Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (50 page)

When Kemal’s initiative was made public, it took the wind out of Lloyd George’s sails. Since he could not lead Britain into war against a nation that was holding out the olive branch of peace, he was left with little option but to agree to armistice talks. They were held at Mudanya, on the Sea of Marmara, and Kemal would walk away from the conference with a full deck of cards.

Lloyd George was simultaneously being relieved of his. He had already been facing serious criticism of his policy towards Smyrna from many of the Unionists in his coalition government. Now, the party’s rank and file joined the chorus of dissent.

Lloyd George was normally a consummate reader of men’s minds, yet on this occasion he had seriously misread the mood of his own politicians. Over the next week, there was intense behind-the-scenes lobbying to remove him from power. The Unionists held a meeting at the Carlton Club and voted overwhelmingly to bring down the coalition. Lloyd George was brought the news immediately. He resigned from office later that day.

He was not alone in his downfall. In the aftermath of the Mudanya armistice, Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin also found himself a spent force. For more than two years he had been the figurehead of a discredited regime that had willingly co-operated with the Allied powers. Now, he had to face the consequences of that co-operation.

On 4 November, the sultan’s government saw the writing on the wall and resigned en masse. The following day, all the old Ottoman ministries were shut down. Turkey was henceforth to be ruled from Angora. The sultan still clung to his throne, but the brutal murder of one of his most outspoken ex-ministers left him in fear for his life. On 16 November 1922, he asked the British for help in escaping from Constantinople.

The British were willing to oblige. At dawn on the following morning, the sultan, his young son and a handful of courtiers were smuggled out of the imperial palace in two army ambulances. They were driven down to the waterfront where the HMS
Malaga
was waiting. The sultan was taken to Malta and thence to Mecca. He eventually settled in San Remo with three of his wives and remained there until his death in 1926, never again setting foot in Turkey. His departure marked the end of a dynasty that had occupied the throne for 469 years.

The realisation that the Turkish nationalists now controlled the reins of power caused absolute panic among the huge Christian population still living in Asia Minor. On the Aegean coast, in central Anatolia, in the Black Sea cities of Samsun and Trebizond, and elsewhere in the Christian enclave of the Pontus, there was a sudden and massive exodus of Greeks and Armenians. All had seen the way the wind was blowing. In the wake of Greece’s military disaster, they understood that it was no longer safe to remain in their hereditary homes.

These families left empty-handed, abandoning houses, churches and monasteries that had been a part of their lives since Byzantine times. They took flight in every place where nationalist forces now held sway, even in the European areas of Turkey. As the defeated Greek army retreated through eastern Thrace, the local population had very little option but to leave. Old men, pregnant women, children and babies – all took to the road, abandoning their farms, their crops, their livestock.

One of those reporting on their flight was Ernest Hemingway, a young journalist working for the
Toronto Star
. He had not been in Smyrna, as is often claimed, and the short story that he later wrote about the scenes on the quayside was derived from the testimonies of those who had been there. However, Hemingway was on hand to witness the exodus from other parts of Turkey:

One of those involved in helping the refugees was Asa Jennings. After leaving Smyrna, he had headed to Macronissa, a bleak and uninhabited island off the coast of Attica. This had become one of many quarantine stations for newly arrived refugees. All had to be checked for infectious diseases before being allowed to land in mainland Greece.

Jennings was joined by Esther Lovejoy, who had returned to Greece after her successful fund-raising initiative in the United States. She was overwhelmed by the scale of what was taking place. Greece had already had to absorb the entire population of Smyrna and its hinterland. Now, hundreds more ships docked each day to discharge their human cargo. The arrival of these vessels was preceded by a telegram that varied only in the number of people on board. ‘Four thousand refugees. No water. No food. Smallpox and typhus aboard.’ Many of those on the ships were so sick that they died soon after landing, ‘most of them from exhaustion due to lack of food and water and other hardships incident to this terrible migration’.

The exodus from Asia Minor was on a biblical scale and it was to continue for many months. To Esther Lovejoy’s eyes, it was ‘the greatest migration in the history of mankind’.

The migration was eventually enshrined in law in 1923, when Kemal put his signature to the Treaty of Lausanne. All of Turkey’s remaining 1.2 million Orthodox Christians were to be uprooted from their ancestral homes and moved to Greece. And the 400,000 Muslims living in Greece were to be removed from their houses and transported to Turkey. It was ethnic cleansing without parallel.

The only exception was the Greek population of Constantinople. A special clause exempted the city’s Christians – along with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate – from having to leave. Many remained there until 1955, when an outbreak of sectarian violence convinced most of them that it was time to pack their bags. These days, Patriarch Bartholomeus presides over a dwindling flock that numbers a few hundred.

The supreme irony of the Treaty of Lausanne is that the chief negotiator for the Greeks was none other than Eleftherios Venizelos. He might have been expected to baulk at dismantling his dream of a mighty Greek empire in Asia Minor, yet Venizelos remained buoyant in the face of disaster, arguing that the influx of refugees presented a unique opportunity for his beleaguered nation. ‘[It] will enable us . . . to ensure, despite the collapse of a Greater Greece, the consolidation of a Great Greece.’

Venizelos had also come to realise that Greece could not regard Turkey as an enemy in perpetuity. Although his nation had been vanquished in war, the two countries had deep ties and shared a mutual border. Greece’s veteran politician swallowed his pride and made his peace with Mustafa Kemal.

He would eventually take his policy of reconciliation one step further. In 1930, when he was once again prime minister of Greece, he travelled to Ankara in order to hold face-to-face talks with Kemal. The two men had much in common and found themselves getting along well together. At a splendid dinner, they talked about forging a joint foreign policy concerning the Mediterranean and even discussed the possibility of a federation of the two countries.

As Venizelos left the soirée, he was met by a quite extraordinary sight. The streets of Ankara had been decked with bunting and flags, all in the blue-and-white colours of Greece. For a brief moment, it was as if the impossible had happened. It was as if the Megali Idea had indeed triumphed.

Turkey itself was to change irrevocably in the wake of the exchange of populations. Less than nine months later, Mustafa Kemal was elected president of the new republic. Soon after, the last vestiges of Ottoman rule were swept away in a series of radical reforms that were intended to bring modernity to Turkey. The caliphate was abolished and the Western alphabet introduced. The fez, which had for so long symbolised the old Turkey, was summarily banned. The yashmak – the veil that women traditionally wore over their faces – also began to disappear.

All Turks were henceforth to take family names in the Western tradition: Kemal himself chose the name Ataturk, Father of the Turks.

Kemal had already offered a further taste of the changes that were to come when he married Latife in January 1923. His young Smyrniot bride surprised many by appearing unveiled at the wedding ceremony. The Kemals looked the epitome of a modern European couple. Eyes widened still further when Latife travelled back to Angora, dressed in riding breeches, high boots and spurs. George Ward Price, who was there at the time, noted that Turkish onlookers ‘were startled by this costume, which no other woman in Turkey would have dared to adopt’.

Bornova, January 2006
. I am sitting in Hortense Wood’s conservatory, drinking Nescafé Gold Blend with Hortense’s elderly great-niece, Renée Steinbuchel. We discuss the old times, when Bornova was still Bournabat; when a Greek butler served coffee on a chased silver tray. Outside, the garden is waist-high in weeds. In the house itself, the cavernous salons and drawing rooms are all in semi-darkness.

‘Ah, Hortense,’ says Renée with a sad smile. ‘A clever lady. Fluent in seven languages and a talented pianist. She was taught by Franz Liszt, you know. And she was a suffragette. Very modern.’

Renée produces her great-aunt’s last diary – 155 pages of clipped prose – and starts to read a few extracts. In among tales of coffee mornings, tea parties and dances, there are snippets about Mustafa Kemal, Herbert Octavius, Topsy the cat and Calliope the Greek maid. Like all good diarists, Hortense reveals much about herself; I find myself listening to a women who is witty, haughty and opinionated. Little escaped her notice; even less escaped her censure. This little book is, in its own way, a masterpiece of literature. It is perhaps the truest representation of Levantine Smyrna at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Renée was born in the aftermath of 1922, yet her thoughts and sentiments seem to belong to another world. She speaks of her great-aunt as if she has just popped out to cut some jasmine; she talks of Ataturk’s visits as if they took place only a few days previously. However, her answer to one of my questions brings me sharply back to reality. When I ask to see the room where Mustafa Kemal planned modern Turkey, she tells me that the ceiling is fragile and at risk of crashing down. The entire house – the bricks and mortar of old Bournabat – is in the process of collapsing.

It is a similar story elsewhere in Bornova. The Anglican parish that bears Magdalen Whittall’s name presents a sorry picture of decline. The church was restored after the destruction of 1922 but the stained-glass windows have once again been smashed by local Turkish boys and the graveyard resembles a jungle. Of the Whittall family tombs, nothing whatsoever remains.

The loggia where Magdalen once held court has also gone and the botanical gardens have been turned over to high-rise apartments. Even the palatial villas have for the most part disappeared. Most of the houses that survived the destruction of 1922 were eventually knocked down in the 1970s. The Lane family’s magnificent villa was demolished in 1973. Edmund Giraud’s Italianate palazzo was destroyed in the following year. The Patersons’ thirty-eight-room mansion was bulldozed too, its site used to build an industrial carpet factory.

The nearby Big House – magnificent domain of Herbert Octavius – was one of the few villas to be restored after being ransacked in 1922. The house was given to Izmir’s Ege University and became the official headquarters of the chancellor.

Only one mansion is still redolent of glories past. In its heyday, Edward Whittall’s villa had had ‘the unstudied charm and graciousness which comes from the daily use of beautiful things’. Three generations later, it stands defiant against the tide of history.

It remains surrounded by the spectacular botanical garden that Edward himself laid out. This was where he spent his long hours of leisure, clipping topiary and creating new and wonderful hybrids. These days, the garden is tended by Brian Giraud, Edward’s great-grandson. Against all the odds, Brian has preserved a glimpse of paradise in an otherwise fallen world.

The stone lions may no longer spout water. The hothouses may no longer be filled with pelargoniums. Yet there is still an air of magic to the place. Rare magnolias, lilacs and wisteria – many of them planted by Edward himself – fill the evening air with a heady, odoriferous scent. And great banks of roses in pinks, mauves and lemon-yellows still tumble down the old balustrade.

Six miles away in the brash modern city of Izmir, the first rays of a weak winter sun are breaking out from behind the rocky bulk of Mount Pagos. It is Friday, 6 January, a working day for most of the inhabitants of Turkey’s third largest city. Shopkeepers are unlocking their doors; bars and cafés are already busy. But to the few Turks who are out and about, a novel and incongruous sight is taking place on the quayside. A little procession of Greeks is making its way towards the pier, under the stern gaze of a monumental bronze Ataturk.

For the first time in eighty-four years, Izmir’s tiny Greek community – mostly consular staff – is being allowed to celebrate the great church feast of Epiphany: the Blessing of the Waters. All are aware of the symbolism of the feast.

The priest reaches the end of the pier and raises his crucifix high above his head. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he flings it deep into the water. Seconds later, one of the men plunges into the icy Aegean and retrieves the cross from the bottom of the sea. It is a ritual that was once performed in front of hundreds of thousands of exultant faithful. Now, the little group intone a final prayer and quietly make the sign of the cross. It is a first sign of rapprochement between the two nations.

In 2007, the Greeks hoped to perform the ceremony again. They were denied permission.

Notes and Sources

E
ach book is given a full reference where first mentioned. Thereafter, it is referred to in abbreviated form. The place and date of publication is given wherever possible.