Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance Read Free Page B

the waiters saying, ‘ Oui, Monsieur le Prince . . .’
    Baedeker’s guidebook particularly recommended the hotel for its ice-cold pilsen beer imported from Munich. The Kraemer Palace also offered German newspapers and had the city’s finest brasserie, serving such specialities as sauerbraden and blanquette d’agneau to a bustling international clientele.
    English, Greeks and Germans coming and going; some [guests] wearing Hindu headgear, others in the latest fashions from London. The Thomas Cook tour was at the table; its guide at the head, making a little speech between each course. They were quite charming, these English, as pink as cooked lobsters with their straw sunhats, veils attached, and a vacant expression that is so characteristic of the English young things, who are always in the habit of going, ‘Ooh!’
    Adjacent to the European area of Smyrna was the vibrant Armenian quarter, home to another of Smyrna’s wealthy communities. The Armenians, who numbered around 10,000, had a reputation for being diligent and conscientious. One of those who lived here – a doctor named Garabed Hatcherian – would later write a chronicle of his life in the city. ‘After three years of hard work in Smyrna I had achieved a measure of success,’ he recorded on the opening page of his notebook. ‘I was doing well, having become the physician of a great number of wealthy families.’ Similar sentiments are echoed time and again in the jottings of Smyrna’s Armenians. They were indeed ‘doing well’ and they had learned to enjoy their bourgeois creature comforts.
    The nearby Jewish quarter had traditionally been one of the most squalid, but by 1909, when Marcel Mirtil visited, it had been modernised and given sanitation. It nevertheless retained the same picturesque quality that had charmed the travellers of the previous century. The women still wore traditional Oriental costumes and had a reputation for beauty, although to Mirtil’s critical eye their girth was rather ‘too opulent’. The Jews were equally at home doing business with Greeks or Turks. ‘Extremely polyglot,’ wrote Gaston Deschamps, ‘they’re able to speak Turkish with the Turks and Greek with the Greeks.’ He was interested to note that among themselves they still spoke a dialect of Spanish, a legacy of their expulsion from Spain in 1492.
    The Americans were rather more recent arrivals. They started to pour into Smyrna in the late nineteenth century and soon became one of the city’s distinct communities. They lived for the most part in Paradise – a large colony on the fringes of the city – and founded important educational and humanitarian institutions, including the American International College, an Intercollegiate Institute, a YMCA and a YWCA. They also owned the Standard Oil Company, whose big steel drum could be seen at the far end of the quayside. The Americans employed many thousands of workers – especially the MacAndrews and Forbes liquorice firm – and were respected for their charitable endeavours.
    They were ably represented by their gregarious consul, George Horton, who was at the centre of every social activity. ‘Teas, dances, musical afternoons and evenings were given in the luxurious salons of the rich Armenians and Greeks,’ he wrote. ‘There were four large clubs: the Cercle de Smyrne , frequented mostly by British, French and Americans; the “Sporting” with a fine building and garden on the quay; the Greek Club and a Country Club near the American college with excellent golf links and a race course.’
    Horton’s easygoing nature and determination to enjoy himself earned him and his fellow Americans much popularity among the Smyrniots.
    Foreign tourists arriving on the daily passenger liners were always taken to the picturesque Turkish quarter of the city, which sprawled up the rocky flanks of Mount Pagus. This area was the most overcrowded and dilapidated, a maze of makeshift houses, cafés, little stores and