But when I found that Roget’s “Thesaurus” gives as synonym for a harem, “a house of ill fame,” I understood! * * * * * Turkey, however, was crushed, defeated and, at Sèvres, humiliated. Were we not courting disaster by such unjust terms? If we remove the foot holding them down—but ever so slightly—will they rebound and strike? “I cannot understand,” I said to one of their delegates, “how a Turk could be found to sign such a Treaty.” For always, with all their faults, I had known them proud. “Had we not signed,” he answered, “the Greeks would have entered Constantinople, and God knows when we could have driven them out. What does it matter, the Treaty will not be ratified.” To keep out the Greeks, to save bloodshed! Maybe he was right. “At least, we are set free from Germany,” they said; and there is little we could not have asked then for such security. They would have allowed Great Britain any privileges, any concessions, all sovereign rights, if only we had not permitted the occupation of Smyrna! When the Dutch _pasteur_, M. Lebouvier, sent the _Times_ a full description of all the hideous bloodshed, the saturnalian orgies, and the riot with which the Greeks celebrated their triumphal entry, it was _suppressed_—and Englishmen do not know! Consternation, despair, and anger were the order of the day. Those hitherto most apologetic for the part played by Turkey in the war, were now ready to glory in what they had done. A million and a half Turks enslaved by 300,000 “servant” Greeks! Can such things be? In Constantinople a mass meeting of 250,000 people was held at the Byzantine Hippodrome, flags and banners were draped in black, women sobbed as at a funeral. They were _mourning_, indeed, for the city they were afterwards accused of having burned! By what deplorable influence were we thus moved to attempt what would practically have meant the extermination of Turkey? The magic name of Venizelos is not enough! Again and again, the friends of Turkey have asked why? But we do not know whether British action was deliberate or the result of an incredibly big blunder! M. Kemal Pasha’s great victory changed the face of affairs. Few in England had seemed to care what happened to this band of “rebels”; only a month before his victory, even our Intelligence Officers thought he would easily be beaten by the Greeks. Few had even heard of his three and a half years exile in the mountains!