HOW RUSSIAN THEIR EN

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1094, 1 July 1882, Page 4

HOW RUSSIAN THEIR EN

No one can remarked the At. |h the 31st March, how'correspondence, eoiitradictions, and what indignant VMmale were provoked a few years ago by the assertions made on the strength of an ■eye witness, the late Mr M’Ga.han and of a certain amount of evidence from the Hassians themselves, that in fighting with Asiatics Russian troops slaughtered unresisting enemies and tilled indiscriminately men and women It is strange, then, that at the present the friends of Russia should have nothing to say when it is proved beyond the possibility of doubt, when it is acknowledged and affirmed by General Skobeloff himself, that after the capture of GeokTepe the retreating Turcomans were cutdown in whole families to the number of 8000 persons. ’ln your official report of the seige.’ Mr Marvin observed to General Skobeloff (we quote from Mr Marvin’s letters from St. Petersburg to the “ Newcastle Chronicle,) 4 you say that during the pursuit after the assault you killed 8000 of both seres., ■* That is true,’ answered Skobeloff, •* I had them counted. The number was 8,000.’ ‘ This statement,’ I continued, * provoked great comment in England, for you admit your troops killed women as well,’ I may here state that in my interview with Grodekoff on Monday he said, frankly, in reply to my questions: 4 Many women were killed. The troops cut down everybody. Skobeloff gave orders to his own division to spare the women and children, and none were killed before his eye, but the other divisions epared none. The troops used their sabres like a machine, and mowed down all they met.’ Skobeloff replied :— f It is quite true. When the dead were counted, women were found among them. It is my nature to conceal nothing. I therefore wrote, in making the report of both sexes.’ Here, without any necessity of seeing out special correspondents or Government commissions to the spot, we have it clearly established o-a the authority of the chief under whose command (if not at bis express orders) such horrors were pjp>etrated, that fugitive men and women were slaughtered by thousands *, and it is unnecessary to inquire whether or not the men and women were accompanied by children. They were flying in a mass to new settlements, and in the mass they were ruthlessly cut down, the sabrea working * like machines.’ ”