Great Fire of Smyrna

The fire of Izmir, called by the Greeks of Smyrna disaster ( in Greek Καταστροφή της Σμύρνης, Turkish İzmir Yangını 1922 ), was a fire, which in September 1922 destroyed much of the port city of Izmir at the end of the Greco- Turkish War. Through this event, lost the millennia-old city its derived under the Ottoman rule multicultural and cosmopolitan embossed image.

Background

Izmir had taken during the Ottoman period a large economic boom as a trading port, which attracted newcomers from around the Mediterranean. First, displaced Jews settled in greater numbers from Spain, and later Greeks and merchants from the Catholic Western Europe, whose acclimatized descendants were called Levantine. In the 19th century there came then to a larger settlement of Armenians in the city. Thus, because these non-Muslim groups in any case a significant proportion of the urban population, if not accounted for the majority and the cityscape dominated, the city of Muslims was occasionally ( infidel İzmir ) called Gavur İzmir.

The relationship between the Christian and Muslim population is controversial, since, according to various sources, either the Greeks or the Turks were in the majority in the city. After Katherine Elizabeth Fleming the Greeks dominated the city, the ratio of the population was two to one..

After the First World War, a Greek occupation zone was established in Izmir and the surrounding area. In the Greco- Turkish War, which was performed with increasing bitterness and cruelty on both sides, Izmir formed the basis for the military campaigns of the Greek forces in Anatolia. On August 30, 1922, the resistance of the Greek troops broke into the battle of Dumlupınar together (near the city of Afyonkarahisar ) and the Greek troops retreated in headlong flight and pursuing a scorched earth policy on Izmir to Greece. On September 9, 1922, the Turkish troops reached the already cleared by the Greek military and civil parts of the Christian population of the city. The erupted in the early days of the Turkish occupation of the city in the neighborhoods of Christians fire ended with the population exchange agreed in the Treaty of Lausanne, the existence of Christian communities in the west of Asia Minor.

Expiration

The fire was on September 13, 1922, four days after the reconquest of the city down. The history is debatable. The resulting triggered major fire which destroyed the Christian and Levantine Quarter and the Muslim Quarter was spared, accompanied by massacres of Christian civilians.

With the destruction of the Christian quarters with still 50000-400000 other small Asian Christians were expelled, which then had to search under very harsh conditions on the coast refuge. On September 24, began ships of the Hellenic fleet to rescue the survivors and bring them to safety in Greece.

Also, nearly a century after the great fire remains a responsibility of dispute among historians.