La Maritza, Évros, Hèbre, Εβρος

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.

The rug industry no longer exists. The Armenians and Greeks, who were its personnel, have fled and settled in Rhoades, Piraeus, and some at Bari. There no longer remains any one in Smyrna who knows how to make carpets.

Ten years ago, by the Armenian massacres and deportations, Asia Minor was laid desolate. Today, the industrious and productive portion of its population has completely disappeared. It will soon become, if not a desert, a wilderness. Everywhere along the coast are cities, which were abandoned to the Turks two years ago and are now completely depopulated. The tillers of the soil have become shepherds and nomads — the land no longer belongs to any one. Within a few years, if God does not work a miracle, and endow the Turks with gifts which they have always lacked, Asia Minor will become a desert in the heart of Mediterranean civilization.

Chapter 37
by George Horton — For Thirty Years Consul and Consul-General of the United States in the Near East
With a Foreword by James W. Gerard, Former Ambassador to Germany

The Blight of Asia, originally printed by Bobbs-Merrill Company, New York, 1926: Horton, George, The Blight of Asia (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1923); ASIN: B000857NF2