Page:Englishwomaninan00elli.pdf/234

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There are, at present, but few feminine stars in the Turkish firmament. But all are loyally united in one common cause—to gain their freedom and save the Fatherland. It is too soon for us to indulge in prophecy on what their final self-organisation may achieve.

Halidé Hanoum, like so many others, is trying to regain the health she spent so generously during the war. Attached to the army as a sergeant, she followed the troops without a thought of danger and fatigue; and since the recent hostilities she has ridden from town to town throughout Anatolia, collecting and arranging her report of the Greek destruction and atrocities. This report, controlled by experts and neutral commissions, was sent to the Lausanne Conference. Halidé Hanoum's expression is sad. "How can I help loving my Anatolian home?" she said. "It has cost us such a terrible price in lives and suffering to save our land, we naturally would all die now rather than live in slavery again.

"I am horrified to hear," she went on, "that anyone can still attribute the fire in Smyrna to the Turks. Why do they not accuse them, too, of burning Asia Minor? Will it always have to be so? Although the Greek atrocities committed in our land are too horrible even to talk or write about, excuses are always found for the Greeks, while anything done by the Turks is grossly, unjustly exaggerated. If one Christian dies, the whole Christian world is concerned, as it should be. But, on the other hand, when a whole community of Moslems is wiped out, no one cares. . . . It is this spirit of injustice that exasperates Moslems. Now, however, our recent victory gives us the right to demand equal consideration with Europeans, no more, no less." But, "speaking of Greek atrocities," she continues, "the world has simply got to know what they were during this war. Dr. Nansen, of the League of Nations, is busy lecturing on the Greeks' suffering, but what of the Turks'? All the terrible devastation to which you can testify, all the number of women and children burnt and violated; the world must have