It is estimated that more than 50,000 Muslims , including women and children, lived in the Peloponnese in March 1821. A month later, when the Greeks were celebrating Easter, there was hardly anyone left. The few who managed to escape to fortified cities were suffering from starvation. Everywhere the unburied bodies of murdered Turks were rotting. According to William St. Clair:

"The Turks of Greece left few traces. They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821, unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world…Upwards of 20,000 Turkish men, women and children were murdered by their Greek neighbours in a few weeks of slaughter. They were killed deliberately, without qualm and scruple…Turkish families living in single farms or small isolated communities were summarily put to death, and their homes burnt down over their corpses. Others, when the disturbances began, abondened home to seek the security of the nearest town, but the defenceless streams of refugees were overwhelmed by bands of armed Greeks. In the smaller towns, the Turkish communities barricaded their houses and attempted to defend themselves as best as they could, but few survived. In some places, they were driven by hunger to surrender to their attackers on receiving promises of security, but these were seldom honoured. The men were killed at once, and the women and children divided out as slaves usually to be killed in their turn later. All over the Pelopennese roamed mobs of Greeks armed with clubs, scythes, and a few firearms, killing, plundering and burning. They were often led by Christian priests, who exhorted them to greater efforts in their holy work".²⁴

According to Steven Runciman, author of a history of the Greek Orthodox Church, "The great fathers of the Church, such as Basil, would have been horrified by the gallant[!] Pelopennesian bishops who raised the standard of revolt in 1821".²³ This was not a war of Greek independence or liberation, but a war of extermination against the Turks and other Muslims, and the main instigators of it were the Greek Orthodox Christian clerics.

In 1861, the historian George Finlay wrote:

"In the month of April 1821, a Muslim population amounting to upwards of 20,000 souls, was living, dispersed in Greece, employed in agriculture. Before two months had elapsed, the greater part was slain-men, women and children were murdered without mercy or remorse…The crime was a nation’s crime, and whatever perturbations it may produce must be in a nation’s conscience, as the deeds by which it can be expiated must be the acts of a nation."¹²

According to the historian C.M. Woodhouse, the entire Turkish population of cities and towns were collected and marched out to convenient places in the countryside where they were slaughtered.³⁰ In Greek Orthodox Romania also, the leader of the Greek rebellion, Alexander Ypsilanti, and his supporters took the towns of Galatz and Yassy. The Turks were surprised and massacred in cold blood.^10,22

In April 1821, the Greek residents of the islands of Hydra, Spetsa and Psara joined the rebels. They attacked ships carrying the Ottoman flag, capturing crew members and killing them or throwing them into the sea. They also captured and killed many Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca. According to British writers such as St. Clair, Howarth and William Miller, the Greek rebels captured 57 crew members of a Turkish vessel, took them to the island of Hydra amidst shrieks of triumph and there, on the coast, they roasted them alive on a fire.^15,21,24

Many Greeks in Thessaly, Macedonia and Halkidiki, too, joined the rebels and began to attack the Turks without mercy. The Greek peasants who remorselessly killed their Turkish neighbours saw the rebellion as a war of religious extermination, and for the most part, the bishops and priest who led them, shared this view.²⁴

The Muslims of the small town of Monemvasia, besieged by the Greek rebels, decided in August 1821 to surrender as they no longer endure the prevelant hunger and disease. Nevertheless, the rebels slaughtered them all barbarously. These events were hailed in Western Europe as "a victory of liberalism and Christianity".²⁷ A few days later the same fate befell the Muslims of Navarino. Between 2,000 and 3,000 Muslim residents were cruelly massacred. Turkish women were stripped and searched for valuables. Naked women were plunged into the sea and were shot in the water: children were thrown in to drown and babies were taken from their mothers and beaten against rocks.^12,15,21,24 Muslim girls and boys, who were kept alive, half naked and in fear, were offered for sale as prostitutes. Some of them lost their minds and roamed round the ruins.

Meanwhile, some Greeks in Navarino were proudly relating the terrible massacres that had taken place there. One of them boasted that he had killed eighteen Turks; another one was relating how he had stabbed to death nine women and children in their beds.⁶ These merciless killers were proudly showing to the European volunteers, who had come to help the Hellenic cause, the corpses of the Muslim women whom they had raped, carved up and then thrown over the fortifications some time earlier.

But these terrible scenes did not impress the volunteers. On the contrary, they schocked and disgusted them. A German volunteer, Franz Lieber, describes how the volunteers felt hatred and disgust towards the Greek rebels, who were calling upon them to rape women after they themselves had already sexually assaulted them.¹⁸

In the town of Tripolitsa, where the Turkish governor resided, and which consisted of a population of 35,000 Turks, Albanians, Jews and others, the rebels committed a massacre on 5 October 1821. It lasted for three days and claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people. Most of the corpses were decapitated and carved up.^7,15,19,21 According to the historian William Phillips:

"In Tripolitsa for three days the miserable [Turkish] inhabitants were given over to the lust and cruelty of a mob of savages. Neither sex nor age was spared. Women and children were tortured before being put to death. So great was the slaughter that [guerilla leader] Kolokotronis himself says that, when he entered the town, from the gate of the citadel, his horse’s hoofs never touched the ground. His path of triumph was carpeted with corpses. At the end of two days, the wretched remnant of Mussulmans were deliberately collected to the number of some 2,000 souls, of every age and sex, but principally women and children, were led out to a ravine in the neighbouring mountains, and there butchered like cattle."^20,22

According to St. Clair, Howarth and British Colonial and Foreign Office documents, these unfortunate people were slowly burnt to death after their arms and legs were chopped off. Pregnant women were subjected to all kinds of indignities. About 2,000 captives, consisting of mostly women, were stripped naked; driven to a plain outside the town and then killed. After this atrocity, many starving Muslim children ran from place to place, only to be shot dead by the Greek rebels, who were elated and with their mouths foaming.^5,24 The chief Greek brigand, Theodoros Kolokotronis, who occupies pride of place in the Greek pantheon of heroes, took part in these massacres and pillages with relish.⁴

A Prussian officer described the incidents that took place after the capture of Tripolitsa by the rebels, as follows:

"A young Turkish girl, as beautiful as Helen, the queen of Troy, was shot and killed by the male cousin of Kolokotronis; a Turkish boy, with a noose around his neck, was paraded in the streets; was thrown into a ditch; was stoned, stabbed and then, while he was still alive, was tied to a wooden plank and burnt on fire; three Turkish children were slowly roasted on fire in front of the very eyes of their parents. While all these nasty incidents were taking place, the leader of the rebellion Ypsilantis remained as a spectator and tried to justify the actions of the rebels as, 'we are at war; anything can happen'." ²⁴

European officers, including Colonel Thomas Gordon, who happened to be at Tripolitsa during the massacre, witnessed the hair-raising incidents there, and some of them later recalled these events in all their ugliness. Colonel Gordon became so disgusted with the Greek barbarities that he resigned from the service of the Greeks. A young German philhellene doctor, Wilhelm Boldemann, who could not bear to witness these scenes, committed suicide by taking poison. Some of the other European philhellenes who were extremely disillusioned, followed suit.^2,17

Towards the end of January 1822, more than 1,500 Turks and other Muslims at Acrocorinth agreed to surrender to the rebels, provided that they could keep enough money to hire neutral vessels for their journey to Asia Minor. But, while they were waiting for ships to arrive, rebels under the leadership of Kolokotronis and others killed them.⁷ These bloody incidents were later related by a German officer as follows:¹⁷

"[The Greek rebels] spared the lives of beautiful Muslim women, but sold them as slaves. The proceeds from these sales went to augment the pockets of rebel leaders such as Mavrokordatos. Mavrakordatos sold the women to the captain of a British ship."

An Italian volunteer named Brengeri, on a road to Corinth, found the dead body of a Turk, and further on, he found his wife and baby, still alive but very hungry. He and his friends gave her a few coins, in the hope that she would be able to feed herself and the baby a little longer. Before they had gone a few metres, they heard two shots. Some Greeks had killed her and the baby, and taken the coins.¹⁵ Brengeri later saw some Greeks killing a Turkish family, a man, his wife and two children. Before they killed the mother they tore off her veil to see what she looked like, and at that moment Brengeri rushed up and begged them to spare her. They asked for 50 piastres, which he gave them, and so he saved her.¹⁵ At Acrocorinth, following the Turkish capitulation, a Turkish couple, too starved and exhausted to carry their child any further, tried to hand it to a Greek. He immediastely drew a long knife and cut off his head, explaining, as a German officer was trying to prevent him, that it was best to prevent the Turks from growing up.²⁴

Up to the summer of 1822, the Greek rebellion had cost the lives of more than 50,000 Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Jews and others. Many more were forced to live in slavery and deprevation. Compared to this, very few people died during direct and mutual confrontations. This so-called Greek war of independence hitherto was hardly a war at all in the conventional sense, but mostly a series of opportunist massacres.²⁴

Muslims besieged in the Acropolis area of Athens for a long time, suffering from thirst, surrendered on 21 June 1822, accepting the promise of bishops, priests and rebel leaders, that they would not be killed. However, with the exception of a few saved with great difficulty by foreign consuls, they were all killed. At the same time 400 defenceless Muslims in Athens were carved to pieces in the streets.^7,13,21

When the Greek rebels were attacking Modon, they caught a Turk outside the city walls. They decapitated him, put his head on on a pike and took it to Navarino where they kicked it about as if it was a football.²⁵ According to the statements of British sailors, the rebels used to torture the Turks they captured on the high seas. Anemat, a Dutchman, relates how the rebels revived the Turkish sailors whom they had captured unconscious and then tortured them to death and tore them to pieces. The Dutch described the Greeks as "cowards and barbarians".¹⁴

When the Turkish army appeared before Corinth in the summer of 1822, the so-called "Greek government", which was established at Argos, tried to retreat to the coast and from there to escape on ships. Thousands of Greeks in the Argos plain were following suit, whilst the Greek brigands of Mainotis were trying to rob their own people before escaping. Soon the Turkish army ran out of provisions and munitions and tried to withdraw to Corinth. But as the mountain passes were under the control of Kolokotronis' marauders, thousands of Turks were massacred at the Dervenaki pass. Had the rebels not wasted time in robbing the dead bodies, the whole Ottoman army would have been routed there and then. Many years later, travellers touring the area used to come across heaps of bones of massacred Turks.^7,24

In December 1822, it was the turn of Nauplia town. In the streets of that town, which the rebels besieged for a long time, people frequently came across the dead bodies of children who had died of starvation. Emaciated women tried to scavege for food in filthy drains. Accordind to a German officer, Kotsch, one of the European volunteers who happened to be at Nauplia during the incidents, a Greek Orthodox priest who was suspected of establishing relations with the Turks had his fingers scalded by Greeks with hot water and his nails burnt. He was then buried in the ground up to his neck and his face was brushed with syrup so that flies would attack him. It took him six days to die in agony. Rebels captured a Jew trying to escape from the town, stripped him and cut off his genitals, before leading him around the town and then hanging him.²⁴

When the town of Nauplia surrendered to the rebels on 12 December, they committed a terrible massacre, after which the rebels piled up the victims' heads in the form of a pyramid. Commodore Hamilton, arriving in port on the British warship HMS Cambrian, was instrumental in saving some of the Muslim and Jewish residents of the town from certain death.^15,24 During the ransack of the town, the lion's share went to the Greek rebels. The rebels gave the European officers two or three Turkish girls as booty. They took them to Athens where they sold them to consuls, who transferred them to Anatolia and thus saved their lives.

One hundred and fifty Albanians who were returning to their home country on a Turkish ship that ran aground just outside Missolonghi, surrendered to the rebels following promises of safety given to them by Mavrokordatos only to be killled after being robbed.

The Greek rebels went so far in their barbarities as to murder some of their foreign supporters, including many of whom that had come from Europe to help them. After the rebels captured the town of Nauplia, some Greeks led their foreign supporters into a sauna bath in the town and disposed of them. The Greek owner of the sauna persuaded the foreigners to take off their clothes so that when he murdered them their clothes and boots would not be bloodstained. He would then be able to sell them. Of course, the naive volunteers did not suspect what would befall them.¹¹

The orgy of genocide in the Peloponnese ended only when there were no more Turks to kill. The philhellene volunteers who went to help the Greeks and began to return to their homelands in 1822 and 1823, could not save themselves from the nightmares of those terrible days. They were expecting many good things from the Greeks, but instead they were flabbergasted. They began to hate the Greeks for deceiving them.^8,24,28,29 Despite pressure from Greek societiesin Europe, they began to put pen to paper about their own experiences. The following sentiment is typical of what they wrote:

"I am writing this so that others will not make the same mistakes that I have made. Modern Greece is not like old Greece. The Greeks are a wicked and barbaric race who have no gratitude"²⁴

Meanwhile , there were stirrings in Crete, Cyprus, Samos, Samothrace, Thessaly, Macedonia and Epirus. The hellenophiles and propagandists portrayed to the West the Ottoman's strong measures as "Turkish barbarity against the Christian people"²⁶ The West, which closed its eyes and ears to the extermination of the Turks in Greece, began to raise its voice against the Ottoman reaction. The following leaflet distributed in August 1821 in Hamburg is very instructive:

"Invitation to the youth of Germany. The struggle for religion, life and independence is calling us to arms; humanity and duty are calling us to the aid of the noble Greeks, who are our brothers. We must sacrifice our blood and our life for the sacred cause. The end of Muslim rule in Europe is approaching. The most beautiful land of Europe must be saved from the monsters! Let us join the struggle with all our strength...God is with us, because this is a sacred cause-it is a cause of humanity-it is a struggle for religion, life and independence".¹

The returning Western volunteers who witnessed the bloody events in the Peloponnese became the antodote for this hellenophile and Greek propaganda. Several French officers who returned from Greece to Marseilles in April 1822 described the Greeks as, "Vile, cowardly and ungrateful".²⁴ A Prussian officer who had witnessed the Corinth massacres appealed to new volunteers on the point of departue:

"There [in Greece] you will find only misery, death and ingratitude. Don't believe what they tell you in Germany or Switzerland; believe what an old soldier is saying"

Another Prussian officer wrote the following:

"The Ancient Greeks no longer exist. The place of Solon, Socrates and Demosthenes has been taken by blind ignorance. The logical laws of Athens have been replaced by barbarism...The Greeks do not fulfil the attractive promises they make to the foreigners through the Press". ³

During the Greek rebellion the British, French and Russian governments were clandestinely helping the rebels. These governments did not raise any objection to the dispatch of money, weapons and fighters to the rebels, and did their utmost to help them through their own secret agents. By contrast, the Reverend John Hartle, who was in Greece in 1826, wrote in his book Researches in Greece and the Levant (London, 1831) that the Turks suffered terrible things at Greek hands because they refused to become Christians.

When, in 1825, fortunes changed, and the army of Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehmet Ali Pasha, the governor of Egypt, began to reconquer the Peloponnese, all the Greek rebels who surrendered were spared. In April 1826, when the Turks recaptured Tripolitsa, Argos, Kalamata and Missolonghi, all Europe rose in outcry against them.

On 4 April 1826, England and Russia signed a protocol in St. Petersburg, agreeing to mediate between Turks and the Greeks. France later joined this initiative. Following the intervention of Grecophile states of England, France and Russia, in accordance with the London Agreement of 6 July 1827, and their navies' complete rout of the Ottoman navy at Navarino on 20 October of the same year, a protocol was signed in London in February 1830. The protocol specified the frontiers of an independent Greece, guaranteed by Britain, France and Russia, the protecting powers. A year later the Greek state was established. In 1832, this state offered the crown to the son of the king of Bavaria, Prince Otto. The resulting Greek kingdom, taking its inspiration from the Megali Idea (Great Idea), the driving force of Greek imperialism, began to follow a policy of aggrandisement, first against the Ottoman Empire and later against the Republic of Turkey.

(Britain and France who were clandestinely helping the Greek rebels massacring tens of thousands of Turks in 1821-1822 and helped establish the Greek state, also helped Greece, together with Italy and United States of America, to occupy Izmir and Western Anatolia committing similar massacres, atrocities agaimnst the Turks, and to a lesser degree to Jews and other non-Greek communities during May-September 1919 and until September 1922. See article titled "Greek Occupation of Izmir and Adjoining Territories". - Ed.)

1 - Barth Wilhelm and Kehrig-Korn Max, Die Philhellenezeit, Munich 1960

2 - Bees N, Documents Relating to the Siege and Capture of Tripolitsa, 1821, Armonia, 1901

3 - Bolmann L de, Remarques Sur L'etat Moral, Politique Et Militaire De La Grece, Marseilles, 1823

4 - Brengeri, Adventures of a Foreigner in Greece, London Magazine, II. 1827

5 - British Colonial Office documents. CO 136/1085

6 - Byern E.V., Bilder Aus Griechland Und Der Levant, Berlin 1833

7 - Dakin Douglas, The Greek Struggle for Independence, 1821-1833, London 1973

8 - Dakin Douglas, The Origin of the Greek Revolution, History 1952

9 - Dakin Douglas, Unification of Greece, 1770-1923, London 1972

10 - Finlay George, A History of The Greece, Oxford 1877

11 - Finlay George, An Adventure during the Greek Revolution, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1842

12 - Finlay George, History of The Greek Revolution, Edinburgh 1861

13 - Frazee A. Charles, The Orthodox Church and Independent Greece, 1821-51, Cambridge 1869

14 - Hastings Diary, 6 July 1822, Hastings Papers, British School at Athens

15 - Howarth David, The Greek Adventure-Lord Byron and Other Eccentrics in the War of Independence,

London 1976

16 - Kinross Lord, The Ottoman Centuries-The Rise and Fall of The Ottoman Empire, London 1977

17 - Le Febre W. de, Relations De Divers Faits De La Guerre De Grece, Marseilles 1822

18 - Lieber Franz, Tagebuch Meines Aufenthaltes in Griechenland, Leipzig 1823

19 - Mansel Philip, Constantinople, City of The World’s Desire, 1453-1924, London 1995

20 - McCarthy Justin, Death and Exile, The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, Princetown,

New Jersey, 1996

21 - Miller William, The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1810-1927, 4 vols, London 1966

22 - Phillips W. Allison, The War of Greek Independence, 1821 to 1833, New York 1897

23 - Runciman Steven, The Greek Church in Captivity, Cambridge 1968

24 - St. Clair William, That Greece Might Still be Free-the Philhellenes in the War of Independence, London

1972

25 - Stabell Johann H., Schicksale eines danischen Philhellenen, Leipzig 1824

26 - The Examiner, 1821, pp 372, 456, 631 and 689

27 - The Examiner, 1831, 2/632, quoted in St. Clair

28 - Thomas Gordon, History of The Greek Revolution, 2 vols, Edinburgh and London 1832

29 - Walsh Robert, Residence in Constantinople during the Greek and Turkish Revolution, 2 vols. London

1952

30 - Woodhouse C.B., The Greek War of Independence: Its Historical Setting, London 1952

This article is taken from a study titled "The Turco-Greek Imbroglio Pan-Hellenism and The Destruction of Anatolia" by Prof. Dr. Salahi R. Sonyel and published by the Centre for Strategic Research in Ankara, July 1999 (SAM Papers, No. 5/99).

The Greek Army started occupying Western Anatolia on 15 May 1919, in the aftermath of the World War I and under the sanction of the Council of the Paris Peace Conference. Although the initial instructions of the Council restricted the occupation zone to the borders of Izmir province, the Greek Army started to advance into Anatolia from the first day of their landing in Izmir.

During the incursion of the Greek occupation forces, Greek soldiers and local Greeks committed atrocities against, not only Turkish population, but also all of the non-Greek communities that had been living peacefully in the region for centuries. These atrocities included massacre, pillage, rape and the destruction of towns and villages.

The severity of the incidents and the reactions of the Turkish and Western witnesses forced the Paris Peace Conference to establish a commission to investigate the claims against the Greek forces. The Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry into the Greek Occupation of Smyrna (Izmir) and the Adjoining Territories conducted an investigation in the region between 12 August and 15 October 1919. The Commission visited the towns and villages where atrocities were committed, listened to witnesses from all communities, collected evidence and prepared a report.

All the events mentioned in this study are based on the official reports of European and American representatives in the region and the Turkish authorities. This study makes extensive use of official sources, such as documents on British foreign policy and papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States. Furthermore, this study uses books and articles in English and Turkish that are the products of intensive archival research and of academic value.

During the course of the World War I, the Allies concluded a number of secret treaties intended to shape the post-war world and, more significantly, to share out their possible territorial gains. Five of these treaties were related to the partition of the Ottoman Empire. Three of them concerned the rules and regulations governing the Turkish Straits and the division of various territories. Two of them, the Treaty of London and the Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne, were exclusively dedicated to the partition of the western districts of Asia Minor.

Britain and France paid a high tribute to Italy for her services to the Entente with the Treaty of London on 26 April 1915. According to the secret clauses of the Treaty, Italy would gain full possession of the Dodecanese, which she had held since the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912. Italy would also gain rights in Antalya province on the Asia Minor littoral. Italy’s territory in Asia Minor, centred on Antalya and its hinterland, was to be proportional to that of the other Allied Powers. This zone was to be established in conformity with the vital interests of France and Britain. However, if France, Britain and Russia should occupy certain districts of Asiatic Turkiye during the course of the war, then the territory adjoining Antalya was to be left to Italy, which reserved the right of occupation.⁶

Italy had planned to enlarge her proposed share in Asia Minor, but Britain had already prevented further Italian demands by making previous commitments to Greece.

Greece, after gaining her independence in 1829, expanded her territory three times against the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century and the first thirteen years of the twentieth century. She was enthusiastic about taking part in the final apportionment of ‘the sick man of Europe’. As the traditional Megali Idea (Great Idea), a policy committed to creating a larger Greece by including practically all of the regions in which ‘the influence of Hellenism has been paramount throughout the ages’, became increasingly popular, the Greek Prime Minister Venizelos, sought to fulfil the demands of his country by claiming the lands of ‘ancient Greek heritage’ on the opposite side of the Aegean.

On one hand, Venizelos was following closely the Italian’s expansionist aspiration for Asia Minor, and on the other hand, he was trying to contact the Allies so Greece could participate in the partition plans. Venizelos had an interview with Sir Francis Elliot, the British minister plenipotentiary in Athens, on 9 January 1915, on the subject of sending Greek troops to the assistance of Serbia. In this interview, after pointing out the difficulty of persuading the public, Venizelos mentioned his country’s prospects of brilliant territorial gains.¹⁰

A fortnight later, on 23 January 1915, the British Government offered Greece large concessions on the coast of Asia Minor as an inducement to enter into war on the side of the Allies. Venizelos welcomed this lucrative business with eagerness.⁷

During the war, Lord Balfour, Foreign Secretary of Britain had long conversations with Imperiali, the Italian Diplomatic representative to London, hoping to settle the pressing Italian claims. Italy demanded the addition of Mersin and Adana to her planned territory in Asia Minor, but France refused this concession. After this disappointment, Italy began to sound out the Allies on getting Izmir added to its assignment of Anatolian territory. Britain strongly rejected such a demand because Izmir could still be offered to Greece as an inducement for her entrance into the War.

The secret Treaty of St. Jean de Maurienne signed on 19 April 1917 rewarded the Italian demands. By the terms of this Treaty, Italy recognised the claims of Britain and France to Mesopotamia, and obtained some further concessions for herself in Asia Minor, in the Antalya and Izmir regions. Since Britain and France did not abandon the idea of drawing Greece into the War, Italy’s satisfaction would be only temporary.⁶

Greece declared war on the Central Powers on 30 June 1917. Although Greek participation in the War did not provide a momentous contribution to the Allies’ victory, as soon as the War ended, Venizelos claimed the territory promised by the British.

The Ottoman and British officials signed an armistice at Mudros on 30 October 1918, putting an end to the state of war between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies.

In November 1918, immediately after the conclusion of the Armistice, Venizelos went to Paris to present Greece’s territorial claims to the Peace Conference convened by the Allies to prepare draft peace treaties with the defeated powers. Venizelos reasserted Greece’s claims to all of Western Anatolia, from opposite Rhodes to the Sea of Marmara, in a letter and memorandum addressed to the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George.¹⁰

When the Paris Peace Conference was convened in January 1919, it appeared that all the Allied Powers agreed that the Ottoman Empire was to be divided into separate elements.⁶ This was a great opportunity for legitimising Greece’s demands. As a matter of fact, between 3 and 4 February 1919, Venizelos, in a lengthy exposition at the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference, presented the case for the reconstitution of Hellas and the unification of all the Greek-speaking peoples under one flag. According to Venizelos, this claim was based on Point Twelve of the Wilson Principles and on the right of self-determination. He called for the cession to Greece of Northern Epirus, the islands in the Aegean, all of Thrace and mostly radically, Western Anatolia.^3,13

To Lloyd George, who considered Venizelos to be "the greatest statesman Greece had thrown up since the days of Pericles", such demands seemed both fair and expedient. The Greeks could serve Britain’s interests by replacing the Turks as the protectors of imperial communication lines with India.⁷

Despite Lloyd George’s strong desire to recompense Greece urgently, the Supreme Council decided that the matter should be submitted to a Commission of Greek Claims, composed of the representatives of Britain, France, Italy and the United States. The Commission completed its work on 6 March 1919. It accepted the basic principles of the Greek case with modifications, but with the important reservations of certain members. There was a lot of difficulty concerning Western Anatolia because of the Allies’ prior commitments in the secret treaties made during the War. The American representative was opposed to the cession of Western Anatolia to the Greeks on general principles. In addition the American representative stated to the Commission that his country was free of the secret treaties’ obligations and could not take them into consideration in the settlement of the question. Both the American and Italian members were opposed to the approval of the Commission report when it was submitted to the Central Committee on Territorial Questions on 7 March 1919.³

The subject of partition of Ottoman territory caused a deep confrontation between Italy and her allies at the Paris Peace Conference. Italy became particularly angry about the possibility of Greek occupation of Western Anatolia. The Italian delegation left the Conference on 24 April in protest and did not return to Paris until 5 May. Although the Italians engaged in an unprecedented operation and sent a warship to Izmir on 30 April to prevent Greek occupation, the absence of the Italian delegation from the Conference facilitated the hard work of Lloyd George to persuade France and the United States in Greece’s favour.¹¹

As a result of British diplomacy, Greek forces were authorised on 6 May to land on Turkish territory. There were three reasons for allowing Greece to occupy Izmir.

The first reason was to reward Greece for her participation in the War, as previously promised. However, to obtain the approval of the Allies other than Britain, they needed to be persuaded that the majority of the population of the aforementioned region was Greek. As early as February 1919, Venizelos presented to the Paris Conference some statistics about the Greeks inhabiting Western Anatolia, mostly inflated and manipulated by the Greek Patriarchate. Relying on these statistics he claimed that the total population of Greeks in Western Asia Minor, including Aydin and Bursa were 1,080,000, while in the same territory the Turkish population was only 943,000.¹⁴ However, these statistics were far from reality. Even the actual statistics of the Greek Patriarchate were different from those, which were presented to the Conference. According to the statistics of the Greek Patriarchate which were [published in London in 1918, the total number of Greeks in Western Anatolia, including Aydin, Bursa and Biga was 934,061.⁹ On the other hand, according to the Turkish Official Statistics of 1910, which is the only reliable source still being cited by serious researchers, the Greek population of the region was clearly fewer than the Turkish population. The total Greek population in the provinces of Aydin, Bursa and Biga was 511,544, while the Muslim (Turkish) population of the same provinces was 3,170,705.⁹ H.O Whittal, a British businessman resident in Izmir, wrote to the British Chamber of Commerce of Izmir, in February 1919, observing that the Greeks had put forward "most exaggerated" estimates of their number in that province, whereas the majority of the population was Turkish, adding:

The British High Commissioner in Istanbul, Admiral Calthorpe, when submitting this letter to the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, added the following comments:

The second reason was base on humanitarian concerns. Ostensibly, the Greek army would occupy the city and province of Izmir to stop Turkish atrocities against the Greek population in that city and the surroundings. Venizelos reported to the Conference, 12 April, one month before the decision for occupation, "Some serious troubles had been occurring in Izmir and Aydin." He claimed, "Turks had committed some crimes against the Greeks in those regions" and emphasised his, "Concern for the furtherance of such atrocities."⁶

Lloyd George and the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau strongly supported these accusations, despite the lack of convincing evidence in order to justify occupation. On 2 May, Lloyd George presented to the Council of Four, the executive organ of the Peace Conference, a document supporting the Greek cause and purporting to be from a Greek Committee in Athens. This document appeared to confirm the existence of atrocities committed by Turkish soldiers on the basis of official messages signed by the Turkish military officers ordering the Turks to exterminate the Greeks (These documents were proven as forgeries by the Commission of Inquiry. Point No.1 of Document 3, dated 7 October 1919, states that "These documents are undoubtedly forgeries"). On 12 May, Clemenceau once more emphasised the importance of stopping the Turks’ atrocities and Lloyd George repeated his previous allegations.

The third and main reason was to prevent the Italian operations in Western Anatolia. Britain and France were against comprehensive Italian expansion despite the fact that some parts of the region had been promised to Italy in secret treaties during the War. In Lloyd George’s words, "Any day it might be found that Italy had captured Anatolia and it would be difficult to get them out of there once they had occupied it."¹¹

When Lloyd George informed Clemenceau and Wilson on May 6 that the Italians had completed their preparations for a landing in Izmir, the French and American presidents demonstrated their strong opposition and gave their approval for a Greek operation.

Having obtained the authorisation of the Paris Peace Conference, the Greek troops left the Port of Eleftheron in Greece on 13 May 1919. Fulfilling the directives of Admiral Calthrope, the highest-ranking British naval officer in the region, the Greek military fleet anchored at the island of Lesbos on 14 May to review the final details of the landing. On the same day at nine o'clock Admiral Calthrope informed Ali Nadir Pasha, the commander of the Turkish forces in Izmir, that the fortified positions of Izmir would be occupied by the Allied forces according to the clauses of Article VII of the Armistice. Admiral Calthrope did not mention the Greek troops in his first note to Ali Nadir Pasha.⁵

During the night of 14-15 May, Greek troops disembarked at Izmir under the protection of British, French and Greek warships. On 15 May at 11 o’clock, the Greek troops began to march to the Turkish barracks. At the head of the troops, native Greeks carried a large Greek flag and surrounded and preceded the troops in a compact body, shouting "Zito Venizelos" (Long live Venizelos) and applauded frantically.⁵

During this march, a shot went off and killed a Greek soldier. Although the Turkish officers announced that the shot was a personal act and could have been fired by a demonstrator, the Greek troops immediately took up their positions against the Turkish barracks and opened steady fire. A light machine gun also took part in this fussilade.⁵

As time passed, the landing turned into a general slaughter of the Turkish population. Besides Greek troops, the civilian Greeks roamed the streets and began looting and killing.¹² Greek soldiers occupying the Governor’s Hall and the Turkish barracks plundered whatever they found, even snuffboxes and pocket-books. The Greek officers did not try to prevent these abuses, but on the contrary, their attitudes and gestures excited them.⁵ During the pillage, money was stolen to the value of 23,143,690 piastres, which was then equivalent to 5,250,000 French francs.⁵

Unfortunately, the first day of the Greek occupation was not only consisted of robbery, burglary and plunder. According to Allied sources, the Greek occupation forces and civilian Greeks killed 300 to 400 Turks on 15 May 1919. More than 2,500 Turks, some even as young as 14 years of age, were subjected to arbitrary detention. The Turkish population was subjected repeatedly to rape, beating, insults and torture.²

An Italian naval officer on the warship Duilio, which was anchored in Izmir bay on 15 May, communicated his observations during the Greek landing to the Italian Chief Commander of the Navy as follows:

Greek troops which were brought by seven ships started to land in Smyrna (Izmir) in the morning of 15 May at 9.30. As directed by the British Admiral (Calthrope) one night before, no one from the Turkish population tried to oppose or resist the occupation. The occupation started as local Greeks saluted the Greek forces with joyful demonstrations. After being sanctified by the Greek Metropolitan (Chyrysostomos), troops began to march to the Turkish quarters of town, accompanied by victorious songs and applause. Then a firearm was shot. Recovering from the initial panic, the Greek soldiers started to attack Turks, beastly and wildly. A wounded Turkish colonel was transferred to the Duilio. After the first treatment he was sent to the Italian hospital in the town. During the incidents of the first day of the occupation more than 400 Turks were killed or wounded.¹

The officers of the Allied Powers did not stop the Greek army's atrocities against the Turks in Izmir. Moreover, the Allied military authorities condoned the advance of Greek troops into the interior of the country.

The Greeks made it clear from the first day that they had come, not far a temporary occupation, but a permanent annexation of Western Anatolia into a greater Greece encompassing both shores of the Aegean, thus bringing nearer the Megali Idea and the restoration of the departed glories of the Greek Christian Empire of Byzantium.⁸ A strong foundation was necessary for the establishment of lasting rule over the occupied land. Therefore, the Greeks commenced to penetrate into the interior of Anatolia.

During the advance of the Greek Army, the Greek soldiers and the local Greeks, who were incited by the Greek officers and clergy, committed innumerable atrocities against the Turks. The atrocities took the form of mass destruction in some towns. In particular, incidents during the first two months of the Greek military occupation were dreadful in the towns of Menemen and Aydin. These events were confirmed by the official reports of Turkish, British and Italian commissioners.

A Special Commission of Judicial Inquiry, established following the atrocity reports, reached Menemen on 17 June 1919. The Commission was composed of Turkish administrative and military officers, the British officers, Captain Charns and Lieutenant Lorimer, and medical delegates from the British and Italian consulates in Izmir. They presented a report to the commanders of the Allied Powers in Izmir. Some of the horrible details that were stated in this report are as follows:

... The Greeks, to hide the proof of their guilt, wanted to destroy the corpses. But the number of the latter being too great, for lack of time they piled them by tens into hastily dug trenches, insufficiently covered with earth...The massacres were not confined to the town. They extended also to the surroundings, to the fields, the mills, the farms where another thousand victims may be counted. All the buildings outside the town, as well as several hundreds of houses in the town itself, were pillaged, sacked or destroyed.⁵

The situation in Aydin was no different. Sukru Bey, the commander of the Turkish forces in the region, communicated the sequence of the atrocities to the commander of the Italian contingents if Cine, to be forwarded to the representative of Italy, the United States, Britain and France. Sukru Bey, in his letter of 1 July, revealed the terrifying results of the Greek occupation and begged immediate relief:

...I beg you to be so good as to inform the Great Powers of the Entente that we pray them in the name of humanity to restore calm and order to this country by putting an end to the ignoble regime of Greek adventurers and by withdrawing the Hellenic forces of occupation.⁵

However, the Great Powers, so called champions of humanity, were as inhuman and disgraceful as the Greeks as nothing has been done to stop the Greek atrocities.

The victims of these massacres were not only the Turks or the Muslims in general. The Greeks targeted everything and everyone that was not Greek. In Nazilli, between 19 and 20 June, 16 Jews were slaughtered besides hundreds of Turks. The Jewish houses and synagogues were set on fire as well as the Turkish houses and mosques.⁵ Such anti-Semitic acts were first practised in Izmir on 15 May. Some Greek soldiers plundered a number of Jewish shops during the incidents occurring that day. However, the British and French authorities warned and the Greek officers sentenced them. Within the interior of Anatolia, far from the Allies' eyes, the Greek army and the local Greeks did not differentiate between Muslim and Jewish targets.

The diplomatic, consular and military representatives of the Allies in Turkiye closely followed the Greek operations in Western Anatolia and communicated their observations to their headquarters abroad. Detailed reports of the atrocities and massacres in the Turkish towns and villages were often sent to the foreign capitals.

James Morgan, the British Consul General in Izmir, communicated to London on 11 July that the Greek artillery shelled two villages, killing 20 Turks, including women and children.¹⁵ Morgan informed the British authorities of another barbarous act of the Greek army in his report of 17 July. He wrote in his report that the Greek soldiers had arrested 37 Turkish soldiers and civilians. The corpses of these people were found later. The throats of the victims had been cut, all the bodies had been pierced by bayonets and their ears and lips had been torn off.¹⁵

Major Hadkinson of the British army gave dreadful details of the Greek slaughter in Ayvalik, Turgutlu and Nazilli in his report dated 4 July 1919. Hadkinson stated that the Greek soldiers had committed all sorts of crimes, particularly murder, rape, pillage and robbery. He continued by saying that innumerable dead bodies of the Turkish population from the occupied towns had been found outside of those towns.¹⁵

C.E.S. Palmer, a British diplomat, reported to the Foreign Office on 25 July that the Greek army had taken Turkish civilians as hostages, just as the German and Bolshevik armies had done during the War. He criticised the atrocities against the Turkish population.¹⁵

Palmer stated in his report of 1 August 1919, that the Greeks had killed 2,000 Turks in Aydin and it was difficult to find any excuse for the Greek excesses.¹⁵

The Americans in Turkiye were also sending reports on the Greek incursion and atrocities. W.L. Westermann, the American delegate to the Commission of Greek Claims at the Paris Peace Conference, recorded in a memorandum that, by the middle of June 1919, according to the reports from senior officials (such as the commanders of the American warships in Izmir, the Swedish Consul in Izmir and prominent American residents of the city) the Greek army and Greek officials in Izmir had been acting in a manner of semi-barbarity.³

The French and Italian delegates in Izmir sent notes to their high commissions in Istanbul on 12 July 1919, also emphasising the gravity of the situation the Greek occupation caused. The Allied delegates stated that the Greeks were not following the orders of the Allied Commander in Izmir, who, as the Allied Commander in Chief of the Izmir operation, was technically in command of the Greek forces. In fact, the Greek field officers ignored the orders of their own commanders and acted completely independently. As a result there was almost no control exercised over the troops in the field and none at all over the irregular forces operating in the front and flanks of the army. They had organised massacres of the Turkish population, engaged in simple banditry and settled wherever possible. It was recommended that the entire Greek force be recalled to the Izmir district.³

All of these reports and hundreds of others, combined with the complaints of Turkish officials, including a letter of protest sent by the Turkish Sheik-ul-Islam, the highest official of the Islamic clergy, and the news reports in the widely circulated European newspapers, brought the matter to the attention of the Council of the Heads of Delegations of the Paris Peace Conference. The members of the Council began to discuss seriously the Greek operations in Western Anatolia and try to discover the dimensions of the atrocities.

The subject of the Greek atrocities in Anatolia was first formally brought to the Council by the Grand Vizier ad interim and Sheik-ul Islam Mustafa Sabri Efendi. He stated in his telegram to the President of the Conference on 15 July 1919, "The Greeks had committed atrocities in Izmir and its surroundings." He formally accused the Greeks and requested the Conference to send a commission of inquiry to the region. He further stated, "The Council was not without responsibility, seeing that it had sent the Greeks to Izmir."²

When Clemenceau read this telegram at the Council meeting on 18 July, Balfour, the British representative said, in acquiescence, that he had been "Much concerned about the reports from Asia Minor". Balfour added, "A question had been asked in the House of Commons and it had been learned on investigation that the Greeks had, in fact, committed atrocities." According to Balfour, "Even Venizelos himself had been forced to admit the truth of the allegations." However, Balfour claimed, "It was more important to prevent recurrences of atrocities in the future rather than to investigate those which had already occurred." He added, "The control could only be exercised by the Conference through the local Commander-in-Chief."²

On the other hand, Clemenceau evaluated Balfour’s remarks and said, "Balfour’s plan to prevent further atrocities would only result in the issuance of a proclamation, which would have no effect at all." He stated "The Allies would have to deal with the Turks hereafter and that it had to be made clear to them that the Allies did not send the Greeks to Smyrna (Izmir) merely to commit atrocities."²

The situation became so explosive that the Sultan gave the following statement to the London Morning Post, on 26 July:

"It is a mistake to punish thousands of people who had no part in sending the country into war. Why should the faults of the government be expiated by massacring, sacking, raping many peaceful inhabitants in Asia Minor by the Greek troops and Greek bands? The Greeks behaved and behave still like the most sanguinary barbarians of ancient times…They should not be allowed to go where they will, burning and sacking and killing my people like sheep in a slaughterhouse. There will certainly be serious trouble unless the Powers do something to stop it. They [the Greeks] have for 150 years tried in every way to mauling the Turks in European eyes, and they have been helped and encouraged a great deal by Russian diplomacy. Now they turned themselves into butchers"

On 25 August, the Independent Labour Party (City of London Branch) passed a resolution that declared:

After lengthy debates and despite the opposition of Britain and Greece, the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry was formed. The original members of the Commission were Admiral Bristol for the United States of America, General Bunoust for France, General Hare for Britain and General Dall’olio for Italy. Besides the commissioners, three interpreters each from the USA, France and Britain and two from Italy were appointed to the Commission. The Greek Government had designated Colonel Mazarakis to follow the investigation just a few days before the Commission’s first meeting. Colonel Kadri Efendi, the Turkish representative, could only be appointed on 21 August, nine days after the first meeting of the Commission.²

The Commission held its first meeting in Istanbul on 12 August 1919. The Commission convened 46 times up until the end of investigation on 15 October. The last meeting was also in Istanbul; however, the Commission held all the others in the places where the incidents had occurred. The Commission visited Izmir, Menemen, Manisa, Aydin, Nazilli, Odemis, Ayvalik, Cine and the surroundings during the course of the inquiry and listened to 175 witnesses. There were Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Americans, British, French and Italians among witnesses.

The report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry was consisted of mainly of three parts. The first part was a detailed narrative of the investigation and was officially called the "Account of Events that took place following the Occupation, which were established during the Inquiry between 12 August and 6 October 1919". The second part was committed to finding the persons responsible for the incidents and was titled "Establishment of Responsibilities". The third part, "Conclusion put forward by the Commission" contained an evaluation of the inquiry and proposals for the Council of the Paris Peace Conference. The report also included correspondence with Colonel Mazarakis, the Greek representative to the Commission, and a reservation from General Dall’olio, the Italian representative, on the subject of the Greek occupation of Izmir.²

The Commission’s conclusion consisted of four main parts.

First, the Commission stated that although the principle behind the occupation was only to preserve order in the region, actually the operations of the Greek authorities had all the appearances of an annexation. Moreover, the Commission affirmed that it found the occupation incompatible with the restoration of order and peace.

Second, the Commission asserted that if the purpose of the occupation was to preserve order and public safety, then the Allied troops should implement it, not the Greek troops. The Commission also declared that a Greek annexation of the region would be contrary to the principle of respect for nationalities because in the occupied region, with the exception of the City of Izmir and the town of Ayvalik, the Turkish population undoubtedly over that of the Greeks.

Third, the Commission proposed replacement of the Greek troops in Anatolia with the Allied occupation forces. If the Greek army were to take part in the Allied forces, then it should be placed far away from the Turkish nationalist forces.

Fourth and finally, the Commission stated that if the Greek forces were removed from the region, then there would be no reason for armed resistance against the Allied occupation because the opposition of the Turkish nationals was only against the Greeks.

The report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry was discussed at the meeting of the Council of Heads of Five Great Powers held on 8 November 1919. Clemenceau pointed out that Greek Prime Minister Venizelos had asked to be heard in the meeting. According to Clemenceau, "There were two questions to be asked of Venizelos. First, he should explain the massacres of which the Greek troops were accused. Second, Venizelos should give a reasonable clarification of the operations of the Greek army beyond the borders of Smyrna (Izmir) province without the approval of the Council." Clemenceau noted, "It was necessary to remind the Greeks that the Turkish question was not settled and to ask Venizelos to state definitely if they could maintain themselves in Smyrna (Izmir) with their own efforts." He also said, "The information received indicated that in many respects the conduct of the Greeks had been abominable and that the Turks would never accept the Greek occupation unless obliged to by force." Clemenceau frankly affirmed, "The Council would be more and more led to respecting the integrity of the Turkish territory. Under the above mentioned circumstances, it would be well to warn the Greeks that they should not behave as the conquerors of Asia Minor."²

The Italian representative to the Council, de Martino, made similar assertions to those of Clemenceau’s. De Martino said "The military occupations in Asia Minor were clearly only provisional and should in no way prejudice the final settlement of the Turkish question." He stated, "The Italian opinion was clearly favourable to the principle of respecting the integrity of the territories." He also pointed out, " The relations between the Italian troops and Turkish population were excellent and that no conflicts had occurred between them."²

Despite the analogous attitudes of the French and Italian representatives, Sir Eyre Crowe, the British delegate, stated "The Commission had been formed to investigate the claims of atrocities by the Greek army, not the general course of the Greek occupation in Anatolia." He asked the other members of the Council, "What would happen if they, as the Report of the Commission suggested, asked the Greeks to leave Smyrna (Izmir)? Would the Turks replace them or was an Inter-Allied occupation contemplated? If an Inter-Allied occupation was impossible, then could the Council really think of allowing the Greeks to withdraw when there was no one to replace them? Could the Council possibly think of evacuating the country before a peace treaty had been concluded?"

Sir Eyre Crowe depicted in his further remarks some of the Greek excuses for the atrocities. He pointed out, "The Greeks claimed that many of the difficulties arose from the fact that they did not have complete authority in that region." He proposed, "To give the Greeks greater liberty of action and at the same time a greater share of responsibility." Clemenceau immediately rejected this proposal. The French representative told the British representative, "He observed the danger was that the Greeks would take too much latitude."²

At this point Venizelos was invited to the meeting to present his remarks on the Report. Venizelos, at the beginning of his speech gave a brief historical summary of the investigation and asked the Council to consider the Report of the Commission null and void and to establish another commission of investigation.²

He had some difficult time while trying to find excuses for the Greek atrocities. After Venizelos had completed his efforts to justify the Greek operations, Clemenceau once more reminded him, "Greece had had a mandate from the Conference and had not kept within the limits of that mandate." He asked Venizelos, "What would happen if the Turkish attacks should increase and if Greece could, without the support of her allies, make the necessary military and financial effort until such time when the country would be completely pacified." Venizelos replied, "Greece had an army of 12 divisions with 325,000 men, an army stronger than it was at the time of the Armistice. Mustafa Kemal had only 70,000 men". He proudly asserted that with 12 divisions he had nothing to fear.² (Despite the superiority in numbers of the Greek army and the support it had from the Allies, the Greek army was drawn back to the sea by Kemal’s nationalist forces who entered and freed Izmir on 9 September 1922. The only escape route for the Greek soldiers were to swim to the Allied warships anchored at the Izmir Bay).

At the Council’s meeting on 12 November 1919, the British delegation presented a draft letter for Venizelos evaluating the Commission’s Report and warning the Greek government about recurrence of such incidents. The important parts of this letter are as follows:

…Supreme Council reminds you that the de facto occupation by the Greek troops of Smyrna (Izmir) and of the neighbouring districts was only decided upon because of existing circumstances, and create no right for the future. This is merely a provisional measure which leaves entire liberty to the Peace Conference…²

By sending this letter, the Council, on the one hand, condemned the atrocities that had been committed by or because of the misrule of the Greek military and political officers, but on the other hand, it legitimised the Greek occupation of Aydin. The British policy aiming not to lose or lessen the Greek presence as a fortress against the Italian troops in Western Anatolia provided the basis of the Council’s attitude towards Greece.

Although the Council of the Paris Peace Conference generally accepted the conclusions of the Commission of Inquiry and warned Greece, it did not take definite measures to prevent further atrocities by the Greek army. Even the Report of the Commission was not permitted to be published in the European press. Encouraged by this weak approach, the Greek troops in Anatolia persisted in increasing the atrocities in an enlarged area of occupation for more than three years.

The documents of international law in force in 1919 clearly adopted the principles to protect civilians from the evils of military operations. Family honour, the lives of individual, private property as well as religious convictions and practice had to be respected.⁴ To kill or wound individuals belonging to the hostile nation was strictly prohibited.⁴ The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by assault, was prohibited. The property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, even when state property, should be treated as private property.⁴

Principally, no general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, should be inflicted on the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly or severally responsible.⁴

The Report of the Commission included many examples of violations of these international rules. The Greek soldiers and local Greeks committed dreadful atrocities against the Turkish population in Izmir on the 15 and 16 May 1919. About 2,500 civilian Turks were arbitrarily detained and were accused of being responsible for the first day incidents that were, in fact, started not as a mass resistance, but as individual acts. In violation of international regulations, they were inhumanely treated and were subjected to unhealthy conditions (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Point No.14). The Turks were the targets of killings, rape, pillage and other kinds of offences. The Greek military authorities did not take effective measures to prevent such crimes (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Point No.15).

The Greeks slaughtered 300 to 400 Turks in Izmir (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Point No.16). However the body count from the Greek atrocities was not only consisted of slayings and pillage in Izmir. Similar atrocities occurred and thousands of Turks were killed, wounded, raped, beaten or robbed in Nazilli, Aydin, Odemis, Menemen, Manisa, Ayvalik and the villages between these towns (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Points No.30, 33, 39, 42 and 44).

The Greek army’s assaults also targeted religious buildings. All of the mosques and religious institutions of Manisa, numbering about 150, were violated by the Greek troops. Their doors were forced open, their floors torn up, their carpets stolen or soiled and their inside walls defaced. In addition, the school of theology and the Turkish cemetery were attacked, defiled and damaged.⁵

Furthermore, while the 1907 Convention prohibited the destruction or seizure of the enemy’s property unless such destruction or seizure was a necessity of war,⁴ the Greek army wantonly set fire to some villages, agricultural fields and factories and killed livestock (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Points No.32, 34 and 3). (Greeks also burnt down the majority of towns and villages in Western Anatolia and in particular Izmir while running away from the advancing Turkish nationalist forces).

Both the 1899 and 1907 Conventions stated that prisoners of war were under the control of the hostile government and not the individuals or corps that had captured them. So they had to be humanely treated. All of their personal belongings except arms, horses and military papers would remain their property.⁴

The Turkish army officers and civilians who were captured were treated inhumanely during the Greek occupation of Izmir, which was not even an operation during war but during armistice. According to Point 13 of the Commission’s Report, the Turkish Governor, administrative and military staff, including the Turkish commander in the city, were insulted, beaten and even slain. In violation of the clear articles of the Convention, all of these Turkish prisoners were robbed of their personal money and belongings.

While it was forbidden to compel the inhabitants of the occupied territory to swear allegiance to the hostile power,⁴ all prisoners and most of the Turkish population were forced to shout "Zito Venizelos" (Long live Venizelos), and persons who refused to do so were immediately and severely punished. Most of the Greek officers approved of this behaviour and did not try to stop the atrocities (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Point No.13).

In Nazilli, 30 Turks were arbitrarily detained as suspects by the Greek soldiers and savagely killed outside of the town (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Point No.30).

In conformity with their general attitude towards the 1899 and 1907 Convention, the Greek troops in Western Anatolia did not conduct their military operations under the principles of international law. Although the Greek occupation was implemented at a time of armistice, the military attacks on residential areas were more severe than were those in time of war. For instance, the Greek artillery, without prior warning, shelled some villages around Aydin. Many villages on the Balatcik-Aydin railway line were similarly destroyed (Commission of Inquiry, Document 3, Points No.32 and 39).

Eighty years after the Greek landing in Izmir, it is still being debated in foreign academic and political circles whether or not the Greek government and army could be accused of the excesses in Anatolia. The Report of the Commission of Inquiry clearly stated that the responsibilities for the sad incidents that occurred in Western Anatolia during the incursion of the Greek forces undeniably rested on the wrong decisions and operations of the Greek authorities. It was accepted unanimously during the discussions at the meeting of the Council of the Paris Peace Conference that the Report of the Commission mostly reflected what happened and that it was far from exaggeration.

The Report of the Commission, the basic formal source for the incidents, was written only after the claims against the Greek occupation forces had been thoroughly investigated. The members of the Commission collected first-hand evidence; listened to witnesses of the events and inspected the area. When the Commission visited the towns and villages under Greek occupation, there was still smoke emanating from some of the destroyed buildings and the wounds of the victims were still bleeding.

Moreover, the Commission was composed of members from different powers. The members of the Commission signed the Report without hesitation despite the different and sometimes contradictory policies and interests of their respective governments.

Bearing in mind the realities of the structure and the course of study of the Commission, it was and still is impossible to refute the facts and conclusions it reached. As a matter of fact, even Greek Prime Minister Venizelos could not easily contest the findings and the conclusions of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry during his long statement before the Council of the Paris Conference. He did not deny the excesses committed by the Greek army, but he tried to invent some excuses for them.

However, the approach of the Council towards the Report was interesting. Although all of the members of the Council agreed that responsibility for the incidents in Anatolia rested on the Greek authorities and that it was a mistake of the Greek government to instruct its forces in Anatolia to enlarge their occupation zone without authorisation from the Allied Command, the Council did not want the Greek army to evacuate the region. Whereas some members of the Council wanted strong measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence of the atrocities, the British delegation opposed this.

The only affirmative step of the Council was to send a letter to Venizelos to inform him that the Greeks were responsible for the atrocities and to warn him not to repeat the same mistakes in the future.

Without a strong condemnation from the Great Powers, the Greek army continued its operations and atrocities in Anatolia for over three more years, until its banishment from the region in 1922. Had the Council exhibited a strong attitude against Greece and ordered the Greek army to withdraw within the borders of the initial occupation zone, as it had been proposed in the Report, then tens of thousands of innocent persons would not have been victimised.

1 - Archivio Storico Diplomatico Minitero Degli Affari Esteri, Affari Politici, Busta: 1644-7738

2 - Documents on British Foreign Policy, First Series, Vol. I. London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1974

3 - Evans Laurence, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey 1914-1924. Baltimore, The John

Hopkins Press, 1965

4 - Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Convention (IV) Respecting The Laws and Customs of War on

Land Signed at the Hague (18 October 1907)

5 - Greek Atrocities in the Vilayet of Smyrna (May to July 1919). Lausanne, The Permanent Bureau of the

Turkish Congress at Lausanne, 1919

6 - Howard Harry, The Partition of Turkey. A Diplomatic History 1913-1923. New York, Howard Fertig, 1966.

7 - Kinross Lord, Ataturk The Rebirth of a Nation. London, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1964

8 - Lewis Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey. London, Oxford University Press, 1968

9 - McCarthy Justin, Muslims and Minorities. The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire.

New York, New York University Press, 1983

10- Pallis A. A., Greece’s Anatolian Venture and After, A Survey of Diplomatic and Political Aspects of the

Greek Expedition to Asia Minor (1915-1922). London, Methuen & Co.,1923

11- Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. The Paris Peace Conference 1919, Vol.V.

Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946

12- Shaw Stanford and Shaw Ezel Kural, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II.

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977

13- Smith Elaine D., Turkey: Origins of the Kemalist Movement (1919-1923). Washington, D.C., 1959

14- Sonyel Salahi R., Turkish Diplomacy 1918-1923. London, SAGE, 1975

15- Sonyel Salahi R., Turk Yunan Anlasmazligi. Ankara, Kibris Turk Kultur Dernegi, 1985

This article is based on a study titled "Greek Occupation of Izmir and Adjoining Territories, Report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry, May-September 1919" by Cagri Erhan and published by the Centre for Strategic Research in Ankara, April 1999 (SAM Papers, No. 2/99). The complete version of the study can be obtained from the Australian Turkish Media Group.

In February 1921, a conference was held in London between the Greeks and the Turks, including the representatives of the Ankara Government, but it failed to solve the Turco-Greek imbroglio.

On 6 April 1921, Resit Pasha, the diplomatic representative of the Istanbul government in London. Submitted an aide-memoire to the British Foreign Office, informing it that the Greeks had massacred many Turks at Yalova and Orhan Gazi. When the Foreign Office asked its High Commissioner in Istanbul, Sir Horace Rumbold, about this incident,⁵ the latter replied as follows:

At first, Allied observers felt that the murderous actions were those of local Greeks in quest of revenge for real or imagined wrongs. However, even British observers, who so wanted to find in the Greeks a positive force for Christian civilisation in the East, were forced to admit the nature of the Greek atrocities: which aimed at "a systematic destruction of Turkish villages and the extinction of Moslem population". Greek and Armenian bands, which appeared to operate under Greek instructions, carried out the plan, sometimes even with the assistance of detachments of regular troops, declared the Inter-Allied Commission report.²⁹

Following the Greek atrocities at Yalova and Orhan Gazi and Izmit peninsula, an Inter-Allied Commission was established. The Commission submitted its report to Foreign Office on 16 July 1921, via the Admiralty. In his covering letter Admiral de Robeck stated that, from a careful perusal of the report, it would appear that the majority of the crimes were perpetrated by the Greeks, including Greek regular officers and men, and that they were commenced by them.¹⁰ The report gave the following information:

• During the past nine months parties of regular Greek soldiers with officers marched at intervals into villages in the neighbourhood of Bozalfat (Eser Koy) near Aghva. The Greek brigand Katsaros had been a visitor and behaved badly. Both Greek regular officers and men had raped women and committed robberies and acts of violence.

• Greek soldiers took everything of value such as money, cattle and effects, having tortured the people. There were cases of murder and rape. Some villages were totally or partly destroyed. The villages of Mehter Koy, Lazlar Koyu, Armak Koy, Omer Aga Koyu and Aga Koy were totally destroyed.

• Everywhere the Greek soldiers behaved savagely, killing men and raping women. They hung some peopler by their feet over straw fires. In the Beykoz area many massacres took place at Cubuklu and bodies were exhumed. They were buried fully clothed and shod, thrown together.

The Greeks evacuated Izmit on the night of 28 June. The town was reported to be in flames; the Greeks probably started the fire before they left. A number of Turks were reported massacred by Armenians in Izmit itself. Both the Armenians and neutral Turks were terror stricken, but all the Greeks were evacuated by the Greek forces.⁹

On 1 July, General Franks reported that the Greek troops were retreating towards Yalova and burning all the villages in the coastal area. The Commission on atrocities went to Izmit on 30 July where they were well received by the Turkish Nationalists. There was no evidence of any massacre of Christians. Officials of the American hospital and French priests spoke highly of the Kemalists’ discipline and demeanour. However, atrocities of an appalling nature, including murder, torture and mutilation, were verified by exhumation. American evidence supported that these were committed by Christian, Armenian and Circassian brigands, assisted by drunken and undisciplined Greek troops whilst the town was in Greek military occupation. The Commission was of the opinion that the behaviour of the Greek army in retreat was "deplorable and unworthy of a civilised nation".²⁸

While the Turco-Greek war continued, so did the Greek atrocities. The well-known British academic, Arnold J. Toynbee, who visited Izmir in August 1921 as correspondent of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, wrote to a senior British officer at the High Commission in Istanbul. "The Greek army are carrying out systematic extermination of the Moslem population in the newly occupied areas". Lamb described Toynbee as "notoriously anti-Hellenic".

On 20 September, Mrs Toynbee sent a note to the British High Commissioner asking that it might be regarded as confidential in view of the names. She gave a vivid picture of Greek horrors in the Greek occupied area.

During May and June 1921, the villages of Savilar, Korfulmus, Kaganli, Kabasdere and Tepecinar were attacked and completely pillaged. The whole population was massacred. The villages of Pekmezli, Kadidag, Komurcu and Selcuklu were pillaged and destroyed with some massacres. In the district around Sogandere, between 25 and 30 villages were destroyed with massacre of the entire population. Between Akhisar and Manisa, 82 villages were attacked with varying degrees of massacres. Some, not all, were burned. On or about 2 May, the following villages were attacked and pillaged: Irekkoy, Isafakihler, Arzular, Karabag, Karapinar, Aligoz, Kizilcakoy, Carankoy and Ballikoy. Some villagers were massacred; others escaped into the forest. On 14 June, Gordes and Kayacik were completely pillaged and burned. On 24 June, at Baslamis, near Akhisar, Greek soldiers and Armenian bands surrounded the village and massacred all the inhabitants between the ages of 12 and 60. Four of them were beaten before being killed. Six of the (including 3 women) were killed ‘by having hot irons run into them". On 28 June, the Greeks blockaded 18 villages in the neighbourhood of Tire, and pillaged and burned them in varying degrees. These included Uzgun, Karakilise, Toparlak, Meheli, Musalar, Bozkoy, Yenisehir, Mehmetler, Ispatlar, Camkoy, Ortakoy, and Dagdere.

The Greeks were collecting Turkish civilians, especially notables, from various towns and villages and marching them off as prisoners of war. They were supposed to be deported to Greece, but nobody heard from them, and the corpses of some of them had been found. Deportations took place at Kasaba (Turgutlu), Manisa, Nif, Alasehir, Salihli, Usak, Kula, Marmara, Akhisar, Tire, Odemis, Bayindir, Turbeli and Aydin. On 13 April, at Salihli, the Greeks arrested a number of people, including the mufti, the judge and 25 notables, made them prisoners of war and sent them first to Izmir and then to Greece. On 16 April, at Usak, they arrested the mufti and 20 other notables and sent them to Greece. On 20 April, near Aydin, in the villages of Sultanhisar, Erbeyli, Kosli, Umurlu, Germence and Balac, the Greeks arrested 80 people and the bodies of some of them were later recovered. There was no news of the others. On 21 May, at Karapinar, near Aydin, 50 notables were sent to Izmir but there was no news of them. In the evening, Greek officers came to the houses of the notables and violated the women. Next morning they began to beat the people with iron whips in order to extort valuables. The same happened on 2 May at Nazilli and Atja involving 32 people.

The Greeks began to retreat from Western Anatolia in August 1921 after they lost the battle at Sakarya, where the Turkish Nationalist forces checked, held and then reversed their advance on Ankara. With their retreat, their Ionian vision, encompassing most of western Anatolia, began to fall apart. As the Greeks retreated, they destroyed more thoroughly than before all that was in their path.

"[Manisa] almost completely wiped out by fire…10,300 houses, 15 mosques, 2 baths, 2,278 shops, 19 hotels, 26 villas…[destroyed]. Kasaba [present day Turgutlu] was a city of 40,000 souls, 3,000 of whom were non-Moslems. 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."³⁰

Consul Park was not fond of the Turks. According to the American scholar Justin McCarthy, he was distressed to see that the Greeks, whom he had supported, had committed such outrages. Yet, he was forced to agree that the evidence he had seen was conclusive. He concluded his report to the State Department, as follows:

The burning of these cities was not desultory, nor intermittent, nor accidental, but well planned and thoroughly organised. There were many instances of physical violence, most of which was deliberate and wanton. Without complete figures, which were impossible to obtain, it may safely be surmised that ‘atrocities’ committed by retiring Greeks numbered well into thousands in the four cities under consideration. These consisted of all three of the usual type of such atrocities, namely murder, torture and rape." ³⁰

All through 1922, until the expulsion of Greek army from Turkiye in September, Greek atrocities continued. The Greek army was in full flight to Izmir, burning, looting and massacring indiscriminately on its way.¹³ Eskisehir and Kutahya and other towns and villages were also burnt. Only the prompt intervention of the Allies saved Bursa from a similar fate. The presence of Allied officers and men in the city, and the fact that Turkish troops had the Greek army in Bursa surrounded, spared the city. However, the Greek soldiers destroyed the city’s bridges and also burnt 40 houses and Greek churches,²³ but the damage was minimal when compared to that suffered elsewhere.¹⁷

By 2 September, the Allies had become aware that the Greek army was decisively defeated and that defeat was rapidly turning into a rout. Incidents were expected in Izmir.¹⁸ The US Consul, John Horton, informed his government on 2 September that the military situation was "extremely grave" owing to the exhaustion and low morale of the Greek troops. It was so serious that it could not be saved. The local Christians were panicking and trying to leave the city. When the Greek army reached the city, observed the consul, serious trouble was possible, and he had heard threats that it would burn Izmir. He advised that cruisers be sent to protect American lives.³¹

By 6 September, the Greeks were still falling back and burning everything as they passed.¹⁴ On the same day, sources in Paris reported that the British Foreign Office had information indicating that the situation in Asia Minor was lamentable. The Greek army had been completely routed and was burning and massacring in its retreat.^24,32 Again, on 6 September, the US, British, French and Italian Consuls addressed a joint note to the Greek Minister for War, M. Theotokis, requesting assurances that Izmir was in no danger of being burned or pillaged. The Minister replied that he could give no such assurances. At this time refugees and Greek deserters were pouring into Izmir from the interior, the number arriving on September 6 being estimated at 60,000 refugees and 10,000 deserters. The soldiers, for the most part, carried arms but without officers. Many of the soldiers threw away or sold their arms and equipment, which thus passed into the possession of civilians. The city of Izmir became "a mass of living beings made up of the members of a defeated army, the hangers-on of that army, all the disreputable people of the country as well as of the city, and a mass of women, children, wagons, draft animals and all kinds of households and personal effects." It also contained "numerous deposits of ammunition and inflammable or incendiary material." ¹⁵

On 8 September, the British General, Tim Harington, reported to the War Office that the news was very bad from Izmir. There were reports that the Greek troops were completely out of hand, and were looting and burning.¹⁶

On 9 September 1922, the Turks entered Izmir "in perfect order", according to the US Consul.^24,33 His Vice-Consul, Maynard B. Barnes, in a dispatch to the Secretary of State on 18 September, observed that the advance guard of the Turkish forces, a cavalry unit, entered Izmir at 11 o’clock on the morning of 9 September, and order reigned throughout the city during the first few hours of the occupation, "Despite the burning of Turkish villages and cities in the interior, and the slaughtering of Turkish civilians by the evacuating Greek Army and the refugee Christians, and despite the throwing of bombs by Armenians at the Turkish cavalry upon the appearance of that force on the streets of Izmir." ^24,33

On 13 September, four days after the Turkish Nationalist army entered the City of Izmir, a fire broke out in the afternoon in a house situated near the railway station, in the quarter known as Basmahane. It soon spread and burnt most of the city. At the time, accusations were made against the Greeks, the Turks and the Armenians. However, fingers were pointing mostly at Greeks. They were, after all, burning and looting on their retreat to Izmir following their defeat, and both the Greek High Commissioner in Izmir, Aristide Sterghiades, and the Greek General, A. Papoulas, had warned that the Greek army might burn the city. The accusations levelled against the Turks were based on the reports and eyewitness accounts of a number of Greeks and Armenians but they were dismissed as being biased. The Armenians, too, were accused of collaborating with the Greeks in their sordid deeds in order to cover up their bomb throwing, sniping and arson.

The US Vice-Consul Maynard B. Barnes, no friend of the Turks, admitted that it did not seem logical for the Turks to destroy Izmir. On the morning of 15 September the Vice-Consul called with Captain Hepburn on the Vali (Governor) Abdul Halik Bey, and upon Kazim Pasha, the Military Governor of the city. Captain Hepburn stated in his diary: "The Turks had been so proud to have preserved Izmir intact throughout all the devastation caused by the Greeks, but the Armenians and Greeks have defeated us in the end" ²⁶

On 20 September, the Turkish Legation in Stockholm issued a communique, stating that they have received telegraphic assurances that the fire in Izmir was started by the Greeks and the Armenians, who had set fire even to their own buildings, in order that the Turks might not be able to make use of them. The Legation pointed out that there was "absolutely no reason for the Turks to destroy their most beautiful city next to Istanbul, now that they had definitely retaken it." ¹⁹

The Turkish statements were supported by Sir A. A. Baig, who observed in The Asiatic Review of October 1922 that attempts were being made to saddle the Turks with the crime of firing Izmir. "Though every Ottoman interest was involved in preserving the famous town, and to excuse the Armenians and the Greeks who had every motif of revenge to destroy what they were abondoning."¹

Justin McCarthy adds that the historical record of the fire is extremely confused. "One can easily theorise that there was, in fact, not one fire, but many fires, set in revenge by Christians who did not wish the Turks to have the city, and by undisciplined soldiers and civilians, who simply wished to see the buildings burn. The often-stated idea of the Turkish Nationalist Government deliberately burning down their second greatest city immediately after it had once again become theirs is a prima facie absurdity."^25,27

After the Greek army’s expulsion from Anatolia, The Greeks continued their atrocities elsewhere. According to a secret report prepared by the British General Headquarters in Istanbul on 8 November 1922, the Greeks burnt the following Muslim villages in Thrace: Sarlar, Cakmak, Sefki Koy, Katanca and Karis Diren. Greek soldiers and refugees systematically pillaged the Rodosto area. There were murders and looting at Kara Hisar, Turkmen Ciftligi, and Boztepe. Even as late as February 1923, the Greeks continued to wreak their vengeance on Muslims, this time in Crete and Western Thrace. On 16 February 1923, the British consular agent in Rethymo (Crete), M. A. Scouloudis, informed the British Consul, J. G. Dawkins, in Canea, the capital of the island, that the Turks, who were driven into the town, did not dare to return to their homes in the country districts chiefly for fear of being attacked and because their houses had been destroyed. Scouloudis then went on to describe the miserable state in which all Turkish refugees were living, and went on:

"The greater service that could be rendered to this population would be to assist them to emigrate; this is moreover their desire too, expressed by a committee to the local authorities. Great anarchy prevails in the island district of Rethymo; armed bands continue to rob the Turkish farms as well as those of the Christians, and not only Turks but Christians, too, are not safe to travel around." ²²

The mass destruction of the Greek army of occupation caused in Anatolia is difficult to estimate. According to Justin McCarthy, the loss of Muslim property was due to theft by individual Anatolian Greeks and by Greek officers, enlisted men, officials and irregular gangs. The worst loss, according to McCarthy, was that of timber used in buildings; if defrosted Anatolia, burnt wood was often irreplaceable. So was the loss of livestock. Most of the spoils were "ferried to Mitylene by boats."⁴ Cities such as Aydin and Odemis became collection points for plundered goods that were intended for sale in bazaars or for dispatch to Greece.³

At the British Foreign Office, G. W. Rendel minuted this document as follows:

"Vandalism of Greeks towards Moslem art is undeniable. I remember once hearing Prince Andrew boast of having paved his quarters at Salonica with Moslem tombstones…"¹²

During the Lausanne Conference (20 November 1922-24 July 1923), Eleutherios Venizelos, who was the chief delegate of Greece, at a private interview on 14 May 1923 told Ismet Pasha, the chief delegate of Turkiye, that Greece could not pay indemnity. However, Venizelos said Greece was ready to give moral satisfaction to the Turkish government by making a declaration to the effect that Greece recognised that it was incumbent on it to pay indemnity for the acts committed by the Greek army in Asia Minor "contrary to the laws of war". Turkiye, for its part, should recognise that Greece’s financial position precluded it from paying the indemnity, which should be waived.²⁰

Venizelos, meanwhile, had received the consent of the Greek government to offer Karaagac to Turkiye.²¹ Thus, Greece, through Venizelos, the very person responsible for sending the Greek army to invade Western Anatolia, had admitted moral and legal responsibility for the misdeeds of that army. Ismet Pasha, with the help of Mustafa Kemal, wound-up this most controversial issue between Turkiye and Greece. The deal was incorporated into Article 59 of the Treaty of Lausanne.

1 - Baig, Sir A.A., The Greek Defeat and British Policy. The Asiatic Review, October 1922

2 - British Foreign Office Document FO 106/1501, General Harington to War Office, 16 August 1922

3 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/4220/E115562, Calthorpe to Curzon, 1 August 1919

4 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/4221/12447, Ayvalik report by Hedkinson, dated 7 August 1919

5 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6491/E4224

6 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6511/E5232

7 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6611/E5375

8 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6515/E6441, Rattigan to Curzon, 29 May 1921

9 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6520/E7377

10 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6523/E8245, Robeck to Admiralty, 20 June 1921

11 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6557/E10550

12 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7880/E7453, Ispahani of the London Moslem League to Curzon, 25 July

1922

13 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7885/E8745, telegram from Lamb, 2 September 1922

14 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7886/E8984, Lamb’s telegram, 6 September 1922

15 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7886/E9048, Lamb at FO, 7 September 1922

16 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7992/E9054, Harington to WO, 8 September 1922

17 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7891/E9649

18 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7906/E11667, O. Murray to Admiralty, FO despatch of 25 October 1922,

transmitting copy of report of proceedings at Izmir, 3-14 September, and diaries of events from 29 September to 6

October, from Admiral O. de B. Brock

19 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7894/E9946, Patrick Ramsay to Curzon, 20 September 1922

20 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9102/E4927, Rumbold to Curzon, 14 May 1923

21 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9103/E5094; DBFP 1/XVII pp 762-63, Rumbold to Curzon, 18 May

1923

22 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9109/E2950, MC G. Dawkins to Bentnick, 19 February 1923, enclosing

23 - British War Office Document WO 106/1501, G.O.C. Allied Forces, Istanbul, to WO, 15 September 1922

24 - Evans Laurence, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, Baltimore, 1965

25 - Heath W. Lowry, Turkish History: On whose Sources Will it be Based? A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir,

1988

26 - Hepburn Diary, 15 September 1922, quoted by Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair, New York, 1966

27 - McCarthy, Justin, Death and Exile, The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, Princeton, New Jersey,

1996

28 - Prince Andrew of Greece, Towards Disaster: The Greek Army in Asia Minor in 1921, London 1930

29 - Toynbee, Arnold J, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, London 1923

30 - US archives US767.68116/34, J. Loder Park to Secretary of State, Izmir, 11 April 1923

31 - US archives US767.68/274, telegram from Izmir, 2 September 1922

32 - US archives US767.68/2911, telegram from Paris, 6 September 1922

33 - US archives US767.68/297, telegram from Istanbul, 9 September 1922

34 - US archives US767.68/304, telegram from Izmir, 9 September 1922

This article is taken from a study titled "The Turco-Greek Imbroglio Pan-Hellenism and The Destruction of Anatolia" by Prof. Dr. Salahi R. Sonyel and published by the Centre for Strategic Research in Ankara, July 1999 (SAM Papers, No. 5/99).