TURKEY

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1915, Page 5

TURKEY

HOLY WAR PROPAGANDA. A REIGN OF TERROR.

(Times and Svftocy Suil Servictu.) London, Aug. 14,

Germany's successes at Warsaw are exploited to the fullest extent in the Turkish press and have momentarily repopularised the Young Turks' Government. It has been publicly announced from the mosques that Germany is preparing to send an army to figlit with the 'lurks.

Xlie Sublime Porte has assumed an intransigent attitude toward Bulgaria, whom it previously sought to placate. Active steps are being taken to resuscitate a ■ holy war. Messengers have been despatched to Islamic countries, especially 'Egypt, Abyssinia, Tripoli, and Tunis, announcing German successes everywhere, and stating that Turkey will shortly resume the campaign against Egypt. The Sultan, in a special irade, has made public drunkenness a subject calling for the severest court-martial penalty, averring that the existence of the Ottoman Empire is threatened, All foreigners in Turkey are ordered to wear the fez, the ostensible reason being to preserve them from ill-treatment and insult bv the natives, *

Dschavid Bey, a former Turkish Finance Minister, is visiting Vienna and Berlin. It is believed that his object is to explain the precariousness of the Turkish financial situation, and to demand immediate advances.

Mr. Henry Wood, the American United Press correspondent in Turkey, states that a veritable reign of terror has been created in the simple minds of the Turkish peasants in the villages on the coasts of the Sea of Marmora by the British submarines' activity. A steamer in which Weod travelled had its lifeboats out and hundreds of life preservers ready. They crept along the Marmora coast the whole way, but on a second occasion the captain took courage and headed directly for Constantinople. The boat was crowded with peasants and provincial government officers, all trembling with fear. When half-way to Constantinople there was a loud shout from the bridge, the captain bellowed order*, the boat turned tail and headed for tlie shore, and there was a wild scurry for tiie lifeboats. It was then discovered that the supposed submarine was only a porpoise. Turkish transports are earning wounded men more confidently under the Red Cross (lag than under the Crescent. They frequently fly the Red Cross until they reach the Eosphorus, when the Crescent is substituted, because it is unseemly to allow the population to think that the wounded soldiers owe their salvation to the hand of the Cross rather than the Crescent.

GERMAN OFFICIALS TO ADMINISTRATE.

Received August 15, 3.40 p.m. Athens, August 14.

Prince Holienlohe, on arriving ai Constantinople, expressing dissatisfaction at the disorders in the interior of Turkey, and announced his intention to ask Berlin to send German officials to take over the administration. His proposal excites great uneasiness, and the idea for speratc peace gains ground.

There are now 120,000 Turkish soldiers who have been wounded in the Dardanelles fighting, at Constantinople.