TRIBES IN REVOLT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 248, 25 February 1911, Page 10

TRIBES IN REVOLT.

MASSACRE BY BEDOUIN'S JX THE HOLY LAND. Jerusalem, December 15, Nearly the whole country east of the Jordan, inhabited for the greater part by nomadic tribes of roving Bedouins, has revolted aganst Turkish rule. Twenty thousand horsemen are resisting the Government. The outbreak made its start on December (i, when the Bedouins made a sudden attack on the railway station at Katraneh, east of Kerak, killed the stationmaster and officials, destroyed the line for about six miles, and cut the telegraph wires. They afterwards stopped the train which was coming northward from Medina with pilgrims, looting its occupants and plundering all their baggage.

News reached here later that the Bedouins had attacked the town of Kerak, massacred the Government officials and their familites, and after pillaging the town stores and Government buildings, set the place on fire.

The trouble has undoubtedly arisen in consequence of the decision of the Turkish authorities to disarm the Bedouins and to take the census of the nomadic population throughout the land, with a view of enforcing conscription. The success of the military expedition under Genera! Sami Pasha against the Druses of the Hauran appears to have prompted the Ottoman Government to put an end to the semi-independent status enjoyed hitherto by the dwellers of the desert. The tribesmen, on the other hand, although deterred by the severe lesson inflicted on the Druses, from among v/hom conscripts were lately levied and despatched to distant countries, such as. Albania and Anatolia, resolved to combine and resist by a guerilla warfare any attempt to enforce disarmament and the census.

Having been informed that Mr. Archibald Forder, an English -missionary, had just arrived from Kerak, and that he happened to be there when the Bedouins attacked the town and massacred the officials, a correspondent sought an interview with him, and he gave a graphic description of the affair.

Mr. Forder has lived at Kerak for several years as missionary, and has an intimate knowledge of the Arab Bedouins, having made repeated' journeys into unknown regions inland. He is the author of a book, "With the Arabs in Tent and Town." On this trip he was conducting a party of nine American tourists, four ladies and five gentlemen, to Petra, via Kerak.

He said that his party arrived at Kerak on Saturday, December 3, and, as the weather was unsettled, they put up in the house which had been hired by the mission. On the following day, Mi - . Forder, accompanied by the leader of the party, the Rev. 11. W.'Miller, of Chicago, called on the Mutessarif to obtain an escort to Petra.

While ho wns there two of the sheikhs of Kcrak, known as Kl Mojalli, entered and converged with the Governor, whose tone to the chieftains was somewhat firm and haughty. On Monday, Decernher o, at daybreak, rifle shots were heard from all directions—this was obviously the signal for the onslaught— and then large numbers of Bedouins, armed to the teeth, rushed and ransacked the Serail, or Government Konrak, massacring all tlic gendarmes on duty—fifteen to twenty men—and their oilieers, and carried oil' the treasury, which contained not legs than 15,000 Turkish tiras (£15,500) to meet the troops' pay and the projected military expedition against the Bedouins.

Some of the assailants made their way to tho dwellings of the Government oflicials and killed the men, women and children. Othcrß broke open the bazaar stores and plundered all the contents and their owners. Criers were going about shouting, "Death to all excepting the neuronites and the Chritsians, including Abu Giiius (Mr. Forder) and his party." The Bedouins marched afterwards to the military hospital and killed all the inmates, after assassinating the guards. The Mutessarif met his death on the way to the castle, whither he was lleeing in disguise. At nightfall the whole town was ablaze, as the Bedouins set fire to all the houses, including the hospital and Government school.

The garrison at Kerak consisted of two battalions a few days before the attack, but was reduced to one on the day of attack by a well-planned ruse on tnc'paU of the Bedouins. When the orders were communicated to the about the disarmament of the Bedouins and the appointment of ollicials In lake the census, the Sheikhs induced the Mutessarif to send out among the various tribes detachments of regulars, accompanied by field guns, to convince the tent-dwellers that the Government was determined to carry out its orders. The Sheikhs had come to an understanding beforehand that as soon as the detachments reached the encampments and were refreshing themselves they should be assailed at a given signal and'killeil. Onwt.antinople, December 28.

Telegrams from Damascus report an important engagement between the Turkish troops and the Druses last wf'ek, ill which the Druses lost about 450 killed and wounded, including seven officers. The region to the east of the river Jordan, inhabited by the Druses and the Bedouins, is the most troublesome in the Turkish Empire. The Government'* authority there is always uncertain, and its only support comes from the hatred of the Druses and Bedouins for one another.