THE TRUTH ABOUT ATROCITIES.
WHEN referring last week to the necessity for some suspense of judgment respecting the charges of bar- barity brought against the Russians, until further evidence and careful analysis of it should with more certainty reveal the truth, we hardly expected that even one more week would throw such terrible light upon the whole subject, and so completely transfer, as it has done, the burden of defence upon those who stood forth as accusers. The first charge, so recklessly brought, of blowing up captured Turkish crews in their own vessels had indeed been already exploded ; it had been clearly pointed out how utterly impossible it was that the Turks could give with any truth such marvellously exact statistics as they had done concerning places from which they had fled in panic before the alleged horrors took place ; and it was also beginning to be seen, as time elapsed, that there was an utter failure of testimony to substantiate the earlier charges. Such facts alone would have in- vested with considerable force the Russian reply, published the other day, in regard to the last batch of correspond- ence on the subject presented to Parliament. This brief reply justly urged that none of the alleged charges contained any- thing "of which the English military, diplomatic, or consular agents have any personal knowledge," but were all based on statements of Turkish authorities, the falsity of which had already been partially proved. And even such a reply as that —so long as it held good—was practically unanswerable. But early in the present week more positive evidence came to hand. In the last batch of the Government correspondence itself, as published on Tuesday, it could not escape notice that Colonel Wellesley quotes very clear testimony as to the good- conduct of the Russian troops in the very front; and that General Kemball, from the Turkish Army in Asia, not only explicitly denies by telegraph the alleged Russian atrocities at Ardalaan, but with equal distinctness "confirms" the mas- sacre by Kurds at Bayazid. It began also to be seen that whatever the result of the various encounters, the Turks took no prisoners,—a fact significant enough, even without the positive evidence which too soon fol- lowed respecting the horrible treatment by them of the Russian wounded. For such evidence there is no need to quote those papers whose sympathies are chiefly with the Christian cause, for the most explicit testimony of all respect- ing it, as proved in the Schipke Pass, is to be found in the columns of the leading Conservative journal of Wednesday, whose correspondent, after relating what horrid proofs he found of torture, slaughter, and "foulest possible mutilation," goes on to state that these barbarities were not committed by irregular troops, as "there were none but fourteen battalions of Redifs and Nizams in the pass." It was reserved for another corre- spondent of the same journal—it is well to remember the impartial character of the testimony—to state most posi- tively concerning another terrible story, of which much was made in its day, about the burning of Turks alive in a certain mosque,—" To these stories I can give personal contradiction." Moreover, whilst this class of evidence was accumulating fast, it was remarkable that the allegations still recklessly made
concerning Russian atrocities were becoming more indainite and vague. A telegram dated from Pere on Sunday, for instance, affirmed that "the Russian massacres are simply fearful ; the only correspondent denying this is one who, it appears, had been turned out of the Turkish camp for Dais- behaviour,"—a statement which can be justly appreciated, in face of the foregoing.
But the most startling light of all was thrown upon the whole subject by a series of letters from various correspondents of the Times, the full force of which it is very difficult to give in small compass, coming as they did from different quarters, and touching upon every branch of the question at issue. The Constantinople correspondent, writing on July 27 from Syra (in order to escape censorship), affirms that in the provinces, to his personal knowledge, the "manufacture of Russian atrocities had become a regular business, to the extent of tampering with letters and forging telegrams ; and while he thinks that some barbarities are committed on both sides, he makes the pregnant statement that "where Turkish authorities have control, both letters and telegrams are subjected to pressure to make them report imaginary Russian atrocities." Two days later in point of publication, though dated July 25, came further details of this extraordinary charge. The writer therein states that one telegram "crammed. full of Russian atrocities was actually drawn up for one correspondent with- out his knowledge,' and his name forged to it, though by accident the fraud was stopped at the last moment. He remarks that under such circumstances, surrounded by so much he knows to be falsehood, each correspondent naturally inclines to believe what "tells for his own party ;" but he goes on to state that in the provinces "none but Russian atrocities can be sent in any way, and the more of these the correspondent sends the higher the favour he enjoys and the greater the facilities given him for the transmitting news." There are some who pander ignobly to the wrong, and one correspondent in particular "offered to send what- ever the authorities liked : they might, if they so pleased, dictate his letters, if in return they would give him advan- tages not conceded to his professional brethren." In face of the express Turkish authority avowed for a telegram alluded to last week, and of the privileges enjoyed by one well-known journal at various Turkish centres, this sentence is pregnant with meaning, and explains many things which formerly seemed incomprehensible. To get at the real facts, however, is far more important than even to ascertain the means by which they have been distorted ; and concerning these, also, we have now but too much sad evidence. Here, again, the calm and temperate statements published in the Times—which has never taken "extreme" views on this subject—will weigh more with many people than the horrible evidence published by another Liberal journal, the more so as we might parallel from the Standard itself many of the worst details respecting the ferocity of Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians. As early as July 4—writing from the Turkish camp in Armenia —the correspondent of the leading journal, who affirms that he entered on his mission a strong partisan of the Turks, but that "closer acquaintance with them has changed his views," reports, as a matter specially brought before Sir Arnold Kemball by Mr. Williams, that while both officers and men on the Turkish side stripped the corpses of the Russians naked, even disinterring bodies already buried for the purpose, all Turkish bodies were found buried in uni- form, "showing that the Russians respect the bodies of their slain and bury them with decency." Two days later he writes, respecting alleged Russian outrages in Armenia, that he believes "none of these things," and for the very satisfac- tory reason that, having been following for a week in the wake of the Russian army, he "can see no traces nor hear any reports " of such atrocities. On the contrary, the Russians appeared to have behaved with moderation, and paid for all they had. In the same letter, he expresses his conviction that the charge against the Turks of "killing all the wounded" is too true, since he could not hear of a single wounded man having been saved. In brief, as regards Armenia, it would not be possible to have clearer evidence of at least the general state of the case.
But worse news comes from Bulgaria, and it, indeed, fully bears out the strange threat, quoted last week, of deeds which should "thrill all Europe when told." In a letter dated July 25, and published on Thursday, we get an inci- dental light on those scattered instances of Cossack cruelty which may very probably be taken as true, in the statement that long after Nikopol had surrendeled a Cossack was killed by a treacherous pistol-shot from a house, whereupon the murdered man's comrades rushed in and killed the two Turks they found there. In the same letter is a more terrible and shameful tale of the finding, in the writer's own actual presence, by a father and mother, of a lost son carried off by Turks during a cattle-raid on the Roumanian side of the Danube. The mother fell on his neck and kissed him, but the son—a youth of sixteen—hung back, crying bitterly, while the father turned from him with gloomy brow, and never spoke. The lad had been "tortured," and—we must simply quote the same words as used—" the details cannot be written here."
The most terrible details of all are, however, from Yeni- Saghra, under date of July 18. From this very place the correspondent of a pro-Turkish journal wrote on the preceding day :—" I characterise the reported outrages by Bashi-Bazouks at Yeni-Saghra as a base lie, invented by Russian sympathisers ;" and we need not harshly judge him, for even the correspondent whose letter is before us, only that same one day earlier, thought such reports at least exaggerated. Would it had been so I But in the second letter he explains what he calls his "change of front," by the fact that on the preceding day he could get only Turkish guides, and was thus "diverted from a proper investigation." Now that he saw for himself, the tale is perfectly sickening, and we can only refer to the Times of Thursday for details. Suffice it, that at the first house they visited—this is all personal narration by an Englishman, and the writer was accompanied by "a gentleman of high position in the Diplomatic Service" — they learnt from bystanders how its mistress had been first violated. and then buried in a heap of manure. "Hearsay?' Yes, this was hearsay ; but they dug therein and found the horrid proof in the corpse of the fair white woman, foully dishonoured both in death and burial. Then proceeds the tale : in one place, a woman's chemise, saturated with blood ; in another, "a young, fair woman," dishonoured, slain, and then thrown across the corpses of two men who had defended her in vain ; in another, the corpse of a man treated in a manner "that does not admit of description,"--and so on. One woman was pointed out, of social rank and remarkable beauty, who had been outraged so publicly that it was impos- sible to throw over her the decent veil of silence ; and in short, to quote his own words again, "the universal testimony of all the Bulgarians is that the women were violated in nearly every house." As to the "Russian atrocities " which had been alleged at this same place, there had been nothing of the kind. The writer states that "not one Turkish corpse has been or apparently can be produced," and that the whole was a " cold- blooded, undeserved attack upon the defenceless Bulgarians," the story telegraphed in such haste and detail from Constanti- nople being due solely to the wild rumours of a few NIussul- mans, who ran away from the place at the first report that the Cossacks were coming.
Such, then, is the truth, HO far as yet proved by English testi- mony, and these are deeds of to-day. It is not Bulgaria in 1876 we are describing, butpresent facts of the present war. The tables may not be so completely turned in every case ; and though the sole charge which rests upon any direct European testimony, as against the Russians, is that women and children brutally wounded by lance and sabre have arrived at Schumla, that charge is serious enough, and Russia will need to explain to Europe what means she took to prevent such savagery. It ie too probable that, what between wild Cos- sacks, and infuriated Bulgarians who feel for the first time
, their long pent-up hate let loose, there have been too many instances of barbarity even on the Russian side ; semi- civilised war will always furnish too many of such horrors. But even of simple savagery there is no personal European evidence at present of more than individual cases ' • and we have seen how, with the lapse of even a short time, every serious charge against the Russian force as such, has faded away into less and less proportion. On the other hand, the same searching test has brought to light evidence only too crushing that what was falsely charged against the Russians is terribly true of the Turkish irregular forces, in whose track lust and murder are loose to-day precisely as in Bulgaria a year ago. All the evidence, to whatever pre-
cise point it may go, has so far borne in this direction • as Ardahan
vanishes, it is replaced by the real massacre at Ravarna. We have simply the old, horrid story over again, and now that the " invaders " have received a check, we shall probably have a worse one.
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