The Great Fire

by Lou Ureneck

  “Thank you,” responded the Turkish captain. “What do you want me to do?”

  Thesiger suggested that the cavalry proceed into the city along the Quay instead of the backstreets, which was the direction in which it was headed. He said it would be safer for them, and they would avoid getting lost in the welter of unfamiliar streets.

  As this polite conversation went on between the officers, some of the soldiers in the column pointed revolvers at the heads of Greek men on the street, demanding money. One man refused and was shot and killed. Thesiger protested.

  “But it is only one man,” the Turkish officer responded, “and he is dead.”

  The Turkish officer gave the order to advance, and he followed the British officer’s directions and turned right to the Quay. The cavalrymen drew swords and some fired their revolvers into the air.

  Now, on the Quay, silent but alert and erect in their saddles, the soldiers might as well have been moving through defiles of the Anatolian plateau in anticipation of an ambush. Theirs was the order of men who had ridden long and hard over a hot dry landscape. Someone threw a bomb, and Cherefedinne suffered a shrapnel cut to his face, but he remained mounted. The soldiers cleared the street with a whiff of rifle fire. Several people in the street were killed. The soldiers continued on their horses without breaking formation. As they moved along the seaside, with the harbor on their right, past Galazio Street, and approaching the Turkish Quarter and the Konak, the city’s main administration building, Turkish crowds gathered and cheered them, bringing them glasses of water. The air was full of red fezzes thrown skyward.

  Inshallah, Izmir was back in Turkish hands.

  MacLachlan and Merrill, who had been in the consulate when Hepburn and Horton had been meeting in Horton’s office, fought their way through the Turkish crowd to the Quay. (Davis was at one of the city’s better restaurants enjoying lunch. It was mostly empty except for him and the waiters.) Greek soldiers were still departing the city when the Turkish cavalry came on to the Quay, and a group of them was caught near the Konak as the Turkish cavalry arrived. There was a brief firefight, and the Greeks were captured and some were killed. Merrill, wanting to be near the action, had followed the Turkish cavalry to the Konak. He wiggled and squeezed his way through the crowd like a boy at a crowded parade route and entered the building, producing a document that Horton had prepared for him in French the previous night identifying him as a naval representative of the United States. There, among the gathering Turkish officers, he recognized Major Cherefeddine, the small, slight officer who had led the cavalry into the city. Exhilarated and never shy, Merrill introduced himself, and the two officers chatted in French. Other Turkish officers arrived at the second-floor reception room outside an office occupied by the ranking general in the city, Murcelle Pasha, commander of the First Cavalry. Merrill offered his congratulations and shook their hands. The Turkish major, whose shrapnel showed under his eye, told Merrill the story of the bomb that had been thrown and a second that failed to explode. The two had a good laugh about it. Merrill had made another friend.

  NOW THAT THE TURKISH ARMY had entered the city, it was necessary for Captain Hepburn to make official contact with the Turkish command, but the jubilant Turkish crowds made it impossible for him to get near the Konak. He decided to wait until the Turkish celebrations calmed down and the crowds dispersed.

  The appearance of Turkish troops had created panic among the refugees, and they attempted to enter any building that showed a French, British, or American flag, often crowding the entryways and trying to force their way past the guards. Using a relief-committee car with a small American flag flying from the grill, Hepburn, Knauss, and Davis made a round of the buildings guarded by American sailors and directed them to lock the doors and remain inside. At the American Girls’ School, the refugees, frightened by a Turkish civilian who was leveling his rifle at them in the street, broke through the doors and entered the building while Hepburn was inside talking to his men. By midafternoon, Hepburn saw that the Turkish army had posted sentries on most of the main street corners, sometimes accompanied by Italian reservists in the city. The captain returned to the theater. At 4 P.M., he finally was able to make his way to the Konak, bringing Davis, Jaquith, and Dr. Post with him. Merrill, who had returned to the consulate after meeting with the Turkish officers, also came along. Hepburn entered the general’s office and, with Dr. Post serving as his Turkish interpreter, congratulated him on the good appearance of his troops. Their arrival, he said, was a great relief to the city.

  Murcelle listened with polite formality. A broad-chested veteran of World War I, Murcelle had fought the British and Russians at the Battle of Baku, and after the war, he had been arrested by the British as a nationalist threat in Constantinople and then released, allowing him to join Mustapha Kemal’s army in the interior of the country. His cavalry had fought hard from the initial assault at Afyon Karahisar fourteen days earlier and formed the vanguard of the Turkish force in the final push toward Smyrna. Hepburn told the Turkish general that he had positioned sailors as guards at the consulate and other locations. Murcelle in turn said the guards could remain. Hepburn then introduced Davis and Jaquith, at which point Murcelle realized he was speaking with Americans, not the British. He brightened and ordered his aides to offer his American guests cigarettes. More relaxed and cordial, Murcelle promised to send a liaison officer to the American consulate in the morning to coordinate refugee relief. All of this pleased Hepburn; it’s what he had expected.

  As Hepburn left Murcelle’s office, he was satisfied that he would get the general’s cooperation and the relief committee would be able to do its work. As the group was departing, Merrill recognized three faces in an anteroom. They were Clayton and Brown, and a third showing its familiar ruddy complexion. It was Sweeny whom he knew from Constantinople. With Bristol’s encouragement, Sweeny had come to Smyrna on the Lawrence. His goal was to take a trip on the road that led east from Smyrna to the towns and villages burned in the Greek army’s retreat so he could write an account of the Greek atrocities that Bristol had told him about. Merrill peeled away from Hepburn and joined the reporters who said they were waiting for an interview with Murcelle. Merrill admired Sweeny’s reputation for military adventure—he had heard from Bristol of Sweeny’s many exploits—and decided to stay with the reporters, where there was likely to be some action. Hepburn returned to the consulate.

  General Murcelle gave the reporters an interview, and then Sweeny, who was armed with letters of introduction he had brought with him from Constantinople, presumably from Bristol and Hamid Bey, persuaded Murcelle to give them a pass to travel to Magnesia. Sweeny wanted to meet with Mustapha Kemal for an interview about his victory and the Greek retreat. Apparently, Bristol’s suggestion to Hamid Bey about the utility of the Greek atrocities had fallen on receptive ears. Sweeny was in Smyrna to show the Greeks for the dishonorable race that they were, but to do that he needed access to the villages burned by the Greek army and an interview with the supreme Turkish leader. Murcelle provided the pass and assigned him a Turkish lieutenant as a driver and interpreter, and off the reporters and Merrill went on their sanctioned errand toward Magnesia. It would be Merrill’s third attempt to get there since arriving on the Litchfield three days ago.

  Just outside of the city, near Bournabat, the four encountered a crowd blocking the way. There were several bodies lying in the road, and an Italian army officer stood between a group of Turkish civilians and a group of Italian residents of Bournabat. The two sides were in a deep dispute, shouting and threatening each other. The Italian officer appealed to the Americans to intervene with the Turks, though the root of the dispute was unclear, and the Turkish lieutenant who was their driver joined the argument against the Italians, making matters worse. The dispute was moving toward a violent climax when a contingent of Turkish cavalry came up the road in full gallop followed by a big touring car. The crowd quieted, and the car skidded to a stop next to the Americans. The Turkish
lieutenant, looking frightened, stiffened and clicked his heels. It was obvious he recognized the imposing man in the rear seat. Merrill and the reporters would soon learn from the driver that the man was Noureddin Pasha, commander of the Turkish First Army and a hero of the recent campaign.

  A big man with closely cropped hair and beard, Noureddin struck Merrill as having the bearing of a Prussian officer. (“The only man I had ever seen who could strut sitting down.”) He barked at them in German, and his car pulled away. Now, with Sweeny snapping orders to the Turkish driver, the Americans followed and pulled up alongside the pasha’s car. Sweeny thrust his bundle of letters at him, the ones he had brought from Constantinople. After shuffling through them, the general motioned for the Americans to follow him back to Smyrna. At the Konak, Noureddin told Sweeny that his cavalry clogged the roads to the east and he would not allow the reporters passage farther inland until the army had passed. Sweeny argued with him, asserting the importance of propaganda and publicity to the Turkish cause. Noureddin said he didn’t give a damn for either and dismissed him. The Americans returned to the house that served as home base for Brown, Clayton, Merrill, Washburn, and his mistress and now for Sweeny.

  What the Americans didn’t know was that command of the city had passed to Noureddin. It was a fateful step.

  IN THE FIRST FEW HOURS after the arrival of the Turkish cavalry, the city was quiet except for Turkish celebrations. Hepburn had radioed Bristol that the city was orderly and conditions favored a peaceful occupation. “Large supplies will undoubtedly be needed, but approximate data not yet obtained.” Hepburn was confident of Turkish cooperation. “There is no question as to the intention of the authorities to preserve order; and they are taking efficient measures,” he cabled his boss. He added this final note: “Special troops are detailed to protect refugees.” This is what Bristol had foreseen—or at least had hoped for—a smooth and peaceful occupation by the Turkish army. It would affirm the argument he had been making to Washington—that Turkish atrocities in the past had been exaggerated. It was the Greeks and Armenians who were instigators of trouble.

  But by midafternoon, Hepburn’s assessment proved wildly inaccurate: Looting and violence had begun, and it would take Hepburn at least two more days to accept the extent of his misjudgment and alter his view of the Turkish command’s intentions. In the meantime, many thousands would die. Almost immediately after the arrival of the cavalry, Turkish residents had begun leaving the Turkish Quarter and roved the Armenian Quarter with clubs, rifles, and shotguns. In increasing numbers as the afternoon wore on, they swarmed the backstreets, the Armenian Quarter in particular, and were harassing, robbing, and killing Christians they encountered outside their homes. The Turkish sentries posted throughout the city looked the other way. Sometimes, the Turkish soldiers joined the civilian mob as perpetrators.

  Knauss witnessed the violence firsthand on his late-afternoon rounds. On nearly every street that he passed in the Greek and Armenian neighborhoods, there were bodies lying about, shot from close range in the face or the back. The victims were young and old, and mostly men, though there were also the bodies of old women on the street. Often the man’s shirt or pants had been removed, and in every case his shoes had been taken. The method was the same: Several Turks would stop a Christian they found on the street, and with two men holding him, another would search his pockets. He would be ordered to hand over his clothes, then shot in the head or back at point-blank range. Knauss had brought Horton with him on the late-afternoon circuit, and together they witnessed three killings. As Knauss drove through the Armenian Quarter in the car, which was flying the small American flag, residents dashed from their homes, put their hands and faces to the windows of the car, and pleaded for the Americans to save them. In one instance, an Armenian dashed from his home, and Turks on the street who could not see the American flag on Knauss’s car began firing at him, barely missing the car. Knauss was under orders not to interfere to save refugees. He drove on, leaving them behind. The shooting increased with each passing hour, and Knauss counted twenty-five bodies in the streets between the YMCA and the Girls’ School.

  At the consulate Hepburn grew worried. There seemed to be no end to the number of refugees coming into the city, based on reports he was getting from the relief committee. The Greeks and Armenians who lived in the city were staying inside their homes behind locked doors and shuttered windows, but the refugees from the countryside were crowding ever more tightly near the Quay, and the two or three streets parallel to it—Rue Parallele, the first street back; Quay Inglise, the second street back; and Frank Street, the third street back, which formed the heart of the shopping district. The city’s forty-six Christian churches—Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Roman Catholic, and Anglican—were packed with refugees, and those who had not been able to gain entrance collected in the cemeteries and other public spaces where they could gather their goods and animals and spread a blanket. An American officer whose car tires had been shot out while traveling back to the theater from Paradise reported to Hepburn that Turkish snipers with long-range rifles had begun picking off refugees who had sought refuge at International College. There would be a muffled shot heard far in the distance, the elapse of a second or two, and then a refugee would drop to the ground, struck in the chest or head by a bullet. Each shot turned the refugees into a panicked herd.

  Late in the afternoon, the congregations of several of the city’s Greek churches, led by priests in their black robes and toadstool hats, appeared in front of the American consulate and begged for protection inside the building or its courtyard. Hepburn declined, and fearing the people would storm the building, he sent an aide to the Konak to request Turkish guards for both ends of Galazio Street to keep it clear. By now more naturalized Americans and their families gathered at the American Theater. Hepburn ordered the exit of everyone in the theater who did not have proof of American citizenship, which meant pulling apart extended families and sending those without passports or legitimate claims to American naturalization into the street. There were sobs and shrieks as family members were ejected. Horton was increasingly disconsolate. Pleading didn’t help. Hepburn’s orders were to offer protection only to American citizens. Protecting Ottoman subjects might be an affront to the Turkish military. As it grew dark, the crowd of refugees outside the consulate continued to swell until the Turkish guards arrived from the Konak. At their appearance, the refugees melted into the side streets or joined the tens of thousands on the Quay, where families camped in small groups and prepared small spaces for the night.

  The Turkish cavalry that had entered the city in the morning had been about three thousand strong, but by evening many thousands of foot soldiers began appearing, some along the route traveled by the cavalry, others seeping into the city from the rear and entering the backstreets of the Greek, Armenian, and European neighborhoods, where they took what they wanted from shops and homes, including young women.

  Hepburn returned to the Litchfield to get some sleep. He could hear gunfire on the backstreets from the ship’s deck. There was no fusillade as would be the case with the encounter of two armies. Rather there was the intermittent sound of a single shot, or two or three shots at a time, indicating killings of individuals or people in small groups. It was the sound of fatal muggings and executions. Hepburn lost count. It went on through the night.

  BRISTOL HAD INSTRUCTED HEPBURN not to coordinate a relief effort with the Allies, and consequently Hepburn did not meet with the British, French, or Italian officers at Smyrna. The ill will between Bristol and the British in Constantinople was spilling over into Smyrna.

  Like the Americans, the British had no intention of evacuating Ottoman Christians, but they were faster to decide on an evacuation of their nationals and more sympathetic to the plight of the city’s Greek governor. The British admiral de Brock, commanding the Iron Duke, had steamed immediately to Smyrna on learning of the Greek setbacks from British consul Harry Lamb on September 2. He also ordered the
King George V, another capital ship, to head to Smyrna. Both ships had arrived the next day. De Brock had gone ashore, and after meeting with Lamb and Governor Stergiades, he had decided to evacuate British nationals. De Brock and his officers had spent Monday, September 4, preparing for the evacuation, and on Tuesday he had landed British marines before sunrise to supervise the embarkation of the British onto the hospital ship, HMHS Maine, and British merchant ships that he had requisitioned from the Levant Steamship Co. And on Friday, he had taken Governor Stergiades aboard. On Saturday morning, the day that Hepburn had arrived, de Brock had put ashore a strong force of additional marines to protect the British consulate and property. He established British headquarters at the Oriental Carpet Manufacturing Co., which because of its height offered a good vantage for British signalmen. As he did all of this, de Brock kept close tabs via radio on the situation at Chanak, the eastward flank of the Dardanelles where the British expected a Turkish incursion into a neutral zone established by the Sevres Treaty. If the Turks were going to pursue the Greeks into Europe, or if they intended to take eastern Thrace, their prewar possession in Europe, they would have to cross the Dardanelles at Chanak. Britain had decided its response would be to engage them with naval artillery and a small force of infantry and sink any vessels that attempted to make the crossing. In other words, de Brock, while evacuating British nationals at Smyrna, was also preparing for war with the nationalists.

  HEPBURN WAS NOT PREPARING for war. The U.S. Navy was in Smyrna to protect Americans and American property, and the captain’s assignment was to collect information for Bristol. The necessity of protecting Americans would continue, but it’s hard to see what additional information Hepburn needed to gather. The situation was clear, and it was alarming. Hundreds of thousands of people lacked food and shelter. Nonetheless, Hepburn appeared in no hurry to steam back to Constantinople with his assessment or a list of necessary relief supplies.