Ch penetrate the Anatolian interior, while Mitylini barricades Aivali and Edremid as well. As soon as the Greek Government
has converted the harbours of these islands into naval bases, Anatolia will be subject to a perpetual Greek blockade, and this violent intimidation of the Turkish people
will be reinforced by an insidious propaganda among the disloyal Greek elements
in our midst.' Accordingly the Turks refused
to recognize the award of the powers, and demanded the re-establishment of Ottoman sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios, under guarantee of an autonomy
after the precedent of Krete and
Samos. [Footnote 1: Including its famous satellite Psara.]
To these arguments and demands the Greeks replied
that, next to Krete; these are the
two largest, most wealthy, and most populous Greek islands in the Aegean; that their inhabitants ardently desire union with the national kingdom; and that the Greek Government would hesitate to use them as a basis for economic coercion and nationalistic propaganda
against Turkey, if only because
the commerce of western Anatolia is almost exclusively in the hands of the Greek element on the Asiatic continent. Greek interests were presumably bound up with the
economic prosperity and political consolidation
of Turkey in Asia, and the Anatolian Greeks would merely have been
alienated from their compatriots by any such
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