The underground cities continued to be used as refuges ( Cappadocian Greek : καταφύγια ) from the Turkish Muslim rulers . As late as the 20th century the locals were still using the underground cities to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution . Dawkins , a Cambridge linguist who conducted research on the Cappodocian Greek natives in the area from 1909-1911 , recorded that in 1909 , Scholars passing through Cappadocia during the 19th century described the Cappadocian Greeks and their habits . In 1838 British scholar Robert Ainsworth wrote that " The Cappadocian Greeks are , generally speaking , pleasing and unreserved in their manners , and their conversation indicated a very high degree of intelligence and civilization , where there are so few books , and so little education , and consequently , little learning . " Sir Charles William Wilson , British consul-general in Anatolia from 1879 to 1882 , described their character : By the early 1900s the region of Cappadocia was still inhabited by Christian Cappadocian Greeks as well as Muslim Turks and also communities of Armenians and Kurds . By the beginning of the First World War , the Greeks of Anatolia were besieged by the Young Turks . Thousands of Greeks were massacred , approximately 750,000 Anatolian Greeks were massacred in an act of Genocide and 750,000 exiled . The Greeks were targeted prior to and alongside the Armenians and Assyrians . Ionian and Cappadocian Greek deaths alone totaled 397,000 , while Pontian Greek deaths numbered 353,000 people . Turkish official Rafet Bey was active in the Genocide of the Greeks of the Anatolian interior , on November 1916 he stated " We must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians … today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight … " During the Greco-Turkish War ( 1919 – 1922 ) countless numbers of Greeks were deported by the Turks to the Mesopotamian desert where many perished . On January 31 , 1917 , Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg of Germany reported that : In 1924 , after living in Cappadocia for thousands of years , the remaining Cappadocian Greeks were expelled to Greece as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey defined by the Treaty of Lausanne , the descendents of the Cappadocian Greeks who had converted to Islam were not included in the population exchange and remained in Cappadocia , some still speaking the Cappadocian Greek language . Many Cappadocian towns were greatly affected by the expulsion of the Greeks including Mustafapaşa ( Sinasos ) , Ürgüp , Güzelyurt and Nevşehir as the Greeks constituted a significant percentage of the towns population . The Cappadocian Greeks were taken to the coastal town of Mersin in order to be shipped to Greece . Many would lose all of their belongings due to corrupt officials and looters . The Cappadocian Greeks who were migrating from Cappadocia were replaced by Muslims migrating from mainland Greece , mainly from Thrace ; some of these Muslims were Greeks ( see Greek Muslims ) , although most were of Slavic , Turkish and Gypsy origin . Many of the Cappadocian Greek churches were converted to mosques after the Greeks left in the population exchange of the 1920s . These include the Church of St Gregory known today as " Buyuk Kilise Camii ( Big Church Mosque ) "
Genocide of the Greeks
Greek genocide
Cappadocian Greeks