Smyrna was occupied by Greek forces in May 1919 and recaptured by Turkish forces under Kemal Atatürk on 9 September 1922.
Fire ravaging Smyrna
15 September 1922
Rome, Thursday
A telegram received here this afternoon from Smyrna reports that a terrible fire has broken out in the city. The Greek and Armenian quarters have been destroyed, and the fire is spreading to other areas. The inhabitants are in a state of panic, and Italian ships in the port are endeavouring to take off the members of the Italian colony.
Smyrna almost completely destroyed
By our correspondent
16 September 1922
Athens, Thursday
It is officially stated that British and American refugees who left Smyrna last night report the total destruction of the Greek, Armenian, and foreign quarters of the town by fire.
The fire was started with petroleum yesterday at midday by Turkish regular troops with the object of hiding the bodies of those massacred the night before. The number of people massacred is unknown, but is estimated by American relief workers who investigated before the outbreak of fire to be well over 1,000.
Destroyers in the harbour are giving assistance to the foreign colony, who are being embarked. The French and American Colleges, the YMCA and YWCA headquarters for Near East relief, and all their stocks of food have been destroyed. The consulate were in grave danger last night. The Turkish town was then untouched. There are 60,000 refugees on the quays starving. The loss caused by the destruction of tobacco is enormous.
College girls’s fate
Frightful reports have been received here of Turkish atrocities to Smyrna. The Turks set fire to the Armenian and Greek quarters, and the American Girls’ Collegiate Institute, as well as the Evangelical College and the French St Joseph College, was burnt.
Miss Minnie Mills, the principal of the Girls’ College, saw a Turkish officer carrying a petroleum can nearby the house, which was then set on fire. The college girls, together with 1,300 refugees within the college ground, fell into the hands of the Turks while trying to escape.
The YMCA buildings, also the Near East relief warehouses of flour supplies, were burnt down. The British and American consulates appeared to be doomed by the fire. All the British fled to battleships, but many failed to escape and were massacred, including one named Rees.
The president of the International College, Dr Maclachlan, was beaten almost to death by the Turks, who robbed all houses regardless of nationality, scorning the Allied flags.
Last night the flames from the burning houses lit up the whole city. On the harbour quay, in semi-darkness, thousands of refugees were huddled crying or on their knees praying. The only Allied help extended was the direction on the masses of refugees of searchlights from the Allied battleships to save them from the activities of the Turks in the dark.
The Armenian archbishop was killed, and it is reported that the Greek Metropolitan, Chrysostomos, met the same end. The financial loss from the fire is estimated at £15m. Smyrna is doomed to starvation or massacre.
Blazed trail of Greek retreat: events which led up to Smyrna tragedy
25 September 1922
The following account of the fall of Smyrna has been received by mail from one of Reuter’s correspondents, who followed the later stages of the Greek retreat.
Malta, 10 September
I was at Ushak, which is 50 miles west of Afiun Karahissar, when Kemal launched his offensive and I remained there till the Greeks first-line transport began passing through, and then, seeing that it would be dangerous to wait longer, I managed to board a refugee train and so got to Smyrna. I saw tins of benzine and incendiary bombs being distributed throughout the town, and I was personally warned by Greek officers that the town would be burnt. As I was leaving Ushak I saw three villages close by which had already been set on fire. Two hours after I had left Ushak itself was set on fire, and from eyewitnesses I afterwards learned that practically the whole town was burnt and that a good many of the Turkish inhabitants had been massacred by the Greek soldiers, and also that pillaging and looting had been the order of the day. This sort of thing continued throughout the whole retreat.
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The burning of Smyrna: an eyewitness’s account
By Beatrix de Candolle
30 September 1922
To the editor of the Manchester Guardian,
Sir, – Your attitude toward the Near Eastern crisis, as reported by wireless to-day, is so exactly the one which one hoped would be adopted by the whole of England towards the catastrophe of the burning of Smyrna that I venture to you a first-hand account of the fire and its causes.
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Among the refugees at Smyrna: scenes of panic and fear at the docks
Chicago Tribune telegram
4 October 1922
Smyrna (by Courier destroyer to Constantinople), Monday
Hate has always been the heritage of man’s stupidity. From the blackened Muslim fields, from the mountain villages far behind the Turkish lines where nearly half a million of Islam seek new homes, from Smyrna in ruins, from refugee camps where 500,000 Christians are starving, it flings itself to add to the poisonous heritage of the Middle East.
Westward – Christian, eastward – Turk, the land between, once fair and habitable, is now a desert. Those of us who have watched the exodus of close upon 250,000 refugees from this stricken city, or seen them huddled in their camps in the Greek island or on the mainland, have been close to hell this last fortnight that we wish to be again.
The death-roll of Smyrna has been small compared to that in the interior. On the streets and docks I have witnessed indescribable scenes. New lives have been ushered into the world on stones or quays or the planking of the piers. One woman, her time upon her, as she struggle towards the boat which was to carry her away, passed stooping through the gate with her new-born babe in her hands, two small children tugging at her skirts. She had not yet received the surgical attention necessary immediately after the delivery of a child. She was cared for as she lay on the stretcher beneath a freight car. Almost immediately afterwards this woman went aboard ship with her little family. The husband, of military age, remained with the day’s prisoners to be marched into the interior.
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