Our world has long been regarded as two worlds, one named East and the other named West. Between these worlds is a narrow passage that consists of two channels, called Bosporus and Dardanelles, where Constantine’s ancient fortress of Istanbul guards the narrow gap between the two worlds. This, too, is the site of Troy, and also the western extent of the Persian Empire that so threatened ancient Greece. And it is also Gallipoli—the site of the Dardanelles Campaign, where nearly four hundred thousand men died fighting for control of the gap. And within sight of the bloody face of Gallipoli, at the mouth of the straits, is a forgotten, “Barren Island” once known by the name Tenedos.
Tenedos
When, at the climax of the Trojan War, as the gift-horse of the Achaeans rolled through the gates of Troy, Agamemnon’s fleet lay concealed nearby at the old Phoenician stronghold of Tenedos, isle of the antagonists Apollo and Dionysus, a protectorate of Poseidon, an isle of the best wine grapes and the most beautiful women; an isle of singing winds; flowing springs that fed olive groves, vineyards, and renowned herb gardens. It was the furthest thing from barren.
Placed by the Titans at the mouth of the Dardanelles, Tenedos—the Isle of the Straits—was a prized spot, and not just by the Greeks. She was employed as a naval base by the Persian Empire. Then came Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Byzantine Greeks, and in the 14th Century, the Ottoman Turks.
When the Ottomans swept across the gap and made the straits their own, the Isle of the Straits was a necessary part of the package. For hundreds upon hundreds of years hence, Turks and Greeks cohabited the island in relative peace, but as the 19th Century came to a close, the decline of the proud empire gave birth to a murderous paranoia. In the wake of the empire’s defeat at the hands of Russia, roughly two hundred thousand Armenians were massacred. In 1914, the flagging Ottomans entered the Great War, hoping to settle some scores with the Czar. Failing at that, the Ottomans declared war against their internal enemies: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks. These were all Christians in an era of Christian ascendancy, and amid the hysteria of war their allegiance to Ottoman rule was cast into doubt. The Armenians were the first to be cleansed.
The ethnic strife that was re-ignited by the War outlived the War. An ethnic war erupted in 1963 between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and the Turkish government reacted with strident actions against Anatolian Greeks. Tenedos and her sister isle Imvros were subjected to especially draconian measures. Land was grabbed by the government. The islands were made into “open prisons.” Convicts were put on the islands to roam free and terrorize the island residents. Greek islanders were compelled to abandon their homes and their homelands.
The government of Greece, regarding the islanders as half-Turk half-breeds, showed little interest in their fate. Before long, only a few dozen elderly Greeks remained on Barren Island, and the island’s old Greek name was no longer needed.