burning of Smyrna

The ratio of the Christian population to the Muslim population remains a matter of dispute, but the city was both a multicultural and cosmopolitan center until September 1922.{{cite book|last=Slim|first=Hugo|title=Killing civilians: method, madness, and morality in war|year=2010|publisher=Columbia University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-231-70037-5|page=129|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ai_1ZNxWY5YC&q=smyrna+multicultural+1922&pg=PA129|access-date=28 November 2020|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141643/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ai_1ZNxWY5YC&q=smyrna+multicultural+1922&pg=PA129|url-status=live}} 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.Fleming Katherine Elizabeth. [https://books.google.com/books?id=SngokUBrhqUC&dq= Greece: A Jewish History]. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 81. {{ISBN|978-0-691-10272-6}}. 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.Ring Trudy, Salkin Robert M., La Boda Sharon. [https://books.google.com/books?id=74JI2UlcU8AC&dq= International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141657/https://books.google.com/books?id=74JI2UlcU8AC&dq= |date=26 March 2023}}. Taylor & Francis, 1995. {{ISBN|978-1-884964-02-2}}, p. 351

According to the Ottoman census of 1906/7, there were 341,436 Muslims, 193,280 Greek Orthodox Christians, 12,273 Armenian Gregorian Christians, 24,633 Jews, 55,952 Foreigners totalling to 630,124 people in İzmir sanjak (13 Kazas including the central Kaza);Kemal Karpat (1985), [https://kupdf.net/downloadFile/59e4a7b908bbc56144e653d7 Ottoman Population, 1830-1914, Demographic and Social Characteristics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191010124553/https://kupdf.net/downloadFile/59e4a7b908bbc56144e653d7 |date=10 October 2019}}, The University of Wisconsin Press, p. 162-163 the updated figures for 1914 gave 100,356 Muslims, 73.676 Greek Orthodox Christians, 10,061 Armenian Gregorians, 813 Armenian Catholics, 24,069 Jews for the central kaza of İzmir.Salâhi R. Sonyel, Minorities and the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, Ankara: TTK, 1993, p. 351; Gaston Gaillard, The Turks and Europe, London, 1921, p. 199.Kemal Karpat (1985), [https://kupdf.net/downloadFile/59e4a7b908bbc56144e653d7 Ottoman Population, 1830-1914, Demographic and Social Characteristics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191010124553/https://kupdf.net/downloadFile/59e4a7b908bbc56144e653d7 |date=10 October 2019}}, The University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 174–175

According to the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, Henry Morgenthau, more than half of Smyrna's population was Greek.Morgenthau Henry. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MAbj3GDrwxIC&dq= Ambassador Morgenthau's Story] Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918, p. 32. The American Consul General in Smyrna at the time, George Horton, wrote that before the fire there were 400,000 people living in the city of Smyrna, of whom 165,000 were Turks, 150,000 were Greeks, 25,000 were Jews, 25,000 were Armenians, and 20,000 were foreigners—10,000 Italians, 3,000 French, 2,000 British, and 300 Americans.Horton, The Blight of Asia Most of the Greeks and Armenians were Christians.{{Cite web|url=http://www.ihgjlm.com/the-whispering-voices-of-smyrna-the-destruction-and-genocide-of-a-christian-city/|title=The Whispering Voices of Smyrna: The Destruction and Genocide of a Christian City {{!}} Institute on the Holocaust & Genocide in Jerusalem|website=ihgjlm.com|access-date=21 June 2018|archive-date=20 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220220123347/https://www.ihgjlm.com/the-whispering-voices-of-smyrna-the-destruction-and-genocide-of-a-christian-city/|url-status=live}}

Moreover, according to various scholars, prior to the war, the city was a center of more Greeks than the ones who lived in Athens, the capital of Greece.{{cite book|last=Panayi|first=Panikos|title=Outsiders History of European Minorities.|year=1998|publisher=Continuum International Pub. Group|location=London|isbn=978-0-8264-3631-3|page=111|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NeU23AQRzLAC&pg=PA111}}{{cite book|last=MacMillan|first=Margaret|title=Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World|year=2003|publisher=Random House|location=New York|page=430|isbn=978-0-307-43296-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EHzgiYw0kegC&pg=PA430}} The Ottomans of that era referred to the city as Infidel Smyrna (Gavur İzmir) due to the numerous Greeks and the large non-Muslim population.{{cite book|first=Richard |last=Clogg|title=A Concise History of Greece|url=https://archive.org/details/concisehistoryof00clog_0|url-access=registration|date=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-00479-4|pages=[https://archive.org/details/concisehistoryof00clog_0/page/94 94]|quote=Refugees crowded on the waterfront at Smyrna on 13 September 1922 after fire had devastated much of the Greek, Armenian and Prankish [European] quarters of the city which the Turks had called Gavur İzmir or 'Infidel İzmir', so large was its non-Muslim population.}}{{cite book|author=Hans-Lukas Kieser|title=Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKVSHjjUT2UC&pg=PA49|date=26 December 2006|publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-84511-141-0|pages=49–|quote=They called Izmir "Gavur Izmir" (infidel Izmir) because the majority of its population consisted of non- Muslims and Levantines. They could not forget the fact that while a National War of Independence was going on, the minorities living in ...}}{{cite book|author1=Mindie Lazarus-Black|author2=Susan F. Hirsch|title=Contested States: Law, Hegemony and Resistance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_mSurJcV9PcC&pg=PT273|date=12 November 2012|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-04102-0|pages=273–|quote=Not surprisingly, Smyrna was the most cosmopolitan city in the Levant in the eighteenth century. It was called gavur Izmir (infidel Izmir) because of the prominence of the Christians.}}{{cite book|title=Vivre avec l'ennemi: La cohabitation de communautés hétérogènes du XVIe au XIXe siècle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HUyoicddO-sC&pg=PA6|year=2008|publisher=Presses Univ Blaise Pascal|isbn=978-2-84516-380-5|pages=6–|quote=Située sur la côte anatolienne, Smyrne (ou Izmir en turc) est aux XVIIIe ... (c'est-à-dire chrétienne et juive) est majoritaire au XIXe siècle, à tel point que ses habitants musulmans la surnomment " gavur Izmir ", Smyrne l'Infidèle.}}{{cite book|author=Muḥammad Ḥusayn Ḥusaynī Farāhānī|title=A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca: 1885–1886|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Aq1VAAAAYAAJ|year=1990|publisher=Saqi Books|isbn=978-0-86356-356-0|page=150|quote=Its bazaars are mostly covered and have red-tiled roofs. Most of the people of this city are Europeans, Greeks, or Jews. Because the Turks call those outside the religion of Islam "gavur," [the city] is popularly known as "Gavur Izmir."}}{{cite book|author=C. M. Hann|title=When History Accelerates: Essays on Rapid Social Change, Complexity, and Creativity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jUm6AAAAIAAJ|year=1994|publisher=Athlone Press|isbn=978-0-485-11464-5|page=219|quote=Izmir was the most cosmopolitan city in the Levant in the eighteenth century and was called gavur Izmir (infidel Izmir) because of the prominence of the non-Muslims.}}{{cite book|author=M. Th. Houtsma|title=E. J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913–1936|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7CP7fYghBFQC&pg=PA569|year=1993|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09790-2|pages=569–}}

{{Main|Turkish capture of Smyrna}}

File:Emin, Fahrettin, Izzettin, Kâzım and Mehmet Emin Pashas in the Balcony of the Konak Building before the Battle of Paradise - 10th of September 1922.jpg, 1st Army Corps Commander Brigadier General İzzettin (Çalışlar), 8th Infantry Division Commander Brigadier General Kâzım (Sevüktekin), 1st Army Chief of Staff Brigadier General Mehmet Emin (Koral) Pashas in the balcony of the Konak building before the Battle of Paradise (Kızılçullu)- 10th of September 1922]]

Greek troops evacuated Smyrna on the evening of Friday 8 September. The first elements of Mustafa Kemal's forces, a Turkish cavalry squadron, made its way into the city from the northern tip of the quay the following morning, establishing their headquarters at the main government building called Konak.{{cite book |title=A Concise History of Greece |last=Clogg |first=Richard |year=1992 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=97, 257}}Dobkin, Marjorie Housepian. Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971; 2nd ed. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1988, pp. 117–121. The Hellenic Army was in disarray and could not evacuate the city in an orderly manner, and fighting continued to the next day. According to the General of the 5th Cavalry Sidearmy Fahrettin Altay, on 10 September, Turkish forces belonging to the 2nd and the 3rd Cavalry regiments captured around 3,000 Greek soldiers, 50 Greek Officers, including a Brigadier Commander in the south of the city center who were retreating from Aydın.{{Cite book |last=Altay |first=Fahrettin |title=Görüb Geçirdiklerim-10 YIL SAVAŞ 1912-1922 VE, SONRASI |publisher=İnsel Yayınları |year=1970 |location=Istanbul, Turkey |pages=363–364 |language=tr|quote=Bu güzel hayal alemi betti kumandanlıktan acele olarak çağırmaları ile son buldu gittiğimde Mustafa Kemal ile Cephe Kumandanı İsmet Paşa oturuyorlardı bana şu emri verdiler : «— Aydın cihetinden çekilen bir düşman kuvveti Izmire yaklaşarak Kadifekalesine top ateşi açtı. Hazır olan kuvvetleri oraya gönderdik. Diğer kuvvetleri de al oraya git bu DÜŞMANI TEPELE...» Vakit geçirmeden emrin tatbikine geçtim, kurmaylarımı alarak Eşrefpaşa mahallesinin üstüne çıktım. Buradan birliklerime lâzım gelen emirleri gönderdim. 2. Süvari Tümeni KIZILÇULLU zeytinlikleri içinde bu düşmanla çarpışıyordu, getirdiğim kuvvetleri ileri sürdüm düşman bozuldu, bunların karşısından gelen DENİZLİ ÇOLAK İBRAHİM BEY kumandasındaki 3. Süvari Tümenimizle de irtibat hasıl ettikten sonra yaptığımız şiddetli saldırışa karşı dayanamayan düşman teslim bayrağını çekmek zorunda kaldı. Atlara binip ÇEŞME ye doğru kaçanların dışında BİR TUGAY KOMUTANI ile ELLİYE YAKIN SUBAY ve ÜÇ BİN KADAR ASKER esir edildi dört top ile bazı eşya ele geçirildi. Bunlar İzmir e doğru yola çıkarılırken topların başında yazdiğım raporu da gönderdim.}} Lieutenant Ali Rıza Akıncı, the first Turkish officer to hoist the Turkish flag in the Liberation of İzmir on 9 September, mentions in his memoirs that his unit of 13 cavalrymen was ambushed by a volley of fire from 30-40 rifles from the Tuzakoğlu factory after being saluted and congratulated by a French Marine platoon in the Halkapınar bridge. This volley fire killed 3 cavalrymen instantly and fatally wounded another. They were relieved by Captain Şerafettin and his two units which encircled the factory. Moreover, Captain Şerafettin, alongside Lieutenant Ali Rıza Akıncı were wounded by a grenade thrown by a Greek soldier in front of the Pasaport building. The lieutenant was wounded lightly from his nose and his leg, and his horse on its belly.{{Cite book |last=Aksoy |first=Yaşar |title=İstiklal Süvarisi - İzmir'in Kurtuluşu: Teğmen Ali Riza Akıncı'nın Hatıratı |publisher=Kırmızı Kedi Yayınevi |year=2021 |isbn=978-605-298-802-2 |location=Istanbul, Turkey |pages=103–109 |language=tr}} The grenade thrower was also mentioned by George Horton as "some fool threw a bomb", and that the commander of this unit "received bloody cuts about the head".{{Cite book |last=Horton |first=George |url=https://archive.org/details/blightofasiaacco00hort/page/127/mode/1up |title=The Blight of Asia, An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna |publisher=Bobbs-Merrill |year=1926 |location=Indianapolis, United States of America |page=127}} A monument was later erected on the spot these cavalrymen had fallen. Military command was first assumed by Mürsel Pasha, and then Nureddin Pasha, General of the Turkish First Army.

At the outset, the Turkish occupation of the city was orderly. Though the Armenian and Greek inhabitants viewed their entry with trepidation, they reasoned that the presence of the Allied fleet would discourage any violence against the Christian community. On the morning of 9 September, twenty-one Allied warships lay at anchor in Smyrna's harbor, including the British battleships HMS Iron Duke and King George V, along with their escort of cruisers and destroyers under the command of Admiral Osmond Brock; the American destroyers USS Litchfield, Simpson, and Lawrence (later joined by the Edsall); three French cruisers and two destroyers under the command of Admiral Dumesnil; and an Italian cruiser and destroyer.Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, p. 101.Milton. Paradise Lost, pp. 4–5. The British warships were intended to evacuate Smyrna's British nationals to Malta or Cyprus.{{cite report |title=1922 The Epic of Smyrna Refugees in Malta |work=Annual Report 2021 |pages=149–170 |year=2021 |url=https://www.levantineheritage.com/pdf/National-Archives-Annual-Report-Smyrna-2021.pdf |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250130120120/https://www.levantineheritage.com/pdf/National-Archives-Annual-Report-Smyrna-2021.pdf |archive-date=30 January 2025 |publisher=National Archives of Malta |issn=1997-6348}} As a precaution, sailors and marines from the Allied fleet were landed ashore to guard their respective diplomatic compounds and institutions with strict orders of maintaining neutrality in the event that violence would break out between the Turks and the Christians.See Dobkin, Smyrna 1922, passim.

On 9 September, order and discipline began to break down among the Turkish troops, who began systematically targeting the Armenian population, pillaging their shops, looting their homes, separating the men from the women and carrying away and sexually assaulting the latter.Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, p. 98.Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, pp. 120–167. The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan bishop, Chrysostomos, was tortured and hacked to death by a Turkish mob in full view of French soldiers, who were prevented from intervening by their commanding officer, and much to Admiral Dumesnil's approval.Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, pp. 133–134. Refuge was sought wherever possible, including Paradise, where the American quarter was located, and the European quarters. Some were able to take shelter at the American Collegiate Institute and other institutions, despite strenuous efforts to turn away those seeking help by the Americans and Europeans, who were anxious not to antagonize or harm their relations with the leaders of the Turkish National movement. An officer of the Dutch steamer Siantar which was at the city's port during that period reported an incident that he has heard, according to him after the Turkish troops had entered the city a large hotel which had Greek guests was set on fire, the Turks had placed a machine gun at the opposite of the hotel's entrance and opened fire when people were trying to exit the burning building. In addition, he said that the crew were not allowed to go offshore after dusk because thugs were roaming the city's streets and it was dangerous.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119184295 |title=Terrible Turk Greek Massacres Tales of Smyrna |newspaper=Evening News |issue=17606 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=22 November 1923 |access-date=16 February 2021 |page=11 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=7 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210907184016/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/119184295 |url-status=live}}

Victims of the massacres committed by the Turkish army and irregulars were also foreign citizens. On 9 September, Dutch merchant Oscar de Jongh and his wife were murdered by Turkish cavalrymen,{{cite book|last1=Schaller Dominik J., Zimmerer Jürgen|title=Late Ottoman Genocides – Schaller: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish Population and Extermination Policies|date=13 September 2013|publisher=Routledge|page=46|isbn=978-1-317-99045-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_Q3cAAAAQBAJ&q=%22de+Jongh%22+1922&pg=PA46|access-date=8 June 2014|quote=Member of the De Jongh family, merchant Oscar de Jongh and his wife were killed by Turkish cavaly on September 9, 1922|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141651/https://books.google.com/books?id=_Q3cAAAAQBAJ&q=%22de+Jongh%22+1922&pg=PA46|url-status=live}} while in another incident a retired British doctor was beaten to death in his home, while trying to prevent the rape of a servant girl.{{cite book|last1=Murat|first1=John|title=The infamy of a great betrayal|date=1997|publisher=Internat. Press|isbn=978-0-9600356-7-0|page=139|edition=[Repr.].|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=22EtAQAAIAAJ&q=%22the+loveliest+and+richest+suburbs+of+Smyrna%2c+the+Turks+brutally+killed+an+elderly+English+doctor%2c+D.+Murphy%2c+and+a+Dutch%22|access-date=8 June 2014|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141659/https://books.google.com/books?id=22EtAQAAIAAJ&q=%22the+loveliest+and+richest+suburbs+of+Smyrna%2C+the+Turks+brutally+killed+an+elderly+English+doctor%2C+D.+Murphy%2C+and+a+Dutch%22|url-status=live}}Papoutsy, Christos, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FGJtAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Doctor+Murphy%2C+a+retired+British+army+surgeon%2C+was+attacked+in+his+home+at+Bournabat%22 Ships of Mercy: The True Story of the Rescue of the Greeks, Smyrna, September 1922] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141704/https://books.google.com/books?id=FGJtAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Doctor+Murphy%2C+a+retired+British+army+surgeon%2C+was+attacked+in+his+home+at+Bournabat%22 |date=26 March 2023}}. Portsmouth, N.H.: Peter E. Randall, 2008, p. 36. "Doctor Murphy, a retired British army surgeon, was attacked in his home at Bournabat... but Murphy was beaten to death while trying to prevent the rape of a servant girl."

File:Smyrna-burn-13t14d-quay-buildings2-1922.jpgFile:Smyrna-burn-13d17h-start.jpgThe first fire broke out in the late afternoon of 13 September, four days after Turkish nationalist forces had entered the city.Naimark. Fires of Hatred, p. 249. The blaze began in the Armenian quarter of the city (now the Basmane borough), and spread quickly due to the windy weather and the fact that no effort was made to put it out.Naimark, Fires of Hatred, p. 49. Author Giles Milton writes:

{{quotation|One of the first people to notice the outbreak of fire was Miss Minnie Mills, the director of the American Collegiate Institute for Girls. She had just finished her lunch when she noticed that one of the neighboring buildings was burning. She stood up to have a closer look and was shocked by what she witnessed. "I saw with my own eyes a Turkish officer enter the house with small tins of petroleum or benzine and in a few minutes the house was in flames." She was not the only one at the institute to see the outbreak of fire. "Our teachers and girls saw Turks in regular soldiers' uniforms and in several cases in officers' uniforms, using long sticks with rags at the end which were dipped in a can of liquid and carried into houses which were soon burning.Milton. Paradise Lost, p. 306.

Others, such as Claflin Davis of the American Red Cross and Monsieur Joubert, director of the Credit Foncier Bank of Smyrna, also witnessed the Turks putting buildings to the torch. When the latter asked the soldiers what they were doing, "They replied impassively that they were under orders to blow up and burn all the houses of the area."Milton. Paradise Lost, pp. 306–07. The city's fire brigade did its best to combat the fires but by Wednesday 13 September so many were being set that it was unable to keep up. Two firemen from the brigade, a Sgt. Tchorbadjis and Emmanuel Katsaros, would later testify in court witnessing Turkish soldiers setting fire to the buildings. When Katsaros complained, one of them commented, "You have your orders...and we have ours. This is Armenian property. Our orders are to set fire to it."Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, pp. 156–157. Emphasis in original. The spreading fire caused a stampede of people to flee toward the quay, which stretched from the western end of the city to its northern tip, known as the Point. Captain Arthur Japy Hepburn, chief of Staff of the American naval squadron, described the panic on the quay:

File:Smyrna-burn-14d06h-far-1922.jpg

{{quotation|Returning to the street I found the stampede from the fire just beginning. All of the refugees that had been scattered through the streets or stowed in churches and other institutions were moving toward the waterfront. Steadily augmenting this flow were those abandoning their homes in the path of the fire...It was now dark. The quay was already filled with tens of thousands of terrified refugees moving aimlessly between the customs house and the point, and still the steady stream of new arrivals continued, until the entire waterfront seemed one solid mass of humanity and baggage of every description.}}

The heat from the fire was so intense that Hepburn was worried that the refugees would die as a result of it. The refugees' situation on the pier on the morning of 14 September was described by the British Lieutenant A. S. Merrill, who believed that the Turks had set the fire to keep the Greeks in a state of terror so as to facilitate their departure:

{{quotation|All morning the glow and then the flames of burning Smyrna could be seen. We arrived about an hour before dawn and the scene was indescribable. The entire city was ablaze and the harbor was light as day. Thousands of homeless refugees were surging back and forth on the blistering quay – panic stricken to the point of insanity. The heartrending shrieks of women and children were painful to hear. In a frenzy they would throw themselves into the water and some would reach the ship. To attempt to land a boat would have been disastrous. Several boats tried and were immediately stopped by the mad rush of a howling mob...The crowds along the quay beyond the fire were so thick and tried so desperately to close abreast the men-of-war anchorage that the masses in the stifling center could not escape except by sea. Fortunately there was a sea breeze and the quay wall never got hot enough to roast these unfortunate people alive, but the heat must have been terrific to have been felt in the ship 200 yards away. To add to the confusion, the packs belonging to these refugees – consisting mostly of carpets and clothing – caught fire, creating a chain of bonfires the length of the street.}}

File:Asia Minor massacres.jpg

Turkish troops cordoned off the Quay to box the Armenians and Greeks within the fire zone and prevent them from fleeing.Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, p. 231. Eyewitness reports describe panic-stricken refugees diving into the water to escape the flames and that their terrified screaming could be heard miles away. By 15 September the fire had somewhat died down, but sporadic violence by the Turks against the Greek and Armenian refugees kept the pressure on the Western and Greek navies to remove the refugees as quickly as possible.Naimark, Fires of Hatred, p. 51. The fire was completely extinguished by 22 September, and on 24 September the first Greek ships – part of a flotilla organized and commandeered by the American humanitarian Asa Jennings – entered the harbor to take passengers away, following Captain Hepburn's initiative and his having obtained permission and cooperation from the Turkish authorities and the British admiral in command of the destroyers in the harbor.Naimark, Fires of Hatred, p. 50.

File:St.john.smyrna.cemetery.1922.jpg

File:Only Ruins Left in Smyrna.png report of the fire on 17 September 1922.]]

File:Izmir, after the fire in 1922.jpg

The entire city suffered substantial damage to its infrastructure. The core of the city had to be rebuilt. Today, 40 hectares of the former fire area is a vast park named Kültürpark serving as Turkey's largest open air exhibition center, including the İzmir International Fair, among others.

According to the first census in Turkey after the war, the total population of the city in 1927 was 184,254, of whom 162,144 (88%) were Muslims, the remainder numbering 22,110.Kasaba, Reşat. "İzmir 1922: A Port City Unravels," in Modernity and Culture: From the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, eds. Leila T. Fawaz, Christopher Alan Bayly, Robert Ilbert, p. 207.

The evacuation was difficult despite the efforts of British and American sailors to maintain order, as tens of thousands of refugees pushed and shoved towards the shore. Attempts to organize relief were made by the American officials from the YMCA and YWCA, who were reportedly robbed and later shot at by Turkish soldiers.{{cite news | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/09/18/99073767.pdf | title = Smyrna's Ravagers Fired on Americans | newspaper = The New York Times | date = 18 September 1922 | access-date = 14 June 2018 | archive-date = 25 July 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210725054733/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/09/18/99073767.pdf | url-status = live}} On the quay, Turkish soldiers and irregulars periodically robbed Greek refugees, beating some and arresting others who resisted. Though there were several reports of well-behaved Turkish troops helping old women and trying to maintain order among the refugees, these are heavily outnumbered by those describing gratuitous cruelty, incessant robbery and violence.

American and British attempts to protect the Greeks from the Turks did little good, with the fire having taken a terrible toll. Some frustrated and terrified Greeks took their own lives, plunging into the water with packs at their back, children were stampeded, and many of the elderly fainted and died. The city's Armenians also suffered grievously, and according to Captain Hepburn, "every able-bodied Armenian man was hunted down and killed wherever found, with even boys aged 12 to 15 taking part in the hunt."

The fire completely destroyed the Greek, Armenian, and Levantine quarters of the city, with only the Turkish and Jewish quarters surviving. The thriving port of Smyrna, one of the most commercially active in the region, was burned to the ground. Some 150,000–200,000 Greek refugees were evacuated, while approximately 30,000 able-bodied Greek and Armenian men were deported to the interior, many of them dying under the harsh conditions or executed along the way. The 3,000-year Greek presence on Anatolia's Aegean shore was brought to an abrupt end, along with the Megali Idea.Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, p. 99. The Greek writer Dimitris Pentzopoulos wrote, "It is no exaggeration to call the year '1922' the most calamitous in modern Hellenic history."

File:Smyrna-massacre-refugees port-1922.jpg

File:St.fotini.smyrna.bell.jpg

The number of casualties from the fire is not precisely known, with estimates of up to 125,000 Greeks and Armenians killed.{{cite book|author=Irving Louis Horowitz|title=Death by Government|author2=Rudolph J. Rummel|publisher=Transaction Publishers|year=1994|isbn=978-1-56000-927-6|chapter=Turkey's Genocidal Purges|author-link=Irving Louis Horowitz}}, p. 233. American historian Norman Naimark gives a figure of 10,000–15,000 dead, while historian Richard Clogg gives a figure of 30,000. Larger estimates include that of John Freely at 50,000 and Rudolf Rummel at 100,000.

Help to the city's population by ships of the Hellenic Navy was limited, as the 11 September 1922 Revolution had broken out, and most of the Greek army was concentrated at the islands of Chios and Lesbos, planning to overthrow the royalist government of Athens.

Although there were numerous ships from various Allied powers in the harbor of Smyrna, the vast majority of them cited neutrality and did not pick up Greeks and Armenians who were forced to flee from the fire and the Turkish troops retaking the city after the Greek army's defeat.Dr. Esther Lovejoy, "Woman Pictures Smyrna Horrors," New York Times, 9 October 1922. Military bands played loud music to drown out the screams of those who were drowning in the harbor and who were forcefully prevented from boarding Allied ships.Dobkin. Smyrna 1922, p. 71. A Japanese freighter dumped all of its cargo and took on as many refugees as possible, taking them to the Greek port of Piraeus."Japanese at Smyrna", Boston Globe, 3 December 1922.Stavridis, Stavros. "[http://www.greece.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=82 The Japanese Hero] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110616100540/http://www.greece.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=82 |date=16 June 2011}}," The National Herald. 19 February 2010.

Around 1540 refugees were evacuated by British ships which disembarked at Malta between 15 September and 10 December; most of these were British nationals or subjects (including Smyrniots of Maltese descent and some Cypriots). Other refugees evacuated by the British landed at Cyprus.

Many refugees were rescued via an impromptu relief flotilla organized by American missionary Asa Jennings.[http://www.greece.org/arts-culture/palikari/history_outline.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090527011108/http://www.greece.org/arts-culture/palikari/history_outline.html|date=27 May 2009}} Other scholars give a different account of the events; they argue that the Turks first forbade foreign ships in the harbor to pick up the survivors, but, under pressure especially from Britain, France, and the United States, they allowed the rescue of all the Christians except males 17 to 45 years old. They intended to deport the latter into the interior, which "was regarded as a short life sentence to slavery under brutal masters, ended by mysterious death".Rummel-Horowitz, p. 233.

The number of refugees changes according to the source. Some contemporary newspapers claim that there were 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees from Smyrna and the surrounding area who received Red Cross aid immediately after the destruction of the city."U.S. Red Cross Feeding 400,000 Refugees," Japan Times and Mail, 10 November 1922. Stewart Matthew states that there were 250,000 refugees who were all non-Turks. Naimark gives a figure of 150,000–200,000 Greek refugees evacuated. Edward Hale Bierstadt and Helen Davidson Creighton say that there were at least 50,000 Greek and Armenian refugees.Edward Hale Bierstadt, Helen Davidson Creighton. The Great betrayal: A Survey of the Near East Problem. R. M. McBride & Company, 1924, p. 218. Some contemporary accounts also suggest the same number.Moderator-topics, Volume 43 (1922), p. 60

The number of Greek and Armenian men deported to the interior of Anatolia and the number of consequent deaths varies across sources. Naimark writes that 30,000 Greek and Armenian men were deported there, where most of them died under brutal conditions. Dimitrije Đorđević puts the number of deportees at 25,000 and the number of deaths at labour battalions at 10,000.{{cite book|last1=Djordjevic|first1=Dimitrije|editor1-last=Ninic|editor1-first=Ivan|title=Migrations in Balkan History|date=1989|publisher=Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Institute for Balkan Studies|isbn=978-86-7179-006-2|page=121|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tK6OAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA121}} David Abulafia states that at least 100,000 Greeks were forcibly sent to the interior of Anatolia, where most of them died.{{cite book|last=Abulafia|first=David|title=The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean|date=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn=978-0-19-532334-4|page=588|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dKcQPBV0UdQC&pg=PA587|quote=... and at least as many were deported into the Anatolian interior, where most vanished.|access-date=23 September 2016|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141659/https://books.google.com/books?id=dKcQPBV0UdQC&pg=PA587|url-status=live}}

Aristotle Onassis, who was born in Smyrna and who later became one of the richest men in the world, was one of the Greek survivors. The various biographies of his life document aspects of his experiences during the Smyrna catastrophe. His life experiences were featured in the TV movie called Onassis, The Richest Man in the World.Onassis, The Richest Man in the World (1988), movie for television, directed by Waris Hussein.

During the Smyrna catastrophe, the Onassis family lost substantial property holdings, which were either taken or given to Turks as bribes to secure their safety and freedom. They became refugees, fleeing to Greece after the fire. However, Aristotle Onassis stayed behind to save his father, who had been placed in a Turkish concentration camp.{{Cite web|last=Ben-Halliday|first=Reginald|date=2020-10-13|title=The Shipping Tycoon Who Married The Wife Of A U.S President.|url=https://historyofyesterday.com/the-shipping-tycoon-who-married-the-wife-of-a-u-s-president-887b9c09e80a|access-date=2021-08-16|website=Medium|archive-date=16 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816205913/https://historyofyesterday.com/the-shipping-tycoon-who-married-the-wife-of-a-u-s-president-887b9c09e80a|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|title=Slippery Facts About Aristotle Onassis, The Two-Faced Millionaire|url=https://www.factinate.com/people/facts-aristotle-onassis/|access-date=2021-08-16|website=www.factinate.com|date=19 July 2021|archive-date=15 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915120524/https://www.factinate.com/people/facts-aristotle-onassis/|url-status=live}} He was successful in saving his father's life. During this period three of his uncles died. He also lost an aunt, her husband Chrysostomos Konialidis, and their daughter, who were burned to death when Turkish soldiers set fire to a church in Thyatira, where 500 Christians had found shelter to avoid Turkish soldiers and the burning of Smyrna.

{{Greek Genocide}}

{{main|Responsibility for the burning of Smyrna}}

Most scholars generally agree that the fire was caused by Turkish soldiers in order to completely eradicate the Christian presence in Anatolia. However, the question of who was responsible for starting the burning of Smyrna continues to be debated, with Turkish sources mostly attributing responsibility to Greeks or Armenians, and vice versa.{{cite journal |last1=Neyzi |first1=Leyla |title=The Burning of Smyrna/ Izmir (1922) Revisited: Coming to Terms with the Past in the Present |journal=The Past as Resource in the Turkic Speaking World |date=2008 |pages=23–42 |doi=10.5771/9783956506888-23|isbn=978-3-95650-688-8 |s2cid=127362302 |doi-access=free}}Martoyan, Tehmine. "The Destruction of Smyrna in 1922: An Armenian and Greek Shared Tragedy," in Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, 1913-1923, ed. George N. Shirinian. New York: Berghahn Books, 2017, pp. 227–252. Other sources, on the other hand, suggest that at the very least, Turkish inactivity played a significant part on the event.

A number of studies have been published on the Smyrna fire. Professor of literature Marjorie Housepian Dobkin's 1971 study Smyrna 1922 concluded that the Turkish army systematically burned the city and killed Christian Greek and Armenian inhabitants. Her work is based on extensive eyewitness testimony from survivors, Allied troops sent to Smyrna during the evacuation, foreign diplomats, relief workers, and Turkish eyewitnesses. A study by historian Niall Ferguson comes to the same conclusion. Historian Richard Clogg categorically states that the fire was started by the Turks following their capture of the city. In his book Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922, Giles Milton addresses the issue of the Smyrna Fire through original material (interviews, unpublished letters, and diaries) from the Levantine families of Smyrna, who were mainly of British origin.Milton, Paradise Lost, pp. xx. The conclusion of the author is that it was Turkish soldiers and officers who set the fire, most probably acting under direct orders. British scholar Michael Llewellyn-Smith, writing on the Greek administration in Asia Minor, also concluded that the fire was "probably lit" by the Turks as indicated by what he called "what evidence there is."{{cite book|last1=Llewellyn Smith|first1=Michael|title=Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919–1922|date=1973|publisher=C. Hurst & Co.|page=308}}

Stanford historian Norman Naimark has evaluated the evidence regarding the responsibility of the fire. He agrees with the view of American Lieutenant Merrill that it was in Turkish interests to terrorize Greeks into leaving Smyrna with the fire, and points out to the "odd" fact that the Turkish quarter was spared from the fire as a factor suggesting Turkish responsibility. He also points out that arguments can be made that burning the city was against Turkish interests and was unnecessary and that responsibility may lie with Greeks and/or Armenians as they "had own their good reasons", pointing out to the "Greek history of retreating" and "Armenian attack in the first day of the occupation".Naimark, Fires of Hatred, pp. 47–52. However, the Greek army departed from Smyrna on 9 September 1922,{{Cite journal|last=Jensen|first=Peter Kincaid|date=1979|title=The Greco-Turkish war, 1920–1922|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0020743800051333/type/journal_article|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=10|issue=4|pages=553–565|doi=10.1017/S0020743800051333|s2cid=163086095|access-date=14 September 2021|archive-date=28 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210728121301/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-middle-east-studies/article/abs/grecoturkish-war-19201922/095D39E46B5B6249E2CF85204327DA50|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}} when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his army entered the city, while the fire began four days later, on 13 September 1922.{{Cite book|last=Erickson|first=Edward J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yl8tEAAAQBAJ|title=The Turkish War of Independence: A Military History, 1919–1923|date=2021-05-24|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-4408-7842-8|page=295|access-date=14 September 2021|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141716/https://books.google.com/books?id=Yl8tEAAAQBAJ|url-status=live}} Nevertheless, Naimark concludes that "the fire almost assuredly was purposely set by the Turkish troops".{{Cite book |last=Naimark |first=Norman M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tpBwAAAAIAAJ |title=Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe |date=1998 |publisher=Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington |page=20|access-date=5 February 2023 |archive-date=5 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230205160421/https://books.google.com/books?id=tpBwAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live}}

Horton and Housepian are criticized by Heath W. Lowry and Justin McCarthy, who argue that Horton was highly prejudiced and Housepian makes an extremely selective use of sources.Lowry, Heath. "[http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/11/1228-prof-heath-lowry-on-burning-of.html Turkish History: On Whose Sources Will it Be Based? A Case Study on the Burning of Izmir] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110922092917/http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2006/11/1228-prof-heath-lowry-on-burning-of.html |date=22 September 2011}}," Journal of Ottoman Studies 9 (1988): 1–29; Justin McCarthy, Death and Exile. The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims. Princeton: Darwin Press, 1995, pp. 291–292, 316–317 and 327. Lowry and McCarthy were both members of the now defunct Institute of Turkish Studies and have in turn been strongly criticized by other scholars for their denial of the Armenian GenocideAuron, Yair. The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2003, p. 248.Charny, Israel W. Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 2. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1999, p. 163.Dadrian, Vahakn N. "Ottoman Archives and the Armenian Genocide" in The Armenian Genocide: History, Politics, Ethics. Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 1992, p. 284.Hovannisian, Richard G. "Denial of the Armenian Genocide in Comparison with Holocaust Denial" in Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide. Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.) Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999, p. 210. and McCarthy has been described by Michael Mann as being on "the Turkish side of the debate."Michael Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing, pp. 112–114, Cambridge, 2005 "... figures are derive[d] from McCarthy (1995: I 91, 162–164, 339), who is often viewed as a scholar on the Turkish side of the debate."

Turkish author and journalist Falih Rıfkı Atay, who was in Smyrna at the time, and the Turkish professor Biray Kolluoğlu Kırlı agreed that Turkish nationalist forces were responsible for the destruction of Smyrna in 1922. More recently, a number of non-contemporary scholars, historians, and politicians have added to the history of the events by revisiting contemporary communications and histories. Leyla Neyzi, in her work on the oral history regarding the fire, makes a distinction between Turkish nationalist discourse and local narratives. In the local narratives, she points to the Turkish forces being held responsible for at least not attempting to extinguish the fire effectively, or, at times, being held responsible for the fire itself.{{cite journal|last1=Neyzi|first1=Leyla|title=Remembering Smyrna/Izmir|journal=History & Memory|date=2008|volume=20|issue=2|doi=10.2979/his.2008.20.2.106|s2cid=159560899|url=https://core.ac.uk/download/files/393/11740141.pdf|access-date=4 July 2016|archive-date=25 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225184056/https://core.ac.uk/download/files/393/11740141.pdf}}

File:The Monument of Homeland and Honour and the Tuzakoğlu Factory.jpg

• Robert Byron's travelogue Europe in the Looking Glass (1926) contains an eyewitness report, placing the blame for the fire upon the Turks.{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Byron|title=Europe in the Looking Glass|year=2012|isbn=978-1-84391-357-3|page=180|publisher=Hesperus Press }}
• "On the Quai at Smyrna" (1930), a short story published as part of In Our Time, by Ernest Hemingway, alludes to the fire of Smyrna:

{{quotation|The strange thing was, he said, how they screamed every night at midnight ... We were in the harbour and they were on the pier and at midnight they started screaming. We used to turn the searchlight on them to quiet them. That always did the trick.{{cite book | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=GG7Y6ZFGk0AC&pg=PA63 | title = The complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway | page = 63 | isbn = 978-0-684-84332-2 | date = 1961-07-02 | access-date = 2010-07-28 | last1 = Hemingway | first1 = Ernest | publisher = Simon and Schuster | archive-date = 26 March 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141658/https://books.google.com/books?id=GG7Y6ZFGk0AC&pg=PA63 | url-status = live}}}}

• Eric Ambler's novel The Mask of Dimitrios (1939) details the events at Smyrna at the opening of chapter 3.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4av1ppc2tfkC&pg=PT31 |chapter=Chapter 3 |title=The Mask of Dimitrios |first=Eric |last=Ambler |date=28 May 2009 |publisher=Penguin UK |isbn=978-0-14-192454-0 |access-date=23 September 2020 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141619/https://books.google.com/books?id=4av1ppc2tfkC&pg=PT31 |url-status=live}}
• The closing section of Edward Whittemore's Sinai Tapestry (1977) takes place during the burning of Smyrna.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z85YwWg4vCUC&pg=PA175 |pages=175–176 |title=Twentieth-century Epic Novels |first=Theodore Louis |last=Steinberg |publisher=University of Delaware Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-87413-889-4 |access-date=23 September 2020 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141632/https://books.google.com/books?id=Z85YwWg4vCUC&pg=PA175 |url-status=live}}
• The Greek film 1922 (1978) portrays the suffering of ethnic Greeks held as prisoners following the Turkish army entering the city.
• Part of the novel The Titan (1985) by Fred Mustard Stewart takes place during the burning of Smyrna.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fltOUFGECMMC |page=180 |first=Fred |last=Mustard Stewart |title=The Titan |year=1985 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-50689-6 |access-date=23 September 2020 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141633/https://books.google.com/books?id=fltOUFGECMMC |url-status=live}}
• Susanna de Vries Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread (2000){{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gCU1AAAACAAJ|title=Blue Ribbons, Bitter Bread: The Life of Joice NanKivell Loch|first=Susanna De|last=Vries|date=9 October 2017|publisher=Pandanus Press|isbn=978-0-9585408-5-8}} Pirgos Press/Dennis Jones Melbourne 2012, 2014, (6 editions). is an account of Smyrna and the Greek refugees who landed at Thessaloniki.
• The novel Middlesex (2002) by American Jeffrey Eugenides opens with the burning of Smyrna.{{cite news |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/middlesex-by-jeffrey-eugenides-128315.html |first=Julie |last=Wheelwright |work=The Independent |title=Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides |date=19 October 2002 |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=7 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210907184012/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/middlesex-by-jeffrey-eugenides-128315.html |url-status=live}}
• Mehmet Coral's İzmir: 13 Eylül 1922 ("İzmir: 13 September 1922") (2003?)presumably same as "The Ashes of Smyrna" listed on author's page addressed this topic;{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iTwMAQAAMAAJ |page=27 |title=The Past as Resource in the Turkic Speaking World |first=Ildikó |last=Bellér-Hann |publisher=Ergon |year=2008 |isbn=978-3-89913-616-6 |access-date=23 September 2020 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141633/https://books.google.com/books?id=iTwMAQAAMAAJ |url-status=live}} it was also published in the Greek language by Kedros of Athens/Greece under the title: Πολλές ζωές στη Σμύρνη (Many lives in İzmir).{{cite book |url=https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9789600431902-coral-mehmet-kedros-polles-zoes-sti-smurni-155623 |language=el |title=ΠΟΛΛΕΣ ΖΩΕΣ ΣΤΗ ΣΜΥΡΝΗ |publisher=Βιβλιοπωλείο Πολιτεία |trans-title=MANY LIVES IN SMYRNA |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=30 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210330100704/https://www.politeianet.gr/books/9789600431902-coral-mehmet-kedros-polles-zoes-sti-smurni-155623 |url-status=live}}
• Greek-American singer-songwriter Diamanda Galas's album Defixiones: Will and Testament (2003) is directly inspired by the Turkish atrocities committed against the Greek population at Smyrna. Galas is descended from a family who originated from Smyrna.{{cite web |url=https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/diamanda-galas-mca-mark-solotroff-anatomy-habit/Content?oid=5676851 |title=Artist on Artist: Diamanda Galas talks to Mark Solotroff |first=Mark |last=Solotroff |website=Chicago Reader Book Club |date=23 February 2012 |access-date=20 September 2020 |archive-date=5 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305071919/http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/diamanda-galas-mca-mark-solotroff-anatomy-habit/Content?oid=5676851 |url-status=live}}
• Part of the novel Birds Without Wings (2004) by Louis De Bernieres takes place during the burning of Smyrna and its aftermath.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HCz4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT137 |page=137 |title=Wild Abandon: A Journey to the Deserted Places of the Dodecanese |year=2020 |first=Jennifer |last=Barclay |publisher=Bradt Guides |isbn=978-1-78477-790-6 |access-date=23 September 2020 |archive-date=26 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326141707/https://books.google.com/books?id=HCz4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT137 |url-status=live}}
• Panos Karnezis's 2004 novel The Maze deals with historical events involving and related to the fire at Smyrna.{{cite journal |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328883854 |date=1 May 2013 |title=Home and Displacement: The Dynamic Dialectics of 1922 Smyrna |journal=Synthesis: An Anglophone Journal of Comparative Literary Studies |first=Konstantina |last=Georganta |issue=5 |page=138|doi=10.12681/syn.17435 |doi-access=free}}
• "Smyrna: The Destruction of a Cosmopolitan City – 1900–1922", a 2012 documentary film by Maria Ilioú.{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2168820/|title=Smyrna: The Destruction of a Cosmopolitan City – 1900–1922|date=2012|website=www.imdb.com|access-date=15 October 2019|archive-date=1 January 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200101184615/https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2168820/|url-status=live}} uses contemporaneous film footage and photographs, and the testimony of surviving witnesses, to tell the story of the city and its destruction.
• Deli Sarkis Sarkisian's personal account of the fire of Smyrna is related in Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut's The Scars He Carried, A Daughter Confronts The Armenian Genocide and Tells Her Father's Story (2014).{{cite web|url=http://www.scarshecarried.com/|title=Ellen Sarkisian Chesnut – Deli Sarkis: The Scars He Carried|website=www.scarshecarried.com|access-date=22 October 2014|archive-date=11 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150111220056/http://www.scarshecarried.com/|url-status=live}}
• Smyrna in Flames (2021) by Homero Aridjis, is a historical novel inspired by the written recollections and memories of the author's father, Nicias Aridjis; a captain in the Greek army during the Smyrna Catastrophe.{{Cite web |last=Papadopoulos |first=Stephanos |date=18 December 2021 |title=A Lifeline to Greece: On Homero Aridjis's "Smyrna in Flames" |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-lifeline-to-greece-on-homero-aridjiss-smyrna-in-flames/ |access-date=10 September 2022 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books|archive-date=2 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220902223340/https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-lifeline-to-greece-on-homero-aridjiss-smyrna-in-flames/ |url-status=live}}
• The Greek film Smyrna, my Beloved (2021) follows the lives of a wealthy Greek family in Smyrna and their suffering and exodus after the Smyrna catastrophe.
• Fuar: a Counter-Memory, a 2022 short animation by Ezgi Özbakkaloğlu, juxtaposes drawn black and white images of the ruins of Smyrna with colorful animated impressions of the urban park that was later built on the site.
• Smyrna: Paradise is Burning, The Asa K. Jennings Story, a 2022 documentary produced by Mike Damergis; won the Best Historical Film award in the Cannes World Film Festival (May 2022).{{Cite news |last=Keane |first=Joseph C. |date=12 July 2022 |title=Damergis' Film on Smyrna Catastrophe Tells Asa K. Jennings' Story |work=The National Herald |url=https://www.thenationalherald.com/damergis-film-on-smyrna-catastrophe-tells-asa-k-jennings-story/ |access-date=23 July 2022 |archive-date=23 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220723062444/https://www.thenationalherald.com/damergis-film-on-smyrna-catastrophe-tells-asa-k-jennings-story/ |url-status=live}}
• The Illinois Holocaust Museum and the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center hosted a 100th anniversary educational event on September 18, 2022 remembering the Fire of Smyrna and the Greek genocide.{{Citation | title=The Great Fire of Smyrna - The Genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor Remembered: 100th Anniversary Commemoration | url=https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/events/the-great-fire-of-smyrna-the-genocide-of-greeks-in-asia-minor-remembered-100th-anniversary-commemoration/ | access-date=18 January 2023}}

• Outline and timeline of the Greek genocide
• Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917
• Fire of Manisa
• Scorched Earth
• List of massacres in Turkey

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin|indent=yes|35em}}

• Der-Sarkissian, Jack. "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232352416_Two_Armenian_Physicians_in_Smyrna_Case_Studies_in_Survival Two Armenian Physicians in Smyrna: Case Studies in Survival] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222113044/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232352416_Two_Armenian_Physicians_in_Smyrna_Case_Studies_in_Survival |date=22 December 2015}}," in Armenian Smyrna/Izmir: The Aegean Communities, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2012.
• Calonne, David Stephen. "Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, and Smyrna 1922," in Armenian Smyrna/Izmir: The Aegean Communities.
• Ilias Chrissochoidis, [https://www.ahifworld.net/uploads/1/1/7/1/117198244/3_the_burning_of_smyrna.pdf "The Burning of Smyrna: H. C. Jaquith's Report to Admiral Bristol,"] American Journal of Contemporary Hellenic Issues 14 (Summer 2023).

• Dobkin, Marjorie Housepian. Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971; 2nd ed. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1988.
• Georgelin, Hervé. La Fin de Smyrne: Du cosmopolitisme aux nationalismes. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2005.
• Karagianis, Lydia, Smoldering Smyrna, Carlton Press, 1996; {{ISBN|978-0-806-25114-1}}.
• Llewellyn Smith, Michael. Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919–1922. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
• Mansel, Philip. Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, London, John Murray, 2010; New Haven, Yale University Press, 2011.
• Milton, Giles. Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922. New York: Basic Books, 2008.

• Papoutsy, Christos. Ships of Mercy: The True Story of the Rescue of the Greeks, Smyrna, September 1922. Portsmouth, N.H.: Peter E. Randall, 2008.
• Tusan, Michelle. Smyrna's Ashes: Humanitarianism, Genocide, and the Birth of the Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
• Ureneck, Lou. The Great Fire: One American's Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century's First Genocide. New York: Ecco Press, 2015.

• Kolluoğlu-Kırlı, Biray. "The Play of Memory, Counter-Memory: Building Izmir on Smyrna's Ashes," New Perspectives on Turkey 26 (2002): 1–28.
• Morack, Ellinor. "Fear and Loathing in 'Gavur' Izmir: Emotions in Early Republican Memories of the Greek Occupation (1919–22)," International Journal of Middle East Studies 49 (2017): 71–89.
• Neyzi, Leyla. "Remembering Smyrna/Izmir: Shared History, Shared Trauma," History and Memory 20 (2008): 106–127.
• Demopoulos, Margot (18 April 2022). [https://www.massreview.org/node/10434 "Who Remembers the Burning of Smyrna?"]. The Massachusetts Review.

{{refend}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{Citation | title=The Great Fire of Smyrna - The Genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor Remembered: 100th Anniversary Commemoration | website=Illinois Holocaust Museum | url=https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/events/the-great-fire-of-smyrna-the-genocide-of-greeks-in-asia-minor-remembered-100th-anniversary-commemoration/ | access-date=18 January 2023}}
• Film: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZ8ZMI6IGU The Great Fire of Smyrna: Greek & Armenian pogroms, Turkey, 13–17 Sep 1922]
• [http://www.enosismyrneon.gr/ Association of Smyrneans]
• [http://www.levantineheritage.com/pdf/remembering_smyrna_neyzi.pdf Remembering Smyrna/Izmir: Shared History, Shared Trauma], Levantine Heritage
• [http://vimeo.com/10069165 Smyrna 1922], a rare film, on Vimeo – shows before and after the fire

{{Izmir}}

{{Turkish War of Independence}}

{{Coord missing|Turkey}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burning of Smyrna}}

Category:1922 fires

Category:1922 crimes in the Ottoman Empire

Category:1922 disasters in Asia

Category:Mass murder in 1922

Category:September 1922

Category:1920s controversies

Category:1920s fires in Europe

Category:1920s murders in Turkey

Category:20th-century disasters in the Ottoman Empire

Category:20th-century mass murder in Turkey

Category:Occupation of Smyrna

Category:Greek genocide

Category:Aftermath of the Armenian genocide

Category:Massacres in Turkey

Category:Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)

Category:Urban fires in Turkey

Category:History of İzmir

Category:War crimes in Turkey

Category:Attacks on buildings and structures in Izmir

Category:Massacres of Christians

Category:Persecution of intellectuals