User:Lordcromwelll/Greek scorched earth policy during Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)

The Greek scorched earth policy refers to the systematic burning of towns and villages perpetrated by the Greek army along with armed local Greeks in Western Anatolia during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), starting with military operations of the invading Greek army in the area under occupation and culminating in the wake of their retreat along the path towards the Aegean coast.

Following its defeat at the hands of the Allied Powers, the Ottoman Empire was forced to cede significant amounts of its territories according to the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920). However Greece was allowed to land troops at Smyrna in 1919 and occupy the surrounding areas even before this treaty. The Sevres treaty made Greek territorial expansion possible in Smyrna and its surroundings, in line with the Megali Idea. However, the newly established Turkish Government in Ankara protested the treaty and began an armed resistance. As a result of these events, Greece was given the task to suppress the movement, eventually leading to the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).

The first burnings began in the surroundings of Smyrna, during the summer of 1919 in the Meander valley and north in the Bergama region. They spread deeper into Anatolia as the Greek army advanced. In the spring of 1921, village were burned in the Yalova Peninsula. A new offensive towards Ankara took place on August 1921. After the Battle of Sakarya the Greeks withdrew and practised a scorched earth policy during their retreat towards Eskisehir. Following the Battle of Sakarya in 1921, the Greek advance was halted and in the summer of 1922 turned into a major retreat during which towns and villages in several different regions along their respective paths were systematically burned.

Various sources mention that within the region ranging from the battlefront around Afyonkarahisar till the Aegean coast everything was ruined. The retreating Greek army also purposely damaged properties belonging to various communities including those of Greeks, besides Turkish ones.

The Turkish authorities protested the events at the international stage. As a result the area covering Aydın, Manisa-Uşak and Yalova was investigated by Western delegations. At the Conference of Lausanne the Turkish representatives submitted a list of the destroyed buildings, estimated at 150,000, and the financial loss. The Greek side confirmed some of the events. A small area around Karaağaç was transferred to Turkey and both sides agreed not to press for damage compensation and so there were no financial indemnities offered at all. The large-scale destruction made nearly one million Muslims and Christians homeless, gave financial losses and thousands became refugees. Occasionally, the burnings were preceded by pillage, theft, forced labor, rape, massacre, and torture.

Background
Previously, during the Balkan Wars towns and villages were similarly burned by all participants, including the Ottoman Empire and Greece. The Ottoman Empire had joined World War I on the side of the Central Powers. After its defeat became inevitable, the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, which allowed Allied troops to occupy places within Ottoman territory as they deemed necessary. Greece had joined the war on the Allied side and had historic ambitions, based on the Megali Idea, to annex regions with Greek inhabitants in Western Anatolia, such as Smyrna. Greece lobbying efforts resulted in the Allied approval of Greece landing troops at Smyrna in 1919. This move was rejected by the Ottoman state and the local Turks, who organized sizable demonstrations in Constantinople and other towns against the Greek occupation. Soon, the Greek landing was met with local armed Turkish resistance and eventually led to the founding of the Turkish Nationalist Government in Ankara, the Government of the Grand National Assembly. The following conflict between the Greek army and Turkish nationalist forces led to the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).

Initial Greek advance (May 1919 - August 1920)
While the conflict continued the Treaty of Sèvres was signed between the Allied powers and the Ottoman Government in Istanbul. However, the Turkish nationalists did not agree and fighting continued. Greece was giving the task by the Allies to defeat the Turkish nationalists so they advanced towards Ankara. After the Battle of Sakarya the Greeks retreated towards their line at Eskişehir, here there was a stalemate until 1922. In the summer of 1922 the Turkish nationalists started the Great Offensive which defeated the Greeks and their remaining armies retreated towards the Aegean and Marmara Sea to evacuate Anatolia.

Meander valley (May-July 1919)
http://www.aegeancrisis.org/GreekOccupation.pdf

Greek army advanced towards Aydin and occupied the town on 27 May 1919. Soon Turkish irregulars attacked and the Greeks retreated on 30 July. The Turks then burnt a part of the Greek neighborhoods. Soon the Greeks returned and along the way burned down Turkish villages. Aydin was recaptured on 4 July 1919 and this time the Turkish part was burned. As a result of the clashes the area around Aydin was destabilized leading to numerous deaths of mainly Muslims. Most of the Turkish population fled southward into Italian territorry where they remained till the end of the war. During this time Aydin remained largely ruined. A western delegation investigated the events and gave financial loss of 8 million pounds Sterlin for the fire at Aydin. The loss for the abondoned crops was estimated to be 1,2 million pounds. The commission stated: "Most of the villages situated along the railway between Baladjik (Balatçık, Germencik) and Aidin were destroyed by the fires started during the course of the military operations." The Ottomans gave a named list of seventy five villages burned down along this path. According to Harold Armstrong, a British military attache at Constantinople, the "Greeks pushed out, massacring, burning, pillaging, and raping as they went in the ordinary manner of the Balkan peoples at war."

Bergama region (June-July 1919)
In the north a Greek army landed at Dikili and occupied the inland town of Bergama in 1919. They were forced to retreat by Turkish irregulars towards Menemen. Along the way the burned villages and committed a masacre in Menemen with 100-1000 Turks being killed. A western delegation confirmed the massacre and reported on the events. The Ottomans gave a named list of twenty two villages burned down.

Bilecik region (January 1920-July 1921)
In the summer of 1920 permission was granted to the Greeks to march deeper into Anatolia and defeat the Turkish nationalists. They quickly occupied large areas till the area west of Eskisehir, Bursa was occupied on 8 July 1920. During January-March 1920-21 the battles of Inonu took place after which the Greek offensive was halted but a second offensive was launched in June 1921, the Greeks occupied major towns, Afyon 13 July and Eskisehir on 19 July. Greek soldiers looted the villagers supplies. Here battles took place of Inonu, during these events many villages were plundered and some  burned. Turkish comissions reported the damage. The Greeks remained in the area till 1922,when they retreated they burnt the mayor towns such as Bilecik and Sogut, the historical capital of the Ottoman Empire and desecrated the tomb of Ertugrul gazi, father of the founder of the Ottoman empire.

Sakarya retreat (August-September 1921)
A new Greek advance took place and they crossed the Sakarya river towards Ankara. After bloody battles the Greek army retreated back to their lines east of the Sakarya. In the area they gave up to the Turks a scorched earth policy was practised. Villages, towns and crops were burned, herds taken away and looting. Historic town of Sivrihisar was burned. Venizelos later stated that they took place for "purely military exegencies". Turkish investigation parties with journalist Halide Edip and some westerns toured and documented the devastation. The Turks gave a named list of seventy villages burned down. Annie T. Allen and Florence H. Billings toured villages destroyed by the Greeks and wrote a report named: A Report on Certain Destroyed Villages in the Turkish War Zone in Anatolia. According to Turkish sources 45 villages were totally and 26 partially burned down in the area of Sivrihisar.

The American newspaper correspondent Clair Price, travelling through the area, wrote: "Here the landscape changes to a scorched, ruined scene. What, until the time of the Greek retreat from the Sakaria last September, were pleasant villages, have now become heaps of charred stone, with bits of wall standing, roofless, here and there. It was not by long-range artillery bombardment in the course of battle that these villages were destroyed, but by tins of petrol, applied by hand, in the course of retreat".

Yalova Peninsula (March-May 1921)
The Greeks landed at Gemlik in 1920, from here they advanced towards Iznik, they occpied the town on 20 June 1920. Three days later they retreated and burned Iznik and some villages. They also burned the Turkish part of Orhangazi. Then during several weeks time together with Greek irregulars burned all the Muslim villages of the Peninsula. A western delegation came to the area from Constantinople to research the events. They confirmed the events and saw villages on fire. Toynbee was also with the delegation and became opposed to Greek occupation after what he saw. He also witnessed the Greek evacuvation from Izmit and saw the villages of Karamursel being burnt with the "naked eye". Toynbee gave a list of 14 villages burned around Yalova alone, the total number is reported to be 27 , the Ottomans listed 37. During the final Greek retreat in 1922 the town of Yalova was burned.

Between 24 and 27 June, 1921, the Greek army undertook an operation of ethnic cleansing in areas such as İzmit and Yalova, located in the Marmara Region. The large loss of civilian lives, as a result of these events, convinced eyewitness Arnold J. Toynbee that the Greeks were not fit to rule over the Turks, and vice versa. The atrocities were confirmed in the report of 23 May, 1921, conducted by an Inter-Allied Commission who found that within two months all the Muslim villages in the kazas of Yalova and Gemlik were destroyed and their inhabitants forced to flee. The commission concluded that there was a “systematic plan of destruction of Turkish villages and extinction of the Moslem population by Greek and Armenian bands operating under instructions and assistance of regular Greek troops”, and that “Greek authorities alone bore the responsibility”. Maurice Gehri, the representative of the Geneva International Red Cross, who accompanied the commission reached a similar conclusion.

On 28 June, the Greek army started evacuating their positions on the peninsula after burning the town of İzmit.

From Afyonkarahisar till Manisa
There was a stalemate between the Turkish and Greek armies for one year. Then in the summer of 1922 the Turkish attacked. After a short time, the Greeks were on the retreat towards Smyrna and the sea coast to be evacuvated. Along their way they burnt down villages and towns committing many atrocities against the locals in addition of blowing up bridges and railways. Atça, Nazilli and the village of Kosk  were burned, the latter was discussed in the British parliament. Later Venizelos accepted at the Lausanne conference the possibilty that "some soldiers behaved improper". The towns of western Anatolia along the Greek route of retreat were burned: Usak 3 september, Alasehir 5 september, Turgutlu 6 september, Manisa 8 september. Turkish comissions along with some western consuls toured the area. The Turks state that Greek army had special detachments and used irregular Greeks and especially Armenian refugees from Cilicia under Torkum as burning units. Consul Park of America stated the burnings were systematic carried out with petroleum and gas. He estimates several thousand casualties, killings torture and rape. On 31 August, the Turkish parliament sent a letter to US admiral Bristol in which they protested Greek atrocities and asked to prevent them. They wrote that in and around Afyonkarahisar villages were burned down with massacres taken place. Grace Ellison traveled through western Anatolia and wrote about the destruction in her book, An Englishwoman in Angora.

A foreign traveler, witnessing the burning of the city of Uşak, further observed that “the whole country between Afion-Karahissar and Smyrna was completely devastated.”

Retreat towards the sea of Marmara
A smaller part of the Greek army retreated towards the Marmara Sea to be evacuated at the port of Mudanya and Bandirma. Along the route some villages were burned. From Karacabey to Bandirma the villages along the way were burned including both towns. Turkish sources report 20 villages and farms burnt. Around the plain of Bursa there was also destruction. Grace Ellison saw the devastation and reports 15 villages. The Historic and old capital of the Ottoman Empire, Bursa was saved from the destruction. The Greeks burned their church and houses but before the fire spread it was put down.

Aftermath
In most targeted areas the economy stopped functioning, the Meander valley was laid to waste. Religious buildings were targeted, mosques were often burned sometimes together with Turkish people inside. Houses, schools, mosques, factories, shops and government buildings were destroyed. The Turkish government presented a table of the destruction at the conference of Lausanne and demanded an indemnity. A total of 150,000 buildings and financial loss of .... However there was nothing paid.

Casualties
The loss of lifes due to massacre or exposure and the amount of tortured and raped is unknown. There are different estimates for the events. Park estimated thousands for all categories in the area around Manisa. Turkish documents sometimes list detailed information of the murdered persons. Many women were raped, girls taken with the Greeks, fates unknown many didn't tell of their rape out of fear of stigma. Travelers describe seeing corpses everywhere along the routes around the burned towns. Several captured Greeks soldiers and Ottoman Greeks were accused of atrocities and executed after their capture. Some of were forced to repair and work the areas they had destroyed. Ismet stated that 1 million Turks became refugees Venizelos disagreed and said 100,000. 200k 320k fled in the first 2 years. A telegram sent on December 22 1922 report that the red crescent worked for the relief of the Muslims in the devastated regions.

Popular culture
Ottoman and Turkish authorities protested the burnings. Some westerns and Toynbee protested Greek conduct. Old Bilecik is still in ruins, tomb of Ertugrul gazi has marks of bullets. Frederic Cahn photographed the destroyed countryside. Cemal Tollu made a painting. BBC documentary showed some footage of the destruction. Some Turkish authors claim that the events are not widely publicized in Turkey so as not to disturb Greek Turkish relations. Several monuments exist in a couple of Turkish towns and villages. In Karadere, yalova, Kosk, Aydin, Manisa. Several contemporary Turkish authors wrote about their experience. Restoration work started in Bilecik.