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Show , RESULTS OF I BALKAN WAR President Gates Writes of Conditions at Turkish Capital Vow York, .Tan 1. Scenes in ami bout Constantinople; and conditions resulting from the Balkan war are interestingly described in a letter ad dressed to The Associated Press bv Dr. Caleb F Gates, president Of Robert Rob-ert College at the Turkish capital The letter follows This has been a war of surprises to most people. The Turks themselves were anion? those most surprised. They had expended some fortv-two million pounds upon their army They supposed thar whatever else he3 hnd not done they had at least prepared an army, but that armv has failed them The principal reason seems to be lack of organization The officers of the army were not in touch with their men. The committee of union and progress had gotten rid of the old officers, of-ficers, who had risen from the ranks snd who knew their men, and substituted sub-stituted officers trained in the mill-tarv mill-tarv schools of Turke and Europe, unfortunately these officers have been devoting too much time to politics pol-itics and too little time to their work with the army. So thev did not adequately ade-quately know their men Turkey at the opening of the war strained every nerve to bring her soldiers sol-diers to the front. They ramp in by ships which passed down the BOBpho-ms BOBpho-ms every day, the soldiers cheering find the bands ploying. The soldiers were put into cars and sent to the front often without their officers.! When they arrived at the station where they were to leave the railroad officers were in waiting who too them and placed them in their com panies Ml corp and division forma- ' tlon was lost Tt was confusion These soldiers v,ent to the battle under bad conditions They needed a month at least to train with their new officers and get to know one another and j their leaders. Then the commissariat failed. It soon became evident to us here in Constantinople that the government was bringing In men much faster than food They gave money to the sol- , diers and told, them to go and buy! food for themselves, but often they I could not find food to hu. and man of the soldiers were suffering from hunger before they saw a battle or heard a gun. When fighting actualh hesan all their difficulties were in-:reased. in-:reased. it is painful to contemplate Under the&e conditions the Tut' Isb army ought never to have advanced I Bhould have taken up strong positions there; waited to get all their armv together; trained their men and put tnem into sympathy with their officers. of-ficers. M.Bib,lt.Ime a11 11,0 world knows that the Bulgarian armv did not pursue pur-sue the Turks beyond Lule Burgas rhej waited nearly a week before they made their demonstration to trj ;lie strength of the Turkish armv at 1 nataldj. There hag never been n pitched battle there and now peace negotiations are going on. The Turk is not driven out of Europe, nor do 1 believe that he will he now Constantinople Con-stantinople will remain under the Turkish government and a strip of territorv the size of which will be determined b negotiations. While the newspapers hae been filled with accounts of the condition of Constantinople, filled with refu-i refu-i ;uid soldiers dri-en ha- I. upon the city, and while thev have been describing scenes here "only rivalled by the scenes in Dante s Interno c have been living in Constantinople in peace and quietness. There has been no bloodshed here, and the government gov-ernment has maintained order with great firmness. We Bhould remember that Klamll Pasha's government look up the work after the committee of union and progress cabinet had been turned out, soon after the beginning of the war The least that we can sav about the committee of union and progress is that its name is a misnomer, mis-nomer, for the committee stood neither neith-er for union nor for progress. Klamil Pasha's cabinet had a hard task. They inherited the war. the army was what the committee of union un-ion and progress had mad, it. and the country was filled .vith their appointees ap-pointees in office. There has been no serious disorder in this City during the war. Robert College has not missed one da of lessons The greatest great-est danger was in the provinces. As of old, when ati trouble arose in the Roman empire, they cried, "The Christians to the lions'" so in the Turkish empire the Christians have usually suffered when things went wrong The Armenian Patriarch and his council hae been in great anxiety for their people in Adana in the BIl is and Van Region, and in other pares, and thev had renson to be anxious. anx-ious. We all shared their anxiety and do yet But there has been no general gen-eral massacre in the Asiatic prov-nces prov-nces There have been disorders and some lives have been lost, but nothing noth-ing like what we feared has taken place, and we who know the country are sure that there would have been very serious massacres there had not the government exercised a strong control oep the turbulent populations This was in saddening to all who love Turkey and the Turks It has drawn upon our sympathies and has shocked us with its horrors, but there is a bright side which has not appeared ap-peared In the newspapers, and that Is the dignity, strength and wisdom of the government, strugcline acainst tremendous difficulties to keep order and accomplish its task. There is one other thine I must speak of, though I find it difficult to write about It. When things were so congested that the government could not even feed its soldiers, it was not to be expected that the hospital service serv-ice and the care of the wounded would be perfect. The hospitals that jwere organized in Constantinople at I the outbreak of the war were well equipped, clean and ready for their work, but when the wounded filled i these, and the had to provide more. I they took barracks which were very dirty, and the people who had charge or them did not seem to know what j to do. Much time was lost and many wounded died for lack of care, j There was kick of system in the ' reception of the wounded at the station sta-tion when the trains came In from the front, and often thev remained many ! hours without care, without water. suffering severely. But the worst i scenes were perhaps at St. Btephano This station is on the railroad between be-tween the Shataldja lines and Constantinople. Con-stantinople. It became a sort of receiving re-ceiving station for the sick Cholera prevailed, though I think much what was called cholera was not true chol- era. These sick men were taken off the train at St. Stephano in order not to bring contagion into the City, hut pains were not taken to see that arrangements ar-rangements were made for caring for them Sick men. wounded men who were also sick, and dead men lav j around upon the ground without shelter shel-ter The dead were not burrled. Of- i ten a sick man was round with his I head pillow e l upon a dead man. The I sick were calling for water. It was B sickening scene, and many were afraid to help these sufferers from fear of contagion, and many knew nothing about the sad conditions prevailing pre-vailing there. The American Red Cross discovered discover-ed this plague spot through Mr Hoffman Hoff-man Philip, first secretary of the American embassy. Mr. Philip, the Rev Robert Frew, and Dr. Ford with two Swiss ladies went there and set' to work Thev buried the dead, thev cleaned up the place and disinfected it They fed the sick and gave them drink. When thev went there loO died In twentv-four hours After a week's work there was a day with no deaths. . Mre Rockhill, wife of the American ambassador, -tood back of the workers work-ers bought supplies and forwarded to th m brought the conditions to tne notice Of the authorities, and stured them up to do something, and 'owed 'ow-ed great executive ability in dealing with the situation. Three menibei-ol menibei-ol the English Red Crescent who were wuitinp for their unit to get togelhc . v.iMif nut to St St.-phano and organ-I organ-I ed a Tent Hospital at the expense or the American Red I ross An no the Egyptian Red I rescenl . organ hJng .. large hospital there. e ire now plenty oi people reacl io ;;,;;;. ;orpk!: ,,, ,v, did no. knowoi I tne conditions ... . . 0ne brigm side of tms aa.K i-ture i-ture Is -he- way in which all the communities foreign and native, are working to relieve suffering and save "The American Red Cross is withdrawing with-drawing i.on. its hospita wJJ" e other agencies are now oi gan- r.ed io take up "hat work and a- ,, on bui it is turning Its attenr fon to the refugee who have fled ,Mun lh,i, home, ,i, European Tin -, in,nv cases their houses have turn to their old homes Thej cams i,,,,, Constantinople In carls or on Some bad a few household goods wllli them, other, lied in rags The government wisely sent them on into sia as fast as it could, and is trying try-ing lo feed them. The ordinary food allowance Is one loaf of bread a da:- for adults and half a loaf for children. chil-dren. This sounds small, but It preserves pre-serves life, which Is the main thing now. Of course this flight entails uti-iold uti-iold suffering. Husbands have lost sight of their families. Soldiers returning re-turning from the war do not know where their wives and children arc. Will they ever find them again ? There are B great many children in Constan-inoplp Constan-inoplp who do not know where their parents are. The British Red Cross is trying to provide for them. The Red Cross and the Red Crescent societies soci-eties of different nations are trwng to care for the refugees In Constantinople Constantino-ple The janernment is building barracks bar-racks out near the walls to shelter them. The American Red Cross has turned Its attention to the refugees In Asia. It Is especially qualified to do this work because it can call upon up-on the American missionaries Btation-ed Btation-ed here and there all over the country coun-try to aid In organizing this work of relief. Already it has found 12.000 refugees at Biusa, where Miss .TIIlot9on is organizing or-ganizing work, 20,000 at Konieh, where Dr. Willard Post is organizing i work. The relief committee at Sa-lonica Sa-lonica has 8000 under Its care, and tbb is only the beginning. The circle of I refugee work is sure to go on w ld- enlng continually. And it will be a i long, long work We are giving out clothing now and packages of cloth with needles and thread so that the women may make up garments for their families We must find the refugees ref-ugees In the cities, where they aro crowded into hans. or camped in the freeM we must find them in the I villages to which they have drifted, drift-ed, and where they will soon be forgotten, for-gotten, unless some one hunts them up. I think that is a moderate estl- mate that there will be 200.000 souls lo bo cared for through this winter, win-ter, and many of them will need help to set up life in new quarters. I think that many of these refugees will never return to Europe, where they would be under Christian rule, bui will help to populate Asiatic Turkey Tur-key Turkey has not ceased to exist. ex-ist. Her kingdom will be an Asi-I Asi-I atic one. and she will need help to organize that. America is free from the strain of 1 thpse event- which set the nerves of ' Europe to finding she has a bountiful bounti-ful harvest and great prosperity 1 am sure that the people of Amerida will gie generously to save the lives and relieve the sufferings of these peoples The American Red Cross BOCiet is receiving and forwarding ail donations, dona-tions, hut they should be designated to the countrj in which donors wisti them expended, as the Red CrOBB Is earning on work in the Balkan state, also oo |
