PERSECUTION OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE BEGINNING OF THE EUROPEAN WAR
Translated from Official Greek documents by Carroll N. Brown Ph.D and Theodore P. Ion D.C.L.
Oxford University Press, 1918.
72 pages
Introduction
The persecution of the Greeks in Turkey, since the declaration of the European war, are nothing but the continuation of the program put into operation by the Young Turks in the year 1913, with the object of annihilating Hellenism.
In order that those who are ignorant of conditions in Turkey may understand the objects and the mainsprings of these persecutions, as well as the methods by which the uprooting of Hellenism in the territories subject to Turkey was sought, it is necessary, before narrating the persecutions that began with the last motnhs of 1914, to review briefly the occurrences of the preceding period. There will thus be no room for doubt that we have here to do with an intensive continuation of a program which had as its object the annihilation of Hellenism in Turkey.
Table of Contents
PART I: Work Preparatory to the Extermination of the Greek Populations in Turkey
I. The abolition of the Ecclesiastical and other Privileges of the Greek Church.
II. Compulsory enlistment of Christians.
III Requisitions and contributions
IV Conversions to Mohameddanism
Part II: Deportations en masse
I Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Marmora, Kirk-Kilisse
II Trebizond
III Kerasounda
IV Amisos (Samsoun)
V Cydonia (Aivali)
VI Condition of the deported people
VII Statistics of deportations
Appendix A
Appendix B
Deportation en masse (from pages 37-38).
The abolishment of the privileges of the Greek Church, the drafting of Christians into the army, the conversions to Mohammedanism, the commandeerings and the murders of the Greeks in Turkey, constituted so to speak, the work preparatory to their annihilation, and this was completed by the sixth measure which was applied, namely, the deportations en masse.
This was designed in order to bring about the complete annihilation of the Greek nation by the devastation of the flourishing Greek communities in the Ottoman Empire.
This measure which was first applied in the Gallipoli peninsula and the Hellespont, on the pretext of military necessity, was quickly extended to all the settlements along the coast and to the islands in the sea of Marmora, which are inhabited by Greeks. The towns of Cydonia (Aivali) and Amissos (Samsoun) and, generally the settlements along the coasts, except the two great centers, Constantinople and Smyrna, where there is a compact Greek population, were reduced to ruins.
This measure was taken in consequence of a decision of the Young Turk Committee, and was put into execution in the year 1915. The Greek Legation at Constantinople, by a communication dated June 15, 1915, No. 3501 (Ministerial Archives, No. 7085), informed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the decision which had been taken at Constantinople for the forcible conversion of Greeks to the Mohammedan faith by mixed marriages between Turks and Greek women who had been brought into these Turkish villages for settlement there.
The same Legation, by another report, under the same date, No. 3500 (Ministerial Archives, No. 6557), announces the beginning of the execution of this decision in the following manner:
“Among the decision taken by the Turkish Committee is the conversion to Islam of the Greek populations, which is difficult as long as there exist compact Greek settlements. Military necessity affords a most suitable pretext to have the Christians scattered, thus making their Turkification easy. The deportations en masse of the inhabitants of the islands of Marmora (Koutali, Kalolimnos, Marmora, etc.), have the same object, because those that are deported are not settled in Christian villages; as for the men, they either imprison or put them to forced labour, while the women and children they sent to Turkish villages.