In 1917 my grandfather as a child escaped the Turkish massacres of Greeks in Ayvalık, on Turkey’s Aegean coast. Almost his entire family was wiped out. The city of Mytilene, Μυτιλήνη, welcomed him as a child refugee. He settled in the aptly titled Filia, φιλία or friendship. His brother ended up in Macedonia, Μακεδονία. They never set eyes on each other again. My father was born in WWII, 1941 – 1945, and my mother during the Greek Civil War 1945-1949. Both wars were catastrophic on Greece. My uncle Mixalis’s eyes would well in tears when he recounted the bloody fratricide, αδελφοκτονία of the Civil War. “Brother against brother. It should never have happened.”
Greece has been entangled in wars for centuries, whether it is the wars I mentioned above or wars including the Korean War during the 1950’s as the price of being Allied with Western interests. Korea was quid pro quo for NATO membership and military guarantees.
The high cost of loyalty: Greece’s wars for the Allies
Greece has been in many unnecessary wars as the price of being “Allies,” and on one tragic occasion, our involvement as a Western partner in war resulted in helping the Turkish Nationalists gain significant advantage against Greece during the Asia Minor campaign of 1920-1922.
During that period Greece’s territory stretched from Thrace to the Black Sea, Smyrna to Imvros. Greece under Prime Minister Venizelos stirred the hornet’s nest by starting war against the Ottomans/Turkish Nationalists.
The war likely would have concluded successfully for the Hellenes, save for several factors. In the 1921 elections, Eleftherios Venizelos lost power to the royalists, leading to significant shifts in Greece’s political landscape and international alliances. The Allies, including Italy, France, and the USA, as well as Lloyd George in Britain to a lesser extent, abandoned their support for Greece as the royalist forces advanced further into the interior. Meanwhile, the Russian Bolsheviks were actively supporting the nationalist movement in Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk by providing training, financial support, weapons, and elite officers. This support bolstered Turkey’s position against Greece, which had already been strained by its engagement in an ultimately unnecessary war against the Bolsheviks in Ukraine in 1918–19—a decision that further weakened Greece’s resources and strategic footing in the region.
The Russian Bolsheviks, sought to implement an ideology developed by a Karl Marx. Over the next century including the invasion of Ukraine, Afghanistan and internal massacres, Russians under the umbrella of “communism” killed over 20 million people. Within this context, it is worth understanding that the Bolsheviks were ruthless. They did not take kindly when General Konstantinos Nider led Greeks, Allies of the West, against the Bolsheviks a few months after WWI.
Australia also contributed 150 troops during this campaign while Greece supplied 23,000, resulting in 230 deaths, 173 solders missing and over 650 injured. Greece had already contributed to WWI and now had to administer an expanded state. They should have sent soldiers to Pontus to protect the Greeks, not fight wars for the West.
The Russians had not harmed Greeks since an invasion of Byzantium a millennium earlier. In the Caucasus and under Russian leadership, Greeks who lived in the Russian Empire had their own battalion to protect Greeks from Turks, saving tens of thousands of lives. For centuries Greeks served as officers/soldiers for the Russians and sometimes in high level bureaucratic positions. In fact, Catherine the Great had ensured Greeks set up their own city, Marioupolis in 1789, since ruthlessly destroyed along with many Greek towns by Putin. So, it was ironic that Greece was now fighting Bolshevik Russians; they went from being enemies of Turks to new besties.
This quid pro quo between the “Allies” and Greece was disastrous. The combined intervention in Ukraine was unsuccessful and when the Greeks retreated, dozens of Greeks in Crimea were slaughtered. The figure could be higher.
Russians did not forget. Just two years later, as the Allies began to abandon the Greeks in Asia Minor, the Bolsheviks rescued the Turks. Konstantinos Nider was also one of the generals involved in the Asia Minor campaign, a red rag to the Bolshevik bulls.
The legacy of abandonment: Lessons from betrayal
By August 1922, after a disastrous campaign, the defeated Greeks retreated. Instead of holding in front of the Greek city of Smyrna, they disgracefully abandoned the city on the cowardly orders of the Greek government. The massacres and ethnic cleansing of Greeks, as well as Armenians, Assyrians, Levantines and Jews in this era should never ever be forgotten. Only an American called Asa K Jennings helped protect Smyrna by September 1922.
The Allies cruelly abandoned the Greeks, helping to end 6000 years of Greek history in Asia Minor by the 1923 population exchange. It is important to remember that the Bolsheviks gave the Turkish Nationalists the tools to defeat Greeks. A payback for the Greeks who were forced to fight a silly war in Crimea/Ukraine, when our troops should have been in Asia Minor.
Whatever quid pro quo was arranged by the West and Greece, it led to the Asia Minor Catastrophe. My grandfather and many family members lost everything along with millions of other. All because we believed in the Allies, we supported them time and again but when the time came, we were abandoned to an enemy that was supported by vengeful vodka drinking Bolsheviks. The world did not learn from these tragedies as we now witness unspeakable tragedies in the Middle East, Africa, Asia. We need a stronger UN and people and leaders who never again want to see genocide, anywhere. Lastly, we need to take Western motives and hot air with a pinch of salt.
Billy Cotsis is the author of 1453: Constantinople and the Immortal Rulers – Smyrna mini documentary:
