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At 5:30 a.m., August 26th, 1922, a thunderous artillery barrage from 325 Turkish guns broke the predawn silence to herald the beginning of an end to Hellenist imperialism in Asia Minor [1]. By the fouth day of the battle of Afyon-Karahisar, nearly half the Greek army of occupation in Anatolia had either been slaughtered or taken prisoner. The rest chose to abandon forever the war's objective, the individual soldier discarding irredentism in his headlong rush for personal safety and the sea, some 250 miles away.

To contemporary observes a Greek defeat of such magnitude seemed at first quite incomprehensible. As recently as midsummer the Greeks had still well outnumbered their Turkish foe in both men and weapons, although the commanding military advantage which they enjoyed at the outset of the struggle had noticeably begun to slip. In fact, their three corps were thinly spread along front lines that ribboned across Anatolian mountain and plateau for over three hundred miles. And there was scarcely any chance that a fourth corps, recently assembled in Thrace for the purpose of prying Constantinople out of Allied hands, could be redeployed in time to stem the tide of the catastrophe. But that, to all intents and purposes, was that.

In sophisticated world capitals of culture and power, the end of a strictly Greco-Turkish conflict, however suddenly it had come, could at the time be easily dismissed as of but slight importance, no more than delayed anticlimax to a far more significant internecine tragedy it had just taken all Europe over four long years to conclude. True, the end of the Great War did terminate the imperialist ambition of three great dynasties and usher in a host of political consequences, far reaching in their impact on the lives of Europeans. But in the the Eastern Mediterranean, changes no less profound for the lives of men were produced by the belated rout of Greece's army and the collapse of her "Great Idea" for building a greater nation.

In Ankara a victorious Turkish general, Mustafa Kemal (the future Ataturk), moved over the corpse of the Ottoman Sultanate to acquire control of his nation's political machinery and establish a republic. In Athens a similar change of institutions came to pass after a military coup forced the abdication of King Constantine. Some individuals, the defeated Greek commander-in-chief for example, paid the ultimate price for having defended a losing ideology. Brought to trial by a jury of his professional peers on the charge of betraying the national trust, he was quickly executed along with five royalist cabinet ministers deemed equally culpable.

Nor were the immediate participants alone in sharing the fortunes of so lopsided an outcome to the Greco-Turkish War. An example of its impact on those only peripherally involved was the rapid political demise of the philhellenist prime minister and Welsh lawyer, David Lloyd George. Failing to understand the war-weary mood of his countrymen and oblivious to the fact that his personal views ran counter to a growing isolationist trend in postwar Britain, Lloyd George would soon unwisely lead his nation to the very brink of renewed hostilities with the Turks [2]. Yet he had already tied his own political fate to that of the Greeks with an eleventh hour attempt to rally support for the cause of imperialism in Asia Minor. In a speech to the House of Commons on August 4th, though denying that his government had pursued a partisan policy, he made clear his personal prejudice by extolling Greek courage and military prowess while stigmatizing Turks, and Mustafa Kemal in particular, as uncivilized warmongers.

Mindful of the sequence of events, some chroniclers of the period have concluded that it was this speech which provoked the final Turkish offensive three weeks later [3]. Other have noted that the Greek government's threat to occupy Constantinople, coming as it did a full week before Lloyd George's speech, had already given the Turks ample provocation [4]. Without any hard evidence from the Turkish side, however, both these views are the product of conjecture. Both seek to account for military victory, as brilliant as it was unexpected, by a non-European people to whom the Great Powers had in effect denied the status of a sovereign nation. Yet by implying that the Turks would have have acted only in response to a well publicized political event in Europe, both views have erred on the side of cultural chauvinism. That the defeat of a county traditionally identified as the birthplace of Western Civilization could be tied to the maladroit politics of Europeans meant there would be no need to label Mustafa Kemal a modern Napoleon. But history is rarely so convenient.

Published documents and memoirs now reveal what few contemporary observers believed even possible: that it had been the encouragement, intentional or otherwise, of Lloyd George, Lord Curzon, adn other British officials [5] which led the Greeks to believe that, after three years of frustration, there might still be a chance for them to affect a European style imperialism by taking Constantinople from the Allies; and that the Turks acquired the golden opportunity to act on the basis of considerable military intelligence regarding the Greek scheme, details of which they learned more that a month and a half before the European Powers. When incorporated with first class operational planning, the knowledge that thousands of enemy troops had been moved far away from the front lines became the key to Turkish grand strategy for ending the war. The vain pursuit of empire by a somtime client of the Great Powers thus made it possible for a non-Western nation, virtually untouched by European style nationalism until the twentieth century, to win not just a great military victory, but also the only peace treaty to be renegotiated by the Allies with a formed World War I enemy [6]. All this ensued because one nation had a dream of glory.

The Megali Idea or "Great Idea" of a new Hellenic empire that would encircle the Aegean Sea was born along with the Greeks' movement for independence in 1821. In South-eastern Europe they were the first people to find their national vitality awakened and renewed by the memory of the great past and culture. Though they continued to differ among themselves over which were more important, the aggressive consolidation of an expansionary nation state, or the preservation and strengthening of cultural ties, by the end of the nineteenth century nearly all Greeks had come to see the acquisition of Constantinople as Hellenism's greatest goal and the very heart of the Megali Idea [7].

Barely a year before the onset of the Great War in Europe, Greeks hailed the beginning of the reign of a new sovereign named Constantine, many of them even urging him to style himself both namesake and successor to the last Byzantine rule of Constantinople by using the Roman Numeral XII after his name [8]. But the new king of the Hellenes was also a graduate of the Prussian Army Staff College, brother-in-law to the Kaiser and an honorary German field marshall [9]; and with the ascendancy of a Germanophile party at Athens, the onset of the war brought a rapid deterioration of diplomatic relations with the Allies, unretarded even when Greece's traditional enemy Turkey joined the Central Powers. King Constantine's attempt to follow a less than natural path between the competing Great Powers, along with his refusal to supply Greek troops for the Gallipoli invasion and his hostility to the pro-Allied politicial and popular Cretan lawyer, Eleftherios Venizelos, finally provoked a joint Franco-British demand for his abdication.

In June 1917 Constantine's second son Alexander succeeeded his exiled father to the throne, Venizelos took over a prime minister, and Greece entered the conflict on the side of Britain, France and the United States. Two and a half years before, it had been unofficially and to Venizelos alone that the British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, suggested "most important territorial concessions for Greece on the coast of Asia Minor" around Smyrna (Izmir) as a possible suitable quid pro quo for Greek involvement in the Great War [10]. Unfortunately for Greece, the Cretan statesmen would remember only too well this Allied appeal to Hellenic irredentist sentiment.

When at the war's end the victorious Allies met in Paris to conclude a just and lasting peace, they announced that they would guarantee the safety of popular and democratic governments, and honor the Wilsonian principle of national self-determination. However, though they delt swiftly with Germany and Austria, they were in no great hurry to conclude a treaty with the Ottoman Empire, over which they held the threat of far greater dismemberment that had been accorded her former Hapsburg and Hohenzollern associates. Even the Turkish capital as destined, unlike Vienna and Berlin, to be occupied and administered by the victors.

At Versailles there were numerous conflicting projects for partition of the remaining Ottoman lands. Realizing that the Great Powers intended to retain control of certain areas they believed to be strategic, Venizelos did not continue to push for Constantinople of the Anatolian coast after he had gained acceptance of the Greek claim to European Thrace. This policy was not without its compensations, as Lloyd George, already strongly impressed by Greek military support for a brief French operation against the Bolsheviks in Southern Russia [11], had come to see Hellenism in a Gladstonian way as "loyal" to British interests. But in view of the Allies' avowed purpose, their representatives at Paris proceeded to act with almost incredible folly where the Near East was concerned.

The origin of it all was in the public quarrel between Italy and the other Powers over the terms of secret wartime promises and commitments, especially the disposition of certain territory along the Adriatic. On April 24th, 1919, Orlando stormed out of the peace conference after unsuccessfully arguing Italian rights to the Dalmatian coast. A month before, Italy had enforced her other claims in Asia Minor with a military occupation of Adalia (Antalya), offered her by Britain and France in the secret wartime Treaty of London [12]. The port city of Smyrna had also been promised to Italy during discussions held at St. Jean-de-Maurienne in April 1917, but with the fall of the Russian Empire that agreement had been left unratified [13]. Thus, when their claims to Fiume were denied at the conference table, the Italians naturally looked to a possible extension of their Anatolian holdings as compensation. For their own part Lloyd George, Clemenceau and Wilson were far more concerned with the problem of Italian troop and ship movements toward Smyrna that with preventing a renewal of Greco-Turkish conflict. Accordingly they siezed upon the idea of authorizing a Greek occupation of Smyrna for the nominal purpose of protecting local Christians. Thereupon Venizelos obligingly accepted the mandate thrust into his hands by the Great Powers.

It was perhaps inevitable that the landing of Hellenic forces at Smyrna on May 15th, 1919, would lead to unprovoked atrocities committed by the Greeks upon the local Muslim population [14], and that these in turn would spark a general and spontaneous Turkish resistance movement throughout the country. Four days after the Greek occupation began, General Mustafa Kemal arrived at Samsun on the Black Sea coast. He had been sent to Anatolia by the Sultan for the purpose of disarming and demobilizing Turkish troops in accordance with Allied demands. Instead, he rapidly organized his command into the nucleus of a popular revolutionary movement destined to achieve far more that its primary aim of ejecting the invader. But those accomplishments were still a war away.

For a time the Allies believed their task in the Near East was well on the way to completion. While the Nationalist Turks focused their attention on the initial problems of prolitical organization, Venizelos was able to counter the original Italian threat by rapidly expanding both the Greek zone of occupation and the number of his forces. And in March 1920, the British began to build their own funeral pyre for the Ottoman Empire by formally occupying the capital, Constantinople, where they arrested the members of the last popularly elected Ottoman parliament. Thereupon the Kemalists convened a Grand National Assembly, claiming for it all sovereign authority, both legislative and executive, and the fight was on.

The formation of a "rebel" albeit popular government at Ankara prompted Lloyd George to hurry the completion of a peace treaty with the Ottoman State, duly signed by the Sultan's representatives at Sevres on August 10th, 1920. According to the Treaty of Sevres, Constantinople remained, along with North-western and Cental Anatolia, nominally subject to Turkish sovereignty. Yet as Winston Churchill observed, in this and all its major provisions the treaty hinged upon a single factor: the effectiveness of the Greek Army in Asia Minor [15].

By the time the Treaty was signed at Sevres, Greece's armed forces had occupied all the territory allotted her and more. It seemed that Venizelos had achieved the victory of the Megali Idea, but it soon proved to be a pyrrhic one. Unexpectedly on October 25th King Alexander died, the victim of an infected monkey bite. The young king's death and the resulting problem of succession radically altered the complexion of pending national elections in Greece. Suddenly the voters found themselves with the opportunity to choose between Venizelos and Alexander's father, the ex-King Constantine. A lagging economy, profiteering by the few, growing political corruption and eight continuous years of mobilization were debited to Venizelos' account; accordingly the resounding defeat of his party followed on November 15th. The King's return to Athens some twenty days later signaled a reversal of political fortune far reaching in its consequences [16].

All the hopes of the Allies began and ended with Venizelos. His fall marked the beginning of a new anomalous period in their relations with Greece. Short of breaking off diplomatic relations, the British decided to embargo all financial support and war material intended for Greece, once again the realm of a monarch they had branded a disloyal Germanophile three years before. But, despite Lloyd George's personal animosity for Constantine and willingness to punish the Greeks for restoring to the throne a king whom the Allies in all their wisdom had deposed, he still favored giving Greece an opportunity to complete their task assigned her under the Treaty of Sevres. This brought him into conflict with the French who, in order to secure their own control of Syria, were secretly pursuing a separate armistice with the Kemalists [17]. Unwilling to consider even the possibility of a reconciliation with the Turkish Nationalists, Lloyd George left himself to fall between two stools: philhellenism and refusal to recognize the Constantine regime.

At Athens, despite earlier campaign statements to the contrary, the Greek royalists soon affirmed their intention to maintain and even augment their forces in Asia Minor. The Greek public was encouraged to believe that, in the hundredth year since the start of the War of Independence, they would finally see the realization of the Megali Idea. Patriotic broadsheets pictured the king as a modern St. George riding over the corpse of a Turkish dragon and through the fabled Golden Gate of Constantinople, with his namesake the last Byzantine emperor at his side [18].

During the Venizelist period the army had begun the war in Asia Minor successfully enough, but had failed to pursue in further. Under the command of newly arrived royalist officers, early in January, 1921, Greek troops passed to the offensive with a reconnaissance in force eastward along the main rail line to Ankara. On the 11th, well short of their goal to capture the northern rail junction of Eskisehir, the Greek Third Corps retreated in the face of strong Turkish counterattack during the First Battle of Inonu. When in late March the Greeks undertook a second full-scale offensive, they occupied the southern rail junction at Afyon-Karahisar with comparative ease, but again failed to hold Eskisehir in the north. In the Second Battle of Inonu, Ismet Pasha, Mustafa Kemal's front commander delivered a second defeat to the same Greek Third Corps, which retreated with heavy losses.

The failure of the Greek offensive was only sympomatic of a deteriorating political situation in Athens, occasioned in part by what had gone before. During the three and a half years that Venizelos held power in Greece, prorepublican sentiments had been made, in addition to professional performance, the criteria for the promotion of civil servants. Naturally upon Constantine's return, Venizelists in both government and bureaucracy were replaced by royalists; but the principle of political pork barral was also extendended to the military where it immediately did great harm. From the commmander-in-chief on down, in the thousands all those of republican sentiment were replaced by supporters of the king, many of whom had not held a battlefield appointment since the Balkan Wars eight years before [19]. Thereafter not even common hatred of the Turks proved sufficient to bridge the chasm of divided political loyalty among both officers and men.

At the time of the intial albeit small scale Greek defeat in January 1921, the Allies had feared the worst and hurriedly convoked an international conference. Already the Powers were seriously split over enforcement of the Treaty of Sevres. While Lloyd George continued to argue for support however unsubstantial of the Greek population, with Italy's tacit consent the new French premier Briand favored pressuring Constantine to accept a compromise on Smyrna. As a result, the conference was held in London from February 23rd to March 12th, 1921, proved entirely fruitless, since neither Greeks nor Turks were willing to modify their position. With the breakdown of the London Conference, it had been Lloyd George's private suggestion to the Greeks, that they take any measure necessary to enforce the letter of the Sevres Treaty, which encouraged their renewal of hostilities and the abortive March offensive [20].

The consequence of military failure was a further stiffening of Greece's political position: peace could no longer be spoken of without admitting defeat and tarnishing of the Megali Idea. Led by a new premier, Demetrios Gounaris, in April the Athens government again refused to consider Allied peace proposals, even if it meant continuation of the British embargo. Over the next three months Gounaris concentrated on resupplying the army and rebuilding its morale. Finally in mid-July though suffering some 8000 killed and wounded, Greek forces at last took Eskisehir following a pitched battle. When their own counterattack failed, the Turks withdrew to defensive positions behind the Sakarya River [21]. As Winston Churchill observed, "The Greeks had involved themselves in a politico-strategic situation where anything short of decisive victory was defeat" [22].

To many Greeks the capture of Ankara, only 40 miles away, appeared a virtual certainty -- the individual soldier already carried the sweet taste of victory in his mouth. Delirious with joy the Athens newspapers reported, despite official denials, that the British had agreed to an immediate Greek occupation of Constantinople [23]. The Battle of the Sakarya River, begun on August 23rd, proved both the bloodiest engagement since the occupation of Smyrna, and the turning point of the Greco-Turkish War. Unable either to encircle or break through Turkish defensive positions, and suffering some 18,000 casualties, by mid-September the Greek Army was forced to retreat to its own defensive positions along the Izmit-Eskisehir-Afyon-Karahisar rail line [24].

At Ankara a greatly relieved Grand National Assembly conferred upon Mustafa Kemal the rank of marshal and the title of Gazi (champion of Islam). In London Lloyd George succeeding in convincing his cabinet that, if kept in the field, the Greek army might still be useful as a lever in negotiations, but beyond that he proved unable to formulate any new coherent policy on the Near East, "except the purely negative one of using neither British troops nor money and waiting upon events" [25].

The winter months of 1921-22 brought no immediate change in the situation. The Turks made no move to take the offensive, using the time instead to rebuild and reorganize their forces. However, the morale of the Greek forces in Anatolia sagged noticeably as the result of a four-way conflict brewing between Venizelists and Constantinists, evacuationists, and bitter-enders at the time. A number of the serving officers even formed an anti-royalist "National Defense League," generally known as Amyna, which aimed to set up an independent administration for Anatolia in the event the Athens government decided to cut its losses [26].

In Athens the value of the drachma, which fell 54 percent in the year and a half between the landing at Smyrna and the elections of November 1920, had fallen another 166 percent during the ten months of royalist rule preceeding the Greek defeat on the banks of the Sakarya [27]. Faced with economic crisis at home and mounting difficulties in maintaining an army in the field, on February 15th Gounaris sent and urgent message to the British Foreign Minister, Lord Curzon. In it he documented the army's rapid deterioration and declared it was his government's intention to evacuate Asia Minor while still in a position to do so, should arms and financial assistance not soon be forthcoming from the Allies [28]. But it was fully 20 days before a reply came back from London. Choosing therein to gloss over the Greek need for financial aid, Lord Curzon characterized the military situation in Anatolia as far less critical than Gounaris had painted. And, though urging him to wait for a diplomatic solution negotiated by the Allies, Curzon also expressed a hope that Greece's disciplined and patriotic army would remain ready for use "in any emergency which may conceivably arise" [29]. Not even the oracle at Delphi could have made a more dangerously ambiguous comment. Later at his trial, Gounaris would cite Curzon's message as one of the most important of many public and private "hints" that Britain not only wanted the Greeks to continue the war, but would look with favor on whatever military strategy they deemed necessary [30].

While the Powers continued to negotiate separately with both sides and to wrangle amongst themselves at the Genoa Conference throughout late April and early May, the situation in Athens grew ever more tense. In order to stay financially afloat, Gounaris had to impose a drastic 50 percent devaluation of the drachma by literally cutting in half all the paper money in circulation [31]. Finally on May 12th his government fell on a parliamentary vote over economic policy. Nikolas Stratos, head of the National Conservative Party, tried to reform the government, but proved unable to win a vote of confidence. Not until the 22nd did the former minister of finance, Petros Protopapadakis, take over as leader of a coalition government, with Stratos receiving the interior portfolio and Gounaris finance - a charge that was little more than cosmetic.

These events left Gounaris and company still searching for some way out of a rapidly deteriorating situation. Unable to finance another attack but unwilling to accept political responsibility for retreat, they faced a populace grown irate over the government's failure to secure victory, and absolutely incensed that the Allies' armistice proposal referred to Constantinople as the "historical capital" of the Turkish dominion [32]. What the royalist government needed was someone willing to undertake the task of organizing a daring, perhaps even reckless plan as the solution to all their problems. They were to find just such a man -- a man who would prove to be their undoing.

Twelve days after the formation of the Protopapadakis coalition, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Asia Minor, General Anastasios Papoulas, was allowed to retire. Papoulas had impressed upon Gounaris the inevitability of evacuating an army no longer in any condition to undertake a new offensive, but had compromised himself politically by close association with both the Amyna and the ardent Venizelist Patriarch, Meletios IV [33]. Selected to replace him was a fervent royalist and notorious eccentric, General Georgios Hadjianestis. Although reputedly competent enough an officer in his youth, by the time of his appointment as commander-in-chief Hadjianestis had without doubt become mentally unbalanced. On some days he would remain in bed, firmly convinced that he was dead; on others he would refuse to arise, believing his legs to be so brittle they would break if he stood up - small wonder he was known to his me as "glass-legs" [34]. Such Don Quixote-like aberrations would have seriously impaired any officer's ability to command. But the desperate politicians were willing to overlook what they must have wanted to believe were merely personality quirks, for they saw in Hadjianestis the one man who might yet be able to save the situation.

As early as April 11th, Minister of War Nikolaos Theotokis had tapped Hadjianestis to take of command of Greek forces in Asia Minor, but then upon the fall of the Gounaris government gave him the Army of Thrace instead. When at last on June 4th Hadjianestis was offered the appointment as commander-in-chief, he agreed to accept only upon condition that he have operational control over teh forces in Thrace as well. Reaching Smyrna the following day, he immediately instituted a shake-up of the army, replacing several of the senior staff and commanders. In those positions, Hadjianestis would have needed me upon whom he could rely, for he had brought with him the plan of a military operation, already approved by the government of Athens, the purpose of which was to seize Constantinople from the Allies by a coup de main [35].

On June 7th Turkish agents in Smyrna reported that units of the Greek army were embarking for redeployment to Thrace, probably via the port of Silivri on the Sea of Marmara, and that there had been open talk that these forces would soon occupy Constantinople. When it was also learned that the Black Sea port of Samsun had been shelled by the Hellenic Navy's cruiser Averoff, the Turkish Western Front Commander Ismet Pasha immediately put his forces on alert for a possible general attack by the enemy [36]. There soon proved little reason to doubt the accuracy of information being provided by Turkish intelligence sources in Smyrna; on the 10th they reported that Hadjianestis would visit Afyon-Karahisar, and the following day he appeared precisely when and where expected. Moreover, Turkish spies watching Afyon found the morale of the Greek army to be at low ebb, with units in the front lines so insubordinate as to shout at Hadjianestis, "Demobilize us! We want to return to our homes..." [37].

From other information supplied them by the Istanbul Government, the Turkish Nationalists knew that for some time the number of Greek troops in Thrace had been at a level of 13,000 [38]. When Gazi Mustafa Kemal learned that these forces had suddenly been increased to an estimated 30,000 and redesignated as the Fourth Corps of the Army of Asia Minor, on the 16th of June he decided to start preparing his own general attack plan [39]. Nevertheless, the Turkish high command found it very difficult to believe that Hadjianestis would so completely redefine Greek military priorities as to make capture of the old Ottoman capital his primary objective. Along with Ismet Pasha, many of the General Staff thought the build-up of enemy troops west of Constantinople to be simply a ruse; that ultimately these forces would strike across the Bosphorus at vulnerable Turkish positions along the Izmit peninsula, and then drive eastward in yet another attempt to break through the defenses around Ankara. Accordingly, in his general attack plan Mustafa Kemal included a cancellation clause that would automatically go into effect should the movement of Greek troops from Eastern Thrace to North-western Anatolia become imminent [40].

The Greek plan moved forward meanwhile and, except for what the Turks had learned, Hadjianestis' effort to keep his troop deployments secret enjoyed a remarkable degree of success. On June 23rd and again on the 27th, the British Charge de Affaires at Athens reported that both Hadjianestis and Aristeidis Stregiadis, the Greek high commissioner in Smyrna, were strongly in favor of evacuation, with the Athens Press increasingly so inclined as well [41]. Allied military observers did think it strange that the commander-in-chief of the Army of Asia Minor should also have command of the Army of Thrace, and they had heard what they regarded as some idle talk of occupying Constantinople. But they entirely discounted any possibility that the Greeks were planning such a move, and advised that no significant troop movements to Thrace had occurred [42].

At a meeting held in the royal palace on the 29th, the Protopapadakis cabinet formally endorsed all that Hadjianestis had done, and authorized him to proceed with his plan. In addition to those regiments already dispatched to Eastern Thrace, this meant transferring the rest of two divisions from Asia Minor plus another from Greece proper. Hadjianestis had begun by combing the army of communications personnel, creating around these and other unassigned cadres the nuclei of several new regiments. His tour of inspection along the front lines showed him to identify which units were in a good fighting condition and still enjoyed relatively high morale. As certain of these were routinely rotated to the rear, they were quietly embarked for Thracian ports such as Dedeagach, Silivri and Tekirdag [43]. Having thus chosen to raise the number of his forces in Thrace to the level of a corps, Hadjianestis had perforce to strip the Army of Asia Minor of all its reserve strength and thereby risk the consequences of drawing his defensive link as tight as a drum. With no other veteran troops available, only four classes of navy recruits who had been called up for service on land could be found to fill the gaps inevitably created at the front [44]. If at the time of Hadjianestis' appointment as commander-in-chief the Greek army had been capable of repelling an enemy attack, within a month and a half it was no longer in any condition to contain, let alone counter, a Turkish offensive.

Meanwhile, though still in doubt as to the ultimate purpose of the Greek build-up, the Turks continued to learn of it in great detail, thanks to a steady flow of highly accurate intelligence reports [45]. This prompted some rather heated arguments over strategy, with the Commander of the First Army, Ali Ihsan Pasha, so insubordinate in his demand for an immediate general attack that he had to be relieved of his post [46]. But dealing with obstreperous commanders soon proved the least of Mustafa Kemal's problems. In Ankara a number of his conservative deputies who thought Kemal too radical in his politics suddenly succeeded in applying a check to his powers. On July 8th they rammed through a bill that cancelled his presidential perogative to chair the council of ministers, and made members of the council individually responsible to the Assembly. Within twelve days, however, the Nationalists had virtually set aside this action by voting the unlimited extension of an emergency "Commander-in-Chief Law," giving Kemal absolute authority over the army and his executive orders the force of law [47].

By that time the Turks knew the entire Greek order of battle in Thrace. The Fourth Corps originally had been composed of two incomplete divisions, the Sixth and the Adrianople (Edirne). Once these had been brought up to full strength and placed under the tactical command of Major General Vlahopulos, two additional divisions, the Second and the First, were formed on July 5th and 7th respectively. Each division comprised three augmented regiments, a total of over 45,000 men by late July [48].

On the very day the last of these divisions was created, in a cable to the War Office the Allied commander-in-chief at Constantinople, General Sir Charles Harington, dismissed as unimportant a French report of Greek troop movements west of the city. In his memoirs, the general later admitted that he "simply could not believe" the intelligence he was then receiving of a "mad project" to attack Constantinople. Not until July 21st, when a novice Greek military attache inadvertantly blurted out confirmation, did Harington take these reports rather more seriously [49]. But in London there still seemed no cause for alarm. After all their efforts to arbitrate peace proved abortive in May, the British had reordered their priorities and begun to concentrate exclusively upon the resolution of their differences with the French. With the Near Eastern problem temporarily relegated to a diplomatic limbo, even direct Greco-Kemalist negotiations were actively discouraged. The Foreign Office simply assumed that in the absence of Great Power involvement the political and military stalemate of the previous winter would drag on indefinitely [50].

For more than two months then, the Greeks had been waiting in vain for Whitehall to resume Allied mediation efforts. With their military build-up in Eastern Thrace virtually complete, the Protopapadakis Government decided to wait no longer [51]. On July 27th the foreign minister handed the acting British Charge in Athens a vaguely worded note warning that measures might soon be taken to bring the conflict to an end. At the same time Hadjianestis transferred his headquarters from Smyrna to Tekirdag and ordered elements of the Fourth Corps to begin converging on Constantinople [52]. Only then did the first accurate reports of Greek troop concentrations in Thrace reach London [85].

Whitehall's initial reaction was much like that of the Turks - cautious incredulity. Long since the Greek Government had been warned by the Allies that they would in no way tolerate an advance on Constantinople [54]. There therefore must be some ulterior motive. Perhaps Athens thought to provoke a preemptive Turkish strike on the Bosphorus, that would in turn elicit for te Greeks and Allied invitation to help defend the city. Yet the presence of the Royal Navy there made it doubly doubtful that London would even consider such an alternative. And the acting Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, could "scarcely believe" the Greek government would do "anything so insane as to attack territory in Allied occupation" [55]. Thus the Foreign Office, finding no particular reason to act, did nothing. In Constantinople the unexcitable General Harington felt it necessary only to tour the Chatalya defense perimeter west of the city to verify for himself that the Greeks were still respecting Allied neutrality.

Indeed they were; but on the 22nd, Foreign Minister Baltazzis handed Allied representatives a second note, in which the argument was made that only a Greek occupation of Constantinople would bring peace, and therefore the Allies should allow Hellenic forces to enter the city. Baltazzis quickly added his own verbal assurance that Greece was merely soliciting Allied consent to the occupation, and would take no further action until they received a reply [56]. However the following day in Smyrna, High Commissioner Stergiadis, acting in the name of the Protopapadakis government, publicly announced the creation of a self-governing Ionian state in Western Asia Minor [57].

As yet the acting British charge in Athens had been instructed only to reiterate his government's position, that any violation of Allied neutrality would entail the most serious consequences for Greece; but on Monday the 31st he joined his French and Italian collegues in warning Baltazzis that any Greek advance would be repelled by force [58]. By then in Constantinople active measures had at last been taken. General Harington's meager force of less than 2000 British soldiers were dug in along the Chataja lines, along with an equal number of French and Italians, while Admiral Sir Osmand Brock's flotilla of six captial ships, nine destroyers and a seaplane tender stood offshore, with the Third Light Cruiser Squadron coming up from Malta for good measure [59]. On Teusday, August 1st, when three members of a Greek military patrol were shot and killed by Turkish civil police just inside the Allied zone of occupation, there were fresh warnings from the Great Powers. The next day Athens directed Hadjianestis to pul his troops back from the neutral zone and, thereupon, the entire crisis passes [60]. It had been the final Greek move toward catastrophe.

Underlying the events narrated above is a fundamental question: having embarked upon a military adventure that the Allies could not but help find provocative, why did the royalist government in Athens prove entirely irresolute in its chosen course of action? Certainly, the members of the Protopapadakis cabinet knew that some decisive step needed to be taken soon, in order to extricate the army from teh vortex of Asia Minor and stem the tide of economic disaster at home; to wipe out the year old stain of royalist dishonor and defeat at the Battle of Sakarya; and to politically undercut their Venizelist opponents, who should be made to bear the stigma of having been responsible for the doomed Anatolian venture in the first place. As Greeks, the ministers had shared in the heritage of the Megali Idea and were painfully aware that nothing save a Greek occupation of Constantinople would revive enthusiasm for the royalist cause. In trying to formulate policy, however, they had found themselves by no means agreed on the best way to achieve their common goals.

One way was Hadjianestis' plan, predicated upon the assumption that, whatever the cost, as a last resort Constantinople could be taken by force from an outnumbered Allied garrison. But, having once assembled the divisions necessary for such an attack, there would also be the option to merely threaten the use of force. And it was the latter cource the beleagured Athenian politicians preferred, for to merely threaten action without actually taking any meant the possibility of attaining their goals at little or no cost whatsoever. If well timed, such a threat could have many benefits. The Allies might willingly yield Constantinople to the Greeks without a shot being fired, or failing that, make good on their premise of an arbitrated peace; it could even bring the long dreamt of restoration of European financial support for the cause of Hellenism. Sould none of these ambitions be attained, there would still be the advantage of having Greek forces concentrated in a strategically important area - a trump card which, even were it never played, remained available for later use if necessary.

And to the ministers there seemed good reason to believe that such a threat would prove successful. At the time of the London Conference, Lloyd George's private secretary, Philip Kerr, had passed along advice that Britain's official policy on the Near East should be taken with a grain of salt, as her leaders would not stand in the way if Greece were bold enough to demonstrate initiative [62]. Then again in March Lord Curzon had exhorted Greeks to be steadfast in their courage and patriotism, and had urged Gounaris to prepare for "any emergency...." More recently tehre were the reports of Rizo-Rangabe, Greek Charge d'Affaires in London, that members of Lloyd George's secretariat had repeatedly suggested Greece would find that she enjoyed considerable British sympathy if she were to go ahead and force the issue [63].

Nor were such intimation of encouragement coming from only one part of the British establishment. In Constantinople, for example, General Harington's chief of staff reportedly had commented that Greece would have England's support, were she to show real determination and act [64]. In Athens itself the British Charge, F.O. Lindley, when departing for London on July 24th to personally plead the Greek cause at the Foreign Office, let it be understood that his government's official hostility really had been due to French intransigence all along. To Baltazzis he candidly observed that his absence from Athens would prove opportune for, as a true and loyal friend of Greece, he would rather not be present when the events that he expected came to pass [65]. The Greek foreign minister and his collegues mistakenly interpreted such philhellenical remarks, often meant only to apply to the situation in Anatolia, as a further indication that Britain would accpet a fait accompli where Constantinople were concerned.

This brings us once again to the purpose of Hadjianestis' plan, to note the fine distinction between a threat and a bluff. It was one thing for Athens to speculate whether the British, French and Italians were willing to fight a Greek army to keep it out of Constantinople; quite another to suggest that Greece would fight the Allies - she would not. The very cornerstone of Greek foreign policy remained cooperation with Great Britain, her one remaining protector however inconstant. Nonetheless, the subtleties involved in trying to relate Hadjianestis' plan to political policy had divided the government into two factions: the hawks, Stratos, Theotokis and Hadjianestis, who argued that any threat should be made quickly, with determination; and the doves, Gounaris, Baltazzis and Protopapadakis, who believed it necessary to tender an apology along with the bluff [66]. Events were soon to justify the hesitation of the latter group, for the entire cabinet had failed to understand that even the most philhellenist of Englishmen were staunch defenders of the status quo in Europe and set great store by continued Allied solidarity. There are those, given to expaining history in terms of a roll of the dice, who have seen the events of July 27th to august 2d, 1922, as a "gambler's final throw." Though politics is certainly ofttimes a game of chance, the game played by the Athenian politicians was rather more like poker, with the stakes raised ever higher while all along they knew that there was nothing in their hand.

One further point must also here be noted, a particularly important one left undeveloped by other students of the period: the question of why Greece's military disaster at the hands of the Turks so closely followed the exposure of her political bluff at Constantinople. The answer is that the royalist ministers made a fatal mistake when they relied upon Hadjianestis to see to the military aspects of a project, the political complications of which they were themselves unable to resolve. Clearly, the military imbalance created by diverting more than 30,000 troops to Thrace had been totally unnecessary. The troops already there, three times what the Allies had in Constantinople, would have been more than sufficient for the weak sort of bluff that proved to be all the Protopapadakis government could agree upon. Later at their trial, the ministers would be accused of having deliberately planned the entire thing in order to weaken the front line and entice a Turkish offensive, so that the inevitable retreat from Asia Minor would finally be justified by military defeat [67]. Against such an accusation no adequate defense could be raised, for whether by conspiracy or simple ineptitude, they had made themselves culpable in the death of the Megali Idea.

On the evening of July 27th, the day that Baltazzis handed his first vaguely worded note of warning to Allied representatives in Athens, Mustafa Kemal met with Ismet Pasha and the General Staff to discuss operational aspects of an attack plan designed to take advantage of Greek troop dispositions. Upon the conclusion of that meeting, he instructed the General Staff to work out final details of an attack that could be launched as early as August 15th, when the fields of Southwestern Anatolia would be ripe with unharvested grain and stream beds bone dry prior to the coming of the autumn rains. The next day Kemal used the prexext of a soccer match to bring his army and corps commanders to Aksehir for a full-scale operational briefing on the plan. On June 30th he and Ismet again went over all the details one last time [68].

The honor of making the final grand gesture fell appropriately enough to Lloyd George, who seemed determined to act the chorus of the impending Greek tragedy he had helped to write. Following a long discussion at the Foreign Office with Lord Balfour and with Lindley, just arrived from Athens, on August 4th he went before the House of Commons to display his Sophoclean eloquence in a vehemently anti-Turkish speech. Since a break with France over the reparations issue was looming on the horizon, there seemed little chance the Allies would be able to reach agreement on the Near East issue for some time to come. Thus in publicly declaring that he believed a Greek victory to be imminent, Lloyd George meant it as moral support for a cause to which he found himself unable to give material assistance [69].

The speech provoked a veritable wave of enthusiasm in Greece, extracts of it being circulated to the army by royal command. But in raising anew the vain hope of British support for Hellenism, it served only to assure that troops of the Greek Fourth Army Corps remained encamped outside Constantinople, at a time when they would have been better used to reinforce the front in Anatolia. By late August, with Athens still sending additional men and guns to Thrace, General Harington felt obliged to inquire whether the War Office had given any thought to building winter quarters for Allied soldiers dug in along the Chatalja defense lines. For his own part, Hadjianestis appeared uable to come up with any alternative to the Constantinople plan, and even when informed of the Turkish offensive in Anatolia, made not the slightest move to re-transfer troops from Thrace. Accordingly the Fourth Corps played no role in the ensuing conflict [70].

On August 6th Ismet Pasha disseminated secret operational orders to units of the Turkish Western Front Command and alerted them to be ready for the attack. That same day the news of Lloyd George's notorious House of Commons speech reached Ankara. Suprisingly, the Turks continued to hope for a diplomatic solution. Ankara's representative, Fethi (Oykar), had been shuttling between Paris and London for over a month, trying to arrange an unconditional withdrawal of Greek forces to obviate the necessity for a military solution. Perparations for the latter thus were held up an additional two weeks while there still remained some hope for his success. But on the 19th, Fethi cabled that Curzon and Lloyd George had refused even to accord him a hearing, and that in his veiw no alternative remained but to resort to force of arms. The following day Mustafa Kemal instructed Ismet and the army commanders, Nurreddin and Yakub Shevki Pashas, to commence the attack on the morning of the 26th [71].

The Turkish battle plan was brilliant in its simplicity, in many ways a duplicate of the one that had brought a German victory at Tannenberg eight years before. The Greeks had been led to believe that Turkish units were being gathered for an offensive in the North near Eskisehir [72]. But in reality only a skeleton force anchored the northern end of the front, while the southern army, secretly reinforced to give the Turks a three to one superiority in the vincinity of Afyon-Karahisar, had been given the task of turning the enemy right flank. Their attack caught Hellenic forces completely by surprise, and twenty days later the last remnants of Greece's army of occupation abandoned the shores of Anatolia.

One last footnote remains to the story of the Greek debacle. Only on September 4th did the royalist government in Athens finally move to dismiss Hadjianestis and appoint Major General N. Trikoupis, the corps commander at Afyon, in his place. However, their decision came too late, as Trikoupis and his entire staff had already been taken prisoner on the battlefield two days before. Ironically, it was from Mustafa Kemal that the new commander-in-chief of the defeated Greek army first learned of his promotion [73]. But the ignominious fate of Trikoupis proved less drastic that that awaiting his predecessor. On the morning of November 28th, 1922, ona rain swept parade ground in Athens a military firing squad executed Hadjianestis and the five politicians who had given him command. With them was buried all that remained of the Megali Idea.

[1] Turkish General Staff Military History Section, Turk Istiklal Harbi [The Turkish War of Independence] (hereafter cited as TIH), II (Ankara, 1969), Part 6, Book 2, p. 7.

[2] Lloyd George's fall from power on October 19th, 1922, and the events leading thereto are described in David Walder, The Chanak Affair (London, 1969), passim.

[3] Earl of Ronaldshay, The Life of Lord Curzon (London, 1928), 3: 229; A.E. Montgomery, "Lloyd George and the Greek Question, 1918-1922," in Lloyd George: Twelve Essays, ed. A.J.P. Taylor (New York, 1971), pp. 283-84; Douglas Dakin, The Unification of Greece 1770-1923 (New York, 1972), p. 234.

[4] Harold Nicholson, Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919-1925 -- A Study in Post Cold War Diplomacy (London, 1934), p. 169.

[5] Cf. the rather different interpretation put forward in Montgomery, pp. 257-58 and 283-84.

[6] Roderic H. Davison, "Turkish Diplomacy from Mudros to Lausanne," in The Diplomats 1919-1939, eds. GOrdon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert (New York, 1965), 1: 172.

[7] On the Megali Idea see Edouard Driault, La Grande Idee: La Renaissance de l'Hellenisme (Paris, 1920); J.D. Voyatzidis, "La Grande Idee," L'Hellenisme Contemporaine, Series II (May 1953), 7: 279-87; and Adamatia Pollis Koslin, "The Megali Idea - A Study of Greek Nationalism," (Ph.D. Diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1958).

[9] Walder, p. 34; John Mavrogordato, Modern Greece: A Chronicle and a Survey (London, 1931), p. 104.

[10] Foreign Office 371, 2242, Grey to Sir Francis Elliot (Athens) of January 23, 1915.

[11] Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath (London, 1929), pp. 167-68.

[13] See Paul C. Helmreich, "Italy and the Anglo-French Repudiation of the 1917 St. Jean de Maurienne Agreement," Journal of Modern History 48 (June 1976), demand article.

[14] See Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, Series I (hereafter cited as DBFP), (London 1970), 2: 237-58 for the report of an Interallied Commission of Inquiry into the landing, recommending and immediate termination of the occupation. See also Peter Buzanski, "The Interallied Investigation of the Greek Invasion of Smyrna, 1919," The Historian 25 (May 1963), 325-43.

[15] Churchill, p. 376; Koslin, p. 358, observes that the Treaty of Sevres was the single greatest victory for the Megali Idea.

[17] Gazi Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), Nutuk [A Speech], 2d ed. (Ankara, 1934), 2: and A Speech Delivered by... (English translation of the preceding item), 2d ed. (Istanbul, 1963), p. 526. For the text of the October 1921 Franco-Turkish Accord, with analysis, see DBFP 17: 564-69, no. 502.

[18] Arnold J. Toynbee, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey (London, 1922), p. 243.

[19] Churchill, p. 389; Walder, pp. 96-97; and Michael Llewellyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922 (London, 1973), pp. 171-79, citing details published in the Greek Government Gazette for 1920.

[20] DBFP 15: 451, no. 69 of March 18, 1921; and DBFP 17: 85, no. 66, n.1, of March 22, minute of Curzon.

[23] DBFP 17: 341, no. 330, Lord Granville (Athens) to Curzon of August 3, 1921.

[26] Edouard Driault, Histoire Diplomatique de la Grece (Paris, 1926), 5: 408-11; and Llewellyn Smith, pp. 237-38.

[28] Cabinet Papers 49, 1931, Gounaris to Curzon of February 15, 1922; also in A.F. Frangulis, La Grece, son statut internationale, son histoire diplomatique, 2d ed. (Paris, 1934), 2: 352-53.

[31] On the internal "forced loan" devised by Gounaris' finance minister, Petros Protopapadakis, see Mavrogordato, p. 140; and DBFP 17: 828, no. 636, n. 3.

[32] Driault, 5: 411; DBFP 17: 749, Annex 1 to minutes of the Allied foreign ministers meeting of March 26, 1922.

[34] Harold Armstrong, Grey Wolf - Mustafa Kemal, An Intimate Study of a Dictator (London, 1932), p. 193.

[35] TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, pp. 170-72; and Greek General Staff Directorate of Military History, He Ekstrateia eis ten Mikran Asian 1919-1922 [The Asia Minor Expedition 1919-1922], (Athens, 1960), 6: 185-201. I am indebted to Colonel William B. O'Neill, USA(Ret.), for his kind assistance in the citation of the letter source.

[36] Ali Ihsan Sabis, Harb Hatiralarim: Istiklal Harbi ve Gizli Cihetleri [My War Memoirs: The War of Independence and its Secret Dimensions], (Ankara, 1951), 5: 303; Kazim Karabekir, Istiklal Harbimiz [Our War of Independence], (Istanbul, 1969), p. 1057; TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, p. 165; and TIH, III, 87-88.

[38] TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, pp. 177 and 195-96, citing Turkish General Staff War History Archive no. 1/3, dossier no. 4/2, of March 29, 1922.

[40] TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, pp. 175-78, citing War History Archive no. 4/4478, dossier no. 30, and Turkish Presidential Archive no. 13539 of July 3, 1922.

[41] DBFP 17: 860, no. 661, and p. 865, no. 666, Lindley (Athens) to the Earl of Balfour of June 23, 1922. Balfour served as acting foreign secretary from May 25 to August 10 during the illness of Lord Curzon.

[42] DBFP 17: 873, no. 674, n. 3, citing without reference a telegram from General Harington to the War Office of July 3, 1922.

[43] He Ekstrateia 6: 202-4; L.E. Bujac, Les Campagnes de 1'Armee Hellenique 1918-1922 (Paris, 1930), p. 306; and TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, p. 196.

[44] He Ekstrateia 6:205-7; and DBFP 17: 899, no. 701, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of July 29, 1922, quoting Chief of the Greek General Staff.

[47] For further details see Michael M. Finefrock, "The 'Second Group' in the First Turkish Grand National Assembly," Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies 3 (Fall 1979), 3-20.

[48] The complete order of battle of the Fourth Corps was as follows: Adrianople Div. (Hq. Saray), the 13th, 50th and 59th Regts.; Sixt Div. (Hq. Gumuljune), the 19th, 20th and 21st Regts.; Second Div. (Hq. Kirklareli), the 15th, 60th and 61st Regts.; First Div. (Hq. Uzunkopru), the 28th, 55th and 56th Regts.; with one additional unnumbered regt. at Tekirdag; He Ekstrateia 6: 217; TIH, II, Part 6, Book 1, pp. 195-97. For the order of battle of the Army of Asia Minor, see Bujac, pp. 307-10.

[49] DBFP 17: 889, no. 691, n. 1; Gneral Sir Charles Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back (London, 1940), p. 109; War Office 32, 5746, Harington's cable of July 21, 1922.

[50] DBFP 17: 852, no. 651, Balfour to Lindley (Athens) of June 15, 1922; p. 888, no. 690, Balfour to Henderson (Constantinople) of July 18; and p. 891, no. 693, n. 3, citing Lindley's cable of July 24.

[51] DBFP 17: 890-91, no. 693, Lindley (Athens) to Balfour quoting a July 22nd statement of Greek Foreign Minister, Georgios Baltaazzis, that the government intended to bring matters to a head.

[52] DBFP 17: 894-95, nos. 697-98, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of July 27, 1922; He Ekstrateia 6: 208-16; the text of the Greek note is in Frangulis 2: 390-91.

[53] War Office 32, 5746, Harington's cable, and DBFP 17 893-94, no. 696, Henderson (Constantinople) to Balfour of July 27, 1922.

[54] DBFP 17: 341-42, no. 330, Lord Granville (Athens) to Curzon of August 3, 1921.

[55] DBFP 17, 899, no. 700, n. 5, Balfour to Bentinck (Athens) of July 28, 1922.

[56] DBFP 17: 900-902, nos. 703 and 706, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of July 29, 1922; the text of the note is in Frangulis 2: 391-93.

[59] Cabinet Minutes 24, 136, p. 157b, quoting War Office no. 4113 of July 29, 1922; Walder, p. 167.

[60] DBFP 17: 910-11, nos. 715-16, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of August 2, 1922.

[61] There is no evidence that Hadjianestis' plan had been designed to entice a preemptive Turkish attack on the Bosphorus, as teh British suspected at the time and some scholars have been willing to suggest (e.g., Dakin, p. 236), for Greek counterintelligence sought only to prevent the Allies from learning of it; He Ekstrateia 6: 202.

[62] Frangulis 2: 210; S.P.P. Cosmetatos, The Tragedy of Greece (London, 1928), p. 308.

[64] I.D. Passas, He Agonia henos Ethnous [The Agony of a Nation], (Athens, 1925), p. 183.

[66] DBFP 17: 899, no. 701, n. 1, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of July 28, 1922; and p. 914, no. 720, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of August 4.

[69] Parliamentary papers, House of Commons 157: 2003-6; DBFP 17: 919, no. 727, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of August 7, 1922, n. 5, citing Lindley's annual report for 1922; and War Office 32, 5739, Secretary of State for War, Sir Laming Worthington Evans' "Notes of a Conversation held at 10 Downing Street on August 9."

[70] DBFP 17: 918-19, no. 727, Bentinck (Athens) to Balfour of August 7, 1922; p. 936, no. 745 and p. 939, no. 748, Bentinck (Athens) to Curzon of August 29; and p. 943, no. 751, letter from Lancelot Oliphant of the Foreign Office to the Army Council Secretary of August 10.

[71] Nutuk 2: 173; A Speech, p. 564; Reshat Ekrem, Osmanli Muahedeleri [Ottoman Treaties], (Istanbul, 1934), p. 301; and Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Siyasi Hatiralari [Political Memoirs], (Istanbul, 1957), 1: 62.

[72] Even British Intelligence had been deceived; DBFP 17: 930-31, no. 738, Rumbold (Constantinople) to Curzon of August 21, 1922.

[73] Halide Edib, The Turkish Ordeal (New York, 1928), pp. 364-67; Shevket Surreya Aydemir, Tek Adam - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk [The One Man - Mustafa Kemal Ataturk], (Istanbul, 1964), 2: 568-74.