TURKISH ARMY'S PLIGHT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2515, 17 July 1915, Page 6

TURKISH ARMY'S PLIGHT

A TERRIBLE PICTURE

PLAGUE-RAVAGED TOWNS

The "Corriera della Sera" (Milan),- in April, published a terrible account, sent from Hoppa (Black Sea), of the Bufferings of the Turkish army which has been defeated in the Caucasus.

It is, says the writer, a colosßal unknown tragedy. All Eastern Armenia is stricken with woe: devastation, massacre, carnage, epidemics, misery,misery, misery! The cities are cemeteries and hospitals. Trebizond, sweet, voluptuous Trebizond, which saw the glory of Alexis Comnenus and which degenerated under the corruption of tho Empire risen on the dark shores of the Black Sea, Thebizond is now half destroyed and its inhabitants are fleeing. The disasters of tho Turkish army in. tho Caucasus campaign have sent survivors flocking here; a bloody spectre of the Turkish army that, was dispatched to the Russian frontier. Four thousand sick or wounded soldiers have been sent to Trebizond from Erzerum and from the frontier, and almost every day now and dolorous convoys arrive from the interior. Tho authorities calculate that Trebizond will bo able- to accommodatc eight thousand patinnts, and so from Eastern Armenia hundreds continue to arrive. They do not appear to bo men, but rather'remnants of humanity.

But however many are sent it is unlikely that the figure mentioned will ever be reached, for Death sees to. the daily elimination among those, already, arrived. With sickening regularity it frees the places, for newcomers and those on their way. There.aro more than a hundred deaths every day .at Trobizond. Typhus smallpox, bid an infinity of other diseases play havoc. Nearly all the .doctors and chemists have contracted illness. And there are only just five doctors to attend to the needs of this entire city, which lately counted a population of* sixty thousand souls, and to look after the thousands of wounded as well. Sanitation material is nearly exhausted. There are no more disinfectants. The best -use is being made of whatever expedients can be devised in order to keep going on. The Spread of Plague. The .typhus spreads with, amazing rapidity. Wounds not sufficiently attended to become gangrenous. It is an infinite trial; a slaughter. TJntil twenty days ago it was thought possible that the epidemics might be confined to the encampments, but this proved an ingenuous illusion. When hospitals were improvised in the centre of the oity how could one believe that the epidemic would not spread and become general? Hospitals rise besido the schools, the mosques, the churches, and near the Consulates. At the present moment there is one on each side of the Italian Consulate.' Naturally tho plague spreads among the citizens. A daughter of the German Consul is suffering from typhus. Many families flee, terrified. But journeys cost money and aro disastrous. It is necessary to have or to find means or getting far away, and -there aro no ordmary communications, . because in the interior there is not a single mile of. railway, and the sea route is closed—or else to resign oneself to a dangerous journey by brief and painful stages. But towards what region? Where is safety to be found?. Caravan Column's Fate. ■ 'A' colunr.u of a thousand camels wag sent from Constantinople for the'earavan service between Trebizond, Erzerum and the interior: "'Eight 'hundred are already dead, striken by diseases that kill them in a few hours.-Thu frotcsquo arid precious beasts drop down y the wayside, and nobody troubles about them. Carrion hover over'them and help to augment the elements of infection. The sea route barred' by tha Turkish fleet, which arrives here now and again to bombard, the communications with the -interior rendered diffi: cult and extremely slow, Oriental Armenia is now threatened with yet an< other scourge—hunger. Flour is be coming scarce, there is no sugar, ant the deficienoy in the supply of coffee if beginning to be felt. And already there is no more petroleum! The situation is even worse at Erzerum, in the interior, 320 kilometres from Trebizond.

Erzerum is a fortress and chief town of tho vilayet. It Las a hundred thousand inhabitants, and is almost ' completely Armenian. But tho Ottoman Government has always neglected it, only troubling about its military position, and then very little. Around the outlying quarters thero are putrid, stagnant waters; they surround the city, so that it lies enclosed as in a purulentwreath of ill. Erzerum is full of sick and wounded. Frojn eight hundred to a thousand die there every day. It is something fantastic. Tho Ottoman Army, which had been organised for tho invasion of Russia from tho Caucasus, is now here or in tho surrounding districts. It comprises 350,000 men, in the most deplorable condition, and discouraged and afflicted. When tho city is considered to be too full of sick, convoys iire organised" and sent to Trebizond.J3ut tho distance is too'far, and hundreds die on the way. 'Entire columns of soldiers, already infected, are obliged, to undertake the journey on foot-; a there are not sufficient carts and animals. Every now and again one falls out. Succour 'him? With what, and how, when tho others, who endeavour to push along somehow, are in the same plight? ' Trehizond was bombarded on Janu-> nry 21' and 28 and February 3; The military zones wero hardly damaged at all, but the city has suffered enormously, especially tho Christian quarters. The Turks, following their old Riid favoured practice, always occupy, the Christian quartors when they fire on the warships, with the result that these- quartors suffer most from • tho bombardment of tho latter. Half of Trebizond lies in ruins. Turko-Cerman Discord. The city experienced the greatest panic on the afternoon of February 8. It was then that it suffered tho severest bombardment, two Russian torpedo' boat destroyers'having entered the port lo visit tho Washington, loaded with medicinal requisites, being surprised in attack from tho shore batteries. Some German officers who formed part oi tho Turkish command have departed for Erzerum and Erzingian.' The dissent between Turkish and Gorman officers is hero a reality. During tho first two months they wero united in groat cordiality; but when one loses r»ie is alway disposed to put the blamo on tho other. The Turks regret 6ver having been drawn into the conflict, unprepared as they were, aud among the soldiers a,nd population, now that the first explosion of enthusiasm has died out, tliore is a hostility to the war which', if it is not openly expressed, has been for some time creeping along, . There is no fightins; now. The Russians aro closo to the Turkish array, but do- not attack. It is said th«y hold back on account of the opidemiog raging among tho Turkish troops.