THE PLIGHT OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES AND ORPHANS
Virtually no Armenians lived within Greece’s borders before the War. However, immediately afterwards, but before the Smyrna disaster, large numbers of Armenians found themselves on Greek soil. To begin with, Greek troops succeeded in annexing what had been Ottoman Thrace (the western part of which is still Greek territory), bringing the Armenian community of western Thrace, comprising about one thousand five hundred genocide survivors, under Greek rule. Moreover, from 1920 on, some Cilician Armenians, fearing that the French might pull out of Cilicia, moved to Greek cities. The stream of refugees pouring into Greece swelled after the French and the Turks concluded the October 1920 Treaty of Ankara, when the French government decided to cede Cilicia to the Turks. At this time, thousands of Armenians boarded ships bound for Greek ports. Some nine thousand one hundred Armenian refugees from Cilicia landed on Greek soil: four thousand eight hundred fifty in central Greece, ... Read all
Greece and Armenian Refugees