Talk:Turkish War of Independence

United States Involvement in the Conflict

Hello friends. So yes it seems the U.S.A. was indeed involved in this. It seems that they were involved to a lesser extent compared to other allied powers, but they were indeed involved. Please see broadly United States during the Turkish War of Independence and more narrowly Occupation of Istanbul, Greek landing at Smyrna, and the Bombardment of Samsun.

The endnote in the user box notably sends a link to another Wikipedia article (specifically the Bombardment of Samsun), yes WP articles are not citations in of themselves. That being said I am not 100% sure if that would be entirely necessary per se. The OP already has an entry in the Armistace era section Turkish War of Independence#The Armistice era.

It reads: "The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order."

Specifically the article cites: Gingeras, Ryan (2022). The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire. Dublin: Random House. ISBN 978-0-241-44432-0. Historyguy1138 (talk) 14:44, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Even during the Bombardment of Samsun, it was mostly, if not entirely, just Greek naval ships bombing the city. There are no reliable sources mentioning any American military action against Turkey or the Turkish nationalists. The USA was mostly just politically involved. Woxic1589 (talk) 18:12, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The New York times reports it at the time as well friend. It is also in the Samsun article.
https://www.nytimes.com/1922/06/12/archives/90-casualties-in-samsun-american-officers-report-differs-from-greek.html?sq=samsun&scp=2&st=p Historyguy1138 (talk) 18:23, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it's true that it did not participate in as much as other allied powers did, but it did contribute and the occupation in of itself is a big deal. Historyguy1138 (talk) 18:24, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The source says that the United States only dispatched a high commissioner to Istanbul, no occupation troops. It further says that the American and Japanese high commissioners were of "symbolic presence in Istanbul and were there more as observers than occupiers." I think American participation in the Occupation of Istanbul is therefore moot.
I will wait to hear what other people have to say about including the United States in the infobox as a belligerent in the war, but I am leaning strongly oppose. Benlittlewiki (talk) 18:40, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, the infobox is to summarise key facts from the article. WP is never a source. We don't write the article in the infobox. The article should remain complete without the infobox. The present addition to the infobox satisfies none of these issues. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:29, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"WP is never a source." I do not disagree my good fellow. One of my points is I am not sure that we need a footnote in the infobox at all. We can just add the sources to the armistice era section based off the various sources in the other articles United States during the Turkish War of Independence and more narrowly Occupation of Istanbul, Greek landing at Smyrna, and the Bombardment of Samsun.
Greece is also one of the major combatants in the conflict and they do not have a footnote in the inbox, but their participation is covered throughout the article. Historyguy1138 (talk) 13:00, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My point exactly, the participation of combatants mentioned in the infobox should be evident in the body of the article. For the US, it is not. The US should not be in the infobox unless it is evidenced in the body of the article. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:12, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I added all the relevant sources from the other articles attached articles and a summary of them would that be satisfactory? (: Historyguy1138 (talk) 23:29, 28 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The article that was cited for the US as a belligerent in the Occupation of Istanbul stated that the US was acting as observers, not belligerents while https://www.nytimes.com/1922/06/12/archives/90-casualties-in-samsun-american-officers-report-differs-from-greek.html?sq=samsun&scp=2&st=p reports that the Bombardment of Samsun was by Greek ships. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:24, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request


−
{{POV|date=October 2025|talk=pov tag}}
+

  • It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given in talk page.

ping: User:LeonChrisfield

Throat0390 (talk) 01:39, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Already done Day Creature (talk) 02:07, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

POV tag discussion

Heavily biased page that cited Rudolf Rummel’s source, which most historians believe is unreliable and inflated the numbers of non-Western regimes, but does not allow estimates of Turkish civilian deaths to be cited because they are “pro-Turkish”.

The page mentioned 30,000+ buildings and 250+ villages were burnt to the ground by the Hellenic Army and Greek/Armenian rebels, but only 15k Turkish civilians were killed per the source of Rummel. This is a very low estimate of Turkish civilian casualties from a pro-Western, right-wing neoconservative historian. The numbers of casualties and buildings/villages destroyed also simply didn’t match up due to them being from different sources. At least add an estimate of the Turks died from those atrocities done by the separatist and Greek nationalist forces instead of citing Rummel as an objective truth.

In addition, it portrays the Turkish forces' invasion of Armenian territory (which is not a neutral pov) during the War of Independence, but fails to mention the “Greater Armenia” goal of the Armenian forces and their anti-Muslim violence.

The page overwhelmingly portrays Turkish forces as genocidal forces and the aggressors while downplaying Greek and Armenian war crimes against Muslims and their Megali and Greater Armenia ultranationalist goals to annex areas overwhelmingly populated by Turkish Muslims by selectively citing historians biased towards Western, pro-Armenian, pro-Greek, and anti-Turkish perspectives. Hence, the pov dispute tag is justified. LeonChrisfield (talk) 02:49, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The page of invasion of Armeniana is changed recently but i don't see balanced neutral discussion. Shadow4dark (talk) 06:14, 24 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Rummel is only cited twice in the whole article, and you haven't explained what makes it unreliable. You also haven't provided any examples of what sources you think should be cited in the article. Your current approach is not going to get anything changed. Your comment here may also be seen as WP:NATIONALIST for the way it frames opposing nations. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 05:39, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“Only cited twice,” yet presented as the truth in the “casualties and losses” section, with no other estimates allowed.
I did explain how he inflated the numbers of anti-western regimes and even on his page, there were criticisms of inaccuracies: “His figures for Communist governments have been criticized for the methodology which he used to arrive at them, and they have also been criticized for being higher than the figures which have been given by most scholars.”
“Rummel's works have been criticized for establishing estimates on hearsay and unverifiable overtly high death estimates from highly biased authors. An example of this is in the Tito's Slaughterhousechapter of Statistics of Democide, where Rummel quotes estimates for the democide record of Tito's Yugoslavia from authors who were sympathetic towards the Independent State of Croatia(NDH) and who attempted to downplay or deny the crimes of Ustaše in the Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia, an example of those authors being Ivo Omrčanin, a former NDH official in foreign ministry and an espouser of fascist ideals.” Those facts on his page already proves his citations about this emotionally charged and controversial historical event cannot be treated as objective facts.
My views about disputing this article’s neutrality also can’t be considered “nationalist” since I am not a Turkish person or someone with Turkish heritage. I was not denying Turkish crimes and genocides, but only pointing out the blatant biases against Turkey and its national movement. In contrast, there are very few mentions of Armenian and Greek ultranationalist goals and war crimes compared to Turkish ones.
I wasn’t aiming to promote a “Turkish nationalist” narrative or deny Turkish crimes and wrongdoings, which would be absurd considering I am non-Turkish and non-Muslim. I was only questioning the heavily pro-Armenian/Greek nationalist narrative of the war in this article and the almost overwhelming negative portrayal of the Turkish forces. LeonChrisfield (talk) 02:19, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A POV tag is for clear, article-wide neutrality problems; the concerns raised here are about specific claims and sourcing, which can be handled by improving particular sentences or sections with stronger citations rather than tagging the whole page. If Rummel’s figures are disputed, the solution is to add high-quality scholarly estimates and attribute them, rather than assert motives like 'pro-Western/pro-Turkish' or decide reliability by political framing. WP:NPOV requires summarizing all significant viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources, so arguments about Greek/Armenian aims or violence should be proposed with concrete, published historians to support inclusion at due weight.
Let's not forget that an RFC decided that the most accurate term for Turkey's actions against Armenia was "invasion" in line with reliable sources. This title choice does not exonerate any possible atrocities made by the new republic of Armenia, but reflects that the overall balance of forces were against the Armenians which is why 'turkish-armenian war' was an incorrect title.
Finally, to keep discussion productive (and avoid WP:NATIONALIST rhetoric), it’s better to present a short list of proposed text changes with citations than to characterize the article as 'heavily biased' as a basis for a dispute tag. Greensminded24 (talk) 04:30, 27 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A quick look at the article makes it clear that it fails the basic objectivity test. The actual topic, the subject, Turkish War of Independence is lost in the side topics that have been given outsized prominence or sometimes plain wrong. Unfortunately this is often encountered in almost all articles remotely tangential to recent Turkish or Ottoman history. Attempts to bring balance have been usually thwarted as evidenced by the edit history here. I will try with specific suggestions here. Murat (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
If this is about casualties in the infobox, then MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE tells us that information in the article infobox should be a summary of key facts from the article and that the article should be complete without the infobox. Casualties, in general, and the casualties being specifically discussed are not supported by the body of the article. This is a deficiency in the article. If there is dispute or significant variance between reported figures, this is something that the article should also be discussing. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:02, 27 December 2025 (UTC)Typo Cinderella157 (talk) 01:49, 4 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Should the Samsun clashes article be deleted or not?

Your valuable opinions are requested at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samsun clashes (1920) (2nd nomination) as almost no one has given a point of view there and the previous discussion also suffered from a lack of contributors. Thanks Chidgk1 (talk) 12:15, 14 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Turkish_War_of_Independence