Posted on 08/29/2003 9:10:39 PM PDT by Destro
In September of 1922, Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the victorious revolutionary leader of Turkey, led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir) a predominantly Christian city, as a flotilla of 27 Allied warships -including 3 American destroyers- looked on. The Turks soon proceeded to indulge in an orgy of pillage, rape and slaughter that the western powers anxious to protect their oil and trade interests in Turkey, condoned by their silence and refusal to intervene. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it. There followed a massive cover-up by tacit agreement of the Western Allies. By 1923 Smyrna's demise was all but expunged from historical memory.
This book reveals the origins of festering current hostilities in Eastern Europe and the Middle East and attitudes towards the United States, whose diplomatic stance during and after the Smyrna Catastrophe set an enduring pattern.
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin has rendered the first account of what took place within the city. She has used as sources diaries, letters and eyewitness reports of the participants themselves. The result as the historian C.M. Woodhouse has written, "is an authoritative piece of research as vivid as a novel, told with restraint and dignity."
"A poignant, meticulously documented chronicle of an all but forgotten tragedy...beautifully recaptures the flavor and richness of Smyrna in it's prime."
The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Selected one of its 100 Notable Books
"A documentary indictment of the inhumanity of religion, the callousness of Powers and the avarice of commerce"
The Sunday Times Selected as Book of the Year 1972
"One of the keenest impressions which I brought away with me from Smyrna was a feeling of shame that I belonged to the human race."
US. Consul at Smyrna, George Horton
"The victims of the massacre-Greeks and Armenians-were estimated at 150,000. What was left of Smyrna was only its Turkish suburb. This very old and extremely beautiful Greek city had been founded in 3000 B.C. and restored by Alexander the Great. It used to be one of the most important economic centers of the Mediterranean. It used to be full of life and activity. It used to be prosperous. And now from one moment to the the next it was turned into a dead city. To a huge pile of ruins which emitted smoke. Those of its inhabitants who escaped the massacre fled, ousted and miserable, to Greece."
US. Consul at Smyrna, George Horton
"To mention the name of Sherman to a southerner of the United States is to fill him with burning indignation. Even the most ignorant yokel knows that the name Attila is associated with untold horrors and vandalism. Yet the Smyrna affair...has been somehow soft-pedaled and almost expunged from the memory of present day man."
Henry Miller The Colossus of Maroussi
"Go! Kill without Mercy! Who today remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Adolf Hitler to his generals
http://www.christianity-books.com/Smyrna_1922_The_Destruction_of_a_City_0966745108.html
Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City > Customer Review #1:
A book that is must reading
When archeologists excavate in Greece they discover ancient Greek civilization. Similarly, when they excavate in Turkey they still discover ancient Greek civilization. Also, during my studies in the US and Canada I met young Turkish intellectuals who by searching for their roots they traced an old Greek background. Based on the above and on what I read in the international press about the current situation in Turkey it seems to me that the current Turkish regime, whose backbone is the Turkish military, cannot comply with historical truth for if they did so they would collapse in a blink of an eye not because of any foreign intervention but because of the cry of the Turkish people for the implementation of the fundamental human rights. I just wonder how long a fascist regime can resist progress springing from a world that gradually turns to a global village. Therefore, I really understand the agony and insecurity of the detractors of the author of this book but I feel tempted in a humorous manner to add another "fact" to the ones a reviewer listed above: "The Christian population of Smyrna was not massacred by the Turks of Kemal Ataturk, perhaps they committed mass suicide!"
Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City > Customer Review #2:
Scholarly work....
The first thing I want to say about SMYRNA 1922 is that I am of neither Greek nor Turkish descent so I have no vested interest in the "truth". Secondly, I have an Armenian friend who once told me in a sad but offhand way as we were trading confidences over coffee, that her grandparents had been buried in the sand up to their necks and had their heads lopped off by Turkish soldiers. Thirdly, I had an occasion once where I met with a Turkish delegation as part of my job and listened to them for two hours while they talked about "Armenian lies." Two things struck me about this rather bizarre meeting: 1) Why did they care what I or anyone else in my agency thought about something that happened many years ago? 2) Why did they go on for two hours denying something no one had accused them of, at least no one in my office?
Marjorie Dobkins insightful book is about the failure of the Great Powers, including the U.S., to facilitate a peaceful outcome in Anatolia in the period following WWI. SMYRNA covers the subsequent destruction of the city by the forces of Kemal Attaturk (although he apparently lay the blame for the massacre at his predecessors door). Following the destruction of Smyrna, almost two million Greek and Armenian Christian refugees fled what is today Turkey and was then the Ottoman Empire.
At the Cannes film festival this year, "Ararat" has won all sorts of praise. The film by Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) tells the story of the Armenian holocaust in 1922. I dont know if Dobkins book is the basis of the film, but it certainly would make great background reading. I suspect Ararat will become to the Armenians what Schindlers List has become to the Jews. Since Turkey is apparently vowing to fight its distribution (New York Times, Arts, 6/7/02) it remains to be seen whether the film will make it to the states.
Dobkin has assembled a huge amount of information for her book and provides copious footnotes so you can check the sources. However, many of the U.S. sailors and other eyewitnesses have died since the first edition was published about 30 years ago. Following the initial publication, Dobkin became aware of much more material, and she incorporated much of the new material in the book. Dobkin writes well--like an excellent investigative reporter, which she very well may be. Earnest Hemingway covered the disaster as a Toronto news reporter, and Dobkins writing is comparable his, as well as being very scholarly.
Ive spent most of my life reading about genocide and inhumanity in one form or another, but SMYRNA has to be one of the most harrowing tales Ive ever read. Think Dachau. Think Auschwitz. Think the worst. To bad CNN wasnt filming, although believe it or not someone did film the event--and Dobkin obtained a photo of the quay lined with over 200,000 people which is shown on the cover of the book. Smyrna makes Kosovo look like a picnic.
Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City > Customer Review #3:
spot on
This is a book about one of the most tragic yet forgotten moments in the history of the Near East. It gives a good account(based on third party observers as well as direct participants), of the destruction of one of the most diverse cities in that part of the world. The description of the event is very lively and really makes the reader become absorbed in the account of events. It is a must read for students of history as well as those who would like to understand certain aspects the middle east problem, its root causes, and what often dictaes the superpowers foreign policies. I would also like to take this opportunity to comment on the review of the young old reader from Dallas. It illustrates the kind of thinking and selective quoting from history books that modern generations apply to rationalize human tragedies of enormous proportions.
Any student of history can verify the following facts easily:
1. The Greek people have had a continuous historical presence in what is now the Aegean coast of Turkey from about 800 B.C. until 1922 A.D. This civilization, centered around the city of Ephesus had flourished under Persian, Roman, and even Ottoman Turkish rule. It was violently destroyed by the founders of modern day Turkey who decided to punish civilians for the results of a war they did not even cause. 2. The Turks arrived in that part of the world around 1300 A.D. and destroyed an organized, Hellenized, Christian society they found. So no one can say objectively that what is now Turkey is historically pure Turkish land. 3. In 1919, the Greeks were given permission by the WWI allies to land in Smyrna to prevent Turkish massacres of Christian populations, that were already underway.
The church of Taxiarchis turned to a liquor storehouse.
Another photo of the massacres of the Greeks of Asia Minor.
Grandfather and grandson slain together.
Smyrna in flames.
Boats the only hope for salvation.
The inhabitans in panic prefer drowning to slaughter.
Heck, they were doing that in Tampa, at the USF Student Union building. They were about to get their a**es pounded into the dirt by a bunch of locals, too, until the campus police showed up and broke up the little Pali/Muslim "We Hate The Great White Satan" fest.
I'm neither Armenian nor Greek, and don't profess to know much about the subject. But going hot is right...we, as human beings, have to remember these atrocities if we're to stop them from happeneing again. Even in American history, we have plenty enough atrocities to remember, from slavery to the massacres of the Sioux and Cheyenne, the Trail of Tears to My Lai. We, as Americans, haven't always been right, but we have had the moral strength to admit when we're wrong, and to take steps to make sure we don't do whatever it was again. This is one of the many things that have made us the greatest nation in the history of the world. But we do this only because we remember the past. Just because something happened 81 years ago doesn't mean it can't happen again. People will always find ways of doing horrible things to other people unless they remember what's happened before them, and make the decision not to let it happen again.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Go stew on that!
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