UNFORTUNATELY,
I
am restrained from writing many interesting facts connected with a history of
this kind; some of the things that came to my knowledge in my official capacity.
To the honor of Great Britain, however, I believe that there were moments when
she came within a hair’s breadth of living up to her best traditions. What
prevented her at the critical moment, I have never
learned.
At
any rate, the British contribution to the Smyrna horror did not consist in
active aid of the Turks, neither did she furnish them with arms or munitions.
But, though she was largely responsible for the landing of the Greeks in
Asia Minor, and the latter were defending her interests, she afforded them no
aid, but gave them fallacious encouragement, which led them to their
doom. As far as England was concerned, Greece was the victim of
British internal politics, which seized upon the government’s policy in the Near
East as an object for attack. If Lloyd George was pro-Greek, his
political opponents became—ipso facto—rabid pro-Turk. If
the Hellenic soldiers were mere tools of the British, as both the Italians and
French believed, then it certainly was not “playing the game” to desert them in
their extremity; and this desertion carries a graver responsibility with it,
inasmuch as it made possible the fearful catastrophe of Smyrna and its
hinterland.
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