20 May 1922: The Unspeakable Turk, Auckland Star

auckland star 29may1922

THE UNSPEAKABLE TURK

Auckland Star
May 20, 1922.

An Inquiry has been promised into
the atrocities alleged to have been com-
mited by the Turks against Chris-
tians population of Asia Minor, and if the
reports that have come from different
quarters are true it could seem that it
is time some action was taken in the
matter. Turkish butcheries of Ar-
menians have now reached the point
where a remnant of 120,000 has besought
the Council of the League of Nations to
send ships to transport them beyond the
reach of their persecutors. It is not
quite clear whether these 120,000 are all
that are left of the 1,500,000 Armenians
who were in Armenia when the war
ended, and it seems probable that the
number refers only to those who were in
Cilicia at the time of the French occupa-
tion. But even so, it seems certain that
hundreds of thousands have been ruth-
lessly slaughtered and starved by their
persecutors. The "Kansas City Journal"
says, - "Modern times have written no
such chapter as that which puts the
finis to the national history of the
Armenians, who are to leave their im-
memorial homeland and abandon
Armenia for an indefinite period, if not
for ever." Nor is the persecution con-
fined to the Armenians. Systematic
annihilation of the Greek populations in
Asia Minor is said to be also part of
the Turkish program. The Patriarch
of Constantinople has received state-
ments giving details of various massacres
of the Greeks. Among several other
barbarities reported to the Patriarchate are
those in the city of Marsovan and in
Samsoun. This report says: "Osman
Agha, after seizing the property of all
the Christians, set fire to the Greek and
Armenian quarters. The sight was most
horrible. All the streets and alleys were
blocked by the culprits so that those
attempting to escape were either shot
or pushed back into the fire irrespective
of age or sex. In less than five hours
1800 houses were burned down with
their residents. Crimes, unheard of in
the history of vandalism, were committed
against maidens and children. And
while they did this, they cried, "Let your
Englishmen and Americans, your Christ
Himself, come now and save you."
According to other reports received by
the Patriarch, all the Greek villages in
the region of Samsoun were burned and
the inhabitants massacred, while more
than 200,000 Cilician refugees evacuated
the country after the Franco Kemalist
treaty. It is not easy to see exactly
what action can be taken if the com-
mission of inquiry confirms these
reports, but it is plain that, if the
Christianity that Europe professes is to
be more than a mockery, something
must be done to remedy a state of
affairs which has been described as "the
tragedy of modern history, the shame of
Christendom."