The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1915-08-21

StlON lOI IOOI tlIlDClS. INCh tNC
veteran campaigners of the Russo
Turkish war of 1878 and of every
Russian campaign since then are
sickened by the conditions with which
they come in daily contact in this
devastated land, and especially by the
emergence of the brute instincts to
kill and destroy.
The roads and sheep paths every
where are bestrewn with the PCS
sessions of the Kurds of the Van via
valleys there Craze countless thou
sands of their abandoned sheen.
Dad horses. broken saddles, harness
and torn uniforms testify also to the
rapid weakening of the Turkish
ulars.
One mountain stream was found
bridged with rugs and carpets laid
on roof timbers from a neigh6oring
village. Another was formed of the
bodies of sheep, similarly supported.
The Kurds have borne the brunt
of the Turkish retreat, and in add
ton to the leaving behind of their
cattle, they have abandoned their
rich carpets and rugs, and SO much
rough carded wool, hat in places
the wool lies thick enough to pave
the muddy roads.
The Russian military students in
this camp claim that the present
progress of their forces has cast a
shade upon the crossing of the Alps
by Hannibal and Napoleon. Almost
daily this army has had to cross
worse than Alpine heights. The
best maps have proven unreliable,
and there have been no competent
native guides. D~etachments haze
gone three or four days at a time
without a pound of bread or rye
toast, ard a general halt was made
necessary today by the almost tota,
lack of salt, sugar, bread and bar
ley. The horses have climbed up
and down many steep slopes 1908
feet high on grass alone. The last
great pass, a snowy waste of many
miles, is marked by scores of dead
and dying horses. In some places
the ground to be traversed was COW
cred with SHOWS hundreds of feet
deep. In other places horses had to
be led over narrow, melting snow
bridges across swirling streams. To
slip was to be engulfed and that
fate befell three of the Russian SCI
diers.
In the sunshine it is blistering aud
binding, at night there is frost
Last night fresh snow fell on tx
heights around the camp. The CAM
late. The men had to sleep the
night before in the open. Scarcely a
dozen camp fires of scanty dried
stubble blazed long enough to poi:
tea and those too thinly covered had
to walk in the dark to avoid free4-
ing.
To complete the desperation, IEe
bivouac CHANGED to be in a place
overgrown with poisonous weeds
which the starving horses ate greed
\ ily' AS Il IcSulI oU VI W WcTc ucCu
before morning.
For a week life has been reduced
to it's elements. Thousands of men
think day and night of nothing but
the primal animal needs. Warmth,
food and rest are paradise here. The
Russian soldier and still more the
Armenian volunteer, is resourcefuj.
Failing tea, bread and meat, he Fares
forth to milk the fat tailed or An
CORA sheep. Boots are wearing out
and of course there is no depot.
Here. too, the soldier resorts to self
help with the aid of freshly skinned
horse hides. Yet there has been
scarcely a word of complaint and the
chief regret is that they have been
abb to force the enemy to accept a
decisive engagement.