Read Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance Online
Authors: Giles Milton
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #General, #War, #History
‘Thousands and thousands of refugees, with heavy bundles upon their backs, pressed forward along the quay, struggling to reach and pass through the first gate,’ wrote Lovejoy. ‘The Turkish soldiers beat them back with the butts of their guns to make them come more slowly, but they seemed insensible to pain and their greatest fear in the daylight was the fear of not reaching the ships.’
In such a throng, it was a case of survival of the fittest. Those who fell were trampled underfoot; those who were sick were abandoned to their fate. Lovejoy, who was standing close to the land end of the pier, felt helpless in the face of such misery:
Many of the women . . . were pushed off the quay into the shallow water, near that floating mass of carrion which washed against the stonework.
No effort was made to help them out of the water. Such an effort would have necessitated the putting down of bundles, or children, and every person in that crowd strong enough to carry anything was carrying a pack or a child, or helping the sick and old of his own family.
So these women stood in the water waist deep, holding up their little ones, until they were able to scramble out and join the crowd, with nothing in the world left to them but the wet rags on their backs.
The crush was worst at the first gate, where tens of thousands of refugees created a bottleneck. Women lost shoes and clothes in the scrum. Hair was torn out and couples separated. Lovejoy saw one elderly grandmother who had lost almost all her clothes. Naked from the waist down – and unconscious of the fact – she was wailing for her family. Another woman encouraged her young child through the pier gate, only to find her own path blocked by soldiers. She pushed them away, but was beaten back by the butts of their rifles.
The mother’s instinct is hard to control [wrote Lovejoy]. With a wild expression of countenance she turned, dropped her bundle and went over that iron picket fence, which was at least seven feet high, like an orang-outang.
A soldier was ordered to stop her, and he cornered her between the fence and a small building on the inside, beat her with the butt of his gun, and finally pinned her against the building with the muzzle of it, in an effort to make her listen to reason and obey orders. But that poor mother had reverted to the lower animals and was acting on instinct. She couldn’t be controlled by a gun unless it was fired. With her eyes on her child, who was being pushed along with the crowd in the distance, she broke away and the soldier shrugged his shoulders impotently, as much as to say, ‘What is the use of trying to manage such a crazy creature.’
Many women were in such desperation to get away that they attempted to climb the fences that divided the pier into separate sections. Several got caught on the sharp metal pickets and were unable to get down. Children lacerated their feet on the broken glass that was strewn across the pier, and mothers were beaten by one or other of the numerous Turkish soldiers who were loitering at the various gates. Lovejoy watched officers join in the robbery, fleecing the refugees of any last money, jewellery or gold fillings that they might still have.
‘Individual soldiers would seize the more prosperous-appearing women, drag them out of the line and rob them in broad daylight,’ she wrote. Any men of military age who attempted to escape with their families were given even rougher treatment. They were severely beaten, then officially arrested and placed with the group of prisoners awaiting deportation to the interior.
‘As family after family passed through those gates, the father of perhaps 42 years of age, carrying a sick child or other burden, or a young son, and sometimes both father and son, would be seized.’
Lovejoy found it heart-rending to see these families – so close to freedom – being separated, probably for ever.
In a frenzy of grief, the mother and children would cling to this father and son, weeping, begging and praying for mercy, but there was no mercy. With the butts of their guns, the Turkish soldiers beat these men backward into the prison groups and drove the women toward the ships, pushing them with their guns, striking them with straps or canes, and urging them forward like a herd of animals, with the expression, ‘
Haide! Haide!
’ which means ‘Begone! Begone!’.
The British and American sailors were allowed to watch – but not to help – the refugees along the pier. For some, however, the scenes proved so distressing that they were goaded into action. One Royal Navy surgeon attended several emergencies at the far end of the pier, while Lovejoy herself did her utmost to help any pregnant women.
‘In a city with so large a population there were, of course, a great many expectant mothers,’ she wrote, ‘and these terrible experiences precipitated their labours in many instances. Children were born upon the quay and upon the pier, and one woman who had been in the crush at the first gate for hours, finally staggered through holding her just-born child in her hands.’
By the end of that first day, Lovejoy had seen such harrowing incidents that they would remain with her for the rest of her life. ‘Children fell off the pier and were drowned, young men committed suicide, old people died of exhaustion and, at the end of the pier, when two or three ships were loading at the same time, children were lost and their mothers ran to and fro frantically calling for their little ones, and great was the joy if the lost were found.’
Among those fighting their way to the quayside were Garabed Hatcherian and his family. Garabed had been released from his prison barracks three days earlier, having been informed by the Turkish soldiers that he was considered too old to be worth deporting.
As soon as he was free, he made his way to the house owned by the Sivrihissarians, which still stood intact amidst an area of the city that lay almost entirely in ruins. He was fearful that the house would have been forcibly entered by the military yet, for some inexplicable reason, it had been left untouched. Garabed knocked on the door and was ushered into the hallway, which was crowded with dozens of friends and relatives of the Atamians.
‘Anxiously I search for my wife,’ he wrote, ‘who I was afraid might have suffered mental collapse during my absence, for she had shown some signs of nervous breakdown when we were parting.’ He was delighted to find that she was alive and well, ‘although extremely emaciated and pale’.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, Garabed decided that it was time for his family to make their bid for freedom. They said their farewells to the Atamians and – with a wistful glance back at the house – pushed their way deep into the heaving masses in an attempt to reach the first gate of the pier.
[We] are mingled in the huge crowd as we all attempt to reach the door of mercy . . . I am squashed at my back and at my chest and I fear that Vartouhi [his baby daughter] may choke. Some critical minutes pass and I mobilise all my physical strength to save my poor girl from certain death . . . I lose my balance and I fall down. Fear overcomes me that the crowd will stampede Vartouhi and me and we will be smothered. But I manage to get up, making a superhuman effort.
After hours of jostling and heaving, the Hatcherian family at long last found themselves approaching the first gate of the pier. Garabed himself was helped through the gate by an American marine. When a Turkish soldier prevented his wife and children from following him, he bribed the man with a small bundle of banknotes.
It was unfortunate that this exchange of money was witnessed by another Turkish soldier. Garabed quickly offered a bribe to this second soldier but was met with a chilling refusal. ‘With the end of a bayonet on my breast, he orders me back through the door. The children scream and cry. My wife begs him with tears.’
The Turkish soldier continued to force him and his family back to the first gate, where a new American marine was just taking up his position. ‘With my poor English, I beg the American guard to have mercy at least with the innocent child in my arms and to intervene. “That is not my business,” was his cool reply.’
The Hatcherians were almost back on the quayside when the Turkish soldier had a sudden change of heart and let them go. ‘Blinded by [the] number of bills in my wife’s hand, [he] grabs the money and disappears. I am free from the clutches of the beast. But I am totally worn of torment and agony; I become dizzy, my eyes see black, I hardly manage to sit on a rock and faint.’
After a few minutes, Garabed recovered consciousness. He stood up and, supported by his wife, tried to push his way back into the crowd. However, after a few steps he felt as if he were going to collapse again. He summoned all his might and, aided by some hidden inner force, managed to propel his family forward through the remaining gates. Although at several points he stumbled and fell, the sight of a vessel docked just a few hundred yards ahead focused his mind.
‘I mobilise all my strength and with Vartouhi in my arms, I take off towards the dock, where the last Turkish guard is in control. My wife and my children follow me. Exhausted and with a throbbing heart, I arrive before the guard. I go by him, pale and with my head lowered.’
The guard scrutinised the family carefully before allowing them through the barrier. ‘I stop for an instant and check to see whether there is anyone missing. We are all here, eight people, including the maid.’
One final push and Garabed found himself on the deck of the ship. ‘[I] manage to drag each of my family members up on the ship, one by one. We are all miraculously freed. After so much hardship and suffering, my being alive is an absolute miracle.’
The Hatcherian family were finally free but for many others on the quayside Jennings’ vessels were as far away as ever. As dusk descended on Sunday evening, the sense of panic intensified. The Turks had announced that the pier was to be closed during the hours of darkness. Any refugees who had not been taken aboard one of the ships would have to try again on the following day.
‘There was nothing the refugees seemed to dread more than to be overtaken by darkness,’ wrote Lovejoy, ‘. . . after struggling all day to reach that point, it was sometimes impossible to embark, or to get back to a place of comparative safety, within range of the searchlights, before darkness settled.’
As night closed in, Jennings had every reason to congratulate himself on a successful day’s work. Some 15,000 refugees had been saved from certain death – each one of whom owed his or her life to the tiny Methodist minister from New York. It was an insignificant number in comparison to those still on the quayside, but it was a beginning.
For those on board the ships, it was a blessed release from a terrible ordeal. As Jennings’ fleet headed out of Smyrna harbour towards Mytilene, Garabed Hatcherian stood on deck and cast his gaze back towards the home he had once loved.
‘With tears in our eyes and our hearts full of emotion, we watch the crowds huddle on the quay and consider ourselves lucky that, finally, we are free from this infernal city.’
He never wanted to set foot in Smyrna again.
While Asa Jennings was spiriting away his first batch of refugees, Kemal and his senior staff were celebrating the capture of Smyrna at a party in the grounds of Latife’s mansion. Kemal was in the best possible humour. Dressed in a white-belted Russian shirt, he took an active lead in the evening’s folk dancing and even sang songs about his native Rumelia. One of the guests at the party was the Turkish journalist, Falih Rifki, a close associate of Kemal. He remembered Kemal being in buoyant mood that evening, although he was careful not to betray his jubilation. ‘His movements were masculine and dignified. He avoided unnecessary gestures. His manner was not
alla franca
(European like) but Western; not
alla turca
(Turkish like) but genuinely Turkish.’
Kemal spoke at length that evening on many different subjects – of war, love and pity. ‘The discussion brought home to me for the first time that this determined warrior and calculating politician was also a very human man of the world.’
While Kemal and his generals partied into the early hours, momentous events were unfolding in Greece. On Thursday, 21 September, two senior-ranking army colonels had staged an anti-royalist coup on the island of Mytilene. Five days later, the rebellion spread to Athens. The Greek navy mutinied and joined the revolution. Shortly after, King Constantine abdicated and a new revolutionary government replaced the discredited old regime.
Jennings was deeply concerned when he was brought news of the revolution in Athens. His first fear was that it would make his task even more difficult, especially as the government that had appointed him admiral of the fleet was no longer in power. However, the new regime gave him their unstinting support, declaring that his rescue mission should continue ‘without hesitation’.
This was music to Jennings’ ears. After landing his 15,000 refugees in Mytilene, he returned to Smyrna on Tuesday, 26 September. This time he had an armada of seventeen ships and many more people willing to help. Esther Lovejoy once again spent her waking hours nursing the sick and pregnant and helping them aboard the ships in the bay. Although aware that they were engaged in a race against the clock, she felt that it was a race they were beginning to win. By the end of Tuesday evening, Jennings had managed to spirit away another 43,000 souls.
His heroic rescue mission made a deep impression on the American and Allied commanders still in Smyrna. Realising that there would still be many refugees left on the quayside by 1 October – in spite of Jennings’ superhuman effort – they requested that General Noureddin extend his deadline by another eight days. To their surprise, he agreed – and he also granted permission for British ships to enter the harbours of Urla, Chesme and Ayvalik in order to take away the tens of thousands of Christian refugees gathered there. The Turkish general had suddenly grasped that it was in his interests to co-operate with the Allied powers. They had become the instruments of the nationalists’ domestic policy: to rid Turkey once and for all of its troublesome minorities.
The rescue operation continued daily, overseen at all times by Jennings and Lovejoy. By nightfall on 27 September, the number of refugees had fallen to below 200,000. Just two days later, less than half that number remained. Esther Lovejoy embarked on the USS
Litchfield
on the last day of September in order to head to America and raise funds for the homeless and destitute. By the time she left, there were fewer than 50,000 refugees still awaiting rescue from the charnel house of Smyrna.