Constantin Carathéodory’s correspondence with Henry Morgenthau, Sr. on the integration of Greek refugees after the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922

Abstract

The defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 by nationalist Turkish forces in the Greco-Turkish War in 1919-1922 caused an initial forced migration of Greeks fleeing from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace. The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 specified the first compulsory exchange of populations ratified by an international organisation. It was a special Convention between Venizelos and Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), signed on 30 January 1923, concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. This "compulsory exchange of Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek nationals of the Moslem religion established in Greek territory" was to take place as from the 1st May 1923 (Article 1). The Greek inhabitants of Constantinople and the Moslem inhabitants of Western Thrace were exempted (Article 2) (Die Lausanner-Vereinbarung). However this Convention only put the formal seal of approval on what had already been 'accomplished' by the demographics of war. A total of about 1.2 million Greeks left Asia Minor between 1920 and 1923, and 355,000 Muslims migrated to Turkey in the exchange. Greece had less than five million inhabitants at the time. Macedonia and Thrace absorbed the vast majority of the refugees: more than 650,000 people of which 150,000 were settled in towns. Thessaloniki was from the very start the main pole of attraction for the urban refugees. (Hastaoglou 1997: 498).