The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and The Carnegie Report (1914)

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  • Mikail
    Senior Member
    • Sep 2008
    • 1338

    #16
    It never ceases to surprise me at how, only after endless perseverance, does a story like this come out 100 years after the fact.

    What the hell has been going on? Who buried the details of the Carnegie Report? The Western World is supposedly civilised? Yet they sit back and allow such atrocities to take place.

    Disgusting.... and even French casualties at the hands of Greeks, and the bloody French still support Greece in their propaganda against us???
    From the village of P’pezhani, Tashko Popov, Dimitar Popov-Skenderov and Todor Trpenov were beaten and sentenced to 12 years prison. Pavle Mevchev and Atanas Popov from Vrbeni and Boreshnica joined them in early 1927, they were soon after transferred to Kozhani and executed. As they were leaving Lerin they were heard to shout "With our death, Macedonia will not be lost. Our blood will run, but other Macedonians will rise from it"

    Comment

    • George S.
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2009
      • 10116

      #17
      the carnegie report shows the details the occupiers went to destroy the macedonian nation.Nobody did anything to stop it.THey just hid behind the rhetoric.
      "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
      GOTSE DELCEV

      Comment

      • Pelister
        Senior Member
        • Sep 2008
        • 2742

        #18
        Originally posted by makedonche View Post
        TM
        Very true! I have had enormous difficulty in trying to get oldies here in Sth Oz to tell their stories, I get a great deal of fear from them as if it is too painful to remember, or they are trying to protect us from the impact of the evil that was done to them. Nonetheless I will persevere and try to gather as much evidence as I can - my only wish is for more hours in the day!
        Its not easy. They don't really understand why you would be asking such questions, and not all would see the value of it. Approaching someone you don't know well, particularly if they old, isn't easy and many are not willing to talk, but persevere, have coffees with them and wait I suppose.

        I was able to get information from my very old grandmother, which came to her while we sitting around doing nothing, about an encounter her mother had with a group of Greek bandits active around her village at the turn of last century. She passed the 'survival strategy' of how to respond onto her daughters. Another story my grandmother told me was how some Macedonians were Christened with a Greek name, but that they used their Macedonian name to refer to them their whole life, and she said that they have always been just Macedonians.

        Comment

        • Pelister
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2008
          • 2742

          #19
          Originally posted by Mikail View Post
          It never ceases to surprise me at how, only after endless perseverance, does a story like this come out 100 years after the fact.

          What the hell has been going on? Who buried the details of the Carnegie Report? The Western World is supposedly civilised? Yet they sit back and allow such atrocities to take place.

          Disgusting.... and even French casualties at the hands of Greeks, and the bloody French still support Greece in their propaganda against us???

          The New Greeks were favored by the West which was why they got away with massacres, and the 'details' were buried by Britain and the West more generally I think. The troubling is how does one 'prove' that the Macedonian were omitted, expunged from the record, that evidenc of massacres was buried, or destroyed. Its hard to do, but there is no country in the world that has so many 'locked files' and inaccesible archives than Macedonia.

          Comment

          • Onur
            Senior Member
            • Apr 2010
            • 2389

            #20
            The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and The Carnegie Report (1914)

            This is the official report of the international commission of the Balkan wars, published by the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, US in 1914. It includes nearly every detail about the first and second Balkan wars like testimonies, letters of soldiers, economical data of the war and the personal findings of the commission members.











            Especially some sections like "The war and the noncombatant population" is painful to read since it includes the most horrible details like the massacres done to the innocent civilians and the mass exodus of the Turks. Most of these reports are from Aegean Macedonia and the so-called "Bulgarians" in the text written by Greeks are ofc the local Macedonians.


            Here are some excerpts from the report;
            Civil officials arrived to organize a regular administration in some cases a full six weeks after the Turkish authority had disappeared. It is not surprising in these conditions, that the Moslem population endured during the early weeks of the war a period of lawless vengeance and unmeasured suffering. In many districts the Moslem villages were systematically burned by their Christian neighbors. Nor was it only the regions occupied by the Bulgarians which suffered. In the province of Monastir. occupied by the Serbs and Greeks, the agents of the (British) Macedonian Relief Fund calculated that eighty per cent of Moslem villages were burned. Salonica, Monastir, and Uskub were thronged with thousands of homeless and starving Moslem refugees, many of whom emigrated to Asia. The Moslem quarter of the town of Jenidje Vardar was almost totally burned down, in spite of the fact that this town was occupied by the main Greek army. Even in the immediate neighborhood of Salonica, Moslem villages were burned by the Greek troops.




            This document gives particulars, village by village, of the Moslems who were killed and robbed. The lists are detailed, and give the names not only of the victims but of the assassins. Some of the particulars of the robberies are also given in great detail, and in one village even the color of the stolen cows is stated. Our experience shows that lists of this kind in the Balkans are usually accurate.

            In the villages all these excesses seem to have been the work of local Greek bands. The most active of these bands was led by a priest and a warlike grocer who was a member of the Bishop's council. The Turks indeed accuse the Bishop of directing all these atrocities. A general appeal for humanity was in fact published by the Macedonian insurgent "Internal Organization," but it appears to have produced little effect.

            Devastation, unfortunately, was not the worst of the incidents which stained the War of Liberation. More particularly in northeastern Macedonia the victorious population undertook a systematic proscription of the Moslems. The Commission has before it full evidence of one of these campaigns of murder at Strumnitsa. It was probably the worst incident of its kind, but it is typical of much that happened elsewhere on a smaller scale.Some indiscriminate killing of Moslems took place in the streets, and thereafter an order was issued forbidding any Moslem to leave his house, under pain of death.




            The condemned Moslems were bound in threes, taken to the slaughterhouse and there killed, in some cases after torture and mutilation. The fortunate minority received a certificate which permitted them to live, and in many cases there is reason to believe that as much as 100 pounds was paid for it.

            Later, a band arrived under a certain Donchev, a notoriously cruel guerrilla chief, who acted on his own responsibility and has been disavowed and sentenced to death by the Macedonian revolutionary "internal organization." He is said to have burned 345 Turkish houses in one day in the villages of Raionovo, Planitsa, and Kukurtevo, shut up the men in the mosques and burned them alive or shot them down as they attempted to escape. It is said that Donchev's band massacred women and children; and this statement also is credited by Europeans who have ample local sources of information.


            It required no artificial incitement to produce the race hatred which explains the excesses of the Christian Allies, and more especially of the Bulgarians toward the Turks. It is less easy to explain the excesses of which Greeks and Bulgarians were guilty toward each other. A traditional enmity has divided them from the dawn of history and this is aggravated in Macedonia by a certain social cleavage.

            When policy dictated a breach, it was necessary to prepare public opinion; and the Greek press, as if by a common impulse, devoted itself to this work. To the rank and file of all three Balkan armies, the idea of a fratricidal war was at first repugnant and inexplicable. The passions of the Greek army were roused by a daily diet of violent articles. The Greek press had had little to say regarding the Bulgarian excesses against the Turks while the facts were still fresh, and indeed none of the allies had the right to be censorious, for none of their records were clean.Day after day the Bulgarians were represented as a race of monsters, and public feeling was roused to a pitch of chauvinism which made it inevitable that war, when it came, should be ruthless. In talk and in print one phrase summed up the general feeling of the Greeks toward the Bulgarians, "Dhen einai anthropoi!" (They are nof human beings). In their excitement and indignation the Greeks came to think of themselves as the appointed avengers of civilization against a race which stood outside the pale of humanity. Deny that your enemies are men, and presently you will treat them as vermin. Only half realizing the full meaning of what he said, a Greek officer remarked to the writer, "When you have to deal with barbarians, you must behave like a barbarian yourself. It is the only thing they understand." The Greek army went into the war, its mind inflamed with anger and contempt.A gaudily colored print, which we saw in the streets of Salonica and the Pireaus, eagerly bought by the Greek soldiers returning to their homes, reveals the depth of the brutality to which this race hatred had sunk them. It shows a Greek evzonc (highlander) holding a living Bulgarian soldier with both hands, while he gnaws the face of his victim with his teeth, like some beast of prey.



            It is entitled the Bulgarophagos (Bulgar-eater), and is adorned with the following verses:

            The sea of fire which boils in my breast
            And calls for vengeance with the savage waves of my soul,
            Will be quenched when the monsters of Sofia are still,
            And thy life blood extinguishes my hate.



            Another popular battle picture shows a Greek soldier gouging out the eyes of a living Bulgarian. A third shows as an episode of a battle scene the exploit of the Bulgar-eater. As an evidence of the feeling which animated the Greek army these things have their importance. They mean, in plain words, that Greek soldiers wished to believe that they and their comrades perpetrated bestial cruelties. A print seller who issued such pictures in a western country would be held guilty of a gross libel on its army.

            EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF GREEK SOLDIERS found in the mail of the 19th regiment of the Greek 7th division, captured by the Bulgarians in the region of Razlog;












            Download Link (PDF file);
            http://www.archive.org/download/reportofinternat00inteiala/reportofinternat00inteiala.pdf
            Last edited by Onur; 05-21-2011, 12:42 PM.

            Comment

            • Soldier of Macedon
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2008
              • 13670

              #21
              The Carnegie Report - 1914

              Here are some sickening letters that were meant to be sent by soldiers in the Greek army to their families back in Greece, while they were invading Macedonia during the (Second) Balkan War in 1913. As Serbia and Greece had united against Bulgaria, their brutality was aimed at the invading Bulgarian army and inevitably the local Macedonian population, between whom they did not distinguish, referring to them as either 'Bulgarians' or 'Komitadji'.

              The letters were obtained from captured soldiers from the Greek army, and were a part of the Carnegie Report of 1914, which detailed much of the horrors that took place. They have been posted elsewhere, wasn't able to find them on this forum so I am making the thread to have it for reference.















              The damage done to the Macedonians, our ancestors, during the Balkan Wars is quite literally beyond words. Such terrible times our people lived through, with so much suffering. This is why the whole event needs to be recognised around the world as a tragedy and a form of genocide against the Macedonian people by the neighbouring states of Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.
              In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

              Comment

              • Soldier of Macedon
                Senior Member
                • Sep 2008
                • 13670

                #22
                Here are all of the Macedonian (erroneously termed 'Bulgarian' in the report, due largely to affiliation with the Exarchate) villages burned by the Greek army.



                In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                Comment

                • Soldier of Macedon
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 13670

                  #23
                  Just noticed Onur's thread, so I have merged it with the one I made.
                  In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                  Comment

                  • julie
                    Senior Member
                    • May 2009
                    • 3869

                    #24
                    The Macedonian suffering, torture, rape and genocide , is something the west has chosen to sweep under the carpet. No wonder Grks dont want to recognise and give basic human rights to our people, the atrocities they have committed and are accountable for, they should be under trial , and made accountable for. It saddens me to read of such callous and cold remarks on how they slaughtered and butchered villagers, and raped females , as part of their duty. May karma come to all that treat every civilian in this manner, and it will.
                    "The moral revolution - the revolution of the mind, heart and soul of an enslaved people, is our greatest task."__________________Gotse Delchev

                    Comment

                    • Soldier of Macedon
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 13670

                      #25
                      Ultimately, it wasn't the Greeks, Bulgars or Serbs who suffered most during the two Balkan Wars in Macedonia, but the Macedonian people themselves. Macedonia has no friends among its neighbours, and truthfully, it never has. With regard to the above letters, the sheer level of barbarity against non-combatants, all at the orders of the Greek government, is incredible. It all makes the irony of being a grkoman that much more ridiculous.
                      In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                      Comment

                      • Pelister
                        Senior Member
                        • Sep 2008
                        • 2742

                        #26
                        I read this some time ago. There is nothing in its report about the legitimacy or the legality of the invasion, and there is very little to no recognition of the Macedonians. Secondly, the Macedonians are 'hidden' once again by a Western institution, organization...etc, behind false labels such as 'Bulgarians' and 'Greeks' and 'Slavs'. This kind of distortion absolves to some extent the actions of the invading 'Greeks' and 'Bulgarians' who massacred Macedonians. It claims to be neutral, but there is no recognition of the Macedonians, and in the end it does not find any foreign invader responsible for invading the territory. Like the League of Nations, a few years later - this a typical Western institution claiming to be 'neutral' on the issue but which ends up being a mouthpiece and foreign policy tool for FOREIGN powers with designs on Macedonian territory and the extermination, of its people.

                        Comment

                        • Soldier of Macedon
                          Senior Member
                          • Sep 2008
                          • 13670

                          #27
                          Pelister, bias relating to terminology aside, the letters in the report are important documents which highlight the turmoil our people went through. I understand the point you're trying to make, but in the context of the actions cited in these letters, your point is not as relevant as the one about Macedonians suffering during war. I completely disagree with your assertion that this "kind of distortion absolves to some extent the actions of the invading 'Greeks'". How do you figure?
                          In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                          Comment

                          • George S.
                            Senior Member
                            • Aug 2009
                            • 10116

                            #28
                            All the attrocities are so well documented.How come no one has forced greece to recognize what it's done.It must be made to reconcile with the past.At the moment it's all denials that it did anything when there is so much information that it committed genocide on the macedonian people.Also the way it has moved whole indigenous populations of macedonians
                            etcThe macedonians have suffered enough & pressure must be bought to bare on greece to own up & admit it's hand to the genocde of the macedonian people.
                            "Ido not want an uprising of people that would leave me at the first failure, I want revolution with citizens able to bear all the temptations to a prolonged struggle, what, because of the fierce political conditions, will be our guide or cattle to the slaughterhouse"
                            GOTSE DELCEV

                            Comment

                            • Onur
                              Senior Member
                              • Apr 2010
                              • 2389

                              #29
                              Pelister is right about that issue. It`s quite obvious that the terminology is carefully chosen by the commission members.

                              If you read the report, you can see that the only group who gets mentioned as Macedonians are the muslims but christians are always either Greek or Bulgar. So, why only muslims are getting mentioned as Macedonians while christians are not? We clearly know that most of these muslims are Turks and probably 10% Macedonian muslims, 20% Albanian muslims among them. We also know that the so-called Bulgars and Greeks in Aegean Macedonia are obviously Macedonians, maybe 10% Greek as max. among them. And where are Vlachs and Albanian orthodoxs? As you know, Ottoman government officially declared Vlachs as a minority group in 1890s and let them educate and publish bibles, books in their own Romanian language, so where are they? It seems they vanished all of a sudden in 1912, as Greeks desired for that.

                              It`s clear that the ethnic terminology in the text is deliberately chosen by them, appropriate to the declared ethnicity of the newborn nations in there. I bet if this report would have been written by them after 1920, i think the people in northern Macedonia would`ve been mentioned as Serbians then
                              Last edited by Onur; 05-24-2011, 04:36 PM.

                              Comment

                              • Soldier of Macedon
                                Senior Member
                                • Sep 2008
                                • 13670

                                #30
                                Guys, I think you're missing the point. The fact that the terminology is baised in the report has nothing to do with the discussion that refers to the actual events that took place. If they referred to the Macedonian villagers as aliens, would that make the crimes of invading armies any less significant, or any less real?

                                Here is another page from the same report (I think), somebody else had posted it earlier on another thread or forum.


                                So, while there were 15,000 seasoned Macedonian fighters who were diverted away from Macedonia to fight with Bulgarian forces against the Turks in Thrace, Macedonia was left to fend for itself against Greek and Serbian aggressors, with only local support - and a weak and retreating Bulgarian army that dropped everything and ran. Like Krste Misirkov had once said, Macedonia's greatest demon was Bulgaria. They knew exactly what they were doing when they agreed to partition Macedonia, but they kept the Macedonians in the dark about their true intentions.
                                In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

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