The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1920-09-13
TURKS FEARFUL.
CREEK ARMY WILL
SEIZE MOSQUE
Claim They Will Dynamite
Saint Sophia Rather Than
= Submit It To Capture.

Constantinop1e, Sept. 13-Passports
are now demanded of visitors seeking
20 enter Saint Sophia, and any Chris
tlan who cannoH establish the fact
that he is neither a Greek nor an
armenian, is not admitted.
Since the Greek advance eastward
INTO Anatolia and the boast of Greeks
that they will recover Saint Sophia
have doubled the guard about the
great mosque and take special pre-
cautions to prevent Greeks and Ar
menians from entering
There are mary rumors in Constan-
unople, probably all of them ground
less, that Greek troops will take the
church by force, regardless of peace
conference rulings, eliminate the Mos
considerations in it's interior and re-
store the Christian character impaired
to the historic building by the En-
peror Justinian when the present
building was erected under his direcT
ton in the sixth century.
Turks have declared they will dyna
mite the mosque before they will per-
init it to be desecrated by the Greeks
and spice is added to life in Constan-
ltinople by recurrent runfors that the
furnish Nationalist have mined Saint
Sophia and many other important
buildings preparatory to razing them
before a Greek advance into the
Turkish capital Such advance is
not regarded a5 improbable. The
liability of the Constantinople govern
ment. to enforce the terms of any
treaty is questionable as long as
Mustapha Renal controls practically
all of the remaining fragments of the
Turkish army and refuses to take or
ders from the Sultan Greece has the
only troops which could undertake
further punitive measures and might
reasonably be expected to demand
lConstantinople as the reward for adj
ditional military operations.
In spite of the boast of Russians in
lConstan tinople that the Turkish CAPT.
tai and Saint Sophia will eventually
fall into their hands as a result of the
YdisSensionS among the Entente pow
er5, the Turks show no disposition to
bar Russians from their most historic
m osque. Every afternoon hundreds
of Russians frequent the great shrine.
Cossacks in their fantastic. long
skirted black coats embellished with
rows of ivory-tipped cartridge cases;
Caucasian princesSes, gay in bright
colored Partisan gowns; tight-belted
Tartars, with their quaint curved
Swrds; peasant women in their cheer
fuls hand embroidered head shawl
and aprons, and Denikine's wounded
soldiers all mingle freely with the
Moslem worshippers. The Moslems
treat Russians with the same indiffer-
ence displayed toward British and
French soldiers and American sailors
and relief workers who wander
through the majestic mosque and are
shown by noisy guides how the Chris
tian angels and the mosaicS of Jesus
and the Virgin Mary were clumsily
concealed by the Moslem artists who
turned the~Christian sanctuary into
house of worship for Islam.
The Turks do not love the Russians.
Neither do they hate them. No Chris
tian Is loved by a Moslem. but the
power of the Turks to hate is exhaust
ed ON the Greeks and Arm enians.
<They regard Russians as a lesser evil
than the Greeks. Any Turk one meets
in Constantinople frankly says he
would accept Russian control of Con-
stantin>ole in preference to Greek
domination. And he says it with
full realization that Russian DONNA
ton would probably mean bolshevik
domination.