TURKS' LAST STAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1915, Page 5

TURKS' LAST STAND.

FEVERISH PREPARATIONS. DEFENDING CONSTANTINOPLE. Realising fully that the moment thoy may be pushed from the European side of the Bosphorus the Ottoman Empire will practically cease to exist, the Turks are feverishly preparing for a hist defence and a last stand at Constantinople, wrote an American correspondent, Mr. Henry Wood, from Turkey last month. At Constantinople it is the firm conviction of the foreign population that the Turks will,prefer to die there to the last man rather than submit to the fate of being pushed back to the rank of a second or third-class Asiatic nation.

With every possible defence to tin: city from the side of the Dardanelles, and the Gallipoli peninsula, now perfected to the highest degree to which combined Turkish and German genius has been able to bring it, the.Young Turks have hastily turned their' attention to the two other vulnerable points that remain. These are the possibility of a Russian descent on that city from the north following a landing on the Black Sea coast, and an attack from the rear across the fortifications'of Adrianople, Lule Burgas, and the Chataldja line.

North of Constantinople now the two triangles formed on the east and.west of the Bosphorus by the entrance of the latter into the Black Sea have been closed to all foreigners. Hasty work of fortification is being carried on, so that even if the Russians succeed in runningthe gauntlet of the Turkish fk'et anil making a landing, stiff resistance would be offered to an advance on the city.

MANY GERMAN OFFICERS. Equal secrecy is also 'being maintained regarding the strengthening of the fortifications at Lule Burgas and on the Chataldja. line, but at Adrianople I was permitted to pass an entire day. No visit to the new fortifications, which take the- place of those mastered by the Bulgarians during the Balkan war, was permitted, but I was allowed a glimpse of the intense activity under way. As at all other important military centres in Turkey, German officers swarmed on every hand directing the work. Unlike their brother officers at the general headquarters of the Turkish army at Constantinople, they had no scruples against talking to me in English, and when 1 left wished me a good journey with a certain inflection that intimated that for them there could never be any leaving of the post they are preparing to defend.

CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS AT WORK. Throughout all Turkey these feverish preparations for the defence of Constantinople from every possible side are being carried on solely by the Jewish and the Greek, Armenian, and other Christian soldiers in the army. The determination of the Young Turks to use only the Mussulman soldiers in the fighting ranks of the army has left at the disposal of the Government probably no fewer than 100,000 Christian soldiers for the accessory work of the army.

My own impression on visiting Turkey was that unless Constantinople is seriously attacked from two sides at one time in such a way as to force the Turks to divide the 'bulk of their strength, which can now be eoncentrated for the defence ol any one side, the city will only fall witli the gradual exhausting of the entire Turpisli resistance.