Massacres and war crimes against Turkish civilians
After the Greek army occupied Izmir and the surrounding area, Manisa, Turgutlu, Aydın, Nazilli, Ayvalık and other cities in Western Anatolia were also taken in the following weeks. The Greek army acted with cruel harshness against the Turkish Muslim civilian population. Local militia units were recruited from among the Greeks living in Anatolia, and together with the Greek army they carried out bloody massacres of Muslims. The expulsions, tortures and mass crimes of violence committed by the Greek occupation army against the Muslim civilian population were systematic. The day after the occupation of Izmir, native Greeks began to form militia units in western Anatolia, especially in the Söke and Kuşadası regions.
Reports of the occupation of Izmir and the massacres of Turkish civilians committed by the Greek forces had frightened the surrounding population and caused them to flee. A few days before the invading forces arrived in Izmir, there was unrest among the Turkish population in the Izmir region because armed local and foreign Greek militiamen who had previously fled or been expelled by the Turkish authorities for various crimes were making the area unsafe. These Greek militias came from the islands of Lesbos (Midilli), Chios (Sakız) and Samos (Sisam) from January 1919 onwards.
According to a report by the Izmir Gendarmerie Regimental Command, the number of Turkish civilians killed by the Greek army in Izmir and in the villages of the Urla Peninsula on 15 May 1919 was over 2,000. The Izmir Regimental Command sent a situation report to the General Command in Istanbul on the mass violent crimes committed by Greek troops against the Turkish Muslim civilian population. The following is an excerpt from the gendarmerie report:
„During the occupation of the city of Izmir by Greek soldiers on 15 May, unprecedented murders were committed against the Turkish-Islamic [Muslim] population. Hundreds of residents, officers, policemen, women and children were killed and the property of most looted and destroyed. Government buildings and barracks were besieged and lay under rifle and machine gun fire for hours. After the firing ceased, all the government officials and gendarmerie delegations who had gathered in the presence of the governor were brought down with bayonets fixed and forced to shout ʻZito Venizelosʼ [ʻlong live Venizelosʼ] after insults, threats, blows and curses by the cruel Greek soldiers as well as the local Greek population, where even the children were armed. The Greek soldiers and armed militia forced the people to undress one by one, robbing them of their cash and even their dirty handkerchiefs. Many were stripped of their jackets and shoes […]. „
facebook.com/share/18rCpYgt5…
