After the Allies encouraged Greece to assume control of territory in Anatolia, formerly part of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal organized a new Turkish army to repel Greek forces.
During World War I, England and France helped install the pro-Allied government of Eleuthérios Venizélos in Greece. At the same time, they forced Constantine I, the German emperor’s brother-in-law, and his eldest son, Prince George, into exile, which made Constantine’s younger son, Alexander, the king. The Allies promised Venizélos that Greece’s loyalty to the Allies would be repaid with land in Turkey. Venizélos and the Greeks had hoped for Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) as their prize, but the Allies had not yet decided the fate of the city. As they divided the Ottoman Empire among themselves, they encouraged Athens to take over western Anatolia.
Mustafa Kemal (center) after his forces repelled the Greek army.
In May of 1919, against his military commanders’ advice, Venizélos ordered Greek troops to disembark around Izmir (formerly Smyrna), a Turkish town with a large Greek community that Venizélos hoped to add to Greece. From there the Greeks proceeded eastward. Other Allied forces controlled different parts of Anatolia as well as the remainder of the Ottoman Empire, but they denied the Greeks’ hopes for shared control in these regions. Meanwhile, on May 28, 1918, Armenia declared its independence.
Under the circumstances, Mustafa Kemal, who had been a supporter of the Young Turk
The Treaty of Sèvres
While the war-weary Greek citizens supported the occupation of Izmir, they were unhappy with the later invasions. When King Alexander suddenly died on October 25, 1920 (from an infectious bite from his pet monkey), the supporters of the exiled King Constantine voted Venizélos’s Liberal Party out of power (at the time of the election, Venizélos was away at the Paris Peace Conference). Constantine returned and resumed power. Even though the monarchists had initially campaigned against the Turkish adventure, the lure of incorporating Anatolia was too great to resist, and the invasion continued.
On January 11, 1921, the Greeks drove the Turks back in a minor skirmish called the First Battle of İnönü
In mid-August, the Greeks were still deep in enemy territory, but their communication with the coast was limited to a single railway line, and Kemal took advantage of the Greek weakness and made his stand. The fierce Battle of Sakarya raged from August 24 to September 16, when the Turks forced the Greek army to retreat. The casualties on both sides were horrendous: As many as half the soldiers in each army were killed. Kemal became Turkey’s hero, and the sultan was left without power. The Allies were divided on the question of whether they should continue to support Greece or make peace with Kemal, who managed to subdue the Armenians and sign treaties with Italy, France, and the Soviet Union that ensured the evacuation of Turkish territory. As a result, Kemal was able to secure his eastern flank and concentrate his troops against the Greeks, who were left without significant support.
In 1922, Kemal launched his final campaign and drove the Greeks out of Anatolia. The Allies proposed an armistice in March, but Kemal rejected it and pushed on. On August 22, the last decisive battle of Dumplinar (near Afyon) brought victory to the Turks; this is the date now celebrated as Turkey’s day of national independence. Turkish armies soon entered Izmir (September 9-11) and set the city ablaze. An armistice was signed on October 11 at Mudanya. The Allies then recognized Kemal as the president of the Turkish republic, turned Istanbul and Edirne over to him, and replaced the Treaty of Sèvres with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923.
The Greco-Turkish War established modern Turkey as an important republic in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Secure in his position at the country’s head, Mustafa Kemal carried out his revolution of secularizing and modernizing Turkey. He made the Turks adopt last names, and he became Atatürk (Father of the Turks). İsmet Paşa, who succeeded Kemal as president of the republic, named himself İsmet İnönü, a name he took from Kemal’s great victory. These reforms were never completely accepted by all the Turks, however, and many conservative Muslims and those living in the countryside continued to oppose them.
In Greece, the commander of the Anatolian campaign and five government officials were executed because of the defeat. Shortly thereafter, King Constantine was forced into exile once again, this time by his own people. Furthermore, there were a series of population exchanges among the Greeks, Turks, and Bulgarians. Although most of these changes benefited the Turks, some Greeks continued to live in Turkey, especially in Istanbul and Izmir. Tension between Ankara and Athens continued throughout the century, although after 1974 the main point of contention centered on the island of Cyprus, which had a mixed Turkish and Greek population. The republic of Cyprus was mainly Greek, but politicians in Ankara helped establish a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that was recognized only by Turkey.
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Dakin, Douglas. The Unification of Greece, 1770-1923. London: Benn, 1972. Contains an interpretation of the war from the Greek point of view. -
Koliopoulos, John S., and Thanos M. Veremis. Greece: The Modern Sequel; From 1831 to the Present. New York: New York University Press, 2002. A thematic interpretation of modern Greek history by two distinguished scholars. Suffers from a bias toward Greek propaganda. -
Shaw, Stanford J. From Empire to Republic: The Turkish War of National Liberation: A Documentary Study, 1918-1923. Ankara, Turkey: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 2000. Published in the Turkish Historical Society Series. Contains an introductory chapter on the Ottoman Empire and Turkish documents on the war. Bibliography. -
_______. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976-1977. A standard history that favors Turkey.
Young Turks Stage a Coup in the Ottoman Empire
Balkan Wars
British Mount a Second Front Against the Ottomans
Armenian Genocide Begins
Cyprus Becomes a British Crown Colony
Greece Invades Bulgaria
Treaty of Ankara