But to the Turkish nationalists, Smyrna was a city of infidels. Together, they had created a majority Christian city that was unique in the Islamic world. The city’s vast wealth created centuries earlier by powerful Levantine dynasties, its factories teemed with Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Jews. On Saturday, September 9, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922 By Giles Milton “Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City” is available for purchase here.

By 1923 Smyrna’s demise was all but expunged from historical memory. There followed a massive cover-up by tacit agreement of the Western Allies who had defeated Turkey and Germany during World War I. Turkish forces then set fire to the legendary city and totally destroyed it.

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. In September, 1922, Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the victorious revolutionary ruler of Turkey, led his troops into Smyrna (now Izmir) a predominantly Christian city, as a flotilla of 27 Allied warships– including three American destroyers– looked on. Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City By Marjorie Housepian Dobkin

The Last Treaty by Michelle Tusan