by Lou Ureneck
The heat was punishing on the pier, with the temperature hovering near one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. There was no shade, and no water to share among the people. The stink was awful. There was a quarter-acre wedge of water between the pier and the Point in which an eddy caught and held the harbor’s ghastly floatage—mostly garbage, sewage, and the carcasses of animals. The disgusting soup splashed against the stonework of the pier and released the smell of putrefying flesh. Occasionally a human body, swollen and naked, emerged among the dead animals and waterlogged garbage. From time to time, in the crush, a woman was pushed into the water, and she stood among the saturated carrion holding her child in the air until she could scramble to rejoin the crowd, the rags she wore absorbing the harbor’s stench. The noise too was deafening: “The din was terrific,” wrote an officer who was present, “winches rattling, women shrieking, children howling, shouted orders, and through all the steady undertone of shuffling feet and the murmur of a vast crowd.”
THE RELIEF COMMITTEE had been relying on only two doctors—Dr. Post and Dr. Margoulis, the local Jewish doctor—throughout the postfire ordeal, but on the previous day, Saturday, a third doctor had arrived—Esther Pohl Lovejoy, an extraordinary woman who was the head of the American Women’s Hospital Association. She had arrived on the SS Dotch, a broken-down tramp freighter that flew the flag of Imperial Russia, a defunct state. The Near East Relief had chartered the Dotch in Constantinople to deliver supplies and evacuate refugees. Packing a few cans of food and several Sterno burners, Dr. Lovejoy, then fifty-two years old, had jumped a ride on the freighter with another American, Ernest Shoedsack, an aspiring filmmaker who was in search of a big subject for a documentary. He was six feet, four inches tall, and Dr. Lovejoy called him “Shorty.” “The trip to Smyrna was very distressing to Shorty,” Dr. Lovejoy would later remember. “He was torn, as it were, between two massacres. The one which had already taken place at Smyrna, and the one which might take place at Constantinople.”*
Dr. Lovejoy, born in a Pacific Northwest lumber camp, had grown up in Portland, becoming only the second woman to graduate from the University of Oregon Medical School. She practiced medicine in Alaska, during the Gold Rush of 1899, and Portland, where she became the city’s health director. She had been a strong voice for women and children’s health and an advocate of women’s suffrage. She had turned Portland into a model of public health by writing its first milk-and food-handling ordinances, and she had kept bubonic plague, which was then appearing in West Coast cities, out of Portland by leading a crackdown on the city’s rat population. Her first husband died in Alaska, her brother was murdered on the Dawson Trail, and her son had died at eight years old. A big-boned and beautiful woman, she had married a second time, but the marriage had ended in divorce. In 1917, she traveled to France to work with the American Medical Women’s Association, which treated the war’s civilian victims. She had stayed in Europe, helping to start the American Women’s Hospital Association, which opened clinics in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Turkey. Dr. Lovejoy had been in Paris, preparing to travel to Russia, when she had learned of the refugee crisis at Smyrna. She had immediately departed for Constantinople, where she had hopped on the Dotch.
On the railroad pier, she wore a long loose dress with sleeves to her elbows and a hat with full-circle brim against the sun. “In a city with so large a population,” Dr. Lovejoy later wrote, “there were, of course, a great many expectant mothers, and these terrible experiences precipitated their labors in many instances. Children were born upon the Quay and upon the pier, and one woman, who had been in the crush at the first gate for hours, finally staggered through holding her just-born child in her hands.”
Powell appreciated her presence and consulted with her about handling women who were in the worst conditions. Hysteria—uncontrollable screaming, wailing, and laughter caused by severe mental trauma—was a malady not uncommonly confronted on the pier.
THE HATCHERIANS WERE AMONG the tens of thousands of people on the railroad pier Sunday morning, September 24.
After he and the other older men had been released by the Turkish guards, Dr. Hatcherian had returned to the house on the Quay and discovered to his great relief that his family was still there, and while his wife appeared emaciated and his youngest child, Vartouhi, was suffering diarrhea from malnutrition, they were safe. The number of people in the house was now greater than before, and they had learned that Americans were transporting people out of the city and that tickets on the vessels were for sale at the American consulate. Mrs. Hatcherian, with another woman, bought tickets, ten liras each, and returned to the house.* Then, the Hatcherian family, with the tickets, went to another house, guarded by the Americans and next to the consulate, which served as a waiting place for departing refugees. (The house was one of Jennings’s safe houses.)
On September 22, a launch had arrived at the Quay, opposite the house, and the Hatcherians and many others stood in line to board it to be carried to the freighter in the harbor. (It was either the Versailles or the Worsley Hall.) The smaller boat could take one hundred fifty people and it made several trips, filling the freighter. The Hatcherians were too far back in line to be taken aboard, and the ship departed without them. They returned to the Jennings house, where the Americans gave them bread and the children condensed milk.
The next day, September 23, the Hatcherians had arisen early and watched the horizon for another ship but none appeared. Dr. Hatcherian recorded in his diary:
Outside the house where we are staying many thousands of miserable people are crowded together envying those of us living in the American building, but they, too, hope to benefit from the protection provided by the star-spangled banner. The whole day passes without change, and we realize that we will be obliged to be hosted for at least one more night.
On Sunday morning, September 24, the children were hungry but there was no food. So Hatcheres, Dr. Hatcherian’s oldest son, had gone out to see if he could buy some. While he was gone, an American sailor announced that it was time for people to line up to go to the railroad pier to board the ships. Others prepared to leave, but the Hatcherians waited, worrying that they would miss the ship, but unwilling to leave without Hatcheres. After about an hour, Hatcheres returned—bloodied. He had ventured too far from the American building and Turkish soldiers had stopped him, taken his money, and beaten him. With Hatcheres back among them, the family including Araksi, the housekeeper, joined the other refugees leaving the house for the walk to the railroad pier.
As they approached it, by the Aydin Railroad station, Turkish soldiers pulled Dr. Hatcherian and other men out of the crowd to clean the square. He complied but quietly sneaked away when the soldiers were not watching him and rejoined his family, and they moved with the mass of people toward the first gate. It was early afternoon, and the Hatcherians waited in the hot sun. At four o’clock, they saw the Lawrence coming into the harbor with Jennings’s Greek freighters trailing behind. Dr. Hatcherian’s heart pounded with joy—there were thousands of people waiting to depart but surely there would be room enough on those ships to take them all aboard. When the Turkish guard opened the gate, the crowd attempted to rush through, pushing and shoving, but the crowd was big and the opening narrow so the Hatcherians were unable to make their way inside.
I have Vartouhi in my arms, my wife has my cane in one hand along with our only woolen blanket, and in the other hand, a bottle full of water. As for the maid and children, they each carry a bundle or bag. We, too, are mingled in the huge crowed, as we all attempt to reach the door of mercy. Many are forced to discard their bundles, bags and sacks over which me [sic] must climb in order to approach the door. It is impossible to change a step. I am squashed at my back and at my chest, and I fear that Vartouhi may choke. Some critical moments pass and I mobilize all of my physical strength to save my poor little girl from certain death. We are quite close to the door, but it is impossible to proceed over the goods scattered on the ground. I lose my balance an
d I fall down. Fear overcomes me that the crowd will stampede Vartouhi and me and we will be smothered. But I manage to get up making a superhuman effort. A few more steps and we reach the door, which we enter with great difficulty.
Inside the gate, Turkish guards stopped them and prepared to search them for valuables, but an American sailor interceded and they were able to continue moving in line. As they shuffled along toward the opening in a second makeshift fence, Dr. Hatcherian saw that some refugees were getting inside by scaling the fence. Incredibly, he decided to do the same, and with his wife’s help he got over the top and she handed him the children. He was then faced with the problem of getting his wife over the top. He asked a Turkish guard on the other side if he would help his wife over the fence for money. The soldier agreed, got down so that Mrs. Hatcherian could step on his shoulders, and then the soldier stood up. Dr. Hatcherian reached for her at the top of the fence and helped her down. Now, the family was together inside the fence and they rejoined the line. As they moved toward the pier, another Turkish soldier asked him what he had given the other soldier, and Dr. Hatcherian said that he had rewarded him for some help and he offered the second guard money as well. The guard refused and put the point of his bayonet to Dr. Hatcherian’s chest. He ordered him back out of the gate.
The children began to cry and Mrs. Hatcherian begged the soldier to allow her husband to remain with the family. Dr. Hatcherian appealed to an American sailor who stood nearby, but he responded that he could not intervene. The doctor was almost back out of the gate when the Turkish soldier decided to take the money Mrs. Hatcherian had offered him; he allowed Dr. Hatcherian to rejoin his family. Overcome by the tension, Dr. Hatcherian fainted. In a few moments, he regained consciousness and stood up. Then, from out of the crowd, a friend came to him and asked him to go outside the gate to attend to an old woman who had fallen in line and blacked out. It was an awful dilemma for Dr. Hatcherian—abandon his family or refuse to go to the woman’s aid. He decided that he could do little or nothing for the woman without medicine and it was too dangerous to leave his family even for a few minutes. He told the friend that he could not go, and the Hatcherians moved closer to the ship. Now, they could see the people stepping onto the deck. Dr. Hatcherian felt again that he would lose consciousness. He rested, then began again with Vartouhi in his arms. He led his family toward the ship. There was one more Turkish guard to pass, and Dr. Hatcherian lowered his head and walked by him. There was always the chance he would be taken for being forty-five years old or less, arrested and placed in one of the pens. The guard watched him closely. Dr. Hatcherian felt his gaze, but the soldier did not stop him.
Without looking left or right and without disclosing the storm inside me, I quicken my pace and, finally, arrive in front of the ship. There I stop for an instant and check to see whether there is anyone missing. We are all here, eight people, including the maid. I breathe a sign of relief. All that remains is to board the ship immediately. On the little bridge, a huge crowd is jammed. It will be very hard to pass through there. I climb the ship and manage to drag each of my family members up on the ship, one-by-one. We are all miraculously freed. After so much hardship and suffering, my being alive, is an absolute miracle.
The mad day wore on, and in four hours, Powell, his men, and the relief committee had managed to fill the six ships—sixteen thousand people. Dr. Hatcherian’s family was among the last to be loaded.
Powell went aboard the Ismini to talk with Jennings, who had remained on the ship through the loading. The commander was handling the shoreside logistics; Jennings was controlling the ships in the harbor. Powell told him to unload the refugees at Mytilene as rapidly as possible and hurry back to Smyrna for another run. Time was short. Jennings departed with the ships, escorted out of the harbor by the Lawrence.
AMONG THE AMERICANS ON the pier was Mark Prentiss with his whistle and helmet. At the end of the day, he wrote another story for The New York Times and sent it via ship to Constantinople for transmission to New York. It was published later in the week. In the first paragraph of the story, he wrote that he was in charge of the ships moving between Smyrna and Mytilene. The story mentioned neither Jennings nor Powell. In describing the scene at the pier, he wrote, “I am certain no refugees were seriously hurt by the soldiers …”
THE NEXT DAY, MONDAY, September 25, no ships arrived. The refugees scanned the harbor, waiting for a telltale line of smoke on the horizon or the glint of sun on a hull.
The problem was the turnaround time at Mytilene. It was taking longer than expected to unload the refugees—it had to be done with tugs, barges, and small boats. It soon became clear that a ship that left Smyrna with a load of refugees for Mytilene would not return to reload for at least thirty-six hours—this would be the cycle time, a day and a half, even though the round trip steaming time was four hours at most.
Jennings sent a message from Mytilene to Powell that the new arrivals had brought the number of refugees on the island to one hundred thousand, and the city was running out of food. He said he feared a riot if food did not arrive within twenty-four hours. This further complicated matters for Powell—he had flour at Smyrna, but the Turks would not allow it to leave the city. Food would have to be transported to the island from Constantinople, but there was the continuing problem of radio communication from Smyrna. Jennings also notified Powell that the Kilkis had set out to sea—though he did not know its location. Theophanides was gone from the city. The mysterious departure of the Kilkis was a quiet but ominous portent that Jennings did not yet understand.
Jennings also reported to Powell that there were refugees at other towns and cities along the coast—twenty thousand at Aivali just to the north of Smyrna and twenty-five thousand at Vourla, only a few miles to the south.* The Greek government had asked him, he told Powell, to attempt to evacuate them as well. They were close to starvation. This was another dilemma for Powell: it would be impossible for him to send a ship to either of those places—he needed his ships and men in Smyrna. His goal now remained the evacuation of Smyrna. “I gave Mr. Jennings orders to expedite in every way the arrival of the next Greek ships and to have them by 8 a.m. the next morning.” (That deadline was not met because of the turnaround time.) Meanwhile, Powell observed, more refugees were coming into Smyrna from the distant hills and villages. The crowds were again swelling along the waterfront.
At 11 A.M. Monday, while Jennings was unloading in Mytilene, Powell, taking along John Clayton and Vice Consul Barnes, called on Rauf Bey, the nationalist foreign minister, and together the group drove to Latife’s home in Göztepe for a meeting with Mustapha Kemal. They climbed the same stairs that the guests had climbed the night of the party and entered Kemal’s office. Powell was favorably struck with the Turkish leader: “He immediately impressed you as being a very strong man… . All of Mustapha Kemal’s replies to questions were short and complete and answered entirely the question asked without evasion or without hesitation… . He informed us that the Nationalist army had already reached the straits and that his troops were now in Arenkiei [a town at Chanak on the Dardanelles Strait], and that, although rumored, there had been no contact with the British forces.” Powell’s interview with Kemal ranged broadly over Turkish nationalist intentions in the Dardanelles, the possibility of an exchange of populations between the Turks and Greeks, and the future of the Near Eastern oil fields. Powell specifically asked Kemal about exploitation of oil in Mesopotamia.
Powell: Your excellency, those who have studied the oil question in its bearing on international politics, realize that Great Britain must have access to large petroleum deposits or cease to be a world power of the first importance. Therefore, to my mind the problem of the petroleum fields in Mesopotamia northeast of the Jebal Hamrin [a mountain range in northern Iraq] is certainly of greater importance than Constantinople, and possibly of as much importance as the Straits. Will you express the attitude of the Turkish Nationalist Government towards the British claims to the Mesopotami
an oil?
Kemal: All of the territories in question are in the Province of Mosul, which is part of the territory mentioned in the Nationalist pact [in order words, inside Turkey’s borders—Author]. The great majority of the territory is Turkish. I don’t think possession of this territory is necessary for the exploitation of the oil fields in that region. For instance, there is nothing against American exploitation of oil fields in Turkey as America has no political ambitions in our country. If England would follow a similar attitude, it would be a most reasonable one.
The response was important enough for Powell to immediately dispatch the Lawrence back to Constantinople with a transcript. Oil had been Bristol’s chief concern all along. It was precisely the answer that he would be pleased to hear.
On the same day, Powell received a note from Captain Hugh C. Buckle, commander of the British light cruiser HMS Curacoa, which remained in the harbor. The captain was concerned for the safety of the British manager of the Aydin Railroad, General de Candolla. (The general was the British secret agent whom Lieutenant Merrill had befriended a week earlier.) De Candolla had remained at the railroad office to avoid having the Turks seize the railroad by declaring it derelict. With war imminent, Buckle wanted the retired general and active secret agent to get himself aboard a British ship, but the captain was reluctant to send British marines ashore. Powell had one of his men deliver the message, and de Candolla returned to the Curacoa. Powell had been cultivating good relations with the British, and his rapport with the British officers would play an important part in the evacuation in subsequent days.
