Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (20 page)

Shortly before 7 a.m., there was an excited gasp from the crowds closest to the water. Thin wisps of smoke could be seen in the far distance, heralding the arrival of the Greek vessels. A few minutes later, the first transport ships could be seen entering the bay of Smyrna.

One of those at the water’s edge was a nine-year-old Greek boy named Alexis Alexiou. His parents had taken him to witness the arrival of the troops, aware that history was in the making. ‘The whole of Smyrna was celebrating as if it was Easter,’ he later recalled. ‘You could hear cannon-shots from the ships and the blue and white flags flew everywhere.’

At 7.30 a.m., the great liner,
Patris
, drew alongside the waterfront, followed by the
Averoff
,
Atromitos
and
Leonidas
. Within minutes of the vessels docking, the first troops were stepping ashore.

One of the witnesses to the unfolding chain of events was Robert Berry, the commanding officer of the USS
Manley
. He was dismayed by the ill-disciplined manner in which the troops disembarked. ‘Their arrival was accompanied by violent outbursts of enthusiasm and rejoicing on the part of the Greek civilian population,’ he later recalled. Nor did he like the fact that the ships kept blowing their whistles in response to the cheers of the crowds.

Berry was even more disturbed when he saw the troops stacking their weaponry in a great pile on the quayside and then performing Greek dances around it. ‘Little or no tact and discretion were shown by the Greeks in handling a people the occupation of whose territory by them was the bitterest pill that could be administered.’ It took two hours to land the first batch of troops and for the whole of that time the crowd kept up their frenzied cheering.

In spite of the tactlessness on the part of the Greek soldiers, everything seemed to be going like clockwork. One regiment marched north and sealed off the European quarters of the city. Another fanned out towards the eastern areas.

But when it came to landing the 1/38 Evzones regiment, the meticulously planned operation spectacularly broke down. The Evzones were meant to have disembarked at the Quarantine, at the southern tip of the quay. They were then charged with driving a wedge through the Greek and Turkish quarters of the city in order to forestall any sectarian trouble. But their orders were either misunderstood or misinterpreted for they were landed in the middle of the quayside where the crowd was at its thickest and most jubilant. Metropolitan Chrysostom, robed in full church vestments, stepped forward to bless the troops and wish them success. ‘With tears in his eyes,’ wrote the Greek author, Phanis Kleanthis, ‘Chrysostom kneeled down, embraced the glorious flag of the regiment and gave it his blessing.’ For the metropolitan, it was the happiest moment of his life.

Overcome with emotion, he greeted the regimental commander, Colonel Stavrianopoulos, and then beckoned the troops to follow him along the quayside. He intended to lead them through the city that Greece had coveted for generations.

‘Everyone’s eyes were filled with tears,’ wrote Kleanthis. ‘The army advanced as if it was on a parade and, as it passed, was showered with flowers. The clock towers filled the air with the clanging of bells, adding to the welcome given to the army of liberation.’

The action of Chrysostom and the Evzones regiment was not just insensitive, but also extremely foolhardy. If all had gone according to plan, the soldiers should have been sealing off Prophet Elias Street, which bordered the Turkish quarter. Instead, they proceeded to march southwards along the quayside – a route that passed the shoreside barracks that housed the city’s Turkish troops.

Many of the Levantine merchants had offices that lined the quayside. As the crowd marched along with the troops, these merchants spilled out onto their balconies to watch the procession. Among the spectators was Donald Whittall, whose office had a magnificent view of the quayside. Another was George Perry, the secretary of the American YMCA in Smyrna.

It was as the Evzones regiment passed the Turkish barracks that someone fired a shot. There would later be much argument over who actually pulled the trigger. Some claimed it was a Greek; others swore it was a Turk. A more sinister possibility is that it was fired by an Italian – Major Carossini – who was giving the signal for a Turkish attack. Turkish witnesses later claimed that the Italian steam launch came alongside the barracks at the very moment when the shot was fired; Italian sources confirm that Carossini was on board.

In the confusion of the moment, it was difficult to be certain about the precise sequence of events. Donald Whittall claimed to have heard several shots coming from the nearby coffee houses. George Perry heard a single shot fired from the crowd. The only certainty is that it unleashed a devastating riposte from the Greek troops passing the barracks. ‘[They] lined the edges of the square,’ wrote Whittall, ‘and commenced a terrible fusillade at the barracks, the coffee houses and Government House.’ For twenty-five minutes – perhaps more – they kept up a sustained barrage of fire.

One of those caught in the crossfire was Ahmed Feizi, a prosperous Turk from the Levantine suburb of Boudja. He dived for cover, taking shelter in the pleasure gardens that were next to the barracks, although he soon realised that he was still in danger of being hit. ‘So I jumped from the garden into the central barracks and tried to avoid the firing by hiding in the above-said building, but I was not long there before I heard machine guns going off and bullets going through the windows.’

The Greek troops had by now trained all their guns onto the building and were systematically shooting out all the windows. Other soldiers began firing at buildings all along the quayside.

Some of the wilder elements began smashing windows and kicking down doors. ‘[They] broke into the houses and dragged out all Turks whom they found,’ wrote an English businessman named Forbes, ‘and looted everything they found in them.’

The commanding officer of the USS
Arizona
watched in horror as one group of Greek soldiers ‘fired promiscuously on the surrounding populace’. The exact number killed by their action was estimated at between fifty and a hundred civilians. The Evzones meanwhile kept up their fusillade on the barracks, while the soldiers inside returned fire for as long as they had ammunition. Only then did they drape a makeshift white flag out of one of the shattered windows.

Once all the gunfire had ceased, the Turkish soldiers tentatively emerged from the building, holding their hands above their heads in token of their surrender. The first action of the Greek troops was to separate the Turks from the Jews, Armenians and other Christians who had taken refuge in the barracks. For Ahmed Feizi, it was a terrifying experience. He removed his fez and threw it away but he was spotted by one of the Greek soldiers and told to stand with the other Turks. ‘They were made to go through no end of humiliation and received a good deal of knocking about,’ wrote Donald Whittall, who at this point locked up his offices and descended into the streets.

The captured Turkish soldiers were lined up and marched along the quayside towards the Greek ship,
Patris
, where they were to be held prisoner. As they passed through the crowds of jeering Greeks, they were punched or struck with pieces of wood. ‘[They] all had their fezzes torn off and were hurried along with their hands in the air,’ wrote Ian Smith, Britain’s acting chief officer in Smyrna, ‘being compelled by blows from the butts and bayonets of the escorting troops to keep up a cry of “Zito, Zito”’ (an abbreviation of ‘Long live Venizelos’).

Ahmed Feizi feared for his life, but he was about to be saved by a stroke of good luck. ‘Some American and English subjects recognised me and delivered me from the clutches of this barbarous crew.’

Others were not so fortunate. As Donald Whittall followed the procession along the quayside, he was appalled to see Greek soldiers beating the Turks with their guns and prodding them with their bayonets. ‘As far as the custom-house, I only saw one Turkish porter shot and then bayoneted,’ wrote Whittall. ‘From there up to the Kraemer Palace Hotel, I was the unwilling witness of the massacre of some thirty unarmed men.’

As the prisoners passed the main entrance to the Kraemer Palace, the violence increased in intensity. Several were killed in cold blood, with the worst of the treatment reserved for the senior ranks. ‘A fat Turkish officer, shot in the stomach, tried in his agony to sit up,’ wrote Whittall. ‘A Greek soldier at once rushed at him and struck him with the butt end of his rifle.’

The surviving Turkish prisoners were eventually taken aboard the
Patris
, yet this did not bring the unrest to an end. Discipline among the troops now broke down completely and they went on the rampage.

‘Led on by the roughs of the town, the Greek soldiers [were] firing recklessly to right and left at every head that protruded from window or balcony,’ wrote Alfred van der Zee, the Swedish consul. ‘[They] forced open houses and stores, dragged out the wretched Turks who had sought shelter therein, and, after robbing them of all they possessed, marched them to the transports.’

The violence looked set to rage for the rest of the afternoon, but it was brought to a sudden halt by the elements. Just after 4 p.m., the breeze whipped into a fierce squall and the bank of thunder clouds, which had been steadily rolling in off the Aegean, suddenly emptied themselves over Smyrna. The rain was so torrential that even hardened criminals sought refuge.

As soon as the storm came to an end, Greek troops and civilians poured back onto the streets and began to ransack the Turkish quarter. Corpses – which numbered between 300 and 500, according to different eyewitnesses – were also stripped of anything of value and left naked in the street. ‘Paper money, sometimes in very large quantities, also gold coins, jewels, watches and all kinds of valuables, are seized and carried off,’ wrote the commanding officer of the USS
Arizona
. ‘In some cases, and on the main streets, homes are forcibly entered by the mob.’

The breakdown of law and order encouraged gangs of criminals to head to the prosperous suburbs – Paradise, Bournabat, Boudja and Cordelio – and to ransack the larger Turkish-owned villas. In Bournabat, nine men were shot and livestock stolen. In Cordelio, twenty-three people were killed. When Ahmed Feizi returned to his villa in Boudja, he found that all his belongings had been pilfered. ‘Clothes, boots, bedding, jewels, money &c., everything gone, and several other Turkish houses had undergone the same treatment.’ Feizi was appalled by the behaviour of the Greek troops. ‘Such things,’ he wrote, ‘we never expected from a European nation.’

As the disorder continued into the evening, the commander of the Italian dreadnought stationed in the harbour made contact with Admiral Calthorpe, suggesting that Allied forces should land immediately and restore order to the city’s streets.

Calthorpe refused, fearing that the Italians would use the opportunity to seize the city for themselves. Nevertheless, he realised that something had to be done and sent his chief officer, Ian Smith, to meet Colonel Zafiriou and demand that the Greek army restore order immediately.

Smith was taken aback by the Greek colonel’s nonchalance. ‘[He was] under a complete misapprehension as to the situation,’ he wrote. ‘He appeared to have taken no measures to restore order, nor to realise that there was any necessity to do so.’

As dusk fell and some semblance of normality returned to the city, people began to count the cost of the day’s violence. The quayside had been the worst-affected area. Although the heavy rain had washed away the blood, there were still dozens of corpses strewn on the ground. ‘Bodies of the murdered Turks were found in every place,’ wrote one English eyewitness, ‘in the sea, where some of the severely wounded had been thrown to drown, in lighters which were moored alongside the quay; even in the grounds of the British gasworks.’

The lull in the fighting encouraged people to emerge from their houses and pick over the wreckage. There was a general fear that the violence would flare up again that evening and many of the British sailors were glad to be spending the night on their ships. ‘Suppose tonight will be a pretty sticky one ashore,’ wrote Lycett Gardner, a lieutenant on the
Iron Duke
. ‘Glad I’m not a Turk or a Greek.’

Any commander worth his salt would have imposed a curfew during the hours of darkness, but Colonel Zafiriou seemed not to understand the seriousness of what had happened. Two senior British officers visited him once again that evening and spoke to him in the strongest possible terms. ‘We both felt, however, that this officer failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation.’ His intransigence baffled the British and it ensured that sporadic looting continued throughout the night.

The following morning dawned bright and sunny and the violence seemed to have come to an end. At 11 a.m., George Perry of the American YMCA considered it safe enough to make a tour of the city in order to inspect the damage.

‘I went to the Turkish quarter by way of the quay,’ he wrote, ‘where all along I saw pieces of torn fezzes.’ At the Konak (the governor’s palace), he noticed two dead Turks still floating in the water. He also observed that groups of Greek troops and civilians were gathered at every corner. Farther along the quay, he noted ‘two cafés, a barber’s shop and a small home which had been looted – windows, chairs and tables were completely broken. In one café, there was a large amount of blood on the floor.’

As he made his way into the Turkish quarter, he observed that the looted shops had become objects of interest for the local Greeks. ‘All during the afternoon, morbidly curious Greek people were passing through the Turkish quarter, gloating and priding themselves over their efficiency in pillaging and looting.’

Perry next visited one of the city’s morgues, driven by some compulsion to view the corpses that had been brought there. He counted twenty-two dead, all Turks; most of them had been stripped of clothing and valuables. ‘There was one spare leg which appeared to have been hacked off by an axe just below the knee.’ With ghoulish inquisitiveness, he sorted through the corpses with some care before concluding that ‘the rest of that particular body was not there.’