Rural Settlement
Urban Settlement
The Winding-up of the League's Work
The refugee problem is no new one for Greece. Not one of the numerous
wars and other conflicts which accompanied Greek liberation and expansion
in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was unaccompanied by an exodus
of non-Greeks from regions newly acquired, and an influx from districts
still under Turkish rule.
All these movements, however, only partially counteracted the essential and peculiar character of Greek demography; which is that it was based, up till 1923, on the sea and not on the land. In South-Eastern Europe the land is that which separates, the sea that which unites. Rugged and barren mountains, difficult of access, fall sharply to a serene sea, dotted with islands and sheltered from the winds, over which the smallest barque can glide with an ease and speed altogether impossible to the land voyager. The Greeks, the sea-faring nation in chief of the South-East, had long recognised this natural fact, to which the immigrant Slavs and Turks—natives of the vast continental spaces—had been blind. Greek civilisation was spread round the rim of the iEgean, living on land, because man must so live, but living round, over and from the sea. It extended even further: along the Pontic shore of Anatolia, up the Eastern coast of the Black Sea, in the Crimea. It was nowhere found far inland. Even in Greece proper, the inland
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mountains were occupied, until the most recent times, mainly by Albanians, Slavs or nomad Vlach shepherds.
It was largely the influence of western political ideas, evolved under quite different conditions, that brought to Greece the idea of a homogeneous land state: an idea which involved, firstly, the expulsion or assimilation of the non-Greek elements in Hellas itself, and, secondly, gave birth to the ambition to include within the boundaries of the Hellenic State those districts along the northern and eastern coasts of the -fligean which were mainly, or largely, inhabited by Greeks. As, however, the population in such districts was nowhere purely Hellenic, the result was bound to be friction, not only with the actual masters, the Turks, but also with the rival claimants, the Serbs, Bulgars and Albanians.
Up to 1912 the process of Hellenisation was almost finished (largely by natural and automatic means) in what then constituted Greece. Greece's problem became, however, acute after the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, which practically doubled her territorial area and increased her population by about two-thirds (from about 2,750,000 to about 4,750,000), but rendered it, of course, much less homogeneous than before. In Crete there were still many Turks; in Epirus and Macedonia, there were Albanians, Kutzo-Vlachs, Jews (in Salonika), Bulgars and smaller racial remnants. It was estimated that Greek Macedonia contained, in 1912, 513,000 Greeks as against 475,000
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Moslems, 119,000 Bulgars, and 98,000 Jews and other races.
It is difficult to write with justice on the measures adopted by one Balkan Government or another against its newly-acquired minorities. In the case of Greece, it would seem as though, of all her minorities, the Kutzo-Vlachs of Epirus, who were protected by the Roumanian Government, came off the best. With regard to the Albanians, Greece was concerned chiefly to prove, by means of certain fictions, that they did not exist. Thus the Christian Albanians were alleged to be Greeks; the Moslems were counted as Turks, and shared their fate. Savage fighting between the Greeks and Bulgars resulted in the massacre of large numbers of both nations behind a 'demarcation line of dead,' but 40,000 Greeks are said to have immigrated from territory assigned to Bulgaria, and there was a corresponding movement of Bulgars from Greece. The Turks undoubtedly suffered severely. Some 100,000-150,000 of them emigrated, their land being seized by the Greek Government. On the other hand, the Greek population in Thrace, Gallipoli and the Anatolian littoral suffered no less. They could not be expelled, as the Bulgar peasants were being expelled from Thrace, by the simple process of driving them across the frontier; but a few atrocities of the usual Turkish type were sufficient to start an exodus. By June, 1914, a Greek estimate put the number of refugees from Thrace at 100,000, and from Anatolia at half as many more. The
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homes of the refugees from each country were to a large extent occupied by their ' opposite numbers ' ; but the whole process was extremely rough and ready, and the abandoned property was never properly liquidated.
Attempts were, in fact, made to remedy this, and to arrange for a further exchange of the populations left behind; but before agreement could be reached, the outbreak of the World War terminated the conversations. The Greek Government, however, set up a permanent organisation, the Ministry of Welfare, to deal inter alia with the refugee problem, and the Agronomic Service was converted into a colonisation service and entrusted with the settlement of refugee farmers. It was this service which established the first refugees in 1922 on behalf, and at the cost of, the State, later being attached to the Refugee Commission and reinforced. [*]
This problem, however, was nothing compared with that which Greece had to face shortly after. The Treaty of Sevres, signed between the Allies and Turkey in August, 1920, assigned to Greece not only most of Thrace, but also Smyrna and a large district of the hinterland, inhabited by Greeks, Armenians and Turks. Greek troops had already landed at Smyrna in May, 1919, at the request of the Supreme Council.
When it became clear that the Treaty of Sevres would not be ratified,
and that Turkey
*. Some details on these points are given by A. A. Pallis, The Exchange of Populations in the Balkans, in the "Nineteenth Century," March, 1925.
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would demand, and secure, more advantageous terms, the Powers pressed Greece to reconsider her terms. She refused, and in July, 1922, proclaimed the independence of Ionia and Smyrna and advanced into the heart of Anatolia. At first all went well; but in August the Greeks were defeated on the Sakkaria with heavy losses and driven back precipitately. Desperate, but unavailing, appeals were addressed to the Western Powers for help. On September 9, 1922, the Turks entered Smyrna. Five days later the whole city, except the Turkish quarter, was burnt to the ground.
Passions were running high by this time, and it is said that the Greeks in their advance and still more in their retreat, when they undoubtedly burned towns and villages, had committed many atrocities on the local Turkish population. However far this may be true, it is certain that the Turkish advance caused an indescribable panic, not only among the retreating Greek soldiers but among the civil population as well. Man, woman and child left their homes en masse and fled either to Constantinople and other ports of Northern Anatolia, or down the coast, converging in a terrified mob on the city of Smyrna, where they hoped either to get protection, or to be evacuated from Anatolia.
A number of vessels—both Greek, Allied and neutral, including some American—had gathered in Smyrna, and some of the refugees, with most of the Greek army, were got on board and away before the arrival of the Turks.
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These were the fortunate ones. The first Turks, a squadron of cavalry, entered Smyrna on the morning of September 9. During the first three days comparative discipline was preserved, although the bazaars were looted, and there was some killing. Besides this, the Turkish regulars rounded up Greeks and Armenians compromised by their support of the Greek administration, and executed numbers of them after hurried trials by Court Martial.
On Monday a systematic hunting down of Armenians began. They were taken in batches of 100 to the Konak, and executed there. This continued through Tuesday. Looting, rape and outrage of every kind continued. On Wednesday afternoon a fire broke out in the Armenian quarter—started, according to the sworn testimony of American observers, by Turkish regular soldiers. Soon all Smyrna except the Jewish and Turkish quarters had ceased to exist. The damage was officially estimated at £40,000,000; but the financial loss was trifling compared to the frightful human misery which accompanied it. Probably 12,000 persons perished in the flames; the vast majority of the refugees flocked down to the quays, where they stood in a packed and shivering mass while the lighters took off such as could be saved. In places the Turks actually fired on British and American ships engaged in rescue work. In others they allowed the old people and children to be taken off, to the limit of the ships' capacities. Young women were often left
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behind for the harems; the men of military-age were likewise detained, to the number of some 25,000 Greeks, and many Armenians. These were marched off into the interior to work in so-called 'labour battalions.' A year later, the surviving Greeks were released under a special convention; their numbers had been reduced by starvation or murder to under 15,000. Few of the Armenians were ever heard of again.
Many men tried to swim across to the boats. Some escaped in this way. Others were bayoneted on the quays, or shot in the water; their corpses bobbed round the quays for days after.
The aged and the children, and those of the women who were spared, were hurriedly carried across to the Greek islands or mainland and left there while the ships returned for fresh loads. The state of these refugees on their arrival beggared all description: half-starved, terrified, sick, exhausted, destitute, not only of all property, but even of sufficient clothing. Scarcely a family was complete. Even where all members had been saved, they had too often been separated in the crush, to be reunited years later, if at all. ' Ask the children one by one/ wrote the Bishop of Gibraltar, ' "where is your father, your mother?" and some will say, "We saw them killed before we got away," and some "They died of wounds or starvation, before anyone came to help us," and others "We do not know if they are alive or dead." '
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The Greek population in Ionia in 1914 was estimated at about 2,000,000. Of these, it was calculated that about half perished. Some half of the remainder made their escape before the fall of Smyrna, and nearly 500,000 were evacuated in a state of indescribable destitution from Smyrna, Mudania, Aivali or Dikeli in the few dreadful days of September, 1922.
This was not however the end of the Greek tribulations. Mustapha Kemal now demanded that Eastern Thrace also should be returned to Turkey, and prepared to cross into Europe and drive out the Greeks. His advance was checked by the Allied Forces in Constantinople, who, at extreme risk, prevented the Turks from crossing the Straits, and negotiated an armistice. The Allies were obliged, however, to concede that Eastern Thrace, up to the Maritza, should be returned to Turkish sovereignty; to evacuate the Greeks immediately from that district; and to admit forthwith the Turkish civil administration with the means—including 8,000 gendarmerie—of maintaining 'order.'
These events swelled the stream of refugees by a number estimated by
Dr. Nansen at some 300,000. [*] Although described
as having left their homes in 'comparatively good conditions,' with a certain
amount of money and some of their movable possessions, including their
cattle, waggons, clothing and in some cases their agricultural implements,
their situation was deplorable enough.
*. The later report gives the number at 190,000.
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'Waggon after waggon,' wrote the Times correspondent, 'with literally
not an inch of daylight between them, came steadily forward . . . creaking
and groaning beneath the weight of tables, carpets, children, chickens,
chairs, agricultural implements, all piled up in hopeless disorder upon
the staggery patched-up wheels. Every now and then there would come a halt
and sounds of cursing as a pole or a wheel gave way under the burden and
a waggon subsided to earth amidst the debris of its load like a house of
cards. For a minute or two there was fierce jostling among the neighbouring
carts and then the flood somehow divided on each side of the wreckage,
leaving a family to struggle as best it could to patch up the ruins of
its household and take its place once more in the never-ending procession.
... It was an amazing and un forgettable spectacle, and one could not but
marvel at the extraordinary philosophy with which all the hardships and
fatigues were borne. . . . The evacuation of Eastern Thrace was . . . carried
out with amazing thoroughness. A fortnight or so later . . . with very
few exceptions, such as those persons who were either too poor or too old
to travel, the entire Greek population had left by sea or had emigrated
on foot across the Maritza. Whole villages had been left without a single
remaining inhabitant, and it was possible to travel for miles on end without
seeing a single human being.' [*]
*. M. H. H. Macartney. Five Years of European Chaos, pp. 232-3.
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Finally, the number of Greek refugees was swollen further, not only by further numbers from Anatolia, [*] by the population exchanged, under comparatively normal conditions, from Constantinople and Bulgaria, but by a large number from the Russian Caucasus, the Pontus, or the North coast of Anatolia. Some of these came in as late as 1928.
The Report [**] enumerated the refugees concentrated in Greece in 1926 as follows:—
Greeks from Asia Minor, including the Pontus, a little over 1,000,000.
Greeks from Eastern Thrace, 190,000.
Greeks from the Caucasus, 70,000.
Greeks from Bulgaria, 30,000.
Greeks from Constantinople, 70,000.
Furthermore, a large number of Armenians accompanied the Greeks
in their flight from Smyrna. Of the total number, deducting the well-to-do
or those who re-emigrated, those in need of assistance amounted to at least
1,200,000, or, say, 300,000 families, most of whom had arrived in Greece
in a state of complete destitution, and almost simultaneously.
Very remarkable efforts were made, in the months immediately following
these disasters, by a large number of private charitable organisations,
among which the British and American were prominent. The naval units
*. Dr. Nansen, in the late autumn of 1922, arranged for the evacuation of no less than 156,000 Greek refugees from Asia Minor.
**. Under this name we designate the volume on Greek Refugee Settlement, issued in 1926 by the League of Nations.
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who had helped in the evacuation of Smyrna fed their transports, as best they could, for a while. The All-British Appeal, the Near Eastern Relief and the American Red Cross did splendid work. The American Red Cross, in particular, provided food for no fewer than 800,000 refugees for several months. When it ceased its activities in June, 1923, it was still feeding 500,000 refugees.
It was obvious, however, that charity alone would provide no solution to the problem. The urgent requirement was to set the refugees to productive work. The small existing Greek organisation to which reference was made above did what it could; and a beginning was made with some of the refugees from Eastern Thrace who had escaped in better plight. These were assigned lands in Macedonia or Western Thrace which had been left vacant either by the emigration of Turks and Bulgarians, or by the deportation of certain Bulgars (see below).
On September 18, 1922—only two or three days after the fall of Smyrna—the League of Nations occupied itself with the problem. On September 16 a telegram had been received from Colonel Procter, Dr. Nansen's Deputy Commissioner in Constantinople, asking authorisation to apply the local machinery and funds in the relief of the urgent distress. The Greek Government added an appeal for the League's help, pointing out that it was engaged in a task 'far beyond its strength.' The Assembly at once gave Dr. Nansen the authorisation which he required, and placed at his
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disposal a small emergency credit. Several Governments came forward with offers of financial assistance; and Dr. Nansen left Geneva to study the question on the spot.
By his prompt action, Dr. Nansen was able to do much to mitigate the immediate distress. He arranged the transportation of no less than 156,000 further refugees frpm Asia Minor to Greek ports; he averted a very serious food crisis on the islands of Chios and Samos; and, by placing £5,000 at the disposal of the Epidemics Commission of the League, he enabled that body to carry out a most valuable anti-epidemic campaign, which had remarkable results; the half-starving, over-crowded and exhausted refugees in Greece were kept comparatively immune from the epidemics which would else unfailingly have decimated them.
Furthermore, Dr. Nansen was able to do a good deal to avert a crisis in Turkey. The Turkish Red Crescent in Smyrna was supplied with flour and medical stores, and arrangements were made for the transport from Constantinople of 10,000 Turkish refugees, in time for them to carry out the autumn cultivation of their lands in Anatolia. The British authorities formed a Committee to help them (the British relief at one time fed 10,000 Turks a day), and generous response was received from Constantinople, India and elsewhere. For the rest, the Turkish problem was far less serious than the Greek, partly owing to the smaller number of the refugees, partly to the fact that the thoroughness with which the Turks had been massacring
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and expelling Greeks and Armenians for some years past had left an abundance of land available in Anatolia.
These measures, however, touched no more than the fringe of the Greek problem. To solve it, work was necessary on two lines: settlement in productive work of existing refugees who had already reached their new country; and an exchange of the remaining minority populations in Macedonia, Thrace and Constantinople.
The exchange between Greece and Turkey was considered especially urgent by the Greek Government, and Dr. Nansen was invited by the Powers to mediate between the two Governments. Turkish obstruction delayed matters till the Lausanne Conference when, at Dr. Nansen's advice, clauses were inserted in the Treaty providing for the compulsory exchange of Turkish nationals of Greek orthodox religion and of Greek nationals of Moslem religion, the Greeks 'established' in Constantinople before October 30, 1920, and the Turks of Western Thrace being exempted. Movable property could be taken away; immovable property to be registered and valued by a Mixed Commission, including neutral members chosen by the Council of the League, liquidated, and the total difference paid in cash to the country having the larger balance.
This compulsory deportation was widely criticised as inhumane, but was probably the best solution under the circumstances, and far
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less drastic than it sounded, as most of the persons affected had already migrated.
The neutral members (Mr. E. E. Ekstrand, Swedish; General Manrique de Lara, Spanish; and Mr. K. M. Widding, Danish) were appointed in September, 1923, and the Commission began work. By October, 1924, 370,000 Moslems had left Greece, and nearly all the Anatolian Greeks had been evacuated. The principal difficulty confronting the Commission thereafter was the interpretation of the term 'established' as applied to the Greeks of Constantinople. The Turkish view left 180,000 of these Greeks exchangeable, while the Greek view admitted only 20,000. An offshoot of the dispute, which caused much agitation at the time, was the expulsion by Turkey in 1925 of the CEcumenical Partiarch from Constantinople. The dispute on interpretation dragged on for years, involving an appeal by Greece to the League, and an advisory opinion from the Permanent Court of International Justice, which substantially upheld the Greek case. Fresh agreements were signed on June 21,1925, December 1,1926, and June 9, 1930; but the work of the Commission was always slow and difficult. Further trouble was caused by the fact that Greece took advantage of the situation to expel Albanian Moslems from Epirus, under the guise of Turks. Individual Albanians and the Albanian Government made several appeals to the League, under the Greek Minorities Treaty and under Article XI of the Covenant.
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The exchange between Greece and Bulgaria was not made compulsory, and smaller numbers were involved: 75,000 (Greek figures) to 37,000 (Bulgar figures) Greeks in Bulgaria, mostly from the Black Sea towns, where Greek colonies had existed since the seventh century B.C., or the Maritza valley, and about 150,000 Bulgars or Bulgar-minded Slavs in Macedonia. The Treaty of Neuilly included provisions for the reciprocal voluntary emigration of these minorities, and a separate Convention to this effect was signed in 1919, coming into force August, 1920. A Mixed Commission with a Greek, a Bulgarian and two neutral members (Col. Corfe, British, and Major M. de Roover, Belgian) began work in February, 1921. The Greeks, in the main, emigrated readily, hoping to obtain lands in Thrace, and threatened with an agrarian reform, curtailing their existing holdings, in Bulgaria. Nearly all eventually left Bulgaria. The Bulgars were less anxious to leave. The Greeks had deported some of them during the Greco-Turkish war and settled Greek refugees on their lands. Bulgaria appealed to the League under Article XI, and Greece promised to restore or compensate them; but as the influx of Greek refugees continued, the position of the Bulgars grew steadily worse, and many of them took refuge in Bulgaria in a destitute condition, causing much ill-feeling on both sides. A considerable number, however, remained behind, being left undisturbed in their property after the League Refugee Commission had taken over the work.
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Minorities in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey alike are under the protection of special Minority Treaties guaranteed by the League; but this guarantee has proved difficult to enforce, especially in Turkey.
The broader problem which had to be attacked was that of settling the refugees in productive work. This was urgent in any case, but the more so because the charitable organisations had intimated that they could not continue their work for much longer, although willing to carry on on a reduced scale if a scheme of productive settlement could be initiated.
The model for such a scheme was already in existence. In October, 1922, Colonel Procter had established a model refugee settlement in Western Thrace for about 10,000 refugees with such success that, although the harvest was by no means bountiful, the large majority of these refugees had become self-supporting after the 1923 harvest.
This experiment had, however, been comparatively easy. The refugees in question were emigrants from Western Thrace, who had arrived with their livestock and implements; and land had been found for them in a rather cavalier fashion. The solution of the problem as a whole obviously required an effort on a much larger scale, and one which the Greek Government was wholly incapable of undertaking unaided. Dr. Nansen therefore recommended the Greek Government to ask the Council of the League for the 'moral support
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and technical help of the League' in preparing the negotiations for a large-scale loan, a step which he regarded as essential, in view of the weakness of Greek credit at that time on the international money market.
The Council considered the application with the help of the Financial
Committee. Without following the details of the negotiations, it may be
said that the loan was issued in December, 1924, for a face amount of £12,300,000,
issued in London, Athens and New York, at 88, and bearing 7 per cent, interest.
The London tranche was over-subscribed nearly twenty times. The Protocol
containing the conditions of the loan was signed by the Greek Government
on September 29, 1923, and ratified on June 1, 1924. The securities consisted
of a first charge on certain revenues; an inferior charge on all other
revenues, already subject to prior charges in respect of existing loans;
land assigned for settlement and the buildings erected on it; and repayments
by refugees and taxes payable by them. The Statutes of the Refugee Settlement
Commission were signed at the same time. It was to be composed of an American
Chairman (Mr. Henry Morgenthau), a second member (Mr. John Campbell, I.C.S.),
[*] and two members appointed by the Greek Government
(MM. Delta and Argyropoulos). It was an autonomous body with full legal
powers, its duty being to secure for the refugees productive employ-
*. Afterwards succeeded by Mr. Charles Eddy and Sir John Hope Simpson respectively.
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ment, agricultural or otherwise, by using for this purpose the land assigned it by the Greek Government and the funds placed at its disposal. Its income and funds were 'not to be expended on the relief of distress or other charitable purposes as distinct from the settlement in productive work of the persons assisted.' It reported quarterly to the Greek Government and the Council of the League.
The final issue of the loan had been delayed by political and other difficulties in Greece; but the Commission had already commenced work on November 11, 1923. A comprehensive settlement plan had already been worked out by the Deputy High Commissioner, and three advances of £1,000,000 (by the Bank of England in November, 1923, and May, 1924, and National Bank of Greece in July, 1924) enabled the Commission to begin its work.
The total number of refugees needing assistance was estimated at about one and a quarter millions, in addition to the well-to-do elements with which the Commission did not concern itself. They had arrived from every quarter of the Greek diaspora: from the Smyrna hinterland, from the Pontus, from Eastern Thrace, the Caucasus, Constantinople, the Bulgarian coast. The greater part were old men, women and small children, 'most of the male adults having perished.' The diversity among them struck the Commission. Those who had lived in the interior of Asia Minor, most directly under the domination of Turks or Kurds, were c backward, submissive and
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timid.' The Cappadocians were 'hard-working and energetic, enterprising and practical.' The Greeks of the coast were 'true Ionians in their individualism, their gaiety, energy, suppleness of mind, their adaptability, their great powers of assimilation, their love of change, their talkativeness and their carping spirit.' The men of the Pontus were 'a race of austere morals, who have retained all the combative ardour and the warlike virtues of their ancestor, the mediaeval hero, Digenes Acritas.' The Thracians and Bulgars were 'the true peasant type,' 'slow and serious and of regular habits.' Besides this difference of character, the refugees were of the most various social strata. They included merchants, industrialists, bankers, intelligentzia, small traders, artisans, workers, fishermen; shepherds, farmers of every type; stock-breeders, cultivators, bee-keepers, market gardeners, wine growers, fruit farmers. Unfortunately—to add to the difficulties of the Commission—the urban refugees were, except for the Thracians, Caucasians and Pontans, in a considerable majority. Most of the refugees from Asia Minor were either wholly town-dwellers or half urban, half agricultural: men who, living in a town, cultivated a few vines or olives of their own.
The work done by the Commission and by the Greek Government may be classified under two headings—urban and rural settlement. Of these, the latter was perhaps the more spectacular.
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The Greek Government had undertaken to assign to the Commission, for the purposes of settlement, 5,000,000 stremmata (500,000 hectares, or about 1,125,000 acres). Actually about 8,610,104 stremmata were allotted, of which 5,257,417 were classified as cultivable and 3,352,687 as uncultivable. Of this total, nearly three-quarters lay in Macedonia, and two-thirds of the remainder in Thrace. The centre of gravity of the whole work thus lay in Macedonia. Some two-thirds of the total (5,274,181) was made up of Turkish properties; about 800,000 stremmata of land expropriated and requisitioned; and a slightly smaller total of domain land. All this land was held in full ownership by the Commission until the refugees had repaid their advances and the value of their land. The Commission also took over the colonies already established before it began its work.
An indispensable part of the Commission's work consisted in making a proper cadastral survey, such as up to that time had not existed, of the land allotted. This was carried out very gradually, to a large extent by aeroplane, and was only completed in 1930. Partly owing to the lack of this survey, the difficulties of allotment were very great. In the course of the expropriation, requisition and exchange of the preceding years, much land had been acquired by natives, or even by the first refugees, on doubtful or non-existent authority. To unravel
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these tangles was very difficult, often impossible, and some ill-feeling between the earlier and the later settlers inevitably resulted. Where land had been expropriated under the agrarian legislation, native tenant-farmers had to be regarded as having the prior right, the refugees only getting what was left.
Soon, indeed, it became apparent that there would not be sufficient land for all existing numbers of rural refugees, even without considering their rapid rate of increase. The Commission therefore early turned its attention to the possibilities of land reclamation. In 1924 the Greek Government published statistics showing a total of over 4,000,000 stremmata of cultivable land covered by stagnant water, not including lakes which could be drained and land periodically transformed into marshland by torrents or floods. Most of this marshland lay in Macedonia, which country also suffered exceptionally from winter floods, when the rivers overflow their banks, giving riverside villages 'the aspect of lake dwellings'; covering plantations with water and mud, and breaking down communications.
The financial limitations of the Commission forbade it to undertake much reclamation work. Nevertheless, in Epirus, 15,000 stremmata were drained and restored to agriculture, to benefit six villages; embankment work was undertaken on the banks of the Axios, on the right bank and tributaries of the Strymon, and in the Serres plain. Here canal dredging and weirs affecting 20 villages were undertaken,
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the peasants furnishing 30,000 days' work. Later, larger drainage schemes were initiated at Salonica, Chalcidice and Edessa; work was begun on the marsh of Sari-Ghiol (25,000 stremmata), and irrigation works at Obar (45,000 stremmata). Larger contracts were placed out by the Greek Government with foreign companies. One of these signed a contract for the draining of the Axios plain. Its work on Lakes Ardjan and Amatovo alone was expected to furnish 100,000 stremmata of rich land for agriculture. The work in the Strymon plain, for which a contract was placed with an American firm in 1928, was expected to cost about 20,000,000 dollars, and involves the reclamation of the whole Serres plain and the restoration to agriculture of 743,000 stremmata of marsh, while the water collected in the new lake to be formed would irrigate 470,000 stremmata.
The question was of fundamental importance, since land was already short, and a crisis had been caused by the restriction, owing to agricultural settlement, of the land formerly available for normal shepherds and stock-breeders. The tribes of Kutzo-Vlach shepherds have led their own life in the Balkans since time immemorial; passing the summer on the high mountain slopes, and in autumn coming down to the lowlands. Much of the land assigned by the State to the Commission was necessarily taken out of these winter pastures. The nomads were obliged to reduce their stock, at great loss. In some cases the Commission succeeded in
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arranging a more concentrated form of pasturing by improving the forage; in others the Kutzo-Vlachs emigrated to Roumania and were settled by the Government in Southern Dobruja.
A complement to the drainage work was the clearing and breaking up of land which had formerly been used for pasturage. Mechanical cultivation services were introduced in Macedonia by the Commission in 1924, and, after working uninterruptedly, were transferred to the Government in 1929. They had broken up a quarter of a million stremmata of difficult and barren land, which has now been planted with fruit trees, vines, cereals and cotton. Partly as a result of the example thus shown, the use of agricultural machinery—formerly almost unknown—has become general in Northern Greece.
The land was allocated, in accordance with the traditions and methods of Eastern Europe, where the village community has preserved an individuality long perished in the West, to legally constituted 'groups.' Individual settlements were authorised only in exceptional circumstances. The refugees, unfortunately, had not arrived in communal groups; members of a village, and even of a family, were scattered all over Greece. It was seldom possible to reestablish the old communities in their entirety. In other cases, groups were made up in as homogeneous a fashion as possible. A Council was elected by the heads of families; and the group was then transported to its new lands,
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the limits of which had been marked out roughly. From this total, a share was allotted to each agricultural family, varying according to the quality of the soil and the nature of the cultivation. Thus in the rich Hebros valley, the share might be no more than 15 stremmata; in stony Thessaly, as much as 80. A certain amount of pasturage and fallow land was also granted.
Not all the villages were established for cereal farmers. Some were allotted to vinedressers in Crete and Macedonia; others to market gardeners; others to tobacco growers, olive growers or fruit farmers. Some villages were set to cultivate such crops as hemp and red pepper; while the mountainous districts of Thrace and Macedonia were left to cattle-breeders.
Each family of cultivators received one allotment. Every colony also contained the necessary number of artisans—carpenters, masons, smiths, etc., who got half or quarter of an allotment. Similarly, fishing villages received a smaller share of land, while widows received 'a cow, or a few poultry.' The value of the allotments was kept as uniform as possible, but necessarily varied from 25,000 drachma in parts of Macedonia to as much as 80,000 or 100,000 in the case of some tobacco plantations or vineyards. As a rule the land was divided 'so as to ensure a decent competence to each family of hard-working cultivators.' Some difficulties were, however, caused by the tendency of refugees to flock together into the
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rich districts, regardless of the Commission's efforts.
One very encouraging feature of the settlement was the way in which the land was often improved out of recognition by the refugees. This was due partly to the skilled advice of the Commission, partly to the energies of the refugees themselves, who in many cases were, for the first time, cultivating their own land for their own benefit. The Commissioners could hardly find words to praise sufficiently the courage and ingenuity of the refugees in the face of all difficulties. The 'workshy' was a rare phenomenon, although one gentleman is recorded who thus explained his predilection for sleep:
'In happy circumstances slumber is time lost, but in misfortune it is time gained.'
In general the new villages lost little time in setting to work. Much, of course, depended on the character of the proedros, or village chief— as a rule 'the self-appointed group leader who imposed his authority in the earliest stages, when the group was still nothing but a mass of human beings, rags and bundles dumped at a railway station or a landing-stage.' Many of these were born leaders, respected by his community and by the natives alike. Where a good proedros had the situation well in hand, cheerfulness reigned, and even the grumbling had its humorous side.
'Aren't the houses cold when the north wind blows?'
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'Oh! It's not too bad; the wind comes in at one hole, and it goes out at the other.'
Experience has shown that the initial optimism with which the Commission regarded its work has been amply justified.
From the first year of settlement, the output of crops has steadily increased. In 1927-8 2,811,355 stremmata were under cultivation in Macedonia and Western Thrace alone, producing a total of 208,673,372 okes of the most various crops; cereals of all kinds (wheat, barley, maize and rye, in that order, predominating); tobacco, water-melons, onions, garlic, red pepper, hemp, clover, sesame, flax, potatoes, vines, vetches, etc., etc.
The Commission also established a number of model farms, which were afterwards handed over to the Greek Ministry of Agriculture. These farms have rendered signal service by teaching the refugees modern methods of cultivation and methods of improvement, the advantages of chemical fertilisers, etc.
The Commission paid special attention to the development of the co-operative system, which had been decidedly backward in Greece. A network of co-operative societies was set up, independent agricultural credit funds established in Thrace and Macedonia, which made short-term loans against emergencies, or long-term loans for development. A School of Cooperative Economics was established at Salon-ica. The Bank of Greece has spoken very highly of the regularity with which the refugees repay their loans; and the whole development
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of the co-operative system has done an immense amount to consolidate the agricultural work of the Commission.
One most interesting result of the Commission's work was to instil into the Greek Government the determination to inaugurate a wholly new agricultural policy. A General Directorate of Agriculture has been established, and the Governmental agricultural services reorganised. In this work the Greek Government was admittedly building on the foundations laid by the League, even to the extent of taking over the Commission's former personnel.
Few of the refugees arrived with any livestock of their own; only the immigrants from Western Thrace and Bulgaria had salvaged a few of their beasts of burden. The State and the Commission were only able to supply a limited number of stock: 145,051 cattle and horses, this including beasts for ploughing, draught animals and breeding stock, and 99,940 goats. Most of the agricultural families received one beast for plough or draught animal; only a few large families got two, and some went without altogether, and were forced to plough with human labour. Stock-breeding refugees received twenty sheep per family.
It was not easy to find so large a number of animals. Grey cattle were imported from the neighbouring Balkan countries, Cyprus and Asia Minor. Horses came from as far away as Hungary and Galicia, donkeys and mules from Greece, Italy and Cyprus, sheep from Bulgaria and Serbian Macedonia. All distributed stock
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was branded, and carefully examined for disease before being handed over. The veterinary service, to which the latter duty was entrusted, afterwards engaged more particularly in a campaign against local diseases. Very remarkable work was done in this respect. Injections were given against anthrax and glanders; scab overcome thanks to the activities of special travelling outfits, which gave lessons in cleanliness and animal hygiene; two threatened outbreaks of cattle plague were successfully destroyed at the outset. Thanks to these measures, the mortality in stock remained remarkably low, despite the rough conditions and the ignorance of the refugees. Further, model stud farms were established, which have done much to improve local stock by crossing with selected foreign strains. These have now been handed over to the Greek Ministry of Agriculture. A remarkable phenomenon has been the multiplication of the refugee's stocks; and the villages of Macedonia are now enlivened by multitudes of cows, calves, buffaloes, horses, mares, colts and sheep, the progeny of the original stock issued. Only goats have been discouraged, owing to their destructive habits, and pigs treated with circumspection.
In addition to land and stock, each agricultural family received farming tools, in many cases a cart, seed for the first crop, a subsistence loan, or a supply of forage for its animals, each quarter until the first harvest, and a house.
The houses constituted one of the chief difficulties. In some cases it was possible to
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have the refugees in quarters vacated by exchanged persons and refugees. The Turks had left behind over 53,000 houses in Macedonia, and there were a small number elsewhere. But these buildings, although picturesque, were mostly insanitary and dilapidated, generally past repair. Many of them could only be used as barns. In most cases the Commission had to construct new houses, either on the outskirts of existing villages, or—more often— as entirely new villages.
The Commission set to work with such vigour that in some three years over 40,000 houses had been constructed; and the final total was considerably higher. Thus most of the refugees were soon housed, although some were left for some years in tents, underground dwellings or mud hovels thatched with reeds. It cannot be said that the villages were beautiful. From the aesthetic point of view, indeed, they presented a dismal contrast to the old Turkish type of house. The usual type was a two-roomed boxlike house, sometimes with a stable. Where no stable had been put up, the family would live in one room, the animals in another—no unusual arrangement in the Near East. A few houses were four-roomed. Most of them were of masonry and mortar, others of concrete or clay brick. The floor was nearly always of beaten earth, the roof of tiles or corrugated iron. The cost per house varied from £50 upward. In some cases the whole work of building was done by contract; in others the refugees were supplied with the material and
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the necessary money for carpenters' and masons' wages, themselves supplying the rough labour and transport. The difficulties to be surmounted were enormous; material had to be brought from a distance, often over country where no roads existed. Even for the materials, saw-mills had to be set up in the Pindus forests, and tile-works for the roofs in many parts of the country.
Nor was the work completed when the houses themselves were built. Existing water supplies had to be set in order, conduits repaired, wells and springs cleaned. Many existing villages were entirely without water supply; the exchanged inhabitants had fetched their water daily, sometimes a distance of several miles, by means of long trains of donkeys or buffaloes. Here the Commission undertook a task of peculiar interest. A geological survey was made, and new wells were sunk, either by hand or machinery. Many hundreds of such wells were sunk. In some cases, artesian wells brought water to what had been previously arid and uninhabitable districts. The work done in this connection is among the most important accomplished by the Commission. Finally, schools and churches and the other adjuncts to civilisation had to be built.
One of the most important and difficult tasks facing the Commission was that of coping with the sanitary situation. It has already been mentioned how Dr. Nansen's prompt measures in 1923 helped to check the spread of epidemics.
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Nevertheless, the danger was not over. The refugees consisted, for the most part, of old men, women and children, discouraged and exhausted by suffering and privation. Moreover, four-fifths of the colonisation had to be carried out in the deadly malarial region of Macedonia.
The first year was terrible. In the second fortnight of October, 1923, 5,207 cases of malaria were reported, of which 320 proved fatal, out of a total of 14,000 persons in transit. During the last months of 1923 the mortality among the refugee population was 45 per cent., 70 per cent, of the deaths being due to malaria. Deaths outnumbered births by 3 to 1 in 1923 and the first half of 1924. In 1924, in the Chalcidice, Yenije, Kilhos, Ehaterini and Serres one-fifth of the refugee population died. The State health services made superhuman efforts, but the means at their disposal, and at that of the charitable societies, were limited.
The Commission itself was unable to grapple with this task as it would have wished; but by July 1, 1925, it had been able to establish a health service in Macedonia, covering the chief danger-zone, with a total population of about 200,000 refugees. The villages were grouped in fifty-nine sectors, each of which was given a dispensary with a doctor, a pharmacist and supplies. Every family was entitled to receive medical assistance in return for a small annual contribution. Medicaments and quinine were supplied at cost price, or free to the very poor. The staff, which consisted partly of refugee
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doctors, also made visits and conducted educational propaganda 'like real apostles.'
The results of the Commission's work have been very remarkable indeed. Macedonia cannot even now be called a healthy district, although veiy great improvements have been effected, and still more are expected in the near future, when the draining and reclamation work now in progress has been completed. In this connection attention may be drawn to the work done by the Health Section of the League (independently of the Commission) in Yugoslavia as well as in Greece. Malaria is still prevalent, but the death-rate has been reduced very considerably. In 1928, out of 65,508 cases of malaria treated, only 345 proved fatal; and that year was marked by exceptionally heavy rains.
The Twenty-Second Periodical Report was able to say:
'The health of the refugees may be said to be steadily improving. . . . This improvement is largely due to the fact that, notwithstanding many adverse circumstances, the economic situation of the refugees is becoming more favourable every year, with the result that they now enjoy greater comfort and sufficient nourishment. The drainage of fields . . . has been of great assistance, as has also the pure and abundant supply of water with which our colonists have gradually been provided.'
Particularly beneficial, too, was the anti tuberculosis campaign recently started in Greece by the Health Section of the League.
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Dispensaries, hospital accommodation, sanatoria and an organisation for the protection of children are being established, and it seems probable that tuberculosis in Macedonia, like the second local scourge of malaria, will soon be reduced to within ordinary limits.
The work of the agricultural settlement is now completed. Indeed, the colonisation proper was discontinued in 1928, the later work of the Commission being concentrated on such problems as water supply, irrigation, communications, etc. It has been, as the Report wrote:
'A hard, complex and sometimes even colossal undertaking. ... In Thrace, and particularly in Macedonia, it assumed the proportions of a veritable struggle against nature, man and matter. Only persons who have been on the spot can adequately realise the efforts, self-sacrifice and patience necessary to bring to a happy conclusion a task which was complicated by its very magnitude. Each year brings fresh anxieties, particularly for the refugee... When disasters occur, he has to make a terrible effort over himself to start again and forget the whole year which has been lost. In spite of all, "hope springs eternal in the human breast." The air of plenty which now pervades the countryside inhabited by our colonists justifies the faith in a brighter future.'
These words were written in 1926; but their optimism has since been abundantly justified. Disasters and difficulties have occurred. A serious crisis, due to over-production, has complicated the position of the tobacco
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growers. Disastrous floods, in certain areas, have ruined much patient
work. In the matter of communications, much remains to be done. Taking
it as a whole, however, the most dis-passioned observer could not fail
to describe the work of rural settlement as a success so remarkable as
to border on the prodigious.
The problem of the urban refugees was in some respects more difficult still. The peasants could be settled on waste or abandoned lands; but the urban refugees—who had, moreover, arrived in inordinate numbers—had to compete for a livelihood with the pre-existing urban population of Greece. Attempts to reduce the disproportion between the two categories by settling former town-dwellers or half-agriculturists on the land were not uniformly successful, although many townspeople made a genuine effort to settle down as cultivators. It was interesting to note that the town-dweller who did take up agriculture often succeeded in the long run better than the born peasant, owing to his superior alertness and capacity to absorb new ideas.
The Greek Government, with the help of Greek and foreign organisations, placed as many men as possible in the public administrations, banks and private enterprises. The state of its over-burdened finances, however, did not permit it to supply funds to help the thousands of unemployed townspeople to secure a livelihood. The Government therefore decided to
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deal with essentials first, and at least to furnish houses. For the moment, the refugees were quartered wherever accommodation could be found—in churches, schools, factories, warehouses and private houses, the Ministry of Assistance being empowered to requisition whatever buildings it required. An autonomous State department—the Assistance Fund (the work of which was taken over in May, 1925, by the Ministry of Assistance)—began the construction of new suburbs round Athens, the Piraeus, Eleusis, Volo, Edessa and other, smaller places. A number of dwellings were quickly run up, varying from comfortable apartments to the crudest of plank sheds or mud-brick huts.
The Commission took over these suburbs on starting its work; and although unable to initiate a general scheme of productive urban employment, at least succeeded in carrying through an extensive building scheme, which was supplemented by the efforts of the Government. Up to the end of 1929, the Commission had completed, or nearly completed, over 27,000 dwellings. The State had also constructed another 20,000 dwellings, including six new quarters at Salonica. A certain number of refugees were placed in vacated Turkish dwellings.
The large new refugee quarters are genuine towns, with a corporate life of their own; cafes, shops, restaurants, schools, water-supply— often constructed at considerable cost—and animated streets and squares, full of busy
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passers-by. As the Report says, 'it is hard to believe that these decently dressed men and women, full of life and with something to spend on their amusements, are the same who landed on the shores of Greece three years ago naked and starving, and in many cases carrying in their arms dead children who they did not know where to bury.'
The Commission's houses have been for the most part let to refugees at a low rent.
The question of supplying work for these refugees was a hard one. Macedonia and Thrace alone contained nearly 300,000 of them, of whom over 150,000 were concentrated in Salonica. Of these, only some 35 per cent, were what is commonly known as workmen, the remainder being artisans, small industrialists and retail traders.
The great building activity of the first years employed many of these workers. Afterwards, public works were undertaken on a large scale in and around Athens, at Salonica, in Macedonia, etc. These undertakings, which included the draining of marshes, the canalisation of watercourses and waterfalls, the making of new roads and improvement and embellishment of the principal towns, employed a large amount of labour. The work was financed by a second international loan, floated in 1928 at 6 per cent., and giving a net yield of £6,500,000. Like its predecessor, this loan was issued under League auspices. £3,000,000 of the yield were applied by the Commission for its refugee
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work; the remaining sum helped to stabilise the Greek currency.
The refugees were not, however, dependent solely on the efforts of the Commission or on Government assistance. Many of the merchants, industrialists, bankers and shipowners who had migrated to Greece brought with them a large amount of capital besides a great business capacity. The arrival of this element brought with it a very large expansion of Greek trade and industry. To quote only one example, the production of woollen stuffs and fabrics rose from 1,400,000 metres in 1922 to 2,200,000 in 1925. Industrial progress was also marked by the increased importation of machinery. The fishing industry has made astonishing advances. New silk factories have sprung up, which absorb the produce of the cultivators of Macedonia. Particularly interesting is the transference of the carpet industry from Anatolia to Greece. The famous Smyrna carpets are now manufactured exclusively in the Piraeus. About 10,000 women now earn their living by this trade, which brings in more than £50,000 a year. Establishments for producing fancy materials and embroideries were set up also in Crete, Zante, Salonica, Fiorina, Athens, etc.
While the Commission's earlier reports were usually despondent about urban settlement, their later reports showed an extraordinary change of tone. 'At the present time '—wrote the General Summary issued in September, 1928—'the facility with which the urban refu-
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gees have been able to create fresh resources in their homeland has exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts. . . . The number of persons who have been able to . . . learn new wrays of making a living has been far greater than anyone could have supposed. We refer in particular to the extension of small industries.'
The larger half of the urban refugee population had definitely 'made
good' by 1930. The situation of the remainder was far from hopeless. The
large public works schemes promised employment for some; for others, the
resources of the soil and subsoil of Macedonia, if properly exploited,
could more than provide.
The Winding-up of the League's Work
By a Convention concluded on January 24, 1930, the Commission handed over its work to the Greek Government on December 31, 1930, after making careful arrangements to safeguard the rights of the bondholders. Up to that time, the Commission had received from loans, receipts, etc., nearly £15,000,000, of which it had spent about £10,500,000 on rural settlement, over £2,000,000 on urban settlement, £12,320 on arts and crafts and £100,000 on the carpet industry. It had built over 50,000 agricultural houses and nearly 30,000 urban houses. It has established about 170,000 agricultural and 25,000 urban families, and maintained them through their subsequent difficulties at a cost which worked out at £1 4s. per head per annum. It had found some
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of the most hideous misery of modern years; it left behind it peace, industry and the beginnings of a sound and lasting prosperity. The work was not, indeed, over, but the task of carrying it on could now be left to the Greek Government, with full confidence in the future.