GALLIPOLI GRAVES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 80, 4 April 1923, Page 5

GALLIPOLI GRAVES

TURKS' PREPOSTEROUS DEMAND CEMETERIES CEDED. (MOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) j LONDON, 26th January. In th© discussion by the sub-committee »t Lausanne the Turks seemed impressed by the great stress which was laid on the feeling held in Great Britain and the Dominions regarding the upkeep and ceding of the stored, graves at Gallipoli and elsewhere. The discussion on the question of the graves was one of most poignant interest, as it' is believed that at least 4000 British are unaccounted for in Asia Minor, their fate being unknown. The Turks have now" agreed to the right of search by the British for these missing ones, so that their fate may be finally , ascertained. _ The Turks, of course, have a similar right. The Allies are asking for the definite cession al all territory on whioh the graves of their dead are situated, as in other battlefields.

The Turks flatly refused to grant the freehold of the very small area, at Anzac in which the Australian cemeteries lie—a matter o£ a couple of square miles at the most. The Turkish delegate actually put forward the demand that the cemeteries shall be reduced in size and that the bodies shall bo disinterred and reburied closer together. "In the whole range of their demands," writes a Lausanne correspondent, ''there has 'been nothing to equal this for meanness. The squalid proposal was at once denounced by our representatives, Mr. Nicholson and Colonel Heywood, as an insult to the Allies, and a- flat refusal even to consider the matter wiped the offending proposition from tha day's agenda. It is probable though that, defeated as it was, this proof of- Turkish ohurlishness will be remembered lonjj after the test of the proposals have risen consigned to all but diplomatio oblivion."

British troops now oocupy Gallipoli, the Turks were reminded, and these will not -be withdrawn till the British Government is satisfied that every care and respect will be shown to the Allied deadi who lie there. The Turks have been promised possession of their graveyards in Mesopotamia' and Palestine, and on the Suez , Canal. They offer to cede the 19 oemeteries the Anzao zone contains, but insist on retaining proprietorship of the roads connecting them. A OUKIOTJS MISTAKE: It seems that the Turks betrayed a curious ignorance of the meaning of the scals^o which a map is drawn. Confused! by the similarity in size between two sheets of paper bearing maps of Switzerland and the Dardanelles, respectively, they apparently conceived the idea that the area containing the British war graves in Gallipoli, was as muoli as that occupied by the Canton of Vaud, in the Swiss Confederation. The patch of colour was, in each case, of approximately the same size, and they expressed polite amazement at the territorial voracity of the British and at the expense of their cemeteries-^ Their minds 'were eased when the true inwardness of the matter was explained to them. It is sometimes dangerous to take the the late Lord Salisbury's advice about consulting large scale maps if you are not quite certain what the difference beween 1:1,000,000 and 1: 10,000 means. It ib only fair to add the Turks insist upon the good reputation of j the Mohammedan peoples as respectera of graves. They, have undoubtedly in their minds the quite fallacious idea that own- I ership of the- soil might mean som<* camouflaged military, control of the 1915 points of attack. A WORD OF WARNING. • "There ia something repulsive in the turning of the graveyards of our dead on Ga'llipoli into a high political crisis like Mosul or capitulations," says the "Daily Express." "The T-arks have been promised unqualified possession of their own graveyards in Mesopotamia and Palestine and on tho Suez Canal. It is, therefore, the more monstrous and inhuman that demand should be made by them for the exhumation _of the dust of our soldiers on the speoious plea that our graveyards, whioh oooupy srround to the extent of a few square miles, 'take up too much room.' We do not believe that Ismet is so poor a diplomatist or so insensible to the sentiment that he will evoke as to persist in this soandalous demand. At the same time one word of warning may .be advisable. Will the epirits of our dead, rest in grace of peace if in the cause of their quietude we eend thousands of their kith and kin to join them."

Sir James Allen yesterday expressed) his anxiety regarding the situation in Grallipoli. Matters were so unsatisfactory, he said, that the officers responsible for ereotin.ar our memorial had temporarilysuspended their work. He had written to the Secretary of State (the Duke of Devonshire), and he was keeping in theclosest touch with the Colonial Office and the Imperial War Graves Commission.

"We are following with the deepest interest the controversy in Lausanne over the graves at Gallipoli," Sir jeseph Cook also remarked, "and nothing is being lost sight of so far as wo are concernod. The whole matter is receiving the constant attention of the Imperial War Graves_ Commission, on whioh all the Dominions are represented, and every human effort is being made, to keep that saored piece of ground sanctified by the blood, of bravo men, peculiarly our own. I know that Lord Curzon is doing hisl utmost in the matter. I know saso that Sir Fabrian Ware is following the controversy point by point with meticulous care and anxiety."