Talk:Turkish War of Independence

Expelled populations
There are many references to 1M expelled Greeks here and other places. I wonder how did anyone reach to these figures. Is there a reliable source of population counts in May 1919 in what is now Turkiye? How did they get expelled specifically, dates, places and numbers for example. It is also known that many minorities have been leaving, and more escaping the war torn country for better prospects in the West. In fact, such migrations were taking place continuously since 1900 or so. It seems all this population movement is lumped under "expelled" category. Which seems misleading.

Despicable falsification of literature by Wikipedia that utterly violates the principles of academic integity
In this article, Handbook of Ethnic Conflict is cited to suggest there was a supposed "ethnic cleansing" campaign by the Turks against the Greeks and Armenians. Wikipedia completely falsifies what the source actually states. On the contrary, it supports Turkish claims as seen in the following excerpt, "Hunderds of thousands of Armenians were relocated to territories that eventually fell outside of the borders of Republic of Turkey (...) The second decision was the enormous population exchange with Greece - Orthodox Greeks for Muslims - to eliminate any future threat of Greek nationalism (...) By the early years of the Republic, therefore, the multi-ethnic character of Turkey had been transformed dramatically. The large Christian populations of Anatolia were gone. Muslims went from being 80% of the population just before World War I to 98%."

If you read Lemkin on Genocide, the posthumously published manuscripts of the man who coined the word genocide, you will see the Greek invasion of Anatolia is designated as a "genocide by the Greeks against the Turks".

You have created yourselves fictional history and carelessly violated academic ethics with bogus citations to whitewash the brutal invasions and bloodthirsty war-crimes of Greeks and Armenians.

Change your memory. 81.214.104.244 (talk) 08:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It sounds to me like you have picked a single exerpt to support your opinion. Even if you are correct about this particular source, there are likely plenty of other sources that describe the general academic consensus(especially outside of Turkey where the Turkish government educates its citizens with its preferred narrative and criminalizes differing views) that can be found at Armenian genocide. 331dot (talk) 08:28, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @331dot There is no academic consensus. It is a highly debated subject. You can read those sources to familiarize yourself with the literature.
 * Binark. İ. (1995). Arşiv Belgelerine Göre Kafkaslar’da ve Anadolu’da Ermeni Mezâlimi/Armenian Violence and Massacre in the Caucasus and Anatolia Based on Archives–Vol. I (1906-1918) and Vol. II (1919). Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü Yayınları, Ankara
 * Çiçek, K. (2012). The Great War and the forced migration of Armenians. Athol Books.
 * Çiçek, K. (2020). The Armenians of Musa Dagh, 1915–1939: A Story of Insurgency and Flight. Lexington Books.
 * Çiçek, K. (2010). Relocation of Ottoman Armenians in 1915: A Reassesment. Review of Armenians Studies, 22, 115-134.
 * Dyer, G. (1976). Turkish ‘falsifiers’ and Armenian ‘deceivers’: historiography and the Armenian massacres. Middle Eastern Studies, 12(1), 99-107.
 * Erickson, E. J. (2013). Ottomans and Armenians: A Study in Counterinsurgency (p. 119). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
 * Erickson, E. J. (2008). The Armenians and Ottoman military policy, 1915. War in History, 15(2), 141-167.
 * Gauin, M. (2015). “Proving” a “Crime against Humanity”?. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 35(1), 141-157.
 * Göyünç, N. (1983). Osmanlı İdaresinde Ermeniler. Gültepe Yayınları.
 * Güçlü, Y. (2012). A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire.
 * Gürün, K. (1985). The Armenian file: The myth of innocence exposed. Rustem.
 * Halaçoğlu, Y. (2002). Facts on the Relocation of Armenians (1914-1918) (No. 94). Turkish Historical Society Printing House.
 * Halaçoğlu, Y. (2008). The story of 1915: what happened to the Ottoman Armenians? (No. 113). Turkish Historical Society.
 * Halaçoğlu, Y. (2006). Die Armenierfrage. Wieser.
 * Lewis, B. (1961). The emergence of modern Turkey (No. 135). Oxford University Press.
 * Lewy, G. (2005). Revisiting the Armenian genocide. Insight Turkey, 89-99.
 * Lewy, G. (2005). The Armenian massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A disputed genocide. University of Utah Press.
 * Lewy, G. (2007). Can there be genocide without the intent to commit genocide?. Journal of Genocide Research, 9(4), 661-674.
 * McCarthy, J., Arslan, E., & Taskiran, C. (2006). The Armenian Rebellion at Van (p. 282). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
 * McCarthy, J. (2003). Missionaries and the American Image of the Turks. In Turkish-American Relations (pp. 49-71). Routledge.
 * Palabıyık, M. S. (2015). Understanding the Turkish-Armenian Controversy Over 1915. Beta.
 * Sarinay, Y. (2011). The Relocations (Tehcir) of Armenians and the Trials of 1915–16. Middle East Critique, 20(3), 299-315.
 * Sarınay, Y. (2001). Ermeniler Tarafından Yapılan Katliam Belgeleri/Documents on the Massacre Perpetrated by # Armenians–Vol. I (1914-1919) and Vol. II (1919-1921). Ankara: Başbakanlık Devlet Arşivleri Genel Müdürlüğü.
 * Stone, N. (2004). Armenia and Turkey. TLS-The Times Literary Supplement, (5298), 17-17.
 * Yavuz, M. H. (2011). Contours of scholarship on Armenian-Turkish relations. Middle East Critique, 20(3), 231-251.
 * 81.214.104.244 (talk) 08:33, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The article Armenian genocide states "As of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, which is also the academic consensus." If the academic consensus part of that statement is in error, you will need to work to demonstrate that it isn't to get that statement removed- which I think will be very hard to do. "Consensus" doesn't mean that there is no debate or that everyone agrees, obviously not everyone agrees. 331dot (talk) 08:37, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @331dot There are 159 countries, which do not recognize the events as genocide including, United Kingdom, Israel, Spain, Norway and Finland. Yet you are citing parliamentary decisions, which are not legally applicable. Article V of the UN Convention on Genocide states that the charge of "genocide" can only be prosecuted by an international court or a local court. There is no court verdict for the Armenian and Greek cases. 81.214.104.244 (talk) 08:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Most countries that haven't recognized it do so for geopolitical reasons, to avoid offending the Turkish government(especially Finland who needed Turkish support to enter NATO)- this is why the US federal government only recently recognized it. That statement does not say a legal determination was made. I know of no international legal body that makes such formal determinations(maybe the International Court of Justice but there would need to be a case and Turkey would need to agree for the ICJ to hear it). This isn't the place to debate that statement. 331dot (talk) 08:57, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @331dot Those 159 governments reached their conclusions with impartial research. The UK Parliament states that
 * On the contrary, there has been intense campaigning against Turkey by the Armenian lobbying groups and the Armenian government to push their views into the parliaments. The only reason the US recognized it as "genocide" was to curry favors with the Armenian lobby. 81.214.104.244 (talk) 09:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Most countries are not going to say "we're not recognizing it to avoid offending Turkey", they will find some reason to hang their hat on. Turkey lobbies, too.  We're not going to solve this issue here, and I'm not attempting to do so.  The focus must be on summarizing what sources say, and that's what this and the Armenian genocide article do currently. You aren't the first and won't be the last person to bring this up, but if you want these articles to say what you think that they should say, you need to do the work to obtain a consensus that the current statements are in error.  As I said, no one has made a legal determination here and there doesn't need to be one. 331dot (talk) 09:23, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * İzmir'in işgali.png
 * @331dot You have been citing me the article on the Armenian relocation of 1915, but it has no relevance to the Turkish War of Independence of 1919-22. They are separate topics. Furthermore, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. You may not cite a Wikipedia article to claim there is a consensus. Consensus is determined by the reliable sources written by experts. I have cited 25 different academic works by 16 different scholars and also the manuscript of Raphael Lemkin. There is also visual evidence of the devastation caused by the Greek armies. You have not cited any sources. This makes me think that you are not working to build a consensus with me. 81.214.104.244 (talk) 13:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I wasn't offering Wikipedia as a source to use in an article, only to show where I got that information. 331dot (talk) 15:59, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There should be "a legal determination" to call these events as "genocide" my friend.
 * And there are already two international documents point out that current statements that blame Ottoman Empire and Turkey cannot be regarded as "facts".
 * The first one:
 * "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
 * Genocide"
 * adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948.
 * "Article VI
 * Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall
 * be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was
 * committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect
 * to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction."
 * "Article IX
 * Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application
 * or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility
 * of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be
 * submitted to the ''International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to
 * the dispute.”
 * Official full text:
 * https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf
 * It says a court, a trial, a judgement is a must!
 * Second one:
 * European Court of Human Rights
 * CASE OF PERINCEK v. SWITZERLAND
 * (Application no. 27510/08)
 * Page 76:
 * ''3. Necessity of the interference in a democratic society
 * (a) The Chamber judgment
 * The Chamber, having examined the applicant’s statements in the context in which they had been made, and having regard to the applicant’s position, found that they had been of “a historical, legal and political nature” and related to a debate of public interest, and on this basis concluded that the Swiss authorities’ margin of appreciation in respect of them had been reduced. It found it problematic that the Swiss courts had relied on the notion of “general consensus” on the legal characterisation of the events of
 * 1915 and the following years to justify the applicant’s conviction.
 * It went on to state that there was no indication that the applicant’s statements had been likely to stir up hatred or violence, and drew a distinction between them and statements denying the Holocaust on the basis that they did not carry the same implications and were not likely to have the same repercussions. The
 * Chamber also had regard to recent comparative-law developments and the position of the UN Human Rights Committee. On this basis, it expressed doubts that the applicant’s conviction had been required by a pressing social need.
 * It also took into account the severity of the penalty imposed on the applicant, and came to the conclusion that his criminal conviction and sentence had not been “necessary in a democratic society” for the protection of the honour and feelings of the descendants of the victims of the events of 1915 and the following years''
 * official full text:
 * https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/docx/pdf?library=ECHR&id=001-158235&filename=
 * TLDR:
 * - Court said a “general consensus” is not enough, "a pressing social need" is not enough
 * - You cannot convict someone even if he says "There is no genocide in 1915" (Why?)
 * Finally Turkish Liberation War is not related with 1915 events. This war was against invading allied forces. 79.123.129.20 (talk) 15:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There does not need to be a formal legal determination. As I said above, I know of no international legal body capable of doing so against the wishes of Turkey. Wikipedia summarizes what independent reliable sources say. If you feel that those sources shouldn't make their claims without a formal legal determination, that's a matter for you to take up with the sources, not us. You are absolutely free to disregard any and all sources based on your personal criteria in deciding what you believe. Wikipedia will continue to summarize what independent sources say, and allow you and all readers to decide for themselves. 331dot (talk) 15:27, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Again:
 * "Armenian relocation of 1915, but it has no relevance to the Turkish War of Independence of 1919-22. They are separate topics."
 * And more:
 * Article 4 of Gumru Agreement 1920:
 * "Due to Armenia's willingness to no longer allow situations and acts that undermine order and security as a result of the Imperialist Powers' provocations and incentives..."
 * It clearly says Armenia acted to undermine order and security in Anatolia. Fought with Turkey and signed this treaty.
 * Armenia invaded east of Turkey and pushed back not the other way around. History will not change as you like. 31.142.130.137 (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Armenia invaded east of Turkey and pushed back not the other way around. History will not change as you like. 31.142.130.137 (talk) 11:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Comparison
Can you please share your comments on the Handbook of Ethnic Conflict? The source clearly doesn't support the statement written in the article. Had a Turkish user falsified a source in such a way, it would be a scandal. --81.214.104.244 (talk) 13:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Yup, this kind of nasty propaganda is unfortunately all over wiki. 88.230.168.76 (talk) 19:46, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

--81.214.104.244 (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * It is certainly true that the population exchange, while an odious piece of history, like the partition of India, was a two-way affair, and agreed with the Greek government - to sweep this up together with the more hotly contested Armenia forced marches certainly fails the smell test. The text on the right blends two separate historic moments into one, and equally making no mention of the Greek Muslims who were equally victimized by the political calculus. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

No mention of the actual struggle in the Historiography and Impact sections
These two large 'conclusion' sections quite literally never talk about who the war was actually waged on, i.e. Allied powers, and what its actual impact was, i.e. Sevres being abandoned and Turkey keeping much more of its land without foreign influence.

I find it very odd that the summary sections of this article pretty much never talk about any of this and are focused on the minorities and the nationalist aspect of it. Sure, these are very important topics but ignoring everything else completely makes no sense.

This war has had enormous impact on a lot of things: it bore a new country with a completely new governing system and a new leader (who went on to change that country completely in the following 15 years, thus adding to the impact), and really changed all the power dynamics in the region. 107.15.245.109 (talk) 15:15, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Distortion of civilian deaths
In the article, it appears that fictitious estimates, which are claimed to be the source of civilian deaths, are used in a distorted manner.

The numbers in the article are 264,000 Greeks, 60,000-250,000 Armenians and 15,000 Turkish civilians.

Leaving aside R. J. Rummel's imaginary biased number calculation, I will mention a technical problem. I quote the article you mentioned as the source of Turkish death. "I believe the minimum number killed was 15,000". It is clearly understood from this article that the selection of this source was made with racist and fascist thoughts and bad intentions. How can the sentence "I believe there are so many deaths" be evidence?

The so-called source (biased imaginary estimates on the R. J. Rummel paper) claims that 264,000 Greeks died between 1912-1922, therefore previous death estimates that have nothing to do with this war that started in 1919 cannot be attributed as if they were in this war, it is not technically possible, the time intervals are different, and the combatants The sides are different, that is, they are completely different events. 176.237.245.159 (talk) 00:11, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

The turkish supported size is so exaggrated
as you can understand the topic from the title,the turkish side is really,REALLY exaggrated.For example:the azerbaijan,aras and kars government were abolished before they communicated with ankara government. That "also" part likely done for showing turks were more than the entente.if that "also" part should be, i think theres a part for all anti turkist uprisings for the entente part.here is the all uprisings: Ali Batı Incident (11 May 1919 – 18 August 1919) Ali Galip incident (20 August 1919 – 15 September 1919) First bozkır Uprising (29 September 1919 – 4 October 1919) Second bozkır Uprising (20 October 1919 – 4 November 1919) First Ahmet Anzavur uprising (25 October 1919 – 30 November 1919) First Düzce Uprising (13 April 1920 – 31 May 1920) Second Düzce Uprising (19 July 1920 – 23 September 1920) Sheikh Ashraf Uprising (Hart Incident) (26 October 1919 – 24 December 1919) Kızılkuyu Incident (28 October 1919 - 29 October 1919) Battle of Apa (28 October 1919) Battle of Dinek (November 1, 1919) Battle of Demirkapı (November 15, 1919) Second Ahmet Anzavur Uprising (16 February 1920 – 19 April 1920) Kuvâ-yi İnzibâtiye (18 April 1920 - 25 June 1920) Third Ahmet Anzavur Uprising (10 May 1920 – 22 May 1920) First Yozgat Uprising/First Çapanoğlu Uprising (15 May 1920 – 27 August 1920) Second Yozgat Uprising/Second Çapanoğlu Uprising (5 September 1920 – 30 December 1920) Zile Rebellion (25 May 1920 – 21 June 1920) Aynacıoğulları Revolt (1918 - 21 November 1923) "Milli" Tribe Revolt (1 June 1920 – 8 September 1920) Cemil Çeto Incident (20 May 1920 – 7 June 1920) İnegöl Incident (20 July 1920 – 20 August 1920) Çopur Musa Uprising (in Afyon) (21 June 1920) Kula Incident (27 June 1920 – 28 June 1920) Konya Uprising (2 October 1920 – 22 November 1920) Demirci Mehmet Efe Uprising (1 December 1920 – 30 December 1920) Circassian Ethem Revolt (27 December 1920 – 23 January 1921) Koçgiri/Koçkiri Rebellion (6 March 1921 – 17 June 1921) Revenge Regiment Uprising (July 1920) Pontus Uprising (December 1920 - 6 February 1923) (From turkish WP) also i must say one thing more: The afghans didnt support turks,the turks supported afghans.In the agreement made with the Afghans, while it was written that the Turks would send officer teachers to the Afghans, it did not say that the Afghans would do anything for the Turks. This agreement was made with Afghanistan by the Ankara government in order to put the British in a difficult situation in Afghanistan and to increase their recognition. 78.174.205.204 (talk) 21:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Who made this numbers
At this point just say turks are the bad guys and the rest of them are good guys. Taking armenian death numbers from an armenian communist counsil member is not objective, saying 15000+ deaths in turkish side is so funny while writing 35000 thousand villages were burned to ground , making up numbers when it comes to entente but decraising incredibly when it comes to turkish side. 14:50, 29 May 2024 (UTC)


 * true bro, they are also exaggrating the turkish side. 78.174.205.204 (talk) 15:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Highly biased article controlled by anti-Turkish editors
This article, which is supposed to be an article about the independence struggle of the Turkish people and the founding of their own country from the partition by foreign imperialist forces, is full of biased and anti-Turkish sources about how the independence war was wrong and shouldn’t have happened. Not only that, but the frequent use of “genocides” to describe the events that happened during the War of Independence is also highly opinionated and biased.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong about describing the war crimes committed by the Turkish forces, but the fact that this article lacks even a single positive source about Turkish independence already showed the opinions of the biased editors about Turkey; the same for criticizing those historians who are sympathetic to the official Turkish opinion of the war like McCarthy and forbids them to have any input in the article, but allowing the source of a biased neoconservative historian Rummel, who has often been criticized for his gross exaggeration of numbers of excess deaths under anti-western regimes to be considered valid.

If anything, the whole article needs to be completely rewritten to include the sources from historians who have perspectives from both sides of the war. LeonChrisfield (talk) 10:19, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That's why there is a "neutrality is disputed" temp for now. ภץאคгöร  15:04, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments; we can do little about a general grievance. If there are specific passages that you find problematic, or the sources offered are not being accurately summarized, please detail the issues on this page.
 * "Controlled by anti-Turkish editors" is a serious accusation requiring serious evidence.
 * The general academic and scholarly consensus(and increasingly governments) is that the term "genocide" is appropriate for the Armenian genocide. Opposition to this term(including by the Turkish government who expends significant effort to promote their view internationally, teach it to their citizens, and criminalizes it because it is integral to the founding of the modern Turkish state) is discussed at Armenian genocide denial. 331dot (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I am not an Armenian/Greek genocide denialist. I just believe this page should be more balanced with sources reflecting Turkish perspectives on the history. As for the claim of the page being controlled by anti-Turkish editors, I meant I believe the editors who primarily writes the page only selects sources from historians who have a grievance against Turkey, instead of trying to be objective. LeonChrisfield (talk) 18:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * If there are indeed anti-Turkish passages in the article please point them out in the discussion section so we can have an article agreeable to all contributors. This article is intended to tell the Turkish perspective of the war, while the Greco-Turkish War intended to tell the Greek side. I have reservations with this status quo, Wikipedia articles must strive to concisely tell the story of the conflict from every belligerents' perspective. In a conflict as large and complex as the Turkish War of Independence, this is a difficult challenge. That said, I put effort to tell the Turkish perspective by incorporating information from sources like Ryan Gingeras' The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire and Andrew Mango's biography of Atatürk.
 * If some facts or key pieces of information about the conflict with respect to the Turks is missing, extended confirmed contributors are more than welcome to incorporate information. I personally would welcome any DM for sources on this topic, and we can work out ways to incorporate them in this article (Turkish or English works with me). Benlittlewiki (talk) 22:37, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I see that you are a Turkish person. I am sure you are more familiar with the Turkish history than me, and so probably have access to relevant sources to counter the excessively biased parts of the article. I found this sentence quite misleading and dubious: "The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%." There was a mutually agreed population exchange between Greece and Turkey, which 1.6 million Greeks left Turkey for Greece. The population exchange contributed to a significant decline of the Christian population. But the sentence is twisted into making people believe that the TNM (The Turkish Nationalist Movement) genocided them. LeonChrisfield (talk) 12:13, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Even if we take the stats by Rummel, which are highly questionable due to his neoconservative biases and having a history of overestimating the deaths caused by anti-western regimes, 260k Greek civilians were murdered by Turkish army in the war. Therefore, most Greeks left Turkey as part of the population exchange, not genocided by the TNM. LeonChrisfield (talk) 12:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would recommend creating a new discussion topic over whether to add a note to that number in the infobox indicating that the source is controversial or not good enough. Consensus would have to be established for this in the thread. You can help your case by finding another calculation who's source has better methodology. Benlittlewiki (talk) 02:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, some actors of the Turkish national movement engaged well documented acts of ethnic cleansing and/or genocide in the war before the population exchange, this is talked about in the article, though it could be expanded upon, especially Topal Osman's operations in the Pontus region. Benlittlewiki (talk) 02:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

30.000 buildings + 250 villages burnt to ground by Greeks but only 15.000 Turk civilians killed?
Yeah, that really makes sense... Crxyzen (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Capitalise "unionist"
, unionist is a descriptive noun for a class of people that belong to or are active in a union movement. As such, it is not a proper noun and should not be capitalised. Arguing to capitalise because is refers to such people from a particular movement falls to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)


 * In this context, Unionist is not a descriptive noun, it is a proper noun; it specifically describes someone affiliated with the Committee of Union and Progress. It is similar to capitalizing "Republican: when talking about members of the Republican Party in the United States instead of lowercase republicans which refers to a general political movement for a republican form of government. Therefore, it must be capitalized. Benlittlewiki (talk) 00:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Are we sure?
Are we literally sure that SRAF (Southern Russia) supported Entente? @Benlittlewiki BaharatlıCheetos2.0&#39;ın devamı (talk) 10:21, 13 July 2024 (UTC)