The Burning of Smyrna in 1922

An important story of religious violence one hundred years ago

Lou Ureneck’s book Smyrna, September 1922: The American Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide details the genocide against the Armenians, with emphasis on the political situation. The genocide culminated in the burning of Smyrna.

Below are brief highlights of the political narrative as presented in the book.

Background

Once, a half-million people lived in Smyrna. It was part of the Ottoman Empire but had significant Greek influence. People who knew the city well recalled, in Ureneck’s words,

a dream of lavender-scented breezes, garden parties, dancing, and parasols along the harborfront. Smyrna was an emporium and a seaport and a kind of polyglot city-state inside the Ottoman Empire; it was marble mansions, tobacco leaf and opium cake; it was a long table set with grapes, lamb, eggplants, artichokes, red fishes, caviar, oysters, pomegranate, and cheese; it was rows of busy cafés and coffeehouses; it was folded carpets on the backs of sleepy-eyed camels; it was the sound of the Anatolian lute, the smell of jasmine, and the taste of anise from its favorite liquor, raki; it was Italian opera and Greek operetta and the call to prayer of the muezzin and the…