Fire of Manisa
The Fire of Manisa refers to the burning of the city of Manisa, Turkey, by the Greek Army[1] during the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922). The city was burned between 5 and 8 September 1922. More than 10,000 buildings were destroyed, about 90 percent of the town.[2] Thousands of people died in the flames or were shot dead by the Greeks. Turkish sources claim 4,355 died, and 300 girls were raped.[3]
Background
The city of Manisa was part of the Ottoman Empire, and Turks and Greeks lived there together. The Greeks wanted Manisa to become part of Greece. In May 1919, the Greek Army occupied the town. War continued between Greece and Turkey for three years.
Events
In the summer of 1922, Turkey defeated Greece. The Greeks fled across the Aegean Sea to Greece. During their retreat, the Greeks burned Turkish towns and villages.[4]
The local Turks fled to the mountains. Most of Manisa was destroyed although the city was later rebuilt. Some Turkish authors wrote about their experiences in Turkish literature.
In Turkish literature
Some Turkish authors wrote about their experiences in Turkish literature
The Turkish journalist Falih Rıfkı Atay wrote:[5]
We were going through corpses which had not start rotting yet and still smoldering fires. We stared helplessly to Manisa the city of our ancestors and whose ashes were blown off. The Greeks had perpetrated an extermination in their retreat. The surviving buildings and people were the one which they had not find time to lay their hands on. We saw the remains of a slaughter which only one nation had to survive. The Greeks had want to turn Western Anatolia into a uninhabitable desert for the Turks...
Fire Of Manisa Media
A view of Manisa before the fire. Photograph taken from the south in northerly direction and showing the area around the Cami-i Kebir neighborhood with the Sultan and Muradiye imperial Ottoman mosques in front. A small area around these mosques were saved from the fire.
Map of western Anatolia and location of Manisa and other towns.
References
- ↑ Freely, John. Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy (2010).B.Tauris. p. 212. ISBN 9781845119416.
- ↑ U.S. Vice-Consul James Loder Park to Secretary of State, Smyrna, 11 April 1923. US archives US767.68116/34
Consul Park concluded:
"1. The destruction of the interior cities visited by our party was carried out by Greeks."
"2. The percentages of buildings destroyed in each of the last four cities referred to were: Manisa 90 percent, Cassaba (Turgutlu) 90 percent, Alaşehir 70 percent, Salihli 65 percent."
"3. The burning of these cities was not desultory, nor intermittent, nor accidental, but well planned and thoroughly organized."
"4. There were many instances of physical violence, most of which was deliberate and wanton. Without complete figures, which were impossible to obtain, it may safely be surmised that 'atrocities' committed by retiring Greeks numbered well into thousands in the four cities under consideration. These consisted of all three of the usual type of such atrocities, namely murder, torture and rape."
"Cassaba (present day Turgutlu) was a town of 40,000 souls, 3,000 of whom were non-Muslims. Of these 37,000 Turks only 6,000 could be accounted for among the living, while 1,000 Turks were known to have been shot or burned to death." - ↑ Ergül, Teoman. Kurtuluş Savaşında Manisa, 1919-1922 (1991)Manisa Kültür Sanat Kurumu. p. 337.
- ↑ Chenoweth, Erica. Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict (2010)MIT Press. p. 49. ISBN 9780262014205.
- ↑ Atay, Falih Rıfkı. Çankaya (1984). İstanbul. p. 331.
