PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE ...

PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS 13
inspire horror, is the following, which utterly invalidates
the Turkish plea that they had proceeded to take these
measures because repeated amnesties had not succeeded
in persuading the deserters to join the ranks: "Those
of the deserters who gave themselves up were thrown
into prison here by hundreds and were left for a
month and a half without bread and without any care
being taken of them. I asked repeatedly that bread be
given them but the Moutesarif refused: Senator
visited him, but he paid no heed, so that we have been
obliged to feed these prisoners in order to prevent their
dying from starvation. Finally, after torturing them in
this way, he handcuffed hundreds of them and sent them
thus bound, to Sebasteia, a fifteen days' journey, during
which they suffered terribly."
The gloominess of the picture presented by the facts
above reported is matched by what happened in Kerasounda.
From this city it is officially and authoritatively
reported, under date of the 21st of April, 1917, that on
account of three hundred deserters, eighty-eight Greek
villages were evacuated and burned from December,
1916, to February, 1917. The inhabitants of these villages,
numbering about 30,000, mostly women, children
and old men, were taken by force to the district of
Ancyra (Angora), in the harshest winter weather, and at
a time when epidemics were rife, without their being
permitted to take even their clothing with them. Of this
population one-fourth perished on the road in consequence
of the hardships, starvation and exposure.