Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after World War I between May 1919 and October 1922. It is known as the Western Front (, ) of the Turkish War of Independence in Turkey and the Asia Minor Campaign () or the Asia Minor Catastrophe () in Greece.
Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)
According to some historians, it was the Greek occupation of Smyrna that created the Turkish National movement. Arnold J. Toynbee argues: "The war between Turkey and Greece which burst out at this time was a defensive war for safeguarding of the Turkish homelands in Anatolia. It was a result of the Allied policy of imperialism operating in a foreign state, the military resources and powers of which were seriously under-estimated; it was provoked by the unwarranted invasion of a Greek army of occupation." According to others, the landing of the Greek troops in Smyrna was part of Eleftherios Venizelos's plan, inspired by the Megali Idea, to liberate the large Greek populations in the Asia Minor. Smyrna up to the Great Fire of Smyrna had a bigger Greek population than the Greek capital, Athens. Athens, before the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey, had a population of 473,000, while Smyrna, according to Ottoman sources, in 1910, had a Greek population exceeding 629,000.