The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1915-08-17
INTERESTING NEWS
FROM BATTLE FRONT
by Associated Press. J

A Russian Army Camp in Turkish
Armenia, Aug. 16-The Russian
army that is in pursuit of the elIus-
i've Turks in this region have. at
this writing, reached the Valley of
TIE Habur, an affluent of the Tigris,
at a point sixty miles south of Van.
On June 2, the right flank of the
Russian forces engaged the Turks
under Hallid Bey, near the Tigris,
and fought until nightfall, when the
Turks made off into darkness. The
Armenian volunteers, who are doing
some of the best fighting for the
Russians, began the battle at nine
o'clock in the morning and sustain
Ell 1t alone on open ground until
noon when General rs cavalry
from Farai came into action. The
artillery was brought up in the
afternoon, but by then Hallid Bey
had taken a position on inaccessible
mountains, and since then there has
been no contact with him.
Whatever may be true of atrocity
stories from other sources, it is GER
tainly fact that the warfare in
Armenia has resulted in the killing
OF more non-combatants than sold
iers, and it is doubtful if there is
any other area in the world where
the war is so plainly case of mur-
der.
The Associated Press correspond.
ent has himself seen the corpses of
non-combatants, both men and
women, strewn along every trail
that the Russian army has traversed.
One June 4, while climbing a pass
a, least 10000 feet above sea level,
two remarkably handsome Armen-
ians were seen slain beside the road,
and nearby lay a Kurdish girl, dead
from starvation and hardship. In
a niche of the rocks of the high
mountain pass there was found a de-
serted baby softly crying beneath a
saddle blanket.
At one point group of thirty
Armenian women gathered at the
midday hating place of the Rus
sian soldiers on the crest of the
pass, and moaned for food and
clothes, but there was nothing to
srare them, as the soldiers them
selves were without bread or fuel to .
cook their superintendent mutton
There were in district where even !
dry weeds failed them for fire-buih-
ing purposes. and there were no !
more villages to destroy for roof
timbers. Even the veteran cam !
paigners of the Russo-Turkish war !
OF 1878 and of every Russian
since then are sickened by
the conditions with which they come
H. daily contact in this devastated
land, and especially by the emer-
gence of the brute instincts to kill
and destroy.
The roads and sheep paths every ,
where are bestrewn with the pos |
sessions of the Kurds of Van Vilayet |
and on the mountains and in the
valleys there Craze countless thous-
ands of their abandoned sheep. Dead
horses. broken saddles, harness and |
torn uniforms testify also to the
rapid weakening of the Turkish
regulars.
One mountain stream was found
'ridged with rugs and carpets laid
On roof timbers from a neigh boring
village. Another was formed of the
bodies of sheep, similarly support
"a.
The Kurds have borne the brunt
# the Turkish retreat, and in ad-
iition to the leaving behind of their
attic, they have abandoned their
ich carpets and rugs, and so much
orch carded COOL. that in places the
WOOL lies thick enough to pave the /,
muddy roads.
The Russian military students in | :
his camp claim that the present | :
rogress of Their forces has cast ] !
hade even upon the crossing of the
ips by Hannibal and NAPOLEON.