HOW
many were massacred in Smyrna and its dependent towns and villages! It is
impossible to make any estimate at all accurate, but the efforts to minimize the
number must at first glance fail of credence.
Official
statistics give the Armenian inhabitants of Smyrna as twenty-five thousand and
it is certain that the larger part of the men of this community were killed,
besides many women and girls, also numerous Greeks. A dispatch to the “London Daily Chronicle” of September 18,
1922, says: “The lowest estimate of lives lost given by the refugees,
places the total at one hundred and twenty
thousand.”
Reuter’s
Agency, in a dispatch of the same date, makes the following statement: “From
none of the accounts is it possible to give the exact figures of the victims,
but it is feared that in any case they will be over one hundred
thousand.”
Mr.
Roy Treloar, newspaper correspondent, wired as follows (September 20, 1922): “Nureddin Pasha commenced a systematic
hunting down of Armenians, who were gathered in batches of one hundred, taken to
the -Konak and murdered.”
The
“London Times” correspondent
telegraphed:
“The
killing was carried out systematically. Turkish regulars and irregulars are
described as rounding up likely wealthy people in the streets and, after
stripping them, killing them in batches. Many Christians who had taken refuge in
the churches were burned to death in the buildings which had been set on
fire.”
Mr.
Otis Swift, correspondent of the “Chicago
Tribune”, visited the Greek islands on which refugees had been dumped by the
rescue steamers and saw many of the victims of the tragedy, whose stories and
the nature of whose wounds bore additional testimony to the ferocity of the
Turks. Here is a short quotation from Mr. Swift’s report:
“Hospitals
of the Greek islands are crowded by people who had been beaten and attacked by
the Turks. In a hospital at Chios I saw a child who still lived, although shot
through the face by a soldier who had killed its father and violated its mother.
In the same hospital there was a family of six orphan Armenians. A four-year-old
baby of this family had been beaten with rifle butts because no money had been
found sewn in its clothes.”
There
is no doubt that many thousands of the defenseless inhabitants of Smyrna and the
surrounding country were done to death by Turks.
To
the number actually killed on the days of the massacre must be added the
deported Greeks who perished, the people who died in the flames or were killed
by falling walls, those who expired on the quay and those who have since
succumbed from want, injuries or grief.
The extent of the catastrophe can be realized from the magnitude of the relief
work that has been carried on ever since, and from the immense sums which have
been raised, principally in America, for the maintenance of the widows and
orphans.
The
following statement is from Mr. Charles V. Vickery, Secretary of the Near East
Relief, 151 Fifth Avenue, New York:
“In
regard to the amount of money which has been spent on relief, I would say that
so far as the Near East Relief is concerned the total of money and supplies
contributed by the American people has amounted to approximately ninety-five
million dollars. So far as I know there are no available statistics of the
amounts spent by other countries. The largest contributor has of course been
Great Britain, but we do not have any figures here in our
office.”
“In
answer to your second inquiry as to how much is still necessary, would say that
it is extremely difficult to make an answer that would be reliable as there are
so many uncertain factors in the problem, as you know only too well. So far as
the Near East Relief is concerned, our program should very rapidly diminish
after another year or two and the Executive Committee has definitely adopted a
resolution to the effect that there shall be some sort of coordination or
amalgamation of Near East agencies at the end of five years or sooner if
practicable. This resolution was adopted approximately nine months
ago.”
“Near
East Relief will need around four million dollars a year for the next two years
if present indications are reliable.”
One
of the most important reports connected with the fire is that of the Reverend
Charles Dobson, British chaplain of Smyrna, and a committee of prominent
Englishmen, all inhabitants of the district, including the British chaplains of
Bournabat and Boudja. This report throws the responsibility of the fire
upon the Turks, “whose fanatic elements, fed by the license of three-days’
looting, fired the city in the hope of driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish
elements.” Such a report from such a source, leaves no doubt as to the fact
that Smyrna was burned by Turks, although these gentlemen do not take into
account the circumstance that the town was in complete control of Khemalist
troops at the time and that regular soldiers of the Turkish army, in uniform,
were seen by abundant witnesses to set the fires. It is pertinent in this
connection in that it relates incidents of greater ferocity than I have yet
given, but which I refrain from quoting. (The entire report can be found in the “Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette”, No. 2, vol
6, November, 1922.)
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