Great Falls daily tribune., 1919-11-24
ARMEN|ANS WAR
ON TARTAR AND
kURD NE|GHb0RS
Blood Flowing in Noun
tains of Zangezur as
Erivan Rule Defied.
Villages Burned Nightly
and Scores Killed in
Feud Between Tribes.
By LADISLAV CZAPSKI
Gable to Great Falls Daily Tribune ant
Chicago Tribune.
Cnpurfphf 1910

Chicago Tribune.
Copyright 1919.
Constantinople, Nov. 20, via
Paris, Nov. %. - Desperate
fighting has been going on for
several weeks between the Ar
menians of Zangezur and their
Kurd and Tartar neighbors
north, east and west. Neither
side is prepared to abandon it's
claim to this vast pile of isolated
mountains.
To Lieutenant Colonel VIM n. Has
keil allied commissioner in Trans
Caucasia the Zangezur has been con-
stant difficulty just as to the British
military authorities before him and not
even the plan he conceived of establish
ing neutral zone between the warning
tribes seems to have prevented them
frem leaping at each others throats.
Both the Armenians and their foes
have been warned by the commissioner
that the peace conference would be hard
on them if they didn't quit massacreing
each other and burning up their villages.
1t was the conferences business. he
told them, to decide whether the Zan-
geZur would in whole or part go TO the
new Azerbaijan republic or to the equal
ly new Armenian republic. He ruled
like the British, that pending a decision
from Paris the territory would be ad-
ministered by the Azerbaijan government
sitting at Baku.
Are Blood Thirsty.
Captain A. M. Barton of San Fran
hn ba Mi Ia
from the Azerbaijan tells me the
Zangeur ArmeniaDs are little better than
the kurds and Tartars when it comes TO
massacreing and burning. Both sides
vehemently invoke President Wilson's
IA points, the Armenians claiming that
the Iangezur is the very cradle of their
race and the Tartars insisting that their
kinsmen from the majority of the popula-
ton. The Armenians expelled many
thousands Tartars, according to Captain
Barton, and have now an artificial
majority of 20 per cent whereas in
ordinary times they were the minority Dy
ten per cent.
At the bottom the issue is purely re
ligious and economic, Captain Barton
says. When the sky above the wild
mountains reddens up of a night from
the flames of burning villages you can
say that religious hatred was the prime
factor in setting them afire. For ages
this has been so between Moslem and
Christian and it was the st, )ng hand of
their common master in st. Petersburg
that kept the bitter feud down during
the last two or three generations. Now
that the Russian empire has gone to
smash, the tribes are at daggers points
again.
Defy Even Rulers.
The Moslem Tartar and kurd refuse
to submit to the rulers in Erivan. For
II is no secret that the government of
the Armenian republic has been stirring
up opposition to the Baku government
among the Armenians in Zangezur. In
the Erivan governments view no Arme-
MAN Christian ever lived under Mo-
bammedan ruler such as Nazi Beg, Gus
subeckoff, prime minister of Azerbaijan
and his fellow ministers.
But the religious strife is also foment-
ed from the outside, impartial observers
say. the Baku government is letting no
chance pass of stirring up its Moham-
medan subjects to frenzies of fanaticism
against the Christians. The Zangezur
mountains also contain copper over
which there is much dispute.
Captain Barton and other observers
arc more than skeptical about peace pos
slbilities.
figntIng the PIague.
IF you don't kill the rats. the lice |
and the mosquitoes, if you don't wash
your bodies and if you don't keep your
houses clean, yonr people will be wiped
out by an epidemic such as even this !
much-tried city has never experienced (
Help me to save Constantinople.
Major Davis g. Arnold, director Of the
Near East relief, was the speaker, and |
his hearers were the newspaper men of |
Constantinople-m Of them Turks |
from Stamboul, then the Greeks, Ar |
menians, Jews and French Levantines |
They were earnestly asked to help the /
Near East relief in its fight against the
bubonic plague.
So far something like two dozen cases /
of the terrible scourge have been regis
tered. These were swiftly isolated, but
almost every day brings news of new
patient.
Cries of alarm have gone up since the
bubonic plague made its appearance
some days back, but it was only when
Major Arnold summoned the newspaper
men to his. office that a systematic war
was declared on the disease.