AFTER THE WAR.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1948, 3 January 1914, Page 14

AFTER THE WAR.

CONDITION OP THRACE,

PITIFUL PLIGHT OF TURKISH PEASANTS.

A STRICKEN LAND.

A traveller who. receutjy. returned to Adrianoplo from a short tour in XortVorn Thrace, sends tho "Manchester Guardiau" some account of the' state of tho country after tho Balkan war. "Making Adrianoplo my centro for a week," he writes, "Iliave visited, partly by motor-car and partly by horse, some of tile surrounding districts which have been recently ocsvpiod by tho Ottoman army. lam muifn indebted to the Turkish authorities for tho assistanco they have given mo in enabling me to f,o about tho vilayet. At' Kirk Kilisso I was the guest of the military authorities, and at Adrianoplo tho euergetic Va 1 i afforded me every assistance. '"fbo on® hopeful feature in the whole doleful history of Thracc during tho last twolvo months is this. It appears that a regrouping of the population is.in progress. The Christian ' population of N'cithern Thrace, is drifting into Eastern Rumelia under Christian rule, and tho Mahomedan population from tho newly-annexed Bulgarian districts of Western Thrace is drifting south-east-wards to the territory recently occupied by tho Turkish army. When the Bulgarian army overran al! Thrace up to tho Chataldja lilies last autumn, most o. the Mohamedan population fled to Constantinople and Adrianoplo, and remained. there as refugees, dependent for a baro existence on European charity. When the Turkish army advanced and reoccupied Adrianople and Eastern Thrace last July most of'these refugees returned, and most of the Bulgarhn peasants wlio live in patchy colonies to tho north of Adrianoplo and Kirk Kilisso fled with the Bulgarian army into East orn IVutnelia. On the signing of the Turco-Bulgarian Treaty the other week, when it was finally settled that Bulgaria should have n striw of Thrace from Mustafa Pasha. to the Aegean, large colonies of Moslems migrated from tho strip of territory, and aro now in proccss of settling in the country north and east of Adrianoplo recently occupied •by tho, Turks. In the.last few days I have seen long trains of bullock wagons" containing the worldly possessions of tlieso Moslem peasants crawling leisurely eastwards to the creaking of wheels and the lowing of os en.

• "It seems to me, therefore, that, if neither tho Bulgar nor Turkish-migrated peasant wishes to' return to his old home, we have in'this reshuffling of the population a better-security for future tranquility in Thraco . than all the treaties and European Concerts in the world. The curse of Balkan politics has been that up to now Christian has been forced to live tinder Moslem , rule, and any reversal of the status quo would produce the equally undesirablo result that Moslem would be compelled to live under Chiistian rule. Itnink-that-.in Thraco at any rate theroare signs that the two great religious sects are. at-tho present moment geographically • segregating them selves. One hopes that tho movement is permanent, but it is too early to judge yet. -There tiro two weak spots, however, in the settlement which may give trouble. The country round Kirk Kilisso in Eastern Thraco appears still to bo predominantly Christian, Greek and Dulgar, and this re-' mains under Turkoy. Tho Gumuldjina district, which is in tho strip of Thraco given to Bulgaria, is entirely Mahometan. Strategic reasons,.-. mado Kirk Kilisso indispensable to Turkey. Economic reasons mako Gumuldjina indispensable to Bulgaria. Here, then, lies a possible source of Mure danger. A Scene of Desolation. "My . first day out from Adrianoplo I went north-eastwards, and came'across four villages, i had been told by the Turkish authorities that a certain Turkish villago had been burnt and completely destroyed by the Bulgarians. On reaching the spot i found a veritable wilderness of gaunt, bare walls; tho ground was littered.with* fragments of tiles, and not a man was to bo seen. In the centre of this scene of desolation was a large square building; it was pointed out to mo by the Turkish gendarme whom I had with mo as the mosque. But 1 was dubious. I entered, stumbling over rubble and pushing my way through thistles. A littlo alcovo at the cast end of the ruin rather suggested an altar. 1 went up to it. Yes, there was the place from which the Sacrament was given. At my feet was a tombstone, and I'read tho'letters 'Gregory Axyliou, died 1780' —in Greek! Unfortunately for my 'Turkish informers, who would have mo belicvo this was an instance of aii. outraged Mahometan village, F remembered enough of my school-day Greek to enablo mo to read tho writing on tho tomb of his forefather of tho Greek hariilet. A burnt Christian village could not then be palmed off on mo as a. Mahometan. But who did the deed? Perhaps retreating Turks last autumn; perhaps retreating Bulgarians this summer, when relations with' Greeco wero strained. "An hour "and a half further on. I camo across what had once been a mixed villago of Greeks and Mahometan's. I entered the main street-. Ruin and .devastation' was written .on every side, ftot ono singlo house stood erect, not one whole roof was to be seen, anil walls wero .blackened by fire. "There was the stump of a column which had once been a minaret. . That heap of stones was oiico a mosque. . Clearly there had been Mahometans here,. for there was .test from the Koran .in Arabic on a stone that had once covered an archway. How cynically it read I 'In. the name of Allah, the compassionate, tho merciful.' How littlo mercy and compassion has this countryside seen since that fateful October day when war began. I passed on, and in the other -sido of tho villago I found a different ctato of affairs. Houses wero standing whole. Indeed they were inhabited. _ Picturesque men in 'bashliks' and skin shoes lounged about. Women in brightly-coloured clothes were busy in the little courtyards. They were Greeks and they had been Tintouched. The l sign of the Cross was on tho door of each house. It had been i>ainted up as a charmafcainst destruction. ' Clearly this village had been burnt for political purposes. Someoiio had deliberately burnt tho Moslem quarter and spared tho Christian. And this was along the line of the Bulgarian retreat 1

"On tlio second day I made towards the Upper Tundja valley. Tlio country round was 0110 endless sea of wasto. I rodo over crest after crest of rolling downs and never a cultivated patch did I once see. Hank steppo grass grew everywhere. The land was reverting to a stato of nature, and yet, I' could see patches in the ground, by tlio way the vegetation grew, which indicated that once a smiling cornfield must have stood here. It was just like'traversing an unending piece of common land, and whenever I approached a village it had tlio aspect of a desertod gipsy encampment. Tlio rubble of the burnt houses, old ras;9, and bits of iron twisted by the beat lay strewn about. In several villages I found Moslems who had como from Bulgarian territory to settle'under Turkish rule. They had trokked 80 miles from Ortn-Keui, and tlio Turkish authorities had directed them to the deserted villages in this valley which, had been vacated by Bulgarians. Btit what nil cxistonco for thorn! Up against, the .Trails of the ruined houses thoy. had.

erected loan-to huts of wattleand j rushes, which they liatl obtained-, from; tho neighbouring river bank.i'^S^feVvj-J The Need for Grain. In this'village many of thf- iuon 11nri ; bogim to rebuild their houscs' , twith-' i ji"V consignment of wood sent them by the Government.-in a cart from AdriaiiopleiS lho women were shelling maize. 'cobsand winnowing tho corn. This maize ana com were their sole means or subsistoucc. It had boovt loft bv i)io v former inhabitants of the villace ' Dul--garians, , and fohiied part of tfTo''crops;' they had sown. last hummer. -- -The jUoslem .immigrants, in,fact, were ing on. what tho Bulgarians': had " harvested and left, and doubtless tiie Bul-S garians were living' on what ihe!-:o Jnrkish immigrants had harvested'and' leit 111 their old homes. -.1 estimated that these peasants would have"enough? gram food to keep them alive for about; iv month :"without Allowing thciu «my.seed to sow their w.inter crops. Unless seed corn and grain for food are forth-, coming scon they .will -inevitablystarve. 1 came across one poor Turkish woman living in a l.ittl-o ■ rush hovel.: Her husband had been killed in the war, aijd her-son -was a prisoner. .She . did. not know, .where lie -ivas or' when 1 * she would sco him again: A little heap 5 of maizo was all she possessed to keep; her from starvation, and ihat would not last for. more than a few. days A littlo fire of dried cattle dnng simm-cred on. tho floor of the.liovel and tried vain-" ly to keep out tho. blast of the bittei north-cast wind. And yet it was only autumn. But she .was resigned to her fate, and could only say in response to my questions that Allah* would help her. Money was 110 uso to her under those conditions, so I left- he-r some, of my bread-that I had with me in a bag,-and passed on with a heavy heart. In tho same village I came across some instances- of wanton destruction obviously committed by the Bulgarians. At the outskirts of the village was a Rust cm and Proctor threshing machine and engine._ All tho woodwork was burnt,, and the boiler of the engine had been battered in- by the .butt ends of rifles or by hammers. There could bo no pretenco that this was an act-of military precaution. It was purely .an act of wantonness.

"On returning to Adrianople I hod a loiifj conversation with tlw energetic Vah. Ho estimated that 35.000 houses have been ■ destroyed in the viiayei for which he is responsible. He seems to have succeeded '' in putting within t-lio reach of most" of the peasants enough wood to coustruct their houses, and, ill addition, hopes to distribute from two to five Turkish pounds per family. This will tsfke about £60,000 of Government money, and at least another £150,000, or £10 per family, will be required, which tho Government is uliable to find. But I think that ■mor.ey is of less importance at tho present moment than grain, for unless tie. peasants get .enough .distributed to them during, the next month to sow winter corn and feed themselves for tho winter disaster- will assuredly ■overtake them. Already the. season is advancing, and it is l liono too soon that tho ■ Goyernmeat has ordered a large consignment of grain from Rumaiiia. I think, however, it can bo expected that, as tlio'population in Eastern Thraee is mainly Turkish-, now, the Government will-see that they don'; starve, but this winter they will iiavo a bare existence and not a living.

"All tho villages are being compelled to start 'equal: 1 Whatever is found in the way of cattle or corn in the deserted ullages is : being distributed equally. Several villages that have renamed inhabited all through tho war !-,avc been mado to give up part of their flocks kr those that have none. This lias eroat-cd a grievance among some of tho Greek villages, who object to giving up any part of their stock to immigrant Turks. In such desperate straits as is tho Tural population of Thrace at the present moment, however, one-can hardly wonder at.sueli,steps.being taken, but tho .Government ought to «ivo receipts for stock so taken aud pay it back later. This it does not appear to havo do.no as yet; I understand that; tho civil authorities in Thraco' aro counting upon tho demobilisation of the Turkish army to liberate a largo number of oxen, which will be distributed as soon as possibLe anion;; tho peasants. It is most urgent for'the recovery of Thrace to its norma] eco'noiiic state that liilitary hirdens should b» reduccd and no further foieign complications should • ensue to disturb the political horizon."