Chapter V: Appendix: 189 (3)

But of all the tales of calm, dignified heroism in face of death recorded in the Blue-book, W. Effendi's letter (p. 133, and 504 of the Blue-book) written on the eve of his, his young wife's and infant child's deportation to what he knew to be certain death, will ever stand out as an impressive example of the noblest heroism, the highest conception of the teaching of Christ and a complete triumph of the spirit, unsurpassed in the annals of Christian martyrdom. "May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing," wrote this true follower of Christ, while he was making ready for his and his loved ones' journey to sorrow and death. It recalls the story of St. Stephen's martyrdom. W. Effendi's letter and Nurse Cavell's immortal words, "patriotism is not enough," strike me as the two most remarkable utterances delivered spontaneously by heroic spirits in proof of the bankruptcy of the "frightfulness" to which they were on the point of falling victims.

There was a short notice in _Truth_ of January 31, 1917, in connection with Armenia Day which contained the following remark: "Some people despise these 'eleventh Allies' as a mercenary race, but others, like Mr. Noel Buxton, depict them in a much more attractive light."

With the reader's indulgence I will digress for a moment to deal briefly with this totally unjustified stigma cast wantonly upon the character of a sorely tried nation.

In the unoffensive sense of the word the whole human family may be called "mercenary." I have not met or heard of a race of men in any of the explored parts of the earth, whatever their colour, creed, or degree of civilization, who had any conscientious objection to the acquiring of as much money as they could acquire by legitimate and honourable means. I do not suppose _Truth_ itself is dispensing its very helpful "Rubber tips" week by week solely for the good of humanity. But if it is asserted that the Armenian race puts the love of gold before everything else in life, such an assertion at this juncture is a particularly ill-timed, offensive and unworthy aspersion. A mercenary race, forsooth! If the Armenian race had valued gold above its loyalty to its faith and nationality; if it had attached greater value to material prosperity than to spiritual ideals and principles, it would have accepted Islam centuries ago--Heaven knows the temptation was great--and won a predominant position for itself in Asia Minor. It would be counted to-day not by two or three, but by twenty or thirty millions. But under the longest and bloodiest pressure endured by any people in history, culminating almost in its extermination, it refused to sell its soul.

Thousands of Armenians could have saved their lives by feigning to accept Islam, but, with few exceptions, they refused to commit even that measure of spiritual dishonesty, which would perhaps not have been considered unpardonable under the circumstances. There is scarcely any instance of an Armenian woman trafficking her honour for money; which is, perhaps, the most eloquent refutation of the calumny.

What good object has _Truth_ served by giving currency in its columns to this libel against an oppressed people, almost wiped out because of its Christian faith and its sympathy for and support of the Allied cause? Even if there were the remotest justification for it one would have thought that _Truth_ would have shrunk, at this dark and bitter hour, from adding insult to the agony of a people plunged into sorrow and mourning for the loss of half its number. But the assertion that the Armenians are a mercenary race is not true. It is part of the propaganda carried on by a very few people who are either blinded by unreasoning prejudice, or have some special purpose to serve, or believe that they are discharging some kind of duty by whitewashing the Turk and blackening the Armenian. I believe that these admirers of the votaries of "bloody tyranny" on the Bosphorus are very few indeed in this country. Whoever they are and whatever their motives, conscious of my obligations to the generous hospitality of this country--for which I cannot be too grateful--but taking my stand on the broader ground of Humanity, I wish to say to them, "Though you are in Great Britain, you are not of it; though this great, humane and Christian country may be your physical home by accident of birth, you will find your congenial 'spiritual home' in the offices of Count Reventlow and the _Tanine_. Charity, after all, is a matter between a man and his conscience and his God. If you cannot give your money to a starving woman or child without massacring them morally, while the Turk is taking their life, pray spare your money and let the Armenian die; it will please the Turk and his allies. Perhaps it would be more in harmony with your sentiments and political faith to lend your money to your friend the Turk. When the war is over he may need a fresh supply of arms, for even the tender limbs of the countless women and children on whom he has practised his 'chivalry' may well have blunted and worn his old stock."

There are mercenary Armenian individuals as there are mercenary persons in every nation. It may be that, debarred from government posts except when he was indispensable, the town Armenian in Turkey, like the Greek and Syrian, has been compelled to direct his energies into commercial channels in a larger proportion than free and independent nations. Naturally, also, through generations of ruthless persecution, the Armenian nation has thrown up a flotsam and jetsam of indigents wandering far and wide in search of security and the means of earning a living. But to brand the whole Armenian race as "mercenary" is malevolent nonsense, or credulity due to a total ignorance of the facts. Seventy or eighty per cent. of the Armenians in Turkish as well as Russian Armenia are peasants, farmers and artisans. That is approximately true also of the Persian Armenians. Even in the United States the majority of the immigrants have taken to fruit-growing in California. Armenians who have the means to give their sons a good education almost invariably make them follow a profession in preference to commerce, as witness the number of Armenian university professors, doctors, lawyers and some artists and painters of considerable merit in the United States.[21] Probably no people have made the sacrifices made by Armenians, in proportion to their means, for the relief of distress during the war. There have been a few exceptions among the very rich whose moral sense has been blunted by luxury and self-indulgence. They can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They belong to that class of cosmopolitan financiers and traders who are no more thrilled by the music of their country's or any country's name; who are unmoved by the cry of starving women and children of their own or any race; whose home is the world and whose god is gold; who are no more the masters but the slaves of money. But this, again, is not peculiar to Armenians; very far from it. It is a fraternity that embraces members of every, or almost every, race; and Armenians are barely represented upon it. It is palpably misleading as it is inaccurate to assert that these represent the Armenian nation. In fact, as far as my knowledge goes, the masses of the Armenian people are ashamed of them, because their worship of gold and vanity are alien to the national spirit, and bring discredit upon the nation. For generations Armenian educational and religious institutions have been maintained by voluntary grants; and I do not know that any European citizen bears a heavier burden for the needs of his nation than does the individual Armenian.

It must not be supposed from what I have said that all, or the majority, of rich Armenians have been deaf or indifferent to their country's need. That would be a mistake and an injustice. On the whole their response to the call of their afflicted country has been satisfactory, considering that they had obligations to the belligerent countries to which they owed allegiance. I know of one contribution of £30,000,[22] while ten Moscow merchants raised a million roubles between them for their nation's needs. A prominent Armenian physician has relinquished a large and remunerative practice at Petrograd to superintend personally the administration of an orphanage at Erzerum, which he has opened on his own private account. The Catholicos's palace at Etchmiadzin was converted into a hospital for refugees in the early months of 1915. Almost every Armenian peasant family in the Caucasus have housed and cared for one or more refugees in their humble cottages ever since the influx of their distressed kinsmen from the other side of the frontier in the spring and summer of 1915. I have not marshalled these facts in a spirit of flaunting the virtues of my race--we certainly hold no monopoly of all the virtues, or indeed of all the vices, to which human nature is heir--but I know of no better way to disprove the baseless aspersions assiduously disseminated by some interested people for purposes of pro-Turkish propaganda and accepted by the credulous as true.

Lord Bryce has known the Armenian people longer and more intimately than any eminent European statesman, historian and diplomatist has ever done before, and his dictum will no doubt be generally accepted as that of a great and final authority. I therefore make no apology for quoting his lordship's most recent utterance on the subject reported in the _Journal of the Royal Society of Arts_, February 2, 1917--

"Having known a very large number of Armenians, he had been greatly
struck, not only with their high level of intelligence and
industry, but also by their intense patriotism. He did not know of
any people who had shown greater constancy, patience and patriotism
under difficulties and sufferings than the Armenians. He personally
had always found them perfectly loyal. He had frequently had
occasion to give them confidential advice and to trust them with
secrets, and never on any occasion had he found that confidence
misplaced.... As a proof of their loyalty and devotion to their
country he might mention that the Armenians living in America had
contributed sums enormous in proportion to their number and
resources, for they were nearly all persons of small means, for the
relief of the refugees who had been driven out by the Turkish
massacres. No people during the war had done more in proportion to
their capacities than the Armenians had done for the relief of
their suffering fellow-countrymen. A large number of them were also
fighting as volunteers in the armies of France, where they had
displayed the utmost courage and valour in the combats before
Verdun."

To return to the extracts from the Blue-book. Group "A" affords a melancholy abundance of indisputable evidence that it was not Kurds and brigands alone who did Satan's work in Armenia, but that the chief culprits were Turkish officials, high and low, officers, soldiers, gendarmes and rabble; even a member of parliament took a turn! They not only played the principal part in the vast and revolting carnival of blood, lust and savagery, but they took a delight and pride in the part they played, and laughed at the sufferings and tortures of their victims.[23]

Group "B" bears evidence of a heroism and fidelity in torture and death, to faith, honour and the ideal of nationality, unsurpassed in the history of mankind, which must redound to the eternal glory of Christianity and to the honour of the Armenian name. I respectfully suggest for consideration by the Heads of the Christian Churches that a day should be fixed to commemorate annually the martyrdom of this vast number of Armenian Christians.

Group "C" contains proofs of the conduct of insurgent Armenians in the unequal struggles for self-defence, and it should be remembered that these are but a few instances, mainly of what was seen or heard of by foreigners. The ruined towns and villages, the silent fields and highways of this land of blood and tears, what secrets of desperate heroism in defence of wife and child, mother and sister, these guard will probably never be known. Group "C" also contains evidence of the fact that the Turks had to employ considerable bodies of troops to overcome the desperate resistance of Armenians in many places, such as Moush, Sassoon, Van, etc. A third feature in this group is, that the Turks attributed their defeats in the Caucasus to the Armenians.[24]

Taken together, these extracts, and the Blue-book from which they are taken, form a better mirror of the characteristics of the two races than all that has been written on the subject for a century. They show the radical dissimilarity of their natures, and the vast difference between the respective stages of civilization in which the two races find themselves.

Was it Buddha or Confucius who said that the principal difference between man and the rest of the animal world is, that man possesses the feeling of pity for the pain and suffering of his fellow-men or animals? What would they think of this strange race of human beings who delight in torture and murder, sparing neither sex nor age, nor even unborn babes and their mothers; who inflict pain and jeer at their victims?

I remember reading in one of Mr. Lloyd George's speeches not long ago: "It is not the trials one has to go through in life, but the way one faces them that matters," or words to that effect. This is as true of nations as it is of individuals. "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men," and of nations. How has the Armenian nation conducted itself in this great upheaval and borne the terrible ordeal revealed by the Blue-book: an ordeal the horror and magnitude of which it is absolutely beyond the power of the human mind to imagine? The Blue-book itself furnishes the answer. From the first day of the war, Armenians in all countries understood the nature of the issues involved. They had no doubt on which side lay their sympathies, which were never influenced by the varying fortunes of the war. They were exposed to grave risks and paid a terrible price. Could there be a better proof of intellectual rectitude and the sincerity of sentiment? This, I trust, will silence for ever the dastardly reflections often cast upon the honesty of the Armenian people. There are some dishonest Armenians as there are some dishonest men in all nations. But, whether through prejudice, malice, or ignorance of the facts, to brand as dishonest a whole people who have been on the Cross for half a millennium for their religion and patriotism, is unworthy of civilized and right-minded men.

There are two other important facts which the Blue-book establishes beyond dispute. There was no revolt. Indeed, it would have been sheer madness on the part of the Armenians to attempt a rising when their able-bodied manhood was with the colours. The second fact the Blue-book reveals is, that the Armenian party leaders did their utmost to dissuade the Young Turks from joining the war. When the veil of war has lifted, and Europe comes to know more of what took place behind the scenes in Constantinople prior to Turkey's entry into the war, it will be seen how near the personal influence and eloquence of the Armenian deputy Zohrab came to turning the scale against the fateful and suicidal decision. This brilliant young jurist, an intimate personal friend of Enver and Talaat who sought his advice almost daily, was murdered by their orders on the way to Diyarbekir. Armenians have been charged with a lack of political aptitude as well as with treachery to the Ottoman Empire. I would specially call the attention of those who hold these views--Europeans, Moslems, and thinking Turks themselves--to the fact that, at a time of crisis, it was the Armenians who saw clearly the path of safety for the empire, and showed their loyalty to it, in spite of all they had suffered in the past, by their councils of prudence to which the Young Turks lent a deaf ear.

While on the subject of the Blue-book, I cannot refrain from saying that I noted with profound regret the distinction that was evidently made, in many cases, between Catholic and Protestant Armenians on the one hand, and Gregorians on the other, in the efforts that were made to save them from massacre or deportation. It is no secret that His Holiness the Pope and President Wilson intervened through their representatives in Constantinople, and possibly in Berlin and Vienna, to stop the massacres. I record this fact with the deepest gratitude. Of course no such distinction can possibly have been made by the Pope or President Wilson, or their ambassadors; it was probably due to the well-meant activities of subordinates or of local European or American residents.

No doubt it was better to save Catholics and Protestants than none at all, but the very idea of any distinction being thought of, under such fateful circumstances, is obviously contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and the passages referring to it make sad reading to a Christian.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Visitors to the San Francisco Exhibition will have seen and admired the work of the Armenian sculptor Haik Partigian, whose exhibits, I am told by one who saw them, were among the best, if not the best, of all the exhibits in the Sculpture Section. Russia's great marine painter Aivazovsky was an Armenian. The recently instituted Society of Armenian Artists is holding its first exhibition in Tiflis at the time of writing.

[22] It was reported in the Tiflis papers, after the above was written, that Mr. Mantashian, the Baku oil king, has made a further donation of £60,000 for agricultural improvements, and offered thirty thoroughbreds to improve the breed of horses in Armenia.

[23] Some of the most distressing and disgraceful cases of Turkish bestiality appeared in Doctor (Major) Aspland's report on the hospital at Van, which was under his charge as representative of the Lord Mayor's Armenian Relief Fund. Describing some of the individual cases brought to him for treatment, Dr. Aspland says--

"Here is a young woman leaving hospital to-day, who was raped by eight Kurds. She has suffered for months, and even now, in spite of operations, will be crippled for the rest of her life. Here is _a small girl aged five, similarly treated by Turks_, and is now lying in plaster of Paris in order to recover from injury to the hip joint."--(_Ararat_, October 1916, p. 172.)

[24] Compare this with the diary of a Turkish officer, reported in the _Russkaia Viedomosti_ (p. 75).

IX

EXTRACTS FROM THE BLUE-BOOK

_Group A_

"The Archbishop of Erzeroum, His Grace Sempad, who, with the Vali's authorization, was returning to Constantinople, was murdered at Erzindjan by the brigands in the service of the Union and Progress Committee. The bishops of Trebizond, Kaisaria, Moush, Bitlis, Sairt, and Erzindjan have all been murdered by order of the Young Turk Government" (p. 23).

"The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them. Fire was set to large wooden sheds in Alidjan, Megrakom, Khaskegh, and other Armenian villages, and these absolutely helpless women and children were roasted to death.... And the executioners, who seem to have been unmoved by this unparalleled savagery, grasped infants by one leg and hurled them into the fire, calling out to the burning mothers: 'Here are your lions'" (p. 86).

"The Turks boasted of having now got rid of all the Armenians. I heard it from the officers myself, how they revelled in thought that the Armenians had been got rid of" (p. 88).

"It was heartrending to hear the cries of the people and children who were being burnt to death in their houses. The soldiers took great delight in hearing them, and when people who were out in the streets during the bombardment fell dead the soldiers merely laughed at them" (p. 90).

"Every officer boasted of the number he had personally massacred as his share in ridding Turkey of the Armenian race" (p. 90).

"Mehmed Effendi, the Ottoman deputy for Gendje (Ginj), collected about forty women and children and killed them" (p. 94).

"Of the other children, a girl was taken away and only escaped many months later when the Russians came. Very reluctantly she poured out her story to the Stapletons, from which it appeared that she had been handed round to ten officers after the murder of her husband and his mother, to be their sport" (p. 225).

"'See what care the Government is taking of the Armenians,' the Vali said, and she returned home surprised and pleased; but when she visited the Orphanage again several days later, there were only thirteen of the 700 children left--the rest had disappeared. They had been taken, she learnt, to a lake six hours' journey by road from the town and drowned" (p. 260).

"Sister D. A. was told, at Constantinople, that Turks of all parties were united in their approval of what was being done to the Armenians, and that Enver Pasha openly boasted of it as his personal achievement. Talaat Bey, too, was reported to have remarked, on receiving news of Vartkes's[25] assassination: 'There is no room in the Empire for both Armenians and Turks. Either they had to go or we" (p. 261).

"A crowd of Turkish women and children follow the police about like a lot of vultures, and seize anything they can lay their hands on, and when the more valuable things are carried out of a house by the police, they rush in and take the balance. I see this performance every day with my own eyes" (p. 289).

"It was a real extermination and slaughter of the innocents, an unheard-of thing, a black page stained with the flagrant violation of the most sacred rights of humanity, of Christianity, of nationality" (p. 291).

"When the Governor was petitioned to allow the infants to be entrusted to charitable Moslem families, to save them from dying on the journey, he replied: 'I will not leave here so much as the odour of the Armenians; go away into the deserts of Arabia and dump your Armenia there'" (p. 328).

"P. P., the college blacksmith, was so terribly beaten that a month later he was still unable to walk. Another was shod with horse-shoes. At Y., Mr. A. D. (brother-in-law of the pastor, A. E., who suffered martyrdom at Sivas twenty-one years ago) had his finger-nails torn out for refusing to accept Islam. 'How,' he had answered, 'can I abandon the Christ whom I have preached for twenty-years?'" (p. 378.)

"In Angora I learned that the tanners and the butchers of the city had been called to Asi Yozgad, and the Armenians committed to them for murder. The tanner's knife is a circular affair, while the butcher's knife is a small axe, and they killed people by using the instruments which they knew best how to use" (p. 385).

"The Ottoman Bank President showed bank-notes soaked with blood and struck through with daggers with the blot round the hole, and some torn that had evidently been ripped from the clothing of people who had been killed--and these were placed on ordinary deposit in the bank by Turkish Officers" (p. 386).

"One girl had hanged herself on the way; others had poison with them. Mothers were holding out their beautiful babies and begging the missionaries to take them" (p. 403).

"What was the meaning of all this? It was the deathblow aimed at Christianity in Turkey, or, in other words, the extermination of the Armenian people--their extermination or amalgamation" (p. 404).

"During the weary days of travel I had as my companion a Turkish captain, who, as the hours dragged by, came to look on me with less of suspicion, growing quite friendly at times. Arrived at ---- the captain went out among the Armenian crowd and soon returned with an Armenian girl of about fifteen years. She was forced into a compartment of an adjoining railway coach, in company with a Turkish woman. When she saw that her mother was not allowed to accompany her, she began to realize something of the import of it all. She grew frantic in her efforts to escape, scratching at the window, begging, screaming, tearing her hair and wringing her hands, while the equally grief-crazed mother stood on the railway platform, helpless in her effort to save her daughter. The captain, seeing the unconcealed disapproval in my face, came up and said: 'I suppose, Effendi, you don't approve of such things, but let me tell you how it is. Why, this girl is fortunate. I'll take her home with me, raise her as a Moslem servant in my house. She will be well cared for and saved from a worse fate--besides that, I even gave the mother a lira gold piece for the girl.' And, as though that were not convincing enough, he added: 'Why, these scoundrels have killed two of our Moslems right here in this city, within the last few days,' as though that were excuse enough, if excuse were needed, for annihilating the whole Armenian race. I could not refrain from giving him my version of the rotten, diabolical scheme, which, however, fell from his back like water" (p. 410).

"I learned here, too, of a nurse who had been in one of the mission hospitals, who two days before my arrival there had become almost crazed by the fear of falling into the hands of the human fiends, and had ended her life with poison. Were these isolated or unusual instances, it would excite no comment in this year of unusual things, but when we know of these things going on all over the empire, repeated in thousands of instances, we begin to realize the enormity of the crimes committed. I spoke again to the captain: 'Why are you taking such brutal measures to accomplish your aim? Why not accept the offer of a friendly nation, which offers to pay transportation if you will send these people out of the country to a place of safety?' He replied: 'Why, don't you understand, we don't want to have to repeat this thing again after a few years? It's hot down in the deserts of Arabia, and there is no water, and these people can't stand a hot climate, don't you see?' Yes, I saw. Any one could see what would happen to most of them, long before Arabia was reached" (p. 411).

"Crowds of Turkish women were going about insolently prying into house after house to find valuable rugs or other articles" (p. 411).

"The nation is being systematically done to death by a cruel and crafty method, and their extermination is only a question of time" (p. 432).

"Women with little children in their arms, or in the last days of pregnancy, were driven along under the whip like cattle. Three different cases came under my knowledge where the woman was delivered on the road, and because her brutal driver hurried her along, she died of hæmorrhage" (p. 472).

"I saw one young woman drop down exhausted. The Turk gave her two or three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully" (p. 484).

"I saw two women, one of them old, the other very young and very pretty, carrying the corpse of another young woman; I had scarcely passed them when cries of terror arose. The girl was struggling in the clutches of a brute who was trying to drag her away. The corpse had fallen to the ground, the girl, now half-unconscious, was writhing by the side of it, the old woman was sobbing and wringing her hands" (p. 564).

"Sixteen hundred Armenians have had their throats cut in the prisons of Diyarbekir. The Arashnort (bishop) was mutilated, drenched with alcohol, and burnt alive in the prison yard, in the middle of a carousing crowd of gendarmes, who even accompanied the scene with music. The massacres at Benia, Adiaman, the Selefka have been carried out deliberately; _there is not a single male left above the age of 13 years_; the girls have been outraged mercilessly; we have seen their mutilated corpses tied together in batches of four, eight, or ten, and cast into the Euphrates. The majority had been mutilated in an indescribable manner" (p. 21).

"Five hundred young men were shot outside the town without any formality. During the following two days the same process was carried out with heartless and cold-blooded thoroughness in the eighty Armenian villages of Ardjish, Adiljevas, and the rest of the district north of Lake Van. In this manner some 24,000 Armenians were killed in three days, their young women carried away and their homes looted" (p. 73).

"According to Turkish Government statistics 120,000 Armenians were killed in this district" (p. 95).

"The immense procession, sinking under its agony and fatigue, forces itself along and moves forward without respite.... No pen can describe what this tragic procession has endured, or what experiences it has lived through, on its interminable road. The least detail of them makes the human heart quail, and draws an unquenchable stream of bitter tears from one's eyes.... Each fraction of the long procession has its individual history, its especial pangs.... Here is a mother with her six children, one on her back, the second clasped to her breast; the third falls down on the road, and cries and wails because it cannot drag itself further. The three others begin to wail in sympathy, and the poor mother stands stock still, tearless, like a statue, utterly powerless to help" (p. 197).

"Babies were shot in their mothers' arms, small children were horribly mutilated, women were stripped and beaten. The villages were not prepared for attack; many made no resistance; others resisted until their ammunition gave out" (p. 36).

"A little bride and a slim young girl sidled up to our wagon to talk. In reply to our talk they told us that they were 'busy taking care of the babies.' We asked what babies, and they said: 'Oh, those the effendis stop here; the mothers nurse them and then go.' We asked if there were many, and were told that every house was full. We were watched too closely to make calls possible. Afterwards we found an officer ready to talk, who said: 'We take them off after a while and kill them. What can we do? The mothers cannot take them, and the Government cannot take care of them for ever'" (p. 359).

"This frightful suffering inspires no pity in the ruthless officials, who throw themselves upon their wretched victims, armed with whips and cudgels, without distinction of sex or age" (p. 414).

_Group B_

"Many Armenian women preferred to throw themselves into the Euphrates with their infants, or committed suicide in their homes. The Euphrates and Tigris have become the sepulchre of thousands of Armenians" (p. 14).

"While the Armenian refugees had been mutually helpful and self-sacrificing, these Moslems showed themselves absolutely selfish, callous and indifferent to each other's suffering" (p. 42).

"Many went mad and threw their children away; some knelt down and prayed amid the flames in which their bodies were burning; others shrieked and cried for help which came from nowhere" (p. 86).

"Several young women, who were in danger of falling into the Turks' hands, threw themselves from the rocks, some of them with their infants in their arms" (p. 87).

"Among the massacred were two monks, one of them being the Father Superior of Sourp Garabed, Yeghishe Vartabed, who had a chance of escaping, but did not wish to be separated from his flock, and was killed with them" (p. 96).

"In some cases safety was bought by professing Mohammedanism, but many died as martyrs to the faith" (p. 102).

"The mother resisted, and was thrown over a bridge by one of the Turks. The poor woman broke her arm, but her mule-driver dragged her up again. Again the same Turks threw her down, with one of her daughters, from the top of the mountain. The moment the married daughter saw her mother and sister thrown down, she thrust the baby in her arms upon another woman, ran after them, crying, 'Mother, mother!' and threw herself down the same precipice" (p. 274).

"Sirpouhi and Santukht, two young women of Ketcheurd, a village east of Sivas, who were being led off to the harem, by Turks, threw themselves into the river Halys, and were drowned with their infants in their arms. Mlle. Sirpouhi, the nineteen-year-old daughter of Garabed Tufenjjian of Herag, a graduate of the American College of Marsovan, was offered the choice of saving herself by embracing Islam and marrying a Turk. Sirpouhi retorted that it was an outrage to murder her father and then make her a proposal of marriage. She would have nothing to do with a godless and a murderous people; whereupon she, and seventeen other Armenian girls who had refused conversion, were shamefully ill-treated and afterwards killed near Tchamli-Bel gorge" (p. 325).

"Many began to doubt even the existence of God. Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently. There were also some examples of the greatest heroism and faith, and some started out on the journey courageously and calmly, saying in farewell: 'Pray for us. We shall not see you again in this world, but some time we shall meet again'" (p. 335).

"'No, I cannot see what you see, and I cannot accept what I cannot understand.' So the ox-carts came to the door and took the family away. The wife was a delicate lady and the two beautiful daughters well educated. They were offered homes in harems, but said: 'No, we cannot deny our Lord. We will go with our father'" (p. 354).

"In a mountain village there was a girl who made herself famous. Here, as everywhere else, the men were taken out at night and pitifully killed. Then the women and children were sent in a crowd, but a large number of young girls and brides were kept behind. This girl, who had been a pupil in the school at X., was sent before the Governor, the Judge, and the Council together, and they said to her: 'Your father is dead, your brothers are dead, and all your other relatives are gone, but we have kept you because we do not wish to make you suffer. Now just be a good Turkish girl and you shall be married to a Turkish officer and be comfortable and happy.' It is said that she looked quietly into their faces and replied: 'My father is not dead, my brothers are not dead; it is true you have killed them, but they live in Heaven. I shall live with them. I can never do this if I am unfaithful to my conscience. As for marrying, I have been taught that a woman must never marry a man unless she loves him. This is a part of our religion. How can I love a man who comes from a nation that has so recently killed my friends? I should neither be a good Christian girl nor a good Turkish girl if I did so. Do with me what you wish.' They sent her away, with the few other brave ones, into the hopeless land. Stories of this kind can also be duplicated" (p. 355).

"The men were finally convinced of the uselessness of their efforts when one of the younger and prettiest girls spoke up for herself and said: 'No one can mix in my decisions; I will not "turn" [change her religion], and it is I myself that say it'" (p. 357).

"Mr. A. F., a colporteur, had been willing to embrace Islam, but his wife refused to recognize his apostasy, and declared that she would go into exile with the rest of the people, so he went with his wife and was killed" (p. 378).

"Again and again they said to me: 'Oh, if they would only kill me now, I would not care; but I fear they will try to force me to become a Mohammedan'" (p. 403).

"When we consider the number forced into exile and the number beaten to death and tortured in a thousand ways, the comparatively small number that turned Moslem is a tribute to the staunchness of their hold on Christianity" (p. 413).

"If the events of the past year demonstrate anything, they show the practical failure of Mohammedanism in its struggle for existence against Christianity--in its attempt to eliminate a race which, because of Christian education, has been proving increasingly a menace to stagnating Moslem civilization. We may call it political necessity or what not, but in essence it is a nominally ruling class, jealous of a more progressive Christian race, striving by methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading place" (p. 413).

"The courage of that brave little doctor's wife, who knew she must take her two babies and face starvation and death with them! Many began to come to her home--to her, for comfort and cheer, and she gave it. I have never seen such courage before. You have to go to the darkest places of the earth to see the brightest lights, to the most obscure spot to find the greatest heroes.

"Her bright smile, with no trace of fear in it, was like a beacon light in that mud village, where hundreds were doomed.

"It was not because she did not understand how they felt; she was one of them. It was not because she had no dear ones in peril; her husband was far away, ministering to those who were sending her and her babies to destruction" (p. 418).

"One woman gave birth to twins in one of those crowded trucks, and crossing a river she threw both her babies and then herself into the water" (p. 420).

"And how are the people going? As they came into B. M., weary and with swollen and bleeding feet, clasping their babes to their breasts, they utter not one murmur or word of complaint; but you see their eyes move and hear the words: 'For Jesus' sake, for Jesus' sake!'" (p. 478).

"Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child and with the whole congregation--

"'We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realize that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God's special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God's help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus' life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of His blood.

"'May the war end soon, in order to save the Moslems from their cruelty (for they increase in that from day to day) and from their ingrained habit of torturing others. Therefore we are waiting on God, for the sake of the Moslems as well as of the Armenians. May He appear soon'" (p. 504).

"Before the girls were taken, the Kaimakam asked each one, in the presence of the Principal of the College, whether they wanted to become Mohammedans and stay, or go. They all replied that they would go. Only Miss H. became a Mohammedan, and went to live with G. Professors E. and F. F. had been arrested with other Armenians, but in the name of all the teachers some £250 to £300 were presented to the officials, and so they were let free" (p. 370).

"The priests were among the first to be sent off. A Turk described how K. K. was killed. They stripped him of all his clothes, excepting his underclothing. With his hands bound behind his back, he knelt, with his son beside him, and they finished him off with axes, while he was praying. The same description was given of the execution of L. L.--how they took off his head by hacking down into his shoulders with axes and carving the head out like a bust" (p. 371).

_Group C_

"But the [Armenian] revolutionists conducted themselves with remarkable restraint and prudence; controlled their hot-headed youth; patrolled the streets to prevent skirmishes; and bade the villagers endure in silence: better a village or two burned unavenged than that any attempt at reprisals should furnish an excuse for massacre" (p. 33).

"Some of the rules for their men [the Armenian defenders of Van] were: 'Keep clean; do not drink; tell the truth; do not curse the religion of the enemy'" (p. 35).

"But, enraged as Djevdet was by this unexpected and prolonged resistance, was it to be hoped that he could be persuaded to spare the lives of one of these men, women and children?" (p. 39).

"Not all the Turks had fled from the city [Van]. Some old men and women and children had stayed behind, many of them in hiding. The Armenian soldiers, unlike Turks, were not making war on such" (p. 41).

"Our Turkish refugees cost us a fearful price.... Then, for four days more, two Armenian nurses cared for the [Turkish] sick ones at night and an untrained man nurse helped me during the daytime" (p. 42).

"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--a thing that I do not believe even Europeans would do'" (p. 70).

"The Turks offered to the Georgians the provinces of Koutais and of Tiflis, the Batoum district and a part of the province of Trebizond; to the Tartars, Shousha, the mountain country as far as Vladikavkaz, Bakou, and a part of the province of Elisavetpol; to the Armenians they offered Kars, the province of Erivan, a part of Elisavetpol; a fragment of the province of Erzeroum, Van and Bitlis. According to the Young Turk scheme, all these groups were to become autonomous under a Turkish protectorate. The Erzeroum Congress refused these proposals, and advised the Young Turks not to hurl themselves into the European conflagration--a dangerous adventure which would lead Turkey to ruin" (p. 80).

"The Turkish regulars and Kurds, amounting now to something like 30,000 altogether, pushed higher and higher up the heights and surrounded the main Armenian position at close quarters. Then followed one of those desperate and heroic struggles for life which have always been the pride of mountaineers. Men, women and children fought with knives, scythes, stones, and anything else they could handle. They rolled blocks of stone down the steep slopes, killing many of the enemy. In a frightful hand-to-hand combat, women were seen thrusting their knives into the throats of Turks and thus accounting for many of them. On August 5, the last day of the fighting, the blood-stained rocks of Antok were captured by the Turks. The Armenian warriors of Sassoun, except those who had worked round to the rear of the Turks to attack them on their flanks, had died in battle" (p. 87).

"In the first week of July 20,000 soldiers arrived from Constantinople by way of Harpout with munitions and eleven guns, and laid siege to Moush" (p. 89).

"The energetic Armenian committees have taken care of their own people, and have been unexpectedly generous to the Syrians who are quartered in their midst" (p. 107).

"He met an Armenian officer who had escaped from the Turks, who told him of the deportation and massacre of the Armenians. He said that the attitude of the Turks towards the Armenians was more or less good at the beginning of the war, but it was suddenly changed after the Turkish defeat at Sari-Kamysh, as they laid the blame for this defeat upon the Armenians, though he could not tell why" (p. 231).

"The fact cannot be too strongly emphasized that there was no 'rebellion'" (p. 34).

FOOTNOTE:

[25] Mr. Vartkes was an Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, who was murdered, together with another deputy, Mr. Zohrab, when he was being escorted by gendarmes from Aleppo to be court-martialled at Diyarbekir (see Documents 7 and 9).--EDITOR.

X

GREAT BRITAIN AND ARMENIA--THE LATE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S VIEWS--AN
APPEAL TO BRITAIN

There is no brighter page in the glorious history of the British Empire than the records of the liberties that conduce to the contentment and happiness of peoples--freedom of thought and worship, freedom of speech and association, freedom of movement and habitation, freedom of language, etc.; as well as measures of self-government varying in accordance with local needs and circumstances--granted unstintingly to the great family of nations and races constituting that marvellous commonwealth. This policy of broad, liberal justice has proved, under the stern test of this great war, the highest statesmanship and the strongest bond of empire. Freedom, justice, humanity have proved an infinitely stronger impetus to loyalty than "frightfulness," a stronger cement, a superior and better "paying" stock-in-trade of empire by far than the jack-boot and the _yatagan_. The conclusive and practical demonstration of this great fact by the British Empire will probably exercise a far-reaching influence for good on the future policies of empires and the liberties of mankind. The British Flag has not only carried security, order and justice wherever it has gone, it has scrupulously respected religious and national sentiment everywhere. It has not denied to the peoples under its sway, or attempted to suppress, the sentiments and allegiances which it has itself held sacred. It has maintained the freedom of the seas as I believe no international device could have achieved it. I do not say this to please British readers. I have lived and travelled among small peoples and subject peoples large and small, and that is the impression I have gathered. Thus the Union Jack has become a symbol of freedom and fairplay the world over, and persecuted peoples have long had the conviction, deep down in their hearts, that British influence is continually at work towards their ultimate liberation. If we were to reverse Mr. Gladstone's famous challenge concerning Austria, and ask, _mutatis mutandis_: "Can any one put his finger on the map of the world and say, 'Here the British Empire has wrought evil'?" it may be that Count Reventlow himself and the author of the "Hymn of Hate" might find themselves baffled. However opinions may differ as to the justice of some of her wars, the just and liberal treatment of the peoples that have come under British dominion is an indisputable historical fact to which the masses of mankind owe at least as much gratitude as they do to the French Revolution. Ireland may be singled out, and not without reason, if I may say so, as the one shaded spot on this bright page of the story of the spread of British liberty. To the neutral observer it certainly seems strange that Ireland, so near the home of liberty and the stronghold of democratic institutions, should be so long denied the full and free enjoyment of those blessings liberally bestowed upon the more distant parts of the empire. Possibly neutral observers do not and cannot understand the difficulties and obstacles that have hitherto proved insuperable. It is outside the scope of my subject and beyond my competence to enter into a discussion of the Irish question here, but this much I may say, that Ireland should convince rulers in all countries that material prosperity alone "is no remedy." Security, order, prosperity, an efficient and equitable administration may palliate but can never heal a political injustice. They can never satisfy the legitimate aspirations for self-rule of a high-spirited and cultured people conscious of a strong, indestructible will as well as the undoubted capacity to govern itself. On the other hand, to compare the wrongs and sufferings of Ireland (and Poland) with the agony of Armenia, as is sometimes done, is to compare a headache, an acute headache if you will, with the Black Death.

It is in keeping with the ill-fortune that has dogged the footsteps of the Armenian people for five centuries that Armenia should have been the one exception to the rule; the one country which has been denied the blessings and benefits that have accrued to every small people which has come within the sphere of, or whose fortunes have been directly or indirectly affected by, the policy or interests of the British Empire.

One of the most striking features of what has been said and written in this country on the treatment meted out by the Turks to their Armenian subjects during the war has been the paucity of reference to the effect, incidental and indirect no doubt, but the real and disastrous effect, nevertheless, of British policy in Turkey since the Crimean War upon the fate of the Armenian subjects of the Turk. This is in contrast with what was said and written during previous massacres, and is no doubt attributable to the fact of the country being at war. I am not touching this aspect of the question in the way of a grievance. I well know, and most gratefully recognize what the British Government and people have done and are still doing for us during the long and ghastly nightmare through which we are passing. The noble and unremitting efforts of Lord and Lady Bryce, Lady Frederick Cavendish, Mr. Aneurin Williams, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, Miss Robinson, Mrs. and Miss Hickson, Mrs. Cole, Mr. Noel Buxton and his brother the Rev. Harold Buxton, Mr. Arthur G. Symonds, Mr. Llew Williams, the Rev. Greenland, Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee, and so many other friends of Armenia in this country, have placed us under a lasting debt of gratitude to them and to Britain. Lord Bryce's name will live in Armenian history as long as Armenia lasts.

But I do think it is fair, in justice to the people of this great and righteous empire, to one-half of the Armenian nation who have fallen as heroes and heroines both in war and martyrdom, and to "the little blood" that is left to the Armenian people, that the facts in this connection should be placed frankly and fully before the British public at this juncture, so that it may be able to form an equitable estimate of the reparation due to the Armenians, not only for the crimes and ravages committed by the enemy during the war, but also in the light of the obligations and responsibilities incurred by Europe in general and Great Britain in particular for the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire by Art. 61 of the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention.

I have said "Great Britain," but it would be more accurate to say "the British Government of the day," for I firmly believe--in fact, who will doubt?--that if the British people had had the slightest suspicion that the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention had in them the germs of the disaster that has since overtaken the Christian subjects of the Porte, they would never have ratified those treaties. Nor do I suggest, I need hardly say, that the statesmen who are responsible for these diplomatic instruments consciously and deliberately jeopardized the existence of an ancient Christian people. Lord Salisbury's sympathetic utterances in 1895-96 show unmistakably how deeply distressed he was at the grievous turn events had taken, and still more at the powerlessness of the Concert of Europe to save the Armenians from the position of extreme peril in which the Concert had placed them in 1878.