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Title: The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents Presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Author: - To be updated
Language: English
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THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ***
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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
THE TREATMENT OF
ARMENIANS IN THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
DOCUMENTS PRESENTED TO
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
WITH A PREFACE BY
VISCOUNT BRYCE
LAID BEFORE THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
AS AN OFFICIAL PAPER AND NOW
PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
ST. PAUL’ S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE, LONDON
AND AT NEW YORK AND TORONTO
MCMXVI
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
-------
_The titles are italicised in the case of documents which relate merely
to the condition of refugees in Egypt and Caucasia, and not to the
events in Turkey and N.W. Persia of which these refugees had been
the victims._
PAGE
Map of Districts affected Frontispiece
Correspondence between Viscount Grey of Fallodon and Viscount
Bryce xv.
Preface by Viscount Bryce xxi.
Letter from Mr. H.A.L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield
University, to Viscount Bryce xxix.
Letter from Prof. Gilbert Murray, Regius Professor of Greek in
the University of Oxford, to Viscount Bryce xxxi.
Letter from Mr. Moorfield Storey, ex-President of the American
Bar Association, to Viscount Bryce xxxii.
Letter from Four German Missionaries to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs at Berlin xxxiii.
Memorandum by the Editor of the Documents xxxv.
I.—GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS. 1
1. Despatch from Mr. Henry Wood, Correspondent of the
American “United Press” at Constantinople; published
in the American Press, 14th August, 1915 2
2. Despatch, dated 11th June, 1915, from an especially
well-informed neutral source at Constantinople;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 4
3. Extract from a letter, dated Arabkir, 25th June/8th
July, 1915, communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 5
4. Letter from an authoritative source, dated
Constantinople, 15/28th June, 1915; published in the
New York journal “Gotchnag,” 28th August, 1915 6
5. Letter from the same source, dated Constantinople,
12/25th July, 1915; published in the New York journal
“Gotchnag,” 28th August, 1915 8
6. Letter from the same source, dated Constantinople,
13/26th July, 1915, and addressed to a distinguished
Armenian resident beyond the Ottoman frontier 9
7. Letter from the same source, dated Constantinople,
2nd/15th August, 1915, and addressed to the same
Armenian resident beyond the Ottoman frontier 12
8. Extracts from a letter, dated Athens, 8th/21st July,
1915, from an Armenian formerly resident in Turkey to
a prominent Armenian in Western Europe 17
9. Letter, dated 3rd/16th August, 1915, conveyed beyond
the Ottoman frontier by an Armenian refugee from
Cilicia in the sole of her shoe 20
10. Letter from Mr. N., a foreign resident at
Constantinople, dated 27th August, 1915; communicated
by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian
Relief 22
11. Memorandum dated 15/28th October, 1915, from a
well-informed source at Bukarest, relating to the
extermination of the Armenians in Turkey 23
12. Information regarding events in Armenia, published in
the “Sonnenaufgang” (organ of the “German League for
the Promotion of Christian Charitable Work in the
East”), October, 1915; and in the “Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift,” November, 1915 25
13. Statement made by a foreign resident at Constantinople
to a Swiss gentleman at Geneva; communicated by the
latter 28
14. Cablegram, dated 4th May, 1916, transmitted through
the State Department at Washington to the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, from the
Committee’s representatives in Turkey 29
II.—VILAYET OF VAN 31
15. The American Mission at Van: Narrative printed
privately in the United States by Miss Grace Higley
Knapp (1915) 32
16. Van: Letter dated Van, 7th June, 1915, from Mr. Y.K.
Rushdouni; published in the “Manchester Guardian,” 2nd
August, 1915 48
17. Van: Narrative by Mr. Y.K. Rushdouni, published
serially in the Armenian journal “Gotchnag,” of New
York 52
18. Van after the Turkish retreat: Letter from Herr
Spörri, of the German Mission at Van, published in the
German journal “Sonnenaufgang,” October, 1915 71
19. Van after the massacres: Narrative of Mr. A.S.
Safrastian, dated Van, 2nd December, 1915, and
published in the Armenian journal “Ararat,” of London,
January, 1916 72
20. Van: Interview with a refugee, Mrs. Gazarian,
published in the “Pioneer Press,” of St. Paul,
Minnesota, U.S.A. 76
III.—VILAYET OF BITLIS 79
21. The North-Eastern Vilayets: Statement communicated by
the Refugee Roupen, of Sassoun, to the Armenian
Community at Moscow; published in the Russian Press,
and subsequently reprinted in the “Gazette de
Lausanne,” 13th February, 1916 0
22. Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun: Record of an interview with
Roupen, of Sassoun, by Mr. A.S. Safrastian, dated
Tiflis, 6th November, 1915 83
23. Moush: Statement by a German eye-witness of
occurrences at Moush; communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 88
24. Moush District: Narrative of a deported woman, related
by her to Mr. Vartkes, of Moush, recorded by him on
the 25th July, 1915, and published subsequently in the
Armenian journal “Van-Tosp” 92
25. Moush: Résumé of information furnished by refugees in
the Caucasus and published in the Caucasian Press,
especially in the Armenian journal “Mschak”; compiled
by Mr. G.H. Paelian, and communicated by him to the
Armenian journal “Ararat,” of London, March, 1916 94
26. Bitlis: Letter dated 14th October, 1915, from a
foreign resident at Bitlis to a German official;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 96
IV.—AZERBAIJAN AND HAKKIARI 99
27. Urmia: Statement by the Rev. William A. Shedd, D.D.,
of the American (Presbyterian) Mission Station at
Urmia; communicated by the Board of Foreign Missions
of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 100
28. First Exodus from Urmia, January, 1915: Report, dated
1st March, 1915, from the Rev. Robert M. Labaree, of
the American Mission Station at Urmia, to the Hon. F.
Willoughby Smith, U.S. Consul at Tiflis; communicated
by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. 105
29. Azerbaijan, behind the Russian front: Extracts from a
series of letters by the Rev. Robert M. Labaree;
communicated by the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 110
30. Tabriz: Letter dated Tabriz, 17th March, 1915, from
the Rev. F.N. Jessup; communicated by the Board of
Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the
U.S.A. 113
31. Urmia during the Turco-Kurdish occupation: Diary of a
Missionary, edited by Miss Mary Schauffler Platt, and
published by the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 119
32. Urmia after its evacuation by the Turks and Kurds:
Letter dated Urmia, 20th May, 1915, from Mrs. J.P.
Cochran to friends in the United States; communicated
by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. 151
33. Urmia: Letter, dated Urmia, 25th May, 1915, from the
Rev. Y.M. Nisan to the Rev. F.N. Heazell, Organising
Secretary of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian
Mission 156
34. Urmia: Narrative of Dr. Jacob Sargis, recorded in a
despatch, dated Petrograd, 12th February, 1916, from
the correspondent at Petrograd of the American
“Associated Press” 158
35. Urmia: Extracts from the Annual Report (for the year
1915) presented by the Medical Department at Urmia to
the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. 161
36. Urmia, Salmas and Hakkiari: Statement by Mr. Paul
Shimmon, published in the Armenian journal “Ararat,”
of London, November, 1915 164
37. Hakkiari: Statement by Mr. Paul Shimmon, published in
the “Churchman” newspaper, and subsequently issued as
a pamphlet; communicated by Mrs. D.S. Margoliouth, of
Oxford 169
38. Refugees from the Hakkiari District: Series of
extracts from letters by members of the American
Mission Station at Urmia; communicated by the Board of
Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the
U.S.A. 172
39. Refugees from Hakkiari: Letter dated 26th September/
9th October, 1915, from a relative of Mar Shimun, the
Patriarch; communicated by the Rev. F.N. Heazell 175
40. Refugees from Hakkiari: Letter, dated Diliman,
1st/14th April, 1916, from Surma, the sister of Mar
Shimun, to Mrs. D.S. Margoliouth, of Oxford 177
41. The Nestorians of the Bohtan District: Letter, dated
Salmas, 6th March, 1916, from the Rev. E.W. McDowell,
of the Urmia Mission Station, reporting information
brought by a young man (with whom Mr. McDowell was
previously acquainted) who had escaped the massacre;
communicated by the Board of Foreign Missions of the
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 180
42. Second Exodus from Urmia: Letter dated Tabriz, 20th
August, 1915, from Mr. Hugo A. Müller (Treasurer of
the American Mission Station at Urmia); communicated
by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian
Church in the U.S.A. 182
43. Second Exodus from Urmia: Narrative of a Nestorian
victim, the wife of the Rev. David Jacob, of Urmia,
published in the Armenian journal “Ararat,” of London,
January, 1916 184
44. Urmia District: Report on the distribution of relief,
covering the period 1st June to 31st December, 1915;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 187
45. Azerbaijan: Statement, dated Tiflis, 22nd February,
1916, by Mr. M. Philips Price, War Correspondent for
various British and American newspapers on the
Caucasian Front; communicated to Aneurin Williams,
Esq., M.P., and published in the Armenian journal
“Ararat,” of London, March, 1916 191
V.—THE REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS 193
46. The Flight to the Caucasus: Despatches to the Armenian
journal “Horizon,” of Tiflis, from Mr. Sampson
Aroutiounian, President of the Armenian National
Committee of Tiflis, who went in person to meet the
Refugees 194
47. The Flight to the Caucasus: Despatch from the special
correspondent of the Armenian journal “Arev,” of Bakou 197
48. _Memorandum on the condition of Armenian Refugees in
the Caucasus and Orphans at Van; compiled in the
British Foreign Office from information, dated 9th
December, 1915, which was furnished by Mr. Stevens,
British Consul at Batoum_ 199
49. _Memorandum on the condition of Armenian Refugees in
the Caucasus; compiled in the British Foreign Office
from information, dated 29th December, 1915, which was
furnished by Mr. Stevens, British Consul at Batoum_ 203
50. _Report on the activity of Armenian Refugee Relief
Organisations in the Caucasus and Turkish Armenia;
enclosed in a despatch (No. I.), dated Batoum, 3rd
January, 1916, from Mr. Consul Stevens to the British
Foreign Office_ 208
51. _Refugees in the Caucasus: Letter dated Erivan, 29th
December, 1915, from the Rev. S.G. Wilson to Dr.
Samuel T. Dutton, Secretary of the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief_ 216
52. _Repatriation of Refugees: Letter, dated Erivan (?),
March 1916, from the Rev. S.G. Wilson; communicated by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief_ 219
VI.—VILAYET OF ERZEROUM 221
53. Erzeroum: Record of an Interview between the Rev. H.J.
Buxton and the Rev. Robert Stapleton, a missionary of
the American Board, resident at Erzeroum from before
the outbreak of war until after the capture of the
city by the Russians 222
54. Erzeroum: Report, dated 25th September, 1915, drawn up
by the American Consul-General at Trebizond, after his
return from a visit to Erzeroum; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 228
55. Erzeroum: Abstract of a Report by Mr. B.H. Khounountz,
representative of the “All-Russian Urban Union”, on a
visit to Erzeroum after the Russian occupation;
published in the Armenian journal “Horizon,” of
Tiflis, 25th February, 1916 231
56. Erzeroum: Abstract of a Report by Dr. Y. Minassian,
who accompanied Mr. Khounountz to Erzeroum as
representative of the Caucasian Section of the
“All-Russian Urban Union”; published in the Armenian
journal “Mschak,” of Tiflis, 8th March, 1916 233
57. Erzeroum: Statement by Mr. A.S. Safrastian, dated
Tiflis, 15th March, 1916 236
58. Erzeroum: Statement by the Kurd Ali-Aghazadé Faro,
published in the Armenian journal “Mschak,” 19th
December, 1915 241
59. Baibourt: Narrative of an Armenian lady deported in
the third convoy; communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 242
60. Baibourt: Statement, reproduced from the Armenian
journal “Horizon,” of Tiflis, in the Armenian journal
“Gotchnag,” of New York, 18th March, 1916 244
61. Baibourt, Keghi, and Erzindjan: Letter, dated
Erzeroum, 25th May/7th June, 1915; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 245
62. Erzindjan: Statement by two Red Cross Nurses of Danish
Nationality, formerly in the service of the German
Military Mission at Erzeroum; communicated by a Swiss
gentleman of Geneva 246
63. Kamakh and Erzeroum: Statement published in the New
York journal “Gotchnag,” 4th September, 1915 255
VII.—VILAYET OF MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ 257
64. H.: Statement made by Miss D.A., a Danish lady in the
service of the German Red Cross at H., to Mr. D.B., at
Basle, and communicated by Mr. D.B. to Lord Bryce 258
65. H.: Report, dated 11th July, 1915, from a foreign
resident at H.; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 262
66. H.: Memorandum forwarded by a foreign resident at H.
(the author of the preceding report); communicated by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 265
67. H.: Narrative of an Armenian Refugee from H.;
communicated to Lord Bryce by the correspondent of the
London “Times” at Bukarest 268
68. Mamouret-ul-Aziz: Narrative of an Armenian lady
deported from C. (a place half-an-hour’s distance from
H.), describing her journey from C. to Ras-ul-Ain;
written after her escape from Turkey, and dated
Alexandria, 2nd November, 1915; published in the
Armenian journal “Gotchnag,” of New York, 8th January,
1916 271
69. H.: Statement by the Principal of the College, dated
19th July, 1915; communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 278
70. H.: Statement by the Principal of the College, dated
19th July, 1915, relating to the deportation of
Armenians from villages in the neighbourhood of H.;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 281
71. H.: Letter, dated 10th November, 1915, from the
Principal of the College at H. to Mr. N. at
Constantinople; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 282
VIII.—VILAYET OF TREBIZOND, AND SANDJAK OF SHABIN KARA-HISSAR 285
72. Trebizond: Report from a foreign resident at
Trebizond; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 286
73. Trebizond: Extracts from an interview with Comm. G.
Gorrini, late Italian Consul-General at Trebizond;
published in the journal “Il Messaggero,” of Rome,
25th August, 1915 290
74. Trebizond: Narrative of the Montenegrin Kavass of the
local branch of the Ottoman Bank; published in the
Armenian journal “Arev,” of Alexandria, 2nd October,
1915 293
75. Kerasond (Kiresoun), Trebizond and Shabin Kara-Hissar:
Evidence collected by an Armenian gentleman from
eye-witnesses now in Roumania; communicated by the
correspondent of the London “Times” at Bukarest 294
76. Trebizond and Erzeroum: Despatch from the
correspondent of the London “Times” at Bukarest, dated
Bukarest, 18th May, and published on the 22nd May,
1916 299
IX.—SIVAS: THE CITY AND PARTS OF THE VILAYET 301
77. Sivas: Letter from a foreign resident at Sivas, dated
13th July, 1915; communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 302
78. Sivas: Letter written from Malatia by Miss Mary L.
Graffam, Principal of the Girls’ High School at Sivas,
to a correspondent at Constantinople; reprinted from
the Boston “Missionary Herald,” December, 1915 305
79. Extracts from a letter, dated Massachusetts, 29th
August, 1915, from another foreign resident at Sivas
to Mr. G.H. Paelian 309
80. Sivas: Narrative of a naturalised Ottoman subject,
dated New York City, 10th March, 1916; communicated by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 311
81. Sivas: The Adventures of Murad; narrated by “S.H.S.”
in the journal “The New Armenia,” of New York, 1st
March, 1916 317
82. Sivas: Record of an Interview given by the Refugee
Murad to Mr. A.S. Safrastian at Tiflis 320
X.—SANDJAK OF KAISARIA 327
83. Kaisaria: Statement by a traveller from Kaisaria,
published in the Armenian journal “Balkanian Mamoul,”
of Roustchouk 328
84. Everek: Statement published in the Armenian journal
“Gotchnag,” of New York, 28th August, 1915 329
85. K.: Letter from a foreign resident at K., dated 16th
November, 1915; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 330
XI.—THE TOWN OF X. 331
86. X.: Narrative of the Principal of the College at X.;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 332
87. X.: Address delivered in America, 13th December, 1915,
by a professor from the College at X.; communicated by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 336
88. X.: Statement by Miss AA., a foreign traveller in
Turkey; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 349
89. Narrative of Miss AA., a foreign traveller in Asiatic
Turkey, describing a journey from X. to Z., 10th
August to 6th September, 1915; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 356
90. X.: Report from Mr. AL., a foreign resident at L., in
Asiatic Turkey, dated 26th August, 1915; communicated
by the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian
Relief 364
91. X. (?): Narrative of a foreign resident of German
nationality; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 367
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 369
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 373
94. X.: Narrative of Miss CC., communicated by her to a
Swiss gentleman at Geneva during her passage through
Switzerland in December, 1915 378
XII.—THE CITY OF ANGORA 381
95. Angora: Statement by a traveller, not of Armenian
nationality, who passed through Angora in August, 1915 382
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 385
97. Angora: Extract from a letter dated 16th September,
1915; appended to the Memorandum (Doc. 11, dated
15/28th October, 1915, from a well-informed source at
Bukarest 388
XIII.—THRACE, CONSTANTINOPLE, BROUSSA AND ISMID 389
98. The Metropolitan Districts: Information published in
the Armenian journal “Gotchnag,” of New York 390
99. Constantinople: Letter, dated Constantinople, 13/26th
October, 1915, from an Armenian inhabitant; published
in the Armenian journal “Balkanian Mamoul,” of
Roustchouk 392
100. Adrianople: Despatch from the correspondent of the
London “Times” at Bukarest, dated 18th December and
published on the 21st December, 1915 394
101. Broussa: Report by a foreign visitor to the city,
dated 24th September, 1915; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 395
102. Adapazar: Statement, dated 24th September, 1915, by a
foreign resident in Turkey; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 398
103. Adapazar: Fuller statement by the author of the
preceding document; published in the journal “The New
Armenia,” of New York, 15th May, 1916 400
XIV.—THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY 407
104. The Anatolian Railway: Narrative of a journey, during
the deportation of the Armenians, by a physician of
foreign nationality, who had been resident in Turkey
for ten years; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 409
105. Eski Shehr: Letter from an Armenian victim, published
in the Armenian journal “Horizon,” of Tiflis, 30th
October/12th November, 1915 414
106. Afiun Kara Hissar: Letter dated Afiun Kara Hissar,
10th/23rd September, 1915; published in the Armenian
journal “Horizon,” of Tiflis, 30th October/12th
November, 1915 416
107. Afiun Kara Hissar: Résumé of a letter, dated Afiun
Kara Hissar, 2nd/15th October, 1915; appended to the
Memorandum (Doc. 11, dated 15/28th October, 1915, from
a well-informed source at Bukarest 417
108. Afiun Kara Hissar: Letter, dated Massachusetts, 22nd
November, 1915, from an American traveller;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 418
109. Q.: Report from Dr. D., dated Q., 8th September, 1915;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 421
110. Q.: Report from Dr. E., dated Q., 3rd September, 1915;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 426
111. Q.: Letter from Dr. E., dated 27th October, 1915;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 431
112. Q.: Letter, dated Q., 25th November, 1915, from Dr. E.
to Mr. N. at Constantinople; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 433
113. Konia: Résumé of a letter, dated Konia, 2nd/15th
October, 1915; appended to the Memorandum (Doc. 11),
dated 15th/28th October, 1915, from a well-informed
source at Bukarest 437
114. Baghdad Railway: Diary of a foreign resident in the
town of B., on a section of the line; edited by
William Walter Rockwell, Esq., Ph.D., and published by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief
(1916) 438
115. AE., a town on the Railway: Series of Reports from a
foreign resident at AE., communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 450
116. The Taurus and Amanus passes: Extracts from a Letter,
dated Aleppo, 5th November, 1915, from Dr. L., a
foreign resident in Turkey, to Mr. N. at
Constantinople; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 454
117. The Amanus passes: Statements by two Swiss residents
in Turkey; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 455
118. Smyrna—Aleppo—Damascus—Aleppo—Smyrna: Itinerary of a
foreign traveller in Asiatic Turkey; communicated by
the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 459
XV.—CILICIA (VILAYET OF ADANA AND SANDJAK OF MARASH) 465
119. Cilicia: Address (with enclosure), dated 3rd July,
1915, from the Armenian Colony in Egypt to His
Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir J.G. Maxwell,
Commander-in-Chief of His Britannic Majesty’s Forces
in Egypt 468
120. Cilicia: Letter, dated 20th June, 1915, from Dr. L., a
foreign resident in Turkey; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 472
121. BM.: Letter from a foreign eye-witness, dated 6th
July, 1915, on board a steamship; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 474
122. Zeitoun: Antecedents of the deportation, recorded by
the Rev. Stephen Trowbridge, Secretary of the Cairo
Committee of the American Red Cross, from an oral
statement by the Rev. Dikran Andreasian, Pastor of the
Armenian Protestant Church at Zeitoun 479
123. Exiles from Zeitoun: Diary of a foreign resident in
the town of B. on the Cilician plain; communicated by
a Swiss gentleman of Geneva 482
124. Exiles from Zeitoun: Further statement by the author
of the preceding document; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 487
125. Exiles from Zeitoun: Letter, dated Konia, 17th July,
1915, from a foreign resident at Konia to Mr. N. at
Constantinople; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 490
126. AF.: Statement, dated 16th December, 1915, by a
foreign resident at AF.; communicated by the American
Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 492
127. AF.: Record of individual cases, drawn up by the
author of the preceding statement, and dated 17th
December, 1915 500
128. Adana: Statement, dated 3rd December, 1915, by a
foreign resident at Adana; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 502
129. Adana: Statement, dated 9th May, 1916, by Miss Y., a
foreign resident at Adana, recording her experiences
there from September, 1914, to September, 1915 505
XVI.—JIBAL MOUSA 511
130. Jibal Mousa: The defence of the mountain and the
rescue of its defenders by the French Fleet; narrative
of an eye-witness, the Rev. Dikran Andreasian, Pastor
of the Armenian Protestant Church at Zeitoun 512
131. Jibal Mousa: Report, dated Egypt, 28th September,
1915, on the Armenian Refugees rescued and transported
to Port Said by the cruisers of the French Fleet;
drawn up by Mgr. Thorgom, Bishop of the Gregorian
Community in Egypt 521
132. _Jibal Mousa: Another report on the Refugees at Port
Said, drawn up by Mr. Tovmas K. Muggerdichian,
formerly Dragoman of the British Consulate at
Diyarbekir_ 525
XVII.—THE TOWNS OF OURFA AND AC. 527
133. Ourfa: Letter, dated Ourfa, 14th June, 1915, from Mr.
K.; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 528
134. Ourfa: Extract from a letter by Mr. Tovmas K.
Muggerdichian; published in the Armenian journal
“Gotchnag,” of New York, 1st April, 1916 530
135. Ourfa: Interview with Mrs. J. Vance Young, an
eye-witness of the events at Ourfa; published in the
“Egyptian Gazette,” 28th September/11th October, and
reproduced in the Armenian journal “Houssaper,” of
Cairo, 30th September/13th October, 1915 531
136. Ourfa: Postscript to a memorandum (Doc. 141 by a
foreign witness from Aleppo; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 532
137. AC.: Statement by Miss A., a foreign resident at AC.,
written subsequently to her departure from Turkey in
September, 1915; communicated by the Rev. I.N. Camp,
of Cairo 533
138. AC.: Letters from an Armenian inhabitant, describing
the deportation of Armenians from Cilicia;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 544
XVIII.—VILAYET OF ALEPPO 545
139. Aleppo: Series of Reports from a foreign resident at
Aleppo; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 547
140. Aleppo: Memorandum, dated Aleppo, 18th June/1st July,
1915; communicated by the American Committee for
Armenian and Syrian Relief 551
141. Aleppo: Memorandum by a foreign witness from Aleppo;
communicated by the American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief 552
142. Aleppo: Message, dated 17th February, 1916, from
Fraülein O.; published in the German journal
“Sonnenaufgang,” April, 1916 555
XIX.—VILAYET OF DAMASCUS AND SANDJAK OF DER-EL-ZOR 557
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 558
144. Exiles on the Euphrates: Record, dated Erzeroum, June,
1915, by M. Henry Barby, of an interview with Dr. H.
Toroyan, an Armenian physician formerly in the service
of the Ottoman Army; published in “Le Journal,” of
Paris, 13th July, 1916 562
145. Der-el-Zor: Letter, dated 12th July, 1915, from
Schwester L. Möhring, a German missionary, describing
her journey from Baghdad to the passes of Amanus;
published in the German journal “Sonnenaufgang,”
September, 1915 566
XX.—DOCUMENTS RECEIVED WHILE GOING TO PRESS 571
146. Despatch from Mr. Henry Wood (Doc. 1: Fuller version,
obtained through the courtesy of the representative of
the American “United Press” in London 572
147. Urmia, Salmas, and Hakkiari: Fuller statement by Mr.
Paul Shimmon, edited, as a pamphlet, by the Rev. F.N.
Heazell, Organising Secretary of the Archbishop of
Canterbury’s Assyrian Mission 577
148. First exodus from Urmia: Narrative of Mr. J.D.
Barnard, of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian
Mission; published in the “Assyrian Mission Quarterly
Paper,” April, 1915 587
149. Erzeroum: Letter, dated 21st March, 1916, from the
Rev. Robert S. Stapleton to the Hon. F. Willoughby
Smith, U.S. Consul at Tiflis; communicated by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 589
A Summary of Armenian History up to and including the year 1915 591
I.—The European War and Armenia 593
II.—An Outline of Armenian History 596
III.—Dispersion and Distribution of the Armenian Nation 607
IV.—The Armenian People and the Ottoman Government 617
V.—The Deportations of 1915: Antecedents 627
VI.—The Deportations of 1915: Procedure 637
Annexe A 654
Annexe B 657
Annexe C 659
Annexe D 661
Annexe E 662
Annexe F 664
Index of Places referred to in the Documents 669
150. Message, dated 22nd July, 1916, from Mr. N., of
Constantinople; communicated by the American Committee
for Armenian and Syrian Relief 684
CORRESPONDENCE
BETWEEN
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON
_Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs_
AND
VISCOUNT BRYCE.
LETTER FROM VISCOUNT BRYCE TO VISCOUNT GREY
OF FALLODON, SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR FOREIGN
AFFAIRS.
_July 1st, 1916._
MY DEAR SIR EDWARD,
In the autumn of 1915 accounts of massacres and deportations of the
Christian population of Asiatic Turkey began to reach Western Europe and
the United States. Few and imperfect at first—for every effort was made
by the Turkish Government to prevent them from passing out of the
country—these accounts increased in number and fullness of detail, till
in the beginning of 1916 it became possible to obtain a fairly accurate
knowledge of what had happened. It then struck me that, in the interest
of historic truth, as well as with a view to the questions that must
arise when the war ends, it had become necessary to try to complete
these accounts, and test them by further evidence, so as to compile a
general narrative of the events and estimate their significance. As
materials were wanting or scanty in respect of some localities, I wrote
to all the persons I could think of likely to possess or to be able to
procure trustworthy data, begging them to favour me with such data. I
addressed myself in particular to friends in the United States, a
country which has long had intimate relations with the Eastern
Christians and to which many of those Christians have in recent years
emigrated. Similar requests were made to Switzerland, also a neutral
country, many of whose people have taken a lively interest in the
welfare of the Armenians. When the responses from these quarters showed
that sufficient materials for a history—provisional, no doubt, but
trustworthy as far as the present data went—could be obtained, I had the
good fortune to secure the co-operation of a young historian of high
academic distinction, Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee, late Fellow of Balliol
College, Oxford. He undertook to examine and put together the pieces of
evidence collected, arranging them in order and adding such
observations, historical and geographical, as seemed needed to explain
them. The materials so arranged by Mr. Toynbee, followed by such
observations as aforesaid, I now transmit to you. They are, of course,
of unequal value, for while most of them are narratives by
eye-witnesses, some few report, at second hand what was told by
eye-witnesses. In a short introduction prefixed, I have tried to
estimate their value, and so need only say here that nothing has been
admitted the substantial truth of which seems open to reasonable doubt.
Facts only have been dealt with; questions of future policy have been
carefully avoided.
It is evidently desirable not only that ascertained facts should be put
on record for the sake of future historians, while the events are still
fresh in living memory, but also that the public opinion of the
belligerent nations—and, I may add, of neutral peoples also—should be
enabled by a knowledge of what has happened in Asia Minor and Armenia to
exercise its judgment on the course proper to be followed when, at the
end of the present war, a political re-settlement of the Nearer East has
to be undertaken.
I am,
Yours sincerely,
BRYCE.
LETTER FROM VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON,
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
TO VISCOUNT BRYCE.
Foreign Office,
_August 23rd, 1916_.
MY DEAR BRYCE,
I have to thank you for sending me the collection of documents on the
Armenian Massacres which has been so ably put together by Mr. Arnold J.
Toynbee.
It is a terrible mass of evidence; but I feel that it ought to be
published and widely studied by all who have the broad interests of
humanity at heart. It will be valuable, not only for the immediate
information of public opinion as to the conduct of the Turkish
Government towards this defenceless people, but also as a mine of
information for historians in the future, and for the other purposes
suggested in your letter.
Yours sincerely,
GREY OF FALLODON.
Documents presented to
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON
_Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs_
_By Viscount Bryce_
With a preface by
VISCOUNT BRYCE.
PREFACE BY VISCOUNT BRYCE.
In the summer of 1915 accounts, few and scanty at first, but increasing
in volume later, began to find their way out of Asiatic Turkey as to the
events that were happening there. These accounts described what seemed
to be an effort to exterminate a whole nation, without distinction of
age or sex, whose misfortune it was to be the subjects of a Government
devoid of scruples and of pity, and the policy they disclosed was one
without precedent even in the blood-stained annals of the East. It then
became the obvious duty of those who realised the gravity of these
events to try to collect and put together all the data available for the
purpose of presenting a full and authentic record of what had occurred.
This has been done in the present volume. It contains all the evidence
that could be obtained up till July 1916 as to the massacres and
deportations of the Armenian and other Eastern Christians dwelling in
Asia Minor, Armenia and that north-western corner of Persia which was
invaded by the Turkish troops. It is presented primarily as a
contribution to history, but partly also for the purpose of enabling the
civilised nations of Europe to comprehend the problems which will arise
at the end of this war, when it will become necessary to provide for the
future government of what are now the Turkish dominions. The compilation
has been made in the spirit proper to an historical enquiry, that is to
say, nothing has been omitted which could throw light on the facts,
whatever the political bearing of the accounts might be. In such an
enquiry, no racial or religious sympathies, no prejudices, not even the
natural horror raised by crimes, ought to distract the mind of the
enquirer from the duty of trying to ascertain the real facts.
As will be seen from the analysis which follows, the evidence here
collected comes from various sources.
A large, perhaps the largest, part has been drawn from neutral witnesses
who were living in or passing through Asiatic Turkey while these events
were happening, and had opportunities of observing them.
Another part comes from natives of the country, nearly all Christians,
who succeeded, despite the stringency of the Turkish censorship, in
getting letters into neutral countries, or who themselves escaped into
Greece, or Russia, or Egypt and were there able to write down what they
had seen.
A third but much smaller part comes from subjects of the now belligerent
Powers (mostly Germans) who were in Turkey when these events were
happening, and subsequently published in their own countries accounts
based on their personal knowledge.
In presenting this evidence it has been necessary in very many cases to
withhold the names of the witnesses, because to publish their names
would be to expose such of them as are still within the Turkish
dominions, or the relations and friends of these persons, to the
ruthless vengeance of the gang who now rule those dominions in the name
of the unfortunate Sultan. Even in the case of those neutral witnesses
who are safe in their own countries, a similar precaution must be
observed, because many of them, or their friends and associates, have
property in Turkey which would at once, despite their neutral character,
be seized by the Turkish Government. These difficulties, inevitable in
the nature of the case, are of course only temporary. The names of the
great majority of the witnesses are known to the editor of this book and
to myself[1], and also to several other persons[2], and they can be made
public as soon as it is certain that no harm will result to these
witnesses or to their friends. That certainty evidently cannot be
attained till the war is over and the rule of the savage gang already
referred to has come to an end.
The question now arises—What is the value of this evidence? Though the
names of many of the witnesses cannot be given, I may say that most of
them, and nearly all of those who belong to neutral or belligerent
countries, are persons entitled to confidence in respect of their
character and standing, and are, moreover, persons who have no
conceivable motive for inventing or perverting facts, because they are
(with extremely few exceptions) either neutrals with no national or
personal or pecuniary interests involved, or else German subjects. Were
I free to mention names, the trustworthiness of these neutrals and
Germans would at once be recognised.
Let us, however, look at the evidence itself.
(i) Nearly all of it comes from eye-witnesses, some of whom wrote it
down themselves, while others gave it to persons who wrote it out at the
time from the statements given to them orally. Nearly all of it,
moreover, was written immediately after the events described, when the
witnesses’ recollection was still fresh and clear.
(ii) The main facts rest upon evidence coming from different and
independent sources. When the same fact is stated by witnesses who had
no communication with one another, and in many cases did not even speak
the same language, the presumption in favour of its truth becomes
strong.
Take, for instance, the evidence (Section VIII.) regarding the
particularly terrible events at Trebizond. We have a statement from the
Italian Consul-General (Doc. 73, from the Kavass of the local branch of
the Ottoman Bank, a Montenegrin under Italian protection (Doc. 74, and
from an Armenian girl whose family lived in the neighbourhood of the
Italian Consulate, and who was brought out of Turkey by the Italian
Consul-General as his maidservant. The testimony of these three
witnesses exactly tallies, not only as to the public crimes committed in
the city before they left it, but also as to their personal relations
with one another (for they each mention the others explicitly in their
several statements). Yet they were in no touch whatever with one another
when their respective testimonies were given. The Consul-General gave
his at Rome, in an interview with an Italian journalist; the Kavass gave
his in an interview with an Armenian gentleman in Egypt; and the girl
hers in Roumania to a compatriot resident in that country. The three
statements had certainly never been collated till they came, by
different channels, into the hands of the editor of this book. In
addition to this, there is a statement from another foreign resident at
Trebizond (Doc. 72, which reached us through America.
Or take the case of the convoys of exiles deported from the Vilayet of
Erzeroum, and, in particular, from the towns of Erzeroum and Baibourt.
We have a second-hand account of their fate in Doc. 2 a despatch from a
well-informed source at Constantinople; we have a first-hand account,
which completely bears out the former, from a lady who was herself
deported in the third convoy of exiles (Doc. 59; we have the narrative
of two Danish nurses in the service of the German Red Cross at
Erzindjan, who witnessed the passage of the Baibourt exiles through that
place (Doc. 62; and finally there are three witnesses from the town of
H., several days’ journey further along the exiles’ route, who refer
independently to the arrival of convoys from Erzeroum and the
neighbourhood. One of these latter witnesses is a (third) Danish Red
Cross nurse (Doc. 64, one a neutral resident at H. of different
nationality, and one an Armenian inhabitant of the town.
These are two typical instances in which broad groups of events are
independently and consistently recorded, but there are innumerable
instances of the same kind in the case of particular occurrences. The
hanging of the Armenian Bishop of Baibourt, for example, is mentioned,
at second-hand, in Doc. 7 (written at Constantinople) and Doc. 12 (a
selection of evidence published in Germany); but it is also witnessed to
by the author of Doc. 59 an actual resident at Baibourt who was present
there at the time of the murder. Again, the disappearance of the Bishop
of Erzeroum on the road to exile is not only recorded in Doc. 11 a
memorandum from a competent source at Bukarest, but is confirmed, in
Docs. 57 and 76, by testimony obtained from eye-witnesses on the spot
after the Russian occupation of Erzeroum had left them free to speak
out.
(iii) Facts of the same, or of a very similar, nature occurring in
different places, are deposed to by different and independent witnesses.
As there is every reason to believe—and indeed it is hardly denied—that
the massacres and deportations were carried out under general orders
proceeding from Constantinople, the fact that persons who knew only what
was happening in one locality record circumstances there broadly
resembling those which occurred in another locality goes to show the
general correctness of both sets of accounts.
Thus, the two Danish Red Cross nurses (Doc. 62 state that they twice
witnessed the massacre, in cold blood, of gangs of unarmed Armenian
soldiers employed on navvy work, along the road from Erzindjan to Sivas.
In Doc. 7 (written at Constantinople) we find a statement that other
gangs of unarmed Armenian soldiers were similarly murdered on the roads
between Ourfa and Diyarbekir, and Diyarbekir and Harpout; and the
massacre on this latter section of road is confirmed by a German lady
resident, at the time, at Harpout (Doc. 23.
Again, there is frequent mention of roads being lined, or littered, with
the corpses of Armenian exiles who had died of exhaustion or been
murdered on the way. If these allusions were merely made in general
terms, they might conceivably be explained away as amplifications of
some isolated case, or even as rhetorical embellishments of the exiles’
story without foundation in fact. But when we find such statements made
with regard to particular stretches of road in widely different
localities, and often by more than one witness with regard to a given
stretch, we are led to infer that this wholesale mortality by the
wayside was in very deed a frequent concomitant of the Deportations, and
an inevitable consequence of the method on which the general scheme of
Deportation was organised from headquarters. We hear in Doc. 7 for
instance, of corpses on the road from Malatia to Sivas, on the testimony
of a Moslem traveller; we hear of them on the road from Diyarbekir to
Ourfa in Doc. 12 (a German cavalry captain), and on the road from Ourfa
to Aleppo in Doc. 9 (an Armenian witness), in Doc. 135 (an interned
Englishwoman), and also in Doc. 64 (a Danish Red Cross nurse). The
latter gives the detail of the corpses being mangled by wild beasts, a
detail also mentioned by the German authors of Docs. 12 and 23. Similar
testimony from German officers regarding the road between Baghdad and
Aleppo is reported independently in Docs. 108 and 121.
(iv) The volume of this concurrent evidence from different quarters is
so large as to establish the main facts beyond all question. Errors of
detail in some instances may be allowed for. Exaggeration may, in the
case of native witnesses, who were more likely to be excited, be also,
now and then, allowed for. But the general character of the events
stands out, resting on foundations too broad to be shaken, and even
details comparatively unimportant in themselves are often remarkably
corroborated from different quarters. The fact that the Zeitounli exiles
at Sultania were for some time prevented by the local Turkish
authorities from receiving relief is attested in Doc. 4 (Constantinople)
and Doc. 123 (the town of B. in Cilicia), as well as in Doc. 125 from
Konia. The malicious trick by which the exiles from Shar were deflected
from a good road to a bad, in order that they might be compelled to
abandon their carts, is recorded independently in Docs. 12 and 126.
(v) In particular it is to be noted that many of the most shocking and
horrible accounts are those for which there is the most abundant
testimony from the most trustworthy neutral witnesses. None of the worst
cruelties rest on native evidence alone. If all that class of evidence
were entirely struck out, the general effect would be much the same,
though some of the minor details would be wanting. One may, indeed, say
that an examination of the neutral evidence tends to confirm the native
evidence as a whole by showing that there is in it less of exaggeration
than might have been expected.
Docs. 7 and 9, for instance, both of which are native reports at
second-hand, refer in somewhat rhetorical terms to the corpses of
murdered Armenians washed down by the waters of the Tigris and
Euphrates. Yet their words are more than justified by many concrete and
independent pieces of evidence. The description in Doc. 12 (German
material) of how barge-loads of Armenians were drowned in the Tigris
below Diyarbekir, renders more fully credible the accounts of how the
Armenians of Trebizond were drowned wholesale in the Black Sea. Doc. 12
also contains the statement, from a German employee of the Baghdad
Railway, that the Armenian exiles who reached Biredjik were drowned in
batches every night in the Euphrates; and similar horrors are reported
from almost every section of the Euphrates’ course. Docs. 56, 57, 59 and
62 describe how the convoys of exiles from the Vilayet of Erzeroum were
cast into the Kara Su (western branch of the Euphrates) at the gorge
called Kamakh Boghaz, and were then either shot in the water or left to
drown. The author of Doc. 5 was present at such a scene, though she was
herself spared, and the information in Docs. 56 and 57 was obtained
direct from a lady who was actually cast in, but managed to struggle to
the bank and escape. The authors of Doc. 62 received their information
from a gendarme who had been attached to a convoy and had himself
participated in the massacre. Doc. 24 records the experiences of an
Armenian woman deported from Moush, who was driven with her
fellow-exiles into the Mourad Su (eastern branch of the Euphrates), but
also managed to escape, though the rest were drowned. Doc. 66 describes
corpses floating in the river in the neighbourhood of Kiakhta, and Doc.
137 the drowning of exiles in the tributaries of the Euphrates between
Harpout and Aleppo. These are evidently instances of a regular practice,
and when we find the exiles from Trebizond and Kerasond being disposed
of in the same fashion in a comparatively distant part of the Turkish
Empire, we are almost compelled to infer that the drowning of the exiles
_en masse_ was a definite part of the general scheme drawn out by the
Young Turk leaders at Constantinople.
Perhaps the most terrible feature of all was the suffering of the women
with child, who were made to march with the convoys and gave birth to
their babies on the road. This is alluded to in Doc. 12 from a German
source, at second-hand, but in Docs. 129 and 137 we have the testimony
of neutral witnesses who actually succoured these victims, so far as the
extremity of their plight and the brutality of their escort made succour
possible. It should be mentioned that in Doc. 68 an Armenian exile
testifies to the kindness of an individual Turkish gendarme to one of
her fellow-victims who was in these straits.
(vi) The vast scale of these massacres and the pitiless cruelty with
which the deportations were carried out may seem to some readers to
throw doubt on the authenticity of the narratives. Can human beings (it
may be asked) have perpetrated such crimes on innocent women and
children? But a recollection of previous massacres will show that such
crimes are part of the long settled and often repeated policy of Turkish
rulers. In Chios, nearly a century ago, the Turks slaughtered almost the
whole Greek population of the island. In European Turkey in 1876 many
thousands of Bulgarians were killed on the suspicion of an intended
rising, and the outrages committed on women were, on a smaller scale, as
bad as those here recorded. In 1895 and 1896 more than a hundred
thousand Armenian Christians were put to death by Abd-ul-Hamid, many
thousands of whom died as martyrs to their Christian faith, by abjuring
which they could have saved their lives. All these massacres are
registered not only in the ordinary press records of current history but
in the reports of British diplomatic and consular officials written at
the time. They are as certain as anything else that has happened in our
day. There is, therefore, no antecedent improbability to be overcome
before the accounts here given can be accepted. All that happened in
1915 is in the regular line of Turkish policy. The only differences are
in the scale of the present crimes, and in the fact that the lingering
sufferings of deportations in which the deaths were as numerous as in
the massacres, and fell with special severity upon the women, have in
this latest instance been added.
The evidence is cumulative. Each part of it supports the rest because
each part is independent of the others. The main facts are the same, and
reveal the same plans and intentions at work. Even the varieties are
instructive because they show those diversities of temper and feeling
which appear in human nature everywhere.
The Turkish officials are usually heartless and callous. But here and
there we see one of a finer temper, who refuses to carry out the orders
given him and is sometimes dismissed for his refusal. The Moslem rabble
is usually pitiless. It pillages the houses and robs the persons of the
hapless exiles. But now and then there appear pious and compassionate
Moslems who try to save the lives or alleviate the miseries of their
Christian neighbours. We have a vivid picture of human life, where
wickedness in high places deliberately lets loose the passions of racial
or religious hatred, as well as the commoner passion of rapacity, yet
cannot extinguish those better feelings which show as points of light in
the gloom.
It is, however, for the reader to form his own judgment on these
documents as he peruses them. They do not, and by the nature of the case
cannot, constitute what is called judicial evidence, such as a Court of
Justice obtains when it puts witnesses on oath and subjects them to
cross-examination. But by far the larger part (almost all, indeed, of
what is here published) does constitute historical evidence of the best
kind, inasmuch as the statements come from those who saw the events they
describe and recorded them in writing immediately afterwards. They
corroborate one another, the narratives given by different observers
showing a substantial agreement, which becomes conclusive when we find
the salient facts repeated with no more variations in detail than the
various opportunities of the independent observers made natural. The
gravest facts are those for which the evidence is most complete, and it
all tallies fatally with that which twenty years ago established the
guilt of Abd-ul-Hamid for the deeds that have made his name infamous. In
this case there are, moreover, what was wanting then, admissions which
add weight to the testimony here presented, I mean the admissions of the
Turkish Government and of their German apologists.[3] The attempts made
to find excuses for wholesale slaughter and for the removal of a whole
people from its homes leave no room for doubt as to the slaughter and
the removal. The main facts are established by the confession of the
criminals themselves. What the evidence here presented does is to show
in detail how these things were effected, what cruelties accompanied
them, and how inexcusable they were. The disproval of the palliations
which the Turks have put forward is as complete as the proof of the
atrocities themselves.
In order to test the soundness of my own conclusions as to the value of
the evidence, I have submitted it to the judgment of three friends, men
for whose opinion everyone who knows them will have the highest
respect—a distinguished historian, Mr. H.A.L. Fisher (Vice-Chancellor of
the University of Sheffield); a distinguished scholar, Mr. Gilbert
Murray (Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford); and a
distinguished American lawyer of long experience and high authority, Mr.
Moorfield Storey, of Boston, Mass.—men accustomed in their respective
walks of life to examine and appraise evidence; and I append the letters
which convey their several views.
This preface is intended to deal only with the credibility of the
evidence here presented, so I will refrain from comment on the facts. A
single observation, or rather a single question, may, however, be
permitted from one who has closely followed the history of the Turkish
East for more than forty years. European travellers have often commended
the honesty and the kindliness of the Turkish peasantry, and our
soldiers have said that they are fair fighters. Against them I have
nothing to say, and will even add that I have known individual Turkish
officials who impressed me as men of honesty and good-will. But the
record of the rulers of Turkey for the last two or three centuries, from
the Sultan on his throne down to the district Mutessarif, is, taken as a
whole, an almost unbroken record of corruption, of injustice, of an
oppression which often rises into hideous cruelty. The Young Turks, when
they deposed Abd-ul-Hamid, came forward as the apostles of freedom,
promising equal rights and equal treatment to all Ottoman subjects. The
facts here recorded show how that promise was kept. Can any one still
continue to hope that the evils of such a government are curable? Or
does the evidence contained in this volume furnish the most terrible and
convincing proof that it can no longer be permitted to rule over
subjects of a different faith?
BRYCE.
LETTER FROM MR. H.A.L. FISHER,
VICE-CHANCELLOR OF SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY,
TO VISCOUNT BRYCE.
The University,
Sheffield,
_August 2nd, 1916_.
MY DEAR LORD BRYCE,
The evidence here collected with respect to the sufferings of the
Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire during the present war will
carry conviction wherever and whenever it is studied by honest
enquirers. It bears upon the face of it all the marks of
credibility. In the first place, the transactions were recorded soon
after they took place and while the memory of them was still fresh
and poignant. Then the greater part of the story rests upon the word
of eye-witnesses, and the remainder upon the evidence of persons who
had special opportunities for obtaining correct information. It is
true that some of the witnesses are Armenians, whose testimony, if
otherwise unconfirmed, might be regarded as liable to be
over-coloured or distorted, but the Armenian evidence does not stand
alone. It is corroborated by reports received from Americans, Danes,
Swiss, Germans, Italians and other foreigners. Again, this foreign
testimony comes for the most part from men and women whose calling
alone entitles them to be heard with respect, that is to say, from
witnesses who may fairly be expected to exceed the average level of
character and intelligence and to view the transactions which they
record with as much detachment as is compatible with human feeling.
Indeed, the foreign witnesses who happened to be spectators of the
deportation, dispersion, and massacre of the Armenian nation, do not
strike me as being, in any one case, blind and indiscriminate haters
of the Turk. They are prompt to notice facts which strike them as
creditable to individual members of the Moslem community.
I am also impressed with the cumulative effect of the evidence.
Whoever speaks, and from whatever quarter in the wide region covered
by these reports the voice may proceed, the story is one and the
same. There are no discrepancies or contradictions of importance,
but, on the contrary, countless scattered pieces of mutual
corroboration. There is no contrariety as to the broad fact that the
Armenian population has been uprooted from its homes, dispersed,
and, to a large though not exactly calculable extent, exterminated
in consequence of general orders issued from Constantinople. It is
clear that a catastrophe, conceived upon a scale quite unparalleled
in modern history, has been contrived for the Armenian inhabitants
of the Ottoman Empire. It is found that the original responsibility
rests with the Ottoman Government at Constantinople, whose policy
was actively seconded by the members of the Committee of Union and
Progress in the Provinces. And in view of the fact that the
representations of the Austrian Ambassador with the Porte were
effectual in procuring a partial measure of exemption for the
Armenian Catholics, we are led to surmise that the unspeakable
horrors which this volume records might have been mitigated, if not
wholly checked, had active and energetic remonstrances been from the
first moment addressed to the Ottoman Government by the two Powers
who had acquired a predominant influence in Constantinople. The
evidence, on the contrary, tends to suggest that these two Powers
were, in a general way, favourable to the policy of deportation.
Yours sincerely,
HERBERT FISHER.
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY,
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, TO VISCOUNT BRYCE.
82, Woodstock Road,
Oxford,
_June 27th, 1916_.
DEAR LORD BRYCE,
I have spent some time studying the documents you are about to
publish relative to the deportations and massacres of Armenians in
the Turkish Empire during the spring and summer of 1915. I know, of
course, how carefully a historian should scrutinize the evidence for
events so startling in character, reported to have occurred in
regions so far removed from the eyes of civilized Europe. I realize
that in times of persecution passions run high, that oriental races
tend to use hyperbolical language, and that the victims of
oppression cannot be expected to speak with strict fairness of their
oppressors. But the evidence of these letters and reports will bear
any scrutiny and overpower any scepticism. Their genuineness is
established beyond question, though obviously you are right in
withholding certain of the names of persons and places. The
statements of the Armenian refugees themselves are fully confirmed
by residents of American, Scandinavian and even of German
nationality; and the undesigned agreement between so many credible
witnesses from widely separate districts puts all the main lines of
the story beyond the possibility of doubt.
I remain,
Yours sincerely,
GILBERT MURRAY.
LETTER FROM MR. MOORFIELD STOREY,
EX-PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN
BAR ASSOCIATION, TO VISCOUNT BRYCE.
735, Exchange Building,
Boston, U.S.,
_7th August, 1916_.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have examined considerable portions of the volume which contains
the statements regarding the treatment of the Armenians by the
Turks, in order to determine the value of these statements as
evidence.
I have no doubt that, while there may be inaccuracies of detail,
these statements establish without any question the essential facts.
It must be borne in mind that in such a case the evidence of
eye-witnesses is not easily obtained; the victims, with few
exceptions, are dead; the perpetrators will not confess; any casual
spectators cannot be reached, and in most cases are either in
sympathy with what was done or afraid to speak. There are no
tribunals before which witnesses can be summoned and compelled to
testify, and a rigid censorship is maintained by the authorities
responsible for the crimes, which prevents the truth from coming out
freely, and no investigation by impartial persons will be permitted.
Such statements as you print are the best evidence which, in the
circumstances, it is possible to obtain. They come from persons
holding positions which give weight to their words, and from other
persons with no motive to falsify, and it is impossible that such a
body of concurring evidence should have been manufactured. Moreover,
it is confirmed by evidence from German sources which has with
difficulty escaped the rigid censorship maintained by the German
authorities—a censorship which is in itself a confession, since
there is no reason why the Germans should not give full currency to
such evidence unless the authorities felt themselves in some way
responsible for what it discloses.
In my opinion, the evidence which you print is as reliable as that
upon which rests our belief in many of the universally admitted
facts of history, and I think it establishes beyond any reasonable
doubt the deliberate purpose of the Turkish authorities practically
to exterminate the Armenians, and their responsibility for the
hideous atrocities which have been perpetrated upon that unhappy
people.
Yours truly,
MOORFIELD STOREY.
LETTER, DATED ALEPPO, 8th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM
FOUR MEMBERS OF THE GERMAN MISSIONS
STAFF IN TURKEY TO THE IMPERIAL GERMAN
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AT BERLIN.[4]
We think it our duty to draw the attention of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to the fact that our school work will be deprived,
for the future, of its moral basis and will lose all authority in
the eyes of the natives, if it is really beyond the power of the
German Government to mitigate the brutality of the treatment which
the exiled women and children of the massacred Armenians are
receiving.
In face of the scenes of horror which are being unfolded daily
before our eyes in the neighbourhood of our school, our educational
activity becomes a mockery of humanity. How can we make our pupils
listen to the Tales of the Seven Dwarfs, how can we teach them
conjugations and declensions, when, in the compounds next door to
our school, death is carrying off their starving compatriots—when
there are girls and women and children, practically naked, some
lying on the ground, others stretched between the dead or the
coffins made ready for them beforehand, and breathing their last
breath!
Out of 2,000 to 3,000 peasant women from the Armenian Plateau who
were brought here in good health, only forty or fifty skeletons are
left. The prettier ones are the victims of their gaolers’ lust; the
plain ones succumb to blows, hunger and thirst (they lie by the
water’s edge, but are not allowed to quench their thirst). The
Europeans are forbidden to distribute bread to the starving. Every
day more than a hundred corpses are carried out of Aleppo.
All this happens under the eyes of high Turkish officials. There are
forty or fifty emaciated phantoms crowded into the compound opposite
our school. They are women out of their mind; they have forgotten
how to eat; when one offers them bread, they throw it aside with
indifference. They only groan and wait for death.
“See,” say the natives: “Taâlim el Alman (the teaching of the
Germans).”
The German scutcheon is in danger of being smirched for ever in the
memory of the Near Eastern peoples. There are natives of Aleppo,
more enlightened than the rest, who say: “The Germans do not want
these horrors. Perhaps the German nation does not know about them.
If it did, how could the German Press, which is attached to the
truth, talk about the humanity of the treatment accorded to the
Armenians who are guilty of High Treason? Perhaps, too, the German
Government has its hands tied by some contract defining the powers
of the [German and Turkish] States in regard to one another’s
affairs?”
No, when it is a question of giving over thousands of women and
children to death by starvation, the words “Opportunism” and
“definition of powers” lose their meaning. Every civilised human
being is “empowered” in this case to interfere, and it is his
bounden duty to do so. Our prestige in the East is the thing at
stake. There are even Turks and Arabs who have remained human, and
who shake their heads in sorrow when they see, in the exile convoys
that pass through the town, how the brutal soldiers shower blows on
women with child who can march no farther.
We may expect further and still more dreadful hecatombs after the
order published by Djemal Pasha. (The engineers of the Baghdad
Railway are forbidden, by this order, to photograph the Armenian
convoys; any plates they have already used for this must be given up
within twenty-four hours, under penalty of prosecution before the
Council of War.) It is a proof that the responsible authorities fear
the light, but have no intention of putting an end to scenes which
are a disgrace to humanity.
We know that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already, from other
sources, received detailed descriptions of what is happening here.
But as no change has occurred in the system of the deportations, we
feel ourselves under a double obligation to make this report, all
the more because the fact of our living abroad enables us to see
more clearly the immense danger by which the German name is
threatened here.
MEMORANDUM BY THE EDITOR.
As far as their contents are concerned, the documents collected in
this volume explain themselves, and if any reader wishes for an
outline of the events they describe, as a guide to their detail, he
will find it in the “Historical Summary” at the end of the book,
especially in Section V. In this preliminary memorandum the Editor
has simply to state the sources, character and value of the
documents, and to explain the system on which they have been edited.
The sources of the documents are very varied. Some of them were
communicated to the Editor directly by the writers themselves, or,
in the case of private letters, by the persons to whom the letters
were addressed. Several of those relating to the distribution of
relief in Russian Caucasia have been placed in his hands by the
courtesy of the British Foreign Office. Others, again, he owes to
the courtesy of individuals, including Lord Bryce, who has
superintended the work throughout, and given most generously of his
time and thought towards making it as accurate and complete as
possible; several members of the American Committee for Armenian and
Syrian Relief[5]; the Rev. G.T. Scott, Assistant Secretary of the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.;
M. Arshag Tchobanian; Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons; Dr. William Walter
Rockwell, of the Union Theological Seminary of New York; the Rev.
Stephen Trowbridge, Secretary of the American Red Cross Committee at
Cairo; the Rev. I.N. Camp, a missionary in the service of the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at present
stationed at Cairo; Aneurin Williams, Esq., M.P.; the Rev. Harold
Buxton, Treasurer of the Armenian Refugees (Lord Mayor’s) Fund; Mr.
J.D. Bourchier, correspondent of the London _Times_ newspaper in the
Balkans; Mrs. D.S. Margoliouth, of Oxford; the Rev. F.N. Heazell,
Organising Secretary of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assyrian
Mission; Mr. G.H. Paelian, an American citizen resident in London;
Mr. A.S. Safrastian, of Tiflis; and Mr. H.N. Mosditchian, of London.
Another source of material has been the Press. Despatches, letters
and statements have been reprinted in this volume from the columns
of English, American, Swiss, French, Russian, Italian and also
German newspapers, and from Armenian journals published at Tiflis,
London and New York. The editors of _Ararat_, _Gotchnag_ and the
_New Armenia_ have shown the Editor of this volume every possible
kindness, and have courteously presented him with free copies of
their current issues.
The documents are all rendered here in English, but they reached the
Editor’s hands in various languages—not only English but French,
Italian, German and Armenian. The translations from the French,
German and Italian have been made by the Editor with the assistance
of his wife. For the translation of documents from the Armenian he
is indebted to Mr. Paelian, who has devoted a large part of his
scanty leisure to doing the Editor this most valuable service. But
for Mr. Paelian’s promptness and good will, the work might have been
considerably delayed.
The character of the documents varies with the writers. Some of the
witnesses are native Armenian or Nestorian inhabitants of the Near
East, who were either victims of the atrocities themselves or were
intimately connected with others who played a direct part in the
scenes described. A majority of the witnesses, however, are foreign
residents in the Ottoman Empire or the Persian Province of
Azerbaijan, and nearly all these, again, are citizens of neutral
countries, either European or American—missionaries, teachers,
doctors, Red Cross nurses or officials. A few witnesses (and these
are the weightiest of all) are subjects of states allied to Turkey
in the present war.
The value of the documents of course depends upon the witnesses’
standing and character, and upon the opportunities they possessed of
knowing the facts. The Editor is certain in his own mind that all
the documents published here are genuine statements of the truth,
and he presents them in this assurance. Errors will, doubtless, be
here and there discovered, but he believes that any errors there may
be have been made in good faith, and that they will prove to touch
only points of detail, which do not affect the truth of the whole.
At the same time he realises that, considered as legal evidence
before a court, the documents differ considerably in probative
value. From this legal point of view, they can be tabulated in
several classes:—
(_a_) Evidence published by the editor of a German journal in
Germany, and suppressed by the Imperial German Censorship
(Doc. 12. This evidence is, of course, above any suspicion
of prejudice against the Turks.
(_b_) Documents written by German eye-witnesses of the events
they describe (Docs. 18, 23, 91, 145), or by neutral
eye-witnesses resident in Turkey in the service of German
missionary or philanthropic institutions, or of the German
Red Cross (Docs. 62, 64, 117, 142). This evidence is equally
above suspicion of partiality against the Turks or in favour
of the Armenians.
(_c_) Documents written by other neutral eye-witnesses,
principally American and Swiss, who have no connection,
either public or private, with the Turco-German Alliance or
with the Entente, and who are presumably without bias
towards either party. Documents of such authorship
constitute the bulk of the material in this volume, and
practically all of them are written at first hand. There are
no apparent grounds for not reposing full confidence in
them.
(_d_) Documents written by Armenian or Nestorian natives of the
regions concerned. This native evidence may be thought to
have somewhat less cogency than the rest, as the witnesses
have suffered personally from the horrors they describe, and
are open to stronger influences of prejudice and emotion
than foreign observers. Errors of detail are more likely to
occur here, especially as regards estimates of numbers. The
Editor wishes to repeat, however, that, after comparing the
different statements of these native witnesses with one
another, and with the documents in the three preceding
classes, he is convinced of the substantial accuracy of all
the evidence, of whatever class, that is presented in this
volume.
The total body of evidence is large, as the considerable bulk of the
volume shows, and this is the more satisfactory because the Ottoman
Government has taken every possible precaution to prevent any
knowledge of its proceedings from reaching the outer world. Private
postal and telegraphic communications were suspended between
Constantinople and the provinces, and between one province and
another. There was a stringent censorship of outgoing mails, even
the consuls of neutral countries were forbidden to telegraph in
cypher, and travellers leaving Turkey were searched and divested of
every scrap of paper, whether written upon or blank, in their
possession. A quotation from a letter, written by the author of one
of our documents[6] just after she had safely passed beyond the
Ottoman frontier, will give some idea of the severity of this
official embargo upon news of every sort:
“As I was coming out from under the hands of the censor, I was asked
to write to you, telling you something of the real situation in our
part of the world. In my opinion the censorship now is worse than it
was in the olden days, for now they have such highly trained men.
One of our censors had a five years’ training in the New York Post
Office. If our letters seem to tell you little, please remember that
there are the strictest orders against the censor’s passing anything
on politics, war or even poverty. Any sentences that even touch on
these subjects are either cut out or marked or blotted out with ink.
A German lady even wrote to a friend of hers in Germany, telling her
of poverty in BM. and asking her to send relief funds. She purposely
mentioned no causes for this poverty, but only said there was such a
condition. The only parts of the letter that reached her friend were
the opening and closing sentences. The knife had claimed the rest.
So, as Mrs. E. said: ‘Please tell our friends in America that when
we write about concerts and field meets and such things, that does
not show that the country is safe or that work is as usual. We write
about that simply because there is nothing else about which we are
allowed to write.’ ”
Nearly all our evidence, therefore, comes from residents in Turkey
who witnessed, like this lady, the events that occurred in some
particular district or districts, and subsequently left Turkey for
some other country, where they could record what they had seen
without endangering their lives. Yet, even on neutral ground, these
witnesses are not beyond the reach of Turkish resentment. Many of
them are anxious to take up their work again in Turkey at the
earliest opportunity, and nearly all of them still have interests in
the country, or fellow-workers, or friends, who are so many gages in
the Ottoman Government’s hands. That Government is known to have
agents in Europe, and possibly in America as well, whose business it
is to inform against anyone who exposes its misdeeds; and the Young
Turkish gang, by whom the Ottoman Government is controlled, have no
shame and no scruple about wreaking vengeance by any and every means
upon accusers whose indictments they are wholly unable to answer
before the judgment seat of the civilised world. It is, therefore,
absolutely essential to withhold in many cases the names of the
witnesses themselves, and of people, or even of places, mentioned in
their testimony. In fact, some of the documents have only been
communicated to the Editor on this express condition—for instance,
the document enclosed with the letter quoted a few lines above. “May
I ask you, however,” continues this very letter, “not to publish my
name or that of any missionary from BM., not even the name of BM.
itself or any of the places which I shall mention, as the censorship
is so strict and terrible now that the mention of names brings us
under suspicion at once. May I instance? Dr. E. and Dr. L. have been
under such suspicion or ill-will that they have not been able to get
a simple family letter through to members of their family in America
for months, and the whole station of AC. is under sufficient
suspicion to prevent most of the letters they write to you and Mr.
N, from reaching their destination. The reason, we feel quite
certain, is a report on Moslem work which was sent to you.”
And the same considerations are urged even more emphatically by Miss
A., the author of Doc. 137 who is our chief witness for the
occurrences at AC. itself:—
For the sake of the people left in Turkey, and especially my orphan
children, I hope nothing will be published as from me. If any word
of it should get into Turkey, it might have very serious
consequences for them.
“Although very few magazines or papers were allowed into the
interior, yet occasionally we saw one. In the coast towns, pieces
are being cut from the papers, and sold at high prices to Turks. I
left my post just because I thought my presence there might make it
hard for those under my charge; but if anything that I am supposed
to have told gets back into Turkey, I fear the whole of my community
may have to suffer. I do not think that those outside Turkey fully
realise what danger there is, even in letters, to those left in the
country. The local authorities seemed to be always on the watch for
something to find as a cause of complaint against both missionaries
and Armenians.
“The poor refugees that we saw in BF. as we passed through begged us
to help them, but, when we got to BJ., the missionaries there said
they had been forbidden to give aid. One woman had been taken to the
Government Building because she had been found helping some poor
families in her own district that she had been visiting for years.
There were many sick at BF., and the pastor and others sent
post-cards, begging us to send help quickly. One man asked me to
lend him some money, saying I could get it back from his brother in
America. It was the danger to him that made me hesitate. The money
was finally sent, but one feared to think what it might be an excuse
for. And so over all the country.
“All the time when people were in great need, the question was in
one’s mind: ‘Will relief endanger their lives?’ New rules were
constantly being sprung upon us. A person would write a letter, but
before it reached its destination it would be ‘against the
regulations.’
“All money in banks and all property belonging to the exiles was
confiscated by the Government. The people who were deported from AC.
did not know it, but when they had used up all that they had taken
with them, they would write to us. It was in this way that we found
out that they had neither money nor property left; but we were
powerless to let them know what the difficulty was, so they would
write again and again.
“All the time, we felt we were in a trap. The most courageous
Armenians dared not come to see me, nor could I go to their homes.
We had to meet at some public building if they wanted to see me
about anything.
“No one living in freedom can understand what it feels like to be in
Turkey these days.”
In face of this, the reader will see for himself that the
publication of names, under present circumstances, would often be a
grave and perilous breach of trust, and the Editor has, therefore,
(though only where absolutely necessary, and without making any
change whatever affecting the substance of the documents),
substituted arbitrary symbols for the names of persons and places in
the text, in the manner shown in the preceding quotation. A complete
key to these symbols has been prepared and communicated, in
confidence, to the British Foreign Office, Lord Bryce, Dr. Barton,
and the Rev. G.T. Scott; and this key will be published as soon as
circumstances permit, or, in other words, as soon as the dangers
which would threaten the persons referred to have ceased to exist.
The Ottoman Government and its allies, whose good name is almost as
seriously compromised as the Ottoman name by the facts, may be
expected to make what capital they can out of the precautions
imposed by their own treatment of their Christian subjects, and to
impugn the genuineness of the documents that have been edited in the
way here described. That was the course they adopted in the case of
the evidence relating to the conduct of the German Army in Belgium,
which was published with the same, equally necessary, reservations.
The Editor can best forestall such disingenuous criticism by stating
clearly the principles on which this suppression of names has been
made:
(_a_) Names of persons are not published in this volume unless
they have already appeared publicly, in the same connection,
in print, or unless the person in question is clearly beyond
the reach of Turkish revenge.
(_b_) Names of places are published wherever possible. They
are only withheld when they would be certain to reveal the
identity of persons mentioned in connection with them.
(_c_) All names withheld are represented in the text by
capital letters of the alphabet or combinations of capital
letters. These letters are not the initials of the names in
question, but were assigned in an arbitrary order, as the
various documents happened to come into the Editor’s hands.
(_d_) The name of a place is always represented by the same
symbol throughout the volume, _e.g._, “X.” stands for the
same place, whether it occurs in Section I. or Section XI.
(_e_) In the case of the names of people the same symbol only
stands for the same person within a single section, _e.g._,
“Miss A.” stands for the same person, in whatever document
it occurs in Section XVII.; but in the documents of Section
XI. “Miss A.” represents someone different.
The Editor wishes to state, once more, that these documents in which
names are represented by symbols are not a whit less valid, as
evidence, than the documents in which no such substitutions have had
to be made. If the reader desires confirmation of this, the Editor
would refer him to the gentlemen mentioned above, who have been
placed in possession of the confidential key.
There are other documents, however, where the names have, on similar
grounds, been withheld from the Editor himself, either by the
authors of the documents or by those through whose hands the Editor
obtained them, or where the ultimate source of the testimony is for
some reason obscure. The Editor has been careful to indicate these
cases as conspicuously as possible. Where there is any name, either
of a place or of a person, unknown to him in the text, he has
represented it by a blank (——). Where the name of the author of the
document is unknown to him, he has stated this in a footnote to the
title by which the document is headed.[7]
The Editor is, of course, aware that these documents which he only
possesses in a defective form cannot be presented as evidence in the
strict sense by himself, and can plausibly be repudiated by the
parties whose crimes they describe. He is the more content to admit
this legal objection to them because they merely confirm what is
established by the other evidence independently of them. They
constitute no more than twenty-two out of the 150 documents in the
whole collection, and, if they are passed over, the picture
presented by the far larger mass of documents that cannot be
impugned remains perfectly precise and complete. The Editor has
chosen to publish them, in their natural order, with the rest,
because he has no more doubt about their genuineness than about the
genuineness of the others—and with good reason, for, out of the
twenty-two documents in question, not less then eleven have been
communicated to him by the American Committee for Armenian and
Syrian Relief—citizens of high standing in a neutral country and
gentlemen of unimpeachable good faith. He repeats, however, that
these twenty-two documents are in no way essential to the
presentation of the case as a whole.
The documents are arranged in groups, in a geographical order, which
is adjusted as far as possible to the general chronological order in
which the different regions were affected by the Ottoman
Government’s scheme. The first group or section contains documents
that do not confine themselves to any one region, but give general
descriptions of events occurring throughout the Ottoman Empire.
These documents are for the most part earlier in date than those
relating to particular districts, and are therefore placed at the
beginning. The second section opens the geographical series with the
documents relating to Van, the north-easternmost province of the
Ottoman Empire in the direction of the Caucasus and Azerbaijan. The
third section deals with Bitlis, the province adjoining Van on the
west, which suffered next in order; the fourth with Azerbaijan, the
Persian province on the eastern side of Van, which suffered during
the Turkish offensive in the winter of 1914-5; the fifth with
Russian Trans-Caucasia, where the refugees from Van and Azerbaijan
sought refuge in August, 1915. The succeeding sections follow one
another in geographical order from east to west, beginning with
Erzeroum, the border province adjoining Van on the north-west along
the Russo-Turkish frontier. Erzeroum constitutes the sixth section,
Mamouret-ul-Aziz the seventh, Trebizond the eighth, Sivas the ninth,
Kaisaria the tenth, the town of X. the eleventh, Angora the twelfth,
Constantinople and the adjacent districts the thirteenth. From this
point the sections run in reverse order from north-west to
south-east, following the track of the Baghdad Railway. The
fourteenth section deals with places along this route between (but
excluding) Adapazar and Aleppo; the fifteenth deals with Cilicia,
the region through which the Baghdad Railway passes half-way along
its course, and this is the only case in which the chronological and
geographical arrangements seriously conflict, for the Cilicians were
the first to suffer—they were already being deported twelve days
before fighting broke out at Van. The sixteenth section is Jibal
Mousa, a group of villages adjoining Cilicia on the south; the
seventeenth the Armenian colonies at Ourfa and AC., two cities on
the Mesopotamian fringe; the eighteenth Aleppo, upon which nearly
all the convoys of exiles converged; and the nineteenth Damascus and
Der-el-Zor, the two districts where the greater part of the
survivors were finally deposited. A twentieth section has also been
added for documents received while the volume was in the press.
Wherever a date is given without further indication, it may be
assumed to be in “New Style.” Where two alternative dates are given
(_e.g._, 26th September/9th October), the first is “Old Style” and
the second “New.” Dates are never given in “Old Style” alone. Where
sums of money are given in Turkish or Persian units, the English
equivalent is usually added in brackets. Sums given in dollars have
always been translated into English pounds sterling.
The names of places have not been spelt on any consistent system,
there being no recognised system in general use. The Editor has
merely endeavoured to standardise the spelling of each particular
name wherever it occurs.
An index of all places referred to by name in the documents that are
in the Editor’s possession, whether the name has been withheld in
the text or not, has been compiled for him most accurately by Miss
Margaret Toynbee, to whom he is grateful for this important addition
to the usefulness of the book. This index is printed at the end of
the volume. The map which accompanies it has been compiled by the
Editor himself from various sources, chiefly from Kiepert’s
excellent sheets of Asia Minor, in the Map Room of the Royal
Geographical Society, where he has received most kind and valuable
assistance from the staff.
I. GENERAL DESCRIPTIONS.
_The Ottoman Government did its utmost to prevent the news of what
it was doing to the Armenians from leaking through to the outer
world. A stringent censorship was established at all the frontiers,
private communication was severed between Constantinople and the
provinces, and the provinces themselves were isolated from one
another. Nearly all our information has been obtained from witnesses
who succeeded in making their way out of Turkey after the massacres
and deportations had occurred, and who wrote down their experiences
after reaching America or Europe. The evidence of these witnesses is
first-hand, but it is mostly confined to the particular region in
which each witness happened to reside, and it has therefore been
grouped in this collection province by province, in geographical
order. We possess, however, certain general accounts which reached
Europe and America at an earlier date, for the most part, than the
individual narratives, and they are printed here in advance of the
rest—partly for the chronological reason, and partly because they
give a broad survey of what happened, which may impress the general
features upon the reader before he approaches the detailed testimony
of the sections that follow._
_In contrast to the bulk of our evidence, the majority of these
preliminary documents give their information at second-hand; but
practically every statement they make is more than borne out in
detail by the first-hand witnesses, and this is particularly the
case with the more startling and appalling of the facts they
record._
_The most interesting document in this section is No. 12, which was
compiled from German sources, published in a German journal, and
immediately suppressed by the German Censorship._
1. DESPATCH[8] FROM MR. HENRY WOOD, CORRESPONDENT OF THE AMERICAN
“UNITED PRESS” AT CONSTANTINOPLE; PUBLISHED IN THE AMERICAN
PRESS, 14th AUGUST, 1915.
So critical is the situation that Ambassador Morgenthau, who alone
is fighting to prevent wholesale slaughter, has felt obliged to ask
the co-operation of the Ambassadors of Turkey’s two Allies. They
have been successful to the extent of securing definite promises
from the leading members of the Young Turk Government that no orders
will be given for massacres. The critical moment for the Armenians,
however, will come, it is feared, when the Turks may meet with
serious reverses in the Dardanelles or when the Armenians
themselves, who not only are in open revolt but are actually in
possession of Van and several other important towns, may meet with
fresh successes. It is this uprising of the Armenians who are
seeking to establish an independent government that the Turks
declare is alone responsible for the terrible measures now being
taken against them[9]. In the meantime, the position of the
Armenians and the system of deportation, dispersion, and
extermination that is being carried out against them beggars all
description.
Although the present renewal of the Armenian atrocities has been
under way for three months, it is only just now that reports
creeping into Constantinople from the remotest points of the
interior show that absolutely no portion of the Armenian population
has been spared. It now appears that the order for the present
cruelties was issued in the early part of May, and was at once put
into execution with all the extreme genius of the Turkish police
system—the one department of government for which the Turks have
ever shown the greatest aptitude, both in organisation and
administration. At that time sealed orders were sent to the police
of the entire Empire. These were to be opened on a specified date
that would ensure the orders being in the hands of every department
at the moment they were to be opened. Once opened, they provided for
a simultaneous descent at practically the same moment on the
Armenian population of the entire Empire.
At Broussa, in Asiatic Turkey, the city which it is expected the
Turks will select for their capital in the event of Constantinople
falling, I investigated personally the manner in which these orders
were carried out[10]. From eye-witnesses in other towns from the
interior I found that the execution of them was everywhere
identical. At midnight, the police authorities swooped down on the
homes of all Armenians whose names had been put on the proscribed
list sent out from Constantinople. The men were at once placed under
arrest, and then the houses were searched for papers which might
implicate them either in the present revolutionary movement of the
Armenians on the frontier or in plots against the Government which
the Turks declare exist. In this search, carpets were torn from the
floors, draperies stripped from the walls, and even the children
turned out of their beds and cradles in order that the mattresses
and coverings might be searched.
Following this search, the men were then carried away, and at once
there began the carrying out of the system of deportation and
dispersion which has been the cruellest feature of the present
anti-Armenian wave. The younger men for the most part were at once
drafted into the Army. On the authority of men whose names would be
known in both America and Europe if I dared mention them, I am told
that hundreds if not thousands of these were sent at once to the
front ranks at the Dardanelles, where death in a very short space of
time is almost a certainty. The older men were then deported into
the interior, while the women and children, when not carried off in
an opposite direction, were left to shift for themselves as best
they could. The terrible feature of this deportation up to date is
that it has been carried out on such a basis as to render it
practically impossible in thousands of cases that these families can
ever again be reunited. Not only wives and husbands, brothers and
sisters, but even mothers and their little children have been
dispersed in such a manner as to preclude practically all hope that
they will ever see each other again.
In defence of these terrible measures which have been taken, the
Turks at Constantinople declare that no one but the Armenians
themselves is to blame. They state that when the present attack
began on the Dardanelles, the Armenians were notified that if they
took advantage of the moment when the Turks were concentrating every
energy for the maintenance of the Empire, to rise in rebellion, they
would be dealt with without quarter. This warning, however, the
Armenians failed to heed. They not only rose in rebellion, occupying
a number of important towns, including Van, but extended important
help to the Russians in the latter’s campaign in the Caucasus.[11]
While this is the Turkish side of the situation, there is also
another side which I shall give on the authority of men who have
passed practically their entire lives in Turkey and whose names, if
I dared mention them, would be recognised in both Europe and America
as competent authority. According to these men, the decision has
gone out from the Young Turk party that the Armenian population of
Turkey must be set back fifty years. This has been decided upon as
necessary in order to ensure the supremacy of the Turkish race in
the Ottoman Empire, which is one of the basic principles of the
Young Turk party. The situation, I am told, is absolutely analogous
to that which preceded the Armenian massacres under Abd-ul-Hamid. So
far, however, the Young Turks have confined themselves to the new
system of deportation, dispersion and separation of families.
-----
Footnote 1:
Memorandum by the Editor, page xli.
Footnote 2:
Memorandum by the Editor, page xl.
Footnote 3:
For instance, the conversation of a German officer reported in Doc.
108 p. 420. For the general attitude of the Turks and German towards
the treatment of the Armenians, see “Historical Summary,” chapter V.
On the 11th January, 1916, Herr von Stumm, Chief of the Political
Department of the German Foreign Office, gave the following answer in
the Reichstag to a question from Dr. Liebknecht:
“It is known to the Imperial Chancellor that revolutionary
demonstrations, organised by our enemies, have taken place in Armenia,
and that they have caused the Turkish Government to expel the Armenian
population of certain districts and to allot to them new
dwelling-places. An exchange of views about the reaction of these
measures upon the population is now taking place. Further information
cannot be given.”
Footnote 4:
A copy of this letter was communicated to the _Berner Tagwacht_ by
Dr. Forel, a Swiss gentleman, and reproduced in the _Journal de
Génève_, 17th August, 1916. It was signed by four persons—Dr.
Gräter (of Swiss nationality), Dr. Niepage (of German
nationality), and two others whose names have been withheld by Dr.
Forel.—EDITOR.
Footnote 5:
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
70, Fifth Avenue, New York.
Including work of the Armenian Relief, the Persian War Relief, and
the Syrian-Palestine Relief Committees.
James L. Barton. Samuel T. Dutton. Walter H. Mallory.
_Chairman._ _Secretary._ _Field Secretary._
Charles R. Crane, _Treasurer_.
Arthur J. Brown. John Moffat.
Edwin M. Bulkley. John R. Mott.
John B. Calvert. Frank Mason North.
John D. Crimmins. Harry V. Osborne.
Cleveland H. Dodge. George A. Plimpton.
Charles W. Eliot. Rt. Rev. P. Rhinelander.
William T. Ellis. Karl Davis Robinson.
James Cardinal Gibbons. William W. Rockwell.
Rt. Rev. David H. Greer. George T. Scott.
Norman Hapgood. Isaac N. Seligman.
Maurice H. Harris. William Sloane.
William I. Haven. Edward Lincoln Smith.
Hamilton Holt. James M. Speers.
Arthur Curtiss James. Oscar M. Straus.
Frederick Lynch. Stanley White.
Chas. S. MacFarland. Talcott Williams.
H. Pereira Mendes. Stephen S. Wise.
Footnote 6:
Doc. 121
Footnote 7:
In other words, wherever the title of a document is given without
such a footnote, that means that the Editor is in possession of
the author’s name, even if the name is not published but
represented by a symbol (_e.g._, “Dr. L.”), or by such periphrases
as “A foreign resident,” &c.
Footnote 8:
For full text see page 572.
Footnote 9:
See “Historical Summary,” Chapter V.
Footnote 10:
Compare Doc. 101
Footnote 11:
For the real facts see Section II.
2. DESPATCH, DATED 11th JUNE, 1915, FROM AN ESPECIALLY WELL INFORMED
NEUTRAL SOURCE AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
A week before anything was done to Baibourt, the villages all round
had been emptied of their Armenian inhabitants. The forced exodus
from Baibourt took place on the 1st June[12]. All the villages, as
well as three-fourths of the town, had already been evacuated. The
third convoy included from 4,000 to 5,000 people. Within six or
seven days from the start, all males down to below fifteen years of
age had been murdered.
Persecutions, accompanied by horrible torture, have taken place in
the Armenian village of Baghtchedjik or Bardizag (2,000 families),
in Ovadjik (600 families), in Arslanbeg (600 families), in Döngöl
(65 families), in Sabandja (1,000 families), in Ismid, etc. The
inhabitants of Kurt-Belené (6,000 to 7,000 families) have been
expelled.
In Arabkir the Armenian population has been converted to Islam,
after 2,000 males had been killed.
-----
Footnote 12:
See Doc. 59
3. EXTRACT FROM A LETTER[13], DATED ARABKIR, 25th JUNE/8th JULY,
1915, COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
The Armenian population has been converted to Islam; it was a means
of escaping from the forced migration. Orthodox Turks are given the
wives of absent husbands or their daughters. We have been told that,
according to an order from the Padishah, everybody must embrace
Islam[14].
4. LETTER FROM AN AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE,
15th/28th JUNE, 1915; PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK JOURNAL
“GOTCHNAG,” 28th AUGUST, 1915.
In America you have probably not yet heard of the terrible crisis
through which the Armenians of Turkey are passing at this moment.
The severe censorship to which all communications between
Constantinople and the provinces are subjected, and the absolute
embargo on travelling under which the Armenians have been placed,
have resulted in depriving us, even in Constantinople, of all but
the scantiest information regarding the whole provincial area. And
yet what we know already is sufficient to give you some idea.
In every part of Turkey the Armenian population is in a more or less
serious plight, in suspense between life and death. Apart from the
distress produced by the illegal requisitions, the paralysis of
industry, the ravages of the typhus, and the mobilisation of the
men—first of those from 20 to 45, and then of those from 18 to 50
years of age—thousands of Armenians have been suffering during the
last two months in prison or in exile.
At the beginning of the month of April, immediately after the events
at Van, the Government issued an order requisitioning Armenian
houses, schools, and episcopal residences, even in the most obscure
corners of the provinces, and making the possession of arms, which
were allowed until now, or of books and images, which were freely
sold in public, a pretext for imprisonments and convictions. The
effect of this order has been such that in the prisons of Kaisaria
alone there are, at the present moment, more than 500 Armenians in
custody, without reckoning those who, by a mere administrative act
and without any charge being brought against them, have been
deported into districts inhabited entirely by Mohammedans.
However, even this state of things is mild enough in comparison with
the condition of affairs in Cilicia and the provinces bordering on
the Caucasus. The Turkish Government is now putting into execution
its plan of dispersing the Armenian population of the Armenian
provinces, taking advantage of the preoccupation of all the European
Powers, and of the indifference of Germany and Austria. They began
to execute this plan about four months ago, starting with
Cilicia[15], where the entire Armenian population of Zeitoun, Dört
Yöl and the neighbourhood, and a considerable part of the population
of Marash and Hassan-Beyli, have been removed from their homes by
brute force and without warning.
Some of the exiles, about 1,000 families, have been sent to the
Sultania district of the Vilayet of Konia[16]. The majority,
however, have been dispersed among the villages of the province of
Zor, beyond Aleppo, and through the districts in the immediate
neighbourhood of Aleppo itself—Moumbidj, Bab, Ma’ara, Idlib, etc.
This compulsory emigration is still in progress. The same fate is in
prospect for Adana, Mersina, Hadjin, Sis, etc. As can be seen from
the despatches and letters which arrive from these districts, all
these people are being deported without the possibility of taking
anything with them, and this into districts with a climate to which
they are absolutely unaccustomed. There, without shelter, naked and
famished, they are abandoned to their fate, and have to subsist on
the morsel of bread which the Government sees good to throw to them,
a Government which is incapable of providing even its own troops
with bread.
The least details of this compulsory emigration that reach us at
Constantinople, reduce one to tears at their recital. Among those
1,000 families deported to Sultania there are less than fifty men.
The majority made the journey on foot; the old people and the young
children died by the wayside, and young women with child miscarried
and were abandoned on the mountains. Even now that they have reached
their place of exile, these deported Armenians pay a toll of about
ten victims a day in deaths from sickness and famine. At Aleppo they
need at present £35 (Turkish) a day to provide the exiles with
bread. You can imagine what their situation must be in the deserts,
where the native Arabs themselves are near starvation.
A sum of money has been sent from Constantinople to the Katholikos
of Cilicia, who is at the present moment at Aleppo, witnessing the
misery and agony of his flock. At Aleppo, at any rate, the
authorities permit the distribution of relief to these unfortunate
people; at Sultania, on the other hand, it has so far been
impossible to bring any relief within their reach, because the
Government refuses permission, in spite of the efforts of the
American Embassy.
The same state of affairs now prevails at Erzeroum, Bitlis, Sairt,
etc. According to absolutely trustworthy information which we have
received, they have begun, during the last two or three weeks, to
deport the Armenians of Erzeroum and the neighbourhood towards
Derdjan; the rest have been given several days’ grace. From Bitlis
and Sairt we have just had despatches forwarded to us, imploring
relief. From Moush we have no news, but the same state of affairs
must certainly prevail there also[17]. At Khnyss[18] there has been
a massacre, but we do not yet know how serious it was. In the
neighbourhood of Sivas several villages, Govdoun among others, have
been burnt....
-----
Footnote 13:
Name of author withheld.
Footnote 14:
See Doc. 82, page 324.
Footnote 15:
See Section XV.
Footnote 16:
See Docs. 123 and 125.
Footnote 17:
See Section III.
Footnote 18:
See Doc. 53.
5. LETTER FROM THE SAME SOURCE, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE, 12/25th JULY,
1915; PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” 28th AUGUST,
1915.
Since my last letter, our nation’s position has unhappily become
more serious, inasmuch as it is now not merely the Armenians of
Cilicia who have been deported, but the Armenians of all the native
Armenian provinces. From Samsoun and Kaisaria on the one hand to
Edessa on the other, about a million and a half people are at this
moment on their way to the deserts of Mesopotamia, to be planted in
the midst of Arab and Kurdish populations. These people cannot take
with them anything but the barest necessities, because of the
impossibility of transport and the insecurity of the roads; so that
very few of them indeed will succeed in reaching the spot marked out
for their exile, while, if immediate relief is not sent them, they
will die of hunger....
6. LETTER FROM THE SAME SOURCE, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE, 13/26th JULY,
1915, AND ADDRESSED TO A DISTINGUISHED ARMENIAN RESIDENT BEYOND
THE OTTOMAN FRONTIER.
Since the 25th May last, events have followed hard upon one another,
and the misery of our nation is now at its zenith.
Apart from a few rumours about the situation of the Armenians at
Erzeroum, we had heard of nothing, till recently, except the
deportation of the inhabitants of several towns and villages in
Cilicia. Now we know from an unimpeachable source that the Armenians
of all the towns and all the villages of Cilicia have been deported
_en masse_ to the desert regions south of Aleppo.
From the 1st May onwards, the population of the city of Erzeroum,
and shortly afterwards the population of the whole province, was
collected at Samsoun and embarked on shipboard. The populations of
Kaisaria, Diyarbekir, Ourfa, Trebizond, Sivas, Harpout and the
district of Van have been deported to the deserts of Mesopotamia,
from the southern outskirts of Aleppo as far as Mosul and Baghdad.
“Armenia without the Armenians”—that is the Ottoman Government’s
project. The Moslems are already being allowed to take possession of
the lands and houses abandoned by the Armenians.
The exiles are forbidden to take anything with them. For that
matter, in the districts under military occupation there is nothing
left to take, as the military authorities have exerted themselves to
carry off, for their own use, everything that they could lay hands
on.
The exiles will have to traverse on foot a distance that involves
one or two months’ marching and sometimes even more, before they
reach the particular corner of the desert assigned to them for their
habitation, and destined to become their tomb. We hear, in fact,
that the course of their route and the stream of the Euphrates are
littered with the corpses of exiles, while those who survive are
doomed to certain death, since they will find in the desert neither
house, nor work, nor food.
It is simply a scheme for exterminating the Armenian nation
wholesale, without any fuss. It is just another form of massacre,
and a more horrible form.
Remember that all the men between the ages of 20 and 45 are at the
front. Those between 45 and 60 are working for the military
transport service. As for those who had paid the statutory tax for
exemption from military service, they have either been exiled or
imprisoned on one pretext or another. The result is that there is no
one left to deport but the old men, the women and the children.
These poor creatures have to travel through regions which, even in
times of peace, were reputed dangerous, and where there was a
serious risk of being robbed. Now that the Turkish brigands, as well
as the gendarmes and civil officials, enjoy the most absolute
licence, the exiles will inevitably be robbed on the road, and their
women and girls dishonoured and abducted.
We are hearing also from various places of conversions to Islam. It
seems that the people have no other alternative for saving their
lives.
The courts martial are working everywhere at full pressure.
You must have heard through the newspapers of the hanging of 20
Huntchakists at Constantinople. The verdict given against them is
not based on any of the established laws of the Empire. The same day
twelve Armenians were hanged at Kaisaria, on the charge of having
obeyed instructions received from the secret conference held at
Bukarest by the Huntchakists and Droshakists. Besides these
hangings, 32 persons have been sentenced at Kaisaria to terms of
hard labour, ranging from ten to fifteen years. Most of them are
honest merchants who are in no sort of relation with the political
parties. Twelve Armenians have also been hanged in Cilicia.
Condemnations have become daily occurrences. The discovery of arms,
books and pictures is enough to condemn an Armenian to several
years’ imprisonment.
Besides this many people have succumbed under the rod. Thirteen
Armenians have been killed in this way at Diyarbekir, and six at
Kaisaria. Thirteen others have been killed on their way to Shabin
Kara-Hissar and Sivas. The priests of the village of Kourk with
their companions have suffered the same fate on the road between
Sou-Shehr and Sivas, although they had their hands pinioned and were
defenceless.
I will spare you the recital of other outrages which have occurred
sporadically all over the country, under the cloak of searches for
arms and for revolutionary agents. Not a single house has been left
unsearched, not even the episcopal residences, the churches or the
schools. Hundreds of women, girls, and even quite young children are
groaning in prison. Churches and convents have been pillaged,
desecrated and destroyed. Even the Bishops are not spared. Mgr.
Barkev Danielian (Bishop of Broussa), Mgr. Kevork Tourian (Bishop of
Trebizond), Mgr. Khosrov Behrikian (Bishop of Kaisaria), Mgr.
Vaghinadj Torikian (Bishop of Shabin Kara-Hissar), and Mgr. Kevork
Nalbandian (Bishop of Tchar-Sandjak) have been arrested and handed
over to the courts martial. Father Muggerditch, locum-tenens of the
Bishop of Diyarbekir, has died of blows received in prison. We have
no news of the other bishops, but I imagine that the greater part of
them are in prison.
We are so cut off from the world that we might be in a fortress. We
have no means of correspondence, neither post nor telegraph.
The villages in the neighbourhood of Van and Bitlis have been
plundered, and their inhabitants put to the sword. At the beginning
of this month, there was a pitiless massacre of all the inhabitants
of Kara-Hissar with the exception of a few children who are said to
have escaped by a miracle. Unhappily we learn the details of all
these occurrences too late, and even then only with the utmost
difficulty.
So you see that the Armenians in Turkey have only a few more days
to live, and if the Armenians abroad do not succeed in enlisting
the sympathy of the neutrals on our behalf, there will be
extraordinarily few Armenians left a few months hence, out of the
million and a half that there were in Turkey before the war. The
annihilation of the Armenian nation will then be inevitable.
7. LETTER FROM THE SAME SOURCE, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE, 2/15th AUGUST,
1915, AND ADDRESSED TO THE SAME ARMENIAN RESIDENT BEYOND THE
OTTOMAN FRONTIER.
Since I wrote my last letter (of which you have acknowledged the
receipt), we have been able to obtain more precise information from
the provinces of the interior. The information with which we present
you herewith is derived from the following witnesses: an Armenian
lady forcibly converted to Islam, and brought by an unforeseen
chance to Constantinople; a girl from Zila, between nine and ten
years old, who was abducted by a Turkish officer and has reached
Constantinople; a Turkish traveller from Harpout; foreign travellers
from Erzindjan, and so on. In fine, this information is derived
either from eye-witnesses or from actual victims of the crimes.
It is now established that there is not an Armenian left in the
provinces of Erzeroum, Trebizond, Sivas, Harpout, Bitlis and
Diyarbekir. About a million of the Armenian inhabitants of these
provinces have been deported from their homes and sent southwards
into exile. These deportations have been carried out very
systematically by the local authorities since the beginning of April
last. First of all, in every village and every town, the population
was disarmed by the gendarmerie, and by criminals released for this
purpose from prison. On the pretext of disarming the Armenians,
these criminals committed assassinations and inflicted hideous
tortures. Next, they imprisoned the Armenians _en masse_, on the
pretext that they had found in their possession arms, books, a
political organisation, and so on—at a pinch, wealth or any kind of
social standing was pretext enough. After that, they began the
deportation. And first, on the pretext of sending them into exile,
they evicted such men as had not been imprisoned, or such as had
been set at liberty through lack of any charge against them; then
they massacred them—not one of these escaped slaughter. Before they
started, they were examined officially by the authorities, and any
money or valuables in their possession were confiscated. They were
usually shackled—either separately, or in gangs of five to ten. The
remainder—old men, women, and children—were treated as waifs in the
province of Harpout, and placed at the disposal of the Moslem
population. The highest official, as well as the most simple
peasant, chose out the woman or girl who caught his fancy, and took
her to wife, converting her by force to Islam. As for the children,
the Moslems took as many of them as they wanted, and then the
remnant of the Armenians were marched away, famished and destitute
of provisions, to fall victims to hunger, unless that were
anticipated by the savagery of the brigand-bands. In the province of
Diyarbekir there was an outright massacre, especially at Mardin, and
the population was subjected to all the afore-mentioned atrocities.
In the provinces of Erzeroum, Bitlis, Sivas and Diyarbekir, the
local authorities gave certain facilities to the Armenians condemned
to deportation: five to ten days’ grace, authorisation to effect a
partial sale of their goods, and permission to hire a cart, in the
case of some families. But after the first few days of their
journey, the carters abandoned them on the road and returned home.
These convoys were waylaid the day after the start, or sometimes
several days after, by bands of brigands or by Moslem peasants who
spoiled them of all they had. The brigands fraternised with the
gendarmes and slaughtered the few grown men or youths who were
included in the convoys. They carried off the women, girls and
children, leaving only the old women, who were driven along by the
gendarmes under blows of the lash and died of hunger by the
roadside. An eye-witness reports to us that the women deported from
the province of Erzeroum were abandoned, some days ago, on the plain
of Harpout, where they have all died of hunger (50 or 60 a day).
The only step taken by the authorities was to send people to bury
them, in order to safeguard the health of the Moslem population.
The little girl from Zila tells us that when the Armenians of
Marsovan, Amasia and Tokat reached Sari-Kishila (between Kaisaria
and Sivas), the children of both sexes were torn from their mothers
before the very windows of the Government Building, and were locked
up in certain other buildings, while the convoy was forced to
continue its march. After that, they gave notice in the neighbouring
villages that anyone might come and take his choice. She and her
companion (Newart of Amasia) were carried off and brought to
Constantinople by a Turkish officer. The convoys of women and
children were placed on view in front of the Government Building at
each town or village where they passed, to give the Moslems an
opportunity of taking their choice.
The convoy which started from Baibourt was thinned out in this way,
and the women and children who survived were thrown into the
Euphrates on the outskirts of Erzindjan, at a place called
Kamakh-Boghazi.[19] Mademoiselle Flora A. Wedel Yarlesberg, a
Norwegian lady of good family who was a nurse in a German Red Cross
hospital, and another nurse who was her colleague, were so revolted
by these barbarities and by other experiences of equal horror, that
they tendered their resignations, returned to Constantinople, and
called personally at several Embassies to denounce these hideous
crimes.
The same barbarities have been committed everywhere, and by this
time travellers find nothing but thousands of Armenian corpses along
all the roads in these provinces. A Moslem traveller on his way from
Malatia to Sivas, a nine hours’ journey, passed nothing but corpses
of men and women. All the male Armenians of Malatia had been taken
there and massacred; the women and children have all been converted
to Islam. No Armenian can travel in these parts, for every Moslem,
and especially the brigands and gendarmes, considers it his duty now
to kill them at sight. Recently Messieurs Zohrab and Vartkes, two
Armenian members of the Ottoman Parliament, who had been sent off to
Diyarbekir to be tried by the Council of War, were killed, before
they got there, at a short distance from Aleppo. In these provinces
one can only travel _incognito_ under a Moslem name. As for the
women’s fate, we have already spoken of it above, and it seems
unnecessary to go into further particulars about their honour, when
one sees the utter disregard there is for their life.
The Armenian soldiers, too, have suffered the same fate. They were
also all disarmed and put to constructing roads.[20] We have certain
knowledge that the Armenian soldiers of the province of Erzeroum,
who were at work on the road from Erzeroum to Erzindjan, have all
been massacred. The Armenian soldiers of the province of Diyarbekir
have all been massacred on the Diyarbekir-Ourfa road, and the
Diyarbekir-Harpout road. From Harpout alone, 1,800 young Armenians
were enrolled and sent off to work at Diyarbekir; all were massacred
in the neighbourhood of Arghana. We have no news from the other
districts, but they have assuredly suffered the same fate there
also.
In certain towns, the Armenians who had been consigned to oblivion
in the prisons have been hanged in batches. During the past month
alone, several dozen Armenians have been hanged in Kaisaria. In many
places the Armenian inhabitants, to save their lives, have tried to
become Mohammedans, but this time such overtures have not been
readily accepted, as they were at the time of the other great
massacres. At Sivas, the would-be converts to Islam were offered the
following terms: they must hand over all children under twelve years
of age to the Government, which would undertake to place them in
orphanages; and they must consent, for their own part, to leave
their homes and settle wherever the Government directed.
At Harpout, they would not accept the conversion of the men; in the
case of the women, they made their conversion conditional in each
instance upon the presence of a Moslem willing to take the convert
in marriage. Many Armenian women preferred to throw themselves into
the Euphrates with their infants, or committed suicide in their
homes. The Euphrates and Tigris have become the sepulchre of
thousands of Armenians.
All Armenians converted in the Black Sea towns—Trebizond, Samsoun,
Kerasond, etc.—have been sent to the interior, and settled in towns
inhabited exclusively by Moslems. The town of Shabin-Karahissar
resisted the disarming and deportation, and was thereupon bombarded.
The whole population of the town and the surrounding country, from
the Bishop downwards, was pitilessly massacred.
In short, from Samsoun on the one hand to Seghert[21] and Diyarbekir
on the other, there is now not a single Armenian left. The majority
have been massacred, part have been carried off, and a very small
part have been converted to Islam.
History has never recorded, never hinted at, such a hecatomb. We are
driven to believe that under the reign of Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid we
were exceedingly fortunate.
We have just learned the fate of some of the provincial bishops.
Mgr. Anania Hazarabedian, Bishop of Baibourt, has been hanged
without any confirmation of the sentence by the Central
Government[22]. Mgr. Bosak Der-Khoremian. Bishop of Harpout, started
on his road to exile in May, and had barely left the outskirts of
the town when he was cruelly murdered. But we have still no news of
the Bishops of Seghert, Bitlis, Moush, Keghi, Palou, Erzindjan,
Kamakh, Tokat, Gurin, Samsoun and Trebizond, or for a month past of
the Bishops of Sivas and Erzeroum. It is superfluous to speak of the
martyred priests. When the people were deported, the churches were
pillaged and turned into mosques, stables, or what not. Besides
that, they have begun to sell at Constantinople the sacred objects
and other properties of the Armenian churches, just as the Turks
have begun to bring to Constantinople the children of the unhappy
Armenian mothers.
It appears that the massacres have been less cruel in Cilicia, or at
least we have no news yet of the worst. The population, which has
been deported to the provinces of Aleppo and Der-el-Zor and to
Damascus, will certainly perish of hunger. We have just heard that
the Government has refused to leave in peace even the insignificant
Armenian colonies at Aleppo and Ourfa, who might have assisted their
unhappy brethren on their southward road; and the Katholikos of
Cilicia, who still remains at Aleppo, is busy distributing the
relief we are forwarding to him.
We thought at first that the Government’s plan was to settle the
Armenian question once and for all by clearing out the Armenians of
the six Armenian provinces and removing the Armenian population of
Cilicia, to forestall another danger in the future. Unhappily their
plan was wider in scope and more thorough in intention. It consisted
in the extermination of the whole Armenian population throughout the
whole of Turkey. The result is that, in those seven provinces where
the Government was pledged to introduce reforms, there is not one
per cent. of the Armenian population left alive. So far, we do not
know whether a single Armenian has reached Mosul or its
neighbourhood. And this plan has now been put into execution even in
the suburbs of Constantinople. The majority of the Armenians in the
district of Ismid and in the province of Broussa have been forcibly
deported to Mesopotamia, leaving behind them their homes and their
property. In detail, the population of Adapazar, Ismid, Gegvé,
Armasha and the neighbourhood has been removed—in fact, the
population of all the villages in the Ismid district (except
Baghtchedjik, which has been granted several days’ grace). The
Principal of the Seminary at Armasha has also been removed with his
colleagues in orders and his seminarists[23]. They have had to leave
everything behind, and been able to take nothing with them on their
journey. Six weeping mothers confided their little ones to the
Armenians of Konia, in order to save their lives, but the local
authorities tore them away from their Armenian guardians, and handed
them over to Moslems.
So now it is Constantinople’s turn. In any case, the population has
fallen into a panic, and is waiting from one moment to another for
the execution of its doom. The arrests are innumerable, and those
arrested are immediately removed from the capital. The majority will
assuredly perish. It is the retail merchants of provincial birth,
but resident in Constantinople, who are so far being deported—among
them Marouké, Ipranossian Garabed, Kherbekian of Erzeroum, Atamian
Karekin, Krikorian Sempad of Bitlis, etc. We are making great
efforts to save at any rate the Armenians of Constantinople from
this horrible extermination of the race, in order that, hereafter,
we may have at least one rallying point for the Armenian cause in
Turkey.
Is there anything further to add to this report? The whole Armenian
population of Turkey has been condemned to death, and this decree is
being put into execution energetically in every corner of the
Empire, under the eyes of the European Powers; while, so far,
neither Germany nor Austria has succeeded in checking the action of
their ally and removing the stain of these barbarities, which also
attaches to them. All our efforts have been without result. Our hope
is set upon the Armenians abroad.
-----
Footnote 19:
See Docs. 59, 60, 61, 62. The witnesses at Erzindjan were not
Norwegians but Danes—EDITOR.
Footnote 20:
See Docs. 23 and 62.
Footnote 21:
Sairt (?)
Footnote 22:
See Doc. 59.
Footnote 23:
See Doc. 99.
8. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER, DATED ATHENS, 8th/21st JULY, 1915, FROM
AN ARMENIAN FORMERLY RESIDENT IN TURKEY TO A PROMINENT ARMENIAN
IN WESTERN EUROPE.
Events have been taking place in Turkey of which I imagine that you
have no first-hand or reliable information, on account of the strict
censorship and scarcity of travellers.... And as I have been able to
obtain reliable information, I have thought it my duty as an
Armenian to submit it to your Excellency.
Mr. A., who was a missionary teacher at the town of B. in Cilicia
for four years, and with whom I am acquainted personally (and I have
good reason to believe in every word he says), arrived in this city
only yesterday, coming from AE. in company with Miss B., the
daughter of the Director of Mr. A.’ s college, with whom I am also
acquainted personally.
They just began to inform me by saying that the condition of the
Armenians in Cilicia was awful. The town of Dört Yöl, after having
been cleared of its Armenian population, has been peacefully
occupied by Turkish families, and not by the military authorities.
The whole of the Armenian inhabitants have been sent away—turned out
of their homes—and are naturally suffering from hunger. The exposure
is something that cannot be described. Before evacuation, some nine
leading merchants were hanged, on the accusation that they were in
communication with the British fleet and were spying for the Allied
Forces[24].
Zeitoun has met the same fate. There is not a single Armenian left
in Zeitoun, and all the houses are occupied by Turkish people. My
friends could not understand what exactly had happened to the
Zeitounlis, but the fact is that special care has been taken by the
Turkish authorities that too many of them should not be left
together. Attempts have been made to make them Mohammedans, and it
is known that the authorities attempted to distribute one, two, or
three families to each Turkish village in the district of Marash.
They have attempted to do the same thing to Hadjin, but, somehow or
other, only half the inhabitants have left, whose homes have
naturally been occupied by the Turks.
The Turks of Tarsus and Adana are showing the same disposition as
they did before the massacres of 1909.
Missionaries from Beirout state that the same persecution is being
carried out against Christian Syrians.
Dr. C., for many years a missionary in Smyrna, and latterly in AD.,
was exiled to Angora. He states that there were thirty Armenians
exiled with him from AD. on the simple charge that they had either
themselves been Huntchakists or had friends belonging to the said
Party. Extortion of money, robbery and insults are usual, and
conditions in general are worse than at any period in the time of
Hamid. Dr. C. has been in Turkey for 35 years and knows Turkish.
At Kaisaria they hanged eight Armenians. About the same time they
hanged twenty-six at Constantinople, and this immediately after the
note of the Powers threatening to hold Turkish officials responsible
for massacres of Armenians. Imprisonment and exile are common
things, and the Reverend Missionary finished by saying that “I ought
to be glad I was out of it.”
Dr. C., coming from Constantinople, gave me the further information
that massacres had been going on round Bitlis for some time. And
then, from correspondents at Bitlis, his informants had had news
that whole villages were embracing Mohammedanism in order to escape
tortures, because the object of the massacres was not simply to
kill, but to torture.
A resident at Mardin had telegraphed by code to Constantinople
informing his correspondent there that the same conditions existed
at Mardin as during 1895.
The American Ambassador at Constantinople, after asking the Turkish
Government to stop the massacres, went to the German Ambassador. But
Herr Wangenheim said he could not interfere in any way with Turkey’s
internal affairs!!!
All these informants do not hide their belief, based on what they
have actually seen, that German policy is at the back of the
movement for a clean Mohammedan “Turkey for the Turks.”
I will give your Excellency another coincident piece of evidence. In
May, 1914, I travelled with Dr. Niazim Bey, who is the spirit of the
Union and Progress Party, when he was on the mission of establishing
a boycott—nominally against the Greeks only, though it proved to be
against the Armenians as well. The Doctor said that the work of the
Turkish Government was very complicated, and he laid all the fault
of it on the ancestors of the modern Turks, who, in spite of their
being victorious and defying all Europe, nay all the world, had not
been far-sighted enough to cleanse all the country they ruled of the
Christian element, but had yielded to their chivalrous feelings and
allowed the Christians to live. Had they done this bit of cleaning
up at a time when nobody could protest, there would have been an
easy task now for the heads of the Government in governing, and so
on.
The Russian retreat has intoxicated the Turks. They think they have
their chance now, and evidence shows that their almighty ally
Germany encourages them in their effort at house cleaning. The note
of the Allied Powers is no deterrent, even if the Turkish officials
were not sure of final victory, because they feel that, if they
lose, Turkey is not the place to offer them a happy shelter, and,
with the money they are making now, the officials responsible can
hide themselves in a country where they cannot be found or cannot be
extradited. And some of the bolder spirits, like Talaat and Enver,
have openly said that they do not expect to live if defeated, even
without the threat of the Allies to bring them to account.
The Armenians in Turkey have not been able to conceal their
feelings, and when I myself was in Constantinople, prudent man
though I am, I was unable to conceal my feelings myself, or at least
so effectively as not to be perceived by the Turks.
As early as September last, the Turkish comic paper _Karagoz_ had
written one day that “If the Armenians were cheerful, there was
certainly news of victory for the Allies; if not, it had been the
reverse.” But if, in spite of the Armenians concealing their
feelings, the Turks had definitely adopted the policy—as no doubt
they had—of exterminating the Christians in Turkey, then we have at
least the satisfaction that we have hurt them with the display of
what we felt.
I believe that the Germans did not want to exterminate the Armenians
unless the latter proved of military danger in the present game; but
I imagine the Armenians have incurred the Germans’ displeasure in
this regard.
That Germany, or the Germans in Turkey, are for the above reason
encouraging the Turks in their attempt at extermination, is proved
by the fact that wholesale massacres and deportations have been
specific to regions of which the inhabitants might be of especial
help to an invading army. For instance, Dört Yöl and Zeitoun would
be of excellent help had the Allies made a landing at Payas. Bitlis
is next door to Van; the Russian army is getting towards Bitlis, and
naturally the Armenians of Bitlis would be of great value to them,
as indeed the Armenians of Van have been already.
Take the case of Erzeroum, again a frontier town, which, besides
individual hangings, has been the scene of wholesale massacres;
while towns far away from the theatre of war, such as Angora,
Broussa, Konia, Constantinople, etc., although not exempted from
persecution, have still not been subjected to wholesale massacres
and deportations.
-----
Footnote 24:
See Doc. 123.
9. LETTER, DATED 3rd/16th AUGUST, 1915, CONVEYED BEYOND THE OTTOMAN
FRONTIER BY AN ARMENIAN REFUGEE FROM CILICIA IN THE SOLE OF HER
SHOE[25]
In haste and in secret I seize this opportunity of bringing to your
ears the cry of agony which goes out from the survivors of the
terrible crisis through which we are passing at this moment. They
are exterminating our nation, mowing it down. Perhaps this will be
the last cry from Armenia that you will hear; we have no longer any
fear of death, we see it close at hand, this death of the whole
people. We are waifs who cry for the lives of our brothers. These
lines cannot describe our misery; it would need volumes of reports
to do justice to that.
(1.) At the present moment there are at —— more than 10,000 deported
widows and children (among the latter one sees no boys above eleven
years of age). They had been on the road for from three to five
months; they have been plundered several times over, and have
marched along naked and starving; the Government gave them on one
single occasion a morsel of bread—a few have had it twice. It is
said that the number of these deported widows will reach 60,000;
they are so exhausted that they cannot stand upright; the majority
have great sores on their feet, through having had to march
barefoot.
(2). An enquiry has proved that, out of 1,000 people who started,
scarcely 400 reached ——. Out of the 600 to be accounted for, 380 men
and boys above eleven years of age, and 85 women, had been massacred
or drowned, out of sight of the towns, by the gendarmes who
conducted them; 120 young women and girls and 40 boys had been
carried off, with the result that one does not see a single pretty
face among the survivors.
(3.) Out of these survivors, 60 per cent. are sick; they are to be
sent in the immediate future to ——, where certain death awaits them;
one cannot describe the ferocious treatment to which they are
exposed; they had been on the road for from three to five months;
they had been plundered two, three, five, seven times; their
underclothes even had been ransacked; so far from being given
anything to eat, they had even been prevented from drinking while
they were passing a stream. Three-quarters of the young women and
girls were abducted; the remainder were forced to lie with the
gendarmes who conducted them. Thousands died under these outrages,
and the survivors have stories to tell of refinements of outrage so
disgusting that they pollute one’s ears.
(4.) The massacres have been most violent in the eastern provinces,
and the population has been deported wholesale towards the Hauran
Desert, Gereg and Mosul, where the victims are doomed to a death
from natural causes more infallible than massacre. When one
remembers that these people were leading a comfortable European
life, one is forced to conclude that they will never be able to
survive in an alien and inhospitable climate, even if the knife and
the bullet do not previously do their work.
My friends, I have not time to tell you more; one may say with truth
that not a single Armenian is left in Armenia; soon there will be
none left in Cilicia either. The Armenian, robbed of his life, his
goods, his honour, conveys to you his last cry for help—help to save
the lives of the survivors! Money to buy them bread! There is a
rumour here that the Government will allow the women and the
children under seventeen years of age to leave the country. How are
they to do it? Where are they to go? What ship is to take them? Who
will provide the funds? From moment to moment we are waiting for
relief, to stave off the death of the Nation. Be quick, never mind
how; send us money, we have no means of communication!
Send, through the agency of the American Government, _money_,
_money_, _money_; the bearer of this letter deserves every reward;
she will tell you all the details. Zohrab, Vartkes Daghavarian and
their five companions have been murdered by the gendarmes at
Sheitan-Deré, between Ourfa and Diyarbekir, where thousands of
headless corpses make the passers-by shudder; the Euphrates bears
down its stream thousands of corpses of men and women; photographs
of this have been taken by Europeans. Fifteen thousand Zeitounlis
have been deported to Der-el-Zor, where they are suffering the worst
atrocities. Thousands of babies at the breast have been thrown into
rivers or abandoned by the wayside by their mothers. The urgent need
is _money_! Make that clear to the Armenian colony in America.
_Money!_ _Money!_
One thousand six hundred Armenians have had their throats cut in the
prisons at Diyarbekir. The Arashnort was mutilated, drenched with
alcohol, and burnt alive in the prison yard, in the middle of a
carousing crowd of gendarmes, who even accompanied the scene with
music. The massacres at Beniani, Adiaman and Selefka have been
carried out diabolically; there is not a single man left above the
age of thirteen years; the girls have been outraged mercilessly; we
have seen their mutilated corpses tied together in batches of four,
eight or ten, and cast into the Euphrates. The majority had been
mutilated in an indescribable manner.
The above facts have been gathered from official sources and
eye-witnesses.
The American Consul is able to arrange for the despatch of funds. We
are unable to realise any of our property, either national or
private, because it has all been confiscated by the Government. The
Government has even confiscated the convents, the churches and the
schools. Black famine reigns in this town; we have 15,000 deported
Armenians here, who are being sent on in batches to Arabia. The
whole of Armenia is being cleared out.
I sign this letter with my blood!
-----
Footnote 25:
The author of the letter has been identified by an Armenian
resident abroad who recognised his hand-writing.—EDITOR.
10. LETTER FROM MR. N., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE, DATED
27th AUGUST, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The Armenians of Bardizag have generally speaking been deported. A
promise secured by Mr. Morgenthau that Protestants should be
exempted from deportation has kept the people at Nicomedia (Isnik)
for nearly a week. They are camped in the open near the Railway
Station, exposed to the weather and to the insults of the populace,
apparently to be deported a few days later on. Whether we shall
succeed in saving the Protestants remains to be seen. Deportation
has taken place generally throughout all the region contiguous to
Nicomedia, Adapazar, Konia, Marsovan, Sivas, Harpout, Diyarbekir and
to some parts of the American Central Mission. Many people have
already lost their lives, and others, as for instance those in this
city, have lost hope as to their final security. I shall enclose a
few letters which will give an idea of the situation throughout the
land.
Prof. QQ.[26] has just arrived from X. He has been four weeks on the
journey, having been delayed considerably at S. He states that the
Armenians have left, having been deported from X. and the vicinity.
Mr. Morgenthau endeavoured to save the Mission _entourage_ at X.
from deportation; the promises securing this, however, were not
fulfilled. Even the hundred girls and young women held in the
College Compound could not be saved from this dreadful fate. To the
bold stand made by the Mission people, on behalf of their pupils and
teachers, the Kaimakam himself opposed his personal authority,
threatening to hang anyone who attempted to prevent the carrying out
of his orders for the deportation of the people. These orders, here
as elsewhere, seemed to respect neither age nor condition....
The movement against the Armenians has now well-nigh covered the
entire country. Many prominent Armenians have lost their lives;
hardly a family has escaped experiencing to some extent the severity
of this blow. It looks as if the patronage from this community for
the American schools has been quite cut off. Teachers and pupils
alike have been sent into exile, or have suffered death or have been
carried off to Turkish communities or harems. There is an ugly
rumour that the turn of the Greeks will come next. Should Greece
move, this will probably be realised....
-----
Footnote 26:
Author of Docs. 56 and 57.
11. MEMORANDUM DATED 15/28th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED
SOURCE AT BUKAREST, RELATING TO THE EXTERMINATION OF THE
ARMENIANS IN TURKEY.
1. At _Vezir Köprü_ (district of Marsovan) all Armenian women and
girls from 7 to 40 years of age have been _sold at auction_. Women
were also presented to the buyers without payment.
2. At _Kaisaria_ more than 500 Armenian families were forced to
embrace Islam. A father asked his son in Constantinople to follow
his example, “in order to prevent worse consequences for his
parents.”
3. All Armenian judicial officials in the provinces have been
discharged. All Turkish officials who have shown special zeal in the
extermination of the Armenians have been promoted. Thus Zeki Bey,
Kaimakam of _Develou_ (Kaisaria), the man who directed in person the
terrible tortures of the Armenian prisoners and was responsible for
the death of most of them, has been made mektoubdji of the Vilayet
of Constantinople.
4. The Young Turk Government has published, as an excuse or perhaps
as a means of exciting greater hatred against the Armenians, a book
entitled _The Armenian Separatist Movement_, which is as ridiculous
as it is criminal. The reader finds in it not only copies of
entirely fictitious publications, but actually pictures of enormous
depots of arms and munitions purporting to be Armenian.
5. In _Konia_, and everywhere else, the wives of the Armenian
soldiers who have not been deported have been taken as servants or
concubines into Turkish families.
6. In _Marash_ more than three hundred Armenians have been executed
by Court Martial, besides the numerous victims murdered in the
course of the deportations. At _Panderma_ many important Armenians
have been condemned to death by the Court Martial. The vicar Barkev
Vartabed has been condemned to five years’ penal servitude. The
Archbishop of Erzeroum, His Grace Sempad, who, with the Vali’s
authorisation, was returning to Constantinople, was murdered at
Erzindjan by the brigands in the service of the Union and Progress
Committee. The bishops of Trebizond, Kaisaria, Moush, Bitlis, Sairt,
and Erzindjan have all been murdered by order of the Young Turk
Government. According to reports from travellers, all the Armenian
population of Trebizond has been massacred without exception. Almost
the whole male population in Sivas, Erzeroum, Harpout, Bitlis,
Baibourt, Khnyss, Diyarbekir, etc., has been exterminated. At
Tchingiler, a small village in the district of Ismid, 300 men have
been murdered because they did not obey the order to leave their
houses. The people deported from Rodosto, Malgara and Tchorlu, who
have been deprived of all their possessions in accordance with the
new “temporary law” of the 13/26th September, have been separated
from their families and sent on foot from Ismid to Konia on the
arbitrary order of the notorious Ibrahim, dictator of the Ismid
district. Thousands of poor Armenians expelled from Constantinople
are made to march on foot from Ismid to Konia and still further,
after they have delivered up everything they possess to the
gendarmes, including their shoes. Those who can afford to travel by
rail are also fleeced by the gendarmes, who not only demand the
price of the ticket from Constantinople to their destinations, but
extract the whole of their money by selling them food at exorbitant
prices. They demand payment even for unlocking the door of the
water-closet.
7. German travellers from Aleppo describe the misery of the deported
Armenians as terrible. All along the route they saw corpses of
Armenians who had died of hunger.
The Arab deputies from Bagdad and Syria report that the misery in
the deserts of Hauran is indescribable:—
“The railway discharges into the mountains vast numbers of
Armenians, who are abandoned there without bread or water. In the
towns and villages, the Arabs try to bring them some relief; but
generally the Armenians are abandoned at five or six hours’ distance
from their homes. We saw on the way numbers of women and old men and
children dying of hunger, who did not know where to look for help.”
Some Armenians are leading a life of misery among the Arabs, forty
or forty-five hours’ journey from Bagdad. Every day numbers of them
die of hunger. The Government gives them no food. Moreover, fresh
troops have been sent to Bagdad, and these will be a new scourge to
the unfortunate exiles.
8. Three Special Commissions have been sent through the provinces to
liquidate the abandoned goods and estates of the Armenians, in
conformity with the new “temporary law” of the 13/26th September,
1915.
12. INFORMATION REGARDING EVENTS IN ARMENIA, PUBLISHED IN THE
“SONNENAUFGANG” (ORGAN OF THE “GERMAN LEAGUE FOR THE PROMOTION
OF CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE WORK IN THE EAST”), OCTOBER, 1915; AND
IN THE “ALLGEMEINE MISSIONS-ZEITSCHRIFT,” NOVEMBER, 1915.
_This testimony is especially significant because it comes from a
German source, and because the German Censor made a strenuous
attempt to suppress it._
_The same issue of the “Sonnenaufgang” contains the following
editorial note:—_
_“In our preceding issue we published an account by one of our
sisters (Schwester Möhring) of her experiences on a journey, but we
have to abstain from giving to the public the new details that are
reaching us in abundance. It costs us much to do so, as our friends
will understand; but the political situation of our country demands
it.”_
_In the case of the “Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift,” the Censor
was not content with putting pressure on the editor. On the 10th
November, he forbade the reproduction of the present article in the
German press, and did his best to confiscate the whole current issue
of the magazine. Copies of both publications, however, found their
way across the frontier._
_Both the incriminating articles are drawn from common sources, but
the extracts they make from them do not entirely coincide, so that,
by putting them together, a fuller version of these sources can be
compiled._
_In the text printed below, the unbracketed paragraphs are those
which appear both in the “Sonnenaufgang” and in the “Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift”; while paragraphs included in angular
brackets_ (<>) _appear_ only _in the “Sonnenaufgang,” and
those in square brackets_ ([ ]) only _in the “Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift.”_
Between the 10th and the 30th May, 1,200 of the most prominent
Armenians and other Christians, without distinction of confession,
were arrested in the Vilayets of Diyarbekir and Mamouret-ul-Aziz.
[On the 30th May, 674 of them were embarked on thirteen Tigris
barges, under the pretext that they were to be taken to Mosul. The
Vali’s aide-de-camp, assisted by fifty gendarmes, was in charge of
the convoy. Half the gendarmes started off on the barges, while the
other half rode along the bank. A short time after the start the
prisoners were stripped of all their money (about £6,000 Turkish)
and then of their clothes; after that they were thrown into the
river. The gendarmes on the bank were ordered to let none of them
escape. The clothes of these victims were sold in the market of
Diyarbekir.]
In the Vilayet of Aleppo they have evicted the inhabitants of
Hadjin, Shar, Albustan, Göksoun, Tasholouk, Zeitoun, all the
villages of Alabash, Geben, Shivilgi, Furnus and the surrounding
villages, Fundadjak, Hassan-Beyli, Harni, Lappashli, Dört Yöl and
others.
[They have marched them off in convoys into the desert on the
pretext of settling them there. In the village of Tel-Armen (along
the line of the Bagdad Railway, near Mosul) and in the neighbouring
villages about 5,000 people were massacred, leaving only a few women
and children. The people were thrown alive down wells or into the
fire. They pretend that the Armenians are to be employed in
colonising land situated at a distance of from twenty-four to thirty
kilometres from the Bagdad Railway. But as it is only the women and
children who are sent into exile, since all the men, with the
exception of the very old, are at the war, this means nothing less
than the wholesale murder of the families, since they have neither
the labour nor the capital for clearing the country.]
A German met a Christian soldier of his acquaintance, who was on
furlough from Jerusalem. The man was wandering up and down along the
banks of the Euphrates searching for his wife and children, who were
supposed to have been transferred to that neighbourhood. Such
unfortunates are often to be met with in Aleppo, because they
believe that there they will learn something more definite about the
whereabouts of their relations. It has often happened that when a
member of a family has been absent, he discovers on his return that
all his family are gone—evicted from their homes.
[For a whole month corpses were observed floating down the River
Euphrates nearly every day, often in batches of from two to six
corpses bound together. The male corpses are in many cases hideously
mutilated (sexual organs cut off, and so on), the female corpses are
ripped open. The Turkish military authority in control of the
Euphrates, the Kaimakam of Djerablous, refuses to allow the burial
of these corpses, on the ground that he finds it impossible to
establish whether they belong to Moslems or to Christians. He adds
that no one has given him any orders on the subject. The corpses
stranded on the bank are devoured by dogs and vultures. To this fact
there are many German eye-witnesses. An employee of the Bagdad
Railway has brought the information that the prisons at Biredjik are
filled regularly every day and emptied every night—into the
Euphrates. Between Diyarbekir and Ourfa a German cavalry captain saw
innumerable corpses lying unburied all along the road.]
-----
Footnote 27:
“We have just picked up fifteen babies. Three are already dead.
They were terribly thin and ailing when we found them. Ah! If we
could only write all that we see.”—_Extract from a letter dated
Marash, 4th June, 1915, published in “Sonnenaufgang,” September,
1915._
13. STATEMENT MADE BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE TO A
SWISS GENTLEMAN AT GENEVA; COMMUNICATED BY THE LATTER.
When I left Turkey early in March (1916), the Armenian situation was
as follows:—
In general deportations had ceased, but local interference with
Armenians continued. Quite often Armenians who had remained in the
villages or cities between the Taurus Mountains and Constantinople
have been sent from one locality to another within the province, or
even to localities in other provinces.
Arrests of Armenians in the Capital continue with considerable
frequency. Those arrested were usually sent to some interior
province, often to be killed or to be left to die from ill-treatment
or lack of food.
Extortion of money and supplies from Armenians, and discriminations
against them in the distribution of bread and other food supplies,
continue out of all proportion to these practices as applied to
other Ottoman subjects.
The suffering of all Armenians, and especially of those in exile, is
very great, and many are dying from lack of proper food and from
disease. Anti-Armenian feeling among Moslems is increasing.
Early in January of this year, trustworthy reports from Aleppo gave
492,000 as the number of deported Armenians who were at that time in
the regions of Mosul, Der-el-Zor, Aleppo and Damascus[28]. Most of
these are women and children and old men, practically all of whom
are in great need of food and other necessities of life. Without
physicians and medicine, disease is reaping a rich harvest from
these exiles.
The Turkish Minister of the Interior has stated that about 800,000
Armenians have been deported, and that about 300,000 of these people
have been killed or have perished from other causes. Other estimates
place the number of deported at 1,200,000, and the number who have
perished from all causes at 500,000.
-----
Footnote 28:
See Doc. 139, d.
14. CABLEGRAM, DATED 4th MAY, 1916, TRANSMITTED THROUGH THE STATE
DEPARTMENT AT WASHINGTON TO THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN
AND SYRIAN RELIEF, FROM THE COMMITTEE’S REPRESENTATIVES IN
TURKEY.
_Aleppo._
Relief work here supports 1,350 orphans, who are only a portion of
the destitute children now in the city. It has also furnished food
to families in nine destitute centres, including Hama, Rakka, Killis
and Damascus. £1,500 (Turkish) monthly are being used at Aleppo for
orphans; £600 (Turkish) are being used for the poor of Aleppo;
£2,245 (Turkish) are being used in the destitute centres. This is
considered to be a minimum allocation, and ten times the amount
would not meet the full needs. The work is being overseen by the
German and American Consuls. So insufficient are the funds that many
exiles in the destitute places have only grass to eat, and they are
dying of starvation by hundreds. £1,000 (Turkish) are required each
week for the Aleppo centre.
_Marash._
Ten thousand Armenians are threatened with deportation, and all are
in a most needy condition. Attempted industrial assistance for
Moslems and Christians was stopped by Government. Christians are not
allowed to do any business, and the price of food is very high.
Export from Agno to Marash has been forbidden, and many people are
dying of starvation. £1,600 (Turkish) are needed here monthly.
_Aintab._
Forty-five hundred Armenians remain here, two-thirds of whom are on
relief lists. Four hundred refugee women and children in city and
neighbourhood require £1,000 (Turkish) each month.
_Tarsus._
This being a station on the route taken by the exiles from the
region north of Tarsus, the roads are always full of people in
miserable condition. According to Government estimates, 92,000
exiles have passed through Tarsus, while, according to other
reports, the number is much larger. Typhus is very prevalent. The
needs here require £500 (Turkish) a month.
_Adana._
The situation here in general resembles that at Agno, with the
special feature that many children need to be saved and fed. £500
(Turkish) monthly are needed.
_Sivas._
In addition to the local Christian population remaining here, 25,000
destitute refugees, including women and children from coast cities,
have been added. All need help. Monthly requirements amount to £600
(Turkish).
_Konia._
Two thousand orphans. £1,500 (Turkish) monthly required for the
needs of this city and neighbouring places.
_Harpout._
This place asks for £400 (Turkish) monthly.
_Marsovan and Kaisaria._
£500 (Turkish) monthly are needed.
_Smyrna._
There has been much sickness here and there is a scarcity of food.
£400 (Turkish) monthly are needed.
_Broussa._
£200 (Turkish) monthly are being used here.
II.
VILAYET OF VAN.
_The Vilayet of Van had a higher percentage of Armenians in its
population than any other province of the Ottoman Empire; it was
also the border province of the north-eastern frontier, towards
Russian and Persian territory, and as such was the earliest to be
exposed to invasion after the breakdown of the Turkish offensive
against the Caucasus in the winter of 1914-1915._
_The documents contained in this section give a detailed and
perfectly self-consistent account, from five independent sources, of
those events at Van which led to the first open breach between the
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire and the Turks, and which gave the
Government a pretext for extending the scheme of deportation already
operative in Cilicia to the whole Armenian population under its
jurisdiction._
_The evidence makes it clear that there was no unprovoked
insurrection of the Armenians at Van, as the Ottoman Government
asserts in its official apologia. The Armenians only took up arms in
self-defence, and the entire responsibility for the outbreak rests
with Djevdet Bey, the local governor—whether he was acting on his
own initiative or was simply carrying out instructions from
Constantinople._
15. THE AMERICAN MISSION AT VAN: NARRATIVE PRINTED PRIVATELY IN THE
UNITED STATES BY MISS GRACE HIGLEY KNAPP (1915).
_The first part of this narrative, down to and including the
sub-section headed “Deliverance,” has been transcribed almost word
for word by Miss Knapp from a letter she wrote at Van, on the 24th
May, 1915, to Dr. Barton, and has, therefore, all the value of
contemporary evidence._
_The period of the (first) Russian occupation of Van is also covered
by two further letters from Miss Knapp to Dr. Barton—a long one
written piece-meal on the 14th, 20th and 22nd June, and a second
dated 20th July. These contain much more detail than the three
corresponding sub-sections of her narrative, but the detail is
principally devoted to personal matters and to the care of the
Moslem refugees. As neither subject was strictly relevant to the
purpose of the present collection, it seemed better to reprint the
narrative rather than the letters in the case of these sections
also._
_There is also a letter (published in the Eleventh Report of the
Women’s Armenian Relief Fund) from Miss Louie Bond to Mrs. Orpin,
written on the 27th July, almost the eve of the evacuation; but
this, too, is practically entirely devoted to personal matters._
_For the period of the retreat there are no contemporary letters,
but only an undated memorandum by Miss Knapp, which agrees word for
word with the latter part of her present narrative, from the
beginning of the section headed “Flight” to the end._
THE SETTING OF THE DRAMA AND THE ACTORS THEREIN.
Van was one of the most beautiful cities of Asiatic Turkey—a city of
gardens and vineyards, situated on Lake Van in the centre of a
plateau bordered by magnificent mountains. The walled city,
containing the shops and most of the public buildings, was dominated
by Castle Rock, a huge rock rising sheer from the plain, crowned
with ancient battlements and fortifications, and bearing on its
lakeward face famous cuneiform inscriptions. The Gardens, so-called
because nearly every house had its garden or vineyard, extended over
four miles eastward from the walled city and were about two miles in
width.
The inhabitants numbered fifty thousand, three-fifths of whom were
Armenians, two-fifths Turks. The Armenians were progressive and
ambitious, and because of their numerical strength and the proximity
of Russia the revolutionary party grew to be a force to be reckoned
with. Three of its noted leaders were Vremyan, member of the Ottoman
Parliament; Ishkhan, the one most skilled in military tactics; and
Aram, of whom there will be much to say later. The Governor often
consulted with these men and seemed to be on the most friendly terms
with them.
The American Mission Compound was on the south-eastern border of the
middle third of the Gardens, on a slight rise of ground that made
its buildings somewhat conspicuous. These buildings were a church
building, two large new school buildings, two small ones, a lace
school, a hospital, dispensary and four missionary residences.
South-east, and quite near, was a broad plain. Here was the largest
Turkish barracks of the large garrison, between which and the
American premises nothing intervened. North and nearer, but with
streets and houses between, was another large barracks, and farther
north, within rifle range, was Toprak-Kala Hill, surmounted by a
small barracks dubbed by the Americans the “Pepper Box.” Five
minutes’ walk to the east of us was the German Orphanage managed by
Herr Spörri, his wife and daughter (of Swiss extraction) and three
single ladies.
The American force in 1914-1915 consisted of the veteran missionary,
Mrs. G.C. Raynolds (Dr. Raynolds had been in America a year and a
half collecting funds for our Van college, and had been prevented
from returning by the outbreak of war); Dr. Clarence D. Ussher, in
charge of the hospital and medical work; Mrs. Ussher, in charge of a
philanthropic lace industry; Mr. and Mrs. Ernest A. Yarrow, in
charge of the Boys’ School and general work; Miss Gertrude Rogers,
principal of the Girls’ School; Miss Caroline Silliman, in charge of
the primary department, and two Armenian and one Turkish
kindergarten; Miss Elizabeth Ussher, in charge of the musical
department; Miss Louise Bond, the English superintendent of the
hospital; and Miss Grisel McLaren, our touring missionary. Dr.
Ussher and Mr. Yarrow had each four children; I was a visitor from
Bitlis.
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA.
During the mobilization of the fall and winter the Armenians had
been ruthlessly plundered under the name of requisitioning; rich men
were ruined and the poor stripped. Armenian soldiers in the Turkish
army were neglected, half starved, set to digging trenches and doing
the menial work; but, worst of all, they were deprived of their arms
and thus left at the mercy of their fanatical, age-long enemies,
their Moslem fellow-soldiers. Small wonder that those who could find
a loophole of escape or could pay for exemption from military duty
did so; many of those who could do neither simply would not give
themselves up. We felt that a day of reckoning would soon come—a
collision between these opposing forces or a holy war. But the
revolutionists conducted themselves with remarkable restraint and
prudence; controlled their hot-headed youth; patrolled the streets
to prevent skirmishes; and bade the villagers endure in
silence—better a village or two burned unavenged than that any
attempt at reprisals should furnish an excuse for massacre.
For some time after Djevdet Bey, a brother-in-law of Enver Pasha,
minister of war, became Governor General of Van Vilayet, he was
absent from the city fighting at the border. When he returned in the
early spring, everyone felt there would soon be “something doing.”
There was. He demanded from the Armenians 3,000 soldiers. So anxious
were they to keep the peace that they promised to accede to this
demand. But at this juncture trouble broke out between Armenians and
Turks in the Shadakh region, and Djevdet Bey requested Ishkhan to go
there as peace commissioner, accompanied by three other notable
revolutionists. On their way there he had all four treacherously
murdered. This was Friday, the 16th April. He then summoned Vremyan
to him under the pretence of consulting with this leader, arrested
him and sent him off to Constantinople.
The revolutionists now felt that they could not trust Djevdet Bey,
the Vali, in any way and that therefore they could not give him the
3,000 men. They told him they would give 400 and pay by degrees the
exemption tax for the rest. He would not accept the compromise. The
Armenians begged Dr. Ussher and Mr. Yarrow to see Djevdet Bey and
try to mollify him. The Vali was obdurate. He “must be obeyed.” He
would put down this “rebellion” at all costs. He would first punish
Shadakh, then attend to Van, but if the rebels fired one shot
meanwhile he would put to death every man, woman and child of the
Christians.
The fact cannot be too strongly emphasized that there was no
“rebellion.” As already pointed out, the revolutionists meant to
keep the peace if it lay in their power to do so. But for some time
past a line of Turkish entrenchments had been secretly drawn round
the Armenian quarter of the Gardens. The revolutionists, determined
to sell their lives as dearly as possible, prepared a defensive line
of entrenchments.
Djevdet Bey said he wished to send a guard of fifty soldiers to the
American premises. This guard must be accepted or a written
statement given him by the Americans to the effect that it had been
offered and refused, so that he should be absolved from all
responsibility for our safety. He wished for an immediate answer,
but at last consented to wait till Sunday noon.
Our Armenian friends, most of them, agreed that the guard must be
accepted. But the revolutionists declared that such a force in so
central a location menaced the safety of the Armenian forces and
that they would never permit it to reach our premises alive. We
might have a guard of five. But Djevdet Bey would give us fifty or
none. Truly we were between the devil and the deep sea, for, if both
revolutionists and Vali kept their word, we should be the occasion
for the outbreak of trouble, if the guard were sent; if it were not
sent, we should have no official assurance of safety for the
thousands who were already preparing to take refuge on our premises.
We should be blamed for an unhappy outcome either way. On Monday,
when Dr. Ussher saw the Vali again, he seemed to be wavering and
asked if he should send the guard. Dr. Ussher left the decision with
him, but added that the sending of such a force might precipitate
trouble. It was never sent.
Meanwhile Djevdet Bey had asked Miss McLaren and Schwester Martha,
who had been nursing in the Turkish military hospital all winter, to
continue their work there, and they had consented.
WAR! “ISHIM YOK, KEIFIM TCHOK.”
On Tuesday, the 20th April, at 6 a.m., some Turkish soldiers tried
to seize one of a band of village women on their way to the city.
She fled. Two Armenian soldiers came up and asked the Turks what
they were doing. The Turkish soldiers fired on the Armenians,
killing them. Thereupon the Turkish entrenchments opened fire. The
siege had begun. There was a steady rifle firing all day, and from
the walled city, now cut off from communication with the Gardens,
was heard a continuous cannonading from Castle Rock upon the houses
below. In the evening, houses were seen burning in every direction.
All the Armenians in the Gardens—nearly 30,000, as the Armenian
population of the walled city is small—were now gathered into a
district about a mile square, protected by eighty “teerks” (manned
and barricaded houses) besides walls and trenches. The Armenian
force consisted of 1,500 trained riflemen possessing only about 300
rifles. Their supply of ammunition was not great, so they were very
sparing of it; used pistols only, when they could, and employed all
sorts of devices to draw the fire of the enemy and waste their
ammunition. They began to make bullets and cartridges, turning out
2,000 a day; also gunpowder, and after awhile they made three
mortars for throwing bombs. The supply of material for the
manufacture of these things was limited, and methods and implements
were crude and primitive, but they were very happy and hopeful and
exultant over their ability to keep the enemy at bay. Some of the
rules for their men were: Keep clean; do not drink; tell the truth;
do not curse the religion of the enemy. They sent a manifesto to the
Turks to the effect that their quarrel was with one man and not with
their Turkish neighbours. Valis might come and go, but the two races
must continue to live together, and they hoped that after Djevdet
went there might be peaceful and friendly relations between them.
The Turks answered in the same spirit, saying that they were forced
to fight. Indeed, a protest against this war was signed by many
prominent Turks, but Djevdet would pay no attention to it.
The Armenians took and burned (the inmates, however, escaping) the
barracks north of our premises, but apart from this they did not
attempt the offensive to any extent—their numbers were too few. They
were fighting for their homes, their very lives, and our sympathies
could not but be wholly on their side, though we strove to keep our
actions neutral. We allowed no armed men to enter the premises, and
their leader, Aram, in order to help us to preserve the neutrality
of our premises, forbade the bringing of wounded soldiers to our
hospital, though Dr. Ussher treated them at their own temporary
hospital. But Djevdet Bey wrote to Dr. Ussher on the 23rd that armed
men had been seen entering our premises and that the rebels had
prepared entrenchments near us. If, at the time of attack, one shot
were fired from these entrenchments, he would be “regretfully
compelled” to turn his cannon upon our premises and completely
destroy them. We might know this for a surety. We answered that we
were preserving the neutrality of our premises by every means in our
power. By no law could we be held responsible for the actions of
individuals or organisations outside our premises.
Our correspondence with the Vali was carried on through our official
representative, Signor Sbordone, the Italian consular agent, and our
postman was an old woman bearing a flag of truce. On her second
journey she fell into a ditch and, rising without her white flag,
was instantly shot dead by Turkish soldiers. Another was found, but
she was wounded while sitting at the door of her shack on our
premises. Then Aram said that he would permit no further
correspondence until the Vali should answer a letter of Sbordone’s,
in which the latter had told Djevdet that he had no right to expect
the Armenians to surrender now, since the campaign had taken on the
character of a massacre.
Djevdet would permit no communication with Miss McLaren at the
Turkish hospital, and would answer no question of ours concerning
her welfare, though after two weeks he wrote to Herr Spörri that she
and Schwester Martha were well and comfortable. Dr. Ussher had known
the Vali as a boy and had always been on the most friendly terms
with him, but in a letter to the Austrian banker who had taken
refuge on the German premises, the Vali wrote that one of his
officers had taken some Russian prisoners and cannon and that he
would cause them to parade in front of “His Majesty Dr. Ussher’s
fortifications, so that he, who with the rebels was always awaiting
the Russians, should see them and be content.” This letter ended
with the words: “Ishim yok, keifim tchok” (“I have no work and much
fun.”) While he was having no work and much fun, his soldiers and
their wild allies, the Kurds, were sweeping the countryside,
massacring men, women, and children and burning their homes. Babies
were shot in their mothers’ arms, small children were horribly
mutilated, women were stripped and beaten. The villages were not
prepared for attack; many made no resistance; others resisted until
their ammunition gave out. On Sunday, the 25th, the first band of
village refugees came to the city. At early dawn we heard them
knocking, knocking, knocking at our gate. Dr. Ussher went out in
dressing gown and slippers to hear their pitiful tale and send the
wounded to the hospital, where he worked over them all day.
THE MISSION’S FIRST-AID TO THE INJURED.
Six thousand people from the Gardens had early removed to our
premises with all their worldly possessions, filling church and
school buildings and every room that could possibly be spared in the
missionary residences. One woman said to Miss Silliman: “What would
we do without this place? This is the third massacre during which I
have taken refuge here.” A large proportion of these people had to
be fed, as they had been so poor that they had bought daily from the
ovens what bread they had money for, and now that resource was cut
off. Housing, sanitation, government, food, relation with the
revolutionist forces, were problems that required great tact and
executive ability. The Armenians were not able to cope with these
problems unaided. They turned to the missionaries for help.
Mr. Yarrow has a splendid gift for organisation. He soon had
everything in smoothly running order, with everyone hard at work
at what he was best fitted to do. A regular city government for
the whole city of thirty thousand inhabitants was organised with
mayor, judges, and police—the town had never been so well policed
before. Committees were formed to deal with every possible
contingency. Grain was sold or contributed to the common fund by
those who possessed it, most of whom manifested a generous and
self-sacrificing spirit; one man gave all the wheat he possessed
except a month’s supply for his family. The use of a public oven
was secured, bread tickets issued, a soup kitchen opened, and
daily rations were given out to those on our premises and those
outside who needed food. Miss Rogers and Miss Silliman secured a
daily supply of milk, and made some of their school-girls boil it
and distribute it to babies who needed it, until 190 were being
thus fed. The Boy Scouts, whom thirteen year-old Neville Ussher
had helped organize in the fall, now did yeoman’s service in
protecting the buildings against the dangers of fire, keeping the
premises clean, carrying wounded on stretchers, reporting the
sick, and, during the fourth week, distributing milk and eggs to
babies and sick outside the premises.
Our hospital, which had a normal capacity of fifty beds, was made to
accommodate one hundred and sixty-seven, beds being borrowed and
placed on the floor in every available space. Such of the wounded as
could walk or be brought to the hospital came regularly to have
their wounds dressed. Many complicated operations were required to
repair the mutilations inflicted by an unimaginable brutality and
love of torture. Dr. Ussher, as the only physician and surgeon in
the besieged city, had not only the care of the patients in his
hospital, the treatment of the wounded refugees and of the wounded
Armenian soldiers, but his dispensary and out-patients increased to
an appalling number. Among the refugees exposure and privation
brought in their train scores of cases of pneumonia and dysentery,
and an epidemic of measles raged among the children. Miss Silliman
took charge of a measles annex, Miss Rogers and Miss Ussher helped
in the hospital, where Miss Bond and her Armenian nurses were worked
to the limit of their strength, and after a while Mrs. Ussher, aided
by Miss Rogers, opened an overflow hospital in an Armenian
school-house, cleared of refugees for the purpose. Here it was a
struggle to get beds, utensils, helpers, even food enough for the
patients. Indeed all this extra medical and surgical work was
hampered by insufficient medical and surgical supplies, for the
annual shipment had been stalled at Alexandretta.
DARK DAYS.
At the end of two weeks the people in the walled city managed to
send us word that they were holding their own and had taken some of
the government buildings, though they were only a handful of
fighters and were cannonaded day and night. About 16,000 cannon
balls or shrapnel were fired upon them. The old-fashioned balls sunk
into the three-feet thick walls of sun-dried brick without doing
much harm. In time, of course, the walls would fall in, but they
were the walls of upper stories. People took refuge in the lower
stories, so only three persons lost their lives from this cause.
Some of the “teerks” in the Gardens were also cannonaded without
much damage being done. It seemed the enemy was reserving his
heavier cannon and his shrapnel till the last. Three cannon balls
fell on our premises the first week, one of them on a porch of the
Usshers’ house. Thirteen persons were wounded by bullets on the
premises, one fatally. Our premises were so centrally located that
the bullets of the Turks kept whizzing through, entered several
rooms, broke the tiles on the roofs, and peppered the outside of the
walls. We became so used to the pop-pop-pop of rifles and booming of
cannon that we paid little attention to them in the daytime, but the
fierce fusillades at night were rather nerve-racking.
A man escaping from Ardjish related the fate of that town, second in
size and importance to Van in the vilayet. The kaimakam had called
the men of all the guilds together on the 19th April, and, as he had
always been friendly to the Armenians, they trusted him. When they
had all gathered, he had them mown down by his soldiers.
Many of the village refugees had stopped short of the city at the
little village of Shushantz, on a mountain side near the city. Here
Aram bade them remain. On the 8th May we saw the place in flames,
and Varak Monastery near by, with its priceless ancient manuscripts,
also went up in smoke. These villagers now flocked into the city.
Djevdet seemed to have altered his tactics. He had women and
children driven in by hundreds to help starve the city out. Owing to
the mobilisation of the previous fall, the supply of wheat in the
Gardens had been very much less than usual to begin with, and now
that 10,000 refugees were being given a daily ration, though a
ration barely sufficient to sustain life, this supply was rapidly
approaching its limit. The ammunition was also giving out. Djevdet
could bring in plenty of men and ammunition from other cities.
Unless help came from Russia, it was impossible for the city to hold
out much longer against him, and the hope of such help seemed very
faint. We had no communication with the outside world; a telegram we
had prepared to send to our embassy before the siege never left the
city; the revolutionists were constantly sending out appeals for
help to the Russo-Armenian volunteers on the border, but no word or
sign of their reaching their destination was received by us. At the
very last, when the Turks should come to close quarters, we knew
that all the population of the besieged city would crowd into our
premises as a last hope. But, enraged as Djevdet was by this
unexpected and prolonged resistance, was it to be hoped that he
could be persuaded to spare the lives of one of these men, women and
children? We believed not. He might offer the Americans personal
safety if we would leave the premises, but this, of course, we would
not do; we would share the fate of our people. And it seemed not at
all improbable that he would not even offer us safety, believing, as
he seemed to believe, that we were aiding and upholding the
“rebels.”
Those were dark days indeed. Our little American circle came
together two evenings in the week to discuss the problems constantly
arising. We would joke and laugh over some aspects of our situation,
but as we listened to the volley firing only two blocks away, we
knew that at any hour the heroic but weakening defence might be
overpowered; knew that then hell would be let loose in the crowded
city and our crowded compound; knew that we should witness
unspeakable atrocities perpetrated on the persons of those we loved,
and probably suffer them in our own persons. And we would sing:
“Peace, perfect peace; the future all unknown!
Jesus we know and He is on the throne,”
and pray to the God who was able to deliver us out of the very mouth
of the lion.
On Saturday forenoon a rift seemed to appear in the clouds, for many
ships were seen on the lake, sailing away from Van, and we heard
that they contained Turkish women and children. We became a “city
all gone up to the housetops,” wondering and surmising. Once before
such a flight had taken place, when the Russians had advanced as far
as Sarai. They had retreated, however, and the Turkish families had
returned.
That afternoon the sky darkened again. Cannon at the Big Barracks on
the plain began to fire in our direction. At first we could not
believe that the shots were aimed at our flag, but no doubt was
permitted us on that point. Seven shells fell on the premises, one
on the roof of Miss Rogers’ and Miss Silliman’s house, making a big
hole in it; two others did the same thing on the boys’-school and
girls’-school roofs. On Sunday morning the bombardment began again.
Twenty-six shells fell on the premises before noon.
When the heavy firing began Dr. Ussher was visiting patients outside
and Mrs. Ussher was also away from home at her overflow hospital, so
I ran over from our own hospital to take their children to the
safest part of the house, a narrow hall on the first-floor. There we
listened to the shrieking of the shrapnel and awaited the bursting
of each shell. A deafening explosion shook the house. I ran up to my
room to find it so full of dust and smoke that I could not see a
foot before me. A shell had come through the three-feet-thick
outside wall, burst, scattering its contained bullets, and its cap
had passed through a partition wall into the next room and broken a
door opposite. A shell entered a room in Mrs. Raynold’s house,
killing a little Armenian girl. Ten more shells fell in the
afternoon. Djevdet was fulfilling his threat of bombarding our
premises, and this proved to us that we could hope for no mercy at
his hands when he should take the city.[29]
DELIVERANCE.
In this darkest hour of all came deliverance. A lull followed the
cannonading. Then at sunset a letter came from the occupants of the
only Armenian house within the Turkish lines which had been spared
(this because Djevdet had lived in it when a boy) which gave the
information that the Turks had left the city. The barracks on the
summit and at the foot of Toprak-Kala were found to contain so small
a guard that it was easily overpowered, and these buildings were
burned amidst the wildest excitement. So with all the Turkish
“teerks,” which were visited in turn. The Big Barracks was next seen
to disgorge its garrison, a large company of horsemen who rode away
over the hills, and that building, too, was burned after midnight.
Large stores of wheat and ammunition were found. It all reminded one
of the seventh chapter of II. Kings.
The whole city was awake, singing and rejoicing all night. In the
morning its inhabitants could go whither they would unafraid. And
now came the first check to our rejoicing. Miss McLaren was gone!
She and Schwester Martha had been sent with the patients of the
Turkish hospital four days before to Bitlis.
Mr. Yarrow went to the hospital. He found there twenty-five wounded
soldiers too sick to travel, left there without food or water for
five days. He found unburied dead. He stayed all day in the horrible
place, that his presence might protect the terrified creatures until
he could secure their removal to our hospital.
On Wednesday, the 19th May, the Russians and Russo-Armenian
volunteers came into the city. It had been the knowledge of their
approach that had caused the Turks to flee. Some hard fighting had
to be done in the villages, however, before Djevdet and his
reinforcements were driven out of the province. Troops poured into
the city from Russia and Persia and passed on towards Bitlis.
Aram was made temporary governor of the province, and, for the first
time for centuries, Armenians were given a chance to govern
themselves. Business revived. People began to rebuild their burned
houses and shops. We re-opened our mission schools, except the
school in the walled city, the school-house there having been
burned.
THE TABLES TURNED.
Not all the Turks had fled from the city. Some old men and women and
children had stayed behind, many of them in hiding. The Armenian
soldiers, unlike Turks, were not making war on such. There was only
one place where the captives could be safe from the rabble, however.
In their dilemma the Armenians turned, as usual, to the American
missionaries. And so it came to pass that hardly had the six
thousand Armenian refugees left our premises when the care of a
thousand Turkish refugees was thrust upon us, some of them from
villages the Russo-Armenian volunteers were “cleaning out.”
It was with the greatest difficulty that food could be procured for
these people. The city had an army to feed now. Wheat—the stores
left by the Turks—was obtainable, but no flour, and the use of a
mill was not available for some time. The missionaries had no help
in a task so distasteful to the Armenians except that of two or
three of the teachers of the school in the walled city, who now had
no other work. Mr. Yarrow was obliged to drop most of his other
duties and spend practically all his time working for our protégés.
Mrs. Yarrow, Miss Rogers and Miss Silliman administered medicines
and tried to give every one of the poor creatures a bath. Mrs.
Ussher had bedding made, and secured and personally dispensed milk
to the children and sick, spending several hours daily among them.
The wild Cossacks considered the Turkish women legitimate prey, and
though the Russian General gave us a small guard, there was seldom a
night during the first two or three weeks in which Dr. Ussher and
Mr. Yarrow did not have to drive off marauders who had climbed over
the walls of the compound and eluded the guard.
The effect on its followers of the religion of Islam was never more
strongly contrasted with Christianity. While the Armenian refugees
had been mutually helpful and self-sacrificing, these Moslems showed
themselves absolutely selfish, callous and indifferent to each
other’s suffering. Where the Armenians had been cheery and hopeful,
and had clung to life with wonderful vitality, the Moslems, with no
faith in God and no hope of a future life, bereft now of hope in
this life, died like flies of the prevailing dysentery from lack of
stamina and the will to live.
The situation became intolerable. The missionaries begged the
Russian General to send these people out to villages, with a guard
sufficient for safety and flocks to maintain them until they could
begin to get their living from the soil. He was too much occupied
with other matters to attend to us.
After six weeks of this, Countess Alexandra Tolstoi (daughter of the
famous novelist) came to Van and took off our hands the care of our
“guests,” though they remained on our premises. She was a young
woman, simple, sensible, and lovable. We gave her a surprise party
on her birthday, carrying her the traditional cake with candles and
crowning her with flowers, and she declared she had never had a
birthday so delightfully celebrated in all her life. She worked hard
for her charges. When her funds gave out and no more were
forthcoming and her Russian helpers fell ill, she succeeded where we
had failed and induced the General to send the Turks out into the
country with provision for their safety and sustenance.
THE PESTILENCE THAT WALKETH IN DARKNESS.
Our Turkish refugees cost us a fearful price.
The last day of June Mrs. Ussher took her children, who had whooping
cough, out of the pestilential atmosphere of the city to Artamid,
the summer home on Lake Van, nine miles away. Dr. Ussher went there
for the week-end, desperately in need of a little rest. On Saturday
night they both became very ill. Upon hearing of this I went down to
take care of them. On Monday Mr. and Mrs. Yarrow also fell ill. Ten
days yet remained till the time set for closing the hospital for the
summer, but Miss Bond set her nurses to the task of sending the
patients away and went over to nurse the Yarrows. This left me
without help for five days. Then, for four days more, two Armenian
nurses cared for the sick ones at night and an untrained man nurse
helped me during the daytime. Miss Rogers had come down on Thursday,
the day after commencement, for the cure of what she believed to be
an attack of malaria. On Friday she too fell ill. Fortunately, there
was at last a really good Russian physician in town, and he was most
faithful in his attendance. The sickness proved to be typhus. Later
we learned that at about the same time Miss Silliman, who had left
for America on her furlough on the 15th June, accompanied by Neville
Ussher, had been ill at Tiflis with what we now know was a mild form
of the same disease. Dr. Ussher might have contracted it from his
outside patients, but the others undoubtedly contracted it from the
Turkish refugees.
Mrs. Yarrow was dangerously ill, but passed her crisis safely and
first of all. Miss Bond then came to Artamid, though Mr. Yarrow was
still very ill, feeling that the Usshers needed her more on account
of their distance from the doctor. Miss Ussher took charge of the
Yarrow children up in Van; Mrs. Raynolds managed the business
affairs of the mission.
Mrs. Ussher had a very severe form of the disease, and her delicate
frame, worn out with the overwork and terrible strain of the months
past, could make no resistance. On the 14th July she entered into
the life eternal.
We dared not let the sick ones suspect what had happened. Dr. Ussher
was too ill at the time and for more than two weeks longer to be
told of his terrible loss. For three months preceding his illness he
had been the only physician in Van, and the strain of over-work and
sleeplessness told severely now. After he had passed his typhus
crisis, his life was in danger for a week longer from the pneumonia
which had been a complication from the first. Then followed another
not infrequent complication of typhus, an abscess in the parotid
gland which caused long-continued weakness and suffering, at one
time threatened life and reason, and has had serious consequences
which may prove permanent. Mr. Yarrow was so ill that his life was
quite despaired of. It was by a veritable miracle that he was
restored to us.
FLIGHT.
Meanwhile the Russian army had been slowly advancing westward.
It had not been uniformly successful as we had expected it to
be. Indeed, the Russians seemed to fight sluggishly and
unenthusiastically. The Russo-Armenian volunteers, who were
always sent ahead of the main army, did the heavy fighting. By
the last week of July the Russians had not yet taken Bitlis,
only ninety miles distant from Van. Suddenly the Turkish army
began to advance towards Van, and the Russian army to retreat.
On Friday, the 30th July, General Nicolaieff ordered all the
Armenians of the Van province, also the Americans and other
foreigners, to flee for their lives. By Saturday night the city was
nearly emptied of Armenians and quite emptied of conveyances. Nearly
all our teachers, nurses, employees had left. It was every man for
himself and no one to help us secure carriages or horses for our own
flight. We at Artamid, with a sick man to provide for, would have
had great difficulty in getting up to the city in time, had not Mrs.
Yarrow risen from her sick-bed to go to the General and beg him to
send us ambulances. These reached us after midnight.
There was little question in our minds as to our own flight. Our
experience during the siege had shown us that the fact of our being
Americans would not protect us from the Turks. Had not our two men,
Mr. Yarrow and Dr. Ussher, been absolutely helpless we might have
debated the matter. As it was, we women could not assume the
responsibility of staying and keeping them there, and even if we had
stayed we could have found no means to live in a deserted city.
We were fifteen Americans and had ten Armenian dependents—women and
children—to provide for. The head nurse of the hospital, Garabed,
plucky and loyal little fellow that he was, had sent on his mother
and wife and had remained behind to help us get out of the country.
Dr. Ussher’s man-cook, having been with us at Artamid when the panic
began, had been unable to secure conveyance for his sick wife. We
greatly needed his help on the journey, but this involved our
providing for a third sick person. We had three horses, an American
grocer’s delivery cart, really not strong enough for heavy work on
rough and mountainous roads, and a small cart that would seat three.
Our two other carts were not usable.
We begged the General to give us ambulances. He absolutely
refused—he had none to spare. But, he added, he was to be replaced
in a day or two by General Trokin; we could appeal to him when he
came; the danger was not immediate. Somewhat reassured and not
knowing how we could manage without help from the Russians, we made
no effort to leave that day. But the next day, Monday, we heard that
the volunteers who were trying to keep the road open to Russia would
not be able to do so much longer—there was no time to lose. We set
to work.
One of our teachers who had not succeeded in getting away before
Monday morning, kindly took a small bag of clothing on his ox-cart
for each of us. We spread the quilts and blankets we should need on
the way on the bottom of the delivery cart, intending to lay our
three sick people on these. Garabed, who had never driven a team in
his life, must drive two of our horses in this cart. Mrs. Raynolds
would drive the third horse harnessed to the small cart, and take
the babies and what food there was possibly room for; no provisions
could be bought on the way. The rest of us must walk, though Mrs.
Yarrow and Miss Rogers were newly risen from a sick bed and the
children were all under twelve. We put loads on the cows we must
take with us for the sake of the babies and the patients. But the
cows were refractory; they kicked off the loads and ran wildly about
the yard, tails up, heads down, whereupon the single horse broke
loose and “also ran,” smashing the small cart.
At this moment, the “psychological moment,” two doctors of the
Russian Red Cross rode into our yard. Seeing our plight they turned
and rode out again. They returned a little later and on _their own
responsibility_ promised to take us with the Red Cross caravan.
Thank the Lord!
We now put our loads on the delivery cart; put the wheels of the
smashed cart on the body of a wheelless cart, and now that we might
take a little more with us than food and bedding, packed in bags
what we felt to be absolutely necessary. What we left behind we
should never see again; we felt certain that the Russian soldiers
before they left would loot our houses and perhaps burn them to
forestall the Turks.
The Red Cross provided us with two ambulances with horses and
drivers, and a stretcher carried between two horses for Dr. Ussher.
He was usually taken into one of their sick tents when we camped at
night; most of the rest of us slept on the ground in the open.
We left on Tuesday, the 3rd August. The Russians appeared to have
received news that made them very uneasy, and, indeed, General
Trokin himself left Van that very afternoon, as we learned later.
The next day at sundown we heard the firing between the Kurds and
the volunteers who were so gallantly trying to keep them at bay, to
keep the road to Russia open as long as possible. It sounded
startlingly near. We travelled till two a.m. that night in order to
reach Bergri, where we should be, not safe, but beyond the line
along which the Turks would try to intercept travellers. We were
just in time. General Trokin’s party, that had left Van only a few
hours later than we, were unable to reach Bergri, and had to return
and get out by the longer route through Persia. Had we with our
slower rate of travel been obliged to do this, we might not have
been able to get out at all.
THE ARROW THAT FLIETH BY DAY.
That afternoon—Thursday afternoon—we forded a wide and deep river,
then entered a narrow valley, from the mountains commanding which
Kurds suddenly began to fire down on the Red Cross caravan and the
thousands of foot travellers. One man in an ambulance was killed,
others wounded. The drivers of ambulances and litters whipped up
their horses to a mad gallop. It was a race for life. The sight of
those gasping, terror-stricken thousands was one never to be
forgotten. The teacher who had taken our bags of clothing threw
everything off his ox-cart in order to escape with his life. The
Armenians on our long wagon threw off much of the luggage to lighten
it, and thus we lost most of what we had brought with us.
Once out of the valley we were comparatively safe. We met a force of
volunteers and Cossacks who entered the valley to engage with the
Kurds. Mrs. Raynolds had been riding in the small cart. After the
danger was over, while getting out of the cart, she fell and broke
her leg below the knee. The Red Cross physicians set it at once, but
she suffered greatly during the remainder of the journey over the
rough roads, though lying at full length in one of our ambulances.
She was quite helpless. Mr. Yarrow lay, too, in his ambulance, which
he was unable to leave day or night during the journey, except when
he was carried into a Red Cross tent on Sunday.
On Friday all but the four helpless ones and the babies walked over
Mt. Taparez. On Saturday we again climbed on foot a high mountain,
from sundown till three o’clock the next morning. The caravan rested
on Sunday at a Red Cross camp near the top of Tchingli Mt. at the
foot of Mt. Ararat. Here Dr. Ussher had two severe operations on his
face without anæsthetics. On Monday at sunset we reached Igdir. Dr.
Ussher was taken to a military hospital for officers, and the
military sent him on to Tiflis on Thursday. We could not secure
carriages until Wednesday morning to take us to the railway station
at Etchmiadzin. We arrived in Tiflis the next morning.
SAFE!—BUT SORROWING.
Most of us had lost nearly everything but the clothes we stood in,
and these we had worn day and night during the ten days’ journey.
Small wonder that the first hotel we went to had “no rooms.” Mr.
Smith, the American Consul, was most kind and did everything he
could for us. He secured a room in a private hospital for Mrs.
Raynolds and a bed in the city hospital for Dr. Ussher.
Dr. Ussher was again brought to death’s door by very severe
dysentery contracted on the road. He had become a nervous and
physical wreck and in appearance the ghost of himself.
Dysentery was epidemic among the scores of thousands of refugees
from Van Province who had crowded into Transcaucasia. The very air
seemed poisoned; our children were all ill, and it seemed to us that
they would not get well until we could leave Tiflis.
Mrs. Raynolds’ broken bone refused to knit. She seemed also to be
suffering from a collapse of her whole system. She would lie there
patient, indifferent to what was going on about her, sunk in
memories of the past, perhaps—who can say?
On the 24th August we were astounded at receiving a telegram from
Dr. Raynolds. We had not heard of his leaving America and here he
was at Petrograd! It seems he had started for Van as soon as he had
heard of the Russian occupation, in company with Mr. Henry White,
who was to teach in our college. At Petrograd he learned from the
ambassador that the Van missionaries were in Tiflis, but of the
reason therefor he had heard not a word, nor had he heard of his
wife’s condition.
Mrs. Raynolds brightened for a moment when told that her husband was
on the way to her. Then the things of earth seemed to slip away from
her; she might not tarry even for the dear one’s coming. On Friday,
the 27th August, her tired spirit found rest. Two days later Dr.
Raynolds arrived to find wife gone, house gone, the work of his
lifetime seemingly in ruins, the people he had loved exiles and
destitute.
On Tuesday Mrs. Raynolds was laid to rest in the German Lutheran
cemetery, and around her were gathered many of those whom she had
lived to serve.
Then Dr. Raynolds and Mr. White decided that there was nothing left
for them to do but return with us to America, and we left that week
for Petrograd. There the American managers of what corresponds to
our Y.M.C.A. were exceedingly kind and helpful. The city was so full
of refugees from Poland that we had to sleep on tables in the
Association halls the first night, but succeeded in securing rooms
the next day. The children recovered, and Dr. Ussher’s improvement
in health from the time of our arrival in Petrograd was simply
wonderful. Mr. Yarrow seemed now quite himself again, although in
reality he had not fully regained his strength.
Travelling up by rail round the Gulf of Bothnia, we spent a few days
in Stockholm and sailed from Christiania on the 24th September, on
the Danish ship “Hellig Olav.”
We had had absolutely no news from any station in Turkey since the
middle of April, and from America only what information Dr. Raynolds
had brought us. On our arrival in New York, on the 5th October, we
heard of the massacre of the Armenians in Bitlis by Djevdet Bey as
soon as he had reached there after having been driven from Van. We
heard of Miss Ely’s death there in July, and of my brother’s death,
on the 10th August, in Diyarbekir[30]; we heard that Miss McLaren
was ill with typhus in Bitlis, and later that she was well; we
learned of the massacre of Armenians all over Turkey and of their
deportation. The Van refugees have been fortunate by comparison in
that they could flee. Money for their relief has been sent to
Transcaucasia; a few of them have succeeded in securing passports
and getting to America.
-----
Footnote 29:
_The shelling of the mission buildings is also described by Mr.
Yarrow, in an interview published in the New York “Times” 6th
October, 1915, the day after his arrival in America:_—
“For twenty-seven days 1,500 determined Armenians held Van against
5,000 Turks and Kurds, and for the last three days they were
shelled with shrapnel from a howitzer brought up by a Turkish
company headed by a German officer. I myself saw him directing the
fire of the gun.
“Two days before the Russians came to Van, the Turks deliberately
fired at the mission buildings. They stood out prominently and
could not be mistaken, and also flew five American flags and one
Red Cross flag as a protection. The firing was so accurate that
the shots cut the signal halyards and brought the flags to the
ground.”
Footnote 30:
See Doc. 23, page 89.
16. VAN: LETTER DATED VAN, 7th JUNE, 1915, FROM MR. Y.K. RUSHDOUNI;
PUBLISHED IN THE “MANCHESTER GUARDIAN,” 2nd AUGUST, 1915.
The day after Germany’s declaration of war on Russia, martial law
was proclaimed in Van, and the Turkish Government set about the work
of mobilisation. The Armenians responded to the call in a better
mood than the Moslems, many of whom either ran away or did not
present themselves for service. But from the very beginning the
authorities adopted a harsh attitude towards the Armenians in the
Vilayet. Under the pretence of requisitioning, they ruthlessly
plundered and looted the Armenians. Business was brought to an
absolute standstill, and the import and sale of wheat in the city
was forbidden on the plea that it was needed to provision the
armies—though ways and means were always found if the applicant was
a Moslem. As for the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army, they
were neglected, half-starved, set to do all the menial work, and,
worst of all, disarmed and left over to the mercies of their Moslem
comrades, who managed to kill a few hundreds altogether in various
parts. It became evident that the Government was bent on the
systematic destruction of the Armenian population. A feeling of
despondency seized hold of all.
When Turkey went into the war the distress of the people reached an
even higher pitch, especially when the Government armed all the
males of the Moslem population between the ages of 15 and 60 and
gave up Christian villages to fire and sword at the slightest
pretext. Pelou, the largest village of the Kavash district, was
reduced to a heap of ruins. Twelve villages in the Gargar district,
on the Persian frontier, Bashkala, and Sarai, with the Nestorian and
Armenian villages round, were ruthlessly wiped out after the Russian
retreat[31], and of their population only a few old crippled women
were left as survivors. News of this sort was constantly being
brought to the town by refugees from distant places like
Boghaz-Kessen, Hazaren, Nordoz, &c. This pouring in of the refugees
aggravated the problem of living in the city of Van.
On the other hand, the three leaders of the former Revolutionary
Party called Dashnagists, who since the proclamation of the
Constitution had been changed into a political party and had come to
an understanding with the Young Turks, exhorted the people to endure
in silence. Better, they said, that some villages be burned and
destroyed unavenged than give the slightest pretext to the Moslems
for a general massacre. One of the first villages to defend itself
was Bairak, whose inhabitants succeeded in keeping the soldiers and
Kurdish mob from entering the village. The Turkish Government sent a
peace commission composed of Armenians and Turks to quiet down
matters there, which was done. At the same time a message was sent
to the Governor-General, Djevdet Bey, a brother-in-law of Enver
Pasha, then on the border, to come to Van. Djevdet Bey, on his
arrival, demanded 4,000[32] soldiers from the Armenians. The
Armenians were so anxious to keep the peace that they promised to
accede to this demand under an altered form approved by the
Government. But at this juncture trouble broke out between Armenians
and Turks in the Shadakh region. Some say that this was started at
the instigation of Djevdet Bey. This Governor had requested Ishkan,
one of the three Dashnagist leaders, to go there as peace
commissioner, accompanied by three other notable Armenians. On their
way there, however, on Friday, the 16th April, all four were
treacherously murdered.
The Armenians now felt that they could not trust the Governor, and,
instead of giving him the 4,000 men, they told him they would give
400 and pay the exemption tax for the rest, in instalments. In the
meantime they asked the American missionaries, Dr. Ussher and Mr.
Yarrow, and the Italian agent Signor Sbordone, to try to mollify the
Governor. The attitude of the Governor was wavering. At times he
would be moderate and swear that peace would be kept. At other times
he was harsh and irreconcilable, declaring that he intended to put
down “rebellion” at all costs. First he would punish Shadakh, then
he would attend to Van; if the rebels fired one shot it would be a
signal for him to attack, and neither Turks nor Armenians would be
left in the Vilayet.[33]
Things continued in this suspense till the 20th[34] April, when
some Turkish soldiers tried to seize some village women on their
way to the city. The women fled. Two Armenians came up and asked
the Turks what they were doing. The Turkish soldiers fired on the
Armenians and killed them. This served as a signal. The booming of
cannons and rattle of rifles began from every side, and it was
realised that the Armenian quarter was besieged. In the evening
houses in the Armenian quarter could be seen burning in every
direction. The Governor-General had sworn that not a single house
should be left in Van, except the one where his father had lived
as Governor-General. Under the command of Armenag Yegarian, of the
Ramgavar Party, the Armenians, nearly 30,000 in number now, began
to man and barricade houses and open trenches. Eighty such
barricaded positions, called in Armenian “teerks,” were held by
the Armenians, and the enclosed area of about two square miles was
gradually connected in between by deep trenches. To assure
regularity, a Provisional Government was set up, and a military
court was appointed to deal with military affairs. Everyone
capable of doing something, male or female, young or old, was set
to work. Women and girls were busy cooking, mending, sewing,
making bedding for homeless refugees and soldiers, and nursing
wounded people and motherless children. About 1,300[35] young men
were under arms day and night trying to hold the enemy at bay.
Lads were employed as messengers between the “teerks.” The rest of
the men were used as workmen to dig trenches and build new walls
and barricades, as the old ones crumbled before the cannon-fire.
About 16,000 cannon-shots were fired at the handful of inhabitants
in the old city under the Castle Rock.
After some days, refugees began to pour in from near and far.[36]
The Government had not succeeded in besieging the eastern side of
the Armenian quarter, and it was still possible to enter the city.
On the 16th May no less than 12,000 bread-tickets were issued to
refugees. At the same time, owing to privation and exposure, an
epidemic of measles broke out among the children, and dysentery and
pneumonia among the adults, and many who had escaped the sword of
the Moslem fell victims to disease.
As the supply of ammunition was very meagre and the intention of the
Armenians was to prolong their defence till help might come from
Armenian volunteers, they were very sparing in its use. They used
pistols when they could, and employed all kinds of devices to draw
the fire of the enemy and waste his ammunition. At the same time
they began to devise means of making bullets and cartridges, and
manufacturing smokeless gunpowder and bombs, and succeeded in
turning out daily 4,000[37] cartridges, and even in making three
mortars for throwing bombs and bursting shells. In the meantime the
Provisional Government issued strict orders for keeping the
neutrality of foreign institutions and premises, forbidding armed
men to pass through these parts or carry the wounded Armenian
soldiers to the American Mission Hospital. A manifesto was also sent
to the Turks to the effect that the quarrel was with one man,
Djevdet Bey, not with their Turkish neighbours. Governors come and
go, but the two races must continue to live together. Gradually,
however, the Armenians succeeded in ousting the Turks from their
positions. On the 17th May, after nearly four weeks’ resistance, it
became obvious that the enemy was putting forward his last efforts.
At sunset a daring dash put to flight the remaining Turkish soldiers
in the two northern barracks on Toprak-Kalé Hill and below. These
two barracks were at once burnt. About midnight another attack put
the southern great barracks in Armenian hands, and these, too, were
set on fire. Towards morning the news spread that the Turks and
soldiers had left the city. It was understood that the Government,
on hearing of the approach of the Russian army and the Armenian
volunteers, had ordered a systematic retreat some days before, and
the last regiment, with the Governor, had evacuated the town on the
night of the 18th May. Immediately hungry and starved people rushed
toward the Turkish quarters to satisfy their feelings of justice by
plundering and burning. Shortly after, news came that the Russian
army, with Armenian volunteers, was in sight. The joy of the people
was boundless; tears of gladness and of emotion for what they had
suffered during the past month, rolled down their cheeks as they
made them welcome. The keys of the captured city and of the castle
were immediately taken and laid at the feet of the Russian General,
who gave orders to the Armenians to organise a Provisional
Government for the affairs of the town.
-----
Footnote 31:
The Russians had made a preliminary incursion over the border
after the Turkish declaration of war.—_Editor._
Footnote 32:
Miss Knapp gives the number as 3,000 (Doc. 15.
Footnote 33:
_Miss Knapp makes the following observation at this point_:—
“The fact cannot be too strongly emphasised that there was no
‘rebellion.’ As already pointed out, the Revolutionists meant to
keep the peace if it lay in their power to do so. But for some
time past a line of Turkish entrenchments had been secretly drawn
round the Armenian quarter of the Gardens. The Revolutionists,
determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible, prepared a
defensive line of entrenchments.”
Footnote 34:
At 6.0 a.m. (Miss Knapp).
Footnote 35:
“About 1,500 trained riflemen possessing only about 300 rifles.”
(Miss Knapp).
Footnote 36:
“A man escaping from Ardjish related the fate of that town, second
in size and importance to Van in the Vilayet. The Kaimakam had
called the men of all the guilds together on the 19th April, and
as he had always been friendly to the Armenians they trusted him.
When they had all gathered, he had them mown down by his soldiers.
Many of the village refugees had stopped short of the city, at the
little village of Shushantz, on the mountain side near the city.
Here Aram bade them remain. On the 8th May, we saw the place in
flames, and Varak Monastery near by, with its priceless ancient
manuscripts, also went up in smoke. These villagers now flocked
into the city.” (Miss Knapp).
Footnote 37:
2,000. (Miss Knapp).
17. VAN: NARRATIVE BY MR. Y.K. RUSHDOUNI, PUBLISHED SERIALLY IN THE
ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK.
Van is a city built on a level plain, and has at the present time an
area of about ten or twelve square miles.
The Old City is small (scarcely a single square mile in area); its
centre is the market place and an ancient rock fortress. The real
Van is the Aikesdan (the Vineyards), which rises slowly towards the
East on an imposing scale. In Aikesdan each house, with few
exceptions, has a vineyard and a garden. Its streets are broad and
tree-lined. On each side of these trees run small rivulets, which
are bordered by rows of willow and poplar trees. Van is in reality a
beautiful, extensive and attractive garden. On its western side,
about two or three miles distant, there stretches the beautiful blue
lake of Van, surrounded by high, snow-clad mountains, the most
prominent of which are Sipan, Nimroud, Kerkour and Azadk.
On the eastern side of Van rise the mountains of Varak, on the
slopes of which stand the village of Shoushantz (named after
Shoushanig, the daughter of Sennacherib), and also the famous
monastery of Varak, with its seven altars, where Khrimean Hairik
published his “Ardsouig Vaspouragani” (“The Eagle of Vaspouragan”).
On the slopes of these mountains are also found the monasteries of
Garmeror and St. Gregory, the chapel of St. Lousavorich (The
Illuminator), and Gatnaghpur, Khachaghpur, Salnabad and Abaranchan,
fountains of historical fame. There are also the Upper Varak
villages—the historic summer resorts of Sultan Yailassi and Keshish
Göl.
On the north side of Van there is the ancient and famous Toprak-Kalé
(Earthern Fort). Again in the same direction are the villages of
Shahbagh and Araless, behind which extends the district of Van-Dosb.
On the southern side of the city, beyond the hills of Artamid, one
reaches the Valley of Haig; Vostan, the capital of Rushdounik; and
the mountains of Ardosr, with the tomb of Yeghishé on their slopes.
The Armenian and the Turkish quarters in Van were divided, and,
except for a few streets, were all at some distance from each other.
These two elements in the population had no relations with each
other except those of a commercial nature. The Market and the Old
City were in the hands of the Armenians, but were surrounded by
Turkish quarters. There were Armenian houses which were eight miles
away from the market-place, and to go there and back it was
necessary to pass through the Turkish quarters. The Armenians
covered this distance on foot, horseback or spring-wagons—these
being the only means of transportation.
The day after war had been declared by Germany against Russia,
Turkey declared a “state of war” in Van, and called all the young
men between 21 and 45 to the colours, without distinction of race or
religion. For the needs of the Army the Government requisitioned all
the goods and provisions in the Market. In some cases they made
partial payments, but afterwards they gave promissory notes to all
the owners, which were payable after the war. This was a heavy loss
to the Armenians, as the whole Market was practically in their
hands. They lost all their petroleum, sugar, raisins, soap, copper,
European clothing and various other commodities, besides almost half
their remaining goods.
Owing to the sudden declaration of war and the requisitioning of the
Market, it was impossible for the Armenians to transfer their goods
elsewhere or to hide them, especially as the Market was an
hour-and-a-half’s distance from the Armenian quarters of Aikesdan.
All the tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers and men of all vocations
immediately answered the call to arms. A crowd gathered in front of
the Government Building in such a way that it was impossible to keep
order. There were some people who waited for three days
continuously, from morning till night, and were unable to get a
chance to register their names. The Dashnakist party encouraged the
Armenians to do their duty faithfully as citizens. Mr. Aram, one of
their leaders, collected together 350 to 400 fine young men, and, to
the accompaniment of Turkish music, songs and dances, led them to
the Government Building to register. The Government officials were
considerably surprised at this willingness on the part of the
Armenians; they held them up as an example in upbraiding the Turks,
and particularly the Kurds, who had answered the call very
reluctantly.
The Government treated the Armenians very liberally, exempting all
the Gregorian and Protestant teachers of 25 years of age, and
allowing them to continue their schools, on the condition that they
would all go to the Government Building and register, so that in
case of necessity they might be called up as militia for the
protection of the City.
During the first two weeks this impartial treatment by the Turkish
Government filled the Armenians with gladness and trust, and the
Armenian soldiers that had deserted returned and gave themselves up.
The only thing which gave rise to anxiety was the financial crisis.
Trade and farming had completely stopped. The merchants were robbed,
and all the traders were in the hands of the Government. It was the
time to prepare for the annual taking of stock, but there were no
available means.
Under the pretence of supplying the needs of the Army, the
Government confiscated all the provisions. This was the first
symptom of injustice and partiality. The understanding was that
every man would be entitled to buy a certain amount of food and wood
after informing the Government of the number and needs of his
family, and after obtaining permission from them, and that every
month those families whose men were on active service would receive
30 piastres (5s.) per head.
At this time the Armenians’ claims were very often ignored; and
because the Government was aware that the Armenians would not,
whatever happened, go hungry and without clothing or wood for fuel,
it collected from all the Armenian quarters and villages, in the
form of a heavy tax, a certain quantity of wheat, wood, sheep, fat,
and clothing. In addition the majority of the Armenian and Syrian
soldiers were left without arms and clothing, and very often without
anything to eat, under the pretence that the clothing and the arms
were not yet ready, and that they had no means of transporting food
in so short a time. This caused the desertion of many from the Army,
and some remained away altogether. Others borrowed money and asked
the Government, through influential officials, to be allowed to pay
exemption money, and it seems that the Government also was trying to
find a means to come to an understanding with the Armenians. It
therefore published a special notice announcing that all the
non-Moslems above 26 years of age would be exempted from the Army by
payment of a special fee. The Armenians sold everything to pay the
Government, that they might profit by this occasion. The period of
exemption was extended by the Government to the following spring.
It is worth mentioning here that, according to the Turkish
officials, there were about the same number of deserters among the
Turks and Kurds, but they never paid as much exemption money as the
Armenians did.
The Government sided with the Germans even when they were neutral,
whereas the Armenians—unfortunately—sympathised with the Allies. But
even then no special injustice was done. The Government showed
kindness to the Armenians, at least on the surface, while the
Governor, Tahsin Pasha, had such close relations with the leaders of
the Dashnakist party that people thought he was their special
friend. Besides this, it was arranged that two Armenian Members of
the Ottoman Parliament who were the representatives of Van, Messrs.
Vahan Papazian and Vremyan, should stay with the people to keep them
and the Government on good terms with one another.
After the entry of the Turks into the war, however, the situation
assumed a different aspect. The Government began to adopt a cold and
suspicious attitude towards the Armenians, who had performed their
duty towards the Government to the best of their ability, and even
after the abolition of the “Capitulations” had joined the Turks in
their celebrations of the event. In spite of all this, the coolness
between them was very marked, and this became especially apparent
after it was found that the Armenians had supplied volunteers to the
Russians, and that they were the very troops who had occupied
Bayazid. It was then reported that all the Kurdish tribes had gone
over to the side of the Russians and had caused great prejudice to
the Turks. This terrified the Turks to such a degree that many rich
women went to the American missionary ladies of Van to ask their
protection, saying: “We are not afraid of the Russians as much as we
are of the Kurds.” But the unfortunate part was that, in Government
circles, the dominant topic of conversation was the Armenian
Volunteers.
It was before this that Tahsin Bey summoned the heads of the
Dashnakists (the heads of the Hunchakists were already in prison)
and pointed out to them that the Armenians had begun a volunteer
movement, and that this movement would be dangerous to them; and
afterwards in a special letter he suggested to them, and especially
to Mr. Vremyan, that they should write to the heads of the
Dashnakists of Bayazid and stop this movement. This letter was sent
to Mr. Toros, the head of the Dashnakists of Ardjish, but Mr. Toros
was killed by a Turkish gendarme. At the same time it was stated
that the Turkish Government had made special overtures to the
Dashnakists and proposed that they should form bands of chettis
composed of Turks and Armenians and raid Caucasia, but I do not know
how it happened that this was refused by the Armenians[38].
A short time after the Turks intervened in the war, all the
Armenians in the Turkish Army were disarmed and employed as ordinary
labourers. The arms of the Armenian gendarmes in the local districts
were taken and given to the Turks, while the latter were left free
on the understanding that they would be called up, though this never
actually took place. This general disarming filled the Armenians
with fear and suspicion. Those of the disarmed Armenians who found
means of escape, deserted, and some whom I knew personally were sent
back by the officials.
Turkey had not yet declared war, but she was mobilising her forces,
when the members of the Armenian Reform Committee came to Van with
M. Hoff, the Inspector-General. The Government did not carry out the
plan, which was prepared and announced to the Armenians, for
receiving the Inspector-General and his party with pomp and
ceremony, but they sent them to the beautiful little village of
Artamid on the southern side of the city, situated on the shore of
Lake Van. After they had stayed there a few days they were sent back
again, carrying with them the scheme of Armenian Reforms.
Shortly after Turkey had declared war, Tahsin Pasha was called to
Erzeroum, and in his place Djevdet Bey, the brother-in-law of Enver
Pasha, was selected as Governor for Van.
About the end of the autumn, when the Russian Army had annihilated
the Turkish Army on the Persian border, had taken Bashkalé and
Sarai, and was moving towards Van, there was a violent panic among
the Turkish officers and general public. Many of the officers sold
their property and transferred their families by boats to Bitlis.
Other prominent families, like the Hamoud-oglou—who had done great
harm to the Armenians—took the same course. Among the rank and file
those that were afraid addressed themselves to the Armenians, who
received them very kindly. The object of the Armenians was to teach
some dangerous officers a good lesson, but they had no intention
whatever of harming the innocent officers and the Turkish public.
I met many who said very plainly: “Here is a good opportunity for us
to show our Turkish compatriots and neighbours that we Armenians
never harboured any bad intentions towards them, but had always
demanded simply a state of equality, which would be beneficial to
all who wished to live a peaceful life.”
At the time when the Turkish army was annihilated on the Persian
border, and there was not even the militia in Van and less than 400
gendarmes between Van and Bitlis, it would have been very easy for
the Armenians to occupy the greater part of the provinces of Van and
Moush, if they had wanted to revolt and massacre the Turks (who were
in fear of their lives) or do what the Turks had done in the past to
the “Giaours” (“Infidels”).
The Government knew this, and for this reason treated the Armenians
very flatteringly. The Armenian people was thankful to be able to
live without fear and to have friendly and sincere relations with
their Turkish neighbours. The Dashnakist Party also, who had been in
close touch with the Government, were content with this situation,
and were satisfied now that the Government considered them of
importance and asked their advice on the welfare of the “Vatan”
(Fatherland).
Unfortunately this state of affairs was of short duration. Suddenly
the Russian army retreated. The different fragments of the Turkish
Army rallied again, and instead of pursuing the enemy, they
exterminated the Armenian and Syrian population of Bashkalé, Sarai
and all the surrounding villages. They had massacred all the male
population, and in certain places—according to the reports of a
Turkish commander who was a Russian subject—had thrown them into
wells. The most beautiful of the women had been distributed among
the Moslems, and some of them were even sent to Van; the old and
weak women who remained were collected together and driven to
various places like a herd of cattle. The Armenian Bishop of Van
sent a Turco-Armenian delegation to the Government to ask its help
for the sufferers, but the Government entirely ignored the request,
or postponed it from day to day.
The Governor of Van went to the front, leaving an assistant in his
place, and by his patriotic exertions he re-organised the Turkish
Army. He succeeded in winning to the side of the Turks the
rebellious Kurds and even Smgo the Chief, who lived under Russian
protection. This news was immediately telegraphed to Van and
Constantinople. Djevdet Bey, the lion general of the Turks, with his
reorganised army, followed the Russians up to Tabriz, and occupied
it. It is unnecessary to repeat that the Turkish Army, wherever it
went, carried with it fire and sword and all kinds of terrible
tortures, which were inflicted upon the “_Infidels_.” Regarding
this, the American missionaries are the best informed eye-witnesses.
Owing to these Turkish successes on the frontier and the Armenian
volunteer movements, the Government and the Turkish public changed
their attitude towards the Armenians. The Government was more civil
in its demands and asked all the deserters to appear before it,
although without actually promising them arms and their restoration
to the Army. To all questions concerning this, the answer was: “That
is for us to decide.” The war taxes were doubled, and to all the
petitions and objections regarding this, the answer was: “The Army
is more important than the populace.”
The Government began now not to attach much importance to their
friends the Dashnakists, and there was a time when the Assistant
Governor refused even to receive Mr. Vremyan in audience, saying: “I
cannot stand his rudeness and blustering.”
A little distance from Van all the country places like Nordouz,
Hazaren and Boghaz-Kessen were destroyed. Part of the inhabitants
were massacred, others found refuge in Van, and the remainder
altogether disappeared. The horrors spread to the other districts
and villages round Van. Garjgan was evacuated; the village of Pelou,
which had 120 houses, and the ten villages of Gargar were sacked.
In a semi-civilised country it is an easy matter for a Government to
find pretexts for its acts, when the Governor so desires. For
instance, in Pelou a drunken young man had a fight with a gendarme,
pulled out his revolver and killed him. In the mountains above the
village of Shoushantz, six Kurdish deserters were killed—but none of
the authorities ascertained by whom they were killed, or who they
were. These and similar events gave cause and pretext to the Turkish
Government for censuring the Armenians. But no one was censured for
the massacres and general unrest at Sarai, Bashkalé, Nordouz,
Hazaren and Boghaz-Kessen. Then new army corps and machine guns were
brought up to Van to be transferred to the frontier; all the Turkish
and Kurdish citizens from 15 to 60 years of age were armed with
these weapons, and when the Armenian Bishop protested to the
Government, the answer was: “We are arming them to organise them
into militia; after a little while we will collect them all and put
them into barracks. If the Armenians are also willing to volunteer
and come to the barracks, let them come and we will give them arms.”
After the events at Pelou and Gargar, it was reported that a Turkish
mob from Bitlis had devastated the district of Garjgan with fire and
sword, and was advancing on Kavash and Haiotz-Tzor, and that after
destroying these places they would proceed towards Van. Upon the
arrival of this report, some Dashnakists went out towards Ankegh and
Antanan in Haiotz-Tzor and destroyed the bridge near Ankegh, to
prevent the Turks sending help to the mob which was advancing from
Bitlis, and also to stop the mob from marching upon Van. After this
the Armenians also killed a few gendarmes and Kurds. Among those
killed was reported to be the Judge of Vostan. As far as I remember,
seven persons were killed at this time. This event caused fear among
the Turks and Kurds. The Government therefore sent Mr. Vremyan as a
mediator. Mr. Vremyan settled the question, putting the blame on the
Kaimakam of Vostan, who had sent for the mob from Bitlis. The
Government superseded the Kaimakam of Vostan and promised to find
and return the booty from Pelou and to restore the people who were
deported to their homes. This was never done. An Armenian proverb
says that “A thief is afraid of himself,” and the Turks also were
afraid of themselves on account of what they had done. While
travelling through Haiotz-Tzor and Kavash they assumed Armenian
names. Yet the officials, whenever they got a chance, protested to
foreigners that the Armenians were ungrateful, that they furnished
volunteers to the Russians, and wanted autonomy; “And therefore,”
they said, “we will not leave this country to them. Let the Russians
take the country, but we refuse to let the Armenians rule over our
families and our kin.” It is unnecessary to add that there were as
many Moslem volunteers as Armenian in the Russian forces.
The Turkish Government was very prudent. So long as it was weak it
flattered the Armenians and praised them to their faces; the leaders
of the Dashnakists, Vremyan, Aram and Ishkhan, were treated as
advisers of the Government. The Armenians on their part tried not to
be the cause of any disturbance in the country. The only ground for
anxiety in the relations between the Government and the Armenians
was the question of the Armenian deserters. After the Armenian
soldiers were disarmed, they did not dare to remain in their posts,
and used to desert. When it was discovered that the Turkish
Government had armed all the male Mohammedans from 14 to 60 years of
age, they were no longer willing to give themselves up, and decided
to die with their wives and children. A few Turkish officials
confessed that it was wrong to disarm the Armenians because there
were more Kurdish deserters than Armenian, but the Government
refrained from attaching as much blame to the Kurds as they did to
the Armenians.
To consider all these problems, a meeting was called under the
presidency of Yeznig Vartabed, the Assistant of the Bishop, in which
all sections of the Armenian population of Van were represented. The
meeting was held at the house of Kevork Agha Jidajian, and came to
the following conclusions: That the Turkish Government was treating
the Armenians with suspicion; that all work, trade, and farming had
stopped; that certain districts such as Nordouz, Gargar and Garjgan
had been cleared of their inhabitants, and that the Armenians of
Sarai and Bashkalé had been annihilated when the Russian army
retreated; finally, that in case of a revolution the Armenians at
Van would be able to hold out for some time, but that, taking into
consideration the whole of Armenia, it was necessary to maintain
peace with the Turks at all costs.
As certain deserters could not give themselves up at the moment for
important reasons, they decided to ask the Government to accept
exemption money for them. The meeting decided to negotiate on these
lines through Mr. Vremyan as their Deputy, with Avedis Effendi
Terzibashian as an adviser experienced in Turkish psychology. The
meeting also proposed to open negotiations through some merchants on
similar lines. A week later the Armenians held a joint conference
with the Turks at Jidajian’s house. At this conference they decided
to live together as neighbours without taking account of any changes
of policy in the Government. The Turks promised to ask the
Government not to give any cause for revolution.
However, the situation was far from being satisfactory, and unrest
was in the air. All the workmen were working for the Government; the
tradesmen would go to their shops, hear rumours, and go home again,
to stay at home for four or five days; and the attitude of the
Government kept changing like a weathercock, in conformity with the
successes or failures at the front. Sometimes it was very severe and
unreasonable, and sometimes very smooth and peaceful. Everyone was
uneasy, as they did not know how long such a situation would last.
We were afraid of massacres. We were afraid of the retreating
Turkish army, which would undoubtedly devastate everything on its
way. We were afraid of famine, as the Government had not given the
people a chance of provisioning themselves, and we knew that the
villages and farms had been robbed. A part of the working class was
in the army. The cattle and sheep belonging to the refugees had been
confiscated and sold. Many people confided to me that they wished
that whatever was going to happen would happen quickly and relieve
them from their suspense. Meanwhile, the people of Van armed
themselves, and kept secret watch day and night at different street
corners, to be prepared for any eventuality.
About the beginning of spring, rebellion started in the district of
Van-Dosb, or Timar, a few hours’ distance from Van. The inhabitants
of the village of Erer in this district were massacred. When the
turn came for the village of Bairak, the local Armenians defended
themselves with the help of the Armenians in Van against the Kurds
and the gendarmes. When the Government saw that people were getting
ready and that things would drift from bad to worse, it went to the
Bishop and expressed its regret for the events that had taken place,
and asked the Armenians to send their representatives to stop the
fighting at Bairak. This was immediately done. Some blamed the
Vice-Governor, who had taken Djevdet’s place, for these affrays. Mr.
Vremyan and the Vice-Governor fell out, the Vice-Governor having
refused to receive Mr. Vremyan in audience, but as Mr. Vremyan was a
Deputy (Member of the Ottoman Parhament) he was allowed to remain in
the district with the sanction of the Government. Mr. Vremyan blamed
the Vice-Governor for the situation, and sent a telegram to this
effect to the Governor, Djevdet, who was at the front. Djevdet
answered him thanking him, and asking him to preserve peace until
his return, when he would put everything in order, “Inshallah” (“God
willing”).
It was the last week of Lent when Djevdet Bey reached Van with 400
trained soldiers, called Lez[39], and a few field guns, and was
received by the Armenians with royal honours; but while passing
through Armenian villages he shut his eyes to the barbarous
behaviour of his soldiers towards the Armenian women. In the new
village of Upper Haiotz-Tzor a number of women were violated, a man
was killed, and others were beaten almost to death, on the pretence
of having arms. For this, one of the young men wanted to follow
Djevdet and kill him, but the Armenian revolutionists did not allow
him to do so. As soon as Djevdet Bey reached the city, he thanked
Vremyan and all those who had done their best for the peace of the
city, and started negotiating with the Armenians concerning the
deserters. He persuaded the Armenians to give themselves up, or at
least a certain part of them, so that he might have less difficulty
in getting back the Turkish and Kurdish deserters.
During Passion Week the negotiations with the Government were
postponed on account of a terrible snowstorm. At this time there was
an army of 4,000 with some artillery in Van. There was no special
cause for anxiety, but everybody felt there was something in the
air, which turned out to be the case. After Easter, when the
negotiations were taken up again with the Government, it was
reported that there had been conflicts at Shadakh. The general
impression was that the Government was behind it. The Government
wanted to arrest a member of the Dashnakist party called Joseph. The
Armenians would not allow him to be arrested, and that started the
trouble. Shadakh is about 24 hours’ journey from Van, towards the
south, on one of the tributaries of the Tigris. During the massacres
of 1895 and 1896, the Armenians of Shadakh had succeeded in
defending themselves with great success and honour. After that, the
Government had wanted to trap the Armenians and massacre them, and
fill their places with Kurds and Turks, but it was not successful,
and now in April the massacres had started from there. The
liberty-loving Armenians of this place defended themselves bravely
for about two months, until the end of May, when the Volunteers went
to their assistance.
Djevdet Bey asked the Dashnakists to send a delegate and put a stop
to these occurrences. The members of this deputation were Mr.
Ishkhan and three young Armenians, a Turkish Prefect of Police, and
a few gendarmes. On the evening of the 16th April, in the Kurdish
village of Hirj, the Armenian delegates were all assassinated—a trap
laid by the Government. Some trustworthy people from Haiotz-Tzor
(Armenian Valley) reported that the very day that Mr. Ishkhan was
going to Shadakh as a peace delegate, the Armenians of Upper
Haiotz-Tzor came to him and said: “For how long shall we endure it?
They have not spared anything. There was only Shadakh left, and they
massacred even the people of Shadakh.” Mr. Ishkhan, who was a
fighter by nature, had declared to the Armenian villagers that they
must keep the peace _at all costs_, and had ordered them to give the
Government everything that was asked for; if one village was burnt,
they were ordered to escape to another village.
Here I would like to explain in parenthesis the reason why I always
mention the Dashnakist party. They were the people who were mixed up
with politics; they were the friends and advisers of the Young Turk
Party, and, having formed a “bloc” with them, they always sided with
the Turks in parliamentary conflicts. The Government on their part
wanted to keep them on their side, knowing that they had great
influence over the villagers, in the Episcopal Court, and in the
Chancery of the Catholics of Aghtamar. The Ramgavars (Democrats)
were not mixed up with politics. They had their own paper,
“Van-Dosp,” and were busy with their own propaganda and their own
trade and teaching, only once in a while fighting against the
Dashnakists. They did not, like the Dashnakists, have special
members who gave all their time to political affairs. The
Hunchakists were very few in number, and during mobilisation their
leaders, Messrs. Ardashes Solakhian and Proudian, were arrested and
afterwards killed.
On Saturday morning, the 17th April, Djevdet Bey asked the following
leaders of the Dashnakists—Messrs. Vremyan, Aram, Avedis Effendi
Terzibashian (a merchant), and Kevork Agha Jidajian—to visit him for
a conference. Aram could not go, for one reason or another; the
others went and were retained. After that it was reported that all
those that went as peace delegates were killed by the Government.
This started a panic among the Armenians, and young men under arms
took up special positions. Father Nerses of the New Church, Set
Effendi Kapamajian and myself went to the American missionaries to
ask them to intercede with the Government on our behalf to maintain
peace. Before the missionaries had reached the Government Building,
Terzibashian and Jidajian were freed, so that they could advise the
Armenians to go and surrender, but Vremyan was kept to be sent to
Constantinople. Djevdet Bey told the missionaries that he had
already sent for them. He also added that, as the peace of the
country was disturbed, the American missionaries must make room for
50 soldiers for their own protection. If they could not do that,
then they must all go to the Government Building, with their whole
households. The missionaries came back with the impression that
everything was over, and that Djevdet Bey had changed altogether.
The same night the Armenians had a meeting in the New Church, where
Terzibashian Effendi told them what Djevdet Bey had said and
communicated to them the result of the negotiations. He said that it
was impossible to influence Djevdet; sometimes he was quite
reasonable, and at other times he was harsh and immovable and wanted
all the deserters to surrender either that day or the following, and
all the Armenians to give up their arms. Again it was decided to ask
him to accept part of the deserters and receive exemption money for
the rest. Signor Sbordone (the agent of the Italian Consul), the
American missionaries and the Armenian merchants made proposals to
Djevdet Bey to this effect, but they were unable to find out what
his intentions were. Sometimes he declared on oath that he would not
bring dishonour on his father, Tahir Pasha, who ruled over Van in
peace during a time of great disturbances, and sometimes in a fury
he would say: “There will either be nothing but Turks or nothing but
Armenians left in this city. After I have finished Shadakh I will
overthrow Van. I will not leave a single house standing except the
house of my father. I will not spare either male or female, youth or
old age. The Armenians must give up their arms and their deserters,
and they must pass in front of my window to go to the barracks. If I
hear the report of a gun or revolver, I will consider that a signal
to carry out what I have just told you.”
On Monday, the 19th April, Djevdet Bey was in a slightly different
mood. He issued an order for everybody to go about their business,
saying that nothing would happen. We had been isolated for a whole
week from the districts outside the town and were ignorant as to
what was going on there, and we did not even know that we were
surrounded by Turkish trenches and troops. On the very day that
Djevdet Bey told us that “All was well,” Agantz, a big town in the
district of Van, was sacked and ruined. Prominent inhabitants of
Agantz, like Abaghtzian, Housian and Shaljian, were invited to go to
the Government Building to receive orders from the Kaimakam. The
other Armenians were collected from the streets and from their
houses. At night, after dark, they took these men in groups of fifty
with their hands tied behind their backs, brought them to the river
bank at the back of the city, and there killed them all. Only three
were able to unloose their hands and escape at night, after
pretending to be dead. One of them went to an Armenian village near
by and was the cause of this village’s escape; another of them went
to the boats that were on the shore and saw that most of the sailors
had been killed, but told the rest about it, who thereupon launched
their boats into the open lake and rowed for the Monastery Island.
The third disappeared altogether.
Haroutune Agha Housian was wounded in three places, but escaped to
his home. When the Turkish officers counted the wounded, however,
they found, by their list, that Mr. Housian was missing, and when
they found him in his house they killed him. All the male
inhabitants of Agantz were killed except these three, and, by the
permission of the Government, the Armenian households—that is, the
women and children and property—were divided among the Turks. In
order to secure their property, the Turks betrothed themselves to
Armenian girls and women, with the intention of marrying them.
Djevdet Bey announced to everybody that “Asayish ber Kemal der”
(“Peace was perfect”), and at the same time he put pressure on the
American missionaries either to sign a statement that they had
refused the protection of the Government, or agree to accept a guard
of 50 soldiers for the missionary compound. He laid more emphasis on
this latter proposition, saying that he would send the same number
of soldiers to the German missionaries. The American missionaries
were so considerate as to ask the advice of the Armenians, and the
latter, especially Mr. Armenag Yegarian, saw in the proposal a plot
to seize the Armenian quarters and homes. Accordingly they made the
missionaries understand that the only thing which would protect them
would be the American flag and the order of the Government, and
that, even if 5,000 soldiers were there, it would be impossible to
be protected against the Government. With this in view, they told
the missionaries that, if Djevdet sent more than 10 or 12 soldiers,
they would be obliged to open fire on them and would not let one
into the Armenian quarters. Taking all these points into
consideration, the missionaries informed the Government that they
were willing to accept as many soldiers as the Government sent them,
but that they would not be responsible for their safe arrival and
were very unwilling to start a conflict on that account. “We are not
afraid of the Armenians,” they said, “and we think that 10 or 12
soldiers and an order from you will be sufficient to protect us.”
On Tuesday morning, the 20th April, at six o clock, some Turkish
soldiers saw a few Armenian women coming to the city from the
village of Shoushantz, half-an-hour’s distance from Van. They
attempted to violate them, and when two Armenian young men went to
remonstrate with the Turkish soldiers, the latter opened fire on
them and killed them. This was not very far from the German Mission,
and the Principal of the German missionaries, Herr Spörri, and his
wife witnessed this incident. He also was kind enough to write
explicitly to Djevdet, stating that it was the Turkish soldiers who
attempted to violate the women and then killed the Armenian young
men who had tried to save the women’s honour.
But Djevdet had received his signal, and as soon as the reports were
heard from Ourpat Arou (where the women had been violated),
artillery fire was opened upon the Armenian quarters of Aikesdan,
and was also turned upon the inhabitants of the Market-place, which
was surrounded by Turkish quarters.
Then we understood that we were really surrounded, and so the armed
Armenian young men held the street corners and did not allow the
Turkish or Kurdish mobs to enter. The Armenian lines protected an
area of about two square miles, which was held by 700 Armenians, 300
only of whom had regular arms and a certain amount of military
training. The others were simply civilians who had revolvers and a
few ordinary weapons. All the fighters had decided to fight to the
bitter end in defence of their families.
Even the American missionaries confessed that they could not
conceive how a Government could display such meanness and treachery
towards citizens who had been so faithful in their duties. It is
important to mention that the sympathies of the American
missionaries had been with the Armenians at all times. They not only
opened the doors of their compounds and houses, but also placed
families and property in security, and began to give their personal
services to the sick and the children.
All the people of Van, without exception, began to work with one
soul. Those who had arms and were able to fight rushed to take their
stand and stop the Turks from entering the Armenian quarters, and
those who were able to work took spade and shovel to go and
strengthen the fighting men’s positions by constructing trenches and
walls. The little boys worked as scouts, the women and girls
undertook the care of the sick and the children. Besides that, the
women did all the sewing and cooking for the fighters.
With the object of caring for the wounded, a Red Cross detachment
was raised with the assistance of Dr. Sanfani (Khosrov Chetjian) and
Dr. Khatchig. To secure law and order, a local Government was
formed, with judicial, police and sanitary branches. Its
administration was conducted in perfect order the whole month
through. The Americans said that Van had never had such a good
Government under the Turkish rule. An end was put to revolutionary
disputes; only such expressions as “Armenian soldier,” “Armenian
Self-defence Committee” and the like were heard; and they named
their positions “Dévé Boyi,” “Dardanelles,” “Sahag Bey’s Dug-out,”
and so on.
For the better organisation of the defending forces they appointed a
military council, which was formed of the representatives of the
revolutionary parties and the non-party Armenians, and which carried
on the work very successfully. This body was in communication with
the lines and supplied soldiers wherever and whenever it was
necessary. The Supply Committee also did good work in supplying food
and beds for those who were working in the different stations. Under
the presidency of Bedros Bey Mozian, the ex-Mayor of Van, and with
the leadership of Mr. Yarrow, they formed a Relief Society whose
object was to collect supplies and provide the necessaries of life
for those who were destitute and had lost their homes. This
committee was a great assistance to the fighting forces.
One of the local papers began to publish the news of the fighting
and distribute it to the people. The Normal School band, under the
leadership of Mr. K. Boujikanian, played Armenian military airs, the
“Marseillaise,” and other tunes, to hearten the fighters. The
greater the intensity of the Turkish artillery fire and the louder
the roar of the guns, the louder the band played, and this made
Djevdet more furious than the bullets of the Armenians; he did not
even restrain himself from expressing his feelings in his bulletins.
During the first days of the fighting, the Military Committee, by
special bulletin, made a public appeal to the Turks, reminding them
of their pledges to one another, and proclaiming that Governments
change but the people always remain neighbours, and that there was
no reason why they should be at enmity with one another. By this
they put the whole of the blame on Djevdet, who possessed nothing
else in Van but a horse, “and he could ride off on that and escape.”
After making this point, the proclamation suggested to the Turkish
inhabitants that they should force Djevdet to desist from the
bloodshed. I do not know the result of this announcement.
The Military Committee also gave orders to the Armenian soldiers not
to drink, not to blaspheme the religion of the enemy, to spare
women, children and unarmed men, to respect neutrals, and to prevent
anyone from entering their compounds under arms. They also ordered
that all the wounded should be taken to the American Hospital, and
that only true reports should be given.
During these dark days the Armenian people were very full of life.
Everybody did his or her best. They all had good hope that Djevdet
would not succeed in annihilating the Armenians of Van. The spirit
of the fighters was enough to inspire those that were in despair. I
have seen young men who had fought the enemy day and night, without
sleeping. Their eyesight had been so affected that they were
practically blind, and they were transferred to the Red Cross
Station to be treated. Even then they were very cheerful. While the
shrapnel was raining upon Van, the Armenian children were playing
soldiers in the streets.
Armenag Yegarian, with his cool and able leadership; Aram, with his
constant presence and advice; P. Terlemezian, with his great heart;
Krikor of Bulgaria, with his indefatigable industry and inventive
genius—they were very able leaders. To save their lives and honour
all the Armenians of Van had placed then services at the disposal of
the Military Council, who awarded crosses and medals to encourage
those who were worthy of them. I was present when a little girl
received one of these medals. During the retaking of a position in
Angous Tzor she bravely went ahead, spied out the ground and brought
back news that the Turks had laid no traps for the advancing
Armenian soldiers.
From the very first day of the fighting the Turks burned all the
Armenian houses that were outside the Armenian fighting zone, but
the village of Shoushantz and Varak Monastery were still in the
hands of the Armenians. Mr. H. Kouyoumjian was in charge of the
entrenchments at Varak, and he came down to Aikesdan once in a while
to report everything that was going on there.
After a week all the Armenians in the surrounding country came in to
Aikesdan by way of Varak and Shoushantz, bringing with them famine,
sickness and terrible news. Those that came from Haiotz-Tzor
(Armenian Valley) reported that two Turkish armies had passed
through the Armenian villages with artillery. The first army paid
for everything that they took, and the people were encouraged by
this act to issue from their retreats, but the second army
surrounded them and massacred them. The Government carried out its
work on such a well-planned system that villages were massacred
without having had warning of the fate of their neighbours only a
mile away. All the inhabitants of the villages that surrendered were
massacred. There were villages that succeeded in removing their
people and taking them to the mountains, but in general we must
confess that the villagers did not prove very brave. They were not
able to co-operate for their common defence, and there were even
some who did not like to oppose the Government. In comparison with
the city people they were short of ammunition, and they managed to
convoy their families into the city by simply firing in the air,
which was one of the reasons why the city people rather looked down
on them. But the fact is that if they had had enough ammunition and
the right leaders, they would have been able very easily to drive
the enemy out of Haiotz-Tzor, Kavash and Tamar.
During the first two weeks the Government massacred the men and had
all the women kidnapped, and deported the remainder from village to
village to give the Turkish population a chance of wreaking their
vengeance. But afterwards, in order to strike at the defensive
powers of Van and to starve the Armenians into surrender by making
them use up their provisions, they collected all the survivors from
the villages and sent them to Aikesdan and to the city proper. The
people in the city refused to pass anybody through the lines of
defence; the enemy therefore sent them to Aikesdan, telling them
that those who returned would be shot. The people of Aikesdan
recognised their terrible straits and took them in; there were a
large number of wounded among the women and children. I saw a woman
from the village of Eremer, whose husband was serving in the Turkish
army and whose twelve-year-old boy was slain before her eyes. She
was wounded herself, as well as her two remaining children, one four
years and the other eleven months old. I shall never forget the
drooping look of the little one and the wounded arm that hung by his
side, nor the woman herself, who was almost mad. All these were
given over to Dr. Ussher, who treated them immediately. I also
remember a woman who had lost seven of her children and had gone out
of her mind. She lay on the ground clutching her hair. She threw
dust on her head and cursed the Kaiser all the time.
The American Hospital, which could accommodate only 50 patients, had
150 sick, and they were obliged to fill every available place with
the wounded. Scarlet fever, whooping cough and smallpox carried off
many of the little ones.
Besides the fighting and working forces, we had to supply food for
about 13,000 people. At the beginning it was possible to give one
loaf of bread to each individual every day, but afterwards we were
obliged to cut it down to half a loaf, supplemented with other food.
All the oxen and cows in the city were slaughtered, and when we had
lost all hope of procuring cattle from outside there were even
people who suggested killing the dogs. The lack of ammunition was
also severely felt, so that in Aikesdan for every thousand rounds
fired by the Turks the Armenians could only reply with one.
After a few days the Turks occupied the positions of Shoushantz and
Varak, and burned the library of old manuscripts at Varak Monastery.
All the Armenians and Syrians from these occupied villages came over
to the city and consequently increased the famine and plague. Up to
this time women between 65 and 70 years old carried letters
backwards and forwards between Djevdet and the Austrian banker
Aligardi, Signor Sbordone, and the German and American missionaries.
These women carried a white flag in one hand and the letter in the
other, and passed to and fro in safety, with the exception of one
who was shot by the Turks because she was unfortunate enough to fall
down and lose the flag, and another one who was wounded by the
Turks. Djevdet tried to discourage the Armenians by descriptions of
Turkish successes, and also suggested that they should give up their
arms and receive a complete amnesty, like the people of Diyarbekir.
In a letter addressed to Mr. Aligardi, the Austrian, he wrote: “Dear
Aligardi, Ishim yok, keifim tchok (“I have nothing to do but amuse
myself”). In another, addressed to Dr. Ussher, he said: ”I will
parade the prisoners and guns I have taken from the Russians in
front of His Majesty Dr. Ussher’s fort, so that he may see and
believe.”
But the Armenians did not let Djevdet do as he pleased. They severed
communications and did not allow any more letters to pass through
the lines. Then, under the direction of Professor M. Minassian, they
succeeded in making smokeless powder, cartridges and three guns,
whose reports were heard with great rejoicings by all the Armenians.
They made about 2,000 cartridges a day, and the blacksmiths made
spears, so that, if necessary, they could fight with spears when the
ammunition was all gone. The Armenians also dug underground
passages, through which they blew up certain Turkish barracks and
entrenchments.
Thus they burned and destroyed the great stone barracks of Hamoud
Agha; the Telegraph and Police Station of Khatch Poghotz (Cross
Street); half the police station of Arar, and the English Consulate,
which was one of the chief Turkish strongholds. This encouraged the
Armenians a great deal, so that there was a time when Djevdet was
obliged to send 500 soldiers against a position held by only 44
Armenians, who after fighting for three or four hours left 33 dead
on the field and retired. A young man called Borouzanjian, the only
son of his widowed mother and the support of his orphan sisters,
resigned his post as hospital orderly and went to fight in the
trenches. He killed four Turkish soldiers and was finally killed
himself. He praised God while dying that he had done his duty, and
asked his comrades to sell his revolver and other personal
belongings and to give the proceeds of them to his mother, so that
she could live on them for a little while.
During this time they sent word to the Armenian Volunteers in
Russia, asking them to come to their aid.
When the villagers came to Aikesdan and thus increased the number of
labourers and fighters, the trenches were elaborated and increased
in number, so that they now covered two square miles. When the
Turkish artillerymen destroyed one line they found a second
fortified line at the back, which was stronger than the first.
Besides this, the Armenians had organised a body of cavalry, so that
they could send help in all directions. Not only Aikesdan was
defended with success, but also the city proper and Shadakh. The
Americans, seeing the spirit of the Armenians, declared that it
would not be far wrong to say that this beat Marathon.
The Turkish soldiers were good shots, especially the artillerymen,
who could direct their shrapnel by accurate sighting upon the
desired point. Who could imagine that their commanders were
civilised and Christian Germans! This fact became known to the
Armenians after the fall of Van.
On the 9th and 10th May we saw the white sails of boats on the
Lake of Van. Without heeding the flying bullets, the people
flocked on to high ground to watch them. We did not know whether
they were some of the Turkish population or officers who were
escaping. They continued the shooting until next morning. After
the 10th May the fighting became more intense, both during the
daytime and at night, and on the 15th and 16th May the guns were
directed upon the American Institutions, where all the people
were. Although during the whole period of fighting they had fired
upon the American compound, the Hospital, the Church and Dr.
Ussher’s home, and wounded thirteen people, it was only during the
last two days that the bombardment was confined to the compound
alone. It was then that a bomb struck Dr. Raynold’s house and
killed Mr. Terzibashian’s three-and-a-half-years-old daughter.
On the evening of the 17th May the Armenians succeeded in destroying
the upper and lower barracks of Toprak Kalé, which raised their
spirits vastly; but in the evening the joy of the Americans
surpassed that of the Armenians. About midnight, in a strong attack,
the Armenians seized and burned the largest Turkish barracks, Hadji
Bekir’s Kushla, which dominated the American compound. At midnight
the town criers went through the town crying victory: “We have taken
all the Turkish positions; they have run away: come out.” On this
report the Armenians, especially those who were in a starving
condition, came out and attacked the Turkish quarters to rob and
burn them. The revenge of centuries was being taken. The Armenian
soldiers did not participate in this movement for twenty-four hours,
but held their positions so that the enemy might not take them by
surprise. The booty that the people took from the Turks consisted
mostly of wheat, flour and bread.
I asked one of the villagers to show me her booty. She did so, and I
was surprised to see that it consisted of clothing that the Turks
had robbed from Armenian women and girls. They found in the house of
Mouhib Effendi, a member of the Ottoman Parliament, a chalice and
other sacred vessels from an Armenian Church. The Turks were in such
a panic that some left their tables laid and took to flight. The
hungry women of yesterday were carrying away booty without stopping,
with a new strength. It was the story of the seventh chapter of the
Fourth Book of Kings that was repeated word for word. The American
compound was now deserted except for the boy scouts, who, with the
help of one of our teachers and Neville Ussher, remained to look
after the sick.
The whole city was in an uproar. Some went to look at the
entrenchments; others went to look at the burned Turkish quarters,
and others to look at the booty. There were others also who visited
the fortress, which was captured that same night, and over which a
flag with a Cross on it was waving. No Government was left, no
authority. The soldiers had marked out their position from Arark to
Khatch Poghotz as a military centre. They took away all the valuable
vessels and property from the people. They were afraid that there
would be fighting, but fortunately nothing happened. In Aikesdan
there were still armed Turks in certain positions, who killed some
Armenians, but they were finally found and killed. It was very
pitiful to see Armenian soldiers leading Turkish women and children
and unarmed men to the American compound for safety, and saying to
them: “Do not cry; nothing will happen to you; we are only looking
for Djevdet, who destroyed both your homes and ours.” Nobody touched
these Turkish women, some of whom had from £30 to £95 (Turkish) on
their persons. Some of the Armenians went to look for their wounded
in the Turkish hospitals, and when they did not find them they were
so infuriated that they killed some of the Turkish wounded and
burned the building. Mr. Yarrow asked me to go and wait there until
he came. I stayed there. The scene was dreadful. For four days the
Government had given them no bread and no care, so that many of them
had already died from neglect. Interspersed among the dead there
were also some still living, but the Armenians did not raise their
hands to touch them. Before the arrival of the Americans, many came
and helped me to put out the fire and attended to those that were
alive. Mr. Yarrow, seeing all this, said: “I am amazed at the
self-control of the Armenians, for though the Turks did not spare a
single wounded Armenian, the Armenians are helping us to save the
Turks—a thing that I do not believe even Europeans would do.”
The scene in the prison was dreadful, as all the Armenian prisoners
had been massacred. The wife of Mr. Proudian had completely lost her
reason, and cried out: “Show me at least the bones of my dear one.”
The unveiling of these dreadful deeds of the Turks so hardened some
of the Armenians that they followed the doctrine of “an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth,” to the great sorrow of the others.
-----
Footnote 38:
See Doc. 21
Footnote 39:
Of Lazic nationality (?)—_Editor_.
18. VAN AFTER THE TURKISH RETREAT: LETTER FROM HERR SPÖRRI, OF THE
GERMAN MISSION AT VAN, PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN JOURNAL
“SONNENAUFGANG,” OCTOBER, 1915.
There lies Artamid before us, adorned by its delicious gardens; but
how does the village look? The greater part of it is nothing now but
a heap of ruins. We talked there with three of our former orphan
protégées, who had had fearful experiences during the recent events.
We rode on across the mountain of Artamid. Even in time of peace one
crosses the pass with one’s heart in one’s mouth, because the Kurds
ply their robber trade there. Now it is all uncannily still. Our
glance swept over the magnificent valley of Haiotz-Tzor. There lay
Antananz before us, now utterly destroyed like the rest. We gave
shelter, at the time, to the people from Antananz who had managed to
escape. Further on in the magnificent green landscape lay Vostan. At
first sight one might call it a paradise, but during these latter
days it has also been a hell. What rivers of blood must have flowed
there; it was one of the chief strongholds of the armed Kurds. At
the foot of the mountain we came to Angegh. There again there were
many houses destroyed. We found here a young woman who, after many
years of widowhood, had married a native of the village. Things have
been going well with her; now her husband, too, was slaughtered. One
hundred and thirty people are said to have been murdered thus. We
pitched our camp here in face of the blackened ruins. Straight in
front of us stood an “amrodz,” a tower built of cakes of manure—a
common enough sight in these parts. We were told that the Kurds had
burnt the corpses of the slaughtered Armenians in it. Horrible! And
yet that is at least better than if the corpses of the slain, as has
happened in other places, are allowed to lie for an indefinite
period unburied, so that they are devoured by dogs and poison the
air. There we were met by some soldiers; they were Armenian
“Volunteers” who had come from Russia and were now fighting on the
side of the Russians for the liberation of their Haiasdan. They were
coming now from the neighbourhood of Bitlis, where heavy fighting
was in progress. They had brought some sick back to the town, and
proposed to rest here awhile. After that we rode on to Ten, where
people we already knew came out to meet us from the village and
informed us of what had happened there. There, too, the scenes of
our former activity, the school and the church, lay in ruins, and
many dwelling houses as well. The man who used to put us up was also
among the slain; his widow is still quite distraught. Here about 150
are said to have been murdered. There were so many orphans in the
place, they said to us—Should we now be inclined to take charge of
any again? We were unable to give them any definite answer. As we
rode on and on over the mountains, the splendid air did us much good
and we thanked God for it, for little by little we have come to be
in sore need of recuperation. We had a wonderful view from the
mountain heights, but everywhere in the villages one sees blackened
and ruined houses.
19. VAN AFTER THE MASSACRES: NARRATIVE OF MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN, DATED
VAN, 2nd DECEMBER, 1915, AND PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“ARARAT” OF LONDON, JANUARY, 1916.
“I have seen the ravages of the Crimean war, the Russo-Turkish
war of 1877-78, the Armenian massacres of 1894-96, and the reign
of terror which then followed until the year 1914; but the
massacres which have been going on since April of the current
year are simply appalling, and by far the most terrible blow
which the Armenian nation has ever been subject to throughout
the course of its long history.”
So spoke to me Hagop Boghossian, an old Armenian peasant of Van, a
sturdy octogenarian who, after three forced flights from his home in
the rear of the Russian Army, was once more returning to his home to
tide over the winter in his native village north of Lake Van; and as
he was walking along the muddy pathway, he was telling me the story
of the recent massacres as he knew them, and as he understood them
from his own point of view. His account in its main outline
corresponds with what has been proved beyond all doubt. Before
arousing any suspicion among the Armenians residing in the central
provinces of Asiatic Turkey about its intentions, the Turkish
Government wanted to dispose of the “rebellious” Armenians of Van,
which lay far away from its grip, and the Armenian element of which
had generally been considered by the Turks as a doubtful quantity.
One Djevdet Bey, a brother-in-law of Enver Pasha, happened to be the
governor and the military commander of Van. In February he was
routed in the battle of Diliman and Khoi, in Azerbaijan, a battle in
which the Armenian volunteers under Andranik played some part. When
he returned to Van, he told his friends that while he was at the
front he had to battle throughout the time against Armenians, both
as regular troops of the Russian army and as volunteers. The report
says that Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, expressed almost the
same opinion when his army was defeated early in January in the
battles of Sarikamysh and Ardahan. However exaggerated these
estimates may have been, they seem to have served well the purpose
of the Turkish Government in its efforts to destroy the Armenian
population within its territory; and Djevdet Bey was commissioned to
begin the massacres at Van, where the best relations existed between
the Armenians under Vremyan, the Deputy for Van in the Turkish
Chamber, and Djevdet himself, who for years had enjoyed the
hospitality of the natives.
On the 15th April the young Armenians of Akantz, north of Lake Van
(Ardjish), were mustered by the gendarmes to the sound of the bugle,
to hear the recital of an order which had just arrived from the
Sultan. At sunset these 500 young men were shot outside the town
without any formality. During the following two days the same
process was carried out with heartless and cold-blooded thoroughness
in the 80 Armenian villages of Ardjish, Adiljevas, and the rest of
the district north of Lake Van. In this manner some 24,000 Armenians
were killed in three days, their young women carried away and their
homes looted. After that, Djevdet Bey immediately proceeded to
destroy the able-bodied Armenians on the south side of the Lake in
the same way. Kurds were let loose upon the peasants of the _Kazas_
of Moks and Shatakh, but there these hardy mountaineers proved
somewhat hard nuts to crack. They put up a stout resistance and
frustrated the Turkish plan.
In the town of Van itself the Armenians had already made all the
concessions they possibly could to conciliate the Government in the
matter of deserters from the army and the military requisitions.
Djevdet, however, demanded unconditional surrender; he treacherously
caused the death of four Armenian leaders, and detained Vremyan, who
was killed later. These acts, in combination with the massacres of
Ardjish, cleared up all doubts. The Turks had made up their minds to
annihilate the Armenians by all the means in their power, as they
had shown by killing thousands of absolutely innocent peasants in
Ardjish. The experience of the past had taught the Armenians of Van
that an appeal to arms was the only argument which could save their
life, honour and property, and they collected together all the arms
they possessed. From the middle of April they were besieged by a
Turkish army of about 6,000 men, equipped with artillery and
reinforced by numberless Kurds of all types. Twenty-five thousand
Armenians of the town, who had only some 400 good rifles and double
that number of arms of a medley character, fought for four weeks
against great odds. They organised all their resources through an
improvised staff and various committees for medical help and
distribution of relief. They constructed some mortars and made
smokeless powder to repel the furious Turkish attacks. Every man,
woman and child did their bit to help in the work of liberation;
they held their positions to the last and captured several enemy
positions by blowing up barracks in which the Turks had entrenched
themselves in the middle of the Armenian quarters. After seeing
something of their positions and walking over the scenes of the
fight, one can well understand that it must have been a heroic
battle indeed. The Turks under Djevdet despaired of overcoming Van
and fled hastily at the approach of the Armenian volunteers followed
by the Russian army. Van was captured by the Armenians, who saluted
the entry of the Russian army by the booming of the guns they had
taken from the Turks. An Armenian provisional government was
established in the town and the province from early June. Excesses
of an avenging nature could scarcely be avoided under the
circumstances; yet such excesses by no means overstepped the passion
excited at the moment.
During June and July, almost the entire Armenian population of
Bitlis, Moush, Diyarbekir, and the remaining provinces of Turkish
Armenia was ruthlessly massacred or deported. Of this unparalleled
tragedy the later events at Van, which suffered the most lightly of
all, may serve as an illustration.
After two months of self-government in Van, the fortunes of war
turned against the Armenians. Towards the end of July the Turks took
the offensive on the Transcaucasian front. The Russians retreated
from the Euphrates and Moush towards their own frontiers in order to
counter-attack the enemy under more favourable conditions. But in
this game of strategy, the quarter of a million Armenians of Van,
Alashkerd, etc., the last remnant of the Armenian element in Eastern
Turkey, had also to retreat towards the Russian frontier. Men, women
and children, who had bravely defended themselves against the Turks,
fled in a panic under the most adverse circumstances. There were no
means of transport, except a few ox-carts, horses, donkeys and cows,
and the distance to be traversed varied from 100 to 150 miles
through a waterless and trackless country; while only a few hours’
notice was given to the unsuspecting people to quit their homes,
abandon all they possessed, and walk to Transcaucasia. Every one
burdened himself with some clothing and provisions, and, followed by
exhausted women and children, walked for 10 days under the burning
August sun, smothered in dust and overcome by thirst and fatigue. On
the Bergri bridge (north of Lake Van) the rear of the caravan was
attacked by mounted Kurds. A frightful panic ensued, in which women
and girls threw themselves into the river Bendimahu, while others
threw away their infants in the effort to escape, and entire
families were precipitated into the waters owing to the rush caused
by the panic. The sick, the infirm, and hundreds of children were
abandoned on the roadside, where they died in lingering agony or
were massacred by the Kurds.
On my way to Van along the north-eastern shore of the Lake, I
witnessed revolting evidence of the recent events. Several search
parties had already buried the dead and cleared the ground;
nevertheless, here and there I saw remains of human bodies, of men
and women, under piles of stones or scattered about the roadside. I
discovered decomposing and horribly disfigured bodies of children;
and on the shores of the lake and on the banks of streams skeletons,
pieces of clothing, bones of human beings and animals lying all
around. The stench of putrefaction was simply sickening. The country
from Igdir to Van had indeed been a slaughter-house but a few months
before. Entire villages had been completely wiped out. Except for
some casual travellers, not a single human soul was to be seen
there—there were but vultures and howling dogs who fed upon the
putrefied human remains.
The town of Van itself is mostly a heap of ruins. Since last August
it has changed hands several times; all churches, schools and the
best houses have been burnt down. The pulse of life seemed to have
ceased from beating, where a few months ago the natives had turned
it into a beehive after capturing it from the Turk. On the other
hand, the remnant of the Armenians from Turkey is being greatly
diminished owing to destitution and sickness across the borders of
Transcaucasia. The whole country is devastated beyond any
description. Perhaps nowhere on the European battlefields has the
civil population been so sorely tried as in the Armenian highlands,
and no race has suffered so much as the Armenians in Asiatic Turkey.
At present only some 200,000 of them can be accounted for; and these
are dying by hundreds in Transcaucasia in consequence of the
terrible sufferings they have gone through since last spring.
20. VAN: INTERVIEW WITH A REFUGEE, MRS. GAZARIAN, PUBLISHED IN THE
“PIONEER PRESS,” OF ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, U.S.A.
A story of the flight of terror-stricken Armenians from the city of
Van, from the persecution of the Turks who massacred thousands of
Armenian women and children and forced the men into their armies,
was told last night by Mrs. Sylvia Gazarian. She has just arrived
from Armenia after suffering great hardships and persecution during
a journey through Russia, and is with her son, Levon Gazarian, a
North St. Paul piano builder.
Mrs. Gazarian during her flight saw her husband die of typhoid
fever, and left seven of her grandchildren lying along the roadside,
victims of starvation and exhaustion. Her son Edward, a Red Cross
surgeon, made the journey with Mrs. Gazarian. He is at his brother’s
home here.
Mrs. Gazarian founded the Christian school at Van, and devoted many
years to educating Armenian children. Her story, which is perhaps
the first uncensored news of the cruelties inflicted by the Turks in
Armenia, was told through Arsen K. Nakashian, an interpreter:—
“I spent a month in Van while our school was the target of the
Turks. I saw them kill, burn and persecute,” she said. “I saw our
town become a part of a barren waste. I saw Turks bury Armenian
victims with the dogs, divide the women among them as wives and
throw babies into the lake. The school was burned, the missionaries
fled, and 35,000 of the 75,000 inhabitants of the Van district were
killed or starved to death.
“Djevdet Bey, Governor-General of Van, started the whole trouble
when, early in April, 1915, he demanded that the Armenians should
support the Turkish army.
“When the Armenians resisted, Djevdet Bey ordered them to be shot.
He demanded that we and the American and German missionaries should
leave Van and seek protection from the Turkish Government. We all
refused. Our valley had been a garden. The Turks did their worst to
make it a morgue.
“For miles around the Armenians congregated at Van, drove out the
Turks and made trenches. Stones, earth and sand-bags were piled over
the school buildings. The Turks attacked, and for more than a month
in April and May kept up a steady fire.
“Finally the Russians came. We were under their protection for a
month. The Turks, fleeing before the Russians, killed all Armenian
prisoners and wounded.
“Russian treachery became evident when they evacuated the town. They
pillaged every standing home. When we demanded that they should stay
and protect us, the general said: ‘If you don’t want us to leave
you, come along.’
“Only old men and feeble women refused the invitation. Fifteen
grandchildren of mine, three daughters and their husbands, my son
and myself made up our forlorn party. We travelled towards Russia on
foot. There was no other way to go. We walked for twelve days—like
dead men and women. As far ahead as we could see, there were women
carrying or dragging their babies and wounded men staggering along
at their sides. Death was common.
“First one and then another of the children died. Typhoid was doing
its work everywhere. We buried the babies where we happened to be.
Seven of them in all died on the journey. When we arrived at Tiflis
my husband died.
“More than a month ago my son and I started for Northern Russia.
Round the Caucasus mountains, across the Russian steppes and into
Moscow, where the Russian troops were assembled in thousands, we
went by train.
“Every Russian official wanted money, and we paid. We reached
Archangel on the Arctic ocean and started for America.”
Just as the woman finished her story her son Edward came in.
“Germany is responsible for the cruelty in Armenia,” he declared:
“She is not a friend but an enemy of Turkey. She covets the
Dardanelles. She aims at making Turkey a German province; but she
knows the power of the Armenians, and she wants Turkey without them.
That is why she permits the Turks to burn, murder and ravage. The
young Turks are educated criminals. They are worse than the older
ones. America is beautiful and peaceful. We will always live here.”
III.
VILAYET OF BITLIS.
_The Vilayet of Bitlis lies due west of Van, across the Lake. The
chief Armenian centres in the province were the town of Bitlis
itself, commanding the principal pass leading from the lake-basin to
the upper valley of the Tigris; the town and villages of Moush,
situated in the only considerable plain along the course of the
Mourad Su or Eastern Euphrates; and the semi-independent highland
community of Sassoun, a group of Armenian villages in the massif of
mountains which separates Moush from the headwaters of the Tigris
and the lowlands of Diyarbekir._
_The extermination of the Armenians in these three places was an act
of revenge for the successful resistance of the Armenians at Van and
the advance of the Russian forces to their relief. There was no
pretence here of deportation, and the Armenians were destroyed,
without regard for appearances, by outright massacre, accompanied in
many cases by torture._
21. THE NORTH-EASTERN VILAYETS: STATEMENT COMMUNICATED BY THE
REFUGEE ROUPEN, OF SASSOUN, TO THE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY AT MOSCOW;
PUBLISHED IN THE RUSSIAN PRESS, AND SUBSEQUENTLY REPRINTED IN
THE “GAZETTE DE LAUSANNE,” 13th FEBRUARY, 1916.
At the beginning of the European war, the “Dashnaktzoutioun” Party
met in congress at Erzeroum in order to decide on the attitude to be
observed by the Party. As soon as they heard of this congress, the
Young Turks hastened to send their representatives to Erzeroum to
propose that the Party should declare its intention of aiding and
defending Turkey, by organising an insurrection in the Caucasus in
the event of a declaration of war between Turkey and Russia.
According to the project of the Young Turks, the Armenians were to
pledge themselves to form legions of volunteers and to send them to
the Caucasus with the Turkish propagandists, to prepare the way
there for the insurrection.
The Young Turk representatives had already brought their
propagandists with them to Erzeroum—27 individuals of Persian,
Turkish, Lesghian and Circassian nationality. Their chief was Emir
Hechmat, who is at present organising bands of rebels at Hamadan
(Persia). The Turks tried to persuade the Armenians that the
Caucasian insurrection was inevitable; that very shortly the Tatars,
Georgians and mountaineers would revolt, and that the Armenians
would consequently be obliged to follow them.
They even sketched the future map of the Caucasus.
The Turks offered to the Georgians the provinces of Koutais and of
Tiflis, the Batoum district and a part of the province of Trebizond;
to the Tatars, Shousha, the mountain country as far as Vladivkavkaz,
Bakou, and a part of the province of Elisavetpol; to the Armenians
they offered Kars, the province of Erivan, a part of Elisavetpol, a
fragment of the province of Erzeroum, Van and Bitlis. According to
the Young Turk scheme, all these groups were to become autonomous
under a Turkish protectorate. The Erzeroum Congress refused these
proposals, and advised the Young Turks not to hurl themselves into
the European conflagration—a dangerous adventure which would lead
Turkey to ruin.
The Young Turks were irritated by this advice.
“This is treason!” cried Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir, one of the delegates
from Constantinople: “You take sides with Russia in a moment as
critical as this; you refuse to defend the Government; you forget
that you are enjoying its hospitality!”
But the Armenians held to their decision.
Once more before the outbreak of war between Russia and Turkey, the
Young Turks tried to obtain the Armenians’ support. This time they
opened their _pourparlers_ with more moderate proposals, and
negotiated with the Armenian representatives of each Vilayet. At
Van, the _pourparlers_ were conducted by the provincial governor
Tahsin Bey, and by Nadji Bey; at Moush, by Servet Bey and Iskhan Bey
(this latter is at present a prisoner of war in Russia); at
Erzeroum, by the same Tahsin Bey and by others.
The project of an Armenian rising in the Caucasus was abandoned.
Instead, the Ottoman Armenians were to unite themselves with the
Transcaucasian Tatars, whose insurrection was, according to the
Young Turks, a certainty.
Once more the Armenians refused.
From the moment war broke out, the Armenian soldiers had presented
themselves for service at their regimental depôts, but they
refused categorically to form irregular bands. On the whole, up to
the end of 1914, the situation in Armenia was quiet. But when the
Turks had been expelled from Bayazid and driven back in the
direction of Van and Moush, their fury turned upon the Armenians,
whose co-religionists in the Caucasus had formed themselves into
volunteer legions under the leadership of Andranik and other
patriotic leaders, and had been giving aid to the enemy.
It was then that the disarming of Armenian soldiers, gendarmes and
members of the other services began. The disarmed Armenian soldiers
were formed into groups of a thousand each, and sent into different
districts to build bridges, dig trenches and work at the fortresses.
At the same time the wholesale massacres began. The first victims
fell at Diyarbekir, Erzeroum and Bitlis. Soldiers, women and
children, both in the towns and villages, were slaughtered _en
masse_. By the end of last January the massacres had extended over
the whole of Armenia. In the Armenian villages, the whole male
population above the age of twelve was led out in batches and shot
before the eyes of the women and children.
The first movement of revolt declared itself towards the beginning
of February, at Koms. Seventy Turkish gendarmes had arrived there
with orders to massacre the chief men of the place, and among them
Roupen and Gorioun. When the Armenians learned their purpose, they
threw themselves upon the gendarmes and killed them all. They
proceeded to take the local governor prisoner, and found on him the
following order from the governor of Moush:—
“Execute the decision communicated verbally to you.”
On the same day the leading Armenians retired into the mountains,
where they were joined by the young men under arms from the district
of Moush.
Two thousand Turks, commanded by Mehmed Effendi, took the offensive
against them, but were annihilated by the Armenians.
This was how the revolt in Armenia began.
The Government saw that the insurrection was spreading, and
announced the suspension of the process of disarmament, rescinding
at the same time the order for the deportation and extermination of
the people of Sassoun. A commission of enquiry was appointed,
consisting of Essad Pasha, the Kaimakam of Boulanik, the President
of the Military Tribunal at Moush, and Mr. V. Papazian, an Armenian
member of the Ottoman Parliament.
The commission found that the gendarmes were the whole cause of the
trouble between the Armenians and the Turks, and the Government
promised to put an end to the reprisals. Talaat Bey telegraphed from
Constantinople that the representatives of the Armenians were not to
be molested.
Quiet was re-established for the moment, but in the month of May the
Turks attempted to force their way into Sassoun, and at the same
time the massacres began again without warning at Harpout, Erzeroum
and Diyarbekir. The Armenians repulsed the Turks and took up a
position round the town of Moush, where a large number of Turkish
troops were concentrated. This was the situation when the Turks
perpetrated the great massacre of Moush at the end of June. Half the
inhabitants of Moush were massacred, the other half were driven out
of the town. The Armenians never knew that at that moment the
Russian troops were only two or three hours’ distance from Moush.
The massacres extended over the whole plain of Moush. The Armenians,
who had managed to retreat on to the heights of Sassoun with a
remnant of their forces and a slender supply of munitions, attacked
the Turks in the valleys and gorges of Sassoun, and inflicted
considerable losses upon them. A fraction of the Armenians who
escaped the massacre broke through the Turkish lines and reached
Van, which was already in the hands of the Russian troops.
The number of Armenian victims is very large. In the town of Moush
alone, out of the 15,000 Armenian inhabitants there are only 200
survivors; out of the 59,000 inhabitants of the plain hardly 9,000
have escaped.
22. BITLIS, MOUSH AND SASSOUN: RECORD OF AN INTERVIEW WITH ROUPEN,
OF SASSOUN, BY MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN; DATED TIFLIS, 6th NOVEMBER,
1915.
At the moment of writing, there is very little doubt that during the
months of June and July last the Turks have almost completely wiped
out about 150,000 Armenians of Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun.
When a detailed account of the horrors which accompanied these
massacres is fully disclosed to the civilised world, it will stand
out in all history as the greatest masterpiece of brutality ever
committed, even by the Turk. A short description of these horrors
was given to me by Roupen, one of the leaders in Sassoun, who has
miraculously escaped the Turkish lines after long marches across
Moush and Lake Van and has been here for the last few days. As soon
as the Turks went into the war, they entered into negotiations with
the Armenian leaders in Moush and Sassoun with a view to
co-operating for the common defence. The Turkish representatives,
however, laid down such conditions as a basis for agreement that the
Armenians could scarcely entertain them as serious. Until January
things had gone on fairly smoothly, and the Armenians were advised
by their leaders to comply with all legitimate demands made by the
authorities. On the failure of negotiations, the Turks adopted hard
measures against the Armenians. They had already ruthlessly
requisitioned every commodity they possibly could lay hands on, and
now they demanded the surrender of their arms from the peasantry.
The Armenians said that they could not give up their arms while the
Kurds were left armed to the teeth and went about unmolested.
Towards the end of January, a Turkish gendarme provoked a quarrel in
Tzeronk, a large Armenian village some 20 miles west of Moush, where
some 70 people were killed and the village destroyed. Soon
afterwards, another quarrel was started by gendarmes in Koms (Goms),
a village on the Euphrates, where the Turks wanted to raise forced
labour for the transport of military supplies. As a previous batch
of men employed on similar work had never returned home, the
peasants grew suspicious and refused to go. Local passion ran high,
and the Turks desired to arrest one Gorioun, a native of
considerable bravery, who had avenged himself upon Mehmed Emin, a
Kurdish brigand, who had ruined his home in the past. All such
conflicts of a local character were settled in one way or another by
negotiation between the authorities and the leaders of the
Dashnaktzoutioun party. In the meantime, Kurdish irregulars and
Moslem bands, who were just returning from the battle of Kilidj
Geduk, where they had been roughly handled by the Russians, began to
harry the Armenians all over the country to the limit of their
endurance. In answer to protests, the authorities explained away the
grievances and gave all assurances of good-will towards the
Armenians, who naturally did not believe in them.
_The Massacres at Sairt and Bitlis._—Towards the end of May, Djevdet
Bey, the military governor, was expelled from Van, and the town was
captured by the native Armenians[40] and then by the Russo-Armenian
forces. Djevdet Bey fled southwards and, crossing the Bohtan,
entered Sairt with some 8,000 soldiers whom he called “Butcher”
battalions (Kassab Tabouri). He massacred most of the Christians of
Sairt, though nothing is known of the details. On the best
authority, however, it is reported that he ordered his soldiers to
burn in a public square the Armenian Bishop Yeghishé Vartabed and
the Chaldean Bishop Addai Sher. Then Djevdet Bey, followed by the
small army of Halil Bey, marched on Bitlis towards the middle of
June. Before his arrival, the Armenians and Kurds of Bitlis had
agreed upon a scheme for mutual protection in case of any emergency,
but Djevdet Bey had his own plans for exterminating the Armenians.
He first raised a ransom of £5,000 from them, and then hanged
Hokhigian and some 20 other Armenian leaders, most of whom were
attending the wounded in field hospitals. On the 25th June, the
Turks surrounded the town of Bitlis and cut its communications with
the neighbouring Armenian villages; then most of the able-bodied men
were taken away from their families by domiciliary visits. During
the following few days, all the men under arrest were shot outside
the town and buried in deep trenches dug by the victims themselves.
The young women and children were distributed among the rabble, and
the remainder, the “useless” lot, were driven to the south and are
believed to have been drowned in the Tigris. Any attempts at
resistance, however brave, were easily quelled by the regular
troops. The recalcitrants, after firing their last cartridges,
either took poison by whole families or destroyed themselves in
their homes, in order not to fall into the hands of Turks. Some
hundred Armenian families in the town, all of them artisans or
skilled labourers badly needed by the military authorities, were
spared during this massacre, but since then there has been no news
of their fate.
It is in such “gentlemanly” fashion that the Turks disposed of about
15,000 Armenians at Bitlis; and the Armenian peasantry of Rahva,
Khoultig, and other populous villages of the surrounding district
suffered the same fate.
_The Massacres in Moush._—Long before this horror had been
perpetrated at Bitlis, the Turks and Kurds of Diyarbekir, followed
by the most blood-thirsty tribes of Bekran and Belek, had wiped out
the Armenians of Slivan, Bisherig, and of the vast plain extending
from Diyarbekir to the foot of the Sassoun block. Some thousands of
refugees had escaped to Sassoun, as the only haven of safety amid a
sea of widespread terror. They told the people of Sassoun and Moush
of the enormities which had been committed upon themselves. The line
of conduct to be adopted by the Armenians was now obvious. The Turks
were resolved to destroy them, and therefore they had to make the
best of a hopeless situation by all means at their disposal. Roupen
tells me that they had no news whatever as to the progress of the
war on the Caucasian front, and that the Turks spread false news to
mislead them. The general peace was maintained in the Province of
Bitlis until the beginning of June, when things came to a climax.
The outlying villages of Boulanik and Moush had already been
massacred in May. Now Sassoun was attacked in two main directions.
The Kurdish tribes of Belek, Bekran, and Shego, the notorious Sheikh
of Zilan and many others were armed by the Government and ordered to
surround Sassoun. The 15,000 Armenians of these mountains,
re-inforced by some other 15,000 from Moush and Diyarbekir, repelled
many fierce attacks, in which the Kurds lost heavily, both in men
and arms; whereupon the Government again entered into negotiations
with the Armenian leaders, through the Bishop of Moush, and offered
them a general amnesty if they laid down their arms and joined in
the defence of the common fatherland. And, as a proof of their
genuineness, the authorities explained away the massacres of Slivan,
Boulanik, &c., as due to a deplorable misunderstanding. Oppressions
suddenly ceased everywhere, and perfect order prevailed in Moush for
about three weeks in June. A strict watch, however, was kept over
the movements of the Armenians, and they were forbidden to
concentrate together. In the last week of June, one Kiazim Bey
arrived from Erzeroum with at least 10,000 troops and mountain
artillery to reinforce the garrison at Moush. The day after his
arrival strong patrols were posted on the hills overlooking the town
of Moush, thus cutting all communication between Moush and Sassoun.
Kurdish bands of “fedais” and gendarmes were commissioned to sever
all intercourse between various villages and the town of Moush, so
that no one knew what was going on even in the immediate
neighbourhood.
Early in July, the authorities ordered the Armenians to surrender
their arms, and pay a large money ransom. The leading Armenians of
the town and the headmen of the villages were subjected to revolting
tortures. Their finger nails and then their toe nails were forcibly
extracted; their teeth were knocked out, and in some cases their
noses were whittled down, the victims being thus done to death under
shocking, lingering agonies. The female relatives of the victims who
came to the rescue were outraged in public before the very eyes of
their mutilated husbands and brothers. The shrieks and death-cries
of the victims filled the air, yet they did not move the Turkish
beast. The same process of disarmament was carried out in the large
Armenian villages of Khaskegh, Franknorshen, &c., and on the
slightest show of resistance men and women were done to death in the
manner described above. On the 10th July, large contingents of
troops, followed by bands of criminals released from the prisons,
began to round up the able-bodied men from all the villages. In the
100 villages of the plain of Moush most of the villagers took up any
arms they possessed and offered a desperate resistance in various
favourable positions. In the natural order of things the ammunition
soon gave out in most villages, and there followed what is perhaps
one of the greatest crimes in all history. Those who had no arms and
had done nothing against the authorities were herded into various
camps and bayoneted in cold blood.
In the town of Moush itself the Armenians, under the leadership of
Gotoyan and others, entrenched themselves in the churches and
stone-built houses and fought for four days in self-defence. The
Turkish artillery, manned by German officers, made short work of all
the Armenian positions. Every one of the Armenians, leaders as well
as men, was killed fighting; and when the silence of death reigned
over the ruins of churches and the rest, the Moslem rabble made a
descent upon the women and children and drove them out of the town
into large camps which had already been prepared for the peasant
women and children. The ghastly scenes which followed may indeed
sound incredible, yet these reports have been confirmed from Russian
sources beyond all doubt.
The shortest method for disposing of the women and children
concentrated in the various camps was to burn them. Fire was set to
large wooden sheds in Alidjan, Megrakom, Khaskegh, and other
Armenian villages, and these absolutely helpless women and children
were roasted to death. Many went mad and threw their children away;
some knelt down and prayed amid the flames in which their bodies
were burning; others shrieked and cried for help which came from
nowhere. And the executioners, who seem to have been unmoved by this
unparalleled savagery, grasped infants by one leg and hurled them
into the fire, calling out to the burning mothers: “Here are your
lions.” Turkish prisoners who had apparently witnessed some of these
scenes were horrified and maddened at remembering the sight. They
told the Russians that the stench of the burning human flesh
permeated the air for many days after.
Under present circumstances it is impossible to say how many
Armenians, out of a population of 60,000 in the plain of Moush, are
left alive; the one fact which can be recorded at present is that
now and then some survivors escape through the mountains and reach
the Russian lines to give further details of the unparalleled crime
perpetrated in Moush during July.
_The Massacres in Sassoun._—While the “Butcher” battalions of
Djevdet Bey and the regulars of Kiazim Bey were engaged in Bitlis
and Moush, some cavalry were sent to Sassoun early in July to
encourage the Kurds who had been defeated by the Armenians at the
beginning of June. The Turkish cavalry invaded the lower valley of
Sassoun and captured a few villages after stout fighting. In the
meantime the reorganised Kurdish tribes attempted to close on
Sassoun from the south, west, and north. During the last fortnight
of July almost incessant fighting went on, sometimes even during the
night. On the whole, the Armenians held their own on all fronts and
expelled the Kurds from their advanced positions. However, the
people of Sassoun had other anxieties to worry about. The population
had doubled since their brothers who had escaped from the plains had
sought refuge in their mountains; the millet crop of the last season
had been a failure; all honey, fruit, and other local produce had
been consumed, and the people had been feeding on unsalted roast
mutton (they had not even any salt to make the mutton more
sustaining); finally, the ammunition was in no way sufficient for
the requirements of heavy fighting. But the worst had yet to come.
Kiazim Bey, after reducing the town and the plain of Moush, rushed
his army to Sassoun for a new effort to overwhelm these brave
mountaineers. Fighting was renewed on all fronts throughout the
Sassoun district. Big guns made carnage among the Armenian ranks.
Roupen tells me that Gorioun, Dikran, and 20 other of their best
fighters were killed by a single shell, which burst in their midst.
Encouraged by the presence of guns, the cavalry and Kurds pushed on
with relentless energy.
The Armenians were compelled to abandon the outlying lines of their
defence and were retreating day by day into the heights of Antok,
the central block of the mountains, some 10,000 feet high. The
non-combatant women and children and their large flocks of cattle
greatly hampered the free movements of the defenders, whose number
had already been reduced from 3,000 to about half that figure.
Terrible confusion prevailed during the Turkish attacks as well as
the Armenian counterattacks. Many of the Armenians smashed their
rifles after firing the last cartridge and grasped their revolvers
and daggers. The Turkish regulars and Kurds, amounting now to
something like 30,000 altogether, pushed higher and higher up the
heights and surrounded the main Armenian position at close quarters.
Then followed one of those desperate and heroic struggles for life
which have always been the pride of mountaineers. Men, women and
children fought with knives, scythes, stones, and anything else they
could handle. They rolled blocks of stone down the steep slopes,
killing many of the enemy. In a frightful hand-to-hand combat, women
were seen thrusting their knives into the throats of Turks and thus
accounting for many of them. On the 5th August, the last day of the
fighting, the blood-stained rocks of Antok were captured by the
Turks. The Armenian warriors of Sassoun, except those who had worked
round to the rear of the Turks to attack them on their flanks, had
died in battle. Several young women, who were in danger of falling
into the Turks hands, threw themselves from the rocks, some of them
with their infants in their arms. The survivors have since been
carrying on a guerilla warfare, living only on unsalted mutton and
grass. The approaching winter may have disastrous consequences for
the remnants of the Sassounli Armenians, because they have nothing
to eat and no means of defending themselves.
-----
Footnote 40:
See preceding section.
23. MOUSH: STATEMENT BY A GERMAN EYE-WITNESS OF OCCURRENCES AT
MOUSH; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
Towards the end of October (1914), when the Turkish war began, the
Turkish officials started to take everything they needed for the war
from the Armenians. Their goods, their money, all was confiscated.
Later on, every Turk was free to go to an Armenian shop and take out
what he needed or thought he would like to have. Only a tenth
perhaps was really for the war, the rest was pure robbery. It was
necessary to have food, &c., carried to the front, on the Caucasian
frontier. For this purpose the Government sent out about 300 old
Armenian men, many cripples amongst them, and boys not more than
twelve years old, to carry the goods—a three weeks’ journey from
Moush to the Russian frontier. As every individual Armenian was
robbed of everything he ever had, these poor people soon died of
hunger and cold on the way. They had no clothes at all, for even
these were stolen on the way. If out of these 300 Armenians thirty
or forty returned, it was a marvel; the rest were either beaten to
death or died from the causes stated above.
The winter was most severe in Moush; the gendarmes were sent to levy
high taxes, and as the Armenians had already given everything to the
Turks, and were therefore powerless to pay these enormous taxes,
they were beaten to death. The Armenians never defended themselves
except when they saw the gendarmes ill-treating their wives and
children, and the result in such cases was that the whole village
was burnt down, merely because a few Armenians had tried to protect
their families.
Toward the middle of April we heard rumours that there were great
disturbances in Van. We have heard statements both from Turks and
from Armenians, and as these reports agree in every respect, it is
quite plain that there is some truth in them. They state that the
Ottoman Government sent orders that all Armenians were to give up
their arms, which the Armenians refused to do on the ground that
they required their arms in case of necessity. This caused a regular
massacre. All villages inhabited by Armenians were burnt down. The
Turks boasted of having now got rid of all the Armenians. I heard it
from the officers myself, how they revelled in the thought that the
Armenians had been got rid of.
Thus the winter passed, with things happening every day more
terrible than one can possibly describe. We then heard that
massacres had started in Bitlis. In Moush everything was being
prepared for one, when the Russians arrived at Liz, which is about
14 to 16 hours’ journey from Moush. This occupied the attention of
the Turks, so that the massacre was put off for the time being.
Hardly had the Russians left Liz, however, when all the districts
inhabited by Armenians were pillaged and destroyed.
This was in the month of May. At the beginning of June, we heard
that the whole Armenian population of Bitlis had been got rid of. It
was at this time that we received news that the American Missionary,
Dr. Knapp, had been wounded in an Armenian house and that the
Turkish Government had sent him to Diyarbekir. The very first night
in Diyarbekir he died, and the Government explained his death as a
result of having overeaten, which of course nobody believed.
When there was no one left in Bitlis to massacre, their attention
was diverted to Moush. Cruelties had already been committed, but so
far not too publicly; now, however, they started to shoot people
down without any cause, and beat them to death simply for the
pleasure of doing so. In Moush itself, which is a big town, there
are 25,000 Armenians; in the neighbourhood there are 300 villages,
each containing about 500 houses. In all these not a single male
Armenian is now to be seen, and hardly a woman either, except for a
few here and there.
In the first week of July 20,000 soldiers arrived from
Constantinople by way of Harpout with munitions and eleven guns, and
laid siege to Moush. As a matter of fact, the town had already been
beleaguered since the middle of June. At this stage the Mutessarif
gave orders that we should leave the town and go to Harpout. We
pleaded with him to let us stay, for we had in our charge all the
orphans and patients; but he was angry and threatened to remove us
by force if we did not do as instructed. As we both fell sick,
however, we were allowed to remain at Moush. I received permission,
in the event of our leaving Moush, to take the Armenians of our
orphanage with us; but when we asked for assurances of their safety,
his only reply was: “You can take them with you, but being Armenians
their heads may and will be cut off on the way.”
On the 10th July Moush was bombarded for several hours, on the
pretext that some Armenians had tried to escape. I went to see the
Mutessarif and asked him to protect our buildings; his reply was:
“It serves you right for staying instead of leaving as instructed.
The guns are here to make an end of Moush. Take refuge with the
Turks.” This, of course, was impossible, as we could not leave our
charges. Next day a new order was promulgated for the expulsion of
the Armenians, and three days’ grace was given them to make ready.
They were told to register themselves at the Government Building
before they left. Their families could remain, but their property
and their money were to be confiscated. The Armenians were unable to
go, for they had no money to defray the journey, and they preferred
to die in their houses rather than be separated from their families
and endure a lingering death on the road.
As stated above, three days’ grace was given to the Armenians, but
two hours had scarcely elapsed when the soldiers began breaking into
the houses, arresting the inmates and throwing them into prison. The
guns began to fire and thus the people were effectually prevented
from registering themselves at the Government Building. We all had
to take refuge in the cellar for fear of our orphanage catching
fire. It was heart-rending to hear the cries of the people and
children who were being burnt to death in their houses. The soldiers
took great delight in hearing them, and when people who were out in
the street during the bombardment fell dead, the soldiers merely
laughed at them.
The survivors were sent to Ourfa (there were none left but sick
women and children); I went to the Mutessarif and begged him to have
mercy on the children at least, but in vain. He replied that the
Armenian children must perish with their nation. All our people were
taken from our hospital and orphanage; they left us three female
servants. Under these atrocious circumstances, Moush was burnt to
the ground. Every officer boasted of the number he had personally
massacred as his share in ridding Turkey of the Armenian race.
We left for Harpout. Harpout has become the cemetery of the
Armenians; from all directions they have been brought to Harpout to
be buried. There they lie, and the dogs and the vultures devour
their bodies. Now and then some man throws some earth over the
bodies. In Harpout and Mezré the people have had to endure terrible
tortures. They have had their eye-brows plucked out, their breasts
cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or
else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses. This
is all done at night time, and in order that the people may not hear
their screams and know of their agony, soldiers are stationed round
the prisons, beating drums and blowing whistles. It is needless to
relate that many died of these tortures. When they die, the soldiers
cry: “Now let your Christ help you.”
One old priest was tortured so cruelly to extract a confession that,
believing that the torture would cease and that he would be left
alone if he did it, he cried out in his desperation: “We are
revolutionists.” He expected his tortures to cease, but on the
contrary the soldiers cried: “What further do we seek? We have it
here from his own lips.” And instead of picking their victims as
they did before, the officials had all the Armenians tortured
without sparing a soul.
Early in July, 2,000 Armenian soldiers were ordered to leave for
Aleppo to build roads. The people of Harpout were terrified on
hearing this, and a panic started in the town. The Vali sent for the
German missionary, Mr. Ehemann, and begged him to quiet the people,
repeating over and over again that no harm whatever would befall
these soldiers. Mr. Ehemann took the Vali’s word and quieted the
people. But they had scarcely left when we heard that they had all
been murdered and thrown into a cave. Just a few managed to escape,
and we got the reports from them. It was useless to protest to the
Vali. The American Consul at Harpout protested several times, but
the Vali makes no account of him, and treats him in a most shameful
manner. A few days later another 2,000 Armenian soldiers were
despatched via Diyarbekir, and, in order to hinder them the more
surely from escaping, they were left to starve on the way, so that
they had no strength left in them to flee. The Kurds were given
notice that the Armenians were on the way, and the Kurdish women
came with their butcher’s knives to help the men. In Mezré a public
brothel was erected for the Turks, and all the beautiful Armenian
girls and women were placed there. At night the Turks were allowed
free entrance. The permission for the Protestant and Catholic
Armenians to be exempted from deportation only arrived after their
deportation had taken place. The Government wanted to force the few
remaining Armenians to accept the Mohammedan faith. A few did so in
order to save their wives and children from the terrible sufferings
already witnessed in the case of others. The people begged us to
leave for Constantinople and obtain some security for them. On our
way to Constantinople we only encountered old women. No young women
or girls were to be seen.
Already by November[41] we had known that there would be a massacre.
The Mutessarif of Moush, who was a very intimate friend of Enver
Pasha, declared quite openly that they would massacre the Armenians
at the first opportune moment and exterminate the whole race. Before
the Russians arrived they intended first to butcher the Armenians,
and then fight the Russians afterwards. Towards the beginning of
April, in the presence of a Major Lange and several other high
officials, including the American and German Consuls, Ekran Bey
quite openly declared the Government’s intention of exterminating
the Armenian race. All these details plainly show that the massacre
was deliberately planned.
In a few villages destitute women come begging, naked and sick, for
alms and protection. We are not allowed to give them anything, we
are not allowed to take them in, in fact we are forbidden to do
anything for them, and they die outside. If only permission could be
obtained from the authorities to help them! If we cannot endure the
sight of these poor people’s sufferings, what must it be like for
the sufferers themselves?
It is a story written in blood. Two old missionaries and a younger
lady (an American) were sent away from Mardin. They were treated
just like prisoners, dogged continually by the gendarmes, and were
brought in this fashion to Sivas. For missionaries of that age a
journey of this kind in the present circumstances was obviously a
terrible hardship.
-----
Footnote 41:
1914.
24. MOUSH DISTRICT: NARRATIVE OF A DEPORTED WOMAN, RELATED BY HER TO
MR. VARTKES OF MOUSH[42], RECORDED BY HIM ON THE 25th JULY,
1915, AND PUBLISHED SUBSEQUENTLY IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“VAN-TOSP.”
To-day I heard a terrible story. All the Armenians who were deported
from Moush were either killed or drowned in the Mourad River[43].
Among these were my mother and three sisters with their children.
This news was brought to us by a woman who came here at midnight. We
thought she was a ghost, as she seemed like one coming from the
grave. She had saved her two-year-old boy.
She immediately asked for bread. We had not any, as we were living
on raw grain and meat, but we gave her what we had. After she had
had enough, we asked her all kinds of questions. She was from the
village of Kheiban, and was one of the deported. This is what she
told us:
“The Turks collected all the women and children of the villages of
Sordar, Pazou, Hassanova, Salekan and Gvars, and after keeping them
for five days they brought them to Ziaret. Here the inhabitants of
Meghd, Baghlou, Ourough, Ziaret and Kheiban joined them, and they
were all taken towards the bridge over the Mourad River. On the way
the families from the villages of Dom, Hergerd, Norag, Aladin,
Goms[44], Khashkhaldoukh, Souloukh, Khoronk, Kartzor, Kizil Agatch,
Komer, Shekhlan, Avazaghpur, Plel and Kurdmeidan joined the party,
making altogether a company of 8,000 to 10,000 people.
“All the old women and the weak who were unable to walk were killed.
There were about one hundred Kurdish guards over us, and our lives
depended on their pleasure. It was a very common thing for them to
rape our girls in our presence. Very often they violated eight or
ten-year-old girls, and as a consequence many would be unable to
walk, and were shot.
“Our company moved on slowly, leaving heaps of corpses behind. Most
of us were almost naked. When we passed by a village, all the
Kurdish men and women would come and rob us as they pleased. When a
Kurd fancied a girl, nothing would prevent him from taking her. The
babies of those who were carried away were killed in our presence.
“They gave us bread once every other day, though many did not get
even that. When all our provisions were gone, we gathered wheat from
the fields and ate it. Many a mother lost her mind and dropped her
baby by the wayside.
“Some succeeded in running away, and hid themselves in the fields
among the wheat until it was dark. Those who were acquainted with
the mountains of that region would thus escape and go back to seek
their dear ones. Some went to Sassoun, hearing that it had not yet
fallen, others were drowned in the Mourad River. I did not attempt
to run away, as I had witnessed with my own eyes the assassination
of my dear ones. I had a few piastres left, and hoped to live a few
days longer.
“We heard on our way from the Kurds that Kurdish Chettis (bands of
robbers) had collected all the inhabitants of Kurdmeidan and
Shekhlan, about 500 women and children, and burnt them by the order
of Rashid Effendi, the head of the Chettis.
“When we reached the Khozmo Pass, our guards changed their southerly
direction and turned west, in the direction of the Euphrates. When
we reached the boundary of the Ginj district our guards were
changed, the new ones being more brutal. By this time our number was
diminished by half. When we reached the boundary of Djabaghchour we
passed through a narrow valley; here our guards ordered us to sit
down by the river and take a rest. We were very thankful for this
respite and ran towards the river to get a drink of water.
“After half-an-hour we saw a crowd of Kurds coming towards us from
Djabaghchour. They surrounded us and ordered us to cross the river,
and many obeyed. The report of the guns drowned the sounds of
wailing and crying. In that panic I took my little boy on my back
and jumped into the river. I was a good swimmer and succeeded in
reaching the opposite shore of the Euphrates with my precious bundle
unnoticed, and hid myself behind some undergrowth.
“By nightfall no one remained alive from our party. The Kurds left
in the direction of Djabaghchour. At dusk I came out from my hiding
place to a field in the vicinity and found some wheat, which I ate;
then I followed the Euphrates in a northerly direction, and after
great difficulty I reached the plain of Moush. I decided to go to
the mountains of Sourp Garabed, as I had heard that there were many
Armenians there. During the nights my boy was a great comfort to me.
I felt that a living being was with me and fear lost its horror. I
thank God I have seen the faces of Armenians again.”
The poor woman ended her story, and our hearts were stricken with
sorrow, for we had loved ones among the unfortunate people of her
convoy. Two days later her boy died from lack of nourishment, and
after five days she was found by a party of patrolling Kurds and
killed.
25. MOUSH: RESUMÉ OF INFORMATION FURNISHED BY REFUGEES IN THE
CAUCASUS AND PUBLISHED IN THE CAUCASIAN PRESS, ESPECIALLY IN THE
ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK”; COMPILED BY MR. G.H. PAELIAN, AND
COMMUNICATED BY HIM TO THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “ARARAT,” OF LONDON,
MARCH, 1916.
The following reports concerning the massacres and deportations in
the region of Moush and Sassoun have come to hand from completely
independent sources, yet it is remarkable to note how they confirm
one another.
The massacres of Moush began on the 28th June (11th July), Sunday
morning, and lasted until Monday night. They were organised by the
Governors of Van and Bitlis and carried out in the presence of their
representatives, among whom were Abdoullah Bey of Sipuk, Topal
Ibrahim of Moush (tax collector), Hassan (tax collector), and the
police hakim. Before the massacres, all the prominent Armenians
underwent indescribable sufferings. They were flogged and their
limbs twisted until their thumbs began to bleed. The day the
peasants were arrested they wished to take Holy Communion first, but
were refused. The monks of Saint Garabed and the prominent Armenians
of the villages of Gvars, Sortra and Pazou were assassinated in the
monastery. The perpetrators opened the tomb of Bishop Nerses
Kharakhanian, with the hope of finding money. They took his shroud
and put the body back in the tomb. Mehmed Effendi, the Ottoman
deputy for Gendjé[45], collected about 40 women and children and
killed them. Two hundred of the inhabitants of Moush were brought to
the village of Shekhlan and thrown into the Mourad River. One
hundred men from Sassoun, who surrendered, were imprisoned without
food or drink. When they begged for bread, the Turkish inhabitants
could not stand their wailing, and asked the Government either to
give them bread or kill them. They were all killed about the middle
of November.
Then the Government looked for the Armenians who had found refuge
with some Kurds, and finding about 2,000 of them massacred them all.
The fact is confirmed that Kegham Der Garabedian, the Ottoman deputy
for Moush, was hanged. The property of the Armenians of Moush and
Bitlis was sold by the Government, and all their sheep and cattle
which were left with the Kurds were requisitioned by the army of
Halil Bey.
According to reports from the Caucasus, the Turks gathered together
about 5,000 Armenians by treachery and deception from 20 Armenian
villages round the monastery of Saint Garabed at Moush and massacred
them. This took place near the wall of the monastery. Before the
massacre began, a German officer stood on the wall and harangued the
Armenians to the effect that the Turkish Government had shown great
kindness to, and had honoured, the Armenians, but that they were not
satisfied and wanted autonomy; he then, by the report of a revolver,
gave the signal for the general massacre. Among the massacred were
two monks, one of them being the father superior of Sourp Garabed,
Yeghishé Vartabed, who had a chance of escaping but did not wish to
be separated from his flock and was killed with them. From the
Sahajian district about 4,000 Armenians found refuge in the forests
of the monastery, and fought against the attacking Turks and Kurds.
They kept themselves alive on wheat, raw meat without salt, turtle,
frogs, etc. Some of them finally surrendered, but no one knows the
fate of the remainder. The monastery of St. Garabed was sacked and
robbed. The Turks opened the tomb of St. Garabed and destroyed
everything. They also discovered some secret chambers. Turkish
chiefs took up their quarters in the monastery with imprisoned
Armenian girls.
According to another report no one was spared in Moush, not even the
orphans in the German Orphanage. Some of these were killed and
others deported. The Rev. Krikor and Mr. Marcar Ghougasian, teachers
in the German Orphanage, were killed, and only two escaped death,
Miss Margarid Nalbandian and Miss Maritza Arisdakesian. These were
graduates of the German Seminary at Mezré, and owe their lives to a
kind German lady.
According to the reports of some Armenians who had found refuge in
the forests of Sourp Garabed and finally made their way to the
Caucasus, Hilmi Bey was appointed for the purpose of clearing the
Armenian provinces of Armenians. This man reached Erzeroum on the
18th May, and then went to Khnyss, Boulanik, Khlat, etc., massacring
every Armenian in these places. According to a letter, dated the
19th June (3rd July), written to one of these refugees, Hilmi Bey
had three army corps (?) with him, a body of gendarmes, and the
volunteers of Hadji Moussa Bey and Sheikh Hazret, who had come to
Moush to massacre the Armenians. To these forces were added the
Turkish mob of Moush, the Turkish refugees from Alashkerd and
Badnotz, Keur Husein Pasha and Abd-ul-Medjid Bey. The massacres were
directed by Governor Djevdet of Van, Commander Halil of Diliman,
Governor Abd-ul-Khalak of Bitlis, and Governor Servet Bey of Moush.
The order for massacre was given on the 28th June (11th July).
According to Turkish Government statistics 120,000 Armenians were
killed in this district.
-----
Footnote 42:
At that time in hiding in the forests of Sourp Garabed.
Footnote 43:
Eastern Euphrates.
Footnote 44:
Koms.
Footnote 45:
Ginj (?)
26. BITLIS: LETTER DATED 14th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT
AT BITLIS TO A GERMAN OFFICIAL; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
From having seen you yesterday, I am assured that you will receive
with kindly consideration what I feel obliged to write to you. It is
about the women and children who still remain with us.
It might be well to relate first a few of the recent events bearing
on the matter.
On the 23rd June the Armenian men of the city, including those on
our premises, were led to prison. A few days later, when they began
to take the women from the city, I called on the Vali and told him
that I could not give up the girls of our school and the women who
had come to me for protection. He said that Halil Bey had decided
the matter in regard to the women, and that he himself had no power
to alter that decision, but that he would leave those on our
premises till the last. I wrote a letter to Halil Bey with the
consent of the Vali, to whom I sent a copy. I received no answer.
The women and girls are now employed in the hospitals, and by this
means we have been able to keep them until now. We have spoken with
Djevdet Bey recently, but he gives us no assurance of their ultimate
safety, and says that the children must go. Of our Protestant
community, we have twenty-five teachers and pupils, twenty-five
women and twelve children. Apart from these there are other women
who are employed in the hospital, and about thirty orphans. The
first orphans whom we received were brought to the school by Turkish
officials, and since it appeared that the Government did not
disapprove, we have received others and provide them with food and
shelter. Much as we should like to save them all, we feel that we
can only insist on keeping those of our community.
My heart is full of this subject. It is not my desire in any way to
oppose the Government. Our superiors give us very definite
instructions on this point before we come out. We all agreed here
that since the Government thought it a necessary war measure that
the men should be taken into exile, we could not refuse to give them
up. But since that time I have witnessed so many things that seemed
unnecessary, that the giving up of those entrusted to my care now
seems a different matter. I am not saying that we can prevent their
being taken—some of our women have already been taken from us—no one
realises more than we do our own helplessness. But we are trying by
every means in our power to save them. I plead with you for your
help in this. I have wanted very much to see the Vali, but owing to
Miss A.’s being ill I have had no interpreter.
We received word recently from Constantinople that the Government
had informed our Ambassador that Protestant communities would not be
molested, and that he had notified the consuls to that effect. But
such orders have not been carried out here.
These women and children who are with us cannot possibly do harm to
the Government—why must they be sent away to such a fate? If the
hospital were removed, we could then be responsible for their
support, until such time as it would be fitting to take them with us
to Harpout. My first plan, in the event of their trying to take our
girls, was to barricade the school building, and compel them to
force their way in or set fire to the building. Death in that form
would have been welcome to the girls under those circumstances. The
plan was not practicable, and I am telling you only that you may
understand how much we dread the fate that awaits them. When I
suggested the plan to my associates, I met with some opposition, but
Sister B. said: “If I were in your place I would do the same thing,”
and suggested that she should take some of the women whom I could
not accommodate in the school, to another building, and remain with
them there. Her sympathetic understanding at that time was a great
help to me. I have always had a great faith in Germany. Through Miss
C. I learned to love her country. Somehow, I trust you as I trusted
her, and I feel that you will do for us what she would have done had
she been able. Both Miss A. and myself entreat you most earnestly
that you will use what influence you can exert here, that we may
keep these women and children with us.
Your companions are here and inform us that you will leave
to-morrow. We regret that we shall not see you again, but enjoyed
the opportunity of meeting you the one time.
IV.
AZERBAIJAN AND HAKKIARI.
_The province of Azerbaijan lies immediately east of Van, across the
Persian border, and consists principally of another and still larger
inland basin, shut in by mountains which drain towards the central
Lake of Urmia._
_Though Azerbaijan is nominally a part of Persia, there are
practically no Persians among its inhabitants. The majority of them
are Shiah Mohammedans, speaking a Turkish dialect; but the parts
west of the Lake, and especially the districts of Urmia and Salmas,
are occupied by a Semitic Christian population, variously known as
“Nestorians” (from their religion), “Syrians” (from their language)
or “Chaldoeans” (from their race). They are descended from the
former inhabitants of Mesopotamia, who were pushed into and over the
mountains by Arab encroachment. A larger number of them is still
left on the Ottoman side of the watershed, in the Hakkiari district
round the headwaters of the Greater Zab, and further west, again,
near the confluence of the Tigris and the Bohtan. In the two latter
districts they are now in a minority as compared with their Kurdish
neighbours, and Kurds are also interspersed among the Nestorians in
the Urmia basin, especially towards the southern end of the Lake,
but also on the west (Tergawar)._
_When, in the winter of 1914-15, the Turks took the offensive
against the Russians on the Caucasian front, they sent a subsidiary
army, reinforced by Kurdish tribesmen, into Azerbaijan. The weak
Russian forces occupying the province retired northwards at the
beginning of January, and the Turco-Kurdish invaders penetrated as
far as Tabriz, while the Nestorian villages on the western side of
Lake Urmia remained in their possession for nearly five months. The
Russians were followed in their retreat by a considerable part of
the Christian population, who suffered terrible hardships on their
winter journey. Those that remained behind flocked into the town of
Urmia, and were subject to all manner of atrocities during the
twenty weeks that the Turks and Kurds controlled the place. The
Russians completed the re-occupation of Azerbaijan in May, 1915;
they entered the town of Urmia on the 24th May, five days after
their first entry into Van, and freed the people of Salmas and Urmia
from their oppressors. But they could not save the communities in
the Zab district, who suffered in June the same fate as the
Armenians of Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun; and when the Russians were
compelled to evacuate Van again at the end of July, the panic spread
from Van to Urmia, and a fresh stream of Nestorian refugees swelled
the general exodus of Christians into the Russian Provinces of the
Caucasus._
27. URMIA: STATEMENT BY THE REV. WILLIAM A. SHEDD, D.D., OF THE
AMERICAN (PRESBYTERIAN) MISSION STATION AT URMIA; COMMUNICATED
BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN
THE U.S.A.
Persia is not in the war, but the war has been in Persia ever since
its beginning. Indeed, the military movements of Russia and of
Turkey date back several years before its outbreak. The Turks in
1906 occupied a strip of territory along the Persian border
extending from a point south-west of Soujboulak to a point west of
Khoi. The purpose was no doubt to secure a boundary-line making it
more possible to move troops from the Mosul region into
Trans-Caucasia, as well as to make it easier to hold the frontier
against any Russian attack. In 1911, the Turks evacuated this strip
of territory and the whole boundary question was submitted to a
mixed commission, on which the British and Russian Governments were
represented as well as the Turkish and Persian. When war began in
August, 1914, this commission had completed its work from the
Persian Gulf to Salmas. The Russians, in connection with internal
disturbances in Persia, occupied with their troops a number of
cities in northern Persia. Tabriz was occupied in 1909; Urmia and
Khoi in 1910. This measure enabled the Russians not only to control
Persia, but also to secure the road from their rail-head at Djoulfa
to Van through Khoi. When the Great War began, Russia was therefore
in occupation.
Disturbances at once began along the border and at the beginning of
October, 1914, a determined attack was made on Urmia, ostensibly by
Kurds. It was afterwards clear, from statements made by Persians and
Turks who were engaged in the attack, that the nucleus of the
fighting force was made up of Turkish soldiers and that the attack
was under the command of Turkish officers. It was also clear from
statements made by Persians friendly with the Turks and unfriendly
towards the Russians, that the result of success in this attack
would have been the looting of the Christian population, with
probable loss of life.
About a month after this attack, war was declared between Russia and
Turkey. About the same time the Russians closed the Turkish
Consulates at Urmia, Tabriz and Khoi, and expelled the Kurds and
other Sunni Moslems from the villages near Urmia. Arms were given at
the same time to some of the Christians. The Turks in response
expelled several thousand Christians from adjoining regions in
Turkey. These refugees were settled in the villages vacated by the
Sunni Moslems who had been expelled. Turkish and Kurdish forces
gathered along the frontier and especially to the south in the
Soujboulak region.
In the latter part of December, two engagements took place—one 20
miles south of Urmia between Kurdish and Russian soldiers, in which
the latter were successful; the other was at Miandoab, at the south
end of Lake Urmia, in which the Russian forces, with some Persians,
were routed by Turks and Kurds. About the same time Enver Pasha
invaded Trans-Caucasia from Armenia at Sarikamysh in the Kars
region. This threatened to cut off Russia’s communications with
Persia, and orders were given for the evacuation of Tabriz, Urmia
and Khoi. The evacuation of Urmia took place on the 2nd January,
that of Salmas a day or two later, and that of Tabriz on the 5th.
Meanwhile, the military situation in Trans-Caucasia had changed with
the rout of Enver Pasha’s army, and Khoi was not evacuated.
For convenience it may be well to summarise the military events from
the 1st January to the 1st June. Tabriz was occupied by the Turks
and Kurds, but, about the 1st February, a crushing defeat a few
miles north of Tabriz led to its sudden evacuation and to the flight
of the Turkish forces back to Miandoab. The American Consul at
Tabriz, the Hon. Gordon Paddock, with the very effective
co-operation of the German Consul, who had previously been in the
American Hospital under the protection of the American Consul, kept
the city of Tabriz from loss of life and to a large extent from loss
of property. The Turks collected large Kurdish forces from the
Soujboulak region and from districts in eastern Turkey; these,
together with a smaller force of Turkish regulars, moved through
Urmia and Salmas against Khoi, joining Turkish forces from Van under
Djevdet Bey. This campaign against Khoi lasted until the 1st March,
and was unsuccessful. In March the Russian forces drove the Turks
from Salmas and occupied this region. Affairs remained in this
condition until April. In April the Van campaign of the Russians,
with the aid of Armenian volunteers, began. A Turkish force of
approximately 18,000 men with mountain guns under Halil Bey, an
uncle of Enver Pasha, reached Urmia on the 16th April. They had come
over the mountain passes from Mosul, having been sent from
Constantinople by way of Aleppo to Mosul. Halil Bey was defeated in
Salmas, and in May retreated towards Van. The Turkish forces were
finally withdrawn from Urmia on the 20th May, and the Russians
re-occupied that city on the 24th May. The region of Soujboulak was
occupied by the Turks for some months longer, but the campaign in
that region has no bearing on the Christian population, since there
are no Christians in the region.
The Christian population in this region is partly Armenian and
partly Nestorian—or Syrian, as they call themselves. The Armenian
element consisted of four or five thousand in Tabriz, ten thousand
or more in Salmas, a small number in Khoi, and some six or seven
thousand in the Urmia district. The Nestorians, except for less than
2,000 in Salmas, all lived in the Urmia district. Including refugees
from Turkey and the Armenians, there were in Urmia, at the beginning
of 1915, not far from 35,000 Christians. The Syrians or Nestorians
include not only members of the old Nestorian Church but also
Protestants, members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Roman
Catholics—or Chaldeans, as the last are generally called. In Maragha
there is a colony of Armenians numbering some hundreds. Excepting
the Christians in Tabriz, Maragha, and the city of Urmia, the last
numbering not more than 2,000, all these Christians live in
villages, Mohammedans and Christians sometimes sharing a village
between them and sometimes living in separate villages. These
Mohammedan villagers belong to the Shiah sect but speak the Turkish
language.
The evacuation of the Russians put all the Christians in peril. The
Salmas Christians (except about 800), most of the Christians of
Tabriz, and eight or ten thousand from Urmia fled with the
retreating Russians. They left on the shortest notice, without
preparation and in the heart of winter. Many perished by the way,
mothers dying in childbirth, old men and women and little children
falling by the way side from exhaustion. This fleeing army of
refugees, increased in numbers by several thousand from the regions
in Turkey between Khoi and Van, passed over the Russian border and
scattered in the villages and towns of Trans-Caucasia. Many of them
died of disease due to the privations and exposures of flight and
life as refugees.
This flight left some 25,000 Christians in Urmia. All of these
sought shelter from massacre. On the one hand the Kurds were pouring
into the plain, urged on and followed by Turkish officers and
troops; on the other hand the Moslem villagers set to work robbing
and looting, killing men and women and outraging the women. Several
thousand found refuge with friendly Mohammedans. Great credit is due
to no small number of Moslems, most of them humble villagers and
some men of higher rank, who protected the imperilled Christians. In
some cases safety was bought by professing Mohammedanism, but many
died as martyrs to the faith. In several places the Christians
defended themselves, but the massacring was not confined to these.
Villages that deliberately gave up their arms and avoided any
conflict suffered as much as those that fought. The mass of the
people fled to the city, and all, including the city people, took
refuge in the mission compounds. The French Roman Catholic Mission
sheltered about 3,000, and the compounds of the American
Presbyterian Mission about 17,000. The latter were enlarged by
joining up neighbouring yards and so enclosing in one connected
compound, with only one gate for entrance and exit, some fifteen to
twenty yards. The American flag was placed over the compounds of the
American Mission, and here people were safe from massacre. The
villages, in the meantime, with three or four exceptions, were a
prey to plunder and destruction. Everything movable that possessed
the least value was either carried away or destroyed.
During the months of Turkish occupation there was never a moment of
real safety for the Christians. The most unremitting efforts on the
part of the missionaries secured comparative safety within the city
walls, so that the people were scattered to some extent from the
Mission Compound; and a few villages, including two that were not
plundered at the beginning, were kept comparatively safe through the
efforts of the Persian Governor. Beyond these narrow limits the
Christians could not go. This was shown by constant robberies and
murders when Christians ventured forth. During this period the Turks
were guilty not only of failure to protect the Christians
effectively, but also of direct massacres under their orders. One
hundred and seventy men thus massacred were buried by the American
missionaries, their bodies lying in heaps where they had been shot
down and stabbed, tied together and led out to be murdered by
Turkish agents. These massacres took place on three different
occasions. Once men were seized by Turkish officers in the French
Mission and sent out from the Turkish headquarters to be killed;
once there were men seized in a village which was under the
protection of Turkish soldiers and had had its safety pledged
repeatedly by the highest Turkish officials; and once there were men
from just over the border in Turkey who had been forced to bring
telegraph wire down to Urmia and were then taken out and killed. In
each of these cases some escaped and crawled out, wounded and
bloody, from the heaps of dead and dying, to find refuge with the
American missionaries. Besides these, the Armenian soldiers in the
Turkish army, previously to the arrival of Halil Bey, were shot. In
Urmia, the total losses of this period, from the evacuation of the
town by the Russians on the 2nd January until their return on the
24th May, were the murder of over one thousand people—men, women and
children; the outraging of hundreds of women and girls of every
age—from eight or nine years to old age; the total robbing of about
five-sixths of the Christian population; and the partial or total
destruction of about the same proportion of their houses. Over two
hundred girls and women were carried off into captivity, to be
forced to embrace Islam and to accept Mohammedan husbands. The
Salmas district suffered quite as much as Urmia, excepting that the
mass of the people fled with the Russian troops, and consequently
the crimes against women were not so numerous. About 800 who
remained in Salmas, most of whom were old people, with some of the
poorer and younger women, were gathered together by Djevdet Bey
before his withdrawal from Salmas and were massacred. This happened
early in March. The Salmas villages were left in much the same
condition as those of Urmia.
The relief work began before the evacuation. Unsettled conditions
had frightened people, and many had brought their goods for safe
keeping to the American missionaries. With the evacuation many more
brought their property, whatever they could save from the general
riot. The protection of those under the American flag and of others
in the city and in Mohammedan homes was accomplished only by the
most constant vigilance during all those months. It was necessary to
feed thousands of the people, and over ten thousand people were fed
for about six months. Many of the girls and women who were taken
captive were found and returned to their homes; information was
secured as to others, which led to their subsequent rescue.
Conditions of life were such that it was impossible to prevent
epidemics, those that carried off the largest number being typhoid
and typhus. Both of these diseases were probably brought by Turkish
soldiers cared for in the American Hospital. The total number who
died of disease during the period of Turkish occupation was not less
than four thousand. Of eighteen adults connected with the American
Mission, thirteen had either typhus or typhoid, and three lost their
lives. The French missionaries suffered just as severely, and were
in greater peril of violence.
To assign guilt and analyse the causes of this terrible loss of life
and property is not an altogether easy task. There is no class of
Mohammedans that can be exempted from blame. The villagers joined in
the looting and shared in the crimes of violence, and Persians of
the higher class acquiesced in the outrages and shared in the
plunder. The Kurds were in their natural element. The Turks not only
gave occasion for all that happened, but were direct participants in
the worst of the crimes. On the other hand, individuals of every
class deserve credit. There were many villagers who showed only
kindness. The Persian Governor made it possible, by his
co-operation, for the American missionaries to do what they did; the
Kurds responded to appeals for mercy and, in some cases, returned
captive girls unsolicited and did other humane service. A few
individual Turkish officers and a number of their soldiers took
strong measures to keep order. One such officer saved the city from
loot when riot had already begun. There were various causes;
jealousy of the greater prosperity of the Christian population was
one, and political animosity, race hatred and religious fanaticism
all had a part. There was also a definite and determined, purpose
and malice in the conduct of Turkish officials. It is certainly safe
to say that a part of this outrage and ruin was directly due to the
Turks, and that none of it would have taken place except for them.
The duty of Americans, and especially the missionaries, is not so
much to apportion the blame as to repair the damages. The task in
Persia is very great, but the opportunities are equally as great.
The number of destitute persons has been increased by the influx of
forty or fifty thousand refugees from Turkey—Nestorians who lived in
the mountain region between Urmia and Van, and who were forced to
flee from their homes by the Turks and Kurds. In outlying districts
the men have been massacred, and those who have survived are mainly
women and children; but from the mountain valleys, where the bulk of
these people live, they were able to escape _en masse_.
28. FIRST EXODUS FROM URMIA, JANUARY, 1915: REPORT DATED 1st MARCH,
1915, FROM THE REVEREND ROBERT M. LABAREE, OF THE AMERICAN
MISSION STATION AT TABRIZ, TO THE HON. F. WILLOUGHBY SMITH, U.S.
CONSUL AT TIFLIS; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
In view of your interest in the welfare of the Persian Christian
refugees here in the Caucasus, and your efforts in their behalf, may
I submit to you a report on their condition as I have seen it in my
journey hither from Tabriz? Commissioned by the American
Presbyterian Mission of West Persia to investigate the affairs of
the many thousands who have fled recently from Persia into Russia in
order to escape the cruel vengeance of the Kurdish border tribes, I
left Tabriz over two weeks ago and have spent the intervening time
visiting the various centres where these refugees are congregated.
It is hard to estimate exactly the number of these refugees from
Persia, for mingled with them are a multitude of fugitives from
Turkey. The total number of all these unfortunates in the district
of Erivan, where most of them have found refuge, was stated by a
good authority to be seventy thousand. The Persian contingent is
pretty consistently estimated at from fifteen to twenty thousand.
The refugees from Turkey are almost entirely Armenian, and are being
taken care of by the wealthy Armenians of this province through
their well organised relief committees. Those from Persia are less
fortunate, for a majority of them are Syrian; and, although the
Armenians have been very generous to them also, they have no
influential friends to speak in their behalf and minister to their
needs. It is also safe to say that the fugitives from the Urmia
plain are the most sadly in need of assistance, for they had no
previous warning of the impending disaster, and most of them have
come out without any preparation whatever for their prolonged
sojourn in a strange land.
I doubt whether the story of that awful flight can ever adequately
be told. Few tales that I have ever heard can compare with it in
heart-rending interest. The whole northern section of the Urmia
plain learned of the departure of the Russian troops about ten
o’clock on the night of Saturday, the 2nd January (1915). By
midnight the terrible exodus had begun, and by morning the Christian
villages of that district were practically deserted. People left
their cattle in the stables and all their household goods in their
homes, just as they were, and hurried away to save their lives. If
anyone possessed a horse or a donkey or any other beast of burden he
was fortunate, and if he happened to have ready cash in his home he
was even more so; but, well-to-do as a man may be, cash is not
always on hand in the villages, and so many who, according to the
standards of the country, were rich, started on their long journey
with a mere pittance, and the vast majority of men and women and
children were on foot. Before the seven days’ hard walking through
the slush and mud to the Russian border was accomplished, all
encumbrances were cast aside, quilts, extra clothing, and even
bread, for it became a question with the poor, tired, struggling
crowd which they would carry—their bedding or their babies. Of
course, very many of the weaker ones never reached Djoulfa at all,
but lay down by the roadside for their last long rest, and those who
did reach the Russian border were so haggard and emaciated that
their own friends did not recognise them. Almost worse than the
weary tramping by day, in the most terrible mud, were the nights in
the villages by the way. Every possible shelter was so crowded that
there was no room whatever to lie down, and the air became so foul
before morning that the occupants were nearly suffocated; and yet
those who could find no shelter and lay out all night in the wet
were even more miserable. As one has heard the same sad story
repeated a score of times with only a difference in details, one has
wondered what human flesh and blood can stand in a great crisis like
this. I should like to give two instances that have come under my
personal knowledge; such stories might be multiplied a thousand
times.
One old man with two daughters-in-law and six grandchildren started
on that fatal night from the village of Karagöz. All were afoot, and
the women carried their little ones by turns, while the old man
stumbled along as best he could, unable to carry any burden. He at
last gave out, lay down by the roadside and died. The two women and
their little charges pressed on for a day or two longer, when one of
them gave birth to a baby, also by the roadside. The mother tore off
her dress, wrapped the baby in the pieces and resumed the weary
tramp. Fortunately for them, the two women found their husbands
waiting for them in Russian Djoulfa; but, alas, in the new
complications arising from the coming of the baby two of the other
children were separated from the party and lost. Two days the
parents waited in Djoulfa, until a wagon-load of little waifs was
brought in by kind-hearted soldiers. They found their two little
ones among the number, but so emaciated by their hardships that they
died shortly afterwards. People dying and children being born by the
way are commonplaces of this journey; but it is not every one that
has had a combination of such misfortunes.
Here, again, is another instance no less sad. The pastor of our Cosi
congregation set out, as others did, in the dark, together with his
wife, married daughter, and five-year-old granddaughter; but he
became separated from them very soon, so that the women were
compelled to make the journey alone. They reached the town of
Nahichevan, in Russian territory, with hundreds of others in a
wholly exhausted condition. All three of them were sick and were
taken to the local hospital, where a few days later the father of
the family found them. But shortly afterwards, when the thousands of
refugees were cleared out of the town and scattered in the villages,
he was forced to leave, and his family have not seen him since. The
daughter and grandchild were dismissed from the hospital, and the
old mother, rather than remain alone, sick as she was, left also.
For five days they stayed with a crowd of others in the railway
station, when they were moved on to another village; and there, the
old woman’s dysentery having become so bad and the little girl
having developed the prevailing scarlet fever, they were taken to
the village hospital. I found them there a couple of weeks later, or
rather the younger woman and her child; the mother had passed away
two hours before I arrived. I buried the dear old woman, in whose
house I have been many times. I gave her a better funeral than most
of the other dying refugees; but it was only a rough coffin with
shavings as a pillow for her poor tired head. And then, with a
little money put into the hand of the daughter and a promise to do
what I could to find her father, I left her, dazed as a woman in a
dream, and came away. The father cannot be found, and I fear that he
has dropped down in some unknown spot and died.
I have wondered time and time again whether this panic-stricken
flight was not some terrible mistake, and whether the people had not
better have stayed at home and cast themselves on the mercies of the
Kurds and their Moslem neighbours; but as the stories of the
sufferings of those who remained behind begin to reach us—stories of
bloodshed and forced apostacy, and of women and girls carried off to
a life worse than death—I have revised my judgment. Even all this
untold misery by the way and in a strange land is better than the
fate of those who remained at home.
But I must pass on to report the conditions as they now exist among
the refugees. In my effort to get the facts, I have had interviews
with the Exarch (the Metropolitan Bishop of Tiflis), the Governor of
the Erivan district, the Armenian Bishops of Tabriz (now in
Nahichevan) and of Erivan, members of the various relief committees
and the village elders, who act as local relief committees, together
with a very large number of the refugees themselves in various
sections of the province. Whatever one may find to criticise in the
administration of relief, one cannot but recognise the tremendous
burden that has descended upon the people of this region and the
serious problems they have had to face. While one cannot say that
there has been an adequate effort to grapple with the difficulties,
yet much has been done. The Government officials have given free
railway transportation to the interior, and they have wisely had the
people scattered among the villages, where they can best be taken
care of. The energetic Armenian committees have taken care of their
own people, and have been unexpectedly generous to the Syrians who
are quartered in their midst. In Tiflis the Syrians themselves have
done much for their own race in that city, and have had an efficient
committee working in conjunction with the municipal relief
committee. But more worthy of praise than any or all of these
together are the humble kind-hearted villagers themselves, who have
carried the heaviest end of the burden, taking in the homeless
wanderers, giving them shelter and even bedding, and furnishing them
with food. Had it not been for this unorganised relief, the misery
would have been many times more intense. In one village, of 50
houses, I found 307 refugees; and in another, of 100 houses, 850
dependents. In the former place all that had been received from
outside sources had been 220 roubles, and in the latter the extent
of outside relief had been about six pounds per head of poor flour.
But the farmers of that section have had a bad year of it, and are
themselves feeling the pinch of poverty; and the burden of all this
multitude of destitute people is getting to be almost intolerable.
At best, too, what has been done by all agencies combined has failed
to save the wretched refugees from their sad plight. With often
twenty of them in one room, sleeping on the grass, destitute of
bedclothing and having unwholesome-looking bread to eat, their lot
is not to be envied. No wonder that after the hardships of the
journey scores and hundreds of them have died, pneumonia and enteric
troubles and scarlet fever having carried off a multitude. The
scarlet fever has been especially virulent, and there was scarcely a
house which I visited where from two to five little ones had not
been carried out to the cemetery. One could hardly hope to save a
man with dysentery on the five kopecks (1¼_d._) a day given for his
support, or with the coarse flour given in other districts. While
one cannot but pity all, yet one’s especial sympathy goes out to
those whom one has seen in their own country living in comfort and,
for this country, even in luxury, yet here, in this strange land,
dependent on the dole of bread given them.
With such conditions I have not dared to do anything in the way of
relief, except to leave here and there small sums for the sick and
for those particularly suffering. As long as I have not found anyone
that has died or is dying from hunger I did not think it justifiable
to expend our little funds in the hopeless task of making men
comfortable. More and more am I persuaded that we must reserve our
efforts to the time when these people begin to return to their
homes. If the way opens for such a return, it must be our first
endeavour to restore them to their villages; for very many of them
have their wheat-fields and vineyards, and if these are not looked
after this spring, the relief problem of the future becomes many
times more serious. But how are these unfortunates to get home? Some
of them had a little money when they came out and some reserve
strength; now both funds and physical force are gone, and after the
hard journey back they will reach homes plundered of everything, and
in many cases burnt. Officials here have declared that there is no
question but that the Government will send them back by rail to
Djoulfa free of charge; but, when they are once in Persia, then all
relief committees save our own cease to act. It is on this basis
that I wish to make my appeal to the American public. In a report
which I subjoin, Dr. Shedd, of our Mission in Urmia, gives us a
picture of the conditions there among those who, to the number of
ten to fifteen thousand, have found shelter in our Mission yards. Up
to the 25th January I learn that he has spent over eight hundred
pounds sterling in their support; and he names £3,000 as the minimum
of what is needed for the people there. He himself considers this an
under-estimate, looking at the problem only from the limited
knowledge he had at his command; and I am sure that it is. Five
thousand for those in Urmia and five thousand for those who have
fled, seems to me a more reasonable estimate. Ten thousand pounds is
a big sum to ask, especially at this time, when so many other
portions of the world are stretching out their hands to our country
for aid; but most of these have many eloquent tongues to voice their
cry, while for this people, that have lived so far away among
fanatical Moslem masters, who is there to speak? I can only hope
that this little story of their sufferings may bring some relief,
even if it is not the sum asked and so much needed. I wish I might
hope that others would help in this work; but the French Mission has
little assistance to give, and the Orthodox Mission, that has made a
big bid for the friendship of this people, seems to have completely
flattened out. I doubt whether anything can be hoped for from that
source, and I am very sure that nothing will be given in a large
unsectarian way. And so it appears to me that we of America are the
only ones that can be relied upon to come to the assistance of this
old historic people, who have now endured the heaviest blow that has
fallen upon them for centuries.
There is one other matter. I have said that we must reserve our help
for the time when these people return home; money given them here,
unless it be in very large sums, can do no good. You, however, have
suggested that £200, given through me to the heads of the Relief
Committees of the Caucasus to be used for these Persian refugees,
might do more than anything else to quicken their own assistance to
this unfortunate people. The reasons you have given for this
judgment have seemed to me strong ones, and I have telegraphed
to-day to our headquarters, stating the facts. If any such funds are
sent, I shall ask you to help me in giving the money in such a
manner as shall produce the best results. In the meantime I wish to
thank you most cordially for all that you have done to assist me in
this good work.
29. AZERBAIJAN, BEHIND THE RUSSIAN FRONT: EXTRACTS FROM A SERIES OF
LETTERS BY THE REV. ROBERT M. LABAREE; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD
OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
=(a) Letter dated Tabriz, 12th March, 1915 (to Mr. Labaree’s
mother).=
Sad news. The Kurds driven back from Khoi massacred 800 Syrian and
Armenian men with cruel torture. This in the plain of Salmas. In
Urmia the largest and wealthiest Syrian village, Gulpashan, which
had been spared by payments of large sums of money, was given over
to plunder by the returning Kurds. The men of the village were all
taken out to the cemetery and killed; the women and girls treated
barbarously. Sixty men were taken out of the French Mission, where
they had taken refuge, and shot. Others have been hanged. The Swiss
teacher of the missionaries’ children has died of typhoid. I have
been asked to go to Urmia, but every way is blocked. Please let Mr.
Speer know facts.
=(b) Letter dated Tabriz, 13th March, 1915 (to Mr. Speer).=
Dr. Shedd’s latest communication speaks for itself and reveals a
terrible condition of things at Urmia. This condition, I fear, has
been rendered even more acute in the two weeks since the letter was
written by the defeat of the Turks and Kurds near Salmas. At that
time all the remaining Christian refugees in Diliman (the chief town
of Salmas) suffered terribly. All the males above twelve years of
age were taken to two neighbouring villages, tortured and shot.
Their number is estimated at 800. The women were to be made Moslems,
but the entrance of the Russians into the town the next day
prevented that. I doubt not but that the retreating Kurds will wish
to do the same thing as they pass through Urmia. One is perfectly
helpless at such a time. The Consuls are acting in concert, but what
can they do? The only salvation seems to be that the Russian army
may advance soon to Urmia, but for military reasons this may be out
of the question.
My own visit to Urmia has been stopped for the present by events.
There is no possible way of my reaching Urmia, unless the Consul
should go and I should accompany him.
=(c) Letter dated Diliman, 19th April, 1915 (to the Presbyterian
Missions Board, New York).=
There seems no more prospect now than when I last wrote of any
measures being taken by the Russian authorities to relieve the Urmia
situation. If any plans are afoot for the occupation of the city
they are not at all in evidence, and I am persuaded that a good many
things must happen elsewhere before the local conditions will be
materially changed.
Recently a Mr. McGowan, a reporter of the Associated Press, fresh
from America, arrived here—all interest over the situation. He was
most anxious to reach Urmia, if any way could be found to get in and
any assurance be given that he could return. We decided upon a
perfectly open policy. With the consent of the Russian officers
here, we secured a messenger and sent him directly to the Turkish
Consul in Urmia, asking for guards and safe conduct, from a point
just beyond the pass to the city, and return. In our letter to the
Consul we enclosed an open letter to Will Shedd, asking his advice
in the matter. Indirectly we hear that our messenger was put under
arrest (lest, I suppose, he should undertake to return), and no
answer has been sent to our request; while, on the other hand,
horsemen were despatched to a midway point to escort into the city
some Persians who had sent a request very much like our own by the
same messenger. It is no use making any more efforts to get inside
this chestnut burr, until through God’s Providence it opens itself.
I am here to render what help I can, and while as yet I have been
able to do nothing, yet perhaps it will be given me later to give
some little assistance to our poor, tired, beleaguered friends in
Urmia. Mr. McGowan has gone back to the Caucasus. It was a pleasure
to get sight of an American face and have a fresh whiff from the
outside world. The news that comes to us from across the Turkish
border is far from pleasant. The many hundreds (and perhaps some
thousands) of Armenians and Syrians in the region of Bashkala have
been massacred. The Armenians and Kurds in and about Van have begun
to fight. In the mountains Mar Shimun is said to have gathered the
independent tribes about him, and they are battling for their lives
against great odds. These are the near-by places. What is going on
inside Turkey, God only knows.
Yesterday I assembled about fifty Armenians from the neighbourhood
of Bashkala in a near-by village for a service. They were all men in
the employment of the Russian army when it withdrew from there
several months ago. They had to come away with the troops, leaving
behind their families and all that they possessed. They feel certain
that their wives and children have been massacred or else taken away
to a captivity worse than death. When one stands before such an
audience, the words that are so easy to speak at other times fail
one. Is there any balm in Gilead for such wounds? Is there any power
to take away from the hearts of these men the sorrow and the
rankling spirit of revenge? May God never put me in a position like
that, or else may he give me more grace than I how possess.
When one knows that three-fourths of the Moslems of this district,
if not nine-tenths of them, were implicated in the plunder of
Christian villages, and that many of them were parties to worse
crimes, it is hard to have the same zest for work among them. But
now that the way to Urmia seems barred for the present, I am
planning to plunge into that work. Just now the Moslems here are so
alarmed lest they suffer for what they have done that they are ready
to listen to almost anything a Christian may say. It is a pity that
in so many cases this willingness has no higher motive.
=(d) Letter dated Tabriz, 6th May, 1915 (to the Presbyterian
Missions Board, New York).=
Just a word to report that I am safe at home. My departure from
Salmas was most sudden and exciting. An overwhelming force of Turks
and Kurds attacked the place, and in the course of manœuvres we were
nearly caught between the two firing-lines. It is not an experience
that often comes to one, nor is it one that one wants repeated. With
hundreds of other refugees, now twice plundered, we made our way to
Djoulfa, and from there I came here.
30. TABRIZ: LETTER DATED TABRIZ, 17th MARCH, 1915, FROM THE REV.
F.N. JESSUP; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
On the 1st November (1914) Turkey declared a “Djihad,” or Holy War,
against the Allies, and it was soon evident that she would try to
stir up other Moslem nations. In December a small force of Turkish
troops crossed into Persia at Soudjboulak, south of Urmia, but we
thought nothing of it, knowing that the Russian forces here would be
able to cope with them. But on the last day of December it became
evident that the Russians were actually about to withdraw from here,
and there was a panic among the Armenians and other native
Christians. Day and night the poor Armenians fled out of the city
towards the Russian border, and out of 750 or more families only
about 250 were left, most of these being the poorest people. From
the first we were beset by people asking to be allowed to take
refuge with us. We had permission to admit those who were connected
with us, and, in addition, had to make arrangements to receive all
the Europeans who might need protection. It was decided that all the
missionaries should come to this compound, where the Memorial School
and men’s dispensary are located. You can imagine the rush and work
of the first days of January—all the school-rooms to be cleared of
everything so as to be ready for the crowds of people so anxious to
get in, people to be interviewed day and night, rules to be made as
to who and what were to be admitted, our own houses to be made ready
for the advent of the missionary families. For example, my house, in
which I had been living alone on Friday, by Saturday night contained
five families, consisting of ten adults and seven children; and
whereas up to that time Dr. Vanneman and I had been having our meals
alone, now in my dining-room all the Americans ate together,
nineteen adults and a number of children! By this time almost all
the Europeans had left the city, including the Consuls of the Allied
Powers; the banks were closed and the Indo-European telegraph office
was shut. The Europeans who were left in the city came to us for
refuge, all except one family of Italians and a few Germans,
Austrians and Turkish subjects who thought they would be safe. But
even these asked to have a place reserved in case of need, for no
one knew what might happen when a horde of undisciplined Kurds
entered the city. Not only this, but a number of prominent
Mohammedans came to ask protection, and very many more left the city
to flee to Teheran, knowing that they might be molested or
blackmailed.
On Tuesday, the 5th January, the Russian troops left the city and
encamped on its outskirts; the next day they started north towards
Djoulfa, and on Friday, the 8th, the Turks and Kurds entered. For
the next three weeks they were in possession of Tabriz. We were cut
off from the outside world, without news of what was occurring
elsewhere, practically shut up in this compound with the four
hundred who had taken refuge with us. We had as our guests Belgians
from the Customs and Finance Departments, French Catholic Sisters
with forty or fifty of their school-children, two German ladies who
had been sick and unable to go with the rest of the German colony, a
Russian lady, and two American Seventh Day Adventist missionaries
from Maragha, but most of the people were Armenian and Nestorian. As
you see, they were of all nationalities and religions, but all lived
together in the greatest goodwill, and things moved with a
remarkable lack of trouble or friction.
We had planned to observe the regular Week of Prayer with nightly
services in our church, but our church had to be abandoned, for
almost every Christian from that quarter of the city had fled, and
no one dared to stir out of doors after dark. But we were given a
greater opportunity. Instead of a week’s services attended by fifty
or sixty people, we had Evangelistic services in the assembly room
of the Memorial School every night for a full four weeks, with a
hundred to a hundred and fifty in attendance, and all listening with
the most earnest attention. And as we had with us refugee families
from Soudjboulak, Maragha and other places, we had a chance to
preach the Gospel to those rarely, if ever, reached by the truth.
Instead of having to seek a congregation, we had it ready within our
gates, and one composed of those whose hearts were softened in the
fact of our common danger and life together.
As the time went on, the blackmail and plundering on the part of the
Kurds grew worse and people became more anxious. It was indeed a
welcome day when the sound of cannon and machine guns was heard to
the north, and it appeared that the Russians were returning to
deliver the city. This they did on the 30th January, and so well had
the campaign been arranged that the fleeing Kurds were cut off from
the city after the battle, and so could not loot or kill on their
retreat, as many had feared they might. And thus in God’s providence
the city was relieved, and we and the many lives entrusted to us
were kept safe from harm during that trying time.
When the roads were once again open and word reached us from other
places, we began to hear of the terrible plight of the Christians of
other places, especially Urmia and Salmas. When suddenly and
unexpectedly the native Christians of those places heard that the
Russian army was immediately to be withdrawn, they knew that their
only safety from the cruelties of the approaching Kurds lay in
flight. Men, women and little children were obliged to start off at
once, in mid-winter, most of them on foot, unable to make
preparation or to carry sufficient food, clothing, or bedding, and
to flee in terror of their lives through snow and deep mud, wading
through streams and toiling over the mountains and across plains
covered with almost impassable mire, till at last they might reach
Djoulfa on the Russian frontier, nearly 150 miles away. The story of
the horror of that flight will probably never be fully told. From
Urmia 17,000 or 18,000 must have fled. When they reached the Salmas
plain, their numbers were swelled by thousands of Armenian
Christians fleeing thence. Men who went through the experience tell
us that the events of those days are indescribable. On the edge of
the Salmas plain multitudes could find no lodging and had to sleep
in the snow. Some children were carried off by wolves, and many more
died before morning. And then the march of those days! Up before
daylight, struggling in the snow and slush and darkness to find and
keep to the road through the mountain passes, hurrying on ever,
knowing that at the end of the day only those who first arrived
could be sure of finding shelter for the next night; parents
becoming separated from each other and from their children in the
darkness or in the mass of hurrying people, unable to find them
again, but hoping that they might meet at the end of the day; people
throwing away the quilts or other necessary bedding they had brought
because physically unable to carry them; the road strewn with
abandoned goods; the weak and sick falling by the wayside, many
never to rise again; men become as beasts in the common struggle
just to live. At night many would arrive long after dark at the
appointed stopping-place only to find every caravanserai and lodging
so full that they would be forced to spend the night out of doors.
Those within fared little better, crowded in so tightly that often
they could neither lie nor sit down, but had to remain standing all
night in rooms with every door and window shut, and the air so foul
that the winter’s cold without seemed preferable. And at such
stopping-places exhausted mothers and fathers were anxiously going
from house to house and group to group, seeking their lost children.
The fugitives have many terrible tales to tell. By the time they had
reached Khoi their plight was desperate, but beyond Khoi their
sufferings were increased by the deep mire through which they had to
struggle. One of our Christian workers from Urmia told me that with
his own eyes he saw a man go up to his mother, who had sunk
exhausted in the mud, and shoot her through the head, rather than
leave her to die by degrees or to be killed by wolves. They tell of
a family who started from Urmia—an aged father and his two married
daughters, each carrying two children, one on her back and the other
in her arms. There, in the mire beyond Khoi, the father could no
longer go on and had to be left, and one of the women gave birth to
a child. She wrapped the new-born babe in a piece of cloth torn from
her dress, and taking it in her arms struggled on, but the other two
children had to be abandoned like their grandfather. On arriving at
Djoulfa these women found their husbands, who had been in Tiflis and
had hurried down to meet the fugitives. There for several anxious
days they waited, hoping for news of the lost children. The fathers
had been away long, and could not be sure of recognizing them, and
the mothers were too exhausted to return. At last some soldiers came
in with a waggon full of lost children whom they had rescued, and
among them were the two little ones. But they had suffered so from
exposure that in a few days they both died. The grandfather had
perished in the mire.
Mr. Labaree, of our station, left for the Caucasus as soon as the
way was open, to find out conditions and see what we could do to
help the poor refugees. There are 70,000 or more reported in those
regions, not only from Persia, but from Turkey and the border. The
Armenians of the Caucasus had organised relief committees, and the
Government was also helping. The average grant was about 2_d._ or
1½_d._ per adult a day. The villagers among whom those thousands of
absolutely destitute strangers were distributed were very kind, but
the burden was very heavy for them. Mr. Labaree said that the poor
fugitives were in a pitiable state. Sickness had followed the
exposure and strain—scarlet fever and other diseases—and in almost
every room he visited he heard of four or five children who had
died.
But the condition of those who did not, or could not, flee from the
Urmia and Salmas plains has been even worse. In Urmia about 12,000
took refuge in the three compounds belonging to our Mission, while
3,000 more were in the French Catholic Mission. Here most of them
have remained since the 1st January, but some have withdrawn to
yards adjoining ours, some have been taken out by force and killed
by the Turks, and many have died. Urmia has been entirely cut off
from us. A few letters and messages they have succeeded in sending
through, and from these we have learned something of their
condition. At the first arrival of the Kurds and Turks, most of the
people remaining in the Christian villages fled to the Mission for
protection. Of those who stayed in the villages, many girls and
women were carried off by the Mohammedans and many men killed. In
those first days of January, about ten thousand were crowded into
our compound at Urmia city. In the church there were three thousand,
so many that they could not lie down to sleep. At the beginning from
ten to twenty-five were dying daily in our city compound, and a
little later the mortality increased to from twenty-five to forty a
day. At first it was not possible to take the bodies out of the
grounds for burial. Later, when they were able to secure some
adjoining yards, conditions became a little better. Dr. Packard,
hearing that a large Christian village was being attacked by the
Kurds, rode out there and, at the risk of his life, made his way to
the Kurdish chiefs and then to the village, and persuaded the Kurds
to spare the lives of the people on condition of their surrendering
their goods. Thus, by his influence with the Kurds, won by many
medical services in the past, he was able to save nearly a thousand
poor people from massacre and conduct them that night to the city.
All these thousands have had to be fed and cared for. It has meant a
daily expenditure of from £50 to £55 sterling for the three tons of
bread distributed each day. Some of the wealthy fugitives to Russia
left money with the Missionaries on their departure, with permission
to borrow it and use it if necessary, and in this way they were able
to get on up to the last reports, for we have been unable in any way
to reach them or send them money. But it is now nearly a month since
we have received authentic news from the Missionaries at Urmia. At
that time they reported the situation as very grave. We have heard
that a Turkish officer and several men entered our Mission grounds
by force, beat Mr. Allen twice because he could not tell them of the
whereabouts of some men they sought, and carried off several men to
kill them. From the Catholic Mission, in the same way, some forty
men were taken and massacred. In a village whose people had from the
first been peaceful and had paid a large sum for protection, 51
(others report 85) men were seized, taken outside and butchered, and
then the soldiers returned to outrage the women and girls, not even
little children being spared.
For three weeks Mr. Labaree has been in Salmas, hoping that a
Russian expeditionary force might be sent to rescue the Urmia
Christians and that he might be able to go over to help the
Missionaries, who must be greatly worn by the strain and by their
work. But as yet he has neither been able to go nor to send or
receive any word, nor are there any signs of a rescue.
This is the most awful calamity which has befallen the Nestorian
people in the ninety years of our mission work among them. About
1,000 had been killed and 2,000 had died of disease or fear up to
the middle of March, just in Urmia itself, and the Nestorians here
estimate that perhaps as many more died on the flight to Russia or
have died since. This would mean a fifth or a sixth of the 30,000
Nestorians who live on the Urmia plain. Their prosperous villages
have all been pillaged and most of them burned, and their churches
destroyed. Of the survivors, half are refugees in great want in the
Caucasus, the rest remain in Urmia in conditions of peril and fear
and need which wring one’s heart. Already over £4,000 sterling must
have been spent by the Missionaries in Urmia to preserve the lives
of those taking refuge with them. As soon as it becomes in the least
safe, they must be helped to return to their ruined homes and
villages to make a fresh start. Two months ago Mr. Labaree appealed
to America for at least £10,000 sterling as the smallest sum
required, and as time goes on it becomes evident that more will be
needed. Thus far about £2,400 has been received from the American
Red Cross and our Board, £30 from our missionaries in Hamadan, and
£20 from the English missionaries at Ispahan. Of course we here are
trying to help too. These poor distressed Nestorians are the
especial charge of our American Presbyterian Church, which has
laboured so many years for their good, and there is little hope of
help for them in this hour when so many nations are in trouble,
except in so far as _we_ help them.
And it is not only the Christians of Urmia that are in great need.
Those of the village of Miandoab (Armenians, these), have similarly
lost everything. The Kurds still occupy their town, and they are
refugees in Maragha and Tabriz. At Maragha the Armenians have
suffered greatly, for most of them had to flee, and now they have
the burden of all the refugees from Miandoab and other villages. And
in Salmas it is worse. All the Christian villages on that plain have
been smoked. Most of the Christians fled when the army withdrew in
January, but some remained behind and these sought the protection of
their Moslem neighbours. But a few days before the return of the
Russian army to Salmas, when the Turks saw that they would be
compelled to flee, they secured the names of all Christians by a
ruse, pretending that all who registered would be protected. Then
they gathered all the men into one place and carried them out in
companies of about twenty-five, each to be shot down in cold blood.
Others were tied with their heads sticking through the rungs of a
ladder and decapitated, others hacked to pieces or mutilated before
death. In this way practically every Christian man remaining in
Salmas was massacred. You can imagine the fate of girls and women.
The most detailed report received, signed by a number of men now on
the ground, stated that from 712 to 720 men were thus killed in
Salmas.
31. URMIA DURING THE TURCO-KURDISH OCCUPATION: DIARY OF A
MISSIONARY, EDITED BY MISS MARY SCHAUFFLER PLATT, AND PUBLISHED
BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN
THE U.S.A.
_Urmia, Persia, Saturday, 9th January, 1915._
I want to start a letter telling you of the events of the last week,
though I cannot tell when it will reach you. As you know, the
Russians had taken possession of this part of Persia, and were
maintaining order here, so that for the last year conditions were
more orderly, peaceful and prosperous than for long years before.
They had a consul here who was very capable, and tried to do justice
to all.
When war was declared between Russia and Turkey, we knew that this
meant war for Urmia, for we are right on the Turkish border, and
only a few years ago Turkey tried to get this section for herself,
but failed. We were told by the Russians in authority here that they
would hold Urmia against all odds, so the city was fortified by
trenches and defences on every side, and several thousand
reinforcements came.
On New Year’s Day, according to our custom, we received our friends.
As many as a hundred and forty of our Moslem and Christian friends,
men and women, called “to bless our New Year.” On Saturday, the 2nd,
like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, we were informed that the whole
Russian army was withdrawing; some had gone in the night, the rest
would leave immediately. There was a panic at once among the
Christian (Syrian and Armenian) population.[46] The Osmanlis, or
Turks and Kurds, were but a few miles away, and the Christians were
absolutely defenceless.
At once, as soon as the Russians had gone, with large numbers of
Syrians and Armenians leaving at the same time, the evil-minded
Moslems all over the plain began to plunder the Christian villages.
When the people were trying to flee to the missionaries in the city,
they were robbed on the roads of everything they had, even of their
outer clothing. In some of the villages the Moslem masters placed
guards to prevent the people from going themselves or bringing their
possessions to the city, saying they would protect them. When they
tried to get away, these same guards robbed and stripped them.
The crowds had begun to pour in at our gates on Sunday; the city
people were taken in by night and many others from near by. On
Sunday morning we put up the American flags over the entrances. On
Monday morning Dr. Packard, with American and Turkish flags,
accompanied by two Syrians, started out to meet the leading Kurdish
chief. He arrived at Geogtapa in time to prevent a terrible
massacre. The people of Geogtapa who had not fled to the city had
gone to our church and the Russian church, both of which are
situated on a high hill formed of ashes, a relic of Zoroastrian
times. The churchyards are enclosed by high mud walls. All finally
went to the Russian church, which was on the highest ground. They
barricaded the strong doors, and, when the Kurds attacked, the men
defended the fort with their guns and the women crowded like sheep
into the church. When Dr. Packard arrived, a lively battle was going
on, with little chance for the Christians. He had great difficulty
in getting to the chiefs without being shot; but he finally reached
them, and they knew him. Some of these Kurds had spent weeks in our
hospital and had been operated upon by Dr. Packard, so they listened
to him while he pleaded for the lives of the people inside. After
several hours’ entreaty, they agreed to let the people go with him
if they would give up their guns and ammunition.
I was talking yesterday with Layah, our Bible Woman, who was inside
the church. She said that when Dr. Packard first tried to signal to
them, they did not know him and kept on firing, but when they
recognized him a shout went up: “It’s the Hakim Sahib! Thank God! We
are saved!” I asked her what the Kurds did when they came out, and
she said they stood by and helped them, saying: “Come on! Come on!
Don’t be afraid!” In the rush, Layah fell and broke her arm, and is
now lying on Miss Lamme’s sofa resting.
All Monday the refugees had been coming in, until it seemed that
every room and storeroom was full, many of the rooms not lying-down
full but sitting-up full. But that night, when Dr. Packard came, he
brought over fifteen hundred more with him, and they had to be
stowed away. This is Saturday, the sixth day these thousands have
been here in our yards, not less than ten thousand—perhaps twelve or
fourteen thousand. We have taken several small yards and houses
adjoining ours, and the English Mission yard adjoining the seminary
yard is also full. Of course, the two Englishmen of the English
Mission had to leave with the Russian army, and with them a large
number of prominent Syrians who had been sympathizers with Russia.
Here in the city there has been plundering and some destruction of
property, but no general disorder—unless it be in the Armenian
quarter. The fine brick quarters which were built as barracks for
the Russian army I understand have remained intact, because the
invaders are afraid to go near them for fear they may be mined.
From the first the Sheikh promised protection to us and our people,
and when the Osmanli officers came they immediately took possession
of the city, and have tried to keep order and prevent plundering by
Moslems. The other day a Moslem, terribly wounded by a Turkish guard
while robbing, was brought here for treatment. This is an
illustration of our position: Here is a Mussulman thief, plundering
Christians, shot by the Osmanli guard, and then brought to us by his
friends that we might care for him.
Although we were promised safety for all within our gates there is
no certainty. On Wednesday morning I lay in bed a little longer than
usual, and about half-past seven suddenly an awful cry of fear and
despair went up from thousands of throats, and the crowds rushed
toward the church, then swayed back, not knowing whither to fly.
From the church, where human beings are packed in like sardines,
they began jumping from the windows. My first thought was that the
Kurds had broken in through our back gate, which opens into the
Moslem quarter, and that the massacre was about to begin; but the
poor, terrified people soon quieted, and before I could get dressed
I knew it must have been a false alarm. The poor, hunted creatures
think that if they can only hold to the skirts of a missionary they
will be safe.
On Thursday, Hannah, the wife of one of our pastors, reached us
after great suffering and exposure. They lived in Nazi, and heard
the report that the Russians were leaving. They couldn’t believe it,
but on Sunday afternoon Kurds from the west came and began
plundering. The people all fled to a walled village, because they
thought they might be safer there and because our preacher there,
Kasha Oner (Preacher Abner), had many friends among the Kurds, being
a mountaineer. On Monday, a Kurd visited them, pretending that he
had been sent by the Turks from the city, telling them they need
have no fear, as they would be protected; but it became evident that
he was a spy. Afterwards a band of Kurds came, demanded the guns,
and drank tea with the people; then others came and they began
robbing and killing. The people gathered together like a flock of
frightened sheep, and many were slaughtered. The greater part of
them got through the great gateway while the Kurds were plundering,
and that night they spent in the mountains without food or shelter
and with very little covering. One of our girls, Katie, who had gone
home on Friday for her Christmas vacation, was among them. She saw
her mother murdered and had to leave her body lying by the gate as
they ran. The next morning more than four hundred of them started
towards the city, cold, hungry, exhausted; many, having lost their
shoes in their flight, had frozen and bleeding feet. Hannah came
here, her feet were dressed, and she is lying comfortably on a
mattress on Miss Lamme’s floor. Her husband and daughter were
already here. The rest of the party were taken in at our College
compound, two miles west of the city.
The pitiful tales we hear of murder, of narrow escape through snow
and mud, hungry, sick and cold, are numberless.
_Monday, 11th January, 1915._
Several families from Degala are camped in our parlour, and the
night before last Victoria, one of the women, came to me and said an
old woman had just come in who didn’t seem able to answer anything
she asked her. I found her crouched in a corner of the hall. She
said she was so cold. At first she couldn’t eat, but after drinking
some tea she improved. We had absolutely no place but a stone floor
for her; but we took up a carpet from my bedroom, rolled her up in
it in the upper hallway, and she went to sleep. She was the
janitress of our church in Barbaroud, fifteen miles to the south.
The Kurds did their worst there several days ago, and she had
escaped, barefooted, almost naked, and without food. She died a day
or two later.
One poor woman, who had both husband and son killed, has gone crazy,
and we haven’t any place to put her but a dark closet under the
stairway. At midnight I was awakened by her pounding on the door.
She has a nursing baby. Thank God, to-day they took her to the
hospital, where they can care for her a little better than here.
(She died two days later.) At the College compound, where the
hospital is, they have only about two thousand, and we have perhaps
twelve thousand, and every day more are coming. Those who have been
hiding with Moslem friends are coming to us day by day, and we
haven’t any place to put them. We have not been able to take the
dead from our yards, so we are burying them in the little yard by
the side of the church—twenty-seven so far. Some die every day, and
there is no shroud or coffin for them.
_Evening._
We have just had a Praise Meeting in the parlour with fifty or sixty
who could gather from the halls and rooms near, and we feel more
cheerful. We thought if Paul and Silas, with their stripes, could
sing praises in prison, so could we.
_Wednesday, 13th January._
Since Monday, the 4th, we have been giving out bread. In the morning
we sell to those who have money, and in the afternoon give free
bread to those who cannot buy, disposing of over four tons of bread
a day. Practically all the refugees from the city have their own
food, and some from the villages, too. We buy our bread from the
bazaar (market), and a very efficient and willing young Syrian has
been attending to the weighing and giving out, while groups of other
young men have been selling and distributing. The only things we
have had for carrying the bread are our clothes-baskets and old tin
bath-tubs, and they are doing good service. We have received some
gifts of food for the refugees from Moslems. One man gave over six
hundred pounds of meat, which we cooked and gave out in one section,
but it is very difficult to distribute anything except bread among
so large a number. I am speaking only of what we are doing here in
this compound, where by far the larger number of refugees are. They
are doing similar work in Sardari (the Boys’-School premises) and at
the College compound. Mr. McDowell is looking after sanitary
conditions and the streams of water flowing through the yards, which
furnish the only drinking water for the crowds, and conditions are
much improved.
There are hundreds of mountaineers who have no place to go to.
Before this affair they were distributed among the villages, and we
had established a number of schools especially for them. These
people had been driven from their homes by the Kurds early in the
autumn. Many of them seem little better than animals—dirty, lazy,
satisfied with any hole to lie in and just enough bread to keep
their stomachs comfortable. Of course, they are not all of this
sort, but we have several hundred that are. They are chiefly crowded
into the church and our large school-room. The people who are
suffering most are those who have been accustomed to the comforts
and decencies of life, who are crowded together like cattle, without
sufficient clothing or food.
The day after the flight from Geogtapa we went with a basket of
bread to one of the larger rooms of the Press, which was filled with
self-respecting people who had the day before been in comfortable
circumstances, but who had fled with nothing, or had been robbed of
whatever they had tried to bring with them. When they saw the bread
for distribution, they began to cry and cover their faces, and we
had to drop the bread into their laps—they didn’t reach out for it.
Of course, we assured them that under such circumstances, it was no
shame to eat the bread of charity.
When the people began to flee, they wanted to deposit their money
with us, and our Treasurer accepted it on condition that we could
use it without interest and repay it when normal conditions are
restored. It is with this money that we have been enabled to buy
bread and save these people from starvation.
Children are being born every day. We have managed to give two small
rooms to these women, many of whom haven’t even a quilt. Children
were born even in the crowded church. One of the women who was
reporting these cases complained in a very aggrieved tone that some
were “even bringing two,” as if one wasn’t enough to satisfy anybody
under existing circumstances.
This is the first day that we have been able to get donkeys to haul
away the refuse. I hope we shall soon be able to take the dead to
the cemetery.
_Thursday, 14th January._
Mr. Allen returned last evening from his journey to the villages of
the Nazlu river. Several thousand fled towards Russia; many have
hidden with Moslems, who are now trying to force them to become
Mohammedans and to give their girls in marriage to Moslems. In Ada
perhaps as many as a hundred were killed, most of them young men. It
is told that they were stood up in line, one behind another, by the
Kurds, to see how many one bullet would kill. I went down to see the
woman in the room under mine who had received word of the killing of
her brother in Karadjalu. Everywhere there is wailing and sadness,
and her lamentation for her dead brother is the wail of thousands of
hearts:—
“Oh, Yeremia (Jeremiah), my brother!
The pillar of our house; a father to us all, ah, Yeremia, Yeremia!
Thou didst comfort us all! A giant in body and giant in spirit.
Oh, Yeremia, my brother, oh, my brother, Yeremia, my heart is broken
for thee!
My brother! Oh, my brother, thy house is left desolate; thy little
ones orphans.
Oh, Yeremia, Yeremia! thou wert a righteous man, merciful to the
poor!”
_Saturday, 16th January._
Yesterday some Abijalu people were in, asking for bread, although a
week ago they were among the well-to-do. The same story of robbery,
exposure and horror. When a Kurd tried to carry off Shamasha Sayad’s
daughter, she jumped into the well and stayed there for hours in
water up to her chin. Some one said a few days ago, “Blessed are the
dead,” and I echoed the sentiment.
_Monday, 18th January._
In the midst of panic, distress and death, we have had two weddings.
Both had been arranged to take place on the Syrian New Year, the
14th January. Dr. Shedd performed the ceremony in both cases. Both
brides had their trousseaux ready, but felt these were not proper
times for the display of finery, so wore ordinary dresses.
These last few days a number of the city families have returned in
fear and trembling to their homes, taking just a very few things
with them. This is relieving the overcrowded rooms somewhat, and
Miss Schoebel this afternoon is trying to drive the people out into
the sunshine long enough to have the rooms swept—or, rather,
shovelled. It consumes all one’s energies to try to get anyone to do
anything. All the responsibility and much of the actual labour has
devolved upon the missionaries. Of course, many of our best men fled
to Russia, and among those who are left there are few leaders. There
are some notable exceptions, though, both here and at the
College—_e.g._, Jacob David, who without missionary assistance has
charge of eight hundred and fifty refugees and is doing finely.
Another, a young shopkeeper, has had charge of the weighing and
distribution of bread, with much of the buying, from the beginning.
He has done the work with surprising efficiency and self-devotion.
Bands of young men have been ready, day after day, for distributing
bread. The nights have been divided into three watches, and groups
of men have taken their turns in acting as watchmen. Mr. Nisan, who
has charge of the English Mission yard, one night found the watchmen
asleep, so the next day they were tied to trees, and a placard
placed over them with the inscription: “Unfaithful Watchmen,” as a
warning to others. Guarding the streams is a very necessary and a
very difficult task. Mr. McDowell finds it extremely hard to get
anyone among the hundreds of Syrians here who can be trusted to
oversee such work, or who can be kept on a job longer than an hour
or so at a time.
We are urging some now to return to their homes. Many are so afraid,
and we cannot give them assurance of safety. Some Kurds have gone,
but many are still about. The people come to the individual
missionaries and beg for just one small room for their families,
each one with his own special plea. When we tell them the greatest
danger for them just now is to remain crowded in such narrow bounds,
it makes little or no appeal to them. They are nine-tenths fatalists
any way, and think that it all depends upon the “will of Allah.”
They say: “Let us die by the hand of God and not of the Kurds.”
We have been having unusually fine weather; only two bad days, and
they were not cold. A Mohammedan was heard to say: “Do you see how
God loves these Christians? Who ever saw such weather in the middle
of winter?”
Dr. Shedd is the representative of our station before the
Government; he and Dr.Packard have had that end of the work, daily
pleading before Persian and Osmanli authorities for the Christian
population. It was told us that a prominent Moslem had said: “Dr.
Shedd is the best Christian in the city! Just see how he comes every
day through the deep mud to plead for those people!”
_Wednesday, 20th January._
A few people from the city went to their homes, and our hopes began
to rise; but yesterday and to-day others came in from the Nazlu
river and from Tchargousha. Thirty-six dead were carried to the
trench in Mart Maryam[47] (St. Mary) churchyard yesterday; the
larger part of them were children.
Lucy, daughter of Kasha (preacher) David of Ardishai, came in
yesterday with her baby from Gulpashan, where they had been refugees
for some time, living in terror of Kurds by day and night. They also
feared the Moslem neighbours and the Turkish guards sent in to
protect the village. Her own village was Tchargousha. In terror the
people fled to the roofs as the village was surrounded by Kurds, and
there was no avenue of escape. The Kurds came up on to the roofs and
commanded the people to go down. Lucy, with one Kurd below her on
the ladder and two above her, her baby on her back, got down. In the
yard she saw her younger sister, Sherin, a pretty girl of about
fifteen, being dragged away by a Kurd. She was imploring Lucy to
save her, but Lucy was helpless. When she was telling me this with
tears and sobs, she said: “Every night, when I try to sleep, I hear
her entreaties, ‘Oh, Lucy, I’ll be your sacrifice, Save me, Lucy!’ I
called to her, ‘Pull your head-kerchief over your face; don’t look
into their faces.’ She tried to conceal her face, and daubed it with
mud, but she has such beautiful dark eyes and rosy cheeks! The Kurds
grabbed the young women and girls, peering into their faces, till
each one found a pretty one for himself, then dragged her away. If
they had only killed my sister we could say, ‘She is dead, like many
another—it is finished’; but that she should be in the hands of a
Kurd—we cannot bear it!” Some of these captives have been recovered,
but there is no word of Sherin.
_Saturday, 23rd January._
Yesterday we counted three thousand three hundred in the church, and
many have gone out, so there must have been four thousand people
there these last two weeks. Is it any wonder that children are dying
by the score? Morning and afternoon there are burials; at other
times the bodies are collected and laid in a room near the gate.
To-day Mr. McDowell succeeded after long efforts in getting a cart
for scavenger work. It came but one day. We have not been able to
get even donkeys, except five or six. The scavengers would not come
into the yards of Christians for such work, even though Mr. McDowell
offered to pay well. We cannot open our back windows, the stench is
too dreadful. I suppose the mere mention of such things is quite
shocking even to read; but we have been living in such surroundings
for nearly three weeks, and see only a little light ahead. We are
hoping we can distribute some of the mountain refugees in empty
houses here in Mart Maryam and the Christian quarter.
Many Moslems who pretended to accept food and goods of Christians
for safe keeping, are now claiming them as their own. One of our
preachers, after having been plundered of practically everything by
his Moslem neighbours, was received as a refugee into one of their
houses and was fed from his own dishes, of his own food, and put to
sleep in his own bed.
Dr. Packard has been gone for several days to the Nazlu villages, to
gather together the remnants of the people scattered in Moslem
villages, or in hiding, and to see if it be possible to put them
into a few of their own places again. Most of the Kurds have left,
but the Syrians are unarmed, and, just as from the beginning, their
Moslem neighbours are their greatest enemies. If it isn’t a Djihad
(Holy War), it is very near it. It must have been planned
beforehand, for there has been concerted action from one end of the
plain to the other, though here and there some Moslems have been
friendly throughout, have done many kindly deeds and saved many
lives.
_Later._
Just at this joint we had an interesting diversion. A band of
Turkish soldiers came into our yard and said they wanted to search
our premises for wounded Russian soldiers. They searched the houses
of the Allens, the Müllers, and our house; then the schools and all
outside buildings and storehouses, even to the smallest closets. You
might have thought they were searching for a lost hair from Osman’s
beard! I have an idea they thought we were concealing arms or
ammunition, though ten days ago we collected all we could find
anywhere among the people, and gave them up to the Osmanli
commander. As we had nothing hidden, of course we had nothing to
fear, though some of the people were scared.
A dozen times a day I pray: “Oh, Lord, how long?” All the first days
it seemed as if it must be a horrible dream from which I would
awake; but it has become a three weeks’ reality, with little hope of
a near dawning. It looks as if our long night might stretch out till
the dawn of peace in Europe. And for these things who shall answer,
if not the Powers of Europe?
We have read that America has done so much for the sufferers in
Europe; surely they will not be too poor to help this little corner
of misery, with its twenty-five or thirty thousand sufferers, and
with absolutely no one on earth to look to but the American Mission!
For months we have not been permitted to write of conditions here,
and now we are entirely shut off from the world, even from Tabriz.
Anything we write “must be in French, just to say we are well.” Our
last word from Tabriz, the nearest mission station and residence of
the American Consul, was written on the 31st December, and this is
the 23rd January.
_Sunday, 24th January._
The fourth Sunday, but no Sabbath. To-day nearly all the people were
taken out of the church and distributed among the empty houses near
the Russian Mission and in the old church. I went with some of the
young men who are helping with the distribution of the bread to
count the people in each place. In one house there were two hundred
and fifty; these are all mountaineers. We give to each one sheet or
loaf of bread per day; about ten ounces. Not very extravagant
feeding, you see!
_Tuesday, 26th January._
On Sunday a Jew brought us word from Usknuk that Kasha David’s
daughter, Sherin, is there in the house of a Kurd, and that every
effort is being made by gifts, persuasion and threats, to make her
turn Mohammedan, but that she always answers “You may kill me, but I
will never deny my faith.” We are making plans to try to get her
back. Dr. Packard reported on his return from the Nazlu villages
that in one place practically the whole population has become Moslem
and have given up their church to be a mosque, while some even
cursed their former faith. But, of course, such people never had any
religion, and changing the name of it is a matter of convenience.
_Wednesday, 27th January._
Miss Lamme and I went to-day to the Jewish quarters to look up
Syrian refugees there. We found them in large numbers in the Jewish
houses, where they had been kept and in some cases fed. Yesterday
the French Mission sent away from their yards two hundred and fifty
or more persons, who first went to the Governor. He telephoned to
Dr. Shedd, and we had to receive them. They were put into Dr.
Israel’s house in Dilgusha, outside the city walls. All the houses
there have been completely plundered; many have been robbed of doors
and windows. No one thinks of returning to homes there, but a great
many have returned to Mart Maryam.
_Later._
Everywhere about the yards people are basking in the wonderful
sunshine, which is more like April than January. The common sight
everywhere is the everlasting hunt for vermin, friends and
neighbours graciously assisting one another. I suppose it is a
vulgar subject to mention, but “we’ve got ’em,” and must go on
living in hourly contact with thousands of others who swarm with
them.
_Friday, 5th February._
We can’t complain of the monotony of life, for we never know what
will happen next. On Tuesday morning I had a wedding in my room
here. The boy and girl were simple villagers. He had gone to Russia
and brought back a little money, with some foreign clothes. Then his
folks began to look round for a wife for him. He was betrothed
several months ago to Anna of Ardishai, and, according to custom,
gave her the money to buy her trousseau. For several weeks she had
been sewing, until at last the wonderful silk dress, white silk
head-kerchief, veil and all the necessaries, were ready. The wedding
was fixed for the Syrian New Year; but—the Kurds came and carried
off wedding clothes and everything else in the house. They all fled
here, and were married in the old, dirty garments they were wearing
when they ran for their lives, for this was a month ago. In the
flight the bride’s mother was lost, probably killed, as nothing has
been heard of her since. Their only present was a little tea and
sugar that I tied up in a kerchief and gave to the bride, that they
might invite a few friends to drink tea instead of eating the dinner
they had intended giving.
There are a great many people who have been accustomed to good
living heretofore, but for months have had no cooked food, so I
invited a number of these to dinner on Wednesday. We had a meat
stew, bread, cheese, pickles and tea, all they could eat. There were
thirty-five for dinner, and twenty for supper. There was enough left
over to feed fifty or more poor and sick ones outside. The whole
thing cost about four dollars and fed a hundred people. We spread
long cloths on the parlour floor and ate with wooden spoons from
enamel plates borrowed for the occasion from the school. The matron
and school-girls did the cooking and serving.
But for our next-door neighbours the scene quickly changed again
from weddings and dinners to one of terror and flight by night. The
house of Dr. —— adjoins ours, and the roofs are continuous. For
several days there had been rumours that their house would be
plundered by the Turkish authorities, and they had not dared to
undress and go to bed in peace, but on Wednesday they felt more safe
and went to bed early. I myself had gone to bed, but not to sleep.
Just before eleven o’clock I heard loud knocking on their gate, and
then a rapid trampling of feet on the roof over my room. Pretty soon
there was quite a commotion in our front yard. I jumped up, and saw
in the yard a dozen or more Turkish soldiers, who entered through
our front door and went up to the roof through our halls. I dressed
as quickly as I could and went to Miss Coan’s room on the roof, to
find that some of the women from Dr. ——’s family were already there.
In a few minutes the rest of the women and children from there
climbed the wall or slid from the roof on to our balcony, and I let
them in through the window into our parlour. They were crying and
frightened nearly to death, but kept quiet. The Turks searched the
house, but took nothing, saying they had come to take evil men, not
things. They came back through our house again. The orders have been
in our yard that the gate should never be opened at night but by one
of the gentlemen; so, when they first knocked, the guard came and
called Mr. Allen. He let them in and went with them to Dr. ——’s
house. In the meantime, a Syrian had aroused Mr. Müller, and when he
tried to get out of his front door he found a Turk guarding it. He
tried to push out, saying that he was the master of the house, but
the Turk struck him and refused to let him pass. When the gang
returned from our neighbours’, they insisted on searching Mr.
Müller’s house, even going into the bedroom where Mrs. Müller was in
bed and Ruth was sick. Meanwhile a second band came and pounded on
our gate, but our guards had run away, and finally one of the men
climbed a telephone pole to the roof, got down inside and opened the
gate. The officer tied up the Persian guards as a punishment for not
opening the gate. Afterwards they went into the Allen house and even
asked to have the piano played. It is maddening to have our premises
and houses invaded in this way, and by such a lot, but we are
helpless, and, for the sake of what we may be able to do for the
safety of the people, our gentlemen have to smile and try to turn
away their wrath with soft words, even though they are threatened
and called liars by the representatives of the invading Government.
I don’t believe the Mission in the seventy-five years and more of
its existence has ever been placed in so difficult and humiliating a
position.
Still the ghastly procession of the dead marches on. Between seven
and eight hundred have died so far. A great many are able to get
plain wooden coffins for their dead now, but the great mass are just
dropped into the great trench of rotting humanity. As I stand at my
window in the morning I see one after another of the little bodies
carried by, wrapped mostly in a ragged piece of patch-work; and the
condition of the living is more pitiful than that of the
dead—hungry, ragged, dirty, sick, cold, wet, swarming with
vermin—thousands of them! Not for all the wealth of all the rulers
of Europe would I bear for one hour their responsibility for the
suffering and misery of this one little corner of the world alone. A
helpless, unarmed Christian community turned over to the sword and
the passion of Islam!
This morning my attention was called to a girl of twelve, who was
too sick to be kept any longer in a room with other people. A young
Syrian woman, who was helping with the sick, wanted to put her into
that closet under the stairway from which none ever come out alive.
I said: “She will die in there.” She replied: “Of course she will
die, but we shall have to find a place for her until she does.” We
put her there temporarily until we found a small room where there
were only _twenty_. These we distributed among other crowded rooms,
brought Marganeta there, laid her on some matting and covered her
with an old carpet. Poor child, she has a sweet face, but life has
treated her cruelly.
Dysentery has been bad for a long time, and when the sick get
helpless and their condition offensive, it is almost impossible to
get anyone to care for them unless they have near relatives.
Dysentery and measles have both been epidemic for a long time, and
nearly all deaths are directly due to one or both of these diseases.
We had a real respectable funeral in the front yard this afternoon.
A good old woman from Degala died, and her pastor had a service for
her. This is only the second real funeral service I have seen,
though a preacher is always present at the two burials daily, and
conducts a service at the cemetery.
_Friday, 12th February._
To-day we have begun a new method of giving out bread. We have
printed forms, which we fill in and ask the heads of families to
sign, promising to pay us later for the bread. All day thousands
have been crowding the big tent in the yard, where a number of young
men have been filling in and giving out these tickets for bread. The
problem is a big one. Undoubtedly some could find bread who are
taking it free, but we cannot decide most of the cases. Then we are
spending thousands of borrowed money, and as yet no response to our
cablegram sent long ago to America! The numbers asking for bread are
increasing daily, but if we should refuse it, hundreds would die of
starvation.
Again the yards are wet and muddy from melting snow. The last two
days have been very hard for the thousands without fuel and with
very little clothing. One of the verses that helps to keep my faith
steady these days is: “He that spared not His own Son.”
The death-rate has been considerably reduced; for two weeks or more
it averaged over thirty a day.
Mr. Allen is off on a tour to the villages of the upper Nazlu river,
to see what is left there, and to give help or encouragement to
anyone who may be left. A while ago when Mr. Allen visited the
villages on the Baranduz, one of our Bible Women told him of a
certain spot she wished him to visit. She lived in Kurtapa, and as
she was about to flee with a bag containing nine tomans[48] of
money, the robbers appeared at the door. She quickly threw the bag
down beside a broken earthen tub and the thieves did not see it. Mr.
Allen went to that village, found the room and the broken tub with
the bag of money beside it, and brought the money to its owner.
Last week, the Shahbanda, or Turkish Consul, who is now the chief
authority, demanded six thousand tomans of the Syrians. With great
trouble this was partly collected and partly borrowed by the help of
the Sirdar (Persian Governor), who demanded six hundred more for his
share. The Shahbanda promised that, if this were given, the shops
and houses of the Syrians in the city would not be disturbed. It
remains to be seen how much his word is worth.
To-morrow completes six weeks of this siege and semi-siege
condition. We keep on praying, but see no signs of deliverance. We
are shut off from the world, and thousands are held in this bondage
by a few hundred Osmanli troops and a few wandering Kurds. I realize
now that Persia is dead—or worse; she has no manhood nor moral
character left.
_Wednesday, 17th February._
A few days ago the Turkish Consul arrested all the men at the French
Mission. After some examination, a hundred were sent away, leaving
about sixty-three at the Consulate. A gallows with seven nooses was
erected at the “Kurdish Gate” of the city, the one near us, and on
Sunday the ropes were put in place. The people here on Sunday were
very badly scared. The women of the men under arrest came and wept
and besought Dr. Shedd to do something, but he could do nothing.
That evening the people gathered in the church for prayer, and
continued praying until midnight. Each night since similar meetings
have been held. As yet no one has been hanged, but the Turkish
Consul is demanding money for their release. The second day after
the arrest of these people, a Turkish soldier was sent to us to ask
us to send bread for the prisoners, and we have been feeding them
ever since. When their women-folk went to see them they were charged
two krans (ninepence) admission. It has been reported that the
prisoners have been tortured in various ways known to the Turks, in
order to extort money from their families.
The Turkish Consul has demanded the ten thousand tomans of English
bank money committed to us when the bankers fled. The matter has
been referred to our Consul in Tabriz. If it should have to be
surrendered, we should be in straits, for that is all we have to buy
bread with for these thousands of hungry people. Weeks ago we
appealed to America, both to the Red Cross and to our Board, but
there is no reply.
It was reported to me that there were refugees here who had stores
of flour, meat, butter, etc., and yet were taking bread from us, so
yesterday I made an investigation and found small quantities; but if
the whole were sold, it would not amount to twenty dollars, and the
owners would be reduced to nothing but dry bread, and, though this
might do for a limited time, they cannot “live by bread alone” week
after week. Undoubtedly this terrible epidemic of dysentery which
has carried off hundreds is due largely to lack of proper food and
want of variety of food. As I made the rounds of our own yards
yesterday and visited the people herded together in one of the dark
storerooms of our Persian Girls’-School, it seemed to me that their
condition of cold, hunger, filth and sickness was about as miserable
as they could get in this world. One great difference that was
apparent in all the rooms was the absence of small children,
hundreds having died during these last months.
The evangelistic work is now well organized, and everywhere there
are at least daily meetings for everyone. The women workers under
Miss Lamme visit outside places. Mrs. McDowell, with native women,
also visits outside places where there are large numbers of refugees
herded together. Mr. McDowell tries to keep the preachers at work,
too.
Last week a group of one hundred and fifty or more mountaineers who
are staying at Sengar, two or three miles from the city came down
with one of Kurdu’s men, asking us to feed them They said that
heretofore they had been provided for by Kurdu, a Kurdish chief, for
whom they had been working, carrying away for him the plunder he had
collected here, and that now he was leaving and we must feed them.
We put them off several times, but finally accepted the additional
burden. Every one who gets tired of his job of charity or
responsibility throws it upon us. There seems no end, and this is
the seventh week.
_Thursday, 18th February._
Yesterday afternoon I went out to the College compound for the first
time since Christmas. We had to drive under the gallows at the city
gate. It creates rather unpleasant feelings to think that perhaps
some of our friends may be suspended there.
Our Mission is being treated with more consideration than at first,
and we are hoping that perhaps the Turkish Consul has heard from
Constantinople, and that our own Government has been exerting
influence at Berlin and Constantinople. For weeks we have had no
word from the outside world; but we “rest in Jehovah and wait
patiently for Him.”
_Friday, 19th February._
This has been a snowy day again. The people have been making it a
day of fasting and prayer—as if every day were not a fast day!
_Saturday, 20th February._
All day negotiations have been going on in regard to the English
bank money. When Dr. Shedd and Dr. Packard were called to the
Turkish Consulate, they found there the former Urmia Consul, who had
fled from here last autumn when war between Russia and Turkey was
first declared. He had gone south to Soujboulak. It looks as if he
were perhaps fleeing now in this direction, which would mean that
the Russians were in Soujboulak; we have heard this report. It is
being reported that the Kurds were making preparations to-day for
leaving here. It may be that the Consul’s haste to get this money is
another evidence that he is expecting to leave soon. He told the
gentlemen to-day that he thought that, as Americans, they ought to
make a contribution toward the cause of Turkey. They have felt that
a compromise on the ten thousand is the best way out, and suggested
that he take two thousand; but he refused to take less than five
thousand, and promised that he would not take it before to-morrow,
so if something does not develop before to-morrow we shall probably
be the poorer by that amount. We are hoping that it may be taken
without any show of force or violence. Of course, we cannot make any
resistance.
To-day we finished going over all the bread tickets, arranging the
names according to villages. Then we called in responsible men from
each village and went over the lists, to find out those who would be
able to help themselves soon, and those who had reported more
members of families than they have. I am sorry to say that we found
scores who were cheating in various ways, and now we have to get
hold of all of them—a big business for some days to come. We are
distributing 14,000-15,000 loaves of about ten and a half ounces
each day; but there are so many getting more than a loaf each that
there are probably not more than eleven thousand persons receiving.
An epidemic of typhoid has broken out at the College among the
refugees—twenty-seven cases. To-day, even in the midst of our
troubles, the Evangelistic Board met to consider a reorganization of
the work. When the people are able to return to the villages, they
will probably have to settle temporarily in a few of the larger
ones.
_Sunday, 21st February._
To-day there are three or four services in the church. This morning
it was packed for a communion service and many were turned away.
Another communion service is arranged for this afternoon, and then
again next Sunday, to give an opportunity for all communicants.
_Tuesday, 23rd February._
Last night one of the most terrible things that has yet happened
occurred. In the evening ten or a dozen of the prisoners from the
French Mission, taken ten days or more ago by the Turkish Consul,
were discharged, and we all felt that probably the rest would soon
be set free, as there was no special charge against them. But this
morning five men, two of them Moslems, were found hanging from the
gallows at the Kurdish Gate, and forty-eight others were shot beyond
the Tcharbash Gate. No one has dared to go out yet and get the
bodies, though Dr. Shedd has asked permission of the Turkish Consul.
For two days we had felt so much more hopeful, but to-day a terrible
fear has fallen on the people. There is much silent weeping, but
little violent demonstration, though the mothers, wives and families
of the murdered men are here. The question in everybody’s mind is:
“What will the Turks do next?” Forty or fifty shots were distinctly
heard in the night between one and two o’clock, but no one guessed
what they meant. We had begun yesterday to take their bread-tickets
away from a few of the people to try to force them to go to their
villages or find money in some way to provide for themselves; but
now they are too frightened to leave and everything is set back
again. Two or three days ago the Turks took some things from the
French Mission property here, carpets, etc., and we hear that they
are plundering more to-day. On Sunday we received a card from Tabriz
saying that everything was quiet there, that £1,000 relief had been
received, and that Mr. Labaree was going to the Caucasus to relieve
the refugees who had fled from Urmia to Russia.
_Wednesday, 24th February._
The French missionaries and the nine nuns were very much alarmed for
their personal safety. They asked that one of our men should go
there and put up an American flag; but, of course, we could not do
that. Yesterday the Turkish Consul sent word that if we wanted the
bodies of the three Christians hanging at the gate, we had
permission to take them. Mr. McDowell and Mr. Allen went with some
Syrians, took down the bodies, and buried them. There has been a
little more disorder than usual, and the people are terrified again.
I have had to give back many of the bread tickets that we had
collected. There are hundreds of people who have fields and
vineyards, but who cannot borrow a dollar. These tickets are really
promissory notes which they have signed, promising to pay later, but
we need _cash_ now, and our bread queue does not decrease—rather,
increases. I wonder what a trained Red Cross worker would do with a
mob that will not stand in line or stay where you put them; who,
when you go over the case and give the answer, refuse to take it,
but stand about and weep briny tears by the hour. They have no sense
of honour, don’t know how to tell the truth, can’t tell the same
story twice, and do not know much about anything except that their
stomachs are empty. They try to get bread under the names of the
dead, and when accused of evading the truth, will declare in the
most injured tones: “We wouldn’t lie.” There is much that would be
funny in these investigations if it did not get monotonous.
_Saturday, 27th February._
When Mr. McDowell returned from the burial of those shot on Jewish
Hill, he reported that they had found forty bodies and identified
all but five or six.
On Wednesday night, a still more horrible deed was committed at
Gulpashan. This village and Iriawa had been shielded, partly through
the efforts of a German; but on Wednesday night a band of Persian
volunteers, arriving from Salmas or beyond, went there, took fifty
men, and, according to reports, shot them in the graveyard near by.
They then plundered the village, took girls and young women,
outraged them, and acted in general as one might expect Satan to do
when turned loose.
The horror and sadness of everything has been brought nearer to us
by the death of Mlle. Madelaine Perrochet, a young Swiss girl who
came with the Coans four months ago to teach the missionary
children. She was only twenty-one, so bright, so pretty, that we had
all learned to love her dearly. She spoke English well, and, of
course, French and German. She died on Thursday, after dinner, and
yesterday (Friday) we had the funeral service in Dr. Coan’s living
room, led by Mr. McDowell. We could not take her out to our little
cemetery at Seir, so she was buried in Dr. Coan’s garden, just at
the right of the entrance to the long grape-arbour. In his prayer
Mr. McDowell used the words: “We are not only walking in the valley
of the shadow of death, but we are dwelling there in these weeks.”
Just now two of the young Syrians who are the chief men in helping
with the bread came in and told me that they had received warning
secretly that they had better leave here and hide with some friendly
Moslems, as the Turkish Consul is going to take out all the young
men from our yards and other places in the city and kill them—“wipe
them out.” I cannot believe that it can be true, but we cannot know.
If they enter our yards by force and murder men, then there is no
further safety for any of us. As one of these young men said just
now: “Let us commit everything into the hands of God, and then wait
and be ready for whatever comes.”
Typhus is raging at the College. Yesterday there were seventy cases
at the College compound, and over a hundred others on diet, with the
probability of a large part of them developing typhoid. It is
impossible to take care of so many cases or feed them properly under
such conditions. At the hospital they are buying all the milk and
mesta (matzoun) they can get. Mrs. Cochran has had charge of the
feeding there, as well as doing much else, and yesterday she went to
bed; to-day there are symptoms of typhoid. Mrs. Coan and Miss Coan
took care of Mlle. Perrochet, and the last week or two had the help
of a Syrian woman who has had a nurse’s course in America, Miss
George. She has proved very efficient and a great help and comfort.
_Saturday Night._
There was a great deal of anxiety lest something should happen here;
but we woke on Sunday morning in safety and saw a rainbow in the
northern sky, though there was no rain. The reports of Mr. Allen
from Gulpashan were too black to be written. The soldiers sent out
by the Consul to protect the villages against Kurds and Moslem
looters left unviolated hardly a woman or girl of those remaining in
the village, and a number of girls were carried off. It seemed quite
apparent that they understood that the whole business of protecting
was to be a farce. When on Sunday morning Mr. Allen returned and
wanted to bring people with him, he was not permitted. Those who had
been murdered in the cemetery a few nights previously had been
buried under a few inches of earth, and when he wanted to have them
uncovered to identify them and bury them deeper, he was refused. The
soldiers had made them all sit down on the ground and then shot at
them. They then looked them over, and any who were found to be
breathing were shot the second time. The only reason for all this
was that they bore the name of “Christian.” What has the Christian
world to say?
Mr. McDowell went to Iriawa and found similar conditions there. We
were very glad to see him and Mr. Allen safely back, for they
undoubtedly were in jeopardy themselves and were treated insolently
by the soldiers.
Mrs. Cochran is better, and we feel now that she will not have
typhoid. It is a tremendous relief. Only seven died here in this
quarter yesterday. The death list here has passed the thousand mark,
and, including the Boys’-School yard and the College, fifteen
hundred. All the past week three young men and myself have been kept
busy all the morning and into the middle of the afternoon examining
bread tickets, hearing pleas, and giving out new tickets as the new
refugees have come in. The last several days we have purchased,
without counting the College, nearly ten thousand pounds of bread
daily.
_Friday, 5th March._
Mrs. Cochran has typhoid, but so far in a light form. Mrs. Coan and
Miss Coan are taking on her work as best they can, and caring for
her too, with the help of the Syrian nurse, Miss George. Dr. Packard
has been in bed two or three days, but we do not know if it is
typhoid or not. Mr. Allen went to Gulpashan with permission from the
Turkish Consul, to bury those who had been murdered. He found fifty
bodies. When he came back, a crowd of sixty-four, mostly women and
girls, came with him. Our yards and rooms, including the church, are
crowded again, but with cleaner people. Most of the mountaineers are
out. Two families of mountaineers who are friendly with the Kurds
started out yesterday for their homes. It is spring now, and time
for ploughing and sowing, and unless the people can soon get to
their villages there will be a dearth of wheat and other grain next
year. There are repeated reports of the approach of the Russian
army, and some Germans here have said that they were soon expecting
to go on a journey. If the Turks should have to flee, there is no
telling what they might do before going; but we do not dare to let
our hopes of deliverance rise, for it makes the long wait harder.
A few days ago the ex-Turkish Consul sent word that if there were
any girls held captive that we wanted to get, he would find them for
us. That looks as if there had been a quarrel—or perhaps it is a
trick to trip us into being unwise. It takes the wisdom of the
serpent as well as the simplicity of the dove!
_Saturday, 6th March._
Dr. Packard has developed typhoid. There is only Mrs. Packard to
take care of him, and she is far from strong, and there are four
lively boys to care for and keep out of mischief and danger. Since
Mlle.’s death, it leaves the children’s education on the mothers’
shoulders, and Mrs. Packard has been trying to take the bulk of it.
This morning I made out the second month’s report of the bread funds
which have passed through my hands. So far we have spent
approximately £1,500. Over £120 has been collected in sales, which
leaves nearly £1,400 debt for us. This does not include College or
Boys’-School yard. All of this has been spent on dry bread alone,
two hundred and twenty-three and a half tons, all brought in on the
backs of carriers. About one hundred and fifty pounds is a man’s
load. This month we have distributed four and a quarter tons a day.
_Evening._
There is considerable fear to-night among the Christians that the
Turks may strike a blow before they go. We have twenty-five extra
guards of Persian soldiers. All day Moslem villagers have been
fleeing to the city in fear of what the Russians may do when they
come. We do not know how near they are, for we have no means of
communication. It would seem strange to lie down in quiet and peace,
knowing that all fear and terror to these poor people were passed.
_Sunday, 7th March._
Dr. Packard is very sick with typhoid; yesterday his temperature was
105. He seems quieter to-day. Dr. Pera, former hospital assistant,
has promised to take care of him every day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
and Mrs. Packard will be night-nurse. Mrs. Cochran seems to be
getting along quietly. Thirty cases of typhoid are reported in one
of the houses in the suburbs, which a few days ago we filled up with
refugees brought from the College compound. They probably brought
the germ with them. The only reason it is not raging here is the
eternal vigilance of Mr. McDowell in looking after sanitary
conditions and the watercourses. He has frequently to appeal to the
Governor to get donkeys for carrying off refuse, though he pays
well. As the church is full of refugees, two meetings are held daily
in the Seminary yard. Kasha Moshi of Geogtapa makes a fine outdoor
preacher.
Just now, as I came from dinner, a woman met me, leading a little
girl by the hand, and in her most wheedling tones tried to present
her to me as a gift, saying she was her great-grandchild. I laughed
and said I already had one hundred such gifts. She felt that I was
not properly appreciative! There are scores of people who would like
to dump their responsibilities under these conditions. We have had a
number of cases of relatives deserting old and helpless women and
leaving them for us to care for until they died.
_Monday, 8th March._
Yesterday there was general fasting and prayer until noon for Dr.
Packard’s and Mrs. Cochran’s recovery. There is a beginning of what
we hope may be a deep and permanent spiritual awakening. In such
times one lives in the presence of eternal realities, and Heaven
seems quite near. It is marvellous how the Word of God speaks to us
in every condition and experience through which we pass.
_Tuesday, 9th March._
On Sunday a Mohammedan orator made a speech in a garden in Dilgusha
to a crowd of several thousand people, practically all Moslems. He
said that Italy and Persia had joined in the alliance with Germany,
Austria and Turkey, and, of course, are in the way of victory.
America had taken no part in this war, but is doing good all over
the world without regard to race or religion, caring for the sick
and wounded, feeding the hungry and befriending the needy. The
American missionaries here, he said, have done and are doing this,
and everyone should honour them and stand up for them. At this there
was great applause.
Last night a body of askars entered the house of Dr. ——, whose yard
adjoins ours, and demanded Mar Elia, a Russian Bishop, who has been
in hiding these last weeks. They didn’t find him, but took about
forty pounds’ worth of money and jewellery and frightened the people
nearly to death. Our watchman called Mr. McDowell and Mr. Allen and
they tried to go over to the help of the women. Mr. McDowell climbed
the ladder from this side to go over into their yard, but at the top
met a gun in the hands of an askar, who demanded his retreat. Mr.
McDowell, out of respect for the gun, didn’t insist on having his
way. That yard is not in our hands and we have no flag there, so, of
course, we couldn’t do anything. This has scared the people again.
This morning one woman brought me some jewellery and papers to keep
for her. She had been in America and only returned last spring, and
was bewailing her stupidity in returning. She says she is only
waiting for a way to open for her to go back, never to return.
Hundreds are saying the same thing, and I think there will be a
large emigration to America when the way opens. I wouldn’t mind
emigrating myself for a while!
_Friday, 12th March._
We cannot complain of the monotony of life for these last two or
three days. It was on Monday night that the Turks tried to get the
Bishop, but he escaped over the church roof. The next afternoon they
suddenly appeared again, and this time found him hiding on the
church roof behind a parapet. He tried to get down an old ladder
standing by the wall, but the askar who was at the other end of the
roof raised his gun and told him he would shoot if he attempted to
run, so he was captured. It is said that he had two thousand tomans
in gold and Russian paper money on his person. This, of course, was
taken. The most unfortunate incident of that capture was the arrest
at the same time of Dr. Lokman. At Mr. McDowell’s request, Dr.
Lokman (Syrian) had gone over the wall into Dr. ——’s house to find
out if there were any typhoid cases there, and was caught by the
askars. Our mission at once began to make efforts to secure their
release. The Turkish Consul demanded £200 for Dr. Lokman and £2,000
for the Bishop. In the evening he sent word that unless they were
immediately redeemed they would be shot at midnight. He ordered the
Persian Governor to send eight men to assist at the shooting. In the
meantime they had gotten hold of another man or two. When word came
about Dr. Lokman there was some hustling to find the money. “Brides”
(young married women) were asked to give up the gold pieces from
their dowry, and in a short time the £200 was sent. When Dr. Lokman
was notified of his release he was sleeping soundly without any
realization of the doom hanging over him. When he reached our yards
and his family and friends congratulated him, he felt like one
raised from the dead. Just as soon as he heard that the others were
still in danger, he said: “Well, we must try to do something to
release them.” He is one of the most prominent Syrians here and
influential with the Persian Government. From the first day of these
troubles he has been on hand to help in governmental affairs in
every way possible. All day yesterday efforts were being made to get
money to redeem the others.
These last two nights our yards have been overflowing with people
from the Christian quarter here, and already the Moslems from the
villages are crowding into the city for fear of the Russians. As one
of our bakers said yesterday: “The city gates cannot let them in
fast enough.” The city is in a panic for fear of what the Russians
will do to the Moslems when they arrive. Heaven grant that they will
act in the spirit of Christ and not of Mohammed! Everywhere the
Moslems are now anxious to show themselves friends of Christians.
David gives expression to my sentiments concerning the wicked in Ps.
59.
The Germans, I understand, have already left, except one of the
leaders, and he is ready to go in haste. Yesterday I had to stay in
bed with a headache, and it seemed to me that the very air was
vibrating with expectation and excitement. Ten thousand times a day
the petition arises, “O Lord, deliver us.” Ten weeks to-morrow! It
seems impossible to hold out much longer. “O Lord, deliver us from
the hand of the wicked.” Dr. Packard is still quite sick. Mrs.
Cochran seems to be getting along slowly. They have so many cases of
typhoid at the College that they have put up the big tent in the
School yard there for a hospital.
_Tuesday, 16th March._
To-day our hearts are heavy and sorrowful. Dr. Packard is very sick
indeed, and it seems now as if Miss Coan has typhoid or typhus,
whichever this sickness is. Mrs. Cochran appears to be getting along
all right. We want Dr. Vanneman from Tabriz, but there seems to be
no way to get a message through to him. Dr. Shedd asked the Turkish
Consul to help us get a messenger through, but he said he couldn’t.
The Russians are between Urmia and Tabriz. We have twenty-five or
thirty cases of typhoid here in this compound. Mr. McDowell is
trying to empty a few rooms to put the sick in, but it is very
difficult.
Last night there was great fear again in Mart Maryam lest the new
arrivals might devise some new evil for them, and many wanted to
crowd into our yard, but every place is full. We are feeding 15,000
persons daily, one loaf each. A note by secret messenger came from
Dr. Vanneman a few days ago, saying that they had received £1,200
for relief. This means a great deal, but it will pay only a third of
the debt we already have. The Turks still hold Shamasha Lazar and
Mar Elia (Bishop) for a big ransom. Our funds are getting low, and
Mr. Müller has borrowed some money at 24 per cent. interest. Last
week our hopes of deliverance were high, but hope so long deferred
makes the heart grow faint. Mr. McDowell was trying to get some sick
people out of the big school-room when he saw a tired and weary
woman, with a baby in her arms, sitting in one of the seats, and
said to her: “Where do you stay?” She said: “Just here.” “How long
have you been here?” “Since the beginning (two months),” she
replied. “How do you sleep at night?” “I lay the baby on the desk in
front of me, and I have this post at the back to lean against. This
is a very good place. Thank you very much.”
The men don’t dare to go outside our yards for fear of being
arrested and held for ransom. One of the Syrian physicians was asked
by a missionary to go outside and see some sick. He laughed and
said: “I’ll go if you will pay the bill.”
_Thursday, 18th March._
It is such a relief to have Dr. Packard come to himself again,
though he is very weak. Miss Coan’s fever still continues, and Miss
Lamme has gone to the College to help there. This morning Mr.
McDowell is down with fever, but we hope it is only malaria.
Shamasha Lazar, who has been a prisoner for a week at the Turkish
Consulate, was released on payment of one thousand tomans cash on
the condition that he finds the other £400 within two days.
If there were a mail or some other way open to Tabriz, we could sell
orders on Dr. Vanneman, our Mission Treasurer in Tabriz, but the
bankers will not buy such orders now because they can’t dispose of
them until a way to Tabriz is opened. The day before yesterday we
tried to make a bargain with our twenty or more Mohammedan bakers,
who are supplying us with about six tons of bread daily, to let us
have it on twenty days’ credit. They agreed to do it on condition
that at the end of ten days we would pay half; but after they left
here they agreed among themselves that they would not deliver bread
yesterday, though they didn’t tell us. In the morning, when we found
that no bread was coming, we sent out and got other bakers to
deliver for cash. When our regular bakers found we were buying
elsewhere, they came back, and after a long discussion they promised
to deliver for twenty days, if we would pay half every five days. So
it stands; we shall see if they stick to their bargain. Fortunately,
yesterday we had half a day’s supply on hand, and managed to buy
enough to finish out. There is a cash famine, and anyone who has any
money wants to hold on to it in such uncertain times.
This morning, a little after five, we were aroused by shouts and a
commotion near by. The askars with their officers had entered the
English mission yard by climbing a ladder from the street over the
wall into the yard of a Mr. ——, who is a Syrian, but an English
subject. The watchman gave the alarm, and Mr. Muller and Mr. Allen
were soon on the spot. Of course they couldn’t do anything but
reassure the women. Eight or ten men were arrested and taken away,
probably to be held for ransom. That property has been connected
with ours from the beginning of these troubles, and the American
flag has been over the entrance. Mr. Allen said to the officer: “You
don’t intend to respect the American flag?” He replied: “The Turkish
flag is also there.” (It is under the American flag.) This makes one
feel doubtful for the safety of our own yards. It is wonderful how
quiet these thousands of people can keep while such things are going
on. A number of women and girls sleep in the parlour adjoining my
room, and I opened the door and told them not to leave the room.
They said: “No, we are only dressing”; but it was evident that they
were trembling with fear; and this is the state we have lived in for
eleven weeks.
One of the most pitiful objects of humanity that I have ever yet
seen came into the room to ask for a ticket—a boy of about twelve or
fourteen, wasted to a mummy-like skeleton by hunger and sickness, so
weak that he could hardly stand or speak, unbathed for these many
months. I asked where he had been staying. He said: “In the
school-room.”
The Turks have demanded ten thousand suits of shirts and pyjamas for
the army. Eight thousand were demanded from the Moslem women, and
two thousand from the Christian or Syrian women. As the latter are
practically all here with us and in the Christian quarter, it fell
upon the missionaries to take the responsibility, so Miss Schoebel
took charge. So far fifty-five bolts of calico have been sent; Miss
Schoebel gave out the material to responsible women, and they in
turn found others to help with the sewing (mostly by hand) and about
eight hundred of the shirts are ready. How would you like to sit
down and make clothes for Turks and Kurds who had robbed you, burned
your homes, murdered your husbands, brothers, and fathers,
dishonoured your women, and carried your girls into captivity?
_Saturday, 20th March._
The prisoners taken from the English Mission yards by the Turks were
kept about twenty-four hours, examined, and to the great and
unexpected joy of everyone were set free without ransom. The Turks
said they had heard that a Russian spy was being kept in that yard,
and when they found no evidence of this, they set the men free.
Another thing may have had something to do with it. The night before
last several Turkish soldiers who were sick with typhoid went to the
College compound. When informed that there was absolutely no place
for them, they returned to the Consulate, which is in the former
Russian Mission. The Shahbanda then sent for Dr. Shedd. It was after
nightfall and we didn’t know why he was sent for, but were fearful
lest another blow might be about to fall upon us. But he asked him
if we would be willing to care for their sick, a dozen or more, who
have typhoid. He was told that there was no room in the hospital or
College building adjoining, which are already crowded full of sick,
but that we would do what we could. This probably had something to
do with the dismissal of the prisoners. For two days no other
arrests have been made, and only the Bishop is now a prisoner. The
last ransom they asked for him was fifteen thousand tomans. The
Shahbanda has said that he is going to take down all the American
flags except the one over our main entrance. We have several other
properties adjoining ours which are full of refugees, and several of
the naturalized citizens have American flags up.
We are happy this morning that all our sick are better. Mr. McDowell
was up yesterday and Miss Schoebel has no fever this morning, so it
looks as if she had only malaria. Mrs. Cochran is getting along
finely; Dr. Packard we hope has passed the crisis; Miss Coan seems
to be having a fight case. Our rooms, hallways, and every place are
crowded to the limit again. The men are afraid to stay anywhere else
for fear of arrest. The Turks have given out word that several
thousand troops are coming, and are demanding houses in Mart Maryam,
and those turned out have nowhere else to go.
We are having trouble in getting bread, as the bakers refuse to
deliver without cash on the spot. They say the “blue eyes”
(Russians) will return, “and then you will not pay us.” Mr. Müller
will try to-day to get wheat on several months’ credit, and we shall
use that instead of cash if possible. I am realizing what a
wonderful thing money is, and what a dreadful thing it is to be
without it, especially under such circumstances. As long as we could
pay cash we couldn’t stop some of the bakers from bringing more than
we wanted. We feel, with so many of our number sick, so many others
busy caring for them, the end of our money in sight, and our
physical strength almost exhausted, that surely deliverance must be
near. Through eleven weeks we have looked for it in vain.
I have just paid a visit to the school dining-room, which is one of
our hospital rooms. If there is another spot on this earth of more
concentrated human misery, I hope I may never know it. One boy had
just died. The mother looked up at me so pitifully, and said: “Lady,
he is dead.” Another baby was lying on the floor dying, under the
influence of khash-khash (opium). The mother has no milk for lack of
food, and the baby is dying of starvation. The mother said: “Khanum,
I am so sick, what shall I do?” I could only reply: “I do not know.”
Twenty others were lying on the floor, without bedding, in various
stages of misery, groaning, weeping and appealing for help. One
child was lying on his father’s coat with a hard bundle under his
head, with the marks of slow starvation upon him. To-morrow he too
will probably be gone, and we shall thank God that it is so. They
are so many, our strength and our means are so limited, the rooms
are so crowded, we can do little for them and death is their best
friend. One of our Bible Women is lying here, with her two daughters
on one side of her and her sister on the other. Her boy died a few
weeks ago. When I spoke to her she tried to raise herself up and
tell me about some of the other sick in the room. We have been
furnishing matting for the sick to lie on, and using Mr. Sterrett’s
supply of wood for fires in the sick room; the rest have had to do
without fires except the few who have been able to get wood for
their rooms. In one of the typhoid rooms yesterday I noticed a pile
of charred wood in the corner and asked about it. They said they had
sent to the village and brought in the half-burned beams of their
homes for fuel. That was all that was left of their house, except a
pile of mud. Others have done the same thing.
Yesterday Rabi Nanou, one of our Bible Women, went out as usual to
hold meetings in the places where large numbers of refugees, mostly
mountain people, are huddled together. She was stopped in the street
by an askar who demanded her long coat. She told him she had been
stripped of everything when she first fled from her village, and
that the coat had since been given her by one of the missionary
ladies. He said, nevertheless, it was not necessary for her, and
demanded that she should take it off. Just then another askar came
up who had been a guard at our gate. He interfered, saying that he
knew her as a deaconess who went out every day to preach to the
people, and she was allowed to go on with her coat.
A while ago I took some soft-boiled eggs and several pieces of bread
to the sick ones in the dining-room, and to Rabi Surra and her
family. They are very grateful for everything. I’ve no doubt that,
if they were properly fed, most of them would be up in a week.
_Sunday, 21st March._
Yesterday Mr. McDowell called a meeting of all the native doctors to
try to get them to help in the responsibility of caring for the
increasing number of typhoid cases. There are a number of doctors
who do practically nothing and find excuses when anything is asked
of them. It is hard to understand how they can spend hours every day
sitting in their rooms or walking up and down the pavement here
while they might be doing something to help in the care of the
scores of sick people and in the effort Mr. McDowell is making for
the preservation of the health of the community. Our assistant
physician, Dr. Daniel Werda, is sick with typhoid, and Dr. David, of
Soujboulak, who went out to the hospital to help, has been brought
home sick. Dr. Pera, our former assistant, is at the College
compound now, helping with the sick missionaries and a few special
cases, and Dr. Joseph Khoshaba has consented to go out there to
help. Dr. Theo. Mar Yosep has been our stand-by from the very
beginning, and is the only native doctor here in the city yards who
has really worked. He has been on hand every day.
_Tuesday, 23rd March._
Sunday evening was the beginning of the Persian New Year, _Noruz_,
and as soon as the cannon went off to announce that the New Year had
begun there was a great firing of guns and torpedoes, more than
usual. It was kept up for half-an-hour or more, and many of the
people were badly frightened, thinking that perhaps a battle was on.
We heard the next day that the Shahbanda was scared, not knowing
what it was.
The Shahbanda sent forty-eight bolts of muslin for pyjamas, and the
women under Miss Schoebel’s directions are now sewing on them,
having finished eight hundred and fifty shirts.
The smells in our backyards are almost unbearable. I can’t open my
back window at all. The sun is quite hot and dries things up; it
also brings out the awful smells. Last night the Shahbanda gave us
permission to send a messenger to Tabriz for Dr. Vanneman. Our sick
are all getting along fairly well. Dr. Packard has passed the crisis
and each day seems a little bit better. There are about twenty-five
Turks in the hospital now.
_Thursday, 25th March._
We are trying to send away some of the people by taking back their
bread tickets to-day; but we cannot give them any assurance of
safety. They are so crowded here, and there is so much sickness, and
money is so scarce, that it seems the lesser of two evils to send
some of the people away, even though a few be killed.
Yesterday we gave each of the sixty sick persons in the school
dining-room a soft-boiled egg, and in the afternoon tea, which was
served by two or three school-girls. Sugar and tea are so expensive,
about three times the regular price, that it costs about six
shillings just to treat that one room to tea. The big school-room is
in just as bad a condition as the dining-room, only with so many
more tenants that it seems impracticable to do anything there. I’ve
no doubt that if hundreds of these people were properly fed for a
week they would be on their feet, but it is beyond our means and our
strength. Just now the voice of Kasha Moushi Douman of Geogtapa
comes to me through the open window of the paved school court where
he is preaching. Twice a day preaching exercises are held in the
school yard, and besides there are a number of preachers and women
who go round daily to rooms and other yards for services.
_Monday, 29th March._
We have had two or three rainy days, which are very hard for the
people. Some of the sick are lying on the balcony with almost no
covering or bedding. I saw one of the most awful sights I have yet
seen on the school balcony yesterday—a woman stretched out on the
bare bricks, half-naked, in the throes of death, the damp cold air
blowing over her, friendless, helpless. The whole school-room,
aisles, desks, corners, and platform is filled with the most
miserable of the starving sick. We made the man who has charge of
our tea-stand take the samovars there yesterday, Palm Sunday, and
give each of the one hundred and fifty people two large glasses of
tea. It costs about twelve shillings, but eight shillings were given
me by Syrians. With the thousands of dollars of debt just for dry
bread, we don’t feel we can borrow money for special food for the
sick ones, except in limited quantities for typhoid patients. We
need space more than anything else, rooms where we could put the
sick on straw mats with at least a quilt over them, a fire and a
little food besides dry bread, which many are too sick to eat. It
seems dreadful to think of two thousand people dying here in this
way, but after twelve weeks of it we cannot but feel glad every time
one more of these helpless suffering ones finds rest. Sometimes for
days I seem to be hardened past feeling, and then again the horror
of it all sweeps over me. We pray and pray and cry out to God for
deliverance, but no help comes. We seem shut off from the rest of
the world and left to our fate. Nothing from the outside world for
three months! We hear many reports, but few materialize. We are told
that word has come that the Crown Prince has arrived in Tabriz and
that Urmia should celebrate, so there has been a great deal of
firing of cannon, display of banners, and decoration. We have had
our entrance decorated with banners and rugs. There is a great deal
of rejoicing among the Persians, who desire to see the Persian
Government strong enough to turn out both Turk and Russian.
A few days ago, Mr. Müller managed to borrow a thousand tomans from
a merchant in the bazaar. It was counted out in two-kran silver
pieces. This he was bringing home on the back of a porter, he
walking close behind with a Persian soldier. Suddenly he found
himself surrounded by six Kurds, armed to the teeth with guns,
cartridge belts, and daggers. Two walked ahead and punched the
money-bag to assure themselves that it was really money; the others
pressed close behind Mr. Müller as they followed him through the
streets. They asked him where he was taking the money, but he walked
on in dignified silence, not deigning to answer, though trembling
for the safety of the money. They reached our gate in safety, and as
he turned in, Mr. Müller thanked the Kurds for their safe escort.
They laughed and passed on. Some of the young Syrians who guard the
gate report that a few days ago a bunch of Kurds in passing stopped
to talk and said: “We came down here to the plain with the intention
of killing you all, not one of you would have escaped, but (pointing
to the Stars and Stripes over the gate) we don’t dare pass under
that flag!“ Everybody feels that had we not been able to give refuge
to the Christians, there would have been few left to tell the tale;
and so even yet we do not dare to force the people out, and they all
say: “We would rather die here of hunger and disease than take our
chances with the Kurds and Turks.”
Our sick missionaries all seem to be getting along well, and we are
very thankful. The typhoid here in the city is usually light, and
there are few deaths from it, though many from dysentery. Measles
almost disappeared some time ago.
_Thursday, 1st April._
Rabi Nannou of Geogtapa, our best Bible Woman, has died of
pneumonia, after a few days’ illness. For the three months that she
has been a refugee here she has been a fearless and faithful worker,
going out daily for religious meetings to the houses where the
mountaineers have been huddled, looking after the sick, not
hesitating to go to any place where she could help. For several
years she has supported from her small salary her brother’s four
orphan children, and has been to them both father and mother.
Herself unmarried, she has given her means and love unselfishly to
these as if they were her own children. There is no one to fill her
place.
We have started to buy wheat on credit, as our cash is very low and
we are not able to get more money. We have just bought four hundred
bushels from Rabi David of Degala for part of his debt to us. When
he was in prison and fined one thousand tomans to save his head, we
furnished part of the cash and took his note. He can’t pay cash now,
so he is paying in wheat, which we will have ground to give to the
hungry. What credit we can get for bread is for a few days only.
Most of the bakers need the money to carry on their business.
_Friday, 2nd April._
Bertha Shedd, ten years old, has been sick with typhoid for several
days, and now Miss Lamme is beginning; the latter went out to the
hospital about two weeks ago to help there when Miss Coan went down
with it. Dr. Packard, Mrs. Cochran, and Miss Coan are getting well.
Oraham Badel, our financial agent and general assistant in the City
Compound, is very low this morning—just as I was writing he died,
leaving a wife and four little ones.
Several hundred Turkish troops have come into the city, evidently in
retreat, as there are wounded among them. It is not evident from
which direction they came. Last evening one of the Turkish officers
came rushing in here in great distress. He had taken poison by
mistake and came in here to be saved. He was given an emetic, and
his life was saved. They have heard of germs and are very much
afraid of typhoid, and had some corrosive sublimate in a glass for
washing hands. This man saw it and, thinking it was wine or whiskey,
poured it down his throat. He was terribly scared, and after being
relieved of the poison, it was suggested that, as his life had been
saved, he should try to save other lives.
_Sunday, 4th April._
This journal is fast becoming an obituary. At first the hundreds who
died were the poorest and the weakest, but now many from among our
best are going. Yesterday Dr. Daniel Werda, Dr. Packard’s assistant,
died of typhoid. For three days Mrs. McDowell has been in bed with
high fever. It is not evident yet that it is typhoid. Last night our
cook went to bed with typhoid. Miss Schoebel is now trying to make
her comfortable and makes her old mother look after her. All day we
have been trying to get something to eat for the hundreds of sick
who have nothing for Easter. Easter is the Syrian “Great Feast,” and
is to them what Christmas is to us. They say: “The Little Feast
(Christmas) was black, and now the Great Feast is black too.” They
had hoped so much that deliverance might come before the feast. We
have given eggs and soup to about five hundred sick, and before
evening I hope a glass of tea will be given to as many more.
To-morrow we plan to give soup to several hundred more that we
didn’t reach to-day. We don’t use relief money for anything but
bread, and so have only personal funds for the sick—a very little.
_Tuesday, 6th April._
We have dwelt so long in the valley of death with the sick, the
starving, the dying, with the unending procession of little bodies
sewn up in a piece of cloth, friendless corpses carried out on
ladders, with gaping mouths and staring eyes, crude unpainted
coffins, coffins covered with black chintz, the never-ceasing wail,
and eyes of the mourners that are never dried, hands outstretched
for what we cannot give, and now so many of our own number are down.
I felt on Sunday as if I ought to get my own burial clothes ready so
as to make as little trouble as possible when my turn came, for in
these days we all go about our work knowing that any one of us may
be the next to go down. And yet I think our friends would be
surprised to see how cheerful we have kept, and how many occasions
we find for laughing; for ludicrous things do happen. Then, too,
after dwelling so intimately with death for three months, he doesn’t
seem to have so unfriendly an aspect, and the “Other Side” seems
very near and our Pilot close beside us. It is at such times that
one finds out just how much faith in the unseen he has, and just how
much his religion is worth. I find the Rock on which I can anchor in
peace are the words of Christ Himself: “Where I am, there ye may be
also.” “If any man serve Me let him follow Me, and where I am, there
shall also My servant be.” That is enough—to be where He is.
Recently, as I have read sermons or books written for the trying
times of life, I have found them tame and insufficient for the
occasion; our own experiences are so much more intense and go so
much deeper that nothing but the words of God Himself can reach to
the bottom. I have been re-reading Browning’s _Prospice_, but it
doesn’t thrill me as much as it did, for I have something better:
“For I know whom I have believed....” and “I am persuaded that Death
cannot separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
_Afternoon._
This morning Mrs. McDowell’s rose-spots appeared, and now we know
that she has typhoid or typhus (it was typhoid). Rabi Ister Alamshah
has consented to help in the care of Mrs. McDowell. Miss Schoebel
and I were perfectly willing to nurse her, but it would mean
throwing our work on some other missionary already loaded up. Mr.
McDowell will give up some of his work and help in nursing Mrs.
McDowell. There are now six of our number sick, and it is impossible
not to feel that someone else will go down in a few days unless it
becomes possible to send the crowds away.
_Evening._
To-day Miss Lamme’s rose-spots appeared, so her case is pronounced
typhoid.
* * * * * *
_Thursday, 3rd June._
Almost two months since I last wrote in my journal. On Sunday, the
11th April, I went to bed with typhoid or typhus, and three days
later Miss Schoebel went down with it also. Rabi Elishua, a teacher
of the Persian Girls’-School, came to nurse me at once. She kept up
for three weeks and saw me through the worst of my sickness; then
she took the disease. Three of the other Seminary teachers in
succession came to care for Miss Schoebel, and each one went down
with the disease in turn. Miss Bridges, of the American Orphanage,
came to help us during the day, and in twelve days went to bed with
typhus. She is just getting about again. All the teachers who helped
to care for us have recovered, though one of the other teachers
died. We were all surprised to find how competent these untrained,
inexperienced girls were as nurses when there were no available
missionaries left to nurse us. We were dependent upon them and got
along finely without any complications. When the last one went down
we knew that she was the last _intelligent_ nurse we should find,
and after that we were dependent upon ignorant village women.
A great many things happened during the two months of our illness
and convalescence. A very large number of our Syrian friends died.
Of our own circle Mrs. McDowell died on the 16th April, and Mrs.
Shedd on the 17th May. We can’t take in yet what their loss will
mean to us when we get to living under normal conditions. Mrs.
Müller attended Miss Schoebel and me for two and a half weeks; then
she took the fever. Her little boy was born in a few days, but only
lived overnight. This is the fourth grave we have out in Dr. Coan’s
orchard by the grape-arbour. It hasn’t been possible to take them to
our cemetery at Seir. This week Mr. Müller went to bed with typhus.
His fever has been high. He is the thirteenth out of eighteen
missionaries to get the fever, besides two of the children, Bertha
Shedd and Ruth Müller. On Monday, Mr. Labaree, with two nurses, Miss
Easton of the Tabriz hospital and Miss Burgess, who had reached
Tabriz on her way to Urmia, arrived. Mr. Labaree had been trying for
weeks to get through, but was unable until the Russian army opened
the way. Yesterday, the 5th June, Dr. Lamme arrived and began work
last evening. One of the hard things during these five long months
was our isolation from the outside world. Of course we knew that our
friends were thinking of and praying for us, but it is a great help
to have the tangible evidence in the shape of these friends and of
letters from many others.
On Sunday, the 24th May, the advanced guard of the Russian army
entered Urmia, and in the afternoon the commander came to call on
our gentlemen. When we learned that the army would not remain, but
were ordered to follow the enemy, there was consternation and great
fear. And when the army moved on, the Moslems immediately began to
annoy and rob the Syrians who had returned to their villages. There
was great fear of a Moslem uprising against the Christians, and
hundreds fled in the direction of Salmas. Finally the Russians left
a small guard of about two hundred men. Three days ago about six
thousand Russian troops, with artillery, came in from the south and
marched through the city. We watched them from our roof, and it was
a goodly sight to us besieged people. We shall try now to empty our
yards of refugees. A few days ago there were still about one
thousand left in our own yards and in one yard adjoining, which we
have been renting for refugees, besides many others in surrounding
yards. The stench in our back yard is almost unbearable. I don’t
know how we can get rid of the smells or disinfect the ground, which
must be soaked for two or three feet, as that yard has been used as
a latrine for hundreds of people for more than five months.
Yesterday two Red Cross nurses, who have come with the Russian army
from Mongolia, asked to be our guests for a few days until the army
moved on in the direction of Erzeroum. They say that from there they
will go to Jerusalem. When travelling they dress like the Cossacks,
but wear their nurses’ costumes in the house.
A few days ago a number of prominent Syrians, who had fled when the
Russians evacuated Urmia, returned, many of them to broken and badly
damaged homes. We had a service of thanksgiving in the church
yesterday, the first time for many months, as it had been occupied
by refugees. Thousands have lived in such terror and want, it is a
wonder that many have not lost their minds. It has seemed sometimes
as if our tears were all dried up and our emotions were dead, we
have seen and felt so much. I suppose it is nature’s way of saving
brain and nerve. When I look at these poor wretched creatures and
little children like skeletons, I find I still have some feelings
left. It is estimated that four thousand people have died from
disease, hunger, and exposure, and about a thousand by violence. The
suffering can never be told, nor is it ended. Hundreds, yes
thousands, are destitute, and even if we empty our yard there is no
one left but the missionaries to save them from starvation, and we
look to America. In the name of all Christians we have tried to
witness for Christianity before this Moslem people. Will the
Christians of America pay the bill?
-----
Footnote 46:
Note by Miss Platt.—The term Syrian, as used here, applies to the
Christian nation who speak the Syriac language, and who are
Nestorians by religious belief. In America they call themselves
Persian-Assyrians.
Footnote 47:
Christian quarter of the city, adjoining the mission property.
Footnote 48:
A _toman_ is about four shillings.
32. URMIA AFTER ITS EVACUATION BY THE TURKS AND KURDS: LETTER DATED
URMIA, 20th MAY, 1915, FROM MRS. J.P. COCHRAN TO FRIENDS IN THE
UNITED STATES; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
It seems almost too good to be true to think that we are going to
get in touch once more with the outside world, and may be it is.
But, anyway, the Governor says he will send a messenger over to
Tabriz to-morrow to carry letters and perhaps he will get through
safely.
I have no idea what has leaked through to civilisation since we fell
out of the world, but I will give you as much of an account of the
last four months and a half as the brief time allowed before the
messenger goes will permit.
On New Year’s Day we had our usual day of receiving callers in the
city; all our Syrian and some Moslem friends called and things
seemed fairly safe, though we knew we might be on the edge of war,
as there was an army of Turks and Kurds within a day’s march of us.
They were said to be coming on to fight the Russians, who with a
little force, of two thousand, perhaps, were strongly entrenched
here.
The next morning the Russians rose and left in haste, and many of
our Syrian men and others who were known to be their supporters here
left with them. Our teaching force here at the College, our
newspaper and printing press work, and even our city church work was
terribly crippled by the exodus, as it took away some of our best
workers.
The Russians’ departure was the herald for the Kurds to pounce upon
the prey they had so long been held at bay from, and, even before
they arrived, the Moslem neighbours in all the surrounding villages
flew upon the spoil, killing Syrians, running off with their cattle
and household goods and even stripping those who were trying to run
away from them of their money, bundles and any clothes they took a
fancy to. They also carried off women and tried to force Christians
to become Moslems, keeping them safely if they would deny their
faith or repeat the sentence which constituted the acceptance of
Islam. In some cases they were successful in this, though, of
course, many would not and some of them were killed for it.
Then came the rush of the Kurds. They came in hundreds from every
Kurdish quarter, sore against the Christians for having joined
forces with the Russians, who had armed them and drafted them for
military service whether they would or not.
They, being armed, put up a fight and killed a good many Kurds in
the battles at some of the villages, though there were a couple of
thousand Syrians killed too in the villages, before they escaped to
the slender protection offered by six unarmed American men in our
mission compound. Our flag was put up, not only on our own property
here in the city but on all the adjoining block of Christian
property in the city; doors were made or holes in the walls between
all that adjoining property, to bring it under our control, and only
our principal big street-gate was allowed to be opened, all others
being barricaded. There in the city between ten and fifteen
thousand, many thousands of them destitute, congregated and sat
huddled in rooms, a hundred in a room or more, sometimes unable to
lie down at night on account of the crowding.
We had a good deal of money entrusted to us by the people who had to
flee, and as most of it is in silver ten-penny pieces, there being
no paper money in circulation here, they could carry away but
little, and we took charge of large sums without interest, to be
used by us if necessary and repaid when banking was resumed. With
this we began to feed the people. It was the system in the city to
sell bread until noon, and after that to distribute one of the thin
sheets of bread to every one who had nothing to eat and no money to
buy anything. This distribution took a force of about twenty or
thirty men seven hours to get through.
The city church is in the enclosure under the American flag, and it
held three thousand ill-smelling people with their few earthly
possessions remaining to them.
Here at the College we had about two thousand, and as we have few
buildings the housing was a problem.
We had five hundred in the hospital. Our largest ward has only ten
beds in it, and by putting people on the floor between the beds we
could get in about twenty, but in two other large wards that we took
the bedsteads out of, over a hundred apiece sat huddled together on
the floor, without fire or lights, as we could not afford them for
them. We had those who were destitute here; those who had escaped
with their cattle and a sack of flour or some bedding or a carpet we
put over on the other side of the avenue in the College buildings.
I fed those on the hospital side besides attending to the regular
hospital routine, which was heavier on account of the wounded
Christians who were being brought in every day.
My own rooms consist of my dining room and sitting room, in one of
which I have a couch to sleep on, a kitchen and a little room
downstairs for my man.
I reserved one room for myself for living, dining and bedroom
combined, and took in seven of the College boys, students from the
mountains, who are here all the year round and whom I knew pretty
well, to bring their native beds to live in my dining room. Seakhan
had the kitchen full of her people and friends, seven or eight of
them, and Choban took two families into his room downstairs.
The boys helped me by distributing the bread in the hospital and
holding evening prayers in the different rooms in the hospital.
Then we all began to get the typhoid fever. We had some Turkish
soldiers in the hospital with it, and the people were ignorant and
careless, so we had an epidemic of it. We have seven hundred
new-made graves in our compound here at the College, as the result
of it.
I have had it and recovered, and am as strong and well as ever,
though somewhat thinner, fortunately. I had a Syrian trained nurse,
the only one in Urmia, as I was the first missionary to go down with
it, being in the most direct contact with it in the hospital (though
Dr. Packard went down the day after I did). He also recovered. The
little Swiss governess the Coans brought out with them was the first
to die of the foreigners, and then followed the death of Mrs.
McDowell and, this week, my dear Louise Shedd, my best friend here—a
friend of fifteen years’ standing from the time we were together in
charge of the seminary. All my boys went down too, and my favourite
one died—such a simple, sweet Christian boy. Others of the
missionaries who have had it or are having it are Dr. Coan and
Elizabeth, Bertha Shedd and Mrs. Müller. Mrs. Müller gave birth to a
seven months’ baby boy, who lived a day, and then she went on to
have typhoid. Besides these there were Miss Lewis, Miss Schoebel,
Miss Lamme and Mr. Allen.
In the hospital there was a time when the head physician-assistant,
Dr. Daniel (who died of it), the matron, the druggist, all the
nurses, the cook and the bake-woman, the steward and the
washer-women were all down together, and two hundred and fifty
patients to be taken care of. You can imagine, or rather you can’t
begin to imagine, the disorganisation of the place. Elizabeth Coan
took my place at first, and in two weeks was having it. Then Miss
Lamme came to take her place and in two weeks she, too, was on her
back. The Syrian woman who came next to fill the vacancy is still at
it, though I am back at some work, being now safe from infection. My
man had it, but my woman has weathered the gale so far, and after
three months we have to record to-day that for ten days past not one
new case has come down here. One of the boys, Seakhan’s mother and
two of the men in Choban’s room have died of it in my “family.”
In the city it was even worse. It is raging in our big compound,
though from the first they had from ten to forty deaths a day from
cold, privation, illness of one kind and another, and perhaps shock
from fright. In another part of the city, where we have a big school
building for our Moslem boys’-school, three thousand people were
rescued and brought in by Dr. Packard s valiant intervention, when
he rode up to the Kurdish chief in the thick of a fight between
Kurds and the villagers entrenched in Russian trenches and fighting
for their lives, begged the lives of the inhabitants, and after
parleying awhile succeeded in buying the souls of the people in
exchange for their guns. He rode back to the city with them after
the sun had set on a January night, reaching the city about nine
o’clock, their homes being robbed and burned behind them by the
Kurds.
Turkish rule and Kurdish plundering have reduced the inhabitants to
the verge of starvation, and as yet the end is not in sight.
Yesterday the Turks and Kurds arose and departed, and it is supposed
that the Russians are about to return. They are only a day’s journey
distant, having just been successful in a long fight with a Turkish
army that came from Constantinople via Mosul, and after a three
months’ march was cut to pieces by the Russians near Gavilan, a
day’s journey from here. There were twenty thousand or more of them,
well equipped, but the Russians had the advantage of a fortified
position, a knowledge of the lie of the land and perhaps superior
numbers. We don’t know anything definite about that.
We haven’t had a word of war news during 1915 so far, and feel as if
we were in the bottom of a well as far as seeing what is going on
about us is concerned.
No mail has penetrated the veil that hides the world from us, but we
have had a telegram from the American Ambassador in Constantinople
inquiring for our safety, and have sent telegrams saying we had not
been disturbed personally, which is one of the miracles of missions,
by the way. Just now things are very tense here; the Moslem Governor
is doing well in trying to control things, but the Moslems hate the
Christians, so that they are killing some of those who have gone
back to their ruined villages to live.
There is no power of description that can overdraw the picture, that
is and has been before our eyes constantly, of misery and distress.
Instead we have to veil it, for details are too horrible, too
revolting to try to convey to people who are not called upon by God
to go through it. But whatever the end may be for me, I am sure I
can only be thankful God has given me such an unlimited opportunity
for service as these past months have been.
If the Russians come back or the Turks stay away, we shall have a
mail system established again, if there is such a thing going on
across the world nowadays. Since last July we have had little mail
on account of the war, but some did leak through till the 1st
January (1915), since when we have been like Moses when the light
went out.
We are still feeding thousands of people—just enough bread every day
to keep life in their bodies—and have saved the Syrian nation but
have accumulated thirty or forty thousand dollars (six to eight
thousand pounds sterling) of debt, which we don’t know where to find
money to repay. We only know of six thousand dollars (£1,200
sterling) that were telegraphed as relief two or three months ago.
But we hope the Red Cross Society and charitable people in America
will send us money.
We haven’t even been able to get our money from the Board sent to
Tabriz, but even what could be paid on our regular salaries has been
paid out of these borrowed funds. However, when things settle down a
little we can get at that if there are any of us left by that time.
Just now I have regularly one school-boy and often a few others at
my table, as they are all hungry with the hunger that comes after
typhoid and the College fare is reduced to bread and cheese.
The one who eats with me all the time is a boy from the village Dr.
Packard delivered, Geogtapa, and his father was killed and his house
burned and goods carried off or destroyed. Their food supplies were
left, mostly, as the robbers got their fill and could only destroy
the rest. For instance, a cellar had jars of molasses smashed and
into that was thrown their flour, and on that pickles by
jars-full—the big earthen pointed-bottomed jars that household
supplies are all stored in here. Into this pudding were thrown their
books, few in number, perhaps, but all the more valued for that.
Then this boy, because he belongs to a village where soldier guards
have been placed and some degree of safety assured, was told that he
must go home. That was a general rule, and when I learned the state
of things I told him he could eat with me till things cleared up.
Then they have fields and vineyards that can be worked, and he has
older brothers in America and Tiflis who will look after him. He is
about eighteen, the youngest of the family and the only one left at
home. He is only one case out of thousands equally at a loss just
now. He has his room at the College and sleeps over there with other
students.
I hope you have all been kept in safety during these months and will
write to me all about yourselves and the world at large.
33. URMIA: LETTER, DATED URMIA, 25th MAY, 1915, FROM THE REV. Y.M.
NISAN TO THE REV. F.N. HEAZELL, ORGANISING SECRETARY OF THE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY’S ASSYRIAN MISSION.
The day after the departure of our missionaries from Urmi, that is,
the 3rd January (1915), the Kurds and Turks, and with them a great
number of the Moslems of Urmi, began to raid and kill and to make
captives from a large part of the Christian villages.
The majority of the Christians, to the number of about 25,000, took
refuge in the courtyards of the Americans and French and in our own
premises. Up to the present time there is a large number of the
Syrians in our yard; another portion, we do not know how many, fled
to Russia with the Russian army. The besieged people here were
provided with bread, one portion each per day, by the missionaries;
but many have not escaped death. People died from the following
causes:—(1) From fear; (2) from their bad dwelling places; (3) from
cold; (4) from hunger; (5) from typhoid fever—the dead up to now
from this disease, as far as we can tell, are from 800 to 1,000.
Those who died from the slaughter and raiding of villages numbered
6,000. Many died in the houses of their refuge from the causes
mentioned above. About 2,000 died of those who fled (to Russia),
either on the road or after their arrival there. In our house my
daughter Beatrice died from fright, and, 25 days after Beatrice,
Mrs. Nisan died from grief at the loss of her daughter; also
Michael, nephew of Khan Audishu, my relative, and to-day his wife,
too. Nanajan, my daughter-in-law, and her two sisters are now in bed
with typhoid fever.
One day 48 people were seized in the yard of the French Mission. Mar
Dinkha, bishop of the Old Church, was one of them. As they were
keeping him in prison some days, I tried to buy off Mar Dinkha with
the promise of 50 gold pieces, but they asked 100. I was outwitted
at that time, for as often as I raised my offer they would advance
the price. Then they carried them outside, and when they were bound
arm to arm they were all shot.
Once they went to the village of Gulpashan and demanded a sum of
money; they took money and carried off everything else as well; 45
men who were on the watch were killed that night.
At the beginning of events, the Turks demanded, in the name of the
Persian Government, every kind of weapon for hewing and cutting
(instead of knives); these were all seized in the name of the
Persian Government. Afterwards two Osmanli officers and some
soldiers came to the houses and searched for weapons and men in our
yards, and so to every room and cupboard. Boxes were opened and
examined, and the people were in the greatest fear.
One day afterwards they entered the yard and seized Mar Elia, the
Russian Bishop and Doctor Lokman. After a long imprisonment the
Bishop was ransomed for 6,500 tomans, and the doctor for 2,000
tomans. The Melet Bashi of the French was taken from their yard and
afterwards ransomed for 3,000 tomans. Shamasha Lazar, whose house is
just by the American gate, was seized and bought off for 4,500
tomans. The enemy had one list of 80 names, written by their own
hand, of men who were doomed to be killed, or bought off at a great
price.
Audishu Khan fled from our house to the house of a Moslem friend,
and remained hidden for two months, but by the rogues of the village
and the commander here he was robbed of 27,000 tomans.
One night two Turkish officers with some soldiers descended by means
of a ladder into our yard; they seized Mr. George, our neighbour,
and the brother-in-law of Mr. Comin, who was groom in his house;
also Jawar, our gatekeeper, and Babu our cook and his son; also
Kasha Pilipus, _natir kursi_ of Mar Yohannan, and Asakhan my
servant. At that time, because I had two persons very ill, I was
watching from the balcony of my house so that they might not enter
my rooms. Twice they came beneath the balcony and looked up, and
when they saw me they went away. There is no doubt that the angels
were watching over us and sent these men away.
At first Jawar’s brother and his son were seized, when carrying
bread for him (Jawar). After an imprisonment of two nights and one
day we got them out by paying 68 tomans for the two of them. A
friend of mine worked this for my sake.
The Osmanlis and the Kurds left Urmi two days ago. The Russian army
is now a little way from Urmi. To-day we are very confused and
fearful; they are saying that the Russian army will return. One part
of the Syrians have fled and left Urmi.
One letter previous to this one—I doubt if it has reached you. I
shall be glad if you will let me know quickly what is to be my work
here in the future, because just now I am like a bird without a nest
and without companions. There is no word from Samuel my son, and I
do not know where he is.
34. URMIA: NARRATIVE OF DR. JACOB SARGIS, RECORDED IN A DESPATCH,
DATED PETROGRAD, 12th FEBRUARY, 1916, FROM THE CORRESPONDENT AT
PETROGRAD OF THE AMERICAN “ASSOCIATED PRESS.”
Dr. Jacob Sargis, an American Methodist medical missionary, who has
arrived in Petrograd after narrowly escaping death at the hands of
the Turks and Kurds in Urmia, Persian Armenia, asserts that among
the outrages committed against the Christian refugees was the
burning to death of an American doctor named Simon, or Shimmun, as
he was known there. His identity was not further established, but
the story of the outrage, as told by Dr. Sargis, was as follows:
“Dr. Shimmun was in the village of Supurghan when the Turks attacked
that place. He was among those who took refuge on a mountain near
the lake. He was captured and told that since he had been a good
doctor and had helped the wounded, they would not kill him, but that
he must accept the Mohammedan faith. He refused, as almost all
Christians did. They poured oil on him, and, before applying the
torch, they gave him another chance to forsake his religion. Again
he refused, and they set his clothes afire. While he was running in
agony from the flames, the Turks shot him several times. After he
fell to the ground unconscious, they hacked his head off. Mr. Allen,
an American missionary, who went from village to village burying the
victims of this butchery, found the body of Shimmun half eaten by
dogs.
“The Catholic Mission there took 150 Christians of all sects, and
kept them in a small room and tried to save them; but at least 49 of
them, among them one Bishop Dinkha, of the Episcopal Mission, were
bound together one night, taken to Gagin mountain and there shot
down.”
Mr. Sargis was born in Persia, but went to America in 1893, and was
educated there by the assistance of Dr. W.F. Oldham, former Bishop
of India. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio Medical
University, and was for a time resident physician of the Protestant
hospital at Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Sargis was doing relief work in Urmia on the 1st January last
year when the Russian army retired from that city, followed by
14,000 refugees from Urmia and a hundred surrounding villages. The
hardships and sufferings endured by those refugees were described in
Associated Press despatches. There were still left in Urmia and the
villages 45,000 persons, chiefly Armenian refugees, when the Turks
and Kurds entered. The latter at once began the work of
exterminating the Christian population. In one town alone,
Gulpashan, in one night, according to Dr. Sargis, 79 men and boys
were tied hand to hand, taken to a hill outside the village and
shot. Their wives and daughters were distributed among the Turks,
Kurds and Persian Mohammedans.
Dr. Sargis’ story continues:
“On the second day after the Turkish officers came, they had a good
many wounded and sick. As soon as they heard that I was an able
physician, they took me, gave me a bodyguard, and put me in charge
of Urmia Hospital. That was how I came to learn most of their
secrets; I helped their wounded and sick. One day there were sixty
men brought from Bashkala, all well-to-do citizens, some of them
noted men of that place. They were used as beasts of burden and
forced to carry rolls of barbed wire into Urmia. The next day they
were all taken to the Castle of Ismayil[49] and every one was shot
or hacked to death.
“About that time Nuri, the governor of Gawar, told me that he had
received word from the Turkish commander to kill all the Armenian
soldiers in the Turkish army. He said that, for my sake, he would
not do it, but that somebody else would. Twenty-nine were killed
about fifteen miles from Urmia, at Karmad. We had eight of them in
the city, fine fellows, some of them educated in Beirout. They had
been disarmed, and one night they took them to the suburbs and shot
them. But one of them, named Aslam[50], escaped. He dropped with the
others, but was not hit. After the butchers left, he made his way to
the Presbyterian mission college. I was notified and asked to take
care of him. I kept him until the Russian army came. He joined, and
is now fighting with them.
“In the First Turkish corps, commanded by Halil Bey, there were
about 400 Armenians. One of them, Gulbenkian, a graduate of Beirout,
told me that they were all doomed to be butchered. When they
appointed me head physician of the hospital, they gave me plenty of
helpers, including seven Christian nurses, six Arabs and one Greek.
Gulbenkian told me that if I did not help them they would be killed.
An Arab doctor, Bahadin Effendi, was appointed to work under my
direction. My Greek nurse warned me that Bahadin had already killed
more than fifty Armenian Christians, and cautioned me to watch him.
One night about ten o’clock, Bahadin sent for me, saying that he was
sick. Fortunately for me, the Greek and two Armenian nurses went
with me. When I reached the hospital, I found that Bahadin was not
sick at all. He said to me: ‘What business have you to disturb me at
this time of the night? Your coming shows that you have some designs
upon my life.’ I told him that it was a mistake, that I had been
told he was sick, and went away. At the bottom of the stairs I was
overtaken by an officer, who said that the doctor had not done with
me. I protested, but was ordered to go back. So I put my trust in
the Lord and went.
“The doctor greeted me with the question: ‘Who gave you permission
to leave the room?’ and continued: ‘You are a prisoner, and you will
never see the light of to-morrow’s sun.’ I told him that I was an
American citizen, and that I was helping the wounded for the sake of
humanity. He cut me off by saying: ‘This is wartime. The top of your
cap is green. That means that you are a descendant of the prophet,
and it will give me pleasure to destroy your life to-night. I must
think how I shall kill you. I could throw you out of the window, but
that would be too quick. I could shoot you, but that also is too
good for you. I shall have to use my sword. You sit down there in
that corner, and these Turkish nurses will sing your funeral before
I begin to cut you up.’
“The Turks began to sing a droning chant and I had no choice but to
sit and listen. My bodyguard, the Greek nurse Theodore and two
Armenian soldiers, the latter my servants, stood outside the door,
and when they heard the chanting they thought it was all over with
me. The Greek, who was a shrewd fellow, told my bodyguard to enter,
and, if he saw me, to say that the patients wanted to see the
doctor. All of a sudden I saw him enter with a lantern. He saluted
the effendi and said: ‘The patients want the doctor.’ I didn’t give
Bahadin a chance to say a word. I was up and out and down in the
street in about two seconds. When I got to the outpost they yelled
from the window to stop me, but they were too late. My bodyguard and
the Armenians and the Greek followed close behind me, and I got
away. I reached home at midnight. My wife and children thought I was
already dead.”
Dr. Sargis turned the tables on the Arab doctor by alleging that he
was insane, and having him put under guard and on a milk diet,
notwithstanding that he was a doctor in Halil Bey’s army.
“Soon after the Russians left Urmia a German machinist, Neumann, who
came in with the Turks, announced himself as German Consul. By his
orders a Christian of the name of Moushi was hanged. Neumann had
promised me to release Moushi, but overnight he sold him to the
Turks for £50. An Englishman named Jonathan George, well known in
Tabriz, a relative of my wife, was whipped on Neumann’s orders. In
the village of Karadjalu a young Christian with a wife and two
children was killed by a Mohammedan. The murderer took the wife and
children, promising to protect them; but while crossing a bridge he
threw the children into the river. At Ardishai 75 women and girls
ran into the sea[51] to escape the Turks. They refused to trust
promises of safety if they came out, and were all shot as they stood
in the water. Eight thousand five hundred died in the vicinity of
Urmia in five months; 1,500 were killed, and the rest died of cold
and hunger.
“During the days of the Turkish occupation it was no unusual sight
to see an old woman carrying the body of her daughter or son to a
place of burial, digging the grave herself or with the aid of other
women.”
-----
Footnote 49:
Ismael Agha’s Kala. See page 162 below.
Footnote 50:
Arslan (?).
Footnote 51:
_i.e._, Lake Urmia.
35. URMIA: EXTRACTS FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT (FOR THE YEAR 1915)
PRESENTED BY THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT AT URMIA TO THE BOARD OF
FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
A sad case was that of the mother of a girl of twelve who was being
taken away to a life of slavery. The mother protested and tried to
save her child, who was ruthlessly torn from her. As the daughter
was being dragged away the mother made so much trouble for her
oppressors, and clung to them so tenaciously, that they stabbed her
twelve times before she fell, helpless to save her little girl from
her fate. This woman recovered from her wounds. Some people were
shot as they ran, and children that they were carrying were killed
or wounded with them. In some cases men were lined up so that
several could be shot with one bullet, in order not to waste
ammunition on them.
At the height of the epidemic not less than two thousand were sick.
The mortality reached forty-eight daily, and the fact that four
thousand died, besides the one thousand who were killed, will help
to make vivid the terrible conditions that prevailed in our crowded
premises. All ranks have suffered—preachers, teachers, physicians,
etc., as well as the poor—for all had to live in the same unhygienic
surroundings.
One of the most terrible things that came to the notice of the
Medical Department was the treatment of Syrian women and girls by
the Turks, Kurds and local Mohammedans. After the massacre in the
village of ——, almost all the women and girls were outraged, and two
little girls, aged eight and ten, died in the hands of Moslem
villains. A mother said that not a woman or girl above twelve (and
some younger) in the village of —— escaped violation. This is the
usual report from the villages. One man, who exercised a great deal
of authority in the northern part of the Urmia plain, openly boasted
of having ruined eleven Christian girls, two of them under seven
years of age, and he is now permitted to return to his home in peace
and no questions are asked. Several women from eighty to eighty-five
years old have suffered with the younger women. One woman who was
prominent in the work of the Protestant Church in another village
was captured by eighteen men and taken to a solitary place, where
they had provided for themselves food and drink. She was released
the next day and permitted to drag herself away. Later she came to
the city to accuse her outragers, and practically did not get a
hearing from the Government.
There is little to relieve the blackness of this picture. The
Government gave some assistance in the finding and returning of
Christian girls. A few have been brought back by Kurds. In one case
eleven girls and young women, who had been taken away from Geogtapa,
were sent to me by the chief of the Zarza tribe of Kurds. Several
companies have been sent also by the Begzadi Kurds to Targawar.
Since the return of the Russians to Urmia some of the Kurds have
tried to curry favour by returning prisoners that they have held for
months, but quite a number are still held by them, some of them
women who have been married to some of the principal servants of the
chiefs.
It would not be right to close this report of medical work in Urmia
without a word about the native physicians. One of them received a
martyr’s crown early in January in the village of Khanishan. Four
died in the epidemics. One had been a worker for many years in the
plain of Gawar, two days’ journey to the west of Urmia. One of them
was a companion in the attempt to find Karini Agha at the very
beginning of the troubles here that resulted in the rescue of the
people of Geogtapa. One was the assistant in the hospital. He had
been in the hospital since his graduation in 1908, and was a most
faithful and efficient man. During the awful first days of fear,
murder and rapine, it was his hands that dressed and re-dressed most
of the wounded, with the help of medical students. He thought little
of himself and wore himself out until he could not eat, keeping on
at his work for three days after he began to be ill. His life was
given in the noblest self-sacrifice, and many people will remember
him with deep affection. The fourth was one of the refugees in our
yard who, though he was not very active, frequently prescribed for a
number of patients. His wife, who is a graduate in medicine in
America, in spite of the death of her husband and two children, kept
bravely on with her work, trying to relieve some of the suffering.
She had charge of the maternity cases and examined many of the
outraged women and girls after they finally reached us.
The most diabolically cold-blooded of all the massacres was the one
committed above the village of Ismael Agha’s Kala, when some sixty
Syrians of Gawar were butchered by the Kurds at the instigation of
the Turks. These Christians had been used by the Turks to pack
telegraph wire from over the border, and while they were in the city
of Urmia they were kept in close confinement, without food or drink.
On their return, as they reached the valleys between the Urmia and
Baradost plains, they were all stabbed to death, as it was supposed,
but here again, as in two former massacres, a few wounded, bloody
victims succeeded in making their way to our hospital.
_The testimony of the survivors of the massacre at Ismael Agha’s
Kala is confirmed by the following extract from a letter, dated 8th
November, 1915, from the Rev. E.T. Allen of Urmia_:—
Politically, things are in apparently good order. People are easily
frightened and are nervous, but we have good hopes. Yesterday I went
to the Kala of Ismael Agha and from there to Kasha, and some men
went with me up the road to the place where the Gawar men were
murdered by the Turks. It was a gruesome sight—perhaps the worst I
have seen at all. There were seventy-one or two bodies; we could not
tell exactly, because of the conditions. It is about six months
since the murder. Some were in fairly good condition—dried, like a
mummy. Others were torn to pieces by the wild animals. Some had been
daggered in several places, as was evident from the cuts in the
skin. The majority of them had been shot. The ground about was
littered with empty cartridge-cases. It was a long way off from the
Kala, and half-an-hour’s walk from the main road into the most
rugged gorge I have seen for some time. I suppose the Turks thought
no word could get out from there—a secret, solitary, rocky gorge.
How those three wounded men succeeded in getting out and reaching
the city is more of a marvel than I thought it was at the time. The
record of massacre burials now stands as follows:—
At Tcharbash, forty in one grave, among them a bishop. At Gulpashan,
fifty-one in one grave, among them the most innocent persons in the
country; and now, above the Kala of Ismael Agha, seventy in one
grave, among them leading merchants of Gawar.
These one hundred and sixty-one persons, buried by me, came to their
death in the most cruel manner possible, at the hands of regular
Turkish troops in company with Kurds under their command.
36. URMIA, SALMAS AND HAKKIARI: STATEMENT[52] BY MR. PAUL
SHIMMON[53], PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “ARARAT,” OF
LONDON, NOVEMBER, 1915.
Seeing that _Ararat_ is truly a searchlight on all the sufferings of
Eastern Christians, a comforter to the broken-hearted and a fighter
for their rights, I have felt it my duty and privilege to write just
some bare facts of the past and present position of the Syrians in
Urmi (Urmia) and Salmas in Persia, and in the Kurdistan mountains
south of Van. What I will say of Urmi and Salmas applies equally to
the Armenians of the two places, in the latter of which they
predominate.
The Russian troops had been in occupation of Azerbaijan,
north-western Persia, for a number of years, and their presence
meant safety, prosperity and security of person and property both to
Christians and Moslems alike. Under the conditions then prevailing,
the Kurds had been restrained entirely from their occupation of
plunder, and the Turks were deprived of prominence in that part of
Persia which they have coveted for years. The Persians also have
been restless, and their attitude towards the Christians was
somewhat doubtful. On the 2nd January, 1915, it was suddenly known
that the Russian army, consulate and all, were leaving Urmi—and not
that alone, but it was found later that they were withdrawing from
all northern Persia. It came like a thunderbolt, for it had been
positively stated all along to the Christian population that the
Russian army would under no circumstances withdraw from Urmi. Here,
then, in the heart of winter, some 45,000 Christians, from nine to
ten days’ journey from the nearest railway station to the Russian
border, found themselves in a very precarious position. No
conveyances, horses, &c., &c., could be had for love or money.
Roughly speaking, one-third of the people who happened to know of
this withdrawal, through whose villages the army was to pass, left
for Russia. The great majority simply left their homes and walked
out. Some only heard of the withdrawal during the night, and so
could hardly make any provision for the journey. A good number of
people from Tergawar and Mergawar, and outlying districts, who were
already refugees in Urmi—having been plundered on two or three
occasions previously—left with the army. So there was a concourse of
over 10,000 people, mostly women and children, walking in the bitter
cold, scantily provided, sore-footed, wearied, that had to make
their way to the Russian frontier over mountains and along miserable
roads and through swamps. Their cries and shrieks as they walked
were heart-rending. The people of Salmas had left two or three days
earlier and under somewhat better conditions. There was a swamp
between Salmas and Khoi where people actually went knee-deep, where
oxen and buffaloes died of cold, and where there was no real resting
place and provisions could only be procured from a distance of some
ten miles. The agonies of the children were inexpressible. Some
mothers had two or three children to take care of, and they dragged
one along while they carried the other on their shoulders. Many died
on the roadside, many lost their parents, many were left unburied,
many were picked up by the Russian cossacks and were taken to the
Russian Caucasus to be there cared for by Armenians and others. Such
was their plight when they reached Russia, and in some way or
another were provided for in the Syrian and Armenian villages in
Erivan and in Tiflis, where they passed their time till the spring,
when they again wearied of their lives and returned to Urmi and
Salmas in the months of May and June.
About two-thirds of the people who stayed behind at Urmi had the
cruellest of fates. No sooner had the Russian forces withdrawn than
the roads were closely guarded, and no one was permitted to come in
or go out of Urmi for over four months. The Kurds poured in from
every quarter, and the Persian Moslems joined hands with them. They
engulfed the Christian villages; plunder, pillage, massacre and rape
were the order of the day. Every village paid its share. First they
killed the men, then they took the women—those who had not
escaped—and carried them away for themselves or forced them to
become Moslems, and finally they plundered and burned the villages.
In one village 80 were killed, in another 50, in a third 30, and so
the thing went on in varying degrees among the 70 odd villages in
Urmi. About one thousand people were disposed of in this way. In the
meantime all that were able escaped to the city to the American
mission quarters, whose premises were soon filled to suffocation,
and altogether some 20,000 people or more found shelter in the
American and French mission quarters, while some hid themselves
among Moslem friends and landlords. These refugees, in their flight,
were repeatedly robbed on the way by soldiers and officers sent for
their protection, and by civilians as well. Many a woman came
terror-stricken, shrieking, and bleeding, and almost naked; and many
were forced to become Moslems. Some 150 cases or more of these
unfortunate women came under the notice of the American
missionaries, who tried to restore them to their own folk. One woman
had two sons, four and six years of age, who were thrown into a
brook to freeze, while the brute of a mullah set to work to force
their mother. She at last escaped and took away the children alive,
but they died of exposure the next morning.
Thus in the course of a fortnight all the 45,000 Syrians and
Armenians were plundered—not one village escaped. There was no
exception. The village of Iriawa was in the keeping of an Armenian—a
Turkish subject. He, with twelve other Armenian soldiers, was shot,
and the village plundered. Gulpashan was the last to be attacked,
when, on the 1st February, 51 of its elders were taken during the
night to the graveyard and there murdered most horribly and their
brains knocked out. The orgies committed on women and tender girls
can be left only to the imagination. I have known the village from
childhood and all its inhabitants.
The refugees in the French and American mission yards remained there
for over four and a half months, in daily terror and fear of their
lives; the quarters were crowded to suffocation, and no man dared
leave the premises. Seeing that a few houses of Christians were left
in the city which were not plundered, the dozen or less of Turkish
officials, who had control of things, began to fleece the people.
They forced them to pay a fine of 6,600 _tomans_ (a _toman_ is about
one pound sterling[54]), on the pretext that the Christian stores,
offices and shops in the city would be saved from plunder. But no
sooner was this sum extracted through the kindly offices of the
American missionaries than they began to put up to auction and
dispose of all the shops, offices and stores. Not satisfied with
what they had done, they obtained 5,500 _tomans_ as blood money for
Mar Elia, the Syrian Bishop, whom they found in hiding on the roof
of a house, and threatened to kill him unless the money was paid.
Then, again, such prominent men as Shamasha Lazar, Shamasha Babu and
Dr. Isaac Daniel had to pay 3,000, 2,000 and 1,000 _tomans_
respectively to save their lives. Such was the perpetual terror in
which the whole community lived.
Soon disease broke out, typhoid played havoc, and over 4,000 died of
the epidemic alone. There was scarcely any life left in the remnant
of the people when the Russians retook Urmi in May. They were worn
out and so emaciated that one could hardly recognise them. It was
the first time for months that they were able to crawl out of their
filthy winter quarters and to inhale fresh air. The Americans, who
had fed these people all through the winter, now gave the men and
women spades and sickles to return to their villages, and some flour
to start life in their ruined homes. I have seen villages turned to
ashes, where not one window, door or any woodwork was to be found.
Indeed, one day a woman came and said to me: “I have one room out of
seven left on the second storey, but what shall I do? There is not a
single ladder in all the village that I can borrow so as to mount to
it.” What they had left in their “homes,” these people found on
their return to have been eaten by dogs and cats. They have not sown
anything this autumn, nor were they able to do any sowing or
cultivating in the spring. Ninety per cent. of them have absolutely
nothing left, and they sleep on the bare hard earthen floor, with no
bedding or any other protection beyond their ordinary rags. This is
their second winter!
The majority of the Salmas Christians had left for Russia by the
time the Urmi people reached Salmas. But there were some left who
had hidden themselves among kind Moslems here and there. When the
Turks took possession of Salmas, they used every means to find out
the whereabouts and number of all the Christians that had remained
behind, and one night during March last they took some 723 Armenians
and Syrians to the fields in Haftevan and mangled and butchered them
in a most brutal manner. Three days later the Russians retook Salmas
and buried these people in some trenches which they dug for them.
The same fate was awaiting the women, and perhaps worse, but the
advent of the Russians saved them.
The troubles of Mar Shimun’s independent tribes of Tiari, Tkhuma,
&c., in Kurdistan, south of Van, began last June. Mar Shimun’s seat
in the village of Quodshanis was attacked by regular troops and
Kurds, destroyed and plundered. Most of the people escaped to
Salmas. Mar Shimun at the time was in the interior with the main
body of his congregation. A regular Turkish force with artillery and
some 30,000 Kurds, &c., marched on the Christians. The forty
villages of Berwar, those nearest towards Mosul, were destroyed
first, and only some seventeen of them are known to have escaped.
The women of many of the others have been forced to become Moslems.
For forty days the people defended themselves against superior
forces, and that only with flintlocks and antiquated rifles. At
last, unable to withstand the onslaught of modern artillery, with
which the Turks also bombarded the Church of Mar Sawa, the people
withdrew to the interior of the mountains with the Patriarch’s
family in their centre; and here they subsisted on herbs and some
sheep they had taken with them, while many were daily dying of
starvation. Mar Shimun came to Salmas—I had an interview with him
there, and he has sent me to speak for him and his—to effect the
escape of his people, or at least of as many of them as could be
saved. All this happened in the latter part of September, when,
according to the telegram received here from H.B.M. Consul Shipley
at Tabriz, some 25,000 had already arrived, and with them Mar
Shimun, himself as destitute as the rest, while 10,000 more were to
follow. The condition of the remnant, for in all there are over
100,000, is very precarious, but let us hope not hopeless.
Assistance can be sent to them through Mar Shimun and through H.B.M.
Consul Shipley.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Mission and the Armenian (Lord
Mayor’s) Relief Fund have sent £500 and £550 respectively to these
people. I understand that the Lord Mayor’s Fund is telegraphing a
further £500 for the relief of the Christians in Persia, for which I
for one feel infinitely grateful, as it cannot but assuage some of
the terrible suffering that exists.
Let us now survey the whole situation. As over 90 per cent. of the
Christians at Urmi are destitute, and the condition of some 10,000
to 15,000 Armenians and Syrians in Salmas is not much better, we
have at once some 80,000 people and more who must be assisted, if
they are not to starve during the coming winter. In this we are not
taking into account the remnant of Mar Shimun’s people or any
Armenians that might have found their way to Persia, where the
Russians are now in occupation, and where the condition of the
Christians will be, so far as personal safety goes, more hopeful.
The turn events are taking politically in Persia seems also
favourable, but one must never be too confident of the political
situation there.
I am delighted to see such a magnificent spirit of response from all
corners of the world whence Armenians themselves are coming to the
help of their countrymen. We have to cheer each other up in our
misfortunes in every way we can, till God in His own way shall solve
the problem. And with such noble friends as we have in England,
among whom are the Primate, Lord Bryce, and Members of Parliament
like Mr. Aneurin Williams and Mr. T.P. O’Connor, and I am sure in
America as well—people who would do anything for us—let us be
patient and prayerful, hoping for recompense and release from this
tyranny that has had us in its grip ever since Mohammedan rule began
in our country.
-----
Footnote 52:
For a fuller version of Mr. Shimmon’s statement see p. 577 below.
Footnote 53:
Mr. Shimmon is a graduate of Columbia University, New York, and
has been resident at Urmia for the past fourteen years. He was an
eye-witness of the events he relates; and, after the retreat of
the Turks and Kurds, he was appointed Commissioner for the
Baranduz District of Urmia (under the authority of the Russian
Consul and the Persian Governor) for the restoration of plundered
Christian property. He has since undertaken a mission to Great
Britain and the U.S., as the representative of His Beatitude Mar
Shimun, the head of the Nestorian Church.
Footnote 54:
1 toman = 10 krans, and its actual value in English money is about
3_s._ 4_d._—_Editor._
37. HAKKIARI: FURTHER STATEMENT BY MR. PAUL SHIMMON, PUBLISHED IN
THE “CHURCHMAN” NEWSPAPER, AND SUBSEQUENTLY ISSUED AS A
PAMPHLET; COMMUNICATED BY MRS. D.S. MARGOLIOUTH, OF OXFORD.
The following is the story of how a Bishop, nay, an Archbishop, at
the risk of his own life, saved 35,000 souls—one-third of his
flock—from the pursuing Kurds and Turks, and from impending
starvation on the heights of the Kurdistan Mountains. He was already
in the zone of safety, where he could well have stayed; but he
turned back, saying: “I am going back to die with my people.” By so
doing, he rescued a multitude of his people from almost certain
massacre.
It will be remembered that the Assyrians (better known in Church
history as the Nestorian or Syrian Christians) dwell on both sides
of the Turco-Persian frontier. The bulk of them live in the very
inaccessible mountains of Kurdistan, east of Mosul, which is in
Mesopotamia, and south of Lake Van; while a goodly number live in
the beautiful plains of Urmia and Salmas in north-western Persia and
in the adjacent country districts bordering on Turkey. Over the
former district Mar Shimun, the Patriarch, is the supreme
ecclesiastical and civil ruler.
Early last June the Turkish forces with irregular Kurds, under the
leadership and direction of the Kaimakam, made an attack on the
court of Mar Shimun in Quodshanis—a Turkish governor making an
attack on peaceful subjects of the Turkish Empire for the simple
reason that they were Christians. Quodshanis is an isolated place.
The Patriarch and members of his court were in the interior with the
main body of his church, so the people of the village could hardly
be expected to make more than a bare resistance. For two days they
fought from within the church, but soon their ammunition was
exhausted, and the women and children were in a desperate position.
At night they set out for the plains of Salmas in Persia, where I
saw them in a most pitiable condition. The Patriarchal house, the
English mission, and the larger part of the place was plundered and
burned. Even the tombs of former Patriarchs were violated.
In the meanwhile a formidable army was being gathered against the
independent dwellers in the valleys of Tkhuma, Tiari, Baz, &c. Both
Turkish regulars and Kurds, it is said, to the extent of some
30,000, made a combined attack on the people who had kept their
independence since Tamerlane and Ghengis Khan had driven them to the
craggy mountains, where in some places they have to carry soil on
their backs to make artificial fields. For the first time in the
life of the people, artillery was brought up to bombard their
ancient and venerable churches, while they themselves made a stout
resistance with flintlocks and ammunition of their own make.
For forty days they carried on an unequal warfare against tremendous
odds, until at last with their families they took refuge on the top
of a high mountain in the Tal country. The Patriarchal family took
shelter in the famous church of Mar Audishu, and the others who had
been able to effect an escape surrounded them, making a big camp.
The Turks and Kurds, after having destroyed the Christian villages
in the valleys below, carrying away the crops and plundering
everything, endeavoured to starve the fugitives out. Near the church
mentioned above there is a small fountain gushing from a rock which
was hardly enough to supply drinking water, and for washing and
bathing they would often steal at nights to the valleys beneath. The
people stayed here for nearly three months, never taking off their
clothes and always on the lookout for an attack by night. The few
sheep that they had taken with them on their flight were almost
eaten up now—they had no salt at all, and soon hunger and sickness
began to make their ravages. There was no necessity to deport this
Christian population. Its mere starvation in the mountains was all
that was needed to make an end of the oldest Apostolic Church in
existence.
In the meantime Mar Shimun, the Patriarch, with a few brave men, had
stolen out by night and made his way to the Russian army operating
in Salmas, Persia. He was received with great distinction, but it
was found out after many precious weeks of delay that it might not
be possible to send any relief for the people in the interior who
were not in the line of march. Later on, the Russians sent their
army to Van, and then Mar Shimun with a few faithful followers and
good rifles—he himself is an excellent shot—set out again for the
interior to reach his flock and his brothers and sisters. They soon
made ready to take the congregation through the valleys and defiles
to the plains of Persia.
The last day of their stay was the saddest of all. On that day
Ishaya, a brother of the Patriarch, died of fever. Mar Shimun,
hearing of his illness, had come over the day before. The enemy was
then very near, and they could hear the sound of the guns in Tkhuma.
Just when the funeral of his brother was to take place, Surma and
Romi, his sisters, and Esther, his sister-in-law, were compelled to
leave the place, lest they should be caught by the enemy. Mar
Shimun, two priests and a few laymen remained behind at this time of
danger to bury Ishaya. The burial service was quickly said and the
body hastily interred, and Mar Shimun hastened after the fleeing
women and children. They were only just in time, for, a few hours
after their departure, the Turks arrived and made straight for the
church, having heard that the Patriarch’s household was there.
I shall not dwell on the horrors of those caught and slain on the
way nor on the many beautiful villages ruined and the women taken
captive, nor on the thousands of others who have met the same fate.
In one district of forty villages, its Bishop said to me, only
seventeen had been able to make an escape, and he knew but very
little of the fearful fate of the rest. I want only to speak of the
living who are anxious to die, but to whom death does not come. They
arrived in Persia at places already ruined; they camped out in the
plain of Salmas (4,000 feet above sea level) sleeping in the fields
with no clothes to cover them at night, clad in the rags which they
have worn for many months, without food or shelter. Some assistance
has gone to them from America and England. Some quilts were bought
to be distributed, one for each family of five persons, to serve as
cover in the bitter cold. Some families have as many as ten members,
indeed one had twenty-eight. These are the people who have been
living on one dollar a month, and to whom flour is served in
quantity barely sufficient to allow each person one small loaf a day
and nothing more. I dare say that even their Bishops and other
clergy are in not much better condition than their flock.
Assistance, however, can now be sent out to them and will reach them
immediately. Urmia and Salmas are now in the zone of safety, where
there are many Russian troops, and these have been very kind to the
suffering Christians. Money is being sent through the American
Consul, the missionaries and the Patriarch, and is at once
distributed to the sufferers. The Rev. Y.M. Nisan, who is still
alive, although he has lost his wife and daughter, is on the
distributing committee. The defeat of the Turks at Erzeroum means
peace and safety of life for all Armenia and Persia. In the latter
country there are over 80,000 destitute, the majority of them
Assyrians, and some Armenians as well. Money is distributed to all
without discrimination.
I have purposely avoided saying anything of the horrors that we have
suffered at Urmia and the agonies we have passed through, simply
because I have felt that the condition of these mountaineers is even
more pitiable. I hope Christian people will be moved at once to make
an effort to save them from the clutches of starvation. The gallant
Patriarch has saved them and brought them out of Turkey, where
relief will get to them. I therefore appeal to all my friends and to
others who may be so disposed to help rescue this ancient Church.
38. REFUGEES FROM THE HAKKIARI DISTRICT: SERIES OF EXTRACTS FROM
LETTERS BY MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN MISSION STATION AT URMIA;
COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
=(a) Extract from a letter, dated 8th November, 1915, from the Rev.
E.T. Allen (?).=
As you know, the first attack by the combined force of Turks and
Kurds was made in June and was partially successful. The people were
driven out of their valleys into the high mountains central to
Tiari, Tkhoma, Tai and Baz. In this movement not many lives were
lost, but many villages were destroyed. The hostile forces were for
some reason withdrawn, and for some weeks there was comparative
quiet, broken only by spasmodic attacks by local forces. About three
weeks ago there was another concerted attack made by the Turks and
Kurds on their stronghold in the mountain top, and they were driven
out. Between fifteen and twenty thousand, with great difficulty,
made their escape, part of their road being held by the Kurds. They
came down the Tal and Kon Valleys, followed by the Kurds, and
attempted to turn up the Zab to get out by way of Djoulamerk. They
found the Kurds in force at the Djoulamerk bridge, and were forced
to turn down stream. At the head of Tiari they crossed the Zab and
went up into the hills, which they found deserted by the Kurds, who
had gone to war. They then made their way round behind Djoulamerk,
meeting no hostile force until they reached the ridge between
Quodshanis and the Zab. Here again they found a force of Kurds
waiting for them. They had quite a sharp fight with them and the
Kurds were worsted. From there on they had no more trouble, reaching
Bashkala in safety, and later coming down to Salmas.
These are the people I found in Salmas. They number, according to my
estimate, between fifteen and twenty thousand. Among them are Mar
Shimun and his family and all our helpers, with one or two
exceptions. (Mar Shimun is the Patriarch of the Nestorian Church.)
With reference to those who were left in the mountains, perhaps a
thousand more succeeded in getting through. There are still some
thousands shut up there, and their fate is still uncertain. How many
were killed in this last attack, I have found no one who could give
even an estimate, but undoubtedly the number must be large. This is
in reference to those in Salmas. All the facts cannot be given out,
but this is their case in brief. The mass of them are without
shelter of any kind and also without bedding. They are sleeping on
the bare ground without covering. The rains have begun and the
winter promises to set in early. What all this means to these
thousands who are without shelter, you need not be told.
Since coming down a great many of them have been taken sick with a
peculiar form of bowel trouble, such as the mountaineers have been
having here. Dr. David Yohannan estimates that there are as many as
one thousand cases. The fatality is not as great as might be
expected, but there are a great many deaths. One tribe reported
forty deaths within a week. I have seen the dead lying on the
roadside, and the women carrying their dead, orders to move on
giving them little time to die decently or to be buried with
respect. I gave no relief while there. Along the road they had
gathered up a little grain; the Russians were giving out 1,200
loads, and help was being given on the threshing floor and from door
to door. I have been making a complete list, so that when we are
ready to begin we shall have them classified and shall be able to
handle them. We shall give flour or wheat in weekly allowances. The
cost per head will be about five shahis (1_d._). I shall refrain
from giving as long as I see they can subsist on what they get from
other sources.
Bedding is needed as badly as food. There is not much choice between
dying from hunger or dying from cold. We shall have to supply
several thousand outfits, cost of each about three-and-a-half tomans
(12_s._). You may rest assured that I shall use the utmost caution
in the giving of relief.
There is no further word from those left in the mountains. There is
still hope that some of them may succeed in getting through, but
undoubtedly many will be lost.
=(b) Extract from a letter, of later date, from a missionary.[55]=
About 150 or more of the Mutran’s[56] people came down. Some of the
children were a sight to see for destitution. I had a tableful of
women to breakfast with me the next morning, including one of our
own pupils who was married into the Mutran’s family. They said that
200 Turks had been living off them since a year ago, but that their
flocks had been so multiplied that they were able to sustain the
burden. At last the Turks began sending twenty men every day with
packs on their backs to Mosul, loaded with the spoils of their
houses, so they feared their own end or deportation might be near;
they found a chance to escape one day when their guards were a mile
or two away, and silently stole away with some of their possessions.
=(c) Extract from a letter, of later date, from a missionary.[57]=
Some of the refugees in Salmas had flocks and possessions, but all
were ravaged by disease, so that even if they had work they could
not do it. A boy who was with me found his relatives among the
people. One uncle of his had been living in the barracks. He had
lost his three children one after the other, and then his wife died
and he had no one to care for his affairs but himself. He was so
weak he could not do anything—reduced to skin and bone himself—but
he got a rope and tried to carry the body of his wife on his back to
bury her somewhere. He had not even strength enough to dig her a
grave. There the story ended. The boy said the man broke down and
could not tell any more, and he did not have the heart to ask what
had become of her.
Another of our preachers has lost three of his four children, and
the last was very ill when we saw her. His wife had lost her brother
and two sisters—one of them a pupil in the Fiske Seminary.
-----
Footnote 55:
Name withheld.
Footnote 56:
A dignitary of the Nestorian Church, second in rank to the
Patriarch, Mutran (or Matran) = Metropolitan.
Footnote 57:
Name withheld.
39. REFUGEES FROM HAKKIARI: LETTER, DATED 26th SEPTEMBER/9th
OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A RELATIVE OF MAR SHIMUN, THE PATRIARCH;
COMMUNICATED BY THE REV. F.N. HEAZELL.
I have not written to you for a long time. I think you will know the
reason is that the war with Turkey has stopped the post to Europe.
As you know, during past years there have been difficulties between
the Turks and ourselves, but now the truth of the matter is made
clear. When we saw many Christians of Gawar and Albek killed without
reason, we thought our turn would come. Every kind of warfare
commenced, and since then, for months, we have been fighting in the
mountains; in the end we were not successful, because the Kurds were
helped by the artillery of the Turkish Government. Of course when
our cartridges were exhausted we could not stand before the great
force of Turkish artillery. Then first of all Tiari was destroyed;
we then thought we could flee to the mountains in the hope of
victory, but soon the Turks came to the entrance of Tkhoma and our
hope was destroyed—either we must deliver ourselves to Turkey and be
killed or flee to save ourselves. We did the latter, but even then
half the nation was left behind.
Now we are here in Diliman, Salmas; but the larger part of Tiari and
Tkhoma is conquered. Up to the present time we have no news of those
people; whether they are alive or have been destroyed, we know not.
Many of the refugees who come here are dying of hunger; they have no
bedding, and many men just died on the way here. Would you were here
to see with your own eyes our state; your sympathy would indeed be
aroused. All the houses have been destroyed (also Mar Shimun’s house
and your Mission house in Quodshanis) and burnt and robbed; we are
in rags and hunger and in a strange land. Many of the houses where
you have spent the night as a guest have no bedding, the house of
Malik Ismail, for instance, and the house of Khiyu.
Of all these the condition of the Tkhumnai is the most miserable;
they are quite destitute. If some help is not forthcoming for the
nation all hope of survival is at an end, for three parts will die
of hunger. Our thanks are due to the Russian Consul, who is taking
care to distribute the people among the villages to prevent them
dying of cold, for all are under trees and in fields in the open.
In the course of February, Esther and I and her children went down
to Malik Ismail’s house in Tiari, for we thought it would be safer
there. Then we soon moved from Tchumbar to Dadush, a small village
of Tiari. When the Turkish army drew near that place we fled to the
Church of Mar Audishu of Tal. In each place we were obliged to leave
behind some of our clothes and our bedding; many times we were
hungry; we made our journeys by night, and Esther’s little children
would fall asleep on the road. Three months we stayed in Mar
Audishu, the whole time the fighting drawing nearer. Our brothers
are fighting in Dizan, and there every three or four men are
sleeping together for want of quilts at night. We sleep with our
clothes on, ready to start when it may be necessary. In Mar Audishu
the food was good, but the provision for sleeping and bathing was
bad. Soap there was none; water could be had for drinking and
cooking only. Sometimes we would go down to one of the Tal villages
to wash our clothes and to bathe.
From Quodshanis everything we possessed was carried off and our
house destroyed. A few quilts we brought to Dizan; these we could
not bring away with us because we had no mules, for the Kurds had
carried them off, and I think they will now remain for our
neighbours (the Kurds). Of clothes to wear we had only enough for
the road, but not enough for the cold of the winter. When we came
here, on the road, we saw some women who had never known want
entirely naked; we divided our clothes among them, giving them just
enough to prevent them dying of cold. During all these years our
state has been, glory to God, that only our souls have been
chastened, but finally one thing has befallen us which we can never
forget. I recall the last days that I stood in the Church. I had
gone down to Dizan because Paulus, my brother, was sick and
Ishaya[58] was ill with fever in Mar Audishu. It was at the time
when the guns of the Turks were drawn up before Tkhuma and were
moving forward—then it was he sickened and died. Mar Shimun had
arrived there a little before. Romi[59] and Esther[60] and her
children, at that very time of great sorrow, when they least wished
to leave, had to set out, weeping, with their families. Only Mar
Shimun with two priests and a few men remained in the Church for the
funeral service, for as quickly as they could they had to place the
body of Ishaya in the grave and hasten after their families. Going
quickly on foot they arrived at Darawar, where Malik Ismail was.
Those little children (God bless them) went on foot, without a
servant, accompanied by Romi and Esther. That day, if our families
had delayed in Mar Audishu, they would have been prisoners now in
Turkey. The day after they left, the Turkish army entered the
Church, for they knew we were there. But, thanks be to God, we had
escaped.
Paulus is better, and now our family is with Mar Shimun in Diliman.
Up to the present time we have not hired a house, for we do not know
where we shall settle down. There is a Church here.
Mr. McDowell came from Urmia to see us and they hope to help this
people as much as they can with food and clothing.
Of all the things that were left in our house I am sorrowing most of
all for my English books that have gone. Those of our own language
are hidden; I do not know whether they will be safe or not. I only
left about forty in Dizan.
-----
Footnote 58:
Youngest dearly loved brother to Surma.
Footnote 59:
Surma’s sister.
Footnote 60:
Sister-in-law; her eldest little boy, Theodore, will succeed his
uncle as Patriarch.
40. REFUGEES FROM HAKKIARI: LETTER, DATED DILIMAN, 1st/14th APRIL,
1916, FROM SURMA, THE SISTER OF MAR SHIMUN, TO MRS. D.S.
MARGOLIOUTH, OF OXFORD.
I was very glad to get your sweet letter, for which I was longing
and looking forward, my dearest friend. I know how you loved Ishaya,
and he always asked after you. I wonder if you ever got his letter
that he wrote to you in Syriac.
I wrote to you while at Quodshanis (before the war) but got no
answer; I wondered if you might be away from home. I wonder if Mr.
Wigram and Mr. Heazell got my letters, written since we came to
Diliman; I am afraid you won’t get yours, the address was incorrect.
You most kindly asked after Hormizd. I wish we knew his fate, dear
boy; we have no news of him since the 20th February (5th March),
1915. I asked Mrs. Wigram if she would be able to tell us something
of him by way of Dr. Wigram’s letters; we are most anxiously looking
forward to the answer.
The hospitals which are endowed by great Russia to help the sick are
a great help. Now the people get nursed well, and, of course, the
sickness is growing less. But outside the hospitals, although they
do get help from Russia (recently some clothes, too), England and
America, still their miseries are great, and their living very poor.
I trust and hope you will read the report recently written by Mr.
Paul Shimmon. A copy has been sent to Mr. Heazell. It is all quite
true, and there you will see our nation’s wretchedness. Really,
Russia couldn’t have done more than she has by helping with
hospitals, money and clothes.
Now the Russian Government wants us all to go up to Bashkala—the
people to be provided with oxen and wheat to be able to plough land
for themselves. Of course, Mar Shimun is quite willing to make the
people do what they are ordered, and what is best for them. It
really is a very good thing, but I am much afraid it won’t come to
pass, for two reasons—first, the difficulty of finding enough oxen
and corn, and, secondly, because it is getting too late for sowing.
Soon after Easter Mar Shimun intends to go to Khoi and talk the plan
over with General Tchournazoukov.
I wanted very much to go to England, but Mrs. Wigram wrote to me
that my friends didn’t think it advisable. I don’t understand well
what you say in your letter about directing to me through Mr.
Shipley. If it is anything to help the poor, it is most welcome.
One can’t help longing to read the London _Times_ and the _Church
Times_, especially the Bishop of London’s sermons. What will be the
end? Is the world being refined? Who will endure to the last? We can
only pray for mercy. His will be done. My heart is yearning to hear
that “England has conquered”; pray God it will prove so—although one
does feel for all the young men’s lives, whether friend or foe, no
difference, and for the world’s misery.
Last October David and I went down to Urmia and stayed with dear Mr.
Nisan. His house seemed to me quite desolate with no Beatrice or her
mother, but he was the same, cheering and helping others. His
daughter-in-law Nanajan is very nice, and, with her little dear boy,
she will be a comfort for his old age. Samuel is still in America;
it is rather hard for the young wife. I have twice written to Mr.
Nisan to send service books, which he kindly sent. We often wonder
what our church would have done if it were not for English printing
presses? Nearly all our church books are gone. Mar Shimun has
consecrated little tablets, and nearly every priest in Diliman has
one to celebrate on for the people; it is the same in Urmia and
Khoi.
You will like to hear that David, Zaya, Paul and Ishaya fought most
bravely in Dizan. Twice the Kurds were driven away with twelve
killed, and the third time Paul and Zaya alone with four servants
fought against the foe and saved the little ammunition they had. I
intend to write a report of all that happened (what I saw and heard)
in the mountains. But really I can’t, as long as I am with ten
children playing in the small yard and making as much noise as a
herd of the Kurds, poor little kids. I don’t think you know that
David is father of two boys and four girls, and Romi is mother of
three girls and two boys. Are not they old? The children are as
happy as children ought to be, only they are disappointed at not
having as many new clothes as they used to have at home, and
especially the boys, for they are not going to have any new clothes
for Easter as they had theirs at Christmas, and now it is the girls’
turn for Easter. The market is another difficulty for them—seeing
new toys and sweets (they were free from that in Quodshanis) and
with no money to buy them. However, they get used to it, poor dears.
I teach the four boys for two hours a day; they are promising pupils
if properly taught. The little girls read their alphabet, too.
Romi and Esther have suffered very much under the circumstances. It
was too much for them, although they have gone through it quite
bravely, especially Esther, who was with child all this time, and
during the last days of flight was expecting the child every hour.
However, God was merciful, and the baby girl was born nearly a
fortnight after we arrived in Diliman. She is baptised Helena. I am
rather uneasy about Esther. She is very weak, and after Easter she
will go to Urmia, both to visit her father’s house (the Mutran’s
brother) and see the doctor.
I can’t say it was too much for me; if it were not for certain
reasons I should have been rather enjoying the struggle between the
Kurds and Turks and us. Thank God we are very well at present,
except for being over anxious for our poor nation’s misery. The
living here is very hard for us; we simply have no money for our
ordinary necessities, and at times we have people coming to our door
who can hardly stand on their feet for hunger; how could one turn
them away?
However, all the world is suffering, and so must we and our nation.
Would you kindly tell Mr. Heazell that Mar Shimun got the £50 which
he sent. I never wrote to him that the Mutran was let free by the
Turks and has come to Urmia safely, although quite broken and very
weak.
I rather enjoy the plan of going up to Bashkala after we have lost
our country and home. It will suit us to turn into nomads, like the
Israelites—Mar Shimun for Moses; can’t make David into Aaron, he has
no beard, so dear old Peter for Aaron, with his white beard; I
suppose I must be Miriam, and we must take a tent, too, for
celebration, which we will call the “Assyrian Tabernacle”; and very
likely we shall always be having skirmishes with the Canaanites to
get to our fathers’ land. Wouldn’t you like to come and see us, the
new Israelites?
The houses in Bashkala are all ruined.
Mar Shimun sends his blessing to you and Professor Margoliouth, and
we our best regards.
41. THE NESTORIANS OF THE BOHTAN DISTRICT[61]: LETTER, DATED SALMAS,
6th MARCH, 1916, FROM THE REV. E.W. McDOWELL, OF THE URMIA
MISSION STATION, REPORTING INFORMATION BROUGHT BY A YOUNG MAN
(WITH WHOM MR. McDOWELL WAS PREVIOUSLY ACQUAINTED) WHO HAD
ESCAPED THE MASSACRE; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN
MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
There was a general massacre in the Bohtan region, and our helpers,
preachers, teachers and Bible-Women, with their families, fell
victims to it among the rest. The man who brought the word is known
to me personally. This young man tells the story of how, by order of
the Government, the Kurds and Turkish soldiers put the Christians of
all those villages, including Djeziré, to the sword. Among those
slain were Kasha (Pastor) Mattai, pastor of the church in Hassan;
Kasha Elia, one of our oldest and most honoured pastors, recently
working as an evangelist; Kasha Sargis, superannuated; Muallin
Mousa, pastor of our church in Djeziré, and his sixteen-year-old son
Philip. There are three preachers not heard from, and one of them is
probably killed, as his village, Monsoria, was put to the sword;
another, Rabi Ishak, is possibly alive, as there is a report that
his village had been preserved by the influence of a Kurdish agha.
It is to be feared, however, that this agha would not be able to
protect them for long, as from every source comes the word that the
Government threatened such friendly Kurds with punishment if they
did not obey orders. The third man is reported as having fled to
Mosul. Whether he reached there or not is not known. The women and
children who escaped death were carried away captive. Among these
were the families of the above mentioned brethren. The wife and two
daughters of Muallin Mousa, the daughters of Kasha Elia, and Rabi
Hatoun, our Bible-Woman, were all school-girls in Urmia or Mardin.
Kasha Mattai was killed by Kurds in the mountain while fleeing.
Kasha Elia and Kasha Sargis, with other men of the village of Shakh,
were killed by Turkish soldiers who had been stationed in their
village by the Government.
The three villages of Hassan, Shakh and Monsoria were Protestant,
and it is to be feared that they were wiped out, as were all the
other Christian villages of the plain. Many of the women of Monsoria
threw themselves into the river (Tigris) to avoid falling into the
hands of the Kurds. Mar Yohannan and Mar Akha were still safe at the
time my informant fled. The terrible feature about it was that,
after the first slaughter, there were Kurds who tried to save some
of the Christians alive, but the Government would not permit it. My
informant had found refuge with an agha and was working for him,
when a messenger from the Government came with orders to the Kurds
to complete the work or be punished. Word was brought to my
informant in the field, and he with a few others fled to the
mountain and made their way to Van, and so came here. The villagers
of Attil, where we had work also, all escaped to Van. Their Kurdish
agha, who was a warm friend of our preacher and of our work, gave
them warning that he would not be able to protect them, as the
massacre was being pressed by the Government. It was their pastor
who fled to Mosul. His way would take him to Djeziré and Monsoria,
the home of his wife. They may have been killed there. There is no
word about them.
This terrible calamity grieves me more than I can tell you. And more
than those who died, the fate of those carried off into captivity
weighs upon me. I think of them so often—Sarah, Hatoun, Priskilla
and little Nellie and others, young girls whom I knew in the home
almost like my own children. What is their condition? This word of
my informant is confirmed by a woman of Djeziré, who made her escape
also to Van and thence hither. She tells us that Sarah and her two
daughters were released and were last seen on the plain beyond
Djeziré, wandering in a destitute condition.
-----
Footnote 61:
Before the War, there were three main groups of Nestorians in the
region between Lake Urmia and the Tigris, each group numbering
about 30,000 souls. There were the villagers of the Urmia plain,
the mountaineers of the Zab, and these other plainsmen in the
Bohtan district, round the confluence of the Bohtan River and the
Tigris. The present document describes the general massacre of
many, or perhaps nearly all, the Nestorians of this third group,
whose chief settlements were at Djeziret-ibn-Omar on the Tigris,
Mansouria (Monsoria) and Shakh.
42. SECOND EXODUS FROM URMIA: LETTER DATED TABRIZ, 20th AUGUST,
1915, FROM MR. HUGO A. MÜLLER (TREASURER OF THE AMERICAN MISSION
STATION AT URMIA); COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
On Thursday, the 5th August, the rumour spread that the Russian
troops were again to be withdrawn from Urmia. This very naturally
frightened the entire Christian population, and on Thursday evening
all Christians, except those already on the road and those
physically unable to be on the road, were in the streets of the city
and on the roads leading northward from the city, waiting for the
departure of the foot-soldiers, with whom they intended to leave.
Knowing the probable fate of any who might stay behind, we were, of
course, not ready to discourage the people from going. Still, we had
no official word of the anticipated evacuation, and were, therefore,
perplexed as to our own duty. The breaking up of a good proportion
of our missionary work, the removal of the bulk of the relief work
to a different place, and the uncertainty of America’s future
position all contributed to indicate that a portion at least of the
Station should move in case of an evacuation. On Friday morning we
learned that the foot-soldiers had left, and one of our men, on
visiting the Russian Consul, was told that all who were going should
be off by 2 p.m. that day. The Station felt that its force should be
reduced to the minimum, and that at least all women and children
should leave. Very hasty preparations were made. Mr. McDowell, Mr.
Labaree and Dr. Packard volunteered to stay in Urmia, and all the
rest were to leave. When we got on the road, however, we found that
Mrs. Packard and her children and Miss Burgess were not of the
party. Mrs. Packard had decided to brave the Station vote and stay
by her husband, and Miss Burgess stayed to be with Mrs. Packard and
to assist the medical work. The fugitive party, therefore, consisted
of Dr. Shedd and his two daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Allen with their
two sons and one daughter, Dr. and Mrs. Coan, Mrs. Cochran, Miss
Lewis, Miss Lamme, Miss Schoebel, and Mrs. Müller and myself with
our daughter. We went in carriages, using some donkeys and horses
bought the last two hours before our departure.
At the end of our second day’s journey we reached a village, Kudchi,
where we found perhaps 20,000 or 30,000 Syrian refugees, whose
further flight had been arrested by the Russian commanding officer
with the good news that a decisive victory had made the evacuation
of Urmia unnecessary. All were told to go back. Unless the
missionaries would return, however, the natives were unwilling to
trust themselves alone. Nothing was left but for some to return,
especially since this was requested by the officer in command of the
troops there. Dr. Shedd and his daughters, Mrs. Cochran and Dr. and
Mrs. Coan consequently turned back. This gave the crowd heart and
they, too, went back. But the tables were soon turned again, and
before the foot-sore crowd reached the city they were again turned
back with the word that there was fighting with the Kurds on Mount
Seir. The missionaries had reached the city and were there during
the fighting on Mount Seir. It seemed advisable for them to leave
again, as conditions were very uncertain, in spite of the fact that
the Russian Consul with a number of Cossacks had stayed by his post
during all this time. They, that is Dr. Shedd and his two daughters,
and Dr. and Mrs. Coan, left for the second time on Friday the 13th
August. This time Mrs. Cochran stayed behind.
Meanwhile, those of us who had continued on our journey from Kudchi
arrived in Tabriz on Friday the 13th August, after a journey free
from mishaps, but nevertheless wearing for us who were still typhoid
and typhus convalescents. Every one in the party with the exception
of Mrs. Allen and the Allen children had recently had the fever.
43. SECOND EXODUS FROM URMIA: NARRATIVE OF A NESTORIAN VICTIM, THE
WIFE OF THE REV. DAVID JACOB, OF URMIA, PUBLISHED IN THE
ARMENIAN JOURNAL “ARARAT” OF LONDON, JANUARY, 1916.
As a native of Urmia and myself a refugee who has fallen into great
trouble, I am writing a few short details about my unfortunate
nation. For centuries as Christians we have been crushed by the
enemies that surround us. Our best looking girls have been forced to
deny their creed; our men have been killed, our homes plundered, and
our property has been robbed.
In all these troubles we lived under the Persian Government, and
obeyed their rules; we have never been untrue to them, or
disobedient. For the past seventy years the only help we have had
has come through the English and American Missions that have been in
Urmia. When the Russians arrived at Urmia it was a delight to us, we
thought our rights would be more clearly established; of course,
things were much better than before; all the country was safer than
it ever had been. This was like a dream for a few years; all of a
sudden, when this terrible war began, we felt almost certain that it
would harm us, although we never dreamed that it would bring us
under such a curse.
In the cold January, when even the beasts do not wish to go out from
their caves, the people were left homeless, bleeding, impoverished
and starving. This all happened when the Russian forces withdrew
from Urmia; very many left their beloved and comfortable homes, and
started with them on an endless journey, which caused the death of
many dear souls from cold and hunger. The rest of the Christians
crowded into the American Mission compounds, with nothing left; here
they were fed on a morsel of bread which came through the kindness
of the Missionaries. There is a great deal to tell of the misery of
the people during the last winter; it was a life too wretched for
humanity. Those that were used to comfortable beds now slept on the
bare ground. For five months of captivity we lived expecting death
every minute, surrounded by sick people who needed help; our little
children died of measles; our young and strong ones could not stand
the terrible epidemics of typhoid and typhus, while the elderly
people could not live such a hard life; they died in the first
weeks, of dysentery. Now the villages were plundered and mostly
burned, a good many people killed, and our little girls and women
wickedly tortured (very many even now have not been found; they were
mercilessly carried into captivity); through all this long time of
anxiety and expectation, during which our time was given to weeping,
we prayed that God would once more save us by sending the Russians
to our rescue.
It was a great relief when we heard that the Russians, for their own
interests, were coming to Urmia once more. After their coming the
people were at liberty, and were able to go out into the country
once more. For three months they tried to live in the villages,
though a very poor and wretched life it was, with everything gone
and most of the buildings burned. In these hard times we were
thankful to the American Missionaries and the Russian Consul who
helped us in settling down. Although at this time we did not do any
evil to our enemies who had treated us so unkindly, we heard them
say that if once more the Russian army should leave Urmia, no
Christian would be safe.
On the 4th August the peasants crowded into the city of Urmia; they
had heard indirectly about the armies leaving. It was a sight that
could not be described. The sick, helpless little children were
terrified. All night and the next day the road that led towards the
Russian border was full of refugees, although the Consul assured us
that he would not leave without warning us; but the fear was so
great that nothing could keep us back.
In the first invasion of Urmia[62] some of those that dwelt inside
the city gates were in more security than the villagers, although
they were fined a great deal and suffered many hardships and losses
of property, and there had been deaths in almost every home; but
this second attack meant that we must leave all and flee. On Friday
morning, with sober face and heavy heart, I left my dear home. I am
grateful to God that until now my home had not been robbed, so that
it was very hard for me to leave its comfort and start out into the
world with no hope of returning again. With many other comrades in
the same plight, we began our dreadful journey. For two families we
had a little cart in which we put a few necessary coverings, a
little bread, and my three little children. It was very hard for us
to leave our property, but life is dearer than all the riches of the
world.
On the way we met all classes of people, the rich and poor were
reduced to the same level; very few had carriages, because our
neighbours would not hire us any, some had horses and donkeys, but
the majority had to walk with great bundles on their backs. We were
quite unused to such a hard journey; some sat on the roadside and
wept from sore feet; it was hard to walk in shoes, and without shoes
the sun burned them until the blood came; dear, innocent children
died on the way; it broke the parents’ hearts to part with them; old
and feeble men and women were left behind; little unlucky babies
were born in the sight of the passers-by; everyone was in need of
help, but no help could be found. We were like the Israelites
scattered in the desert, only they had Moses to conduct them to
Canaan, while we had no one.
The first night we were so tired and exhausted that we stopped in a
place that had very little water, a dry, dusty place; our bed was
the ground, our pillow a stone, the sky our quilt. The little
excited children cried all night; large crowds of people were coming
all night; while some rested and went on, others from behind took
their place. The next day we were so tired and hopeless that we
wished we had died at home and had not started on such an endless
and aimless pilgrimage.
It broke my heart when I met a little girl; her feet were sore and
she could walk no further. She cried, “Oh mother! Oh, God!” The
mother had a heavy load and could not carry the child, the father
was killed, they had no friends. I carried the little girl on my
back for about half-a-mile, but could not any further. It was too
heart-breaking. Why should innocent children suffer so?
Our next stop was a better place; it had splendid, cool water, and
shade; but the people were so many that bread was scarce, starvation
was upon us. A great many were sick by this time and could not move.
This was a Moslem town; they did not like to have us there, but they
could not turn us out on account of the Russian soldiers being near.
There were Christian villages on our way, but by this time they had
all been destroyed. Here we stopped a few days. We heard that the
Cossacks had not left Urmia entirely; they had moved their
headquarters a few miles, so that we had hope that we would not lose
all. From here some of us went to Tabriz, which is a larger city,
and a little safer than other places. Now we are a nation scattered
like the flock without a shepherd, some living here and some there,
a miserable existence. Some have gone back to Urmia; most of them
have found all their crops gone. If we had not left Urmia this
second time, our condition would not be so hard as it is now, the
places near the city having mostly been kept safe by the kindness of
the Russian Consul, who did not leave Urmia; but in the more distant
places the crops and vineyards have all been destroyed. We are more
than grateful to the Americans, who have ransomed our lives from
death by the money that has been spent for us the last winter. We
hope and pray for the victory of the Allies, that through their
kindness the rest of us might live. So far one-third of our nation
has perished, and even we who survive are so broken by the strain we
have suffered that sometimes we are hopeless. Now we are facing a
winter of famine and wretchedness, homes without bedding and
clothes. Of course nobody can supply all our needs. In addition to
our own trouble, our countrymen from Turkey are taking refuge in the
Urmia district, and their condition is worse than ours.
-----
Footnote 62:
By the Turks and Kurds.
44. URMIA DISTRICT: REPORT ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF RELIEF, COVERING
THE PERIOD 1st JUNE TO 31st DECEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
At the beginning of June, 1915, when the people emerged from our
premises emaciated from sickness and malnutrition and crushed by the
blow that had fallen upon them, they were confronted by a seemingly
hopeless situation. Practically all their household furnishings and
food supplies had been plundered; the same was true of their
domestic animals, on which they depended in large measure for their
subsistence. Their houses were without any doors and windows, and
probably a full third of them had been demolished. They were in
terror about going back to their villages; they feared their Moslem
neighbours, who had despoiled them of their property, outraged their
wives and daughters, and killed many of their relatives; they
feared, too, lest the Russian troops might again withdraw and leave
them to the mercy of their enemies; and they were anxious lest the
missionaries who had sheltered them for the previous months might
forget them when they were out of sight. Everything tended to make
them cling to our Mission compounds or their vicinity. To permit
them to do this was of course out of the question. Our efforts,
however, to scatter them to their village homes formed one of the
most pitiful phases of our relief work. The people had to go, but as
long as they received their bread from our yards they would not; and
so we had no choice but to cut off the food supply, after giving
each family sufficient flour to support them a week. At the same
time, with the help of the newly arrived Russian Consul, pressure
was brought to bear upon the landlords of the Christian villages to
support their tenants until harvest. Some of these could not,
because they themselves had been plundered; others would not, in
spite of Consular pressure; and others promised to give the needed
assistance, but delayed it from day to day with all the ingenuity of
excuse for which the Orient is notorious. The result was that our
yards were thronged daily with hundreds of people clamouring for
food. To give way would have nullified all our efforts to get the
people on to their own feet; and only when it was absolutely clear
that nothing could be gotten from the landlords of any one village
did we assume any degree of support for the people of the village.
Little by little progress was made, and although the villagers were
wretchedly miserable, the approaching harvest made subsistence by
their own effort possible, and virtually all food distribution
ceased for a period of three months.
There was another form of relief, however, that was imperative. In
the vast majority of villages there was not a spade to use in
repairing their houses, in ridding their vineyards of weeds or in
burying their dead, and there was not a scythe or sickle with which
to reap their harvest. The best and surest way to help the people
was to give them these implements, and so for upwards of a month we
virtually subsidised all the blacksmiths of the city in our
endeavour to get these instruments in time for the harvest. When we
closed this department of our relief work, we had distributed 2,661
scythes and sickles and 1,129 spades at a cost of 18,909.90 krans.
(The exchange value of a silver kran is approximately 4½_d._)
By the beginning of August the situation was considerably more
hopeful. The people with Consular help had succeeded in collecting a
good deal of their plundered property, including bedding, household
utensils and a few cattle; the harvest was good, although the
acreage was below the average, and the promise of the vineyards was
excellent. Then fell another blow, what seemed an inexplicable
Providence. Events in another section of the war necessitated orders
for a sudden withdrawal of the Russian troops, and the evacuation
was actually carried out with the exception of a small force which
remained with the Consul on the hills outside the city. With the
going of their protectors the whole Christian population of the
plain, with the exception of some 200 sick and aged who again took
refuge in the Mission yards, fled, some only to the northern edge of
the plain, but many to Salmas and Khoi and even Djoulfa. Fortunately
it was summer time, but even so the misery was intense, and cholera
and want and hardship claimed many victims in those few weeks. Worse
still, much that the people had reclaimed of their stolen property
and gathered from their fields was taken once more by their Moslem
neighbours; and so, after nearly a month of miserable hardship and
uncertainty, the poor Syrians and Armenians returned to their twice
plundered homes. Very little relief, however, was given during the
next few weeks; for from the fields and vineyards much could still
be secured in the way of food.
At this time we calculated that about 10,000 to 15,000 of the
Christian inhabitants would have to be supported during! the winter
months, and we were making our plans accordingly, when a new and
overwhelming burden descended upon us. For months the Syrians of
Kurdistan had been holding their own in their mountain fastnesses,
hoping for succour from the Russians. When this failed and their
enemies increased on every hand, they had to flee—many, many
perishing in the attempt. Some 30,000 of them arrived at last in
Salmas and the neighbourhood in almost absolute destitution. A few
succeeded in bringing a part of their sheep, but most came with
nothing, half-naked, and without any means of livelihood. This army
of wretchedness was halted by the authorities on the plain of Salmas
and on the hills surrounding it, until their location should be
determined upon. Mr. McDowell of our Relief Committee, who has had
years of experience among these people, left at once for Salmas and
grappled with the serious problem of their immediate relief. But for
the assistance given by our Committee there, hundreds of them would
have perished from hunger. As it was, cholera, typhoid and pneumonia
did their worst among a people wasted by hardship, unprotected from
the cold and without shelter. Shortly the streams of suffering
humanity began to pour across the pass that separates the Salmas
from the Urmia plain, and to scatter themselves in the villages of
this section. A few weeks before we had been wondering how the
inhabitants of the plain would find shelter for themselves in their
half-ruined villages; but from the accompanying statistical
report[63] it will be seen that they have made room for nearly
16,000 refugees from other districts. For example, the village of
Geogtapa has doubled its population, having received as many of
these guests as it had inhabitants of its own.
About the middle of October we began to take steps in preparation
for our winter relief work. The first thing was to buy up all
supplies of wheat that we could secure while the price was low—the
lowest for years, for the purchasers were few and the owners anxious
to turn their crops into cash before any more untoward events might
transpire. The wheat thus secured was stored in different parts of
the plain accessible as distributing centres. The doing of this
required quite a force of reliable men, who could act as wheat
buyers and weighers.
The next step was to get accurate lists of the actually destitute in
every village. This was no easy task, for many felt themselves
entitled to assistance who were not wholly destitute, and to
discover who were really in want, among the hundreds of
poverty-stricken, plundered inhabitants of each village, required
both tact and firmness. The task was made doubly hard by the
constant stream of new arrivals from Salmas. On the basis of these
lists tickets were issued for bedding and for food—the two most
crying needs.
For bedding it was decided to issue large wool quilts, large enough
to cover several persons. These we found could be made for three or
three and a half tomans (12_s._) per quilt. Under the efficient
direction of Miss Lewis, and later of Miss Lamme, a quilt factory
was started, which in time employed over a hundred needy women in
carding wool and sewing the quilts. This factory during its three
months’ existence consumed over 84,000 yards of calico, 35,000
pounds of wool, and some 1,500 pounds of cotton, and expended over
18,000 tomans; it taxed the resources of the dry goods merchants to
supply our demand and it quite exhausted the wool supplies of the
city. Our plan was to give only one quilt to four persons, families
of over four to receive two or more according to the number of
members; but after the issue of tickets we found that we could not
possibly supply the need, and so regretfully we had to limit our
giving to one quilt to a family. The inadequacy of this relief was
seen when we began to distribute to the families of mountaineers;
for with them all the brothers and their wives and children form one
family, and it was not uncommon to have families of over 20, one
being as high as 35. But in spite of their inadequacy, the 5,510
quilts issued have saved the lives of many, for literally thousands
were facing the rigours of winter without any bedding whatever.
Our wheat distribution, too, had to be of the most economical
nature. We issued what was supposed to be a two months’ supply at
one time, giving a Russian pood and a half per capita for this
period, that is, about 50 pounds. To the widows and orphans and to
the new comers from the mountains we gave flour instead of wheat,
the actual cost of this assistance in food at current prices being
two and a half shahis per day to a person, or between a half-penny
and three-farthings. But even with this small gratuity, the total
amount given of wheat and flour was 4,000 poods, or about 140,000
pounds, costing about the same as the quilts, that is, about 18,000
tomans.
With these small gifts to individuals amounting in the aggregate to
large figures, and with the similar work that has been done in
Salmas and Khoi, and even for the district of Albek, our funds have
been exhausted, and we are waiting now to see what the generosity of
America will do about it. Had it not been for this generosity, many
would have died of hunger and cold the last two months, for, apart
from what our Committee has done, very little has reached the people
from any other source. We are grateful indeed to acknowledge the
receipt of considerable sums from his Grace the Archbishop of
Canterbury for the Syrian refugees from the mountains, but still the
largest part has come and must come from America. We shall have to
look to our friends in America for their continued aid, if this
unfortunate people, the victims of Mohammedan hate, are to be kept
this winter and established in their homes once more.
-----
Footnote 63:
Omitted here.
45. AZERBAIJAN: STATEMENT, DATED TIFLIS, 22nd FEBRUARY, 1916, BY MR.
M. PHILIPS PRICE, WAR CORRESPONDENT FOR VARIOUS BRITISH AND
AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS ON THE CAUCASIAN FRONT; COMMUNICATED TO
ANEURIN WILLIAMS, ESQ., M.P., AND PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “ARARAT,” OF LONDON, MARCH, 1916.
In the October of last year I came to Diliman on the plain of Salmas
in north-west Persia. I had been in Urmia during September and had
seen the condition of the Assyrians (mostly Orthodox, Catholic and
Protestant) in the low country round that lake. The American
missionaries of Urmia were doing a great deal, and on the whole the
condition of the country was not so very bad. There was housing
accommodation and a good deal of corn, and it seemed as if the
Americans would keep the situation in hand. But in Salmas there was
a very different state of affairs. At the end of September, 25,000
mountain Nestorians from the Tkhuma, Baz and Tiari regions, who had
been fighting with the Kurds all summer and had had to flee for lack
of ammunition, came pouring into the plain led by their Patriarch,
Mar Shimun, and began to plant themselves down in the orchards and
gardens round the villages. All the villages of the plain were
already occupied, and, as the winter was just setting in, their
condition without housing, food and clothing was desperate. I sent a
message to Mr. Shipley, the British Consul at Tabriz, telling him of
the situation, and he telegraphed to the Archbishop of Canterbury
for financial assistance. Meanwhile relief committees were organised
under the Russian Consul Akimovitch, the Armenian Bishop Nerses, who
lent funds from the Armenians of the Caucasus, and an American
Missionary from Urmia, Mr. McDowell, with funds from America, and
they began to organise relief during November and December. The
method adopted was to distribute to all the refugees, Armenians and
Assyrians alike, a daily allowance of 10 kopecks a day, since
increased to 15 kopecks, and to distribute warm quilts and coats
from materials purchased in the bazaars of Diliman and Khoi. Some
medical detachments of the Russian Red Cross and _Soyus Gorodof_
were sent with medical aid to combat typhus and dysentery, which was
beginning to and still is taking many in toll of the refugees. As
regards the medical side of the relief, I am inclined to doubt the
possibility of making effective provision under the circumstances.
There are not sufficient skilled doctors, and it is impossible to
get drugs through from the Caucasus in sufficient quantity to do
much good.
I did not observe on my return to Salmas after a journey to Van in
November any real improvement in the health of the refugees. Every
day a hundred or more Assyrians and Armenians were dying in the
villages round Diliman, and the same thing is going on now.
It seems to me (and these friends of mine, who have also been there
and have seen the conditions, agree with me), that it is impossible
under the circumstances to combat the disease by medical assistance.
The hardy mountaineers from the headwaters of the Great Zab and
Tigris can best be helped by giving them the means to resist
disease. Once disease has hold of them, no half measures of medical
relief can help. I am therefore strongly of opinion that, if more
relief is sent, it should take the form of money, which should go to
increase the daily allowances of the refugees, enabling them to buy
for themselves, from the Persians of Diliman, food and clothing,
which alone will enable them to resist disease.
The position is now as follows. When I left Diliman for Van at the
end of October, I saw in the regions round Bashkalé another 5,000 or
6,000 Assyrian and a sprinkling of Armenians living in caves of the
rocks or in the open, and feeding on raw grains of wheat, which they
were picking from the ruined corn-fields. On my return in January
most of these were in Salmas, and so I think about 30,000 Assyrian
and Armenian refugees are now there—that is, after deducting 15 per
cent. as loss from disease in the last three months. The Russian and
American relief organisations which are working there of course
stand in need of more money to carry on their work effectively. In
order to save the refugees from starving, doles of money must be
given out to them till next harvest at least. I should certainly
think that the Americans, whose committee is centred in Tabriz,
under the American Consul there, are doing the best work with the
means at their disposal. With the Russian organisation there is more
delay and greater leakage. Relief is being given impartially by the
Americans to Assyrians and Armenians of all denominations. This
cannot always be guaranteed for the Russian organisation.
I would therefore strongly appeal for further help for the
distressed refugees of this ancient Assyrian Church, together with
their brethren of the Armenian Gregorian, Catholic and Protestant
faiths, and should suggest that it be sent to the British Consul at
Tabriz to distribute with the American missionaries in the form of
increased daily allowances for food and clothing.
V.
THE REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS.
_For two months—June and July, 1915—the Armenians of Van enjoyed an
autonomous national government under Russian protection. But in the
last days of July the Ottoman armies on this front received strong
reinforcements, and were able once more to take the offensive. The
Russian troops began to fall back from Van on the 30th July, and
practically the entire Armenian population of the Vilayet
accompanied them in their retirement._
_The retreat was unexpected. The refugees had few conveyances and
hardly any provisions; and, though their rear was protected against
the descents of the Kurds by the heroic fighting of the Cossacks and
the Armenian Volunteers, the suffering and mortality, during their
flight over almost trackless mountains, was appalling._
_At Etchmiadzin and Erivan, across the Russian frontier, the
Armenian refugees were joined by the stream of Nestorian fugitives
from Urmia, and the total number of Christian exiles in the Caucasus
rose to over a hundred and eighty thousand._
_The Turks only retained their hold on Van for a few weeks, but that
was sufficient for their purpose. They did what they had done at
Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun; and when the Russians returned, they
found that all the inhabitants who had stayed behind had been
massacred, and all the towns and villages burnt to the ground,
including Van itself._
_As soon as security had been re-established, the refugees began to
return, slowly, to build up their ruined homes. But the majority of
them still remained in the Caucasus, where they had arrived in utter
destitution. The Caucasian Armenians rose magnificently to the
occasion. The brunt of the relief work fell upon them, and their
organisation was as admirable as their generosity. They were
subsequently reinforced by aid from London, Boston, and, above all,
from Moscow; but the magnitude of the task was overwhelming, and the
need continued to be very great._
46. THE FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS: DESPATCHES TO THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“HORIZON” OF TIFLIS, FROM MR. SAMPSON AROUTIOUNIAN, PRESIDENT OF
THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF TIFLIS, WHO WENT IN PERSON TO
MEET THE REFUGEES.
=(a) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 12th August, 1915.=
The road from Igdir to Etchmiadzin (about 30 kilometres) is choked
with groups of sick and destitute refugees. They have now waited
there several days exposed to the full heat of the sun, although
they have passes authorising them to proceed to Etchmiadzin. There
is urgent need for a special body of workers to organise and forward
these refugees.
=(b) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 13th August, 1915.=
Between the Turkish frontier and Igdir (the first Russian village),
the whole countryside is filled to overflowing with refugees.
Further on, between Igdir and Etchmiadzin, all the gardens and
vineyards are full of them. At Igdir, the first arrival depot, a
mass of 20,000 has accumulated, and another of 45,000 at
Etchmiadzin; from these two centres they are being distributed in
groups to other districts. At Etchmiadzin a hospital has been
installed, as well as baths and a hospice for the orphans. Between
Igdir and the Turkish frontier there are patrols of horsemen
searching for the children, the sick and other stragglers, and
seeing to the removal of the corpses. About fifty orphans arrive
every day at Igdir; part of them are kept there, the others are sent
on to Etchmiadzin.
The refugees from Van and the surrounding country have traversed the
whole distance on foot. The majority of them are sick and starving,
having been able to take nothing with them at the moment of
departure. In the course of their journey they have not been
attacked except at Bergri-Kala, where a band of Kurds cut the
defenceless column and headed off about 20,000 people at the rear
end of it, whose fate we do not know. As a result of famine and
fatigue, a large number of the refugees have been more or less
severely attacked by various epidemics, especially by dysentery.
The stream flows without ceasing, and it is impossible to estimate
the numbers with any exactitude. At Igdir, with the assistance of
Aram, ex-Governor of the province of Van, and other representatives
of the refugees, we fixed them approximately at the following
figures:
Van district, 203,000; Melashkerd, 60,000, not including those who
reached here at an earlier date. The average mortality amounts to 15
deaths a day at Igdir, and 40 at Etchmiadzin.
The care of all these refugees falls upon the Armenian
organisations, principally upon the Committee of Fraternal
Assistance at Etchmiadzin and the National Committee. The relief
available is utterly inadequate to such boundless misery. The
refugees need food, medical aid and clothing, especially linen and
boots. There is a dearth of travelling kitchens, tents and carts. To
stamp out the contagious diseases, it is indispensable to install
medical stations in all the villages.
=(c) Despatch dated Etchmiadzin, 13th August, 1915.=
Hundreds of thousands of refugees are arriving at Etchmiadzin from
Turkish Armenia. There seems no end to these solid columns moving
forward in a cloud of dust. The majority are women and children,
barefoot, exhausted and starving. Their accounts of the atrocities
committed by the Turks and Kurds reveal indescribable horrors. The
panic which set these poor people in flight came upon them
absolutely unawares; parents lost their children, and children their
parents. A great number of these lost children, without food and
worn out as they were, were unable to keep up and died on the road.
Others have been, picked up by rescue parties, and there are now at
Igdir and Etchmiadzin about 500 of these little motherless
creatures. We make an urgent appeal to all Armenian ladies to come
to the aid of these abandoned little ones.
=(d) Despatch dated Erivan, 21st August, 1915.=
The stream of refugees still flows, but with a slacker current. At
the present moment more than 35,000 of them have accumulated at
Etchmiadzin, and 20,000 at Erivan. In spite of all the zeal
displayed by the Relief Committee of Etchmiadzin, under the
presidency of the Prelate Bagrad, and by the National Committees of
Tiflis and Moscow, with their numerous affiliated Committees, the
situation is extraordinarily harrowing. There is an absolute
shortage of bread, hot food and medical assistance. The majority of
the refugees are ill. At Etchmiadzin and Erivan several hospitals
have been installed, which are providing for about 1,500 sick
people; yet there are still great numbers of the seriously sick
lying out under walls, in open courtyards, or even in the streets.
They are suffering terribly from dysentery. The mortality is
enormous; the day before yesterday they buried 103 people at
Etchmiadzin, and yesterday 80.
At the Etchmiadzin Secondary School, 3,500 children who have lost
their parents are huddled together. They sleep on the floor.
Yesterday evening I visited the building; in the big hall I counted
110 babies lying on the floor absolutely naked; some of them were
sleeping, others were crying. The effect was so harrowing that one
could not restrain one’s tears. The sight was too terrible for me to
stand, and I fled from this hell. But in the courtyard an equally
painful scene awaited me. Under the walls and in the corners there
were refugees lying everywhere. One heard the cries of the sick;
here and there one saw corpses. In front of the monastery gate I
found the lifeless bodies of three children. The women of
Vaharshapat and other places are sewing clothes and preparing
bedding material, but such aid is quite insufficient. Professor
Kishkin, the representative of the “Homo-Russe Society,” has just
arrived from Moscow to inspect the condition of the refugees and
organise all the relief available. He told us that beyond Erivan a
supply station has been established at Arkhta[64], where the
refugees are receiving dry bread, and still there is not enough of
that to go around. Wherever the refugees stop, there is sickness,
but no medical aid. Professor Kishkin gave the necessary orders for
the immediate installation of properly-equipped medical stations
between Etchmiadzin and Aghstafa, and has written to the Central
Committee at Moscow for doctors, travelling kitchens, clothing,
linen, etc.
-----
Footnote 64:
Nijni Arkha (?).
47. THE FLIGHT TO THE CAUCASUS: DESPATCH FROM THE SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT OF THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “AREV” OF BAKOU.
The immense procession, sinking under its agony and fatigue, forces
itself along and moves forward without respite. The head of the
column came to a standstill some time ago at Igdir; reduced to utter
despair, it is fluctuating aimlessly hither and thither. No pen can
describe what this tragic procession has endured, or what
experiences it has lived through, on its interminable road. The
least detail of them makes the human heart quail, and draws an
unquenchable stream of bitter tears from one’s eyes. In the act of
writing this, my pen trembles in my hand, and I inscribe these lines
with my tears.
Each fraction of the long procession has its individual history, its
especial pangs. It is impossible to describe or record them all.
Here is a mother with her six little children, one on her back, the
second clasped to her breast; the third falls down on the road, and
cries and wails because it cannot drag itself further. The three
others begin to wail in sympathy, and the poor mother stands stock
still, tearless, like a statue, utterly powerless to help.
Here is the road again and a broken cart on it, the sole hope of a
large family. The sick mother has been laid upon it, as well as the
children and the provisions. The father, an elderly man, gazes in
despair at the cart he must abandon. In that moment he lived through
a whole tragedy. But, come what may, they must always move forward.
And here is another mother, quite young and clad in rags. She wraps
her dead baby in a shawl, puts it down out of the traffic, hugs it
for the last time, and goes on her way without looking behind her.
Another scene—a mother once more with little children. She was
carrying two of them in her arms; the third was clinging to her
skirts, weeping and crying to be taken up in her arms like the rest.
Tears were pouring in streams from the young mother’s eyes. She made
a sudden movement, shook off the child who was hanging to her
skirts, left it on the road and walked off quickly, so as not to see
its agony or hear its wailing. From behind rose the cry: “Who has
lost her baby?” The cry reached the mother’s ears, but she stopped
her ears and hurried on.
Here is a whole group of women with white hair, bent double, all of
them, and marching in silence and with bowed heads. Where are they
going? They do not know. They are going wherever the vast procession
carries them.
Oh! these mothers, the mothers of Armenia—are there anywhere in the
world other mothers who have borne the indescribable sufferings
which have fallen upon them?
And so one scene succeeds another, each more fearful than the last.
Often one closes one’s eyes to shut them out. The fact that one is
powerless in the face of such suffering prostrates one’s spirit. The
procession moves forward at a surprising pace, under the imperious
goad of terror. In the rear the Kurds had swarmed down from the
mountains and opened fire on the column of refugees. Strung to the
fullest stretch of anguish and terror, the procession pushes forward
across the lofty mountains and the deep valleys, devoured by thirst
under a burning sun. There are many in that company who curse the
day of their birth.
Now, exhausted by privation and broken by fatigue, the procession
halts at Igdir, floods the streets, fills every corner, and mounts
up along the river bank and into the open fields.
48. MEMORANDUM ON THE CONDITION OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS
AND ORPHANS AT VAN: COMPILED IN THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE FROM
INFORMATION, DATED 9th DECEMBER, 1915, WHICH WAS FURNISHED BY
MR. STEVENS, BRITISH CONSUL AT BATOUM.
In order to secure reliability in the application of funds collected
in the United Kingdom to the immediate and actual relief of Armenian
refugees who have sought shelter in the Caucasus, it is generally
agreed that remittances should be sent to the “Armenian Central
Relief Committee for Victims of the War” at Tiflis. The President of
the Committee is Mr. Sampson Aroutiounian, and the Treasurer Mr.
G.M. Zurinov. A Special Refugee Committee is working under the ægis
of this body, and is stated to have representatives on the spot
attending to the immediate needs of the refugees. Apart from this,
the Central Committee has Branch Committees in all those principal
towns of Transcaucasia where the Armenian element predominates. They
are all engaged in collecting for relief work.
It is a task of the greatest difficulty, in existing circumstances,
without visiting the localities where refugees are now concentrated
and investigating matters on the spot, to obtain an absolutely
correct description of the extent of the alleged distress amongst
refugees within the Armenian refugee pale. That distress is
acute—indeed, very acute—is, however, universally admitted. No two
opinions differ on this point: suffering everywhere, the outlook
dark and the need for relief work, and above all pecuniary aid,
urgent.
Attention is also called to the urgent necessity for winter
dwellings, fuel, and warm clothing, and to the inadequate staff of
competent doctors, nurses and assistants to deal with the
exceptional amount of illness which exists among the refugees; and,
in general, to the insufficiency of medicines, medical accessories,
equipment, disinfectants, and every other kind of commodity required
for securing a minimum degree of comfort for the refugees.
Sums of Rs. 250,000 (£25,000), Rs. 10,000 (£1,000), and Rs. 700
(£70) have just been remitted to Bakou, Elizavetpol, and Igdir,
respectively, for the maintenance of the refugee lazarettos at those
places.
Rs. 25,000 (£2,500)—a donation by a rich Armenian gentleman named
Mantashev—have recently been spent by the Mayor of Tiflis in
procuring warm bedding, as for instance mattresses, quilts, and
pillow cases, which have been sent to Igdir, Delijan, Novo-Bayazid
and Elizavetpol for the use of refugees.
With the available funds at the disposal of the various
organisations in this country, which are not relatively
proportionate to the heavy expenditure called forth by the urgent
requirements of the refugees from Asia Minor, relief work obviously
cannot be undertaken by them in the needed degree, owing to the very
considerable numbers of fugitives who are finding their way to the
Caucasus from many parts of the Empire, and whose claims on the
moneys belonging to the Societies are as urgent as those of the
Armenian refugees.
The unsatisfactory character of the conditions obtaining in regard
to the question of relieving the refugees has been recognised by the
various Armenian Refugee Committees in the Caucasus, and an
Extraordinary Meeting of the Bakou Branch was convened quite
recently. At this meeting it was decided to endeavour to improve
relief work within as short a period as possible, and several
modifications in the existing system have, it appears, been
recommended. It is reported that the principal feature of the
changes that are to take place is the issue of rations, which in
future are to be partly in kind and partly in the form of a cash
allowance—the latter at the rate of 20 copecks (about 4d.) per adult
and 15 copecks (about 3d.) per child per diem. A further cash
allowance of two roubles per adult per month is to be issued for
rental.
Mr. Papadjanov, Member of the Imperial Duma for the Armenian
constituencies, who is on a special visit to the Caucasus for the
purpose of gaining a close knowledge of conditions on the spot, was
present at the above meeting and has been furnished with full
details in regard to the situation and the working of the several
Relief Committees. He has since visited the Viceroy and is reported
to have proceeded to the districts situated within the refugee pale.
After this visit, he will better be able to form an opinion as to
the needs of the refugees; and, before he returns to Petrograd, in
all probability, a conference of delegates of all the Armenian
Refugee Committees in the Caucasus will be held at Tiflis for the
final discussion of the urgency of the situation.
The funds at the disposal of the Tiflis Central Committee are
apparently exhausted, and Rs. 2,000 (£200) have recently been
advanced by the Tiflis Municipality to meet the immediate
requirements of the refugees. The Provincial Governor has been
requested by the Mayor to give his support to the negotiations which
are in progress for a grant of £1,000 by the State, until further
funds can be raised for the more urgent needs of the refugees.
Meanwhile, it is reported that the Katholikos has received 120 bales
of warm clothing from America, and Mr. Hatisov, Mayor of Tiflis,
another 11 bales of the same kind of wearing apparel from London,
for distribution among the refugees.
A large quantity of warm clothing, a portion of which has recently
been sent from Moscow to the Caucasus and another lot prepared by
the Ladies’ Committee of the Central Refugee Committee, has been
quite recently forwarded to Djoulfa, Diliman and Van for the
refugees. Warm clothing for the use of fugitives has also been sent,
by the Central Committee, to Aghstafa and Alexandropol.
From Van it is announced in the “Kavkazskoyé Slovo” that only about
1,600 Armenians remain there, but that many refugees are returning
from the Caucasus. About 4,000 fugitives are in the country adjacent
to Van. Great difficulty is being experienced in procuring bread and
meat, and all other commodities required for domestic purposes are
unobtainable. Everything has to be brought from Khoi over very bad
roads, the journey occupying five to six days. Motor traffic on the
roads is impossible. In view of the deplorable conditions obtaining
in the town, the establishment of a hospital at Van is strongly
disadvised; in fact, a measure of the kind is stated to be outside
the bounds of possibility. In view of the anti-sanitary condition at
Van, sickness of every kind is prevalent among the orphans of
massacred Armenians, large numbers of whom have now accumulated at
Van and in its district. The children are fatherless and motherless.
They are in a terrible condition. Most of them are starving, and
have become so emaciated that they look more like skeletons than
human beings. All buildings at Van have been destroyed by fire. No
places of refuge exist for the infants. The Field Lazaretto of a
Russian regiment has taken some of these orphans under its care and
protection, and they seek warmth and shelter under the overcoats of
the Russian soldiers.
From subsequent reports which have been received, it appears that
the numbers of refugees from Turkish Asia Minor and the Urmia
district who have taken refuge in the Caucasus are approximately as
follows:—
(_a_) _In the Government of Elizavetpol_:—2,788 men, 4,031 women
and 3,853 children of both sexes, or a total of 10,672 souls, of
whom only 154 are in the town of the same name, the other
refugees having found accommodation in the villages of the
province.
(_b_) _For the Government of Erivan_ the approximate figures
are:—In the town 17,000, at Alexandropol 7,000, and in the
villages of the province 76,000 refugees, or a total of 100,000.
(_c_) Besides the above, 29,000 Nestorian Christians and
Armenians have taken refuge at _Russian Djoulfa_. They are
reported to be natives of Salmas and the adjoining districts.
The total number of Armenian and Nestorian refugees in the Caucasus
is therefore about 140,000 men, women and children. The above
figures are, of course, only approximate and subject to correction.
As regards the refugees at Djoulfa, it was decided at a recent
meeting, at which there was present the Nestorian Patriarch Mar
Shimun, to open a central hospital for 50 beds at Diliman, another
for 25 beds at Haftevan, and dispensaries in the neighbourhood of
this latter village.
A sum of £5,000 had been sent to these refugees by the Viceroy of
the Caucasus, and was calculated to suffice till the 18th December.
A further sum of £10,000 a month is required to keep the refugees
supplied with food, while other needs included £8,500 for the supply
of beds and warm clothing, and £1,500 for the equipment and
maintenance of the hospitals and dispensaries at Diliman and
Haftevan. It is feared, however, that the above estimates for
pressing needs at Djoulfa will have to be largely increased in the
event of a further influx of refugees from Bashkala, an eventuality
which is considered probable.
49. MEMORANDUM ON THE CONDITION OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES IN THE
CAUCASUS: COMPILED IN THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE FROM
INFORMATION, DATED 29th DECEMBER, 1915, WHICH WAS FURNISHED BY
MR. STEVENS, BRITISH CONSUL AT BATOUM.
Although the considerable sums that have recently been finding their
way to Russia are being applied to the relief of Armenian refugees
in the Caucasus, and the numerous consignments of clothing placed by
various organisations at the disposal of the Relief Committees are
being served out to them, the need of the refugees for further
urgent help is reported to be still very great.
Prince Argoudinsky-Dolgoroukov, the Acting Representative of the
Caucasian Section of the Urban Union, after having visited the
refugee camps at Bambak and Delijan, furnishes the following report
on his tour of inspection:—
Four thousand refugees are concentrated in the 26 villages which he
visited in the districts named above, the more wealthy villages
housing a greater number of fugitives than the less important ones.
He found that, as a rule, two refugees are quartered in each house.
In the whole of this district, excepting at Karakeliss, the refugees
are everywhere gratuitously lodged. The same rations are issued to
the refugees in all the villages; they consist of one-and-a-half
pounds of flour and a cash allowance of five copecks (one penny) per
diem per person. Children under two years old receive no rations or
money allowance; they are, however, very few in number. Most of the
children coming under this denomination have died from hunger, cold
and the other fearful sufferings to which the refugees have been
subjected since last summer.
At Karakeliss all dwellings are in satisfactory condition. In some
of the villages fuel—mainly wood procured in the neighbouring
forests—is served out to the refugees. In this district the latter
possess about 1,000 head of cattle.
The exceedingly well organised Relief Committee of the Karakeliss
Brotherhood is very attentive to the needs of the refugees. Their
registration has been admirably arranged by this Committee. Full
particulars of the refugees, and the relief received, are entered in
the register book kept by the Committee. The latter has two
representatives who periodically visit the refugee villages, attend
to the issue of rations, and inquire into the urgent needs of the
refugees and their other requirements. The Committee further
endeavours to find work for the refugees.
The Committee has recently prepared two hundred stoves and a
quantity of warm clothing for the refugees. They are daily furnished
with boiling water and sugar. An unsatisfactory feature of relief
work at Karakeliss is the difficulty experienced in receiving flour
and money from Alexandropol. At times it takes twenty days to obtain
them. Owing to the short cereal crop of 1915 in the district, no
local flour is procurable; consequently the refugees frequently
remain in a practically starving condition. The Prince Argoudinsky
was surprised to find that no means had yet been devised by which
the transport of flour and the transmission of money over so short a
distance could be accelerated.
The Urban Union maintains a fairly well organised and equipped
hospital for fifty beds at Karakeliss. This establishment, however,
lacks an operating room, a mortuary and a disinfecting camera.
An orphanage managed by the Petrograd Armenian Committee has also
been opened at Karakeliss. It accommodates 170 beds. The premises
are good—well kept and clean. The children belonging to the
orphanage are taught at the Church School at Karakeliss. They are
all well dressed, but do not get sufficient food. This affects their
outward appearance, and the orphans are consequently pale and
somewhat emaciated. Prince Argoudinsky was informed that at times
some of the children would wake up at night and search for remnants
of bread left about during the day.
The Tairov Asylum for Orphans, maintained at the personal expense of
Mrs. U.M. Tairov, impressed the Prince very favourably. The
Orphanage is equipped for 25 orphans belonging to soldiers, and for
25 fatherless and motherless refugees. The children are well
accommodated with plenty of room, in a fine and spacious building.
They are made to work. They tidy up and clean the rooms, wash their
own linen, wash up crockery, pans and utensils, lay the tables,
assist in cooking and perform all other domestic work. They are
taught to read and write, and also various trades. The children sing
in Armenian and Russian to the accompaniment of a piano. They are
well dressed and shod. Their robust and healthy appearance testifies
to good conditions of life, and also points to the fact that Mrs.
Tairov and the whole of the personnel of the establishment put a
good deal of energy into their work, and are much concerned in the
welfare of the children.
The conditions obtaining in the district of Kazakh are not so
satisfactory as they are at Karakeliss. The need for methodical
organisation in supervising relief work and introducing a defined
plan of action is everywhere noticeable.
About 4,500 refugees are concentrated in this locality, viz.:—3,145
Armenians, 805 Nestorians and 550 Armenian orphans. The latter are
accommodated in the Orphanage of Delijan.
Up to the 23rd November last, the above refugees were receiving a
cash allowance of 10 copecks (2d.) per person per diem. On that
date, however, this cash allowance was increased to 15 copecks (3d.)
a day. Until the 20th November the Urban Union maintained feeding
stations at the more important refugee centres, but, to the great
disappointment of the refugees, these stations were then closed, and
victualling was taken over by the police authorities and the village
committees, which continue to perform these duties. The refugees
here receive relief at the rate of 1 lb. 32 zol. (about one English
lb.) of flour, and a cash allowance of 7 copecks (1¼d.) per diem per
person. Fuel is not distributed to all the refugees. Some of the
latter have had warm clothing, supplied by the Armenian Benevolent
Society, served out to them; others have been furnished with iron
stoves.
No special committee which could take over the management of relief
work exists in this district. The Delijan Committee partly performs
the duties which would devolve on such a body. No properly organised
system of administering relief is provided. Very few individual
refugees are unwilling to find employment. The invariable excuse put
forward for refusing work is the absence of proper clothing for
taking on open air work; also, that no food is procurable where work
is offering, in consequence of which the refugees have to starve. Up
to the 2nd December, the refugees were supplied with tea and sugar
by the Urban Union. For some unknown reason, this allowance has
recently been discontinued.
Hospital arrangements are good in this district. The hospital is
maintained out of funds supplied by the Urban Union.
The ground floor of a wing of an unoccupied barrack building has
been adapted to accommodate refugees. The building, although
spacious, is gloomy and dark, and is exceedingly badly ventilated.
The upper floor is temporarily occupied by 123 orphans, who are
cared for by the Armenian Central Committee. The children go about
barefoot.
At Delijan four asylums for children exist. Prince Argoudinsky was
only able to visit one of these establishments. The one inspected by
him is managed by Princess Toumanov, and is maintained out of funds
furnished by the Armenian Benevolent Society. After their dinners,
the children go to school. They look strong and healthy, and their
appearance shows care and kind treatment in every respect. According
to information obtained by Prince Argoudinsky, the other three
asylums at Delijan are likewise well managed and kept.
The relief extended to the refugees at Delijan is only of a
primitive nature; the same remark cannot, however, be applied to the
unsatisfactory conditions obtaining in this connection in the
district of Kazakh. Here the question of housing the refugees is one
of the most painful features of the relief work undertaken. In a
large number of villages in this district, the refugees are mostly
accommodated in derelict sheds and shops—dark, unheated and
overcrowded. For some unaccountable reason warm clothing has not
been issued to them. They do not receive their rations of flour and
cash allowances with regularity, and no Central Organisation to
inquire into their immediate and urgent needs exists on the spot.
The Bakou Refugee Committee has just forwarded several further
consignments of 10,000 quilts, 12,000 mattresses and sacks, 12,000
pillow cases, 600 jackets, 3,000 shirts, 3,000 pairs of drawers; and
the Tiflis Committee, 400 quilts, 4,000 mattresses, 4,000 pillow
cases, 200 jackets, 1,000 shirts and 1,000 pairs of drawers, to the
Governors of Elizavetpol and Erivan, to be served out to the
refugees. The latter Committee has also sent several bales of
clothing to Persia and to Turkish Asia Minor for the refugees, but
according to the newspapers a large proportion of the fugitives are
still in utmost poverty—destitute, to a very great extent, of the
absolute necessities of existence.
Seventy-six railway truck loads of flour, of which 53 were for the
needs of the Armenian Refugees in the Government of Erivan and 23
for the use of those in the Government of Elizavetpol, left Gulevich
in the Northern Caucasus a few days ago. These trucks, under
ordinary conditions, should already have reached their respective
destinations.
Owing to anticipated heavy snow drifts at the Akhta Pass
(Kars-Karakeliss direction), the Zemstvo Union gave orders a few
days ago that all its refugee victualling and provisioning stations
should be moved to Igdir.
According to information obtained by Mr. Sarebey, the Dragoman of
the Vice-Consulate at Van, from the Armenian Bishop of Erivan and
from various other data he has been able to procure on the spot, the
number of Armenian refugees in the Caucasus is 173,038, of whom
105,000 are from the Province of Van; 48,000 from the districts of
Alashkerd, Bayazid and Passin; and 20,038 from Moush, Boulanik, &c.,
&c.
They are housed as follows:—
Government of Erivan:—
Town of Erivan 18,820
Villages in the neighbourhood of Erivan 14,680
Market town of Vaharshapat 5,360
Villages of the district of same name 22,730
Town of Nahichevan 271
District of Nahichevan 468
Igdir 1,028
Surmalin 7,342
Town of Alexandropol 8,450
Villages in the neighbourhood of Alexandropol 14,121
Sharori 268
Town of Novo-Bayazid 1,164
Villages of Novo-Bayazid district 10,336
——— 105,038
Government of Elizavetpol:—
Town of Elizavetpol 12,000
Villages, district of Elizavetpol 5,000
District of Karabagh 1,000
——— 18,000
Province of Kars:—
Town of Kars and adjacent villages 26,000
Karakeliss 4,000
——— 30,000
Government of Tiflis:—
City of Tiflis 5,000
Villages of the district of Tiflis 3,000
——— 8,000
Northern Caucasus (probably the Armenian town of 12,000
Nahichevan-on-Don)
———
Grand total 173,038
———
The number of refugees in the Caucasus from Khoi and Salmas is
small, about 1,000. They are housed principally at Nahichevan and a
few at Erivan.
The foregoing figures differ from those obtained from an official
source, which put the number of refugees in the Caucasus, in round
figures, at 140,000. The data now procured by Sarebey, who is on the
spot, originating as they do from Armenian sources and being in
greater detail, are likely to be more correct than the information
then furnished.
Reports received through the newspapers from Colonel Termen state
that the situation at Van has recently improved. It would appear
that 6,000 refugees have returned to the town, which has been
subdivided into four police districts. Strict measures to prevent
further pillage and destruction of property have been introduced at
Van. Ordinary necessaries of life are procurable, although only in
very small quantities. Some threshing machines and four or five
flour mills have resumed work in the district, with the result that
several bakeries have reopened.
All persons, organisations and other bodies in the Caucasus and
elsewhere that have Armenian orphans from Van and its district in
their care, have been requested to furnish particulars to the
Governor of Van in regard to the names, ages, parentage and native
places of the orphans in their charge. Also, where possible,
information is asked for as to any property their deceased parents
may have possessed, in order to enable the authorities to institute
a search for, and appoint guardians to protect, such property.
The spread of disease has been stayed. The town has assumed a
cleaner and more orderly appearance. In some streets the restoration
of buildings has been commenced. Ten or twelve shops and stores have
resumed trade.
The Armenian newspaper _Horizon_ states that the news from Salmas is
very unsatisfactory. Bishop Nerses’ urgent appeal for warm clothing
has hitherto remained unheeded. Only a small quantity of clothing
forwarded by the Tabriz Women’s Committee has reached him, but the
articles sent are like a drop in the ocean. The cold is excessive.
50. REPORT ON THE ACTIVITY OF ARMENIAN REFUGEE RELIEF ORGANISATIONS
IN THE CAUCASUS AND TURKISH ARMENIA; ENCLOSED IN A DESPATCH (NO.
1), DATED BATOUM, 3rd JANUARY, 1916, FROM MR. CONSUL STEVENS TO
THE BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE.
The Armenian organisations in the Caucasus which have been so active
in relieving Christian refugees since the first arrival of the
latter in this country in the early days of July last, still
continue their good work.
The number of victims of the war who took refuge in the Caucasus
from Turkish Armenia and Persia, in roughly estimated figures, is
150,000. The influx of refugees, however, continued for some time
after July. There is, therefore, good reason to believe that the
number of refugees who crossed the Russian border was in excess of
the figures quoted above.
The refugees for the most part settled in the Government of Erivan,
and principally at and about the town of Etchmiadzin. Housing
accommodation for such large numbers could not here be provided, and
the refugees, in the circumstances, had to be accommodated without
cover in yards and open spaces, in the neighbourhood of the
Monastery of Etchmiadzin.
Daily telegrams from Etchmiadzin to the Principal Relief Committee
at Tiflis depicted a truly painful situation, and reported that from
350 to 400 deaths were daily taking place, owing to the destitute
and starving conditions that prevailed amongst the refugees.
At this time relief work was in the hands partly of the “Chief
Caucasian Committee for Succouring Victims of the War,” and partly
in those of the Red Cross Society. Shortly after, several other
public bodies joined in relief work.
The combined efforts of these various organisations had little
effect in improving the situation. The funds at their respective
disposals were small, and quite out of proportion to the enormous
numbers of the refugees, whose ranks kept on swelling, especially
after the heavy fighting that took place last summer on the
Caucasian front.
Meanwhile the insanitary condition of the refugees, in view of the
very hot weather, was daily becoming more and more appalling.
Dysentery, spotted fever, typhoid, measles, diphtheria, and
subsequently cholera, all of which were assuming epidemic form, were
thinning the numbers of the refugees at a very rapid rate; and yet,
despite this alarming situation, the funds necessary to cope
successfully with the deplorable conditions were not forthcoming.
Finally, the Caucasian Section of the All Russia Urban Union, after
a hurried investigation of matters, prepared a rough estimate of the
money needed for the immediate relief of the refugees, and a grant
of Rs. 1,103,250 (£110,325 about) was asked for by the Section from
its Principal Organisation. This money was shortly afterwards
remitted to the Caucasus, and the urgent needs of the hordes of
refugees were then and there met. The temporary measures of relief
adopted gave the Caucasian organisations a short time to think
matters over, and to decide on further action in connection with
relief work.
Accordingly, steps were taken to bring the pressing needs of the
refugees before the public, and, in response to appeals made
throughout the Caucasus, in Russia and abroad, moneys were collected
privately; the Russian Government contributed important sums, and
latterly funds have been flowing in from the United Kingdom and
America. With these moneys relief work is being extended on a wider
scale, and the requirements of the refugees are being more closely
attended to; but the needs of the fugitives are still very great,
and more and more moneys are required.
The necessity for substantial additional sums is, to a great extent,
due to a new series of tasks the Urban Union has taken upon itself
to carry out, together with the heavy responsibilities it has had to
accept in connection with refugee relief work outside the confines
of the Caucasus.
A comparatively large number of refugees have latterly been
returning to their homes, and the Djoulfa-Van and Igdir-Van roads
have had to be placed under the immediate supervision of the
Caucasian Section of the Urban Union. A number of kitchen and
housing stations have had to be opened at various points on these
two routes, which the Union will have to maintain at its own expense
for a considerable period, in view of the increasing tendency among
the refugees to return home, in reliance upon the restoration of
security in their own country.
The organisation of the kitchen and housing stations in the
Djoulfa-Van direction is reported to be proceeding apace under the
guidance of the Representative of the Caucasian Committee of the
Urban Union, and the work is being carried out in complete harmony
with, and according to the directions and indications of, the
military authorities.
The Urban Union has also undertaken to equip and open a hospital for
200 beds for refugees at Van, which it will also maintain at its own
expense.
The duties of the Urban Union do not end here, for it has been
called upon by the Viceregal authority to perform many other
functions connected with refugee relief work; the difficulties they
present have to be faced with as much energy and resource as all the
other duties taken over by this body.
The following is a list of the medical and kitchen stations which
have been opened by the Union and are at present serving the needs
of the refugees in the areas mentioned above:—
I.
HOSPITALS.
1. _At points at which the refugees originally settled._
(_a_) _At Etchmiadzin._—A hospital consisting of several buildings
belonging to the Monastery and to its Academy, which have been
temporarily adapted to accommodate 570 beds for patients of both
sexes and for children.
A cholera ward, No. 5, in which, owing to the disappearance of the
disease, no cases are at present under treatment. The vacant beds of
this ward (70) are now being used for cases of spotted fever.
A flying medical column (consisting of a medical officer, his
assistant and several competent attendants) has been provisionally
formed to attend to those sick refugees who are within the limits of
Monastery territory.
Three miles distant from the Monastery, on the road to the railway
station of Etchmiadzin, a medical quarantine station has been
established. At this point healthy refugees are subjected to a
quarantine of four to five days, before they are allowed to proceed
to the station for the purpose of entraining en route to the
Government of Elizavetpol. On their journey, the refugees are
accompanied by a medical officer and two professional assistants.
(_b_) _At Igdir._—A hospital, in temporarily occupied buildings,
accommodating 100 beds; and, three and a half miles from this point,
at a village named Plour, a hospital for 50 beds.
(_c_) _At Erivan._—A hospital, in private houses provisionally
rented, which provides 200 beds. A quarantine station of a temporary
type has also been opened in connection with this hospital. Two
assistant medical officers are placed in charge of the latter
establishment, and they accompany refugees by rail to their places
of settlement in the Government of Elizavetpol.
(_d_) _At Alexandropol._—A hospital, in premises rented temporarily,
accommodating 200 beds to which an isolation section has been added.
Within the limits of the district of Elizavetpol several stations
have been established with assistant medical officers in charge.
2. _Along the refugees’ line of advance._
(_a_) _Nijni-Akhti._—A hospital for 50 beds.
Assistant medical officers’ stations at Elenovka and Tchibouhli.
(_b_) _Delijan._—A hospital for 50 beds.
3. _In places where refugees have more or less settled._
(_a_) _Novo-Bayazid_ (_Erivan_).—A hospital for 50 beds.
(_b_) _Annenfeld._—A hospital for 80 beds.
(_c_) _Kedabek._—A hospital for 50 beds.
The total number of beds provided—including the 70 belonging to the
cholera ward at Etchmiadzin—is 1,450.
NOTE: Funds furnished by the Urban Union are at present being
employed for adapting a building—ceded to the Military by the
Katholikos—to the needs of the refugees.
II.
KITCHEN STATIONS.
1. _On the railway lines used by refugees._
At the quarantine station near Etchmiadzin and at the stations of
Aghtalia and Annenfeld.
2. _On the metalled roads (chaussées) used by refugees._
At Parakar, Erivan, Novo-Nikolaievka, Ailar, Suhoi Fontan,
Nijni-Akhti, Elenovka, Tchibouhli, Delijan, Tarsa-Tchai,
Karavan-sarai and Uzuntal.
Bread and hot food are served out to the refugees at these stations.
The refugees are quartered during their stay at these points in
sheds rented for the purpose which are properly roofed.
A separate kitchen station has been opened at Djoulfa out of
funds—Rs. 10,000 (£1,000)—placed by the Urban Union at the disposal
of Bishop Nerses, for the use of Nestorian refugees.
III.
With a view to improving the insanitary conditions obtaining in the
refugee settlements, and also the hygiene of the refugees:
1. _Three disinfecting stations have been opened._
The first of these is now operating at Etchmiadzin. The station
undertakes to disinfect cemeteries, refuse-dumping grounds,
hospitals (in the event of infectious disease), and premises of
every other type, and to operate the disinfecting camera.
The officials of the station perform their duties under the guidance
of a sanitary medical officer.
The second station is at Igdir, and the third at Erivan.
The duties of the latter two stations are identical with those of
the first-named station, and each is worked by a similar personnel.
2. _Detachment for erecting buildings._
This detachment has to attend to the building of bath and wash
(laundry) houses of a provisional type in the refugee settlements.
It consists of a chief, two assistants, an instructor, two
stove-building masons (petchniks), two fitters, a tin smith, and two
rough carpenters.
The detachment has erected a bath-house (Turkish) and laundry at
Annenfeld, a similar bath-house at Tchibouhli, and a Turkish bath
and laundry at Kedabek.
New work of the same description is in immediate prospect for the
detachment at Delijan, Elenovka, Nijni-Akhti, Igdir, Etchmiadzin and
its neighbourhood, and at Alexandropol. The detachment has also been
ordered to take in hand work connected with the erection of a series
of steam-formaline disinfecting cameras. A camera of this type is in
course of construction at Erivan.
3. Under-garments and warm clothing have been served out in various
places to the refugees. Wearing apparel, as stated above, was
purchased at a cost of Rs. 66,000 (£6,600), out of moneys
contributed by a number of organisations and individuals; and warm
clothing costing Rs. 11,996 (£1,200), assigned by the Principal
Committee of the Urban Union, has also recently been distributed to
the refugees.
Apart from the more or less completed organisation of relief work
described above, necessity has compelled the Urban Union to take
over relief work in Persian territory, and a hospital for 110 beds
is under equipment at Salmas.
Further duties connected with the relief of the refugees will
shortly be taken over by the Urban Union, when it is proposed to
open small hospitals and dispensaries in all refugee settlements.
It is estimated that between 11,000 and 12,000 refugees have
returned to the valley of Alashkerd and to the Vilayet of Van, and
that from 2,000 to 3,000 refugees belonging to the middle classes
have settled in the Governments of Tiflis and Bakou.
The cost to the Union of feeding the refugees is estimated at
between 18 and 19 copecks (4d.) per head per day.
The following are the rations issued to the refugees:—
Bread, 108 lbs. Rs. 7·20 }
Meat, 20 lbs. ” 3·00 }
Rice, 10 lbs. ” 1·20 }
Potatoes, onions, salt, pepper ” 0·60 } Rs. 18·08 per 100
Fuel (wood, peat or coal) ” 1·70 } refugees per diem,
Tea, ⅛ lb. ” 0·25 } or 18·08 copecks
Sugar, 4½ lbs. ” 1·13 } per head.
Rental for accommodation ” 1·00 }
Administrative expenses ” 2·00 }
The Government ration is 1½ lbs. per person per day, or an allowance
in cash, in lieu of rations, at the rate of 15 copecks a day or Rs.
4·50 per month. The Government method of sending provisions to
points of distribution is, however, very erratic. Owing to the lack
of railway facilities and to delays in remitting moneys by the
Principal Committee, the refugees dependent on relief from this
source have frequently to go without their bread for days and at
times for weeks.
The following is a list of other organisations engaged in relief
work in this country:—
The Etchmiadzin Brotherhood;
The Tiflis Armenian Central Committee;
The Moscow Armenian Red Cross Committee;
The Russian Red Cross Society; and
The Communes of the various villages in which the refugees
have settled.
_The Etchmiadzin Brotherhood_, under the chairmanship of the
Katholikos, maintains branches of its organisation at Igdir, Erivan,
Alexandropol, Kars, Nahichevan, Novo-Bayazid, and Karakeliss. Relief
work was undertaken by the Brotherhood in March, 1915. Since that
date, apart from the large quantities of clothing, medicines and
other comforts served out to the refugees, a medical detachment has
been organised at Igdir, and, in all, the Brotherhood has spent Rs.
900,000 (£90,000) in relief work. This, in the main, has been
obtained by voluntary contribution from persons of Armenian
nationality all over the world, but especially in the Russian Empire
(at Petrograd, Moscow, Kharkov, &c.). The Brotherhood serves out
with punctual regularity flour rations, money allowances, and
clothing to the refugees. It has all along maintained kitchens at
Igdir, Etchmiadzin, and Alexandropol, as well as hospitals in
various places; has organised a proper system of medical aid; and
has opened refugee orphanages, schools and workshops for the
children. In short, the organisation is thorough, and this is one of
the most important relief societies engaged in work in the Armenian
refugee pale.
_The Tiflis Armenian Central Committee_ has also been carrying out
relief work for nearly ten months. This body maintains its own
hospitals and kitchens, and hitherto has expended Rs. 200,000
(£20,000) in connection with the relief of Armenian refugees settled
in the Government of Erivan. The necessary funds are raised by
voluntary contributions collected from members belonging to Armenian
society in the Caucasus.
_The Moscow Armenian Committee of the Red Cross._—The relief work of
this organisation is confined to the Government of Erivan. The
Committee commenced operations in April last, when four medical and
kitchen stations (viz. at Etchmiadzin and at the villages of Markar,
Ashtarak, and Arzap) were opened. A staff consisting of a medical
officer, two assistants, and several competent attendants and
nurses, besides several sanitary officers and other employees, is
appointed to each of these stations. The organisation affords relief
when and as urgent occasion requires. This Committee has spent Rs.
300,000 (£30,000), all of which has been contributed by the Armenian
colony at Moscow. An orphanage is maintained by the Committee at
Ashtar, together with a school and workshop. The organisation
likewise keeps a flour store and stocks of other provisions at the
last-mentioned place. Refugees are fed by the Society at Markar and
at eight other villages situate in the valley of Alashkerd. The
above remarks apply only to the more important duties that devolve
on the Committee, but it also attends to the needs of the refugees
in many other ways. A hospital at Arzap is also maintained by the
Committee.
In August, 1915, _The All Russia Red Cross Society_ entered the
field of refugee work by opening a medical observation point at
Igdir. The staff here consists of a superintendent, a medical
officer, two assistants, and 19 sanitary officers. In September
last, alone, this body served out 18,598 dinners and 16,775 portions
of tea, and rendered medical aid to 4,652 refugees. In October,
1915, the Red Cross Society daily fed from 850 to 900 refugees in
the district of Igdir. The stations of this Society are well
organised, the staffs strictly disciplined, and their work is
effected with neatness and punctuality. The Society maintains a
dispensary and victualling store at Igdir. The estimated cost of the
dinners and tea served out to the refugees by the Society is between
17 and 18 copecks (3d.) a day per head.
_The Village Communes._—The peasants of each of the villages in
which refugees have been settled have undertaken to accommodate
them, gratuitously, in their houses. In these the refugees find warm
shelter, and are not infrequently fed as well out of the slender
resources at the disposal of their hosts. Whilst seemingly
unimportant, the relief extended to the refugees by the peasantry is
of the greatest value. An accurate idea of this benevolence can only
be formed when all the good deeds of the peasantry are taken into
consideration. Undoubtedly, this aid relieves the contributory
public from responsibilities amounting to several hundreds of
thousands of roubles. In other words, the charitable disposition of
the by no means affluent peasant effects an enormous saving of
money, which under other conditions would have to be provided by the
various organisations.
On the recommendation of Prince A.M. Argoudinsky-Dolgoroukov, who
has recently been on a tour of inspection through the refugee
districts, it has been decided to improve the work of relief by
adopting the following measures:—
1. That the present accommodation at the hospital at Annenfeld be
increased by an additional 30 beds. That the bath-houses in course
of construction at Barsoun and Kedabek be forthwith completed, and a
bath-house built at Tchardahli.
2. That a medical officer, two assistant doctors and two nurses, as
well as another assistant medical officer and three nurses for the
30 additional beds, be immediately appointed to the hospital at
Annenfeld. That all equipment required for the additional 30 beds at
this hospital, and the necessary undergarments and clothing for
outgoing patients, be at once supplied.
3. That should a further evacuation of refugees from Erivan to the
Government of Elizavetpol be ordered by the authorities, additional
warm and roofed-in buildings should be rented at Annenfeld and
Evlakh, and be furnished with some comfort for the refugees, even if
only of a very primitive nature.
4. That kitchens for refugees on the move be opened at Annenfeld,
Evlakh, and Elizavetpol.
5. That small hospitals be opened at the village of Tchaikent in the
district of Elizavetpol, and one each in the districts of Djevanshir
and Shousha.
6. That movable sanitary detachments and kitchens be organised in
the refugees’ districts of settlement.
7. That permanent dispensing stations be established in the colony
of Annenfeld and at the railway station of Evlakh.
8. That the question of the restrictions in force at Elizavetpol and
on the road leading through Annenfeld regarding the passage of
refugees, be at once brought before the notice of the competent
authorities.
9. That the cash allowance to refugees in the Government of
Elizavetpol be brought up to 15 copecks per day per head.
10. That the authorities whom it may concern be requested, when
settling refugees on new lands, to take into consideration the
previous conditions of life of such refugees, and allot to those
coming from highland districts identical localities in this country,
and _vice versa_ in regard to refugees who have been inhabitants of
lowland districts. Further, that in defining the number of refugees
to be temporarily domiciled in villages, the degree of prosperity or
poverty of the villages be taken into consideration.
11. That warm clothing, blankets, bast-shoe leather, iron stoves,
kerosene and (if possible) tea, sugar and soap, if only in small
quantities, be immediately served out to the refugees.
12. That the question of the supply of fuel to the refugees be
brought to the notice of the forestry authorities of the Caucasus.
13. That the question of the supply of flour to the refugees through
the Central Organ, and of the accumulation of stocks of the same
commodity in villages or groups of villages for the winter, be
forthwith decided.
14. That local administrative offices be requested to give the
Committee timely notice of the dates and hours of dispatch of trains
conveying refugees.
15. That the Caucasian Principal Committee be requested to entrust
the Urban Union with the task of feeding refugees on the spot.
Should this prove impossible, to ask that steps be taken to
introduce modifications in the present system of distributing food.
16. That a representative of the Committee be appointed to each of
the localities where refugees have been settled, in order that these
representatives may communicate to the Committee when there is
urgent need of relief in any given locality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
51. REFUGEES IN THE CAUCASUS: LETTER DATED ERIVAN, 29th DECEMBER,
1915, FROM REV. S.G. WILSON TO DR. SAMUEL T. DUTTON, SECRETARY
OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
We have just returned from a tour of some of the Armenian villages
where refugees are living, and are ready to report on their
condition from personal observation. In this district or
Governorship of Erivan there are 105,000 Armenian refugees, besides
Nestorians and Yezidis. Of these, 18,000 are in the town of Erivan;
of these, again, many are scattered in the homes of the people and
others gathered in large buildings, orphanages, etc. We visited the
barracks where 420 were living. Room after room was full—in some
rooms 40, in some half the number. The lucky ones were those that
had a plank platform or board floor on which to sleep and sit. Many
of them were in the kitchens and store-rooms on the bare ground.
Most of them had insufficient bedding, and many of them scarcely
any. Some were lying four under one coverlet, head to feet. One man
told us how he sat and shivered in the night till his teeth
chattered. Another man stayed in bed during the daytime because he
had no clothes. One room contained, among others, two Protestant
families from Van; the fathers had both died lately of disease, the
mother of one group was lying sick. Seven or eight was the number of
each household, lying in rags on hay and with scarcely enough cover
for two people. The atmosphere of the rooms was foul in the extreme.
These people were from the city of Van and had lived comfortably.
The condition in the villages is even worse. At Somaghar, 15 miles
from here, we were taken about by the elder of the Protestant
Church. Sad indeed were the sights that we saw. Some, too, were
comforting in a measure. This good man had taken into his household,
already of sufficient size, two women refugees, who were clothed
cleanly and neatly and fed as his own. Many of the Armenian
villagers have taken in and cared for the destitute refugees. Others
have given them the use of their spare rooms, bake-houses, stables
and barns. Fortunate are those who are in the bake-houses, for the
heat in bread baking is a free gift to them, albeit mixed with
smoke. Fortunate, too, those who have stables, for they have
steam-heat from the oxen and buffaloes; for those in the other
store-rooms and out-houses have no stoves or fires. These uplands of
Armenia have a severe winter. The ground is now covered with snow.
Ararat, with its two grand peaks, is always in sight, and but a few
miles away. Cold winds from the Caucasus range blow over the plain.
The sight of these multitudes with neither clothing for day nor
bedding for night is a great draft on our sympathies, and this is
intensified by their pitiful stories. We entered one bake-house. One
young man appeared among 15 women and children. They had been a
prosperous patriarchal family of 36 persons—father, three sons and
their wives and children. Of these, 21 were killed, including all
the men except this young fellow, who threw himself into the arms of
a Kurd and was saved in some freak of mercy. This was a Protestant
family from a village called Perkhous. We saw families of 13 and
16—mothers, daughters, brides and children—with no man among them.
We asked: “Where are your men?”—“They were all killed;” or, “Out of
70 men but one escaped;” or, “We were 100 men in the village, but
only 20 escaped;” or, “There were 450 households in our village, but
20 or 30 men alone escaped.”—“Were the women taken away?”—“Yes, our
pretty girls were carried off.”—“How many?”—“Four out of nine; we
too were stripped naked.” As to the rest of their sufferings and
outrage, they were silent.
We addressed the one surviving man and asked: “How are you here?” He
replied: “I was off as a soldier in the Turkish army. I heard of the
massacres, and by bye-ways through the mountains I returned to find
our village destroyed. I escaped to Russia and found them here.”
Another woman, from Ardjish, near Van, said: “All our men were
collected from the bazaars and taken before the Government. After
dark, we heard the shots which killed them. We fled in the night.”
In the village of _Kourpalou_, with 300 houses, there are 900
refugees. Of these, 300 are from the first exodus of January to
April, 1915, and 600 from the second in July and August. The first
were able to bring with them some of their property; many of the men
came safely. The second was the terrible flight after the massacres;
of these, 40,000 are said to have died of disease after reaching
Russian territory. The condition of the later refugees is most
heart-rending. Let me give a few glances at conditions in Kourpalou.
A woman surrounded by seven or eight persons, with scarcely beds for
all, and rags as their clothes, said: “I escaped by throwing myself
in the mud, a dead child lying over my head. There were 50 in our
household. Nine women and boys were taken captive by the Kurds.” In
a stable the oxen and buffaloes were crowding up close; at their
side a flock of sheep was huddled; the air was stifling. Three
families of 18 persons were crowded at one end, in a space so small
that it seemed impossible for them to lie down. Some had improvised
a couch in the manger. A hammock for a baby was stretched above on
two posts. Of these 18, a blind youth was the only man. In the
bake-house were 27 persons, one youth, one very old man. Six men of
their household had been taken as soldiers, the rest were massacred.
Of the 600 refugees of the second exodus who are in this village,
about 30 are men. Some are escaped soldiers who were in the army
when the atrocities occurred. One had dragged himself out from under
a mass of dead bodies.
Nor did all the women escape death. Women were wantonly slain; those
with child ripped up with swords; the breasts of others cut off.
Some threw themselves and their children into the streams and over
the precipices to escape outrage. One woman lately arrived who was
captured some years ago by a Kurd. She had escaped now. after
killing the Kurd, and brought her two children with her.
_Mouandjik._—Also many refugees. As in all other places, great lack
of clothing and especially of bedding. Twenty-two persons in one
room, two of them men. Mostly sleeping on the ground, with bedding
enough for one-fifth of their number. In another room 10 persons, no
men, 15 of this connection killed, girls carried away, one boy saved
by hiding under skirt of mother; clothes in tatters, bedding
lacking.
_Veri Ailaulou._—This village of 70 houses is sheltering 370
refugees, in wretched condition. Three families of 22 persons are in
one bake-house, one side of which is filled with dried manure. Their
village in Turkey had 70 men, one escaped alive; 4 girls and 3
brides carried off. Another hut contains 4 women and some children,
the remnant of a family of 24. All the men of their village were
killed. They are living in a wretched condition. Bread and water
have been the chief food of these refugees for months past.
We are doing what we can to relieve this distress, supplementing the
work of local and Government committees. Ready-made clothing in any
large quantity is not to be found, nor blankets. Comforters we have
purchased in small quantities. We are organising some sewing circles
and will contract for clothing in Tiflis, where we succeeded in
buying about 7,000 garments. They are hard to find, and transport is
difficult when they are ready, as the army has the first right to
the trucks.
I have not time to tell you of our reception by the Grand Duke
Nicolas and his good wishes for the success and progress of our
relief work, nor of our visit to the Katholikos at Etchmiadzin and
his warm thanks for the sympathy and help of the American people for
his people in their distress. We were entertained by him over-night.
Governors, Bishops and Press have all bidden us God-speed.
Warm clothing and bedding will save many from sickness and death.
The pitiable condition of these wretched people should appeal
strongly to our American people in their comfortable homes and in
the enjoyment of ten thousand blessings.
After organising relief committees here in several places, one or
both of us will return to Tiflis for supplies of clothing and
bedding.
52. REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES: LETTER, DATED ERIVAN (?), MARCH, 1916,
FROM THE REV. S.G. WILSON; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Events have moved rapidly since I sent my appeal of the 18th
February. In the intervening month the Russian army has made
splendid progress and driven the Turks back many miles beyond
Erzeroum and Van. The capture of Bitlis, Moush and Mamahatoun
(Derdjan) has given assurance to the Government, to the Armenians
and to us all. The return of the refugees to the Van province has
been officially authorized. Men are hastening back even while the
snow is on the ground. The 12,000 already there will soon be 20,000
and 30,000. Reports say: “Men are going in large numbers.”—“Every
day caravans of those returning to the fatherland enter,” via Igdir.
Most of these have returned from the Erivan province to Van. Others,
of whom 500 are women, have settled in Alashkerd. Fifty-three
hundred have gone back from Russian Passin to the Turkish province
of the same name. The Governor of Kars reports that from Olti and
that region refugees are returning to the districts of Erzeroum, and
that many of them are women and children. In Bashkala there are
nearly 3,000 refugees, said to be in great wretchedness and in need
of daily sustenance.
Besides these, numbers are coming forth from their places of
concealment, or from the houses of certain friendly Kurds, or from
their captivity in Moslem harems. These are indeed but hundreds
compared with the thousands who have been massacred or driven into
the wildernesses. But it is a gratification to hear that from
Sassoun 160 men came forth; that in Khnyss there have appeared more
than a thousand new refugees; that in Riza on the Black Sea more
than 200 Armenian children were discovered after the taking of the
town by the Russians; that in Bitlis men, women and children have
come forth in large numbers (2,800); that in Moush nearly 3,000
souls have been freed. Erzeroum seems to have been dealt with most
savagely. Less than 200 Armenians out of 20,000 in the city itself
escaped death or deportation, that is, exile. Of these, thirty were
saved in the house of Mr. Stapleton. The Armenians report that when
the Moslems came and demanded that these girls should be delivered
over to them, Mr. Stapleton replied: “You must kill me before you
can touch them.” Recent reports say that in the villages round
Erzeroum Armenian women and children are appearing, singly and in
groups, and are in the greatest need. Whose heart is not moved with
pity for and desire to preserve these remnants who have escaped from
the greatest destruction! Our opportunity is a wonderful one—to save
the remnant, to aid in the restoration, to prepare for the return of
the 200,000 fugitives now in Persia and the Caucasus.
Our call to help is both general and specific. A specific and
unusual call has reached us from the Russian Governor of Van, Mr.
Alfred Teremin.
Now we have telegraphed to the Governor that we are coming, as we
telegraph to the American Committee of our entrance upon the new
work. Fortunately we have a considerable balance on hand, and we are
going in the faith that America will support us generously. Large
funds will be necessary, to put roofs over the heads of the people,
to supply seed-corn, ploughs, oxen, carts, etc.; to set at work
carpenters, blacksmiths and other artisans; to help the most needy
till harvest time. We shall buy the necessary things here or in
Persia or from the Kurds, and will do our part in assisting the
returning exiles to cultivate their fields, so that harvest may be
abundant. Fortunately the time of spring sowing in the highlands of
Armenia does not close till June, so we have yet time. A letter from
Van says: “The important thing is that material help should be
received quickly. If delayed, it will lose half its value. It is
necessary to hasten. Every day is precious.”
VI.
VILAYET OF ERZEROUM.
_The Vilayet of Erzeroum lies due north of Bitlis and Van, and is
likewise a border province. It consists principally of the upper
valleys of the Kara-Su (Western Euphrates) and the Tchorok. The
fortress-city of Erzeroum itself is situated in a plain which
collects the head-waters of the former river; Erzindjan, a place of
almost equal importance, lies further west, about 120 miles down
stream; while Baibourt, in the Tchorok valley, is the most important
place on the high road from Erzeroum to Trebizond. The districts
north of the Kara-Su are as civilised as the rest of Anatolia; but
south of the river, in the great peninsula enclosed by the two arms
of the Euphrates, lies the mountain-mass of Dersim, inhabited by
wild, independent tribes of Kizil-Bashis and Kurds, who played an
active part in the destruction of their Armenian neighbours._
_In the Vilayet of Erzeroum the deportations began at the end of May
and during the first days of June. Reports from a particularly
trustworthy source state that, by the 19th May, more than 15,000
Armenians had been deported from Erzeroum and the neighbouring
villages, and that, by the 25th May, the districts of Erzindjan,
Keghi and Baibourt had also been “devastated by forced emigration.”
Our information concerning Erzeroum itself was at first somewhat
scanty, but since its capture by the Russians it has been visited by
representatives of various relief organisations in the Caucasus, who
have obtained circumstantial accounts of what happened in the city
and the surrounding villages. They report that, out of an Armenian
population estimated at 400,000[65] souls for the Vilayets of
Erzeroum and Bitlis, not more than 8,000-10,000 have survived,—in
other words, that 98 per cent. of the Armenians in these vilayets
have been either deported or massacred._
_We are also particularly well informed with regard to Baibourt and
Erzindjan, and the documents in this section may be noted as a clear
case in which independent testimonies exactly bear one another out._
-----
Footnote 65:
The author of Doc. 57 estimates them at 300,000 only; but consult
Annexe D. to the “Historical Summary.”
53. ERZEROUM: RECORD[66] OF AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN THE REV. H.J.
BUXTON AND THE REV. ROBERT STAPLETON, A MISSIONARY OF THE
AMERICAN BOARD, RESIDENT AT ERZEROUM FROM BEFORE THE OUTBREAK OF
WAR UNTIL AFTER THE CAPTURE OF THE CITY BY THE RUSSIANS.[67]
Up to 1914 the population of Erzeroum was between 60,000 and 70,000,
of whom 20,000 were Armenians.
In 1914 Tahsin Bey was Vali of Erzeroum (whom Mr. H.J. Buxton had
met, as Vali of Van, in 1913).
On the outbreak of war with Turkey (November, 1914) the British
Consul, Mr. Monahan, received his passport; the Russian Consul was
ejected; the French Consul was absent. All their servants and
interpreters were Armenians; these were ejected likewise, and were
sent to Kaisaria as prisoners. The three Armenian servants of the
Russian Military Attaché were hanged. The wife of one of these was
sitting up, knitting socks and putting things together for her
husband’s departure, when news came to her, early in the morning,
that he was hanging on the scaffold.
In the spring of 1915 Passelt Pasha was Military Commandant of
Erzeroum, and he suggested that all Armenian soldiers should be
disarmed, withdrawn from combatant service and put on road gangs
(yol tabour). These were men who had been conscripted, and, owing to
the friendly relations between Turks and Armenians in this district
(for the past ten years), had joined readily.
Teachers in the schools were first of all put into hospitals to do
the work of dressers and nurses among the wounded. They were men
with a good education, and did their work with intelligence. Then
came the order that they were to be put on to the road gang, and
they were replaced by totally incompetent men, so the soldiers had
very poor attention in the hospital.
All through this period, up to May, 1915, military service could be
avoided by men of all races and parties upon payment of an exemption
tax of £40 (Turkish).
Even Turks themselves obtained exemption on these terms, and for a
period (of, say, twelve months) the terms were faithfully observed;
but, of course, eventually the need for soldiers made the
authorities come down even upon exempted persons. In any case, this
exemption only applied to military duties, and afforded no shelter
to Armenians in the final crisis.
Stapleton managed to get one Armenian exempted by the payment of
this tax.
_19th May, 1915._
There was a massacre in the country round Khnyss. As the Russians
advanced from the east a large number of Kurds fled in front of
them, bent on vengeance, and carried out a raid on the peasantry
which was quite distinct from the organised massacres later on.
Some of Stapleton’s teachers, boy and girl students, were at Khnyss
on holiday, and perished in this massacre.
_6th June._
The inhabitants of the one hundred villages in the plain of Erzeroum
were sent away by order of the Government at two hours’ notice. The
number of these must have been between 10,000 and 15,000. Of this
number very few returned, and very few reached Erzindjan. A few took
refuge with friendly Kurds (Kizilbashis), but all the rest must have
been killed.
They were escorted by gendarmes, but the people responsible for the
massacres would probably be chettis or Hamidia.
One of the Kurds was charged in court for murder, pillage and
rapine, and he thereupon produced a paper and laid it before them,
saying: “These are my orders for doing it.”
It is not certain who gave these orders, but the presumption is that
they originated with the Government at Constantinople.
About this time definite orders arrived, by which Tahsin Bey was
instructed that all Armenians should be killed. Tahsin refused to
carry this out, and, indeed, all through this time he was reluctant
to maltreat the Armenians, but was overruled by _force majeure_.
_On the 9th June_
he issued an order that the whole civic population were to leave
Erzeroum, and many Turks and Greeks actually did leave (the latter
being hustled out).
The German Consul was now aware of what was coming, and wired
protests to his Ambassador; but he was told to remain quiet, as the
Germans could not interfere with the internal affairs of Turkey.
This is what he said to Stapleton, and his goodwill is borne out by
his evident intention to help the Armenians. It is an established
fact that, in the days following, he used to send bread tied up in
large sacks to the refugees outside the city, conveying these large
supplies in motor cars.
_16th June._
The first company of Armenian deportees left Erzeroum on the 16th
June, having got leave to go to Diyarbekir by Kighi. These were
forty families in all, mostly belonging to the prosperous business
community.
First of all, after starting, all their money was taken from them,
“for safety.” After a short halt, when some alarm was expressed,
they were reassured of the complete security of their journey, and
shortly after resuming their journey (somewhere between Kighi and
Palu) they were surrounded and a massacre took place. Only one man
and forty women and children reached Harpout.
Evidence of this massacre comes from various sources: (1) letters to
Stapleton from women survivors; (2) evidence of Americans who were
living in Harpout at the time of the arrival of the survivors, and
cared for them; (3) evidence of a Greek, who passed the scene of the
massacre shortly after it took place and described it as sickening.
_19th June._
About five hundred Armenian families left Erzeroum, _via_ Baibourt,
for Erzindjan; they were allowed time for preparations—a concession
granted throughout the deportations from the town itself. At
Baibourt there was a halt, and the first party of about 10,000
people was joined by later contingents, bringing the number up to
about 15,000. A guard of gendarmes (up to 400) was provided by the
Vali, and these doubtless took their toll of the Armenians in
various ways, licentiously and avariciously.
The Vali went to Erzindjan to see after their security, and it is
known that about 15,000 reached Erzindjan. Up to this point the
roads were good enough to allow transport by bullock carts (arabas),
but after Erzindjan, instead of being allowed to follow the carriage
road _via_ Sivas, they were turned aside to the route _via_ Kamakh,
Egin and Arabkir, where there were only footpaths. The arabas had,
therefore, to be left behind, and no less than 3,000 vehicles were
brought back to Erzeroum by an Armenian in the transport service,
whom Stapleton met on his return.
At Kamakh, twelve hours from Erzindjan, it is reported that the men
were separated and killed, their bodies being thrown into the river.
Beyond this place letters come from women only, though Stapleton’s
account leads us to suppose that, from among thirty families of
which he has news, ten men survive. Letters from women to Stapleton
do not, of course, give details of what occurred; they only indicate
what happened by such phrases as: “My husband and boy died on the
road.” The destinations reached by these Armenians, as definitely
known to Stapleton in January, 1916, were Mosul, on the east; Rakka,
on the south; Aleppo and Aintab, on the west. The need in these
places has been urgent. German Consuls in Aleppo and Mosul are known
to have assisted in distributing relief funds sent by Stapleton, per
the Agricultural Bank at Constantinople, to Mesopotamia—in all about
£1,000 (Turkish).
Stapleton had previously been able to distribute a sum of about £700
(Turkish), received from America, to poor Armenians before their
departure. This he did in co-operation with the Armenian Bishop.
_November, 1915._
Certain Roman Catholic “lay brothers and sisters” (Armenians),
claiming to be under Austrian protection, were permitted to remain
until November, 1915, when they left Erzeroum in arabas. They were
known to have reached Erzindjan, and probably Constantinople, in
safety, where they were housed in the Austrian schools[68].
From twelve to twenty families of artisans were left to the last, as
they were doing useful work for the Government. Also fifty single
masons, who were building a club-house for the Turks, being
compelled to use gravestones from the Armenians’ cemetery.
_February, 1916._
These masons were sent to Erzindjan, where they were imprisoned for
some days and then brought out and ordered to be shot. Four,
however, escaped by shamming death, and one of them saw Stapleton on
the 16th February and gave an account of what had happened.
The fate of the artisans is thought to have been similar, but we
have no details, except that three families were able to return.
One of those to leave the town in the early days was a photographer.
He would not wait. Ten hours out from Erzeroum he was surrounded by
forty chettis, stripped naked and stoned to death. They mutilated
his body. One child was brained. Of the other children, a girl was
taken away and only escaped many months later when the Russians
came. Very reluctantly she poured out her story to the Stapletons,
from which it appeared that she had been handed round to ten
officers after the murder of her husband and his mother, to be their
sport.
Thirty-five families of Greeks remained in Erzeroum until near the
end. They were then hustled out when the Russian approach was
imminent, the Turks virtually saying to them: “We are suffering. Why
should not you?”
These deportations went on in an almost continuous stream from the
16th June to the 28th July, when the Armenian Bishop left. He is
supposed to have been put to death near Erzindjan.
The part which Stapleton took during these events may now be
described. In addition to what we have already said about his relief
work, he and Mrs. Stapleton sheltered eighteen Armenian girls. It
was by the permission of the Vali that these were allowed to stay
with him, and on only one occasion was his house actually
threatened. This was just on the eve of the Russian arrival, when he
was warned by the German Consul that a plot had been made to burn
down his house and, in the subsequent rush of panic, to seize the
girls. Nothing could have stopped this but the Russian entry, which
took place on the very day for which it was planned. This plot,
however, was an isolated act, and, on the whole, Stapleton speaks
highly of the general conduct of the Turks in Erzeroum itself.
_The Last Days._
On Sunday, the 13th February, the German Consul left. On Monday, the
14th February, the Persian Consul was forced to go with the Turks to
Erzindjan. They maintained that, as he was a representative
accredited to the Government, he must go with them when the
Government moved its headquarters. He went reluctantly, as he was
anxious to look after his fellow-countrymen.
On Monday evening (the 14th February) Stapleton was sent for by the
Vali, and he went, expecting to be told to leave the town. The Vali
said that he and the Turks were leaving on the morrow, but that
Stapleton might remain.
Tahsin Bey requested him to ask the Russian Commander to spare the
population of the city, as, in general, they had had nothing to do
with the deportations.
And that is a fact.
On the 15th, Stapleton was asked by a deputation of all ranks of
Turks in the town to go out (three hours’ distance) and meet the
Russian Commander. He refused to go, but he delivered Tahsin’s
message the following day, when the Russians entered the city.
On the 15th, Turkish troops fired the Armenian episcopal residence
and the market. They also burned schools and arsenals, and looted in
the city.
_Wednesday, the 16th February._
The first Russian to appear was a Cossack with a white apron. He was
accompanied by Russian and Armenian soldiers, who shouted: “We are
Armenians. Are there any here?” Then the Cossack came into
Stapleton’s house, and wrote his name in the book as “the first
Russian to enter Erzeroum.” The house was soon filled, and Stapleton
lent eight beds to Russian officers, and also supplied food.
When the Grand Duke came, a few days later (the 20th), the Russians
asked for another bed; but this was refused.
Mr. H.J. Buxton asked Stapleton: “Was there a good deal of looting
by the Russians?” Stapleton said: “No, I should not say a good deal
of looting. They were very hungry, and the stores were all open;
but, for an invading army, they were quite mild. For the first
twenty-four hours they were very short of food.”
Armenian Volunteers began to search the city for Armenians, and they
did not find very many. Four girls were held by Turks, and these,
together with the eighteen with Stapleton, made the full quota of
twenty-two Armenians in the town.
The appointment by the Russians of an “Old Turk” (a former agent of
Abd-ul-Hamid at Bukarest, who had subsequently been banished by the
Young Turks to Erzeroum) is now giving considerable satisfaction to
the Moslem population.
In August, 1915, the Turkish Government appointed and despatched a
Commission from Constantinople, ostensibly to protect the property
of the deported Armenians. During August this Commission took
possession of, and sold, this property, including valuables left
with Dr. Case (Stapleton’s colleague at that period). Stapleton
asked the police for their authority, and was turned off his own
premises by a high-handed secretary. However, he wired to his
Government, and got the official removed, and from that time he was
treated with respect and was able to exert considerable influence
with the Vali; in fact, he remonstrated with him on the brutal
treatment of the women at the hands of the zaptiehs and Kurds on the
road from Erzeroum.
Stapleton is not a Consul, but a Missionary. To the foreigner a
“Missionary” always means a Government representative; and as
Stapleton was the only American in Erzeroum, he was, _de facto_,
Consul. In many ways he was able to do far more than if he had been
officially a Consul, knowing the ways of the country and exactly how
far he could go, but yet free from official fetters.
-----
Footnote 66:
Undated.
Footnote 67:
Mr. Stapleton’s total period of service at Erzeroum is thirteen
years. For a letter from Mr. Stapleton himself, see Doc. 149, page
589.—EDITOR.
Footnote 68:
See Doc. 62
54. ERZEROUM: REPORT, DATED 25th SEPTEMBER, 1915, DRAWN UP BY THE
AMERICAN CONSUL-GENERAL AT TREBIZOND, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM A
VISIT TO ERZEROUM; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
I left Trebizond on the 12th August on horseback, accompanied by
kavass Ahmed and a katerdji with my travelling outfit, also two
mounted gendarmes furnished by the Governor-General. I reached
Erzeroum about midnight on the 17th August, and was allowed to enter
the city gate only after communicating with the Commandant.
I found the two American families well. The Rev. Robert S.
Stapleton, who is the director of the American Schools and Treasurer
of the Mission Station, is living with his wife and two daughters in
the upper storey of the Boys’ School building. The lower part is
used as a Red Crescent Hospital for lightly wounded or convalescing
soldiers, accommodating on an average about 75 patients. Dr. Case
and wife and two small children were living in the upper part of the
Hospital building, the lower part being used as a Red Crescent
Hospital for about 30 patients. The Girls’ School building, with the
exception of two rooms belonging to the teachers, which are locked
up, is also used by the Red Crescent for lightly wounded soldiers,
accommodating on an average about 200. These three fine buildings
are on the same street, about 100 yards apart. The Red Crescent flag
flies over the three buildings, and on Fridays and holidays the
Turkish flag is also raised over the Girls’ School building, which
is entirely devoted to the Red Crescent work, with the exception of
the two rooms mentioned above. Over the other two buildings, which
are partly occupied by the Americans as residences, the American
flag is hoisted, in addition to the Red Crescent flag, on Sundays
and holidays, and there seems to be no difficulty raised by the
authorities now in regard to the flag question.
I called upon the Governor-General, Tahsin Bey, accompanied by the
Rev. Mr. Stapleton and Dr. Case, and the Bey received us very
cordially. He informed me that he had just received a report from
the military authorities that the Russians, upon evacuating Van, had
destroyed every building in the city, including the American
buildings, in order that the Turkish army should not find shelter
for the winter, and had taken the Americans from Van with them on
their retirement towards Russia. This information I telegraphed to
the Embassy on the 18th August as follows:
“All American buildings reported destroyed by Russians upon their
withdrawal from Van, and Americans now in Russia.”
He also informed me that all the Americans at Bitlis had gone to
Diyarbekir.
The Vali said that, in carrying out the orders to expel the
Armenians from Erzeroum, he had used his best endeavours to protect
them on the road, and had given them fifteen days to dispose of
their goods and make arrangements to leave. They were not prohibited
from selling or disposing of their property, and some families went
away with five or more ox-carts loaded with their household goods
and provisions. The Missionaries confirm this.
Over 900 bales of goods of various kinds were deposited by 150
Armenians in Mr. Stapleton’s house for safe keeping. There are also
about 500 bales in Dr. Case’s house and stable. The value of the
bales is estimated by Mr. Stapleton at from £10,000 to £15,000
(Turkish). He has a good American combination safe belonging to the
Mission in his house, and two safes of English make left by
merchants, which he filled with paper and silver roubles and
jewellery deposited by Armenians, for safe keeping. He gave no
receipts and assumed no responsibility, however. The gold deposited
by Armenians amounted to £5,559 (Turkish), and of this amount £5,000
(Turkish) was sent to Mr. Peet through the Imperial Ottoman Bank in
Erzeroum by telegram. The roubles, however, the Bank refused to
transfer, and so they were left in his safes in the shape received,
namely, tied up in handkerchiefs or made up in small packages.
Afterwards these packages were all opened, and an itemized list was
made of the contents of each package. The paper roubles and
jewellery were then packed into tin boxes and sealed with the
Mission seal and deposited in the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Mr.
Stapleton’s name for safe keeping....
Many policies of insurance in the New York Life Insurance Company
were found in these packages, upon which a separate report will be
made. There were also deeds to house and lands, promissory notes and
other valuable papers, which no doubt have now lost much of their
value.
The Gregorian Armenian Cathedral and the Catholic Armenian Church at
Erzeroum were filled with goods of various kinds which had been
entrusted to the Imperial Ottoman Bank by the Armenians before they
were deported. These goods were entrusted to the Bank, and the keys
are in the possession of the Bank....
The Vali of Erzeroum informed me that he had received instructions
from Constantinople to allow the Protestants and Catholics to remain
where they were for the present. One of Mr. Stapleton’s valuable
teachers, Mr. Yeghishé, was taken some time ago for military
service, and was working upon the roads near Erzeroum. Mr. Stapleton
needed this man as an interpreter, since he himself knows very
little Turkish. The Vali promised me he would give Mr. Yeghishé a
vesika or permit to remain in the city, if his military exemption
taxes were paid. I attended to this matter, and on my way to
Trebizond found Mr. Yeghishé at Ilidja, three hours from Erzeroum,
and delivered to him the vesika, which gave him freedom to return to
Erzeroum and remain there.
I also asked for the return of another Protestant teacher who was
thought to be in Erzindjan, but this the Vali declined to allow,
saying that the order did not permit their return, but simply
allowed them to remain where they were. In case they had already
been sent away he could not recall them.
Mr. Stapleton has twenty Armenians in his house now; four of them
are women and the balance girls. Dr. Case had six Armenians in his
house when he left Erzeroum. Four of these went to Mr. Stapleton,
and one he takes with him to Constantinople, and one he expects to
leave at Marsovan for training in the Hospital. The Vali granted a
special permit for these two girls to travel with Dr. Case, and also
handed to him a letter of appreciation for the work he had done in
his hospital for Turkish officers.
Mr. Stapleton’s relations with the Vali, Tahsin Bey, are good, and
indeed the latter, who was Mutessarif of Pera a few years ago,
impressed me as being a very reasonable man, who desired to do the
right thing and entertain good relations with the Americans....
55. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY MR. B.H. KHOUNOUNTZ,
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION,” ON A VISIT TO
ERZEROUM AFTER THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 25th FEBRUARY, 1916.
There are between 80 and 100 Armenians left in Erzeroum—according to
other reports 130—and about 25,000 Turks, who dare not come out of
their houses. The sanitary condition of the city is deplorable. Mr.
Khounountz had interviews with a number of Armenian and foreign
eye-witnesses. He met an Armenian officer who had escaped from the
Turks, who told him of the deportation and massacre of the
Armenians. He said that the attitude of the Turks towards the
Armenians was more or less good at the beginning of the war, but it
was suddenly changed after the Turkish defeat at Sari-Kamysh, as
they laid the blame for this defeat upon the Armenians, though he
could not tell why.
After that, they separated the Armenian soldiers from the Turks as a
dangerous element, and removed them from the fighting line. They put
them on the roads to work as ordinary labourers.
At the same time terror reigned in the city. Mr. Pasdermadjian, a
well-known Armenian, was assassinated, and a number of prominent
young men were hanged or exiled. A number of Armenians were forced
to go to the cemetery and destroy the statue which was erected to
the memory of martyred Russian soldiers in 1829. They were also
forced to open hospitals for the wounded Turkish soldiers at their
own expense.
On the 5/18th April, by an order received from Constantinople, the
Turks held a big meeting in which the hodjas (religious heads)
openly preached massacre, casting the responsibility for the defeat
upon the Armenians. The Armenians appealed to them and implored for
mercy, but in vain. The Vali was rather inclined to spare the
Armenians, but the order from Constantinople had tied his hands.
The deportation of all the Armenians in the Vilayet of Erzeroum
began on the 4th June. It was carried out promptly, and took the
Armenians by surprise. Gendarmes were sent to the Armenian villages
at night, who entered the houses, separated all the men from their
families and deported them. The deportation of the men of
Erzeroum—the city proper—was carried out less cruelly, the Vali
giving them 15 days’ notice.
But as the refugees were escorted by brutal gendarmes and chettis
(bands of robbers) many of them were massacred in a most cruel
manner, and very few of them reached their destination, which was
the district of Kamakh, west of Erzindjan.
According to the officer, the plan of deportation was exactly the
same as in other vilayets. None were spared, not even certain women
teachers—Protestant and Roman Catholic—who were foreign subjects and
had taught in foreign colleges.
Only 15 skilled labourers were left, with their families, as they
were needed for war work. These were massacred before the Turks left
Erzeroum.
56. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY DR. Y. MINASSIAN, WHO
ACCOMPANIED MR. KHOUNOUNTZ TO ERZEROUM AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE
CAUCASIAN SECTION OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION”; PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” OF TIFLIS, 8th MARCH, 1916.
Dr. Minassian gathered his information from the following sources:
The American Vice-Consul at Erzeroum, Mr. Stapleton; Mrs. Stapleton;
Dr. Case of the American Mission Hospital; an educated Armenian
lady—Zarouhi—from Baibourt, who escaped the massacres by a miracle;
an Armenian soldier who had accepted Islam; an old man from
Erzeroum; and many others.
Before Turkey’s entry into the war, the Young Turks saw that war
between them and Russia was inevitable, so they tried to win the
Armenians over to their side by promising them all kinds of
privileges.
As soon as war was declared, they confiscated everything from the
shops of the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, without any
distinction of race or religion. The Armenians lost more than the
other nationalities, as they were the wealthiest commercially.
The Turks asked the Armenians to join with them, but they declined,
saying that if they fought against the Russians they would endanger
the lives of their brothers in Caucasia. This seemed reasonable to
the authorities, and on the surface, at least, they left the
Armenians in peace.
The Armenians performed their civic duties faithfully and opened a
hospital for the Turkish wounded; later on they were forced to open
others.
Everything went smoothly until the first Turkish defeat, which
occurred at Keutag. It was then that the Turks found out that the
Armenian volunteers were fighting side by side with the Russians.
This was announced everywhere and excited the Turks; but no steps
were taken until it was reported that Garo Pasdermadjian, a member
of the Ottoman Parliament and one of the deputies for Erzeroum, was
commanding a body of volunteers in the Russian army. The result was
that Mr. Pasdermadjian’s brother was assassinated. Then Djemal
Effendi from Constantinople, with another Turk, Saifoullah, incited
the people to massacre the Armenians.
The Governor saw that the excitement was growing, so he called a
conference of all the prominent Turks. This was held at Pasha-Kiosk,
and Djemal and Saifoullah took part. These demanded an immediate
massacre, but the Governor requested them to hold their hand until
he could communicate with Constantinople about it.
After this the authorities disarmed and removed all the Armenian
soldiers from Erzeroum, and put them on the roads to work as
unskilled labourers. A number of wealthy Armenians were forced to
destroy the statue which was erected in memory of martyred Russian
soldiers in 1828, and transfer its stones to another place to build
a club-house for the Young Turks. Some could not stand the hard
work, yet could only obtain release from it by paying large sums.
Then the rich Armenians were asked to vacate their homes and to
transform them into hospitals. This was done willingly, and the
Armenians undertook to care for the wounded.
Then an order came to some Armenians to leave their homes and go.
But they begged to remain, and were allowed to do so on payment of
£1,500 (Turkish).
A week later, all the rich and educated men were imprisoned; many of
them died in prison under terrible tortures.
Then it was announced that they would all be deported. When the
Governor was asked where they would be sent, he replied: “To a safe
place, where the mob cannot hurt you.”
The Armenians packed all their valuables and left them at the
American Consulate, the missionary schools, and at the Armenian
Church.
To obviate any possibility of resistance, the villagers were first
deported towards Kamakh, and when the Erzeroum Armenians followed
them they saw heaps of ruins in place of prosperous villages.
The deportation of the Armenians of Baibourt was more terrible. They
were all taken by surprise at midnight.
“Where are you taking us?” they asked. “To a safe place,” was the
reply, “away from the Turks, where the mob cannot massacre you. It
is the duty of the Government to protect its subjects. You will
remain there until peace is re-established.”
The Armenians believed them and followed the gendarmes without
resistance. After they had travelled several miles, they noticed
that the attitude of the guards changed and that they had been
deceived. By and by they were asked to pay fifty pounds, which they
paid. Towards nightfall they asked for two girls. The next day they
asked for five hundred pounds. They had to pay that also. That night
they asked for five girls and took them. Then every day they were
robbed. They lost all their valuables and provisions. The Turkish
villagers stole the best looking girls and boys.
Just before they reached Erzindjan, their outer clothing was taken
away from them and they were left in their underclothes. When they
reached Erzindjan they protested to the Kaimakam. The Kaimakam
promised to accompany them. The next day they started for Kamakh.
After they had travelled a few miles, they were attacked by chettis
from all sides. The Armenians wanted to run back to Erzindjan, but
the gendarmes opened fire on them. Many of them were thus massacred,
and the remainder were driven towards Kamakh.
It was discovered that these chettis had been organised by Djemal
Effendi, and it was by deliberate design that all the refugees were
left in their white underclothes, so that no one could run away or
hide himself.
When the refugees reached a gorge of the Euphrates River they were
attacked again, and many of them were drowned in the river.
Zarouhi—who related the above story—said that the river was filled
with corpses. She also was thrown into the river, but clung to a
rock behind some bushes and remained there until the gendarmes and
chettis had gone away.
Coming out of the river she met a kind Kurdish shepherd, who wrapped
her in a blanket and took her to the house of a Turk who knew her.
The Turk took her to Erzeroum and kept her in his home.
In speaking of the responsibility of the Germans for the massacres
and deportations, Dr. Minassian says that, before the deportation,
the Armenians went to the German Consul and asked his assistance.
His answer was: “I do not want to mix in other people’s affairs,
and I have no authorisation to do so from my Ambassador at
Constantinople.”
The German officers at Erzeroum helped the Turks to organise the
deportation, and also took their share of the booty. Almost every
one of them had kidnapped Armenian girls.
An officer called Schapner, for instance, took with him four girls;
another called Karl, two girls; and so on—there was a long fist of
names which the reporter could not remember.
57. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN, DATED TIFLIS, 15th
MARCH, 1916.
Since last October, when the Armenian atrocities were disclosed to
the world at large, we had hoped against hope that, in spite of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, all that was said to have
occurred might not be confirmed; that there might have been outlying
districts in Turkish Armenia where the local Armenians had been
spared the horrors that had accompanied their destruction in areas
situated on the main roads. Unfortunately, now that the entire
provinces of Erzeroum and Bitlis have been cleared of the Turk and
one is able to see for oneself what actually has taken place, one is
simply staggered at the depth and extent of the great crime, and the
unprecedentedly cruel means by which the Armenians were cleared out
of those two provinces, as well as the adjacent districts.
After seeing something with my own eyes in Erzeroum and Van, and
compiling the facts about Bitlis, Moush and Khnyss from Russian
official and other sources, my impression is that, out of the
250,000 Armenians of the Erzeroum and Bitlis Vilayets that remained
under the dominion of the Turk in April, 1915 (exclusive of some
50,000 who saved themselves last summer, either by fighting their
way out or by the advance of the Russians, and are now in
Trans-Caucasia), only some 10,000 can be accounted for since an
estimate was made possible by the death-blow which the Turks
suffered last month. The remaining 240,000 or so have apparently
perished under circumstances of the most extreme violence and
inhumanity of which any human being is capable.
I am now in a position to state that all the accounts of Armenian
atrocities which have been published in Europe and the United States
are not only completely true, but that they represent merely such
facts as have come under the eyes of consular officers or
missionaries of neutral states; whereas the most ghastly and heinous
crimes have been committed in the unfrequented parts of the country,
out of sight of any observer.
The city of Erzeroum, the great military stronghold in Turkish
Armenia, contained some 50,000 inhabitants before the war, of whom
20,000 were Armenians. The so-called plain of Erzeroum, a fertile
alluvial plateau extending north-west of the city, contained some 60
Armenian villages with at least 45,000 inhabitants, almost all of
them belonging to a sturdy race of peasants.
As soon as the European war broke out, the Central Committee of the
Young Turks sent one Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir-Bey, one of the Committee
leaders, to Erzeroum, to organise the annihilation of the Armenians.
Another, Djemal Effendi, a fanatic of the foulest type, was sent
later on to help him in the work. These two Committee stalwarts sent
from Constantinople were assisted in their fiendish business by two
notorious natives—Edib Hodja and Djafer Bey.
At Erzeroum, as everywhere else, the Armenians in particular were
ruthlessly robbed of most of the goods they possessed under the
cloak of military requisitions. The Turkish defeat at Sarikamysh in
January, 1915, and the exaggerated accounts of the part played by
Armenian Volunteers in that battle, envenomed relations at Erzeroum.
A Turkish officer who returned from Sarikamysh told the Armenian
Bishop Sempad at Erzeroum that they chiefly met Armenians on the
battlefields: “Many of our soldiers were shot by Armenians,” he
said, “and it was the Volunteers who destroyed our villages and
scouting parties.”
Subsequently a campaign of slander and provocation was started by
the Young Turk leaders against the Armenian people. Armenian
soldiers in the Turkish army were disarmed and sent to labour
battalions, and further severe measures were taken to squeeze every
available asset out of the helpless people. A great mass meeting was
held by the Turks on the 18th April just outside the city, in which
the Armenians were publicly denounced as “traitors” and “dangerous
to the Empire” and as supporters of the enemies of Turkey. Strict
orders were issued to all Moslems who were inclined to shield their
Armenian friends that they would be punished as severely as their
protégés if they dared to protect them.
Fully aware of the fate that awaited them, the Armenians of Erzeroum
made desperate appeals to Tahsin Bey, the Vali of the province, for
protection. The latter’s reply was that he could not defy the
instructions sent by the Central Government. The answer of Herr
Anders, the German Consul at Erzeroum, to whom the Armenians
appealed again for protection, seems to have been still more brutal.
He definitely stated that the persecutions levelled by the Turkish
Government and the mob against the Armenians were quite lawful, and
that he could not interfere in the matter.
By an exercise of imagination one may perhaps visualise to some
extent the anguish and agony those poor Armenians suffered during
April and May. Trapped on all sides by the ruthless enemy and
deprived of all means of armed or legal protection, they attempted
to make the best of an unprecedentedly tragic situation. Almost all
the intellectual leaders and teachers were openly done to death in
prison under horrible tortures. Pilos, Atrouni and several others
have never been heard of since their imprisonment. Pasdermadjian, a
leading citizen of the town, was shot dead in the streets. This
reign of terror also prevailed in the villages of the plain.
The capture of Van by the Armenians on the 16th May and the entry of
the Armenian Volunteers, followed by the Russian Army, made a great
impression on the Turkish authorities at Erzeroum. On the same day,
the Armenians of Khnyss and of the neighbouring 38 villages were
butchered almost to a man, and the women and children distributed
among the Kurds. During the recent capture of Khnyss by the
Russians, some 3,000 women and children were rescued in and around
Khnyss. Apparently these represent the remnant of the 22,000
Armenians of the Sandjak of Khnyss.
In the meantime the Russians were advancing towards Melazkerd and
Bitlis, and the Turks deported the Armenian peasants from Melazkerd
and Passin and drove them towards Erzeroum. These half-starved
peasants, exhausted and harried by forced marches, were not allowed
to enter Erzeroum; they were kept out in the rain for seven days.
Their situation became so shocking in May (1915) that even the
German Consul was moved at the spectacle, and took some clothing and
bread in his own car to distribute among “these rebellious
scoundrels.” Later on they were driven towards Erzindjan and drowned
in the Euphrates.
On the 4th June, the first batch of Armenian peasants from the plain
of Erzeroum, amounting to some 15,000 persons, were forced by the
gendarmes to leave their homes and proceed to Mamahatoun, west of
Erzeroum. They were escorted by chetti (Moslem Volunteer) bands
consisting of criminals released from prison since the proclamation
of the Holy War. In the ankle-deep mud and along the rugged roads,
children and weak women fell by the wayside amid the laughter of the
chettis. Every evening a forced tribute was levied upon the
peasants. Gradually they were robbed of everything they
possessed—money, clothing, horses, etc. Girls and women were
distributed among the Turks as they passed through Turkish villages.
A few hours’ distance beyond Mamahatoun, at the entrance of a valley
called the Kamakh gorge, this convoy was “ambushed by unknown
robbers.” The signal was given by a revolver shot, whereupon a
volley of fire was poured upon the Armenians. One of the survivors
of this batch, a lad of 18 whom I saw in Erzeroum, told me that the
shrieks and cries of the women and weeping children under fire were
distracting. Many attempted to escape, but they were fired upon by
their own escort. In two hours’ time the valley had become a vast
cemetery of unburied human bodies. Out of the 15,000 thus disposed
of, a few escaped and reached Erzeroum in the guise of Turkish
peasants.
On the 18th June it was the turn of the city. A fortnight’s
time-limit was given to the Armenians for settling their affairs;
they packed their property in boxes and bales and stored them with
Mr. Stapleton, the head of the American Mission, and in the Armenian
Cathedral. The Governor took £1,000 (Turkish) from them in payment
for a safe-conduct before their departure. A hundred and sixty
leading families were selected first for deportation. They were all
people of means and education. The German officers in Erzeroum
behaved in an outrageous manner towards the Armenian women torn away
from their men. The Germans, in fact, seem to have set the example
of wrenching women from their homes. One Captain Schapner (?) is
said to have forced Miss Tchilingarian, a handsome girl, to follow
him. On her resisting and crying, she was dragged about in the
streets and roughly handled. This worthy German also carried off
Mrs. Sarafian, a young woman educated in Switzerland. Another German
lieutenant, Karl (?), dragged five women to his rooms, and so on.
The convoy of 160 families started out with carriages and some
luggage, and were sent off in the same direction as their
predecessors—towards Mamahatoun and Erzindjan. As they travelled
they were robbed of everything and even stripped of their clothing.
They are reported as having skirted the town of Erzindjan, but
beyond that nothing has since been heard of them.
Bishop Sempad was sent off alone in his own carriage to Erzindjan,
and never heard of again.
In the last week of June, several parties of Erzeroum Armenians were
deported on successive days and most of them massacred on the way,
either by shooting or drowning. One, Madame Zarouhi, an elderly lady
of means, who was thrown into the Euphrates, saved herself by
clinging to a boulder in the river. She succeeded in approaching the
bank and returned to Erzeroum to hide herself in a Turkish friend’s
house. She told Prince Argoutian (Argoutinsky), the representative
of the “All-Russian Urban Union” in Erzeroum, that she shuddered to
recall how hundreds of children were bayoneted by the Turks and
thrown into the Euphrates, and how men and women were stripped
naked, tied together in hundreds, shot and then hurled into the
river. In a loop of the river near Erzindjan, she said, the
thousands of dead bodies created such a barrage that the Euphrates
changed its course for about a hundred yards. Several Armenians of
this last party, however, seem to have survived this dreadful
journey. Recently some of them wrote from Rakka, in northern Syria,
to Mr. Stapleton imploring money and help, as they were in the
direst distress.
After the recent capture of the city by the Russians, there were
some 100 Armenians altogether in Erzeroum and some 25,000 Turks.
Thirty girls and women were protected by Mr. Stapleton in his house.
A certain number of women are gradually being rescued from the Turks
in the city, and perhaps thousands more may be saved, if the
military authorities take the necessary measures and help the
Armenians to discover their own people.
Most of the children converted to Islam are quite used to Moslem
habits; they speak and behave as if they were Turks by birth. They
are now changing these habits again in Armenian hands.
When one stood at the gate called Kars Kapou, the eastern entrance
to the city, and looked at the panorama it presented in March, 1916,
Erzeroum did not seem to have suffered great changes in its general
aspect. But I suffered a rude shock in the interior of the city,
when I saw Armenian houses occupied by Turks still gloating over
their booty, the city deprived of its Armenian element, and the dome
of the Cathedral broken away at its base.
The Armenians of Erzeroum to whom I have talked here about
their prospects are consoling themselves—though it is a poor
consolation—with the thought that thousands of them had left the
city before the war, and that they will all return home and take
possession of their property as soon as the conditions there become
better defined.
58. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY THE KURD ALI-AGHAZADÉ FARO, PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” 19th DECEMBER, 1915.
Ali-Aghazadé Faro, a Kurd, related to some Armenians of St. Garabed,
who reached Caucasia as refugees, that he had gone to Erzeroum last
September to sell sheep, &c., and to get his share of the booty from
the Armenians if possible. Faro remained in Erzeroum for five or six
days, during which time he did not see a single Armenian. He only
saw Turks sitting in the shops of the Armenians. When he asked how
it was that they were in these shops, some answered that they had
bought them, while others said that they were gifts to them from the
Government.
Faro spent the night in a Turkish house, and asked his host what had
become of the Armenians. The latter replied as follows:—
“It was at the end of May when the Governor asked all the leaders
and prominent Armenians to go to him. He told them that they were
obliged to abandon the city to the enemy, consequently the army
would retreat from the place. Therefore he instructed them to get
ready and join him within twenty-four hours. They had to get ready,
but as all means of transport had been requisitioned, they could
take practically nothing with them. Before the twenty-four hours
were up, they all gathered near the Government Building without
knowing what was impending. Several hundred gendarmes surrounded
them immediately and drove them out of the city towards the west.
They were taken as far as Charuk-Dersim (Doujik). The Kurds of
Dersim had already received their orders. They attacked them and
killed every one. Another batch of Armenians was deported towards
Sivas. They were seen passing through the Kamakh Pass, but what
happened to them afterwards has never been known. A few hundred of
their most beautiful girls were captured by certain Turks, and the
Government was still looking for them.”
59. BAIBOURT: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN LADY DEPORTED IN THE THIRD
CONVOY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
A week before anything was done to Baibourt, the villages all round
had been emptied and their inhabitants had become victims of the
gendarmes and marauding bands. Three days before the starting of the
Armenians from Baibourt, after a week’s imprisonment, Bishop Anania
Hazarabedian was hanged, with seven other notables. After these
hangings, seven or eight other notables were killed in their own
houses for refusing to leave the city. Seventy or eighty other
Armenians, after being beaten in prison, were taken to the woods and
killed. The Armenian population of Baibourt was sent off in three
batches; I was among the third batch. My husband died eight years
ago, leaving me and my eight-year-old daughter and my mother a large
property, so that we were living in comfort. Since mobilization
began, the Ottoman Commandant has been living in my house free of
rent. He told me not to go, but I felt I must share the fate of my
people. I took three horses with me, loaded with provisions. My
daughter had some five-lira pieces round her neck, and I carried
some twenty liras and four diamond rings on my person. All else that
we had was left behind. Our party left on the 1st/ 14th June,
fifteen gendarmes going with us. The party numbered four or five
hundred[69] persons. We had got only two hours away from home when
bands of villagers and brigands in large numbers, with rifles, guns,
axes, etc., surrounded us on the road, and robbed us of all we had.
The gendarmes took my three horses and sold them to Turkish
mouhadjirs, pocketing the money. They took my money and the gold
pieces from my daughter’s neck, also all our food. After this they
separated the men, one by one, and shot them all within six or seven
days—every male above fifteen years old. By my side were killed two
priests, one of them over ninety years of age. The brigands took all
the good-looking women and carried them off on their horses. Very
many women and girls were thus carried off to the mountains, among
them my sister, whose one-year-old baby they threw away; a Turk
picked it up and carried it off, I know not where. My mother walked
till she could walk no farther, and dropped by the roadside on a
mountain top. We found on the road many of those who had been
deported from Baibourt in the previous convoys; some women were
among the killed, with their husbands and sons. We also came across
some old people and little infants still alive but in a pitiful
condition, having shouted their voices away. We were not allowed to
sleep at night in the villages, but lay down outside. Under cover of
the night indescribable deeds were committed by the gendarmes,
brigands and villagers. Many of us died from hunger and strokes of
apoplexy. Others were left by the roadside, too feeble to go on.
One morning we saw fifty or sixty wagons with about thirty Turkish
widows, whose husbands had been killed in the war; and these were
going to Constantinople. One of these women made a sign to one of
the gendarmes to kill a certain Armenian whom she pointed out. The
gendarmes asked her if she did not wish to kill him herself, at
which she said “Why not?” and, drawing a revolver from her pocket,
shot him dead. Every one of these Turkish hanoums had five or six
Armenian girls of ten or under with her. Boys the Turks never wished
to take; they killed them all, of whatever age. These women wanted
to take my daughter, too, but she would not be separated from me.
Finally we were both taken into their wagons on our promising to
become Moslems. As soon as we entered the araba, they began to teach
us how to be Moslems, and changed our names, calling me X. and her
Y.
The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the
banks of the Euphrates[70] and in the Erzindjan plain. The mutilated
bodies of women, girls and little children made everybody shudder.
The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and
girls that were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the
Euphrates, the brigands and gendarmes threw into the river all the
remaining children under fifteen years old. Those that could swim
were shot down as they struggled in the water.
After seven days we reached Erzindjan. Not an Armenian was left
alive there. The Turkish women took my daughter and me to the bath,
and there showed us many other women and girls that had accepted
Islam. Between there and Enderessi, the fields and hillsides were
dotted with swollen and blackened corpses that filled and fouled the
air with their stench. On this road we met six women wearing the
feradjé[71] and with children in their arms. But when the gendarmes
lifted their veils, they found that they were men in disguise, so
they shot them. After thirty-two days’ journey we reached our
destination.
-----
Footnote 69:
“4000-5000”—Doc. 2
Footnote 70:
_i.e._, the Kara Su.
Footnote 71:
Moslem veil.
60. BAIBOURT: STATEMENT, REPRODUCED FROM THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG” OF NEW
YORK, 18th MARCH, 1916.
On the 15th May, some of the prominent Armenians of
Baibourt—north-west of Erzeroum—Hadji Simon, Hamazasb, Arshag and
Drtad Simavonian, Hagop Aghparian, Vagharshag Lousigian, Garabed
Sarafian, Garabed Duldulian, and the Bishop were arrested. They were
then taken to a place called “Ourbadji Oghlou Déré” and killed. When
the Armenians heard of this they were terrified, but the Government
declared that these were traitors, that they had sent money to the
enemy and tried to persuade the people to revolt—that consequently
they were punished, but that nothing would happen to the other
Armenians. They were, in fact, really left in peace for some time,
but after the retreat from Van Turkish soldiers came and disarmed
them. They were then deported and massacred.
Forty armed young men from the village of Lsounk and 20 from Varvan
escaped to the mountains. They were pursued by regular soldiers and
forced to fight. Both sides lost heavily, and finally 12 of the
Armenians, by the help of Greek villagers, reached Caucasia.
61. BAIBOURT, KEGHI, AND ERZINDJAN: LETTER[72], DATED ERZEROUM, 25th
MAY/7th JUNE, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The districts of Erzindjan, Keghi, and Baibourt have been devastated
by forced emigrations. The Armenian population of the city of
Erzeroum has also received categoric orders to leave the city. They
will be deported _en masse_; 160 merchants are already _en route_
with their families. The Government has confiscated their goods. We
have no information about the deported people; they say they will be
sent to Mosul.
-----
Footnote 72:
Name of author withheld
62. ERZINDJAN: STATEMENT BY TWO RED CROSS NURSES OF DANISH
NATIONALITY, FORMERLY IN THE SERVICE OF THE GERMAN MILITARY
MISSION AT ERZEROUM[73]; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF
GENEVA.
In March, 1915, we learnt through an Armenian doctor, who died later
on of typhus, that the Turkish Government was preparing for a
massacre on a grand scale. He begged us to find out from General
Passelt whether the rumour were true. We heard afterwards that the
General (a gallant officer) had his own fears of it, and asked, for
that reason, to be relieved of his post.... We fell sick of typhus
and ... in consequence of a number of changes in the hospital staff
... we were obliged to leave Erzeroum. Through the good offices of
the German Consul at Erzeroum, who also possessed the confidence of
the Armenians, we were engaged by the Red Cross at Erzindjan, and
worked there seven weeks.
At the beginning of June, the head of the Red Cross Mission at
Erzindjan, Staff-Surgeon A., told us that the Armenians had revolted
at Van, that measures had been taken against them which would be put
into general execution, and that the whole Armenian population of
Erzindjan and the neighbourhood would be transported to Mesopotamia,
where it would no longer find itself in a majority. There was,
however, to be no massacre, and measures were to be taken to feed
the exiles and to secure their personal safety by a military escort.
Wagons loaded with arms and bombs were reported, he said, to have
been discovered at Erzindjan, and many arrests were to be made. The
Red Cross staff were forbidden to have any relations with the
exiles, and prohibited any excursions on foot or horseback beyond a
certain radius.
After that, several days’ grace was given to the population of
Erzindjan for the sale of their property, which was naturally
realised at ludicrous prices. In the first week of June,[74] the
first convoy started; the rich people were allowed to hire
carriages. They were to go to Harpout. The three succeeding days,
further deportations followed[75]; many children were taken charge
of by Moslem families; later on, the authorities decided that these
children must go into exile as well.
The families of the Armenians employed in our hospital had to go
with the rest, including a woman who was ill. A protest from Dr.
Neukirch, who was attending her, had no effect except to postpone
her departure two days. A soldier attached to our staff as cobbler
said to Sister B.[76]: “I am now forty-six years old, and yet I am
taken for military service, although I have paid my exemption-tax
regularly every year. I have never done anything against the
Government, and now they are taking from me my whole family, my
seventy-year-old mother, my wife and five children, and I do not
know where they are going.” He was especially affected by the
thought of his little daughter, a year and a half old; “She is so
sweet. She has such pretty eyes”; he wept like a child. The next day
he came back; “I know the truth. They are all dead.” And it was only
too true. Our Turkish cook came to us crying, and told us how the
Kurds had attacked the unhappy convoy at Kamakh Boghaz[77], had
pillaged it completely, and had killed a great number of the exiles.
This must have been the 14th June.
Two young Armenian teachers, educated at the College of Harpout,
whose lives were spared, related that the convoy had been caught
under a cross-fire by the Kurds on the flanks and the Turkish
irregulars in the rear. They had thrown themselves flat on the
ground and pretended to be dead; afterwards they succeeded in
finding their way back to Erzindjan by circuitous paths, bribing
some Kurds whom they met on the way. One of them had with her her
fiancé in woman’s clothes. He had been shielded by a Turkish
class-mate. When they reached Erzindjan a gendarme tried to abduct
the girl and her fiancé interfered. He was killed, and the girls
were carried off to Turkish houses, where they were treated kindly
but had pressure put upon them to change their religion. They
conveyed this news to us through a young doctor who attended some
Armenian patients in our hospital, and was thereby enabled to get
into touch with us; he brought us an appeal from them to take them
with us to Harpout. If only they had poison, they said, they would
poison themselves. They had no information whatever as to the fate
of their companions.
The day after,[78] Friday, the 11th June, a party of regular troops
(belonging to the 86th Cavalry Brigade) were sent out “to keep the
Kurds in order.”
We heard subsequently from these soldiers how the defenceless
Armenians had been massacred to the last one. The butchery had taken
four hours. The women threw themselves on their knees, they had
thrown their children into the Euphrates, and so on.[79] “It was
horrible,” said a nice-looking young soldier; “I could not fire, I
only pretended.” For that matter, we have often heard Turks express
their disapproval and their pity. The soldiers told us that there
were ox-carts all ready to carry the corpses to the river and remove
every trace of the massacre.[80]
Next day there was a regular _battue_ through the cornfields. (The
corn was then standing, and many Armenians had hidden in it.)
From that time on, convoys of exiles were continually arriving, all
on their way to the slaughter; we have no doubt about their fate,
after the unanimous testimony which we have received from many
different quarters. Later, our Greek driver told us that the victims
had their hands tied behind their backs, and were thrown down from
the cliffs into the river. This method was employed when the numbers
were too great to dispose of them in any other fashion. It was also
easier work for the murderers. Sister B. and I, of course, began at
once to think what we could do, and we decided to travel with one of
these convoys to Harpout. We did not know yet that the massacre on
the road had been ordered by the Government, and we also thought
that we could check the brutality of the gendarmes and stave off the
assaults of the Kurds, since we speak Kurdish and have some
influence over the tribesmen.
We then telegraphed to the Consul at Erzeroum, telling him that we
had been dismissed from the hospital, and urging him, in the
interests of Germany, to come to Erzindjan. He wired back:
“Impossible to leave my post. Expect Austrians, who are due to pass
here the 22nd June....”
On the evening of the 17th June, we went out for a walk with Mr. C.,
the druggist of the Red Cross Staff. He was as much horrified as we
were at the cruelties that were being perpetrated, and expressed
himself very plainly on the subject. He also received his dismissal.
On our walk we met a gendarme, who told us that, ten minutes’
distance away, a large convoy of exiles from Baibourt had been
halted. He narrated to us, with appalling vividness, how one by one
the men had been massacred and cast into the depths of the
gorge[81]: “Kezzé, kezzé, geliorlar! (Kill, kill, push them over).”
He told how, at each village, the women had been violated; how he
himself had desired to take a girl, but had been told that already
she was no longer a maid; how children had had their brains battered
out when they cried or hindered the march. “There were the naked
bodies of three girls; I buried them to do a good deed,” was his
concluding remark.
The following morning, at a very early hour, we heard the procession
of exiles passing in front of our house, along the high road leading
in to Erzindjan. We followed them and kept up with them as far as
the town, about an hour’s walk. Mr. G. came with us. It was a very
large gang—only two or three of them men, all the rest women and
children. Many of the women looked demented. They cried out: “Spare
us, we will become Moslems or Germans or whatever you will; only
spare us. We are being taken to Kamakh Boghaz to have our throats
cut,” and they made an expressive gesture. Others kept silence, and
marched patiently on with a few bundles on their backs and their
children in their arms. Others begged us to save their children.
Many Turks arrived on the scene to carry off children and girls,
with or without their parents’ consent. There was no time for
reflection, for the crowd was being moved on continually by the
mounted gendarmes brandishing their whips. On the outskirts of the
town, the road to Kamakh Boghaz branches off from the main highway.
At this point the scene turned into a regular slave market; for our
part, we took a family of six children, from three to fourteen years
old, who clutched hold of us, and another little girl as well. We
entrusted the latter to our Turkish cook, who was on the spot. She
wanted to take the child to the kitchen of Dr. A.’s private house,
and keep her there until we could come to fetch her; but the
doctor’s adjutant, Riza Bey, gave the woman a beating and threw the
child out into the street. Meanwhile, with cries of agony, the gang
of sufferers continued its march, while we returned to the hospital
with our six children. Dr. A. gave us permission to keep them in our
room until we had packed our belongings; they were given food and
soon became calmer. “Now we are saved,” they had cried when we took
them. They refused to let go of our hands. The smallest, the son of
a rich citizen of Baibourt, lay huddled up in his mother’s cloak;
his face was swollen with crying and he seemed inconsolable. Once he
rushed to the window and pointed to a gendarme: “That’s the man who
killed my father.” The children handed over to us their money, 475
piastres (about £4), which their parents had given them with the
idea that perhaps the children, at any rate, would not be shot.
We then rode into the town to obtain permission for these children
to travel with us. We were told that the high authorities were in
session to decide the fate of the convoy which had just arrived.
Nevertheless, Sister B. succeeded in getting word with someone she
knew, who gave her the authorisation to take the children with her,
and offered to give them false names in the passport. This satisfied
us, and, after returning to the hospital, we left the same evening
with baggage and children and all, and installed ourselves in a
hotel at Erzindjan. The Turkish orderlies at the hospital were very
friendly, and said: “You have done a good deed in taking these
children.” We could get nothing but one small room for the eight of
us. During the night there was a frightful knocking at our door, and
we were asked whether there were two German ladies in the room. Then
all became quiet again, to the great relief of our little ones.
Their first question had been, would we prevent them from being made
Mohammedans? And was our cross (the nurses’ Red Cross) the same as
theirs? After that they were comforted. We left them in the room,
and went ourselves to take our tea in the hotel café. We noticed
that some discharged hospital patients of ours, who had always shown
themselves full of gratitude towards us, behaved as if they no
longer recognised us. The proprietor of the hotel began to hold
forth, and everyone listened to what he was saying: “The death of
these women and children has been decreed at Constantinople.” The
Hodja (Turkish priest) of our hospital came in, too, and said to us,
among other things: “If God has no pity on them, why must you have
pity? The Armenians have committed atrocities at Van. That happened
because their religion is _ekzik_ (inferior). The Moslems should not
have followed their example, but should have carried out the
massacre with greater humanity.” We always gave the same answer—that
they ought to discover the guilty and do justice upon them, but that
the massacre of women and children was, and always will remain, a
crime.
Then we went to the Mutessarif himself, with whom we had not
succeeded in obtaining an interview before. The man looked like the
devil incarnate, and his behaviour bore out his appearance. In a
bellowing voice he shouted at us: “Women have no business to meddle
with politics, but ought to respect the Government!” We told him
that we should have acted in precisely the same way if the victims
had been Mohammedans, and that politics had nothing to do with our
conduct. He answered that we had been expelled from the hospital,
and that we should get the same treatment from him; that he would
not stand us, and that he would certainly not permit us to go to
Harpout to fetch our belongings, but would send us to Sivas. Worst
of all, he forbade us to take the children away, and at once sent a
gendarme to carry them off from our room.
On our way back to the hotel we actually met them, but they were
hurried past us so quickly that we had not even a chance to return
them their money. Afterwards we asked Dr. Lindenberg to see that
this money was restored to them; but, to find out where they were,
he had to make enquiries of a Turkish officer, and just at the
moment of our departure, when we had been told that they had already
been killed, and when we had no longer any chance of making a
further search for them, the aforementioned Riza Bey came and asked
us for this money, on the ground that he wanted to return it to the
children! We had already decided to spend it on relieving other
Armenians.
At Erzindjan we were now looked askance at. They would no longer let
us stay at the hotel, but took us to a deserted Armenian house. The
whole of this extensive quarter of the town seemed dead. People came
and went at will to loot the contents of the houses; in some of the
houses families of Moslem refugees were already installed. We had
now a roof over our heads, but no one would go to get us food.
However, we managed to send a note to Dr. A., who kindly allowed us
to return to the hospital. The following day, the Mutessarif sent a
springless baggage cart, in which we were to do the seven days’
journey to Sivas. We gave him to understand that we would not have
this conveyance, and, upon the representations of Dr. A., they sent
us a travelling carriage, with the threat to have us arrested if we
did not start at once. This was on Monday, the 21st June, and we
should have liked to wait for the Austrians, who were due to arrive
on the Tuesday morning, and continue the journey in their company;
but Dr. A. declared that he could no longer give us protection, and
so we started out. Dr. Lindenberg did us the kindness of escorting
us as far as Rifahia[82]. During the first days of our journey we
saw five corpses. One was a woman’s, and still had clothes on; the
others were naked, one of them headless. There were two Turkish
officers on the road with us who were really Armenians, as we were
told by the gendarme attached to us. They preserved their incognito
towards us, and maintained a very great reserve, but always took
care not to get separated from us. On the fourth day they did not
put in an appearance. When we enquired after them, we were given to
understand that the less we concerned ourselves about them the
better it would be for us. On the road, we broke our journey near a
Greek village. A savage-looking man was standing by the roadside. He
began to talk with us, and told us he was stationed there to kill
all the Armenians that passed, and that he had already killed 250.
He explained that they all deserved their fate, for they were all
Anarchists—not Liberals or Socialists, but Anarchists. He told the
gendarmes that he had received orders by telephone to kill our two
travelling companions. So these two men with their Armenian drivers
must have perished there. We could not restrain ourselves from
arguing with this assassin, but when he went off our Greek driver
warned us: “Don’t say a word, if you do ...”—and he made the gesture
of taking aim. The rumour had, in fact, got about that we were
Armenians, which was as good as to say condemned to death.
One day we met a convoy of exiles, who had said good-bye to their
prosperous villages and were at that moment on their way to Kamakh
Boghaz. We had to draw up a long time by the roadside while they
marched past. The scene will never be forgotten by either of us: a
very small number of elderly men, a large number of women—vigorous
figures with energetic features—a crowd of pretty children, some of
them fair and blue-eyed, one little girl smiling at the strangeness
of all she was seeing, but on all the other faces the solemnity of
death. There was no noise; it was all quiet, and they marched along
in an orderly way, the children generally riding on the ox-carts;
and so they passed, some of them greeting us on the way—all these
poor people, who are now standing at the throne of God, and whose
cry goes up before Him. An old woman was made to get down from her
donkey—she could no longer keep the saddle. Was she killed on the
spot? Our hearts had become as cold as ice.
The gendarme attached to us told us then that he had escorted a
convoy of 3,000 women and children to Mamahatoun (near Erzeroum) and
Kamakh Boghaz. “Hep gildi, bildi,” he said: “All gone, all dead.” We
asked him: “Why condemn them to this frightful torment; why not kill
them in their villages?” Answer: “It is best as it is. They ought to
be made to suffer; and, besides, there would be no place left for us
Moslems with all these corpses about. They will make a stench!”
We spent a night at Enderessi, one day’s journey from Shabin
Kara-Hissar. As usual, we had been given for our lodging an empty
Armenian house. On the wall there was a pencil scrawl in Turkish:
“Our dwelling is on the mountains, we have no longer any need of a
roof to cover us; we have already drained the bitter cup of death,
we have no more need of a judge.”
The ground floor rooms of the house were still tenanted by the women
and children. The gendarmes told us that they would be exiled next
morning, but they did not know that yet; they did not know what had
become of the men of the house; they were restless, but not yet
desperate.
Just after I had gone to sleep, I was awakened by shots in our
immediate neighbourhood. The reports followed one another rapidly,
and I distinctly heard the words of command. I realised at once what
was happening, and actually experienced a feeling of relief at the
idea that these poor creatures were now beyond the reach of human
cruelty.
Next morning our people told us that ten Armenians had been
shot—that was the firing that we had heard—and that the Turkish
civilians of the place were now being sent out to chase the
fugitives. Indeed, we saw them starting off on horseback with guns.
At the roadside were two armed men standing under a tree and
dividing between them the clothes of a dead Armenian. We passed a
place covered with clotted blood, though the corpses had been
removed. It was the 250 roadmaking soldiers, of whom our gendarme
had told us.
Once we met a large number of these labourers, who had so far been
allowed to do their work in peace. They had been sorted into three
gangs—Moslems, Greeks and Armenians. There were several officers
with the latter. Our young Hassan exclaimed: “They are all going to
be butchered.” We continued our journey, and the road mounted a
hill. Then our driver pointed with his whip towards the valley, and
we saw that the Armenian gang was being made to stand out of the
highroad. There were about 400 of them, and they were being made to
line up on the edge of a slope. We know what happened after that.
Two days before we reached Sivas, we again saw the same sight. The
soldiers’ bayonets glittered in the sun.
At another place there were ten gendarmes shooting them down, while
Turkish workmen were finishing off the victims with knives and
stones. Here ten Armenians had succeeded in getting away.
Later on, in the Mission Hospital at Sivas, we came across one of
the men who had escaped. He told us that about 100 Armenians had
been slaughtered there. Our informant himself had received a
terrible wound in the nape of the neck and had fainted. Afterwards
he had recovered consciousness and had dragged himself in two days
to Sivas.
Twelve hours’ distance from Sivas, we spent the night in a
government building. For hours a gendarme, sitting in front of our
door, crooned to himself over and over gain: “Ermenleri hep
kesdiler—the Armenians have all been killed!” In the next room they
were talking on the telephone. We made out that they were giving
instructions as to how the Armenians were to be arrested. They were
talking chiefly about a certain Ohannes, whom they had not succeeded
in finding yet.
One night we slept in an Armenian house where the women had just
heard that the men of the family had been condemned to death. It was
frightful to hear their cries of anguish. It was no use our trying
to speak to them. “Cannot your Emperor help us?” they cried. The
gendarme saw the despair on our faces, and said: “Their crying
bothers you; I will forbid them to cry.” However, he let himself be
mollified. He had taken particular pleasure in pointing out to us
all the horrors that we encountered, and he said to young Hassan:
“First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then the Kurds.” He
would certainly have been delighted to add: “And then the
foreigners!” Our Greek driver was the victim of a still more ghastly
joke: “Look, down there in the ditch; there are Greeks there too!”
At last we reached Sivas. We had to wait an hour in front of the
Government Building before the examination of our papers was
completed and we were given permission to go to the Americans.
There, too, all was trouble and sorrow.
On the 1st July we left Sivas and reached Kaisaria on the 4th. We
had been given permission to go to Talas, after depositing our
baggage at the Jesuit School; but when we wanted to go on from
Kaisaria, we were refused leave and taken back to the Jesuit School,
where a gendarme was posted in front of our door. However, the
American Missionaries succeeded in getting us set at liberty.
We then returned to Talas, where we passed several days full of
commotion, for there, as well as at Kaisaria, there were many
arrests being made. The poor Armenians never knew what the morrow
would bring, and then came the terrifying news that all Armenians
had been cleared out of Sivas. What happened there and in the
villages of the surrounding districts will be reported by the
American Mission.
When we discovered that they meant to keep us there—for they had
prevented us from joining the Austrians for the journey—we
telegraphed to the German Embassy, and so obtained permission to
start. There is nothing to tell about this part of our journey,
except that the locusts had in places destroyed all the fruit and
vegetables, so that the Turks are already beginning to have some
experience of the Divine punishment.
63. KAMAKH AND ERZEROUM: STATEMENT[83] PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK
JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” 4th SEPTEMBER, 1915.
The Armenian villages of the Kamakh district have been visited with
the most ghastly horrors. The Turks began by perpetrating massacres,
and subsequently deported the survivors to various places—the men in
one direction and the women in another. The houses and property
belonging to the Armenians have been taken possession of by the
Turks and Kurds, who have come to this district as refugees from the
Vilayet of Van.
The Armenian villages in the plain west of Erzeroum have all been
cleared of their inhabitants. After all the men who were physically
fit had been mobilised, the remainder were deported. The Armenian
houses are being handed over to Turkish immigrants. The
Archimandrite Kevork Tourian, Metropolitan of the Armenians of
Trebizond, has been brought to Erzeroum, where he will be tried by
court-martial.
-----
Footnote 73:
They were at work in the German hospital at Erzeroum from October,
1914, to April, 1915.—EDITOR.
Footnote 74:
7th June—_Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915.
Footnote 75:
Amounting to about 20,000-25,000 people in all—_Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915.
Footnote 76:
One of the two authors of the present statement, which has been
drafted in the first person by the other witness, but represents
the experiences of both. The Editor is in possession of the
drafter’s name, but does not know the identity of Sister B., Dr.
A., or Mr. G.—EDITOR.
Footnote 77:
A defile, 12 hours’ journey from Erzindjan, where the Euphrates
flows through a narrow gorge between two walls of rock.
Footnote 78:
_i.e._, after the departure of the last convoy of exiles from
Erzindjan (10th June), _not_ after the narrators were informed of
the massacre by their cook and by the two Armenian girls. The
passages about the cobbler, the cook, and the two girls are
evidently in parenthesis, and interrupt the sequence of the
narrative.—EDITOR.
Footnote 79:
The further details are given in the _Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915: “When we exclaimed in
horror: ‘So you fire on women and children!’ the soldiers
answered: ‘What could we do? It was our orders.’ One of them
added: ‘It was a heart-breaking sight. For that matter, I did not
shoot.’”—EDITOR.
Footnote 80:
On the evening of the 11th, we saw soldiers returning to town
laden with loot. We heard from both Turks and Armenians that
children’s corpses were strewn along the road.
Footnote 81:
Every day ten or twelve of the men had been killed and thrown into
the ravines.—_Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift._
Footnote 82:
This was not the route followed by the convoys of exiles.
Footnote 83:
Source unspecified.
VII.
VILAYET OF MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ.
_This province lies south-west of Erzindjan, where the Kara-Su bends
from west to south and effects its junction with the Mourad-Su, to
form the united stream of the Euphrates. The remnant of the convoys
from the Vilayet of Erzeroum passed through this district on their
way to Mesopotamia, and the Armenian inhabitants of Mamouret-ul-Aziz
itself were sent after them in the first weeks of July._
_The great advance of the Russians in the winter of 1915-6 brought
this province within the immediate war zone, and apparently provoked
a second outburst of persecution. On the 24th February, 1916, the
Paris journal “Le Temps” published the following telegram from Rome:
“According to information that has reached the Vatican, the Turks
have carried fire and sword through the region of Mamouret-ul-Aziz,
killing all the Christians, including the Catholic Armenian Bishop,
Mgr. Ivraklon, who was subjected to prolonged and fearful
tortures.”_
_The name of the town to which most of the documents in this section
relate is, for obvious reasons, withheld._
64. H.: STATEMENT MADE BY MISS DA., A DANISH LADY IN THE SERVICE OF
THE GERMAN RED CROSS AT H., TO MR. DB. AT BASLE, AND
COMMUNICATED BY MR. DB. TO LORD BRYCE.
Sister DA. left the German Red Cross Mission at H. in April, 1916,
travelling through Ourfa to Aleppo, and thence by road and railway
across Anatolia to Constantinople. Mr. DB. met her at Basle, on her
way from Constantinople to Denmark, in the house of a mutual friend.
Sister DA. told Mr. DB. that on the 16th March, 1915, the German
Vice-Consul appointed provisionally to Erzeroum (the Consul himself
being interned in Russia) was passing through the town of H.,
accompanied by two German officers, and arranged to dine that
evening with the German Red Cross Staff, after paying his respects
to the Vali. At the hour fixed, only the two officers appeared. They
said that they had called, with the Vice-Consul, upon the Vali, but
that after a time the Vali had shewn signs of being irked by their
presence, and so they had taken their departure, leaving the Vali
and the Vice-Consul together. The company waited for the Vice-Consul
about two hours. He arrived about 9.30 p.m., in a state of great
agitation, and told them at once the purport of his interview. The
Vali had declared to him that the Armenians in Turkey must be, and
were going to be, exterminated. They had grown, he said, in wealth
and numbers until they had become a menace to the ruling Turkish
race; extermination was the only remedy. The Vice-Consul had
expostulated and represented that persecution always increased the
spiritual vitality of a subject race, and on grounds of expediency
was the worst policy for the rulers. “Well, we shall see,” said the
Vali, and closed the conversation.
This incident occurred on the 16th March, 1915, and Mr. DB. points
out that it must have been practically simultaneous with an
interview given by Enver Pasha at Constantinople to the Gregorian
Bishop of Konia in the course of February, 1915, Old Style. In this
interview the Bishop had asked Enver whether he were satisfied with
the conduct of the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Army, and Enver
had testified warmly to their energy, courage and loyalty—so warmly,
in fact, that the Bishop at once asked whether he might publish this
testimonial over Enver’s name. Enver readily consented, and the
Gregorian Patriarchate at Constantinople accordingly circulated an
authorised account of the interview to the Armenian, and even to the
Turkish, press.[84] Thus, in the latter part of February, 1915, the
Central Government at Constantinople was advertising its friendly
feelings towards its Armenian subjects, while by the 16th March,
less than a month later, it had given its representative in a remote
province to understand that a general massacre of these same
Armenians was imminent.
To return to Sister DA.’s narrative—she told Mr. DB. that between
February and the beginning of May, 1915, about 400 Armenians had
been arrested and imprisoned at H. They were the young men, the
strong in body and the intellectuals. Most of their kind had been
taken for the Army in the mobilisation of the previous autumn, but
these 400 had been left, and were now thrown into prison instead of
being conscribed.
At the beginning of May, the Vali of H. sent for the head of the
German Protestant Mission Station in the town, and requested him to
tell the Armenians that they must surrender their arms. Otherwise,
he said, the most stringent measures would be taken against them.
The missionaries must persuade them to deliver up the arms quickly.
The head of the Mission Station called a meeting of Armenian
notables, and put to them what the Vali had said. The Armenians
decided to consult with their Turkish fellow-townsmen, and so a
mixed meeting was held of all the Turkish and Armenian notables of
H. At this meeting the Turkish notables urged the Armenians to give
up their arms and promised that, if they did so, they themselves
would guarantee their security, and would see that they suffered
nothing at the Government’s hands.
This promise induced the Armenians to comply. They collected their
arms and presented them to the Vali, but the Vali declared that all
had not been brought. The newest and most dangerous weapons, he
said, had been in the hands of the 400 prisoners. These must be
surrendered also, or the penalties he had threatened would still be
inflicted on the whole Armenian community at H. So the notables went
to the men in prison, and besought them to reveal where their arms
were hidden; all the Gregorian priests went, and the head of the
German Mission Station went with them. The 400 were obstinate at
first, but it was represented to them that, if they refused, they
would be responsible for the destruction of the whole community, and
at last they gave in. They revealed the hiding-places, and the arms
were duly found and delivered up to the Vali.
The Vali immediately had photographs taken of all the arms
collected, and sent them to Constantinople as evidence that an
Armenian revolution was on the point of breaking out at H. He asked
for a free hand to suppress it, and an order came back from
Constantinople that he was to take whatever measures he considered
necessary on the spot.
After that, the 400 young men were conveyed out of the town by night
and never heard of again. Shots were said to have been heard in the
distance.
Three days later, the rest of the Armenian community at H. was
summoned by bugle to assemble before the Government Building, and
then deported. The men were first sent off in one direction, and
later the women and children, on ox-carts, in another. They were
only given a few hours to make their preparations, and Sister DA.
described their consternation as being terrible. They tried to
dispose of their property, which the Turks bought up for practically
nothing. Sewing-machines, for instance, sold for two or three
piastres (4_d._ to 6_d._). The process of deportation was extended
to the whole Vilayet.
The Armenian children in the German Orphanage at H. were sent away
with the rest. “My orders,” said the Vali, “are to deport _all_
Armenians. I cannot make an exception of these.” He announced,
however, that a Government Orphanage was to be established for any
children that remained, and shortly afterwards he called on Sister
DA. and asked her to come and visit it. Sister DA. went with him,
and found about 700 Armenian children in a good building. For every
twelve or fifteen children there was one Armenian nurse, and they
were well clothed and fed. “See what care the Government is taking
of the Armenians,” the Vali said, and she returned home surprised
and pleased; but when she visited the Orphanage again several days
later, there were only thirteen of the 700 children left—the rest
had disappeared. They had been taken, she learnt, to a lake six
hours’ journey by road from the town and drowned. Three hundred
fresh children were subsequently collected at the “Orphanage,” and
Sister DA. believed that they suffered the same fate as their
predecessors. These victims were the residue of the Armenian
children at H. The finest boys and prettiest girls had been picked
out and carried off by the Turks and Kurds of the district, and it
was the remainder, who had been left on the Government’s hands, that
were disposed of in this way.
As soon as the Armenians had been deported from H., convoys of other
exiles began to pass through from the districts further north.
Sister DA. did not see these convoys, because they made a detour
round the town, and she never left the town precincts; but she
talked with many people who did see them, and they gave a terrible
description of their plight. The roads near the town, they said,
were littered with the corpses of those who had died of sickness or
exhaustion, or from the violence of their guards. And these accounts
were confirmed by her own experience last April (1916), on her
journey to Aleppo. On the road to Aleppo from Ourfa she passed
numbers of corpses lightly buried under a layer of soil. The
extremities of the limbs were protruding, and had been gnawed by
dogs. She was told by people she met that unheard-of atrocities had
been committed, and that there were cases of women who had drowned
themselves to escape their tormentors.
It was Sister DA.’s impression that the deportation and massacre of
the Armenians had ruined Turkey economically. The Armenians had been
the only skilled workers in the country, and industry came to a
standstill when they were gone. You could not replace copper vessels
for your household; you could not get your roof re-tiled. The
Government had actually retained a few Armenian artisans—bakers,
masons, &c.—to work for the Army, and whatever work was still done
was done by these and by a few others who had gone over to Islam.
But though the sources of production were cut off, the Turks had not
begun to feel the pinch. Having laid hands on all the property of
the Armenians, they were richer, for the moment, than before. During
the past year bread had been plentiful and cheap, cattle and meat
had been abundant, and there were still enough supplies, she
thought, to last for some time yet. Under these circumstances, the
Turkish peasantry were well content—except for the women, who
resented the absence of their husbands at the war. The dearth of
men, Sister DA. said, was everywhere noticeable. She had been told,
however, that some Kurdish tribes had refused to furnish recruits,
and that the Kizil Bashis of the Dersim had furnished none at all.
The Government had been preparing an expedition against the Kizil
Bashis to extort a toll of conscripts, but the plan had been
thwarted by the Russian advance. In the Turkish villages
agricultural work was being largely carried on by the Armenian women
and children, who had been handed over to the Moslem peasants by the
authorities. Sister DA. saw quantities of them everywhere,
practically in the condition of slaves. They were never allowed to
rest in peace, but were constantly chivied about from one village to
another.
As she came down to Aleppo she found the country under good
cultivation. Great stores of bread had been accumulated for the army
in Mesopotamia. In Anatolia, on the other hand, the fields were
neglected, and she thought that there famine was not far off. But it
was not till she reached Constantinople that she found any present
scarcity. In the provinces only sugar and petrol had been scarce; at
Constantinople all commodities were both scarce and dear.
Sister DA. was told at Constantinople that Turks of all parties were
united in their approval of what was being done to the Armenians,
and that Enver Pasha openly boasted of it as his personal
achievement. Talaat Bey, too, was reported to have remarked, on
receiving the news of Vartkes’[85] assassination: “There is no room
in the Empire for both Armenians and Turks. Either they had to go or
we.”
-----
Footnote 84:
This incident was communicated to Mr. DB. by DC. Effendi, a
gentleman who had held high office under the Ottoman Government
till the outbreak of the War.
Footnote 85:
Mr. Vartkes was an Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, who
was murdered, together with another deputy, Mr. Zohrab, when he
was being escorted by gendarmes from Aleppo to be court-martialled
at Diyarbekir (see Docs. 7 and 9).—EDITOR.
65. H.: REPORT, DATED 11th JULY, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT
H.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
If it were simply a matter of being obliged to leave here to go
somewhere else, it would not be so bad, but everybody knows that it
is a case of going to one’s death. If there was any doubt about it,
it has been removed by the arrival of a number of convoys,
aggregating several thousand people, from Erzeroum and Erzindjan. I
have visited their encampment a number of times, and talked with
some of the people. A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They
are, almost without exception, ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That
is not surprising, in view of the fact that they have been on the
road for nearly two months, with no change of clothing, no chance to
wash, no shelter and little to eat. The Government has been giving
them some scanty rations here. I watched them one time when their
food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed upon
the guards who carried the food, and the guards beat them back with
clubs, hitting hard enough to kill them sometimes. To watch them,
one could hardly believe that these people were human beings.
As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children and beg
one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice
of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have
even had their doctors there to examine the more likely girls and
thus secure the best ones.
There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed
on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and
robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again,
and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed. Women and
children were also killed. Many died, of course, from sickness and
exhaustion on the way, and there have been deaths each day that they
have been here. Several different parties have arrived, and, after
remaining a day or two, have been pushed on with no apparent
destination. Those who have reached here are only a small portion,
however, of those who started. By continuing to drive these people
on in this way, it will be possible to dispose of all of them in a
comparatively short time. Among those with whom I have talked were
three sisters. They had been educated at —— and spoke excellent
English. They said their family was the richest in Erzeroum and
numbered twenty-five when they left; but there were now only
fourteen survivors. The other eleven, including the husband of one
of them and their old grandmother, had been butchered before their
eyes by the Kurds. The oldest male survivor of the family was eight
years of age. When they left Erzeroum, they had money, horses and
personal effects, but they had been robbed of everything, including
even their clothing. They said that some of them had been left
absolutely naked, and others with only a single garment. When they
reached a village, their gendarmes obtained clothes for them from
some of the native women. Another girl with whom I talked is the
daughter of the Protestant pastor of Erzeroum. She said that every
member of her family with her had been killed and that she was left
entirely alone. These and some others are a few survivors of the
better class of people who have been exiled. They are being detained
in an abandoned school-house just outside the town, and no one is
allowed to enter it. They said that they were practically in prison,
although they were allowed to visit a spring just outside the
building. It was there I happened to see them. All the others are
camped in a large open field, with no protection at all from the
sun.
The condition of these people indicates clearly the fate of those
who have left and are about to leave from here. I believe nothing
has been heard from any of them as yet, and probably very little
will be heard. The system that is being followed seems to be to have
bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road, to kill the men
especially, and, incidentally, some of the others. The entire
movement seems to be the most thoroughly organised and effective
massacre this country has ever seen.
Not many men have been spared, however, to accompany those who are
being sent into exile, for a more prompt and sure method has been
used to dispose of them. Several thousand Armenian men have been
arrested during the past few weeks. These have been put in prison,
and each time that several hundred had been gathered up in that way
they were sent away during the night. The first batch were sent away
during the night of the 23rd June. Among them were some of the
professors in the College and other prominent Armenians, including
the Prelate of the Armenian Gregorian Church. There have been
frequent rumours that all of these were killed, and there is little
doubt that they were. All Armenian soldiers have likewise been sent
away in the same manner. They have been arrested and confined in a
building at one end of the town. No distinction has been made
between those who had paid their military exemption-tax and those
who had not. Their money was accepted, and then they were arrested
and sent off with the others. It was said that they were to go
somewhere to work on the roads, but no one had heard from them, and
that is undoubtedly false.
The fate of all the others has been pretty well established by
reliable reports of a similar occurrence on Wednesday, the 7th July.
On the Monday many men were arrested, both at H. and G., and put in
prison. At daybreak on the Tuesday morning they were taken out and
made to march towards an almost uninhabited mountain. There were
about eight hundred in all, and they were roped together in groups
of fourteen each. That afternoon they arrived in a small Kurdish
village, where they were kept overnight in the mosque and other
buildings. During all this time they were without food or water. All
their money and much of their clothing had been taken from them. On
the Wednesday morning they were taken to a valley a few hours
distant, where they were all made to sit down. Then the gendarmes
began shooting them, until they had killed nearly all of them. Some
who had not been killed by bullets were then disposed of with knives
and bayonets. A few succeeded in breaking the rope with which they
were tied to their companions and running away, but most of these
were pursued and killed. A few succeeded in getting away, probably
not more than two or three. Among those who were killed was the
treasurer of the College. Many other estimable men were among the
number. No charge of any kind had ever been made against any of
these men. They were simply arrested and killed as part of the
general plan to dispose of the Armenian race.
Last night several hundred more men, including both men arrested by
the civil authorities and those enrolled as soldiers, were taken in
a different direction and murdered in a similar manner. It is said
that this happened at a place not two hours distant from here. I
shall ride out that way some day when things become a little
quieter, and try to verify it for myself.
The same thing has been done systematically in the villages. A few
weeks ago about three hundred men were gathered together at AT. and
BG., two villages four and five hours distant from here, and then
taken up into the mountains and massacred. This seems to be fully
established. Many women from those villages have been here since and
told about it. There have been rumours of similar occurrences in
other places.
There seems to be a definite plan to dispose of all the Armenian
men; but, after the departure of the families during the first few
days of the enforcement of the order, it was announced that women
and children with no men in the family might remain here for the
present, and many hoped the worst was over. The American
missionaries began considering plans to aid the women and children,
who would be left here with no means of support. It was thought that
perhaps an orphanage could be opened to care for some of the
children, and especially those who had been born in America and then
brought here by their parents, and also those who belonged to
parents who had been connected in some way with the American mission
and schools. There would be plenty of opportunity, although there
might not be sufficient means, to care for children who reached here
with the exiles from other vilayets, and whose parents had died on
the way. I went to see the Vali about this matter yesterday, and was
met with a flat refusal. He said we could aid these people if we
wished to do so, but the Government was establishing orphanages for
the children, and we could not undertake any work of that nature. An
hour after I left the Vali, the announcement was made that all the
Armenians remaining here, including women and children, must leave
on the 13th July.
66. H.: MEMORANDUM[86] FORWARDED BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT H. (THE
AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING REPORT); COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
On the 1st June[87], 3,000 people (mostly women, girls and children)
left H., accompanied by seventy policemen and a certain Turk of
influence, K. Bey. The next day they arrived at AL., safely. Here K.
Bey took 400 liras from the people, “in order to keep it safe till
their arrival at Malatia,” and promised to accompany them, for their
protection, as far as Ourfa; but that same day he ran away with all
the money.
The third day the convoy of exiles reached AM. There the Arabs and
Kurds began to carry off the women and girls, and this went on till
they reached the first railway station at Ras-ul-Ain, on the Bagdad
line. The policemen given to them for their protection incited the
half-savage tribes of the mountains to attack them in order to rob,
kill and violate their women or else carry them away, and they
themselves many times violated the women openly.
The fourth day they arrived at AN., where the policemen killed three
of the prominent men. The ninth day they came to AO., where the
horses, hired and paid for in full for the journey as far as
Malatia, were taken and sent back. So they had again to hire
ox-carts to carry them to Malatia. Here many were left without any
beast of burden, only a few being able to buy donkeys and mules,
which were also stolen in their turn.
At AO., a policeman carried off Mrs. L. and her two daughters and
ran away.
The thirteenth day the caravan was at Malatia, but for one hour
only, for they returned to the village of AP., two hours from
Malatia. Here the policemen deserted them altogether, after taking
from them about 200 liras in toll for the protection they had given
them that far, and the people were left to the mercy of the beastly
Bey (claw-chief) of the Kurds of Aghja-Daghi.
On the fifteenth day they were again toiling on their way through
the steep mountains, when the Kurds rounded up 150 of the men of all
ages from fifteen to ninety years. They took them some distance off
and butchered them; then they came back and began to rob the people.
That day another convoy of exiles (only 300 of whom were men) from
Sivas[88], Egin and Tokat, joined the convoy from H., thus forming a
bigger convoy of 18,000 people in all. They started again on the
seventeenth day, under the so-called protection of another Kurdish
Bey. This Bey called out his people, who attacked the convoy and
plundered them. They carried off five of the prettiest girls and a
few Sisters of Grace from Sivas. At night some more girls were
stolen, but they were returned after being violated. So the journey
began once more, and on the way the pretty girls were carried off
one by one, while the stragglers from the convoy were invariably
killed. On the twenty-fifth day they reached the village of Geulik,
and all the villagers pursued the convoy for a long distance,
tormenting and robbing the exiles. On the thirty-second day they
found themselves at the village of Kiakhta. Here they remained two
days, and again many girls and women were carried off.
On the fortieth day the convoy came in sight of the river Mourad, a
branch of the Euphrates. Here they saw the bodies of more than 200
men floating in the river, with traces of blood and blood-stained
fezes, clothes and stockings on the banks.
The chief of the neighbouring village took one lira in toll from
each man, as a ransom for not being thrown into the river.
On the fifty-second day they arrived at another village, and here
the Kurds took from them everything they had, even their shirts and
drawers, so that for five days the whole convoy marched completely
naked under the scorching sun. For another five days they did not
have a morsel of bread, nor even a drop of water. They were scorched
to death by thirst. Hundreds upon hundreds fell dead on the way,
their tongues were turned to charcoal, and when, at the end of the
five days, they reached a fountain, the whole convoy naturally
rushed towards it. But here the policemen barred the way and forbade
them to take a single drop of water. Their purpose was to sell it at
from one to three liras the cup, and sometimes they actually
withheld the water after getting the money. At another place, where
there were wells, some women threw themselves into them, as there
was no rope or pail to draw up the water. These women were drowned,
and, in spite of that, the rest of the people drank from that well,
the dead bodies still remaining there and stinking in the water.
Sometimes, when the wells were shallow and the women could go down
into them and come out again, the other people would rush to lick or
suck their wet, dirty clothes, in the effort to quench their thirst.
When they passed an Arab village in their naked condition, the Arabs
pitied them and gave them old pieces of clothes to cover themselves
with. Some of the exiles who still had money bought some clothes;
but some still remained who travelled thus naked all the way to the
city of Aleppo. The poor women could hardly walk for shame; they
walked all bent double.
Even in their nakedness they had found some means of preserving the
little money they had. Some kept it in their hair, some in their
mouths and some in their wombs; and when the robbers attacked them
some were clever enough to search for money in those secret places,
and that in a very beastly manner, of course.
On the sixtieth day, when they reached Viran Shehr, only 300 exiles
remained out of all the 18,000. On the sixty-fourth day they
gathered together all the men and the sick women and children and
burned and killed them all. The remainder were ordered to continue
on their way. In one day’s journey they reached Ras-ul-Ain, where
for two days, for the first time since they started, the Government
gave them bread. The bread was uneatable, but for the three
succeeding days they did not have even that.
Here a Circassian persuaded the wife of the Pastor of Sivas, as well
as some other women, with their children, to go with him to the
station, promising to send them to Aleppo by train. In spite of all
the warnings of their friends, these women followed the man, as they
and their children were no longer capable of finishing the journey
on foot. The man took them in the opposite direction from the
station, explaining that he would borrow money from his friend, near
by, for the tickets; but after a short time he came back to where
the convoy was halted. The women and their children were no more.
The governor of the place demanded three liras for himself and one
lira for the railway ticket from each of them, before he would let
them go by train.
On the seventieth day, when they reached Aleppo, 35 women and
children were left out of the 3,000 exiles from H., and 150 women
and children altogether out of the whole convoy of 18,000.
-----
Footnote 86:
Name of author withheld.
Footnote 87:
July?—EDITOR.
Footnote 88:
See Doc. 78.
67. H.: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN REFUGEE FROM H.; COMMUNICATED TO
LORD BRYCE BY THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT
BUKAREST.
Much has been written in the Press about the Armenian massacres, and
especially about the horrors of the wholesale deportations, by which
the Armenians were forcibly removed from their native homes. At the
same time no precise or concrete description has yet been given of
the monstrous excesses of which the Armenian nation has been the
victim. But a young Armenian, an eye-witness who escaped by a
miracle from the atrocious butchery at H., has related to us in all
their appalling detail the events that took place at this town. His
narrative gives a clear idea of the enormity and the ignoble cruelty
of the crime committed, not only at H., but in all the other
provinces of Armenia. We can easily discern from these facts the
criminal tactics of the Young Turkish Government.
“At H.,” says this witness, “the deportation of the Armenians lasted
three months. In June the most prominent members of the
Dashnaktzoutioun Committee were arrested, including Messrs. DE.,
DE., DG., DH., and DJ., as well as various others. They were
subjected to unheard-of tortures, to extract from them supposed
secrets concerning the alleged project of an Armenian revolution. No
result was obtained from this inquisition.
“The Armenian population was simple enough to believe that this
harsh persecution was only directed against the members of the
Dashnaktzoutioun Committee, and it therefore displayed no uneasiness
on its own account. But shortly afterwards the arrests were extended
in scope and began to assume formidable proportions. All the
Armenian young men in the town were arrested and terrorised by
infernal torments. About 13,000 Armenian soldiers, too, who were
serving among the Ottoman troops at H., were stripped of their arms
and transferred to the “Red Palace” at G. They were kept there under
stringent guard, and hunger and thirst were left to do their work
upon them. The friends and relations of the prisoners were
rigorously debarred from any communication with them. A week later
all the prisoners were brought out again and despatched to an
unknown destination, under a strong escort of gendarmerie with fixed
bayonets. They were told that they were going to be transported to
Ourfa, to work on the roads and lines of communication, but when
they reached BP. Han, near BQ. village, they were all shot and their
corpses shovelled into a great trench, which had been specially
prepared for them. The majority of the young Armenians who were
treated in this way were pupils of the American College, the French
College, and the Central Armenian School. Other prisoners were
subsequently led away in the same direction in gangs of five and
shot. Twenty of these unfortunates succeeded by a miracle in
escaping, and have related the details of this awful butchery.
“Next came the turn of the imprisoned members of the
Dashnaktzoutioun Committee; but they had guessed the fate that was
awaiting them and offered a desperate resistance, which ended in
their setting fire to the building in which they were confined,
since they preferred being burnt alive to becoming the prey of
Turkish barbarity. (There were from twenty-five to thirty of these
Dashnakists, but the young refugee was ignorant of their names, with
the exception of those which we have mentioned above.)
“In July all Armenian families of any standing in G. were compelled
to emigrate. The arrests of the young men had been effected at night
time, but the deportation of these wealthy families was carried out
in full daylight.
“These exiles from G. were taken to the villages of AN. and AO. On
their way they were overtaken by a gendarme riding post-haste with
an order from the Vali, which directed the return of a score of
individuals among the party. These individuals were taken a distance
of twenty kilometres and then slaughtered without pity, like cattle,
on the banks of a river and their corpses thrown into the water. As
for the rest, the men were separated from the women and cruelly
murdered by blows of the axe. The women and girls were carried off
by the Kurds and Turks.
“This was followed by the general deportation. The people were
deported in several convoys, and in different directions. These
convoys were massacred openly and without discrimination, some below
the hill of AU., others on the summit of BR. Hill and on Mount BS.
“A few men and women in the service of the Turkish and Kurdish beys
were allowed to live until the end of the harvest. The compulsory
emigration was even forced upon Armenians who had been converts to
Islam since the massacres of 1895. These were deported in October.
“All the professors and schoolmasters were also imprisoned and
subsequently assassinated, at the same time as the young men. Those,
however, who were connected with German institutions were happily
excepted.
“The American Consul did not see fit to intervene in favour of these
unfortunates—not even when they were American citizens. We do not
know the motive of this passive attitude of his.
“Out of a numerous convoy of exiles from Erzeroum and Erzindjan,
nothing but a handful of women and children succeeded in reaching
H., after abandoning on their way many of their number who could no
longer bear up against the misery and starvation. Those who have
reached H. are in an absolutely deplorable condition. They hardly
look like human beings, and roam about the streets seeking for a
morsel of dry bread, until they fall fainting from exhaustion and
are picked up next day half dead by the municipal scavenger carts.
These scenes are repeated daily.
“The massacre of the entire population of the Province of Sivas has
been effected in the same fashion. Everywhere one passes corpses
lying unburied in the open. On my journey I saw heart-rending
incidents—women in their last agony lying on the ground with their
sucklings, already dead, beside them.
“The Turkish and Kurdish villages are full of Armenian women and
girls. Some of the villagers have taken possession of dozens of
them. Eimen, the head of the ‘German Oriental Mission,’ remarks, as
if that completely justified everything, that now the Armenians will
realise for the future the serious consequences of conspiring
against Germany and her Allies. A considerable number of Armenians
from H. and the neighbourhood have taken refuge among the mountains
of Dersim, where the native Kurdish mountaineers have offered them
generous hospitality.”
Another Armenian, who succeeded in escaping from Der-el-Zor, in
Arabia, describes the miseries endured there by the Armenian women.
They are not only suffering from the ravages of disease, but from
the lawlessness of the Arabs, who come again and again to snatch
victims for their bestial lust.
68. MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN LADY DEPORTED FROM C.
(A PLACE HALF-AN-HOUR’S DISTANCE FROM H.), DESCRIBING HER
JOURNEY FROM C. TO RAS-UL-AIN; WRITTEN AFTER HER ESCAPE FROM
TURKEY, AND DATED ALEXANDRIA, 2nd NOVEMBER, 1915; PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG” OF NEW YORK. 8th JANUARY, 1916.
Shortly after last Easter (1915), the Turkish officials searched the
Armenian churches and schools of G., H., C., AQ., AR., AS. and the
surrounding villages, but without finding anything incriminating.
Afterwards they took the keys of these buildings, and filled them
with soldiers. They also searched private houses on the pretence of
looking for arms and ammunition, but they did not find anything.
After that the Town Crier announced that all arms were to be handed
over to the Government, and by this means a number of arms were
collected.
After that, they arrested from the town of C. the following persons:
Professor B., Mr. H. and his brother J., Mr. O. and his son P., Mr.
Q., the brothers R., the brothers S., and T. Effendi, as well as
many others, old and young. They took them to the house of V. Agha,
stripped them one by one and gave them 300 lashes on their backs.
When they fainted, they threw them into a stable and waited until
they had revived, in order to beat them again. The men who performed
these cruel acts consisted of the following Turks: Commissary
(Gendarme) W. Effendi the son of Commissary X., V. Agha, V.’s cousin
Y., Z. Agha, Hadji CA. Bey the son of CB. Effendi, CD., and CE. the
son of V. Agha. Among the Kurds implicated were the son of CF., CG.,
etc. The above-mentioned CF.’s son and another Kurd beat Mr. CH.
until he was half dead.
After beating T. Effendi in H., and tearing out his finger nails and
the flesh of his hands and feet, they put a rope under his arms,
dragged him to C., and threw him into prison. Then they entered his
house, and, on the pretence of searching it, made his wife, who was
in indifferent health, lie on the ground; a soldier sat on her, and
they began to beat her on her feet, asking her where they had hidden
their arms. After a few days her husband died in the prison.
In C. they beat many young men to get their arms, so that they were
obliged to buy arms from the Turks and give them to the
Government[89].
When the Government was convinced that they had no more arms to
surrender, they stopped tormenting them; but after a few days’
interval they took the young men to G., imprisoned them there for a
time, and then deported them in May. Meanwhile the women of C. went
to the German missionary, Dr. U., at G. and begged him to defend
them. Dr. U. came to C. and spoke in a church; he advised the
Armenians to trust the Turks absolutely.
When I was in C. I heard that in H. they had beaten CI. Agha, who
subsequently disappeared.
They plucked out the hair and nails of some of the professors. They
dug out their eyes and branded them with red hot irons, so that some
of them died immediately, and others first lost their reason and
died thereafter.
The Bishop of H., CJ., and other prominent Armenians were imprisoned
and suffered many cruelties.
On Friday, the 2nd July, they deported part of the Armenians of G.
Their destination appeared to be Ourfa _via_ Diyarbekir.
On Saturday, the 3rd July, they deported all Armenians domiciled in
the houses belonging to CL. in A. Street, in the town of G. Again
their destination was supposed to be Ourfa, but _via_ Malatia in
this case.
We ourselves were deported on the 4th July in the direction of Ourfa
_via_ Diyarbekir.
The Town Crier proclaimed that on the following Tuesday those from
B. and C. Streets in the Town of H. would be deported, on Wednesday
the Armenians from AQ., on Thursday those from AR., and so on.
CJ. and two hundred other Armenians were deported ten days before we
were, that is on Wednesday, the 23rd June; we do not know their
destination. Their party started at midnight. Some of them dropped
cards asking for money, and at AT. money was conveyed to them. But
the following Monday, the 28th June, when the Armenian women of AT.
went to the river, they saw some Turkish women washing blood-stained
clothes. The Armenian women took the clothes from the Turkish women
and brought them to the Governor at G. The Governor on hearing this
went to AT. and found that the Bishop and the 200 Armenians had been
killed.
Up to the day we started, the Syrians had not yet been deported, and
the women who had no husbands were also allowed to remain, but later
on CK. Aghassi said that not a single Armenian would be left. After
the Armenians were deported, the Government locked their houses and
sealed them up. The men of CL.’s factory were also deported with
their families. In C. some of the tradesmen were not deported, as,
for example, CM. Agha the son of CN. Agha, the baker CO. and his
family, and the two brothers, CP. and CQ. Aghas, the sons of Q.
Agha. CQ. Agha became a Moslem, while the father was deported with
the Bishop.
All the people of C. started the same day. I think we were about 600
families. We had with us all our cattle and all our property. The
first night we reached AU. and slept that night in the fields. The
next day we passed many corpses heaped together under bridges and on
the road; their blood had collected in pools. Probably these were
the Armenians that were killed with the Bishop, for the corpses were
all those of men. We spent the night near AV. in a valley, and that
night we had to drink water polluted with blood. We promised our
guards money if they took us a better road and gave us clean water.
The third day they again made us travel past corpses, and on
Wednesday we reached A.
The same morning the gendarmes that were accompanying us, W. Effendi
and the other Turkish effendis that were with him, put down their
chairs in front of our han, and sat down. Then they turned to us and
told us that they had received telegrams from H., and that instead
of going to Ourfa some of us would go to Yermag and the rest to
Severeg, so that our journey would thus be shortened. “Only it is
necessary,” they added, “that your men should come and register
themselves at the han at A., and state which way they would like to
go. Thank the Sultan, who has made your journey shorter.” After
these words they all clapped their hands and forced us to do the
same. Our men, being simple-minded, were deceived, and they even
left their hats and coats to go to the han in question. None of
those that went returned. Then the rest of those above 16 years of
age and all the old men were arrested and taken to the same place.
After this the gendarmes beat the women and forced them to continue
their journey. The women said: “We will not go unless our men go
with us. You may kill us if you want to.” But the Turkish officials
told us that our men would follow us in a little while, and forced
the women and children to march on, so they marched on crying and
wailing. After half-an-hour’s journey they made us sit in the
fields, and all the Turkish officers returned to A. except one. The
same day some Arab women (that is, Armenian gipsies) brought us
bread, in spite of the officers’ efforts to prevent them, and when
they heard that we were crying because our men had been killed, they
told us that they had seen them all passing by roped together. Again
we went on under the hot burning sun, still crying. The sixth day
they made us stop in a Kurdish village, where we spent the night.
Next morning we saw that all the gendarmes that had returned to A.
had now rejoined the convoy.
Then Gendarme W. Effendi and the other Turks with him beat us and
forced us under threat of death to give them all our money and
ornaments. They said that, if we did not give them up, they would
violate us and exile us to different places. We were afraid, and
gave them everything we had. Then they gave us back from five
piastres (1Od.) to one medjidia (3s. 2d.) each, at the same time
stating that our money and everything else would be returned to us
at Diyarbekir, and that they had only taken our jewellery and money
for safety.
The ninth day, they took us to the top of a mountain, and the same
Effendi and the other gendarmes searched us all over in a shameful
manner; they took all the silk-stuffs and everything else of value
in our clothes and bedding. Half-an-hour later we reached a Kurdish
village. There I met a Turkish soldier from Malatia, called CR.,
whom I knew. He pitied me, and told me that it was all over with us.
“I would advise you,” he said, “to leave your company and look after
yourself.”
We were already within a short distance of Diyarbekir when two
soldiers came from the Governor, to find out where we had been
during the last nine days. Here the gendarmes that were with us took
away all our cows and cattle; they also kidnapped one woman and two
girls. Outside the walls of Diyarbekir, we had to sit in the burning
sun for 24 hours. That same day a number of Turks came from the city
and kidnapped our little girls. Towards evening again we went on,
still crying; more Turks came to carry off our girls and young
brides, and would not let us even open our mouths to protest. Then
we left all our cattle and everything we had, to save our honour and
our lives. It was already night when the Turks from Diyarbekir
attacked us three times and carried off the girls and young brides
who had fallen behind. After this we lost all sense of time. The
next morning again the gendarmes searched us all over, and then made
us march six hours. During these six hours we found no drinking
water, and many women sank on the way from thirst and hunger. The
third day after that they robbed us, and violated us near a place
where there was water. Some days after, two Turks dressed in white
coats followed us, and, every time they had a chance, carried off
still more of our girls. The wife of CS. Effendi from C. had three
daughters, one of whom was married. A coloured gendarme who was with
us wanted to take these girls. The mother resisted, and was thrown
over a bridge by one of the Turks. The poor woman broke her arm, but
her mule-driver dragged her up again. Again the same Turks threw her
down, with one of her daughters, from the top of the mountain. The
moment the married daughter saw her mother and sister thrown down,
she thrust the baby in her arms upon another woman, ran after them
crying “Mother, mother!” and threw herself down the same precipice.
Some said that one of the Turkish officers went down after them and
finished them off. After that Mrs. CS.’s remaining daughter and I
disguised ourselves, and, each taking a child in our arms, abandoned
everything and walked to Mardin. There our party joined us again. We
stayed there eight days. There was an artificial lake there, and
every night they opened the sluices and flooded the ground, so that
in the panic they might kidnap some of the girls. They also attacked
us every night and kidnapped little children. At last, one evening,
they drove us on again and left us among the mountains. They wounded
a woman because she did not wish to give up her daughter. When they
were going to carry off another girl, I asked CT. Tchaoush, a Mardin
man, to help us. He stopped them at once, and did not let them take
her away. He told us to stay there and not to start until further
notice. The Kurds from the surrounding villages attacked us that
night. CT. Tchaoush, who was in charge of us, immediately went up on
to the heights and harangued them in Kurdish, telling them not to
attack us. We were hungry and thirsty, and had no water to drink.
CT. took some of our vessels and brought us water from a long way
off. The wife of my brother-in-law, the tailor CU., had a baby born
that night. The next morning we started again. CT. left some women
with her and kept an eye on her from a distance. Then he put the
mother and the new-born child on a beast, and brought her to us in
safety. Again we marched six hours without water. Here a Turk
kidnapped the son of the woman who had been thrown down the mountain
side. Finally, in the last stages of hunger and exhaustion, we
reached Viran Shehr. Many had already been left on the road.
We had nothing more to eat until we reached Ras-ul-Ain. A fourth
part of our convoy had already perished of starvation. Just before
reaching Ras-ul-Ain we marched through the whole of one night. We
passed three wells choked with corpses up to the brim. The women
that went before us encountered three wounded women who crawled out
of these wells and asked for bread. These three women went on in our
company towards Ras-ul-Ain. Two of them died on the way, and the
third was sent to Der-el-Zor with the convoy. It was here that CV.,
the sister of CW., a girl about 18 or 19 years old, fell down
because she could not walk any further. Her mother and sister-in-law
kissed her, crying, and left her. We were forced to leave her by
herself, because the soldiers would not let any one stay behind with
her.
We did not see a single Armenian until we reached Ras-ul-Ain. There
we found many deported Armenians who had come from Erzeroum, Egin,
Keghi, and other places. They were all on their way to Der-el-Zor.
At Ras-ul-Ain we suddenly met CX. Agha of H. He had come from Aleppo
to help us. He wanted to save at least a few of the party and take
them to Aleppo. He advised us to go to the house of CY. Bey, a
Circassian, or to the house of his son-in-law, so that he might
convey us into safety from there. At Ras-ul-Ain a great many of the
Armenians found refuge in the houses of some Tchetchens (a tribe
akin to the Circassians), but afterwards the Government removed them
all from the Tchetchens’ houses to deport them to Der-el-Zor. Only
my batch, consisting of forty-one people, were left in the house of
this CY. Bey, and we were safe here because the Bey and his friends
were Government people. The first moment that we saw CX. Agha we
thought we had seen an angel from Heaven, and cried to him: “CX.
Agha, save us.” When the Tchetchens heard his name, they discovered
that he was an Armenian, and immediately attacked him. He was almost
killed, but withstood them by his bravery and address; he told them
that he had been sent there specially by the Government, and turning
immediately to us, he gave us to understand that those who went to
CY. Bey’s house would be saved.
CX. Agha took the next train and returned to Aleppo. He tried every
means to save us, and after fifteen days he came back. The
Circassians (or Tchetchens) endeavoured to force us to become
Moslems, but we answered them: “We will throw ourselves into the
water and die, but we will not become Moslems.” The Tchetchens were
surprised at these words, and said they had never seen people like
this, so zealous for their honour and their religion and so devoted
to each other. CX. Agha found this out and went to the chief of the
Tchetchens; he bribed him, and then, with superb courage, conducted
us to the railway one by one, the station being about two miles from
where we were. It was Saturday evening when we reached Aleppo. Here
for the first time we met some Armenian soldiers, who were almost
crazy with joy when they saw us. We could hardly believe they were
Armenians, until CX. Agha’s father came after dark with some of
these soldiers, carrying no lights, and took us to the Armenian
Church. There they told us that if the Government should discover us
and inquire how we came, we were to tell them that we had travelled
at our own expense. They immediately brought us bread; we had not
eaten anything for twenty-four hours. There were a number of
deported Armenians in the Church; they came from different places
and had been travelling for four months. They were so exhausted that
about forty of them were dying every day. The priest who performed
the ceremony could not drag himself home. From the deported
Armenians in Aleppo we learned that the husbands of many of the
women had been roped together and taken to Sheitan Deressi (Devil’s
Valley)[90], where they were slaughtered with axes and knives. Here
we gave up all hope of seeing our husbands again, being convinced
that they were all killed. We heard that in some places they made
the Armenians dig their own graves before they killed them. An
Armenian soldier from Tchemesh-Getzak told me that the Turks were
killing the Armenians and throwing them into the Euphrates, when six
of them managed to cross the river and get away, after three days’
journey through country littered with corpses.
On Sunday morning I went to see the American Consul at Aleppo, and
asked him to save me, as I was an American citizen. He asked me
where my papers were. I told him they were taken from me on the way;
I told him all the circumstances, and he promised to help me. I went
to him again the next day and told him how my parents were American
citizens, and my husband also, and how my husband had lived in
America for 18 years; I told him he could prove it by asking the
American Consul at H. or even the Washington Government. After five
days had passed, he sent for me and made me tell my story in the
Turkish language. He put my name in his book, and placed me in his
kavass’s house. Then he gave me a passport and sent me to
Alexandretta in the company of some Russian subjects. We stayed
fifteen days in Alexandretta. From there we reached Alexandria on
board the American cruiser “Chester,” on the 22nd September, 1915.
While I was in Ras-ul-Ain, we saw some Armenian girls in the houses
of some Tchetchens. One of them was married to one of the
Tchetchens. They begged us not to forget them if we were ever saved.
J. Agha’s wife and children reached Ras-ul-Ain. A Kurd came and said
to them: “I am from the village of Karer; you come with me, and I
will take you to Karer until the end of the war.” They believed him,
and went to his house. Afterwards CX. Agha tried to save them, but
they had already gone. H. Agha’s wife and three daughters went to
Der-el-Zor.
The Turkish Government did not provide any food for us on the way;
one day only, at Diyarbekir, they gave us one loaf each, and again
for about eight days at Mardin, but the bread was so hard that it
cut our mouths. The son of Prof. B., his married daughter, and his
future daughter-in-law, as well as the wife and two daughters of Mr.
CZ., reached Aleppo in safety. CC. Agha’s daughter and his little
boy were kidnapped by the Turks. Only two of the boys were left with
the mother, who reached Aleppo safely. Besides the gendarmes,
Kurdish irregulars also followed us on the way, to kill those that
were left behind. The clothes of those who underwent this
deportation were all rotted by the end of the journey, and the
exiles themselves had almost lost their reason. When they were given
new clothes they did not know how to put them on, and when their
hair was washed it came off bodily from their scalps.
69. H.: STATEMENT BY THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE, DATED 19th JULY,
1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
I shall try to banish from my mind for the time the sense of great
personal sorrow at losing hundreds of my friends here, and also my
sense of utter defeat in being so unable to stop the awful tragedy
or even mitigate to any degree its severity, and compel myself to
give you concisely some of the cold facts of the past months, as
they relate themselves to the College. I do so with the hope that
the possession of these concrete facts may help you to do something
there for the handful of dependants still left to us here.
_Building.s_—Seven of our big buildings are in the hands of the
Government, only one remaining in our hands. The seven buildings in
question are empty, except for twenty guards who are stationed
there. I cannot tell you exactly the amount of loss we have
sustained in money by robberies, breakages and other means, and
there is no sign that the Turks will ever return these buildings to
us.
_Constituency._—Approximately two-thirds of the girl pupils and
six-sevenths of the boys have been taken away to death, exile or
Moslem homes.
_Professors._—Four gone, three left, as follows:—
Professor A.—Served College 35 years; representative of the
Americans with the Government, Protestant “Askabed,” Professor of
Turkish and History. Besides previous trouble, arrested May 1st
without charge; hair of head, moustache and beard pulled out, in
vain effort to secure damaging confessions; starved and hung by arms
for a day and a night, and severely beaten several times; taken out
towards Diyarbekir about June 20th, and murdered in general massacre
on the road.
Professor B.—Served College 33 years, studied at Ann Arbor,
Professor of Mathematics. Arrested about June 5th, and shared Prof.
A.’s fate on the road.
Professor C.—Taken to witness a man beaten almost to death; became
mentally deranged; started with his family about July 5th into exile
under guard, and murdered beyond Malatia. Principal of Preparatory
Department; studied at Princeton; served College 20 years.
Professor D.—Served College 16 years, studied at Edinburgh;
Professor of Mental and Moral Science. Arrested with Prof. A. and
suffered same tortures; also had three finger nails pulled out by
the roots; killed in same massacre.
Professor E.—Served College 25 years. Arrested May 1st; not
tortured, but sick in prison; sent to Red Crescent Hospital, and
after paying large bribes is now free.
Professor F.—Served College for over 15 years, studied in Stuttgart
and Berlin, Professor of Music. Escaped arrest and torture, and thus
far escaped exile and death, because of favour with the Kaimakam
secured by personal services rendered.
Professor G.—Served College about 15 years, studied at Cornell and
Yale (M.S.), Professor of Biology. Arrested about June 5th, beaten
about the hands, body and head with a stick by the Kaimakam himself,
who, when tired, called on all who loved religion and the nation to
continue the beating; after a period of insensibility in a dark
closet, taken to the Red Crescent Hospital with a broken finger and
serious bruises. Now free.
_Instructors, Male._—Four reported killed on the road in various
massacres, whose average term of service is eight years.
Three not heard from, probably killed on the road; average term of
service in the College, four years.
Two sick in the American Hospital.
One elsewhere.
One, engaged in cabinet work for the Kaimakam, free.
One, owner of house occupied by the Kaimakam, free.
_Instructors, Female._—One reported killed in F.; served the College
over 20 years.
One reported taken to a Turkish harem.
Three not heard from.
Four started out as exiles.
Ten free.
_Total Loss._—About seven-eighths of the buildings, three-quarters
of the students, and half the teaching staff.
Of the Armenian people as a whole we may estimate that three-fourths
are gone, and this three-fourths includes the leaders in every walk
of life—merchants, professional men, preachers, bishops and
government officials. And there is no certainty for those who are
just now free. The Vali has said that _all_ must go. It is only
temporary measures, such as bribes or special favours, that have
secured postponement. Since we know the fate to which they go, since
we have seen the pitiable plight of the stragglers who have survived
the journey from Erzindjan and Erzeroum, since we find ourselves
forbidden to aid them except in insignificant ways, and since we are
forbidden to accompany them to aid them on the way, we are the more
eager, if possible, to save those who are left with us.
It seems to us possible that something can be done to save these
few. Permission has recently been obtained through the German
Embassy for those connected with the German Mission, teachers and
their families, orphans and servants, a circle of several hundred,
to remain in G. I therefore beg of you to take what steps are
possible to secure the permission through our Ambassador for the
handful of dependants still with us to remain in H.
If such permission is not secured, we shall probably be called upon
to see the very members of our households dragged off to decorate
the harems of those who have not as yet secured as many girl slaves
as they wish. Nothing can be done locally. The Kaimakam and his
coterie in H. are more powerful here than the Vali, and take
pleasure in flaunting our impotence in our faces.
I have said enough. Our hearts are sick with these sights and
stories of abject terror and suffering. The extermination of the
race seems to be the objective, and the means employed are more
fiendish than could be concocted locally. The orders are from
headquarters, and any reprieve must be from the same source.
70. H.: STATEMENT BY THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE, DATED 19th JULY,
1915, RELATING TO THE DEPORTATION OF ARMENIANS FROM VILLAGES IN
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF H.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE
FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
From the village of E., 212 individuals set out, of whom 128 (60 per
cent.) reached Aleppo alive; 56 men and 11 women were killed on the
road, 3 girls and 9 boys were sold or kidnapped, and 5 people were
missing.
From the same place another party of 696 people were deported; 321
(46 per cent.) reached Aleppo; 206 men and 57 women were killed en
route; 70 girls and young women and 19 boys were sold; 23 were
missing.
From the village of D. a party of 128 were deported, of whom 32 (25
per cent.) reached Aleppo alive; 24 men and 12 women were killed en
route; 29 girls and young women and 13 boys were sold; and 18 were
missing.
71. H.: LETTER DATED 10th NOVEMBER, 1915, FROM THE PRINCIPAL OF THE
COLLEGE AT H. TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The difficulty of securing local permission to start out for
America, as well as the scarcity of wagons, has delayed our party
for some days. We have been grateful, in the meantime, that we have
heard from you approving our plans. We hope to start in a day or
two. We do not anticipate the journey with relish, but we feel that
it will be better to go now than to wait. I am apprehensive for
those who stay, though nothing definite threatens citizens of our
country at present.
Following your circulars of information as to the attitude of the
authorities at the capital, we opened our girls’ department two
weeks ago, and planned soon to open the boys’ department also. The
registration of the girls reached about 150, of which number about
one-third are in the kindergarten. More than another third are
boarders, mostly those who have been with us from the time school
closed. There are very few day-pupils above primary age.
Last Thursday afternoon, the 4th November, a raid was suddenly made
on the Armenian population. Men, women and children were arrested
that afternoon in G. and taken to the police station. The next
morning the same thing occurred here in H. Most of those arrested in
H. were women and children, and they were nearly all of them
released the same day, when they showed their papers. In G.,
however, many were kept over a day or two and then sent off on the
road, probably to be butchered as other parties had been. The season
is now so late that it is preposterous to suppose a safe journey to
be possible when the exiles are allowed no preparation whatever. By
far the largest number sent off seem to have been from the villages,
where the people were pretty well cleared out. Estimates run as high
as a thousand for those who were sent off in one night.
The panic resulting from this wholly unexpected raid can hardly be
pictured. Those pupils who were coming to us from outside have
stopped coming pretty largely, and many advise us to close the
school. Those exiles who had managed in various ways to escape from
the convoys and had settled down to normal life, are now plunged in
terror. We have had to guard our gates and walls to prevent the
public from pouring in on us.
During this recent event the Government has turned its attention to
us once more. On Friday the police came, with a sufficient force, to
arrest all the men on our premises. They were polite, but expressed
the belief that we were hiding many. I went with the handful of men
and boys available, and the next day my brother presented those who
were not in evidence that day, and they were all sent back to our
premises safely. The Commandant personally asked the Consul to write
to us and warn us against harbouring any fugitives in our grounds.
We assured him that it had been our settled policy all along to
refuse such requests, and that we had no such persons with us. The
Kaimakam refused to believe that we had no fugitives with us, but I
think he has been persuaded more or less of the truth of this. Two
of our teachers, who live in their own houses off from our compound,
did not appear on Friday before the police. Afterwards, when they
found that the others had been released, they also appeared. They
were then put in prison, where they still remain. One of them, I
hope, will soon be released, but I have fears for the other, because
he was so intimately connected with the former Kaimakam, and there
seems to be evidence against him that he was a tool in securing
bribes for the said Kaimakam—of course under fear of death.
We have had frequent interviews with the Kaimakam and the
Commandant, who is _locum tenens_ for the Vali at present. Both of
them have been courteous, and assure us that there are no further
measures in store for those who have been allowed to stay by order
of the Government. But our faith in such promises has been sadly
shaken this summer. At two different times the Kaimakam has said
that Armenian was no more to be taught in our schools. We have
expressed our desire to make the language of the school English, and
have assured him that we are working to that end.
As I wrote to you, our curriculum has been submitted to the Mearif,
and has been largely approved verbally. We are still in
correspondence over some minor details regarding texts. We shall not
be able to open work for the few boys who are available at the
present, and I confess my deep apprehension lest they and their male
teachers should all be rounded up, to go the same road that their
comrades followed in July.
It is hard for us to leave just at this juncture. Yet there seems no
advantage in our staying compared with the difficulties of leaving
later. We shall try to keep you informed of our curriculum.
VIII.
VILAYET OF TREBIZOND, AND SANDJAK OF
SHABIN KARA-HISSAR.
_The Vilayet of Trebizond lies between Erzeroum and the Black Sea,
and consists of a long, narrow littoral, shut off from its
hinterland by a wall of mountains on the south. The town of Shabin
Kara-Hissar is situated about seventy miles west of Baibourt, near
the upper course of the Kelkid Irmak._
_The population of this region is very mixed. The substratum is
Lazic (a Caucasian race) and Greek; but advanced guards of the
Kurdish migration have penetrated into the mountains overlooking the
coast, while the towns and ports have been occupied, since the
Ottoman conquest in the fifteenth century, by large colonies of
Armenians and Turks, who lived there peaceably side by side for four
centuries—until June, 1915._
_The deportations began in the last week of that month. Their
nominal destination was the same as that of the convoys from the
Vilayet of Erzeroum, but in this case there seems never to have been
any intention of conducting the Armenians alive to their journey’s
end. At Trebizond, a number of them were herded on to boats and
drowned in the open sea. Such convoys as started by land were
massacred within a day’s journey of the city, and their fate was
shared by the convoys from Kerasond. The Armenians of Shabin
Kara-Hissar took warning, and resisted the Government’s decree.
Troops were sent against them, and every Armenian in the town and
district was put to the sword._
72. TREBIZOND: REPORT FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT TREBIZOND,
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
_Passages included between brackets are inserted from the version of
the same document published in the brochure “Quelques Documents sur
le Sort des Armeniens, 1915” (Geneva, 1915)._
On Saturday, the 26th June, the proclamation regarding the
deportation of all Armenians was posted in the streets. On Thursday,
the 1st July, all the streets were guarded by gendarmes with fixed
bayonets, and the work of driving the Armenians from their homes
began. Groups of men, women and children, with loads and bundles on
their backs, were collected in a short cross-street near my
residence, and when a hundred or so had been gathered, they were
driven past my residence on the road toward ——, in the heat and
dust, by gendarmes with fixed bayonets. They were held outside the
city until a group of about 2,000 had been collected, and then sent
on. Three such groups, making about 6,000 altogether, were sent from
here during the first three days; and smaller groups from —— and the
vicinity, sent later, amounted to about 4,000 more.
The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most
heart-rending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined
circles. Some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were
clergymen, merchants, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, tailors, and men
from every walk of life. The Governor-General told me that they were
allowed to make arrangements for carriages, but nobody seemed to be
making any arrangements. I know of one wealthy merchant, however,
who paid £15 Turkish (about £13 10s. sterling) for a carriage to
take himself and wife to ——, and when he arrived at the station
where they were being collected, at ——, about ten minutes’ distance
from the city, they were commanded by the gendarmes to leave the
carriage, which was sent back to the city.
The whole Mohammedan population knew that these people were to be
their prey from the beginning, and they were treated as criminals.
In the first place, from the date of the proclamation, the 25th
June, no Armenian was allowed to sell anything, and everybody was
forbidden, under penalty, to buy anything from them. How, then, were
they to provide funds for the journey? For six or eight months there
has been no business whatever in Trebizond, and people have been
eating up their capital. Why should they have been prohibited from
selling rugs or anything they had to sell, to secure the needed
money for the journey? Many persons who had goods which they could
have sold if they had been allowed to do so, were obliged to start
off on foot without funds and with what they could gather up from
their homes and carry on their backs. Such persons naturally soon
became so weak that they fell behind and were bayoneted and thrown
into the river, and their bodies floated down past Trebizond to the
sea, or lodged in the shallow river on rocks, where they remained
for ten or twelve days and putrefied, to the disgust of travellers
who were obliged to pass that way. I have talked with eye-witnesses,
who state that there were many naked bodies to be seen on snags in
the river fifteen days after the affair occurred, and that the smell
was something terrible.
On the 17th July, while I was out on a ride with a German resident,
we came across three Turks digging a grave in the sand for a naked
body which we saw in the river near by. The corpse looked as though
it had been in the water for ten days or more. The Turks said they
had just buried four more further up the river. Another Turk told us
that a body had floated down the river and out into the sea a few
moments before we arrived.
By the 6th July (Tuesday) all the Armenian houses in Trebizond,
about 1,000, had been emptied of their inhabitants and the people
sent off. There was no inquiry as to who were guilty or who were
innocent of any movement against the Government. If a person was an
Armenian, that was sufficient reason for his being treated as a
criminal and deported. At first all were to go except the sick, who
were taken to the municipal hospital until they were well enough to
go. Later, an exception was made for old men and women, pregnant
women, children, those in Government employment and members of the
Roman Catholic Church. Finally it was decided that the old men and
women and the Catholics must go too, and they were sent along
towards the last. A number of lighters have been loaded with people
at different times and sent off towards . It is
generally believed that such persons were drowned. During the early
days, before the deportation commenced, a large caique or lighter
was loaded with men supposed to be members of the Armenian
Committee, and sent off towards . Two days later, a Russian subject, who had been one of those who
started in the boat, returned overland to Trebizond, badly wounded
about the head and so crazy that he could not make himself
understood. All he could say was “Boom, boom.” He was arrested by
the authorities and taken to the municipal hospital, where he died
the following day. A Turk said that this boat was met not far from
Trebizond by another boat containing gendarmes, who proceeded to
kill all the men and throw them overboard. They thought they had
killed them all, but this Russian, who was big and powerful, was
only wounded and swam ashore unnoticed. A number of such caiques
have left Trebizond loaded with men, and usually they return empty
after a few hours.
Totz, a village about two hours from Trebizond, is inhabited by
Gregorian and Catholic Armenians and Turks. Here, according to a
reliable witness, a wealthy and influential Armenian, and his two sons were placed one behind the other and
shot through. Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance
from the village into a valley. [91] were first outraged by the officers of
the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose
of. According to this witness, a child was killed by beating its
brains out on a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single
person survived from this batch of forty-five.
The plan to save the children by placing them in schools or
orphanages in Trebizond, under the care of a committee organized and
supported by the Greek Archbishop, of which the Vali was president
and the Archbishop vice-president, with three Mohammedan and three
Christian members, has been abandoned, and the girls are now being
given exclusively to Mohammedan families and thus scattered[92]. The
suppression of the orphanages and the scattering of the children was
a great disappointment to us and to the Greek Archbishop, who had
worked hard for the plan and secured the support of the Vali; but
the local head of the Committee of Union and
Progress, who was opposed to the plan, succeeded in thwarting it
very quickly. Many of the boys appear to have been sent to ——, to be
distributed among the farmers. The best looking of the older girls,
who were retained as caretakers in these orphanages, are kept in
houses for the pleasure of members of the gang which seems to rule
affairs here. I hear on good authority that a member of the
Committee of Union and Progress here has ten of the handsomest girls
in a house in the central part of the city, for the use of himself
and his friends. Some of the younger girls have been taken into
respectable Mohammedan houses. Several of the former pupils of the
American Mission are now in Mohammedan homes near the Mission, and
have not been visited by but of course the majority
of them are not so fortunate.
The 1,000 Armenian houses are being emptied of furniture by the
police one after the other. The furniture, bedding and everything of
value is being stored in large buildings about the city. There is no
attempt at classification, and the idea of keeping the property in
“bales under the protection of the Government, to be returned to the
owners on their return,” is simply ridiculous. The goods are piled
in without any attempt at labelling or systematic storage. A crowd
of Turkish women and children follow the police about like a lot of
vultures, and seize anything they can lay their hands on, and when
the more valuable things are carried out of a house by the police,
they rush in and take the balance. I see this performance every day
with my own eyes. I suppose it will take several weeks to empty all
the houses, and then the Armenian shops and stores will be cleared
out. The commission which has this matter in hand is now talking of
selling this great collection of household goods and properties, in
order to pay the debts of the Armenians. The German Consul told me
that he did not believe the Armenians would be permitted to return
to Trebizond, even after the end of the war.
I have just been talking with a young man who has been performing
his military service on the “inshaat tabouri” (construction
regiment), working on the roads out toward Gumushkhané. He told me
that 15 days ago all the Armenians, about 180, were separated from
the other workmen, marched off some distance from the camp and shot.
He heard the report of the rifles and later was one of the number
sent to bury the bodies, which he stated were all naked, having been
stripped of clothing.
A number of bodies of women and children have lately been thrown up
by the sea upon the sandy beach below the walls of the Italian
Monastery here in Trebizond, and were buried by Greek women in the
sand where they were found.
-----
Footnote 89:
See Docs. 82, 94 and 122.
Footnote 90:
See Doc. 9, page 21.
Footnote 91:
“The women.”—_American version._
Footnote 92:
_The origination of this plan is recorded in an earlier (undated)
report from the same hand, from which the following sentences are
a quotation_:—
“The children attending the American school conducted by ——, also
those children left with them by persons being deported, have all
been taken and placed in a school organised by a local committee,
of which the Vali is president and the Greek Metropolitan
vice-president. Into this school all the Armenian children,
females up to fifteen years and males to ten years of age, are
being placed as soon as the parents are sent off. Children above
these ages go with their parents.”
73. TREBIZOND: EXTRACTS FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH COMM. G. GORRINI,
LATE ITALIAN CONSUL-GENERAL AT TREBIZOND[93]. OF ROME, 25th
AUGUST, 1915.
For over four years I was Consul-General at Trebizond, with
jurisdiction over practically the whole Black Sea littoral, from the
Russo-Turkish frontier to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, and
over five provinces in the interior of Asia Minor (Eastern Anatolia,
Armenia and Kurdistan)—districts chiefly inhabited by Turks,
Armenians and Kurds, with a considerable sprinkling of Persians,
Russians, Greeks and Arabs. For the last ten months, moreover, I had
also been responsible for the protection of the very numerous
Russian subjects and Russian interests, as well as the Greek and
Montenegrin, and also, to some extent, the French, the English, and
the American, with others of minor account....
As for the present internal condition of the Ottoman Empire, I can
only answer for my own district. In my district the present
condition of things is almost desperate. The population is showing
true Moslem resignation in the way it is bearing the existing
situation—the ruin and desolation of individuals and community, the
holocaust of all and everything for a war which no one desired, but
which was forced upon them by Enver Pasha, and which will lead to
the ruin and dismemberment of all that still remains of the Ottoman
Empire. But the Moslem and Christian populations can do nothing
more—they have reached the extreme limit of their effort. The oxygen
is being administered by the Germans, who are trying to prolong the
agony of the dying Empire, but will not be able to perform the
miracle of restoring life to a corpse. Apart from a few lunatics, a
speedy peace, even if it involves the foreign occupation of Ottoman
territory, is the prayer of all. There is no courage for a
rebellion. The Germans and the “Committee of Union and Progress” are
hated and detested by all, but only in the intimacy of the heart and
in confidential conversation, for the Germans and the Committee
constitute the one genuine, solid organisation at present existing
in Turkey—a masterly and most rigorous organisation, which does not
hesitate to use any weapon whatever; an organisation of audacity, of
terror, and of mysterious, ferocious revenge....
As for the Armenians, they were treated differently in the different
vilayets. They were suspect and spied upon everywhere, but they
suffered a real extermination, worse than massacre, in the so-called
“Armenian Vilayets.” There are seven of these, and five of them
(including the most important and most thickly populated) unhappily
for me formed part of my own Consular jurisdiction. These were the
Vilayets of Trebizond, Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis and Sivas.
In my district, from the 24th June onwards, the Armenians were all
“interned”—that is, ejected by force from their various residences
and despatched under the guard of the gendarmerie to distant,
unknown destinations, which for a few will mean the interior of
Mesopotamia, but for four-fifths of them has meant already a death
accompanied by unheard-of cruelties.
The official proclamation of internment came from Constantinople. It
is the work of the Central Government and the “Committee of Union
and Progress.” The local authorities, and indeed the Moslem
population in general, tried to resist, to mitigate it, to make
omissions, to hush it up. But the orders of the Central Government
were categorically confirmed, and all were compelled to resign
themselves and obey.
The Consular Body intervened, and attempted to save at least the
women and children. We did, in fact, secure numerous exemptions, but
these were not subsequently respected, owing to the interference of
the local branch of the “Union and Progress Committee” and to fresh
orders from Constantinople.
It was a real extermination and slaughter of the innocents, an
unheard-of thing, a black page stained with the flagrant violation
of the most sacred rights of humanity, of Christianity, of
nationality. The Armenian Catholics, too, who in the past had always
been respected and excepted from the massacres and persecutions,
were this time treated worse than any—again by the orders of the
Central Government. There were about 14,000 Armenians at
Trebizond—Gregorians, Catholics, and Protestants. They had never
caused disorders or given occasion for collective measures of
police. When I left Trebizond, not a hundred of them remained.
From the 24th June, the date of the publication of the infamous
decree, until the 23rd July, the date of my own departure from
Trebizond, I no longer slept or ate; I was given over to nerves and
nausea, so terrible was the torment of having to look on at the
wholesale execution of these defenceless, innocent creatures.
The passing of the gangs of Armenian exiles beneath the windows and
before the door of the Consulate; their prayers for help, when
neither I nor any other could do anything to answer them; the city
in a state of siege, guarded at every point by 15,000 troops in
complete war equipment, by thousands of police agents, by bands of
volunteers and by the members of the “Committee of Union and
Progress”; the lamentations, the tears, the abandonments, the
imprecations, the many suicides, the instantaneous deaths from sheer
terror, the sudden unhingeing of men’s reason, the conflagrations,
the shooting of victims in the city, the ruthless searches through
the houses and in the countryside; the hundreds of corpses found
every day along the exile road; the young women converted by force
to Islam or exiled like the rest; the children, torn away from their
families or from the Christian schools, and handed over by force to
Moslem families, or else placed by hundreds on board ship in nothing
but their shirts, and then capsized and drowned in the Black Sea and
the River Deyirmen Deré—these are my last ineffaceable memories of
Trebizond, memories which still, at a month’s distance, torment my
soul and almost drive me frantic. When one has had to look on for a
whole month at such horrors, at such protracted tortures, with
absolutely no power of acting as one longed to act, the question
naturally and spontaneously suggests itself, whether all the
cannibals and all the wild beasts in the world have not left their
hiding places and retreats, left the virgin forests of Africa, Asia,
America and Oceania, to make their rendezvous at Stamboul. I should
prefer to close our interview at this point, with the solemn
asseveration that this black page in Turkey’s history calls for the
most uncompromising reproach and for the vengeance of all
Christendom. If they knew all the things that I know, all that I
have had to see with my eyes and hear with my ears, all Christian
powers that are still neutral would be impelled to rise up against
Turkey and cry anathema against her inhuman Government and her
ferocious “Committee of Union and Progress,” and they would extend
the responsibility to Turkey’s Allies, who tolerate or even shield
with their strong arm these execrable crimes, which have not their
equal in history, either modern or ancient. Shame, horror and
disgrace!
74. TREBIZOND: NARRATIVE OF THE MONTENEGRIN KAVASS OF THE LOCAL
BRANCH OF THE OTTOMAN BANK, PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“AREV” OF ALEXANDRIA, 2nd OCTOBER, 1915.
The Kavass of the Local Branch of the Ottoman Bank at Trebizond, a
Montenegrin, who left Trebizond in Signor Gorrini’s company[94] and
is at the present moment in Cairo, has made the following statement
to Mr. Malezian, Secretary of the General Armenian Union of
Benevolence:—
“The very evening of the day on which the order arrived from
Constantinople, they threw into the sea about forty of the
intellectuals and the members of political parties, saying to them:
‘You are to be sent into exile by the sea route.’
“At the present moment there is not a single Armenian left at
Trebizond except two employees of the Ottoman Bank, who will also be
deported as soon as other persons arrive from Constantinople to take
their place.
“Children have been converted to Islam and handed over to Mohammedan
families. Those who cry and do not keep quiet have their throats
cut.
“After the Armenians had gone, their houses were confiscated.
“The whole thing was organized by the members of the Committee of
Union and Progress.
“The exiles were not allowed to take with them either money or
clothes or provisions. Five hundred Armenian soldiers were disarmed,
and then deported and massacred on the road. As for the other
exiles, they must have been massacred without exception, for the
news received from Djevizlik (a village six hours from Trebizond, on
the one and only road leading to Gumushkhané) makes it certain that
the exiles were seen passing that place in batches, while beyond
Djevizlik no one has seen them pass. At the same time, the river
Yel-Deyirmeni brought down every day to the sea a number of corpses,
mutilated and absolutely naked, the women with their breasts cut
off.”
-----
Footnote 93:
Signor Gorrini left Trebizond on the 23rd July, 1915, in the
interval between the Italian declarations of war against
Austria-Hungary and against Turkey. He hired an open motor-launch
with a Lazic skipper and crew, and took with him two servants and
the Montenegrin Kavass of the local branch of the Ottoman Bank.
The coastwise voyage from Trebizond to Constantinople took seven
days and nights. They touched at Kerasond, Samsoun, Sinope,
Ineboli, Kidros, Zonguldak, Zacharia, Chilé and Faro d’Anatolia,
without landing, however, at any of these places. From
Constantinople Signor Gorrini travelled via Dedeagatch and Palermo
to Rome, where he gave this interview to the representative of “Il
Messaggero.”
Footnote 94:
“I hired the motor launch for myself and three members of my
household, one of them a Montenegrin kavass who was under our
protection.—_The Italian Consul, Signor Gorrini, in the interview
published in the Rome journal “Il Messaggero,” 25th August, 1915._
75. KERASOND (KIRESOUN), TREBIZOND AND SHABIN KARA-HISSAR: EVIDENCE
COLLECTED BY AN ARMENIAN GENTLEMAN FROM EYE-WITNESSES NOW IN
ROUMANIA; COMMUNICATED BY THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON
“TIMES” AT BUKAREST.
_Kerasond._—Much has been written lately about the Armenian
massacres in Turkey, but it is only now that we are receiving more
precise and detailed information, from eye-witnesses who, by some
means or other, have escaped the scene of the most horrible
atrocities ever known in this world.
The atrocities of Kerasond are described by a prominent Greek of
that town, who succeeded in obtaining a passage on board a Greek
ship bound for Roumania with a cargo of nuts. On her voyage across
the Black Sea, this ship was met by two Russian torpedo boats, which
took on board the crew and this gentleman among them, sank the ship,
transported the crew to Sevastopol, and there set them free. This
gentleman had been an eye-witness of all that happened in Kerasond,
and he describes the atrocities as follows:—
“It is impossible to express in words the humiliations and
atrocities that the Armenians of Kerasond have had to undergo. One
morning the Government announced, through the public crier, that
every male Armenian, old or young, must immediately go to the
Government Building, where an important communication was to be made
to them. Those who neglected to comply with this order were
threatened with imprisonment. The Armenians obeyed, as there was no
alternative in a town where they were in minority; but as soon as
they had arrived at the Government Building, they were surrounded by
hundreds of gendarmes and driven straight to prison. At mid-day
their families, seeing that nobody returned, collected together and
went in a body to the Government Building. They demanded that their
husbands should be set free. The gendarmes replied with the bayonet,
and dispersed the crowd, while those who still insisted in their
protest were sent to join their husbands in prison. That night was
passed by the poor Armenians in the prison, while all night long
their families mourned and wept. I visited several Armenian
neighbours and tried to calm them, but they were all convinced that
they would never see their people again, as they had guessed
latterly, from the attitude of the Turks, that some plot was being
prepared against them. Next morning the prisoners were told that
they were to be exiled to Kara-Hissar (a town inland from Kerasond)
and that they were only to take with them provisions for five days.
Their wives were notified of this, and in the afternoon, under the
escort of hundreds of gendarmes, they were marched out of the prison
on to the road leading to Kara-Hissar, and divided up into several
separate batches. Several days passed, and then a few telegrams
reached various families, signed by their husbands or brothers and
announcing that they had arrived in safety at Kara-Hissar. But
unfortunately these telegrams were merely forged by the Government
in order to calm down those left behind, who had not yet ceased to
demand the return of their dear ones. Their true fate was very
different. A fortnight later, I met a friend who told me that he had
given protection to a young Armenian who had escaped from the party
of Armenians that were sent to Kara-Hissar, and that this young man
gave horrible descriptions of their experiences. I went to see this
young man at my friend’s house. He was an honest business man in the
town, so that I do not question for a moment the honesty of his
declaration in the present case, which he made to the following
effect:—
“Our party consisted of 350 men, mostly young fellows. The next day
after our departure from Kerasond, we reached a spot on the banks of
the River Kara Su. It was lunch time, and the gendarmes ordered us
to stop and eat. We had just begun to do so when guns were fired on
us from all sides, and I saw many fall dead. I was wounded myself in
the arm and collapsed on my side from the pain. The firing
continued, and I fainted. I only recovered consciousness to find
myself in the river with hundreds of dead bodies floating round me.
My wound did not prevent me from swimming, so that I struggled out
of the river, and at night-fall walked back to the town. I was
afraid to go to my family, so I asked shelter of my friend here; but
as my prolonged presence may bring him harm, I am going home
to-night.”
In fact, the Government had announced that any Turk or Greek giving
protection to an Armenian would be punished with death. So that
night the young man went to his house; but he was soon found out,
and under the pretext of sending him to hospital for his wound they
took him away and he has never been heard of since.
This was the end of the male population. The women were dealt with
in the same fashion. They were likewise herded by force into the
prison, and marched under escort in batches along the same road
leading to Kara-Hissar. They were not massacred, but treated with
extreme brutality and forced to walk for long hours, so that many
died of exhaustion, and many others committed suicide by throwing
themselves into the river with their children in their arms. Some
went mad through inability to endure the brutalities and
humiliations inflicted on them by the gendarmes and by the Turkish
villagers they met on the way. The small children under three years
of age were allowed to be carried along by their mothers, but the
children between the ages of three and fifteen, both girls and boys,
were all distributed among Mohammedan families, with instructions to
convert them to Islam. The Armenians’ houses were sealed with the
Government’s seal, but it is clear that they were first stripped of
their furniture and placed at the disposal of Turkish immigrants.
This is the tragic history of the extermination of the 3,000
Armenians of Kerasond.
One old Armenian only escaped death by embracing the Mohammedan
religion; but that only served to save his own life, as his son and
wife were sent off with the rest.
Kara-Hissar is a town three days inland from Kerasond, Kerasond
being its port. The Armenian population of this city, guessing the
intentions of the Turks, took up their arms and fled into the
mountains surrounding the town. The gendarmes and soldiers sent in
their pursuit had several encounters with them, but they failed
every time to drive them out of their mountain positions. In my
opinion their positions are good and can resist attacks, but their
supply of food may soon come to an end, and in their isolation they
may starve, if no help reaches them[95].
_Trebizond._—During the last massacres (1896) Trebizond suffered the
most, and this time also it has been the scene of the most fiendish
atrocities. These are described by a young Armenian girl who was an
eye-witness of them. She was saved through the protection of the
late Italian Consul at Trebizond, who was allowed to leave in a
motor boat for Constantinople[96], whence he went to Italy and sent
this girl to some relatives of hers in Roumania. She gives the
following account of her experiences:—
“In the morning my father, a Russian subject, was summoned by a
gendarme and taken away to the Government Building. A few hours
passed, and my mother went to find out what had happened to him. She
did not return either, and, being thus left alone in the house, I
went to our neighbour, the Italian Consul, and asked for his
protection. He immediately disguised me as a servant girl in the
Consulate. Every day I used to see hundreds of Armenians, men and
women in separate batches, passing our house under escort—mothers
carrying their children on one arm and a package of provisions on
the other. That was all they were allowed to take. The Kavass of the
Consulate used to come in every day and report to the Consul all
that was going on in the town. Business was at a standstill, all the
shops were closed, and you met nothing in the streets but Armenians
escorted by gendarmes. Many young girls were forced to marry
Mohammedans. All the children were collected and distributed to
Turkish families to be brought up, as Mohammedans. Several leading
Armenians committed suicide by throwing themselves down from the
windows of their houses. All the Armenians who were Russian subjects
(there were forty-five of them) were put on board a sailing ship
bound for Kerasond, but on the way they were thrown into the sea and
shot at by the gendarmes sent with them. This we verified later on,
when the Consul was allowed to leave Trebizond in a motor boat, in
which I accompanied him as servant girl. On the way a sailor on the
launch, in answer to a question from the Consul, said that he had
refused to take those forty-five Russian subjects in his sailing
boat because he knew what fate was marked out for them on the way;
and, in fact, when we arrived at Kerasond, we discovered that not
only had those forty-five people never arrived (though they were put
on board the boat under the pretext that they were to be exiled to
the districts inland from Kerasond), but that not a single Armenian
was left in the town itself. We were told the same thing all along
the coast—at Tireboli, Ordou, Samsoun, Ineboli, etc.[97] The wife of
the late Secretary of the British Consulate at Trebizond (himself a
British subject) was forced to marry a Turk; the rest of the
family—the Secretary, his brothers, his uncles, etc., who were all
British subjects too—were exiled to the interior of the country, and
nothing has been heard of them since. Many women have offered to
become Mohammedans but have been refused. Only one family in
Tireboli, called A., obtained leave to remain by turning
Mohammedan.”
This is confirmed by a telegram received lately by a gentleman in
Constantinople, who has business connections with the family in
question. The telegram was signed “A. Zadé Mehmed Sirry.”
The plan of the Government has been the same everywhere—to convert
the children to Islam, and to march the male and female population
under escort into the interior of the country, until the last of
them has dropped dead with exhaustion. As to their houses, the
furniture was distributed among the officers and soldiers. Pianos,
side-boards, and other objects too luxurious for soldiers’ houses
were sold by auction, where the best buyers, in many districts, were
Jews, who considered the price of 50 piastres too high for a piano,
and tried to buy them at 10-15 piastres. The houses thus emptied
were given over to Turkish immigrants or paupers. The copper kitchen
utensils, and, in fact, everything made of copper, were carefully
packed, and sent, by different means, to Constantinople, where the
Germans were anxiously waiting for them as their share of the
plunder.
It is only in Constantinople and Smyrna that the Armenians have not
been exiled; but that does not mean that they there escape their
share of the general misfortune. Most of the leading Armenians
there, including doctors, deputies, wholesale merchants,
journalists, etc., were exiled to the interior, and nothing has been
heard of them since. The requisitioning officer takes away anything
he finds in an Armenian shop, and many have thus been reduced to
closing their shops, having nothing left to sell. Only one man among
those deported from Constantinople was brought back, having
consented to become a Mohammedan. This is Mr. B. of the B. Bros.
firm, the largest export and import business in Constantinople. He
has been forced to pay £5,000 for the building of a Mosque in
Kaisaria, to build a Turkish school in Constantinople, to wear a
turban, and to pray seven times a day, as a proof of his sincere
devotion to his new religion.
-----
Footnote 95:
This was written before it was known that the Armenians of
Kara-Hissar had been overwhelmed by force and massacred to the
last woman and child, with their bishop at their head.—EDITOR.
Footnote 96:
“I hired the motor launch for myself and three members of my
household”.—_Signor Gorrini in the Rome journal “Il Messaggero,”
25th August, 1915._
Footnote 97:
“Of the 200 Armenian families at Ordou, 160 have embraced Islam,
under pressure of threats and violence. Of the 400 Armenian
families at Kerasond, 200 have embraced Islam to escape
persecution; the rest have been deported.”—_New York Journal
“Gotchnag,” 28th August, 1915._
76. TREBIZOND AND ERZEROUM: DESPATCH FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE
LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST, DATED BUKAREST, 18th MAY, AND
PUBLISHED ON THE 22nd MAY, 1916.
Since the entry of the Russian troops into Trebizond it has become
possible to lift the veil of mystery that has hitherto shrouded the
fate of the Armenian population in this prosperous port. The troops
on their arrival found all the Armenian houses plundered and for the
most part in ruins. Doors, windows, shutters, and all woodwork had
been carried away. There was no opposition on the part of the
authorities.
The deportation of the Armenians, which began in June, was carried
out here, as elsewhere, in accordance with instructions from
Constantinople. The leading families were the first to suffer. Some
300[98] of these received the order to prepare for emigration and
purchased a number of wagons for the transport of their property,
but four days after their departure all the wagons were brought back
to the town. The emigrants had been massacred and their property
plundered.
Other groups, each of several hundred families, followed. This
process went on for some time, but eventually new methods were
adopted. The police entered the houses of the remaining Armenians,
forcibly expelled them, drove them through the streets, and locked
up the houses. The whole Armenian population of Trebizond, numbering
some 10,000 souls, was thus exterminated. It is hoped, however, that
some hundreds of persons may yet be found hidden in the villages in
the neighbourhood.
At Erzeroum, where the Armenian population was considerably greater,
being estimated at 35,000, practically the same programme was
carried out. The proceedings, which began in the middle of May, were
inaugurated by the arrest and imprisonment of 400 young Armenians.
Many families, after being expelled from their houses, were kept
waiting for several days in the streets before being taken to their
fate. At the entrance to the town the processions of exiles
encountered tax-gatherers, who insisted on the payment of arrears of
taxation, although the unfortunate people had left all their
property behind them. Only a few artisans, who were required to work
for the Army, were allowed to remain in the town. By the beginning
of August the whole Armenian population had disappeared from
Erzeroum. Only the Bishop remained. On the 5th August two police
officers appeared at his house and communicated the order for
departure. The Bishop had taken precautions to secure some horses
for the transport of his effects, but these were now stolen. He
tried to purchase others, but at the last moment he was informed
that he was not allowed to take anything with him. He was then
removed to an unknown destination.
German officers stationed in the town and the German Consul
manifested open approval of these proceedings. Among the spoils
which fell to the Turks were several Armenian girls, and a share in
this living booty was conceded to the Germans.
-----
Footnote 98:
Including Muggerditch Zarmanian, a contractor employed by the
Ottoman Army.—_Information furnished to the writer by Armenian
refugees in Roumania._
IX.
SIVAS: THE CITY AND PARTS OF THE VILAYET.
_The Vilayet of Sivas lies immediately to the west of the Vilayet of
Erzeroum. It includes the upper basins of two rivers—the Kizil Irmak
(Halys), on the banks of which the City of Sivas itself is situated,
and the Yeshil Irmak, further towards the north-west and nearer the
Black Sea coast._
_The province is less mountainous and much richer than its eastern
neighbours. Agriculture is flourishing, the nomad shepherd is
comparatively rare, and there are a number of populous towns, with
the beginnings of local manufactures._
_The peasant population is predominantly Turkish, interspersed with
important Greek enclaves, which have held their own from the first
Seljuk invasions to the present day; but there are also a number of
Armenian villages, and the Armenians constitute—or constituted
before June, 1915—-about half the population of the towns. The
rising trade and industry was almost entirely the product of these
Armenians’ initiative, and they themselves had risen with it in
education and civilisation, till in all essentials they were on a
level with the corresponding commercial and professional classes in
Western Europe._
_This peaceful, progressive community was entirely uprooted by the
Deportation Decree. The villages were cleared in June; the City of
Sivas suffered its first deportation on the 5th July._
77. SIVAS: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT SIVAS, DATED 13th JULY,
1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
To begin with the all-important fact, which may have reached you by
now, the Armenians of the interior are being deported in the
direction of Mosul. At the time we left Sivas, two-thirds of them
had gone from the city, including all our Protestants, our teachers
and pupils, and all our side of the city. Those left were the orphan
girls and teachers and a few boarding girls, three nurses and two
orderlies in the hospital, D. Effendi and his family and a few women
servants. According to my best knowledge and opinion, with the
exception of Armenian soldiers and prisoners (all of whose families
have been sent) and a very few exceptions in the case of people who,
for various reasons, were necessary to the Government, all Armenians
are gone from Sivas. According to what I consider good authority, I
believe it to be true that the entire Armenian population from
Erzeroum to (and including) Gemerek, near Kaisaria, and from Samsoun
to (and including) Harpout has been deported. There is also a
movement in the central field which had not become general yet when
I left, but will doubtless become so later. More than 100,000 Greeks
from the Marmora and Mediterranean coast have been deported.
We heard many rumours of massacres, but I have no evidence on the
subject. To my knowledge, no general massacres have occurred in the
Sivas Vilayet. Not a few men have been killed in one way and
another.
This general movement against Armenians began months ago in arrests
for alleged revolutionary activity and in searches for guns and
bombs. In Sivas the winter passed rather quietly, and it was late
spring before much was done. About two months ago a general
endeavour was made to imprison all leading Armenians, and within a
week more than 1,000 were arrested. I estimate the whole number of
Sivas men in prison to be between 1,500 and 2,000. The only person
taken from our circle was H. Effendi, who was taken by name the
first day—not, we think, as from us, but as a resident in the city.
Strict orders were given not to molest us or our people, though all
our efforts to do anything for H. Effendi failed. Up to the time of
our departure from Sivas these men had been in prison a month. They
were well, and as comfortable as could be expected in a Turkish
prison; but no examinations had been held, no charges made, and no
one knew what was to be done. The Vali assured me again and again
that they would be released and sent with their families; but this
was not done for at least ten days after the deportation was begun,
and I have no confidence that it will be done at all. We could not
believe that this outrage would really take place, but when, on
Monday, hundreds of families were loaded on to ox-carts and sent
off, and our Protestant people were told that they were to start on
Wednesday, Miss Graffam said she was going to try to go with them,
and in this she succeeded. She bought a spring wagon, a common
wagon, eight ox-carts and six donkeys, so that our pupils and
teachers went by their own conveyance. The Government furnished on
an average an ox-cart to a family, but how far they went that way
and how soon they were obliged to walk we do not know.
The advice of the Vali was that the orphans should remain for the
present, and we have no idea what they will do to them in the end.
This was one of our motives in getting to Constantinople. I
represented to our friends there the fear we had that, after all the
others were gone, these girls might be forcibly taken from us and
put into Turkish families. I talked with Mr. N. about the
possibility of bringing them all out of the country. Mr. Morgenthau
promised to have strict orders sent to Sivas for their protection. I
presume you will hear from Mr. N. on the subject, if his letter gets
through. At the time we left Sivas the orphanage circle (female) was
complete with the exception of Miss O., who went with the
Protestants. I think they deemed it wise to keep as few teachers as
necessary. Miss P. and Miss Q. expect to go with them if they go,
and take care of them if they remain. We understand that, since we
left, the orphans have been moved up to the college building with
the ladies; probably the old building is vacant, and very likely
sealed by the Government to ensure its safety. The Y.’s are probably
sleeping in our house and going to the city for hospital work in the
daytime.
The only men besides Dr. Y. are G., our kavass, D. Effendi and two
or three orderlies in the hospital, of whom you will remember only
our old teacher, Z. Effendi, of Divrig. All the Protestants except
R. the Greek and his family, most of the boarders (boys and girls)
and all our teachers excepting H. Effendi, who was in prison, and
K., who is with us, went on the road together on Wednesday
afternoon, the 7th July. Six or eight of the larger boys ran away a
day or two before, and we got no word from them. S. Effendi and T.
Effendi went with their families, and the others—U., V., W. and
X.—went the same day.
After we had seen thousands of people start out, and especially
after ours had actually gone, we came to the conclusion that if
anything could be done to stop this terrible crime, which impresses
us as ten times worse than any massacre, it would be done in
Constantinople. Our work in Sivas seemed to be terminated, at least
for the present, and our furlough was due; so it was decided that
Dr. Y., because of his knowledge of Turkish and his medical work,
should remain, and that the rest of us should go. We had been
getting neither letters nor telegrams for some time, and I did not
believe that those we sent arrived. In Constantinople we found that
the whole plan of deportation originated from the Central
Government, and that no pressure from the Embassies had been able to
effect anything. Mr. N. felt that the most we could do now was to
work for raising relief funds for the Armenians, and, in view of the
uncertainty of travel from Constantinople to the border, he was
anxious for us to get out of the country as soon as possible. So we
started at once on receiving our passports.
We believe there is imminent danger of many of these people (whom we
estimate for the Sivas, Erzeroum and Harpout Vilayets to be 600,000)
starving to death on the road. They took food for a few days, but
did not dare take much money with them, as, if they did so, it is
doubtful whether they would be allowed to keep it. From Mr. N. we
understood that the Rockefeller Foundation people are in Geneva or
Berne, and we hope that everything possible will be done to make
them recommend relief appropriations at once. Mr. N. and our
Ambassador promised to do what they could, and gave me some hope
that some relief funds might be sent to Harpout at once. It is
questionable whether relief work will even be allowed, but it ought
to be undertaken if possible. We shall do all we can in the United
States, with the aid of the American Missions Board....
I started out from Sivas with several hundred addresses of people to
whom we promised to give word about their friends. Then there was my
own list of some 700 names of my constituency that I brought, but we
were obliged to leave them all in Constantinople. It was impossible
to carry out of Turkey a single address or a scrap of writing of any
kind. I bought an empty account book, and started a new travelling
expense account after crossing the border.
We met on the road near Talas the people of two villages journeying
on foot with less than a donkey to a family, no food or bedding,
hardly any men, and many of the women barefooted and carrying
children. A case in Sivas worthy of notice was that of T. Effendi’s
sister. Her husband had worked in our hospital as a soldier nurse
for many months. She contracted typhus, and was brought to our
hospital. Her mother, a woman of sixty to seventy, got up from a
sick-bed to go and take care of their seven children, the oldest of
whom was about twelve. A few days before the deportation, the
husband was imprisoned and exiled without examination or fault. When
the quarter in which they lived went off, the mother got out of bed
in the hospital and was put on an ox-cart to go with her children.
78. SIVAS: LETTER[99] WRITTEN FROM MALATIA BY MISS MARY L. GRAFFAM,
PRINCIPAL OF THE GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL AT SIVAS, TO A CORRESPONDENT
AT CONSTANTINOPLE; REPRINTED FROM THE BOSTON “MISSIONARY
HERALD,” DECEMBER, 1915.
When we were ready to leave Sivas, the Government gave forty-five
ox-carts for the Protestant townspeople and eighty horses, but none
at all for our pupils and teachers; so we bought ten ox-carts, two
horse arabas, and five or six donkeys, and started out. In the
company were all our teachers in the college, about twenty boys from
the college and about thirty of the girls’-school. It was as a
special favour to the Sivas people, who had not done anything
revolutionary, that the Vali allowed the men who were not yet in
prison to go with their families.
The first night we were so tired that we just ate a piece of bread
and slept on the ground wherever we could find a place to spread a
_yorgan_ (blanket). It was after dark when we stopped, anyway. We
were so near Sivas that the gendarmes protected us, and no special
harm was done; but the second night we began to see what was before
us. The gendarmes would go ahead and have long conversations with
the villagers, and then stand back and let them rob and trouble the
people until we all began to scream, and then they would come and
drive them away. _Yorgans_ and rugs, and all such things,
disappeared by the dozen, and donkeys were sure to be lost. Many had
brought cows; but from the first day those were carried off, one by
one, until not a single one remained.
We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new fear took
possession of us, and that was that the men were to be separated
from us at Kangal. We passed there at noon and, apart from fear,
nothing special happened. Our teacher from Mandjaluk was there, with
his mother and sisters. They had left the village with the rest of
the women and children, and when they saw that the men were being
taken off to be killed the teacher fled to another village, four
hours away, where he was found by the police and brought safely with
his family to Kangal, because the tchaoush who had taken them from
Mandjaluk wanted his sister. I found them confined in one room. I
went to the Kaimakam and got an order for them all to come with us.
At Kangal some Armenians had become Mohammedans, and had not left
the village, but the others were all gone. The night before we had
spent at Kazi Mahara, which was empty. They said that a valley near
there was full of corpses. At Kangal we also began to see exiles
from Tokat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart; they
were a company of old women, who had been robbed of absolutely
everything. At Tokat the Government had first imprisoned the men,
and from the prison had taken them on the road. The preacher’s wife
was in the company, and told us the story. After the men had gone,
they arrested the old women and the older brides, perhaps about
thirty or thirty-five years old. There were very few young women or
children. All the younger women and children were left in Tokat.
Badvelli Avedis has seven children; one was with our schoolgirls and
the other six remained in Tokat, without father or mother to look
after them. For three days these Tokat people had been without food,
and after that had lived on the Sivas company, who had not yet lost
much.
When we looked at them we could not imagine that even the sprinkling
of men that were with us would be allowed to remain. We did not long
remain in doubt; the next day we heard that a special kaimakam had
come to Hassan Tchelebi to separate the men, and it was with terror
in our hearts that we passed through that village about noon. But we
encamped and ate our supper in peace, and even began to think that
perhaps it was not so, when the Mudir came round with gendarmes and
began to collect the men, saying that the Kaimakam wanted to write
their names and that they would be back soon.
The night passed, and only one man came back to tell the story of
how every man was compelled to give up all his money, and all were
taken to prison. The next morning they collected the men who had
escaped the night before and extorted forty-five liras from our
company, on the promise that they would give us gendarmes to protect
us. One “company” is supposed to be from 1,000 to 3,000 persons.
Ours was perhaps 2,000, and the greatest number of gendarmes would
be five or six. In addition to these they sewed a red rag on the arm
of a Kurdish villager and gave him a gun, and he had the right to
rob and bully us all he pleased.
Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey. Our boys were not
touched, and two of our teachers being small escaped, and will be a
great help as long as they can stay with the company. The Mudir said
that the men had gone back to Sivas; the villagers whom we saw all
declared that all those men were killed at once. The question of
what becomes of the men who are taken out of the prisons and of
those who are taken from the convoy is a profound mystery. I have
talked with many Turks, and I cannot make up my mind what to
believe.
As soon as the men left us, the Turkish drivers began to rob the
women, saying: “You are all going to be thrown into the Tokma Su, so
you might as well give your things to us, and then we will stay by
you and try to protect you.” Every Turkish woman that we met said
the same thing. The worst were the gendarmes, who really did more or
less bad things. One of our schoolgirls was carried off by the Kurds
twice, but her companions made so much fuss that she was brought
back. I was on the run all the time from one end of the company to
the other. These robbing, murdering Kurds are certainly the
best-looking men I have seen in this country. They steal your goods,
but not everything. They do not take your bread or your stick.
As we approached the bridge over the Tokma Su, it was certainly a
fearful sight. As far as the eye could see over the plain was this
slow-moving line of ox-carts. For hours there was not a drop of
water on the road, and the sun poured down its very hottest. As we
went on we began to see the dead from yesterday’s company, and the
weak began to fall by the way. The Kurds working in the fields made
attacks continually, and we were half-distracted. I piled as many as
I could on our wagons, and our pupils, both boys and girls, worked
like heroes. One girl took a baby from its dead mother and carried
it until evening. Another carried a dying woman until she died. We
bought water from the Kurds, not minding the beating that the boys
were sure to get with it. I counted forty-nine deaths, but there
must have been many more. One naked body of a woman was covered with
bruises. I saw the Kurds robbing the bodies of those not yet
entirely dead. I walked, or, rather, ran, back and forth until we
could see the bridge.
The hills on each side were white with Kurds, who were throwing
stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending their way to the
bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the midst of a crowd
of Kurds, until I was used up. I did not see anyone thrown into the
water, but they said, and I believe it, that a certain Elmas, who
has done handwork for me for years, was thrown over the bridge by a
Kurd. Our Badvelli’s wife was riding on a horse with a baby in her
arms, and a Kurd took hold of her to throw her over, when another
Kurd said: “She has a baby in her arms,” and they let her go. After
crossing the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left
before us waiting by the river, as well as companies from Samsoun,
Amasia and other places.
The police for the first time began to interfere with me here, and
it was evident that something was decided about me. The next morning
after we arrived at this bridge, they wanted me to go to Malatia;
but I insisted that I had permission to stay with the Armenians.
During the day, however, they said that the Mutessarif had ordered
me to come to Malatia, and that the others were going to Kiakhta.
Soon after we heard that they were going to Ourfa, there to build
villages and cities, &c.
In Malatia I went at once to the commandant, a captain who they say
has made a fortune out of these exiles. I told him how I had gone to
Erzeroum last winter, and how we pitied these women and children and
wished to help them, and finally he sent me to the Mutessarif. The
latter is a Kurd, apparently anxious to do the right thing; but he
has been sick most of the time since he came, and the “beys” here
have had things more or less their own way, and certainly horrors
have been committed. I suggested that they should telegraph to Sivas
and understand that I had permission to go with these exiles all the
way, and the answer is said to have come from Sivas that I am not to
go beyond here.
My friends here are very glad to have me with them, for they have a
very difficult problem on their hands and are nearly crazy with the
horrors they have been through here. The Mutessarif and other
officials here and at Sivas have read me orders from Constantinople
again and again to the effect that the lives of these exiles are to
be protected, and from their actions I should judge that they must
have received such orders; but they certainly have murdered a great
many in every city. Here there were great trenches dug by the
soldiers for drilling purposes. Now these trenches are all filled
up, and our friends saw carts going back from the city by night. A
man I know told me that when he was out to inspect some work he was
having done, he saw a dead body which had evidently been pulled out
of one of these trenches, probably by dogs. He gave word to the
Government, with the result that his two servants, who were with
him, were sent for by under-officers, saying that the Pasha wanted
them, and they were murdered. The Beledia Reis here says that every
male over ten years old is being murdered, that not one is to live,
and no woman over fifteen. The truth seems to be somewhere between
these two extremes.
My greatest object in going with these exiles was to help them to
get started there. Many have relatives in all sorts of places, to
whom I could write; and I could, in my own estimation, be a channel
by which aid could get to them. I am not criticising the Government.
Most of the higher officials are at their wit’s end to stop these
abuses and carry out the orders which they have received; but this
is a flood, and it carries everything before it.
I have tried to write only what I have seen and know to be true. The
reports and possibilities are very many, but the exact truth that we
know, at best, calls for our most earnest prayer and effort. God has
come very near to many during these days.
79. EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER, DATED MASSACHUSETTS, 29th AUGUST, 1915,
FROM ANOTHER FOREIGN RESIDENT AT SIVAS TO MR. G.H. PAELIAN.
You may be surprised to get a letter from me from America, and I am
surprised myself that I am really here. It is seven years and our
time for a furlough; but as there was no one to leave the College
with, and the children were small, we decided to wait a year or two.
But when they deported the Armenians and left us without work and
without friends, we decided to come home and get our vacation and be
ready to go wherever we could after the war.
You will want to know about Sivas and about your family in
particular. In general, the Sivas Armenians are gone, but there were
a few exceptions when we came away—the Swiss Orphanage, the
Sanasarian School, the people in prison (1,500 of the best men), and
the Armenians in the army who were employed in making roads,
building houses, tailoring, shoe-making, &c., for the army. Then
there are Dr. A. and Dr. B., the C.’s, a few tent-makers and people
who were necessary to the Turks, a few nurses in our hospital, and
D., our druggist.
The others were all deported on ox-carts on the 5th July and the
succeeding ten days. In general, there was one ox-cart to a family,
and they could take whatever they wished to on that. The Vali
allowed the Protestants all to go on the same day, although they
were scattered all over the city, and the others were sent by
quarters. Our teachers and boarding pupils went with the
Protestants.
E. and her children went with the Protestants too. I bought a cow
for her, and gave it to her and another woman who could take care of
it. I thought that F. must have milk. I did not get down in time to
see them off, but Miss Graffam went with them to help what she
could.
The morning after they started out, we sent G. on horseback to see
how they were. They had spent one night without any accident,
although they had not slept much.
All our teachers went except H., who was in prison. We do not know
why they imprisoned him, but we think some enemy of the family must
have told some lies about them, because they imprisoned his brother,
too, and J. We tried every way to get him out, but it was of no use.
Have you heard that he is engaged to K., a girl who has been in our
family a great deal? She was a teacher in the girls’-school, studied
one year in Smyrna, and then taught one year more. She usually
spends the summer in our family, and was to do the same this year.
When the Armenians were deported, the Vali allowed us to keep three
girls as servants, and, as she was to be with us, we kept her with
two others who were already with us, and we brought the three to
America with us, saving these three from the general deportation.
Since coming to America and hearing about what happened in other
places, it seems that the deportation from Sivas was very humane,
but at best it was awful. I cannot describe the sadness of having
all our friends taken away from us in one day and not knowing where
they were going or whether we should see them again. The College was
full of boys, teachers, carpenters, servants, &c. The L.’s, &c.,
were camping. In a single day they went, and only our family was
left, with G. We were not afraid; we did not care what happened.
Now we do not know what has become of them, or what has become of
the prisoners or the soldiers.
80. SIVAS: NARRATIVE OF A NATURALISED OTTOMAN SUBJECT, DATED NEW
YORK CITY, 10th MARCH, 1916; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
When the majority of the Armenian people were exiled from Sivas, I
was in Talas, but when I heard what had happened I started back at
once, thinking of course that my relations would also be sent away,
and wishing to accompany them. It was with great difficulty that I
obtained permission from the officials in Kaisaria to go back; they
claimed that the road was very dangerous, and that it would be
impossible for a woman alone to travel over it. Finally, the head
official of the Military Transport, who was living in Sivas and had
taken possession of Dr. AB.’s house there, telegraphed to Kaisaria
that I might travel under the protection of the Menzel, and I
started with two officers who were in a wagon behind me and who
warned me that I must keep close to them, as the road was very
dangerous. The road until we reached Sharkishla, two days’ journey
from Kaisaria, was very quiet, and we met almost no one. At
Sharkishla the plain was black with exiles from different parts of
Anatolia; they had been waiting there for about a week and new
recruits were coming in every day. At that time they did not seem
very unhappy. The weather was beautiful, the plain was covered with
trees, and many of the wealthy people had tents and wagons, while
there were a great many boys and men in the party.
Later, when they reached Malatia, or even before, the men were
separated from them, their wagons and goods were taken from them,
and they were only allowed to take what they could carry on their
backs over the narrow mountain pass through which they went. I know
this because Miss Graffam met these same people later on, while she
was on the road with the Sivas people. I was not very near them, but
I could see them from the han window. The handji, an Armenian, told
me he was sure they were all to be killed, and the officers told me
the next day that they had visited them at night, and that the men
were to be killed; they said they were sorry for the women and
children, but one of them added: “This is what happens to people
that want a kingdom of their own.”
I had a few unpleasant experiences on the road, but I will not stop
to tell them. I found my relations safe, and the Vali had told them
they might stay—I believe because of the influence of some powerful
Turkish friends they have in Constantinople, who had telegraphed to
the Vali to save Dr. AB. and his wife. The prisons at that time were
filled with our Sivas men—several thousand; these men we visited
every day, taking food to some of them and trying to cheer up the
others. Their wives and children had gone with the exiles, and it
was pretty hard work to be brave when they did not know their fate,
but it was surprising how really brave they were. Some of the
gaolers were very brutal men, and would be as disagreeable as
possible to us, but others were polite and willing to let us see the
prisoners, even allowing selected ones to come into the yard and
talk with us. About a month later these men were taken out in
batches of a hundred at night; they were told that they were to be
taken to the railway near Angora to work on it; the rich men were
allowed to hire wagons from Turks, at a big price, to travel in.
They were all taken very early in the morning, several hours before
daylight, and they were seen, those on foot, to go over the mountain
into the valley, where we are pretty sure they were killed, as the
soldiers returned with clothes, and the wagons always came back
three or four hours later filled with clothes. The soldiers,
moreover, described how many of the men met their fate, some
bravely, some otherwise, and we think they spoke the truth, for they
told of men we knew intimately, and who would have been apt to do
and say just what they said they did, in the face of death. It was
hard to see so many of our fine young men go off in this way, and
many of them had no idea they were going to their death. Some of
them took money with them, thinking they might meet their wives and
children. When they heard that Miss Graffam was returning, they were
so anxious to see her and hear of their families. Most of them were
gone when she got back, but she was allowed to go into the prison
and tell those that were left something about the journey she had
made. They were thankful to hear that their wives and children were
still alive, as they had heard they had all been massacred a few
days’ distance from Sivas. Miss Graffam said that although they were
robbed on the road and almost everything they had was taken from
them, still the girls and women were not outraged or treated badly
as far as Malatia. After that, we heard from boys that had escaped
from the party and come back to Sivas that many of the girls were
carried off by the Kurds a few days after Miss Graffam left them.
After all our Sivas men had been taken from the prisons, other men
kept coming in from other cities and towns like Angora and Yozgad.
They were kept in prison for a few days and then taken out as our
men had been. We were not permitted to see these men. Many of them
when they reached Sivas were in carriages. We heard that they, too,
were killed in the mountains, and that Sivas was being called the
“Great Slaughter House.” The last of our young men that remained in
prison were three young doctors. One of them, Dr. AC., had been
educated by Mrs. AD.; he had been brought up in the Orphanage at X.,
and was a splendid young man, full of enthusiasm for his work, which
was in the military hospital. Another of the three was the son of a
wealthy Divrig family, who had been educated in Germany and had many
strong German friends among the high German officials in
Constantinople, who either would not or could not do anything to
save him. They were executed while I was in Constantinople. I had
taken with me letters to a high German official from Dr. AE., asking
him to save them; and later Miss Graffam telegraphed to me that they
were in great danger, and begged me to do all I could to save
them—to go to the Germans. I did so, but was told they had gone to
Enver Pasha before, and that he would do nothing for them.
About thirty or forty families in Sivas, all of them wealthy, had
become Moslems, having the promise that, if they did so, their lives
and property would be safe. A few weeks later, all of them, with the
exception of two or three merchants, were told they had to go, and,
as soon as they left, their property was confiscated by the
Government. The Vali’s family doctor, an Armenian, was told that he
was to stay, and he asked if that meant he was to become a Moslem.
The Vali said: “No, I am tired of these people becoming Moslems.”
At two different times our orphanage children were ordered out; both
times Dr. Y. went to the Vali and begged that they might stay,
telling him how small many of them were, only three or four years
old, and how they would certainly die on the road, for at that time
even ox-carts could not be found. He seemed to be touched and said
they might. There seemed always to be friction between the police
and the Vali; he would give permission for them to stay and the
police would come and say they were to go; several of the police
officers came to the older girls and teachers, and asked them to
become their wives and stay, saying that they would be carried off
on the road anyway, and that they might as well accept them and
remain. Many hundreds of little girls were being brought back to
Sivas before I left; some were being placed in Moslem families and
some in empty houses. We were not allowed to see them. Many of the
Turkish officers had seized one or two of these little girls and
were planning to take them on to Constantinople with them. Some of
our orphanage teachers were able to interview some of the older
girls that were brought back from Kara-Hissar (one of the places
where the Armenians tried to defend themselves). These girls tell
horrible tales of what they saw there. A great many of these girls
were being married to Turks; the Turks were saying they were not
forcing them; they wanted them to become their wives willingly. A
number of women and children who had been in hiding were also
beginning to come out of hiding when I left, and the Missionaries
were taking them into the orphanage and the hospital, trying to save
them.
Several Armenian soldiers from the Samsoun region had also fled to
the hospital for protection; they had started with their regiments
from Samsoun, and the Armenians, who numbered a thousand or more,
had been attacked by the guards and the majority killed or left for
dead. The men that came to Dr. Y. had been among those left for
dead; one of them had a horrible wound across the back of his neck,
where he had been cut by an axe; they usually used axes, saying they
did not want to waste powder and shot on them. Some others came from
a lonely barracks on the Marsovan road, where they and their
comrades, all Armenians (soldiers), had been shut up for three days
without food or water. Finally a young Turkish officer heard the
noise as he passed, and came and let them out. These men said that
they were put in this building towards evening. They were tied
together by threes and called out in succession. Those that went out
never returned, and they found that they were being butchered with
axes. One of the men succeeded in untying the cord that he and his
two companions were tied with; they closed and barricaded the door,
and when the soldiers, who were only a few in number (Turkish),
found that they could not get in, they fastened it on the outside so
that the Armenians should not get out. They were afraid, indeed, to
go out even after the Turkish soldiers had left, until this officer
appeared and sent them on to Sivas; he said that the men that did
these things would be punished, but they were not. We believed that
they were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased with the
Armenians, and so, when they happened to be brutal, they did this
kind of thing, with the result that many of the Armenians that had
gone through it had become nervous wrecks. Dr. Y. had seen and
talked with a number of these men, and I also saw those who had fled
to the hospital.
In Tokat the girls, small and large, were left in the houses alone.
The daughter of the Badvelli there managed to send a letter to her
uncle, who was a nurse in our hospital (a soldier), saying that she
and her four little sisters were in the house alone and had nothing
to live on, and that the city was full of girls in the same
condition; up till that time, which was a month after their parents
had left them, they had not been injured by the Turks. A Turk
brought the letter.
On the 1st October, when I left Sivas to go up to Constantinople, I
had some difficulty in getting permission to start, as the Vali was
away. I had to wait until he returned. He said he would see that I
got as far as Talas safely, and he told me which places to stop at;
but because of some trouble with the driver, I was unable to stop at
the hans he told me to stop at, and the first night the han was
filled with Armenians who were being deported from X., both men and
women. They were wealthy people who had become Moslems. My driver
told me that they had not become true Moslems and for that reason
were being sent away. The soldiers with them were very evil-looking
men. I noticed that they had many beautiful rugs and carpets in
their wagons. In the next room there were some Turks who were
talking of the killing of the Armenians; however, nothing happened
to them that night. The second night I had to stop at a han which
had been very prosperous a few months before, but was now half
wrecked and deserted. It was dark and we could not go on, and we
found that the son and brother of the former handji had become
Moslems, and that the Government had allowed them to take charge of
the han on condition that they turned over all the money they made
to the Government. These two men were in the most pitiable condition
from fear, and they both told me horrible tales of how the men of
Gemerek had been killed; this han was outside the town of Gemerek.
They said they had hidden in the mountains for three weeks until
driven out by starvation, and then had given themselves up to the
Government and become Moslems, but they added: “We are only Moslems
with our mouths, but Christians in our hearts.” Still, they were
very fearful, and not at all sure that they would not be killed
later. In the village of Gemerek, they said, most of the girls had
been forced into marriage with the Turks, and many of the old women
had been killed and the rest deported. I had seen them on my way to
Sivas going out, so I knew this to be true. The next night I heard
two hodjas talking, under my window, of a terrible massacre of the
Armenians that had just taken place in the mountains; they seemed to
be very sorry about it and spoke of it with horror; they did not
know, of course, that I was listening. When I reached Talas, the
people had almost all gone from there and from Kaisaria. The
Kaisaria Protestants, or at least a number of Protestant families,
were sent out to Talas and given houses there, while the Talas
Protestants were sent to neighbouring villages; but their condition
was much better than that of any of the Armenian people in our Sivas
region. The Girls’-School was filled with girls from Kaisaria, most
of them the daughters of wealthy Gregorian and Catholic families.
The Kaisaria people had been allowed to leave their daughters
behind. While I was there, a woman and two men arrived from one of
the Kaisaria out-stations and told of the terrible massacre of the
whole village. First the little boys up to ten were taken outside
the village and killed. There were only a few men in the village, so
the women dressed as men and held the village against the Kurds and
Turks for three weeks, keeping them off with stones; they had fled
to the hills. These people said that the Turks used to call to them
to come down and become Moslems and their lives would be spared;
this they refused to do. Later, the village Turks were reinforced by
the soldiers from Kaisaria, who shot them down, only these three
people escaping. They had been weeks reaching Talas, having to hide
by day and travel very slowly at night for fear of being caught.
This village had many of our Protestant people, and among those
killed was the mother of one of the teachers and the wife of
another. We heard that all the villages in that region were treated
in this way, instead of being deported. While in Talas I had a
telegram from Sivas asking me to wait for a professor of the
Sanasarian College, who was coming from Sivas with his wife and
little boy. The Vali had given them permission to go on to
Constantinople; he had been educated in Vienna and his wife in this
country; they were very fine people. I waited several days and they
did not come. I found that they had left Sivas as they planned and
disappeared between Sivas and Talas—they have never been heard from.
I know a number of people that disappeared in just this way on that
road, after the Vali had given them permission to travel and the
promise of a safe escort.
The rest of the way from Kaisaria to the railway I went under the
protection of the Military Transportation Company. I passed through
many deserted towns, but saw no dead bodies on the road, only one
between Sivas and Talas. On the railway we passed truck-load after
truck-load of Armenians—exiles being sent into the interior. All
were in cattle-trucks, huddled together like animals. We met these
trucks every day; often they were shunted on the siding. All along
the Konia plain were tens of thousands of people; some had tents,
many of them had nothing. The weather at that time was warm, so they
were not suffering specially from the cold. Later, while in
Constantinople, we heard that these people on the Konia plain were
being sent into the interior and not allowed to take any food with
them, so that they would die quickly.
On the train, in the compartment with me, was the wife of the
Mutessarif of Erzindjan. She had several Armenian girls with her—one
of them in the compartment with us to wait on her children. She was
kind to this child, who was only about nine years old, but she
treated her like a little slave. She told another Turkish woman that
her parents had been sent away and she had taken her from the
streets. The Armenians in Constantinople had not been deported, only
the men who were suspected of revolutionary tendencies, but there is
great suffering among them for lack of food, and they need work.
Professor —— told me, the week before I left, that the Turks in
Constantinople were saying: “The Armenians from Constantinople must
go,” and that great pressure was being brought to bear upon them by
the Turks to become Moslems and stay. We had a number of Armenian
young women employed in the Red Cross work, and they all showed a
most beautiful Christian spirit, were always kind and gentle to the
soldiers, and never showed in any way that they felt any bitterness
toward them. Several of them had come from the interior and had
relatives that had been deported; one of them was from Trebizond,
where there had been that terrible massacre of children, and her
little baby of seven months was, she fears, among them. This young
woman went into exile with her husband, and lost everything and
everyone in Trebizond. She was a most beautiful Christian, and was
loved and respected by the people that worked with her.
81. SIVAS: THE ADVENTURES OF MURAD; NARRATED BY “S.H.S.,” IN THE
JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW YORK, 1st MARCH, 1916.
In December, 1914, Murad was peacefully at work in his native
village of Govdoun. Then he was apprised of the troubles brewing in
the city of Sivas, the capital of the Vilayet. He hastened there to
find the Armenians panic-stricken. All the Armenians of military
age, as well as all the prominent Armenian business men, had been
imprisoned on the pretext that the bread supplied to the Turkish
soldiers was poisoned by the Armenian bakers. The Armenian
physicians in the city went to the military commander and protested
against this outrage, offering to prove that the accusation was
false. As the military commander was not on good terms with the
Vali, he ordered some of the bread to be brought, and the physicians
ate it before him without any bad results. Then he ordered the
prisoners to be released. However, matters grew steadily worse,
persecution increased, and spread finally to the surrounding
villages.
Murad, with a group of brave Armenians, resisted the outrages of the
Turkish Government for several months, until he was obliged to take
refuge in the mountains. In March, 1915, Turkish soldiers were sent
to capture Murad and his band, but they were defeated and repulsed.
The Armenians fought their way slowly over the mountains in a
continual guerilla warfare. The Government became so exasperated
that it placed a price on Murad’s head.
Murad was stricken with typhus as a result of the privations and
hardships the band endured, and his comrades had to carry him from
snow-clad mountain to mountain, and from cave to cave, in order to
save him from capture. At Mount Sachar Murad and his comrades were
surrounded by three hundred Turkish cavalrymen, but they succeeded
in escaping to an Armenian village in Khantzart. The peasants nursed
Murad, and said: “Remain here, and we will die by hundreds to
protect you.” Murad did not wish to expose them to danger. When he
heard that the Turkish cavalry were approaching, he requested his
comrades to remove him to the mountains.
In the milder weather of May, Murad began to recover. A company of
Turkish cavalrymen renewed the search for the little band of
Armenian warriors. Murad and his seven men opened fire upon the
Turks, wounding several of them. The Turks beat a hasty retreat, but
returned soon with reinforcements. These also were put to flight by
the Armenians. Murad then withdrew from the mountain and travelled
for some days through the woods and valleys.
Because of the extraordinary prowess of the Armenians, it was
rumoured that Murad had a thousand men with him. The Vali of Sivas
determined to capture him at any cost. At a place called
Telouk-Khaina a hundred Turkish infantry advanced upon Murad’s army
of eight, but Murad decided to save his ammunition, and retreated.
Near Tedjir a Turkish regiment with seven guns advanced to give
battle to the supposed Armenian army, but the Armenians again used
discretion. Murad’s men had armed themselves well at the beginning,
and replenished their stock of ammunition constantly from the
soldiers whom they killed. They frequently found on the slain Kurds
and Turks jewelry and other ornaments that had belonged to Armenian
women, and Murad still has in his possession some of these jewels.
After numerous victorious encounters and skirmishes with the Turks,
Murad turned toward Samsoun, in the autumn of 1915. His band had
been increased by seven Armenians and three Greeks. Having reached
the village of Tchamulan, not far from Samsoun, they were welcomed
by a prominent Greek named Constantine. The Turks had burned and
destroyed all the boats owned by Constantine, who was also subjected
to other persecutions. Defying the Turks, he harboured the eighteen
rebels in his house, and defended them. One day three hundred
Turkish soldiers surrounded the Greek’s house and opened fire. The
besieged band so successfully defended itself that the enemy could
not approach the house. Every new attack was repulsed successfully,
and many of the Turks were killed. In the evening the siege was
raised and the enemy withdrew. Murad and his comrades, together with
Constantine and his family, evacuated their stronghold and proceeded
toward Samsoun.
The party finally reached the woods of Hodjadagh, near the Black
Sea. There they remained in hiding, and sent scouts to reconnoitre
the country and find a way of escape. Having replenished their stock
of food and ammunition, the brave warriors hastened one night to the
sea coast. They found there a Turkish sailing vessel at anchor, and
captured it with its Turkish crew of five. They loaded the vessel
with their supplies and set sail, taking with them the Turkish crew
to man the boat.
After eight days and nights on the Black Sea, their water supply was
exhausted and they were compelled to make bread with sea-water.
Meanwhile they suffered terribly from thirst. The vessel passed
Samsoun and Kerasond, and approached Riza. While they were still
about three or four hours’ distance from the Russian coast, two
Turkish motor-boats were seen pursuing. The Turks had learned of
Murad’s escape and had dispatched a force to capture him at sea. The
Turks opened fire on the rebels. The Armenian sharpshooters replied
effectively. The motor-boats turned back after many of the soldiers
had been killed. In Murad’s party brave Yegho was killed, and one of
the Greeks wounded.
A heavy storm arose, and the superstitious Turkish sailors begged
that the body of Yegho might be thrown into the sea, because they
feared that the boat would be wrecked if the corpse remained on
board. The vessel finally reached Batoum, and the party landed
safely on Russian soil. Murad buried Yegho and then went to Tiflis,
where he joined the other Armenian Volunteers.
82. SIVAS: RECORD OF AN INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE REFUGEE MURAD TO MR.
A.S. SAFRASTIAN AT TIFLIS.
Once more the curtain drawn over the heinous details of Armenian
massacres in Asia Minor is raised by that well-known fighter, Murad
of Sivas, the Armenian leader of the province. Starting from
Sharkishla, some twenty miles south-west of Sivas, with a small
force, he opened his way to Divrig, lying about sixty miles
south-east of Sivas; and after a great number of encounters with
regular Turkish troops, he eventually entrenched himself on the
heights of Yaldiz Dagh, north-east of Sivas, where, surrounded by
large numbers of the enemy, he kept up desperate fighting for eight
days. Most of his comrades were killed in this unequal combat. He
himself, however, succeeded in breaking through the Turkish lines
and emerged on the coast, somewhere near Samsoun. Here he forced
some Turkish boatmen to set sail in the direction of Batoum. On the
voyage, his boat was chased by Turkish motor launches and fired on,
and in this encounter one of his comrades was killed by a bullet. He
has just reached here to throw more light upon the horrors which
have been committed in the Vilayet of Sivas and in parts of Harpout
and Western Dersim.
For about twenty years Murad (a brother-in-arms of Andranik, the
organiser of the present volunteer regiments) has been in the front
ranks of the Armenian movement as a leading fighter, and the
circumstances of his struggle since last March, and the story of his
adventurous escape to Russia when all was over, would fill volumes.
He has come to tell the outside world the news that, of 160,000
Armenians inhabiting the province of Sivas, there remain now, or,
rather, remained a month ago, when he left, some 10,000, who have
either been spared as useful artisans toiling in the labour
battalions and the prisons, or were old people left in their homes.
The remaining 150,000 souls have either been massacred outright or
deported to the area bounded by the right bank of the Euphrates and
Northern Mesopotamia.
The story which Murad gave me reveals once more the thorough
organisation of these massacres by an overmastering hand, and the
ruthless processes by which the details were carried out. Anybody
listening to Murad, who had been cut off from the rest of the world
for eight months, would at once have thought it to be the story of
the massacres at Bitlis or one of the other places, there is such a
striking resemblance of detail in the work of destruction.
The persecutions began with the outbreak of the Turkish war. The
Armenians of Sivas did all they could to help the Red Crescent work
of the Turkish army, either by personal service or contributions.
Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Armenian element in
particular was unscrupulously robbed under the cloak of military
requisitions. In the meantime, the Turks of Sivas did not conceal
their intention of settling old scores with the Armenians, who had
applied to Europe for reforms.
The storm broke over the question of Armenian deserters from the
Turkish army and the disarming of civilian Armenians. The Divisional
Commander of Sivas had ordered that able-bodied men above
thirty-three years of age and liable to service should get a permit
from the military authorities for temporary exemption from entering
the field; whereas Muamer Pasha, the Vali of Sivas, looked upon such
a step as a sign of Armenian disloyalty. During December and January
most Armenian soldiers in the Turkish service were either disarmed
and sent to the labour battalions, or were imprisoned as
‘suspicious’ characters. The treatment they received in the army was
of a most unenviable kind. A Holy War had been proclaimed by the
Caliph, and the fate of the Infidels was in the Moslems’ hands. To
mention an instance: on an unfounded charge of desertion six
Armenians were hanged in Gurin, three of them being brothers, who
were absolutely innocent.
For disarming the Armenians, the Turks employed the most fiendish
methods. The order for delivering up all arms in the possession of
civilians was nominally universal, but in fact it was directed
against the Armenians. In Khourakhon, a village near Sivas, one man
(Harutune) was actually shod like a horse, one (Muggerdich) was
castrated, and another (Puzant) was done to death by putting a
red-hot iron crown on his head. Under threats of such tortures many
Armenians were compelled to buy arms and give them up to the
authorities. The tragi-comical part of the whole business was that
the Turkish officials entrusted with the mission of collecting arms
were themselves selling them to Armenians at a good profit[100]. The
object of these infamous proceedings seems to have been the wish of
the Turkish Government to place the Armenians in the category of
rebels, and accuse them of having hidden arms in spite of official
warnings.
Then, again, with a view to striking terror among the Armenians,
four or five of the leading men in every town or village were
mysteriously shot, while most of the Government officials of
Armenian nationality were dismissed without any reason. Nishan
Effendi, the sub-governor of Kotchesur[101] (Province of Sivas), a
man of good record, was peremptorily dismissed from his post with
many others.
Towards the end of January last (1915), Odabashian Vartabed (the
Armenian bishop-elect of Sivas) was proceeding to his post from
Angora, when he was attacked on the way and killed in his carriage.
It has now been proved beyond doubt that the plot was hatched with
the cognisance of Muamer Pasha, the Governor, as among the murderers
were Mahil Effendi of Zara, his aide-de-camp, Tcherkess Kior Kassim,
his chief hangman, and two others.
During the course of February, Armenian soldiers on active service
and Armenian bakers were accused by the authorities of having
poisoned the soldiers’ bread and food. The subsequent medical
inquiry instituted by Turkish and Greek doctors easily proved the
baselessness of so gross a charge.
The billeting of Turkish soldiers upon Armenians throughout the
province, and their uninterrupted movement from one front to the
other[102], Sivas being on the main road between Angora and
Erzeroum, caused indescribable suffering to the defenceless
population. Like famished wolves, the Turkish soldiers ate up
everything they saw, and took everything they could lay hands on. In
Ketcheurd, an Armenian village east of Sivas, the women were
horribly outraged by the soldiers, six of the best-looking of them
being so atrociously treated that they succumbed before the very
eyes of their tormentors; and this is only a typical example.
Another incident of a quite impersonal character greatly embittered
the relations between the Armenians and the Turks. About 1,700
Russian prisoners of war, captured by the Turks in February, were
brought to Sivas in a deplorable condition. The Russian soldiers of
Moslem origin had already been released at Erzeroum, most of the
Armenians had been killed, and the Russians were stripped of their
clothing. On their way to Sivas they were grossly insulted, spat on
by every Moslem passer-by, and whipped by their escort into quicker
march. Half their number reached Sivas almost naked, covered with
filthy rags, their feet swollen and in some cases with their
sheepskin coats glued to their sore bodies. In face of such an
outrageous treatment of these Russian prisoners, the Armenians of
Sivas provided them with medical help and various comforts. This
trivial manifestation of humane feeling displayed by the Armenians,
however, caused great resentment among the Moslems. In spite of all
such efforts, only some sixty Russians survived out of the
contingent of 1,700 prisoners. The Turks picked quarrels with the
Armenians when the latter tried to bury the Russian dead.
In the last days of March, Murad and other Armenian leaders were
asked by the Vali of Sivas to attend a meeting for the deliberation
of some important questions. Murad had, however, been privately
informed by some Turkish friends that there was a plot against him
and his comrades, so he very naturally failed to comply with the
Vali’s request. The consequence of this was that the relatives of
these men were subjected to shameful treatment at the hands of the
Turks. Nevertheless, the Armenians throughout Sivas, Erzindjan,
Harpout,
Tchemesh-Getzak and the other districts thought it wise to endure
these persecutions, so as not to give any grounds for harsher
measures. Fresh contingents of troops were sent to each village in
April to collect an imaginary number of arms, and such arms were
provided for the authorities in the manner already described.
Courts-martial were set up in many places and people were summarily
tried and sentenced. Hovhannes Poladian, Vahan Vartanian, Murad of
Khourakhon and twelve other leaders were shot. Men belonging to the
_Dashnaktzoutioun_ and the _Huntchak_ parties were subjected to 110
strokes each. These terrorising methods were carried out in thorough
earnest in Oulash, Sharkishla, Kotchan, Gemerek, Gurin, Derenda,
Divrig, and other districts.
More dreadful days for the Armenians began in June. On the
assumption that every Armenian soldier was a deserter, and that his
people at home had secreted numberless arms, the Turks never relaxed
their policy of squeezing out of the Armenians every _piastre_ they
could get by employing the most brutal means. Towards the end of
June and the beginning of July, massacres on a far vaster scale were
carried out in various parts of the area referred to. The methods
pursued in these massacres were precisely the same as everywhere
else in Armenia. The men were separated from their women, and the
latter driven in a south-easterly direction. The able-bodied men
were first imprisoned and then massacred in small batches under
blood-curdling circumstances. For the space of two weeks, Murad
thinks, 5,000 Armenians were daily disposed of in the various
districts of the province. At Maltepé, a village an hour’s ride east
of Sivas, some twenty Armenian officials in the Government service
were hacked to pieces with pointed and spiked hatchets. At Duzasar,
another Armenian village near Sivas, 32 Armenians were done to death
in the same manner.
At Habesh, near Zara, east of Sivas, 3,800 Armenians of the
neighbourhood were poleaxed, stoned or bayoneted in a fiendish
manner. In Khorsan, the headman of the village, named Nigoghos, was
hanged upside down on the Boghaz bridge near the village. At Gotni,
another village with 120 Armenian families, Turkish bashi-bazouks,
mostly released convicts organised into “Chetti” bands, gloried in
the achievement of having killed every male above twelve and
outraged every woman above the same age.
At Herag, a village near Sivas, the men were killed, the young women
carried away and about 600 children detained by the Vali, perhaps to
be converted to Islam. The women of Malatia were stripped naked and
driven out from their homes, amid the gibes and jeers of the Moslem
rabble; many young women actually went mad, others resorted to
hideously painful means to put an end to their lives. At Niksar,
north of Sivas, most of the young women were distributed among the
Turks, and the remainder were deported to the south.
During his wanderings Murad happened to see that only 300 children
and old people were left in the town of Tchar-Shamba, near the
coast, where there was a large, prosperous colony before. The young
people of both sexes had been either killed, abducted or deported
from their homes; no child above ten years of age remained among the
survivors.
In the territory extending from Amasia, north-west of Sivas, to
Erzindjan and Harpout, the Armenian element has been reduced to the
same condition. In certain centres like Arabkir, Tchemesh-Getzak,
etc., some families escaped persecution by adopting Islam.
About 15,000 Armenians of Erzindjan and the surrounding district
were for the most part drowned in the Euphrates near the Kamakh
gorge; the Armenians of Baibourt are also reported to have suffered
the same fate in the river Kara-Su, a tributary of the Euphrates.
With the exception of some thirty Armenian families at Samsoun, all
Persian subjects, and a few other families spared here and there,
Murad states that all along the Black Sea coast the industrious
Armenian element has been uprooted from its homes and its property
distributed among local or immigrant Moslems.
In the town of Sivas itself, which comprised some 25,000 Armenians,
many of the important inhabitants have either been killed or
deported to the deserts. There remain now some 120 Armenian families
in the town, consisting mainly of children and elderly folk.
Amid this general scene of unopposed slaughter and destruction,
however, there are brave deeds to record and stories of death faced
heroically by both men and women.
The Armenians of Duzasar, Gavra, Khorsan, Khantzod, &c., all places
in the Province of Sivas, made every possible sacrifice with a view
to preventing an inter-racial outbreak in the early stages of the
war; but when they were convinced that the attitude of passive
resistance they had adopted did not avail in any way, they took up
arms, and, supported by their compatriots of Gurin, Gemerek, Divrig,
Ketch-Magara, Mandjaluk and other places, fought for days against
the Moslem soldiers and bands and repaid the enemy in their own
coin.
The Armenians of Shabin Kara-Hissar and Amasia, exasperated at the
unaccountable savagery of the Turks, took to reprisals. They burnt
down the Moslem quarters and the Government Buildings in their
respective towns and temporarily drove the Turks from them. Later,
however, they were overwhelmed by large Turkish forces, and died
fighting to the last.
Sirpouhi and Santukht, two young women of Ketcheurd, a village east
of Sivas, who were being led off to the harem by Turks, threw
themselves into the river Halys, and were drowned with their infants
in their arms. Mdlle. Sirpouhi, the nineteen-year-old daughter of
Garabed Tufenkjian of Herag, a graduate of the American College of
Marsovan, was offered the choice of saving herself by embracing
Islam and marrying a Turk. Sirpouhi retorted that it was an outrage
to murder her father and then make her a proposal of marriage. She
would have nothing to do with a godless and a murderous people;
whereupon she, and seventeen other Armenian girls who had refused
conversion, were shamefully ill-treated and afterwards killed near
Tchamli-Bel gorge.
The rich Shahinian family of Sivas, father, sons and one daughter,
the fourteen-year-old Khanum, escaped the authorities, who wanted to
capture them, and fought for four hours at the entrance of a narrow
mountain pass against considerable odds. They were all killed,
however, when they ran short of their cartridges.
I could prolong the story of these acts of desperate bravery on the
one side and of murderous frenzy on the other. The grim reality of
these horrible crimes was forcibly brought home to me when, in the
course of my interview with Murad, some girls and young men,
Armenians of Sivas, who were anxious to hear something of the dear
ones they had left before the war, came to see Murad. They inquired
about their relatives and friends, and Murad told them how and when
they had been killed or deported. The percentage of murders, at any
rate in the cases inquired into on this occasion, was much higher
than that of the deportations. One of the girls present, on being
told that everyone she had inquired about had been killed, was
terribly overcome; yet she succeeded in suppressing her strong
emotion, and nerved herself to take a solemn oath of remembrance,
which was shared by all present.
X.
SANDJAK OF KAISARIA.
_The Sandjak of Kaisaria is an outlying sub-division of the Vilayet
of Angora. It lies under the shadow of the Erdjies Dagh (Mount
Argaios), and bestrides the course of the Kizil Irmak immediately
below Sivas._
_We have comparatively little testimony concerning the occurrences
in this district, but the documents contained in this section show
in sufficient outline what happened at Kaisaria itself, as well as
at Everek and K., the only other centres of importance._
83. KAISARIA: STATEMENT BY A TRAVELLER[103] FROM KAISARIA, PUBLISHED
IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “BALKANIAN MAMOUL,” OF ROUSTCHOUK.
The Armenians of the Kaisaria district, with the exception of Talas,
have been deported. At the end of July the Government issued the
following manifesto to the Armenians of Talas and Kaisaria:—
“(i) All the Armenians are to leave in batches of 1,000—the men,
separated from the women, in one direction and the women in another.
“(ii) No one is to take with him more than 200 piastres (£1 13_s._
4_d._). If, after examination, anyone proves to have more than this,
he will be brought before a Council of War.
“(iii) No one has the right to sell his property, etc.[104]”
After urgent petitions this latter condition was modified as
follows:—
“Anyone who has no ready money is authorised to sell property up to
a maximum of 300 piastres.”
Up till now more than 80 persons have been hanged at Kaisaria,
including doctors and other notables such as Hampartsoum and
Boyadjian Mourad of the Huntchakist Party.
The relations of the victims themselves were compelled to take down
the corpses from the gallows.
Only the women and girls were permitted to go over to Islam. When
the Governor was petitioned to allow the infants to be entrusted to
charitable Moslem families, to save them from dying on the journey,
he replied:—
“I will not leave here so much as the odour of the Armenians; go
away into the deserts of Arabia and dump your Armenia there.”
-----
Footnote 99:
Date unspecified.
Footnote 100:
See Docs. 68, 94, and 122.
Footnote 101:
Kotch Hissar.
Footnote 102:
As the Russian fleet had blockaded the Black Sea ports and
transport by water was difficult, the Turks appear to have been
using the Anatolian Railway to Angora, the terminus of the line,
for their communications, proceeding thence to Erzeroum through
Sivas by horse and camel.—[Note by the interviewer.]
Footnote 103:
Name withheld.
Footnote 104:
For other versions of the official proclamation see Doc. 120 and
Annexe C. to the “Historical Summary.”
84. EVEREK: STATEMENT[105] PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK, 28th AUGUST, 1915.
At Everek a bomb explosion was the signal for a terrible persecution
of the Armenians. The German who narrates this adds that the
Governor of Everek was a good man, and was therefore relieved of his
duties and replaced by a Circassian of violent character. There had
been numerous arrests and atrocities in this district. After that,
the wholesale deportations were begun.
-----
Footnote 105:
Source unspecified.
85. K.: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT K., DATED 16th NOVEMBER,
1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
I wish to confirm my telegram in Turkish dated the 12th November,
stating that the authorities had begun to send away our Armenian
teachers, and that we did not understand the reason for this.
I must now add to this that all our Armenian teachers have been
deported, having left for the south by wagon yesterday. Two of them
had been started in another direction last week, but were brought
back to go south. One of these, however, had become insane from
fright, and is left temporarily in our hands. It is doubtful whether
he can recover under present conditions.
Our local Mudir gives us assurances that our school and pupils will
not be interfered with, and we are going on as best we can, loading
most of the extra work on to ourselves and our Greek teachers.
Children of Armenian parents who have changed their faith are
leaving, but so far others remain. What to do with children left on
our hands without support is a serious problem.
The head of the orphanage at J. has left also, and I understand that
the institution is in a very precarious, chaotic condition. What the
outcome will be I do not know.
The members of our Armenian circle are well, but the long-drawn-out
nervous strain is telling on some. Routine school work has not been
stopped for an hour, and goes on quietly, as if nothing whatever
were happening about us. But to accomplish this, some quick
shifts have had to be made, and, as our Turkish friends say,
“Idaré-i-maslahat.”
XI.
THE TOWN OF X.
_We are better informed as to what happened in this town than in
regard to any other place where the Ottoman Government’s design
against the Armenians was put into execution. The documents relating
to it, contained in this section, are so full of personal detail
that it has been necessary, in consideration for the safety of those
concerned, to conceal the town’s identity, though in this case, as
in others, it is almost impossible to disguise it effectively to
anyone acquainted with Asiatic Turkey._
_The people of X. were a very typical Armenian urban community, and
the story of their destruction represents, in its main features,
what happened to innumerable other Armenian communities throughout
the Ottoman Empire. The only peculiar feature at X. was the extent
to which forcible conversion was attempted by the local authorities.
It may also be noted that here, as at Trebizond, there was no
intention of forwarding the exiles to their nominal destination. The
convoys were butchered_ en masse _as soon as they reached the next
town on the road._
86. X.: NARRATIVE OF THE PRINCIPAL OF THE COLLEGE AT X.,
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
The trouble for the Armenians began, as for all other nationalities,
with the collection of soldiers. The Government swept off all men
possible for military service. Hundreds of the bread-winners marched
away, leaving their wives and children without means of support. In
many cases, the last bit of money was given to fit out the departing
soldier, leaving the family in a pitifully destitute condition. A
number of Armenians were quite well off and paid their military
exemption fee. A much larger number escaped in one way and another,
so there were more Armenians than Turks left in the city after the
soldiers had gone. This made the Government suspicious and fearful.
The discovery of Armenian plots against the Government in other
places added to this feeling.
The special Armenian troubles began in the beginning of May. In the
middle of the night, about twenty of the leading men of the national
Armenian political parties were gathered up and sent to where they
have been imprisoned ever since. In June the Government began
looking for weapons. Some of the Armenians were seized, and, by
torture, the confession was extracted that a large number of arms
were in the hands of different Armenians. A second inquisition
began. The bastinado was used frequently, as well as fire torture
(in some cases eyes are said to have been put out). Many guns were
delivered up, but not all. The people were afraid that, if they gave
up their arms, they would be massacred as in 1895. Arms had been
brought in after the declaration of the Constitution with the
permission of the Government, and were for self-defence only. The
torture continued, and under its influence one fact after another
leaked out. Under the nervous strain and physical suffering, many
things were said which had no foundation in fact. Those inflicting
the torture would tell the victim what they expected him to confess,
and then beat him until he did it. The college mechanic had
constructed an iron “shot” for the athletic games, and was beaten
terribly in an effort to fasten the making of bombs on to the
college. Some bombs were discovered in the Armenian cemetery, which
aroused the fury of the Turks to white heat. It should be said that
it is very probable that these bombs had been buried there in the
days of Abd-ul-Hamid.
On Saturday, the 26th June, about 1 p.m., the gendarmes went through
the town gathering up all the Armenian men they could find—old and
young, rich and poor, sick and well. In some cases houses were
broken into, and sick men dragged from their beds. They were
imprisoned in the barracks, and during the next few days were sent
off towards Y. in batches of from thirty to one hundred and fifty.
They were sent on foot, and many were robbed of shoes and other
articles of clothing. Some were in chains. The first batch reached
Y. and sent word from various places. (It is said that this was a
scheme of the Government in order to encourage the rest. None of the
rest have been heard from. Various reports have been circulated, the
only one generally accepted being that they were killed. One Greek
driver reported seeing the mound under which they were buried.
Another man, in touch with the Government, in answer to a direct
question, admitted that the men had been killed.)
Through the intervention of a Turk, the college was able to free
those of its teachers already taken, and obtain a stay of
proceedings against all its teachers and employees, by the payment
of the sum of 275 Turkish liras. Later, this same Turk said that he
believed that he could obtain the permanent exemption of the entire
college group by the payment of a further sum of 300 liras. The
money was promised, but after some negotiations, which showed that
no definite assurance of exemption would be forthcoming, the matter
was dropped.
Following the sending of the batches of Armenians in the direction
of Y., criers went through the streets of the town announcing that
all male Armenians between the ages of fifteen and seventy were to
report at the barracks. The announcement further stated that their
refusal to obey would result in their being killed and their houses
being burned. The Armenian priests went from house to house,
advising the people to obey this announcement. Those reporting at
the barracks were sent away in batches, the result being that within
a few days practically all the Armenian men were removed from the
city.
On the 3rd or 4th July, the order was issued that the women and
children should be ready to leave on the following Wednesday. The
people were informed that one ox-cart was to be provided by the
Government for each house, and that they could carry only one day’s
food supply, a few piastres, and a small bundle of clothing. The
people made preparation for carrying out these orders by selling
whatever household possessions they could in the streets. Articles
were sold at less than 10 per cent. of their usual value, and Turks
from the neighbouring villages filled the streets, hunting for
bargains. In some places these Turks took articles by force, but the
Government punished all such cases when detected.
On the 5th July, before the order for the expulsion of the women was
carried out, one of our staff went to the Government to protest
against the execution of this order in the name of humanity. He was
told that this order did not originate with the local officials, but
that the orders had come from those higher up not to leave a single
Armenian in the city. The commandant, however, promised to leave the
college to the last, and gave permission for all people connected
with the American institutions to move into the college compound.
This they did, and at one time over three hundred Armenians were
living on the college premises.
The population had been ordered to be ready to start on Wednesday.
But on Tuesday, about 3.30 a.m., the ox-carts appeared at the doors
of the first district to be removed, and the people were ordered to
start at once. Some were dragged from their beds without even
sufficient clothing. All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the
town, laden with women and children and, here and there, a man who
had escaped the previous deportations. The women and girls all wore
the Turkish costume, that their faces might not be exposed to the
gaze of drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought in from
other regions. In many cases the husbands and brothers of these same
women were away in the army, fighting for the Turkish Government.
The panic in the city was terrible. The people felt that the
Government was determined to exterminate the Armenian race, and they
were powerless to resist. The people were sure that the men were
being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the
prison had been released, and the mountains round X. were full of
bands of outlaws. It was feared that the women and children were
taken some distance from the city and left to the mercy of these
men. However that may be, there are provable cases of the kidnapping
of attractive young girls by the Turkish officials of X. One Moslem
reported that a gendarme had offered to sell him two girls for a
medjidia.[106] The women believed that they were going to worse than
death, and many carried poison in their pockets to use if necessary.
Some carried picks and shovels to bury those they knew would die by
the wayside. During this reign of terror, notice was given that
escape was easy—that anyone who accepted Islam would be allowed to
remain safely at home. The offices of the lawyers who recorded
applications were crowded with people petitioning to become
Mohammedans. Many did it for the sake of their women and children,
feeling that it would be a matter of only a few weeks before relief
would come.
This deportation continued at intervals for about two weeks. It is
estimated that, out of about 12,000 Armenians in X., only a few
hundred were left. Even those who offered to accept Islam were sent
away. At the time of writing, no definite word has been heard any of
these batches. (One Greek driver reported that, at a little village
a few hours from X., the few men were separated from the women,
beaten and chained, and sent on in a separate batch. A Turkish
driver reported seeing the convoy two days journey from X. The
people were so covered with dust that features were scarcely
distinguishable.) Even if the lives of these exiles are being
protected, it is a question how many will be able to endure the
hardships of the journey over the hot, dusty hills, with no
protection from the sun, with poor food and little water, and the
ever-present fear of death, or some worse fate.
Most of the Armenians in the X. district were absolutely hopeless.
Many said that it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was
coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and
leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope. Many began to
doubt even the existence of God. Under the severe strain many
individuals became demented, some of them permanently. There were
also some examples of the greatest heroism and faith, and some
started out on the journey courageously and calmly, saying in
farewell: “Pray for us. We shall not see you again in this world,
but sometime we shall meet again.”
-----
Footnote 106:
About 3_s._ 2_d._
87. X.: ADDRESS DELIVERED IN AMERICA, 13th DECEMBER, 1915, BY A
PROFESSOR FROM THE COLLEGE AT X.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
On the 1st June of this year (1915), the town in Asiatic Turkey from
which I come had a population of 25,000, half of which was Armenian
and the other half Turkish. When I left X. on the 18th August, the
12,000 Armenians, who comprised the Armenian half of the city’s
population, had either been driven into exile or done to death. What
happened to the Armenians of X. is but a specimen of what has
happened to these poor people in every other city of Asia Minor and
Armenia.
Over fifty years ago, the American Board of Commissioners for
Foreign Missions established a mission station at X., which during
the intervening years had grown into an important religious,
educational and medical centre. We had there a boys’ college with
425 students, nearly all of whom were boarders, who came from all
parts of Asia Minor, from the Balkan States and from Russia. We also
had a girls’ boarding school with 276 pupils enrolled. Besides these
we had a large hospital, which had recently been newly equipped at
great expense. Here the American physician and the Armenian nurses,
in addition to the ordinary large work of the hospital, were caring
for sick soldiers of the Ottoman Army under the auspices of the
American Red Cross Society. About half the constituency of these
three institutions was Armenian. More than half the teachers and
professors in the schools and nearly all the nurses of the hospital
belonged to that same race, which all through the Christian
centuries has been the vanguard of Christian civilisation on the
frontiers of Christendom against the heathen and Mohammedan hosts of
Asia, and which has been the first to respond to and co-operate with
modern missionary effort in the Near East.
Now there remains not a single Armenian teacher or pupil in our
mission college at X., out of the more than 200 who were there
before the war began. All have been sent away by the order of the
highest Government authorities, into exile or to death. With
unspeakable brutality, the innocent young women teachers and pupils
of the girls’ school, who were remaining in the school for the
summer vacation on account of the difficulties of travelling to
their homes, were carried off by the Turkish gendarmes under
Government orders; but with equal heroism and courage the American
principal of the girls’ school rescued 41 of them from death, or a
condition worse than that, after nearly a month’s pursuit over rough
and dangerous roads.
With insensate cruelty and wickedness, the young women nurses of the
hospital, who were risking their lives in nursing soldiers of the
Turkish Army sick with the deadly typhus fever, were driven away by
the gendarmes just like the rest of their unfortunate sisters. The
American physician in charge of our hospital begged the Turkish
officers in charge of the deportation to spare the nurses who were
serving their own soldiers. These officers declared that they were
ordered by their superiors to make no exceptions whatsoever; but,
because the doctor begged so hard, four out of the dozen nurses
would be allowed to remain temporarily and continue their work of
mercy. That left the doctor to perform the heart-rending task of
selecting those who should go and those who should remain. It was
like casting pearls before swine when he made them draw lots to
decide their fate. Some of the best and most experienced nurses drew
lots to go. One who held a diploma from one of the leading London
hospitals, who was a pioneer in the nurses’ profession in Asia
Minor, and who was known as the Florence Nightingale of Armenia, was
taken away with the young women of the girls’ school. She was not
rescued with the 41 fortunate ones. Though great in soul, she was
lame and not comely in form, and on this account she has probably
been allowed to perish by the way instead of being reserved for a
life of shame.
It is now my purpose to show you, as best I can, by narrating facts
out of my recent experience at X. in connection with these events,
how the work of this great mission station in Asia Minor, a work in
which I have been engaged as a missionary for ten years, a work in
which hundreds of our American people have a deep and personal
interest, and in which they have invested hundreds of thousands of
dollars of their hard-earned money and the life work of a score of
devoted missionaries, was suddenly and brutally interrupted by the
Turkish Government on the 10th and 12th August of this year. You
will see, incidentally, how this work of destruction illustrates the
deep laid and carefully executed plans of the Turkish Government for
the assassination and annihilation of the Armenian people. You will
see how that Government scorned and flouted all the efforts of the
missionaries and of the diplomatic representatives of our Government
to save the lives and the honour of innocent women and girls. You
will also see how it is possible for Christian men and women to bear
faithful witness to their faith in this twentieth Christian century
in a persecution not less in intensity, and greater in magnitude,
than any that was ever inflicted on the early Christian martyrs by
the most cruel of the pagan Roman emperors. It may astonish you to
hear it, but it is true nevertheless, that there are living in the
world to-day men who are the equals of Nero in cruelty.
On my way from X. to Constantinople,[107] I saw at least 50,000
people, three-fourths of whom were women and children, who had been
torn from their homes and all their earthly possessions, and driven
into the fields along the railway line without any shelter or any
adequate means of subsistence, hungry, sick and perishing, awaiting
the conveniences of the railway traffic to be crowded like sheep
into the goods trucks, to be carried away eastward to die in the
deserts, if they did not perish or disappear in Turkish harems on
the way. I saw hundreds of mothers whose hearts were being broken by
the cries of their hungry children, whom they had no hope of being
able to succour or to save. The officials of the German railway were
co-operating with the corrupt officials of the Turkish Government to
extort all the money they could from this doleful throng. The 50,000
whom I saw represented but a brief section of the procession which
has been passing along that way for months.[108] A very moderate
estimate of the number of people who have perished in this way
places the figure at 500,000; and still they go on!
I have received the farewell kiss and parting embrace of men,
cultured Christian gentlemen, some of whom held university degrees
from our best American institutions in this country, men with whom I
have co-operated and at whose side I have laboured for ten years in
the work of education in that land, while at their side stood brutal
gendarmes, sent there by the highest authorities of the Government
to drive them away with their wives and children from their homes,
from their work, and from all the associations which they held most
dear, into exile or to death, and some of them to a condition worse
than either. We had no better friends in this world than those
people were. To part with them under such circumstances was harder
than I can say, and yet but few tears were shed on either side. Our
feelings were too deep for idle tears! I have often seen pictures of
the early Christian martyrs crouching together in the arena of the
Coliseum, expecting at any moment to be torn in pieces by the hungry
lions which were being turned loose upon them, while the eager
spectators were watching from their safe seats, and waiting to be
amused by that spectacle. And I had supposed that such cruelties and
such amusements were impossible in this twentieth Christian century.
But I was mistaken. I have seen 62 Armenian women and girls, between
the ages of 15 and 25, huddled together in the rooms of the
principal of our American girls’ school at X., while outside were
waiting men more cruel than beasts, ready to carry them off; and
these men were demanding, backed by the highest authorities of the
Government, that we should deliver these defenceless girls into
their brutal hands, for them to do with them what they would. I had
supposed that there was no man in the world to-day who could be
amused by such a spectacle as that. In this, too, I was mistaken,
for when the wife of our American Ambassador at Constantinople made
a personal appeal to Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior in the
Turkish Cabinet—the man who more than anyone else has devised and
executed this deportation of the Armenians, and who has boasted that
he has been able to destroy more Armenians in 30 days than
Abd-ul-Hamid was able to destroy in 30 years—when she made an appeal
to this Turkish Minister, begging him to stop this cruel persecution
of Armenian women and girls, the only answer she got from him was:
“All this amuses us!”
I will now narrate some of the more important events leading up to
this climax.
We were surprised on the morning of the last Wednesday in
April to learn that the professor of Armenian in our college
had been arrested during the previous night along with a
number[109] of the other leading Armenians of the city. We
found upon inquiry that all these men were or had been members
of one or the other of the Armenian nationalist societies, the
Hunchakists or the Dashnakists[110]. These societies had a
legal existence under the Turkish Government. They had up till
quite recently been on good terms with the Government of the
Young Turks. They co-operated with the party of Union and
Progress in overthrowing the tyranny of Abd-ul-Hamid in 1908.
They desired to co-operate with the Turks in establishing an
enlightened constitutional Government in Turkey. But recently,
when the policy of destroying the Armenians was determined
upon, it seems that the Government thought it advisable to hit
the leading members of the Armenian nationalist societies
first. A number of the prominent members of these societies
were hanged in Constantinople. Those arrested in our city were
held in prison for a few days. Then they were sent to the
capital of the province, where they were tortured and exposed
to the contagion of typhus fever. Within six weeks of their
arrest, their families received notice through the Government
officials that not any of them remained alive. The wife of our
professor was a cultured young woman, who had taught for years
in our girls’ school. She was left a widow with one child, a
little girl. She remained alone in her home, but not for long;
for, some weeks after, when all the people were deported from
her quarter of the city, she was carried away along with the
rest. I saw her, dressed in the costume of a Turkish woman,
leading her little girl by the hand as she passed by our
college gate on the morning she was driven out, with hundreds
of other women and children, on to the roads, to be captured
or to die.
During the month of May, the Government was active in enlisting into
the Army the Armenian young men whom they had not already enrolled.
The majority of them were already serving under the colours, having
been called out in the early months of the war. Some of our Armenian
students had already been advanced to the position of officers in
the Turkish Army because of their superior education and
intelligence. Those who remained were now being called out and sent
away. Some, who could afford it, paid the exemption tax of £44
(Turkish—about £40 sterling), and remained at home. Those who went
with these last contingents, as a rule, were not allowed to bear
arms, but were forced to do menial labour, such as building roads
and carrying baggage, most of the horses and donkeys which had been
requisitioned from the poor people in the early months of the war
having died from rough usage or neglect.
In the month of June the Government repeatedly published an edict,
by criers in the streets, ordering all the people to give up their
weapons of every kind to the police. It was not at all strange that
the Armenians should possess some weapons. It was the custom of the
country, because of the insecurity of life and property there, for
all who could afford it to possess some means of self-defence. It
was obvious that this order was intended only for the Armenians, as
they alone were compelled to obey it, whereas their Mohammedan
neighbours, who possessed at least as many weapons as they did, were
not compelled to obey it. This fact aroused the suspicions of the
Armenians, because they remembered that on previous occasions, when
the Turks contemplated a massacre of Armenians, they began by
disarming them. Many Armenians hesitated on this account to give up
their arms, and none of them would have done so if they had
suspected what plans the Turks had in store for them. However, the
Government took special pains on this occasion to reassure the
Armenians, promising them protection and security if they would give
up their arms. They were told that they could prove their loyalty
only by obeying the order, and they were threatened with the
severest punishment if they should refuse. In spite of many
misgivings, most of the Armenians gave up their arms; and some of
them, to prove their loyalty, actually assisted the Government in
disarming their own people. Only a very few held out against the
order and hid their weapons in their houses or in their gardens.
Persons suspected of doing this were arrested and taken to the
Government Building, where they were subjected to the cruellest
forms of torture. Usually they were bound and bastinadoed until they
became unconscious. Boiling water was often poured on the soles of
the feet, to increase the pain of the bastinadoing. The victim was
usually ordered to confess that he was guilty of conspiracy against
the Government. Often he was ordered to implicate others; and to
escape the terrible pain of the torture they would say almost
anything they were told to say. These declarations made under
torture were used as evidence against others. At least two men of
our city died under this torture. Two of our own employees were
subjected to it, the one a gate-keeper and the other a blacksmith,
who did general repair work about our premises. I saw two gendarmes
leading this man out of our front gate one afternoon in June. They
took him to the Government Building. There they bound him, and four
brutal men stuffed his mouth with filth and beat him with rods all
over the body until he became unconscious. As soon as he regained
consciousness, they repeated the process. Apparently their intention
was to kill him by torture, and they would have done so if it had
not been for the timely intervention of a friendly gendarme, a
Circassian, who had been in our employment and who knew the Armenian
who was being tortured. He intervened and rescued the man from his
tormentors, and carried him home on his own back after it was dark
enough to escape observation. He was saved, but not for long. When
he had recovered, a month after[111], he was carried away, with his
wife and two small children, in the general deportation. We learned
afterwards that the occasion for this man’s torture was that he was
seen casting a 16-pound shot, which we had ordered him to make for
our college field-day sports this year. The man who saw him reported
to the police that he had been making bombs!
After having weakened the Armenians to the extent of having sent
most of the young men into the Army, and of having terrorised the
rest, one night, toward the end of June,[112] suddenly, without any
warning, the houses of almost all the Armenians who still remained
in the city were forcibly entered by the police and gendarmes. The
men were arrested and held as prisoners in the soldiers’ barracks at
one side of the city. The whole number amounted to 1,213. Two more
of our leading Armenian professors were arrested on this
occasion.[113] After being held a few days, a very few, by paying
very large sums of money[114] as bribes to the officials, were
allowed to become Mohammedans, and were let out, to be sent away in
a few days in the opposite direction to the rest. The rest were told
that they were to be sent away into exile to Mosul, in the deserts
of Mesopotamia, six or seven hundred miles away.
Now the Government did not intend that any of these men should reach
that destination. Its purpose was extermination, not simply
deportation. While they were still held in the barracks, the
commander of gendarmerie, who had the business of their deportation
in charge, called at the mission compound, and talked freely about
the deportation of the Armenians in the presence of all the American
men in our station. He said that not one out of a thousand would
ever reach Mosul, and that if any of them did arrive there they
could not survive, because of the hostility of the nomads in those
regions, and because of the impossibility of gaining a livelihood
there when deprived of all their resources, as these Armenians had
been. “Orada Christiyanliq olmaz” was the Turkish expression which
he used, which means: “Over there Christianity is impossible.” The
Government’s purpose was to get rid of Christianity in the Ottoman
Empire by getting rid of the Christians. The mayor of our city told
our American Consular Agent[115] that the Government intended first
to get rid of the Armenians, and then of the Greeks, and finally of
the foreigners, and so to have Turkey for the Turks. Enver Pasha
said the same thing to our Ambassador. These 1,213 men of whom I
spoke, after being held for a few days, were bound together in small
batches of five or six men each and sent off at night, in companies
of from 50 to 150, under the escort of gendarmes. Some 15 miles from
the city[116] they were set upon by the gendarmes and by bandits
called _chettis_, and cruelly murdered with axes. These _chettis_
were criminals who had been turned loose from the prisons of
Constantinople and the cities of the interior, and set upon the
roads for the express purpose of preying upon the Armenians, as they
were being driven along the roads. One of the gendarmes who helped
to drive these 1,213 men away, boasted to our French teacher that he
had killed 50 Armenians with his own hands, and had obtained from
their persons £150 Turkish. The chief of the police at X. stated
that none of these 1,213 men remained alive. Our Consular Agent
visited the scene of this slaughter in August,[117] and brought back
with him Turkish “nufus teskeriés,” or identification papers, taken
from the bodies of the victims. I personally saw these papers. They
were all besmeared with blood.[118]
The motive which the Government claimed for all these cruelties was
military necessity. They said that the Armenians were a disloyal
element in the population, which it was necessary to weaken in order
that they might not hit them in the back while they were engaged in
war with the foreign foe. This was only a pretext. The real motive
was a compound of religious fanaticism, jealousy, greed for loot and
bestial lust. This was evident from what followed. If their motive
had been to weaken the Armenians in order to protect themselves from
attack, they had succeeded in doing this in a most thorough manner.
The Armenians were now quite helpless. All the strong men had been
sent into the Army, or killed, or sent into exile. All that now
remained were the women and children and old men. But when the
Government had reduced the Armenians to this helpless state, they
decided to exterminate the rest. Criers were sent through the
streets[119] announcing to the people that all the Armenians were to
be deported. Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich
or poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left
in the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.
This announcement produced great consternation among the people.
They came in great numbers to the mission compound, begging us to
advise them what to do, bringing their money, jewels and other
valuables and asking us to keep them for them. Some of them offered
to give us their children, knowing that it would be impossible to
keep them alive on that terrible journey. The promise of three days
was not kept. The very next morning, the local police with gendarmes
well armed with Mauser rifles began to enter the Armenian houses,
drive the women and children into the streets, and lock the doors of
their homes behind them and seal them with the Government’s seal,
thus dispossessing them of all their worldly possessions. They then
assigned four or five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had
brought with them to send the people away with. The carts were not
intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The
carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed-covering for each
person. When they had gotten from five hundred to a thousand persons
ready in this manner, they were set moving, a doleful procession,
driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning after
morning, during the month of July, we saw groups of this kind pass
by the college compound, the women carrying their babies in their
arms and leading their little children by the hand, without anything
left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey of a thousand
miles into the wilderness, to die miserably or to be captured by
Turks. By the end of July the city had been emptied in this manner
of its 12,000 Armenian inhabitants. Only the Armenians in the
mission compound remained. Fearing for their safety, we had tried to
get into communication with Constantinople. All our telegrams for
this purpose were intercepted by the Government. When we complained
to the Governor that he was cutting us off from communication with
our Ambassador, he frankly informed us that we would not be allowed
to communicate with our Ambassador. This had a sinister meaning to
us. It was a threat not only against the Armenians in our compound,
but also against us. The Governor had declared consistently from the
beginning that he would deport all the Armenians in our compound as
soon as it suited his convenience. All channels of communication
having failed, we sent off to Constantinople one of our Greek
tutors, and following him one of our English tutors, to carry
information of our situation to our Ambassador in Constantinople.
They reported the Governor’s threats to Mr. Morgenthau. He promptly
visited Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, and Enver Pasha,
the Minister of War, and obtained from both these men their
unqualified assurance that they would send orders to the local
authorities at X. ordering them to exempt the Armenians in our
schools and hospital from the general deportation. He sent repeated
telegrams to this effect to our Consular Agent, whom he had ordered
to come to X. to look after our interests. In this matter these
ministers seem to have told a direct lie to our Ambassador, or else
their subordinate officers refused to obey their orders, in which
case the country would have been in a state of anarchy. But there
was no sign of any anarchy in all these transactions and dealings
with the Armenians. There were no mob outbreaks. Everything seemed
to be under perfect control and to be carried through with military
precision. When our Consular Agent showed the telegram from our
Ambassador to the local Governor, he stated that he had received the
exact contrary orders, and that furthermore he knew that he would
not receive any other orders. Our Consular Agent, desiring to make a
full report on the situation to the Ambassador, left for his post at
L. on the 9th August.
The next morning, the 10th August, there appeared at the front gate
of our mission compound the chief of the police of the city, with
the local police force and a company of gendarmes and ox-carts. They
demanded that we should admit them to the compound and should order
the Armenians in our premises to come out and get ready to leave.
The President of the college reminded them of the assurances we had
received from Constantinople, and said that we could not allow them
to enter our premises with our consent. If they wished to enter,
they would have to use force and accept the responsibility therefor.
They replied that if we dared to resist their authority in any way,
we would be hanged just like any Ottoman subject. The Capitulations
had now all been abolished, and we no longer had any rights or
special privileges. They hesitated, however, to use force for a
time, and sent one of their number to the Governor, asking for
instructions. We also sent our doctor at the same time to do what he
could in our behalf. They met in the Governor’s office. The
policeman reported to the Governor that the Americans were resisting
their authority. The Governor gave orders to enter the premises by
force and take out all the Armenians. They gathered up a squad of
some 25 more gendarmes, and returned and entered the compound by
force. They drove their ox-carts in and unyoked their oxen. It was a
group of nomads coming to destroy a more civilised community. The
gendarmes entered the college buildings and our own American
residences, and drove out at the end of their rifles all the
Armenians they could find. Our professors with their families were
taking refuge in our houses. In the college buildings were the
Armenian servants and employees connected with the institutions.
They drove out all these, with our own personal servants, some of
them young Armenian women, and assigned them to ox-carts just as
they had done to the people of the city in the days before. They
collected 71 people on our college premises in this way. When they
were ready to go, we took our last sad farewell of these people with
whom we had worked for years, and among whom were some of the best
friends we had in the world. They had no adequate food supply. We
reminded the Governor of their needs, and he promised to detain them
over-night at the Armenian monastery two miles out of the city, in
order that a food supply might be got ready. The college bakery was
kept busy over-night baking hard tack. Early in the morning a
wagon-load was taken to the monastery, but it was found that the
Governor had not kept his word. The professors and their families
had been hurried on as fast as possible. They had not been allowed
to stop at the monastery. They had been driven on without food. We
have never heard anything about that party from our college compound
from that day to this, except from some of the gendarmes who took
them away. They said that the men had been separated from the women
out on the road, taken to one side and killed. The women had been
sent on, to be disposed of as those who went before had been.
Two days after, on the 12th August, the chief of the police, with
the local police force and a few gendarmes, came to the mission
compound again and demanded the young women of the girls’ school.
The whole forenoon was spent by the missionaries in arguing with the
police, and in trying to prevent them from taking the young women
away. The Principal at one time thought it would be better to have
them all shot in the school garden than to give them into the hands
of those brutal men. When further resistance proved useless, the
girls were prepared for the journey with food, clothing and money.
Their American principal[120] tried to get permission to go with
them. This was denied at first. Afterwards she was allowed to go as
far as Y., the first day’s journey. Fourteen wagons bore away the 62
young women from the school compound at two o’clock in the afternoon
of the 12th August. Some beastly looking gendarmes were escorting
them. At the edge of the city the procession was halted. While they
waited, the Governor sent for the President of the college to come
out and witness what was done, in order, as he said, that he might
see that no undue pressure was brought to bear upon these young
women to change their faith. The police asked each of the young
women whether they would deny their faith and become Mohammedans, to
save themselves from that terrible journey. All 62 refused. Two
miles out on the road the same thing was repeated. All refused
again. The first night they reached Y., and were kept in a field by
the city over-night. The next morning the American principal
furnished them with an extra supply of food and money, and then the
Governor of Y. ordered her to leave the girls and return home. She
arrived back at X. on the evening of the 13th August very sad,
expecting never to see any of her girls again. After four days she
was granted permission to visit the Governor of the Province at Z.,
hoping she might be able to persuade him to order the return of her
girls. She caught up with the party just this side of Z. She found
that 21 of the 62 girls had been carried away and lost—41 still
remained. These she was allowed to take to the compound of the
American school in Z.[121] While they were waiting there, she
succeeded in persuading the Governor to allow her to take the 41
remaining girls back to X. The party arrived back there on the 6th
September, after nearly a month’s absence on the road. Thus these
brutal men were cheated out of some of their choicest prey. These 41
girls were all that were left of the city’s 12,000 Armenian
inhabitants who had not been exiled or killed or compelled to turn
Mohammedan. What happened at X. is but a specimen of what happened
to every other town in Asia Minor.[122]
Now the question arises—What do we think about all this, and how do
we feel? We all know what we think and how we feel. But the more
practical question—What are we going to do about it?—is more
difficult to answer. Most of these people are beyond our help. But
small groups such as I have described still remain in some of our
mission stations, which are accessible to help through our Board.
Many have escaped to Russia, where they are accessible to help
through the Armenian Relief Committee. These poor people deserve our
help.
_The Preliminary Report by the same author contains certain passages
not included in the preceding Address, which give additional
information and are therefore appended here._
(_a_) The nervous strain and mental agony which our people had to
endure during the month of July was terrible. They were hanging
suspended between the hope that the American Ambassador would be
able to do something for them and the fear that they might at any
time have to suffer the terrible fate of those that had gone on
before them. This dread of what might befall his wife and daughter
made one of our professors temporarily insane. All were tormented
with the terrible temptation to save themselves by denying their
faith. They reasoned with themselves that they could profess Islam
with the mental reservation that, as soon as the storm was over,
they would again outwardly profess their loyalty to their true
faith. About fifty members of the Protestant church and congregation
yielded to this temptation, as did also a larger number of the
Gregorians. Merely declaring their wish to become Mohammedans by no
means insured their safety. Only the rich and powerful, and those
few whom the Governor thought he could use to advantage, were
accepted upon the payment of large sums of money. He was said, on
good authority, to have enriched himself by £20,000 (Turkish) in
this way. Many who professed Islam and paid money were deported, but
usually in the opposite direction and with the understanding that
they might return to their homes after a time. Some of these new
recruits to Islam seemed to have their characters completely
undermined. In order to show their loyalty to their new faith, they
assisted the persecutors of their own people. One of our students,
the son of the richest man in the city, who became a Mohammedan,
stood at our gate on the day that the professors and students were
deported and actually informed the gendarmes that one of the young
men who had been his fellow student was missing. They went back and
found him.
(_b_) On the 11th August, a Turkish doctor, who was the medical
instructor for the Vilayet of Z., called on us and stated that he
did not approve of the deportation of women and children, and that
he would try to save three Armenian girls by taking them with him to
Constantinople. One of the teachers of the girls’ school, a nurse
from the hospital and a pupil of the girls’ school, whose home was
in Constantinople, ventured to accept his offer. They prepared
themselves for the journey by dressing themselves in Turkish women’s
costumes, so as not to attract any attention along the road. On the
first night of their journey, this doctor tried to force these three
young women to become Mohammedans and enter the houses of his
friends. He persisted in his arguments through the whole of the
first night, but they stood firm, and then he declared that he would
send them back to X., and give them into the possession of the
Turkish officials there who desired them. The next morning he sent
them back under the charge of his servant. On the road back to X.
they met the convoy carrying away the girls from the girls’ school,
and made themselves known by crying out to Miss A., who went to
their assistance, and learned what had befallen them during the
night. They begged Miss A. to get their release, in order that they
might go off into exile with the rest of the girls and teachers; and
the young men who had them in charge delivered them over into Miss
A.’s charge, she signing a receipt that she had received them. They
declared that even exile and the terrible things that might befall
them by the way seemed like heaven to them after the experiences
they had gone through the previous night. I tried for a month to get
permission to bring the teacher in this party with us to America
before she was carried away, but even the efforts of the American
Ambassador on her behalf were unavailing.
_The following passage is taken from the letter (dated 1st/14th
October, 1915, and written by an acquaintance who interviewed the
author of the preceding Address at Athens) which has been quoted
already in a preceding footnote._
Two families accepted Mohammedanism at the beginning. One was the
family of Professor B. with his three grown-up daughters, who were
immediately required to marry Turks; the other was the family of Mr.
C., a notable of the town. Both families were Protestants. The
authorities allowed D.’s family to remain at X., as they wanted D.
to take photographs of the bombs and guns found in the possession of
the “rebels”—all such guns and bombs having been specially placed by
the authorities to be photographed. D. found life unbearable as a
Christian and also accepted Mohammedanism after some time.
Professors E. and F., both of whose mothers are Germans, from the
German colony of M., near Y., were rescued by the German colonists,
and remained with them up to the time my friend (the author of the
preceding Address) left X. The Kaimakam of X. said that they had
only escaped for the moment, and that he would get at them, too, in
the end.
Two Turks of X. were hanged for sheltering or offering to shelter
some Armenian friends of theirs.
-----
Footnote 107:
The witness started from X. on the 18th August.—_Preliminary
Report dated 7th October, 1915, from the witness’ hand._
Footnote 108:
“At Mirkedjia alone, the station-master told us there were 30,000
exiles. Many were weak from hunger, others almost dead.”—_P.R._
Footnote 109:
“Twenty-five.”—_P.R._
Footnote 110:
“This Professor had relinquished his association with this society
before entering our employment.”—_P.R._
Footnote 111:
“He remained unconscious for a day, and could not walk for a
month.”—_P.R._
Footnote 112:
“The 26th June.”—_P.R._
Footnote 113:
“Professors E. and FF.”—_P.R._
Footnote 114:
“£275 Turkish, in all.”—_P.R._
Footnote 115:
“Mr. AL.”—_P.R._
Footnote 116:
“On the road to W.”—_P.R._
Footnote 117:
“A German farmer reported to our Consular Agent that he had seen
50 Armenian corpses in a well, and long trenches on the mountain
side where other victims had been buried.”—_P.R._
Footnote 118:
_The author of the present address gave further particulars of
these men’s fate to an acquaintance who interviewed him at Athens
on his way from Turkey to the United States. This gentleman is the
author of the letter dated Athens, 8th/21st July, Doc. 8 of this
collection. The information he obtained from his interview with
the author of the present document is presented in a subsequent
letter, dated Athens, 1st/14th October, 1915, from which the
following paragraph is taken_:—
“The Kavass of the College, a Circassian, who was ordered to
accompany the deported Armenians, returned a day or two afterwards
and told how these 1,200 men or more were roped together in rows
of five, and were marched towards Y. On each side rode zaptiehs
with fixed bayonets. Those who could not walk were flogged, and
finally, when any one of the five in a batch could walk no
further, the whole five would be made to fall out of the
procession and several zaptiehs would remain with them, who, after
ten or twenty minutes, would rejoin the column with the ghost of
butchery shining in their eyes. Somewhat more than half the
prisoners reached Y. On their arrival at that town a fire broke
out in the Armenian quarter, and the Turks began looting and
massacring the women of Y., while the newly arrived prisoners were
accused of being the incendiaries, and were all led out of the
town to a place already prepared. Here the prisoners were halted
and led in successive batches of five to what appeared to be
tents. Groans were heard from within, and the prisoners outside,
realising what was happening, tried to break through the cordon.
But they were bound hand to hand, and when one or two in any batch
had been shot, the survivors could only trail the corpses along
with them until they gave up the effort in exhaustion. They were
all picked up afterwards and carried off to be butchered. They
were butchered with axes.”
Footnote 119:
“On the 2nd July.”—_P.R._
Footnote 120:
“Miss A.”—_P.R._
Footnote 121:
“At Z. the servants were separated from the teachers and pupils
and sent southwards towards V.”—_P.R._
Footnote 122:
“The town of L. was similarly emptied of its Armenian population;
also Y., BT. and U.”—_P.R._
88. X.: STATEMENT BY MISS AA., A FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN TURKEY;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
The feud between the Armenians and the Turks is of very long
standing. The Armenian nation is the only one of all the peoples
conquered by the Turkish nation which has not yielded to the demand
of the Turkish Government that they should give up their religion
and become Mohammedans. When the relations between the two nations
became settled after their many wars, the Armenians were given much
religious freedom, but with that freedom came also many oppressive
measures which have been very hard to bear. The Armenian, through
all the centuries, has been exempt from military service. In place
of that, each male member of the Armenian families paid a small
poll-tax. This freedom from military service gave the young men an
opportunity to engage in trade.
The nation is a nation of great traders. They travel easily and are
keen in every financial relation. As a result, when the young Turks
came back from their military service they found in all the large
cities that the young Armenians had seized all the opportunities in
trade. The soldiers have always felt that they had the right to loot
these unfortunate persons, and this has been most systematically
done for centuries.
When _Huriet_[123] came in, the privilege of military service was
given to the Armenians, and it was announced in many public meetings
that the fraternity between Armenians and Turks was to be complete.
Before this time, the Armenians had not been allowed to carry arms,
but the Committee of Union and Progress advised them to carry
personal arms, as the Turks had done for many years. There have been
among the Armenians what have been called “National Societies.”
These societies have been more or less revolutionary and nihilistic
in character, but they have also been very useful in promoting the
advancement and education of the Armenian people, and since _Huriet_
their revolutionary propaganda has been very much lessened. But it
was these societies that furnished arms for the men who could afford
to pay for them, and it is claimed by the Turkish Government that
they also hid in various cities bombs and reserve arms, which were
to be used against the Turkish Government when opportunity arose.
In many cities such bombs have been found hidden. It is very
difficult to find absolute evidence for the truth of political
statements made by any party in Turkey, but it is true that these
revolutionary societies had, in certain centres, hidden bombs for
the defence of the people. Whether their plans included definite
insurrection or not, I do not know; if so, they were most
inadequate.
The history of the Armenians in Turkey has not merely consisted in
exposure to great financial losses, but, at intervals of about 20
years, the Turks have risen against them in greater or lesser
massacres. In the border towns, their daughters have been carried
away; their flocks have been at the mercy of the Kurds; their houses
have been taken by any powerful Sheikh who wished to do so, and they
have never been allowed justice in the courts.
With this history behind them, it is not astonishing that they had
no faith in the promises of fraternity from the party of Union and
Progress, and their arms could easily be explained as being a means
of protection against Turkish attack, should a massacre arise.
When Turkey entered this war, the Armenians were conscripted with
the Turks, but a large number of the people had money with which to
pay the £40 which would exempt them from military service. In X.,
out of the 5,000 soldiers that were sent off, 4,000 were Turks and
1,000 Armenians, while the proportion of Turks and Armenians in the
population of the place is about even. It meant, of course, that
many more Armenian men were left in the place than Turks. The Turks
claimed that this was a menace to the safety of the city and also of
the country. They began to oppress the Armenians by requisitioning
from them large quantities of cloth, for clothing the Army, and
food. Their stores were practically emptied of everything that could
be used by the Army. Horses, wagons, donkeys were all taken, and no
money was paid; a promissory paper was given, but no one valued it.
About eight months after the beginning of the war, a notice was
served on all Armenians that they must give up their arms. The
reason for this was stated to be that there were so many more
Armenians than Turks left in the country and that the nation was
known to be revolutionary. This political difficulty was being
anticipated by the Government, which was in no condition to meet an
inter-racial revolution.
At other times, just before a massacre, arms had been demanded from
the Armenians, and so when this order was given great fear took
possession of the people. The Government promised in public and
private that no harm should come to the Armenians, and that this was
only a war measure and a legitimate protection to the nation. The
Armenians, however, gave up their arms very reluctantly and very
slowly.
But suddenly one night a batch of about 20 men were arrested and
sent, after a day or two’s imprisonment, to Z., the seat of the Vali
for the whole province. This was immediately followed by the
imprisonment of other leaders among the Armenians of the city. These
men were tortured cruelly. Meanwhile what was going on in X. was
being duplicated in all other cities. I saw some of the men who had
been released, after they had been exhausted by torture. They had
been thrown into a dungeon and kept without food, then beaten on
their backs and the soles of their feet, and, when the flesh was
sensitive, hot water had been poured on them and they had been
beaten again—all this in order to make them reveal the whereabouts
of the hidden arms. When they would not tell, they were made to
kneel and their arms and feet were bound together; their mouths were
filled with manure and all kinds of indignities were poured upon
them. Some died under the process; many went mad. Eyes and nails
were torn out. Some were let go, whether they had confessed anything
that satisfied the Government or not, but many others disappeared
entirely. This sort of inquisition went on until late in June.
Some bombs were found in a field, and it is claimed that they had
been hidden in the houses in the city and then, in fear, transferred
to this field, where the Government soon afterwards found them.
The Missionaries approached the Government, asking that a Committee
from the different Armenian communities—Catholic, Gregorian and
Protestant—might be formed, to collect arms. The Government gave
permission for this, and promised again that no trouble should be
given to the Armenians if they gave up their arms. The Government
told the Committee how many rifles ought to be delivered from that
city, and claimed to know who had most of them. Representatives of
the Committee spoke to the people in the churches, and promised that
if they would deliver their arms to them their names would not be
given to the Government. The requisite number of rifles were soon
collected, but, almost immediately, the order for deportation was
given.
First the men were taken, usually from their homes at night, and
imprisoned in empty barracks. About 400 men were taken the first
time. The next morning their families were notified that they were
to be deported, and that, if they wished, they could furnish them
with food and clothing. So the women got together their supplies and
carried them to their husbands, hoping that they were providing for
their needs on a long journey. They sold everything they could lay
their hands on, and provided money for the men. After a few days the
men were sent away. They were sent at night, bound in fours, about
50 a night. The barracks were continually filled with recruits from
the city. I do not know what became of these men, but I do know
that, within six hours of the city, there are long ditches and deep
wells filled with the bodies of Armenians. Their clothing was taken
from them, as well as those supplies that the women had so
pathetically prepared, and all their money.
Officers of the Government have told our friends that the official
figure for the number of men killed at X. is over 1,300. People like
to tell stories in Turkey, and it may be that this is not true.
On the 4th July the deportation order for the women came. It had
been hoped that they would be allowed to remain. At the same time,
it was publicly announced that people could save themselves if they
would become Mohammedans. Large numbers, it is said 1,000 families,
put in petitions to the Government. Only a small number of these
petitions were accepted; the rest of the women and children were
rapidly sent away.
Ox-carts were provided, and in some cases wagons, by the Government,
but the people had to pay the carriage hire; if not, they had to
walk. Some people could get donkeys, but, of course, the poor went
on foot. It was difficult to get wagons and carts, and so the people
were not all sent out at once. The Government scheduled the houses
of those who were to go in each company, and gave them notice two or
three days beforehand.
Sometimes they were taken in batches of from three to four hundred
up to a monastery, about an hour from the city. Here they were
imprisoned, and the Turkish men and women went to take away the
women and girls who could be persuaded to become Turks and live in
their harems. This was said to be the only way to save their lives,
for they were all assured over and over again that, if they were not
killed by the gendarmes or the wild villagers, they would die from
the privations of the journey.
The missionaries in X. were allowed to bring to their premises those
people who belonged to their institutions, the families of
professors and servants, and many girls who had been students in the
school. It was vacation, and, although a Summer school had been open
to other boarders who could not get home because of the war, most of
the city pupils who were in their own homes were allowed to enrol
themselves as boarders.
The Government soon said that they must clear the premises. Some of
the professors were arrested and imprisoned, but, by a money
arrangement with the Government, their Armenian friends were able to
secure them their release. It was soon learned that the Armenian
people in the town were beginning to offer large sums of money for
their protection and for permission to remain. These offers were
accepted. The women gave their jewels to the wives of the Government
officers, and obtained promises that they should not be sent away,
although in every case they were obliged to become Moslems. The
missionaries tried in every possible way to persuade the Government
to allow their people, about 350 in all, to remain upon their
premises. The American Embassy in Constantinople secured permission
from the Ministries of War and the Interior for these people to be
protected. But these authorisations were not recognised by the local
Government, and, on the 10th August, the professors and servants
were sent away on ox-carts—about 173 in all. The nurses in the
hospital and the sickest of the patients, together with the people
in the Girls’ School, were not taken at this time, but they were
taken on the 12th August. The professors and servants travelled
together as far as W., about a week’s journey with ox-carts, over
the mountains. Here the men were bound together, shoulder to
shoulder, in batches of four and marched away. Their wives
sorrowfully went on alone. As these women reached the high mountain
pass of AZ., the Circassians rushed upon them and robbed them of
coats and bedding, as well as of all the gold they could lay their
hands on.
These people and all those who went from X., and indeed from the
whole Vilayet of Z., travelled east as far as the village of V. Here
whatever means of conveyance they had travelled with was taken away
and they were obliged to find some substitute. Wagoners placed
exorbitant prices on their wagons. Ox-cart drivers quadrupled their
prices, and many people were unable to find any way, except to go on
foot. They were then driven eastward to Kirk Göz, a small village
about six hours from Malatia, on the bank of the River Euphrates.
There again their conveyances were taken away, and they could not
cross the river without paying large sums of money. Many, many died
here, and it is said that many were thrown into the river. From this
point they went south over the Taurus mountains, and word has been
received from a few at Surudj and Aleppo....
(_A portion of this document has been omitted here, and printed
separately as Doc. 96_)
went out from Constantinople to all the vilayets stopping further
deportation of Armenians, but yet the deportation has been
continuing ever since. Only four weeks before I left X., a company
of young Armenian brides with their little boys, all of whom had
become Mohammedans, were sent away. The order had come privately,
not to the Governor but to the police, that women who had boys, no
matter if they were babies in arms, should be deported with their
children. Of that category there were perhaps three or four hundred
in the city, and about 60 wagon-loads were chosen out at this time
to go. No warning was given to the people beforehand; the ox-carts
were simply driven to their doors in the morning. They had made no
preparation, and the women, especially mothers-in-law (who have a
good deal of influence in this country) were very angry. They went
to the Governor and said: “See! We have given our pearl necklaces to
your wife in order to save our lives; we paid one hundred liras to
be saved; we have become Mohammedans. We have sold our souls and
have given our money, and now you take our lives. We will not go.”
One woman stood up on her cart and shouted all the Mohammedan
prayers she had learned, to prove that she was a Mohammedan. It was
a time of general frenzy. But they grabbed the women—bound them to
the carts in many instances—and took them to the Armenian monastery.
There they were imprisoned, but after much petitioning they finally
got permission to send a representative from each family to the city
to prepare food and get money for their journey. They sold their
personal effects and in this way provided for themselves. This whole
batch was killed in the mountains, on the other side of the plain
from the city. Their birth certificates were found, and the burial
had been so badly done that the bodies of little children were left
on the ground, and the arms and legs of the corpses in the ditches
protruded. Stories of this kind can, of course, be duplicated in all
parts of the country, but I am only telling the things I can
personally vouch for.
Many stories of wonderful bravery are told of the people who went
away. In Samsoun, one of the most prominent Protestants of the place
was not allowed to go with the crowd that was first sent out. The
Governor came to him, and said to him: “You are a man, a real man;
we do not want you to be lost. Now just say that you will be a Turk,
and your life and that of your family will be saved.” The man
replied: “But I cannot say I believe a thing of which I am not
convinced. I do not believe the Mohammedan religion; you must
educate me.” So they sent their teachers to him, and every few days
would send in an official and ask him: “Now, are you not convinced?”
Thus two weeks went by and finally the officials’ patience wore out,
for the man continually said: “No, I cannot see what you see, and I
cannot accept what I cannot understand.” So the ox-carts came to the
door and took the family away. The wife was a delicate lady, and the
two beautiful daughters well educated. They were offered homes in
harems, but said: “No, we cannot deny our Lord. We will go with our
father.”
From this city the whole Protestant community went together, led
bravely by the Pastor. We heard from them near Shar-Kishla, but
their men had all been taken away and the women robbed terribly.
In a mountain village there was a girl who made herself famous.
Here, as everywhere else, the men were taken out at night and
pitifully killed. Then the women and children were sent in a crowd,
but a large number of young girls and brides were kept behind. This
girl, who had been a pupil in the school at X., was sent before the
Governor, the Judge and the Council together, and they said to her:
“Your father is dead, your brothers are dead, and all your other
relatives are gone, but we have kept you because we do not wish to
make you suffer. Now just be a good Turkish girl, and you shall be
married to a Turkish officer and be comfortable and happy.” It is
said that she looked quietly into their faces and replied: “My
father is not dead, my brothers are not dead; it is true you have
killed them, but they live in Heaven. I shall live with them. I can
never do this if I am unfaithful to my conscience. As for marrying,
I have been taught that a woman must never marry a man unless she
loves him. This is a part of our religion. How can I love a man who
comes from a nation that has so recently killed my friends? I should
neither be a good Christian girl nor a good Turkish girl if I did
so. Do with me what you wish.” They sent her away, with the few
other brave ones, into the hopeless land. Stories of this kind can
also be duplicated.
The number of Armenians in Turkey was variously estimated at from
one and a half millions to two and a half millions. Most people who
know this country well, think that not over five hundred thousand
are now left. This, however, may be too small an estimate, for there
are thousands left in the various cities who have become
Mohammedans. But this “turning” is recognised by both Christians and
Mohammedans as a temporary thing. There are also many in hiding,
especially in Greek villages and in the mountain districts. In
previous years, after massacres, people have sprung up from most
unexpected quarters, and I expect that this will be the case again.
Those who were left, however, have been more thoroughly stripped of
all worldly possessions than has ever been the case before. The best
houses are immediately occupied by Turkish officials. Furniture has
been taken to furnish officers’ houses and Government buildings. The
disposal of the rest of the property varies in different places.
In X., the best furniture is being stored in the Gregorian churches,
to be disposed of by the Commission appointed by the Government.
However, almost everything that is valuable is gradually
disappearing. The more common things are thrown into an empty square
and auctioned or sold for a song.
X. is a city of weavers, and all the equipment for the looms was in
the public square when I came away, and was ruined by rain and mud.
Whatever may be said about the revolutionary intentions of the
Armenian people, a rebellious nation is not executed by its
government, but is fought in fair fight, and those of us who have
loved the Turks and believed that they would, in the end, work out a
government that could be respected, grieve almost more over this
great failure of theirs than over the suffering of their unfortunate
subjects.
-----
Footnote 123:
The Constitution of 1908.—EDITOR.
89. NARRATIVE OF MISS AA., A FOREIGN TRAVELLER IN ASIATIC TURKEY,
DESCRIBING A JOURNEY FROM X. TO Z., 10th AUGUST TO 6th
SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The delay of our party in Constantinople was hard to bear there, but
the circumstances found on our arrival at X. were so distressing as
to make the delay heart-breaking. All the Armenian college
people—professors, teachers, servants and their families, with many
from the hospital—had gone on the 10th August. We arrived on the
evening of the 11th, and the next morning the Government officers
had wagons driven on to the premises for the girls in the A.G.S. The
order was peremptory. Of course the Kaimakam was visited, but no
change in the order could be obtained. The Principal and I finally
went and asked that Miss A. and I might be allowed to accompany the
girls. This was refused, but finally a paper was given allowing us
to precede or follow them by an hour.
There were at this time 74 Armenians in the school. The children in
the deaf school with two caretakers were allowed to remain in their
building, and the two old ladies, Miss AG. and Miss AH., who had
been connected with the school during all its fifty years of life,
were also allowed to stay. (There had been some 135 people in the
school for several weeks, but they had many of them gone to other
cities for safety, or, in the case of girls, had gone with their
mothers into exile.)
The company that left the premises consisted of 62 people—7 trained
nurses, 6 teachers, 3 dressmakers, 15 servants or members of their
families, and 31 students. One of the only two trained teachers in
the Ottoman Empire for teaching vocal speech to the deaf, was there.
Perhaps the best trained native nurse in Anatolia was there. One of
the few good music teachers in the country was there. The Armenian
nurse who had gone in the winter to take care of the soldiers sick
with typhus was there. The Presidents of the City Y.W.C.A. and of
the student Y.W.C.A., the advisory officer, and four members of the
cabinet were in the company. It was indeed too precious a group to
be swept into the mälström of wretchedness that makes up the
unending procession of the “exiled” in Anatolia. (It is said that
91,000 have passed south through Harpout, and that 250,000 is the
number that must pass south over the mountains from Malatia.)
Just before Miss A. and I left the house, an urgent order came to
the Principal, summoning him to the outskirts of the city. The
Kaimakam wished him to be present when the official invitation was
given to the girls to become Mohammedans. The invitation was
politely given to each girl individually, and no force was used;
but, an hour further on, another officer was sent to urge them again
and to tell them of the inevitable death that awaited them in a very
short time if they did not yield; then the wagon drivers began their
work, telling continually of the horrors that lay before them. This
was only the beginning of the pressure brought to bear upon them.
The girls say that no day passed in which at least three formal
representations were not made. Men of all types, even the most
disgusting, were brought to them to urge them to “turn.” Whenever
the officers presented the matter, they were always asked if they
did not want to take “a new name.” This is entirely different from
the former custom of the Turks when enforcing their religion.
Formerly all have been asked simply to affirm their belief in one
God. This “New Name” makes one shudder, when one connects it with
the Revelation. The party was most splendidly protected physically
on all their journey, for, in accordance with the promises, the
greatest care had been taken in choosing the gendarmes and their
sleeping places; but in spite of this care on the part of the
Government, several nights were spent in their wagons, so vile were
the threats made to them if they should descend. However, they
reached AW.-han (one day’s journey beyond AX.) without any change in
their number. There they were kept two nights and days, and every
effort was made to terrorise them. One girl finally gave up the
fight and consented to become the wife of an officer from Y. Here,
also, the servants with their families and the older nurse, Miss K.,
were separated from the others and sent on via V., while the girls
and teachers were sent on to Z. The girls say that the reason for
this was the belief that the older ones in the party influenced the
younger not to “turn.” However, the men were finally convinced of
the uselessness of their efforts when one of the younger and
prettiest girls spoke up for herself and said: “No one can mix in my
decisions; I will not turn, and it is I myself that say it.”
The Principal decided to accompany Miss A. and me to Y. This was a
great blessing to us. We passed the long line of fourteen wagons on
the plain, and hastened on to find the Mutessarif Pasha if possible
that night. This, however, proved impossible, and we were obliged to
content ourselves with peering out of our han window at the line of
wagons slowly winding through the streets of the city in the dusk to
a camping place outside the town. The police of the city immediately
called on us, and refused to accept our travelling papers, saying
that they knew no Kaimakam’s orders—that they only recognised the
police. We were not received by the Pasha early, and so were
blocked; but we were given permission to go to the girls with food
and money. The night had been a frightful one, and it seemed as if
we could never let them go alone, but orders soon drove them out and
they bravely started off. It was a heart-breaking experience to all
of us. We hastened back to the city for permission to follow them.
The Pasha was very stiff, and would not admit that the Government
needed any assistance in looking after its children. We soon saw
that it was useless to do anything but send a complimentary telegram
to the Vali, asking him to keep our pupils under his personal
protection.
We came back to X. and for four days worked to get more satisfactory
travelling papers, but were finally obliged to start off with only a
note from the police saying that no papers were needed for
travelling within the bounds of the same vilayet, except in the case
of suspects. In Y. our papers were again refused, but we had written
to the Mutessarif the nicest note we could get translated into
Turkish, asking his help in securing an opportunity for us to visit
the Vali in Z. Twenty-four hours went by, and then we heard that a
town meeting had been called and a negative decision made to our
request. We decided that that word must never officially reach us.
We started for the Pasha’s office, but he had gone to his harem.
Here we followed him. We found his wife a real woman, with great
sympathy for our desire to save our girls from the terrors of
deportation, and the Pasha in his home was a transformed man. He
promised to get us to the Vali if possible, and in due time this
promise was made good. The police succeeded in putting enough
obstacles in our way to keep us in the city another night, and so
our people were six days ahead of us when we started from Y. The
last annoyance was a peremptory command to sleep in a certain han.
This we refused to do because of its inconvenience, and so we stayed
in a han in the heart of the city, only a short distance from the
recently burned district. We do not know why we were not wanted
there, but the sickening odour that came into our windows till late
into the night, the words which dropped from groups of men passing
under our windows, and the five slowly fading fresh fire-spots on
the ruins of the buildings, said to have been set on fire by the
“turned” Armenians of the city, make me morally certain that a
ghastly revenge had been taken that night.
Our guard was ready betimes in the morning. Our wagoner—a great
Turkish thug—was on our side and ready to make time. The Pasha’s
paper assured the greatest courtesy at every police station, and
with rising hope we started off. But hope fades in the face of the
great sight of these deported people, and we soon felt that in all
human reason our request must be fruitless. We passed that first day
two great processions of the exiles, all villagers from the
mountains of BU. A few were riding in ox-carts, but the great
majority were on foot. The dust was suffocating, and the poor things
all carried great burdens—sometimes little children, often cradles
with babies in them, always sacks of supplies. All we could do was
to hold out a little money to them. We tried most often to give to
the old or to young girls. They were often too much frightened or
dazed to come to our carriage and take it, but our great husky
driver would shout out: “Do not fear, these will help you.” Then
they would come, but their fear only too plainly told of their
experience. I must, however, witness to the fact that we did not see
any sign of anything but patience and even kindness on the part of
the gendarmes walking with these crowds. The general impression
gotten everywhere is that orders are carried out, only orders, and
that even the cruelties are well organised. Very few men were in the
parties, but there were some. These people had been on the road more
than three weeks.
We reached a lonely unfinished han three hours beyond AY. Here we
found our first company of “turned” Armenians. They were from the
town of L., and were going they knew not where. We met many after
this; they are a little more comfortable than the Christians, and
their men are with them, but they have been robbed like the others,
and are full of uncertain fear of what may be coming to them, and
also of remorse because their denial of what is really precious to
them has brought them so little. We only stopped in AX. to send
telegrams and get the story of that city. The men here, as
everywhere else, had been rounded up first and sent off bound in
fours, in gangs of from forty to fifty, in various directions from
the city—to death, as all believe. In every city the citizens all
believe this to be the fate of all men; all the gendarmes and
arabadjis say it is, but all the officers deny it, saying that they
send the men in this way because they have no gendarmes to handle
the situation in any other way. They take all money and weapons
(even razors) from them for the same reason. In AX. the women were
also imprisoned and sent out without any preparation for the
journey. The AX. people say that the AZ. Pass is the place where all
the worst things happen, and we can well believe it. At BA. it
looked ugly, and although it was quiet enough except for the coarse
voices of the terrible-looking officers that were sitting about, you
felt that things were wrong. A little bride and a slim young girl
sidled up to our wagon to talk. In reply to our talk they told us
that they were “busy taking care of the babies.” We asked what
babies, and they said: “O, those the effendis stop here; the mothers
nurse them and then go.” We asked if there were many, and were told
that every house was full. We were watched too closely to make calls
possible. Afterwards we found an officer ready to talk, who said:
“We take them off after a while and kill them. What can we do? The
mothers cannot take them, and the Government cannot take care of
them for ever.” That night we stopped in another lonely place with a
lot of new Turks in it. We were glad to help the sick, both among
them and in the Circassian village near by, though I have no doubt
the Circassians belonged to the bands who rob the exiles so
frequently on this mountain. In the early morning, as we climbed the
AZ. Pass, we passed a great camp of exiles. We decided that we
needed to save the horses, so we walked up the steep ascent. We knew
that our own girls were not far ahead, and wondered if our
professors were here. They were not, but the company proved to be
from BC., and the pastor and people were there. As we walked by, we
saw ahead of us the girl teacher who has so self-sacrificingly
worked there these many years. We had prepared packages of money to
give away, and as she threw her arms about us with a brave quiver of
her chin and a look of agony never to be forgotten, we hid upon her
person a bag of money and told her to use it for all. There was no
opportunity for talk except to learn that the men were still with
the party. At the top of the mountain, when we changed our guard, I
went into the kitchen to buy milk and talk. It was evident that we
had not been allowed to come up the night before, although we had
pleaded for it. Forty prisoners had been there, and they had been
taken off to the tents just the other side of the mountain in the
night and disposed of in some way. We wondered if it could have been
our own professors and workers. We learned later that they (our
people) had been separated from their wives at W. a few days before,
and that the women had been robbed on this mountain only forty-eight
hours before.
We reached AW.-han about nine that morning—only the second morning
from Y.—and went immediately into the town for news, though we were
apparently only interested in the famous rug-industry of the place.
While I was discussing this interesting industry with a man, a woman
told Miss A. to hurry to the deserted factory—that our girls were
there and in danger. My man had already proposed to take us there.
We found no rugs and no girls. The former had been confiscated by
the Government, and the latter had gone only two hours before toward
Z., five hours away. A friend turned up in the street, who told us
that the girls had had a hard time here and that we had better go
directly to the Kaimakam. This we did. He told us a made-up story,
but said that the girls would lunch at BD.-han and that we could
overtake them if we would hurry. We hurried! When we rounded the
last turn of the road we saw the most beautiful sight I ever expect
to see—every window full of dark heads and waving handkerchiefs. The
Kaimakam had telephoned that they might wait for their teachers. He
was the man who had tried so hard to get a girl, and to whom our
small maiden had made her confession of faith! (When you are in the
Government it is just as well not to let your left hand know what
your right doeth.) After a few words with the girls, we hastened on
to the city, reaching there about two hours before the girls. Just
as we reached the city, we said to the gendarme with us: “Why should
not these girls stay with us at the American School while we wait
for the Vali’s decision?” He gave rather a non-committal reply, but
we were scarcely settled with our friends when this man turned up,
saying: “There has been a mistake; I got the permission for the
girls to come here, but they have been taken to a Turkish boarding
school.” A visit to the Turkish school soon straightened this out,
though for a while we feared our misunderstanding would be a fatal
one for our cause. The Vali’s sister is greatly interested in this
school, which has been established for Armenian girls left in
villages whose adult inhabitants had been sent on “sefkyat.” The
authorities thought our girls a new relay, and were a little
disgusted that it was not so. One of the humorous experiences of the
journey occurred before the girls were allowed to leave. In the dim
light they were lined up to meet the commissioner of education, who
wished to say a few words to them. They dressed like Turkish girls
on the journey in white sheets, and were a weird sight in the long
hall; but when the commissioner told them that they had no need to
leave that fine place and go with foreigners, and asked them if they
would not rather change their names and stay there, there came so
emphatic a “Khyar, Effendim” from the long line, that they were
immediately proved to be very lively ghosts. The Vali was away from
the city attending to a Kurdish revolution in the villages, and this
affair gave a very providential opportunity for a call on his
sister, to apologise for the seeming lack of appreciation of her
hospitality on the part of our students. She was stiff and angry,
but we ended the best of friends, I saying that I wished she and all
the world were Christian, and she avowing that she wished me a
Mohammedan, and each of us declaring that we were going to use our
best efforts to bring about our desires.
As soon as the Vali returned, we called, and after a very pleasant
talk on every subject but the one in hand, we handed him our formal
petition for the return of the girls. He immediately granted it,
inviting us not to hurry away, but to enjoy the hospitality of his
city as long as possible. We concluded that it was better not to
hasten, for we wanted an opportunity to present another petition for
our professors, and to talk to him about relief for the suffering in
his country. The second call was not so pleasant as the first, for
the idea of his country needing any help from foreign nations under
any circumstances was an absurdity. We told him that no country
could live to itself in this age of reciprocity, and that in time of
great trouble, whether caused by nature or by war, friendship was
shown as much by accepting help as by giving it; that our country
could only in these sad days offer to help the warring nations, and
that it was doing it indiscriminately. He warmed a little, but said
that at present there was no need and that he had not such matters
in charge.
We only left our petition for the return of our other friends, and
took leave after he had assured us that our journey should be
facilitated in every way. This was done. He himself was on the
telephone at the AZ. Pass to hear from our own lips the assurance
that we were passing that dangerous place in comfort. We came in
comfort, and this fact only emphasised the suffering of those we met
always going in the other direction. Our driver one day voiced the
thought of our hearts: “Who will give the Arzu Hal for these?” The
road all along the way was marked by dead and decaying animals, and
though we did not personally see human bodies, we were told of their
presence under bridges and in ravines, and frequent groups of
vultures gave silent witness. There were many feeble and dying in
the processions we met, for the weather was very hot. In Y. we
called on the Pasha and his family and the gendarmerie chief, and
were very politely received and earnestly congratulated. But in the
early morning, when Miss A. and I went up town to get some necessary
supplies for the journey, six men hung on gallows in the streets and
one old man was saying: “Why, that is my son!” So near are joy and
agony in the world, and especially in this land. They were deserters
from the Army.
Our findings, in regard to what we have witnessed, are as follows:—
I. The Armenians have been deported practically universally from
these six vilayets. Many of them have been killed by order of the
Government and many have died by the way, but many also are enduring
months of travel, and are approaching the borders of the great
Arabian desert, where help must be gotten to them. A large plan of
relief is absolutely necessary. It must emanate from the capital and
there receive authority.
II. Orders given from Constantinople are often made void by other
private orders; so anything that is promised must be written, and
put in the hands of the people authorised to carry it out in
co-operation with the Government. Only official seals will be
recognised.
III. The orders about Protestants are only partially acknowledged by
a few authorities, and in most cases all Protestants have either
gone into exile or have been terrorized into becoming Mohammedans.
Some order providing for relief for them, either where they are this
winter or after they return to their plundered homes, is necessary
if any real help is to be given them.
IV. Permission for the recantation of the recently “turned”
Protestants would be of the greatest help to the country, for their
condition is most pitiable. They are neither one thing nor the
other, and are afraid to engage in any real business, for all they
possessed is soon required of them in bribes by different officers.
V. Bribe-taking has been enormous in some places, notably in X.;
many have paid 2,000 liras to save their lives and then been sent
into exile practically without a para.
VI. Forcible Mohammedanizing has been universal, in the assurance
that death on the road is the only available alternative. Many, for
the sake of trying to save wife and children a little while, have so
changed their faith. The best of the Turks, however, only emphasise
the national side of this change and not the religious.
VII. The Turkish houses are full of Christian children, girls and
women. They are usually early registered Mohammedans and an Imam
comes and teaches them some of the prayers. After a while their
“nufus” teskeriés are called for and a Turkish one given in their
place, and so their nationality is lost.
VIII.—_Omitted by the Editor._
IX. What has become of the men is a profound mystery, but I am
increasingly certain that the large majority of them have been
killed. The soldiers are still most of them alive, I believe, though
all say that in the end they will also be killed. I talked with one
who had managed to crawl to the Z. hospital wounded. He was one of
ten men who had escaped, when all the rest of their company of 200
had been shot by the gendarmes in a defile of the mountains.
90. X.: REPORT FROM MR. AL., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT L., IN ASIATIC
TURKEY, DATED 26th AUGUST, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
On the 14th instant I started again for X., and I returned from
there on the 24th.
On the 10th instant, that is, immediately after my departure, the
Turkish Government carried away, in 31 ox-carts, part of the
Armenians of the College and the Hospital.
These gentlemen had been instructed by me not to allow these people
to start voluntarily, and as you will see stated in the Principal’s
letter, they were taken by force. Besides, 63 persons were taken
from the Girls’ School.
As stated in the Principal’s letter, the lawyer of the College said
that these people could perhaps be released if a sum of two or three
hundred pounds (Turkish) were given to the Kaimakam and the
Gendarmerie Commander. But as I could not approve such proceedings
on the part of the College, I sent you a telegram on the 13th
instant, reporting on the actions of the authorities at X.
It seems that the Kaimakam, the Gendarmerie Commander and the
Beledié-Reis could not agree on the sharing of the sum, so that the
Kaimakam dared not accept the money from the Americans, and
meanwhile the girls were sent away.
The conversion of these girls to Islam was attempted, but as they
refused to change their religion, they were sent towards Y. Miss
AA., Miss A., and the Principal went with them to Y. There they were
not allowed to enter the city, and had to camp in the open air.
The Americans were forbidden by the Mutessarif to go further than
Y., on the pretext that the vessikas which they had taken at X. were
without value. They came back to X. I told them that they could have
asked the Kaimakam for a vessika for Z., stating that they had to
work for the American Mission at that place. On the 16th instant
this was tried, but the Kaimakam did not believe the reason given,
and he said that only the Mutessarif of Y. could decide about that
departure. Miss AA. and Miss A. then started again for Y., on the
16th instant.
At Y. they could not at first manage to see the Mutessarif, so they
called at his harem, where he came later. They succeeded in
obtaining from him the promise that he would ask the Vali of Z. for
that permission. Thus was the journey finally permitted.
Miss AA. and Miss A. will arrive at Z. at the same time as the 63
girls, and they will try to obtain from the Vali permission to
accompany them.
These girls are accompanied by a servant from the College, and
inform telegraphically of their arrival in each place.
I doubt whether Miss AA. and Miss A. will ever succeed in obtaining
that permission from the Vali, because these girls are all from 12
to 18 years old, and they will assuredly be distributed among the
Turkish families of Z., Malatia, etc.
Only 52 persons are left in the College and the Hospital. I gave a
list of their names to the Kaimakam, requesting him to deliver them
vessikas so that they may not be troubled. The Kaimakam sent that
list to the Vali of Z., and he told me before I left that these
people would in any case be allowed to stay. I am convinced,
however, that the contrary will happen, because this is a European
institution, and life is made very hard for these people. They were
all ready to be sent away on the 18th or 19th instant, but my
presence prevented that action. I telegraphed requesting permission
for the remaining Armenians to keep their positions, because
otherwise Dr. BB. would be obliged to close the hospital, because he
cannot do without an apothecary or without nurses.
My opinion is that, owing to the Government’s proceedings, no
foreign mission will now be able to carry on its work in Turkey,
because they cannot do without the Christian element....
There still remain in X. a few more Armenians who are hiding
themselves, and also those who have embraced Islam, but these will
assuredly be deported after they have taken all that they possess.
I called on the Kaimakam the last day, and he was very kind to me. I
went also to M. I know from a reliable source that nothing
disagreeable happened to the Armenians from L. on the way to Y. The
Mutessarif was very kind, and gave the gendarmes strict
instructions, threatening them with severe punishment in case the
Armenians were ill-treated. He even asked the Commander of
Gendarmerie, Latif Bey, to accompany them to BH. The latter was very
kind to the Armenians, and these are very grateful both to him and
to the Mutessarif.
At Y., the women were separated from the men, and the latter were
bound in groups of five and carried away at night, no one knows
where.
Near Y. there is a well which must contain from fifty to sixty
corpses; heaps of torn clothes, fezes and papers were found near
there. Part of these papers were gathered up. Not far from Y. there
must also be a common grave for about 400 corpses.
A person of standing[124], who has been travelling in the interior,
gave me confidentially the following details on the subject:
(1) _Samsoun, Amasia and Marsovan people_—all reached Amasia. Then
all the men were taken, bound, and some of them killed, between
Amasia, Tokat and Tourchal. All those who reached Tokat were
directed towards Tchiftlik or Gishgisha and murdered. The women and
children were taken in ox-carts to Sharkishla; then they were sent
to Malatia, and finally thrown into the Kirk Göz or Euphrates.
(2) _Tokat._—The same thing as above, with the difference that all
pretty women and all children were taken off to Turkish houses.
(3) _Erbaa, Niksar, Messoudia._—The men were bound during the night,
and then part of them were thrown into the river Kelkid. The others
were murdered near Tokat. The women and children were deported _via_
Sharkishla and Malatia—same fate as in No. 1.
(4) _Sharkishla, Gemerek, Azizia, Tchoroum, Derenda_—all sent on
foot to Malatia, same fate.
(5) _Sivas, Divrik, Kangal_—in ox-carts to Kangal, then all on foot
to Malatia, men murdered en route, same fate.
(6) _Egin, Arabkir, Keban, Harpout, Malatia_—same fate.
(7) _Karahissar, Sou-Shehr, Zara, Tchavik_—all murdered.
(8) _Erzindjan, Kamakh_—part murdered, the rest thrown into the
Euphrates.
Bands of Kurds from Dersim are at work in Malatia. All Armenians
have been killed, according to my informant. I believe that all the
men have been killed, but that the women and children have been
distributed among the Turkish families of the interior. Not one
Armenian is to be seen.
I wanted very much to go to M. and Y., so as to see myself what was
happening, but the Kaimakam had his eye on me. I do not know that
one can believe everything one is told, and it seems rather curious
that none of my friends from the interior have reported these things
to me.
-----
Footnote 124:
Name given in the original—Mr. BZ.
91. X. (?): NARRATIVE OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT OF GERMAN
NATIONALITY[125]; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
I was called to a house one day where I saw a sheet which originated
from the prison, and which was being sent to the wash. This sheet
was covered with blood, and running in long streams. I was also
shown clothes which were drenched and exceedingly dirty. It was a
puzzle to me what they could possibly have done to the prisoners,
but I got to the bottom of the matter by the help of two very
reliable persons who witnessed part of it themselves.
The prisoner is put in a room (just as was done in the time of the
Romans), and gendarmes standing in twos at both sides and two at the
end of the room administer bastinadoes, each in their turn, as long
as they have enough force in them. In Roman times forty strokes were
administered at the very most; in this place, however, 200, 300,
500, even 800 strokes are administered. The foot swells up and then
bursts open, owing to the number of the blows, and thus the blood
spurts out. The prisoner is then carried back into prison and
brought to bed by the rest of the prisoners—this explains the bloody
sheet. The prisoners who become unconscious after these blows are
revived by having cold water thrown on their heads, and that
accounts for the wet and dirty clothes. On the next day, or, more
exactly, during the night, as all ill-treatments are carried on at
night in ——, as well as in ——, the whole bastinadoing is repeated
again, in spite of the swollen feet and the wounds. I was then in
——, but in that prison there were also no less than thirty
prisoners, who all had their feet in such a state that they began to
burn, and had to be amputated, or had actually already been taken
off. Equally revolting tortures have been inflicted in ——, and also
by the cruel Mutessarif in ——. A young man was beaten to death
within the space of five minutes.
Apart from the bastinadoing, other methods were employed as well,
such as putting hot irons on the chest. A smith, who was suspected
of having forged the shells of the bombs, was let go only after his
toes had been burned off with sulphur (called kezab). I have seen
the wounds.
Four weeks ago we received news that the Kaimakam of —— had had ten
to eighteen people shot in a district between —— and ——. Shortly
after this had happened, an order was promulgated with respect to
the Christians of ——, in which they were all commanded to leave the
place within three-quarters of an hour. Among them were several
women who gave birth to children on the way, and threw them, in
their desperation, into the water. Many men were recalled, and it is
impossible to say how many were secretly murdered, or how many will
still be butchered.
I wish to state that the inhabitants of —— are so terribly ignorant
that I really never saw the like, and I therefore feel convinced
that not one single person had ever dreamt of opposing the
authorities. Neither from the Turks nor from the Christians have I
ever heard that one of these people had ever rebelled during the
four months in question, and it is the Kaimakam alone who says so in
order to excuse his deeds. And yet the Kaimakam always declares: “No
one dares oppose me.” When I ventured to protest to the Kaimakam in
all friendliness against the bloody sheets, he replied as follows:
“If the law and the Sultan were to forbid it, I would carry out
these measures in spite of everything, and do as I please.”
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 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.=
According to a despatch published in the American Press, the
Armenians of the Pera quarter (of Constantinople) have taken flight.
Nearly 4,000 Armenians from Constantinople have found asylum in
Bulgaria. Recently there was a rumour that all the Armenians in the
Scutari quarter were going to be deported. Enver Pasha has confirmed
these rumours, and added that, if he chooses, he can have all the
Christians of Constantinople deported within a fortnight, and leave
no one there but Turks and Germans. According to another rumour, the
Armenians of Scutari and Ortakeui have already been deported. The
villages on the upper Bosphorus have likewise been cleared of their
Armenian inhabitants. We have been informed by letter that the
Armenian girls who were being educated at the American school at
Constantinople have been carried off by the Turks.
At Broussa they have converted all the rich Armenians to Islam; the
poor have been deported. Their children have been sold at 20
piastres each (3s. 4d.).
At Smyrna, several Armenians were recently hanged. The Austrian
Consul on the spot requested the Austrian Ambassador at
Constantinople to demand an explanation from the Turkish Government.
He received the reply that the Armenians possess a Patriarchate, and
ought to make any representations through this channel. “As for you,
if you are our allies, you ought not to meddle in such questions.”
-----
Footnote 141:
Source unspecified.
99. CONSTANTINOPLE: LETTER, DATED CONSTANTINOPLE, 13/26th OCTOBER,
1915, FROM AN ARMENIAN INHABITANT; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “BALKANIAN MAMOUL,” OF ROUSTCHOUK[142].
You must by now have received my second letter. To-day I shall not
be able to write you very much, for time is short and I am extremely
depressed in spirit.
Besides, what would you have me write? For ever it is calamities,
miseries and sorrows.
The last news is that the Seminarists of Armasha have been sent to
Constantinople and put under the charge of the Patriarchate. The
whole congregation, with its Superior at its head, has been deported
and the Convent has been confiscated; the Superior has even been
robbed of the £400 (Turkish) realised by the sale of the Convent’s
live stock and various other properties.
A month ago they began to deport the unmarried men from the
provinces who had established themselves at Constantinople. So far
they have deported from four to five thousand persons, and this
without warning and without giving them time to put their affairs in
order. The families of those deported to Ayash and Etchangeri[143]
had been given notice to leave Constantinople, but afterwards this
order was reconsidered. Is this the beginning of the deportation of
the Armenian population of Constantinople, for which the Government
has so far shown a certain consideration?
The majority of those who had been deported to Ayash and Etchangeri
have been brought back to Angora; at the present moment we have no
news of them, and no news either of those who have remained at Ayash
and Etchangeri. As I wrote to you in my last letter, they also have
been assassinated. Indeed, a connection of the Prefect of Police
actually said: “The Armenians are making demonstrations at Sofia,
Roustchouk and other places, and are presenting protests. We have
given them their answer by exterminating the prisoners at Ayash.”
As for the deportations from Anatolia and Armenia, they are being
continued systematically. The whole Armenian population of Konia and
Angora is on the road, and is at present concentrated along the line
of the Baghdad Railway, in the last extremity of misery. They are
being sent to Tarsus and Aleppo, to be forwarded in due course to
the desert.
In consequence of certain diplomatic representations, the Government
had given instructions not to deport the Catholic or Protestant
Armenian families, or those whose bread-winners had been mobilised.
But these instructions have been very speedily withdrawn, and are
only followed in a small number of places.
The families of mobilised Armenian soldiers who had got as far as
the course of the Railway, had received orders to wait, but we hear
now that they have been subjected to brutal treatment. These women,
who were concentrated at Eregli, beyond Konia, had made
representations to the Government and claimed the restoration of
their mobilised sons. The result of these representations is not yet
known.
The situation of the exiles in Syria is lamentable. The despatch of
relief is urgently required, in order at least to save the
survivors. Let the Armenian colonists abroad come to their aid
before it is too late. A halfpenny saves a life. Don’t disdain to
give this halfpenny.
-----
Footnote 142:
Date unspecified.
Footnote 143:
Kiangri, Kingri.
100. ADRIANOPLE: DESPATCH FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON
“TIMES” AT BUKAREST, DATED 18th DECEMBER AND PUBLISHED ON THE
21st DECEMBER, 1915.
I have received information in regard to the wholesale extirpation
of the Armenian population of Adrianople.
On the 10th October the Turkish police arrested 45 Armenian
inhabitants who had become Bulgarian subjects. The prisoners were
transported to Constantinople, and thence to Asia Minor, with the
exception of 10 who escaped and took refuge in the Bulgarian
Legation at Pera. On the intervention of the Bulgarian Government
these persons obtained liberty to return to Karagatch. In regard to
the fate of the remaining 35 the Porte professes ignorance.
Shortly afterwards, all the Armenians in Adrianople—about 1,600
persons—were arrested, and the men immediately deported to Asia
Minor. The women and children were detained two days in prison
before removal, and were subjected to brutal treatment by their
captors. Several were subsequently placed in sailing vessels for
transportation to Asia Minor. Two of the vessels foundered off
Rodosto and most of those on board were drowned. Some of the exiled
families were sold at derisory prices, for the most part to Jews.
A deputation from Karagatch proceeded to Sofia to invoke the
intervention of the Government, but have received no reply to their
petition. A memorial previously addressed to the Bulgarian
Government by another deputation gives a frightful picture of the
sufferings of Armenian prisoners in Asia Minor at the hands of the
Turkish authorities.
The document furnishes a list of 29 districts in which the whole
Armenian population, numbering some 835,000 persons, have been
either killed or exiled or forcibly converted to Islam. One
ecclesiastic was burnt alive, five were hanged or otherwise killed,
and ten were imprisoned.
101. BROUSSA: REPORT BY A FOREIGN VISITOR TO THE CITY, DATED 24th
SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
It was inevitable that the Armenians, whose deportation from Broussa
and the environs had been ordered a few days before my arrival,
should occupy some of my attention. It is doubtful whether the full
significance of this measure can be realized without a visit to the
interior, where the results may be seen in all their appalling
details. Words are inadequate to describe the utter misery and
destitution of these hordes of emigrants who are to-day roaming all
over Asia Minor. The roads are crowded with thousands upon thousands
of these unfortunate wretches, considering themselves lucky if they
are able to procure—at the sacrifice of a small fortune—an ox-cart
for their families and a few belongings; many of them journeying on
foot—men, women and children, tired, haggard, and half-starved—the
pictures of want and desolation. Broussa was among the last of the
more important cities to receive the order for the deportation of
the Armenians, so that I had occasion to see the application of the
measure from the very beginning. Thus I met the first contingents of
the exiles between Broussa and Yeni-Shehr. The authorities had given
them three days in which to clear out, with the result that they
could not sell any of their property, even had there been buyers.
All personal property, such as furniture, clothes, tools, etc.,
which they could not take with them, had to be left behind, and the
Turks quite openly distributed them among themselves, often even in
the presence of their owners! As regards the houses evacuated by the
Armenians, a little more red tape was gone through, but the effect
was the same. The Armenian proprietor was called before a
magistrate, made to sign a document that he had sold the house to a
certain individual (of course always a Moslem), and was given a roll
of banknotes. No sooner had he left the room than the money was
taken from him by the police and returned to the magistrate, to be
used in hundreds of similar cases!
I realised, of course, that I was quite powerless—even
unofficially—to interfere with these proceedings. But there were
certain other points which came to my knowledge and about which I
did not hesitate to speak to the Vali—always quite informally
only—as they seemed to me a useless and senseless aggravation in a
situation which was already trying enough. In the first place,
hundreds of Catholic and Protestant Armenians had been ordered
away—many of them had even left—although, according to the decision
of the Government, they had a right to remain. I obtained from the
Vali the promise that in future these two denominations should not
be disturbed, and that those who had “by mistake” been sent away
should be called back. This was done, and during the next few weeks
a number of Catholic and Protestant families returned. I then asked
that those ordered to leave should be given at least a week, and in
a few special cases even two weeks, in which to get ready. This
enabled many families to make the most necessary preparations for
the journey. A few casual remarks to the Vali about flogging and
forcible conversions of women and girls to Mohammedanism seem to
have put a stop also to these two outrages—at least, so I was
informed at the American School, which was in close contact with
everything going on in the Armenian community. I cannot but refer in
this connection to the altogether admirable work done by the ladies
of this institution in helping the unfortunate exiles in the most
unselfish and efficient manner. But for their devotion and practical
assistance, the sufferings of many families must needs have been
much greater.
Unfortunately, the hardships of exile and privation are not the only
dangers to which the Armenians are exposed. There can be no doubt
that many of them—chiefly men—have been massacred in cold blood.
Although no instances of this seem to have occurred during my stay
in Broussa, I was informed by very trustworthy sources that, shortly
before my arrival, about 170 of the most prominent Armenians from
Broussa and neighbouring towns had been shot near Adranos, whither
they had been exiled in June. I have all the more reason to credit
this report because, when I made inquiries concerning two of the
men, the brothers A., whose relatives live in America and who are
insured with American companies, the Vali replied evasively, but
finally said that he had heard that they escaped from custody and
had disappeared!
However, even if no Armenians had been killed outright, the result
would be the same, for the deportation as carried out at present is
merely a polite form of massacre. Unless the whole movement be
stopped at once, there is, I am firmly convinced, not the slightest
chance of any of the exiles surviving this coming winter, except
possibly the very wealthiest amongst them.
Nor do the authorities make any secret of the fact that their main
object is the extermination of the whole Armenian race. The Vali
admitted quite frankly: “We are determined to get rid, once and for
all, of this cancer in our country. It has been our greatest
political danger, only we never realized it as much as we do now. It
is true that many innocents are suffering with the guilty, but _we
have no time to make any distinctions_. We know it means an economic
loss to us, but it is nothing compared with the danger we are
thereby escaping!”
Without commenting on the truth or falsity of these remarks, the
fact remains that the Turks are rapidly depleting their country of
some of the thriftiest, most intelligent, and, in many respects, the
most valuable elements of their population. One has only to walk
through the streets of any town in the interior to realize how this
deportation has wrought havoc with the life of the community. Nearly
all doctors, dentists, tailors, carpenters are gone—in short, every
profession or trade requiring the least skill has been stopped, not
to mention the complete stagnation of all business of any
consequence. Even Turks are realizing the danger, and in some
villages they petitioned the authorities to allow certain Armenians
to remain! It is therefore all the more surprising that the Ottoman
Government persists in this shortsighted policy, for there can be
little doubt that every place left vacant by an Armenian
will—irrespective of the outcome of the European conflict—have to be
filled by a foreigner, as the Turk has proved himself totally
incapable of doing this kind of work.
102. ADAPAZAR: STATEMENT, DATED 24th SEPTEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN
RESIDENT IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
On the 1st August the beating began in the church. The object of
this was to force the people to bring in any ammunition and firearms
they might have. Most of the people accepted their fate in silence,
but one man said boldly: “You must answer to God in heaven for these
things.”
“What do I care for your God in heaven? He says you are good people
and I must not beat you; but he is not good, we must kill him.”
A mother threw herself in front of her consumptive son, and herself
received the stripes. A German woman tried to save her Armenian
husband. “Get out of the way or I will beat you,” cried the Beast.
“I don’t care for the Emperor himself; my orders come from Talaat
Bey.”
Some Armenian ladies came to intercede with the Beast, and for a day
or two the beatings were less vigorous.
Then came the awful Saturday, the day of darkness and horror. Women
came to our house saying: “They are beating the Armenian men to
death, and they are going to beat the women next!” I ran to a
neighbour’s house and there found men and women crying. The
Protestant brethren had gotten out of the church and were telling
their story. “They are beating the men frightfully,” they cried.
“They say they will throw us into the River Sakaria; they will send
us into exile; they will make Mohammedans of us; they will beat our
women next; they are coming to the house.”
“Come to the school and I will put up the American flag,” I said.
Soon after, more women came to the school to find out if I could do
something.
“We will go to the mayor; we will go to the Beast,” said they, “and
we are all losing our heads!”
Then our woman doctor came, crying frightfully. She had been down to
the church to care for the wounded. Then the trustee came. “I want
you to take my money and give it to my son if I die,” said he. Then
he sat down and wept, the tears rolling down his face.
At last I could endure it no longer. “I am going to the church; I do
not care what you say,” I exclaimed. I did not know the way and
every one was afraid to show me, but I found it by inquiring. One
man said: “You are going to the church? It is hell there.” I arrived
and walked past the guards at the gate without looking at them, and
came to the door and lo, one of the trustees came to meet me. We
walked up and down the church together and he remarked: “I think the
police do not like to see you.” I said: “They had better not; I am
going to America to tell of all these things.” He said there was one
Turkish soldier outside the church in tears. He said he had been
crying three days and nights because of the awful treatment of the
Armenian people. Some of the people were shut up ten days in the
church, but special favour was shown to the Protestants; none were
beaten, and they had more liberty to go in and out. During all this
time the Armenian shops were closed, and Armenians were not allowed
to go to market to buy food or even to their gardens to gather their
fruits, so that many were on the verge of starvation.
Three days after this the beating ceased and we were beginning to
take courage again; a few Armenian shops were opened; but the next
morning early, which was Sunday, news came that all the Armenians in
Adapazar, numbering about 25,000, were to be sent into exile. They
were to go to Konia by freight train, if they could pay their
passage, and then to Mosul by carriage—on foot a journey of weeks
and months. Such awful stories came to us about things that had
happened to those who went on foot, that people sold their last
possessions to get enough to pay their train passage. They were
afraid to take money with them. The poor had none to take; the rich
must leave all their property behind. If they took money they feared
violence. By Wednesday there were no goods trains to send them by,
as so many had gone, but all the people were turned out into the
streets to await their turn—many for several days—except the
Protestants, who were allowed to come to the Protestant church to
wait, while some of the wealthy people remained in their houses. The
Protestants, in Adapazar especially, were in good favour with the
Government, and their condition is somewhat hopeful.
A card has been received, written three weeks after the exile began,
from Eski Shehr, telling how some of the Protestants in the hotel
there were allowed to have their church services on Sunday and were
being well treated. They thought it possible that they might be able
to rent houses and remain there. If this is indeed true it will be a
very great blessing.
103. ADAPAZAR: FULLER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PRECEDING
DOCUMENT; PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW
YORK, 15th MAY, 1916.
For several months there had been occasional exiles from Adapazar,
but we felt safe because we had a good Mayor and a good Military
Commander in the city. They were our friends. The Commander
frequently joined us in our daily games of croquet, while the sick
soldiers watched us from the windows. We gave a garden party to all
the officers. They liked us and would have spared the school and the
Protestants had they been able. But one day little Arousiag, one of
our youngest pupils, came to us, a refugee, with only the clothes on
her back. She had been staying with relatives at Sabandja, but the
whole village had been exiled. As she had been born in America, of
naturalized parents, she was saved, and I was afterwards able to
bring her to her parents in America.
Soon after, some villagers whom I knew came from another mountain
village, Tchalgara, and from their lips I heard how for seven days
the men had been shut up in the church and beaten—especially the
priest—until some fainted. The Government was searching for weapons,
and the men were beaten until they either produced their own or
secured others to surrender. Then in Bardezag, our nearest
neighbouring missionary city, similar things happened. We did not
know what was going on in the interior, although occasional vague
rumours had come to us.
Then horrible cruelties began in Adapazar. About 500 important men
were imprisoned in the Gregorian church. Those belonging to the
Socialist Party were mercilessly beaten. Most accepted their fate in
silence, but one man said boldly: “You must answer to God in Heaven
for these things.” “You have no God but me,” was the response, and
the man was beaten till his feet were red with blood. “What do I
care for your Mayor?” continued the Beast, as he was called: “He
says you are good people, but he is no good himself. Kill me if you
wish,” he continued, “but ten men will come to take my place.” A
mother threw herself in front of her invalid son and herself
received the stripes. A German woman tried to save her Armenian
husband. “Get out of the way or I’ll beat you,” cried the Beast; “I
do not care for the German Emperor himself, my orders come from
Talaat Bey.” But afterwards the man was released. When I heard these
things I knew it was of no use for me to try to interfere; if the
Beast would not listen to a German, he certainly would not to an
American.
One day two of our delicate ladies went to see the Beast—to plead,
like Queen Esther, for their people—saying, by this act: “If I
perish, I perish.” They found a man of fine appearance who had been
educated in Europe, and who received them most politely. “We have
heard bad things about you,” they said, “but now we see that you are
a good man. Can’t you persuade the people to surrender their arms
without beating them?” “I am glad to see you so patriotic,” he
responded, “and would be glad of your assistance. You go, too, to
the houses and persuade the people to give up their arms, and it
will be well with them.” So these two ladies hired a carriage and
drove up and down the city, exhorting the people to surrender all
their arms.
For a day or two the beatings were less. Then came the awful
Saturday—the day of darkness and horror. Someone came running to the
school-house crying: “They are beating the men in the church to
death, and are going to begin on the women next.”
I ran over to the neighbour’s house and there I found men and women
crying. Two of our Protestant brethren had escaped from the church
and were telling their story. “They are beating the men
frightfully,” they cried. “They say they will throw us into the
River Sakaria; they will send us all into exile; they will make
Mohammedans of us. They are going to the houses to beat the women
next.” I begged the women to come to the school and I would put up
the American flag, but they did not wish to leave their houses to be
pillaged, although they promised to come if necessary.
Soon after, more women came to the school, frantic to do something.
“We will go to the Beast; we will go to the Mayor,” they cried, and
we were all losing our heads. Then our lady doctor came. She had
been to the church to care for the wounded and the tears were
streaming down her face. Then one of the school trustees came. “I
want you to take my money and give it to my son if I die,” he said.
Then he sat down and the tears streamed down his face and mine. At
last I could endure it no longer. “I am going to the church; I don’t
care what you say!” I exclaimed, and I put on my hat and started. I
did not know the way to the Gregorian church and everyone was afraid
to show me, so I had to find my way by inquiry. “You are going to
the church?” asked one man: “It is hell there.” I arrived. I walked
past the guards without even looking at them, and there at the open
door stood one of the trustees, Mr. Alexanian. “Can’t I speak to the
police and get you out?” I asked. The other trustees had already
left. “No,” he said, “I am superintendent now.”
The beatings had ceased for a time, in order that leading men might
go out to search for weapons. Mr. Alexanian would write down their
names as they went out, erasing them when the men returned. “I am
glad I was here last night,” he continued, “for I have been able to
help the poor people to-day.” How many of us would be glad of the
privilege of spending a sleepless, bedless, chairless night for the
sake of being useful? He told the same sad story of awful beatings.
No Protestant had been beaten. The Turks have always been favourable
towards the Protestants, especially in Adapazar. This trustee told
how after the beatings he went outside the church and found a
Turkish soldier in tears, who said he had been crying three days and
nights because of the wrongs inflicted upon the Armenian people. So
you see there are some good Turks. It is the Government that is
responsible, not all the people.
Soon after this, an important exile returned, the father of our two
sweetest kindergarten children, and the head of a society. Great
anxiety was felt on his behalf, for we feared he would be hanged and
we grieved for his refined and delicate wife. He answered boldly at
the trial. “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it is
mine, and yet I also am guiltless. This society was organized with
the permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain
firearms.” Which was all very true. The Government was hatching a
diabolical scheme to send all the Armenians into an endless exile,
and wished first to disarm them.
Sunday brought new terrors but no especial troubles. On Monday the
Beast left the city, and our hearts were filled with a subdued
rejoicing, even though he said he would return on Wednesday. We did
not believe it. We thought he had been recalled on account of his
cruelties. As to the man himself, he was an ex-convict, having been
implicated in a conspiracy against the Government and sentenced to a
thousand years imprisonment. He was working for his liberty by
carrying on this devilish work, and, to give himself courage for it,
he drank heavily of the most intoxicating liquor.
During these ten days of imprisonment all Armenian shops were
closed. The Armenians could not go to market to buy provisions or
even to gather the produce of their gardens. Many were on the verge
of starvation. On Saturday evening a few shops were opened, and we
began to take heart a little. Some were fearful of exile, but I
declared it would be impossible to send from twenty to thirty
thousand Armenians from one city into exile, though a few would
doubtless be sent. At this time the Government collected taxes from
the Christians a year in advance—a bad sign. On Sunday morning I was
awakened early by someone calling below my window. I put out my head
and was informed that all the Armenians in Adapazar were to be sent
into exile. As early as possible I went to the Mayor to intercede
for the people, but it was useless. He would not even promise to
protect our American property, and out of the entire city I could
save only little Arousiag, who was American born.
From that Sunday onwards, the streets were full of Armenians trying
to sell their possessions for a mere pittance. All was very
quiet—the silence of despair. Even the Turks looked serious, for
they knew that their city was financially ruined, as the Armenians
are the most thrifty and skilful of all the peoples of Turkey. In
spite of apparent quiet, however, robbery was not lacking. A poor
servant girl was trying to sell her sewing machine—her only
possession—and when she refused to sell it for four dollars, a man
seized it and ran away with it. A few days later, the husband of one
of our school servants was bringing their machine to our school when
a man snatched it from his shoulders.
The people who had any money went to Konia (the ancient Iconium) in
goods-trucks, being allowed to take only a few possessions with
them. They were told to leave their possessions in the churches and
they would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in
Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the people
were out of the city, so nobody trusted this promise. The exiles
were crowded on the top of their possessions, sixty to eighty people
in a truck marked for forty people. Some missionaries from the south
met a train-load of these refugees and described their condition as
miserable in the extreme. One girl had hanged herself on the way;
others had poison with them. Mothers were holding out their
beautiful babies and begging the missionaries to take them. A
Turkish officer ordered the Americans off, saying: “These Armenians
are dangerous people; they may have bombs.”
From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert place
called Mosul, in Mesopotamia. Those who had no money must make the
entire journey on foot. Such dreadful stories came to their ears as
to the treatment of those who walked—of how people were not allowed
to sell them bread, of how they were robbed, and families separated,
the men slain and the women and girls given to the Turks, the
children sold to be brought up as Mohammedans—that people sold their
last possession so as to be able to go as far as possible by train.
They were afraid to take money with them, lest they should be robbed
by the way. They must leave all their property behind, and as soon
as they vacated their houses, refugees from Macedonia took
possession of them. What a lamentable condition—to be poor and in
danger of starvation; to be rich, accustomed to luxury and
refinement, and then suffer all these things; to be a woman,
especially a pretty woman, with all a woman’s dangers (some in
Constantinople told me they would disfigure their faces if they were
exiled); to be a man and see all these things and yet be unable to
lift a finger in resistance; to be there and endure; to be here and
imagine!
How can the people keep their faith in God during such trials? How
many will deny and curse Him? How many will accept Mohammedanism? Or
how many will remain faithful to the end, and say through their
tears: “Though He slay me—or worse than slay me—yet will I trust in
Him?” Again and again they said to me: “Oh, if they would only kill
me now, I would not care; but I fear they will try to force me to
become a Mohammedan.”
What was the meaning of all this? It was the death blow aimed at
Christianity in Turkey, or, in other words, the extermination of the
Armenian people—their extermination or amalgamation. And why? At the
beginning of the struggle, or soon after, the Holy War was declared.
This signified a purpose to kill all Christians, the reward for
which is eternal pleasure in the Mohammedan paradise. At first
Turkey declared that the Holy War was directed only against nations
at war with herself, but later she waged it against all Christians.
The Armenians were so patient, so silent and uncomplaining. We came
very near to each other in those days. “You have made our sorrows
your sorrows,” they said to me: “You have an Armenian heart.” But as
the realization of what their exile actually meant dawned upon me, I
could neither eat nor sleep. One day I said to my friends: “I cannot
comfort you to-day; you must comfort me. I think I feel worse than
if I were going into exile myself.” And they were so brave and
cheerful that I did actually carry away cheer and comfort from that
home.
I had planned to remain with my friends until all were gone, but
that was impossible. The Protestants were given special favours;
they were the last to go, and were allowed to remain in their homes
or in the church, while on the Wednesday of that week all other
Armenians were turned out into the streets to wait their turn to go.
There they waited, with their baggage, for days, by the roadside
near the station.
So, with a sad heart, on the Friday of that exile week, I bade
farewell to the group of friends gathered at the school-house door,
and with little Arousiag mounted on to the top of my goods in the
ox-cart, fearing to trust my possessions out of my sight a moment. I
put up an umbrella to protect me from the rain and the curious gaze
of others. I felt and looked like an exile myself.
When we reached Constantinople, everything looked so peaceful and
quiet that I felt disappointed. We had received no news from the
city for some time, and thought that it must be nearly in the hands
of the enemy. To see women and children all dressed in the height of
fashion, and seemingly indifferent to the misery of the world, was a
painful contrast.
Not only did I leave terror behind me. In Constantinople also every
man’s heart was failing him for fear. There were rumours that
Constantinople also would be evacuated, and awful stories of the
separation of families, of the Mohammedanizing of Christians,
reached our ears. “This is worse than massacre,” again and again
they said: “Only let them kill us now.” Everybody was frantic to
leave the country, and the police stations were crowded with people
seeking, too often in vain, for permission to go to America,
Bulgaria, or Roumania. No men at all were allowed to go. They were
left behind to be exiled or massacred. On some days women were given
permission to leave, and on other days they were refused. It took
me, an American, two days to get my papers, with help from the
Embassy, and at every step I feared difficulty or refusal because of
Arousiag, and also another Armenian girl whom I was bringing with
me.
On the train just before we reached the boundary-line, an Armenian
family was sent back. Two of our graduates joined us in Bulgaria,
and they were said to be the last Armenians to leave Constantinople.
I know that some American ladies who joined us later were not
allowed to bring a servant with them, although she was badly needed
to help them with their babies.
At last we were out of the land of the dreadful Turk, but alas! a
part of us has been left behind. In all our silent hours visions
float before our mental eyes. As we passed through desolate-looking
provinces on our journey, I could see marching, marching, without
food or water or rest, my poor friends—the sun beating down upon
their heads, the cruel faces and rods of their oppressors urging
them on when they were ready to faint with weariness and hunger. No
place to buy bread, no bed to lie upon except the bare earth—only
marching, marching always. And I wondered whether the sublime faith
and courage with which they had started out would fail them in the
end. And thinking of these things the words of the Psalmist became
my words: “My tears have been my meat day and night, while they
continually say unto me, ‘Where is thy God?‘”
But there is a brighter side to the picture. One Sunday on my voyage
I turned to Revelation to see if I could find a message for these
days, and lo! there it was in Rev. vii., 13-17:—“These are they
which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb.... They shall hunger no
more neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light upon them
nor any heat.... And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
XIV.
THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY.
_The Anatolian Railway runs diagonally across Anatolia from the
Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople to the Gulf of Iskanderoun
(Alexandretta), but, beyond Konia, the line is in the hands of the
Baghdad Railway Company, and the construction of this section is
still incomplete. The tunnel through the Taurus Range is not yet
open to traffic, and the present rail-head is at Bozanti, on the
northern side of the mountains. In the Adana plain, a short section
of line has long been in working order between Adana itself and the
ports of Mersina and Alexandretta. But beyond this, again, there is
another breach of continuity at the Amanus Range, and this second
mountain barrier has also to be crossed by road before the traveller
reaches the railway system that radiates from Aleppo._
_The Anatolian Railway follows an ancient artery of trade, and there
were important Armenian colonies in the chief places along its
course, as well as in places lying off the railway towards the
north-east. But the track of the line forms the general limit of
Armenian expansion, and defines the Armenian “sphere of influence”
in Asiatic Turkey as against the Greek. The only considerable colony
of Armenians south-west of the Anatolian Railway is at Smyrna, where
they seem to have suffered less severely than in other parts of the
Ottoman Empire—we know no more than that a few of the leading
Armenians there were hanged._
_The deportation of the Armenian colonies in the railway zone
appears to have been started during the months of June and July.
Their numbers were soon swelled by the still larger streams of
exiles from the metropolitan districts (see section XIII. above),
and the traffic on the line became hopelessly congested. The
hardships of travel in crowded cattle-trucks were painful enough,
but now at every station on the line crowds of exiles were detrained
to await their turn for transport for interminable periods. The
central table-land of Anatolia, which the railway traverses, has a
very high average altitude, and even in summer the climate is
severe. The exiles were turned out on to the open plateau in an
absolutely destitute condition, without food or shelter—here 2,000,
here 5,000, here 11,000, here 12,000, here 15,000, here 30,000.
These facts_ _and figures are vouched for, by a number of
unimpeachable witnesses, in the documents contained in this section.
The witnesses write from half-a-dozen different points along the
railway, and one of them was himself an exile, experiencing in
person the horrors of a concentration camp. But the misery of
detention was as nothing compared with what the exiles suffered when
their turn came to be carried on to rail-head and driven across the
mountains on foot. There are frightful descriptions of their
condition by a witness who saw them when they had reached the Adana
Plain, and still more terrible accounts of the survivors who had
lived to traverse the second mountain barrier and were dragging
themselves towards Aleppo._
_This agonising journey along the route of the railway was
protracted for more than three months. The exiles were mostly
uprooted from their homes in August; the first documents date from
the beginning of September, and by that date the foremost batches
had hardly begun their marches across the first mountain range;
the last documents were written in November, and still the vast
body of the exiles had not reached Adana, but were huddled
together—stationary through exhaustion—on the south-eastern slopes
of Taurus and Amanus, between the summits and the plain. One of
the latest witnesses reckons the number here at 150,000._
104. THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, DURING THE
DEPORTATION OF THE ARMENIANS, BY A PHYSICIAN OF FOREIGN
NATIONALITY, WHO HAD BEEN RESIDENT IN TURKEY FOR TEN YEARS;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
A journey through Asia Minor even in “normal” times can be
understood only by those who have had the “experience” of travel in
Turkey. During war-time there is simply no accommodation at all.
Passenger traffic was limited to one train a week until shortly
after the time of which I write, when that was cut off too, leaving
no train connection with the interior open to the civilian.
On this particular journey, not many hours elapsed before the fact
was forced upon one’s consciousness that things were not as they
used to be. One felt the sense of unwelcomeness, the aloofness of
all fellow-passengers. Conversations were in an undertone, no
joviality—looks of suspicion, as if to say: “Who is that infidel who
dares intrude himself in such times as these?”
At the first large station a sight burst upon my view which,
although I knew and was prepared for it, was nevertheless a shock.
There was a mob of a thousand or more people huddled about the
station and environs, and long strings of cattle-trucks packed to
suffocation with human beings. It was the first glimpse of the
actual deportation of the Armenians. Our train drew up to the
station, but there was no confusion, no wailing, no shouting, just a
mob of subdued people, dejected, sad, hopeless, past tears—looking
backward to abandoned homes, to husbands, fathers, brothers who had
been torn from them; looking forward to a death in the desert, or to
a living death in the hands of captors who were compelled, “by
political and military necessity,” to free their land of the curse
of a nation which had grown powerful while they themselves
stagnated. There were guards everywhere among the people, making
communication with them impossible. The advent of a foreigner among
them was the sign for eager enquiring looks from some, as if to say:
“Can it be that he brings deliverance for us;” while others seemed
to accept their lot in settled despair.
The town from which many of these had come, I learned later, was
cleaned out completely, except for perhaps a dozen old women too
feeble to undertake the journey. A missionary compound in the same
town was left unguarded by the Government while, for four successive
nights, marauders from a neighbouring village came, and, smashing
doors and windows, helped themselves to such things as they could
carry away.
Our train sped away, taking with us as many cattle-trucks, packed
with men, women and children, as the locomotive could pull. In these
trucks one could see improvised hammocks swung above the crowd
squatting upon the floor, and in these hammocks the tiny babies—the
only individuals in all that crowd oblivious to the horrors of the
situation, but doomed nevertheless, in all their innocence, to pay
the penalty of human jealousy and greed.
The scenes just described were repeated at various stations; but at
the station of ——, as I looked across the fields to the river, I
heard the Turkish commander say: “Yes, I have 30,000 here under my
charge.” Then I looked as far along the river as I could see, and it
was one mass of improvised blanket tents, their only protection from
the parching heat of the mid-summer sun. Where this multitude were
to get food for their long journey I was unable to see, for although
most of them were as yet but a few days’ journey from their homes,
they could take but a bit of grain and almost no money with them.
Can you imagine the sanitary condition of a camp of 30,000, when
absolutely no provision is made, not even as much as would be made
for so many cattle?
During the weary days of travel I had as my companion a Turkish
captain, who, as the hours dragged by, came to look on me with less
of suspicion, growing quite friendly at times. Arrived at ——, the
captain went out among the Armenian crowd and soon returned with an
Armenian girl of about fifteen years. She was forced into a
compartment of an adjoining railway coach, in company with a Turkish
woman. When she saw that her mother was not allowed to accompany her
she began to realise something of the import of it all. She grew
frantic in her efforts to escape, scratching at the window, begging,
screaming, tearing her hair and wringing her hands, while the
equally grief-crazed mother stood on the railway platform, helpless
in her effort to save her daughter. The captain, seeing the
unconcealed disapproval in my face, came up and said: “I suppose,
Effendi, you don’t approve of such things, but let me tell you how
it is. Why, this girl is fortunate. I’ll take her home with me,
raise her as a Moslem servant in my home. She will be well cared for
and saved from a worse fate—besides that, I even gave the mother a
lira gold piece for the girl.” And, as though that were not
convincing enough, he added: “Why, these scoundrels have killed two
of our Moslems right here in this city within the last few days,” as
though that were excuse enough, if excuse were needed, for
annihilating the whole Armenian race. I could not refrain from
giving him my version of the rotten, diabolical scheme, which,
however, fell from his back like water.
It was pitiful to see rough Turkish hawkers offering for sale, from
wagons in the street, articles of all kinds stolen or bought for a
pittance from the Armenians. As I passed by, one held up for the
inspection of a number of Turkish women a child’s white coat, and as
I looked at it a vision flashed through my mind of a little girlie
across the sea, whom I had seen in a little coat of just about that
size, and who looked up into my face and called me “Daddy.”
I learned here, too, of a nurse who had been in one of the mission
hospitals, who two days before my arrival there had become almost
crazed by the fear of falling into the hands of the human fiends,
and had ended her life with poison. Were these isolated or unusual
instances, it would excite no comment in this year of unusual
things, but when we know of these things going on all over the
Empire, repeated in thousands of instances, we begin to realise the
enormity of the crimes committed. I spoke again to the captain: “Why
are you taking such brutal measures to accomplish your aim? Why not
accept the offer of a friendly nation, which offers to pay
transportation if you will send these people out of your country to
a place of safety?” He replied: “Why, don’t you understand, we don’t
want to have to repeat this thing again after a few years. It’s hot
down in the deserts of Arabia, and there is no water, and these
people can’t stand a hot climate, don’t you see?” Yes, I saw. Anyone
could see what would happen to most of them, long before Arabia was
reached.
Leaving the railway, I travelled several days by wagon across
country. Arrived at ——, I found the process of deportation in full
swing, the streets of the Armenian quarter of the city thronged with
Armenians, Turkish civilians and Turkish officials. Officers
standing in the street directed lesser officers in their work of
turning out the households, one after another. The men of these
households hurried about to find animals or wagons, paying
exorbitant prices out of the little sum which represented all their
savings, while others offered rugs and articles of all sorts for
sale, that they might get enough money to hire a donkey. Most were
unable to get animals at any price, and simply bundled together a
few personal belongings and set out, in a dazed condition, not
realising what it meant, except that they must go. One old Armenian
gentleman, on leaving, accosted his Turkish neighbour, kissing his
hand and bidding affectionate good-bye, which was reciprocated by
the Turk; evidently these two had for long years been ‘good
neighbours.’ Crowds of Turkish women were going about insolently
prying into house after house to find valuable rugs or other
articles. After being accosted by the police, I returned to my
wagon, and, while waiting there, heard the inn-keeper call to one of
his men, and say in a stage whisper: “You go out and get
_rugs_—_rugs_, you understand, by all means get _rugs_; and, say,
don’t pay too much; not more in any case than two medjids (6_s._
4_d._).” While I waited, the man brought rugs by the armload; they
were placed in a room in the inn, while the innkeeper and other men
discussed their value and gloated over the purchase for a mere
pittance. Four men came by, bearing a corpse covered with a black
cloth. Fearing lest they might in this way smuggle out valuables,
the innkeeper strode out and flung up the cloth, exclaiming: “What
have you fellows got there?”
This general plan of deportation I saw carried out in several towns.
Such animals and carriages as were available were loaded with goods
and sent to the outskirts of the town, where they waited until all
were ready; then they were joined by the crowds on foot and all went
off together. It was pitiful enough as they set out, but I met group
after group on the road “on the march”—and these travel-stained,
worn and haggard—on and on, and on to their death. Ah, yes, one can
stand almost any hardship if hope fills the breast and home and
friends are at the journey’s end.
We passed one group of about 900 souls and only two mounted and
armed gendarmes. “Why didn’t they kill the gendarmes?” has been
asked me. That is easy enough, to be sure, but, having killed their
guards, they remain at the mercy of the first band of armed men they
meet, and they must go to villages, for the mountains of Turkey
cannot support life. My wagon driver showed the tenderness (?) of
his heart by remarking, as we passed this group: “Effendi, it is
almost more than I can stand to see women and little children in
such condition. But,” he continued, “there are some fine-looking
girls in that bunch. I’ll get one when I get to the next town.” He
then started to tell me some of the atrocious things of which the
Armenians are accused. I found that, as time went on and the
deportation gained momentum, the common people came to believe more
and more the grossly exaggerated stories and whole-cloth lies
manufactured for the very purpose of exciting the sympathy of the
common people towards the scheme. Arrived at ——, I found the
Armenian market-place closed and the shop doors shut and sealed by
the Government, although as yet but a small proportion of the
Armenian population had been deported from that particular place.
Fourteen prominent Armenian merchants were hanged that night in this
city. Passing to ——, I found the missionaries besieged with
terror-stricken Armenian friends and neighbours who were living in
daily terror of orders to move. The general deportation orders came
a day or two later, and the people swarmed about the missionaries,
beseeching help for life and protection of property. One can
scarcely understand the strain to which the missionaries were
subjected; and yet how helpless they were, imprisoned, as it were,
in a country which was in the throes of war and shut off from
intervention by foreign powers.
Rich, proud Armenians, crushed by the blow, seemed to age years in
these days. Some, with tears streaming down their faces, came
beseeching us to find a way out for them. Public auction of
household and private effects was held in the market square. No one
was allowed to buy by private sale, and the prices had to be
approved by the officials. Orders came permitting the sale of houses
and lands at auction, which raised the question in their minds: “If
we sell for cash, in all probability our money will be taken from
us, or if for Government promissory notes, will they have any
value?” An order came exempting Protestants from the general
deportation, and we rejoiced at the prospect of saving even a few.
The result of this favour was, however, a distribution of
Protestants, five to ten families each, to surrounding Turkish
villages, where, surrounded by a Moslem community, they were forced
to become Moslem or to suffer terrible persecution. As far as I can
learn, no one attempts to pass judgment on any Armenian Protestant
or Gregorian who has so “turned.” All we could do was to advise
against it, realising as we did what it meant for them to marry into
Moslem homes, as those who “turned” were forced to do. God alone
knows the tremendous pressure brought to bear upon them, and the
self-sacrificing spirit in which many of them sought in this way to
save their own families from death by signing a scrap of paper.
These papers were printed forms, indicating that the signer accepts
of his free will and in full conscience the tenets of the Moslem
faith.
When we consider the number forced into exile and the number beaten
to death and tortured in a thousand ways, the comparatively small
number that turned Moslem is a tribute to the staunchness of their
hold on Christianity. Those who “turned” found that the Moslems were
not true to their promise to leave such unmolested, for in many
places these were forced to go into exile later on, although they
were counted as Moslems. In one city about 1,000 families turned
Moslem, but this being too large a number might be considered a
menace, so they were deported all the same.
If the events of the past year demonstrate anything, they show the
practical failure of Mohammedanism in its struggle for existence
against Christianity—in its attempt to eliminate a race which,
because of Christian education, has been proving increasingly a
menace to stagnating Moslem civilisation. We may call it political
necessity or what not, but in essence it is a nominally ruling
class, jealous of a more progressive Christian race, striving by
methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading place.
105. ESKI SHEHR: LETTER FROM AN ARMENIAN VICTIM[144] PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th
NOVEMBER, 1915.
We shall perish of hunger; we have had to leave behind us everything
we possess, and they are robbing us of the little money that we have
brought with us, robbing us even of our clothes. Most of us have not
a penny left. It is a cruel situation. The ferocity of the minor
officials passes all limits. The evening before last, two gendarmes
looted the tents of the exiles from the village of Kelidj (who had
only arrived that day). Incidentally they wounded some of them with
a perfect rain of blows. They also tried to carry off forty or fifty
tents, and then one of them came to announce that the Tchaoush must
be conciliated. We collected 400 piastres (£3 6s. 8d.) and handed it
over to them on condition they left us in peace; one of the exiles
sold his single blanket for 4 piastres in order to pay his share of
the subscription. Most of us were plundered on the road. Before the
exiles reach a station they are told: “You can start off, we will
see that your baggage follows you;” and they are sent on their
journey after their money, too, has been taken from them. During the
journey the sick were abandoned by the roadside. Some threw their
children into the rivers, others committed suicide. Why don’t people
at least send us some relief?
Many have lost members of their family, and no one knows where they
are. The exiles from the districts of Ismid and Broussa have been
exposed at each station to indescribable sufferings, and are only
waiting for the approach of death. From Eski Shehr to Konia the
uplands are covered with the tents occupied by the Armenians. This
frightful suffering inspires no pity in the ruthless officials, who
throw themselves upon their wretched victims, armed with whips and
cudgels, without distinction of sex or age.
During the last two days they have begun to transport the exiles
further afield—free of charge! All that has happened here is nothing
compared with what has been going on beyond Eregli and Bozanti. I
have seen with my own eyes the convoy that marched to Konia on foot,
and I simply cannot describe the condition of the old women and
children. They had ceased to be human. Having obeyed the deportation
order, they had paid a toll of 300 victims, and the widows had been
marched over the mountains. As for the men, there were not many of
them. There were other exiles who had been forced to come on foot,
from all parts, because no general order has been issued for
transporting the exiles by railway. The gendarmes demand enormous
sums for granting the exiles permission to encamp from place to
place and rest. But whether they go by train or on foot, the exiles
are condemned in any case to pillage and ill-usage.
They are now beginning to deport the people in Syria and the Lebanon
as well, and the first convoy of them has reached Konia. They are
filling their places with Mohammedan emigrants from Europe. They
distribute thirty loaves among 130 people, and even that not
everywhere.
106. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER[145] DATED AFIUN KARA HISSAR,
10th/23rd SEPTEMBER, 1915; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“HORIZON” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th NOVEMBER, 1915.
Some of the exiles have been sent to Konia, but on the bleak uplands
of Afiun Kara Hissar, under canvas, or, in many cases, without tents
at all, there are about 11,000 exiles in misery. Most of them have
been reduced to an indescribable condition. They endured all kinds
of hardships on their journey, and a large proportion of them died
on the road. Many fathers have been compelled to abandon their
children on the road. They have been obliged to march day after day
on foot, pricked on at the point of yataghans and deluged with
curses. In the struggle to keep up this unending journey on foot,
they have been forced to abandon by the road such possessions as
they had taken with them, even the most necessary articles, and they
are now naked and shelterless on the frozen plateau.
This pitiful mass of sufferers is composed of Armenians from the
towns and villages of Balikesri, Panderma, Erendjik, Hai Keui,
Mikhalidj, Kassaba, Broussa, Gemleyik, Benli, Marmardjik, Karsakh,
Gurlé, Yenidjé, Djera, Ezli, Adapazar, Karasu, Yalova, Tchoukour,
Karsz, Kelidj, Shaklak, Mess Nor Keui, Tchingiler, Orta Keui and
Keremet.
There are about ten priests from these villages among them.
The rich have become poor, and the poor, naked, famished and
deplorably miserable, without help and without hope, are compassed
by all the terrors of death. Exposed to freezing blasts and
drenching rain, their life is one long agony. One would rather die
than see such a spectacle.
The railway has been requisitioned for the transport of troops, so
they have decided to leave this unfortunate mass of people here for
an indefinite period. There is no means of escaping from this
terrible life of exposure to the elements. The only means is death,
and they are dying in numbers every day. There have been twelve
deaths only to-day.
-----
Footnote 144:
Name withheld.
Footnote 145:
Name of writer withheld.
107. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: RESUMÉ OF A LETTER[146] DATED AFIUN KARA
HISSAR, 2nd/15th OCTOBER, 1915; APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC.
11), DATED 15/28th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT
BUKAREST.
The 16,000 deported Armenians who were living in the tents have been
sent to Konia, in cattle-trucks. At night, while thousands of these
unfortunate people, without food or shelter, shiver with cold, those
brutes who are supposed to be their guardians attack them with clubs
and push them towards the station. Women, children and old men are
packed together in the trucks. The men have to climb on to the top
of the trucks, in spite of the dreadful cold. Their cries are
heart-breaking, but all is in vain. Hunger, cold and fatigue,
together with the Government’s deeds of violence, will soon achieve
the extermination of this last remnant of the Armenian people, the
former inhabitants of the Sandjak of Ismid, the Vilayet of Broussa
and the neighbourhood. In spite of the great misery that prevails
among the exiles, the Government took from them by force one hundred
Turkish liras for the “Defense Nationale.”
-----
Footnote 146:
Name of writer withheld.
108. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER, DATED MASSACHUSETTS, 22nd NOVEMBER,
1915, FROM AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Mr. and Mrs. A., Miss B., a Greek student from our College who
wished to come to America to study, my husband and I left BO., and,
after travelling all day and night, reached Afiun Kara Hissar about
nine o’clock the next morning. We had three hours to wait in Kara
Hissar, so we took a carriage at the station and drove to the home
of an Armenian doctor there—a well educated, fine young doctor, whom
we had met on our previous visit to Kara Hissar. We found his wife
and two small children at home, but the doctor had been taken a year
ago to work for the wounded Turkish soldiers.
The wife had heard of the exiling of all the Armenians from
different towns around her, and so she was packing a few things to
take with her when her hour came to go. That hour arrived while we
were in her home. All the Armenians were ordered to be at the
station in twenty-four hours, to be sent—where? They did not know,
but they did know that they had to leave everything—the little homes
they had worked for for years, the few little things they had
collected—all must be left to the plunder of the Turks.
It was one of the saddest hours I ever lived through; in fact,
the hours that followed on the train, from Kara Hissar to
Constantinople, were the saddest hours I ever spent.
I wish I could picture the scene in that Armenian home, and we knew
that in hundreds of other homes in that very town the same
heart-breaking scenes might be witnessed.
The courage of that brave little doctor’s wife, who knew she must
take her two babies and face starvation and death with them. Many
began to come to her home—to her, for comfort and cheer, and she
gave it. I have never seen such courage before. You have to go to
the darkest places of the earth to see the brightest lights, to the
most obscure spot to find the greatest heroes.
Her bright smile, with no trace of fear in it, was like a beacon
light in that mud village, where hundreds were doomed.
It was not because she did not understand how they felt; she was one
of them. It was not because she had no dear ones in peril; her
husband was far away, ministering to those who were sending her and
her babies to destruction.
“Oh! there is no God for the Armenians,” said one Armenian, who,
with others, had come in to talk it over.
Just then a poor woman rushed in to get some medicine for a young
girl who had fainted when the order came.
Such despair, such hopelessness you have never seen on human faces
in America.
“It is the slow massacre of our entire race,” said one woman.
“It is worse than massacre!” replied another man.
The town crier went through all the streets of the village, crying
out that anyone who helped the Armenians in any way, gave them food,
money or anything, would be beaten and cast into prison. It was more
than we could stand.
“Have you any money?” my husband asked the doctor’s wife. “Yes,” she
said; “a few liras; but many families will have nothing.”
After figuring out what it would cost us all to reach
Constantinople, we gave them what money we had left in our small
party. But really to help them we could do nothing, we were
powerless to save their lives.
Already the Turks had taken our American school and church, and
after a big procession through the streets had dedicated our church
as a mosque and turned our school into a Turkish school—taken down
the Cross and put up the Crescent.
Some weeks before, they had exiled our faithful Armenian pastor, who
for a great many years had toiled there, as he himself told us, “to
make a little oasis in that desert.”
For many weeks Mr. C. of our College in BO. had stayed in Kara
Hissar to try and get back our church and school, but nothing could
be done. The Turks had named our church “Patience Mosque,” because,
they said, they had waited so many years to get it.
It was with broken hearts that we left the town, and hardly had we
started on our way when we began to pass one train after another
crowded, jammed with these poor people, being carried away to some
spot where no food could be obtained. At every station where we
stopped, we came side by side with one of these trains. It was made
up of cattle-trucks, and the faces of little children were looking
out from behind the tiny barred windows of each truck. The side
doors were wide open, and one could plainly see old men and old
women, young mothers with tiny babies, men, women and children, all
huddled together like so many sheep or pigs—human beings treated
worse than cattle are treated.
About eight o’clock that evening we came to a station where there
stood one of these trains. The Armenians told us that they had been
in the station for three days with no food. The Turks kept them from
buying food; in fact, at the end of these trains there was a
truck-full of Turkish soldiers ready to drive these poor people on
when they reached the Salt Desert or whatever place they were being
taken to.
Old women weeping, babies crying piteously. Oh, it was awful to see
such brutality, to hear such suffering.
They told us that twenty babies had been thrown into a river as a
train crossed—thrown by the mothers themselves, who could not bear
to hear their little ones crying for food when there was no food to
give them.
One woman gave birth to twins in one of those crowded trucks, and
crossing a river she threw both her babies and then herself into the
water.
Those who could not pay to ride in these cattle-trucks were forced
to walk. All along the road, as our train passed, we saw them
walking slowly and sadly along, driven from their homes like sheep
to the slaughter.
A German officer was on the train with us, and I asked him if
Germany had anything to do with this deportation, for I thought it
was the most brutal thing that had ever happened. He said: “You
can’t object to exiling a race; it’s only the way the Turks are
doing it which is bad.” He said he had just come from the interior
himself and had seen the most terrible sights he ever saw in his
life. He said: “Hundreds of people were walking over the mountains,
driven by soldiers. Many dead and dying by the roadside. Old women
and little children too feeble to walk were strapped to the sides of
donkeys. Babies lying dead in the road. Human life thrown away
everywhere.”
The last thing we saw late at night and the first thing early in the
morning was one train after another carrying its freight of human
lives to destruction.
Another man on the train said that in one train he was in the
mothers begged him to take their children to save them from such a
death.
He said that an Armenian, a leading business man in Harpout, told
him that he would rather kill his four daughters with his own hand
than see the Turks take them from him. This Armenian was made to
leave his home, his business and all he had and start off with his
family to walk to whatever place the Turks desired to exile him to.
When we reached a station near Constantinople, we met a long train
of Armenians that had just been exiled from Bardezag.
My husband and Mr. A. talked with one of the native teachers from
our American school. Among other things he said that an old man was
walking in the street in Bardezag when the order came to leave. The
old man was deaf and did not understand what was going on, so,
because he made no move to leave the town, the soldiers brutally
shot him down in the street. The teacher said he could buy no food,
for the soldiers kept them from buying any.
The crying of those babies and little children for food is still
ringing in my ears. On every train we met we heard the same
heart-rending cries of little children.
109. Q.: REPORT FROM DR. D., DATED Q., 8th SEPTEMBER, 1915;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
The conditions are so bewildering here that it is hard to know how
to present a general view of the situation. The deportation is still
going on in full force, and yet shows unaccountable stoppages and
delays. I suppose that the _vis a tergo_ emptying out the population
is so out of proportion to the executive ability to keep the
channels of travel open that the result is this great damming back
of the current that has filled the cities from Eski Shehr to the
Taurus mountains. Beyond that I know very little. Exemptions and
delays are granted with no apparent reason, often, however, with the
plainest of reasons, viz., the enriching of the police. The amount
of extortion practised must extend into thousands of liras.
Dr. E. will tell you of what he has seen on the way here. I will try
not to duplicate what he says. The information that I have from P.
is reliable. The Protestants of Q. who were there have all returned
here, though many difficulties were thrown in their way. There were
about 15,000 exiles in P., but there has been a steady stream
pouring in that direction and the number must be larger now, except
for the number sent on into the mountains from there. How many there
are at Bozanti, the terminus of the railway, I have not been able to
learn. Whether they are now being sent on to Tarsus and Adana, I
cannot learn with certainty. Reports have it that travel beyond
Adana is cut off, and so the exiles are not being sent, as before,
beyond Aleppo.
In P. the exiles are encamped in the open fields in the
neighbourhood of the railway station. No protection is provided for
them, and they have none, except such tenting as they can make up
for themselves out of carpets, coarse matting, cloaks, gummy sacks,
sheets, cotton cloth, tablecloths, or handkerchiefs, all of which I
have seen used here in Q. There are no sanitary arrangements for
this horde, and every available spot is used for depositing
excrement. The stench of the region is described as appalling. Here
in Q. I have seen how the adjoining field, entirely open as it was,
was so thickly covered with excrement that it seemed impossible to
step anywhere, while women and girls, as well as others, were
defecating there in the daytime simply because there was absolutely
no screen or protection anywhere. When it is considered that
diarrhœa and dysentery are rife, you can imagine the results. The
region there, as well as here, is exceedingly malarial, and this is
the time of year for it. I have no knowledge of how many deaths have
taken place.
After a time, large numbers of the exiles at P. were allowed to find
shelter in the town, where they rented houses and for a time were
better off. But they were not allowed to rest in quiet. Suddenly the
order would come from the police that all were to leave for Bozanti,
and the whole number who were in the town, perhaps 5,000, would be
driven (and I mean literally driven under the lash) into the streets
with all their goods and be rushed to the encampment. There perhaps
100 wagons would be ready and 500 people find places and be sent
off. The rest were then left to stay in the encampment or bribe
their way back to the town again and re-rent their houses, until
another alarm and driving forth. Every such onslaught meant several
medjids of expense for every family for transporting their goods and
bedding to and fro, and this in addition to the bribes paid to the
police for the privilege of going back to the town. Such bakshishes
had to be paid to the police for every favour asked, from
medjids[147] to liras.[148] No one could go to present a petition to
the Governor without bribing the police first. In the encampment the
police would come along in the morning and order all tents in a
certain section to be taken down, saying they were to start for
Bozanti, and this order would be enforced instantly with scourge and
club. The terror of the people, from the reports they had of that
journey “beyond”—of pillage, murder, outrage, stealing of girls and
starvation—was such that they were always ready to purchase a few
days’ respite if they had any money to do it with. No train or wagon
is ready, so when enough money is brought out, the people are
graciously allowed to put up their tents again twenty feet away from
their former site. The sick, the aged—none were respected. The
people have described to me the terror of that constantly recurring
order, “Down with the tents!” with the whip behind it.
For those who did have to start, the conditions were still worse.
They must hire wagons brought there for them, and the drivers charge
four times the ordinary price. It must be paid, or they will be
driven out to go on foot, and, of course, in that case, can take no
bedding and hardly any food with them. The drivers acknowledge
afterwards that the police take one half of the price paid. It is
impossible for me to tell you all the means of extortion employed. I
know of a family here who had to pay nineteen liras to hire a wagon
and hamals and get permission from the police to move from the
filthy encampment to a small, horribly crowded hotel near by. The
hotel-keepers charge a lira a day for a little room with three or
four dirty beds in it, and then share this with the police.
Protestants are supposed to be freed. The story of my contest with
the officials here, before the Vali arrived, shows how they had
planned to get all sent away before his arrival by concealing the
order for exemption.
The Protestants who were already in P. were notified that they were
free, yet had to pay fifty liras to the police to get their permit
to leave. At the station, where they went to get third-class
tickets, they were told that there were no third-class coaches left
and that they must take second-class. After purchasing these tickets
two-thirds of them were put into third-class coaches after all. It
was merely a trick to separate them from more of their money. Of
course, they were glad to have third-class coaches, for, coming here
first, the exiles were compelled to pay the full fare and then
packed forty or fifty together in box-trucks, cattle-trucks, or even
open flat trucks. The Railway seems to be as conscienceless in
wringing the money out of them as the Government or the Turks.
The whip and club are in constant use by the police, and that upon
women and children too. Think what it is for people, many of them
cultivated, educated, refined, to be driven about in this way like
dogs by brutes. I have seen women black and blue from the beating
they have received. A woman with a fractured thigh at the station
was being helped by friends intending to bring her to the hospital.
A commissary of police came along and ordered her to be dragged back
into the carriage. A boy yesterday in the encampment here was struck
on the head by a policeman and killed. The pastor of the church at
O. was beaten with a whip and his forehead cut open, in a great
gash, by a blow from a club, for saying that he was a Protestant and
asking for his freedom. He is not freed yet in P. Two of his
daughters we took into the hospital as nurses when the family first
passed through here.
Dr. E. will tell you of conditions here in Q. The Vali is a good
man, but almost powerless. The Ittihad Committee and the Salonika
Clique rule all. The Chief of Police seems to be the real head. The
Vali came here on the promise that Q. should be spared. Then he was
delayed in Constantinople day after day until the deportation here
should be accomplished. He was furious when he heard of it on his
way here, and he is likely to resign soon. I am telling you what a
close friend of his, a travelling companion, told me.
The Armenians of N. sent here were forced to come by wagon. The
Circassians of the region knew of it and followed after and robbed
them, and shot one girl. Gendarmes were sent out after the
Circassians, but only took their turn in completing the stripping of
the party.
Another party was sent in the same way and was attacked at night by
Circassians, and one of the men was shot through the thigh—a
horrible wound. He died here in the hospital a few hours later. We
have one boy and one girl here in the hospital who were run over by
trains, compelling the amputation of the leg. Three hundred families
from Baghtchedjik are in Eski Shehr. About two hundred of the men
were in market, nearly a mile from the encampment, when the police
came on them and drove them out at once to start on foot for Q.,
without letting them go back to their families or get money. They
are here now, begging me to try to communicate with their families.
The mail is closed to all such communications. Telegrams innumerable
are given in at the office, the money received and then the telegram
never sent—(witness two long telegrams I sent you).
During the last four days the inhabitants of the villages above
Baghtchedjik have been poured in here, and are filling the
encampment. They come from a cool and well-watered region. They are
thrown out here in this burning heat, without shelter and with a
water supply so scanty that there is a constant struggle at the
fountain to get their jars filled. The sickness that we are seeing
among them is heart-rending. Many are simply overcome with the heat.
Our dispensary floor is covered all day with sick in all stages. A
little girl died here this morning. Others, moribund, will perhaps
hardly get back to their tents. We are trying to refresh them with
yoghourt and water-melons. They are too sick to take bread.
Hardly anything makes me so hot as the thought of the soldiers’
families. The men—the fathers, brothers, sons and husbands—are
serving in the Turkish Army as loyally as any, and their
families—their children, wives and sisters—are driven off in this
inhuman manner. Soldiers’ families are also said to be exempt from
deportation, but in countless cases they are swept away with the
rest. The wife must put in a special petition claiming her
relationship. This petition has to be paid for, for she cannot write
Osmanli. It must be stamped with the regular stamp, the additional
stamp, the Hidjaz Railway stamp and the War-Aid stamp. Then, after
the usual delays of “Go and come again,” a telegram is written to
the Army Post where she says the soldier is, and this she must pay
for—thirty to sixty piastres[149]—and all this when she and the
children are hungry for bread with no money to buy it. A woman came
for treatment yesterday with three children, two almost dying. She
happened to mention that she was a soldier’s wife. I asked why she
did not get free by that. “They wanted thirty-one piastres for the
telegram and I had nothing,” was her reply. Oh! I wish you could see
the abominable cruelty of their treatment and the diabolical
ingenuity of the ways devised to strip them of all their money
before bringing them to their deaths—for that is where it will
surely end for all these people, unless some means of stopping it is
soon found. Whether the taking of Constantinople will be such a
means or not will depend, I suppose, on whether the present
Government succeeds in making its escape and continuing its rule in
the interior.
An “Exiles’ Commission” has come here from Constantinople. It was
announced that their business was to be to settle the exiles in this
vilayet and not make them go further. Telegrams from Enver Pasha
were received stating this before the Commission came. Now they have
come, and it appears that their duty is merely to clear the choked
channels and speed up the traffic. They have announced that they
have come not to settle the exiles but to drive them on. Since
beginning this letter I have learned that the stream has begun to
flow again from P. and Bozanti to Adana and on, and it is reported
that now the destination is Arabia.
I must add a report from Angora, whence I have received to-night
what I have every reason to believe to be an accurate account. Some
two or three weeks ago, about two hundred of the chief Armenians at
Angora were imprisoned, then taken at night in wagons, thirty or
forty at a time, to the banks of the Kizil Irmak, and there killed.
Eighteen of the employees of the Railway and the director of the
Ottoman Bank were among these. I had this on good authority then,
and it is confirmed now. Within this past week all the Armenian men,
whether Gregorian, Protestant or Catholic, have been taken, stripped
to shirt and drawers, tied together and taken away and heard of no
more. The women and girls have been distributed to the Turkish
villages, the Turks coming and looking over the girls and choosing
what they wanted. I could give you the name of one of the wealthiest
men in Angora, whose wife and three daughters were taken away before
his eyes, and who went crazy. Three hundred boys were circumcised.
The name of the railway official was told me who saw one hundred of
these done, and reported it. The region from Angora to Polatlu (on
the railway) is said to have been the scene of such outrages as
cannot be described. It is reported that this complete extermination
applies to the whole of the Angora Vilayet outside the Kaisaria
Sandjak, but my accurate information does not cover this.
It is openly stated by officials here that the exemption of
Protestants and Catholics is only temporary, and the trend of events
seems to me to give colour to this.
The saddest part of all this is our utter impotence to do anything
to stay the awful deeds that are being perpetrated.
-----
Footnote 147:
About 3_s._ 2_d._
Footnote 148:
Slightly less than a pound sterling.
Footnote 149:
Five to ten shillings.
110. Q.: REPORT FROM DR. E., DATED Q., 3rd SEPTEMBER, 1915;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
Although you are already well informed as to the Armenian situation
in this region, I am taking the liberty to add a few notes from
personal observation on the way here, chiefly from what I saw at
Eski Shehr, Alayund and Tchai.
At Eski Shehr there are about 12,000 to 15,000 exiles in the fields
about the station, evidently in great need and distress. The
majority of them appear to be without shelter, and what shelter they
have consists of the flimsiest kind of tent, improvised out of a few
sticks covered with rugs or carpets in a few instances, but often
only with cotton cloth—absolutely no protection from the heavy
autumn rains which will soon be coming. The station-master, whom I
have known as a reliable man for several years, told me that the
people had been treated with every kind of brutality, the police
ostensibly trying to prevent the Turks from molesting them by day,
but aiding and abetting them by night. I myself noticed that in
several places large groups of young women and girls were being kept
separate from the rest and guarded (?) by the police, and was told
that in several instances the police had allowed them to be
outraged. At the present, instances of actual violence were not so
common, but there was no provision made for feeding them and the
people were quickly spending what little cash they had to buy
provisions at exorbitant rates. Certainly they seemed to have little
or nothing in the way of supplies, and many looked pinched and
sickly. About thirty to forty deaths were taking place every day.
Germans whom I overheard talking while on the way to Eski Shehr, and
also the German hotel-proprietress at Eski Shehr, were loud in their
condemnation of the whole affair as being conducted in the most
brutal and horrible way.
At Alayund there were perhaps 5,000 exiles in about the same
condition. They were from Broussa for the most part, and those with
whom I was able to converse told the same tales. Within two weeks
the Government had made two distributions of bread, neither of them
sufficient for more than one day, and had given nothing else. I
myself saw police beating the people with whips and sticks when a
few of them, in a perfectly orderly way, attempted to talk to some
of their fellow-exiles on the train, and they were treated in
general as though they were criminals who had no claim to
consideration of any kind. What talking I did, I had to do with them
rather surreptitiously, of course.
At Tchai I saw perhaps a couple of thousand in the same condition.
Here the men and women were together, and the Turks had not
succeeded in carrying off more than two girls. By keeping constant
guard the Armenians, although unarmed, had been able to frighten the
assailants away. They said that all the men there would die rather
than give up any of their women, and that, as the Turks were not so
numerous, they felt safer, but dreaded what was awaiting them when
the order came to move on. A heavy rain had fallen at Tchai and
occasioned great suffering, followed by sickness and some deaths,
especially among the children. A good many of the people had gone
insane.
A conductor on the train told me that, although the order had come
for the return of the Protestants and the Catholics, he had seen
about 100 to 150 of the latter from Ismid re-deported towards Angora
and in this direction, even after they had gone through the form of
having been returned to their homes. In their second deportation
they were to be scattered—a few to each Turkish village in the
region.
At Q. about the same conditions exist, although we are fortunate in
having a good Vali. However, he is much handicapped by some powerful
men of the Committee,[150] who are opposed to him and accuse him of
undue clemency. Even a prominent Armenian of this city warned him
not to be too kind lest he be sent away (the above was an Armenian
connected with the railway, and therefore not deported). The
Protestants here are very grateful to you for securing them
exemption from deportation. However, they are in much distress, for
the Government has sealed up all their shops and will not let them
conduct any business, so that what little cash they have is rapidly
being exhausted.
All of the above and much that I might add is as nothing, however,
to what the railway employees report as going on at the end of the
line, where the people leave the railway and set out on foot, only
to be set upon by brigands, who rob, outrage and kill all the way
from Bozanti to Adana and beyond. At Angora also there has been
great slaughter, according to all reports.
Whether these unfortunate people are sent on towards the east or
whether they remain where they are along the road, their future is
very dark, and it means annihilation for the whole race unless they
can be quickly reinstated in their homes with permission to carry on
their business, or else taken out of the country altogether. Even if
they are left just as they are, two or three months will probably
see the end of most of them. The climate of the interior is very
different from that of Constantinople, and the nights are already
cold. We shall do the best we can here, but can hardly touch the
outer edge of the national wretchedness and misery, which is written
so clearly on the despairing faces of the people, especially of the
women and girls, that enquiry and investigation are almost
unnecessary to confirm the horrible truth. We are using every means
we can, however, to see as much as possible ourselves and get
reliable information of the rest....
P.S.—I have had to wait several days to find a suitable messenger,
and the delay has enabled me to get a pretty comprehensive view of
the situation. There are at present in Q. about 5,000 to 10,000
Armenian refugees, mostly from the Broussa, Ismid and Bardezag
regions; a few hundreds come from Eski Shehr, Ak Shehr and other
places nearer by. The people are, for the most part, encamped in the
fields near the railway station, much as they are at the places
above described. The protection is, for the most part, very flimsy,
and there is a considerable proportion of the people whose things
have been stolen from them and who are simply lying out in the open
with no protection from the scorching sun by day or from the dew and
dampness by night. This state of affairs produces a vast number of
cases of malaria and dysentery, and also of heat prostration, and
one cannot walk a few paces through the camp without seeing sick
lying everywhere, especially children. There are, of course, no
sanitary arrangements at all, and last night the stench that came
from the camp was overpowering. Conditions are ripe for an epidemic
at any time, especially as these people have not, like the soldiers,
received any prophylactic treatment. Until very recently the
Government had done absolutely nothing for the refugees; during the
last few days they have been giving the adults one piastre[151] and
the children twenty paras[152] a day, which is, of course,
insufficient to feed them adequately. The people have no occupation
and stand and lie about listlessly; a steady stream of them passes
up and down the main street, begging or peddling their small
remaining stock of clothing, rugs, embroidery, &c. At night the
people are not molested as much as they were at first, but this is
probably due chiefly to the fact that the best of everything has
been taken away from them by this time and that a vast assemblage of
sickly and half-starved people is naturally comparatively safe from
molestation. There are a fair proportion of the Armenians who have
managed to keep some money and goods, and who are fairly comfortable
for the time being in houses and rooms that they rent. These,
however, have troubles of their own, for the police try to get money
out of them by frightening them, saying that they are next on the
list to be sent off to Bozanti, that their papers are made out
wrong, &c. Numbers of anxious parents have been to us, beseeching us
to take their daughters as nurses or servants in order to protect
them from the Turks. We have employed as many as we dared—not that
we are afraid for ourselves, but that we have to think of our own
regular nurses and employees, who would be in danger if we
overstepped the mark. But it is terrible to refuse asylum to girls
whom we know to be in danger. Yesterday an unusually pretty and
refined young girl of fifteen was brought to us by her parents; she
had been pursued all the way from Broussa by an Army officer, but
they had been able to elude him and the police as well. Our hospital
is too public to shelter her, and we are still looking for a place
for her. Most of the people in town are scared to do anything at
all, foreigners included, but we do not propose to show the white
feather, and are only waiting for certain official persons to return
from P., where they went a few days ago in order to get larger
liberties for Red Cross activities. At present our hospital has
taken in all the soldiers and refugees that it can, and we are
seeing sick refugees in the clinic all day long. To-day I counted 21
women and children in one of our waiting-rooms, mostly lying on the
floor from sheer exhaustion, one child moribund, two others nearly
so, and half the rest of the group quite likely to die in a few
days, if they are allowed to remain where they are in the camp. Many
of the villagers are mountaineers, and, lying out on the hot dusty
plain by day and exposed to the cold of night, they quickly succumb.
To-day I took a little girl into the hospital who had been perfectly
well until four days ago, when everything was stolen from the mother
and she had no place to lay her except on the ground, so that she
quickly got up a dysentery and died a few hours after admission to
the ward. The family were respectable Protestant people from Ismid.
Hardly had the little girl died and the sheets been changed than
another child, this time a boy, was put into the same bed; his leg
had been cut off by a railway-truck and apparently there was nobody
to take care of him. We found that the mother had been forcibly
separated from her children further back on the road. In that same
ward lies a young girl who has recently had her leg amputated for
the same accident, and who to-day was crying and screaming because
some friends had told her that her parents had suddenly been
deported to P. without having been given a chance to see her. It is
all horrible, horrible—no mere description can adequately portray
the awful suffering of these unfortunate people, whose only crime is
that they are Armenians.
If a few of the men have had revolutionary ideas, I am convinced
that the vast majority of them have had no more idea of rising
against the Government than have their helpless wives and children.
The suffering we see is utterly unlike anything confronting the
Americans in Constantinople. Sad as is the lot of many of the poor
soldiers, they at least have the comfort of kindness and sympathy,
and the realisation that the enemy is sharing the same lot. But
these people are being deliberately done to death at a sufficiently
slow pace to allow their oppressors the opportunity of choosing out
such of their women and their goods as they care for and getting all
their money away from them before they die. Dr. and Mrs. D. went
through the massacres of ’94 and ’96, and they and Miss H. and I
have been through two revolutions, one massacre and two wars since
then, but we all agree that we have never seen anything like this.
Another outrageous side of it is that many of the fathers and
brothers of these women and children are in the Army, fighting the
country’s battles. Such was the case with the dying child that was
brought to the clinic this afternoon, and with another who will
probably be in the same condition soon.
In addition to the medical work, we have begun distributing bread
and fruit at the hospital twice a day, and a few quilts to those who
are most needy. But this is very inadequate, and we hope to get the
Government’s permission to keep a large number of the sick in the
city under our supervision with a couple of Armenian physicians to
assist us. Many of the people had heard of the offer of
transportation to America some time before I came here, and sigh
that it might be realised. Unless political circumstances allow of
their speedy restoration to their homes or their _bona fide_
establishment in new places, transportation to America seems their
only hope, or else the nation will be annihilated, and that very
soon....
-----
Footnote 150:
Of Union and Progress.
Footnote 151:
Slightly more than twopence.
Footnote 152:
Slightly more than a penny.
111. Q.: LETTER FROM DR. E., DATED 27th OCTOBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED
BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Since my writing to you last the situation has changed considerably,
although the general need and suffering remain. The whole encampment
near the railway has been cleared out and sent on, with the
exception of some tents belonging to families with contagious cases,
such as diphtheria, scarlet fever, etc., which are being attended to
by the Beledié physician. There remain, however, a very large number
of people in the city, some say as many as 20,000, who are still
permitted to stay here—probably through bribes to the police,
friends in the Government, etc. Although the above number may be an
exaggeration, one sees crowds of Armenians everywhere in town, and
we have the same crowd of about 500 every day to feed, and more
patients coming to the clinic than we have time to see.
Soon after the great deportation that preceded the arrival of the
new Vali, Miss H. and I drove out to PP. Han, the first station on
the railway towards P., just to follow up the crowd, as a large
number had been driven off on foot with the expectation of taking
the railway later on. PP. Han is about three hours from here by
carriage, and, even so near to Q. as this, we found 100 people
sitting and lying about the station in utter destitution. They had
been there three days; most of them had eaten up all the provisions
they had and looked haggard and emaciated—veritable famine victims
such as one sees in pictures of what occurs in India. On leaving Q.
they had been promised food along the way, and the gendarmes there
left, saying “geledjek,” but the fact was that they had had no
provision whatsoever made for them. The train from Q. came along
while we were there, and most of the people dragged themselves to
the carriages and endeavoured to get on, but were pushed back by the
gendarmes, partly because they had no tickets and partly because
there was no room; so the poor people turned back bitterly and
hopelessly to where they had been sitting or lying about the
station. There is a village an hour or two away from the station,
and a Turkish baker had driven to the station to sell bread, but as
there was no money to buy, the grown-up people looked at it from the
distance, while the little gaunt children drew near to stare at it
wistfully. I bought enough to give each person there a loaf, and
many declared that it was the first food they had had for three
days. Some of the people there were intelligent and educated—their
sufferings were even greater than those of the villagers, who were
more accustomed to hardship. There were two women there desperately
sick, with puny babies tugging away at the breast and getting
nothing, their pathetic cries mingled with the groans of the mothers
in physical and mental anguish. Among the hundred people there were
not half-a-dozen tents, and these improvised and of the flimsiest
description. All the rest of the people were lying out in the open,
day and night, many without even a blanket or quilt. Half-a-mile
from the station I found two old women who were crawling about on
hands and knees, too weak to walk; they had been carried off on a
wagon, ostensibly to go to a village, but, once out of sight of the
gendarmes, the driver had dropped them in the field and hurried
away. All without exception looked forward to certain death by
starvation, nor could we see any other future for them. A few miles
further on, we found a little heap of clods that had been apparently
piled together and then scattered, and near it a bundle of rags full
of a child’s bones. The skull, with the scalp still clinging to it,
was lying a yard or two away. Evidently there had been a hasty
burial, and the dogs had come and torn the grave to pieces and
devoured the body. That same day we found another dead body by the
roadside—an old woman wrapped in a torn quilt; also a woman about 40
years old sitting alone by the road, miles away from any city or
village, with feet bare and swollen, almost pulseless, and evidently
crazed from terror and exposure, muttering something about Turks who
were coming to cut her throat, about her people who had left her
behind, and so forth. A little further on, lying beside an empty
wayside stable, we found an old woman, half-naked, pulseless,
muttering in low delirium and with only a few hours to live. We
lifted her into the old stable, covered her with an old quilt that
we found near her, and drove back to the city, weighed down with the
thought of the awful suffering that is going on all over the
country, especially to the south-east of us, of which we see such
terrible examples at our very doors.
Our new executive is affable and pleasant enough, but is hand and
glove with the clique here and impresses me as insincere. After
pushing the deportation vigorously for a few days, things have
quieted down again, and the Armenians in town are having their hopes
revived, although we see nothing to ground them upon. The hunger and
want in the city are increasing; to-day we fed over 600. It is
blessed work, even if it seems to have no future for the recipients.
A lot of the exiles are well qualified to earn a living, but the
police will not allow them to work.
Next time you write, I should be interested to know if the case of
Vartouhi, whose sisters from Gumuldjina were abducted, was taken up
by the Bulgarian Ministry.
A side-light on the rate of extermination of the Armenians is thrown
by a glance at mortality statistics in our hospital, which I have
been studying lately. In ordinary years the average mortality from
all causes is about 4 per cent. This year, among 500 to 600 soldiers
we have taken in, it has been about 6 per cent., the increase being
doubtless due to the lowered vitality of the soldiers in general.
The mortality among Armenians—exiles—who have been admitted to our
wards has been over 30 per cent., and this in spite of the fact that
we have taken in only the ordinary run of maladies and that there
has been no epidemic! The nation is being systematically done to
death by a cruel and crafty method, and their extermination is only
a question of time.
112. Q.: LETTER, DATED Q., 25th NOVEMBER, 1915, FROM DR. E. TO MR.
N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Profiting by a medical call to Bozanti to see the family of a
railway employee, I have at last had a chance which I have been
waiting for for some time, namely, to investigate the conditions to
the south-east of us. The journey there and back was very tedious
and disagreeable; the locomotives burn only wood, and the trains
take just about twice the ordinary time to cover the distance. About
every three or four hours the train has to stop to load wood on the
tender, and when it comes to a steep grade the train has to be
divided into two, the locomotive taking up half of it and then
returning for the other half. There is still transportation of
Armenians going on, but most of the movement is in the other
direction, great numbers of raw Arab recruits being brought from
Syria and the Hauran and sent on to Eski Shehr and Constantinople.
The men are of the wildest type, thinly clad, many of them having
neither shoes nor stockings. They suffer greatly from the cold,
which is already becoming severe, and are treated with great
brutality by their officers, whom I saw beating and stoning and
cursing them all along the way.
Leaving on Sunday, the 21st, I spent the next day at P. There were
about 2,000 exiles there, of whom about a third had permission from
the Government to remain on account of being artizans or, in the
cases of women and children, of being members of soldiers’ families.
The remainder were more or less under the ban, and were dragging out
a wretched existence dodging the police, but preferring such a life
to the fate of being sent on into the mountains to starve. The
artizans above-mentioned were receiving a loaf of bread a day from
the Government and being forced to work for nothing; also the
soldiers’ families were receiving rations, but in no case
sufficient. I heard many stories of how the Armenians had been
refused transportation by train, and had been forced to hire wagons
at exorbitant rates, ten liras and more from P. to Tarsus, or else
had been driven off on foot, leaving most of their belongings behind
them. I saw great piles of baggage heaped up at the station, at
least five or six hundred pieces, that had been abandoned, and was
told that probably there had been three thousand in all. Most of
this property had been confiscated as “metrouk” (abandoned) and had
been partitioned among the officials or sold, while a good deal had
been stolen by the Turks in the town. About a hundred children had
been abandoned on account of sickness or of their being too young to
walk. The Turks had taken all but about twenty of these and adopted
them as Moslems, and I found the remainder of them in the care of a
poor Armenian woman, who with the help of some of the Armenians in
the town was trying to look after them. They were all in a dark,
wretched room, about nine by twelve feet—miserable specimens of
humanity they were. Seven of them in that room actually looked sick,
and all of them pinched and pale and insufficiently clothed. The
kind-hearted woman in charge was not only nursing a baby of her own
but actually trying to make her small supply of milk suffice for two
of the littlest refugees as well, who were sick and for whom there
was no cow’s milk to be had. Being in such wretched condition they
were not much in demand, but from time to time, she told me, the
Turks would come round to see if there were any worth taking off,
especially girls. The Government was doing absolutely nothing for
these children.
Deportation in P. was still in progress, about a hundred wagon-loads
of people having been driven off a few days before I arrived. One of
the parties, consisting of husband, wife, two boys and one girl, had
been set upon near BE. by robbers. Upon some resistance being
offered by the man, the whole party was stabbed to death, the little
girl of six years having first been foully outraged. This story is
authentic, and the Government is now making investigation and
promises to punish the “guilty” when they are found.
Near the station I found about two hundred people who had been
driven out of the town, and were crowded into a couple of abandoned
and tumble-down houses, in filth and misery indescribable. I started
to look at the sick, but gave it up as a bad job, as almost all were
sick and no medicine would make them well as long as they were
obliged to live under such conditions. There were a few tents spread
outside on the frozen ground, and the condition of the people in
them was about the same as that of those in the houses. In the
evening, when I took the train, some of the people were trying to
buy tickets, when I saw an officer deliberately pulling them away
from the window and beckoning to Turks to take their places and to
their friends to crowd about the window, apparently with the
intention of delaying the Armenians so that they should miss the
train, which now takes passengers only once a week. I managed to
crowd in and buy tickets for four of them, the officer meanwhile
telling the rest of them that there were no tickets for them that
night. Fortunately the train was so late that I think all must have
eventually gotten tickets. This in itself is a small incident, but
is a sample of the continual nagging and harassing that is going on
when there is no opportunity to do something worse. The regular
resident Armenians of P. have for the most part been allowed to
remain, through the goodwill of the Kaimakam, but are, of course,
subjected to constant nagging. They are frequently invited to become
Moslems, and even J. Effendi, who is a Protestant, is nagged by one
of the Turkish officials, who is trying to get his youngest daughter
to marry him. All Armenians there are in great anxiety and fear, and
I could see that they were nervous about being seen with me, so that
I had some difficulty in seeing and hearing what I wanted. In Q.
they seem to take a great deal of comfort in our presence in the
city and in being able to apply to us in a way that does not excite
suspicion. Also, some of the police are our friends and refrain from
making trouble.
Going on to Bozanti, I found only about 250 refugees. These were
scattered along the long valley that leads towards Tarsus, and were
altogether the most wretched of the exiles that I have yet seen.
They are the remnants of the vast encampment that has been there
during the past months, and are all too poor to hire any conveyance
to Tarsus, eighteen hours away, while their women and children are
too feeble to attempt the journey on foot. About two-thirds of the
people had wretched tents of some description, and the rest had no
shelter at all. They had sold what had not been stolen from them,
and many were half-naked. All were famished and wretched, with
despair written on their pinched and haggard faces; a large number
were sick, and I counted five corpses in half-an-hour. Of the
latter, two were still stretched out in the tents, one was being
buried, and two had been thrown out by the roadside. There is no
available shelter for these people in Bozanti, even if they had
permission to use it. The Government sends some bread to them from
time to time, but with no regularity. Most of them were villagers,
but some from good families. I found a pretty young girl with her
mother in one of the tents, whom I recognised as having seen in Q.
The girl had been in danger of being abducted by the police while
here, so her mother had hurried her on to Bozanti; but there the
money gave out, and they had nothing left but some scanty bedding, a
few dishes, a little clothing and three medjidias. Beside their tent
were two others, whose occupants, like them, were people of some
breeding and refinement, but in similar destitution, and with only
women and children in all the three tents. In another tent I found a
young girl who had been carried off by the gendarmes but rescued by
the station employees at Bozanti. I was told that she had been a
bright and attractive girl, but when I saw her she was thin and
emaciated and had become idiotic. The valley was strewn with graves,
and many of them had been torn open by dogs and the bodies eaten. I
was told that considerably over a thousand people had died at
Bozanti, and about the same number at P.—how many thousands all
along the way from Constantinople to Mesopotamia, no one can tell.
People coming from that region say that not one person in ten ever
reached Zor, and that those people who have gotten there have
nothing but starvation before them. From the statements of railway
officials and others I should think that not less than 500,000
people must have passed through Bozanti.
At P., in addition to distributing some money, I left 30 liras to be
spent for the people by J. Effendi and the Armenian Beledié
physician there (a first-rate and very capable fellow), paying
especial attention to the waifs above mentioned. At Bozanti I bought
a donkey-load of bread and distributed it to the refugees, gave out
a considerable amount of cash in small sums, hired several camels
and horses that were then available to take some of the people on to
Tarsus as soon as possible, and left 20 liras with my host to hire
wagons next day and send on more of the people (wagons there can now
be hired quite cheaply). If we get word that they reached Tarsus
safely, I think we can arrange to send on the rest. Tarsus is at
least warmer and better in every way than the bleak mountains among
which they are staying now, and we can only hope that things may
take a turn for the better before they are driven into the desert.
The Vali here is now very friendly, and assures us that at least all
Protestants will be allowed to remain here and will not be molested,
but that others will be sent off soon to the towns (kazas), though
not to the villages. We all breathe easier with the chief of police
and his cronies now no longer in Q.
113. KONIA: RESUMÉ OF A LETTER[153] DATED KONIA, 2nd/15th OCTOBER,
1915; APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC. 11), DATED 15th/28th
OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT BUKAREST.
Immediately after the recall of the Vali, Djelal Bey, who had left
the exiles’ tents with tears in his eyes, more than 80,000
Armenians—men, women and children—were driven away from their tents
and directed towards the south, beaten along with whips and clubs.
It was a heart-rending sight. The poor people, who were already in
rags, had to abandon what blankets or clothes they possessed and
start on foot. Parents had lost their children, women were looking
for their husbands, but the wild gendarmerie flogged without mercy
all those who cried or entreated. The tents were full of corpses,
which dogs were devouring. More than thirty people died daily from
hunger and cold. All along the railway line from Konia to Karaman,
Eregli and Bozanti (the rail-head), hundreds of thousands of
Armenians were herded along by the gendarmes. Tired and hungry, they
begged bread from the passengers and the railway officials. The few
families that had managed to remain in Konia at the cost of great
sacrifices, have also received the order to leave the town. The
Government has published a report on alleged crimes committed by the
Christians, and especially by the Armenians, against the Moslems. By
such means it deliberately exasperates the Turks more and more. On
the journey the number of deaths goes on increasing.
-----
Footnote 153:
Name of writer withheld.
114. BAGHDAD RAILWAY: DIARY OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT[154] IN THE TOWN
OF B., ON A SECTION OF THE LINE; EDITED BY WILLIAM WALTER
ROCKWELL, ESQ., PH.D., AND PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE
FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF (1916).
_30th June, 1915._
The skies are dark here, and people have been in and out all
day—these of all classes, and every one with the same question:
“What of the night?” The news from BV. was not encouraging. A few
influential Turks here want to help, but _dare not_. Some women went
by carriage to see an influential man and his family in a vineyard;
were well received. Each had her part; —— was assigned that of
shedding tears, but I do not think she did so alone. It has been
like a funeral here. Several families have been notified to be at
the station with all their members and their beds on Monday next,
when they would be told their destination. P.’s brother and Q. head
the list; the others are poorer people. They are working for a week
of grace in which to settle business affairs. _Isn’t it awful_—and
all are asking: “Who next?” Such drawn and tired faces as we have
seen all day.
Half the town want to “store” things here, to be ours if they never
return; rugs, coppers, etc.—but we may be blown up, who knows?
_1st July._
Times here are lively. In B. people get two orders at once, and then
ask which one they must obey? Conditions in BV. are hard. The Vali’s
brother is against the Armenians. People of all sorts and conditions
come from morning until night to ask questions and to weep. The
conditions here are far from cheerful.
_4th July._
Several families go to-morrow (only one of them a Protestant). The
Government says they will go a few at a time. I doubt their sending
widows, and, for all their positive assertions, I still feel it in
my bones that there will be modifications of the order. People come
from morning till night to talk.
I am giving up the room downstairs for a store-room. —— says he has
5,000 liras’ worth of mortgages and farms, etc., which he can’t
store. The R.’s have eight times as much out among the ruling race.
I suspect that leading families are to go first. Every one trembles.
We had a comfortably full chapel both morning and evening, and two
beautiful sermons suitable for the time. Many Greeks and Gregorians
present. The Greeks are being sent from Constantinople. —— urged
upon the people their going away in a right spirit, remembering the
blessings of the past, opportunities as a nation for education,
business and church life, to pay their debts to Moslems, to help the
poor among them, to go as evangelists in faith and courage. It was
comforting and inspiring.
_18th July._
Eighty-three men from Kaisaria (without their families), the most
influential man in the Protestant community among them, came to-day
en route for Aleppo. They say that spies are everywhere now-a-days.
What days these are, and when will they end?
_20th July._
Last night the city districts across the river were notified to be
ready. The Commissaire (chief of police) is registering families all
over the city, and says they are to go at least fifty at a time and
that vigorous measures will now be taken, etc. These are miserable,
anxious days for everybody.
_23rd July._
One does not know what to say of the situation here. There seemed to
be a holding up yesterday. Some who went to be registered were sent
home to wait till called for. In the meantime, Arab women were going
through —— Agha’s district (where word had been given the previous
evening to pack up and leave), and were buying all sorts of things,
rugs, coppers, etc., at one-third or one-fifth their value. Things
worth a lira[155] sometimes went for a mejidia[156], etc. There is
trouble in every family.
I’ve been out in the market getting cloth so as to give sewing to
some poor women, and also to get the news. I met the Armenian priest
at S.’s store. He is pretty certain there is no help for the people.
However, he is going through his congregation and making out a list
of all the lame and halt and deaf and blind and old and soldiers’
families, to lay before the Government as exceptions. He had a
_hope_ of gaining their case.
A few wretched people from Zeitoun are in the churchyard. They were
left behind somewhere, but are now here, and I hear that one woman
was likely to be confined last night.
Streets are full of Moslem women of the common sort, buying freely,
talking loudly, and, I fear, getting goods “charged.” Merchants do
not seem glad to see them.
Some say that Armenians in BV. have paid £10,000 (Turkish) to buy
exemption; others say forty families are to leave soon.
I made several calls and saw many in the streets. It was pitiful to
find the gateways blocked by crowds of Moslem women demanding what
there was for sale; even pushing into houses after hearing there was
nothing for sale. In one house of our congregation is a woman with
three little children. The mother had sold her few decent clothes,
bought coarse flour and made a pile of the hardest and poorest thin
bread I’ve seen for many a day. She needed her clothes badly enough,
but, with hungry children, she needed money more. I gave her a
medjidia.
T.’s wife was at home selling and packing, quite cheerful, but says
T.’s old mother mourns the years of labour given to the vineyard,
etc. (naturally). Her neighbours had torn some sheets of corrugated
zinc from their roofs to sell. The Government forbade it.
_28th July._
Many people actually left on Monday, so that in all over forty
families have gone, and many more are to go next Thursday. Our baker
went on two hours’ or less notice. He left bread in the oven, and
gathered up wheat that was drying. He has a lame wife and three
children, and his half-blind mother went also. There seems to be no
help. (N.B.—The poor baker died soon on the way.)
A few families have left BV. and several men have left AE., with
families to follow. The poverty and distress of the people is
heartbreaking. The poor family from BM., which you gave help to and
who have seven daughters, are to go next Monday. This intense heat
has pulled the eldest daughter down so that she is confined to her
bed. I fear it is tuberculosis. Doctor says so. The family will ask
delay. There isn’t much chance of their getting it.
—— (the Moslem doctor) examines people and says to the sick, “You
can go,” and gives a stimulant. The mother of the R. brothers is to
go on Monday. I hope we can keep the boys here.
I’ve bought a cow for which I paid three liras (fifty-four
shillings). Others would not have paid so much, but it means food
and money for the journey.
Wages in the factory have been cut down, as people are willing to
work at any price if they can escape exile.
_2nd August._
Over forty more families left this morning. Most of them were very
poor, and it was a sad sight to see them going to the station on
foot, loaded down with small children, jugs, baskets and bundles.
They were not laughing or talking at all; some of the children were
crying; better off people went to the train by carriage, but looked
no happier. Thus far soldiers’ families seem to be exempt.
Sixty men from AE. were on the train as exiles this morning; more
are to follow. The train runs now for military and exile service
from AE. I can’t even write letters, my mind is so upset.
_4th August._
School is still an open question. The Turks are taking note of stock
in shop to-day.
One of the —— boys, about twelve years old, was returning home to
the vineyard and was robbed and wounded a little. After the murder
of young —— last week, we are thankful this boy was not seriously
hurt. The incident shows the spirit of the times.
_7th August._
Miss —— has just come from AE. She saw the AE. people being loaded
into carts sent by the Government, and carriages hired by
themselves, to be deported. Seventy families came as far as B. in
the night. ——’s family got a day longer. George was summoned in the
night to help them. He went on horseback, and hasn’t returned. Many
are to leave here on Monday.
_8th August._
Such a full day; people coming, coming, a constant stream, to
deposit things, to get eye-medicine, salve for sores, to ask for
help, to beg all manner of things, shoes, money, tents and so on. I
did something for each asker, but not much. There was a mad rush to
the station—one stream of vehicles of all descriptions, carrying
goods to the station, families on top in most cases. The regular
passenger train pulled out sometime before — o’clock. The live
freight was so overfull that many were left until to-morrow—among
them ——, who has been ill for weeks. Their goods are at the station,
and their house locked and sealed; —— is lying under an empty
goods-truck, very weak and miserable.
The people in BW. are now threatened with deportation. There are
scarcely half-a-dozen mature men left in the village since the last
massacre, but plenty of women and children.
A group of people from Talas have come. The women have been robbed,
and some of the girls in their party had suffered terrible things.
The party had sons in military service, and others in business in
America.
_9th August._
Miss —— went to BV. to-day. We saw the people (put by themselves)
off for AG. Besides many B. people we know, there were fifty
carriages full of AE. people, including Protestants and many big
Armenian families. Seventy families came up a few days ago. ——’s
shop was shut up and sealed so quickly that they got only three
packages out before the Government was on hand to close up. Little
—— even left his coat in his haste. Between 800 and 900 liras’ worth
of goods were in the store. Their house is new, and newly furnished.
They were to have come on last night, but six days more were
granted, because of new-born baby and wife’s being too weak.
There has been an uprising of Armenian runaways and Kurds, and a
meeting _in conflict_ near Marash. A few soldiers killed. This event
has disturbed still more the minds of the Turks. The sea-coast towns
are to be emptied in two weeks, they say. Turks will go to the
mountains.
_11th August._
There seems to be a holding up of deportation to last until after
Bairam at least, and we hope longer. There is no hold up for AE.
_14th August._
Dr. L. arrived here from AC. He said there was no place as quiet and
safe as this region! In AC. a thousand families have been told to
leave, and among them are the families of all their teachers. So
there was no hope of opening the College unless something very
unexpected occurred soon. There have been _extensive massacres_ all
through that region, at Malatia, Besné, Adiaman, etc. The Marash
region is all afire—runaways stirring up to wrath and revenge being
taken by massacre, the Turks _wanting an excuse_ to do their worst.
Nothing has been heard from Marash for some time. He knows of
special trouble and killing at Fundadjak (five hours from Marash).
Ourfa region is all excitement, people being exiled and made away
with en route. He mentioned many killed that we knew.
One thousand Zeitoun people have died in exile, they say. The city
is full now with exiles from Adapazar and that region. The son of
——- of Talas died in Osmania. The family were exiled, and the
hardships of the journey were too much for the professor.
Many Zeitoun people are wandering about the streets of B. They say
they were driven from the Konia Vilayet. They reported to the
Kaimakam here, who said he had no orders about them and would not
meddle, they might do just as they pleased. (Later they were driven
on). Dr. L. appealed personally to U. Pasha for permission to do
general relief work. He was flatly refused. U. said the Government
would attend to its own business. Dr. L. says they will do so, and
_are_ doing so in regions to the east, and people are dying in many
ways; it’s a part of the policy.
Dr. L. says the Arabs at Der-el-Zor (where Armenians are exiled) are
kindly, and treat women well. The climate is hot and dry, and warm
river-water is all there is to drink, and he fears cholera and
typhoid, as bodies are continually seen floating down the rivers
(massacre victims).
_16th August._
Crowds of Zeitoun people, _sent away_ from Sultania, went on to-day
towards BM. I fear they go to death. Between 600 and 700 have died
already of hardship and illness.
I made some Bairam calls on Turks and was well received, but one
cannot be at all sure of the heart of any one these days.
Have just returned from the priest’s house. I went to get a girl’s
story. The girl was a day-pupil of Miss V.’s[157] at X., about
fifteen years old. Officers came to many houses and said they were
to be exiled, but school-girls were to be excepted, and they took
the girls “back to school;” not to their own school, though, but
to a Turkish barracks, where they were on exhibition and chosen as
the property of certain officers. This girl was claimed by one;
the others, over a hundred, were carried in automobiles to
Constantinople. Fifteen of them were this girl’s friends. This
girl was brought here with exiles from _somewhere_. She refused
the attentions of the officer claiming her. The priest heard of
her and went to investigate. The officer complained that not one
smile had she ever given him. The priest said she would never
smile on him, and left him to think over-night on the matter. In
the morning he said he didn’t want her against her will. The
priest secured the girl, and the officer has gone his way on to
Aleppo. The priest can’t afford to keep her, and I have written to
the BV. school about her. Perhaps we here can raise 10 liras for
her and send her to school. She left her mother two months ago.
Her family were exiled at once.
W., X.’s sister and her child were here an hour ago, en route from
the north (where the Zeitoun people were first sent). She tells
dreadful tales. What will be the end of it all? The streets are full
of exiles begging for bread. —— and relatives are all here, and
Partani’s sister. I am buying ——’s bed to lighten her luggage and
fill her purse. She tells of babies left to die on the roadside, as
the mothers could carry them no longer. Many tell me this.
A young man from —— was just in. Two hundred and fifty families are
en route from there. The city swarms with exiles, and many are at
——.
_19th August._
Our —— boys and families are also in the procession. The Nigdé
people have begun to move on from here. The Adapazar people are _à
la franca_ and some of them very rich. Thirty more carriages from
AE. last night.
Robberies are common, and girls carried off, and three Armenians
killed at BY.
_20th August._
The stream of arrivals continues to flow into B. The poor people on
foot simply drop down utterly exhausted, and many are dying of
hunger and fatigue. Three quite large children died in the Gregorian
churchyard yesterday; another is badly off with smallpox; a
middle-aged man there is dying. —— Hodja has been over there this
morning to minister to him. A crowd of those ill were carried off to
the Turkish hospital yesterday. —— and his family are still here
from BV., waiting for the rest of his family—mother and brothers and
their families. The advance line has arrived and tell him that his
relatives lost almost everything from their homes. Plunderers threw
their goods from the windows, and partners carried off rugs,
bedding, &c. and some money they had. His brothers had been in
prison.
I helped yesterday a blind man (led by his wife) who had been driven
from Bor; also an old woman with snowy white hair who was hungry and
penniless. I got Y. to make up a dress for a young woman, and Z.
made a skirt for another young married woman whose clothes were in
tatters. A crowd are in our churchyard. I sent them soap for a wash
and bath, and shavings, &c., for fuel.
There has been a pause in the B. deportation, waiting for the
present crowd to pass on. AE. people are again on the move. I hear
that only five Armenian families will be left in AE. One is the
dealer in iron for the Railway, and the others are employed for
business dealings with the Government.
People here are dealt with _very_ gently as compared with treatment
received in northern districts and to the east.
_22nd August._
B. presents a strange sight these days with literally _thousands_ of
strangers in our streets. These are from places all the way up to
Adapazar, and they are of all types and degrees of civilisation,
“some in rags, and some in tags, and some in velvet gowns.” The
church was full this morning.
I went by the Gregorian church yesterday and looked into the yard.
Such a sight! Such a pandemonium of noises! In that crowd there are
deaths _every day_, from disease, hunger and exhaustion. I sent
money to help a few, but any help any of us can give is but a drop
in an ocean of misery.
According to a wire from our Ambassador, Catholics and Protestants
are excused from exile. It seems to be true. I suppose our people in
AG. will be called back now. Now for the red tape to get a full and
correct list of the Protestant villages and strangers!
I have written for some relief money. One poor Zeitoun woman is too
ill to travel, but her husband has been driven on—forced to leave
her here. She is at the church. Some people are in our churchyard,
some in hans, and some have rented houses in which to rest for a few
days. The Zeitoun people are “free,” but are driven from place to
place. They are, as a whole, ragged, dirty and covered with vermin,
and hungry, and afraid of the purpose of the Government.
_Same Evening._
There is danger of cholera breaking out. Two died in the churchyard
who had symptoms of it. The Government is trying to drive away the
poorest of the people, chiefly Zeitoun people. They say there is
cholera in Aleppo. Was there ever a year like this?
A lot of people from Nigdé were called from our service by the
police to start on, this afternoon. The Government is not quite
pleased over the new order for exemption of Protestants and
Catholics. The Zeitoun people are watched closely, and one must not
help them.
_26th August[158]._
——’s letters do not—cannot—exaggerate it. The state to which things
have come is indicated by ——’s very casual remark last night: “Well,
to-morrow we’ll first go out and see who has died.”—“I hope that
woman in the church has.”—“I wish that child would, but I’m afraid
she won’t.”
Yesterday and the day before, most of those in the open—those
absolutely too sick to move along being excepted—were driven out
with whips. We fear they have but gone to BZ. (outside the town), to
suffer still worse. Many have been even deprived of their bedding,
or at least separated from it and forbidden to hunt it up. There is
never a day but some die.
Those able to hire houses have escaped from being driven on, by
keeping out of sight, as the driving is done with much cruelty but
no system.
In our church a very _à la franca_ family from —— had an addition
the day they arrived. They have been given a few days’ grace.
I’ve been out to BZ., where conditions are still worse than in the
city. Saw one old woman by the road, dying. People walked by her,
lying out in the blazing sun, with scarcely a look. The sight is too
common. Thousands are out there, and no shade or shelter of any
kind, except such as the people themselves can manage to put up.
I go out with —— every day, and come back sure I’ve merely had a
nightmare.
_2nd September._
Streams of Yozgad people have come, and the word is that 10,000 are
_en route_ from Constantinople. Some Broussa people are here
_now_—new-comers. Yesterday was a hard day, heart-breaking. I went
to the train, a long one, to see over forty B. families off, and
others besides. Among the B. people were ——, ——, AB., and his _sick
wife_, taken from bed to go and almost carried aboard the train.
——’s sister and husband, her daughter Akabé and Akabé’s family go on
Saturday, and our dear, kind, and just neighbour —— and his family.
He looked white with pain at going, and his wife, well, she could
talk, though far from happy. Notwithstanding ——’s assurances that ——
and —— could remain as boarders, their boys were taken. The Kaimakam
evidently had not been notified by the Vali. The Kaimakam seems to
have a heart, but is hard pressed, I am told, by the rich and
influential Turks in B., who are making life a burden for him.
Another of those _wretched_ old women without money, food, friends,
or bed, and ill, has finished her pilgrimage. Three remain in the
Gregorian yard, and three men in the same hopeless condition. I do
not see how they live. The old women raise a cry for water when I
go. I sent —— with iced “iran” yesterday and to-day. The woman with
a fever is better. Two girls, without beds, are now ill. I am
getting excelsior beds filled for them to-day. The woman with a
burnt arm has moved on. The train was to go to CD. From where will
they be fed there?
_3rd September._
Things get worse and worse. Mr. —— called last night and told me he
saw a telegram from U. Pasha, saying: “Let not the Americans and
consuls be seen helping the exiles or appearing with them at
stations and public places.”
——’s name is down to go to-morrow. We are doing our best to save
him. I’ve sent to Mr. AG. for help, and may have to go myself to the
Kaimakam.
_4th September._
—— went to AE. yesterday with a letter to Mr. AG. about our boys and
teachers. I’ve little hope from that quarter, but give him his
opportunity. Mr. AH. put ——’s case before the Kaimakam strongly
yesterday, as _our_ man. The Kaimakam is well disposed, but is under
heavy pressure to send _every_ Armenian without exception. Anyway, I
may be able to save his family.
_6th September._
Crowds of people went to-day. There was only one passenger carriage,
for which people paid. All others were crowded _en masse_ into
goods-trucks, and driven with whips like so many cattle. One old
man, who had spoken and prayed beautifully in our morning prayer
meeting yesterday (a Protestant from Yozgad), turned, when the
police called him, to call his townsman. He was struck with a stone
and asked if it was _his_ business to call people. He quietly
accepted the rebuke.
At BV. the proclamation was given out on Saturday from the housetops
all over the city that _every_ Armenian of whatever church would
leave BV. without delay.
No notice has been served on the Protestants here _as yet_. The
Kaimakam accepted it that they were to remain. He has assured me
that he will do his best to save —— as _our teacher_. But this
morning —— was demanded by the police and taken from our yard to be
sent _at once_. You may believe it, he was fairly wild. Said he
_couldn’t_ go at once, hadn’t change of clothes, and he would write
and ask for a few days’ time. I signed his petition, and a boy ran
to the Government while a policeman led him to the station. George
gave him money and collected three blankets for him. The Kaimakam
sent me greetings and the message that he would attend to the
matter. At the station —— was arrested for coming so late, and thus
attempting to be left behind. The train was still there but full,
and he was rushed back and put into prison! I suspected that the
Kaimakam was taking this way to secure delay, and I still think so.
Hence I made no enquiries, intending to do so after the train pulled
out. Some time later, —— returned all out of breath, saying he could
stay until Wednesday, and he drove up to the vineyard to give his
wife details. She knew nothing of the proceedings of the day.
Yesterday, after service, a nice looking middle-aged woman came to
me with her arm in a sling and said it pained her, and could I do
something for it. I took her upstairs and called Nurse ——, and we
found a stab in her shoulder and dressed it. She said she and her
son were stabbed by bashi bazouks on the way. To stop the bleeding
they had stuffed in earth, and this and the blood had caked well.
I took Nurse —— to see some other patients. The old woman who
usually raises herself and asks for water seemed unconscious, and
didn’t answer even when I said “cold water” and put a few drops on
her head. She was alive but getting cold, and died in the night.
This morning the man in the corner was also released. He came only
two days ago, and was in a _most wretched_ condition.
The other night I found the woman with short grey hair just able to
reach up and call: “Water, water.” An Armenian woman lifted her head
and she drank, but fell back at once, and we found her hands icy
cold, and saw she was dying. We straightened out her rags, and got
an old pillow under her head. She was soon released.
This morning Nurse —— and I started out again for the churchyard.
Sitting opposite the gate was the fat police commissioner who is so
cruel. He called out to “Madame ——.” I stopped and explained that we
were only looking after a woman who had met with an accident on the
road. But I was told decidedly that I was not to go into that yard
again; that the Government would send _food!_ _doctors!_
_medicines!_ and _foreigners_ were not to help or interfere. So I
returned.
So many young women and pretty girls come to me here and in the
street, asking with tears what is to become of them.
_7th September._
The woman and her son with sword-cuts came this afternoon. No one
was around, so the gate-man let them in and I dressed the wounds.
Both _doing well_. I gave new bandages and other needfuls, so that,
if they could not come again, or were driven on the road to-morrow,
they could care for the wound. They were _most grateful_. They are
Protestants, and intelligent; were robbed of money. I gave them a
little for food—shall give more if I see them again. AC. got
through; no trouble about keeping boys in the yard now. Little
fellows run for all. Massacre near Yozgad; the air heavy with the
odour of unburied bodies. Some of our travellers came by them. Dr.
BB.[159] and the hospital still in X. when the exiles left, but
things in a bad way generally. AD.’s postcard tells of AC. BM. seems
quiet at present.
_—th September._
The woman I was forbidden to nurse got over here yesterday leaning
on a friend and by help of a cane. George was here, and we gave the
heel a good dressing but couldn’t get all the broken bone out. The
flesh is getting clean. The poor old woman cried and said she was
hungry. I fed her and gave her a little money. She hopes to get here
again to-morrow, but she suffers excruciating pain when her foot
rests on the ground.
There will soon be a lull, I suppose, as the town is getting well
emptied, not a Christian butcher left, and only two Moslems.
_8th September._
The pot is boiling _harder_ and _harder_. Another special train
takes nearly all left of B. Armenians. —— and his family were all
hustled off this morning as “a dangerous man who had tried to help
exiles.” Talas people are here now (came last night) and tell sad
tales.
_10th September._
R. feels helpless and it looks that way now, as things get worse
every day. The powers that be have their own plans and listen to no
one. On all sides one hears a wail of distress. Every man, woman,
and child has come from ——, leaving most of their possessions
behind. Even their preacher is here, and is ordered to “move on.” I
have “cabbaged” the three little fellows who were our pupils, and am
keeping them here, as they were of our last year’s boarders. No one
will look them up. Two little orphan boys (new ones) were offered
from these, but I couldn’t take them. They too must “move on.”
To what straits all are now reduced! The woman with a broken heel
was here this morning and I took two more pieces of crushed bone
from it. She bears it well. I think the loose pieces are about all
out now. I did it up and made a sort of burlap outer covering as a
protection. I gave her some food, for she cried and said she was
dying of hunger. Only the helpless (and a few others) are now left
here. The —— people are at the station. Crowds of people have been
shipped off. AE. people are coming now. Poor —— is still in prison.
_11th September._
We are nearly crazy with difficulties. I hardly think AJ. will be
sent, but _no one knows_. AF. is here from BV., and reports that
some five days ago a telegram was received from some German “sefer”
ordering that _every Armenian should stay where he was_, whether at
home or abroad. In BV. the Government hurried people off all the
more, but now the order has leaked out, and probably is known here,
as there was a lull to-day, and the Vali passed last evening to ——
and saw the Kaimakam en route. —— and —— are to leave on Thursday.
Circassians are to take the houses of the common people, and
officers those of the wealthier ones.
—— reports that Marash Protestants were called back—almost compelled
to come. In Adana it looks as if the deportation were an alternative
for a massacre. Exiles are not wanted anywhere.
_12th September._
No Christians left in Bor. Zeitoun was burned by the runaways and
Fundadjak is in ruins; also Deré Keui and another neighbouring
village.
_14th September._
BV. is being emptied of _every_ Armenian, and the foreigners fear
they also may have to go, if there is an invasion on the coast. I do
not think conditions are as bad here.
_17th September._
Dr. —— says we must not think of Red Cross work as the Society _has
not the funds_, but must let the Turks run things on their own
responsibility. The Turks expect an invasion and are sending their
families away.
Some rich Samsoun people here to-day. —— says that the three
families among whom she is are to go to Konia.
A stranger priest died here yesterday from exhaustion and
heart-break, etc.
_19th September._
No exiles to-day; there seems to be a calm for a few hours.
_—th October._
Life is getting fuller and fuller of problems here. Affairs here are
in a very critical condition.
-----
Footnote 154:
Mother of the “Miss B.” of Sect. I., Doc. 8
Footnote 155:
18s.
Footnote 156:
3s. 2d.
Footnote 157:
The “Miss A.” of Sect. XI.
Footnote 158:
_Note by Dr. Rockwell_:—This letter, by a man, is inserted here to
reflect the situation from a man’s point of view.
Footnote 159:
See Section XI.
115. AE., A TOWN ON THE RAILWAY: SERIES OF REPORTS FROM A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT AE., COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
(=a=) =Undated Report.=
Two days ago an order was received here for the immediate
deportation of the entire Armenian population of AE., consisting of
about 1,800 souls. Yesterday nearly 300 persons were sent to ——, and
to-day many more have been ordered to be ready to leave. In
anticipation of their deportation, the Armenians are selling all
their non-portable goods for a song. Sewing machines sold for 1½
medjidias, iron bedsteads for a few piastres, and so on. The
Government is allowing each person only a few metaliks per day for
food, and transports only a little baggage. The present destination
of the deported persons is ——. Apart from their actual distress and
misery, the terror of these people is indescribable. Stories of the
massacre of thousands of Armenians in the interior now reach here.
Some of these appear to be well founded, but I presume that you have
been fully informed of what has transpired in the regions of ——.
(=b=) =Report dated 11th September, 1915.=
Thousands of additional Armenians from the North have arrived here
and been transported to the Aleppo region. Six thousand have been
deported from the city of Adana, without the exception supposedly
given to Catholics and Protestants. The congestion of people at the
various stations en route caused terrible suffering and hardships to
the refugees. The authorities no longer appear disposed to grant
exceptions in favour of teachers and pupils of American schools,
and, despite intervention, St. Paul’s College at Tarsus has been
suffering in this respect.
(=c=) =Report dated 22nd September, 1915.=
_This report opens with the mention of a fear among the Ottoman
authorities at AE, that the Allies were about to make a landing
there, and proceeds as follows_:—
Naturally one of the first results of the above fear was a general
rush to complete the deportation of Armenians from Adana. The number
of Armenians sent from that city now totals about 25,000, and this
is in addition to the many thousands coming from the North that pass
through. The misery, suffering and hardships endured by these people
are indescribable. Deaths are innumerable. Hundreds of children are
constantly being abandoned by their parents, who cannot bear to see
them suffer or who have not the strength to look after them. Many
are left by the roadside, and cases of their being thrown from
railway-carriage windows are reported. Petty cruelties by police and
officials increase the sad plight of these people. Conditions in
this vicinity are reported to be moderate in comparison with those
between Osmania and Aleppo, where the congested masses and lack of
facilities render the problem of feeding and transporting these
people an impossible task. Protestant and Catholic Armenians
continue to be deported, and the same measures are also applied in
towns like Hadjin.
(=d=) =Memorandum dated 27th September, 1915.=
I submit herewith the following general details to supplement my
various reports concerning the deportation of Armenians and the
circumstances responsible for the sufferings and the deaths of many
of these people.
(1) The lack of proper transportation facilities is the most
important factor in causing this misery. The long distances not
covered by railways, between Tarsus and Bozanti on the north and
Osmania and Radjou (near Aleppo) to the south, and the lack of carts
and carriages, compel many to go afoot. The carts are of the most
primitive kind and are usually loaded with the effects of the
travellers, on which they must find places to sit. Only those with
ample means can afford the luxury of carriages, which for from two
to four days’ journey cost from £6 to £20 sterling. In addition to
the payment of their ‘fare,’ the travellers are frequently ‘held up’
for more money by the driver or accompanying gendarme; otherwise
they are obliged to descend and walk. While in general the
Government furnishes carts, these are far from sufficient, and the
railway transportation has in most cases had to be paid for by the
people themselves. The local section of the Baghdad Railway was a
great convenience, nevertheless, in furthering the march of the
exiles, but unfortunately of late its services have been
considerably required for military transport purposes, and the
Armenians have consequently had to find other means of conveyance or
else to walk.
(2) While formerly cases of violence to Armenians were rare in this
district, of late there have been flagrant cases of highway robbery,
while reports of violations of women and girls are more numerous and
apparently well founded. Forced conversions, which were formerly
only reported from the interior, are now taking place here. Thus in
Adana the many Armenian orphan girls whose parents were killed in
the massacres of 1909 were told either to leave or become Moslems. A
small number had the courage to leave, and were without any shelter
or refuge. I had advised the American missionaries not to take in
any too great number of outsiders into their institution, as they
would thereby jeopardise their present inmates. Miss K., however,
secured the consent of the authorities to place these girls in
private homes, which she found for them after much difficulty. The
work of the German mission at Harounia on behalf of Armenian girls
must also be commended in this connection, and the benevolent
attitude of His Excellency the Governor General towards
girls’-schools must also be pointed out, with the hope that the same
will continue.
(3) No attempt has been made of late to solve adequately the problem
of feeding the Armenian exiles. This is true both of the stations
along the route of deportation and in the larger cities. Thus at
Osmania, where for the past few weeks there have always been from
forty to sixty thousand people, the food supply is scarcely enough
for one-third of that number, so that all are either on short
rations or without any food at all. This is responsible for the
illness which prevails and the numerous deaths which are reported.
This it is which compels mothers to abandon their children, whom
they cannot bear to see suffer or are too weak to carry along.
Apart from the general distress brought upon the persons deported,
the effect of the deportation measures is becoming more and more
apparent on the economic situation of this province. The great
majority of the stores and bazaars are shut, and it is difficult to
purchase one’s daily requirements. Most of the merchandise belonging
to Armenian merchants is in sealed stores. The creditors of Armenian
merchants were in most cases able to secure the value of their
outstanding credits through taking goods in payment. As the greater
part of the business of this district in most lines was in the hands
of Armenians, the consequences of their deportation are only too
apparent for the future of the Adana Province.
(=e=) =Report dated 30th October, 1915.=
The stream of deported Armenians from the north continues unabated.
Recent arrivals were in a terribly wretched condition, and their
sufferings from insufficient food and raiment are indescribable. The
police and other officials also prohibit their receiving assistance,
which makes it evident that slow death is the ultimate fate of the
majority.
Three rabid members of the Union and Progress Committee of Adana
were expelled from that city because of the manner in which they
were hounding the Armenians out of the city. It is stated that they
even planned incendiary measures against Armenian houses and
buildings, and among others reported to have been endangered was
that of the American Mission. At the request of the missionaries, I
directed the attention of the authorities to the matter.
The new law concerning the real estate and personal property of
deported persons is being carried out in a manner which, I fear,
will leave little if anything for the Armenians. Their houses are
being inhabited by mouhadjirs, officials, etc., at ridiculously low
rents. The goods of deported merchants are being taken possession of
by commissions designated for this purpose, and abuses of all kinds
are reported. The President of the Commission, Ali Seidi Bey, was
recently removed—some say because he opposed the manner in which
these measures were being applied.
Baron Oppenheim, who has been with Djemal Pasha, passed through here
recently on his way to Constantinople. German reading-rooms, where
all manner of literature in favour of the German cause is displayed
and distributed, have been established in AE. and Adana. The Baron
is their principal supporter. The German school in Adana was also
re-opened recently with great éclat. The personal relations between
the American missionaries and their German co-workers in this
province are of the most cordial nature.
(=f=) =Report dated 4th November, 1915.=
The stream of deported Armenians from Anatolia to Syria continues.
In enumerating the various distressing elements connected with this
movement, I perhaps failed to point out the terribly insanitary
conditions that prevail in the vicinity of the camps or stations
near Tarsus and Osmania. These result in part from their overcrowded
state, but largely also from the imperfect burial of the corpses of
the victims of starvation and disease. The mortality among the
deported is daily increasing in percentage, and, when the rains set
in, the toll will be frightful. The feeding problem is completely
neglected, and will become worse in the future, as even the regular
population is beginning to suffer because of a scarcity of wheat.
The crop this year was only one-half the normal yield, and there
were enormous shipments to Constantinople for the army....
(=g=) =Report dated 6th November, 1915.=
An order has been received by the authorities to stop further
deportations of Armenians. This, however, refers only to the few
thousand natives of the towns of AE., B., and Adana, who have
hitherto escaped deportation. On the other hand, the many thousands
in the camp near B. were ordered to be sent away to make room for
others coming from the north. An important Imperial Commissioner has
also arrived to investigate the abuses of local officials regarding
the taking of the personal property of the deported Armenians.
His Excellency Von der Goltz Pasha arrived at B. to-day en route for
Aleppo, where he is to make his headquarters, according to reliable
reports.
116. THE TAURUS AND AMANUS PASSES: EXTRACTS FROM A LETTER, DATED
ALEPPO, 5th NOVEMBER, 1915, FROM DR. L., A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN
TURKEY, TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE; COMMUNICATED BY THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
As I telegraphed to you from Adana, I had an uneventful journey. I
felt that I could not give a whole week to Konia; no one met me at
the train, and I did not have time to go up to the city. Very large
numbers of Armenians on the road, suffering hunger, nakedness and
cold. Very many of them very old or very young, or delicate women on
foot, carrying burdens, or children, etc., etc. I saw Miss M. and
left £100 (Turkish) with her. She can use it for the refugees en
route between Osmania and Entilli. Aleppo is the great centre from
which to do relief work, and the need is beyond estimate. The
150,000 or more refugees will, I suppose, pass on through here; they
are now on the road between Konia and Aleppo. There are large
numbers in the city now, and large numbers within reach from here.
Trustworthy native friends are able to use considerable sums—in
small amounts. The Katholikos is being sent from here to
Jerusalem....
There is, unfortunately, no way to reach effectively the many
thousands en route—10,000 between Bozanti and Tarsus; 20,000 at
Tarsus; 40,000 between Osmania and Islohia (which is now the head of
the rail); and 40,000 to 50,000 at Kotmo. I saw Djemal Pasha this
morning about our teachers at Aintab. He seems friendly, and told me
to ascertain whether any order had been sent from the Ministry of
the Interior and the Vali of Aleppo. I will let you know if anything
comes of it.
P.S.—Typhus has broken out here.
117. THE AMANUS PASSES: STATEMENTS BY TWO SWISS RESIDENTS IN TURKEY;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
(=a=) =Report by Fräulein M., dated 16th November, 1915.=
I have just returned from a ride on horseback through the
Baghtché-Osmania plain, where thousands of exiles are lying out in
the fields and on the roads, without any shelter and completely at
the mercy of all manner of brigands. Last night, about 12 o’clock, a
little camp was suddenly attacked. There were about 50 to 60 persons
in it. I found men and women badly wounded—bodies slashed open,
broken skulls and terrible knife-wounds. Fortunately I was provided
with clothes, so I could change their blood-soaked things and then
bring them to the next inn, where they were nursed. Many of them
were so much exhausted from the enormous loss of blood that they
died, I fear, in the meantime. In another camp we found thirty or
forty thousand Armenians. I was able to distribute bread among them.
Desperate and half-starved, they fell upon it; several times I was
almost pulled down off my horse. A number of corpses were lying
about unburied, and it was only by bribing the gendarmes that we
could induce them to allow their burial. Mostly, the Armenians are
not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives.
Dreadful epidemics of typhoid-fever broke out everywhere; there was
a victim of it practically in every third tent. Nearly everything
had to be transported on foot; men, women and children carried their
few belongings on their backs. I often saw them break down under
their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with the
butt-ends of their rifles, even sometimes with their bayonets. I
have dressed bleeding wounds on the bodies of women that had been
caused by these bayonet thrusts. Many children had lost their
parents and were now without any support. Three hours’ distance from
Osmania two dying men were lying absolutely alone in the fields.
They had been here for days without food or even a drop of water,
after their companions had continued their march. They had grown as
thin as skeletons, and only their heavy breathing showed that there
was still life in them. Unburied women and children were lying in
the ditches. The Turkish officials in Osmania were very obliging; I
succeeded in obtaining many concessions from them, and many
hardships were remedied. I obtained carriages to pick up the dying
people and bring them in to town.
(=b=) =Report by Fräulein O. on a visit to the exiles’ camp at
Mamouret, 26th November, 1915.=
We saw thousands of tiny low tents, made of thin material. An
innumerable crowd of people, of all ages and every class of society!
They were looking at us partly in surprise, partly with the
indifference of desperation. A group of hungry, begging children and
women were at our heels: “Hanoum, bread! Hanoum, I am hungry; we
have had nothing to eat to-day or yesterday!”
You had only to look at the greedy, pale, suffering faces to know
that their words were true. About 1,800 loaves could be procured.
Everybody fell greedily upon us; the priests who were charged with
the distribution of the bread had almost to fight for their lives;
but it was by no means sufficient, and no further bread was to be
had. A crowd of hungry people stood imploringly before us. The
gendarmerie had to keep them back by force. Suddenly the order for
departure was given. If anybody was slow in striking their tent, it
was torn down with the bayonet. Three carriages and a number of
camels were held in readiness. A few wealthy people quickly hired
the carriages, while others less well-to-do loaded a camel with
their things. The wailing of the poor, the old and the sick filled
the air: “We can’t go any further, let us die here.” But they _had_
to go on. We were at least able to pay for a camel for some of them,
and to give small change to others in order to buy bread at the next
station; clothes, sewn at the Mission Station in Adana, were also
distributed. Soon the immense procession was moving on. Some of the
most miserable were left behind (others rested there already in the
newly-dug graves). As many as 200—destitute, old or sick—are said to
have waited there for help to come. The misery was increased a
hundredfold by the severe rain and cold that had set in. Everywhere
convoys left dying people in their track—little children and
invalids perishing. Besides all this the epidemic was spreading more
and more.
(=c=) =Report by Fräulein M. on a visit to the exiles’ camp at
Islohia, 1st December, 1915.=
It had rained three days and three nights; even in our houses we
were acutely sensible of the cold and damp. As soon as possible, I
set out on my way. About 200 families had been left behind at
Mamouret. They were unable to proceed through exhaustion or illness.
In this rain the soldiers, too, felt no inclination to rouse them up
and drive them on, so they were lying about in what might have been
a lake. There was not a single dry thread left in their ragged
bedding. Many women had their feet frost-bitten; they were quite
black and in a state for amputation. The wailing and groaning was
horrible. Everywhere there were dying people in their last agonies
or dead bodies lying in front of the tents. It was only by
“bakshish” that the soldiers could be persuaded to bury them. It
seemed a comfort to them when we came with dry clothes; they could
change their things and get some bread and small change. Then I
drove in a carriage along the whole route to Islohia. Though I had
seen much distress before, the objects and the scenes I saw here
defy description. A frailly-built woman was sitting by the roadside
with her bedding on her back, and a young baby strapped on at the
top of it; in her arms she had a two-year-old child—its eyes were
dim and it was at its last gasp. The woman had broken down in her
distress and was weeping in a heart-breaking way. I took her with me
to the next camp, where the child died; then I took care of her and
sent her on her way. She was so grateful. The whole carriage was
packed with bread. I kept on distributing all the time. We had three
or four opportunities of buying fresh supplies. These thousands of
loaves were a great help to us. I was also able to hire some
hundreds of animals to help the poor people forward. The camp at
Islohia itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the
entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted 35, and in
another place 22, in the immediate neighbourhood of the tents of
those who were down with virulent dysentery. The filth in and around
these tents was something indescribable. On one single day the
burial committee buried as many as 580 people. Men were fighting for
bread like hungry wolves. One saw hideous scenes. With what timidity
and apathy these poor people often stared at me, as though they
wondered where this assistance came from! For some weeks now many
camps have been provided daily with bread. Of course, everything has
to be done as unobtrusively as possible. We are so thankful to God
that we may at least do something.
(=d=) =Letter from Fräulein M. to Mr. N., dated 13th December, 1915,
on the way to Aleppo.=
I should have written long before this, but during these last weeks
I have been more on the road than at home, and the work in the camps
was often so urgent that I could not find time for anything else. I
suppose you have had, in the meantime, the receipt for the 200 liras
you sent me. Many thanks for the quick response. I only wish you
could see these poor people yourself; you would get an impression of
the absolutely dreadful need and distress that these camps conceal.
It is simply indescribable; one has to have seen it oneself. So far
I have had no difficulty whatever; on the contrary, the officials
here are most obliging, and grateful for everything we are doing for
the poor people. You will find some reports enclosed which Miss O.
copied for you as well; they will give you an idea of what we are
doing here. Up to the present we have worked in four camps, twelve
hours distant. We were often able to distribute about 10 to 20
liras’ worth of bread a day; besides this, we gave flour, clothes
and nirra to many sick people, to help them on the long journey.
Sometimes it happened that in some places we did not have nearly
enough bread—in such cases we provided the people with money to buy
bread at the next bakery along the route.
Now we are on our way to Aleppo, and Miss O. will stay there some
weeks, D.V., to prepare everything for another journey to
Der-el-Zor. I intend to come back soon, since there is still much
work to do on the Mamouré-Islohia route, and it seems to me that we
ought not to give up the work among the distressed so long as any of
them are left in this place, for if we did they would absolutely die
of starvation. Judging by our recent experience, we shall need about
300 to 400 liras a month. Dr. L. told me to send you word about
this, because I should get the money from you. It would be better
not to stop the work for lack of money, because the poor people
would suffer by it. If, however, you think that less money ought to
be spent, or that the whole work should be given up, please send me
a telegram in time, so that we may stop doing it. If not, will you
please be so kind as to send me the amount. To-day I have asked you
by wire to send me 400 liras—200 for Mamouré and 200 for
Islohia-Hassan-Beyli.
I hope you are well. We got a message that Dr. L. is down with
typhus. I hope that God will soon give him new strength. Fräulein O.
and I both send you our best wishes.
118. SMYRNA—ALEPPO—DAMASCUS—ALEPPO—SMYRNA: ITINERARY OF A FOREIGN
TRAVELLER IN ASIATIC TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
I left here (Smyrna) on the 16th September, 1915, for Aleppo. I
first saw the Armenians at Afiun Kara Hissar, where there was a big
encampment of people—probably 10,000—who had come down from the
Black Sea. They were encamped in tents made of material of all
descriptions, and their condition was deplorable.
The next place where I saw them was at Konia, also a large
encampment. There I saw the first brutality. I saw a woman with her
baby separated from her husband. He was put on our train, while she
was forcibly held back and prevented from getting on to the train.
At the next place, where there were said to be about 50,000, their
condition was terrible. They were camped on both sides of the
railway track, extending fully half a mile on either side. Here they
had two wells from which they could get water, one of which was a
very long way from the encampment, the other at the railway station
platform. At daybreak the Armenians came in crowds—women and
children and old men—to the well to get water. They fought among
themselves for a place at the well, and the gendarmes, to keep them
in order, flogged several people. I saw women and children
repeatedly struck with the whips and sticks in the hands of the
gendarmes. Later, I had occasion to pass through the camp on the way
to the town of Osmania, and had an opportunity to see the condition
of the people there. They were living in tents, like those above
described, and their condition was miserable. The site of the
encampment had been used several times over by different convoys of
Armenians, and no attempt at sanitation had been made, either by the
Turks or by the Armenians themselves, with the result that the
ground was in a deplorable condition and the stench in the early
morning beyond description. At Osmania they were selling their
possessions in order to obtain money to buy food. One old man begged
me to buy his silver snuff-box for a piastre, in order that he might
be able to buy some bread.
From Osmania I travelled by carriage to Radjou, and passed thousands
of Armenians en route to Aleppo. They were travelling in ox-carts,
on horseback, on donkey-back and on foot—the majority of them
children, women and old men. I spoke to several of these people,
some of whom had been educated in the American Mission Schools. They
told me that they had travelled for two months. They were without
money and food, and several expressed their wish that they might die
rather than go on and endure the sufferings that they were
undergoing. The people on the road were carrying with them
practically all their household possessions, and those who had no
carts or animals were carrying their goods on their backs. It was
not unusual to see a woman with a big pack wrapped up in a mattress
and a little child of a few months old on the top of the pack. They
were mostly bare-headed, and their faces were swollen from the sun
and exposure. Many had no shoes on, and some had their feet wrapped
in old pieces of rag which they had torn from their clothing. At
Entilli there was an encampment of about 10,000, and at Kotmo a
large encampment of 150,000. At this place, adjacent to their
encampment, were Turkish troops, who exacted “bakshish” from them
before they would let them go on the road to Aleppo. Many who had no
money had had to stay in this camp since their arrival there about
two months before. I spoke with several Armenians here, and they
told me the same stories of brutal treatment and robbery at the
hands of the gendarmes in charge as I had heard all along the road.
They had to go at least half-a-mile for water from this encampment,
and the condition of the camp was filthy. From Kotmo on to Aleppo I
witnessed the worst sights of the whole journey. Here the people
began to give out in the intense heat and dearth of water, and I
passed several who were prostrate—actually dying of thirst. One
woman, whom I assisted, was in a deplorable condition, unconscious
from thirst and exhaustion; and further on I saw two young girls who
had become so exhausted that they had fallen on the road, and lay
with their already swollen faces exposed to the sun. The road for a
great distance was being repaired and paved with cracked stone; on
one side of the road was a footpath, but many of the Armenians were
so dazed from fatigue and exposure that they did not see this
footpath, and were walking—and many of them bare-footed—on this
cracked stone, with their feet bleeding as a result of it. The
destination of all these Armenians is Aleppo. Here they are kept
crowded together in all available vacant houses, hans, Armenian
churches, courtyards and open plots. Their condition in Aleppo is
beyond description. I personally visited several of the places where
they were kept and found them starving and dying by the hundred
every day. In one vacant house which I visited I saw women, children
and men all in the same room, lying on the floor, so close together
that it was impossible to walk between them. Here they had been for
months, such of them as had survived, and the condition of the floor
was filthy. Many were lying in their own excrement!
The British Consulate was filled with these exiles, and from this
place the dead were removed almost every hour. Coffin-makers
throughout the city were working late into the night making rough
boxes for the dead whose relatives or friends could afford to give
them decent burial. Most of the dead were simply thrown into
two-wheeled carts, which made a daily round to all the places where
the Armenians were confined. These carts were open at first, but
afterwards covers were made for them. An Armenian physician whom I
know, and who is treating hundreds of these suffering Armenians who
have become ill through exposure on the journey and through hunger
and thirst, told me that there are hundreds dying daily in Aleppo
from starvation and as a result of the brutal treatment and exposure
that they have undergone on the journey from their native places.
Many of these suffering Armenians refuse alms, saying that the
little money so obtained will only prolong their sufferings and that
they prefer to die. From Aleppo those who are able to pay are sent
by train to Damascus; those who have no money are sent by road to
the interior, towards Der-el-Zor. In Damascus I found conditions
practically the same as in Aleppo, and hundreds are dying every day.
From Damascus they are sent still further south into the Hauran,
where their fate is unknown. Several Turks whom I interviewed told
me that the motive of this exile was to exterminate the race, and in
no instance did I see any Moslem giving alms to Armenians, it being
considered a criminal offence for anyone to aid them.
I remained in Damascus and Aleppo about a month, leaving for Smyrna
on the 26th October. All along the road I met thousands of these
unfortunate exiles still coming into Aleppo. The sights I witnessed
on this return journey were more pitiful than those I had seen on my
outward journey to Aleppo. There seems to be no end to the convoy
which moves over the mountain range from Bozanti south. Throughout
the day, from sunrise to sunset, the road as far as one can see is
crowded with these exiles. Just outside Tarsus I saw a dead woman
lying by the roadside, and further on I passed two more dead women,
one of whom was being carried from the roadside to be buried by two
gendarmes. Her legs and arms were so emaciated that the bones were
nearly through her flesh, and her face was swollen and purple from
exposure. Further on I saw two gendarmes carrying a dead child
between them away from the road to where they had dug a grave. Many
of these soldiers and gendarmes who follow the convoy carry spades,
and as soon as an Armenian dies they take the corpse away from the
roadside and bury it.
The open spaces round the hans en route are used as camping-places
for the Armenians, and the ground is littered with refuse and human
excrement, the stench from which is unbearable. I saw many people
who had been in good circumstances forced to lie in this filth.
Their clothes were rags and many had no shoes. The mornings were
cold and many were dying from exposure. There are very few young men
in these convoys; the majority are women and children, accompanied
by a few old men over fifty years of age. At Bairamoglu I talked
with a woman who had become demented from the sufferings she had
undergone. She told me that her husband and father had both been
killed before her eyes and that she had been forced for three days
to walk without rest. She had with her two little children, and all
had been without bread for a day. I gave her some money, which she
told me would probably be taken from her before the day was over.
Turks and Kurds meet these caravans as they pass through the country
and sell them food at exorbitant prices. I saw a small boy about
seven years old riding on a donkey with his baby brother in his
arms. They were all that was left of his family. Many of these
people go for days without bread, and they become emaciated beyond
description. I saw several fall from starvation, and only at certain
places along this road is there any water. Many die of thirst. Some
of the Armenians who can afford it hire carriages. These are paid
for in advance, and the prices charged are exorbitant. At many
places, like Bozanti, for example, where there is an encampment of
Turkish soldiers, there is not enough bread for these Armenians, and
only two hours from Bozanti I met a woman who was crying for bread.
She told me that she had been in Bozanti for two days and was unable
to obtain anything to eat except what travellers like myself had
given her. Many of the beasts of burden belonging to the Armenians
die of starvation. It is not an unusual sight to see an Armenian
removing a pack from the dead animal and setting it on his own
shoulders. Many Armenians told me that, although they are allowed to
rest at night, they get no sleep because of the pangs of hunger and
cold. These people march all the day through at a shuffling gait,
and for hours do not speak to one another. At one place where I
stopped on the road for lunch I was surrounded by a crowd of little
children, all crying for bread. Many of these little tots are
obliged to walk barefoot along the road, and many of them carry a
little pack on their backs. They are all emaciated, their clothes
are in rags and their hair in a filthy condition. The filth has bred
millions of flies, and I saw several babies’ faces and eyes covered
with these insects, their mothers being too exhausted to brush them
away. Disease has broken out in several places along the road, and
in Aleppo several cases of typhus fever among the Armenians were
reported when I left.
Many families have been separated, the men being sent in one
direction and the women and children in another. I saw one woman who
was with child, lying in the middle of the road crying, and over her
stood a gendarme, threatening her if she did not get up and walk.
Many children are born on the way, and most of these die, as their
mothers have no nourishment for them.
None of these people have any idea where they are going or why they
are being exiled. They journey day after day along the road, with
the hope that they may somewhere reach a place where they may be
allowed to rest, and I saw several old men carrying on their backs
the tools of their trade, probably with the hope that they may some
day settle down somewhere. The road over the Taurus Mountains is, in
places, most difficult, and often the crude conveyances, drawn by
buffaloes, oxen and milch cows, are unable to take the grades, and
are abandoned and overturned by the gendarmes into the ravine below;
the animals are turned loose. I saw several carts, piled high with
baggage and with a number of Armenians on the top of that, break
down and throw their occupants on to the road. One of the drivers,
who was a Turk and who had collected his fare in advance from the
people he was driving, considered it a huge joke when one woman
broke her leg from such a fall.
There seems to be no cessation of the streams of these Armenians
pouring down from the north, from Angora and the region round the
Black Sea. Their condition grows worse every day. The sights that I
saw on my return journey were worse than those on my outward
journey, and now that the cold weather and winter rains are setting
in, deaths are more numerous. The roads in some places are almost
impassable.
XV.
CILICIA (VILAYET OF ADANA AND SANDJAK OF
MARASH).
_Cilicia occupies the south-eastern corner of Anatolia, overlooking
the Gulf of Iskanderoun (Alexandretta), and falls into two sharply
contrasted regions—the fertile, malarious coastal plain of Adana,
traversed by a section of the Baghdad Railway, and the hill-country
inland to the north-east of it, where the lines of Taurus are broken
by the upper courses of the Sarus and Pyramus (Sihoun and Djihoun)
and spread out fanwise into a maze of high valleys and mountain
blocks._
_Until the spring of 1915, Cilicia was one of the chief centres
of the Armenian race in Turkey, and there was no region, with
the possible exception of Van, which they succeeded in making
and keeping so thoroughly their own. The Armenian Dispersion in
north-eastern Anatolia and the suburban districts round the
coasts of Marmora, numerous and wealthy and influential though
it was, still constituted no more than an urban class, and even
in the towns was usually in a minority. The Cilician highlands,
on the other hand, were sown thick with Armenian peasant
communities—small but prosperous hill towns and villages, of
which the most important were Hadjin and Zeitoun in the north,
but which stretched in an unbroken chain from the Taurus to the
southern spurs of the Amanus, until, at Dört Yöl, they touched
the north-eastern corner of the Mediterranean._
_The Cilician Armenians were mainly shepherds and husbandmen, but
they were also one of the most civilised and progressive sections of
the Armenian race. Schools, both Armenian and American, had been
established in the mountains, and the mountaineers were in close
contact with Adana, Tarsus, Mersina and the other ports and cities
of the Adana plain, where commerce and industry were almost entirely
in the hands of the Armenian element—an element constantly
reinforced from the reservoir of Armenian population in the
highlands._
_The Cilician Armenians seemed destined to play an important part in
the future development of the Ottoman Empire. Their country was of
peculiar strategical and commercial importance, for it was to be
traversed by the main artery of the Empire, the Baghdad Railway, in
the most vital section of its course, where it has to negotiate two
mountain-barriers and approach most nearly to the Mediterranean
coast. And meanwhile the Armenian population itself was here
steadily increasing in numbers, while in almost every other part of
Turkey it had been receding under the continuous repression to which
it had been subjected since 1878. This increase was the more
remarkable because Cilicia had been especially visited by the last
outbreak of massacre, which occurred in 1909._
_All this, however, only rendered the Cilician Armenians more
obnoxious in the Ottoman Government’s eyes, and the war gave it the
opportunity it coveted for rooting them out. A universal deportation
of all the Armenians in the Empire may or may not have been
contemplated before the breach between the Turks and Armenians at
Van, in the middle of April, 1915; but, as far as Cilicia is
concerned, there is no doubt whatever that the scheme was devised
and put in train before any of the events at Van occurred. Fighting
began at Van on the 20th April; the first Armenians had been
deported from Zeitoun on the 8th April, twelve days before, and by
the 19th a convoy of them had already arrived in Syria (Doc. 138.
The Cilician deportations, at any rate, must therefore have been
planned at least as early as March, and probably earlier still._
_And there is one special feature about the execution of the scheme
in Cilicia which makes it evident that it was carried out
deliberately and thought out far ahead. Immediately the Armenians
were evicted from their villages, their houses were assigned to
Moslem refugees. We have occasional evidence of the same practice,
during June, in the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Trebizond; but in these
cases the Moslem intruders, where we can trace their origin,
generally prove to have been Turks or Kurds from the adjoining
districts on the east, who had just evacuated their own homes in
consequence of the first Russian occupation of Van. Their
installation in Armenian houses was apparently extempore and
conceivably only provisional. On the other hand, the “mouhadjirs”
brought by the Ottoman Government to Zeitoun, Hadjin and the other
towns and villages of the Cilician highlands, were all of them
Moslem refugees from Europe—from the Roumelian Vilayets ceded by
Turkey in 1913, as a result of the Balkan War. They had been on the
Government’s hands for over two years, and during all that time they
had remained stranded in Thrace or along the Aegean littoral. But
now they had been transported from these western fringes of the
Empire to the other extremity of the Anatolian Railway, and by the
8th April, 1915, they were in readiness to occupy the homes of the
Armenians in Cilicia immediately their rightful owners had started
on their road to exile. This is clear proof that, at any rate in
Cilicia, the deportation was not only planned systematically, but
planned a long time in advance._
_Its execution began at Zeitoun in April, and was extended to all
the highland villages in the course of May and June. In the cities
of the plain and the coast, on the other hand, it did not become
drastic till the first week in September—a tacit avowal that the
official pleas of Armenian disloyalty and strategical necessity were
a pretext hardly intended to be taken seriously even by their
authors._
_The Zeitounlis were deported in two directions—half of them to
Sultania (see Documents 123 and 125) in the Anatolian Desert, and
half to the Mesopotamian Sandjak of Der-el-Zor (see Document 145).
The exiles at Sultania were subsequently removed to Der-el-Zor to
join the rest, and the later convoys seem all to have taken the
south-eastward road. The deportation was conducted by the
gendarmerie with the same brutality as elsewhere, but the Cilician
country is free of nomadic Kurds, so that there was here less
wholesale massacre on the way. On the last stages of their journey
to Zor the exiles were harassed by the Arab nomads of the steppe,
but these are a milder race than their Kurdish neighbours. The chief
alleviation of the Cilicians’ fate was their geographical position.
The distance they had to traverse was comparatively short, and they
only began to die in large numbers after reaching their
destination._
119. CILICIA: ADDRESS (WITH ENCLOSURE), DATED 3rd JULY, 1915,
FROM THE ARMENIAN COLONY IN EGYPT TO HIS EXCELLENCY
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR J.G. MAXWELL, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF
HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S FORCES IN EGYPT.
(=a=) =Address from the Armenian Colony.=
We addressed ourselves recently to your Excellency to obtain your
authorisation to send three emissaries to Cilicia, in order to
inform ourselves of the true situation in that country.
While we are profoundly grateful to your Excellency for your
courtesy in granting this authorisation, we now desire to inform you
that trustworthy information, furnished by official persons who have
arrived from Syria in the course of the present week, shows that the
situation in Cilicia has undergone a complete transformation. On
this account the despatch of the emissaries is, for the moment,
postponed; the actual state of affairs calls for altogether
different measures.
Cavalliere Gauttieri, the Italian Consul at Aleppo, and certain
foreign residents at Alexandretta and Adana, as well as others from
Bitlis and Harpout, who travelled across Cilicia and all arrived
here last Monday on board a neutral vessel, give the following
account of what has occurred:—
The town of Zeitoun, which was exclusively inhabited by Armenians
and is famous for its heroic struggles against the Turks, took
warning by the manifest intention of the Ottoman Government to take
advantage of the favourable moment created by the war for effecting
the extermination of the Armenian race, and revolted several months
ago. Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli (a large Armenian village half way
between Marash and Dört Yöl) were preparing to take the same action.
The Turkish Government tried to subdue Zeitoun by military force,
but all its efforts remained fruitless; its troops were decimated,
and had to beat a retreat several times over. At that stage of
affairs the local authorities, by order of the Central Government,
employed the following stratagem: they threatened the Katholikos of
Cilicia, an old man of 75 years, that if the Zeitounlis refused to
capitulate they would have the whole Armenian population massacred,
while they assured the Zeitounlis that, in case they laid down their
arms, they would be in no way interfered with. On the urgent
recommendation of the Katholikos, the Zeitounlis, thinking that they
were fulfilling a patriotic duty, laid down their arms to save their
compatriots; and the inhabitants of Dört Yöl and Hassan Beyli did
the same thing for the same reason. Thereupon the Government
treacherously proceeded to deport the inhabitants of Zeitoun and the
afore-mentioned places en masse, and to replace them by Moslem
emigrants from Macedonia. At the same time they began to persecute
the peaceful populations of the plains—those of Marash, Aintab, Sis
and Adana, and so on—who are thus threatened now with imminent
massacre. It is worth noting that the towns situated on the
coast—Mersina, Alexandretta, Selefka and Kessab—continue to enjoy
relative tranquillity. Notwithstanding all these persecutions, there
are certain localities, scattered over the whole extent of Cilicia,
where groups of Armenian fighting-men have entrenched themselves
solidly in the mountains and are putting up an indefatigable
resistance to the Turkish troops. Whenever they can, they leave
their positions to go to the rescue of the defenceless people of the
cultivated lands, always hoping that aid will come to them _from
abroad_, and that, thus reinforced, they will be able to drive their
historic oppressor from the country. The same hope is cherished by
the whole Christian population of these regions, and one may say
that the Moslems themselves are convinced that all this country
will, before long, be occupied by the Allies.
That is the present situation in Cilicia, as it was unfolded to us
by the official persons whom we have mentioned above.
(=b=) =Resumé of Travellers’ Reports, enclosed with the Address.=
My official informants are unanimous in asserting that the object
pursued in Cilicia by the Turkish Government is neither more nor
less than the complete extermination of the Armenian element. The
philanthropic efforts put forward by the Italian and American
Consular Bodies, with a view to preventing the execution of this
sinister plan, have remained without fruit, since the mandate for
destruction and massacre emanated from the Central Government
itself. The Turks, with the Government officials at their head,
everywhere declare openly that the extermination of the Armenian
element in Turkey is for them one of the necessities of national
salvation, it being understood that the Allies protect the
Armenians, and that they afford a permanent pretext for foreign
intervention in the country’s affairs. The Governor of Aleppo, a
fair and liberal-minded man, who is personally opposed to this
criminal policy, has avowed it to the European Consuls, declaring
that the military commanders have only executed faithfully the
orders received from the Sublime Porte, and emphasising this in the
case of Fakhri Pasha, who is the representative of Djemal Pasha, the
supreme commander of the military forces in Syria and Palestine.
Among the other official persons responsible for the atrocities that
have been committed, they mention the Mutessarif of Marash and the
Kaimakam of Zeitoun. Latterly Marash and Zeitoun have been
consolidated into an independent Sandjak by order of the Central
Government, and so the above-mentioned functionaries are no longer
under the control of the Vali of Aleppo.
The German Consul at Aleppo, of whom we shall have more to say
below, made an extremely significant declaration to the Consul of a
Power which has since joined the Allies:—
“However painful and deplorable the condition may be to which the
Armenians find themselves reduced, the Turkish Government could take
no other course towards them, in view of the fact that they have
everywhere cast in their lot with the enemies of Turkey.”
_Zeitoun._—The Turkish troops which marched against Zeitoun and
presided, after the capitulation, over the deportation of the
Zeitounlis, were commanded by German officers. The Turks have torn
from their homes in this way all the inhabitants of Zeitoun, Furnus,
Alabash, Geben and the neighbouring districts, and have sent them
off in batches to Der-el-Zor, to Djibal Hauran, and towards various
unexplored regions of the desert. The women have been sent to Konia,
an exclusively Turkish district. In place of the Armenians they had
installed at Zeitoun a number of Moslem refugees from Macedonia.
_Marash._—This town was relatively tranquil till a short time ago;
now it is the scene of all kinds of atrocities and persecutions.
Hundreds of Armenian families have been driven out and marched away,
no one knows where. These atrocities have been committed in the
presence and with the connivance of the German Consul at Aleppo,
according to the testimony of a large number of Armenians which has
been recorded by the European Consular authorities.
_Hassan Beyli._—This unfortunate village, which had been already so
cruelly tried during the Cilician massacres of 1909, has this time
been destroyed root and branch. The inhabitants have been deported.
_Dört Yöl_ presents the same tragic spectacle. Though there have
been no massacres here in the literal sense of the word, the arrests
and expulsions en masse continue without abatement. The story is
already well-known of the German spy who came to Dört Yöl disguised
as a British officer—how he incited them to revolt against the
Turkish Government, and the arrests and partial massacre that came
of it. The story of this piece of treachery is also confirmed by the
Italian Consul from Alexandretta. The village of Dört Yöl, once so
prosperous, is now plunged in frightful misery.
At _Aintab, Sis and Adana_ the Armenians have so far been less
molested and persecuted than elsewhere. The arrests are less
numerous; but sinister rumours are current, which are propagated by
the Turks, and the terror of imminent butchery haunts the
inhabitants of these towns, who are strong in numbers but absolutely
bereft of all means of defence and of all protection against the
danger of extermination by which they are menaced.
_Ourfa_ groans under a Governor of the name of Haidar Bey, who, as
his own wife avows, has committed atrocities of all kinds wherever
he has exercised authority. He is the notorious organiser of the
butcheries at Mardin. The Armenian monastery at Ourfa has been
confiscated by the authorities and transformed into an asylum for
the British and Russian subjects who have been put under arrest in
Cilicia.
_The Turkish Forces._—The Turks do not dispose of military forces of
any importance in Cilicia; the troops they have there are not a
permanent garrison, and their number is not constant.
120. CILICIA: LETTER, DATED 20th JUNE, 1915, FROM DR. L., A FOREIGN
RESIDENT IN TURKEY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The deportation began some six weeks ago with 180 families from
Zeitoun, since which time all the inhabitants of that place and its
neighbouring villages have been deported, also most of the
Christians in Albustan and many from Hadjin, Sis, Kars Pazar, Hassan
Beyli and Dört Yöl.
The numbers involved are approximately, to date, 26,500. Of these
about 5,000 have been sent to the Konia region, 5,500 are in Aleppo
and the surrounding towns and villages, and the remainder are in
Der-el-Zor, Rakka and various places in Mesopotamia, even as far as
the neighbourhood of Baghdad.
The process is still going on, and there is no telling how far it
may be carried. The orders already issued will bring the number in
this region up to 32,000, and there have been as yet none exiled
from Aintab, and very few from Marash and Ourfa.
The following is the text of the Government order[160] covering the
case:—“Art. 2nd.: The commanders of the Army, of independent army
corps and of divisions may, in case of military necessity, or in
case they suspect espionage or treason, send away, either singly or
in mass, the inhabitants of villages or towns and install them in
other places.”
The orders of commanders may have been reasonably humane, but the
execution of them has been for the most part unnecessarily harsh and
in many cases accompanied by horrible brutality to women and
children, to the sick and the aged. Whole villages were deported at
an hour’s notice, with no opportunity to prepare for the journey—not
even, in some cases, to gather together the scattered members of the
family, so that little children were left behind. At the mountain
village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub, and were compelled
to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road
bare-footed and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they
were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture or
implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were allowed
neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time
to do so.
In Hadjin well-to-do people, who had prepared food and bedding for
the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards
suffered greatly from hunger.
In many cases the men (those of military age were nearly all in the
Army) were bound tightly together with ropes or chains. Women with
little children in their arms, or in the last days of pregnancy,
were driven along under the whip like cattle. Three different cases
came under my knowledge where the woman was delivered on the road
and, because her brutal driver hurried her along, she died of
hæmorrhage. I also know of one case where the gendarme in charge was
a humane man and allowed the poor woman several hours’ rest and then
procured a wagon for her to ride in. Some women became so completely
worn out and hopeless that they left their infants beside the road.
Many women and girls have been outraged. At one place the commander
of gendarmerie openly told the men to whom he consigned a large
company that they were at liberty to do what they chose with the
women and girls.
As to subsistence, there has been a great difference in different
places. In some places the Government has fed them; in some places
it has permitted the inhabitants to feed them; in some places it has
neither fed them nor permitted others to do so. There has been much
hunger, thirst and sickness and some real starvation and death.
These people are being scattered in small units, three or four
families in a place, among a population of different race and
religion and speaking a different language. I speak of them as being
composed families, but four-fifths of them are women and children,
and what men there are, for the most part, are old or incompetent.
If means are not found to help them through the next few months,
until they get established in their new surroundings, two-thirds or
three-fourths of them will die of starvation and disease.
121. BM.: LETTER FROM A FOREIGN EYE-WITNESS, DATED 6th JULY, 1915,
ON BOARD A STEAMSHIP; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Central Turkey has reached a crisis in its history. There are grave
problems to face. In many parts the accumulated work of years has
been washed away in a few weeks by the great and terrible flood of
deportation, and we are again on bed-rock. We understand that,
between the middle of May and the middle of June, 26,000 people were
deported, and that the number is to reach 32,000. When I left BM.,
on the 14th June, Zeitoun had been practically emptied of Armenians.
Only one, or perhaps two families, who were originally not of
Zeitoun and who were in the employment of the Government and
necessary to it, were left in Zeitoun, and even they were not
allowed to live in houses, but were living in a church. The place is
now occupied by Macedonian Moslem refugees. They began by cutting
down the fruit trees, laden with green fruit, and using them for
firewood, and by cutting down the green grain and using it for
fodder. One man demanded the mule that had carried him there from
the Moslem katerdji, who had been asked by the Government to convey
the man to Zeitoun—or Yeni Shehr, as I think it is now to be called.
When the katerdji naturally demurred, the man killed the katerdji
and took the mule. So lawless are they that the Government seems
afraid of them, and so leaves them strictly alone. As far as I know,
at that date not an Armenian was left in Albustan and all its
region, in Furnus and all its region, in Geben and all its region,
or in Gourksoun and all its region (I don’t remember the other
places that have been swept clean), and Fundadjak and Deré Keui and
all that region expected to move any day. Indeed, the Government
says that the plan is that all Cilicia shall be entirely cleared,
except for Sis, Adana and BM., where the serving class shall be
left. Some officials say that all but about three hundred rich and
influential families of BM. shall be left, but no one believes them
and all from the highest to the lowest are preparing to leave. The
same officials say that Sis and Adana will not be touched, but we
know that some from there have been taken already. As you may know,
Marash was this year made an independent “Sandjak,” like Ourfa, and
this has made this infamous work more easy. The Vali of Aleppo
resisted all efforts at deportation in his district, but the day we
left Aleppo we were informed by him that he had been removed to
Konia, so by this time deportation is very probably in full swing in
the Aintab field. When we were in Aleppo I saw some of the first one
hundred families to be deported from Hadjin, and the rest of Hadjin
were expected the day we left, or within the next few days. The man
who has been deporting in Diyarbekir, and, worse, has been killing
people by beating or scalding them to death—one person said: “He is
killing them alive!”—was transferred about the middle of June to
Ourfa, with the evident purpose of letting him continue his work
there. To go out into other fields, I might add that a private code
telegram from Mardin received about the 24th June said that
massacres had begun there.
Why is there this deportation? There are many theories. When the
people asked, the answer was: “It is an order from Constantinople.”
One official, who is being worked nearly to death by this extra work
of deportation, said one day: “It is all right for people in Europe
to deport. They simply put people on a train and send them wherever
they wish”—and much more along that line, which led us to believe
that Germany has a hand in it. Indeed, we know that, when Turkish
officials are easing up on these poor people, German officials step
in and make things hard.
Where are they going? Some are being scattered, one or two families
to a village, among Moslem villages, evidently with the idea of
forcing them to become Moslems; others are being taken from their
mountain homes and are being driven across the desert towards
Baghdad. German officers, who came into Aleppo one night on their
way from Baghdad to Constantinople, said that they first met this
weary train two days out of Baghdad, and that the road the thousands
they had met were marching along was marked or outlined by the
bodies of their dead.
Who are these people? Women and children, tottering old men and
babes. The men, twenty-one to thirty-five or forty years old, have
practically all gone to the war, so these women are at the mercy of
those in charge of them. Some soldiers are as kind to them as
circumstances permit; others farm the women out for the night to the
men of the villages near which they camp, or march in themselves, as
a bull might into a herd of cows. This is not guesswork, but
well-known fact. Some women kill themselves by jumping into the
rivers, to escape, but others, for the sake of their children,
endure.
Some of the circumstances that make this deportation especially
cruel are these. As a general rule village people get their new
clothes in the autumn. Now they are expecting to go up into the
mountains with their flocks, and so will wear out the old rags of
last year’s clothes and be ready for the new clothes after harvest.
So, at best, they are very ill-provided for a journey. Not only
this, but the Government takes special pains in many, if not most,
instances to prevent their taking what clothes they have. The first
to be summoned were some families in Zeitoun. Early one Saturday
morning, as usual, the industrious housewives donned their old
washing clothes and began their Saturday’s washing. Without warning,
all of a sudden, a terrible knocking was heard at many doors. In a
minute the soldiers came pouring in, saying that the people in those
houses were wanted immediately at the Government House. Not a moment
was given to don dress or shoes, but, in night-clothes or washing
rags, the mothers and a few fathers snatched sleeping children out
of their beds, the women throwing a shawl over their heads as they
ran. Of course, many children were left behind, and there are many
pathetic stories of little boys and girls, eight or nine years old,
stumbling along the road, hardly able from sheer weariness to walk,
yet carrying their little baby brother or sister, because, as their
mother was being taken away by the soldiers, she had said: “Look
after baby and never leave him (or her).”
Geben’s turn came later, so the people had heard of the deportation
and gotten ready, although the Government assured them again and
again that that district was not to be deported. Time went on, and
no order came. The Government said: “Why will you not believe? Why
do you sit here waiting for that which is not coming? See, your
flocks are suffering for want of pasture. Be sensible, and go to the
mountains as usual.” Some brave ones started out, and nothing
happened. So, in great joy, the flocks started for the mountains.
One morning the women were putting into the tub the clothes that had
got dirty during all those weary weeks of waiting, that they might
go to their mountain places with clean clothes. Such was the need of
washing that they wore the fewest clothes possible, that they might
take everything nice and clean. Hardly an hour had passed, or at
least a very short time, before some soldiers presented themselves
to these women with the command “March!” while others accosted those
who had gone to the mountains with the flocks with the command
“Leave all and march!” So they were forced to leave all their
clothes in the tub and their flocks on the mountains, and march!
In Albustan, when friendly Moslems wished to buy things of the
Armenians and so give them ready money for the road, the Government
stationed soldiers in all the Armenian streets to prevent this, so
all they could sell was what they smuggled out by the back door.
Another factor that adds horror to the situation is the fact that
most of the horses, mules and donkeys have been taken by the
Government for the use of the Army. So now the people have
practically no animals to carry their own loads, and the Government
can furnish few. Sometimes they force an Armenian from a distant
village, who happens to have kept a poor old lame horse or two, to
help transport people. He hears on the way that orders have come for
the deportation of his own family. Of course, if he can steal away
in the night to go to the help of his own family, he does so. Or the
soldiers make a raid on some neighbouring Moslem villages and gather
up the few donkeys that are left. Their owners know that, if these
donkeys once reach some large centre, they will never see them
again. So these poor people, who have been tramping along all day,
must keep awake all night to keep the donkeys from being stolen by
their _owners_, who are sneaking round watching their chance. So the
mothers are obliged to walk and carry their little children as best
they can. Some throw their little ones into the river or leave them
under a bush by the road, that they may be able to manage those that
are left. One mother threw one child in and jumped in with the other
in her arms. The heart-breaking cry is: “Won’t you take my daughter
and save her from the horrors of the road? She was educated in your
schools; surely you can take her and save her?” Or: “My little one,
my darling! Take her, take him! How can I trudge on, day after day,
over the rocks or the burning sands of the desert, and carry and
feed and keep my darling?”
There is not an Armenian family in BM., I suppose, but has given
clothes and money and food, till now they say: “We have nothing left
but what we shall need on the road when we are summoned.” They could
not stand the bitter cry of the mothers, and many, many have taken
children, saying: “If we put a little more water in the soup, it
will be enough for all,” and yet they say: “When we are summoned,
what is to become of these children? To be sure, they have had a few
more days of security and life, but then—what?”...
Still another factor adds to the horror, and that is: a Government
that is not able to feed even its soldiers, how is it to obey the
beautiful paper instructions and see that the people are well fed
and lack for nothing? In BM., for over a month, Christian churches
have been giving two meals a day to the three thousand people to
whom the Government gives two small stale loaves of bread a day, and
I suppose it is safe to say that those fed are never for any two or
three days running the same people. Each party stays two or three
days, or even a week, but nearly every day some are coming and
others going. This, as you may suppose, is a terrible drain on those
from whom the Government has used nearly every means to extract the
last penny, even hanging a man in the market-place because he did
not pay ten pounds when asked for it! Hanging is so common in BM.
now that it creates little stir. It is only when someone happens to
mention having seen a man hanging in the market yesterday or the day
before that we even hear of it. The people are looking into their
fast-emptying larders, and asking: “How long will it last?” In
Aintab the people are not even allowed to feed the refugees, who are
now sent by a long detour round the town to prevent anyone’s seeking
to feed them. Some good Aintab people took a lot of water-bottles
right out to the cross-roads two hours or more away, to give to the
refugees as they started out on their desert journey; but they were
not allowed to give them, and had sadly to take them home again.
And how are the people going? As they come into BM., weary and with
swollen and bleeding feet, clasping their babes to their breasts,
they utter not one murmur or word of complaint; but you see their
eyes move and hear the words: “For Jesus’ sake, for Jesus’ sake!”
The Albustan people were brought by a roundabout way which no one
knew, because, we think, the soldiers were afraid to follow the
direct road past what used to be Zeitoun. So, instead of coming in
two days they wandered for eight days in the mountains, many of them
having not a morsel to eat for the last two days. After they had
been in BM. for nearly twenty-four hours, Badvelli V. came up to see
us. Even then he was so weary and his lips were so parched that it
seemed a great effort for him to speak. Suddenly he threw up his
head and squared his shoulders, and a new tone came into his voice,
as he said: “I want to tell you of my great joy. As my people left
their houses, their lands, their all, there was not one murmur or
complaint, but with joy—yes, with joy—we left all! And I can say
that I believe my people to-day to be nearer to Christ than they
have ever been before.”
I saw the wife of the Gourksoun preacher. She was so tired that, in
spite of herself, perhaps even unknown to herself, her lips quivered
as she spoke, and yet there was nothing but a smile or a cheery word
to be seen or heard from those lips. Someone asked her how she came,
and she said that for a few hours they hired an animal for one pound
(I think that was the sum), but that most of the time she walked. I
looked at her—a delicate woman, who could hardly be expected to walk
three or four miles, to say nothing of all those miles, climbing up
over the mountains or tramping among the rocks—and I said: “Walk!
How could you?” She turned to me, and a look of almost childlike
trust and wonder came into her face, as she answered: “I don’t know.
We felt no weariness; the road was not hard. It just seemed as
though God put out His arms and carried us.”...
122. ZEITOUN: ANTECEDENTS OF THE DEPORTATION, RECORDED BY THE REV.
STEPHEN TROWBRIDGE, SECRETARY OF THE CAIRO COMMITTEE OF THE
AMERICAN RED CROSS, FROM AN ORAL STATEMENT BY THE REV. DIKRAN
ANDREASIAN, PASTOR OF THE ARMENIAN PROTESTANT CHURCH AT
ZEITOUN.[161]
On the 10th August, 1914, the Turkish authorities in Zeitoun made a
declaration of “seferbeylik,” which in Turkish military parlance
means that every man in the district under 45 years of age should be
prepared to leave at short notice for active service in the Army.
Every man, Moslem or Christian, was required to secure a “vesiké” or
certificate from the Government stating that he had fulfilled the
preliminary conditions and was ready for military service.
Hundreds upon hundreds, chiefly Moslem Turks, from the surrounding
country came to the Zeitoun Government Building, and while going
through the formalities were entertained hospitably by the Armenians
of the town. These Armenians were also summoned, and they began
seriously to consider whether it would be best to agree to this. (It
is only since 1909 that any Christians have been allowed in the
Turkish Army, though in ancient times the Janissaries were a very
important section of the Ottoman troops.)
Many of the Zeitounlis took to the mountains to escape military
service. Among these were about twenty-five thorough-going ruffians
who made their living by deeds of violence. This small band,
sincerely disliked and dreaded by the peaceable and thrifty people
of Zeitoun, came down upon a company of new Turkish (Moslem)
recruits, stripped them and enraged them by the insolence of their
language. Thereupon Haidar Pasha, the Mutessarif of Marash, came out
about the 31st August with 600 soldiers. He brought with him some
Christian notables from Marash to “persuade” the Zeitounlis.
no opposition was offered to this force.
The Pasha demanded the surrender of the twenty-five outlaws who had
attacked the new recruits. Every one of these was secured and
actually handed over to the Turkish Government. This would seem to
have answered the Pasha’s utmost demand, but, as a matter of fact,
he was not satisfied, and made a proclamation demanding the
surrender of all weapons and firearms. On the pretext of making the
Armenians own up to the possession of rifles, torture and the
bastinado were used with terrible cruelty. Many prominent citizens
had their feet beaten into a mangled pulp. Those who had no rifles
made desperate efforts to purchase some from their neighbours, in
order to be able to deliver them up and escape the torture[162].
There were in all about 200 Martini rifles among the 8,000 people of
Zeitoun, and some 150 of these were seized in this fashion by the
Turkish officers. A quantity of old-fashioned guns and pistols were
collected and confiscated. The Pasha in returning to Marash took
away with him a number of the Armenian notables, allowing the
soldiers to insult and beat them on the road. Certain classes of the
Armenians were also taken to the Marash barracks “for military
service,” but after terrible experiences many of them escaped and
returned to Zeitoun.
The old troubles began again. On the pretext of finding deserters,
houses were searched in the most lawless manner, and relatives and
even neighbours were cruelly beaten. The fathers of some “deserters”
almost died under the beating, . The women and girls in the “deserters’” families were
attacked and violated. Again and again young Armenian girls were
outraged by the coarse Turkish soldiers. Even the young men who were
not deserters were beaten “lest they might desert later.” Of course,
trade had long been at a standstill, and now large quantities of
private property were being confiscated on these various pretexts.
Then, some ignorant hotheads met
one night and planned to attack the Government Building. This plot
was frustrated by the Armenian notables, because they felt
it would be doomed to failure. The Arashnort (Armenian bishop and
head of the community) felt it his duty to notify the Government of
this plot.
These are the facts. How can anyone charge the people of Zeitoun
with desiring or attempting an insurrection?
About twenty-five of the young men who had been brutally treated by
the Turkish officers took to the mountains. These twenty-five
attacked and killed nine Turkish mounted police on the way to
Marash. The whole Armenian population of Zeitoun was against this,
and openly said so. A night attack by this reckless band, was frustrated by
Government troops aided by a great mass of the Armenian people. Yet
it became evident that the Government was only watching for pretexts
to destroy Zeitoun root and branch.
Gradually 5,000 soldiers were gathered about the town, fifty prominent families were sent into exile; a
few days later, sixty more, then a whole quarter, and another and
another. Finally the remainder were all sent at once. By the time
the Rev. Dikran Andreasian left, no families whatever remained. Even
the Armenian inscriptions over the arches of churches were hacked to
pieces by order of Khourshid Bey, the commander of the troops, and
the name of Zeitoun was changed to Souleimania (after a Turkish
officer who was killed on the Marash road). The Turkish Mufti of
Zeitoun, in his report, stated that in the course of all these
events, such as the storming of the monastery, 101 Turkish soldiers
were killed and 110 wounded. Over against this we may add that 8,000
Armenians who had no evil intention against the Government were
outraged and despoiled beyond all endurance, and were at last driven
out according to a methodical plan born of the Germans—driven out
into hideous misery and suffering in the arid plains of Mesopotamia.
The Zeitounlis were longing for the Allies to carry all before them
at Gallipoli. They were hoping for a sweeping defeat of the Turks;
but there was no insurrection. The one or two seditious plots were
opposed and frustrated chiefly by the Armenians of a saner mind. The
evidence is convincing that the destruction of the people of Zeitoun
was a deliberate Turco-German plan.
-----
Footnote 160:
See Doc. 83 and Annexe C. to the Historical Summary.
Footnote 161:
The passages included between brackets are taken from the (fuller)
Armenian version of Pastor Andreasian’s narrative (Doc. 130, “A
Red Cross Flag That Saved Four Thousand.” These passages have been
translated for the Editor by Mr. G.H. Paelian.
Footnote 162:
See Docs. 68, 82 and 94.
Footnote 163:
The author of Doc. 123 states (page 483, line 24) that the first
batch of Zeitounlis were deported the morning following the night
on which the insurgents in the monastery escaped. This would be
the 8th April. The author of Doc. 121 on the other hand, states
(page 475, line 44) that the first deportation from Zeitoun took
place on a Saturday. This would be the 10th April, 1915.—EDITOR.
123. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN: DIARY OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT IN THE TOWN OF
B. ON THE CILICIAN PLAIN; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF
GENEVA.
_Sunday, 14th March, 1915._
This morning I had a long conversation with Mr. —— about events at
Zeitoun. He has managed to obtain some information regarding the
little Armenian town, although all direct communication with it has
been interrupted. Turkish troops have left Aleppo for Zeitoun—some
say 4,000, some 6,000, others 8,000. With what intention, one
wonders? Mr. ——, who has been there himself during last summer and
this winter, assures me that the Armenians have no wish to revolt
and are prepared to put up with anything the Government may do.
Contrary to the old-established custom, a levy was made at Zeitoun
at the time of the August mobilisation, and they did not offer the
slightest resistance. None the less, the Government has played them
false. In October, 1914, their leader, Nazaret Tchaoush, came to
Marash with a “safe conduct” to arrange some special points with the
officials. In spite of the “safe conduct” they imprisoned him,
tortured him, and put him to death. Still the people of Zeitoun
remained quiet. Bands of zaptiehs (Turkish gendarmes), quartered in
the town, have been molesting the inhabitants, raiding shops,
stealing, maltreating the people and dishonouring their women. It is
obvious that the Government are trying to get a case against the
Zeitounlis, so as to be able to exterminate them at their pleasure
and yet justify themselves in the eyes of the world.
_—th April, 1915._
Three Armenians from Dört Yöl were hanged last night in the chief
squares of Adana. The Government declare that they had been
signalling to the British warship or warships stationed in the Gulf
of Alexandretta. This is untrue; for I know, though I dare not put
the source of my information on paper, that only one Armenian from
Dört Yöl has had any communication with the English.
_—th April._
Two more Armenians from Dört Yöl have been hanged at Adana.
_—th April._
Three Armenians have been hanged at Adana. We were out riding
to-day, and the train came into the station just as we reached the
railway. Imagine our indignation when we saw a cattle-truck filled
with Armenians from Zeitoun. Most of these mountaineers were in
rags, but a few were quite well dressed. They had been driven out of
their homes and were going to be transplanted, God knows where, to
some town in Asia Minor. It seems we have returned to the days of
the Assyrians, if whole populations can be exiled in this way, and
the sacred liberty of the individual so violated.
_—th April (the next day)._
We were able to see the unfortunate refugees, who are still here
to-day. These are the circumstances of their departure from Zeitoun,
or rather this is the tragedy which preceded their exile, though it
was not the cause of it.
The Turkish gendarmes outraged several girls in the town, and were
attacked in consequence by about twenty of the more hot-headed young
men. Several gendarmes were killed, though all the while the
population as a whole was opposed to bloodshed and desired most
earnestly to avoid the least pretext for reprisals. The twenty
rebels were driven out of the town and took refuge in a monastery
about three-quarters of an hour’s distance from the town. At this
point the troops from Aleppo arrived. The Zeitounlis gave them
lodging, and it seemed that all was going excellently between the
populace and the 8,000 soldiers under their German officers.
The Turks surrounded the monastery and attacked it for a whole day;
but the insurgents defended themselves, and, at the cost of one man
slightly wounded, they killed 300 of the regular troops. During the
night, moreover, they managed to escape.
Their escape was as yet unknown to the town when, about nine o’clock
on the following morning, the Turkish Commandant summoned about 300
of the principal inhabitants to present themselves immediately at
the military headquarters. They obeyed the summons without the least
suspicion, believing themselves to be on excellent terms with the
authorities. Some of them took a little money, others some clothing
or wraps, but the majority came in their working clothes and brought
nothing with them. Some of them had even left their flocks on the
mountains in the charge of children. When they reached the Turkish
camp, they were ordered to leave the town at once without returning
to their homes. They were completely stupefied. Leave? But for
where? They did not know.
They had been unable even yet to learn their destination, but it is
probable that they are being sent to the Vilayet of Konia. Some of
them have come in carriages and some on foot.
_—th April._
I heard to-day that the whole population of Dört Yöl has been taken
away to work on the roads. They continue to hang Armenians at Adana.
It is a point worth remembering that Zeitoun and Dört Yöl are the
two Armenian towns which held their own during the Adana massacres
of 1909.
_—th May._
A new batch of Zeitounlis has just arrived. I saw them marching
along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is
really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and
scarcely clothed, they rather drag themselves along than walk. Old
women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh
approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys.
I saw one young woman drop down exhausted. The Turk gave her two or
three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully. Her
husband was walking in front with a baby two or three days old in
his arms.
Further on an old woman had stumbled, and slipped down into the mud.
The gendarme touched her two or three times with his whip, but she
did not stir; then he gave her several kicks with his foot; still
she did not move; then he kicked her harder, and she rolled over
into the ditch; I hope that she was already dead.
These people have now arrived in the town. They have had nothing to
eat for two days. The Turks forbade them to bring anything with them
from Zeitoun, except, in some cases, a few blankets, a donkey, a
mule, or a goat. But even these things they are selling here for
practically nothing—a goat for one medjidia (3s. 2d.), a mule for
half a lira (nine shillings). This is because the Turks steal them
on the road. One young woman who had only been a mother eight days,
had her donkey stolen the first night of the journey. What a way of
starting out! The German and Turkish officers made the Armenians
leave all their property behind, so that the mouhadjirs (refugees)
from Thrace might enter into possession. There are five families in
——’s house! The town and the surrounding villages (about 25,000
inhabitants) are entirely destroyed.
Between fifteen and sixteen thousand exiles have been sent towards
Aleppo, but they are going to be taken further. Perhaps into Arabia?
Can the real object be to starve them to death? Those who have
passed through our town were going to the Vilayet of Konia; there,
too, there are deserts.
_—th May._
Letters have come which confirm my fears. It is not to Aleppo that
the Zeitounlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between
Aleppo and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to
Kara-Pounar, between Konia and Eregli, in the most arid part of Asia
Minor.
Certain ladies here have given blankets and shoes to some of the
poorest. The local Christians, too, have shown themselves
wonderfully self-sacrificing. But what can one do? It is a little
drop of charity in the ocean of their suffering.
_—th May._
News has come from Konia. Ninety Armenians have been taken to
Kara-Pounar. The Zeitounlis have arrived at Konia. Their sufferings
have been increased by their having had to wait—some of them 8, some
15, some 20 days—at Bozanti (the terminus of the Anatolian Railway
in the Taurus, 2,400 feet above sea level). This delay was caused by
the enormous masses of troops passing continually through the
Cilician Gates; it is the army of Syria which is being recalled for
the defence of the Dardanelles.
When the exiles reached Konia, they had eaten nothing, according to
our news, for three days. The Greeks and Armenians at once collected
money and food for their relief, but the Vali of Konia would not
allow anything of any kind to be given to the exiles. They therefore
remained another three days without food, at the end of which time
the Vali removed his prohibition and allowed food to be served out
to them under the supervision of the zaptiehs.
My informant tells me that, after the departure of the Armenians
from Konia for Kara-Pounar, he saw an Armenian woman throw her
new-born baby into a well; another is said to have thrown hers out
of the window of the train.
_—th May._
A letter has come from Kara-Pounar. I know the writer of it, and can
have no doubt of his truthfulness. He says that the 6,000 or 8,000
Armenians from Zeitoun are dying there from starvation at the rate
of 150 to 200 a day. So from 15,000 to 19,000 Zeitounlis must have
been sent into Arabia, the total population of the town and the
outlying villages having been about 25,000.
_—th May._
The whole garrison of —— and of Adana have left for the Dardanelles.
There are no troops left to defend the district if it should be
attacked from outside.
_—th May (the next day)._
New troops have arrived, but they are untrained.
_—th May._
The last batch of Zeitounlis passed through our town to-day, and I
was able to speak to some of them in the han where they had been
put. I saw one poor little girl who had been walking, barefoot, for
more than a week; her only clothing was a torn pinafore; she was
shivering with cold and hunger, and her bones were literally pushing
through her skin.
About a dozen children had to be left on the road because they could
not walk any further. Have they died of hunger? Probably, but no one
will ever know for certain. I also saw two poor old women without
any hair left, or with hardly any. When the Turks drove them out of
Zeitoun they had been rich, but they could not take anything with
them beyond the clothes they were wearing. They managed somehow to
hide five or six gold pieces in their hair, but, unfortunately for
them, the sun glinted on the metal as they marched along and the
glitter attracted the notice of a zaptieh. He did not waste any time
in picking out the pieces of gold, but found it much quicker to tear
the hair out by the roots.
I came across another very characteristic case. A citizen of
Zeitoun, formerly a rich man, was leading two donkeys, the last
remnants of his fortune. A gendarme came along and seized their
bridles; the Armenian implored him to leave them, saying that he was
already on the verge of starvation. The only answer he received from
the Turk was a shower of blows, repeated till he rolled over in the
dust; even then the Turk continued beating him, till the dust was
turned into a blood-soaked mud; then he gave a final kick and went
off with the donkeys. Several Turks stood by watching; they did not
appear to be at all surprised, nor did any of them attempt to
intervene.
_—th May._
The authorities have sent a number of people from Dört Yöl to be
hanged in the various towns of Adana Vilayet.
_—th May._
There is a rumour of a partial exodus from Marash. It is going to be
our town next.
Dört Yöl has also been evacuated and the inhabitants sent into
Arabia. Hadjin is threatened with the same fate. There has been a
partial clearing out of Adana; Tarsus and Mersina are threatened
too, and also Aintab.
124. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN: FURTHER STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR OF THE
PRECEDING DOCUMENT; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
About the middle of April, about 150 Armenian families belonging to
Zeitoun came to B. This is what they told us about the circumstances
under which they had to leave their village.
After a battle that took place one day before their departure,
between the Ottoman troops and 25 young men of Zeitoun, who had
rebelled when they were asked to join the Army (a battle in which
300 soldiers perished, but in which the population of Zeitoun took
no part), these families were called to the Government Building
without any previous explanation and without any other information.
Most of them were rich and went to the Government without
misgivings. There they were informed that they had to leave their
village instantly. They were then all obliged to abandon all that
they had in their houses, their cattle and even part of their
families (for, not knowing why they had been called away, many of
them had left their children at home). This is what I heard from one
of the Armenian exiles in the first convoy from Zeitoun. They came
to B., but when some of them went to the American Mission in this
town, they did not yet know where they were to be planted. Most of
them were in the greatest anxiety on account of the children whom
they had left tending the cattle and whom they had not been able to
take with them.
The first group was not in a very bad state, because it was composed
of the first families of the city, and they could in large part
provide for their immediate needs (carriages and food). But, a few
days later, new bands appeared in a most deplorable condition; their
number was nearly two thousand people.
Many, in fact, most of them, went on foot, getting food every two or
three days, and in general lacking the most necessary clothes. The
Christian population of B. tried to help them, but, whatever their
efforts, what they could do was like a drop of water in the ocean.
Also, they were not all allowed to enter the city; they had to sleep
out of doors in no matter what weather, and the soldiers that
guarded them put all sorts of difficulties in the way of the
population of B., who wanted to help the refugees. We saw some of
them on the road. They went slowly, most of them fainting from want
of food. We saw a father walking with a one-day-old baby in his
arms, and behind him the mother walking as well as possible, pushed
along by the stick of the Turkish guard. It was not uncommon to see
a woman fall down and then rise again under the stick. Some of them
had a goat, a donkey, or a mare; when they reached B., they were
obliged to sell them for five, ten, or fifteen piastres,[164]
because the Turkish soldiers took them away from them. I saw one who
sold his goat to a Turk for six piastres. I saw an Armenian pushing
two goats; a policeman (zabit) came and carried away the animals
and, because the poor man protested, beat him mercilessly, until he
fell in the dust senseless. Many Turks were present; no one stirred.
A young woman, whose husband had been imprisoned, was carried away
with her fifteen-days-old baby, with one donkey for all her baggage.
After one day and a half on the road, a soldier stole her donkey and
she had to go on foot, her baby in her arms, from Zeitoun to Aleppo.
A reporter, Mr. Y., told us that, while the refugees were on the way
to Bozanti, his carriage was stopped all the time by refugees asking
for bread.
The third and last band numbered 200 people. It reached B. on the
13th May, about seven o’clock. They were put in a han, where I went
to visit them. They had all come on foot from Zeitoun to B., and had
had nothing to eat for two days—days when it rained abundantly.
Accompanied by one of my pupils, I made one or two translations from
the Armenian, because we were under the surveillance of a policeman.
As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses, mouhadjirs
(Moslem refugees) from Thrace took possession of them. The Armenians
had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves
saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about
20,000 to 25,000 Turks in Zeitoun now, and the name of the town
seems to have been changed into that of Yeni Shehr.
I saw a girl three and a half years old, wearing only a shirt in
rags. She had come on foot from Zeitoun to B. She was terribly spare
and was shivering from cold, as were also all the innumerable
children I saw on that day (Monday, the 14th May[165]).
An Armenian told me that he had abandoned two children on the way
because they could not walk, and that he did not know whether they
had died of cold and hunger, whether a charitable soul had taken
care of them, or whether they had become the prey of wild beasts. I
learned later that this was far from being a unique case. Many
children seem to have been thus abandoned. One seems to have been
thrown into a well.
As I passed through Konia, I went to see Dr. AB.[166], and this is
what he told me: When the first refugees from Zeitoun came to Konia,
the Christian population bought food and clothes for them; but the
Vali refused to allow them any communication with the refugees,
pretending that they had all that they wanted. A few days later,
however, they could get the help they needed. The fact is that the
Government gave them only very bad bread, and that only every two or
three days. Dr. AB. told me that a woman threw her dying baby from
the window of the train.
The refugees from Zeitoun have been directed to Kara-Pounar, one of
the most unhealthy places in the Vilayet of Konia, situated between
Konia and Eregli, but nearer the latter. Many of them have died, and
the mortality is increasing every day. The malaria makes ravages
among them, because of the complete lack of food and shelter. How
cruelly ironic to think that the Government pretends to be sending
them there to found a colony; and they have no ploughs, no seeds to
sow, no bread, no abode; in fact, they are sent with empty hands.
Only part of the Zeitounlis seem to be at Kara-Pounar; the others
seem to have been sent to Der-el-Zor, on the Euphrates; there their
condition is still worse, and they ask as a favour to be sent to
Kara-Pounar.
The Armenians of Adana received orders to leave the town, without
being told where they were to go. Many of them came to B., others
went to Osmania. But they were all recalled to Adana. Is it intended
to send them somewhere else, or are they to remain in Adana? I could
not find this out for certain before leaving B.
A great panic reigns among the Armenian population in B., because it
was said that they also were to be exiled. But nothing has happened
there yet.
From Konia, again, more than 200 Armenians have been sent to
Kara-Pounar. Among them is Mr. AC. On Thursday, 90 people were
notified to be ready to leave on Saturday, the 26th May.[167] The
Armenians dare not leave their houses.
-----
Footnote 164:
1 piastre=2d.
Footnote 165:
The 14th May, 1915, was a Friday.—EDITOR.
Footnote 166:
Author of Doc. 125
Footnote 167:
The 26th May, 1915, was a Wednesday.—EDITOR.
125. EXILES FROM ZEITOUN: LETTER, DATED KONIA, 17th JULY, 1915, FROM
A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT KONIA TO MR. N. AT CONSTANTINOPLE;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
In hope of having opportunity to send by Miss FF., I can write
freely. Have you any means by which you can send me as much as fifty
liras for relief of the Zeitounlis in Sultania? The Government has
now left them to starve. At first, rations of bread were given; then
150 drams of flour to each per day (children under five not being
counted at all); then their amount was reduced to 100 drams. It is
now four weeks that this has been cut off _entirely_. The people are
not allowed to scatter over the country in search of work. They can
only search the fields for roots and herbs, and there have been
several cases of poisoning from this food. The exiles from Konia,
numbering 107 (men who have money and supplies sent to them from
their homes) took up a subscription among themselves and subscribed
1,400 piastres a week towards supplying bread for the starving. I
have sent personal gifts from ourselves and our friends of five or
six liras a week; but these sources are becoming exhausted. Later
Mr. GG., whom Dr. EE. knows, has been “pardoned” by the Vali and has
returned here. He has been the leader among the exiles in trying to
secure food for the Zeitounlis. I called on him this evening to get
accurate information of their state. It is worse even than I knew.
The number is over 7,000, 2,200 having been sent without coming
through Konia, so that I had no account of them. The facts about the
cutting off of all food for them are as I have stated. A bin-bashi,
an Arnaout,[168] who went there on military service, was greatly
moved by what he saw, and sent a strong telegram demanding rations
to be given to the families of the men (about 300) who were drafted
into the Labour Regiment after being sent to Sultania. This he could
do in his military capacity, and it was accepted by the War
Department. This provided for about 1,600, leaving, however, nearly
6,000 with nothing. The number of deaths up to last week was 305.
Dr. Stepanian, of Baghtchedjik, has distinguished himself by
self-sacrificing work for the poor. He testifies to seeing deaths
from starvation already.
The refugees are “housed” principally in great camel stables and
such like. It is a great camel region, the Government having
requisitioned 4,000 of these animals from there. The cattle and
animals of the Zeitounlis were mostly requisitioned by the
Government en route. What they managed to conceal and bring with
them has been put under requisition, but _not taken_. Meanwhile, the
owners are forbidden to sell, are unable to use, and are compelled
to feed these animals, because the Government holds them responsible
to deliver them when called for. I have before heard of refinements
of devilry, but I have seen instances this year that have burned
into my soul. The manifest purpose to destroy these people by
starvation cannot be denied.
I find that it is the exiles from Ak Shehr and Baghtchedjik, who are
also at Sultania, who have been more generous than those of Konia in
giving of their own means. The Kaimakam has been very good, giving
out of his scanty purse to help and favouring the efforts of others,
in spite of the official attitude in Konia. Dr. Stepanian, of
Baghtchedjik, whom you perhaps know, is one of the “Commission”
there for distributing all assistance that may be sent. Can you in
any way get money to put at my disposal, so that I can send _ten
liras a week_? With this we may be able to get enough from others
here to provide _ten paras per person_. Of course, this is nothing,
but may we not do something?
-----
Footnote 168:
Albanian.
126. AF.: STATEMENT, DATED 16th DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT AF.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The events connected with the banishment of the Armenians of the AF.
region by the Turkish Government began on the 14th May. On that day
the Alai Bey, or Justice of the Court Martial, arrived in AF. from
Aleppo, the seat of the Court Martial. The three days following his
arrival were spent in seclusion, very probably in consulting with
secret agents. On the 18th, 19th and 20th May he had conferences
with the elders of the city. He demanded in a very courteous manner
that the city should deliver up all arms, and all deserters from the
army and other outlaws. He desired that they should comply with his
request within the next three days. He took an oath on his honour
that, if his demands were obeyed, all would be well for the people
of AF. and in no way should harm come to them. In case of
disobedience, however, he said that he had at his call three
thousand soldiers, who would enforce his demands.
Towards the last of the conferences, however, the Alai Bey’s
attitude grew threatening, and the people were filled with alarm.
The elders and spiritual heads of the communities were at a loss
what counsel to give. If they delivered up their arms and were
betrayed, they might all be massacred; if they retained them, it
would mean open opposition to the Government. A number of the
leaders came to consult with Miss B. and me, and we supported the
party which stood for full compliance with the requests. It was
finally almost unanimously decided that this should be done, and a
general response seemed to follow.
By Sunday, the 23rd May, all but three or four of the deserters had
delivered themselves up and about seventy Martinis had been
surrendered. C. Bey seemed pleased with the results, and the people
were beginning to grow more tranquil. At three o’clock in the
afternoon, about two thousand soldiers, cavalry and infantry,
entered the city. The local centurion had prepared for their coming
by taking forcible possession of the Gregorian Boys’ School, the
Monastery (which was used for orphanage purposes, the orphans being
sent out as the soldiers entered), and the Protestant Boys’ Academy.
Miss B. immediately put in a protest at the Government House against
occupying the last-named building. The cavalry was sent to another
building belonging to a certain philanthropic society, for whose
properties Miss B. was responsible. As the buildings were empty and
not in use, it seemed best to allow this without a protest. The
following morning we called upon the cavalry officer, D. Bey, were
very courteously received, and were given assurances that the
property should be well cared for, which assurances were kept. The
Boys’ Academy building was not freed of soldiers, but only a very
few were stationed there, and all rooms we desired we kept locked.
Guards of soldiers were placed in all conspicuous parts of the city,
a squad being on duty night and day at the head of the private road
which leads to the American Board Compound.
Towards evening on Monday, the 24th, the ammunition and load-animals
of the troops came in. The soldiers with these were sent to a
building belonging to another institution in the city. This
building, though unoccupied because of the absence of the
missionaries, was filled with property. Word was sent to Miss B.,
but before she could get there the attendant had been forced to open
the door. She protested to the police in charge, and, finding it
useless, sought audience with the justice of court martial. He
promised to empty it the following day, and this was carried out.
On the 25th May, Miss B. again called on the Alai Bey to present
several personal requests, such as permission to take flour to the
mill without molestation, to have our road and premises free from
the trespass of soldiers, etc. All was readily and courteously
granted. She also reported the gun in our possession, which had been
registered in the name of our steward. He smiled graciously and
asked whether we did not want a few more; he had plenty, he said, to
give us. In the days that followed there was repeated pressure,
always more drastic, for ammunition of all kinds and the delivery of
deserters. C. Bey gave repeated assurances that, if the deserters
were delivered up, no one would be exiled. On the 27th May a large
number of the leading men were imprisoned, and, after that, every
day added to their numbers.
The strain upon the people was now so great that the majority could
neither eat nor sleep. We were in the same case, and were up from
very early until late in the evening to meet the many who came to
consult with us. On the morning of the 28th, a party of women from
the city besought our aid. The husbands of nearly all of them had
been thrown into prison, and they and their children were left
defenceless in their homes, with no suggestion of what the future
held in store. At their request, then, Miss B. and I interviewed
both C. Bey and E. Bey, the military commander. We besought them to
distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, and asked mercy for
the women and children. We were again received with entire courtesy,
but had no satisfaction. The Alai Bey took pains to explain to us
that, as we had come from a land of freedom, where people lived in a
more enlightened way, we could not fully understand the necessary
actions of the Turkish Government; that there existed a Committee
among the Armenian people which was harmful to the Government, but
that our hearts and minds were pure and the people easily deceived
us.
The last of the deserters was delivered up on the 30th May, and the
total number of guns was one Mauser and ninety Martinis. The Alai
Bey, however, insisted that there were yet many more guns hidden by
the people, either in the city or on the mountains. The soldiers
were accordingly set at work to dig into walls and refuse heaps and
search all the houses for guns. With the exception of some powder,
the results were insignificant. The people of the city charged the
soldiers with themselves hiding guns and ammunition in and about the
walls of dwellings, for the purpose of securing convictions.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere grew worse and worse, and on the 3rd June
it became known that the deportation was about to begin. In response
to the desire of the people we, together with Miss F., a German
lady, made a last plea before the officers. The only result was that
we received permission to send telegrams. We sent messages to Mr. N.
and the Ambassador, but afterwards learned that no such messages
were ever transmitted. The men to be exiled the following morning
were released from prison in the afternoon. Miss B. and I, together
with the Protestant pastor, called upon all the families who were
going. In the morning we asked permission for the school-girls of
the exiled families to remain with us, and were refused on the
ground that only the Vali could give such permission. We immediately
telegraphed to the Vali, but, as usual, received no answer. The Alai
Bey, however, personally gave us permission to keep three girls, as
well as the privilege of receiving gifts from our friends who were
going away.
Thirty leading Protestant and Gregorian families were marched away
in the first batch. Gendarmes were placed to prevent relatives and
friends from accompanying those sent out, but Miss B. and I always
passed freely among them, giving aid wherever we could. Four days
later G. Effendi, our steward and chief servant, received notice to
go. Miss B. again interviewed the Alai Bey with respect to the case
of G. Effendi. She said that we were greatly dependent upon him, and
asked that he might be left among the last to be sent. The Alai Bey
granted one day’s delay, but his decision was not carried out in
fact. The following morning he was the first to be driven from his
house by the soldiers.
By the 10th June, about 150 households had been deported, and new
papers were being distributed every day. Some of the men had now
been imprisoned fifteen days. They were usually released the day
before leaving, and had no chance of making preparations for the
journey. The Alai Bey left the same day, delegating the work of
further deportation to the military commander and the Kaimakam of
AF. The soldiers left some two weeks later. The deportation of the
people of AF. continued throughout the summer, until, by the 1st
October, only a very few men and their families and about 250 widows
and soldiers’ families remained.
It was the intention of the Government to provide animals for those
sent into exile, as the people of AF. had very few animals of their
own and were obliged to journey over rough mountain roads. Horses,
mules, camels and donkeys were levied upon all the surrounding
villages, whether Christian or Turk. The owners were obliged to go
with the animals. It can readily be seen that many of them bore the
travellers no good will, and vented whatever cruelty they pleased
upon them. Gendarmes were also sent along with the convoys,
presumably for protection, but very often they themselves became the
greatest menace, and almost never succeeded in preventing the raids
made upon the defenceless exiles by marauding bands. Towards the
latter part of the summer the supply of animals was so diminished,
so many having died upon the road, that Circassian carts were used
for transporting the people. The exiles from AF. were sent first to
AG., and from there by slow degrees to Aleppo. There is a
well-travelled caravan road to AG. by way of AH., which can also be
used by the rude mountain cars. This, however, the exiles were not
permitted to use, but were forced to travel over a stony and very
difficult road leading over a high mountain pass. The entire village
of Shar and the Armenian population of Roumlou were deported soon
after the deportations began in AF. Being agricultural villages,
they came for the most part with their own carts. When they reached
the pass, they begged to be allowed to go by way of AH., so that
they might have the benefit of their cars; but this was denied them.
All the carts had to be abandoned at the river, and, throwing most
of their possessions into the stream, they took what little they
could carry, and started up the stony way on foot.
At the beginning of September a very large percentage of the
remaining population of AF. was deported, consisting for the most
part of the very poor, and including many widows. As very few
animals and carts came in response to the call of the Government, a
large number of men, women and children started on the long journey
on foot, carrying on their backs or strapping to their persons the
very few articles deemed most necessary.
Miss B. and I found our position in the face of such terrible events
a most difficult one. We felt obliged to help the Armenian people in
every way possible, and at the same time felt we could not have a
break with the Government, nor give up our cordial relations with
the Moslem families. We felt responsible for the American property
situated in and about AF., and also had Armenian orphan teachers and
girls in the compound, for whose protection our lives were not too
costly. One of the great problems was in connection with the
property of the exiled families. They had been told by the Alai Bey
that they could place the property left behind wherever they
pleased. Naturally everyone wished to put it under our care. We
could have filled our whole compound full of all imaginable
household articles and treasures, to say nothing of horses, cows,
goats, etc. As we had no American gentleman to advise us, and,
moreover, wished always to deal in such a way as not to involve the
Consul or the Embassy, we decided in general against the taking of
property. That which we did accept we paid for, and the purchasing
was always to help those in such desperate need. The Government came
to understand this, and respected us accordingly.
From the time when the first people left, in early June, until
October, we were very fortunate in having the opportunity to render
some financial help. Miss B. passed through the line of gendarmes
guarding the villages of Shar and Roumlou, and was enabled to leave
some pounds with the head men of the villages for the aid of the
very poor. To the outgoing people of AF. we gave freely, according
to our limited means, and even occasionally could help exiles from
other villages passing through from the Kaisaria country. We
succeeded also, with the aid of a Greek and a Turk, in sending some
relief to the villagers of AJ. and AK. before they left. We felt
confident that the authorities knew something of the extent to which
we were helping the people, but we encountered no open opposition.
Our servants were nearly all sent away early in the deportation, so
that extra and unaccustomed work was imposed upon us. Miss B., for
example, always had to take the post in person to the Government
Building. Providing for the food supply, and dealing with our
shepherd and the villagers who came to sell things, often fell to us
personally. A large part of the time we had no cook. Another tax
upon our strength and time was the battle with the swarms of locusts
which visited Syria and Cilicia. They first appeared in early June
and ravaged the country till September. They destroyed our
vineyards, and we had to fight day after day to keep them out of the
compound. When we destroyed those hatched on our premises, their
places were quickly filled by armies coming down the mountain side.
When I left, many of the villages were suffering from the lack of
food due to the locust scourge.
Another problem was how to relieve, in some small measure at least,
the suffering in the city caused by lack of food. A great many
widows and orphans and soldiers’ families were left with no means of
support, after the more well-to-do families had been deported.
Moreover, the industrial work, which employed a considerable number
of widows, was closed with the coming of the court martial officer.
The two Bible Women, up to the time when they also were deported,
worked heroically, with the little means that we could spare them
each week, to meet and provide for the cases of greatest need. We
bought large quantities of cheap wheat to help towards this end. The
only shop left open was that of the druggist, so there was no way of
obtaining any supplies. The lack of soap and salt was very keenly
felt. As our own supply was limited, we could not give freely as we
wished, but finally Miss B., in spite of all the demands upon her
strength and time, made considerable quantities of soap, so that at
least the women might wash their clothes occasionally. All who
received it were most grateful, and the supply was never sufficient.
Miss B. and I personally never suffered any discourtesy from either
the official or village Turk. Our situation was often delicate, and,
in such a case as the affair connected with the Government
Industrial, the Kaimakam ignored our rights and courteously took
everything into his own hands; but, on the whole, we were well
treated. When we asked Mr. H. to come to our aid from Marash and the
Government prevented him from coming, the Kaimakam sent the chief of
police to explain the case to us, and assured us that we need not
fear, that we were the guests of the Government, and that not a hair
of our heads should be injured. When I left AF., although I had the
escort of Miss J., the Consul’s kavass and their gendarme, the
captain in AF. sent with me as a personal escort his best horseman.
The postal official showed himself very friendly, and did us many
personal favours. When money was sent us through the post office, he
tried always to pay in gold or silver, and in such a way that we
might get it quickly into the hands of the people. He knew we used
it to help those condemned to be exiled. When the first convoys of
exiles were driven out of AF. his mother was unable to leave her bed
for two weeks, she was so depressed by what she saw and heard. She
spoke with great vigour against the terrible events that were
happening.
Our head teacher, Miss K., and her mother were with us in the
compound. They have Moslem relatives, two of whom were officers’
families in AF. These were especially friendly to us, and visited us
frequently. They were all outspoken against the horrors. One time U.
Effendi had failed to visit us, as was his custom, and, when we
asked the reason, he said he was ashamed to come because he could
bring us no good news. We saw Moslem women loudly wailing with the
Christians when the first families were sent out. When the Alai Bey
first came, he called the Mufti and asked his approval of what he
was about to do; but the Mufti refused to sanction it, and said he
could see no good in it. This same Mufti was a strong personal
friend of one of the leading Protestant Armenians (our special
friend and adviser), and he tried in every way to save him from
exile, but in vain. When M. Agha left, the Mufti took possession of
his house and all his properties for him. He also said he would
stand as protector of the Americans and the American compound after
M. Agha was gone.
Some of the village aghas also expressed themselves freely to us,
both on the matter of the war and on the calamity which had befallen
the Armenians. They said that such cruelty would not go unavenged,
and that their day of reckoning would come. They complained bitterly
that there were now no artisans or shopkeepers left to supply their
wants, and that in a short time they themselves would be in
desperate want. Our watchman at the summer residence showed us his
foot half-naked, because he could not find a shoemaker in all AF. to
mend it. All the surrounding Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian
villages were in the same need.
A Kurdish Sheikh, N. Effendi, from a village not far from AF.,
visited the city twice only during the summer. The first time he
only remained about an hour, and, with the tears streaming down his
cheeks, he said he would return to his village at once; that he
could not endure such sights. The second time he came to bid
farewell to O. Effendi, his Armenian friend. He kissed each of his
children, pressing them to his heart, and left again in tears. A
Kurd also brought us the secret information that the new Shar church
building had been partially destroyed by dynamite.
The Moslems of AK. and A J. were very much opposed to the exiling of
the Armenians from those villages. They said they were not guilty of
anything, possessed no weapons, lived peacefully and were friends
with them, and were, besides, their artisans and tradesmen. Through
their efforts they put off the deportation about three months; but,
in the end, even they were unable to save them. The Turks of AK.
ought to have special mention for their honourable attitude
throughout the whole affair. Miss K.’s uncle, an officer in AK.,
broke a water jar over the head of a young Moslem who had entered
into a room to molest an Armenian soldier’s wife. He said he was
obliged to defend the unprotected who dwelt under the shadow of his
house. Once when Miss B. was passing through the streets of AF., she
was appealed to by two gendarmes who had been ordered to expel from
their home for deportation an aged man and his wife and their
bed-ridden son. The gendarmes said: “How shall we do this thing?”
and begged Miss B. to beseech the authorities for mercy. These are
samples of faint gleams of light in the midst of four months of
horrible darkness. Pages and pages might be written on the barbaric
and relentless cruelty of the many.
Throughout the summer Miss B. and I were confronted with the
question whether we had come to Turkey only to work for the
Christians, or whether we would also be willing, now that the
Armenians were gone, to take Moslem children into our school. These
inquiries finally resulted in expressions on the part of several
officers’ families of a desire to place their daughters in our
school. Every week there were inquiries as to when a decision would
be made as to the opening of our school. One Moslem woman even went
so far as to inquire about the clothing necessary to prepare for her
daughter. Whether they were sincere or not, of course, we cannot
tell; but the desire seemed to be a general one.
There is yet one more phase in connection with the summer’s events.
Shortly after the deportation of the Armenian families of AF. took
place, about thirty families of Mouhadjirs were sent in by the
Government to take their place. These unfortunate people were
refugees from Roumelia since the time of the Balkan War. For two
years they had been wandering, always sent on by the Turkish
Government from place to place, and finally placed in the houses
just vacated by those who were likewise to face months of wandering
and homelessness. Four families came to live close to our end of the
city. We at once decided to show them friendliness. They responded
in a touching way, came frequently to call, and poured out their
over-burdened hearts. When they first came, the men were too weak to
work; all were subject to chills and fever, and, of the whole
village from which these people had come, only two children were
living. One of the women spoke with horror at having to live in a
house with such associations, saying that only they knew what such
suffering meant. The morning when I left and bade them good-bye, one
of these Mouhadjir women threw her arms about me and begged me not
to go.
Miss Vaughan and I saw the departure of hundreds of Armenians into a
hopeless exile. It was heart-breaking and too awful even to imagine
in detail; yet we praise the God of all mankind, whether Moslem or
Christian, that we were permitted to see the spirit of Christian
faith and humility manifested by so many in the darkest period of
Armenian history. There may have been examples of hard-heartedness
and cursing against God and an utter losing of faith, but we did not
personally come in contact with them. How often did we pray together
with those about to go and, with the tears streaming down our faces,
beseech God to keep our faith sure! How often did men and women
clasp our hands at parting, saying: “Let God’s will be done. We have
no other hope!” P. Effendi, the Protestant preacher, came to our
compound the morning of his leaving and asked that, with the girls
and teachers, we might all have worship together. His young wife,
who was about to become a mother, was left to our care. Whether they
were ever reunited I do not know. With entire calm he read from
God’s word, and prayed God’s protection for all of us who were left
behind. At the close he asked that the girls should sing “He leadeth
me.”
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
127. AF.: RECORD OF INDIVIDUAL CASES, DRAWN UP BY THE AUTHOR OF THE
PRECEDING STATEMENT, AND DATED 17th DECEMBER, 1915.
1. Q. was a young man who had graduated from the law school at
Constantinople, and in the winter and early spring of 1915 had
served in the Mounted Imperial Guard. Not being well, he returned to
his home in AF. a few weeks before the deportation began. Upon the
arrival of the court-martial and army officers, he was at once
chosen to serve them as a military attendant, and was dressed in
full uniform. He was in constant attendance upon them till the
evening of the 3rd June, when he was roughly stripped of his uniform
and told to be ready for exile in the morning. We saw him go off
with the convoy on foot, not even an animal having been granted him.
2. R. was for years a Government officer at AF. At the time when the
officers and army entered AF., he was away in the villages on
Government business. Two days before the day set for deportation,
his wife was notified. She and the four small children were left
alone to prepare for the journey. The husband returned from the
villages a few hours before the time when the families were
deported, having had no information whatever of what was taking
place.
3. S.’s husband had been in Syracuse, N.Y., for two years, and she
was left alone in AF. with two small children. He intended to send
for her as soon as conditions were favourable. Her parents were
deported early in the season, and, at the time, she asked permission
of the Alai Bey to go with them, as otherwise she was left
friendless. She even begged to go. He refused and said: “Have no
fear, my daughter, you will not be sent off. Remain quietly in your
place.” Early in September, she was deported in company with a great
many other defenceless women.
4. When the soldiers were digging for ammunition and guns in the
walls and refuse heaps of AF., they found in a wall close to a house
an iron ball wrapped in a piece of cloth. The woman of the house, a
young bride, happened to be standing before the door, and the
soldiers noticed that the cloth of her apron was the same as that in
which the ball was wrapped. The woman was seized, sent to Adana and
thrown into prison. This was on the last day of May, and in October
she was still in prison. The Bible Woman in Adana discovered her
there, and said her condition was horrible. She is confined in a
small room with three or four Turkish women of desperate character,
living in terrible filth and mostly without food.
5. The pastor of Tchomakly, a village near Everek, passed through
AF. en route for the desert. He is a Marsovan graduate and a pastor
in the Kaisaria district. He had been assured by the Everek Kaimakam
that nothing should happen to him, and that, even if the village
were deported, he would not be included, as he was not a native of
the place. At three o’clock in the morning soldiers entered the
village, roused all the inhabitants and told them to be ready to
depart in two hours. When they came to the pastor’s door, they said:
“You also must go. You went to Talas to talk with the Americans a
few days ago.” His wife, not having suitable shoes, had her feet
bound up in skins.
6. Lydia was the wife of a soldier who, at the time when the
court-martial officer came to AF., was a deserter and in hiding.
However, he surrendered to the authorities, was pardoned, and was
sent to the coast with the labour gang. She was assured by the
court-martial officer (and, after his departure, by many of the
local officers) that she should never be deported, in consideration
of her being a soldier’s wife. Throughout the summer, however, they
played with her. Again and again she was given notice to leave, and
then, upon entering a personal petition at the Government House and
stating her case, she would be assured upon their word of honour
that she would never be deported. The chief of police gave us the
same assurance. Finally, early one morning, gendarmes came to her
door and roughly told her to be ready to go in a few hours. She
again took her three small children and went to the Government
House. All in vain. She was given two camels for herself, the loads
and the children. A fourth child was born under the burning sun of
AG., and when she arrived in Aleppo with the child dead, she was
only able to reach the hospital.
7. T. was for four years in charge of the Government Industrial in
AF. This was closed when deportation began. He did his work so well
that this Industrial was the best business in AF. He was living
quietly in the building, guarding the property and stock of the
Industrial. In the middle of September, when almost all the rest of
AF. were exiled, he also received notification to go. Gendarmes came
in the evening after dark and drove him, his invalid wife, and four
children to the Government Building. There they were to wait for
animals or a cart to take them on their journey. In company with
hundreds of others, they sat down on the bare ground in front of the
Government Building, gathering their few possessions close to them
lest they should be stolen. He and his family remained there two
days and three nights before being sent on, and were exposed during
one of these nights to a terrible rainstorm. They were within ten
minutes of their home, but were not permitted to go there for
shelter. His wife secretly made her way to our compound to ask for a
little bread, as their supply for the journey was already gone.
128. ADANA: STATEMENT, DATED 3rd DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT ADANA; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
When Turkey became a belligerent in the November of last year
(1914), there were Armenians and other Christians serving in the
Army under arms. Many of these came under fire both at the
Dardanelles and in the expedition against Egypt. Later, the arms
were taken away from the Armenians, and those in the Army were
converted into “Labour Regiments,” to which were attached the very
considerable number of Armenians drafted into the Army later. These
men were employed in road building, transport, trenching, etc., and
rendered extensive and very important service. When the arms were
taken from them, a feeling of anxiety took possession of the
Armenians, in the thought that this action of the authorities might
portend something. However, much was done in the Adana Province to
reassure the people that Governmental action would be discriminating
and severity exercised only against blameworthy or suspected people.
In pursuance of this policy a number of men whose names had been
listed during and after the massacre period of 1909 were put under
arrest or surveillance.
In the early winter, the British and French war-vessels in the
Eastern Mediterranean bombarded some points on the Gulf of
Alexandretta, notably the town of Alexandretta and the branch line
of the Baghdad Railway that runs to Alexandretta. The town of Dört
Yöl—almost entirely Armenian—lies quite near the head of the Gulf on
the plain of Issus about 20 miles from Alexandretta, and is a
station on the line. That branch line of the railway was put out of
commission. The Government officials made charge that the Dört Yöl
people had communication with the hostile ships, affording them
valuable information. A number of them were brought before the
court-martial and imprisoned, of whom some were executed by hanging.
Men were arrested and imprisoned in other places, notably Hadjin,
and brought before the court-martial. These and other acts of the
Government officials increased the anxiety, but in April the exiles
from Zeitoun on their way to Konia (Iconium) passed through the city
of Adana. They had suffered terribly, but they had considerable
property with them, and also cattle and sheep. It was announced that
these people would be settled on lands in the Konia district. This
was somewhat reassuring, and there was hope that wholesale
deportation or massacre was not in contemplation.
However, this assurance was converted into consternation. At
midnight, in the latter part of April, gendarmes went through the
city rapping at certain doors, searching the houses for arms and
informing the inmates that in three days they were to be deported.
In the third week in May, 70 families (three to four hundred
people—men, women and children) were sent off in the direction of
Konia. They had not reached the Cilician Gates Pass in the Taurus
Mountains when they were turned back with the announcement that they
had been pardoned and were to return to their homes. The joy of
their return was almost equal to the consternation caused by the
order for deportation. However, exiles from north of the Taurus
(Marsovan, Kaisaria, etc.) in considerable numbers were passing
through Adana to the Aleppo district. The explanation given was that
that was being done because of revolutionary agitation in those
districts. As nothing of overt import had been done on the part of
the Armenians in Cilicia, the people of the district were reassured.
There was an influential element among the Moslems—including
influential officials—who opposed oppressive measures. The Governor
was, to all appearances, strongly opposed. Insistent orders from
Constantinople forced the deportation of groups of Armenians. Early
in the movement towards Aleppo, men were left free to take their
families or leave them. No massacring was done, though there was an
uneasy feeling that it might occur. In this way various batches were
deported, from whom word was received of their safe arrival in the
Aleppo district. However, the suffering of deportation—abandonment
of home and property and friends, the exposure and hunger on the
road, the insanitary state of the concentration camps, and the rough
treatment by gendarmes, and in many cases outrage and pillage—all
this, though heart-breaking in itself, was not as bad as, or rather
was much less horrible than, the torture of the crowds that suffered
in the north and east.
Later in the year there was a distinct effort to save many of the
Armenians. This effort synchronised with the order to exempt
Catholics and Protestants. It seemed a success, and everybody was
greatly encouraged. But an emissary from the Committee of Union and
Progress at Constantinople arrived at that time, and was able to
overturn the arrangement and secure an order for the immediate
deportation of all. Exception was later made of some widows, of the
wives and children of men serving in the labour regiments, and of
men working in mills under Government contract and in the Baghdad
Railway construction.
The great drive took place in the first week of September, when
two-thirds of the Armenian population of Adana City were deported.
Hadjin and Dört Yöl were treated very much more harshly, both in the
process of eviction and on the road. The people were allowed to
dispose of some of their properties, which they did at a great
sacrifice; still, they had to abandon the great mass of their
properties, which was later confiscated. I would call attention to
the fact that the appalling nature of the deportation is none the
less appalling because there was comparatively less torture and
outrage. It is only fair to state that one Moslem was scourged to
death for participation in the robbery of some Christians that were
being deported.
It is not merely the suffering of the outlawed and deported people
that is appalling, but the effect of it all on the country.
Two-thirds of the business of Adana City was dependent on Armenians,
and the markets seemed deserted after they were driven out. The
disaster to the whole province from the material standpoint is
beyond calculation. However, it would appear that the whole scheme
was intended to be a relentless effort on the part of the central
authorities either to exterminate the Armenian nation or to reduce
them to a condition like that of the people of Moab, as described by
Isaiah in the last clause of the 16th chapter: “A remnant very small
and of no account.” The enormity is not so much in the torture,
massacring, outrage, etc., as in the intention and effort to
exterminate a nation. The Armenians have endured massacre and
outrage and persecution and oppression; this, however, shatters all
hope of life and a future.
The Armenian Protestant communities are all deported with the
pastors and leaders, but the men deported are a tower of strength to
the suffering people in their exile. Let me quote from W. Effendi,
from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young
wife and infant child, and with the whole congregation: “We now
understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so
many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realise that
God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God
restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some
of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this
country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this
world. But be sure that, by God’s special help, I will do my best to
encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God’s help for
myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we
cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of
God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without
knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus’ life by their death, which
they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth.
It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed.
May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of his
blood.
“May the war soon end, in order to save the Moslems from their
cruelty (for they increase in that from day to day), and from their
ingrained habit of torturing others. Therefore we are waiting on
God, for the sake of the Moslems as well as of the Armenians. May He
appear soon.”
129. ADANA: STATEMENT, DATED 9th MAY, 1916, BY MISS Y., A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT ADANA, RECORDING HER EXPERIENCES THERE FROM
SEPTEMBER, 1914, TO SEPTEMBER, 1915.
From the time Turkey began to mobilise in the autumn of 1914, before
entering into the war, fear and questioning naturally took hold of
the Armenians. First there was the unreasonable and irregular way in
which the men were drafted into the Army or Labour Regiments; and
then there was the news concerning the harsh and cruel treatment of
the male population of Dört Yöl, where all from the ages of about 16
to 70 years were suddenly sent away _en masse_ to work on the roads
in the Hassan Beyli district—this, on the mere rumour that fruit and
food had been conveyed from Dört Yöl to one of the Allies’ warships.
This was followed by a few selected men from Dört Yöl being hanged
at intervals in the streets of Adana. One night in the winter
(1914-15) the Government sent officers round the city into all
Armenian houses, knocking the families up and demanding that all
weapons should be given up, or actually searching for them. Think of
the fright of many of them, thus rudely awakened; this action was
the death-knell to many hearts. Soon after this, Armenians whose
names had been registered as having escaped or defended themselves
during the massacres of 1909, or who were found in possession of
arms, or were under some other accusation, were collected and
imprisoned. I am not sure what happened to these.
Then came the news of Zeitoun being deported. These hardy
mountaineers were destined for Sultania, a low malarial district on
the plain beyond Konia. Most of these villagers passed through
Tarsus _en route_, save those who had died on the way. A Tarsus
graduate from Zeitoun who had hoped to become a teacher, voluntarily
followed his mother, a widow, to Sultania, for the reason that she
had no one to take care of her, neither she nor his sister with her
four children, as the latter’s husband was imprisoned in Marash.
“Why imprisoned?” I asked. “I do not know any reason,” the boy
replied. This boy recounted to me how the people had to live in this
sultry region. Some one hundred souls, regardless of any
distinction, among them a College Professor and a few leading people
from Konia, were for a time crowded into the largest house in the
place. They could not sleep, many were sick, children and babies
crying, the heat great. Other houses were occupied likewise;
probably many people camped around. These poor people were not
allowed to do anything to earn money or to go beyond a certain
distance. Those who still had money for food helped the more needy
as far as they could. This same student told me that while he was in
Sultania 750 had died. Then the remainder were all despatched back
to Tarsus to be forwarded to the Arabian desert.
I may say here that thousands and thousands of Armenians passed from
the north over the Cilician plain, telling heart-rending stories of
massacre or brutal treatment on the journey. Some mothers had given
all the money in their possession to save their daughters from being
violated. One said she had given 22 liras for a certain distance
only. Poor women had to leave their babies and young children by the
roadside; they were too exhausted to carry them any longer. The
suffering of some in childbirth cannot be dwelt upon. One such, not
of the poorest class, was thrust out of her house in —— when
deportation began, and cruelly forced along the road. She died after
two hours.
As long as I live I can never forget the camp I saw twice near
Geulik station, not far from Tarsus. Here there were 10,000 to
15,000 Armenians awaiting further deportation towards the desert.
They were in the broiling sun, with no shade or shelter save the
rudest arrangements—anything that came to hand thrown over poles or
sticks. There were all kinds of people and families of all ages,
crowded together within a certain radius, beyond which they might
not go. They looked scorched by the sun, their clothes were fast
wearing out, and there were poor little children, boys and girls,
taken from school, with simply nothing to do but await their fate,
which mercifully they could not realise as the adults could. There
was a stream of water a little distance off, and if only it had been
clean it would have been a boon. It was used for rinsing clothes as
well as drinking. There were no sanitary arrangements whatever, and
the air was impregnated with foul odours. We witnessed all this from
the train, which drew up at the station alongside the camp. The
Government would not allow any help in money, food, or medicine to
be given; if they knew of anyone so doing, they stopped it. In
Tarsus, Mrs. X., who was working among the refugees all the time,
trying to show sympathy and give help in any little way possible,
was stopped at last. But I must go back to Adana.
As the Armenian men of Adana were drafted into the Army or Labour
Battalions, and the Armenian shops were robbed at pleasure without
payment, great numbers of families did not know where to look for
food, and even the wealthier business men were beginning to see
destitution looming ahead.
I think it was at the end of April (or May) that some thirty picked
families (few of them particularly wealthy) were ordered to leave
their homes for an unknown destination. This looked like the
beginning of deportation; but owing, as we had reason to believe, to
pressure being put on the Government at that time by the American
Ambassador, who did his utmost to save Adana, Tarsus and Mersina
from deportation, all these families save a few young men were
allowed to return to their homes within three weeks. No one could
understand this strange transaction, but fresh hope awoke in
people’s hearts. It was short lived.
Circumstantial stories of all kinds of oppression and cruelty in one
place or another kept arriving day after day, but no one even then
could foretell what exactly was coming or what special fate was in
store for themselves. Gradually the people became hopeless. All
hearts were sorely tested, but those that knew their God proved
their strength and peace in Him. Some were enabled to go farther—to
cast themselves upon God’s will and accept this cup of suffering (so
imminent) as from the Father’s hand. Oh, those were terrible days of
suspense and heart-strain. In my house, in a Greek quarter, I was
able to give room to a family I had long known. The wife had been a
Bible Woman in the city for twelve years; the son was a graduate of
the college, and there were two daughters—one a teacher and the
other just graduated from the American school. The husband had care
of the Protestant church buildings, and he used to bring back the
news daily from the market. Many were the prayers which went up to
God from this dear woman and others who sought to comfort the
people. Never before had so many meetings been held in the poor city
homes among the women, who crowded outside the doors if there was no
room inside. Fifty, sixty or eighty were quite usual numbers. The
church services also were unusually crowded, and God granted new
life to many hearts, especially among the young men remaining.
Then the orders for the deportation of Adana came. The people, of
course, did not know what to do with their things, while those who
lived from hand to mouth had not the wherewithal to get food even to
start with, let alone other necessities. What could be sold was
sold, but the things went for a mere nothing, except in a few cases,
where goods were bought to befriend and help the sellers. The
Missionaries had not money to spare to buy, with all the numbers
beseeching help. Those who could sell nothing had to leave all their
belongings and stores save what they could carry with them. One
Armenian preacher who was constantly appealed to at this time, from
morning until night, by the distracted multitude—asking whether
their names were called yet, what was to be done, and so
on—expressed the situation thus: “It is as if the people were
drowning in a sea of trouble and each one were trying to catch at a
straw to save himself.”
To give an example of the stony-hearted attitude of the Government
official in charge of this work of deportation, I may cite the case
of a young man of good mental ability, who for many years had been
teaching and helping the blind in many ways. Through spinal disease
he had become very badly deformed and could not walk. He was taken
down to the Sarai in a bath-chair, hoping to elicit pity and not be
cast adrift with his deaf mother, whom he supported. The only answer
he received was: “Get out with you and be gone; the sooner the
better.” Some money was given to this crippled young man, but long
before reaching Aleppo he had spent all on conveyances.
Another instance of the inhumanity of man towards his fellows in
suffering, of which we have since heard and read over and over again
until our hearts can bear no more, was the treatment accorded to,
and pity withheld from, the Armenian people from all regions who
were being transported by railway during the great heat. They were
packed like cattle, and as train after train passed through Adana
station, the people cried out for water and thrust out their hands
beseechingly, but to no avail, although water was actually at hand.
No one must show them any mercy. This we heard from witnesses living
near the station, who said that they could not endure the sight, and
did not know how to remain where they were. When some of our special
friends were starting, at the station, one of our party, Dr. Z.,
tried to give a basket of grapes to a family, but was not permitted.
What happened to the crowds after they reached Aleppo we did not
then know. From our deported Adana people there came piteous
messages for money, as the little in hand was soon exhausted. Some
short letters came through from the Aleppo centre. One wrote:
“Better drown your girls than let them come here.” Another, well
known to me, wrote to his sisters, who were at the American school:
“Be thankful you have such a place to be in as the place where you
are, and that you are not here.”
It is computed that 20,000 were deported from Adana alone. We can
testify to the mercy which permitted our Cilician people to go _en
masse_, _i.e._, in families, save for those members already taken by
the Government, ostensibly for the Army or the Labour Regiments. As
far as we heard, those who were able to obtain means of transit and
continued their journey from Osmania (whither they went by rail) to
Aleppo, were not attacked or massacred on the way. How many were
left behind sick or died in Osmania cannot be said.
Circumstances obliged me and some other members of the Missionary
Circle to be away from the heat of the plain for part of July and
August, and it was during these weeks that the great deportation _en
masse_ of the Armenian population took place from Adana. Though
absent, one was straining for news all the time. When we were in the
hills above Tarsus, details of the refugees and their plight were
constantly being sent by Mrs. X. to her daughter and son-in-law, in
whose company I was. One could only write “farewells” before the
word to start was actually given, feeling sure that the order to
depart would be extended to all our friends without exception. Our
American friends said, in their kindness: “We are glad you were not
here; it was too heart-breaking to bear.” And, indeed, on our return
the whole atmosphere of the place, the empty houses and streets of
the city with scarcely an Armenian to be seen, spoke more of death
than the burnt, empty city after the massacres of 1909.
I conclude with quotations from a letter written by a fellow-worker
of many years standing. He and his wife and other members of his
family left with the crowd of Protestants in August, 1915. The
letter was given me about two weeks later by a relative. It reads
thus:—
“God _can_ shut again the mouths of lions. Do you know that God
_has_ shut the mouths of many lions for many years? We now
understand that it is a great miracle that our nation (the
Armenians) has lived so many years among such a nation (the
Moslems). Oh, how can men become such devils in so short a time? May
God restrain them. I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast
some of us into most cruel starvation, and send the rest into the
desert; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this
world. But be sure that, by God’s special help, I will do my best to
encourage others to die manfully. I will also await God’s help for
myself, to die as a Christian.
“May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can
die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation
(the Moslems) all their sin which they do without knowing.... May
Jesus soon see many Mohammedan Christians as the fruit of His blood.
“May the war soon end, in order to save the Moslems from their
cruelty and savagery, for they increase in devilry from day to day,
and from their ingrained habit of torturing their fellow men.
Therefore we are waiting on God, for the sake of the Moslems as well
as the Armenians. May He soon appear.”
XVI.
JIBAL MOUSA.
_The villages on the southern and eastern slopes of Jibal Mousa are
included administratively in the Vilayet of Aleppo, and, like other
Armenian settlements in that province, were only given notice of
deportation at a comparatively late date—in their case, the 13th
July. Geographically and historically, however, they are intimately
connected with the Cilician highlanders. Jibal Mousa is a direct
southern continuation of Amanus, and Yoghan Oulouk and the other
Jibal Mousa villages are kindred communities to Dört Yöl and
Zeitoun. They are the southernmost outpost of the Armenian race
towards the Arabic world._
_By the time the summons was served on them, the Jibal Mousa
villagers had been watching for four months the deportation of their
Cilician kinsmen, and had realised to the full what this deportation
meant. They resolved to resist, and retired into the fastnesses of
their mountain, which rises north-west of the villages and on its
further flank falls steeply into the sea. The documents in this
section record their successful defence and dramatic rescue by a
French squadron—the single happy incident in the national tragedy of
the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire._
130. JIBAL MOUSA: THE DEFENCE OF THE MOUNTAIN AND THE RESCUE OF ITS
DEFENDERS BY THE FRENCH FLEET; NARRATIVE OF AN EYE-WITNESS, THE
REV. DIKRAN ANDREASIAN, PASTOR OF THE ARMENIAN PROTESTANT CHURCH
AT ZEITOUN.
_This narrative was written down after the arrival of the refugees
in Egypt, translated into English by the Rev. Stephen Trowbridge,
Secretary of the American Red Cross at Cairo, communicated by the
translator to the Editor of the Armenian journal “Ararat,” of
London, and published by him in his issue of November, 1915._
From the day that Turkey entered the war there had been much anxiety
among the people of Zeitoun as to whether the Turks would treat the
Armenians of those mountain districts with some new form of cruelty
and oppression. Zeitoun is—we must now say _was_—a city of seven
thousand inhabitants, entirely Armenian, and surrounded by many
villages also Christian, in the heart of the Taurus Mountains.
I have been serving for one year as the pastor of the Armenian
Protestant Church in Zeitoun, and the narrative which follows is one
of personal experience.
Early in the spring of this year (1915) the Government began to
assume a threatening attitude towards Zeitoun, summoning the elders
and notables of the city and commencing an inquisition with the
punishment of the bastinado. Absurd and impossible charges were made
against the Armenians for the purpose of extorting money. Meanwhile
some 6,000 regular troops were quartered in the barracks above the
city. An attempt to take the Armenian monastery by storm cost the
Turks some casualties and failed of its object. The young men who
were within stoutly defended themselves, and not until attacked by
field artillery was the monastery taken.
Fifty of the leading men in Zeitoun were therefore summoned to the
barracks “for a conference with the commander.” They were at once
imprisoned and their families were sent for. Everyone waited
anxiously for these people to return, but after a while it was
learned that they had been sent away to an unknown destination. A
few days later another and larger group of families were ordered to
the barracks, and were forthwith driven off with threats and curses
to a distant banishment. In this way three or four hundred families
at a time were sent off on foot, with no proper supply of food, by
devious routes through the mountains, some north-west towards Konia,
some south-east towards the hot and unhealthy plains of Mesopotamia.
Day by day we saw the various quarters of the city stripped of their
inhabitants, until at last only a single neighbourhood remained. In
addition to my duties as pastor I happened to be in charge of the
Mission Orphanage. The commanding officer sent for me one morning
and told me to make ready at once for departure. “Your wife is also
to go,” he said, “and the children in the Orphanage.” We made our
preparations hurriedly, for we were allowed to take but little with
us. As we were leaving I looked back with an aching heart and saw
our beloved church empty and lonely. The last company of our seven
thousand people was streaming down the valley into banishment! We
had seen massacres, but we had never seen this before! A massacre at
least ends quickly, but this prolonged anguish of soul is almost
beyond endurance.
The first day’s march exhausted all of us. In the dark, as we lay
down upon the open ground, Turkish muleteers came and robbed us of
the few donkeys and mules that we had. Next day, in forlorn
condition, the children with swollen and blistered feet, we reached
Marash. Through the earnest request of the American missionaries, an
order was secured from the governor for my wife and myself to return
to my home town of Yoghanolouk, near the sea, twelve miles west of
Antioch. The governor granted this permit on the ground that my wife
and I were not natives of Zeitoun. My heart was torn between the
desire to share banishment with some fragment of my congregation and
the desire to take my wife to a place of comparative safety in my
father’s home. But the order having once been issued, I had no
alternative but to obey.
At Aintab we found the large Armenian community in the utmost
anxiety, but at that time the order to leave had not arrived.
Rumours reached us that the villages by the sea were being
threatened, but we thought best to continue southward, difficult
though the journey was at such a time.
The last part of our way lay through a historic valley, the fertile
plain of Antioch. It was here that Chrysostom preached in the
fervour of his early ministry before he was called to Byzantium. And
it was to a secluded chapel on our own mountain side that he used to
withdraw for prayer and communion with God. As a boy I had often
looked with wonder and reverence at the massive stones of the ruins
of St. Chrysostom’s Chapel. It was in this very Antioch that
Barnabas and Paul laboured with such spiritual energy. And here they
set forth upon their momentous task of spreading the Christian
faith. The Roman road by which they walked from Antioch to Seleucia
can still be traced in the valley below my native town, and the
stone piers from which Roman ships set sail at Seleucia are not
entirely demolished by the storms and earthquakes of the centuries.
The city of Antioch, once so gallantly defended by the Crusaders,
has long been under the rule of the Turks, and the minarets of Islam
are ten times more numerous than the church belfries. In April,
1909, the Protestant and Gregorian congregations suffered one of the
most cruel persecutions in history.
The people of my own home town, Yoghanolouk, are simple, industrious
folk. For years past their chief occupation has been the sawing and
polishing by hand of combs from hard wood and bone. Many of our men
are also expert wood-carvers. In the neighbouring villages the chief
occupations are the culture of silk worms for producing raw silk,
and the weaving of silk by hand looms into handkerchiefs and
scarves. Our people are very fond of their churches, and since the
opening of schools by the American missionaries most of our children
have learned to read. Every home is surrounded by mulberry trees,
and many beautiful orchards cover the terraced slopes towards the
south and west. Travellers who have been to Southern Italy tell us
that the villages near Naples very much resemble ours. The broad,
rough back of Mousa Dagh (_i.e._, Mount Moses), known in Arabic as
Jibal-al-Ahmar, rises up eastward behind us. Every gorge and crag of
our beloved mountain is known to our boys and men.
I mention these facts about my village home so that you may feel
something of the quiet happy life which was so rudely and so
completely broken up by this last attempt of the Turks to
exterminate our race.
Twelve days after I had reached home an official order from the
Turkish Government at Antioch was served upon the six villages of
Mousa Dagh to prepare for banishment within eight days. You can
scarcely imagine the consternation and the indignation which this
order caused. We sat up all night debating what it would be best to
do. To resist the forces of the Turkish Government seemed almost
hopeless, and yet the scattering of families into a distant
wilderness, raided by fanatical and lawless Arab tribes, seemed such
an appalling prospect that the inclination of both men and women was
to refuse the summons and withstand the anger of the Government.
All, however, were not of this mind. The Rev. Haroutune Nokhoudian,
the pastor of the Protestant Church in Beitias, for example, came to
the conviction that it would be folly to resist, and that the
severity of banishment might possibly be modified in some way. He
was in favour of yielding. Sixty families from his own village and a
considerable number from the next village, agreeing with him,
separated themselves from us and went down to Antioch under Turkish
guards. They were shortly expelled in the direction of the lower
Euphrates. (We have lost all track of them now and may never hear of
them again.)
Our firm friends, the American missionaries, were cut off from us
120 miles to the north at Aintab. Communications with the outside
world being practically severed, we were thrown upon our own
resources, and we realised that our one hope was in the mercy of
God. Fervently we prayed that He would strengthen us to do our duty.
Knowing that it would be impossible to defend our villages in the
foot-hills, it was resolved to withdraw to the heights of Mousa
Dagh, taking with us as large a supply of food and implements as it
was possible to carry. All the flocks of sheep and goats were also
driven up the mountain side, and every available weapon of defence
was brought out and furbished up. We found that we had a hundred and
twenty modern rifles and shot-guns, with perhaps three times that
number of old flint-locks and horse-pistols. That still left more
than half our men without weapons.
It was very hard to leave our homes. My mother wept as if her heart
would break. But we had hopes that possibly, while we were fighting
off the Turks, the Dardanelles might be forced and deliverance come
to the country.
By nightfall of the first day we had reached the upper crags of the
mountain. As we were preparing to camp and to cook the evening meal,
a pouring rain set in and continued all night. For this we were ill
prepared. There had not been time to make huts of branches, nor had
we any tents or waterproof clothing. Men, women and children,
somewhat over five thousand in all, were soaked to the skin, and
much of the bread we had brought with us was turned into a pulpy
mass. We were especially solicitous to keep our powder and rifles
dry. This the men managed to do very well.
At dawn next morning all hands went to work digging trenches at the
most strategic points in the ascent of the mountain. Where there was
no earth for trench-digging, rocks were rolled together, making
strong barricades behind which groups of our sharp-shooters were
stationed. The sun came out gloriously, and we were hard at it all
day strengthening our position against the attack which we knew was
certain to come.
Towards evening we held a mass meeting for the election of a
Committee of Defence which should have supreme authority for our six
communities. Some favoured an election by show of hands, but others
argued that, as this was a matter of such vital importance, the
regular Congregational method of choice by secret ballot should be
followed, and they offered to get together enough bits of paper to
carry out the ballot! Our people have become very much attached to
these democratic methods taught by the missionaries. Without much
delay scraps of paper, more or less torn and wet, were gathered and
the ballot was cast. A governing council thus being established,
plans were at once made for defending each pass in the mountain and
each approach to the camp. Scouts, messengers, and a central reserve
group of sharp-shooters were chosen and were assigned their duties.
The summons from the Government had been served on the 13th July.
The eight days’ grace had now almost elapsed, and we were aware that
the Turks must have discovered our movements. The whole Antioch
plain is peopled with Turks and Arabs, and there is always a strong
military garrison in the Antioch barracks.
On the 21st July the attack began. The advance guard was two hundred
regulars, and their captain insolently boasted that he would clear
the mountain in one day. But the Turks suffered several casualties
and were driven back to the base. When they advanced for a more
general attack, they dragged up a field gun which, after some
experimentation, secured the range and wrought havoc in our camp.
One of our sharp-shooters, a lion-hearted young fellow, crept down
through the brushwood and among the rocks until he was in very close
range of the field gun, which was mounted on a flat rock. Having
made himself an ambush of branches, he watched for a good
opportunity. He was so near that he could hear the Turks talking to
one another as they loaded the gun. Then as one gunner stepped out
into view, the young man picked him off with the first shot. With
five bullets he killed four gunners! The captain thereupon threw up
his hands in dismay, and, not being able to discern our
sharp-shooter, ordered the gun to be dragged to a place of shelter.
Thus were we saved from a disastrous gun-fire for that day and
several days to come.
But the Turks were gathering forces for a massed attack. They had
sent word through many Moslem villages, calling the people to arms.
Army rifles and plentiful ammunition were handed out from the
Antioch arsenal, until the mob of four thousand Moslems thirsting
for massacre became a formidable foe. But the chief strength of the
Turks was in the three thousand regular troops accustomed to
discipline and inured to hardship.
Suddenly one morning our scouts brought word to headquarters that
the enemy was appearing at every pass in the mountain. Here and
there the Turks had already gained the cliffs and shoulders of the
crest. Our reserve body of defenders was—very unwisely, as we
afterwards realised—sent in small groups to these various points. No
sooner had our forces been thus divided than a massed attack in
great force commenced through one ravine. All the other advances had
been feints and were not followed up. By the time our men discovered
the situation and rallied from distant points, the Turks had shot
down our scouts and had poured through an important pass. To our
dismay we saw them already in full occupation of high ground,
threatening our camp. Reinforcements kept pushing up the mountain,
and as the afternoon drew on we saw that we were completely
outnumbered. We saw also that the range of the Turks’ rifles was far
superior to that of our old-fashioned firearms. By sundown the enemy
had advanced three companies through the dense underbush and forest
to within four hundred yards of our huts. A deep damp ravine lay
between, and the Turks decided to bivouac rather than to push on in
the darkness.
Our leaders hurriedly took counsel together, whispering very quietly
and not allowing any fight in camp. Everyone knew that a crisis had
been reached. Finally a venturesome plan was adopted: to creep round
the Turkish positions in the dead of night and thus carry out an
enveloping movement, closing in very suddenly with a fusillade and
ending with a hand to hand encounter. If this plan should fail, we
knew that everything was lost. Through the dark wet woods our men
crept with extraordinary skill. It was here that our familiarity
with those crags and thickets made it possible to do what invaders
could not attempt. The circle was practically completed when, with a
flash and a crash on all sides, our men delivered their attack,
rushing forward with desperate courage.
In a very few moments it was evident that bewilderment and alarm had
thrown the Turkish camp into the utmost confusion. Troops were
rushing hither and thither in the black night, stumbling over rocks
and logs, officers shouting contradictory commands and struggling
vainly to rally their men. Evidently the impression was given of a
very substantial Armenian attack, because in less than half-an-hour
the Turkish colonel gave the order to retreat, and before dawn the
woods were practically clear of the troops. More than two hundred
Turks had been killed and some booty taken—seven Mauser rifles,
2,500 rounds of ammunition and one mule. There was no sign of any
renewal of fighting. But we knew that our foes were not defeated;
they were only driven off.
During the next few days they roused the whole Mohammedan population
for many miles around—a horde of perhaps 15,000. With this larger
number they were able to surround and lay siege to Mousa Dagh on the
landward side. Their plan was to starve us out. On the seaward side
there was no harbour nor any communication with a seaport; the
mountain sloped directly into the sea. We were fully occupied in the
care of our wounded and the reparation of the damage done in camp.
Special meetings were held to thank God for deliverance thus far,
and to intercede with him for our families and little ones.
Gregorians and Protestants were fused into one faith and fellowship
by this baptism of suffering. It was at this time that my wife was
confined and gave birth to her first child, a son. She suffered much
in the flight down the seaward trail some days later, but I carried
her and helped her as much as possible. Thank God, she is in good
health now and so is our little son.
When we discovered that our mountain was in a state of siege, we
began to estimate our food resources. During the first week on the
heights we had exhausted the bread, olives and cheese that we had
brought from home. Very few had been able to bring flour or other
cereals, so for a month past we had been living on our flocks, using
the goats’ milk for the little children and the sick, and
slaughtering a number of sheep and goats every day. This constant
meat diet was not good for us, but on the other hand we were
profoundly thankful that we were spared the suffering of starvation.
We made a careful count of the flocks, and found that even with a
reduced ration of meat our supply would last not more than two weeks
longer. Under the pressure of this anxiety we began to think of
plans for escape by sea.
Before the siege had entirely closed in, we had sent a runner to
make the dangerous journey of eighty-five miles through Turkish
villages to Aleppo, the capital of the province, with an appeal to
the American Consul, Mr. Jackson, to send us help by sea if
possible. But it is not at all likely that our runner ever reached
Aleppo. It occurred to us that possibly a battleship of the Allies
might be in Alexandretta harbour, thirty-five miles to the north. So
one of our young men who was a strong swimmer volunteered to creep
through the Turkish lines and take a message in English strapped
inside his belt. He succeeded in reaching the hills overlooking the
harbour, but saw that there was no battleship and returned. His plan
had been to swim out to sea, circling round to reach the battleship,
thus avoiding the Turkish sentries on the roads leading in to
Alexandretta.
We then prepared triplicate copies of the following appeal and
appointed three swimmers to be constantly on the watch for any
passing ship, to strike through the surf and swim out at an angle so
as to meet the vessel:—
“To any English, American, French, Italian or Russian admiral,
captain or authority whom this petition may find; we appeal in
the name of God and human brotherhood.
“We, the people of six Armenian villages, about 5,000 souls in
all, have withdrawn to that part of Mousa Dagh called Damladjik,
which is three hours journey north-west from Souedia along the
sea-coast.
“We have taken refuge here from Turkish barbarism and torture,
and most of all from the outraging of the honour of our women.
“Sir, you must have heard about the policy of annihilation which
the Turks are applying to our nation. Under cover of dispersing
the Armenians as if to avoid rebellion, our people are expelled
from their houses and deprived of their gardens, their
vineyards, and all their possessions.
“This brutal programme has already been applied to the city of
Zeitoun and its thirty-two villages, to Albustan, Göksoun,
Yarpouz, Gurin, Diyarbekir, Adana, Tarsus, Mersina, Dört Yöl,
Hadjin, etc. And the same policy is being extended to all the
one-and-a-half million Armenians in different parts of Turkey.
“The present writer was the Protestant pastor in Zeitoun a few
months ago and was an eye-witness of many unspeakable cruelties.
I saw families of eight or ten members driven along the highway,
barefooted children six and seven years old by the side of aged
grandparents, hungry and thirsty, their feet swollen from the
toilsome journey. Along the road one heard sobs and curses and
prayers. Under the pressure of great fear, some mothers gave
birth to children in the bushes by the side of the road.
Immediately afterward they were compelled by the Turkish guards
to continue their journey till kind death arrived to give an end
to their torture.
“The remainder of the people who were strong enough to bear the
hardships of the march were driven on under the whips of
gendarmes to the plains of the south. Some died of hunger.
Others were robbed along the way. Others were stricken by
malaria and had to be left by the roadside. And, as a last act
of this dark and foul tragedy, the Arabs and Turks massacred all
the males and distributed the widows and girls among their
tribes.
“The Government some forty days ago informed us that our six
villages must go into exile. Rather than submit to this we
withdrew to this mountain. We have now little food left, and the
troops are besieging us. We have had five fierce battles. God
has given us the victory, but the next time we shall have to
withstand a much larger force.
“Sir, we appeal to you in the name of Christ!
“Transport us, we pray you, to Cyprus or any other free land.
Our people are not indolent; we will earn our own bread if we
are employed.
“If this is too much to grant, transport at least our women, old
people and children, equip us with sufficient arms, ammunition
and food, and we will work with you with all our might against
the Turkish forces. Please, Sir, do not wait until it is too
late!
“Respectfully your servant, for all the Christians here,
Dikran Andreasian.”
_September 2._
But days passed and not even a sail was seen. The war had reduced
the coastwise shipping to a minimum. Meanwhile, at my suggestion,
our women had been making two immense flags, on one of which I
printed in large, clear English, “CHRISTIANS IN DISTRESS: RESCUE.”
This was a white flag with black lettering. The other was also white
with a large red cross at the centre. We fastened these flags to
tall saplings and set a watch at the foot to scan the horizon from
dawn to dark. Some days we had rain and on others heavy mists and
fogs, which are rather prevalent along our bit of coast.
The Turks again attacked us by several approaches, and we had some
severe fighting, but never at such close quarters as during the
first general engagement. From one point of vantage we were able to
roll boulders down the precipitous mountain side with disastrous
effects to the enemy. Our powder and cartridges were running low,
and the Turks evidently had some idea of the straits we were in, for
they began shouting insolent summons to surrender. Those were
anxious days and long nights!
One Sunday morning, the fifty-third day of our defence, while I was
occupied in preparing a brief sermon to encourage and strengthen our
people, I was startled by hearing a man shouting at the top of his
voice. He came racing through our encampment straight for my hut.
“Pastor, pastor,” he exclaimed, “a battleship is coming and has
answered our waving!—Thank God!—Our prayers are heard. When we wave
the Red Cross flag the battleship answers by waving signal flags.
They see us and are coming in nearer shore!”
This proved to be the French _Guichen_, a four-funnel ship. While
one of its boats was being lowered, some of our young men raced down
to the shore and were soon swimming out to the stately vessel which
seemed to have been sent to us from God! With beating hearts we
hurried down to the beach, and soon an invitation came from the
Captain for a delegation to come on board and explain the situation.
He sent a wireless to the Admiral of the fleet, and before very long
the flag-ship _Ste. Jeanne d’Arc_ appeared on the horizon followed
by other French battleships. The Admiral spoke words of comfort and
cheer to us, and gave an order that every soul of our community
should be taken on board the ships. The embarkation took some time,
of course, and an English cruiser was invited to take part in the
transportation to Port Said, Egypt. We were taken on board four
French cruisers and one English, and were very kindly cared for. In
two days we arrived at Port Said, and are now settled in a permanent
camp which has been provided for us by the British authorities.
We are especially grateful to Mr. William C. Hornblower for the
excellent organisation of this camp, and to Col. and Mrs. P.G.
Elgood and Miss Russell for their untiring efforts on our behalf.
The Armenian Red Cross Society of Cairo, recently organised, of
which the Gregorian Bishop is Honorary Chairman, Mr. Fermanian of
the Kodak Company, Director, and Prof. Kayayan, Secretary, has sent
us a staff of three doctors and three nurses.
An accurate census has been taken which shows that the survivors
number:—
427 babies and children under four years of
age,
508 girls from 4 to 14,
628 boys from 4 to 14,
1,441 women above 14 years of age,
1,054 men above 14.
——
4,058 total number of souls rescued.
——
After the Turks’ first challenge, on the 13th July, we had eight
days’ parley and preparation; for fifty-three days we defended
ourselves on Mousa Dagh; and a two days’ voyage brought us to Port
Said on the 14th September.
We do not forget that our Saviour was brought in His infancy to
Egypt for safety and shelter. And the brethren of Joseph could not
have been more grateful than we are for the corn and wheat provided.
131. JIBAL MOUSA: REPORT, DATED EGYPT, 28th SEPTEMBER, 1915, ON THE
ARMENIAN REFUGEES RESCUED AND TRANSPORTED TO PORT SAID BY THE
CRUISERS OF THE FRENCH FLEET; DRAWN UP BY MGR. THORGOM, BISHOP
OF THE GREGORIAN COMMUNITY IN EGYPT.
(1.) _Number of the Refugees._
Approximately accurate statistics have been made out here, which
show that the refugees number 4,200, including:—
915 Men
1,408 Women
702 Boys
539 Girls
636 Infants
——
4,200
——
(2.) _Origin of the Refugees._
They all come from the villages of Selefka (Kaza of Leffia, Sandjak
of Antakia, Vilayet of Aleppo), including:—
80 families from the village of Makof
10 ” ” ” Keboussia
160 ” ” ” Kheder Bey
228 ” ” ” Yoghanolouk
220 ” ” ” Hadji-Habibli
170 ” ” ” Beitias
———
868
———
But these families do not represent the total number of families
inhabiting each village, for
240 families in the village of Keboussia
2 ” ” ” Yoghanolouk
80 ” ” ” Hadji-Habibli
10 ” ” ” Beitias
—-
332
—-
that is, 332 families in all, remained at home and were subsequently
deported by the Turkish Government.
(3.) _Circumstances of the Insurrection and Exodus._
The Turkish Government, in pursuance of its policy of clearing
Armenia of the Armenians, had ordered, after the fall of Van, the
deportation of all Armenian families. This order reached Selefka on
the 30th July;[169] a week’s grace was given for its execution. The
villagers met together and, in spite of the advice of several of
their leading members and of their priests, decided to revolt and
die like brave men, rather than undergo the fate of the people of
Zeitoun, Hadjin and Dört-Yöl.
These 868 families retired on to the mountain called Mousa Dagh,
taking with them their cattle and supplies for several months.
Before leaving their villages, the insurgents invited the people of
Kessab to join them. Kessab is separated from Selefka by a little
stream, which was guarded by Turkish gendarmes. They were,
therefore, unable to enter into direct communication with them, but
they received a letter (we have seen this letter, and we have reason
to believe that it was a fabrication of the Turkish Government’s) in
which the people of Kessab, who have a special reputation for
bravery, purport to advise their neighbours of Selefka to submit to
the Turkish authorities.
The period of grace expired on the 8th August, but they had already
withdrawn into the mountains in the first days of August. On the
8th, the first collision took place between the Armenians and 200
regular troops; it lasted six hours.
The Armenians had barely 600 fighting men, armed with 150 Martini
rifles and 450 shot guns. Four fighting men directed operations,
eight guarded the non-combatants, and forty picketed the paths. The
non-combatants dug out shelter trenches for the people and children,
or made munitions, while the women looked after the food.
On one occasion a woman was bringing up water to the firing line;
her jar was riddled by an enemy bullet, upon which the woman coolly
put down the jar, plugged the hole and went to get fresh water, all
under the enemy’s fire. I cite this incident because I have been
told that the rest took courage from the coolness of this woman to
resist courageously to the end.
The insurgents had not forgotten to bring with them the sacred
vessels from their churches, so that the five priests who were with
them celebrated mass, and a pastor preached every evening.
On the 12th August, the second collision occurred with the Turks,
who had 2,000 troops with two guns; it lasted twelve hours. On the
16th and 17th there were two violent encounters with regular troops,
reinforced by Kurdish and Arab bashibazouks, 4,800 troops in all;
during this encounter the Armenians captured from the enemy seven
Mausers and 15,000 cartridges, as well as other munitions and
equipment.
There followed an interval of twenty days; on the twenty-first, a
serious battle with 7,000 soldiers, including 4,000 regulars.
From the very first days of the insurrection, the Armenians had sent
down to the seashore a party of twenty people, who were relieved
every 24 hours. They had with them a letter addressed to the Allied
Powers, in which they prayed for help. They had hoisted a big flag—a
red cross on a white ground—to attract the attention of the Allied
fleet.
The Allied fleet was blockading the Turkish Mediterranean ports, and
a French flotilla was on duty there. The armoured cruiser _Guichen_
saw the flag, and the commander, Captain Joseph Brisson, put out a
boat. A brave old Armenian threw himself into the water, and
clambered on board the cruiser. The commander, moved by the heroism
of this old man and by the details which he communicated to him,
sent a wireless message to the commander of the cruiser _Jeanne
d’Arc_, at Port Said. The _Jeanne d’Arc_ arrived within 24 hours.
The same day, the _Guichen_ bombarded the neighbourhood of the
church at Keboussia, which the Turks were attacking in order to
massacre the Armenians who had taken refuge in the building.
Meanwhile, a further wireless message from the Admiral on board the
_Jeanne d’Arc_ brought the armoured cruiser _Desaix_ to the spot
within another 24 hours, with an Armenian dragoman on board. The
_Jeanne d’Arc_ went off to Cyprus, and despatched three other
armoured cruisers from there. The united squadron began to bombard
the Turkish positions, to enable the 4,200 Armenians to come down to
the water’s edge, where they were embarked on board the cruisers.
The embarkation took a day and a half.
The fighting had begun on the 8th August and ended on the 10th
September. The Armenians had 20 killed and 16 wounded; the enemy had
about 300 killed and more than 600 wounded.
We had already learnt these facts while the insurgents were still on
their voyage, but we did not know where it was intended to land
them. Cyprus, Algeria and Tunis were all suggested; then we heard
that the French and British Governments were in consultation on the
subject. On the 14th September they arrived at Port Said. Sir Henry
MacMahon, the High Commissioner, and General Maxwell gave immediate
attention to the refugees. His Majesty the Sultan of Egypt sent a
donation of £250.
The French Fleet entertained the refugees three days, and since then
the British Government has taken charge of them. The first to be
embarked on board the four cruisers were the old men, the women and
the children; the fighting men remained two days longer on land.
They asked for munitions to keep up the struggle, but the Admiral,
acting on instructions received from his Government, refused their
request, and so they arrived in Egypt two days later.
(4.) _The Situation of the Refugees at Port Said._
They are installed in the Lazaretto, consisting of five or six
stone buildings, and in 500 tents pitched round it. Everything has
been organised by the military authorities. The tents are pitched
in ranks divided into groups; each tent has its tent-commander,
with a pennant and a number, and each group of tents has its
group-commander, with a flag.
They have built them a large kitchen, conduits and baths. Two of the
stone buildings are being used for office work, and the rest have
been turned into hospitals.
The general state of health is good; there are about 80 sick,
including the wounded.
The refugees have all the looks of a fighting race. They speak a
dialect, but they are all orthodox members of the Armenian Church,
except for an inconsiderable number of Catholics and Protestants.
At present the Government does not allow them to go outside the zone
assigned to them.
The distribution of rations is punctually and methodically carried
out.
(5.) _Maintenance of the Refugees._
The Government has undertaken their maintenance, and it is believed
that this arrangement will continue.
(_a_) _Hospital._—Kept up by the Armenian Red Cross of Cairo. The
Government, however, has also provided a head doctor and three
assistants, two of them women. The Red Cross has contributed £120
for medical stores.
(_b_) _Clothes._—The Armenian Red Cross of Cairo and Alexandria has
made itself responsible for them.
(_c_) _Education._—There are 1,000 children. The Government has
placed a large tent at their disposal for use as a school. The
General Armenian Union of Benevolence has undertaken the expense of
their education.
(_d_) _Workshops._—To give the refugees employment, work has been
found for those who know how to make combs, wooden spoons, etc. The
men will have money advanced to them as capital, and the women wool
to knit stockings and socks, to give them an opportunity of setting
to work and earning a living.
The approach of winter causes some anxiety, but we hope that the
Government and the Armenian community in Egypt will take the
necessary steps for securing them against the cold.
-----
Footnote 169:
The dates given in this report do not tally with those in Mr.
Andreasian’s narrative, except that both accounts put the arrival
of the refugees at Port Said on the 14th September. Mr. Andreasian
puts the intervention of the _Guichen_ on Sunday, the 12th
September; but as he also states that the voyage took two days,
while the present report makes the embarkation take a day and a
half, the date given here for the appearance of the _Guichen_ upon
the scene, namely, the 10th September, is probably correct. On the
other hand, Mr. Andreasian speaks from first-hand knowledge when
he places the official summons to deportation on the 13th July
(instead of the 30th July), the first fighting on the 21st July
(instead of the 8th August) and the total length of the siege at
53 days; so that his statements on these points are likely to be
more accurate.—EDITOR.
132. JIBAL MOUSA: ANOTHER REPORT ON THE REFUGEES AT PORT SAID, DRAWN
UP BY MR. TOVMAS K. MUGGERDICHIAN, FORMERLY DRAGOMAN OF THE
BRITISH CONSULATE AT DIYARBEKIR.
You must certainly have heard that, on the 14/27th September
(1915), five armoured cruisers (four French and one English)
brought to Port Said 4,200 Armenians from the six villages of the
Selefka district, who have been given shelter in the Lazaretto, on
the banks of the Suez Canal. I am happy to be able to tell you
that the Anglo-Egyptian Government has kindly undertaken to house
and feed these refugees until such time as they may be able to
return to their country.
A little band of heroes from Selefka, hardly five to six hundred
combatants, held out for fifty-five whole days against Captain
Rifaat Bey and the force under his command—3,000 Nizam troops and
more than 4,000 bashibazouks (Arabs and Turks), until the cruiser
_Guichen_ saw the flag in the form of a cross which these heroes had
hoisted on the Mousa Mountain. This warship, with four others, went
to their assistance and rescued them. These fine fellows had not
more than 120 Gras rifles and about 400 flintlocks and shot guns.
Sixty of them were good shots, and they picked off the Turkish
artillerymen one by one, thus reducing their guns to silence—so much
so that Rifaat Bey cried out: “These good Giaours sight through the
needle’s eye,” and took to his heels. The Armenian fighting men of
Selefka have had seventeen killed and twelve wounded, but they have
killed fifty times as many of the enemy.
There are hardly 1,000 grown men among the refugees; the rest are
women, girls, children and infants. The boys and girls less than
fourteen years of age, who are by way of going to school, number
about 800; there are also three men teachers and three women, five
priests and the Pastor of Zeitoun, the Reverend Dikran Andreasian.
Babies have been born on the Jibal Mousa, on board the warships and
at Port Said. All these refugees are in need of clothes, for they
have been able to rescue nothing, except their wives and children
and their arms.
The “Armenian Red Cross,” recently formed at Cairo, set itself to
look after the wounded and the sick as early as the third day after
the arrival of the refugees at Port Said. By General Maxwell’s
orders, the Director of the Intelligence Office gave the Armenian
Red Cross official authorisation to work at Port Said in the
Refugees’ Camp. At present we have about seventy sick; all the
wounded are on the road to recovery. The whole Armenian colony in
Egypt has shown an exemplary diligence in collecting clothes, shoes,
soap, combs, etc., in the name of the Armenian Red Cross, and in
forwarding them to the refugees.
I have interviewed His Excellency Yakoub Artin Pasha to urge that
the Armenian General Union should undertake to supply clothes to the
refugees, and should occupy itself especially with the question of
their education, which constitutes one of their most urgent
requirements. His Excellency promised me to make all the necessary
arrangements.
I am glad to be able to tell you that the refugees are happy to be
at Port Said. At the same time, it is said that about 400 good
fighting men proposed, and even begged, that they should be sent
back to Turkey to bring aid to their compatriots who have taken
refuge in the mountains.
It is regrettable that in such Armenian centres as Zeitoun, Hadjin
and Kessab[170] the Armenians surrendered to the tyrannical Turkish
Government by the urgent orders of His Grace the Katholikos of Sis.
All these Armenians have been deported into the desert situated
between Aleppo, Der-el-Zor and Mosul. These deported people have
endured unheard of tortures and sufferings in the course of their
journey; the women and girls have suffered savage outrages. It is
said that the road is covered with unburied corpses of men, women
and children; in fact, the refugees who have arrived at Port Said
have seen these corpses with their own eyes, and it was the
cumulative effect of all this that made the inhabitants of the six
villages of Selefka decide to retire into the mountains and defend
themselves.
Since the month of May, I have had no direct news from Harpout or
Diyarbekir, but the news which I have gathered from other quarters
is very disquieting.
The first news received from Marash, Aintab and Killis was good, but
the last news, which comes from a trustworthy source, is equally
disquieting. It is said that there have been massacres at Marash,
and that the survivors, together with the Armenian inhabitants of
Aintab and Killis, have been deported bodily to the deserts to the
south of the province of Aleppo. We hear likewise that the Armenian
population of Mersina and Adana and the neighbouring villages has
been deported.
-----
Footnote 170:
See Doc. 143 page 559.
XVII.
THE TOWNS OF OURFA AND AC.
_The Armenian colony in Ourfa is the southernmost outpost of Armenia
east of the Euphrates, as the Jibal Mousa villages are of Armenian
Cilicia. Here, too, for many months, the Armenians had before their
eyes the fate of their compatriots from the north, for Ourfa is the
half-way house on the road from Diyarbekir to Aleppo, and the
remnants of many convoys from Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Erzeroum and beyond
passed this way on their journey to the Arabian desert. Thus, when
the order for deportation came in due course to Ourfa, towards the
end of September, 1915, they took the same action that the villagers
of Jibal Mousa had taken two months before. They fortified
themselves in their quarter of the town and resisted the order by
force, for they knew that it was simply the first stage in their
methodical extermination._
_Unhappily, the result of the struggle here was not the same as at
Jibal Mousa, and, indeed, the Armenians at Ourfa were in a hopeless
position from the first. They were far away from the sea, and even
in the town itself they were only a minority of the population. A
fully equipped expeditionary force of Turkish regulars was
immediately sent against them, and they succumbed, after resisting
desperately for a month._
_The town of AC. was another important Armenian outpost on the
south-eastern fringe, which cannot be mentioned by its real name
without compromising the persons referred to in the documents
relating to it. The Armenians at AC. did not resist, and the process
of deportation here followed its normal course._
133. OURFA: LETTER DATED OURFA, 14th JUNE, 1915, FROM MR. K.;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
I wish to inform you of conditions here. They are very bad, and
daily getting worse. I suppose the U.’s told you of the horrible
things taking place in Diyarbekir. Just such a reign of terror has
begun in this city also. Daily the police are searching the houses
of the Armenians for weapons, and, not finding any, they are taking
the best and most honourable men and imprisoning them; some of them
they are exiling, and others they are torturing with red-hot irons
to make them reveal the supposedly concealed weapons. Four weeks ago
they exiled fifteen men and their families, sending them to the
desert city of Rakka, three days’ journey south of here.
The Gendarmerie Department seems to have full control of affairs,
and the Mutessarif upholds them. They are now holding about a
hundred of the best citizens of the city in prison, and to-day the
gendarmerie chief called the Armenian Bishop and told him that
unless the Armenians deliver up their arms and denounce the
revolutionists among them he has orders to exile the entire Armenian
population of Ourfa, as they did the people of Zeitoun. We know how
the latter were treated, for hundreds of them have been dragged
through Ourfa on their way to the desert whither they have been
exiled. These poor exiles were mostly women, children and old men,
and they were clubbed and beaten and lashed along as though they had
been wild animals. Their women and girls were daily criminally
outraged, both by their guards and by the ruffians of every village
through which they passed, as the former allowed the latter to enter
the camp of the exiles at night, and even distributed the girls
among the villagers for the night.
These poor victims of their oppressors’ lust and hate might better
have died by the bullet in their mountain home than be dragged about
the country in this way. About two thousand of them have passed
through Ourfa, all more dead than alive; many hundreds had died
already from starvation and abuse along the roadside, and indeed
nearly all are dying of starvation or thirst, or through being
kidnapped by the Anaza Arabs in the desert where they have been
taken. We know how they are being treated, because our Ourfa exiles
are in the same place, and one young Armenian doctor, who was there
making medical examinations of soldiers for the Government, has
returned and told us[171].
Now this is the fate which is in store for the Ourfa Armenians also,
unless someone delivers them. Having seen how the Zeitoun exiles
have been treated, the Ourfa Armenians have said they will never
submit to exile but will die in their homes instead, and who can
blame them? We greatly fear that the cruel persecuting attitude of
the gendarmerie in seizing, beating, and torturing the people will
drive some of them to such desperation that they will resist, and
that will surely provoke a general massacre. Up to date the Armenian
Bishop and Protestant pastors have been most earnest and successful
in keeping the young men, especially, under restraint, and this has
prevented any outburst thus far, but as the Government is daily
taking the wisest and best leaders of the people and imprisoning
them, there are few left to restrain the others. The officers of the
Government told the Armenian Bishop plainly that unless they
delivered up their arms the Armenians here would be destroyed, but
the people fear to deliver up their arms, for they remember that in
1895 the Government made all the Christians deliver up their arms
and, as soon as they had done so, the Moslems fell upon the
Christians and killed six thousand of them in two days. Now, if the
Government would make the Moslems give up their weapons also, the
Christians would cheerfully deliver up theirs, but the Government is
not taking weapons from the Moslems. Ourfa is not a revolutionary
centre and never has been. The people here have always been loyal to
the Government and have never resisted, not even when they were
butchered like sheep. Why the local Government persists in
persecuting a population that has always had a good record for
loyalty is very strange. There is no revolutionary organisation
here; there may be thirty or forty men of revolutionary beliefs, but
there has been no propaganda and no organisation.
134. OURFA: EXTRACT FROM A LETTER[172] BY MR. TOVMAS K.
MUGGERDICHIAN; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF
NEW YORK, 1st APRIL, 1916.
I had an interview with Mr. B. and Miss A. about the events in
Turkey which they had witnessed before they escaped to Cairo.
Miss A. (an Englishwoman) was the principal of the orphanage at AC.
for 18 years, and is acquainted with the Turkish language. She and
Mr. B. passed through Aleppo, BF. and BJ., and have collected their
information from trustworthy sources in these centres.
Two Armenians returned to Aleppo from Ourfa and reported that a
Persian prince had arrived in Ourfa from Constantinople with the
Ottoman deputy for Baghdad (probably Babanzadé Ismail Hakki Bey) and
that they were the guests of Herr Jacob Künzler, a German-Swiss.
Herr Künzler went with them to Severeg and on his return told some
friends, among whom were the two Armenians aforementioned, that
there was no more deliverance for the Armenians. The deputy for
Baghdad had said to him: “It was decided in the Ottoman Parliament
that we should massacre all the Armenians. We will not leave a
single Armenian alive, and thus we will correct the old Sultan’s
mistake.” At the same time he regretted that Herr Eckhard had
betrayed the Armenians and excited the Turks against them. Herr
Eckhard—the ex-president of the German Orphanage at Ourfa, and now
the head of the shop and rug factory—is a German artillery captain,
who came to Ourfa after the massacres of 1895-1896 as a missionary
and a spy. In the autumn of 1915 he encouraged the Turkish, Kurdish
and Arab mobs to attack the Armenians, and was responsible for a
three-fold repetition of the massacres. The first massacre took
place on the 19th August, 1915, in which 250 Armenians were killed;
the second took place on the 23rd September, and lasted for a week,
in which about 300 persons were killed and the city looted; the
third took place about the 1st October. First, all the Armenians
were ordered to get ready to go to Der-el-Zor. When they objected,
saying that they had lost everything and had nothing left to take
with them, Fakhri Pasha ordered them to be massacred. The massacre
lasted 10 days. The German artillerymen destroyed the Armenian
quarters, the church and everything, thus putting an end to the
Armenian population of Ourfa.
It was then that the Rev. Apelian, the druggist Apraham Attarian,
Solomon Effendi Knadjian, A. Abouhayatian and Hagopian were
imprisoned on the demand of Herr Eckhard. The Rev. Apelian, Attarian
and Hagopian were hanged, and Knadjian and Abouhayatian were shot.
-----
Footnote 171:
See Doc. 144
Footnote 172:
Date unspecified; the place of writing was apparently Cairo.
135. OURFA: INTERVIEW WITH MRS. J. VANCE YOUNG, AN EYE-WITNESS OF
THE EVENTS AT OURFA; PUBLISHED IN THE “EGYPTIAN GAZETTE,” 28th
SEPTEMBER/11th OCTOBER, AND REPRODUCED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“HOUSSAPER” OF CAIRO, 30th SEPTEMBER/13th OCTOBER, 1915.
Mrs. J. Vance Young is the wife of an English doctor at
Beirout[173], and arrived in Egypt on board the American cruiser
“Chester.” She was among the last arrivals in this country from
Alexandretta, and brought with her terrible details regarding the
martyrdom of the Armenians at Ourfa. She was an eye-witness of the
occurrences in this ill-famed town, which has been drenched so many
times in Armenian blood.
An interview with Mrs. Young was published in the “Egyptian Gazette”
of the 28th September, and we reproduce the following lines, which
present the ghastly picture of the massacre:—
“On the 19th August the fusillade began, about five o’clock in the
evening. We heard it during supper-time, and it lasted far into the
night.
“Next morning Dr. J. Vance Young ventured to make his way into the
town to see if he could be of any service. He saw all the streets
littered with corpses. He got the impression that there was not a
single Armenian left in Ourfa.
“It appeared that the massacres had been organised in advance, for a
systematic domiciliary visit was made to every Armenian house; the
men were shot or otherwise assassinated, while the women were driven
from their houses with their children, to be marched away to the
desert and perish there of hunger.
“All along the road from Ourfa to the coast Mrs. Young saw hundreds
of putrified corpses, and also a few miserable survivors. The latter
looked more like wild beasts than human creatures. She described
this spectacle as being literally sufficient to unhinge one’s
reason.
“Almost all the business men at Ourfa were Armenians. Now they have
all been massacred, including the sole chemist capable of mixing
drugs.”
-----
Footnote 173:
One of the four hundred foreigners of Entente nationality in the
Syrian provinces who were interned at Ourfa after the outbreak of
war.
136. OURFA: POSTSCRIPT TO A MEMORANDUM (DOC. 141) BY A FOREIGN
WITNESS FROM ALEPPO; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Towards the end of September, the Armenians in Ourfa were ordered to
leave the town and to be exiled as the Armenians in all the towns of
this region have been. They refused to leave, however, and finally
orders were given to expel them forcibly, and, if they offered any
resistance, to take the necessary measures. They entrenched
themselves strongly in their quarter, built barricades, made
subterranean passages from one part of the quarter to another, and
generally took every measure possible to defend themselves against
attack. A force of about 6,000 soldiers, including artillery, under
the command of Fakhri Pasha, commenced operations against them, and
their quarter was bombarded during the first weeks of October. The
Armenians were all supplied with rifles and ammunition, and had even
managed to obtain mitrailleuses. They had apparently sufficient food
to withstand a siege of some duration. We heard about the middle of
October that seven officers and about 400 men had been killed on the
Turkish side. By some means or other the Armenians managed to obtain
possession of Mr. K. and seven belligerents who had been interned in
Ourfa. These eight men were retained by them in their quarter as
hostages. Mr. Jackson reported the detention of Mr. K. to the
Embassy, which, of course, took the necessary steps in the matter,
and about the 20th October a telegram was received in Aleppo from
Mr. K. reporting that he was out of the Armenian quarter and safe.
What happened to the seven belligerents could not be ascertained.
The position of the belligerents who are interned in Ourfa is
naturally somewhat critical. It has caused considerable anxiety to
the foreign consular officials in Aleppo, and they desire more
urgently than ever that these belligerents should be removed to some
place where they would be in greater safety.
137. AC.: STATEMENT BY MISS A., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT AC., WRITTEN
SUBSEQUENTLY TO HER DEPARTURE FROM TURKEY IN SEPTEMBER, 1915;
COMMUNICATED BY THE REV. I.N. CAMP, OF CAIRO.
It was in March, 1915, that the first refugees began to pass through
AC. After they had once begun to come, there was scarcely a day when
one or more parties did not pass through. Some were large, and some
consisted of only five or six hundred. With the exception of one
party, they all had to stay out in an open field without any
protection from the cold and rain, or later, when summer came, from
the burning sun. The exception was a party from BM., who had paid
£400 (Turkish) for the privilege of resting under some trees where
there was water. This place was only five minutes’ walk from the
field where other parties were obliged to camp.
I myself one day saw an old woman beaten because, when opportunity
came, she rushed off to get some water for a sick child. I do not
want to give the impression that no one was allowed to get water,
but I suppose the privilege was given according to the “bakshish”
that had been paid. There were also some gendarmes who seemed to be
thoroughly ashamed of their work, and who, so far as they dared,
were merciful.
Each party had its own tale of horror. With few exceptions, they had
been robbed; young wives and girls had been carried off; many had
been dishonoured; many people had been brutally treated and had died
on the road. One large party that had been on the march for four
weeks were put into houses at Albustan, the occupants of which had
been previously deported. They thought then that their journey was
over, and held a praise-meeting after being comfortably settled. But
they were at the mercy of the Turks, and all their young women and
girls were carried off. Then they were sent on the march again; some
of the girls were returned by the Turks, but most of them were kept.
The hard part for them was that they never got to the end of their
journey. Just as soon as they thought they were at their destination
and began to settle down and get a little work to do, they would at
once be sent away from that place to another. We heard also that if
money was given them they were obliged to move on. Any effort to
give relief was looked upon as a defiance of the Government.
One Sunday afternoon a large party of refugees came to AC. just at
sunset. We heard they were faint with hunger, but no one was allowed
to give them any relief. We knew that there might be an opportunity
to give some relief after dark, if any one ventured to go then.
Feeling that I must do something, I took our matron and went to see
what we could do. As we drew near the camp, we met some Armenians
who were on the watch for a chance to give out some bread, and who
told us that it would evidently be impossible for us to give any
food that night, but that perhaps we could give some in the morning.
The next morning, before dawn, we went again and found about four
hundred Armenians of AC. along the road. As they saw us passing,
some called out: “It is no use for you to go; no one is allowed
near.” However, we passed on, and when we got to where the gendarme
was, he very crossly ordered us away. It was light by this time. Our
matron appealed to him for a long time without avail. Finally,
however, he said: “Well, give what you have quickly; but this
(pointing to me) must not go any further than here.” While we were
distributing the food, the gendarme got angry and ordered me away.
Then three horsemen appeared on the scene. They scolded the man in
charge because he had not already got the refugees started on their
march, and told him he was too lenient with them. One of them leaped
from his horse, and with a whip in each hand went towards the AC.
Armenians, who at once fled. He came to me and gave me a lash or two
with the whip. I asked him what harm I was doing. He came again and
shook me, saying: “You are from BN.” (I had to dress as an Armenian
in order to get to the refugees at all.) One of the two other
officers came deliberately towards me with the intention of riding
me down, but the horse turned his head after only bruising my arm.
The matron, an Armenian woman, on seeing it, said: “She has done
nothing wrong. She is no BN-li. Your horse is more merciful than
you.” We turned to go, and to my surprise the horsemen began
speaking German with one another. So far as I was able to tell, they
were not Turks but German officers. When we got on to higher ground,
we saw these three men ride on in the direction of BM. The refugees
were sent in the opposite direction, and all the time they were
preparing to start they were being beaten. Other gendarmes arrived,
and from every direction came the screams of the people as the whips
touched them.
One evening, Dr. E. and Mr. F. went for a walk just at dusk. They
saw along the road what they at first took to be a bundle of rags,
about which scavenger dogs were circling, but on going nearer they
found it to be a dying woman. After she had been refreshed by some
warm milk which Dr. E. brought, she said: “Would that you had not
brought me this, for I had longed to die.” She soon did die. She was
a rather young woman, and it was found out soon after her death that
she was from a very good family.
Occasionally Dr. E. could get permission for a sick woman to stay
until she was better; she would then be sent on with a later party.
The first woman he helped in this way went on after a few weeks’
rest with her new-born baby, but the second woman died[174]. On
another occasion, the head Armenian nurse at the hospital had been
sent down with some necessaries to help a party. When she first got
to the place, the gendarme refused to let her pass. She begged him,
as he hoped for mercy from Allah himself, to allow her to go to the
woman in particular need. Finally, he gave permission, but, having
already given the order for the party to move on, he said that
little time was left. When they were ready to depart, the gendarme
began to beat the father of the baby, and even gave the mother of a
few hours a lash with his whip. The nurse protested, and said that,
if the poor woman must go on, an animal must be given her; so the
gendarme went forward a few steps, knocked an old man off his
donkey, and told the husband of the woman to put her on. We heard
later that the woman died before she got to the opposite end of the
city.
Every party would bring with them either old people who had been
left on the road or children whose mothers had died and who had been
left behind. Whenever we went to see refugees, the piteous appeals
we heard to save young women and girls from the Turks were
heart-rending. And we were powerless to help them! Again and again
we were threatened with what would be done to anyone who dared to
help any of the refugees. But in spite of these threats several of
the AC. people took babies who were left without any relatives. It
was beautiful to see the love shown to these babies, many of whom
were not at all attractive. The sad part of it was that, when the
turn of the people of AC. came to go, some were too poor to take
these adopted children along with them; but all did so who possibly
could. One good man had adopted a sick baby and a lame girl. When he
and his large family were deported, he came to ask me whether I
could take or support his own three-months-old baby, in return for
which he offered me two rings, all that he could spare.
As the refugees were driven from their mountain homes, the blind,
lame, and invalids were at first left in BM. But after a time even
they were driven forth. They left AC. one hot afternoon, about three
hundred in number, under the care of a brave young widow, who had
had charge of them all the time. There were only fourteen donkeys
for the whole party.
When people left their homes, it was natural that they should want
to take as much as possible along with them—mats, food, clothing,
&c. Villagers who owned animals, especially muleteers, were the best
off, because when others wanted animals the Turks asked such
exorbitant prices that the poor people did not know what to do,
especially if they had old people or young children in their
families. So the owners of animals, not having to hire any of the
Turks, were better off. The load-animal question became more and
more difficult as the refugees got farther away from their homes,
till some in desperation would leave their few possessions by the
wayside. The gendarmes generally told them that their goods would be
forwarded to them. But in the case of some goods that one party had
left nine hours from AC., we know that a gendarme brought them on to
the city and sold them by public auction.
Dr. L. asked whether he might go to the places where needy refugees
were, and give them some help, if he could get any money from the
United States. This request was most emphatically refused. He said:
“Why, they will die.” The answer of the Turkish official was: “What
do you suppose they are sent there for?”
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!”
-----
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.
-----
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.
One is that of a woman who, though six or seven months pregnant and
naturally in no condition whatever to do the marches, was obliged to
keep up with the procession until she dropped in her tracks and
died. I have heard of several cases of young girls or boys being
bought by people who wished to aid in some way and were importuned
by parents to take their children as servants, that they might have
homes. It was stated to me also that some soldier guards, in order
to urge them on, whipped those who straggled on the march either
from utter exhaustion or in quest of food or money from
compassionate Christian inhabitants of the places through which they
passed.
I have also heard of kindnesses extended by good Moslems who pitied
these sufferers, and I overheard a common Moslem soldier—and it is
known that such have hardly enough money for themselves—say that he
had given two medjidias[185] to the Christian exiles.
Several times I went to the quarter through which the exiles were
marched, to see them with my own eyes. Never, however, could I time
my visit with their passage.
Kahdem, on the outskirts of the city, is a large piece of common
ground where, after passing through Damascus, all the exiles are
collected preparatory, it seems, to their being dispersed to the
various towns where they are finally to stay.
Some days ago I visited this place to get some idea of conditions.
It is a large open tract, practically devoid of grass and possessing
but few trees. It was nearly covered with groups of ragged,
road-stained, dejected, wholly dispirited individuals. There were
only a very few tents or shelters of any kind, and these had the air
of being mere improvisations. At the outer fringe of the people I
was met by a policeman, who conducted me to the man in charge of the
encampment. I saw practically nothing, and learned only what he told
me. He was most courteous. According to him (and he said he kept
count of it) there were that day something over 2,000 Armenians
present on this field; up to that time about 20,000 had passed
through Damascus for exile from practically all the vilayets
inhabited by Armenians, except the region of Van. He thought they
had not arrived from Van yet because it was so distant. A total of
100,000 Armenians were to be distributed among the towns surrounding
Damascus before this deportation scheme would be complete, he said.
A hospital for those who were ill had been instituted, and was then
occupied by about fifty persons, I was informed. He further told me
that there were practically no deaths, and that the Government
furnished food for them, _i.e._, for all the exiles. I left the
Director of the Encampment’s tent, and the only thing I saw while
being conducted to the road was the wagon, outbound, that plies
between camp and hospital. It appeared to be well filled. The
Spanish Consul took the road to Kahdem the same day. He did not go
as close as I, I believe.
One of the exiled Armenians who came to see me said he was a native
of Kessab, near Aleppo. According to his statements, he had been on
the march some ten days, and, upon being questioned, he told me that
the suffering en route had been extreme for those who were not very
strong. He said that along the road they had passed the bodies of
those in the convoy ahead of theirs who had succumbed. This man
declared that his wife and family were coming by train. He nearly
broke down in the telling, and said he had no idea what would become
of him and cared less.
On the 11th September, 1915, the Spanish Consul and myself happened
to be in the Christian quarter, when we came upon a procession of
the Armenian exiles on their way to Kahdem. One becomes accustomed
to poorly dressed, ragged people in the interior whose faces never
seem to have expressed joy, but in the faces of this band of
silently trudging automatons one saw written a great weariness,
despair and hopeless suffering stoically borne. There were men,
women and children, only some of whom took heed of us when we
offered them what change we happened to have. The greater part
seemed interested only in doggedly pursuing their march until the
night’s halt might allow them to rest. It was then a little after
six o’clock.
Old and young people were the chief components of the procession.
Here there passed a boy hardly over ten years of age, overburdened
by a smaller child upon his back; there a woman, with back bent by
age, crawling painfully along by the aid of her staff; now a wee
infant, crying for its mother lost on the march, on the heels of an
old patriarch, dragging along his last possession, a little donkey;
then a woman, evidently heavy with child, smothering a moan of pain
at each forced step. Young women and men of middle age were
noticeable by their absence. From various reports I have heard, it
would appear that many exiles have been arriving by train, and that
the total number that has passed this way now reaches 22,000.
From a person who has passed that way, I learn that, so far as he
could judge, all Armenians south of Ismid were being exiled, and
from the same informant, whose word cannot be questioned, I hear
that thousands of Armenians were passed by him on the road. They
were in the most horrible condition. At Osmania there were some
8,000 exiles quartered. He tells me that for some miles out from
this place a most foul odour was noticeable, like that rising from a
dirty chicken-run. Upon approaching the low ground on which the
exiles were concentrated, the odour became sickening and noisome
flies swarmed about him. Passing through the encampment, he saw many
people ill, and the bodies of others half-submerged in the water
that had collected in pools on the low-lying ground. Some told him
they were only waiting for death to free them. On the road from
there to Aleppo he passed thousands of exiles on the march, and at a
small town near Aleppo he found about 100,000 Armenians encamped. He
says that the mortality among these was very great. They had no food
nor money to buy any, as it appeared that many convoys had been
plundered on the road of what little they possessed by successive
armed bands. The party of which my informant was a member had
several times been accosted by armed persons in uniform, who thought
they were Armenians.
I have heard from a source not quite so authentic, but in which a
great deal of confidence may be placed, that the country lying north
and north-east of Marash is being entirely denuded of Armenians;
that at Homs there was a concentration camp of about 30,000,
practically all without shelter; that there had been a massacre at
Diyarbekir; that exiles from Kaisaria were allowed to sell their
property (a small price only could be obtained in this forced sale)
before being sent to Der-el-Zor. From this same source I was also
informed that it was rumoured that many exiles had been drowned (by
boats being overturned, and so on) in the Euphrates River, while
making their crossing.
Just within the last few days—it is now the 3rd October—I was told
by an eye-witness that a massacre took place on the 19th September
at Ourfa, and that the Armenians were shot, stabbed, bayoneted or
flayed by the population in general that day, but that afterwards
the slaughter was still being continued by soldiers with bayonets
and sharp sabres when this person left on the 22nd. It appears that
the Armenian men were collected together, and that one by one they
were led out to be slashed up and cut down by the long sabre-knives.
In the first day’s massacre three French and Russian civil prisoners
were wounded by knife or flail; but I gathered that they soon
recovered and that that was all that happened to these prisoners.
The person who came from Ourfa told me that en route many women,
children and old men were passed, and that soldiers were seen to
strike some of these when they stopped to get a drink of water.
Soldiers were overheard to say: “Wait until we get you to the
Euphrates, and see what happens to you there!” or words to that
effect. This information was given me by a person who, as stated
above, was actually present at the massacre and who heard the remark
above mentioned.
I do not know whether I shall be able to get this through or not. In
every instance the faith that might be placed in statements has been
indicated as precisely as the writer is able to judge; he can vouch
absolutely, of course, only for the things seen or heard by himself
as related above.
At Damascus everything appears to be very quiet. An egg was thrown
into my carriage yesterday, the 2nd October, but that was by a small
boy and indicated little. I do not believe that any trouble from the
population is to be feared, unless incited by authority, and of this
I have no apprehension.
144. EXILES ON THE EUPHRATES: RECORD, DATED ERZEROUM, JUNE, 1915, BY
M. HENRY BARBY, OF AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. H. TOROYAN, AN ARMENIAN
PHYSICIAN FORMERLY IN THE SERVICE OF THE OTTOMAN ARMY; PUBLISHED
IN “LE JOURNAL,” OF PARIS, 13th JULY, 1916.
Along the burning banks of the distant Euphrates, between sultry
Mesopotamia and the Badiet-esh-Sham, the desolate desert of Syria,
are encamped the several thousands of deported Armenians who have
escaped the great massacre.
Their condition there is such that no words can express the horror
of it. That is the unanimous testimony of the rare travellers who
have succeeded in visiting the camps where the unhappy victims are
dying off, between Aleppo and Baghdad. They are subjected to
frightful sufferings—without shelter either against the deadly cold
of last winter or against the terrific heat of the present summer,
which grows more pitiless every day—and daily they are perishing in
great numbers, though those struck down by death are the least to be
pitied.
I am now in a position to cite unimpeachable testimony as to the
facts of these unheard-of atrocities.
A Turkish army-physician, Dr. H. Toroyan—an Armenian by birth, as
appears by his name—was commissioned by the Young Turkish Government
to visit the exiles’ camps. The horrors of which he was a helpless
witness in the course of his mission, and the hideous scenes at
which he was present, affected him so deeply that he determined to
make his way out of Turkey, at the risk of his life, in order to
reveal to the civilised world the barbarity and infamy of the guilty
parties—that is, of the present rulers of Turkey and their
accomplices.
Dr. Toroyan, in spite of the almost insurmountable difficulties with
which he had to contend, succeeded in escaping and reaching
Caucasia. There I met him and his first words with me were these:
“My unhappy countrymen deported to Mesopotamia have besought me to
make an appeal on their behalf to the whole civilised world, to the
Caucasian Armenians in particular, and above all to the Armenians in
America, whose women and children are dying every day—decimated by
suffering, hunger and disease and subjected to the devilish cruelty
of the zaptiehs who are in charge of them in their place of exile.”
He proceeded to show me the notes which he had taken day by day in
the course of his tour of inspection down the Euphrates. It is a
long series of awful pictures—stories of murders and tortures and
revolting rapes. The bestial instincts of human nature are unleashed
in the presence of tears and blood. The Turkish butchers amused
themselves by massacring men “for pleasure” and hunting women like
beasts of the field.
It was on the 25th November, 1915, that Dr. Toroyan left Djerablous
and began to descend the Euphrates on a raft. At Djerablous he saw a
convoy of Armenians from Syria and twenty-five Armenian families
from Aintab, who were being driven along by gendarmes towards the
military tribunal under blows of the lash. Other Armenian families
were coming in from Kaisaria and Konia by railway. From the moment
they left the train they became the victims of the most atrocious
outrages. The Tchatchaus[186] carried off three hundred women and
girls (the prettiest) in order to sell them as slaves. All these
latter victims belonged to families from Diyarbekir, Mardin and
Harpout.
But I will let Dr. Toroyan tell his own story:—
“This camp,” he continued, “was still congested when I left it with
Armenians from Adana and Cilicia. Most of them were women and girls.
Two of them, whom I knew well but only recognised with difficulty,
to so lamentable a condition were they reduced, cast themselves at
my feet:
“‘Tell the gallant soldiers (of the Allies) to come quickly to
Mesopotamia,’ they cried to me between their sobs; ‘we are worse
than dead.’”
The doctor went down on his raft with the current as far as Meskené.
There he landed and, escorted by two Turkish gendarmes, paid a visit
to the Armenian camp.
“The poor people were in rags which barely covered their bodies,” he
said, “and had nothing to shelter them against the weather. Some of
them, crouched on the ground, were trying to protect themselves
beneath tattered umbrellas, but most of them had nothing at all. I
asked my gendarmes what all the strange little mounds of earth were
which I saw everywhere, with thousands of dogs prowling round about
them.
“‘Those are the graves of the infidels!’ they answered calmly.
“‘Strange, so many graves for such a little village.’
“‘Oh, you do not understand. Those are the graves of these
dogs—those who were brought here first, last August. They all died
of thirst.’
“‘Of thirst? Was there no water left in the Euphrates?’
“‘For whole weeks together we were forbidden to let them drink.’
“I arrived at last at the extremity of this vast field of graves.
There were two old men there, crouched on the ground, sobbing. I
questioned them: ‘Where are you from?’ They made no answer. They
were stupefied by suffering. Perhaps they had lost the power of
speech. Further on, however, another exile, prostrate on the ground,
in the midst of other victims belonging to the same family, did give
me an answer. I learnt that the camp contained 5,000 Armenians from
Mersina and other Cilician towns.
“But now my two gendarmes came up to me. They pointed to a girl:
‘Effendi, let us take her and carry her with us to Baghdad....’
“Without waiting for my answer they called the poor girl. She
approached, shrieking with terror. She said several words to me in
French. Before she was deported she had been a schoolmistress at
Smyrna. She was dying of hunger. I tried to learn from her precise
details about the martyrdom of the exiles, but she could answer
nothing but: ‘Bread! Bread!’ Then she fainted and fell down
unconscious.
“‘She is dead! the schoolmistress, too, has died of hunger!’ piteous
voices cried around us. But the gendarmes were anxious to take
advantage of their victim’s unconsciousness to gain possession of
her. Already they had seized her and were carrying her towards our
raft. I stopped them. Then I poured several drops of brandy between
the poor girl’s lips and she came to herself again.
“A mother came to implore me. She offered her honour and her life if
I would save her son, who was in agony, devoured by a fever. I gave
her a little aspirine.
“And now they crowded round me in thousands—these poor emaciated
beings with hollow cheeks and eyes, either dulled or unnaturally
bright. From every side they flocked together with all the haste
they could, and surrounded me with a tumult of despairing cries:
‘Bread! Medicine!’
“The gendarmes rushed at them. Into this pitiful crowd they struck
at random with kicks and blows as hard as they could. I left the
scene, desperate at my powerlessness to alleviate this infinite
suffering.
“I saw two women, one of them old, the other very young and very
pretty, carrying the corpse of another young woman; I had scarcely
passed them when cries of terror arose. The girl was struggling in
the clutches of a brute who was trying to drag her away. The corpse
had fallen to the ground, the girl, now half-unconscious, was
writhing by the side of it, the old woman was sobbing and wringing
her hands.
“I could not interfere. I had the strictest orders. Shaking with
rage and indignation, I took refuge on my raft, which was moored to
the river bank.
“In the middle of the night I was awakened by desperate shrieks. My
two gendarmes, who had remained on shore, had seized some Armenian
girls. It was their intention to violate them, and they were
striking savagely at the exiles who were trying to interfere. The
tumult, which I heard without seeing it, continued. At last the
gendarmes returned, the boatman unmoored the raft and bent to his
oars. We were starting. The great river boat glided slowly over the
smooth water. Suddenly the gendarmes shouted and guffawed as if they
were watching a fine farce: ‘The girl! the girl we had to-night!’ I
looked, and saw floating on the surface a corpse which they had
recognised and which I recognised too. It was the schoolmistress
from Smyrna, the poor girl to whom I had spoken only a few hours
before. It was she who, in the darkness, had been the victim of
these two wild beasts.”
145. DER-EL-ZOR: LETTER, DATED 12th JULY, 1915, FROM SCHWESTER L.
MÖHRING, A GERMAN MISSIONARY, DESCRIBING HER JOURNEY FROM
BAGHDAD TO THE PASSES OF AMANUS; PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN JOURNAL
“SONNENAUFGANG,” SEPTEMBER, 1915.
At Der-el-Zor, a large town in the desert about six days’ journey
from Aleppo, we found the big han full to overflowing. All available
rooms, roofs, and verandahs were occupied by Armenians. The majority
were women and children, but there were also a certain number of men
squatting on their quilts wherever they could find a spot of shade.
As soon as I heard that they were Armenians, I started going round
and talking to them. They were the people of Furnus (a village in
the neighbourhood of Zeitoun and Marash); herded together here in
these narrow quarters, they presented an extraordinarily melancholy
appearance. When I enquired for children from our Orphanage at BM.,
they brought me a protégée of Sister 0., Martha Karabashian. She
gave me the following account of what had happened.
One day Turkish gendarmes had come to Furnus and arrested and
carried off a large number of men, to turn them into soldiers.
Neither they nor their families knew where they were being taken to.
Those who remained were told that they would have to leave their
houses within the space of four hours. They were allowed to take
with them as much as they could carry; they might also take their
beasts. After the lapse of the specified time the poor people had to
march out of their village under the escort of soldiers (zaptiehs),
without knowing where they were going or whether they would ever see
their village again. To begin with, as long as they were still among
the mountains and had some provisions left, things went well enough.
They had been promised money and bread, and were actually given some
in the early stages—as far as I can remember, it was 30 paras (1½d.)
per head per day. But very soon these rations ceased, and there was
nothing to be had but bulgur meal—50 drams (= 150 grammes) per head
per day. In this fashion the Furnusli, after four weeks of extremely
hard travelling via Marash and Aleppo, had arrived at Der-el-Zor.
They had already been three weeks there in the han, and had no idea
what was to happen to them. They had no more money left, and the
provisions supplied by the Turks had also dwindled almost to
nothing. It was days since they had had any bread. In the towns they
had been barred in at night, and not allowed to speak to the
inhabitants. Martha, for instance, had not been allowed at BM. to go
to the Orphanage. She said to me sadly: “We had two houses and we
had to leave everything; now there are mouhadjirs[187] in them.”
There had been no massacres in Furnus and the zaptiehs, too, had
treated the people well. They had suffered principally from lack of
food and water on the march through the burning hot desert. These
Yailadji or Mountaineers, as they called themselves, suffered twice
as much from the heat as other people.
The zaptiehs escorting them told us then that, since the massacres,
the Armenians had cherished such hatred against the Turks that the
latter had always to go in fear of them. The intention now, they
said, was to employ the Armenians in building roads, and in this way
to move them on gradually to Baghdad. When asked the “wherefore” of
this, the zaptiehs explained that the people had been in collusion
with Russia. The Armenians themselves declared that they did not
know the reason for their expulsion.
Next day, at the midday rest, we fell in with a whole convoy of
Armenians. The poor people had made themselves primitive goat’s hair
tents after the manner of the Kurds, and were resting in them. But
the majority lay on the burning sand without defence against the
scorching sun. On account of the number of sick, the Turks had
allowed them a day’s rest. It is simply impossible to conceive
anything more disconsolate than such a mass of people in the desert
under the given circumstances. One could tell by their clothes that
they had lived in considerable prosperity, and now misery was
written on their faces. “Bread!” “Bread!” was the universal cry.
They were the people of Geben, who had been driven out with their
Pastor. The latter told me that every day there were five or six
deaths among the children and the sick. This very day they had only
just buried the mother of a girl about nine years old, who was now
quite alone in the world. They besought me most urgently to take the
child with me to our Orphanage. The Pastor gave precisely the same
account of what had happened as the little girl at Der-el-Zor.
No one without personal experience of the desert can form anything
approaching a conception of the misery and distress. The desert is
mountainous, but almost entirely without shade. For days together
the route leads over rocks and is extremely difficult going. On the
left hand, as one comes from Aleppo, there is always the Euphrates,
which trails along like a streak of clay, yet not near enough for
one to be able to draw water from it. The poor people must suffer
intolerable pangs of thirst; no wonder that so many sicken and die.
As it was the midday halt, we, too, unpacked our provisions and
prepared to eat. That morning we had had bread and tea; our midday
meal consisted once more of hard Arab bread, cheese and a tin of
sardines. In addition we had a bottle of mineral water. It was not
very sumptuous, and yet it was not an easy task to eat anything in
face of that crowd of distressed and suffering humanity. We gave
away as much as we possibly could, and each of my three companions
silently pressed into my hand a medjidia (3s. 2d.) “for the poor
people.” A bag of bread from Baghdad, as hard as stone, was received
with extraordinary gratitude. “We shall soak it in water and then
the children will eat it,” said the delighted mothers.
Another scene comes back to me, which will give an idea of their
destitution. One of my companions threw away an empty glass bottle.
An old man threw himself upon it, begged to be allowed to take it
for himself, and gave profuse thanks for the boon. Then he went down
to the river, washed it out, and brought it back filled with the
thick clayey water, carrying it carefully in his arms like a
treasure, to thank us for it once more. Now he had at least drinking
water for his journey.
Followed by many good wishes we at last continued on our way, with
the impression of this misery still weighing upon us. In the
evening, when we reached the village, we met yet another Armenian
convoy of the same kind. This time it was the people of Zeitoun.
There was the same destitution and the same complaint about the
heat, the lack of bread and the persecutions of the Arabs. A little
girl who had been brought up by Kaiserswerth Deaconesses in the
Orphanage at Beirout, told us of her experiences in good German:—
“Why does God allow it? Why must we suffer like this? Why did not
they strike us dead at once?” were her complaints; “In the daytime
we have no water for the children and they cry of thirst. At night
the Arabs come to steal our bedding and clothes. They have taken
girls from us and committed outrages against women. If we cannot
drag ourselves further on the march, we are beaten by the zaptiehs.”
They also told us that other women had thrown themselves into the
water to escape their shame, and that mothers with their new-born
children had done the same, because they saw no other way out of
their misery. Along the whole desert route there was a dearth of
food—even for us who had money to pay for it—on account of the
number of Turkish soldiers passing through and resting at every han.
In Zeitoun, too, no one had been killed; the people could mention no
instance of it.
The Armenian is bound up with his native soil; every change of
climate is extremely upsetting to him, and there is nothing he
misses so much as clear, cold water. For this reason alone residence
in the desert is intolerable for him. A speedy death for the whole
family at once seems a better fate to the mothers than to watch
death by starvation slowly approaching themselves and their
children.
On my arrival at Aleppo I was at once asked about the Armenians, and
how they were doing for supplies. Their case had been taken up in
every possible way, and representations had been made to the
Government on their behalf. All that could be obtained was
permission for the formation of an Armenian League of Help, which
the Government at Constantinople as well as the Vali of Aleppo had
sanctioned. The Armenian community at Aleppo at once proceeded to
raise a relief fund among themselves, and have been supporting their
poor, homeless brethren with money, food and clothing.
In the Amanus mountains, on our second day’s journey after leaving
Aleppo, we met with Armenians again. This time it was the people of
Hadjin and the neighbourhood. They explained to us that they were
going to Aleppo, but they knew nothing beyond that. They had only
been nine days on the road, and did not ask for any assistance.
Compared with those in the desert, they were faring sumptuously;
they had wagons with them carrying their household goods, horses
with foals, oxen and cows, and even camels. The procession making
its way up through the mountains seemed endless, and I could not
help asking myself how long their prosperity would last. They were
still in the mountains on their native soil, and had no suspicion of
the terrors of the desert. That was the last I saw of the Armenians,
but such experiences are unforgettable, and I publish them here with
the most earnest appeal for help. Many of the Armenians may be
guilty and may only be suffering what they have brought upon
themselves, but the poor women and children need our help.
-----
Footnote 182:
Undated.
Footnote 183:
Name withheld.
Footnote 184:
See Doc. 68, page 272, and Doc. 69, page 278.
Footnote 185:
6s. 4d.
Footnote 186:
Tchetchens (?).
Footnote 187:
Moslem immigrants from Europe.
XX.
DOCUMENTS RECEIVED WHILE
GOING TO PRESS.
146. DESPATCH FROM MR. HENRY WOOD (DOC. I.): FULLER VERSION,
OBTAINED THROUGH THE COURTESY OF THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE
AMERICAN “UNITED PRESS” IN LONDON.
For nearly three months now the 2,000,000 Armenians of Turkey have
been undergoing at the hands of the Young Turk Government a renewal
of the atrocities of Abd-ul-Hamid, that so far has fallen short only
of actual massacre.
So critical is the situation that Ambassador Morgenthau, who, alone,
is fighting to prevent wholesale slaughter, has felt obliged to ask
the co-operation of the Ambassadors of Turkey’s two Allies. Baron
von Wangenheim, the German Ambassador, and Margrave Pallavicini, the
Austrian representative at Constantinople, have responded at least
to the degree of joining with Ambassador Morgenthau in endeavouring
to convince the Turkish Government what a serious mistake it would
be for Turkey to permit again a renewal of all the atrocities of the
old Turkish régime.
They have been successful to the extent of securing definite
promises from the leading members of the Young Turk Government that
no orders will be given for massacres. As long as these promises are
maintained, no fear is felt, as the danger of a spontaneous uprising
of the Moslem population against the Christians is now considered a
thing of the past. The critical moment for the Armenians, however,
will come, it is feared, when the Turks may meet with serious
reverses in the defence now being made of the Dardanelles, or when
the Armenians themselves, who not only are in open revolt but are
actually in possession of Van and several other important towns, may
meet with fresh successes. It is this uprising of the Armenians who
are seeking to establish an independent government that the Turks
declare is alone responsible for the terrible measures now being
taken against them.
In the meantime, the position of the Armenians and the system of
deportation, dispersion and extermination that is being carried out
against them beggars all description.
Although the present renewal of the Armenian atrocities has been
under way for three months, it is only just now that reports
creeping into Constantinople from the remotest points of the
interior show that absolutely no portion of the Armenian population
has been spared.
It now appears that the order for the present cruelties was issued
in the early part of May, and was at once put into execution with
all the extreme genius of the Turkish police system—the one
department of government for which the Turks have ever shown the
greatest aptitude both in organisation and administration. At that
time sealed orders were sent to the police of the entire Empire.
These were to be opened on a specified date that would ensure the
orders being in the hands of every department at the moment they
were to be opened. Once opened, they provided for a simultaneous
descent at practically the same moment on the Armenian population of
the entire Empire.
At Broussa, in Asiatic Turkey, the city which it is expected the
Turks will select for their capital in the event of Constantinople
falling, I investigated personally the manner in which these orders
were carried out. From eye-witnesses in other towns from the
interior I found that the execution of them was everywhere
identical.
At midnight, the police authorities swooped down on the homes of all
Armenians whose names had been put on the proscribed list sent out
from Constantinople. The men were at once placed under arrest, and
then the houses were searched for papers which might implicate them
either in the present revolutionary movement of the Armenians on the
frontier or in plots against the Government which the Turks declare
exist. In this search, carpets were torn from the floors, draperies
stripped from the walls, and even the children turned out of their
beds and cradles in order that the mattresses and coverings might be
searched.
Following this search, the men were then carried away, and at once
there began the carrying out of the system of deportation and
dispersion which has been the cruellest feature of the present
anti-Armenian wave. The younger men, for the most part, were at once
drafted into the Army. On the authority of men whose names would be
known in both America and Europe if I dared mention them, I am told
that hundreds if not thousands of these were sent at once to the
front ranks at the Dardanelles, where death in a very short space of
time is almost a certainty. The older men were then deported into
the interior, while the women and children, when not carried off in
an opposite direction, were left to shift for themselves as best
they could.
The terrible feature of this deportation up to date is that it has
been carried out on such a basis as to render practically impossible
in thousands and thousands of cases that these families can ever
again be reunited. Not only wives and husbands, brothers and
sisters, but even mothers and their little children have been
dispersed in such a manner as to preclude practically all hope that
they will ever see each other again.
Simultaneously with these arrests of the population throughout the
Empire, the police at Constantinople swooped down on the alleged
leaders of an Armenian society that was declared to have for its
object not only the wresting from the Turkish Empire of part of its
territory for the establishment of an independent Armenia, but also
the overthrow of the Turkish Government. These were tried by court
martial, and on the 15th June nineteen of them were hanged in front
of the Ministry of War at Constantinople. Among the number was one
man who had been a cashier for the Singer Sewing Machine Company in
one of its Turkish branches. As a result of vigorous protests which
followed on the part of prominent people at Constantinople, the
Turks at once promised that no more wholesale hangings should take
place.
Of all the terrible vengeances so far meted out by the Turks in the
present anti-Armenian crusade, none appear to have equalled that
inflicted on the population of the city of Zeitoun. This was an
Armenian town of 20,000 population which had never as a matter of
fact been completely subjected by the Turks. Situated well up in
almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses, it had even maintained a
sort of independence.
With the participation of Turkey in the present war and the need of
every possible man for military service, a detachment of Turkish
soldiers was sent against the town, with orders to force the young
Armenians to accept military service. The latter instead attacked
the Turkish soldiers, killed some 300 of them and, with the
additional arms thus secured, prepared for a determined resistance.
An overwhelming Turkish force, however, was sent against the town;
it fell, and then the Turks carried out in the extremest degree
their newly devised system of deportation and dispersion.
Twenty thousand Turks from Thrace were taken to Zeitoun and
established in the houses that for generations had belonged to the
Armenian families. The latter were then scattered to the four winds
of the Empire.
I talked with eye-witnesses who, coming to Constantinople from the
interior, had seen this miserable population being dispersed and
deported. They were being herded across the country by soldiers in
groups ranging from 50 to several hundred. Old men who were unable
to maintain the fast pace set by the mounted soldiers were beaten
till they fell dead in their tracks. Children who were likewise too
tender to stand the terrible strain dropped out by the wayside,
while the mothers were driven relentlessly on with no hopes of ever
again being able to find their little ones. Other mothers with
babies in arms, unable to see the latter die under their very eyes,
unable to give them the nourishment necessary to sustain life, and
unable to bear the agony of leaving them by the wayside to an
unknown fate, dropped them in wells as they passed, thus ending the
sufferings of the little ones and having at least the consolation of
knowing their fate.
The bulk of this miserable population from Zeitoun, that was able to
withstand this herding across the desert interior of Asiatic Turkey,
was planted largely in two places. One portion was established in a
marshy region which, up to the present time, had never been
habitable on account of the deadly malaria; the other portion was
sent down in the direction of the Persian Gulf, to a locality so
deadly that the poor victims prayed to be sent to the malarial
marshes instead. Their prayers were in vain.
As in the system of deportation carried out in all other portions of
the Empire, scores if not hundreds of these families from Zeitoun
were separated and transplanted in such a manner as practically to
preclude all possibility of their ever being reunited again.
In defence of these terrible measures which have been taken, the
Turks at Constantinople declare that no one but the Armenians
themselves is to blame. They state that when the present attack
began on the Dardanelles, the Armenians were notified that if they
took advantage of the moment when the Turks were concentrating every
energy for the maintenance of the Empire, to rise in rebellion, they
would be dealt with without quarter. This warning, however, the
Armenians failed to heed. They not only rose in rebellion, occupying
a number of important towns, including Van, but extended important
help to the Russians in the latter’s campaign in the Caucasus. As
all these Armenians are Ottoman subjects, they have to be dealt with
according to the stringent Turkish laws on such subjects.
While the Turks freely admit that this revolt of the Armenians was
and is confined to those living near the Russian border, the
authorities at Constantinople declare that at the present moment,
when the very existence of the Empire is at stake from the attacks
of outside enemies, it is quite out of the question for them to
search out among the 2,000,000 Armenians of the Turkish Empire the
comparatively few guilty ones and punish them alone. They declare
that they have no choice except to ensure their safety against all
the Armenians. By punishing all, they are certain to strike down the
guilty ones and to prevent any more uprisings among the others.
While this is the Turkish side of the situation, there is also
another side which I shall give on the authority of men who have
passed practically their entire lives in Turkey and whose names, if
I dared mention them, would be recognised in both Europe and America
as competent authority. According to these men, the decision has
gone out from the Young Turk Party that the Armenian population of
Turkey must be set back fifty years. This has been decided upon as
necessary in order to ensure the supremacy of the Turkish race in
the Ottoman Empire, which is one of the basic principles of the
Young Turk Party. The situation, I am told, is absolutely analogous
to that which preceded the Armenian massacres under Abd-ul-Hamid. So
far, however, the Young Turks have confined themselves to the new
system of deportation, dispersion and separation of families.
To the Armenian population in general that is affected at the
present moment by the carrying out of these orders, I have found but
one exception. This is the Armenian population of Constantinople,
which numbers about 70,000. There Ambassador Morgenthau assumed a
sort of unofficial protectorate and guarantee for the Armenians,
with the result that up to the present moment less than 300 of them
have been molested.
So terrible have been the sufferings of the Armenians during the
past three months that at the moment I left Constantinople, in order
to be able to write this story, there had begun a reversal of
feeling towards them even amongst the Turks themselves. The latter
declared that the orders, which had been issued solely as a
necessary safeguard for the Empire against the Armenians, had been
carried out by the local authorities, especially in the districts
far from Constantinople, with a degree of severity that had never
been intended. Talaat Bey, Minister of the Interior, had even begun
to permit a few dozen of the men, whose loyalty to the Turkish
Government was beyond question, to return to their homes.
The condition of the Armenian population at the present moment,
however, is pitiful beyond words. Practically all the families have
been deprived of their means of support by the deportation of the
husbands, fathers and sons. The women and children who have been
left behind to shift for themselves are practically helpless, as at
the present moment, when the entire Empire is being drained of every
resource for the carrying on of the war, neither work nor food is to
be had. In thousands of cases, too, the deported families have been
planted among strong Musulman communities, where the Christian
Armenians are despised and opposed at every turn.
In the midst of all this misery help is only being extended from two
quarters. Ambassador Morgenthau, at Constantinople, is working day
and night to induce the Turkish Government to relent from the
severity of its measures, and the American missionaries throughout
the Empire have also dropped all thought of religious propaganda in
order to attend to the material needs of the victims. Their combined
efforts, however, constitute hardly a drop of help in the whole sea
of misery.
The situation is rendered especially difficult by the fact that
nothing can be done in an official way even by governments like the
United States. The Armenians are subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and
the latter has the full right to deal with them as it thinks
necessary in the interests of the Empire as a whole.
147. URMIA, SALMAS, AND HAKKIARI: FULLER STATEMENT BY MR. PAUL
SHIMMON, EDITED, AS A PAMPHLET, BY THE REV. F.N. HEAZELL,
ORGANISING SECRETARY OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY’S ASSYRIAN
MISSION.
The scene of the Assyrian massacres is the plain of Urmi (or Urmia)
on the west side of the lake of that name in N.W. Persia. The city
of Urmi is situated on the western side of the lake; further west
are the mountains of Kurdistan, forming the frontier between Turkey
and Persia. These mountains give shelter to the wild bands of Kurds
(ever ready to descend on the plain of Urmi), who can easily retire
to their inaccessible homes with their ill-gotten spoil. For some
years past a Russian force has been stationed in the Urmi plain,
with the object of keeping the Kurds under control. These troops
were distributed between Khoi, Salmas, Urmi, and Soujboulak, at the
extreme south of the lake. Urmi is an isolated spot, and, from a
military point of view, ill-suited for defence against a strong
attacking force. It is easily accessible to the Kurds from the west,
while the two high passes on both north and south, and the lake on
the east, seal up a besieged army in a very dangerous locality.
The plain of Urmi has a charm for all travellers; in the spring and
early summer it is a veritable paradise. Its running waters, its
gardens, its vineyards, orchards, and melon fields, its tobacco
plantations and rice fields, give a variety of colour and a beauty
of scene seldom met with in the East.
The plain of Urmi is the home of some thirty-five thousand of the
Assyrian (or East Syrian) Christians, part of whom dwell in the
city, the rest being distributed among seventy villages scattered
over the plain. These people are cultivators of the soil and keepers
of vineyards. Away to the west, united to them by religion and
language, five the mountaineer Syrians. First, we have many villages
in the districts of Tergawar and Mergawar, both in Persia; then
comes Nochea, the seat of the Metropolitan Bishop, Mar Khananishu.
Still further west, over the frontier into Turkey, in the very heart
of the mountains, dwells the Patriarch, Mar Shimun, at once a civil
and ecclesiastical ruler, who is responsible to the Turkish
Government for the independent tribes of Baz, Djîlu, Tkhuma, and
Tiari, who are spread over the tract of country which stretches from
Djoulamerk to Amadia and then down towards Mosul.
The proverbial “calm before the storm” was literally true in the
case of the massacre of the Syrian Christians. In the Urmi plain,
the presence of Russian troops for many years past brought security
and prosperity. Raiding on the part of the Kurds was stopped, and
highway robbery was no longer heard of. It did not mean that the
Moslems were any more friendly disposed towards the Christians; they
feared them, that was all. The old hatred for the Christian race
slumbered for a time, and dared not show itself, so long as the
Russian troops were there to see that the peace was not disturbed.
Events began to take a different turn with the outbreak of war in
Europe. The Kurds, always ready for a fight, began to plunder the
rich districts of Tergawar and Mergawar; the Christian inhabitants
fled to Urmi, and were distributed among the villages of the plain.
In October, 1914, the Kurds made a determined effort to capture the
city. A violent assault was made by them, and for a time they
withstood the fire of the Russian artillery. They sacked and burned
the villages of Anhar and Alwach, and advanced within gunshot of the
city. Reinforcements arrived, and with the help of Syrians, armed by
the Russians, the Kurds and Turks were driven back. Then it was that
the Russian officers found that the Syrians could do great service
in scouting, and they employed trained Syrians to keep open the
lines of communication.
Such was the condition of affairs before the declaration of war
between the Allied Powers and Turkey. After the declaration of war
the curtain was withdrawn and the drama was played, the like of
which has not yet been seen, even in this most cruel war.
The Turks had become aggressive on the Russian frontier near the
Caucasus. In December they massed troops at Sari-Kamysh, near Kars,
and sought to cut the railway to Tiflis. This created a scare in the
Caucasus which was serious enough to cause a withdrawal of the
Russian forces from N.W. Persia. Orders reached Urmi on the 30th
December for the withdrawal of the Russian troops, but these were
not made known to the European missionaries and Syrians until three
days later. The news came like a thunderclap. The Christian
inhabitants were entirely unprepared; when they awoke to the fact of
the danger they were in, they found that the roads were all blocked,
the Russian protectors had left, means of transport were wanting,
the Kurdish and Turkish armies were almost at the city gates; they
were caught in a trap. A large number of the Syrians outside the
city and many Armenians were able to get away; most of these were
from the Nazlu district, others were refugees from the Turkish
frontier, some ten thousand in all. Two English missionaries then
left, also the Belgian officials of the Persian Government and some
prominent Syrians of Urmi. All the rest remained behind.
The Russian army left on Saturday, the 2nd January, and on the next
day the Persian Moslems plundered the village of Tcharbash, and
Dilgusha, the two districts which contained the houses of the
well-to-do Christian population. It was a painful sight to see the
notable Moslems of the city taking part in this plunder. The whole
city was out, “blessing each other’s feast,” as they termed it, and
carrying off everything that came to hand. Houses were stripped of
furniture, and even doors and windows carried away. There was also
an attempt to plunder some of the houses within the city, but this
was frustrated by the efforts of the French and American
missionaries.
There is no doubt that the presence of the American missionaries,
and of Mr. Nisan, who remained in the English Mission-house,
prevented matters from taking a worse turn. The American flag, which
was flying over the American and English houses, had some influence
in restraining the brutal savagery of the mob.
In the villages, however, the reign of terror had begun. The Kurds
had been informed of the Russian retirement, and were soon at work
plundering and massacring the Christians in the Baranduz district
(S. Urmi). Dizateka, Sâtloui, Aliabad, Shimshadjean, Babaroud,
Darbaroud, Sardaroud, Teka, and Ardishai were already in their
hands. Looting, plundering, massacre and rape were the order of the
day. In one village, half Moslem and half Christian, the Syrians
took shelter in the houses of their Moslem neighbours, and hid
themselves under the heaps of snow in the yards. In Ardishai, Kasha
Ablakhat, the Syrian priest, was escaping on horseback with his
daughter; he was killed and the girl carried off to Kurdistan, where
she was married by force to a Kurd. Four months later came the sad
news that she had died. During her illness she had as companion
another Syrian girl, also a captive. This other girl relates that
the Moslem women came and turned the sick woman’s bed towards the
south, the direction to which all Moslems look on their deathbed.
The invalid begged her companion to turn her face to the east, that
she might die a Christian.
In another village all the male population but three were killed, or
died of typhoid fever.
One young man had just arrived from the United States after an
absence of nine years; he had come home to be married. The next
morning, he, his mother, sister, and an uncle were all killed. Their
property was carried off and 500 tomans in cash. Most of the people
were killed in their flight; their bodies were not buried, for no
one dared to go and perform this office. Many of the bodies were
eaten by dogs.
There is one large village—Geogtapa—some five miles from the city of
Urmi. To this place many people from the south of Urmi plain fled
for safety, as they thought the inhabitants were well able to defend
themselves. But on Monday night, the 4th January, a messenger from
the Kurds came, saying that if the people surrendered and paid a
large sum of money, their village would be spared. The villagers
sent to Urmi to consult the village master, but long before the
messengers returned the Kurds had commenced their attack on the
place. The Christians put up a magnificent fight, but could not hold
out long before overwhelming numbers. The Kurds were also assisted
by the Persian Moslems, who were eager to pay off old scores against
their Christian neighbours. As the day wore on the situation grew
desperate. The cries of women and children, who had gathered in the
churches, were heart-rending. The smoke of the burning buildings
from four sides overcame the defenders. Finally all took refuge in
the two churches on the brow of the hill, which dominates the
village. Late in the afternoon, by God’s providence, a rescue was
made. Dr. Packard, the American missionary, with three Syrian
attendants, came with the American flag and made terms of
capitulation. The men, women, and children were to be allowed to go
out alive, and the village and all the firearms were surrendered.
Late that night, Dr. Packard, with some two thousand people, reached
Urmi, where with difficulty shelter was found for them in quarters
already crowded, in which they passed four months of untold horrors
and suffering.
In Geogtapa, one elderly woman was left behind because she could not
move on account of infirmity; her husband and daughter decided to
stay with her. The Kurds killed the two old people, and on the
daughter refusing to become Moslem, she also was killed.
Another pathetic case was that of an old priest and his wife, who
thought if they gave up everything to the Kurds their lives would be
spared. These people were visited by five different parties of Kurds
in succession. They helped themselves to the property of the house,
and took all the money they could find. Then came another party and
asked for money; they were told there was nothing left. Then the old
man, with the Bible in his hands, was murdered in the presence of
his wife. They decided to kill the woman also, but in some
mysterious way she avoided them and hid herself. After six days of
hiding she crawled out and got to a neighbouring village, where she
found shelter with some Moslems, who sent her to the city.
_Nazlu District._
The Baranduz river villages and Geogtapa are south of the city of
Urmi, and so were the first to fall a prey to the Kurds as they
advanced from the south. The villages of the Nazlu district, such as
Âda, Superghan, Mushawa, Sherabad, and Karadjalu, some of the
wealthiest, not being in the line of advance, should have escaped
the horrors of the other villages; but their turn came later, and
their story of their woes is equally heartrending.
Âda, one of the largest villages, had been a place of refuge for
many Syrians and Armenians late in the year 1914. Then when the
Russian army passed that way many of the people followed them, to
the number of sixty. The rest, however, all remained. Sunday, the
3rd January, passed off quietly, but the next day their troubles
commenced. The Persian Moslems began to plunder the Syrian
Christians. They broke open the houses, carried off the doors and
windows, and emptied the buildings. No one was killed, however,
although some shots were fired to intimidate the people. The Syrians
exercised great restraint, as they feared a general massacre if they
opposed the Moslems who came against them. The elders of the
village, while this was going on, sent to the city to ask for
protection. The messengers returned with a Turkish and Persian flag
and a few soldiers, thinking this would be security for them; but
they were deceived, for almost at once the Kurds attacked the
village from all points. They stripped every man they found, took
his money, and then killed him. As the others fled to the vineyards,
they were followed by the Moslems, who killed them there. It is said
that one Persian Moslem had killed twenty-five persons, and said: “I
am not satisfied yet.” Some eighty bodies lay about unburied; many
who had been wounded were left to die of their wounds, as there was
no one to tend them after they fell. The women and children, who had
climbed to the roofs to avoid the fury of the Kurds, were afterwards
brutally treated by their attackers, who behaved with the greatest
barbarity. The churches were polluted, and the holy books destroyed.
Many women were carried off and forced to become Moslems, and
afterwards sold or married to their enemies.
A pathetic case is reported from Karadjalu. A woman, fleeing with
her two children—her husband was abroad—met a Moslem mullah in her
flight. He took the children, stripped them of their clothing, and
threw them all into a stream, which was on the point of freezing. He
then offered to marry the woman. On her refusal he left the woman on
the road to her fate. She returned to the stream, and, taking her
children from the water, carried them to a vineyard near by, where
she placed them in a hollow place with some straw over them to try
and warm them; both children died in the morning. Later the
sorrowing woman found her way to Urmi, and five months afterwards
the Russians caught this inhuman brute and made him suffer for his
crime.
_The flight to Urmi._
The city of Urmi became a veritable city of refuge for the Syrians
and Armenians from the villages of the whole plain. By far the
larger number found shelter in the American Mission premises, and
some more in the compound of the English Mission, where Mr. Nisan
was living. We have read of the flight from Antwerp in the _Times_,
but it is a fairy tale compared with what happened in Urmi. Women
arrived at the city in a bleeding condition. Some had been stripped
of part of their clothes on the way, and arrived in one tunic
shivering in the bitter cold of January; some told us how they had
been stopped by four different bands of robbers; many were carried
off, made captives, and forced to become Moslems.
The French Mission also afforded another place of refuge, where the
French Lazarists, with Monseigneur Sontag and the Sisters of
Charity, live. The crowded state of all the houses in the city
quickly bred disease, which, combined with semi-starvation, made
life unbearable. The Americans threw open their College and Hospital
outside the city, and these were soon overcrowded. The Archbishop of
Canterbury’s Mission premises and the American yard close by formed
one great quadrangle, and over this block the American flag was
flying. In normal times these buildings could accommodate five
hundred people; now there were some ten thousand crowded into this
same area. After the first rush was over, the missionaries went to
the villages, to search for this or that person who was missing. In
this way many young women were restored to their families and
delivered from Moslem captivity. But many of the less fortunate had
to remain in the Moslem houses to which they had been carried. Many
were ill and could not move; others were _enceintes_, and were
ashamed to return to their homes. A young Moslem was carrying his
Syrian “wife” to another village when he met Dr. Packard on the
road. The girl threw herself at his feet and asked to be freed from
her captor. She was taken to Urmi, only to die after a few weeks of
typhoid fever.
The problem of feeding so large a number of people was a great one,
and only half a pound of bread a day could be provided. But the
worst suffering was caused by the overcrowding. Every available
space was filled—rooms, churches, corridors, cellars, and stables,
all alike were crowded with human beings.
Under these conditions, combined with the bad water supply and the
lack of sanitary arrangements in an oriental city, it is not
surprising that typhoid fever soon broke out and carried off
thousands of people. More than four thousand lost their lives from
this disease, while a thousand were killed by the Kurds in the
villages. An accurate statement, prepared by the European
missionaries, shows that 20 per cent. of the Urmi Christians
perished in four months.
At the beginning of this reign of terror which we have described,
the Kurds of Mamash, Mangur, Zarza, in the south, poured into the
city. The Herki and the Begzadi from the west poured in at the same
time. The son of one prominent sheikh from Shamsdinan came from
Nochea and established himself in Dilgusha, just outside the city
gates. On the arrival of the Turkish army, a few days later, order
was for a time restored, and the Kurds and Moslems restrained from
the bigger acts of violence. But as soon as the Turkish officers got
hold of the reins of government the lives of the Christians became
unbearable. For a time a Djihad—a Holy War—was spoken of on all
sides, and the Christians gave up all hopes of being allowed to
live. The Turks made it quite clear that they had come to serve
Turkey, and did not conceal their desire to get rid of all
Christians. They also set to work to fill their own pockets; 6,600
tomans were taken from the shop and store owners and other
well-to-do people. They prepared a list of “suspected persons,” who
were to be put to death if not ransomed by the payment of a sum of
money. In many cases the money was not forthcoming, and the
prisoners were put to death.
It was in this way that Mar Dinkha, Bishop of Tergawar, met his
death. Mar Elia, the Russian Bishop, was ransomed after a payment of
5,500 tomans had been made to the Turks.
_The Tragedy of Gulpashan._
The case of the treatment of the village of Gulpashan is without
parallel in the history of the Urmi massacres. It is the most
wealthy and prosperous of all the villages of the plain, and its
inhabitants are quiet and law-abiding people. When the sister
village of Geogtapa was plundered and burnt, by an ominous fate
Gulpashan was spared. Karani Agha, a Kurdish Chief, well spoken of
as a man of high principle, had announced that the village was his
property and that it was to be spared. For two months the people
were left in peace. It was said to be due to a friendship which
existed between the Christian village masters, one of whom was
related to the German Consular Agent at Urmi, and the Moslems. A
servant of the German Agent was there, and Turkish soldiers were
placed to guard the village. On the 24th February, a band of Persian
fedais, who had been unsuccessful in an attempt on Salmas, returned
to Urmi and attacked the village. They feigned friendliness at
first, until they had got the men of the place in their power. Then
they tied them together with ropes and drove them to the cemetery,
where they butchered them in a barbarous and cruel way. Then the
men, still wild with blood, turned on the women, and, after treating
them in an unseemly manner, put some of them to death. The American
missionaries went afterwards and buried the dead, which they did in
many other places also. This was the last of the massacres in the
Urmi plain. The awful deeds that were perpetrated here were
telegraphed to America, whereupon such strong representations were
made by the United States Government that an order was given for
their cessation.
_The Massacre in Salmas._
In the plain of Salmas, to the west of Lake Urmi, there are many
large and beautiful villages inhabited by Syrians and Armenians. For
the most part these people had fled to Russia before the flight from
Urmi took place; but their homes and fields shared the same fate as
those in Urmi. The Turks found on their arrival there that a good
number of Christians had hidden themselves in the houses of friendly
Moslems. The Moslem Hadjis were ordered to prepare a letter, which
every Christian must sign, stating that they had received kind
consideration at the hands of their protectors. This was only a
trick on the part of the Turks, for in this way they got to know the
names and dwelling-places of about 725 Armenians and Syrians in
Salmas. A few days later all these men, roped together in gangs,
were marched to the fields at night between Haftevan and Khusrawa,
and some were shot, while others were hacked to pieces, in one way
and another, in the most horrible fashion. This happened in March,
only three days before the return of the Russian troops. This timely
arrival of help prevented the women of the place from sharing a like
fate.
_The Attack on the Syrians in the Turkish Mountains._
The rest of the awful story comes from the Turkish side, where the
Patriarch and the larger number of the Syrians live in the mountains
of Kurdistan. It was many months before news reached their brethren
in Urmi as to what had been happening some hundred miles away. The
Patriarch, Mar Shimun, was driven from his home in Quodshanis. He
fled to Tiari with all the members of his household. The Patriarch’s
house was burnt, together with many other houses, including the
house of the English Mission. Mar Shimun, writing to England a few
days ago, tells us that for four months he has been a wanderer with
his people, carrying on a war with the Turks and Kurds. They only
gave up fighting when Turkish artillery was brought against them,
which made it impossible for them to offer an effective resistance.
Tiari and Tkhuma, both of which districts embrace many Christian
villages, have been entirely destroyed. In August last 35,000
mountaineers fled to Salmas, Persia, but the larger part of the
Syrians are still in the mountains wandering about from place to
place, without food, and with no hope of anyone coming to their
relief. The most pathetic part of the story is this. Surma, the
Patriarch’s sister, with Esther, her sister-in-law, and three small
children, went down to Tchumbar in Tiari in June last for safety.
With the approach of the Turkish army they soon had to flee to
Dadoush, and from there to the great Church of Mar Audishu, in the
Tâl country. They always had to travel on foot with just the clothes
they could carry. “Often-times,” Surma writes, “we were hungry, and
the little children, who were with us, would fall asleep on the
road, as we always had to travel at night.” Surma spent three months
in Mar Audishu, expecting to leave at any moment, when the enemy
drew near. During that time there was food but almost no water, and
none at all could be spared for washing or bathing. Occasionally
they walked to a stream to bathe and wash their clothes.
The last day of their stay there was the saddest of all. On that day
their brother Ishaya died of fever. Mar Shimun, hearing of his
illness, had come over the day before. The enemy was then very near,
and they could hear the sound of the guns in Tkhuma. Just when the
funeral of their brother was to take place, Surma, Romi, and Esther
with her children were compelled to leave the place, lest they
should be caught by the enemy. Mar Shimun, two priests, and a few
laymen remained behind at this time of danger to bury their brother.
The burial service was quickly said and the body hastily interred,
and Mar Shimun hastened after the fugitive women and children. They
were only just in time, for, a few hours after their departure, the
Turks arrived and made straight for the church, having heard that
the Patriarch’s household was there.
When writing to us on the 6th October, Mar Shimun says that he is in
a village in Salmas, Persia, with his sisters and one or two members
of his family. At the present moment there are with him 35,000
Syrians camped out in the plain of Salmas (4,000 feet above
sea-level), sleeping in the fields with no clothes to cover them at
night, clad in the rags which they have worn for many months,
without food or shelter. The British Consul has telegraphed to
England to say that unless these people are helped by charitable
folk at home, two-thirds of them will die. No Christian nation has
ever suffered for their religion as these people, and none has so
great a claim on us as this unhappy Syrian remnant.
_A List of the Ruined Nestorian Villages._
A. BARANDUZ DISTRICT:—
1. Darbaroud.
2. Sardaroud (Armenian).
3. Babaroud.
4. Ardishai.
5. Teka.
6. Alkian.
7. Kurtapa.
8. Shenabad.
9. Kosabad.
10. Mouradaloui.
11. Dizateka.
12. Shimshadjean.
13. Satloui.
14. Aliabad.
15. The Tazakands.
16. Diza of Baranduz.
17. Saralan.
18. Gulpashan.
B. URMI RIVER DISTRICT:—
1. Geogtapa[188] (partly destroyed).
2. Wazerabad.
3. Tcharbash.
4. Sangar—Burzukhan.
5. Sangar—Beglerbegi.
6. Alwaj.
7. Seir.
8. Haidarloui.
9. Mar Sargis.
10. Hasar and Kom.
11. Anhar.
12. Diza Agha Ali.[189]
13. Balaw.
14. Kizilashuk (chiefly Armenian).
15. Gerdabad (chiefly Armenian).
16. Mata d’Zaya and Karagöz.
C. NAZLU RIVER DISTRICT:—
1. Ismael Agha’s Kala.
2. Armudagatch.
3. Kosi.[190]
4. Nazi.
5. Karalari.
6. Shumbulabad.
7. Superghan.
8. Ada.
9. Mushabad.
10. Yengidja.
11. Khaneshan.
12. Sherabad.
13. Gavilan.
14. Djemalabad.
D. TERGAWAR DISTRICT:—
All villages, including—
1. Queana.
2. Mawana.
3. Palulan.
E. HAKKIARI DISTRICT (Ottoman territory):—
All Tiari.
All Tkhoma, except Mazra’a.
All Barwar.
-----
Footnote 188:
400 families, the largest village in the district.
Footnote 189:
Nearest village to the city of Urmi.
Footnote 190:
Only one barn said to be left standing.
148. FIRST EXODUS FROM URMIA: NARRATIVE OF MR. J.D. BARNARD, OF THE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY’S ASSYRIAN MISSION; PUBLISHED IN THE
“ASSYRIAN MISSION QUARTERLY PAPER,” APRIL, 1915.
I have been asked to give a brief account of our journey home from
Urmi. I will merely confine myself to the happenings on the road.
On the 3rd January we got upon our way, but we were in some doubt as
to what course to pursue. The army, we were told, was taking the
route northwards to Khoi, on the direct road to Russia. However, we
did not like to quit the country altogether unless we were
absolutely obliged, so we finally decided to make our way round the
north of the Lake to Tabriz and there confer with our consul, if he
were still present—reports varied on this point. An additional
reason for the selection of this route was that M. Cordonnier was
going in that direction, and his Customs officials who accompanied
him were of incalculable assistance to us, as they knew the road,
transacted all necessary business, and acted as an armed escort in
case of an encounter with ugly customers by the way.
We had not gone far before we came up with a sight which we shall
never forget to our dying day. As far as the eye could reach in
either direction was a great river of fugitives, comprising very
nearly the whole Christian population of the villages of the Urmi
plain. They had had to flee at a moment’s notice with such things as
they could carry; a great number were absolutely without food; the
nights were bitterly cold; and many old people and little children
died by the way. Especially painful was the passage over the high
pass leading into the plain of Salmas. It was covered with deep
snow, which on the northern slope became ice, and the sight of these
poor creatures slipping and stumbling down the steep descent, with
the precious beasts of burden falling from fatigue and totally
unable to rise again, was one that Belgium could hardly equal. Worst
of all was the feeling that we were powerless to render any
assistance. Many a mother cried for a lift for her little ones on
our horses, but what could one do in the midst of thousands?
On the second day we parted from this sad procession, they going on
towards Khoi, and we, as I said above, taking the road eastward
round the Lake. We met with all manner of reports by the way; it was
quite impossible to learn the truth of what had happened at Tabriz,
and we never knew what the next bend in the road was to bring forth.
At one halting-place we met with a striking instance of the ups and
downs of an oriental career, being overtaken by an ex-official of
some importance in the service of the Governor of Urmi, now humbly
and shamelessly suing our companion, against whom he had so often
worked, for a place in the douanes. As we rounded the end of the
Lake we saw a great column of smoke rising up from Sherafkhané, the
landing-stage for the boats on the eastern shore, and were informed
that the supply of petroleum was being burnt to prevent its falling
into the hands of the enemy, the boats having been previously sunk.
On reaching Sofian we found a considerable number of Russian troops
in the village, and took courage. We tried to telephone through to
Tabriz to enquire who was there, but without success, so left our
tired animals to come on in the morning—we had been travelling most
of the previous night—while we went on to Tabriz in a carriage which
most opportunely happened to be obtainable. We arrived that evening,
the fifth day of our wanderings, to find that all the English
residents had left some days ago; so we proceeded to the American
consulate to ask advice. This was concise and definite: “The Russian
troops may leave any minute—the Turks are only nine miles away—you
had better get on as fast as you can.” Again fortune favoured us,
and we managed to procure a carriage which had just returned from
conveying our consul, Mr. Shipley, to the frontier, only waiting a
few hours to refresh ourselves, while things were made ready....
149. ERZEROUM: LETTER, DATED 21st MARCH, 1916, FROM THE REV. ROBERT
S. STAPLETON TO THE HON. F. WILLOUGHBY SMITH, U.S. CONSUL AT
TIFLIS; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
I have just posted a letter to you in reply to yours of the 29th
February. This letter comes in the form of a request from the
Armenians here. Let me give a few details of happenings here this
last year and a half as a preface to the request.
When the mobilisation began here in August, 1914, the Armenians
responded to it in goodly numbers and were placed in the ranks as
well as in the hospitals as nurses and attendants. During the first
half of last year they were taken from the ranks and hospitals and
placed in the road-gangs. The doctors and druggists were still
retained as such, but pushed to the rear. The artisans of this land
were mostly from this race, and many were retained here for such
work, as there was need, even after the others were deported last
June.
As the Turkish Army is retreating these bands are being massacred in
cold blood. Here is an item that was brought to me by the brother of
one of our school-girls. He had been in the road-gang and then was
put in with a crowd of workers who were preparing a club-house here.
In January they were sent to Erzindjan and there lodged in prison.
When the Commander and Governor from here arrived there the first
order was to take these fifty Armenians out and shoot them. Four
escaped by falling and lying under the dead till evening, and then
by hard travelling came here. It is said that other gangs are being
treated in a similar way.
Now the request is to ask you if you have means to bring these facts
to the attention of Mr. Morgenthau, that he might intercede in the
name of humanity against this wholesale slaughter of these men who
have been working for the Turkish Army. Not a few women and children
are being rescued as this side advances, having been kept by the
Kurds. We were able to keep about twenty girls, with two women and
one of our men teachers, who is still with us as my interpreter.
The Armenians of Russia are spending a great deal of money and time
in this rescue work, for which many have come here. They feel very
deeply when they hear these reports from the other side of the
fighting line. I sincerely hope that some pressure can be brought to
bear to stop this cruelty.
A SUMMARY OF ARMENIAN HISTORY
UP TO AND INCLUDING
THE YEAR 1915.
I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ARMENIA.
The War has brought us into a new relation with Armenia and the
Armenian people. We knew them before as the name of an ancient
civilisation, a stubborn rearguard of Christendom in the East, a
scene of mission work and massacres and international rivalry; but
only a few of us—missionaries, geographers, travellers and an
occasional newspaper correspondent—were personally acquainted with
the country and its inhabitants. To most people they remained a
name, and when we read of their sufferings or traditions or
achievements they made little more impression than the doings of the
Hittites and Assyrians, who moved across the same Near Eastern
amphitheatre several millenniums ago. We had no living contact, no
natural relation, with Armenia in our personal or even in our
political life.
Such a relation has suddenly been created between us by the War, and
it is one of the strangest ironies of war that it fuses together and
illuminates the very fabric it destroys. The civilisation in which
we lived was like a labyrinth, so huge and intricate that none of
the dwellers in it could altogether grasp its structure, while most
of them were barely conscious that it had any structural design at
all. But now that the War has caught it and it is all aflame, the
unity and symmetry of the building are revealed to the common eye.
As the glare lights it up from end to end, it stands out in its
glory, in matchless outline and perspective; for the first time (and
possibly for the last) we see its parts simultaneously and in proper
relation, and realise for one moment the marvel and mystery of this
civilisation that is perishing—the subtle, immemorial, unrelaxing
effort that raised it up and maintained it, and the impossibility of
improvising any equivalent structure in its place. Then the fire
masters its prey; the various parts of the labyrinth fall in one by
one, the light goes out of them, and nothing is left but smoke and
ashes. This is the catastrophe that we are witnessing now, and we do
not yet know whether it will be possible to repair it. But if the
future is not so dark as it appears, and what has perished can in
some measure be restored, our best guide and inspiration in the task
will be that momentary, tragic, unique vision snatched out of the
catastrophe itself.
The Armenians are not protagonists in the War; they bear none of the
guilt for its outbreak and can have little share in the
responsibility of building up a better future. But they have been
seared more cruelly than any of us by the flames, and, under this
fiery ordeal, their individual character as a nation and their part
in the community of the civilised world have been thrown into their
true relief.
For the first time, England and the Armenians are genuinely in touch
with one another. In this desperate struggle between freedom and
reaction we are fighting on the same side, striving for the same
end. Our lot in the struggle has not, indeed, been the same, for
while England is able to act as well as to suffer, the Armenians
have suffered with hardly the power to strike a blow. But this
difference of external fortune only strengthens the inward moral
bond; for we, who are strong, are fighting not merely for this or
that political advantage, this or that territorial change, but for a
principle. The Powers of the Entente have undertaken the
championship of small nationalities that cannot champion themselves.
We have solemnly acknowledged our obligation to fulfil our vow in
the case of Belgium and Serbia, and now that the Armenians have been
overtaken by a still worse fate than the Serbians and the Belgians,
their cause, too, has been taken up into the general cause of the
Allies. We cannot limit our field in doing battle for our ideal.
It is easier, of course, for the people of France, Great Britain and
America to sympathise with Belgium than with a more unfamiliar
nation in a distant zone of the War. It needs little imagination to
realise acutely that the Belgians are “people like ourselves,”
suffering all that we should suffer if the same atrocities were
committed upon us; and this realisation was made doubly easy by the
speedy publication of minute, abundant, first-hand testimony. The
Armenians have no such immediate access to our sympathies, and the
initial unfamiliarity can only be overcome by a personal effort on
the part of those who give ear to their case; but the evidence on
which that case rests has been steadily accumulating, until now it
is scarcely less complete or less authoritative than the evidence
relating to Belgium. The object of the present volume has been to
present the documents to English and American readers in as accurate
and orderly a form as possible.
Armenia has not been without witness in her agony. Intense suffering
means intense emotional experience, and this emotion has found
relief in written records of the intolerable events which obsessed
the witnesses’ memories. Some of the writers are Armenians, a larger
number are Americans and Europeans who were on the spot, and who
were as poignantly affected as the victims themselves. There are a
hundred and forty-nine of these documents, and many of them are of
considerable length; but in their total effect they are something
more than an exhaustive catalogue of the horrors they set out to
describe. The flames of war illuminate the structure of the building
as well as the destruction of it, and the testimony extorted under
this fiery ordeal gives an extraordinarily vivid impression of
Armenian life—the life of plain and mountain, town and village,
intelligenzia and bourgeoisie and peasantry—at the moment when it
was overwhelmed by the European catastrophe.
In Armenia, though not in Europe, the flames have almost burnt
themselves out, and, for the moment, we can see nothing beyond smoke
and ashes. Life will assuredly spring up again when the ashes are
cleared away, for attempts to exterminate nations by atrocity,
though certain of producing almost infinite human suffering, have
seldom succeeded in their ulterior aim. But in whatever shape the
new Armenia arises, it will be something utterly different from the
old. The Armenians have been a very typical element in that group of
humanity which Europeans call the “Near East,” but which might
equally well be called the “Near West” from the Indian or the
Chinese point of view[191]. There has been something pathological
about the history of this Near Eastern World. It has had an undue
share of political misfortunes, and had lain for centuries in a kind
of spiritual paralysis between East and West—belonging to neither,
partaking paradoxically of both, and wholly unable to rally itself
decidedly to one or the other—when it was involved with Europe in
the European War. The shock of that crowning catastrophe seems to
have brought the spiritual neutrality of the Near East to a violent
end, and however dubious the future of Europe may be, it is almost
certain that it will be shared henceforth by all that lies between
the walls of Vienna and the walls of Aleppo and Tabriz[192]. This
final gravitation towards Europe may be a benefit to the Near East
or another chapter in its misfortunes—that depends on the condition
in which Europe emerges from the War; but, in either case, it will
be a new departure in its history. It has been drawn at last into a
stronger orbit, and will travel on its own paralytic, paradoxical
course no more. This gives a historical interest to any record of
Near Eastern life in the last moments of the Ancient Régime, and
these Armenian documents supply a record of a very intimate and
characteristic kind. The Near East has never been more true to
itself than in its lurid dissolution; past and present are fused
together in the flare.
II. AN OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.
The documents in this volume tell their own story, and a reader
might be ignorant of the places with which they deal and the points
of history to which they refer, and yet learn from them more about
human life in the Near East than from any study of text-books and
atlases. At the same time a general acquaintance with the
geographical setting and historical antecedents is clearly an
assistance in understanding the full significance of the events
recorded here, and as this information is not widely spread or very
easily accessible, it has seemed well to publish an outline of it,
for the reader’s convenience, in the same volume as the documents
themselves. As many as possible of the places referred to are marked
on the map at the end of the book, while here, in this historical
summary, a brief account may be given of who the Armenians are and
where they live.
Like the English, the French and most other nations, the Armenians
have developed a specific type of countenance, and yet it would not
always be easy to tell them by sight, for they are as hybrid in
their physical stock as every other European or Near Eastern people.
There are marked differences of pigmentation, feature and build
between the Armenians of the East, West and South, and between the
mountaineers, plain-dwellers and people of the towns, and it would
be rash to speculate when these various strains came in, or to lay
it down that they were not all present already at the date at which
we first begin to know something about the inhabitants of the
country[193].
We hear of them first in the annals of Assyria, where the Armenian
plateau appears as the land of Nairi—a no-man’s-land, raided
constantly but ineffectually by Assyrian armies from the lowlands of
Mosul. But in the ninth century B.C. the petty cantons of Nairi
coalesced into the Kingdom of Urartu[194], which fought Assyria on
equal terms for more than two hundred years and has left a native
record of its own. The Kings of Urartu made their dwelling on the
citadel of Van[195]. The face of the rock is covered with their
inscriptions, which are also found as far afield as the
neighbourhood of Malatia, Erzeroum and Alexandropol. They borrowed
from Assyria the cuneiform script, and the earliest inscriptions at
Van are written in the Assyrian language; but they quickly adapted
the foreign script to their native tongue, which has been deciphered
by English and German scholars, and is considered by them to be
neither Semitic nor Indo-European, nor yet to have any discernible
affinity with the still obscurer language of the Hittites further
west. We can only assume that the people who spoke it were
indigenous in the land. Probably they were of one blood with their
neighbours in the direction of the Caucasus and the Black Sea,
Saspeires[196] and Chalybes and others; and if, as ethnology seems
to show, an indigenous stock is practically ineradicable, these
primitive peoples of the plateau are probably the chief ancestors,
in the physical sense, of the present Armenian race[197].
The modern Armenian language, on the other hand, is not descended
from the language of Urartu, but is an Indo-European tongue. There
is a large non-Indo-European element in it—larger than in most known
branches of the Indo-European family—and this has modified its
syntax as well as its vocabulary. It has also borrowed freely and
intimately from the Persian language in all its phases—a natural
consequence of the political supremacy which Iran asserted over
Armenia again and again, from the sixth century B.C. to the
nineteenth century A.D. But when all these accretions have been
analysed and discarded, the philologists pronounce the basis of
modern Armenian to be a genuine Indo-European idiom—either a dialect
of the Iranian branch or an independent variant, holding an
intermediate position between Iranian and Slavonic.
This language is a much more important factor in the national
consciousness of the modern Armenians than their ultimate physical
ancestry, but its origin is also more difficult to trace. Its
Indo-European character proves that, at some date or other, it must
have been introduced into the country from without[198], and the
fact that a non-Indo-European language held the field under the
Kings of Urartu suggests that it only established itself after the
Kingdom of Urartu fell. But the earliest literary monuments of the
modern tongue only date from the fifth century A.D., a thousand
years later than the last inscription in the Urartian language, so
that, as far as the linguistic evidence is concerned, the change may
have occurred at any time within this period. One language, however,
does not usually supplant another without considerable displacements
of population, and the only historical event of this kind sufficient
in scale to produce such a result seems to be the migration of the
Cimmerians and Scythians in the seventh century B.C. These were
nomadic tribes from the Russian steppes, who made their way round
the eastern end of the Caucasus, burst through into the Moghan
plains and the basin of Lake Urmia, and terrorised Western Asia for
several generations, till they were broken by the power of the Medes
and absorbed in the native population. It was they who made an end
of the Kingdom of Urartu, and the language they brought with them
was probably an Indo-European dialect answering to the basic element
in modern Armenian. Probability thus points to these seventh century
invaders as being the source of the present language, and perhaps
also of the equally mysterious names of “Hai(k)” and “Haiasdan,” by
which the speakers of this language seem always to have called
themselves and their country. But this is a conjecture, and nothing
more[199], and we are left with the bare fact that Armenian[200] was
the established language of the land by the fifth century A.D.
The Armenian language might easily have perished and left less
record of its existence than the Urartian. It is a vigorous language
enough, yet it would never have survived in virtue of its mere
vitality. The native Anatolian dialects of Lydia and Cilicia, and
the speech of the Cappadocians[201], the Armenians’ immediate
neighbours on the west, were extinguished one by one by the
irresistible advance of Greek, and Armenian would assuredly have
shared their fate if it had not become the canonical language of a
national church before Greek had time to penetrate so far eastward.
Armenia lay within the radius of Antioch and Edessa (Ourfa), two of
the earliest and strongest centres of Christian propaganda. King
Tiridates (Drdat) of Armenia was converted to Christianity some time
during the latter half of the third century A.D.[202] and was the
first ruler in the world to establish the Christian Faith as his
State religion. Christianity in Armenia adopted a national garb from
the first. In 410 A.D. the Bible was translated into the Armenian
language, in a new native script specially invented for the purpose,
and this achievement was followed by a great outburst of national
literature during the course of the fifth century. These fifth
century works are, as has been said, the earliest monuments of the
Armenian language. Most of them, it is true, are simply rather
painstaking translations of Greek and Syriac theology, and the bulk
of the creative literature was theological too. But there was also a
notable school of historical writers (Moses of Khorene is its most
famous representative), and the really important result of the
stimulus that Christianity brought was the permanent preservation of
the language’s existence and its development into a medium for a
national literature of a varied kind.
Thus the conversion of Armenia to Christianity, which took place at
a more or less ascertainable date, was an even more important factor
in the evolution of Armenian nationality than the original
introduction of the national language, and the Armenians have done
well to make St. Gregory the Illuminator, the Cappadocian Missionary
to whom the conversion was due, their supreme national hero[203].
Henceforth, church and language mutually sustained each other, to
the great enhancement of the vital power of both. They were, in
fact, merely complementary aspects of the same national
consciousness, and the national character of the church was further
emphasised when it diverged in doctrine from the main body of
Christendom—not by the formulation of any new or heretical dogma,
but by omission to ratify the modifications of the primitive creed
which were introduced by the Œcumenical Councils of the fifth
century A.D.[204]
This nationalisation of the church was the decisive process by which
the Armenians became a nation, and it was also this that made them
an integral part of the Near Eastern world. Christianity linked the
country with the West as intimately as the cuneiform script of
Urartu had linked it with the civilisation of Mesopotamia; and the
Near Eastern phenomenon consists essentially in the paradox that a
series of populations on the borderland of Europe and Asia developed
a national life that was thoroughly European in its religion and
culture, without ever succeeding in extricating themselves
politically from that continual round of despotism and anarchy which
seems to be the political dispensation of genuinely Oriental
countries.
No communities in the world have had a more troubled political
history than these Near Eastern nationalities, and none have known
how to preserve their church and their language so doggedly through
the most appalling vicissitudes of conquest and oppression. In this
regard the history of Armenia is profoundly characteristic of the
Near East as a whole.
The strong, compact Kingdom of Urartu lies at the dawn of Armenian
history like a golden age. It had only existed two centuries when it
was shattered by the invaders from the Russian steppes, and the
anarchy into which they plunged the country had to be cured by the
imposition of a foreign rule. In 585 B.C. the nomads were cowed and
the plateau annexed by Cyaxares the Mede, and, after the Persians
had taken over the Medes’ inheritance, the great organiser Darius
divided this portion of it into two governments or satrapies. One of
these seems to have included the basins of Urmia and Van, and part
of the valley of the Aras[205]; the other corresponded approximately
to the modern Vilayets of Bitlis, Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Diyarbekir,
and covered the upper valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates[206]. They
were called respectively the satrapies of Eastern and Western
Armenia, and this is the origin of the name by which the Haik and
their Haiasdan are now almost universally known to their neighbours.
The word “Armenia” (Armina)[207] first appears in Darius’
inscriptions; the Greeks adopted it from the Persian official usage,
and from the Greeks it has spread to the rest of the world,
including the Osmanli Turks[208].
Under the Persian Dynasty of the Achæmenids and their Macedonian
successors, the two Armenian satrapies remained mere administrative
divisions. Subject to the payment of tribute, the satraps were
practically independent and probably hereditary, but the rulers’
autonomy did not enable their subjects to develop any distinctive
national life. In religion and culture the country took on a strong
Persian veneer; and the situation was not essentially changed when,
early in the second century B.C., the two reigning satraps revolted
simultaneously from their overlord, the Seleucid King of Western
Asia[209], and each founded a royal dynasty of their own. The
decisive change was accomplished by Tigranes (Dikran) the Great (94
to 56 B.C.), a scion of the Eastern Dynasty, who welded the two
principalities into one kingdom, and so created the first strong
native sovereignty that the country had known since the fall of
Urartu five centuries before.
If Gregory the Illuminator is the ecclesiastical hero of Armenia,
King Tigranes is his political forerunner and counterpart. He was
connected by marriage with Mithradates, the still more famous King
of Pontic Cappadocia, who may be taken as the first exponent of the
Near Eastern idea. Mithradates attempted to build an empire that
should be at once cosmopolitan and national, Hellenic and Iranian,
of the West and of the East, and Tigranes was profoundly influenced
by his brilliant neighbour and ally. He set himself the parallel
ambition of reconstructing round his own person the kingdom of the
Seleucids, which had been shaken a century before by a rude
encounter with Rome, weakened still further by the defection of
Tigranes’ own predecessors, and was now in the actual throes of
dissolution. He laid himself out a new capital on the northern rim
of the Mesopotamian steppe, somewhere near the site of Ibrahim
Pasha’s Viran Shehr, and peopled it with masses of exiles deported
from the Greek cities he devastated in Syria and Cilicia. It was to
be the Hellenistic world-centre for an Oriental King of Kings; but
all his dreams, like Mithradates’, were shattered by the methodical
progress of the Roman power. A Roman army ignominiously turned
Tigranes out of Tigranokerta, and sent back his Greek exiles
rejoicing to their homes. The new Armenian kingdom failed to
establish its position as a great power, and had to accept the
position of a buffer state between Rome on the west and the Parthian
rulers of Iran. Nevertheless, Tigranes’ work is of supreme political
importance in Armenian history. He had consolidated the two
satrapies of Darius into a united kingdom, powerful enough to
preserve its unity and independence for nearly five hundred years.
It was within this chrysalis that the interaction of religion and
language produced the new germ of modern Armenian nationality; and
when the chrysalis was rent at last, the nation emerged so strongly
grown that it could brave the buffets of the outer world.
Before Tigranes, Armenia had belonged wholly to the East. Tigranes
loosened these links and knit certain new links with the West. The
period that followed was marked by a perpetual struggle between the
Roman and Parthian Governments for political influence over the
kingdom, which was really a battle over Armenia’s soul. Was Armenia
to be wrested away altogether from Oriental influences and rallied
to the European world, or was it to sink back into being a spiritual
and political appanage of Iran? It seemed a clear issue, but it was
not destined to be decided in either sense. Armenia was to be caught
for two millenniums in the uncertain eddy of the Nearer East.
In this opposition of forces, the political balance inclined from
the first in favour of the Oriental Power. The Parthians succeeded
in replacing the descendants of Tigranes by a junior branch of their
own Arsacid Dynasty; and when, in 387 A.D., the rivals agreed to
settle the Armenian question by the drastic expedient of partition,
the Sassanid kings of Persia (who had superseded the Parthians in
the Empire of Iran) secured the lion’s share of the spoils, while
the Romans only received a strip of country on the western border
which gave them Erzeroum and Diyarbekir for their frontier
fortresses. In the cultural sphere, on the other hand, the West was
constantly increasing its ascendancy. King Tiridates was an Arsacid,
but he accepted Christianity as the religion of the State he ruled;
and when, less than a century after his death, his kingdom fell and
the greater part of the country and the people came directly under
Persian rule, the Persian propaganda failed to make any impression.
No amount of preaching or persecution could persuade the Armenians
to accept Zoroastrianism, which was the established religion of the
Sassanian State. They clung to their national church in despite of
their political annihilation, and showed thereby that their
spiritual allegiance was given irrevocably to the West.
The partition of 387 A.D. produced as long a political interregnum
in Armenian history as the fall of Urartu in the seventh century
B.C. In the second quarter of the seventh century A.D., the mastery
of Western Asia passed from the Persians to the Arabs, and the
Armenian provinces changed masters with the rest. Persian governors
appointed by the Sassanid King of Kings were superseded by Arab
governors appointed by the Omayyad and Abbasid Caliphs, and the
intolerance of Zoroastrianism was replaced by the far stronger and
hardly less intolerant force of Islam. Then, in the ninth century,
the political power of the Abbasid Caliphate at Baghdad began to
decline, the outlying provinces were able to detach themselves, and
three independent dynasties emerged on Armenian soil:—
(_a_) The _Bagratids_ founded a Christian principality in the
north. Their capital was at Ani, in the upper basin of the
Aras, and their rule in this district lasted nearly two
centuries, from 885 to 1079 A.D.
(_b_) The _Ardzrounids_ founded a similar Christian principality
in the basin of Van. They reigned here from 908 to 1021 A.D.
(_c_) The _Merwanids_, a Kurdish dynasty, founded a Moslem
principality in the upper basin of the Tigris. Their capital
was at Diyarbekir, but their power extended northward over the
mountains into the valley of the Mourad Su (Eastern
Euphrates), which they controlled as far upwards as Melazkerd.
They maintained themselves for a century, from 984 to 1085
A.D.
The imposing remains of churches and palaces at Ani and elsewhere
have cast an undue glamour over the Bagratid House, which has been
extended, again, to all the independent principalities of early
mediæval Armenia. In reality, this phase of Armenian history was
hardly more happy than that which preceded it, and only appeared a
Golden Age by comparison with the cataclysms that followed. From the
national point of view it was almost as barren as the century of
satrapial independence which preceded the reign of Tigranes, and in
the politics of this period parochialism was never transcended.
Bagratids and Ardzrounids were bitter rivals for the leadership of
the nation, and did not scruple to call in Moslem allies against one
another in their constant wars. The south-western part of the
country remained under the rule of an alien Moslem dynasty, without
any attempt being made to cast them out. Armenia had no second
Tigranes in the Middle Ages, and the local renewals of political
independence came and went without profit to the nation as a whole,
which still depended for its unity upon the ecclesiastical tradition
of the national Gregorian Church.
In the eleventh century A.D., a new power appeared in the East. The
Arab Empire of the Caliphs had long been receiving an influx of
Turks from Central Asia as slaves and professional soldiers, and the
Turkish bodyguard had assumed control of politics at Baghdad. But
this individual infiltration was now succeeded by the migration of
whole tribes, and the tribes were organised into a political power
by the clan of Seljuk. The new Turkish dynasty constituted itself
the temporal representative of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the
dominion of Mohammedan Asia was suddenly transferred from the
devitalised Arabs to a vigorous barbaric horde of nomadic Turks.
These Turkish reinforcements brutalised and at the same time
stimulated the Islamic world, and the result was a new impetus of
conquest towards the borderlands. The brunt of this movement fell
upon the unprepared and disunited Armenian principalities. In the
first quarter of the eleventh century the Seljuks began their
incursions on to the Armenian plateau. The Armenian princes turned
for protection to the East Roman Empire, accepted its suzerainty, or
even surrendered their territory directly into its hands. But the
Imperial Government brought little comfort to the Armenian people.
Centred at Constantinople and cut off from the Latin West, it had
lost its Roman universality and become transformed into a Greek
national state, while the established Orthodox Church had developed
the specifically Near Eastern character of a nationalist
ecclesiastical organisation. The Armenians found that incorporation
in the Empire exposed them to temporal and spiritual Hellenisation,
without protecting them against the common enemy on the east. The
Seljuk invasions increased in intensity, and culminated, in 1071
A.D., in the decisive battle of Melazkerd, in which the Imperial
Army was destroyed and the Emperor Romanos II. taken prisoner on the
field. Melazkerd placed the whole of Armenia at the Seljuk’s
mercy—and not only Armenia, but the Anatolian provinces of the
Empire that lay between Armenia and Europe. The Seljuks carried
Islam into the heart of the Near East.
The next four-and-a-half centuries were the most disastrous period
in the whole political history of Armenia. It is true that a vestige
of independence was preserved, for Roupen the Bagratid conducted a
portion of his people south-westward into the mountains of Cilicia,
where they were out of the main current of Turkish invasion, and
founded a new principality which survived nearly three hundred years
(1080-1375). There is a certain romance about this Kingdom of Lesser
Armenia. It threw in its lot with the Crusaders, and gave the
Armenian nation its first direct contact with modern Western Europe.
But the mass of the race remained in Armenia proper, and during
these centuries the Armenian tableland suffered almost ceaseless
devastation.
The Seljuk migration was only the first wave in a prolonged outbreak
of Central Asiatic disturbance, and the Seljuks were civilised in
comparison with the tribes that followed on their heels. Early in
the thirteenth century came Karluks and Kharizmians, fleeing across
Western Asia before the advance of the Mongols; and in 1235 came the
first great raid of the Mongols themselves—savages who destroyed
civilisation wherever they found it, and were impartial enemies of
Christendom and Islam. All these waves of invasion took the same
channel. They swept across the broad plateau of Persia, poured up
the valleys of the Aras and the Tigris, burst in their full force
upon the Armenian highlands and broke over them into Anatolia
beyond. Armenia bore the brunt of them all, and the country was
ravaged and the population reduced quite out of proportion to the
sufferings of the neighbouring regions. The division of the Mongol
conquests among the family of Djengis Khan established a Mongol
dynasty in Western Asia which seated itself in Azerbaijan, accepted
Islam and took over the tradition of the Seljuks, the Abbasids and
the Sassanids. It was the old Asiatic Empire under a new name, but
it had now incorporated Armenia and extended north-westwards to the
Kizil Irmak (Halys). For the first time since Tigranes, the whole of
Armenia was reabsorbed again in the East, and the situation grew
still worse when the Empire of these “Ilkhans” fell to pieces and
was succeeded in the fifteenth century by the petty lordship of Ak
Koyunli, Kara Koyunli and other nomadic Turkish clans.
The progressive anarchy of four centuries was finally stilled by the
rise of the Osmanli power. The seed of the Osmanlis was one of those
Turkish clans which fled across Western Asia before the Mongols.
They settled in the dominions of the Seljuk Sultans, who had
established themselves at Konia, in Central Anatolia, and who
allowed the refugees to carve out an obscure appanage on the marches
of the Greek Empire, in the Asiatic hinterland of Constantinople.
The son and successor of the founder was here converted from
Paganism to Islam[210], towards the end of the thirteenth century
A.D., and the name of Osman, which he adopted at his conversion, has
been borne ever since by the subjects of his House.
The Osmanli State is the greatest and most characteristic Near
Eastern Empire there has ever been. In its present decline it has
become nothing but a blight to all the countries and peoples that
remain under its sway; but at the outset it manifested a faculty for
strong government which satisfied the supreme need of the distracted
Near Eastern world. This was the secret of its amazing power of
assimilation, and this quality in turn increased its power of
organisation, for it enabled the Osmanlis to monopolise all the
vestiges of political genius that survived in the Near East. The
original Turkish germ was quickly absorbed in the mass of
Osmanlicised native Greeks[211]. The first expansion of the State
was westward, across the Dardanelles, and before the close of the
fourteenth century the whole of South-Eastern Europe had become
Osmanli territory, as far as the Danube and the Hungarian frontier.
The seal was set on these European conquests when Sultan Mohammed
II. entered Constantinople in 1453, and then the current of
expansion veered towards the east. Mohammed himself absorbed the
rival Turkish principalities in Anatolia, and annexed the Greek
“Empire” of Trebizond. In the second decade of the sixteenth
century, Sultan Selim I. followed this up with a sweeping series of
campaigns, which carried him with hardly a pause from the Taurus
barrier to the citadel of Cairo. Armenia was overrun in 1514; the
petty Turkish chieftains were overthrown, the new Persian Empire was
hurled back to the Caspian, and a frontier established between the
Osmanli Sultans and the Shahs of Iran, which has endured, with a few
fluctuations, until the present day.
In the sixteenth century the whole Near Eastern world, from the
gates of Vienna[212] to the gates of Aleppo and Tabriz, found itself
united under a single masterful Government, and once more Armenia
was linked securely with the West. From 1514 onwards the great
majority of the Armenian nation was subject to the Osmanli State. It
is true that the province of Erivan (on the middle course of the
Aras) was recovered by the Persians in the seventeenth century, and
held by them till its cession to Russia in 1834. But, with this
exception, the whole of Armenia remained under Osmanli rule until
the Russians took Kars, in the war of 1878. These intervening
centuries of union and pacification were, on the whole, beneficial
to Armenia; but with the year 1878 there began a new and sinister
epoch in the relations between the Osmanli State and the Armenian
nation.
-----
Footnote 191:
There seems to be no available name to convey the Janus-character
of this region. “Balkan” has all the connotation, but the word is
allocated already to a much too limited geographical area.
“Levantine” covers a wider geographical field, but suggests merely
the superficial characteristics which the Near Eastern peoples
share with many others in a certain transient stage of
development.
Footnote 192:
The limits of the Near East are not easy to define. On the
north-west, Vienna is the most conspicuous boundary-mark, but one
might almost equally well single out Trieste or Lvov or even Prag.
Towards the south-east, the boundaries are even more shadowy. It
is perhaps best to equate them with the frontiers of the Arabic
language, yet the genius of the Near East overrides linguistic
barriers, and encroaches on the Arabic-speaking world on the one
side as well as on the German-speaking world on the other. Syria
is essentially a Near Eastern country, and a physical geographer
would undoubtedly carry the Near Eastern frontiers up to the
desert belt of the Sahara, Nefud and Kevir.
Footnote 193:
There is one physical type, classified by ethnologists as
“Armenoid” or “Anatolian,” which seems to be both indigenous and
persistent in the Anatolian Peninsula and in the triangle included
between the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Caspian. Its
characteristics are very individual—a “sugarloaf” skull, broad
from side to side and sliced off at the back; prominent
cheek-bones; a fleshy, hooked nose; and a rather clumsy, thick-set
body. These features are distinguishable in the ancient Hittites
of Eastern Anatolia, as they are portrayed in the native and
Egyptian monuments of the 14th and 13th centuries B.C.; in the
modern Tchatchadzé nomads of Lycia (the extreme South-West of the
Peninsula); and in a considerable percentage of the living
Armenian people, scattered all over the Near East.
Footnote 194:
Called “Ararat” in the Bible and “Alarodioi” by Herodotus.
Footnote 195:
“The City of Dhuspas (Tosp) in the land of Biaina (Van).” In the
course of history the names have been transposed; Van is now the
town, and Tosp the district.
Footnote 196:
Round the present town of Isbir, in the Tchorok Valley.
Footnote 197:
The chief evidence for the racial unity of all these primitive
populations is the survival of the name of Khaldis, the national
god of Urartu, throughout the Armenian plateau. On the banks of
the Aras we have the district of Khaldiran, and the northern
affluents of the river are fed by Lake Khaldir. Further west, the
modern Vilayet of Trebizond was called the Province of Khaldia
under the late Roman Empire, and there is still a Diocese of
Khaldia maintained by the Orthodox Greek Church in the immediate
hinterland of Trebizond.
Footnote 198:
The original focus from which the Indo-European languages spread
having been situated apparently in what is now Austria-Hungary and
the Ukraine.
Footnote 199:
It is equally possible that the modern Armenian language was
introduced into the country at an earlier date, and existed there
side by side with the official language of the Urartu
inscriptions. Egyptian records show that an Iranian people, the
Mitanni (Matienoi), were established in Northern Mesopotamia as
early as the 16th century B.C., and their name clung to the Urmia
basin as late as Strabo’s day. They were the western outposts of
Indo-European settlement on the Iranian plateau. On the whole,
however the Mitanni are more likely to have been the originators
of the Kurdish language than of the Armenian.
Footnote 200:
In the classical form, of which the spoken language of to-day is a
development.
Footnote 201:
Probably a synthesis of Hittite and Cimmerian, corresponding to
the Urartu-Scythian blend which we have suggested as the origin of
Armenian.
Footnote 202:
The traditional date varies from 261 to 301 A.D.
Footnote 203:
A suggestive parallel to the way in which another foreign
missionary, St. Patrick, has become the national hero of Ireland.
Footnote 204:
In 553 A.D. the national individuality of the Gregorian (Armenian)
Church was given formal expression by the foundation of a new
ecclesiastical era.
Footnote 205:
Herodotus’ “Province of the Matienoi, Alarodioi and Saspeires.”
Footnote 206:
This is the probable extent of Herodotus’ puzzling “Province of
the Armenians and Paktyes,” and the certain extent of the later
Sophene.
Footnote 207:
The provenance of this name is as obscure as every other problem
of Armenian origins. It may mean “the land of Erimenas,” a king of
Urartu, known from an inscription on a votive offering at Van,
just as the neighbouring province of Azerbaijan derives its name
from the satrap Atropates; or (as Lord Bryce suggests) it may be a
“portmanteau word,” perhaps compounded of Urartu and Minni, the
Assyrian name for the upper basin of the Greater Zab. The name of
Kat-Patuka (Cappadocia) is a possible analogy to this latter
suggestion.
Footnote 208:
Turkish “Ermen-ler.”
Footnote 209:
The Seleucid Dynasty had inherited most of the Asiatic dominions
acquired by Alexander the Great when he conquered the Achæmenid
(Persian) Empire.
Footnote 210:
This is the view of Mr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, the most recent
historian of the early Ottoman Empire.
Footnote 211:
The people of the East Roman Empire in its latter days were Greeks
in the sense that they spoke the “Romaic” modification of the
Ancient Greek language; but most of them had only become Greeks by
the loss of their native language at the date when the Armenians,
unlike them, had successfully preserved theirs.
Footnote 212:
The Osmanlis besieged Vienna twice, and held a frontier within
ninety miles of it for a century and a half.
III. DISPERSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE
ARMENIAN NATION.
We have now traced the political vicissitudes of Armenia down to its
incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, and are in a position to survey
the effects of this troubled political history on the social life
and the geographical extension of the Armenian people.
At the present day the Armenians are, next to the Jews, the most
scattered nation in the world, but this phenomenon does not begin to
appear until a comparatively late stage in their history. At the
time of the Partition of 387 A.D. they were still confined to a
compact territory between the Euphrates, Lake Urmia and the River
Kur. It was the annexation of the western marches to the Roman
Empire that gave the first impetus to Armenian migration towards the
west. After 387 A.D. the Roman frontier garrisons were moved forward
into the new Armenian provinces, and these troops were probably
recruited in the main, according to the general Roman custom, from
the local population. But in the middle of the seventh century the
Roman frontiers were shorn away by the advance of the new Arab
power; the garrisons beyond the Euphrates were withdrawn towards the
north-west, and, after a century of darkness and turmoil, during
which all the old landmarks were effaced, we find that the “Armeniac
Army Corps District” has shifted from the banks of the Euphrates to
the banks of the Halys (Kizil Irmak) and become approximately
coincident with the modern Vilayet of Sivas. This transference of
the troops must have meant in itself a considerable transference of
Armenians, and it can be taken for granted that the retiring armies
were accompanied by a certain portion of the civilian population. We
can thus date back to the seventh century the beginning of those
flourishing Armenian colonies in the towns of north-eastern Anatolia
which suffered so terribly in the ordeal of 1915.
The mountain zone between the Roman fortress of Sivas (Sebasteia) on
the Halys and the Arab posts along the Euphrates, from Malatia to
Erzeroum, was now debatable territory between the Moslem and the
Christian Empires, and in the eighth century it was held by an
independent community of Armenian heretics called Paulikians. These
Paulikians led an untamed, Ishmaelitish existence. They were
excommunicated for their tenets by the Gregorian Armenian Church, as
well as by the Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople, and they raided
impartially in the territories of the Roman Empire and the Arab
Caliphate. The Emperors waged against them a war of extermination,
and anticipated the present Ottoman policy by deporting them from
their mountain fastnesses to the opposite ends of the Imperial
territory. In 752 A.D. a number of them were settled in Thrace, to
exercise their military prowess in holding the frontier against the
Bulgars; and, in 969 A.D., the Emperor John Tzimiskes (himself an
Armenian) transplanted a further body of them to Philippopolis. It
may be doubted whether there is any direct connexion between them
and the present (Gregorian) Armenian colony in the latter city, but
their numbers and influence must have been considerable, if one may
judge by the vigorous spread of their tenets among the Bulgars and
the Southern Slavs, and they are noteworthy as the forerunners of
the Armenian Dispersion in Europe, as well as of the Protestant
Reformation.[213]
Migrations on a larger scale were produced by the Turkish invasions
of the eleventh century. In 1021 A.D., for instance, the Ardzrounian
Dynasty of Van surrendered its home territory to the Roman Empire in
exchange for a more sheltered principality at Sivas. It only reigned
sixty years in exile before it was overwhelmed there also by the
advance of the Turkish tide; but the present Armenian villages in
the Sivas Vilayet are doubtless derived from these Ardzrounian
refugees. In the very year, again, in which the sovereignty of the
Ardzrounids was extinguished at Sivas, the Bagratids of Ani founded
themselves a second kingdom in Cilicia. We have spoken of this
kingdom already; it is represented to-day by a chain of Armenian
mountain towns and villages which stretches all the way from the
headwaters of the Sihoun (Saros) and Djihoun (Pyramos) to the shores
of the Gulf of Alexandretta.
The still more terrible invasions of the thirteenth century
scattered the Armenians even further afield. The relations of Lesser
Armenia with the Crusader Principalities opened for the Armenians a
door into Western Europe. When the Roupenian Dynasty became extinct,
it was succeeded by a branch of the French House of Lusignan
summoned from Cyprus, and in 1335 there was the first secession from
the national Gregorian Church to the Communion of Rome. These new
adherents to the Papal allegiance spread far and wide over Latin
Christendom. A strong colony of Armenian Catholics established
itself at Lemberg, recently won by Polish conquest for the Catholic
Church; and others settled at Venice, the European focus of the
Levantine trade. In this Venetian settlement the tradition of
Armenian culture was kept alive by the famous brotherhood of
Mekhitarist Monks. They founded the first Armenian printing press
here, in 1565, and maintained a constant issue of Armenian
publications. Their greatest work was a magnificent thesaurus of the
Armenian language, which appeared in 1836.
This Roman Catholic connexion has been of very great importance in
preserving the link between Armenia and the west, and since the
beginning of the nineteenth century the bonds have been strengthened
by a Protestant strand. The American Missions in Turkey were founded
in 1831. Debarred by the Ottoman Government from entering into
relations with the Moslem population, they devoted themselves to the
Christian elements, and the Armenians availed themselves more
eagerly than any other Near Eastern nationality[214] of the gifts
which the Americans offered. Four generations of mission work have
produced a strong Protestant Armenian community, but proselytism has
not been the deliberate object of the missionaries. They have set
themselves to revive and not to convert the national Armenian
Church, and their schools and hospitals have been open to all who
would attend them, without distinction of creed. Their wide and
well-planned educational activity has always been the distinctive
feature of these American Missions in the Ottoman Empire. Besides
the famous Robert College and the College for Women on the
Bosphorus, they have established schools and other institutions in
many of the chief provincial towns, with fine buildings and full
staffs of well-trained American and Armenian teachers. Due
acknowledgment must also be given to the educational work of the
Swiss Protestants and of the Jesuits; but it can hardly compare with
the work of the Americans in scale, and will scarcely play the same
part in Armenian history. There is little need here to speak in
praise of the American missionaries; their character will shine out
to anyone who reads the documents in this volume. Their religion
inspires their life and their work, and their utter sincerity has
given them an extraordinary influence over all with whom they come
in contact. The Ottoman Government has trusted and respected them,
because they are the only foreign residents in Turkey who are
entirely disinterested on political questions; the Gregorian Church
cooperates with them and feels no jealousy, and all sections of the
Armenian nation love them, because they come to give and not to get,
and their gifts are without guile[215]. America is exercising an
unobtrusive but incalculable influence over the Near East. In the
nineteenth century the missionaries came to its rescue from America;
in the twentieth century the return movement has set in, and the
Near Eastern people are migrating in thousands across the Atlantic.
The Armenians are participating in this movement at least as
actively as the Greeks, the Roumans, the Serbs, the Montenegrins and
the Slovaks, and one can already prophesy with assurance that their
two-fold contact with America is the beginning of a new chapter in
Armenian history.
Meanwhile the subjection of Armenia proper to the Mongol Ilkhans for
nearly two centuries, and subsequently to the Shahs of modern Persia
for certain transitory periods, produced a lesser, but not
unimportant, dispersion towards the east. In the seventeenth century
the skilled and cultured Armenian population of Djoulfa, on the
River Aras, was carried away captive to the Persian capital of
Ispahan, where the exiles started a printing press and established a
centre of Armenian civilisation. Ever since then the Armenian
element has been a factor in the politics and the social development
of Iran, and from this new centre they have spread over the Indian
Peninsula hand in hand with the extension of British rule.
Thus the Armenian nation has been scattered, in the course of the
centuries, from Calcutta to New York, and has shown remarkable
vitality in adapting itself to every kind of alien environment[216].
The reverse side of the picture is the uprooting of the nation from
its native soil. The immigrant tribes from Central Asia did not make
a permanent lodgment in the Armenian homelands. Some of them drifted
back into Azerbaijan and the steppe country along the coast of the
Caspian and the lower courses of the Aras and the Kur; others were
carried on towards the north-west, along the ancient Royal Road, and
imposed the Moslem faith and the Turkish language upon the
population of Central Anatolia. The Armenian plateau, entrenched
between Tigris, Euphrates and Aras, stood out like a rock, dividing
these two Turkish eddies. Nevertheless, the perpetual shock of the
Seljuk and the Mongol raids relaxed the hold of the Armenians on the
plateau. The people of the land were decimated by these invasions,
and when the invaders had passed on beyond or vanished away, the
terrible gaps in the ranks of the sedentary population of Armenia
proper were filled by nomadic Kurdish shepherds from the south-east,
who drifted into Old Armenia from the mountain girdle of Iran, just
as the Albanians drifted into the Kossovo Plain from their own less
desirable highlands, after the population of Old Serbia had been
similarly decimated by the constant passage of the Ottoman armies.
This Kurdish penetration of Armenia had begun already by the tenth
century A.D.; it was far advanced when the Osmanlis annexed the
country in 1514, and it was confirmed by the policy of the Ottoman
Government, which sought to secure its new territories by granting
privileges to the Kurdish intruders and inviting their influx in
greater numbers from their homelands in the sphere of influence of
the rival Persian Empire. The juxtaposition of nomad and cultivator,
dominant Moslem and subject Giaour, was henceforth an ever-present
irritant in the social and political conditions of the land; but it
did not assume a fatal and sinister importance until after the year
1878, when it was fiendishly exploited by the Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid.
But before we examine the relations between the Armenian nation and
the Ottoman Government, it will be well to survey the distribution
of the Armenian element in the Ottoman Empire, as it had developed
during the four centuries of Ottoman rule that elapsed between the
campaign of Selim I. and the intervention of Turkey in the present
European War. The survey shall be brief, for it has been
anticipated, sometimes in greater detail, in the separate notes
prefixed to the different groups of documents in the volume.
A traveller entering Turkey by the Oriental Railway from Central
Europe would have begun to encounter Armenians at Philippopolis in
Bulgaria, and then at Adrianople, the first Ottoman city across the
frontier. Had he visited any of the lesser towns of Thrace, he would
have found much of the local trade and business in Armenian hands,
and when he arrived at Constantinople he would have become aware
that the Armenians were one of the most important elements in the
Ottoman Empire. He would have seen them as financiers, as export and
import merchants, as organisers of wholesale stores; and when he
crossed the Bosphorus and explored the suburban districts on the
Asiatic side, he might even have fancied that the Armenian
population in the Empire was numerically equal to the Turkish. The
coast of the Sea of Marmora was overlooked by flourishing Armenian
villages; at Armasha, above Ismid, there was a large Theological
Seminary of the Gregorian Church, and there were important Swiss and
American institutions at Bardizag (Baghtchedjik) and Adapazar. At
Adapazar alone the Armenian population numbered 25,000.
Beyond Adapazar, however, the Armenian element dwindled, and anyone
who followed the Anatolian Railway across Asia Minor to the
rail-head in the northern spurs of Taurus, would have felt that he
was travelling through an essentially Turkish land. There were
colonies of Armenian artisans and shopkeepers and business men in
important places on the line, like Afiun Kara Hissar or Konia; but
there were an equal number of Greeks, and both in town and country
the Turks outnumbered them all. But once Taurus was crossed, the
Armenians came again to the fore. They were as much at home in the
Cilician plain and coastland as on the littoral of the Sea of
Marmora and the Bosphorus. Adana, Tarsus and Mersina, with their
Armenian churches and schools, had the same appearance of being
Armenian cities as Adapazar or Ismid: and if at this point the
traveller had left the beaten track and worked his way up
north-eastward into the Cilician highlands, he would have found
himself for the first time in an almost exclusively Armenian
country, and would have remarked a higher percentage of Armenians in
the population than in any other district of Turkey till he came to
Van. But this belt of Armenian villages, though thickly set, was
quickly passed, and when you emerged on the south-eastern side of it
and stepped out on to the rim of the Mesopotamian amphitheatre, you
had reached one of the boundaries of the Armenian Dispersion. There
were Armenian outposts in the cities of the fringe—Marash, Aintab,
Ourfa, Aleppo—but as soon as you plunged into the Mesopotamian
steppe or the Syrian desert you were in the Arabic world, and had
left Armenia behind[217].
The traveller would have seen more of the Armenians if he had turned
off from the Anatolian Railway at Eski Shehr, a few hours’ journey
south of Adapazar, and taken the branch line eastward to Angora. At
Angora the Armenians were again a conspicuous element, and the
further east you went from Angora the more they increased in social
and numerical importance. Beyond the Kizil Irmak (Halys), in the
Sandjak of Kaisaria and the Vilayet of Sivas, they constituted the
great majority of the urban middle class. The strongest centres of
Armenian national life in Turkey were towns like Marsovan, Amasia,
Zila, Tokat, Shabin Kara-Hissar or the City of Sivas itself, or such
smaller places as Talas and Everek in the neighbourhood of Kaisaria.
In all this region Turks and Armenians were about equally balanced,
Turks in the country and Armenians in the town, and the proportions
were the same in the riviera zone along the Black Sea coast—Samsoun
and Kerasond and Trebizond—though here other racial elements were
intermingled—Lazes and Greeks, and the advance guards of the Kurds.
Trebizond in ancient times was the last Greek colony towards the
east, and it is always a place that beckons travellers forward, for
it is the terminus of that ancient caravan route which stretches
away across Persia into the far interior of the Asiatic continent.
Anyone who started to follow this highway across the mountains,
through Gumushkhané and Baibourt to Erzeroum, would have noticed
little change in these first stages of his journey from what he had
seen in the Vilayet of Sivas. There were the same Turkish
countryside and the same Armenian towns, with, perhaps, an
increasing Armenian element in the rural population, culminating in
an actual preponderance of Armenian villages when you reached the
plain of Erzeroum. With Erzeroum the second section of the caravan
road begins; it crosses from valley to valley among the headwaters
of the Aras and the Eastern Euphrates (Mourad Su), and winds away
eastward at the foot of Ararat in the direction of Bayazid and
Tabriz. But here the explorer of Armenia must turn his face to the
south, and, as he does so, his eyes are met by a rampart of
mountains more forbidding than those he has traversed on his journey
from the coast, which stretch across the horizon both east and west.
This mountain barrier bears many names. It is called the Bingöl Dagh
where it faces Erzeroum; further westward it merges into the
ill-famed Dersim; but the whole range has a common character. Its
steeper slope is towards the north, and this slope is washed by the
waters of the Aras and the Kara Su (Western Euphrates), which flow
east and west in diametrically opposite directions, flanking the
foot of the mountain wall with a deep and continuous moat.
Whoever crosses this moat and penetrates the mountains passes at
once into a different world. The western part of Turkey, which we
have been describing so far, is a more or less orderly, settled
country—as orderly and settled, on the whole, as any of the other
Near Eastern countries that lie between the Euphrates and Vienna.
The population is sedentary; it lives in agricultural villages and
open country towns. But when you cross the Euphrates, you enter a
land of insecurity and fear. The peasant and townsman live on
sufferance; the mastery is with the nomad; you are setting foot on
the domain of the Kurd.
This insecurity was the chronic condition of Armenia proper, and it
was not merely due to the unfortunate political experiences of the
land. In its geographical configuration, as well as in its
history, the Armenian plateau is a country of more accentuated
characteristics and violent contrasts than the Anatolian Peninsula
which adjoins it on the west. It contains vast stretches of rolling,
treeless down, where the climate is too bleak and the soil too thin
for cultivation; and, again, there are sudden depressions where the
soil is as rich and the climate as favourable as anywhere in the
world. There are the deep ravines of rivers, like the Mourad Su,
which carve their course haphazard across tableland and plain. There
are volcanic cones, like the Sipan and the Nimroud Dagh, and
lacustrine areas, like the basin of Lake Van. The geography of the
country has partitioned it eternally between the shepherd and the
cultivator—the comparatively dense and sedentary population of the
plains and the scattered and wandering inhabitants of the
highlands—between civilisation and development on the one hand and
an arrested state of barbarism on the other. The Kurd and the
Armenian are not merely different nationalities; they are also
antagonistic economic classes, and this antagonism existed in the
country before ever the Kurdish encroachments began. Most of the
nomadic tribes that frequent the Armenian plateau now pass for
Kurds, but many of them are only nominally so. In the Dersim
country, for instance, which coincides roughly with the peninsula
formed by the Western and Eastern branches of the Euphrates (Kara Su
and Mourad Su), the Kurds are strongly diluted with the Zazas, whose
language, as far as it has been investigated, bears at least as much
resemblance to Armenian as to Kurdish, and whose primitive paganism,
though it may have taken some colour from Christianity, is free to
this day from the slightest veneer of Islam.[218] These Zazas
represent an element which must have existed in the land from the
beginning and have harassed the national rulers of Mediæval and
Ancient Armenia as much as it harasses the modern Armenian townsman
and peasant or the local Ottoman authorities.
On the eve of the catastrophe of 1915, this region beyond the
Euphrates was a treasure-house of mingled populations and
diversified forms of social life. Its north-western bastion is the
Dersim, a no-man’s-land of winding valleys and tiny upland plains,
backing northwards on to the great mountain retaining-wall, with its
sheer fall to the Euphratean moat. In the Dersim innumerable little
clans of Zazas and Kurds lived, and continue to live, their
pastoral, brigand life, secluded from the arm of Ottoman authority.
A traveller proceeding south from Erzeroum would give the Dersim a
wide berth on his right and cross the peninsula at its neck, by the
headwaters of the Aras and the plain of Khnyss. He would strike the
course of the Mourad Su where it cuts successively through the
fertile, level plains of Melazkerd, Boulanik and Moush, and here he
would find himself again for a moment (or would have done so two
years ago) in peaceful, almost civilised surroundings—populous
country towns, with a girdle of agricultural villages and a
peasantry even more uniformly Armenian than the population of the
plain of Erzeroum. The plain of Moush is the meeting-place of all
the routes that traverse the plateau. If you ascend from its
south-eastern corner and mount the southern spurs of the Nimroud
volcano, you suddenly find yourself on the edge of the extensive
basin of Lake Van, and can follow a mountain road along its
precipitous southern shore; then you descend into the open valley of
Hayotz-Tzor, cross a final ridge with the pleasant village of
Artamid on its slopes, and arrive a few hours later in the city of
Van itself.
Van, again, before April, 1915, was the populous, civilised capital
of a province, with a picturesque citadel-rock overlooking the lake
and open garden suburbs spreading east of it across the plain. The
City of Van, with the surrounding lowlands that fringe the eastern
and north-eastern shores of the lake, was more thoroughly Armenian
than any part of the Ottoman Empire. In the Van Vilayet[219] alone
the Armenians not merely outnumbered each other racial element
singly, but were an absolute majority of the total population. These
Armenians of Van played a leading and a valiant part in the events
of 1915.
Yet Van, though a stronghold of Armenian nationality, was also the
extremity, in this direction, of Armenian territory; south-east of
Van the upper valley of the Zab and the basin of Lake Urmia were
jointly inhabited by Christian Syrians and Moslem Kurds, until the
Syrians, too, were involved in the Armenians’ fate. To complete our
survey, we have to retrace our steps round the northern shores of
Lake Van till we arrive once more in the plain of Moush.
The plain of Moush is closed in on the south and south-west by
another rampart of mountains, which forms the southern wall of the
plateau and repeats with remarkable exactness the structure of that
northern wall which the traveller encounters when he turns south
from the plain of Erzeroum. This southern range, also, falls
precipitously towards the north, first into the plain of Moush, and,
further westward, into the waters of the Mourad Su, which wash it
like a moat all the way to their junction with the Kara Su, below
Harpout. And, like the northern range, again, the southern rampart
unfolds itself to the south in a maze of high hills and tangled
valleys, which only sink by degrees into the plains of Diyarbekir—a
detached bay of the great Mesopotamian steppe. These southern
highlands are known as the Sassoun; they are a physiographical
counterpart to the highlands of Dersim, and are likewise the harbour
of semi-independent mountaineers. But whereas the Dersimlis are
pagan Zazas or Moslem Kurds, and were at constant feud with their
Armenian neighbours, the Sassounlis were themselves Armenians, and
were in the closest intercourse with their kinsmen in the valley of
the Mourad Su and in the plains of Moush and Boulanik.
Sassoun was one of the most interesting Armenian communities in the
Ottoman Empire. It was a federation of about forty mountain
villages, which lived their own life in virtual independence of the
Ottoman authorities at Bitlis or Diyarbekir, and held their own
against the equally independent Kurdish tribes that ringed them
round. They were prosperous shepherds and laborious cultivators of
their mountain slopes—a perfect example of the cantonal phase of
economic development, requiring nothing from outside and even
manufacturing their own gunpowder. The Sassounli Armenians were in
the same social stage as the Scottish Highlanders before 1745; the
Armenians of Van, Sivas and Constantinople were people of the
twentieth century, engaged in the same activities and living much
the same life as the shopkeepers and business men of Vienna or
London or New York.
Only an enterprising traveller would have struck up into Sassoun if
he wished to make his way from Moush to Diyarbekir. The beaten track
takes a longer course to the south-eastern corner of the plain, and
then breasts the mountain wall to the south (where the branch-road
turns eastward to Lake Van). From Norshen, the last village of the
plain, an easy pass leads over a saddle and brings the traveller
unexpectedly to the important city of Bitlis, which lies under the
shadow of the ridge, immediately south of the watershed. Bitlis is
the capital of a vilayet, and before Djevdet Bey retreated upon it
in June, 1915, there was a numerous Armenian element in its
population. But Bitlis, again, was one of the limits of the Armenian
dispersion. The waters which rise round the city flow southward to
the Tigris, and the highroad winds down with them towards the
plains, which are inhabited by a confused population of
Jacobites[220] and Arabs, Turks and Kurds. If you had followed the
Tigris upstream across the levels to Diyarbekir, you would have
passed few Armenian villages on the road, even before June, 1915;
and at Diyarbekir itself, a considerable city, there was only a weak
Armenian colony—a feeble link in the chain of Armenian outposts on
the fringe of the Mesopotamian steppe. But Diyarbekir is on the line
of that Royal Road by which men have gone up from time immemorial
from Baghdad and beyond to the coasts of the Bosphorus and the
Ægean. The highway runs on north-west across the flats, passes
Arghana and Arghana Mines, climbs the southern escarpment of the
Armenian plateau up the valley of the Arghana Su, skirts the Göldjik
Lake on the watershed, and slopes down, still north-westwards, to
Harpout, near the course of the Mourad Su. Many convoys of Armenian
exiles traversed this road in the opposite direction during the
summer months of 1915, on their way from their native plateau to the
alien climate of the Arabian deserts. But our survey of the
Armenians in Turkey is complete, and we can travel back in
imagination from Harpout to Malatia, from Malatia to Sivas, and so
on continually north-westward, till we return again to the point
from which we started out.
This somewhat elaborate itinerary will have served its purpose if it
has made clear the extraordinary vitality and versatility of the
Armenian nation in the Ottoman Empire at the moment when its
extermination was planned and attempted by the established
Government of the country. The Government had been of little service
to any of its subjects; it had never initiated any social or
economic developments on its own part, and had invariably made
itself a clog upon the private enterprises of native or foreign
individuals. Yet, under this pall of stagnation and repression,
there were manifold stirrings of a new life. Wherever an opportunity
presented itself, wherever the Government omitted to intervene, the
Armenians were making indefatigable progress towards a better
civilization. They were raising the pastoral and agricultural
prosperity of their barren highlands and harassed plains; they were
deepening and extending their education at the American schools;
they were laying the foundation of local industries in the Vilayet
of Sivas; they were building up Ottoman banking and shipping and
finance at Trebizond and Adana and Constantinople. They were
kindling the essential spark of energy in the Ottoman Empire, and
anyone acquainted with Near Eastern history will inevitably compare
their promise with the promise of the Greeks a century before. The
apologists of the Ottoman Government will seize with eagerness upon
this comparison. “The Greeks,” they will say, “revolted as soon as
they had fallen into this state of fermentation. The Young Turks did
more prudently than Sultan Mahmoud in forestalling future trouble.”
But if we examine the relations between the Ottoman Government and
the Armenian people we shall find that this argument recoils upon
its authors’ heads.
IV. THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE AND THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.
When the Ottoman Government entered the European War in 1914, it had
ruled Armenia for just four hundred years, and still had for its
subjects a majority of the Armenian people. Anyone who inquires into
the relations between the Government and the governed during this
period of Near Eastern history will find the most contradictory
opinions expressed. On the one hand he will be told that the
Armenians, like the rest of the Christians in Turkey, were classed
as “Rayah” (cattle[221]) by the dominant race, and that this one
word sums up their irremediable position; that they were not treated
as citizens because they were not even treated as men. On the other
hand, he will hear that the Ottoman Empire has been more liberal to
its subject nationalities than many states in Western Europe; that
the Armenians have been perfectly free to live their own life under
a paternal government, and that the friction between the Government
and its subjects has been due to the native perversity and
instability of the Armenian character, or, worse still, to a
revolutionary poison instilled by some common enemy from without.
Both these extreme views are out of perspective, but each of them
represents a part of the truth.
It is undoubtedly true (to take the Turkish case first) that the
Armenians have derived certain benefits from the Ottoman
dispensation. The caste division between Moslem and Rayah, for
instance, may stamp the Ottoman “State Idea” as mediæval and
incapable of progress; but this has injured the state as a whole
more appreciably than the penalised section of it, for extreme
penalisation works both ways. The Government ruled out the
Christians so completely from the dominant Moslem commonwealth that
it suffered and even encouraged them to form communities of their
own. The “Rayah” became “Millets”—not yoke-oxen, but unshackled
herds.
These Christian Millets were instituted by Sultan Mohammed II, after
he had conquered Constantinople in 1453 and set himself to
reorganise the Ottoman State as the conscious heir of the East Roman
Empire. They are national corporations with written charters, often
of an elaborate kind. Each of them is presided over by a Patriarch,
who holds office at the discretion of the Government, but is elected
by the community and is the recognised intermediary between the two,
combining in his own person the headship of a voluntary “Rayah”
association and the status of an Ottoman official. The special
function thus assigned to the Patriarchates gives the Millets, as an
institution, an ecclesiastical character[222]; but in the Near East
a church is merely the foremost aspect of a nationality, and the
authority of the Patriarchates extends to the control of schools,
and even to the administration of certain branches of civil law. The
Millets, in fact, are practically autonomous bodies in all that
concerns religion, culture and social life; but it is a maimed
autonomy, for it is jealously debarred from any political
expression. The establishment of the Millets is a recognition, and a
palliation, of the pathological anomaly of the Near East—the
political disintegration of Near Eastern peoples and the tenacity
with which they have clung, in spite of it, to their corporate
spiritual life.
The organisation of the Millets was not a gain to all the
Christian nations that had been subjected by the Ottoman power.
Certain orthodox populations, like the Bulgars and the Serbs,
actually lost an ecclesiastical autonomy which they had enjoyed
before, and were merged in the Millet of the Greeks, under the
Orthodox Patriarch at Constantinople. The Armenians, on the other
hand, improved their position. As so-called schismatics, they had
hitherto existed on sufferance under Orthodox and Catholic
governments, but the Osmanlis viewed all varieties of Christian
with an impartial eye. Mohammed II. summoned the Gregorian Bishop
of the Armenian colony at Broussa, and raised him to the rank of
an Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. The Ottoman conquest thus
left the Gregorian Armenians their religious individuality and put
them on a legal equality with their neighbours of the Orthodox
Faith, and the same privileges were extended in time to the
Armenians in communion with other churches. The Gregorian Millet
was chartered in 1462, the Millet of Armenian Catholics in 1830,
and the Millet of Armenian Protestants in the ’forties of the
nineteenth century, as a result of the foundation of the American
Missions.
The Armenians of the Dispersion, therefore, profited, in that
respect, by Ottoman rule, and even in the Armenian homeland the
account stood, on the whole, in the Ottoman Government’s favour. The
Osmanlis are often blamed for having given the Kurds a footing in
this region, as a political move in their struggle with Persia; but
the Kurds were not, originally, such a scourge to the Armenians as
the Seljuks, Mongols, or Kara Koyunli, who had harried the land
before, or as the Persians themselves, whom the Osmanlis and the
Kurds ejected from the country. The three centuries of Kurdish
feudalism under Ottoman suzerainty that followed Sultan Selim’s
campaign of 1514 were a less unhappy period for the Armenians than
the three centuries and more of anarchy that had preceded them. They
were a time of torpor before recuperation, and it was the Ottoman
Government again that, by a change in its Kurdish policy, enabled
this recuperation to set in. In the early part of the nineteenth
century a vigorous anti-feudal, centralising movement was initiated
by Sultan Mahmoud, a reformer who has become notorious for his
unsuccessful handling of the Greek and Serbian problems without
receiving the proper credit for his successes further east. He
turned his attention to the Kurdish chieftains in 1834, and by the
middle of the century his efforts had practically broken their
power. Petty feudalism was replaced by a bureaucracy centred in
Constantinople. The new officialdom was not ideal; it had new vices
of its own; but it was impartial, by comparison, towards the two
races whom it had to govern, for the class prejudice of the Moslem
against the well-behaved Rayah was balanced by the exasperation of
the professional administrator with the unconscionable Kurd. In any
case, this remodelling of the Ottoman State in the early decades of
the nineteenth century introduced a new epoch in the history of the
Armenian people. Coinciding, as it did, with the establishment of
the American Missions and the chartering of the Catholic and
Protestant Millets, it opened to the Armenians opportunities of
which they availed themselves to the full. An intellectual and
economic renaissance of Armenian life began, parallel in many
respects to the Greek renaissance a century before.
This comparison brings us back to the question: Was the Armenian
revival of the nineteenth century an inevitable menace to the
sovereignty and integrity of the Ottoman State? Is the disastrous
breach between Armenian and Turk, which has actually occurred,
simply the fruit of wrong-headed Armenian ambitions? That is the
Turkish contention; but here the Turkish case breaks down, and we
shall find the truth on the Armenian side.
The parallel with the Greek renaissance is misleading, if it implies
a parallel with the Greek revolution. The Greek movement towards
political separatism was, in a sense, the outcome of the general
spiritual movement that preceded it; but it was hardly an essential
consequence, and certainly not a fortunate one. The Greek War of
Independence liberated one fraction of the Greek race at the price
of exterminating most of the others and sacrificing the favoured
position which the Greek element had previously enjoyed throughout
the Ottoman Empire. It was not an encouraging precedent for the
Armenians, and the objections to following it in their own case were
more formidable still. As we have seen, no portion of Ottoman
territory was exclusively inhabited by them, and they were nowhere
even in an absolute majority, except in certain parts of the
Province of Van so that they had no natural rallying point for a
national revolt, such as the Greeks had in the Islands and the
Morea. They were scattered from one end to another of the Ottoman
Empire; the whole Empire was their heritage, and it was a heritage
that they must necessarily share with the Turks, who were in a
numerical majority and held the reins of political power. The
alternative to an Ottoman State was not an Armenian State, but a
partition among the Powers, which would have ended the ambitions of
Turk and Armenian alike. The Powers concerned were quite ready for a
partition, if only they could agree upon a division of the spoils.
This common inheritance of the Armenians and the Turks was
potentially one of the richest countries in the Old World, and one
of the few that had not yet been economically developed. Its native
inhabitants, still scanty, backward and divided against themselves,
were not yet capable of defending their title against spoilers from
without; they only maintained it at present by a fortuitous
combination in the balance of power, which might change at any
moment. The problem for the Armenians was not how to overthrow the
Ottoman Empire but how to preserve it, and their interest in its
preservation was even greater than that of their Turkish neighbours
and co-heirs. Our geographical survey has shown that talent and
temperament had brought most of the industry, commerce, finance and
skilled intellectual work of Turkey into, the Armenians’ hands. The
Greeks may still have competed with them on the Ægean fringe, and
the Sephardi Jews in the Balkans, but they had the whole interior of
the Empire to themselves, with no competition to fear from the
agricultural Turks or the pastoral Kurds. And if the Empire were
preserved by timely reforms from within, the position of the
Armenians would become still more favourable, for they were the only
native element capable of raising the Empire economically,
intellectually and morally to a European standard, by which alone
its existence could permanently be secured. The main effort must be
theirs, and they would reap the richest reward.
Thus, from the Armenian point of view, a national entente with the
Turks was an object of vital importance, to be pursued for its
ultimate results in spite of present difficulties and drawbacks.
About the middle of the nineteenth century there seemed every
likelihood of its being attained. The labours of Sultan Mahmoud and
the influence of Great Britain and France had begun to inoculate the
Turkish ruling class with liberal ideas. An admirable “Law of
Nationalities” was promulgated, and there was a project for a
parliamentary constitution. It looked, to an optimist, as if the old
mediæval caste-division of Moslem and Rayah might die away and allow
Armenian, Turk and Kurd to find their true relation to one
another—not as irreconcilable sects or races, but as different
social elements in the same community, whose mutual interest was to
co-operate for a common end.
This was the logical policy for the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire
to pursue, and the logic of it was so clear that they have clung to
it through difficulties and drawbacks sufficient to banish logic
altogether—“difficulties” which amounted to a bankruptcy of
political sense in the Imperial Government, and “drawbacks” which
culminated in official massacres of the Armenian population. There
were two causes of this sinister turn of events: the external crisis
through which the Empire passed in the years 1875-8, and the
impression this crisis made upon Sultan Abd-ul-Hamid, who came to
the throne in 1876, when it was entering upon its gravest phase.
In these years the Empire had been brought to the verge of ruin by
the revolt of a subject Christian population, the Bosniak Serbs,
which spread to the other subject races in the Balkan provinces, and
by a momentary breakdown in the diplomatic mechanism of the European
balance of power, which enabled Russia to throw her military force
into the scales on the Balkan rebels’ behalf. The ruin was arrested
and partially repaired, when Turkey lay prostrate under Russia’s
heel, by a reassertion of the balance of power, which deprived
Russia of most of her gains and half the Balkan Christians of their
new-won liberties. Abd-ul-Hamid was clever enough to learn from
these experiences, but not, unfortunately, to learn aright, and he
devoted all his astuteness to carrying out a policy far more
injurious to the Empire than the troubles it was meant to avert. He
seems to have inferred from the war with Russia that Turkey was not
and never would be strong enough to hold its own against a
first-class power; it was not her internal strength that had saved
her, but the external readjustment of forces. Therefore, any attempt
to strengthen the Empire from within, by reconciling its racial
elements and developing its natural resources, was Utopian and
irrelevant to the problem. The only object of importance was to
insure against an attack by any single Power by keeping all the
Great Powers in a state of jealous equilibrium. Now the breakdown of
this equilibrium, in 1877, which had been so disastrous for Turkey,
had been directly caused by an antecedent disturbance of equilibrium
within the Empire itself. A subject Christian nationality had tried
to break away violently from the Ottoman body-politic. Here was the
root of the whole trouble, to Abd-ul-Hamid’s mind, and the primary
object of his policy must be to prevent such a thing from happening
again. The subject nationalities of the Empire were not for him
unrealised assets; they were potential destroyers of the State, more
formidable even than the foreign Powers. Their potentialities must
be neutralised, and the surest course, with them as with the Powers,
was to play them off against one another. In fine, the policy of
Abd-ul-Hamid was the exact antithesis of the instinctive Armenian
policy which we have indicated above; it was not to strengthen the
Empire by bringing the nationalities into harmony, but to weaken the
nationalities, at whatever cost to the Empire, by setting them to
cut each other’s throats. Abd-ul-Hamid applied this policy for forty
years. The Macedonians and the Armenians were his special victims,
but only the Armenians concern us here.
It was inevitable that the Armenians should be singled out by
Abd-ul-Hamid for repression. When Turkey sued for peace in 1878, the
Russian troops were in occupation of the greater part of the
Armenian plateau, and the Russian plenipotentiaries inserted an
Article (No. 16) in the Treaty of San Stefano making the evacuation
of these provinces conditional upon the previous introduction of
reforms in their administration by the Ottoman Government. A
concrete scheme for the reorganisation of the six vilayets in
question[223] had already been drawn up by a delegation of their
Armenian inhabitants. It provided for the creation of an Armenian
Governor-General, empowered to appoint and remove the officials
subordinate to him; a mixed gendarmerie of Armenians and the
sedentary elements in the Moslem population, to the exclusion of the
nomadic Kurds; a general assembly, consisting of Moslem and
Christian deputies in equal numbers; and equal rights for every
creed. The Ottoman Government had approved and even encouraged this
project of provincial autonomy when it feared that the alternative
was the cession of the provinces to Russia. As soon as it had made
certain of the Russian evacuation, its approval turned to
indifference; and when the European Congress met at Berlin to revise
the San Stefano Treaty, the Ottoman emissaries exerted themselves to
quash the project altogether. In this they were practically
successful, for the Treaty drawn up at Berlin by the Congress merely
engaged the Ottoman Government, in general terms[224], to introduce
“ameliorations” in the “provinces inhabited by Armenians,” without
demanding any guarantee at all[225]. The Russian troops were
withdrawn and the ameliorations were a dead letter. The Ottoman
Government was reminded of them, in 1880, by a collective Note from
the six Powers. But it left the Note unanswered, and after the
diplomatic démarches had dragged on for two years the question was
shelved, on Bismarck’s suggestion, because no Power except Great
Britain would press it.
The seed of the “Armenian Reforms” had thus fallen upon stony
ground, except in the mind of Abd-ul-Hamid, where it lodged and
rankled till it bore the fruit of the “Armenian Massacres.” The
project had not really been a menace to Ottoman sovereignty and
integrity. It was merely a proposal to apply in six vilayets that
elementary measure of “amelioration” which was urgently needed by
the Empire as a whole, and without which it could never begin
to develop its internal strength. But to Abd-ul-Hamid it
was unforgivable, for to him every concession to a subject
Christian nationality was suspect. He had seen the Bulgars given
ecclesiastical autonomy by the Ottoman Government in 1870 and then
raised by Russia, within eight years, into a semi-independent
political principality. Armenian autonomy had been averted for the
moment, but the parallel might still hold good, for Russia’s
influence over the Armenians had been increasing.
Russia had conquered the Armenian provinces of Persia in 1828[226],
and this had brought within her frontier the Monastery of
Etchmiadzin, in the Khanate of Erivan, which was the seat of the
Katholikos of All the Armenians. The power of this Katholikos was at
that time very much in abeyance. He was an ecclesiastical relic of
the ancient united Armenian Kingdom of Tigranes and Tiridates, which
had been out of existence for fourteen hundred years. There was
another Katholikos at Sis, a relic of the mediæval kingdom of
Cilicia, who did not acknowledge his supremacy, and he was
thrown into the shade altogether by the Armenian Patriarch at
Constantinople, who was the official head of the Armenian Millet in
the Ottoman Empire—at that time an overwhelming majority of the
Armenian people. But Russian diplomacy succeeded in reviving the
Katholikos of Etchmiadzin’s authority. In the ’forties of the
nineteenth century, when Russian influence at Constantinople was at
its height and Russian protection seemed the only recourse for
Turkey against the ambition of Mehemet Ali, the ecclesiastical
supremacy of Etchmiadzin over Constantinople and Sis was definitely
established, and the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, a resident in
Russian territory, became once more the actual as well as the
titular head of the whole Gregorian Church. Russia had thus acquired
an influence over the Armenians as a nation, and individual
Armenians were acquiring a reciprocal influence in Russia. They had
risen to eminence, not only in commerce, but in the public service
and in the army. They had distinguished themselves particularly in
the war of 1877. Loris Melikov, Lazarev and Tergoukasev, three of
the most successful generals on the Russian side, were of Armenian
nationality. Melikov had taken the fortress of Kars, and the Treaty
of Berlin left his conquest in Russia’s possession with a zone of
territory that rounded off the districts ceded by Persia fifty years
before. The Russian frontier was thus pushed forward on to the
Armenian plateau, and now included an important Armenian
population—important enough to make its mark on the general life of
the Russian Empire[227] and to serve as a national rallying-point
for the Armenians who still remained on the Ottoman side of the
line.
Such considerations outweighed all others in Abd-ul-Hamid’s mind.
His Armenian subjects must be deprived of their formidable vitality,
and he decided to crush them by resuscitating the Kurds. From 1878
onwards he encouraged their lawlessness, and in 1891 he deliberately
undid the work of his predecessor, Mahmoud. The Kurdish chieftains
were taken again into favour and decorated with Ottoman military
rank; their tribes were enrolled as squadrons of territorial
cavalry; regimental badges and modern rifles were served out to them
from the Government stores, and their retaining fee was a free hand
to use their official status and their official weapons as they
pleased against their Armenian neighbours. At the same time the
latter were systematically disarmed; the only retaliation open to
them was the formation of secret revolutionary societies, and this
fitted in entirely with Abd-ul-Hamid’s plans, for it made a racial
conflict inevitable. The disturbances began in 1893 with the posting
up of revolutionary placards in Yozgad and Marsov an. This was soon
followed by an open breach between Moslem and Christian in the
districts of Moush and Sassoun, and there was a rapid concentration
of troops—some of them Turkish regulars, but most of them Hamidié
Kurds. Sassoun was besieged for several months, and fell in 1894.
The Sassounlis—men, women and children—were savagely massacred by
the Turks and Kurds, and the attention of Great Britain was aroused.
In the winter of 1894-5 Great Britain persuaded France and Russia to
join her in reminding the Ottoman Government of its pledge to
introduce provincial reforms, and in the spring they presented a
concrete programme for the administration of the Six Vilayets. In
its final form it was a perfunctory project, and the counter-project
which the Ottoman Government announced its intention of applying in
its stead was more illusory still. It was promulgated in 1895, but
the first of a new series of organised massacres had already taken
place a few days earlier, at Trebizond, and in the following months
the slaughter was extended to one after another of the principal
towns of the Empire. These atrocities were nearly all committed
against peaceful, unarmed urban populations. The only place that
resisted was Zeitoun, which held out for six months against a
Turkish army, and was finally amnestied by the mediation of the
Powers. The anti-Armenian outbreaks were instigated and controlled
by the Central Government, and were crowned, in August, 1896, by the
great massacre at Constantinople, where for two days the Armenians,
at the Government’s bidding, were killed indiscriminately in the
streets, until the death-roll amounted to many thousands. Then
Abd-ul-Hamid held his hand. He had been feeling the pulse of public
opinion, both abroad and at home, and he saw that he had gone far
enough[228]. In all more than 100,000 men, women and children had
perished, and for the moment he had sufficiently crippled the
Armenian element in his Empire.
Yet this Macchiavellian policy was ultimately as futile as it was
wicked. In the period after the massacres the Armenian population in
Turkey was certainly reduced, partly by the actual slaughter and
partly by emigration abroad. But this only weakened the Empire
without permanently paralysing the Armenian race. The emigrants
struck new roots in the United States and in the Russian Caucasus,
acquired new resources, enlisted new sympathies; and Russia was the
greatest gainer of all. The Armenians had little reason, at the
time, to look towards Russia with special sympathy or hope. In
Russia, as in Turkey, the war of 1877-8 had been followed by a
political reaction, which was aggravated by the assassination of the
Tsar, Alexander II., in 1881; and the Armenians, as an energetic,
intellectual, progressive element in the Russian Empire, were
classed by the police with the revolutionaries, and came under their
heavy hand. Yet once an Armenian was on the Russian side of the
frontier his life and property at least were safe. He could be sure
of reaping the fruits of his labour, and had not to fear sudden
death in the streets. During the quarter of a century that followed
the Treaty of Berlin, the Armenian population of the Russian
provinces increased remarkably in prosperity and numbers, and now,
after the massacres, they were reinforced by a constant stream of
Ottoman refugees. The centre of gravity of the Armenian race was
shifting more and more from Ottoman to Russian territory. Russia has
profited by the crimes of her neighbours. The Hamidian régime lasted
from 1878 to 1908, and did all that any policy could do to widen the
breach between the Ottoman State and the Armenian people. Yet the
natural community of interest was so strong that even thirty years
of repression did not make the Armenians despair of Ottoman
regeneration.
Nothing is more significant than the conduct of the Armenians in
1908, when Abd-ul-Hamid was overthrown by the Young Turkish
Revolution, and there was a momentary possibility that the Empire
might be reformed and preserved by the initiative of the Turks
themselves. At this crisis the real attitude of the different
nationalities in the Empire was revealed. The Kurds put up a fight
for Abd-ul-Hamid, because they rejoiced in the old dispensation. The
Macedonians—Greek, Bulgar and Serb—who had been the Armenians’
principal fellow-victims in the days of oppression, paid the
Constitution lip-homage and secretly prepared to strike. They were
irreconcilable irredentists, and saw in the reform of the Empire
simply an obstacle to their secession from it. They took counsel
with their kinsmen in the independent national States of Serbia,
Bulgaria and Greece, and, four years later, the Balkan League
attacked Turkey and tore away her Macedonian provinces by force.
The Armenians, on the other hand, threw themselves wholeheartedly
into the service of the new régime. As soon as the Ottoman
Constitution was restored, the Armenian political parties abandoned
their revolutionary programme in favour of parliamentary action, and
co-operated in Parliament with the Young Turkish bloc so long as
Young Turkish policy remained in any degree liberal or democratic.
The terrible Adana massacres, which occurred less than a year after
the Constitution had been proclaimed, might have damped the
Armenians’ enthusiasm (though at first the proof that the Young
Turks were implicated in them was not so clear as it has since
become). Yet they showed their loyalty in 1912, when the Turks were
fighting for their existence. It was only under the new laws that
the privilege and duty of military service had been extended to the
Christian as well as the Moslem citizens of the Empire, and the
disastrous Balkan Campaign was the first opportunity that Armenian
soldiers were given of doing battle for their common heritage. But
they bore themselves so well in this ordeal that they were publicly
commended by their Turkish commanders. Thus, in war and peace, in
the Army and in Parliament, the Armenians worked for the salvation
of the Ottoman Commonwealth, from the accession of the Young Turks
in 1908 till their intervention in the European War in 1914. It is
impossible to reconcile with this fact the Turkish contention that
in 1914 they suddenly reversed their policy and began treacherously
to plot for the Ottoman Empire’s destruction.
V. THE DEPORTATIONS OF 1915: ANTECEDENTS.
There is no dispute as to what happened in 1915. The Armenian
inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire were everywhere uprooted from
their homes, and deported to the most remote and unhealthy districts
that the Government could select for them. Some were murdered at the
outset, some perished on the way, and some died after reaching their
destination. The death-roll amounts to upwards of six hundred
thousand; perhaps six hundred thousand more are still alive in their
places of exile; and the remaining six hundred thousand or so have
either been converted forcibly to Islam, gone into hiding in the
mountains, or escaped beyond the Ottoman frontier. The Ottoman
Government cannot deny these facts, and they cannot justify them. No
provocation or misdemeanour on the part of individual Armenians
could justify such a crime against the whole race. But it might be
explained and palliated if the Armenians, or some of them, were
originally in the wrong; and therefore the Ottoman Government and
its German apologists have concentrated their efforts on proving
that this was the case.[229] There are three main Turkish
contentions, none of which will bear examination.
The first contention is that the Armenians took up arms and joined
the Russians, as soon as the latter crossed the Ottoman frontier.
The standard case its champions cite is the “Revolt of Van.” The
deportations, they maintain, were only ordered after this outbreak
to forestall the danger of its repetition elsewhere. This contention
is easily rebutted. In the first place, there was no Armenian revolt
at Van. The Armenians merely defended the quarter of the city in
which they lived, after it had been beleaguered and attacked by
Turkish troops, and the outlying villages visited with massacre by
Turkish patrols. The outbreak was on the Turkish side, and the
responsibility lies with the Turkish governor, Djevdet Bey. The
ferocious, uncontrollable character of this official was the true
cause of the catastrophe. Anyone who reads the impartial American
testimony on this point, in section II. of the present collection of
documents, will see that this was so. And, in the second place, the
deportations had already begun in Cilicia before the fighting at Van
broke out. The Turks fired the first shot at Van on the 20th April,
1915; the first Armenians were deported from Zeitoun on the 8th
April, and there is a record of their arrival in Syria as early as
the 19th[230]. The case of Van, which the apologists have made so
much of, simply falls to the ground[231], and they cannot
rehabilitate themselves by adducing any previous revolt at Zeitoun.
It is true that twenty-five fugitive conscripts defended themselves
for a day in a monastery near Zeitoun against Turkish troops, and
decamped into the mountains during the night. But this happened only
one day before the deportation, and the deportation must have been
decided upon far in advance, for it was preceded by a protracted
inquisition for arms, and there were Moslem refugees from the
Balkans concentrated on the spot, ready to occupy the Zeitounlis’
houses the moment the rightful owners were carried off. During all
these preliminary proceedings—most of which were violations of the
charter of liberties held by Zeitoun from the Ottoman Government—the
population as a whole (15,000 individuals as against the 25 who
rebelled) very scrupulously kept the peace. This was the policy of
the leaders, and they were obeyed by the people. Nothing happened at
Zeitoun that can account for the Government’s scheme of deportation.
There were several other instances in which the Armenians took up
arms, but none of them are relevant to the case. They were all
subsequent in date to these cardinal instances, and were simply
attempts at self-defence by people who had seen their neighbours
massacred or deported, and were threatened with the same fate
themselves. The Armenians of Moush resisted when they were attacked
by Djevdet Bey, who had already tried to massacre the Armenians of
Van and had succeeded in massacring those of Sairt and Bitlis. The
Armenians of Sassoun resisted when the Kurds had destroyed their
kinsmen in the plain of Diyarbekir and were closing in upon
themselves. This was in June, and the Nestorian Christians of
Hakkiari resisted under the same circumstances and at the same date.
Further west, a few villages took up arms in the Vilayet of Sivas,
after the rest of the Sivas Armenians had been deported; and at
Shabin Kara-Hissar the Armenians drove out their Turkish
fellow-townsmen and stood for several weeks at bay, when they heard
how the exiles from Trebizond and Kerasond had been murdered on the
road. The defence of Djibal Mousa in August (the only story in this
volume with a happy ending) was similarly inspired by the previous
fate of Zeitoun. The resistance at Ourfa in September was another
act of despair, provoked by the terrible procession of exiles from
Harpout and the north-east, which had been filing for three months
through Ourfa before the Armenian colony there was also summoned to
take the road. These are all the instances of resistance that are
reported, and they were all a consequence of the deportations, and
not their cause. It may be added that, wherever resistance was
offered, the Turks suppressed it with inconceivable brutality, not
merely retaliating upon the fighting men, but, in most cases,
massacring every Armenian man, woman and child in cold blood after
the fighting was over. These cases were not palliations of the
atrocities, but occasions of the worst excesses.
The second contention is that there was a general conspiracy of
Armenians throughout the Empire to bring about an internal
revolution at a moment when all the Ottoman military forces were
engaged on the frontiers, and so deliver the country into the hands
of the Allies. The prompt action of the Ottoman Government in
disarming, imprisoning, executing and deporting the whole
people—innocent and guilty alike—is alleged to have crushed this
movement before it had time to declare itself. This is an insidious
line of argument, because it refuses to be tested by the evidence of
what actually occurred. If the actual outbreaks were isolated,
inspired by panic, confined to self-defence, and posterior in date
to the Government’s own preventive measures, all that, on this
hypothesis, is not a proof of the Armenians’ innocence, but only of
the Government’s energy and foresight. Yet when this indictment is
examined, it, too, is found to rest on the most frivolous grounds.
The revolution, it is alleged, was to break out when the Allies
landed in Cilicia—but such a landing was never made; or it was
arranged in conjunction with the landing at the Dardanelles—but the
landing was made and the outbreak never happened. Indeed, it is hard
to see what the Armenians could have done, for nearly all their
able-bodied men between twenty and forty-five years of age were
mobilised at the beginning of the war, and the age limit was soon
extended in either direction to eighteen and fifty. The Turks make
sweeping allegations about secret stores of bombs and arms, which
prove to be false in every case where they can be checked. The
Armenians certainly possessed a moderate number of rifles and
revolvers, because, for the past six years, under the Young Turkish
régime, they had been permitted to carry arms for their personal
security, a privilege that had always been enjoyed, as a matter of
course, by every Moslem in the Ottoman Empire. But evidently there
were not enough arms in their possession to go round, even among the
comparatively few men left behind after mobilisation; for when, in
the winter of 1914-5, the Ottoman authorities made a house-to-house
search for arms, and conducted their inquisition by atrocious
physical tortures, the Armenians bought arms from each other and
from their Moslem neighbours, in order to be able to deliver them up
and suffer no worse punishment than mere imprisonment. This practice
is recorded independently by several trustworthy witnesses from
various localities[232].
The stories of bombs are more extravagant still. In the town of X.,
for instance, a bomb was unearthed in the Armenian cemetery, which
was made the pretext for the most atrocious procedure against the
Armenian inhabitants. Yet the bomb was rusty with age, and was
believed to date from the days of Abd-ul-Hamid, when the Young
Turks, as well as the Armenian political parties, were a secret
revolutionary organisation and not averse to using bombs themselves.
In the same town, a blacksmith in the employment of the American
College was cruelly tortured for “constructing a bomb”; but the
“bomb” turned out to be a solid iron shot which he had been
commissioned to make for the competition of “putting the weight” in
the College athletic sports.
It was also alleged that Armenians resident on the coast had been in
treacherous communication with the Allied fleets. The Armenian
boatmen of Silivri[233], for instance, on the Sea of Marmora, were
deported on the ground that they had furnished supplies to British
submarines; and before this, as early as April, 1915, half-a-dozen
Armenians from Dört Yöl, a village on the Gulf of Alexandretta, were
hanged at Adana on the charge of having signalled to the
Franco-British cruiser squadron—a step which was followed up by the
deportation of the whole population of Dört Yöl into the interior,
to do navvy-work on the roads. This charge against Dört Yöl can be
checked, for the witness of the hangings (a resident in Cilicia of
neutral nationality and excellent standing)[234] states, from his
personal knowledge, that only one Armenian from Dört Yöl had had any
communication with the Allied warships. This evidence is
authoritative, and it has probability on its side; for, if Dört Yöl
was in regular communication with the Allied squadron, it is
inconceivable that the Armenians of Djibal Mousa, a few miles
further down the coast, should have taken 44 days to attract the
same squadron’s attention, when it was a question for them of life
and death[235].
Thus the second contention breaks down, and we are left with the
third, which lays little stress on justice or public safety and
bases the case on revenge. The Armenian civil population in the
Ottoman Empire, it is argued, owes its misfortunes to the Armenian
volunteers in the Russian Army. “Our Armenians in Turkey,” say the
Turks in effect, “have certainly suffered terribly from the measures
we have taken; they may even have suffered innocently; but can you
blame us? Was it not human nature that we should revenge ourselves
on the Armenians at home for the injury we had received from their
compatriots fighting against us at the front in the Russian
ranks—men who had actually volunteered to fight against us in the
enemy’s cause?”
This is almost the favourite argument of the apologists, and yet it
is surely the most monstrous of any, for these Armenian volunteers
owed no allegiance to the Turks at all, but were ordinary Russian
subjects. Through territorial acquisitions and free immigration from
across the frontier, the Russian Government had, by 1914, acquired
the sovereignty over little less than half the Armenian race[236].
Russia was as much the lawful “fatherland” of this substantial
minority as Turkey was of the remainder. It is a misfortune for any
nation to be divided between two allegiances, especially when the
states to which they owe them elect to go to war; but it is at least
an alleviation of the difficulty, and one that does honour to both
parties concerned, when either fraction of the divided nationality
finds itself in sympathy, even under the test of war, with the
particular state to which its allegiance is legally due. The loyalty
of the Russian Armenians to Russia[237] cast no imputation upon the
Ottoman Armenians, and was no concern of the Turks. The latter will
probably explain that they had no objection to the Russian Armenians
doing their duty, but resented their doing more: “The conscripts
naturally answered the summons, but why did those who were exempt
equip themselves so eagerly as volunteers? The Ottoman Armenians
adopted a painfully different attitude. At the beginning of the war,
the Young Turkish Party sent representatives to the Congress of the
Armenian ‘Dashnaktzoutioun’ Party at Erzeroum, offered them
concessions to their nationality, and called upon them to organise
volunteers and join in the invasion of Russian territory[238]. Yet
they decidedly refused—refused in this case when their kinsmen did
not wait to be asked in the other. This reveals the real sympathies
and aspirations of the Armenian people, not only the Armenians in
Russia, but those in our country as well.”
There is, of course, a crushing answer to these tirades. If the
Armenians felt so differently towards the Turks and the Russians,
then that was a serious reflection on their treatment by the
Turks, and the logical way to change their feelings was to treat
them better. Could the civilian Armenians who remembered the
massacre of their innocent kinsfolk at Adana a few years before
have been expected to volunteer in support of those who had
commanded these massacres? Could their feelings have been other
than they were? But so long as only their feelings were in
question and their behaviour remained correct, the Turks had no
right to proceed with them in any but a humane and constitutional
manner. The argument can be driven home by a parallel. There are
Polish volunteer legions in the Austro-Hungarian Army. What would
the Turks’ German apologists have said if the Russian Government
had appeased its resentment against these Austrian-Polish
volunteers by wiping out all the Russian-Polish civilians on their
own side of the frontier?
It is a significant fact that all these Turkish complaints are
directed against Russian Armenians in Russian service. There is no
hint of treachery or malingering on the part of those Ottoman
Armenians who had been drafted, many of them illegally, into the
Turkish Army—no insinuation that their record was not as
satisfactory in 1914 as in 1912[239]. To the editor’s knowledge,
the German apologists have only been able to fasten upon two
“traitors” in the legal (though not in the moral) sense of the
word. There have been refugees, of course, like Mourad of Sivas,
who escaped into the Caucasus when the atrocities were in full
course—men who had just been compelled to fight for their lives,
and had seen their neighbours and kinsfolk massacred once more on
all sides of them. Not even the German apologists would dare to
censure these men under these circumstances for enrolling in the
volunteers. But there are only two cases adduced of Ottoman
subjects who went over to the Russians before the atrocities
began—a certain Karakin Pasdermadjian, a deputy in the Ottoman
Parliament, and another Armenian named Suren, stated to have been
a delegate at the “Dashnaktzoutioun” Congress at Erzeroum. “In
face of this,” argues the German writer from whose pamphlet these
instances are taken[240], “it was the Ottoman Government’s duty to
uphold public law and order. In wartime, measures of this kind
assume an especially weighty and pressing character”—and with this
generality he implicitly condones the atrocities of 1915. If this
represents the official apologia of the Ottoman Government, the
only answer is a _reductio ad absurdum_. On the same principle,
when Sir Roger Casement landed from a German submarine on the
Irish coast, it would have been the British Government’s duty to
deport all the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Ireland and maroon
them, say, on the coast of Labrador or in the central desert of
Australia. The parallel is exact, and leaves nothing more to be
said, unless, indeed, what was said by Talaat Bey, the Young
Turkish Minister of the Interior, in a recent interview with a
correspondent of the _Berliner Tageblatt_[241]. “The sad events
that have occurred in Armenia,” he vouchsafed, “have prevented my
sleeping well at night. We have been reproached for making no
distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty; but
that was utterly impossible, in view of the fact that _those who
were innocent to-day might be guilty to-morrow_.” There is no need
of further witnesses.
The various Turkish contentions thus fail, from first to last, to
meet the point. They all attempt to trace the atrocities of 1915 to
events arising out of the war; but they not only cannot justify them
on this ground, they do not even suggest any adequate motive for
their perpetration. It is evident that the war was merely an
opportunity and not a cause—in fact, that the deportation scheme,
and all that it involved, flowed inevitably from the general policy
of the Young Turkish Government. This inference will be confirmed if
we analyse the political tenets to which the Young Turks were
committed.
The Young Turkish movement began as a reaction against the policy of
Abd-ul-Hamid. Its founders repudiated his “neutralisation of
forces”; they maintained that the Ottoman Empire must stand by its
own strength, and that this strength must be developed by a radical
internal reconstruction. From their asylum at Paris they preached
the doctrines of the French Revolution—religious toleration,
abolition of caste-privileges, equality of all citizens before the
law, equality of obligation to perform military service,
constitutional government through a representative parliament. And
when they came into power, they made some attempt to put these
doctrines into practice. In Turkey for a brief space of the year
1908, as in France twelve decades before, the vision of “Pure
Reason” did bring peace and goodwill among men. Nearly all the
foreign observers who were in the country when “Huriet” came,
testify to this momentary, magic transfiguration of hatred into
love; and the Armenians, who had desired more than any of their
neighbours to see this day, might well believe that the Young Turks’
ideal was identical with their own. Yet there were vital differences
beneath the surface. The Young Turks realised that the Christian
elements were an asset; they did not propose, at the outset, to
destroy them, as Abd-ul-Hamid had done; but they wanted still less
to co-operate with them as separate partners in the Ottoman State.
The “Millets” were as abhorrent to them, as an institution, as the
autocracy of Abd-ul-Hamid. They set up against the principle of the
“Millet” the programme of “Ottomanisation.” The Turkish leaven was
to permeate the non-Turkish lump, until it had all become of one
uniform Turkish substance. In Parliament this programme took such
forms as a bill to make the Turkish language the universal and
compulsory medium of secondary education[242], and the Armenian
deputies found themselves opposing it in concert with the Liberal
Party, which included the Arab bloc and stood for the toleration of
national individualities. The Young Turks, in fact, had imbibed both
the good currents and the bad in the modern political atmosphere of
Western Europe—its democratic doctrines but its chauvinism as well.
Most political theorists debarred from responsible practice give
this same confused allegiance to incompatible ideals, and all, when
they come into power, are compelled by circumstances to choose which
master they will serve. In 1908, the choice of the Young Turks was
not predestined; the “Committee of _Union_ and _Progress_” might
have set its face towards either of its divided goals; but
disillusionment soon decided its orientation. The magic dawn of
“Huriet” faded; the old, crushing burden of Ottoman Government
descended upon shoulders not expert, like Abd-ul-Hamid’s, at
balancing the weight; the Austro-Bulgarian violation of the Treaty
of Berlin and the subsequent territorial losses of the Balkan War
shook the Young Turkish Party’s prestige, aggravated the difficulty
of their problem, and embittered their attitude towards its
solution. The current of chauvinism gained upon them more and more,
and their intervention in the European War demonstrated that its
mastery was complete, for their calculations in intervening were of
a thoroughly Prussian character. A military triumph was to restore
them their prestige; it was to recover ancient territories of the
Empire in Egypt, the Caucasus and the coveted Persian province of
Azerbaijan; it was to shake off the trammels of international
control, and solve the internal problem by cutting the Gordian Knot.
But the hopes of conquest and prestige were early shattered by the
strategical failures of the winter of 1914-5, which were almost as
humiliating as those of 1912, and then the Young Turks concentrated
savagely upon “Ottomanisation” at home.
Ottomanisation has become the Young Turks’ obsession[243]. Their
first act after declaring war was to repudiate the Capitulations;
their latest stroke has been to declare the Turkish language the
exclusive medium of official business in the Empire, with only a
year’s delay—a step which has caused consternation among their
German allies. And in this mood they turned to the Armenian
question, which happened at the moment to have reached an important
phase.
In 1912-3 the diplomatists of Europe had once more met in
consultation over the Ottoman Empire, and the Armenians had
presented their case to the Conference at London, as they had
presented it at Berlin thirty-five years before.[244] When the
Conference proved unable to take cognizance of their petition, they
applied to the individual governments of the Powers. The Russian
Government took the initiative and drafted a new scheme for the
administration of the Six Vilayets, which it submitted to the
Signatories of the Treaty of Berlin. The German Government opposed,
but was won over by the Russian diplomacy and by the representations
of the Armenian delegates, who repaired to Berlin in person. Then,
when the German opposition had been withdrawn, the Russian draft was
revised by the Ambassadors of the Powers at Constantinople,
accepted, with modifications, by the Young Turkish Government, and
actually promulgated by them on the 8th February, 1914.
In its final shape, the scheme still embodied the main points of
reform which had been regarded as cardinal ever since 1878. There
was to be a mixed Gendarmerie, under a European chief, recruited
from the Turks and Armenians, but closed to the Kurds; Moslem and
Christian were to be equal before the law; the Armenian language was
to be a recognised medium in the courts and public offices (a bitter
clause for the Young Turkish nationalists); there were to be no
restrictions on the multiplication of Armenian schools. Finally, the
vilayets affected by the scheme[245] were to be divided into two
groups, and each group was to be placed under a European
Inspector-General. The two Inspector-Generals were authorised to
appoint and dismiss all officials in their respective spheres,
except those “of superior rank.” They were themselves to be
appointed by the Ottoman Government, on the recommendation of the
Powers, for a term of ten years, and not to be removable within this
period. The Government duly proceeded to select two candidates for
these Inspectorates, a Dutchman and a Norwegian, but its treatment
of these gentlemen soon showed that in diplomacy, at any rate, the
Young Turks had adopted the methods of Abd-ul Hamid. A clause was
inserted in the Inspectors’ contract of engagement, empowering the
Government to denounce it at any moment upon payment of an indemnity
of one year’s salary—a flat violation of the ten years’ term
provided for under the scheme; and the list of “superior officials”
was inflated until the patronage of the Inspectors, which, next to
their irremovability, would have been their most effective power,
was reduced to an illusion. The unfortunate nominees were spared the
farce of exercising their maimed authority. They had barely reached
their provinces when the European War broke out, and the Government
promptly denounced the contracts and suspended the Scheme of
Reforms, as the first step towards its own intervention in the
conflict.
Thus, at the close of 1914, the Armenians found themselves in the
same position as in 1883. The measures designed for their security
had fallen through, and left nothing behind but the resentment of
the Government that still held them at its mercy. The deportations
of 1915 followed as inexorably from the Balkan War and the Project
of 1914 as the massacres of 1895-6 had followed from the Russian War
and the Project of 1878. Only in the execution of their revenge the
Young Turks revealed all the sinister features of their
dissimilarity to Abd-ul-Hamid. The Sultan, so far as he differed
from the familiar type of Oriental despot, had been an opportunist
in the tradition of Metternich—a politician of mature experience and
delicate touch, unencumbered by any constructive programme to
disturb the artistry of his game of finesse. He repressed the
Armenians to a nicety after preparing for it eighteen years. The
Young Turks were adventurers who had caught the catchwords of
another generation and another school—the apes of Danton and
Robespierre, and doctrinaires to the core. For the old,
anachronistic ascendency of Moslem over Rayah, to the maintenance of
which Abd-ul-Hamid had cynically devoted his abilities, they
substituted the idea of Turkish nationalism, which clothed the same
evil in a more clearly-cut and infinitely more dynamic form. They
were fanatics with an unreasoned creed, builders with a plan that
they meant to carry through, and no half-measures would content
them, no inhibitions of prudence or humanity deter them from the
attempt to realise the whole. Hindrances only exasperated them to
sweeping action, and a blind concentration on their programme
shielded them from doubts. “Our acts,” Talaat Bey is reported to
have said, in the interview quoted above, “have been dictated to us
by a national and historical necessity. The idea of guaranteeing the
existence of Turkey must outweigh every other consideration.” The
first of these sentiments is the pure-milk of the eighteenth century
ideologues; there is a Prussian adulteration in the second, which
smacks of more recent times. It is the voice of the youngest,
crudest, most ruthless national movement in Europe, and the acts
which it excuses, and which the documents in this volume describe,
were the barbarous initiation of the Near East into the European
fraternity.
VI. THE DEPORTATIONS OF 1915: PROCEDURE.
The atrocities of 1915 are described in detail in the documents
collected in this book, but it will be well to give in conclusion a
bare summary of events, partly to make the detail less confusing to
the reader, and partly to bring out the essential unity of design
which underlay the procedure against the Armenians at the various
dates and in the various provinces of the Empire to which the
documents relate. This fundamental uniformity of procedure is more
sinister than the incidental aggravations of the crime by Kurds,
peasants, gendarmes or local authorities. It is damning evidence
that the procedure itself, which set in motion all the other forces
of evil, was conceived and organised by the Central Government at
Constantinople.
The dismissal of the Inspectors-General and the abrogation of the
reforms were followed immediately by the mobilisation of the Ottoman
Army for eventual participation in the war, and with this the
sufferings of the Armenians began. It has been mentioned already
that the Young Turks had extended the duty of military service to
their Christian fellow-citizens, and that the Armenian recruits had
distinguished themselves in the Balkan War; but naturally the
measure was not retrospective, and Armenians who were already past
the statutory age of training when it was introduced, were allowed
to pay the “Rayah” poll-tax as before, under the formula of an
exemption-tax in lieu of military service. In the autumn of 1914,
however, there was a general levy of all males in the Empire from
twenty years of age to forty-five, and soon from eighteen to fifty,
in which the Armenians, whether they had paid their annual
exemption-tax or not, were included with the rest. There were also
drastic requisitions of private supplies, by which the Armenians,
again, were the principal sufferers, since they were the chief
merchants and store-keepers of the country. These were considerable
hardships and injustices, but they were not necessarily in
themselves the result of a malevolent design. Apart from what
actually followed, they might have been simply the inevitable
penalties of a country which had been embarked by its Government on
a struggle for existence.
In October, when mobilisation was completed, the Government had, in
fact, declared war on the Allies, and in December its grandiose
military operations began. Enver Pasha, with the main Ottoman
forces, started an encircling movement against the Russian troops in
Caucasia, along a front extending from Erzeroum to the Black Sea
Coast; Halil Bey led a flying column across the frontier of
Azerbaijan, and raised the Kurds; Djemal Pasha felt his way across
the Sinai Peninsula towards the Suez Canal. For a week or two the
invading armies met with success. They reached Ardahan, almost in
the rear of Kars, they pushed the Russians back from their rail-head
at Sari-Kamysh, and they occupied the capital of Azerbaijan, Tabriz.
But then the campaign broke down in disaster. Two Turkish army corps
were destroyed at Sari-Kamysh in the first week of January, 1915,
and the rest were driven out of Russian territory by the end of the
month; on the 30th January, the Russians even re-occupied Tabriz.
Djemal’s Egyptian expedition was a month in arrear, but its fortunes
were the same. He reached the Canal at the beginning of February,
after a creditable desert march, only to return by the way he came,
after an abortive night attack. There was no more question of the
offensive for the Turks, but only of defending their own straggling
frontiers; and this breakdown was a bitter blow to Young Turkish
official circles, for it shattered half the hopes that had lured
them into the war. The unmeasured optimism of the winter gave place
to equally violent depression, and under the influence of this new
atmosphere the persecution of the Armenians entered a second and
more positive phase.
A decree went forth that all Armenians should be disarmed. The
Armenians in the Army were drafted out of the fighting ranks,
re-formed into special labour battalions, and set to work at
throwing up fortifications and constructing roads. The disarming of
the civil population was left to the local authorities, and in every
administrative centre a reign of terror began. The authorities
demanded the production of a definite number of arms. Those who
could not produce them were tortured, often in fiendish ways; those
who procured them for surrender, by purchase from their Moslem
neighbours or by other means, were imprisoned for conspiracy against
the Government. Few of these were young men, for most of the young
had been called up to serve; they were elderly men, men of substance
and the leaders of the Armenian community, and it became apparent
that the inquisition for arms was being used as a cloak to deprive
the community of its natural heads. Similar measures had preceded
the massacres of 1895-6, and a sense of foreboding spread through
the Armenian people. “One night in the winter,” writes a foreign
witness of these events[246], “the Government sent officers round
the city to all Armenian houses, knocking up the families and
demanding that all weapons should be given up. This action was the
death-knell to many hearts.”
The appalling inference was in fact correct, for the second phase of
persecution passed over without a break into the third and final
act, and it is evident that the whole train had been laid by the
Ministry at Constantinople before the first arms were called in or
the first Armenian thrown into prison. This carries the detailed
organisation of the scheme at least as far back as February, 1915,
and, indeed, the elaborate preparations that had already been made
by the 8th April, the date of the first deportation at Zeitoun,
presuppose at least as long a period. It is extremely important to
emphasise these chronological facts, because they refute the attempt
of the apologists to disconnect the last phase from the phases that
preceded it, and to represent it as an emergency measure dictated by
the military events of the spring.
In reality, the situation had been growing tenser before the spring
began. In outlying villages, the inquisition for arms had been
accompanied by open violence. Men had been massacred, women violated
and houses burnt down by the gendarmerie patrols, and such outrages
had been particularly frequent in the Vilayet of Van, where the
soldiers seem to have been exasperated by their recent reverses and
were certainly stimulated by the truculence of the Governor Djevdet
Bey, who had returned to his administrative duties after his
unsuccessful campaigning beyond the frontier. The crowning outrage
was the murder of four Armenian leaders from the City, when they
were on their way to an outlying district to keep the peace, at
Djevdet’s own request, between the local Armenians and their Moslem
neighbours. The Armenian inhabitants of the City of Van took warning
from the fate of the villagers and from this last and most sinister
crime, and prepared themselves, in case of need, for self-defence.
Their action was justified by Djevdet Bey himself, for he had been
drawing a cordon round the garden suburbs of Van, where the majority
of the Armenian population lived, and on the 20th April he unleashed
his troops upon them without provocation. The Armenians of Van found
themselves fighting for their lives against a murderous attack by
what was supposed to be the lawful Government of their country.
There had been the same sequence of events at Zeitoun. The search
for arms had been accompanied by a formidable concentration of
troops in the town, and the final phase had been opened, not indeed
by a butchery, but by the deportation of the first batch of the
inhabitants. This had occurred on the 8th April, twelve days before
Djevdet Bey’s outbreak at Van, and both events were previous to the
new turn in the military situation. In fact, it was the distress of
the Armenian civil population at Van that decided the Russian
initiative. A Russian column, with a strong contingent of
Russian-Armenian volunteers, forced its way towards the city from
the direction of Bayazid, and relieved the defenders on the 19th
May, after they had been besieged for a month. The strategy of
encirclement was now retorted upon the Turks themselves, for on the
24th May another Russian column occupied Urmia, and drove the last
of the Turco-Kurdish invaders out of Azerbaijan. A British
expeditionary force was simultaneously pressing up the Tigris, and
while events were taking this serious turn in the east, the heart of
the Empire was threatened by the attack on the Dardanelles. By the
end of May, 1915, the outlook was as desperate as in the bad days of
1912, but it must be emphasised again that the final phase in the
procedure against the Armenians had already begun before these acute
military dangers emerged above the horizon. The military straits in
which the Young Turks found themselves in the spring of 1915 may
have precipitated the execution of their Armenian scheme, but have
no bearing whatever upon its origination.
On the 8th April, then, the final phase began, and the process
carried out at Zeitoun was applied to one Armenian centre after
another throughout the Ottoman Empire. On a certain date, in
whatever town or village it might be (and the dates show a
significant sequence), the public crier went through the streets
announcing that every male Armenian must present himself forthwith
at the Government Building. In some cases the warning was given by
the soldiery or gendarmerie slaughtering every male Armenian they
encountered in the streets, a reminiscence of the procedure in
1895-6; but usually a summons to the Government Building was the
preliminary stage. The men presented themselves in their working
clothes, leaving their shops and work-rooms open, their ploughs in
the field, their cattle on the mountain side. When they arrived,
they were thrown without explanation into prison, kept there a day
or two, and then marched out of the town in batches, roped man to
man, along some southerly or south-easterly road. They were
starting, they were told, on a long journey—to Mosul or perhaps to
Baghdad. It was a dreadful prospect to men unequipped for travel,
who had neither scrip nor staff, food nor clothes nor bedding. They
had bidden no farewell to their families, they had not wound up
their affairs. But they had not long to ponder over their plight,
for they were halted and massacred at the first lonely place on the
road. The same process was applied to those other Armenian men (and
they numbered hundreds or even thousands in the larger centres) who
had been imprisoned during the winter months on the charge of
conspiracy or concealment of arms, though in some instances these
prisoners are said to have been overlooked—an involuntary form of
reprieve of which there were also examples during the French Reign
of Terror in 1793. This was the civil authorities’ part, but there
was complete co-ordination between Talaat Bey’s Ministry of the
Interior and Enver Pasha’s Ministry of War, for simultaneously the
Armenian Labour Battalions, working behind the front, were
surrounded by detachments of their combatant Moslem fellow-soldiers
and butchered in cold blood.
The military authorities also made themselves responsible for the
civil population of Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun, who were marked out
for complete and immediate extermination on account of their
proximity to Van and the advancing Russian forces. This task was
carried out by military methods with the help of the local
Kurds—another reversion to the tactics of Abd-ul-Hamid—but its
application appears to have been limited to the aforementioned
districts. In the rest of the Empire, where the work was left in the
hands of the civil administration, the women and children were not
disposed of by straightforward massacre like the men. Their destiny
under the Government scheme was not massacre but slavery or
deportation.
After the Armenian men had been summoned away to their death, there
was usually a few days interval in whatever town it might be, and
then the crier was heard again in the streets, bidding all Armenians
who remained to prepare themselves for deportation, while placards
to the same effect were posted on the walls.[247] This applied, in
actual fact, to the women and children, and to a poor remnant of the
men who, through sickness, infirmity or age, had escaped the fate
marked out for their sex. A period of grace was in most cases
accorded for the settlement of their affairs and the preparation of
their journey; but here, again, there were cases in which the
victims were taken without warning from the loom, the fountain or
even from their beds, and the respite, where granted, was in great
measure illusory. The ordinary term given was a bare week, and it
was never more than a fortnight—a time utterly insufficient for all
that had to be done. There were instances, moreover, in which the
Government broke its promise, and carried away its victims before
the stated day arrived.
For the women there was an alternative to deportation. They might
escape it by conversion to Islam; but conversion for an Armenian
woman in 1915 meant something more physical than a change of
theology. It could only be ratified by immediate marriage with a
Moslem man, and if the woman were already a wife (or, rather, a
widow, for by this time few Armenian husbands remained alive), she
must part with any children she had, and surrender them to be
brought up as true Moslems in a “Government Orphanage”—a fate of
uncertain meaning, for no such institutions were known to be in
existence[248]. If the convert could find no Turk to take her, or
shrank from the embraces of the bridegroom who offered himself, then
she and her children must be deported with the rest, however
fervently she had professed the creed of Islam. Deportation was the
alternative adopted by, or imposed upon, the great majority.
The sentence of deportation was a paralysing blow, yet those
condemned to it had to spend their week of grace in feverish
activity, procuring themselves clothing, provisions and ready money
for the road. The local authorities placed every possible obstacle
in their way. There was an official fiction that their banishment
was only temporary, and they were therefore prohibited from selling
their real property or their stock. The Government set its seal upon
the vacated houses, lands and merchandise, “to keep them safe
against their owners’ return;” yet before these rightful owners
started on their march they often saw these very possessions, which
they had not been allowed to realise, made over by the authorities
as a free gift to Moslem immigrants, who had been concentrated in
the neighbourhood, in readiness to step into the Armenians’
place[249]. And even such household or personal chattels as they
were permitted to dispose of were of little avail, for their Moslem
neighbours took shameless advantage of their necessity, and beat
them down to an almost nominal price, so that when the day of
departure arrived they were often poorly equipped to meet it.
The Government charged itself with their transport, and indeed they
were not in a position to arrange for it themselves, for their
ultimate destination was seldom divulged. The exiles from each
centre were broken up into several convoys, which varied in size
from two or three hundred to three or four thousand members. A
detachment of gendarmerie was assigned to every convoy, to guard
them on the way, and the civil authorities hired or requisitioned a
certain number of ox-carts (arabas), usually one to a family, which
they placed at their disposal; and so the convoy started out. The
mental misery of exile was sufficiently acute, but it was soon
ousted by more material cares. A few days, or even a few hours,
after the start, the carters would refuse to drive them further, and
the gendarmes, as fellow-Moslems, would connive at their
mutinousness. So the carts turned back, and the exiles had to go
forward on foot. This was the beginning of their physical torments,
for they were not travelling over soft country or graded roads, but
by mule-tracks across some of the roughest country in the world. It
was the hot season, the wells and springs were sometimes many hours’
journey apart, and the gendarmes often amused themselves by
forbidding their fainting victims to drink. It would have been an
arduous march for soldiers on active service, but the members of
these convoys were none of them fitted or trained for physical
hardship. They were the women and children, the old and the sick.
Some of the women had been delicately brought up and lived in
comfort all their lives; some had to carry children in their arms
too young to walk; others had been sent off with the convoy when
they were far gone with child, and gave birth on the road. None of
these latter survived, for they were forced to march on again after
a few hours’ respite; they died on the road, and the new-born babies
perished with them. Many others died of hunger and thirst,
sunstroke, apoplexy or sheer exhaustion. The hardships endured by
the women who accompanied their husbands on Sir John Moore’s retreat
to Corunna bear no comparison with the hardships these Armenian
women endured. The Government which condemned them to exile knew
what the journey would mean, and the servants of the Government who
conducted them did everything to aggravate their inevitable physical
sufferings. Yet this was the least part of their torture; far worse
were the atrocities of violence wantonly inflicted upon them by
fellow human beings.
From the moment they left the outskirts of the towns they were never
safe from outrage. The Moslem peasants mobbed and plundered them as
they passed through the cultivated lands, and the gendarmes connived
at the peasants’ brutality, as they had connived at the desertion of
the drivers with their carts. When they arrived at a village they
were exhibited like slaves in a public place, often before the
windows of the Government Building itself, and every Moslem
inhabitant was allowed to view them and take his choice of them for
his harem; the gendarmes themselves began to make free with the
rest, and compelled them to sleep with them at night. There were
still more horrible outrages when they came to the mountains, for
here they were met by bands of “chettis” and Kurds. The “chettis”
were brigands, recruited from the public prisons; they had been
deliberately released by the authorities on a consideration which
may have been tacit but which both parties clearly understood. As
for the Kurds, they had not changed since 1896, for they had always
retained their arms, which Abd-ul-Hamid had served out and the Young
Turks could not or would not take away; and they had now been
restored to official favour upon the proclamation of the Holy War,
so that their position was as secure again as it had been before
1908. They knew well what they were allowed and what they were
intended to do. When these Kurds and chettis waylaid the convoys,
the gendarmes always fraternised with them and followed their lead,
and it would be hard to say which took the most active part in the
ensuing massacre—for this was the work which the brigands came to
do. The first to be butchered were the old men and boys—all the
males that were to be found in the convoy except the infants in
arms—but the women were massacred also. It depended on the whim of
the moment whether a Kurd cut a woman down or carried her away into
the hills. When they were carried away their babies were left on the
ground or dashed against the stones. But while the convoy dwindled,
the remnant had always to march on. The cruelty of the gendarmes
towards the victims grew greater as their physical sufferings grew
more intense; the gendarmes seemed impatient to make a hasty end of
their task. Women who lagged behind were bayoneted on the road, or
pushed over precipices, or over bridges. The passage of rivers, and
especially of the Euphrates, was always an occasion of wholesale
murder. Women and children were driven into the water, and were shot
as they struggled, if they seemed likely to reach the further bank.
The lust and covetousness of their tormentors had no limit. The last
survivors often staggered into Aleppo naked; every shred of their
clothing had been torn from them on the way. Witnesses who saw their
arrival remark that there was not one young or pretty face to be
seen among them, and there was assuredly none surviving that was
truly old—except in so far as it had been aged by suffering. The
only chance to survive was to be plain enough to escape their
torturers’ lust, and vigorous enough to bear the fatigues of the
road.
Those were the exiles that arrived on foot, but there were others,
from the metropolitan districts and the north-west, who were
transported to Aleppo by rail. These escaped the violence of the
Kurds, but the sum of their suffering can hardly have been less.
They were packed in cattle-trucks, often filthy and always
overcrowded, and their journey was infinitely slow, for the line was
congested by their multitude and by the passage of troops. At every
stopping-place they were simply turned out into the open, without
food or shelter, to wait for days, or even weeks, till the line was
clear and rolling-stock available to carry them a further stage. The
gendarmes in charge of them seem to have been as brutal as those
with the convoys on foot, and when they came to the two breaks in
the Baghdad Railway, where the route crosses the ranges of the
Taurus and Amanus Mountains, they too had to traverse these, the
most arduous stages of all, on foot. At Bozanti, the rail-head west
of Taurus, and again at Osmania, Mamouret, Islohia and Kotmo,
stations on either slope of the Amanus chain, vast and incredibly
foul concentration camps grew up, where the exiles were delayed for
months, and died literally by thousands of hunger, exposure, and
epidemics. The portion of them that finally reached Aleppo were in
as deplorable a condition as those that had made the journey on foot
from beginning to end.
Aleppo was the focus upon which all the convoys converged. In April,
it is true, half the Zeitounlis had been sent north-westward to
Sultania, in the Konia district, one of the most unhealthy spots in
the Anatolian Desert. But the authorities changed their mind, and
despatched the exiles at Sultania south-east again, to join their
fellow-townsmen in the Desert of Syria[250]. Thenceforward, the
south-eastern desert was the destination of them all, and Aleppo,
and in a secondary degree Ourfa and Ras-ul-Ain, were the natural
centres of distribution.
Some of the exiles were planted in the immediate neighbourhood of
Aleppo itself—at places like Moumbidj, Bab, Ma’ara, Idlib[251]—but
these seem to have been comparatively few, and it is not certain
whether their quarters there were intended to be permanent. Many
more were deported southward from Aleppo along the Syrian Railway,
and allowed to find a resting-place in the districts of Hama, Homs
and Damascus. A still larger number were sent towards the east, and
cantoned on the banks of the Euphrates, in the desert section of its
course. There were some at Rakka; Der-el-Zor was the largest depôt
of all, and is mentioned in this connection more frequently than any
place after Aleppo itself; some were sent on to Mayadin[252], a
day’s journey further down the river, and Moslem travellers reported
meeting others within forty-eight hours’ journey of Baghdad[253]. No
first-hand evidence has come in of their presence at or near Mosul,
though they were frequently informed on their journey that their
destination was to be there.
The dispersal of the exiles was thus extremely wide, as the authors
of the scheme had intended that it should be, but certain features
are common to all the places to which they were sent. They were all
inhabited by Moslem populations alien to the Armenians in language
and habits of life; they were all unhealthy—either malarious or
sultry or in some other respect markedly unsuitable for the
residence of people used to a temperate climate; and they were all
remote from the exiles’ original homes—the remotest places, in fact,
which the Government could find within the Ottoman frontiers, since
Christians were debarred from setting foot on the sacred deserts of
the Hidjaz, and a British expeditionary force was occupying the
marshes of Irak. The Ottoman Government had to content itself with
the worst districts at its disposal, and it did its utmost to
heighten the climate’s natural effect by marooning the exiles there,
after an exhausting journey, with neither food, nor shelter, nor
clothing, and with no able-bodied men among them to supply these
deficiencies by their labour and resource.
The transmission of the exiles to these distant destinations was
naturally slow—indeed, the slowness of the journey was one of the
most effective of its torments. The first convoy started from
Zeitoun on the 8th April, 1915; fresh convoys followed it during the
seven ensuing months from the different Armenian centres in the
Empire, and there is no record of any stoppage until the 6th
November. On that date an order from Constantinople reached the
local authorities, at any rate in the Cilician plain[254], directing
them to refrain from further deportations; but this only applied to
the remnant of the local Armenian residents, and the masses of
exiles from the north and north-west who were still painfully
struggling across the barriers of Taurus and Amanus, were driven on
remorselessly to their journey’s end, which cannot have been reached
by them (or by such of them as survived) before the very close of
the year. The congestion of the routes was partly responsible for
this delay; but the congestion would have been still more pronounced
if the scheme had not been carried out methodically, region by
region, in an order which betrays more than anything else the
directing hand of the Central Government. Cilicia was the first
region to be cleared, just as it had been the principal region to
suffer in the massacres of 1909. Strategically and economically, it
was the most vital spot in Asiatic Turkey, and its large and
increasing Armenian population must always have offended the
sensibilities of the Young Turkish Nationalists. It was the natural
starting-point for the execution of the Ottomanisation Scheme, and
the deportations were in progress here fully six weeks before they
were applied to the remainder of the Empire. Zeitoun was cleared on
the 8th April; Geben, Furnus and Albustan within the next few days;
Dört Yöl before the end of the month. At Hadjin, on the other hand,
the clearance did not begin till the 3rd June, and dragged on into
September; while at Adana, the city of the plain, there was only an
abortive clearance in the third week of May, and the serious
deportations were postponed till the first week in September.
The next region to be cleared was the zone bordering on Van and
immediately threatened by the Russian advance, from the Black Sea to
the Persian frontier. In the south-eastern districts of this
zone—Bitlis, Moush, Sassoun and Hakkiari—the clearance, as has been
remarked already, was not effected by deportation, but by wholesale
massacre on the spot. Outlying villages of the Boulanik, Moush and
Sassoun areas were destroyed in the latter part of May, and before
the end of the same month Djevdet Bey retreated down the Bohtan
Valley from Van, and massacred the Armenians of Sairt. The Armenians
of Bitlis were next massacred by Djevdet, on the 25th June; and, in
the first week of July, 20,000 fresh troops arrived from Harpout and
exterminated the Armenians of Moush—first the villagers and then the
people of the town, which was bombarded by artillery on the 10th
June. After making an end of Moush these troops joined the Kurdish
irregulars operating against Sassoun, and on the 5th August, after
bitter fighting, the surviving Sassounlis—man, woman and child—were
annihilated in their last mountain stronghold. At the end of July
the Ottoman forces temporarily re-entered Van, and slaughtered all
the Armenian inhabitants who had not escaped in the wake of the
Russian retreat. In June and July the Nestorian (Syrian) communities
of the district of Hakkiari, in the upper basin of the Greater Zab,
were also attacked by the Kurds and destroyed, except for a remnant
which crossed the watershed into the Urmia basin and found safety
within the Russian lines.
In the north-western districts of the frontier zone the semblance of
deportation was preserved, but the exiles—women and children as well
as men—were invariably massacred in cold blood after a few days on
the road. Before the end of May there was a massacre at Khnyss, and
on the 6th June the deportations began (with the same consummation)
in the villages of the Erzeroum plain. At Erzeroum itself the first
deportation took place on the 16th June, and the last on the 28th
July (or on the 3rd August, according to other reports). The
Armenian Bishop of the city was deported with this last convoy, and
never heard of again. At Baibourt, the surrounding villages were
similarly cleared before the town, and the townspeople were
despatched in three convoys, the last of which started on the 14th
June. From the town of Erzindjan four convoys started on successive
days, from the 7th June to the 10th. Practically none of the exiles
from Erzindjan, Baibourt or Erzeroum seem to have outlived the first
stages of the journey.
At Harpout, the clearance began on the 1st June, and continued
throughout the month. On the 2nd, 3rd and 4th July the adjoining
town of Mezré was emptied as well. The convoys from these two places
and the neighbouring villages were terribly thinned by atrocities on
the road.
At Trebizond the deportations were carried out from the 1st to the
6th July, and seem to have been simultaneous in the various coast
towns of the Vilayet. Here, too, deportation was merely a cloak for
immediate massacre. The exiles were either drowned at sea or cut
down at the first resting-place on the road.
In the Vilayet of Sivas, again, the villages were dealt with first,
but the city itself was not cleared till the 5th July. At X. the men
were deported on the 26th June, the women on the 5th July, and the
last remnant, who had found protection with the American
Missionaries, were carried away on the 10th August. All the men, and
many of the women, were massacred on the road.
The Armenian population in the provinces west of Sivas, and in the
metropolitan districts surrounding Constantinople, was removed by
train along the Anatolian Railway to Konia, and thence towards
Aleppo along the several sections of the Baghdad line. In all this
region the scheme was put into execution distinctly later. At Angora
the deportations began towards the end of July, at Adapazar about
the 11th August; at Broussa there seems to have been no clearance
till the first weeks of September, but this is stated to have been
one of the last places touched[255]. At Adrianople, however, the
Armenians were not deported till the middle of October; and at K.,
in the Sandjak of Kaisaria, not till the 12th/15th November.
The south-eastern outposts of the Armenian Dispersion were left to
the last, although their immediate neighbours in the Cilician
highlands had been taken at the very beginning. The villagers of
Djibal Mousa were not summoned till the 13th July; Aintab was not
touched till the 1st August, and then only cleared gradually during
the course of the month. The summons to Ourfa, which was answered,
as at Djibal Mousa, by defiance, was not delivered till the last
week in September.
Glancing back over this survey, we can discern the Central
Government’s general plan. The months of April and May were assigned
to the clearance of Cilicia; June and July were reserved for the
east; the western centres along the Railway were given their turn in
August and September; and at the same time the process was extended,
for completeness’ sake, to the outlying Armenian communities in the
extreme south-east. It was a deliberate, systematic attempt to
eradicate the Armenian population throughout the Ottoman Empire, and
it has certainly met with a very large measure of success; but it is
not easy to present the results, even approximately, in a
statistical form. The only people in a position to keep an accurate
account of the numbers affected were the Ottoman authorities
themselves; but it is unlikely that they have done so, and still
more unlikely that they would ever divulge such figures to the
civilised world. We are compelled to base our estimates on the
statements of private persons, who were excluded from detailed
investigation by the jealous suspicion of the Government officials
and were seldom able to observe events in more than a limited
section of the field. We must make our computations by piecing
together these isolated data from private sources, and since
Oriental arithmetic is notoriously inexact (and this is scarcely
less true of the Nearer than of the Further East), we shall only
make use of testimony from foreign witnesses of neutral nationality.
Such witnesses may be assumed to be comparatively free from
unconscious exaggeration and completely innocent of purposeful
misrepresentation, and we can accept their statements with
considerable assurance.
The first step is to establish the number of Armenians living within
the Ottoman frontiers at the moment the deportations began. All the
other figures ultimately depend upon this, but it is harder than any
to obtain, for there are no independent foreign estimates of this on
record, and the discrepancy between the native estimates is
extreme[256]. The Armenian Patriarchate, after an enquiry conducted
in 1912, placed the number as high as 2,100,000[257]; the Ottoman
Government, in its latest official returns, puts it at 1,100,000 and
no more. Both parties have an equal political interest in forcing
their figures, but the Armenians are likely to have had a greater
respect for exactitude, or at any rate a stronger sense of the
futility of falsification. The most “neutral” course under the
circumstances is to halve the difference, and to take the number
provisionally as being 1,600,000, with the qualification that the
true figure certainly lies between this and 2,000,000, and probably
approaches more closely to the latter. The rest of the necessary
figures can fortunately be drawn from foreign neutral testimony, in
which such baffling discrepancies are rarer.
The second step is to estimate the number of those who have escaped
deportation. There are the refugees who have escaped it by crossing
the frontier—182,000 into the Russian Caucasus and 4,200 into Egypt,
according to detailed and trustworthy returns[258]. There are also
two important Armenian communities in Turkey where practically all
but the leaders have been left unmolested—those of Smyrna and
Constantinople. At Constantinople about 150,000 Armenians must still
remain. Then there are the Catholic and Protestant Millets, which
were nominally exempted from deportation, and the exempted converts
to Islam. It is impossible to estimate the numbers in these
categories with any plausibility, for the conduct of the authorities
in respect of them was quite erratic. Many of the converts to
Islam[259], as well as Armenians of the other denominations, were
given the same treatment as the Gregorians, and the actual
percentage of conversions is unascertainable, for they were
encouraged in some places and discouraged in others. We must also
allow for those who managed to elude the Government’s net. As a
general rule, this category is more numerous in reality than it
appears to be, and this is especially so in the Near East. But in
the present case the Young Turks seem to have put a Prussian
thoroughness into the execution of their scheme, and the margin of
ineffectiveness was evidently narrow. In the towns, such as Zeitoun,
Hadjin, Sivas, X., and Erzeroum, where we have sufficient testimony
to cross-check the estimates presented, the clearance, by
deportation or massacre, seems to have been practically complete. At
Erzeroum, for instance, there were 20,000 Armenians before the
clearance began, and when it was over there were not more than 100
left[260]. Concealment on any considerable scale can only have been
practised in the villages, yet the number of those who have emerged
from hiding since the Russian occupation is extraordinarily small.
According to the investigations of the Patriarchate, there were
580,000 Armenians in 1912 in the Vilayets of Erzeroum, Bitlis and
Van, which are now within the Russian lines[261]. The American
Relief Committee has recently been informed by its agents on the
spot that there are now only 12,100 left alive there[262]. Whatever
arbitrary margin of reduction the absence of confirmatory statistics
may make it necessary to subtract from the former figure,
the proportion borne to it by the 12,100 survivors remains
infinitesimal. Putting the communities at Constantinople and Smyrna
and the refugees together at about 350,000, we shall certainly not
be reckoning too low if we allow a quarter of a million for the
Protestants, Catholics, converts and others who were spared, and
estimate the total number of Armenians in Turkeywho escaped
deportation at not more than 600,000.
This leaves at least 1,000,000 to be accounted for by deportation
and massacre, and probably 1,200.000 or more.
The third step is to estimate what proportion of these million
Armenians has perished and what proportion survived, and here again
our material is scanty and generalisation unsafe, the procedure of
the authorities being erratic in this respect also. In certain
vilayets, like Van and Bitlis, there was no deportation at all, but
massacre outright; in others, like Erzeroum and Trebizond, and again
at Angora, deportation and massacre were equivalent, the convoys
being butchered systematically at an early stage on the road. In
Cilicia, on the other hand, the men as well as the women seem to
have been genuinely deported, and the convoys seem only to have been
reduced by sickness and exhaustion. Yet even where there was no
wholesale massacre on the journey, a convoy might practically be
exterminated by degrees. A large combined convoy, for instance, of
exiles from Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Sivas, set out from Malatia 18,000
strong and numbered 301 at Viran Shehr, 150 at Aleppo[263]. In this
case, however, the wastage appears to have been exceptional. We have
one similar instance of a convoy from Harpout which was reduced on
the way to Aleppo from 5,000 to 213, a loss of 96 per cent.[264];
but in general the wastage seems to fluctuate, with a wide
oscillation, on either side of 50 per cent.; 600 out of 2,500 (24
per cent.) reached Aleppo from a village in the Harpout
district[265]; 60 per cent. arrived there out of the first convoy
from the village of E. (near H.), and 46 per cent. out of the
second; 25 per cent. arrived out of a convoy from the village of D.
in the same neighbourhood[266]. We shall certainly be well within
the mark if we estimate that at least half those condemned to
massacre or deportation have actually perished.
We can check this estimate to some extent by the record of
arrivals at certain important centres of traffic on the exile
routes, or at the final destinations of the convoys. On the 16th
August, 1915, for instance, an exceedingly competent neutral
resident at Constantinople stated that, to his knowledge, there
were then 50,000 exiles scattered along the route from Bozanti
(the first break in the Baghdad line) to Aleppo; on the 5th
November, another witness[267], who had just traversed this route,
wrote back from Aleppo that he had passed 150,000 exiles between
there and Konia. Again, 13,155 exiles had reached or passed
through Aleppo by the 30th July, 1915, and 20,000 more arrived
there between that date and the 19th August[268]. By the 3rd
August 15,000 of these had been transmitted alive to Der-el-Zor,
and this was only the beginning of the arrivals in the Zor
district. No exiles reached Damascus before the 12th August, but
between that date and the 3rd October, 1915, 22,000 of them had
come through[269]. These are isolated data, and prove little in
themselves, but in its Bulletin of the 5th April, 1916, the
American Relief Committee has published a cable recently received
in the United States from a competent source, in which the total
number of Armenian exiles alive at that time in the regions of
Der-el-Zor, Damascus and Aleppo is estimated roughly at
500,000[270]. This figure is possibly an exaggeration, but it is
not incompatible with our two previous conclusions, that the total
number of Armenians affected by the Young Turks’ scheme was at
least a million, and that at least 50 per cent. of these have
perished. To the alleged 500,000 survivors in the three regions
mentioned we must add an uncertain but inconsiderable margin for
the exiles who may have been planted at Mosul or who may still, in
March, 1916, have been held up on the road; and this will raise
the original number affected to something approaching 1,200,000,
which we considered, on other grounds, to be nearer the real
figure than the bare million which we accepted.
We can sum up this statistical enquiry by saying that, as far as our
defective information carries us, about an equal number of Armenians
in Turkey seem to have escaped, to have perished, and to have
survived deportation in 1915; and we shall not be far wrong if, in
round numbers, we estimate each of these categories at 600,000.
The exact quantitative scale of the crime thus remains
uncertain[271], but there is no uncertainty as to the responsibility
for its perpetration. This immense infliction of suffering and
destruction of life was not the work of religious fanaticism.
Fanaticism played no more part here than it has played in the
fighting at Gallipoli or Kut, and the “Holy War” which the Young
Turks caused to be proclaimed in October, 1914, was merely a
political move to embarrass the Moslem subjects of the Entente
Powers. There was no fanaticism, for instance, in the conduct of the
Kurds and chettis, who committed some of the most horrible acts of
all, nor can the responsibility be fixed upon them. They were simply
marauders and criminals who did after their kind, and the
Government, which not only condoned, but instigated, their actions,
must bear the guilt. The peasantry, again (own brothers though they
were to the Ottoman soldiery whose apparent humanity at Gallipoli
and Kut has won their opponents’ respect), behaved with astonishing
brutality to the Armenians who were delivered into their hands; yet
the responsibility does not lie with the Turkish peasantry. They are
sluggish, docile people, unready to take violent action on their own
initiative, but capable of perpetrating any enormity on the
suggestion of those they are accustomed to obey. The peasantry would
never have attacked the Armenians if their superiors had not given
them the word. Nor are the Moslem townspeople primarily to blame;
their record is not invariably black, and the evidence in this
volume throws here and there a favourable light upon their
character. Where Moslem and Christian lived together in the same
town or village, led the same life, pursued the same vocation, there
seems often to have been a strong human bond between them. The
respectable Moslem townspeople seldom desired the extermination of
their Armenian neighbours, sometimes openly deplored it, and in
several instances even set themselves to hinder it from taking
effect. We have evidence of this from various places—Adana[272], for
instance, and AF.[273] in Cilicia, the villages of AJ. and AK.[273]
in the AF. district, and the city of Angora. The authorities had
indeed to decree severe penalties against any Moslem as well as any
alien or Greek who might be convicted of sheltering their Armenian
victims. The rabble naturally looted Armenian property when the
police connived, as the rabble in European towns might do; the
respectable majority of the Moslem townspeople can be accused of
apathy at worst; the responsibility cannot rest with these.
The guilt must, therefore, fall upon the officials of the Ottoman
Government, but it will not weigh equally upon all members of the
official hierarchy. The behaviour of the gendarmerie, for example,
was utterly atrocious; the subordinates were demoralised by the
power for evil that was placed in their hands; they were egged on by
their chiefs, who gave vent to a malevolence against the Armenians
which they must have been harbouring for years; a very large
proportion of the total misery inflicted was the gendarmerie’s work;
and yet the gendarmerie were not, or ought not to have been,
independent agents. The responsibility for their misconduct must be
referred to the local civil administrators, or to the Central
Government, or to both.
The local administrators of provinces and sub-districts—Valis,
Mutessarifs and Kaimakams—are certainly very deeply to blame. The
latitude allowed them by the Central Government was wide, as is
shown by the variations they practised, in different places, upon
the common scheme. In this place the Armenian men were massacred; in
that they were deported unscathed; in that other they were taken out
to sea and drowned. Here the women were bullied into conversion;
here conversion was disallowed; here they were massacred like the
men. And in many other matters, such as the disposal of Armenian
property or the use of torture, remarkable differences of practice
can be observed, which are all ascribable to the good or bad will of
the local officials. A serious part of the responsibility falls upon
them—upon fire-eaters like Djevdet Bey or cruel natures like the
Governor of Ourfa[274]; and yet their freedom of action was
comparatively restricted. Where they were evilly-intentioned towards
the Armenians they were able to go beyond the Central Government’s
instructions (though even in matters like the exemption of Catholics
and Protestants, where their action was apparently most free, they
and the Central Government were often merely in collusion)[275]; but
they might never mitigate their instructions by one degree. Humane
and honourable governors (and there were a certain number of these)
were powerless to protect the Armenians in their province. The
Central Government had its agents on the spot—the chairman of the
local branch of the Committee of Union and Progress[276], the local
Chief of Gendarmerie, or even some subordinate official[277] on the
Governor’s own administrative staff. If these merciful governors
were merely remiss in executing the instructions, they were flouted
and overruled; if they refused to obey them, they were dismissed and
replaced by more pliant successors. In one way or another, the
Central Government enforced and controlled the execution of the
scheme, as it alone had originated the conception of it; and the
Young Turkish Ministers and their associates at Constantinople are
directly and personally responsible, from beginning to end, for the
gigantic crime that devastated the Near East in 1915.
-----
Footnote 213:
The Paulikian exiles inspired the South-Slavonic Bogomils; the
Bogomils inspired the Albigenses of Languedoc, and possibly sowed
some of the seeds of the Hussite movement among the Tchechs and
Slovaks.
Footnote 214:
With the possible exception of the Bulgars.
Footnote 215:
The Armenian Protestants have even been admitted to the Gregorian
National Assembly—a notable departure from Near Eastern tradition.
Footnote 216:
There is a flourishing colony of Armenian fruit-growers as far
afield as Fresno, California.
Footnote 217:
Though even in Irak there were Armenian settlers, especially at
Baghdad.
Footnote 218:
The nomadic Kurds, for that matter, are only skin-deep
Mohammedans.
Footnote 219:
Excluding the district of Hakkiari.
Footnote 220:
A Syrian sect whose doctrines diverged, like those of the
Nestorians, from the creed of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches,
but in the contrary direction.
Footnote 221:
It appears to be uncertain whether this is really the literal
meaning of the word, its current connotation being purely the
political one.
Footnote 222:
The word “Millet” means simply “religious sect” in the Arabic
language, from which it was borrowed by the Turks.
Footnote 223:
Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Sivas.
Footnote 224:
Article 61.
Footnote 225:
There was an equally vague clause to the same effect in the
special “Cyprus Convention” between Turkey and Great Britain, but
in neither treaty was there any guarantee of its observance. The
Berlin Treaty merely provided that the Ottoman Government should
communicate its measures of reform to the Powers, but, as they
were never carried out they were never reported.
Footnote 226:
Russia began to acquire territory south of the Caucasus at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, when the last King of Georgia
ceded his Kingdom to the Tsar, to save it from the hands of the
Turks and Persians.
Footnote 227:
Tiflis, the former capital of the Georgian Kingdom and now the
administrative centre of the Russian Provinces of the Caucasus,
has become practically an Armenian city in the course of the
nineteenth century, and Armenian settlements have spread far
further into the interior of Russia.
Footnote 228:
Though the British Government was the only Government that
attempted to put pressure on the Turks to desist. In Germany it
was the _mot d’ordre_ that the massacres were a British invention
with a political purpose, and the German Emperor shortly
afterwards sent his portrait to Abd-ul-Hamid as a complimentary
gift.
Footnote 229:
In such publications as _Vérité sur le mouvement révolutionnaire
Arménien et les mesures gouvernementales_ (Constantinople,
1916); or _Die Armenische Frage_, von C.A. Bratter (Berlin,
Concordia-Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915).
Footnote 230:
Doc. 138.
Footnote 231:
In the pamphlet _Vérité sur le mouvement révolutionnaire Arménien
et les mesures gouvernementales_, the following passages occur:
“The Imperial (Ottoman) Government abstained from exercising any
pressure or adopting any repressive measures against the Armenians
until the day the revolt broke out at Van towards the middle of
April, 1915” (page 10); “No coercive measure was decreed by the
Imperial Government against the Armenians until the date of their
armed revolt, which took place at Van and in the other military
zones in the course of the month of _June_, of the year 1915, and
until they had made common cause with the enemy forces” (page 15).
These statements are direct falsehoods, as is also the statement
(page 12) that—“After the occupation of Van by the Russians and
Armenians, the Moslem population of the town was pitilessly
massacred.” We have authoritative neutral testimony (_e.g._, Docs.
120, 121, 122 and 15) on both these points, by which the Turkish
statements are refuted. Yet these lying statements are the pivot
of the whole apologia presented in this pamphlet.
Footnote 232:
See Docs. 68, 82, 94 and 122.
Footnote 233:
Doc. 98.
Footnote 234:
Doc. 123.
Footnote 235:
Docs. 130 and 131.
Footnote 236:
According to an official calendar, published at Alexandropol by
authority of the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, from which extracts
have been communicated to the Editor by Mr. H.N. Mosditchian, the
statistics of the Armenian population in Russia, up to date, are
1,636,486 for the Caucasus, and approximately two million for the
Empire as a whole. For the Ottoman Empire, statistics compiled at
the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1912 estimate the
Armenian population at 2,100,000; Turkish official statistics, on
the other hand, admit no more than 1,100,000, which on their own
showing would give Russia a majority.
Footnote 237:
For evidence of this loyalty, see Annexe B. to this summary.
Footnote 238:
Docs. 21 and 57.
Footnote 239:
The 25 recalcitrants at Zeitoun do not come into question, for the
Zeitounlis were excepted from military service by special charter,
and the attempt to conscribe them was a violation by the Ottoman
authorities of Ottoman law.
Footnote 240:
_Die Armenische Frage_, von C.A. Bratter, Berlin, Concordia
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915. The reference is to pp. 9-10.
Footnote 241:
Reproduced in the Paris journal _Le Matin_, 6th May, 1916, in a
special despatch dated Zürich, 5th May.
Footnote 242:
The vast majority of secondary schools in the Empire being, of
course, American, Armenian or Greek, and practically none of them
Turkish.
Footnote 243:
See Annexe A.
Footnote 244:
The Delegation of 1912 was nominated by His Holiness the
Katholikos of Etchmiadzin. Its President was His Excellency Boghos
Nubar Pasha.
Footnote 245:
The Ottoman Government, for statistical reasons, added the Vilayet
of Trebizond to the original Six, the Moslem element being here in
a sufficient majority to balance, to some extent, the Armenian
majority in the rest.
Footnote 246:
Doc. 129.
Footnote 247:
Proclamations announcing and justifying the deportation of the
Armenians are quoted in Docs. 83 and 120 of this volume, while the
alleged text of one of them has been published complete in the
Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_ of the 5th February, 1915,
and is reproduced here as Annexe C. to this summary. The latter
document differs in its wording and in the order of its clauses
from the versions quoted in the places mentioned above, but there
is no reason to doubt its genuineness. Probably the Central
Government communicated its instructions to the local authorities
by telegraph or secret despatch, and the local authorities
embodied these instructions, at their own discretion, in a printed
proclamation to the inhabitants of their province.
Footnote 248:
See, however, Doc. 64.
Footnote 249:
These Moslem immigrants were particularly in evidence in Cilicia,
and in the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Trebizond.
Footnote 250:
Docs. 114 and 123.
Footnote 251:
Docs. 4 and 139.
Footnote 252:
Doc. 141.
Footnote 253:
Docs. 11 and 121.
Footnote 254:
Doc. 115.
Footnote 255:
Doc. 101.
Footnote 256:
Though not more extreme than in other parts of the Near Eastern
World, like Hungary, where statistics of nationality are a burning
question of political controversy.
Footnote 257:
For Armenian statistical material see Annexes D. and E. to this
summary.
Footnote 258:
The former figure is taken from the American Relief Committee’s
Fourth Bulletin, dated 5th April, 1916; the second from Doc. 131.
Footnote 259:
Doc. 88
Footnote 260:
Doc. 57 According to Doc. 53 the most authoritative of all those
relating to Erzeroum, the number was actually 22.
Footnote 261:
The western districts of Erzeroum, which the Turks still hold, may
be written off against Trebizond.
Footnote 262:
Bulletin of the 5th April, 1916.
Footnote 263:
Doc. 66
Footnote 264:
Doc. 137
Footnote 265:
Doc. 141
Footnote 266:
Doc. 70
Footnote 267:
Doc. 116
Footnote 268:
Doc. 139.
Footnote 269:
Doc. 143.
Footnote 270:
The items of this estimate are given in Doc. 139(d).
Footnote 271:
For further calculations see Annexe F.
Footnote 272:
Doc. 128
Footnote 273:
Doc. 126]
Footnote 274:
Doc. 119
Footnote 275:
See Doc. 87 relating to the town of X.
Footnote 276:
Docs. 72 and 128.
Footnote 277:
Doc. 70
ANNEXE A. “YESTERDAY A FIEF, TO-DAY OUR COUNTRY”; TRANSLATION OF AN
EDITORIAL ARTICLE IN THE TURKISH JOURNAL “HILAL,” 4th APRIL,
1916, COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
The telegraphic agencies gave us the day before yesterday a summary
of a lecture given in Vienna by the German deputy Traub, on his
return from a journey to Turkey. After having paid tribute to the
military qualities of the Turkish soldiers whom he had occasion to
know closely during his stay on the Peninsula of Gallipoli, the
eminent lecturer expressed the following opinion: “Turkey must not
be considered by Europeans as a country to be exploited.” Mr. Traub
added that he was opposed to all missionary activities in the
Turkish Empire.
These words are of the highest value to us, because in pronouncing
them the Honourable German deputy expressed and recognised the
profound change which has taken place in our country during these
last years. In stating that foreigners must no longer consider
Turkey as a vast field of exploitation, Mr. Traub has shown how the
present situation of the Ottoman Empire differs from that of
yesterday. At the same time he pointed out the necessity of
abandoning the old ideas which had taken root with most Europeans as
regards our country.
Turkey has always been considered by foreigners as a country where
one could and should enrich himself by every possible means and
without any charge or risk. For them it was a vast and magnificent
fief which was to be exploited as a feudal lord managed his estate.
Make as much money as possible, that was the motto of those who came
to our country and who, actuated solely by the grasping desire for
lucre, had no scruples or were untouched by the least noble or
elevated considerations.
Whatever this conception may have been, and however reprehensible
the conduct was of those to whom we refer, it would be unjust to
consider them solely the result of the temperament of the Europeans
living in Turkey. The regime of the Capitulations, odious for us,
but full of delights for them, had contributed powerfully to form in
our guests the strange ideas of which they were possessed. While the
Sultan’s own subjects had to submit to all kinds of charges and
taxes, the foreigners residing in this Empire were not only entirely
exempted, but also enjoyed privileges as numerous as they were
important. This strange distinction justified the privileged ones in
considering the others as creatures whose sole duty was to suffer
everything and to assure the happiness of those to whom they had
offered their hospitality.
The Hamidian administration also tended to support the point of view
of the foreigners by encouraging them and permitting them all sorts
of liberties.
The Sovereign, his ministers, and all officers of the administration
had only one sure object in view, to assure for themselves a
brilliant and easy life, without any anxiety. This confession alone
profoundly wounds our national self-respect. We do not hesitate, out
of respect for the truth, to call the old regime, which only
yesterday was still in force, the shameless exploitation of the
Turkish People. As regards the latter, it bore everything, it was
incapable of reacting, because it had not yet become self-conscious.
On the eve of the proclamation of the Constitution, Turkey resembled
rather closely Peru or Mexico, which, having been conquered by
Pizarro and Cortes, respectively, were for many centuries under an
administration totally devoid of all scruples.
This situation did not change immediately after the 23rd July, 1908;
a new regime had been introduced in Turkey, but a new spirit had not
yet entered the mind of the Turkish People. It required the great
shocks of the Balkan War to revolutionise profoundly our souls and
to give us self-consciousness. The day when under the influence of
anxiety and suffering the Turkish People asked themselves: “What am
I? What have I done? What shall I do?”—that day was the real
beginning of the new era for our country.
We need not dwell here at length on the changes which for nearly
four years have taken place in all departments in Turkey. It is not
our intention to write the history of the evolution of the soul of
the Turkish People, and of the progress it has made. What we wish to
speak of is the new situation which it has created for the
foreigners.
The Turkish People, while it saw its own individuality develop,
became conscious of its rights. It suddenly became evident to it
that it was the only master in its own house and that nobody should
exploit it or displace it in any field. The foreigners were in its
eyes nothing but guests, who were entitled to its respect, but whose
duty it was to become worthy of the hospitality they were enjoying.
The abolition of the Capitulations was the first manifestation of
this new spirit we have just mentioned. Henceforth foreign subjects
had to submit to the same burdens as the natives.
The suppression of the schools founded and directed by ecclesiastic
missions or by individuals belonging to enemy nations, a measure
which followed the abolition of the capitulary regime, was no less
important. Thanks to their schools foreigners were able to exercise
great moral influence over the young men of the country and they
were virtually in charge of the spiritual and intellectual guidance
of our country. By closing them the Government has put an end to a
situation as humiliating as it was dangerous, a situation which,
unfortunately, had already lasted too long. Other measures of a
political and economic nature were taken to complete a work which
might be called the taking possession of the country by its own
sons, who had too long been deprived of their rights.
Thanks to this awakening, a little late but still in time, and
thanks especially to this activity, Turkey has to-day become a
“Fatherland,” like Sweden, Spain, or Switzerland. Our country is no
longer an estate or fief for anybody; it is the country of a people
which has just been recalled to life, and which aspires, in its
independence and liberty, to happiness and glory.
It is to this happy change that Mr. Traub referred in his lecture.
The German deputy was one of the first to proclaim that henceforth
the Turkish People will be the only masters in their own house and
that nobody may any longer think of exploiting it or in any way
tread their rights under foot. We are particularly pleased that an
eminent representative of the noble nation which is our friend and
ally speaks in this manner.
ANNEXE B. LETTER FROM MR. E. VARTANIAN, AN ARMENIAN-AMERICAN
VOLUNTEER IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE, TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW IN
EGYPT; DATED 9th/22nd JULY, 1915, AND PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “HOUSSAPER,” OF CAIRO.
We have been here three days. Some of us are going to be sent to
Erivan; the rest of us are starting in two days for Van.
The enthusiasm here is very great. There are already 20,000
volunteers at the front, and they are trying to increase the number
to 30,000. Each district we occupy is placed under Armenian
administration, and an Armenian post is running from Igdir to Van.
The Russian Government is showing great goodwill towards the
Armenians and doing everything in its power for the liberation of
Turkish Armenia.
When we disembarked at Archangel the Government gave us every
possible assistance. It even undertook the transport of our baggage,
and gave us free passes, second class, to Petrograd.
At Petrograd we received an equally hearty welcome, and the Governor
of the city presented each of us with a medal in token of his
sympathy. The Armenian colony put us up in the best hotels,
entertained us at the best restaurants, and could not make enough of
us. This lasted for five days, and then we continued our journey,
again at the Government’s expense, to Tiflis.
Everywhere on the way the population received us with cheers and
offerings of flowers. Just as we were leaving Archangel, a young
Russian lady came with flowers and offered one to each of us. I also
saw a quite poor man who was so moved by the speech in Russian that
one of our comrades had made, that he came and put his tobacco into
the pipe of a comrade standing next to me, and kept nothing for
himself but a bare half-pipeful. A third, an old man, was so moved
by the speech that he began to cry and nearly made off, but a little
while after I saw him standing in front of the carriage window and,
with a shaking hand, holding out a hard-boiled egg to our comrade
the chemist Roupen Stepanian. Probably it was his one meal for the
day.
And so at every step we found ourselves in the midst of affecting
scenes. At Petrograd Railway Station the crowd was enormous. There
was an Armenian lady there who offered each of us a rose. There were
boys and young men who wept because they could not come with us. At
Rostov a young Russian joined our ranks. He was caught more than
once by his parents at the stations further down the line, but he
always succeeded in escaping them and rejoining us. We have
christened him Stepan.
When we arrived at Tiflis, we marched singing to the offices of the
Central Armenian Bureau, with our flag unfurled in front of us, and
the people marched on either side of us in such a crowd that the
trams were forced to stop running.
That is enough for to-day. My next letter shall be written from
Armenia itself.
Please say nothing to my sister about this resolution that I have
taken. I hope, of course, that she would know how to sacrifice her
affection for her brother to her love for the nation and for
liberty. I should curse any of my relations who lamented my
resolution; they would have committed treason against the nation.
There are five of us brothers; was it not imperative that at least
one of us should devote himself to the cause of our national
emancipation? Let us keep up our courage, realise the urgency of the
moment and do our duty.
ANNEXE C. ALLEGED TEXT OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT’S PROCLAMATION
ORDERING THE DEPORTATION OF THE ARMENIANS; REPRINTED FROM AN
ARTICLE BY MISS ELEANOR FRANKLIN EGAN IN THE PHILADELPHIA
“SATURDAY EVENING POST,” 5th FEBRUARY, 1916[278].
Our fellow countrymen, the Armenians, who form one of the racial
elements of the Ottoman Empire, having taken up, as a result of
foreign instigation for many years past, with a lot of false ideas
of a nature to disturb the public order; and because of the fact
that they brought about bloody happenings and have attempted to
destroy the peace and security of the Ottoman state, and the safety
and interests of their fellow countrymen, as well as of themselves;
and, moreover, as they have now dared to join themselves to the
enemy of their existence[279] and to the enemies now at war with our
state—our Government is compelled to adopt extraordinary measures
and sacrifices, both for the preservation of the order and security
of the country and for the welfare and the continuation of the
existence of the Armenian community. Therefore, as a measure to be
applied until the conclusion of the war, the Armenians have to be
sent away to places which have been prepared in the interior
vilayets; and a literal obedience to the following orders, in a
categorical manner, is accordingly enjoined on all Ottomans:
First.—All Armenians, with the exception of the sick, are obliged to
leave within five days from the date of this proclamation, by
villages or quarters, and under the escort of the gendarmerie.
Second.—Though they are free to carry with them on their journey the
articles of their movable property which they desire, they are
forbidden to sell their lands and their extra effects, or to leave
the latter here and there with other people, because their exile is
only temporary and their landed property, and the effects they will
be unable to take with them, will be taken care of under the
supervision of the Government, and stored in closed and protected
buildings. Anyone who sells or attempts to take care of his movable
effects or landed property in a manner contrary to this order, shall
be sent before the Court Martial. They are free to sell to the
Government only the articles which may answer the needs of the Army.
Third.—Contains a promise of safe conduct.
Fourth.—A threat against anyone attempting to molest them on the
way.
Fifth.—Since the Armenians are obliged to submit to this decision of
the Government, if some of them attempt to use arms against the
soldiers or gendarmes, arms shall be employed against them and they
shall be taken, dead or alive. In like manner those who, in
opposition to the Government’s decision, refrain from leaving or
seek to hide themselves—if they are sheltered or given food and
assistance, the persons who thus shelter or aid them shall be sent
before the Court Martial for execution.
-----
Footnote 278:
Miss Egan writes that she managed to bring this document out of
Turkey by copying it on the margins of the inner pages of a book,
which she pretended to be reading when the Turkish officials
searched her at the frontier. The book was examined, but the
marginal pencilling passed undetected.
Footnote 279:
_i.e._, Russia.
ANNEXE D. [280]: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE RACIAL ELEMENTS IN THE
OTTOMAN VILAYETS OF ERZEROUM, VAN, BITLIS, MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ,
DIYARBEKIR, AND SIVAS[281]; DRAWN UP IN 1912 BY THE ARMENIAN
PATRIARCHATE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
────┬────────────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────────┬──────────
│ │ │ │ │Mamouret-│
Nos.│ Nations and Races. │Erzeroum.│ Van.│ Bitlis.│ ul-Aziz.│Diyarbekir.
────┼────────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────
1.│Turks │ 240,000│ 47,000│ 40,000│ 102,000│ 45,000
2.│Circassians (immigrants)│ 7,000│ —│ 10,000│ —│ —
3.│Persians │ 13,000│ —│ —│ —│ —
4.│Lazes │ 10,000│ —│ —│ —│ —
5.│Gipsies │ —│ 3,000│ —│ —│ —
. 6.│Sedentary Kurds │ 35,000│ 32,000│ 35,000│ 75,000│ 30,000
7.│Nomadic Kurds │ 40,000│ 40,000│ 42,000│ 20,000│ 25,000
8.│Kizilbashis │ 25,000│ —│ 8,000│ 80,000│ 27,000
9.│Zaza-Tmbli-Tchariklis │ 30,000│ —│ 47,000│ —│ —
10.│Yezidis │ 3,000│ 25,000│ 5,000│ —│ 4,000
11.│ARMENIANS │ 215,000│ 185,000│ 180,000│ 168,000│ 105,000
12.│Nestorians, Jacobites, │ —│ 18,000│ 15,000│ 5,000│ 60,000
│and Chaldaeans │ │ │ │ │
13.│Greeks and other │ 12,000│ —│ —│ —│ —
│Christians │ │ │ │ │
────┼────────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┼──────────
│ │ 630,000│ 350,000│ 382,000│ 450,000│ 296,000
────┴────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────┴──────────
────┬────────────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────────┬──────────
Nos.│ Nations and Races. │ Sivas.│ Total.│ % │ Total %
────┼────────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────────┼──────────
1.│Turks │ 192,000│ 666,000│ 25.4 │ }
2.│Circassians (immigrants)│ 45,000│ 62,000│} │}
3.│Persians │ —│ 13,000│} 3.4 │} Moslems,
4.│Lazes │ —│ 10,000│} │} 45.1
5.│Gipsies │ —│ 3,000│} │}
. 6.│Sedentary Kurds │ 35,000│ 242,000│ 9.2 } 16.3│}
7.│Nomadic Kurds │ 15,000│ 182,000│ 7.1 } │}
8.│Kizilbashis │ —│ 140,000│ 5.3 } 8.2│} Various,
9.│Zaza-Tmbli-Tchariklis │ —│ 77,000│ 2.9 } │} 9.7
10.│Yezidis │ —│ 37,000│ 1.4 │⎭
11.│ARMENIANS │ 165,000│1,018,000│ 38.9 │⎫ Christians
12.│Nestorians, Jacobites, │ 25,000│ 123,000│ 4.7 │⎬ 45.2
│and Chaldaeans │ │ │ │⎬
13.│Greeks and other │ 30,000│ 42,000│ 1.6 │⎭
│Christians │ │ │ │
│ │ 507,000│2,615,000│ 100% │ 100%
────┴────────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────────┴──────────
_Moslems._
Turks 666,000 }
Kurds 424,000 } 45.1%
Other Moslems 88,000 }
——-—
TOTAL 1,178,000
_Various Religions._
Kizilbashis 140,000 }
Zaza-Tmbli-Tchariklis 77,000 } 9.6%
Yezidis 37,000 }
—————
TOTAL 254,000
_Christians._
Armenians 1,018,000 }
Nestorians 123,000 } 45.2%
Greeks, etc. 42,000 }
—————
TOTAL 1,183,000
_Summary of Totals._
Christians 1,183,000 = 45.2%
Moslems 1,178,000 = 45.1%
Various Religions 254,000 = 9.7%
—————
GRAND TOTAL 2,615,000
-----
Footnote 280:
Reprinted from “La Question Arménienne à la Lumière des
Documents,” par “Marcel Léart” (Paris, 1913).
Footnote 281:
The analysis excludes certain portions of these provinces where
the Armenians are only a minor element. These portions are as
follows:—Hakkiari, in the Vilayet of Van; the south of Sairt, in
the Vilayet of Bitlis; the south of the Vilayet of Diyarbekir; the
south of Malatia, in the Vilayet of Mamouret-ul-Aziz; the
north-west and west of the Vilayet of Sivas.
ANNEXE E. [282]: STATISTICAL SCHEDULE OF ARMENIAN SCHOOLS IN THE
OTTOMAN EMPIRE, DRAWN UP IN 1901-2 BY THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCHATE
AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Geographical Schools. Boy Girl Teachers.
Districts Pupils Pupils
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE SIX VILAYETS.
Sairt 3 163 84 11
Amasia-Marsovan 9 1,524 814 54
Shabin Kara-Hissar 27 2,040 105 42
Erzeroum 27 1,956 ,178 85
Kighi 27 1,336 367 43
Baïbourt 9 645 199 32
Diyarbekir 4 690 324 27
Harpout 27 2,058 496 58
Eghin 4 541 215 22
Tchemesh-Getzak 12 456 272 15
Arabkir 18 713 223 25
Tcharsandjak 12 617 189 18
Etesia 8 1,091 571 26
Gurin 12 736 78 20
Darandé 2 260 70 5
Divrig 10 757 100 20
Sivas 46 4,072 549 73
Bitlis 12 571 63 20
Erzindjan 22 1,389 475 63
Kamakh 13 646 28 16
Bayazid 6 338 54 13
Moush 23 1,034 284 35
Van 21 1,323 554 59
Lim and Gedoutz 3 203 56 6
Akhtamar 32 1,106 132 36
Derdjan 12 485 10 12
Isbir-Kiskim 3 80 — 3
Passin 7 315 — 7
Khnyss 8 352 15 12
Dikranakerd 2 180 — 5
Palou 8 505 50 15
Malatia 9 872 230 19
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
438 29,054 7,785 897
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
CILICIA.
Aïntab 9 898 708 58
Antioch 10 440 47 10
Aleppo 2 438 249 18
Hadjin 4 508 69 12
Zeïtoun 10 605 85 15
Sis and the Neighbourhood 7 476 165 19
Adana 25 1,947 808 69
Marash 23 1,361 378 44
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
90 6,673 2,509 245
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE REST OF THE EMPIRE.
Adrianople 6 314 251 22
Rodosto 9 1,017 856 48
Ismid 38 5,404 3,103 212
Biledjik 10 1,120 143 21
Kutahia 5 825 349 23
Smyrna 27 1,640 1,295 109
Angora 7 895 395 29
Kaisaria 42 3,795 1,140 125
Samsoun 27 1,361 344 59
Trebizond 47 2,184 718 85
Baghdad 2 68 46 11
Yozgad 12 1,197 557 43
Broussa 16 1,345 733 54
Balikesri-Panderma 8 700 634 35
Tokat 11 1,408 558 50
Kastamouni 3 110 50 2
Konia 3 213 137 12
Armasha 2 190 110 6
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
275 23,786 11,419 946
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
GRAND TOTAL 803 59,513 21,713 2,088
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
-----
Footnote 282:
Reprinted from “La Question Arménienne à la Lumière des
Documents,” par “Marcel Léart” (Paris, 1913). These statistics
appear to be the most recent available, but it must be noted that
they are fourteen years out of date, and that the figures must
have risen considerably by April, 1915.
ANNEXE F. STATISTICAL ESTIMATE INCLUDED IN THE FIFTH BULLETIN OF THE
AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF, DATED NEW
YORK, 24th MAY, 1916.
1. _The Extent of the Catastrophe._
The most extensive and most difficult work carried on by the
American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief lies within the
borders of the Turkish Empire. Here, in January, 1915, the Armenians
numbered between sixteen hundred thousand and two million. Precise
statistics do not exist. The estimates of the Turkish Government are
usually considered to be too low and those of the Armenian
Patriarchate sometimes too high, suggesting a tendency in the one
case to minimize and in the other to exaggerate the size and
consequent importance of the Armenian population.
Twelve months later, in January, 1916, from one-third to one-half of
the Armenians in Turkey had fallen victims of deportation, disease,
starvation or massacre.
As we note from a letter of Dr. Wilson’s, dated Erivan, Russian
Caucasus, 4th February, 1916, there were then 182,800 Armenian
refugees in the Caucasus and 12,100 in the districts of Turkey at
that time conquered by the Russians. The subsequent extensions of
the Russian conquests towards the west and south have brought to
light numbers of Armenians who were in hiding. At the end of 1915,
there were also 9,000 Armenian refugees in Salmas, Persia.
All these statistics are subject to fluctuation, due to the removal
of the refugees from one region to another and also to the varying
dates on which the enumerations or estimates were made. Bearing
these critical considerations in mind we may tabulate the best
figures as follows:—
Aleppo, Damascus, Zor 486,000
Refugees in other parts of Turkey 300,000
Russian Caucasus 182,800
Armenians in districts of Turkey
conquered by Russia 12,100
Armenians in Salmas, Persia 9,000
————
If we may add to these numbers the undeported Armenian populations
in Constantinople and Smyrna, perhaps 150,000 in all, we can perhaps
estimate the total number of survivors at under 1,150,000. If we
accept the estimate that the Armenian population of Turkey at the
beginning of 1915 was between 1,600,000 and 2,000,000, we should
compute the number of deaths at between 450,000 and 850,000. We
shall probably be safe in saying that the Armenian dead number at
least 600,000.
Six hundred thousand men, women and children died within a year.
There was recently held in New York City a Preparedness Parade,
which marched up Fifth Avenue twenty abreast and took about thirteen
hours to pass a given point. From 10 a.m. till well into the
evening, this great army of over 125,000 continued to tramp up the
street. If the Armenian men, women and children who died in Turkey
within a twelvemonth should rise again and march in solemn
procession to beg the assistance of the American people for their
surviving brothers, the procession would not be 125,000, but
600,000, four times as long. Marching twenty abreast it would take
two days and two nights to pass Great Reviewing Stand.
The mortality was higher in some regions than in others. From
certain Armenian villages in the neighbourhood of Harpout, whose
population was about two thousand, only 15·2 per cent. reached the
goal of their deportation. Even if we make generous allowance for
the number of men from these villages who may be still alive in the
Army, and for the women and children who may have saved their lives
by becoming Moslems, the mortality is unspeakably high. From other
regions perhaps 25 per cent. have reached their goal, after marching
hundreds of miles across the mountains down into the hot plains.
From those portions of Asia Minor which are so situated that the
Railway could assist in the deportation, the percentage of loss of
life was far smaller, though here insufficient food and insanitary
concentration camps have swollen the tolls of death. Especially from
the cities on or near the coast of Cilicia, namely, Mersina, Tarsus
and Adana, the deportation did not involve great loss of life. The
Armenian inhabitants of Constantinople and of Smyrna, who really
live in those cities and had not recently moved thither from the
country, have not been deported.
Consequently the total number of surviving Armenians in Turkey is
greater than our Committee had feared. The fact that there are more
survivors than we at first believed obliges us to enlarge our relief
work till it becomes adequate to the crisis.
2. _The Needs of the Survivors._
Mr. W.W. Peet, Business Agent and Treasurer of the four Turkish
Missions of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
with headquarters at Constantinople, has sent information, received
by the State Department on the 17th March, to the effect that there
are at least eight hundred thousand refugees in Turkey who need
help. One-half or more of these are reported by the American Consul
at Aleppo to be in the districts of Damascus, Zor and Aleppo.
The general direction of deportation has been to force the exiles to
go by train or on foot to the neighbourhood of Aleppo, whence they
have been distributed in two directions. One of these is the region
served by the Hidjaz Railway, built a few years ago to meet the
needs of the Moslem pilgrims to Mecca. The station of Ma’an, near
the ruins of the ancient city of Petra, the point beyond which the
Hidjaz Railway has always declined to transport Christians, is the
southernmost point where Armenian exiles are to be found.
The other territory to which large numbers of exiles have been
deported is the region of Der-el-Zor on the Euphrates, six days’
journey east-south-east of Aleppo. The Armenians have had to walk
thither from Aleppo, though some of them struck across by a more
direct route from the Armenian cities on the north.
(_Here follow, in the original, Documents 139(d) and 14 of this
volume._)
Fortunately, the American Consul at Aleppo, Mr. Jackson, has the
co-operation of the German Consul, Mr. Roessler in the work of
relief.
Certain members of the American Committee have for months felt great
anxiety as to the condition of the nearly 500,000 exiles distributed
to the region east and south of Aleppo. Details as to their
condition have been hard to secure. Now we know what we had
suspected before—that many exiles have only grass to eat and that
hundreds are dying daily of starvation.
3. _The Way for Relief is Now Open._
In 1915, the Turkish Government declined to give cordial
co-operation in the work of relieving the necessities of the
Armenians. The authorities at Constantinople did not wish to have
the Armenians helped by foreigners, because they thought it might
encourage some of them in treasonable hopes. Constantinople
therefore favoured having the relief money distributed through
Turkish officials.
According to the New York _Times_ of the 19th October, 1915, the
Turkish Government informed the State Department at Washington that
the American Red Cross would not be permitted to send surgeons and
nurses to the aid of the Armenians in the Turkish Empire. The Turks
barred not merely American Red Cross surgeons, nurses and relief
agents, but also all other neutral foreigners.
Early in 1916 some obstacles have fallen. On the 23rd March, 1916,
Mr. Phillips, the American Chargé d’Affaires at Constantinople,
sent, on behalf of the Constantinople Chapter of the Red Cross, the
following significant cablegram to the Secretary of State:—
“Turkish Government now welcomes help, and through Minister of
Interior authorizes American Red Cross, co-operating with Red
Crescent, to conduct relief work for civilians of all races. Great
suffering throughout country, particularly at Constantinople and
suburbs along the shores of Marmora, at Adrianople, Broussa and
Smyrna. In these regions five hundred thousand, not comprising
Armenian refugees, need help for bread. Hundreds dying of
starvation. No relief in sight. Sugar and petroleum oil at famine
prices. Typhus is spreading, high mortality. For immediate relief
ten thousand pounds sterling estimated required for Constantinople
Chapter administration before 1st May to procure foodstuffs. For
more permanent relief, suggest importation supplies by sea from
Roumania and America. Neutrality guaranteed by American Red Cross to
Entente Powers. Distribution controlled by Constantinople Chapter
through agencies, soup kitchens and dispensary. Some can pay cost
price and industrial work proposed for others.”
In answer to this appeal, certain friends of our Committee raised
£12,000 sterling and transmitted it to Constantinople, to be
distributed by the Turkish Red Crescent for sufferers in Turkey,
regardless of religious barriers.[283]
INDEX OF PLACES REFERRED TO IN THE
DOCUMENTS IN THIS VOLUME.
_The figures placed against the names in this index denote the
number of independent witnesses who mention the places in question,
in the various connexions specified in the headings to each column.
Two or more documents emanating from the same source cannot be
regarded as independent testimony and are, therefore, not separately
enumerated._
_The index includes references to names which have been withheld by
the editor himself and are represented in the text by arbitrary
signs, but not, of course, references to names which have been
withheld from the editor and are represented in the text by blanks.
The names of places beyond the Ottoman frontier where refugees have
passed or stayed have been placed between brackets, to distinguish
them from places in Ottoman territory through or to which exiles
have been forcibly conducted by the Ottoman Government._
────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┬───────────────
│ -———Massacre, Forcible │ RC2~Arrival,
│Conversion, or Deportation, of │ Passage of
│ Armenian Inhabitants. │ Armenians
│ │ Deported or
│ │ taking Flight
│ │from Elsewhere.
│ Armenians │ No Mention of │
│Replacement by │ Mouhadjirs. │
NAME OF PLACE. │ Moslem │ │
│ Mouhadjirs │ │
│ (immigrants). │ │
A. │ │ │
Abijalu │ — │ 1 │ —
Ada │ — │ 1 │ —
Adana │ 1 │ 11 │ 3
Adana, vilayet │ — │ 1 │ —
Adapazar │ 1 │ 5 │ —
Adiaman—Hussi Mansour │ — │ 3 │ —
Adiljevas │ — │ 1 │ —
Adranos │ — │ — │ 1
Adrianople │ — │ 2 │ —
Afiun Kara-Hissar │ — │ 1 │ 3
Aghja Daghi │ — │ — │ 1
(Aghtalia) │ — │ — │ 1
Agno │ — │ 1 │ —
(Ailar) │ — │ — │ 1
Aintab │ — │ 10 │ 4
Ak Shehr │ — │ 2 │ —
Alabash │ — │ 3 │ —
Alashkerd │ — │ 3 │ —
Alashkerd District │ — │ 1 │ —
Alayund │ — │ — │ 1
Albek │ — │ 1 │ —
Albustan │ — │ 5 │ 1
Aleppo │ — │ 2 │ 32
Aleppo, vilayet │ — │ 2 │ —
Alexandretta │ — │ 1 │ —
(Alexandropol) │ — │ — │ 2
(Alexandropol Town and │ — │ — │ 1
District) │ │ │
Alidjan—Aladin │ — │ 2 │ —
Amasia │ — │ 7 │ 2
Angegh │ — │ 1 │ —
Angora │ — │ 10 │ 2
Angora, vilayet │ — │ 2 │ —
(Annenfeld) │ — │ — │ 1
Antioch │ — │ 1 │ 1
Antok │ — │ 1 │ —
Arabia │ — │ — │ 2
Arabkir │ — │ 4 │ 1
Arab-Pounar │ — │ — │ 1
Ardishai │ — │ 1 │ —
Ardjish—Akantz │ — │ 5 │ —
Arghana │ — │ — │ 2
Arghana Maden │ — │ — │ 1
Armasha │ — │ 1 │ —
Armasha Convent │ — │ 1 │ —
Arslanbeg │ — │ 1 │ —
Artamid │ — │ 1 │ —
Artananz │ — │ 1 │ —
(Arzap) │ — │ — │ 1
(Ashtarak) │ — │ — │ 2
Asia Minor │ — │ — │ 1
Asi Yozgad │ — │ — │ 1
Atabey │ — │ 1 │ —
Attil │ — │ 1 │ —
Avazaghpur │ — │ 1 │ —
Ayash │ — │ 1 │ 1
Azizia │ — │ 1 │ —
B │ │ │
Bab │ — │ — │ 2
Babylonia │ — │ — │ 1
Baghdad │ — │ — │ 5
Baghlou │ — │ 1 │ —
Baghtché │ — │ 1 │ 1
Baghtchédjik—Bardezag │ — │ 10 │ —
Baibourt │ — │ 8 │ 1
Bairak │ — │ 2 │ —
Bairamoglu │ — │ — │ 1
Bakir Maden │ — │ — │ 1
(Bakou) │ — │ — │ 2
Balikesri │ — │ 1 │ —
(Bambak) │ — │ — │ 1
Baranduz │ — │ 1 │ —
Barbaroud │ — │ 1 │ —
(Barsoun) │ — │ — │ 1
Bashkala │ — │ 6 │ 1
Batoum │ — │ — │ 1
Bayazid District │ — │ 1 │ —
Baz │ — │ 1 │ —
Beinam Boghazi │ — │ — │ 1
Beirout │ — │ 1 │ 1
Beitias │ — │ 2 │ —
Beniani │ — │ 1 │ —
Benli │ — │ 1 │ —
Bergri-Kala │ — │ — │ 2
Berwar │ — │ 1 │ —
Besné │ — │ 1 │ —
Biredjik │ — │ — │ 1
Bisherig │ — │ 1 │ —
Bitlis │ — │ 13 │ —
Bitlis, vilayet │ — │ 4 │ —
Black Sea Littoral │ — │ 1 │ 1
Boghaz Kessen │ — │ 2 │ —
Bohtan District │ — │ 1 │ —
Bor │ — │ 1 │ —
Bosphorus, Villages on │ — │ 1 │ —
the Upper │ │ │
Boulanik │ — │ 3 │ —
Bozanti │ — │ 1 │ 5
Broussa │ — │ 7 │ —
Broussa, vilayet │ — │ 1 │ —
C │ │ │
(Caucasia, Cis—Northern │ │ │
Caucasia) │ — │ — │ 1
Cilicia │ — │ 5 │ —
Constantinople │ — │ 6 │ 3
Constantinople, American│ │ │
School at │ — │ 1 │ —
Cosi │ — │ 1 │ —
D │ │ │
Dadush │ — │ 1 │ —
Damascus │ — │ — │ 8
Darawar │ — │ 1 │ —
(Delidjan) │ — │ — │ 3
Degala │ — │ 1 │ —
Dengala │ — │ 2 │ —
Derdjan │ — │ — │ 1
Deré Keui │ — │ 1 │ —
Der-el-Zor │ — │ — │ 19
Derenda │ — │ 2 │ —
Dersim │ — │ 1 │ 1
Develou │ — │ 1 │ —
Deyirmeni River │ — │ — │ 2
Dhimotika │ — │ 1 │ —
Dilgusha │ — │ 1 │ —
Diliman │ — │ 3 │ 2
Divrig │ — │ 3 │ —
Diyarbekir │ — │ 15 │ 2
Diyarbekir, vilayet │ — │ 3 │ —
Djabaghtchour │ — │ 1 │ —
Djera │ — │ 1 │ —
Djerablous │ — │ 1 │ —
(Djevanshir District) │ — │ — │ 1
Djevizlik │ — │ — │ 1
Djeziré │ — │ 1 │ —
Djibal Mousa—Mousa Dagh—│ │ │
Djibal-al-Ahmar │ — │ 3 │ —
Djoulamerk │ — │ 1 │ —
(Djoulfa) │ — │ — │ 5
Dom │ — │ 1 │ —
Döngöl │ — │ 1 │ —
Dört Yöl │ 1 │ 11 │ —
Doudjik—Tcharuk │ — │ 1 │ 1
Dersim—Tcharik │ │ │
Drtadli │ — │ 1 │ —
Duzasar │ — │ 1 │ —
E │ │ │
Egin │ — │ 3 │ —
(Elenovka) │ — │ — │ 1
(Elizavetpol) │ — │ — │ 1
(Elizavetpol Government)│ — │ — │ 3
Enderessi │ — │ 1 │ 1
Entilli │ — │ — │ 3
Eregli │ — │ 1 │ 5
Eremer │ — │ 1 │ —
Erendjik │ — │ 1 │ —
Erer │ — │ 1 │ —
(Erivan) │ — │ — │ 2
(Erivan Government) │ — │ — │ 5
Erzeroum │ 1 │ 17 │ —
Erzeroum, vilayet │ — │ 6 │ —
Erzindjan │ 1 │ 8 │ 5
Eski Shehr │ — │ 2 │ 2
Etchangeri—Kiangri—Kingri│ — │ 1 │ 1
(Etchmiadzin) │ — │ — │ 2
Euphrates District │ — │ — │ 1
Euphrates River │ — │ — │ 5
Euphrates River, │ — │ — │ 1
Tributaries of │ │ │
Euzerli │ — │ 1 │ —
Everek │ — │ 2 │ —
(Evlakh) │ — │ — │ 1
Ezli │ — │ 1 │ —
F │ │ │
Fekké │ — │ — │ 1
Frank-norshen │ — │ 1 │ —
Fundadjak_ │ — │ 3 │ —
Furnus │ 1 │ 4 │ —
G │ │ │
Gargar District │ — │ 2 │ —
Garjgan │ — │ 1 │ —
Gawar │ — │ 4 │ —
Geben │ — │ 6 │ —
Gegvé │ — │ 1 │ —
Gemerek │ — │ 4 │ —
Gemleyik │ — │ 1 │ —
Geogtapa—Göktepé │ — │ 3 │ 1
Gereg │ — │ — │ 1
Geulik Station │ — │ — │ 3
Gheizin Han │ — │ — │ 1
Ginj District—Gendjé │ — │ 1 │ 1
Gishgishla │ — │ — │ 1
Göksoun—Gourksoun │ — │ 2 │ —
Gotni │ — │ 1 │ —
Govdoun │ — │ 1 │ —
Gulpashan │ — │ 6 │ —
Gumushkhana │ — │ — │ 2
Gurin │ — │ 2 │ —
Gurla │ — │ 1 │ —
Gvars │ — │ 2 │ —
H │ │ │
Habesh │ — │ 1 │ —
Habousi │ — │ 1 │ —
Hadji-Habibli │ — │ 1 │ —
Hadjin │ 2 │ 12 │ —
Haftevan │ — │ 2 │ —
Haiatzor—Hayotz-Tzor—(?)│ │ │
Haig Valley │ — │ 2 │ —
Hai Keui │ — │ 1 │ —
Hama │ — │ — │ 4
Hankeui │ — │ — │ 1
Harni │ — │ 2 │ —
Harounia │ — │ — │ 1
Harpout—Kharput │ — │ 21 │ 3
Hassan │ — │ 1 │ —
Hassan-Beyli │ — │ 6 │ 2
Hassan-Tchelebi │ — │ — │ 1
Hassanova │ — │ 1 │ —
Hauran │ — │ — │ 3
Hazaren │ — │ 2 │ —
Herag—Erba’a │ — │ 2 │ —
Hergerd │ — │ 1 │ —
Hirj │ — │ — │ 1
Homs │ — │ — │ 3
Husseinig │ — │ 1 │ —
Hussi Mansour │ — │ 1 │ —
I │ │ │
Idlib │ — │ — │ 2
(Igdir) │ — │ — │ 6
Ilidja │ — │ — │ 1
Ineboli │ — │ 1 │ —
Iriawa │ — │ 2 │ —
Islohia │ — │ — │ 2
Ismayil │ — │ — │ 1
Ismayil Agha’s Kala │ — │ 1 │ —
Ismid │ — │ 6 │ —
Ismid, sandjak │ — │ 1 │ —
Isnik—Nicomedia │ — │ 1 │ —
Istanos │ — │ 2 │ —
Itchmé │ — │ 1 │ 1
Izoli Hadji │ — │ — │ 2
K │ │ │
Kachin Han │ — │ — │ 1
Kahdem │ — │ — │ 1
Kaisaria │ — │ 13 │ 2
Kaisaria, Villages in │ │ │
the District of │ — │ 2 │ —
Kamakh │ — │ 2 │ 3
Kamakh Boghaz │ — │ — │ 2
Kangal │ — │ 2 │ —
Kapou Kays │ — │ 1 │ —
(Karabagh District) │ — │ — │ 1
Karadjalou-Garadjalu │ — │ 2 │ —
Karagatch │ — │ 1 │ —
Karagöz │ — │ 1 │ —
(Karakeliss) │ — │ — │ 2
Karaman │ — │ — │ 1
Kara-Pounar │ — │ — │ 3
Karasu │ — │ 2 │ —
Karer │ — │ — │ 1
Karmad │ — │ — │ 1
(Kars) │ — │ — │ 1
(Kars, Town and │ — │ — │ 1
District) │ │ │
Karsakh │ — │ 1 │ —
Karspazar │ — │ 2 │ —
Karsz │ — │ 1 │ —
Kartzor │ — │ 1 │ —
Kasha │ — │ 1 │ —
Kassaba │ — │ 1 │ —
Kavash District │ — │ 2 │ —
(Kazakh) │ — │ — │ 1
Kazi Mahara │ — │ — │ 1
Keban │ — │ 1 │ —
Keboussia │ — │ 1 │ —
(Kedabek) │ — │ — │ 1
Keghi-Kighi │ — │ 4 │ —
Keghvank │ — │ — │ 2
Keklik Tepé │ — │ — │ 1
Kelidj │ — │ 2 │ —
Kerasond-Kiresoun │ 1 │ 1 │ —
Keremet │ — │ 1 │ —
Keshan │ — │ 1 │ —
Kesirig │ — │ 1 │ —
Kessab │ — │ 4 │ —
Ketcheurd-Katchayourt │ — │ 1 │ —
Ketch-Magara │ — │ 1 │ —
Keumer Han │ — │ — │ 2
Khanishan │ — │ 1 │ —
Khantzart District │ — │ — │ 1
Khantzod │ — │ 1 │ —
Khashkhaldoukh │ — │ 1 │ —
Khaskegh │ — │ 1 │ —
Kheder-Bey │ — │ 1 │ —
Kheiban │ — │ 1 │ —
Khlat │ — │ 1 │ —
Khnyss │ — │ 5 │ —
Khoi │ — │ 1 │ 4
Khoronk │ — │ 1 │ —
Khorsan │ — │ 1 │ —
Khourakhon │ — │ 1 │ —
Khozmo Pass │ — │ — │ 1
Kiakhta—Kyakta │ — │ — │ 2
Kilidjlar │ — │ — │ 1
Killis │ — │ 1 │ 1
Kirk Göz │ — │ — │ 1
Kizil Agatch │ — │ 1 │ —
Komer │ — │ 1 │ —
Koms-Goms │ — │ 3 │ —
Konia │ — │ 6 │ 17
Konia, vilayet │ — │ 1 │ 2
Kotchan │ — │ 1 │ —
Kotchesur-Kotch Hissar │ — │ 1 │ —
Kotmo │ — │ — │ 3
(Kourpalou) │ — │ — │ 1
Kozolouk │ — │ 1 │ —
Kudchi │ — │ — │ 1
Kurdistan │ — │ 2 │ —
Kurdmeidan │ — │ 1 │ —
Kurk │ — │ 1 │ —
Kurtapa │ — │ 1 │ —
Kurt-Belené │ — │ 1 │ —
L │ │ │
Lappashli │ — │ 1 │ —
Lebanon │ 1 │ — │ —
Lsounk │ — │ 1 │ —
M │ │ │
Ma’an │ — │ — │ 1
Ma’ara │ — │ — │ 2
Makof │ — │ 1 │ —
Malatia │ — │ 4 │ 4
Malgara │ 1 │ 1 │ —
Maltepé │ — │ 1 │ —
Mama Hatoun-Derdjan │ — │ 1 │ 2
Mamouret │ — │ — │ 1
Mamouret-ul-Aziz, │ — │ 5 │ —
vilayet │ │ │
Mandjaluk │ — │ 2 │ —
Mansouria—Monsoria │ — │ 1 │ —
Maragha │ — │ 1 │ —
Marash │ — │ 13 │ 3
Mar Audishu │ — │ 2 │ —
Mardin │ — │ 6 │ 1
(Markar) │ — │ — │ 1
Marmardjik │ — │ 1 │ —
Marmora, Coasts of │ — │ 1 │ —
Marsovan │ — │ 15 │ —
Marsovan District │ — │ 1 │ —
Mayadin │ — │ — │ 1
Mediterranean, Coasts of│ — │ 1 │ —
Meghd │ — │ 1 │ —
Mekragom │ — │ 1 │ —
Melashkerd-Melazkerd │ — │ 2 │ —
Mergavar │ — │ 1 │ —
Mersina │ — │ 5 │ —
Meskené │ — │ — │ 1
Mesopotamia │ — │ — │ 11
Mess Nor Keui │ — │ 1 │ —
Messoudia │ — │ 1 │ —
Mezré │ — │ 6 │ —
Miandoab │ — │ 1 │ —
Mikhalidj │ — │ — │ 1
Mirkedjia │ — │ — │ 1
Moks, kaza │ — │ 1 │ —
Morinig │ — │ 1 │ —
Mosul │ — │ — │ 11
Mosul, Region of │ — │ — │ 1
(Mouandjik) │ — │ — │ 1
Moumbidj │ — │ — │ 2
Mourad Su—Eastern │ — │ — │ 2
Euphrates │ │ │
Moush │ — │ 12 │ —
N │ │ │
(Nahichevan) │ — │ — │ 2
(Nahichevan, Town and │ — │ — │ 1
District) │ │ │
Nazi │ — │ 1 │ —
Nazlu District │ — │ 1 │ —
Nigdé │ — │ 1 │ —
(Nijni-Akhti) │ — │ — │ 1
Niksar │ — │ 2 │ —
Norag │ — │ 1 │ —
Nordoz │ — │ 2 │ —
(Novo-Bayazid) │ — │ — │ 1
(Novo-Bayazid, Town and │ │ │
District) │ — │ — │ 1
(Novo-Nikolaievka) │ — │ — │ 1
O │ │ │
Odjakli │ — │ 1 │ —
Olti │ — │ — │ 1
Ordou │ — │ 2 │ —
Ortakeui │ — │ 2 │ —
Osmania │ — │ — │ 9
Oulash │ — │ 1 │ —
Ourbadji Oglou Deré │ │ │
(near │ │ │
Baibourt) │ — │ — │ 1
Ourfa │ — │ 14 │ 4
Ourough │ — │ 1 │ —
Ovadjik │ — │ 1 │ —
P │ │ │
Palu │ — │ — │ 1
Panderma │ — │ 2 │ —
(Parakar) │ — │ — │ 1
Passin District │ — │ 3 │ 1
Pazou │ — │ 2 │ —
Pelou │ — │ 2 │ —
Pera │ — │ 1 │ —
Perkenik │ — │ 1 │ —
Perkhous │ — │ 1 │ —
Perri │ — │ 1 │ —
Pertchendji │ — │ — │ 1
Plel │ — │ 1 │ —
(Plour) │ — │ — │ 1
Polatlu │ — │ 1 │ —
(Port Said) │ — │ — │ 3
Q │ │ │
Quodshanis │ — │ 5 │ —
R │ │ │
Radjou │ — │ — │ 2
Rahva │ — │ 1 │ —
Rakka │ — │ — │ 5
Ras-ul-Ain │ — │ — │ 3
Rodosto │ — │ 1 │ —
Roumlou │ — │ 2 │ —
S │ │ │
Sabandja │ — │ 2 │ —
Sahajian District │ — │ 1 │ —
Sairt │ — │ 3 │ —
Salekan │ — │ 1 │ —
Salmas │ — │ 4 │ 4
Salmas District │ — │ 3 │ —
Salt Desert of Anatolia │ — │ — │ 1
(Samaghar) │ — │ — │ 1
Samsoun │ — │ 10 │ 3
Sarai │ — │ 2 │ —
Sassoun │ — │ 3 │ —
Scutari │ — │ 1 │ —
Selefka │ — │ 2 │ —
Severeg │ — │ — │ 1
Shabin Kara-Hissar │ — │ 6 │ —
Shadakh │ — │ 1 │ —
Shadakh Region—Shatakh │ — │ 3 │ —
Kaza │ │ │
Shahbagh │ — │ 1 │ —
Shakh │ — │ 1 │ —
Shaklak │ — │ 1 │ —
Shar Kishla—Sari-Kishila│ — │ 3 │ 4
(Sharori) │ — │ — │ 1
Sheer—Shar │ — │ 3 │ —
Sheitan Dere │ — │ — │ 2
Shekhlan │ — │ 1 │ —
Shivilgi │ — │ 1 │ —
(Shousha District) │ — │ — │ 1
Shushantz │ — │ 2 │ —
Silivri │ — │ 1 │ —
Sis │ — │ 5 │ 1
Sivas │ — │ 17 │ 4
Sivas District—Sivas │ — │ 10 │ —
vilayet │ │ │
Slivan │ — │ 1 │ —
Smyrna │ — │ 1 │ —
Sordar │ — │ 1 │ —
Sortra │ — │ 1 │ —
Soudjboulak │ — │ 1 │ —
Soulouk │ — │ 1 │ —
Sourp Garabed Monastery │ — │ 1 │ —
Soushehri │ — │ 2 │ —
Sughurt—Sairt (?) │ — │ 2 │ —
(Suhoi Fontan) │ — │ — │ 1
Sultania │ — │ — │ 6
Süngürlü—Soungourlou │ — │ 2 │ —
(Surmalin) │ — │ — │ 1
Surudj │ — │ — │ 1
Suverek │ — │ 1 │ —
Syria │ — │ — │ 4
T │ │ │
Tabriz │ — │ 3 │ —
Tal │ — │ 3 │ —
Talas │ — │ 5 │ 1
Talas, Villages in the │ │ │
District of │ — │ 1 │ —
Tamar │ — │ 1 │ —
(Tarsa-Tchai) │ — │ — │ 1
Tarsus │ — │ 3 │ 8
Tasholouk │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchai │ — │ — │ 1
(Tchaikent) │ — │ — │ 1
Tchalgara │ — │ — │ 1
Tchamli-Bel │ — │ — │ 2
Tchamulan │ — │ — │ 1
Tcharbash │ — │ 1 │ —
(Tchardahli) │ — │ — │ 1
Tchargousha │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchar-Sandjak │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchar-Shamba │ — │ 2 │ —
Tchemesh-Getzak │ — │ 2 │ —
(Tchibouhli) │ — │ — │ 1
Tchiftlik, near Tokat │ — │ — │ 2
Tchingiler │ — │ 2 │ —
Tchomakli │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchorlu │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchoroum—Chorun │ — │ 4 │ —
Tchoukour │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchumbar │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchunkoush │ — │ 1 │ —
Tchutlug—Khoutlig │ — │ 1 │ 1
Tedjir │ — │ — │ 1
Teheran │ — │ — │ 1
Tel-Armen │ — │ 1 │ —
Telouk-Khaina │ — │ — │ 1
Ten │ — │ 1 │ —
Tergawar │ — │ 1 │ —
Tiari │ — │ 5 │ —
(Tiflis) │ — │ — │ 1
(Tiflis, Town and │ — │ — │ 1
District) │ │ │
Tigris River │ — │ — │ 2
Tireboli │ — │ 1 │ —
Tkhouma—Tkhoma │ — │ 5 │ —
Tokat │ — │ 6 │ —
Totz │ — │ 1 │ —
Toutlikeui │ — │ — │ 1
Trebizond │ — │ 10 │ —
Trebizond, vilayet │ — │ 3 │ —
Turchal │ — │ — │ 2
Tzeronk │ — │ 1 │ —
U │ │ │
Urmia—Urmi │ — │ 12 │ 1
Urmia District │ — │ 3 │ —
Ushnuk │ — │ — │ 1
V │ │ │
(Vaharshapat, Town and │ — │ — │ 1
District) │ │ │
Van │ — │ 14 │ 1
Van, vilayet │ — │ 3 │ 2
Van-Dosp District—Timar │ — │ 1 │ —
Varak Monastery │ — │ 2 │ —
(Veri Ailaulou) │ — │ — │ 1
Vezir Köprü │ — │ 3 │ —
Viran Shehr │ — │ — │ 2
Vostan │ — │ 2 │ —
Y │ │ │
Yalova │ — │ 1 │ —
Yarpouz │ — │ 2 │ —
Yeghek │ — │ — │ 1
Yenidjé │ — │ 1 │ —
Yeni Han (near Tokat) │ — │ — │ 1
Yeni-Shehr │ — │ — │ 1
Yerebakan │ — │ 1 │ —
Yermag │ — │ — │ 1
Yoghanolouk │ — │ 2 │ —
Yozgad │ — │ 2 │ —
Yulduz Han (near Sivas) │ — │ — │ 1
Z │ │ │
Zara │ — │ 1 │ —
Zeitoun │ 4 │ 19 │ —
Ziaret │ — │ 1 │ —
Zila │ — │ 1 │ 2
Zindjirderé │ — │ 1 │ —
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
150. MESSAGE, DATED 22nd JULY, 1916, FROM MR. N., OF CONSTANTINOPLE;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
N. desires his correspondents beyond the borders of Turkey to be
confidentially informed:—
“That he has word from German Relief Agents at Aleppo, sent through
German Embassy, who report visits of their helpers to wide district,
including Der-el-Zor and other places on Euphrates and in desert.
They have seen thousands of deported Armenians under tents in the
open, in convoys on the march, descending River in boats and in all
phases of their miserable life. Only in few places does Government
issue any rations, and those quite insufficient. People therefore
themselves forced to satisfy their hunger with food begged in that
scanty land or found in the parched fields. Agents found them eating
grass, herbs, and locusts, and in desperate cases dead animals and
human bodies are reported to have been eaten. Naturally, death-rate
from starvation and sickness very high, and increased by brutal
treatment of the authorities, whose bearing toward exiles as they
are being driven back and forth over desert is not unlike that of
slave-drivers. With few exceptions no shelter of any kind is
provided, and the people coming from cold climate are left under
scorching desert sun without food or water. Temporary amelioration
can only be obtained by the few able to pay officials.
“Misery and hopelessness of the situation is such that many are
reported to resort to suicide. Illustrating methods employed, agents
report gathering group of one hundred children whom they placed in
care of educated young widow from Hadjin. Two weeks later these
children were deported, and from two survivors found further down
convoy route it was learned that the rest had perished. House
mother, crazed by treatment of her charges, was among deported
moving on. Boat-loads sent from Zor down the River arrived at Ana,
one hundred and thirty miles away, with three-fifths of passengers
missing. There appears, in short, to be steady policy to exterminate
these people, but to deny charge of massacre. Their destruction from
so-called natural causes seems decided upon.”
-----
Footnote 283:
The Ottoman Government appears to have placed new difficulties in
the way of this relief, before it could be brought into practical
operation.—EDITOR.
GUIDE TO THE READER.
This volume has been made, as far as possible, an exhaustive
collection of evidence. It therefore necessarily contains much that
is only of slight interest to the ordinary reader, and many of the
documents are duplicate accounts, from independent sources, of
identical events, which, while of the highest value from the
evidential point of view, are superfluous to those who wish merely
to form a general idea of what occurred.
It has therefore seemed advisable, in the reader’s interest, to
single out forty or fifty of the most important documents (about one
in three of the whole series), and direct his attention, in the
first place, to these. They are detailed, with an indication of
their contents, in the following list:—
Doc. 9. Letter conveyed out of Turkey in the sole of a refugee’s
shoe.
” 12. News in German missionary journals suppressed by the German
Censor.
” 15. Siege of Van: an American lady who went through it.
” 18. Van: a German Missionary’s letter.
” 22. Sassoun: the last stand of the Armenian mountaineers.
” 23. The massacres at Moush: a German eye-witness.
” 24. Moush: a victim of the massacres.
” 31. How the missionaries saved 17,000 refugees at Urmia: a
diary.
” 40. How the Nestorian Patriarch fought for his people: letter
from his sister.
” 43. The flight from Urmia: story of a pastor’s wife.
” 47. Scenes on the refugees’ road.
” 53. Erzeroum: notes from an American who stayed there till the
Russians came in.
” 59. Baibourt: the horrors of deportation, described by an exiled
lady.
” 62. Erzindjan: the passing of the exiles, described by two
Danish Sisters in the German Red Cross.
” 64. A Turkish “Government Orphanage”: experiences of another
Danish Red Cross Nurse.
” 65. A town on the exile route.
” 66. The sufferings of an exile-gang.
” 69. The fate of a Christian College: report by the College
Principal.
” 72. Trebizond: wholesale drowning at sea.
” 73. Trebizond: interview with the former Italian Consul-General.
” 78. Exiles on the march: letter from an American lady who
accompanied them.
” 82. Adventures of an Armenian peasant who defied the deportation
decree.
” 87. “Cleaning out” a town: testimony of a foreign Professor.
” 88. The same town: narrative of a foreign lady.
” 89. The rescue of deported school-girls, by the same lady.
” 96. The butchery at Angora: the same witness.
” 102. Adapazar: the bastinado in the Church.
” 104. A railway journey during the deportations, by a foreign
doctor.
” 108. Afiun Kara Hissar: a brave Armenian doctor’s wife.
” 114. On the Baghdad Railway: a lady’s diary.
” 117. The concentration camps: two Swiss ladies.
” 118. Journey from Smyrna to Damascus and back, by a foreign
traveller.
” 121. Cilicia: emptying the hill villages.
” 122. Zeitoun: the Protestant Pastor.
” 123. Zeitounlis in exile: diary of a foreigner in the Plains.
” 126. What happened to a mountain town: statement by a foreign
resident.
” 130. Jibal Mousa: five villages which held the Turks at bay, and
were rescued by the French Fleet.
” 133. What happened at Ourfa.
” 137. Births on the road: the fate of the babies and the mothers.
” 139. Reports from Aleppo.
” 141. Collecting the dead at Aleppo.
” 143. Damascus: arrival of the exiles.
” 144. On the banks of the Euphrates: death by starvation.
” 145. Der-el-Zor, the exile station in the desert: by a German
traveller.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note
The first item in the Table of Contents mentions a map of the
districts affected, but there is no map in edition used to prepare
this book. The TOC entry is retained, nonetheless. An editor’s note
also mentions a map (the same map?) to accompany the Index of Place
Names at the end of the volume. In any case, there is no such map in
this edition.
Some compound words appear both with and without hyphens. Where the
word breaks on a newline, the hyphen is retained if it appears
elsewhere.
Annexe D contains a very wide table, which was separated into two
tables, both still wide.
Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected,
and are noted here. The references are to the page and line in the
original.
xii.33 that these [T/t]wenty-two documents Replaced.
41.33 working for our prot[e/é]gés Replaced.
56.18 to revolt and mass[s]acre the Turks Removed.
87.46 by the gendarmes [j]ust like the rest Restored.
139.7 brought me some [j]ewellery Restored.
195.2 it is indispensable to instal[l] medical Added.
258.14 that has reached [t]he Vatican Restored.
290.45 of the [l]ocal branch of the Ottoman Bank. Restored.
400.49 they said, [“]but now we see Added.
451.11 is the most [i]mportant factor Restoured.
473.18 composed of familie[t/s] Replaced.
475.6 There are many theories[.] Added.
516.42 the dense [underbush] _sic_
underbrush?
545.28 to Damascus, Beirout and Medina[.] Added.
649.49 the number was actually 22[.] Added.
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