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Preface

I remember that our late professor at the School of Evelpidon, Dim. Tsakonas, considered the Asia Minor disaster of 1922 to be a greater national calamity than even the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Today, we can well understand how correct this teaching of our professor was, since the direct terrible losses in human resources that we suffered as a Nation within three years include the losses of the Army (91.225 Officers and Privates, of whom 24.250 were killed and deceased, 18.095 disappeared and 48.880 injured) and the 300.000 souls of Ionian Hellenism who were massacred or lost, and the indirect losses include the one and a half million refugees who fled to Greece for care and protection.

In addition to these, the Asia Minor catastrophe also marked the end – let us hope not forever – of the Great Idea, which symbolized the liberation of all our compatriots and the Greek territories and their unification with the Motherland (Retenta, as Tsokonas said) as well as the complete reversal of the strong negotiating and military position in which Greece was after World War I and the Treaty of Sèvres, and we are experiencing the adverse effects of this reversal as a State and as a Nation to this day.

The Asia Minor disaster, cause and necessity of the Revolution - A brief history of the Asia Minor campaign.

On May 2, 1919, Greece, following orders from the Allies,, landed the 15st Division in Smyrna which was enthusiastically received by the Greek population. At the same time, Mustafa Kemal began to mobilize the Turkish populations for resistance against the foreign troops. Within XNUMX days of the landing, the entire area of ​​the Sandzaks of Smyrna and Aydin had been occupied.

In February 1920, the "Asia Minor Occupation Army" (XNUMXst SS and Smyrna Army Corps) was formed.

On June 6, 1920, Greek forces began an advance northward and by the end of October they occupied the Nicomedia-Prousa-Usak line.

In the elections of 1 November 1920, the Venizelos Government was voted out and the opposition parties came to power. On 6 December, King Constantine II returned to the throne, following a referendum.

The operations conducted in March 1921 to occupy the Eskişehir-Kütahya-Afyon Karahisar region did not bring any substantial results and the 4st and 30rd Army Corps that conducted them returned to their original positions ((Tumlu Bunar and Bursa, respectively). On the contrary, in the repetition of the effort, 1921 Divisions that rushed from Bursa occupied the transportation hub of Eskişehir, on June 6, 6, and XNUMX Divisions plus the Cavalry Division, that rushed from Uşak and Tumlu Bunar, the hub of Afyon Karahisar, on July XNUMX of the same year.

On August 1, 1921, the Army's advance towards Sangario-Ankara began, with the 9st, 8nd and 11rd SS and the Cavalry Brigade (a total of XNUMX Divisions). By August XNUMX, the river crossing had been completed and, despite the fatigue of the personnel, the attack on the main defensive location of Sangario began on August XNUMX... In the fierce battles that followed, the first and second defensive locations were captured, but not the third, so that access to Ankara could be opened.

On August 28, 1921, the Turks launched a fierce counterattack against the 30st and 31rd Army Corps, which was initially met with success, but due to strong enemy resistance, reduction of the forces of the Units, difficulties of the DM and expected rains, the Government approved the immediate withdrawal of the Army, which, on the night of August 600/XNUMX, passed Sangarios, continued its movement westward and finally settled in the approximately XNUMX km long general line. Nicomedia-Eskisehir-Seidi Gazi-Kuyuta-Afion Karahisor-Meander pot., where she remained for a (martyr) year, dealing only with defense organization.

Meanwhile, the previously excellent morale of the Army began to rapidly decline, and this was due to the heavy losses, the poor nutrition and accommodation of the Units, the impression created among the fighters of the futility of their sacrifices and their stay in Asia Minor, the national division, political passions and subversive communist propaganda.

In May of the following year (1922), General-in-Chief A. Papoulas submitted his resignation and was replaced by Lieutenant General G. Hatzanestis, who chose to command the Army in this critical phase of the struggle from Smyrna, 600 km. away from the front (!), in contrast to Kemal who was constantly on the front line.

On 13 August 1922, The reinforced Kemalist army launched a general attack against the front, focusing on its most vulnerable area, northwest of Afyon Karahisar, in the southern sector, within which the 2nd and 1st SS were operating. The battle that followed was fierce and bloody.

The next day (August 14), there was a breakthrough of the front and the Greek divisions began to retreat, but after their new defeat on August 16 and 17 they were divided, a large part of them was captured and the rest managed to reach Usak. The forces of the northern sector, (XNUMXrd SS - XI Division) in the Eski Sehir area did not receive much pressure and managed to maintain their positions.

On August 25, the Government of P. Protopapadakis (before he resigned), foreseeing that all hope of salvation had disappeared, decided to evacuate Asia Minor and the new Army Commander, replacing Hatzanestis, Lieutenant General III, Polymenakos, signed the relevant order. The next day he departed from Smyrna, the High Commissioner of Smyrna A. Stergiadis, a diplomat with a very controversial and peculiar character, who with his governance harmed Ionian Hellenism for which he had repeatedly proven that he harbored terrible antipathy (not to say, hatred) and scandalously favored the Turkish populations of Asia Minor.

Stergiadis – a protégé of Venizelos – “escaped” from Smyrna accompanied by the insults and curses of the crowd on an English (!!) ship, without any interest in warning – as was his sacred duty – the Greeks of Smyrna about the upcoming Turkish raids and without ensuring their timely and safe departure by sea from the coasts of Asia Minor, consequently, He also bears a serious share of responsibility for the destruction.But, no court was found to try him, he was covered, you see, by the "high hats", Greek and foreign.

After the order to abandon Asia Minor, the remnants of the divisions of the 28st and 3nd SS continued their movement westward and via Philadelphia and Erythraea, from 1922 Aug. to 19 Sept. 5, they boarded ships in the port of Cesme, on the Erythraean peninsula, and from there to the islands of Chios and Mytilene. In the northern sector, the forces of the XNUMXrd SS maintained their positions and only from XNUMX Aug. began to withdraw from Eski Sehir to Prusa. Fighting against superior forces, they maintained their cohesion until Panormos and Artaki (on the southern coasts of the Propontis) from where, by XNUMX Sept., they were transported by ships to the East. Thrace and joined the Greek forces there (Army of Evros). Only the XI Division was surrounded in the area of ​​Moudania and captured.

At 11.00 a.m. on 27 August 1922, the Turks enter Smyrna and begin the persecutions, mass massacres, rapes and humiliations of the Greeks who saw their property lost and their livelihoods robbed and burned. And it was not only the Greeks of Smyrna who suffered these sufferings, it was also the Hellenism of the entire blood-stained Ionian land.

The following August 28, Nurettin Pasha, Commander of the 1st Turkish Army, arrived in Smyrna and took over the administration of the city. Naturally, one of the first to be arrested was National Martyr Metropolitan Chrysostom of Smyrna, who, despite having every opportunity to leave by ship, remained, like another Constantine Palaiologos, with his trapped flock in Smyrna, knowing that death awaited him. The Hierarch was taken to the Commanding Office, where Nureddin was waiting for him, who, after accusing him of “betraying the Ottoman homeland, as a Turkish subject (!!)” handed him over to the frenzied mob to “try” him. Eyewitnesses describe that as soon as the mob took him, they tore his robes, cut off his hair and beard, took his encolpion and the Cross and dragged him to the Turkish neighborhood, where a Turk from Syria finished him off with a stab.

The climax of the destruction was the burning of the Armenian and Greek quarters of Smyrna from 27 to 31 August, for which Nureddin Pasha is also considered responsible.

On September 1, 1922, Smyrna no longer existed as the center of Asia Minor Hellenism, which, now naked and homeless, wandered around metropolitan Greece, uprooted from the Land of its fathers.

The outbreak, prevalence and first acts of the Military "Plastiras Revolution"

On September 11, 1922, Sunday, Colonel Nik. Plastiras, former Commander of the heroic 5/42nd Evzone Regiment and Colonel Styl. Gonatas, as leaders of the divisions of the southern sector of the front which, as we said, fled to Chios and Mytilene, respectively, declared a "Revolution of Salvation", for the regrouping of forces and the rescue of Hellenism from the chaos and mental collapse caused by the national disaster.

From the proclamations dropped by a military plane over Athens on the morning of September 13, signed by Comrade S. Gonatas, the Government of N. Triantafyllakos (which had replaced the "Government of Destruction" of P. Protopapadakis since August 28) and the Greek People were informed about the Revolution and its individual goals, which were:

 "-Resignation of the King for the sake of the Fatherland in favor of the Crown Prince"

-Immediate dissolution of the National Assembly

-Formation of a non-partisan Government, for the swift and impartial conduct of elections to elect a new National Assembly

-Handling the country's foreign policy from the Revolution itself until the elections

-Immediate reinforcement of the Thracian front

-Punishment of those responsible for the Asia Minor disaster."

On the same day (September 13) and before the proclamations were even issued, the rebel groups in Chios and Mytilene, aboard the battleship "Lemnos" and other ships (an entire armada), set off for Attica with the aim of imposing the Revolution. In fact, while the "Lemnos" was at sea, its commander, Lieutenant Commander Dim. Fokas, also joined the Revolution, and thus the triumvirate (Plaotiras-Gonatas-Fokas) formed the core of a Revolutionary Committee, with Gonatas as the formal leader but Plastiras as the substantive leader, which from now on would direct the Revolution.

In the evening, the armada arrives at Lavrio and from there, via the radio of "Lemnos", the Committee demands by telegraph the resignation of the Government and the King by 22:00 p.m. of the same day.

Indeed, the Government, after some spasmodic reactionary movements, resigns before the ultimatum expires.

Meanwhile, retired Major General Th. Pangalos, former Chief of Staff of the Army of Asia Minor and knowledgeable about the Revolution before it officially broke out, tried, in Athens, with actions that were not always legal (such as extensive arrests and imprisonments of anti-Venizelis, rapid and illegal demobilizations and reinstatements of cadres in the Army and the Gendarmerie, etc.), to prepare – obviously for his own benefit – the reception of the Revolutionaries and to be considered one of the pioneers of the Revolution, if not its leader.

The following day (September 14), King Constantine abdicated in favor of his successor, George II, and three days later he left Greece for Palermo, Sicily, where he died on December 3, 28, burdened – also – with the responsibility for the Asia Minor disaster. Now, the Revolutionary Committee, as the dominant party in the country, expresses its revolutionary will and exercises de facto state power.. Half an hour after the new king was sworn in, the armada of the Revolutionaries sailed from Lavrio, bound for Piraeus. Before setting sail, however, the Revolutionary Committee - now expanded by other Venizelian officers who had come to the "Lemnos" to support it - made a not-so-right decision. That is, to quickly arrest those (considered to be) responsible for the Asia Minor disaster, bring them on board, try them summarily and execute them...on deck (!!!).

Fortunately, however, he did not have time, because Pangalos, since the previous day (September 13), had "taken care" to arrest and incarcerate in the "Averof" prison as defendants six (6) out of the total eight (8) defendants of the "Trial of the Six" (as it remained in history under this name and was held from October 31 to November 15, 1922, in Athens). These were D. Gounaris, N. Stratos, P. Protopapadakis, N. Theotokis, M. Goudas and Xenophon Stratigos. The seventh defendant, G. Baltatzis, was arrested a few days later and the last was arrested on September 27. Lieutenant General G. Hatzanestis, former Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Asia Minor from May to August 23. 1922, "legal" arrest warrants were issued for all of them by the new police director, Colonel E. Kokkalas, whom Pangalos had appointed a day earlier (September 12).

At dawn on September 15, 1922, he found the revolutionary troops (approximately 12.000 men) having disembarked at Piraeus and moving towards Faliro where the Revolutionary Committee was waiting for them and Pangalos had also rushed there.

Then, all together, under the lively cheers of thousands of people, they moved through Syngrou Avenue to Syntagma, where the Committee settled in its offices on Ipitou Street. With this warm and large-scale reception, the Athenian People are considered to have legitimized the Revolution and authorized it to proceed with the work of sanitizing and rescuing the Country.

In the climate of optimism that had been created, the Revolution, on 17 Sept. 1922, proceeded to form the moderate and more widely accepted political "Zaimis Government", with General An. Charalambis as Minister of Military Affairs and Nik. Politis as Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, because Zaimis constantly postponed his response to accept the prime ministership (he finally responded after two months, and in the negative), the Revolution assigned it to the moderate liberal politician. Sot. Krokidas.

The Krokidas Government did many positive things in terms of healing the wounds of the disaster, bridging the gap between Venizelos and royalists, and returning to normal political life, but it resigned. on November 14, 1922, because he did not want to attend the execution of "the six", which took place the next day. Then the Revolution immediately assigned the prime ministership to Styl. Gonatas, and at the same time the Revolutionary Committee was dissolved, and the sole leader of the Revolution continued to be Nik. Plastiras. The Armistice of Moudania of September 28, 1922 created new data in the political life of the country and the action of the Revolution, which are not likely to develop.

Lieutenant General (retd.) – Lawyer Evangelos Grivakos

Πηγές

1 Newer Encyclopedic Dictionary "HELIOS", vol.11

2 History of the Hellenic Army, published by the General Staff/General Staff.

3 Military History Topics, published by the General Staff/General Staff.

4 Alexandrou Kotzias. The Terrible Documents, The Trial of the Six.

5 Greek History, volume 5, insert in the journal "ET".

6 Internet