459) Who Set the Fire in Izmir ("Smyrna")?

REASONS FOR THE FIRE!

"After the Turks had smashed the Greek armies they turned the essentially Greek city (Smyrna) into an ash heap as proof of their victory."

Sir Valentine Chirol, "The Occident and the Orient," page 58; that makes sense! To prove that you won a war, simply burn down your own city. (By the way, with a Turkish majority, the city was not "essentially Greek." Marjorie Housepian wrote in her book's introduction, "Greeks constituted the majority population in Smyrna ," but even her fave, George Horton, contradicted her, as you will read below. And that's with the increased rolls of refugees, not the "normal" population of a few years prior.) . . .

Winston Churchill is quoted (in Greek sites; the source is missing) as believing in essentially the same motivation: "Kemal celebrated his triumph by transforming Smyrna into ashes and by slaughtering the whole of the indigenous Christian population." (Did Churchill shamefully go so far as to claim "all" Christians were slaughtered, mostly for fun?)


The Turks, Chetas or regulars, or both, burned the city to dispose of the dead after having carried away their loot."

An unnamed missionary woman who was "a person of the highest repute," in a letter dated Sept. 21, 1922, as cited by George Horton, in his hateful book. It would have been so much work to get rid of the 1,000-2,000 casualties, the chosen Laurel and Hardy maneuver was to simply burn down the whole city.

There are other theories as well, such as George Horton's belief that destroying the city would have rendered it impossible for the Christians to return, neglecting the fact that destroyed cities can be rebuilt, and citizens can return, assuming conditions are friendly... as with Hurricane Katrina-devastated New Orleans, in 2005. If the idea was to kick out the Christians, there were other ways of achieving such, without burning down a valuable city. Greece and Turkey agreed upon a population exchange afterwards, for example. (Meaning that Christian refugees who finally left were cared for, until that time... otherwise, there would have been no Christians remaining to conduct a population exchange with. See last sentence of Ataturk statement, below.) The bigoted religious fanatic further specified the idea was to "exterminate Christianity in Asia Minor." If that was the idea, not a single Christian would have been left in all of Turkey.

The likeliest theory, as a missionary (and a missionary who would have had special reason to hate the Turks, having been severely beaten by them) concluded was that the terrorists involved hoped to bring about Western intervention. (See below.) The British and the Turks were dangerously close to going to war, and the Armenian terrorists were experts in staging "massacre" events by this time, in order to entice the imperialist powers to come in and do their fighting for them.


Another reason that makes a great deal of sense is that the Greeks and Armenians, who had abandoned their sectors to go to the quays (see above picture), leaving everything behind, did not wish their wealth and valuables to fall into the hands of the Turks, together with the warehouses and stations where many of the fires broke out. Among the destroyed goods were the fleeing Greek army's huge quantities of military stores and food supplies that were desperately needed by Turkish armies and civilians. Logically, indeed, why would the Turks have destroyed these materials? Especially since their whole nation was devastated, and Greece had looted so much from this particular region.

Mark Prentiss elaborated in his Jan. 1923 report: "It was a matter of common knowledge... that the Armenians and Greeks were determined not to let this booty fall into the hands of their hated enemies. There was a generally accepted report in Smyrna, for several days before the fire, that an organized group of Armenian young men had sworn to burn the city if it fell to the Turks."

The Armenian "Genocide" is far from the only anti-Turkish Con Job. The Burning of Izmir is another.

As a supplement to TAT's existing look at the matter, this page will provide further material on why it would be insane for any people to burn their own major city, especially when the rest of the nation lay in post war ruin, and especially when the enemy had demonstrated a scorched-earth policy in other occupied regions hastily evacuated. (The Greek Army had gone by this the time of the fire, but the idea of leaving nothing behind remained, for others to implement. George Horton reported, for example, that many Greek soldiers were given haven by the locals, and were dressed as civilians. Mark Prentiss wrote about "The Greek action in arming civilians, together with prolonged and extensive sniping.")

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1) A Historical Backdrop

2) Marjorie Housepian Dobkin's "Smyrna 1922"

3) A Private Message Expressing Where Ataturk Stood

4) The Turks Tried to Stop the Fire

5) The French Said the Turks Were Not to Blame

6) A Missionary Eyewitness Lays the Blame on Armenians

7) Fire Chief Paul Grescovich

8) Captain Hepburn Stated in His Diary

Quick Historical Backdrop

Viscount Northclife

Let's do a round-up of events, which I'll be basing on a 1924 court case account appearing in the generally anti-Turkish London Times, (published by Lord Northcliffe, a pioneer in the implementation of propaganda in the press; he was appointed "Director of Propaganda in Enemy Countries" in February 1918), entitled "The Smyrna Fire Insurance Claim" (Dec. 20, 1924).

The article tells us "practically the whole town of Smyrna was destroyed" (and not just the Greek and Armenian sections, as we often hear; a Sept. 15? 1922 Times article entitled "Smyrna Burning" stated that the fire spread to the European quarter, where "several Consulates and other houses" were destroyed). We are reminded that in 1919 the Greeks occupied Smyrna, and advanced inland into Anatolia in 1922. The Greeks withdrew (as the judge put it: "On the retreat it burnt villages and laid waste the country"), the Turks came in on Sept. 9, 1922. (The judge said: this was the head of the Army, coming in without fighting and taking possession in a disciplined way. On Sept. 10, the main body of the Turkish Army arrived. A Sept. 19? Times article — "Last Days of Smyrna" — had a British eyewitness report that the Greek Army "poured through Smyrna" on Sept. 8, "in perfect order" with "no panic.") Military patrols were established by Sept. 12, the city was quiet, although parts of the Greek army were not far away.... two surrendering by Sept. 10, and the remainder escaping by sea. (George Horton, The Blight of Asia: "It was said that many of these [Greek soldiers] were taken into houses and given civilian clothes and that thus some escaped.") "No military operations of any kind were in progress when the fire broke out" in the Armenian quarter, spreading wide for four days, before dying down on Sept. 17. The article states there were many refugees besides the regular inhabitants, perhaps 400,000 in all. (Horton refers to this as an "official" figure, while thinking the figure to be 100,000 higher, breaking it down thus: 165,000 Turks, 150,000 Greeks, 25,000 each Armenians and Jews, and 20,000 foreigners. He does not account for the remaining 15,000.)

"There were mutual recriminations. The Greeks and Armenians said that the Turks had started the fire; and the Turks said that Smyrna was their own town, and having succeeded in expelling their enemies from it, they would not have been so foolish as to destroy it."

The judge declared: "There was evidence of other fires independent of one another, and little fires kept springing up behind the firemen." His Lordship did not buy the explanation that the independent fires might have been caused by sparks from houses already burning. From this, we may gather there was a concerted effort to burn the town down. It wasn't simply one fire going haywire.

The judge had a tendency to look down on this part of the world, certainly not alone among Westerners, associating barbarism with matters Turkish. In Housepian's book (see below), he is quoted with the following judgment: "If this was a more civilized city, one very probable explanation would be that somebody who was looting had got drunk. But as it is a semi-barbarous place the question of drink is not mentioned in the case."


“This is a charge against a nation”

Wright, counsel for the plaintiff, who maintained the evidence for the defense was flimsy, and that the opponent should stop ridiculing statements such as the Turks' making every effort to maintain order. He found no sympathy from the biased judge. (Housepian, "Smyrna 1922")

Judge Rowlatt felt the Turks were to blame, and found for the defendant, an insurance company. (An American tobacco company was the plaintiff; they tried to get money for their destroyed warehouse, claiming that the fire was accidental. The insurance company exercised their loophole, claiming the fire was deliberately set, and refused to pay. The lawyer for the plaintiff complained that the evidence of incendiarism [a willful setting on fire to destroy, and the act must be done for a criminal purpose] was "only that of a small number of persons who by race and nationality were bitterly hostile to the Turks."

A follow up article on May 2, 1925, where appeals to the case were turned down, revealed that "...the inhabitants had been driven out of their homes and that they had deserted and generally evacuated the [Armenian] quarter by September 13." In other words, there were few Armenian civilians left in the Armenian quarter when the fire broke out on Sept. 13. (This is significant because one reason given for the fire is that this was the way to exterminate the Christians.)

Marjorie Housepian Dobkin's "Smyrna 1922"

Smyrna 1922, by Marjorie Housepian

Marjorie Housepian Dobkin's work, "Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City" is recognized as authoritative, but the author shows her bias repeatedly. Lord Kinross settled on the number of Smyrna deaths at a couple of thousand (so did another author Housepian refers to, Michael Llewellyn Smith, one who lays the blame for the fire on the Turks), but Housepian reportedly prefers to go with perhaps 100,000.

The author had already made up her mind on the guilt of her accused, and was strictly interested in finding sources to prove her case, Dadrian-style. She gives profuse thanks to those such as Dadrian and Hovannisian. It's amusing the way she tries to play innocent by writing (in the updated edition) that she was "puzzled... a few" critics had found her book "highly charged" or "subjective."

The city's fire chief, a foreigner (Paul Grescovich) who was in the best position to know the goings on found genuine evidence that at least the Armenians were behind the fire. Housepian de-emphasizes sources as this one that goes against her agenda. As another example, she flatly reveals in her introduction: "I have taken American Consul George Horton's view of the atrocities committed by Greek troops as they fled towards Smyrna, rather than Arnold J. Toynbee's. [Because] The latter did an about-face..." While Toynbee himself was an "extreme Christian," even at his propagandistic peak he came across as a secular humanist, next to the blazing George Horton; Horton went out of his way, in his book, to make the Greek troops appear as angels. It speaks volumes that Housepian preferred to give overriding credence to Horton. (What true scholar could give credence to one the likes of George Horton? Referring to Horton for a picture of the Turks is like referring to the KKK for a picture of blacks and Jews.)

She also complains about "the missionaries who had discredited their own eyewitness testimonies," along with others as the aforementioned Arnold Toynbee who had done an about-face from their former propagandistic views. Housepian does not even consider the possibility that the former tellings of these partisans could have been false. (Toynbee was part of the British war propaganda division, for example.)


"Miss Mills Blames Turks for the Fire"

She tells us the British complained about Mark Bristol's being "carefully spoon fed by the Turks," as if Bristol were an idiot. (That's how Housepian practically sums up Bristol, by pointing to his "naiveté and ignorance.") Of course the British, who were practically at war with the Turks, did not appreciate Bristol's sense of fairness, when it was expected of Western diplomats to look at these matters from the traditional "Turks are not human" perspective. Bristol received missionaries constantly [a 1919 example, just before he became high commissioner, may be seen here], and he had plenty of exposure to the anti-Turkish views the British were more in line with. What distinguished Bristol was his ability to sort through the goop and to analyze these matters without overriding prejudice. This fairness and integrity is what has earned him the label of being "pro-Turk." (Bristol was only guilty of being "pro-Truth.") In short: why does Housepian expect us to accept the word of the British, who were the Turks' enemy, instead of an American ambassador?

The New York Times article at above right ("Miss Mills Blames Turks for the Fire") is one of many examples where Western publications published anti-Turkish blather at face value. Housepian certainly utilizes the witness said to be behind these words, Miss Minnie Mills, a missionary. Note the hysterical claims, such as all the Christians (i.e., the remainder of the "small proportion of the population [who had] escaped") having been massacred. The report originated from the Turk-unfriendly Near East Relief.


Marjorie Housepian's Objectivity: Armenians were all innocent.

"The major effort ... is to change history; to make Turks, for instance, alleged victims of Armenian killings in 1915 ...."

"Alleged"!

Excerpts from an address given by Housepian in Thessaloniki on December 1, 1994, as reported in grecoreport.com (where the "Dobkin" of her name was left out, for some reason; I similarly followed suit while referring to her on this page). Housepian was referring to the great power of P.R. firms supposedly hired by Turkey, and yet she points to a quote by someone working on behalf of Bosnia. Yes, Serbs hoped to disparage the Bosnians during the Yugoslavian break-up by calling them "Turks," in an effort to get Western opinion on their side, but why can't Housepian make the distinction that the Slavic Bosnians are not Turkish? Most importantly, why does she not address how it could be possible Turkey's image is so awful in the West, with these supposed P.R. firms at the helm?

The fact is, when it comes to Public Relations, the Turks are hopeless.

She goes on to complain that she is "horrified and outraged" by the way Turkey's "media blitz" has the "acquiescent American press" in its pocket, which does not "bode well for democracy. " Is she living in another dimension?

As usual, the Armenians and Greeks do the crime (in this case, managing Western media to wholly accept their propaganda), and then point to the Turks as the culprits. Simple shameful.

A Private Message Expressing Where Ataturk Stood


In the following communication, Ataturk naively believed the foreign journalists would be fair and unbiased in their reporting of the fire in Izmir, and of the Turkish effort to stop it. (E. Alexander Powell wrote of the reality: "There was scarcely a newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version.") Ataturk wrote that even before the fire began the Turks had taken precautions, since the fire was expected. It was heard that the Greek priest Hrisostomos (English spelling commonly "Chrysostomos") preached in his church that to burn Izmir was a religious duty of all.

Note also that all of his claims are corroborated by Western sources, many of which may be found on this very page.


FROM COMMANDER IN CHIEF GAZI MUSTAFA KEMAL PASHA TO THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS YUSUF KEMAL BEY

Tel. 17.9.38 (1922) (Arrived 4.10.38)

To be transmitted with care. Important and urgent.

Find hereunder the instruction I sent to Hamid Bey with Admiral Dumesmil, who left for Istanbul today.

Commander-In-Chief
Mustafa KEMAL

Copy To Hamid Bey,

1. It is necessary to comment on the fire in Izmir for future reference.

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 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 (suhud) 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.


Source: Bilal Simsir, ‘Atatürk ile Yazismalar’ (The Correspondence with Ataturk), Kültür Bakanligi, 1981. (Translation thanks to Sukru and Yuksel; Document thanks to M. Mersinoglu.)

NOTES

Dumesnil was the French admiral on board the flagship of the French fleet, at the time the Turks liberated Izmir. When Archbishop Chrysostomos’ execution was reported to Dumesnil, the admiral "sardonically" shrugged: "He got what was coming to him,"

That's from Marjorie Housepian's "Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City " (1972, note 134 pg 260): "Dumesnil quoted by Horton, letter to Secretary of State, 18 September 1922, NA."

Archbishop Chrysostomos

Housepian actually refers to this trial and execution (see last paragraph of Sep 16, 1922 article, directly below) as a "massacre"! (There are incredible accounts of how he was "martyred" by a bloodthirsty mob in Greek sites... his beard pulled out, his hands chopped off.) George Horton was the bigoted American consul in Izmir, who would defame an entire nation with his book, "The Blight of Asia."

In this hateful book, Horton apologetically wrote (confirming Ataturk's charge, in a whitewashed manner) that he actually attended a sermon conducted by this priest: "Unfortunately, Archbishop Chrysostom (he who was later murdered by the Turks) began to introduce some politics into his sermon, a thing which he was extremely prone to do." Horton further quoted a Greek as having said: "Some ugly stories are told about the priest... He refused to say the prayers over the dead body of a poor woman's child, because she did not have the full amount of his fee, and it was buried without the rites of the church." Sterghiades, the Hellenic high-commissioner, is told of having slapped (whom he believed was) the priest in the face, accusing him of being a "disgrace to the Church and to the Greek nation." Horton later lovingly describes the priest as "venerable and eloquent," and that his only sin was that he was a "patriot." (Funny; when someone lives in a country as its citizen, and actively works against the interests of that country, to the tune of cooperating with invading enemies, I'd think the correct word would be "traitor.")

The Turks Tried to Stop the Fire

The London Times, Sep 16, 1922; pg. 8

THE FATE OF SMYRNA.

ARCHBISHOP SHOT.
(From Our Correspondent In the Near East.)

CONSTANTINOPLE, Sept 15.
Whatever was the cause of the Smyrna fire, the results are catastrophic. The greater part of the town has been destroyed and thousands of inhabitants and refugees are believed to have perished, while property valued at many millions has been wiped out.

There were ghastly scenes on the quays where thousands of refugees were huddled at the water’s edge, under a rain of sparks and cinders. 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 irregulars who are reported to have entered Smyrna before the fire may have caused it.

Looting certainly took place in the Armenian quarter prior to the outbreak. The richest seaport of Turkey has thus perished. Years must elapse before its trade recovers, and British merchants and residents have been among the greatest sufferers.

It is reported here that the Orthodox Archbishop of Smyrna, Mgr. Chrysostomos, has been tried by summary Court-martial and shot, and that the leading local Greek journalist, M. Lascaris, has been murdered.

The French Said the Turks Were Not to Blame

The London Times, Sep 25?, 1922

ORIGINS OF SMYRNA FIRE

CONSTANTINOPLE, Sept. 24 — 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. — Reuter.

=====================

In addition:

From a New York Times editorial ("Responsibility at Smyrna," September 30, 1922) that unsurprisingly appears to (at least in the way it starts out; the entire piece was unavailable for me to read) blame the Turks: 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]."

Pro-Armenians attempt to discredit the French and Italians, because they were at odds with the British by this time. For example, George Horton printed the statement of a French officer who praised the Turks, especially in the face of what he knew of the less-noble characteristics of the Ottoman Christians, and Horton claimed this attitude was representative of most of the French. [Click here]
The implication here is that the French simply must have lied. But once again, just because pro-Armenians have no problem with bending the truth, we can't assume every single individual who testified for the Turks must have suffered from a lack of conscience; we can't assume they all must have blindly followed this alleged directive, and lied through their teeth. I hope the accounts of these "trustworthy French witnesses" that the above article tells us about are available somewhere, as each testimony would need to be evaluated separately. Remember: the French were not raised with a fondness for the Turks, constantly having been exposed to "Turkish atrocity" propaganda. This attitude is certainly demonstrated in current times, with the general hostility of modern France toward Turkey.

Another point to bear in mind is that if the French were not to be believed, why would the word of the British be credible? The British have become notorious for their WWI propaganda, and were not known for telling truth. (Note Churchill's shameful statement at the top of this page.) Moreover, they were still occupying part of the Turks' country, brought in the Greeks and bore partial responsibility for the horrible crimes the Greeks committed, and were the "enemy." The British did all they could to make the progress of Kemal's forces as difficult as possible because, once again, the British were the "enemy." Those who prefer to value the word of the British over the French during this period show their own "enemy" stripes.

A Missionary Eyewitness Lays the Blame on Armenians

The Turks did not massacre Greeks, as Greeks had done to Turks in May 1919. About the worst the Turkish Army did was force captured Greek soldiers to shout “Long live Mustafa Kemal” (in return to their forcing Turks to shout Zito Vrenizelos when they entered Smyrna) as they marched intro detention. Turkish soldiers protected International College during the disruption of the occupation; a Turkish cavalryman rescued MacLahlan from irregulars who nearly beat the missionary to death while trying to loot the agricultural buildings of the college. A three-day Smyrna fire (September 13-15), which Turks made every effort to control, destroyed nearly a square mile in Greek and Armenian areas and made two hundred thousand people homeless. Included in this loss was the American Board’s Collegiate Institute for Girls. MacLachlan’s investigation of the fire’s origin led to the conviction that Armenian terrorists, dressed in Turkish uniforms, fired the city. Apparently the terrorists were attempting to bring Western intervention. Informing Washington of a three million Dollars claim by the American Board against the Ankara government, Barton requested through an aide that the U.S. participate in any conference planned by the Allies to rewrite the Treaty of Sevres. As the West talked of negotiating with the Kemalists, part of the American public began to realize that Armenianism and godliness were not identical. Ever since missionaries in the nineteenth century had become the dominant U.S. concern in the Ottoman Empire, opinion in America increasingly favored Christian minorities.


From Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East, 1971, p. 263..Alexander MacLachlan was the missionary president of International College in "Smyrna."

Fire Chief Paul Grescovich

The report of Paul Grescovich, Chief of the "Smyrna" Fire Department (1910-1922), is part of the collection of the Bristol Papers, within the Library of Congress. I am hoping to get a hold of it, to present in this section. This is the one that Housepian ignored (for all intents and purposes) in her book.

Until that time, let's review highlights from Mark Prentiss' private report that he sent to Admiral Bristol on January 11, 1923. I don't believe this was published anywhere, and especially if so, it can't be construed as propaganda. This report can be read in its entirety on TAT's first "Izmir" page.

Grescovich impressed Prentiss as a "thoroughly reliable witness." (Makes sense; why would the chief have purposely lied for the Turks? He left the job in the weeks that followed, in case anyone feels he would have broken the Ninth Commandment for the sake of maintaining his position.) Communication was clear, without the need for translators, since the Austrian spoke fluent English.

Prentiss arrived on Sept. 8, as the Greek Army was leaving. Prentiss met with Grescovich on at least the 10th and the 13th (Wednesday), when the fires had started.

"During the first week of September there had been an average of five fires per day with which his crippled department had to cope." Grescovich believed that while most were caused by carelessness, some were deliberately started.

"The average number of fires in a normal year, he said, would be one in ten days, and the increase to five a day seemed significant."

(As the approach of the Turkish Army became imminent, in the week before the Turks arrived, the fact that fires radically increased serves as a tremendous clue.)

"Sunday night, Monday and Monday night, and Tuesday, so many fires were reported at such widely separated points that the fire department was absolutely unable to deal with them." (Compounded by the Turkish military governor's [Kiazim Pasha] ordering the arrest of the Greeks in the fire department, reducing the force to only 37. These days would correspond to Sept. 10, 11 and 12, respectively. Remember, the fire "started" on Sept. 13.)

Because the fire department was unable to cope, these pre-Sept. 13 fires "were extinguished by Turkish soldiers."

On the morning of Sept. 13, Paul Grescovich personally found evidence: he "had seen two Armenian priests escorting several thousand men, women, children from the Armenian schools and Dominican churches where they had taken refuge down to the quays."

"When he presently went into these institutions he found petroleum-soaked refuse ready for the torch."

The chief was undoubtedly certain, according to Prentiss, that "his own firemen, as well as Turkish guards, had shot down many Armenian young men disguised either as women or as Turkish irregular soldiers, who were caught setting fires Tuesday night and Wednesday morning." (Sept. 12 and Sept. 13.)

On the first day of the fire, Sept. 13, "At 11:20 Wednesday morning , at least half a dozen fires were reported almost simultaneously around the freight terminal warehouses and the passenger station of the Aidine Railroad."

"It is noteworthy that these fires broke out in buildings which it was greatly to the advantage of Turks to preserve, and to the advantage of enemies to destroy."


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"

------(Source unknown.)-------

The above individual was described by George Horton in the following manner: "Captain Hepburn, one of the naval officers, counted thirty-five dead bodies on the road leading to Paradise, a small village near Smyrna, where the American International College is situated."


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