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The blight of Asia

Chapter 27: CHAPTER XXVII THE BRITISH CONTRIBUTION
By George Horton
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About This Book

The author presents a firsthand chronicle of the systematic destruction of Christian communities across Asia Minor, combining eyewitness reporting of massacres and the catastrophic burning of a major port city with documentary testimony and political analysis. The narrative traces earlier campaigns of extermination, records refugees' sufferings, and assigns responsibility to regional perpetrators while criticizing the inaction or complicity of Western powers. Interspersed are moral appeals about missionary and relief work and arguments that commercial or diplomatic interests cannot outweigh humanitarian duty. The book mixes vivid incident reports, summaries of atrocities, contemporary correspondence, and polemical commentary to make a case for public awareness and accountability.

CHAPTER XXVII
THE BRITISH CONTRIBUTION

Unfortunately, I am restrained from writing many interesting facts connected with a history of this kind; some of the things that came to my knowledge in my official capacity. To the honor of Great Britain, however, I believe that there were moments when she came within a hair’s breadth of living up to her best traditions. What prevented her at the critical moment, I have never learned.

At any rate, the British contribution to the Smyrna horror did not consist in active aid of the Turks, neither did she furnish them with arms or munitions. But, though she was largely responsible for the landing of the Greeks in Asia Minor, and the latter were defending her interests, she afforded them no aid, but gave them fallacious encouragement which led them to their doom. As far as England was concerned, Greece was the victim of British internal politics which seized upon the government’s policy in the Near East as an object for attack. If Lloyd George was pro-Greek, his political opponents became—ipso facto—rabid pro-Turk. If the Hellenic soldiers were mere tools of the British, as both the Italians and French believed, then it certainly was not “playing the game” to desert them in their extremity; and this desertion carries a graver responsibility with it, inasmuch as it made possible the fearful catastrophe of Smyrna and its hinterland.