Free Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 - The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance by Giles Milton Page A

sheep, pigs, dogs and poultry mixed up with crowds of men, women and children of all ages.’ The villagers had taken absolutely everything they possessed. ‘Baggage and litter of every description were piled up in all sorts of ways, as even doors and shutters had been wrenched from the houses and carried away. Quite a lot of this was hanging on the rigging Christmas-tree like.’ There were too many people to fit aboard the steamer so other craft had been requisitioned. ‘The steamer had about fifteen or more small boats in tow, all likewise full of baggage and with one or more human beings in charge.’
    When the Greek villagers caught sight of the Helen May , they let out a great cheer. ‘The people must have been glad to get away and feel quite safe at last, for the shouts which greeted us as we passed afforded unmistakable evidence of this.’
    Edmund had promised the villagers that he would continue to water their crops and harvest them when they were ready. This he duly did, selling them in Smyrna and then delivering the money to the islanders who had built new lives on Mytilene.
    Although Edmund was glad that he had been able to evacuate the villagers in some semblance of order, he was desperately sorry to see them go. ‘I do not think that I shall ever forget the awful loneliness which brooded over the village after its evacuation by the inhabitants, about four thousand souls. A few stray dogs and cats were the only living creatures left behind and it was pitiful to hear the dogs howl at night.’
    The evacuation of Long Island was one of the last upheavals in the long months of unrest. A visit to Smyrna by the Minister of the Interior defused the tension and the chettes ’ reign of terror temporarily came to an end. But as the summer heat intensified, it became increasingly apparent that all was not well in the world of international politics. Turkey was about to become embroiled in the countdown to war – and the side that she would take in the forthcoming conflict would be decided not in Smyrna or in Constantinople, but in the English city of Newcastle, on the River Tyne.

Enemy Aliens

    N ewcastle was basking in a summer heatwave. The mercury had touched thirty degrees on the previous afternoon and it looked set to rise even higher during the course of the weekend. Local newspapers were predicting a rush of day-trippers to the seaside, although they warned that thunderous storms had been forecast for later in the weekend. If they had known about the extraordinary events taking place on Newcastle’s wharves, they might also have predicted tempestuous times in the world of international politics.
    There was much to keep the people of Newcastle entertained on that sweltering August weekend in 1914. At the Empire, the impresario, G. H. Elliot, was performing his much loved vaudeville act, ‘the chocolate-coloured coon’. At the Tyne Theatre, the Antarctic explorer, Cecil Meares, was lecturing on Captain Scott’s fateful expedition to the South Pole. But one attraction looked set to overshadow all of these. On Sunday, 3 August, just two days after Turkey and Germany had signed a secret alliance, a colourful military pageant was to be held in Newcastle docks. The largest dreadnought in the world – the mighty Sultan Osman I , which was being built in the shipyards – was to be handed over to a Turkish captain and crew.
    The ceremony was to be performed with all the pomp and circumstance that Newcastle could muster – and with good reason. The Sultan Osman I was by far the biggest dreadnought ever built. She was 700 feet long and 90 feet wide, so big that it was feared she would not fit under the two bridges that spanned the river. She was also the most heavily armed fighting ship in the world; her fourteen guns could fire 23,000 pounds of high explosive each minute, enough to overwhelm any other dreadnought afloat.
    For more than a year, this beast of a ship had been an object of wonder to the cityfolk of