ASSASSINATION OF FRENCH AND GERMAN CONSULS AT SALONICA.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 654, 24 July 1876, Page 3

ASSASSINATION OF FRENCH AND GERMAN CONSULS AT SALONICA.

The Consul of France and the Consul of Germany in Salonica have been assassinated by Mussulmans. Theriot which led to these murders arose in the following manner. A young Christian girl wishing to embrace the Mahomedan religion was prevented from carrying out her intention by a body of Greeks, who carried her away from the Mussulmans. Some Christians, at the instigation of the American ; Consul, then attempted to take her by force from the Turkish quarter, and fighting ensued between the Christians and the Turks. The Consuls of France and Germany, having gone to the Mosque, were assassinated by the exasperated Mahomedan population, notwithstanding the efforts of the Governor to protect them. The occasion of the tumult was a religious excitement amongst the Mussulmans, the particulars are as follows : —“ On May 6th, at ten a.m, the attention of the United States Consul, who was at the railway station in Salonica, was attracted by the cries of a Christian peasant girl, surrounded by a score of Mussulmans, who wanted by force to take her to the mosque. He succeeded, not without difficulty, in placing the young woman under his protection, and conducting her to his carriage, conveyed her to the Consulate, The crowd, somewhat numerous, followed the carriage to the American Consulate, and surrounded it, shouting and demanding that the girl should be given up. Another portion of the population, in a furious mood, had repaired to the mosque. Thereupon, and while the American Consul was seeking information as to theiyoung woman’s nationality, the German and French Consuls were separately apprised that a young person belonging to their nationality had been forcibly dragged into the mosque. They immediately went thither, and hardly had entered and been recognised when the furious crowd rushed on them, and not only asassinated them, but literally beat them to death with blows of iron bars and benches, The Italian Consul, warned of what was passing at the mosque and at the American consulate, hastened to the Governor, who hastily collected the troops at hand, repaired to the mosque and immediately surrounded it, and sent a large squad of men to rescue the American Consulate, the doors of which the mob had tried to break in. The governor immediately proceeded to make numerous arrests, The Temps remarks that Consuls, like other non-Mussulmans, are expressly prohibited from entering the mosques. With regard to the girl being awaited at the station by the Zaptiehs—that is, the gendarmes —it explains that a Christian desirous of obbracing Mohammedanism first waits on the Christian authorities and then on the Mufti, both of whom urge her to adhere to her father’s faith, and give her a fortnight for reflection. If she then persists, she is officially conducted to the Turkish civil and religious authorities to make a formal abjuration. The gendarmes, therefore, in this case awaited the girl at the station in order to conduct her to the Governor. It seems that the American, German, and French Consuls were all related to each other, two of them having married daughters of the third. The American Consul, fearing that his house would oe forced by the mob, sent the girl to the German Consulate, and when in the mosque the German Consul was compelled to sign an order for her being given up. After extorting this order the mob murdered him. A feeling of insecurity prevails among Christians and Europeans throughout Turkey, for last week a plot was detected at the head of which was Dervish Pasha, then War Minister, who had persuaded the Sultan that an attack on the palace was meditated. The of Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmora, had also armed the Mussulman population, though perfect peace reigned in his district: but he received orders to disarm them on intelligence of the Salonica outrage reaching Constantinople. The Official Gazette of Berlin publishes intelligence confirming that which has already reached us regarding the course of events in Salonica. Legal proceedings have been instituted up to the present against fifty-four persons. Eleven were at once convicted of complicity in the murder of the consuls, and six of them were sentenced to death, and executed in a public square of Salonica, the crowd which assembled manif st'ng some excitement. The criminals belongod to the lowest class of the popnlation. Tne judicial inquiry continues, and will have to be extended in order to discover whether there were any instigators and promoters of the crime belonging to a higher class of society.