Testimony: Charles Dobson (1886-1930)
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Report no 1 (sent from Rome):
The following is a transcription of the document stored at The National Archives, Kew. Ref: FO 371/7949
No. 8 – ARCHIVES. TURKEY CONFIDENTIAL [November 7]
SECTION 4.
[E 12182/9024/44] No. 1.
Sir R. Graham to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. – (Received November 7.) (No. 1009.)
My Lord, Rome, November 2, 1922.
A few days ago the “Morning Post” correspondent here introduced to me the Rev. Charles Dobson, a young clergyman from New Zealand, who has been, until recent events, sub-chaplain of the English church at Smyrna, in order that he should give me an account of his late experiences in that town. I was impressed by Mr. Dobson’s moderation and evident good faith. He carried a testimonial signed by 100 British subjects in Smyrna extolling the great services which he had rendered to them at the risk of his own life. The account he gave me was full and interesting, and appeared to me to throw further light on the Smyrna tragedy. He consented, at my request, to dictate a report on the subject, which I have the honour to transmit to your Lordship herewith.
I have,&c. R. GRAHAM.
_________________________________________________
Enclosure in No. 1.
Report by the Rev. Charles Dobson on Smyrna.
It has been questioned in some quarters whether the Turks were responsible for the fire in Smyrna. During my stay at the lazzaretto in Malta we were visited by the Bishop of Gibraltar, who desired to have a complete account of all that had happened in Smyrna. With five prominent citizens of Smyrna I met him at the Lieutenant Governor’s house. We discussed the matter dispassionately and with full information, and the conclusions that we came to, and which we believe were shared by the whole of the British community, are that there is no question but that the Turks were responsible for the outbreak of fire. I personally believe this, because I had seen for the previous three days the gradual weakening of the discipline of the Nationalist troops. Also, as was pointed out during our interview with the bishop, it is a most significant fact that until within two hours before the outbreak of fire, the wind was in such a quarter that any fire would have endangered the Turkish portion of the city.
It has also been questioned whether the massacres were of such a nature and extent as has been commonly reported. One deprecates the careless use of large numbers, such as 120,000, which have appeared in some newspapers, but from personal experience and from the reports of reliable eye-witnesses, whose testimony can be taken at Malta, the massacres were on a scale unprecedented in modern history. I only saw two men actually killed, but saw many bodies and know of people whose relatives were killed before their eyes. The entry of the Kemalist troops was orderly. Apparently strong discipline was in force in order that they might effectively seize the strategic parts of the city. There was great tension amongst the inhabitants, and I believe in many quarters bombs were thrown at the entering soldiery by terror-stricken Armenians. The roads were congested by about 100,000 refugees, who had been pouring into the city during the previous days. The Turkish troops, on entry, had men preceding some of their forces telling the people to have no fear. Any account that I give must necessarily be from my own point of view, which is individual, and consequently limited. On the Sunday after the entry, in company with an Orthodox priest, I set out to bury the dead around the Point. We found only five bodies, which is evidence of the comparatively orderly nature of the entry; but during the Sunday night there was sporadic firing and screaming, and I believe much killing in the Armenian quarter near Caravan Bridge. On Monday the firing and screaming continued throughout the day. On Tuesday morning, whilst speaking with Captain Hole, vice-consul, in the consulate gardens, we were interrupted by a body crashing from the roof of the adjoining house, followed immediately by the appearance of Turkish soldiers pointing their rifles into the garden. It was an Armenian escaping from the hunt, which, I believe, was then general. With much difficulty and expostulation we prevented the soldiers shooting the man in the consulate gardens. I believe that the hunting of a man even in the consulate gardens is evidence of the massacres that were taking place in more secluded quarters. Colonel Murphy, who was reported to have been the only British subject killed, met his fate while trying to save his servants from violation. He was an old man of nearly 80 years. The Turks humiliated him by stripping him. They jumped on him, stunned his wife by breaking a vase over her head, and then shot him against the wall. He was left wounded for some days and then was brought to the English nursing home by the personal effort of Sir Harry Lamb, but died at midnight on the night of the fire, and his family were forced to leave his body in the abandoned house in order to escape to the ships. On Wednesday morning Sir Harry Lamb personally notified us at the maternity home that the situation was such that all British subjects, including the Maltese, must now leave the city. It was my task to give warning of this notice to people about the Point and down Halepi Street. While doing this it became evident to me that the Turkish soldiery were thoroughly out of hand. Down the side streets there was much shooting and terrified screaming, and some of the narrower streets were choked by running masses of people carrying their children in their arms. In one of the streets a man was dragging himself across the road on his elbows. He was shot through both thighs, one of which was fractured. The panic was so great that nobody answered his appeals. I could do nothing for him myself. Most of the people escaped only with their clothes and such valuables as they were able to carry. Many on their way to the ships were robbed even of their boots. In the harbour were floating the bodies of people who had been killed or had been drowned in desperate attempts to reach the ships. The fire broke out in half-a-dozen places almost simultaneously, and in a short time the whole city, with the exception of one quarter beside the Turkish part, was enveloped in flames. With 800 refugees I went on board the “Bavarian.” Throughout the night boatloads of exhausted and terror-stricken people were being taken off. Nothing – no words – can describe the awful effect of the city, one appalling mass of flames, the water front covered with dark masses of despairing humanity, from whom we in the ships could hear dull cries of anguished despair. There was constantly rattle of small-arm firing, mingled with heavy detonations, which may have been the explosion of spirit stores. On the “Bavarian” escaped also the Archbishop of Ephesus, from whom I learned the true account of the martyrdom of Chrysostonos, the Metropolitan. Next to my family, in the hold of the “Bavarian,” was a woman and her daughter, each of whom had been ravished by fifteen Turkish soldiers. The soldiers then wished to kill them, but spared their lives on the mother asking them to spare them for the Sultan’s honour. I had this girl placed under the care of the doctor of H.M.S. “Iron Duke.” This case is typical of many. In the earlier stages of the flight of the British colony it had been impossible to take one’s Greek servants with one. Many have subsequently learned of the awful fate of these girls. In the lazzaretto at Malta and, I believe, also in Cyprus are many people who can personally vouch for the truth of most appalling massacres in the outlying villages.
Four days before the entry of the Kemalistic troops I called on Chrysostonos at the Metropolite and found him in a state bordering on despair concerning the fate of his people. He gave me a telegram, which he wished sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This telegram was signed by Chrysostonos, the archbishops, including Ephesus, and the Armenian Archbishop, who, I believe, escaped. This telegram I left concealed in a bureau in Smyrna, because in the last stages it was too incriminating to be caught with. The last clause of the telegram was: “For Christ’s sake, hasten to avert the calamity which we feel is approaching.” After leaving the Metropolitan I felt that I could not send this telegram until I had consulted Sir Harry Lamb and Admiral Brock. Sir Harry Lamb was out when I called. I met the admiral, and he agreed with me that it was late to send such a telegram, but he said that if I sent it I should also mention to the archbishop that I had shown the telegram to him, and that he was prepared to do all in his power to afford protection to all sections of the community. I do not believe that the admiral, any more than the rest of us, foresaw how utterly the fears of Chrysostonos were to be justified by subsequent events. I asked the admiral for his permission to publish a message which would allay the terror of the people and help to tranquillise them and avoid provocative incidents in the event of a Kemalistic entry. The admiral said that he believed (as we all did) that if Kemal entered the city the entry and occupation would be orderly, and that he advised the community to avoid provocation. After leaving the admiral I met prominent members of the Microasiatic Defence League at their headquarters. It was disturbing to see at these headquarters that arms were being issued to civilians. I told a small committee the gist of what the admiral had said to me, and, to make sure that there should be no distortion, wrote carefully what he had given me authority to say in his name. In company with a member of the league, I then went to see the Metropolitan. On the way I learned, as rumour has already told us, that a remnant of the army desired to fight in order to hold the city and its environments until such time as the Allies could intervene to induce Kemal to treat without entry. My informant gave me the impression that this defence was only half-hearted. It was to have been supported by civilian recruits and, I believe, by the Greek fleet then in the roadstead. At the Metropolite the mention of the probability of Kemal making an entry was received with consternation. There had been vague rumours of a likely intervention of British troops, and the population had built their hopes on this. The tragedy of my message was this: The press thoroughly distorted it, and the message read that the British admiral had said that there was no cause for fear and advised the people to avoid provocation; while in a subsequent clause, appearing to be part of the admiral’s message, it reported that British troops were on their way from Gibraltar and that five powerful naval units were coming from Malta. I can only believe that this distortion of the truth and the suppression of all mention of the likelihood of Kemal entering the city was done by the Microasiatic League in order to encourage the contemplated defence of the city and its environments. By the next day at midday, however, all thought of resistance was past. In the meantime the Greek population was pathetically awaiting the coming of British help.
Chrysostonos was martyred on the day of the entry. Rumour had it that he was killed by the rabble outside Konak. This is unlikely. The Archbishop of Ephesus told me on the “Bavarian” what he believed to be the true story of his end. The archbishop was in closest touch with him and is likely to know the truth. It appears that Noureddine Pasha sent for him to report to the Konak. An open carriage, accompanied by one soldier, was sent for him. He wished to travel in his own car, which was closed. His wish was overridden by the soldier. On reporting to Noureddine Pasha, he was insulted, his beard was cut, and he was summarily executed. Chrysostonos was truly a martyr, because he had no false optimism and knew what his fate would be at the hands of the Turk. He had many opportunities of escaping, but to do so would have been to deprive his people of what encouragement and moral strength they drew from his presence with them. This he refused to do.
Just previous to leaving, a message came to my home from the Church of Saint John (not the church near the Italian quarter) asking if I could come and spend the night with them, as the night before soldiery had broken into another church and had cut the throats of men and violated women there. I was unable to do anything. On Monday night some women took me to show me carts in which were the bodies of women and babies and also of young girls who had patently been violated before being killed. This is only a brief and personal account of a few of the incidents that remain permanently in one’s memory; but in the course of a month’s ministering to the British community in the lazzaretto at Malta I have heard from people, whose word cannot be doubted, such accounts of murder, pillage and rape that, stripped of all exaggeration and discounting all tendency to hysteria, the accumulative facts are such as to make a truly damning indictment against the Kemalistic troops, who preserved discipline until their own occupation was effectively accomplished, and then apparently deliberately neglected those military precautions which would have ensured the Christian population against the fanatical cruelty and lust of the Anatolian soldiery.
CHARLES DOBSON,
Sub-Chaplain, Smyrna
Report no 2:
I was in Smyrna when the Kemalist troops entered the city. For some days previous to the entry, there was increasing apprehension among the residents. I called on the Metropolitan Chrysostomos and found that he, and those immediately about him, were fearful of excesses when the Turks should arrive. The Metropolitan gave me a message signed by himself and other dignitaries, including the Armenian Archbishop, praying me to get it sent with haste to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an appeal to him to use his influence with the British Cabinet in order to effect treating with Kemal outside the city, or in the event of an entry to insure protection of at least the lives of his people. I regret having left this message in my bureau. It was too compromising to be caught with in the last tragic days. The last clause was an appeal in the name of Christ for haste in averting the approaching calamity. In common with all British people whom I consulted, I did not think the Turks would behave in such a way as to justify the fears of the Metropolitan. However, I took the message to Sir Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, British Naval Commander-in-Chief. The Admiral discussed the matter sympathetically, but pointed out that there was already considerable force on the spot, and that he did not anticipate any but an orderly entry, if the Turks found it expedient to enter at all. He advised me to use my own discretion in cabling the Archbishop of Canterbury. But to any cable sent to add that the British Admiral had sent the message, and, in the event of disorder, was prepared to give all the protection in his power to all sections of the community. It must be borne in mind that there was, at that time, in official circles, no apprehension of horrors of such a magnitude as soon transpired, and that the British Navy nobly redeemed the Admiral’s promise of protection when during the fire and killing, the naval pinnaces and destroyers stood all night into the quay of the burning city and brought off refugees. In some cases, armed pickets penetrated into the city and brought parties back, through the flames and killing. One notable example of such work was the evacuating of the British Maternity Home with all its Greek staff and doctor and lying-in patients. I asked the Admiral for authority to publish in his name a message in the Press. He said that I could tell his opinion, that any occupation would be orderly and that he advised everybody to look after the refugees from the country, who were congesting the city, and to avoid giving any provocation.
I took the Admiral’s message to a meeting of six influential members, at the Headquarters of the Microasiatic Defence League. I was surprised to find at the door of the Headquarters civilians apparently being supplied with bandoliers and rifles. I learned that it was still hoped that a sound section of the retreating army aided by civilian volunteers would be able to hold the city and its environments, until such time as the Allies could intervene to arrange an Armistice. I wrote the Admiral’s message for the Press and left it with these five members of the League; one of them accompanied me to deliver the contents of the message to the Metropolitan. The members had asked me to facilitate their getting an interview with the Admiral, as they claimed to have information of a Turkish plot in the city. I dissuaded them from pressing the matter as there were so many wild rumours current (including the ridiculous one of the contemplated disorders by the then quietly embarking army) that I felt the Admiral had no means of arriving at the truth. I found the Metropolitan full of painful anxiety concerning his people, and not altogether reassured by the Admiral’s statement, since he (and, rightly, as it transpired) felt that he knew the Turks better than British Officers. This is the last time I saw the Metropolitan. He was truly a martyr who died through staying at his post to reassure his people.
I regret that the message given to the Press was very mutilated. All reference to a possible entry by Kemalist forces was eliminated; moreover, in close propinquity, that suggested continuity of the message, was a paragraph saying that more British Naval units were on their way to Smyrna and their transports with soldiers were coming from Gibraltar. I can only believe that those responsible for the mutilation and exaggeration acted so in the hope of adding moral support to the forces prepared to defend the suburbs. If this is so, their action during war is perhaps legitimate, but the consequences were deplorable, because shortly after, the contemplated resistance was abandoned, and the people still looked for the coming of British transports. Perhaps Nureddin Pacha himself was influenced by this rumour, since on the night following the occupation they were not sure that a rumour that British troops were covering the retreat of the Greeks at Tchsme was untrue.
The entry of the Kemalist cavalry came sooner than most of us expected. I personally became aware of their presence while returning from the Consulate through a back street. There was suddenly a lot of screaming, and a woman threw herself on her knees shrieking for protection. Next moment about a squadron of mounted rifles swept round the corner at an easy gallop; some held sabres; most carried rifles at the ready across the crupper. They pulled their horses aside to avoid riding down the woman at my feet. Up a side street I caught a glimpse of horsemen passing along the quay. They were walking and their rifles were slung. Further in the town I heard the trampling of hoofs, some shouting, and two or three shots. When I reached home I found the masses of people in the square full of terror. Already some Turkish civilians were beginning to loot and maltreat the Greek refugees. On the whole the entry seemed to me (speaking with a close experience of actual war) to have been accomplished with very little bloodshed about out part (the Point). I had a feeing of relief that some proper authority had come to take charge of the city. I found a Greek Naval rating hiding in the garden; he would not consider the proposition of surrendering himself to a Turkish Office (I am astonished not that it was ever possible to suggest surrender to the Turk). So I rigged him out with clothes, and, perforce, turned him loose to take his chance. He proudly refused money. Italian mounted reservists were co-operating with Turkish patrols in policing the city. I brought an injured man into my church: he died during the night. Next day, Sunday, I went to the Orthodox Church of St. John, which like all other churches was crammed with refugees, lying in appallingly insanitary circumstances and, terror-stricken, after a night of desultory rifle-fire and screaming. One of the priests volunteered to accompany me to bury the dead. The Turkish police commandeered a cart for us, and even offered us protection. We relied, however, on carrying the Union Jack. We found five bodies near the Aidin Railway Station. I do not think we missed many. With regard to burials, people kept coming to me and showing me bodies thrust behind hedges and in some cases lying in carts. I was particularly struck with one group consisting of women and babies, and a young girl, almost nude, shot through the breast, and with clotted blood on her thighs and genital organs, that spoke only too clearly of her fate before death. These bodies were buried by Orthodox priests. I moved about freely in the city and soon saw the orderliness of the entry was due to the iron discipline, the exigencies of such a military entry demanded. The discipline, as far as relation to the civil population is concerned, became rapidly bad and worse. There was desultory shooting, looting and rape all over the place. The Armenian quarters suffered severely. It was reported that the Armenians refused to surrender arms and were throwing bombs. This may have been so, but, what is undoubtedly true is that the Armenians were constantly being killed in their houses, their women folk ravished and their valuables stolen. In the back streets even nationals of the Great Powers were held up and looted of their money and their valuables. Armenians, gathered in one if their churches, refused to surrender; they surrendered finally on the promise of life for women and children; the men were marched away. We heard at the back of our house, one day, a lot of cheering in which I recognised the Turkish word ‘padishah’ (Sultan). On looking out, I saw about two hundred Greeks or Armenians kneeling and sitting on the road, guarded by Turkish soldiers. I afterwards learned from an absolutely unimpeachable source that these men were subsequently butchered. The method of killing, my informant told me, was by steel to avoid rifle fire. One could give a multitude of isolated incidents, which go to prove the absolute unleashing of lust and savagery among Kemalistic troops. I mention but one: A child brought a message to me from the priests of an Orthodox Church, asking that I might come and spend the night with them in order to give them protection, because they had warning of a contemplated attach on the church, and they knew that on the previous night Turkish soldiers had burst into another church and there mutilated men and violated women. The case of Colonel Murphy, a retired officer of the Anglo Indian Medical Service, illustrates the unbridled brutality of the Kemalist regulars. They broke into his home at Bournabat; they violated his servants, and when he attempted to protect them stunned him with household ornaments. His daughters escaped the fate of the servants by appealing to the officer of the party; he, evidently not able to control his men, could only advise them to hide. Colonel Murphy was stripped and insulted. Finally they stood him up and shot him. His wife, a lady of advanced years, was stunned; after lying wounded for a considerable time, Colonel Murphy was rescued by Sir Harry Lamb and personally, and brought to the English Nursing Home. His wife and daughters were obliged to leave him on the outbreak of fire. He died at midnight and the hospital was evacuated at three in the morning under the protection of strong patrols sent by the Admiral. Hardly anywhere was there immunity for Armenians. While talking in the garden of the Consulate with Captain Hole on the day before the fire, a man leapt into the garden from the roof of the adjoining house. I ran to him as he lay and, after much expostulation, induced the soldiers who had driven him to such a leap, and were now covering him with their rifles, not to shoot him on British territory. On another occasion a prisoner, being led away roped with a number of others, broke his bonds and knelt and kissed my feet. In this, as in other cases, I was powerless to do anything. On the morning of the fire the situation had become so bad that there was a general embarking of Europeans. Sir Harry Lamb came in person to the British Maternity Home to say that it was necessary to leave. He asked me to notify the people whose names were on a list that I had prepared for such an emergency. I was all the morning engaged on this work, and found that my list was incomplete, and in response to the appeals of relatives had to go further afield into the city than I had contemplated doing. In the back streets there was, in some parts, a great running of terror-stricken people, carrying children and bedding; some of them had been injured; one man had his face smashed and his mouth bleeding. There was constantly shooting in the back streets, followed by screams and panic-stricken running. The Turks were openly looting everywhere. One man was shot through both thighs, one of which was fractured, his screams were unheeded by the terror-stricken people. The general atmosphere was terrible, and I began to fear that we might have left our retreat till too late. The fires broke out that afternoon. I was astonished when in Italy, and again here in France, to find how unwilling some circles were to believe the culpability of the Turkish troops in the burning of Smyrna. It seems to me that the firing of the city by the fanatic element of the Turkish Army was the natural culmination of the breakdown of restraints imposed by military necessities, and of the unbridled indulgence of the xenophobia. I have not yet met anybody who was in a position to know the circumstances, who does not contemptuously discredit the assertion that the Armenians fired the city. During a month living in the Lazaretto of Malta as a refugee, I and my fellow refugees have compared experiences, and as a body when we heard of the statement that the Turks were not guilty of firing the city, asked the Bishop of Gibraltar who was visiting us to ask the people of England to suspend judgment until the truth could be known. The Bishop invited us to make a statement to him. We met him at the house of the Lieutenant-Governor. We were Herbert Whitall, senior, Robert Hadkinson with his son and J. Epstein and and the three British chaplains, respectively of Smyrna, Bournabat and Boudjah. A report of our meeting will be found in the letter of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gibraltar in the Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette, No. 2, vol. vi., November, 1922. It should be borne in mind that the considered opinion of these men, unanimously recorded here, is worthy of great respect. None of them was influenced by any consideration other than the upholding of the truth. And all had had exceptional opportunities of hearing the personal evidence of many people. This evidence, stripped of all hysteria, disproportion caused by personal loss, and human tendency to exaggerate, is such as to form a truly damning charge against the Turks, of having so far neglected the enforcing of discipline that their fanatic elements, in an excess of xenophobia, fed by the licence of three days’ looting, fired the city in the hope of driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish elements. It is most significant that the fire shot up in several places with very little intervals of time and pointed to a systematic incendiarism such as only a well co-ordinated movement could have effect. Also, that the city was fired immediately after the changing of a wind that for the previous three days was in the general direction of the Turkish quarter. Any fire, previous to the change, would have swept the Turkish quarters. Independent witnesses, who have been at Smyrna since the fire, speaking of the unsatisfactory and lame stories of the Turks, tend to confirm their guilt in this matter. I have met, recently a nurse who left Smyrna ten days after the fire and who told me of her work in extracting bullets from bodies of wounded children, and who was a witness of the ravishing of Greek women. I mention this to show that the Turkish treatment of the Christian population was not a sudden excess, but a sustained policy. The Reverend Robert Ashe, now Chaplain at Carthagena (Spain) told me of the fate of the Greek priest of Boudjah; his informant was the brother of the Roumanian Consul. According to him, this priest was blinded and then crucified on the door of Mr. Gordon’s house in Boudjah. The Turkish soldiers nailed horse shoes to his hands and feet; he was dead when the Consul’s brother saw him, he kissed his hands and left him there.
I have tried in giving this account to avoid being influenced by hostility to the perpetrators of these horrors. Also, I have omitted many small incidents that carry conviction to my own mind of the barbarity of the Kemalistic forces, but which it might be egotistical to dwell on. The Bishop of Gibraltar in his letter to the Times of November 8 has in measured and restrained language warned his countrymen of the ‘Asiaticness’ of the Turk.
What were the Ottoman reformers and other Muslim Middle Eastern rulers who followed their example looking for? What elements of Western modernity did they accept, and to what extent? In the Middle East the debate about this process and the decisions the process requires has been going on for almost three centuries, probably longer than in any other part of the non-Western world.
Note: The following biography was compiled by Rev. Charles Dobson’s granddaughter, Joanna Hyslop, in July 2009.
Source: Charles Dobson, "The Smyrna Holocaust" in Lysimachos Oeconomos (ed.) The Tragedy of the Christian Near East, London: The Anglo-Hellenic League, 1923.
The following is a transcription of the document stored at The National Archives, Kew. Ref: FO 371/7949
No. 8 – ARCHIVES. TURKEY CONFIDENTIAL [November 7]
SECTION 4.
[E 12182/9024/44] No. 1.
Sir R. Graham to the Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. – (Received November 7.) (No. 1009.)
My Lord, Rome, November 2, 1922.
A few days ago the “Morning Post” correspondent here introduced to me the Rev. Charles Dobson, a young clergyman from New Zealand, who has been, until recent events, sub-chaplain of the English church at Smyrna, in order that he should give me an account of his late experiences in that town. I was impressed by Mr. Dobson’s moderation and evident good faith. He carried a testimonial signed by 100 British subjects in Smyrna extolling the great services which he had rendered to them at the risk of his own life. The account he gave me was full and interesting, and appeared to me to throw further light on the Smyrna tragedy. He consented, at my request, to dictate a report on the subject, which I have the honour to transmit to your Lordship herewith.
I have,&c. R. GRAHAM.
_________________________________________________
Enclosure in No. 1.
Report by the Rev. Charles Dobson on Smyrna.
It has been questioned in some quarters whether the Turks were responsible for the fire in Smyrna. During my stay at the lazzaretto in Malta we were visited by the Bishop of Gibraltar, who desired to have a complete account of all that had happened in Smyrna. With five prominent citizens of Smyrna I met him at the Lieutenant Governor’s house. We discussed the matter dispassionately and with full information, and the conclusions that we came to, and which we believe were shared by the whole of the British community, are that there is no question but that the Turks were responsible for the outbreak of fire. I personally believe this, because I had seen for the previous three days the gradual weakening of the discipline of the Nationalist troops. Also, as was pointed out during our interview with the bishop, it is a most significant fact that until within two hours before the outbreak of fire, the wind was in such a quarter that any fire would have endangered the Turkish portion of the city.
It has also been questioned whether the massacres were of such a nature and extent as has been commonly reported. One deprecates the careless use of large numbers, such as 120,000, which have appeared in some newspapers, but from personal experience and from the reports of reliable eye-witnesses, whose testimony can be taken at Malta, the massacres were on a scale unprecedented in modern history. I only saw two men actually killed, but saw many bodies and know of people whose relatives were killed before their eyes. The entry of the Kemalist troops was orderly. Apparently strong discipline was in force in order that they might effectively seize the strategic parts of the city. There was great tension amongst the inhabitants, and I believe in many quarters bombs were thrown at the entering soldiery by terror-stricken Armenians. The roads were congested by about 100,000 refugees, who had been pouring into the city during the previous days. The Turkish troops, on entry, had men preceding some of their forces telling the people to have no fear. Any account that I give must necessarily be from my own point of view, which is individual, and consequently limited. On the Sunday after the entry, in company with an Orthodox priest, I set out to bury the dead around the Point. We found only five bodies, which is evidence of the comparatively orderly nature of the entry; but during the Sunday night there was sporadic firing and screaming, and I believe much killing in the Armenian quarter near Caravan Bridge. On Monday the firing and screaming continued throughout the day. On Tuesday morning, whilst speaking with Captain Hole, vice-consul, in the consulate gardens, we were interrupted by a body crashing from the roof of the adjoining house, followed immediately by the appearance of Turkish soldiers pointing their rifles into the garden. It was an Armenian escaping from the hunt, which, I believe, was then general. With much difficulty and expostulation we prevented the soldiers shooting the man in the consulate gardens. I believe that the hunting of a man even in the consulate gardens is evidence of the massacres that were taking place in more secluded quarters. Colonel Murphy, who was reported to have been the only British subject killed, met his fate while trying to save his servants from violation. He was an old man of nearly 80 years. The Turks humiliated him by stripping him. They jumped on him, stunned his wife by breaking a vase over her head, and then shot him against the wall. He was left wounded for some days and then was brought to the English nursing home by the personal effort of Sir Harry Lamb, but died at midnight on the night of the fire, and his family were forced to leave his body in the abandoned house in order to escape to the ships. On Wednesday morning Sir Harry Lamb personally notified us at the maternity home that the situation was such that all British subjects, including the Maltese, must now leave the city. It was my task to give warning of this notice to people about the Point and down Halepi Street. While doing this it became evident to me that the Turkish soldiery were thoroughly out of hand. Down the side streets there was much shooting and terrified screaming, and some of the narrower streets were choked by running masses of people carrying their children in their arms. In one of the streets a man was dragging himself across the road on his elbows. He was shot through both thighs, one of which was fractured. The panic was so great that nobody answered his appeals. I could do nothing for him myself. Most of the people escaped only with their clothes and such valuables as they were able to carry. Many on their way to the ships were robbed even of their boots. In the harbour were floating the bodies of people who had been killed or had been drowned in desperate attempts to reach the ships. The fire broke out in half-a-dozen places almost simultaneously, and in a short time the whole city, with the exception of one quarter beside the Turkish part, was enveloped in flames. With 800 refugees I went on board the “Bavarian.” Throughout the night boatloads of exhausted and terror-stricken people were being taken off. Nothing – no words – can describe the awful effect of the city, one appalling mass of flames, the water front covered with dark masses of despairing humanity, from whom we in the ships could hear dull cries of anguished despair. There was constantly rattle of small-arm firing, mingled with heavy detonations, which may have been the explosion of spirit stores. On the “Bavarian” escaped also the Archbishop of Ephesus, from whom I learned the true account of the martyrdom of Chrysostonos, the Metropolitan. Next to my family, in the hold of the “Bavarian,” was a woman and her daughter, each of whom had been ravished by fifteen Turkish soldiers. The soldiers then wished to kill them, but spared their lives on the mother asking them to spare them for the Sultan’s honour. I had this girl placed under the care of the doctor of H.M.S. “Iron Duke.” This case is typical of many. In the earlier stages of the flight of the British colony it had been impossible to take one’s Greek servants with one. Many have subsequently learned of the awful fate of these girls. In the lazzaretto at Malta and, I believe, also in Cyprus are many people who can personally vouch for the truth of most appalling massacres in the outlying villages.
Four days before the entry of the Kemalistic troops I called on Chrysostonos at the Metropolite and found him in a state bordering on despair concerning the fate of his people. He gave me a telegram, which he wished sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury. This telegram was signed by Chrysostonos, the archbishops, including Ephesus, and the Armenian Archbishop, who, I believe, escaped. This telegram I left concealed in a bureau in Smyrna, because in the last stages it was too incriminating to be caught with. The last clause of the telegram was: “For Christ’s sake, hasten to avert the calamity which we feel is approaching.” After leaving the Metropolitan I felt that I could not send this telegram until I had consulted Sir Harry Lamb and Admiral Brock. Sir Harry Lamb was out when I called. I met the admiral, and he agreed with me that it was late to send such a telegram, but he said that if I sent it I should also mention to the archbishop that I had shown the telegram to him, and that he was prepared to do all in his power to afford protection to all sections of the community. I do not believe that the admiral, any more than the rest of us, foresaw how utterly the fears of Chrysostonos were to be justified by subsequent events. I asked the admiral for his permission to publish a message which would allay the terror of the people and help to tranquillise them and avoid provocative incidents in the event of a Kemalistic entry. The admiral said that he believed (as we all did) that if Kemal entered the city the entry and occupation would be orderly, and that he advised the community to avoid provocation. After leaving the admiral I met prominent members of the Microasiatic Defence League at their headquarters. It was disturbing to see at these headquarters that arms were being issued to civilians. I told a small committee the gist of what the admiral had said to me, and, to make sure that there should be no distortion, wrote carefully what he had given me authority to say in his name. In company with a member of the league, I then went to see the Metropolitan. On the way I learned, as rumour has already told us, that a remnant of the army desired to fight in order to hold the city and its environments until such time as the Allies could intervene to induce Kemal to treat without entry. My informant gave me the impression that this defence was only half-hearted. It was to have been supported by civilian recruits and, I believe, by the Greek fleet then in the roadstead. At the Metropolite the mention of the probability of Kemal making an entry was received with consternation. There had been vague rumours of a likely intervention of British troops, and the population had built their hopes on this. The tragedy of my message was this: The press thoroughly distorted it, and the message read that the British admiral had said that there was no cause for fear and advised the people to avoid provocation; while in a subsequent clause, appearing to be part of the admiral’s message, it reported that British troops were on their way from Gibraltar and that five powerful naval units were coming from Malta. I can only believe that this distortion of the truth and the suppression of all mention of the likelihood of Kemal entering the city was done by the Microasiatic League in order to encourage the contemplated defence of the city and its environments. By the next day at midday, however, all thought of resistance was past. In the meantime the Greek population was pathetically awaiting the coming of British help.
Chrysostonos was martyred on the day of the entry. Rumour had it that he was killed by the rabble outside Konak. This is unlikely. The Archbishop of Ephesus told me on the “Bavarian” what he believed to be the true story of his end. The archbishop was in closest touch with him and is likely to know the truth. It appears that Noureddine Pasha sent for him to report to the Konak. An open carriage, accompanied by one soldier, was sent for him. He wished to travel in his own car, which was closed. His wish was overridden by the soldier. On reporting to Noureddine Pasha, he was insulted, his beard was cut, and he was summarily executed. Chrysostonos was truly a martyr, because he had no false optimism and knew what his fate would be at the hands of the Turk. He had many opportunities of escaping, but to do so would have been to deprive his people of what encouragement and moral strength they drew from his presence with them. This he refused to do.
Just previous to leaving, a message came to my home from the Church of Saint John (not the church near the Italian quarter) asking if I could come and spend the night with them, as the night before soldiery had broken into another church and had cut the throats of men and violated women there. I was unable to do anything. On Monday night some women took me to show me carts in which were the bodies of women and babies and also of young girls who had patently been violated before being killed. This is only a brief and personal account of a few of the incidents that remain permanently in one’s memory; but in the course of a month’s ministering to the British community in the lazzaretto at Malta I have heard from people, whose word cannot be doubted, such accounts of murder, pillage and rape that, stripped of all exaggeration and discounting all tendency to hysteria, the accumulative facts are such as to make a truly damning indictment against the Kemalistic troops, who preserved discipline until their own occupation was effectively accomplished, and then apparently deliberately neglected those military precautions which would have ensured the Christian population against the fanatical cruelty and lust of the Anatolian soldiery.
CHARLES DOBSON,
Sub-Chaplain, Smyrna
Report no 2:
I was in Smyrna when the Kemalist troops entered the city. For some days previous to the entry, there was increasing apprehension among the residents. I called on the Metropolitan Chrysostomos and found that he, and those immediately about him, were fearful of excesses when the Turks should arrive. The Metropolitan gave me a message signed by himself and other dignitaries, including the Armenian Archbishop, praying me to get it sent with haste to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an appeal to him to use his influence with the British Cabinet in order to effect treating with Kemal outside the city, or in the event of an entry to insure protection of at least the lives of his people. I regret having left this message in my bureau. It was too compromising to be caught with in the last tragic days. The last clause was an appeal in the name of Christ for haste in averting the approaching calamity. In common with all British people whom I consulted, I did not think the Turks would behave in such a way as to justify the fears of the Metropolitan. However, I took the message to Sir Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, British Naval Commander-in-Chief. The Admiral discussed the matter sympathetically, but pointed out that there was already considerable force on the spot, and that he did not anticipate any but an orderly entry, if the Turks found it expedient to enter at all. He advised me to use my own discretion in cabling the Archbishop of Canterbury. But to any cable sent to add that the British Admiral had sent the message, and, in the event of disorder, was prepared to give all the protection in his power to all sections of the community. It must be borne in mind that there was, at that time, in official circles, no apprehension of horrors of such a magnitude as soon transpired, and that the British Navy nobly redeemed the Admiral’s promise of protection when during the fire and killing, the naval pinnaces and destroyers stood all night into the quay of the burning city and brought off refugees. In some cases, armed pickets penetrated into the city and brought parties back, through the flames and killing. One notable example of such work was the evacuating of the British Maternity Home with all its Greek staff and doctor and lying-in patients. I asked the Admiral for authority to publish in his name a message in the Press. He said that I could tell his opinion, that any occupation would be orderly and that he advised everybody to look after the refugees from the country, who were congesting the city, and to avoid giving any provocation.
I took the Admiral’s message to a meeting of six influential members, at the Headquarters of the Microasiatic Defence League. I was surprised to find at the door of the Headquarters civilians apparently being supplied with bandoliers and rifles. I learned that it was still hoped that a sound section of the retreating army aided by civilian volunteers would be able to hold the city and its environments, until such time as the Allies could intervene to arrange an Armistice. I wrote the Admiral’s message for the Press and left it with these five members of the League; one of them accompanied me to deliver the contents of the message to the Metropolitan. The members had asked me to facilitate their getting an interview with the Admiral, as they claimed to have information of a Turkish plot in the city. I dissuaded them from pressing the matter as there were so many wild rumours current (including the ridiculous one of the contemplated disorders by the then quietly embarking army) that I felt the Admiral had no means of arriving at the truth. I found the Metropolitan full of painful anxiety concerning his people, and not altogether reassured by the Admiral’s statement, since he (and, rightly, as it transpired) felt that he knew the Turks better than British Officers. This is the last time I saw the Metropolitan. He was truly a martyr who died through staying at his post to reassure his people.
I regret that the message given to the Press was very mutilated. All reference to a possible entry by Kemalist forces was eliminated; moreover, in close propinquity, that suggested continuity of the message, was a paragraph saying that more British Naval units were on their way to Smyrna and their transports with soldiers were coming from Gibraltar. I can only believe that those responsible for the mutilation and exaggeration acted so in the hope of adding moral support to the forces prepared to defend the suburbs. If this is so, their action during war is perhaps legitimate, but the consequences were deplorable, because shortly after, the contemplated resistance was abandoned, and the people still looked for the coming of British transports. Perhaps Nureddin Pacha himself was influenced by this rumour, since on the night following the occupation they were not sure that a rumour that British troops were covering the retreat of the Greeks at Tchsme was untrue.
The entry of the Kemalist cavalry came sooner than most of us expected. I personally became aware of their presence while returning from the Consulate through a back street. There was suddenly a lot of screaming, and a woman threw herself on her knees shrieking for protection. Next moment about a squadron of mounted rifles swept round the corner at an easy gallop; some held sabres; most carried rifles at the ready across the crupper. They pulled their horses aside to avoid riding down the woman at my feet. Up a side street I caught a glimpse of horsemen passing along the quay. They were walking and their rifles were slung. Further in the town I heard the trampling of hoofs, some shouting, and two or three shots. When I reached home I found the masses of people in the square full of terror. Already some Turkish civilians were beginning to loot and maltreat the Greek refugees. On the whole the entry seemed to me (speaking with a close experience of actual war) to have been accomplished with very little bloodshed about out part (the Point). I had a feeing of relief that some proper authority had come to take charge of the city. I found a Greek Naval rating hiding in the garden; he would not consider the proposition of surrendering himself to a Turkish Office (I am astonished not that it was ever possible to suggest surrender to the Turk). So I rigged him out with clothes, and, perforce, turned him loose to take his chance. He proudly refused money. Italian mounted reservists were co-operating with Turkish patrols in policing the city. I brought an injured man into my church: he died during the night. Next day, Sunday, I went to the Orthodox Church of St. John, which like all other churches was crammed with refugees, lying in appallingly insanitary circumstances and, terror-stricken, after a night of desultory rifle-fire and screaming. One of the priests volunteered to accompany me to bury the dead. The Turkish police commandeered a cart for us, and even offered us protection. We relied, however, on carrying the Union Jack. We found five bodies near the Aidin Railway Station. I do not think we missed many. With regard to burials, people kept coming to me and showing me bodies thrust behind hedges and in some cases lying in carts. I was particularly struck with one group consisting of women and babies, and a young girl, almost nude, shot through the breast, and with clotted blood on her thighs and genital organs, that spoke only too clearly of her fate before death. These bodies were buried by Orthodox priests. I moved about freely in the city and soon saw the orderliness of the entry was due to the iron discipline, the exigencies of such a military entry demanded. The discipline, as far as relation to the civil population is concerned, became rapidly bad and worse. There was desultory shooting, looting and rape all over the place. The Armenian quarters suffered severely. It was reported that the Armenians refused to surrender arms and were throwing bombs. This may have been so, but, what is undoubtedly true is that the Armenians were constantly being killed in their houses, their women folk ravished and their valuables stolen. In the back streets even nationals of the Great Powers were held up and looted of their money and their valuables. Armenians, gathered in one if their churches, refused to surrender; they surrendered finally on the promise of life for women and children; the men were marched away. We heard at the back of our house, one day, a lot of cheering in which I recognised the Turkish word ‘padishah’ (Sultan). On looking out, I saw about two hundred Greeks or Armenians kneeling and sitting on the road, guarded by Turkish soldiers. I afterwards learned from an absolutely unimpeachable source that these men were subsequently butchered. The method of killing, my informant told me, was by steel to avoid rifle fire. One could give a multitude of isolated incidents, which go to prove the absolute unleashing of lust and savagery among Kemalistic troops. I mention but one: A child brought a message to me from the priests of an Orthodox Church, asking that I might come and spend the night with them in order to give them protection, because they had warning of a contemplated attach on the church, and they knew that on the previous night Turkish soldiers had burst into another church and there mutilated men and violated women. The case of Colonel Murphy, a retired officer of the Anglo Indian Medical Service, illustrates the unbridled brutality of the Kemalist regulars. They broke into his home at Bournabat; they violated his servants, and when he attempted to protect them stunned him with household ornaments. His daughters escaped the fate of the servants by appealing to the officer of the party; he, evidently not able to control his men, could only advise them to hide. Colonel Murphy was stripped and insulted. Finally they stood him up and shot him. His wife, a lady of advanced years, was stunned; after lying wounded for a considerable time, Colonel Murphy was rescued by Sir Harry Lamb and personally, and brought to the English Nursing Home. His wife and daughters were obliged to leave him on the outbreak of fire. He died at midnight and the hospital was evacuated at three in the morning under the protection of strong patrols sent by the Admiral. Hardly anywhere was there immunity for Armenians. While talking in the garden of the Consulate with Captain Hole on the day before the fire, a man leapt into the garden from the roof of the adjoining house. I ran to him as he lay and, after much expostulation, induced the soldiers who had driven him to such a leap, and were now covering him with their rifles, not to shoot him on British territory. On another occasion a prisoner, being led away roped with a number of others, broke his bonds and knelt and kissed my feet. In this, as in other cases, I was powerless to do anything. On the morning of the fire the situation had become so bad that there was a general embarking of Europeans. Sir Harry Lamb came in person to the British Maternity Home to say that it was necessary to leave. He asked me to notify the people whose names were on a list that I had prepared for such an emergency. I was all the morning engaged on this work, and found that my list was incomplete, and in response to the appeals of relatives had to go further afield into the city than I had contemplated doing. In the back streets there was, in some parts, a great running of terror-stricken people, carrying children and bedding; some of them had been injured; one man had his face smashed and his mouth bleeding. There was constantly shooting in the back streets, followed by screams and panic-stricken running. The Turks were openly looting everywhere. One man was shot through both thighs, one of which was fractured, his screams were unheeded by the terror-stricken people. The general atmosphere was terrible, and I began to fear that we might have left our retreat till too late. The fires broke out that afternoon. I was astonished when in Italy, and again here in France, to find how unwilling some circles were to believe the culpability of the Turkish troops in the burning of Smyrna. It seems to me that the firing of the city by the fanatic element of the Turkish Army was the natural culmination of the breakdown of restraints imposed by military necessities, and of the unbridled indulgence of the xenophobia. I have not yet met anybody who was in a position to know the circumstances, who does not contemptuously discredit the assertion that the Armenians fired the city. During a month living in the Lazaretto of Malta as a refugee, I and my fellow refugees have compared experiences, and as a body when we heard of the statement that the Turks were not guilty of firing the city, asked the Bishop of Gibraltar who was visiting us to ask the people of England to suspend judgment until the truth could be known. The Bishop invited us to make a statement to him. We met him at the house of the Lieutenant-Governor. We were Herbert Whitall, senior, Robert Hadkinson with his son and J. Epstein and and the three British chaplains, respectively of Smyrna, Bournabat and Boudjah. A report of our meeting will be found in the letter of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gibraltar in the Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette, No. 2, vol. vi., November, 1922. It should be borne in mind that the considered opinion of these men, unanimously recorded here, is worthy of great respect. None of them was influenced by any consideration other than the upholding of the truth. And all had had exceptional opportunities of hearing the personal evidence of many people. This evidence, stripped of all hysteria, disproportion caused by personal loss, and human tendency to exaggerate, is such as to form a truly damning charge against the Turks, of having so far neglected the enforcing of discipline that their fanatic elements, in an excess of xenophobia, fed by the licence of three days’ looting, fired the city in the hope of driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish elements. It is most significant that the fire shot up in several places with very little intervals of time and pointed to a systematic incendiarism such as only a well co-ordinated movement could have effect. Also, that the city was fired immediately after the changing of a wind that for the previous three days was in the general direction of the Turkish quarter. Any fire, previous to the change, would have swept the Turkish quarters. Independent witnesses, who have been at Smyrna since the fire, speaking of the unsatisfactory and lame stories of the Turks, tend to confirm their guilt in this matter. I have met, recently a nurse who left Smyrna ten days after the fire and who told me of her work in extracting bullets from bodies of wounded children, and who was a witness of the ravishing of Greek women. I mention this to show that the Turkish treatment of the Christian population was not a sudden excess, but a sustained policy. The Reverend Robert Ashe, now Chaplain at Carthagena (Spain) told me of the fate of the Greek priest of Boudjah; his informant was the brother of the Roumanian Consul. According to him, this priest was blinded and then crucified on the door of Mr. Gordon’s house in Boudjah. The Turkish soldiers nailed horse shoes to his hands and feet; he was dead when the Consul’s brother saw him, he kissed his hands and left him there.
I have tried in giving this account to avoid being influenced by hostility to the perpetrators of these horrors. Also, I have omitted many small incidents that carry conviction to my own mind of the barbarity of the Kemalistic forces, but which it might be egotistical to dwell on. The Bishop of Gibraltar in his letter to the Times of November 8 has in measured and restrained language warned his countrymen of the ‘Asiaticness’ of the Turk.
What were the Ottoman reformers and other Muslim Middle Eastern rulers who followed their example looking for? What elements of Western modernity did they accept, and to what extent? In the Middle East the debate about this process and the decisions the process requires has been going on for almost three centuries, probably longer than in any other part of the non-Western world.
Note: The following biography was compiled by Rev. Charles Dobson’s granddaughter, Joanna Hyslop, in July 2009.
Biography of Reverend Charles Dobson, 1886 - 1930 |
Source: Charles Dobson, "The Smyrna Holocaust" in Lysimachos Oeconomos (ed.) The Tragedy of the Christian Near East, London: The Anglo-Hellenic League, 1923.