Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923): Ataturk's Victory

The Turkish War of Independence was the series of campaigns fought between 1919 and 1923 by the Turkish nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, against the occupation and partition of the defeated Ottoman Empire. Fighting Greek, Armenian and French forces and defying the Allied-backed government in Istanbul, the nationalists overturned the peace terms imposed by the Allies. Their victory led to the Treaty of Lausanne and the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Background: defeat and occupation

The Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918, ending its part in the First World War. Allied forces soon controlled the Straits and occupied parts of the empire, and British, French and Italian troops moved into Istanbul and other regions. On 15 May 1919 Greek troops landed at Smyrna (Izmir), with Allied approval, to enforce Greek claims to western Anatolia, where many Greek Orthodox Christians lived.

The Greek prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, had won Allied sympathy by bringing Greece into the war on their side in 1917. His government pursued the “Great Idea” (Megali Idea), the dream of uniting the Greek populations of the eastern Mediterranean, including the large communities of Smyrna and the Aegean coast, within an enlarged Greek state. Italy, which had its own claims in south-western Anatolia, watched the Greek landing with resentment.

The landing provoked anger among Turkish Muslims. Local resistance groups had already formed, and former officers of the Ottoman army began to organise. The Allied plans for partition were later set out in the Treaty of Sevres, signed by the Sultan’s government in August 1920, which would have left the Turks only a rump state in central and northern Anatolia.

The nationalist movement

Mustafa Kemal, a general who had distinguished himself in the Gallipoli Campaign, landed at Samsun on the Black Sea coast on 19 May 1919 as an army inspector. He soon broke with the Istanbul government and, through congresses at Erzurum and Sivas in the summer and autumn of 1919, united local resistance groups under a single leadership. Their programme, the National Pact, demanded the independence of all lands with a Muslim Turkish majority within the armistice lines.

After the Allies formally occupied Istanbul in March 1920 and dissolved the Ottoman parliament, the nationalists opened their own Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 23 April 1920. The Sultan’s government condemned Kemal to death in absentia, and for a time the nationalists fought a civil war against forces loyal to Istanbul as well as against foreign armies.

The war on three fronts

The eastern front. In autumn 1920 forces under Kazim Karabekir defeated the Democratic Republic of Armenia and captured Kars. The Treaty of Alexandropol in December 1920 and, after Armenia came under Soviet rule, the Treaty of Kars in October 1921 fixed the eastern border. Soviet Russia also supplied the nationalists with gold and weapons under the Treaty of Moscow of March 1921.

The southern front. In Cilicia and south-eastern Anatolia, Turkish forces and local fighters fought French troops at Maras, Urfa and Antep in 1920 and 1921. France made peace with Ankara in the Treaty of Ankara of October 1921 and withdrew. Italy had already pulled out of its zone around Antalya.

The western front. The main war was against Greece. Ismet Pasha (later Ismet Inonu) checked Greek advances in two battles at Inonu in January and March-April 1921. In the summer of 1921 the Greek army won at Kutahya and Eskisehir and pushed towards Ankara. In the 22-day Battle of Sakarya, from 23 August to 13 September 1921, Turkish forces under Kemal’s overall command stopped the Greek advance close to the capital. A year later, on 26 August 1922, the Turks launched the Great Offensive; at Dumlupinar on 30 August they routed the main Greek army, and Turkish troops entered Smyrna on 9 September 1922. Days later the Great Fire of Smyrna destroyed the Greek and Armenian quarters of the city.

From victory to republic

The collapse of the Greek front brought Turkish forces up to the neutral zone around the Dardanelles held by British troops at Chanak (Canakkale). For several weeks in September 1922 a new war between Britain and Turkey seemed possible, but neither side wanted it. On 11 October 1922 the Armistice of Mudanya was signed: Greece agreed to evacuate Eastern Thrace, and the Allies recognised the return of Turkish rule there and, in due course, in Istanbul.

The victorious nationalists moved quickly against the old order. On 1 November 1922 the Grand National Assembly abolished the Ottoman sultanate, separating it from the caliphate. The last sultan, Mehmed VI, left Istanbul aboard a British warship on 17 November 1922. In Greece, a military revolt overthrew King Constantine, and six leading politicians and generals, including the former commander-in-chief Georgios Hatzianestis, were executed after the Trial of the Six in November 1922.

Peace negotiations opened at Lausanne in Switzerland in November 1922, with Ismet Pasha leading the Turkish delegation. After a break in the talks, the treaty was signed on 24 July 1923. Allied troops left Istanbul in the autumn, and Turkish forces entered the city on 6 October 1923. A week later Ankara was declared the capital, and on 29 October 1923 the assembly proclaimed the Republic of Turkey, with Mustafa Kemal as its first president. The caliphate itself was abolished in March 1924.

The human cost

The war was fought amid great suffering for civilians of all communities. Greek troops and irregulars committed atrocities against Muslim villagers in western Anatolia, and retreating Greek forces burned towns in 1922. Turkish forces and irregulars killed and deported many Greek and Armenian civilians, including Pontic Greeks from the Black Sea region. Hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes. Precise death tolls remain disputed.

Under a convention signed at Lausanne in January 1923, Greece and Turkey agreed to a compulsory population exchange: roughly 1.2 million Orthodox Christians left Turkey for Greece and around 400,000 Muslims moved from Greece to Turkey, many of the former having already fled.

Key people

• Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk): leader of the nationalist movement, commander-in-chief and first president of the republic.
• Ismet Pasha (Inonu): commander on the western front and Turkey’s chief negotiator at Lausanne.
• Kazim Karabekir: commander on the eastern front.
• Fevzi Pasha (Cakmak): chief of the general staff of the nationalist army.
• Constantine I and Eleftherios Venizelos: Greece’s king and its prime minister until his electoral defeat in November 1920; the Greek campaign was launched under Venizelos and continued under the king.

Timeline

• 1918, 30 October: The Armistice of Mudros ends Ottoman participation in the First World War.
• 1919, 15 May: Greek troops land at Smyrna.
• 1919, 19 May: Mustafa Kemal lands at Samsun.
• 1920, 23 April: The Grand National Assembly opens in Ankara.
• 1920, 10 August: The Sultan’s government signs the Treaty of Sevres.
• 1921, 23 August - 13 September: The Battle of Sakarya halts the Greek advance.
• 1922, 26-30 August: The Great Offensive and victory at Dumlupinar.
• 1922, 11 October: The Armistice of Mudanya ends the fighting.
• 1923, 24 July: The Treaty of Lausanne is signed.
• 1923, 29 October: The Republic of Turkey is proclaimed.

Why it matters

The Turkish War of Independence was the only case in which a defeated Central Power overturned its peace treaty by force. The Treaty of Lausanne established Turkey’s modern borders, and the war gave Mustafa Kemal the authority to abolish the sultanate and caliphate and carry out sweeping secular reforms. For Greeks, the same events are remembered as the Asia Minor Catastrophe, which ended thousands of years of Greek life in Anatolia.