THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS EFFORT AT
EXTERMINATING THE ARMENIAN RACE, BUT HAS CHOSEN NOT TO DO SO. THERE
IS GRAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT HAS WELCOMED, IF
NOT ENCOURAGED, THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE ARMENIANS FROM ASIA MINOR,
FOR THE FURTHERANCE OF GERMAN POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL DESIGNS ON
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
A patriotic German woman wrote from Marash on June 4, 1915, to the
_Sonnenaufgang_, organ of the _Deutscher Hülfsbund für christliches
Liebeswerk im Orient_: “Oh, if we could write all that we are seeing!”
German missionaries in Asia Minor have been fully as horror-stricken,
fully as sympathetic, and fully as indignant as the missionaries of
other nations. And I have no doubt that there are millions of Germans
to-day, who, _if they were allowed to know the truth_, would protest
bitterly to their Government against the extermination of the Armenian
nation, and petition their Government, in the name of God, to do
something to prevent Germany from being stigmatized in history as
partner in the awful crimes that are being committed in the Ottoman
Empire.
It has been shown that there never has been, and that there is not
now, reason for Moslem fanaticism against the Armenian race. Of their
own initiative, without the direct command and incitement of the
authorities and without the help of the soldiery and gendarmery,
Turks have never massacred Armenians. Since, then, this effort to
exterminate the Armenian race, made everywhere in Asiatic Turkey at
the same moment, has been due to a systematic scheme, organized and
directed from Constantinople, we must seek the responsibility among the
officials of the Turkish Government at Constantinople. The deliberate,
minutely-planned Armenian massacres and deportations, carried on
without interruption from April to November, 1915, must have been
conceived by someone, ordered by someone, and perpetrated for some
purpose.
Conceived by whom? Ordered by whom? Perpetrated for what purpose?
_The conception is not new._ It has been explained above that the
Armenians drew upon themselves the distrust and the hatred of the Young
Turks because they took the Young Turks seriously, and believed that
the Constitution was to be a real constitution. The Adana massacre was
the first effort on the part of those who usurped Abdul Hamid’s policy
and methods when they usurped his authority, to destroy the Armenians.
Back in those days I heard more than one prominent Young Turk give
hearty assent to the _bon mot_ that was then going the rounds, “The
only way to get rid of the Armenian question is to get rid of the
Armenians!” To finish the work begun at Adana has been a political
ideal for six years. The opportunity for realization came. It was
seized immediately.
_When the attack of the Allies against the Dardanelles was begun,
it was common knowledge at Constantinople that the death-warrant of
the Armenian race, long ago signed and put aside in the pigeon-holes
of the Sublime Porte and the Seraskerat, would be brought out and
put into execution._ Is it possible to believe that the German
Embassy was ignorant of this, and that Talaat bey gave the orders
without having informed Baron von Wangenheim? Is it possible that the
German Government at Berlin did not know of the plan, even if their
representative at Constantinople failed to inform them? Here are the
facts.
The extermination of a million and a half innocent, loyal to a fault,
Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey was planned at, and ordered
from, Constantinople.
At Constantinople, the one man whose word, supported by his Government,
would have prevented the orders from going out, was the German
Ambassador.
Although he _may_ not have known during the first week or two, the
German Ambassador was pled with, _long before it was too late_, to
use the influence of Germany to put a stop to what was to prove the
blackest page of modern history.
Since Germany refused to intervene before the extermination of the
Armenians started, is she not accessory before the fact to the murder
by sword, by starvation and thirst, by exposure, by beating, by rape,
of nearly a million human beings, whose fault was that they were “in
the way,” and whose vulnerability and defencelessness lay in the sole
fact that they were Christians?
Since Germany has persisted in refusing to intervene during the process
of extermination, is she not _particeps criminis_?
Ambassador von Wangenheim declared to Ambassador Morgenthau at
Constantinople that Germany could not, upon request of the United
States, intervene in the internal affairs of Turkey. Ambassador von
Bernstorff at Washington, when he saw what a painful impression the
newspaper accounts of the Armenian atrocities were producing on the
American public, at first denied that there had been massacres, and,
later, when it was impossible to maintain his denial in face of
established facts, declared that what had happened in Turkey was a
perfectly justifiable suppression of Armenian rebellions.
In one large city of Asiatic Turkey, an American missionary, a man
whom I know personally and whose word can be trusted implicitly, saw
a German officer directing the artillery fire of the Turks upon the
Armenian civilian population. In two other places, at least, German
consuls defended the Ottoman policy both of massacre and of deportation.
On the broader and more general moral ground of responsibility as
brother’s keeper, the German, _who alone of all European nations
have had, and still have the power to stop these massacres_, stand
condemned. It is going to be difficult for their writers, who have
been foremost in extolling the Armenian race, its virtues, and its
contributions to civilization, to defend to the satisfaction of
posterity the inertia of the German Government in the face of the
extermination of the Armenian nation.
That they kept quiet, and refused to act, when they alone could have
saved the Armenians from destruction, is the first count in the case
against the Germans. It is serious. The second count is sinister.
When we try to find the purpose behind the Armenian massacres, we
are confronted with what is, under the circumstances, an eloquent
accusation against the German Government and the German people. _The
Germans, and the Germans alone, will benefit by the extermination
of the Armenians._ I have pointed out above how the Armenians are
the essential factor, the guarantee indeed, of Turkish economic and
political independence in Asia Minor. By the same token, they appear
to be a stumbling-block to German domination. The Armenians, largely
educated in French and American schools, speak French and English.
Through their commercial relations with western Europe and America,
with England most of all, they have naturally been “in the way” of the
German commercial travellers. As the one commercial and agricultural
element in the interior of Asia Minor, capable of holding its own
against a penetration of European colonists, the Armenians are “in the
way” of the schemes for the Germanization of Anatolia. It was not for
the Bagdad Railway alone, but also for all that the Bagdad Railway
implied, that Kaiser Wilhelm II. fraternized with Abdul Hamid, after
the massacres of Armenians in 1895 and 1896.
I have not the slightest desire to be unfair to Germans as
individuals, or to insinuate what cannot reasonably be proved to
be in the German mind. Enlightened nations, however, are certainly
responsible for the acts of their Governments. The Germans have assumed
the responsibility for many terrible things in this war. They may
hope, when passions have died down and both sides are known, to clear
themselves of some charges. But there is no hope in regard to the
charge of allowing the extermination of the Armenians--a crime by which
they alone could hope to benefit.
CONCLUSION
And now, in conclusion, let me pose frankly this question: _Have
neutral nations any responsibility in regard to the Armenians?_
For neutral nations in general, the answer depends upon whether the
influence and action of a nation ought to be confined wholly to
internal affairs. Those who give to their own conscience and to God
the answer of Cain, say frankly: “No, we are not our brother’s keeper.
We have all that we can do to look after ourselves.” If this type
of mentality had controlled the councils of the nations throughout
the past twenty centuries, would there be a Christian civilization?
Would history be able to record a single altruistic deed to a nation’s
credit? Would slavery ever have been abolished? The other type is
composed of those who believe that man does not live by bread alone,
or for himself alone, and that nations, as well as individuals, have
responsibilities towards others--especially if those others are weak
and oppressed.
Let us leave wholly to one side the argument of higher morality, this
abstract, intangible argument, which, when urged, causes many to
shrug their shoulders and smile. Let us come to the concrete reason
for the direct responsibility of two nations to intervene on behalf
of the Armenians. Among neutral and passive onlookers, who have been
silent while the darkest page of modern history is being written, the
Americans and Swiss should not forget that their money and their
representatives have been working for two generations in Turkey to
elevate the Armenians. Together with French, British, Germans, and
Italians, the Americans and Swiss have helped to reawaken the national
spirit of the Armenian nation. They have infused new life into the
Armenian Church. They have made researches into Armenian history and
have given to the world the results of those researches. They have
taught the Armenians European languages, and have imparted to a race
that had become ignorant and backward, because separated from Europe,
the spirit of Occidental civilization. _Were they seeking out victims
to deck with garlands for the sacrifice? Were they fatting the calf
for the slaughter?_ Do not say no! For the practical result of their
efforts to elevate the Armenian race is that long journey from home to
the Valley of the Euphrates--now become the Valley of Death.
Let us think hard. And then, for God’s sake, let us act!
SOURCES
1. Report of American Committee on Armenian Atrocities. New York,
October, 1915.
The report contains thirty-five extracts from the testimony of
eye-witnesses, covering the period April 27 to August 3, 1915,
from all parts of Asia Minor. Twenty-five representative Americans
(including Hon. Oscar S. Strauss, twice American Ambassador to
Turkey, Cardinal James Gibbons, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and former
President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University), signed this
report, which states that each bit of testimony has been subjected
to careful and extensive investigation, and that “the sources are
unquestioned as to the veracity, integrity, and authority of the
writers.”
2. Official report of the Parliamentary Debate in the House of Lords,
on Wednesday, October 6, 1915. London, Parliamentary Debates, H. of L.,
volume xix., 67.
Interpellation of the Earl of Cromer, speech of Viscount Bryce, and
comments of the Marquess of Crewe.
3. Lord Bryce’s revision and enlargement of the official report of his
speech, as given in “Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation,” by
Arnold J. Toynbee. London, November, 1915.
4. German missionaries’ letters to the _Sonnenaufgang_, published by
Deutscher Hülfsbund für christliches Liebeswerk im Orient.
5. Narrative of Dikran Andreasian, translated by Rev. Stephen
Trowbridge, and published in _The Star of the East_. London, November,
1915.
6. Testimony of eye-witnesses, published in the Boulogne-sur-Mer
_Telegramme_, September 17; Paris _Temps_, September 15; Limoges
_Courrier du Centre_, September 15; _Tribune de Genève_, September 4
and 24, October 14; _Journal de Genève_, October 13 and 24; _Gazette
de Lausanne_, October 24; New York _Evening Post_, October 18. Résumés
and editorial comments in Manchester _Guardian_, August 16 and October
26; London _Times_, October 8; _Frankfurter Zeitung_, October 9;
_Paris-Midi_, October 17. All these dates, of course, are in 1915.
7. Circular letters of various dates from July 6 to October 22, 1915,
sent out by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,
Boston, Mass., which are signed by James L. Barton.
8. A number of as yet unpublished personal letters. For obvious
reasons, I cannot give the names of the writers, and the places from
which they were written.
9. Personal conversations with persons of unimpeachable integrity and
unquestioned authority, who have returned between September 15 and
November 20 from Constantinople and Asia Minor. Their names must of
necessity be withheld at this moment.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] I do not mean by this statement to deny that the educated
Armenians, just as every other people under the yoke of another race,
have not longed, in their most intimate sentiments, for the day when
national aspirations would be realized. But, the Armenians are above
all a practical people, and they did not look for what they knew was
impossible of realization. In the correspondence concerning Armenian
people in the Chancelleries of the Great Powers and in the archives
of the Sublime Porte, _the question has always been to obtain reforms
that would secure for the Armenians only those privileges and only
that measure of security and freedom, to which they had the right as
Ottoman subjects to aspire_. In 1913, the Powers, _among whom was
Germany_, proposed to the Turkish Government a plan for reforms in Asia
Minor, which was accepted and decreed by Turkey, but which was not
put into execution. Up to the time of this terrible crime of the past
few months, the Armenians demanded, and were glad to have obtained in
Turkey, only those reforms that Turkey had agreed herself to put into
effect.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Underlined text is surrounded by equals signs: =underline=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.