Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (12 page)

Enver’s great offensive had proved a spectacular rout. He had begun the campaign with 95,000 men – far more than on the Russian side – and ended it with fewer than 20,000. Three weeks after embarking on its offensive, the Turkish Third Army had ceased to exist as a fighting force.

Enver left Anatolia in the second week of January. Although he congratulated the shattered remnants of his army and wrote bulletins comparing their ‘success’ to the glorious victories of the early Ottoman empire, the truth of the matter was very different. Enver had been crushed and the only way for him to salvage his reputation was to find a scapegoat for his defeat. He blamed the enemy within and vowed to liquidate that enemy before it could do any further damage.

Tidings of Enver Pasha’s defeat was greeted with weary delight in England. It was a glimmer of good news after months of stalemate in France and Flanders, but it had to be balanced against the brutal treatment of the Greek communities of Anatolia. This, in many people’s eyes, was confirmation that the Turks were every bit as barbaric as their German allies.

British ministers were quick to realise that the stories filtering out of Turkey could be exploited in the interests of realpolitik. As dark tales of forced labour began to circulate in British broadsheets and the scale of Enver’s defeat became apparent, there was a feeling that it was time to persuade Greece to join the war on the side of the Allies. Britain’s plans for an audacious attack on the Gallipoli peninsula were well advanced. It would be invaluable to have Greece on board as an ally.

On 23 January 1915, Britain’s foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, wrote a highly secret memo to Greece’s prime minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, offering him ‘most important territorial compensation for Greece on the coast of Asia Minor’ on condition that Greece joined the war on the side of the Allies. Smyrna, along with all the rich farmland that surrounded the city, was to be handed to him on a plate.

Venizelos rose to the bait, as the British knew he would. With Smyrna in Greek hands, he would have achieved his dream of a lifetime. The Megali Idea – a Greek empire in Asia Minor – would be within a whisker of becoming a reality.

Venizelos would have set Greece on a war footing immediately but for one insurmountable obstacle in his path. King Constantine was the brother-in-law of the German Kaiser and had no desire to lead his country into a conflict against his own family. He turned down the Allies’ offer of Smyrna and forbade Venizelos from contributing a division of Greek troops to the planned landings at Gallipoli.

Refusing to back down, Venizelos threw his energies into securing the backing of minister and generals, yet all his hard work came to nothing. The king steadfastly refused to sanction joining the Allies in a war against Germany, leaving Venizelos with very little option but to resign. Although he returned to power a few months later, his continual disagreement with the king made his position untenable and led to a second resignation in October. When he returned to power for a third and final time, it was to be in a most spectacular and surprising fashion.

While Venizelos was struggling to get Greece into the war, Rahmi Bey was doing his utmost to keep Smyrna out of it. He was appalled by reports of Enver Pasha’s disastrous offensive in the Caucasus, fearing that it would have serious repercussions for his city.

He was in the midst of planning how best to keep his city at arm’s length from the war when he was brought news that the British destroyer,
Euryalus
, had been sighted sailing into the bay of Smyrna. The ship’s commander, Admiral Peirse, had been sent to the city by the British Admiralty with orders to destroy all the fortifications that lined the bay. The Admiralty was putting the finishing touches to its Gallipoli offensive and was concerned that Smyrna would be used as a base for German submarines.

Admiral Peirse set to work with gusto, launching a heavy bombardment on the two principal forts. His gunners excelled themselves in the hours before dusk, landing several dozen shells on target and twice hitting their magazines. Peirse was intending to continue his attack on the following morning, but was stopped in his tracks by a most unexpected telegram. Rahmi Bey – known in London to be sympathetic to the Allied cause – was keen to talk to the British admiral. He could not do so in person, for obvious reasons, so he offered to send his trusted deputy, Carabiber Bey, accompanied by the American consul, George Horton.

‘We drove over a horrible road,’ wrote Horton, ‘which had been much cut up by shells from the British vessels.’ All the bridges had been destroyed and it took the men several hours to reach the coastal village of Vourla. ‘We could see the gray, dirty and businesslike cruisers sailing around in a semi-circle,’ wrote Horton, ‘dropping occasional shells on the hillsides and on the road.’ When he and Carabiber Bey finally arrived at the port, they hired a caique and headed out towards the British fleet.

Although the battleships appeared not to notice them at first, the
Euryalus
eventually displayed a white ensign and sent a launch to meet the men. ‘We were received on board by Admiral Peirse,’ wrote Horton, ‘a tall, thin, solemn old man, who took me to his cabin and questioned me minutely as to the official standing and character of Carabiber Bey.’

The discussions that followed left George Horton wide-eyed. ‘I shall never forget sitting there on that dirty ship,’ he wrote, ‘drinking tea with the stern old British admiral and the Turkish representative, while I listened to words that could have come out of one of Sabatini’s novels – or an unwritten page of British history.’

Rahmi’s proposal was indeed most extraordinary. He wanted a private truce between Smyrna and the British government, offering to withdraw his city from the war in order to safeguard its numerous different minorities. Such a course of action was, from the Turkish perspective, tantamount to treason. The Allied powers were about to launch a massive assault on the Gallipoli peninsula with the hope of capturing Constantinople and knocking Turkey out of the war. Yet just a few hours to the south, the country’s most prosperous city was preparing to hand itself over to the enemy. The British could scarcely believe what they were hearing; it was akin to Manchester suddenly declaring itself on the side of the German Kaiser.

Rahmi Bey’s negotiations with the British admiral took place in the greatest secrecy, yet the activity in the bay did not escape the notice of the spies and informers working in Smyrna on behalf of the central government. They immediately told the German consul of their suspicions and the consul, in turn, forwarded the news to Constantinople.

Government ministers were horrified at the prospect of losing control of Smyrna and responded with alacrity, lambasting Rahmi Bey for his conduct and ordering him to halt all negotiations with immediate effect. A few days later, Enver Pasha arrived unexpectedly in Smyrna, ‘evidently to straighten things out and to impose the German will’.

His discussions with Rahmi Bey were held behind closed doors and their content will never be known. He must have been furious with Rahmi’s treacherous overtures to the British, yet he was perhaps not unduly surprised. He had already convinced himself that the greatest threat to Turkey’s future came from the enemy within. Now, his worst fears were beginning to come true – not just on the eastern frontier with Russia, but on Turkey’s prosperous Aegean coastline.

Although Enver was received in Smyrna with an outward show of respect, there were few in the city who held him in much esteem. At a dinner held in his honour, Horton learned that many prominent Turks in Constantinople sympathised with Rahmi’s position. He was told that ‘proposals similar to those made at Smyrna . . . were being favourably considered at the capital.’ It was perhaps the knowledge of this that prevented Enver Pasha from removing Rahmi from office. Smyrna was one of a dozen or more tinderboxes. Rahmi’s dismissal could have proved the spark to set the entire Aegean coastline ablaze.

Admiral Peirse resumed his bombardment of the city fortifications as soon as he realised that the negotiations with Rahmi were doomed. ‘The guns were so loud,’ recalled Horton, ‘that they shook the windows of the houses of the city. They gave forth a deep yet spiteful, coughing sound, like nothing so much as the barking of great dogs.’ At times, they created a spectacle of sinister beauty. ‘When there was a mist, or at night, red streaks could be seen pouring out from the guns . . . [and] when the shells exploded in the sea, columns of water rose into the air to a great height.’

The city’s inhabitants were fascinated by the constant bombardment of the coastline. Watching the evening cannonade from one of the harbourside bars replaced the evening promenade as the city’s most popular pastime. ‘The quay was crowded every night with spectators,’ wrote Horton, ‘and seats at the many cafés along the waterfront commanded a high price.’ The terrace of the American consulate was one of the most popular venues, for it afforded a spectacular view across the bay of Smyrna. Horton’s friends and colleagues would gather here in the evenings in order to drink gin slings and watch the shells raining down on the city’s outer forts.

Rahmi Bey also enjoyed watching the bombardment; his favourite venue was the terrace of Costi’s Café, which was also on the waterfront. On one occasion, he caught sight of Horton walking along the quay and summoned him over for a chat.

The British bombardment was rather less welcomed by Liman von Sanders, who watched the events in the bay with mounting anger. He was even more alarmed to learn that British forces had taken possession of Long Island and installed gun batteries along the shoreline. This enabled them to blockade the city, preventing any supplies from entering the harbour. ‘But the extreme richness and self-sufficiency of the region prevented its being entirely effective as a coercive measure,’ wrote Horton. He added that enterprising Greek merchants managed to keep the flour mills working at full speed, thereby ensuring that the bread supply never faltered. And although sugar eventually became scarce, the inhabitants instead used
pelmez
, a locally produced grape syrup. Horton, the classical scholar, rather enjoyed the mild hardship. ‘I consoled myself with the reflection that the ancients had no sugar at all and depended entirely on honey.’

More than nine decades after these events took place, two of the elderly survivors remember the war as a time when the well-ordered pattern of daily life changed very little. ‘Of course there were a few things missing,’ says Petros Brussalis with a nonchalant wave of his hand, ‘but we continued to live very much as we had always done.’

Alfred Simes, who was five years old when the British seized Long Island, agrees. ‘I don’t recall any shortages of food during my childhood,’ he said, ‘and no one in our family ever went hungry.’ But the British blockade did succeed in causing a temporary rupture in the supply of medicines to the city and it was to prove fatal for young Alfred’s father. ‘He went fishing in the torrential rain,’ recalls Alfred, ‘and fell ill with a fever soon after.’ With no medication available, he died after an illness lasting just a few days.

One of Alfred’s earliest memories is of their last Christmas together. ‘It was 1915 and my father gave me a horse’s whip. It was what I’d always wanted. I remember opening our presents around the Christmas tree and then singing carols together.’

The death of Alfred’s father might have spelled disaster for the family, especially in wartime. Fortunately, one of Alfred’s aunts was married to a wealthy Italian naval captain, who paid for Alfred and his sister to continue their education. Life was never as happy as before, but the family had escaped falling into penury.

The surviving memoirs of the Levantine community suggest that age has not distorted the memories of Petros Brussalis and Alfred Simes. During this period of conflict, the department stores remained open and the brasseries continued to do a roaring trade. In Bournabat, the Levantine families saw no reason to change the habits of a lifetime. For many, these were the happiest years of their lives. ‘The village [of Bournabat] was at its best,’ wrote Eldon Giraud of the mid-war years, ‘with the large houses well kept and the various carriages and footmen wearing the liveries of their masters.’

It was hard for people to believe that the battlefront was actually just a few hours to the north of Smyrna. In the sand dunes of the Gallipoli peninsula, a titanic clash of arms was taking place between the Turkish army and its British and Anzac adversaries. The Allied forces had landed in April 1915 after an intense aerial bombardment designed to destroy the shoreline batteries. For the next eight months, they tried desperately to advance out of their narrow beachheads – a bloody and terrible struggle that was ultimately to leave tens of thousands of men dead. Such was the intensity of the fight that many were killed by the bayonet rather than the gun.

The local press continually heralded the military victories of Turkey and Germany, yet few in Smyrna credited such stories. ‘The populace, which was overwhelmingly pro-Entente, did not believe any of this,’ wrote Horton, ‘but lived on rumors, mostly unfounded and untrue, picked up in various ways.’

In the spring of 1915, a most disturbing rumour reached the American consulate in Smyrna. Horton received news from Walter Geddes, an employee of Smyrna’s MacAndrews and Forbes liquorice company, that Armenian communities across Anatolia were being evicted from their homes and marched into the desert by Turkish soldiers. Most never even reached their destination; they were butchered by the roadside or left to die in the heat and dust.

Geddes was travelling in Anatolia at the time of the deportations and was appalled by what he saw. ‘From Kadma to Aleppo, I witnessed the worst sights of the whole trip,’ he wrote in his report. ‘Here, the people began to play out in the intense heat and no water, and I passed several who were prostrate, actually dying of thirst.’ He stopped to help one old woman who had collapsed, unconscious from dehydration and fatigue. ‘Further on, I saw two young girls who had become so exhausted that they had fallen on the road and lay with their already swollen faces exposed to the sun.’