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
Since: Oct 07
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".
http://www.atmg.org/GreekBarbarism.html
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