One of the worst attacks of this campaign attack took place in Phocaea ( Greek : Φώκαια ) , on the night of 12 June 1914 , a town in western Anatolia next to Smyrna , where Turkish irregular troops destroyed the city , killing 50 or 100 civilians and causing its population to flee to Greece . French eyewitness Charles Manciet states that the atrocities he had witnessed at Phocaea were of an organized nature that aimed at circling Christian peasant populations of the region . In another attack against Serenkieuy , in Menemen district , the villagers formed armed resistance groups but only a few managed to survive being outnumbered by the attacking Muslim irregular bands . During the summer of the same year the Special Organization ( Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa ) , assisted by government and army officials , conscripted Greek men of military age from Thrace and western Anatolia into Labour Battalions in which hundreds of thousands died . These conscripts , after being sent hundreds of miles into the interior of Anatolia , were employed in road-making , building , tunnel excavating and other field work ; but their numbers were heavily reduced through privations and ill-treatment and through outright massacre by their Ottoman guards
destroyed the city
Massacre of Phocaea
Greek genocide