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.
Also, Sir Valentine Chirol, Harris Foundation
lecturer at the University of Chicago in 1924, made this statement (“The
Occident and the Orient”, page 58): “After the Turks had smashed the
Greek armies they turned the essentially Greek city (Smyrna) into an ash heap
as proof of their victory.”
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 (“A
short History of the Near East”, page 393): “The Turks drove straight
onward to Smyrna, which they took (September 9, 1922) and then burned.”
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 farmhouses 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 bad 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. Clafun 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.
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