2-751-869 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Ahmed Agha', c1906-1913, (1915). Kurdish men with rifles and bullet belts, Shirwan, (eastern Turkey). 'A little further on we met Ahmed Agha and fifty gunmen. The Agha was a tall, handsome old man, with a pathetic and harassed expression. He pointed sadly to the smoking ruins beyond the river, and showed us the wretched burnt-out inhabitants, collecting wood and stones with which to build fresh houses...When I saw this devastation, I began to think of the advantages of centralised government over feudal times'. From "The Caliphs' Last Heritage, a short history of the Turkish Empire" by Lt.-Col. Sir Mark Sykes. [Macmillan & Co, London, 1915]