THE MIRACLE A True Story Turkish soldiers, in which he nearly lost his life. The Greeks and Armenians who largely supported it are gone, not to return for many years. The Turks will not attend it. Mrs. Caldwell, wife of one of the professors, told me yesterday that their Turkish students whom they regarded as fine young men, with well - molded characters, slumped all their civilization and became savages when the Turks arrived in Smyrna. The Girls School, one of the most admirable institutions in the Near East, the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A. and two institutions for working among the Turks, both of which had been liberally supported by Mr. Sterghiades, are all hopelessly gone. There will doubtless be some business with Smyrna in the near future, some figs will be raised and possibly some raisings and tobacco, but the whole territory is devastated, the real progressive workers are gone and any large development along progressive lines is over perhaps forever.    The Greeks in Smyrna district contended with many difficulties; (1st) the apathy of the native population which did not support them as it should, (2nd) the impossibility to really placate the Turk, (3rd) the big Levantine, British, French and other merchants who had made fortunes under the old Turk of the capitulations and knew that it was impossible to exploit the Greek, (4th) the hostility of the large Catholic element which is just as bitter against the Greeks as it was in the days of the Byzantine empire.    Another thing that has greatly handicapped the Greeks is their pernicious and corrupt politics. The amount to which politics is played in Greece and the extent to which the Greek politician will go, even to the sacrifice of his country and of many lives in order to keep his party in power for a few weeks can hardly be believed. The overthrow of Venizelos, Greece's great advocate in Europe and America, and the bringing back of its discredited king, was the beginning of the end. Politics is played to such an extent that even now, in the face of this tremendous tragedy to Greece, it is not lost sight of, and the Royalist party will not even allow Venizelists to distribute money which they are receiving from Europe or to establish soup kitchens.    I firmly believe from my observations in Smyrna and from information which I have received from various sources, that the terrible disaster which has happened to the inhabitants of Asia Minor was the result of a contemptible political move. The party in power believed they could not get the help of Europe without turning out Constantine and bringing back Venizelos. Without that help, they could not stay in Smyrna, they could not announce that they were willing to withdraw their armies from the Smyrna district, and they therefore deliberately provoked the debacle which the world has seen. For months there has been a steady withdrawing of Venizelist officers and their replacing by trusted Royal- 156 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 (157th of 204) © For Internet 2001 HEC and Leonidas Koumakis. Updated on 19 June 2001.