Smyrna

Saturday, September 9, 1922 (August 27 according to the old calendar)
At half past ten in the morning, 400 unruly Turkish cavalrymen, led by Kior Behliwan, enter Smyrna.
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In the afternoon, Turkish general Nureddin Pasha, the butcher of Smyrna, as he went down in history, arrives.,
head of a regiment of the regular Turkish infantry
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He goes straight to Stergiadis' headquarters and sets up his command post there.
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His first job is to resolve his old, various
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in 1919, when Nourdin was governor of Aydin, Metropolitan Chrysostomos,
with the support of Captain Mavroudis (captain of the ANTAANT destroyer «Leon»)
succeeded in removing Nourredine Pasha from his position.
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Nourdin was furious and never forgot it.
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So when he settled in Stergiadis's headquarters, he sent for the Metropolitan,
while he gave orders for the Turkish mob to gather outside the headquarters
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and indeed the mob gathered, fanatical
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The Metropolitan arrived and was received by Nourdin in his office.
and
so as not to talk too much
After humiliating Chrysostomos, he handed him over to the frenzied crowd to be lynched...
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I wrote about what followed with the lynching of the Metropolitan in an earlier post, and it is horrifying.
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The Greeks haven't noticed any of this; most of them were locked up in their homes.
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Of course, there were also hundreds of Greek refugees who had arrived in Smyrna,
in recent days,
from their villages in the interior of Turkey,
and they knew what was happening, but the “respectable” society of Smyrna did not associate with them so that they would not find out...
on the contrary,
complained to Metropolitan Chrysostomos
which had been granted to them by the courtyard of Agia Fotini, which was the cathedral of Smyrna,
to camp,
that it was wrong to put them there and that they stank...
(see what I'm talking about later in the song...)
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finally,
Since September 10, the Turkish army has been monitoring the Armenian quarter.
no one may enter or leave,
while
Turkish gangs made up of soldiers and chechens,
upside down,
They knocked on doors and, under the pretext of searching for bombs or weapons, they entered and searched the house.
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They would enter either by force or by breaking down the door, search the entire house, and steal anything valuable they could find.
Then, if you were lucky, they killed you on the spot.
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if you were unlucky, they would let you watch the rape and death of your family first
and then they either blinded you or hanged you or cut you to pieces with their swords....
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Worse luck than even the unlucky,
they had there,
who left them alive and sent them to the amele tabourou...
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The Amele Taburu were the notorious labor battalions in the depths of Turkey...
from there you left either consumptive or dead
For more details, read the book by Ilias Venezis.
“Number 31328” BE AFRAID….
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The next day, September 11, he follows the same plan in the Greek quarter.
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They break into houses and steal, rape, kill,
without mercy,
without humanity,
without a chip
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At some point, they received orders from Mustafa Kemal Pasha not to shoot but to use their bayonets or knives...
He wanted silent massacres... so that the gunshots would not reach the European ships in the port of Smyrna...
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the following day, September 12, after quietly completing the massacres, thefts, and humiliations,
in the evening,
At dawn on September 13, the wind began to blow, and by the morning of the next day, it had grown stronger...
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He was the ideal one,
because
They were opposite the Turkish quarter and next to the Armenian and Greek quarters...
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so,
on September 13, 1922,
the most twisted mind of the era, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, thought
“kill two birds with one stone”
if I burn down and literally turn Smyrna (the Greek and Armenian neighborhoods) into a plot of land
AND
I will cover up the crimes we have committed
AND
I will permanently and irrevocably uproot the Greeks and Armenians from their ancestral homes...
Monstrous...
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IF the houses remained... depending on the geostrategic future, they would
could the Greeks potentially reclaim their homes at some point,
whereas now,
A brand new city will be built from scratch, with new roads, new buildings, new constructions, etc.
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But the air wasn't enough,
so
The Turkish army sprayed the houses with a mixture of oil and gasoline.
and the fire spread rapidly, depending on where they wanted it to go...
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Just like today, exactly 103 years ago, on September 14, 1922,
on the day of the cross,
The entire Greek community of Smyrna is literally being destroyed...
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approximately 55,000 houses in Smyrna were burned down,
of which 43,000 are Greek,
10,000 Armenian
and
2,000 foreign nationals.
In addition, 5,000 shops were burned down, most of which were Greek.
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All this has been recounted by Greeks, Armenians, Americans, and many other foreigners who saw it with their own eyes...
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However,
The best confession came from a member of the Kemalist nationalist movement.
Falih Rifki Atay,
who, in his book «Cankaya,» asks in the first person plural:
«Why did we burn Smyrna?».
And he replies:
«Because we were afraid that if the buildings remained in place, we would not be able to get rid of the minorities...».
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PS. And since I haven't blackened your day enough, here is her testimony
Eleni Karantoni, from Bounairbasi, Smyrna
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«At night, the Chechens attacked to steal, slaughter, and dishonor. ’Help! Help!’
people shouted.
The English ships were opposite.
They were throwing the spotlights.
They stopped for a moment.
At night we wanted to go to our water.
We went a little further out, horror!
We found ourselves in a mess.
All around, bodies were writhing on the edge of the trough, and inside the trough was full of heads.
They took anyone they caught,
they took him to the edge of the pool,
They cut off their heads and threw them into the cesspool, leaving their bodies to writhe around.
It was awesome.
Those who saw it went crazy.
The madhouse was filled with lunatics when we arrived.
That's where we lost my father. My brother was slaughtered in the village.