The Greek Anatolian Adventure
Territorial concessions in Anatolia were promised to the Greeks during the First World War but, writes Cyril Falls, hope of fulfilment was defeated by the resurgent republicans of Turkey.
The Graeco-Turkish war, which may be said to have been begun when Greek troops landed at Smyrna (now known as Izmir) in May 1919, was an aftercrop of the First World War. The first step is to be found in Sir Edward Grey’s offer to Greece in 1915, as an inducement to enter the war, of “large concessions on the coast of Asia Minor”.1
This was followed by pacts tied together by the Treaty of Sevres, signed by the accredited representatives of the Porte in August 1920, but repudiated by the Turkish National Party in Anatolia and in the end abortive, though for the time being reducing Turkey to a Sultanate in central Anatolia.
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