Greece 1922-2022 | in.gr
The series of historical events that make up the so-called “Asia Minor Catastrophe”, the tragic climax of which is now one hundred years old, offer an opportunity to remember and above all to reflect. What went wrong then, could it have been avoided and were the structural malfunctions subsequently fixed? Where is today’s Greece in terms of institutions and passions, national aspirations and accomplishments, international positions and political effectiveness?
The “Asia Minor Catastrophe” can be considered to be published in the period 1919-1922 and in distinct, as well as overlapping, fields. It is initially a great diplomatic success, which led to a (temporary) “recapture” of Smyrna: first (1919) through the agreement of the heads of the “great powers” of the time (Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau) for the installation of a Greek “power” to “ensure peace” and more formally through the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which recognized Greece’s right to administer Smyrna and the hinterland for five years and then hold a referendum on definitive union with Greece. It is the phase of national ascension and, according to Eleftherios Venizelos, a “not once in a thousand years” opportunity presented.
The next two phases, and series of events, are not glorious. In the actual war in Asia Minor, although it started with successes and advances of the Greek army, Greece did not, through a combination of technical difficulties (duration, distance, huge front, financial burden), fatigue (of the soldiers and the social body), incorrect (continuation of the campaign by the government that had been elected to stop it, announced collapse of the May 1922 front, disorderly withdrawal of the army with complete abandonment of the local populations) and successful diplomatic and military moves of Kemal. Of course, the climax of the defeat, and of the whole drama, was the fire, the massacre and the mass departure of the Greek population from Smyrna, in September 1922, in conditions that had nothing to do with “overcrowding” and a close relationship with hell ( as I know, along with other Greeks, firsthand: from my grandmother).
On the domestic front, Greece was divided and led to institutional collapse: constant changes of government, return of King Constantine, coup d’état after the Catastrophe, Trial and execution of the 6. A turning point within these developments, the elections of 1920, with the sweeping defeat of the triumph of Sevres, the rise to power of pro-royal and supposedly peace-loving parties, the loss of support from foreign powers.
Events that left behind close to a million dead and a million and a half refugees cannot be compared with any other national defeat or loss: the Asia Minor Catastrophe, and its memory, should have stamped modern Greece with the seal of humiliation and infamy . Is this happening? As I am allowed, observing today’s much less dark but highly disturbing landscape, to doubt. The infighting, the excessive politicization of national or collective goals and choices, the accusations of “betrayals”, the endless and senseless conflict between “West” and “East”, the attempt to use but also the constant rejection of the international factor and of international law. 1922 is not just a difficult anniversary, it is a moment of necessary and rather unachievable recovery.
Kostas Botopoulos is a constitutional expert