THE MIRACLE A True Story Once having sent them there, to support them in a loyal manner. What really happened was immediate dissension among the allies as always in history among Christians. Italy, which had practically been promised Smyrna, started a port at New Ephesus to draw the trade if possible away from the former city and began to sell arms to the Turks and to flatter them. The French, to undermine Great Britain in the Near East, took up an attitude towards the Turks which finally resulted in the Treaty of Angora and the recognition by the French of that government.    Previous to this, there had been no such thing as patriotism among the Turks, an ignorant, nomadic people. But the landing of the Greeks gave Mustapha Kemal the very argument he desired for uniting Turks and the forming of an army. He could not incite the Mussulman peasant to leave his plough or his camels or his herd of goats by an appeal to his patriotism; but an appeal to his fanaticism to drive out the hated Greeks and plunder their rich towns and capture their women found a ready response. Throughout the whole Mussulman world, since the fall of Constantinople, there has been a legend that the Turk was the Musulman race which could make Europe tremble. The flattering of the Turk and the zooing of him by the great Christian nations, has again revived in India and Egypt and among Mussulmans generally this ancient tradition.    The regime of the Greeks in Asia Minor was the only civilized and beneficent regime which that country has seen since historic times. I was in close touch with Mr. Sterghiades through in all, I have talked with scores of native-born Americans who have travelled over the region and I absolutely know of what I am talking. Greeks were more severely punished for aggressions against Turks than Turks for aggressions against Greeks. Brigandage was practically suppressed, security very generally reigned and insofar as the means of the Greek government permitted, Mr. Sterghiades supported and originated civilized institutions and progress and promoted agriculture, and industry. The Greek farmers, who had but a few years before been driven out from their homes and their villages destroyed, had largely returned and had begun again the cultivation of the famous Sultana grape on a large scale, of tobacco and other agricultural products. I am sending the Department, in another dispatch, a list of the various benevolent acts towards American educational institutions by Mr. Sterghiades together with another list of the opposite kind of treatment which they have suffered from the Turks. Those institutions are forever lost in Smyrna and vicinity - the large college and agricultural school of Dr. MacLachlan, which has been growing for thirty years, with its expensive buildings constructed with American money, has no longer a reason for existing. The end of that admirable institution was significantly brought to a full stop by the attack upon Dr. MacLachlan himself by 155 Leonidas Koumakis THE MIRACLE A True Story If you prefer a hard copy of the book, please send an email to HEC-Books@hec.greece.org Previous Page | Initial Page | Site Map | Next Page (156th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.