Pontic Greek genocide
Turks feared the permanent occupation and Hellenization of parts of Anatolia, with Ionia falling under direct Athenian governance, and separatism and revolt by Ottoman Greeks resulting in the establishment of Pontic state on the Black Sea. This concerns increased drastically after Greek landing in Smyrna on 15th of May and became one of main reasons (and justifications) for final stage of the genocide. In late May 1919, Kemal, having just arrived in Samsun, informed Constantinople that since the Armistice "forty guerilla" bands, "in an organized program", were killing Turks in order to "establish a Pontus state". But the reality was different. All this separatist hubbub resulted in almost no acts of organized rebellion and very little anti-Turk actions. Most Ottoman Greeks, in the Pontus as elsewhere in Anatolia, remained unmoved by ethnic-nationalist appeals. An American diplomat who toured the major Pontic cities in summer 1919 reported, "many of the most influential and rational Greeks... In Trebizond view this policy [of separatism] with disfavor.". The local Greek Archbishop, Chrysantonos, was also opposed. Why Ottoman Greeks by and large distanced themselves from the pan-Hellenic national message, and certainly failed to act on it, is unclear. Perhaps it was matter of poorly developed political consciousness; perhaps it was due to the centuries-long tradition of submissiveness to Islamic hegemony. Also they feared massacre - as had just befallen Armenians. Demographic realities assuredly contributed: Turks predominate in Pontus, as in Anatolia in general - and Pontic Greeks knew it, whatever their spokesmen sometimes said.