Eskişehir about a month before the start of the Battle of
Sakarya (23 August - 12 September 1921).
Officer Candidate Mehmet Rıfat Efendi, from Yenice in Niğde,
the son
of Ahmed Ağa, and a member of Company 2 of the Attack Battalion of
the
23rd Division, who was taken prisoner by the Greeks on 21 July 337
(1921) during
the attack at Akpınar, Eskişehir, made the following
statements about the
cruelties visited upon him and his fellow soldiers
by the Greeks during his 1.5
years in captivity.
The first day of my captivity was the day I fell prisoner to
the Greeks at
Akpınar, along with 15 officers and 1,400 soldiers. Many of these
soldiers and officers were
killed by bayonet by enemy cavalrymen at the
point of capture in front of our
eyes. In fact, İzzet Efendi, an officer
of
the team of Attack Battalion 1st Company and Lieutenant Said Efendi
of the 69th Regiment were among these
murdered officers. Officer
Candidate
Hacı Mehmed Efendi, from Kayseri and the 172nd Regiment,
and Officer Candidate
Ahmed Efendi, of Sezer and the same regiment,
suffered many bayonet wounds at the hands of the Greek cavalrymen
and
were left for dead. Somehow, though, a
couple of days later they
were transported to the Eskişehir hospital.
From the time they fell captive to the Greeks to their
arrival at Athens
and then the prison camp on Lefkada Island, officers and
soldiers, even
the sick and wounded, walked everywhere, with the exception of
the
time spent at sea. When they passed
through towns they were pelted with
rocks and tomatos by the local Greeks and
the Greek soldiers, who all
spat in their faces and subjected them to
unimaginable insults and
degradations.
While going from İnegöl plain to Bursa two Turkish
soldiers were shot by
the Greek guard company commander for no
reason and they were both seriously
injured. These wounded men were
carried
on the backs of Turkish soldiers to Bursa, where all soldiers and
officers were
imprisoned in the Yıldırım Mosque, without any food and
denied permission to go out to relieve themselves. Consequently,
out of
necessity they relieved themselves inside the mosque.
The POWs were marched from Eskişehir to Bursa via İnegöl
and then transported by ship from Mudanya to Izmir and from
Izmir to Athens.
While going from Bursa to Izmir and from
Izmir to Athens the captive
prisoners were stuffed into the holds of cargo
ships and given a can of
water and an empty
can to use as a toilet. Similarly, they
were given no
food and were, in fact, deprived of vital water, besides being
given no
air nor food. Six or seven people died and many suffered
from a
number of illnesses.
When we arrived in Athens (Parenig Mata) we found Cafer
Tayyar Bey.
We stayed there for 14 days
and during that time no bread or anything
else was given to the officers by the
Greeks. It was only thanks to Cafer
Tayyar Bey, who obtained some bread and tobacco for us, that our lives
were
saved. After many and continuous
appeals, we were given 100
drahmas and finally we were transported to Agia
Mavra Fortress on
Lefkada Island, where we 30 officers and 100 soldiers were
imprisoned.
Cafer Tayyar was the commander of the Turkish
1st Army in Thrace. He was captured by the
invading Greeks in 1920 and imprisoned in Athens.
After Turkish forces took Izmir in September 1922,
Cafer Tayyar was exchanged for Greek commander
Nikolaos Trikopis, who surrendered to Mustafa
Kemal (later Atatürk) at Uşak on 2 September
1922.
The Greeks claimed that our
identity papers had not come so they
wouldn’t give us any portion of 5 months
salary. Within a period of
time,
without clothing and food, and because of the stifling air, the
oppression
reached its zenith. We were only able to
buy bread and
tobacco from the store opened by the Greek garrison commander on
credit and even when we got our salaries we still could only buy
from the
garrison commander’s overpriced store, although it would
have been possible to
get cheaper things from outside. The 170
officers and 100 soldiers in the fortress were under
the supervision
of a Greek sergeant, who subjected us to all kinds of inhumane
treatment. This sergeant would call the
roll every morning and
evening for officers and soldiers and turn off the
lights at 1 o’clock
to compel everyone forceably to go to bed.
I was told by an officer who was captured before I was that
when
General Galadis was the commander at Perveze, he wanted to execute
all the
prisoners for no reason and even gave the Gendarmerie orders
to shoot all of
our soldiers and officers in the fortress.
In fact, for a
trivial reason, Major Ali Bey and Gendarmerie Lieutenant
Cemal and
Officer Candidate Ali Efendi of İşleme village in Niğde, together
with
many other officers and doctors, were confined in the cellers of the
fortress, deprived of fresh air and any kind of food, for months. Since
the late Captain İbrahim Efendi
suffered from hemorrhoids, he died
from a lack of a doctor’s care and medicine,
but even more to the
point, because of the Greeks’ destructive policy of
providing no
treatment.
Preveze is just north of Lefkada Island.
For months the Greek commanders sold 100 soldiers they had
within
the fortress to rich families for
money, on an alternating basis. These
soldiers received only enough food to keep them alive and worked
under
conditions of misery and degradation. Our
civilian prisoners
lived in fear and were given no care at all so each day 8-10
of them died.
We know from a reliable
source that women and children held in prison
in Athens suffered similar
horrific treatment. It would be
impossible to
count the incidents the terror and cruelty the Greeks inflicted
on all the
military and civilian prisoners, who, upon their return, provided
information about their captivity to officials at Izmir and other ports
about
their captivity.
13 June 39 (1923) Officer Candidate Mehmed Rifat
//END of PART V//
J
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