9
On 13 September, four days after the Turkish Nationalist army entered the City of Izmir, a fire broke out in the afternoon in a house situated near the railway station, in the quarter known as Basmahane. It soon spread and burnt most of the city. At the time, accusations were made against the Greeks, the Turks and the Armenians. However, fingers were pointing mostly at Greeks.
They were, after all, burning and looting on their retreat to Izmir following their defeat, and both the Greek High Commissioner in Izmir, Aristide Sterghiades, and the Greek General, A. Papoulas, had warned that the Greek army might burn the city. The accusations levelled against the Turks were based on the reports and eyewitness accounts of a number of Greeks and Armenians but they were dismissed as being biased. The Armenians, too, were accused of collaborating with the Greeks in their sordid deeds in order to cover up their bomb throwing, sniping and arson.
The U.S. Vice-Consul Maynard B. Barnes, no friend of the Turks, admitted that it did not seem logical for the Turks to destroy Izmir. On the morning of 15 September the Vice-Consul called with Captain Hepburn on the Vali (Governor) Abdul Halik Bey, and upon Kazim Pasha, the Military Governor of the city. Captain Hepburn stated in his diary : "The Turks had been so proud to have preserved Izmir intact throughout all the devastation caused by the Greeks, but the Armenians and Greeks have defeated us in the end". (1)
On 20 September, the Turkish Legation in Stockholm issued a communique, stating that they have received telegraphic assurances that the fire in Izmir was started by the Greeks and the Armenians, who had set fire even to their own buildings, in order that the Turks might not be able to make use of them. The Legation pointed out that, "there was absolutely no reason for the Turks to destroy their most beautiful city next to Istanbul, now that they had definitely retaken it". (2)
The Turkish statements were supported by Sir A. A. Baig, who observed in The Asiatic Review of October 1922 that attempts were being made to saddle the Turks with the crime of firing Izmir: "Though every Ottoman interest was involved in preserving the famous town, and to excuse the Armenians and the Greeks who had every motif of revenge to destroy what they were abondoning". (3)
One can easily theorise that there was, in fact, not one fire, but many fires, set in revenge by Christians who did not wish the Turks to have the city, and by undisciplined soldiers and civilians, who simply wished to see the buildings burn. The often-stated idea of the Turkish Nationalist Government deliberately burning down their second greatest city immediately after it had once again become theirs is a prima facie absurdity. (4-5)
The Greek landing on 15 May 1919 was planned and was a full part of the Greek nationalist project, the "Megali Idea", namely the expansion of Greece into Western Thrace, Istanbul and a part of Anatolia. Well before the landing, the Greek nation-state eliminated Muslims and Jews physically in 1821 and during the Balkan wars. (6)
Correspondingly, the pretext used to land (the alleged persecution of Christians in Western Anatolia) was proved baseless by the Entente's (allied forces) investigative commission. (7) Even more clearly, in Yalova peninsula, in 1921, the Greek forces carried out a policy of systematic extermination of the Turkish elements. (8)
As early as the Greek defeat in İnönü (March 1921), the Greek army started to destroy everything to leave only an absolutely devastated country to the Turks (the scorched earth policy). Berthe Georges-Gaulis, a French journalist who traveled and worked extensively in Turkey during the 1920s: "saw the organized ramp, touched the ruins, accounted the victims, interviewed the survivors", and so could testify about the "total annihilation of the zone evacuated by the Greek army". (9)
Elzear Guiffray, the elected chief of the French community of Izmir, estimated the number of Turks killed by Greeks and Armenians, in Western Anatolia since May 1919 was in excess of 150,000 and without counting the deported persons, estimated to be 300,000. (10)
General Maurice Pelle, the French High Commissioner in Istanbul, wrote on September 8, just before the entrance of the Kemalist troops in Izmir: "No news about a Kemalist massacre came to here from Smyrna, or any other place of Anatolia, neither from the English and French intelligence services, nor from the ecumenical patriarchate, always waiting for such facts. Contrariwise, the reality of the systematic devastations perpetrated by the Greek troops is established by European witnesses". (11)
The correspondent of the Havas Agency declares that he is in a position to announce that the French High Commissioner in Constantinople and the French Consul-General at Smyrna, as well as Admiral Dumesnil, are convinced that the Smyrna fire can in no way be attributed to the Turks. This conviction is mainly based on the statements of salvage workers and trustworthy French witnesses who took part in the fight against the fire. The French naval authorities immediately took steps to control the statements of certain witnesses who declared that they had seen Turkish soldiers sprinkling the streets and houses with petrol. As a result of this investigation these statements have now been proved to be without foundation. The correspondent goes on to declare that the fire originated in the Armenian quarter. (12)
* References:
(1) Hepburn Diary / 15 September 1922 / quoted by Marjorie Housepian - The Smyrna Affair / New York / 1966.
(2) British Foreign Office Document FO 371 - 7894 - E9946 / Patrick Ramsay to Curzon / 20 September 1922.
(3) Baig, Sir A.A. / The Greek Defeat and British Policy / The Asiatic Review / October 1922.
(4) Heath W. Lowry / Turkish History : On whose Sources Will it be Based ? / A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir / 1998.
(5) McCarthy, Justin / Death and Exile - The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims / 1821 - 1922 / Princeton / New Jersey / 1996.
(6) Alfred Lemaitre / Musulmans et Chretiens / Notes Sur la Guerre de l' Independance Grecque / Paris : G. Martin / 1895 ... Salahi Sonyel / " How the Turks of the Peloponnese Were Exterminated During the Greek Rebellion " / Belleten / April 1998 / L X H - 233 / pp. 121 - 135.
(7) Atrocites Grecques en Turquie / Second Livre / Istanbul / Ahmed Ihsan & C i e / 1921 / p. 289.
(8) Maurice Gehri / Mission d'enquete en Anatolie [ 12 - 22 Mai 1921 ] / Geneve / 1921 ... Atrocites Grecques en Turquie / Second Livre / Istanbul / Ahmed Ihsan & C i e / 1921 / p. 289.
(9) Berthe Georges-Gaulis / Angora - Constantinople - Londres - Paris / Armand Colin / 1922 / p. 37.
(10) Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres [ A M A E ] / La Courneuve / Microfilm p 1380 ... Arnold J. Toynbee / The Times of London / 6 April 1922 ... E. Alexander Powell / The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia / London : John Long / 1925 / p. 182.
(11) Telegramme du General Pelle au Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres / 8 Septembre 1922 / Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres [ A M A E ].
(12) Origins of the Smyrna Fire / The London Times / 25 September 1922.
(13) Relevant quotation:
* The Turks failed to get the fire under, in spite of the employment of large numbers of troops, but they are not reported to have shown any sympathy with incendiaries or looters, whether Turk or non-Turk, who were shot at sight. (The London Times / Sep. 16 - 1922 / p. 8)
* Our army took all the necessary measures to protect Izmir from accidents, before entering the city. However, the Greeks and the Armenians, with their pre-arranged plans have decided to destroy Izmir. Speeches made by (Archbishop) Hrisostomos at the churches have been heard by the Moslems, the burning of Izmir was defined as a religious duty. The destruction was accomplished by this organization. To confirm this, there are many documents and eyewitness accounts. Our soldiers worked with everything that they have to put out the fires. Those who attribute this to our soldiers may come to Izmir personally and see the situation. However, for a job like this, an official investigation is out of the question. The newspaper correspondents of various nationalities presently in Izmir are already executing this duty. The Christian population is treated with good care and the refugees are being returned to their places.
(Telegram of Commander in Chief Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha to Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Kemal Bey / Bilal Şimşir, The Correspondence With Atatürk / 1981)
* The French High Commissioner in Constantinople, the French Consul-General at Smyrna, as well as Admiral Dumesnil, are convinced that the Smyrna fire can in no way be attributed to the Turks. According to Reuters, the French naval authorities immediately took steps to control the statements of certain witnesses who declared that they had seen Turkish soldiers sprinkling the streets and houses with petrol. As a result of this investigation these statements have now been proved to be without foundation. (The London Times / Sep. 25, 1922)
* The French Foreign Office reported that the Turks did not set fire to the buildings and that "there was no evidence that the Turks were in any way responsible for the damage" at Smyrna. (New York Times Editorial / Responsibility at Smyrna / Sep. 30, 1922)
* Mr. L. R. Whittall, barrister-at-law, who has been in Smyrna for some years said there was no evidence as to who set fire to the town, but the consensus of opinion was that it was Greek and Armenian incendiaries. (The London Times / Oct. 6, 1922)
* British Consul General at Smyrna, H. Lamb, who reported to his government that he had reason to believe that Greeks in concert with Armenians had burned Smyrna. (Smyrna During the Greek Occupation / Colonel Rachid Galib / Current History / Vol. 18 / May 1923 / p. 319)
(14) Finally, a very important document. After making his own investigation and seeing how unreliable the atrocity stories were, as M.O. Prentiss related in his article and revealed through the testimony of Gresgovich, he slowly came around because he had the integrity to report the actual facts.
* I think I must have investigated a hundred such stories (Turk atrocities), without finding one of them true.
(Mark O. Prentiss, Representative of the Near East Relief / American Eyewitness Speaks / Actualities at Smyrna / by John Bakeless / The Atlantic Monthly / January 1924 / pp. 130 - 140)
* Conclusion: Real history clearly proves who the real criminals and barbarians are.
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