0009) The Blight Of Asia

"The long out of print, well known book 'THE BLIGHT OF ASIA' was published in 1926 in the USA and written by the American General Consul in Smyrna in 1922, who was an eye witness of all the perils of that city and of its Christian inhabitants. This testimony comes from a high-ranking American diplomat, who served in this capacity in that part of the world for about 30 years, and was therefore a knowledgeable and impartial source."

So says a Greek web site in its proud introduction.

I had heard of "The Blight of Asia," and the title was already a giveaway as far as Mr. Horton's being an "impartial" source. After all, the "Blight" in question is the Turks. That's a pretty severe word association. Also, I see the "Sick Man of Europe" has now been thrown into the continent Westerners associate with less civilized folk.

"Fortunately," our Greek friends have made sure to put the entire book up on the Internet, so I managed to get a very good idea of where George Horton is coming from. The book was "made available in web format thanks to S. Georgiadis, a Rear Admiral of the Hellenic Navy (Ret)."

The following are excerpts from George Horton's "knowledgeable and impartial" work.



Already in the Introduction, George Horton shows his stripes

Mr. Horton begins:



One object of writing this book is to make the truth known concerning the very significant events and to throw the light on an important period during which colossal crimes have been committed against the human race, with Christianity losing ground in Europe and America as well as in Africa and the Near East.


Another object is to give the church people of the United States the opportunity of deciding whether they wish to continue pouring millions of dollars, collected by contributions small and great, into Turkey for the purpose of supporting schools, which no longer permit the Bible to be read or Christ to be taught; whether, in fact, they are not doing more harm than good to the Christian cause and name, by sustaining institutions which have accepted such a compromise!


Another object is to show that the destruction of Smyrna was but the closing act in a consistent program of exterminating Christianity throughout the length and breadth of the old Byzantine Empire; the expatriation of an ancient Christian civilization, which in recent years had begun to take on growth and rejuvenation spiritually, largely as a result of the labors of American missionary teachers. Their admirable institutions, scattered all ever Turkey, which have cost the people of the united States between fifty million and eighty million dollars, have been, with some exceptions closed, or irreparably damaged, and their thousands of Christian teachers and pupils butchered or dispersed. This process of extermination was carried on over a considerable period of time, with fixed purpose, with system, and with painstaking minute details; and it was accomplished with unspeakable cruelties, causing the destruction of a greater number of human beings than have suffered in any similar persecution since the coming of Christ.


I have been cognizant of what was going on for a number of years and when I came back to America after the Smyrna tragedy and saw the prosperous people crowded in their snug warm churches, I could hardly restrain myself from rising to my feet and shouting: “For every convert that you make here, a Christian throat is being cut over there; while your creed is losing ground in Europe and America, Mohammed is forging ahead in Africa and the Near East with torch and scimitar.”

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Good Lord! Where are the Crusaders, when you need them?



"...The Turk (is) the 'great anti-Christ among the races of men' "




The time will never come when the words of Gladstone, one of the wisest of English statesmen, will be considered unworthy of serious attention. The following characterization of the Turk by him has been more aptly verified by the events that have happened since his death than by those that occurred before:

“Let me endeavor, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law.—Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element.— Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!”

To these words of Gladstone may appropriately be added the characterization of the Turk by the famous Cardinal Newman:

“The barbarian power, which has been for centuries seated in the very heart of the Old World, which has in its brute clutch the most famous countries of classical and religious antiquity and many of the most fruitful and beautiful regions of the earth; and, which, having no history itself, is heir to the historical names of Constantinople and Nicaea, Nicomedia and Caesarea, Jerusalem and Damascus, Nineva and Babylon, Mecca and Bagdad, Antioch and Alexandria, ignorantly holding in its possession one half of the history of the whole world.”

In another passage Newman describes the Turk as the “great anti-Christ among the races of men.”



"Memoirs of Naim Bey"

1965 Reprint of "Memoirs of Naim Bey"... a man who probably never existed. If he did, the immoral Aram had much practice in putting words into peoples' mouths.

Y'know, perhaps the British statesman might have shown signs of being wise, but with what he's saying here, I wonder who comes across as a smarter intellectual: Bill Gladstone, or Fred Flintstone?.

The virulently anti-Turkish William Gladstone surely did not show his wisdom by writing the introduction to forger Aram Andonian's phony The Memoirs of Naim Bey (1920)... "a documentary account of the secret orders of the Turkish Government for the extermination of the Armenians," still being peddled in Armenian web sites as the Truth. (The victors of the First World War, while searching all corners for documents to accuse the Ottoman leaders detained at Malta, chose not to assess the “telegrams” fabricated by Andonian. Here is more background on Naim Bey.)

That Cardinal Newman was no slouch, either. It's one thing when a British statesman shows his unbelievable racism, but when a supposedly good man of the book spreads such messages of hatred... well. You fill in the rest.

Muslims vs. Christians... with a Vengeance!



A prominent foreign official, not a German, has already been mentioned, who was constrained to keep silent as to Turkish atrocities. How strong the Turk is! He can do what he pleases, can break all time laws of God and man, and everybody, for some reason or other, must keep quiet about it. A redeeming feature of German complicity in the Armenian horrors was the acquittal by a German court of the Armenian who wreaked justice upon Talaat Bey. It is said that the testimony of German missionaries influenced the court to render that judgment.



A-HA! I knew I was on to something when I suspected a strong reason the justice-wreaking Armenian walked a free man... after committing clear-cut murder... was because the Germans were afraid the world would blame them for the Armenian massacres.

I have often been impressed with the hopelessness of making people who have not been eye-witnesses, comprehend the dreadful character of the massacres which were carried on by the Turks against the Christian population of the Orient. I have never been able to describe sights that I have witnessed in such manner as to make my listeners actually see and understand. It frequently happens that people, sitting in their comfortable houses, lay aside an article or book on the subject, with the remark: “We are fed up on Armenian atrocities.”


George Horton "witnessed" these sights ... how? Sitting in his comfortable U.S. consul's office? Or did he just rely on the word of the missionaries and Armenians, to whom he lent a monumentally sympathetic ear?

Here is another strong point of the Turk’s position: he has killed so many human beings and over so long a period of time that people are tired of hearing about it. He can, therefore, continue without interference.



I see. The Turk gets away with murder because everybody keeps mum about the Turk. Nobody dares to criticize the Turk. Everybody "must keep quiet about it." Those who aren't so cowed lose interest in criticizing the Turk, because people are sick of hearing about the Turk getting criticized all the time.

Now I'm beginning to fear for George Horton's sanity.


Another example of Horton, the "eyewitness":

"...[T]he looting spread and the savagery increased. At first, civilian Turks, natives of the town, were the chief offenders. I myself saw such civilians armed with shotguns watching the windows of Christian houses ready to shoot at any head that might appear. These had the air of hunters crouching and stalking their prey. But the thing that made an unforgettable impression was the expression on their faces. It was that of an ecstasy of hate and savagery. There was in it, too, a religious exaltation, but it was not beautiful, it was the religion of the Powers of Darkness. One saw, too, all the futility of missionary work and efforts of conversion. Here was complete conviction, the absolute triumph of error and the doctrine of murder and pitilessness. There was something infinitely sad in those pale writhing faces on which seemed to shine the wan light of hell. One could not help pitying those men even while they were killing. One thought of lost souls and the torments of the damned. Those killers were unhappy."

This was during the "Smyrna" fire, and is the one point in the book where the author testified he had been an actual eyewitness. This could have been true; he couldn't have been holed up in his office the entire time, and got an impression of the chaos all about.

What's interesting here is that Horton also wrote Turkish soldiers fired upon American marines. So, the fact of being an "American" must not have offered any protection. Since Horton's real purpose with this passage is to once again embellish how less-than-human the Turks were, one has to question how he could have been an eyewitness even in this case. If these Turks were so ecstatic about killing Christians, Horton must have realized he could very well have been next in line. With his agenda for hatred, he makes for an utterly unreliable witness, and that is an understatement.

If the Turks were so useless, how did the weakened "Sick Man of Europe" maintain the empire for another century or two?


There is one thing, which any one who has ever traveled through Turkish-ruled lands will see at a glance. Whatever nuclei of civilization existed in the Ottoman Empire outside of Constantinople were Greek, Armenian or something besides Turkish. The non-Mussulmans built the good houses and the better parts of the towns. Many of the Christian houses and towns had already been destroyed by the followers of Talaat and Enver, leaving little of any permanent value in the path of the Greek army.

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The careful and impartial historian, William Stearns Davis, to whom reference has already been made in this work, says (“A short History of the Near East”, page 393): “The Turks drove straight onward to Smyrna, which they took (September 9, 1922) and then burned.”

Men of this stamp do not make assertions without having first gone carefully into the evidence.



I would add another description to that historian, besides "careful and impartial"... "stupid." Imagine driving straight onward to take back one's own city, succeeding in taking it, and then... just for fun...BURNING it.

It's a good thing Mr. Horton sounds so incredibly open-minded, his judgment of what makes a historian impartial must be infallible.

"Mustapha Khemal" wished to "exterminate Christianity"!



On the same occasion Mrs. King Birge, wife of an American missionary to Turkey, made the following statement:

“I went up into the tower of the American College at Paradise, and, with a pair of field-glasses, could plainly see Turkish soldiers setting fire to houses. I could see Turks lurking in the fields, shooting at Christians. When I drove down to Smyrna from Paradise to Athens, there were dead bodies all along the road.”

The following extract from a letter written by a lady connected with the American missions in Turkey has recently fallen into my hands. It is dated September 21, 1922, and was sent to a friend in the United States:

“It is quite clear in my mind that there was a definite plan to burn out the Christian quarter after it had been looted. The time for starting the great fire was when the wind was blowing away from the Turkish quarter. I remarked when the fires began.”

“I am sure the Turkish authorities will say one of two things, either that the retreating Greek army set the city on fire, or the Armenians.”

"Exactly this has been published in Italian and French papers. Do not believe a word of it! We were in the Christian quarter where the fires began. Almost all Armenians except those we were sheltering had been looted and killed a day or two—even longer— before any fires began. The Greek soldiers had passed quietly through the suburbs about three or four days before.”

“The whole city had been completely under military control since Saturday afternoon and the fires began on Wednesday, which finally destroyed the city. The Turks, Chetas or regulars, or both, burned the city to dispose of the dead after having carried away their loot.”

The writer of this letter is neither Armenian nor Greek and is a person of the highest repute...



Wait a minute. Isn't George Horton's testimony supposed to be valuable as far as proving who burned Izmir, because he happened to be an eyewitness?

What kind of an eyewitness is this? He might have been in Izmir at the time, but he was obviously not out on the streets, checking out the action himself. No, the man relied on secondhand information... just like Ambassador Morgenthau did. Of course, Morgenthau mostly listened to Armenians; good Christian George Horton mostly appears to have listened to... bigoted missionaries.

I don't think Mr. Horton even knew this anonymous "lady connected with the American missions in Turkey," and yet he identifies her as "a person of the highest repute." I guess all one needs to be is a Christian to possess unquestionable morality, in George Horton's eyes.

Get a load of this logic, by the lady: "The Turks... burned the city to dispose of the dead after having carried away their loot." That makes a lot of sense. Burn one of the largest and most important cities left standing from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, on the road to building a new nation with next to nothing on hand.... simply because it's a convenient method to "dispose of the dead." These Turks must be mentally retarded.

But hold on; George Horton has a better peg on the reason why:

The torch was applied to that ill-fated city and it was all systematically burned by the soldiers of Mustapha Khemal in order to exterminate Christianity in Asia Minor and to render it impossible for the Christians to return.



I believe the Ayatollah Khomeini would have been proud to call George Horton a friend. Great dogmatically religious minds think alike.

The logic employed is astounding. In Mr. Horton's cobwebbed mind for Christ, all he can simple-mindedly conclude, without any evidence, is that Mustafa Kemal wished to "exterminate Christianity." And in order to do so, Mustafa Kemal chose to destroy... his own desperately needed major city.

By the way, couldn't George have gotten Kemal's name spelled correctly?
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The Turks were glutting freely their racial and religious lust for slaughter, rape and plunder within a stone’s throw of the Allied and American battleships...



Hoo-boy! When George Horton finally returned to America, I wonder if he applied for an Imperial Wizard position from some Ku Klux Klan chapter.

Mustapha Khemal made a stupendous blunder when he burned Smyrna and maltreated its inhabitants. Had he used them kindly, irrespective of religion, they would all have rallied loyally around him and he would have shown himself a really great man. Moreover, such a move would have been a splendid triumph for Mohammedanism.



I think George Horton has Mustafa Kemal, who would go on to create a secular state, mixed up with some kind of a great supporter of religionism. Perhaps a religious fanatic on the order of George Horton.

The Traitorous French, Italians and British


French sentiments, especially as regards England, are revealed in a work by the French writer, Michel Paillares, entitled Le Khemalism devant Les Allies, published in 1922. Monsieur Paillares is one of the editors of the journal L’Eclaire of Paris.

The following quotation is from one of the conversations held by Paillares with French officers at Constantinople, showing their strong pro-Turk, anti-Christian and anti-English feelings:

“I am introduced to an officer in command. He is a man all of one piece. He does not mince his words. He is like a man carved out of rock, for he is unmovable in his sympathies and his antipathies. Like the lieutenant of the Navy whom we have already heard, but more furiously still, he is the enemy of the Armenians, the Greeks, the Jews and—the English.”

“ ‘As for me,’ he snaps, ‘there is not even room for discussion! We ought to be completely, absolutely Turkophiles—I will say more, Turko-enthusiasts (Turcomanes). I love the Mussulmans and I hate their non-Mussulman subjects, who are rubbish. Assure these brave men their independence and their territorial integrity and we shall have in them the most faithful and the most loyal of allies. What do we seek here! A rampart against Russia and British imperialism! The maintenance of our prestige! The free development of our commerce, the expansion of our language! The respect of our schools and colleges! The safeguarding of our financial interests! We shall have all that by means of a French-Turkish collaboration. We ought no longer to hear the Jeremiads of the Armenians and the Greeks and the Jews. We must no longer play the game, neither of England nor of Russia. Russia, although split up by Bolshevism, must always be watched. She has intentions with regard to this country, which we must not encourage. But I do not think that she is an immediate danger. It is Great Britain, which, above all, is becoming troublesome. We are, nearly all of us (French officers) for the Khemalists and against the British and the Greeks.”

Though this is the opinion of a single individual, it expresses pretty clearly the general French attitude of mind as shown by French policy since the Armistice. It is evident that the sentiments of this French officer and of his colleagues, for whom he speaks, display a keen note of discord among the Allies, helpful to the Turk even in his gruesome work of massacring Christians.

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The part played by Italy and France, which so greatly contributed to the extermination of the Christian population of Turkey, and the fearful events at Smyrna, are well summed up by George Abbott in the work above referred to, in the following words:


“France, who since the Armistice had displayed a keen jealousy of England’s place in a part of the world in which she claims special rights, presently concluded a separate agreement with Turkey—an example in which she was followed by Italy—and gave the Turks her moral and material support against the Greeks; while England, while refusing to reverse her policy in favor of their enemies, contented herself with giving the Greeks only a Platonic encouragement, which they were unwise enough to take for more than it was worth.”

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At any rate, the British contribution to the Smyrna horror did not consist in active aid of the Turks, neither did she furnish them with arms or munitions. But, though she was largely responsible for the landing of the Greeks in Asia Minor, and the latter were defending her interests, she afforded them no aid, but gave them fallacious encouragement, which led them to their doom. As far as England was concerned, Greece was the victim of British internal politics, which seized upon the government’s policy in the Near East as an object for attack. If Lloyd George was pro-Greek, his political opponents became — ipso facto — rabid pro-Turk. If the Hellenic soldiers were mere tools of the British, as both the Italians and French believed, then it certainly was not “playing the game” to desert them in their extremity; and this desertion carries a graver responsibility with it, inasmuch as it made possible the fearful catastrophe of Smyrna and its hinterland.



On this point, Horton Hears a Who is to blame... correctly. It wasn't fair of the British to abandon the Greeks after setting them off to be their loyal Christian guardians of Anatolia. On the other hand, after getting the lowdown on the Greek soldiers' ... ehhhh, shall we say, "uncivilized" behavior toward the Turkish population [which George Horton seems blissfully unaware of; naturally, if they're Christians, they must be angels; although if Horton was stationed in Izmir for so long, how could he not have "eyewitnessed" Greek atrocities against Turks? To this ugly pseudo-Christian, some lives were incomparably less meaningful than others], who could blame the British? The Greeks' awful actions sickened even the British to say, "You're on your own. Buh-bye."

The French were all right, by the way! Who would have thought, in just a few years, they would turn around and so completely kowtow to the now-settled Armenians among their midst.

George Horton sizes up Admiral Mark L. Bristol


The days and months leading up to the fearful events at Smyrna were noisy with the Chester concession and pro-Turk propaganda. The enthusiastic pro-Turk articles in the press of the two Chesters — father and son — are still fresh in the public memory. Other pro-Turk and anti-Christian writers were busy, some among them doubtless earning their daily bread. The Turks were in funds. They had been busy picking the bones of the Christians and had laid their hands on great sums.


Ohhhh, yeah. The relatively poor Armenians of the East were really known for being wealthy, compared to the rich Armenians of the West, suspiciously untouched by the genocidal Turks.

Fascinating. I wouldn't have thought two little articles would have created any kind of a stir, against the great onslaught of anti-Turkish propaganda. I doubt they did [look under "West Accounts" in the Articles section for the "two Chesters"].... Mr. Horton no doubt bristled to deal with views so diametrically opposed to his own, and he might have inflated their effect.

George Horton's cobwebbed religious mind must have been so darkened with hate, he couldn't even consider any evidence that shattered his deeply-ingrained belief system. The only way he could justify the reason why these "anti-Christian" Americans had a different opinion is because they were... being paid off by the Turks??? Aside from the fact that Turkey has been unable and/or uninterested to get her side of the story heard (until the 1980s), their tax-collecting ability during this deadly period of transition must have been dismal, assuming the Turkish citizenry had much of anything left to pay with. (Here is one realistic way the Turks got their hands on desperately needed funds.) Oh, hold on. The big payola the Turks wound up with came from all the Christians they had massacred. THAT explains it.

O merciful God, no wonder the Greeks and the Armenians champion George Horton as a great supporter of their side. He makes about as much sense as them!)

Our representative at Constantinople, Admiral Mark L. Bristol, is an extremely attractive personality: honest, brave, generous, with frank and winning manners. By the sheer magnetism of his genial and engaging character he gathers about himself, wherever he is, a school of admirers and disciples who ardently defend the admiral and everything that he thinks and does.

The naval officers who came to Smyrna at the Consulate’s request were typical of the American naval officer in general, high-type intelligent gentlemen, of an efficiency that may be described as well-nigh perfect. They were under certain orders at Smyrna, which it was incumbent upon them to carry out. They accomplished all their duties there thoroughly and correctly and performed prodigies after the fire in saving refugees.

I was somewhat puzzled, however, when an American lady at Smyrna informed me that one of the officers had told her that he was “pro-Turk.” Another, a commander, made the same remark at Athens, at luncheon, during one of the trips, which the destroyers were making back and forth between that city and Smyrna.

While stopping at the Army and Navy Club in Washington in 1922, I asked a naval officer of high rank if it was true that he was pro-Turk, and he replied:

“Yes, I am, because I was brought up as a boy to the belief that the Turks were always chasing Greeks and Armenians around with a knife. Well, I have been over there to Constantinople several times and I have never seen anything of the kind, so I have come to the conclusion that it is all buncombe.”

This is all right. Every man is entitled to his opinions, no matter on what evidence or process of reasoning founded. My surprise was due to the fact that I had thought that the officers who came to Smyrna were under orders to be neutral.



As opposed to the government representatives who came to Izmir in earlier years, who must have been under orders not to be neutral.... if George Horton is any indication.

At least Horton was gentleman enough not to put down Admiral Mark Bristol. His story's a tad misleading... he writes, "I asked a naval officer of high rank," to get the skinny on whether the admiral was "pro-Turk," and then it sounds like he was speaking to the admiral himself. (Most likely, Horton meant one of the officers was "Pro-Turk," as an extension of Admiral Bristol... since everybody so admired Bristol. The passage is ambiguous, but it sounds like the "Pro-Turk" line of thinking applies to Bristol himself, whether he was behind that "quote," or not.)

Anyone who didn't adhere to being totally against the Turk as was traditionally established was suddenly labeled "pro-Turk" when a little even-handedness and fair-mindedness came into play. Bristol had no reason to love the Turks; he had been raised with the same anti-Turkish influence as most other Westerners. Only when he saw firsthand how unfair and lopsided this influence was, did he change his ways. Finally discovering who the actual lying, murdering scoundrels of the equation were must have had a powerful impact... and it must have been very difficult to maintain a good opinion for those previously thought of as the innocents, upon discovering their lack of civility and morals.

Admiral Mark Bristol's evidence and process of reasoning was a sense of fair play and the pure, unadulterated facts. His mind was not clouded with idolatry of zealots who actually would go so far as to label an entire race the "ANTI-CHRIST "!

(Of course, American Reverend Jerry Falwell, a man George Horton would have no doubt revered, did say the Anti-Christ would be Jewish. But at least the adorable Falwell pinned the whole Anti-Christ thing on just one Jew... not every single Jew.)


...The Turk is ... the lowest of Mohammedans intellectually...

Let us briefly review the situation which enabled the Turks in the year of our Lord, 1922, to complete the extinction of Christianity in the Near East: The Germans were, as long as they lasted, the active allies of the Turks, and during this period nearly a million Armenians and many thousands of Greeks perished; after the Armistice and during the period which led up to the destruction of Smyrna and the accompanying massacre, the French and Italians were allies of the Turk, and furnished him moral and material support; the British gave no aid to the Greeks, but contented themselves with publishing an account of the dreadful events that had been taking place in the Ottoman Empire; the Americans gained the reputation of being pro-Turk, true friends, who would ultimately, on account of this friendship, be given the permission to put through great schemes, which would result in the development of the Ottoman Empire and, incidentally, fill certain American pocketbooks. The Turks confidently believed that commercial avarice would prevent us from interfering with their savagery, or even strongly condemning it.


America is the epitome of Capitalism, is she not? Naturally, if Americans were going to show any friendliness to the Turks, they would hope to get something out of it. There are only few nations where America grants unconditional support, without getting anything of real substance in return... nations such as Armenia and Greece.

And in all this tangle of conflicting interests, during which the Turk continued massacring, the thoughtful observer is impressed with one thing— the clearness of John Bull’s vision and the directness and tenacity of his purpose; he knew what he wanted and he took it. There are copious oil wells at Maidan i Naftun, from which the oil is piped down to Mukamra, not far from Basra, on the Persian Gulf, where the British landed early in the war. There are rich oil fields at Mousul. General Townsend was on his way there when the Turks stopped him at Kut el Mara, but that did not stop Cousin John. He is at Mousul now and the Turks would have liked to give Mousul to Admiral Chester and the others. No wonder the State Department says that it kept out of that.


Mosul and Basra were taken away from Turkish hands by the British during World War I, a few years before "The Blight of Asia" was written... These great oil-gushing regions are one of the primary reasons why the United States went to war against Iraq in 2003. Oil-poor Turkey really had nothing to entice the Americans with. No doubt some American businessmen were attracted to the possibility of making a few bucks off rebuilding Turkey, but the war-torn world was the oyster of American business after the war. This is not a significant enough reason for Americans to be so "pro-Turk"... particularly with a nation that was wiped out in every sense, and had no money. Obviously, this Turk-hating U.S. consul can only rationalize anything short of pure hatred displayed toward the Turks as being "pro-Turk"... because, to his pathetic mind, the Turks are less than human beings, and cannot deserve anything but contempt. (Besides, what right-thinking American businessman would be foolish enough to enter into business with a people who are so incompetent and brainless that they would actually burn down one of their few major cities.)

The building up of Mustapha Khemal by certain Christian countries was one of the unwisest, most pernicious and most dangerous deeds that Occidental diplomacy, intrigue and jealousy has ever perpetrated. It is a legend among Mohammedan peoples that the Turk is the “Sword of Allah,” “the Defender of Islam,” and “the Scourge of the Unbeliever.” As he is the lowest of Mohammedans intellectually, with none, or at best few, of the graces and accomplishments of civilization, with no cultural history, the other disciples of the Prophet do not consider him as their intellectual or moral equal.

In only one particular has he always kept abreast of the age, and that is in the art of war. He is perhaps the only example of a great and scientifically warlike nation that is great in nothing else. He destroys but can not construct. Even the other Mohammedans, who have been subjected to his rude and blighting sway, have continually fought to be freed from it, and have only joined him in common cause against the Christians.

Of him, the historian Butler says:

“The Goth might ravage Italy, but the Goth came forth purified from the flame, which he himself had kindled. The Saxon swept Britain, but the music of his Celtic heart softened his rough nature. Visigoth and Frank, Heruli and Vandal, blotted out their ferocity in the very light of the civilization they had striven to extinguish. Even the wildest Tartar from the Scythian waste was touched and softened in his wicker encampments, but the Turk, wherever his scimitar reached—degraded, defiled and defamed, blasting with eternal decay Roman, Latin civilization, until when all had gone he sat down satisfied with savagery to doze into hopeless decrepitude.”



Must be somewhat humiliating to put one's name down on a book, to be judged eternally as a racist of the most despicable kind.


Religious Conversions, and more Turk-Blasting


I am obliged to state that I have serious doubts as to the wisdom of contributing further money to our religious establishments in the Ottoman Empire under present conditions. Before doing so the fact should be widely advertised in Turkey that their real object and that of the men and women working in them, is, by hook or crook, to convert the Turks to Christianity, which is considered to be a religion superior to Mohammedanism.

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The attention of the reader has already been called to the fact that the Turks are the lowest of the Moslem races and it would not be fair to Mohammedans in general to say that they approve of butchery and rape as carried out by that people, so well characterized by Gladstone and many historians.



Gee, George. Mighty white of ya to defend the honor of the other Mohammedans.

It has already been asserted that conversions from Mohammedanism to Christianity are extremely rare, while the former is taking heavy toll from Christian converts...

There is also the well-authenticated story, which, for obvious reasons, has not been given wide publicity, of the American missionary woman who married a rich Turk and became a member of his already well-stocked harem. A number of her former associates wont to see her and endeavored to persuade her to return to them. She replied:

“I have always desired to be married and live the natural life of a woman, for which God intended me. I saw the years slipping away, with no chance in sight of fulfilling the functions for which the Creator made me and I rebelled. No Christian man has ever made me an honorable proposal of marriage, though several have paid me court with shady intentions. This man offered me a union honorable according to his religion and the laws of the country, and I accepted. I would rather have a quarter of a man than none at all. I am soon to become a mother; I am perfectly happy, and I don’t want ever to hear anything more about missionaries or missionary work.”

The two last cases are significant as they reveal one of the reasons why Mohammedanism is less difficult to preach convincingly, under favorable conditions, than Christianity. It solves, both for men and women,’ some of the inconveniences of our civilization, which exist despite the greater and greater efficiency of our divorce courts.... Mohammedanism does not ask so much of the individual as does Christianity, and hence is easier to live up to.



(A female ex-missionary married to an inferior Turk. Why, what is this world coming to?)

Don't faithful Moslems need to fast every year for the Ramadan month? Don't they have to pray five times a day? Sounds to me like "Mohammedanism" would not be all that easy to live up to.

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The difference, mentally, between the Arab and the Turk, is thus depicted by Buckhardt:

“The Arab displays his manly character when he defends his guest at the peril of his own life and submits to the reverses of fortune, to disappointment and distress with the most patient resignation. He is distinguished from the Turk by the virtues of pity and gratitude. The Turk is cruel, the Arab is of a more kindly temper; he pities and supports the wretched and never forgets the generosity shown him even by an enemy.”

Without having gone deeply into the subject, I am convinced that the Turks are the only branch of the Mohammedan faith, which has never made any contributions to the progress of civilization or produced anything which, as Sir Edwin Pears says, “the world would gladly keep.”

They have been destructive and not constructive.
It is possible that a few new buildings may be put up at Angora in the near future, but the process of reasoning which connects the carrying out of massacres on a hitherto unprecedented scale with a freshly acquired ability for administration, agriculture, commerce and finance is incomprehensible.


Wrong again, bucko!

Could it be the reason why the Western world is unaware of Turks' achievements precisely stems from the kind of blind prejudice George Horton rabidly vomits in his book? In all my schooling in the United States, not once was the Ottoman Empire or Turkey mentioned. The only time I recall Turkey being mentioned was in a college English course, where the Greek teacher opined how terrible the Turks were.

George Horton kind of defeats his own argument by saying the Turks would be unable to make a go of a nation... because such savages who carried out wide-scale massacres "on an unprecedented scale" would be incapable of managing the necessary components of "administration, agriculture, commerce and finance." Well, let me tell you something, carrying out massacres ... of "nearly a million Armenians and many thousands of Greeks," as Mr. Horton believed... would take a certain amount of brilliance. Even the very gifted Germans — known for their skilled inventiveness, engineering, craftsmanship and science, discipline and orderliness, which would now aid them in a hideous venture — faltered before they got it down to a science, in World War II; a process of trial and error with all of the gasses, the poisons, the ovens, the "exterminating" vehicles that would go out into the conquered territories... How could one commit such genocide on a grand scale if one does not have such TECHNOLOGICAL means? Especially regarding the "Sick Man of Europe," a nation that was broke? For lack of technology... with every man needed at multiple fronts, where was the manpower to commit the massacres via more primitive methods?

As far as the Turks failing in their nation-building, when they achieved nothing short of a miracle in a span of just a few years by completely transforming what used to be... and beating George Horton's country and mine in some enlightened and progressive ways — for example, Firuzan S. Esmerer was appointed to the Turkish Supreme Court in 1932, beating out her future female American counterpart, Sandra Day O’Connor, by half a century — history provides the best answer to George Horton's racist stupidity.


On this point, precisely, Sir Valentine Chirol, already quoted, very opportunely says:

“The Turk’s only real business was, and always has been, war. But it is difficult to see how far Turkey has profited by exchanging a narrow religious fanaticism for an equally narrow racial fanaticism. All we need consider is what Turkey is today. Her population is estimated at between six million and eight million decimated by the war and believed to be shrinking as it was already doing before the war, from congenital disease. It will, it is true, be for the first time, an almost purely Turkish population, for of the Greeks and Armenians who in 1914 still numbered some three million in Asia Minor, only the scantiest remnants are left. Yet they were the most intelligent and economically valuable communities of the old Ottoman Empire. She (Turkey) can hardly aspire to a much higher position than that of a third rate power barely equal in general resources to any of the Balkan states over which she used to rule, and she has herself abdicated the prestige and influence which the possession of the Khalifate had conferred upon her.” (Chirol, “Occident and Orient”, pp. 65-67)


(Well.... what do you expect from a guy named "Valentine"?)


A narrow religious fanaticism... and an equally narrow racial fanaticism. Couldn't have said it better, myself. Right back at the author of this Blight of Literature.

The irony is, throughout the book, Mr. Horton is desperate to portray his sources as beyond reproach, when the sources are no less fanatical than he. In addition, George Horton repeats how he doesn't discriminate against Turks, being a man of such high moral fiber... and he tries to prove it at book's end by presenting one letter from a few Turks saying what a great guy he is. Sigh.

These are exactly the reasons why Turks suffered such a bad rap during World War I, and for many years earlier... and the very reasons why they are still suffering today. The fake "Muslim vs. Christian" issue has maintained its stranglehold on prejudiced Westerners, whose minds had already been well polluted by anti-Turkish thought, expertly engineered by Turcophobic ethnic minorities. George Horton and the ugliness and shallowness of his words might come across as extreme to some... but they beautifully illustrate the unbelievably negative attitudes the Turks must contend with, every day.



Letter from a Turkish Reader


"...A retired General I met who was trying to swim to a rock formation out in the sea just as I am. The old chap told me how in NATO meetings Greeks distributed the Horton book to the delegates even though meeting had nothing to do with it and when he told his superiours that Turks should distribute as a retribution the Reports of the Greek Atrocities prepared by the Americans, Brits etc. they told him naively we are allies now."

The Turks: Always taking the high road. The Greeks: Content in having an open field, knowing the sense of Turkish fair play, shamelessly never losing an opportunity to spread vicious propaganda as this horrible book, even in the most inappropriate venues.


Notes on George Horton
ADDENDUM, 1-08

"George Horton was a man of letters and United States Consul in Greece and Turkey at a time of social and political change. He writes of the re-taking of Smyrna by the Turkish army in September 1922. His account, however, goes beyond the blame and events to a demonization of Muslims, in general, and of Turks, in particular. In several of his novels, written more than two decades before the events of September 1922, he had already identified the Turk as the stock-in-trade villain of Western civilization. In his account of Smyrna, he writes not as historian, but as publicist."

Brian Coleman, "George Horton: the literary diplomat," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, volume 30, January 2006, pages 81-93(13).

Horton's Wife was Greek:

“Horton, the USA's consul in the tormented city from 1911 to 1917 and from 1919 until its catastrophe, had a Greek wife and was involved in extensive diplomatic and charitable activities to support the Christian populations of Asia Minor..”

Evangelos Gdontelis, "The Uprooting of Hellenism in Asia Minor," Palmoi tis Vatoussas Vol. 25 (Jan.-Mar. 2004), pp 17-20. Link. The wife, according to an online encyclopedia, was Catherine Sacopoulo, a Greek-American, whom Horton married in 1909.

Thanks to Conan

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