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The Great Fire of Smyrna or the Catastrophe of Smyrna〔Stewart, Matthew. "(Catastrophe at Smyrna )." ''History Today'', Volume: 54 Issue 7.〕 ((ギリシア語:Καταστροφή της Σμύρνης), "Smyrna Catastrophe"; (トルコ語:1922 İzmir Yangını), "1922 Izmir Fire"; (アルメニア語:Զմիւռնիոյ Մեծ Հրդեհ)) was a fire that destroyed much of the port city of Smyrna (modern İzmir) in September 1922. Eyewitness reports state that the fire began on 13 September 1922〔Horton, George. ''The Blight of Asia''. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926; repr. London: Sterndale Classics and Taderon Press, 2003, p. 96.〕 and lasted until it was largely extinguished on 22 September. It occurred four days after the Turkish forces regained control of the city on 9 September 1922, effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War in the field, more than three years after the Greek army had landed troops at Smyrna on 15 May 1919. Estimated Greek and Armenian deaths resulting from the fire range from 10,000〔Biondich, Mark. ''The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878.'' Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 92 ()〕〔Naimark, Norman M. ''Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe''. Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 2002, p. 52.〕 to 100,000.〔, p. 233.〕〔Naimark. ''(Fires of Hatred )'', pp. 47-52.〕 Approximately 50,000〔 to 400,000〔 Greek and Armenian refugees crammed the waterfront escaping from the fire and were forced to remain there under harsh conditions for nearly two weeks. Turkish troops and irregulars had started committing massacres against the Greek and Armenian population before the outbreak of the fire. The subsequent fire completely destroyed the Greek and Armenian quarters of the city; the Muslim and Jewish quarters escaped damage. There are different accounts and eyewitness reports about who was responsible for the fire; most Greek and Armenian sources attribute it to Turkish soldiers setting fire to Greek and Armenian homes and businesses,〔, (Snuffed Out In A Single Week ) via the Internet Archive〕 while traditional Turkish sources hold that the Greeks and Armenians started the fire.〔〔 == Background == The ratio of Christian population to Muslim population remains a matter of dispute, but nevertheless the city was a multicultural center until September 1922. 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. ''(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. (''International Dictionary of Historic Places: Southern Europe'' ). Taylor & Francis, 1995. ISBN 978-1-884964-02-2, p. 351〕 According to the Ottoman census of 1905, there were 100,356 Muslims, 73,636 Orthodox Christians, 11,127 Armenian Christians, and 25,854 others; the updated figures for 1914 give 111,486 Muslims compared to 87,497 Orthodox Christians.〔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.〕 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. (''Ambassador Morgenthau's Story'' ) Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918, p. 32.〕 while according to the American Consul General in Smyrna at the time, George Horton, 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''〕 Moreover, according to various scholars, prior to the war, the city hosted more Greeks than Athens, the capital of Greece. The Ottomans of that era referred to the city as ''Infidel Smyrna'' (''Gavur Izmir'') due to its strong Greek presence and large non-Muslim population.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Fire of Smyrna」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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