TNT POW Reports: Turks in Greek Hands (1920-1923)/Part XXVII-B

//Ed. Note: Edremit lawyer Faik Kemal's report continues
with insightful commentary on the turbulent political and 
military situation in Greece in 1922-23.  At the end of this 
section, a tragi-comic situation at the Greek Defense 
Ministry takes place, first reported in April by TNT:

When Turks Took Greek Defense Ministry click here for
details.



Nikolaos Plastiras, Stylianos Gonatas and Georgios
Papandreou in Mousounitsa, northwest of Athens, on 11
September 1922.

When it comes to Greek Political and Administrative Life:

With regard to what we witnessed concerning the tumultuous political 

and administrative situation in Greece, there is plenty of evidence that 

it is morally bankrupt.  Greeks steal money out of each other’s pocket 

and the ones who steals more get more praise.  When the Minister of 

War issues a military order its implementation is dependent on the 

whim of a sergeant.  A lowly soldier who receives an order from the 

Council of Ministers can boldly cancel it and hide it without putting it 

into action and this is a commonplace occurrance.  

In Greece, unlike in England or in France, they conduct politics in a 

much more partisan manner.  With regard to these ferocious storms in 

Greece that politics creates,  I personally heard from the mouth of a 

university teacher who is a member of the Royalist camp that  Greece 

is breathing its last breath and it will fade into history as the victim of 

these political clashes, under blows inflicted by a strong Turkey, 

Bulgaria and Serbia.

Currently in Greece, although the revolutionary party represented the 

Venizelos party and had been formed based on the precepts of Venizelos, 

subsequently, the party leaders  discounted Venizelos’s political 

doctrines because of jealousy.  So a third party, more popular than the 

Venizolsists and the Royalists, has begun show itself as a political force 

to be reckoned with.  Today in Greece the revolutionarly party, which is 

made up of Venizelos’ists and which engages in threatening political acts,  

is terrorizing everyone, including the majority, which is comprised of 

the partisans of Gounaris and the late King Constantine.  

Once peace comes, these bloody events and reactions will engender 

horrible consequences for Greece. This discord and, in particular, the 

clash between the Venizelos’ists and the revolutionaries, favors 

Gonatas’s republic and runs counter to the return of Venizelos. The 

army, which was divided up between the competing interest of the 

politcal parties during the World War, is currently allied and in 

harmony with the general assembly that consists of the various 

political factions, such that the parties, which want to line the 

commanders’ pockets, are saying that enough blood has been spilled 

in order to gain the backing of the army commanders, effectively 

decimating the Greek army.   The commanders are stealing the clothes 

off the soldiers’ backs and even taking the money in their officers’ 

pockets.  

The army’s current aspect is that of mutual robbery.  The latest routs 

have left Greece essentially without an army.  The revolutionary 

committee says that, on paper, there may be a 70-80,000-man army 

but even the most ardent revolutionary says sincerely that “the army 

will fire the first cannon shot not on the enemy, but on those who 

want war.”  And “there’s been enough war. Besides, why are we  

fighting?  Just like we couldn’t defend Anatolia, neither can we 

preserve Macedonia.  Because the more powerful Serbian 

government is opposing us and has set its eyes on Macedonia.  We 

cannot, of course, return to the borders.”  

The secretly held opinion of most Greek soldiers and all the Greek 

intellectuals is that they see no harm now in openly opposing the 

revolutionary administration.  In the history of a nation there are 

wondrous and golden benchmarks and horrific and tragic ones, as  

well.  

At this point, I would like to offer a scene both tragic and comical, 

unseen in any nation’s history.  On the day after the day that the 

revolutionary forces, which had dismissed King Constantine and 

the parliamentarians, sent that famous airplane to terrorize Athens, 

there was a rumor that revolutionary soldiers had arrived at Piraeus 

and were headed for Athens via the Monastiraki hills.  So while 

those bold Athenian youths who had challenged the world sought 

a hole to crawl into, the officials and guards at the Ministry of War, 

including even the bayonet-wielding soldiers at the door, fled.  As 

a result, for a few hours, the great Ministry of War was in the hands 

of Turkish prisoners who had been brought there as forced laborers to 

carry the Ministry’s  files and registers.  Not seeing any Greek officials 

around, the heroic Turks , resisting the urge to do their worst, closed 

all the doors of the Ministry offices, locked the front door and returned 

to their prison camp with the Ministry keys in their pockets.  

So for a while the Greek Ministry of War was literally in the hands of 

Turkish prisoners, as the Greeks had figuratively committed suicide.

//END of PART XXVII-B//