by Benny Morris
Norwegian explorer and scientist— demanded the release of the prisoners in
the labor battalions. He argued that the women and children who had
reached Greece needed their men: they could not be productively resettled
without breadwinners.449 Meanwhile, the deported men were, according to
Bristol “treated like animals.”450
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of women and children were also
deported inland. It began within a few days of the Turkish takeover of Smyrna.
The Turks gathered women and children from the quay, fields, and streets,
and “drove them off.”451 Immediately after the fire, one Christian eyewitness
reported that “the road to Paradise was literally filled with women and children, together with older men, being led off under guard towards the interior.”452
On September 18 Lieutenant Commander Knauss saw “the road to Dada-
gatch [Dadaağaç] . . . filled with women and children being driven towards
the interior.”453 Even Bristol understood that deportation to the interior
“means certain death, either from starvation or at the hands of enraged
Turks.”454
One of the columns departing Smyrna numbered 4,000 at the outset. The
survivors reaching Kayseri two months later, on November 19, numbered just
700. Initially there had also been men in the convoy, but they had been sepa-
rated and taken away. The deportees were given no food. Of the women, “over
half . . . died on the road,” missionaries in Kayseri reported. Those who were
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
hospitalized “all cried for bread and suffered most terrible pain, their mouths
were bleeding. Teeth loose, bodies covered with sores, filth and lice.” At Kay-
seri, ten died each day; many more “are going to die,” the hospital director
predicted.455
It was not just Smyrna that experienced deportations. The Turks were
determined to leave no Greeks on the seacoast.456 The New York Times re-
ported on October 15 that the Turks had ordered all Christians out of the en-
tirety of southwestern Anatolia—
including towns such as Antalya and
Makri— within seven days. Army- aged men, of course, were also deported in-
land.457 At the end of October, some 7,000 women and children from the
Moschonissia Islands, off Ayvalık, and the village of Yenitsarohori (Küçükköy)
were reportedly deported inland.458
In sum the Nationalist army, assisted by locals, destroyed a great number
of Armenians and Greeks during September– October 1922. The systematic
“hunt” in the residential districts of Smyrna, the round-up and massacre of
Greek army- age men, the fires in the Christian quarters, the murder of Chris-
tians fleeing their sanctuaries toward the dock, the shooting and burning on
the quayside and in the waters offshore, and the travails of the deportees— all
contributed to a massive death toll.
Bristol, in his wonted manner, downplayed Turkish atrocities, arguing
that reports “greatly exaggerated” the losses. He asserted an overall death
toll of 2,000–3,000 and claimed “ there was no general massacre, and only
killing of individuals.”459 But a host of on- the- spot witnesses described a dif-
fer ent real ity. A British relief officer, Lieutenant Hadkinson, estimated that
25,000 died on the night of September 13 alone when, he said, Turkish sol-
diers and locals prevented Armenians and Greeks from reaching the dock
from quarters engulfed by fire.460 One Smyrna notable pointed out that
10,000–12,000 Greeks and Armenians were taken away as prisoners and
had since “dis appeared.”461 Horton seemingly endorsed a high, and prob-
ably exaggerated estimate of the Smyrna death toll— a hundred- thousand.462
There is no knowing the true number. But Churchill at the time described
Turkish actions in Smyrna as “a deliberately planned and methodically exe-
cuted atrocity.” He put no figures to his assessment, though he was con-
vinced that elimination of Christian life in Smyrna had “few parallels in the
history of human crime.”463
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
The Exodus
Aside from the Ionian Greeks deported to the Anatolian interior, the great ma-
jority of the inhabitants of Smyrna and its hinterlands were transported west-
ward, to the Greek Aegean islands and the Greek mainland. In September 1921
Hamid Bey, the Nationalist representative in Constantinople, told Bristol that
“in the bottom of their hearts the Turks wished that these people would leave
the country.”464 The wish was fulfilled the following year.
In late spring 1922, as Greek arms began to falter, the Allies began to
consider the possibility of a wholesale Christian exodus from western
Anatolia. The British put the numbers involved at 650,000: 350,000
from Smyrna, 136,000 from Bursa; 120,000 from Balikesir; and 44,000
from the regions of Kütahya, Afyon- Karahisar, and Eskişehir. The Allies
generally opposed such an exodus, which would be enormously difficult
given the costs of transport and transitional and long- term refugee mainte-
nance and the challenge of securing ultimate destinations.465 But circumstances
conspired to thwart their wishes. In the end it was the Allies themselves
who carried out the massive transfer of the western Anatolian Christians
to Greece. Most were Greeks, but there were also tens of thousands of
Armenians.
Christians were already pouring out of Smyrna before the Nationalist
forces arrived in early September. Among these emigrants was a small number
of wealthier Smyrniot Christians and a large number of Greeks from the inte-
rior who had descended on the city. Barnes put the number leaving before
the Turkish reconquest at 75,000. But that left about 150,000 locals and
100,000 refugees in the town and its suburbs.466 As the Turks approached,
many fled the suburbs for the city center and the port. On September 9 Chris-
tians began boarding boats.467 Among the first post- conquest departees were
hundreds of Eu ro pean and American nationals. The Americans, with gun-
boats in the harbor, established their forward headquarters next to the quay
in the Smyrna Theatre. At the entrance hung an electric sign in block letters
two feet high, reading “Le Tango de la Mort.”468
The following days were marked by a chaotic maritime exodus against
the backdrop of urban massacre and catastrophic conflagration. On Sep-
tember 16 the Turks proclaimed:
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
Greeks and Armenians living in the part of the country rescued and
cleansed by our army, and those Greeks and Armenians brought to
Smyrna and to our coast towns by the enemy army . . . are persons
who . . . openly joined the Greek army and have thus taken up arms
against us, burned our cities and tortured and persecuted the innocent
inhabitants. . . . In order not to allow these persons to join the Greek
army again . . . those males who are between the ages of eigh teen and
forty- five will be placed in garrisons as prisoners of war. . . . Permission
to leave Turkey is hereby granted to all [other] Greeks and Armenians
be they from Smyr
na or from the interior. This permission is valid until
September 30, 1922. It is hereby declared that those, who after [that]
date . . . are in a position of impairing the public peace and tranquility
and the security of our military operations, will be deported [to the
interior].
The order also applied to “Jews of Hellenic nationality.”469
The proclamation, Barnes wrote, “made immediate evacuation impera-
tive.”470 Hepburn wrote ominously, “ Unless action were taken immedi-
ately, there would be no refugee prob lem in sight within a week.”471 Western
representatives attempted to negotiate with the Turks, but they insisted on
the departure of all Christians, regardless of the consequences. Bristol re-
ported Hamid Bey telling him, the Turks “preferred less prosperity to greater
prosperity coupled with these undesirable ele ments” remaining.472
The deadline of September 30 stuck, and masses of refugees were soon
rushing out of Smyrna. By September 19, about 30,000 had been taken off
by British, American, French and Italian destroyers. On September 24, Greek
steamers escorted by Allied naval craft began shuttling between Smyrna,
Piraeus, and Salonica.473 Many refugees were first transported to Mitylene,
from which they were later dispersed westward.
American officers who witnessed the scene at the embarkation gate re-
marked on the “at times very severe” be hav ior of Turkish troops engaged in
crowd control. According to one officer, “The force used was a leather strap,
a cane, the butt of a rifle, or even sometimes a bayonet, and in one or two
instances by shooting.” But the Turks were doing more than managing
crowds. “Robbing at the gates and in the yard was rather the rule than the
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
exception,” Lieutenant Commander Powell wrote. Occasionally, Turkish
officers intervened, but often they looked away, and sometimes they
participated.474
Under Powell’s command the USS Edsall put twenty men ashore to
“assist in patrolling and in preventing undue vio lence.” He wrote:
As soon as the harbor gates were opened, the crowd became a mob;
women were knocked down, were walked over, children were torn from
their arms . . . and they were pushed through screaming and crying.
Many lost their bundles which added to the confusion, by causing others
to stumble over them. . . . The Turkish troops weeded out the males. . . .
Families were broken up without regard. There were a few cases of
shooting where men . . . were selected out and tried to escape.475
Left behind on the quay was
a crowd of panic- stricken women and old men, with hordes of
children . . . carry ing all their worldly possessions. . . . The majority . . .
had been under guard since the fire . . . exposed to robbery, outrage and
vio lence. . . . Robbery was continuous. . . . Turkish officers . . . were as
bad as—or worse than— their men. . . . The conduct of the police officer
at the police barrier was very restrained, and he was on the whole most
generous. . . . On the other hand, his subordinates and the soldiers were
brutal. . . . The contradictory nature of the Turk’s character is exempli-
fied by the numerous cases . . . of Turkish police and soldiers throwing
themselves on the ground outside the gates to save a child that had fallen
and was being trodden underfoot; five minutes later the same man would
quite likely kick a cripple in the stomach. I myself saw an exceptionally
brutal policeman carry a lost child up and down the jetty until he found
the parents.476
An American missionary recalled “Turkish soldiers carry ing the bundles of
the refugees and assisting the sick and old people.”477 Some of the Allied shore
parties interacted socially with Turkish soldiers and officials. HMS Curacoa
dispatched a soccer team, which was beaten two- to- one by the Turks.478
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
By September 30 more than 190,000 Ottoman Christians, almost all Greeks,
had been evacuated. Another 21,000 British, French, and Italian citizens and
“protégés” had also left.479 But refugees from towns and villages in the interior
continued streaming to the coast. Pressed by the Allies, the Turks extended the
deadline to October 10.480 By October 9 Allied warships and steamers had
taken some 240,000 Christians from Smyrna, Ayvalık, Çeşme, Vurla, Makri,
and Antalya.481 The Greeks of Ayvalık apparently deci ded in early September
to stay put, but the Turks ordered them out.482 “Infidel Smyrna” had become
Turkish Izmir, as CUP leaders had advocated at the secret War Ministry meet-
ings chaired by Enver Pasha in May, June, and August 1914, when the “elimi-
nation of the non- Turkish masses” had been discussed.483
The exodus from most of the coast was more orderly than from Smyrna.
American officers aboard USS Lawrence remarked on the “splendid conduct
of the Turkish military” during the evacuation of the 15,000 Greeks from
Ayvalık on October 8–9. Civil officials, however, relieved evacuees of “money
and jewels.”484 As in Smyrna, the Turks marched off all army- age men to the
interior. Of the 3,000 taken, only 23 reportedly survived. The town’s Greek
orthodox clergy were all massacred.485
Eastern Thrace also emptied of Greeks. The Mudanya armistice mandated
the evacuation of the Greek army from eastern Thrace and placed the terri-
tory under Turkish rule.486 In addition, after the Greek rout, the Kemalists
advanced northward, toward the Allied- held zone along the Dardanelles and
Sea of Marmara, threatening Eastern Thrace. Greek civilians deci ded to leave
with the soldiers rather than face a pos si ble Kemalist assault and further
Turkish depredations. By October 28, 250,000 Greeks had departed
for Western Thrace, in orderly fashion and overseen by Allied forces.487 An-
other 70,000 left for Greece via Tekirdağ from the Bursa area.488 In Thrace
the young Ernest Hemingway was on hand to witness “twenty miles of carts
drawn by cows, bullocks and muddy- flanked water buffalo, with exhausted,
staggering men, women and children, blankets over their heads, walking
blindingly [ sic] along in the rain beside their worldly goods. . . . It is a silent pro cession. Nobody even grunts. It is all they can do to keep moving.”489
The resettlement of the Thracian evacuees, assisted by Greek troops and
brigands, resulted in the displacement of many Bulgarian villa gers. It was a
rough pro cess. Some were murdered, and girls were raped. According to an
Mustafa Kemal and the Nationalists
American official, there was “a systematic policy of denationalization and ex-
termination of the Bulgarians . . . applied without scruple and without any
pity.”490 Animosity between the two peoples had been simmering for the pre-
vious de cade, as the Bulgarians had turned against their former allies in the
Second Balkan War, attacking Greece in June 1913.
Back in Smyrna the new Turkish administration devoted considerable en-
ergy to cleaning up after the fire, but also to ridding the city of the vestiges of Chris tian ity. Rumbold described the situation as “a reig
n of terror.” Remaining
Christians and their tenants were summarily evicted.491 Churches were “sys-
tematically razed to the ground.” Jews were allowed to stay, but the Turks
desecrated the town’s Jewish and Christian cemeteries. At one Greek ceme-
tery, “all graves and tombs had been violated, the lids to coffins having been
torn off and bodies thrown about.”492 Reportedly 20 percent of the graves at
one Armenian cemetery were opened.493 The British and Jewish cemeteries
in the Bournabat (Bornova) quarter were desecrated. “Almost without excep-
tion, the tombstones” in Bournabat “had been smashed and overthrown . . .
and many defiled with the filth of human beings and animals.”494 A se nior
British naval officer concluded, “It is impossible to believe that all this willful damage to Christian and Jewish cemeteries could have taken place without
the knowledge of the Turkish authorities, and I consider it part of a considered
policy.”495
The Nationalist victory and takeover of Smyrna triggered massive demon-
strations among the Turks of Constantinople. “A great many win dows were
smashed” at Christian- owned homes and shops. But the Allied occupation
troops curbed the rioting.496 Greeks nonetheless fled the capital in a panic,
fearing that the Kemalists were about to descend on the city. “The Turk must
massacre and burn; Smyrna was burned; therefore the same fate awaits Con-
stantinople” Bristol wrote, accurately capturing the reasoning under lying the
Constantinople exodus.497 He estimated that, by early December, 75,000
Christians had left the city.498
With the Nationalists on the doorstep of Constantinople and the straits,
the deterioration of the Allied position in western Turkey was plain to see.
So was the divide between the two major Eu ro pean powers. It had only
widened since the signing of the Franco- Turkish deal over Cilicia, behind
Britain’s back. Now the Allies were emphatically at loggerheads. Curzon
Turks and Greeks, 1919–1924
described a heated meeting in Paris on September 22 with French Prime
Minister Raymond Poincaré. He “lost all command of his temper, and for a
quarter of an hour shouted and raved at the top of his voice . . . and
