The Topeka state journal., 1905-09-08
RUIN COMPLETE.
Oil Industry at Baku Has Been
Destroyed Entirely.
The Soldiers Appear to Have
Gained the Upper Hand.
LITTLE is UNBURNED.
Financial Loss Will Run Into the
Millions.
The BlOOdshed in the Region
LITTLE is UNBURNED.
The BlOOdshed in the Region
Has Been Appalling.

st. Petersburg, Sept. s.-Inter-
racial warfare and incendiarism have
done their work in Baku and have
completed the ruin for a year of the
great oil industry of that Caspian
port, though the latest dispatch in
dicates that the military have gained
the upper hand in the town itself and
that the steadily arriving reinforce
ments promise to turn the tide in the
outlying districts and to enable the
troops to drive the Tartars from their
positions around the city and to re-
occupy the suburban towns. There is
little left unburned above the ground
in the outlying oil fields of Balkan,
Romani. Sabunto and BibiebatI, from
which the crude oil supply for the
Baku oil industry is drawn All the
extracting plants, including derricks,
pumps and the oil reservoirs in which
the crude oil is stored, have been de-
stroyed. The breaking of the reser-
voirs unloosed flood of burning oil
which it was impossible to extinguish.
A large portion of the ''black town
quarter, in which most of the re-
fineries were located, was also burned
Ihe financial loss has not yet been
estimated, but it will run into the mil
lions. It is stated that the loss in
crude oil, which will run waste until
the reservoirs can be rebuilt and the
ref1neries again started, will amount
to 100000 daily.
The bloodshed also has been ap-
palling, as the troops in their efforts
to restore order had to defend the ap-
prOacheS to the town of Baku and
were forced to fight a regular battle
with well armed natives in which ar
tillery was employed. The Tartars
and Armenians in their fury turned
their weapons against each other
All the well to do inhabitants fled
either by sea or overland to Tif1is
Unlike the recent trouble at Odessa
the disorder at Baku can not be traced
to any underlying hostility to the Rus
sian government. 1t is not a revolu-
ton, but an inter-racial war between
the Armenians and the natives, based
on the same causes as the struggle
in Armenia. -
Both factions offered stubborn
armed resistance to the troops. The
Tartars, after driving the Russian
and Armenian operatives from the
works in the oil fields. massa cred
those who were unable to flee in time
plundered their houses. and then ap-
piled the torch. The dispatch speaks
of several thousand killed or wound
ed in the fighting at Balkan, where
the Tartars were entrenched in force
and more than held their own for e
time against the troops 1t is said
that the green standard of the
Prophet has been raised and that the
Mullahs at Baku are preaching a holy
months ago. The statement that {
Turkish emissary is working among
the Tartars is believed here to be un.
true. The Moslems in the Baku re.
gion are connected not with Turkey
but with Persia. to which country
thew belonged before the cOnoueSf ri
the region by Russia.
1t is expected the arrival of the
shah of Persia at Baku in a few days
on his way to Teheran will compli.
cate the situation, and this belie1
probably furnished the inspiration fol
the imperial order to the viceroy OF
the Caucasus to stop the disorders al
all costs.