The Great Fire (2 page)

R
EV
. A
SA
K. J
ENNINGS
Architect of the rescue

L
IEUTENANT
C
OMMANDER
H
ALSEY
P
OWELL
USS Edsall

A
DMIRAL
M
ARK
L. B
RISTOL
U.S. High Commissioner/Constantinople

C
APTAIN
A
RTHUR
J. H
EPBURN
Naval Chief of Staff/Constantinople

G
EORGE
H
ORTON
U.S. Consul General/Smyrna

D
R
. E
STHER
P
OHL
L
OVEJOY
Saving lives on the Smyrna Quay

L
IEUTENANT
C
OMMANDER
J. B. R
HODES
As a young officer

L
IEUTENANT
A
ARON
S. M
ERRILL
Navy Intelligence

G
HAZI
M
USTAPHA
K
EMAL
Supreme Turkish commander

C
APTAIN
I
OANNIS
T
HEOPHANIDES
Conspires in rescue

T
his is a true story. In creating a narrative account of the events at Smyrna, I have drawn on the reports, letters, and diaries of U.S. naval officers, declassified American intelligence reports, and American and British diplomatic cables. I also have employed the first-person accounts of American missionaries and relief workers and British sailors and officers who witnessed the fire and its aftermath. It has been my good fortune to receive access to the personal papers and letters of key figures in the story—Asa Kent Jennings, Halsey Powell, Alexander MacLachlan, Caleb Lawrence, and George and Nancy Horton. Some of this material had not been previously available. The principal contribution of this book is the astonishing story of the American rescue at Smyrna based on the testimony of those who participated in it. For the broader context against which the forward story unfolds, including background on the Paris peace talks and their immediate aftermath, the discovery of oil in the Near East, the life of Mustapha Kemal and the religious slaughter that swept Turkey in the early twentieth century, I have drawn on the work of numerous eminent scholars and experts including Michael Llewellyn-Smith, Richard Hovannisian, Daniel Yergin, and the late Andrew Mango, who generously responded to my questions in the final year of his life.

Some landscape and seascape descriptions in the book are mine based on numerous visits to key locations in the story. I have relied on contemporaneous newspaper accounts of the catastrophe at Smyrna when those accounts lined up with observations of others who were present.

For the towns and cities of the Ottoman Empire, I have used the names that would have been used by Americans in the story—Smyrna
and Constantinople, for example, rather than the Turkish names Izmir and Istanbul. For the names of Turkish figures, I have chosen English spellings that seemed easiest for English speakers to pronounce. I have rendered Turkish words that have letters that do not appear in the English alphabet in ways that create similar sounds. For example the Turkish
paşa
appears as
pasha
. It is pronounced pash-AH.

I use the term “Near East” because it was the term used at the time of these events. The Near East included the Balkan countries and Greece, Asia Minor (meaning the Turkish peninsula between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, and otherwise known as Anatolia), Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine—the so-called Levant, the eastern rim of the Mediterranean down to Egypt. The Near East also embraced Persia and the Arabian Peninsula. The contemporary term “Middle East” came into general use after the events of this story. I use Turkey and the Ottoman Empire interchangeably as was common in the period. The Republic of Turkey came into existence in 1923.

At the time of these events, most Moslems in Turkey had one name; occasionally a second name was added. Names were typically accented on the final syllable: Must-ta-PHA Ke-MAL. Among the Turks,
bey
was an honorific meaning “sir.”
Pasha
was a general or high-ranking statesman.
Efendi
was a title of respect for a man of high status or education.
Hanum
meant “lady” or “Madame.”

In 1922, the ethnic Greeks of the Ottoman Empire used the Julian calendar; the Turks used the Islamic calendar; and the Europeans and Americans used the Gregorian calendar, which is the calendar used here.