Chapter XIX: The Deportations of 1915-16 316

DEPORTATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: Orders from Constantinople--German Influence--No Exceptions to be Made--Reasons for Scheme of Transportation--A Procession of Doomed Victims--Unparalleled Savagery--Character of Armenian People--Turks Encourage Armenian Organizations which, Later, They Brand as “Revolutionary”--“The Blackest Page in Modern History”--Five Hundred Men Imprisoned in an Armenian Church--Awaiting Orders to March into Exile--Allowed to Take but Few Possessions--Searching Out Armenian Names--The Procession as Seen from a College Compound--A Hopeless Journey of a Thousand Miles--Forced to Abandon Food and Bedding on the Road--Uncertainty of the Fate of Loved Ones--The Minds of Some Become Unbalanced--Boys and Girls Sold to Mohammedans to be Reared in that Faith--Two Girls Sold for Eighty Cents--A Loyal Priest of Ninety--Women and Girls Carried off to an Unknown Fate--At the Euphrates River--A Faithful Teacher Accompanies Her School Girls on Their Way to Exile--Extracts from Her Letters--“Getting Accustomed to Being Robbed”--Exiles from Tocat--Men Tied Together for Execution Overtaking Those Who Had Fallen by the Way from Former Deportations--Not Allowed to Go Further--No Later Word from Her Companions--Dual Orders Issued from Constantinople: One to be Made Public, the Other to Deal with Armenians.