8vo. 237 pp., 1 plan of Smyrna, cloth in detached d/w (remnants of the original jacket spine preserved), minor browning to endpapers, small stain to lower margin of Contents page, otherwise copy in very good condition, George Allen & Unwin, London, first edition, 1922.

Synopsis

RARE. Lysimachos Oeconomos’ün (1895-1944) wrote the foreword in this book. After the burning of Smyrna in mid-September, he rapidly put together a collection of press reports and eyewitness … This was The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom: a file of overwhelming evidence, denouncing the misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and showing their responsibility for the horrors of Smyrna.
He also exposed major British newspapers and the way they published the news of that period.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA. LETTER FROM AN EYEWITNESS.
A Birmingham firm of merchants has received a letter from a customer long resident in Smyrna describing the destruction of the city by the Turks.
Writing from Athens, he says: “No doubt you have heard of the great catastrophe that has befallen our beautiful city of Smyrna, which was totally burnt by the Turks, and more than 125,000 of its inhabitants mostly Greeks and Armenians were massacred and burnt alive. The scenes I witnessed and cruelty committed are beyond description, and such as no human heart could possibly stand without creating in its very fibres the most intense hatred of Turks.
When the Hellenic Army evacuated Smyrna I had not the intention of going away, relying on the official declaration of Kamal that all people would be respected, and that perfect order would reign. But when the first troops arrived, and they immediately started to pillage and kill, I immediately thought what a fool I had been to believe such a declaration from a bloodless chief, as if he had been suddenly transformed into an innocent figure, and as if a Turk could be civilised and his instincts and hatred against Christianity softened. No, a Turk is only polished and soft when he is afraid; but immediately becomes arrogant, vicious, inhuman and with brutal instincts the very minute he feels himself strong… The most horrible crimes that human brains can invent are countless and beyond my power to relate, but when I say 125,000 Christians have perished by massacre, drowning, burning and suicide, you can form an opinion of what a black shame it is for all the civilised world to allow these beasts not only to be still in existence, but to supply them with the means to achieve the aim of this fanaticism which is the extinction of Christianity…”.