Greece & Refugees : Nothing New

For the last few years we have seen on our news reports of refugees coming to Greece. The world has forgotten that this is not a new story for the Greeks. The majority of the public in the west has forgotten the 1920’s Treaty of Lausanne.

In 1923 there was a population exchange between Greece and Turkey it was signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey. It involved approximately 2 million people (around 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks and 500,000 Muslims in Greece), most of whom were forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands. It was a result of the Turkish War of Independence.

The agreement therefore merely ratified what had already been perpetrated on the Turkish and Greek populations. Of the 1,200,000 Greeks involved in the exchange, only approximately 150,000 were resettled in an orderly fashion. The majority had already fled hastily with the retreating Greek Army following Greece's defeat in the Greco-Turkish War.

The Greek campaign was launched primarily as the western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. The armed conflict started with the Greek occupation of Smyrna,in May 1919. Their advance was checked at the Battle of Sakarya in 1921. The Greek front collapsed with the Turkish counter-attack on August 1922 and the war effectively ended with the re-capture of Smyrna by the Turkish forces.

Failure of the Greek military campaign and the expulsion of the French military from Cilicia in Anatolia forced the Allies to abandon the Treaty of Sèvres to negotiate a new treaty atLausanne with the Turkish National Movement. The Treaty of Lausanne recognized the independence of the Republic of Turkey and its sovereignty over Asia Minor, Constantinople, and Eastern Thrace. They returned to their pre-war borders, thus leaving East Thrace and Western Anatolia to Turkey. The Turkish victory also brought an end to the Occupation of Constantinople by the British forces.

The Turkish community of Greece had increased in size to over 140,000.

The population profile of Crete was significantly altered as well. Greek- and Turkish-speaking Muslim inhabitants of Crete (Cretan Turks) moved, principally to the Anatolian coast, but also to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Some of these people identify themselves as ethnically Greek to this day. Conversely, Greeks from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived in Crete bringing in their distinctive dialects, customs and cuisine.