Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (11 page)

A
few days after the outbreak of war, Edward Whittall’s neighbours in Bournabat awoke to a surprising new addition to the skyline. A large Union Jack fluttered proudly over the Whittall residency – an unambiguous declaration that Edward’s sympathies lay wholeheartedly with the Allied cause.

It was a most provocative act, given that Britain was now at war with Turkey, yet one that Edward performed with customary relish. It was his own personal statement of defiance, his red rag to a bull. He was informing Turkey’s rulers that although they were able to lead the country into an unpopular conflict, he had no intention of allowing them to impinge on the way he lived his life.

Bournabat’s merchant princes were nevertheless concerned that the hostilities would bring about an irrevocable change to their lives. The closure of the harbour was a particular worry; they feared having to close their factories and lay off the tens of thousands of workers they employed. Such a course of action would cause real hardship throughout Smyrna, since most families had only one breadwinner whose salary had to support a large number of young children.

Edward Whittall, in common with all the Bournabat merchants, had always been an old-school philanthropist. He felt personally responsible for the men he employed in his factories and had no intention of allowing them to suffer because of a lack of work. Whenever his businesses went through a slack period – and the exigencies of war forced him to close his warehouse doors – he dug deep into his own pockets and paid his employees ‘to scour the mountainside for new rarities of bulbs’.

It was a characteristically patrician approach to a crisis as well as being an extremely costly one, but it provided a lifeline to all the men who worked in his factories.

As the weeks drifted by, it became apparent that the Bournabat dynasties were able to shield Smyrna from many of the detrimental economic effects of the hostilities. The loss of trading privileges did not strike a mortal blow to their inherited fortunes and the heavy-handed requisitioning soon came to a halt. If it had not been for the minor alterations to their daily routines, they could easily have forgotten that they were living in a country at war. However, they no longer received daily newspapers from London and Paris – one of life’s numerous little inconveniences – and had to rely on George Horton to bring them the latest intelligence from the outside world. The stories he recounted were so grim that it was hard to believe they were true. Europe was tearing itself apart in a struggle that appeared to be on an altogether more violent scale than the conflicts of old.

In the first battle of Ypres, 12 October – 11 November 1914, the British Expeditionary Force had come under sustained attack from the German army. The battle had rapidly turned into a slaughter, but one that led to stalemate rather than outright victory. As torrential rain turned Flanders into a soupy quagmire, experts were beginning to predict that the war would not in fact be over by Christmas. Horton informed the Whittalls that the troops had dug trenches in the waterlogged soil and were gazing forlornly over a landscape of mud, shattered trees and absolute desolation.

Such tales were greeted with despondency in Bournabat, whilst having about them an air of unreality. ‘Isolated from the Kaiser’s war and the changes it had brought to Europe, the family still lived in their own little private Raj.’ So wrote Edward Whittall’s granddaughter, Ray, in a poignant memoir set down on paper many years later.

Elsewhere, the world had erupted into violence and the social hierarchy of Europe was being shaken up as never before. Yet in the genteel colony of Bournabat, the Whittalls and Girauds stuck rigidly to the old rules and conventions. Their daily lives retained the Edwardian splendour that had left such a deep impression on Gertrude Bell. No one had noticed that twilight was rapidly approaching.

The children continued to attend Miss Florence’s primary school, which was to remain open throughout the conflict, and spent their weekends flying kites and playing in the gardens of their family homes. Many of the Greek gardeners, maids and domestics had returned to their home country on the outbreak of war; their places were now filled by Turkish Smyrniots. It was the first time that the Whittalls had employed a Turkish cook ‘and there was some feeling against her at first in the kitchen’, recalled one member of the family. ‘No one could pronounce her name and she was finally called Effet, which was something like it.’ She provided considerable entertainment for those working ‘below stairs’ on account of her enormous, protruding belly.

In the two years since old Magdalen’s death, Edward Whittall’s wife, Mary, had slipped comfortably into the matriarchal role formerly occupied by her mother-in-law. She did her utmost to ensure that the familiar conventions remained unchanged. The older generation continued to gather each afternoon in their private loggias to discuss matters concerning the family, which seemed of far greater import than the terrible news coming from Europe. War or no war, there were still marriages to be arranged and dowries to be negotiated.

Aunt Blanche had also scaled the family hierarchy and was now the self-appointed custodian of the younger Whittalls, ruling over them with an iron fist and paying particular attention to their deportment in church. ‘We hardly dared move in our seats,’ recalled her great-niece, ‘for she would later report our behaviour to our mothers and, in the process, she managed to censure nieces and great-nieces alike.’

The governor of Smyrna, Rahmi Bey, paid regular visits to his friends in Bournabat, despite the fact that they were enemy aliens. He was aware of the need to tread with care when dealing both with his Levantine acquaintances and with government ministers in Constantinople. His aim was to keep Smyrna out of the war and it was going to take all his guile to ensure that the unsettling incidents of the previous few months were not repeated.

‘The governor-general had no faith in the final victory of the German-Turkish armies,’ wrote George Horton, ‘[and] was extremely anxious to keep an anchor to windward. He was playing a double game; keeping in at the same time with the authorities in Constantinople and the prominent British, French and Italians at Smyrna.’

Rahmi viewed Liman von Sanders as the diabolical genius behind the government’s every move. It was an opinion shared by Horton, who blamed German staff officers for many of the difficult situations that arose in the first months of the war. ‘The Germans in the capital were continually pressing Enver and Talaat to be more severe with the Allied colonies at Smyrna,’ he wrote. All were baffled by Rahmi Bey’s behaviour and could not understand why he allowed families like the Whittalls and Girauds to remain in the city. ‘Unpleasant orders were frequently received,’ wrote Horton, ‘which Rahmi evaded to the extent of his power. He told me frankly that such was his policy and [he] agreed to cooperate with me.’

As New Year approached, ministers’ bafflement turned to frustration and anger. ‘[Rahmi] is . . . in considerable disfavour in German circles,’ noted Horton, ‘because of the marked partiality that he shows towards the English and French who are . . . receiving at present the utmost protection that can be desired.’ Government officials found themselves caught between two stools. They did not dare to remove Rahmi Bey, for fear that they would plunge Turkey’s most prosperous city into chaos at the very time when her industrial facilities were most likely to be needed. Yet they grew increasingly incensed at the manner in which Smyrna’s governor flagrantly flaunted their orders.

Rahmi Bey did everything he could to shield all the city’s different communities from the worst effects of the hostilities. The Jews and Armenians were encouraged to operate their businesses as normal, while the Greek community was told to keep open the city’s shops and brasseries. Many of Smyrna’s migrant labourers had left when war was declared, yet there were still some 45,000 Greek nationals living in the city at this time – men, women and children who called Smyrna their home but remained subjects of King Constantine of Greece. ‘With reference to these . . .’ wrote Horton, ‘the vali [city governor] frequently told me that he intended to treat them well, as he considered King Constantine an ally of Turkey and Germany.’

But Rahmi’s hands were tied when it came to the city’s 110,000
rayahs
– the Greeks who had been born in Smyrna and held Turkish nationality. As these young men were liable for national service, the government began conscripting them in earnest. They did not dare to provide them with arms; instead, they were drafted into labour battalions whose wartime role was to dig trenches and build roads, often in shocking conditions.

Smyrna’s
rayahs
fared better than most, for the majority managed to avoid the draft, but the situation was very different in the countryside that lay beyond the perimeters of the city. ‘[They] were massacred, robbed, driven out of their homes, ravished or were drafted into the army,’ wrote Horton, ‘and set to digging trenches and other work of that nature, without food or clothing, until many of them died of starvation or exposure.’

The draft of the
rayahs
served as a reminder to everyone inside Smyrna that their future welfare was absolutely dependent upon Rahmi Bey being able to keep the city at arm’s length from the war. This was to prove an increasingly difficult task as hopes of a rapid victory retreated into the distance. In the winter of 1914, Rahmi was brought the unwelcome news that an entire division of the Turkish army was on the move in eastern Anatolia. He was to find himself ensnared in a highly dangerous game of war and peace – and it was Enver Pasha’s turn to throw the dice.

Some three weeks before the Whittalls sat down to enjoy their Christmas lunch, Enver Pasha had paid a visit to General Liman von Sanders at his offices in the War Ministry in Constantinople. The relationship between the two men had grown increasingly stormy since the general’s arrival in Turkey. Enver disliked Liman’s punctiliousness and was almost certainly jealous of him; Liman von Sanders was continually exasperated by Enver Pasha’s vaunting pride.

Enver had brought with him a map of the Caucasus, which he proceeded to spread out on Liman von Sanders’ desk. After pointing to the positions of the various battalions of the Turkish Third Army, he informed the German commander that he was heading to Anatolia in order to take personal command of that army. Furthermore, he intended to lead it into battle against the Russians.

Liman von Sanders was aghast when he heard this. He told Enver that such a campaign was ‘wholly impracticable’ and tantamount to suicide. He was familiar with the topography of the Caucasian mountains and considered such terrain to be totally unsuited to offensive operations.

Angered by Liman von Sanders’ objections, Enver revealed his true colours. He harboured fantastical dreams of crushing the British empire and told von Sanders that, after annihilating the Russian army, ‘he contemplated marching through Afghanistan to India.’ He then made a hasty exit, thereby forestalling any more criticism from the German.

The Turkish commanders on the ground had a rather more pragmatic approach to warfare than Enver Pasha. The Third Army had its bases in the barren hinterland of eastern Anatolia and had yet to benefit from von Sanders’ modernisation programme. ‘The condition[s] there were absolutely indescribable,’ wrote Clarence Ussher, an American missionary living in the garrison city of Van. ‘Even the remembrance of the filth I witnessed seems to stifle me as I write.’

There was another obstacle to Enver’s planned offensive – one that would destroy the lives of a million people and ultimately have profound repercussions for the doomed city of Smyrna. The six provinces of eastern Anatolia were home to a large population of Armenians, many of whom had an ambiguous relationship with the Ottoman government. They had long suffered from state-sponsored persecution: more than 200,000 Armenians had been massacred between 1894 and 1896. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Armenian patriarch in Constantinople had vowed to support the Ottoman government. But many of his flock living in Anatolia quietly prayed that Enver’s offensive in the Caucasus would be snuffed out by their co-religionists in Russia.

The extent to which the Armenians actively undermined Enver’s offensive is unclear. According to Ussher, the Third Army’s Armenian regiments fought valiantly against the Russians, and despatches written by German military officers suggest that reports of an armed Armenian insurgency were wholly unfounded. It is certainly true that the scattered communities of Armenians living on the frontier threw in their lot with the advancing Russians, yet such a course of events should have been envisaged by Enver Pasha. ‘After massacring hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the course of thirty years,’ wrote the American ambassador, Henry Morgenthau, ‘outraging their women and girls and robbing or maltreating them in every conceivable way, the Turks still apparently believed that they had the right to expect from them the most enthusiastic “loyalty”.’

Enver Pasha arrived in Anatolia in mid-December and began planning his offensive. He had at his disposal some 95,000 men and he intended to drive his army northwards into Russia within ten days. Russian intelligence was quick to notice the Turkish troop movements but attached no great significance to them. They could not believe that Enver Pasha’s army would attempt an offensive across the Caucasus in the middle of winter. It was only when the Russian commander, General Myshlaevsky, was almost killed by a Turkish sniper that he awoke to the extent of the attack.

Unwilling to fight Enver’s army, Myshlaevsky ordered a general retreat. However, a second general in the Russian command, Nikolai Yudenich, was convinced that the Turkish winter offensive was doomed to failure, especially as the weather was on the turn. Thick banks of snow clouds had begun to roll in from the horizon and were now piling up over the mountains ahead.

The first few flakes began falling early on the morning of 24 December, the harbingers of a cruel and murderous storm. As the wind began screaming through the mountain defiles, the snowfall developed into a spectacular blizzard. The Turkish divisions were caught in an exposed position on a mountain ridge and bore the full force of the storm. Enver drove his men forwards, still hopeful of victory, but these frost-bitten troops were no longer in a position to fight. Over the days that followed, they were annihilated by General Yudenich’s infantry.