11. The laws against compulsory conversions to Islam will be strictly
enforced.
Supposing that the above synopsis of the reforms demanded of the Porte
is true--though these reforms were not officially published--the reader
can easily see that the source of the Armenian trouble starts from the
head of the government and runs through all its branches down to the
very insignificant, yet well-armed peasant, Kurd who may happen to be a
member of the Hamilieh regiment.
The evident reason also why the Powers did not wait for the report of
the commission and then present their scheme of reforms was three-fold,
namely, they had all the facts with regard to the massacre at Sassoun
in their possession; they were aware of the dilatory manner the
indolent Turk generally moves, and they would thus save time and
prevent the unspeakable Turk from committing something worse. They,
however, signally failed in all these. If they ever intended to
accomplish anything, they indeed did not succeed, and still worse, they
provoked the beast.
After a prolonged pressure had been brought to bear on the sultan by
the British, French, and Russian governments he seemed to give up
his opposition to their demands and in the autumn in order to pacify
England--for England, to her credit, was the leading power that took
real interest in the matter, realizing her greater responsibility in
the case--the sultan wrote to Lord Salisbury and gave his word that
the reforms should be literally and immediately carried out. Meanwhile
oppressions and imprisonments were still going on as usual.
St. Paul says, “Render to all their dues....” With all sincerity
and truthfulness we must say that Abdul Hamid II, the ex-Sultan of
Turkey, was the shrewdest, the most wicked and most diabolical ruler
that ever sat on the Ottoman throne. He was sure that there was no
concert among the signatory powers. The Triple Alliance, then made up
of Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, was not opposing his policy.
More than this, his dear friend, the ruler and the press of Germany had
suppressed the true nature of the trouble in Turkey, and had created
in Germany the false impression that the Turkish government was at the
point of being overthrown by the Armenians who were in revolt; that
the sultan was justly trying to suppress this rebellion and maintain
his divine right to rule.
Dr. J. Lepsius, from whose work--_Armenia and Europe_--we quoted in the
preceding chapter, and whose words stand at the head of this chapter,
is the author of the following statement: “Truth about Armenia must be
made known at last. During the past nine months (1896) the German press
has been flooded with statements not merely biased, but, as we shall
be able to show, _false, and deliberately intended to deceive Europe_.
Care has been taken that the conduct of the so-called ‘rebellious’
Armenians should be set forth in the strongest light as the cause
of all the mischief, and at the same time the story of how a great
Christian nation has been subjected to massacre and pillage, and how
multitudes have been compelled to abjure their faith, is practically
unknown in Germany.”
Thus the sultan was sure of the support of Germany. Then again, he
was not quite sure whether England could hold with her the other two
powers, France and Russia. So he took the traditional course pursued
by his predecessors, to move slowly, so far as the reforms were
concerned, but the work of the extermination of the Armenian nation
must by no means be slackened; every opportunity must be seized, and
if no opportunity was forthcoming, one must be devised for excuses of
slaughter.
In Armenia and Asia Minor, where most of the Armenians used to live,
there was and is hardly any industry. Though a rich country in mineral
and agricultural products, yet on account of the absence of good roads
and markets, and of robberies and misrule, all efforts toward securing
a livelihood have been paralyzed. Money consequently has always been
scarce. Continual demand of the government for taxes--sometimes a year
in advance--the exactions of the tax-collectors and petty officials
keep the Armenians in abject poverty and distress. For these reasons
thousands of young men flock to Constantinople to earn money to support
their families and to meet these demands.
These men have been hearing of heartrending calamities which had fallen
upon their families. Some had heard of the confiscation of their
properties, some of their young wives being abducted, some of their
sisters being violated, and their aged parents and tender children
butchered. A year had passed since the massacre at Sassoun, yet the
so-called Christian powers, under whose protection the Christian
subjects of the sultan were placed by the Treaty of Berlin, had
apparently done nothing. But by attempting to do something and failing,
they had actually aggravated their misery.
An open enemy is not as implacable as a secret foe. The Armenians may
have also thought that they would, by petitioning the sultan, emphasize
the pressure of the Powers for the fulfillment of the promises of
reform contained in the Treaty of Berlin. Anyhow the Armenians had
prepared a petition to present to the grand vizier in which their
complaints and requests were set forth. The authorities were aware of
the matter and had instructed the police to prevent the presentation
of the petition and had prepared also a counter demonstration against
the petitioners by a large number of _softas_ and Turks. On September
30th, 1895, the petitioners started towards the Sublime Porte with
their petition to present it to the grand vizier. The police ordered
them to disperse and the softas and Turks attacked them. The peaceful
procession of the petitioners was turned into a riot, and some five or
six hundred Armenians were killed, some of them were arrested and taken
to prisons and were there stabbed to death.
The following letter, written by an American resident in
Constantinople, who had ample opportunity to verify the facts, will
suffice to show how the sultan could and did create opportunities to
slaughter the Christians:
“It was very astonishing that the Turks were so foolish as to resist
the efforts of the Armenians to present their petition to the sublime
Porte. It was contrary to the usage of the country to do so, and could
only be explained as a wilful act of hostility to the Armenians;
unless the Armenians had broken the peace before the Turks attacked
them--which is denied. When the grand vizier, Said Pasha, told the
sultan that the demonstration was to take place and asked for his
will, the sultan committed the matter to the grand vizier and the
minister of the interior to arrange together, giving them full powers.
They decided to allow the petitioners to present their grievances,
merely taking the precaution to have troops in the neighborhood,
out of sight, but so posted as to prevent any surprise in case the
Armenians should prove to be riotous. All was ready, and the Grand
Vizier was just setting out for the Porte to receive the Armenians,
when he was informed by the sultan that he (the sultan) had decided
against the demonstration, and had already ordered his troops to
resist and disperse any groups of Armenians that might appear. So the
whole responsibility for the carnage falls upon the foolish (wicked)
decision to override the plans of the ministers.”
If in the capital of the empire, in the presence of the ambassadors of
the Powers who were demanding the protection of the Christians from
cruelty and oppression, such a barbarism can be permitted, what could
prevent the bloodthirsty wretch from inaugurating a general slaughter
of the defenseless Armenians throughout his dominions? Thus this
terrible occurrence on the 30th of September, of 1895, was the signal
for hundreds of other massacres which followed one after the other,
not only in the provinces where the reforms were expected to make the
people happy, but throughout the empire. And not only over one hundred
thousand Christians were in the most frightful manner slaughtered
and burnt, but two or three times as many more were left in such
destitution, that they had to choose between starvation and apostasy.
“Over the most fruitful provinces of the Turkish Empire, a country as
large as Germany a stream of blood and desolation was poured forth
which was intended to destroy a whole Christian people.... There can
be no doubt that the Turks enjoyed the work of massacre, and carried
it out with admirable exactness, according to a previously arranged
programme, with processions, blowing of trumpets, and prayers from the
mullahs, who from the highest minarets invoked the blessing of Allah on
the butchery.”[141]
According to press reports, the scheme of reforms submitted by Great
Britain, France, and Russia to the Turkish government on the 11th of
May, 1895, was signed in due form and on the 17th of October, 1895,
handed over to the ambassadors of the powers. Before this, however, the
general massacres had begun.
The massacres took place in the following places and times:
Constantinople Sept. 30, 1895 500
Trebizond Oct. 8, 1895 1,100
Ak Hissar Oct. 9, 1895 45
Gumush Khana Oct. 11, 1895 350
Baiburt Oct. 13, 1895 800
Erzingian Oct. 21, 1895 2,000
Bitlis Oct. 26, 1895 3,000
Palu Oct. 25, 1895 650
Diarbikir Oct. 25, 1895 3,000
Kara Hissar Oct. 25, 1895 800
Ersorum Oct. 30, 1895 1,500
Boulouik and Khnus Oct. 30, 1895 700
Tomzara Oct. 28 and Nov. 8, 1895 700
Malatia Nov. 6, 1895 5,000
Arabkir Nov. 6, 1895 4,000
Harput[142] Nov. 11, 1895 2,000
Gurin Nov. 10, 1895 2,000
Sivas Nov. 12, 1895 1,500
Moosh Nov. 15, 1895 350
Marsovan Nov. 15, 1895 125
Aintab Nov. 15, 1895 400
Marash Nov. 18, 1895 1,000
Zilleh Nov. 26, 1895 300
Cæsarea Nov. 30, 1895 400
Urfa Oct. 28 and Dec.
28-29, 1985 10,000
Biredjik Jan. 1, 1896 900
Van }
Niksar } June, 1896 20,000
Eghin }
Constantinople Aug. 26-27, 1896 10,000
The number of persons killed, about 100,000
The number of houses and shops burnt 12,000
The number of houses plundered 47,000
The persons forced to accept Mohammedanism 40,000
The number of persons left destitute 400,000[143]
It should not be considered that the number given as killed are exact,
for some of those reports have gone through the Ambassadors’ revisions,
and some places where massacres have taken place have never been
noticed, because there was no foreigner, and no native that was able to
report was left alive.
“From that date (October 8, 1895) until the end of the year the wave
of massacre swept over the six eastern provinces, engulfing the
villages, towns, and cities where Armenians lived; innumerable houses,
and schools, and churches were burned, a vast amount of property was
stolen or destroyed, a great number of women and girls were carried
off by Turks and Kurds, multitudes of people were forced to accept
the Mohammedan religion, 100,000 Armenian men and boys were slain,
and 500,000 Armenian women and children were reduced to beggary.
Everywhere it was understood by the Mohammedan population that they
were authorized by order from Constantinople, to kill all Armenian
men and boys and seize their property. In many places soldiers and
officers joined with the mob and shared the plunder. _The massacres
were perpetrated in contempt and defiance of Europe_; they were
an expression of Turkish wrath and vengeance; they were in short,
an attempt to end the Armenian question by the destruction of the
Armenians. Europe raised the hope of the Christian population of
Turkey, and Europe left them to their fate.”[144]
We had the pleasure, before, of quoting from the work of Dr. J. Lepsius
of Berlin, “_Armenia and Europe_.” We are tempted to quote more for
a few reasons: First, because he so fearlessly exposed the studied
efforts of the official press of Germany to mislead the people with
regard to the true nature of the condition of the Armenians who were
massacred for their Christian faith, even though it was made to appear
that the Turkish government was endeavoring to suppress a revolution
which did not exist. Second, because of his courageous exposition
of the criminal indifference of Europe to abandon the defenseless
Armenians to the ruthless and barbarous tendencies of the Turks.
Third, because of his faithfully exposing and showing the true nature
of the followers of Mohammed, the absurdity, falsehood, and deviltry of
the Turkish government’s excuse of putting down a revolt.
“The Turkish people, equipped and armed by the authorities, were
delighted to take their share in the work of murder side by side with
the military, the Radifs (Eeserves), the Zaptiehs (Gendarmes), and the
lately formed Kurdish Irregulars, called the Hamidieh-Regiment after
the reigning sultan. Every one was in the best humor.... A savage
and murderous spirit took possession of the people. And what else
could be expected? Here an officer urged them on with the cry, ‘Down
with the Armenians, it is the sultan’s will!’ Here a Vali exhorted
them to ‘Look sharp! Kill! Plunder! and pray for the sultan!’ What
inducement had they to cease from murder or from prey! The reward of
piety lay before their eyes, for all that they could seize and carry
away was to be their own.... The monotonous work of dragging hundreds
of defenceless Armenians out of their homes and hiding-places merely
to behead, stab, throttle, hang, or beat them, soon palled. The merry
mob wanted variety. Simple murder became dull, and the business must
now be made more amusing. How would it do to light a fire and roast
the wounded at it? To gibbet a few head-downwards? Drive nails into
others? Or tie fifty of them together and fire into the coil?...
Putting out eyes and cutting off ears and noses was a special
accomplishment. Christian priests who refused to become Mohammedans
were considered particularly worthy of this fate.... Petroleum and
kerosene were at hand. It is true that the authorities intended them
to be used only for the purpose of burning down houses and destroying
grain. But why not put them to other and more useful purposes?
“There was a certain photographer, by the name Mardiros (martyr, or
witness), who had a fine beard, petroleum was poured over it and set
on fire. Several Christians were gathered together, kerosene poured
over them, and, as they burnt, others were thrown into the fumes and
suffocated. A woman with luxuriant hair had gunpowder sprinkled on
it, and her head was blown off. In a monastery at Kaghtzorhayatz, an
Effendi, by name Abdullah, had a young man and a girl placed close
together and with one stroke cut off both their heads. But sword and
fire can be dispensed with. The Kurdish Sheikh, Djevher of Gabars,
proved this by binding two brothers with ropes and pegging them to the
ground with stakes.... The baker in Kesserek, who had already murdered
ninety-seven Armenians, which he proved by exhibiting their ears and
noses, declared that he would not rest until he had brought up the
number to one hundred. But he found his master in Hadji Bego of Tadem,
who had butchered more than a hundred Christians, and who, as a sign
of his prowess, cut a woman into four pieces and put them on posts
to public view. The butcher of Aintab, who stuck the heads of six
Armenians on his spit, was outdone by the Turk at Subaschigulp, who
slaughtered Armenians like sheep and hung their bodies on meat-hooks.
The people of Trebizond brought out the humor of the thing; they shot
Adam, the Armenian butcher, and his son, cut them in pieces, stuck the
limbs separately on sticks and offered them for sale to passers-by:
‘Who will buy an arm, a leg, feet or hands? Cheap! Who will buy?’ But
innocence must be spared. The Sultan had commanded that Christians
under seventeen should not be killed. But who heeds such caution?...
The Mohammedans of a large village in Marash, saved at least one small
child from this fate by throwing it into the fire.
“In Baiburt the destroyers were merciful enough in fourteen houses to
burn the babies with their mothers. Ohannes Avakian, a rich civilian
of Trebizond, offered the raging mob all his possessions if they
would spare his family and himself. His three-year-old child was in
his arms. Both were murdered before the eyes of the mother and the
other children, and then the crowd seized the spoil. A valiant Turk
thinks nothing of strangling children on the knees of their mothers.
To play at ball with a baby, and toss it from one bayonet to another
before its mother’s eyes seemed pleasant sport for the soldiers of
Bitlis.... Although it is a fact that dozens of women and children
perished in all the massacres, that in Kiauta and Lessouk a hundred
women were mutilated, and amongst the victims at Bitlis were little
boys (from five to twelve years of age) of the Church School of Surp
Serkis, we must do the Turk the justice to acknowledge that these
cruelties were not _invariably_ approved by the head officials....
The populace went beyond their actual instructions when we find that
amongst the 450 corpses buried in the cemetery at Sivas all the women
had been mutilated. As a rule, however, the authorities did nothing
to check the bloodthirstiness of the masses, and whenever the work of
murder was too great for the people alone, the soldiers were speedily
summoned to help.
“Many of the fleeing Armenians were simple enough to believe that
their Churches would be a place of safety; that in the sanctuary they
would be spared. But as hundreds of churches and convents had to be
reduced to ashes, since the _aim was to do away with every trace of
the hated Christian faith_, what mattered the trifling fact that men,
women, and children were inside them? In Ressuan the doors of the
church were broken open and all the refugees murdered. Three hundred
Armenians escaped to the monastery of Maghapayetzatz only to be
butchered with the brotherhood. In Indises (district of Luk-Shehri)
and in Habusu (district of Harpoot) the churches were burned over the
heads of the Christians; but here we cannot blame the people for the
soldiers set the example. In Shabin Kara Hissar more regard was paid
to the church, the two thousand people who had taken refuge there were
at least killed outside the doors....
“It is worthy of record that the dead bodies of Christians were
dragged naked out of the towns and villages, horribly mutilated, and
then cast out in heaps on the streets, or on dung-hills, or thrown
into streams and drains, till asses and Jews were requisitioned to
carry the corpses away like the carrion of dead animals. Among the
mass of mutilated human flesh no one was able to recognize his own
dead. When the dead bodies were not left as food for dogs, or when
they were not burned with petroleum, a hole was dug into which they
were thrown in a mass. But to men of importance special funeral
honors were paid. The priest Mattheas of Busseyid, had his head cut
off and placed between his legs, and the young Turks of the town
amused themselves by flogging the body. The priest, Der-Harutiun of
Diarbekir, and his colleague from the church at Alipunar, together
with ten other priests from the district of Tadem, had the skin flayed
from their bodies. A special monument was erected to the Abbot Sahag,
prior of the monastery of Surp Katch in the district of Kizan, and to
his young assistant; their skins were stuffed with straw and hung on
trees. The Turks of Arabkir with an imagination worthy of Nero set
up the heads of Armenians in rows on long poles, and the commander
of the gendarmes at Baiburt, who, on the 26th of October, received
from the women of the village of Ksauta five hundred pounds sterling
in money and jewels as a ransom for the lives of their husbands and
who, a few days later, changed his mind, and collecting together in a
field the women and children of the village, had them all pitilessly
slaughtered, is worthy of being chief of Tamerlane’s bodyguard.
“At the beginning of the disturbance the inhabitants of twelve
villages north and west of Marash fled for refuge to the town of
Turnus with the intention of escaping from thence to the mountains
near Zeitoun. About four thousand of them were suddenly one morning
surrounded by soldiers. A terrible butchery began, and all were
slain except three hundred and eighty women and children; these were
collected together and driven by the soldiers for two days like a
flock of sheep to Marash. The government of the sultan must show how
merciful it could be to the innocent, even though these unfortunate
women were obliged in the month of December to wade through the
mountain snow, and to leave many of their starving children by the
wayside, as no halt was permitted. One mother tells us that when she
could not carry her two children any longer, she put them on a horse
that belonged to the soldiers, and at the next river the little ones
were thrown into the water. Would it not have been more merciful to
have slain all the 4000 together?
“Has not enough blood been shed? When will the cry of this tortured
people reach the ear of Christendom? What answer will those Christian
Powers make who, eighteen years ago (1878), stretched a protecting
hand over Armenia and presented her with paper reforms, signed and
sealed in the name of the Almighty? But enough of this, for there is
yet another page of horror to be disclosed.
“‘_Kill the men! Their wives, their daughters, and their property are
ours._’ That was the watchword with which the soldiers of Cæsarea
urged on the armed mob to murder, plunder, and outrage. And this
watchword was heard and obeyed in all the hundreds of towns and
villages where the work of murder was carried out. Even before the
commencement of the massacres the shameless Turkish soldiers had
dared to ask the Christian mothers to keep their daughters for them,
saying that soon all the Christian girls in the country would belong
to them.
“We must already reckon the number of slain at 85,000 in the massacres
of 1895-1896, but who can count all the deeds of shame and infamy, who
can number the tens of thousands who were driven into the mountains,
sold into harems, exposed in the slave-markets, or who, after having
been outraged, were secretly murdered?
“It seems necessary to give some idea of the shame and dishonor to
which even at the present time women are exposed. The scoundrel Hadji
Bego, who boasted of having killed a hundred Armenians with his own
hand, hunted a Christian girl naked through the streets of the town.
The Turkish people of Cæsarea, who burnt thirty Armenian houses
with their inhabitants, also helped to storm the women’s baths at
the bathing hour. And with what reception did those thirty women of
Koschmad meet, who wandered over the mountains without any clothes,
till they reached Shinas and fell into the hands of the soldiers
there? But that was nothing unusual. _There was no massacre in which
the murder of the men was not followed by outrage on the women and
girls; no plunder in which they were not offered for sale, carried off
as spoils, exchanged for horses and donkeys, or exposed in the slave
market._ The Agas or officers distributed the girls among the Zaptiehs
and soldiers.
“Not safe in their own houses under the eye of their husbands, who had
often, bound to door-posts, to witness their fate, outraged and robbed
of all protection, hunted from house to house till they fell a prey
to dishonor--that, _Christian women, is the fate of your sisters in
Armenia_.
“Which of the two do you most pity--the widowed or orphaned girl
cowering among rags in some corner of her ruined home, trembling at
every footstep of a man, be he Turk or Kurd, who may force his way in
and outrage her before her children, or her brothers and sisters; or
that other girl who, distinguished perhaps for beauty, has pleased the
eye of some Turkish Aga, and, in spite of her cries and tears, has
been dragged into his harem, and forced to give up at once her honor
and her faith? Can we understand now what drove hundreds of Armenian
women to suicide? Or why those fifty women of Lessouk and Krauta threw
themselves into the wells, or leapt from the edge of precipices? We
can realize the horror that filled the soul of that highborn Armenian
lady who was carried off with a troop of women and children and a
few men from Uzounova (twenty-five miles east of Harpout). When they
reached the banks of the Euphrates she called to her companions,
and, rushing to the river, threw herself in. That dishonor is worse
than death is proved by the fact, that fifty-five women and children
followed her example, and perished in the waters.
“Who would not feel compassion for the unfortunate old man who thus
expresses his nameless grief in a letter to his son: ‘Oh, I dare not
tell you ... they came and threatened to kill me if I refused to
give up your sister. After they had taken everything else--blankets,
beds, clothes, provisions, and even fuel--they returned to demand our
daughter. I was prepared to withstand to the end, but when she saw
that they were about to kill me, she threw herself at their feet, and
cried out: “Spare my father! Here I am.”’
“Admirers of Turkish army organization and of Mohammedan civilization
ought to know that even the brutality of the Kurdish hordes and the
cynicism of the townspeople were thrown completely into the shade by
the infamous conduct of the soldiers and officers. Although it fills
me with disgust to dip my pen into this sink of corruption, I feel it
is necessary that the world should know what deeds are done in this
home of promised reforms by the guardians of law and order.
“The truth of the following account is established by two independent
testimonies which lie before me: ‘In the village of Husseyinik
(vilayet of Harpout), six hundred soldiers (and their officers)
collected together in the military depot about the same number of
women and young girls; they first outraged them, and then murdered the
unhappy victims of their horrible lust.’
“Does not this blood cry to Heaven? And even though the kings of the
earth be deaf to its cry, will not God hear?”
It should not be considered superfluous to state that even these facts
were brought by such an able and honest man as Dr. Lepsius before the
attention of the German people, the German government still courted the
friendship of the Turkish government, and have succeeded in keeping
the masses of the honest and good Christian people to believe that
the Armenians were receiving from the hands of the Turks what they
deserved. Strange as it may appear, yet nevertheless it is true, that
the Germans were more willing to believe than the Englishmen--like
her Majesty’s Government--that Armenians were not suffering all these
atrocities on account of “their religious faith.” It is a disgrace
to humanity, and especially to the German _Kultur_, that Germans who
are so thorough in almost everything, should still be so superficial
in this one particular, that they should not see the underlying fact.
Dr. Lepsius quotes from a German daily paper which, in discussing the
massacre at Sassoun, wrote:
“In the absence of other reasons for European intervention, the
English and American press have been obliged to take up the Christian
religion of the Armenians. Gladstone, indeed, on the occasion of the
farce of the reception of the deputation from Sassoun, did not shrink
from speaking of the ‘Armenians persecuted for their Christian faith.’
That is a palpable falsehood. What reason could the Porte have had
for suddenly setting on foot a religious persecution, when in the
course of hundreds of years it had taken no notice of the Armenian
religion? As a matter of fact, a genuine persecution of Christians
has never taken place in the Turkish Empire. Moreover, it would be
the most imprudent thing the Porte could do to increase the manifold
difficulties of its position by a religious persecution....”
The following is the answer which Dr. Lepsius gives, and he also sets
an array of facts against biassed opinions:
“It is worth while to reproduce this pregnant summary of a widespread
opinion ... for still the German press daily tells the same tale....
We confine ourselves to Armenia, and here we must indeed agree that it
not only would be, but _was_ ‘the most imprudent thing the Porte could
do,’ to inaugurate a persecution of Christianity. For the Christians
number one-third of the subjects of his majesty, the sultan, and--if
we weigh instead of counting them--in intelligence, education,
practical ability, and moral energy, they take up two-thirds of
the entire population of the Turkish empire.... We cannot blame
him [the journalist], then, if he is ignorant of the fact that the
dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the ‘manifold difficulties
of its position’ can be traced back in every case to the opposition
between Islam and Christianity as well as to the circumstance that
the religious law of Islam--which during the last decades has been
more than ever the standard of Ottoman policy--does not admit equality
of civil rights, and that any concession in this direction from the
Porte can only be regarded ‘in principle,’ i.e., on paper....
“What are the Armenian massacres then? Without any question their
origin was purely political, or to state it more exactly, they were an
administrative measure. But facts go to prove that, considering the
character of the Mohammedan people, whose very political passions are
roused only by religious motives, this administrative measure _must_
and _did, take the form of a religious persecution on a gigantic
scale_. Are we then, simply because of the political origin of this
religious persecution, to be forbidden to speak of the Armenians as
‘persecuted on account of their religious belief’? If so, there have
never been any religious persecutions in the world; for all such
without exception have been associated with political movements,
and even the death of Christ was nothing but a political event, for
political moves turned the balance at His condemnation.
“We have lists before us of 559 villages whose surviving inhabitants
were converted to Islam with fire and sword, of 568 churches
thoroughly pillaged, destroyed, and razed to the ground, of 282
Christian churches transformed into mosques, of 21 Protestant
preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were after enduring
unspeakable tortures murdered on their refusal to accept Islam. We
repeat, however, that these figures express only the extent of our
_information_, and do not, by a long way, reach to the extent of the
reality. Is this a religious persecution or is it not?... The most
shameful desecration of the churches everywhere, the pollution of
sacred vessels ... the spitting on Gospels and Bibles which were then
torn into a thousand pieces--these were the mere accessories to the
drama of vandalism.
“The method adopted for the work of compulsory conversion was
everywhere the same.... In some towns and villages, even before
the outbreak of the massacres, the choice was given of averting
the threatened fate by embracing Islam. Mere threats of death were
seldom sufficient; bayonets were pointed at the heart, swords at the
throat. When this did not avail, tortures were employed. The priests
and preachers, especially who refused to renounce their faith, had
to endure absolutely inconceivable tortures before they received the
_coup de grace_. The priest Der Hagop of Harpout, became insane, when,
clad only in his shirt, he saw the swords of fifty soldiers pointed
at him. What was to be done with him? As the Mullahs declared that a
madman could not be received into Islam he was for the present thrown
into prison for contumacy.
“In the monastery at Tadem the Venerable Archimandrite, Ohannes
Papazian, had first his hands and afterwards his arms up to the elbows
cut off, on his refusal to accept Islam. When, even then, he would not
yield, he was beheaded on the pavement of the church. At Biredjik an
old man who refused to renounce his faith was thrown down, live coals
were heaped upon him, and, when he writhed in his agony, the fiends
held a Bible before his eyes and mockingly bade him read to them some
of the promises on which he had pinned his faith.
“At Diarbekir, the great stone church of the Syrian order of St.
James, in which a number of refugees were sheltering, was surrounded
by Kurds who fired on it, broke open the roof, threw down combustibles
and at last succeeded in bursting open the door. Amid the joyous
shouts of the mob the refugees were driven into the open in dense
masses, and received with a hail of bullets. When the pastor, Jirjs
Khatherschian, from Egypt, who happened to be visiting his relations,
was recognized as an ecclesiastic he was thrown to the ground, and
beaten till he became unconscious. One of the sacred books scattered
around was pushed into his mouth, and he was mockingly called upon to
preach a sermon. Burning brands fell on him, and when he was aroused
from his unconscious state by the pain, and attempted to crawl away,
he was seized and hurled into the blazing fire and burnt to death. Are
we not reminded of the heroism of the Maccabees by a mother at Ourfa,
who, when an attempt was made to force her sons to renounce their
religion, came running up and besought them: ‘Let them kill you, but
do not deny the Lord Jesus’--and the steadfast pair suffered death by
the sword. The women and children followed the men to martyrdom. At
Bitlis a hundred women, whose husbands had been slain, were conducted
by soldiers to an open place. What was their answer when they were
called upon to renounce Jesus and save their lives: ‘No, our husbands
died for Him, and we will do the same.’ They were massacred.”
At Cassarea, in the massacre of November 30th, Rev. Dr. Avedis
Yeretzian, a pastor and physician, his wife, his eldest son and his
brother-in-law were ruthlessly butchered by the Turks and thrown into
the flames of their burning house. In another house a Protestant alone
with his twelve year old daughter, the mother being absent, a Turk
burst into the room where the father was, and killed him on his refusal
to embrace the Mohammedan faith. He then went into the room where the
girl, unaware of the affair, was sitting. He said to her: “Your father
is dead because he would not embrace Islam, now I must make you a
Mohammedan, then I shall take you to my home and you will be treated
as my daughter. Are you willing?” Her answer was, “I believe in Jesus.
He is my Saviour, and I love Him. I cannot do what you wish, even if
you kill me.” He fell upon her in his fury and stabbed her in twelve
different places. The house was plundered and burnt with the father’s
corpse lying therein. The same evening, in another part of the town,
a cart drove up to the house where the girl’s mother was staying. A
neighbor, a kindly disposed Turk, entered and said: “I have brought you
the body of your little daughter. You are a friend of mine, I could not
leave it lying there. I am sorry this has happened.”
The British Vice-Consul, Mr. Fitzmaurice, who was sent to Urfa to make
an investigation of the massacre, made the following report:
“On Saturday night (the 28th of December, 1895) crowds of Armenian
men, women and children took refuge in their fine cathedral, capable
of holding some eight thousand persons. They administered the
sacrament, the last sacrament, as it proved to be, to eighteen hundred
souls, recording the figure on one of the pillars of the church.
“Those remained in the cathedral overnight, and were joined on Sunday
by several hundred more, who sought the protection of a building which
they considered safe from the mob-violence of the Musulman even in
his fanaticism. At least three thousand individuals were congregated
in the building when the mob attacked it. They first fired in through
the windows, then smashed in the iron door, and proceeded to massacre
all those, the majority on the ground floor being men. Having thus
disposed of the men, and having removed some of the young women, they
rifled the church treasure, shrines, and ornaments to the extent of
some four thousand pounds (Turkish--$17,600), destroying pictures and
relics, mockingly calling on Christ now to prove Himself a greater
prophet than Mohammed.
“A huge, partly stone, partly wooden, gallery, running round the upper
portion of the cathedral, was packed with a shrieking and terrified
mass of women, children and some men.
“Some of the intruders jumping on the raised altar platform, began
picking off the latter with revolver shots, but as this process seemed
too tedious, they bethought themselves of a more expeditious method
employed against those who had hidden in the wells. Having collected
a quantity of bedding and the church matting, they poured some thirty
cans of kerosene upon it and then set fire to the whole. The gallery
beams and wooden frame work soon caught fire, whereupon, blocking
up the staircases leading to the gallery with similar inflammable
material, they left the mass of struggling human beings to become the
prey of the flames.
“During several hours the sickening odor of roasting flesh prevailed
in the town; and even to-day, two months and a half after the
massacre, the smell of charred remains in the church is unbearable.
“At 3.30 P.M. at the Moslem afternoon prayer, the trumpet again
sounded, and the mob drew off from the Armenian quarter. Shortly
afterward the Mufte and other notables, preceded by music, among which
were brass military instruments, went round the quarter announcing
that the massacre was at an end, and that there would be no more
killing of Christians.
“No distinction was made between Gregorians, Protestants, and Roman
Catholics, whose churches, also, were rifled. The thoroughness with
which some of the work was done may be understood from the fact
that one hundred twenty-six Armenian families have been absolutely
wiped out, not even a woman or a baby remains. ... After very close
and minute inquiry, I believe that close on eight thousand Armenians
perished in the two days’ massacre, between 2500 and 3000 of whom were
killed or burned in the cathedral. I should not, however, be at all
surprised if nine thousand or ten thousand were subsequently found to
be nearer the mark.”[145]
Miss Corinna Shattuck, the noble American lady missionary, was alone
in the city of Urfa during the massacres. She was both lion-hearted
and tender-hearted. She wrote: “It was apparent that the utmost was
done (by the officials) to protect me, but how willingly I would have
died that thousands of parents might be spared to their children.”
It is stated that seventeen Armenian houses and two hundred forty
persons were saved from the massacre by her special efforts. “Pastor
Abouhaiydian with his six motherless children and many others had fled
to the house of an Armenian doctor. The Turks attacked the house and
killed forty-five men. The pastor plead for life for the sake of his
children, but when he refused to accept the Islam faith they shot him
through the heart. The eldest daughter, then in her 17th year, ran to
her father, who said to her, ‘Fear not, the Lord is with you. I have no
fear for I am going to my dear Saviour.’ The Turks took the children to
a mosque, but after three days they were recovered by Miss Shattuck
who kept them until claimed by friends.”[146]
The pastor of the Protestant Armenian church at Sivas, Garabed
Kuludjizn, was visiting some strangers in a khan; he was seized upon
and the demand made of him to deny Christ and accept the Mohammedan
faith. On his refusal, he was shot to death by Mohammed’s followers.
The massacre at Marash was--like the rest of massacres in other
places--carefully planned by the authorities and carried out with
utmost cruelty and barbarism. On the 26th of October about forty
Armenians were killed and some shops and houses were looted. But the
plans for the general massacre must not have been quite matured,
nevertheless, fifteen thousand Armenians, about one-third of the entire
population of the city, were completely terrorized. The Christians
fled and hid themselves in their houses for a while. On the 18th of
November, at 8 A.M., the fearful slaughter and plunder began. The near
neighbors of the missionaries fled into the missionaries’ houses for
safety, and about two hundred persons were saved. We reproduce the
following statements of our missionaries who witnessed the horrors:
“The massacre in the city was fearful beyond words to express. Three
Christian quarters, covering a large area, were burned. Two Gregorian
Armenian Churches were burned and in one of them the women and
children, who had sought refuge there, perished in the flames. The
Second and Third Evangelical Churches were looted and the inside of
the building was cut to pieces. The venerable pastor of the native
church connected with the Church of England, after suffering tortures,
was killed. The two head teachers of the American Academy, one of
whom was also acting pastor of the First Evangelical Church, were
killed, and one of them was flayed alive and then cut to pieces. In
all some 1000 Armenians, to whom generally the alternative of Islam or
death was given, were most cruelly slain. Children were disemboweled,
and the dissevered heads of men and women were kicked about by the
soldiers as balls or were carried on pikes through the streets.
And this dire work of murdering, robbing and burning was done, not
by Kurds, but by the _regular soldiers of the Ottoman Government_,
assisted by the Moslem population of the city, and here, as in so many
other places, the Armenians were utterly passive victims, without arms
or possible means of self-defense. So far as is known, not a Turk was
hurt in all the eight hours’ carnage....
“Such is the preparation which his majesty is making, preliminary to
the fulfillment of his promise to Lord Salisbury on his honor(?) to
carry out the scheme of reform. Such is the state into which England
(all unwittingly), by her initiative in elaborating and insisting on
reforms, has plunged the Armenians. _Is it to her honor that she now
leaves them to be murdered, robbed, burned and martyred?_”
England’s enemies--the enemies she had made in almost a hundred
years of defending the barbarous Turk, and her jealous neighbors
who were already her enemies--were secretly and openly encouraging
the beast in human form to humiliate England through him, and also
by befriending him, they were paving the way for their colonial and
commercial ambitions. Thus the Armenians were abandoned to their fate.
The following statement was made, it may be an attempt of England to
throw off her responsibility: “In February, 1896, the cabinet of Lord
Salisbury, the minister who had concluded the Convention (both of
Cyprus and of Berlin in 1878), confessed that as the Turks had refused
to carry out reforms promised in that instrument, it was impossible for
England, notwithstanding the possession of Cyprus, to occupy Armenia
and prevent the massacres which had happened there, and that it had
become practically impossible for her any longer to give either moral
or material support to the Turkish power.”[147]
England’s confession of her inability--rather her
unwillingness--encouraged the great assassin, the sultan, to do still
more of his bloody work. The following statement is given by Dr.
Lepsius: “The massacres of Van, Niksar, and Eghin in June of 1896,
although in their course, 20,000 Armenians were slaughtered, have,
in spite of the details given in the _Frankfort Journal_, made not
the slightest impression on the continental press. For the culture of
Central Europe, such events lie too far away in the depths of Turkish
territory.”
There is one more incident which belongs to this chapter. It is the
massacre at Constantinople. The simple narrative of this horrible
crime against humanity in general, and the Armenians in particular, is
another indictment not only against the sultan, but also against the
European Powers.
On good authority we are informed, that the Turkish government knew
beforehand that certain revolutionary Armenians from Russia would make
an attack on the Ottoman Bank, and had taken the necessary measures,
not to prevent the revolutionary action, but to organize, owing to this
welcome opportunity, a universal massacre of the peaceful Armenians of
Constantinople.
“About noon (on the 26th of August, 1896) a band of Armenians,
most of them from Russia, entered the Ottoman Bank, with arms and
dynamite, took the employees prisoners and barricaded themselves
in the building, with threat that, unless the ambassadors secure a
pledge from the sultan of certain reforms, they would blow up the bank
with dynamite. To finish with this part of the story, soldiers soon
surrounded the bank, and negotiations began with the captors which in
the evening resulted in their being permitted to leave the bank, go on
board the yacht of the chief manager and leave the country unmolested.
“Who originated this plot I do not know, but it is certain that the
Turkish government knew all about it, many days before, even to the
exact time when the bank was to be entered, and the minister of police
had made elaborate arrangements, _not to arrest these men or prevent
the attack on the bank, but to facilitate it and make it the occasion
of a massacre of the Armenian population of the city_. This was to be
the crown of all the massacres of the year, one worthy of the capital
and the seat of the sultan, a final defiance to the Christian world.
Not many minutes after the attack on the bank, the band of Turks, who
had been organized by the minister of police in Stamboul and Galata,
commenced the work of killing every Armenian they could find. They
were protected by large bodies of troops, who in some cases took part
in the slaughter. Through Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, and
Thursday night the massacre went on unchecked. An open telegram was
sent by the ambassadors to the sultan Thursday night, which perhaps
influenced him to give orders to stop the massacre, and not many were
murdered on Friday. I do not care to enter at all into the horrible
details of this massacre of some _ten thousand_ Armenians.
“The massacre of the Armenians came to an end on Friday, ... but
the persecution of them which went on for months was worse than the
massacre. The business was destroyed, they plundered and blackmailed
without mercy, they were hunted like wild beasts, they were
imprisoned, tortured, killed, deported, fled the country, until the
Armenian population of the city was reduced by some _seventy-five
thousands_, mostly men, including those massacred.... The poverty and
distress of those left alive in Constantinople was often heartrending,
and many women and children died of slow starvation.
“Sir Michael Herbert, the British _charge d’affaires_, and some of
the ambassadors did what they could to stop the massacre of the
Armenians, ... but the ‘concert of Europe’ did nothing. It accepted
the situation. The Emperor of Germany went farther. He sent a special
embassy to present to the sultan a portrait of his family as a token
of his esteem.”[148]
We would have thought it would have been better to give Sultan Hamid
enough time to wash his hands of the blood of the Armenians before
giving him the portrait of the imperial family. But the King of Prussia
thought that Abdul Hamid needed a friend then more than any other time,
and the world also may know that Emperor William II of Germany was
the friend of the great assassin. We wonder whether congeniality is a
condition of friendship among rulers as it is among individuals.
In his Guildhall speech, November 9, 1896, Lord Salisbury was heard
again. He declared that England would adhere to the European concert,
yet the veto of any one power, meant that the concert could not act,
he also admitted that to act separately from the concert would bring
about a war; England was not prepared for this, because her strength
consisted in her navy, and no fleet in the world could “get over the
mountains of Taurus to protect the Armenians.” Thus the European Powers
agreed to disagree to force the sultan to be truthful and fulfill his
promises of reform, or even to stop his cruel work of extermination of
a nation. The result of this disagreement to coerce the sultan to act
humanely, and the Powers hiding themselves behind the European concert,
was to leave Abdul Hamid to do as he pleased. And he pleased thus: From
Constantinople to Van, from the shores of the Black Sea to the shores
of the Mediterranean, “with inexpressible cruelty 150,000 men, women,
and children were killed, burned or buried alive, and yet Europe seemed
powerless.”[149] Why was (or seemed) Europe powerless? Because the veto
of any one power meant that the _Concert_ could not act. What power or
powers did the vetoing? We have no desire to incriminate any power,
for all are guilty. But the evidence, judging by the events past and
present, strongly points to the power which has been in desperate love
with the modern Jezebel, the only Mohammedan power, for a political
wedlock. This political matrimony has been consummated in the autumn of
1914. But let us look back to the time of the courtship.
In 1888 German financiers secured concession from the sultan for a
railroad in Asia Minor. And German colonists and expansionists “dreamed
of linking the Baltic Sea with the Persian gulf and carrying the
Teutonic empire across Asia.” Since then “the government had sedulously
cultivated its influence over Turkey.” And shortly after the massacre
of ten thousand Armenians in Constantinople, the kaiser, by a special
embassy presented to the sultan the Imperial Family Portrait as a
“token of esteem.”