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

Newcastle. They had watched in awe as her giant twin funnels became an ever more impressive addition to the city skyline. The local dock workers returned to their families each evening with eye-stretching tales of the ship’s interior. The officers’ wardroom had polished teak decking, silk-shaded lamps and Turkish rugs to adorn the floors. It was furnished with mahogany gaming tables and cretonne-covered armchairs. In each corner there was a brass spittoon for the pious Muslim officers who did not like to swallow their saliva during the fast of Ramadan.
    Ottoman ministers had been obliged to borrow more than £4 million – some £225 million in today’s money – to buy the Sultan Osman I , along with a second ship named Reshadieh . Servicing the bank loans for these two dreadnoughts soon proved an impossible burden. Ministers found themselves facing a massive shortfall of money and were forced to appeal directly to the people. There were collections in villages across Turkey and patriotic fund-raising events were organised, even in the farthest-flung outposts. According to one observer, ‘agents had gone from house to house, painfully collecting these small subscriptions . . . there had been entertainments and fairs and, in their eagerness for the cause, Turkish women had sold their hair for the benefit of the common fund.’
    Now, after a long wait, the vessels were almost ready to be delivered. No one was looking forward to the Sunday handover ceremony more than Captain Raouf Bey, the much decorated naval hero of Turkey. He had arrived in Newcastle just a few days earlier, having been appointed commander of the dreadnought by the Turkish government. Such was his enthusiasm at being aboard the ship that he had failed to notice that his Turkish crew was being secretly monitored by Newcastle’s dockyard police. Nor had he realised that the Admiralty in London had sent a top-secret telegram to the shipbuilders, requesting that the final stages of construction be slowed down. There was good reason for this delaying tactic. On 28 June, news had reached London that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, had been assassinated. In the five weeks since, an event that had seemed like a local crisis had escalated into something of far greater significance. As rumours about general mobilisation in Central Europe reached London, ministers argued that this was the worst possible time to be handing over the world’s largest dreadnought to a country whose loyalty in the event of war was at best uncertain.
    No one was more concerned than Winston Churchill, the youthful First Lord of the Admiralty. He knew that Raouf Bey and his crew had arrived in Newcastle and had been warned that the Turkish captain had a reputation for acting precipitately. Churchill feared that Raouf Bey would suspect that work on the ship was being deliberately delayed and would attempt to board her by force. ‘There seemed to be a great danger of the Turks coming on board,’ he later wrote, ‘[and] brushing aside Mssrs Armstrong’s workmen and hoisting the Turkish flag.’
    The prospect of such a scenario caused grave concern in Whitehall, especially as the Turkish and German governments were forging ever closer links. On the last day of July, just hours before the German Kaiser ordered the mobilisation of his armies, Churchill took a decision that was to have profound and far-reaching consequences. The Sultan Osman I was to be impounded.
    Raouf Bey, unaware of this change of policy, was still looking forward to the handover ceremony, but as he gazed across the dockyard on the morning of the pageantry, he was greeted by a most unwelcome sight. A company of Sherwood Foresters was marching towards the Sultan Osman I and all of the men were carrying guns with fixed bayonets.
    By the time he realised that the vessels were being impounded, it was too late for him to act. The dockside was ringed with troops and Raouf Bey was a captain without a