The peninsula 's population before World War I included an ethnically diverse population including Muslims , Greeks and Armenians . Many Muslim refugees had settled in this area during the 19th-century founding their own villages . The Kaza of Orhangazi had a majority of Armenians , with a minority of Muslims ( 34 % ) . The kaza of Yalova had also a minority of Muslims in 1914 ( 36 % ) , with Christians being also in majority ( Greeks and Armenians ) . The Kaza of Gemlik was 57 % Muslim but the town of Gemlik was almost entirely ( 90 % ) Greek by the time of the war . Gemlik was surrounded by Greek , Armenian and Muslim Turkish villages . Most of the Armenians in the region were deported during the Armenian Genocide their villages burned , only a small part , several thousand survivors returned , some 2.000 were present at Gemlik in 1921 . In 1921 there were 3,500 Greek refugees in Gemlik , mostly from areas around Iznik where they had been subject to Turkish atrocities
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Yalova Peninsula massacres