Asia Minor Disaster

Asia Minor Disaster is the name Greeks use for the defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) - also known as the Asia Minor Expedition - and the subsequent expulsion of Greek presence from Asia Minor.

Background

Greeks first settled in the southwest part of Anatolia around the time of the Doric invasion of mainland Greece (1100 BC). They were followed, from the 9th until the 6th Century BC, by waves of Ionians, Aeolians and Dorians who colonised the western coast building important cities and establishing a civilisation equal, if not better than, that of mainland Greece.

Throughout antiquity, though conquered and ruled by Persia, western Asia Minor retained its Greek character which, after Alexander the Great's conquests, spread to central regions as well, throughout the Hellenistic age.

Following the division of the Roman Empire into western and eastern empires, Asia Minor became an important part of the Byzantine Empire. It supplied the Christian, Greek-speaking empire with most of its soldiers and, indeed, with more emperors than Greece itself.