TURKISH REVERSE IN YEMEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1099, 11 April 1911, Page 5

TURKISH REVERSE IN YEMEN.

REBELS SHELL A TOWN, By Telegraph—Pi;ess Association—Copyrieht Constantinople, April 9. The rebels aro shelling El Sajjeh, in the province of Yemen, with captured Turkish guns. Ten battalions of troops have been dispatched to relieve the town. SEVERE ARAB LOSSES. (Rec. April 11, 0.25 a.m.) Constantinople, April 10. Five hundred Arabs and 150 Imperial troops havo been killed at Sinanpasha, near Sanaa, in Yemen. rho rebels elsewhere havo been dislodged from their entrenchments, and a hundred have been killed. c Ti ,\® Turkish province of Yemen, in ocutJi-West Arabia, has been aptly compared with the North-West Frontier of India, as a source of constnnt unrest and daDger to tho rest of the Turkish Empire. Though nominally conquered by the lurks four hundred years ago, the province has been all through that time practically independent, being ruled bv its claiming direct succession from the Prophet, and regarding the Turks as foreign intruders. Each of tho numerous attempts made by tho central Government at Constantinople invariably led to a revolt which, even if not always successful, never brought the Turks any political or material advantages. As recently as 1901-5 tho Turks had to employ 40,000 troops beforo the Imam thought fit to offer terms of surrender, and even then—as the present revolt, which, lias now lasted, many mcAiidis, shows—without much gain to the Government.

This rebellion is to be traced to the aspirations of tho Young Turks to consolidate and to centralise tho power of the ruling race. Imam Yahya Hammicddm has a large following among tho tribes, and if it bo true that Abdullah Pasha al Boni, the powerful ruler of tho great district near Sanaa, the chief town of Yemen, about 100 miles from the port of Hodeida, lias joined him, the revolt indeed looks formidable, and likely to task the greater part of the military powers of tho Ottoman Empire.