France, Greece and the Catastrophe

Greece and France are now allied against the expansion of Turkish influence in the Mediterranean. A hundred years ago, Turkey made bitter enemies of them and exacerbated Greece’s defeat in Asia Minor

Greece and France entered into a unique defence partnership a year ago. On September 28 2021, they signed the first intra-NATO mutual defence pact that doesn’t reference the alliance as its general framework, distinguishing it from the Franco-German Treaty of Aachen. The pact was underpinned by the sale by France to Greece of three Belharra frigates and 24 fourth-generation Rafale fighter jets at an estimated cost of 6bn euros.

A hundred years ago their relationship was quite different. In the wake of World War One, Greece’s efforts to claim western Anatolia resulted in utter defeat. In September 1922, Turkish troops and irregulars entered the city of Smyrna, where much of the Greek population lived, and torched it. In the months and years that followed, they ethnically cleansed Greeks from Asia Minor after a presence of three millennia. Greeks refer to these events as The Catastrophe, and it came about partly because France betrayed the Greek cause.

Both turns of the Franco-Greek relationship came about because of their policies towards Turkey.