Chapter I: General Descriptions (27)

When the first parties came, the Government sometimes issued bread, but this policy did not last long. Sometimes the people of the city would be allowed to give bread, but this was rare. There were always people waiting for a chance to get near and give aid to the refugees. We were on the opposite side of the city, but our colleagues were nearer to the refugees. So the head of the institution gave permission for the food to be cooked there. Then it would be taken secretly by the students to the refugees. Usually only one guard was on duty at night, so the food was usually sent down at three or four in the morning, the best being given to the guard in order that he might allow it to pass in. Later on, the women of the city formed a committee and collected food from anyone able to give it. There was also a relief committee of four, who did a great deal towards alleviating the distress by giving bread and by furnishing native shoes to those who had none. Later, one of the lay members of this committee, the one who had been most active in the relief work, was the first among the people of AC., after the exemption of the Protestants, to be deported. When he asked why he had to go, he was told that it was because he had fed the enemies of the Government.

If I remember correctly, it was either on the 30th or the 31st July that the first people from AC. were deported. First the richest families of the Gregorians, and, later, the richest Protestants, were sent away. Just as the Protestants were leaving, we heard a rumour that they would not have to go, but they were hurried straight through to Hama, and other places, without the long delays on the road that others had had. We thought it was done purposely. The first party that went were attacked before they got to their first night’s stopping-place, and had to protect their wives and daughters all night long. We heard later from Dr. L., who was then in Aleppo, that he had seen many of them and been told their story: how they had to be on the alert all night long; how one or two were killed and some wounded, and how one had gone mad. Before we got this news, the brother of one of our teachers, who had been sent into the city by the officer whose servant he was, told us that while nearing the city the previous evening he had seen the Mutessarif’s son and four or five companions, all well armed, riding quickly out of the city in the direction in which the refugees had gone. We all thought that he had perhaps been sent to recall them, and were quite expecting to see them all come back again. Later, we understood that it was this party who had attacked and robbed them.

Soon after the first party of Protestants were sent away, Dr. E. received telegrams from the U.S. Ambassador, from the Consul in Aleppo, and from Mr. N. of Constantinople, saying that there would be no deportation of Protestants. Dr. E. took the three telegrams to the Mutessarif, who was not pleased and said that he had received no such news. Still, for a short time all was quiet, and it being time for College to open, the matter was talked over. Before any decision was reached, a student, a Turk, went to Dr. E. and asked when it would open, as if he were anxious to be back. Dr. E. took this as a sign that the Turks were not only willing but anxious for the College to begin; so, after conferring with the faculty, he told the enquiring Turk that they would open the following week. This, I think, was on Friday, and on Saturday all but two of the professors and teachers had notice that they must leave the city the following Monday morning. Dr. E. pleaded for time, but the Mutessarif was angry and asked him whether he did not know that he had power to send him away too if he wished to do so.

The professors were sent away the following Monday morning. A German lady, Mrs. C., formerly Miss D., who was the matron of the hospital at AC., was ordered to go along with her husband, an Armenian professor, into exile. When Dr. E. went to the Mutessarif about it, he answered: “Is she not his property, and is he not an Armenian?” The German Consul was not able to get permission for her to leave the country when her husband was anxious for her to get away. We heard later from Mrs. C. that they had only got just outside the city when a gendarme came round to each of them and said that, if they wanted to be guarded, they must give money. This they did. When they reached a little wayside station, they found many thousands of refugees waiting in an open field. On the fourth day of waiting, Mrs. C. saw some German officers on a train, and obtained from them a pass which enabled her to board the train for Aleppo. On the fifth day, she and her husband and baby were allowed to go by train to Aleppo, but his family had to wait and go on with the rest of the refugees. They, after many weeks of travel and after paying exorbitant sums of money, were sent to a fellahin village. Prof. C., according to the latest report, was teaching for nothing in a Moslem school in Aleppo.

Three of the pastors at AC. were imprisoned for months in dirty, dingy cells of the common prison. Three of the College professors had the same experience. Finally, permission was given for the gendarmes to take the pastors out long enough to preach, for it was feared they would otherwise go mad. The sermons they preached were said to be wonderful. These pastors were later released, but all the professors in the College were exiled except one, and another who had previously succeeded in getting away to Constantinople.

Soon after the crowds started, all kinds of sickness began and spread among the people, and later one of the two doctors left in AC. was sent to look after them. Sometimes they would wait for weeks, expecting to be taken by train to whatever place they were to be sent to. Then they would be told that each must hire an animal for himself. The hire would be put up so high that all their baggage would have to be left behind. The gendarmes told them that it would be forwarded to them, but a little later it was placed in a house from which some of the people had been deported, and sold at auction.

When the people were told that they must go, they at once tried to sell some of their goods, so that they might have a little money in hand. But it cannot be said that they really sold them, for one heard of good wool mattresses selling for one piastre; the highest I heard of was for twenty piastres, while in ordinary times they would sell for a hundred. Large copper pans and basins were sold for a mere song, until one day two Jews appeared on the scene and began paying much better prices. But in three days these men were imprisoned, so that the Turks could once more get things for as little as they pleased. Even goods that were being given to the poor by those having to leave were confiscated by the Government. Some antiquities and books that were being taken to the College shared the same fate. Anyone walking with a parcel was liable to be held up, searched, and robbed.

After the professors had been sent away, the pastors of the Protestant churches and the two remaining professors who had not been deported were put into prison. First, their homes were searched and all papers and any written matter were taken to the Sarai. The secretaries of the Christian societies were enquired about, and when it was found that some of them had been deported it was thought that they might be brought back; but they had not been brought back at the time of my leaving. While waiting in BJ., I heard that those who had been imprisoned had been released.

About the time deportations began in AC., all the non-Moslem schools were taken possession of by the Government, except those belonging to the American Board. At the same time, the large Armenian church and one of the Protestant churches were seized, but before I left AC. they were restored to their owners.

After the professors had been taken away, it was reported that no more Protestants, except those found at fault, would be sent away. But every day they kept sending a family or two away on the slightest pretexts. One of the relief committee workers was the first to be sent away. A letter said to have been sent to them, but which they never saw, was actually the alleged cause of deportation. The censor said that no mention of high prices, poverty, sickness, need of money, or slackness of work must be mentioned in letters. So we prayed that any letters that might be sent to us should make no mention of relief money or of any other forbidden subject.

As soon as it was officially announced that the Protestants would not be deported, they held a thanksgiving service, at which the one in charge said: “Now that we are permitted to stay in our city, we must be very careful to give no occasion of complaint to the Government. If they ask for our sons as soldiers, we must give them up without murmuring; if for money, or goods, or clothing for the soldiers, let us give as if we appreciated the privilege of staying in our homes. Let us show them that we are loyal to the country. Let no one take into his home a child or anyone else who has been told to go, whether they be of those passing through the city as refugees or from among our own friends and relatives in the town. Let us show the Government that we will do all that is asked of us.”

The goods in the drapers’ shops all belonged to the Armenians; but during the deportations the Turks took whatever they wanted and paid nothing, so the owners in some cases sold their goods for almost nothing, or gave them away, or closed their shops. Soon after deportation, it was impossible to buy a button, though some native material could be secured in native houses where they had looms.

When the first lot of people from AC. were sent away, they were told that they were only going for a short time, and that they need not trouble about their homes and belongings, for the Government would carefully seal them and take care of their property. They had not been out of the city long when soldiers were quartered in the larger houses, some of which were rented for a trifle, the rent being paid to the Government. The poorer houses were given to the poorer Turks. Every evening all the possible exits from the city were carefully guarded; if we went from one building to another, we were held up and asked where we were going and for what. If our servant was found outside, he would always be searched and sometimes struck at, and told not to be out so late again. In the early days we were not allowed out after sunset, and later we were told the same, even if the sun were shining. This was said not only to me, the subject of a belligerent country, but also to neutrals as well.

An old college student, whose home was at E., managed, through the kindness of a friendly Turk, to escape to AC. He told us that the men of his town were all killed. We had previously heard that the men of that town and of the next village had been taken for military service, and set to making a road to BL. As soon as the road was finished, the men were taken to the side of the road they had made and were killed—chiefly by the knife, for the officer in command had told the soldiers he commanded not to waste powder on the Armenians.

An Englishman who had been given permission to leave the country (we wondered whether he ever got out) told one of our ladies of the sights he had seen while waiting for the train. He had seen feet swollen all out of shape lifted up and beaten with the heavy end of a gendarme’s gun, just because people had said they could not walk any faster.

The steward of the College at AC. was sent away because his brother-in-law had sent his dentist’s instruments to him with a letter, asking him to sell them and send the money on to him later, when he could tell him—the steward—where they were being deported to. But neither the instruments nor the letter ever reached the steward. He was merely told that they had been sent and that, because of it, he and his family of small children must go into exile. This was after the Protestants were told that they might stay.

Whenever the Turks thought that they had won any victory, they were almost unbearable, as, for instance, when word came that they had taken the Suez Canal. They then rejoiced both by day and by night, and were most insolent to Christians. An English flag was dragged through the filth of the streets, spat and trampled upon, &c. The noise continued all night long. At these times of supposed victories, they showed what they would do if ever they were really victorious.

It was beautiful to see the faith of some of the villagers. One evening a large party came in and very soon began singing hymns and holding a prayer-meeting. The following morning, when asked about it, they said that their pastor had been taken from them and killed, and that his last word to them was: “Keep up the prayer-meeting.” And with kindling eyes they said: “We have never once missed it, though we have been seven weeks on the march.”

Another party told how they had prayed that, if it were God’s will, they might be spared the horrors of deportation, and said: “There must be some good in it for our nation, or God would not permit it. The only thing that troubles us is: Will our husbands ever be able to find us?” They little knew, poor women, that their husbands had already been killed, as we were told by others.

Just before the deportation began at AC., a high official, T. Pasha, came and called together the leading people, both Moslem and Christian. In a very kindly manner, he asked the Christians whether they were being kindly treated by the Moslems, &c., &c. He said that he had heard certain things, and that, if there was any truth in the statement that Armenians were being ill-treated, he himself would hang the Turk, were it his own brother, who should dare to treat a Christian unkindly; and he begged the Armenians to speak out without fear. He then went straight from AC. to BN., where he arranged for the deportation of all the BN. and BM. districts. Such plans were evidently intended to throw the Armenians off their guard.

In T. Pasha’s party there were three German officers, but I could not say that German officers were supervising the deportations. The German Consul went through AC. to BM. and BN. before the deportation began. Though some people blamed him for it, we did not think he had so much power.

A great many of the Armenian doctors were taken for the Army. When there was any sickness among the service corps, one of the three Armenian doctors left in AC. was sure to be sent to attend the sick. In this way we lost a dear friend, who in the early days had been an assistant to Dr. L. He was sent to a camp where the soldiers, nearly all of them Armenians, were working on a section of a branch of the Baghdad Railway; typhus had broken out among them. Very soon a telegram came, saying that the old doctor was ill. Though he was the oldest doctor in AC. and had more Moslem patients than any other doctor in the city, no mercy was shown to him. Did he not belong to the accursed Armenian race? And was not his death of typhus, in the camp to which he had been obliged to go, a fate good enough for any such as he?

Early in March, 1915, the BM. Government took possession of Miss S.’s Orphanage and put Turks in charge of the girls and young women. Miss O., a Swiss lady in charge of a German Orphanage at BM., after all her charges[175] had been turned loose for deportation, as were the inmates of all the German orphanages early in the war, took under her care some of the old girls who were married and living in the districts in which the first deportations had taken place. After she had kept them for a short time, she was told by the German Consul that she must give them up. She thought that if she could get to someone in authority she could present the situation in its true light, so she went to Constantinople, but returned disappointed.

Early in the autumn we heard of a reign of terror at Ourfa, so that the very mention of the place seemed to alarm people. We heard that three men, one of them being H. Effendi, Miss J.’s faithful helper in charge of industrial work employing more than 2,000 persons, had been banished. Later, they were brought back to the city and tortured. Later still, in writing to his wife, Mr. K. said that H. Effendi’s children were in the same case as some other children, whom we knew to be orphans; so we inferred that he had certainly been killed[176]. Still later, a driver told how he had been engaged to take three men to Diyarbekir for court-martial. They had gone but a short distance from Ourfa when the men were told to get out of the wagon. They were taken down a gully a short distance, and soon the driver heard shots. The four gendarmes came galloping up to the wagon and told the driver to drive on. One of them looked into the wagon and asked where the prisoners were. When the driver asked if they had not called them out of the wagon, he was told that he had allowed them to escape and that he himself must go before the court. So he had to drive back to Ourfa to the Sarai, where he was told to leave the things that belonged to the men he had started out with. Then he was allowed to go away free.

Q., Miss J.’s servant, had been killed, we heard, in a brutal way while he was going to Garmoush with some relief for a poor family. We also heard that there were two massacres at Ourfa, in the first of which only the men found in the streets were killed. The second time, homes were entered.

M., one of my orphan boys, had gone with Dr. P., and was working for him when he was told to leave the country. He was tortured to make him tell something incriminating about Dr. P. Later, when Dr. L. tried to get some news about the boy from the Diyarbekir refugees at Aleppo, their answer was: “Do not ask us about any male over twelve years old, for, as far as we know, they were every one of them killed.”

The general impression was that Mr. K. was poisoned. We heard that he was in danger of a mental breakdown; but, on the evening previous to my leaving AC., Dr. E. was told by a Moslem muleteer who had come from Ourfa that Mr. K. had either died or been killed. I was told that I must acquaint the Consul with what Dr. E. had heard as soon as I reached Aleppo. On my telling the Consul, he showed me a telegram he had recently received from Mr. K. himself, which read: “Am safe and well in Government House.” Later, in BJ., when we heard that he had poisoned himself, someone remarked that it would be easy for Mr. K. to be obliged to write and say that there was danger of a nervous breakdown, and then the way would be prepared for the news: “Poisoned himself.” Someone else added: “Yes, just as was done when the prisoners were obliged to sign a letter, stating that they were all well, while at the very time there was an epidemic in their camp.”

When we travelled ourselves from AC. to Aleppo, we saw a large camp of refugees, some distance from the road which we were on, but close to the small station of Kotmo, which connects with the Baghdad Railway. We had heard before leaving AC. that 37,000 were waiting for a train to take them on, but, judging from what we could see, there could not have been more than seven or eight thousand of them.

As we got near to Aleppo we passed a very long convoy of ox-wagons, mules, donkeys, and a few horses, carrying women, children, and some old men. Our driver got down and talked with a few. He was told that they were being sent from Adana and Mersina. They looked so much better off in every way than any refugees we had seen that they hardly seemed like refugees at all. There were many more men than usual among them.

Later, when we reached Aleppo, we were told that there were 20,000 refugees there, and that on some days the death-rate was as high as 400. A native doctor and his wife, wishing to give all their time to helping these poor people, had left their home and gone to the hotel in which we were staying. From them we got reports twice a day.

We heard of one party, who, when they left Harpout, numbered 5,000. Of this number, only 213 reached Aleppo. When they started, they were of all ages and both sexes. They went towards Aleppo down the Euphrates. When they came to cross the rivers that flow into the Euphrates, all the able-bodied men were drowned and their bodies left in the water. Farther on, all the survivors—now only old men, women and children—were entirely stripped of their clothing. Naked they waded through streams, slept in the chilly nights, and bore the heat of the sun. They were brought into Aleppo the last few miles in third-class railway carriages, herded together like so many animals. When the doors of the carriages were opened, they were jeered at by the populace for their nakedness. On their journey, they had come on a hot day in August to the banks of a river. There was a general rush to get water, but the gendarmes who were with them drew their revolvers and told them that anyone who got any water must pay a medjidia (about 3_s._ 2_d._) for it. Some were able to give it, but the majority were not. After waiting there for some time, they were told that they must strip and get through the water as best they could. They had the right to the animals that carried their possessions, for they had paid for them for two days longer. They clasped hands and waded across, but waited in vain for the gendarmes to come across with their animals and provisions.[177] In this party were refined girls and young women from the best Armenian homes, who had been educated in the American colleges.

While waiting in BJ., the President of the College got a telegram from the U.S. Consul in Aleppo, asking him to send some doctors, as the death-rate was very high—as high as 400 a day, we heard. The President thought it best to ask Djemal Pasha before doing anything. When he did ask him, the answer came: “No, you must not send anyone. Let your Consul mind his own business!”

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Footnote 174:

“Outside AC., a woman gave birth to a child in the refugee camp.
She was taken to the College and put into a small room there. In
spite of the best of care, she died in a few days and the child a
little later. In her most delicate condition, she had been driven,
cursed and beaten along the road from BM., some sixty miles
away.”—_Earlier and less detailed statement by the same witness._

Footnote 175:

“More than a thousand.”—_Earlier statement._

Footnote 176:

“The Protestant pastor and a doctor were also killed.”—_Earlier
statement._

Footnote 177:

“Later, another convoy of exiles came up, and took this party of
forty women on with them.”—_Earlier statement._

138. AC.: LETTERS FROM AN ARMENIAN INHABITANT[178], DESCRIBING THE
DEPORTATION OF ARMENIANS FROM CILICIA; COMMUNICATED BY THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

=Letter dated 6/19th April, 1915.=

Every day two or three hundred people from Zeitoun are transferred to BM., under severe guard, and, after a short halt at night, are deported in unknown directions. The hotels and the two Armenian schools are full of these deported families from Zeitoun, Alabash and Furnus. The Government has decided to evacuate by force all the other Armenian regions. It is impossible to describe the misery which is resulting. Old men, invalids, and children four or five years old go in masses, barefooted.

=Letter dated 17/30th May, 1915.=

Since the first days of April, convoys have been coming from Zeitoun and the neighbourhood and passing southward towards the steppes of Mesopotamia. Reckoning only those that have crossed our city, the number of the deported rises to 6,700 persons. Furnus, Geben, Alabash, and the whole region of Zeitoun have been evacuated. Bosniak mouhadjirs replace the Armenians thus exiled. The Turks are in a perfect delirium. It is impossible to describe the horrors suffered by the deported Armenians. Violation, conversion and the rape of women and girls are ordinary and daily facts. The Armenian population of Zeitoun has been annihilated, one or two villages excepted. We are informed that 150 Armenians from Dört Yöl and 1,350 from Hassan-Beyli have been deported to Aleppo.

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Footnote 178:

Name withheld.

XVIII.
VILAYET OF ALEPPO.

_The Vilayet of Aleppo is not Armenian soil. It is the border province of the Arabic language and the Semitic race, and the only considerable Armenian communities it contains are the villages of Jibal Mousa (which have been dealt with already) and an urban colony in the town of Aintab. In the city of Aleppo itself the Armenian element is altogether insignificant, and it was not as a centre of population, but as a junction of routes, that Aleppo played an important and terrible part in the Armenian deportations of 1915._

_Aleppo is the natural meeting-place of all the roads and railways in Asiatic Turkey. It lies immediately south of the great Taurus barrier, which divides the Turco-Armenian provinces of the north-west from the Arabian provinces of the south-east; and it also lies midway between the course of the Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast, at the point where the two approach most closely to one another. On the north-west, the railway leading to Aleppo from Constantinople and Konia over the Taurus and Amanus ranges has practically been completed; from the north a route comes down over the Cilician mountains through Marash and Aintab; from the north-east, through Ourfa, a carriage road converges on Aleppo from Diyarbekir, while southward and eastward the routes radiate out from Aleppo again—the Baghdad Railway, which proceeds due eastward across the Euphrates, and is already complete in this section as far as Ras-ul-Ain; the carriage road south-eastward down the Euphrates to Der-el-Zor; and, finally, the Syrian Railway, which runs due south from Aleppo to Damascus, Beirout and Medina._

_All these routes were traversed by the convoys of Armenian exiles, and from the very beginning of the deportations they were continually arriving at Aleppo and leaving again, after a longer or shorter delay in the congested city, for their final destinations beyond._

_Batches of Zeitounlis were already passing through Aleppo by the beginning of May, 1915, and the current of exiles from Cilicia went on flowing in a comparatively thin but steady stream during the next three months. At the beginning of August the volume was suddenly increased by the arrival of the first convoys, or remnants of convoys, from the north-east. These first arrivals were from Diyarbekir, and even they had been forty-five days on the road. They were followed in due course by all who survived the far longer journey from the Vilayets of Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Erzeroum. Meanwhile, an even greater mass of exiles had been converging on Aleppo along the Anatolian Railway from all the Armenian districts which its branches tap; but this stream was dammed up indefinitely by the mountain barriers where the railway was still incomplete, and even in December the convoys were still bivouacked on the slopes of Amanus. What was their subsequent fate—whether they died where they lay at Osmania and Islohia, or got through to Aleppo in any considerable numbers—there is little evidence to show. It is only known that 500,000 exiles altogether, out of those who converged upon Aleppo in 1915 from all the quarters above mentioned, were supposed to be still alive, in the spring of 1916, in the region between Aleppo, Damascus and Der-el-Zor._

139. ALEPPO: SERIES OF REPORTS FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT ALEPPO;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.

(=a.=) =Report dated 12th May, 1915.=

Between 4,300 and 4,500 families, that is, about 28,000 persons, are being removed by order of the Government from the districts of Zeitoun and Marash to distant places where they are unknown. Thousands have already been sent to the north-west into the provinces of Konia, Kaisaria, Kastamouni, &c., while others have been taken south-eastwards as far as Der-el-Zor, and report says to the vicinity of Baghdad. A traveller coming from Constantinople said that he met about 4,500 unfortunates on their way to Konia. The Armenians themselves say that they would by far have preferred a massacre.

(=b.=) =Report dated 3rd August, 1915.=

The idea of direct attack and massacre that was carried out in former times has been altered somewhat, in that the men and boys have been deported from their homes in great numbers and disappeared _en route_, and later on the women and children have been made to follow. For some time stories have been prevalent from travellers arriving from the interior of the killing of the males; of great numbers of bodies along the roadside or floating in the Euphrates River; of the delivery to the Kurds by the gendarmes accompanying the convoys of women and children and of all the younger members of the convoys; of unthinkable outrages committed by gendarmes and Kurds, and even of the killing of many of the victims.

At first these stories were not given much credence, but as many of the refugees are now arriving in Aleppo, no doubt any longer remains of the truth of the matter. On the 2nd August about 800 middle-aged and old women, and children under the age of ten years, arrived afoot from Diyarbekir, after forty-five days _en route_, in the most pitiable condition imaginable. They report the taking of all the young women and girls by the Kurds, the pillaging even of the last bit of money and other belongings, of starvation, of privation and hardship of every description. Their deplorable condition bears out their statements in every detail.

I am informed that 4,500 persons were sent from Sughurt[179] to Ras-ul-Ain, over 2,000 from Mezré to Diyarbekir, and that all the cities of Bitlis, Mardin, Mosul, Suverek[180], Malatia, Besné, &c., have been depopulated of Armenians, the men and boys and many of the women killed, and the balance scattered throughout the country. If this is true, of which there is little doubt, even the latter must naturally die of fatigue, hunger and disease. The Governor of Der-el-Zor, on the Euphrates River, who is now in Aleppo, says that there are 15,000 Armenian refugees in that city. Children are frequently sold to prevent starvation, as the Government furnishes practically no subsistence. The following statistics show the number of families and persons arriving in Aleppo, places whence deported, and number sent further on, up to and including the 30th July:—

WHERE FROM. FAMILIES. PERSONS. SENT AWAY.
Tcheuk-Merzemen (Dört Yöl) 400 2,109 734
Odjakli 115 537 137
Euzerli 116 593 173
Hassan Beyli 187 1,118 514
Harni 84 528 34
Karspazar 51 340 —
Hadjin 592 3,988 1,025
Roumlou 51 388 296
Shar 150 1,112 357
Sis 231 1,317 —
Baghtché 13 68 —
Dengala 126 804 —
Drtadli 12 104 —
Zeitoun 5 8 —
Yarpouz 22 97 —
Albustan 10 44 —
—— —— ——
Total 2,165 13,155 3,270

2,100 persons more arrived since the above figures were compiled.

Now all Armenians have been ordered to be deported from the cities of Aintab, Mardin, Bitlis, Antioch, Alexandretta, Kessab, and all the smaller towns in the Aleppo Province, estimated at 60,000 persons in all. It is natural to suppose that they will suffer the fate of those that have gone before, which is appalling to contemplate. The result is that, as 90 per cent. of the commerce of the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of prominent business men other than Armenians face bankruptcy. There will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder, blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay worker, weaver, shoemaker, jeweller, pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the professional people or tradesmen, with very few exceptions, and the country will be left in a practically helpless state.

The important American religious and educational institutions in this region are losing their professors, teachers, helpers and students, and even the orphanages are to be emptied of the hundreds of children therein, which ruins the fruits of fifty years of untiring effort in this field. The Government officials in a mocking way ask what the Americans are going to do with these establishments now that the Armenians are being done away with.

The situation is becoming more critical daily, as there is no telling where this thing will end. The Germans are being blamed on every hand, for if they have not directly ordered this wholesale slaughter (for it is nothing less than the extermination of the Armenian race), they at least condone it.

(=c.=) =Report dated 19th August, 1915.=

The city of Aintab is being rapidly depopulated of Armenians, several thousands having already passed through Aleppo on their way to the south. The accompanying gendarmes do nothing to protect their charges against attack by the way. The Armenian community of Aintab is the wealthiest of the kind in this part of the Empire. Their household belongings were left behind to be taken by the first plunderer to arrive. Most of the merchants of the city being Armenians, their stocks are likewise disappearing. It is a gigantic plundering scheme, as well as a final blow to extinguish the race.

Since the 1st August the German Baghdad Railway has brought nine trains of these unfortunate people to Aleppo, each of fifteen truck-loads and each truck containing from thirty-five to forty persons. All these in addition to many thousands that came on foot.

Since the 1st August 20,000 have so far arrived in Aleppo. The trains were mostly switched to the Damascus-Hama line, and run on south to disperse their contents among the Arabs and Druses, while a small proportion were permitted to remain in Aleppo for the time being. They all relate harrowing tales of hardships, abuse, robbery and atrocities committed _en route_, and, with the exception of those from Aintab, there were few if any men, girls over ten years or becoming young married women among them. Travellers from the interior have related to the writer that the beaten paths are lined with corpses of the victims. Between Ourfa and Arab-Pounar, a distance of about twenty-five miles, there were seen more than 500 unburied corpses along the highway.

On the 17th instant an order arrived from the Minister of the Interior to permit the Armenian Protestants to remain where they were. On the 19th another order came that all Armenians without distinction should be deported.

From Mardin the Government deported great numbers of Syrians, Catholics, Chaldeans and Protestants, and it is feared that all Christians may later be included in the order, and possibly even the Jews. The cry is “Turkey for the Moslems!” Judicious persons, well informed on the question, place the total loss of life up to the 15th August at over 500,000. The territory affected includes the provinces of Van, Erzeroum, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Angora and Sivas; in these the Armenians have already been practically exterminated. This leaves Aleppo and Adana to be completed, and here the movement is in rapid progress.

(=d.=) =Report dated 8th February, 1916.=

I transmit herewith a copy of a report received from reliable sources in reference to the number of Armenian immigrants in this vicinity, between here and Damascus and in the surrounding country, and down the Euphrates River as far as Der-el-Zor, showing a total of about 500,000 persons. In connection with the relief sent by Mr. N. for these people, it would seem proper to state that the sum of £500 (Turkish) weekly is entirely inadequate to aid even a small part thereof. In fact, as a person cannot live on less than two gold piastres per day, it will require the sum of £10,000 (Turkish) (about £9,000 sterling) a day to keep those alive who are in good health, to say nothing of the sick.

The following are the statistics of Armenian immigrants according to the best information, up to the 3rd February, 1916:

Damascus as far as Ma’an, more than 100,000 Hama and surrounding villages 12,000 Homs and surrounding villages 20,000 Aleppo and surrounding villages 7,000 Ma’ara and surrounding villages 4,000 Bab and surrounding villages 8,000 Mumbidj and surrounding villages 5,000 Ras-ul-Ain and surrounding villages 20,000 Rakka and surrounding villages 10,000 Der-el-Zor and surrounding villages, more than 300,000 ——— Total 486,000 ———

140. ALEPPO: MEMORANDUM[181], DATED ALEPPO, 18th JUNE/1st JULY,
1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.

The number of people from Zeitoun exiled to Konia is more than 6,000; they have been put in the Sandjak of Sultania or Kara-Pounar. More than 20,000 Armenians who have been forced to emigrate are being cast into the deserts amid nomadic tribes, leaving their houses, gardens and tilled lands to the Turkish mouhadjirs. Deprived of all that they possessed, the unfortunate people have not even any graves for their dead.

At Aleppo all the churches and schools are full of exiled Armenians. Rich and poor, teachers and pupils, all are brothers there, victims of the same blow. The inhabitants of the city do their utmost to alleviate the suffering. Those that are deported—women, old men, children—are obliged to cross the deserts on foot, under the burning sun, often deprived of food and water. The most modest complaint is stifled by the most barbarous threats. Overpowered by fatigue, exhausted by hunger, mothers in despair leave on the way their infant children, often only six months old, and continue their journey.... Even in this deplorable state, rapes and violent acts are everyday occurrences.... The Armenians deported from Hadjin could not be recognised as a result of their twelve days’ journey.

-----

Footnote 179:

Sairt (?).

Footnote 180:

Severeg.

Footnote 181:

Name of author withheld.

141. ALEPPO: MEMORANDUM[182] BY A FOREIGN WITNESS[183] FROM ALEPPO;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.

Speaking generally on the question of the expulsion of the Armenians from their native places, you are perhaps not aware that they have all been exiled from the towns in Northern Armenia and Anatolia, such as Harpout, Diyarbekir, Bitlis, Moush, Marash, Zeitoun, Sivas, Erzeroum, etc. They are all being sent south and are gradually moved on from one place to another until they reach the borders of the Syrian Desert. They are met with as far south as Mayadin, an Arab village one day south of Der-el-Zor or seven days’ carriage journey south of Aleppo. Practically all the towns in Syria (Aleppo, Damascus, etc.) are full of these exiles, whose condition is most pitiable, as may be imagined when one considers that some of them have been four or even six months on the road from their native places, passing through country which is practically barren and devoid of any means of obtaining proper sustenance. The Armenians are allowed to accumulate in a town until the numbers become so large that it is necessary to move them on to some other town further south, and the population commences to protest against their presence. One sees them in Aleppo on pieces of waste ground, in old buildings, courtyards and alleyways, and their condition is simply indescribable. They are totally without food and are dying of starvation. If one looks into these places where they are living one simply sees a huddled mass of dying and dead, all mixed up with discarded, ragged clothing, refuse and human excrement, and it is impossible to pick out any one portion and describe it as being a living person. A number of open carts used to parade the streets, looking out for corpses, and it was a common sight to see one of these carts pass containing anything up to ten or twelve human bodies, all terribly emaciated. These carts have since been provided with a lid and painted black, and one constantly sees bodies, mostly of women and children, being dragged out of courtyards and alleyways and thrown into them as one would throw a sack of coal. It is impossible to gauge the number of deaths per diem, but in the Armenian Cemetery trenches are dug and the bodies are simply brought there and thrown in indiscriminately. A number of priests remain at the cemetery all day, and perform some kind of funeral rite as the so-called interment is made. Every now and again an order is given for the town to be cleaned up, and the gendarmes and municipal guards go round and drive out the Armenians from their places of refuge, hustle them down to the railway station, pack them into the trucks like cattle and forward them to Damascus and different towns in the Hidjaz. Occasionally a large convoy is collected and put on the road to Der-el-Zor. Unnecessary brutality is shown in the expulsion of these people, the majority of whom are simply living skeletons, and one sees emaciated and hunger-stricken women and children beaten with whips like dogs in order to make them move.

If one walks round certain quarters of Aleppo at night, one sees an indescribable “something” lying on the ground; one hears a groan, and knows that it is one of these human wrecks who, the following morning, will be thrown into a cart and taken to the cemetery. Many of these people refuse to accept any help whatever, and say that they prefer to die and end their suffering rather than prolong it, since the future gives no hope of any alleviation. The stories they tell are beyond description. When they were expelled from any of the towns in Northern Asia Minor, all the men between the ages of fifteen and sixty were shot down before the eyes of the women and children, either before starting or some little way on the road. Some idea of the decimation of their numbers may be obtained when one learns that out of a convoy of 2,500, which left a village in the vicinity of Harpout, only 600 arrived in Der-el-Zor. One learns from their own stories that many of the women drowned their children in the river en route, since there was no visible means of nourishing them; and practically every family has been depleted through the men being killed, the children dying en route and many of the girls having been carried off by roving bands of Kurdish and Arab robbers on the way. One boy of fourteen years old, from Diyarbekir, described how his father and mother were shot and two of his sisters dragged away en route, so that there remained to him only two little sisters out of the whole family. English-speaking girl students of the American College in H. told stories of the torture of various priests and professors in H., in order to make them divulge the location of supposed arms and ammunition. One girl, who was a nurse in the Military Hospital, swore that one of their professors was attended to by her after having had the hair torn from his face and his finger and toe-nails pulled out[184]. One Armenian priest was said to have suffered the same torture, and finally to have been burned alive; the veracity of this, however, seems impossible in the Twentieth Century. It is no uncommon thing for women and girls who have any claim to good looks to be violated by the different Kurds and Arabs whom they meet on the way, and against whom it is impossible for them to defend themselves. Practically all these convoys are composed of women and children, and men between the ages of fifteen and sixty are rarely met with. Many of these people have been considerably well off, and brought away with them large sums of money secreted on their persons. This, of course, became known to the gendarmes and robbers en route, and they were despoiled of practically everything—not only their money, but their jewellery, clothing, bedding and everything else. Outside practically every town from Mayadin, on the Euphrates, up to Konia, one sees a camp containing anything from 2,000 up to 20,000 of these refugees, and one can imagine that such a large crowd of people, being thrown on to a population which already finds it difficult to obtain employment and food, would cause the position to become intolerable; they must naturally die of starvation, since food cannot be found for such extra numbers.

On all the main routes one finds a continual stream of refugees dragging themselves wearily along and going for ever southwards. Their ultimate destination is unknown to them, but apparently they have a dim hope of at last reaching some place where they will be able to live in comparative comfort and find nourishment. If they knew, however, what they would find and what would ultimately happen to them, they would no doubt prefer simply to sit down and wait for death without going any further.

One woman in Aleppo was raving mad, owing to having lost her child and being unable to ascertain his whereabouts.

Any attempts to help the refugees are immediately nipped in the bud by the authorities, and spies are continually watching the foreign consulates. Several Armenians who called at one of them were afterwards put in prison, and one woman was cruelly beaten by a gendarme, after being compelled to leave the consulate.

142. ALEPPO: MESSAGE DATED 17th FEBRUARY, 1916, FROM FRÄULEIN O.;
PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN JOURNAL “SONNENAUFGANG,” APRIL, 1916.

I want to beg our friends at home not to grow weary of making intercession for the members of the Armenian nation who are in exile here. If there is no visible prospect of a change for the better, a few months more will see the end of them all. They are succumbing in thousands to famine, pestilence and the inclemency of the weather. The exiles at Hama, Homs and in the neighbourhood of Damascus are comparatively better of. They are left where they are, and can look about for means of subsistence. But further East, along the Euphrates, they are driven from place to place, plundered and maltreated. Many of our friends are dead.

XIX.
VILAYET OF DAMASCUS AND SANDJAK OF
DER-EL-ZOR.

_Aleppo was not intended to be the final destination of the Armenian exiles. A certain number of the earlier arrivals were sent to the swampy, malarious districts a short distance to the south and south-east of the city, but by far the greater number were forwarded at least several days’ journey further afield._

_Aleppo lies on the inner edge of a great desert amphitheatre, which is buttressed by the Lebanon, the Taurus and the mountains of Kurdistan, and slopes very gradually south-eastward towards the alluvial lowlands at the head of the Persian Gulf, while southward it passes insensibly into the high desert lands of the Arabian Peninsula. This region presents a sharp climatic contrast to the tablelands of Anatolia and Armenia, which are the native country of the Armenian race. Climatically and geographically, Armenia and Anatolia are an integral part of Europe, while Syria and Mesopotamia are the outer fringe of Arabia, and akin, like it, to the Sahara region of North Africa. The frontier between the two climates is formed by the southward escarpment of the Taurus, and the transition between them is abrupt._

_The ostensible motive for deporting the Armenians to this country was to remove them from the neighbourhood of the frontiers and from the coast and to plant them among a compact Moslem population of alien (Arabic) speech, where they would find themselves in political isolation as well as in a decisive numerical minority. The actual result was to subject people accustomed to a temperate climate to a climate of a Saharan character, and this under the worst conceivable conditions for such a change of environment—when the victims were destitute of food, clothing and shelter, and physically exhausted by months of travelling on foot over the roughest of roads._

_The two chief places selected by the Ottoman Government as destinations for the exiles were Damascus, which lies due south of Aleppo, and is close, like Aleppo itself, to the inner rim of the amphitheatre, and Der-el-Zor, which lies considerably further inwards—six days’ journey by carriage from Aleppo down the course of the Euphrates, where the river cuts through the desert between the mountains of Armenia and the alluvium of the Gulf. Some batches had been sent a further day’s journey still, to Mayadin (Doc. 141, while there are even rumours of their presence (Docs. 11 and 121) within forty-eight hours’ journey of Baghdad._

_The condition of these exiles after their arrival is made sufficiently plain in the documents included in this section. Doc. 145 shows that by the 12th July there were already large numbers of Cilicians bivouacked at Der-el-Zor, while it appears from Doc. 143 that they did not begin to arrive at Damascus until the 12th August, 1915._

143. DAMASCUS: REPORT FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT DAMASCUS, DATED
20th SEPTEMBER, BUT CONTAINING INFORMATION UP TO THE 3rd
OCTOBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.

Since the 12th August, 1915, convoys of Armenian exiles, consisting of from a few hundred to as many as two thousand individuals, have been marched through this city at varying intervals, averaging about two to three or more convoys per week.

On a sober estimate I should say that from 8,000 to 10,000 souls have already thus come through Damascus up to the present time. This has been going on since the 12th August, to my knowledge.

His Excellency the Governor-General of Syria informed me, upon my request, that these people are all Armenians who, because of uprisings and attempts to set up local revolutionary governments in the Vilayets of Van and Bitlis, are being exiled to the country round Damascus and will be distributed in groups of two, three and so on among the various more important towns and villages. His Excellency also informed me—upon my statement that, if the Government permitted, I believed that I could secure funds from the American Red Cross to aid these people, who undoubtedly would be very needy—that the Government would not sanction this, and that the Government was doing everything possible, furnishing food, tents, etc.

Numerous stories are current of hardship, want, suffering from hunger, forced marching when in no condition to walk, cruelty of guards, seizure of young women, giving away and selling of children that they might find homes, etc., etc., but I did not believe them, and even now I am sure that many of the worst stories that are circulating are much exaggerated. Still, there are some which I must credit.