THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA
(September, 1922)
The last act in the fearful drama of the extermination of Christianity
in the Byzantine Empire was the burning of Smyrna by the troops of
Mustapha Khemal. The murder of the Armenian race had been practically
consummated during the years 1915-1916, and the prosperous and populous
Greek colonies, with the exception of Smyrna itself, had been ferociously
destroyed. The idea has been widely circulated, and seems to be gaining
credence, that the Turk has changed his nature overnight.
The destruction of Smyrna happened, however, in 1922, and no act ever
perpetrated by the Turkish race in all its bloodstained history, has been
characterized by more brutal and lustful features, nor more productive
of the worst forms of human sufferings inflicted on the defenseless
and unarmed. It was a fittingly lurid and Satanic finale to the whole
dreadful tragedy. The uncertainty which at one time existed in the public
mind as to the question, “Who burned Smyrna?” seems to be pretty well
dispelled. All statements that tend to throw doubt on the matter can be
traced to suspicious and interested sources. The careful and impartial
historian, William Stearns Davis, to whom reference has already been made
in this work, says: “The Turks drove straight onward to Smyrna, which
they took (September 9, 1922) and then burned.”[7]
Also, Sir Valentine Chirol, Harris Foundation lecturer at the University
of Chicago in 1924, made this statement: “After the Turks had smashed the
Greek armies they turned the essentially Greek city (Smyrna) into an ash
heap as proof of their victory.”[8]
Men of this stamp do not make assertions without having first gone
carefully into the evidence.
We have already seen by what methods the Greeks had been eliminated from
the coastal region of Asia Minor. The murders and deportations have been
described by which a flourishing and rapidly growing civilization had
been destroyed, villages and farm-houses wrecked and vineyards uprooted.
Large numbers of Greeks, however, who had managed to escape by sea,
returned to their ruined homes after the landing of the Hellenic army
in May of 1919, and set to work industriously to restore their ruined
properties.
Mustapha Khemal now determined to make a complete and irretrievable
ruin of Christianity in Asia Minor. _Carthago delenda est._ The plan,
revealed by its execution, was to give the city up for some days to lust
and carnage; to butcher the Armenians, a task which has always given a
special pleasure to the Turk; to burn the town and to carry the Greek men
away into captivity.
The main facts in regard to the Smyrna fire are:
1. The streets leading into the Armenian quarter were guarded by Turkish
soldier sentinels and no one was permitted to enter while the massacre
was going on.
2. Armed Turks, including many soldiers, entered the quarter thus guarded
and went through it looting, massacring and destroying. They made a
systematic and horrible “clean up,” after which they set fire to it in
various places by carrying tins of petroleum or other combustibles into
the houses or by saturating bundles of rags in petroleum and throwing
these bundles in through the windows.
3. They planted small bombs under the paving stones in various places
in the European part of the city to explode and act as a supplementary
agent in the work of destruction caused by the burning petroleum which
Turkish soldiers sprinkled about the streets. The petroleum spread the
fire and led it through the European quarter and the bombs shook down
the tottering walls. One such bomb was planted near the American Girls’
School and another near the American Consulate.
4. They set fire to the Armenian quarter on the thirteenth of September,
1922. The last Greek soldiers had passed through Smyrna on the evening
of the eighth, that is to say, the Turks had been in full, complete and
undisputed possession of the city for five days before the fire broke out
and for much of this time they had kept the Armenian quarter cut off by
military control while conducting a systematic and thorough massacre. If
any Armenians were still living in the localities at the time the fires
were lighted they were hiding in cellars too terrified to move, for the
whole town was overrun by Turkish soldiers, especially the places where
the fires were started. In general, all the Christians of the city were
keeping to their houses in a state of extreme and justifiable terror for
themselves and their families, for the Turks had been in possession of
the city for five days, during which time they had been looting, raping
and killing. It was the burning of the houses of the Christians which
drove them into the streets and caused the fearful scenes of suffering
which will be described later. Of this state of affairs, I was an
eye-witness.
5. The fire was lighted at the edge of the Armenian quarter at a time
when a strong wind was blowing toward the Christian section and away
from the Turkish. The Turkish quarter was not in any way involved in the
catastrophe and during all the abominable scenes that followed and all
the indescribable sufferings of the Christians, the Mohammedan quarter
was lighted up and gay with dancing, singing and joyous celebration.
6. Turkish soldiers led the fire down into the well-built modern Greek
and European section of Smyrna by soaking the narrow streets with
petroleum or other highly inflammable matter. They poured petroleum in
front of the American Consulate with no other possible purpose than
to communicate the fire to that building at a time when C. Claflin
Davis, Chairman of the Disaster Relief Committee of the Red Cross,
Constantinople Chapter, and others, were standing in the door. Mr. Davis
went out and put his hands in the mud thus created and it smelled like
petroleum and gasoline mixed. The soldiers seen by Mr. Davis and the
others had started from the quay and were proceeding toward the fire.
7. Dr. Alexander Maclachlan, President of the American College, and a
sergeant of American Marines were stripped, the one of his clothes and
the other of a portion of his uniform, and beaten with clubs by Turkish
soldiers. A squad of American Marines was fired on.