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[MR-from-NG]

GREEK ATROCITIES COMMITTED DURING

THE 19th &20th CENTURIES

The Turks have well established reputation for ferocity and a notion of the “Terrible Turk” is deeply ingrained in the western mind. Unfortunately too little is known that during the 19 and 20 century the Turks have much more often been the victims of aggression than they have been aggressors .
They have been involved in two wars of aggression 2nd Balkan war of 1913 and the brief participation in the 1st world war which involved not allowing allied troops through the Dardenells of Gallipoli to help its enemy Russia. However Turkey has been invaded numerous times: once each by Italy, France, England, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro and Four times by Russia and Greece.


Greece was determined to exterminate as many Turks as possible.The Greek war of Independence set the tone for all that was to follow:
The orthodox Greeks at once fell upon their Turkish neighbours and slaughtered them indiscriminately.


To quote the distinguished historian

Mr William St.Clair:

"The Turks of Greece left few traces.They disappeared suddenly and finally in the spring of 1821 unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world.It is hard to believe then that Greece had once contained a large population of Turkish descent living in small communities all over the country, prosperous farmers, merchants, and officials,whose families had known no other home for hundreds of years. As the Greeks said "The moon devoured them." Upwards of Twenty thousand Turkish men, women, and children were murdered by their Greek neighbours in few weeks of slaughter. They were killed deliberately, without qualm or scruple, and there were no regrets either then or later..."

All over the Pelopponense roamed mobs of Greeks armed with clubs, scythes, and a few firearms, killing, plundering, and burning. They were often lead by Christian priests who exhorted them to greater efforts in their holy work...Within a few weeks the Turkish and Moslem Albanian population of Pelopponse previously about ninth of the whole , had ceased to exit

During this period the inhabitants of the important islands of Hydra, Spetsae, and Psara decided to join the revolutionaries.... They armed their ships and began to attack traders flying the Turkish flag. They ranged all over the Aegean and beyond.

Many Turkish merchant ships were captured, their crews killed, or thrown overboard, and the booty brought back to port. On several occasions ships crowded with Moslem pilgrims on their way to or from Mecca were seized and the crews and passengers put to death.... The crew of a Turkish corvette, fifty-seven men in all, were brought back to Hydra in triumph and individually roasted to death over fires on the beach.

Crete

When Greece invaded Crete, in February 1897, Greek Muslims and Turks were slaughtered by the thousands. In the district of Sitia alone, 851 Persons (including 374 children) were killed. The eighty Muslim villages of Central Crete were entirely destroyed. The massacre was stopped only by the timely arrival of British and French military units. An eye-witness to the slaughter, a woman from the village of Roukaka, in the district of Sitia, gave the following deposition to French officials:

"Christians threw Halime, the pregnant wife of Huseyin Mehmedakis, on the ground and slit open her belly, taking the foetus out. They also knifed Fatime, daughter of Mustafa Omer Efendakis, cutting her open from her breasts to the middle of her back. They pushed the men into the mosque and, as they killed them, hurled them from the minaret, which they then set ablaze with gasoline. Dogs were running all over the village carrying half-burnt hands and feet. The children were stabbed to death, and a few were crushed beneath the minaret when it collapsed."

izmir

When the Greeks occupied the izmir region in 1919 and later, as they penetrated into central Anatolia, they carried out a policy of genocide on a grand scale. Typical was the Aydin massacre of June 25, 1919. Greek troops at first subjected the Turkish quarter of the town to an intensive artillery bombardment. All Turks who tried to escape were shot down by Greek soldiers or civilian auxiliaries. Then the Greek Army entered the quarter and continued its orgy of destruction. Some Turkish families were burnt alive when their homes were set on fire. Others were gunned down in the streets. When four women who had barricaded themselves into a building were captured, they were impaled on wooden stakes. Altogether, an estimated 9,716 Turks were butchered that day.

H.J.Psomiades in "The Eastern Question" points out that since 1912 some 4 million muslims (most of Turkish origin)had left Greece or areas occupied by Greece.

Their butchery didn’t stop with the Turks !



Jews were also driven out of Turkish territories seized by the Greeks. The fate of the Jews of Salonika was typical. According to Jacov Benmayor, an authority on subject:

In 1917 a great fire destroyed most of the town, leaving some 50,000 Jews homeless. The Greek government, which followed a policy of Helenizing the town, was ready to compensate the Jews whose house were destroyed, but it refused to let the Jews return to certain parts of the town, causing many of them to leave the country. . . . In 1922 a law(no. 236) was enacted which forced all the inhabitants of Salonika to refrain from working on Sundays, thus causing another wave of emigration.... In 1932-34 the Campbell riots, which accompanied the elections and were anti-Semitic in tone, took place. An entire Jewish neighbourhood was burned to the ground by hooligans, and most of the Jews who lived in the Campbell neighbourhood emigrated after the riots

Hellenization and Genocide

Today their policy of Hellenization and Genocide continues large scale human rights violations in western thrace will lead to the extermination of Turks living there as they cease to exit, yet no one car, And while the world turns a blind eye no doubt in a few years people will say, were their any Turks in western Thrace .No doubt their answers will be the same .

"The moon devoured them"

[pitsilos]

obviously your elevator never reaches the top floor. If you add all the people the Greeks killed they wouldn't even come close to what the turks did to the Armenians in a single event. I would hate to see what the figure will be if you add all the attrocities.

but a good post never the less in showing an insight to you reality.

and tell me, while you are at it, any thoughts on the Kurds? is turkey still using them for target practice?

[souroul]

ahaha, what a joke. the killer accuses the teaser

[EUropean666]

Beg your pardon, i am from crete, ok!

You wrote "hen Greece invaded Crete, in February 1897," Are you insance or something? Crete was occupied from Muslims. How come Greece 'invade' its own land? Firstly there was a revolt from Cretans and the allies decided to give autonomy in 1897. Secondly Muslims have commited some of the worst ever crimes in Crete, starting from kapetanakis who was cut his skin alive. I am just asking you, what the hell Muslims were doing in Crete? Cretans like Maniots are proud people and they do not like muslims in their land...is this understood? What the hell muslims were doing in Crete?

Regarding this "distinguished historian", he is a bloody sailor-public sector employee not a historian. He wrote couple of books when he retired he wrote some books for the parthenon marbles trying to prove that elgin was not a thief and That Greece Might Still Be Free, The Philhellenes in the War of Independence (Oxford University Press 1972) but it does not fit wot you are saying.
Since when greece "occupies" area, shall i remind you that turkey occupies constantinople and that there was not a single muslim in asia minor before the ottomans invasion.

You are invading when you are attacking a land that has nothing to do with your nation or people. So how come Greece invaded Crete? can you explain this?

[bg_turk]

You are invading when you are attacking a land that has nothing to do with your nation or people. So how come Greece invaded Crete? can you explain this?

Greece invaded and ethnically cleansed the enitre moslem population on the island. Not a single Cretan Turk was left after the brutal greek invasion.

[Piratis]

Greece invaded and ethnically cleansed the enitre moslem population on the island. Not a single Cretan Turk was left after the brutal greek invasion.

I find it hard to believe that such thing happen against the mighty super powerful Turks. Are you sure? Such things happen in the real world you mean?? Maybe the Turks were oppressing the Cretans for centuries, then at some point the Cretans had enough, the balance of power changed, and the Turks faced the consequences of their insistence to occupy Crete against the will of the great majority of the Cretans?

[alexISS]

You are invading when you are attacking a land that has nothing to do with your nation or people. So how come Greece invaded Crete? can you explain this?

Greece invaded and ethnically cleansed the enitre moslem population on the island. Not a single Cretan Turk was left after the brutal greek invasion.

Wow, I thought they were part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, but I guess you know better

[mehmet]

''Maybe the Turks were oppressing the Cretans for centuries, then at some point the Cretans had enough, the balance of power changed, and the Turks faced the consequences of their insistence to occupy Crete against the will of the great majority of the Cretans?''

Cretans = Cypriots?

Is this the balance of power you are waiting forever for, so the Turks can face the same consequences?

[Piratis]

mehmet, many in here support that ethnic cleansing is a good way to bring peace. They claim that since the ethnic cleaning they performed against us in Cyprus there is peace, and that this illegal partition that they force should be legalized.

What do you have to say about the crime that your compatriots are committing against us as we speak? Do you support it?

The Turks and TCs should be allowed to commit crimes against us and face no consequences? What do you think?

[mehmet]

Piratis,

I want peace between Cypriot's.

What crimes are my family committing by continuing to live on the same island (in the same part) that they always lived? Should they have to 'face the consequences' of the Muslim's in Crete for example? Should they desire to live again in enclaves and be discriminated against by the state they live in? Should they have to rely on their peaceful Greek neighbours for their safety whilst being aware that some amongst them are plotting to commit crimes against them for no reason other than that they are Muslim's? Is that the peace we want? The truth is that there is not enough peaceful history and too much history that is bad, don't deny it you are always claiming that too.

I do not seek to justify partition, I only hope you understand the circumstances that existed in the past that make some on this site believe only bad things about our Greek neighbours. So what to do? We have lived separately for 32 years and only in the last couple of years have they again even had day to day contact with each other. Young people are not bilingual as they were in the past. We have a lot of work to do to achieve a unitary state. I believe we can only achieve this in stages not in one step.

We cannot right the wrongs we committed in the past, how can we? Can we bring back missing people? Can we bring people back to life? We have to move forward and to take steps towards each other. The language used by my compatriots towards each other on this site can be harsh and is not helpful to rebuilding trust. I am only thinking about what I and others as inidviduals can do because I don't believe solutions are going to be created by the politicians. I said some time ago that nationalists in both communities created the problems we have we have to marginalise them politicially and support those who are seeking a peaceful inclusive society.

Whether I like it or not the Turkish army will stay in Cyprus until such time that Turkey sees it as advantageous to leave. The only way to achiev that is to embrace Turkey within democratic European structures. If Turkey is rejected it will strengthen the nationalists and in that situation you hav eno change in Cyprus. I think Sener Levent has said more eloquently than I ever could what I feel about the situation in northern Cyprus.

Now, I really don't think reminding us that we can be slaughtered if Greek's are angry enough is doing anything to bring about peace in Cyprus, do you?