Greece’s Withdrawal From Eastern Thrace And Its Effect on The Population Exchange Negotiations (1922-1923)

Abstract

The Turkish War of Independence, which continued between 1919 and 1922, ended in 1922 in favour of the Turks, while the conflicts between the Turkish Grand National Assembly Government and Greek forces in Western Anatolia ended and Greece withdrew from the areas it had occupied. The occupation of Greece in Thrace, which was supported materially and morally by the Entente Powers in general throughout the war, but later especially by Britain, continued after the Great Offensive.

With the end of the war, the Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shift edits focus to the British-occupied Straits and Greek-occupied Thrace, and set Thrace as the pivot point of the armistice negotiations. In this context, Eastern Thrace was the subject that was mainly discussed in the Mudanya negotiations. The transfer of Eastern Thrace to the Government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly with the Mudanya Armistice Treaty created another serious trauma on the Greek side and the Greeksliving in this region started to migrate rapidly towards Western Thrace and Greece. These migrations, which continued during the Lausanne Conference, were brought to the agenda of the conference, and in other words, the Greek population accumulated in Western Thrace constituted a basis for Western Thrace to remain in Greece.

In this study, the Greek migrations from Eastern Thrace, which started in 1922 and continued in 1923, will be evaluated within the scope of Greek, Turkish and English sources and the effects of the migrations on the Exchange agreement and the Lausanne Conference will be analysed.