As in the British Empire, if you lived within the Ottoman empire, you were first and foremost an Ottoman subject, and then secondly a Turk, or Greek, or Serb, or Albanian, or Arab, or Armenian, or Kurd etc. As I wrote in ‘Meet the Ottomans’, subjects living inside the empire - the ‘Abode of Peace’ - could have enjoyed a generally peaceful and tolerant existence. At the frontier and beyond – the ‘Abode of War’ – well, that was a different matter.
Admittedly, peace and tolerance came at a price, including taxes and losing one’s best son to be taken away for training by the authorities. But no-one was forced to give up their language or religion, i.e., to speak Turkish or to convert to Islam. And minority subjects were free to continue practising their trades. I suppose more trade equalled higher tax income. The Ottoman Turks themselves tended to be the land-owners, the military and the peasants. But the minority groups, including the ‘Greeks’, tended to be the craftsmen and tradesmen.
Was the Ottoman Empire better than the individual nations or peoples it conquered and subsumed? Indeed, are empires generally beneficial, neutral or forces for bad?
Was a unified Germany better for the world than its unamalgamated principalities and duchies?
Was a unified Italy a benefit for Europe?
Was a newly independent Greek nation good for anyone, including the Ottoman Greeks?
[Alix: I’ll have nightmares tonight about taking an exam I’ve not prepared for…]
Well, the empowered Germans were soon seeking to gain an empire; the unified Italians were soon attempting to create a new Rome; and the free Greeks were dreaming of the ‘Great Idea’ to restore Byzantium.
And if any of them were to succeed, then the failing Ottoman Empire was going to have to shrink dramatically. The Germans wanted the Ottoman heartland of Asia Minor (Anatolia) via the Balkans; the Italians wanted north Africa along with some strategic Mediterranean islands such as the Dodecanese; the Greeks wanted to expand east to Constantinople, at the very least. This is not to ignore competing British and French designs. Nor the Russians of course!
At the dawn of the 20th century, the Ottomans were learning what the British would later learn: that running an Empire, albeit a huge asset, is painful, very costly, and a thankless task.
The Ottomans were facing increased separatist nationalism in the Balkans, from Serbs, Bulgars and Greeks. Ottoman North Africa was being eyed-up by the Germans, French and Italians. Britain had continued designs on the Ottoman province of Egypt (for the Suez Canal) and on middle-eastern oil. France fancied a big piece of the Levant. And Russia wanted to head south around the Black Sea to the Dardanelles. Plus ça change. The Ottoman empire was simply too big and costly to defend against these forces. It was like an old and injured lion trying to keep a pack of hyenas at bay. And the wheels of this medieval administration and professional fighting machine were coming off. What would happen next?
Most British people, I assume, would have been taught at school that World War I was mainly fought in the trenches of north-western Europe, between 1914 and 1918. But I would argue that it started in 1911, with Italy (heirs of the Genoese and Venetians after all) biting the Ottomans’ ankles. And that it ended in 1923, with Mustafa Kemel’s ‘Turkish War of Independence’, and the foundation of his modern Turkish nation. These campaigns were fought mostly in eastern Europe, eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. (Everyone has heard of Gallipoli.) All this was a direct consequence of one empire disintegrating, and the others fighting and squabbling over the pieces.
What did all this mean for the everyday inhabitants of the south-western Anatolian coast (close to where Missy Bear was now parked up) who were minding their own business at that time, and far away from Istanbul?
Over hundreds of years, the Ottoman Greeks amongst them probably became Turkish speakers, even though they retained their Orthodox Christian religion. The Orthodox clergy and some scholars would have maintained the ability to speak and read Greek, but most others would have lost the ability. Over time, to be Greek - in this part of the empire at least - was defined simply by your religious beliefs or attendance at the local Orthodox Christian church.
But, to get a deeper insight into what happened next to these people, I needed to read a book: a historical novel, or ‘faction’. And a lovely woman called Alex Dean answered my question...
We were spending a couple of weeks in Göcek getting a few minor warranty items fixed on Missy Bear. Sunbird’s go-to local technician and mechanic is Alex’s husband, Nigel, and amongst other things, he proved once and for all that our solar panels were broken. Alex liaised with a local Turkish upholsterer to get some backs made for our cockpit cushions. The backs were an optional extra from Beneteau, for which we had paid. We found out, after we took delivery of the boat, that Beneteau does not actually make cushion backs for the Oceanis 40.1! So, Sunbird asked Alex to sort it out. The upholsterer came onboard, performed a custom measure-up, before returning a few days later with the finished product. He had done a great job, and Missy Bear’s cockpit looks even smarter and more comfortable.
During a chat, Alex said that if I liked local history, I must read ‘Birds Without Wings’, by Loius de Bernieres. She told me that the still-abandoned Greek village - called Kayaköy - where the book is set, is quite close, lying just beyond Fethiye.
Needing no second prompt, we hired a car and did some planning for a road trip, with the first stop at Kayaköy. The drive from Göcek past Fethiye is quite picturesque as the road winds through wooded mountain passes. Fethiye itself is now a large, depressing sprawl, and I was quite glad when we escaped the suburbs and into the open countryside again. The road followed the contours of a pine-forested spur, and, as we rounded it, we glimpsed our destination. The settlement on the lower slopes appeared inhabited, but the majority of the buildings higher up the hill appeared grey and gloomy by comparison. As we approached on the lower road, passing restaurants and tourist shops on our left, we could see the start of the abandoned and lifeless buildings climbing up the slopes on our right: bare stone; missing window-furniture; absent rooves. The concrete channels remained that used to feed the rainwater into the cisterns, but these containers were now clogged full of debris and vegetation.
We got out of the car and started ambling through the streets of Kayaköy, deserted save for a few tourists and a couple of hawkers. We meandered along streets that were too narrow for motorised vehicles as this was a 19th century settlement. Alix felt a bit uncomfortable as it felt like we were walking over and gawping at somebody’s grave. All the houses are completely empty, with no furniture or belongings, as these had been taken, or subsequently looted.
The final Greek ‘evacuation’ occurred in 1923, and the inhabitants would have been given little time to collect their belongings, before being forced to leave by the local Turkish gendarmes. They were then escorted to the port of Kaş from where they were transported by boat to Crete. Maybe they had time to leave a trunk of belongings with their Turkish Muslim neighbours? Maybe they managed to sell a few items to their erstwhile friends to raise much-needed cash for their new lives? You could almost sense the ghosts, especially in the abandoned churches. One hawker was selling entry to a house that his sign said contained the original belongings. But I was sceptical and we didn’t enter.
These final Greeks leaving Kayaköy would have already recently lost many of their fellow Greek men. When Turkey was tricked into siding with Germany in the war, the Ottoman leadership declared jihad, or holy war. This was a vain attempt to draw all non-Ottoman Muslims into the arena. Not only did this fail, but it had the consequence that no non-Muslim Ottoman was allowed to fight on the Ottoman side. This was in case the minorities in the army swapped sides behind the lines. This paranoia, perhaps justified in some cases, led to the forced marches of the Armenians, which has later been deemed a genocide. The Ottoman Greek men were rounded up and forced into Labour Battalions, ostensibly to perform military engineering works. But conditions were harsh and many did not survive.
In 1923, the remaining Ottoman Greeks leaving Kayaköy on foot might have been very nervous. They were probably aware of previous forced-marches by their Turkish masters: on other Greeks further north (1914); and on Armenians (1915-16), and even on captured British soldiers. Many of those people died of exhaustion or starvation or cold or worse.
And our exiles probably didn’t even know where Greece was, especially Crete, and as we know, most probably didn’t speak Greek. So, their new home, if they made it, would feel very alien to them.
At least this last march was not a unilateral diktat, but as a result of an international treaty – the Treaty of Lausanne. This was signed with the best intentions of both the Allies and the Ottomans to reduce the civilian death toll. There had been many vengeful atrocities perpetrated by both Turks and Greeks as the war had progressed and boundaries changed.
The orgy of ethnic cleansing had started during the Balkan Wars where Ottoman Muslims had been the victims. And after the failed invasion of Turkey by Greece in 1919, the beaten Greeks had killed and burned all behind them as they tried to escape from Asia Minor via Smyrna (now Izmir).
So, neither the Greeks nor the Turks had been saints, and the Treaty was intended to save more lives through a peaceful mass-population exchange. It is estimated that 400,000 Ottoman Turkish Muslims moved east to Asia Minor, whilst 1.6 million Ottoman Greek Orthodox Christians moved west to Greece. That number would have included our unfortunate residents of Kayaköy.
As well as the heartache of those many individuals who were forcibly “evacuated”, De Bernieres says that the loss of such a mass of skilled Christian craftsmen and tradesmen held back the fledgling Turkish national economy for a long time. But I’m pleased to report that this was all a long time ago, and Turkey now has a very good reputation for providing services to yachties, from all manner of engineering work right down to bespoke soft furnishings.
