Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (16 page)

Although Lord Granville himself was intrigued by Rahmi’s proposal, British ministers in London remained sceptical. ‘It hinges on the possibility of Rahmi Bey overthrowing Enver and the military party now in power,’ they wrote. ‘We have no guarantee that his operations . . . are even likely to succeed.’ Besides, they were all too aware that Turkey was in its final death throes and they wanted nothing less than total surrender. After much discussion, they decided against backing Smyrna’s mercurial governor.

Rahmi’s proposed
coup d’état
was perhaps doomed from the outset, yet it is tempting to imagine how different Turkey’s future might have been had it succeeded. A government with Rahmi Bey at the helm might have negotiated far more favourable peace terms with the Allies. His urbane charm would have been a most useful counterfoil to Venizelos, and his protection of Turkey’s minorities would have seriously undermined the arguments of all who supported Venizelos’s vision for Asia Minor. Smyrna would certainly have been saved the horrors of 1922; Rahmi cared too much for his adoptive city to allow her to be reduced to rubble.

Allied troops were within striking distance of Constantinople when Rahmi received his negative reply from the British government. The soldiers pressed ahead with their march to the frontier – a long and weary one for men who had been at war for more than four years. The October rain tipped down with monotonous regularity, turning the eastern Balkans into a vast swamp. ‘The track was literally the bed of a stream,’ wrote one soldier of the Royal Field Artillery, ‘with deviations through bushes and scrub. The wear and tear on men, animals and wagons was severe; horses would jib, poles or traces or axles would break and vehicles would turn over . . . Everyone was tired or angry or both.’

By 30 October 1918, the advance units had reached Dedeagatch, a bleak frontier town less than ten miles from the Turkish border. In the distance, the men could glimpse the pencil-thin peninsula of Gallipoli, where so many of their comrades-in-arms had lost their lives three years earlier.

By the time they pitched camp, the Ottoman empire was in meltdown. Talaat Bey had already resigned two weeks earlier – a clear sign that the end was near. Now, a newly convened Turkish cabinet opened the peace negotiations with the British commander in the Aegean, the splendidly named Admiral Sir Somerset Gough Calthorpe. On the very day that British troops at the border prepared themselves for action, the Ottoman government signed an armistice. Turkey was out of the war.

PART TWO

Serpents in Paradise

Peace and War

F
ive days after the Ottoman government signed the armistice, the inhabitants of Bournabat awoke to a most unusual sight. Hundreds of freed prisoners of war – all British – could be seen marching through the village square. They were gaunt and malnourished, and their clothes were decidedly the worse for wear, but every one of them was delighted to be a free man after more than two years of internment.

They numbered 1,350 – the fortunate survivors – and many of them were taken to the European quarter of Smyrna, where they were given temporary lodgings in the empty seafront hotels. Among them was Lieutenant Colonel John Barker, who had been captured at the infamous siege of Kut-el-Amara almost two and a half years earlier. As he explored the city’s streets and department stores, he had to pinch himself to believe that it was true. The place was untouched by war and everyone he met was in the best possible humour. The women in particular caught his eye; their hemlines were alluringly revealing and their thin blouses were a far cry from the dowdy worsteds so popular in England.

‘Heavens, what a place this is!’ he wrote in a letter to his wife. ‘The feminine element from the age of about thirteen overdresses like a professional. Hardly any of any age have dresses more than two inches below the knee.’

The newly released prisoners of war found Smyrna prohibitively expensive, even though their backdated salaries had been paid by the army. Barker decided to spend his last savings on a room in the Bey Hotel – not the best in Smyrna, but clean and comfortable nevertheless. ‘I could not pig it any more,’ he wrote, ‘sleeping on the ground [and] feeding off the ground.’

The lively nightlife also ate into his precious resources, especially the ragtime bars that stayed open until the early hours. In a letter to his wife, Barker admitted that he was having a wonderful time after his terrible years in captivity. ‘The Greeks and Armenians want to pet us,’ he wrote, ‘and as for the girls – oh lord! Imagine how they walk when their foot-gear is like this.’ He followed this with a helpful sketch of an elegant, high-heeled boot.

Poor Mrs Barker must have been wondering whether her husband would prove capable of resisting the charms of the local females, but Barker assured her that he had no intentions of eloping with a Levantine maiden. He found them too eccentric and foreign for his taste. ‘[They] are terribly chee-chee,’ he wrote, ‘and some are very dusky – including the sister of an awfully nice fellow, Routh, who is our consul.’

Barker was disconcerted to discover that even the Anglican vicar, the Reverend Brett, had adopted the chichi habits of the Levantines, especially in the way he spoke. ‘His “h”s wander about his speech in the oddest way.’ He got an even greater surprise when he heard Brett’s eccentric organ compositions at the Sunday church eucharist. ‘Such a noise I have never heard before,’ he wrote, ‘and hope never to do so again.’

Not all the British ex-prisoners took lodgings in the city. Many were housed in the American International College of Paradise, which had lain empty since America’s entry into the war. The college was not as comfortable as the Bey Hotel, but it had its own generator that provided them with hot running water. It was served by a team of volunteers from the local Levantine community, led by Herbert Octavius, who had used his considerable financial resources to establish a Relief Committee to help the English prisoners.

‘He was the life and soul of every undertaking in our behalf,’ recalled one of those lodged in Paradise. ‘I think that every British officer at Smyrna will agree with me in considering this gentleman’s work above all praise.’

The Reverend Brett also worked tirelessly to help the prisoners. ‘Every day saw him bringing clothing, medical supplies and other articles we were much in need of,’ wrote one. ‘He tended our sick and buried our dead and did everything possible for our welfare.’

A third group of ex-prisoners – the most fortunate – were given lodgings in the Bournabat villa of one of the French Levantines who had left at the outset of the war.

‘After months in prison camps,’ wrote Eldon Giraud, ‘these chaps were received by the residents in Bournabat with open arms. One party at my father’s house I still remember, when my sister, Joyce . . . entertained five British officers.’ The sight of fresh fruit and meat proved even more enticing than the lovely Joyce Giraud. ‘[They] fell on the food like a chap falls on a bucket of water after crossing the Sahara with empty water bottles.’

A few of these men also had the chance to meet Rahmi Bey, whose days as governor of Smyrna were fast running out. Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey had fled Turkey several weeks earlier, along with the governors of the country’s most important cities. Rahmi saw no reason to flee his post, yet at the beginning of October he received a telegram from Constantinople informing him that he was being deprived of office. The newly installed Turkish government led by Izzet Pasha wanted to wash its hands of everyone who had served under the wartime regime – even those who had defied its dictates. Rahmi was one of their first victims.

News of his departure quickly found its way onto the front pages of the Turkish newspapers. But in Smyrna itself, those pages were made available for Rahmi Bey, in order that he could have the last word. ‘[There] appeared a touching letter of farewell to his dear Smyrniots from Rahmi Bey,’ wrote Annie Marshall, a newly arrived British national who had been interned during four long years of war. ‘[He] left that day for Constantinople to give place to his successor.’

He had done everything he could for his beloved city. Now, its future well-being would rest in other people’s hands.

In the chaotic weeks that followed the armistice, the Allied powers were preoccupied with taking control of Constantinople and the Straits. Not a single vessel could be spared for Smyrna and neither could anyone agree who should land troops there. The Greeks assumed that the city would soon be theirs and devoted their energies to reinforcing the garrison on the nearby island of Mytilene. Italy’s foreign secretary was meanwhile acting under the mistaken assumption that Smyrna had been promised to the Italians. While the Greeks and Italians bickered – and the French staked their own claim to the city – the British seized the initiative, landing a small group of soldiers in the heart of the city.

Rumours of their arrival were greeted with great enthusiasm by the Greek community. ‘In preparation for the event, the Greeks made hundreds, perhaps thousands of flags,’ wrote Annie Marshall. ‘A Greek friend told me that a Greek church had spent £300 in making a large silk flag embroidered with gold, and that Greek families were expending from £20 to £30 in preparing flags.’

For once, the speculation turned out to be true. At 1.30 p.m. on 6 November, a British vessel bearing the prosaic name
Monitor No. 29
entered the port of Smyrna. The ship’s commander, Allen Dixon, was overwhelmed by the scale of the welcome. Thousands of Greeks had congregated on the quayside to hail him as the liberator of their city.

‘The whole population went wild with excitement and enthusiasm,’ wrote Marshall. ‘The streets were thronged with crowds of men, women and children, wearing their national colours and waving little flags. Overhead fluttered the gay coloured flags of many nations – British, American, French, Italian, a few Turkish, one or two Armenian, and a multitude of blue and white Greek flags.’

Among those celebrating Dixon’s arrival were the former prisoners of war, who were overjoyed to see a British vessel sail into the bay. Lieutenant Colonel John Barker had never witnessed such scenes of jubilation. ‘The town is mad,’ he wrote, ‘quite Mafeking mad.’ He was so overwhelmed with emotion that he plunged into the sea and swam out to greet Commander Dixon. He was hauled aboard to great cheers from the mariners.

‘The latest news, the grip once more of the hand of a free man . . . the taste of a whisky and soda and the feeling of being on British ground again was grand,’ he wrote.

The reception granted to the British troops was even more raucous when they finally came ashore. ‘[Commander Dixon] was mounted shoulder high and carried in triumph through the streets, while the people shouted, “Vive l’Angleterre, Vive l’Entente”.’

For Annie Marshall, it was a moment to be savoured for years to come. ‘It was like the reception of a relieving army by a beleaguered city,’ she wrote. ‘The enthusiasm continued all evening. From the crowded cafés on the quays echoed the strains of “God Save the King” and the Marseillaise. The searchlight from the ship played along the seafront, illuminating the happy and excited faces of the multitudes. It was touching to see the reception accorded to this small British warship – so insignificant in itself, but the people hailed it as a symbol of British justice and protection.’

Dixon and his troops made a tour of the city, accompanied by the prisoners of war. ‘We were mobbed on our return by cheering crowds,’ wrote Barker. ‘Two were carried off their feet and shoulder high to the Bey Hotel.’

Only one community in Smyrna did not fully participate in the festivities. Many Turks were still smarting from their defeat at the hands of the Allies and were deeply offended by the sight of thousands of Greek and Allied flags. Commander Dixon was quick to realise the sensitivity of the situation and posted a proclamation in the newspapers, published in English, French, Italian and Greek.

‘Although the demonstrations in honour of the Allied men-of-war are much appreciated,’ he wrote, ‘the population must not lose sight that peace has not yet been arranged . . . All demonstrations must cease.’

Smyrna’s newly appointed governor, Edhem Bey, differed from Rahmi in almost every respect. ‘[He is] slow [and] well meaning towards the Allies,’ wrote Dixon after his first meeting, ‘but lacking sufficient vim to enforce his ideas.’

He also proved incapable of enforcing law and order in the countryside around Smyrna. Brigands began raiding nearby villages, terrifying their Greek inhabitants and forcing them to remain indoors. ‘Murders take place every day,’ wrote David Forbes, a Levantine merchant living in one of the outlying suburbs. ‘Some ten days ago, four Greeks, each working in his vineyard, were shot by a band of armed men and their throats cut, all within sight of my house.’

Two days after this distressing incident, Forbes was startled by the sound of gunfire. ‘I got on the roof of my house and saw Turkish gendarmes advancing down the hill close to my house . . . [They] started shooting indiscriminately at every Greek they saw, whilst over the hillsides you could see Greeks scurrying like rabbits in all directions.’