A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

968 Ch. 24 • The Elusive Search for Stability in the 1920s

In Turkey, the Italian and Greek occupations generated a wave of nation­
alist sentiment. Mustafa Kemal Pasha (1881-1938)—known as Atatiirk—

organized armed resistance against the foreign incursions. Turkish forces
pushed Greek units out of Smyrna in 1922 and threatened a neutral zone
occupied by British troops. When the British government prepared to inter­
vene, an exchange of populations was arranged. The Treaty of Lausanne of
1923 recognized Turkeys independence, ending the European role in admin­
istering the country’s international debts. Turkey was left with a little terri­
tory on the European side of the Bosporus, as well as the Sea of Marmara
and the Dardanelles strait, which themselves were declared open to all
nations. The treaty called for the exchange of Turkish and Greek popula­
tions. Greece had to withdraw from the Anatolian peninsula, and at least 1
million Greek refugees moved from Turkey to Greece. Almost 400,000 Mus­
lims were forced out of Greece, ending up in Turkey. Turks now comprised
about 1 percent of the population of Greece; only about 3,000 Greeks
remained in Turkey in a population of 70 million people. The Kurds, an eth­
nic minority within Turkey and Iraq, were still without an independent state.
Atatiirk became president of the Republic of Turkey, establishing his capital
at Ankara in the interior of the Anatolian peninsula. The last Ottoman ruler
left Turkey for the French Riviera. Seeking to Westernize and secularize his
country, Atatiirk promulgated legal codes separating church and state,
implemented compulsory education and the Latin alphabet, required Turk­
ish families to take Western-style names, and prohibited Turks from wearing
the fez (a traditional brimless hat).

National and Ethnic Challenges

President Wilson’s espousal of ethnicity as the chief determinant of national

boundaries had unleashed hope among almost all the Eastern European

peoples for independent states based on ethnic identities. The Treaty of Ver­

sailles accentuated the role of nationalism as a factor for political instability

in Europe after the Great War. At the same time, the failure of the peace­

makers at Versailles to address the demands of peoples colonized by the

European powers left a legacy of mistrust.

The National Question and the Successor States

The Treaty of Versailles acknowledged the existence of “successor” states out

of the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as out of the territories

that had belonged to defeated Germany and the defunct Russian Empire.

The creation of these new states by the Treaty of Versailles in theory fol­

lowed the principle of nationalism—that ethnicity should be the chief deter­

minant of national boundaries—which had helped cause the Great War.

However, the principle of nationalism was not applied to the former Russian