![Phocaea massacre Sartiaux](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Phocaea_massacre_Sartiaux.jpg)
The 1914 Greek deportations was the forcible expulsion of around 150,000 to 300,000
Ottoman Greeks
Ottoman Greeks ( el, Ρωμιοί; tr, Osmanlı Rumları) were ethnic Greeks who lived in the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), much of which is in modern Republic of Turkey, Turkey. Ottoman Greeks were Greek Orthodoxy, Greek Orthodox Christians who ...
from
Eastern Thrace
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
* Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
* Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air ...
and the
Aegean coast of
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
by the
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقهسی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...
that culminated in May and June 1914. The deportations almost caused war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire and were an important precursor to the
Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...
.
Background
In the aftermath of the 1909
Greek annexation of Crete
The Cretan State ( el, Κρητική Πολιτεία, Kritiki Politeia; ota, كريد دولتى, Girid Devleti) was established in 1898, following the intervention by the Great Powers (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany ...
, the
Ottoman boycott movement began to form, initially targeting citizens of Greece but also affecting Ottoman Greeks with Greek citizenship as well as eventually all Ottoman Greeks. Violence and looting were soon reported. The aim of the boycott was to make it impossible for Greeks to live in Anatolia, as well as to displace Christians from the economy to create a
national economy dominated by Muslim Turks. This new economic class was perceived to be more loyal to the state, not just because of its ethnoreligious characteristics but because it owed its place to the removal of the competition by the state. Many Ottoman Greeks were economically ruined by the boycott but they were reluctant to leave. Some left temporarily and returned when the boycott died down. In the aftermath of the
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars refers to a series of two conflicts that took place in the Balkan States in 1912 and 1913. In the First Balkan War, the four Balkan States of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and defe ...
the boycott continued to intensify and was directly organized by the ruling party,
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقهسی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...
(CUP). Historian
Matthias Bjørnlund
Matthias Bjørnlund (born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a Danish historian. In 2003–05 he was the workshop leader of Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Copenhagen in connection with the commemoration of the international Aus ...
sees the Greek deportation as "an extension of the policy of economic and cultural boycott".
The 1912
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...
resulted in the loss of almost all of the empire's European territory and the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Balkans; around 350,000 to 400,000 Muslims fled to the Ottoman Empire between 1912 and the
Ottoman entry into World War I
The Ottoman Empire's entry into World War I began when two recently purchased ships of its navy, still crewed by German sailors and commanded by their German admiral, carried out the Black Sea Raid, a surprise attack against Russian ports, on 29 ...
. Ottoman Muslim society was incensed by the atrocities committed against Balkan Muslims, intensifying anti-Christian sentiment and leading to a desire for revenge. Contemporary historian
Arnold Toynbee, in ''
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey'' (1922), emphasizes the similarities of the expulsion of Ottoman Greeks to that of Balkan Muslims, stating: "the Balkan War
had two harvests of victims: first, the Rumili Turks on the one side, and... the Anatolian Greeks on the other". During the
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...
Greece also seized the Greek-populated islands of
Chios
Chios (; el, Χίος, Chíos , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greek island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. Chios is notable for its exports of mastic ...
,
Lesvos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Asia Minor by the nar ...
, and
Limnos
Lemnos or Limnos ( el, Λήμνος; grc, Λῆμνος) is a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within the Lemnos regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean region. The p ...
near the Anatolian coast.
The European powers allowed Greece to keep the islands despite Ottoman protests that they threatened the mainland, as they were located adjacent to areas where many Ottoman Greeks lived.
In January 1913, the CUP
launched another coup, installed a
one-party state
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...
, and strictly repressed all real or perceived internal enemies. After the 1913 coup, the CUP escalated anti-Greek and anti-Armenian violence and pursued a policy of changing the demographic balance of border areas by resettling Muslim immigrants while coercing Christians to leave; immigrants were promised property that had belonged to Christians. As a consequence of the war, Muslim/Turkish nationalism became the strongest ideological current in the remaining Ottoman Empire. The deportations of Greeks were "informed by
his
His or HIS may refer to:
Computing
* Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company
* Honeywell Information Systems
* Hybrid intelligent system
* Microsoft Host Integration Server
Education
* Hangzhou International School, in ...
radically
exclusionist political ideology". Another concern was the concentration of a population whose loyalty was doubted by the CUP in a strategically important location.
Eastern Thrace
When parts of Eastern Thrace were reoccupied by the Ottoman Empire during the
Second Balkan War
The Second Balkan War was a conflict which broke out when Bulgaria, dissatisfied with its share of the spoils of the First Balkan War, attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on 16 ( O.S.) / 29 (N.S.) June 1913. Serbian and Greek armies r ...
in mid-1913, local Greeks as well as Armenians were subjected to looting and intimidation especially in
Malkara
Malkara ( el, Μάλγαρα, Malgara) is a town and district of Tekirdağ Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is located at 55 km west of Tekirdağ and 190 km from Istanbul. It covers an area of 1,225 km², which makes ...
and
Rodosto. Beginning in March 1914,
Special Organization units began to systematically attack Greek villages, conscripting the men into labor battalions and forcing other residents to leave; Greek-owned businesses were confiscated and given to Muslims. The aim was to persuade or, failing that, force Greeks to leave, by preventing them from accessing their farmland, levying disproportionately high taxation, confiscation, forcible conscription, and murders. The Ottoman government specifically controlled which enterprises should fire Christian workers and paid the passage of all emigrants to Greece.
Western Anatolia
Danish consul Alfred van der Zee believed that due to the relatively low population density in the area, it would have been possible to resettle Muslim refugees without expelling the Greek population. Special Organization leader said that the population movement was organized by the state, and that in February 1914
Enver Pasha
İsmail Enver, better known as Enver Pasha ( ota, اسماعیل انور پاشا; tr, İsmail Enver Paşa; 22 November 1881 – 4 August 1922) was an Ottoman military officer, revolutionary, and convicted war criminal who formed one-third ...
had insisted on doing away with the non-Muslim population due to its perceived disloyalty—such an action was deemed necessary to preserve the empire. Russian consul Andrew D. Kalmykow wrote that
Talat Bey (later Talat Pasha) told him "the Greeks cannot remain. They are forced to leave. They must go."
Halil Menteşe
Halil Menteşe (1874–1948) was a Turkish government minister and politician, who was a well known official of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP). He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the President of the Chamber of Deputies in the ...
stated that "Talât Bey suggested that the country be cleansed of those elements that were seen as capable of betraying the state".
![Ottoman Greek women forced to leave Foça, 13 June 1914](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Ottoman_Greek_women_forced_to_leave_Fo%C3%A7a%2C_13_June_1914.jpg)
Attacks on Greeks began in March and April 1913, as attested by many complaints sent by the
Ecumenical Patriarchate
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( el, Οἰκουμενικὸν Πατριαρχεῖον Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, translit=Oikoumenikón Patriarkhíon Konstantinoupóleos, ; la, Patriarchatus Oecumenicus Constanti ...
to the Ottoman authorities of looting, seizure of property,
arbitrary arrest
Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of ...
, and expulsion. The government closely observed the process, collecting information on the villages to be cleared and planning the resettlement of Muslims there. However, it maintained
plausible deniability
Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to denial, deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by members of their organizational hierarchy. Th ...
by employing a dual-track system—sending incriminating orders through unofficial channels—and denying responsibility for the ensuing attacks. The government ordered that empty villages be guarded to prevent looting so that the property of the Greeks could be allocated to the intended recipients, Muslim immigrants to be resettled there.
One of the most severe attacks in Western Anatolia was the
massacre of Phocaea
The massacre of Phocaea ( el, Η Σφαγή της Φώκαιας, ''I Sfagí tis Fókaias''; Turkish: ''Foça Katliamı'') occurred in June 1914, as part of the ethnic cleansing policies of the Ottoman Empire that included exile, massacre and 1 ...
beginning 12 June; several thousand Greeks were forced to flee after the systematic destruction and plundering of their town by
bashi-bazouk
A bashi-bazouk ( ota, باشی بوزوق , , , roughly "leaderless" or "disorderly") was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army, raised in times of war. The army chiefly recruited Albanians and Circassians as bashi-bazouks, but recruits ...
irregulars. Prior to this attack many Greeks from around
Çakmaklı, Aliağa had fled to Phocaea while others emigrated to Partheni. Those from inland areas such as Kozbeyli, Gerenköy, and Söğütcük came under threat and also fled to Phocaea. This concentration of refugees, exceeding the capacity of the harbor, led to the village being surrounded and higher intensity violence occurring than elsewhere in Western Anatolia. The American Consulate in Salonica estimated that some five hundred to six hundred people had been killed in the broader area around
Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
.
In some cases the violent anti-Greek campaigns were directly coordinated with the landing of Muslim refugees, who were tasked with driving out the Greek population and taking over their properties. Tens of thousands of Greeks escaped to the nearby
Aegean islands, often in the same boats that had brought Muslim refugees. For the most part the Greeks did not engage in armed resistance, but in
Saraköy some Greeks defended themselves until they ran out of ammunition and were killed; only a few were able to escape to nearby
Menemen
Menemen is a district of İzmir Province in Turkey and its central town. The district extends on a fertile plain formed by the alluvial soil carried by the Gediz River. Adjacent districts are, from east to west; Aliağa and Foça to the north and ...
, too large of a town for the irregulars to attack. The later Turkish president
Celal Bayar coordinated the expulsion. The local economy and standard of living declined significantly, as most of the immigrants were peasants who lacked the skills to cultivate local crops and much property was looted or destroyed by them.
International politics
On 29 September 1913, 14 October 1913, and 14 November 1913, the Ottoman Empire concluded agreements on voluntary
population exchange
Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration, often imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a ...
with Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece respectively. Based on negotiations in May between
Eleftherios Venizelos
Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos ( el, Ελευθέριος Κυριάκου Βενιζέλος, translit=Elefthérios Kyriákou Venizélos, ; – 18 March 1936) was a Greek statesman and a prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movem ...
and , an agreement was signed on 1 July 1914 "On the mutual, voluntary exchange of
Turks in Macedonia for Greeks in the provinces of Eastern Thrace and Macedonia". This agreement was never ratified. The Ottoman government moved ahead with its expulsions of Christian citizens without waiting for international agreements or negotiations to proceed.
The Ottoman authorities tried to maintain secrecy around the operation, and the responsibility of the CUP for organizing the campaign, in order to stave off international outrage. Akçam states that "Maximum effort was expended to create the impression that none of these actions by agents of the CUP were ever connected to the state." Emigrants had to sign papers asserting that they left voluntarily and willing their property to Ottoman institutions. Foreign consuls, contrary to Ottoman denials, reported that the campaign of terror and expulsion was systematic and coordinated by the Ottoman government, noting that in some cases official
gendarme
Wrong info! -->
A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "Man-at-arms, men-at-arms" ...
s conducted the attacks. The Ottoman Embassy in Paris reported that information about the anti-Greek campaign was harming the empire in European public opinion, and suggested that the attacks be stopped at once if the reports were true.
The Ottoman authorities tried to leverage the threat of ethnic cleansing to pressure Greece to renounce its claims to the islands that it seized during the Second Balkan War. Many observers believed at the time that persecution would lead to war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Venizelos stated that Greece would remain neutral in the upcoming
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
if Ottoman Greeks were not deported and the Ottoman Empire did not attack Greek islands in the Aegean. The CUP agreed to this and ceased their ethnic cleansing campaign. On 2 November 1914, Talat announced the official end of the policy, as he had come to an understanding with Germany, which did not want Greece to join the
Entente. This cable stated that no further attacks on Greeks would be tolerated.
Total number of people deported
The total number of Greeks expelled from the Ottoman Empire is not known with certainty. Historian
Taner Akçam
Altuğ Taner Akçam (born 1953) is a Turkish-German historian and sociologist. During the 1990s, he was the first Turkish scholar to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and has written several books on the genocide, such as '' A Shameful Act'' ( ...
estimates it at "roughly three hundred thousand", while Bjørnlund writes that "some 150–200,000 Ottoman Greeks" left either forcibly or after being threatened with violence. Vasileios Meichanetsidis estimates that at least 115,000 people were deported from Eastern Thrace to Greece, 85,000 from Eastern Thrace to central Anatolia, and another 150,000 from western Anatolia to Greece.
Connection to the Armenian genocide
In his memoirs, United States ambassador
Henry Morgenthau, Sr.
Henry Morgenthau (; April 26, 1856 – November 25, 1946) was a German-born American lawyer and businessman, best known for his role as the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Morgenthau was one of the most prominent Americans w ...
states that "the Turks had expelled the Greeks so successfully that they had decided to apply the same method to all the other races in the empire". On 6 July 1914, Ottoman Greek deputy
Emmanouil Emmanouilidis raised the matter of the deportation in the
Ottoman Parliament
The General Assembly ( tr, Meclis-i Umumî (French romanization: "Medjliss Oumoumi" ) or ''Genel Parlamento''; french: Assemblée Générale) was the first attempt at representative democracy by the imperial government of the Ottoman Empire. Als ...
. Talat explained that the Muslim migrants were resettled in the depopulated villages because they would have died if sent to the deserts of Syria and Iraq—exactly where he sent Armenian deportees a year later. Historian
Hans-Lukas Kieser
Hans-Lukas Kieser (born 1957) is a Swiss historian of the late Ottoman Empire and Turkey, Professor of modern history at the University of Zurich and president of the Research Foundation Switzerland-Turkey in Basel. He is an author of books and ar ...
writes that the success achieved by "the CUP men of action... exceeded all expectations" and they "could savor a crushing victory achieved in a secret war along domestic ethnoreligious lines". Bjørnlund states that the perceived "success" of the Greek deportation "meant that even more radical measures could be seen as not only possible, but as yet another extension of a policy of social engineering through Turkification". Historian
Tessa Hofmann Tessa Hofmann (Savvidis) (born 15 December 1949, Bassum, Lower Saxony) is a scholar of Armenian studies and sociology, PhD, research scholar at the Free University of Berlin.
Biography
She studied at the Department of Slavonic Languages and Liter ...
argues that "the deportations in Eastern Thrace appear as the prototype of all subsequent deportations of Christians".
Many of the same CUP operatives, including
Şükrü Kaya
Şükrü Kaya (1883 – 10 January 1959) was a Turkish people, Turkish civil servant and politician, who served as government minister, Minister of Interior and List of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Minister of Foreign affairs in s ...
,
Nâzım Bey, and
Mehmed Reshid
Mehmed Reshid ( tr, Mehmet Reşit Şahingiray; 8 February 1873 – 6 February 1919) was an Ottoman physician, official of the Committee of Union and Progress, and governor of the Diyarbekir Vilayet (province) of the Ottoman Empire during World ...
, were involved in both persecutions. Akçam describes the Greek deportation as "a trial run for the
Armenian genocide
The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was ...
". He notes that both operations were "ostensibly under the legal umbrella of Ottoman population policy", yet "an unofficial plan was implemented by a shadow organization that attacked and terrorized the Ottoman Christians". Bjørnlund states that "the official reactions to the 1914 events point toward aspects of"
Armenian genocide denial
Armenian genocide denial is the claim that the Ottoman Empire and its ruling party, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), did not commit genocide against its Armenian citizens during World War I—a crime documented in a large body of ...
as developed by the CUP and continuing into the present day: "the claim that the government, when it came to killings and persecution, had no control of local officials or of the designated killer gangs, and the attempts to apply damage control through cover-ups, shifting of blame, and propaganda". Talat blamed all excesses on the local government of
Rahmi Bey, while the Ottoman government claimed that only 1,000 Greeks had left, against the will of the authorities, and the "incidents" were caused equally by Greeks and rogue Ottoman elements. Major deportations of Anatolian Greeks from the coast to the interior occurred during World War I from 1915 due to belief that they were a
fifth column
A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...
, although they were not subjected to systematic killing as were the Armenians.
References
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{{Armenian Genocide
1913 in the Ottoman Empire
1914 in the Ottoman Empire
Ethnic cleansing in Europe
Ethnic cleansing in Asia
Greek genocide
History of Anatolia
Greece–Ottoman Empire relations