TURKS DRIVEN OUT WITH THE BAYONET.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 56, 6 March 1916, Page 5

TURKS DRIVEN OUT WITH THE BAYONET.

RUSSIAN TROOPS' SILENT NIGHT ATTACK. ■ ARTILLERY CAPTUKED IN HAND-TO-HAND FIGHT. " i (Received 10.55 a.m.) PETRQGRAD, March 5. Official details of the capture of Bitlis show that our troops attacked lYe enemy entrenchments in a snowstorm. The final charge was made at 3 o'clock. in the morning, when the Turks were driven out with the bayonet after a desperate resistance. Our troops did not fire a shot. We nest attacked the artillery and captured the position after stubborn hand-to-hand fighting,'all the defenders being killed. Our pursuit of the enemy followed immediately. We have now taken 20 Krupp guns of the latest type, while we also captured a large munitions depot at Bitlis. A fire exploded the magazine at Sivas, the most important fortification in Western Armenia, Bitlis lies in Eastern Armenia, and is the capital of a vilayet of the same name. It stands in a huge ravine surrounded by hills over 2,oooffc high. The town lies at au altitude of 4.700 ft on the Bitlis (jhai. a tributary of the Tigris. Its population numbers 40,000 of which some. 13,000 are Armenians and the remainder Kurds. The town has a lengthy history, for it was one of the halting place of Alexander the Great on his conquering westerly march, while in 1554 the Persians defeated SolyniairHhc Magnificent here. The town suffered greatly from violent earthquakes nine years agp. Thcr , : lire no railways in the vilayet, but fair roads lead northward to Mush and Erzeroum, and southward to the Tigris and Mosul. The whole district is a tangled mass of plateau and mountain, very difficult to fight a way through in the face of a determined foe. while the Kurdish tribesmen are a perpetual thorn in the side of an invader.. hake Urmia, where the Turkish troops are practically rut off from their base, lies across the Persian frontier to thp westward of Tabriz. It is a salt lake, the shores being lined by huge marshes.