There was so much "history" in the 20th century that it is easy to forget highly significant but more local events which have been lost among the big picture issues of world wars, evil dictatorships and million-strong massacres. The destruction of Smyrna (now modern-day Izmir) in 1922 is one such, and Giles Milton has done us a great favour in writing such a lucid and interesting book, Paradise Lost, about the destruction of this great city.
In outline, after the First World War, Greece, with the support of western governments, invaded Turkey in the hope of establishing a Christian Empire in Asia Minor. By 1922, the Turks had driven the Greeks back and their victory was imminent. The citizens of Smyrna, who inhabited perhaps the most cosmopolitan and multi-cultural city in the region, believed that as was shown many times before in their history, all parties had an interest in maintaining the peace and prosperity of their great city. In particular, they mistakenly believed that the Allied war-ships off their coast would protect them from Turkish retribution. Alas, how mistaken they were, for over the course of two weeks their city was almost totally destroyed, with almost 2 million people falling victim to the catastrophe.
This eminently readable book tells the story of these times through the personal history of many of the city's inhabitants. In particular we read of the luxurious lifestyle of the Levantine trader dynasties whose influence reached into every corner of the city, due to the huge numbers of people they employed. They looked back to Europe for their culture and lifestyle and wealthy European visitors were amazed at the opulence of their lifestyle. This was a world where luxury goods from around the world were common-place, where families decamped in their limousines to summer residences and where Italian operas were performed in coastal band-stands.
The British, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George supported the Greek invasion of Turkey, convinced that aligning Britain with what he expected to be the winning side, would serve Britain's interests well. Although the invasion went well to start with, the Greek army found it increasingly difficult to deal with the deserts of Anatolia and were driven back by the Turks. Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) and his armies swept back through five Greek divisions, and the Greek army was left in disarray, with even the Greek commander-in-chief being captured. Smyrna rapidly became the last refuge of retreating Greek soldiers, but also of thousands of Christian refugees who were fleeing Turkish retribution.
At first the British were reluctant to land British troops in Smyrna to protect British interests, but eventually 200 marines were landed. The Turkish Cavalry soon entered Smyrna, initially a peaceful and ordered force of soldiers. Within the next 24 hours however, discipline had broken down and an observer described a "vision of hell" in the Armenian quarter of the city with mass demonstrations of looting, raping and killing.
A long list of notes and sources at the end of the book shows the in-depth research which Giles Milton put into this book, and leads me to suggest that this book must be the definitive account of these events. Not only does Milton seem to have read every possible book on the topic, but he has sought out original documents in the National Archive, British Library and Imperial War Museum. He has added to existing knowledge of these events by seeking out and interviewing survivors of the sacking of Smyrna, now in their 80s and 90s, including Petros Brussalis, the son of a wealthy merchant family, and Alfred Simes, the son of British family living in Smyrna at the time.
Paradise Lost succeeds in bringing the past to life in a remarkably vivid way. Its personal stories are set in the context of accessible political and military history, and by the end I had learned far more about this era than I knew before, especially in understanding the reasons for present-day Turkish/Greek animosity: it will no doubt take many years even from now for that to fade.
Image above of the Great Fire of Smyrna is taken from Wikimedia Commons.
