dignitaries retreated before the advancing enemy. The Russians were unable to break the Ottoman lines, and it was only through the treachery of the Armenians, who opened up the way for them by capturing Mount Dideban, and setting up machine-guns at crucial points and gunning down many people, that they were finally able to enter the town. Bediuzzaman was in the town with what remained of his volunteers and fought a fierce hand to hand battle with the enemy cavalry. With one of his legs broken, Bediuzzaman hid with his four surviving students in an underground water conduit. After thirty hours they surrendered to the Russians, We have a description of this from Bediuzzaman's own pen:

Although in one minute three bullets hit me in vital spots, they had no effect. When Bitlis fell, a number of my students and myself found ourselves in the middle of a battalion of Russians. They surrounded us and there was firing on every side. All my friends were killed with the exception of four. Then we broke through the four lines of the battalion and hid a place but they were still there. Although they were above us and all around us and could hear our voices and coughs, they did not see us. We remained thirty hours in that way in the mud with me wounded; I was preserved with a tranquil heart by Divine succour. [^266]

[^266]:Nursi, Sikke-i Tasdik-i Gaybî, 124; Şahiner, Said Nursi, 168.

Finally, since their lives were in danger from loss of blood and extreme cold, one of them went and informed the Russians of their whereabouts. The Russians came and took them prisoner.

One of those four surviving students of Bediuzzaman's was Ali Aras from the village of Çoravanis near Van. Also known as Ali Çavuş, he wrote down his memories of Bediuzzaman at the fall of Bitlis, and they were published in the newspaper İttihad six years after his death, in April 1971. They also give a lively account of Bediuzzaman and his Russian captors after they had been taken prisoner.

The Russians occupied Muş before we reached it. The people who had evacuated the town said when we met them on the road that all the ammunition together with fourteen heavy guns had remained there. Ustad Bediuzzaman divided up the three-hundred-man force according to the fourteen guns and assigned a six-man squad to capture the ammunition. We captured the guns and ammunition and handed them over to a regular regiment which was posted on the Bitlis-Tatvan road. At this point the Russians began to attack from three sides and left us cut off in the Bitlis valley. The defence against the Russians continued day and night for seven days. Three shells hit Ustad. One of these hit the handle of his dagger, another his cigar-