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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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THE HELLENIC ADMINISTRATION IN SMYRNA
(MAY 15, 1919 - SEPTEMBER 9, 1922) 

Page 4

    During the Greek administration, I traveled frequently over a large part of the occupied territory and visited many of the interior villages. I found perfect security everywhere, native Greeks and Turks living together on friendly terms. In general there would be in each village a small administrative office in charge of a petty officer and two or three aides. I noticed the persistent effort, which these people made to fraternize with the Turks and to placate them. Very often have I taken my coffee in the public square of some small town with the Greek officials, the Turkish hodja, (A teacher in the secondary Turkish school attached to a mosque) and various of the Mohammedan notables. - I remember particularly shortly before the Greek defeat sitting thus with a venerable hodja and a Greek surgeon under a plane-tree, helping to celebrate the marriage of the hodja to his fourth wife, which had taken place the day before.

    The dark side of this seemingly idyllic picture is that quite frequently the two or three Greek officials would be found some morning with their throats cut, whereupon an order would be sent to the village that the names of the assassins must be revealed or the town would be burned. This, if I remember correctly, was modeled upon our so-called "punitive expeditions" in the Philippines, which the Greek authorities often cited to me in speaking of the matter. In no case did the Turks reveal the names of the offenders and at least twice my office has been invaded by the notables of some town who complained that their village had been burned. On each occasion, I asked: "Were the Greek officials in your town murdered last night?" And the answer on both these occasions was, "Yes, but we could not tell the names of the offenders because we did not know who they were."

    There were also sporadic acts of great ferocity committed against the peaceful Christian inhabitants of the country, which were always attributed by the Turks to roving bands of Chetas. Who these Chetas were, I do not know, but it is my opinion that they did not come from far. I remember one particularly atrocious case-the massacre and disemboweling of a Greek miller and his wife and their two children. 

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