TURKEY'S MILITARY FORCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 18, 8 September 1914, Page 4

TURKEY'S MILITARY FORCE.

Tlie* eye of suspicion is very much on Turkey and her doings just now. Tin highly unsatisfactory story regardin'. l the purchase of the two (Herman warships—the (jloehen and the Breslauis not very generally accepted, and it scents almost its probable as some o: the tall stories a very foolish German person has been “officially” handing out to the United States Press. It is of interest, perhaps, to know something of Turkey’s forces, but the information concerning them is by no means reliable. Estimates as to the wai strength of the Turkish Army vary from 300,000 to 1,000.000. In the Bal-

knn War she placed in the field in; Thrace, Macedonia, and Albania, about 335,000 first and second line troops. Since 1000 military service in. Turkey has been theoretically compulsory on Moslems and Christians alike. Inability for service commences at the ago of twenty and lasts tor twenty years.j Service in the first line, or active army., balled the Nizam, is for nine years. The soldier next passes to the Hodif,' or second line, and remains in it for about nine eyars. Finally he completes! his service with two years in the Mustahfiz. In 1911 there was a complete reorganisation of the Turkish forces into fourteen army corps. In 1909 a German military mission, under the auspices of lield-Marshal Aon der Goltz, was invited to reorganise the 'Turkish Army and superintend its instruction and training. In 1918, after the Balkan AVar, it was decided to extend and amplify this scheme, and a German general was invited to become the director of the mission. The Turkish Navy is not a very powerful force. It has been in the course of reorganisation since 1909, under a British admiral and a British staff, and now includes three old battleships of 10,000 tons, with a speed of 16 and 17 knots, and two cruisers of 3000 to 4000 tons, with a speed of 22 knots. The two Dreadnoughts, the Osman and the Reshadich, which were being built for Turkey in English yards, were taken over by the Admiralty, and the story told is that it was to make good the loss of these two ships that the German refugees were purchased.