Armies of the Greek-Turkish War 1919-22

Description

This is a comprehensive guide to the armies that fought a devastating and decisive conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean between the two World Wars of the 20th century. From the initial Greek invasion, designed to "liberate" the 100,000 ethnic Greeks that lived in Western Turkey and had done for centuries, to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's incredibly efficient formation of a national government and a regular army, this was a war that shaped the geopolitical landscape of the Mediterranean to this day. It gave birth to the modern Turkish state, displacing millions and creating bitter memories of atrocities committed by both sides. Augmented with very rare photographs and beautiful illustrations, this ground-breaking title explores the history, organization, and appearance of the armies, both guerilla and conventional, that fought in this bloody war.

Philip Jowett was born in Leeds in 1961, and has been interested in military history for as long as he can remember. His first Osprey book was the ground-breaking Men-at-Arms 306: Chinese Civil War Armies 1911-49; he has since published the three-part sequence The Italian Army 1940-45 (Men-at-Arms 340, 349 and 353). Stephen Walsh studied Art at the North East Wales Institute and has worked as a professional illustrator since 1988. Since then he has illustrated a variety of books and games including Settlers of Catan. His projects for Osprey include such diverse subjects as the battle of Otterburn, the Chinese army from 1937 to 1949 and the US Home Front in World War II.

In his introduction to the New Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War Sir Hew Strachan noted that warfare didn't end neatly because an armistice was agreed with Germany on 11 November 1918, as many peripheral conflicts began or continued. This excellent booklet in the Osprey Men-at-Arms series covers one of these conflicts, the GreekTurkish War of 1919 to 1922 that led to the establishment of the modern Turkish state. Philip Jowett has packed in a great deal of information, while remaining eminently readable. He recounts the support that the Entente/Allied nations gave to Greece for its invasion of Anatolia and the parlous state of Turkish resistance. Once Allied support was reduced in 1921, on the return of Constantine to the Greek throne, it was only a matter of time before the Turkish Nationalists triumphed, under the leadership of Gallipoli hero Mustapha Kemal. British soldiers were sent to Thrace and Constantinople in late 1922 to help oversee the armistice and the peace treaty, including the resulting massive population movements that were a feature of the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, such as the 'Armenian Genocide'. Jowett doesn't ignore the widespread civilian atrocities but space doesn't allow him to dwell on them. This is part of a series of Osprey booklets on near-eastern armies of the period, including one on Mustafa Kemal Ataturk by Edward Erikson, the American historian who has done much to open up later Ottoman archives. -- Ted Green * The Historian *