The Destruction of Smyrna: When Hellenism was Brutally Erased from Asia Minor
September 12, 1922 marks one of the darkest days of Hellenism as Smyrna, one of the most prosperous and beautiful cities on the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor, was destroyed by the Turks, sending hundreds of thousands of Greeks to a homeland they had never known.
Only five days before the Smyrna destruction, the Greek Army, which had come to Asia Minor to liberate lands that once were Greek, was leaving, defeated by Turkish troops under the leadership of the founder of the new nation, Kemal Ataturk.
Once the Greek Army had retreated, the Turkish troops entered the city from the west side of the beach that stretched the entire length of the city and in a short time they had placed themselves along its entire length to its end, or Punta (otherwise known as Alsancak), an area that extended to the northern end of the waterfront — where only ethnic Greeks lived.
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