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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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HISTORIC IMPORTANCE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA

Page 2

    Thus says Sir Edwin Pears, in his well-known history:

    "The New Rome of Constantine Augustus passed under the power of a horde of Oriental adventurers, Turanians by original descent, mongrels by polygamy. This was the greatest victory ever won by Asia in her debate with Europe. For many decades thereafter there seemed at least a possibility that the East might destroy all the fruit of Marathon."

    Quoting again from the same author:

    "Under the rule of its new masters Constantinople was destined to become the most degraded capital in Europe, and became incapable of contributing anything whatever of value to the history of the human race. No art, no literature, no handicraft even, nothing that the world would gladly keep, has come since 1453 from the Queen City. Its capture, so far as human eyes can see, has been for the world a misfortune almost without any compensatory advantage. Poverty as the consequence of misgovernment is the most conspicuous result of the conquest affecting the subjects of the Empire. Lands were allowed to go out of cultivation. Industries were lost. Mines were forgotten. Trade and commerce almost ceased to exist. Population decreased. The wealthiest state in Europe became the poorest; the most civilized the most barbarous. The demoralization of the conquered people and of their churches was not less disastrous than the injury to their material interests. The Christians lost heart. Their physical courage lessened."

    This description of the condition of Asia Minor as the result of the capture of Constantinople continued down to the ultimate complete destruction of the Christians by the Turks. Nothing changed in the nearly five centuries that have passed. The Turk has not altered either in his character or his methods. The scenes described by Pears as following the taking of the Queen City, the massacres and violation of women, were duplicated at Smyrna, with the added horror of the sufferings of the Christians on the quay.

    After Constantinople, Smyrna, "Ghiaour Smyrna," became the last stronghold of Christianity and Greek culture in the Near East. It had its great and valuable libraries, its learned men, its famous schools. The Greeks and Armenians could at any time have attained safety by abjuring their faith. Yet, though there have been apostates, they have, in general, kept the faith and have suffered.

    The only civilization that has existed in Turkey since that black year, 1453, has been that supplied to it by the Christian remnant of the old Byzantine Empire. For that reason the work of the American and other missionaries took on a great importance. They went out originally to Turkey to convert Moslems. They found that they could not do this, but that their real mission was with the Christians, who were eager to be uplifted and enlightened. The recent rapid development of the latter in advanced agriculture, industries, commerce, education, was restoring Christianity in the Orient and reknitting the wasted and torn fabric of the old Byzantine Empire. To the great Christian Powers was given a tardy and last opportunity of repairing the wrong that was done the world when St. Sophia, the Temple of the Eternal Wisdom, fell into the hand of the Turk. 

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Cf. A History of the Byzantine Empire 

The Blight of Asia in Print