Bulgarians in Turkey

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   This thread is about one of the first acts of ethnic cleansing performed by the Ottoma empire - the expulsion of Bulgarians from Eastern Thrace. When the Ottoman Empire reoccupied the territory previously lost to Bulgarins in 1913 during the Second Balkan War it emptied it virtually of all Bulgarians. The events are described in the Carnegie Report, accessible at:

@ http://knigite.abv.bg/en/carnegie/

Virtually all Bulgarians from Eastern Thrace were expelled to Bulgaria, and  in "Contextualizing 'Turkifcation�: nation-building in the late Ottoman Empire, 1908�18"" Erol Ulker describes the events as follows:

The initial method of purification of Anatolia of non-Muslim elements was the exchange of populations. It was first carried out at the end of 1913 and involved the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. Formulated by the treaty of peace that was signed after the second Balkan War on September 29, 1913, the population exchange resulted in the deportation of 48,570 Muslims from the Bulgarian territory and 46,764 Bulgarians from the Ottoman Empire�s Thrace region (Ladas 1932: 20).

@ http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-8129.2005.00222.x

The worst massacres were comitted by Bashibozuks. Particulary gruesome episodes are described by witness accounts:

It was Wednesday the 3d (16th). It was night and the village slept. All at once the Turks arrived.  The women and children were in a frenzy.  They asked for money. They killed many people. Nicolas the shopkeeper (bakal) was killed, Stoyan Kantchev was killed and also his son, fifteen years old. Next came the turn of Demetrius Stoyanov, Saranda Medeltchev, Demetrius Gheorgiev, Petro Stoyanov, Heli Athanasov and his brother. Cone Athanasov (these are his children); next Nicolas Gheorghiev, his wife and his twelve year old son; Demetrius Daoudjiski. Demetrius Christov, Christo Dimitrov�120 persons were gathered together in a single house; the Arabs arrived and asked them "Who are you ?" and they replied "We are Greeks." Thereupon they were asked for money. Everything was taken. Their pockets were searched. On the cries of the victims the cavalry came up. They did not touch the people; it was the "Arabs" who attacked them. The attack on the village did not last more than fifteen minutes. Then the Turks went away in the direction of Lule-Bourgas. However, the next day more "Arabs" arrived. 

One of the most mercieless crimes probably took place in Mustafa Pasha town:

At Zaiouf, 560 persons were killed. On taking the offensive, the Turks transported their habits of pillage across the frontier. Among the villages destroyed in Bulgarian territory the Commission heard of Soudjak, Kroumovo, Vakouj, Lioubimits, etc. When according to the conditions of the treaty of peace, Mustapha Pasha had to be handed back to the Bulgarians, the Turks destroyed it completely, as is shown by the report of Mr. Alexander Kirov of October 19 (November 1), which is in the hands of the Commission. Mr. Kirov recounts that here too the return of the Turks during the second war was signalized by the massacre of the whole male population (eighteen persons). The old woman, who survived this appalling day, described how they killed them one by one amid the laughter and approving cries of the Moslem crowd. The headsman, a certain Karaghioze Ali, varied the mode of execution to amuse the mob. When a young man named Chopov asked to be killed more quickly, that he might not see such appalling scenes, Karaghioze Ali, smoking his cigarette, replied: "Be patient, my child; your turn is coming," and he killed him last. The old schoolmaster, Vaglarov, seventy years of age, was killed in the street, and throughout the day his head was carried by the beard from quarter to quarter. The mother of the writer of the report was killed on July 13/26, and thrown down a well. In the courtyard a portion of her hair, torn off with the skin, and her bloodstained garments, were found.

Bulgarians had comitted horrible autrocities in Odrin too when the town was under their control. Although this thread is supposed to be about the Turkish crimes against the Bulgarian, for the sake of balance I also include  a description of the Bulgarian autrocities. On August 20th 1913 (before the crimes against the Bulgarians were performed and when the city was under Bulgarian control) the London Daily Telegraph published the following:

I had occasion to visit Adrianople and its environs in company with ten or more foreign correspondents representing the largest newspapers and telegraphic agencies. The eager readiness with which the Turkish government gave us the necessary permits and afforded us facilities for making our inquiries, prove that the Turks felt sure that we could make no discoveries that would harm them; that on the contrary, publication of the truth could only be to their interest; a most thorough and detailed inquiry proved that in this the Turks were right. I shall say nothing of the atrocious manner in which 15,000 Turkish prisoners and some 5,000 Turkish civilians were treated in the first four days during which they were mewed up like cattle in the island of Sarai, where, in the rain, they perished of cold and hunger, with no food but the bark of trees and the soles of their old shoes. They died in hundreds every day, so that when the time for departure to Bulgaria came, there were but some 10,000 of them left. That is well known.

Edited by bg_turk - 22-May-2006 at 15:13