MY
WIFE
and
I were at Sevdikeuy, a Greek village a few miles south of Smyrna on the Ottoman
railway, when the news that the Greek army was meeting with serious reverses
arrived. These rumors were not believed at first, but they grew more and more
insistent, throwing the population into an agony of fear.
At
last the report became a certainty. The official news was received that the
Greek army had suffered a terrible and irretrievable defeat and that nothing now
prevented the Turks from descending to the coast. The population began to leave,
a few at first, then more and more until the flight developed into a veritable
panic.
The
town was fast filling with refugees from the interior. The majority of these
refugees were small farmers who had lived on properties that had descended from
father to son for many generations. Their forebears had settled in Asia Minor
before the Turks had begun to develop into a nation. They were children of the
soil, able to live and care for themselves in their little houses and on their
few acres, each family with its cow, its donkey and its goat. They were even
producing tobacco, figs, seedless raisins and other products for export. They
were expert in the cultivation and manipulation of the better qualities of
cigarette tobacco and the priceless raisins, of which latter Asia Minor produces
the best quality in the world. This valuable farmer element, the very backbone
of the prosperity of Asia Minor, had again been reduced to beggary and thrown
upon American charity. They were arriving by thousands in Smyrna and all along
the seacoast. They were filling all the churches, schools and the yards of the
Y. M. and Y. W. C. A. and the American mission schools. They were sleeping in
the streets. Many were getting away during those first days on steamers and
sailing craft. The caiques in the
harbor, loaded with refugees and their effects, were a picturesque sight. For
the man whose heart has not suffered atrophy as a result of the Great War, the
spectacle of great numbers of helpless little children was particularly moving.
Unfortunately, atrophy of the human heart has been one of the most noticeable
phenomena of the great Armageddon. Doctor Esther Lovejoy, of New York, already
referred to, used an expression with regard to certain Americans, who were
present during the scenes of suffering and outrage. “Their minds did not seem
to register.” Had she said “hearts,” she would have been nearer the
truth. The refugees carried with them as much of their belongings as their
strength permitted and one often saw a little child sitting on top of a great
bundle of bedding, the whole supported on the shoulders of some man or woman
stumbling along.
In normal times the sick are not
seen, as they are in the houses lying in bed for the most part. In ease of a
great fire or panic one is surprised at the number of sick or disabled thus
brought to light. Many of the refugees were carrying sick upon their
shoulders. I remember especially one old gray-haired woman stumbling through the
streets of Smyrna with an emaciated feverish son astride her neck. He was taller
than the mother, his legs almost touching the
ground.
Then the defeated, dusty, ragged
Greek soldiers began to arrive, looking straight ahead, like men walking in
their sleep. Great numbers—the more fortunate—were sitting on ancient Assyrian
carts, descendants of the very primitive vehicles used in the time of
Nebuchadnezzar.
In a never-ending stream they
poured through the town toward the point on the coast to which the Greek fleet
had withdrawn. Silently as ghosts they went, looking neither to the right nor
the left. From time to time some soldier, his strength entirely spent, collapsed
on the sidewalk or by a door. It was said that many of these were taken into
houses and given civilian clothes and that thus some escaped. It was credibly
reported that others whose strength failed them before they got into the city
were found a few hours later with their throats cut. And now at last we heard
that the Turks were moving on the town. There had been predictions that
Greek troops, on entering Smyrna, would burn it, but their conduct soon
dispelled all such apprehensions. In fact the American, with the British,
French and Italian delegates had called upon General Hadjianesti, the Greek
commander-in-chief, to ask him what measures he could take to prevent acts of
violence on the part of the disorganized Greek forces. He talked of a
well-disciplined regiment from Thrace, which he was expecting and which he
promised to throw out as a screen to prevent straggling bands from entering the
city and even of organizing a new resistance to the Turks, but could give the
delegates no definite assurance. He was tall and thin, straight as a ramrod,
extremely well-groomed, with a pointed gray beard and the general air of an
aristocrat. He was a handsome man, with the reputation of a lady-killer. That
was the last time I saw him, but when I read later of his standing before a
firing squad in Athens, I still retained a vivid mental picture of that last
interview in the military headquarters in Smyrna. If it was he who was
responsible for sending away the flower of his troops to threaten Constantinople
at a time when they were most needed in Asia Minor, he deserved severe
punishment or confinement in a lunatic asylum. He had the general reputation of
being megalomaniac, with not too great ability. Certainly none but a fool would
have accepted the Smyrna post at that time for the sake of glory. What was
needed was a man of energy with a clear understanding of the situation who would
have taken hurried and wise measures to save as much as possible of the
wreckage. But Hadjianesti was busy furnishing in gorgeous style and repairing a
palace on the quay, which he had requisitioned for a residence. He deserved to
be pitied, for it is probable that he was not well-balanced
mentally.
It
was definitely asserted that the Turkish cavalry would enter the town on the
morning of September 9, (1922). The Greek general staff and the
high-commissioner with the entire civil administration, were preparing to leave.
The Greek gendarmes were still patrolling the streets and keeping order. These
men had gained the confidence of every one in Smyrna and the entire occupied
region by their general efficiency and good conduct. Whatever accusations may be
substantiated against the Greek soldiers, nothing but praise can be said of the
Greek gendarmes. All my former colleagues at Smyrna and all residents of the
district will bear me out in this statement. There would be an interval between
the evacuation of Smyrna and the arrival of the Turkish forces when the town
would be without a government of any kind. Some of the representatives of
foreign governments went to the high-commissioner and asked him to leave the
gendarmes until the Turks had taken over, under assurance from the latter that
they would be alowed to depart without molestation. The high-commissioner did
not grant this request. I did not join in it. The Greek officials all left. Mr.
Sterghjades had but a few steps to go from his house to the sea where a ship was
awaiting him, but he was hooted by the population. He had done his best to
make good in an impossible situation. He had tried by every means in his power
to make friends of the implacable Turks, and he had punished severely, sometimes
with death, Greeks guilty of crimes against Turks. He founded a university at
Smyrna, bringing from Germany a Greek professor with an international reputation
to act as president.
One
of the last Greeks I saw on the streets of Smyrna before the entry of the Turks,
was Professor Karatheodoris, president of the doomed university. With him
departed the incarnation of Greek genius of culture and civilization in the
Orient.
The Hellenic forces left, civil and
military, and the interregnum of a city without a government began. But nothing
happened. Mohammedans and Christians were quiet, waiting with a great anxiety.
The supreme question was: How would the Turks behave? The French and Italian
delegates assured their colonies that Khemal’s army consisted of
well-disciplined troops and that there was nothing to fear. I had no anxiety for
the native-born Americans, but was very uneasy about the two hundred or more
naturalized citizens, many of them former Ottoman subjects. I, therefore, did
not take the responsibility of assuring the native population, Greeks and
Armenians, that they would be perfectly safe, neither did I say anything that
might tend to create panic. Many ladies, American and others, left at this time.
I counseled my wife to go, but she refused, thinking that her staying might give
comfort to those who remained. I decided to select a place of rendezvous for the
American citizens and to notify all of them to keep in the neighborhood of this
place as much as possible and, in case of serious disorders and general danger,
to take refuge there. I picked out the American theater, a large and suitable
building on the quay, for the purpose and called the leading members of the
American colony, native and naturalized, to a meeting in my office and advised
them of the measures taken, to be applied in case of need. When I told them that
the meeting was dismissed, Mr. Rufus W. Lane, now a merchant of Smyrna, but
formerly American consul there, arose and said: “We did not come here
solely to save our own skins. The refugees that are pouring by thousands and
thousands into the city are dying of starvation and nobody to help them. I had
hoped that this meeting bad been called together to take measures to succor
these poor people.” A Provisional Relief Committee was organized on
the spot and a sufficient sum of money contributed to begin operations. All the
leading American firms offered their lorries and automobiles and their personal
services. Bakers were hired and set to work, stocks of flour found and
purchased, and in a few hours this organization was feeding the helpless and
bewildered refugees who were crowding into the city. But for the American
colony in Smyrna thousands would have died of starvation before the Relief Unit
could arrive from Constantinople.
In
the meantime I was insistently telegraphing for American men-of-war to come to
Smyrna. If there was ever a time when a situation demanded the presence of naval
units, this, I thought, was that occasion. Though our colony was not great, our
business interests and property holdings were very considerable indeed, to say
nothing of our large schools with their staffs of teachers and
professors.
The
navy in those waters was under the control of that very fine officer and
gentleman, Admiral Mark L. Bristol. I had reason to think that the admiral had
perfect confidence in the good intentions and administrative abilities of the
Turks and believed that the latter would bring a kind and benevolent
administration to Smyrna.
In response to telegraphic insistence with the State Department a wire was
received to the effect that destroyers would be sent to Smyrna, as cruisers were
not available, for the protection of American lives and property. Two small
destroyers were accordingly sent. Naval units of Great Britain, Italy,
France and the United States were present at Smyrna, and anchored but a few
hundred yards or nearer from the houses on the quay during the appalling,
shameful and heartrending scenes which followed.
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