The Merv Oasis: Travels and Adventures
East of the Caspian During the Years 1879-80-81,
Including Five Months' Residence Among
the Tekkes of Merv
By
Edmund O'Donovan
Published by G. P. Putnam's sons, 1883 Volume II
Page 67
CAPTURE OF GEOK TEPE. 67
time the utmost caution was needed. Early on the 24th we
ascended the top of the Markov mountain, which towers
some six thousand feet over the Tekke
plain, and is not over twelve miles from Geok Tepe. With my
double field-glass I could easily make out the lines of
the Turkmen fortress, and the general position of its
besiegers, but I was too far off to be able to make notes
of details. I could plainly see, by the smoke of the guns
and the movements of the combatants, that the attack had
begun in earnest, and I watched its result with intense
anxiety. The Russian assault was directed against the
southerly wall of the fortifications, and, after what was
apparently a desperate conflict there, it was evident
that they had forced their way. A crowd of horsemen began
to ride in confusion from the other side of the town, and
spread in flight over the plain. Immediately afterwards,
a mass of fugitives of every class showed that the town
was being abandoned by its inhabitants. The Turkmen
fortress had fallen, and all was over with the Akhal
Tekkes.
Though the discipline and superior weapons of the
Russians had thus at length secured victory over the wild
courage of the nomads, the struggle had been really a
desperate one. From the fugitives whom I encountered that
evening and on the following days I gathered many
particulars of the siege and its conclusion.
Geok Tepe, I
should remark, is a misnomer, the true name of the place
being Yengi Sheher, or the New Town, it having been
called into existence only in 1878, at the commencement
of the military operations of the Russians against the
Akhal Tekkes territory. Geok Tepe is a
long- deserted village lying about three or four miles to
the north of the new town, and well out into the desert,
which at this point approaches very close to the
mountains.
Almost the
entire population of the Akhal Tekke was
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