"CAPABLE OF GREAT RESTRAINT.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3693, 30 November 1912, Page 10

" CAPABLE OF GREAT RESTRAINT.”

ENGLISHMAN IN DEFENCE OF THE TURKS.

An Englishman, who lias lived in Turkey for some years, writes to the ‘‘Morning Post” in defence of the Turks. Tie says:—fin the fear that war is inevitable, I would have mv English fellow-countrymen take heed that they allow not their religious prejudices to warp their judgment. It goes without saying that every effort will he made to blacken and malign the character of the Turks, in order to remove from them at home the present feeling in their favor, and terrible deeds will be placed to their account in the news published of the war. There are, unfortunately, man} 7 at licime who, never having lived l among Mohammedans, do not believe any good can proceed out of Islam. The public must be prepared to hear of savage deeds. The regular soldiers of the Turkish Army, however, may be trusted to do nothing outside the legitimate exercise of warfare. They are capable of great restraint, as was well shown in the war with Greece, when not a single act of pillage or wilful destruction of life or property was . laid to their charge. Discipline doubt- ! less will be well maintained on both j sides, and it is not from the regular forces of the respective combatants that excesses are to be feai ed. They

will, however, bfe committed sure enough by ,the irregulars, who will not fail to flock to- the scene of strife. On the side of Turkey’s enemies will be found the many brigands and Commitajis, whose ruthless methods of carrying on their propaganda must have excited'' the indignation of all right-thinking persons. These bands will not bo fighting at the front, but roving about, carrying out their unholy work of wiping out the Turks — men, women, and children —as opportunity- occurs. Already sinister accounts have been published of outrages on Turks in several places in Bulgaria and many of those near the Danube are crossing over to Roumania to escape insult and ill-treatment. On the side of the Turks volunteer warriors will be flocking from all parts of Anatolia, and, apart from those called to the every Moslem in European Turkey who can use ia weapon will do what he can in the way of fighting the enemy, and their proceedings can hardly be expected to be less ruthless than those of the irregular forces of the Bulgarian military combine. The Turks will be fighting like men with their backs to the Avail. The feeling is very general among them that they must fight now and have done once and for all with this continual interference of the Bulgarians in Macedonia. It is interesting to note how unanimous is the feeling amongst the Turks that the time has now come when they must fight to a finish—that it is better to die fighting as a nation if they cannot succeed in crushing their enemies and recovering their independence of action in regard to their own country, than to be gradually driven out of national existence by successive moves of European diplomacy in its sio-dis-ant efforts of a palliative nature for the maintenance of peace in the Balkan Peninsula.