Chapter I: General Descriptions (19)

In ——, three weeks ago, when I was engaged in getting ready to go off, I noticed two gendarmes riding in the direction of the mountains with an inhabitant of —— who had been expelled and then recalled. They (the gendarmes) returned without the man and declared, as their excuse, that the man had escaped, which is, of course, out of the question, as the man’s feet were completely swollen and he was on a mule, while the gendarmes were on horseback.

The German consul at Aleppo estimates the number of individuals deported to be 30,000. Five thousand people were deported to the unhealthy spot of Sultania, in the Konia district. The Government served out some bread during the first few days. When the bread was finished and they received no more, the misery was heart-rending. According to Mr. ——, ——, the rich were also deported to Sultania, and shared their bread with the poor as long as their money lasted, which was not very long, of course. Mr. —— begged the Vali for permission to supply the people with bread, but he replied that the Government attended to this, and that the people did not want any.

92. X.: LETTER, DATED NEW YORK CITY, 30th DECEMBER, 1915, FROM
PROFESSOR QQ., OF THE COLLEGE AT X., TO AN ARMENIAN PROFESSOR
RESIDENT BEYOND THE OTTOMAN FRONTIER.

I received your letter only yesterday. I am very glad you were in London and not in Turkey. They have been terrible days, filled with terrible events. The experiences I have had during the last six to eight months are terrible indeed. Not that I had much to suffer in person, but I suffered by witnessing the sufferings of others.

I am sending you some printed material that may interest you.

The short of it is that all the Armenians of X. have been “deported” (_sefk oloundou_)—the official word. The destination was Mosul, Der-el-Zor—sometimes Bagdad was mentioned. The very first to be arrested were twenty-five members of the Executive of Hunchak[126].... They were sent to Z. They all either died of typhus or were put to death, and it was the same with AJ. and AK. and some fifty others—all sent to Z. and finished off there. Then all the men found in the streets were arrested; many were taken out of their beds at night. These were professedly sent to Y. It is certain that they were all killed at a distance of three to four hours from X., on the W. road. I cannot give you a list; here are some of the names[127] ...; the number was officially stated as 1,215.

Then they sent away the women and children, including some old men like AW. Before the ox-carts left the town, some girls were picked out and sent to harems—M.’s daughter, a pretty girl just graduated in June; N.’s daughter, etc., etc. The women were distributed to the villagers; many would perish on the way, and perhaps some might reach Syria.

Dr. LZ., of Adana, told me the other day that many from U., T. and X. had passed through Adana. Some of the women of X. came to his home. Unfortunately he could not remember the name of anyone. Some were graduates of the American schools. They said that the men had been killed on the way; many had died of hunger, disease or exposure. They had no money. It took them three months to go from X. to Adana. They were to go on to Aleppo—then Mosul!

When they were all imprisoned at X., then the wealthy and the wise began to consult together and find means of escape. First of all, Mr. O. declared in favour of conversion to Mohammedanism as the only way of salvation. He influenced many and persuaded them to follow him. It was not so easy to persuade the officials. P., Mr. Q.’s man, our graduate, said to me: “We have lost all—our religion and our money too (Hem dinimizden oldouk, hemdé paramizdan).’ He said that everyone gave large, very large sums, hundreds of pounds. Someone is said to have given £2,000. All this went into the pocket of the Kaimakam and the Commandant of the gendarmes. These two men had in their hands the people’s lives, property and everything else. Many applied to become Mohammedans, but were not accepted. I saw the Kaimakam, Kadi, Mufti, etc., all sitting and examining whole piles of petitions. Perhaps some thirty to forty from among them were accepted, to mention a few names[128] ... all with their families.

X. had more converts than other places. O. told me that it was through his influence that this success was obtained. He was on good terms with the Kaimakam. If one wanted to stay in Turkey, he told me, one had to become a Moslem. He approved my decision to leave the place. A prominent official said to B.: “In these parts you will hear no more ‘Kal’ Iméra’ or ‘Pari Louis.’”[129]

Your brothers, I am sorry to say, are among those who were sent away. What happened to them, who knows? I suppose there is no hope for them, especially considering the name they bear. K. was intimate with the Kaimakam and the Commandant, as their wives had been in the Hospital; but when they found out that she was a relative of yours, they began to behave differently. She was sent away with the girls of the girls’ school; Miss A. went with them as far as Z.; they were 63 in all; 23 have been sent on, chiefly servants; 40 girls came back to X., and are now in the girls’ school, J.’s daughter among them. 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 FF. had been arrested with other Armenians, but in the name of all the teachers some £250-£300 were presented to the officials, and so they were let free—the officials said they were to go with the last batch.

Meanwhile, word was sent to Constantinople, and Ambassador Morgenthau secured a promise from Talaat that the College people would not be touched. But the Kaimakam declared to the Principal that no such order had reached X.

The Principal refused to deliver up anyone from the College premises; but the gendarmes came and broke down the big gate, and any other door that was barred, and took away all the Armenians—FF., GG., J., HH., and JJ. According to the testimony of the gendarmes, they all marched with their families for three or four hours, and then the men were separated and killed, while the women were sent on. Not a word came from any one of them.

When the girls were being sent on, Miss AA. managed to get promises for two of the inmates, Miss AG. and Miss AH., to stay on at the school, so they stayed. But the promise said “For a time.” AX. and AY., the cook and steward of the College, were also allowed to remain, and four nurses were left in the hospital. All the rest—servants, nurses and patients—were taken. The two druggists of the hospital, AZ. and AI., had to become Mohammedans, and are still working with Dr. BB. All the shops and houses were seized by the Government—in one word, confiscated.

The priests were among the first to be sent off. A Turk described how KK. 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 LL.—how they took off his head by hacking down into his shoulders with axes and carving the head out like a bust.

The missionaries had written on behalf of Mrs. MM. to Constantinople, so it was through Mr. Morgenthau that special orders were sent for her. After the troubles began, she stayed in the Hospital. I left X. on the 2nd August. I was detained eighteen days in the town of S., because I came from X. and was a Protestant. The difficulty was in the word “Protestant,” which was taken as equivalent to Armenian. How could there be a Protestant of my nationality? At last the Vali was persuaded that there could be other than Armenian Protestants, and permitted me to go to Constantinople. I lost thirteen days in Constantinople over the same point. At last I got my papers through the American Ambassador, or rather Consul—perhaps both. It is a long story; some day I might relate it in full. Many others of my nationality were in Constantinople trying to get passports, but they did not succeed. I am very glad I got away from Turkey....

I left everything I had in X. It was no use attempting to sell the things, neither could we take them with us. But I do not regret that—even should they be lost for good—when I stop to think of what happened to my friends and colleagues. I cannot believe that it is real. How glad I am that I escaped from that hellish scene! My only fear now is about my people—relations and friends in S. and elsewhere. I am afraid that they will persecute my nationality also.

The Armenian Church <at X.> was sealed up and guarded by soldiers. The Protestant Church was just finished and ready to be used. We might not enter it for prayer, not even once. Someone said that O. had promised to bear the expense of adding the minarets to it. Of course, he may have said it to save his own position....

All the Catholics and Gregorians of S. were carried off. By that time I was in Constantinople. The men, it is said, were killed; of the women, those that had become Moslems were allowed to stay, the rest were sent on to Mesopotamia. Mosul is their ultimate destination.

You will find hardly an Armenian left in Trebizond, Ordou, Samsoun, or the districts of Marsovan, Köprü, Amasia, Tokat, Sivas, Harpout—excepting just a few who became Moslems. The vilayets of Harpout and Sivas, it seems, had the worst treatment, but I cannot say—it was bad everywhere. Again, the Protestants were left alone at S. and R.; they were likewise spared in the towns of Kaisaria and Talas, but not in the surrounding villages....

93. X.: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM X. TO CONSTANTINOPLE, BY
PROFESSOR QQ. OF THE COLLEGE AT X.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Under the pretext of transportation for political reasons, the Young Turks are carrying out a well-planned, systematic process of extermination. Beginning in April, they imprisoned the leaders and many other prominent people in X. In order to exact confession they used all sorts of torture, only to be paralleled in the records of Mediævalism and the Inquisition. I saw people unable to walk brought on donkeys to Dr. BB. for treatment of their wounds and sores that they got from torturing and beating. GG., a strong young man, an employee of the College, was beaten so terribly that he was unable to walk for weeks. I saw him moaning in bed.[130]

I heard from the lips of Professors FF. and E., as well as from many others, our graduates, etc., of the terrible condition of those imprisoned in a subterranean place under the barrack in X. People were literally packed there—the air suffocating. Happily they were kept there only for a short time; but—unhappily—they were taken away from there in groups and put to death, at a distance of three or four hours from X. This was openly confessed by the Turks to many Greeks. I heard it from a Greek gendarme who was compelled to take part in the killing. Axes were used for killing them. The condemned were stripped of all but their underclothing and led to the brink of a great ditch. There they knelt with their hands bound behind their backs, and were despatched by axe-blows on the head—as the scene was described by an eye-witness to Mr. NN., the representative of the Greek bishop in X. The Armenian priests were killed likewise. One of them, KK., was killed in the attitude of prayer—praying with his son beside him.

Women, children and old men were carried away on ox-carts. The sight was tragic[131]. Women of good family were dressed like peasants and driven away on ox-carts, accompanied by wild, savage-looking gendarmes and Turkish drivers. On one cart I saw the aged mother, wife, sister and two-year-old daughter of Mr. OO., one of our teachers[132]. As they passed by our door they bade us good-bye. The old mother, waving her hand upward, said to us, “Pray for us,” and so they went on. The little child was smiling. On one cart there was a woman expecting childbirth. Miss K., a nurse in the Hospital, saw her as she was driven past the Hospital windows. She begged the gendarmes to let her stay in the Hospital until she was delivered, and they let her. She was delivered within a few days. Others, however, were not so fortunate and were carried mercilessly along.

I left X. on the 3rd August, accompanied by Pastor CC. with his wife and niece[133]; Mr. DD. of our College, with his wife, mother and daughter; and Mrs. MM. with her four daughters. The first family travelled by the permission—officially given—of the authorities at X. The other two had a special permit from the Minister of War, Enver Pasha. Mr. DD. was an American subject.

Two days short of S., near the village RR., we were stopped by a gendarme. Standing near him were several men with axes in their hands. He asked me whether there were any Armenians in our company. He said all Armenians had to go back—anyone of my own nationality could go on. I tried to reason with him and pressed the point that they travelled by the special order of Enver Pasha. He replied that “he could not read, so he had to carry out the orders given him.” In a few minutes 56 men came up, on horseback and armed. One of them could read. They repeated the same order—“All Armenians back.”

All the arabadjis—Turks, all of them—pleaded hard with the man[134]. They all said: “These are all others and not Armenians. They had already finished off the Armenians in X. before we started.” There was only one Armenian family in the group, they said, and they had the order of Enver Pasha. The document was presented to the leader, EE. He read it aloud. Then I told him that I was from S., and that I had a friend, a medical doctor, in military service in S. I described him and gave his name to the leader. It so happened that he knew my friend and regarded him with much esteem, so when he heard this he laughed and shook hands with me, and begged me to take his compliments to my friend, adding: “Excuse us, this gendarme made a mistake in stopping you. Go on.” The whole party went on. We were told afterwards that this leader was a well-known criminal robber, and that the whole group were _chettis_—bandits—armed by the order of the Government and let loose to harry the Armenians. During this scene of anxiety, Mr. CC. and Mr. DD. were perspiring the cold sweat of agony. Mrs. MM. was in a tremor.

In one carriage there were a son and a daughter of Mr. AB., pastor in the city of BO.

The very day that we reached S., Friday, the Armenians of the place were being arrested. Their documentary permits for travel were taken from our companions and never returned to them. They were told by the Police that they had inquired from Constantinople about them and were awaiting orders. Mr. DD. and Mr. CC. called on the Chief (Mudir) of the Police in S., and had interviews, but to no effect. The Mudir questioned DD. on his citizenship; how was it possible for a man born in Turkey to become an American subject? Three days after our arrival, CC.and DD. were taken away at night from the hotel, and sent off with other leading Armenians of S. in carriages—hands tied. They were sent along the road towards TT. and T. Carriages were hired for a distance of four hours, as far as a lake four hours’ journey from S. The driver who took our friends, a man from X. who had driven Mrs. MM. to S., told me that “those men were finished off on the way”; he was not allowed to see the dead,

but the zaptieh told him. He was sure that all those sent off were robbed on the way!

Peasants told my friend—a medical man in the military hospital at S.—that places near their villages, close to the scene of our incident with the chettis, were all blood-stained.

The drivers said they wished they had never seen the like of what they saw. One Albanian in S. boasted in the café of how he had killed 50 Armenians.

The railway stations between S. and Isnik were full of women, children and men—Armenians driven from their homes and waiting for an opportunity to enter the train. They were conveyed in goods trains—packed in like sheep. It was a pitiful, heart-breaking sight.

It seems that there was a prohibition against speaking to them. Near Isnik, in one of the wagons, I saw AC., a man from X. employed in the school at AD. I ventured to call his name as our train passed by, but could not attract his attention. Immediately the Turk near me asked me whether I was an Armenian. There was no Armenian in our train.

Turkish soldiers from T. and its villages told me at VV., on our way to S., that all the villages in their region were emptied—all the men killed. I asked them about the women; “God alone knows,” was their reply.

I saw a carriage (araba) loaded with spades, shovels, etc., in front of the police headquarters in S. They were all covered up, but one could distinguish then what they were. Then a policeman started to ride off. During the loading, people were not allowed to look on. As I was passing by at that moment, and dared to glance in that direction, I was given a terrible blow by the police officer.

The Kaimakam and the commandant of the gendarmes at X. told me repeatedly that they were only tools; they had to carry out the orders given them. No Armenian is to be left. Old or young, blind or lame, or disabled—all had to go away, without any exception being granted.[135]

The Vali of S. was dismissed from office for refusing to carry out the orders. A new Vali, an inexperienced young man, was sent to take his place, who carried out the order strictly and harshly.

The Roman Catholic Armenians of S.—some 3,000 families—were all deported.

Mrs. CC., Mrs. DD. and Mrs. MM. were still in S., residing in the Protestant church building, when I left S. on the 26th August. They tried to see the Vali, but were not allowed, and their papers and permits were not given back to them. Mrs. MM. pleaded hard with my wife that we should take with us at least one of her daughters. There were similar petitions from many others, but it was impossible to do anything. We ourselves were under suspicion and liable to suffer, and it is a wonder how we escaped. It is due to the grace of God and to the kindly help of the American Embassy and Consulate in Constantinople.

94. X.: NARRATIVE OF MISS CC., COMMUNICATED BY HER TO A SWISS
GENTLEMAN AT GENEVA DURING HER PASSAGE THROUGH SWITZERLAND IN
DECEMBER. 1915.

It was on the 29th April that the Turkish Government began to arrest the leading Armenians at X.

Mr. OO., Professor of Armenian, was sent to Z. with sixteen other Professors; they suffered fiendish atrocities. Their hair was plucked out by the roots; they were burned with red hot irons; they were sprinkled with boiling water; they were flogged daily; some of them died in prison. Mr. OO. himself had his eyes gouged out, and was then hanged.

At X., the arrests continued, and the Armenians were flogged to make them confess to pretended revolutionary preparations. The surrender of a definite number of rifles were demanded of them; some of them bought rifles from the Turks in order to be able to deliver them up to the Government. They were tortured to make them bring in their arms[136].

The Turkish villagers were paid to flog the Armenians, because the Turkish townspeople of X. might possibly have taken pity on them.

PP., 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. AD. (brother-in-law of the pastor AE., 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?”

The search for rifles lasted several weeks. In the Armenian cemetery the Turks found several bombs, buried there since 1908 and now absolutely rusty and unusable.

By the end of June, all the men were in the prisons, barracks or cellars. The women, who went to visit their husbands and bring them clothes and food, were beaten and driven off by the gendarmes.

After several days’ imprisonment, those who had promised to embrace Islam were released, as well as those who had paid very large sums of money. Mr. AF., a colporteur, had been willing to embrace Islam, but his wife refused to recognise 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.

The remainder were sent in batches out of the town and killed on the road. The Turks told their Armenian friends what was happening, and promised them the same fate.

No sooner were all the men disposed of, than they began to deport the women and children and even the sick; the ox-carts kept passing day and night. A Turk, the landlord of our house, told us that he had watched this procession, covered with dust and tortured by the heat and lack of water, and that he had said to himself that they would all be dead before they reached their destination. A woman who got back to X. by accepting conversion, after being on the road about ten days, gave an account of their heart-rending condition. Even mothers abandoned their children or handed them over to the Kurds; the Kurds for that matter took them by force and violated the girls, some of whom were carried off for their harems. After several days’ journey, the carts turned back and the exiles had to proceed on foot.

Those connected with the American college gave the Turkish officers large sums to procure their exemption, but this brought them nothing but a postponement of their cruel fate. Meanwhile, the efforts of the American Embassy obtained for Professor DD. permission to go to Constantinople with his wife and eight-months-old baby, as well as his old mother, and my own family was permitted to leave for Smyrna. After several days travelling by carriage, we all arrived at S. There my father and mother were arrested, as well as Professor DD.

Everything we could do to get them released was in vain. It was impossible to learn anything about their fate. The Mudir said: “They have reached their destination safe and sound.”[137]

Several days later all Armenians, with the exception of a few Protestant ladies, were cleared out of S.

Later, some of the missionaries from X. passed through S. and found us there in the desperate state we were in. They told the American Embassy as soon as they reached Constantinople, and that is how we obtained permission to proceed to Constantinople.

Here it took us three months to obtain a passport for America.

At X. several families made up their minds to take poison. Mr. GG. was imprisoned. He apostatized and returned home, and his wife fainted at the sight of him. Professor B. accepted Islam, and became head of the printing works. F., E., and the photographer D. have all three apostatized to Islam. There was no revolutionary movement. Frightful atrocities occurred. There was a dark underground cellar into which the Armenians were crowded, one on the top of the other. One night one of them cried out in his sleep: “Escape,” and the other prisoners began to shout as well. Then the guards were given the order to fire into the living mass, but they showed some human feeling and fired against the wall.

-----

Footnote 125:

Name withheld. It is possible that the scene of the events
described by this witness may be, not X., but Cilicia.—EDITOR.

Footnote 126:

Six of the names here follow in the original: M., OO., AN., AO.,
AP., AQ., AR.

Footnote 127:

Four names here follow in the original: AS., AT., AU., AV.

Footnote 128:

Seventeen names here follow in the original: C., BC., O., B., D.,
BD., G., BE., BF., AN., BG., BH., BI., BJ., P., BK., BL.

Footnote 129:

Greek and Armenian, respectively, for “Good morning.”—EDITOR.

Footnote 130:

_The treatment of this victim is described in more detail in a
narrative subsequently published by the author of the present
document_:

“Some died as a result of torture. I saw Garabed GG., who, after
having been whipped and beaten a whole day and night, at intervals
of two hours, was moaning in his bed with excruciating pain. He
was confined to bed for weeks. He related to me how one gendarme
had sat on his mouth, that he might not scream, while two others
had held up and bastinadoed his feet, which were bound with ropes
attached to a strong rod. Sometimes they would beat him on any
part of his body, indiscriminately. The poor fellow, a strong,
brave young man, the leader of the college firemen, who, in the
presence of all the leading Turkish officials, had extinguished
some time ago a big fire in the town, was in despair and longed to
die. His body was all blue as a result of the beating.”

Footnote 131:

_Further details in the narrative subsequently published_:

“I visited a great many Armenian families while they were
preparing for this Babylonian captivity. I could not stand the
sight, neither could I find any words of comfort for them. The
scene varied from house to house, but everywhere there was the
same feeling of suspense, dread and despair. In some houses one
saw a feeling of true resignation and heroism. There was a retired
pastor, sixty-eight years old. He did not pack anything in the
house, but left it as it was. Taking his staff in his hand, he
said: ‘I am ready to go wherever they send me. The Lord is my
guide!’”

Footnote 132:

_The fate of Mr. OO. himself is recorded in the narrative
subsequently published_:

“Mr. OO. was put to death at Z. with excruciating tortures—his
eyes being gouged out, and red-hot irons driven under his nails.”

Footnote 133:

Daughter (?). See Doc 94.—EDITOR.

Footnote 134:

_Further instances of Turkish kindness are recorded by the writer
in his subsequently published narrative_:

“The poor Armenians sold their few possessions, but the
transaction was really a legalised plunder. Everything was sold at
one-tenth of its value. Here is a conversation between two Turks
in a coffee house: ‘What a pity things were sold at such a low
price! I could not stand the sight in the streets; I saw many
cheap things, but my conscience would not permit me to buy
anything.’ The other fellow replied: ‘Well done! What a conscience
you have! If you really pitied them, you should have bought
something and offered them a good price! If you and I do not buy,
to whom will the poor people sell?’ It is to their credit that
many of the old school Turks really took pity on the persecuted
Armenians. During the massacres of 1895 many Turks had shielded
and saved Armenians, but in this instance no one dared express his
feelings or do an act of kindness. It is said that a Turk was
hanged in front of his own house in Vezir Köprü, in the Vilayet of
Sivas, for giving shelter to an Armenian.”

Footnote 135:

_This is brought out very clearly in the narrative subsequently
published by the same writer_:

“A blind old man named CZ., whose son is a physician in the United
States, was scarcely able to walk, even with the aid of a staff.
The Mohammedan neighbours took pity upon him and promised to take
care of him if the Government permitted. I appealed to the
Kaimakam and the commandant of the gendarmes. The answer was:
‘Impossible; all have to go; no Armenian is to be left behind,
whether blind, deaf or paralytic.’

“The Kaimakam regretted that he found himself in office at such a
time; he was sorry he had ever entered the official life. His
father, a professor in the Turkish University in Constantinople,
had advised him to go into business, but, as he had had no
capital, he entered the Government Service.”

Footnote 136:

See Docs. 68, 82 and 122.

Footnote 137:

We know from other sources that Mr. CC. was put to death.—EDITOR.

XII.
THE CITY OF ANGORA.

_Angora is the capital of a vilayet, and the terminus of a branch line of the Anatolian Railway. It is the half-way house between Constantinople and Sivas, and the focus of traffic with all the provinces of the north-east. It is naturally an important centre of commerce as well as of administration, and there was a strong Armenian element in the population of the town._

_Our information regarding the destruction of the Armenians at Angora is comparatively scanty—scantier, perhaps, than in the case of any other Armenian centre of equal importance in the Ottoman Empire. Yet the documents included in this section, together with incidental references in other pieces of testimony (_e.g._, Doc. 109, suffice to show that the Government’s order was executed here in the same fashion as at Sivas and at X._

95. ANGORA: STATEMENT BY A TRAVELLER, NOT OF ARMENIAN NATIONALITY,
WHO PASSED THROUGH ANGORA IN AUGUST, 1915.

While the Armenians of Sivas and other Armenian provinces were being deported, there were repeated rumours that the deportation was to be confined to the seven vilayets in which special reforms were due to be carried out. As in the case of 1894-5, the promise of reforms was followed by massacres—and that almost throughout the whole Ottoman Empire.

The Vali of Angora, a really good man, refused to carry out the orders from Constantinople to deport the Armenians of Angora, so the Commander of the Military Forces of the Vilayet and the Chief of the Police agreed with the Vali and supported him. The leading Turks of Angora, including the religious leaders, were all of the same mind. They knew that the Christians of the place were all loyal and useful subjects of the Empire.

The Armenians here were chiefly Roman Catholics, and were all truly loyal to the Turkish Government. They had no sympathy with any national aspirations. They even refused to be called Armenians. They were simply called the “Catholic Nation,” and the Government so regarded them. There were some 15,000 to 20,000 of them, and they were leaders in commerce and trade. They had more outward polish than other Armenians. They spoke Turkish, and wrote it in Armenian characters.

There were also some 300 to 400 other Armenian families who were members of the National or Gregorian Church, and had settled in Angora from various parts of Turkey.

The Armenians’ houses and shops were searched during July, 1915, and neither arms nor incriminating documents were found. But the central authorities in Constantinople had decreed their extermination, and, as the Vali refused to obey them, both he and the Chief of the Police were dismissed. Their successors made themselves ready tools to carry out any orders given from above. They succeeded in deporting all the Armenians of Angora.

As in other places, a number of leading Armenians were first arrested, including some Catholics. This was towards the end of July, 1915. The Catholics were soon released; those who remained in gaol were tortured terribly. Then all the Armenians of all creeds had to register their names, including women and children—without any omissions—at the police stations. For several days the police stations were packed with people. As soon as the list was completed the deportations began. This was the second week in August. Men were led to the prisons, and stripped of all valuables, watches, purses, rings, &c. They were told that these things would be taken care of by the Government and that they would find them all safe at the place of their destination. An eye-witness who had visited the Chief of the Police, saw his office choked up with piles of such articles taken from the Armenians.

Then they were sent away, principally in three directions—some along the high-road that leads to Kaisaria and Yozgad, others in the Süngürlü direction, and others westward. Reports came from all directions that these exiles were all killed after proceeding some miles from the city. It was said that one party was shot, but in all the other cases the Turks practised economy, killing their victims with axes and daggers. Some of the perpetrators of these horrible crimes boasted of it openly in the cafés, giving details of their achievements and the number of their victims. One Albanian said he had killed fifty men. Villagers from Kilidjlar, on the way to Süngürlü, spoke to many people confidentially of how the ground in their neighbourhood was soaked with blood.

Those arrested and deported first were chiefly Gregorians, with a few Protestants among them. By the middle of August these had all been deported. They were all men; the women were apparently safe. The Government in some instances began to give money for the support of the poor; but the scenes at the office of the Chief of the Police and at the entrance of the gaol were heart-rending. There were women and children anxiously waiting to make enquiries about their dear ones—husbands, or sons, or fathers, or friends. The only answers they got were vague assurances that they were all safe. Some, they were told, were already proceeding to their destination, and others were soon to leave. This was simply a war-measure, a temporary arrangement; as soon as the war was over, all would return home; any of the women desiring to follow their husbands or relations would be sent to the same place as they.

After the departure of the Gregorians (including some Protestants as well) about the middle of August, it was rumoured that Protestants and Catholics would be exempted from deportation. The promise was observed in some instances, _e.g._, in Istanos, which is a village near Angora, within about twenty miles of the city. All the Armenians of Istanos were brought, chained, to Angora. Then, after the order for exemption, the Protestants were set at liberty to return home, whereas the Gregorians were all deported.

As for the Catholics, the leaders of the Union and Progress Party sent a special message to the Bishop and his Council stating that, if the whole Catholic community, headed by the Bishop and the priests, would accept Islam, they should all remain unmolested; otherwise the order was to be carried out. This is an ascertained fact. But they all preferred to stand firm in their faith, and rejected the proposal of the Committee.

Consequently, on the last Friday in August, 1915, all the Catholics—that is, the men—were arrested. According to one earlier report, they were then butchered at a short distance from Angora; but a later report says that, when the plans for this murder were ready, there suddenly came special envoys from the Government with instructions that the Catholics were to be deported safely. Consequently they were sent to Konia, and thence to the Adana district.

The latter story may be true, as it is a fact that the Papal Envoy in Constantinople and the Austrian Ambassador pressed the Turks hard in defence of the Catholics, and they are said to have secured promises of exemption for the Catholics from Enver and Talaat. But, however that may be, it is difficult to have any preference as between an immediate death and the slower process, for deportation is nothing but a slow process of execution.

The very day that the Catholic men were sent away, all the Armenian women in Angora were hurried off to the railway station. They were told to make haste and catch up their husbands. They were at liberty to take any valuables with them. As soon as the poor creatures reached the station, they were all packed by scores, like cattle, in the sheds and warehouses and barns there. The scenes in the town and at the station defy description. All the men were gone—no one knew where—and now the rest, the women and children, were left in anguish and sorrow, pain and despair, in the company of the Turkish soldiers.

Any of the women and children that accepted Islam were brought back to the town and given to prominent Turks. Those who refused were deported to Syria and Mesopotamia. Their fate must be similar to that of other sufferers from other regions.

A few Protestant families were left unmolested in the town. The Protestant pastor was deported, and nothing is known of his fate.

Many children were circumcised and placed in so-called orphanages.

96. ANGORA: EXTRACT FROM THE NARRATIVE (DOC. 88) OF MISS AA., A
FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN ASIATIC TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

It is strange that one can live constantly in Asia Minor and actually see very little of the crimes that are going on. As one travels across the country, he feels continually the dead silence of a situation which is surrounded by crime and from which he is continually shielded.

I have just come from X. to Constantinople, five days’ journey by wagon. After waiting a week in Angora, I succeeded in getting one day further along the railway to Eski Shehr, where one must wait two days longer. And finally, on a belated train, with neither light nor heating in the first-class carriage, I arrived late on the succeeding day in Constantinople.

I came alone with a Tatar servant. An English exile, who had been for many years in business in this country, joined my company and came part of the way towards his home. The English prisoners are treated very well in the country. This man, after being exiled for more than ten months, had been allowed his freedom. There are English prisoners to be found all through the country. I met several at Tchoroum. They are allowed to have a house and servants, and are treated politely, especially those of them who can speak Turkish. They go and come in the fields, and even can go hunting if they choose, and they are only restricted at night by a rule that they must be in their house by 8 o’clock. The American missionaries have supplied them with reading and are able to be distributing agents for the allowance of money made to them by the American Embassy. They are full of praise for the American Embassy, for its generosity and care.

Some of these men had been carried in the night from Angora eastward. When they started out from Angora, they could not understand why they were taken at night; but when, in utter darkness, they passed the bridge over the river beyond Asi Yozgad, and for an hour were nearly suffocated with the odour that came to them from decaying flesh, they knew why they were not allowed to pass in the daylight. People say that the mountains round Asi Yozgad are a cemetery; I could not see evidences that would prove this, except some suspicious heaps of earth and stone that seemed to me likely to have been raised over pits that had been dug.

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.

These stories are too horrible for repetition.

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.

An interesting story was told of the Catholics of Angora. It had been rumoured, at the time people were deported from Angora, that the Catholics were to be allowed to be free. But the rumour was not corroborated, and the Government did not recognise it. So the Catholics were all gathered together at the station and sent off. Many of the men had been sent separately before, but this was a second large company. I think it also included women. They had reached this town, Asi Yozgad, and the people were there to kill them. The priests with them begged ten minutes for prayers and the presenting of the sacrament to them. The ten minutes were granted, and, as the whole company knelt and prayed, a horseman rode up suddenly, shaking a paper in front of him and crying: “Your freedom is given! Your freedom is given! You are not to be killed!” The officers would not send them back, but they saved their lives and sent them south instead.

The favour that had been obtained through the Austrian and American Embassies in Constantinople for Catholics and Protestants to be exempted from deportation, is in some cases being faithfully observed, but in others not at all. I was in Sivas when the rich village of Perkenik was entirely and most ruthlessly deported. It was an entirely Catholic village of perhaps one thousand homes. They had beautiful horses and great flocks of sheep. The flocks and horses were sent into the city, and the people were literally driven out with whips. When a complaint was made to the officers that this should not be done, because they were Catholics and had been especially faithful to the Government at all times, the reply was given that politics had changed, and that Italy had entered the war since this order had come from Constantinople.

In Angora I found that many Catholic women and children had been left there, but all have become Mohammedans. The Protestant women and children were also still there, though the men have practically all been taken away. A few have been heard from at Osmania.

At Süngürlü, I visited the Protestant community after I arrived in the evening. Their story was a sad one. They had been threatened that they would be deported with the other Armenians of the city, but one of their number, who was in employment elsewhere but was at home for a time on a holiday, besought the Kaimakam for the Protestants. The Kaimakam said he had no orders, but that he would wire to Constantinople and see what the orders were. In the meantime they were all taken to “hans,” and families were ruthlessly broken up. However, the Protestant community managed to get together for a meeting, and, as a body, they put in a formal petition to the Government for their safety, saying that they knew it was the intention of the Constantinople Government that the Protestants should be saved. Finally the Kaimakam yielded to this request and returned them all to their homes; the Gregorians were all sent away from the city, and from several reliable sources the story has come to me that none of them got further than Yozgad alive. These Protestants and the families of a few Armenian soldiers remained in Süngürlü for a few weeks, and then all at once they were taken up and carried to different villages. Again families were broken up, and they suffered great deprivations because the Turkish villagers were afraid to feed them. However, after two weeks’ absence from the city, they were allowed to come back to their homes. One large family, of the influential ones, was chosen out and compelled to accept Islam. This family included the spokesman who had been instrumental in saving them.

97. ANGORA: EXTRACT FROM A LETTER[138] DATED 16th SEPTEMBER, 1915;
APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC. 11), DATED 15/28th OCTOBER,
1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT BUKAREST.

At the end of the month of July, all Armenian men from 15 to 70 years of age were arrested without exception, bound together in gangs of four, and despatched towards Kaisaria. Everything they possessed had first been stolen from them, except for 3½ piastres that each man was allowed to keep. In the valley of Beyhan[139] Boghazi, six or seven hours’ distance from the town, they were attacked by a wild horde of Turkish peasants, and, in pursuance of the order, were all massacred with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, saws—in a word, with every implement that causes a slow and painful death. Some shore off their heads, ears, noses, hands, feet with scythes; others put out their eyes. Thus was exterminated the whole male Armenian population of Angora, including the “political prisoners” who had been brought thither from Ayash and Kingri[140], and our best poets, professors and journalists, as well as the manager of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Angora, and all Armenian officials in the public service. The bodies of the victims were left in pieces in the valley, to be devoured by the wild beasts. The gendarmes boast about the part they played in these exploits.

Ten or fifteen days after these massacres, the Government arrested the men of the Armenian Catholic community at Angora. A convoy of 800 persons was sent off under the same circumstances as the others. Another convoy of 700 persons followed these, and so on—all bound together in gangs of four, and all deprived of food and clothing. The order had been given that these were not to be murdered _en masse_; they were to be pushed ahead until they died of hunger and fatigue. Then began the deportation of their families. In two hours, all the women were collected together in the goods-shed at the station. They were left there for from three to five days without food and at the mercy of the gendarmes’ outrages. Children of rich families begged for a piece of bread when they happened to see a passenger. Part of these women had to embrace Islam; the rest, about 500 in number, were deported to Konia. The Armenian soldiers working on the railway have been forced, under threat of death, to embrace Islam. More than 1,500 soldiers have already been converted by force, and they are obliged to make their children and their other relations follow their example.

-----

Footnote 138:

Name of writer withheld.

Footnote 139:

Beinam (?).

Footnote 140:

Kiangri, Etchangeri.

XIII.
THRACE, CONSTANTINOPLE, BROUSSA, AND ISMID.

_These districts are divided officially into the Vilayet of Adrianople, the Sandjak of Chataldja, the Vilayets of Constantinople and Broussa, and the Sandjak of Ismid, which contains the first section of the Anatolian Railway. Together they constitute the metropolitan area of the Ottoman Empire, and for many centuries this area had attracted a strong Armenian immigration, in spite of its remoteness from the original home of the Armenian race._

_At Constantinople the number of the Armenians had risen to more than 150,000, and in wealth and importance they were becoming serious rivals of the Greeks. In Thrace they had established themselves not only at Adrianople but in all the lesser towns, and seemed likely to reap the benefit of the expulsion of the Greek and Bulgarian elements, which the Ottoman Government had been effecting systematically since the Balkan War. There was a flourishing colony of them at Broussa, the chief city on the Asiatic littoral of the Sea of Marmora, and there were not less than 25,000 of them at Adapazar, in the hinterland of Ismid. This metropolitan region had practically become the centre of gravity of Armenian commerce, and the organisation of the Gregorian Church in the Ottoman Empire was centralised here as well. The Armenian Patriarch had his residence at Constantinople, the administrative centre of the Ottoman Government, and there was a Gregorian Theological Seminary at Armasha, a country town in the vicinity of Ismid._

_The Deportation Scheme had emanated from the Government at Constantinople, but the home provinces were among the last to which it was applied. The smaller towns of Thrace seem to have been cleared towards the beginning of August; the clearance was more or less contemporaneous at Broussa and Ismid; the Seminary at Armasha was broken up by the wholesale exile of pupils and teachers, and the flourishing Armenian villages in the district shared the same fate; at Constantinople, the Government compiled a register of Armenian inhabitants, singling out those who were immigrants from the provinces from those actually born in the city, and a considerable number of prominent people in the former class had been deported by the middle of August. However, the Government seems either never to have intended to apply the scheme to Constantinople in its full rigour, or at any rate to have yielded, in the course of applying it, to representations from authoritative quarters. The measure was never here made universal, while at Adrianople it seems hardly to have been put into practice at all until the 10th October, though it was executed then with particular stringency._

_The Armenians deported from the metropolitan districts do not seem often to have been massacred on the road—there were no Kurdish tribes or “Chetti” bands at hand. They were despatched towards the Arabian desert along the Anatolian Railway, and this, rather than any clemency on the Government’s part, accounts for the two months’ grace that they received. The Armenians further down the line had been sent off in June and July, and the metropolitan districts had to wait until the consequent congestion had abated. The fate of all those deported by the railway is described in the documents contained in the section (XIV.) following this._

98. THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICTS: INFORMATION PUBLISHED IN THE
ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK.

=(a) Thrace: Survey of the situation[141], published on the 28th August, 1915.=

At Adrianople, all Armenian officials in any administrative, public or financial service have been dismissed by order of the Government. The Turkish soldiers transferred here from other districts are committing unheard-of atrocities. The Armenians are continually exposed to persecution. About fifty Armenians from the city have been imprisoned or exiled. The Armenians are forbidden to go abroad, or even to travel within the boundaries of the Province. The Armenians of Keshan have been exiled. The Armenian boatmen of Silivri have been imprisoned, on the charge of revictualling the English submarines.

The Armenian Church and Monastery at Dhimotika have been confiscated by the Government. They gave two weeks’ grace to the Armenians of this locality in which to emigrate to other parts.

The Armenians of Malgara were also given two weeks’ grace before their exile. Their houses are to be occupied by Turkish refugees from Serbia.

The Armenians of Tchorlu have been deported.

=(b) Constantinople: Statement[141], published on the 4th September, 1915.=

In all the quarters of Constantinople they have begun to make a register of the Armenians, entering on separate lists those actually born in Armenia and those whose birthplace is Constantinople. It is thought that they are going to deport the immigrants from Armenia.

Six Armenian pupils of the Normal School of Ottoman Teachers at Constantinople have been poisoned during a meal. One of them—Khosrov, born at Van—has died; the five others are under treatment in hospital. The Turkish press at Constantinople is beginning to prepare public opinion for the loss of Armenia. The _Tanin_ and the _Sabah_, in particular, have devoted articles to the subject, preaching the idea that it is in Turkey’s best interest to have a homogeneous population. In consequence, they argue, the Armenians must be eliminated as irreconcilable enemies.

=(c) Constantinople and the neighbourhood: Statement[141] published on the 2nd October, 1915.=