THE CHAXGIXG MAP IX THE BALKAXS 



219 



order, I suppose, to moisten his parched 

 hps. The water cart did not come his 

 way. 



THE TURK REFUSES AID FOR HIS OWX 

 WOUNDED 



Several men lay on a manure pile, in 

 which one was feebly digging with his 

 fingers a trough in which he might lie 

 and thus keep warm. Several round this 

 manure heap lifted their heads and called 

 out to us in Turkish. Our kavass (an 

 embassy attendant) told us that they 

 said, "We are sick men and no one gives 

 us water and no one gives bread." Their 

 appeal to us in the sight of men of their 

 own faith seemed to me a remarkable 

 recognition of a somewhat better condi- 

 tion of humanity existing among men of 

 the Christian nations. 



There was no excuse for this terrible 

 condition, which existed not only at San 

 Stefano, but on the Chataldja lines and 

 even in Constantinople. The govern- 

 ment had brought the cholera over to 

 Europe from Asia Minor in the mobili- 

 zation, and then brought it into Constan- 

 tinople, where sick and wounded were 

 crowded into the mosques. At Constan- 

 tinople there was an abundance of pro- 

 visions and an endless supply could be 

 got in from the several seas that wash 

 the Empire's shores. There were also 

 many foreign Red Cross volunteers in 

 the city, who were not permitted to go to 

 the front ! 



The Turk likes to conduct his affairs 

 or leave them to conduct themselves 

 without the interference of foreigners, 

 and though always polite he availed him- 

 self of the foreign medical officers and 

 nurses only when they forced themselves 

 upon him. In order to get patients some 

 of the volunteer surgeons were compelled 

 to meet the incoming trains and take 

 away as many wounded men as they 

 could accommodate in hospitals which 

 they improvised. 



The condition at San Stefano was so 

 pitiful that Mr. Philip and Major Ford, 

 together with the Rev. Robert Frew, a 

 Scotsman, and Mr. Maurice Baring, an 

 Englishman, went out there with the 

 idea of saving at least some of the 



wounded and injured who were not 

 stricken with cholera. ]\Iere segregation 

 and feeding and watering hundreds of 

 those cordoned at San Stefano would 

 save their lives. 



The work which these men took up 

 was financed by Mrs. Rockhill, wife of 

 the American Ambassador, with Amer- 

 ican Red Cross funds and other collec- 

 tions. Soon the Turks, shamed at the 

 sight of foreigners doing tlieir work, 

 sent out a few officers and a number of 

 men and made a feeble pretense of medi- 

 cal work, and soon foreign Red Cross 

 men and some Austrian Sisters of Charity 

 went out to assist at the work. 



TWO HEROIC WOMEN 



But the pioneers of all were two old 

 women, one Swiss, the other a Hunga- 

 rian, both frail old ladies of more than 

 sixty years, whom Philif's party on their 

 arrival found already working among 

 the mass of dying and dead humanity. 

 These old ladies, governesses living in 

 San Stefano. went into the cholera cor- 

 don, taking their own savings of money 

 and working with their own hands, not 

 even troubling to notify the foreign em- 

 bassies of their action, much less appeal- 

 ing for protection. Miss Alt and Mad- 

 ame Schneider were the names of these 

 ladies. 



THE DILEMMA OF THE YOUNG TURKS 



The Young Turk movement, which 

 promised much a few years ago, seems 

 doomed to failure. The original leaders 

 of this reform movement were men af- 

 fected by European education — almost 

 entirely men who had lived, if they had 

 not also studied, abroad. The majority 

 had returned home with their faith in 

 Mohammed distinctly shaken. 



But though they had lost their zeal for 

 the creed of Islam their sojourns abroad 

 had not made Christians of them. Against 

 their natural enemies, the Balkan States, 

 they were as bitter as ever. Their re- 

 ligion had given place to patriotism. In- 

 stead of replying in the manner of the 

 "true believer" to the question of their 

 nationality, namely, that they were Mos- 

 lems, they would answer now, if you in- 

 quired, that they were Ottomans. 



