In Memory of the Greek Populations of Eastern Thrace, Asia Minor, and beyond!
By Marcus A. Templar
More than 100 years ago, innocent Greeks were killed or deported in what is known as the Greek Genocide. In Turkey’s European region of Eastern Thrace and about a year later in its Asia Minor region, the Ottoman Empire felt the indigenous Greek people were threatening its existence because of their strong culture.
The regime enacted a systematic way of destruction that amounted to Genocide to mitigate the government’s problem. In this manner, they aimed to the “purification” of the Turkish culture and Islamic religion.
The Ottoman government sent Greek men of ages 21 to 45 to concentration camps to work for the Turks. The number of those who died in those camps is unknown. The same governments kidnapped Greek children, forcing them to amalgamate into Turkish society. Cohorts of the same government pillaged and burned to the ground villages. The administration issued orders for deportations of those Greeks living in the areas of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli. Under similar orders, paramilitary organizations sent all Greek inhabitants of the western coastline of Asia Minor to Muslim villages, giving them two choices, to either convert to Islam or be killed. They sent the remaining Greek population to the interior, exposing them to harsh winter, starvation, and privations.
The Genocide lasted nine years, from June 1914 to late 1922. Although the criminality of the Ottoman government set out to exterminate the Christian Greek population, it welcomed the collaboration of the Turkish and Kurdish local populations as the caravans of the marching Christians crossed their lands on their way to the unknown, many of them to their death. The Genocide lasted about nine years, resulting in the loss of 3.5 million Christians. Although humanity will not affectionately remember the Empire, it will reflect the lives of those lost in the Greek Genocide.
What “separate” Pontian Genocide? Are not the Pontians Greek?
Etymology, Geography, and History
Εὔξεινος Πόντος means φιλόξενος πόντος or hospitable sea as a euphemism like the Pacific Ocean. Πόντος denotes something sunk. In this case, a sunk piece of land filled with water and quite broad; it is why it is accepted that πόντος means “sea.” In reality, πόντος derives from the verb ποντίζειν or to sink (Liddell–Scott–Jones).
According to D.A. Hardy (1989) and J. Antonopoulos (1992), the Minoan Eruption traditionally took place around 1600. We know that the Thyra (Santorini) eruption took place approximately between 1538 and 1527 BC per Eusebius, Chronicles, 71 & 183. From 1628 BC and 1450 BC, I speculate that the Eastern Mediterranean’s geological region suffered a series of changes as tsunamis flooded the land today is the Aegean Sea. Perhaps, the splitting of Olympus and Ossa that created the fertile ground of Thessaly was part of a series of earthquakes and other geological changes that formed the earth as it is in that region today
On the other hand, the word Pelagos derives from Πέλιον Ἂργος or Old Land. The name indicates that the region of the Aegean was a flatland. Still, some barrier that held the water away from it broke, sunk(?), and the water surged over the land due to some geological changes in the southern part. The story of the “Kabeiri” (also Cabeiri, Cabiri; ancient Greek: Κάβειροι, Kábeiroi) in Samothrace collaborate this. Here is the summation of the story: Just after the waters stopped rising, the Pelasgian inhabitants of Samothrace built an altar in honor of Poseidon, the god of the sea. Now was time for reconstruction, time for reproduction. The incoming waters perished too many lives and property. This flood took place when Deukalion was king of Achaia, i.e., southern Greece. Since then, the inhabitants of Samothrace re-enacted their plight to save their lives. Such a geological change was probably recent to remain in the memory of people.
Genocide, Legal Definition
According to Article 6 of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the definition of GENOCIDE is as follows.
Article 6 – Genocide
For the purpose of this Statute, “genocide” means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Genocide, Etymology
Γενοκτονία originates from the Greek words γένος and κτείνειν (= φονεύω). Since the Pontians are Greek in γένος, they cannot be excluded from the Greek ethnos, as if they were a separate ethnicity. One could attribute such an act to either ignorance or contempt for their Greek origin or even egomania and megalomania of the movement’s originators and leaders.
Not one conqueror of the Pontic lands ever separated them from Asia Minor. The Greeks named the lands Asia Minor, i.e., Small Asia, as opposed to the Asian continent. As part of general geographical designations, Byzantines divided the Empire into two sectors. One was Ἀνατολικαί Ἐπαρχίαι (Eastern Provinces) which referred to the Asian lands as opposed to Δυτικαὶ Ἐπαρχίαι (Western Provinces), which were the European regions. Ἀνατολικαί Ἐπαρχίαι turned to Anadolu in Turkish, which gives us the westernized modern term of Anatolia. Anatolia College in Panorama of Thessaloniki stands witness to such a toponym.
The Anatolia College was established in the Pontic town of Merzifon, which is at the district in Amasya Province in the central Black Sea region, i.e., Pontos. One may find more information at the website of Anatolia College.
Here is what the website of the school states.
“Anatolia College founded at the Merzifon Seminary with Charles Tracy as President; the students are principally Greek and Armenian, most coming from outside of Merzifon and boarding at the school; the faculty is Greek, Armenian, and American; enrollment soon reaches 115 students.”… “[In 1921] Executions by Turks of student leaders and faculty advisors of the Pontus club, the school’s Greek literary society; Turkish government orders the closing of Anatolia College; 2,425 students had graduated since 1886.” (https://anatolia.edu.gr/en/about/history).
The school’s history does not separate Pontians from Greeks, including Pontos in Asia Minor or Anatolia. It does separate Armenians from Greeks.
Asia Minor is a peninsula. Every region within the peninsula is part of the main. One cannot talk about the Balkan Peninsula, exempting Greece or Bulgaria for that matter. After all, Bulgaria’s Haemus or Balkan in Turkish, a lexical borrowing from Persian, gave the whole peninsula its present name. One can find a Balkan Region in Turkmenistan, as well.
Since the entire peninsula was part of the Ottoman Great State (Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿOsmānīye), aka Ottoman Empire, one cannot even think of separating the Turkish Pontos from Asia Minor under the pretext that it was part of another state. Even if one attempts to invent a country that was part of the peninsula, one may not separate the country, a political entity from the peninsula, a geographical term. “Pontian Genocide” is a misnomer and nationally dangerous.
However, we encounter more revisions of history to separate the “ethnic” Pontians from the rest of the Greeks. The commemoration of May 19, 1919, was the day that Kemal Ataturk landed in Samsun. It is not the “beginning” of the Genocide in the Turkish Pontos as some Pontian federations claim. That is another impossibility.
The Greek government commemorates the Greek Genocide each year on September 14 following Law 2645, dated October 13, 1998.
The first deportations in Turkish Pontos took place three years earlier, in 1916, during the same period when Greeks within the Ottoman CUP government’s grasp were systematically slaughtered throughout the Empire.
Greeks of Eastern Thrace were deported just after the beginning of WWI. Descendants of the town Neos Skopos, Serres, for example, can attest to it. Their original town was Skopos (Greek: Σκοπός; Tukish: Üsküp), just east by north-east of Kırklareli, Kırklareli Province (Turkish: Kırklareli ili), Eastern Thrace. Their distance is only 19 km. So, all Greeks who lived in Skopos were forced to walk to Greece. At that time, Western Thrace was Bulgarian. Both Turkey and Bulgaria fought on the side of Germany during WWI.
What is it behind these revisions? Being a former intelligence officer, I smell a rat.
Psychology and Intelligence
The primary tool of human intelligence agencies is psychology. Their primary tasking is to find what makes the subordinate targets click and how. Intelligence agencies seek to break into as many segments of society as possible, aiming at instigating clashes or cascading wrath and vengeance, in other words, prompting culture wars within a society.
Intelligence agencies and especially those of human intelligence manipulate their victims’ character blemishes as gambling, alcoholism, spousal unfaithfulness, and anything they consider sources for extorsion. They all use psychology to evaluate virtue, like religion, patriotism, regionalism, language, and a few other parts of individual identities by either flouting them or encouraging them depending on the motives, goals, and objectives.
The secret lies with actual knowledge of one’s own national strategic culture and the opponent’s national strategic culture. To find it, one MUST re-examine, evaluate, understand the perceived cause and effect, and estimate all probabilities. One must also consider the hindsight biases in evaluating intelligence reporting of all biases as information, selection, and confounding, not just one’s cognitive and inherent biases while avoiding simplification. It is significant for one to prevent a mirror image.
Cognitive bias is dangerous because it affects the processing of information. It is crucial to distinguish cognitive biases from other forms of prejudice, such as cultural bias, organizational bias, or bias that marks one’s self-interest. Their goal is to divide the people of the adversarial country in any way that would bring good results for their national interests. It is the oldest trick in the book, divide and conquer.
Notwithstanding, the main issue is this. Those who advocate Pontian “ethnicity” should bear in mind that Military Unit 11135 and the 18th CRI- Central Research Institute of the GRU are excellent in signal intelligence research capability, including research and development in wireless devices, SCADA electromagnetic protection systems. Unit 01168, 27th CRI is a research institute in information technologies and command and control systems.
These agencies also covertly encourage the so-called “Pontian Genocide,” which they purposely promote among the Pontian Greeks as separate events from the Greek Genocide. These “ethnic” Pontians allow themselves to become pawns of the MİT and GRU. The most prominent voice for promoting a separate recognition of a “Pontian Genocide” is Ivan Savvidis, the Russian-born Pontian Greek billionaire and personal friend of Vladimir Putin. According to the Moscow Society of Greeks’ website, Savvidis is the leader of the Greeks in Russia. Coincidence? Not at all! They work for the Russian intelligence agencies and indirectly for the Turks against Greece, either not seeing the unfolding damage in front of their eyes or not caring. The bottom line is this.
The advocates of the “Pontian” Genocide have unconsciously become intelligence assets of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Russian Military Intelligence (GRU), and the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT). The mentioned above intelligence agencies play them like a Stradivarius violin against Greece, Greek national interests, and national security. They want to destabilize Greece.
Although their goals differ, both Turks and Russians work toward similar objectives using the same types of Greeks similarly. They have found the appropriate switch in the people that I have described above. The Turkish and Russian operation assets do not feel that they get played by the above powers’ intelligence agencies because the members of the MİT and the GRU (Military Unit 44388) are professionals. The Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups are obscure, outstanding, and very active organizations inflicting mayhem on their targets like these Pontians.
Some Pontians are such self-aggrandizers that they are ready to serve anyone who gives them what boosts their ego. They close their eyes to the goal of Turkey and Russia to split the Greeks. They refuse to realize that a divided Genocide plays right into the hands of Turkey and Russia.
Nevertheless, many Pontian federations, supported by Pontos-centric historians and a mathematician who is irrelevant, incompetent and immaterial in the subject, went a little further. They contended that we must never denounce Turkish acts of Genocide because the Greek Army had done the same. They got the “evidence” from the GRU and MİT.
Perhaps an explanation of a few things about articles 58 and 59 of the Treaty of Lausanne is in order.
Treaty of Lausanne Articles 58 and 59
The governments of Greece and Turkey signed the “Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations” at Lausanne, Switzerland, on January 30, 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne incorporated the Convention.
The Treaty of Peace with Turkey, aka the Treaty of Lausanne, signed at Lausanne on July 24, 1923, was not just between Greece and Turkey. Other signatories of the Treaty were France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
Before I proceed, I wish to stress a few points that will enlighten the reader regarding a few provisions in the above-mentioned diplomatic documents.
A constant point that all professional amateur “experts” on the “ethnic” “Pontian Genocide” keep pointing out is article 59 of Lausanne’s Treaty, which they take out of context and, of course, out of ignorance.
Yet, after reading article 58, it does not take much to understand that there was more than it meets the eye. According to Article 58, Turkey has no pecuniary claims against any powers except Greece. However, being a “benevolent” victor with an “understanding” that Greece’s finances were in disarray, it successfully “persuaded” the Greek negotiators to afford some other accommodations, which we shall see as my explanations unfold. Since all other powers were equally victors
The Treaty of Lausanne prompted the global acknowledgment of the new Republic of Turkey’s sway as the replacement legal entity of the Ottoman Empire. As an aftereffect of the Treaty, the Ottoman state’s public debt was split among Turkey and the nations that arose out of the previous Ottoman Empire.
Articles 58 and 59 of the Treaty of Lausanne refer to Greece’s political instability that followed the Balkan Wars. At that time, Greece had two governments, one in Athens and one in Thessaloniki (the Provisional Government of National Defense, State of Thessaloniki, 1916–1917). A few other events made furthermore Greece’s position rather precarious.
Nonetheless, here is the revealing point. Some professional amateurs operating out of their realm have instigated and keep supporting the anti-Hellenic pack in Greece. Some professional amateurs support the anti-Hellenic endeavors of the professional amateurs since the latter have taken upon themselves “to clean the Greek Augean political stables from its garbage,” as the website of the Greeks in Moscow states. The question on behalf of which foreign intelligence organization, the professional amateurs, intend to “to clean the Greek Augean political stables from its garbage”? Knowing how the Russian intelligence agencies work, I can make an educated guess that Putin is behind the project of the Pontian Genocide aided by Erdoğan.
The opportunity for Turkey to demand reparations from Greece came from Greece itself as a result of domestic instability and National Schism (Εθνικός Διχασμός), aka “The Great Division” that had started on August 30, 1916, and ended on August 4, 1936, after a series of trials, assassination attempts (1933) and an attempted coup (1935).
In consequence of the above-mentioned political instability, on November 15, 1922, the Greek government held the so-called “Trial of the Six” (Dimitrios Gounaris, Georgios Baltatzis, Nikolaos Stratos, Nikolaos Theotokis, Petros Protopapadakis, and General Georgios Hatzianestis). The verdict came as “guilty of treason.” They were all executed on November 28, 1922. Admiral Michail Goudas and General Xenophon Stratigos received a life imprisonment sentence.
Prince Andrew, who was in Corfu at the time, was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death a few days later; however, since he held the rank ex-officio without any military training, his death sentence was commuted to exile.
The whole matter might have raised political notches for some; it was detrimental for Greece and its national security. The court-martial and its outcome gave the ammunition to İnönü to demand reparations for the war’s unnecessary prolongation. The excuse of İnönü at the Conference appertained to Greece’s acceptance that its Army unnecessarily prolonged the war. It is why Turkey demanded remedies. It was not alleged atrocities.
What did İnönü want in exchange? İnönü sought and received something of a significant strategic military value; it was Karaağaç, the small area of approximately 31 square km west of Edirne on the west bank of Evros.
“Know the Enemy and Know Yourself”
Notwithstanding, one must know the Turkish psychosynthesis to understand Turkey’s motives. Anyone who knows the Turkish way of thinking knows that they are experts in haggling. They have no limits to achieving their goals because they calculate the minor detail of their manipulation of their opponents. “Never mind,” “what the heck” are expressions foreign to a Turk. A signature on a treaty by a Turkish government is only a means to get the country out of the jam and use some flimsy excuse to give it an edge in future negotiations or even justify an invasion.
Turks do not sign treaties that include statements that could be even in the minimum detrimental to their country just for signing. Moreover, they do not care whether a Turkish government of the past had signed a diplomatic instrument. They care only about how diplomatic tools a previous government had signed contribute to their present geopolitical stage. They always do what they feel that they must do for their convenience, citing the country’s national security the way they envisage it.
A case in point is the Treaty of Lausanne, and the Ankara Convention of January 4, 1932, between Italy and Turkey for the delimitation of the territorial waters between the coast of Anatolia and the island of Castellorizo. One must always bear in mind that the signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne were more than Greece and Turkey, as I have explained above.
Article 14 states:
Italy hereby cedes to Greece in full sovereignty the Dodecanese Islands indicated hereafter, namely Stampalia (Astropalia), Rhodes (Rhodos), Calki (Kharki), Scarpanto, Casos (Casso), Piscopis (Tilos), Misiros (Nisyros), Calimnos (Kalymnos), Leros, Patmos, Lipsos (Lipso), Simi (Symi), Cos (Kos) and Castellorizo, as well as the adjacent islets.
Turkey blatantly violated the Treaty of Lausanne on September 6–7, 1955, known as the Istanbul Pogrom. The event took place about a year and a half after Greece, Turkey, and SFR Yugoslavia signed in Ankara the Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation on February 28, 1953, aka The Balkan Pact. It was a violation of the Treaty of Lausanne.
On March 16, 1964, the Turkish Parliament passed a decree leading to one of the most significant and most traumatic episodes of forced migration in its recent history. The course of Turkification had intensified as it turned against the Greek Orthodox (Rum) of Constantinople (Polites) as a pretext of the civil strife in Cyprus. By annulling a 1930 treaty unilaterally, Turkey paved the way to an accelerated expulsion of some 12,500 Greeks within a few months. This number would quadruple over the next two years.
Most of the expelled were Greek citizens. The Rum Constantinopolitan inhabitants, aka Polites, were the oldest residents of this ancient city of Byzas. The latter saw their residence permits being canceled by the most recent authority governing their hometown. They were ordered to leave the country within two weeks, taking only a suitcase weighing no more than 20 kilograms and cash worth not more than 22 U.S. dollars.
As all Greek citizens were deported, their family members of Turkish citizenship also had to follow. With the additional measures of freezing their assets and blocking their business transactions, the Turkish state made sure to increase dramatically the demographic erosion of this previously vibrant urban community. It was a violation of the Treaty of Lausanne.
In the early 1960s, Turkey annihilated the Greek population of the islands Imbros, Tenedos, and Rabbit by using them as exile locations for criminal convicts. It also eliminated Greek language courses to the few Greeks left. It was a violation of the Treaty of Lausanne.
Greece’s response was SILENCE.
During the invasion of Turkey on Cyprus using another pretext, Greece’s response through the mouth of Greece’s new President Constantine Karamanlis was “it is too far.”
We all know what happened in the case of Imia in the late 1990s.
Turkey’s plan is straightforward. After it beefed up its western coast with the Aegean Army in 1974, Turkey demanded that the Aegean islands become demilitarized, according to Article 14 of the Peace Treaty of 1947. Nevertheless, although unofficially on the side of the Axis, Turkey was nominally neutral, and because of it, it was not a signatory of the above Treaty. If Greece demilitarizes the islands, it will fall into a trap. Once Greece falls into the trap, Turkey will invade unpunished some of the demilitarized islands and then dictate its terms on Greece, in essence, dominating the Aegean Sea for anything Turkey desires. I wonder if all professional amateurs want to see it happen.
According to the proceedings of the Lausanne Conference of 1922-1923, İnönü based his arguments and counterarguments on the 1899 Conference of Hague (883 pages). He had repeated identical statements devoid of fruitful opposing views during the Conference of the Treaty of Lausanne’s acceptance to include articles 58 and 59 in the final text of the Treaty.
Another eye-opener is Hague’s 1907 Conference (Vol. I, 703 pages; Vol. II, 1086 pages, and Vol. III, 1162 pages). These two conferences produced the Hague Laws and Customs of War on Land (July 29, 1899) and the Hague Convention, Laws and Customs of War on Land (October 18, 1907) with all amendments, annexes, and declarations.
The whole matter was the alleged destruction of civilian properties as a result of necessities of war. The Laws of War consider “perfidy” the use of protected areas reserved for civilians, e.g., civilian houses, hospitals, places of worship, as offensive means, and misuse of the flag of truce by military personnel.
Perfidy constitutes a breach of the laws of war. It is a war crime, as it degrades the protections and mutual restraints developed in the interest of all parties, combatants, and civilians. Turks could have been guilty of such treachery as they defended their home country.
Under the title, “Civilians Taking a Direct Part in Hostilities,” Field Manual (FM) 6-27 The Commander’s Handbook on the law of the land warfare, dated 2019, the Department of Defense of the United States, explains:
2-11. The law of armed conflict (LOAC) does not expressly prohibit civilians from taking a direct part in hostilities, but it does provide that civilians who do take a direct part in hostilities forfeit protection from being directly attacked (DOD Law of War Manual, 5.8; consider AP I art. 51(3); AP II, art. 13(3)). Civilians who have ceased to take a direct part in hostilities may not be made the object of attack, but could still be subject to detention for their previous hostile acts. Such civilians generally do not enjoy the combatant’s privilege—that is, they do not have combatant immunity, and, if captured, they may be prosecuted for their belligerent acts under the domestic law of the capturing state.
2-12. Civilians engaging in belligerent acts not only forfeit their immunity from direct attack, they also make it more difficult for military personnel to apply the principle of distinction and thereby can put other civilians at greater risk.
Is it possible that Turkish or Kurdish villagers had engaged in such warfare? It is probable. It is why the Treaty of Lausanne had not included what civilians perceive as atrocities committed by both Greek and Turkish armies. The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate perfidies sometimes blurs. Once civilians commence hostilities against an attacking military group, the latter has the right to defend itself.
The most challenging part is a similar situation in hospitals. An illegal ruse is when a defending military group occupies a building identified as a medical facility and fires from it against the attacking force.
The Big Red One, a 1980 American epic war film, includes such a scene. One of the movie’s memorable scenes takes place in a mental hospital complete with throat slashings and inmates walking around unconcerned while fighting within the hospital rages and romantic music plays. As men are killed, one patient picks up a German MP40 submachine gun and begins shooting at everyone in sight, shouting, “I am one of you now! I am sane! I am sane! I am sane!”
If the belligerents of Greek and Turkish forces had bona fide cases of war crimes committed against each other’s populations, they would have brought such allegations to the Peace Conference of the Treaty of Lausanne for investigation.
The Treacy of Neuilly-sur-Seine of November 27, 1919, brought by Serbia against Bulgaria, already included such war crimes. So a precedent already existed.
I am offering as an example the story of Serbia’s case against Bulgaria included in articles 57, 113(3), 119, 120 of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine of November 27, 1919.
On October 15, 1915, two Bulgarian Armies attacked and overran Serbian military units penetrating the South Morava river’s valley near Vranje. They occupied the area on October 22. 1915. Eventually, the Bulgarian forces occupied Kumanovo, Štip, and Skopje. In this manner, they prevented the Serbian Army’s withdrawal south to the Greek border and Thessaloniki. At that time, Greece was neutral (Falls and Becke, 1933). Aleksandar Protogerov was the Bulgarian commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 11th Bulgarian Division occupied Štip, which unruly Bulgarian soldiers had heavily looted (Fischer, 1967).
On October 26, 1915, Aleksandar Protogerov ordered the execution of 118 wounded and sick Serbian soldiers who were recuperating at the Štip town hospital. Ivan Barlyo, commander of the local VMRO (IMRO), transported the Serbian soldiers to Ljuboten village and summarily executed them. The above is only one example of Bulgarian atrocities.
One must bear in mind that Todor Aleksandrov commanded the local VMRO (IMRO) band. Later on, Alexandrov’s followers emigrated to the United States, Canada, and Australia in the mid-1930s (Pissari. 2013). These are the “Macedonians” that Greeks of the United States, Australia, and Canada have to deal with.
The above “ethnic” Pontians, following the Russian and Turkish guidance, consider the Greek Army’s expedition beyond Ionia’s area as an invasion of Greece against Turkey.
To justify their thesis, these “ethnic” Pontians and their surrogates pushed for bizarre reasoning that defies any logic unless one is mentally incapacitated. Here is their illogical reason. Since Greece had “invaded” Turkey, then Greece had to have committed numerous atrocities. The Mudros Agreement, aka Armistice with Turkey (October 30, 1918), is a simple 2 ½ page document dictating to Turkey what it has to do with its territorial possessions. Such clauses and a few others of a more specific nature are included in the Treaty of Lausanne.
During the pre-Treaty of Lausanne Conference, both the Greek and Turkish sides presented their list of alleged atrocities against the other side starting in April 1921. Information on suspected Greek atrocities derived from the Turkish side without independent collaboration and proper investigation. If the Turkish allegations had legal standing, the Treaty of Lausanne would have stipulated any and all violations of the laws of war at the time.
Under such an assumption, Turkey’s violations of human rights, such as Genocide against the Christian populations of Asia Minor, including Ionia, are justified and excused. The above Pontians advocate that the burning of the Greek and Armenian sectors of Smyrna by Ataturk is also justified. Under such a logic, the Pontian “Genocide” is warranted, but not the Greek Genocide, since Pontians never invaded Turkey, but the Greeks did. Do not attempt to find any logic in the irrational string of thought.
No Greek national or any other Christian minority of Turkey had invaded Asia Minor, including the Pontians. What was the excuse for the CUP government to commit such crimes? If we want to talk about who invaded whom, then Turks were the invaders starting at the Battle of Manzikert (August 26, 1071).
When I asked a community leader who claimed to be “a Pontian genocide expert” to specify the “atrocities” allegedly committed by the Greek Army, he referred to article 59 of Lausanne’s Treaty, not at a specific act. An atrocity on the battlefield is a matter of opinion that differs in substance between people who know all about it firsthand from those who watch war movies.
The U.S. Field Manual (1956) states:
Among legitimate ruses may be counted surprises, ambushes, feigning attacks, retreats, or flights, simulating quiet and inactivity, use of small forces to simulate large units, transmitting false or misleading radio or telephone messages, deception of ‘the enemy by bogus orders purporting to have been issued by the enemy commander, making use of the enemy’s signals and passwords, pretending to communicate with troops or reinforcements which have no existence, deceptive supply movements, deliberate planting of false information, use of spies and secret agents, moving landmarks, putting up dummy guns and vehicles or laying dummy mines, erection of dummy installations and airfields, removing unit identifications from uniforms, use of deceptive signal measures, and psychological warfare activities.
During the Battle of Khafji (January 29 to February 1, 1991), a column of Iraqi tanks T-55s rolled up to the Saudi Arabian border with their gun turrets pointing backward, a sign of surrender. As Saudi Arabian troops approached them, the Iraqi tanks reversed their turrets and opened fire. Their action prompted air support from a nearby AC-130 gunship destroying 13 vehicles.
The above act of the Iraqi tanks was an illegitimate ruse of war.
According to Black’s Law Dictionary, atrocity implies conduct that is outrageously or wantonly wicked, criminal, vile, cruel, too horrible, and shocking.
However, how many acts of war do not meet the above definition? War itself is a great atrocity. Nevertheless, I KNOW what war is all about. The online “experts” watch war movies instead.
I wish to remind the reader that Greece was in Asia Minor under the mandate stipulated in the Armistice of Mudros (October 30, 1918).
Conclusion
The claim that Pontians merit their Genocide absent from that of the Greeks of Asia Minor shows a separation from reality.
Whether they are uninformed of the etymology and definition of the word “Genocide” or feel an exceedingly conceited regionalism, it demonstrates their despise and contempt for the rest of the Greeks. Their demand that their regional plight is higher in importance than the national anguish indicates shameful hatred of their ethnic roots. The question is, why does he listen to the voice of Greece’s enemies to the existential detriment of Greece?
The recognition of a Genocide is awarded to ethnic groups, not toponymic demonyms. Once Pontians demand and accept the recognition of the Pontian Genocide, they declare that they are not of the Greek genos but a separate ethnic group. One either is a Greek, or one is not a Greek. There is no parallel ethnicity to the Greek. The recognition of a “Pontian Genocide” versus Greek Genocide sows the seeds of Greece’s death warrant as a modern state.
So, all people enamored by the “Pontian Genocide” had better think twice about what they wish for unless it is precisely what these Pontians desire. It is a simple but firm warning to the Pontians and ALL supporters of the “Pontian Genocide” as a separate event away from the Greek Genocide.
I am finishing with two verses that I dedicate to the devotees of the “Pontian Genocide.” They are from the poem Ἀνθολογία τῆς Οἰκονομίας by Georgios Souris (1853-1919) written in 1910:
Σπαθὶ ἀντίληψη, μυαλὸ ξεφτέρι,
κάτι μισόμαθε κι ὅλα τὰ ξέρει.
-==================================-
Biographical Note
Marcus Alexander Templar has served in the U.S. Army as Cryptologic Linguist, Translator/Interpreter (Serbo-Croatian), and Principal Subject Matter Expert in All-Source Intelligence Analysis, Certified Military Instructor, and Certified Foreign Disclosures Officer.
He has supported strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence activities at the national level during his military career and served as an instructor in U.S. Intelligence Schools.
His academic research includes the political ideology of Bulgarian intellectuals after the Commune of Paris and their ideology on the establishment, development, and activities of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), aka VMRO. The research also examines the organization’s activities to create a communist regime of Bulgarians in Macedonia at least 20 years before the founding of the USSR.
More specifically, his work analyzes the relationship and interaction among members and factions of the organization with contemporary political, pan-Slavic movements and governments and the organization’s political and terrorist activities. Academically he is intrinsically interested in matters of national security, public governmental policy, and strategy.
He holds a Bachelor of Science from Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL) in Military Studies, a Master’s of Science degree from Northeastern Illinois University (Chicago, IL) in Human Resource Development (Instructional Design), and a Postgraduate degree in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University (Bethesda, MD) specializing in the southern Balkans and Turkey.
