The union with Greece changed the political and administrative system. Samos had become a free Greek province. Naturally, the people's lives changed. The frequent communication with Asia Minor, where Greek populations lived under the Ottoman rule, was reduced and finally stopped in 1922. During the first World War, Greece participated in the Entente alliance.
From such position, it managed to free the area of Smyrna, but the Greek army lost by the Turks who forced nearly all the Greek people of Asia Minor to leave, realizing a nationalistic politics that dated from 1914. Approximately 1,500,000 Greeks came to Greece as refugees, abandoning their ancestral lands where Greek populations lived for 3,000 years.
The largest wave of refugees was that of 1922, after the destruction of Smyrna, causing a sudden increase to the island's population. Many refugees settled permanently down at the island, in villages and towns.
