Bulgarians and Turkish soldiers 3,500
Armenians 900
------
4,400
We thus see that the total number of victims amounted to only about
6.4 per cent. of the figures originally circulated. Such exaggeration,
deliberately made with the object of appealing to the imagination of
sentimental people, is astounding in its mendacity. When we can apply
the test of investigation to Lord Bryce’s estimate of 800,000 killed in
the present alleged “massacres” we shall in all probability find these
figures similarly excessive.
All the stories of Turkish misdeeds have proved on investigation to be
gross exaggerations beyond the belief of any thoughtful person. Anyone
gifted with imagination and a sufficiently prurient mind could write
up the stories now being so assiduously circulated to the Press by
Armenian agencies acting, undoubtedly, under instructions from a central
Bureau.[10]
“The Bulgarian atrocities,” to which reference has already been made,
afford a very good example of how easily a prejudiced sentimentalist
can be deceived. The late Canon McColl, at Mr. Gladstone’s request,
went out to the Balkans to collect evidence. On one occasion his guide
(presumably a Levantine, over-anxious to please his employer and to earn
some extra backsheesh) pointed out on the horizon a large number of
erections, which he asserted were “hundreds of impaled Christians.” The
report of this was sent home to England, where it made a great sensation
as apparently irrefutable first-hand evidence, on good authority. But in
the sequel conclusive proof came forth that no Christians had been either
massacred or crucified anywhere near that district, and furthermore that
the supposed figures were nothing but the common haycocks of the country,
which are built up around a pole, and which—after the hay has been eaten
by the cattle until only a few bunches are left—might bear rather the
appearance suggested by the guide. Canon McColl acknowledged his mistake,
but of course the mischief had been done.
Leaving aside these stories of “massacres” and extermination of the
Armenians, which we believe to be, in the main, a tissue of exaggerations
and invention, let us now turn to the question of “Armenian Independence”
and examine whether their claim to any such independence is founded on
the inherent right which all united races however small, possess to
choose their own form of government.
The answer must be an emphatic negation, for the reason that the
Armenians are neither the most numerous nor the most homogeneous section
of the population of the country in which they live.
Sir Charles Wilson, an unbiassed authority, estimates the total Armenian
population of the nine provinces of Kurdistan as being 925,000 at the
most, or only 15 per cent. of the total population of 6,130,000, which is
made up of 4,460,000 Moslems, 645,000 Greeks and other Christians, plus
100,000 Jews and Gypsies. And General Zelenyi, in a census made for the
Caucasus Geographical Society in 1896, estimates that even in the five
provinces which they most largely inhabit, the Armenians form only 26 per
cent. of the entire population.
In order to make this minority less apparent, the pro-Armenians take
the figures of only 6 provinces—choosing of course those most thickly
populated with their friends—and add to them the Greeks, other Christians
and Jews; but even then the Moslems are in large majority.
The following are the figures for 1908 of the population of the nine
vilayets specified below, as ascertained by an official census taken by
the Ottoman Government:—
Non-Moslems,
Christians and Jews,
Gypsies and
Yezidis (Devil Total
Moslems. Worshippers). Population.
1. Adana 185,000 215,000 400,000
2. Aleppo 644,597 261,977 906,574
3. Bitlis 295,000 75,000 370,000
4. Diarbekir 301,509 112,016 413,525
5. Erzerum 501,101 146,009 647,110
6. Marmmet el Aziz 378,723 101,263 479,986
7. Sivas 848,474 273,450 1,121,924
8. Trebizond 1,001,260 70,211 1,071,471
9. Van 325,000 105,000 430,000
--------- --------- ---------
4,480,664 1,359,926 5,840,590
--------- --------- ---------
Even if for the sake of argument we were to grant (although such is far
from being the case), that the Christian and Jewish population does form
a majority over the Moslem one, it proves no case for the pro-Armenians,
because all the Moslems are solidly united in opposition to any
alteration of the status quo, while the Christians have no common idea or
policy.
Thus a large majority of the Roman Catholics and Protestants, including
even the Armenian Roman Catholics and Protestants, as well as the
orthodox Greeks, favour the status quo, as do also the Jews and Gypsies.
The Gregorians are hopelessly divided: some want a national existence
when even their friends, like Mr. Buxton, agree that “the population is
too divided to permit success,” while others desire annexation by Russia,
and on the other hand Boghos Nubar Pasha, the leader of the largest
section, declares that they desire to remain with their fellow Moslems an
integral part of the Ottoman Empire.