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Sea port that bore certain similarities with Smyrna. He had been ashore only a few hours when he caught his first glimpse of the troubles that lay ahead. He was taking refuge from the biting cold when a young boy approached him and asked for a contribution to the Greek navy. Childs was taken aback by such a provocative act but he soon learned that collections for the Greek military were a daily occurrence. The Greeks in Samsun ‘look to Greece and contribute money in her aid, especially to her navy, with open-handed generosity, hoping dimly for the reconstitution of the Greek Empire with Constantinople for its capital’. Childs was told that they had raised more than £12,000 in the previous year – a significant sum of money.
    Although he was not aware of it at the time, he had witnessed an event of quite extraordinary significance. More than four and a half centuries after the Byzantine empire was snuffed out by the forces of Mehmet the Conqueror, the flotsam and jetsam of that empire – Greeks left adrift in Ottoman Turkey – were casting their gaze westwards, towards the mother country.
    Over the long years of Ottoman rule, many had lost touch with their patrimony. Some had abandoned their Christian faith and many more had forgotten how to speak Greek. When the English traveller, Sir William Ramsay, passed through Anatolia in the 1890s, he had been shocked to find entire communities that could no longer converse in their mother tongue.
    By the time Childs was trekking over the lonely peaks of Anatolia, everything was on the point of change. Intellectuals from Athens had pushed deep into the countryside in order to teach communities about their Greek roots. Even the smallest Greek villages boasted a school that taught children the language of their forefathers. These schools were transforming the old way of life in rural Turkey. The country found itself with a new class of educated Greeks who were channelling all their energies into commerce, profit-making and politics – often at the expense of the Turks. ‘The Turks have turned a blind eye to the painstaking efforts of the Greeks,’ wrote Gaston Deschamps, ‘little realising that the day would come when they would find themselves enslaved by those in their midst.’
    Every village in Anatolia had a Greek grocery store that dominated the life of the community. As these grocers accumulated more and more wealth, they found themselves becoming banker and moneylender to their Turkish neighbours. ‘The Greek grocer offers his services with one hundred per cent credit,’ noted Deschamps, ‘with the Turk’s property as guarantee. In this way, he is skilfully managing to recover all the land that the infidel conquered from him.’
    Parish priests spared no effort in reminding their flocks of their neglected heritage. ‘Religion provides the link for all the Greeks in Turkey,’ wrote Louis de Launay. ‘The ostentatious display of their Christian faith is the best way in which they can express legally their most fervent desire . . . their future reunion into one vast and powerful Hellenic empire.’
    As William Childs traipsed his way across the barren plains of central Anatolia – pausing each morning for his hearty cooked breakfast – he found the Greek revival in full swing. Some 2,000 high schools had been opened and he discovered that families who until recently had spoken only Turkish were now conversing freely in Greek. American mission schools were also playing an important role in educating the Greeks. They were run by a highly professional corporation in Massachusetts and their work was a multi-million-dollar enterprise. Many of the schools were equipped with the latest imported technology.
    When Childs had set out on his extended hike, he had been filled with enthusiasm for a land that was home to scores of different nationalities. By the time he reached Anatolia’s southern coastline, he was rather more sanguine. He had seen with his own eyes the