The Martyrdom Of Smyrna And Eastern Christendom: A File Of Overwhelming Evidence, Denouncing The Misdeeds Of The Turks In Asia Minor And Showing Their Responsibility For The Horrors of Smyrna - Compiled and Prefaced By Dr.Lysimachos Oeconomos (1922)

Preface

Towards the middle of September last, news of an unprecedented horror, wired from the Levant, set the horizons on fire all over the world. Christian Smyrna was ablaze! The city had been entered by the Turks on Saturday morning, September 9th, and, only a few days later, on Wednesday afternoon, September 13th, after she had been given up meanwhile to looting, violation and massacre, Giaour Izmir was carried over to the stake of an unprecedented Martyrdom! She burnt entirely in her beauty and strength, and the scene of her flames springing forth into the skies effaced the classical remembrance of the fires of Troy and Rome.

This formidable brazier, wrought out by a criminal and destructive imagination, was but the culmination of several other crushing measures, adopted with a view to annihilating in Asia Minor whatever bore a Christian or Greek character.

Think of the wholesale massacres and deportations of a Think of the horrors which are evoked martyred Christendom by such words as "refugees" and "deportees."

Why should people leave the place where they are settled; the fields from which they gain their living: the sweet homes in which they were brought up and managed to live in, with such a degree of happiness as they could under such a wicked administration as the Turkish one has ever been? Why should they abandon all their property, go penniless abroad, and act the part of beggars? Why should they undergo exile and misery? And why should they prefer to become, through misery hunger, emaciated to such an extent as to be practically but living skeletons?

Obviously it must be dreadful, it must be of an indescribable horror, that from which they strive to get away.

The coming of the Turks do you realise what the coming of the Turks means? It amounts to the abduction and violation of your wives and daughters, to the murder of your male children, to the utter ruination of your crops and property, to your homes your sweet homes being set on fire, and then, after you have been compelled to look upon all these personal misfortunes, they torture you, they kill you, and leave your corpse a prey to the dogs!

So much for the horrors from which the refugees are seeking to flee away.

But what pen could depict the sufferings of the deportees?

Think of the large numbers of Greeks and Armenians, amounting each time to several thousands, systematically carried away from their dwellings on the shores of the Black Sea or elsewhere and deported to the far Interior, after they have first powerlessly watched the looting and burning of their homes. Follow them up while they move on to their Calvary unprotected from cold and unsheltered from rain and storm, in appalling climatic and under snow, through frightfully wild and frost, conditions, in barren countries, over almost impassable mountains, overcome with fatigue, dying from starvation, decreasing in number as they proceed further, for those who stay behind are seen no more. Give a look of pity to these last ones. See! Exhausted in every respect, unable to go further, they stretch themselves on a shroud of snow, they are gradually covered by the falling flakes and they pass away, suffocated in their white tomb. Others become a prey to wolves and dogs, or feed the vultures of Anatolia with their corpses Think of the distress of mothers, unable to save their starving or freezing children from the clutches of Death: of fathers and husbands departing from those most dear to them!

The record of the treatment of Christendom in Turkey is one of an endless martyrdom. Atrocity is there an endemic calamity.

Still, after the wholesale massacres of the Armenians and the appalling deportations of the Greeks of the Pontus, one would have thought that nothing more could be achieved in that respect.

The Angora Nationalist Turk has proved more dramatic than any other ...Turk, old or young. He has worked out a hitherto unseen he has set on fire the biggest city of Anatolia, because she was Christian, because she was Greek, because she was Giaour Izmir. And had he been allowed to cross over to Europe, with the blood of this city on his hands, there would have been scenes in Constantinople by the side of which the fires of spectacle Smyrna would have paled.1

In the past he had often been prevented from indulging in his savage instincts by a salutary dread of the Powers: but they were now lavishing their smiles upon him, and he treated them accordingly. In the presence of Europe, he devoted himself to hitherto unheard of orgies and crimes.

Apart from a voice which went out from this Island strong enough and clear enough to cast a merciful shield between the hapless fugitives and their fierce pursuers,2 it unfortunately happened that other important countries of Europe cared more for other interests, and practically gave up Eastern Christendom to its slaughterers.

The attitude of these Powers brought about an unparalleled catastrophe for which they are as much responsible as the Turk is, all the more because his traditional record is one of blood and horror, of refined savagery and skilled massacre, while theirs was one of traditional chivalry, of traditional upholding of Christendom.

They cannot even argue that they sincerely believed in his improvement. The measures taken by them to provide security for the life of their own people tell a different story. The Turk was expected to commit atrocities, and perhaps only one thing could not be foreshadowed: the scale of his eventual misdeeds.

It was an unprecedented one beyond imagination, beyond description. You may have seen houses on fire in your town. You may have read tragic stories of people rescued from, or lost in their blazing homes. But can you realise what the fire of Smyrna was like? Imagine "a wall of fire two miles long, in which several distinct volcanoes of raging flames were throwing up jagged, writhing tongues to a height of a hundred feet"3: imagine that this was taking place at a very short distance from the seashore; that the sea-front was congested with thousands, hundreds of thousands of desperate, panic-stricken, starving and homeless refugees, pell-mell on the barren shores of the quay, and, so to speak, almost licked by the flames, and at any rate singeing from the heat spread far away by the Molochian brazier - and you will have a faint picture of the appalling spectacle.

Smyrna's auto-da-fe, Smyrna's sacrifice to the Mohammedan Moloch, was not only a Greek disaster, it was a European disaster, a disaster for civilisation.

In that remote end of the civilised world, Hellenism was acting the part of an epic frontier soldier, of an heroic limitaneus, of a Digenis Akritis of Mankind.

On the confines of an always agitated barbarism, which swarmed and awaited but an opportunity to surprise the defence, close by to break the protecting dike and to overrun the lands of civilisation, Hellenism was on the watch, and it may be said on its behalf that, notwithstanding some unavoidable ups and downs, it had performed, not without glory, its superhuman task.

But now, through the political ambitions of the Western Powers, who made the Near East a chessboard of political play,4 the efforts which Mankind had sustained during three thousand years, with a view to acquiring for civilisation one more barbarous country, have been wrecked for ever in Asia Minor.

The flames of Smyrna were the last gleams of a setting, of a dying civilisation.

Then Barbarity's darkness, Barbarity's night, spread its gloomy shroud upon a glorious past.

The catastrophe which occurred at Smyrna is in every respect an unprecedented event in this earth's records. The greatness of the misdeed and the age in which it was perpetrated ought to have caused the civilised world to ban for ever the responsible Nero. There are no extenuating circumstances for the Turk the allegation of revenge is ultimately but one more proof of his destructive and bloodthirsty disposition. Whose conscience can admit for one moment that unless you are a savage or a primitive being you are allowed, out of revenge, to set on fire such a big city and to render hundreds of thousands of people homeless?

Unfortunately, far from bringing in against the Turk an unanimous verdict of guilty, diplomacy was disunited, not because the Truth was not obvious, but on account of well-known selfish interests. As a sequel, official sympathies were reflected in the Press, and no one will wonder why there should have been such a difference of opinion between the various journals of each country.

What was truth on this side of the Channel was but an error on the other side.

Thus the Greeks or the Turks, as the case may be, were here upheld and there blackened. Sympathy or antipathy was apportioned to them in relation to the interests of each country concerned.

Moreover, the situation was complicated by the fact that home politics acted a great part in the Press campaign set up in each country, in behalf, or not, of this or the other belligerent party. We need not enter into details. It is obvious, for instance, that a paper which was not supporting the policy of its Government, was bound to represent events in such a way as to suit its own political purposes, and thus to wreck the other policy.

Some intentionally mistaken statements published in the papers may have misled, or at least perplexed, public opinion abroad. So it has been thought worth while to sift the various testimonies which are available and to set up a reliable and methodical file of the whole question. To complete this file and to make it a permanent record of Turkish savagery, we have deemed it necessary to start with a chapter which is a collection of evidence on the appalling treatment of Christian Minorities in Kemalist Turkey, and then to set forth testimonies as to the horrors of Smyrna, and finally to end the work with two chapters composed of descriptions concerning the Asia Minor and Thracian Refugees.

The case of the fire of Smyrna is one to which can be applied - the Latin saying - "Fecit cui profuit" - Guilty is the one to whom the wicked action was to be beneficial. It is obvious that the Greeks had nothing whatever to gain by the utter destruction of a city of which the Hellenic character formed practically the basis of their claims on Asia Minor; on the contrary, such a catastrophe, which would have obviously been followed by the exodus of whatever Christians might have escaped death by massacre, was bound to rub out for ever from the Ionian shores even the traces of a three thousand years' old Hellenic civilisation and Hellenic efforts. It would be preposterous to argue that the Greeks intended to take advantage of a fire they had started, in order to convince public opinion abroad that the Turks were not human beings but wild beasts! It would amount to bestowing upon the people a really exaggerated patriotic self-denial if they were accused of having ruined themselves deliberately with no other prospect than to have to share the pitiful fate of the refugees of the Interior and to run in their company along the painful highways of misery.

On the contrary, it is obvious that the Turks had the deepest interest in bringing about the catastrophe, since they were bound to gain by the total suppression of all Christian elements, both Armenian and Greek. For Kemal Pasha's troops, Christian Smyrna, Giaour Izmis, was like another Carthage which they had to destroy in order to suppress for ever the focus and the principal cause of their actual troubles and to prevent in the future an offensive return of Hellenic civilisation. From the Turks' point of view, delenda erat Smyrna: Smyrna was to be to bear in mind the ancestral destroyed. Moreover, we ought desire for luxury, lucre and blood of the Turkish soldiery. Kemal's warriors could not be content with the moral satisfaction of an accomplished national duty. During their rush towards were of the Ionian land looking forward to the promise the wealth of the Smyrna Christians, to the beauty of their women and maidens, and to the pleasure of revenging themselves upon the much-disliked Roumis. The Angora National Leaders could not dream of disappointing their barbarous instruments in those hopes which had upheld the speed of their advance towards the sea, so much the more because, by giving in to their troops' demands, they could for ever get rid of the embarrassing presence of Hellenism at Smyrna. With one stone they could strike two blows. It may be objected that the fire did not follow immediately upon the arrival of the Turkish troops into the Christian city, and that it broke out five days later, on Wednesday afternoon, though Smyrna had been occupied from the previous Saturday.

To that objection it may be answered that on Saturday only a vanguard of Turkish cavalry occupied the town, that the bulk of the Kemalist troops came in later, that the Turks had to ascertain the degree of disunion between the Allies, and to find out what their attitude was going to be, that they had to act with circumspection to be able afterwards to throw upon others the responsibility of their ignominies, that the normal processes of the sacking of a town begins with looting, violating and killing, out of resistance on the part of the assailed, or out of revenge on the part of the assailants, and culminates in incendiarism, an operation quite indispensable to the full joy of the over-excited ruffians who feel it necessary to conceal and efface the traces of their orgies and crimes. Moreover, there is the wind's argument, which is of capital importance.

One has only to glance at a map of Smyrna - and there was a satisfactory one published in the Daily Telegraph's issue of September 16th - to realise why the fire was set in the Armenian quarter. The city of Smyrna extended along the sea-shore, on a distance of over two miles. On the front, or sea-side, there were, more or less parallel to the quays, two or three long streets, the rue Parallele, the Quai Anglais, the rue Franque (termed further up as rue Fasula and rue Bella Vista), and there were to be seen the foreign consulates, some hotels and other buildings of a commercial or administrative character. In the background the southern the position of the various quarters was as follows of the city was, and is still, occupied by the squalid Turkish quarter. Next to it, on the north-west, and south-eastern part extended the equally squalid Jewish quarter, while on the was the Armenian quarter, in which the fire broke out. Further up to the north of the Armenian quarter, and in the part of the town overlooking the interior, extended the Greek quarter, while the French quarter, which was to be found in the same direction, extended towards and along the shore.

The respective positions of the various quarters make it clear were the Turks to set the Christian quarters blazing, they would have had to start the fire somewhere in the Armenian quarter, for the obvious reason of its being the nearest to their own, and to avail themselves of a wind blowing from south-east to north-west so as to give the fire every chance of spreading over the Christian quarters.

If it is to be admitted - and there is no reason whatever to disbelieve the statement - that the fire was not set until the wind, which, during the first days of the Turkish occupation had been blowing towards the Turkish quarter, ceased to blow in that direction, and that it was only set when the wind started to blow towards the Christian quarters, then we come to a very serious point, and we are bound to infer that the fire of Smyrna was not only premeditated, but also thoughtfully organised and even, so to say, thoroughly timed. We are bound, moreover, to infer that the execution of that part of the Kemalist programme was not left to the discretion of an ignorant soldiery who might not have taken into consideration whether the wind was blowing towards this part or another of the town, but was entrusted to the initiative of a special incendiary committee. Soldiers were but the hands. The minds which conceived the appalling misdeed and ordered it to be executed, were necessarily those leaders who had to gain by it.

There is also the version of the Armenian responsibility. This version is as stupid as the one which holds the Greeks responsible for the crime. But why in this case has it been sought to make the Armenians the scape-goat? Obviously on account of the fire having started in the Armenian quarter. On the other hand, it was probably felt by the Turks and their friends that the Greek responsibility was clearly but a trick which did not do honour to their inventive genius. How could the Greeks burn down one of the greatest cities of their dreams and of their national claims and the very bridge-head of Hellenism in Asia Minor? How could they deliberately efface a past of three thousand years, while their obvious duty was to try by all means tire to bear up in Ionia and hand down to posterity the traditional torch of Hellenic civilisation - quite a different one, you may be assured, from the fireband of Turkish barbarity? How could the influence of an they ruin themselves voluntarily under assumed patriotic rage, when they had in their hands the greatest in such a sea-town as part of Ionian wealth and ought not, of the under and foreign consulates, to have to eyes Smyrna be afraid of anything else than of being eventually obliged to pay a high war-tax ?

It was obvious that the Greek responsibility for the fire was but an unskilful tale which we might have laughed at, had we not rather to mourn for it. Moreover, Greeks had representatives abroad and were assumed to be upheld by a great Power. They would have denounced such a falsehood, they would have been defended by eloquent supporters. What about the Armenians? Did people realise abroad, what was their exact situation at Smyrna, in what proportion they shared in the making of this city, in what state of prosperity they were living there? Had they abroad authorised representatives to do them justice, powerful friends to defend their name's honour? Public opinion abroad was only aware of the fact that millions of their race had been exterminated by the Turks in other provinces of the Turkish Empire and at various times. Reports, now forgotten, in some instances even by those who had shared in setting them up, had established these facts, and the Armenian massacres had become a matter of current knowledge. However unlikely it was that such a misrepresentation would ultimately succeed, an attempt could be made to throw upon the unfortunate Armenians the responsibility for the fire and to suggest that, in a thirst for belated revenge, and like some new and unexpected Samsons, they shook the columns of the temple both over their own heads and the heads of their enemies. Is it not unthinkable that the Armenians, who have not even a country of their own to go to and act there the ungrateful part of refugees, should have with their own hands annihilated their dwellings which sheltered their childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, as well as the lives of their parents and families? One may wonder why they did not choose the day when the wind was blowing towards the Turkish quarter, since it was the only chance they had to inflict a severe punishment on their perpetual executioners, and make useful their wilful auto-da-fe - unless they acted on their sole initiative and not upon the orders of a special incendiary committee What a stupid version and what a dose of cynicism is to be attributed to the propagators and of simplicity to those who may admit it! Though they had not at Smyrna those big interests which the Greeks had, the Armenians were a numerous and wealthy colony and could only lose by the destruction of the town.

Of course,it is always possible to argue. It is possible to suggest that even groups of irregular or regular soldiers may have, by way of reprisals, sought to smoke treacherous Christians out of their houses and punish them as they deserved, and that ultimately there were unable to master a fire they had commenced with no other intention than the above. But in that case, what have we to think of the greatly praised "sever discipline" of the Kemalist army, if it amounts to the burning down of a town entrusted to their care and to the obvious violation of their leader's orders? Either such orders have never been issued which were meant to be kept, or such a good discipline was but a tale. Moreover, why did the Turkish authorities take no steps whatever to stop the fire while it was still possible? Why did they not ask for help from the foreign squadrons at anchor in the harbour ? They are obviously guilty, they have not even any extenuating circumstances to avail themselves of - everything is against them and weighs them down. The very attempt on their part to throw the responsibility upon the Christian inhabitants of the city, and the very fact that they everything carefully avoid making alleged atrocities which the Greek army are said to have perpetrated during their retreat, show clearly enough that the Turkish leaders do not feel comfortable on this question, not because they may have a conscience, but on account of the impression produced abroad, for they would not naturally like to have a bad Press.

In the making of this file of evidence, we did not fail to take into consideration the factors of conflicting foreign policies and home politics.

So,' apart from the fact that we have eliminated a priori all Greek and Turkish testimonies as obviously partial, we have made a severe selection between the testimonies of foreign witnesses.

We have put aside French and Italian testimonies, on account of an obvious partiality, dictated by the foreign policies of France and Italy.

Thus, there remained but American and British testimonies.

Those British testimonies, in which home politics interfere, may be doubted a priori for instance, the personal testimonies either of representatives of the Press or of political men.

At any rate - unless serious reasons for so doing are brought forth - we do not see why the evidence of private individuals should be doubted, especially when several testimonies agree. So we have made a great use of British testimonies when coming from private eye-witnesses.

But, of course, American evidence is in our opinion the best of all -for Americans could be prejudiced neither by their foreign policy nor by home politics. They may naturally sympathise with the Christians on account of religion. Still, however strong might have been their sympathy on this ground, it is rather difficult to believe that it would have caused them to be blind to Reality and to betray Truth. And then if everything is to be doubted, if Pyrrhonism is to constantly hamper the movements of our thought, no historical research is possible and history cannot be recorded.

Perhaps it is not altogether unnecessary to point out here that for the last few years Americans have been able to acquire an unparalleled experience as to Turkish savagery.

The massacres of Christian communities in Turkey had not only been deplored in strong articles in the American Press, they had not only brought against their executioners a verdict of hitherto unheard of criminality, they had also stirred up the feelings of a naturally merciful people to such an extent as to cause their immense pity for their unfortunate brethren in Turkey to crystallise itself in the springing up and building of the wonderful American Near-East Relief.

Charitable out of pity and not out of show, the Americans have accomplished in Asia Minor an unprecedented Relief Work. Spending millions of dollars on the sufferings of their brethren, they went as far as the remotest parts of Anatolia to erect there hospitals for the sick, homes for orphans, schools for children, working centres for women and men. When we consider that the cry of distress which arose from the East, passed unheard over Europe and was only listened to in America, we cannot help remembering the parable of the Good Samaritan, who passed on the road after so many others but, unlike them, stopped and dismounted to relieve his wounded neighbour.

During the course of their relief work, the Americans have become accustomed to the proceedings of the bloodthirsty Turk, and when they accuse him of the catastrophe of Smyrna one may be assured that the accusation rests upon solid ground.

On the other hand, their testimonies bear an obvious mark of impartiality.

Let us examine, for instance, the evidence of Mr. John Clayton, the correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, whose messages were published in the Daily Telegraph by special arrangement with the American paper.

He watched the retreat of the Greeks, the flight to Smyrna of the refugees from the Interior, the arrival of the Turks, the looting, the massacres and the fire.

His messages of the first days might cause one to think that he is partial to the Turks. Not only does he not utter a single word on the Greek Metropolitan's martyrdom, but he charges the Greeks with various excesses, which he says they committed during their retreat, and, as late as Monday midnight of September 11th, he praises ''the excellent discipline and order of the Turkish troops at Smyrna and goes even so far as to state:

"The apprehension of fear-ridden Smyrna has turned to amazement. After fifty-eight hours of the Turkish occupation the population has begun to realise that there are not going to be any massacres."

He is, of course, aware that a few murders had been committed, and that systematic looting had taken place during the first thirty-six hours of the occupation in the Armenian quarters. He also knows that a number of Greeks and Armenians had been court-martialled under the pretence of their having taken part in the massacres of 1919, when the Greeks first landed at Smyrna.

Still, he states, on the other hand, that when he entered the Armenian quarter on Monday morning,September 11th, he "met the new Military Governor, Izzetdin Pasha, walking through the streets with a staff officer and two soldiers, and forcing the looters who had robbed houses to return the spoils." Further, after a short conversation he had with the above-named Governor, and during which he was told that " there would be no retaliation" for the alleged massacres committed by the Greeks in the Interior, "he was convinced order would be restored that within the next twenty-four hours."

It is obvious that Mr. Clayton was not prejudiced against the Turks, and that he would have done justice to them had they not been guilty.

But twenty-four hours later, truth forced him to state that "there had been many more murders on Tuesday."

That was nothing - Mr. Clayton - wait and see! As soon as a south-eastern wind starts blowing westward, you upon a hitherto unseen spectacle.

The Turks, those unthinkable descendants of the Trojans, as some people have humorously termed them, will avenge upon the Greeks the Homeric fire of Troy!

As a matter of fact the fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon, September 13th, and the correspondent of the Chicago Tribune was enabled to send home on Thursday a message unparalleled in horror, throwing the responsibility for the fire upon the regular Turkish Army.

Next day, Friday, the 15th, after further investigation, he was able to make the following definite statement:

"No doubt remains as to the origin of the fire. On the sworn testimony of the American staff of the Collegiate Institute the torch was applied by Turkish regular soldiers."

Mr. Clayton could not help finding the Turks guilty, since guilty obviously they were!

To illustrate the preconceived method of a political opponent, we could not choose a better testimony than that of another correspondent, Mr. Ward Price, an Englishman, out in the East on behalf of the Daily Mail.

Everyone knows that the policy of this paper is one of a friendly disposition towards the Turks. So, as a correspondent has more or less to follow the line adopted by his E[? - letters cannot be made out in the .pdf], it will be admitted without difficulty that Mr. Ward Price was bound not to throw upon the Turkish Regular Army the responsibility for the horrors at Smyrna, since a statement of that kind would have entailed, in behalf of the Daily Mail, the acknowledgment either that the Turkish Army was but a set of barbarians undisciplined, out of hand, and calamitous to civilisation, or that the fire was the result of orders given from above. In both cases the policy of the paper would have been weakened, not to say rendered impossible, and that was to be avoided at any cost. One realises thus why, in his first message on the fire sent to the paper from H.M.S. Iron Duke lying off Smyrna, on Thursday, September 14th, at four o'clock in the morning, Mr. Ward Price does not raise the question of the responsibility for the fire, and thinks it sufficient to report that, according to the Turkish Commander of the town, with whom he had gone for a motor drive on Wednesday afternoon, when Smyrna was blazing, "the fire was started by Armenians."

Still, next day, on Friday, September 15th, out of late remorse, or perhaps out of a late awakening of the well-known British fair-mindedness, in a message sent from Chanak and published in the Daily Mail on September 19th, Mr. Ward Price did not fail to admit, in relation to the Smyrna fire and horrors, that "there was undoubtedly killing and looting," though he went on clinging to a foreshadowed policy and trying to force upon British public opinion an obviously mistaken statement, namely, "that the Turkish Army took no advantage of the chaos prevailing in Smyrna to ''massacre or molest in a serious degree [sic] the Christian population," and that "killing and looting entirely the work of thieves and the lowest classes, out for plunder, while all authority is relaxed."

There is a certain amount of simplicity in that unskilful pro-Turkish defence, and we should like to point out that it amounts to an acknowledgment, on the part of Mr. Ward Price, "that the Turkish Army, as such, did take advantage of the chaos prevailing in Smyrna to massacre and molest," but that "the degree of massacre and molestation was not a serious one." Then we should like to ask Mr.Ward Price what he means by a serious degree of massacre and molestation? We wonder what definition he could give us. It will be noticed that again he does not raise the question of responsibility for the fire. He thinks he had better overlook this really burning question.

We leave to the readers to decide whether this close discussion of Mr. Ward Price's testimony has clearly depicted that the correspondent of the Daily Mail provides us, in that case, with an instance of a preconceived attitude.

Anyhow, there are other stronger testimonies which uphold Mr. John Clayton's narratives.

But we should not anticipate!

A city looted and set on fire, women and maidens violated, innocent people murdered, a saint tortured and martyred, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees have brought an action against the appalling criminals.

For their trial a special court is being summoned.
Truth, eternal truth, indomitable truth is presiding over it.
The world's conscience is sitting in the jury-box.
Let us call the witnesses to the bar. They are all for the prosecution, none for the defence!
Listen to their overwhelming evidence!
It amounts to a formidable and unanimous "verdict of guilty".
Listen! The Turk is guilty! He cannot even plead extenuating circumstances.5

D.T., 28.11.22.

Footnotes

1 Mr. Lloyd George in his speech at Manchester. October 16th, 1922.)

2 Mr. Churchill in his letter to the electors of Dundee. (Daily Chronicle, October 2 8th, 1922.)

3 In Mr. Ward Price's own words.(See the Daily Mail, September 16th, 1922.)

4 In the very words used by the American Secretary of State, Mr.Hughes, in his speech at Boston on October 30th, 1922. (See the Times, October 31st, 1922).

5 Since this preface was written an official statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday, November 27th, 1922, by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in reference to the question of the burning of Smyrna.

"Mr. McNeill, in reply to Commander Bellairs (C., Maidstone), stated that, according to the information in the possession of the Government, Greek troops completed the evacuation of Smyrna on the evening of September 8th, and Turkish Cavalry entered Smyrna at 1 1 a.m. next day. The evidence of reliable witnesses was to the effect that the fires in the Armenian quarters of the city were started by Turkish soldiers."

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