Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (41 page)

To this day, most Turkish historians persist in claiming that the fire – which was soon to assume terrifying proportions – was an act of sabotage on the part of the Greeks and Armenians. Yet there are scores of impartial accounts that testify to the fact that the Turkish army deliberately set fire to Smyrna. Some of the witnesses were men working for the Smyrna Fire Brigade. They were later called to the Royal Courts of Justice in order to give evidence under oath in a trial brought by the Guardian Assurance Company.

One of them was Sergeant Tchorbadjis, who was on the scene shortly after the first fire broke out. He arrived in Tchoukour Street and made his way onto one of the rooftops in order to get a better idea of the scale of the fire. ‘Then I went down into one of the rooms and saw a Turkish soldier well armed. He was setting fire to the interior of a drawer. He looked rather fiercely at me when he saw me but he left. I caught the strong smell of petroleum.’

Sergeant Tchorbadjis’s colleague, Emmanuel Katsaros, had a similar experience. He was dousing the Armenian Club with water in an effort to halt the advance of the flames when he saw two Turkish soldiers enter the building with drums of petroleum. He protested when he saw one of them sluicing petrol across the floor.

‘On the one hand we are trying to stop the fires and on the other you are setting them,’ he said.

‘You have your orders,’ replied the soldier, ‘and we have ours. This is Armenian property. Our orders are to set fire to it.’

Elsewhere, the firemen found themselves unable to fight the flames because their hoses had been cut. There was little they could do but wait for the fire to burn itself out. However, this looked increasingly unlikely for the wind – already strong – was now blowing sharply from the east. The three separate fires spotted by witnesses shortly after noon had, by 1.30 p.m., become one large conflagration that was raging throughout the Armenian quarter. When Garabed Hatcherian climbed onto the roof terrace of the Atamians’ house, he thought that the fire looked out of control. ‘A huge cloud of smoke is seen rising from the Haynots direction,’ he wrote. ‘The fire is spreading on two flanks . . . these two flanks are separated and it is evident that the fire has been deliberately set to several places simultaneously.’ Hatcherian realised that the blaze would cause even greater human misery, since hundreds of people were being forced onto the streets.

Some of the city’s inhabitants left their homes before the fire could cut off their escape routes. The Catholic fathers of the Mechitharist order vacated their monastery and made their way to the French consulate. As they skirted the edge of the Armenian quarter, they saw ample evidence of arson. ‘On route, we saw empty drums of petrol and benzine scattered here and there and liquid running down the street,’ wrote one of the fathers. ‘It was definitely petrol or benzine; we saw Turkish soldiers in an automobile who, with the aid of a pump, were sprinkling all the houses they passed with these flammable liquids.’

By 2 p.m., most of the Armenian quarter was in flames. The churches of Sourp Sdepannos and Aghia Paraskevi, the Armenian hospital and Basmahane station were all reported as being on fire, along with hundreds of houses, cafés and stores.

George Horton had spent much of the morning at the American consulate and had not given much thought to the fire, but shortly after finishing his lunch, he decided to see with his own eyes the extent of the conflagration. ‘I went up on the terrace of the consulate to look,’ he wrote. ‘The spectacle was one of vast dark clouds of smoke arising from a wide area.’

Although Smyrna’s streets and boulevards were lined with imposing, stone-built
hôtels particuliers
, they were more flammable than they looked. ‘The city had suffered in times past from earthquakes,’ wrote Horton, ‘and the stone and plaster walls contained a skeleton of wooden beams and timbers to prevent their being easily shaken down. When a wall became very hot from a contiguous fire, these wooden timbers caught inside the plaster and the masonry crumbled.’

The Armenian quarter ought to have been resistant to the flames. Many of the buildings had been rebuilt after a devastating blaze in the late nineteenth century and the streets had been widened to prevent flames leaping from one block to the next. However, such a precaution was of little use in a situation where buildings had been liberally doused with petrol.

As Hatcherian had predicted, the blaze was soon so widespread that many thousands of people had little option but to head to the wide quayside. ‘As the conflagration spread and swept on down toward the quay . . .’ wrote Horton, ‘the people poured in a rapidly increasing flood to the waterfront, old, young, women, children, sick as well. Those who were unable to walk were carried in stretchers, or on the shoulders of relatives.’

Among them was an acquaintance of his – an elderly Greek physician named Doctor Arghyropolos – for whom the stress of the fire was to prove too much. He suffered a heart attack and died shortly after arriving on the quayside.

‘The last Miltonic touch was now added to a scene of unparalleled horror and human suffering,’ wrote Horton. ‘These thousands were crowded on a narrow street between the city and the deep waters of the bay.’

Horton noticed that the stiff wind was sweeping the flames westwards, towards the European quarter of town. ‘Great clouds of smoke were by this time beginning to pour down upon the consulate,’ he wrote. ‘The crowd in the street before this building, as well as that upon the quay, was now so dense that the commanding officer told me I should not be able to get through.’

Mustafa Kemal had not been seen since the outbreak of the fire. Indeed, he had not appeared in public for almost forty-eight hours. Halide Edib had last seen him on the previous Sunday when she had found him in joyous mood. He had been introduced to a beautiful young girl called Latife – the daughter of a wealthy and well-connected Turkish merchant, Muammer Usakizade.

Latife had been studying law in France, where her family were temporarily residing, but she had returned to Turkey after Kemal’s victory at Sakaria and was living in her parents’ mansion, chaperoned by her grandmother. She did not hide her affections for Kemal. He told Halide Edib:

Edib found Latife to be wistfully beautiful and quietly determined. ‘Although she was said to be only twenty-four at the time, she had the quiet manners and the maturer ways of a much older person. Her graceful
salaam
had both dignity and Old World charm.’

She certainly gave every indication of being old beyond her years. ‘Although the tight and thin lips indicated an unusual force and will-power, not very feminine, her eyes were most beautiful, grave and lustrous and dominated by intelligence.’

Kemal’s advisors were already debating whether she would make him a suitable wife.

The distraction caused by Latife could not disguise the fact that large areas of Smyrna were by now ablaze. Colonel Ismet, Kemal’s most successful battlefield commander, was saddened by the extent of the fire. ‘We have taken Izmir,’ he said. ‘But what’s the use? The city and half of Anatolia have been reduced to ruins.’

Kemal disagreed. He called it ‘a disagreeable incident’ and assured Ismet that the damage could be repaired. He had little affection for the old city. When he had first visited Smyrna in 1905, he had been offended by the numbers of Greeks and other Christians living here. ‘I saw this beautiful quayside full of members of a race which was our sworn enemy and I concluded that Izmir had slipped away from the hands of its true and noble Turkish inhabitants.’ From his point of view, the burning of this infidel city was a small and necessary price to pay for the liberation of his country.

As the fire raged, George Horton’s priority was to evacuate the American Collegiate Institute, which was closest to the Armenian quarter, but he was faced with a logistical problem. There were more than 2,000 refugees inside the institute – Greeks and Armenians – who were demanding safe passage to one or another of the American battleships.

Even if this was desirable, it would have been impossible to execute. There were scores of Turkish soldiers and irregulars loitering outside the building and they were most unlikely to allow the refugees to leave. Miss Mills reluctantly agreed to the suggestion that only American nationals should be evacuated – discreetly ushered out of the institute in the company of American marines.

However, this plan of action was to prove an impossible undertaking. The teachers refused to be separated from their wives, children and domestics – most of whom were not American nationals – while the refugees themselves created a stampede at the main gate to the compound. ‘I had to use the butt of my gun to keep the people away from the door,’ wrote Petty Officer James Webster.

The refugees pleaded to be allowed to leave with the bona fide Americans. The marines were torn between obeying orders and listening to their consciences. In the end, they did both. One group of marines helped the American nationals into a truck and drove them to the waterfront. Another group, consisting of James Webster and six comrades, remained behind in order to escort the refugees to the quayside.

Webster led the way, followed by a large crowd of men, women and children. The Americans were unsure of the quickest route to the waterfront and at every turn their path was blocked by burning buildings or piles of rubble. Their entourage had not gone far when Turkish soldiers began shooting into the crowd. Webster and his men responded by firing their guns into the air.

The gunfire caused absolute panic among the refugees. Women and children screamed as the shots rang out; babies were dropped and trampled underfoot. At one point Anita Chakerian – one of the refugees – stumbled and fell. She was fortunate to be helped to her feet by one of the marines. ‘To this day, I still wonder who he was . . .’ she later wrote. ‘God bless him for saving my life.’

Another of those caught up in the maelstrom was young Rose Berberian, who had left the institute with her mother. They had already been through a terrible ordeal over the previous few days. Now, they had to contend with leaping flames, crumbling masonry and burning cinders that were raining down from the sky. They followed the American marines until they came to a building that was flying the French tricolour. Rose recognised it as the French consulate and suggested to her mother that they ask for asylum. It was their best hope of saving their lives.

‘I was in rags,’ she later recalled, ‘no shoes, my dress torn, my face and arms black with dirt and dust. I had found two pairs of men’s socks – white ones – in the attic of the Italian family and I was wearing these, one pair on top of the other. They were now black too.’

Rose was fortunate to speak good French. She approached one of the French marines posted at the main entrance to the consulate and pleaded with him to give refuge to her and her mother. ‘
Pour l’amour de Dieu, laissez moi entrer
. I am French. They killed my family. I have no papers, they were destroyed in the fire.’

The marine lifted his arm to let Rose and her mother inside. But at the very moment when they thought they were safe, an alarm bell sounded. It was the order to evacuate. The fire was by now so close to the consulate that everyone was told to leave the building. Rose and her mother found themselves back on the streets, jostling with crowds of refugees.

This time, however, they had the advantage of organised military protection. Everyone inside the consulate was escorted to a building on the quayside, where they were told to line up and present their papers. Rose’s turn came soon enough. She informed the consular official of her name and age, and then explained how they had lost all their papers in the fire.

‘“You speak French very well,” the man said, smiling. “Where did you go to school?” And he handed me the paper authorising our passage to a French battleship.’

Rose was awaiting further instructions when she sighted her sister, from whom she had been separated for several days. After a tearful reunion, the sister explained how she had managed to escape from the Armenian quarter. Their brother had also made it to the quayside and decided to chance his luck by swimming out to one of the battleships in the harbour.

Rose, her mother and sisters were meanwhile rescued by a French lighter and taken to one of the warships in the bay.

The other refugees from the American Collegiate Institute were still battling their way down to the waterfront. James Webster and his fellow marines had taken more than an hour to cover half a mile. In the confusion of gunfire and collapsing buildings they had managed to lose most of the refugees. Of the original 2,000, there were just forty in tow by the time they reached the harbour. One of these was fifteen-year-old Charles Kassabian, who later recalled how he lost his parents during that terrible march. ‘So we’re running out from the school and I lose them because I’m watching that sailor and when he goes this way, I go this way. And there are thousands – if I say millions, it won’t make any difference, because it’s that crowded – and the streets are burning all over. Buildings burning. Every place burning. Every place!’

When Charles finally got to the quayside, he pleaded with an American sailor to be taken aboard one of the lighters waiting to evacuate American nationals. ‘“Brother in America,” I say. “Passport”. And maybe that makes the difference because he waves his hand. “OK, come on,” and all of us run to the boat. So pretty soon we’re safe and alive on this big American ship.’

While the marines were helping to evacuate the institute, George Horton was struggling to extricate the last American citizens from Paradise. Anna Birge and a dozen or so others had been picked up from their homes by an American truck, but when they tried to reach the quayside theatre – the point of assembly for American nationals – they found their path blocked by Turkish soldiers. ‘I uttered a few English words and tried to look as calm as I thought an American would,’ wrote Birge. ‘Then they cleared our way . . . and we rushed past in safety. Among the many dead bodies, we saw men, women and children shot to death, bodies drawn up in horribly strained postures, with expressions portraying the endurance of excruciating pain.’