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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
53 
commission of enquiry into the atrocities consequent on it concluded as early as 
October 1919 that the Greeks should be replaced by an allied occupation force, that 
on ethnographic grounds the Smyrna zone as a whole should not be awarded to 
Greece in any final settlement and that it was beyond the power of Greece alone to 
subdue Turkish resistance to it
78
; the last point was subsequently confirmed by the 
Military and Naval Commission which concluded that no fewer than 27 divisions 
would be needed to impose peace on an unwilling Turkey
79
; senior British officials 
warned against belittling the potential strength of the nationalists and against the 
imposition of drastic peace terms which would drive waverers into their arms
80
; the 
British High Commissioner in Constantinople warned in the severest terms against 
putting territories overwhelmingly Turkish in population under the rule of the Turks’ 
secular enemies invoking the principle of self-determination, the prospect of 
indefinite bloodshed and the threat of Bolshevism
81
; Lord Curzon, impressed enough 
by this warning to circulate it to the cabinet, himself noted that with the Greeks in 
Smyrna and marching off in Asia Minor to fight the Turks a peace was impossible
82
; 
the French insisted that the Greeks must leave Smyrna
83
; they incidentally assisted 
78
The Report of the Inter-Allied Commission of Inquiry on the Greek Occupation of Smyrna and Adjacent 
Territories is available at 
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv09/d3
 (accessed 4 February 
2018). Llewellyn Smith, 112 quotes the conclusions. 
79
Llewellyn Smith, 121; Mango, 281 
80
Documents on British Foreign Policy
,
 
1
st
Ser., Vol. IV, no.664 (Webb to Curzon 18 January1920) 
81
Llewellyn Smith, 122 
82
Llewellyn Smith, 123. But when, not long afterwards, an intermediary, who purported to bring proposals for a 
compromise peace from the Nationalists, which included the cession of Eastern Thrace, had been shown the door 
at the Foreign Office, the same Curzon approved: 
Documents on British Foreign Policy
, 1
st
Ser., vol. XIII, no. 
132 (Curzon to Buchanan and Robeck 3 September 1920) 
83
Llewellyn Smith, 120 

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