The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-08-27
lSMEL PASHA
 TRAINED IN
 HARD SCHOOL
HeadQUarters

Headquarters Nationalist Turk Army, August 26.-Mustapha Ismet pasha, the brilliant chief of the Turk forces on whose patience and vile depends much of the success or fail- ure of the Nationalists, was trained in the hard school of frontier fighting with Arabs, Kurds, Russians and British, during the great war, es- pecially at the Dardanelles where he was chief of staff. He is given more to action than to words.
 Rather deaf, hearing with difficulty only in his left ear. he isn't given to making conversation. Throughout the army, to the last soldier, his deaf ness is known and when he speaks to soldiers in the ranks, as he does often, they shout out their answers.
 However, with the Greek offensive in full swing, Ismet pasha invited the correspondent to stay and go about with him. "I want to talk to you be- side of the case,' he said. .tAs an American, you are at least neutral if not friendly So riding in his auto mobile among the troops, or lunching with him, or over his desk, the inter- view ran over many hours, from one day to another
 Eve are lonely out here in our mountains, cut off from the world, and we want to know what the world is thinking about he explained.
 'tAu we know is that we are obliged to win the war. We are fighting for all we have. Our cause is just. We are in the position of the French dur to renew the war after the armistice. No one should accept war except as an inevitable necessity. Certainly the Greeks were not in this necessity.
 ''This war has been brought on by white-collared diplomats. It is often said that we soldiers are cruel, and surely we are, but wars are made by cynical-minded or stupid diplomats %Lo,
 'FWhy should Greek peasants be sent to our land to massacre and mur- der and burn? Surely this peasant doesn't wish to do this. All he knows is that he is fighting for King Constan- tine. The King flatters himself that he has military talent. But he will lose the war, and also his throne when his people understand how unjust is the war;
 'The King thought the war would be promenade like the one he made in Switzerland and,' exclaimed the vivacious little general, his black eyes sparkling. But he won't. Military logic is against him.
 ''The Greeks are coming with lots of material. These will be ours in time. Say the Greeks have now sO,- 900 effective combat men. We have as much and we have the men to keep on increasing our army as we capture Greek material to outfit them. Whereas the Greeks can never be stronger numerically. They have drawn their last troops, taking boys of eighteen.
 Asked if he had any Germans or Russians in his forces, he said: "Of course not Have you seen any? We don't need them.
 Without faith, the best prepared war may be lost. We have that We know our cause is just Our sol diers may not be spick and span, to European eyes they may look lilly equipped, but their hearts are right and they know how to fight. They will fight until told the war is over and won. It may take 10 years, but we are preparing for that.
 "At the end of the great war, the Allies thought to cruelty us, using the Greeks and Armenians to drive in the nails. We gave up our arms and our cannon. But with an irregular army we have slowly restored the parts to our cannon, manufactured the breech pieces, removed by the British. We have also captured Greek material likewise arms and cannon sent by the British to Armenia, and we have se- cured British supplies sent to Denni- kline.