Asia Minor

The term Asia Minor (Greek: Μικρά Ασία) denotes the peninsula bounded on the north by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, or Propontis, on the west by the Aegean and on the south by the Mediterranean, while on the east it is separated from the main continent of Asia by Armenian highlands and the Euphrates. The term Asia Minor and the later term Anatolia (Greek: Ανατολία) are usually considered to be synonymous despite some slight distinctions. Asia Minor is home to various historic regions of significance to Greeks, including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Ionia, Lydia, Lycia, Mysia, Pisidia and Pontus, amongst others.

Greek Population

At the start of the Twentieth Century the Greek population of Asia Minor numbered approximately two million. Greeks lived throughout Asia Minor, but there was a considerable concentration of Greeks in costal regions.

Asia Minor during the Greek Genocide

According to Henry Morgenthau, the American Ambassador at Constantinople,"in May and June of 1914 about 100-150,000 Greeks" were deported.

In a June 1915 telegram to the US Secretary of State regarding the deportations of "over forty thousand Ottoman Greeks from the Islands and the coast of Marmora" to the Turkish Interior, the American Ambassador at Constantinople concluded that: "Evidently Turkish nationalistic policy is aimed at all Christians and not confined to Armenians."

In a March 1918 report by American Consul Jesse B. Jackson of Aleppo, Syria, we read:

"In the Spring of 1916 the authorities decided to remove all the Christians from the coast towns in Northern Syria. This took in those at Alexandretta, Arsous, Swedia, Antioch and the surrounding villages, although the last named city is about 20 miles inland. As the Armenians had already been deported from those places, there remained only the Greek Orthodox, and after they had been sent to the interior, strangely enough the deportations stopped, leaving the Latin Catholics undisturbed. ... There were more than 3,000 of the Greek Orthodox thereby placed in the same unfortunate condition as the Armenians ..."

In the 4 November 1918 Ottoman Parliament Assembly session three Ottoman deputies raised the issue of the murder of 550,000 Greeks, the expulsion of 250,000 Greeks and the death of of 250,000 conscripted in Labor Battalions. Also mentioned was the confiscation of Greek property.

Suggested Reading

• Greek Patriarchate, Persecution of the Greeks in Turkey 1914-1918, Constantinople (Hesperia Press, London), 1919.
• Les Persecutions antihelleniques en Turquie, depuis le debut de la guerre europeenne: D'apres les rapports officiels des agents diplomatiques et consulaires, Bernard Grasset, Paris, 1918.
• Mark H. Ward, The Deportations in Asia Minor 1921-1922, Anglo-Hellenic League & British Armenia Committee, London, 1922.
• Επιτροπή των εν Μυτιλήνη Μικρασιατών Προσφύγων, Διωγμοί των Ελλήνων εν Θράκη και Μικρασία: Αυθεντικαί εκθέσεις και επίσημα κείμενα: Έκκλησις προς το ελληνικόν γένος και την δημοσίαν Γνώμην του πεπολιτισμένου κόσμου, Πανελληνίου Κράτους, Αθήνα, 1915.