Izmir
The city was settled during the Bronze Age (c.3000
Pillaged by the Arabs in the 7th cent., it fell to the Seljuk Turks in the 11th cent., was recaptured for Byzantium by Emperor Alexius I during the First Crusade, and formed part of the empire of Nicaea (see Nicaea, empire of) from 1204 to 1261, when the Byzantine Empire was restored. Also in 1261 the Genoese obtained trading privileges there, which they retained until the city fell (c.1329) to the Seljuk Turks. The Knights Hospitalers captured the city in 1344, restored Genoese privileges, and held the city until 1402, when it was captured and sacked by Timur. The Mongols were succeeded in 1424 by the Ottoman Turks. A Greek Orthodox archiepiscopal see, the city retained a large Greek population and remained a center of Greek culture and the chief Mediterranean port of Asia Minor.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the city was occupied (1919) by Greek forces. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) assigned Izmir and its hinterland to temporary Greek administration, but fighting soon erupted between Greek and Turkish forces. Izmir fell to the Turks in Sept., 1922, and a few days later was destroyed by fire. Thousands of non-Muslims were killed by Turkish troops and thousands of Greek civilian refugees fled the city. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) restored Izmir to Turkey. A separate convention between Greece and Turkey provided for the exchange of their minorities, which was carried out under League of Nations supervision, and the population of Izmir became predominately Turkish. The city suffered greatly from severe earthquakes in 1928 and 1939. It is now a NATO command center for SE Europe.
See G. Milton,
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