Midnight at the Pera Palace_The Birth of Modern Istanbul

by Charles King

  40“The grand sight”: Charles and Louisa Vinicombe to Hélène Philippe, Oct. 25, 1920, pp. 20–21, C. Vinicombe Papers, IWM.

  41“It was a sight”: Entry for Nov. 12, 1918, F. W. Turpin Papers, IWM. Turpin carried over his description into the next day, Nov. 13. Local Greek Orthodox: Musbah Haidar, Arabesque, 165. Families had flattened: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 150, 153, 229. “Effendi, what bad times”: Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, 414.

  42Senegalese infantrymen: Sperco, L’Orient qui s’éteint, 46. Later, the French commander: Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 257. “It was . . . like having”: Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 258.

  43Istanbul had long been: Constantinople, 9. The Spanish flu: Musbah Haidar, Arabesque, 169, 187.

  44“Greedy or inviting”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 153. “Prostitution, dishonesty, misery”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 153. Ottoman police officers: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 151.

  45By Ziya’s estimate: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 150. “[W]hat will happen”: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 136–37.

  OCCUPATION

  49“Pera has three things”: nalcık with Quataert, eds., Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 2:651.

  50“To catalogue completely”: Carus Wilson to father, July 19, 1920, Carus Wilson Papers, IWM.

  51Each Friday the selâmlık: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 106. Among the city’s non-Muslim residents: Hissar Players program for “Nathan the Wise,” Jan. 28, 1920, GUL, Engert Papers, Box 2, Folder 13. The Annual Yuletide recital: Yuletide Recital Program, Dec. 21, 1919, GUL, Engert Papers, Box 2, Folder 13. Its sister institution: Program from commencement exercises at Constantinople College, June 1920, GUL, Engert Papers, Box 2, Folder 13.

  52On the same day the Allies: Mango, Atatürk, 195–96.

  54Members of foreign delegations: Musbah Haidar, Arabesque, 166. “The rich, having made money”: Balakian, Armenian Golgotha, 415–16. General Milne was staying: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 103. A host should not be: Mansel, Constantinople, 388.

  55When they met: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 104. “What I want to know”: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 104. “There will be a lot”: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 104. The British kept crucial information: Criss, Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 71. It was not until November 1920 that Allied authorities could agree on who among them was in overall charge, with the command shared on a rotating basis, beginning with the British.

  57By early 1919: Mango, Atatürk, 204. Just before the First World War: Toprak, “La population,” 64–65.

  60Jews had lived in Istanbul: Rozen, History of the Jewish Community of Istanbul, 10–11. Over the next century: Rozen, History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul, 51, 87.

  61Down a winding street: See Shaul, From Balat to Bat Yam, 37–50. In the modern era: Eldem, “Istanbul: From Imperial to Peripheralized Capital,” in Eldem, Goffman, and Masters, The Ottoman City between East and West, 151–52. In 1934, the municipal administration’s official guidebook to the city listed 192 distinct mahalles west of the Bosphorus, plus many others sited to the east. stanbul ehri Rehberi, 206–8. “Ni a fuego”: Shaul, From Balat to Bat Yam, 46.

  62As late as 1922: Johnson, ed., Constantinople To-Day, 263. That social position: Shaul, From Balat to Bat Yam, 59. A popular joke: Shaul, From Balat to Bat Yam, 59.

  63Jews were likewise divided: For example, the greatest of the city’s expatriate Jewish banking families—the Camondos—oversaw a financial empire that stretched across the breadth of Europe, with its epicenter in the narrow passageways of Galata. Istanbullus walked past the stately Camondo mansion, mounted the steep streets by walking up the art nouveau Camondo steps, or went to schools and hospitals financed by Camondo philanthropy. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the family left the cosmopolitan world that had allowed them to flourish under the Ottomans and decamped to Paris. It was in France that their Jewishness came to matter most, and in the most tragic of ways. During the Second World War, the last of the family line—the aging matriarch Béatrice de Camondo and her two children, Fanny and Bertrand—were packed onto trains by the Nazis and deported from France. They perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Had the family stayed in Istanbul, the Camondo line almost certainly would have survived the war.

  64He spent his youth: Sperco, Turcs d’hier et d’aujourd’hui, 146. Allied officials had a clear preference: Toynbee, Western Question, 32.

  65“The Hellenic and Christian character”: Telegram, Jan. 16/29, 1920, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 21. “The best Turkish homes”: Furlong to Woodrow Wilson, Mar. 23, 1920, p. 1, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 21.

  66British soldiers would scream: Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 5.

  RESISTANCE

  69He had taken over the Pera Palace: Çelik, Tepebaı, 174. According to the memoirist: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 152.

  70He was married: Pelt, Tobacco, Arms, and Politics, 178. I thank Mogens Pelt for additional biographical details. The Hellenic presence: Mango, Atatürk, 198.

  71But as a brother-in-law: Finefrock, “Ataturk, Lloyd George and the Megali Idea,” D1049.

  72When news of Smyrna’s capture: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 59. In February 1920: Mango, Atatürk, 266; Criss, Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 9.

  74Crucially, it was the first: Mango, Atatürk, 269. They were prepared: Letter of Mar. 24, 1920, Wethered Papers, IWM. See also Garner Papers, IWM. Local police and military: Edmonds, Occupation of Constantinople, 12. Rumors of it had circulated: Dunn, World Alive, 285–86.

  75The Ankara assembly prescribed: Mango, Atatürk, 279.

  76“The United States entered”: Bristol to Secretary of State, May 7, 1920, pp. 1–2, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 21.

  77“It is perhaps no exaggeration”: Winston S. Churchill, The Aftermath, quoted in Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace, 432.

  78Newspapers in Athens: Finefrock, “Ataturk, Lloyd George and the Megali Idea,” D1049, D1053. Greek nationalists had earlier urged Constantine, upon his coronation, to take the name Constantine XII, thus linking his own dynasty with that of the Byzantines, even though the two had no familial links at all.

  79“The retreat that started”: Quoted in Hasan Kayalı, “The Struggle for Independence,” in Kasaba, ed., Cambridge History of Turkey, 138. The two forces were roughly equal: Mango, Atatürk, 338.

  80“The atrocities perpetrated by the Greeks”: Second Section of the General Staff, Greek Atrocities in Asia Minor, First Part, 1. Mobs ruled the streets: Mango, Atatürk, 345. A fire broke out: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 128. Some 213,000 people: Mango, Atatürk, 346. Three quarters of the city: Mango, Atatürk, 345. “Foreigners are nervous”: Hemingway, “British Can Save Constantinople,” Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 30, 1922, reproduced in Hemingway, Dateline: Toronto, 211. Processions of Turkish Muslims: Fox-Pitt to mother, Oct. 7, 1922, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. “

  81A fear of the future”: Carus Wilson to father, Oct. 17, 1922, Carus Wilson Papers, IWM. A special commission: Criss, Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 76. Possible death sentences: “To the Civilian Population of Constantinople,” Greco-Turkish War Intelligence Reports, 1922–1923, IWM. Before the Smyrna offensive: “Comparative Table of Dispositions of Ottoman Forces During the Main Phases of the Nationalist Movement,” Greco-Turkish War Intelligence Reports, 1922–1923, IWM.

  82“I know somebody”: Fox-Pitt to mother, Oct. 7, 1922, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. “No humbler setting”: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 132–33.

  83“Life went on gaily”: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 106.

  84“There was something for everyone”: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 106. The hounds ran at Maslak: Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 274. A small bear: Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 274. “[T]he main preoccupation”: Price, Extra-Special Correspondent, 136. On November 4: Memo from British Delegation, Istanbul, Nov. 22, 1922, NAUK, FO 839/2.

 
85“Measures now being taken”: Henderson to Foreign Office, Nov. 24, 1922, p. 1, NAUK, FO 839/2. “It certainly came as a surprise”: Harington to Secretary of State for War, Oct. 1923, p. 4, NAUK, CAB 44/38. “Considering my life in danger”: Quoted in Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 125, 129. My account of the sultan’s departure from the palace is based on Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 130–31; and Fox-Pitt to mother, Nov. 10, 1922, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10.

  87They were eventually reunited: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 131.

  MOSCOW ON THE BOSPHORUS

  91Despite the Unionists’ deportation: Ekmekçiolu, “Improvising Turkishness,” 10. They now shared space: Yıldırım, Diplomacy and Displacement, 90.

  92The US Navy set up: “Russian Refugees in Constantinople,” p. 2, Bristol Papers, LC, Box 74, File “Russian Refugees.” Members of Britain’s Hampshire Regiment: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 101. Within weeks of his arrival: Harington to High Commissariat for Refugees, League of Nations, July 14, 1923, p. 1, NAUK, FO 286/800. Colored chits were issued: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 100. By the end of 1920: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 101.

  93It was all “a salad”: Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 279. They formed the so-called Volunteer Army: Robinson, White Russian Army in Exile, 3.

  94From the railings, people watched: Strafford to mother, Mar. 31, 1920, Strafford Papers, IWM, Box 2, Folder “Transcriptions of Original Letters.” Exceptions were made on board the transports for two horses—Minoru and Aboyeur—that were famous as winners of the Derby in 1909 and 1913. They had been sold to Russian owners and were only discovered by British soldiers during the evacuation. They ended up safely in Serbia. Bridges, Alarms and Excursions, 292. “The things in Russia”: Tenner to Strafford, Nov. 14, 1920, Strafford Papers, IWM, Box 2, Folder “Transcriptions of Original Letters.” Twenty-year-old Vladimir Nabokov: Nabokov, Speak Memory, 176–77.

  95His nickname referenced: Robinson, White Russian Army in Exile, 13. On Wrangel’s estimate: Wrangel, Memoirs, 307. It was soon joined: Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 307. As seagulls wheeled: Wrangel, Memoirs, 320–26.

  96“The plight of those poor people”: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 101. Some of the larger ships: “Refugees from the Crimea,” Dec. 18, 1920, p. 1, NAUK, WO 32/5726. [The vessels were] “like cattle ships”: Bristol to Secretary of State, Nov. 19, 1920, Bristol Papers, LC, Box 73, File “Russia—Denikin and Wrangel Campaigns, January–December, 1920.” When a small group of caiques: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 101. Harrington boarded: “Refugees from the Crimea,” p. 1. Counting Wrangel’s flotilla: “Russian Refugees in Constantinople,” p. 1. Peter Kenez gives the figure of 145,693 people evacuated in the Wrangel exodus. Kenez, Civil War in South Russia, 307. The harsh winter: Bristol to Secretary of State, Nov. 15, 1920, Bristol Papers, LC, Box 73, File “Russia—Denikin and Wrangel Campaigns, January–December, 1920.” Representatives from the Pera Palace: Konstantinopol’-Gallipoli, 34. The hotel owners seemed more than willing: Stone and Glenny, Other Russia, 152. Istanbul was probably outfitted: Hobson to Rumbold, Mar. 26, 1923, p. 1, NAUK, FO 286/880.

  97Dead bodies: Hobson to Rumbold, Mar. 26, 1923, p. 2. Baroness Wrangel: “Refugees from the Crimea,” p. 2. fox terrier, Jack: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 79. Camps were also set up: Harington to High Commissariat, July 14, 1923, p. 1, NAUK, FO 286/800. “I think that one could say”: Chebyshev, Blizkaia dal’ in Konstantinopol’-Gallipoli, 127.

  98“Some seem to be better off”: Carus Wilson to father, July 19, 1922, Carus Wilson Papers, IWM.

  99“Thus, on one beautiful springtime day”: “Constantinople,” p. 2, HIA, Shalikaskhvili Papers, HIA. Massive sheets of paper: “Constantinople,” p. 4.

  100Music was provided: “Constantinople,” pp. 7–13. Koki Dadiani and Niko Nizharadze: “Constantinople,” p. 17. Located in a Pera side street: “Constantinople,” p. 20. The Gypsy guitarist Sasha Makaraov: “Constantinople,” p. 22–24.

  101Food was still cheap: “Constantinople,” p. 29. Other young men: “Constantinople,” p. 35.

  102They continually fed: Bristol to Secretary of State, Aug. 22, 1921, NARA, RG59, M340, Reel 7. Their mother and sister: “Constantinople,” pp. 42–43. Secondhand shops: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 56. A twelve-piece balalaika band: Memoir of George Calverley, p. 36, Calverley Papers, IWM. A professor of mathematics: Stone and Glenny, Russia Abroad, 231.

  103From Graveyard Street: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 142. Other people relied: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 148–58. The Muslim memoirist Ziya Bey recalled: Mufty-zada, Speaking of the Turks, 124.

  104“Constantinople was a completely Russian city”: Giorgii Fedorov, “Puteshestvie bez sentimentov,” in Konstantinopol’-Gallipoli, 273.

  105“I’m buying and selling”: A. Slobodskoi, “Sredi emigratsii,” in Konstantinopol’-Gallipoli, 80. At the Grand Cercle Moscovite: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 117–29. “It is the best food”: Fox-Pitt to mother, Oct. 19, 1922, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. Loose papers lay in stacks: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 42–44, 53.

  106Friends called him: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 29. “Whittemore is never in a place”: Prichard to Gardner, July 5, 1924, Thomas Whittemore Papers, DO-ICFA, Box 11, Folder 161: “Materials from Isabella Stewart-Gardner Related to T.W.” (copy of letter from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, via Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution).

  107Cavalrymen from the Imperial Guards: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 172–73. Ladies were assigned: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 189–202.

  108Young Russian men were given bunks: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 54–55. After weeks of waiting: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 55–56.

  109By the autumn of 1921: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 20–25. “[H]aving acquired useful learning”: Wrangel to Whittemore, Nov. 24, 1923, CERYE, Box 1, File 32. Shortly before he gave the order: Wrangel, Memoirs, 311. A little belt-tightening: “Constantinople,” pp. 4–5.

  110“If the . . . martyrs”: Tolstoy, “Compensations of Poverty,” 308.

  KONSTANTINOUPOLIS

  113After the end of the Russian civil war: Gatrell, Whole Empire Walking, 193. No accurate figures exist for the total number of Russian refugees, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 3 million. See Smith, Former People, 208. The city had shrunk: Toprak, “La population,” 70. Letters about individual cases: See Bristol Papers, LC, Box 74, File “Russian Refugees.”

  115Portraits of Mustafa Kemal: Fox-Pitt to mother, June 25, 1923, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. “It is a humiliating business”: Fox-Pitt to father, June 7, 1923, Fox-Pitt Papers, IWM, Box 2, File 10. There were still nearly 15,000: Printed Shipping Programme for the Withdrawal of British Troops from Turkey, Aug. 1923, IWM. “It was a wonderful ‘send off’”: Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back, 139.

  116By one estimate: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 197.

  117Wrangel’s Volunteer Army had spent: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 96–97.

  118“[A]nything more like a lunatic asylum”: Christie, Autobiography, 354. Just before the foundation: Criss, Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 46–48.

  119In response, some 50,000 non-Muslims: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 82, 96. Fed up with the internal fighting: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 146–49. In 1924, for example, secessionists: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 151–57.

  120If allowed to remain, Greeks would be “the means”: Quoted in Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 85.

  121“[T]oday thousands of once-prosperous people”: “Exchange of Population Between Greece and Turkey,” Advocate of Peace Through Justice 88, no. 5 (May 1926): 276.

  122“There appeared to be no doubt”: Nansen, Armenia and the Near East, 25.

  124At the time, there were perhaps 40,000: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 117. On the legal structure enabling the seizure of minority-owned assets, see Akçam and Kurt, Kanunların Ruhu. On the
eve of the Allied occupation, Istanbul’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry: See Journal de la Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Constantinople, June 1918 and Feb. 1921. Two thirds of the Greek barristers: On the shifting presence of Greeks in the economy, see Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 107–12.

  125The renunciations came only after: For a detailed treatment of these renunciations, see Bristol to Secretary of State, Nov. 3, 1926, and Nov. 24, 1926, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 21. In 1923, the Pera Palace: Çelik, Tepebaı, 174–75. However, four years later: Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 120.

  126For most of the 1920s: See NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 76. In 1934, a new law: Ekmekçiolu, “Improvising Turkishness,” 166–69. The former Greek patriarch, Meletios: Quoted in Alexandris, Greek Minority of Istanbul, 118, in the original French as “Bolchevico-Communisme de Moscou.”

  127“I stood on the dusty”: Hemingway, “Constantinople, Dirty White, Not Glistening and Sinister,” Toronto Daily Star, Oct. 18, 1922, in Hemingway, Dateline: Toronto, 229. He returned with a pistol: “Londra Oteli Cinayeti,” Cumhuriyet, Sept. 9, 1929.

  128As proprietor: Pelt, Tobacco, Arms, and Politics, 78–79. “He was renowned”: Frank Gervasi, “Devil Man,” Collier’s, June 8, 1940: 17. He was simply “the most powerful man”: Pelt, Tobacco, Arms, and Politics, 81. In the summer of 1927: For property records, see Çelik, Tepebaı, 174–75. I am grateful to Meral Muhayye for sharing family stories and memories of Misbah Muhayye in an interview in Istanbul, July 18, 2013.

  129Izmir, the former Smyrna: Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 547.

  130The flood of furniture: Ravndal to State, Nov. 26, 1923, pp. 4, 6, NARA, RG59, M353, Reel 49. Turkey as a whole: Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 547.

  “THE POST-WAR WORLD WAS JAZZING”

  136“The man who raises a thirst”: Hemingway, “Hamid Bey,” Toronto Daily Star, Oct. 9, 1922, in Hemingway, Dateline: Toronto, 220. “Beauty and wit”: Bumgardner, Undaunted Exiles, 132. Small beer halls: Carus Wilson to father, July 19, 1922, Carus Wilson Papers, IWM. Tom’s Lancashire Bar: See the advertisements in Orient News, July 12, 1919. The facility was able to accommodate: Greer, Glories of Greece, 319–20. The Pera Palace offered dinner: See the advertisement in Le Courier de Turquie, Apr. 1, 1919. The bar had been opened: Adil, Gardenbar Geceleri, 7–8.