Treaty of Sèvres (1920); World War, 1914-1918 -- Territorial questions -- Turkey; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
With regard to the “100,000” Greeks “deported into Anatolia from
Turkish Thrace during the course of these wars,” and the “100,000
driven across the frontiers of Turkish Thrace,” the delegation asked
to what part of Anatolia the deportees had been taken, and to what
extent this deportation had affected the proportion of Turkish and
Greek populations in that part of Anatolia. It would certainly be
unfair to make Turkish Thrace preponderatingly Greek by including
in its Greek population figures of Greek deportees who had already
served to swell the figures of the Greek population in Anatolia.
Under such circumstances, as the figures which the Prime Minister
considered as reliable on January 5, 1918, had been discarded since
and as the figures of a quarter of a century ago were evidently open
to discussion, the delegation proposed that the Supreme Council should
be given a complete set of figures for every vilayet, and if possible
for every sanjak or kaza, of the Turkish Empire as it was in 1914. But
the Prime Minister’s secretary merely answered that it was impossible
to enter into a discussion “on the vexed question of the population
statistics in these areas.”
As to Smyrna, the statistics plainly show that, though there is an
important Greek colony at Smyrna, all the region nevertheless is
essentially Turkish. The figures provided by the Turkish Government,
those of the French Yellow Book, and those given by Vital Cuinet agree
on this point.
According to the French Yellow Book, the total population of the
vilayet included 78·05 per cent. Turks against 14·9 per cent. Greeks.
M. Vital Cuinet gives a total population of 1,254,417 inhabitants
(971,850 Turks and 197,257 Greeks), and for the town of Smyrna 96,250
Turks against 57,000 Greeks.
According to the last Ottoman statistics in 1914 the town of
Smyrna, where the Greek population had increased, had 111,486 Turks
against 87,497 Greeks; but in the whole vilayet there were 299,097
Greeks—_i.e._, 18 per cent.—against 1,249,067 Turks, or 77 per cent.,
and 20,766 Armenians.
From the 299,097 Greeks mentioned in the statistics we should deduct
the 60,000 or 80,000 Greeks who were expelled from the vilayet, by way
of reprisal after the events of Macedonia in January to June, 1914. The
latter, according to the agreement between Ghalib Kemaly Bey, Turkish
minister at Athens, and M. Venizelos (July, 1914), come under the same
head as the Greeks of Thrace and Smyrna who were to be exchanged for
the Mussulmans of Macedonia.
Mr. Lloyd George’s secretary, whom the Indian delegation also asked, in
reference to Smyrna, on what figures he based his statements, answered
on behalf of the Prime Minister:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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