ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΙΩΝΙΑΣ-ΓΕΝΟΚΤΟΝΙΑ ΚΑΙ Ο HENRY MORGENTHAU

Ο Αμερικάνος πρεσβευτής στήν Κωνσταντινούπολη τήν περίοδο 1913 - 1916 έχει καταγράψει σέ βιβλίο (Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, 1918), όλο τό παρασκήνιο της υψηλής διπλωματίας της εποχής, σχετικά μέ τήν πολιτική των Μεγάλων Δυνάμεων στήν Εγγυς Ανατολή. Μέσα από τό προσωπικό του ημερολόγιο, αποδεικνύει μέ αδιάψευστα στοιχεία τήν οργάνωση της γενοκτονίας των χριστιανών στήν επικράτεια της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, η οποία έγινε υπό τήν καθοδήγηση των Γερμανών του Κάιζερ Γουλιέλμου Β' καί είχε ως φυσικούς αυτουργούς τούς νεότουρκους. Η Γερμανία έχοντας κατά νού τόν έλεγχο των πετρελαϊκών αποθεμάτων της βόρειας Μεσοποταμίας, επιζητούσε απόλυτο έλεγχο της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας καί της σιδηροδρομικής γραμμής Βαγδάτης - Βερολίνου. Εξόντωσε τήν Σερβία, πού ήταν εμπόδιο στόν χώρο των Βαλκανίων καί ζήτησε τήν εξόντωση των χριστιανών της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, οι οποίοι αφενός ήλεγχαν τό εμπόριο, τίς τράπεζες καί τή βιομηχανία καί αφετέρου πρόσκεινταν ευνοϊκά στήν Αγγλία καί τή Γαλλία (Δυνάμεις της Συννενόησης - Entente).

«For the time being Germany dominated Serbia, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Turkey, and regarded her aspirations for a new Teutonic Empire, extending from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, as practically realized. The world now knows, though it did not clearly understand this fact in 1914, that Germany precipitated the war to destroy Serbia, seize control of the Balkan nations, transform Turkey into a vassal state, and thus obtain a huge oriental empire that would form the basis for unlimited world dominion.

I see clearly enough now that Germany had made all her plans for world dominion and that the country to which I had been sent as American Ambassador was one of the foundation stones of the Kaiser's whole political and military structure. Had Germany not acquired control of Constantinople in the early days of the war, it is not unlikely that hostilities would have ended a few months after the Battle of the Marne. It was certainly an amazing fate that landed me in this great headquarters of intrigue at the very moment when the plans of the Kaiser for controlling Turkey, which he had carefully pursued for a quarter of a century, were about to achieve their final success.»

H Γερμανία του μιλιταριστή Κάϊζερ Wilhelm ΙΙ, επιζητούσε μέσω της πολιτικής στά Βαλκάνια καί τή Μεσοποταμία, νά πάρει τό θρόνο της Βρετανικής Αυτοκρατορίας στήν παγκόσμια σκακιέρα. Καί γιά νά κατέχεις αυτό τόν θρόνο πρέπει πρωτίστως νά ελέγχεις τήν ενέργεια καί τήν ενέργεια ως γνωστόν τήν παρέχουν τά κοιτάσματα πετρελαίου. Καί δέν πρέπει νά αγνοούμε τό γεγονός ότι η Γερμανία στήριξε τόν Λένιν γιά νά ανέλθει στήν εξουσία καί νά καταλύσει τούς τσάρους, σέ μία προσπάθεια νά αποδυναμώσει τήν ισχύ της Ρωσικής αυτοκρατορίας. Από τή μία λοιπόν είχαμε μία Γερμανία πού ζητούσε τόν απόλυτο έλεγχο της Τουρκίας καί από τήν άλλη είχαμε το κίνημα των Νεότουρκων πού θά ανέτρεπε τό νωθρό καί απαρχαιωμένο σύστημα διακυβέρνησης. Αυτές οι δύο δυνάμεις ταίριαξαν απόλυτα η μία μέ τήν άλλη, όσο αφορά τήν βαρβαρότητα καί τήν θηριωδία. Η ειρωνεία είναι ότι οι ηγέτες του κινήματος «Ενωση και Πρόοδος» Εμβέρ, Τζαμάλ καί Ταλαάτ αρχικά, μιλούσαν γιά ισότητα καί ίσα δικαιώματα σέ όλους τούς υπηκόους της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, ανεξαρτήτως θρησκεύματος καί εθνικής καταγωγής.

Ο σύνδεσμος Γερμανίας καί νεότουρκων ήταν ο Λήμαν Φόν Σάντερς, ο οποίος είχε αναλάβει τήν οργάνωση του τουρκικού στρατού καί επηρέαζε σέ μεγάλο βαθμό τήν πολιτική της Τουρκίας. Ενας άλλος δυναμικός άνδρας πού επηρέαζε καταστάσεις στήν Οθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία του 1914, ήταν ο Γερμανός πρέσβης στήν Κωνσταντινούπολη Wangenheim. Ο τουρκικός στρατός πράγματι εκσυγχρονίστηκε ενώ η Γερμανία τόν προμήθευε μέ βαρύ οπλισμό καί αμέτρητα εφόδια. Από τό τέλος των Βαλκανικών πολέμων Γερμανία καί Τουρκία είχαν κατανοήσει τήν ύπαρξη ενός άλλου αντιπάλου, εκτός της Γαλλίας, της Αγγλίας καί της Ρωσσίας. Αυτός ο αντίπαλος ονομαζόταν Ελλάς:

«Meanwhile, I had other evidences that Germany was playing her part in Turkish politics. In June the relations between Greece and Turkey approached the breaking-point. The Treaty of London (May 30, 1913) had left Greece in possession of the islands of Chios and Mitylene. A reference to the map discloses the strategic importance of these islands. They stand there in the Aegean Sea like guardians controlling the bay and the great port of Smyrna, and it is quite apparent that any strong military nation which permanently held these vantage points would ultimately control Smyrna and the whole Aegean coast of Asia Minor. The racial situation made the continued retention of these islands by Greece a constant military danger to Turkey.

Their population was Greek and had been Greek since the days of Homer; the coast of Asia Minor itself was also Greek; more than half the population of Smyrna, Turkey's greatest Mediterranean seaport, was Greek; in its industries, its commerce, and its culture the city was so predominantly Greek that the Turks usually referred to it as giaour Ismir---"infidel Smyrna." Though this Greek population was nominally Ottoman in nationality it did not conceal its affection for the Greek fatherland, these Asiatic Greeks even making contributions to promote Greek national aims. The Aegean islands and the mainland, in fact, constituted Graecia Irredenta; and that Greece was determined to redeem them, precisely as she had recently redeemed Crete, was no diplomatic secret. Should the Greeks ever land an army on this Asia Minor coast, there was little question that the native Greek population would welcome it enthusiastically and cooperate with it.

Since Germany, however, had her own plans for Asia Minor, inevitably the Greeks in this region formed a barrier to Pan-German aspirations. As long as this region remained Greek, it formed a natural obstacle to Germany's road to the Persian Gulf, precisely as did Serbia. Any one who has read even cursorily the literature of Pan-Germania is familiar with the peculiar method which German publicists have advocated for dealing with populations that stand in Germany's way. That is by deportation. The violent shifting of whole peoples from one part of Europe to another, as though they were so many herds of cattle, has for years been part of the Kaiser's plans for German expansion. This is the treatment which, since the war began, she has applied to Belgium, to Poland, to Serbia; its most hideous manifestation, as I shall show, has been to Armenia.

Acting under Germany's prompting, Turkey now began to apply this principle of deportation to her Greek subjects in Asia Minor. Three years afterward the German admiral, Usedom, who had been stationed in the Dardanelles during the bombardment, told me that it was the Germans "who urgently made the suggestion that the Greeks be moved from the seashore. "The German motive, Admiral Usedom said, was purely military. Whether Talaat and his associates realized that they were playing the German game I am not sure, but there is no doubt that the Germans were constantly instigating them in this congenial task.»

Μήν ξεχνάμε ότι τό βιβλίο γράφτηκε τό 1918, πρίν από τήν είσοδο του ελληνικού στρατού στή Σμύρνη, τήν οποία οι αριστεροκεμαλιστές στήν Ελλάδα προβάλλουν ως τήν αιτία γιά τά εγκλήματα των Τούρκων πού θεωρούνται απλώς ...πράξεις αντεκδίκησης! Από τό 1914 είχαν ξεκινήσει οι εκτοπισμοί, οι οποίοι οδηγούσαν σέ αργό θάνατο τούς χριστιανικούς πληθυσμούς. Η ιδέα ήταν γερμανική, η υλοποίηση τουρκική. Τούς διωγμούς συνόδεψε τό μποϋκοτάζ ελληνικών μαγαζιών, ώστε νά οδηγηθούν σέ οικονομική εξαθλίωση οι ελληνικοί πληθυσμοί πού επιβιώναν βασικά από τό εμπόριο. Καί μάλιστα επειδή οι Εβραίοι είχαν ευνοϊκή μεταχείριση από τούς νεότουρκους, τούς παρότρυναν νά βάζουν εβραϊκές ταμπέλες στά μαγαζιά, γιά νά τά ξεχωρίζουν από τά ρωμέικα. Οταν ο Morgenthau διαμαρτυρήθηκε στόν Ταλαάτ γι'αυτή τήν συμπεριφορά εναντίον των Ελλήνων του εξήγησε ότι πρέπει η Τουρκία νά απαλλαγεί από όλους τούς μή Τούρκους γιά νά επιβιώσει ως κράτος.

«This procedure against the Greeks not improperly aroused my indignation. I did not have the slightest suspicion at that time that the Germans had instigated these deportations, but I looked upon them merely as an outburst of Turkish ferocity and chauvinism. By this time I knew Talaat well; I saw him nearly every day, and he used to discuss practically every phase of international relations with me. I objected vigorously to his treatment of the Greeks; I told him that it would make the worst possible impression abroad and that it affected American interests.

Talaat explained his national policy: these different blocs in the Turkish Empire, he said, had always conspired against Turkey; because of the hostility of these native populations, Turkey had lost province after province---Greece, Serbia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Egypt, and Tripoli. In this way the Turkish Empire had dwindled almost to the vanishing point. If what was left of Turkey was to survive, added Talaat, he must get rid of these alien peoples. "Turkey for the Turks " was now Talaat's controlling idea. Therefore he proposed to Turkify Smyrna and the adjoining islands. Already 40,000 Greeks had left, and he asked me again to urge American business houses to employ only Turks.»

Οταν ξέσπασε ο Μεγάλος Πόλεμος (Α' Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος), η κυβέρνηση επίταξε όλα τά εμπορεύματα, φυσικά τών χριστιανών δεδομένου ότι τά εμπορικά καταστήματα τά διέθεταν στήν πλειοψηφία τους μή μουσουλμάνοι, ενώ στρατολόγησε καί τούς Ελληνες στήν καταγωγή, γιά νά τούς χρησιμοποιήσει κυρίως γιά βοηθητικές εργασίες, αφού δέν τούς έδινε όπλο καί τούς χρησιμοποιούσε μόνο ως εργάτες. Η οκονομική ζημιά των Ρωμιών της Τουρκίας ήταν πάλι μεγάλη. Τό κράτος σέ κάθε του κίνηση σκεπτόταν πως θά τους κτυπήσει οικονομικά καί όχι μόνο. Οταν ο Αμερικάνος Πρέσβης ρώτησε τόν Εμβέρ, γιατί οδηγεί τήν κοινωνία σέ πτώχευση καί σέ εξαθλίωση, ο Εμβέρ του απάντησε ότι ήταν υπερήφανος πού προμήθευσε καί οργάνωσε τόν τουρκικό στρατό, μέ μηδενικά έξοδα.

H Γερμανία μέ τά δύο σύγχρονα πολεμικά της πλοία "Μπρεσλάου" καί "Γκαίμπεν" απέκτησε τόν έλεγχο των Στενών, στερώντας τήν Ρωσία από τήν έξοδό της στή Μεσόγειο Θάλασσα, καταφέροντάς της έτσι μεγάλο οικονομικό πλήγμα. Γιά τήν ανθράκευση των πλοίων αυτών, πού έγινε σέ ελληνικό νησί καί ενώ τά γερμανικά πλοία βρίσκονταν υπό καταδίωξη από τό βρετανικό ναυτικό, ευθύνεται βεβαίως ο Βενιζέλος πού έδωσε τήν σχετική άδεια. Η δυναμική των Κεντρικών Δυνάμεων της Γερμανίας καί της Αυστροουγγαρίας στήν περιοχή του Ελλησπόντου ώθησε τήν Τουρκία νά τεθεί στό πλευρό τους, εναντίον των δυνάμεων της Αντάντ.

Ο Πρώτος Παγκόσμιος Πόλεμος ήταν η μεγάλη ευκαιρία νά απαλλαγεί η Τουρκία από τούς μή μουσουλμάνους υπηκόους της. Οι Αμερικάνοι μέ πρώτο καί καλύτερο τόν πρόεδρό τους Thomas Woodrow Wilson, γνώριζαν μέσω του πρεσβευτή τους στήν Τουρκία, τί μέλλει γενέσθαι. Αλλά φυσικά αδράνησαν παρά τίς φιλότιμες προσπάθειες του ευσυνείδητου διπλωμάτη τους, ο οποίος σημειωτέον ήταν εβραϊκής καταγωγής.

Ο Μοργκενχάου, έκανε καί τήν παρατήρηση στόν Γερμανό πρεσβευτή Wangenheim, πώς ένα πολιτισμένο κράτος σάν τήν Γερμανία προτρέπει μία άλλη χώρα σέ βάρβαρες ενέργειες. Ο τελευταίος πάντως είχε τόν απόλυτο έλεγχο των εφημερίδων στήν Τουρκία καί διοχέτευε ότι άρθρα μπορούσε γιά νά ελέγχει τήν κοινή γνώμη στήν Τουρκία. Παρουσίαζε τούς χριστιανούς ως δυνάστες οι οποίοι είχαν μαζέψει τόν πλούτο καί εκμεταλλεύονταν τούς φτωχούς μουσουλμάνους. Τακτική παρόμοια μέ αυτή των Ναζί, οι οποίοι παρουσίαζαν τούς Εβραίους ως εκμεταλλευτές καί πάμπλουτους, παροτρύνοντας έτσι τούς απλούς Γερμανούς νά τούς κτυπήσουν.

«In the early days Wangenheim had explained to me one of Germany's main purposes in forcing Turkey into the conflict. He made this explanation quietly and nonchalantly, as though it had been quite the most ordinary matter in the world. Sitting in his office, puffing away at his big black German cigar, he unfolded Germany's scheme to arouse the whole fanatical Moslem world against the Christians. Germany had planned a real "holy war" as one means of destroying English and French influence in the world. "Turkey herself is not the really important matter," said Wangenheim. "Her army is a small one, and we do not expect it to do very much. For the most part it will act on the defensive. But the big thing is the Moslem world. If we can stir the Mohammedans up against the English and Russians, we can force them to make peace."

What Wangenheim evidently meant by the "Big thing" became apparent on November 13th, when the Sultan issued his declaration of war; this declaration was really an appeal for a Jihad, or a "Holy War" against the infidel. Soon afterward the Sheik-ul-Islam published his proclamation, summoning the whole Moslem world to arise and massacre their Christian oppressors. "Oh, Moslems!" concluded this document. "Ye who are smitten with happiness and are on the verge of sacrificing your life and your goods for the cause of right, and of braving perils, gather now around the Imperial throne, obey the commands of the Almighty, who, in the Koran, promises us bliss in this and in the next world; embrace ye the foot of the Caliph's throne and know ye that the state is at war with Russia, England, France, and their Allies, and that these are the enemies of Islam. The Chief of the believers, the Caliph, invites you all as Moslems to join in the Holy War!" »

Στή συνέχεια παραθέτω μία ακόμα απόδειξη, η οποία επιβεβαιώνει τήν βαρβαρότητα του γερμανοτουρκικού άξονα της εποχής. Αγνωστα δυστυχώς ντοκουμέντα, διότι το πολιτικό μας κατεστημένο μή θέλοντας νά πλήξει τήν Τουρκία δέν τά αποκαλύπτει. Η βαρβαρότητα της τότε Γερμανίας, ήταν τό ίδιο μεγάλη μέ αυτή πού επέδειξαν, όταν στήν εξουσία ήταν ο Χίτλερ. Κι όμως όταν οι Τούρκοι πού είχαν αποκλείσει τά Δαρδανέλια - στήν ουσία οι Γερμανοί τά είχαν αποκλείσει - είχαν ανησυχίες γιά επέμβαση του βρετανικού στόλου ακόμα καί κατοχή της Κωνσταντινούπολης, είχαν στά σχέδιά τους τήν ολοσχερή καταστροφή της Πόλης, ενώ κατέστρεψαν πολλά ανεκτίμητα βυζαντινά έγγραφα, ώστε νά αποκόψουν ακόμα περισσότερο τήν Κωνσταντινούπολη από τό ελληνικό της παρελθόν.

«"They will never capture an existing city," they told me, "only a heap of ashes." As a matter of fact, this was no idle threat. I was told that cans of petroleum had been already stored in all the police stations and other places, ready to fire the town at a moment's notice. As Constantinople is largely built of wood, this would have been no very difficult task. But they were determined to destroy more than these temporary structures; the plans aimed at the beautiful architectural monuments built by the Christians long before the Turkish occupation.."

The Turks had particularly marked for dynamiting the Mosque of Saint Sophia. This building, which had been a Christian church centuries before it became a Mohammedan mosque, is one of the most magnificent structures of the vanished Byzantine Empire. Naturally the suggestion of such an act of vandalism aroused us all, and I made a plea to Talaat that Saint Sophia should be spared. He treated the proposed destruction lightly.

"There are not six men in the Committee of Union and Progress," he told me, "who care for anything that is old. We all like new things!"»

Οταν τό 1915, οι Γερμανοί καί τά κανόνια τους συνέτριψαν τόν τουρκικό στόλο στά Δαρδανέλια, οι Τούρκοι πίστεψαν στήν στρατιωτική ισχύ της Γερμανίας καί επέστρεψαν, σύμφωνα μέ τόν Αμερικανό διπλωμάτη πού ήταν αυτόπτης μάρτυρας όλων των καταστάσεων, στόν αρχέγονο τρόπο ζωής τους (Ancestral type). Τό κείμενο πού ακολουθεί δείχνει τήν παρουσία των Τούρκων στόν χώρο πού κατέκτησαν καί είναι ακατάλληλο γιά αριστεροπροοδευτικούς καί αντιρατσιστές:

«The withdrawal of the Allied fleet from the Dardanelles had consequences which the world does not yet completely understand. The practical effect of the event, as I have said, was to isolate the Turkish Empire from all the world excepting Germany and Austria. England, France, Russia, and Italy, which for a century had held a restraining hand over the Ottoman Empire, had finally lost all power to influence or control. The Turks now perceived that a series of dazzling events had changed them from cringing dependents of the European Powers into free agents. For the first time in two centuries they could now live their national life according to their own inclinations, and govern their peoples according to their own will. The first expression of this rejuvenated national life was an episode which, so far as I know, is the most terrible in the history of the world. New Turkey, freed from European tutelage, celebrated its national rebirth by murdering not far from a million of its own subjects.

The Turk may be obsequiously polite, but there is invariably an almost unconscious. feeling that he is mentally shrinking from his Christian friend as something unclean. And this fundamental conviction for centuries directed the Ottoman policy toward its subject peoples. This wild horde swept from the plains of Central Asia and, like a whirlwind, overwhelmed the nations of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor; it conquered Egypt, Arabia, and practically all of northern Africa and then poured into Europe, crushed the Balkan nations, occupied a large part of Hungary, and even established the outposts of the Ottoman Empire in the southern part of Russia. So far as I can discover, the Ottoman Turks had only one great quality, that of military genius. They had several military leaders of commanding ability, and the early conquering Turks were brave, fanatical, and tenacious fighters, just as their descendants are to-day.

I think that these old Turks present the most complete illustration in history of the brigand idea in politics. They were lacking in what we may call the fundamentals of a civilized community. They had no alphabet and no art of writing; no books, no poets, no art, and no architecture; they built no cities and they established no lasting state. They knew no law except the rule of might, and they had practically no agriculture and no industrial organization. They were simply wild and marauding horsemen, whose one conception of tribal success was to pounce upon people who were more civilized than themselves and plunder them. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these tribes overran the cradles of modern civilization, which have given Europe its religion and, to a large extent, its civilization.

At that time these territories were the seats of many peaceful and prosperous nations. The Mesopotamian valley supported a large industrious agricultural population; Bagdad was one of the largest and most flourishing cities in existence; Constantinople had a greater population than Rome, and the Balkan region and Asia Minor contained several powerful states. Over all this part of the world the Turk now swept as a huge, destructive force. Mesopotamia in a few years became a desert; the great cities of the Near East were reduced to misery, and the subject peoples became slaves. Such graces of civilization as the Turk has acquired in five centuries have practically all been taken from the subject peoples whom he so greatly despises. His religion comes from the Arabs; his language has acquired a certain literary value by borrowing certain Arabic and Persian elements; and his writing is Arabic.

Constantinople's finest architectural monument, the Mosque of St. Sophia, was originally a Christian church, and all so-called Turkish architecture is derived from the Byzantine. The mechanism of business and industry has always rested in the hands of the subject peoples, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Arabs. The Turks have learned little of European art or science, they have established very few educational institutions, and illiteracy is the prevailing rule. The result is that poverty has attained a degree of sordidness and misery in the Ottoman Empire which is almost unparalleled elsewhere. The Turkish peasant lives in a mud hut; he sleeps on a dirt floor; he has no chairs, no tables, no eating utensils, no clothes except the few scant garments which cover his back and which he usually wears for many years.

The sultans similarly erected the several peoples, such as the Greeks and the Armenians, into separate "millets," or nations, not because they desired to promote their independence and welfare, but because they regarded them as vermin, and therefore disqualified for membership in the Ottoman state. The attitude of the Government toward their Christian subjects was illustrated by certain regulations which limited their freedom of action. The buildings in which Christians lived should not be conspicuous and their churches should have no belfry. Christians could not ride a horse in the city, for that was the exclusive right of the noble Moslem. The Turk had the right to test the sharpness of his sword upon the neck of any Christian.

And for centuries the Turks simply lived like parasites upon these overburdened and industrious people. They taxed them to economic extinction, stole their most beautiful daughters and forced them into their harems, took Christian male infants by the hundreds of thousands and brought them up as Moslem soldiers. I have no intention of describing the terrible vassalage and oppression that went on for five centuries; my purpose is merely to emphasize this innate attitude of the Moslem Turk to people not of his own race and religion - that they are not human beings with rights, but merely chattels, which may be permitted to live when they promote the interest of their masters, but which may be pitilessly destroyed when they have ceased to be useful. This attitude is intensified by a total disregard for human life and an intense delight in inflicting physical human suffering which are not unusually the qualities of primitive peoples.»

Τό παραπάνω κείμενο, (φροντίζω νά αντιγράφω κείμενα ξένων γιατί οι αριστεροδημοκράτες, τούς Ελληνες τούς κατηγορούν σαν ακροδεξιούς ή ρατσιστές, όταν θίγουν τόν ...τουρκικό πολιτισμό) παρουσιάζει τήν ελληνοτουρκική φιλία στήν πάροδο των αιώνων. Mέ τόν Μοργκενχάου συμφωνεί απόλυτα καί ο πρόξενος στή Σμύρνη Γεώργιος Χώρτον, ο οποίος έχει αντίστοιχες απόψεις γιά τήν ...προσφορά των Τούρκων στόν παγκόσμιο πολιτισμό. Αλλωστε, τήν έζησε τήν προσφορά τους στήν Σμύρνη, όταν έβλεπε τά κομμένα κεφάλια των Αρμενίων καί τίς ξεκοιλιασμένες Ελληνίδες πού βίαζαν ομαδικά οι Τούρκοι στρατιώτες. Καί βέβαια ο Μοργκενχάου έκανε αναδρομή στό παρελθόν γιά νά δείξει ότι ο Τούρκος δέν άλλαξε ούτε στόν 20ο αιώνα, ή ίσως νά άλλαξε πρός τό χειρότερο, διότι πέτυχε σέ ένα χρόνο νά εξοντώσει ένα εκατομμύριο Αρμενίους.

Επιμένω στήν κρίση του Henry Morgenthau, διότι γνώρισε προσωπικά τόσο τούς Τούρκους πολιτικούς όσο καί τούς Γερμανούς διπλωμάτες οι οποίοι συνέλαβαν τό αρρωστημένο σχέδιο της γενοκτονίας όλων των χριστιανών πού βρίσκονταν στήν τουρκική επικράτεια. Καί βέβαια ο εβραίος διπλωμάτης, μελέτησε καλά καί τήν ιστορία των θυμάτων αυτής της πολιτικής, ώστε νά κατανοήσει καλύτερα τά τεκταινόμενα στήν Εγγυς Ανατολή. Παραθέτω αποσπάσματα από τό βιβλίο του "I was sent to Athens":

«Thus it becomes clear that when, nearly seven hundred years ago, the night of Turkish oppression began to settle down upon the Near East, the Greeks who were caught beneath the Turkish darkness were not merely the inhabitants of Greece itself, but were also those several million Greeks who had been settled for more than a thousand years in Asia Minor. This fact has played a decisive part in the recent history of both Turkey and Greece.

To understand the modern history of the Greeks, Western readers will have to get one idea clearly in mind - an idea that will probably astonish most of them. This is, that the modern Greek thinks no more about the Greece of the Classical Age than we do. The modern Greek shares our veneration of that golden epoch of the human intellect, but it is just as remote to him, and just as unrelated to the immediate interests of his life, as it is to us.

Until six years ago no modern Greek ever dreamed, of reconstituting Athens as the permanent capital of the Greek world. On the contrary, every Greek in the world shared a passionate devotion to the ideal of re-erecting the ancient Byzantine Empire in its prime of glory as of, let us say, the Ninth Century, with Byzantium (Constantinople) as its capital. Not to the Parthenon at Athens, but to the Santa Sofia at Constantinople, did his mingled emotions of religion and political greatness yearn with a burning zeal. If this animating principle be kept firmly in mind the whole course of Greek political aspirations in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries becomes clear.

The Greek War of Independence, which came to a successful conclusion in 1832, affected less than one half of the Greeks in the Turkish Empire. It did not bring freedom to the Greeks of Macedonia and Thrace, of Crete and the Aegean Islands, nor to the more than two million Greeks in Asia Minor and Constantinople. For ninety-five years following the War of Independence, down to the destruction of Smyrna in 1922, the consuming ambition of the Kingdom of Greece, shared by the "unredeemed Greeks" of Asia Minor and the islands, was the liberation of this majority of the Greek race. Along with this ambition went the desire to control the territory over which all these Greeks were scattered.»

Ο Πρεσβευτής της Αμερικής στήν Τουρκία, όφειλε νά γνωρίζει τήν ιστορία του τόπου πού βρισκόταν ως απεσταλμένος της χώρας του καί από ότι βλέπουμε τήν ήξερε πολύ καλά. Αυτό τό γεγονός δίνει μεγαλύτερη αξιοπιστία στήν κρίση του καί τίς απόψεις του. Ποιός από τούς σύγχρονους ξένους διπλωμάτες στήν Αθήνα, γνωρίζει τήν ελληνική ιστορία καί τόν τρόπο πού σκέπτονται οι Ελληνες πολίτες; Τό μόνο πού κάνουν σήμερα, οι Αμερικάνοι καί Βρετανοί διπλωμάτες είναι νά ελέγχουν τόν τρόπο σκέψης των Ελλήνων πολιτών καί όχι απλά νά τόν γνωρίζουν. Τρανταχτό παράδειγμα αποτελεί τό σχέδιο Αννάν γιά τό οποίο δαπανήθηκαν εκατομμύρια δολλάρια, προκειμένου να γίνει αποδεχτό από τήν κοινή γνώμη. Γι' αυτό τό αποδέχτηκαν (μέ τό αζημίωτο φυσικά) άπαντες οι δημοσιογράφοι, τά κόμματα καί οι ΜΚΟ καί μέσω πλύσης εγκεφάλου προσπάθησαν νά τό επιβάλουν στόν ελληνικό λαό. Συγκρίνουμε τή σημερινή σαπίλα του συστήματος μέ τήν καθαρή συνείδηση του Εβραίου διπλωμάτη, πρίν από εκατό περίπου χρόνια.

«When I arrived in Constantinople as American Ambassador in 1913 the second Balkan War had just come to a close. My two and one half years at the Embassy there not only gave me an intimate knowledge of Turkey and the Turks, but of the Greeks in Turkey as well. To my astonishment I then learned that the Greeks comprised a considerable percentage of the population of the Turkish Empire.

In Constantinople alone there were between three hundred and four hundred thousand permanent Greek residents. They were one of the strongest elements of the population. I learned that, not only in Constantinople, but also throughout Asia Minor, the Greeks largely controlled the banking, the shipping, and the general mercantile business. Some of the Greeks in Constantinople were among the most brilliant and cultivated people I have ever met anywhere in the world. Highly educated, fluent linguists, and very prosperous, they would have adorned any society.

I found that the Greeks, like various other non-Mohammedans, occupied a peculiar legal status in Turkey, for which there is no parallel in any European country. They constituted a separate legal community, and exercised all community rights for themselves. They organized and supported their own schools. Therefore, the Metropolitan, or chief bishop of the Orthodox Greek Church, was officially recognized by the Turkish Government as the head of the Greek community. He was held responsible for the orderly behavior of his co-religionists, and for their obedience to Turkish laws.

The Greeks were the only one of these hated races within striking distance of Turkish vengeance. The Greeks alone had a considerable body of their population living within the Turkish borders. It was - deplorable, but by no means unnatural, that they should speedily become objects of petty persecution where - ever they happened to be living in Turkey.»

Ο Τούρκος δέν άλλαξε στά 500 χρόνια παρουσίας του στά χώματα του Βυζαντίου. Παρέμεινε ο ίδιος όπως ήταν όταν εισέβαλλε από τίς μακρινές στέππες πιστεύοντας ακράδαντα στήν υποδούλωση καί εξόντωση των υπολοίπων λαών πού γειτνιάζουν μαζί του. Ετσι λοιπόν, καί σήμερα παραμένει αμετανόητος γία τό έγκλημα της γενοκτονίας τριών εκατομμυρίων χριστιανών (Ασσυροχαλδαίων, Αρμενίων, Ελλήνων) καί προσπαθεί νά διαστρεβλώσει τήν ιστορία καί νά παρουσιαστεί ως θύμα των άλλων λαών. Αλλά έχουμε νά αντιμετωπίσουμε όχι μόνο τό αμετανόητο θηρίο, αλλά καί όσους πληρώνει εντός της Ελλάδος γιά νά περάσουν τίς θέσεις του.

Καί γιά όσους νομίζουν ότι υπερβάλλω, μπορείτε νά βρείτε άρθρα του Μιχάλη Ιγνατίου γιά τά εκατομμύρια δολλάρια πού δαπανήθηκαν γία να αγοραστούν συνειδήσεις καί νά δικαιωθεί ο Τούρκος εισβολέας της Κύπρου καί νά καρπωθεί καί τήν νότια Κύπρο. Καί αυτή τήν απάτη τήν ονόμασαν σχέδιο Αννάν. Γιά νά αντιμετωπίσουμε όλους τούς καλοπληρωμένους αριστεροδημοκράτες ή δεξιοφιλελεύθερους οθωμανολάγνους αρκεί νά βρούμε πηγές εκείνης της μακρινής εποχής.

«After five hundred years' close contact with European civilization, the Turk remained precisely the same individual as the one who had emerged from the steppes of Asia in the Middle Ages. He was clinging just as tenaciously as his ancestors to that conception of a state as consisting of a few master individuals whose right it is to enslave and plunder and maltreat any peoples whom they can subject to their military control.

The old conquering Turks had made the Christians their servants, but their parvenu descendants bettered their instruction, for they determined to exterminate them wholesale and Turkify the empire by massacring the non-Moslem elements. Originally this was not the statesmanlike conception of Talaat and Enver; the man who first devised it was one of the greatest monsters known to history, the "Red Sultan", Abdul Hamid.

Instead, Abdul Hamid apparently thought that there was only one way of ridding Turkey of the Armenian problem---and that was to rid her of the Armenians. The physical destruction of 2,000,000 men, women, and children by massacres, organized and directed by the state, seemed to be the one sure way of forestalling the further disruption of the Turkish Empire.

And now for nearly thirty years Turkey gave the world an illustration of government by massacre. We in Europe and America heard of these events when they reached especially monstrous proportions, as they did in 1895-96, when nearly 200,000 Armenians were most atrociously done to death. But through all these years the existence of the Armenians was one continuous nightmare. Their property was stolen, their men were murdered, their women were ravished, their young girls were kidnapped and forced to live in Turkish harems.

And now the Young Turks, who had adopted so many of Abdul Hamid's ideas, also made his Armenian policy their own. Their passion for Turkifying the nation seemed to demand logically the extermination of all Christians---Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians. Much as they admired the Mohammedan conquerors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, they stupidly believed that these great warriors had made one fatal mistake, for they had had it in their power completely to obliterate the Christian populations and had neglected to do so.

They felt that the mistake had been a terrible one, but that something might be saved from the ruin. They would destroy all Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, and other Christians, move Moslem families into their homes and into their farms, and so make sure that these territories would not similarly be taken away from Turkey. In order to accomplish this great reform, it would not be necessary to murder every living Christian. The most beautiful and healthy Armenian girls could be taken, converted forcibly to Mohammedanism, and made the wives or concubines of devout followers of the Prophet. Their children would then automatically become Moslems and so strengthen the empire, as the Janissaries had strengthened it formerly. These Armenian girls represent a high type of womanhood and the Young Turks, in their crude, intuitive way, recognized that the mingling of their blood with the Turkish population would exert a eugenic influence upon the whole. Armenian boys of tender years could be taken into Turkish families and be brought up in ignorance of the fact that they were anything but Moslems.»

Τό βιβλίο (Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, 1918), έχει λεπτομέρειες γιά τήν εξόντωση των Αρμενίων στή λίμνη Βάν. Εκεί οι Αρμένιοι οργάνωσαν στοιχειώδη αντίσταση γιά νά σώσουν τήν τιμή τους καί τίς οικογένειες τους καί έτσι έχει επωφεληθεί η τουρκική προπαγάνδα καί διαδίδει ότι οι ..Αρμένιοι άρχισαν τήν επίθεση καί οι Τούρκοι αναγκάστηκαν νά αμυνθούν. Οι Αρμένιοι έχουν τήν πιό τραγική μοίρα από όλους τούς λαούς καί τό αξιοθρήνητο Υπουργείο Παιδείας δέν κάνει ούτε μία ελάχιστή αναφορά στή γενοκτονία τους. Προστατεύει στά σχολικά βιβλία τήν ..αρμενοτουρκική φιλία. Ακόμα ένα βιβλίο πού αναφέρεται στά μαρτύρια των Αρμενίων είναι τό: (The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire) του βρετανού διπλωμάτη Viscount Bryce.

Μέ τό πρόσχημα τής απειλής του τουρκικού κράτους, τό 1915 έγιναν τρομερές σφαγές κατά των Αρμενίων. Υπήρχε μία πανίσχυρη Γερμανία πού στήριζε τούς χασάπηδες Εμβέρ, Τζεμάλ καί Ταλαάτ καί μέσα σέ μία χρονιά χάθηκαν ένα εκατομμύριο ψυχές.

«The systematic extermination of the men continued; such males as the persecutions which I have already described had left were now violently dealt with. Before the caravans were started, it became the regular practice to separate the young men from the families, tie them together in groups of four, lead them to the outskirts, and shoot them. Public hangings without trial (the only offense being that the victims were Armenians) were taking place constantly. The gendarmes showed a particular desire to annihilate the educated and the influential. From American consuls and missionaries I was constantly receiving reports of such executions, and many of the events which they described will never fade from my memory.

At Angora all Armenian men from fifteen to seventy were arrested, bound together in groups of four, and sent on the road in the direction of Caesarea. When they had travelled five or six hours and had reached a secluded valley, a mob of Turkish peasants fell upon them with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, and saws. Such instruments not only caused more agonizing deaths than guns and pistols, but, as the Turks themselves boasted, they were more economical, since they did not involve the waste of powder and shell. In this way they exterminated the whole male population of Angora, including all its men of wealth and breeding, and their bodies, horribly mutilated, were left in the valley, where they were devoured by wild beasts.

After completing this destruction, the peasants and gendarmes gathered in the local tavern, comparing notes and boasting of the number of "'giaours" that each had slain. In Trebizond the men were placed in boats and sent out on the Black Sea; gendarmes would follow them in boats, shoot them down, and throw their bodies into the water.

When the signal was given for the caravans to move, therefore, they almost invariably consisted of women, children, and old men. Any one who could possibly have protected them from the fate that awaited them had been destroyed. Not infrequently the prefect of the city, as the mass started on its way, would wish them a derisive "pleasant journey." Before the caravan moved the women were sometimes offered the alternative of becoming Mohammedans. Even though they accepted the new faith, which few of them did, their earthly troubles did not end. The converts were compelled to surrender their children to a so-called "Moslem Orphanage," with the agreement that they should be trained as devout followers of the Prophet, They themselves must then show the sincerity of their conversion by abandoning their Christian husbands and marrying Moslems. If no good Mohammedan offered himself as a husband, then the new convert was deported, however strongly she might protest her devotion to Islam.

The Armenians had hardly left their native villages when the persecutions began. The roads over which they travelled were little more than donkey paths; and what had started a few hours before as an orderly procession soon became a dishevelled and scrambling mob. Women were separated from their children and husbands from their wives. The old people soon lost contact with their families and became exhausted and footsore. The Turkish drivers of the ox-carts, after extorting the last coin from their charges, would suddenly dump them and their belongings into the road, turn around, and return to the village for other victims. Thus in a short time practically everybody, young and old, was compelled to travel on foot. The gendarmes whom the Government had sent, supposedly to protect the exiles, in a very few hours became their tormentors.

They followed their charges with fixed bayonets, prodding any one who showed any tendency to slacken the pace. Those who attempted to stop for rest, or who fell exhausted on the road, were compelled, with the utmost brutality, to rejoin the moving throng. They even prodded pregnant women with bayonets; if one, as frequently happened, gave birth along the road, she was immediately forced to get up and rejoin the marchers. The whole course of the journey became a perpetual struggle with the Moslem inhabitants. Detachments of gendarmes would go ahead, notifying the Kurdish tribes that their victims were approaching, and Turkish peasants were also informed that their long-waited opportunity had arrived. The Government even opened the prisons and set free the convicts, on the understanding that they should behave like good Moslems to the approaching Armenians. Thus every caravan had a continuous battle for existence with several classes of enemies---their accompanying gendarmes, the Turkish peasants and villagers, the Kurdish tribes and bands of Chetes or brigands.

When the victims had travelled a few hours from their starting place, the Kurds would sweep down from their mountain homes. Rushing up to the young girls, they would lift their veils and carry the pretty ones off to the hills. They would steal such children as pleased their fancy and mercilessly rob all the rest of the throng. If the exiles had started with any money or food, their assailants would appropriate it, thus leaving them a hopeless prey to starvation. They would steal their clothing, and sometimes even leave both men and women in a state of complete nudity. All the time that they were committing these depradations the Kurds would freely massacre, and the screams of women and old men would add to the general horror. Such as escaped these attacks in the open would find new terrors awaiting them in the Moslem villages.

Here the Turkish roughs would fall upon the women, leaving them sometimes dead from their experiences or sometimes ravingly insane. After spending a night in a hideous encampment of this kind, the exiles, or such as had survived, would start again the next morning. The ferocity of the gendarmes apparently increased as the journey lengthened, for they seemed almost to resent the fact that part of their charges continued to live. Frequently any one who dropped on the road was bayoneted on the spot. The Armenians began to die by hundreds from hunger and thirst. Even when they came to rivers, the gendarmes, merely to torment them, would sometimes not let them drink. The hot sun of the desert burned their scantily clothed bodies, and their bare feet, treading the hot sand of the desert, became so sore that thousands fell and died or were killed where they lay. Thus, in a few days, what had been a procession of normal human beings became a stumbling horde of dust-covered skeletons, ravenously looking for scraps of food, eating any offal that came their way, crazed by the hideous sights that filled every hour of their existence, sick with all the diseases that accompany such hardships and privations, but still prodded on and on by the whips and clubs and bayonets of their executioners.»

Ο Μοργκενχάου αναφέρει στό βιβλίο του ότι δέν υπήρξε στήν ιστορία κάτι τόσο τρομακτικό καί θανατηφόρο γιά έναν ολόκληρο λαό, σάν καί αυτό πού έπαθαν οι Αρμένιοι τό 1915. Βέβαια εγώ επιμένω ότι δέν πρέπει νά απομονώνουμε τούς Αρμένιους, γιατί αντίστοιχες θηριωδίες έζησαν όλοι οι χριστιανοί της Τουρκίας. Βέβαια πού νά φανταζόταν ο Μοργκενχάου, ότι μερικά χρόνια αργότερα η δική του φυλή θά έπεφτε θύμα αντίστοιχων θηριωδιών. Ο Χίτλερ θά εμπνεόταν τήν τακτική του από τούς νεότουρκους καί θά απαντούσε μέ τό περίφημο "Ποιός θυμάται τούς Αρμενίους", σέ όσους τόν επέκριναν.


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