29 Oct, 1917: Germans Ordered Greeks Driven Out, The Day (Connecticut)

theday 29101919

GERMANS ORDERED
GREEKS DRIVEN OUT

The Day, New London (Connecticut, USA).

Oct 29,1917, p.12.

     ATHENS, Greece, Sept. 30, (Corres-
pondence.) - Greek authorities  have
received information which convinces
them that not alone the Turk, but his
German advisors were responsible for
the deportations of Greeks from Turk-
ish dominions, as a   consequence of
which 700,000 have suffered persecu-
tion or death.
      It is asserted that the Greek lega-
tion at Constantonple protested to the
then King Constantine of Greece from
the beginning of the deportations but
received no assistance  or encourage-
ment  from him.   The legation  then
lodged a protest with Talaat Bey, the
Turkish grand vizier.
      His reply, as shown by official pa-
pers,  was that "these  measures  are
taken by advice of our German advis-
ors." the Greek  legation  then  took
up the subject  with the German gen-
eral,  Liman von Sanders,  who  is de-
clared to have  replied  that the pres-
ence of the Greek communities within
the Ottoman empire was dangerous to
military operations  and  that he was
"only executing the orders of the Ger-
man general staff."
     An account of the persection of the
Greeks  which  has  been given to the
Associated Press, states:
      "The  method   of   depopulation
adopted  has  been very similar to the
method  adopted  with regard to the
Armenian races.   During  the  night,
armed irregular troops of the Turkish
army would form a cordon around the
doomed   district.    The   inhabitants
would be awakened by means of bells
and ordered to evacuate the village in
ten minutes, for miltary reasons. No
extension of time was allowed,   one
object being that the victims  should
not be   able  to   take anything   with
them,   either  food  or goods. In the
event of delay, the troops drove forth
the terrified people at the point of the
bayonet.
     "The moment that the people had
gone, hordes of bandits and irregular
soldiery poured into the empty villag-
es and looted and burned the houses
in a frenzy of destruction,  while  the
inhabitants, old  men, women   and
children as well as the able-bodied,
were on the march.
     "Soon after the march began, the
process of extermination began to be
put into effect. Men were separated
from their  women and children,  and
parties were made up  for  a trek to
various places, usually   locations in
far-distant parts of Asia Minor. Need-
less to say, few of these parties ever
reached their destination, being grad-
ually killed  off  by  exposure  or star-
vation.   Thousands   died  in  barren
desert lands.   Without food or drink,
and poorly clad, a speedy death at the
hands of the soldiers would have been
welcomed  by  many.    The   soldiers,
however, seldom attempted direct kill-
ings at this stage, except of refugees
who attempted escape, the soldiery
generally being content to let hunger
and thirst and exposure do the work
of extermination for them.
     "The lot of the women and children
was  the  usual  one,  which  has been
described many times in  accounts of
the Armenian deportations.  Being de-
fenseless, they fell a prey to the  first
passer- by.    Any  Turk  along the way
who fancied a  child  or  a young wo-
man,  merely  took possession,   and
thousands of young Greeks are now
interned in Mussulman villages, forci-
bly "converted" to Islam and forced
to live as servants or concubines of the
Turkish peasantry.
      "In the neighborhood of Constanti-
nople, many of the deportees managed
to return and appeared in  the  streets
of the capital,  starving,  begging and
sleeping in the back streets and alleys.
To  abate  this  scandal,  the Turkish
government had the police collect hun-
dreds of these wretched persons and
concentrate them at Pancaldi, where
their fate is not yet known."
      It is declared that, as a  result  of
these deportations,  all  Greek  com-
munities have been eliminated in the
Thracian  regions  of  Demotica, Sufli,
Istrandja and Eregli, from the coast of
the sea of Marmora  from the penin-
sula of  Artaki, from  all  the  villages
along  the Bosphorus and from  the
coast of the Black Sea.

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