On this Day (9 Sept. 1922): Turkey wins three-year war with Greece

Yahoo News published the following article on September 8, 2014 - authored by Julian Gavaghan

ON THIS DAY:  TURKEY WINS THREE-YEAR WAR WITH GREECE


A year after leading nationalist forces to victory in the Greco-Turkish War, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey as a democratic secular state.

SEPT 9, 1922: Turkish nationalists won their three-year war with Greece after capturing Smyrna – a city that they were later accused of setting ablaze – on this day in 1922.

It meant Turks controlled all parts of the Anatolian peninsula that had been seized by Greece with British backing following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

And they took Eastern Thrace, the European portion of modern Turkey that the Allies also promised Greece after defeating the last Islamic Caliphate in World War One.

A year after leading nationalist forces to victory in the Greco-Turkish War, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey as a democratic, secular state.

But in the immediate aftermath of his victory, chaos and anarchy descended upon the captured towns and their large ethnic Greek populations.

In the confusion, on September 12, 1922, the Great Fire of Smyrna began and up to 10,000 Greeks and Armenians were killed in the blaze and ensuing massacres.

A British Pathé newsreel shows the Mediterranean port, now known as Izmir, smouldering while a hundreds of refugees cram into a small boat.

Turkish troops were accused to starting the inferno in the Armenian Quarter in a bid to begin ethnic cleansing and encourage minorities to flee the city.

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