Christine Toskos wrote:You said what famous men said about Turks. Churchill said Heroes fight as Greeks. but Turks have tiny penises.
Some bedtime reading material for you gori.
Part 3 - Greek Atrocities and Massacres of Turks in Anatolia after the London Conference 1921-22
In February 1921, a conference was held in London between the Greeks and the Turks, including the representatives of the Ankara Government, but it failed to solve the Turco-Greek imbroglio.
Yalova and Orhan Gazi massacres
On 6 April 1921, Resit Pasha, the diplomatic representative of the Istanbul government in London. Submitted an aide-memoire to the British Foreign Office, informing it that the Greeks had massacred many Turks at Yalova and Orhan Gazi. When the Foreign Office asked its High Commissioner in Istanbul, Sir Horace Rumbold, about this incident,5 the latter replied as follows:
"There is little doubt in our minds from the details the French authorities have received that grave excesses have been committed in the Yalova and Orkhan Ghazi districts against the Mussulman population, and that these outrages are the work of Greek bands."7
At first, Allied observers felt that the murderous actions were those of local Greeks in quest of revenge for real or imagined wrongs. However, even British observers, who so wanted to find in the Greeks a positive force for Christian civilisation in the East, were forced to admit the nature of the Greek atrocities: which aimed at "a systematic destruction of Turkish villages and the extinction of Moslem population". Greek and Armenian bands, which appeared to operate under Greek instructions, carried out the plan, sometimes even with the assistance of detachments of regular troops, declared the Inter-Allied Commission report.29
Following the Greek atrocities at Yalova and Orhan Gazi and Izmit peninsula, an Inter-Allied Commission was established. The Commission submitted its report to Foreign Office on 16 July 1921, via the Admiralty. In his covering letter Admiral de Robeck stated that, from a careful perusal of the report, it would appear that the majority of the crimes were perpetrated by the Greeks, including Greek regular officers and men, and that they were commenced by them.10 The report gave the following information:
During the past nine months parties of regular Greek soldiers with officers marched at intervals into villages in the neighbourhood of Bozalfat (Eser Koy) near Aghva. The Greek brigand Katsaros had been a visitor and behaved badly. Both Greek regular officers and men had raped women and committed robberies and acts of violence.
Greek soldiers took everything of value such as money, cattle and effects, having tortured the people. There were cases of murder and rape. Some villages were totally or partly destroyed. The villages of Mehter Koy, Lazlar Koyu, Armak Koy, Omer Aga Koyu and Aga Koy were totally destroyed.
Everywhere the Greek soldiers behaved savagely, killing men and raping women. They hung some peopler by their feet over straw fires. In the Beykoz area many massacres took place at Cubuklu and bodies were exhumed. They were buried fully clothed and shod, thrown together.
The historian Arnold J. Toynbee and his wife personally witnessed these atrocities.29
Meanwhile, the Greek authorities, who were embarrassed (!) by these excesses, were trying to turn the tables against the Turks by accusing them of counter-atrocities. According to McCarthy, in Anatolia the British, unlike their compatriots at the Peace Conference, often seem to have given little credence to Greek charges. For example, upon receiving a Greek report of Turkish atrocities in a place named in the report as Tatabazar, the acting High Commissioner, Frank Ratting, remarked: "The slaughter of 7,700 out of 8,000 Greek inhabitants of Tatabazar is untrue, and there is even doubt as to the existence of such a place. Possibly it is intended for Ada Bazaar, but no reports of wholesale massacre of Greeks has been received from that quarter".8 During the war, the British reported that the Greeks were ‘trumping up’ false atrocity stories against the Turks.2
The Greeks evacuated Izmit on the night of 28 June. The town was reported to be in flames; the Greeks probably started the fire before they left. A number of Turks were reported massacred by Armenians in Izmit itself. Both the Armenians and neutral Turks were terror stricken, but all the Greeks were evacuated by the Greek forces.9
On 1 July, General Franks reported that the Greek troops were retreating towards Yalova and burning all the villages in the coastal area. The Commission on atrocities went to Izmit on 30 July where they were well received by the Turkish Nationalists. There was no evidence of any massacre of Christians. Officials of the American hospital and French priests spoke highly of the Kemalists’ discipline and demeanour. However, atrocities of an appalling nature, including murder, torture and mutilation, were verified by exhumation. American evidence supported that these were committed by Christian, Armenian and Circassian brigands, assisted by drunken and undisciplined Greek troops whilst the town was in Greek military occupation. The Commission was of the opinion that the behaviour of the Greek army in retreat was "deplorable and unworthy of a civilised nation".28
Greek Atrocities continue
While the Turco-Greek war continued, so did the Greek atrocities. The well-known British academic, Arnold J. Toynbee, who visited Izmir in August 1921 as correspondent of the Manchester Guardian newspaper, wrote to a senior British officer at the High Commission in Istanbul. "The Greek army are carrying out systematic extermination of the Moslem population in the newly occupied areas". Lamb described Toynbee as "notoriously anti-Hellenic".
Professor Toynbee, as the holder of the Korais Chair in Byzantine and Modern Greek Language, Literature and History at the University of London, was in fact no friend of the Turks.27 He had expected to see noble actions from the Greeks, and base actions from the Turks. However, he realised the reality of Greek actions and intentions after viewing the massacres at Yalova and Gemlik, and later investigating the continuing destruction around Izmir. He, like the Inter-Allied Inquiry Commission, concluded that the Greek government planned the massacres and expulsions of the Turks.29
On 20 September, Mrs Toynbee sent a note to the British High Commissioner asking that it might be regarded as confidential in view of the names. She gave a vivid picture of Greek horrors in the Greek occupied area.
During May and June 1921, the villages of Savilar, Korfulmus, Kaganli, Kabasdere and Tepecinar were attacked and completely pillaged. The whole population was massacred. The villages of Pekmezli, Kadidag, Komurcu and Selcuklu were pillaged and destroyed with some massacres. In the district around Sogandere, between 25 and 30 villages were destroyed with massacre of the entire population. Between Akhisar and Manisa, 82 villages were attacked with varying degrees of massacres. Some, not all, were burned. On or about 2 May, the following villages were attacked and pillaged: Irekkoy, Isafakihler, Arzular, Karabag, Karapinar, Aligoz, Kizilcakoy, Carankoy and Ballikoy. Some villagers were massacred; others escaped into the forest. On 14 June, Gordes and Kayacik were completely pillaged and burned. On 24 June, at Baslamis, near Akhisar, Greek soldiers and Armenian bands surrounded the village and massacred all the inhabitants between the ages of 12 and 60. Four of them were beaten before being killed. Six of the (including 3 women) were killed ‘by having hot irons run into them". On 28 June, the Greeks blockaded 18 villages in the neighbourhood of Tire, and pillaged and burned them in varying degrees. These included Uzgun, Karakilise, Toparlak, Meheli, Musalar, Bozkoy, Yenisehir, Mehmetler, Ispatlar, Camkoy, Ortakoy, and Dagdere.
The Greeks were collecting Turkish civilians, especially notables, from various towns and villages and marching them off as prisoners of war. They were supposed to be deported to Greece, but nobody heard from them, and the corpses of some of them had been found. Deportations took place at Kasaba (Turgutlu), Manisa, Nif, Alasehir, Salihli, Usak, Kula, Marmara, Akhisar, Tire, Odemis, Bayindir, Turbeli and Aydin. On 13 April, at Salihli, the Greeks arrested a number of people, including the mufti, the judge and 25 notables, made them prisoners of war and sent them first to Izmir and then to Greece. On 16 April, at Usak, they arrested the mufti and 20 other notables and sent them to Greece. On 20 April, near Aydin, in the villages of Sultanhisar, Erbeyli, Kosli, Umurlu, Germence and Balac, the Greeks arrested 80 people and the bodies of some of them were later recovered. There was no news of the others. On 21 May, at Karapinar, near Aydin, 50 notables were sent to Izmir but there was no news of them. In the evening, Greek officers came to the houses of the notables and violated the women. Next morning they began to beat the people with iron whips in order to extort valuables. The same happened on 2 May at Nazilli and Atja involving 32 people.
These descriptions of the situation in territory under Greek occupation were so horrible that, they prompted some of Foreign Office officials to pour out venom against Toynbee. Thus E.G.F. Adams observed:" …Both she [Mrs Toynbee] and her husband have become rather violently anti-Greek". E.G.F. Adams added: "Professor Arnold Toynbee has turned pro-Turk and his pro-Turkish articles have been appearing in the Manchester Guardian. On the other hand, Mr [Reginald W.A.] Leeper [of the British Foreign Office] tells me that the Manchester Guardian prints equally pro-Greek propaganda and pro-Armenian articles, and that in its leaders it takes a middle course." 11
Meanwhile, atrocities continued. On 30 September information was received of the burning of further villages in the districts of Bayindir and Odemis, from which refugees were drifting into the city. The situation was so bad that, even the Foreign Minister of Soviet Russia, Georgi V. Chicherin, sent a note to the British Foreign Office, through the Soviet representative in London, Leonid Borisovich Krassin, calling attention to the Greek atrocities, and expressing the view that a protest should be addressed to the Greek government. Lord Curzon minuted this at the British Foreign Office as follows: "What has Chicherin to do with this? I would return no answer at all."
Greek Retreat
The Greeks began to retreat from Western Anatolia in August 1921 after they lost the battle at Sakarya, where the Turkish Nationalist forces checked, held and then reversed their advance on Ankara. With their retreat, their Ionian vision, encompassing most of western Anatolia, began to fall apart. As the Greeks retreated, they destroyed more thoroughly than before all that was in their path.
During the Greek retreat, one city, town and village after another was set on fire.6 The American Consul at Izmir, Loder Park, who toured much of the devastated area immediately after the Greek evacuation, described the situation in the cities and towns he has seen, as follows:
"[Manisa] almost completely wiped out by fire…10,300 houses, 15 mosques, 2 baths, 2,278 shops, 19 hotels, 26 villas…[destroyed]. Kasaba [present day Turgutlu] was a city of 40,000 souls, 3,000 of whom were non-Moslems. Of these 37,000 Turks only 6,000 could be accounted for among the living, while 1,000 Turks were known to have been shot or burned to death. Of the 2,000 buildings that constituted the city, only 200 remained standing. Ample testimony was available to the effect that the city was systematically destroyed by Greek soldiers, assisted by a number of Greek and Armenian civilians. Kerosene and Gasoline were freely used to make the destruction more certain, rapid and complete."30
Consul Park was not fond of the Turks. According to the American scholar Justin McCarthy, he was distressed to see that the Greeks, whom he had supported, had committed such outrages. Yet, he was forced to agree that the evidence he had seen was conclusive. He concluded his report to the State Department, as follows:
"The destruction of the interior cities visited by our party was carried out by Greeks. The percentages of buildings destroyed in each of the last four cities…were: Magnesia [Manisa] 90 percent, Cassaba [Turgutlu] 90 percent, Alasehir 70 percent, Salihli 65 percent.
The burning of these cities was not desultory, nor intermittent, nor accidental, but well planned and thoroughly organised. There were many instances of physical violence, most of which was deliberate and wanton. Without complete figures, which were impossible to obtain, it may safely be surmised that ‘atrocities’ committed by retiring Greeks numbered well into thousands in the four cities under consideration. These consisted of all three of the usual type of such atrocities, namely murder, torture and rape." 30
All through 1922, until the expulsion of Greek army from Turkiye in September, Greek atrocities continued. The Greek army was in full flight to Izmir, burning, looting and massacring indiscriminately on its way.13 Eskisehir and Kutahya and other towns and villages were also burnt. Only the prompt intervention of the Allies saved Bursa from a similar fate. The presence of Allied officers and men in the city, and the fact that Turkish troops had the Greek army in Bursa surrounded, spared the city. However, the Greek soldiers destroyed the city’s bridges and also burnt 40 houses and Greek churches,23 but the damage was minimal when compared to that suffered elsewhere.17
By 2 September, the Allies had become aware that the Greek army was decisively defeated and that defeat was rapidly turning into a rout. Incidents were expected in Izmir.18 The US Consul, John Horton, informed his government on 2 September that the military situation was "extremely grave" owing to the exhaustion and low morale of the Greek troops. It was so serious that it could not be saved. The local Christians were panicking and trying to leave the city. When the Greek army reached the city, observed the consul, serious trouble was possible, and he had heard threats that it would burn Izmir. He advised that cruisers be sent to protect American lives.31
By 6 September, the Greeks were still falling back and burning everything as they passed.14 On the same day, sources in Paris reported that the British Foreign Office had information indicating that the situation in Asia Minor was lamentable. The Greek army had been completely routed and was burning and massacring in its retreat.24,32 Again, on 6 September, the US, British, French and Italian Consuls addressed a joint note to the Greek Minister for War, M. Theotokis, requesting assurances that Izmir was in no danger of being burned or pillaged. The Minister replied that he could give no such assurances. At this time refugees and Greek deserters were pouring into Izmir from the interior, the number arriving on September 6 being estimated at 60,000 refugees and 10,000 deserters. The soldiers, for the most part, carried arms but without officers. Many of the soldiers threw away or sold their arms and equipment, which thus passed into the possession of civilians. The city of Izmir became "a mass of living beings made up of the members of a defeated army, the hangers-on of that army, all the disreputable people of the country as well as of the city, and a mass of women, children, wagons, draft animals and all kinds of households and personal effects." It also contained "numerous deposits of ammunition and inflammable or incendiary material." 15
On 8 September, the British General, Tim Harington, reported to the War Office that the news was very bad from Izmir. There were reports that the Greek troops were completely out of hand, and were looting and burning.16
Turkish Army enters Izmir
On 9 September 1922, the Turks entered Izmir "in perfect order", according to the US Consul.24,33 His Vice-Consul, Maynard B. Barnes, in a dispatch to the Secretary of State on 18 September, observed that the advance guard of the Turkish forces, a cavalry unit, entered Izmir at 11 o’clock on the morning of 9 September, and order reigned throughout the city during the first few hours of the occupation, "Despite the burning of Turkish villages and cities in the interior, and the slaughtering of Turkish civilians by the evacuating Greek Army and the refugee Christians, and despite the throwing of bombs by Armenians at the Turkish cavalry upon the appearance of that force on the streets of Izmir." 24,33
The Izmir Fire
On 13 September, four days after the Turkish Nationalist army entered the City of Izmir, a fire broke out in the afternoon in a house situated near the railway station, in the quarter known as Basmahane. It soon spread and burnt most of the city. At the time, accusations were made against the Greeks, the Turks and the Armenians. However, fingers were pointing mostly at Greeks. They were, after all, burning and looting on their retreat to Izmir following their defeat, and both the Greek High Commissioner in Izmir, Aristide Sterghiades, and the Greek General, A. Papoulas, had warned that the Greek army might burn the city. The accusations levelled against the Turks were based on the reports and eyewitness accounts of a number of Greeks and Armenians but they were dismissed as being biased. The Armenians, too, were accused of collaborating with the Greeks in their sordid deeds in order to cover up their bomb throwing, sniping and arson.
The US Vice-Consul Maynard B. Barnes, no friend of the Turks, admitted that it did not seem logical for the Turks to destroy Izmir. On the morning of 15 September the Vice-Consul called with Captain Hepburn on the Vali (Governor) Abdul Halik Bey, and upon Kazim Pasha, the Military Governor of the city. Captain Hepburn stated in his diary: "The Turks had been so proud to have preserved Izmir intact throughout all the devastation caused by the Greeks, but the Armenians and Greeks have defeated us in the end" 26
On 20 September, the Turkish Legation in Stockholm issued a communique, stating that they have received telegraphic assurances that the fire in Izmir was started by the Greeks and the Armenians, who had set fire even to their own buildings, in order that the Turks might not be able to make use of them. The Legation pointed out that there was "absolutely no reason for the Turks to destroy their most beautiful city next to Istanbul, now that they had definitely retaken it." 19
The Turkish statements were supported by Sir A. A. Baig, who observed in The Asiatic Review of October 1922 that attempts were being made to saddle the Turks with the crime of firing Izmir. "Though every Ottoman interest was involved in preserving the famous town, and to excuse the Armenians and the Greeks who had every motif of revenge to destroy what they were abondoning."1
Justin McCarthy adds that the historical record of the fire is extremely confused. "One can easily theorise that there was, in fact, not one fire, but many fires, set in revenge by Christians who did not wish the Turks to have the city, and by undisciplined soldiers and civilians, who simply wished to see the buildings burn. The often-stated idea of the Turkish Nationalist Government deliberately burning down their second greatest city immediately after it had once again become theirs is a prima facie absurdity."25,27
More Greek Atrocities
After the Greek army’s expulsion from Anatolia, The Greeks continued their atrocities elsewhere. According to a secret report prepared by the British General Headquarters in Istanbul on 8 November 1922, the Greeks burnt the following Muslim villages in Thrace: Sarlar, Cakmak, Sefki Koy, Katanca and Karis Diren. Greek soldiers and refugees systematically pillaged the Rodosto area. There were murders and looting at Kara Hisar, Turkmen Ciftligi, and Boztepe. Even as late as February 1923, the Greeks continued to wreak their vengeance on Muslims, this time in Crete and Western Thrace. On 16 February 1923, the British consular agent in Rethymo (Crete), M. A. Scouloudis, informed the British Consul, J. G. Dawkins, in Canea, the capital of the island, that the Turks, who were driven into the town, did not dare to return to their homes in the country districts chiefly for fear of being attacked and because their houses had been destroyed. Scouloudis then went on to describe the miserable state in which all Turkish refugees were living, and went on:
"The greater service that could be rendered to this population would be to assist them to emigrate; this is moreover their desire too, expressed by a committee to the local authorities. Great anarchy prevails in the island district of Rethymo; armed bands continue to rob the Turkish farms as well as those of the Christians, and not only Turks but Christians, too, are not safe to travel around." 22
The Greek Devastation
The mass destruction of the Greek army of occupation caused in Anatolia is difficult to estimate. According to Justin McCarthy, the loss of Muslim property was due to theft by individual Anatolian Greeks and by Greek officers, enlisted men, officials and irregular gangs. The worst loss, according to McCarthy, was that of timber used in buildings; if defrosted Anatolia, burnt wood was often irreplaceable. So was the loss of livestock. Most of the spoils were "ferried to Mitylene by boats."4 Cities such as Aydin and Odemis became collection points for plundered goods that were intended for sale in bazaars or for dispatch to Greece.3
At the British Foreign Office, G. W. Rendel minuted this document as follows:
"Vandalism of Greeks towards Moslem art is undeniable. I remember once hearing Prince Andrew boast of having paved his quarters at Salonica with Moslem tombstones…"12
During the Lausanne Conference (20 November 1922-24 July 1923), Eleutherios Venizelos, who was the chief delegate of Greece, at a private interview on 14 May 1923 told Ismet Pasha, the chief delegate of Turkiye, that Greece could not pay indemnity. However, Venizelos said Greece was ready to give moral satisfaction to the Turkish government by making a declaration to the effect that Greece recognised that it was incumbent on it to pay indemnity for the acts committed by the Greek army in Asia Minor "contrary to the laws of war". Turkiye, for its part, should recognise that Greece’s financial position precluded it from paying the indemnity, which should be waived.20
Venizelos, meanwhile, had received the consent of the Greek government to offer Karaagac to Turkiye.21 Thus, Greece, through Venizelos, the very person responsible for sending the Greek army to invade Western Anatolia, had admitted moral and legal responsibility for the misdeeds of that army. Ismet Pasha, with the help of Mustafa Kemal, wound-up this most controversial issue between Turkiye and Greece. The deal was incorporated into Article 59 of the Treaty of Lausanne.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 - Baig, Sir A.A., The Greek Defeat and British Policy. The Asiatic Review, October 1922
2 - British Foreign Office Document FO 106/1501, General Harington to War Office, 16 August 1922
3 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/4220/E115562, Calthorpe to Curzon, 1 August 1919
4 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/4221/12447, Ayvalik report by Hedkinson, dated 7 August 1919
5 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6491/E4224
6 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6511/E5232
7 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6611/E5375
8 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6515/E6441, Rattigan to Curzon, 29 May 1921
9 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6520/E7377
10 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6523/E8245, Robeck to Admiralty, 20 June 1921
11 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/6557/E10550
12 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7880/E7453, Ispahani of the London Moslem League to Curzon, 25 July
1922
13 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7885/E8745, telegram from Lamb, 2 September 1922
14 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7886/E8984, Lamb’s telegram, 6 September 1922
15 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7886/E9048, Lamb at FO, 7 September 1922
16 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7992/E9054, Harington to WO, 8 September 1922
17 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7891/E9649
18 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7906/E11667, O. Murray to Admiralty, FO despatch of 25 October 1922,
transmitting copy of report of proceedings at Izmir, 3-14 September, and diaries of events from 29 September to 6
October, from Admiral O. de B. Brock
19 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/7894/E9946, Patrick Ramsay to Curzon, 20 September 1922
20 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9102/E4927, Rumbold to Curzon, 14 May 1923
21 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9103/E5094; DBFP 1/XVII pp 762-63, Rumbold to Curzon, 18 May
1923
22 - British Foreign Office Document FO 371/9109/E2950, MC G. Dawkins to Bentnick, 19 February 1923, enclosing
copy of desp. From M. A. Scouloudis, 16 February 1923
23 - British War Office Document WO 106/1501, G.O.C. Allied Forces, Istanbul, to WO, 15 September 1922
24 - Evans Laurence, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, Baltimore, 1965
25 - Heath W. Lowry, Turkish History: On whose Sources Will it be Based? A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir,
1988
26 - Hepburn Diary, 15 September 1922, quoted by Marjorie Housepian, The Smyrna Affair, New York, 1966
27 - McCarthy, Justin, Death and Exile, The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922, Princeton, New Jersey,
1996
28 - Prince Andrew of Greece, Towards Disaster: The Greek Army in Asia Minor in 1921, London 1930
29 - Toynbee, Arnold J, The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, London 1923
30 - US archives US767.68116/34, J. Loder Park to Secretary of State, Izmir, 11 April 1923
31 - US archives US767.68/274, telegram from Izmir, 2 September 1922
32 - US archives US767.68/2911, telegram from Paris, 6 September 1922
33 - US archives US767.68/297, telegram from Istanbul, 9 September 1922
34 - US archives US767.68/304, telegram from Izmir, 9 September 1922
This article is taken from a study titled "The Turco-Greek Imbroglio Pan-Hellenism and The Destruction of Anatolia" by Prof. Dr. Salahi R. Sonyel and published by the Centre for Strategic Research in Ankara, July 1999 (SAM Papers, No. 5/99).
by YFred » Mon Sep 21, 2009 12:09 am 
