The Great Fire: One American’s Mission to Rescue Victims of the 20th Century’s First Genocide

Ureneck (Backcast), a professor of journalism at Boston University, uses wartime archives and private papers from the principals involved to revisit the inferno of Smyrna, the concluding tragedy of the decade-long campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing that “killed more than three million people” across Asia Minor and marked the end of the Ottoman Empire. Talks with WWI allies—including England, France, Italy, and Greece—broke down when former Ottoman army officer Mustapha Kemal rejected old treaties, sparking conflict between Greek occupation troops and Turkish nationalists that led to deportations and executions of local Christians, primarily Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians. Ureneck highlights the resourcefulness of U.S. Navy Captain Arthur J. Hepburn and his sailors, who formed a buffer to get a number of terrified Americans through the fire—and enraged mob—to safety on a destroyer offshore. Recounting the personal and political activities of key figures, Ureneck wisely underscores several essential themes of the West’s relationships with Muslim countries that remain concerns today: a fragile American foreign policy, human rights violations, and ambitions to control regional oil supplies. Surprisingly fresh, haunting, and potent, Ureneck offers a new perspective on the unforgiveable tragedy at Smyrna and the modern religio-ethnic conflicts that continue to trouble the region. (May)