The Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922
The Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922

Author(s): Charalampos Minasidis
Subject(s): Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939)
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Greek; Turkish; War; Greece; Western; Turkey; Ottoman Empire;
Summary/Abstract: The Greek-Turkish War of 1919–1922 is known as the Asia Minor Campaign in Greece and as the Western Front of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey. It was fought between the Kingdom of Greece and the Turkish National Movement between 15 May 1919 and 11 October 1922. It is sometimes regarded as a continuation of the Great War or First World War (1914–1918), and it was one of the post-1918 conflicts that contributed to the partition of the Ottoman Empire, and thus part of what historiography calls the Greater War (1911–1922) or the Long Great War (1914–1922). It was also a means of settling the Greek-Ottoman/Turkish dispute over the fate of the Ottoman Greeks and the areas they inhabited. Thus, it was both a conventional and an unconventional war fought by states and peoples. Its conclusion led to the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 that ratified, for the first time in history, a compulsory population exchange. The military defeat was named the Asia Minor Catastrophe in Greece, and this term was later also used to refer to its impact on the civilians. Simultaneously, the war meant the collapse of the institution of monarchy in both countries and the establishment of republics in Turkey in 1923 and in Greece in 1924.

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