Evening star., 1921-08-06
TURK NATI0NAL|STS
|NBAcK COUNTRY
Capital at Sivas Like Nov
ing Back Into Thirteenth
Century.

IF the So-called 'Angora govern
ment of the Turkish nationalists has
left Angora and shifted its capital to
Sivas, as dispatches state, following
the defeat of its armies by the Greeks
in Asia Minor, it has truly moved
into the Turkish back country" says
a bulletin from the headquarters of
the National Geographic Society. I'm
fact. it might almost be said to have
moved from the twentieth century
into the thirteenth. Ahgora is the
rail head of the only steel highway
that penetrates northern Asia Minor.
Beyond this outpost of the age of ma
chinery the country is wholly de-
pendent for transportation on the
camel and other beasts of burden.
operating over roads that are far
from good. Sivas lies more than 200
miles east of Angora and over 100
miles south of the Black sea.
THE city exists, however. in a
region that reached a very high
state of development long before
the smoke of putting locomotives ever
darkened an Asian landscape. and
it is no mean city. as cities go in its
"a population of $4,000 and is. there
fore. of about the size of Little Rock,
Ark. and Sacramento, Calf, cities
with which it has the further point
in common, that it is the capital of
state or Vilayet.
Mny he Turkish Ruhf.
"Sivas is situated on high plateau
which is bleak and even frigid in win
ter. when the blasts from the steppes
of central Asia swirl around and over
the Caucasus and give the region a
climate comparable to the snow-swept
plains of Russia. But it is by no
means waste country The grain of
the plateaus of the vilayet of SivaS and
the fruits from its valleys help to feed
the less favored sections of Turkey. 1t
Is rich in copper, iron, coal and other
valuable minerals, and if an industrial
Turkey ever rises Sivas may be its
Silesia or its Ruhr
i'When Rome was the ruling power in
the world, Sivas then Sebasteia) was
one of its chief border cities. Armenian
kings ruled it for a while, and under
the ByZantines it was the second most
important city in Asia Minor. being
surpassed only by Caesarea to the
southwest
"lf in 'uNion station for camel cara
vans in the Bagdad of Harun- al Rashid's S
DAY there was the counterpart Of the
train-crier of today. Sivas must have
been often on his lips. for it lies in a
strategic position between Bagdad and
points west A few years later it be-
| came the metropolis of the Seljuk
Turks empire in Asia before they moved
westward and captured Constantinople
When Marco Polo visited the city
of the show places of the near east and
had population of about 100, 900. At
/, That time the city was noted for its fine
rugs and carpets. but now that industry
has passed farther west
When the Seljuks had the seat of
their empire in Sivas their architec-
tural arts fourished. The colleges
which they built there in the thir-
teenth century are among the finest
remains of Moslem art to be found in
Asia Minor.
Perhaps the most despicable act of
cruelty ever perpetrated on a sacked
city. even in a part of the world where
cruel tyrants have been numerous,
was inflicted on SivaS in 400 by the
notorious Timur-the-LameH He caused
thousand children to be trampled to
death under the hoofs of his war
horses and followed this monstrovs
proceeding by having 1000 of the de.
feated Armenian defenders of the city
buried alive. Since it went through
that narrowing experience the city
has never risen to a position of any
great Importance.