The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1921-10-14


Turkish Ruhr or SeIesia.
"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 in
to the Turkish back country" says a
bulletin from the Washington, ID. c.,
headquarters of the National Geo
graphic society. oh fact it might al
most be said to have moved from the
Twentieth century into the Thirteenth.
Angora is the rail head of the only
steel highway that penetrates north
ern Asia Minor. Beyond this outpost
Of the age of machinery the country Is
wholly dependent for transportation
on the camel and other beasts of bur-
den, operating owe roads that are far
from good. Sivas lies more than 200
miles south Of the Black ca.
'The city exists, however, in a region
that reached q very high state Of de-
velopment long before the smoke OF
putting locomotives ever darkened an
Asian landscape, and it is no mean
city, as cities go in It's part of the
world. 1t is credited with a population
Of $4,000, and is therefore of about
the size of Little Rock, Ark. and Sac
ramento, Cal, cities with which it has
the further point in common that it
is the capital of a state or vilayet.
May Be Turkish Ruhr.
"Sivas is situated on a high plateau
which is bleak and even frigid In
winter 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 1t
is by no means q waste country. The
grain of the %plGteaus of the vilayet
of Sivas and tin fruits from IT'S valleys
help to feed the less favored sections OF
Turkey. 1t is rich in copper, iron, coal
and other valuable minerals, and II
an industrial Turkey ever rises Sivas
may be IT'S Silesia or its Ruhr.
When Rome was the ruling power
in the world, Sivas (then Sebastia)
was one of it's chief border cities,
Armenian kings ruled it for q while,
and under the Byzantines it was the
second most important city In Asia
Minor, being surpassed only by Caesar
ca TO the southwest.
IF in a union station for camel
caravans in the Bagdad of Marun-al'
Rashid's day there was the counter
part of the train-crier Of today, Sivas
must have been often on his lips, for
it lies in q strategic position between
Bagdad and points west A few
a later 1t became the metropolis
Of the Seljuk Turks empire In Asia
before they moved westward and cap
tured COnstantinople.
"When Marco Polo visited the city
in the Thirteenth century 1t was one
of the show places of the Near East
and had a population of about 100
900. AT that time the city was noted
for it's fine rugs and carpets, but now
that industry has passed farther west
One Of Most Heartless Acts in History
"When the Seljuks had the seat o.
their empire In Sivas their architec
tural arts fiourished. 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 mos. d%espicable &c,
OF cruelty ever perpetrated on Q
sacked city, even liz a part Of the
world where cruel tyrants have beer
numerous, was inflicted on Sivas ir