PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS IN TURKEY SINCE THE ...

72 PERSECUTIONS OF THE GREEKS
in rags on the roads and begging for food. " Smyrna," so an
officer says, " is melting like a candle." Forty or fifty deaths occur
every day among the Greeks in consequence of exhaustion and
disease. The Turks have deported 200 families from Tatavla in
Constantinople. The streets of the large cities are lined with
Greek orphans begging a living, in spite of the fact that the
authorities are gathering them in Turkish schools in order to make
them Mohammedans. Under these circumstances, the enslaved
Greeks look toward the Allies and Venizelos as their only hope.
The officers mentioned above affirm that up to the 17th of March,
1915, Turkey, busied by her operations in the Caucasus, had left
the protection of the Dardanelles to the 158th regiment alone.
One battalion of this was stationed at Koum-Kale, another at
Erenkioi and a third at Dardanelles. It was only on the 17th of
March that a third division, hastily formed from troops of the
garrisons of Constantinople and Adrianople, arrived.
The return of Venizelos to power in August, 1915, disturbed the
Turks so much that on the 10th of September the Turkish Government
ordered the Vali of Broussa to put a stop to the deportation
of the Greek populations of Ghemlek and the country
around it. The second retirement of Venizelos from office and
the condemnation of Greece to a policy of inaction emboldened
the Germano-Turks anew and they gave themselves up with fervor
to the extermination of the enslaved Greeks. The national movement
for union in Greece under the leadership of Venizelos has
filled the martyred slaves with joy and hope, while it has inspired
terror in the Turks who, realizing the disintegration of their
army, feared the intervention of Greece.