Cited from “Illustrierte Geschichte des Balkankrieges 1912 – 13 Zweiter Band (Zweiter Band / 1914)”:
“In these circumstances, a petition from Constantinople was sent to all sovereigns of all the great powers. It was signed by Grand Vizier Kiamil, Senate President Ferid Pasha, and former Grand Viziers, senators, and ministers, who all united to demonstrate that, despite the armistice, the irregulars of the Balkan armies continued to massacre and exterminate the Muslim population, even though, or perhaps because, they constituted 60 percent of the population of what was then European Turkey.
This Turkish appealed to the civilization and humanity of the European great powers to put a stop to the monstrous slaughter of an innocent population. German testimonies and French documents had already proven and confirmed for weeks and months that more Muslims were murdered in European Turkey than Turkey was able to kill Christians in the five centuries of its rule in those territories.
All the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War were revived in the Balkans in the 20th century. Just read the official report of an eyewitness from the city of Drama. Emin Effendi Naib sent it to the Turkish government. He reports:
“After the Bulgarians seized Besih, the government building in Drama, they flooded the city: they broke into all the Muslim houses and plundered them. The women and girls were raped, many had their breasts cut off, and most had their eyes gouged out; then they were led outside the city where they were barbarically murdered, mostly by being burned alive after being doused with kerosene.
Under the impression of this horrific scene, a crowd of 2,000 people, including the elderly, children, and my family, fled on foot to Kawalla. While searching for my family there, I also passed the government building and the warehouses of the foreign shillings, where a mass of people—children and women—had sought refuge, driven mad with fear.
In one warehouse flying the English flag, I saw 2,000 to 3,000 refugees of every rank and gender crammed together: they remained there for four nights without any food. After the authorities had heralded that order had been restored and that everyone could return to their homes unmolested, some dared to visit their old homes; however, they found them completely empty and looted.
My house suffered the same fate: my books, including religious texts, lay on the floor, trampled and torn. My family, who had spent one night in the village of Doskad, finally arrived in Kawalla after a thousand perilous journeys. It was only two weeks later that I received news from my family through the Greek bishop with whom I myself had sought refuge.
This bishop also enabled me to reach Kawalla by providing me with two priests. In Doskad, during the looting of the building of the notable Chaban, 27,000 Turkish pounds were stolen, as well as all the promissory notes totaling 5,000 pounds that he held from the inhabitants of Chatalja. All his family members were slaughtered, a child before his very eyes; he himself was killed in turn.
After his eyes were gouged out, his nose and ears cut off, and his arms and legs hacked off, the dismembered body was thrown into the street. A young teacher was also slaughtered in this way, after his ears were cut off and his eyes gouged out. All the other inhabitants in this village, which numbers 400 houses, was killed in the same barbaric manner; only about 40 old men escaped this general slaughter.
In Kawalla, too, all the notables without exception were mercilessly slaughtered after their money and valuables had been taken from them. Edib Bey and Bastiar Effendi, also a Muslim from a good family, was hacked to pieces, as were several other unfortunate people. The mosques were all immediately converted into churches. The refugees in Kawalla, who had been forced by the Bulgarian authorities under threat of punishment to return to their villages, Those returning have been looted and massacred along the way.”
Source
[Abb.]: Die Greueltaten in Kawalla. Illustrierte Geschichte Des Balkankrieges 1912 – 13 Zweiter Band. A. Hartleben’s Verlag, 1914. Illustrierte Geschichte des Balkankrieges 1912 – 13 Zweiter Band (Zweiter Band / 1914).
