Greek-Turkish Relations between 1920 and 1923

This map is part of a series of 19 animated maps showing the history of Europe and nations, 1918-1942.

Having lost the war, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled by the Treaty of Sèvres signed in August 1920. This treaty stripped away its Arab territories, reduced its European possessions to the area around Constantinople, neutralized the Straits, and gave Greece the region around Smyrna in Anatolia.

As leader of the opposition movement in Turkey, General Mustafa Kemal called for a revision of the Treaty in 1921, which immediately led to a new war between Turkey and Greece. Greece was defeated in 1922 and a new treaty, cancelling the Treaty of Sèvres, was drawn up and signed in Lausanne in 1923.

Turkey was given back the whole of Anatolia and regained its territory in Eastern Thrace. At the end of the war, many people fled in search of safety: almost all Greeks living in Turkey returned to their homeland, while Greece was emptied of its Turkish inhabitants.

In October 1923, Turkey was proclaimed a republic and Mustafa Kemal established the foundations for a modern state based on the Western model.