ULTIMATUM TO REBEL TURKS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14703, 2 June 1920, Page 8

ULTIMATUM TO REBEL TURKS.

HERO OF ANATOLIA. After a six-hour sitting to-night the Cabinet at Constantinople issued a proclamation denouncing the Nationalists and giving them seven days .to make their submission. . The Sheikh-ul-Islam luis issued a Fetva (solemn decree) citing the Koran , to prove that loyalists are bound to obey the Sultan's call to fight against rebels. The'-' Governnient is?mobilising 5000 troops- fibs consent of the Allies. The Nationalists hero claim that/Mustapha has caused a Fetva to be issued at Angora by Clielibi of Konia. the chief of the Dervishes, declaring that the occupation of &Constaiitinoplo by the Allies lias liiade the Sultan the tool of British diplomacy, thereby vitiating his title to the Caliphate Consequently, Mustapha is forming own Cabinet, with Chelibi as Sheikh-ul-Islam.- • Captains : Forbes and Popewell, control officers at- Samsun and Trebizond, hare been released and arrived here today. The determination of the new Go-, vernment to stamp out the? Nationalist movement,' with the approval 'of the Allies if not with their active military support, seenis to have •the opposition of Mustapha Kemal s following in Anatolia, _ where the situation is steadily drifting into a widespread eivii wdf.Mustapha has; laid an . embargo on the Regie Tobticco aiid ,flll banks and traders, and has declared all financial and. commercial transactions between,: Anatolia atid Constantinople; illegal. He has called , upon 7 the Nationalists, first to concentrate 011 the extermination of the pro-Sultan forces uuder Anznvur west of Broussa. the rapid growth of which-is causing the rebel lender great anxiety. The population of. Panderma welcomed Anznvtir as a hero when he em■"irered the town at the head of his Circassian cavalry after a final_ skirmish in thewestern suburbs, which ended - in the flight of the Nationalist troops in disorder. The shops were) closed, and the peo- > pie had taken refuge in the cellars, fearing- street- fighting. The Governor sent six notables to • tender his . submission to Anznvur. Thejr escorted him to the town hall, where he made a speech declariiie his determinating to uphold the Sultan'and to continue fighting eastward until Anatolia Was cleared of Nationalist sedition. Tlie Government's support lias al- . ready had an effect on the local recruiting for Anznvur's army, which is being reinforced by the peasants, hitherto terrorised by Keinal's men. Experienced Staff ( officers from the capital are proceeding to Randermato join Anznvur, who in a few weeks has risen from j, being an outlaw, to major-general-and the most conspicuous, figure, in- the country. The anti-Nationalist movement has . reached to Trebizond, where the assistance of the Sultan's troops is requested. Ten, thousand copies of the Slieikh-nl-Islam's Fetva and also of the seven days' ultimatum will be dropped in Anatolia ; by aero- - planes to-morrow. . i Mustapha has sent picked regulars to the Bronssa area. They- are entrenching to defend the town, but the new threat on the Black Sea coast will necessitate a:'diversion to the Trebizond area of a portion of his. mobilised force. • .

1 The immediate future of the Nationalist movement depends.oll the peace treaty, as if Thrace and Smyrna pass definitely to the Greeks every good Turk will be irreconciliable. /Otherwise, Mustapha Kemal has the remnants of perhaps eleven Anatolian divisions, ave-; racing 1,500 men each. A general mobilisation might swell these, numbers appreciably, but there is a great short-: aue of equipment, and especially of artillery, owing to surrenders since tlie jjirmistice. . Mustapha Kemal'strulnp card is the threat of an "anti-Christian war. which might lead to worse massacres in Asia Minor than any yet reported. .The Christian population in Anatolia is in a dangerous position, a fact which is adroitly harped on by Nationalist propaganda. . In the presence of. the Allied High Commissioners and of many officers, Dorotheos -Locumenteos, the Greekpatriarch, celebrated the Easter Mass at the Greek Cathedral one morning, and profoundly moved the great congregation by his reference to the restoration of St. Sophia as a Christian church when he urged the worshippers- in re-, memberirig the gratitude they owed to the Allies not to forget the call for their assistance for "the realisation-of our sacred and traditional dream." \