WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.580 Welcome to today's Deep Dive. We are really thrilled 00:00:03.580 --> 00:00:05.200 to have you here with us. Yeah, thanks for joining 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.599 us. Today we're exploring a piece of history 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:11.679 that is incredibly intense, it's layered, and 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.519 it is still at the absolute center of fierce 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:16.859 international debate. Right. This isn't just 00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:19.559 a standard history lesson about dates and treaties. 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:23.679 This is really an exploration of how modern nations 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.879 are forged from the ashes of empires, how millions 00:00:26.879 --> 00:00:29.179 of people are uprooted overnight, and how the 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:31.579 labels we put on historical events, the actual 00:00:31.579 --> 00:00:34.579 specific words we choose to use, they matter 00:00:34.579 --> 00:00:38.479 deeply, even full century later. That is exactly 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:40.659 the right lens to view this through. To give 00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:42.799 you some context on the foundation of our conversation 00:00:42.799 --> 00:00:46.020 today, we're analyzing an extensive encyclopedia 00:00:46.020 --> 00:00:47.899 entry on the events surrounding the Ottoman Greek 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:51.000 population between the years 1913 and 1923. Yeah, 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:52.920 it's a massive amount of information. It is. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:55.479 It's a dense compilation of primary eyewitness 00:00:55.479 --> 00:00:58.759 accounts, diplomatic cables, and modern academic 00:00:58.759 --> 00:01:01.280 analysis. And it paints a picture of a world 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:04.090 in total transition. And really, the mission 00:01:04.090 --> 00:01:06.689 of this deep dive is to guide you through that 00:01:06.689 --> 00:01:09.909 timeline. We are going to explore the incredibly 00:01:09.909 --> 00:01:14.109 complex geopolitical fallout of the Ottoman Empire's 00:01:14.109 --> 00:01:18.430 collapse. And we want to unpack that highly charged 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:21.609 ongoing debate over how to define what happened 00:01:21.609 --> 00:01:23.650 to the people living there, which is still heavily 00:01:23.650 --> 00:01:26.969 debated. Exactly. But to grasp the magnitude 00:01:26.969 --> 00:01:28.810 of the collapse, I mean, we really have to understand 00:01:28.810 --> 00:01:31.760 what this region actually looked like. before 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:33.739 everything fell apart, because it wasn't what 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:35.799 it looks like today. Not at all. It's essential 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:38.700 to understand that before World War I, Asia Minor, 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:42.060 which is roughly modern day Turkey, it was a 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:44.540 deeply, deeply diverse region. Right. It was 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:46.879 not ethnically or religiously homogenous. You 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:49.659 had Turks, Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, Jews, 00:01:49.659 --> 00:01:52.000 and many others living side by side in this vast 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.920 imperial territory. And the Greek presence there 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.019 was ancient. Very ancient. We are talking about 00:01:57.019 --> 00:01:59.439 Rus dating back to the Late Bronze Age around 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:03.060 1450. So long before the events of the 20th century. 00:02:03.579 --> 00:02:05.939 Millennia before. This was the land of Homer. 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:09.460 the land of early philosophers like Heraclitus. 00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:11.819 Through the Roman and Byzantine empires, the 00:02:11.819 --> 00:02:14.379 indigenous inhabitants primarily practiced orthodox 00:02:14.379 --> 00:02:17.580 Christianity and they spoke Greek. Even after 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:19.599 the Ottoman Turks conquered the region in the 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:22.879 15th century, that Greek culture remained deeply 00:02:22.879 --> 00:02:25.979 embedded. They became a minority under Turkic 00:02:25.979 --> 00:02:28.879 rule, but their towns, their commerce, their 00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:31.419 culture, it was completely woven into the fabric 00:02:31.419 --> 00:02:34.159 of the region. Let's unpack this. We have this 00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:37.409 ancient diverse multi -ethnic society. But as 00:02:37.409 --> 00:02:39.509 we move into the early 20th century, specifically 00:02:39.509 --> 00:02:41.830 the years just before World War I, so around 00:02:41.830 --> 00:02:45.569 1913 to 1914, a massive ideological shift happens. 00:02:45.849 --> 00:02:47.750 It's a huge shift. The Ottoman Empire is fading. 00:02:47.909 --> 00:02:49.770 They have just suffered devastating territorial 00:02:49.770 --> 00:02:52.969 losses in the Balkan Wars. And driven by a rising 00:02:52.969 --> 00:02:55.430 tide of nationalism, the government begins viewing 00:02:55.430 --> 00:02:58.389 this indigenous Christian Greek population not 00:02:58.389 --> 00:03:01.270 as neighbors, but as a literal existential threat. 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:04.050 Yes, the political atmosphere becomes a pressure 00:03:04.050 --> 00:03:06.680 cooker. The government at the time was led by 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:09.199 a group called the Committee of Union and Progress. 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:11.419 You might know them historically as the Young 00:03:11.419 --> 00:03:13.960 Turks. Right, the Young Turks. Their mindset 00:03:13.960 --> 00:03:17.659 shifted to the idea that to form a modern secure 00:03:17.659 --> 00:03:20.439 country in an era of aggressive nationalism, 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:23.939 the empire needed to purge minorities who might 00:03:23.939 --> 00:03:26.560 sympathize with the empire's European enemies. 00:03:27.599 --> 00:03:29.919 To achieve this, the government adopted a strategy 00:03:29.919 --> 00:03:33.060 that historians describe as a dual track mechanism. 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:35.599 A dual track mechanism. It sounds incredibly 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:37.659 bureaucratic, but when you look at how it played 00:03:37.659 --> 00:03:40.419 out on the ground, it's actually the birth of 00:03:40.419 --> 00:03:43.500 modern, plausible deniability in state -sponsored 00:03:43.500 --> 00:03:45.939 violence. That is a perfect way to describe it. 00:03:46.280 --> 00:03:48.539 The dual -track mechanism meant combining official 00:03:48.539 --> 00:03:51.539 public state policies with unofficial extra -legal 00:03:51.539 --> 00:03:54.159 terror. Wow. On one track, the government would 00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:56.500 issue official acts of relocation. They'd tell 00:03:56.500 --> 00:03:58.460 the international community, hey, we are just 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:00.659 moving these populations for military necessity, 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.840 or it's a standard security policy. Keeping it 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.639 strictly professional on paper. Exactly. But 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.180 on the parallel, hitting track, they utilized 00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:12.340 covert terror campaigns carried out by irregular 00:04:12.340 --> 00:04:16.060 groups. Specifically, a shadowy paramilitary 00:04:16.060 --> 00:04:18.939 wing known as the Special Organization. Basically, 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:21.259 state -sponsored death squads. That's what they 00:04:21.259 --> 00:04:23.920 were. This gave the central government complete 00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.100 plausible deniability. They could empty out Christian 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:29.939 villages through sheer terror. And when foreign 00:04:29.939 --> 00:04:32.100 ambassadors complained about the violence, the 00:04:32.100 --> 00:04:34.240 state could simply throw up its hands and deny 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:36.699 any pri - knowledge. Blaming local bandits. Yes 00:04:36.699 --> 00:04:39.680 blame the rogue actors all while pulling the 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:42.160 strings behind the scenes. And the historical 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:44.959 records give us a chilling detailed example of 00:04:44.959 --> 00:04:47.279 exactly how this dual track system operated. 00:04:48.300 --> 00:04:51.819 In June 1914 there was an attack on Fokia. which 00:04:51.819 --> 00:04:54.160 was a prosperous town in western Anatolia. A 00:04:54.160 --> 00:04:56.459 very prosperous town. Turkish irregular troops 00:04:56.459 --> 00:04:58.860 completely destroyed the city, dozens of civilians 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:01.180 were killed, and the entire surviving population 00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:03.519 was forced to flee for their lives to Greece. 00:05:04.120 --> 00:05:05.959 And we know definitively that this wasn't just 00:05:05.959 --> 00:05:08.660 random mob violence because of French eyewitness 00:05:08.660 --> 00:05:11.399 Charles Manciet. Manciate's accounts are so crucial 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:13.439 here. He was a French diplomat who was there 00:05:13.439 --> 00:05:16.000 on the ground, and he explicitly stated that 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:18.720 the atrocities were highly organized. Methodical. 00:05:18.839 --> 00:05:21.360 Very methodical. He described how these irregular 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:24.540 forces purposefully aimed to circle and drive 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:27.920 out the Christian peasant populations. And alongside 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:30.980 these direct attacks, the state also implemented 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:33.939 what were called labor battalions. They would 00:05:33.939 --> 00:05:37.199 conscript Greek men of military age, but instead 00:05:37.199 --> 00:05:39.660 of giving them weapons, they sent them hundreds 00:05:39.660 --> 00:05:42.759 of miles into the harsh Anatolian interior. Just 00:05:42.759 --> 00:05:45.040 brutal conditions. They forced them to work on 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.759 roads and tunnels until they literally dropped. 00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:51.079 Hundreds of thousands died in these battalions 00:05:51.079 --> 00:05:54.329 due to starvation. exposure and outright massacre 00:05:54.329 --> 00:05:56.829 by their guards. It was essentially a death sentence 00:05:56.829 --> 00:05:59.209 disguised as civic duty. And it's worth noting 00:05:59.209 --> 00:06:01.170 that around the same time there were actually 00:06:01.170 --> 00:06:03.629 early attempts at voluntary population exchanges 00:06:03.629 --> 00:06:05.810 between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. Oh really? 00:06:06.230 --> 00:06:08.810 Voluntary? Yes. They signed an agreement in 1914 00:06:08.810 --> 00:06:11.250 to swap some Muslim populations living in Greece 00:06:11.250 --> 00:06:14.639 for Greek populations in Anatolia. But the outbreak 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:17.800 of World War I stopped that bureaucratic process 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:20.740 in its tracks, replacing it with the brutal mechanics 00:06:20.740 --> 00:06:23.220 of imperial collapse. So the war just accelerates 00:06:23.220 --> 00:06:25.939 everything. It does. A fading empire, terrified 00:06:25.939 --> 00:06:28.939 of being carved up by foreign powers, often resorts 00:06:28.939 --> 00:06:32.620 to extreme violent homogenization. They believe 00:06:32.620 --> 00:06:34.819 that removing the Greek and Armenian populations 00:06:34.819 --> 00:06:37.680 was the absolute prerequisite for the empire's 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:40.240 survival. So you have this powder keg of nationalism 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:43.529 and secret paramilitary squads. And then in 1914, 00:06:43.709 --> 00:06:45.970 the rest of the world catches fire. World War 00:06:45.970 --> 00:06:48.810 I breaks out, and suddenly this internal Ottoman 00:06:48.810 --> 00:06:51.509 policy becomes a massive global geopolitical 00:06:51.509 --> 00:06:53.689 issue. It certainly does. Because Eleutherios 00:06:53.689 --> 00:06:55.949 Venizelos, the leader of Greece, starts playing 00:06:55.949 --> 00:06:58.509 a very high stakes game of chess. He absolutely 00:06:58.509 --> 00:07:01.509 does. Venizelos threatened to drop Greece's neutrality 00:07:01.509 --> 00:07:04.470 and join the Entente allies, or to retaliate 00:07:04.470 --> 00:07:07.129 against Muslims living in Greece if the persecution 00:07:07.129 --> 00:07:09.430 of Greeks in Anatolia didn't stop. That is a 00:07:09.430 --> 00:07:12.180 massive threat. And this diplomatic threat actually 00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:15.620 worked briefly. It caused Germany, who was the 00:07:15.620 --> 00:07:18.120 primary ally of the Ottomans, to demand that 00:07:18.120 --> 00:07:20.339 the Ottoman government halt the persecutions. 00:07:20.899 --> 00:07:23.420 Germany really didn't want Greece entering the 00:07:23.420 --> 00:07:25.699 war against them. But did the violence actually 00:07:25.699 --> 00:07:28.740 stop? Or did the Ottoman government just tell 00:07:28.740 --> 00:07:31.279 Germany what they wanted to hear? What's fascinating 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:34.540 here is how the central official policy supposedly 00:07:34.540 --> 00:07:38.180 changed to appease an ally, but the grim mechanics 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:40.639 of history just kept grinding forward on the 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:42.879 ground. So they ignored the orders? Pretty much. 00:07:43.139 --> 00:07:45.339 Despite central orders from Constantinople to 00:07:45.339 --> 00:07:48.300 halt, the local massacres and deportations continued 00:07:48.300 --> 00:07:52.000 largely unpunished. The state policy just shifted 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 its justification. They began forcefully moving 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:57.779 Greeks from coastal areas, particularly the Black 00:07:57.779 --> 00:08:01.629 Sea region, deep into the And what was their 00:08:01.629 --> 00:08:03.990 excuse this time? Claiming these populations 00:08:03.990 --> 00:08:06.649 were a military vulnerability who might aid a 00:08:06.649 --> 00:08:08.449 Russian naval attack. And what about the Germans? 00:08:08.569 --> 00:08:10.610 They were military allies stationed right there 00:08:10.610 --> 00:08:12.870 in the Ottoman Empire. Did they just turn a blind 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:15.589 eye to this? It goes well beyond turning a blind 00:08:15.589 --> 00:08:18.490 eye. The historical archives reveal that German 00:08:18.490 --> 00:08:21.209 military officials themselves became directly 00:08:21.209 --> 00:08:24.790 complicit. You have German General Lehmann von 00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:27.449 Sanders, who was advising the Ottoman military, 00:08:28.069 --> 00:08:30.850 directly ordering the deportation of 30 ,000 00:08:30.850 --> 00:08:33.850 Greeks from the town of Ivalik in March 1917. 00:08:35.009 --> 00:08:37.669 And this wasn't a peaceful relocation. This operation 00:08:37.669 --> 00:08:40.570 involved death marches, the mass looting of property, 00:08:40.769 --> 00:08:42.929 and the massacre of the civilian population. 00:08:45.289 --> 00:08:48.009 there at the time are just staggering to read. 00:08:48.649 --> 00:08:51.350 Sweden's ambassador to Constantinople in 1917, 00:08:51.629 --> 00:08:54.169 Kaspar Ankersverd, wrote a report noting that 00:08:54.169 --> 00:08:56.370 the cruelty of extending these deportations to 00:08:56.370 --> 00:08:58.850 women and children was done specifically to make 00:08:58.850 --> 00:09:01.330 it easier to confiscate their property. It wasn't 00:09:01.330 --> 00:09:04.149 about security, it was about eradicating a presence 00:09:04.149 --> 00:09:06.789 and taking what they left behind. And you can 00:09:06.789 --> 00:09:09.190 hear the stark reality of the situation in the 00:09:09.190 --> 00:09:11.610 private observations of the officials involved. 00:09:12.090 --> 00:09:14.519 The German Chancellor at the time... Theobald 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:17.860 von Bethmann -Halweg stated plainly in 1917, 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:20.539 he said, the indications are that the Turks plan 00:09:20.539 --> 00:09:22.779 to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:25.279 the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. 00:09:25.299 --> 00:09:28.200 That's a direct quote. Yes. He detailed how they 00:09:28.200 --> 00:09:30.500 displaced people into the interior, exposing 00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:33.120 them to death and hunger, and then looted their 00:09:33.120 --> 00:09:35.419 homes. Even the Ottoman officials themselves 00:09:35.419 --> 00:09:38.940 were brutally clear behind closed doors. An Austrian 00:09:38.940 --> 00:09:42.379 consul in 1916 reported a conversation with an 00:09:42.379 --> 00:09:45.600 Ottoman official named Refet Bey. Bey reportedly 00:09:45.600 --> 00:09:48.100 said, we must finish off the Greeks as we did 00:09:48.100 --> 00:09:50.659 with the Armenians. Today I sent squads to the 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:53.580 interior to kill every Greek on site. Just horrific. 00:09:53.840 --> 00:09:55.860 The international diplomat stationed there actually 00:09:55.860 --> 00:09:58.620 coined a term for this specific type of atrocity, 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:01.360 these deportations involving death marches and 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:04.080 starvation camps. They call them white massacres. 00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:07.450 A chilling term. Death by attrition, exposure, 00:10:07.570 --> 00:10:10.169 and exhaustion rather than a firing squad. But 00:10:10.169 --> 00:10:11.870 it is also important to note that this wasn't 00:10:11.870 --> 00:10:14.590 entirely a one -sided slaughter without pushback. 00:10:14.990 --> 00:10:17.070 Right. There was resistance. Yes. The Pontic 00:10:17.070 --> 00:10:19.269 Greeks, those living along the Black Sea coast, 00:10:19.470 --> 00:10:22.990 responded by forming insurgent groups. By 1920, 00:10:22.990 --> 00:10:26.309 they had an 18 ,000 -man resistance force in 00:10:26.309 --> 00:10:29.230 the Caucasus fighting alongside Russian units 00:10:29.230 --> 00:10:32.029 against the Ottoman army to safeguard the withdrawal 00:10:32.029 --> 00:10:34.730 of Greek refugees. Here's where it gets really 00:10:34.730 --> 00:10:37.299 interesting, though. because World War I ends 00:10:37.299 --> 00:10:40.990 in 1918. The Ottoman Empire capitulates to the 00:10:40.990 --> 00:10:43.830 Allies. But the end of the global war does not 00:10:43.830 --> 00:10:45.570 mean the end of the violence in this region. 00:10:45.690 --> 00:10:48.070 Not at all. A new force rises from the ashes 00:10:48.070 --> 00:10:50.389 of the Empire, the Turkish national movement 00:10:50.389 --> 00:10:52.950 led by Mustafa Kemal, who would later be known 00:10:52.950 --> 00:10:55.570 as Ataturk. And this leads us directly into the 00:10:55.570 --> 00:10:58.029 Greco -Turkish War. Yes. The period immediately 00:10:58.029 --> 00:11:01.090 following World War One from 1919 to 1922 was 00:11:01.090 --> 00:11:03.629 marked by intense, devastating mutual violence. 00:11:04.269 --> 00:11:06.529 The Allies had promised Greece territorial gains 00:11:06.529 --> 00:11:08.909 in Anatolia as a reward. for joining the war. 00:11:09.129 --> 00:11:12.669 So they move in. Right. So in May 1919, Hellenic 00:11:12.669 --> 00:11:15.169 or Greek troops landed at the city of Smyrna, 00:11:15.370 --> 00:11:17.889 a major port city with a massive Greek population. 00:11:18.110 --> 00:11:19.970 And when looking at this period, we want to emphasize 00:11:19.970 --> 00:11:21.970 to you listening that we are just reporting the 00:11:21.970 --> 00:11:24.669 source material impartially here. Historians 00:11:24.669 --> 00:11:27.370 emphasize that the chaos resulted in horrific 00:11:27.370 --> 00:11:30.350 atrocities committed by both sides. When the 00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:33.230 Greek military occupied Western Anatolia, the 00:11:33.230 --> 00:11:35.590 record showed devastating massacres of the local 00:11:35.590 --> 00:11:38.970 Turkish populations. Precisely. The British historian 00:11:38.970 --> 00:11:41.990 Arnold J. Toynbee wrote extensively on this mutual 00:11:41.990 --> 00:11:45.159 tragedy. He noted that the Greek military landings 00:11:45.159 --> 00:11:48.039 in Smyrna were actually the catalysts that ignited 00:11:48.039 --> 00:11:50.779 Mustafa Kemal's Turkish national movement. It 00:11:50.779 --> 00:11:52.860 gave them an enemy to rally against. Exactly, 00:11:53.139 --> 00:11:55.639 a unifying foreign invader to fight. Toynbee 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.840 pointed out that both the Greeks of Pontus and 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:00.320 the Turks of the Greek occupied territories were 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:03.120 victims of original political miscalculations 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:05.799 made by leaders sitting in boardrooms far away 00:12:05.799 --> 00:12:08.220 in Paris. This is a profound tragedy where civilian 00:12:08.220 --> 00:12:11.279 populations on both sides paid the ultimate price 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:13.200 for the political ambitions of their leaders. 00:12:13.580 --> 00:12:16.299 And this mutual violence reached a terrifying 00:12:16.299 --> 00:12:19.000 climax with the Great Fire of Smyrna in September 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:22.139 1922, after the Turkish forces recaptured the 00:12:22.139 --> 00:12:24.960 city. A truly dark moment in history. The chaos 00:12:24.960 --> 00:12:27.379 at the docks as hundreds of thousands of people 00:12:27.379 --> 00:12:29.460 tried to flee the flames in the advancing army 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:32.059 is one of the most harrowing scenes of the 20th 00:12:32.059 --> 00:12:35.279 century. Estimates of the death toll for Greeks 00:12:35.279 --> 00:12:37.860 and Armenians who perished in the fire and the 00:12:37.860 --> 00:12:40.580 accompanying massacres range from 10 ,000 to 00:12:40.580 --> 00:12:44.080 100 ,000 dead, with up to 200 ,000 expelled. 00:12:44.379 --> 00:12:47.200 And tens of thousands of able -bodied men who 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:49.240 couldn't escape were deported to the interior, 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:52.539 most of whom died or were executed. This brutal, 00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:55.080 decade -long chapter finally reached a formal 00:12:55.080 --> 00:12:57.820 resolution with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. 00:12:58.090 --> 00:13:00.730 which fundamentally redrew the demographic map 00:13:00.730 --> 00:13:03.490 of the world. It did. The treaty formalized a 00:13:03.490 --> 00:13:05.990 massive compulsory population exchange between 00:13:05.990 --> 00:13:08.470 Greece and Turkey. And let's be clear about what 00:13:08.470 --> 00:13:10.590 a compulsory population exchange actually means. 00:13:10.590 --> 00:13:13.029 That is a highly sanitized, bureaucratic term 00:13:13.029 --> 00:13:15.710 for forced mass deportation. Absolutely. Over 00:13:15.710 --> 00:13:18.289 1 .1 million Ottoman Greeks were packed up and 00:13:18.289 --> 00:13:20.190 permanently expelled to Greece, leaving behind 00:13:20.190 --> 00:13:22.370 homes their families had lived in for generations. 00:13:22.470 --> 00:13:25.009 And on the other side. Simultaneously, hundreds 00:13:25.009 --> 00:13:27.389 of thousands of Muslims living in Greece were 00:13:27.399 --> 00:13:30.399 forcibly sent to Turkey. This exchange abruptly 00:13:30.399 --> 00:13:32.980 and permanently ended millennia of continuous 00:13:32.980 --> 00:13:35.539 Greek ethnic presence in Asia Minor. And the 00:13:35.539 --> 00:13:37.879 human cost of this decade of violence is just 00:13:37.879 --> 00:13:40.440 staggering. The academic estimates for the Ottoman 00:13:40.440 --> 00:13:44.500 Greek death toll between 1914 and 1922 vary heavily 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:46.159 depending on the parameters of the research. 00:13:46.259 --> 00:13:48.620 Right, the numbers differ. Scholar Rudolf Rommel 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.779 estimates around 347 ,000. Political scientist 00:13:51.779 --> 00:13:55.480 Adam Jones suggests 750 ,000. And researchers 00:13:55.480 --> 00:13:57.639 like Thea Halo, when accounting for a broader 00:13:57.639 --> 00:14:00.759 timeline and region, estimate up to 1 .2 million 00:14:00.759 --> 00:14:03.019 deaths. It's an immense loss of life. So what 00:14:03.019 --> 00:14:05.299 does this all mean? How do we categorize violence 00:14:05.299 --> 00:14:08.240 on this scale? This brings us to a fierce modern 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:12.080 debate over a single word, genocide. The word 00:14:12.080 --> 00:14:14.340 itself didn't even exist when these events happened. 00:14:14.519 --> 00:14:17.259 It was coined in the 1940s by a Polish lawyer 00:14:17.259 --> 00:14:20.289 named Rafael Lemkin. Yes, Lemkin was trying to 00:14:20.289 --> 00:14:22.289 create a legal framework for the destruction 00:14:22.289 --> 00:14:25.190 of a nation or an ethnic group. And in his early 00:14:25.190 --> 00:14:28.509 writings defining what genocide was, Lemkin specifically 00:14:28.509 --> 00:14:30.909 detailed the fate of the Greeks in Turkey alongside 00:14:30.909 --> 00:14:33.669 the Armenians as a prime historical example of 00:14:33.669 --> 00:14:35.929 the crime he was trying to name. But the debate 00:14:35.929 --> 00:14:38.330 over whether to officially apply this label today 00:14:38.330 --> 00:14:41.230 is where the academic and political spheres deeply 00:14:41.230 --> 00:14:44.350 fracture. Again, staying entirely impartial with 00:14:44.350 --> 00:14:46.409 the sources here, can you break down the dividing 00:14:46.409 --> 00:14:49.269 lines in this academic debate? Certainly. On 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:51.830 one side, you have institutions like the International 00:14:51.830 --> 00:14:55.529 Association of Genocide Scholars, or IAGS. In 00:14:55.529 --> 00:14:58.610 2007, they passed a resolution overwhelmingly 00:14:58.610 --> 00:15:00.970 affirming that the campaign against the Ottoman 00:15:00.970 --> 00:15:03.889 Greeks was a genocide, qualitatively similar 00:15:03.889 --> 00:15:06.070 to the Armenian Genocide. And some governments 00:15:06.070 --> 00:15:08.669 agree with that. Yes. Several nations, including 00:15:08.669 --> 00:15:11.370 the US, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Austria, 00:15:11.549 --> 00:15:13.629 have passed resolutions officially recognizing 00:15:13.629 --> 00:15:16.879 it as such. But there is a very prominent counter 00:15:16.879 --> 00:15:19.240 argument within the academic community, right? 00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:21.519 Scholars who argue that while the events were 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:24.580 horrific, they don't meet the strict legal definition 00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:27.360 of genocide. Correct. You have prominent scholars 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:30.200 like Manus Modlarski, Michael Schwartz, and Angrachos 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:33.320 Varnova who argue that this was ethnic cleansing 00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:36.960 or deportation, but not genocide. Because of 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:39.220 the legal definition. Right. Their argument hinges 00:15:39.220 --> 00:15:43.059 on intent and outcome. They point out a disjunction 00:15:43.059 --> 00:15:45.259 between the violent rhetoric of some Ottoman 00:15:45.259 --> 00:15:48.100 officials and the actual overarching goals of 00:15:48.100 --> 00:15:50.779 the state. They argue that because of the strong 00:15:50.779 --> 00:15:52.860 cultural and political ties the Ottoman Greeks 00:15:52.860 --> 00:15:56.570 had with European powers, total biological annihilation 00:15:56.570 --> 00:15:59.309 simply wasn't a viable option for the Ottomans. 00:15:59.669 --> 00:16:01.570 So it was more about moving them out of strategic 00:16:01.570 --> 00:16:04.090 areas. Exactly. These scholars point to the fact 00:16:04.090 --> 00:16:06.350 that the massacres were often contained to sensitive 00:16:06.350 --> 00:16:08.590 border regions and ultimately over a million 00:16:08.590 --> 00:16:11.490 Greeks survived the war to be exchanged in 1923. 00:16:12.049 --> 00:16:14.690 Therefore, they classify it as a ruthless campaign 00:16:14.690 --> 00:16:17.190 of ethnic cleansing designed to homogenize the 00:16:17.190 --> 00:16:20.330 state rather than an attempted biological eradication 00:16:20.330 --> 00:16:23.610 of the entire Greek race. And the political pushback 00:16:23.610 --> 00:16:26.519 on this terminology is immense. When the Greek 00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:29.379 Parliament passed laws in the 1990s affirming 00:16:29.379 --> 00:16:32.019 the events as genocide, the Turkish government's 00:16:32.019 --> 00:16:35.059 official response was swift and angry. They released 00:16:35.059 --> 00:16:37.379 a statement claiming the genocide label is without 00:16:37.379 --> 00:16:40.240 any historical basis. Very strong words. They 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.799 accused Greece of distorting history and covering 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:46.120 up the massacres Greece perpetrated in Anatolia, 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:49.220 claiming the resolution displayed an expansionist 00:16:49.220 --> 00:16:51.980 Greek mentality. If we connect this to the bigger 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.679 picture, you can see how international law and 00:16:54.679 --> 00:16:57.980 geopolitical alliances deeply complicate historical 00:16:57.980 --> 00:17:00.639 memory. Think about how often you see this today. 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.460 Nations turning a blind eye to human rights abuses 00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:06.019 because they need a military base, a trade deal, 00:17:06.059 --> 00:17:09.539 or a strategic partner. That exact dynamic is 00:17:09.539 --> 00:17:12.160 what buried this history for decades. Right, 00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:14.319 because why hasn't the United Nations or the 00:17:14.319 --> 00:17:16.559 European Parliament universally recognized it? 00:17:16.670 --> 00:17:19.450 Well, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne essentially 00:17:19.450 --> 00:17:21.470 sealed the end of the conflict with an amnesty 00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:23.970 declaration, avoiding any massive war crimes 00:17:23.970 --> 00:17:27.230 trials. Then you have the Cold War. Following 00:17:27.230 --> 00:17:30.170 World War II, Greece and Turkey were both critical 00:17:30.170 --> 00:17:33.009 NATO allies facing a common communist enemy in 00:17:33.009 --> 00:17:36.240 the Soviet Union. They needed each other. Geopolitics 00:17:36.240 --> 00:17:38.859 demanded they be partners, not adversaries fighting 00:17:38.859 --> 00:17:41.960 over historical grievances. Acknowledging a genocide 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:44.099 threatened that delicate diplomatic balance, 00:17:44.460 --> 00:17:46.460 so the international community largely stayed 00:17:46.460 --> 00:17:49.079 silent. It's wild how the present needs of governments 00:17:49.079 --> 00:17:51.279 dictate how the past is officially remembered. 00:17:52.019 --> 00:17:53.960 But there is one more piece of this deep docks 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.859 that is truly bizarre, and it connects this regional 00:17:56.859 --> 00:17:59.319 conflict to the darkest chapter of the 20th century. 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:03.000 Research by historian Stefan Ehrig shows that 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.039 the Nazi party in Germany in the 1920s viewed 00:18:06.039 --> 00:18:09.039 Mustafa Kemal and the new Turkey as a literal 00:18:09.039 --> 00:18:11.799 role model. It is a profoundly dark inspiration. 00:18:12.259 --> 00:18:14.460 The Nazi press continually praised the cleansing 00:18:14.460 --> 00:18:16.660 of the Greeks and Armenians as a prerequisite 00:18:16.660 --> 00:18:19.480 for creating a strong unified national state. 00:18:19.779 --> 00:18:22.400 It's hard to even process that. In 1921, the 00:18:22.400 --> 00:18:24.599 official Nazi newspaper stated that the German 00:18:24.599 --> 00:18:26.859 nation would one day have to resort to Turkish 00:18:26.859 --> 00:18:30.009 methods. Adolf Hitler himself later referred 00:18:30.009 --> 00:18:33.009 to Kemal as his star in the darkness and considered 00:18:33.009 --> 00:18:35.109 himself a student of the Turkish leader's nation 00:18:35.109 --> 00:18:37.589 -building tactics. But the historical record 00:18:37.589 --> 00:18:41.329 reveals an incredible paradox here. Hitler idolized 00:18:41.329 --> 00:18:44.329 Kemal for his ruthless homogenization of a country. 00:18:45.210 --> 00:18:48.009 But how did Kemal actually view Hitler and the 00:18:48.009 --> 00:18:50.869 Nazis? Because the feeling was definitely not 00:18:50.869 --> 00:18:53.210 mutual. This raises an important question about 00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:55.869 how extreme regimes weaponize and distort history. 00:18:56.140 --> 00:18:59.759 The irony is profound. Despite Hitler's intense 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:03.839 admiration in 1933, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk actually 00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.380 granted asylum to thousands of Jewish scientists 00:19:06.380 --> 00:19:08.640 and academics who were fleeing Nazi repression, 00:19:09.059 --> 00:19:11.140 employing them at Turkish universities to modernize 00:19:11.140 --> 00:19:13.440 the country. He actively worked against Hitler's 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:16.559 goals. Yes. Kemal publicly called Mussolini a 00:19:16.559 --> 00:19:18.720 clown, and he referred to Hitler as a maniac 00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:21.059 corporal and a dangerous racist. He thought Nazism 00:19:21.059 --> 00:19:23.380 was a direct threat to Europe. It just shows 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:26.279 how totalitarian regimes will completely cherry 00:19:26.279 --> 00:19:30.339 -pick historical models. Hitler ignored Ataturk's 00:19:30.339 --> 00:19:33.279 actual geopolitical stances, his modernizing 00:19:33.279 --> 00:19:37.730 values, and his disdain for fascist racism. Instead, 00:19:37.869 --> 00:19:40.049 the Nazis simply extracted the brutal mechanics 00:19:40.049 --> 00:19:42.809 of ethnic cleansing to justify their own future 00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:45.309 atrocities. Exactly. They stripped the history 00:19:45.309 --> 00:19:47.890 of its context, ignored the complexities of the 00:19:47.890 --> 00:19:50.390 era, and turned the raw data of human suffering 00:19:50.390 --> 00:19:52.910 into a blueprint for their own crimes. This has 00:19:52.910 --> 00:19:55.230 been an intense deep dive. If you're listening 00:19:55.230 --> 00:19:57.890 to this, we want to validate your desire to dig 00:19:57.890 --> 00:20:00.750 into topics this complex. Because history is 00:20:00.750 --> 00:20:02.730 rarely just a clean timeline of what happened. 00:20:03.130 --> 00:20:05.309 As we've seen today, history is about who gets 00:20:05.309 --> 00:20:07.420 to write the final piece Treaty. It's about the 00:20:07.420 --> 00:20:09.380 specific words we choose to define the dead, 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.059 whether a textbook says ethnic cleansing or genocide. 00:20:12.519 --> 00:20:15.099 And it is about how past atrocities are weaponized 00:20:15.099 --> 00:20:18.140 by future regimes to justify new horrors. And 00:20:18.140 --> 00:20:20.059 before we go, I want to leave you with a final 00:20:20.059 --> 00:20:21.660 lingering thought from the literature section 00:20:21.660 --> 00:20:24.140 of our research. There was a Greek novelist named 00:20:24.140 --> 00:20:27.059 Elias Venessis. He actually survived one of those 00:20:27.059 --> 00:20:29.140 Ottoman death marches, the labor battalions we 00:20:29.140 --> 00:20:31.880 discussed earlier. Oh, wow. Out of the 3 ,000 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:34.339 people conscripted into his specific labor brigade, 00:20:34.819 --> 00:20:37.579 he was one of only 23 who survived the ordeal. 00:20:37.859 --> 00:20:40.440 23 out of 3 ,000. He later wrote a harrowing 00:20:40.440 --> 00:20:42.900 autobiographical book about his experience titled 00:20:42.900 --> 00:20:46.480 Number 31, 32, and 8, which was simply the conscript 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:49.380 number the Turkish army assigned to him. Surviving 00:20:49.380 --> 00:20:52.180 as one out of 3 ,000, that is just unimaginable. 00:20:52.339 --> 00:20:56.599 It is. And decades later, in 1978, a Greek filmmaker 00:20:56.599 --> 00:21:00.359 turned his survival story into a movie. But here's 00:21:00.359 --> 00:21:03.279 the catch. Greece itself banned the film from 00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:06.319 being shown in its own country until 1982. Greece 00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:10.460 banned it. Yes. Why? Because of intense diplomatic 00:21:10.460 --> 00:21:12.700 pressure from the Turkish foreign ministry who 00:21:12.700 --> 00:21:14.920 complained the film would ruin Greek -Turkish 00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:17.259 relations. So I want you to ponder this as we 00:21:17.259 --> 00:21:18.940 wrap up. What does it say about the fragility 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:21.480 of our geopolitical peace when a democratic nation 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:23.579 feels forced to censor the harrowing survival 00:21:23.579 --> 00:21:26.099 stories of its own citizens just to maintain 00:21:26.099 --> 00:21:28.259 diplomatic relations with a neighbor? That is 00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:30.359 a phenomenal question to end on. Thank you for 00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:32.680 joining us on this deep dive. Keep reading, keep 00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:34.900 seeking out multiple perspectives, and keep questioning 00:21:34.900 --> 00:21:35.940 the history you think you know.