Constantinople was still smarting from a string of military defeats in the Balkans and in no mood to leap to the defence of the Greeks living in its midst.
‘So far from discouraging them [the irregulars],’ wrote Arnold Toynbee, who was to travel widely in Turkey over the coming years, ‘the authorities armed them, organised them and gave them a free hand to accomplish results which they desired to see accomplished but preferred not to obtain openly for themselves.’
Faced with a complete absence of any protection, the Greeks of Adramyttium found that events quickly began to spiral out of control. ‘What a night we passed you cannot imagine,’ wrote the town’s physician, Dr Charalampides. ‘The sound of shots increased our agony . . . towards dawn, shrieks and lamentations filled the streets.’ Hundreds of Greeks were forced from their houses and sought shelter in the town’s church. ‘The bashibazouks [irregulars] broke open the doors of the houses, attacked and stripped the men of their belongings, robbed the women of their trinkets, insulted the young maidens and drove them all out of the houses with clubs, and then proceeded to loot.’
Dr Charalampides was evicted from his home, getting badly wounded in the process. He made his way to the harbour, along with the other Greeks of the town, and sought passage to the nearby Greek island of Mytilene. When he finally reached safety, he asked himself why the great European powers – which he had long respected – had turned a blind eye to the crisis. ‘I have often wondered how it is that Europe, and especially England, which is so famous for her love of liberty, allows the half-civilised Turks to perpetrate these atrocities and this destruction.’ It was a question that was to be repeated many times over in the years to come.
The sack of Adramyttium was the start of a long summer of persecution for the Greek communities that had lived for centuries on Turkey’s Aegean coastline. Scores of other villages were attacked and their Greek inhabitants massacred or ordered to leave Turkey. As spring turned into summer, the attacks drew ever closer to Smyrna. By June, there were reports that Muslim chettes had landed in Old Phocaea, a mere twenty-five miles to the north of the city. The French archaeologists, Félix Sartiaux and Monsieur Manciet, were working on an excavation at the time of their arrival. ‘I shall never forget the day and night which followed,’ wrote Sartiaux, ‘the cries of the victims, the scream of the bullets, the torture and massacre of old men, women and children and the brutal expulsion of the population.’
The Levantine families in Bournabat read with consternation of the upheaval that was taking place to the north of Smyrna. Yet they remained surprisingly sanguine in the face of such violence. Although these events were occurring less than an hour’s ride from the city, they were confident that they would be safe. It was unthinkable that Rahmi Bey would tolerate the arrival of chettes anywhere near the vicinity of Smyrna.
Their complacency was to be rudely shattered one Saturday morning in late June. Edmund Giraud was sailing the Helen May across to Long Island when he got the shock of his life. ‘On entering the bay shortly before midday,’ he wrote, ‘a most astonishing sight came into view.’ The little Greek village on the island had been overrun: ‘[It was] in the possession of a number of armed Turkish irregulars gathered in groups and loitering about the sea front.’ On the other side of the bay – on land that he owned – there was an even more startling scene. ‘I could see the entire population of the village, about four thousand souls, all herded together within the barbed-wire fences of my hillside.’ When Edmund turned his gaze towards his house, he received the third unwelcome surprise of the morning. ‘My wife, with our Albanian guard, Izzet, was down below at the gate by the sea, keeping a number of
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