These islands had been liberated from Ottoman control in 1912 by the Greek Navy. Under Article 14 of the Lausanne treaty, Turkey assumed the legal responsibility of ruling these islands with a special self-governing status, which was to be exercised by local authorities. Under these provisions order would be kept by a police force recruited from the local Greek population that would also have the responsibility of overseeing the Greek educational system. Turkey followed here its usual tactic of never abiding by its international obligations.
Numbers speak for themselves.
In 1920 the islands of Imvros and Tenedos had a population of approximately 10,000 Greeks. Today only a few hundred Greeks remain. Greeks who traveled abroad were not allowed to return and their property was confiscated. They forbade the teaching of the Greek language. Imvros was converted into a prison without walls for convicted Turkish fellons who terrorized the Greek residents.