September 6 - Mayflower set sails

Unification of Eastern Rumelia and Bulgaria - 6.09.1885

source: bulgaria.com

"....Bulgaria achieved its first major success in 1885. Between 1878-1885 masses of people in the autonomous province of Eastern Rumelia, comprising the lands of Upper Thrace which were inhabited entirely by Bulgarians (the April Uprising of 1876 took place in that area), were engaged in powerful movement for their unification with the principality. They did not allow any Ottoman troops to come into the province, had its administration and army Bulgarianized, and the powers of the government confined to the walls of its own chateau. The political leaders of that movement came into direct contact with the prince and the political parties in the principality. With the frame of mind pervading, no one dared pronounce himself against the idea of actions towards the unification of the two Bulgarian states, notwithstanding anticipated complications. The secret diplomatic demarches of the Bulgarian government before the Great Powers did not bring back any clear promise for support.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of September 1885, the nationwide patriotic enthusiasm reached its climax when people's volunteer forces and regular troops overthrew the government of Eastern Rumelia and declared its unification with the principality of Bulgaria. The prince and the Bulgarian government instantly accepted that act and assumed the reins of the provincial government straight away.

The unification of Bulgaria led to political crisis almost unparalleled in the European history. Bulgaria and the Bulgarians, as it was, had taken a stand against an all-European treaty and thus, face-saving reasons alone could easily cause the Great Powers to barge in to return the status quo. There was Turkey which could hardly be expected to just grin and stomach the loss of one of its most fertile provinces. The Balkan states were also there looking on the dark side of Bulgaria becoming twice as big as before, therefore, de jure and de facto, the biggest state in the Balkans.

Turkey was expected to attack Bulgaria. The whole Bulgarian army was built up at the southern Bulgarian border to take the Turkish assault. Europe was in anticipation of diplomats to have their final say.

At this juncture tsarist Russia inconceivably blundered. It simply declared itself against the unification of Bulgaria. A plausible explanation would be that for a few years the northern empire, in its view, had consistently and single-mindedly been displeased with prince Alexander of Battenberg for his diverging the principality from the Russian sphere of influence, and that it had been trying to replace him on the throne by its protege. To top it all, Russia withdrew its officers from the Bulgarian army, i.e., divested it of superior commanders, and thus placed at a great disadvantage the fighting efficiency of the newly united state. In those days the highest rank of Bulgarian-born officers was that of a captain. This politically ill-suited decision planted a hardy element of mistrust in Russian-Bulgarian relations, a fact that had long been taken advantage of by the western powers and by representatives of the Russophobic leanings in the Bulgarian state policy.

Britain immediately availed itself of the Russian politicians' folly seeing in it an opportunity to displace Russia from one of its traditional regions of influence. Britain - chief architect of the Berlin treaty which had Bulgaria ruthlessly dismembered and a perennial warrantor of the Ottoman territorial integrity, negotiated a curve in its policies and supported the act of the unification. At the international conference, convened to counter the block of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany all wanting to restore the status quo, Britain resolutely opposed and thus helped turn down a motion inauspicious for Bulgaria.

On 2 November 1885 events took a dramatic turn. Serbia, encouraged financially and militarily by Austria-Hungary, attacked Bulgaria by surprise. It was no longer the unification but the whole future of Bulgaria that was at stake. At that time, Bulgaria had no troops at its border with Serbia. With all its available forces located at the Turkish border, its capital was stark unprotected only 70 km away from Serbian raiding troops. Moreover, the efficiency of the Bulgarian army was questioned for good reasons - it was organized only 5-6 years before and was just deprived of all its senior instructing and commanding officers. In an atmosphere of national uptilt unseen before, border-sentry detachments and local volunteer forces were able to check Serbian crack divisions at the fortified locality of Slivnitsa - the avenue of approach to the Bulgarian capital. It took the Bulgarian army only a few days to make wearisome marches to the west and once there, to go into action. Then, as it had already happened in glorious times gone, just a few days of hard fought fields at Slivnitsa, Dragoman, Pirot, Nis and Vidin led up to Serbia's utter defeat. The road to Belgrade was open. At this point Austria put its oar in by sending an ultimatum which demanded cease-fire without delay.

Bulgaria's victory in this captains-versus-generals war had Europe wonder-struck and its public opinion filled with sympathy and admiration. The question of the pros and cons in reference to the unification of Bulgaria was no longer posed with its previous acuteness. At the beginning of 1886 Bulgaria signed a peace treaty with Serbia and later, an agreement with Turkey which regularized its position as a single unified state...."

Eye on History: September 6, 1955
Krystallnacht in Constantinople

State Department Concealed Report of Turkish Atrocities for 40 Years

By Speros Vryonis Jr.


Most Greek Americans and most Americans generally are unaware of the fact that on the evening of Septembare unaware of the fact that on the evening of September 6, and in the early hours of September 7, 1955, the Turkish government carried out the most destructive pogrom that had been enacted in Europe since the infamous Krystallnacht which Hitler and the Nazis inflicted upon the Jewish communities, businesses and synagogues on the eve of World War II.

Further, most are unaware that the Turkish government had unleashed the mobs on the Greek community of Istanbul, on its churches, houses, businesses, schools, and newspapers; and they are unaware that this resulted in the ultimate destruction of Turkey’s oldest historical community, about 100,000 Greek Orthodox Christians who were the heirs of Byzantium. On September 6-7 of 1995, the Greek press in Greece, and the Greek American, the Greek Canadian and the Greek Australian presses memorialized this great tragedy so that more than forty years after the events, Greeks, and humanity more generally, might not forget the victims and might recall that the forces restraining barbarians are to be kept at the ready at all times. This is an example wherein the press serves as mankind’s historical and ethical teacher.

I should add that many Greeks and Greek Americans have lost their sense of history, of whence they came, of who they are, and of what they are becoming. Is it possible today in America, where we constitute an affluent, politically powerful, and highly educated Hellenic diaspora, that we know so little about something so simple and yet so fatefully significant about the Turkish pogroms that destroyed this ancient Greek community in Constantinople in 1955?

That we are unaware that on September 6,1955, the Turkish mobs and government organized and carried out the worst and most destructive pogrom in Europe since Hitler and the Nazis destroyed the synagogues and businesses of the Jewish community in Germany? What then was this Turkish pogrom inflicted on the Greek community in 1955?

The chronology of the pogrom falls in a very difficult period, when the Cyprus problem had complicated the political relations of Greece, Turkey and England. The Turkish press, which was to play a crucial role in preparing the political atmosphere of the pogrom, received significant financial support from British sources. Specifically, the British gave financial assistance to two Turkish newspapers and to their owners/editors: to Hikmet Bil (editor of the newspaper Hurriyet and leader of the political organization Kibris Turktur— Cyprus is Turkish), and Ahmet Emin Yalmas, owner of the older Istanbul paper Vatan. Trips by these two journalists to London had become prominent in 1954-55. In 1952, the Turkish government had mobilized two large student organizations. By July 1955, the Turkish press and these organizations activated intense pogroms and demonstrations aimed at the defenseless Greek minority in Istanbul.

The tripartite discussions, among Greece, Turkey and England, commenced in London in August of 1955. On the 27th of that month, the Turkish press condemned the Patriarch, ostensibly for collecting funds for the Greek Cypriot movement for Enosis with Greece. Three days later, on August 30, the anniversary of the day when the Kemalist forces smashed the Greek line in western Asia Minor, the Turkish press launched a particularly vile attack on the Patriarch. Previously, on the 27th, the Istanbul newspapers published false rumors that the Greeks of Cyprus were planning mass genocide of the Turkish Cypriots.

Finally, on September 5, one day prior to the pogrom, Turkish student organizations asked permission from the authorities to stage political demonstrations in Istanbul regarding Cyprus, to be staged on September 13. Also on September 5, the Turkish prime minister’s executive council, which included the minister of the interior in charge of security, the governor of Istanbul, and the chief of police, among others, met to discuss the petition and the situation more generally. It should be noted that prior to the tripartite meetings in London, it is generally accepted that the British government asked that the Turks stage a public demonstration on Cyprus, inasmuch as this would strengthen the Anglo-Turkish position against that of the Greeks during the tripartite meetings.

The Explosion of the Bomb in the Turkish Consular Complex as the Ostensible Cause of the “Spontaneous” Riots On the 6th of September, the Turkish press and other media announced the explosion of a bomb in the Turkish consular complex in Thessaloniki, within which is located the ancestral house of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This news was announced quickly and simultaneously throughout Turkey, and the prearranged plan of the pogrom was applied and put into action, rhythmically, by its organizers, who were in effect the Turkish state.

As the examination by the Greek police of Thessaloniki demonstrated soon after the explosion, the bomb was not thrown into the compound from outside the walled compound, but was placed on the grounds by an individual from inside the compound; a conclusion arrived at after a police examination of the actual form of the explosion, evidenced by the directions of the damage. This conclusion is confirmed by other independent evidence. The damage inflicted by the bomb on buildings inside the walled compound of the Turkish consulate was purportedly revealed in the photographic evidence published by the Istanbul Express, which went to press in Istanbul on the same afternoon of the day of the explosion.

How was it possible to bring the photographs from Thessaloniki to Istanbul, develop them and publish them on the same afternoon, in a day and age when there were no airplane flights between Thessaloniki and Istanbul, and at a time when the bus would not have arrived in Istanbul until well into the night?

The answer comes from the report of the investigation by the Thessaloniki police who reported the following incontrovertible facts: First, the Turkish consul had left his post for Istanbul long before the event in question, leaving behind his wife to take care of “last minute details” before departing herself to join her husband. Among these “last minute details,” she was to telephone a photographic studio in Thessaloniki to hire a Greek photographer to photograph the inside of the walled complex of the Turkish consulate. A few days before the explosion of the bomb, she departed with the photographs for Istanbul. It was this photographic material which appeared in the afternoon edition of the Istanbul Express on September 6.
Thus, there had been ample time to bring the photographic films to Istanbul and have them developed before the bomb exploded. However, the original photographs had been tampered with and had been altered to show purported damage to the house of Ataturk— all this before the actual explosion of the bomb. Thus, the Thessaloniki police could compare the photographic “evidence” published in the afternoon edition of the Istanbul Express on September 6 and identify it with the photos produced by the Greek photographer, and to show, on the basis of their investigation, that the Turkish version of the explosion had been falsified.
Thus, the Turkish forgery had been both detected and reported. It was recorded in a British consular report to the British Foreign Office. The Foreign Office official who received the report in London wrote on the margin of the report, “The Greeks will go to ridiculous extremes to deny their responsibility in the placing of the bomb in the Turkish consulate of Thessaloniki.” The Greek police charged a Turkish student, a Greek citizen with having placed the bomb, with the willing complicity of the Turkish doorman of the consulate.

His name was Oktay Engin. When Demirel was, in recent years, reelected to power, he appointed Octay Engin as chief in charge of the affairs of the Turkish community in Greek Thrace, 37 years after the fact of the bomb. The guilt of the Turkish government and of its consular official in Thessaloniki in placing the bomb on the grounds of the consulate was further confirmed by the Turkish court martial of Yassiada in 1960-61, which condemned Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and his Foreign Minister Zorlu for the organization and execution of the Pogrom of September 1955 and for the bomb exploded in the consular compound.

The Pogrom and the Destruction of the Greek Community of Istanbul, September 6-7, 1955 Let us now glimpse briefly at the pogrom itself, ostensibly set off by the announcement of the bomb explosion at the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki, but which in fact had been carefully planned by the Turkish government. At this point, I quote specific paragraphs from an official Greek document with the title: “A Note of Summation of the Consul General of Constantinople, Vyron Theodoropoulos, on the anti-Greek Events of September 6, 1955.”

This official report was written by a diplomat who had served as consul general during the events in question, and who was appointed by the Greek Foreign Office to make an investigation and report to the ministry The document impresses with its wealth of information as well as by the objectivity of the analytical nature of its perceptions. In this official report we read the following, terse catalogue of the events during the destructive night of the pogrom.

“The execution of the plan [for the pogrom] reveals two basic characteristics:

(1) A well-effected and harmonized time schedule of actions, and
(2) effective coordination. “The time schedule of events unfolds, generally, as follows:

“1:30 p.m., announcement on the radio of the bomb in the house of Ataturk in Thessaloniki.
“4:00 p.m., a special supplement of the newspaper Istanbul Express circulates, publishing this ‘news’ and featuring an artificially altered photograph of the purported destruction of the house [of Ataturk].
“4:30 p.m., groups of young people roam about the main streets of Pera, writing on the walls insulting slogans against the Greeks.
“5:30 p.m., the first groups of demonstrators gather in Taxim Square. “6:00 p.m., the gathering in Taxim Square listens to various speakers who are making inflammatory speeches against the Greeks and Greece. “6:30 p.m., the assembly is transformed into a demonstration, in which one group reaches the General Consulate of Greece but is dispersed by the immediate appearance of police forces, who close off all access to the consulate.
 “7:00 p.m., there commences the smashing of display windows and iron doors of the Greek shops on Taxim Square and of the shops on Pera Street Almost simultaneously, acts of violence begin to be manifested in the remaining neighborhoods and suburbs, so that, within two hours, the attack on and destruction of Greek property has become general and widespread through the enormous territorial triangle formed by the east tip of the Bosphoros-Sariyar and Yeni Mahalle— as far as the Propontis- St. Stephan and the Isles.
“2:00 a.m., September 7, or just a little thereafter, martial law is declared and the first military contingents make their appearance. After this, the situation becomes quiet.” The consular report continues:

“The timing and coordination of the demonstration (riots) acquire even greater significance inasmuch as they were combined with a strategy of burning and destruction. One can distinguish, more or less, three waves of attackers:
“1. The first wave has as its goal to break down the doors and display windows (prosthekes) of the stores and the iron doors of the (Greek) houses, thus to prepare the way for the actions of the second wave.
“2. The second wave was to pillage and carry off all that was capable of transport.
 “3. The third wave had as its task the complete destruction of (all property) that remained.

“However, the organizers of the events had accomplished other noteworthy deeds, for instance:
“a) In the center of the city, with very few exceptions, private houses were not looted. Looting of the houses was limited to the neighborhoods and the suburbs.
“b) Blood was not shed, not because the rioters were unable or did not want to shed it, but because they were not permitted to proceed to violence against the people.”
(In effect, recent studies showed that some 28 Greeks were murdered, and original reports reveal extensive rape of women -Speros Vryonis, Jr.)
“c) The attack groups were fully equipped with the necessary instruments: crow bars, sledge hammers, iron rods, even with acetylene blow torches for breaking safes open.
“d) The equipping of the attackers with these tools obviously took place following a prearranged plan via trucks stationed in convenient sites throughout the city... It is reported that vehicles belonging to the municipality (of Istanbul) were also seen carrying out these functions.” From these observations, the experienced Greek diplomat drew the following conclusions in his report:

“That which is certain, and which is addressed in the following chapter (of the report), is that there was a long period of methodic preparation so as to achieve such a perfect organization of the riots. Characteristic of this fact are the very statements and confessions of the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes to the Patriarchal committee, which visited him after the riots, to the effect that these riots had been started and planned over a five-year period.”

It is significant to examine the time schedule of the events attendant upon the pogrom so as to see how, actually, the Hellenism of Constantinople was physically destroyed between 7:00 p.m., September 6, when the Turkish mobs began to smash the doors and windows of thousands of shops and houses, churches, schools, Greek newspaper establishments and then to loot the goods and possessions of the Greeks, and, finally, to destroy the physical establishments themselves, often with fire, until 2:00 a.m., September 7, when the Turkish authorities established martial law in the city.

In other words, this historic Greek community which had lived and created in the city on the Bosphoros from its first foundation in 668 B.C. up to 1955, for some 2,623 years (some 104 generations), suffered a complete and destructive catastrophe in only seven hours.No one moved even so much as one finger to save this most historic Greek diasporic community, neither Greek nor Christian, nor so-called civilized man or woman, and certainly not the Turkish government or the Turkish nation. Let us now leave this Greek consular report on the pogrom lest it be thought that I am relying on a Greek.

Yeah, I am also sorry for the happennings of 1955. Altough Phallanx's post is a regular provocative article by another nationalist Greek, we cant deny it was a shame for us. Rums of Istanbul (not Constantinople) were our brothers and they belonged to Istanbul, not Athens or Pireaus...

But I have to note that the Turks were misinformed as the Greeks have burned the house of Ataturk in Salonika. That's why they became that fiercely offensive. They were simply provoked.

Edited by Oguzoglu

How can you honestly claim documented FACTS, to be propaganda, when today every single newspaper in Turkey speaks of shame and a well staged attempt to exterminate the Hellinic population ??

Phallanx,

I dont know if the problem is with my English or you didnt well read my post. But I didnt say it was propoganda. I said the happennings written there were sad facts, and I am sorry for the Rums of Istanbul. It was a shame and I accepted it. Read my post, again please...

Anyway, why I called this article nationalistic, wasnt because it explained the reality of the actions in 1955. They are sadly right. But the writer still has some nationalistic point of view, like saying it was the most horrible crime that Europe witnessed after Hitler or by still calling it Constantinople. The rest, were sadly true...

Welcome in the "Today in History" Forum. It's been quiet in here far too long. Finally we got a good discussion going!

Welcome in the "Today in History" Forum. It's been quiet in here far too long. Finally we got a good discussion going!

We do try our best to entertain...

Oguz and kotumeyli

I just heard that the book presentation/photo exhibit, was closed down due to a riot by some MHP party members/followers. Any info???

All I have is this small desciption of the event but it isn't much. (unfortunately only in Hellinic)
http://www.in.gr/news/article.asp?lngEntityID=647900&lng DtrID=244

 

On Saturday the 3rd of September, 1955, the wife of the Turkish Consul in
Thessaloniki asked for, and received, from a photographer in Thessaloniki
supposedly for a keep-sake a series of photographs and films of the Turkish
Consulate and the neighbouring home where Kemal Ataturk was born. The very
next day she and her family left for Turkey.

At ten past midnight on the 6th of September,1955, in the garden of the
Consulate, between the two buildings, dynamite exploded resulting in broken
windows in both buildings. The Greek authorities rushed immediately to the
scene. They established that two more explosive devices had been positioned
in the Consulate yard and that within the building there was only one
Turkish guard. In the investigation that followed it was determined that the
explosives were placed there by the guard and his accomplice, a Turkish
student at the Law School of the University of Thessaloniki, Oktai Egin
Faik, who had brought the dynamite from Turkey a few days earlier.

On the 6th of September, Turkish newspapers using forged versions of the
photos of the Turkish consul's wife and even before the explosion took place
in Greece, depicted Kemal's birthplace as totally destroyed. By the evening,
newspapers all over Turkey knew of the alleged destruction of Kemal's home
setting off waves of anger among the Turkish populace.

The Turkish authorities then transported large groups of people in trains
and military vehicles from Anatolia to Constantinople.

The attack by the angry mobs began at 5:50 PM on the 6th of September 1955
and ended at 02:00 AM on the 7th of September 1955. The police calmly
assisted and even guided the mobs, in their relentless path of destruction.

At 00:20 AM on the 7th of September 1955 martial law was finally declared,
at 02:00 AM curfew began and at 02:30 AM the authorities had restored a
semblance of order.

Screaming slogans "Today your property, tomorrow your lives" the mobs had
perpetrated terrible crimes. Those who guided them knew that by terrorizing
the last Greek residents of Constantinople they would compel them to desert
their homeland, once and for all. Simultaneously by destroying monuments
which were proof of the glorious Greek past of Constantinople, they would
eradicate even future reminders of the Greek presence.

The results of the vandalisms were :

� the Theological School of Halki, the Marasleios School, The
Monestary of Valoukli, the Zappeio School for Girls and many other sites,
suffered great damage.

� of the 83 Greek Orthodox churches in the <<Polis>> 59 were burned
and most others suffered serious damage to the icons and ancient paintings
of great value.

� the tombs of Patriarchs were destroyed, Christian cemeteries and
ossuaries were defiled ;

� 3,000 homes were looted and destroyed ;

� 4348 Greek stores were looted and destroyed ;

� 200 Greek women were raped ;

� hundreds of Greeks were ill-treated or tortured, such as the old
Bishop of Derkon Iakovos; the metropolitan of Ilioupolis Yennadios, whose
beard was cut off and who was then dragged through the streets so that he
would die shortly thereafter from ill-treatment; and Bishop Pamphilou
Yennadios that was thrown into the burned ruins of Valoukli;

� 15 Greeks were murdered and among them a 90 year old monk at the
Valoukli Monastery, Chrys. Mantas, who was burned alive. Many others in the
monastery were seriously wounded.

After the pogrom a great portion of the Greek population left Constantinople
to save their lives.

In 1964 12,000 Greeks who were protected by the Treaty of Lausanne were
deported from the city by the Turkish government. They took with them three
times their number in relatives and friends. Therefore, in the years 1964 to
1966, about 48,000 Greeks were forced to abandon their ancestral homes.

On the 20th of September,1975, in a special 35 page Survey section of the
influential English magazine, The Economist, it was written : "Turkish
charges that the Moslem population in Western Thrace is harried by the Greek
authorities are gross exaggerations. In 1923 there were 300,000 Greeks
living in Constantinople and 110,000 Turks living in Thrace. Today, there
are 15,000 Greeks living in Istanbul and 120,000 Turks in Thrace. The Greeks
ask, with some justification, which country has been putting the pressure on
which minority". (Survey-15).

It is important for us to realize that today, 2005, only 2,000 Greeks still
remain in Constantinople.

Two pics of the thugs that trashed the photo exhibition/book presentation yesterady evening.




2 articles about the events but once again in Hellinic.
http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text?c=110&id=41469848

http://www.enet.gr/online/online_text?c=110&id=25198104


Edited by Phallanx

I don't know why they don't appear I tried to edit but , take a look at the links, that's where I got them from.

The pics from the link above are of what happened yesterday not in 55'

Here are a couple more old ones.



















The title of the propaganda paper issued







Patriarch's Destroyed tombs