Türkiye’s third-largest city, Izmir, observed the 104th anniversary of its liberation from occupying Greek forces on Wednesday. Events and parades were held in the Aegean city to celebrate the liberation, while at a more solemn ceremony, locals remembered Hasan Tahsin, a journalist who fired the first shot of resistance against the occupiers.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also issued a message on the occasion, remembering Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and “all the other heroes who crowned our National Struggle with victory.”
Izmir’s liberation, during the period following World War I that led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, was the last chapter in Türkiye’s National Struggle, which included the War of Independence against an assortment of foreign powers occupying Anatolia. It marked the conclusion of the Great Offensive launched by Atatürk in central Anatolia.
Izmir was invaded by Greek forces on May 15, 1919, four days before Atatürk launched a campaign in which he secretly mobilized the Turkish nation to fight against the occupiers. Encouraged by victory in the Battle of Dumlupınar, where Greek forces fled in retreat from the newly pieced together Turkish army, Atatürk ordered his troops to “advance to the Mediterranean,” a historic order that paved the way for the pursuit of Greek troops through central and western Türkiye.
The army eventually managed to push Greek forces toward the Aegean, giving rise to the expression “pushing the Greeks into the sea.” However, this was not a literal expression, as Greek troops took shelter aboard Allied vessels waiting off the shores of Izmir. In the Greek narrative, the events are known as the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
