THE CHEAT OIL CITY OF BAKU DEVASTATED.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1988, 14 May 1906, Page 7

THE CHEAT OIL CITY OF BAKU DEVASTATED.

I While Russia has been fortunate in .settling- her bloody and costly dispute with Japan, the most lamentable internal disorders in all her his- : lory have reached a crisis of absolute anarchy throughout the Caucasus i with a record of thousands of lives lost and injuries to her most important industry amounting to at least £20,000,000 —and this apparently only the beginning, i The magnificent port of Baku—the greatest oil producing city in the world —is a tangle of charred ruins. Great, gushing oil wells burn day and night, dimming the sun and thr stars with their thick clouds ol smoke. Warehouses have been wipec out, ships in the harbour reduced to shapeless hulks, the whole city paralyzed by the mob rule of the armed | Tartars, whose feud with the rich Armenian population lias been secretly approved by the local authorities. Within less than four weeks the English companies engaged in the oil | industry alone have sulfered losses I aggregating upwards of £6,000,<100. | Because of their natural affiliation with the usually peaceable and alway.s intelligent and progressive Armenians, the vengeance of the Tartar mobs has probably crippled them beyond repair. BAT) GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBLE. All tliis destruction of property, native and foreign, is due to political conditions in Russia, for which the warring elements of the Government are themselves responsible, and out of .which have grown the disturbances between the Armenians and the Tartars throughout the whole of the Caucasus. Baku, being the immensely wealthy centre of the great Caucasus oil industry, is the centre of these disturbances. It is an important and well-built modern city, which, up to the beginning of the current outbreak, was surrounded on every side by, forests of derricks, the tall wooden scaffoldings that liso over the nil wells. The Tartar mobs saw that these inflammable frameworks would insure the completest destruction, once the torch was applied. Not merely for oil alone but. for naptha refuse, which supplies tin 1 motive power for the mills, railways and river steamboats. the Baku oil fields form the chief factor in the prosperity of the whole of Southern Russia. Now. through the Tartar vengeance, upon the Armenians, owing to the general political revolt which the Czar seems powerless to check, this factor has been eliminated. There can be no more prosperity for Southern Russia for months, maybe years to come. For a, revival of these industries cannot come without assurance of adequate Government protection for those who would risk (heir capital in building upon the ruins of the last month’s reign of terror. The present Tartar uprising began in raids of the country surrounding Baku, in which many villages were laid in ruins and their inhabitants massacred. It is now known (hat this was merely preliminary to laying regular siege to Baku and Shusha. In Northern Caucasus the 'Tartar movement was directed frankly against the Government. The Government at Elisabetpol was transformed into a veritable battlefield. Before troops could be massed in the South the descent was made on Baku, and 500 oil towers were set on fire. The rioters fired on the house of the Govenor-General, and the military authorities at Tiflis having failed to send troops, the managers of the Baku oil works appealed direct to the (J/ar. The murderous Tartars never paused, once the torch had been applied. 'They were joined by striking Tartars employes in the works, and the carnage began. 'The Armenians organized for battle to the death. No quarter was asked or given. During a desperate attack on the military camp and provision depots more than one thousand were killed and wounded. A large number of workmen barricaded themselves in the Balakham Hospital. Soldiers stormed the building with rifle volleys and completed their work at the point of bayonet s. All the British subjects except four fled to sea for their lives. These four escaped to Balakhany, which was immediately surrounded by Tartars, who cut off all provisions and water supplies. Though mowed down in masses by the artillery the Tartars burned the town.