Simultaneously with the revolution in Constantinople grave fanatical outbreaks took
place in the vilayet of Adana in Cilicia. At the end of last week the Moslems made a general attack on the Christians in Adana, and burned a large part of the town, including the Armenian quarter. The Armenians, however, defended themselves with desperation, and two hundred Moslems are said to have fallen: Two American missionaries were killed, the British Vice-Consul was wounded, and murder and looting have been general throughout the rest of the vilayet, the loss of life, almost entirely amongst Armenians, being estimated at from five to fifteen thousand. British warships were at once despatched from Malta to Mersina, where a massacre was threatened, and bluejackets were landed at Alexandretta on Wednesday. The outbreak of fanaticism, which, it is feared, is spreading eastwards, has shown with terrible effect how readily the anti-Christian feeling, which optimists believed to have been extinguished for ever by the promulgation of the Constitution, can blaze up under the stimulus of religious agitation.
Previous page
