, Çine, Yenipazar and Denizli as well as to villages and towns where they were in a miserable condition.”8

The displaced persons fled to areas that were not yet occupied by the invaders. The total number of refugees who left their ancestral homeland due to the ruthless actions of the Greek army against the Turkish civilian population is estimated at around 1.5 million people. According to historian Erol Kaya, civilians who did not manage to flee were either killed or captured by the occupying forces and sent to internment camps. The prison camps were located either in the occupied territories in western Anatolia or in Greece itself.

For Kaya, there were several reasons for the capture and internment of Turkish Muslim civilians:

  • To change the demographic structures in favor of the Greek population. Kaya backs up his thesis with a census at the beginning of the First World War in 1914. As a result, the province of Aydın had a total population of 1,608,742 inhabitants. Of these, 1,248,067 inhabitants were Muslims, 299,096 Greeks, 19,395 Armenians and 35,041 Jews.
  • Kaya cites the internment of Turkish intellectuals and people capable of organizing resistance against the Greek occupation as another reason. The shipment was intended to break the resistance.
  • According to Kaya, the Greek occupiers had a further argument for imprisoning Turkish-Muslim civilians, because after the Greek occupation on May 15, 1919, a Turkish independence movement had formed, which gained further support. 9

Further violent crimes by the Greek army in western Anatolia

During the occupation of the western Turkish city of Manisa, Greek units carried out massacres, rapes and looting against the Muslim civilian population in the villages and small towns. In the villages of Hacı Rahmanlı and Kapaklı, as well as other communities located along the Manisa-Akhisar railroad line, Greek soldiers committed acts of violence against the Muslim inhabitants, killing all the inhabitants and looting their property.

Hundreds of civilians were arrested in their orchards by Greek units and deported to Athens via Izmir. Around 160 Muslim prisoners of war, who had previously been released by the British in Egypt, were taken captive again and had to perform forced labor under difficult conditions. According to the local police report, most of the prisoners did not survive the internment conditions: they died mainly due to lack of food or torture. The Greek army confiscated riding and pack animals from the rural population and if the atrocities (mezalim) did not stop, the report said, all Muslims would be annihilated if no precautions were taken.

Greek army relied on scorched earth policy in its retreat

In the Battle of Sakarya (August 22 – September 13, 1922), the Turkish army under commander-in-chief General Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Atatürk) succeeded in halting the advance of the Greek army and defeating it in a war of position. In their forced retreat, the Greek army relied on scorched earth tactics. Entire towns, villages, communities, buildings, houses, warehouses, agricultural land and infrastructure were burned down and the inhabitants killed.

The western Anatolian city of Afyonkarahisar was also affected, being reduced to rubble. During the evacuation of the city of Eskişehir, soldiers of the Greek invasion army set fires. According to a report by a reconnaissance plane, three fires were set at the train station in Eskişehir, one at the market and another in the south of the city. At the beginning there was looting and then the town on the Porsuk River was set on fire. Anyone who tried to escape from the fire was shot. The number of civilians killed is around 250.

Most of the city’s neighborhoods, buildings, department stores, stores, schools, hamams and mosques were completely destroyed by the flames. During the Dumlupınar War, Greek army units destroyed the villages of Hamurköy and Çal. Another city that was completely destroyed is Uşak, which was also razed to the ground by fire. Before the Turkish army entered Uşak, Greek soldiers set fire to the city and the surrounding area, committing atrocities against the population in which 322 Muslim victims were killed by fire.

Summary

In the course of the Paris Peace Conferences, the victorious powers of the First World War decided that Greece should annex Izmir and the surrounding region. After the capture of Manisa on May 25, 1919, Greek forces occupied Aydın and then other cities in western Anatolia on May 27, 1919, contrary to the Paris Agreement. In the context of Greek nationalism, the Greek government under Prime Minister Venizelos pursued an irredentist plan called the Megali Idea, which envisaged the settlement of Western Anatolia by Greek resettlers at the expense of the Turkish-Muslim majority population.

In order to change the demographic structures of western Anatolia, the Greek armed forces waged a ruthless campaign against the Muslim civilian population. In his book “Death and Exile”, the American historian Justin McCarthy puts the number of Muslims killed by the Greek army during the occupation of Western Anatolia at 640,000, and the number of survivors at 860,000 refugees and 1.2 million Turkish-Muslim displaced persons. 10 Behind the landing of Allied warships and the subsequent occupation of Izmir on May 15, 1919, as well as other cities and towns in western Anatolia, there was a concrete plan by the victorious powers of the First World War to divide up Anatolia. The Greek government under the then Prime Minister Venizelos pursued an expansionist goal to expand its own territory in order to implement the irredentist “Megali Idea”. The ethnic cleansing, forced expulsions, internment, violent sexual crimes, looting, oppression and persecution directed against the Turkish-Muslim population during the Greek occupation of Western Anatolia (1919-1922) are deeply engraved in the collective memory of Turkish society and are still present today.

1 Cf. Burhan, Sabahattin, Ege’nin Kurtuluş Destanı: Yörük Ali Efe, Yeni Asya Yayınları, Istanbul 1998, p. 276, translation by the author.
2 From the perspective of the victorious powers of the First World War, the Mudros Agreement was a triumph because the Allies had dictated the Ottoman Empire’s surrender, but from the Turkish perspective, this treaty, along with the Sèvres Agreement, represented a severe humiliation and, as the Turkish historian Ilber Ortaylı states in his excellent biography of Atatürk, was seen as a “death sentence against Turkey”. Cf. Ortaylı, Ilber: Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Kronik Kitap, Istanbul 2018, p. 140.
3 David Lloyd George was British Prime Minister from 1916-1922 and had previously been a Member of Parliament, Trade Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for War.
4 Thomas Woodrow Wilson belonged to the Democratic Party and was the 28th President of the United States from 1913-1921.
5 As the historian Emine Pancar explains in her dissertation, the manipulated statistics of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate on the population figures of the ethnic Greek population in Anatolia were decisive in the Allies’ approval of the occupation of Western Anatolia. According to the statistics of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the total population of Greek origin in Anatolia was 1.7 million, while 1,080,000 Greeks lived in Aydın and Bursa. Together with the Greek population on the islands, there were 1,450,000 inhabitants. In the census of the Muslim population in Anatolia, the Patriarchate calculated 943,000 people, see Pancar, Emine: Aydın ve Muğla Kuva-yi Milliyesi, Doktora Tezi, 9 Eylül Üniversitesi, Izmir 2010, p. 82.
6 The former province of Aydın was made up of the Ottoman sand shaks of Izmir, Aydın, Saruhan and Denizli, with Izmir as its center.
7 Cf. Askeri Tarih Belgeleri Dergisi, Umum Jandarma Komutanlığı’na, Belge No: 2365 (May 20, 1919), year of publication 1992, issue 93, Genelkurmay Basımevi, Ankara 1992, p. 12, translation by the author
8 Cf. ibid., Belge No: 2375, pp. 48-49, translation by the author.
9 Cf. Kaya, Erol: Milli Mücadele Döneminde Hilal-i Ahmer Cemiyetiˈnin Anadolu ve Yunanistan`daki Türk ve Yunan Esirlerine Yaptığı Yardımlar, Turkish Studies, Skopje/Ankara, Volume 3/2 Winter 2008, pp. 469-472.
10 McCarthy, Justin: Death and Exile, The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims 1821-1922, Princeton 1995, p. 304.

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