THE TURKO-RUSSIAN WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 91, 7 October 1911, Page 3

THE TURKO-RUSSIAN WAR.

\ NEW ZEALAND SUN!EON'S J EXPERIENCES. ! THE ENDURANCE 0E THE TURKS. I Dr. E. Jennings, of Christcliurcli, who ' had some experiences of the TurkoKussian war as a member of an ambu--1 lance on the losing side, gave an interesting description of the Turkish soldier in an interview the other day. "1 was given a good insight into at

i j least one phase of the Turk's character," s. he said, "when the ambulance was well i■ on its way to the front. On that oe- - j casion we met a series of waggons bringing the wounded from Plevna. The road has just been opened up, and thousands 1 of wounded men were being sent back to the hospitals. As many of them had been weeks without any attention, and j as the weather was very hot, I shall not 1 try to describe their terrible condition. | Fot three days and three nights the procession of pain and death filed sadly past, and for three days and three nights the ambulances, ten in number, worked without intermission. One or the other would go away for a few minutes for a breath of fresh air or a pint of food, but the work was never stopped until the j wounded had been attended to. They were roughly classified. First, there were those who were well 'enough to go oh, their wounds were carefully dressed, and everything possible was done for . their comfort. In the second class were those whose only chance of recovery was immediate removal to our temporary hospitals. In the third class were those so near death that it seemed to be useless cruelty to disturb them. To those we gave opium, the gift of the gods, in the hope that it would smooth their passing away. The patience of those Turks and their endurance of suffering was marvellous, i saw them as they lay in native hospitals, very often 'on the bare

floor without even a blanket, still dressed in their uniforms, and absolutely uncared for. The Government ration was served to all alike, regardless of the extent of injuries. You can imagine what it would be with three hard biscuits and one pint of water night and morning, and nobody to give any assistance. I saw •a man with a badly shattered jaw hungrily eyeing the biscuits he coiild by no possibility rat. There were scores of scenes of that character, but never did I hear a' complaint. It was kismet, and that was sufficient to account for everything . I could see at once why the Turks, brave, kind, patient, hospitable, moral and intelligent, are a doomed race. They have ceased to struggle against fate. Kismet, the glorious xtord, the talisman that led them so often to victory, leads them now to national apathy and extinction. ' i "Several months later, when Plevna was hopelessly beleagured and the two armies faced each other on the heights," Dr. Jennings continued, "skirmishes were of daily occurrence, and the ambulance had much hard work to do. Sometimes the English surgeons, while dressing the wounded Turks, were left between the combatants, to the great admiration of the Turkish soldiers, whose I doctors kept modestly in the base hospitals. The weather'was intensely cold, ! with heavy falls of snow. In our-tents, , with a lire always alight, the brandy froze. The roadside was strewn with I the bodies of men frozen to death. Up on the hill.-. 700 ft above us, where the armies stood facing each other, the sentries were' changed as frequently as 'every fifteen .minutes, yet as many as forty men would be frozen to death at their stations every night. The Egyptian troop.- .suffered terribly, as lmght be expected. In their anxiety v to get away from this awful cold tl'iev were willing to take almost any risk.' One plan was self-mutilation. A hand would be placed on the muzzle of the rille. Outrigger would be pulled with the foot, I and two or more lingers would he blown | into space. These men were at first sent: ■ to the rear, but the evil grew to such an extent that one morning six of them 'were shot, and then the practice ceased. ! It was not that the men were cowards or I that they would not bear pain, for they would stand and have their hands nttendI ed to and endure amputations without | flinching. The poor fellows probably j had been taken from the equatorial (lis-, tricts and sent straight _to that polar I region. Personally, after operations I of that character I sometimes seriously | wondered if those Egyptions were not [to be envied, because they had two or [ three fingers less with which to feel the cold."