NUMBER DONE TO DEATH
How many were massacred in Smyrna and its dependent towns and villages?
It is impossible to make any estimate at all accurate, but the efforts to
minimize the number must at first glance fail of credence.
Official statistics give the Armenian inhabitants of Smyrna as
twenty-five thousand and it is certain that the larger part of the men of
this community were killed, besides many women and girls, also numerous
Greeks. A despatch to the _London Daily Chronicle_ of September 18, 1922,
says: “The lowest estimate of lives lost given by the refugees places the
total at one hundred and twenty thousand.”
Reuter’s Agency, in a despatch of the same date, makes the following
statement: “From none of the accounts is it possible to give the exact
figures of the victims, but it is feared that in any case they will be
over one hundred thousand.”
Mr. Roy Treloar, newspaper correspondent, wired as follows:[9] “Nureddin
Pasha commenced a systematic hunting down of Armenians, who were
gathered in batches of one hundred, taken to the _Konak_ and murdered.”
The _London Times_ correspondent telegraphed: “The killing was carried
out systematically. Turkish regulars and irregulars are described as
rounding up likely wealthy people in the streets and, after stripping
them, killing them in batches. Many Christians who had taken refuge in
the churches were burned to death in the buildings which had been set on
fire.”
Mr. Otis Swift, correspondent of the _Chicago Tribune_, visited the Greek
islands on which refugees had been dumped by the rescue steamers and saw
many of the victims of the tragedy, whose stories and the nature of whose
wounds bore additional testimony to the ferocity of the Turks. Here is a
short quotation from Mr. Swift’s report:
“Hospitals of the Greek islands are crowded by people who had
been beaten and attacked by the Turks. In a hospital at Chios I
saw a child who still lived, although shot through the face by
a soldier who had killed its father and violated its mother. In
the same hospital there was a family of six orphan Armenians.
A four-year-old baby of this family had been beaten with rifle
butts because no money had been found sewn in its clothes.”
There is no doubt that many thousands of the defenseless inhabitants of
Smyrna and the surrounding country were done to death by Turks.
[Illustration: Smyrna at the Height of the Fire.]
To the number actually killed on the days of the massacre must be added
the deported Greeks who perished, the people who died in the flames or
were killed by falling walls, those who expired on the quay and those
who have since succumbed from want, injuries or grief. The extent of the
catastrophe can be realized from the magnitude of the relief work that
has been carried on ever since, and from the immense sums which have been
raised, principally in America, for the maintenance of the widows and
orphans.
The following statement is from Mr. Charles V. Vickery, Secretary of the
Near East Relief, 151 Fifth Avenue, New York:
“In regard to the amount of money which has been spent on
relief, I would say that so far as the Near East Relief is
concerned the total of money and supplies contributed by the
American people has amounted to approximately ninety-five
million dollars. So far as I know there are no available
statistics of the amounts spent by other countries. The largest
contributor has of course been Great Britain, but we do not
have any figures here in our office.
“In answer to your second inquiry as to how much is still
necessary, would say that it is extremely difficult to make an
answer that would be reliable as there are so many uncertain
factors in the problem, as you know only too well. So far as
the Near East Relief is concerned, our program should very
rapidly diminish after another year or two and the Executive
Committee has definitely adopted a resolution to the effect
that there shall be some sort of coordination or amalgamation
of Near East agencies at the end of five years or sooner if
practicable. This resolution was adopted approximately nine
months ago.
“Near East Relief will need around four million dollars a year
for the next two years if present indications are reliable.”
One of the most important reports connected with the fire is that of the
Reverend Charles Dobson, British chaplain of Smyrna, and a committee
of prominent Englishmen, all inhabitants of the district, including
the British chaplains of Bournabat and Boudja. This report throws the
responsibility of the fire upon the Turks, “whose fanatic elements, fed
by the license of three-days’ looting, fired the city in the hope of
driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish elements.” Such a report from
such a source, leaves no doubt as to the fact that Smyrna was burned by
Turks, although these gentlemen do not take into account the circumstance
that the town was in complete control of Khemalist troops at the time
and that regular soldiers of the Turkish army, in uniform, were seen by
abundant witnesses to set the fires. It is pertinent in this connection
in that it relates incidents of greater ferocity than I have yet given,
but which I refrain from quoting.[10]