Microsoft Word 1 Arif thesis cover final doc

CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
77 
inhabitants of Western Thrace were exempted
183
. Since the Greek inhabitants of 
western Anatolia and eastern Thrace had already fled, those who remained to be 
exchanged were the remaining Muslims of Greece, numbering about 350,000 and the 
Greek inhabitants of the Black Sea area and Cappadocia numbering about 
200,000
184
. These were all removed from their homes by the end of 1924. 
Caring for and then settling largely destitute refugees equal in number to nearly a 
quarter of the settled population was beyond the capacity of the Greek state. 
Emergency relief was provided by the American Red Cross and short term loans 
made available by the Bank of England. In the course of 1923 a Refugee Settlement 
Commission was set up to oversee the process; its work was to be enabled by the 
grant of agricultural land by the Greek state and foreign loans with recourse to the 
latter
185
. By the time the Commission was wound up in 1930, about half the refugees 
had been settled on agricultural land
186
and the rest on the periphery of cities in 
housing that can only be described as ranging from the basic to the shanty
187
. To a 
considerable extent individual communities were kept together, whence the 
abundance of place names in Greece today with the Greek name of an Anatolian 
locality prefaced by “New”; some regard was paid to their original geographical 
circumstances so that, for instance, at least some of those from central Anatolia were 
resettled in inland Thessaly and some of those from coastal settlements were 
transplanted to coastal ones (for example the inhabitants of Makri (now Fethiye) on 
183
Pentzopoulos 51-61; 257-263 for the text of the Convention. 
184
Pentzopoulos, 68-69 
185
Pentzopoulos, 77-85 
186
Pentzopoulos, 105-107 
187
Hirschon, 59-67, 249-253; Pentzopoulos, 111-115 

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