Most of us have heard of the World War II Nazi holocaust, and many have heard of the Armenian Genocide of 1915 during World War I (WW I), but who has heard of the holocaust that occurred in Smyrna in September, 1922, committed by the Turks - four years after the end of WW I? Why we have not heard about it is a good question. Paradise Lost - Smyrna 1922, the Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World, by Giles Milton, is one of the most compelling history books of the century. The book was published by Basic Books in 2008. Brilliantly written, documented and researched, it tells the heart wrenching and most astounding story ever told - a story that will shock the reader with the brutal genocide by Turkish forces immediately after WW I. Man's inhumanity to man is the best example of what happened in Smyrna in September 1922. The Turkish holocaust is only one of the astounding stories that comes alive in every page; the other example is how the Allied forces watched people being butchered in front of them and they not only refused to intervene but passively let it happen.
Smyrna, one of the seven Biblical cities of the New Testament, was a majority Christian city that had prospered in the Muslim world of the Ottomans; it was the jewel of Asia Minor, very successful and prosperous. Its inhabitants were unlike the rest of the Ottoman world, mainly of European stock, British, Levantines, Greeks, Italians, Jews and Armenians. Most of these people's roots went back to the Byzantine period. Smyrna was the Hong Kong of its day. Many of the top citizens were successful businessmen who hired hundreds of thousands of Turks to work their factories. A port city as cosmopolitan as Paris or London with a great night life, culture, music and the arts; an oasis in a sea of Islam.
After the Ottoman Turks were defeated in WW I the European powers could not decide what to do with the defeated Ottoman Empire (modern day Turkey. They finally decided that they would let Greece send troops to occupy Smyrna which they did in May 1919. After landing troops in Smyrna, the Greek soldiers, along with the majority Greek population of Smyrna, started celebrating as if they had just won the lottery. As they're marching through the city a shot is heard. The Greek troops go crazy and proceed to murder about 500 citizens, mostly Turks, as they shoot randomly all over the place. It was believed that the shot was an intentional provocation by an Italian military officer stationed in Smyrna. It is later discovered that the Italian government had supplied arms to the Turks. After securing Smyrna the Greek Army moved to occupy a large part of the interior of Turkey. Initially, they had many successes, but as they stretched their forces out deeper and deeper they suffered setbacks when their rear supply lines were successfully attacked by the Turks. Milton describes how the Greek soldiers committed atrocities as they rampaged through a large swath of Turkey. When a Greek commander was questioned as to why his soldiers were committing atrocities he responded that he liked the idea.
The Greek occupation of Turkey was condemned to failure from the beginning. They had no hope of success. After fighting wars since 1912, the Greeks were near collapse, physically and financially. Additionally, they were led by incompetent civilian and military leaders. Their defeat was a foregone conclusion. The Greeks called their adventure in Turkey, the "Megali Idea," the great idea to re-establish a Greek empire. The British mistakenly saw them as the up and coming power in the Mediterranean. The French and the Italians, perhaps jealous of the Greeks, stabbed them in the back by supplying the Turks with weapons and sabotaging the Greeks whenever possible. It was the most pathetic picture. All the Turks, led by the future founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, had to do was bide their time; which they did to perfection. Besides being a brilliant military commander and a charismatic leader, Kemal was a shrewd politician as well; he played the allies like a violin. Milton describes Kemal as a heroic figure.
After the defeat of the Greek Army, the Turks advanced toward Smyrna. They advanced as the defeated Greek soldiers moved on their own as best they could to reach Smyrna where they hoped to get on ships which would rescue them. Milton is at his best in telling the story of what happened once the Turks arrived in Smyrna. The Turkish Army, which included many irregulars called "chettes," were on their own and each soldier did whatever he wanted to whomever he encountered. Most soldiers acted like gangs of thugs on a rampage. They began by robbing and raping young women. They would force their way into a house, steal valuables, money and whatever they wanted and rape the women. After raping the women they would kill them and dismember their bodies. Milton is more descriptive, but to save the reader revulsion, I'll be less descriptive. It was as worse as you could imagine it.
At other instances, armed Turkish soldiers would stop people on the street and demand all they had; if someone had nothing the person was tortured and killed. In one instance, a man who had nothing for them to steal was hacked to death in front of the others. As Milton describes it, the troops were completely undisciplined and without leaders. Whether this was by design is not stated, but my impression is that this was by design. The Turkish leaders basically told them to do whatever they wanted.
When the Turkish military commander of Smyrna, General Noureddin finally appears on the scene, he calls for a meeting with the leader of the Greek church, Metropolitan Chrysostom. The meeting lasts less than a few minutes. The General turns the bishop over to the mob outside and tells them to do whatever they want with him. The mob proceeds to hack him to death.
After a month of pillaging and killing at will, the Turks set the city on fire by bringing in barrels of gasoline, spreading it everywhere and lighting it. The city, with the exception of the Turkish quarter, is set ablaze. Over 500,000 screaming Christians fled to the waterfront desperate to escape. Professor M.H. Dobkin in his book on the Smyrna genocide describes how the European powers watched from their ships in the Smyrna harbor: "While a flotilla of twenty-seven Allied warships - including three American destroyers - looked on, the Turks indulged in an orgy of pillage, rape and slaughter; which the Western powers condoned - eager to protect their oil and trade interests in Turkey - through their silence and by their refusal to intervene. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it. A massive cover-up followed, by tacit agreement of the Western Allies, who had defeated Turkey and Germany during World War I. By 1923, Smyrna 's demise was all but expunged from historical memory."
No one would offer a hand. All requests were coldly turned down by the Europeans and Americans. As the fire got bigger and closer to the waterfront the mass of humanity could go nowhere else, they were trapped by the Turks who refused to let them escape. No food or water was allowed to the desperate people who, by now were hysterical. Many were driven mad and they jumped into the ocean where they drowned. Milton describes how the bay of Smyrna was filled with bodies; yet all those warships just stood there as if nothing was happening.
There is a heroic story in the book which gives some hope for the human condition. Milton describes the heroic exploits of a Methodist preacher from New York, Asa Jennings. A short, diminutive man with a large face, he arrived in Smyrna determined to do all he could to save as many as he could. In one occasion he boarded an Italian ship and confronted the captain. He asked for people to be let on board; the captain refused, saying he had orders not to intervene. Refusing to take no for an answer he then went to the Italian Consul in Smyrna and confronted him. He was able to get the Italian Consul to give the ship's captain permission to take on refugees which he did. Later on Jennings goes to the nearby Greek Island of Mytilene. He confronted the cowering remnant of the Greek fleet and convinced them that they need to go to Smyrna to save their fellow Greeks (most of the refugees were Greeks). Over 20 empty ships were sitting in the harbor doing nothing.
The Greek Navy was hesitant to go back to Smyrna, fearing a Turkish attack. Jennings tricked them by saying that the American ships there would protect them, although he had no approval of this. The Greeks gave in and appointed Jennings as an Admiral and gave him command of about 20 Greek ships. Jennings orders all ships to head to Smyrna to rescue the desperate people who would otherwise perish within days. Through his efforts, over 300,000 people were rescued from the waterfront. One man, on his own, did what the Allied powers, including the Americans, should have done, yet they watched a Christian city being raped and destroyed.
Smyrna, the jewel of Asia Minor, the Paris of the near east was completely burned to the ground. It is estimated that over 100,000 Christians were slaughtered by the Turks in Smyrna; all civilians, all innocent people living in their homes as they and their forefathers had for centuries. 160,000 were deported into the interior by the Turks, most died from exhaustion on the way and many other were shot dead at the whim of their captors. All of this happened while representatives of all the European powers watched. How can this have happened?
