UNFORTUNATELY, I
am restrained from writing many interesting facts connected with a history of
this kind; some of the things that came to my knowledge in my official
capacity. To the honor of Great Britain, however, I believe that there were
moments when she came within a hair’s breadth of living up to her best
traditions. What prevented her at the critical moment, I have never learned.
At any rate, the British contribution to the Smyrna
horror did not consist in active aid of the Turks, neither did she furnish them
with arms or munitions. But, though she was largely
responsible for the landing of the Greeks in Asia Minor, and the latter were
defending her interests, she afforded them no aid, but gave them fallacious
encouragement, which led them to their doom. As
far as England was concerned, Greece was the victim of British internal
politics, which seized upon the government’s policy in the Near East as an
object for attack. If Lloyd George was
pro-Greek, his political opponents became—ipso facto—rabid pro-Turk.
If the Hellenic soldiers were mere tools of the British, as both the Italians
and French believed, then it certainly was not “playing the game” to desert
them in their extremity; and this desertion carries a graver responsibility
with it, inasmuch as it made possible the fearful catastrophe of Smyrna and its
hinterland.
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