During the Italo-Ottoman war of 1911–12, Italy had occupied the Dodecanese islands whose population was largely Greek. Under the Venizelos–Tittoni agreement of 1919, Italy promised to cede the Dodecanese islands except for Rhodes to Greece in exchange for Greek recognition of the Italian claims to part of Anatolia. However, the Turkish National Movement's victory in the Turkish War of Independence had put an end to all plans for partitioning Asia Minor by 1922, and Mussolini took the view that since the Italians had been forced out of Turkey that cancelled out the obligation to cede the Dodecanese islands to Greece. The Greeks continued to press Mussolini on the Dodecanese issue, and in the summer of 1923, he ordered the Italian garrison in the Dodecanese reinforced as part of his plans to formally annex the islands to Italy, which caused Greece to issue notes of protest.