THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AND THE TREATY OF BERLIN.
Since the gathering of the Plenipotentiaries of Europe at the famous
Congress of Berlin in 1878, and the signing of the still more famous
Treaty of Berlin, the martyr roll of the unfortunate Armenian nation
stands without its parallel in history.
In the Guildhall at Berlin hangs a picture of the memorable scene
witnessed in that city on July the thirteenth 1878. The painter has
depicted the proud array of representatives of the powerful Governments
of Europe, but in the interests of Humanity there should be attached to
that painting the wording of Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin written
in letters of blood (Armenian blood).
It was a curious irony of Fate, that although the taking of “the
terrible stronghold of Kars,” universally admitted to be one of the
greatest and most difficult military exploits ever achieved, and the
crowning success of the Russian arms in Asiatic Turkey, should have
been accomplished by an Armenian General; that although Armenian
Generals in the Russian service had led to conquest, and Armenian
soldiers fought, conquered and died, yet by these successes not only
was no amelioration attained of the hard fate of their unhappy nation
under Turkish rule, but that fate, hard before, was made a hundredfold
and even a thousandfold harder.
[Illustration: GENERAL PRINCE LORIS MELIKOFF.
Commanded the Russian forces in Asiatic Turkey during the Russo-Turkish
war and captured the impregnable fortress of Kars. Appointed Prime
Minister of Russia by Alexander II. The liberal policy which
characterized the reign of that excellent monarch, and the Constitution
that he was on the eve of granting to his people were influenced by
Melikoff; but after the death of Alexander II he was not allowed to
continue in his good work of reforming Russia, being overthrown from
office early in the reign of Alexander III.]
The efforts of the Armenians, and the entreaties of their Patriarch
Nerses had procured the insertion of Article 16 in the Treaty of San
Stefano signed between Russia and Turkey in March 1878. In fact the
wording of the Article had been suggested by the Patriarch himself.
It provided the following stipulation for the protection of the
Armenians:--
“As the evacuation by the Russian troops of the territory which they
now occupy in Armenia, and which is to be restored to Turkey, might
give rise to conflicts and complications detrimental to the maintenance
of good relations between the two countries, the Sublime Porte engages
to carry into effect without further delay the improvements and
reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by
the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Kurds and
Circassians.”
What followed has passed into history. The British Government of which
Lord Beaconsfield (then Mr. D’Israeli) was Premier, and Lord Salisbury
Foreign Secretary, once more pursued the old policy of baffling Russian
aggrandizement in Turkey. Afraid that her own real or fancied interests
would thereby become imperilled, England threw in the weight of her
power, and virtually commanded the substitution of the Treaty of Berlin
in lieu of the Treaty of San Stefano. Thus the substantial guarantee of
a natural and immediate protector, both able and desirous of enforcing
the protection which the Armenians then had in Russia, was taken away,
and the security of impotent words given in its stead, namely:--
“The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without further delay
the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the
provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security
against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the
steps taken to this effect to the Powers, who will superintend their
application.”
“_It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the
Powers, who will superintend their application._” How this last proviso
could furnish food for laughter were it not for the terrible tragedy
involved in it.
The insertion of Article 61 in the Treaty of Berlin, granted, or rather
seemingly granted, by the six Powers of Europe, proved in reality, as
subsequent events bore out, an instrument of death and torture. It was
as if the reversal of the figures had reversed the possibilities of
succour and protection, and with the death of the Czar Liberator, the
last chance of the Armenians died.
The Turkish Massacres of 1875 and 1876 which led up to the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877 are historical facts too well known to need
further comment in this article. The Czar Liberator stands out in
history as that noble figure--a benefactor of mankind. Through his
humanitarian susceptibilities, and his sublime efforts for their
deliverance, the Christians of European Turkey received immunity
from Turkish slaughter; and the protection of his benevolent arm was
extended over that unhappy Christian nation of Asiatic Turkey, the
Armenians; at least it would have secured them immunity from the
record-breaking slaughter that followed, but the Power that had stood
behind Turkey since 1791 frustrated his endeavours.
A British commentator on that page of British policy has summed it up
in the words:--
“In no other part of the world has our national policy or conduct been
determined by motives so immoral and so stupid.”[3]
The same commentator, in reviewing also the result of the substituted
Treaty, fittingly remarks:--
“The Turk could see at a glance that, whilst it relieved him of the
dangerous pressure of Russia, it substituted no other pressure which
his own infinite dexterity in delays could not make abortive. As for
the unfortunate Armenians, the change was simply one which must tend
to expose them to the increased enmity of their tyrants, whilst it
damaged and discouraged the only protection which was possible under
the inexorable conditions of the physical geography of the country.”
It had been the constant endeavour of the Patriarch Nerses to point out
to the Armenians that their true policy lay in aiding Russian advance
in Turkey: that even if Russia were selfish in her designs, she was
the only Christian Power that would stand as their protector against
Turkish or Persian tyranny. His political foresight had already been
verified as early as 1827,[4] and his strenuous life-long labours were
nearing the goal in 1878, but were frustrated by the fatal action that
intervened.
England, by commanding the substitution of the Treaty of Berlin in
place of that of San Stefano had taken upon herself the heaviest
obligations any nation could incur. It is unnecessary to repeat that
those obligations were never fulfilled.
If the lamented death of the Emperor Alexander II was one of the most
unhappy events that could have befallen Russia; it was a hundredfold
more unhappy for the Armenian nation. His successor, who adopted
repressive and coercive measures for his own people in the place of
his father’s liberal policy, not only applied the same measures to his
Armenian subjects in his own domains, but left their countrymen under
Turkish rule to their merciless fate.
Russia, twice foiled in her subjugation of Turkey, changed her policy
from that of crushing into that of upholding the Ottoman Empire. When
the horrors of the Armenian massacres, revealed to the people of
England by their own ambassadors and consuls, their own journalists
and men of letters, thrilled the hearts of men and women, when
England’s “Grand Old Man” thundered his vituperations against the
“Great Assassin,”[5] Prince Lobanoff in answer to British proposals of
coercion towards Turkey, conveyed Russia’s intentions in his warning
note to the Salisbury Government, and England, who in 1878 had rivetted
the Turkish yoke on the necks of the Armenians, to use the words of
an eminent British authority on Turkish affairs, “wrung her hands and
submitted.”[6]
The same authority tells us that the _coup de grace_ to the
intervention of the Concert of Europe in Armenian affairs was given by
Prince Bismarck, “who in 1883 intimated to the British Government, in
terms of cynical frankness and force, that Germany cared nothing about
the matter, and that it had better be allowed to drop.”
Thus the Concert of Europe, under whose aegis the aspiring Armenians
foolishly and fondly hoped to recover National Autonomy, became the
cause of dealing out to the struggling nation, not security from
Turkish oppression, but instead fire, famine and slaughter, a slaughter
to which were added devilish ingenuity of torture, and the loathsome
horrors of Turkish prisons. If before the Treaty of Berlin the
Armenians had suffered from various phases of Turkish oppression, they
had at least not been pursued with the relentless fury that followed,
until the soil of the fatherland was soaked, and reeked and steamed
with the life-blood of its slaughtered sons and daughters; until
women and children were done to their death under the most hideous and
revolting circumstances, and tender youths and cultured men of letters
rotted in Turkish dungeons.
England, with her uneasy conscience, continued spasmodic efforts in the
shape of paper remonstrances, from time to time she rallied the other
powers who were signatories to the Treaty of Berlin and by means of
Ambassadorial Identical Notes and Collective Notes sought to terminate
the horrors that were stirring public feeling at home; but Abdul Hamid,
fully cognizant of the jealousies and rivalries of the Powers, and
knowing himself secure thereby, laughed in his sleeve at all the paper
remonstrances.
No action was taken by the Cabinets of Europe to leash the tiger
sitting on the Ottoman throne. The lust of blood and the lust
of plunder of “le Sultan Rouge,” combined with the greed of his
satellites, were allowed to be gratified to the full on a helpless and
hapless people, whilst Europe looked on.
The character of Abdul Hamid has been well summed up in the testimony
of a writer having opportunities of intimate acquaintance with him.
“Il voit dans son peuple un vil troupeau qu’il peut dévorer sans pitié,
et à qui, comme le lion de la Fable, il fait beaucoup d’honneur en
daignant le croquer.”[7]
When to these significant words, we add the following by the same
author:--
“De ce qu’Abdul Hamid n’est pas bon musulman, il ne faudrait pas
conclure qu’il aime les Chrétiens; il les déteste, au contraire, et
emploie fréquemment le mot _giaour_ pour désigner un infidèle ou
insulter un musulman.”
We have the explanation of the Armenian massacres; especially as that
unfortunate people had become by Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin,
subjects of the paper remonstrances of the Powers of Europe, and
thereby also objects of the tyrant’s vengeance.
[Illustration: GENERAL TER GOUKASSOFF.
Relieved the beleaguered Russian garrison at Bayazid during the
Russo-Turkish war of 1877, captured the fortress; and otherwise
distinguished himself during the war.
The other Armenian General who distinguished himself during the
Russo-Turkish war was General Lazaroff.]
That the Armenians should be constantly appealing to the Power that
had pledged itself for their protection, and that the same Power
should be constantly rallying the others, and making Ambassadorial
demonstrations, was enough to rouse the vilest passions of a nature in
which no feelings except vile passions existed.
Of all sins in this world, perhaps the sin of foolishness receives the
severest punishment, and of all crimes, the crime of failure meets
with the heaviest doom. For their foolishness in trusting in European
protection and hoping for European intervention the unfortunate
Armenians paid with rivers of their own blood, and for their crime of
failure they were made to wallow in that blood. The darkest pages of
their history have been written in the closing years of the nineteenth,
and the early years of the twentieth century; never since the loss of
their independence, nine centuries ago, had they hoped for so much, and
never had they paid so dearly for their folly.
If they had carefully laid to heart the whole history of Europe’s
intercourse with Asia, beginning with the conquests of the Macedonian
Alexander, they would have read in the light of sober judgement,
self-interest, and self-interest only written on every line and
page, but they committed the folly of hoping that for their sakes
the history of the world, which means in other words the history of
human selfishness, was going to be reversed; and they forgot what was
more important than all, that Europe had nothing to gain by their
emancipation. There is only one explanation for their folly. It is a
peculiarity of human nature that the troubles we have been bearing
with more or less patience, become unbearable when once hopes of
deliverance from them are awakened. Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin
awakened hopes that proved bitterer in the eating than Dead Sea fruit.
It aroused towards the Armenians the diabolical animosity of the human
fiend who held sovereignty over them.
Hunted like wild beasts, killed like rats and flies, out of the depths
of its agony and its martyrdom, the nation has still contrived to rear
its head and live; for it was as it is now, the industrious, energetic,
self-respecting element in the Turkish Empire, with a virile life in
its loins and sinews, that centuries of oppression culminating in
the unspeakable horrors of a thirty years’ martyrdom has failed to
exterminate.
As for the Treaty of Berlin--It has done its work.
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AND THE TURKISH CONSTITUTION.
The Turkish Constitution came with a bound that shook the equanimity of
Europe. To the anxious and jealously watching eyes of Europe the “sick
man in her midst” was at last becoming moribund. His recovery was as
startling as unexpected. Europe had not correctly gauged the latent
forces within the Turkish Empire, neither had she correctly estimated
the far-reaching astuteness of the tyrant on the throne.
Assailed by enemies from without and within, feeling the foundation
of his throne crumbling, Abdul Hamid, arch murderer and assassin,
performed his own _auto da fé_, and rose from his ashes a
constitutional sovereign. The obduracy of the merciless tyrant melted
like wax before the approach of personal danger, and the act was
necessary to save himself.
Hopes rose high at such a magnificent _coup d’état_ of the
revolutionaries. Young Turks and Armenians fell on each other’s necks,
embraced, and mingled their tears of joy together. Leaders of the
Turkish Constitution proclaimed in public speeches that the Turks
owed the deepest debt of gratitude to the Armenians who had been the
initiators of their struggle for Freedom, and in the Armenian graveyard
at Constantinople Turks held a memorial service and kissed the graves
of the Armenian dead, whom they called “the martyrs whose blood had
been shed for Turkish freedom.”
At the banquet given by Abdul Hamid to the Delegates of the Turkish
Parliament, the Armenian Delegates alone refused to attend, declining
to be the guest of the man responsible for the murder of hundreds of
thousands of their countrymen.
The Armenian revolutionaries had stood behind the Young Turk party and
joined hands with them; already the nation at large imagined itself
breathing the air of Freedom, and already in anticipation drank in deep
draughts of the air of Liberty.
The awakening came all too quickly. In spite of the Constitution the
machinations of Abdul Hamid and his palace clique could find fruitful
ground among a fanatical populace to whom the Padishah was not only the
Lord’s anointed but the Lord’s appointed, the delegate of the Prophet
on whom his sacred mantle had fallen; added to this the incentive of
pecuniary rewards to a brutal soldiery and the lust of plunder, and
once more the horrors of massacres were let loose on the Armenians.
There followed sacked and burning villages, plundered and devastated
homes, an unarmed population put to the sword, and as in every case,
cruelties of the most hideous and ferocious nature perpetrated on women
and children.
In the whole long story of the massacres, courage to face their
oppressors has never been found wanting on the part of the Armenians.
It is on record that the women of a whole mountain village surprised by
Turkish soldiers, in the absence of the men, fought and resisted to the
last gasp, and finally, to escape the clutches of the brutal soldiery,
committed suicide with their children by precipitating themselves from
their mountain cliffs. A nation which could produce such women, and
which has had the simple courage to die for its faith, as no Christian
people has died before, is not wanting in brave men, but no amount of
bravery and heroism can save an unarmed population from being mowed
down by soldiery equipped with modern instruments of carnage and
slaughter.
The horrors of Adana coming on the heels of a Constitution they had
aided, and from which they had hoped so much, presages grave fears for
the Armenians.
No one doubts that a great forward movement is reaching its culminating
point in the destiny of Asia. The West has learnt its all of religion
(the moral and guiding principle of mankind) from the East, and now
the East would fain learn the law of restraint and the law of freedom
(the protecting principles of mankind) from the West. Inspired by
this feeling the liberal Turks decidedly mean well, and they are
animated with a sincere desire to ensure peace and security of life
and property for the heterogeneous peoples under the Turkish sway, but
they themselves have had to contend and still have to contend with a
fanatical populace.
To the Mahommedan world at large the Caliph of Islam is the envoy of
God, the sacredness of whose person must be inviolate. Abdul Hamid, the
astute politician, knew that the security of his sovereignty depended
on his Caliphal rights, and his main policy during the long period of
his execrable reign had been directed towards preserving and asserting
the same; thus we can see how his dethronement, which the liberal Turks
would gladly have accomplished simultaneously with the inauguration of
the Constitution, had to be deferred to a later period, and how it was
necessary for the Sheik ul Islam to pronounce the Caliph a traitor to
his sacred trust, a violator of the holy law of the Prophet, before his
dethronement could be dared or accomplished.
The Christian Armenians in Turkey live in the midst of the followers of
a hostile religion, with no power or force behind them which makes for
protection. Who does not know that the great numerical preponderance
of Hinduism keeps the balance of power in India, and restrains bloody
religious hostilities; and when we review the whole religious history
of Christian Europe, and that terribly long roll of crimes committed in
the name of Him who expounded His religion with the parable of the Good
Samaritan, and the precept of loving one’s neighbour as one’s self,
we cannot feel surprise at the fanatical outbursts of the followers
of Mahommed, the founder of a religion whose doctrines certainly
fall short of the humane principles inculcated by the Founder of
Christianity. If authentic historical facts prove to us that horrible
and atrocious cruelties have been perpetrated by Christian nations,
not only on other religionists, but on fellow Christians of different
denominations, how then can we expect better things from the Turk
unless some power or force restrain him?
Christianity has now partly emancipated herself from the ferocities
which darkened and poured the red stream of blood on her white banner:
but to the Mahommedan world at large, religion is still the powder
magazine which a spark can ignite.
“Better the Czar than the Sultan, but better any form of national
autonomy than either Czar or Sultan” has been the principle which has
animated the Armenians, and the goal towards which they have been
striving for thirty years.
National Autonomy has been the dream of the Armenians in Turkey, but it
is well to consider if such a dream has any possibility of realization.
Bulgaria declared her independence, and Austria annexed Bosnia and
Herzegovina, but these reductions of Turkish power were accomplished
by the force that stood behind them. Have the Armenians any such force
which could accomplish their deliverance? Have they an organized army
at their command? Are they equipped with all the necessary weapons of
modern warfare? are questions it is well for the nation to ask before
it makes itself a target for Turkish bullets.
On the other hand is it likely that the Turks will willingly give the
Armenians independence? To do so would mean that they should themselves
dismember their own Empire, and when we see Christian Governments
actuated in their foreign policy by the supremest selfishness;
Christian Governments striving tooth and nail in their own self
interest to keep possessions which are lawfully not their own, then
why in the name of common sense should we expect such extraordinary
magnanimity, or such super-nobility from the Turk.
Armenia stands in the unhappy position of being divided between Russia
and Turkey (if we except Persia, which does not count for much since
1827). It is evident that even the Czar Liberator, if he had been
allowed to carry out his humanitarian endeavours, would have liberated
Armenia from Turkey, not to give her independence but to make her into
a Russian possession, for to have given Turkish Armenia independence
would have been tantamount to fostering the spirit of independence in
those provinces of Armenia which had already passed under Russian rule.
It is well known that the Emperor Alexander II was guided and
influenced by the liberal principles of Loris Melikoff (or properly
Melikian according to the Armenian termination of his name). Melikian
enjoyed the personal friendship of the Czar, and the successful victor
of Kars was rewarded by his august master with the office of Prime
Minister. The policy of Melikian made for the Russofication of Armenia,
and while it is not possible that he loved Russia more than he loved
his own country, it is rather more than probable that he saw in the
Russofication of his nation the only way of saving its people.
With the death of Alexander II Melikian’s star passed out of the
horizon of Russian ministership; his liberal principles were not
acceptable to Alexander III, and the policy of Russia towards the
Armenians underwent a decided change.
Since the disastrous war with Japan the policy of Russia towards the
Armenians has undergone another change. In the years preceding the
war, the reigning autocrat had pursued the policy of his father to an
even greater degree of repression. Not only had national schools and
theatres been closed in Russian Armenia and newspapers suspended, but
the Czar went still further, and confiscated the lands and the wealth
of the Armenian church.
The late Armenian Catholicos Mukertich Khirimian (one of the delegates
sent to the Congress of Berlin by the Patriarch Nerses), to whom his
own people had given the beloved appellation of “Hairik” (little
father) had by his noble life of self-sacrifice, his unceasing labours
for the cause of the people, and his remarkable individuality, come
to be regarded as a sort of holy man. There in the Cathedral of
Etchmiatzin, under the venerable dome where for seventeen hundred
years the successors of Gregore Loosavoritch (Gregory the Illuminator)
had each in his turn held sway, and worshipped on the spot where the
vision of Christ the Lord had descended, there before the altar of
Christ, had Hairik the holy man lifted up his voice and cursed--cursed
the Czar; and cursed Russia--Pious Russia with its pious Czar at its
head shuddered, and the astounding reverses in the war with Japan that
followed were attributed to Khirimian’s curse.
Russia in Expiation made Reparation: the ban on schools, theatres and
newspapers was removed, the church lands and the church wealth were
restored, and the Czar of all the Russias in a friendly note to the
Armenian Catholicos assured him of the Imperial friendship, and the
Imperial solicitude for the welfare of his people.
The return from exile of the Patriarch Ezmerlian to Constantinople,
was quickly followed by his nomination to the See of Etchmiatzin,
left vacant by the death of his predecessor, and now we hear of the
Catholicos appealing to the Russian Government to take over the
protectorate of Armenia from Turkey. Ezmerlian knows Turkey, he has
been in close touch with the liberal Turks, and he knows the Turkish
nation as a whole; he knows also that the present and immediate future
of Russia is dark in the gloom of autocratic Czardom, and a man of his
intellectual attainments and liberal principles can have no sympathy
with absolutism. The appeal therefore of the Catholicos Ezmerlian
(the Iron Patriarch as he is familiarly known) must be read as a
premonition, that not only has all hope of wresting national autonomy
from Turkey died in his resolute heart, but also that he entertains
grave fears of the possibility of the horrors of Adana being repeated.
[Illustration: MUCKERTICH KHIRIMIAN.
(Late Catholicos and Supreme Patriarch of Etchmiatzin. Author and
Poet).]
Russia may go on massacring Jews until Russians have left off being
fanatical devils, and learned to be human, but however much she may
pursue the policy of suppressing nationalism, however much she may seek
to absorb the nation into herself, she has stopped at slaughter as far
as Armenians are concerned. In his appeal to Russia, the Catholicos can
be actuated by no other motive except the one motive of safe-guarding
the people, of whom he is the acknowledged head.
A man of high character and a dauntless patriot, known to his people
under the beloved appellation of “Hairik” (little father). He was one
of the delegates sent by the Patriarch Nerses to the Congress of Berlin
in 1878. He worked for the cause of the people during his whole life,
and died, worn out with heartbreaking disappointments; his dying words
were, “We must not despair.”
In an article entitled “The Church of Ararat” by Henry W. Nevinson in
Harper’s Monthly Magazine of April, 1908 there is given the following
interesting account of the late Catholicos.
The old man was sitting up in bed, a gray rug neatly spread
over him for counterpane. There was something childlike and
appealing in his position, as there always is about a sick man
lying in bed in the daytime. One felt a little brutal standing
beside him, dressed, and well, and tingling from the cold
outside. It was a time for soothing hands and motherly care
to put this baby of fourscore years to rest. But his mother
was long ago forgotten: even his wife had been dead for half a
century; and his only nurse was a stalwart black-bearded bishop
of middle age.
It was a long, low room, pleasant in its austerity. The
whitewashed walls, the bare floor, the absence of all ornament,
told of a clean and devoted mind. The windows looked upon a
courtyard, silent but for the murmur and fluttering of pigeons.
The old man’s hands lay quiet on the blanket, white, and wasted
almost to the bone. The nightgown hid a form so thin it hardly
made a ripple under the clothes. Through the white and shrunken
face every lineament of the future skull was already visible;
but on each side of the thin nose, hooked like a round bow, a
great brown eye revealed the inward spirit’s intelligence and
zeal unquenched. On his head was a close-fitting cap of purple
velvet.
Thus, near the end of last December, one of a century’s
greatest men--Mgrditch Khrimian, Katholikos of the Armenian
Church, and soul of the Armenian people--slowly approaching
to death, lay in the ancient monastery called Etchmiatzin,
or “The Only-Begotten is Descended.” From the window of a
neighboring room he might have looked across the frost bound
plain of the Araxes, where the vines were now all cut close and
buried for the winter. Beyond the plain stood a dark mass of
whirling snow and hurricane that hid the cone of Ararat. And
just beyond Ararat lies Lake Van, last puddle of the Deluge.
On the shore of that lake, eighty-seven years ago, Khrimian
was born. In 1820 the Turkish Empire was still undiminished by
sea or land; the Sultan still counted as one of the formidable
Powers of Europe. It was four years before Byron set out to
deliver Greece from his tyranny, and established for England a
reputation as the generous champion of freedom--a reputation
which still rather pathetically survives throughout the
Near East. Long and stormy had been the life upon which the
Katholikos now looked back, but not unhappy, for from first
to last it had been inspired by one absorbing and unselfish
aim--the freedom and regeneration of his people. It is true he
had failed.
From his earliest years, when he had witnessed the terrors of
Turkish oppression in the homes of Armenians round Ararat, he
was possessed by the spirit of nationality--such a spirit as
only kindles in oppressed races, but dies away into easygoing
tolerance among the prosperous and contented of the world.
He began as a poet, wandering far and wide through the
Turkish, Persian, and Russian sections of Armenia, visiting
Constantinople and Jerusalem, and recalling to his people by
his poems the scenes and glories of their national history.
Entering the monastic order after his wife’s death, he devoted
himself to the building of schools, which he generously threw
open to Kurds, the hereditary assassins of Armenians. For many
years, while Europe was occupied with Crimean wars, Austrian
wars, or French and German wars, we see him ceaselessly
journeying from Van to Constantinople and through the cities of
Asia, unyielding in the contest, though continually defeated,
his schools burned, his printing-presses broken up, his sacred
emblems of the Host hung in mockery round the necks of dogs.
When elected Armenian patriarch of Constantinople (1869), he
was driven from his office after four years.
But the cup of Turkish iniquity was filling. The pitiless
slaughter of Bulgarians and Armenians alike was more than
even the European Powers could stand. With varied motives,
Russia sent her armies to fight their way to the walls of
Constantinople, and Khrimian found himself summoned to plead
his people’s cause before the Congress of Berlin. Though he
speaks no language but Armenian and Turkish, he visited all
the great courts of Europe beforehand, urging them to create
an autonomous neutral state for Armenia, as they had done with
success for the Lebanon. In London he became acquainted with
Gladstone; but Gladstone was then only the blazing firebrand
which had kindled the heart of England, and, in the Congress
itself Khrimian could gain nothing for his people beyond the
promises of Article 61, pledging the Powers, and especially
England, to hold the Kurds in check and enforce Turkey’s
definite reforms. It is needless to say that none of these
promises and pledges were observed. Beaconsfield returned to
London amid shouts of “Peace with Honor,” and Armenia was left
to stew.
So it went on. Detained in Constantinople as prisoner, banished
to Jerusalem for rebellion, and finally chosen Katholikos, or
head of his Church and race, by his own people, he maintained
the hopeless contest. Year by year the woe increased, till by
the last incalculable crime (1894-1896), the Armenians were
slaughtered like sheep from the Bosporus to Lake Van, and
the lowest estimate counted the murdered dead at 100,000.
Gladstone made the last great speech of his heroic life.
England attempted some kind of protest. But rather than join
the Liberal demand for action, Lord Rosebery left his party
for private leisure, and Russia, France, and Germany combined
to secure immunity for the “great assassin.” It was the lowest
point of Europe’s shame.
Blow followed blow. Hardly had the remnant of the Armenian
people escaped from massacre when their Church fell under the
brutal domination of Russia. Plehve ordained its destruction,
and Golitzin was sent to Tiflis as governor-general to carry
it out. Church property to the value of £6,000,000 was seized
by violence, the Katholikos resolutely refusing to give up
the keys of the safe where the title deeds were kept (June,
1903). For two years the Russian officials played with the
revenues, retaining eighty per cent. for their own advantage.
But in the mean time assassination had rid the earth of
Plehve, and the overwhelming defeats of Russia in Manchuria
were attributed to the Armenian curse. Grudgingly the Church
property was restored, in utter chaos, and for the moment it is
Russia’s policy to favor the Armenians as a balance against the
Georgians, whom the St. Petersburg government is now determined
to destroy.
Such was the past upon which the worn old man, stretched on his
monastic bed, looked back that winter’s morning. Singleness of
aim has its reward in spiritual peace, but of the future he
was not hopeful. He no longer even contemplated an autonomous
Armenia, either on Turkish territory or on Russian. On the
Russian side of the frontier the Armenian villages were too
scattered, too much interspersed with Georgians and Tartars, to
allow of autonomy. On the Turkish side, he thought, massacre
and exile had now left too few of the race to form any kind
of community. Indeed, for the last twelve years the Armenian
villagers have been crawling over the foot of Ararat by
thousands a year to escape the Kurds, and every morning they
come and stand in fresh groups of pink and blue rags outside
the monastery door where the head of their Church and race
lies dying. They stand there in mute appeal, as I saw them,
possessing nothing in the world but the variegated tatters
that cover them, and their faith in their Katholikos. Slowly
they are drafted away into Tiflis, Baku, or their Caucasian
villages, but nowhere are they welcomed.
Some of the bishops and monks, who form a council round their
chief, still look for Europe’s interference, and trust that the
solemn pledges taken by England and other Powers at Berlin may
be fulfilled. The Bishop of Erivan, for instance, still labors
for the appointment of a Christian governor over the district
marked by the ill-omened names of Van, Bitlis, and Erzeroum.
I also found that even among the Georgians there was a large
party willing to concede all the frontier district from Erivan
to Kars, where Armenian villages are thickest, as an autonomous
Armenian province, in the happy day when the Caucasus wins
federal autonomy. But the majority of the Armenian clergy, who
hitherto have led the people, are beginning to acquiesce in the
hopelessness of political change, and are now limiting their
efforts to education and industries. One cannot yet say how far
their influence may be surpassed in the growing revolutionary
parties of “The Bell” and “The Flag.” Of these, the Social
Democratic “Bell” follows the usual impracticable and pedantic
creed of St. Marx. The “Flag,” or party of Nationalist
Democrats, is at present dominant, and at a great assembly
held in Erivan last August (1906) they adopted a programme
of land nationalization, universal suffrage and education,
an eight-hour day, and the control of the Church property by
elected laymen. If the Russian revolution makes good progress,
they will naturally unite with the Georgian Federalists, on
whom the best hopes of the country are set.
Whatever may be the political future of the Armenians, they
seem likely to survive for many generations yet as a race,
held together by language and religion. Except the Jews, there
is, I think, no parallel to such a survival. It is a thousand
years since they could be called a powerful nation. For almost
as long they have possessed no independent country of their
own. For six hundred years their ancient capital city of Ani
has stood a splendid but empty ruin in the desert between Kars
and the great mountain of Alagöz, which confronts Ararat, with
nearly equal height. They have been rent asunder and tormented
by Persians, Turks, Tartars, and Russians in turn. Even their
religion is not nationalistic or distinctly separate from other
forms of religion, like the Jewish. Except for metaphysical
shades of difference, hardly comprehensible to the modern
world, there is little to distinguish it from the orthodox
Christianity of the Near East. Yet, through innumerable
disasters and attempts at extermination, the race persists,
like the Jews, with astonishing vitality, unmistakable in
characteristics which may not be exactly heroic, but lead to a
certain material success. After all, it is only in harassed and
persecuted nationalities that true patriotism ever survives.
[Illustration: MATTHEVOSE EZMERLIAN.
Catholicos and Supreme Patriarch of Etchmiatzin. A man of high
character and great ability, also a distinguished linguist. As
Patriarch of Constantinople he was familiarly known as the “Iron
Patriarch.” Banished by the Hamidian Government, he returned from exile
in 1908 and was shortly after elected Catholicos of Etchmiatzin.
The Armenian Catholicos is not infallible like the Pope. He is elected
by the nation, but his appointment is subject to the sanction of the
Czar.]
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AND THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE.
During a period extending over thirty years the civilized world has
heard of Turkish Massacres of Armenians. Massacres of a nature so
ferocious and diabolical, so hideous and revolting, that no pen could
adequately describe their horrors.
Writing in 1896, Mr. James Bryce, in his supplementary chapter to the
4th edition of his book “Transcaucasia and Ararat” makes the following
grave comment:--
“Twenty years is a short space in the life of a nation. But these
twenty years have been filled with sufferings for the Armenian
Christians greater than their ancestors had to endure during the eight
centuries that have passed since the first Turkish Conquest of Armenia.
They have been years of misery, slaughter, martyrdom, agony, despair.”
And the years that have followed from 1896 to 1909 have had the same
tale of woe to unfold; a tale of horrors such as have never been
surpassed in the history of nations.
The opinion of the Turkish Pasha, “The way to get rid of the Armenian
Question, is to get rid of the Armenians” was followed by “le Sultan
Rouge,” and that the monster and assassin who sat on the Turkish
throne from 1876 to 1909 was not able to accomplish this policy to the
bitter end of complete extermination, was no doubt due to the grit and
stubborn endurance of the victims.
A Turkish writer has made the remark, “There are Armenians, but there
is no Armenia.” This assertion would be true if meant in a political
sense only, for of all civilized races on earth, Armenians are
politically one of the most forlorn, but the country has not been wiped
off the map. It still occupies the geographical place it has held since
history has been written. The land of the Euphrates and Tigris, that
Araxes valley, where, as simple and primitive Armenians will to this
day assert in unshaken belief, God made man in His own image, and the
country round the base of Ararat, where the generations of men once
more began to people the earth.
Once the land of Ararat was an independent kingdom until the tide of
victory rolled over it and conquered its independence. Hemmed round
by three Great Empires, Russian, Turkish and Persian, the unfortunate
geographical position of the country became the cause of its people’s
ruin.
It is of bitter interest to Armenians to know that Ararat is the point
where the three Empires, Russian, Turkish and Persian, meet, whilst
the children of the land of Ararat have passed under the sovereignties
of Czar, Sultan and Shah. Thus it may be true that there is no Armenia
in the political sense of the word, but if Armenia has lost her
independence, the Armenian people have survived.
The Author of “Transcaucasia and Ararat” thus writes of them:--
“The Armenians are an extraordinary people, with a tenacity of national
life scarcely inferior to that of the Jews.”
The remark is true. There are two nations of antiquity who
notwithstanding unremitting persecutions, and centuries of loss of
independence, have survived their contemporary nations; their fortunes
have run on parallel lines, though their national characteristics have
been different in some respects. Together with his other avocations,
the Armenian is mountaineer, soldier, labourer, agriculturist, while
the Jew is purely a dweller in cities; but the same virility of life,
the same mental and physical strength have sustained both. The sons
of Heber, great grandson of Shem, have however become wise in their
generation, the Jew is now more American than the American, more
British than the British, more French than the French, more German than
the German. Not so the sons of Haik, great grandson of Japhet, for with
the same determined obstinacy with which he has clung to his faith, the
Armenian clings to his nationality. He has known how to resist Russian
endeavours of absorption, and Turkish systems of extermination. When
he gives up his nationality, it will be the story of the hunted animal
brought to its last gasp.
The Armenians have been called “the most determined of Christians,”
a remark the truth of which has been borne out by their unequalled
martyrdom for their faith; and yet it may truly be said that in no
Christian Church is the lay element more strong than it is in the
Armenian Church. Conscious of this freedom, Armenians are surprised to
read assertions made by some writers, about “the gross superstitions”
of their Church, which they on their part regard as the happy medium
between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Surrounded with pomp and
splendour, and a show of outward ceremonies, which the average Armenian
regards as no more than mere adjuncts to gratify and impress the
sensibilities, the Liturgy of the Armenian Church, in its grandeur and
pathos, appeals to the heart of the Armenian people, as no other form
of worship can; it is the reason, as has truly been said of them, that
“they carry their religion with them wherever they go.”
The Armenians have also been called “the interpreters between the
East and the West.” There is no doubt a certain adaptability which
is a national characteristic; and as language is the vehicle of
comprehension, their talent for acquiring languages helps to bring
them into touch with Eastern and Western peoples; but the main truth
of the observation lies in the fact, that being born Asiatics, and
living for the most part in the midst of Asiatic surroundings, they
fall into the ways of Asiatic life; they understand Asiatics better,
and know how to sympathise with them; whilst on the other hand, their
religion is the religion which has moulded the thought of the West, and
consequently also the religion that has moulded the thought of a people
who were the earliest Christians.
The main point of social difference between them and other Asiatic
nations, lies in the exalted position occupied by their women, and this
point of difference may be traced to that one cause or influence, which
has exalted the position of women in the West, the doctrines of Jesus
of Nazareth. This point of difference in social life, together with the
difference of religion, has always kept them separate from Persian and
Turk.
Private and trustworthy information to hand brings the news that the
ex Sultan Abdul Hamid, aware of his impending dethronement, desired
to bring about a general massacre of Christians in Constantinople,
beginning with the foreign Embassies downwards. “I must be the last
Padishah, even though Turkey perish,” was Abdul’s frantic appeal to his
satellites, but his minions, not daring to venture on so dangerous an
undertaking, planned the massacres to begin at the village of Adana,
inhabited by the unfortunate Armenians. It was a safe plan, since the
Armenians had no battleships to turn their guns upon Constantinople,
and by the bombardment of the capital, to seek revenge for the murder
of their countrymen.
A massacre so wanton as that of Adana, can only find its counterpart in
the other Turkish massacres of Armenians which preceded it.
“Abdul the Damned” has been dethroned, but he has not been executed,
and so long as he continues to draw breath, as long is there danger for
the Armenians.
We hear of the Mahommedans in India cabling their petition to the
new Turkish Government to spare the life of the ex-Padishah and the
ex-Caliph of Islam; the erstwhile “God’s shadow on earth” and the
erstwhile “God’s envoy on earth” the sacredness of whose person should
be inviolate. In this demonstration of the Indian Mahommedans, we
can read the epistle of Mahommedan thought, and feel the pulse of
Mahommedan feeling all over the Sunni Moslem world.
Although intensely mercenary, Abdul Hamid however not only never
grudged the gold which helped to accomplish the Armenian massacres,
but he used it largely in douceurs which purchased silence or false
representations of his diabolical acts, and it was by means of such
douceurs that he went farther than seducing merely his own subjects.
“Mais l’oeuvre de l’impérial corrupteur a dépassé les limites de son
Palais et de ses États, N’a-t-il pas, en effet, étouffé sous des
baillons dorés la voix d’importants organes de la presse européenne?
N’a-t-il pas acheté à l’étranger des politiciens et même des diplomates?
“Saïd Pacha ayant recherché ce qu’en six mois les massacres d’Arménie
avaient coûté au Trésor turc, en allocations à certains journaux
européens, a établi le compte approximatif suivant: 640 décorations, et
235,000 Livres Turques (près de cinq millions et demi)!”[8]
It needs not be added that no one who knows the truth of Turkish
affairs, doubts the truth of this impeachment.
“But whatever the future may bring, the past is past, and will one
day fall to be judged. And of the judgement of posterity there can be
little doubt.”
In these memorable words, Mr. James Bryce in the supplementary chapter
of his book “Transcaucasia and Ararat” concludes his criticism on
what he calls “the fatal action followed by the fatal inaction of the
European Powers.”
It is true. As surely as the world revolves on her own axis, and as
day succeeds night, so surely History will record and Posterity will
judge. But what compensation to the Armenians? What compensation for
the rivers of blood that have inundated their land? What atonement for
the hideous past? What relief for the present? What hope for the future?
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AND THE FUTURE OF THE ARMENIANS.
The above is a subject for profound meditation for the Armenian people;
it has therefore naturally for me occupied much deep thought.
National Autonomy has been the dream of the Armenians; a dream which
through centuries of oppression and years of slaughter, the nation
has been striving and struggling to realize. The oldest of historical
nations, we have held to our nationality, language and religion; we
have struggled and striven, and though billows of affliction have
swept over us, we have not allowed ourselves to be engulfed. “Love is
stronger than Death” and truly the Armenian has loved his nationality
with a steadfastness and tenacity that has conquered death.
Steady, stubborn grit, combined with a remarkable natural intelligence
have been characteristics of the race, and have kept us alive in spite
of national adversities, such as no other nation could have suffered
and survived.
But our position is an acutely unhappy and an acutely unfortunate one.
Our misfortunes began with the physical geography of our country.
Surrounded by three great empires, our kingdom was strangled by the
overwhelming pressure, and to-day our country is divided up between
Russia, Turkey and Persia. For this reason we have been a great deal
more unfortunate than the Balkan States, and now if there were any
possible chance of wresting autonomy for Turkish Armenia from Turkey,
Russia fearing the spread of the same spirit in her own provinces,
would assuredly not only frown on such an attempt but use all the means
in her power to crush it.
There is also a stern fact which a people so politically helpless and
forlorn as ourselves must ever bear in mind, namely, that we live in an
intensely selfish and intensely grasping world; no prating the pretty
nonsense of Western Civilization, or Western Humanity, or Western
Christianity can alter that stern hard fact as it stands, and as it has
stood since the history of our world has been written.
Indeed, nineteenth century civilization, which has made the world
of commerce acutely grasping, has also made the world of Politics
unscrupulously selfish.
However much it may clothe itself in the garment of fair speech,
what we call “Politics” is actually made up of that one devouring,
absorbing, grasping element--Selfishness. “The friends of to-day may be
enemies to-morrow” is more truly spoken in the domain of Politics than
anywhere else.
Let the Armenians take a lesson not only from the Turkish massacres,
but from the attitude of Europe towards those massacres? Let them look
back on the past, and remember how they have been trampled under the
merciless foot of Political Selfishness, and then left to welter in
their gore.
Who doubts, who can gainsay, that by so much as the lifting up of a
finger the Powers of Europe could have stopped those massacres? Was
that finger ever lifted up, however, all through the long years of
“slaughter, martyrdom, agony, despair” to save our helpless people
from butcheries so enormous, so hideous, so appalling that no pen
could portray the horrible realities? Had the Turkish bonds been in
jeopardy, Constantinople harbour would have witnessed the battleships
of the Powers of Europe discharging their cannon on the capital of
the Turkish Empire, but a hundred thousand or five hundred thousand
Armenians, more or less, mangled and butchered to death, or fleeing
from their sacked and burning villages to die of cold and starvation in
their mountain passes, could not rouse action on the part of Europe,
even though the Concert of Europe had been instrumental in their
destruction.
I do not write with a desire to indulge in recriminations, since vain
recriminations will not bear profitable fruit; but I write with the
object of impressing on my countrymen to remember, always to remember,
the lessons written on the pages of a past that should never be
forgotten by us.
In his book “Our Responsibilities for Turkey” the late Duke of Argyll
quotes from the famous despatch of a British Ambassador to Turkey, the
date being given as September 4, 1876. The despatch proceeds thus:--
“To the accusation of being a blind partisan of the Turks I will only
answer that my conduct here has never been guided by any sentimental
affection for them, but by a firm determination to uphold the interests
of Great Britain to the utmost of my power; and that those interests
are deeply engaged in preventing the disruption of the Turkish Empire
is a conviction which I share in common with the most eminent statesmen
who have directed our foreign policy, but which appears now to be
abandoned by shallow politicians or persons who have allowed their
feelings of revolted humanity to make them forget the capital interests
involved in the question.
“We may and must feel indignant at the needless and monstrous severity
with which the Bulgarian insurrection was put down; _but the necessity
which exists for England to prevent changes from occurring here
which would be most detrimental to ourselves is not affected by the
question whether it was 10,000 or 20,000 persons who perished in the
suppression_.
“We have been upholding what we know to be a semi-civilized nation,
liable under certain circumstances to be carried into fearful excesses;
but the fact of this having just now been strikingly brought home to us
all cannot be a sufficient reason for abandoning a policy which is the
only one that can be followed with due regard to our interest.”
I quote this famous despatch merely to point out that “due regard to
our interest” was carefully followed out in the Past by the Powers of
Europe, and that “due regard to our interest” will be just as carefully
followed out in the Present and in the Future.
From the Turk and Persian, the Armenian must ever remain separate, as
he has through centuries, though living in the midst of them, remained
separate. The gulf that divides the one nation from the other two,
the wall of iron that rises between them is the position of woman. The
Armenian has accepted whole-heartedly the position in which woman has
been placed by the Great Founder of his faith. For seventeen hundred
years unremittingly since Christianity was revived in Armenia by
Gregory the Illuminator, the Christian law with regard to the position
of woman has moulded the thought of the nation, it has left its impress
on the nation, and it is this vital and essential difference between
the law of Mahommed and the law of Christ that like a two-edged sword
has cleaved apart Christian Armenian from Moslem Turk and Persian.
If “East is East, and West is West” it is on account of the social
plane on which woman stands, a social plane that is never so degraded
in any corner of Asia, as it is in the countries where the law of
Mahommed governs.
The Armenians in Asiatic Turkey are scattered and dispersed among Turks
and other antagonistic races; they are without any military force or
organization to wrest autonomy from the military and governing power.
That Europe should aid their endeavours, or that Turkey should make
them a free gift of autonomy, are both of them absolutely out of the
question. Then what remains for us?
To hold to our own nationality and to be subject--Subject to Russia,
subject to Turkey, subject to Persia--What shall it profit us? What
will it profit? What doth it profit us? Our strong, clever, energetic
men, our beautiful, intelligent women, when neither chance nor
opportunity can enable our finest and best to reach the higher rungs of
the world’s ladder, and when as a subject people we must ever remain
hewers of wood and drawers of water, even our Aivasowskis and our
Melikoffs have been known to the world as Russians, not as Armenians.
Have we a chance of bursting the fetters? Have we strength to break the
chains? Can we reach the goal toward which, bleeding and torn, we have
been striving, and still are striving? These are questions which we
must ask ourselves; looking them soberly in the face.
But this is not enough: if we must persist in holding to our
nationality, we must look into ourselves, we must search out and probe
our national failings and our national weaknesses, and find out in what
essential characteristics we are wanting as a nation, and so build up
national character. Let us weigh ourselves in the balance, and supply
what in us is found wanting.
In the period of less than a decade a Great Power has risen in the
Orient. The people of a small island empire with an empty Treasury
have beaten successfully and disastrously a colossal empire of whom
the Powers of Europe had stood in awe, and against whom not one had
ventured single-handed to engage.
On the field the ever victorious army of little Japan undermined
Russia’s stronghold, and succeeded in driving back and ever driving
back the ever defeated and ever retreating army of colossal Russia.
At sea the ever victorious Japanese Fleet succeeded in completely
annihilating the Russian Fleet. It was war such as the world had
never yet seen. The secret of such astounding successes should be
investigated, and here I beg leave to quote from one of a series of
articles in which I gave view to my opinions during the Russo-Japanese
War. “Japan may be likened to the bundle of faggots in the fable
firmly tied together; one faggot of larger dimensions in the centre,
the sovereign round whom the whole nation clusters, and all, ruler and
people tied together by adamantine bands of patriotism.”
These remarks of mine were based on observations of actual facts. In
national unity Japan stands as an object lesson to the world; she
furnishes an example which the world needs to copy, and which a nation
so politically forlorn as ourselves more than any other needs to copy.
From the astounding success of Japan let us turn to the position
the Great Republic of the United States of America occupies in the
world, and take the lesson to heart of what Union can accomplish as we
contrast their present position with the position that the handful of
puritan pilgrims occupied when they first landed on American soil not
quite three hundred years ago.
National Unity is our greatest need; it is the banner which we must
raise up over our national life. National Unity must be engraven on the
tablets of our minds and throb in the pulses of our hearts. There are
mountains of difficulties before us, and if ever we must reach the goal
we can only do so by being bound together like the bundle of faggots in
the fable, with no weakening or loosening of the bands. Then perhaps we
might once more be able to get an independent footing on the historical
soil of our fathers, and perhaps once more rally round our own flag.
A Japanese lives for the State, not for himself; we have no State for
which to live, but let us live for our communities whilst we keep the
hope in our hearts that communities grow into States.
We have grit and endurance in an unparalleled degree, but these
characteristics will profit us nothing if we are wanting in unity.
Let us remember that utterance of the Founder of our faith. In our
loyalty and allegiance to Him our life-blood has flowed like the
torrents of a cataract, but we must remember His warning utterance:--
“What shall it profit a man.” What shall it profit a nation. Unity is
the soul of a nation. Let us keep our soul and not lose it.
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES AND CIVILIZED EUROPE.
“Hear then ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,
They who allow Oppression share the crime.”
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping;
Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her
children, because they were not.”
In the twentieth century of the christian era, in the age of trumpeted
progress, of boasted and vaunted civilization, there is a Ramah of
countries, a desolated Ramah, blackened and calcined with the fires
of oppression, and over her desolated wastes there flows, flows,
continually flows, ever replenished and ever renewed, that red stream
which crieth up from the earth to God: and out of this modern Ramah, a
voice is heard of lamentation and bitter weeping, it riseth up in its
boundless anguish to reach the heavens, it crieth out and will not be
stopped, for it is the voice of the Rahel of nations weeping for her
children and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.
Ah! thou Rahel of nations! to the cry of thy boundless anguish, to
thy lamentation and bitter weeping, Christendom and Civilization,
the Christendom and Civilization of Europe have replied “Are we thy
children’s keepers?”
Who that has read the history of the Crusades has not turned with
sickening disgust from the chapters wherein history has recorded the
savage barbarities and fearful excesses of those christian warriors,
who went to Palestine ostensibly fired with the enthusiasm of a holy
cause, but in reality only to glut in slaughter and gratify brutal
passions. Europe has, however, designated her past as the “dark ages”
into which she has thrust back, the ferocious outbursts of religion,
the merciless persecutions of the church, the savage sweep of the
barbarians of the north, and the unbridled tyrannies of despotic power,
from all which she loudly boasts to have emancipated herself, and like
the evolution according to the Darwinian theory of the anthropomorphal
ape, to have progressed into the state of civilization. But beginning
from the last quarter of the nineteenth and on into the first decade of
the twentieth century, the horrors of the darkest ages in human history
have lain at her doors, and towards these horrors Europe has kept up
the role of an extenuatingly disclaiming, a mildly rebuking, sweetly
frowning, smilingly denouncing, Disapprover.
Half a million Armenians annihilated by organized massacres of the most
ferocious and hideous natures, and perhaps a corresponding number
fated either to rot to death in Turkish prisons or made homeless and
destitute to die of cold and starvation, with Europe nonchalantly
looking on is surely convincing proof that the Humanity, Christianity
and Civilization of Europe are whited sepulchres, hiding by the smooth
outside the rottenness within; therefore ye priests of the gospel come
down from your pulpits, close your churches, hold your tongues and
be silent for ever, for the Christianity you preach has bowed itself
out, if ever it existed, in Christian Europe. The Christ of Europe
is the demon of greed and the demon of land hunger, and the god of
civilization is Mammon.
In 1878 an astounding policy was carried out by Great Britain; it was
the crowning act of her long continued support to Turkey, a government
she knew to be hopelessly vicious and profoundly cruel and bad to the
core. With this Power, England posing before the world as the home of
freedom, the friend of the oppressed, and the defender of the rights
and liberties of man, entered into a Convention. It was called the
“Anglo-Turkish Convention,” of which Article I reads thus:
“If Batum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them, shall be retained by Russia,
and if any attempt shall be made at any future time by Russia to take
possession of any further territories of his Imperial Majesty the
Sultan in Asia, as fixed by the definitive Treaty of Peace, England
engages to join his Imperial Majesty the Sultan in defending them by
force of arms. In return his Imperial Majesty the Sultan promises to
England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between
the two Powers, into the government and for the protection of the
Christian and other subjects of the Porte in these territories. And in
order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her
engagement, his Imperial Majesty the Sultan further consents to assign
the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.”
It is well to remark here what was blazoned to the world at the time
that part of those “_necessary reforms_” “_in these territories_”
include twenty-two large organized massacres of Armenians (besides
smaller ones) dating from September 30th, 1895 to December 29th, 1895;
and be it remembered that these were massacres of a hideousness and
ferocity of nature even devils could not rival; besides also other
organized massacres by the Turkish Government of the same nature (large
and small) both before and after that period.
The British press, followed by a large section of the British public,
raged against what they called the advance of Russia in the East, as
they had already raged for half a century past. It is astonishing how
one nation can swallow its own camels and strain at the other’s gnats.
However, this Anglo-Turkish Convention and the Congress at Berlin was
the crowning act of England’s support and defense of a power whose rule
had been characterized by mis-rule, massacre and oppression. Her prime
minister returned from the Congress of Berlin loudly proclaiming “Peace
with Honour.” Of that “Honour” Time has been the test, and Time has
revealed to the world that “Peace” in its true character.
Dating from the Congress of Berlin the supreme tragedy of Armenia
begins; deliberately and without compunction England revived the
dying tyranny of Turkey for the Armenians, deliberately and without
compunction she took away from them (a people politically the most
helpless and forlorn of all civilized nations) the only protection they
had of a powerful neighbour willing and able to enforce its protection,
and rivetted on their necks the yoke of the cruellest oppressor that
the world had yet known. The history of the rule of the house of Osman
up to the thirty-fourth Padishah was knowledge enough and experience
enough for the British Government and the British people, and yet in
the last quarter of the civilized nineteenth century, the great and
enlightened Christian power of Great Britain proceeded to carry out
and complete this gigantic political crime of fastening on the necks
of a struggling Christian people, the last remnants of an ancient
civilization, the merciless yoke of their oppressors. From that time
onward history must mark the course of the supreme tragedy of Armenia.
The bold move taken by the Patriarch Nerses of sending delegates to the
Congress of Berlin cost the renowned prelate his life, his firm refusal
to recall his delegates aroused the last fury of Turkey’s Padishah; the
Patriarch was stealthily murdered and his genius and great personal
influence lost to the cause of his people.
But a loss greater than the loss of their beloved leader befell the
Armenians in the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II, whose
untimely death plunged Russia back into the night of ignorance, bigotry
and superstition, of the savagery and slavery, out of the darkness of
which he was leading her; the best and noblest of Czars was succeeded
by a son whose policy shaped itself directly contrary to that of his
father’s, and Russia from being the help of the Armenians under Turkish
rule turned into one of the pillars of support of their oppressor.
“Since 1884,” writes Mr. James Bryce, “it has been generally understood
in Constantinople that the Russian Embassy has made no serious effort
to bring about any radical change in Turkish administration, and it was
indeed believed that the more England remonstrated the more did Russia
point out to the Sultan how much he had erred in supposing that England
was his friend.”
We have it on the authority of Professor Arminius Vambéry that the
Czar Alexander III had given assurances of his friendship and support
to Sultan Abdul Hamid; and there are not wanting political students
who affirm that the Armenian Massacres were in part instigated by
Russian politicians who saw, or professed to see, in a free Armenia
an impediment to Russia’s advance in the south and a fostering of the
spirit of independence in the Russian provinces of Armenia.[9] This on
the authority of Mr. James Bryce was the reason which Prince Lobanoff
assigned for his refusal to give support to British proposals of
coercion towards Turkey. “On January 16, 1896,” so writes Mr. Bryce,
“when the massacres had gone on for more than three months, he (Prince
Lobanoff) ‘saw nothing to destroy his confidence in the bonne volonté
of the Sultan, who was’ (”he felt assured“) ‘doing his best.’” And Mr.
Bryce continues to add “Turkey, which in 1877 had looked to England
for help against Russia, now turned to Russia for support against the
menaces of England.”
We have it also on the authority of Mr. Bryce that shortly after the
terrible and cold-blooded massacre of Armenians at Constantinople “the
German Ambassador presented to the Sultan a picture of the German
Imperial family which he had asked for some time ago”[10] and the
friendship of Kaiser Wilhelm for Abdul Hamid “his friend and brother,”
as an American writer has called him; the costly gifts presented by the
ex-Sultan to the German Imperial family, the magnificent reception of
the Kaiser at Constantinople, and the still more magnificent concession
of Turkish territory to Germany, are too well known to the world to
need any further comment.
Thus it became the fate of the unfortunate Armenians to be the bruised
and mangled shuttle-cock of powerful bats.
[Illustration: NERSES VARJABETIAN.
(Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople).]
Much has been written and much has been said by great authorities, (far
more comprehensively and by pens much more forcible than my humble
efforts could aspire to reach) against the selfishness and callousness,
the inhumanity and cynicism of those great powers which have coldly
looked on and permitted the hellish atrocities and horrors of the
Armenian Massacres. The name of William Ewart Gladstone is loved and
revered by Armenians all over the world; but the thunderings of that
veteran statesman and the denouncing protests of those thoughtful men
whose feelings of revolted humanity have made themselves heard in
sounding language, have fallen on stony ground; they have been like the
voices of men crying out in the wilderness. Europe has turned a deaf
ear to the condemnations of justice and truth, even as she has turned a
deaf ear to the voice of Rahel weeping for her slaughtered children.
The victim of Abdul Hamid’s revenge who was stealthily murdered in his
bed. He was elected Patriarch in 1843 and held the highest place in the
esteem and affection of his people. Mr. James Bryce gives his age at
the time of his election in 1843 as seventy-three; if this is correct
then he was over a hundred years old when he was foully murdered. Mr.
Bryce writes of him as, “the worthy leader of his nation,” “a man of
high character and great ability.”
A writer signing himself Beyzadé gives the following account of the
Patriarch’s tragic death in the July number of “The Wide World:”
The attempted poisoning and subsequent death of Monseigneur
Nercès Varjabétian, the Armenian Patriarch and Archbishop of
Constantinople, was a revolting illustration of the inhuman and
barbarous tactics of the Yildiz Kiosk “Camarilla.” Monseigneur
Nercès Varjabétian was not only one of the most prominent
prelates of the Armenian Church, but was also a fearless
patriot--a distinguished linguist, an eloquent preacher, and
a thorough gentleman in every sense of the word. When peace
was concluded between Turkey and Russia, and preparations were
being made for the Berlin Congress, it was he who, in spite of
the feared fanatical uprising of the Turks, threw prudence to
the winds and took a step that will long be remembered in the
annals of Armenian history.
At the first meeting of the Berlin Congress the Turkish
delegates were thunderstruck to learn from official sources
that an Armenian delegation had arrived from Constantinople,
sent by Monseigneur Nercès, the Patriarch, their object being
to request the signatory Powers of the Berlin Treaty to force a
guarantee from the Turkish Government to make certain important
improvements in Armenia.
Abdul Hamid and his advisers were furious at this affront, and
Monseigneur Nercès was summoned to the Palace. It is said that
when he received the summons he simply smiled and asked one of
his curates to read the Burial Service to him, as he did not
expect to return alive. However, he went. No one has ever heard
what passed between the Sultan and himself at the interview;
suffice it to say that he immediately summoned the Armenian
General Assembly and tendered his resignation. This was not
accepted by the Assembly, and, amidst enthusiastic cheers,
he was carried back to his apartments at the Patriarchate.
Meanwhile a peremptory order reached him, signed by the Sultan,
to recall the Armenian delegation from Berlin. This Monseigneur
Varjabétian point-blank refused to do, and retired to his
private residence at Haskeuy, a village on the Golden Horn.
The success of the delegation, however, did not come up to
his expectations. The Armenians, as it happened, could not be
heard, but they were so far successful as to have an article
inserted in the treaty.
The Sultan and his advisers never forgave the Patriarch this,
though they could not openly do anything to him on account of
his enormous popularity. Time passed on, and to all appearance
the incident was forgotten, but it was not so. One summer
afternoon a most cordial invitation was sent by a very high
dignitary of the Palace, requesting the Archbishop to dine
with him informally. An invitation of this kind could not very
well be refused, so the Archbishop, accompanied only by a
body-servant named Vartan, repaired to the Pasha’s house. The
Pasha received him at the door and escorted the visitor with
much ceremony and extreme courtesy to a private apartment of
the salamlik of his house (the men’s quarters), where dinner
was served. The geniality displayed by his host dispelled any
fears that the Archbishop might have had as to his personal
safety.
After dinner, as usual, coffee was served. Now, this serving
of the coffee is rather a ceremonial according to high Turkish
etiquette, and it is not unusual for guests to bring their
own _tchooboukdar_ (the servant who carries his master’s pipe
and pouch and also superintends the making of his coffee).
The Archbishop was presented with a “tchoobouk” (pipe) filled
and lighted for smoking, and a servant followed with coffee.
The Archbishop accepted both with due compliments to his
host, and took a sip at his coffee. Just at that moment the
heavy curtains over the doorway were thrown apart, revealing
the ghastly pale face of his servant Vartan, who cried, in
Armenian, in a voice trembling with emotion, “Monseigneur, I
did not brew the coffee!”
This was enough for the Archbishop; he pretended to be
startled and spilt the coffee, but, alas! he had already
drunk a small quantity of it. Meanwhile a scuffle was going
on behind the _portière_, where his poor servant Vartan was
paying the penalty of his devotion to his master. Concerning
Vartan’s whereabouts or his ultimate end nothing was ever
made public--the poor fellow simply vanished. Monseigneur
Varjabétian, after a short interval thanked the Pasha for his
generous and kind hospitality and took his departure. On the
way home he was taken violently ill and a doctor was hastily
summoned. The Patriarch took to his bed, and lost all his hair
through the effects of the poison. Then, one morning, when a
servant took his breakfast upstairs he found, to his horror,
that both the bedroom door and the window were wide open and
his beloved master lay dead in his bed, which was covered with
blood! There are no such things as coroners and juries in
Turkey to ascertain the causes of mysterious deaths of this
kind, but the news that the Patriarch was dead spread like
wildfire through Constantinople. The Sultan himself thought it
advisable to show some concern in the matter, and aides-de-camp
from the Palace were sent to the Patriarchate to learn the
full details of this “sad catastrophe,” as they termed it. The
official statement was that the Archbishop died of dysentery.
Only a very few know how the Archbishop had died, and they
wisely kept their mouths shut.
I was told the details of this story by a high official of the
Armenian Patriarchate. It seems that as the poison did not act
as quickly as the Patriarch’s enemies had anticipated, owing
to his having been cautioned in the nick of time, they “had
to resort to other means”! The funeral was the largest ever
witnessed in Constantinople, with an escort of Turkish cavalry
sent specially by the Sultan, and representatives of all the
religious denominations and the Diplomatic Corps. I was myself
present, representing a foreign Government.