1919 Masson Map of Turkey Highlighting Where Greeks Live in Asia Minor

This is a 1919 Service Géographique de l'Armée map of Turkey illustrating Greek populations throughout Anatolia. This piece visualizes Greek influence on the Turkish state in the wake of World War I (1914 - 1918).

A Closer Look

Coverage focuses on Anatolia, but includes parts of the Adjacent Adratic, Turkey in Europe, Greece, the Levant. Overprinted shades of orange represent regions where 'Hellenists' comprise 5-50% of the populace. Although the data is out-of-date, the map, nonetheless, illustrates post-war tensions between the Muslim Turks and Christian Greeks that culminated in the Greco-Turkish War (1919 - 1922).

The Greco-Turkish War

The Greco-Turkish War of 1919 - 1922 took place after World War I during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement, the war ignited after the Greeks landed in Smyrna and took control of western and northwestern Anatolia. The Turks halted the Greek advance in 1921 and, in 1922, broke through the Greek front with a counter-attack. The war ended in October with the capture of Smyrna by Turkish forces. Greece relinquished its territorial gains and returned to the pre-war borders.

Publication History and Census

This map was created to accompany P. Masson's 'Smyrne et l'Hellénisme en Asie Mineure' in Questions Européennes and was published as Plate XVIII by the Service Géographique de l'Armée in the accompanying Atlas. The separate map is rare on the market. It does not appear in the OCLC. 4 examples of the entire atlas are cataloged in OCLC and are part of the collections at the Université Bordeaux Montaigne, the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Sorbonne Université and the Bibliothèque Nationale Universitaire de Strasbourg.