Chapter VI: The Massacre of Phocea

(1914)

The complete and documentary account of the ferocious persecutions of the Christian population of the Smyrna region, which occurred in 1914, is not difficult to obtain; but it will suffice, by way of illustration, to give only some extracts from a report by the French eye-witness, Manciet, concerning the massacre and pillage of Phocea, a town of eight thousand Greek inhabitants and about four hundred Turks, situated on the sea a short distance from Smyrna. The destruction of Phocea excited great interest in Marseilles, as colonists of the very ancient Greek town founded the French city. Phocea is the mother of Marseilles. Monsieur Manciet was present at the massacre and pillage of Phocea, and, together with three other Frenchmen, Messieurs Sartiaux, Carlier and Dandria, saved hundreds of lives by courage and presence of mind.

The report begins with the appearance on the hills behind the town of armed bands and the firing of shots, causing a panic. These four gentlemen were living together, but when the panic commenced they separated and each installed himself in a house. They demanded of the Kaimakam, gendarmes for their protection, and each obtained one. They kept the doors open and gave refuge to all who came. They improvised four French flags out of cloth and flew one from each house. But, to continue the recital in Monsieur Manciet’s own words, translated from the French:

“During the night the organized bands continued the pillage
of the town. At the break of dawn there was continual _très
nourrie_ firing before the houses. Going out immediately,
we four, we saw the most atrocious spectacle of which it is
possible to dream. This horde, which had entered the town,
was armed with Gras rifles and cavalry muskets. A house was
in flames. From all directions the Christians were rushing to
the quays seeking boats to get away in, but since the night
there were none left. Cries of terror mingled with the sound of
firing. The panic was so great that a woman with her child was
drowned in sixty centimetres of water.

“Mr. Carlier saw an atrocious spectacle. A Christian stood at
his door, which the bandits wished to enter, as his wife and
daughter were in the house. He stretched out his arms to bar
the way. This motion cost him his life for they shot him in the
stomach. As he was staggering toward the sea, they gave him a
second shot in the back, and the corpse lay there for two days.

“Fortunately there were two steamers in port, and we managed to
embark the unfortunate Christians in small groups. Despite all
our efforts, these wretched people were in such haste to depart
that they upset the small boats. An odious detail proved the
cynicism of this horde, which, under pretext of disarming those
leaving, shamefully robbed these poor, terrified people of
their last belongings. They tore away from old women packages
and bedding by force. Anger seized me and I blushed to see
these abominations and I told an officer of the gendarmerie
that if this did not stop, I would take a gun myself and fire
on the robbers. This produced the desired effect, and these
unfortunates were enabled to embark with what they had saved
from the disaster, which proves that the whole movement could
have been easily controlled.

“But the plundering was stopped only in our immediate
neighborhood. Farther away we saw doors broken in and horses
and asses laden with booty. This continued all day. Toward
evening I mounted a little hill and saw a hundred camels laden
with the pillage of the city. That night we passed in agony,
but nothing happened.

“The following day the methodical pillage of the city
recommenced. And now the wounded began to arrive. There being
no doctor, I took upon myself the first aid before embarking
them for Mitylene. I affirm that with two or three exceptions,
all these wounded were more than sixty years of age. There were
among them aged women, more than ninety years of age, who had
received gunshots, and it is difficult to imagine that they had
been wounded while defending their possessions. It was simply
and purely a question of massacre.”

This extract is given from Monsieur Manciet’s description of the sack of Phocea in 1914, of which he was an eye-witness, for several reasons. It is necessary to the complete and substantiated picture of the gradual ferocious extermination of the Christians which had been going on in Asia Minor and the Turkish Empire for the past several years, finally culminating in the horror of Smyrna; it is a peculiarly graphic recital, bringing out the unchanging nature of the Turk and his character as a creature of savage passions, living still in the times of Tamerlane or Attila, the Hun;—for the Turk is an anachronism; still looting, killing and raping and carrying off his spoil on camels; it is peculiarly significant, also, as it tells a story strongly resembling some of the exploits of Mohammed himself; it also gives a clear idea of what happened over the entire coast of Asia Minor and far back into the interior in 1914, temporarily destroying a flourishing and rapidly growing civilization, which was later restored by the advent of the Greek army, only to go out in complete darkness under the bloody and lustful hands of the followers of Mustapha Khemal; it rings again the constant note, so necessary to be understood by the European or American, that this was an “organized movement,” as Monsieur Manciet says:

“We found an old woman lying in the street, who had been nearly
paralyzed by blows. She had two great wounds on the head made
by the butts of muskets; her hands were cut, her face swollen.

“A young girl, who had given all the money she possessed, had
been thanked by knife stabs, one in the arm and the other in
the region of the kidneys. A weak old man had received such
a blow with a gun that the fingers of his left hand had been
carried away.

“From all directions during the day that followed families
arrived that had been hidden in the mountains. All had been
attacked. Among them was a woman who had seen killed, before
her eyes, her husband, her brother and her three children.

“We learn at this moment an atrocious detail. An old paralytic
who had been lying helpless on his bed at the moment the
pillagers entered, had been murdered.

“Smyrna sent us soldiers to establish order. As these soldiers
circulated in the streets, we had a spectacle of the kind of
order which they established; they continued, personally, the
sacking of the town.

“We made a tour of inspection through the city. The pillage was
complete; doors were broken down and that which the robbers had
not been able to carry away they had destroyed. Phocea, which
had been a place of great activity, was now a dead city.

“A woman was brought to us dying; she had been violated by
seventeen Turks. They had also carried off into the mountains a
girl of sixteen, having murdered her father and mother before
her eyes. We had seen, therefore, as in the most barbarous
times, the five characteristics of the sacking of a city;
theft, pillage, fire, murder and rape.

“All the evidence points to this having been an organized
attack with the purpose of driving from the shores the Rayas,
or Christian Ottomans.

“It is inconceivable that all these persons should have had
in their possession so many army weapons if they had not been
given them. As for the Christians of old Phocea, there was not
for one instant an effort at defense. It was, therefore, a
carnage.

“We read in the journals that order had been established, and
that, in the regions of which we speak, the Christians have
nothing further to fear, neither for themselves, nor for their
possessions. This is not a vain statement. Order reigns, for
nobody is left. The possessions have nothing further to fear,
for they are all in good hands—those of the robbers.”