IN
1911, I was transferred to Smyrna, where I remained till May of 1917, when the
Turks ruptured relations with the United States. During the period from
1914 to 1917, I was in charge of the Entente interests in Asia Minor and
was in close contact with Rahmi Bey, the famous and shrewd war
governor-general.
The
Greek subjects in Asia Minor were not disturbed for the reason, as explained by
Rahmi Bey, that King Constantine was in reality an ally of Turkey and that he
was preventing Greece from going into the war. The Rayas, or Greek Ottoman
subjects, of the Port were, on the other hand, abominably treated. These people
were the expert artisans, principal merchants and professional men of the
cities, and the skilled and progressive farmers of the country. It was they who
introduced the cultivation of the famous Sultanina raisins, improved the curing
and culture of tobacco, and built modern houses and pretty towns. They were
rapidly developing a civilization that would ultimately have approached the
classic days of Ionia. A general boycott was declared against them, for one
thing, and posters calling on the Mussulmans to exterminate them were posted in
the schools and mosques. The Turkish newspapers also published violent
articles exciting their readers to persecution and massacre. A
meeting of the consular corps was held and the decision was taken to visit the
vali and call the attention of His
Excellency to the danger that these articles and this agitation might disturb
the tranquility of a peaceful province.
The
consuls visited the vali, with the exception of the German
representative, who alleged that he could not join in such a move without the
express authorization of his government. This action of the German official on
the spot is another confirmation of the assertion that Germany was to a large
extent co-guilty with her Turkish allies in the matter of the deportations and
massacres of Christians. In fact, there is little doubt that Germany inspired
the expulsion of the Ottoman Greeks of Asia Minor at that time, as one of the
preliminary moves in the war, which she was preparing.
The
ferocious expulsion and terrorizing by murder and violence of the Rayas along
the Asia Minor littoral, which has not attracted the attention it merits, has
all the earmarks of a war measure, prompted by alleged “military necessity,” and
there is no doubt that Turks and Germans were allies during the war and were in
complete cooperation.
A study of this question may be found in Publication No. 3, of the
American Hellenic Society, 1918, in which the statement is made that one
million, five hundred thousand Greeks were driven from their homes in Thrace and
Asia Minor, and that half these populations had perished from deportations,
outrages and famine.
The
violent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers, above referred to,
appeared unexpectedly and without any cause. They were so evidently “inspired”
by the authorities, that it seems a wonder that even ignorant Turks did not
understand this.
Cheap lithographs were also got up, executed in the clumsiest and most
primitive manner—evidently local productions. They represented Greeks cutting up
Turkish babies or ripping open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely
imaginary scenes, founded on no actual events or even accusations elsewhere
made. These were hung in the mosques and schools. This campaign bore immediate
fruit and set the Turk to killing, a not very difficult thing to
do.
A
series of sporadic murders began at Smyrna as at Saloniki, the list in each
morning’s paper numbering from twelve to twenty. Peasants going into their
vineyards to work were shot down from behind trees and rocks by the Turks. One
peculiarly atrocious case comes to mind: Two young men, who had recently
finished their studies in a high-grade school, went out to a vineyard to pass
the night in the coula (house in the
country). During the night they were called to the door and chopped down with
axes. Finally the Rayas, to the number of several hundred thousand, were all
driven off from their farms or out of their villages. Some were deported into
the interior, but many managed to escape by means of caiques to the neighboring islands,
whence they spread over Greece. A few thousand Turks destroyed the region, which
the Greeks were developing and rendering fertile, from Pergamus clear down the
coast to Lidja. I went over the whole region and took photographs of the ruined
farmhouses and villages. Goats had been turned into flourishing, carefully
tended vineyards and acres of roots had been dug up for fuel.
Most of the Christian houses in Asia Minor are built of a wooden
framework, which serves as an earthquake proof skeleton for the walls of stone
and mortar. The Turks pulled the houses down by laying a timber across the
inside of the window—or doorframe—to which a team of buffaloes or oxen was
hitched. A Turk would reside in one of the houses with his wife, or with
his goats and cattle, and thus tear down a circle of houses about him. When the
radius became too great for convenience, he moved into the center of another
cluster of houses. The object of destroying the houses was to get the
wooden timbers for firewood.
Both
at this time and during the progress of the Great War, the Rayas were drafted
into the army where they were treated as slaves. They were not given guns, but
were employed to dig trenches and do similar work, and as they were furnished
neither food, clothing nor shelter, large numbers of them perished of hunger and
exposure.
The
beginning of the work on the “Great Turkish Library” at Smyrna was peculiarly
interesting as a revelation of the mentality of the race. Christians were
used for the labor, the taskmasters, of course, being Turks armed with
whips. When I called the attention of Rahmi Bey, the governor-general,
one day to the fact that there were not sufficient books existing in his native
tongue to justify the construction of so great an edifice, he
replied:
“The
first thing is to have a building. If we have a building the books will
necessarily appear to fill it, and even if they don’t, we are going to translate
all the German books into Turkish.”
The
structure was never finished, and consequently the books have not been
written.
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