Smyrna

For other meanings of Smyrna, see Smyrna (disambiguation).

The Burning of Smyrna

In 1922, the nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sought to revoke the Treaty of Sevres following the defeat of the Ottoman empire in World War I. The treaty planned to cede parts of eastern Thrace and Asia Minor to Greece, including the city of Smyrna. The city was occupied on May 15th 1919 by Greece with Allied approval. By 1922, the Greek forces which had pushed into Anatolia were driven back to the sea and in September 1922 Smyrna was recaptured. Many Armenians and Greeks were killed when the Turkish army reoccupied Smyrna. While the historian Kinross referred to the deaths as individual and sporadic and the placed the total at 2,000, Marjorie H. Dobkin reconstructs a more recent and comprehensive account and cites the US Consul at Smyrna's estimate that up to 100,000 people may have perished.

Related Topics:
1922 - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk - Treaty of Sevres - World War I - 1919

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Following Turkish reoccupation, a fire destroyed much of the city. The cause of the fire has never been satisfactorily explained. According to Kinross the fire began when Turks, in trying to round up Armenians to confiscate their arms, besieged a group who had taken refuge in a house. They then decided to burn them out by setting the building alight. According to this account, other Armenians in Smyrna, meanwhile, started another fire elsewhere to divert Turkish attention, and it is argued a strong wind could then have carried both fires from the outskirts of Smyrna inward. Many of the buildings, being of flimsy construction, were reduced to ashes. Some Turks believed the fire to be the continuation of the 'scorched earth' policy of the Greeks, while others believed Armenians had received instructions to burn Smyrna as a sacred duty. The more generally accepted account proposed by most Western scholars, however, is that the Turks burned the Armenian and Greek quarters, and Nur-ed-Din Pasha is accused of starting the fire deliberately in an act of retribution. Some Turkish scholars of the time also appear to maintain that position. Suleyman Kulce , in his book, ?Maresal Fevzi Cakmak,? accuses Nur-ed-Din and writes that he ?..was responsible for the massacres and the fire.? Falih Rifki Atay, who was also a close confidant of Ataturk, was more direct when he wrote: ?Why were we burning Izmir? Were we afraid that we would not be delivering ourselves from the (sway) of the minorities in case the mansions, hotels, and cafes were left to remain? Driven by the same fear we put to the torch all the inhabitable quarters and neighborhoods of the Anatolian cities and towns during the World War I Armenian deportations.? He also blamed Nur-ed-Din.

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There exist conflicting eyewitness accounts and evidence over who started the fire. The US consul-general George Horton claimed to have seen uniformed Turkish soldiers pouring petroleum near the US consulate. In 1926 Horton published his eyewitness accounts in a stinging criticism of the foreign policy of the Western Powers, The Blight of Asia http://members.fortunecity.com/fstav1/horton/horton.html. Mark Prentiss, an American industrial engineer, stated that : "Many of us personally saw-and are ready to affirm the statement-Turkish soldiers often directed by officers throwing petroleum in the streets and houses. Vice-Consul Barnes watched a Turkish officer leisurely fire the Custom House and the Passport Bureau while at least fifty Turkish soldiers stood by. Major Davis saw Turkish soldiers throwing oil in many houses. The Navy patrol reported seeing a complete horsehoe of fires started by the Turks around the American school." But after being instructed by his superiors, he changed his version and stated that he saw no petroleum being poured. Furthermore, Prentiss in his last version(sent to Adm. Bristol as a form of a manuscript) claims that Paul Grescovitch, Chief of the Smyrna Fire Department, found evidence to suggest that Armenians were the source of the fire, while Dobkin cites references from the fire department accusing the Turks.

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Following the success of the nationalist movement, the Treaty of Sevres was revoked and the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, marking the end of the Greco-Turkish War and incorporating the city of Smyrna, now Izmir, into modern day Turkey.

Related Topics:
Treaty of Lausanne - Greco-Turkish War - Izmir - Turkey

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