TURKS DRIVE 400,000 INTO DESERT
STARVATION IS FATE OF CITIES
ARMENIA A HUGE DEATH TRAP
By Dr. Fred P. Haggard
Secretary American Commission for Armenian and Syrian Relief.
Copyright, 1917, by Newspaper Enterprise Association.
(This is the fourth of six articles on the horrors in Armenia, told by an Ameri-
can authority on the subject. Dr. Fred P. Haggard has spent much time in-
vestigating the atrocities of the German-dominated Turks, and is head of the Ar-
menian and Syrian Relief work in the United States. Written especially for The
Telegram.)
The awful story of the slaughter-
ing of thousands of defenseless
Armenians by Turks with
axes, at the edge of trench
graves the Armenians had first been
compelled to dig themselves, is noth-
ing to the tragedy which came with
the spring and summer of 1915.
Then began the deportations of
Greeks along the coasts of the
Aegean and Black seas to the deso-
late regions of the interior. Greeks
resident in Turkey - which, remem-
ber. is under complete Prussian dom-
ination - have shared the same fate as
the Armenians and Syrians.
The Greek colonists were scattered
all along the seacoast of the Mediter-
ranean, in the adjoining islands, and
south into Palestine; also along the
Black sea coast and at cities in the
interior. They, with the Armenians
and Syrians, have formed the most
progressive, intelligent and prosper-
ous element in the Turkish empire.
400,000 PERISH.
According to the latest reliable re-
ports from Constantinople, at least
400,000 Greeks have been thus driven
into the desert and strange parts of
the country to perish of hunger.
At a sweep the entre Greek ele-
ment along the seacoasts were wiped
out.
Thousands died of stavarvation in the
great forced exodus and their skele-
tons now lie on the roadsides.
A letter recently received from
Athens, signed by a professor in the
university and the president of the
college at Athens, says:
"Seventy-five per cent of the un-
fortunte Greeks deported into the
purely Turkish places in the inte-
rior of Asia Minor died of hunger,
cold and untold sufferings, and mor-
tal disease.
MOTHERS TORTURED.
"In their enforced painful march to
the interior, the infants and the lit-
tle children and the weaker mothers
died. Mothers were not allowed to
bury their dead."
Even those Greeks who for one rea-
son or other were allowed to remain
in their houses are in extreme dis-
tress and destitution. The entire
country is famine stricken, its peo-
ple dying in the streets from epi-
demics such as typhus and cholera.
Many cities are literally in rags.
The first blow to the Greeks came
through the mobilization of 1914. The
bread winners of the Greek families
in Turkey, all between 16 and 55,
were first taken for the army, then
for labor, receiving for their ser-
vices nothing but a loaf of bread per
day. Then came the deportations.
In one case where Greeks peasants
had been deported from a Marmoran
village, of 150 survivors who man-
aged to reach Constantinople, eighty
soon perished from starvation and
exhaustion.
LIKE FLOCKS OF SHEEP.
A prominent bishop writes:
"Many thousands of families have
been coming from Tireboli (Black sea
coast) during the last few days. I
saw them with my own eyes, as they
were coming like flocks of sheep for
weeks on the high mountains amid
rains and snows. The number of
these unfortunate Christians will
amount to 20,000 souls in fifteen
days."
"At one time there were over 15-
000 Greek refugees in Sivas. They
were absolutely penniless and nearly
naked. They spent the intensely cold
nights in open fields.
From Arvalik, near Smyrna, near-
ly 40,000 Greeks were deported en
masse to Konia (Iconium of the New
Testament).
This story of the atrocities perpe-
trated by the Turks on the unoffend-
ing Greeks is quite supplementary to
the tragic fate of the Armenians, of
whom from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 have
been massacred or have died from
starvation, and 2,000,000 more are
now barely keeping themselves alive
in exile.
Turks Drive 400,000 into Desert. Salt Lake Telegram, Dec 20, 1917, p.11. https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6z61wbw/18032519 accessed June 6, 2022.
