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Updated: June 19, 2025
In order to convey troops and war material into the country a railway was laid down through the desert. It runs from one oasis to another, and hardy desert shrubs were planted or upright palings erected to protect the line from the drifting sand. When the Turkomans were attacked by the Russians, they withdrew within the walls of the large fortress which is called "The Green Hill."
The Russian Mohammedan populations such as the Tartars of South Russia and the Turkomans of Central Asia furnished many recruits. Even more valuable were the exiles who flocked to Russia from Turkey, Persia, India, and elsewhere at the close of the Great War.
Not feeling the need of either guide or guard particularly, I decline the old fellow's services "with thanks," and push on; happy, in fact, to find myself once more untrammelled by native company. Small towers of refuge, dotting the plain thickly about Karize, tell of past depredations by the Turkomans.
And as I leave I hear the chorus of an operetta in the deep voice of Monsieur Caterna. In the third car, occupied by many Turkomans and three or four Russians, I perceive Major Noltitz. He is talking with one of his countrymen. I will willingly join in their conversation if they make me any advances, but I had better maintain a certain reserve; the journey has only begun.
On coming up to the fortress of Denghil Tepe, near the town of Geok Tepe, he led only 1400 men, or less than half of his force, to bombard and storm a stronghold held by some 15,000 Turkomans, and fortified on the plan suggested by a British officer, Lieutenant Butler . Preluding his attack by a murderous cannonade, he sent round his cavalry to check the flight of the faint-hearted among the garrison; and, before his guns had fully done their work, he ordered the whole line to advance and carry the walls by storm.
So, from time to time, Cossack forces were sent to chastise the offenders; and in many instances they were punished and their territories were annexed to Siberia. In these raids the Turkomans were the most active. During the forty years previous to 1878 it is estimated that eighty thousand Russian subjects and two hundred thousand Persians were made captives and sold into slavery.
The argument was a strong one; and it may readily be granted that good government, civilisation, and commerce have benefited by the extension of the pax Russica over the slave-hunting Turkomans and the inert tribes of Siberia.
And while the actress was investing in a remnant of Kanaous, the actor paid for a pair of those green slippers which the Turkomans wear when they enter a mosque. But this was not without recourse to the kindness of the major, who acted as interpreter between the Caternas and the merchant, whose "Yoks! Yoks!" sounded like a lot of crackers in his large mouth.
All the women of Karize are ugly; a fact that I attribute to the handsomest specimens being carried off to Bokhara, for decades past, by the Turkomans. The people that assemble to gaze upon me are the same sore-eyed crowd that characterizes most Persian villages; and among them is one man totally blind.
If humanity, mad and corrupted, continues to threaten the Divine Spirit in mankind, to spread blood and to obstruct moral development, the Asiatic State must terminate this movement decisively and establish a permanent, firm peace. This propaganda even during the War made splendid progress among the Turkomans, Kirghiz, Buriats and Mongols. . . . 'Stop! suddenly shouted the Baron."
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