The United States of America Attitude in The Process Leading to the Liberation of Izmir

Abstract

The Turkish War of Independence continued for more than 3 years and ended with the liberation of İzmir from the Allied occupation on September 9, 1922. The victory won after a great struggle on three big fronts laid the foundations for the new state to be established. In the struggle for independence led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a diplomatic and military struggle was given at the same time. This struggle had been both the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s struggle for its existence in the international arena and the existence of the Turkish Nation against those who wanted to end its existence as a nation. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who set out with the principle of “Independence or Death”, and the heroic assembly never compromised on the decisions of the National Pact, regardless of the circumstances, and declared that they were in favor of accepting all kinds of peace conditions that did not contradict the national independence and sovereignty. In this process, the diplomatic efforts with the United States of America in the Turkish War of Independence were of great importance. Delegations, semi-official and official statesmen sent by the United States to Turkey at various times played an important role in promoting Turkey’s struggle in the international community. Meetings were held with the delegations sent from America and the most important political leaders, and Turkey’s demands on the most important issues were expressed in these meetings. In this study, we have researched the issues that came to the fore in the American official archive documents in the last 2 months of the Turkish War of Independence’s victory (August and September). We particularly selected and researched these two months as the last months before the recapture of Izmir by Turkish armies. We tried to reveal how the political leaders of America, which we can accept as impartial, handle some of the controversial issues even today. While doing this, we made primary use of the original official documents in the Gale National Archive documents. We consulted original British official archives and newspapers, as well as American newspapers, on some subjects that we needed to compare. In this study, the articles about Turkey in the American archive documents in August and September of 1922 will be discussed in detail.