Publisher's Synopsis
On Saturday 9th September, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. In the aftermath of the First World War, Greece invaded Turkey with the aim of restoring a Christian empire. By 1922, the Greeks had been vanquished. Many feared that the newly-victorious Turkish army would now unleash a terrible fury on Smyrna's infidel inhabitants. Yet there had been no resistance to the Turks, and Smyrna's Christian population were confident the Allied fleet in the bay would protect them. What happened next must rank as one of the most compelling human dramas of the 20th century. Almost two million people were victims of a disaster of truly epic proportions.
