THE TURKISH SOLDIER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1034, 3 December 1912, Page 4

THE TURKISH SOLDIER.

A writer in the Loudon Spectator discussing the Tmk as a soldier points out that he is lacking In anything like elan. But, as a matter of fact, the Turkish soldier is slow—very slow. His slowness is at once his chiet defect and the outward and visible sign of his chief merit. His merit is that he does not care. A man who does not care whether he is killed or not is obviously bad to beat. On the other band, his indifference extends injuriously to matters which vitally affect the issue of strategy and tactics. The potent fluctuations and reverses of temperament which mark the soldier of subtle races —races with a more complicated nervous system —are unknown to the Turk. The classified “French frenzy" which the Italians used to fear is not a phenomenon known to the Turkish battlefields. The Turk is no berseker. He might, indeed, if he had lived in the Norseland of a former age, have fought without armour, but he would have done so, not because he felt that to fight without protection was suitable to the dignity of the “berseker rage," but because he did not mind whether he was protected or not. If the Turk does not go fast, he never goes so slow as to stop. One has heard of cases of European troops who charged towards the enemy in a hurricane of exhilaration, but who, having been ordered to stop and lie down, could not be persuaded to get up and go on. The passion had passed. A disastrous contemplation of the risks had got to w'ork. Englishmen probably fight more successfully than any other nation without passion, because they will move very rapidly when necessary, and will carry out a daring scheme exactly as it was planned, because the planning was done not in a heady flight ot excitement, but with a cool appreciation of the dangers. The Turk is a fatalist. Zones of fire have no thrilling significance for him. If he is to be perserved, he will be preserved ; if he is to be killed, he will be killed, and in that case will enjoy his reward from Allah.