Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
The Greek campaign was launched primarily because the western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, recently defeated in World War I. The armed conflict started when the Greek forces landed in Smyrna (now Izmir), on 15 May 1919. They advanced inland and took control of the western and northwestern part of Anatolia, including the cities of Manisa, Balıkesir, Aydın, Kütahya, Bursa and Eskişehir. Their advance was checked at the Battle of Sakarya in 1921 by forces of the Turkish national movement. The Greek front collapsed with the Turkish counter-attack in August 1922, and the war effectively ended with the recapture of Smyrna by the Turkish forces and the Great Fire of Smyrna.
International Squadron (Cretan intervention, 1897–1898)
Meanwhile, the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also known as the Thirty Days War, had broken out on the mainland of Europe, with Greek forces crossing the border into Ottoman Macedonia on 24 March 1897, followed by an official declaration of war on 20 April. As the Great Powers had expected, the war ended quickly in a disastrous Greek defeat, and a ceasefire went into effect on 20 May 1897. Stymied by the International Squadron's actions and unable to advance beyond Fort Soubashi to threaten Canea or to receive reinforcements or supplies in the face of the blockade, Vassos, who had achieved little since February, accomplished nothing further during the war and left Crete on 9 May 1897. With the ceasefire agreement that ended hostilities on the European mainland requiring all Greek forces to leave Crete, his expeditionary force boarded the British protected cruiser at Platanias on 23 May 1897 and withdrew from the island. On 20 September 1897, Greece and the Ottoman Empire signed the Treaty of Constantinople, formally ending their war.