Two of these are (a) Thasos, Samothraki, and Lemnos, off the European coast, and (b) Samos and its satellite Nikaria, immediately off the west coast of Anatolia; and these five islands seem definitely to have been given up by Turkey for lost.  The European group is well beyond the range of her present frontiers; while Samos, though it adjoins the Turkish mainland, does not mask the outlet from any considerable port, and had moreover for many years possessed the same privileged autonomy as Krete, so that the Ottoman Government did not acutely feel its final severance.

(c) A third group consists of Mitylini and Khios,[1] and concerning this pair Greece and Turkey have so far come to no understanding.  The Turks pointed out that the littoral off which these islands lie contains not only the most indispensable ports of Anatolia but also the largest enclaves of Greek population on the Asiatic mainland, and they declared that the occupation of this group by Greece menaced the sovereignty of the Porte in its home territory.  ‘See’, they said, ’how the two islands flank both sides of the sea-passage to Smyrna, the terminus of all the railways which 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 impolitic machinations.  ‘Greek sovereignty in Mitylini and Khios’, the Greeks maintained, ’does not threaten Turkish sovereignty on the Continent.  But the restoration of Turkish suzerainty over the islands would most seriously endanger the liberty of their inhabitants; for Turkish promises are notoriously valueless, except when they are endorsed by the guarantee of some physically stronger power.’