Sunday Age (Melbourne, Australia)
June 22, 2008 Sunday
First Edition
Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922;
BOOKS – Cover notes
by Lucy Sussex
PARADISE LOST: SMYRNA 1922
Giles Milton
Sceptre, $35
The city of Smyrna (now Turkish Izmir) was a cool place in the early
1900s. The coffee and food were good, and Turks, Jews, Armenians and
Greeks co-existed without rancour. The place was Paradise to Giles
Milton and to its varied inhabitants. Its geography, between West and
East, would ultimately doom it – and the ending was savage. Milton
paints a broad canvas here, with characters as diverse as a wily and
tolerant Turkish governor, Rahmi Bey, wealthy English expatriates, and
a mild-mannered American YMCA worker, Asa Jennings. He needs the epic
mode, for a clash of empires is depicted. World War I saw the end of
the Ottoman empire, and the hope of a resurgent Greek one, the Megali
idea. Rahmi Bey, a superb diplomat, was able to protect the city when
in power, but its territory was in dispute. The Greek army invaded,
with dreams of an Anatolian province, but were defeated by Ataturk.
His army burnt the city, trapping refugees between an inferno and
European ships – who were neutral and would not intervene. Jennings
did, and saved hundreds of thousands. An extraordinary if grim read.