Great Fire of Smyrna

Great fire of Smyrna

Plumes of smoke rising from Smyrna on 14 September 1922
Date	September 1922
Location	Smyrna (today İzmir, Turkey)
Also known as	Catastrophe of Smyrna
Outcome	Exodus of the Greek and Armenian population of the city and destruction of their quarters

The Great Fire of Smyrna or the Catastrophe of Smyrna (Greek: Καταστροφή της Σμύρνης, "Smyrna Catastrophe"; Turkish: 1922 İzmir Yangını, "1922 Izmir Fire"; Armenian: Զմիւռնիոյ Մեծ Հրդեհ, Zmiwrrnioy Mets Hrdeh) destroyed much of the port city of Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey) in September 1922. Eyewitness reports state that the fire began on 13 September 1922 and lasted until it was largely extinguished on 22 September. It occurred four days after the Turkish forces regained control of the city on 9 September 1922, effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War in the field, more than three years after the Greek army had landed troops at Smyrna on 15 May 1919. Estimated Greek and Armenian deaths resulting from the fire range from 10,000 to 100,000.

Approximately 50,000 to 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees crammed the waterfront to escape from the fire. They were forced to remain there under harsh conditions for nearly two weeks. Turkish troops and irregulars had started committing massacres and atrocities against the Greek and Armenian population in the city before the outbreak of the fire. Many women were raped.

The subsequent fire completely destroyed the Greek and Armenian quarters of the city; the Muslim and Jewish quarters escaped damage. There are different accounts and eyewitness reports about who was responsible for the fire; a number of sources and scholars attribute it to Turkish soldiers setting fire to Greek and Armenian homes and businesses. Traditional Turkish sources hold that the Greeks and Armenians started the fire. Testimonies from western eyewitnesses were printed in many western newspapers.

The ratio of Christian population to Muslim population remains a matter of dispute, but the city was a multicultural and cosmopolitan center until September 1922. Different sources claim either Greeks or Turks as constituting the majority in the city. According to Katherine Elizabeth Flemming, in 1919–1922 the Greeks in Smyrna numbered 150,000, forming just under half of the population, outnumbering the Turks by a ratio of two to one. Alongside Turks and Greeks, there were sizeable Armenian, Jewish, and Levantine communities in the city. According to Trudy Ring, before World War I the Greeks alone numbered 130,000 out of a population of 250,000, excluding Armenians and other Christians.