Zeybeks

[1][2] One Turkish source states the Zeybeks first appeared in the 13th century and were Turkomans who settled into the Aegean Region.

[5] According to Aşıkpaşazade, an Ottoman Turkish Historian from the 15th century, Zeybeks were Muslim Gazis protecting the borders in Anatolia.

[2] Ottoman Turkish author Osman Hamdi Bey supports that they were descendants of the Trallians and unrelated to the Turks.

[6] In addition, information about the similarities of the Pecheneg costume with the Zeybek-Seymen costume, as determined in the Byzantine chronicles, Claude Cahen explained this case in his article titled Battle of Manzikert According to Islamic sources, with the statements that the clothes of the paid Pecheneg soldiers under the command of Alyatte, one of the Byzantine commanders, could not be distinguished from their cognates on the opposite front.

[10] Greek historian Thomas Korovinis, in his detailed study of the Zeybeks, summarizes 7 of the main theories on their origins.

[14] According to Paul Wittek it may evolve from the name "Salpakis Mantachias" used by the Byzantine historian Pachymeres for Mentesh Bey, who founded the Beylik of Menteşe in southwestern Anatolia.

[17] Before the Treaty of Lausanne and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, larger concentrations of Zeybeks could be found on the Aegean coast of western Anatolia, near the city of İzmir (Greek: Smyrna) and Magnesia.

[18][19] Following the formation of a Turkish national army, during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, most of them joined the regular forces and continued their resistance.