The Græco-Turkish Trouble.

Hastings Standard, Issue 384, 28 July 1897, Page 4

The Græco-Turkish Trouble.

The attitude of Turkey with regard to Tbessalv and the demands of the Powers may be judged from the following which is by an English correspondent " The Turks shew no disposition to abate their demands for the permanent annexation of the conquered province. The Sheik ul Islam, or high priest of the Mohammedan faith, whose authority is so great that he cau even depose a Sultan, has declared against giving up any territory once Avon by the Moslem sword. This expression of opinion has strengthened the resistence of the fanatical party to the demand that Turkey shall withdraw within her old frontier. The military coterie at Constantinople are highly elated by the successes of the Turkish arms, and there is abundant evidence that those successes have in many ways hardened Pharaoh's heart. It is pointed out, too, in those Turkish organs which represent the war party or the official class, that if the Powers shield the defeated foe to the extent of restoring his lost territory, Servia and Bulgaria may be tempted to commit some hostile act towards Turkey. They will, perhaps, be led to expect that if they, too, fail in their enterprise tho Christian powers will protect them from the legitimate consequences of their wantonness. Thus, there is no present sign of Turkey withdrawing from Thessaly. On the contrary, she continues to pour troops into that province as though she intended to hold fast all that she has won. Whether this obduracy will be maintained is more than I can say. We shall know more upon this point after the approaching meetings of the ambassadors who are to settle the whole peace arrangements with the Turkish Government. Personally, the Sultan is said to be not anxious to permanently annex Thessaly, and yet he professes to be afraid of the mollahs and the military class, who, it seems possible, may not alter their views unless Europe adopts some sort of military pressure —an aspect of the situation which I have already discussed in a recent letter. Will the Powers be compelled to resort to force ? That is a question which every day brings into greater prominence. The Russian news writers would have us believe that the St. Petersburg Government is quite ready to adopt compulsion, but the Berlin journalists, echoing the view of their master, are not favorable to any plan that will increase Russia's lead in the Eastern question. A Chronicle reporter has interviewed Mr Julian Ralph, who has just returned from Turkey, where he has represented the New York .Journal on the Turkish side in the late war. He tells an interesting tale in reference to the war, which, owing to the Turkish censors, it was impossible to send out of the country. Although Mr Ralph enjoyed the eccentricity of going to the war in a landau that had been seized by the Government for ambulance purposes, he describes his trip, though extremely interesting, as one of the most hazardous and uncomfortably in the course of a very varied experience. He says that the truth concerning the part played by Turkey in the war will not be completely known until the various correspondents have left the country. Mr Ralph expressed himself in the following terms: —" There is no doubt but that the war was a small affair from the beginning to the end. All the battles fought resulted in few prisoners, fewer wounded, and still fewer killed, and if the Turkish authorities had allowed the correspondents who were present on the various fields of battle to send to their papers the full facts and figures, the trivial character of the war would long ago have been apparent. The Greeks, hopelessly overmatched, at an early stage lost spirit. In spite of their holding such magnificent defences as the Melouna Pass and Velestino, and at the latter place actually repulsing the Turks, yet they abandoned this stronghold. It is evident that the Turks had a walk over, yet they bungled the business right from the start. Marshal Edhem Pasha is a tall, spare man, with a nervous appearance, suggesting both Abraham Lincoln and Jay Gould ot once—if one can imagine such a combination. He gives the impression that when he bungles he does so for a purpose. He could have cut off the main Greek army at Pharsalia if he had cbosen to do so, yet he rested a week or more between each successive battle, which was clearly done for .a purpose. My idea is that he made a lazy campaign of it, in order to gain time to move a colossal army into Greek territory. The truth of it is that the whole war has been used by Turkey as a medium to assert her new position among European nations. Long after it became apparent that the Greeks had no resisting power, Turkey continued to pour men into Macedonia and Thessaly. She added 60,000 men to her army even when it was beyond doubt that that army could beat the Greeks. And even to-day the whole route betwern Solonika and Domokos is simply blue with men in uniform ; one enormous procession of reinforcements, who will number 300,000 when all reach the field. In addition to these, 200,000 more Reservists are held in readiness to proceed to the front at once, if necessary. This extensive mobilisation completely throws the war in its shadow. It means readiness for a greater war—it means determination on the part of Turkey to show the Christian powers that she is no longer willing to play the part of the dunce in the European school. Seeing little Greece successfully defying the European concert and waging war upon her without the permission of the powers, Turkey means to profit by Greece's example. Now that she feels her power and her strength, she naturally imagines that her former policy of docility is a great mistake. Turkey now means to hold every inch of the Greek territory gained in the war, and intends to throw down the glove to any objecting pows and challenge them to take it

tip. Frankly speaking this is the most serious situation that Europe has had to face for nearly 30 years. It may yet pass off harmlessly enough if the personal timidity of the Sultan leads him to dismiss his present advisers ; but from close observation it seemed to me that the temper of most men belonging to the ruling class is altogether in sympathy with this newly developed spirit of independence and pugnacity on the part of their country. On every side I have heard Turkish army officers boasting that they intend to keep the land bought with Turkish blood. Again, those Europeans who have relations with the Ottoman Government told me that Turkey was simply crazed by the new power which she feels thrilling in her veins, and that she means to assert her new relation toward the rest of Europe." What did you think of the Turkish army, Mr Ralph? "The Turkish army is recruited from the most admirable peasantry that I ever saw (replied Mr Ralph). They are the most locile, tractable and easily governed men imaginable ; yet brave to the last degree, and utterly indifferent to death. They love fighting for the sake of it, and carry fearful wounds without as much as a groan. Half clad and half fed as the Turkish troops are, they form an army of calm but fanatical heroes. The Turkish siie, however, has its grave faults, and these will be told when the news sent by the correspondents escapes the censors' hands. Then we shall hear how Turks disgraced dead Greeks on the field of battle ; how the Turkish Government has emptied every captured Greek town of its valuables, and how human even the patient Turkish private becomes when there is a chance to loot for himself. I know that the charge of looting has been persistently denied ; yet I saw it with my own eyes. When at Larissa, my servants and my friends were continually buying loot from the soldiers. I saw enough to justify the belief that practically every soldier carried loot with him concealed under his coat. An attempt was also made to rob my house, which had been given to me by Seyfullah Pasha, beside, the houses respectively occupied by a foreign military attache and a newspaper correspondent were actually broken into and robbed while I was there. With ray own eyes I have seen miles of packloads —the contents of the houses in the captured towns and villages seized by the Turkish Government. What the Government left the soldiers took. I have also seen the bodies of Greek dead stripped of their trousers and turned face upwards according to Turkish custom, to put them to shame. The present denials of such outrages, therefore, merely delay the exposure, which is sure to follow soon." Mr Ralph, concluding, said, however, that, due allowance being made for the rude character of the Turkish soldiery and the primitiveness of Turkish civilisation, it must be confessed that the conduct of the Ottoman troops in Thessaly has generally been good.