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CHAPTER 2 – HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 
66 
even to this day one can be amazed by references in Greek publications to Sakarya 
as a pyrrhic victory
133
. The illusion was sustainable because the nationalists, too, 
were exhausted and unable in the immediate term to continue with a conclusive 
pursuit. But it had become quite obvious that it was beyond the power of the Greeks 
to overcome the nationalists and that the latter were there to stay
134
. The French 
settled with them over Cilicia in October and in the same month the now Soviet 
transcaucasian republics confirmed the north-eastern borders which had been agreed 
in March
135
. 
By the autumn of 1921 the Greek position was obviously hopeless. The financial 
pressures from maintaining an occupation in Anatolia were intolerable and attempts 
before the close of the year to raise further foreign loans led nowhere
136
. In February 
1922 the Greek government said bluntly to the British that its financial resources 
were exhausted and in the absence of immediate support it would be forced to 
evacuate Anatolia and leave Kemal to them. The British took this to be an idle threat, 
believing that the Greeks would not dare to withdraw because of the effect on the 
Christian population
137
; and so, the agony continued. The financial crush was eased 
in April 1922 by the extraordinary and massively unpopular legislative expedient of 
a mandatory cutting of all bank notes into two and making one half legal tender for 
half the face value and the other a compulsory 20-year loan to the state; this in the 
133
Metevelis, 244 
134
Llewellyn Smith, 234 
135
Mango, 326-327 
136
Llewellyn Smith, 243-244. Stratigos, 300-305 
137
Llewellyn Smith, 206-207; Stratigos, 312-320

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