page_title: Yalova Peninsula massacres
section_title: Population
hierarchical_section_title: Yalova Peninsula massacres / Background / Population
caption_attribution_description: English: Two little Muslim orphans, their parents were killed by Greeks. 1921.
context_page_description: The Yalova Peninsula massacres were a series of massacres and ethnic cleansings during 1920–1921, the majority of which occurred during March – May 1921. They were committed by local Greek and Armenian gangs and the invading Greek army against the Turkish Muslim population of the Yalova Peninsula. There were 27 villages burned and in Armutlu. According to journalist Arnold J. Toynbee c. 300 Muslims were killed during April–July 1921. In an Ottoman inquiry of 177 survivors in Constantinople, the number of victims reported was very low, which is in line with Toynbee's descriptions that villagers fled after one to two murders. Moreover, approximately 1,500 out of 7,000 Muslims remained in the region after the events or 6,000 had left Yalova where 16 villages had been burned. On the other hand, Ottoman and Turkish documents on massacres claim that at least 9,100 Muslim Turks were killed.
  The high death toll in the events convinced Toynbee that the Greeks were unfit to rule over Turks.
context_section_description: The peninsula's population before World War I included an ethnically diverse population including Muslims, Greeks and Armenians. Many Muslim refugees had settled in this area during the 19th-century founding their own villages. The Kaza of Orhangazi had a majority of Armenians, with a minority of Muslims (34%). The kaza of Yalova had also a minority of Muslims in 1914 (36%), with Christians being also in majority (Greeks and Armenians). The Kaza of Gemlik was 57% Muslim but the town of Gemlik was almost entirely (90%) Greek by the time of the war. Gemlik was surrounded by Greek, Armenian and Muslim Turkish villages. Most of the Armenians in the region were deported during the Armenian Genocide their villages burned, only a small part, several thousand survivors returned, some 2.000 were present at Gemlik in 1921. In 1921 there were 3,500 Greek refugees in Gemlik, mostly from areas around Iznik where they had been subject to Turkish atrocities.
  Population table of 1914.
  An additional factor that lead to violence was the return of Greek refugees to their homes, who have been dislocated as a result of the Ottoman ethnic cleansing policies during World War I. On the other hand, thousands of Turkish refugees from the Balkan wars, who had occupied their homes in the meantime, were expulsed. This turn of event created a rural proletariat apt for brigandage and violence by irregular groups. According to a report of the Allied commission the events during World War I and the problems of the refugees were not the primary reason of the thorough destruction of numerous Turkish villages and towns in the Gemlik-Yalova Peninsula. They stated that the massacres and destruction was carried out according to a plan by the Greek army who also encouraged the local Greek and Armenians to participate.
caption: Two little Muslim orphans whose parents were killed.
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