PREPARATIONS FOR THE LANDING OF BRITISH TROOPS AT TREBIZONDE.
THE PROTECTION OF ERZEROUM—TURKS, LIKE THE ENGLISH, AS USUAL, TOO LATE.
(From our Special Correspondent, Mr. Francis Scudamore.)
Karakurghan, April 29.
I owe the opportunity afforded me for writing to you from this wretched place to an accident which has befallen my best horse, and will delay me possibly for another couple of days. The mischance is doubly unfortunate at this moment, inasmuch as reports from our front lead to the supposition that an important engagement is at hand. Any adequate analysis of the rumours that reach me constantly, contradictory as they are, continually varied, chequered with additions and omissions, and burdened with the extravagant local interest environing some wholly trivial circumstance, would be as entirely out of the question for me as for any of your readers at home. Indeed, your readers are certainly infinitely better informed than I am as to current events.
When I left Trebizonde, five days ago, the town was in a state of fevered anxiety, of enthusiastic anticipation, tempered in some sober quarters by a quiet but not ungenerous scepticism born of previous experience. The English were coming, cried the enthusiasts. Three English Army Corps (Heaven alone knows whence it was proposed to get them) were on their way to Trebizonde, to Samsoun, and to Shumla to aid their Turkish and Italian allies. The eastern division of the Mediterranean Fleet had already entered the Black Sea, as much to the surprise (and perhaps, somewhat to the chagrin) of the Turkish commanders at the Dardanelles and the Kavaks as of the generals of Russia and of France. In Trebizonde and the surrounding villages a certain basis of probability was built beneath these rumours by the fact that English agents had, for a week, been purchasing mules, sheep, and cattle, at, as is usual with British agents in times of stress, some five times their market value to any other purchaser. Nor have the native producers profited more than usual by this large-handed generosity, for some two or three Greek and Armenian traders, anticipating, as is their wont, honest English procrastination, have been beforehand with the army agents, with whom they are now dealing at altogether fancy prices. This, however, is after all but a small matter beside the great question of our intervention. That England’s action should invariably be delayed almost (but never quite) until too late—that her transports should reach their destination empty, her troops be either unprovided with cartridges, or supplied with those of some obsolete and useless pattern—that by every mistake ineptitude can secure or official ignorance produce, all arrangements connected with the disembarkation and provisioning, and general welfare of whatever forces have been tardily despatched, must inevitably break down but for the tireless energy, the unfailing resource, the unremitting good temper and never-flagging loyalty of all the officers and men thus maltreated, are matters which have long since come to be as well known abroad as they are beginning to be recognised at home. ‘The English,’ said the good people of Trebizonde, while awaiting the expected Army Corps, ‘are good but careless. They are richer than the Russians, and they are less corrupt, but they are also more stupid.’ This, as the independent criticism of allies, more than anxious to be generous, is worth at least a second thought.
BRITISH TROOPS LANDING AT TREBIZONDE.
I would gladly have witnessed the disembarkation of our troops (for aught I know it may have already taken place), but, after fruitlessly waiting many days in dreary Trebizonde, I no longer dared to delay. News had come that a large Russian force was advancing from Kars westward towards Erzeroum, and, although there are in and around that place some 50,000 Turkish troops, yet, save at Keupru Kui, a place about nine hours’ ride from Erzeroum on the Kars road, little or no preparation appears to have been made to resist an enemy. Erzeroum, let it be remembered, is entered by three posterns, called respectively the Stamboul, the Ardahan, and the Kars gates. The roads from them lead to Ardahan, Kars, Van, Erzinghan, and Trebizonde. On the south of Erzeroum, at a very short distance from the walls, a mountain descends steeply towards the city, which it altogether commands, and a direct road runs from Van to Moush, and from that town to the mountain, from which two water channels lead into Erzeroum. If an enemy once had possession of the eminence—and, so far as I can learn, there is little or nothing to prevent him—he would be able to turn these water-courses off from the city. There are, it is true, a few wells within the walls, but the supply from them is already insufficient for the requirements of the population, without taking into account the troops quartered in and around the town. It seems typical of Turkish apathy that so little should have been done to secure this their last great stronghold in Asia Minor from attack. I am going, of course, merely by what I hear from Turkish officers, as I have as yet been unable to see for myself; but I have hitherto had no reason to discredit their information.
It appears that from time to time, since 1878, proposals have been made for fortifying various strong natural positions, but that, with a procrastinatory belief in the protection of Providence that is wholly Turkish and almost English, these plans have been continually set aside until it is now too late to execute them. Thus on the Van Road, about five miles from Erzeroum, there is an admirable position known as the Palandukain defile. This position was protected after a fashion in 1876, when a fort was constructed capable of offering sturdy resistance. Another fort had been built also at that time at Gereguzek, eighteen miles from Erzeroum, on the Ardahan road. Another position, that of the Devé Boinou Bogaz, five miles from Erzeroum, on the Kars road, was considered at that time to be a good place for a fort, and yet further defences were then constructed at the Loghana defile, which is some twenty-four hours from Erzeroum, on the Kars road. There are, no doubt, also important positions on the Bayazid road, as, for instance, at Deli Baba—a narrow gorge through high mountains, which the Turks declare to be impregnable—at Taher Gedi, five hours’ march further on, and at Kara Kilissa, beyond which there is a level road to Bayazid. Since the war, however, it appears that little or nothing has been done to strengthen or even to maintain these positions in an adequate state of defence. There has been much talk of late in Constantinople of extensive armaments on this frontier. Krupp guns have, it has been said, been sent to supplement the bronze cannon manufactured at Tophané, with which the forts of Erzeroum were in the last war mainly armed. As to whether any such material has reached its destination I am as yet uninformed. People on this road, which it must surely have traversed, profess to know nothing of it. It is to be feared that we may expect a repetition of the famous story of the million liras expenditure said to have been incurred in the fortification of Erzeroum in the last war.
I did not journey from Trebizonde alone, but took advantage of the departure of a huge straggling convoy of mules and pack-horses laden with ammunition for Erzeroum. There were also with us half a dozen English doctors who have taken service with the Porte, and have volunteered to attend the wounded under fire. Owing to the accident to my horse, who slipped, poor brute, through a ragged hole in the wide stone bridge across the Kara Su, close to this place (a terrible pitfall for artillery), and badly scraped both his own shin and his master’s, these gentlemen have perforce abandoned me until such time as I can obtain another beast.
The traffic through this little place, which is the point of junction of the Trebizonde and Erzinghan roads to Erzeroum, and as a rule at this season is almost deserted, is in itself indicative of stirring events in our front. All through the day there has been a continuous passage of nondescript wayfarers in either direction. Turkish soldiers—stragglers or deserters may be—some sick, some slightly wounded; Koordish Bashi-bazouks, pure bandits for the most part, flashing great arsenals of gleaming weapons in their waist-belts, and armed, many of them, with Winchester rifles, remnants of the last war; slim, evil-visaged Circassians on lean, wiry horses, and gaunt Zaibeks, ferocious beneath their extravagant headgear, have tramped and clattered continuously past the miserable khan where I am established. Some of these gentry, I note, have Russian great-coats with regimental numbers on the shoulder strap, flung either across their cruppers, or around their shoulders. This is a sure indication that there has at least been some skirmish or reconnaissance in which Russian arms have suffered not a little.