Excesses of which the Greeks are Accused.
The principal excesses of which the Greeks are accused took place after July 1920, when the Greek military forces occupied the territory.
These excesses are attributed either to the regular troops or to bands.
(A.) When they arrived in the territory (in July and August), the regular troops attacked various Moslem villages, principally those in the region east of Beicos. Inhabitants were killed, cattle carried off, and houses and even whole villages burnt. To this should be added individual offences on the part of soldiers belonging to Greek detachments, such as extortion of money, theft, violence and murder. In the occupied regions the Greek military authorities first made numerous arrests and caused people to be summarily executed (more particularly at Beicos-Chibukli).
A good many searches made for hidden weapons gave rise to individual offences, violence and theft. These individual offences, caused by insufficient discipline, were not usually stopped.
The attacks against villages became more frequent in March and April, when the Greek troops were abandoning the eastern part of the peninsula, and began in the region of Ada-Bazar. Turkish villages between Kudra and Ada-Bazar were chiefly affected, a large number of the inhabitants being maltreated and killed, women violated, cattle carried off and houses fired.
(B.) Greek bands, formed of men who had generally suffered under Turkish oppression, and who were just as much actuated by a thirst for vengeance as a desire for loot, carried out depredations during the Greek occupation with an amount of freedom which leads one to conclude that the Greek military authorities did not take the necessary steps to prevent these misdeeds.
In the region of Shileh, it may be even taken as very probable, if not certain, that the Greek military authorities regarded their formation and activities with favour.
In the region now occupied by them the Greek forces armed, and used as auxiliaries, refugees, from Greek villages which had been looted or burnt by the Turks. By their attacks on Turkish villages situated outside the effective zone of occupation of the Greek troops, and by the atrocities committed by them, these bands have revived former hatred and have brought about the ferocious reprisals of which Greek villages—and specially those of the region south of Ismid—have been the victims.
The Greeks have also employed as auxiliaries a large number of Circassians (Moslems from the Caucasus), more than 30,000 of whom had taken refuge in the region east of Ismid. These have become the enemies of the Nationalists.
These Circassians furnish excellent semi-regular combatants, but also form bands whose poorly-controlled activity admits of excesses and thus helps to perpetuate the régime of continual reprisals which is gradually ravaging and depopulating the country.
To sum up, the Greeks ensure order in the regions effectively occupied by their troops, but at the price of oppression suffered by the Moslem population.
In the regions not effectively occupied by the Greeks the latter favour the activities of bands of their own countrymen, and are thus partly responsible for the system of guerilla warfare and atrocities there existing.