Paradise Lost
Smyrna 1922 The Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World

Basic Books 2008
by Giles Milton

Sunday, September 21 4:00 pm

ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1922, THE victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. The city’s vast wealth created centuries earlier by powerful Levantine dynasties, its factories teemed with Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Jews.

Together, they had created a majority Christian city that was unique in the Islamic world. But to the Turkish nationalists, Smyrna was a city of infidels. In the aftermath of the First World War and with the support of the Great Powers, Greece had invaded Turkey with the aim of restoring a Christian empire in Asia. But by the summer of 1922, the Greeks had been vanquished by Atatürk’s armies after three years of warfare. As Greek troops retreated, the non-Muslim civilians of Smyrna assumed that American and European warships would intervene if and when the Turkish cavalry decided to enter the city. But this was not to be. On September 13, 1922, Turkish troops descended on Smyrna. They rampaged first through the Armenian quarter, and then throughout the rest of the city. They looted homes, raped women, and murdered untold thousands. Turkish soldiers were seen dousing buildings with petroleum.

Soon, all but the Turkish quarter of the city was in flames and hundreds of thousands of refugees crowded the waterfront, desperate to escape. The city burned for four days; by the time the embers cooled, more than 100,000 people had been killed and millions left homeless. Based on eyewitness accounts and the memories ofsurvivors, many interviewed for the first time, Paradise Lost offers a vivid narrative account of one of the most vicious military catastrophes of the modern age.

Three Questions for Giles Milton:

1. How did you arrive at the title of the book?
The title encapsulates the sense of absolute loss that was felt by the Levantine and American victims of the 1922 catastrophe. When the American expatriate community arrived in Smyrna in the mid-nineteenth century, they developed a deep attachment to the city, particularly to its cosmopolitan population and tolerant outlook. They named their colony Paradise. In the wake of the Greek army’s defeat, they, along with all the other Christian communities of the city, lost everything. The tolerant city of old—the city of a dozen faiths and scores of nationalities—had been wiped off the map.

2. What about this topic drew your interest?
The destruction of Smyrna is one of the great human dramas of the early twentieth century. Half a million refugees were trapped on the quayside, the entire city was engulfed in flame, and twenty-one allied battleships were in the harbor—their captains under strict orders not to rescue the Greek and Armenian men, women, and children who were being tortured, raped, and killed before their eyes.

3. There is currently a great deal of debate in both Europe and America about the Armenian genocide. How will this book contribute to that discussion??
In the course of my research, I looked at many eyewitness testimonies of the Armenian genocide—accounts written by men and women, often American, who were in Turkey at the time. There is no doubt that the systematic ethnic cleansing of Armenian towns and villages was undertaken with the active participation of the Turkish state—including several of the country’s most senior politicians..

GILES MILTON is a journalist and best-selling author of five previous works of nonfiction: White Gold, Samurai William, The Riddle and the Knight, Big Chief Elizabeth, and Nathaniel’s Nutmeg. He lives in London.

The above text is excerpted from Basic Books promotional material.

This event, which is free of charge and open to the public, is hosted by the New England Chapter of the American Hellenic Institute, the Consulate General of Greece in Boston and the Maliotis Cultural Center.