As Greek troops expanded their foothold along Anatolia's Aegean coast in the chaotic aftermath of World War I, Turkish resistance movements gathered momentum. The occupation, backed by Allied powers under the Treaty of Sèvres framework, provoked fierce nationalist backlash. Mustafa Kemal, soon to be known as Atatürk, was already organizing the resistance that would culminate in the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I left Anatolia's fate contested among Allied powers eager to carve up former Ottoman territory. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos had secured Allied backing to land forces at Smyrna in May 1919, and Greek troops continued pushing into the interior and along the coastline through that summer, provoking mounting resentment among Turks who saw their homeland being partitioned.
Mustafa Kemal, a decorated general from the Gallipoli campaign, had landed at Samsun weeks earlier and was rapidly organizing disparate resistance groups into a coherent nationalist movement. The Greek advances, seen by Turks as a foreign invasion following imperial collapse, became the unifying grievance that catalyzed the War of Independence. What began as scattered local resistance would, within four years, produce the Treaty of Lausanne, the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate, and the birth of the modern Turkish Republic.
Key people: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk