MODERN GREECE: A History since 1821 - Amazon Web Services

76 THE VENIZELIST DECADE (1910–20)
Allies. Early in 1919 Venizelos participated, as one of the victors, at the
Conference of Paris and demanded protection for the Greek populations
living in Asia Minor. The Treaty of Sèvres (July 27–August 10,
1920) aimed mainly at guaranteeing security for all the ethnic groups of
the Ottoman Empire. Armenia became an independent state; Kurdistan
gained its autonomy while Greece was mandated to protect Smyrna
and its region that contained a large and thriving population.
The treaty recognized the annexation by Greece of Thrace – up to
Tsataltza – and of the Aegean Islands with the exception of the
Dodecanese. The status of Smyrna was also recognized comprising a
major part of the Aydin vilayet: Greece was further mandated (in the
Treaty of San Remo) to exercise sovereign rights there for a period of
five years until such time as the fate of the area was finally decided by referendum.
Finally, Constantinople remained the capital of the Ottomans
as well as the seat of a captive sultan and an impotent government
under the supervision of the Allied forces billeted in the city.
Greece’s involvement in the task of implementing the terms of the
Treaty of Sèvres in Asia Minor proved to be a mistake for which the
Greeks paid a high price. The 2,450,000 Greeks who lived in Eastern
Thrace, Istanbul, and Asia Minor as compared to 8,000,000 Turks and
approximately 1,200,000 Armenians, Jews, Bulgars, etc. living there (the
official Ottoman census of 1912 does not differ all that much from the
Patriarchate’s statistics as far as the numbers of non-Turks are
concerned) 10 had been through the ordeal of a violent Turkification
policy. Started in 1910, this policy was systematically pursued until the
First World War when it peaked. Its victims were not only Greeks but
also Arabs, Jews, and especially Armenians (1915). The massacre of the
Armenians on orders from the leadership of the Young Turks was a
political decision with long-term consequences for the Turkish state
that succeeded them.
Domestic Politics (1914–20)
Venizelos was less devoted than Charilaos Tricoupis to the principle of
the superiority of parliamentary politics over all other forms of democratic
governance. His own inclination was toward the Aristotelian
division of politics into pure and corrupt versions. He was therefore
less concerned with the political system than with its actual operation.