The Turkish-Greek war, was it in the time when that area was still called the Ottoman Empire?

Isnt it called the İndependence war in turkey?


Sorry for a maybe silly question

If you google this you'll get a good explanation from wikipedia.

No I dont.. its not clear enough to me.. I read it but I cant understand it..

Do I get it right like this:

The Ottoman Empire ended with the treaty of sevres, that Ataturk didnt accept. He then entered a war with the greeks to get his land back (no longer ottoman empire involved since it had fallen apart), which is called the war of independence.. he won it and established the turkish republic with him being its first president?

I found this about the fire in Smyrna:

The Great Fire of Smyrna is the name commonly given to the fire that ravaged İzmir/Smyrna starting 13 September 1922 and lasted for four days until the 17 September. It occurred four days after the Turkish army regained control of the city on 9 September 1922, thus effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) in the field, more than three years after the Greek army had landed on Smyrna on 15 May 1919. The reason of the fire is not fully determined and is still a widely disputed subject. There have been accusations from all sides, blaming the Turks, Greeks or Armenians, conflicting press reports at the time as well as analyses later, and there is also a theory that it was an accident caused by chaos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Smyrna


Retreat from Smyrna,

The overextension of the Greek lines proved disastrous. Kemal lured the Greek army ever deeper into the rugged heartland of Anatolia. When he judged that the Greek position was untenable, Turkish forces shattered the Greek line with a major counteroffensive. Kemal then isolated and destroyed the segments of the Greek army, chasing the remnants back to Smyrna. While soldiers, sailors, and journalists from around the world watched from ships anchored in the bay, the Turkish forces burned and sacked the great city of Smyrna, killing about 30,000 Greeks. The Megali Idea went up in smoke on the shores of Asia Minor.



http://greece.russiansabroad.com/country_page.aspx?page=66

Roswitha,

1-) What is the source of the article?
2-) Why would Turks burn down Izmir (Smyrna) and then re-build it from scratch? Are we so dumb? Our books say Greeks burnt the city and that sounds more logical to me. In most warfare receding forces do that.

There are more references about those ships waiting off shore Izmir. One of them states one side of those ships had been covered with canvass in order to prevent sailors to get demoralized when they saw the torture the Greek soldiers were applying to the local people. You will probably not be able to point out to an all accurate source that tells everything in an impartial way.

My family fled from Greece in 1923. My grandmother used to tell this story:

In Kavala, they lived in a nice house and in peace with their neighbors. They used to play games with Greek kids. Gradually everything gets out of hand and tension begins. Greeks want to get rid of the Turkish minority there. There are some fightings and so on everything does not look desperate for a while. Then one day, the seniors of the family knock the door of a woman who lives in the district as she did not show up for a couple of days. When they open the door they find the head of the woman in the water closet. Next morning, Greeks call for all the Turks living in the town to gather in the yard of a church. A monk who knows my family comes and tells them they should run away as soon as they can because they will kill all the Turks in the town. The monk leads my family to a boat and they sail to Turkey with thousands of others on board.
Those who refused to take the boat were gathered in a church and burnt by the Greeks.

This is the story, I've been told. Is it true. Well I wasn't there but at least I know that it was told by someone who did not have a habit of lying.

Thanks for explaining the Smyrna situation,I guess it is never too late to learn more from others.

I find the burning a high disputable olay. Some sources say it was from Greek hand (logical), but others that I read gave (good!) reasons for Turkish.. however they do not come to mind :-S Sorry...

Vineyards, maybe you would like to read the book Kanatsız kuşlar by Louis De Bernieres. İt tells about this period and also about the Greeks and Turks living together. I read its english version and it is really beautifully written, without choosing a side (for as far as I realized

I've read complete books on the WWI by a Scottish author and a Jewish one and then by a Turkish one. Whole different stories... We can't base anything on one book...
Though I will try to find the book you mentioned.

I found Kavala,interesting and pretty:

http://www.macedonian-heritage.gr/HellenicMacedonia/en/C3.2.html