[Review] Giles Milton: 'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922'

Smyrna (now called Izmir) was once one of the Ottoman Empire's great mercantile centres on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. Even during the first world war, it was a place where Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Levantines, and Europeans could live in peace.

Where did it all start, you might ask. The antagonism between Turks and Greeks started probably in Antiquity, but a more modern viewpoint will argue that it all started when Turkey foolishly allied itself to Germany in the First World War. They lost the war and nearly lost their independence. As a result, Constantinople (now called Istanbul) was occupied in 1918 by British, French, Italian, and Greek forces. The humiliation and the implosion of the Turkish army eventually resulted in widespread guerilla warfare, led by Mustafa Kemal, later glorified as Atatürk.

The rebellion gradually morphed into a proper army, and it won a decisive victory over the Greeks in September 1921. Greek military fled to Smyrna until it overflowed with exhausted soldiers. Then all hell broke loose.

Turkish irregulars recaptured Smyrna in September 1922. Four days, later Smyrna was set on fire by the Turks, as many independent eyewitnesses claim. Turkish 'historians' tell their population that the fire was started by Greek 'saboteurs'. The result was that half a million of its inhabitants had fled to the quayside, where they were between a rock and a hard place: hemmed in between the flames and the guns of the Turks.

While Turkish irregulars moved among them, raping, maiming, and killing, Atatürk sat, like Nero once did, watching from a friend's villa in the hills. Children younger than 12 years of age were raped, breasts were cut off, Greeks were set on fire, houses were looted.

In the end, an estimated 150,000 mainly Greeks lost their lives, while the survivors were forced to flee into permanent exile. It was a proper genocide. One of many by the Turks. Maybe the Turks view all non-Turks as being illegal in their country. So, basically Turkey is collectively racist, although their 'historian' will deny that claim.

'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922' tells us about a nearly forgotten tale of the deprivation, carnage and literal holocaust that have been seared into Greek historical memory as the 'Great Catastrophe' (He Megali Katastrophe) - a term that denotes the genocide, expulsion, and erasure of the Greek people from their ancient homelands in Asia Minor.

'Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922' is not for the faint-hearted, but should be read anyway. It's a powerful lesson to us all.

Buy Giles Milton: Paradise Lost here.