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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN SMYRNA DISTRICT

    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 tranquility 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.

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