In 1897, Stephen Crane rushed off to cover the war between the Turks and Greeks. The Ottoman Empire was bigger and stronger. The Turks had better equipment. The Greeks fought bravely with outdated weapons, but their commander, Crown Prince Constantine, was not competent. The result, quick and brutal, was the Thirty Days’ War.
Crane, already famous for The Red Badge of Courage, a fictional account of war, described battles, dead soldiers, fleeing civilians, hungry children.
The mind returns to the wonder of why so many people will put themselves to the most incredible labor and inconvenience and danger for the sake of this — this ending of a few lives like yours, or a little better or a little worse.
• Source: Paul Auster, Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane; New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2021, p. 494.
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