French Auxiliary Cruiser Provence

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 72, 1 March 1916, Page 5

French Auxiliary Cruiser Provence

Over One thousand Missing

Struggle for Verdun Continues

BLOODY DETAILS OF THE WAR

ENORMOUS ENEMY LOSSES

CURRENT WAR TOPICS.

at Teheran. The rebels seized the British Consul and colony at Shiraz, attacked a body of Persian cossacks at Hamadan, and seized Knm, establishing there a revolutionary committee with Prince Henry of Reuse at its head. Some of the Swedish gendarmerie officers refused to have anything to do with the revolt, hut the majority seem to have joined in it heartily. Town after town was taken or went over to the rebels, and the Russians have had to set to work to take them hack again. All this would probably not have happened hut for the state of unrest which has prevailed in Persia during the last few years. The expulsion of Mahomet Ali, the exShah, and the father of the present Shah, left trouble behind it. and there is c Nationalist party which has sympathies with the Young Turk movement. One way and another, and with the Russians already fighting Turkish forces across the Persian frontier, there wore plenty of discontented elements upon which a rebellion might draw. But,’as a matter of fact; even the Shah’s Government seems to have adopted a wavering sort of policy. It is, perhaps, no wonder, for the young Shah is only !6 or 17. and German agents know how both to persuade and to magnify their country’s power and achievements. According to the “Aovoe Vrernya,” the rebels were allowed even to seize the Teheran arsenal, with its stocks of munitions.

A sensation to-day is the loss in the Central Mediterranean of the French auxiliary cruiser, Provence, which was engaged in transporting troops to Salonika. This unfortunate, but only natural, event in the game of war, was attended by the loss of over 1000 lives, 696 beimr.saved out of a total of 1800 souls on board. That it was due to a submarine or a mine appears probable, in face of any statement putting it down as the result of an accident oil board. The great loss of life must have been due to the sudden sinking of the cruiser, and although the message states that no periscope of a submarine was seen before or after the accident or was the track of one of these under-water craft observed by the crew, there is every probability that Germany will claim this as one of -their latest successes. However, failing a definite statement from our Admiralty, it may be taken for granted that a floating mine sunk the Provence.

Details of the fierce fighting that is taking place for the forts round Verdun show the utter recklessness of the Germans in their attempt to break through the French lines, and the various accounts reek with gore and all the horrors of modern warfare .in which big guns and men play the principal parts. It must always be an unequal contest, and mere man must be content- to be blown to pieces, which, state eye-witnesses', was literally the case in thousands of instances. The reports are at once nauseating in their sickening details and gripping in the power and intensity of this, probably, the greatest battle of the century. There has been some signs of slackening on the part of the Germans north of Verdun, and no fighting has taken place for three days, from ■ which state of affairs tlie opinion of military circles is formed that a diversion is being arranged at another point on the line. Still, there is plenty ol engagements round about Verdun, and attacks and counter-attacks all more or less successful for both sides, are reported. The losses of the enemy are stated to be 130,000 up to the 27th, while as many as 45,000 have been killed. It is hardly to be wondered that the people in the towns through which the wounded are being conveyed should be depressed at the sight of the thousands rendered hors-de-combat. Latest reports to-day state that I ort Douaumont had been retaken by the French; that the Kaiser in a telegram to the Diet praised the loyalty of the Badenburgers (thus acknowledging the disaster they have met with); while Berlin exultingly counts the thousands of prisoners in her hands and further progress of the troops! The particulars of the Persian rebellion and the state of the country generally, which were cabled from Sydney yesterday in an interview with Miss Stuart, who had resided there for about twenty years, will have whetted the appetites of readers for more information concerning the position at this seat of war. It may be explained that fighting has been going on across the Persian boundary ever since the Trans-Caucasian campaign ■ began; but it did not extend very far to the cast until the rqjfolt of the ' Persian gendarmerie a couple of months ago. This force was appointed some time ago, as the result of an agreement between the British and Russian Governments, and officered with Swedes by way of a guarantee that there should he no bias in favor of the interests of, either Russia or Britain. At that time Germany was not to the fore in Persia, nor her influence so strong. But as soon as tile present war broke out, 1 urko-Oci man intrigues began, and though it was •found impossible to persuade the young Shah and the Persian Government to authorise a breach of neutrality, the gendarmes and their officers were bribed or persuaded over, and they seem to have carried at least a great part of the army with thorn. The commander of the rebel forces in Persia, ahd the instigator and head of the revolt generally, is I'rnice Henry of Reuss, the German Minister

At the same time that the Germanengineered and German-commanded rebellion was spreading all over the western half of Persia, Russian troops were coming down to suppress it. ’File rebels made the greatest possible efforts to induce the young Shah to leave Teheran and attack the Russians. He decided at last to stay where ho was, hut it soon became clear that even .though he remained the rebellion was a formidable one. Germany had provided the rebels with up-to-date military equipment in the way of rifles, cartridges, bombs, and quickfirers, and with officers to supplement the converted Swedes. The Russian forces, however, first took Hamadan from them, and then marched on their main base, Kum. Knm lies, as the map shows, between Teheran and Ispahan, which the Russians next moved southward to besiege. By the end of January, about the same time that they won a big battle at Melasgrid, just north oi Lake Van, the Russians seized the fortified pass of Kangawa, south-east of Hamadan and entered Sultanahad, south-west of Kum.

According to latest advices they have moved both cast and west, foi Kashan, which has been occupied, is about 100 miles east of Sultanabad, and Kermanshah is close on 150 miles to the west, by north. The former town is not more than 100 miles north of Ispahan (or Isfahan), which was the former capital of Persia. The city stands in the midst of gardens and orchards, and i s connected with its residential suburb (Jnlfa) by a. bridge spanning the river Zaycneh. Under Shah Abbas, who reigned from 1580 to 1628, and who made it his capital, it had a population of about 700.000. Many of the fine buildings erected by him still exist. In 1/22 the city wa s destroyed by the Afghans. The inhabitants have an dl repute in the country, and only/a very small portion of the ancient prosperous place is now peopled, the population, including Jnlfa, being about 80.000.