TCD MS 11290/22 folio 2 recto
[1st March [?1917]] they have been starved ill clothed and generally scandalously illtreated for the last three years.
To give you an idea of the extent of the starvation when the gang that works for me turned out to work after three or four days wet during which they had not been payed two of them fell out on the way from weakness one died and the other was only brought round by our whiskey.
What the condition of affairs is behind the Turks I cant say but refugees keep coming in from villages behind their lines who say their is no food and they don’t come by ones or twos either but whole villages at a time.
The Turks are almost entirely living on what food they can scrape up locally and of course to get rid of the inhabitants suits them all right.
I’m sufficiently Christian to hope that we carry on the war against these brutes till they come whinging to us for mercy and that our government may remember their brutality to their own people and utterly destroy them as a ruling power for ever.
Im afraid I’ve written a horribly stupid letter but having seen a child die of hunger this morning I feel like having somebody’s blood.
Best love to all
Henry