HOW many were massacred in Smyrna and its dependent towns
and villages! It is impossible to make any estimate at all accurate, but the
efforts to minimize the number must at first glance fail of credence.
Official statistics give the Armenian inhabitants of
Smyrna as twenty-five thousand and it is certain that the larger part of the
men of this community were killed, besides many women and girls, also numerous
Greeks. A dispatch to the “London Daily
Chronicle” of September 18, 1922, says: “The
lowest estimate of lives lost given by the refugees, places the total at one
hundred and twenty thousand.”
Reuter’s Agency, in a dispatch of the same date, makes
the following statement: “From none of the accounts is it possible to give
the exact figures of the victims, but it is feared that in any case they will
be over one hundred thousand.”
Mr. Roy Treloar, newspaper correspondent, wired as
follows (September 20, 1922): “Nureddin
Pasha commenced a systematic hunting down of Armenians, who were gathered in
batches of one hundred, taken to the -Konak and murdered.”
The “London Times” correspondent
telegraphed:
“The killing was carried out
systematically. Turkish regulars and irregulars are described as rounding up
likely wealthy people in the streets and, after stripping them, killing them in
batches. Many Christians who had taken refuge in the churches were burned to
death in the buildings which had been set on fire.”
Mr. Otis Swift,
correspondent of the “Chicago Tribune”, visited
the Greek islands on which refugees had been dumped by the rescue steamers and
saw many of the victims of the tragedy, whose stories and the nature of whose
wounds bore additional testimony to the ferocity of the Turks. Here is a short
quotation from Mr. Swift’s report:
“Hospitals of the Greek islands are crowded by people who
had been beaten and attacked by the Turks. In a hospital at Chios I saw a child
who still lived, although shot through the face by a soldier who had killed
its father and violated its mother. In the same hospital there was a family of
six orphan Armenians. A four-year-old baby of this family had been beaten with
rifle butts because no money had been found sewn in its clothes.”
There is no doubt that many thousands of the
defenseless inhabitants of Smyrna and the surrounding country were done to
death by Turks.
To the number actually killed on the days of
the massacre must be added the deported Greeks who perished, the people who
died in the flames or were killed by falling walls, those who expired on the
quay and those who have since succumbed from want, injuries or grief. The extent of the catastrophe can be realized from the
magnitude of the relief work that has been carried on ever since, and from the
immense sums which have been raised, principally in America, for the
maintenance of the widows and orphans.
The following statement is from Mr. Charles V. Vickery,
Secretary of the Near East Relief, 151 Fifth Avenue, New York:
“In regard to the amount of money which has been spent on
relief, I would say that so far as the Near East Relief is concerned the total
of money and supplies contributed by the American people has amounted to
approximately ninety-five million dollars. So far as I know there are no
available statistics of the amounts spent by other countries. The largest
contributor has of course been Great Britain, but we do not have any figures
here in our office.”
“In answer to your second inquiry as to how much is still
necessary, would say that it is extremely difficult to make an answer that
would be reliable as there are so many uncertain factors in the problem, as
you know only too well. So far as the Near East Relief is concerned, our
program should very rapidly diminish after another year or two and the
Executive Committee has definitely adopted a resolution to the effect that
there shall be some sort of coordination or amalgamation of Near East agencies
at the end of five years or sooner if practicable. This resolution was adopted
approximately nine months ago.”
“Near East Relief will need around four million dollars a
year for the next two years if present indications are reliable.”
One of the most important reports connected with the fire
is that of the Reverend Charles Dobson, British chaplain of Smyrna, and a
committee of prominent Englishmen, all inhabitants of the district, including
the British chaplains of Bournabat and Boudja. This
report throws the responsibility of the fire upon the Turks, “whose fanatic
elements, fed by the license of three-days’ looting, fired the city in the hope
of driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish elements.” Such a report from
such a source, leaves no doubt as to the fact that Smyrna was burned by Turks,
although these gentlemen do not take into account the circumstance that the
town was in complete control of Khemalist troops at the time and that regular
soldiers of the Turkish army, in uniform, were seen by abundant witnesses to
set the fires. It is pertinent in this connection in that it relates incidents
of greater ferocity than I have yet given, but which I refrain from quoting. (The entire report can be found in the “Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette”, No. 2, vol
6, November, 1922.)
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