The Indianapolis times., 1925-02-04
Trouble Between Two Ma
tions Is of Long
Standing.
By WILLIAM PHILIP s1MMs

EU7 ASHINGTON, Feb. 4.-Only
IW{ the most careful handling
0 can prevent war between
Greece and Turkey growing out of
the present situation.
Greece today is af1ame over the
expulsion of the Orthodox Patri-
arch, Constantine VI, from Con-
stantinople. but the fire has really
been, there. smoldering for months,
burning hot and ready to burst
forth at any moment.
Ever since the Turks, under
Kemal Pasha, annihilated King Con-
stantine's army across the Aegean.
In Asia Minor in 1922, and sacked
and burned Smyrna, and massacred
some and drove the rest of the Greek
population out of the country,
Greece has literally seethed with
hatred for her foe.
Nor is 1t the memory of the
cataclysmic disaster over in Asia
Minor that will hold them back now.
For the Greek has yet to be dis
covered who will admit they were
even beaten: They were betrayed,
he says fiercely. betrayed by their
king, his minister of war and his
favorites at the head OF the army.
Never Defeated
The king was exiled and the Of
f1cials summarily shot, and now the
Greek feels free to take care of the
Turk
We have never been defeated on
Greek SOIL" Colonel Gonatas, dicta-
tor of Greece, told me when was
in Athens after the coup of 1922.
And he. turned his eyes significantly
towards the East, where lay the
Turkish frontier along the Martha,
dividing Thrace.
The Turks, be: it said, return the
Greek sentiment fully.
The Lausanne treaty, which liaui-
dated the recozTurkish war. had a
provision annexed to it by the Turks
Whereby all Greeks living in Turkey
were TO be sent back to Greece,
and all Turks. living in Greece, were
to be sent back to Turkey.
This worked tremendous hardship
on the Greeks They had been thrift
tier and harder workers than the
Turks and had more property to
abandcl. It was a good trade for
the Turks. however, so they in.
sisted
Greeks in Constantinople
In Gonstantinople there are many
prosperous Greeks. many of them
lawful Turkish subjects. But aIleg.
ing Greek cruelty in western Tnrace
to Moslem residents, the authorities
announced they would confiscate the
property of all Constantinople
Greeks, whatever their legal status,
and chuck them out of the country.
Another good deal for the Turks.
In Asia Minor lived more than
100000 Greeks, some of whom
dated back to the days of Christ.
Most of them have been there since
before Columbus discovered America,
and though they still called them
selves Greeks, Asia Minor was much
more their horne than the United
States is today to the descendants
Of the original colonists.
But out the entire million had to
go. Turkish off1cials-it is admitted
in Angora, the capital-took over
some Of the best of the deserted
houses. others were destroyed for
fuel, while the remainder were given
over to Turks returned from Greece.
Black History Page
This whole episode Of uprooting
Greek and Turk from the only land
they ever knew and swapping them
back and forth like cattle as de-,
manded by the Turks, is one Of the
blacklist pages of the already black
history Of the Near East. Naturally
the Greeks are wild.
At Yedicule, for example, 1000
fairly prosperous Greeks were sud
denly and almost without warning.
arrested in their homes, at their
places of business and even in the
streets and herded into a concentra-
ton camp for deportation. Only the
League of Nations, to which the
Greeks appealed, saved them tempo
rarily.
Constantine VI was only recently
elected Patriarch by the Greek Holy
Synod and his expulsion from Con-
stantinople was not unexpected. The
furore it has stirred up in Greece,
therefore, is merely symptometric-