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SMYRNA: A PICTURE OF DESOLATION

For Orientals, the sky is no less variable and uncertain than the political horizon. In the space of an hour the sea, calm as a lake, has been transformed to a roaring torrent.

Smyrna in the distance, and we are battling forward through one of the worst storms of the season. The steamer dances like a cork on the foam, while long sheets of rain drench the decks, huge waves washing into staterooms soak the carpet, thunder and lightning rage overhead; as in the grim battle of life, we can but hold on till the clouds pass.

Soon, indeed, are the waters about us again at rest, and the town rises to our view. A city burnt to the ground? Where are the ruins of which we have heard so much? Of a sudden the heavens answer.

As the lightning begins to play over the land, the “shells” of houses and their hollow interiors stand out clear before us—a picture of horror and desolation it would be hard to match. As we draw nearer it is no longer necessary for us to gaze upon the devastation; the blind could catch a strong smell of burning (not in itself disagreeable) and, in a few moments, we see that even the rains have not entirely quenched the clouds of smoke still rising from the tobacco factories.

Turkey considers herself at war, and red tape still prevails. But now one does not find many Turks who can speak English, though, strange to relate, there are quite a few English here still. We are not issuing passports to Turks!

Seeing my Turkish letters (better these than a British passport), the passport officer sent his secretary with me and my luggage to the Vali’s (i.e. governor’s) house. The Angora Ambassador in Rome, Djelalledine Arif Bey, had also telegraphed to the Vali that I was on my way, and requested that, as some acknowledgment of what I had done for Turkey, I should be given all possible facilities and a right royal welcome! The Vali, without doubt, did all he could.

I inquired of the officer what kind of man was the Vali, sure that the measure of his enthusiasm or his indifference would clearly reveal whether the master was liked by his men and thus provide me with a peep into the unknown. The man’s eyes positively lit up as he replied. It was clear that I should be well received by a good man. “He was sent to Malta, you know,” concluded the officer, as if that were enough. And, though I was English, I understood. I believe that the word “Malta” may soon be safely translated “patriot.”

I suppose it needed some courage to come to Turkey, braving the Custom house and passport officers even with special “protection”; but I met with no difficulties whatever. My companion only seemed puzzled by my name being the same as my father’s! A Turkish woman, of course, would be, e.g., Aïché Hanoun, wife of Rechid Pasha, or daughter of Zia Pasha. But have no foreign women, bearing their father’s name, been through the Smyrna customs, or am I not only the first British woman to visit Angora, but the first British spinster to enter Turkey?

Something of all I owed to the Vali for his “speeding up” of the customary formalities was forcibly impressed on me when I went back for my Turkish papers, to find one of my fellow-passengers, a Frenchman, still struggling with his passport and the custom duties.

The Vali’s konak (or palace) which I had long known from pictures, looks on to public gardens where the band plays every afternoon a strange mixture of Oriental and European music. It was delightful to hear Oriental tunes again, if indeed one can call Oriental music a tune. Anything in the major key seems out of focus with Turkey, its atmosphere, its scenery, and surroundings. The more one hears and understands the piercing melancholy of these refrains the more one loves them; and I am particularly grateful to all those Turks (M. Kemal Pasha included) who entertained me with the true native work.

In front of the marble steps of the palace Greek flags are used as mats—dishonoured and trampled with Turkish mud! Such a symbol of conquest struck me as neither generous nor happy; but I soon found that it had been adopted without the knowledge of the chivalrous Vali, who immediately put a stop to the custom.

His palace is lavishly supplied with fine carpets, always the chief item of furniture in the East, while there are many chairs and a handsome desk in the waiting room.

“Welcome to our shores, dear miss,” said the Vali.

And that he might at once disassociate me from English policy, I replied: “That is certainly a charming welcome from a Malta man.”

“Malta to me,” said my host, as he took my hand like an old friend, “is still incomprehensible. What can have happened to England?”

“I understand it, dear Excellency, no better than you can. The more I hear of what has taken place in Turkey during the last few years, the more often I repeat your own words. What, indeed? To an Englishwoman who loves her country, it means great sorrow; but this unreasoning hostility towards your people must stop. That is why I am going to Angora. After my visit, at any rate, the Turks shall see that one Englishwoman can stand out against injustice.”

“Thank you a thousand times, dear miss,” was his reply, as the attendant brought in coffee and cigarettes.

Like all the Nationalist leaders, the Vali is a young man. He looks, in fact, about forty, and comes from an Albanian family. Of medium height, slight and dark, good-looking despite his glasses, and intelligent; he is, above all, an honest and kindly gentleman. If all the “fanatics” of Angora are of this description, I shall have nothing to fear. Abdul Halik Bey is a great admirer of England.

Begging I should not hesitate to ask for anything, assuring me that no service possible to render will be neglected, he called up the head of the police and three of his officers to make my acquaintance. The Vali explains that as Smyrna is in ruins, I must go to the only existing hotel—a temporary establishment under the care of Naim Bey, who had been the proprietor of the two best hotels in Smyrna, now burnt to the ground. This “temporary establishment” was the town residence of the Spartallis and a very fine mansion indeed!

When I had said au revoir to the Vali, I paid my return visit to the chief of the police, Zia Bey—a handsome and very energetic young man of about thirty-two, who speaks only Turkish.

Again we drank coffee. He pointed to the picture of M. Kemal Pasha above his desk, and made a little speech about him, which, alas, I could not understand. As comment, however, I clapped my hands, adding: “M. Kemal Pasha Chok Guzel” (i.e., very beautiful), which evidently pleased him. He could see at least that my spirit was willing to pay tribute to his national hero although the Turkish words failed me. Throughout Anatolia, whenever at a loss for words, I adopted this phrase; never once did it fail to convey the meaning I intended—congratulations for his magnificent victory.

Zia Bey has published some detective novels—from his own personal experiences. Like the man himself, they seem to have secured wide applause.

He, too, like the Vali, is a stern enemy to delay, and often receives several people at once. He will listen to all you have to say, while the business of an earlier caller is still to be executed. Practical and courteous though such a custom may be, it obviously has its drawbacks. I wonder what would happen had I any advice to ask, or any suggestion to make, on what to me at least might seem private and confidential matters. Thanks to this system, however, it has been my privilege to meet at the Vali’s, or at Zia Bey’s, many notables of Smyrna, whom I might not have found time or occasion to visit.

One day when drinking my daily coffee with Zia Bey, he handed 20,000 Turkish pounds to a French merchant. A policeman, he explained, “found this in your rifled safe.” The merchant was so astonished that he spoke to me about it, adding: “Would they have been returned to me in any other land?”

Every day, after calling upon the Vali, I used to visit Zia Bey. To the Vali, of course, I could speak in French, but to Zia Bey I seldom went further than a repetition of praise for M. Kemal Pasha. It is not words that count when the heart is following the dictates of truth.

At the hotel I could only be accommodated by the dismissal of another guest. Men were sleeping everywhere—in the drawing-room, sitting-rooms, bedrooms, three, four, and six in a room, grateful to find anywhere to lay their heads. To my lot fell one of the best rooms in the house, containing a sofa as well as a bed large enough for four. I felt very guilty, but what could I do? I was the only woman!

To this improvised hotel everyone in Smyrna comes sooner or later, if not for accommodation, at least for meals and “light” refreshment. The country, of course, is dry, but the guests walk round the laws as cleverly as they do in the U.S.A. Americans are, perhaps, the chief offenders, and seem always able to bring in with them whatever they require. If they are caught Naim has to pay the damages! “Poor things,” he remarked by way of comment, “they are so far from their homes.”

Most unfortunately, the Turk’s kindness and consideration for his customers is not withheld from the flies. The Nationalist motto, “A free and independent Turkey,” has certainly been granted them—they go wherever they like, do whatever they like. They sit in thick layers on the table-cloth, they drown themselves in your glasses, you swallow them with your food; “and to think,” said a Danish merchant, “these creatures have been fattening on corpses!”

Whatever their nationality, all my neighbours made the most chivalrous endeavours to shield me from these pests. I was advised to sacrifice my bread as a cover to my glass when not drinking. I always refused water, and Naim Bey defied the law to give me German wine.

One day, exasperated beyond endurance, I procured what the French call a “guillotine,” and successfully slaughtered every fly that came within my reach. The “Italian” gently inquired whether the corpses were not more awful than the living insects.

“At least,” I said, “they cannot bite or carry microbes,” and I pursued the slaughter with a zeal that astonished even myself. I even aimed at those I saw walking over the South American’s arm, and hit his nose! Without a smile, he courteously declared that he did not mind what I might do to his nose, “but you will be careful of my glasses, won’t you?”

“Can’t you do something?” I asked Naim one day.

“They will go away when it is cold,” he replied with the philosophy of the true Turk.

“Cure or endure is also my motto,” I told him, smiling, “but I never endure before I’ve made a fine attempt to cure.”

On another occasion, my energies were not rewarded with true Christian gratitude or tact. I was busy as usual, when an orthodox lady who had given her nationality as “Catholic,” and was staying in Smyrna by special dispensation of the Turks, said to a Greek neighbour: “Look at this lady slaughtering flies, as her friends the Turks slaughter Christians.”

“Madame,” said I, “I have passed this morning among the ruins to which your ‘Christians’ have reduced this city.” I had yet to see the hideous devastation in Anatolia!

There were about two or three hundred business men in the hotel, waiting to learn their fate. They divided themselves into three distinct groups, in three different mess rooms. First, the silent, water-drinking, go-to-bed-at-nine Turks, in the library. Secondly, Americans, in the smoking-room, who left their allegiance to prohibition on the other side of the Atlantic; singing and dancing to the accompaniment of a banjo till the small hours of the morning. Thirdly, at a long table in the dining-room, sat the rest of us—principally business men—Italian, Spanish, Dutch, South American, Frenchmen, or Danes. My only fellow-countryman informed me that among other complications he had come to Smyrna to arrange, he has somehow to explain away the disappearance of 50,000 gallons of pure alcohol, sent from Cuba to Smyrna via New York. The officials in New York had helped themselves to the precious nectar, and sent the cargo on to Smyrna, refilled with water! Such are the trials of prohibition!

One and all, these men have but three topics of conversation: (1) the senseless policy of Mr. Lloyd George in sending the Greeks to Smyrna; (2) the criminal desire of the Turks to abolish capitulations; (3) the “probabilities” of likely successors to the deported Greeks and Armenians in the business world. It is assumed that Turkey cannot survive without the assistance of some European power. The Turk is a producer, not a merchant. The Italians affirm that trade would flourish in a happier world if they were given the vacancy. The Americans, however, dispute this honour, whilst the Dutchman, supported by a Dutch clergyman (born of French parents, but a British subject, in the service of Holland, speaking all three languages without an accent), declares the only power that is “going to count” in Turkey is Great Britain.

“In spite of her deplorable and ill-advised policy, her inexplicable treatment of the Turks, her protection of the Greeks (which has made them more arrogant and destestable than ever), there is something in the British national character which still commands respect and admiration. In six or eight months we shall see England back in Turkey, stronger than ever. England is not her government.”

I believe he is right. There was a more practical reason for his convictions than his deep affection for his English wife.

Holding no brief for Mr. Lloyd George, I still scorn these men of finance as cowards for their unmeasured abuse of the Premier.

“If you foresaw disaster so plainly,” I asked, “why did you not protest?”

“Every Chamber of Commerce sent a petition to Mr. Lloyd George,” was the reply, “which he put into his waste-basket.”

“Naturally. As practical men, is that your idea of a protest?”

“One of our biggest men, Mr. Patterson, went to the Paris Conference on our behalf.”

“Did he make himself heard? I assure you, if I had one hundred pounds invested in this country, instead of the hundreds of thousands your Scotsman holds, the world would have heard something of my visit to Paris!

“You saw financial disaster and ruin ahead, yet allowed yourselves to be talked into silence by M. Venizelos!”

Somehow, these men could not excite my pity. They were themselves more to blame than Mr. Lloyd George. With their huge financial backing, and vast interests in Smyrna, it was actually in their power, and theirs alone, to have kept out the Greeks.

It is a quaint result of my sense of justice that, in the French Secret Service, I am known as “a niece of Mr. Lloyd George.” When the brilliant one-time chef de Cabinet of Monsieur Briand published his violent attacks on Lord Robert Cecil and our late Premier, he also printed my replies. “He did not,” he kindly explained, “consider there was a word of truth in what I said, but he was unwilling to thwart an Englishwoman!”

Shortly after the appearance of my “defence,” the correspondent of a big newspaper in Chicago spoke of “my uncle,” Mr. Lloyd George. I protested, “not because I should not be proud of the relationship, but because I happen to have no such claim.”

“Dear lady,” he replied, “don’t think I shall ever want to spoil your little game.”

Such a remark did not merit a serious answer, and I allowed the matter to slide. I knew very well Mr. Lloyd George would never lift a finger to help “his niece,” for have I not four times appealed to him in vain on matters of the greatest national importance? Yet “his niece” will continue to defend him against “unjust” attacks, and criticise him also.

The Smyrna capitalists also did not love me because I wrote: “The day is past when financiers can obtain ‘concessions’ for 500 Turkish pounds backshish and then complain of the Turks for being amenable to bribes. The happy day will never return when the foreigner lived in Turkey without taxation, with next to nothing to pay in rent, was charged one and sixpence for a shooting licence, and had full control of money and trade.”

“Turkey is now for the Turks, and the Capitalists will have to recognise this or leave.

“Never again will Smyrna become the Aliens’ Paradise it once was. Would anyone, for example, have dared to offer the trams provided for Smyrna to any other nation but Turkey? Why were there not electric trams, instead of these wretched horse-boxes drawn by underfed ponies? And the compartment reserved for Turkish women was not even separated by a partition, but by a sheet that once perhaps was white!

“There are men in this town,” I wrote, “who would plunge Europe into war, to bring back the dear old lazy-going Turk who made so charming a background for our novels and plays. They would restore him for no higher purpose than to fill their purses at his expense.” At least, I said to these merchants: “If you cannot ‘love’ my whip, you know, in your heart of hearts, that I have spoken the truth. You should have a mighty respect for me, and I ask for nothing more.” The South American answered: “Every word you say is true, and we all admire you for it.”

Towards nightfall, however, my mind was occupied by certain more personal anxieties. The Italian had not yet even come to the hotel, and I could hear nothing of him. I began to reproach myself with not having attempted to extend the protection of my papers to him, although, like the gentleman he is, he had already refused my suggestion to that effect.

I could only apply, as a last resource, to the Vali’s secretary, who at once took me to the Caracol (i.e., the “lock-up”), where we found my friend in company with the Frenchman we had already been pitying for his struggles with passports. Neither of these young men were known in Smyrna; neither of them had secured permission from Angora to land; neither of them were personally known to their Consuls; neither of them were able to speak a word of Turkish. They could not explain themselves, and were, therefore, to be kept under arrest till further inquiries could be made.

“After all, in war-time did we not do worse things than this?” I asked the enraged Frenchman, who was declaring such treatment would make a casus belli.

“When I was serving your country and travelling to San Remo with a special letter of recommendation from the French Minister of War, I was detained for forty-eight hours at Mentone, because they considered my ‘Plato’s Republic’ a proof of sympathy with the Bolshevists.” I was able, however, with the secretary’s willing assistance, to liberate both my fellow-passengers without further delay.

Naim Bey gave me many special privileges, no doubt as the result of prompting from the same quarter. He sent me up breakfast in the mornings, though his servants were all “Catholics” (i.e., Armenians, under the Papal protection), and did not know their job. I never could understand how he contrived to supply me with milk, as the Greeks had killed most of the cows; but I was no less heartily grateful for his permission to use the Spartelli library, and for the reading-lamp which he borrowed for me from an American.

All these acts of kindness, however, were done with such an appearance of ease that I even ventured upon one more request.

“Could I use the piano to accompany my Italian friend?”

He did not hesitate to banish the six occupants of “mattresses” in the drawing-room from their domain until we finished “La Tosca” and “Madame Butterfly.” Then an American begged me to play the “Swannee River,” and nearly broke down before he had even got to the chorus.

“Did I not tell you,” said the sympathetic Naim, “Poor things, they are so far away from home!”

I suppose I should not be too severe upon these merchants among the ruins of their past glory, and, to do them justice, they are accepting defeat like good sportsmen. The Dutchman is as merry as a cricket, despite his £80,000 “gone west,” his thirty years’ work undone for ever, his fine farm burnt to cinders.

I wish he would make a book out of all he has seen and done in this land of romance. No one knows it better, and, if my own sympathies are apt to be with the brigands from whom he has twice suffered capture (because they only rob the rich), I have enjoyed few men’s tales of adventure more than his. Good and strong men are rare enough, and I know this one would never forget a friend. If danger threatened, it would only reach you over his dead body.