PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN SMYRNA DISTRICT
(1911-1914)
In 1911, I was transferred to Smyrna, where I remained till May of 1917,
when the Turks ruptured relations with the United States. During the
period from 1914 to 1917, I was in charge of the Entente interests in
Asia Minor and was in close contact with Rahmi Bey, the famous and shrewd
war governor-general.
The Greek subjects in Asia Minor were not disturbed for the reason,
as explained by Rahmi Bey, that King Constantine was in reality an
ally of Turkey and that he was preventing Greece from going into the
war. The Rayas, or Greek Ottoman subjects, of the Port were, on the
other hand, abominably treated. These people were the expert artisans,
principal merchants and professional men of the cities, and the skilled
and progressive farmers of the country. It was they who introduced the
cultivation of the famous Sultanina raisins, improved the curing and
culture of tobacco, and built modern houses and pretty towns. They were
rapidly developing a civilization that would ultimately have approached
the classic days of Ionia. A general boycott was declared against them,
for one thing, and posters calling on the Mussulmans to exterminate
them were posted in the schools and mosques. The Turkish newspapers
also published violent articles exciting their readers to persecution
and massacre. A meeting of the consular corps was held and the decision
was taken to visit the _vali_ and call the attention of His Excellency
to the danger that these articles and this agitation might disturb the
tranquillity of a peaceful province.
The consuls visited the _vali_, with the exception of the German
representative, who alleged that he could not join in such a move without
the express authorization of his government. This action of the German
official on the spot is another confirmation of the assertion that
Germany was to a large extent co-guilty with her Turkish allies in the
matter of the deportations and massacres of Christians. In fact, there is
little doubt that Germany inspired the expulsion of the Ottoman Greeks
of Asia Minor at that time, as one of the preliminary moves in the war,
which she was preparing.
The ferocious expulsion and terrorizing by murder and violence of
the Rayas along the Asia Minor littoral, which has not attracted the
attention it merits, has all the earmarks of a war measure, prompted
by alleged “military necessity,” and there is no doubt that Turks and
Germans were allies during the war and were in complete cooperation.
A study of this question may be found in Publication No. 3, of the
American Hellenic Society, 1918, in which the statement is made that one
million, five hundred thousand Greeks were driven from their homes in
Thrace and Asia Minor, and that half these populations had perished from
deportations, outrages and famine.
The violent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers, above
referred to, appeared unexpectedly and without any cause. They were so
evidently “inspired” by the authorities, that it seems a wonder that even
ignorant Turks did not understand this. Cheap lithographs were also got
up, executed in the clumsiest and most primitive manner—evidently local
productions. They represented Greeks cutting up Turkish babies or ripping
open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely imaginary scenes, founded
on no actual events or even accusations elsewhere made. These were hung
in the mosques and schools. This campaign bore immediate fruit and set
the Turk to killing, a not very difficult thing to do.
A series of sporadic murders began at Smyrna as at Saloniki, the list in
each morning’s paper numbering from twelve to twenty. Peasants going
into their vineyards to work were shot down from behind trees and rocks
by the Turks. One peculiarly atrocious case comes to mind: Two young men,
who had recently finished their studies in a high-grade school, went out
to a vineyard to pass the night in the _coula_ (house in the country).
During the night they were called to the door and chopped down with axes.
Finally the Rayas, to the number of several hundred thousand, were all
driven off from their farms or out of their villages. Some were deported
into the interior, but many managed to escape by means of _caiques_ to
the neighboring islands, whence they spread over Greece. A few thousand
Turks destroyed the region which the Greeks were developing and rendering
fertile, from Pergamus clear down the coast to Lidja. I went over the
whole region and took photographs of the ruined farm-houses and villages.
Goats had been turned into flourishing, carefully tended vineyards and
acres of roots had been dug up for fuel.
Most of the Christian houses in Asia Minor are built of a wooden
framework which serves as an earthquake proof skeleton for the walls
of stone and mortar. The Turks pulled the houses down by laying a
timber across the inside of the window—or door-frame—to which a team of
buffaloes or oxen was hitched. A Turk would reside in one of the houses
with his wife, or with his goats and cattle, and thus tear down a circle
of houses about him. When the radius became too great for convenience,
he moved into the center of another cluster of houses. The object of
destroying the houses was to get the wooden timbers for firewood.
[Illustration: The Long Line That Leads to Death.
Deportation of Christians from their homes to the arid wastes to die.]
Both at this time and during the progress of the Great War, the Rayas
were drafted into the army where they were treated as slaves. They were
not given guns but were employed to dig trenches and do similar work, and
as they were furnished neither food, clothing nor shelter, large numbers
of them perished of hunger and exposure.
The beginning of the work on the “Great Turkish Library” at Smyrna was
peculiarly interesting as a revelation of the mentality of the race.
Christians were used for the labor, the taskmasters, of course, being
Turks armed with whips. When I called the attention of Rahmi Bey, the
governor-general, one day to the fact that there were not sufficient
books existing in his native tongue to justify the construction of so
great an edifice, he replied:
“The first thing is to have a building. If we have a building the books
will necessarily appear to fill it, and even if they don’t, we are going
to translate all the German books into Turkish.”
The structure was never finished, and consequently the books have not
been written.