Chapter IV: Appendix: 189 (2)

Although the Allies have declared in their reply to President Wilson that one of their aims is "the liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks," no official or authoritative statement has yet been made by the Allied Governments as regards the precise future status of Armenia. Mr. Asquith in his Guildhall speech spoke of "reparation and redemption." M. Briand in a letter to M. Louis Martin, Senator of the Var, published in the _Courier du Parlement_ (Paris) of November 12, 1916, says: "When the hour for legitimate reparation shall have struck, France will not forget the terrible trials of the Armenians, and, in accord with her Allies, she will take the necessary measures to ensure for Armenia a life of peace and progress." M. Anatole France, in his speech at the great "Homage à l'Arménie" meeting in the Sorbonne in April 1916, used these words: "L'Arménie expire, mais elle renaitra. Le peu de sang qui lui reste est un sang précieux dont sortira une postérité héroïque. Un peuple qui ne veut pas mourir ne meurt pas. Après la victoire de nos armées, qui combattent pour la liberté, les Alliés auront de grands devoirs a remplir. Et le plus sacré de ces devoirs sera de rendre la vie aux peuples martyrs, a la Belgique, a la Serbie. Alors ils assureront la sureté et l'independance de l'Arménie. Penchés sur elle, ils lui diront: 'Ma soeur, lève toi! ne souffre plus. Tu es désormais libre de vivre selon ton genie et foi!'"[13]

M. Paul Deschanel, the President of the French Senate, and M. Painlevé, Minister of Public Instruction, spoke in more or less similar terms.

The most recent authoritative reference to Armenia--and one which is of special importance, coming as it does from a member of the Inner Cabinet or War Council--is Mr. Arthur Henderson's statement in his conversation with the correspondent of the _New York Tribune_, reported in _The Times_ of January 8, 1916, as follows: "Speaking of the part of Turkey in the war, Mr. Henderson said that though Armenian atrocities were not much talked about here, they had undoubtedly made a deep impression on the minds of the working population, who, he thought, were determined that never again should a Christian nation be under the yoke of the Turk." These are comforting words indeed to Armenians, as were those of Mr. Asquith at the Guildhall. Nothing could give the Armenian people more comfort and hope for the future than this assurance of the British working man's sympathy--of which they never had any doubt--and his determination to see them freed from the Turkish yoke once and for all.

But here again Mr. Henderson--no doubt for very good reasons--gave no intimation of the intentions of the British or Allied Governments concerning the new status of Armenia after its liberation from the Turkish yoke.

It has been suggested that American opinion would favour annexation by Russia as a means of putting an end to Turkish atrocities and misgovernment of Armenia. This reading of American opinion is not supported by President Wilson's statement in his historic speech to the Senate that "no right anywhere exists to hand peoples from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property." All the Allied countries, and probably all neutrals, are determined to see the end of the Turkish reign of terror in Armenia. But _annexation_ by Russia or any other Great Power, before the blood is dry of hundreds of thousands of Armenians sacrificed for their faith and passionate adherence to their ideal of nationality, must seem particularly unjust to all fair-minded men in all countries, especially the great American democracy, who themselves put an end to misgovernment of a much milder kind in Cuba, but did not annex it. Indeed, having herself, jointly with her Allies, solemnly laid down the "recognition of the principle of nationalities" as one of the terms of peace stated in the Allied Note to President Wilson, it seems unthinkable that Russia, on her part, would entertain the intention of _annexing_, and especially of annexing a country and people who have paid a terrible price largely on account of their sympathy with and support of the Allied cause, and rendered services the value of which Russia herself has generously recognized.

It is argued in some quarters that the Armenian highlands are a strategic necessity to Russia. There is a "scrap of paper" ring in such an argument, and I for one cannot believe that the justice-loving Russian people would allow such considerations to override a solemn pledge and the principle of common justice. An Allied protectorate with Russia acting as their mandatory would place these strategically important regions under practically as effective a Russian control as outright annexation, while it would have the additional advantages of giving real effect to the "recognition of the principle of nationalities," and avoiding injustice, injury and affront to the national sentiment of a people which has endured such grievous sufferings and sacrifices to uphold that sentiment.

As I write, two important references to the future of Armenia have appeared in the Press. One in the _Manchester Guardian_--that old and constant champion of wronged and suffering humanity--quoted by _The Times_ of December 30, 1916, as follows: "Another word remains--Armenia--a word of ghastly horror, carrying the memory of deeds not done in the world since Christ was born--a country swept clear by the wholesale murder of its people. To Turkey that country must never and under no circumstances go back...."

The other reference is made by the _Spectator_ in its issue of December 30, in a leading article entitled "The Allied Terms." It says--

"The process of freeing nationalities from oppression must be
applied organically to the Turkish Empire. The Armenians, or what
remains of the race, whose agonized calls for help and mercy have
been heard even through the din of the present war, will probably
have to be placed under the tutelage of Russia. They could not
stand alone among the Kurds."

If by "Russian tutelage" the _Spectator_ means the setting up of a self-governing Armenia under Russian suzerainty, that would amount, in my opinion, to the approximate realization of the hopes and aspirations of the Armenian people, provided that by "Armenia" is understood the six vilayets and Cilicia; provided also that Great Britain and France retained the rights of Protecting Powers as in the case of Greece. Anything short of this, any parcelling out of Armenia, either by annexation or "tutelage" of different parts under different Powers, would not only be irreconcilable with the "recognition of the principle of nationalities" which the Allies have solemnly declared to be one of their principal aims and terms of peace; it would imply an outrage upon the ideal of nationality which is the ruling passion of Armenians everywhere. Lynch, the great Armenian authority, has called the Armenians "the strongest nationalists in the world." This ideal of nationality has grown stronger, more alive and resolute than ever by their services and unimaginable sufferings and sacrifices in the war. "The little blood that is left them" has become doubly and trebly precious to the survivors. They rightly feel that they have established, and more than established, their title to autonomy and a strong claim upon the whole-hearted support of the Allied Powers to enable them to stand on their feet again and make a fair start on the road to nationhood. If Armenia is cut up and parcelled out without regard for this fervent living sentiment of Armenian nationalism, and their high hopes and expectations are dashed to the ground, it will conceivably engender in all Armenians a deep sense of wrong and injustice, an intense discontent with the new order of things, that are not likely to conduce to that contentment and that smoothness of relations between the governors and the governed that are the essentials and the fundamental preliminary steps towards setting these much-troubled regions on the road towards good government, progress and civilization.

The "principle of nationalities" and of "government by the consent of the governed" will be applied all along the line: Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, Serbia, Poland, Bohemia, Transylvania, Arabia, Syria, Palestine, will have restored to them or will be granted the forms of government most acceptable to the peoples concerned. These true and righteous principles, which will herald the dawn of universal justice and morality in the treatment of their weaker brethren by the Great Powers of Europe, will cease to operate only when Armenia comes to be dealt with. Armenia alone, who has suffered the most tragic, the most grievous and heartrending Calvary, shall be denied an Easter. Why? Because the Armenian people have lost too much blood; because they have paid too high a price for their fidelity to their faith, the preservation of their distinctive national life and their strong support of the Allied cause. That would be an unspeakably cruel and bitter climax to the unending nightmare of Turkish tyranny, the Great Tragedy and martyrdom of the Armenian people. It will be nothing less than a confirmation of the death sentence passed by Abdul Hamid and the Young Turks on the ideal of Armenian nationality.

Let those who speak lightly of _annexation_ by Russia put themselves in the place of the tens of thousands of Armenians who have lost wife and children, sons, brothers, fathers, near or distant relatives, both in massacre as well as in what they understood to be a sacred struggle for liberty, to say nothing of their complete economic ruin. They would be much more or much less than human if they did not feel a deep and smarting sense of wrong at seeing all their appalling sacrifices and important services result in a mere exchange of the _Kaimakam_ for the _Chinovnik_. It is far indeed from my purpose to put the two types of official and the respective systems of government they represent on the same level. They differ as day from night. In my opinion and to my knowledge the vast majority of Armenians will welcome Russian suzerainty with sincere satisfaction. But, after the ordeal of blood and fire through which they have passed, they must feel, as I believe they do feel with ample justification, that they have a right to a voice and a liberal measure of participation in the government of their own country.

I cannot do better than quote here a passage from Mr. Gladstone's great speech on the Treaty of Berlin, which is applicable to Armenia, and than which there could be no wiser, more just or authoritative guidance for the formation of a sound and just view on the Armenian and kindred problems--

"My meaning, Sir, was that, for one, I utterly repelled the
doctrine that the power of Turkey is to be dragged to the ground
for the purpose of handing over the Dominion that Turkey now
exercises to some other great State, be that State either Russia or
Austria or even England. In my opinion such a view is utterly
false, and even ruinous, and has been the source of the main
difficulties in which the Government have been involved, and in
which they have involved the country. I hold that those provinces
of the Turkish Empire, which have been so cruelly and unjustly
ruled, ought to be regarded as existing, not for the sake of any
other Power whatever, but for the sake of the populations by whom
they are inhabited. The object of our desire ought to be the
development of those populations on their own soil, as its proper
masters, and as the persons with a view to whose welfare its
destination ought to be determined."

It may be argued that things have changed since 1878. The answer to that is that principles are immutable. The only change is the cruel reduction of the Armenian population. I ask, first of all: "Is it fair and right and just that we should suffer massacre and persecution for generations, and when the time for reparation comes, should be penalized because so many of us have been massacred?" Secondly, it should not be forgotten that although the Armenian element of the population has been reduced, the Turks and Kurds have also suffered very considerable losses. Thirdly, the Armenians are much more advanced intellectually to-day than they were forty years ago, while their neighbours--Turks, Kurds, and others--are stagnating in the same primitive state as they were forty--or, for that matter, four hundred--years ago. Another circumstance which adds materially to the chances of success of an autonomous Armenia is the existence of a number of nourishing Armenian communities of various sizes in other countries--in the Russian Caucasus and the Russian Empire, Persia, the United States, Egypt, the Balkans, France, Great Britain, India, Java, etc.--which are at the present time looking forward with enthusiasm and readiness for sacrifice, to "do their bit" in the sacred work of the reconstruction of their stricken and beloved Motherland.

Coming to the _Spectator's_ contention that "they (the Armenians) could not stand alone against the Kurds," I can assure the _Spectator_ that there is no cause whatever for apprehension on that score, if only the Russian Government and Army authorities will agree to allow the Armenians to organize under their guidance and supervision, immediately after the war, a number of flying columns from among discharged Armenian volunteers and soldiers in the regular army, for the specific purpose of carrying out a "drive" from one end of the country to the other and disarming the Kurds. The Armenian volunteers, of whom I speak in another chapter, have had a good deal of fighting to do with the Kurds during the war and have proved more than their match, in many cases against superior numbers.

The prevailing erroneous belief that the Armenians "could not stand alone among the Kurds" has its origin in the fact that for centuries (up to 1908) Armenians have been an easy prey to the Kurds by reason of their being prohibited to possess or carry arms on pain of death, while the Kurds were supplied with arms from the government arsenals, and encouraged and supported in every way by the central government to harass the Armenians. What chance would the bravest people in the world have under such circumstances? Since 1908, when the prohibition of carrying arms by Christians was relaxed, it is a well-known fact, attested by European travellers, that Kurds never attacked Armenian villages which they knew to be armed. Zeytoon and Sassoon have demonstrated beyond question that when Armenians have met Turks on anything like equal terms, they have proved their match. These isolated, compact communities of fearless mountaineers were never entirely subjugated by the Turks until the outbreak of the present war, when the Zeytoonlis were overwhelmed by Turkish treachery and the Sassoonlis died fighting to the last man and woman (_see_ Blue-book, pp. 84 and 87).

In 1905 the Tartars, who are nearly twice as numerous as the Armenians in the Caucasus, made a sudden attack upon the latter in the Hamidian style. But thanks to the equity of Russian government, Armenians in the Caucasus were as free to carry arms as Tartars, so the Tartars soon regained their "humane sentiments" and offered peace to stop further bloodshed. I would recommend those who entertain any fears of Armenians being able to defend themselves against Kurds or Tartars to read Villari's _Fire and Sword in the Caucasus_ and Moore's _The Orient Express_.

At all events Europe will not be taking any risk in giving the Armenians the opportunity of proving that they can "make good" in spite of the Kurds, and also, as we hope, can gradually civilize the Kurds and other neighbouring backward races.[14]

As far as I know (in fact I have no doubt about it), Armenians are prepared to take the risk of "standing alone among the Kurds", provided that the Entente Powers afford them the necessary assistance during the first few years of reconstruction and initiation, and above all, provided that they enjoy the whole-hearted and benevolent good-will of Russia, for which, it is as certain as anything human can be, their great protector and neighbour will reap a rich harvest in the future--as rich a harvest as that which Britain is reaping to-day for her act of justice and statesmanship in South Africa.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] "Armenia is dying, but she will be born again--the little blood that is left to her is the precious blood from which will arise a heroic posterity. A people that refuses to die will not die. After the victory of our armies, which are fighting for justice and liberty, the Allies will have great duties to fulfil. And the most sacred of these duties will be to bring back to life the martyred peoples, Belgium and Serbia. Then they will assure the security and independence of Armenia. Bending over her they will say to her: 'Rise, sister! suffer no more. Henceforth you are free to live according to your genius and your faith!'"

[14] Armenians have from time to time opened schools for Kurdish children, but their efforts were not successful, mainly owing to the unfriendly attitude of the Turkish authorities.

VI

ARMENIA'S SERVICES IN THE WAR

I have spoken earlier in these pages of the services of the Armenians to the Allied cause in the war. What are these services?

The Armenian name has been so long and so often associated with massacre that it has given rise to the general but utterly unfounded belief by those who have not gone deeper into the matter, that Armenians are devoid of physical courage and allow themselves to be butchered like sheep.[15] Where this belief is not based upon ignorance of the facts and circumstances, it is, I am bound to say, a particularly dastardly piece of calumny upon a people who have groaned for centuries under a brutal tyrant's heel, with an indomitable spirit that has ever been and is even to-day the Turk's despair. The struggle that has gone on for five or six centuries between Armenian and Turk symbolizes, perhaps better than any event in history, the invincibility of the spirit of Christianity and liberty and the ideal of nationality against overwhelming odds of ruthless tyranny, the savagery of the Dark Ages and the unscrupulous and mendacious exploitation of religious passion. That struggle has been as unequal as can well be imagined, but we have not permitted the forces of darkness to triumph over the spirit of Light and Liberty, though the price paid has come very near that of our annihilation. Nevertheless, we have been able, in this world-wide struggle, not dissimilar to our own long struggle in the moral issues involved, to render services to the cause of the Allies, which is the cause of Right and Justice, and therefore our cause also, quite out of proportion, in their effect, to our numbers as a race or our contribution of fighting men as compared with the vast armies engaged, although that contribution has been by no means negligible.

On the eve of Turkey's entry into the war the Young Turks employed every conceivable means--persuasion, cajolery, intimidation, the promise of a large autonomous Armenia, etc.--to induce the Armenian party leaders to prevail upon the Russian Armenians to join themselves in a mass rally to the Turkish flag against Russia. They sent a number of emissaries to Russian Armenia with the same object. The Turk must have a peculiar understanding of human nature, and not much sense of humour, to have the _naïveté_ to make such overtures to Armenians after having persecuted and harried and massacred them for centuries. All the Armenian leaders promised was a correct attitude as Ottoman subjects. They would do neither more nor less than what they were bound to do by the laws of the country. They could not interfere with the freedom of action of their compatriots in the Caucasus who owed allegiance to Russia. They kept their promise scrupulously in the first months of the war. Armenian conscripts went to the dépôts without enthusiasm. How could it be otherwise? What claim had the Turks upon the sympathy and support of their Armenian subjects? Is sympathy won by tyranny, or loyalty bred by massacre? They (the Armenians) were placed in a most difficult position. They were naturally reluctant to fight against the Russians, and the position was aggravated by the fact that the Russian Caucasian army was largely composed of Russian Armenians. But in spite of these sentimental difficulties, mobilization was completed without any serious trouble.

Soon, however, Armenians began to desert in large numbers; the Young Turks had joined the war against their wish and advice; they had not their heart in the business, and, last, but not least, they were harried, ill-treated and insulted by their Turkish officers and comrades at every turn: there were exceptions, of course, but that was the position generally in the closing months of 1914. Let me add that there were large numbers of Turkish deserters also, and that the Armenian leaders did all they could to send the deserters of their own nationality back to the ranks, doing so forcibly in some cases. Then came the defeat of the Turks at Sarikamysh and the ejection of Djevdet Bey and his force from Azerbaijan. On his return to Van, Djevdet Bey told his friends: "It is the Armenians much more than the Russians who are fighting us."

The massacres and deportations began soon after the collapse of the Turkish invasion of the Caucasus and Northern Persia, and it is only after it was seen clearly that the Turks were determined to deport or destroy them all that the Armenians in many places took up arms in self-defence. There was no armed resistance before that, and the Turkish and German allegations of an Armenian revolt are a barefaced invention to justify a crime, a tithe of which not one but a hundred revolts cannot justify or palliate. This is proved beyond all question by Mr. Toynbee's concise and illuminating historical summary at the end of the Blue-book on the Treatment of Armenians by the Turks during the war. There was no revolt. But when the Armenians were driven to self-defence under the menace of extermination, they fought with what arms they could scrape together, with the courage of desperation. In Shahin-Karahissar they held out for three months and were only reduced by artillery brought from Erzerum. In Van and Jebel-Mousa they defended themselves against heavy odds until relieved by the Russians and the Armenian volunteers in the first case, and rescued by French and British cruisers in the second. The Turkish force sent against the insurgents of Jebel-Mousa was detached from the army intended for the attack on the Suez Canal.

Of course ill-armed, poorly equipped bands without artillery, wanting in almost all necessaries of modern warfare, brave as they may be, cannot possibly maintain a prolonged resistance against superior forces of regulars well supplied with artillery, machine-guns and all that is needed in war. Nevertheless, some of these bands seem to have succeeded in holding out for many months, and it is believed in the Caucasus that there are groups of armed Armenians still holding out in some parts of the higher mountains behind the Turkish lines.[16] It will be remembered that some weeks ago--I do not recall the date--a Constantinople telegram reprinted in _The Times_ from German papers stated that there were 30,000 armed Armenian rebels in the vilayet of Sivas. This is an obvious exaggeration, and it may simply mean that a considerable number of Armenians were still defending themselves against the menace of massacre. When the Russian army entered Trebizond a band of some 400 armed Armenians came down from the mountains and surrendered themselves to the Russians. Quite recently a band of seventy men cut through the Turkish lines and gained the Russian lines in the neighbourhood of Erzinjian.

The Turks have repeatedly declared that the "Armenian revolt" threatened to place their army between two fires. The particle of truth that there is in this assertion is, as may be judged by the facts so far known as cited above, that the Armenian resistance to massacre and deportation proved to be more serious than they had anticipated, and that they had to detach large numbers of troops and in some cases artillery and machine-guns to keep these "rebels" in check. It is consequently undeniable that Armenian armed resistance to deportation and massacre has been a considerable hindrance to the full development of Turkish military power during the war and has, in that way, been of material, though, indirect assistance to the Allied forces operating against the Turks. To this may be added the demoralizing effect that the deplorable state of affairs created by the Turks in their dominions must have exercised on the morale of their people.

Such in general outline have been the services of the Turkish Armenians to the Allied cause. It is not my purpose here to endeavour to appraise the possibly ill-concealed, but not by any means ostentatious or provocative, sympathy of the Armenians for the Allies, upon the sinister designs of the Young Turks. I will content myself with the description of a significant cartoon that appeared early in the war in the Turkish comic paper _Karagöz_ in Constantinople. The cartoon depicted two Turks discussing the war. "Where do you get your war news from?" asked Turk number one. "I do not need war news," replied Turk number two; "I can follow the course of the war by the expression on the faces of the Armenians I meet. When they are happy I know the Allies are winning, when depressed I know the Germans have had a victory."

The following extract from a dead Turkish officer's notebook, reproduced in the _Russkaia Viedomosti_ (No. 205), throws some light on the Turkish estimate of the value of Armenian support in the war. "If our Armenians had been with us," wrote this Turkish officer, "we would have defeated the Russians long ago."[17]

The services of the Russian Armenians to the Allied cause, but principally, of course to the Russian cause during the war, have been of a more direct and positive character and of far-reaching importance. They may be divided into two distinct parts, namely, military and political; and in order the better to explain the full meaning of the Armenian "strong support of the Russian cause" (in the words of _The Times_), I will deal with each of the two parts separately.

The Armenian population of Russian Armenia and the Caucasus numbers, roughly, 1,750,000 souls, and there are probably another 100,000 to 200,000 Armenians scattered over the other parts of the empire. They are liable to military service as Russian subjects, and it is estimated that they have given to the Russian army some 160,000 men. Apart from this not negligible number of men called to the colours in the ordinary course of mobilization, the Armenians, as a result of an understanding with the authorities, organized and equipped at their own expense a separate auxiliary volunteer force under tried and experienced guerilla leaders, such as Andranik, Kéri and others, to co-operate with the Caucasian army. This force contained a number of Turkish Armenians, mostly refugees from previous massacres. Some twenty thousand men responded to the call for volunteers, though I believe not more than about ten thousand could be armed and sent to the front. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed. Armenian students at the Universities of Moscow and Petrograd and educational institutions in the Caucasus vied with each other in their eagerness to take part in the fight for the liberation of their kinsmen from bondage. Several young lady students offered to enlist, but I believe all but two or three were dissuaded from taking part in actual fighting. Boys of fourteen and fifteen years ran away from home and tramped long distances to join the volunteer battalions. It is recorded that an Armenian widow at Kars, on hearing that her only son had been killed in battle, exclaimed, "Curse me that I did not give birth to ten more sons to fight and die for the freedom of our country."

The volunteer force was not large, but it was a mobile force well adapted to the semi-guerilla kind of warfare carried on in Armenia, and the men knew the country. They seem to have done good work as scouts in particular, though they took part in many severe engagements and were mentioned once or twice in Russian _communiqués_ as "our Armenian detachments." Generous appreciation of the services and gallantry of the volunteers as well as of Armenians in the army has been expressed by Russian military commanders, the Press, and public men. High military honours were conferred upon the volunteer leaders, and His Imperial Majesty the Czar honoured the Armenian nation by his visit to the Armenian Cathedral in Tiflis, demonstrating his satisfaction with the part played by Armenians in the war.[18]

There are, of course, many Armenian high officers in the Russian army, including several generals, but so far they have not had the opportunity of producing in this war outstanding military leaders of the calibre of Loris Melikoff and Terkhougasoff. General Samsonoff, "the Russian Kitchener," was killed early in the war in East Prussia in his gallant and successful attempt to relieve the pressure on Paris.

The political effect of the strong and enthusiastic support of the Russian cause by Armenians has been to keep in check the discontented and fanatical section of the Tartars and other Moslems of the Caucasus, who would have been disposed to make common cause with the Turks whenever a favourable opportunity should present itself to do so without much risk to themselves. The Tartars and other Moslem elements of the Caucasus are as a whole genuinely loyal to Russia, but the existence of a minority who would welcome the success of the Turkish invasion cannot be denied. Some of the Ajars did, in fact, join the Turks during their invasion of Ardahan.

All things considered, therefore, those who have any knowledge of the racial and political conditions in the Caucasus will not, I think, regard it as in any sense an exaggeration to assert that the whole-hearted support of the Armenians--and I may also add, though in a lesser degree, the Georgians--has contributed very materially to the success of Russian arms in the Caucasian theatre of the war. The absence of that support, or even mere formal or lukewarm support, would not only most probably have had serious consequences for the Caucasus, it would have left the whole of Persia at the mercy of the Turks; and who can say what the consequences of such a catastrophe would have been on Arabia, Mesopotamia, Afghanistan and even the northern frontiers of India itself?

Nearly all the able-bodied Armenians in France, between 1000 and 1500 strong, joined the French Foreign Legion quite early in the war. Some Armenians came from the United States to fight for France. Only some 250 have survived, I understand, most of whom are proud possessors of the Military Cross.

Propaganda in neutral countries has played an important part during the war. The just cause of the Allies has had no stauncher supporters or better propagandists than the hundred and twenty-five thousand or more Armenians in the United States, while the Great Tragedy of Armenia has incidentally added to the armoury of the Allies a melancholy but formidable moral weapon.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Pierre Loti, the well-known French writer, who was an ardent Turkophile before the war, after adding his quota to the current, and, one is constrained to say, cheap, comments on the lack of courage and numberless other failings of the Armenians, adds the following P.S. in his _Turquie Agonisante_ (pp. 94-95) after a longer sojourn in the country and closer contact with realities. (I give the translation from the French.)--

"Before concluding I desire to make honourable, sincere and spontaneous amends to the Armenians, at least as regards their attitude in the ranks of the Ottoman Army. This is certainly not due to the protestations which they have inserted in the Constantinople Press by the power of gold." [This is a curious admission by Pierre Loti; one of the stock cries of the Turkophiles is that the Turk is above "bakshish."] "No, I have many friends among Turkish officers; I have learned from them, and there can be no doubt, that my earlier information was exaggerated, and that, notwithstanding a good number of previous desertions, the Armenians placed under their orders conducted themselves with courage. Therefore, I am happy to be able to withdraw without _arrière pensée_ what I have said on this subject, and I apologize."

Of all British games and sports Armenians in different parts of the British Empire, the Dutch Colonies and Persia have manifested a natural predilection for Rugby Football, in which physical courage comes into play more than in most other games. In recent years the Armenian College of Calcutta won the Calcutta Schools' Cup three years in succession, which gave it the right to retain the trophy. I am glad to see in the March issue of _Ararat_ that the Boy Scouts of the same college, under Scoutmaster Dr. G. D. Hope, have won the King's Flag, presented by His Majesty to the troop having the largest number of King's Scouts in India and Burmah.

[16] I may here point out that--though it is stated in the admirable historical summary in the Blue-book (p. 649) that "the number of those who have emerged from hiding since the Russian occupation is extraordinarily small"--this number has been growing very considerably of late, as may be seen from Mr. Backhouse's telegram to the chairman of the Armenian Refugees (Lord Mayor's) Fund, dated Tiflis, November 27, 1916, published in the newspapers.

[17] Compare an Armenian officer's evidence, Blue-book, p. 231, " ... they laid the blame for this defeat upon the Armenians, though he could not tell why."

[18] In an article on "The Armenian Massacres" in the April _Contemporary Review_, Mr. Lewis Einstein, ex-member of the staff of the United States Embassy in Constantinople, says: "Talaat attributed the disasters that befell the Turks at Sarikamish, in Azerbaijan and at Van, to the Armenian volunteers."

VII

ARMENIA THE BATTLE-GROUND OF ASIA MINOR AND VICTIM OF CONTENDING
EMPIRES

No country and people have suffered so severely from the clash of rival empires, both in war and diplomacy, as have Armenia and the Armenians, so far as is known to the recorded history of the world. Her geographical position has made Armenia the cockpit of ambitious empires and conquerors, and the highway of their armies in Western Asia, much as Belgium and Poland have been the battle-grounds of Europe. But whereas in these European battle-grounds the invading armies have generally moved east and west only, Armenia has endured the horrors of invasion, time after time, from north, south, east and west. Then, again, Armenia being a much older country, the record of her suffering from the invading armies of her stronger neighbours, "hacking their way" through her territory, extends over a proportionately longer period than that of Belgium and Poland. Armenia has been invaded and ravaged in turn by Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Hittites, Parthians, Macedonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Tartars and Turks. Only during the first century B.C. did she succeed in subduing all her neighbours, and establishing a short-lived empire of her own, extending from the Mediterranean to the Caspian.

The analogy between Armenia and her European co-sufferers from the ills of aggressive Imperialism ceases altogether, however, when we come to the period of Turkish domination. The blood-stained history of that régime is well enough known. Periodic explosions have reminded Europe of the existence of the inferno of unbridled lust, corruption and predatory barbarism which this unhappy people have been fated to endure for centuries. What has not been brought into sufficient relief is the fact that this "bloody tyranny" could have long since been brought to an end, or, at all events, effectively curbed, if it had not been for the jealousies and rivalries of the great modern Christian empires. The history of the acts of European diplomacy in regard to Armenia and the Near East during the last sixty or seventy years is not one of which the diplomats and statesmen concerned can be particularly proud. Who can claim for them to-day to have served, in the sum total of their results, either the interests of the Christian subjects of the Porte, the progress of civilization, the material interests of the Great Powers themselves, or the supreme interests of peace?

Mr. Balfour says in his famous Dispatch to the British Ambassador to the United States that "Turkey has ceased to be a bulwark of peace," thereby implying, obviously, that Turkey had played that part before. Mr. Balfour is a great authority on political history, and when he avers that Turkey has been a "bulwark of peace" she must have filled such a rôle at some period of her history. But to his Christian subjects, at any rate, the Turk has never brought peace. He has brought them fire and sword and a riot of unbridled lust, rapacity, corruption and cruelty unparalleled even in the Dark Ages. The only peace he has brought them has been the peace of death and devastation. He has not even left trees to break the awful silence of desolation which he has spread over this fair and fertile land once throbbing with human life and activity. That is the price paid for whatever part Turkey may have played in the past as a bulwark of international peace. Professor Valran of the University of Aix-en-Provence estimates the Armenian population of Turkey in the beginning of the nineteenth century at 5,000,000.[19] The population of the not too healthy island of Java was the same at the same period. Under the excellent rule of the Dutch, the population of that island has grown up to over 35,000,000 during the century. What has become of the Armenians, one of the most virile and prolific races of the world living in a healthy country? Let the friends and protectors of the Turk and his system of government give the answer. In particular let those answer who, with the Turks' black and bloodstained record of centuries before them, have, nevertheless, the effrontery to maintain, at this hour of day, that the Turk has not been given a fair chance. The blood of the myriads of innocents who have fallen victims to the Turks' incurable barbarism throughout these centuries, cries aloud against such a brazen and deliberate travesty of the truth.

One of the principal enactments of the Treaty of Paris was to admit Turkey into the comity of the Great Powers of Europe. To-day, after a probation of sixty years, at a fearful cost to her Christian subjects, it is at last admitted that Turkey has proved herself "decidedly foreign to Western civilization." Could there be a more crushing condemnation of the judgment of the statesmen responsible for that treaty in regard to the Turk? The more one studies the record of the Turk, the more one marvels at the unbounded confidence placed in his promises of reform by some of the greatest statesmen of modern times. In vain have I ransacked the history books in search of an instance where the Turk carried out, or honestly attempted to carry out, a single one of his numerous promises of reform. Every one of them was a snare and a pretence designed merely to oil the wheels of a cunning diplomacy or tide over a momentary embarrassment. Whether it was the Sultan or Grand Vizier or Ambassador, whenever the Turk made a promise to improve the lot of his Christian subjects, he had made up his mind beforehand that that promise would never be performed.[20]

Since the beginning of last century Russia has been, by reason of her geographical contiguity, practically the only Power which the Turk has really feared. In contrast with the near Eastern policies of the Western Powers, Russian policy has been almost invariably hostile to the Turk since the days of Peter the Great. Of course, this was not always pure altruism on the part of the rulers of Russia. But, whatever the motive, Russian policy certainly coincided absolutely with the interests of humanity and civilization. And while in the West the policy of "buttressing the Turk" (in the words of the Bishop of Oxford) often met with strong opposition among the democracies of England and France, Russian policy in regard to the Turk has always enjoyed the unanimous support of the Russian people, who being the Turk's neighbour and having had several wars with him, knew his true nature from prolonged personal contact. The one departure from Russia's traditional policy was Count Lobanoff's regrettable--and I may say inexplicable--refusal to take joint action with Britain and France to put a term upon the butcheries of 1895-96, and adopt such effective measures as would perhaps have put it beyond the power of the Turk to indulge again in his diabolical orgies of cold-blooded barbarism.

His fear of Russia, which acted as a wholesome restraint upon the predatory tendencies of the Turk, was weakened by the Treaty of Paris taking away from Russia her effective protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, and was removed altogether by the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention. The Turk was quick to understand that the Western Powers would not permit Russia to intervene on behalf of his persecuted Christian subjects. He saw that conditions were favourable for putting into execution his "policy" of getting rid of his Christian subjects, and he forthwith set to work to carry out his foul project.

Events have proved the Treaty of Berlin to have been the masterpiece of Bismarck's policy of "divide et impera." It created, as it was designed to create, a deep and bitter feeling of mistrust and antagonism between Great Britain and Russia, which gave Germany her chance of gaining a strong foothold in the Ottoman Empire.

The appearance of Germany upon the scene created new dangers, which have proved all but fatal to the Armenian people.

The Emperor William II, on his return from his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, paid a visit to, and fraternized with, the murderer of 250,000 Armenians who had died for the sake of the very Christ from the scene of whose life the Christian emperor had just returned. This, by the way, was in characteristic contrast with King Edward's refusal of the Sultan's offer of his portrait about the same time. This act of the great and humane English king has touched the hearts of Armenians, who cherish a deep and reverent affection for his memory.

The result of the Emperor William's visit to Abdul Hamid was the Baghdad Railway and many other concessions, and no doubt a great scheme of a future Germano-Turkish Empire in the East.

I believe it was Dr. Paul Rohrbach, the well-known German writer on Near Eastern affairs, who suggested some years ago that the deportation of the Armenians from their homes and their settlement in agricultural colonies along the Baghdad Railway would be the best way to make that line pay quick and handsome dividends.

Some time ago I read in _The Near East_ the account of a conversation between an American missionary and a German officer travelling together in Anatolia. The German officer confessed that what he had seen was horrible, more horrible than anything he had ever seen before; "but," he added, "what could we do? _The Armenians were in the way of our military aims._" Supposing that resistance to massacre by Armenian men was interpreted by the German agents in Turkey as being "in the way of their military aims," what possible excuse could there be for the abominable treatment, the torture, the slaughter, and the driving to misery and death of hundreds of thousands of women and children? Were they also in the way of their military aims?

While the Turks were butchering Christians in their hundreds of thousands, the German Emperor was presenting a sword of honour to the Sultan of Turkey and showering honours upon Enver Pasha at his headquarters. While thousands of Christian children and women were being mercilessly slaughtered and driven to death by Germany's ally, and their bodies thrown to the wolves and vultures in the Mesopotamian deserts, the German Government was making provision for the housing and tuition of thousands of Turkish youths in the technical schools of Germany to fill the places of the "eliminated" Armenians. What have Christian Germans to say to all this? Do the Johanniter Knights, of whom the Kaiser is himself Grand Master, approve of these proceedings? Do they think that He who said "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these little ones, ye have done it unto Me" knows of any distinction of race? How can German Christians, from their rulers downwards, face God and the Son of God in the intimacy of their prayers after sanctioning these black deeds which are the very negation of God and the teaching of Christ? Do the rulers of Germany and Turkey and the protagonists of the Reventlow doctrine believe that empires, railways, or any other schemes of expansion, built upon foundations of the blood and tears of hundreds of thousands of human beings, will endure and prosper and bring forth harvests of plenty and peace and happiness to their promoters, their children, and their children's children? They are mistaken. My word may count for naught to the rulers and leaders of mighty states; but it is true. We are an ancient people. "We have seen empires come and empires go." We have been ground for centuries in the mill of the ruthless clash of contending empires; but in spite of our long and bitter sufferings our belief to-day is as strong as ever in the existence of another mill, the mill of Divine Justice, which grinds in its own good time, and may grind slow, but "it grinds exceeding small." Who will doubt or deny that violence to women and children and unoffending, defenceless men, "every hair of whose head is numbered," will not be forgiven by their just and Almighty Creator; that the sacrifice of them for ulterior selfish objects will not be overlooked? Political and military acts of the mightiest empires, entailing injustice, violence and suffering to weaker peoples will bring Nemesis in their train in due course. The idol with feet of clay, sunk in the blood of innocents, cannot endure. Sooner or later it must fall.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] _Le Sémaphore de Marseille_, November 20, 1915.

[20] I am indebted to my friend Mr. H. N. Mosditchian for the following account of an incident which throws some light on the ways of the Turk--

"The massacres of Sassoon in 1893-1894, first described at the time by Dr. Dillon in _The Daily Telegraph_, and the first of the series that drenched Armenia with the blood of over 200,000 of her sons and daughters, raised such a cry of horror and indignation throughout the civilised world that Great Britain, France and Russia, through their Embassies at Constantinople, prepared a Scheme of Reforms, known as the Scheme of the 11th of May 1895, and after much difficulty and long negotiations obtained thereto the approval of Abd-ul-Hamid, 'the Red Sultan.'

"I was with the Patriarch when the Hon. M. H. Herbert, Secretary to the British Embassy, brought to the Patriarchate the good tidings of the Sultan's acceptance of the Scheme. Upon his special advice, the Patriarch sent there and then telegraphic instructions to all the Armenian Bishoprics in the provinces to chant Te Deums in the churches and to offer up prayers for the benign and magnanimous Padishah!

"I was again with the Patriarch a day or two after when telegrams began to pour in from the provinces announcing a fresh outbreak of massacres throughout the country. I hastened to the Embassies of the Six Great Powers to give them the appalling news and to ask for their immediate assistance. As is well known, they did or could do nothing, and the massacres went on, unchecked and unbridled, assuming every day larger dimensions and a better organised thoroughness...."

I called on Judge Terrell, the American Ambassador, also. "I am not at all surprised," said he, "at these fresh massacres. I knew they would be coming, so much so that the moment I heard that the Sultan was about to affix his signature to the Scheme of Reforms, I hastened to the Grand Vezir and insisted upon his sending telegraphic orders to all the Valis to take good care that no American subject was hurt. The Grand Vezir protested of course that there was no necessity for such orders inasmuch as peace and security reigned supreme in all the Vilayets, but I told him that I knew what was going to happen shortly as well as he did, and refused to leave until he had despatched the telegrams in my presence." Judge Terrell then told me that it had long been known to him that the Valis of all the Vilayets had received standing orders from the Sultan to massacre the Armenians (_a_) whenever they should discover any revolutionary movement among them, (_b_) whenever they should hear of a British, French or Russian invasion of Turkish territory, and (_c_) _whenever they should hear that the Sultan had agreed to and signed a Scheme of Reforms_.

VIII

THE BLUE-BOOK--THE EPIC OF ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM, THE REVELATION OF
HER SPIRIT AND CHARACTER--"TRUTH" ON THE ARMENIANS: A DIGRESSION

To realize, even approximately, the unimaginable barbarities that have been committed by the Turks during the Great Armenian Tragedy of 1915, it is necessary to read the Blue-book itself. But the Blue-book is a bulky volume, and the average man or woman has so many calls on his or her attention in these stirring and momentous times, that I fear it will not be read as widely as it deserves to be read in the interests of humanity, Christianity, and civilization. I have, therefore, thought it desirable to quote a number of extracts which will give the reader some idea of the nature and magnitude of the horrors chronicled in that fearful epic of a nation's martyrdom, in the hope that they may thereby reach a wider circle of the public.

Apart from giving the reader a general idea of the atrocities themselves, I have selected and grouped the extracts with the object of calling attention to the incidental or subsidiary morals and lessons they convey, which have received little or no notice in the Press reviews. The Blue-book reveals the spirit, the character and the ideals which lay hidden under the unattractive outside appearance of the Armenians, upon which has been based their mostly superficial judgment of them by European travellers. Often under the influence of a sense of indebtedness for an escort of Zaptiehs "graciously placed at their disposal by a kindly vali" (in whose harem were probably languishing a dozen or more enslaved women), they have seldom paused to understand the tragedy of the dour, subdued, anxious mien of the Armenian peasant seen trudging wearily along in the highways and byways of Asia Minor. They little realized that the Armenian lived under the strain of constant terrorism; that he never knew when the honour of his wife or sister might be violently assaulted; when he might be stabbed in the back; when his cattle might be driven away or his crops burned or stolen. He was afraid even of a too attractive personal appearance, lest he should excite the cupidity and jealousy of his Turkish neighbour. If he fell upon his persecutor and slew him in defence of the honour of his womenfolk, it meant the wiping out not only of his family but of his whole village. His own government was his deadly enemy, bent upon his destruction. This has been the tragedy of the Armenian's life for generations. It has been little known in the West because Armenia is a long way off, and few European travellers have stopped to look below the surface. He has lived with the _yatagan_ hanging over his head, like the sword of Damocles, from birth to death. Virile, industrious, patient, long-suffering, but never despondent, he has clung to his faith, his soil, his ancient culture, his nationality and ideals of civilization with a tenacity that centuries of "bloody tyranny" have tended only to steel more and more. That he has succeeded in preserving the ideals which have cost his nation such heartbreaking sacrifices is abundantly proved by the Blue-book. Here is one evidence: "Mr. Yarrow, seeing all this, said, 'I am amazed at the self-control of the Armenians, for though the Turks did not spare a single wounded Armenian, the Armenians are helping us to save the Turks'" (p. 70).