Persian Atrocities Told In Pictures.

New York Times 100 years ago today, September 15, 1912:
Campaign Against Sir Edward Grey for His Russian Alliance Is in Full Swing.
LIKE BULGARIAN HORRORS
Russian Troops Are Accused of Torturing and Slaying the Helpless Persians Without Mercy.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Sept. 14.— A highly sensational turn has now been given to the campaign which has been carried on for some time past by dissident Liberals against Sir Edward Grey's foreign policy, particularly in regard to the Russian alliance. The Russian atrocities in Persia is their theme.
    "Nothing," said last week's Nation, whose editor H. W. Massingham, has been foremost in the attacks on the Foreign Secretary, "can get rid of the evidence of photographs, which show the soldiers of our ally in Persia assisting in deeds which roused all England when the Bashi-Bazouks instead of Cossacks were their authors."
    Those photographs have now been published. It remains to be seen whether a McGahan or a Gladstone will arise to rouse the country to flame, such as that which followed the Bulgarian atrocities and altered the map of southeastern Europe.
    So far the rôle of a McGahan in depicting the Bulgarian atrocities has been chiefly played as regards Persia by G. T. Turner, who has sent to The Manchester Guardian an article, charging the Russian troops with the indiscriminate shooting of men, women, and children in Tabriz, as well as with unspeakable atrocities by their Persian Governor, including beating men to death, sewing up the mouths of Constitutionalists, nailing horseshoes to men's feet, and driving them through the bazaars, and with a general hanging vendetta against all who were even supposed to favor the new Persian Constitution.
    The Tory papers, which have of late been much more kindly disposed toward Sir Edward Grey than the Liberal organs, have confronted Turner's reports with those of the British Consul at Tabriz, who painted the situation in much less lurid colors.
    Prof. Browne also wrote to The Manchester Guardian, stating that he had obtained photographs which left no doubt of the horrible character of the atrocities perpetrated in Tabriz. Two of these photographs are so dreadful that publication is impossible.
    A correspondent of The Nation wrote, demanding their publication, "so that Englishmen might understand the price, paid in blood and national honor, for the Anglo-Russian alliance." "Perhaps," the correspondent suggested, "the editors of Liberal papers have been too squeamish to reproduce them, but what is the Anglo-Persian committee doing to keep these pièces á conviction in the snug security of its private bureau?"
    Now two of the illustrated weeklies, The Graphic and The Sphere, print a selection of photographs. The Sphere says that it ventures to reproduce only two out of a dozen received. Most of them are too horrible to describe, and one can but hint at them. One of the photographs is of a distinguished Yusef of Hukmabad. It shows his body cut in two and hung in the streets of Tabriz.
    Of the two photographs published by The Sphere, one shows seven men hanged to the branches of a tree. The other shows a group of four hanging from a rude gallows. The Sphere says:
    "We have every confidence that Sir Edward Grey, when he sees what is reproduced, will take some action."
    The Graphic prints five photographs. one of which shows a gallows decorated with the Russian colors, and seven men hanging therefrom.
    Lucien Wolf, the well-known writer on foreign affairs, contributes a note to The Graphic regarding the Tabriz atrocities. He says:
    "I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Turner the other day, and, like everybody else who has met him, I was deeply impressed by his obvious sincerity and trustworthiness. Our National honor requires that his story should be thoroughly investigated. It is idle to pooh-pooh it as the gossip of an itinerant representative of the Young Men's Christian Association. We cannot have one law for Putumayo and another for Tabriz, and I imagine that Mr. Turner is quite as good a witness as the Roman Catholic missionaries who are going out to the red rubber region of Peru. It is indeed a pity that more missionaries were not in Tabriz during the last twelve months."