NOGALES, Rafael de [Rafael Inchauspe Méndez, aka Rafael de Nogales Méndez, Gen.]; Lowell Thomas, introd.

Memoirs of a Soldier of Fortune

New York: Harrison Smith, 1932. First Edition. First printing. Octavo. Red cloth hardcover; xx,[1]-380pp; frontispiece and two unnumbered photographic plates (halftones). Binding slightly shaken, over-opened between pp.220-221; minor spotting and soil to binding; just Very Good. A sound and textually clean reading copy. Neat contemporary ownership signature to title page of a James A. Doyle (or Coyle).

Memoirs of the noted Venezuelan-born mercenary and adventurer Rafael de Nogales Méndez (1877-1937). Nogales here recounts his escapades in most of the world's conflicts during his lifetime, including the First World War (where he fought for the Ottoman Turks on the side of Germany) and the Spanish-American War (where he fought for the Spaniards against the U.S.). Nogales was enlisted with the Turks during the Armenian genocide of 1915-17, and his first book, Four Years Beneath the Crescent, remains an important evidentiary source for the genocide. The events are condensed to a single brief but vivid chapter in the current work, in which Nogales writes: "I had the misforftune of being the only Christian among the sixty thousand Turks who had bput down the Armenian revolution. I had witnessed scenes which no Christian should ever have witnessed and lived to tell about later. Khalil and several other leaders of the Young Turk party, who had committed those hideous crimes, realized that if I managed to reach Constantinople alive...they would have a devil of a time justifying themselves..." (pp287ff).

Price: $60.00

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