page_title: Partition of the Ottoman Empire
section_title: Greece
hierarchical_section_title: Partition of the Ottoman Empire / Independence movements / Greece
caption_attribution_description: English: Map illustrating the Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.
context_page_description: The partition of the Ottoman Empire was a geopolitical event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several agreements made by the Allied Powers early in the course of World War I, notably the Sykes-Picot Agreement, after the Ottoman Empire had joined the Ottoman–German Alliance. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the war led to the domination of the Middle East by Western powers such as Britain and France, and saw the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these powers came from the Turkish National Movement but did not become widespread in the other post-Ottoman states until the period of rapid decolonisation after World War II.
context_section_description: The western Allies, particularly British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire if Greece entered the war on the Allied side. The promised territories included eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of western Anatolia around the city of İzmir.
  In May 1917, after the exile of Constantine I of Greece, Greek prime minister Eleuthérios Venizélos returned to Athens and allied with the Entente. Greek military forces (though divided between supporters of the monarchy and supporters of Venizélos) began to take part in military operations against the Bulgarian army on the border. That same year, İzmir was promised to Italy under the Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne between France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
  At the 1918 Paris Peace Conference, based on the wartime promises, Venizélos lobbied hard for an expanded Hellas (the Megali Idea) that would include the small Greek speaking community in far Southern Albania, the Orthodox Greek speaking community in Thrace (including Constantinople) and the Orthodox community in Asia Minor. In 1919, despite Italian opposition, he obtained the permission of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 for Greece to occupy İzmir.
caption: Greece according to the Treaty of Sèvres
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