Chapter XX: Camps of Refuge, 1915-17 332 (7)

“Moslem mobs have possession of Cæsarea. They have established a reign of terror over the Armenian churches, have robbed hundreds and have killed many. During services in three Armenian churches the other day the mob burst in the doors, stripping the women of their jewelry and beat and cut the men. After the Armenians fled the Moslems sacked the churches. They afterwards went through the streets attacking all the Armenians they met, bursting into private houses, and sacking shops. All places of business are closed and trade is utterly stagnant. Violence and theft are said to continue day and night. Furthermore, Christian caravans are being robbed and the merchants murdered. The prisons are crowded with Armenian prisoners. Most of the conspicuous Armenians of Cæsarea and Marsovan have been imprisoned.”

The following British Consular reports were despatched from London, April 10, 1893:

“Advices from Constantinople show that the British consuls at Smyrna, Trebizond, and other places in Anatolia, have sent in official reports of Turkish outrages on native Christians. These reports include the names of _eighteen hundred_ Armenians who are imprisoned on various charges in the several consular jurisdictions. Among other matters the serious charge is preferred that it is a common occurrence for the Turks to kidnap Christian girls and dispose of them to the owners of harems. If the relatives and friends of the girls attempt to regain them, they are met with the statement that the girls have embraced Mohammedanism, and this, as a rule, ends the matter so far as the Armenians are concerned; the Christians are ridiculed and subjected to gross outrages, and if they object to their treatment they find themselves arrested on trumped up charges, and are always found ‘guilty.’”

The Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark, the President of the U. S. C. E., while in Turkey on his tour around the world, wrote:

“I could not use the words society or organization, endeavor, union, etc., without the risk of getting my interpreter, my audience, and myself into an unspeakable Turkish dungeon. In one village a poor broken-hearted woman came to tell us that her husband, who was a Protestant preacher, had utterly disappeared. Three weary months of anxious, heart-sick watching had passed away, and she had had no message. What his alleged offense was she had no idea. Whether he is dead or alive, in prison or in exile, she could not tell; and perhaps the mystery of his disappearance will never be solved.” After giving several instances of this kind, Dr. Clark adds: “These are only isolated instances of hundreds that might be cited.”[130]

In the above pages a very few instances were given, which could be multiplied by the hundred, if the time and space would permit, but there is no need. For neither did the Turks nor their friends deny them. Moreover, some of the instances of cruelty and outrage are too painful to be put in print.

The attention of the reader may now be directed to the condition of the so-called “agitators,” who have been arrested and imprisoned in various cities. According to the British consular “reports included the names of eighteen hundred Armenians.” Some of these prisoners, after having been well fleeced, were likely set free while at their respective cities, others possibly left still in prisons, and a great number of them were probably done away with in various ways;[131] for we were informed by the following despatch that only fifty-six were tried at Angora: Constantinople, June 18, 1893--“The trial of Armenians accused of being concerned in rioting at Cæsarea and Marsovan last spring has just been concluded at Angora. Seventeen of the prisoners, including Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan, were condemned to death; six, including the Protestant pastor at Goemerek, were sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment; eighteen--one was a woman, thirty-three years old--were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from seven to ten years, and fifteen were acquitted.” Three others tortured to death in prison.

Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan were pardoned by the sultan on the condition that “they should leave the Turkish territories and never return.”

The following despatch is reproduced to show what impression the Foreign office of Her Majesty’s government had received with regard to the trials of those unfortunate Armenians, and their execution:

London, August 2, 1893--“The question of Turkish outrages upon the Armenian Christians was brought up in the House of Commons to-day. Several members asked for information as to the charges made that the Turkish officials had tortured the prisoners who were some time ago arrested for complicity in the seditious rioting in Cæsarea and Marsovan in their efforts to get the accused to implicate themselves and others. In response to the questions Sir Edward Grey, Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign office, said that what little information the Foreign Office had on the subject was _very painful_. Fifty-six persons had been (tried) arrested and of this number seventeen had been condemned to death, and many of the others sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Subsequently the Sultan of Turkey commuted the death sentence of all but five of the prisoners. These five men have been executed within the past two or three days. From the evidence that had been given at the trials, all of which had been carefully investigated by the British representative in Turkey, and a report thereon forwarded to the Foreign Office, it was clear that two of the men executed, and probably more, were innocent of the charges made against them. The British representative in Constantinople had used his influence to convince the Ottoman authorities that _the trials were unfair_, but his efforts to have the wrong righted were in vain.”

These political “agitators” and “seditious rioters,” terms applied to the Armenians by the Turkish government and its officials, only were mere inventions. As it has been said the oppression, cruel persecutions, and outrages drove the Armenians to desperation, and when they did anything in self-defense, or even if they attempted to consult what they should do against the assaults, they were set upon and treated still worse. The disturbance at Yozgat, for instance, was stated in the following manner: An Armenian spy in the employ of the Turkish government was murdered by an Armenian revolutionist from Russia. Instead of the murderer being found and arrested, all the men of the village where the murder had taken place were arrested and taken to Yozgat. The four police officers who remained in the village committed every outrage upon the defenseless women, who went in a body to Yozgat and marched through the market calling upon the Armenians of the city to avenge their wrongs. “Some one rang the bell of the church, and a large number of Armenians closed their shops and collected at the church for _consultation_. Military commander of the town heard this and hastened to the church, where he tried to calm the people and persuaded them to disperse, assuring them the guilty officer should be punished. He was meeting with some success when the troops sent by the governor arrived.” The troops had come there for business. A riot was created, and a “hundred and twenty-five Armenians were killed and three hundred and forty wounded,” as the result of this riot.

A commission was sent from Constantinople to investigate, and a reign of terror in the town was the result. Under cover of searching the houses of all the Armenians, they were plundered and outraged without mercy, and a great number thrown into prison, and tortured to force them to give evidence against one another.

I believe the Sultan, who had fashioned himself into an angel of light had chosen this method to feel his way and see whether the guardians of his Christian subjects could see through the tissue of his falsehood and call him to halt, or they would be willing for their own conveniences to accept his construction of suppressing a “sedition.”

The Representative Committee of the society of Friends in Great Britain addressed a memorial to the Earl of Kimberley, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. (See “Minutes” of 1894, held in London.)

“The Representative committee of the society of Friends in Great Britain have had their attention recently directed to the suffering and persecuted condition of the Armenian Christian subjects of the Porte, and have been at some pains to investigate the facts of the case. They are compelled to conclude that persecution of a cruel character has been and is being carried on by Turkish officials, which is a disgrace to any government, and to the age in which we live.

“They desire to point out that Article I, of the Cyprus convention of June, 1878, and Articles LXI and LXII of the Treaty of Berlin, July, 1878, give this country a position of responsibility and authority upon this subject which it ought not to ignore.

“The committee believes that, though these engagements were made nearly fourteen years ago, it is not alleged that their performance has been even entered upon. On the contrary, great numbers of the Christian Armenians have been from time to time arbitrarily arrested, and are now in prison on charges strongly suspected of being false, whilst many of the proceedings in the courts of law are clearly a mere travesty of justice.”

The following is the part of the answer to the above memorial:

“SIR: I am directed by the Earl of Kimberley to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th instant (April, 1894), and the memorial. In reply I am to state that the information in the possession of Her Majesty’s government does not confirm the widely-spread belief that the arrest and imprisonment of the Armenians in Asiatic Turkey are attributable to their religious faith.”

The great “assassin” well might have congratulated himself that whether Her Majesty’s government believed it or not, at least, declared to the world that the Armenians were not persecuted on account of their faith.

An American wrote from Bitlis in the summer of 1893:--

“The Armenians are still found in goodly numbers, aggregating nearly one-third of some eighteen thousand inhabitants in the city (Moosh), constituting more than half in the region, if we include the 155 villages of this large plain. But so lamentably have they been subdued by the _long oppression_ and _misrule_, that none of their old-time spirit remains.

“We might point to a village of more than 300 houses and 2,000 inhabitants, who live in constant terror from a little Kurdish village of desperadoes not one-tenth as large!”

It is no wonder that these poor and oppressed Armenians “live in constant terror.” The Turkish government, the author of all injustice and cruelty in Armenia, had decreed even the mere possession of arms a serious crime in the case of Christians, while the Kurds, the worst enemies of law and order were well equipped with all sorts of modern weapons, and were enlisted into His Majesty the Sultan’s army. They were, therefore, authorized to rob, steal, and kill the Armenians.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Comstock, “Greek Revolution,” p. 222.

[121] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” p. 98.

[122] Layard, “Nineveh,” Vol. I, pp. 165-6.

[123] Van Lennep, “The Bible Lands,” pp. 745-6.

[124] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 101-2.

[125] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 273.

[126] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” pp. 234-5.

[127] _The Westminster Gazette_, Dec. 12, 1894, reprinted in the _Armenia_, London, Jan., 1895.

[128] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” pp. 158-9.

[129] _The 19th Century_, July, 1909.

[130] _The Independent_, June 15, 1893, New York.

[131] The following explains itself: The private advices from Constantinople give the Press information of a tragic discovery. The harbor of that city has no wharves. Vessels, after discharging their cargoes at the custom-house, anchor in the harbor and receive their cargoes. On September 30, 1893, a Russian merchantman anchored off Seraglio Point, and, having received her cargo, would raise her anchor to sail for home. The anchor seemed to be caught in something heavy. After long efforts it was raised. It brought up with it fifteen large haircloth sacks, such as are used by Turkish merchants in packing goods for shipment.

“At first the Russian captain thought he had disclosed a smuggling scheme. Upon investigation he discovered that the sacks were filled with human bodies, each sack containing from fifteen to twenty. Further investigation disclosed that they were the bodies of Armenian political prisoners.

“Foreign ambassadors to Turkey had recently complained that the prisons were overcrowded with Armenian prisoners, and the government decided to remove the cause of complaint. Accordingly about three hundred prisoners were taken on board of a Turkish man-of-war, ostensibly for transportation to Africa. In the night, however, the fellows were murdered, their bodies placed in sacks, which were tied one to the other, and thrown into the harbor. This is in keeping with the Grand Vizier’s declaration a short time ago, that he _would settle the Armenian question by annihilating the Armenians as a race_. A discovery similar to this was made in the harbor of Salonica a year ago.”

XIV

THE MASSACRE AT SASSOUN

Sassoun is the name of a district south of the Plain of Moosh. It is a mountainous country, containing about one hundred and fourteen villages and hamlets. The inhabitants, about seventy thousand persons, were mostly Armenians, under a resident Turkish governor, called Kaimakam.

The inhabitants of this region, like the rest of the people in Armenia, were agricultural and pastoral in their occupation, and they were also surrounded by their tormentors, the Kurds. It is not improbable that the inaccessibility of the district and the number and hardiness of the people, may have impressed the Turkish authorities with the desirability of reducing them into a complete docility. So when the “Hamidieh” cavalry regiments were formed a few years before they were entrusted with this work.

The Kurdish chiefs, in some districts in Armenia, were in the habit of demanding, and extorting from the people some kind of tribute. The raids of the Kurds and Circassians were not infrequent. The taxes of the government were ever increasing, and were always in demand. This vexatious condition of affairs was sufficient to drive any peaceful people to desperation.

In one instance, when the Kurds had raided an Armenian village, and carried away the cattle, the villagers armed themselves as best as they could and pursued the raiders, like Abraham,[132] to recover their herds. In the encounter several Kurds were killed. It is probable that some Armenians also were killed, but that is of no consequence. Those unfortunate Kurds who suffered for their crime were the members of the “Hamidieh” cavalry. Then false reports were sent to Constantinople that the Armenians were in arms, and had rebelled against the authority of the government and had killed some of the soldiers of the sultan.

The sultan, who had been planning ever since the signing of the Treaty of Berlin to exterminate the Armenians, seized upon this opportunity, which was of his own making, and at once sent orders to Mushir at Erzinghian to exterminate them, root and branch. “The order as read before the army, collected in haste from all the chief cities of Eastern Turkey, was: ‘Whoever spares man, woman, or child, is disloyal.’”

The massacre took place in the early part of September, 1894. The following letter, written at Bitlis, September 26, 1894, gives the first evidence:

“The troops have been massed in the region of the large plain (of Moosh) near us. Some sickness broke out among them which took off two or three victims every few days.... I suppose that one reason for placing quarantine was to hinder the information as to what all these troops were about in that region. There seems little doubt that there has been in that region back of Moosh what took place in 1876 in Bulgaria. The sickening details are beginning to come in.”

“Bitlis, October 9, 1894.

“All these things (following facts) were related here and there by soldiers who took part in the horrible carnage. Some of them, weeping, claim that the Kurds did more, and declare that they only obeyed the order of others. It is said one hundred fell to each of them to dispose of. No compassion was shown to age or sex, even by the regular soldiery, not even when the victims fell suppliant at their feet. Six to ten thousand persons met such a fate as even the darkest ages of darkened Africa hardly witnessed, for there women and tender babes might at least have had a chance of a life of slavery, while here womanhood and innocency were but a mockery before the cruel lust that ended its debauch by stabbing women to death with the bayonet, while tender babes were impaled with the same weapon on their dead mother’s breast, or perhaps seized by the hair to have their heads lopped off with the sword.

“In one place, three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve vile purposes by the merciless soldiery, were hacked to pieces by sword and bayonet in the valley below. In another place, some two hundred weeping and wailing women begged for compassion, falling at the commander’s feet, but the bloodthirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed his soldiers to dispatch them in a similar way. In another place, some sixty young brides and more attractive girls were crowded into a church, and after violation were slaughtered, and human gore was seen flowing from the church door.

“At another place still, a large company under the leadership of their priest, fell down before them begging for compassion, and averring that they had nothing to do with the culprits (?). But, all to no purpose. All were called to another place, and a proposal was made to several of the more attractive women to change their faith, in which case their lives were to be spared. They said: ‘Why should we deny Christ? We are no more than these’ (pointing to the mangled form of their husbands and brothers). ‘Kill us too’; and they did so. A great effort was made to save one beauty, but three or four quarreled over her, and she sank down like her sisters.

“But why prolong the sickening tale? There must be a God in heaven who will do right in all these matters, or some of us would lose faith. One or more consuls have been ordered that way to investigate the matter. If the Christians, instead of the Turks, reported these things in the city of Bitlis, and the region where I have been touring, the case would be different. But now we are compelled to believe it.

“It seems safe to say that forty villages were totally destroyed, and it is probable that sixteen thousand at least were killed. The lowest estimate is ten thousand, and many put it much higher. This is allowing for more fugitives than it seems possible can have escaped.”[133]

It is useless now, after twenty-three years, to add the testimony of the eye-witnesses and fugitives to show the barbarity of the soldiers and officers of the sultan, who had been inadvertently encouraged to go on in his career of assassination by the declaration of Her Majesty’s government that the imprisonments, tortures and massacres of the Armenians were not attributable to their religious faith.

It appears from the following statement made by reliable persons that the sultan himself not only ordered the massacre, but he prepared an occasion for that deviltry. “To what extent Armenian agitation has provoked the terrible massacre it is difficult to determine. For a year or more there seems to have been an Armenian from Constantinople staying in the region as an agitator. For a long time he skilfully evaded his pursuers, but was at last caught and taken to Bitlis. He demanded to be taken to Constantinople and to the sultan, and it is said, he is now living at the Capital, receiving a large salary from the government. Evidently he has turned state’s evidence.” This mean creature, who ever he was, was an emissary of the Turkish government. He and his mission were not known to the officers at Bitlis. So he demanded that he should be taken to Constantinople, and to the sultan. There he was rewarded for the mischief that he was hired to do: he had paved the way for a great massacre.

But by a most influential paper of Great Britain the crime at Sassoun was laid primarily at the door of England:

“The crime at Sassoun lies primarily at the door of England. It is one of the many disastrous results of that ‘peace with honor’ which the English government, represented by Lord Beaconsfield, claimed to have brought back from Berlin in 1878. Why was it that the Armenians at Sassoun were left as sheep before the butcher? Why was it that the sultan and his pashas felt themselves perfectly free to issue what order they pleased for the massacre of the poor Armenians? The answer is, unfortunately, only too simple. It is because England, at the Berlin Congress, and England alone--for none of the other powers took any interest in the matter--destroyed the security which Russia had extorted from the Turkish government at San Stefano, and substituted for the sterling guarantee of Russia the worthless paper money of Ottoman promises.”[134]

The Sultan publicly endorsed the massacre and decorated Zeki Pasha, the commander of the Fourth Army Corps, and sent four flags to the Kurdish cavalry regiments.

Well said a prominent American: “The sultan’s act is a sort of insolent challenge to Christendom.” Why should he not challenge Christendom? There were some so-called Christian rulers back of him. Though the civilized world was filled with righteous indignation at the cruelty and insolence of the successor of Mohammed, yet he was only true to the teaching and example of the prophet in thus violating all the laws of civilization and humanity.

It is the characteristic of the Armenian mothers to teach their children to cling to the religion of Christ, let come what may. And it is due to this fact that the Armenian nation, after having undergone fifteen centuries of persecution for their faith, still exists as a Christian people. “The permanence of the Armenian race has been ascribed to the virtue of their women and exceptional purity and stability of their family life.”

The Turkish government, as might have been expected, first tried to conceal the facts or even admit the occurrence of such a massacre. However, under some pressure from the British ambassador, she made the following report:

Constantinople, November 16, 1894--“The Porte has issued an account of the last Armenian troubles in Sassoun district. The responsibility is laid upon the Kurdish brigands, who murdered a Mussulman and committed many other excesses. The Turkish troops called to Sassoun are said to have restored order and protected all law-abiding persons.”

But when Sir Phillip Currie sent Mr. Hallward’s (British vice-consul at Van) report of the massacre to the Porte, the Turkish minister positively denied the facts, asserting that Mr. Hallward’s report was untrue. The Porte further “stated outright, that he (Mr. Hallward) had encouraged the Armenians to revolt.” Another report received from a Turkish official source was “that at Sassoun all the Armenians fell in open combat. The troops killed two thousand of them.”

The friends of Christianity and humanity, who sincerely sympathized with the martyred Christian Armenians, have learned that the Mohammedan rulers and the Turkish officials in the past centuries, and in the present, have given us enough instances of cruelty to convince the world that Mohammedanism and barbarism, if not identical, surely go hand in hand. Furthermore, the Turkish government and its officers have shown to the world that they were, and are, destitute of truthfulness. A well-informed recent writer says: “As rulers of subject races, the Turks have shown themselves incapable of anything except cruelty and corruption.” “Has Turkey one whit improved in the last five centuries? No. The Porte’s diplomatists have learned to tell falsehoods with more freedom, and more unblushingly; her cruelties and oppressions are practiced more vigorously but more secretly; and she is far more steeped (her higher classes) in vice and barbarism than she was five hundred years ago.”[135]

The sultan, with an air of frankness, though compelled by the demand of the British ambassador, and with a desire to postpone immediate action, so that the indignation of the Christian world might subside, appointed a commission to make an investigation of the massacre. He depended too much on the friendly relations of the United States with Turkey, through Minister Terrell. The sultan asked the President to appoint a representative of this country; but when President Cleveland appointed Mr. Jewett, consul at Sivas, to make an independent investigation and report to our government, the sultan refused his appointment. How could he allow such an honest man as Mr. Jewett to make an independent investigation? Mr. Jewett knew the corruption of the sultan’s officers; he had some experience in the Marsovan trouble; his despatches were detained and his letters were meddled with by His Majesty’s faithful servants, who, at the head of a Turkish mob, had burned the mission school.

The sultan’s commission was composed of the Turkish officers appointed by the Sultan and the consuls of France, England and Russia, who were in Asiatic Turkey. The commission was to decide who was to be examined, and whose testimony was to be taken. The European representatives were not privileged to make an independent investigation of the matter. Such being the case it was evident what might be expected from the Commission.

In such a country as Turkey, where justice is unknown, and for a Christian to protect his property, home, and life from plunder and violence is considered a “political offense” against the State, how could Christians dare to come forth and testify against the officers and the government, to whose cruelties and murderous propensities they were again to be left, when the European representatives departed? Even if they did dare, the testimony of the Christian is worthless against the faithful followers of Mohammed, who were the defendants in the case. Hopelessness of the condition of the Armenians was manifest.

Hardly will it be necessary to say that the universal impression was that the Sultan’s investigating commission was a farce, and perilous, yet it suited the sultan and his friends. St. Petersburg (Petrograd), December 30, 1894: “The _Moscow Gazette_ pillories the Sassoun investigating Commission as a farce. It asks why the Powers do not give the Porte so many days in which to decide whether it will fulfill the Treaty of Berlin, and if an unsatisfactory answer be given, co-operate to enforce the Treaty.”

This leading journal revealed the mind of the Russians. That England could have had the support of France. That, even, if Germany had sided with Turkey (which she most probably would), she would then have been half-prepared than twenty years later, at this terrible conflict. That the Powers would have had the universal moral support of the whole civilized world, especially at that time (preceding the Balkan wars), when the Balkan nations would have been in full sympathy with the entente, to drive the Turk out of Europe.

But England’s delay of action before the massacre, for she was aware of its coming, and her hesitation and distrust of Russia after the massacre, gave ample time to the crafty Abdul Hamid to create discord among the Powers, and he thus thwarted England’s belated attempts to redress the wrong that was committed.

The following quotation from “Our Responsibility for Turkey,” by the Duke of Argyle, confirms the above facts:

“That the Powers should have consented even to allow their representatives to spend time in such attempts as those [a commission to investigate the massacre and a scheme or reform for the Armenian provinces], after the experience of half a century of the hopeless bad faith and of the cunning procrastination of the Porte, is indeed astonishing. As usual, we seem to have been the leaders in this farce. Our Foreign Office boasted from time to time that we had got all the Powers to act ‘in line,’ which was, indeed, true. But what was the line doing? It was what is called in the language of military drill ‘practicing the Goose Step’--going through the form of taking steps, but not advancing one inch towards any practical result. The whole time occupied by Lord Rosebery’s Government, after they first heard of the impending dangers--which was at least eleven months from the beginning of August, 1894, to the middle of July, 1895--was wasted in this idle and grotesque procedure. And yet there really had been some encouraging symptoms of the disposition of Russia, if we had taken earnest and immediate advantage of them. And not less really had we very early noticed of what was coming from the Turks. So early as September 10, we knew that they were actually engaging a Kurdish chief of notoriously bad character to command three regiments of Kurdish irregular cavalry, as part of the forces destined for putting down what they were pleased to call the insurrection.”

Here we also add Lord Bryce’s words which are emphatically true:

“In the field of Eastern politics generally the conspicuous result has been the failure--the complete humiliating and irretrievable failure--of the traditional policy pursued by England of supporting the Turk against Russia.”[136]

An Armenian deputation called on the late Hon. W. E. Gladstone on the occasion of his birthday (December 29, 1894). He delivered an address on the Sassoun massacre. A few paragraphs of his speech may be here reproduced:

“The history of Turkey is a sad and painful one.... I have lived to see the empire of Turkey in Europe reduced to less than one-half of what it was when I was born, and why? Simply because of its misdeeds, and the great record written by the hand of Almighty God against this _injustice, lust, and most abominable cruelty_. If, happily (I speak, hoping against hope), the reports be disproved or mitigated, let us thank God. If, on the other hand, they be established, it will more than ever stand before the world that there is a lesson, however severe it may be, that can teach certain people the duty of prudence and the necessity of observing the laws of decency, humanity, and justice.... If the facts are established, it should be written in letters of iron upon the records of the world that a government which could be guilty of countenancing and covering up such atrocities is a disgrace to Mohamet, the prophet; a disgrace to civilization at large, and a disgrace to mankind.... I have counseled you to be still and keep your judgments in suspense; but as the evidence grows the case darkens and my hopes dwindle and decline; and as long as I have voice, it will be uttered on behalf of humanity and truth.”[137]

Mr. Gladstone’s address on the Bulgarian massacre of 1876 was reprinted in the _Christian Register_, Boston, Mass., Dec. 1, 1894. I quote the following passage from it:

“There is not a criminal in a European jail, there is not a cannibal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not arise and overboil at the recital of that which has been done; which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged; which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions that produced it; and which may again spring up, in another murderous harvest, from the soil soaked and reeked with blood, and in the air, tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. _That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that a door should be left open for their ever-so-barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the whole._”

The door in Bulgaria was closed, but a wide door was left open in Armenia, and England made herself a defender of the Turk that he may do as he pleases.[138]

According to the following despatch after six or more months of dilly-dallying, the European delegates to the Commission quitted their Turkish colleagues in disgust.

Constantinople, June 10, 1895.--“The Moosh Commission closed on Friday, so far as the work of the European delegates is concerned. They were compelled to tell the Turkish delegates that they could have nothing more to do with them. From the first the attitude of the Turkish delegates has been invariably and increasingly dishonest. According to the statements of those interested in the workings of the commission, the representatives of the sultan have not manifested honor, truth, or decency. They have made no efforts to determine the cause of the outrages in Armenia.

“The rupture between the Turkish and European commissioners was caused by the refusal of the Turks, on purely farcical grounds, to hear important witnesses upon matters pertaining to the questions at issue. It was evident that the Turks were afraid that the tissue of falsehoods that they have thrown around the situation in Armenia would be broken down....”

The following is the report of the European delegates of the Commission:

“We [Wilbert, Shipley, and Pyevalsky, the French, English and Russian consuls] have, in our report, given it as our conviction, arrived at from the evidence brought before us, that the Armenians were massacred without distinction of age or sex; and indeed, for a period of some three weeks, viz.: from the 12th of August to the 4th of September (1894 O. S.), it is not too much to say that the Armenians were absolutely hunted like wild beasts, being killed wherever they were met; and if the slaughter was not greater, it was, we believe, solely owing to the vastness of the mountain ranges of that district, which enabled the people to scatter, and so facilitated their escape. In fact, and speaking with a full sense of responsibility, we are compelled to say that the conviction has forced itself upon us that it was not so much the capture of the agitator Mourad, or the suppression of a pseudo-revolt, as the _extermination, pure and simple, of the Gheligrizan and Talori districts_.”[139]

Before closing this chapter I quote one more reference to the Sassoun massacre and the work of the commission from Dr. J. Lepsius of Berlin, whose book was published in 1896, under the title of “_Armenia and Europe_.”

“Turkish Commission was appointed to inquire into occurrences which took place at Sassoun in the autumn of 1894, when in the massacre in which Turkish soldiers took part, twenty-seven Christian villages were destroyed and thousands of Armenians were murdered. Delegates from the English, French, and Russian consulates were appointed to attend the Commission. At the second sitting held at Moosh, on January 26, 1895, they made what according to European ideas of justice was the natural request that the commissioners, before inquiring into any other matter, should take evidence as to the massacre of Armenians by Turks. The commissioners (Turkish) however alleged that according to their instructions from the Porte they were only to inquire “into the criminal proceeding of the Armenian brigands,” they denied that there had been any massacre of Armenians, and rejected the request of the delegates. The commission sat from January 24 to July 21 at Moosh. Some fifteen to thirty miles from the seat of the massacre, and held one hundred and eight sittings. They declined to listen to the Christian witnesses brought forward by the delegates and would only accept the testimony of Turks, who had been carefully instructed to give such evidence as would prove that the Armenians were alone to blame. Witnesses who ventured to give evidence in favor of the Armenians atoned for their rashness by immediate imprisonment. The consular delegates at last refused to have anything more to do with this farce; they therefore went to Sassoun, and by evidence there obtained established the terrible facts and the innocence of the peaceful Armenian population.”[140]

FOOTNOTES:

[132] Genesis 14:14.

[133] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 17-24. (See fuller accounts.) Published by Putnam and Sons, N. Y. and London.

[134] _The Westminster Gazette_, December 12, 1894, reprinted in the _Armenia_, London, Jan., 1895.

[135] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 378.

[136] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 522, 4th ed.

[137] _The London Times_, Weekly Edition, Jan. 14, 1895.

[138] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 129, 130. (See the entire address quoted by Greene.)

[139] _Blue-Book_, Turkey, No. 1, 1895, p. 206.

[140] Lepsius, “Armenia and Europe,” published in Berlin, 1896. I quote from _The New Armenia_, reprinted June 15, 1916.

XV

THE MASSACRE OF 1895-6

“We must beg the reader of the following statements to remember that the Armenian massacres, in which 100,000 innocent people have perished, were directed against a peaceful and defenceless nation.--J. Lepsius.”

While the investigating commission was carrying on its work in the usual Turkish fashion, the British, French, and Russian governments drew out a scheme of reforms for Armenia and submitted it to the Porte through their ambassadors at Constantinople on May 11, 1895.

According to the press despatches the brief outline of this scheme contained the following points:

1. The appointment of a High Commissioner who is to be a Christian.

2. The governors and vice-governors of Van, Erzroum, Sivas, Bitlis, Kharput, and Trebizond be Christians or Mohammedans according to the inclination of the population; but either the governor or the vice-governor to be a Christian, and the appointments are to be confirmed by the Powers.

3. General amnesty for, and release of, all political prisoners.

4. The appointment of a Commission to sit at Constantinople, charged with the application of the reforms and working in concert with the High Commissioner.

5. Complete changes will be made in judicial system--tortures will be abolished.

6. The prisoners will be under surveillance.

7. The police will be composed of Christians and Turks equally.

8. The local and not State officials are to collect the taxes and enough money is to be retained, before it is forwarded to Constantinople, to pay the expenses of the local administration.

9. The inhabitants of Sassoun shall be paid the amount of their losses.

10. The Kurds shall be disarmed.

11. The laws against compulsory conversions to Islam will be strictly enforced.

Supposing that the above synopsis of the reforms demanded of the Porte is true--though these reforms were not officially published--the reader can easily see that the source of the Armenian trouble starts from the head of the government and runs through all its branches down to the very insignificant, yet well-armed peasant, Kurd who may happen to be a member of the Hamilieh regiment.

The evident reason also why the Powers did not wait for the report of the commission and then present their scheme of reforms was three-fold, namely, they had all the facts with regard to the massacre at Sassoun in their possession; they were aware of the dilatory manner the indolent Turk generally moves, and they would thus save time and prevent the unspeakable Turk from committing something worse. They, however, signally failed in all these. If they ever intended to accomplish anything, they indeed did not succeed, and still worse, they provoked the beast.

After a prolonged pressure had been brought to bear on the sultan by the British, French, and Russian governments he seemed to give up his opposition to their demands and in the autumn in order to pacify England--for England, to her credit, was the leading power that took real interest in the matter, realizing her greater responsibility in the case--the sultan wrote to Lord Salisbury and gave his word that the reforms should be literally and immediately carried out. Meanwhile oppressions and imprisonments were still going on as usual.

St. Paul says, “Render to all their dues....” With all sincerity and truthfulness we must say that Abdul Hamid II, the ex-Sultan of Turkey, was the shrewdest, the most wicked and most diabolical ruler that ever sat on the Ottoman throne. He was sure that there was no concert among the signatory powers. The Triple Alliance, then made up of Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, was not opposing his policy. More than this, his dear friend, the ruler and the press of Germany had suppressed the true nature of the trouble in Turkey, and had created in Germany the false impression that the Turkish government was at the point of being overthrown by the Armenians who were in revolt; that the sultan was justly trying to suppress this rebellion and maintain his divine right to rule.

Dr. J. Lepsius, from whose work--_Armenia and Europe_--we quoted in the preceding chapter, and whose words stand at the head of this chapter, is the author of the following statement: “Truth about Armenia must be made known at last. During the past nine months (1896) the German press has been flooded with statements not merely biased, but, as we shall be able to show, _false, and deliberately intended to deceive Europe_. Care has been taken that the conduct of the so-called ‘rebellious’ Armenians should be set forth in the strongest light as the cause of all the mischief, and at the same time the story of how a great Christian nation has been subjected to massacre and pillage, and how multitudes have been compelled to abjure their faith, is practically unknown in Germany.”

Thus the sultan was sure of the support of Germany. Then again, he was not quite sure whether England could hold with her the other two powers, France and Russia. So he took the traditional course pursued by his predecessors, to move slowly, so far as the reforms were concerned, but the work of the extermination of the Armenian nation must by no means be slackened; every opportunity must be seized, and if no opportunity was forthcoming, one must be devised for excuses of slaughter.

In Armenia and Asia Minor, where most of the Armenians used to live, there was and is hardly any industry. Though a rich country in mineral and agricultural products, yet on account of the absence of good roads and markets, and of robberies and misrule, all efforts toward securing a livelihood have been paralyzed. Money consequently has always been scarce. Continual demand of the government for taxes--sometimes a year in advance--the exactions of the tax-collectors and petty officials keep the Armenians in abject poverty and distress. For these reasons thousands of young men flock to Constantinople to earn money to support their families and to meet these demands.

These men have been hearing of heartrending calamities which had fallen upon their families. Some had heard of the confiscation of their properties, some of their young wives being abducted, some of their sisters being violated, and their aged parents and tender children butchered. A year had passed since the massacre at Sassoun, yet the so-called Christian powers, under whose protection the Christian subjects of the sultan were placed by the Treaty of Berlin, had apparently done nothing. But by attempting to do something and failing, they had actually aggravated their misery.

An open enemy is not as implacable as a secret foe. The Armenians may have also thought that they would, by petitioning the sultan, emphasize the pressure of the Powers for the fulfillment of the promises of reform contained in the Treaty of Berlin. Anyhow the Armenians had prepared a petition to present to the grand vizier in which their complaints and requests were set forth. The authorities were aware of the matter and had instructed the police to prevent the presentation of the petition and had prepared also a counter demonstration against the petitioners by a large number of _softas_ and Turks. On September 30th, 1895, the petitioners started towards the Sublime Porte with their petition to present it to the grand vizier. The police ordered them to disperse and the softas and Turks attacked them. The peaceful procession of the petitioners was turned into a riot, and some five or six hundred Armenians were killed, some of them were arrested and taken to prisons and were there stabbed to death.

The following letter, written by an American resident in Constantinople, who had ample opportunity to verify the facts, will suffice to show how the sultan could and did create opportunities to slaughter the Christians:

“It was very astonishing that the Turks were so foolish as to resist the efforts of the Armenians to present their petition to the sublime Porte. It was contrary to the usage of the country to do so, and could only be explained as a wilful act of hostility to the Armenians; unless the Armenians had broken the peace before the Turks attacked them--which is denied. When the grand vizier, Said Pasha, told the sultan that the demonstration was to take place and asked for his will, the sultan committed the matter to the grand vizier and the minister of the interior to arrange together, giving them full powers. They decided to allow the petitioners to present their grievances, merely taking the precaution to have troops in the neighborhood, out of sight, but so posted as to prevent any surprise in case the Armenians should prove to be riotous. All was ready, and the Grand Vizier was just setting out for the Porte to receive the Armenians, when he was informed by the sultan that he (the sultan) had decided against the demonstration, and had already ordered his troops to resist and disperse any groups of Armenians that might appear. So the whole responsibility for the carnage falls upon the foolish (wicked) decision to override the plans of the ministers.”

If in the capital of the empire, in the presence of the ambassadors of the Powers who were demanding the protection of the Christians from cruelty and oppression, such a barbarism can be permitted, what could prevent the bloodthirsty wretch from inaugurating a general slaughter of the defenseless Armenians throughout his dominions? Thus this terrible occurrence on the 30th of September, of 1895, was the signal for hundreds of other massacres which followed one after the other, not only in the provinces where the reforms were expected to make the people happy, but throughout the empire. And not only over one hundred thousand Christians were in the most frightful manner slaughtered and burnt, but two or three times as many more were left in such destitution, that they had to choose between starvation and apostasy. “Over the most fruitful provinces of the Turkish Empire, a country as large as Germany a stream of blood and desolation was poured forth which was intended to destroy a whole Christian people.... There can be no doubt that the Turks enjoyed the work of massacre, and carried it out with admirable exactness, according to a previously arranged programme, with processions, blowing of trumpets, and prayers from the mullahs, who from the highest minarets invoked the blessing of Allah on the butchery.”[141]

According to press reports, the scheme of reforms submitted by Great Britain, France, and Russia to the Turkish government on the 11th of May, 1895, was signed in due form and on the 17th of October, 1895, handed over to the ambassadors of the powers. Before this, however, the general massacres had begun.

The massacres took place in the following places and times:

Constantinople Sept. 30, 1895 500
Trebizond Oct. 8, 1895 1,100
Ak Hissar Oct. 9, 1895 45
Gumush Khana Oct. 11, 1895 350
Baiburt Oct. 13, 1895 800
Erzingian Oct. 21, 1895 2,000
Bitlis Oct. 26, 1895 3,000
Palu Oct. 25, 1895 650
Diarbikir Oct. 25, 1895 3,000
Kara Hissar Oct. 25, 1895 800
Ersorum Oct. 30, 1895 1,500
Boulouik and Khnus Oct. 30, 1895 700
Tomzara Oct. 28 and Nov. 8, 1895 700
Malatia Nov. 6, 1895 5,000
Arabkir Nov. 6, 1895 4,000
Harput[142] Nov. 11, 1895 2,000
Gurin Nov. 10, 1895 2,000
Sivas Nov. 12, 1895 1,500
Moosh Nov. 15, 1895 350
Marsovan Nov. 15, 1895 125
Aintab Nov. 15, 1895 400
Marash Nov. 18, 1895 1,000
Zilleh Nov. 26, 1895 300
Cæsarea Nov. 30, 1895 400
Urfa Oct. 28 and Dec.
28-29, 1985 10,000
Biredjik Jan. 1, 1896 900
Van }
Niksar } June, 1896 20,000
Eghin }
Constantinople Aug. 26-27, 1896 10,000

The number of persons killed, about 100,000
The number of houses and shops burnt 12,000
The number of houses plundered 47,000
The persons forced to accept Mohammedanism 40,000
The number of persons left destitute 400,000[143]

It should not be considered that the number given as killed are exact, for some of those reports have gone through the Ambassadors’ revisions, and some places where massacres have taken place have never been noticed, because there was no foreigner, and no native that was able to report was left alive.

“From that date (October 8, 1895) until the end of the year the wave of massacre swept over the six eastern provinces, engulfing the villages, towns, and cities where Armenians lived; innumerable houses, and schools, and churches were burned, a vast amount of property was stolen or destroyed, a great number of women and girls were carried off by Turks and Kurds, multitudes of people were forced to accept the Mohammedan religion, 100,000 Armenian men and boys were slain, and 500,000 Armenian women and children were reduced to beggary. Everywhere it was understood by the Mohammedan population that they were authorized by order from Constantinople, to kill all Armenian men and boys and seize their property. In many places soldiers and officers joined with the mob and shared the plunder. _The massacres were perpetrated in contempt and defiance of Europe_; they were an expression of Turkish wrath and vengeance; they were in short, an attempt to end the Armenian question by the destruction of the Armenians. Europe raised the hope of the Christian population of Turkey, and Europe left them to their fate.”[144]

We had the pleasure, before, of quoting from the work of Dr. J. Lepsius of Berlin, “_Armenia and Europe_.” We are tempted to quote more for a few reasons: First, because he so fearlessly exposed the studied efforts of the official press of Germany to mislead the people with regard to the true nature of the condition of the Armenians who were massacred for their Christian faith, even though it was made to appear that the Turkish government was endeavoring to suppress a revolution which did not exist. Second, because of his courageous exposition of the criminal indifference of Europe to abandon the defenseless Armenians to the ruthless and barbarous tendencies of the Turks. Third, because of his faithfully exposing and showing the true nature of the followers of Mohammed, the absurdity, falsehood, and deviltry of the Turkish government’s excuse of putting down a revolt.

“The Turkish people, equipped and armed by the authorities, were delighted to take their share in the work of murder side by side with the military, the Radifs (Eeserves), the Zaptiehs (Gendarmes), and the lately formed Kurdish Irregulars, called the Hamidieh-Regiment after the reigning sultan. Every one was in the best humor.... A savage and murderous spirit took possession of the people. And what else could be expected? Here an officer urged them on with the cry, ‘Down with the Armenians, it is the sultan’s will!’ Here a Vali exhorted them to ‘Look sharp! Kill! Plunder! and pray for the sultan!’ What inducement had they to cease from murder or from prey! The reward of piety lay before their eyes, for all that they could seize and carry away was to be their own.... The monotonous work of dragging hundreds of defenceless Armenians out of their homes and hiding-places merely to behead, stab, throttle, hang, or beat them, soon palled. The merry mob wanted variety. Simple murder became dull, and the business must now be made more amusing. How would it do to light a fire and roast the wounded at it? To gibbet a few head-downwards? Drive nails into others? Or tie fifty of them together and fire into the coil?... Putting out eyes and cutting off ears and noses was a special accomplishment. Christian priests who refused to become Mohammedans were considered particularly worthy of this fate.... Petroleum and kerosene were at hand. It is true that the authorities intended them to be used only for the purpose of burning down houses and destroying grain. But why not put them to other and more useful purposes?