The History of Greek-Turkish Relations
Relations between Greece and Turkey have been rocky for centuries. The battle between Greek ambitions for independence and Ottoman expansionism caused a rocky path of wars and brutal occupations that have shaped both modern international relations and have been the base of modern Europe. Read on for a somewhat brief history of the relationship between these two Eastern European countries from the mid-15th century to now.
Disclaimer: Regardless of the fact that I come from a Greek family I have done my best to make this article as non-biased as possible for the sake of sharing information. However, if bias does seep through it will partly be due to my Greek pride but also because I have decided to research this period from a Greek point of view. While I am of course focussed on the relationship between the two countries, I've been researching this focus over a period of 500 years which makes it incredibly broad. In order to not go overboard with historical content I am therefore telling the story as one revolving around Greece.
For any non-geographers like myself, maps like this one will reappear throughout the article:
1. The Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was what was left of the Roman Empire by Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, starting from around 330 AD. Its capital was Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the purple region towards the top of the map. Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire from the start when the Romans came to Greece and Constantinople was founded and remained part of this Empire all the way up until the fall of Constantinople when the Ottomans invaded in 1453, after which many Byzantine territories became part of the Ottoman Empire. There was conflict between these two empires for a very long time -- from 1265 to 1479 -- but in the interest of maintaining focus on Greek-Turkish relations I won't get into those now.
2. Ottoman Empire
From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and subsequently of Athens in 1458 Greece was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Greece managed to keep the Ottomans out of the Peloponnese and several islands until 1460 but ultimately by the early 1500s all of mainland Greece and most Aegean islands were under Ottoman occupation. Cyprus fell in 1571 (I'll get back to Cyprus later on) and Crete held off under the Venetians until 1669.
The Greek mountains were mostly left alone by the Ottomans so they became a place of refuge for Greeks who wanted to flee the occupation and even participate in a resistance; these people were the klephts. They were one of two waves of migration that took place when the Ottomans took Greece. The other was Greek intellectuals moving to other places in Western Europe, especially Italian university cities (though this had begun with the fall of Constantinople). This also had an influence on the Renaissance and the modern Greek diaspora.
Greece was a country full of many ethnicities. Not only were there Greeks and Turks living there, but there were also Jews, Italians, Albanians, and many more. However, the Ottomans are often known for not being entirely tolerant of multiculturalism so while the Greeks were not treated with great liberty they still had a far more liberal experience under the Turks than the minority ethnicities who also lived in Greece.
While Greece had lost its political independence, business was still very much run by the people. Once the Ottomans had firmly settled themselves as occupants of the country the Mediterranean became a safe and very lively site for trade for a period of around 100 years. Greek shipowners became quite wealthy during this time.
However, on 7 October 1571 the Ottomans, while sailing through the Ionian Sea, came across a fleet of boats of the Holy League (whose main powers were the Venetian and Spanish Empires). This was in the midst of the Fourth Ottoman-Venetian War* and the Ottoman-Hapsburg War which meant that great conflict ensued. This was the greatest naval conflict in European history since ancient times with more than 400 ships involved which ended in the humiliating defeat of the Ottomans. After this the Greek trade ships became victims of vicious attacks by Catholic (mainly Spanish and Maltese) pirates.
*During the seven Ottoman-Venetian Wars the Greeks sided with the Venetians against the Ottomans almost every time.
The structure of government and society
The Sultan was the head of Ottoman government. While he was very powerful, he was restricted from becoming a dictator or absolute power by the Qur'an which therefore became a sort of constitution. Greek Ottoman territory was cut up into six sanjaks each ruled by a sanjakbey who was accountable to the Sultan whose base was in Constantinople. Local administrations were set up to collect taxes and maintain a military establishment which was a feudal system. The Sultan's cavalryman were each allotted land whose size depended on his rank. All non-Muslims weren't allowed to ride a horse which meant travel became very difficult for the Greek Orthodox, Jews and all other religions. Conquered land was handed out to cavalrymen of the Ottoman army who held it as feudal fees under the authority of the Sultan who reclaimed this land when the soldiers died. They had comfortable lives living off the proceeds of their estates which were tended mostly by peasants.
As an aside, some keen historians reading this may see there were some strong similarities between Ottoman Greek society and pre-Revolution French society!
The landowning elites of Greece during the Byzantine Empire suffered a great loss in the hand-over to the Ottomans. They lost everything they had and were replaced by a new class of people known as the prokritoi (πρόκριτοι). They were the tax collectors and bureaucrats who gained wealth quickly through corruption and nepotism.
The economy
During the Ottoman occupation Greece's economy suffered hugely. The Christian population was heavily taxed. Life became ruralised and many peasants had to focus on subsistence farming whereas beforehand rural areas were being developed.
By the 17th century the Ottomans started to use military rule in parts of Greece which caused greater resistance to the occupation as well as having socioeconomic repercussions. Economic dislocation increased, the population decreased, and at an increasing rate peasants fled to the mountains to try to scape poverty.
Religion
The Sultan regarded the Archbishop of Constantinople as the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church and the Archbishop was accountable to the Sultan for making sure the Orthodox population behaved well. He was paid in return in power over several Greek and non-Greek Orthodox communities. He was also in charge of schools, courts and the Church throughout the country. The population's commitment to the Greek Orthodox Church became a cornerstone of Greek nationalism.
It wasn't compulsory for citizens to become Muslim but many at least pretended to so that they wouldn't struggle so much under the harsh regime of the Ottomans. The largest concentrations of Greek Muslims were in Macedonia and Crete.
Greek Muslims were considered by Orthodox Greeks to have "turned Turkish" so they faced great ostracisation from the nationalists who saw them as traitors.
In order to avoid forced islamisation a number of Greeks underwent torture and execution during the Turkocracy. These became known as New Martyrs. Greek Muslims who secretly practiced Orthodox Christianity in order to avoid heavy taxation were known as Crypto-Christians. Crypto-Christians risked being killed if the Ottomans found out they were secretly practicing a non-Islamic religion after converting to Islam.
The Sultan Selim I had tried to eradicate Christianity completely in the Ottoman Empire. He ordered the confiscation of all churches and Christians were heavily persecuted during his reign.
Greeks paid a heavy land tax and trade tax as well as an Islamic poll tax which all non-Muslims had to pay in place of the Zakat which Muslims paid as one of the five pillars of Islam. If a Greek failed to pay the poll tax he would face enslavement or death so they had to carry a receipt proving they had paid the tax at all times or else they would be imprisoned.
The Tribute of Children
It was not compulsory for Greeks to enrol in the military; however, young boys who were taken to be converted to Islam were made to serve in the Ottoman Army. Meanwhile, girls were taken to serve as chambermaids in harems (the separate part of a Muslim household reserved for wives or concubines). These acts were called the Tribute of Children (in Greek, "παιδομάζωμα" - child-gathering). For every five boys born one had to be raised Muslim and enrolled in elite units of the Ottoman army. This received great resistance. Some stories tell of mothers crippling their sons to avoid them being abducted by army officials.
The emergence of Greek nationalism
During the 18th century the land which the Sultan had given to his cavalrymen became hereditary estates which meant that Greek peasants who had been free up until now were reduced to serfdom. This increased poverty and decreased Greek population in rural areas.
However, educated and privileged Greeks were very well-off in the 17th and 18th centuries. From the 17th century they were filling high-ranking positions in running the Ottoman state. The wealthiest Greeks travelled around Western Europe, learning on their travels about liberalism and nationalism. It was thanks to them that the Greek nationalist movement truly gained momentum. Greeks were greatly influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries which caused a new Age of Greek Enlightenment in towns and cities in particular. The effects of the Enlightenment included an Atticised form of the Greek language by purist linguists who wanted to properly unite Greece and an advancement in Greek philosophy, culture and science as well as contemporary political thought.
Catherine the Great, the Orthodox Christian ruler of the Russian Empire, had tried to take over Ottoman territory, including Constantinople, by inciting Catholic rebellions in Ottoman Greece. However, out of fear, the Greeks (surprisingly to Catherine the Great) did not rise up against the Ottomans during the Russian-Ottoman War which broke out in 1768.
The war lasted until 1774 when a treaty was made (the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca) which allowed Russia the right to defend the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan. As a result of this, Russia began to interfere much more in the domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Combined with the events of the French Revolution in 1789, this gave a big push to the development of the Greek nationalist movement which was one of the most progressive nationalist movements of its time. This movement, along with the Age of Enlightenment, made Greece more aware of the outside world and what was going on around them, thus bringing an end to their centuries of isolation.
Greece had very minimal involvement in the Napoleonic Wars except for when the French seized the Ionian Islands. The islands were under French control but had been granted full autonomy which was the first time the Greeks could rule themselves since 1461. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 the Greeks had re-emerged as members of a European community. British and French writers and artists began to visit Greece which caused a wave of philhellenism which fuelled support for Greek nationalism and, ultimately, Greek independence.
Greek independence
In 1814 a secret Greek independence group were set up in Odessa, a city in Ukraine, with the support of wealthy exiled Greeks in Britain and America. They also had at least moral support across Europe and secret support from Russia. The leader of the revolt was called Kapodistrias.
The group planned simultaneous revolts across Greece, including in Macedonia, Crete and Cyprus. At first, the Greeks had the element of surprise working in their favour, alongside the inefficiency of Ottoman forces. They were able to successfully capture the Peloponnese amongst other places. During the revolts, some of the first Greek actions were taken against Ottoman settlements, with 40% of Turkish and Albanian Muslims living in these areas being killed immediately and the rest either fleeing or being deported.
A bloody Ottoman retaliation ensued, including the massacre of the entire Greek population of Chios, a Greek island near Turkey, and several other towns. While it appeared that the Ottomans now had the upper hand, these massacres were beneficial to the Greek cause as they gained sympathy from the British and the French (although Britain and France privately suspected these uprisings were actually a Russian plot to take over Greece and potentially other Ottoman territories as well). In the areas they controlled the Greeks struggled to form stable governments and ended up fighting other Greeks just to try to maintain control.
Fighting between the Greeks and Ottomans continued like this for 11 years until 1825 when the Sultan sent a huge fleet and army to suppress the revolution. This caused great destruction and the deaths of thousands which aroused massive support from the Great Powers -- Britain, France and Russia** -- who then saw fit to intervene in October 1827. This was the Battle of Navarino. Navarino was the last major battle in history to be fought entirely on sail ships, though most were anchored during the battle. In short, the result of this battle was a decisive Ottoman defeat due to the Great Powers' superiority in firepower.
**[Britain and France helped Greece because, despite the apprehension of the governments, public opinion was greatly pressuring the governments to do so. Most of the public of Britain and France saw Greece as a suppressed, innocent Christian state fighting for liberty from a corrupt, oppressive and tyrannical Islamic occupation. Also, the popular British romantic poet Lord Byron had died fighting for Greek independence which encouraged greater British sympathy for the cause.]
**[Russia supported the Greeks as they saw a Greek breakaway state, which would be a natural ally of Russia after helping Greece to achieve independence, would be key to spread Russian influence in South-East Europe.]
The clear victory for the Great Powers made the Battle of Navarino a cornerstone moment of the Greek War of Independence.
A year later, in October 1828, the French arrived at the Peloponnese to try to end the oppressive Ottoman regime there by protecting the Greeks while they formed a new government for themselves. From there, the Greeks went on to recapture as much land as they could before Western powers imposed a ceasefire.
In March 1829 a peace conference was held in London. Here it was proposed that Greece would become an independent state whose northern border would be made by drawing a line from Arta to Volos and the Greeks would also have Evia and the Cyclades Islands. The rest of the Greek-speaking world, including Cyprus, Crete, Macedonia, Thrace and all the rest remained under Ottoman rule.
The Greeks were disappointed with this, which is understandable given how Greece was far bigger before the Ottoman occupation. However, indebted to Britain, Russia and France for their aid in achieving Greek independence, the Greeks were in no position to refuse. By 11 May 1832, Greece was finally recognised as an independent sovereign state.
In order to prevent wild, out-of-control republicanism as had been seen in France after the abolition of the monarchy, the Great Powers insisted that Greece have a monarchy. Prince Otto of Bavaria became the first king of Greece.
3. An Independent Greece
At this point, over a million Greeks lived in what is now Turkey. During the rest of the 19th century Greek politicians were determined to enlarge Greece to better resemble how it had been during the Byzantine Empire before falling to the Ottomans, ideally with Constantinople as the capital -- this was called the Great Idea. Naturally, the Ottomans hated this idea so tensions between them and the Greeks remained.
The Crimean War broke out in October 1853. In short, the war was a consequence of conflict primarily between Russia and the Ottomans with regards to the rights of the Orthodox under the rule of the Sultan, which led to the British, French and Turkish joining forces to prevent the Russian Army from conquering the Ottoman Empire. During the War the British and French forces prevented Greece from attacking the Ottomans by occupying Piraeus, but Greece was keen to get involved in many wars at this time as they hoped that by doing so they would be able to expand Greece's borders. For this reason Greece also entered the 1877 Russian-Turkish War but was never able to gain territory in this way.
Because of Greece's territorial aspirations, and because there had been anti-Turkish revolts in Thessaly, Macedonia, Crete and Epirus in the latter half of the 19th century, the 1881 Congress of Berlin expanded Greek borders to include most of Thessaly and part of Epirus.
In 1897, a revolt in Crete led to the first Greco-Turkish War, also known as the Black '97. The Greeks were unprepared to fight the much larger Ottoman troops along the northern border so the war ended in humiliating defeat after 30 days. Greece lost some minor territory; however, the next year the Great Powers intervened and established an autonomous Cretan State under Ottoman control.
Tensions rose as both Greeks and Ottomans wanted ownership (for want of a better word) of Crete. This was one of the primary causes of the First Balkan War in 1912-1913. The War comprised of the Balkan League (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro) fighting the Ottoman Empire. The Balkan League together had combined powers which outnumbered the Ottomans and the League was also better prepared this time around which led to rapid Balkan victory. As a result, almost all of the remaining European territories of the Ottoman Empire were captured and partitioned which led to the creation of an independent Albania and expansion of the Greek border to include the coast of Macedonia, Crete and the rest of Thessaly and Epirus.
Bulgaria, however, was displeased with how Macedonia had been split up which prompted the Second Balkan War one month later. This time, it was Bulgaria against Serbia, Romania, Greece, Montenegro and the Ottoman Empire, who saw this as an opportunity to regain some lost territory. Bulgaria lost the Second Balkan War and had to give portions of her gains from the First Balkan War to Romania, Serbia and Greece and lost a main city to the Ottomans.
In 1913 the Ottomans began a campaign of persecution of their Christian population, including the Greeks, which lasted until 1922. This was the Pontic genocide. It involved massacres, forced deportations, arbitrary executions, death marches and the destruction of (Greek) cultural and religious monuments. The Pontic genocide caused up to 750,000 deaths, several hundred thousands of which were Ottoman Greeks. Refugees and survivors of the genocide fled to Greece, amounting to around 25% of the population of Greece beforehand.
In 1917 the Greeks entered the First World War hoping to seize Constantinople and Smyrna from the Ottomans after encouragement from Britain and France and the potential to gain Cyprus as well. They were also devastated by the brutal ongoing genocide which encouraged them to join the war against Turkey. The Greeks and the Turks did not fight each other directly much but once the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918 Greece quickly claimed all former Ottoman territories she had been promised by the Allies before entering the War. In 1920 the Treaty of Sèvres gave Greece eastern Thrace and an area slightly smaller than Wales around Smyrna; however, despite being signed by the Ottomans, this treaty never came into practice as it hadn't been ratified by Parliament.
The Greeks occupied Smyrna from 15 May 1919; Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who later became a leading figure of opposition to the Treaty of Sèvres, landed in the north of Turkey on the 19th which many label to be the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence. On the Western Front of the Turkish War of Independence was the Greco-Turkish War, also known as the Asia Minor Campaign, or, to the Greeks, the Asia Minor Catastrophe***. The armed conflict of the Greco-Turkish War began when Greece landed in Western Turkey, where Izmir is now, in May 1919 and started to take control around that area.
In the north, Kemal was uniting the voices of the people who all wanted independence from the countries that occupied Turkey, including Britain, France and Italy. Kemal set up a separate government in Ankara from which he fought for the Treaty of Sèvres to be revoked. Meanwhile, the Greeks pushed on into the Izmir area, which was land they were promised in the Treaty, but they were eventually forced into retreat after the Battle of Sakarya in 1921 due to a counter-attack by the Turkish nationalist movement. In August 1922 another Turkish counter-attack destroyed the Greek front. The war ended with the Turkish recapture of Smyrna and the Great Fire of Smyrna that September.
The fire completely destroyed the port city of Smyrna. It is estimated that up to 100,000 Greeks and Armenians died in the fire while a further up-to-400,000 crammed themselves onto the waterfront to try to escape it where they were stuck, some for up to two weeks. Even before the fire the Greeks in the area, soldiers or residents, had been massacred, women had been raped and up to 100,000 Greeks and Armenians were deported to elsewhere in the area where they were treated poorly until their deaths. This was all part of the Turkish plight for independence as well as retaliation for the damage the Greeks had done in the Smyrna area for several years during the Greco-Turkish War. A number of eyewitness reports claim Turkish soldiers had started the fire by burning Greek homes, while others claim the Greeks and Armenians were behind it.
Once the Turks had defeated the French, Greeks and Armenians, new treaties were signed to expel foreign troops from the country -- the Armistice of Mudanya and the Treaty of Lausanne. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey decided to establish the Republic of Turkey which was declared on 23 October 1923. With this, in late 1922 the Ottoman sultanate had also been abolished, which was consolidated in the Treaty of Lausanne. The Ottoman days were now truly over.
Also in the Treaty of Lausanne was the proposal of the Greek-Turkish population exchange. About 1.5 million Greeks had to leave Turkey and about 0.5 million Turks had to leave Greece. This was strictly a religious population exchange so Christian Greeks in Turkey and Muslim Turks in Greece were returning to their countries of origin. This applied throughout the two countries, except in Constantinople and a number of Turkish islands where the Greek minority was allowed to stay and in Western Thrace where the Muslim minority could stay.
***The Greeks refer to the Greco-Turkish war as the Asia Minor Catastrophe because defeat in the Izmir region (then called Anatolia) brought an end to 3,000 years of Greeks living there.
After tensions had died down the leaders of Greece and Turkey were determined to normalise relations between the two countries so after years of negotiating they worked out a treaty in 1930 in which Greece renounced all her claims of Turkish territory.
In 1934 the Balkan Pact settled any outstanding issues between Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia and Romania, though Bulgaria refused to be a part of this.
The Turks were the first country to send humanitarian aid to Greece in 1941 as she starved during the Axis occupation (read more).
The two countries also fought together in the Korean War and made a pact with other Balkan countries to protect themselves from the Soviets. Foreign policy became a factor of reconciliation between them.
By the 1950s things had gone pear-shaped again as Cyprus became a cause of dispute. At this time, Cyprus was a colony of the British Empire and had been under British rule since 1914. 82% of the island was populated by Greek-Cypriots, some of whom wanted unity with Greece, which caused riots as early as 1931. However, Greece was financially and diplomatically dependent on Britain in the 1950s so she was forced to deny support for unity with Cyprus.
Cyprus only became an issue in the '50s when the Greek-Cypriots claimed union with Greece and a Greek-Cypriot nationalist guerrilla group (EOKA) set about on a paramilitary movement against the Brits. Turkish resentment towards the discrimination of Turkish-Cypriots was fuelled by the assumption that Cyprus could one day cede to Greece. As a result, a Greek community in Istanbul was subject to riots by the Greek name of Σεπτεμβριανά (Septemvriana - September events) in 1955. These involved mob attacks primarily against Greek residents of Istanbul as well as destruction of Orthodox churches and cemeteries. Up to 30 people were killed in these two days. The riots were also partly caused by the false news the locals had received that the Greeks had bombed the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki.
In response, Greece withdrew all diplomatic cooperation with Turkey so the Balkan Pact collapsed.
In 1960 Britain had a plan to solve the Cyprus crisis: Cyrus was granted independence and a constitution for the island was being written, with considerable contribution by Greek Prime Minister Konstantine Karamanlis, which improved relations between the two countries. Greek and Turkish troops were sent to protect their respective communities there. From 1963-1964 there was unrest and conflict between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots which led to massacres of people from both groups.
Turkey threatened to go to war if Greece tried to unite with Cyprus.
In August 1964, Turkish aircraft bombed Greek troops which surrounded a village in Turkey. At this point it seemed as though war was inevitable. Throughout 1964, 50,000 Greeks were deported from Turkey.
The Cyprus crisis weakened the Greek government which is why, in April 1967, a military coup took place, followed by a military regime which experienced frequent clashes with Turkey. Turkey suspected the Greeks may have been planning a coup in Cyprus to achieve unification.
On 15 July 1974, a group of Greek nationalists formed a group similar to EOKA, thus called EOKA B, staged a coup against the President of Cyprus and replaced him with a former member of the EOKA group supported by the Greek military. Five days later, Turkey invaded Cyprus with no resistance from the British stationed there until they occupied 37% of the north of Cyprus, from which they expelled all Greeks. War seemed imminent now again but was avoided when the coup of Cyprus failed and the Greek military in Athens fell from power. However, this series of events had caused irrevocable damage to relations between Greece and Turkey and permanently changed the geopolitical landscape of Cyprus for decades to come.
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Bibliography
World and Its Peoples by Marshall Cavendish
Salonica, City of Ghosts by Mark Mazower
Confrontation at Lepanto by T.C.F. Hopkins
http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9187.pdf
Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World by James E Lindsay
https://www.britannica.com/event/Crimean-War
Greek-Turkish Relations Since 1955 by Tozun Bahcheli
The Greek War of Independence: The Struggle for Freedom from the Ottoman Oppression and the Birth of the Modern Greek Nation by David Brewer
Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey by John Murray