TURKISH EXCESSES IN BULGARIA.

Evening Star, Issue 4279, 13 November 1876, Page 4

TURKISH EXCESSES IN BULGARIA.

The offioial report of Mr Baring, the English Commissiomer appointed to inquire into the reported excesses in Bulgaria, has been published. In a great measure it corroborate* that of Mr Sohulyer, the American Commissioner, the leading points of which were made public through the medium of the London 'Daily News,' the correspondent of which accompanied the commissioners. It is worthy of note that the English ambassador, in forwarding Mr Barry's report to the Foreign Office, mow admits that the cruelties practised by the Turks justify the Indignation called forth. (How different this to Sir Henry HUiot In May last.) With every desire to ATeid exaggeration, and in order that he might not be accused of painting things •lacker than they really were, Mr Baring maintains that, after the most careful calculation, he cannot arrive at any other conclusion than that not less than 12,000 persons perished in the Bandjak of Phillopolis, where the insurrection commenced. On the ether hand, the total number of Musselmen killed in the sandjak did not exceed 165, and the atrocities committed by the Bulgarians are thus stated by our commissioner :

"At Otdjelar, which was burnt by the insurgents, a Mussulman is said to have been toasted. At Carloro, I heard a fearful story" of a Turkish boy, whose arms were flayed by the insurgents, who said they would make a jaoket fer him out of his own skin; but I cannot guarantee the truth of this tale. The place were the Bulgarians showed the greatest ferocity was at Avrat Allan, for ere they massacred seventy-two Mussul- i men and one girl in oold blood. Altogether, | the number of Mussnlmen killed in cold , blood does not exceed 200 for the whole sandjak. I have not heard an estimate given of the number of irregulars killed in fighting, but I should think, from all I gather, that they might be oonnted by tens rather than by hundreds. A certain number of zaptiohs {police), who were naturally scattered about the country, were killed ; but I cannot discover that a single man of the regular army fell while fighting against the insurgents." _ In the sandjak, fifty-eight villages (Christian and Musßelman) were destroyed, four monastriea were. burnt and pillaged, and some of the monks were killed or are missing. Respecting the village of Prasadum Derdent, which cud revolt, the commissioner says:—

" The burning and pillaging of the village by the Bashi-Bazouks were acta of wanton destruction and cruelty, as, not only were 260 people killed, but the whole population is now condemned to misery and starvation during the approaching winter. When the Bashi-Bazouks entered, a woman had just beep cenfined; they went into the house where she lay helpless, and murdered both her and the newly-born infant." And the commander of the Bazouks who pillaged this village was'Mecorated. The Commissioner next went to Peronstitza,Jand thus sums up his observations there : l " From all the conflicting evidence I think 6ne may fairly deduce that the"?spirit of revolt existed here; button the other hand, the punishment inflicted was severer than the crime merited. The burning of the village was neither politic, and of course the wholesale plunder here or elsewhere cannot be excused for a moment. In the Behool which was; burnt during the fighting, two girls are said to have been bumt.jn the flames. There is no doubt that when the prisoners were being taken to Phillopolis, numbers of the women were violated."

The next part of the report deals with the •»se of Batak—"the most fearful tragedy that happened during the whole insurrec#on."

"The Medjlisa of Tartar-Bazar jik, hearing that preparations for revolt were going on in this village, ordered Achmet Agha to attack it, and this individual, having joined his forces with these of Mahommed Agha, proceeded to carry out these orders. On arriving at the village he trumoned the inhabitants to give up their arms, which, as they mistrusted him, they refused to do, and a desultry fight succeeded, Which lasted two days, hardly any loss being inflicted on either aide. On May 9, the inhabitants, seeing, that things were going badly with them, and that no aid came from Without, had a parley with Achmet, who ■olemnly swore that not a hair of their heads should be touched. A certain number of the inhabitants, luckily for them, took advantage of this parley to make their •scape. The villagers Relieved Achmet's oath, and surrendered their arms, but this demand was followed by one for all the money in the village, which of course had also to be acceded to. No sooner was the money given up than the Bashi-Bazouks set npon the people and slaughtered them like flheep. A large number of people, probabJy about 1,000 or 1,200, took refuge in the church and churchyard, the latter being surrounded by a wall. The church itself is a solid building, and resisted all the attempts by the Bashi-Bazouks to burn it from the outside ; consequently they fired in through the windows, and, getting upon the roof, tore off the tiles and threw burning pieces of wood and rags dipped in pellorum among the mass of the unhappy beings inside. At last the dorr was forced in, the massacre completed, and the inside of the churoh burnt. Hardly auy escaped out of the fatal walls. The only survivor 1 could find was an old woman, who alone remained out of a family of seven. The spectacle which the churchyard prefiented must be seen to be described ; hardly a corpse has been buried; where a man fell there he now lays; and it is with difficulty one picks one's way to the door of the oaurch, the entrance of which is barred by a ghastly corpse stretched across the threshold. I visited this valley of the shadow of death on July 31, more than two months' and a-half after the massacre, but still the stench was so overpowering that one could hardly force one's way into the churchyard. In the streets at every atep lay human remains, rolling and sweltering in the summer sun—here a skull of an old woman, with the gray hair still attached to it; there the false tress of some unhappy girl slashed in half by a yataghan, the head which it adorned having been partially carried off to be devoured by some of the dogs, who up to this have been the only scavengers. Just outside the village I counted more than sixty skulls in a little hollow, and it was evident from their appearance that nearly all of them had been severed from the bodies by axes and yataghans. From the % remains of female wearing apparel scattered about, it is plain that many of the persons here massacred were women. It is to be feared, alio, that some of the richer villagers were subjected to cruel tortures before being put to death, in hepes that they would reveal the existence of hidden treasures. Thus, Petro Triandaphyllos and Pope Necio were roasted, and Steyan Stoycheff had his ears, nose, hands, end feet out off. Enough, I thiak, has been said to show that to Achmet Agha and his men belongs tie dis tiactienof having coram ttedperhap.- themes heinous crime that has stained tne history of the present oentury, .Nana Sahib aloe I should say having rivalled their deeds. Ae regarde-the numbers of killed, I have before stated that about 5,000 is my estimate. 11 am aware that others place it higher; but be I this as it may, whether the slain are to be I counted by hundreds or by thousands, does';

not lessen in the least degree the criminality of the olayers. The intention was to exterminate all except those few girla (probably about eighty) whom they carried off to satisfy their lusts. Those who escaped owed their safety to their own good fortune, and not to the tender mercies of their neighbors. A considerable number of these, principally women, took advantage of my visit to return to their Tillage. They are in great misery ; are stanned by this disaster and do not even try to bury their dead. Some of wemen I saw sitting on the ruins of their houses, singing the most melancholy sort of dirge; others wandered off about the churchyard among the corpses ; while a few who seemed more than half bereft of reason rushed about tearing their hair and uttering piercing shrieks." Mr Barings adds the all-important fact that "for this exploit Achmed Agha has received the Order of Medjidee ;" and concerning the doings at Tartar, he says : "The facts of this tragedy are now in the hands of the Turkish Government, and it is their bounden duty, by making a striking example of Achmet Agha and Mahommed Agha, to prove to the world that it thoroughly disapproves of their infamous conduct." The next most important case is that of Otlonkeui— the centre of the insurrection—important because attention is drawn to a fact which has been the theme of much controversy. Our Commissioner remarks "that the case is not improved by the fact that these deeds were committed not only by Bashi-Bazouks, but also by regulars the Arab soldiers, in particular distinguishing themselves by their licentiousness;" and goes on to say:—"When Ifafiz Pasha and Adil Pasha arrived with troops and irregulars, the resistance they met with was very slight; but when they entered the town, they made it pay dearly for its attempt at revolution. Both the churches, two schools, the whole of the market place, and the best houses in all, between 400 and 500—were burnt, and the whole town pillaged from one end to the other. Nothing of the smallest value was left, and between 30,000 and 40,000 Turkish pounds' worth of property are Baid to have been carried off. unfortunately, the Turks did not confine themselves to pillage ; over 700 people belonging to the village, among whom were many women and children, were killed, and a large number of strangers also perished. The number of these latter was stated to me by the inhabitants to have been about 1,000. Great numbers of women were also, no doubt, ravished, but considering the natural unwillingness that, of course, exists among respectable people to give evidence regarding this class of crime, it is not very easy to obtain reliable information on the subject. One woman did come forward and declared that her daughter, fourteen years of age, had been violated and then murdered m her presence. Two little children were brought to me wounded, one in the foot and one in the thigh. A child is said to have been impaled on a standard and paraded in the streets. Other fearful horrors are spoken of as having been committed. 1 have stated sufficient to prove that Ha6z Pasha suppressed the insurrection in the place with a severity not in the least called tor. As a centre of what might have turned out eventually to be a serious rising, an example was called for, but a chastisement sufficient to strike terror into the population might have "been inflicted without ravaging, pillaging, slaughtering women and children, and indulging in in cruelties worthy of Red Indians."

The well-known case of the pretty schoolmistress of Otlonkeui is next referred to; and Mr Baring tella that the girl denies stoutly that she was outraged. We are told of the massacre at Touna of 120 persons ; of the sacking of a convent aud its adjacent village, where 150 were killed and the women outraged ; and of 600 people being I killed in the mutenarif of Touna. Mr Baling sums up his report thus: "Trere was undoubtedly a revolution, which had to to be aappresKd by armed f< rce A smal minority of the population committed reprehensible acts which mer ted punishment. The Government of Mahmoud Pasha is to Uame for the calling out of the BashiBazouks, for had it sent troops earlier this disastrous measure wouM never have been necessary. It is also to blame for allowing the revolutionary agent 3 to circulate under its very eyes, without takiDg measures to counteract the spread of their pernicious doctrines. The manner in which the rising was suppressed was inhuman in the last degree, fifty innocent persons suffering for every guilty one The deeds of blood which 1 have spoken of and the misery I have witnessed must rouse just indignation in every mind, but the infamous conduct of those agitators who, to serve the selfish ends of States whose only object is territorial aggrandisement, have not shrunk from exciting poor, ignorant peasants to revolt, thus desolating thousands ef homes, and leaving to a fine rich Province a legacy ef tears, should not be allowed to escape without their share of public execration."