During the Turco-Russian battles on the Caucasian Front, the Armenians created disturbances behind the Turkish lines and threatened to cut the lines of communications. The Turkish gov ernment began a general deportation in which atrocities were com mitted on a large scale. When General Antranik, the Russo Armenian general, entered eastern Anatolia, the Armenian soldiers under his command, the so-called "Christian Army of Revenge," replied by similar atrocities.
The Armistice and the Nationalist Movement.—The Turks welcomed the armistice as being the end to the great suffer ing of long years. But they soon forgot this suffering in the humiliation and persecution to which the armistice exposed them. The Allied fleets and armies occupied the Straits, Constantinople and even places outside the armistice line, and the terms of the armistice were stretched to the point of violation. Under these conditions, the Turks had a bitter foretaste of the peace they would receive at the hands of the Allies. Both in Stamboul and in the provinces, officers and intellectuals met in secret and began to discuss how to secure a tolerable peace, and as the nationalists appeared in the forefront of the general reaction against the Allies, this agitation received the general name of the "nationalist move ment." Meanwhile the Allies could not come to an agreement among themselves over the Turkish Peace. Finally, the Greek army was landed in Smyrna under the protection of the British, French and American fleets, and the Greeks inaugurated their occupation by massacres committed in full view of the Allied fleets, on May 15, 1919. (Italy, having retired from the peace conference for the moment, did not take part. By the inter-allied agreement of St. Jean de Maurienne in 1917, Smyrna and Adalia had been apportioned to Italy, and she had landed troops in Adalia April 1918.) The Greek massacres in Smyrna aroused general indignation in Turkey which ended in the national determination to resist to the last, even if this meant total disintegration. Mass meetings in Constantinople were the first manifestation of this feeling.
But meanwhile Turkey was in a state of anarchy. The respon sible leaders of the Union and Progress Party had escaped to Germany, and the Party was dissolved. Mohammed VI., a per sonal enemy of the Young Turks, forced Izzet Pasha's cabinet, which to some extent was able to keep order, to resign ; and the Entente Liberate came into power. Certain nationalist leaders
wanted to save the country from disintegration by co-operating with the sultan, and using his prestige as sultan-caliph. Among these was Mustafa Kemal Pasha. But Mohammed VI. preferred to sacrifice the existence of his nation to his personal security, and this he did by bringing Damad Ferid Pasha into power, and through him giving the reins of the Government to the high com missioners of the Allies. In western Anatolia organizations for a national defence against the Greek invasion were rapidly arising. In eastern Anatolia, especially in Trebizond and Erzerum, asso ciations, under the guidance of Kiazim Kara Bekir Pasha, were preparing to oppose any attempt of the Allies to create an Armenia out of the territories which, even before the deportations and atrocities, they claimed had been predominantly Turkish. The sultan with the allied assent, in order to control these organiza tions and disperse them if necessary, sent Mustafa Kemal Pasha to eastern Anatolia as the military inspector general. But as he was already in correspondence with these organizations, he met Rauf Bey, Ali Fuad Pasha and Colonel Refet at Amasia on his way to Erzerum, and signed the Amasia protocol on June 19, 1919; Kiazim Kara Bekir Pasha also signed by telegram. This protocol is the first document that formally declared the national determination to resist both the Allies and also the sultan, as the instrument of the Allies. A national congress assembled in Er zerum, on July 23, 1919, and Mustafa . Kemal Pasha, having resigned from the army, presided. Another congress assembled in Sivas on Sept. 4, 1919, to which the national associations of West ern Anatolia sent representatives. This congress reaffirmed the decisions of the Erzerum congress, added plans for the defence of eastern Thrace, and chose a representative body to control the movement in Anatolia. No president was chosen, but Mustafa Kemal Pasha's leadership was generally recognized. This mani festation of the national will forced the sultan to dismiss Damad Ferid Pasha. A new cabinet with nationalist tendencies came into power. In Jan. 192o a new parliament assembled in Constanti nople composed of a Nationalist majority. The parliament issued the national pact as accepted by the two congresses.