On receipt of this communication, the delegation naturally asked to what region the Greeks “who were evicted during the Balkan wars” had migrated, and to what extent, according to the Foreign Office estimates, “counter-migration of Turks had taken place into what is the present Turkish Thrace,” when Macedonia was made, on the authority of Englishmen themselves, “an empty egg-shell” and when the Greeks and Bulgarians had decided to leave no Turks in the occupied territories, to make a “Turkish question” within the newly extended boundaries of Greece and Bulgaria. It was natural that part of the Turkish population driven away from Macedonia should settle down in the Turkish territory conterminous to Eastern Thrace, as it actually did.
With regard to the “100,000” Greeks “deported into Anatolia from Turkish Thrace during the course of these wars,” and the “100,000 driven across the frontiers of Turkish Thrace,” the delegation asked to what part of Anatolia the deportees had been taken, and to what extent this deportation had affected the proportion of Turkish and Greek populations in that part of Anatolia. It would certainly be unfair to make Turkish Thrace preponderatingly Greek by including in its Greek population figures of Greek deportees who had already served to swell the figures of the Greek population in Anatolia. Under such circumstances, as the figures which the Prime Minister considered as reliable on January 5, 1918, had been discarded since and as the figures of a quarter of a century ago were evidently open to discussion, the delegation proposed that the Supreme Council should be given a complete set of figures for every vilayet, and if possible for every sanjak or kaza, of the Turkish Empire as it was in 1914. But the Prime Minister’s secretary merely answered that it was impossible to enter into a discussion “on the vexed question of the population statistics in these areas.”
As to Smyrna, the statistics plainly show that, though there is an important Greek colony at Smyrna, all the region nevertheless is essentially Turkish. The figures provided by the Turkish Government, those of the French Yellow Book, and those given by Vital Cuinet agree on this point.
According to the French Yellow Book, the total population of the vilayet included 78·05 per cent. Turks against 14·9 per cent. Greeks.
M. Vital Cuinet gives a total population of 1,254,417 inhabitants (971,850 Turks and 197,257 Greeks), and for the town of Smyrna 96,250 Turks against 57,000 Greeks.
According to the last Ottoman statistics in 1914 the town of Smyrna, where the Greek population had increased, had 111,486 Turks against 87,497 Greeks; but in the whole vilayet there were 299,097 Greeks—i.e., 18 per cent.—against 1,249,067 Turks, or 77 per cent., and 20,766 Armenians.
From the 299,097 Greeks mentioned in the statistics we should deduct the 60,000 or 80,000 Greeks who were expelled from the vilayet, by way of reprisal after the events of Macedonia in January to June, 1914. The latter, according to the agreement between Ghalib Kemaly Bey, Turkish minister at Athens, and M. Venizelos (July, 1914), come under the same head as the Greeks of Thrace and Smyrna who were to be exchanged for the Mussulmans of Macedonia.
Mr. Lloyd George’s secretary, whom the Indian delegation also asked, in reference to Smyrna, on what figures he based his statements, answered on behalf of the Prime Minister:
“The pre-war figures for the sanjak of Smyrna, according to the American estimates, which are the most up-to-date and impartial, give the following result: Greeks, 375,000; Mussulmans, 325,000; Jews, 40,000; and Armenians, 18,000. These figures only relate to the sanjak of Smyrna, and there are other kazas in the neighbourhood which also show a majority of Greeks.”
Now, according to the official Turkish figures, the sanjak of Smyrna had, before the war, 377,000 Mussulmans as against 218,000 Greeks, while during the war the Muslim figure rose to 407,000 and the Greek figure was considerably reduced. Only in the kazas of Urla, Shesmeh, Phocœa, and Kara-Burun in the sanjak of Smyrna, are there Greek majorities; but in no other kaza, whether of Magnesia, Aidin, or Denizli, is the Greek element in a majority. Moreover, the Greek minority is important only in the kaza of Seuki in the sanjak of Aidin; everywhere else it is, as a rule, less than 10 per cent., and only in two kazas is it 15 or 16 per cent.