Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Pontic Greek genocide" in Simple English language version.
"The deportation and murder of the Greeks during 1919-1923 was a direct continuation of the effort to expel them that began in late 1913-1914 and continued periodically through World War 1. But in 1919-1923 there was a radical shifting of gears. As a representative of the Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople put it in 1922, what was happening was "on a scale greater than any experienced during the [Great] War. Thousands of Greeks had been, and were being hanged, burned, and massacred, thousands were being deported end exterminated".
By 1924 they [Turks] had cleansed Asia Minor of its four million-odd Christians
"In the weeks after Ottoman surrender ended he world was in the east, the Turks were in a state of shock and largely quiescent. But, as we have seen, circumstances changed dramatically by May 1919, when the Greeks landed in Smyrna. The Turks were jolted into frenetic political and military activism. They feared the permanent occupation and Hellenization of parts of Anatolia, with Ionia falling under direct Athenian governance, and separatism and revolt by Ottoman Greeks resulting in the establishment of Pontic state on the Black Sea<...>But, in fact, all this separatist hubbub resulted in "almost no acts of overt rebellion" and little anti-Turk terrorism. In reality, most Ottoman Greeks, in the Pontus as elsewhere in Anatolia, remained unmoved by ethnic-nationalist appeals. An American diplomat who toured the major Pontic cities in summer 1919 reported, "many of the most influential and rational Greeks... In Trebizond view this policy [of separatism] with disfavor.". The local Greek Archbishop, Chrysantonos, was also opposed. Why Ottoman Greeks by and large distanced themselves from the pan-Hellenic national message, and certainly failed to act on it, is unclear. Perhaps it was matter of poorly developed political consciousness; perhaps it was due to the centuries-long tradition of submissiveness to Islamic hegemony. In the immediate postwar years many Ottoman Greeks also feared massacre - as had just befallen Armenians - or economic harm, should they choose path or rebellion. And demographic realities assuredly contributed: Turks predominate in Pontus, as in Anatolia in general - and Pontic Greeks knew it, whatever their spokesmen sometimes said<...>In late May 1919, Kemal, having just arrived in Samsun, informed Constantinople that since the Armistice "forty guerilla" bands, "in an organized program", were killing Turks in order to "establish a Pontus state".".
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)By early 1920 the Kemalist policy of intimidating Greeks into flight was in full swing. Nationalist army officers near Samsun toured the villages saying that "the Christians [were] the cause of the [Allied] occupation of Constantinople and advocated their extermination". At Unye and Fatsa, Turks posted placards, blaming the Christians "for all their troubles". Kemalists arrested and exiled to Ankara Polycacpos, the Greek bishop of mixed town Ordu. Turks walked arout the town fully armed, except when Allied ship was in port. "They are on their good behavior until the ships leave... Christians feared to venture out of town". In Samsun Nationalists, stressing "the religious side of the question", inflamed Turkish population "by preaching a Holy War... The Greeks are accused of violenting Turkish women, and of destroying the Holy Tombs of Sheikhs at Broussa and other captured towns". The mutessarrif of Samsun, Nafiz Bey, spoke more or less openly of massacring the local Greeks should the Greek Navy try to land troops, and Nationalist members of Kemal's parliament in Ankara proposed a law calling for the deportation of all Christians from the Black Sea area. But no such law was passed, because Kemal preferred less publicized methods at that time. Here and there, there were fatalities. In Domuz-Dere seven Greek charcoal-sellers and two children were murdered. In spring began full-scale massacres. At Gelebek station (Hackiri), in April, some 500 Christians were reportedly murdered by irregulars
Systematic ethnic cleansing of Greek villages appears to have begun in March 1920 near the Greek-Turkish front lines in Izmit sanjak<...>As Nationalist strength grew, so did "Nationalist persecutions and excesses"<...>In response to the Greek army's summer 1920 advance eastward, the Nationalists engaged in "serious...excesses against the Christians in the districts bordering on the newly occupied territory"<...>By the time Kemal's forces reached Konya and Cappadocia in September, no one doubted what would come next. Greek community leaders appealed to the British. "Our populations", they wrote, "find themselves totally at the mercy of...Kemal. It is impossible to describe the terror, tortures, ordeals and exactions perpetrated in that 'hunt for Christians'.".
The campaign began in March. It may have been precipitated by the launch of the large Greek spring offensive, which began on the 23th. The leader of the Turkish campaign was General Nurredin Pasha, a killer so ruthless that in January 1922 he was brought up by his own government on charges for "the mal-execution of his orders" - or so American diplomats were informed. The Turks claimed that they were "eradicating rebellion", Greeks were massacring Turks, the Greek Black Sea fleet was periodically bombarding coastal towns, and Pontic Greeks had joined the Greek army. Western observers uniformly asserted that there was no Pontic "rebellion", either underway or in preparation<...>Turks and their defenders have also sought cover by pointing to the arrival in the Black Sea in summer 1921 of a Greek naval squadron, which stopped Turkish ships, took passengers prisoner, and later lightly shelled Inebolu. This may indeed have hastened the deportation process, but it wasn't the cause of the campaign, which was launched weeks before. As Count Schmeccia of the firm Lloyd Triestino in Samsun, and previously a representative of the Italian High Commission, said, the Inebolu bombardment, which produced no casualties, was merely a Turkish "excuse for the massacres".
In any event, much other evidence points to Ankara's planning for that summer's destruction of the Greek communities. An American report refers to a July 2 order from Ankara requiring deportation of all "adult male" Christians "throughout the interior of Anatolia" , not merely in the Pontus. Another report indicates that two weeks later Ankara ordered the "immediate deportation of all Ottoman Greeks", meaning women, children, and the eldery as well. At the beginning of August, the mutessarif of Bafra told a visiting American naval officer that the deportation "of all remaining Greeks, including women and children, had been ordered by Angora". That order was apparently reinforced by another, from Nurredin Pasha, who instructed a local governor "to proceed with all dispatch to carry out the orders which had been given him or that he would shortly cease to be mutassarif". The American officer concluded that this was "part of an official plan which contemplates extermination of the Greeks". There may not have been an "open and avowed policy of extermination", but there was evidence of a "popular policy" aiming at "Turkey for the Turks", as one missionary put it
Be that as it may, the largescale massacres and deportations began already in the spring, with the rural Greek communities. In the villages of the Black Sea's Duzce (Kurtsuyu) kaza, "many old men and women [were] burnt alive". The Turks also attacked swaths of villages around Alacam, Bafra, and Carsamba and in the interior as far as Havza and Visirkopru. The Turks took paints to make sure that there were no American witnesses. Missionaries were not allowed out of Samsun, the regional missionary center. But survivors reached the town and told their stories. American naval officers reported that the campaign was "under strict control of the military", "directed by high authority - probably Angora [Ankara]", and carried out, at least in part, by soldiers. A purported eyewitness stated that villagers around Bafra were subjected to "incendiarism, shooting, slaying, hanging and outranging" and that the villages were "turned to heaps of ruins". The American officers quoted an American missionary to the effect that about a hundred Greek villages south of Bafra had been destroyed. Villagers were being killed and "the priests...crucified".
By summer, the campaign reached the towns. In Bafra, it kicked off with an ancient ploy, according to the Greek Patriarchate. Greek notables were invited to a dinner party at the house of one Efrem Aga, arrested, and murdered. The Turks then rounded up and massacred young Greek men. On June 5 Bafra was sorrounded by gendarmes, brigands, and Turkish troops - "a special corps...formed for the purpose of exterminating the Greek element" - who demanded that the men give themselves up. Some hid. The Turks then searched the houses, pillaging and violating "the prettiest and best bred" women. The men were marched off in a succession of convoys. The first headed for the nearby village of Blezli. Seven Bafra priests were axed to death and the rest of the men were killed thereafter. One, Nicholas Jordanoglon, gave Turks 300 Turkish lira for the privilege of being shot rather than batchered with an axe or bayonet. Another 500 men, from a second convoy, were reportedly burnt alive in the church in Selamelik. And another 680 were murdered in a church at Kavdje-son. Five convoys left Bafra that summer. At least two, according to the Greek representative to the League of Nations, were shot up by their escorts near Kavak Gorge, outside Samsun, killing at least 900. The survivors were sent naked, "like wandering spirits", to Malaya, Charnout, Mamuret, and Alpistan. A western report claimed 1300 Greeks were murdered in the gorge on August 15 or 16. The government claimed those dead at Kavak had been killed justifiably in battle, after Greek bands allegedly attacked Turks. On August 8 the Turks collected Bafran women and girls, "stripped and violated them and by torture compelled many to adopt Mohammedanism". Those who refused conversation were led off "to different unknown places, where many died on the way...and children were slaughtered". The only Greeks allowed to stay were the sick people who paid bribes". Some 6000 Greek women and children were deported from Bafra around August 31 and further 2500 on September 19.
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