Thrace

Thrace (Greek: Θράκη, Turkish: Trakya) is a region in Southeast Europe which borders the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean.

Thrace during the Greek Genocide

Thracian Greek refugees fleeing Turkish massacre

On 5/18 April 1914 the Greek Consul General of Adrianople, Thrace, telegraphed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "... it is now an established fact that the work of extermination is proceeding systematically, from the smaller villages to the more important centers, under the direction of the Committee of Union and Progress." Three days later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Athens informed the Greeks Legations abroad: "From Rodosto it is reported that all the Greek towns and villages in Thrace have been given over to pillage, rapine and murder. The entire Greek population of two townships, after having been ousted and led as far as the outskirts of Rodosto, were prevented by the Mutesarif [Turkish governor] from entering that town, but were driven on to Heracleia."

An eye-witness account by a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Rev. Arthur C. Ryan, describes some of the earlier practices implemented before wholesale massacre and deportation in Turkish Thrace, in particular the anti-Greek boycott:

"In March 1914 while I was doing relief work in Thrace I saw many things which were evidence of the misrule of the Turks and of their cruel treatment of their non-Moslem subjects. ... The armies of the Turks which retook Adrianople and such portions of Thrace as they recaptured in 1913 devastated the non-Moslem regions and carried away much of their movable property and imprisoned many of the male members of these cornmunities. I saw prisons in Malgara and other villages that were full of men and filthy beyond description. ...During this same spring I saw the working of the official boycott against the Greeks in Thrace and along the lateral of the sea of Marmora. Not only were Moslems forbidden to buy from these Greeks, but they were encouraged to take their goods and then walk off without paying for it. Moslems were forbidden to sell anything to the Greeks. Many Greek merchants were financially ruined by this boycott."

According to figures compiled by the Greek Patriarchate in Constantinople by 1918 approximately 60% of the Greek population of Thrace had been deported to the Turkish Interior where the vast majority died.

The 1917 Missionary Review of the World reported "Greeks in Thrace and the regions of the Marmora were deported to the interior of Asia Minor along with the Armenians. At least 500000 Greeks are said to be in need of relief in Turkey alone." The King-Crane Commission: An American Inquiry in the Middle East (1963) affirmed that "... the Greeks had been deported from Thrace and the coastal region of Asia Minor during the war, and had died of 'white massacres' in great numbers."

Suggested Reading

• Βακαλόπουλος, Κωνσταντίνος, Διωγμοί και Γενοκτονία του Θρακικού Ελληνισμού – Ο Πρώτος Ξεριζωμός (1908-1917), Ηρόδοτος, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1998, ISBN: 9607280569.
• Επιτροπή των εν Μυτιλήνη Μικρασιατών Προσφύγων, Διωγμοί των Ελλήνων εν Θράκη και Μικρασία: Αυθεντικαί εκθέσεις και επίσημα κείμενα: Έκκλησις προς το ελληνικόν γένος και την δημοσίαν Γνώμην του πεπολιτισμένου κόσμου, Πανελληνίου Κράτους, Αθήνα, 1915.