Smyrna shook the world. Islam which had been staggered by the Greek occupation in 1919, threw itself into rejoicing with "our brother Turk." Christendom which had passed over the Greek occupation in silence, was as staggered by the Turkish re-occupation as if one of the Commandments had dropped out of the Decalogue. Of the three elements which were present in Smyrna, Armenians, Greeks and Turks (to mention them in alphabetical order), American churchmen assumed that it was the Turks who started the fire which razed part of Smyrna town within a week after the re-occupation. As for the Turks themselves, budding Turkish linguists greeted the news from Smyrna with shouts of "Finish imperialisme!"
Only the Allied occupation of Constantinople and the Straits, and the Greek occupation of Eastern Thrace in the Allied rear, now confronted Fevzi Pasha. On September 16, Mr. Lloyd George issued his call to the British Dominions to rally to the defense of "the freedom of the Straits." Doubtless Mr. Lloyd George knew what he meant by the phrase, but while Soviet Russia and Turkey had repeatedly and publicly defined it, Mr. Lloyd George had refrained from any public definition of it. More was involved, however, than "the freedom of the Straits" in the manifesto of September 16. That manifesto was a direct descendant of the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907. With Habibullah dead, with Said Mir Alim in exile, with the Anglo-Persian Agreement defunct, with Trans-Caucasia again under the Russian aegis, with the Greek fait accompli across the Straits in process of collapse, the now exposed British command of the Straits and the
