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T. E. Lawrence to the Editor of The Times
[July 1911]
Sir,
Everyone who has watched the wonderful
strides that civilisation is making in the hands of the Young Turks will
know of their continued efforts to clear from the country all signs of
the evil of the past. They may not know, however, that this spirit is
gaining ground in the provinces. All visitors to Aleppo will have seen
the great castle that rules it from every part, with its ring of
battlements and its memories of prehistoric, Hittite, Assyrian, and
Roman dominion. This great mass is now to be cleared away and levelled,
and one of the prominent Levantine financiers of the town has the
project of constructing there a new quarter for the poorest of the
inhabitants on the lines of the London East End. The property will soon
be put up to auction, and there are strong hopes that the end will be
achieved.
The sister town of Urfa (Edessa) is
not lagging behind. It also intends to sell its castle; but, as owing to
its inaccessibility the site is useless, the stones will have to be sold
for building material. A beginning has been made by the clearance of the
old Greek town walls: as these were one of the largest as well as one of
the most complete circuits in the Turkish Empire, there can be no two
opinions as to the improvement effected.
The little town of Biredjik in the
same province is faced with a difficulty. Its own great castle it is
clearing away, and building a gaol with the proceeds, but there is a
second of these monuments of oppression, Rum Kaleh, a day's journey up
the river, with which it is beyond the present strength of the town to
grapple. It is hoped that the coming of the Baghdad Railway may mean its
final conversion to modern uses. If so, this will be the second benefit
of the sort conferred by the railway, since the ruins of Carchemish are
to provide materials for the approaches to the new iron girder bridge
over the Euphrates.
Everybody will sympathise with these
latest and most worthy efforts of the Constitutional Government to let a
little light into its darker provinces.
Yours, &c.,
Traveller
Editor's note: The Times published the
letter on 9 August under the headline 'Vandalism in Upper Syria and
Mesopotamia'.
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