Eleftherios Venizelos did not hide his emotion when his friend and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Lloyd George announced to him the decision of the Supreme Military Council of the World War I allies to send Greek military forces to the area of Smyrna. The biggest dream of millions of Greeks was finally being fulfilled. Most of the Allied representatives on the War Council were somewhat embarrassed by this decision. The Italians resented the awarding of Smyrna to Greece, while the Foreign Office disagreed with Lloyd George’s policy on the issue. Despite this, the proposal of the British Prime Minister prevailed.
On the morning of May 2/15, 1919, the landing of the Greek soldiers in Smyrna began. Thousands of Greek Asia Minors with tears in their eyes welcomed the Greek soldiers at the port of the city. They were headed by Metropolitan Chrysostomos, a hierarch with notable activity during the Macedonian Struggle, when he was Metropolitan of Drama.
While in Smyrna the Greeks were celebrating the fulfillment of their dreams, in Constantinople the prevailing climate was heavy. The Ottoman Empire was among the losers of World War I. Large swaths of the once mighty empire had been divided among the victors of the Great War, rekindling the flame of Turkish nationalism that had briefly subsided after the devastating defeat. The pro-Ottoman government under Damad Ferid, son-in-law of the former Sultan Abdul Hamid II, appointed Mustafa Kemal as inspector of the Eastern Provinces of the state in order to neutralize rebel groups opposed to Sultan Mehmet VI and the terms of the truce. of Mudros. However, instead of suppressing the nationalist movement, Kemal assumed its leadership.
Kemal had distinguished himself during the Great War at the Battle of Gallipoli and later served on the Caucasus and Syrian fronts. After the war he found himself in Constantinople terribly disappointed by the turn of events. He considered the behavior of the allies towards his country extremely humiliating. As soon as he received the order to impose order in the Pontic region, he seized the opportunity to gather reinforcements for the design of resistance to the conditions imposed on his country by the allies. Various military groups had already been formed in Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor. All that was missing was the assumption of leadership by a prestigious figure among them.
On May 6/19, 1919, Kemal landed in Samsuda, Pontus, and began organizing his nationalist movement. He then went to Erzerum, where he gathered old friends and began recruiting rebels. In Erzurum and Sebastia Kemal and his associates organized conferences of Turkish nationalists, where they formulated their program in the form of a national contract. Gradually the Kemalites formed a fighting army, which also consisted of miscreants. Having as a priority the achievement of national homogeneity in the territories claimed by the same, the Kemalites implemented the strategy of exterminating the Christian populations of the East, known from the years of the rule of the Young Turks.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis