O. Van Bruce wrote:I can simpathize with the greek guy in some matters (Hey, I'm from Spain, how much do you think I'd want Angela Merkel beheaded for blocking any kind of growth policies toward my country, Italy, Greece, Ireland and Portugal). Not any of the Nazi stuff though.
But the way he does it and the language he uses is inapropiate. Also, we have enough with Ed Oscuro right now, no more walls of text please.
Also, keep your anti-turkish hate to a minimum.
ST Dragon wrote:And since its a historic proven fact that none of the Europeans would ever help us in a future conflict (russians, germans, french, italians, british all supported the turks in the Anatolian campaign 1919 - 1922 and still do), we need capable armed forces to defend our selves.
EEEEH????
Wait... oh god... wait... are you serious about this? you were basically given Charte Blanche by Britain and France about ocuppying the whole Egean coast and Istambul/Constantinople. If not by the disaster you made on Sakarya, you would have had your "Megalis Idea" without almost any opposition...
Not so. I expressed no hate, but the truth and mere historic facts with indisputable proofs.
There was more than enough turkish opposition throughout the whole campaign and the Battle of Sakarya was basically a Pyrrhic victory for the turks and the fiercest until that point. Any side could have won, but seeing as to how much support had been provided to the turks until that point by our European "buddies" & Russians, the result is not surprising.
But I'm sorry, I don't quite comprehend the correlation of "given" in this matter.
Those lands were Greek for more than 4000 years and the Hellenic army was rightfully forced to invade Asia Minor and fought bravely & valiantly to save the local Greek population that was being slaughtered by ataturk's young turk henchmen (1914–1923) and to reclaim the occupied lands of our forefathers.
http://www.stbasiltroy.org/pontos/pontoshistory.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontic_Greeks
And they would have succeed as they were marching victoriously head-on to Ankara until that point (1921), had the treacherous French, Italians & communist Russians not double-crossed us and flipped sides in favor for the turks in 1921 (By supplying them with tones of weapons, intelligence & naval bases), which shifted the balance of the war in favor to the turks.
Also, after Britain's defeat in Galipoli (1916), they continued to intervene in the area by manipulating Greece and offering lies and fake promises of support. All that culminated to Greece's final defeat and the tragic events of the destruction of Smyrna in 1922 by ataturk's mobs and the annihilation of Hellenism from Asia Minor.
Even the biased anti-Hellenic Wikipedia makes all this clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turk ... %931922%29
One of the reasons proposed by the Greek government for launching the Asia Minor expedition was that there was a sizeable Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian population inhabiting Anatolia that needed protection. Greeks have lived in Asia Minor since antiquity and before the outbreak of the First World War, up to 2.5 million Greeks lived in the Ottoman Empire.
Nevertheless, the fear for the safety of the Greek population was a well-founded one; In 1915, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire enacted genocidal policies against the Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Assyrians. While the Armenian Genocide is the best known of these events, there were also atrocities towards Greeks in Pontus and western Anatolia.
The Greek advance was halted for the first time at the First Battle of İnönü on January 11, 1921
The British favoured a Greek territorial expansion but refused to offer any military assistance in order to avoid provoking the French. The Turkish forces received significant assistance from the newly formed Soviet Union.
Shift of support towards Turkish Revolutionaries.
By this time all other fronts had been settled in favour of the Turks, freeing more resources to focus on the main threat of the Greek Army. The French and the Italians concluded private agreements with the Turkish revolutionaries in recognition of their mounting strength. Turkish revolutionaries bought equipment from Italy and France, who threw in their lot with the Turkish revolutionaries against Greece which was seen as a British client. The Italians used their base in Antalya to assist, especially from the point of view of intelligence, to the Turkish revolutionaries against the Greeks.
There emerged a friendly relationship between the bolshevik RSFSR and the Turkish Revolutionaries, which was solidified under Treaty of Moscow in March 1921. The RSFSR supported Kemal with money and ammunition: in 1920 alone, the Lenin government supplied the kemalists with 6.000 rifles, over 5 million rifle cartridges, 17.600 projectiles as well as 200.6 kg of gold bullion; in the subsequent 2 years the amount of aid increased.
Having failed to reach a military solution, Greece appealed to the Allies for help, but early in 1922 Britain, France and Italy decided that the Treaty of Sèvres could not be enforced and had to be revised. In accordance with this decision, under successive treaties, the Italian and French troops evacuated their positions, leaving the Greeks exposed.
One of the major factors contributing to the defeat of the Greeks was the withdrawal of Allied support beginning in the autumn of 1920.
Recognising the rising power of the Turkish Republic, France and Italy preferred to settle their differences with separate agreements, abandoning their designs on Anatolia. Even Lloyd George, who always had voiced support for the Greeks, following Venizelos's lobbying, could do little more than give promises, bound by the military and the Foreign Office 'real politik'. That left Greece to fight practically alone after 1921. The consequences were dire. Greece not only could not expect military help, but also all credit stopped immediately. In addition, the Allies did not allow the Greek Navy to effect a blockade, which could have restricted Turkish imports of food and material.
Having adequate supplies was a constant problem for the Greek Army. Although it was not lacking in men, courage or enthusiasm, it was soon lacking in nearly everything else. Due to her poor economy and lack of manpower, Greece could not sustain long-term mobilisation. Very soon, the Greek Army exceeded the limits of its logistical structure and had no way of retaining such a large territory under constant attack by regular and irregular Turkish troops fighting in and for their homeland. The idea that such large force could sustain offensive by mainly "living off the land" proved wrong.
As the supply situation worsened for the Greeks, things improved for the Turks. Initially, they enjoyed only Soviet support from abroad, in return for giving Batum to the Soviet Union.
On August 4, Turkey's representative in Moscow, Riza Nur, sent a telegram saying that soon 60 Krupp artillery pieces, 30,000 shells, 700,000 grenades, 10,000 mines, 60,000 Romanian swords, 1.5 million captured Ottoman rifles from World War I, one million Russian rifles, one million Mannlicher rifles, as well as some older British Martini-Henry rifles and 25,000 bayonets would be delivered to the Kemalist forces.
The Soviets also provided monetary aid to the Turkish national movement, not to the extent that they promised, but almost in sufficient amount to make up the large deficiencies in the promised supply of arms. The Turks also received intelligence aid from Italy in the second phase of the war. The Italians were embittered from their loss of the Smyrna mandate to the Greeks and they used their base in Antalya to arm and train Turkish troops to assist the Kemalists against the Greeks.
A British military attaché, who inspected the Greek army in June 1921, was quoted as saying, "more efficient fighting machine than I have ever seen it." Later he wrote: "The Greek Army of Asia Minor, which now stood ready and eager to advance, was the most formidable force the nation had ever put into field. Its morale was high. Judged by Balkan standards, its staff was capable, its discipline and organization good."
On a side note. During the siege of Constantinople in 1453, out the 7000 soldiers that defended the city, (against a horde of ~150000+ turks), ~5000 were Greek/Romaioi, and the rest were Venetians, Genovese, French, Aragonese & Catalonians from Barcelona. So I would pay a bit more respect to your ancestors that died defending the city.
Unless of course you have connections & ties to 1st or 2nd generation turk immigrants living in Barcelona, which would explain the way you portray your side of the story...
. Before you ask, In Spain are 4 main languages: Catalan (probably 13 million talkers) Gallician (3 million talkers) and Basque (2 million talkers) and the main body, the Castillian.
