Talk:Great Fire of Smyrna/Archive 1

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Comment

This issues has been discussed before on talk page of İzmir article and there was a conclusion that both Turkish and Greek (maybe I should say West) point of views be included in the article and it was edited accordingly.

As expected, neutrality of this page which claims the Turks for the fire is extremely disputed. The page is just far away from being neutral, giving no citations, no trustable sources to be verified and more imporantly the article contains no Turkish point of view at all. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.223.42.85 (talk • contribs) 08:01, 20 April 2006.

Biray Kolluoglu Kirli paper

She is an assistant professor of Sociology at Bogazici University, and has published a slight paper of about 20 pages on the fire which worth mentioning as it contains recent interviews of those having witnessed the fire and some records. (Biray Kolluoglu Kirli, Forgetting the Smyrna Fire, History Workshop Journal 2005 60(1):25-44) The paper supports the thesis that it was the Turks who burned it. I will retrieve the relevent materials when I have more time. Fad (ix) 00:40, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Links

We must put some external and internal links. What do you think? (87.203.188.125 13:11, 6 June 2006 (UTC))

Footnote?

Why is there a footnote? Why not just put it into the article? --Awiseman 07:01, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Because the footnote is on events other than the fire, although a few days separated the two. We can eventually work up another article, with the US Consul's remarks still remaining here for their relevance as a footnote (although the title and the scope of such a supplementary article would be open to discussion). There is a term in Turkish to describe those events, "Anadolu'da Yunan mezalimi", but it will not please to some. In between, I am waiting for the Grescowich report, whose original is in İzmir City Library, to be put online to pursue the missing section. In the meantime, in response to the above user, anyone who wishes to add external links should go ahead. Cretanforever

POV

To me, with no knowledge of this event, Mukadderat's version [2] seems to be the most NPOV. I reverted it to that and added the Turkish telegram saying the Armenians and Greeks caused it. That should be fair, showing all viewpoints. --Awiseman 17:02, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

"Transaction"?

What is that, a telegram? --Awiseman 08:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

What else could it be, SMS? :) Of course it is a telegram. Maybe it could be renamed as Telegram instead of Transaction for the sake of clarity. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 08:00, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll do that. The word "transaction" makes no sense to me in that context, maybe it's a British English thing. --Awiseman 16:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Vice-Consul

I deleted the stuff from the American Vice-Consul in Constantinople, as it had NOTHING to do with Smyrna whatsoever, and only mentioned the interior of Asia Minor. Also is there a source for the alleged time quote? -Kwstis

It has value as element of antecedence (of a few days in this case). When a fleeing army killed and burned and pillaged and raped and etc. all along its way, and if there has been a big fire at the terminus, there would be some justification in raising the question of a possible relationship between the chain of events. I agree that it should be included in this article as a footnote though (as it used to be) and is more relevant on another article treating the larger context of Greek atrocities in Anatolia ("Anadolu'da Yunan mezalimi" in Turkish) between 1919-1922. I did some googling and there is adequate -and international- material on the net. I will start a stub soon.

Regarding your valuable contributions, I have a question. I had never heard of a Turkish commanding officer who took part in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) and who was known by the name of Mehmet Azit. I am not pretending that my level of knowledge is final in the matter. There were two notable Mehmet Aziz in Turkish history, one took that name by obligation in the 16th century, and the other, Abdulhamid II's grandson, was 1905 born. I googled a possible Turkish military commander named Mehmet Azit (as well as the possible variants), and the only sources that mention him are Greek propaganda sites. I suspect him to be a comrade of the 1909 Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha, of Pontian Greek Genocide fame [3], another leading personality of the Turkish history who, to this day, remains unknown to common Turks. Some Greek sources indicate Mehmet Azit as having been quite active during that genocide too. Therefore I gather that, first he killed Pontian Greeks (in the 1910's) and then he came to İzmir in 1922 to burn the city. That he could remain so obscure for the posterity is amazing. You would find it strange too, wouldn't you? As for the Turkish PM Sefker Pasha, there certainly was a Turkish (Ottoman) PM in 1909 but his name is something else.

Could you please enlighten me on these two notable Turkish personalities (military commander Mehmet Azit and, if possible, the Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha)? As I said, never heard of them. I am still counting a Lapsus Calami as a possibility.

Cretanforever

What has happened to this article

Unless I am suffering of hallucination, it seems that references I personally added were removed. Can I have some explanation as to why this was done? Thanks. Fad (ix) 17:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Which specific references? -Kwstis

This article has become a dumping place for original research interpretation. As for being specific, I will leave the person who deleted them to add them back. The totallydisputed tag will remain as original research and POV are introduced in this article. I didn't knew that the ethnicity of scholares are now raised in scholarly published reviews as elements to dismiss ones academic contribution. Fad (ix) 21:29, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Which statements, so they can be fixed? --Awiseman 15:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The quotes by two Turkish intellectuals of that time close to the nationalist power who claims it was the Turks who burned the city, or the deleting Prentiss testimony where he says having seen Turks burning it and the information about him changing his version after being instructed by his superiors (Bristol, who reportdly also forced many others to change their versions more particularly on the massacres of Armenians). There are few other things which have been deleted.--Fad (ix) 21:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it Smyrna or Izmir

This is debatable. Since the Greeks held the city, it was Smyrna, but the fire happened after the Turks took it over, right?. I mean, to me it doesn't really matter, but people seem to get up in arms about this. --Awiseman 20:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

It was still widelly called Smyrna during that period, it is English Wikipedia and it was not called Izmir in English publications during the period covered. There is nothing political there, it should be a simple matter.--Fad (ix) 21:25, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to decided one and for whether to use Smyrna/Izmir or Constantinople/Istanbul in this article. I personally lean towards Smyrna and Constantinople, as there were in use in English during the time period and furthermore Ataturk did not officially change the names of the cities until the 1930s.- Alexius Comnenus

There is no general use in that form in English: I advice you to go http://maps.google.com/ and type Symrna, you will see only one place in GA not in Turkey, instead, if you go and type Izmir , You will reach to Turkey and Turkish links. On the other hand, if you type Constantinople in http://maps.google.com/ , you will end up 28 links with USA not with Turkey. However, if you type Istanbul in googlemaps you will be absolutely directed to Turkey. In addition if you notice that I am using Turkey instead of using Turkiye (which I am opposing but absolutely widely used in English) and also not writing Yunanistan instead of Greece. This means I am seperating my objective and subjective. I advice to do so, otherwise we can not reach a consensus. Zkaradag 14:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

See straw man. Khoikhoi 06:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits...

Is it just me, or is the article now incredibly POV? I love it how now there's no mention of Chrysostomos of Smyrna in the article... —Khoikhoi 21:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC) I would like to discuss any part of the article to be a POV. All of the information given were taken from cited resources, there may be missing information but no false information. There's actually some notice about the Chrysostomos on Atatürk's telegram and it's known that he's been lynched by the angry mob on the street, I'm currently progressing some details about how it's happened, will be available soon. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 08:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It is, it is generally accepted that the nationalist Turkish forces who burned the Armenian and Greek quarters, this editor is switching the majority view as a minority view by supressing its sources and making them as few while transforming the article into a quote dumping place.--Fad (ix) 21:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Saying that "it is generally accepted that the nationalist Turkish forces who burned the Armenian and Greek quarters" is a POV itself. There's too less of a wievpoint here, what you see and read are solid evidence, first hand history from official eyewitness accounts. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 08:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I tried to remove some of the clearly NPOV stuff from the recent edits, but there's definitely more now in favor of the Turkish viewpoint. --Awiseman 21:58, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree and think that the article is better now with your edits. However you can't blame the facts just because most of them point out the Turkish aspect. Turks burning their own city is completely illogical from the beginning. Now the aim should be removing the "disputed" tag from the article with a consensus and I'll be glad to show the best effort I can for this purpose. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 08:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. However, I removed some things you put back, such as the part saying Hovsepian "cannot be thought of as an impartial source." Wikipedia is not here to make that judgement. Just saying she's Armenian and so on will leave it up to the reader whether to believe her account or not. --Awiseman 14:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I think your most recent edits after my reversion are good. What does everybody else think? --Awiseman 15:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain that there are slight differences of meaning between words as you may agree. For instance a source may be partial (belonging to any of the parties: Turks of Armenians & Greeks) however suprisingly neutral. The judgement of calling a source "neutral" is an absolute POV. However any source which is not a member of the conflicting groups can objectively be stated as impartial (i.e. not a part of any). Yet it may not be considered as neutral even though it's impartial, that again is a POV. A similar shift of meaning is also present when you replace the word "ignore" with "disagree". Neither Houspevian nor Horton does comment on the official report by Grescovich. They tend to act as if such a report doesn't exist, which is ignoration. If they've had statements or comments on Grescovich's report then it could be decided as agreement or disagreement. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 15:47, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I still think it should be "may be impartial", as who knows if he is more favorable towards one group or the other. As for the ignore/disagree thing, I think disagree is better. Ignore to me means something active - you have to choose to ignore something, where as "disagree" doesn't necessarily mean it's on purpose or that you are actively saying "No, you are wrong." Maybe Hovsepian and Horton just never read Grescovich's report, or didn't choose to address it for whatever reason. They're not "ignoring" it unless we hear otherwise. --Awiseman 15:55, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I changed "ignore" to "do not agree." To me, that's the most neutral. --Awiseman 16:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually I think just the opposite: ignorance is more like passive when compared to disagreement. To "disagree" you have to have an opinion, to have an opinion you have to have some information about the subject (the report). However as you have stated they may be unaware of such a report which can be called as ignorance in that case, again it's a passive situation. The other situation "not addressing it for whatever reason" is exactly what one calls as "ignoring". I still kindly insist on "ignore" rather than "disagree" (or "do not agree" they're exactly the same). About the impartial/neutral thing, though they may be closely related to a high percentage one does not necessarily means the other, you're a native you should know the nuissance even better. Calling a source as impartial does not include an atom of POV as long as the source does not belong to any of the conflicting parties; it is completely objective. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 16:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Ignorance can be passive, but ignore is active - you have to know something is there to ignore it. Ignore does not mean "does not know." Disagree isn't an active thing necessarily, it just means the two things aren't in agreeance. I actually made a mistake in my previous comment, I changed "disagree" to "does not match" which I think is a better way of putting it. In any case, we're both trying to say the same thing, I think it's just a difference in English usage. --Awiseman 16:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The majority position

Falih Rifki Atay: Gavur [infidel] Izmir burned and came to an end with its flames in the darkness and its smoke in daylight. Were those responsible for the fire really the Armenian arsonists as we were told in those days? ... As I have decided to write the truth as far as I know I want to quote a page from the notes I took in those days. ‘The plunderers helped spread the fire ... Why were we burning down Izmir? Were we afraid that if waterfront konaks, hotels and taverns stayed in place, we would never be able to get rid of the minorities? When the Armenians were being deported in the First World War, we had burned down all the habitable districts and neighbourhoods in Anatolian towns and cities with this very same fear. This does not solely derive from an urge for destruction. There is also some feeling of inferiority in it. It was as if anywhere that resembled Europe was destined to remain Christian and foreign and to be denied to us.

Falih Rifki Atay, Cankaya: Ataturk’un Dogumundan Olumune Kadar, Istanbul, 1969, 324–25, he also accuses Nurettin Pasha.

And here from a war veteran: Whatever, I forget the day, we entered Izmir. From the barracks square until Alsancak, all that seaside [is] full of gavur carcasses. Our soldiers have killed them all with bayonets. There were seven fleets across Pasaport. English, French, Greek fleets. All the Greek gavur are throwing themselves into the sea. They are yelling ‘help’. Even the fleets couldn't save them. The place of the Fair was a Frank cemetery. The Armenians and the gavurs didn't give up their houses. The irregulars burnt all those houses. Bombs were exploding, rifles were fired. Most of the gavurs and Armenians burned alive.

Cumhuriyet’e Kan Verenler, ed. Nail Ekinci, Derman Bayladi, Mahmut Alptekin, Istanbul, 1973, p. 101

Süleyman Külçe, in his 1946 biography of Mareshal Fevzi Çakmak, cites him as accusing Nurettin Pasha and writes that he "..was responsible for the massacres and the fire."

Those are few relevant materials from Turkish sources.

‘’The estimations on the total casualities ranges from 2,000 by impartial sources to 100,000 by Armenian and Greek writers.’’

Most sources I am aware of provide as a range of victim over 20,000, and even over 100,000. Here is what a Turkish author writes: ‘’ There are no reliable figures for the number of refugee arrivals or for the population of the city in 1922. Journalistic estimations frequently agree on 50,000 refugees. According to United States official sources, there were around 150,000 refugees in the city during the first week of September and this number rose to 300,000 as of 13 September.22 We also have no reliable figures for casualties during the fire, or for the killings that took place after the Turkish army came into the city, though to make an educated guess at this we can use the number of people who survived to leave the city. Harry Powell, commander of the USS destroyer Esdall, reported to Admiral Mark L. Bristol, US High Commissioner to the Ottoman Empire, that by 1 October a total of 213,480 refugees from Smyrna had been transferred to Athens, Salonika, Mytilene, Chios, and Samos. While 21,000 of these were British, French, and Italian nationals, the majority were Greeks. Taking into consideration that the 231,480 figure in all likelihood includes those who were hiding in the villages surrounding Izmir and who flocked to the city only after the Turkish army's deadline for the evacuation was set for 30 September,23 and that it also reflects the non-Muslims who managed to flee, we can estimate that the casualties were no less than 100,000.’’ Biray Kolluoglu Kirli, Forgetting the Smyrna Fire, History Workshop Journal 2005 60(1):25-44

True about Kinross estimates at 2000(which is Bristol’s personal fabrication), but also is it true that Kinross changed his misguided version after reading Marjorie H. Dobkin work, Dobkin who’s half Armenianess is placed avant scène and dumped as just another Armenian scholar, when the work largely only provide archival materials and also from the same fire department that this article quote as having placed the responsibility on the Armenians while there were reports of Turkish irregulars throwing petroleum while on the other front the fire was fought and that all the 12 Greek employees of the fire department were arrested and prevented to fight the fire on the Armenian and Greek quarters. In fact, 2000 is not Kinross estimate, it was Bristol’s estimate which was recycled by Kinross. Bristol afraid of the damages the fire will creat between the American and Turkish relation was forced the cable a press release in which he wrote: ‘’it is impossible to estimate the number of deaths due to killings, fire, and execution, but the total probably does not exceed 2,000.’’ He also requested fabricated reports. But Horton on the other hand wrote that of the 400,000 Ottoman Christians before the fire, 190,000 were unaccounted for by October 1. He decided to halve that figure to preserve a conservative figure. 100,000 is thosefor what most sources point to.

Also, Kertenkelebek deleted Prentess first report, in which he wrote: "Many of us personally saw—and are ready to affirm the statement—Turkish soldiers often directed by officers throwing petroleum in the streets and houses. [U.S.] Vice-Consul [in İzmir] Maynard B. Barnes watched a Turkish officer leisurely fire the Custom House and the Passport Bureau while at least fifty Turkish soldiers stood by. Major Davis saw Turkish soldiers throwing oil in many houses. The Navy patrol reported seeing a complete horseshoe of fires started by the Turks around the American school."

Upon the insistence of Bristol he revised his version, the version which of course Kertenkelebek without managing highlight.

Those are few examples, there are also the reports of massacres prior to the fire and also the fact that the Armenian and Greek quarters were those burned and that they were burned after that the Greeks and Armenians refused to respect the ultimatum and leave the city.

I could provide wide range of other relevant materials, but I don’t have time, just to lastly note that Paul Grescovich report has never been official submitted and classified as such, it is part of the collections of Bristol papers at the archive department. It says a lot about its credibility, when there were reports from the fire department implicating closely Nurettin Pasha.--Fad (ix) 21:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Majority position? Doubt it! You reject the neutrality of an impartial official document based on the idea that he may have favoed one side (for what by the way?) yet you expect an armenian propagandist writer to be neutral and credible??? Incredible! Assuming your good faith you're either so naive or just stupid. What about Prentiss then? he was a member of the "Near East Relief" and he was sent there to watch over the armenians, why should he fabricate such a thing in the first place? The Turkish soldiers claimed to have been seen burning houses were clearified as disguised armenians by eyewitnesses including Grescovich. Moreover Horton was turned out to be a liar while saying that he saw Tukish soldiers pouring petroleum near the US Consulate by Prentiss as an eyewitness. What about the British Consul and the refugees? Do you really think burning and destructing your own city (after regaining total control) with all its wealth and resources is a logical thing to do? Why am I expecting anything logical from you anyway? Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 23:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The illogical me out there is replying. You have just confirmed above my suspicions about your intentions. I am neither Naive nor Stupid, but believe me I would have preferred either than being an ultra-nationalist POV pusher who would decide to taint an entire article by deleting entire sentences and adding up original research disguised as neutral information’s. Did you even read carefully my above post? Prentiss first reports (and not only one, I only provided one example there) were completely different than the one which he wrote AFTER being advised by Bristol to change his version, and if need be I could provide various other examples of Bristols reported forced request on missionaries to change their versions or even bare access to their reports. Bristol was sent there to defend Chester concession and that pro-Bristol's like Thomas A. Bryson (See Thomas A. Bryson, Admiral Mark L. Bristol, an Open-Door Diplomat in Turkey International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Sep., 1974), pp. 450-467) don't even deny Bristol being only motivated in securing and advocating Turko-American contracts at least makes that clear. You claim being in a science discipline, fine, just as me. I don't know where you have graduated or how you have graduated, but I have never read in any peer-reviewed paper as sole critic of ones thesis his or her ethnicity. Dobkin is a respected academician, her work was praised and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. For you to discredit her by a single sentence placing her ethnicity as a critic not only is original research(as I haven't read a single critic of her work based on her ethnicity) but simply reach racism. I quite frankly have hard time imagining Hilberg's voluminous work on the Holocaust being reduced in a peer-reviewed publications review section to his ethnicity as being Jewish.

Suppose I pretend to assume good faith, here I will add a few more.

Nino Russo (a ship’s engineer in an Italian battleship anchored in Smyrna harbor during the fire) states: “There were so many bodies in the water you couldn’t count. Everybody, …all the bigshots, the Capitan, all those people going back and forth to shore, they knew and they reported that the Turks were burning Smyrna. All the crew, we all knew it was the Turks."”

Miss Mills (from the Smyrna collegiate institute): “I could plainly see the Turks carrying tins of petroleum into the houses, from which, in each instance, fire burst forth immediately afterward. There was not an Armenian in sight, the only persons visible being the Turkish soldiers of the regular army.”

The Greek firmen were arrested because they were attempting to fight the fire in the Armenian quarter, after the arrest, it was then that the fire became out of control. Here is what Greek firemen had to say. Sergeant Tchorbadjis (Smyrna fireman): “[I] saw a Turkish soldier, well armed, setting fire to the interior…In all the house I went into I saw dead bodies…At another house there was a girl hanging from a lemon tree in the yard. There were plenty of armed soldiers going about. One of them went in where there was an Armenian family hiding and massacred the lot. When he came out his scimitar was dripping with blood. He cleaned it on his boots and leggings.” Fireman Emmanuel Katsaro attempted to stop Turkish soldiers who were pouring petroleum in a house, he was answered: “You have your orders (to stop the fires) and we have ours. This is Armenian property. Our orders are to set fire to it.”

Chicago reporter John Clayton: “Except for the squalid Turkish quarter, has ceased to exist. The problem of the minorities is here solved for all time. No doubt remains as to the origin of the fire…The torch was applied by Turkish regular soldiers.”

And no, Turkish officials being seen were disguised Armenians has never been confirmed. This news originated from the Kemalists rumors at that time, after that it was highlined that their prior version about the Greeks having burned the city was not making sense as the army evacuated clearly before the fire was set. This rumor was later recycled by Bristol after his cabled minimization of the event on the faces of the obvious refugee crises was hardly convincing.

There are Turkish veteran testimonies confirming who was the responsible, and the large body of witnesses all say one thing, including Prentiss who made a 180 degree turn and entirely changed his version. And yes! Majority position, just let try me, just provide every Western works you could find placing the blame on Armenians or Greeks, and I will do the same by providing those placing the blame on the Turks, it will clearly be obvious that there is a clear disproportion between both positions.

As for your favoured argument, which is why the Turks will burn their own city. This is the whole point, had the Greeks and Armenians been those who burned it, they would obviously burn the Turkish quarter which was next to army supply with petroleum stock reserves which were at no time threatened. But instead it was the Armenian quarter followed by the Greek quarter which burned, and this just after that the Greeks and Armenians made it clear that they had no intention to leave the city. The Turkish army had actually to enter houses by houses to force the Armenians out, and this even after one section of the quarter was burning and that on the other section still the Armenians had no intention to get out and leave.

Also, not to exclude that every methods were tried to push the Armenians out of the city, including murder, butchery, massacres etc. Here few relevant information’s on that too.

Major Davis of the Red Cross (from Smyrna - in a cable to Admiral Bristol): “Refugees must leave the country or be taken away. Safety of life not assured. Believe this is final decision of the Nationalist Government as solution of the race problem.”

Asa Jennings (assistant to the YMCA director at Smyrna): “People were injured and killed…the Turks shot at anything that moved.”

French officer in Smyrna noted on 13 September 1922: “The Armenian quarter is a charnel house. In three days this rich quarter is entirely ravaged. The streets are heaped with mattresses, broken furniture, glass, torn paintings. Some young women and girls…have been taken away and put into a house that is guarded by Turkish sentries. There are no men in this quarter; all are dead, or hiding, or they have been taken away.”

Horton a liar, well, most witnesses were then liars too. But then, it is to noone here on Wikipedia to tell who lies. The fact of the matter is that Prentiss first reported he say the Turks doing it, and after the insistence of Bristol changed his version. Also another fact remain, the only copy of the director of the fire department is attached with Bristol personal papers. Beside Bristol and his limited sphere of influence, most (which is the majority position) believe the Turks burned the Armenian and Greek quarter. And had either the Greeks or the Armenians done that, the Turkish quarter would have been the first target, while that quarter was never threatned.--Fad (ix) 06:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not telling that neither Horton nor Dobkin were liars in the article, it's not even said that they're not neutral but the fact is that they're not impartial sources, it is the reader to decide whether they're neutral or not. Besides I'm not pushing only one side of the story, if I were I would simply ignore both Horton and Dobkin.

"The Turkish army had actually entered houses by houses to force the Armenians out", well yes because in many of the armenian and greek houses (even in the armenian hospital) there were stacks of arms and they were waiting for an opportunity for a last counter attack which will only change the number of the casualities nothing more. It's war time still, what do you expect? Do you expect the armenains who back-stabbed their country by supporting Russia against Ottoman Empire and who are still in fight with the muslims to sit still and do nothing? Do you have any idea about the brutalities that armenians and greeks inflicted upon the Turkish during the invasion of İzmir? I'm quite sure you have not. Let's make one thing clear: I'm not supporting the idea that Turks were all innocent angels but armenians and greeks slaughtered and tortured them all, neither the oppposite. Again it was war time, every side had their casualities, every side had their tales of atrocities. I'm not telling that no Turkish soldier has ever killed an innocent civilian, but so did the armenians (before your so-called genocide) and greeks (during their time in Anatolia) at their own times, neither could be rightful or justified. But the thing about fire is that, there's no essence of logic in burning down the richest quarters of your own city by your own hands. Can you imagine what would be the fate of a greek or an armenian trying to enter the Turkish quarters at that time? They were so hated because of their atrocities during the invasion among the Turkish people how can one survive in the Turkish quarter? Besides there was nothing worth such a risk in the Turkish qurter, they were mostly poor people who had nothing but their freedom at last. However greeks managed to burn out every Turkish settlement on their way while retreating to İzmir (see greek scorched earth policy). Anyway, for the rich armenians and greeks the situation was totally different. They knew they couldn't live as they did in the city anymore (because of the atrocities they've caused) and the ones which are not plnning a counter attack were already leaving the city; so what they did was to burn out every piece they had to leave behind. But unfortunately you're so determined with the idea that stupid Turks burned out their own city, you can't think throughly to see the big picture. Yet I don't blame you since all the armanians are brainwashed from infancy with an anti-Turkish education/culture it is really hard for one to see beyond it. Though you may still support that armenians were totally innocent, neither side was, but when it comes to the destruction of the city, based on the facts and logic, armenians and greeks have the bigger part of the blame. Kertenkelebek^Ⓣ 09:03, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

If intellectuals in Turkey with above 140s IQs are like you, it either support the claim that the IQ test should better be standardized, or either explains Turkeys current situation. With all the capitalisation you’ve made to write the word Turk, one can not anymore assume that your reason for not capitalising the word Armenian and Greek is simple accident. If you truly want to talk about ‘Armenian backstabbers’ feel free to do so on the Armenian genocide entries talk page and spare us all this trash throwing here. You have already scrapped the article beyond repair unless it is completely rewritten.

Also, if you want to discuss about a subject and request contribution, the least you could do is to read carefully about the topic and stop making up things. The Turkish army did not enter in Armenian and Greek houses in Smyrna to search guns. They entered and as it is reported and even official by a circular telegram, to place in application the Ultimatum against Greeks, extended also to the Armenians since they were refusing to leave the city. The Turkish army at first tried to evacuate the Armenians as it was done in Anatolia, since previously the order of their evacuation were not put to application because the German General Sanders has requested immediate end to it.

The logic you are talking about depicts rather a refusal from your part to think a little more. The Turkish quarter WAS NOT burned, in fact it never was threatened, the 12 Greek firemen who were fighting the fire were all arrested AND PREVENTED to fight the fire, all those who were interviewed without exception were telling that while they were trying to fight the fire Turkish soldiers were throwing combustibles and terrorising the Armenian population in the Armenian quarter, THE SAME WHO WERE WITNESSED BURNING, were also terrorising the Armenians and killing them, this was witnessed by every sides. It truly takes brain damage to think that Armenians dressed as regular Turkish soldiers would not only burn their own quarter, without even previously securing millions of gold mark worth of merchandises and belongings, but that they will actually start murder, rape of Armenians. Even during the fire while one section of the quarter was in flame, the Turkish regular army was there on the section still spared attempting to force the ultimatum and Armenians refusing to leave the city, and only then was the fire nourished to then take the rest of the quarter to force the Armenians out. The Armenian, Greek quarters and ALSO the American, Italian, British, French section have all burned, while the Turkish quarter was never, ever threatened. You keep talking of logic, but in the process you are discrediting this regurgitated argument.

And please for your own sake, before throwing nonsense to justify the sparing of the Turkish quarter, brag a map of Smyrna and check it. The Armenians and Greeks from the back of their respective quarter had even access as far as the Jewish section of the city, now imagine the Turkish one, there were not a single recorded event in which there was ANY combustible poured there neither a fire started. Your interpretation is original research it has no place in the article.

Here few more original research which you injected in the article and hijacked it.

Thousands of civilians (including Greek, Armenian and Turkish)

Turks? How so? You place the Turks there as if they were victims of the fire, while it was the Armenian and Greek quarters along with the foreigners section which were burned.

The estimations on the total casualities ranges from 2,000 by impartial sources to 100,000 by Armenian and Greek writers.

I have provided one example coming from a Turkish author who claims 100,000, and this is the figure mostly used, while 2,000 was the figure cabled by Bristol.

Kinross is presented there as supporter of the theory of chaos, but nothing is said regarding the fact that he did change his version after reading the archival records provided by Dobkin, a work which obviously you have not read.

Accounts proposed by some Greek an Armenian writers state that the Turks burned the Armenian and Greek quarters, and Nurettin Pasha is accused of starting the fire deliberately in an act of retribution. There exist conflicting eyewitness accounts and evidence over who started the fire.

You hijack the article again by minimizing the majority position as simply being what some Armenian and Greek writers say, the accusation on Nurettin is supported by various Turkish testimonies, one among the close confident of Ataturk.

Accusations against the Turks are largely based on the 1926 account given by George Horton[3], the U.S. Consul in the city during the three years of the Greco-Turkish War, as well as the content of the 1972 book by Armenian originated writer Marjorie Housepian Dobkin[4].

This is simply not true, there are various records from the Annuals Reports of the American Navy department, including the Italian archival records. Various British and French witnesses too. As for Dobkin she’s an American academician, she is neither born in Armenia neither raised there, and one of his two parents was Armenian does not undo her other half, neither her nationality. I know in Turkey Armenians are accused of conspirationists controlling the public opinion and that they are seen everywhere, but this is not Turkish Wikipedia.

The rest of the text is simply full of misleading informations and which is pointed at one direction, accusing the Greeks and Armenians for having burned their own quarter instead of the Turkish one.

First, you deleted the first report of Prentiss, then the section of scorched earth policy, which was also practiced by the Turkish army, not to say the burning of a section of the Armenian quarter of Marash, neither the burning and flaming of Armenian population section of Anatolia to force Armenians out. Then what happened in cities surrounding Smyrna is quoted, making the link is simply original research.

Lamb is introduced there, but without any mention that this has never been confirmed and was provided by Colonel Rachid Kalib, who was one of the prime figures of that time who was charged to accuse Greeks and Armenians. I will check for The Times, 6 October 1922. Firing of the Town, Plymouth. But the most ridiculous of all is the trash report of September 25, 1922. MacLachlan was beaten by Turkish soldiers alongside with his colleagues who even received gun shuts, I also question the authenticity of this quote as it contains the word terrorist which was only first used in that sense in 1947.

Finally, those are few examples, yes, again, I stress to the fact that the majority position is that the Turks set the fire, and I have already challenged you to provide every non-Turkish books which accuses the Armenians or/and Greeks, and I shall do the same for the Turks. Finally, keep in mind that you could repeat using the word logic, bold it or use it as mantra, it won't change the fact that you have scrapped the article.--Fad (ix) 18:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

This is almost too much to read. Fad(ix), if you think those are good sources, add them. More opinions on the matter are good, I think. --Awiseman 18:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Fadix and anti-Turk bias, why am I not surprised? Possibly because you pull this BS at every single page, but regardless. If you add biased sources, they'll be reverted. There's a difference between presenting different information and absolute one-sided propaganda. And for the record, just by calling Horton unbiased you show your true colors. MonsterOfTheLake 04:48, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

ok lets say greeks didnt burn

then who the hell burned my village in Bursa-Inegol there was a hellenic garrison near the willage and no turks ever lived there. In Bursa (first capital of Ottoman) most of the villages have been burned also no one talks about it just some large villages with their own militia forcess have old architecture and they are lass than amount of fingers in one hand. So tell me why did Greece leave Karaağaç to Turkey which was taken during Balkany wars. People did the massacre admit and beg for pardon but now their grandsons even can not admit.

Opps and was it occupied by turks to burn it and remember the day what Mustafa Kemal said in front of the government building about the Greek flag before blaming. The theological country of Greeks burned out every muslim thing here not only Izmir (the name isnt changed by Ataturk anyway it is the way turks pronounce smyrna till times of Aydınoğlu Çaka bey like they do to Slav(İslav), spor(ispor in old language now s(ı)por), and didnt proto-Greeks after fall of Troy, change the name Tsmurna(luwian) to Smyrna as they did to most of anatolian cities. Ataturk asked to Trikupis about the savage acts done by Greek army what did he say... just "we are soldiers" and Ataturk said "yes we are soldiers and we fight to soldiers not innocents" ahh but as priamus of Troy said "These people from the other side of the sea is just savage beasts on two legs" as proved several times in ottoman empire "read creta muslims " opps sorry i forgot moon devoured them hahaha(!).

Abkhazian

Please stick to the topic at hand, which is the burning of Smyrna, rather than going into an off-topic and racist anti-Hellenic rant. If you have any more evidence that the Greek burned Smyrna, feel free to provide it.

-AlexiusComnenus

Abkhazian, İnegöl'deki köyünün adını söylersen, araştırırım. Can you tell me the name of your village in İnegöl? For the moment, I have this from Ottoman archives for Yalova and Orhangazi villages and for Gemlik. There is still much work to do. Daha yapılacak çok iş var. [4] Cretanforever

One of the finest proofs of Abkhazian's nationalistic delirio is quoting Atatürk talking to Trikoupis. What did Trikoupis had to do with the Micrasiatic War? Charilaos Trikoupis, oneof the finest andmost decent politicians of modern Greece, died in exile in France in 1896, fifteen to twenty years before the facts at hand. As to the allegations about Priamos and the people living in Asia Minor prior to the Greek colonisation, it is at least historically unfounded for the Turks to present themselves as the great pretenders of the peoples populating Asia Minor up to the 8th century BC. Greeks had been living in the region since the first colonisation operations which date back to the 8th century BC or according to some scholars even earlier. The Turks first appeared in the region some time in the 9th or 10th century AD, that is 1600 years later, and did not assume full control of the region until at least the 13th century AD. In this respect, it is perhaps better for the Turks not to raise historical claims over the region, because this would lead to a rather irrational, with modern criteria, equivalent claim of the Greeks over the region, based upon their continuous presence over 3000 years in Asia Minor, which was so abruptly discontinued in 1922.

-Mandrake81

Mandrake81 is himself/herself is in 'delirio', seems to be in a denial mode and should get his/her facts. General Trikopis was appointed the commander general of the Greek forces and was taken prisoner by the Turkish Army after the Dumlupinar Battle when the invading Greek Army was totally defeated and only the remnants of which could escape.

-NDereli

I have rv further back

Because the article was ful of bias. Please submit your edits in article as it is now and don't revert. Mitsos 11:32, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

But you reverted back to Kertenkelebek's version... —Khoikhoi 17:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

And why didn't you reverted him completely? Please do it, just of the visitors of the page who are reading articles whose factual accurancy is disputed. 85.75.176.230 18:22, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Because changes by other editors have been made since then. I doubt the visitors would read it with the tag this page has... —Khoi khoi 00:52, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Is that what you want? This article not to be read by anyone? Please try to remove his edits. 87.203.235.223 15:29, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, since the dispute tag has now been removed, there are clearly no more problems with this article (even though there really are). Cheers. —Khoi khoi 17:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean? Speak clearly. 87.203.235.223 19:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Non-English Sources

Can we use non-English sources? I think not so I think that the Ataturk Telegram shoud be deleted. There is no way to check the veracity of this telegram in English as no translation has been published. -Alexios Comenenos

There is no Wikipedia policy against non-English sources, you might try asking someone who knows Turkish for a translation. —Khoi khoi 05:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

If you need tranlation from Turkish to English, just let me know (not so many pages, please) zkaradag

The mess

You know, with no offense to anyone, I think that this article has gotten itself in a mess. I think that it's because of POV-pushing in the sense that, for every POV that was pushed, the other side brought in more sources and the other side did the same and vice versa.. The titles of the sections clearly show this, they seem to be answering one another, there are full letters that are posted etc.. I don't think that I will have the time to personally conribute to this article, but I was just writing this to its regular contributors.. :)) Baristarim 03:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Greek scorched earth and Other sources?

Why are those disputed? They have sources and are just other opinions on what happened, right? --AW 19:17, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

This is the article I intend to work on if I have time, before the rest. Fad (ix) 05:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Removed Part Sourced by Turkish Colonel

I removed the following part: Mr. H. Lamb, the British Consul General at İzmir reported that he "had reason to believe that Greeks in concert with Armenians had burned Smyrna"

The source provided was a Turkish colonel, and one must agree that a colonel in the Turkish army is hardly a legitimate unbiased source.

I had to revert many of your edits in certain articles for a)inclusion of irrelevant information b)removal of other references c)not enough consultation of the consensus reached in talk pages. Please do not play with certain articles without using the talk pages, unilateral edits can only cause more tension. Cheers! Baristarim 06:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

This is utterly unfair. Everything provided was sourced by contemporary Western newspapers. It was not anymore irrelevant than the information about Turkish villages burned by the Greek army. In fact, everything added was backed by primary sources and gave effective information for readers seeking to find the truth about what happened in Smyrna. -John Kritivic

Hmmm. Look, there shouldn't be an inclusion of irrelevant content - half the things in there were not relevant. I strongly suggest you to raise the changes in the talk page. Most of this article was written after long debates. + try to interpret the sources correctly. A said B doesn't mean we can say "It was B". Correct format should be "A has said/claimed/stated/alleged that it was B". See the difference? + you removed other sourced content + as a result of these, section titles were also POV. This article has been particularly controversial in the past, so try to seek concensus before you make significant changes. That's all.Baristarim 04:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry, but some of your additions also reflect your own interpretations as well. We are not here to prove that X is Y: Y should already be out there. So some of your edits also had WP:OR issues. As I said, raise the issues here, and if need be I can contact other regular contributors to this article to hear them out.Baristarim 04:15, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are new to Wikipedia, we appreciate your efforts to expand articles. However, just try to familiarize with wiki policies and the concensus and backgrounds of articles before making substantial changes. Cheers! Baristarim 04:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

What you are doing is pure nationalism without any regard for truth and sourcing. You should not delete things that are properly sourced, it goes against Wikipedia policy with which I am quite familiar.

The "sourced content" that I removed was "sourced" by a Turkish military officer. This is hardly a legimate source. You are simply picking this issue because of the fact that it suports your interpretations of the events.

Furthermore, I added factual information from primary sources, and I corrected several mistakes, citing primary sources which were contemporary Western newspapers. For example, it claimed that Dr. Lovejoy did not go into who was to blame for the Smyrna catastrophe, and I went to the New York Times aricle cited, and quoted her directly. -John Kritivic

Pff, whatever.. Read my post carefully... You are including many data that are simply irrelevant to the article's title + cut down on the paranoia.Baristarim 04:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Please describe what information you consider irrelevant (specifically more irrelevant than things like the Greek scorched earth policy.) -John Kritivic

First of all you should explain the reasons behind such edits and inclusion of content.Baristarim 04:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Lovejoy Account

The Lovejoy account was mentioned in the earlier version of the article, simply in passing in a vague sentece. I expanded the Lovejoy account into a paragraph, including a quotation from her New York Times interview. Perhaps this does not warrant a seperate section, but the expanded version is more informative than the original vague sentence:

"Another source which was the subject of a New York Times article on 9 October 1922, Dr. Esther Lovejoy, Chairman of the Executive Board of the American Women's Hospitals and President of the Medical Women's International Association, refused to discuss the causes behind the Smyrna trouble, confining herself to depicting the horrors she had actually witnessed."

The Lovejoy account clearly illustrates that she saw unformed Turkish troops and officers massacring Greek and Armenian civilians, which should be mentioned in anything on her account. This is in line with the view that the Turkish army set the fire as part of a systematic policy of exterminating Christians in Turkey.
-John Kritivic

That is your interpretation and breaks WP:OR. Simple. In any case, your interpretation is false as well. Do not add irrelevant information. Baristarim 04:47, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

This does not break with the original research policy as a source was provided, namely the New York Times article which had her interview. In contrast, the former sentence was not sourced and also false.

This information is totally relevant as it is in line with the view that the Turks burned Smyrna as part of a deliberate policy of exterminating Christians.

Really, this is my "false" view? Have you read the New York Times article? Would you like to provide some quotations from it which show that my view is false?
-John Kritivic

Refugees Section

The addition of this is self evident. More information should be provided on what happened to the victims and other outcomes of the fire as opposed to a mish-mash of information on who set it. -John Kritivic

Turkish Policy of Massacring Christians

This section is necessary to put the events of the burning of Smyrna in a wider persepective (from the Greek and Armenian view.) There is the section on the "Greek Scorched Earth Policy" which explains the root causes of the fire in the wider perspective from the Turkish view. I feel that both sections are necessary in order for the reader to understand the motivations for the fire being set, from both perspectives. -John Kritivic

"policy of massacring christians"...balancing the views is always welcome, but dont you think this just cries out loud "BIAS!!!"? -Erchan Aptoula

Not really... that's what happened, ever hear of the Armenian Genocide, my friend? There was a systematic Ottoman policy of exterminating Christians, and the destruction of Smyrna was a part of this policy. --John Kritivic

Are you talking to yourself? Double-personality disorder, I dare say? :))) Even the signatures look similar, not to mention that the names sound completely bogus. lol Baristarim 18:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

--Rather than making ridiculous ad hominem arguments, you could do something like check IP adresses (and notice that they are different) or use common sense and note the fact that Erchan was arguing against me.

Anyway, from your prior edits, you have been accused of being a Turkish nationalist on many occasions. Your attempts to block relevent information seem to me to be of a similar vein. -Jogn Kritivic

I know that "he" was arguing against "you".. Funny that there is no such Turkish name as "Erchan Aptoula", or in any other language. I have also been accused of being anti-Turk as well, so what goes around comes around I suppose :) IPs are different, true, but that doesn't mean anything: I also have a dynamic IP which rotates pretty regularly as well. I am not going to waste my time requesting IP check on you that would research the geographic origin of the IP no., and not just the numbers on the screen.. In any case, I got no time to waste on this. You are including many irrelevant information and unaccessible sources. This article needs a rewrite, and not the extension of the Frankestein that it already is. Baristarim 20:00, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I've just conducted an IP check on both: one is in the US and the other in France. In any case, John's edits are sourced, though I agree accessibility to the newspaper archives is an issue. He has obviously put some effort into this, so there must be a way of accommodating his work within a revised article. For starters, why are there no quotes under the "Sources claiming Turkish responsibility" section but exorbitant excerpts everywhere else? ·ΚέκρωΨ· 20:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok then. My primary concern is not the sources itself, but the POV interpretation of sources like witness account followed by "this proved Turks' genocidal intent". The eye-witness account is ok, but that is not. That's all I am trying to say. It breaks WP:OR : taking X and interpreting it to make Y. I am sorry to say, but in its current state, his additions should not stay. I will revert his additions but leave the sourced information on eye-witness accounts et al. Nevertheless, accessible sources would be nice, but that could be dealt with later. I still think that they are the same person :) Just a hunch, there are many anonymizing programs out there. Baristarim 20:46, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course such POV excesses should be removed, but there is no valid reason for deleting sourced information, except perhaps to slim down the article, which is already rather obese. John obviously has a POV, but that doesn't mean his sources shouldn't remain in the article even if his partisan editorialising doesn't. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 21:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree.. Only reason I had to do a blind revert was because they were all mixed up. There is no reason why sources shouldn't stay, in fact, this article needs them desperately. I will have a look at them later, and see what I can do. John, your additions are welcome, but after witnessing way too many editwars I am just trying to be on the safe side. Cheers! Baristarim 23:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I have read of multiple genocide accusations against the ottomans but I have yet to see any proof. usually all references end up to either armenian historians of that period or turks opposed to the kemalist movement. I have also read many allegations that the turkish side does not share its archives, which i seriously doubt since they have been preparing to put their digitized versions online.

Moreover, the westerns countries, including greece dear john, had the control of istanbul (administrative centre) for more than two years before the greek-turkish war...tens of high ranking ottoman officials were sent to the famous malta prison of that period with the accusation of taking part in the alleged genocide...however, no solid evidence was found to convict them...and they were all released eventually...if such evidence existed, by having control of the capital they should have been able to find it in two years time (or more)..dont you think?

Not to mention that the world had just came out of WW1 and the dardanelles campaign had failed...anti-turkish feelings were at their peaks and it is only natural that any accusations would be easily accepted and propagated by the media...just look what happens today with palestine..everyone has his/her own agenda and the media do a bloody good work of feeding it to us. do you think anyone will remember that the recent events started with the bombing of a palestinian family while they were on a beach ? ..naaah they prefer to rather remember the kidnapped soldier...i even doubt how many know of the bombing incident that occured just before.

Anyhow, if proof exists, why not apply to international tribunals ? honestly i believe both parties should present their cases and let the historians decide istead of manipulating public opinions (which they both indisputably do). By the way I have visited personally the tombs of ottoman muslim civilians killed during the armenian uprising of that period...no mention of them anywhere. if the international community is so sensitive about the nature of alleged events from the 1900s why are they so ignorant of the contemporary sufferings in iraq, rwanda, soudan...or europe's back door..the balkans..and how long they waited during the srebrenica massacre. a rather hypocritical stand.

as to the events that took place in smyrna...both parties have solid standpoints. according to greeks, the lack of damage in turkish quarters (hard to believe greek pyromaniacs would conspire in such a way as to omit those quarters)...and conversely the disasters caused by the retreating greek army before reaching smyrna (also hard to believe that they changed suddenly their rampaging attitude after repaeting it between ankara and smyrna). These views are of course contradicting, and as long as solid evidence is not available we are bound to debate.

But saying that there was a systematic policy of exterminating christians..thats a whole other level. If such a policy existed it is hard to believe that a christian would remain in ottoman territory after more than 6 centuries. In fact it happens much faster when you plan it..check the lack of arabs in the iberian peninsula, or lack of turks in crete, with the almost same phenomenon almost repeated in cyprus.

Bottom line is, with matters dating almost 90 years, only solid evidence has any significance. And with an accusation as serious as "Policy of Massacring Christians" you better have solid proof.

___________ The policy of exterminating Christians did not last for 6 centuries, but was started by the Young Turk government in 1915 and was continued by it's successors. There is numerous evidence for this in Western and other archival sources. Your mention of the Malta Tribunal is a red herring-- Talaat, Enver and many others were tried and sentenced to death by a Turkish court in Constantinople following the resolution of WWI. There was tremendous evidence to convict them, and this is preserved in Ottoman newspapers, which can be found in the various archives of Israel and other Middle Eastern countries. Obviously, Turkey does not allow these gazettes to be acessed from its own archives.

Everyone, please stick to the article's topic. This talk page is not for forum-like discussions. Irrelevant bantering can be removed and transposed to the talk pages of more relevant articles where they can be of more use. cheers Baristarim 04:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no controversy

The current state of the posting on the Great Fire of Smyrna gives the impression that this historical event is under dispute and that there has been no authoritative research to lead to a conclusion. This claim has the same validity as the claim that the Armenian genocide is propaganda against Turkey. In fact, both the Armenian genocide and the destruction of Smyrna have been extensively documented and researched. They belong to a part of modern history that has had extensive documentation from both Turkish and Western sources. Fortunately the Armenian genocide has been accepted as fact and recently western governments have enacted a remembrance day. Obviously the Turkish government will keep objecting as such truths as anti-Turkish propaganda. But by the same account one should expect the Germans to object to coverage of the Genocide as anti-German propaganda. It is to the credit of the German government that they have accepted responsibility and that they commemorate this dark page from their history in their own country.

I do not expect this page to become a forum for Hellenism. But it would be advisable to at least stop giving readers the impression that the Great Fire of Smyrna is shrouded by the mists of time and that the truth is still the subject of speculation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tedblack (talk • contribs)

If there really was no controversy, then this message would be redundant, wouldn't it? Jakew 14:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Your logic shows signs of deterioration Jakew ... tedblack

I'm sorry about that. May I suggest that you take a look at WP:NPOV, particularly the section on undue weight, and comment on how it applies to this situation. Jakew 14:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes I have taken a look at WP:NPOV. Although the view that the Great Fire of Smyrna was a Greek/Armenian conspiracy is a minority view , the article gives extensive coverage to this opinion. Furthermore, NPOV does not mean that on any subject opposing views should be presented. As the guidelines themselves make clear some subjects are controversial (e.g. who shot JFK) and there opposing views must be presented; other subjects (e.g. is the Earth flat , or did the Turks destroy Smyrna) have fairly unanimous opinions amongst academics. I hope Wikipedia does not attach the same weight to the opinions of bloggers; if that is the case I am afraid that all articles on the Holocaust will soon be attacked by neonazis trying to apply NPOV! ... tedblack

No, we can't use blogs as sources, so that issue should not arise. But perhaps there's room for compromise. How would you feel about a short paragraph, with suitable sources? Would that be ok? Jakew 15:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Jakew I think Tedblack is a new user (which is apparent from his edits). I think what would serve best would be to help him illustrate per WP standards the validity of his assertion that the academic consensus suggests it was burnt by Turks. Tedblack, do you have explicit sources to back up that claim? If yes, then post them right below (as url links, as name of books etc). Note: I'm Greek. Niko Silver 15:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, that would be extremely helpful. Tedblack? Jakew 16:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The explicit sources are already listed at the bottom of the page and have as their main collective source the book by Prof Dobkin. For presenting the Turkish view so blatantly have you asked the same question? And can you provide me with explicit sources that substantiate your claim to be "Greek" NikoSilver? .... tedblack

It would be helpful if you could find an authority who has surveyed all the sources on the subject, and quote what they concluded. Jakew 18:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

SMYRNA 1922: THE DESTRUCTION OF A CITY, MARJORIE HOUSEPIAN DOBKIN, NEWMARK PRESS Tedblack 18:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

From the INTRODUCTION of book SMYRNA 1922: THE DESTRUCTION OF A CITY, MARJORIE HOUSEPIAN DOBKIN

It was in the course of a trip eastward through Europe and the Middle East that I first heard controversy about the burning of Smyrna. In Salonika many of the inhabitants were refugees from Smyrna, having escaped, they said, from "the great fire of 1922." They claimed it had been deliberately set by the Turks to drive out the Christian population. Three weeks later, in Izmir, I heard the Turkish version of the Smyrna fire: the Greeks had set fire to the city before abandoning it, after Kemal Ataturk's victory. I resolved to look into the matter upon my return. By this time history had surely reached a verdict that was distilled and encapsulated in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Under Izmir , the pertinent passage in the 14th edition of the Britannica then on the library shelves told me that "more than three-fifths of the town was destroyed during the Greek retreat in 1922." Further on, under a section titled "History" I read that "on September 9, 1922, Izmir was reoccupied by the Turks. ... In addition to the war damage further destruction was wrought by an earthquake in 1928." Three Turkish professors at the University of Istanbul had written the entries.

Clearly I would have to look further. Scanning the New York Times in microfilm for the days following September 9, I found the following headlines in the lead story on September 15, 1922:

SMYRNA BURNING, 14 AMERICANS MISSING

1,000 MASSACRED AS TURKS FIRE CITY

KEMAL THREATENS MARCH ON CAPITAL

OUR CONSULATE DESTROYED

Fire Starting in Armenian and Greek Quarters is Sweeping City

The headlines on the sixteenth read: SMYRNA IN RUINS, and on the seventeenth, still in the lead, SMYRNA WIPED OUT KILLINGS CONTINUE.

Columbia University's Butler Library contained two books devoted to the burning of Smyrna in 1922, both written in the years immediately after the fire. One, The Blight of Asia by American Consul George Horton, an eyewitness, includes a wealth of detail, although to the contemporary reader the book is somewhat marred by an excessively impassioned tone. The second, The Great Betrayal by Edward Hale Bierstadt, contained evidence from "unbiased sources" which American officials were trying to keep under wraps. According to the foreword by Edward Capps, former minister from the United States to Greece, who noted too: "It is a pity that access to the wealth of material available in the Department of State in Washington ... is still denied to the public." My editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, the late Hiram Haydn, supported the idea of a book on the burning of Smyrna, assuming that the materials referred to by Ambassador Capps were by now available. He agreed that with so many apparent contradictions the story warranted non-fiction treatment.

Nearly two years of reading secondary sources on the historical background preceded my research in the National Archives and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It was not a part of my original plan to include the history of Smyrna from its ancient origins, but its legends and history so enriched my own feelings for the city that I could not resist using some of the material as the starting point of my text. The historical background is not only extensive but it is politically complex and little known to general readers. Moreover, the story of the Smyrna fire and its aftermath is replete with irony, perceptible only to readers aware of what went before. For the sake of clarity I settled on a chronological approach—the "seemingly obligatory quick gallop through history," as a critic put it, who seems to have considered the background nonessential—and I continue to envy writers concerned with dramatic events which are set within more widely known historical contexts.

Aware of the importance of finding as many Turkish and pro-Turkish sources as possible, especially as these touch on the two most sensitive areas—the treatment of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915-16 and events in Smyrna and environs in 1922—I made a search for these my first priority after completing my reading of the more remote historical background. In the sixties, there was a noticeable gap in the volume of materials from any point of view on the period between 1908, when the Committee of Union and Progress ("the Young Turks") took power, and 1923, which marked the Treaty of Lausanne and recognition of Kemal Ataturk's Turkish Republic. Yet I did find a number representing a range of pro-Turkish views between those dates. In his Memoires of a Turkish Statesman published in English in 1922, Djemal Pasha, third ranking of the Young Turk leaders, attempted to absolve himself of responsibility for the Armenian "exterminations," as they were then called. In our own Barnard College library I was fortunate in having convenient access to all the works of Halide Edib, in English. Edib had been among the very first emancipated Turkish women and was for a time Kemal's chief propagandist. She entered Smyrna with Kemal and was in the city during the fire, about which she says virtually nothing in her writings. She was a friend of Barnard's Dean Virginia Gildersleeve and she taught at Barnard in 1927-28. (Gildersleeve herself had ties in Turkey as a Trustee of the Constantinople Women's College.)

A more substantial source favoring the Turkish view of the Greco-Turkish war appeared with Arnold Toynbee's The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, written in 1922.

In 1930, Ahmed Emin Yalman in Turkey and the World War presented what was at that time the prevailing Turkish view of that country's wartime treatment of Armenians. Volume 5 of Churchill's series The World Crisis, also published in 1930, contains pertinent information on the Greco-Turkish war from the standpoint of British diplomacy which, aside from the disposition of Lloyd George, by and large favored the Turks—at the least by failing to support the Greeks. Lord Kinross's definitive biography, Ataturk (1965), offers much important detail on the Greco-Turkish war and Ataturk's insurgency (much of it derived from Turkish sources made available to the author) which I found extremely useful. In books by such experts on modern Turkish history as Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Robinson, and others, the Armenians in Turkey during World War I are briefly presented in a chapter summarizing the whole of Ottoman history to the point at which Kemal's Republic takes up the burden of the work. This would be fair enough if the presentations made a clear distinction between cause and effect, between Turkish-Armenians and Russian-Armenians and hence their respective allegiances during the War, and between events 1915-16 in Anatolia, and 1918-20 in Transcaucasia. In these books such distinctions are blurred when not distorted outright, and the disappearance of the minorities is perceived as beneficial to the new Turkish Republic.

Among the abundant archival materials in Washington, D.C. the papers of Admiral Mark L. Bristol in the Library of Congress were invaluable in reconciling the differences—indeed the complete reversal of facts—in reports the admiral received from Smyrna and the reports he sent to the State Department. Unlike the papers of many national figures donated to archives by relatives who have combed them in advance, these were given to the library evidently undisturbed by the admiral's widow. In the Bristol papers I also found an official report submitted by Fire Chief Paul Grescovich of the Smyrna fire brigade. I have accompanied its listing under official published sources in my bibliography with a summary of its contents.

Also in the Bristol papers is a complete transcript of a London trial in 1924. It includes exceptionally revealing verbatim testimony by members of the Smyrna fire brigade and Turkish and pro-Turkish eyewitnesses as well as their opposite numbers.

For the Turkish view I should also mention a useful series of bulletins published between 1920 and 1936 by the French government summarizing articles that appeared in the Turkish press. These are listed in my bibliography, under official published sources, as Bulletin Periodique de la Presse Turque. (Summaries from the Greek press over the same period are also in the Library of Congress.) Finally, a valuable find was a volume of compiled articles, all taking positions favoring Turkey, written by leaders of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the Near East Relief, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for the Levant, and members of the U.S. diplomatic corps who came together in a "General Committee for the Ratification of the Lausanne Treaty." Titled A Treaty With Turkey, the volume is listed in my bibliography under General Committee as no editor is named.

A stroke of luck early in my search for eyewitnesses led me to Dr. S. Ralph Harlow, who had been a teacher and religious leader at the American missionary college for boys, at Paradise, a suburb virtually next door to Smyrna. In failing health when I found him, Dr. Harlow was as clearheaded as when he had been voted the most exciting professor at Smith College while I was a student there.

Tracking down the American sailors, I found a listing in the Naval Records, of all those placed on shore duty, and then examined the roster rolls of each U.S. ship in Smyrna harbor to find the men's serial numbers— indispensable in obtaining addresses from the Bureau of Naval Personnel of those still alive and receiving pensions. I was able to locate five former seamen who were guarding American installations in Smyrna during the days in question. No officers on the scene were still living.

Greeks constituted the majority population in Smyrna, while the Armenian community as a whole (no more than twenty thousand in all) was singled out for the most brutal treatment, and the fire began in the heart of the Armenian quarter. Because the voices of Armenian victims are more prominent in this story, some readers have assumed, erroneously, that the demise of Smyrna is essentially an Armenian story. The destruction of that once glorious city is actually the penultimate chapter of the Greek tragedy in Asia Minor.

I should stress here that in no instance in this book have I invented dialogue; everything said was quoted, either in an interview or a written record. After taping half a dozen interviews with escapees from the Smyrna fire I could see that while there were many variations in detail, and each story could make up a book in itself, the information derived about the nature of events did not vary. My sources were able to bring the climactic scenes of this book vividly to the foreground. I was fortunate, too, to find two members of the Jewish community in Smyrna able and willing to share their vivid recollections with me. A more extensive search for oral histories would, I am certain, have made this book substantially longer but not substantially different.

I was at first puzzled by the fact that while most critics considered that I presented the facts objectively, "letting them speak for themselves," in the words of Lord Kinross, to a few the book was "highly charged" or "subjective." In the light of further reflection I find the contradiction understandable. Some readers fail to distinguish between the tone taken by a writer and their own emotional response to material the writer is presenting. A few reviewers have attributed their own emotional responses in just this way, no doubt.

Since this book first came out, at least two full-length studies have been published focusing specifically on Smyrna between 1919 and 1922. In 1973 Ionian Vision, Greece and Asia Minor 1919-22 by Michael Llewellyn Smith was published by St. Martin's Press. An expansion of the author's doctoral thesis at Oxford, it covers much of the ground that appears here, but with emphasis on British and some Greek sources. The author concludes that Turkish soldiers burned Smyrna. He has, however, taken Bristol's Report of the International Commission on the Greek Landings of May 1919 at face value, and has accepted the admiral's figure of one to two thousand fatalities in the Smyrna fire.

In 1984 Victoria Solomonides completed her doctoral dissertation titled "The Greek Administration of the Vilayet of Aidin 1919-22" for King's College, University of London. Her investigations concern primarily the problems faced by Aristedes Sterghiades, the ranking administrative official during the Greek occupation of Smyrna, in the years preceding the entry of the Turkish forces. Solomonides describes the conditions under which the Greek administration had to operate. For political reasons Greek Prime Minister Venizelos acceded to a complex multinational structure so that in addition to interallied authorities whose duties overlapped with those of the Greek administration and continually impeded its tasks, Greek rule had to contend with the claims of the system prevailing for centuries whereby non-Moslems conducted their own internal affairs, most often under the leadership of their clergy. Among other conditions, it had to contend with the traditional "capitulations" exempting foreign nationals and all those obtaining foreign protection, from paying taxes or submitting to trial in local courts—privileges the foreign powers were unwilling to forgo.

Solomonides' research confirmed my analysis of the prevailing political situation among the Allied powers and their respective positions. Her study points to evidence in the Italian archives supporting contentions of planned connivance by Italian agents in Smyrna in the disorders that accompanied the Greek landings on May 15, 1919. As to the fire itself, and other matters discussed herein, she discovered only supporting evidence in the governmental archives of Great Britain, Italy, and Greece.

A pertinent and valuable scholarly collection, Deltio Kentrou Mikrasiatikon Spoudon (Bulletin of the Center for Asia Minor Studies), vol. 4, a special issue on the Asia Minor catastrophe (ed. Paschalis Kitromilides, Athens, 1983), offers the fruits of considerable new research on the Greeks of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The articles appear in English, French, or Greek, and summaries in French or English are provided for articles published in Greek. Among the more relevant articles is one by A. J. Panayotopoulos, in English, based on work for a doctoral dissertation, which describes in considerable detail, as the title indicates, "The Economic Activities of the Anatolian Greeks from the Mid-19th to the Early 20th Centuries," including of course those of the Smyrna region. A fascinating study, "The Crypto-Christians of the Pontus" by Antony Bryer, also in English, includes numerous references to works bearing on the subject of pressures exerted in the Ottoman Empire for conversion to Islam, demographic charts, and British and French documents on the subject of the title. Thanos Veremis has presented "Two Letters—Memoranda from E. Venizelos to Winston Churchill" (the letters appear in their original English) with reference, by Venizelos, to the severity with which the Allies were treating Greece's war debt as contrasted to the indulgence shown to Turkey and Bulgaria, their wartime enemies. A summary, in French, of Yannis Mourelos' paper concerning the Franco-Turkish accord of 1921 reinforces my sense of the serious consequences of this alliance on the fate of the Asia Minor Greeks. An article by Victoria Solomonides derived from research in preparation for her doctoral dissertation centers on an annotated report from Chrysostomos Hajistavrou, the Metropolitan of Ephesus, to the Greek Patriarchate in early October 1922 which, as indicated by the summary in English, includes substantial detail on the last days of Smyrna, the fate of the Christian communities, the arrival of refugees in Greece, and measures taken for their relief. Included in the volume is my own article, "George Horton and Mark L. Bristol, Opposing Forces in U.S. Foreign Policy 1919-1923."

When I was gathering materials for this book, the population figures for minorities in the late Ottoman Empire were available only from minority sources; they were primarily church and mission figures. More recently a number of Turkish and American scholars acceptable to the Turkish government have published works based on Ottoman census figures. These demographic studies show the number of Greeks and Armenians to have been so markedly low—especially during periods of unrest—in contrast to the figures available earlier from Greek and Armenian sources, that demographics has become an issue of considerable importance in the current, politically heated climate. Because the Turkish archives are open only to scholars selected in advance by the Turkish government, it bears noting that the figures cannot be verified by others at this writing.

The latest Bulletin (volume 5,1984-85) of the Center for Asia Minor Studies includes a study by Paschalis Kitromilides and Alexis Alexandris titled "Ethnic Survival, Nationalism and Forced Migration; the Historical Demography of the Greek Community of Asia Minor at the Close of the Ottoman Era." The paper presents previously unpublished materials from the Greek Foreign Ministry Historical Archives (AYE) and bibliographic references to important works by Turkish, Greek, and other scholars on the sensitive issues of demographics and on linguistic and migratory patterns—primarily of Asia Minor Greeks during the late Ottoman period. From the evidence presented in this important article emerges a new more precise and reliable picture of population magnitudes in Asia Minor in the early twentieth century, as well as a clearer sense of the human losses involved in the protracted tragedy of the period 1912-22.

In "Shared Illusions: Greek-Armenian Cooperation in Asia Minor and the Caucasus 1919-22," in Greece and Great Britain During World War I (ed. The Institute for Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, 1986, pp. 139-92),J.K. Hassiotis describes relations between the two beleaguered minorities in the last years of the Ottoman Empire and during the struggle for existence of the short-lived Armenian Republic in the Transcaucasus. According to his study, relations were marked more often by a lack of cooperation, largely because the respective predicaments of Greece (and Greeks) and Armenians (and Armenia) were so dire over nearly the whole of the period. Hassiotis sheds further light on "General" Torcom, confirming my interviews with Armenians from Smyrna. Citing Greek and British documents (in addition to an Armenian source), he writes of the opposition of the Armenian community in Smyrna to Torcom's plans and states that their unfavorable reaction "undermined [Torcom's] endeavors to form three regiments of volunteers from Thrace, Constantinople, Bursa and Syria" (175). This is another of the few works in English that makes scholars (through extensive citations) aware of the more recent scholarship on matters pertinent to the period 1919-23 in Turkey.

Evidence both published and unpublished, discovered by Professor Vahakn Dadrian of the State University of New York at Geneseo, concerns two separate points: the British attitude towards Admiral Bristol and some Turkish attitudes on the burning of Smyrna and destruction of other towns during the Armenian deportations. Comments of ranking British officials in charge of the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office indicate the naiveté and ignorance of Mark Bristol, characterized as a man "carefully spoon fed by the Turks." The characterization applies as well to Mrs. Bristol and Bristol's intelligence officer Lt. A. S. Merrill, who is quoted liberally in my text. Further, in his report of October 18, 1919, Admiral Richard Webb told Lord Curzon, the British secretary of state, that "very few of them [the Americans] have any previous knowledge of the Near East, the Committee of Union and Progress, or of the political history of the past ten years. . . . [They are] ready to rise to such catchwords as independence and self-determination." These references, which I have summarized from Dadrian's notes, support the portrait I have drawn of Admiral Bristol, which I based on interviews with American sailors and others, and for the most part on the admiral's own words. Dadrian's materials are from the Foreign Office Archives in the Public Records Office, London .

Dadrian's fluency in Turkish led him to two books published in Turkey that expose the authors' views on the burning of Smyrna. One, published in 1953 and titled Maresal Fevzi Cakmak is by Siueeyman Kuelce. In volume 1 (p. 236), the author implicitly concedes that General Nourredin, commander of the army which took over Smyrna on September 9, 1922, was responsible for the massacre and the fire. Kuelce blames the general for his "myopic" outlook. His view is supported by Falih Rifki Atay, author of Cankaya. Atatuerkuen Dogumundan Qeluemuene Kadar (Chankaya. From Ataturk's Birth up to his Death), Istanbul : n.p., 1980. Atay writes of the two "lynches"—one in Ismid in July 1922, by which time some of the surviving deportees had returned, and the other involving the Greek Metropolitan of Izmir—and both producing in the author "nothing but revulsion" (p. 324). Quoting from notes he made at the time of the fire, Atay continues:

Why were we burning Izmir? [Izmiri nicin yakiyorduk?] Were we afraid that we would not be delivering ourselves from the [sway] of the minorities in case the mansions, hotels and cafes were left to remain? Driven by the same fear we put to the torch all the inhabitable quarters and neighborhoods of the Anatolian cities and towns during the World War I Armenian deportations. (p. 323)

Atay also emphasizes the bigotry and "penchant for arrogance and cruelty" of Army Commander Noureddin on whom he blames the burning of Smyrna (an act Kemal was evidently unable or unwilling to prevent). Noureddin's actions, according to Atay, were "undoubtedly . . . reinforced by ... the ruins of Turkish villages which the Greeks since their retreat from Afyon had been reducing to ashes" (p. 325).

There is a school of thought that believes one must balance one set of atrocities against another by giving "equal time" or equal emphasis, and one critic reprimanded me for failing to do this. I have taken American Consul George Horton's view of the atrocities committed by Greek troops as they fled towards Smyrna, rather than Arnold J. Toynbee's. The latter did an about-face in The Western Question, perhaps because he had expected far better of Greeks than Turks (an elitist view to be sure), but without doubt because he equated all violence, denying qualitative differences in motive. This does not coincide with my conviction that motives and circumstances must be weighed. Consul Horton, in his final report to the secretary of state on the burning of Smyrna, dated September 26,1922 (which reached me too late for inclusion in the original text of this book), wrote: "I see a difference between the excesses of a furious and betrayed army, retreating through a country which it had held for several years, and without its officers, and the conduct of the victorious Turkish army which, instead of protecting the helpless people which it had in its power, deliberately set about massacring and outraging it" (National Archives 767.68/476).

Toynbee's theory of history, which does not always accommodate particulars, and his infusion of Christian ethics in areas where these do not suit drove him to contradict himself more than once on the question of the Armenian "exterminations." Missing from my text are his later words on the subject. In Acquaintances (Oxford University Press, 1967) he unequivocally terms the Ottoman treatment of the Armenians in 1915-16 a genocide (240).

After the original edition of this book was published, numbers of Greek escapees approached me, asking that I record their experiences. I did not take up these offers once I had established that the subjects had no new evidence to offer. I did make note of the testimony of Nicolas Tsamapoulos of Astoria, New York, who showed me the words that Vice Consul Maynard Barnes, to whom he had turned for assistance during the days when Smyrna was smouldering, had angrily scrawled across his Certificate of Naturalization: "Resided in country of birth for four years—Citizenship lost." (This, while French officials were handing out safe-conduct passes to anyone who could speak, even haltingly, in French.) Such a specific example of Barnes's needlessly harsh behavior after Consul Horton's departure, confirms the impression of some of the American seamen that Barnes was excessively anxious to follow Admiral Bristol's policy of giving no aid and comfort to the minorities.

More recently a mutual friend arranged for me to interview Nino Russo of Freeport, Long Island; I was happy to obtain an Italian view. A youthful eighty years old when I spoke with him, Russo had been ship's engineer on the Italian battleship Vittore Imanuele, which had sailed into Smyrna harbor just as the fires were beginning to break out at various points in the city. Russo spoke with the same intense feeling as had most of the American seamen I interviewed. The heat at one point was so strong, he confirmed, that even though his large ship stood at considerable distance from the shore, it had to move back. The Italians had come in to pick up their own nationals but they sent out twenty lifeboats and picked up anyone within range without asking who was or was not Italian. "There were so many bodies in the water you couldn't count. Everybody, ... all the big-shots, the Captain, all those people going back and forth to shore, they knew and they reported that the Turks were burning Smyrna . All the crew, we all knew it was the Turks." None of his testimony is new, but it is noteworthy considering that Italian policy strongly and openly supported the Turks. Russo's account also confirms the victims' reports concerning the kindness of Italian ships and corroborated other reports of the intense heat on the waterfront at the height of the fire.

It has recently come to my attention that Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk) himself acknowledged the attempted extermination of Armenians conducted in 1915-16 and summarized in chapter 2 as a part of the historical background of events leading to the sack and burning of Smyrna. In an interview with Swiss journalist Emil Hildebrand published in the Los Angeles Examiner of August 1,1926, Kemal referred to political antagonists as "These left-overs from the former Young Turkey [sic] Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred." Paradoxically, while continuing to revere Kemal as founder of the Turkish Republic and their foremost national hero, successive Turkish governments, including the one currently in power, also continue to revere Talaat, the leader of the Young Turk party and architect of the Armenian genocide. For all practical purposes Kemal himself was in charge during the postwar period that constitutes the primary focus of this book.

Over the past two decades there has been a spate of books in English on the Near or Middle East, many of them enlightening. Revisionism on certain aspects of Turkish history between 1908-23 is another matter. While this is not the place for an extended discussion, mention is necessary because the Turkish government appears to be promoting a cottage industry of works for foreign consumption which the proliferation of Turkish studies in the United States and abroad is in danger of legitimizing, notably among some scholars whose work, for one reason or another, depends on maintaining the goodwill of Turkish officialdom. I have described in my text earlier attempts to manipulate the recording of events for political purposes. (In works published earlier I have devoted somewhat more detail to historical revisionism of events covered in this book. See the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition titled The Smyrna Affair, pp. 223-25, and the last four pages of my article in Commentary, "The Unremembered Genocide," September 1966, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 55-61.) At this writing the Turkish government is enlisting academic support here and abroad in a massive campaign to change the historical record for the entire period 1915-23. Terrence Des Pres presents an analysis of precisely this kind of politically motivated scholarship in the United States in his article "On Governing Narratives: The Turkish-Armenian Case," The Yale Review 75 (1986): 517-31.

One result of this onslaught has been to divert the energies of a number of scholars. In 1986 Dadrian published "The Naim-Andonian Documents of the World War I Destruction of Ottoman Armenians and the Anatomy of a Genocide," International Journal of Middle East Studies 18 (August 1986): pp. 311-60, confirming the authenticity of Talaat's orders, some of which I have quoted in chapter 2. Turkkaya Ataov of Ankara University declared the Talaat documents to be forgeries, and a campaign is under way to convince Jewish scholars that there is no relationship between the Armenian and Jewish exterminations. Countering this allegation as well, Dadrian published "The Role of Turkish Physicians in the World War I Genocide of Ottoman Armenians," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1 (1986): 169-92. K. B. Bardakjian of the University of Michigan has written Hitler and the Armenian Genocide (Zoryan Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985), confirming the authenticity of the Hitler quotation I have used at the end of this book. Richard Hovannisian of the University of California at Los Angeles has on more than one occasion interrupted his magnum opus, a three-volume history of the postwar Armenian Republic, to document the nature of the denial itself—"The Critic's View: Beyond Revisionism," International Journal of Middle East Studies 9 (August 1978): 311-59, and "Genocide and Denial: The Armenian Case," in Towards the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide: Proceedings of the International Conference, ed. Israel W. Charney (Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1984). This article was originally presented at the 1982 International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide held in Tel Aviv. A compilation of the Armenian papers read at the Tel Aviv conference appears in The Armenian Genocide in Perspective, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian (Transaction, Inc.: New Brunswick, N.J., 1986).

Israel W. Charny, who was co-director and prime organizer of the conference, has given an account of Turkish pressures exerted on conference leaders and the State of Israel (Israel withdrew sponsorship as a result) because of the inclusion of Armenians. Titled "The Turks, Armenians and Jews," his account appears at the end of Book One: The Conference Program and Crisis, published by the Institute of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide (Tel Aviv, 1983).

Finally, it is interesting to note the increased blatancy of the historical distortion in the entry on Smyrna in the latest (15th) edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica published in 1974. It reads: "In May 1919, Izmir was occupied by Greek forces. Heavily damaged in the fighting, it was recaptured by Turkish forces in September 1922." Authors of entries are not easy to locate in this new Encyclopedia Brittanica, but persistence led me to Ahmet Temir, Director of the Turkish Cultural Center, Ankara, and Professor Sirri Erinc of the University of Istanbul, who was a co-author of the text in the 14th edition quoted earlier in this introduction.

A lack of acquaintance with the most reliable secondary sources and ways and means of proceeding to find them, led me at the outset to ask the advice of knowledgeable and respected experts (ultimately I approached many more, in a widening circle). I am especially grateful to the late Professor Basil Rauch of Barnard College, noted specialist in American history, and the late Thomas Peardon, Dean of the Faculty at Barnard and Professor of Political Science, without whose encouragement I might not have had the courage to proceed. My thanks, as well, to two colleagues who were the first to help guide my reading of the period directly pertinent to my project: Professor Rene Albrecht-Carrie of Barnard and Columbia and Professor Harry Psomiades now of Queens College. Dr. Stanley Kerr, who died several years ago, was busy with research for his book The Lions of Marash (State University of New York Press, 1973) while I was pursuing documents in the archives. I remember with pleasure our occasional meetings in the course of which we would exchange information. It was a decidely unbalanced exchange; Dr. Kerr had been in Marash as a young Near East Relief director during the postwar French occupation of the area, and tales of his experiences were exciting as well as informative. Professor James Gidney (now Emeritus) of Kent State University and author of A Mandate for Armenia (Kent State University Press, 1967) has long been helpful and encouraging. I of course am indebted now to the scholars who have thoughtfully helped keep me abreast of developments since the original publication of this book, among them Professor Vahakn Dadrian of the State University of New York at Geneseo; Professor J. K. Hassiotis of the University of Salonika; Dr. Paschalis Kitromilides of the Institute for Asia Minor Studies in Athens; Dr. Gerard Libaridian of the Zoryan Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Professor Richard Hovannisian of the University of California at Los Angeles. I owe a great deal to Professor Hovannisian, on whose expertise I have drawn more than once, and I am profoundly grateful to him for sending me a considerable list of relatively minor but inexcusable errors on the background material I had presented, with corrections. The errors had gone into the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition of this book, and were corrected in the British edition, as they are of course in this present one, which reprints the Faber and Faber text. Interpretations and any remaining errors or omissions are of course all mine.

In obtaining the addresses of the American sailors from the Bureau of Naval Personnel, I am indebted to the good offices of my late congressman, Bill Ryan, the likes of whom we see all too seldom in our legislative halls. And I should here like to acknowledge the letters I have received over the years from scores of readers who were either themselves eyewitnesses or closely related to those who were, to the burning of Smyrna . Their confirmation of my findings was more gratifying than I can say. A letter I especially treasure is from Mrs. H. C. Jacquith, the widow of the director of Near East Relief at Smyrna during the fire. Mrs. Jacquith was also generous enough to give me some priceless photographs her husband had taken during those desperate days. She herself had not been in Smyrna but had spent a lifetime hearing about it.

Above all I am profoundly grateful to those eyewitnesses who, either as survivors or as retired members of the United States Navy, offered me their memories, however painful, and their letters, diaries, and news clippings, when these were available. Without their help this account would obviously have been impossible. I should like to record here, as well, my debts to those entrusted with the papers deposited in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, the Naval Records Collection and the files of the Department of State at the National Archives. In all cases their assistance was gracious, efficient, and immeasurably helpful. I am grateful, too, to the staffs of the Historical Reference Library of the YMCA in New York City and the Houghton Library of Harvard University. My very special thanks go to Miss Nancy Horton for so kindly making her father's papers available to me.

To my present editor, John Hubbell, my warm appreciation for his patience and wise counsel. And indeed to the Kent State University Press and John Hubbell as its director for making this book available once again.

Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Barnard College, Columbia University, N.Y., NY., USA

Tedblack 18:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Heh, Ted, I'm really glad that my (admittedly carefully worded) comment made you work towards sourcing that in the proper way! Believe me, I'd be really glad if we could fix that article, but I declare I'm fairly uneducated on the particlar topic (hey! I don't support the present version, but don't know how to fix it, or what fixing would mean). If you want more details about me, check my userpage, or my contributions, or a summary of them. Naturally Housepian is very well sourced. The problem is that it is not I who's expressing the doubt, it's the users from all "camps" who will jump in and dispute everything. To go ahead of them, I'll just post below what I think they will ask:

Is she enough to illustrate "academic consensus"? How many more academics can we cite to support her?
How reliable are the other sources in the article? What do they say? (I really don't know) Is any of them sourced as adequately as Housepian for the opposite view?

Keep up the good work. Niko Silver 21:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

"Greek scorched earth policy"

This section has absolutely no relevance to the event. The purpose of this article is to present the latest academic research on the perpetrators of this crime. If the Greek army committed such attrocities then they can be presented as part of a separate article. Here we are trying to present the perpetrators of this crime: the Turks. Tedblack 10:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur that it belongs to a separate article, possibly to Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). The latter comment, I'd prefer to see highlighted within the article at hand, and backed by solid sources (for which I repeat I have little knowledge). Niko Silver 14:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I was reading the article and I also concur that this part is totally out of place. It somehow "states" that alleged fires set out in other places are somehow connected with these events. One must note also that the reference given is a "primary" source (ref> U.S. Vice-Consul James Loder Park to Secretary of State, Smyrna, 11 April 1923. US archives US767.68116/34). It is not treated here by any secondary sources, thus hinting to original research, not only with connection to these events (destruction of Smyrna) but also in connection with its very title. Simply put this source does not prove or implies any "Greek scorched earth policy" in Smyrna. --No31328 20:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with all the above comments. This section is in the wrong article. It has nothing to do with the destruction of Smyrna, but with the overall events of the Greco-Turkish War. If there is no objection, I intend to remove it from here and place it in Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).--Yannismarou 08:11, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Unless any suitable sources explicitly link this 'policy' to the subject of the article, I can't see any reason why this section belongs here either. Jakew 09:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Reverts to "Great Fire of Smyrna"

I have noticed that attempts by other contributors to cover this historical event under more relevant titles (e.g. Destruction of Smyrna) have been terminated and reverts to this questionable article have been introduced. It is the right of contributors to post articles on this subject. Furthermore, the title "Great Fire of Smyrna" sounds a like "Great Fire of London"; it gives the impression of an accidental burning of the city by some mad arsonist or an accident. The correct title is "The Destruction of Smyrna" which expresses the true nature of the event. Tedblack 10:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to see that highlighted in the article first, and in the title second. There is a guideline in WP regarding names of articles, so we have to prepare a case (possibly a WP:RFC). That guideline is WP:NCON. I feel that it is too early to move into that direction, as the facts have not been presented in an NPOV way within the article yet (it will work against your proposal). For the record, in terms of "frequencey", we have zero hits for the present title in Google scholar (here) and 17 hits for "Destruction of Smyrna" (here); pending other variations being checked, that is.Niko Silver 15:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments Niko but the whole process is becoming academic. I have tried to highlight these issues in the article but have been speedily removed. It is clear who has control on this site and who can only have endless discussions about NPOV Tedblack

Tedback, when you add new material in the article, please always cite your edits with footnotes per WP:CITE and WP:FOOTNOTES. And try to use third party sources. If you follow these simple rules, I don't think that anybody will have an excuse to revert you. In the weekend, I hope I will have the time to check my own sources.--Yannismarou 19:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Refugees

I've just changed part of the 'British refugees' section to improve neutrality. It seems to me that the first paragraph is really about blame, and the nationality of the refugees is coincidental. Could it be better organised?

Also, there seem to be two separate sections about refugees. Is there a reason for this, or can they be combined? Jakew 10:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Majority Position of Scholars

Hey guys, let's collect the opinions of various non-Greek, Turkish or Armenian scholars on the subject to see what the majority position is in academia. Let's exclude primary sources from this and just see what Western academics think, to give us a better idea of what the article should focus on. -Alexius Comnenus

SECTION: Mark Prentiss and Grescovich's official report MUST BE AMENDED

There are two critical problems with this section: (1) It needs a citation very badly for the statements quoted from Admiral Bristol's report ; this citation has been requested for some time but has not been forthcoming ; I am assuming that without a reference this passage from Admiral Bristol's report SHOULD BE DELETED (2) Using as a reference a report by Admiral Bristol is equivalent to using a report by white supremacists on the Birmingham riots! It is a well known fact that Admiral Bristol was virulently anti-Greek. In a letter that is part of the Mark L. Bristol papers archive in the Library of Congress, Admiral Bristol confesses to Admiral W. S. Sims that "...The Greek is about the worst race in the Near East." Can we please be more careful about the sources we use. THIS IS WIKIPEDIA AND NOT THE WEBSITE OF THE TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTRY. --Tedblack 11:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

If we can cite the racial comment above (or other similar, or even better criticism), I'll definitely agree that the source does not fall within WP:INDY and WP:RS. Niko Silver 12:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I have already given you a cite; its part of the collection of papers that is archived in the Library of Congress. Tedblack 13:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, if the citation is verifiable by the other parties in this discussion, then I suggest we remove it alltogether, or we explicitly attribute it to partisan pro-Turkish sources. Opinions? Niko Silver 13:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Then we have to do the same with George horton and Housepian's articles as well since they are both known for their anti turkish sentiments.. In his book Horton on various occasions make open racist comments against turks, he is not in any respect a reliable source on the issue. Same goes with Armenian descent Housepian..--laertes d 09:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I made a little change at the beginnings of the article, the burning of smyrna was a part of the greco turkish war and yet there is almost no reference to it in the article. Plus it doesnt mention about the reflections of the fire and massacres took place in the area in todays politics..laertes d 11:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

May i ask why some people insistently put this photograph in which some turkish soldiers posing with chopped of heads? It has nothing to do with smyrna and most probably belongs to WWI era..

Previously in this topic an american consular report exposing greek army atrocities in anatolia was erased on the pretext that it is not directly related with the fire in Smyrna although it only happened days before than that..Im deleting the picture now.--laertes d 14:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

im waiting for a reply about why my part in the article is being deleted? --laertes d 16:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

laertes d stop using a greek name ; we know that you are Baristarim --Tedblack 18:02, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Hectorian owes laertes d (and the rest of us as well) an explanation of why he reverted laertes d's edits. Reversions of anything other than vandalism should be explained on the Talk Page to avoid edit warring. --Richard 18:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I was clear enough in my edit summary. Placing Kinross's quotes in the very beginning of the article is POV. Kinross was not an eyewitness nor had ever been to Smyrna before the fire (he was 18 when the fire took place) and held no official position-unlike Horton. Also, as guest and biographer of Kemal, Kinross is not reliable. His book was written 42 years after the destruction, for crying out loud! not to mention that comparing a (possibly) man-made destruction with a (impossibly) man-not-made earthquake, is just ridiculous... I am not gonna enter my POV about Kinross's work in the article (though I do that in the talk), but if people insist that much to include him, they are allowed to do so further down. The article is already in a poor condition, and worsening its status in order to make a point is never necessary. Hectorian 18:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

ted, i am not baristarim whoever he is and i didnt claim myself to be a greek..--laertes d 18:41, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hectorian, the comparison was made by an american official and it is used to describe that the fire is like the "natural" outcome of the confusion or is not possible to find out who started it.. Kinross is much more reliable a source than Horton in any respect. As the article says itsels Horton was not in Smyrna during the fire plus he was a greek lover, turkish hater fanatic christian. Horton demonized turks all over his book whereas kinross at times harsly criticized turks but tried to stay objective..

Anyway one of the reasons why i put the section from Kinross is i think there has to be a section dealing with the preceding events. why turks and greek were fighting in the first place? And you not only deleted the part from Kinross but also another section as well. Greek government recognized the events of smyrna as genocide and yet a greek historian is saying he is shocked by that comment..

And again, the picture of turkish troops posing are not from smyrna, most probably from WWI and therefore doesnt belong to that article.If you are not going to state your reason why it has to be maintained in that article then im going to delete it.. --laertes d 18:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the point that Hectorian was making is that the text from Kinross does not belong in the intro. The intro needs to be short, concise and absolutely NPOV. Stuff that has a POV spin needs to be lower in the article where it can be put into the appropriate contexst. I suggest that you (laertes d) put your text lower in the article with appropriate qualifications so that he is not presented as an unbiased source. --Richard 19:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Hectorian, you also made this revert. Is the rationale the same as for the Kinross insertion? If not, please explain the reversion. Thanx. --Richard 19:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou, I also noted that you made this reversion. The text inserted by laertes d appears to have citations. Can you explain why you thought his text was unacceptable? Thanx. --Richard 19:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Horton had been in Smyrna for years, was there shortly before the fire and, at least, he was an official, US consul and an adult at that time!

If u want to create a short paragraph for the preceding events, go ahead! but not by quoting Kinross... this way u do not show why turks and greek were fighting in the first place, but u present Kinross's POV. I did not remove the other paragraph, but i added something more from the same article u had put as source; something more from the material that u "conveniently" omitted (e.g. that no turkish historian ever dared to say something similar for his own government)... But whoever removed it, i suppose was right, since it was just a copy-paste (u have to rephrase it if u want it here). Also, have in mind that Greece does not recognize the Smyrna Catastrophe as Genocide, but the Asia Minor Catastrophe (Smyrna included) as such (I can provide the Proclamation from the Hellenic Parliament, if u are not convinced by my words).

U do not know where the picture is from. Apart from this, u said i think there has to be a section dealing with the preceding events; why not a picture dealing with the preceding events? as a chinese saying lets us know: "A picture equals 1,000 words"...

U call Horton a greek lover, turkish hater fanatic christian... Do u want me to say whose lover Kinross was, according to some? Hectorian 19:34, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Richard, i understand your concern but i opened a new section and separated the passage of Kinross from the intro and included lon beginning part in it. Therefore intro becomes shorter not longer. Passage from kinross was about the massacres that took place in Smyrna, Kinross never said anything definite about the fire in his book but merely presented the issue as Greeks says Turks burnt it And turks says it was greeks who did it.

Answering Hectorian, It wasnt Kinross point of view but that of Angelos elefantis, a greek historian.

"U do not know where the picture is from"

then tell me please where this picture is from.sigh.. As i sais previously, picture doesnt belong to this article.. --laertes d 19:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Richard, one more thing, What Kinross said about the fire is now located unfittingly in the section of sources whixh claim turkish responsibility..That section, me thinks, has to be separated for only the sources who accuse turks fro the fire.

Article itself contain various "Hectorian" comments like this: "Many accounts proposed by some Western scholars that the Turks burned the Armenian and Greek quarters "

Who are these western scholars? I put a citation request symbol and it somehow also dissappeared..--laertes d 19:53, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Do not mix things up. I said Kinross's POV for Kinross's POV! the position of that greek historian is another issue, for which i have openly spoken, expanded the paragraphe u created [5], because your POV-pushing was obvious:u chose only what was in accordance with your POV from the source. The paragraph was deleted, cause the only thing it was, was just copy-paste... U did not even bother to rephrase it; u just found a few sentences against the Greek POV, and u presented it here, above all, in the beginning (!) of the article, to make a point!

For the picture, I found out more, by taking a closer look at it (it is like a horror film, but i had to): the picture was shoot in Smyrna's dock. it is written on it. any user who speaks Greek can verify what i am saying. Thus, u have no reason to remove it. Hectorian 20:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I saw the same picture previously in somewhere else as massacred Armenians by Turks during WWI. It is still quite unlikely to be a picture from Smyrna. If it is so how do greeks obtained it? Plus the uniforms on them seems like they are the soldiers of "special organization", a special unit that was in existance during the WWI..And again how do you these people are hellenes but not somebody else?--laertes d 20:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not know what are u trying to make here... (I can only assume). The picture says in Greek polytonic script "Προκυμαία Σμύρνης" (Smyrna's dock). The men in uniform do not wear greek army clothes. everything else is just your own assumptions, cause u do not want the picture to be here. I return to u the comment u had made about me [6]: u have repeatedly deleted the picture because it offends your turkish pride. Hectorian 21:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No my hectorian if you use it in relevant articles i wouldnt have any problem..What im trying to do is to reason with you, which is obviously a mistake..--laertes d 21:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The picture is from Smyrna's dock; no article can be more appropriate to use it in, than this one. Hectorian 21:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I would like laertes d to explained why he made this change. I quoted the same exact source he did. If the edit will not be restored, i will remove the whole paragraph (which is based on the same source). Also, I am shocked that Laertes d did not mention above that it was him who deleted it, and shamelessly claimed that others deleted his sourced info! Hectorian 22:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Simply putting, i, as you want me to do Mr. Hec., rephrased the article. What matters here for me is that an eminent Greek historian acknowledges that it was Greeks who provoked the disaster in Smyrna, if not directly caused. In overall the entire article that i made quotation from is far from being pro-turkish and repeat Greek thesis. I can take whatever part i want from it..

And i didnt deleted the entire section for god's sake, youre the one who is shameless here. like every point that i made in that article it was gone 5 minutes after without any explanation..

i repeat for you, This is the opinion og a Greek historian..--laertes d 23:49, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And i wonder if Thulium, the guy who say i might be blocked for my reversions, is warning this ever-mumbling Hectorine for his constant abuse of the articles that i provided..--laertes d 00:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Btw, im still not convinced that this picture has something to do with the fire of smyrna in 1922, but most likely it is from WWI era but anyway im not going to touch it again..

Noone has to inform me about anything; everyone knows that i am aware of the WP:3RR. u, as a new user, may not had been. My answers to what u have posted are all over the section. Lastly, do not call me "Hectorine". this is not even a typo... (beware of the implications someone can think of) Hectorian 00:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

ok hectorine, oh sorry hec.. whatever.--laertes d 00:25, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hectorine, That was the opinion taken from a greek scholar, it also repeat the greek thesis therefore you cant claim it to be positively turkish biased and im now putting it again if you have any resentment first write in here, not destroy what i wrote in the article for gods sake..--laertes d 09:35, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It's been addressed above that u are placing it in the wrong place, and i was not the only one who talked about it. also, if u quote only what serves your POV from the source, i will either revert u, or i will add the quotes that "hurt your sensitivities" (i hope this time u will be honest enough, and u will not remove them again). Hectorian 09:48, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

God damn you hectorine, nobody said anything about the article of Angelos elefantis about being in the wrong place, dont make up things..anyway i cant change now the article. i am almost about to think this place is run by greek mafia. --laertes d 10:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I do not make up things. Richards's comment [7]. I would advise u Laertes d to cease personal attacks. If u continue, u will be blocked. Hectorian 10:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

For his personal attacks ([8]), after last warning (reverted by Khoikhoi (edit conflict)), laertes d has been blocked.--Yannismarou 10:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Im deleting the said picture of chpoped off heads. These are ottoman soldiers with ottoman uniform, it doesnt matter at all where the picture is taken, there isnt any reference for this picture to be relates with the year 1922. And unless hectorine can prove otherwise this picture has no place in this section..--laertes d 15:41, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

You oblige me to warn you again. The name of the user is "Hectorian" and not "Hectorine". Ironies to other users are regarded as personal attacks.--Yannismarou 17:45, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

The picture is clearly labelled, in Greek, as coming from Smyrna. Any Greek can verify this. -Alexius Comnenus

Uniforms

Copy-pasted what immediately follows (down to Hectorian's remarks) from my talk page. Cretanforever 04:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the speedy tag from Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg. The reason you provided is not a valid speedy deletion criteria. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

US troops shortly before the landing in Normandy in 1942

I received your message. May I go ahead and put this picture in a Second World War related article with a caption like, "US troops shortly before the landing in Normandy?". At one time, Turkish army uniforms had double row of buttons, but not during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). If someone comes up and says, "Hey! Those uniforms are not that war!", it's a valid argument. Cretanforever 13:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't understand. That's not a Speedy delete criteria. The proper thing to do is to fix the caption. If you're still unclear about this, then do this: Read WP:CSD. You nominated the image for Speedy deletion, and I've told you that "I think the caption of the image is wrong" is not a valid speedy delete criteria. Regards, CHAIRBOY (☎) 15:11, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the user who uploaded it should be made to understand that editing in an encyclopedia is a rather conservative exercise, and in the specific case of wikipedia, there are rules to respect as you cite yourself. It's amazing that the image is around since months. I am not the fixer or the headmaster of Kalamata primary school. I will proceed differently. Cheers. Cretanforever 16:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is not a tool for "teaching someone a lesson". Please use care in the future, and use the correct methods for fixing problems - CHAIRBOY (☎) 16:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You read my thought and you caught my words:) I am precisely shunning away from "teaching someone a lesson". Cretanforever 16:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The photo, which has caused a lot of controversy the last days, stayed, despite attempts to "speedy delete" it. as i have said above, it writes in Greek that it is from Smyrna. The link provided holding the position that the Turks of the picture are wearing late 19th century-1900s uniforms is from the Turkish wikipedia. is there a link, outside wikipedia? cause as far as i know, we cannot use another language wikipedias as a source. not to mention that in the image, i do not see all the soldiers wearing this uniform, and no info that this uniform had stopped been used by the turkish army. also, had Kemal ordered new uniforms for his army? maybe from Hugo Boss? and why is there a request for citation that the victims are Greeks? the photo shows turkish soldiers, in Smyrna's dock (written in the bottom in Greek), wearing their own uniforms (there is nothing convincing that these uniforms were not in use in early '20s)... Perhaps someone requests the names of the "heads+lost bodies" to be convinced that they are Greeks? Hectorian 22:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the relevant page of Military Museum in İstanbul http://www.tsk.mil.tr/genel_konular/askerimuze.htm (they should know something about Turkish uniforms). Article 19 corresponds to the uniforms used during the Turkish War of Independence. You also have a glimpse of the earlier ones, as well as the painting by Fausto Zonaro for a clearer look, for which I am putting the commons link in the page http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:D%C3%B6meke_Harbi_Zonaro.jpg. If you prefer yet another citation, other than the commons, I can deliver it too. Zonaro's painting would look nice in the Greco-Turkish War (1897) article by the way.

I wouldn't trust Greek sources on Turkish matters if I were you. If you want another example where it is written in the bottom in Greek such and such, but the image is clearly the exploit of someone's backroom mongering, just ask me to show you :) Cretanforever 04:02, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Turkish military uniforms before the 1909 Regulation on Military Outfits (Elbise-i Askeriye Nizamnamesi [1]) and the adoption of khaki jackets and trousers

Some time between 1890 and 1909, by converging the rifles and uniforms. As I said, if you want another example where it is written in the bottom in Greek such and such, but the image is clearly the exploit of someone's backroom mongering, just ask me to show you :) Cretanforever 08:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The guns look like Mausers, which puts the picture at post 1890, which makes it quite possible that the labelling is accurate. I see no reason to doubt the label, as Turks said earlier, these uniforms look like the militia units set up during WWI. I'm sure that many of Ataturks soliders would wear these. -Alexius Comnenus

I still have not seen a source stating that these uniforms were not in use during the Greco-Turkish war... The link provided from the Military Museum in Istanbul, does not clear up things: the two soldiers on the left have one row of buttons in their uniforms, just like the two soldiers on the left in the picture of this article. Nor can I see other differences between the historic black and white photo and the wax (I guess) figures in the Istanbul Military Museum; and to be honest, why should we believe what 4 wax images created (I suppose) in the '80s-'90s depict, and not a photo of the '20s? I am not in need of any example... Even if there exists (I suppose it does) an image which is clearly the exploit of someone's backroom mongering, it does not mean that this image is also that. We cannot remove and delete pictures just because another picture is a forge or just because we do not like them... I trust what is written in this picture, cause it is written in polytonic, and cause, practically, I cannot see anything that would allow me to call it "fabricated": black and white image, bad quality (well, none expects better quality for such an old picture-we have examples of pictures from the '20s in other articles), historic image, turkish uniforms (with no convincing evidence that these uniforms were not in use in early 1920s), Greek script in polytonic, and, though I am not an expert, I cannot see any Adobe Photoshop or other programme's traces. Hectorian 17:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

You trust, I don't. You say genuine, I say photomontage. You say black, I say khaki. You ask for a "convincing evidence that these uniforms were not in use in early 1920s". I say, fortunately, le ridicule ne tue point:) We should put it into this talk page until it's clarified. Cretanforever 19:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually there is not much thing to clarify, cretan forver. If hec. wants this pic to be shown here he has to come up with evidence that this photo belongs to the year 1922 otherwise it has no place in the fire of smyrna section. and generally this same photo is being used by armenian genocide sites for the killings of armenians.. These are ottoman troops with ottoman uniforms, most likely they are from teskilati mahsusa(special organization) regiments, which were officially annulled by the year 1918..im deleting the picture.--laertes d 23:56, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you could set it real and delete those kelles. Cretanforever 09:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The photo is quite clearly labelled and the firearms (Mausers) and uniforms don't lead one to believe that this photo was not taken from the time period. I cannot see for what more you would ask. Taking heads was quite a common practice among Balkan Muslims, I can find you numerous pictures of Turkish and Bosnian soldiers doing it in the 1990s, much less the 1920s. I don't see why you believe that this is a photomontage. -Alexius Comnenus

Some habits die slow.. This picture was posted in the European in 1996. Shows turkish soldiers after the "succesful completion of operations" in Kurdistan displaying their "trophies". Image:Turkishsoldiers.jpg--Tedblack 10:19, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Article has been transformed into a tourist brochure

Recent additions/modifications by a committed group of turkish editors have transformed this article into a tourist brochure proudly displaying new buildings that make Izmir such a great tourist attraction. This would be perfect if the article was about Izmir but here we are trying to let people know about a very tragic event that resulted in more than a million refugees. Is it possible to moderate this organised attempt by a pack of turks to camouflage their black bits of history? --Tedblack 10:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Ted, please let's not speculate about whether editors are Turkish or not. Could you focus on the changes instead? Jakew 11:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Ted, I agree with Jakew for one more reason: You need to devote your energy into writing and referencing the article itself. You seem very knowledgeable on the matter, and your edits are more than welcome if sourced. Please continue in that direction, and remember: Your goal should be to fix the article; not the other editors here. Niko Silver 14:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Same old habit here is the insistence of some greeks to try to change the subject and post unrelated data with the events of smyrna. Turkish soldiers in the picture sent by tedblock are from 90's may i ask what relevance does it have with the burning of smyrna? Same goes with the picture, now again put in the article..--laertes d 20:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

And tedblock, one million of refugees was the result of a treaty that was signed by your own government and turkey if you remember..Plus 600.000 Turkish refugees came from greece..

If we are going to change this place from where we are debating about the events of smyrna to a general forum in which everyone accuse one another for something in the past then i can say greeks made an ethnic cleanesing in Peleponnese against turks, albanians and jews in 1820's and in 1920's they again made an ethnic cleanesing in western anatolia, slaughtering thousands of civilian turks, virtually burning entire western anatolia..Same old habits, ha? --laertes d 20:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The relevance issue was cleared out above. Niko Silver 21:38, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

this photo is assembly .greeks are dishonourable.greeks are liar.ı am comdemning you—Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.107.42.128 (talk • contribs)

Learn to read and write before you start using a computer. --Tedblack 12:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The general consensus seems to keep the severed heads picture, I am re-reverting. -Alexius Comnenus

A consensus is an agreement. I see no agreement here. Khoikhoi 04:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, the photo above is revealing for the means used by the turkish f... government, to shut the mouths of those who dare talk about freedom. Apropos, this photo has CIA connections... Funny is the external policy of the United States...: the Kurds of Iraq should be autonomous or independent, but the Kurds of Turkey should never be or even exist! (LOL... read Gibbon...). Secondly, I cannot even understand why there is so much dispute about the fire of Smyrni... The Greek army had already left... the fire began shortly after the kemalist army entered the city, and, moreover, in the Armenian Quarter... (see Armenian Genocide). Let the users draw their own conclusions, instead of presenting them panturkist and kemalist ideas... The fire was set up by kemalists! it is so tiring to present facts... as if an encyclopedia should give to a povish, nationalist minority opinion the same weight.... I even could support the tuskish POV, if someone was in the position to tell me what happened to the 250,000 Greeks of Smyrni... Where they abducted by aliens? Area 51 would look a kiddengarden in front of this... But φωνήν βοώντος εν τη ερήμω... (read the Bible for the translation... what? it's original script is in Greek? LOL... Then, I "suppose" the Greeks have nothing to say about this and Asia Minor... LOL). If some users want to claim Ataturk's lover's writings, let them do so... But these writings will be considered as valid as the respective writings of ultra nationalists of whatever side... I know that the tuskish users have been fulled by kemalist-panturkist ideas, but these ideas are not gonna prevail in wikipedia... They may believe that the Hittites and the Sumerians were turkish (LOL)... They may believe that Prophet Mohamand was turkish (kara-LOL... they will get the meaning of this (kara) one... since, even the turkish minister of culture said that... hahahahahahaha! Mohamand a Turk! hitting my head agaist the wall, but can't stop laughing... Haha! are the Turks wonder why the Arabs still don't like them? LOL), but better keeping these crap for internal consumption... The world is not that stupid as the tuskish government...Hectorian 06:31, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The main lesson from wikipedia: they who organise reverts shall inherit the article; he who reverts on his own shall be blocked. You have to hand it to the turks: they are a tireless group of reverters. --Tedblack 11:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thea Halo

Khoikhoi, why do you keep putting up a picture of Thea Halo? She is of Greek Pontian origins and has nothing to do with Smyrna...

I've removed her, thanks. Khoikhoi 06:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Turkish POV Nonsense

Please name even one contemporary non-Turkish scholar that honestly believes that the Greeks burned Smyrna. Ferguson, Fromkin, Karsh, Lewis and numerous other non-Greek and non-Turkish scholars (as well as some Turkish scholars) have affirmed that the Turkish military burned Smyrna. This article needs to be totally revamped to reflect the majority positon of scholars, but the POV of some Turkish nationalists who like to edit Wikipedia. -Alexius Comnenus —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.225.190.250 (talk) 23:27, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

Can you please post here the exact citations and quotes, Alexi? Niko Silver 23:42, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, please create an account. Khoikhoi 23:46, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Alexius , Niko and his turkish friends keep asking for citations and quotes which have been provided in abundance. But you see these citations always come from either "Armenian originated" writers or diplomats married to Greek women. And so all corrections are reverted. Lets wait until we find Kemal's admission for these crimes! --Tedblack 15:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I will provide references shortly-- I have exams this week. I have most of the authors in my library and will look up the relevant passages, typing in quotes.

I would also like to invite some pro-Turkish people to find contemporary Western historians who hold the view that the Greeks burned Smyrna. -Alexius

Alexius they are not supported by any scholarly research. The Turkish bastards are supported by the NPOV policy which means that any Turkish act that portrays them in a bad light is not neutral and the sources are therefore biased. Please notice that the article on the Armenian genocide has to be blocked from editing (its history shows that even this widely acknowledged event was disputed by the Turkish editors). Lets hope this fascist nation stays out of Europe. --Tedblack 14:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

i keep wondering why Tedblack is not being blocked after all his racist comments and direct insults..(Especially if we consider that i have been blocked 2 or 3 times without doing any of these things..)--laertes d 17:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

See [9]. Khoikhoi 06:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Lets look once again at how our Turkish fiends have made the article their own:

Its now called "The Great Fire of Smyrna". Anyone reading the title will immediately think that this was some accident like "The Great Fire of London" rather than a deliberate act. And more appropriate titles like "The Burning of Smyrna", "The Destruction of Smyrna" have been supressed.
There is ample coverage of the "impartiality" of sources that give the widely accepted fact that Smyrna was destroyed by a genocidal Turkish army. Horton was married to a Greek woman! Dobkin is an Armenia and therefore as objective as a Jew about Auswitch! Notice that based on this argument the only way to arrive at an objective point about the Destruction of Smyrna would be to find sources that are not (1) Armenian or Greek (2) married to an Armenian or Greek. Given the fact that most of the survivors were non-turkish citizens that had to flee this will be very difficult.
Any edits are supressed by reverting to the last version of the article. But the last version has not been the result of debate. Pictures of Smyrna as it is now have been added. Who agreed to that? The picture of Turks displaying the heads of dead Greeks has been deleted. Who agreed to that? The report by Prentiss is given extensive coverage but none of the witness reports by American sailors are given the same coverage. Who agreed to that?

I could go on and on but one fact is plain: the current version does not allow for a consistent and objective coverage of this crime. It only tries in the name of NPOV to cover yet another Turkish crime.--Tedblack 16:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Khoikhoi

What gives this user the authority to edit this article unilaterally? He has changed the article beyond description without entering into a discussion. He has been adding pictures (like that of Admiral Lambert) just to add insult to injury. Is this his article? --Tedblack 09:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems like, it is actually you who wants the ownership of that article ted..--laertes d 20:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Gentlemen, nobody owns the article, but Wikipedia encourages editors to be bold in making changes. Ted, I'm afraid I don't understand: could you explain the problem with adding these pictures? Jakew 22:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Pictures showing beautiful buildings in todays Smyrna are not relevant to this story; would you like pictures of cafes and bars in todays Warsaw in a story about the destruction of the Jewish ghetto there?

A picture that was entirely relevant (Turkish soldiers posing with the heads of civilians) has been deleted. It has been replaced by a picture of Admiral Lambert. I can see no justification for this swap. The picture deleted adds documentary evidence. Nobody cares how Admiral Lambert looked like. --Tedblack 13:24, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Why?

Is this image removed from this article? Aristovoul0s 17:26, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Turkish soldiers posing with heads of Hellenes

because of the many times stated reason that these are ottoman troops with ottoman uniforms, youre using that image out of context. Not so long ago, there was an american consular report about atrocities committed by retiring greek troops but then it was deleted from the article on the grounds that these events did not take place at the time of the smyrna fire eventhough these atrocities performed by greek troops just days before the fire broke out in Smyrna. Now you try to put a WW I era picture in that same article..--laertes d 20:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

We dont need a new line of edit warring, state your reasons before insisting on this picture domitius..--laertes d 20:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

ı just wonder, do these greeks who keep editing thınk themselves as the owner of the site or some sort of mafia? Yanniasmarou, Domitius keep re-editing the article without bothering to say one word ın the discussion section..--laertes d 16:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

You keep calling Greek users "mafia", which is a personal attack. I suggest you adopt a more civil behavior. Thank you.--Yannismarou 18:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[The text] seems like Greek to me (Shakespeare :) ) what's written, why would it be in Greek, not in Ottoman Arabic script?--deniz 19:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou, dont manipulate what i am saying, i didnt mean all greek users but only people like you who keep re editing the article without giving any explanation. And let me repeat then, youre behaving like youre the owner of the site and youre acting like a mafia that your actions dont need any explanations.. Adressed to you directly not anyonelse.

now please behave according to your suggestions and adopt a more civil behavior and explain the reasons of your re editing the article.--laertes d 20:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no manipulation here. You clearly said:

do these greeks who keep editing thınk themselves as the owner of the site or some sort of mafia

...and you still continue! Half of your words above are WP:NPAs. I've highlighted them. Niko Silver 20:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is manipulation here and you continue manipulating them. Now is there anyone who would answer my question, why to re edit the article?--laertes d 21:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm very happy because your yellow highlighting makes your PA even more vivid.--Yannismarou 12:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can kindly explain to Laertes why a picture which is not directly linked to the fire (unless you can prove so) is being used in this article? --A.Garnet 12:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou-"I'm very happy because your yellow highlighting makes your PA even more vivid."

It wasnt me who highlighted them but Nikosilver did it. And there is still no answer to my question yannismarou on your part..--laertes d 13:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Then, well-done to Nicos. The reasons for not removing the picture are explained to previous sections of this talk page.--Yannismarou 13:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The photo is taken from http://www.greece.org/genocide/quotes/p-he-smyrna-vict-trsoldiers-heads.html, this site is not an authoratative source. --A.Garnet 14:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

"The reasons for not removing the picture are explained to previous sections of this talk page"- Yannismarou

Yannismarou, on the contrary of what youre saying the reasons for "removing" this picture are explained in the previous sections of this talk page..And in the last version of the article before it was locked for a time period that picture was not in the article, until aristovulos show up again.

Now Yannismarou, can you tell us again what are these mysterious reasons that no one here want to share for not removing the picture?--laertes d 16:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Please translate what is written on the photo --deniz 17:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The first word is "Photographia" (I think you guys can guess what that means :-P photograph) and then afterwards on the bottom it reads in Greek polytonic script "Προκυμαία Σμύρνης" (Smyrna's dock). I can't make out the two words in between on top since it is a bit blurry. -Alexius Comnenus

The full greek text under this photograph says: "Φωτογραφία τυχαίως ευρεθείσα στην προκυμαία Σμύρνης: Χαρακτηριστική ανανδρεία Τουρκική" Translation: "Photograph found by chance on Smyrna's quay: typical Turkish cowardice". There is a latin number 9 (IX) so obviously this photo is part of a collection.

To the hellenes trying to put this article into shape: keep arguing about NPOV with the various turkish editors. Eventually we will have to admit that the destruction of Smyrna was a Hellenic crime!

I like A.Garnet statement that this photo does not come from an "authoritative source". Usually when representing evidence the question is whether it is genuine or not... --Tedblack 12:54, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is about verifiablity, as you probably know Tedblack, so A. Garnet's statements probably refer to that as you probably already know. You were not part of that discussion, but several references in another article were removed because they were certainly POV pushing. Biases can blind people. Anyway, Kekrops I reverted becuase of this: ""he was [in Smyrna] up until the evening of September 11, 1922, on which date the city was set on fire", which would disqualify him as an eyewitness, since the fire had started on 13 September. [3]". Also there seems to be a lot contradictions in the article and counterintuitivity. But it is some account of someone so it can stay I think. deniz^T_C 23:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The statement `there seems to be a lot contradictions in the article and counterintuitivity' does not seem to have been applied to the section on Prentis's statement. Will it be possible at last to be a little bit objective? deniz I need no favours just transparent rules of methodology. Are you able to explain to me what makes Horton's account so contradictory when compared to the Prentis report? Does the fact that Prentis published two contradictory accounts on two different dates worry you at all? Before you accuse other editors of `biases' take a look at your own flagrant disregard of NPOV. <--Tedblack 10:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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