Lord Bryce asks for confirmation of information

Angus bullocks being ridden during a recent muster on Mt Royal Estate witnessed by Dunedin...
Angus bullocks being ridden during a recent muster on Mt Royal Estate witnessed by Dunedin Technical College students. - Otago Witness, 28.7.1915 COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.
London (July 29): Lord Bryce asked, in the House of Lords, if there was any confirmation of information he had received of the extensive massacring of Christians in Armenia and wholesale deportations into the Central Asia Minor desert and parts of Mesopotamia.

The Turks in one district shot all the men and took all the women and children (9000) and drowned them in the Tigris, apparently aiming at the extermination of the Christian population.

Lord Cromer said it was attributable to recent German influence.

The Archbishop of Canterbury had received appalling accounts of massacres on the Turco-Persian frontier. The Russian occupation was happily bettering this state of things.

Lord Crewe, who then arrived, confirmed the reports.

He said the Foreign Office in May informed the Ottoman Government that the agents actually implicated would be held personally responsible.

The crimes had since increased both in number and atrocity. There had been wholesale massacres and other outrages, including deportations under the guise of the enforced evacuation of villages.

In some cases German officials countenanced and encouraged the crimes.

The presence of Germans in Turkey had been an unmitigated curse to both Christians and Moslems. There was no immediate remedy. They could only emphatically promise punishment.

Writing from Anzac Cove to Mr Downie Stewart, M.P., on May 24, General Godley pays his tribute to the qualities exhibited by the Otago Infantry Battalion during the severe fighting that followed the landing on Gallipoli Peninsula.

He says:- A line to let you know that the Otago Battalion has particularly distinguished itself since we landed on this peninsula.

During the first three days, April 25 to 27, it came in for a great deal of hard fighting. Then, on the night of May 2-3, it was the foremost battalion of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade in a sortie which we had to make.

The attack which it was called upon to perform was a very difficult one, and called for great courage and resolution on the part of all ranks.

The battalion responded splendidly to the call upon it, and advanced in face of very heavy rifle and machine gun fire, much of it enfilade, and it suffered very heavy casualties.

On arriving at the point where they had to dig themselves in, the officers and some of the non-commissioned officers were particularly noticeable for their coolness and bravery in siting their trenches, and making all the necessary arrangements under very heavy fire.

Colonel Moore and Major Moir, his second in command, led the battalion most gallantly, and I have had great pleasure in reporting specially on the gallantry of the following of the battalion:- Major Turnbull, Captain Smith, Lieutenant Nisbet, Lieutenant Cowan, and Sergeant-major Porteous.

I hope you will let all the Otago people know this. Since then the New Zealand Infantry Brigade went south to assist the troops there in another attack, where, again, the battalion did very well.

It is now here, and expecting at any minute to be called upon to repel another Turkish attack.

I am sorry to say that the casualties have been very high, and the present strength of the battalion is only 18 officers and 606 other ranks. - ODT, 30.7.1915.

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