THE TURK.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16922, 30 July 1915, Page 5

THE TURK.

OUR FRIEND THE ENEMY. IS HE AS BLACK AS HE IS PAINTED. (From Captain 0. E. W. BEAN, Official Correspondent with the Australian Forces.) (Rights Specially Secured by " Lyttelton Times.") (Copyright.) GABA TEPE, June 13. There was a point in our lines where supports came very close to the tiring line. You could practically look back from the firing line and see the men behind the lines cooking ou tbo inuer slope of the hill, and all the dug-outs and shelters where the supports and the regimental staff lived. A valley led up on the other side of the hill from the Turkish lines towards ours, and as this gully was not a very easy place to entrench r the top of it was filled in with wire, and it was left untrenched. It was perfectly 6at'e—the trenches on either side locked it as with a key. Things have been changed since then. In this wire one day there was seen a man. Ho came strolling up to it quite carelessly apparently, and with about a dozen water bottles hung about him. When our men looked up and saw him he was in the wire—it had cauglo him, and ho was looking around him with a frightened look as if he did not quite realise where he was. Someone shouted, " There's a Turk." Others looked up and saw him staring about him with wide eyes. Then he dived back down the valley up which ho apparently had come. Several men grabbed their rifles, and peruaps some got off a shot, but he escaped. UP THE WRONG GULLY. It is not often that we see the enemy as closo as this, except when ho comes in to give himself up as a prisoner. No one cuiiw say quite how that particular Turk got there. Perhaps ho was an orderly sent down with his comrades' water bottles to the rear of their linos for water, just as our men are sent daily. Probably their trench was at the top of a gully, and as he came bnck from the well he had taken the wrong gully, and strolling absent-mindedly up to the top of it, had suddenly found himself caught in the wire, and looking over into an unfamiliar scene. it would take a man a second or two to pull himself together in a situation of that sort. Some people thought ho might be a sniper, who had some hole inside our lines, and was going hack to replenish his water supply, and that this gap was the way he was accustomed to creep in—-but that theory nad everything against it. _ There has been no evidence of a sniper within our lines for many wepks, except a few just on the edge of our lines up close to Quinn's, and those few ure kept down exce'lently by the system of snipers —mostly old rifle club shots—that we had prepared even before wo left Mena camp. On the whole the likeliest

story is that he had simply lost his way. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. But the Turk whom we have seen at close quarters has not alway come there by accident. Two men at one of our post were making a loophole the other day—a very secret loophole, which, if it could not be kept secret long—a difficult matter when your enemy lives about seventy yards away—it was at least going to be a surprise to keep him wondering for perhaps a morning or two. They were absorbed in their work, and had nearly got it finished, when a shadow fell across it, and'in came the head of a Turk. They ran for a rifle—a revolver is really far the best weapon on these occasion? —but naturally the Turk did not keep his head there till they came back. Of course that man scouting out in front of his lines knew well the risk he was taking. The Turk is a very bold scout, but not every bold' scout makes a formal attack. An attack at Quinn's, if you have the luck to see the Turks make one across the open, consists of a scramble of men out of a trench, a.rush across half the space between the trenches, then some men turning round and running quickly back, jostling into others again who are still coming out and running forward. But. then, everybody that is ordered to do so has to make an attack, whereas probably only volunteers or picked men go out sniping. I cannot say, because I have not seen a real Turkish charge, but those who have seen one say that a good many of the Turks come on because they are afraid of a machine gun which is there behind them right enough, and I dare say this statement is correct, and the Turks would turn their guns on to their own men. I have seen a copy of a Turkish order telling the men :— : ' See that there are no weak ones amongst you like those who brought disgrace upon us in the Bnlkan war. If any coward runs away shoot him yourselves." AGAIN THE SNIPER. But the sniper is brave and even brazen. Some of them dig a *mall tunnel through to the face of the hill facing us. The only trace of it is a tiny hole which may be behind a bush, and so quite invisible- We have ways of spotting these places. But many of them disdain to take anything like perfect cover, and just crawl forward bei'oro daylight and lie in a shallow sniper's trench in some commanding position. From that they pick them off. When one of our rifle club shots opens up and the first few bullets spit around them, yon can see them looking round and turning, talking to one another, discussing where the shot came from. Then comes a shot which did not raise a cloud of dust, and some Turk gets up and pulls one of his fellows out by the heels. Although many of their men have been shot in one of these snipers' trenches in ten days, the trench is still manned. NOT KEEN ON THE WAR.

But to return to the Turk. While our army does not contain a man who is not in this war heart and soul to see the end of the sort of regime that sank the Lusitanio, the Turk has very often not hie heart in it. '•' We know you British are the friends of liberty," said one Turkish officer to a. friend of mine on tho day of the armistice. "We know that you have always been our friends—we didn't want to fight you—but why did you take our two battleships? Thoso two battleships, by the bye, which we were building for Turkey, and took ovar for ourselves at the beginning of tho war, seem to have been a great deal j»ore prized than wa had

amy Idea of. Of course, Britain could hardly see them sail away into the hands of a Power that was practically a member of the Triple Alliance, but our taking of them created a good deal of feeling in Turkey. They had been paid for largely by public subscriptions, that is" to say people's pay had been docked to pay for them—and the nation rather staked its hopes upon them for the war against Greece, in which Turkey was to recover her losses of the Balkan war. "' Why did you take our battleships?" When told of the sinking of the Lusitania, he admitted that if it were true, nothing could excuse it. That is the view of an officer, and there are many men in the army—even Turks —who have less wish to fight. 3lany of then think they are fighting tho Russians. SOME STOUT FELLOWS. At the same time there are stouthearted old fellows with them who believe that their country or their religion is in danger, and they show not the least sign of giving in. Once or twice there seemed to be men lying in the front of our trenches who would welcome a chance of coming in. We have sent interpreters up to talk to them, and tell them they will be decently treated. This has sometimes had success. At other times this sort of scene has followed, as is told by the interpreters themselves. The. interpreter goes into our outermost trench, puts tip his periscope, and starts his conversation through a megaphone. "'Brothers, I have come to tell you that if you give yourselves up you will bo kindly treated." (Bomb.) "We love you." (Another bomb.) "We British protect the Mohammedans'." (Rifle shot.) "We will fjive you plenty of food and cigarettes." (Shrapnel.) and so on. Whilst another interpreter was talking to a number of Turks who were really inclined to listen to him, and who eventually came 1 in. one stout old fanatic close in front was stolidly potting at his periscope. As a rifle pointed at your periscope appears to you looking into that periscope to bo pointed directly at you : the sensation was an interesting one. Of course, there may have been atrocities: coinmittcd by the Turk—there are probably Kurds and Circassians, and other wild men in 'the Turkish army who would bo responsible for anything. One can* only speak as far as one's actual knowledge goes—and that up to the present coincides with tho experience of many other people: That the Turk ia rather maligned person, who certainly dees not compare with the Germam in frightfulness. It is true that the body of a dead New Zeahuidor was stripped of its eloches. and thrown up on to the parapet of a trench, which tho Tfuks retook. Tho Turks get rid both of their dead and ours by throwing them on tho parapet of tho trench. Thero is no evidence whatever that thi body had been harmed in any way. and it may quite well be that the Turk. 1, wanted the olothes for purposes of impersonation, which is perfectly fair i" war, provided you arc ready to stalls the consequences.