by Lou Ureneck
254Back at the embassy BWD, Sept. 12, 1922.
255Afterward, Bristol had lunch BWD, Sept. 12, 1922.
255The Lawrence arrived after BWD, Sept. 12, 1922.
256Bristol wrote: Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 13, 1922. MLB.
256Three days earlier, a cable STANAV to USS Lawrence for Jaquith, Sept. 10, 1922. MLB.
CHAPTER 22: HALSEY POWELL
259In 1904, when he graduated “Halsey Powell,” 1904 Lucky Bag, U.S. Naval Academy.
259As a boy, Halsey I am indebted to Amalie Preston of the Harrodsburg (Kentucky) Historical Society for this description of the Powell plantation. Ms. Preston proved to be an indefatigable researcher on my behalf and tracked down Powell’s personal correspondence, which had remained with the Powell family.
260“This my hope and prayer …” E. W. Halsey to Margaret Halsey, August 31, 1883. Harrodsburg Historical Society.
260At seventeen, he went off Faculty Minutes, Sept. 26, 1899, Vol. 3, Special Collections, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
260In his first fifteen years “Powell, Halsey,” NPRC.
262On August 3, Powell’s “Powell, Halsey,” NPRC.
262Then, with new orders “Powell, Halsey,” NPRC. Intelligence and Technological Archives, U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island.
262In April, Halsey sent Halsey Powell to his mother, April 28, 1920. Harrodsburg Historical Society.
263In August 1922, Powell Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” USS Edsall. August, 1922. MLB.
265By his own account BWD, Sept. 10, 1922.
265After getting Hepburn’s Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 13, 1922. Except as otherwise noted, this and subsequent information regarding Powell and the Edsall in this chapter come from the Edsall’s ship’s diary in September 1922. MLB.
265“Prentiss requests following …” Edsall to STANAV, Sept. 14, 1922. MLB.
266Prentiss’s first story appeared “Relief Man Tells Tragedy,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1922.
266Powell, Morris, and the Greek For the interior design of the Edsall, see Library of Selected Images, Naval Historical Center, Dept. of the Navy. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s584045.jpg.
268The day before Powell’s Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 34–39.
269Over the previous several days, Smith, 316, 317.
271Turkish residents had taken Melville Chater, “History’s Greatest Trek,” National Geographic, Nov. 1925 (Vol. 48), Photos.
271For years afterward Neyzi, “Remembering Smyrna/Izmir,” 123.
271Throughout the day, Merrill Diary, Sept. 16, 17, 1922. ASMP.
273On the way back, Prentiss “Smyrna Now Faces Plague, Famine,” New York Times, Sept. 20, 1922.
274The British in particular Thomas Woodrooffe, Naval Odyssey (New York: Sheridan House, 1938), 109. Brock praised Powell to Bristol. Brock to Bristol, Oct. 16, 1922, NPRC. Admiral Nicholson also praised him to Bristol in a personal meeting. BWD, Oct. 21, 1922.
274In a few days, the Times Harvey to State Dept., Bristol. Sept. 22, 1922. MLB.
275All of the big tobacco companies A comprehensive explanation of the American tobacco industry’s reliance on Turkish tobacco emerges in the testimony and exhibits contained in the record of U.S. Senate Hearings on a foreign tobacco tariff. “Tariff: Schedule 6 Tobacco and Manufacturers Of,” Hearing Before the Committee on Finance, Dec. 7, 1921.
275The American companies “Standard Commercial Corporation History,” Funding Universe, http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/standard-commercial-corporation-history/.
276A Standard Commercial manager, Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 17, 1922. MLB.
276The American Tobacco Co. Testimony of Jehu E. Archbell, Report of Trial, 38–55.
276Some of the big warehouses Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 17, 1922.
277Several days after the fire The story of Onassis as a boy in Smyrna is told in Nicholas Gage, Greek Fire: The Story of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis (New York: Knopf, 2000), 115–128. Additional detail comes from Skoulakis interview.
278Powell met with these The location and use of the Spartali mansion as the U.S. consulate comes from the research of George Poulemenos and Achilleas Chatziconstantinou.
278By September 17, Jennings Jennings to D. Davis.
278“I must say the Navy …” Jennings to D. Davis.
279A favorite character in Greek “Main Characters in Greek Shadow Theater,” Spathario Museum, Maroussi, Greece. http://www.karagiozismuseum.gr/en/figoures//.
279The mansions along the Quay Kyriakos Tsangridis, From Utopia to Topos—The City of Smyrna (Athens: Leader Books, 2001). Also: “Dwelling House, Smyrna, 1904,” floor plan provided by George Poulemenos.
281The fire had destroyed Descriptions of the city in the days following the fire appear in C. C. Davis to Bristol; Jaquith to Bristol, Oct. 6, 1922. NA 867.48/1452.
281John Clayton, back in the city “Plague Piles Up Death in Smyrna Ruins,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 17, 1922.
282“The worst sight I have seen” E.O. Jacob to Darius Davis, Smyrna Diary, Part 2, (Date illegible) KFYA.
283He also had the annoying BWD, Oct. 23, 1922.
284Mr. Carathina had returned to Turkey “Vallejoan to Seek Family and Fortune,” Oakland Tribune, March 29, 1920.
285Lord Curzon immediately cabled Curzon to Geddes, and hand-delivered to Dulles at State Dept., Sept. 22, 1922. NA 868.48.156.
CHAPTER 23: THEODORA
Drawn from interview at AMRC.
287In peace let us pray to the Lord. Language of the Greek Orthodox Liturgy is drawn from “Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great,” Greek Orthodox Church of America. http://www.goarch.org/chapel/liturgical_texts.
CHAPTER 24: DAYS OF DESPAIR
290As the suffering worsened Unless otherwise noted, Powell’s observations and experiences here and in subsequent places in this chapter come from the “Ship’s Diary” of the USS Edsall.
290Lieutenant Commander Knauss had helped Knauss, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 17, 1922. MLB.
291“From the military bakeries …” Jacob to D. Davis.
291Dr. Post (who had returned from Salonika) Charles Claflin Davis to Bristol.
291A local doctor, Dr. Margoulis, “Turkey,” The Reform Advocate: America’s Jewish Journal 42 (Oct. 14, 1911). A news item reports that the Sultan honored Dr. Margoulis for his services in the city.
291In some cases, the French. Demetrius Psalidopoulos, “My Memories of the First Days of the Catastrophe,” a privately printed monograph in the possession of Prof. Michail Psalidopoulos, Athens. Mr. Psalidopoulos escaped Smyrna on a French ship, “Phrygia.” Also: Peter James Spanos, Fear and Survival, Cape Elizabeth, Maine: Privately printed, 1989. Theodore Bartoli to Secretary of State, Dec. 5, 1922. NA 867.016/77. Pathe newsreels distributed in the U.S. at the time also show Italian ships boarding refugees. Library of Congress.
292Some of the Allied ships swept searchlights Woodrooffe, Naval Odyssey, 117.
292“The strange thing was …” Ernest Hemingway, “On the Quai at Smyrna,” a short story in the collection In Our Time (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925).
292Hemingway actually never Michael Reynolds, Hemingway: The Final Years (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
292While he was Hemingway, Dateline, Toronto.
293On September 19, a dirty and ill-kept “Movement of Vessels at Smyrna, Turkey,” included in Edsall’s Diary, Sept. 19–21, 1922; Woodrooffe, Naval Odyssey, 110.
293The Near East Relief also STANAV to Edsall, Sept. 20, 1922. MLB.
293The first rescue ships to Smyrna Bristol to Secretary of State, Sept. 21, 1922. MLB.
294“We therefore became more …” Jennings to D. Davis.
294Several days earlier, Hepburn, “Smyrna Disaster,” 37.
294But additional sightings Powell, “Ship’s Diary.”
294While running the American hospital. Jay Winter (ed.), America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915, Cambridge U
niversity Press, 2004, 193. Raymond Kevorkian, The Aremenian Genocide: A Complete History, I. B. Tauris, 2011, 581.
295The Young Turk government Hovannisian, Power, A Problem from Hell; Peterson, “Starving Armenians,” ff.
295The typical method was for soldiers or police to round up Armenians in the cities, towns, and villages Peterson, “Starving Armenians:” America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1930, 32,33, ff.
295Italian consulate remembered James Bryce, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-1916, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, London, 1916. 290–92.
295“The passing of gangs …” Peterson, “Starving Armenians,” 34.
296In May of 1922, Yowell to Jackson.
296“It seems almost impossible …” Jacob to D. Davis.
297Most were driven toward Magnesia Many Greeks were reportedly killed in the march at a particular deep canyon (Buyuk Dere) along the Magnesia Road. Ioannis D. Kostikdakis, an Ottoman Greek from Kata Panogia, who survived, wrote, “As we arrived at the entrance of the gorge, a stifling stench hampered our breathing… . Thousands of corpses, men, women, children, swollen from decay, filled the endless ravine.” See “The Grand Trek to the Ravine of Death,” Kato Panagia Bulletin, No. 11, September 1957. In an interview collected by the Asia Minor Research Center in its book, Exodus, Anastassis Haranis, an Ottoman Greek from a village near Phocaea, said, “In Bunarbassi [near Smyrna], after they had stolen everything from us, they delivered us to new guards. During the night they led us through the ravine of Sypilos (a mountain near Magnesia), where they searched us again and took all our money. Turkish men and women came to the road while we passed, and they kept saying to our guards: ‘If we give you two Turkish lira, will you give us one Giaur (infidel)?’ The guards ruthlessly gave over the people, and these [the villagers] killed them.” A description of the ravine appears in Elias Venezis’s novel/memoir The Number 31328, his story of being held as a work prisoner by the Turks. (He refers to the ravine as “Kirtik-Dere,” which probably was its real name, since “Buyuk-Dere” actually means “Great Ravine.”) “One morning they took us, some sixty slaves, for a small chore. It’s a small distance out of Magnesia. Next to the track of the railroad ends a long ravine passing through Sipylus mountain. It’s called Kirtik-Dere. In this ravine we reckoned that some forty thousand Christians were killed, from Smyrna and from Magnesia, male and female. In the early days of the disaster. The bodies decomposed during the winter, and the water coming down the gorge from above pushed the skeletons downwards. So they reached the road, the tracks.”
297“Turks were proceeding with …” Knauss, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 18, 1922.
297Jacob also witnessed Jacob to D. Davis.
CHAPTER 25: “WE ARE CELEBRATING SMYRNA”
299Mustapha Kemal fell in love Kinross, Mango, and Edib tell the story of Latife Hanum and Kemal more or less consistently, and I have drawn from each of them here. Turkish journalist Ipek Calislar, in her book Madame Atatürk (Saqi Publishing, 2013), tells a somewhat different story with a more modest turn. Calislar provides copious detail on Latife’s family.
299He had established his Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 384.
302With a rose in her hair Translation assistance from Cigdem Aslan.
303On September 12, he moved Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 385.
304He possessed, as a confidante said, an instinct for the harem. Mango, 410.
304There was one sexual relationship Mango, Atatürk, 388.
305On September 19, Latife put together Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 386–389.
306Kemal continued to drink Edib, Turkish Ordeal, 338, 389; Mango, Atatürk, 352; Kinross, Atatürk, 374, 375.
CHAPTER 26: JENNINGS AND THE HAND OF GOD
307It is difficult to know precisely Jennings to D. Davis.
308He stood alone D. Davis to Harrison.
308“No one can ever describe …” Jennings to D. Davis.
309A tramp steamer “Citta di Torino,” Coasters and Other Ships Revived, 7Seas Vessels.com http://7seasvessels.com/citta-di-torino-1898-imo-0000000/.
310Elated, Jennings went Jennings to D. Davis.
311It was heartbreaking Abernathy, The Great Rescue, 7, KFYA.
311To make matters worse, Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 20, 1922.
311Powell told Jennings Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 20, 1922.
311Jennings and the Constantinopoli Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 21, 1922.
311“I could scarcely …” Abernathy, “The Great Rescue,” 6; Jennings to D. Davis.
312“There in that cabin …” Abernathy, “The Great Rescue,” 6.
312He was Ernesto Aliotti http://levantineheritage.com/aliotti.htm. Thanks also to the Aliotti family for photos, background.
313It was a picturesque port Jennings to D. Davis.
314At about 6 p.m. Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
314On the way back Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
316On the same day, Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
316Davis responded with Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922. C. C. Davis to Bristol.
316In a cable, either late Bristol to State Dept. (repeating Powell’s message), Sept. 22, 1922. MLB.
317The next afternoon, September 22 Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
317Late on the same day, under State Department pressure Stanav (Bristol) to Edsall Sept. 20, 1922, MLB.
318“Your commission is informed …” Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
318The Litchfield arrived back Powell, “Ship’s Diary,” Sept. 22, 1922.
CHAPTER 27: GARABED HATCHERIAN
319Events in this chapter are drawn from Dr. Hatcherian’s diary. Dr. Hatcherian’s age is a matter of consequence throughout this section of his diary. The nationalist army was arresting Christian men of military age, between eighteen and forty-five. So the error in Dr. Hatcherian’s document, making him one year younger than his actual forty-six, was a possible matter of life or death.
323“… Congratulations! You are going …” Agia Sophia is the ancient seat of the Orthodox Church in Constantinople. It had been converted into a mosque.
CHAPTER 28: WASHINGTON FEELS THE PRESSURE
325On Friday, September 15 Bristol, Sept. 15, 1922. MLB.
325Immediately upon receiving Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 18, 1922. MLB.
325Prentiss’s reports of Turkish “Smyrna in Ruins, Probably 2,000 Dead,” New York Times, Sept. 16, 1922.
326The presiding bishop “Fear for 300 Girls in Smyrna College,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1922.
326Henry Morgenthau and Oscar “The Turkish Victory. New World Peril,” Times of London, Sept. 12, 1922; “Calls on Lodge to Join England Against Turks,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1229; Oscar Strauss to President Harding, Telegram, Sept. 19, 1922. NA 767.68/361.
326The American Federation of Churches Dulles to Phillips, Memorandum with Attachment, Sept. 25, 1922. NA 767.68/350.
326The conflict between religious Hohner, Prohibition and Politics, 140.
327As Smyrna spiraled toward Hohner, Prohibition and Politics, 139, 140.
328“Frankly,” he had written Harding to Hughes, July 24, 1922. NA 867.4016/607.
328The State Department had received Caffrey to State Dept., Sept. 19, 1922. NA 868.48/207.
328Ambassador to Britain, George Harvey Harvey to State Dept., Sept. 15, 1922. NA 868.48.
328On September 15, Phillips sent Phillips to Hughes, Sept. 18, 1922. NA 767.68333.
329“I have received,” Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 13, 1922. MLB.
330He left the false impression Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 20, 1922. “… having received information that refugees could be evacuated from Smyrna I directed our destroyers to assist in ever way possible.”
330Bristol’s first thought on Bristol Diary, Sept. 19, 1922. MLB.
331Constantinople at the moment “The Situation in Constantinople,” Memorandum, Merri
ll to Bristol, Sept. 22, 1922. MLB.
331On the fifteenth, the same day, 1922. Bristol Diary, Sept. 15, 16. MLB.
332By September 17, Sunday, Hepburn Bristol Diary, Sept. 17, 1922. MLB.
332As Phillips in Washington “Washington Prepares; But Has Received No Reply from Bristol on Plan for International Action,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 1922.
332The Allied consuls in Smyrna Allied High Commissioners Smyrna to Allied High Commissioners Constantinople (copy of cable), Sept. 19, 1922. MLB.
332Bristol finally responded Bristol to State Dept., Sept 19, 1922. MLB.
333Phillips responded to Bristol Phillips to Bristol, Sept. 19, 1922. MLB.
333Then Phillips sent Bristol Phillips to Bristol Sept. 23, 1922. MLB.
333In the middle of this Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 17, 1922; Edward Bell to Dulles, Dulles to Bell Sept. 19, 1922. NA 767.68/328.
333Bell was more than David Kahn, “Edward Bell and His Zimmermann Telegram Memoranda,” Intelligence and National Security 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1999).
334Finally on the nineteenth, BWD, Sept. 19, 1922.
334Interestingly, British Admiral De Robeck Halpern, Mediterranean Fleet, 315.
335The next day, Bristol Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 20, 1922. MLB.
335On September 21, Phillips Phillips to Bristol, Sept. 21, 1922. MLB.
335In the morning of the next day, Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 21, 1922. MLB.
335As this diplomatic cat-and-mouse BWD, Sept. 21, 1922. MLB.
336The next day, September 22 BWD, Sept. 2, 1922. MLB.
336In the meantime, Bristol Bristol to State Dept., Sept. 22, 1922. MLB.
337On September 23, State Dept. to Bristol, Sept. 23, 1922. MLB.
337Heizer had served Hovannisian, Remembrance and Denial, 51, 52. Raymond Kevorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History (London: I. B. Taurus, 2011), 480.
CHAPTER 29: JENNINGS NEGOTIATES WITH A PRIME MINISTER
328Jennings had been as eager Jennings to D. Davis.