Excerpt from Greek Atrocities in the Vilayet of Smyrna, May to July 1919: Inedited Documents and Evidence of English and French Officiers It was the venting of the helpess rage of the monopolizers and usurers, hopelessly dispossessed not of their own belongings, but of their ancient fields of cheatery. The Hellenic authorities with the profound experience that characterises them in the oppression and extermination of the allogeneous peoples who have fallen into their clutches, began, immediately after the occupation, to put into force again their former ignoble system which met with such success in the Morea, in Thessaly, in Epire, in Crete and recently also in Macedonia. It consists first of all in pouring a flood of professional bandits, of criminals of whom Greece more than any other country possesses the monopoly, into every corner of ground where a Hellenic soldier has set foot. The native Greek scoundrels are always ready to lend them a helping hand and an acute period of atrocious tyranny begins at once. While the famous agency of Athens, by a profusion of lies and slanders, of false accounts of Turkish atrocities, diverts attention and throws a thick veil over the crimes of its andartes and of its palikares, the latter more and more excited by the newspapers, assured of impunity, do not shrink from any infamy. Turkish villages burning, violations, massacres perpetrated upon peaceful Turkish inhabitants become the order of the day. The unfortunate population, persecuted, terrified, has no longer the courage to withstand such a regime: in a body they leave their homes, their villages, their crops, abandoning their fortune, their possessions, everything to save then lives and their honour. All these poor ruined fold, often bereaved of their dearest ones, are stranded miserably in the nonoccupied parts of the Mother-country. Everywhere in Turkey one meets these poor Mouhadjirs (emigrants), Cretes, Moreans, Macedonians, Epiriens, Thessalonians and others, uprooted, in quest of aid or protection, and whose tragic fate and account of their misfortunes stir the indignation of the most blase. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.