Greek genocide The Greek genocide , part of which is known as the Pontic genocide , was the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Christian Ottoman Greek population from its historic homeland in Asia Minor , central Anatolia , Pontus , and the former Russian Caucasus province of Kars Oblast during World War I and its aftermath ( 1914 – 23 ) . It was instigated by the government of the Ottoman Empire against the Greek population of the Empire and it included massacres , forced deportations involving death marches , summary expulsions , arbitrary executions , and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural , historical and religious monuments . According to various sources , several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period . Some of the survivors and refugees , especially those in Eastern provinces , took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire . After the end of the 1919 – 22 Greco - Turkish War , most of the Greeks remaining in the Ottoman Empire were transferred to Greece under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period , including Assyrians and Armenians , and some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination . The Allies of World War I condemned the Ottoman government - sponsored massacres as crimes against humanity . More recently , the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution in 2007 affirming that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire , including the Greeks , was genocide . Some other organisations have also passed resolutions recognising the campaign as a genocide , as have the parliaments of Greece , Republic of Cyprus and Sweden . Background . At the outbreak of World War I , Asia Minor was ethnically diverse , its population including Turks , Azeris , Greeks , Armenians , Kurds , Zazas , Circassians , Assyrians , Jews , and Laz people . Among the causes for the Turkish campaign against the Greek population was a fear that the population would aid the Ottoman Empire ' s enemies , and a belief among some Turks that to form a modern nation state it was necessary to purge from the territories of the state those national groups who could threaten the integrity of a modern Turkish nation state . According to a German military attaché , the Ottoman minister of war Ismail Enver had declared in October 1915 that he wanted to " solve the Greek problem during the war . . . in the same way he believe [ d ] he solved the Armenian problem . " Origins . The Greek presence in Asia Minor has been dated to at least the time of Homer around 800 BCE . Prior to their conquest by the people the Greeks were one of several indigenous peoples living in Asia Minor . The geographer Strabo referred to Smyrna as the first Greek city in Asia Minor . Greeks referred to the Black Sea as the " Euxinos Pontos " or " hospitable sea " and starting in the eighth century BCE they began navigating its shores and settling along its coast . The most notable Greek cities of the Black Sea were Trebizond , Sampsounta , Sinope and Heraclea Pontica . In medieval times Trebizond became an important trade hub and capital of its own state , the Empire of Trebizond . Events . In the summer of 1914 the Special Organization ( Teşkilat - ı Mahsusa ) , assisted by government and army officials , conscripted Greek men of military age from Thrace and western Anatolia into Labour Battalions in which hundreds of thousands died . Sent hundreds of miles into the Interior of Anatolia , these conscripts were employed in road - making , building , tunnel excavating and other field work but their numbers were heavily reduced through either privations and ill - treatment or by outright massacre by their Ottoman guards . This program of forced conscription later expanded to other regions of the Empire including Pontus . Conscription of Greek men was supplemented by massacres and by deportations involving death marches of the general population . Greek villages and towns would be surrounded by Ottomans and their inhabitants massacred . Such was the story in Phocaea ( Greek : Φώκαια ) , a town in western Anatolia twenty - five miles ( ) northwest of Smyrna , on 12 June 1914 where the slain bodies of men , women and children were thrown down a well . In July 1915 the Greek chargé d ' affaires explained that the deportations " can not be any other issue than an annihilation war against the Greek nation in Turkey and as measures hereof they have been implementing forced conversions to Islam , in obvious aim to , that if after the end of the war there again would be a question of European intervention for the protection of the Christians , there will be as few of them left as possible . " According to George W . Rendel of the British Foreign Office , by 1918 " . . . over 500 , 000 Greeks were deported of whom comparatively few survived . " In his memoirs , the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1913 and 1916 wrote " Everywhere the Greeks were gathered in groups and , under the so - called protection of Turkish gendarmes , they were transported , the larger part on foot , into the interior . Just how many were scattered in this fashion is not definitely known , the estimates varying anywhere from 200 , 000 up to 1 , 000 , 000 . " On 14 January 1917 Cosswa Anckarsvärd , Sweden ’ s Ambassador to Constantinople , sent a dispatch regarding the deportation decision of the Ottoman Greeks : Methods of destruction which caused death indirectly – such as deportations involving death marches , starvation in labour camp s , concentration camp s etc . – were referred to as " white massacres " . Ottoman official Rafet Bey was active in the Genocide of the Greeks and on November 1916 he stated “ " We must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians … today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight … ” " . According to the official Ottoman documents , in January 1919 , the Ottoman government allowed the return of some Greek who were deported , gave them financial aid and gave back their properties . The Turkish Courts - Martial of 1919 - 20 saw charges brought against a number of leading Ottoman officials for their part in ordering massacres against both Greeks and Armenians . In an October 1920 report a British officer describes the aftermath of the massacres at Iznik in north - western Anatolia in which he estimated that at least 100 decomposed mutilated bodies of men , women and children were present in and around a large cave about 300 yards outside the city walls . The systematic massacre and deportation of Greeks in Asia Minor , a program which had come into effect in 1914 , was a precursor to the atrocities perpetrated by both the Greek and Turkish armies during the Greco - Turkish War , a conflict which followed the Greek landing at Smyrna in May 1919 and continued until the retaking of Smyrna by the Turks and the Great Fire of Smyrna in September 1922 . An estimated 50 , 000 and to 100 , 000 Greeks and Armenians perished in the fire and accompanying massacres . According to Norman M . Naimark " more realistic estimates range between 10 , 000 to 15 , 000 " for the casualties of the Great Fire of Smyrna . Some 150 , 000 to 200 , 000 Greeks were expelled after the fire , while about 30 , 000 able - bodied Greek and Armenian men were deported to the interior of Asia Minor , most of whom were executed on the way or died under brutal conditions . There were also massacres of Turks carried out by the Hellenic troops during the occupation of western Anatolia from May 1919 to September 1922 . For the massacres that occurred during the Greco - Turkish War of 1919 – 1922 , British historian Arnold J . Toynbee wrote that it was the Greek landings that created the Turkish National Movement led by Mustafa Kemal : " " . . . The Greeks of ' Pontus ' and the Turks of the Greek occupied territories , were in some degree victims of Mr . Venizelos ' s and Mr . Lloyd George ' s original miscalculations at Paris . " " Relief efforts . In 1917 a relief organization by the name of the Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor was formed in response to the deportations and massacres of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire . The committee worked in cooperation with the Near East Relief in distributing aid to Ottoman Greeks in Thrace and Asia Minor . The organisation disbanded in the summer of 1921 but Greek relief work was continued by other aid organisations . Contemporary accounts . German and Austro - Hungarian diplomats , as well as the 1922 memorandum compiled by George W . Rendel on " Turkish Massacres and Persecutions " , have provided evidence for series of systematic massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Greeks in Asia Minor . The quotes have been attributed to various diplomats , notably the German ambassadors Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim and Richard von Kühlmann , the German vice - consul in Samsoun Kuchhoff , Austria ' s ambassador Pallavicini and Samsoun consul Ernst von Kwiatkowski , and the Italian unofficial agent in Angora Signor Tuozzi . Other quotes are from clergymen and activists , notably the German missionary Johannes Lepsius , and Stanley Hopkins of the Near East Relief . Germany and Austria - Hungary were allies of the Ottoman Empire in World War I . The accounts describe systematic massacres , rapes and burnings of Greek villages , and attribute intent to Ottoman officials , namely the Ottoman Prime Minister Mahmud Sevket Pasha , Rafet Bey , Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha . Additionally , " The New York Times " and its correspondents have made extensive references to the events , recording massacres , deportations , individual killings , rapes , burning of entire Greek villages , destruction of Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries , drafts for " Labor Brigades " , looting , terrorism and other " atrocities " for Greek , Armenian and also for British and American citizens and government officials . The newspaper was awarded its first Pulitzer Prize in 1918 " for the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by an American newspaper — complete and accurate coverage of the war " . More media of the time reported the events with similar titles . Henry Morgenthau , the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916 accused the " Turkish government " of a campaign of " outrageous terrorizing , cruel torturing , driving of women into harems , debauchery of innocent girls , the sale of many of them at 80 cents each , the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands , [ and ] the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities " , all part of " the willful execution " of a " scheme to annihilate the Armenian , Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey . " However , months prior to the First World War , 100 , 000 Greeks were deported to Greek islands or the interior which Morgenthau stated , " for the larger part these were bona - fide deportations ; that is , the Greek inhabitants were actually removed to new places and were not subjected to wholesale massacre . It was probably the reason that the civilized world did not protest against these deportations . . . " US Consul - General George Horton reported , " One of the cleverest statements circulated by the Turkish propagandists is to the effect that the massacred Christians were as bad as their executioners , that it was ' 50 – 50 . ' " On this issue he comments : " Had the Greeks , after the massacres in the Pontus and at Smyrna , massacred all the Turks in Greece , the record would have been 50 – 50 — almost . " As an eye - witness , he also praises Greeks for their " conduct [ . . . ] toward the thousands of Turks residing in Greece , while the ferocious massacres were going on . . . " , which , according to his opinion , was " one of the most inspiring and beautiful chapters in all that country ’ s history . " Casualties . According to various sources the Greek death toll in the Pontus region of Anatolia ranges from 300 , 000 to 360 , 000 . Estimates for the death toll of Anatolian Greeks as a whole are significantly higher , a team of American researchers found in the early postwar period that the total number of Greeks killed may approach 900 , 000 people . According to the figures by the Greek government together with the Patriarchate , a total of one million people were estimated to be massacred . According to the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples , between 1916 and 1923 , up to 350 , 000 Greek Pontians were reportedly killed in massacres , persecution and death marches . Merrill D . Peterson cites the death toll of 360 , 000 for the Greeks of Pontus . According to George K . Valavanis " The loss of human life among the Pontian Greeks , since the Great War ( World War I ) until March 1924 , can be estimated at 353 , 000 , as a result of murders , hangings , and from punishment , disease , and other hardships . " Constantine G Hatzidimitriou writes that " loss of life among Anatolian Greeks during the WWI period and its aftermath was approximately 735 , 370 . " Edward Hale Bierstadt states that " According to official testimony , the Turks since 1914 have slaughtered in cold blood 1 , 500 , 000 Armenians , and 500 , 000 Greeks , men women and children , without the slightest provocation . " . At the Lausanne conference in late 1922 the British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon is recorded as saying " a million Greeks have been killed , deported or have died . " In 1916 , Emanuel Efendi , a Ottoman deputy , said that " 550 , 000 Greeks . . . were killed . " Aftermath . Article 142 of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres , prepared after the first World War , called the Turkish regime " terrorist " and contained provisions " to repair so far as possible the wrongs inflicted on individuals in the course of the massacres perpetrated in Turkey during the war . " The Treaty of Sèvres was never ratified by the Turkish government and ultimately was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne . That treaty was accompanied by a " Declaration of Amnesty " , without containing any provision in respect to punishment of war crimes . In 1923 , a population exchange between Greece and Turkey resulted in a near - complete elimination of the Greek ethnic presence in Turkey and a similar elimination of the Turkish ethnic presence in much of Greece . According to the Greek census of 1928 , 1 , 104 , 216 Ottoman Greeks had reached Greece . It is impossible to know exactly how many Greek inhabitants of Turkey died between 1914 and 1923 , and how many ethnic Greeks of Anatolia were expelled to Greece or fled to the Soviet Union . Some of the survivors and expelled took refuge in the neighboring Russian Empire ( later , Soviet Union ) . In 1955 , the Istanbul Pogrom caused most of the Greek inhabitants remaining in Istanbul to flee and migrate from there . Historian Alfred - Maurice de Zayas identifies Istanbul Pogroms as a very serious crime against humanity and he states that , small Greek causality and especially the flight and big migration of Greeks after the pogrom corresponds to the " intent to destroy in whole or in part " criteria of the Genocide Convention Genocide recognition . Terminology . The word " genocide " was coined in the early 1940s , the era of the Holocaust , by Raphael Lemkin , a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent . In his writings on genocide , Lemkin is known to have detailed the fate of Greeks in Turkey . In August 1946 the " New York Times " reported : The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ( CPPCG ) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 and came into force in January 1951 . It defines genocide in legal terms . Some historians and other scholars employ other definitions of genocide , which they consider better suited for academic use . Before creation of the word " genocide " , the destruction of the Ottoman Greeks was known by Greeks as " the Massacre " ( in Greek , η Σφαγή ) , " the Great Catastrophe " ( η Μεγάλη Καταστροφή ) , or " the Great Tragedy " ( η Μεγάλη Τραγωδία ) . Contemporary accounts employed such terms as " annihilation " , " systematic extermination " , " persistent campaign of massacre " , and " wholesale massacre " . Academic . In December 2007 the International Association of Genocide Scholars ( IAGS ) passed a resolution affirming that the 1914 – 23 campaign against Ottoman Greeks constituted genocide . Employing the term " Greek Genocide " , it affirmed that Ottoman Greeks were subject to genocide alongside other groups , namely Armenians and Assyrians . The resolution was adopted on 1 December 2007 and the press release issued by the organization on 16 December . The IAGS resolution was passed with an " overwhelming " majority . Historian Mark Mazower states that the deportation of Greeks by the Ottomans was on a " relatively small scale and do not appear to have been designed to end in their victims ' deaths . What was to happen with the Armenians was of a different order . " . Niall Ferguson has drawn a comparison between sporadic maccacres of Pontic Greek communities after 1922 and the fate of the Armenians . As per the IAGS resolution , genocide scholars , such as Dominik J . Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer , have stated that the " genocidal quality of the murderous campaigns against Greeks " is " obvious " . Historian Angelos Elefantis " has expressed his shock at the use of the word " genocide " in relation only to the Smyrna massacres " , although not concerning the anti Greek attrocities in general . Seminars and courses in several western universities examine the events . These include the College of Charleston , the University of Michigan Dearborn and the University of New South Wales which has a dedicated research unit . Political . The Greek Parliament has passed two laws on the fate of the Ottoman Greeks ; the first in 1994 and the second in 1998 . The decrees were published in the Greek Government Gazette on 8 March 1994 and 13 October 1998 respectively . The 1994 decree affirmed the genocide in the Pontus region of Asia Minor and designated 19 May a day of commemoration , while the 1998 decree affirmed the genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor as a whole and designated 14 September a day of commemoration . These laws were signed by the President of Greece but were not immediately ratified after political interventions . The leftist newspaper " Auge " ( Αυγή , Dawn ) had the initiative for freezing the application of this law . The subject became the center of a political debate between various Greek politicians , with the left being against . The president of the left - ecologists coalition Synaspismos party Nikos Konstantopoulos and A . Elefantis , known for his books on the history of the Greek communism , were some of the politicians who expressed their opposition to the decree . However , not all the left was unanimous on this . The non - parliamentary leftist intellectual and author George Karabelias bitterly criticized Elefantis and others ( mainly from the left ) who opposed the recognition of genocide and called them " revisionist historians " , accusing the Greek main - stream left for a " distorted ideological evolution " . He said that for the Greek left the 19th of May is a " day of amnesia " . In the late 2000s the Communist Party of Greece adopted the term " Genocide of the Greeks of Pontus " ( ) in its official newspaper Rizospastis and participates in memorial events . The Republic of Cyprus also officially recognizes the events as genocide . In response to the 1998 law , the Turkish government released a statement which claimed that describing the events as genocide was " without any historical basis " . " We condemn and protest this resolution " a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said . " With this resolution the Greek Parliament , which in fact has to apologize to the Turkish people for the large - scale destruction and massacres Greece perpetrated in Anatolia , not only sustains the traditional Greek policy of distorting history , but it also displays that the expansionist Greek mentality is still alive " the statement added . On 11 March 2010 , Sweden ' s Riksdag passed a motion recognising " as an act of genocide the killing of Armenians , Assyrians / Syriacs / Chaldeans and Pontiac ( sic ) Greeks in 1915 " . On 14 May 2013 , the government of New South Wales was submitted a genocide recognition motion by Fred Nile of the Christian Democratic Party , and was later passed making it the fourth political entity to recognise the genocide . Reasons for limited recognition . The United Nations , the European Parliament , and the Council of Europe have not made any related statements . According to Constantine Fotiadis , professor of Modern Greek History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki , some of the reasons for the lack of wider recognition and delay in seeking acknowledgment of these events are as follows : In his book " With Intent to Destroy : Reflections on Genocide " , Colin Tatz argue that Turkey denies the genocide so as not to jeopardize " its ninety - five - year - old dream of becoming the beacon of democracy in the Near East " . In their book " Negotiating the Sacred : Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society " , Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White present a list of reasons explaining Turkey ' s inability to admit the genocides committed by the Young Turks , writing : and propose the following reasons for the denial of the genocides by Turkey , quote : Memorials . Memorials commemorating the plight of Ottoman Greeks have been erected throughout Greece , as well as in a number of other countries including Germany , Canada , the United States and , most recently , Australia . 90 - 411 - 1222 - 7 .