Paradise LostParadise Lost

Smyrna was the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire, its vast wealth created over centuries. Its factories teemed with Greeks, Armenians, Turks, and Jews--a majority Christian city unique in the Islamic world. But to the Turkish nationalists, Smyrna was a city of infidels. In the aftermath of the First World War and with the support of the Great Powers, Greece had invaded Turkey. But by the summer of 1922, as Greek troops retreated, the non-Muslim civilians of Smyrna assumed that American and European warships would intervene if the Turks entered the city. Then, on September 13, 1922, Turkish troops descended. They rampaged first through the Armenian quarter, and then throughout the rest of the city. They looted, raped, and murdered thousands. Soon, all but the Turkish quarter of the city was in flames and hundreds of thousands of refugees crowded the waterfront. The city burned for four days; more than 100,000 people were killed and millions left homeless. Based on eyewitness acc