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.
