Testimony: Charles Dobson (1886-1930)
Rev. Charles Dobson in Auckland Weekly News, 23 Aug 1917
(Courtesy of Charles Dobson's granddaughter)
I was in Smyrna when the Kemalist troops entered the city. For some days previous to the entry, there was increasing apprehension among the residents. I called on the Metropolitan Chrysostomos and found that he, and those immediately about him, were fearful of excesses when the Turks should arrive. The Metropolitan gave me a message signed by himself and other dignitaries, including the Armenian Archbishop, praying me to get it sent with haste to the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was an appeal to him to use his influence with the British Cabinet in order to effect treating with Kemal outside the city, or in the event of an entry to insure protection of at least the lives of his people. I regret having left this message in my bureau. It was too compromising to be caught with in the last tragic days. The last clause was an appeal in the name of Christ for haste in averting the approaching calamity. In common with all British people whom I consulted, I did not think the Turks would behave in such a way as to justify the fears of the Metropolitan. However, I took the message to Sir Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, British Naval Commander-in-Chief. The Admiral discussed the matter sympathetically, but pointed out that there was already considerable force on the spot, and that he did not anticipate any but an orderly entry, if the Turks found it expedient to enter at all. He advised me to use my own discretion in cabling the Archbishop of Canterbury. But to any cable sent to add that the British Admiral had sent the message, and, in the event of disorder, was prepared to give all the protection in his power to all sections of the community. It must be borne in mind that there was, at that time, in official circles, no apprehension of horrors of such a magnitude as soon transpired, and that the British Navy nobly redeemed the Admiral's promise of protection when during the fire and killing, the naval pinnaces and destroyers stood all night into the quay of the burning city and brought off refugees. In some cases, armed pickets penetrated into the city and brought parties back, through the flames and killing. One notable example of such work was the evacuating of the British Maternity Home with all its Greek staff and doctor and lying-in patients. I asked the Admiral for authority to publish in his name a message in the Press. He said that I could tell his opinion, that any occupation would be orderly and that he advised everybody to look after the refugees from the country, who were congesting the city, and to avoid giving any provocation.
I took the Admiral's message to a meeting of six influential members, at the Headquarters of the Microasiatic Defence League. I was surprised to find at the door of the Headquarters civilians apparently being supplied with bandoliers and rifles. I learned that it was still hoped that a sound section of the retreating army aided by civilian volunteers would be able to hold the city and its environments, until such time as the Allies could intervene to arrange an Armistice. I wrote the Admiral's message for the Press and left it with these five members of the League; one of them accompanied me to deliver the contents of the message to the Metropolitan. The members had asked me to facilitate their getting an interview with the Admiral, as they claimed to have information of a Turkish plot in the city. I dissuaded them from pressing the matter as there were so many wild rumours current (including the ridiculous one of the contemplated disorders by the then quietly embarking army) that I felt the Admiral had no means of arriving at the truth. I found the Metropolitan full of painful anxiety concerning his people, and not altogether reassured by the Admiral's statement, since he (and, rightly, as it transpired) felt that he knew the Turks better than British Officers. This is the last time I saw the Metropolitan. He was truly a martyr who died through staying at his post to reassure his people.
I regret that the message given to the Press was very mutilated. All reference to a possible entry by Kemalist forces was eliminated; moreover, in close propinquity, that suggested continuity of the message, was a paragraph saying that more British Naval units were on their way to Smyrna and their transports with soldiers were coming from Gibraltar. I can only believe that those responsible for the mutilation and exaggeration acted so in the hope of adding moral support to the forces prepared to defend the suburbs. If this is so, their action during war is perhaps legitimate, but the consequences were deplorable, because shortly after, the contemplated resistance was abandoned, and the people still looked for the coming of British transports. Perhaps Nureddin Pacha himself was influenced by this rumour, since on the night following the occupation they were not sure that a rumour that British troops were covering the retreat of the Greeks at Tchsme was untrue.
The entry of the Kemalist cavalry came sooner than most of us expected. I personally became aware of their presence while returning from the Consulate through a back street. There was suddenly a lot of screaming, and a woman threw herself on her knees shrieking for protection. Next moment about a squadron of mounted rifles swept round the corner at an easy gallop; some held sabres; most carried rifles at the ready across the crupper. They pulled their horses aside to avoid riding down the woman at my feet. Up a side street I caught a glimpse of horsemen passing along the quay. They were walking and their rifles were slung. Further in the town I heard the trampling of hoofs, some shouting, and two or three shots. When I reached home I found the masses of people in the square full of terror. Already some Turkish civilians were beginning to loot and maltreat the Greek refugees. On the whole the entry seemed to me (speaking with a close experience of actual war) to have been accomplished with very little bloodshed about out part (the Point). I had a feeing of relief that some proper authority had come to take charge of the city. I found a Greek Naval rating hiding in the garden; he would not consider the proposition of surrendering himself to a Turkish Office (I am astonished not that it was ever possible to suggest surrender to the Turk). So I rigged him out with clothes, and, perforce, turned him loose to take his chance. He proudly refused money. Italian mounted reservists were co-operating with Turkish patrols in policing the city. I brought an injured man into my church: he died during the night. Next day, Sunday, I went to the Orthodox Church of St. John, which like all other churches was crammed with refugees, lying in appallingly insanitary circumstances and, terror-stricken, after a night of desultory rifle-fire and screaming. One of the priests volunteered to accompany me to bury the dead. The Turkish police commandeered a cart for us, and even offered us protection. We relied, however, on carrying the Union Jack. We found five bodies near the Aidin Railway Station. I do not think we missed many. With regard to burials, people kept coming to me and showing me bodies thrust behind hedges and in some cases lying in carts. I was particularly struck with one group consisting of women and babies, and a young girl, almost nude, shot through the breast, and with clotted blood on her thighs and genital organs, that spoke only too clearly of her fate before death. These bodies were buried by Orthodox priests. I moved about freely in the city and soon saw the orderliness of the entry was due to the iron discipline, the exigencies of such a military entry demanded. The discipline, as far as relation to the civil population is concerned, became rapidly bad and worse. There was desultory shooting, looting and rape all over the place. The Armenian quarters suffered severely. It was reported that the Armenians refused to surrender arms and were throwing bombs. This may have been so, but, what is undoubtedly true is that the Armenians were constantly being killed in their houses, their women folk ravished and their valuables stolen. In the back streets even nationals of the Great Powers were held up and looted of their money and their valuables. Armenians, gathered in one if their churches, refused to surrender; they surrendered finally on the promise of life for women and children; the men were marched away. We heard at the back of our house, one day, a lot of cheering in which I recognised the Turkish word 'padishah' (Sultan, I think). On looking out, I saw about two hundred Greeks or Armenians kneeling and sitting on the road, guarded by Turkish soldiers. I afterwards learned from an absolutely unimpeachable source that these men were subsequently butchered. The method of killing, my informant told me, was by steel to avoid rifle fire. One could give a multitude of isolated incidents, which go to prove the absolute unleashing of lust and savagery among Kemalistic troops. I mention but one: A child brought a message to me from the priests of an Orthodox Church, asking that I might come and spend the night with them in order to give them protection, because they had warning of a contemplated attach on the church, and they knew that on the previous night Turkish soldiers had burst into another church and there mutilated men and violated women. The case of Colonel Murphy, a retired officer of the Anglo Indian Medical Service, illustrates the unbridled brutality of the Kemalist regulars. They broke into his home at Bournabat; they violated his servants, and when he attempted to protect them stunned him with household ornaments. His daughters escaped the fate of the servants by appealing to the officer of the party; he, evidently not able to control his men, could only advise them to hide. Colonel Murphy was stripped and insulted. Finally they stood him up and shot him. His wife, a lady of advanced years, was stunned; after lying wounded for a considerable time, Colonel Murphy was rescued by Sir Harry Lamb and personally, and brought to the English Nursing Home. His wife and daughters were obliged to leave him on the outbreak of fire. He died at midnight and the hospital was evacuated at three in the morning under the protection of strong patrols sent by the Admiral. Hardly anywhere was there immunity for Armenians. While talking in the garden of the Consulate with Captain Hole on the day before the fire, a man leapt into the garden from the roof of the adjoining house. I ran to him as he lay and, after much expostulation, induced the soldiers who had driven him to such a leap, and were now covering him with their rifles, not to shoot him on British territory. On another occasion a prisoner, being led away roped with a number of others, broke his bonds and knelt and kissed my feet. In this, as in other cases, I was powerless to do anything. On the morning of the fire the situation had become so bad that there was a general embarking of Europeans. Sir Harry Lamb came in person to the British Maternity Home to say that it was necessary to leave. He asked me to notify the people whose names were on a list that I had prepared for such an emergency. I was all the morning engaged on this work, and found that my list was incomplete, and in response to the appeals of relatives had to go further afield into the city than I had contemplated doing. In the back streets there was, in some parts, a great running of terror-stricken people, carrying children and bedding; some of them had been injured; one man had his face smashed and his mouth bleeding. There was constantly shooting in the back streets, followed by screams and panic-stricken running. The Turks were openly looting everywhere. One man was shot through both thighs, one of which was fractured, his screams were unheeded by the terror-stricken people. The general atmosphere was terrible, and I began to fear that we might have left our retreat till too late. The fires broke out that afternoon. I was astonished when in Italy, and again here in France, to find how unwilling some circles were to believe the culpability of the Turkish troops in the burning of Smyrna. It seems to me that the firing of the city by the fanatic element of the Turkish Army was the natural culmination of the breakdown of restraints imposed by military necessities, and of the unbridled indulgence of the xenophobia. I have not yet met anybody who was in a position to know the circumstances, who does not contemptuously discredit the assertion that the Armenians fired the city. During a month living in the Lazaretto of Malta as a refugee, I and my fellow refugees have compared experiences, and as a body when we heard of the statement that the Turks were not guilty of firing the city, asked the Bishop of Gibraltar who was visiting us to ask the people of England to suspend judgment until the truth could be known. The Bishop invited us to make a statement to him. We met him at the house of the Lieutenant-Governor. We were Herbert Whitall, senior, Robert Hadkinson with his son and J. Epstein and and the three British chaplains, respectively of Smyrna, Bournabat and Boudjat. A report of our meeting will be found in the letter of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Gibraltar in the Gibraltar Diocesan Gazette, No. 2, vol. vi., November, 1922. It should be borne in mind that the considered opinion of these men, unanimously recorded here, is worthy of great respect. None of them was influenced by any consideration other than the upholding of the truth. And all had had exceptional opportunities of hearing the personal evidence of many people. This evidence, stripped of all hysteria, disproportion caused by personal loss, and human tendency to exaggerate, is such as to form a truly damning charge against the Turks, of having so far neglected the enforcing of discipline that their fanatic elements, in an excess of xenophobia, fed by the licence of three days' looting, fired the city in the hope of driving out the non-Moslem and non-Jewish elements. It is most significant that the fire shot up in several places with very little intervals of time and pointed to a systematic incendiarism such as only a well co-ordinated movement could have effect. Also, that the city was fired immediately after the changing of a wind that for the previous three days was in the general direction of the Turkish quarter. Any fire, previous to the change, would have swept the Turkish quarters. Independent witnesses, who have been at Smyrna since the fire, speaking of the unsatisfactory and lame stories of the Turks, tend to confirm their guilt in this matter. I have met, recently a nurse who left Smyrna ten days after the fire and who told me of her work in extracting bullets from bodies of wounded children, and who was a witness of the ravishing of Greek women. I mention this to show that the Turkish treatment of the Christian population was not a sudden excess, but a sustained policy. The Reverend Robert Ashe, now Chaplain at Carthagena (Spain) told me of the fate of the Greek priest of Boudjah; his informant was the brother of the Roumanian Consul. According to him, this priest was blinded and then crucified on the door of Mr. Gordon's house in Boudjah. The Turkish soldiers nailed horse shows to his hands and feet; he was dead when the Consul's brother saw him, he kissed his hands and left him there.
I have tried in giving this account to avoid being influenced by hostility to the perpetrators of these horrors. Also, I have omitted many small incidents that carry conviction to my own mind of the barbarity of the Kemalistic forces, but which it might be egotistical to dwell on. The Bishop of Gibraltar in his letter to the Times of November 8 has in measured and restrained language warned his countrymen of the 'Asiaticness' of the Turk.
Note: The following biography was compiled by Rev. Charles Dobson's granddaughter for Greek-Genocide.org in July 2009. If requested, Greek-Genocide.org will forward any relevant communication made via the Contact Us page to her.
Biography of Reverend Charles Dobson, 1886 - 1930 |
Source: Charles Dobson, "The Smyrna Holocaust" in Lysimachos Oeconomos (ed.) The Tragedy of the Christian Near East, London: The Anglo-Hellenic League, 1923.