Abstract:

ABSTRACT After the Ottoman Empire withdrew from the First World War with the Armistice of Mudros, a new era began for the Turkish nation. The Entente Powers had prepared the articles of the Armistice Agreement for an Ottoman State that they would reshape. Shortly after the signing of the treaty, England, France and Italy began direct invasions. Greece, which later joined the ranks of the Allied Powers (1917), expanded its lands from Western Anatolia to Sakarya River right after landing troops in Izmir with the support of England. The Greek occupation, which expanded from the west of the country, provoked a response of Turkish people more and increased the resistance of the national unity. France began to occupy the parts of Turkey reserved for them, based on the secret agreements it had previously made with England. The French press of the period was writing that their army on Turkish soil was protecting the interests of their country and the life of Christians and Armenians in line with the ceasefire agreement. In the beginning, news about Turkey was being given through the news agencies or the reporters of the newspapers in Istanbul. In addition, the reactions of Turkish people against the invasions were transferred either directly by their own observations or based on the news in the Turkish press. While the news and comments about the war of independence initiated under the leadership of Atatürk were usually written under the title of "kemalists" or "kemalist armies", the news about the Greek occupation was initially transferred from the impressions of correspondents from Athens. The war of independence against the Greek occupation was described by the majority of the newspapers under the title of "Turkish-Greek Conflict". After Sakarya victory, the French press not only gave news of the Turkish-Greek Conflict, but also began to question the reasons for this war. Disagreements among the Allies started to be discussed over Turkish Greek Conflict. While the leading members of the Allies, France, England and Italy’s mediatorship issue was discussed in the press, the attitudes of the governments towards both the invasion attempt of Greece and the developments started to become a subject of criticism among these press. Another issue is that each newspaper sent its own correspondents to Ankara where new nation was shaping, and to the fronts where the war was happening.

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