THE complete and documentary account of the ferocious
persecutions of the Christian population of the Smyrna region, which occurred
in 1914, is not difficult to obtain; but it will suffice, by way of
illustration, to give only some extracts from a report by the French
eye-witness, Manciet, concerning the massacre and pillage of Phocea, a town of
eight thousand Greek inhabitants and about four hundred Turks, situated on the sea a short distance from Smyrna.
The destruction of Phocea excited great interest in Marseilles, as colonists of
the very ancient Greek town founded the French city. Phocea is the mother of
Marseilles. Monsieur Manciet was present at the massacre and pillage of Phocea,
and, together with three other Frenchman, Messieurs Sartiaux, Carlier and
Dandria, saved hundreds of lives by courage and presence of mind.
The report begins with the appearance on
the hills behind the town of armed bands and the firing of shots, causing a
panic. Those four gentlemen were living together, but when the panic commenced
they separated and each installed himself in a house. They demanded of the
Kaimakam gendarmes for their protection, and each obtained one. They kept the
doors open and gave refuge to all who came. They improvised four French flags
out of cloth and flew one from each house. But, to continue the recital in
Monsieur Manciet’s own words, translated from the French:
“During the night the organized
bands continued the pillage of the town. At the break of dawn there was
continual “tres nourrie” firing before the houses. Going out immediately, we four,
we saw the most atrocious spectacle of which it is
possible to dream. This horde, which had entered the town, was armed with Gras
rifles and cavalry muskets. A house was in flames. From all directions the
Christians were rushing to the quays seeking boats to get away in, but since
the night there were none left. Cries of terror mingled with the sound of
firing. The panic was so great that a woman with her child was drowned in sixty
centimeters of water.”
“Mr. Carlier saw an atrocious spectacle. A Christian
stood at his door, which the bandits wished to enter, as his wife and daughter
were in the house. He stretched out his arms to bar the way. This motion cost
him his life for they shot him in the stomach. As he was staggering toward the
sea, they gave him a second shot in the back, and the corpse lay there for two
days.”
“Fortunately there were two steamers in port, and we
managed to embark the unfortunate Christians in small groups. Despite all our
efforts, these wretched people were in such haste to depart that they upset the
small boats. An odious detail proved the cynicism of
this horde, which, under pretext of disarming those leaving, shamefully robbed
these poor, terrified people of their last belongings. They tore away from old women packages and bedding by force.
Anger seized me and I blushed to see these abominations and I told an officer
of the gendarmerie that if this did not stop, I would take a gun myself and
fire on the robbers. This produced the desired effect, and these unfortunates
were enabled to embark with what they had saved from the disaster, which proves
that the whole movement could have been easily controlled.”
“But the
plundering was stopped only in our immediate neighborhood. Farther away we saw doors broken in and horses and asses
laden with booty. This continued all day. Toward evening I mounted a little
hill and saw a hundred camels laden with the pillage of the city. That
night we passed in agony, but nothing happened.”
“The following day the methodical pillage of the city
recommenced. And now the wounded began to arrive. There being no doctor, I took
upon myself the first aid before embarking them for Mitylene. I affirm that
with two or three exceptions, all these wounded were more than sixty years of
age. There were among them aged women, more than ninety years of age, who had
received gunshots, and it is difficult to imagine that they had been wounded
while defending their possessions. It was simply and purely a question of
massacre.”
This extract is given from Monsieur Manciet’s description of
the sack of Phocea in 1914, of which he was an eye-witness, for several
reasons. It is necessary to the complete and substantiated picture the gradual
ferocious extermination of the Christians which had been going on in Asia Minor
and the Turkish Empire for the past several years, finally culminating in the
horror of Smyrna; it is a peculiarly graphic recital, bringing out the unchanging
nature of the Turk and his character as a creature of savage passions, living
still in the times of Tamerlane or Attila, the Hun;—for the Turk is an
anachronism; still looting, killing and raping and carrying off his spoil on
camels; it is peculiarly significant, also, as it tells a story strongly
resembling some of the exploits of Mohammed himself; it also gives a clear idea
of what happened over the entire coast of Asia Minor and far back into the
interior in 1914, temporarily destroying a flourishing and rapidly growing
civilization, which was later restored by the advent of the Greek army, only to
go out in complete darkness under the bloody and lustful hands of the followers
of Mustapha Khemal; it rings again the constant note, so necessary to be understood
by the European or American, that this was an “organized movement,” as Monsieur
Manciet says:
“We found an old woman lying in the street, who
had been nearly paralyzed by blows. She had two great wounds on the head made
by the butts of muskets; her hands were cut, her face swollen.”
“A
young girl, who had given all the money she possessed, had been thanked by
knife stabs, one in the arm and the other in the region of the kidneys. A weak
old man had received such a blow with a gun that the fingers of his left hand
had been carried away.”
“From all directions during the day that
followed families arrived that had been hidden in the mountains. All had been
attacked. Among them was a woman who had seen killed, before her eyes, her
husband, her brother and her three children.”
“We learned at this moment an atrocious detail.
An old paralytic, who had been lying helpless on his bed at the moment the
pillagers entered, had been murdered.”
“Smyrna sent us soldiers to establish order. As
these soldiers circulated in the streets, we had a spectacle of the kind of
order which they established; they continued, personally, the sacking of the
town.”
“We made a tour of inspection through the city.
The pillage was complete; doors were broken down and that which the robbers had
not been able to carry away they had destroyed. Phocea, which had been a place of
great activity, was now a dead city.”
“A woman was brought to us dying; she had been
violated by seventeen Turks. They had also carried off into the mountains a
girl of sixteen, having murdered her father and mother before her eyes. We had
seen, therefore, as in the most barbarous times, the five characteristics of
the sacking of a city; theft, pillage, fire, murder and rape.”
“All the evidence points to this having been an
organized attack with the purpose of driving from the shores the Rayas, or
Christian Ottomans.”
“It is inconceivable that all these persons
should have had in their possession so many army weapons if they had not been
given them. As for the Christians of old Phocea, there was not for one instant
an effort at defense. It was, therefore, a carnage.”
“We read in the journals that order had been
established, and that, in the regions of which we speak, the Christians have
nothing further to fear, neither for themselves, nor for their possessions. This
is not a vain statement. Order reigns, for nobody is left. The possessions have
nothing further to fear, for they are all in good hands— those of the robbers.”
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