IT WAS after this complete gutting of the
Armenian portion of the town that the Turkish soldiers applied the torch to
numerous houses simultaneously. As has already
been mentioned, they chose a moment when a strong wind was blowing directly
away from the Mohammedan settlement. They
started the conflagration directly behind the Intercollegiate Institute, one
of the oldest and most thorough American schools in Turkey, in such a way that
the building would be sure to fall an early prey to the flames. The pupils of
that school have always been largely Armenian girls, and its buildings were,
at that time, crowded with refugees. Miss Minnie Mills, its dean, a brave,
competent and admirable lady, saw Turkish soldiers go into various Armenian
houses with petroleum tins and in each instance after they came out, flames
burst forth. In a conversation held with me on the thirtieth of January, 1925,
on the occasion of the Missionary Convention that took place in the City of
Washington, Miss Mills confirmed the above statements and added the following
details:
“I could plainly see the Turks carrying the tins of
petroleum into the houses, from which, in each instance, fire burst forth
immediately afterward. There was not an Armenian in sight, the only persons
visible being Turkish soldiers of the regular army in smart uniforms.”
On the same occasion Mrs. King Birge, wife of an American missionary to
Turkey, made the following statement:
“I went up into the tower of the American College at
Paradise, and, with a pair of field-glasses, could plainly see Turkish soldiers
setting fire to houses. I could see Turks lurking in the fields, shooting at
Christians. When I drove down to Smyrna from Paradise to Athens, there were
dead bodies all along the road.”
During the same conversation Miss Mills told me of a great throng of
Christians crowded into a street the head of which was guarded by Turkish
soldiers. The flames were approaching and the soldiers were forcing these
people to go into the houses. An American automobile passed and the poor
wretches stretched out their hands, crying: “Save
us! The Turks are going to burn us alive.” Nothing
could be done, of course, and the car passed on. Later two Catholic priests
came up and said to the Turks, “This is a fiendish thing you are doing,”
and they allowed an old woman to come out of one of the houses.
It will be
seen that the situation was such that only the Turks were in position to light
the flames. Now we have the testimony of eye-witnesses
of the highest credibility, who actually saw them commit the act. I remember on various occasions in the past talking with
Miss Mills concerning Turkish atrocities, which were continually occurring
and the missionary policy of remaining silent for fear of endangering the lives
of colleagues working in the interior of Asia Minor. “I believe,” said
she, “that the time for that policy has passed and not even regard for the
safety of our workers should prevent us from telling the truth.” She
was right, of course, for a full understanding of what has been going on in
Turkey by the civilized world might have caused such a development of Christian
sentiment as might have led to the taking of measures to prevent the wholesale
horrors that have been perpetrated.
The following extract from a letter written by a lady connected with the
American missions in Turkey has recently fallen into my hands. It is dated
September 21, 1922, and was sent to a friend in the United States:
“Our Murray house across the street was locked up and protected only by
an American flag hung from an upper window, but we had several Marines from the
American destroyers with us who behaved splendidly all through and were a great
comfort to us. Of course we had many trying things during the time we were
there together, from Saturday, September ninth, until Wednesday, thirteenth,
when we left, because the place was on fire. Most of the people who had fled to
us for refuge behaved wonderfully patiently under the lack of bread and many
difficulties. We had eighty small babies and one born there. We organized a
hospital, etc., and had gotten the commissariat running with the difficulty
overcome, as we supposed, of lack of bread.”
“All ovens in the Christian quarters, where we were, at least, and
probably everywhere, had been ordered closed from Sunday until Wednesday, when
the city burned. It looks now to me like a definite
attempt to starve the population out.”
“The Red Cross insisted on ovens being opened for them
and the people were then burned out.”
“The looting and murder went on steadily under
our eyes—a murdered man lay before our Murray house door for days, under the
American flag, his blood spattered over our steps, etc. There were dead and
dying every where. The silence of death finally reigned over us and was broken
during the last three days only by the fierce Chetas breaking in doors of
houses, shooting the poor cowering inhabitants, looting, etc., and at
night the howling of homeless dogs and the feet of wandering horses clanging
over the rough stones of the street. After the third
day of the occupation of Khemal’s army, fires began to break out in the
Christian quarter of the city. Miss Mills and some of our teachers saw soldiers
preparing fires. I myself saw a Cheta carrying a load of firewood on his back
up an alley, from which later on the fire that caught our building came.”
“It is quite clear in my mind that there was a definite
plan to burn out the Christian quarter after it had been looted. The time for
starting the great fire was when the wind was blowing away from the Turkish
quarter. I remarked when the fires began.”
“I am sure the Turkish authorities will say one of two
things, either that the retreating Greek army set the city onfire, or the
Armenians.”
“Exactly this has been published in Italian and
French papers. Do not believe a word of it! We were in the Christian quarter
where the fires began. Almost all Armenians except those we were sheltering had
been looted and killed a day or two—even longer— before any fires began. The
Greek soldiers had passed quietly through the suburbs about three or four days
before.”
“The whole city had been completely under military
control since Saturday afternoon and the fires began on Wednesday, which
finally destroyed the city. The Turks, Chetas or regulars, or both, burned the
city to dispose of the dead after having carried away their loot.”
The writer of this letter is neither Armenian nor Greek and is a person
of the highest repute. I do not agree with the reason stated in it for the
burning of Smyrna.
The torch was applied to that ill-fated city
and it was all systematically burned by the soldiers of Mustapha Khemal in
order to exterminate Christianity in Asia Minor and to render it impossible
for the Christians to return.
By the time the Turkish soldiers had set fire
to Smyrna, September 13, 1922, I had succeeded in getting hold of practically
all of my colony (about three hundred in number) most of them naturalized
citizens. These, together with
their families and relatives were huddled in the Theatre de Smyrne, on the quay, owned by a naturalized American
citizen. Just across the road was the harbor where the American cruiser, the Simpson, was moored, ready to take them
off. There was a guard of bluejackets with a machine-gun inside the theater.
Soon after the conflagration took on serious
proportions, I went up on the terrace of the Consulate to look. The spectacle
was one of vast dark clouds of smoke, arising from a wide area, for the fire
had been started simultaneously in many places.
As it was evident that the time was fast approaching
when it would be necessary to evacuate the colony, I was kept very busy during
those few remaining lurid hours in signing passes for such as were entitled to
American protection and transportation to Piraeus.
The flames consumed the Armenian quarter with
such appalling rapidity as to make it certain that the Turks were augmenting
them with inflammable fluids. Bluejackets sent to the scene reported that they
saw Turkish soldiers throwing rags soaked in petroleum into Armenian houses.
The buildings of Smyrna were much more inflammable than they
appeared at a casual glance. The city had suffered in times past from earthquakes
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. As the conflagration spread and swept on down toward the quay
where were the beautiful and well-built offices and warehouses of the great
foreign merchants and the residences of the rich Levantines, Greeks and
Armenians, the people poured in a rapidly increasing flood to the waterfront,
old, young, women, children, sick and well. Those who were unable to walk were
carried on stretchers, or on the shoulders of relatives.
The aged Doctor Arghyropolos, long a well-known figure on
the streets of Smyrna, being ill, was brought down on a stretcher to the quay
where he died.
The last Miltonic touch was now added to a
scene of vast, unparalleled horror and human suffering. These thousands were crowded on a narrow street between
the burning city and the deep waters of the bay.
The question has been frequently asked, “What
efforts were made to put out the fire at Smyrna?” I did not see any such
efforts. If the Turks did anything along this line it was merely the sporadic
attempt of some petty officer, who had not been informed. What measures they took for saving the American consular
building have already been described.
Great clouds of smoke were by this time beginning to
pour down upon the Consulate. The crowd in the street before this building, as
well as that upon the quay, was now so dense that the commanding naval officer
told me that in ten minutes more I should not be able to get through. The hour
had struck for me to evacuate my colony, to find some refuge for it in a
Christian country, and to find means for its temporary sustenance.
I was profoundly stirred by the plight of these people
and was determined that they should get the kindest, most generous and patient
treatment possible. I therefore loaded a few trunks into a waiting
automobile, as well as a few bundles of my fine collection of rugs, which
fortunately were lying packed up, waiting to be taken out of their casings for
winter use, grabbed whatever was dearest to me that happened to be in sight,
and with my wife and a Greek servant started for the quay and the waiting
destroyer.
The naval officers and men acted with the greatest
efficiency and both myself and wife were treated with extreme courtesy. In the
somewhat difficult task of getting us through the frantic crowds and on to the
launch, the young native-born Americans were also cool-headed and capable.
There was great danger of the launch being rushed and swamped by the desperate,
terrified people swarming the wharf. One frightened man who jumped into it,
was thrown into the sea by a young American. He was promptly fished out again
and went away ashamed and very wet. It was this incident, happening at a
psychological moment, and the determined guard kept by bluejackets and a few
native-born Americans, which enabled us to embark and get away.
The last view of the ill-fated town by daylight was one
of vast enveloping clouds rolling up to heaven, a narrow water-front covered
with a great throng of people—an ever-increasing throng, with the fire behind
and the sea before, and a powerful fleet of inter-allied battle-ships, among
which were two American destroyers, moored a short distance from the quay and
looking on.
As the destroyer moved away from the fearful scene and
darkness descended, the flames, raging now over a vast area, grew brighter and
brighter, presenting a scene of awful and sinister beauty. Historians and archeologists have declared that they know of but
one event in the annals of the world which can equal in savagery, extent and
all the elements of horror, cruelty and human suffering, the destruction of
Smyrna and its Christian population by the Turks, and this was the demolition
of Carthage by the Romans.
Certainly at Smyrna, nothing was lacking in the
way of atrocity, lust, cruelty and all that fury of human passion which, given
their full play, degrade the human race to a level lower than the vilest and
cruelest of beasts. For during all this diabolical drama the Turks robbed and
raped. Even the raping can be understood as an impulse of nature, irresistible
perhaps, when passions are running wild among a people of low mentality and
less civilization, but the repeated robbing of women and girls can be
attributed neither to religious frenzy nor to animal passions. One of the
keenest impressions, which I brought away with me from Smyrna was a feeling of
shame that I belonged to the human race.
At the destruction of Smyrna there was one feature
for which Carthage presents no parallel. There was no fleet of Christian
battle-ships at Carthage looking on at a situation for which their governments
were responsible. There were no American cruisers at Carthage.
The Turks were glutting freely their racial and
religious lust for slaughter, rape and plunder within a stone’s throw of the
Allied and American battle-ships because they had been systematically led to
believe that they would not be interfered with. A united order from the
commanders or from any two of them—one harmless shell thrown across the Turkish
quarter—would have brought the Turks to their senses.
And this, the presence of those battle-ships in
Smyrna harbor, in the year of our Lord 1922, impotently watching the last
great scene in the tragedy of the Christians of Turkey, was the saddest and
most significant feature of the whole picture.
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