Chapter XX: Camps of Refuge, 1915-17 332 (9)

Still worse than the above incidents was the Balkan war between Turkey on one side and the Balkan States and Greece on the other side. The Balkan allies were Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenigro. The causes of this war were just the same: the Turkish oppression and massacres, and the ineffectual meddling of the European powers. “Macedonia was ceded by Turkey to Bulgaria in 1878 pursuant to the Treaty of San Stefano, but the Congress of Berlin in the same year revised (substituted) this treaty through the insistence of Great Britain and Austria, and restored the province to Turkey. In article XXIII of the Treaty of Berlin, the signatory powers bound themselves to establish an organic law providing for good government in Macedonia and to see that it was applied. During thirty-four years that followed, this promise was unfulfilled, despite the frequent complaints of the Christian peoples--Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs--of Turkish misgovernment and atrocities.”[155]

It is the same old story. The Great Powers who made the treaty, article by article, and signed the instrument, then turned and left the Turks to do the rest. That “rest” was for them to go on as usual until the four Balkan states formed an alliance and declared war against Turkey in October of 1912.

The war was fortunately of short duration, but it was the most decisive and humiliating defeat that the Turks had received for a long time. Macedonia was freed from the bloody reign of the Turks, who for nearly five hundred years had held that beautiful country under their iron heel. Nearly two millions of people, three-fourths of whom were Christians, were emancipated from a worse form of slavery. The defeat of the Turkish armies was not due to lack of courage of the Ottoman soldiers. It was solely due to the Turkish unpreparedness, their lack of organization and arrangements for food supply for the army, and to the inferiority of the Turkish artillery. The non-Moslem soldiers for the first time fought alongside of the Moslem soldiers. “The bravery and loyalty of the Armenian soldiers in the Turco-Balkan war were commended by Nazim Pasha, then minister of war.” This Turco-Balkan war ended in May, 1913.

As the consequence of this war, many Mohammedans from Macedonia left their homes, unwilling to become subjects of their former “slaves.” They crowded into Constantinople and other places. The Young Turks tried to settle these refugees in Asiatic provinces of the empire where the Armenian populations made the majority. The object of the Young Turkey government was to reduce the Armenian majority so as to prevent them from asking or expecting any local reforms. The Armenians protested through their representative--the patriarch and the national council.

The second Balkan war, in July, 1913, was a very sad one. This war was between Bulgaria and her former allies, Turkey and Rumania. This war was occasioned by the unwillingness of the victors in the former war, to settle the division of the conquered territory by mutual concessions.

These successive reverses of the Young Turks, who so easily overthrew the despotic reign of Abdul Hamid, must have filled their enemies at home with indignation against and contempt for them. Well may they have said: “Less than half a dozen years, but thousands of square miles of land and millions of peoples have been lost to the empire both in Europe and Africa; and if these fools will rule a little longer the whole empire will be lost.” So shall it be. They made their best friends abroad, their enemies by their wicked deeds. Their new friends abroad were anxious to help them in order to be helped by them. Who can doubt that the Young Turks, the present rulers of the Ottoman empire, longed for an opportunity to receive the approval of the fanatics at home and gladden the hearts of their new friends abroad?

The opportunity came. The European war broke out. Even before the war the Turkish rulers had planned a policy of unifying and Turkifying the Moslem State. Their experiences with the Balkan nations had taught a lesson that they would not soon forget. But they did not start their work at once when the war began. They had another scheme or use for the Armenians.

“Before declaring war upon Russia, the Government of the Young Turks which had long ago decided upon this course, sought to have the Armenians instigate a revolt among their co-nationalists in the Russian provinces of the Caucasus. This suggestion was presented to the Armenians at the very opening of the war by a deputation composed of Nadji Bey, Boukar-Eddin-Shakri Bey, and Hilmi Bey. Some Armenian notables were assembled in Erzerum to exchange views concerning the European war and its effects upon the interests of Armenia. The deputation from the government in Constantinople visited the assembly and revealed unreservedly the reason of their visit. It declared that Enver Pasha and his colleagues were ready to declare war upon Russia and expected from the Armenians invaluable assistance. The Armenians were requested to form volunteer legions that, with the Turkish propagandists, should cross the Russian frontier, and incite the population of the Caucasus to revolt. Nadji Bey was so sure of the success of the proposition that he had brought with him to Erzerum twenty-seven Persian, Turkish, and Circassian propagandists who with the assistance of Armenian volunteers would foment disaffection in the Caucasus.

“Nadji Bey spoke in a tone of perfect cordiality and confidence. He described in glowing terms the compensation that would accrue to the Armenians if their services, solicited by him, were forthcoming. He endeavored to persuade the Armenians that a revolution in the Caucasus was inevitable.[156] After having contributed to the victory, the Armenians would be granted autonomy, under the protection of Turkey, thus reuniting all their dispersed compatriots on both sides of the frontier. Enver Pasha’s delegates were ready to remake the map of the Caucasus by a single stroke of the pen. The Georgians and the Tartars were allotted their share of the territory, and the Armenians would receive Kars, the province of Erivan, Van, and Bitlis. But the Armenians categorically refused these attractive propositions and entrusted Nadji Bey with their advice to Enver Pasha not to become embroiled in the European catastrophe, as it would lead to the downfall of Turkey.

“‘This is treason,’ exclaimed Bouka-Eddin-Shakri Bey. ‘You refuse to succor the Empire, forgetting that you enjoy its hospitality.’

“Notwithstanding the violent objurgations, the Armenians stood firm in their refusal.

“However, these emissaries of the Young Turks still hoped to convert the Armenians to their views, and a few weeks later, on the eve of the declaration of war upon Russia, they convoked the assemblies of notables in all the vilayets, and once more presented their suggestions--this time considerably modified. They no longer demanded that the Armenians take the initiative of an uprising in the Caucasus, but merely endeavored to convince them of the imminence of a revolution and of the advisability of their joining in it. For the second time the Armenians remained imperturbable in their refusal.

“Finally war was declared between Russia and Turkey. Would the Armenians shirk performing their military duty? Not at all. They answered the call, reporting at the mobilization stations.”[157]

The Armenians’ reform movement in 1912-3, under the presidency of Boghos Nubar Pasha, who was appointed by the Catholicos, was a peaceful effort to solicit the signatories of Berlin Treaty (1878) to induce the Turkish government to put into execution the reforms guaranteed in that treaty for Armenia.

After the consent of all the Powers was obtained, then “the Russian draft [of reforms] was revised by the ambassadors of the Powers at Constantinople, accepted with modifications, by the Young Turkish Government, and actually promulgated by them on the 8th of February, 1914.”[158]

Could such a peaceful procedure have offered the Young Turks an excuse of provocation for their atrocities committed in the following year?

FOOTNOTES:

[153] October, 1908.

[154] On the 8th of Oct., 1908.

[155] The New International Year Book for the Year 1912, p. 734. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

[156] Expected by the _Holy War_ that was to be declared by Sheikh-ul-Islam; as it has been done since Turkey joined the Central Powers.

[157] The “Martyrdom of Armenia,” by Paul Perrin, in _The New Armenia_, May 15, 1916, New York.

[158] “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16,” Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce, p. 635, London.

XVIII

THE MASSACRES OF 1915-16

There were two things which induced the Young Turks to declare war on the Allies in the latter part of October, 1914. They were positive of a victory as the early events of the war and agents of the Teutonic alliance easily could, and did, persuade them. The assurance of conquests and would-be acquisition of territories, which would restore to the Young Turkish government its lost prestige both at home and abroad. But their dreams were not speedily realized, and probably never will be.

The real reasons, however, for the beginning of the massacres at this time were the opportune moment, the European war; the carrying out a former well-laid policy of a unified and Turkified State; the diversion of the attention of the Moslem populace from failures and mistakes of the Young Turks, and the congeniality of the work of plunder and murder which very few followers of Mohammed would refuse to enjoy. They delight to see Christians and Christianity trampled under their feet. Thus the Young Turks, the rulers of Turkey, gave the greatest pleasure to a large number of Mohammedans by assigning to them the work of annihilation of the oldest Christian nation in the empire.

The sufferings of the Armenians began right after the declaration of war--or rather simultaneously with it. All the males between the ages of twenty and forty-five, and soon those of eighteen to fifty, were called to arms. Some paid commutation in place of enrolment, and others who had passed the age of military training before the ratification of the new military service law of 1908, as were entitled to exemption, as long as they paid the annual commutation tax. Yet these also were drafted in violation of their rights. However, they were not left in the army very long, but were deprived of their arms by order of the government, and put into groups of laborers to work on the roads. A “gang of unscrupulous ruffians,” had control of the Turkish government, but whether they had not quite matured their plans, or whether they were in consultation with their foreign advisers, or whether they hesitated to put their plans into action, they waited until the spring.

The massacres began in the spring of 1915, but even before massacres immediately after the declaration of war, the Turkish government also proclaimed “a holy war”--_jehad_. In the fewest words, a holy war is this: Ever since the reign of Sultan Selim I,[159] the Sultans of Turkey claimed a lawful successorship to the Caliphs of Baghdad and the Sultans of Egypt. The Sultan of Turkey is the head of Islam and the defender thereof. Whenever, therefore, the Mohammedan faith is in danger, the Sultan, the pretended successor of Mohammed, theoretically has the power to call upon the faithful throughout the world to rise in arms against the enemies of their religion.

The Turkish government was induced by her allies not only to enter this terrible conflict, but also to proclaim this holy war. The object of the latter was to rouse the passions of the Mohammedans throughout the world against those powers which were fighting the Turco-Teutonic alliance, with the hope of creating disastrous revolts in British, French, and Russian possessions, where about 150,000,000 Mohammedan subjects were peacefully living. The following exultant announcement was made from Berlin by the German government, on November 20th, 1914:

“From all sections of Egypt come reports of enthusiastic manifestations in favor of a holy war. The Sheikh-ul-Islam has communicated with a majority of the Mohammedan princes of Asia and Africa, who declare they will assist Turkey in a war against England.”[160]

We are glad to say that, as is now well known, this project completely failed in those countries where it would have done the most harm, but it had its dire consequences in Persia. Immediately after their declaration of war on the Allies the Turks took the offensive on a large scale. One army invaded the Russian territory, and another crossed the Persian frontier and entered the province of Azerbaijan. In this province were many Syrians (Nestorians) and Armenians, who were living in villages and towns. These Syrian Christians--like the Armenians--have suffered many vicissitudes, including massacres by the hands of the Turks and Kurds. But the Turkish invasion and short occupation of this province in winter and early spring brought new horrors upon the Christian inhabitants both Armenians and Syrians.

The moment hostilities broke out, the Turco-Kurdish soldiery began to indulge itself in atrocities. The Persian province of Azerbaijan contains a large population of Syriac Christians, and the suffering of these people at the hands of the invading hordes are described with terrible detail in letters from German missionaries[161] resident among them, letters which were published on October 18 (1915), in the Dutch newspaper _de Neimve Rotterdamshe Courant_. From the contents of these letters we select the following:

“The latest news is that 4000 Syrians and one hundred Armenians have died of disease alone, at the missions, within the last few months. All villages in the surrounding districts, with two or three exceptions, have been plundered and burnt, 20,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Ourmia and its environs. Many churches have been destroyed and burnt, and also many houses in the town....”

And here is a description from another letter:

“In Hoftewan and Solast 850 corpses, without heads, have been recovered from the wells and cisterns alone. Why? _Because the commanding officer had put a price on every Christian head._ In Hoftewan alone more than 500 women and girls were delivered to the Kurds at Sandjbulak. One can imagine the fate of these unfortunate creatures. In Diliman crowds of Christians were thrown into prison and compelled to accept Islam. The men were circumcised. Gulpardjin, the richest village in the Ourmia province, has been razed to the ground. The men were slain, the good-looking women and girls carried away. The same in Babaru. Hundreds of women jumped into the deep river, when they saw how many of their sisters were violated by the bands of brigands, in broad daylight, in the middle of the road. So also at Miandoab in the Suldus district.”[162]

Dr. Sargis, an Armenian by nationality, a Persian by birth, and an American citizen by choice, was doing medical missionary work in Persia. He has recently returned by way of Russia. He stated, that in the city of Urumia alone, ten thousand copies of the proclamation of the “holy war” were received and distributed among the Mohammedans. Dr. Sargis further stated in an interview[163] as follows:

“Followers of Mohammed have been expecting a ‘holy war’ for ages. They have been taught to expect the coming of Mehdi, their Messiah, and the spread of Mohammed rule over the earth. Now they are preaching in their mosques that Emperor William of Germany is Mehdi.” He further stated that German soldiers foster this fanaticism, until the Mohammedan has the idea that the kaiser and all Germany have been converted to Islam. Officers of German army wear bands on their arms with the creed of Islam--‘There is only one God and Mohammed is His prophet.’ At Ispahan the German officers enter the mosque and say Mohammedan prayers. The massacres in Urumia began a year ago, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops. The Russians had been gone only five hours when the murder and plunder began. Of the 113 Christian villages in Persia, not one escaped.

“In Ada was an Armenian merchant, Havil by name.... Havil was shot down in the street, both legs broken and he lay helpless until he died. Death didn’t come soon enough, however, to prevent him seeing his eight-year-old daughter captured by the fanatic Kurds and outraged before his eyes. That happened on January 3, 1915.

“In the town of Kousi was a very old Christian church. The fanatics entered it, took the Bible from the pulpit, tore out its pages and carpeted the floor with them. Here they led hundreds of girls and women--many of whom never left the building.

“At Gulpashan, seventy-nine men were tied hand to hand and killed. Not one girl in the village escaped. The Turkish officers entered one home and carried off several girls, who were weeping around the body of their brother, a victim of the massacre.

“At a house in Urumia, where I was called to treat an army officer, I found a girl. She told me she had been brought there from a nearby Armenian village, which had been raided. Then days before the massacre she had been married, and she saw her husband killed before her eyes. She was taken to the city and held there by three officers. I got them to release her, but she died--she had suffered too much.

“A Turkish soldier killed a young Armenian at Garojaln and carried off his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. In leaving the city, the soldiers had to cross a bridge spanning the river. The soldiers dropped the two children into the river, one on either side of the bridge, and led the mother away captive.

“There was a Catholic priest, Yahmaruvi, who had endeared himself to the people of the village. He acted as peacemaker in the quarrels between the Armenians and the Mohammedans. All Christians in the village were slaughtered but this priest. The soldiers came and told him if he became a priest of Islam they would let him live, because even the Mohammedans in the village loved him. They tried to get the old priest to repeat their creed. He started with them: ‘There is only one God--and Jesus Christ, His son, is my Saviour,’ the priest uttered at the end. They cut off his head....”

A doctor by name Shimmon was educated in this country and naturally became a citizen. Of him Dr. Sargis said: “They tried to get him to renounce Christianity. When he refused, they poured oil on his body and set fire to him.”

Dr. W. S. Vanneman, the head of the mission hospital at Tabris, Persia, wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, N. Y. City, under date of March 14, 1915:

“About ten days ago the Kurds in Salmas, with the permission of the Turkish troops, gathered all the Nestorian and Armenian men remaining there, it is reported, about eight hundred. Four hundred were sent to Khosrova and four hundred to Haft Dewan under the pretense of giving them bread. They were held a few days and then tortured and massacred. Many women and children were taken away and ill-treated. This happened a day or two before the advancing Russian army took Salmas.

“We are very anxious about Urumia. A letter dated March 1st from Dr. Shedd came through two days ago. He said things were getting worse. Gulpashan, which hitherto had not been disturbed, had been plundered and ruined. I think this was the only village which remained. Fifty-one of the most prominent men of this village were taken out and shot. The women and girls were violated. This was done by the Turkish soldiers.

“Forty men had been taken from the Roman Catholic mission in Urumia city, kept prisoners a few days, then shot.”

Under date of March 21, Doctor Vanneman wrote:

“We are more anxious than ever about Urumia. On March 17th, Turkish troops attacked our mission and the Roman Catholic mission and took five native Russian priests from our compound and treated them badly. We do not know yet if they were killed. Mr. Allen was also treated badly because he had sent out three messengers away from Urumia.

“Some native Christian preachers have been crucified and some burned....”

The testimonies of the German and American missionaries confirm and supplement one another, and show the fearful results of the holy war. For the Persian Armenians and Nestorians--Persia itself--had nothing to do with Turkey. But the object of the Young Turks and their allies was to arouse the Mohammedans of Persia--the only Mohammedan power besides Turkey--against Russia, and Turks and Tatars in Transcaucasia, and that thus they might spread the fire of the holy war. But they have signally failed in the main.

When the Turkish army had to retreat from Persia before the advancing Russians and fell back into Armenia proper in Turkish territory, they let loose the demons--the Turkish regular and Kurdish irregular troops upon the Armenian population. Their barbarities, outrages, mutilations, murders, the devastations of numerous Armenian villages, by the sword and fire, are beyond the possibility of description. The few that could escape came to Van and told the people of the horrors they witnessed and passed through.

The Armenians of Van knew that the same fate would soon come to them. What should they do? Be loyal, submissive, passive, be butchered by the Turkish soldiers and by their inveterate enemies, the Kurds? Or should they make an attempt of self-defense, and let it cost the Turks and Kurds something more than the mere time, labor and ammunition to massacre the Armenians of Van? And that even if they should be declared rebels against the lawful authorities by the Prussian and Turkish officials? They decided upon the latter. And they did not decide too soon either. For on the 20th of April, Jevdet Bey, the governor of Van, and the Turkish soldiers commenced an attack on the city. The Armenians armed themselves as best they could, and making such barricades and defenses as time and materials could permit, they stood a siege of twenty-seven days--only about 1500 defenders against 5000 assailants well equipped with artillery. The Turks and Kurds on hearing of a Russian force approaching left them and fled southward. On the 17th of May, the Russians occupied Van.

This is one of only two instances where the Armenians disappointed the Turkish government and her Teutonic and Kurdish allies, and deprived them of the pleasure of massacring the Christians. No wonder that in the face of such instances Count Ernst von Reventlow resented the American protest against Turkish massacres of the Armenians. We reproduce only one paragraph from Reventlow’s article:[164]

“Indeed, the Turkish empire has been long enough compelled to allow all powers who would destroy and rob her have their say in her affairs. To-day the time for this is past. It will be past for ever, so soon as the German empire takes up determinedly the standpoint that the question as to what it intends to do with the bloodthirsty Armenians is one that concerns her Turkish ally alone.”

Resuming our doleful narrative in this Section, we regret to say that the first occupation of Van by the Russians was not the last. For towards the end of July, the Turks, being strongly reinforced, took the offensive and succeeded in occupying Van. Although the Turkish offensive and occupation of Van lasted only a short time--about three weeks--yet within that time they exterminated all the Armenians behind their lines, and in the country through which they marched. The retiring Russians, however, contested stubbornly every mile of ground, and gained time for the Armenians to escape the country, while the Russians fought rear-guard actions and held back the Turks and Kurds from cutting the line of retreat of the Armenian refugees. The sufferings of those panic-stricken people were terrible. One of the German missionaries, in Persia, wrote:

“On the road, I found four little children. The mother sat on the ground, her back resting against a wall. The hollow-eyed children ran up to me, stretching out their hands and crying ‘Bread! Bread!’ When I came closer to the mother, I saw that she was dying.”

Here is a brief description of the whole scene:

“I wonder if it is possible to witness a more agonizing sight than the present one. Human beings are dying in hundreds from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, and the means for relieving the distress are very scanty. There is absolutely no possibility of even buying bread. The first contingent of refugees has already reached this place (Igdir). Owing to congestion on the roads, the human tide had to be broken up into two channels; about 100,000 walked through the plain of Abagha, their rear being guarded by the Russian army under General N. and the Armenian regiments under Andrianig and Dero; another 50,000 from the city of Van were diverted into Persia, their rear being defended by the mounted regiments of Keri and Hamazasp. Bloody rear-guard actions are being fought to stem the Turks and Kurds, who are pressing forward in order to cut the line of retreat of the Armenians.”

We will at present leave these suffering thousands in the hands of their sympathizing friends, the Russians, and the Russian Armenians, and return to Armenia to see the condition of those who could not flee the country.

The news of what was taking place behind the Turkish army lines reached the _Novaye Vryemya_ of Petrograd on July 22d.

“The Turkish atrocities in the district of Bitlis are indescribable. After having massacred the whole male population of this district, the Turks collected 9000 women and children from the surrounding villages, and drove them in upon Bitlis. Two days later they marched them out to the bank of the Tigris, shot them all, and threw the 9000 corpses into the river.

“On the Euphrates, the Turks have cut down more than 1000 Armenians, throwing their bodies into the river. At the same time, four battalions were ordered to march upon the valley of Moosh to finish with the 12,000 Armenians inhabiting this valley. According to the latest information, the massacre has already begun.... All the Armenians in the Diarbekir region will likewise be massacred.”

Here is another instance of suppressing the Armenian rebellion. The detailed news was published on September 4th, by the Armenian journal, _Gotchnag_ of New York:

“Incredible news comes in about the massacres at Bitlis. In one village 1000 Armenians--men, women, and children--have been crowded into a wooden house, and the house set on fire. In another large village of the district, only thirty-six people have escaped the massacre. In another, they roped together men and women by dozens, and threw them into the Lake of Van. A young Armenian of Bitlis, who was in the army, and who, after being disarmed and employed on road-making, succeeded in escaping and reaching Van, related that the ex-vali of Van, Djevdet Bey, has had males between the ages of fifteen and forty massacred at Bitlis. He has had their families deported in the direction of Sert, but has kept with him all the prettiest girls. Bitlis is now occupied _by tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish mouhadjirs_ (refugees).”

The condition of affairs in northwestern and western Armenia and in the provinces of Asia Minor was not any better. It was, in fact, a great deal worse. Because there was no Russian army to protect them, or in case of danger, to take them into a friendly country, no matter with what terrible hardships they may get there. They were absolutely helpless and completely at the mercy of the ruthless cruelty of the Turkish officials and mobs.

In April, the central government, from Constantinople, sent orders to the local authorities in Armenia and Asia Minor to the effect that the Armenians having been found to be a great danger to the security of the state, they should be severely suppressed in advance in order that they might be made harmless, and the empire might be safe. Most of the local authorities at once understood what the orders meant, and were not slow to undertake the work. The orders were carried out in the following manner:

On an appointed day, the governor of a town or city, whichever it might happen to be, summoned all able bodied men of Armenian race to present themselves either in a government building or some such designated place. A sufficient number of police and gendarmes are on hand to see that this demand is obeyed by all. If any Armenian has the audacity to disobey, he is dragged there by force. Then these men were led into a lonely spot and were disposed of. The gendarmes or the police who did the work of execution returned into the town. If the number was too large to take them all at once, the process was repeated until all the work was done in the same manner.

Following is the description of one of scores of its kind:

“In the town of Agantz a list of those to be executed was sent to the local governor, and 2500 (men) were summoned to appear at the governor’s house and listen to the reading of a proclamation. The natives knew the meaning of the order, and many of them ignored it. They were later dragged to prison by gendarmes and held for execution.

“It is conservatively estimated that 2500 listed men were held in prison here. They were taken out in groups of fifty, led to a trench and there shot down. The fifty dead were tossed to one side, a fresh group of fifty led to the trench. This tremendous execution was continued until the entire 2500 men were massacred.”

One more instance:

“... One night towards the end of June (1915), suddenly, without any warning, the houses of most of all of the Armenians who still remained in the city were forcibly entered by the police and gendarmes. The men were arrested and held as prisoners in the soldiers’ barracks at one side of the city. Their whole number amounted to 1213.[165] Two more of our leading Armenian professors were arrested on this occasion....” These men “were told that they were to be sent away into exile at Mosul, in the deserts of Mesopotamia, six or seven hundred miles away.... These 1213 men, after being held for a few days, were bound together in small groups of five or six men each, and sent off at night in companies of from fifty to one hundred fifty under the escort of gendarmes. Some fifteen miles from the city they were set upon by the gendarmes and by bondsmen called _chettes_ and cruelly murdered with axes.... One of the gendarmes who helped drive away these 1213 men boasted to our French teacher that he had killed fifty Armenians with his own hands, and had obtained from them 150 Turkish Pounds. The chief of police at ---- stated that none of these 1213 men remained alive. Our Consular Agent visited the place of this slaughter early in August, and brought back with him Turkish ‘_Nufus tezkereses_,’ identification papers, taken from the bodies of the victims. I personally saw these papers. They were all besmeared with blood.”

There is no need to tell the same monotonous tale of most fiendish murders which took place all over Armenia and Asia Minor wherever the Armenians were found; and the local authorities with scrupulous exactness obeyed the behests of their superiors, the arch fiends at Constantinople. Some of our Prussian friends, in spite of all, still say: “If the Porte deems it necessary that the Armenian rebellions and other riotous proceedings be repressed with all available means, so that a repetition becomes impossible, such actions are not to be designated either as murders or as atrocities. They are simply justifiable and necessary measures....”

Woe to the men, women and children of the Armenian race, that have been judged and dealt with by the Prussian sense of justice! The Belgians in the West, the Armenians in the East were treated by the same Prussian sense of justice.

Here is another instance of the “bloodthirsty Armenian rebellions” whose suppression is “simply justifiable and necessary,” as Count Ernst von Reventlow says:

“To give one instance of the thorough and remorseless way in which the massacres were carried out, it may suffice to refer to the case of Trebizond, a case vouched for by the Italian Consul, who was present when the slaughter was carried out, his country not having then declared war against Turkey. Orders came from Constantinople that all the Armenian Christians in Trebizond were to be killed. Many of the Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbors, and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable. Obeying the orders which they had received, they hunted out all the Christians, gathered them together, and drove a great crowd of them down the streets of Trebizond, past the fortress, to the edge of the sea. There they were all put on board sailing boats, carried out some distance on the Black Sea, and there thrown overboard and drowned. Nearly the whole Armenian population of from 8000 to 10,000 were destroyed--some in this way, some by slaughter, some being sent to death elsewhere.”[166]

Allowing that, at the least there were 1,500,000 Armenians in the Turkish empire in the autumn of 1914, the government could draw out at least 100,000 soldiers--most probably she did draw twice as many. These soldiers could and gladly would render excellent service to the empire. Their loyalty has not been suspected, neither has their fidelity been in question. What a criminal folly to disarm them, what an unpardonable sin, and a suicidal act to massacre them. But that is what the Young Turks did. They are trying to get rid of the Christian population of Turkey by the sword and fire on the one hand, on the other hand, they were letting the Germans take charge and have control of the army and navy and make the Turkish government a German vassalage; and yet they say they are going to “have Turkey for the Turks.”

The following is from the pen of Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, who tells us what the Armenian ex-soldiers were doing and how they were treated by the government which they were serving:

“In the autumn of 1914, the Turks began to mobilize Christians as well as Moslems for the army. For six months, in every part of Turkey they called upon the Armenians for military service. Exemption money was accepted for those who could pay. A few weeks later the exemption certificates were disregarded, and their holders enrolled. The younger classes of Armenians, who did not live too far from Constantinople, were placed, as in the Balkan wars, in the active army. The older ones, and all the Armenians enrolled in the more distant region, were utilized for road, railway, and fortification building. Wherever they were called, and to whatever task they were put, the Armenians did their duty and worked for the defense of Turkey. _They proved themselves brave soldiers and intelligent and industrious laborers._...

“... In order to prevent the possibility of trouble from Armenians mobilized for railway and road construction, they were divided into companies of from three to five hundred, and put to work at intervals of several miles. Regiments of the Turkish regular army were sent ‘to put down the Armenian revolution,’ and came suddenly upon the little groups of workers plying pickaxe, crowbar, and shovel. The ‘rebels’ were riddled with bullets before they knew what was happening. The few who managed to flee were followed by mounted men, and shot or sabred.

“Telegrams began to pour in upon Talaat Bey at Constantinople, announcing that here, there, and everywhere Armenian uprisings had been put down, and telegrams were returned, congratulating the local officials upon the success of their prompt measures. To neutral newspaper men at Constantinople, to neutral diplomats, who had heard vaguely of a recurrence of Armenian massacres, this telegraphic correspondence was shown as proof that an imminent danger had been averted. ‘We have not been cruel, but we admit having been severe,’ declared Talaat Bey. ‘This is war time.’”[167]

FOOTNOTES:

[159] See the footnote on p. 129.

[160] See _The North American_ (Phila.), Mar. 8, 1915.

[161] Members of the “Deutsch Orient-Mission.”

[162] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 85-86. Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London and New York.

[163] This interview was published in _The North American_, Phila., Feb. 14, 1916.

[164] Von Reventlow’s article was published in the _Deutsche Tages Zeitung_, reported in the Dailies. I quote from the _North American_, Oct. 15, 1915.

[165] The Armenian population of this city was 12,000, but all the males between 18 and 50 were drafted into the army and taken away before this.

[166] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 10-11. This quotation is from Lord Bryce’s report, published by Hodder and Stoughton.

[167] Gibbons, “The Blackest Page of Modern History,” pp. 17, 18, 21, 23, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1916.

XIX

THE DEPORTATIONS

The second act was far more diabolical and hellish than the first, because it was not an instant death by shooting or knocking on the head with an axe, or sabring, or throwing boat-loads of human beings into the sea. _It was death by starvation, by rape, by disease and by a slavery far worse than all._ By what process was this to be accomplished? By deportation.

By the help of the _sultan_, who marshaled his hosts against Heaven, of whom John Milton wrote centuries ago, the arch fiends at Constantinople hatched out this plan of deportation of the entire Armenian population to Mesopotamia, a distance of from 300 to 700 miles away from the Armenian communities. Orders came from the central government at Constantinople to the local authorities in the provinces of Asia Minor and Armenia. “These orders were explicit and detailed. No hamlet was too insignificant to be missed. The news was given by town criers that _every_ Armenian was to be ready to leave at a certain hour for an unknown destination. There were no exceptions for the aged, the ill, the women in pregnancy. Only rich merchants and bankers and good-looking women and girls were allowed to escape by professing Islam; and let it be said to their everlasting honor that few availed themselves of this means of escape.”

There were several reasons for the scheme of deportation: one of them was the helpless women, children, the ill and the aged men were still menacing the safety of the empire! Another, and the most fundamental reason was the government’s determination to get rid of the Armenians so as to get rid of the Armenian question once for all. Still another reason was that the homes of the Armenians were wanted in advance. The Moslem refugees from Macedonia must be settled in the provinces which were occupied by the Armenians. Another reason was to show how the association of the Turk with the highly cultured and civilized nation, the German, had mollified the brutal heart of the Turk, who did not, and would not massacre the defenseless women, children, the ill, the aged men--for such stories are “fabrications!”

We reproduce a few instances of these stories which the Turkish Ambassador--it may be the German too--declares are “fabrications, no women and children have been killed.”

“We are shocked at the cruelties perpetrated in these massacres. Trenchant pens have portrayed the horrors. Even some Germans have been found to denounce these massacres and to accuse the infamous ally of the Teutonic kaisers of the most terrible cruelties. Witness the following narrative which I quote from the November, 1915, issue of the _Allegemeine Missione Zeitschrift_, published in Berlin.

“‘A gendarme related to us, in such details as to make us shudder, how the Turks had maltreated a group of women and children, who were driven into exile. They slaughtered the Armenians without any hindrance. Each day ten or twelve men are hurled down into the ravines. They crush the skulls of those children who are too weak to walk.

“‘One day, early, we heard the procession of those doomed victims. Their misfortune was indescribable. They were in absolute silence--the young and old, even grandfathers advancing under such burdens as even their asses could hardly carry. All were to be chained together and then precipitated from the highest summit of a steep rock into the torrent of the Euphrates river. This froze our hearts. Our gendarme tells us that he had driven from Mama-Khatoun a similar group of people, composed of 3000 women and children, _who were exterminated_.

“‘On the 30th day of May, 674 Armenians were embarked in 13 sloops on the Tigris. Gendarmes were in each embarkation. These sloops departed towards Mosul. On the way the gendarmes threw all the unfortunates into the river, after having robbed them of their money and clothing. They kept the money and sold the clothing in the markets.

“‘An employee of the Bagdad railway related that the Armenians were imprisoned wholesale in the dungeons of Biredjik to be thrown into the Euphrates river at night. The corpses washed on to the river banks became a prey for dogs and vultures.’

“What law of retaliation could ever account for such abominable crimes? And moreover, what price must be exacted for the crimes of _Kultur_ in Belgium, France, Serbia and Armenia?”[168]

There was no possible excuse for such barbarities to be poured upon the Armenians. Had there been any excuse the German, American, and Swiss missionaries, and the consuls of the neutral nations who witnessed these atrocities would have pointed it out. In fact, the whole civilized world stood “with shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast” at the unparalleled savagery of the Turks, except those who were intoxicated with Prussian militarism, the advocates and defenders of the booty-loving and obscene Mohammedan fiends.

“It is hardly possible to imagine to oneself the implication of such a decree [of deportation]. These [Armenians] were not savages, like the Red Indians who retired before the White man across the American continent. They were not nomadic shepherds like their barbarous neighbors the Kurds. They were people living the same life as ourselves, townspeople established in the town for generations and the chief authors of its local prosperity. They were sedentary people, doctors and lawyers and teachers, business men and artisans and shopkeepers, and they had raised solid monuments to their intelligence and industry. Costly churches and well-appointed schools. Their women were as delicate, as refined, as unused to hardships and brutality as women in Europe or the United States. In fact, they were in the closest personal touch with Western civilization, for many of the Armenian centers upon which the crime was perpetrated had been served by the American missions and colleges for at least fifty years, and were familiar with the fine men and women who directed them.”[169]

The government’s determination to exterminate the Armenian race was not a sudden impulse. It was a deliberate scheme of long standing. After the overthrow of the Hamidian despotism, the Young Turks encouraged the Armenians to organize societies and even permitted them to possess firearms. Their diabolical purpose was not suspected by the trusting Armenians. But when war broke out, the Turks joined the Teutons in hopes to share the rich booty of the war. When this was not forthcoming, they bethought that the opportune moment had come to loot the Armenians, and carry out the plan of annihilation. They had not much difficulty in making out a case against these societies, saying that they were of a revolutionary character; and their possession of firearms was taken as a proof of the same.

Dr. Gibbons gives in his excellent little book, “The Blackest Page of Modern History,” the following statement which was made by the Turkish Consul General in New York: “‘However much to be deplored may be these harrowing events, in the last analysis we can but say the Armenians have only themselves to blame.’ Djelal Munif Bey went on to explain that the Armenians had been planning a revolution, and were killed by the Turkish soldiers only after they had been caught ‘red-handed with arms in their hands, resisting lawful authority.’”

In Adabazar 500 leading Armenians were arrested and imprisoned in the Armenian church. They had their daily tortures and beatings to induce them to implicate one another, and to deliver their arms. Whether they were all the members of a society or not it did not matter. For ten days these men have been tortured, and the whole population of the Armenians--some 20,000 or more--were terrorized and paralysed. Towards the end of this time, the head of the society who had been an exile suddenly returned. At the trial--or rather at the Inquisition--he boldly answered: “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it is mine, and yet I also am guiltless. _This society was organized with the permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain firearms._”

The eye-witness further states that soon after this the whole Armenian population of Adabazar was “turned into the streets to wait their turn to go. There they waited, with their baggage, for days by the roadside near the station. As soon as they vacated their houses, refugees (Mohammedans) from Macedonia took possession of them.”

“The people who had any money went to Konia by freight cars, being allowed to take only a few possessions with them. They were told to leave their possessions in the churches and they would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the people were out of the city; so nobody trusted this promise. The exiles were crowded on top of their possessions, sixty to eighty people in a car marked forty people.

“From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert place called Mosul (province) in Mesopotamia. Those who had no money must take the entire journey (about 1000 miles) by foot.”

Here is a portion of the description of an eye-witness:

“Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich or poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left in the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.... The promise of three days was not kept. The very next morning the local police with gendarmes well armed with Mauser rifles began to enter the Armenian houses and drive the women and children into the streets and lock the doors of their houses behind them and sealed them with the government’s seal, thus dispossessing them of all their worldly possessions. They then assigned four or five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had brought with them with which to send the people away. But the carts were not intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed covering for each person. When they had gotten from 500 to 1000 persons ready in this manner they were set moving, a doleful procession, driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning after morning, during the month of July (1915) we saw groups of this kind pass by the college compound, the women carrying their babies in their arms and leading their little children by the hand, without anything left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey of a thousand miles into the wilderness, to miserably die or to be captured by Turks. By the end of July, the city was emptied in this manner of its 12,000 Armenian population.”

* * * * *

“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture or implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.”

“In Hadjin well-to-do people who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.” “In one place the people had been given notice to depart on Wednesday; the carts appeared on Tuesday at 3.30 A.M., and the people were ordered to leave at once. ‘Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing.’”

The kind-hearted eye-witness suffered almost as much as the exiles. Here is a description:

“The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most heartrending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined circles, some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were clergymen, merchants, bankers, mechanics, tailors, and men from every walk of life. The whole Mohammedan population knew from the beginning that these people were to be their prey, and they were treated as animals.”

Here is one more from a different place:

“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of the drivers and gendarmes--a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions....

“The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains around were full of bands of outlaws....

“Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope.... Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently.”[170]

Thousands of boys and girls of assimilable age have been torn away from the bleeding hearts of their parents, and sold and distributed among the Mohammedans, and many thousands more have perished by disease, by exhaustion, by starvation, and by cruel murder.

The following description was written from Malatia:

“Boys under ten and girls under fourteen are accepted here as orphans (by the Mohammedans). More than 800, practically all from Sivas province, are here.... Many have become sick, and they are dying off pretty rapidly. It is evident that many will die on the way....”

Another report says that the _dervishes_, the fanatical Moslem devotees, met the caravans of the deported Armenians on their road and carried off children, shrieking with terror, to bring them up as Moslems in their savage fraternity. Here another: “Many of the boys appear to have been sent to another district, to be distributed among the farmers. The best looking of the older girls are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang who seem to rule affairs here....”

The Armenian journal _Horizon_, of Tiflis, reported in its issue of Aug. 22d (old style), that:

“A telegram from Bukarest states that the Turks have sent from Anatolia (Asia Minor) four railway-vans full of Armenian orphans from the interior of the country, to distribute them among Moslem families.

“Some were sold into shame before the march began. ‘One Moslem reported that gendarmes had offered to sell him two girls for a medjikieh (about eighty cents).’ They sold the youngest and most handsome at every village where they passed the night; and these girls have been trafficked in hundreds through the brothels of the Ottoman Empire. Abundant news has come from Constantinople itself of their being sold for a few shillings in the open markets of the capital; and one piece of evidence in Lord Bryce’s possession comes from a girl no more than ten years old, who was carried with this object from a town of North Eastern Anatolia to the shores of Bosphorus. These were Christian women, as civilized and refined as the women of Western Europe, and they were enslaved into degradation.”[171]

It was estimated that the exiles from three viliayets alone numbered about 600,000.

“We believe there is imminent danger for the Sivas, Erzroom and Harpoot viliayets to be 600,000 will starve to death on the road. They took food for a few days, but did not dare take much money with them, as, if they did so, it is doubtful whether they would be allowed to keep it.”

We must now follow the exiles on the way to death and destruction. In the following case the officers seem to think it not worth their while to drive so few away; and they may have been very poor:

“Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance. The women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness, a child was killed by having its brains beaten out on a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single person survived out of this group of forty-five.