Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (29 page)

Yet the Greek victory was not as complete as Lloyd George wished to believe. Two major towns had fallen into their hands and yet more territory was now under their control. Even so, the nationalist forces had not been defeated – they had made a tactical retreat – and they still possessed a large quantity of weaponry. The Greek generals found themselves facing a familiar question: what to do next?

The Greek War Council gathered in Kutahya to settle this very question. There were two options open to them: to dig in around Eski Shehir and defend their newly won territory; or to drive on eastwards in pursuit of the Kemalist forces.

The wisest course would have been to sit tight and consolidate their territorial gains, but the Greek high command could sniff victory in the air. With the complete annihilation of Kemal’s army now seeming tantalisingly close, they plumped for an offensive that would carry them ever deeper into Anatolia.

Toynbee was appalled when he learned of their decision. ‘It was a crazy enterprise,’ he wrote, ‘for every rational objective had disappeared.’ He tried to work out what the generals hoped to achieve by yet another offensive. ‘The annihiliation of the enemy? Three times already that stroke had missed its aim. The occupation of his temporary capital? As if the loss of Angora would break a Turkish morale that had survived the loss of Constantinople.’

Toynbee’s fears that the new campaign was misguided were confirmed by the incoherent battle plan now drawn up by the General Staff. In one sentence, it called for hit-and-run raids on Angora; in the next it insisted that Angora must be occupied. It asserted that Kemal’s forces would be crushed in a set battle, yet conceded that they might retreat intact to the far east of the country.

King Constantine’s brother, Prince Andrew, agreed with Toynbee’s assessment of the Greek military strategy and lambasted the generals for producing such a half-baked battle plan. ‘That which characterizes or ought to characterize a military document – ie: clearness and accuracy – are conspicuous by their absence.’ He repeatedly asked the General Staff to clarify their aims, yet remained unclear as to whether they were ordering a knockout blow to the nationalists or a series of raids that would push Kemal ever farther from Smyrna.

‘How far would we be able to pursue him?’ he asked himself. ‘Could we follow him through the immense expanses of Asia Minor to Kurdistan and the frontiers of Persia?’

There was another, more tangible reason why Prince Andrew urged caution. The proposed battle plan would require the Greek army to cross a terrain more inhospitable than anything they had so far encountered. The army would have to traverse a barren salt desert – the Axylos desert of the Ancients – where there was no water whatsoever. Prince Andrew repeatedly warned the generals of this formidable obstacle, but his words fell on deaf ears. ‘No serious measures were taken to enable the army to cross this waterless tract of land, hundreds of kilometres in extent, though it was obvious that an area of such vast expanse, entirely lacking in means of communication or transport, presented the greatest obstacle to an advancing army.’

While the prince expressed his misgivings about the forthcoming campaign, his brother was busy inspecting the newly conquered territory in Turkey. It was his first foray out of Smyrna and he was most impressed by what he saw. ‘The country round [Smyrna] is magnificent,’ he wrote, ‘. . . [and] the cornfields are splendid.’ However, when he visited the Turkish towns and villages, he was rather less enthused. ‘They are filthy, badly paved, the streets being very narrow and winding, through which a large motor car cannot pass.’

The more he saw of his new fiefdom, the more King Constantine believed that the Turks were incapable of making progress. ‘Today they are almost in the same state in which they were in the year 1500,’ he wrote. He believed that the Greek army was doing a great service by defeating them on the battlefield. ‘It is high time they disappeared once more and went back into the interior of Asia, whence they came.’ It was a sentiment that was shared wholeheartedly by Lloyd George.

The king made his way to Eski Shehir, which was now firmly in the hands of the Greek army. He enjoyed military pageantry and was delighted to officiate at a parade of his triumphant troops. ‘It was one of the most magnificent and touching military ceremonies that I have ever witnessed,’ he wrote. ‘When you think that this took place near the battlefield, with troops that had only just returned, and when I saw the twenty-four standards, tattered and riddled with bullets, lowered in front of me for the salute, I felt a big lump in my throat.’ The king’s presence had an electrifying effect on the battle-hardened troops. ‘Even the wounded get out of their ambulances and follow me when I pass by, dragging their bandages along [in] the dust.’

The Greek advance into the hinterlands of Anatolia began in the middle of August – a cruel month in which to undertake a long march across waterless countryside. The Second Army Corps faced the most challenging task; it had to traverse the heart of the Anatolian salt desert in order to outflank the Turkish forces defending the road to Angora. It soon proved to be a punishing march for men who had so recently been in the heat of battle. There were no wells in the desert and the cavalry created clouds of choking dust. Worse still, the men were forced to cover thirty miles a day ‘on sandy soil with no vegetation – for one could not call the dry, khaki-coloured grass of the district, which no animal would touch, vegetation’.

It was not long before the troops were suffering from acute shortages of food and water. Malignant malaria affected many of the men, further debilitating those who were already weakened by extreme fatigue. There was no fuel for cooking – the men had to eat their rations raw – and the horses were so weak that they could carry only light loads. Surviving photographs of the campaign depict hot and footsore men hauling heavy artillery through a bleak landscape of sand and scrub.

Prince Andrew, who was leading one of the army divisions, said that conditions deteriorated still further as they neared the Turkish front line. ‘Added to the usual trials were the flames and smoke of burning grass, which poisoned the already stifling atmosphere. These were days of horror.’

There was no hope of a surprise attack on Kemal’s army. The dust clouds betrayed the movement and disposition of the advancing Greeks. By the time they approached the chain of low hills that formed the easternmost fringe of the desert, the Turks had correctly divined the Greek strategy and changed positions accordingly.

Mustafa Kemal had by now moved his headquarters to the battlefront and spent much of his time plotting troop movements on his large-scale maps. Halide Edib visited him when he was in the middle of planning his defence of the River Sakaria – one of the many natural obstacles facing the Greeks. ‘There was the Sakaria traced out like a magic coil on the paper,’ she wrote, ‘there were the blue slips of paper on pins which were the Greek forces, and the red slips of paper which were the Turkish: they stood like blue and red butterflies sprinkling the map.’

Although superior in numbers, the Greek army faced a formidable challenge. The undulating landscape favoured the defenders and there were Turkish soldiers dug in on every rocky hilltop and ridge. Edib climbed one of the highest hills in order to get a panorama of the battlefield and was haunted by the barrenness of the landscape. ‘It was primeval, on a grand scale – endless valleys walled in by semi-circular hills . . . in fantastic shapes, dark and sombre.’ The highest point – and the most heavily defended – was Mount Tchal, ‘a giant hill of ink-black earth seen through a silver haze’. From the top of Mount Tchal, the battlefield below seemed distant and unreal. ‘The air was shaken with distant booms, and wreaths of smoke arose, sometimes a thick black mass, sometimes in bluer tapering shapes, and were lost in the many coloured void.’ If the Greek army was ever to reach Kemal’s capital, some eighty miles to the east, they would have to defeat the Turkish forces dug into the flanks of the summit.

Kemal was well aware of its strategic importance. ‘Until they occupy the Mount of Tchal,’ he would tell his generals, ‘there is nothing serious to worry about; but if they do that, we had better look out . . . they [will] have us in a trap.’

The attack began on 26 August. As the Greeks splashed through the shallow waters of the River Gok they were in no doubt that the future of the Megali Idea would be decided in the opening days of the campaign. It quickly became apparent that they had a very real struggle on their hands. Under the blistering August sun, these thirsty and malnourished men had to fight their way up a succession of ridges in order to dislodge the enemy from its commanding positions. They gained ground ‘very slowly and with infinite difficulty’, according to one report, sustaining heavy losses as they advanced.

The horses and donkeys were by now in such a wretched condition that they no longer had the strength to pull the weaponry. Another serious problem was an acute shortage of petrol, which meant that the motor ambulances were rendered unserviceable. ‘[The] wounded men were transported by means of mules, springless carts and camels,’ wrote Prince Andrew, ‘by long marches . . . exposed to the dust, the almost unbearable heat, and the constant danger of capture by enemy cavalry who butchered our wounded when they found them.’

Yet the Greek army fought on, inching their way up to the ridges that overlooked Angora to the east. After five days of intense fighting, the Greeks had dislodged the Turks from many of their forward positions and seemed to be getting the upper hand. Their cautious optimism was given a dramatic boost when one group of battle-hardened Greeks trumped the success of their comrades by fighting their way, with bayonet and dagger, up to the summit of Mount Tchal. News of its capture was met with absolute despondency in the Turkish camp. ‘There was a grim silence everywhere,’ recalled Halide Edib, ‘and the ugliest sort of fate seemed to hang over everyone in the headquarters.’ Kemal himself was most affected. ‘He fumed, swore, walked up and down, talked loudly . . . and tormented himself with indecision as to whether he should order the retreat or not.’ In both camps, there was a very real feeling that the Turks stood on the brink of total defeat.

Yet the situation on the ground remained extremely precarious for the Greeks. Although they had made significant gains on the battlefield, the troops were by now in desperate straits. They were almost without ammunition and their bread ration had been slashed to an absolute minimum. The promise of fresh food and water remained elusive, for the Turkish irregulars were doing sterling work in attacking the vulnerable Greek supply lines that now stretched right across the desert. ‘Greek transports were continually harassed and captured,’ wrote Prince Andrew, ‘their ammunition depots exploded, stations raided and railways destroyed.’

The harsh climate brought additional discomfort. At dusk, the heat of the day quickly subsided and was replaced by a piercing chill that prevented anyone from sleeping. It further weakened men who had already suffered from weeks of deprivation.

The Turkish cavalry increased its attacks on the Greek supply lines, aware that this was the surest way to defeat the enemy. By the beginning of September, it became clear that the Greek offensive had spectacularly run out of steam. Little by little, the Turks started to claw back the ground they had lost.

On 9 September 1921, they managed to regain control of Dua-Tepe, one of the higher peaks. ‘My last vision of it,’ wrote Halide Edib, ‘was with a single Turk standing all alone against the setting sun, his water bottle glistening against the blue-gold sky.’

Just a few days after this success, the Turks sensed that their hour had come. Mustafa Kemal regrouped his army and ordered a dramatic counter-offensive, hoping to inflict a crushing defeat on his demoralised enemy.

It is testimony to the resilience of the Greek troops that they stood their ground for so long, as wave after wave of Turks attempted to dislodge them from their hilltop positions. But the commanders on the ground knew that continued resistance was pointless. The men were sick, hungry and lacking the will to fight. On 11 September, the army was ordered to retreat from its hard-won positions and take shelter on the west bank of the River Sakaria, where it would be reasonably safe from further Turkish attacks.

The retreat took place under the cover of darkness. It was disorderly, poorly planned and led by men with little knowledge of the terrain. The banks of the River Sakaria were marshy and treacherous, and the Greek army could have been easily annihilated if only Kemal had known how close his forces were to achieving total victory. ‘If he had realised this,’ wrote Prince Andrew, ‘and brought down . . . a few machine guns to his own side of the river, our departure would have been turned into a flight, if not a panic, and the destruction would have been utter and complete.’

Although surprisingly few Greek lives were lost in the retreat, the depressing news from the battlefield so shocked King Constantine that he suffered a mental and physical collapse. ‘I remained unconscious for an hour and a half,’ he later wrote, ‘and when I came to, I did not know at all where I was or what had happened to me. I was bled and put to bed; they said it was a case of auto-intoxication.’ This may have indeed been the case, but he was also suffering from acute depression. In one of his last letters written from Asia Minor, he admitted that Greece was a spent force – especially as several European powers were now secretly supplying Kemal with weaponry. ‘I am not merely fighting against Turkey,’ he wrote, ‘but against Turkey, Germany and France . . . The struggle is beyond our strength; we shall be unable to continue.’

The king had every reason to be depressed, for his army was now stranded on the edge of a desolate desert in the heart of Anatolia. The troops were in no condition to continue with their offensive, but neither were they able to retreat from their positions on the River Sakaria, aware that withdrawal would be tantamount to defeat. Their only option was to dig in and hope that their fortunes would take an upward turn in the months to come.