The history of Mohammedanism is a continuous warfare against
Christianity, and the latter alone has firmly and heroically stood
against Islam in Western Asia. But through what tortures, martyrdoms,
and massacres did the followers of Christ pass from the beginning of
Mohammed’s religion to the present time? The answer to this question
would fill volumes.
Hitherto the Turks have shown relentless barbarity, unabated
intolerance and unprovoked massacres of the Christians. A very
conservative estimate will not allow less than two hundred thousand
Christians massacred during the last century by the fanatic followers
of the self-made prophet of Arabia.
In 1821-7, during the Greek revolution, thousands of Greeks were put
to death who had no other crime than being of the same religion and
nationality. “Sultan Mohammed was in the habit of replying to every
success of the Greek insurgents by ordering massacres, violations and
enslavement in regions without defense, where there were none but
women, children and inoffensive merchants.... The Turkish admiral was
beaten at Samos; for that reason thirty days were spent in Cyprus
in cutting off heads.... The Sultan wished to take new reprisal to
terrify the _rayas_ (Christian subjects) and cause the nations of
Europe to reflect.” In the island of Chios, though the inhabitants were
not in rebellion, but most docile and inoffensive, yet “above forty
thousand of both sexes had either fallen victims to the sword, or were
selected for sale in the bazaars.” Some fled to the more inaccessible
parts of the island. They were assured of their safety by the Turks,
guaranteed by the European consuls. But no sooner did they descend from
the heights than the Turks put them to death. “The number of those,
who became victims of this perfidious act, were estimated at seven
thousand.”[120]
“The women and children escaped death, their beauty and youth saving
them from massacre. They were, however, to be delivered over at once to
the outrageous assaults or to be reserved for the shameful fate of the
harem. They were led off in long troops; they were put on the market
and sold in the bazaars of Smyrna, Constantinople and Brousa.”[121]
Large numbers also suffered death or the worst form of slavery, by the
hands of the “unspeakable Turks,” who were neither Greeks nor belonged
to the same church, and their only crime also was that they, too, were
Christians.
During the war between Russia and Turkey, the Kurds, finding the
country in a disturbed condition, plundered many a village and
massacred not a few Armenians. But the Turks seem to vie with the
Kurds in cruelty. An Englishman, writing of the war between Russia and
Turkey, says:
“The Turks with their usual ferocity, commenced a system of carnage at
Akhalzik in 1829; every Christian inhabitant was slain.”
In 1843, in the southern mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan, ten
thousand Nestorian and Armenian Christians were massacred by the
faithful Moslems of Mohammed’s type, and as many women and children
were taken captives and sold for slaves. The great explorer, A. H.
Layard, three years after this fearful carnage, describes it in the
following language:
“When the salughter of the people of Ashita (9000) became known in the
valley of Liza, the inhabitants of the villages (1000) took refuge on
a lofty platform of rock, where they hoped either to escape notice or
to defend themselves against any number of assailants. Bedr Khan Bey
(the officer of the sultan, who had charge of the massacre) surrounded
the place and watched until hunger and thirst, in hot sultry weather,
had done their work. After three days a regular capitulation was
signed and sworn on the Koran; their arms were delivered up; the Kurds
were admitted on the platform. Then did the slaughter begin. To save
the trouble of killing them, they were pitched into the Zab (river)
below. Out of about one thousand only one escaped from the massacre.
The face of the rock below is still covered with scattered bones of
the dead, bleached skulls, long locks of women’s hair, and torn
portions of garments they had worn.”[122]
In regard to the massacre of the eleven thousand Christians in Syria in
1860, a very trustworthy writer states:
“The officials of the Porte at Constantinople formed a conspiracy for
the blotting out of the Christian name in those parts, they appointed
their own creatures to the governments of Damascus, Beirut, Sidon,
and furnished them with soldiers, who were posted as garrison in the
chief towns inhabited by Christians, under pretense of defending them
against the Druses. When all was ready the savage Druses of Hauron
were summoned, and they and their brethren of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon
immediately set themselves to burning the villages and killing the
people without any provocation. They put to death every male, even the
infants at the breast, and enslaved as many of the women and girls
as they chose. The Turkish garrison at first simply looked on; then
they urged the Christians to take refuge in the castles on condition
of delivering up whatever weapons they might possess. They swore by
the Koran that no harm should be done them. But no sooner were they
thus entrapped than the Druses were called in and every one of these
helpless victims was shot down or his throat cut in cold blood. The
streets of Deirel-Kamr, Hosbayan, and Zahlah flowed with human gore,
in which men waded ankle deep. The worst scenes occurred in Damascus,
the center of Moslem fanaticism. Here the pasha himself directed the
operations, and after the butchery of the Christians and the plunder
of their property, their quarter of the city was set on fire and
burned down.”[123]
It was due to the same bloodthirstiness of the Turks, inculcated by
the infernal teaching of the Koran, and the examples of the former
Mohammedan rulers, that the horrible massacres of the Bulgarians took
place in 1876. Hon. Eugene Schuyler, then American consul-General,
in his preliminary report to the Hon. Horace Maynard, the American
minister, at Constantinople, wrote:
“Philippopolis, August 10, 1876.
SIR: In reference to the atrocities and massacres committed by the
Turks in Bulgaria, I have the honor to inform you that I have visited
the towns of Adrianople, Philippopolis, and Tatar, Bazardjik, and
villages in the surrounding districts. From what I have personally
seen, and from the inquiries I have made, and the information I have
received, I have ascertained the following facts:
“The insurgent villages made little or no resistance. In many
instances they surrendered their arms upon the first demand.
Nearly all the villages which were attacked by the _Bashi-bazouks_
(irregulars) were burned and pillaged, as were also all those which
had been abandoned by the terrified inhabitants. The inhabitants of
some villages were massacred after exhibitions of the most ferocious
cruelty, and the violation not only of women and girls, but even of
persons of the other sex. Those crimes were committed by the regular
troops as well as by the bashi-bazouks. The number of villages which
were burned in whole or in part in the districts of Philippopolis,
Roptchus, and Tatar-Bazardjik is at least sixty-five.
“Particular attention was given by the troops to the churches and
schools, which in some cases were destroyed with petroleum and
gunpowder.
“It is difficult to estimate the number of Bulgarians who were killed
during the few days that the disturbances lasted; but I am inclined to
put fifteen thousand as the lowest for the districts I have named.
“... This village after a promise of safety without firing a shot
surrendered to the bashi-bazouks, under command of Ahmed Aga, a chief
of rural police. Despite his promise, the arms once surrendered, Ahmed
Aga ordered the destruction of the village and the indiscriminate
slaughter of the inhabitants, about a hundred young girls being
reserved to satisfy the lust of the conqueror before they too should
be killed. Not a house is now standing in this lovely valley. Of the
eight thousand inhabitants not two thousand are known to survive.
“Ahmed Aga, who commanded the massacre, has since been decorated and
promoted, to the rank of _yus bashi_ (centurion).
* * * * *
“I am, sir, yours very truly,
“EUGENE SCHUYLER.
“The Hon. Horace Maynard, etc.”[124]
It was in the following year, 1877, that Armenia witnessed new horrors.
The correspondent of the London _Times_ wrote of the massacre of the
Armenians at Bayazid:
“The scene that ensued [the massacre] was one of unparalleled horror.
The town contained one hundred and sixty-five Christian families, and
all the men, women and children were ruthlessly put to the sword. A
Turkish officer, who visited the town a few days subsequently, states
that there was not a single inhabitant left.... In every house he
entered small groups of dead were lying shockingly mutilated, and in
the most revolting, indecent positions. Captain McCalmont, who visited
the place shortly after the Russian relief, states that it is entirely
deserted and a mere heap of ruins; also that soldiers were employed
for six days in burying the dead, the number of whom it was impossible
to estimate.”[125]
“The American missionaries have been forced, for fear of their lives,
to take refuge in a boat on the Lake (of Van).... Their Christian
charges have been subjected to the grossest treatment--crops cut
and carried away, cattle killed, villages burnt, men murdered, and
worst of all, women and even children violated. Churches afford no
refuge for these wretched mortals. Ten who fled for safety into the
church at Utch-Kilissa were there foully murdered.... Hundreds of
Christian villages in Armenia, having been gutted and fired by these
miscreants, are completely abandoned, and their inhabitants have fled
for refuge into the Russian camps. Hordes of fanatics, led by Moolahs
(learned), have joined the Turkish army. Their fury is daily fed by
the exhortations and addresses of the priests, who have denounced the
war as a menace to the Ottoman (Mohammedan) religion, and they are led
to commit every conceivable excess against the defenseless Christians,
whom they accuse of furnishing information to the enemy. Facts prove
the reverse, for as yet not a single Armenian spy has been discovered
by the authorities, while several Kurds and Circassians, preferring
money to-faith, have paid for their treachery with their lives; in
short every spy hanged during this war has been a Mohammedan....
“Outrages on Mohammedans, being against the Koran, are visited with
great severity; outrages against Christians, who are considered beyond
the pale of the law, are left unnoticed. The massacre at Bayazid, the
desecration of Russian graves, mutilation of corpses, violation of
a flag of truce, and the recent cruelties towards the Christians at
Van, all furnish excuses, and valid excuses, too, for a continuance
of the war. We cannot hope that a great power like Russia will sit
quietly down under the reverses her arms have sustained during the
past month, and will permit the Christians, on whose behalf she has
ostensibly made war, to be treated in Armenia as they were last year
in Bulgaria. She must compel the Porte, by force of arms, to respect
the rights of all her Christian subjects, and afford to them equal
protection and privilege as to Mohammedans. At present this is far
from being the case, Mussulman officials literally treating them worse
than the dogs which act as scavengers in their streets. I mean this as
no mere figure of speech, but as an actual fact, borne out not only
by what I myself have witnessed, but also by reports of occurrences
which have come under the notice of many of the American missionaries
in Armenia, who daily receive complaints from their Christian
congregations of the cruelties and acts of oppression they endure at
the hands of the Kurds, whom the Ottoman government have now let loose
in Anatolia.”[126]
I have quoted a long passage from Mr. Norman’s book to show the
miserable condition of the Armenians who were treated worse than the
street-dogs by the Mohammedans, the officers and the rest, and that
these outrages were well known in England, yet in the following year,
“England at the Berlin Congress, and _England alone_--for none of the
other powers took any interest in the matter--destroyed the security
which Russia had extorted from the Turkish government at San Stefano,
and substituted for the sterling guarantee of Russia, the worthless
paper money of Ottoman promises.”[127]
Mr. Norman himself wrote: “Naturally, since I have been here (in
Armenia) I have had many, very many, opportunities of conversing with
Turkish officers and men on the so-called Eastern question; and the
consequence is that, arriving in the country a strong philo-Turk,
deeply impressed with the necessity of preserving the ‘integrity of
the Empire’ in order to uphold ‘British interests,’ I now fain would
cry with Mr. Freeman, ‘Perish British interests, perish our dominion
in India, rather than that we should strike a blow on behalf of the
wrong against the right.’”[128] England, however, did strike a fatal
“blow on behalf of the wrong against the right,” in the negotiations of
1878, when Lord Beaconsfield “substituted the Treaty of Berlin for the
Treaty of San Stefano, and dictated the provisions of the Anglo-Turkish
convention.”
Sultan Abdul Hamid not only henceforth had a new lease of life for
his empire, but by the British illegal protectorate over his Asiatic
provinces, he had also her protection against Russia. And while thus
protected, he determined to settle his internal affairs, not by doing
what he promised, to the European powers collectively and to England
separately, to do, namely, to protect his Christian subjects against
robberies, oppressions, outrages and murders, but by systematic and
gradual extermination of the Armenians in order to rid himself of the
Armenian question. Vambery’s description of the character of Sultan
Abdul Hamid II may give us some idea how this crafty man would act: “I
never met with a man the salient features of whose character were so
contradictory, so uneven, and disproportionate, as with Sultan Abdul
Hamid. Benevolence and wickedness, generosity and meanness, cowardice
and valor, shrewdness and ignorance, moderation and excess, and many
other qualities have alternately found expression in his acts and
words.”[129] Sultan Abdul Hamid could do like his master of whom Paul
wrote to the Corinthians, and said: “No marvel; for Satan himself is
transformed into an angel of light.” (II Cor. 11:14). He was too shrewd
to openly inaugurate the work of extermination of the Christians and
the persecution of Christianity, but he did it, first underhandedly,
until some Armenians, driven to desperation, resorted to self-defense.
Of course in the case of a Christian’s self-defense his resentment of
the outrages against the oppressor is considered an act of rebellion,
and the acts of robbery, outrage, and murder perpetrated by the
Mohammedan upon the defenseless Christians are considered meritorious
virtues. St. Paul said, “No marvel”; Sultan Abdul Hamid is transformed
into an angel of light, what else can we expect? There were,
undoubtedly, many Armenians who did revolt against such perversions
of truth. Who can always sit still and look like a statue while the
wrong-doer is robbing, outraging and murdering his loved ones, and not
revolt against such acts, and not give a blow against the wrong-doer,
even if we know that he may be cut to pieces for his doing so? This was
the kind of rebellion that some Armenians were accused of.
The Turkish government’s accusation of the Armenians with the device
of a revolution was simply made up of the tissues of falsehood, and
woven by the iniquity of the head of the government, to shroud the
just and righteous cause of the Armenian question; to bury it in
an ignominious grave of a rebellion that failed. But there was no
rebellion, there could be no rebellion. It was, however, convenient
for the British government and some other, equally guilty, governments
of Europe, to justify their criminal indifference, or self interests,
to pretend that it was and that the Armenians were not persecuted for
their religion. The Mohammedan government would not say--for she had
no regard for the truth--that she was torturing and slaughtering the
Armenians because they were Christians. It is perfectly natural for a
corrupt and depraved heart to falsify and declare to those, who ask the
reason of her murdering the Christians, to say that she is suppressing
a revolution. But for any so-called Christian nation and government,
like that of England, accepting Hamid’s excuse and explanation, and
declaring that to the world was plainly protecting and defending the
criminal at the bar of justice and humanity.
The Turkish government knew, so did the European governments, that an
Armenian revolution was an impossibility, and such an excuse was an
absurdity. The Armenians, who hardly number two millions, scattered
among the eighteen millions of the Mohammedans, the latter having a
standing army of several hundred thousand soldiers at their command,
would indeed have been fools, and the Turks equal fools to be afraid
of such a rebellion, and, therefore, had taken such severe measures to
suppress it. Such a thing was not only an absurdity but it was also the
most wicked thing both on the part of the Turks and on the part of the
friends of the Moslems, who pretended to believe it.
About 1892 Sultan Abdul Hamid called the Kurdish chiefs to
Constantinople and supplied them with military titles, uniforms, and
modern weapons of war, and sent them back to organize their tribes into
“Hamidieh” cavalry regiments, which numbered about twenty-two thousand
and five hundred men. The Sultan thus “obtained a power eager in time
of peace _to crush the Armenian growth and spirit_.” The Armenians
“besought the protection of the co-signatory powers to the Berlin
guarantees against the ruthless oppression of the lawless and ruffianly
Kurds, _and with the tacit consent, if not the approbation of the
powers_, the Porte now appoints their worst enemies as their guardians.”
A few fragmentary instances may show what these--the
government’s--licensed robbers and murderers have done. The following
is part of a letter written by an American missionary in the summer of
1892 from Southern Armenia:
“We journeyed east of north over the hills, and dropped down into
another valley, in the bosom of which nestled the Armenian village
of Khundik, of about twenty houses. It was a charming spot, but the
oppression of surrounding Kurdish begs (chiefs) was depleting the
population. Their church has been reduced to a heap, and they were not
allowed to restore it.”
Dr. ----, a medical missionary, writing of his tour under date of
October 20, 1892, stated:
“It was somewhat risky going among the Arabkir villages. Robberies
were of almost daily occurrence, and the villagers were in a state
of constant alarm at night on account of the raids of the Kurds....
The village of Horesik is in a district of perhaps thirty Armenian
villages; but it is one of the most oppressed districts in the empire.
A long time ago some Turkish feudal chiefs came from abroad, and
gradually gained possession of the whole district. They now claim to
own all the land, and even the houses which the people occupy, and
which the occupants built, and the gardens and vineyards which they
planted.”
It was not the Kurds, and some Turkish feudal chiefs alone, but the
officers of the government who carry the sword for the punishment
of the evil-doer were also among the worst kind of tormentors and
evil-doers themselves.
“October, 1892: At all the villages on the lake (Van) soldiers were
stationed to keep boats from landing, on account of cholera.... Then
the quartering of the soldiers in the villages. You can imagine what
that means for the poor Armenians, you can sympathize with them in
the idea that the cure is worse than the disease; that they would much
rather take the risk of having the cholera than have the soldiers
about. And it is not only the soldiers and underpaid gendarmes that
oppress the villagers, extorting the best and making no return. An
officer, the captain of one thousand, with seven horsemen, had just
been at a village we visited. They and their horses were fed with the
best and went off without paying anything.”
On the night of the 5th of January, 1893, in several important cities
of Asia Minor placards were posted attacking the Turkish government.
Who did this was a mystery. A prominent editor of a leading periodical
in this country, who was well informed of the condition of affairs
in Turkey, said, “the general belief of all classes is that the more
fanatical _softas_ (students in the mosques) are the real offenders.”
That may have been the case. But later events and instances positively
show that the government’s emissaries had done it in order to furnish
an excuse for the officers of the government to accuse the Armenians
of sedition, and blindfold the European powers who were overanxious to
abandon the cause of justice and humanity for any pretext.
Two of these placards were affixed to the gate of the mission premises
at Marsovan, but were soon seen and pulled down by persons belonging
to the college. Husrev Pasha was appointed to investigate the matter.
This official himself had threatened in violent terms both the college
and its teachers, “Charging the institution with being a source of
sedition, and affirming that the placards were issued from the
college.” Those very officials themselves had “declared that the place
where the college stood should be as a plowed field.”
On the 29th of January, Professor Thoumanian and later Professor
Kayayan, two Armenian teachers of the college, were arrested and
imprisoned. There was no evidence of their having issued these
placards. On the night of February 1st, the girls’ school was set on
fire. The Turkish authorities who declared that they were going to
burn the building, after so doing, began to charge the crime upon the
college authorities “either for the purpose of exciting the Armenians
to revolt, or to cover up the fact that arms and ammunition were
concealed in the building. These most absurd charges were sent to
Constantinople, and the corrupt officials, who have themselves been
implicated in the burning were charged with the duty of investigating
the affair. Meantime _numberless arrests_ were made, not only in
Marsovan but in all parts of the province. United States Consul,
Mr. Jewett, who was stationed at Sivas, went to Marsovan. But his
dispatches to our minister at Constantinople, and the minister’s
dispatches to him, were interfered with, and it was with the greatest
difficulty that he secured any communication with his superior officer.”
The Turkish government could, and had created riots at will, and thus
have an excuse to fall upon the defenseless Christians to torture and
butcher them: London, February 14, 1893--“A despatch from Vienna
says that one hundred and twenty-five Armenians were killed and three
hundred and forty were wounded during the recent riot at Yosgat,
Turkey.” Constantinople, July 14, 1893--“The British Embassy has
received news that three hundred police and Bashi-Bazouks were sent out
from Cæsarea in February to arrest so-called refugees in Everek. They
looted every Armenian house in the town, and abused the women.”
Here is another despatch from Constantinople under date March 15, 1893:
“Moslem mobs have possession of Cæsarea. They have established a reign
of terror over the Armenian churches, have robbed hundreds and have
killed many. During services in three Armenian churches the other day
the mob burst in the doors, stripping the women of their jewelry and
beat and cut the men. After the Armenians fled the Moslems sacked the
churches. They afterwards went through the streets attacking all the
Armenians they met, bursting into private houses, and sacking shops.
All places of business are closed and trade is utterly stagnant.
Violence and theft are said to continue day and night. Furthermore,
Christian caravans are being robbed and the merchants murdered. The
prisons are crowded with Armenian prisoners. Most of the conspicuous
Armenians of Cæsarea and Marsovan have been imprisoned.”
The following British Consular reports were despatched from London,
April 10, 1893:
“Advices from Constantinople show that the British consuls at Smyrna,
Trebizond, and other places in Anatolia, have sent in official reports
of Turkish outrages on native Christians. These reports include the
names of _eighteen hundred_ Armenians who are imprisoned on various
charges in the several consular jurisdictions. Among other matters the
serious charge is preferred that it is a common occurrence for the
Turks to kidnap Christian girls and dispose of them to the owners of
harems. If the relatives and friends of the girls attempt to regain
them, they are met with the statement that the girls have embraced
Mohammedanism, and this, as a rule, ends the matter so far as the
Armenians are concerned; the Christians are ridiculed and subjected
to gross outrages, and if they object to their treatment they find
themselves arrested on trumped up charges, and are always found
‘guilty.’”
The Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark, the President of the U. S. C. E., while in
Turkey on his tour around the world, wrote:
“I could not use the words society or organization, endeavor, union,
etc., without the risk of getting my interpreter, my audience, and
myself into an unspeakable Turkish dungeon. In one village a poor
broken-hearted woman came to tell us that her husband, who was a
Protestant preacher, had utterly disappeared. Three weary months of
anxious, heart-sick watching had passed away, and she had had no
message. What his alleged offense was she had no idea. Whether he is
dead or alive, in prison or in exile, she could not tell; and perhaps
the mystery of his disappearance will never be solved.” After giving
several instances of this kind, Dr. Clark adds: “These are only
isolated instances of hundreds that might be cited.”[130]
In the above pages a very few instances were given, which could be
multiplied by the hundred, if the time and space would permit, but
there is no need. For neither did the Turks nor their friends deny
them. Moreover, some of the instances of cruelty and outrage are too
painful to be put in print.
The attention of the reader may now be directed to the condition of the
so-called “agitators,” who have been arrested and imprisoned in various
cities. According to the British consular “reports included the names
of eighteen hundred Armenians.” Some of these prisoners, after having
been well fleeced, were likely set free while at their respective
cities, others possibly left still in prisons, and a great number of
them were probably done away with in various ways;[131] for we were
informed by the following despatch that only fifty-six were tried at
Angora: Constantinople, June 18, 1893--“The trial of Armenians accused
of being concerned in rioting at Cæsarea and Marsovan last spring has
just been concluded at Angora. Seventeen of the prisoners, including
Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan, were condemned to death; six,
including the Protestant pastor at Goemerek, were sentenced to fifteen
years’ imprisonment; eighteen--one was a woman, thirty-three years
old--were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from seven to ten
years, and fifteen were acquitted.” Three others tortured to death in
prison.
Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan were pardoned by the sultan on the
condition that “they should leave the Turkish territories and never
return.”
The following despatch is reproduced to show what impression the
Foreign office of Her Majesty’s government had received with regard to
the trials of those unfortunate Armenians, and their execution:
London, August 2, 1893--“The question of Turkish outrages upon the
Armenian Christians was brought up in the House of Commons to-day.
Several members asked for information as to the charges made that
the Turkish officials had tortured the prisoners who were some time
ago arrested for complicity in the seditious rioting in Cæsarea
and Marsovan in their efforts to get the accused to implicate
themselves and others. In response to the questions Sir Edward
Grey, Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign office, said that what
little information the Foreign Office had on the subject was _very
painful_. Fifty-six persons had been (tried) arrested and of this
number seventeen had been condemned to death, and many of the others
sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Subsequently the Sultan of
Turkey commuted the death sentence of all but five of the prisoners.
These five men have been executed within the past two or three days.
From the evidence that had been given at the trials, all of which
had been carefully investigated by the British representative in
Turkey, and a report thereon forwarded to the Foreign Office, it
was clear that two of the men executed, and probably more, were
innocent of the charges made against them. The British representative
in Constantinople had used his influence to convince the Ottoman
authorities that _the trials were unfair_, but his efforts to have the
wrong righted were in vain.”
These political “agitators” and “seditious rioters,” terms applied
to the Armenians by the Turkish government and its officials, only
were mere inventions. As it has been said the oppression, cruel
persecutions, and outrages drove the Armenians to desperation, and
when they did anything in self-defense, or even if they attempted to
consult what they should do against the assaults, they were set upon
and treated still worse. The disturbance at Yozgat, for instance, was
stated in the following manner: An Armenian spy in the employ of the
Turkish government was murdered by an Armenian revolutionist from
Russia. Instead of the murderer being found and arrested, all the men
of the village where the murder had taken place were arrested and
taken to Yozgat. The four police officers who remained in the village
committed every outrage upon the defenseless women, who went in a body
to Yozgat and marched through the market calling upon the Armenians of
the city to avenge their wrongs. “Some one rang the bell of the church,
and a large number of Armenians closed their shops and collected at
the church for _consultation_. Military commander of the town heard
this and hastened to the church, where he tried to calm the people and
persuaded them to disperse, assuring them the guilty officer should be
punished. He was meeting with some success when the troops sent by the
governor arrived.” The troops had come there for business. A riot was
created, and a “hundred and twenty-five Armenians were killed and three
hundred and forty wounded,” as the result of this riot.
A commission was sent from Constantinople to investigate, and a reign
of terror in the town was the result. Under cover of searching the
houses of all the Armenians, they were plundered and outraged without
mercy, and a great number thrown into prison, and tortured to force
them to give evidence against one another.
I believe the Sultan, who had fashioned himself into an angel of
light had chosen this method to feel his way and see whether the
guardians of his Christian subjects could see through the tissue of his
falsehood and call him to halt, or they would be willing for their own
conveniences to accept his construction of suppressing a “sedition.”
The Representative Committee of the society of Friends in Great Britain
addressed a memorial to the Earl of Kimberley, the Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs. (See “Minutes” of 1894, held in London.)
“The Representative committee of the society of Friends in Great
Britain have had their attention recently directed to the suffering
and persecuted condition of the Armenian Christian subjects of the
Porte, and have been at some pains to investigate the facts of the
case. They are compelled to conclude that persecution of a cruel
character has been and is being carried on by Turkish officials, which
is a disgrace to any government, and to the age in which we live.
“They desire to point out that Article I, of the Cyprus convention of
June, 1878, and Articles LXI and LXII of the Treaty of Berlin, July,
1878, give this country a position of responsibility and authority
upon this subject which it ought not to ignore.
“The committee believes that, though these engagements were made
nearly fourteen years ago, it is not alleged that their performance
has been even entered upon. On the contrary, great numbers of the
Christian Armenians have been from time to time arbitrarily arrested,
and are now in prison on charges strongly suspected of being false,
whilst many of the proceedings in the courts of law are clearly a mere
travesty of justice.”
The following is the part of the answer to the above memorial:
“SIR: I am directed by the Earl of Kimberley to acknowledge the
receipt of your letter of the 17th instant (April, 1894), and
the memorial. In reply I am to state that the information in
the possession of Her Majesty’s government does not confirm the
widely-spread belief that the arrest and imprisonment of the
Armenians in Asiatic Turkey are attributable to their religious faith.”
The great “assassin” well might have congratulated himself that whether
Her Majesty’s government believed it or not, at least, declared to the
world that the Armenians were not persecuted on account of their faith.