What would a Christian, Greek national in Anatolia have wanted the outcome of WWI to be? (details in text)

by 123CJP

I'm doing a role play for Middle Eastern History, and my character is a merchant living in Izmir (Smyrna) which was heavily populated by Greeks but under Ottoman rule. He hopes one day Smyrna will once again belong to Greece. Please help.

vontysk

It's a bit of a hypothetical question, but I would guess they would like:

  • An Entente victory, with the partition of the Ottoman Empire.

  • The realisation of the Megali Idea, Greece's claim to its "rightful" territory (which included Izmir).

  • (Potentially) the Greek entry into the war.

  • (Potentially) a Christian nation (but probably not Greece) reclaiming the holy land for Christendom.

What they want might change over the course of the war aa well - at the start they might hope for a Russian victory (as orthodox Imperial Russia shared a common religion with the Greeks and had assisted it in getting it's freedom from Ottoman rule), but following the invasion of Gallipoli and the French/British landings there (and on the Greek mainland) they might want/expect a Greek entry into the war and a joint Anglo-Franco-Greek march on Constantinople.