The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-01-02
POLICY On PASSION
DETERMINES ACTS

London. Dec 31-The treatment
OF prisoners in Turkey. according to a
government white paper has faith
fully reflected the peculiarities or the
Turkish character.
Thus It has happened that at tia
same moment there have been prfs-
oners treated with almost theatrical
politeness and consideration, prison :
ers left to starve, prisoners lett TO
die through simple neglect and incom-
petence, and prisoners driven and tor
mented 4saxaxelyo -: : - ), s ~.
Two principles may be detected as
infiuen cling the behavior OF the Turk.
one being an affair of deliberate pol
icy, the other instructive and Gus
tomary.
Mixed in with n good deal of easy
going kindness there is always to be
found the conviction that 1t can mat
ter little what becomes OF the ordi-
nary mass so long as compliments are
paid to the great.
It has been real surprise to the
Turkish mind, even in high places,
to learn that the rights of the enlist
ed soldier are seriously regarded by
Western opinion. and the rank and
file have had small reason, in their
helrlessness. to regard the Turk as
tnaI CnJNdTOuS anu UOuOidptc loV Va
whom we have sometimes heard.
The story of the Fate of the men
captured at Kut. as 4old in the gov
'ernment paper, is one of unmitigated
horror.
1T Is of these men that the report
principally speaks. and it relates how
British naval officers have at different
times undergone most bartarous
punishment Tin the name of re
prisals'') by being confined for many
weeks underground, without sight
of day. in solitude and severe priVa-
ton.
The total mum Der of officers and
men believed to have been taken
prisoners by the Turks from the
beginning of the war is 1858. OF
these $3.50 have been reported dead
in captivity, while 2.222 remain I'M
traced and it must be believed that
they, too, have almost all persisted,
unnamed how or where cannot be
told in any single case. All belonged
to the Kut force which surrendered.
The truth of what happened on the
500-n1ile march off, prisoners from
Samara. north of Bagdad. across the
Syrian desert to Asia Minor during
one of the fiercest of summers will
never be known in all it's horrors, for
those who could tell the worst are
long dead.
But. SAYS the white paper" it is
certain that this desert journey
i'm poses upon those responsible a
crime of the kind which we call
historic. so long and terrible was the
torture il meant for thousands OF
helpless men. There was no ONE In
the higher Turkish command who
could be ignorant that to send the
men out on such a journey and IN
such conditions was TO condemn halt
of them to certain death, unless every
proper precaution were taken.
1t was the purest accident that the
British doctors in Bagdad received the
first confirmation of their fears
through a small party OF officers, de-
layed by illness. being sent north
after the first patches of men had
started In consequence of an urgent
message from one of them to the
Turkish commander-in- chief Brit"
ish medical staff was allowed to go
to Samara. where they then collect.
ed the hundreds of sick, who had
fallen out of the march. during its
first stages. They were ~picked UP
from the roadside where they lay In
the miseries of dysentery. just as they
CHANGED to drop. disregarded and de-
serted. Many we're beyond help.
The track was still followed by the
same group of officers, and the sights
they saw at villages and hating
places all along the road hardly bear
telling. There were parties of mer
lying exhausted under any shelter
they could find, in all stages OF dysen"
terry and starvation: some dying, some
dead; haf-clothed. without boots
having sold everything they could tc
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