Several efforts were made to mediate between Greece and Turkey by the Supreme Council, the League of Nations, and the Conference of Ambassadors. The last proposal, formulated in March, 1922, was virtually the same as that of March, 1921, i. e., that the Turks should have Asia Minor, while the Greeks should keep Thrace. In recognition of the growing power of the Turkish Nationalists, the Entente Powers offered modifications in the Sèvres provisions concerning Constantinople and the Straits that would salve the pride of the Turks and leave them nominal masters in their own house. The Turks were also offered membership in the League of Nations.
The successive efforts of the Entente Powers to bring about a peaceful liquidation of the Greek venture in Asia Minor by a voluntary revision of the Treaty of Sèvres proved that the San Remo agreement of 1920 had failed, and that the victorious powers, unable to arrive at an understanding, preferred to sacrifice the aspirations of Hellenism and to allow the Turks to go unpunished rather than risk seeing one of themselves best the others in a division of the Turkish spoils. Other factors also entered into the Near Eastern question to make it as complicated in 1922 as it had always been. The rôle of Russia at Angora was disquieting. The Turkish Nationalists were menacing Great Britain and France in Mesopotamia and Syria. London was suspected by Paris and Rome of planning to use the Greeks as agents to hold Western Asia Minor and the Straits in the interest of the mistress of the seas. French statesmen felt that backing the Turks might prove to be an excellent means of keeping the British in line to continue putting the screws down on Germany. In vain the Greek Government protested that the Treaty of Sèvres was an integral part of the Paris settlement and as sacred as the other treaties. Had not the Greeks acted in good faith in going into Asia Minor at the request of the great powers? Could they be expected to withdraw and leave the Anatolian Christians, the Circassians, and the anti-Kemalist Turks, who had coöperated in the occupation, at the mercy of the Angora Nationalists?
From a purely military point of view the Greeks were in an excellent position in Asia Minor. Behind most of their front lay railway lines. They had had a year in which to fortify their front and organize lines of communication. The Turks had not molested them. They had been able to pick out the strongest natural defenses. But they had no money. The boycott of the Constantine Government prevented them from contracting loans or obtaining large credits for supplies abroad. They knew that France and Italy had made treaties with the Turks and were supplying them with artillery and munitions. They knew, too, that Soviet Russia was giving substantial aid to their enemies. France and Italy did not allow the Greeks to establish an effective blockade of the coast of Asia Minor. The blockade rules which the French and Italians had proclaimed in the Mediterranean, when they were fighting Turkey, and had imposed upon Greek commerce, were declared intolerable when Greece tried to use them to prevent the Turks from receiving war materials.