The Turkish capture of Smyrna was speedily followed by the
greatest calamity which has descended upon that ancient city since its whole population was massacred by Tamerlane in 1402. A fire which broke out on Tuesday or Wednesday of last week spread rapidly, until by Friday evening practically nothing was left of the town except the old Turkish quarter lying towards the upper part of the hill. The original cause of the fire is not as yet definitely known, and perhaps it never will be. Kiazim Pasha, the Turkish military governor of Smyrna, is said to have attributed it to the usual "desperate band of Armenians," who had set fire to the church in which they had taken refuge rather than surrender. At Athens it is attributed to the anxiety of the Turks to cover up the traces of possibly mythical massacres, and at Constantinople it is attributed to the delayed vengeance of the departing Greeks. The most likely theory is that it was originated, probably in more than one place, by the hooligans or budmashes who had seized the opportunity for looting on their own account, and that it spread with a rapidity not unusual in Oriental fires because there was no organized system for coping with it at the beginning. However that may be, there is unfortunately no doubt that the whole of the European quarter of Smyrna, Including all the banks and great trading establishments lying Immediately behind the long line of quays, has been destroyed, and that at least a half of the normal 350,000 inhabitants are homeless and starving.
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