The Constantinopolitan Greek Factor during the Greco-Turkish Confrontation of 1919–1922

Abstract

The traditional Greco-Turkish antagonism culminated in the bitter military confrontation which took place in Anatolia immediately after the First World War. While the Greeks fought for the establishment of a foothold in western Anatolia and Thrace, the nationalist Turks resisted vigorously the invasion of what they considered to be their indisputable fatherland. The crux of the problem lay in the Greek determination to bring the entire Hellenic race under a single Greek state. This Hellenic Megali Idea (Great Idea) envisaged a future Greater Greece which was to include Epirus, Macedonia, Thrace, western Anatolia and the Aegean islands. The ultimate fulfilment of the Megali Idea would be achieved with the incorporation of Constantinople (istanbul), the most important administrative, religious, commercial, and cultural centre in the Near East, into the future Greek state. According to Greek nationalists, such a state was to materialise with the final dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, a process which they regarded as inevitable. Deeply rooted in Greek national and religious consciousness, the Megali Idea had for one hundred years inspired official Greek foreign policy.