I
ARMENIA AS A WAR ISSUE--GREATEST SUFFERER FROM TURKO-PRUSSIAN
"FRIGHTFULNESS"--EFFECT ON AMERICAN OPINION
The first official advance for peace made by Germany and her Allies,
although couched in defiant and menacing terms, was nevertheless an
unmistakable signal of distress, and has brought the world within
measurable distance of that just and durable peace which the Allies have
set out to achieve. The prospect of approaching peace has set on foot a
general reiteration of the issues at stake, and consideration of the
terms and problems of peace. Public attention in this country will
naturally be occupied, in the first place, with the momentous issues and
interests of the United Kingdom, the British Empire and her Allies
raised by the war and to be settled and secured by the impending peace.
It will therefore, I hope, not be considered amiss or premature for a
member of one of those small and oppressed peoples engulfed in the
vortex of the war who look to Great Britain and her Allies for
deliverance, reparation and the security of their future liberty, to put
before the British public his views, as well as facts and arguments that
may be of some service in enabling it to form a just estimate of the
claims and merits of one of the smaller problems which run the risk of
not receiving a full hearing at the Peace Conference, in the presence of
a multitude of larger and more important questions.
The item in the Allied peace terms stated in their reply to President
Wilson's note, "the setting free of the populations subject to the
bloody tyranny of the Turks," is the bearer to Armenians of a message of
comfort and hope. It heralds the dawn of a new day that will mark the
end of the long and hideous nightmare of Turkish tyranny.
If President Wilson, the American people, or other neutrals were in
search of evidence that would prove to them conclusively which of the
two groups of belligerents is sincere in its professions of regard for
"the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states"; if Belgium
had not been violated and ravaged; if the _Lusitania_ and so many
hospital ships, liners and merchantmen had not been sunk without any
care as to the fate of the wounded, the children and women, the
non-combatant men and crews; if Zeppelins had not spread death and
destruction among women and children in their homes in the night; if all
these and so many other outrages had not been committed, and there had
been, in the whole course of the war, no other act of the Quadruple
Alliance in any degree contrary to the laws and usages of civilized
warfare and dictates of humanity, the single word ARMENIA would provide
that proof--a crushing, monumental proof--as to who is and who is not
sincere in the professions of regard for right, justice and humanity.
The spirit of desolated Armenia stands at the head of the phantom
spirits of outraged humanity, which must rise and shatter to atoms
every mask of benevolence, righteousness and injured innocence that the
protagonists of "frightfulness" may assume for the deception of their
own peoples and neutrals.
But in the United States at least there is no need for any fresh proof
or explanation of the issue at this stage, and the martyrdom of Armenia
has contributed largely to that state of American opinion. I have little
doubt that President Wilson's Peace Note and speech to the Senate are
the first steps towards America casting her whole weight into the scale,
aiming at the realization of a just and lasting peace.
The intense interest evinced by the people and Government of the United
States in the fate of Armenia and the Armenians is abundantly shown not
only by the generous gifts of money for the relief of the survivors and
the noble personal services by devoted missionaries and relief agents,
some of whom lost their lives in their work of mercy; but also by
diplomatic action on behalf of the Armenians in Constantinople (where
Mr. Morgenthau, to his great honour, struggled valiantly to stay the
hand of the ruthless oppressor), and by the prominence given to any and
every scrap of news concerning the holocaust in Armenia. It is no
exaggeration to say that, military operations apart, no incident of the
war, not excepting the violation and martyrdom of Belgium, has been
given more space and prominence in the American Press than anything
connected with the martyrdom of Armenia and Syria and the relief of the
refugees and exiles.
In his reply to the Armenian deputation who on December 14, 1916,
presented to him an illuminated parchment from the Catholicos expressing
His Holiness's gratitude and thanks to the American nation, President
Wilson said, _inter alia_--
"We have tried to do what was possible to save your people from the
ravages of war. My great regret is, that we have been able to
accomplish so little. There have been many suffering peoples as the
result of that terrible struggle, and _the lot of none has touched
the American heart more than the suffering of the Armenians_."[2]
Nothing in the war has brought home to the people of the United States
the moral issues of the war more strongly and vividly than the
unprecedented barbarities committed by the Turks in their diabolical
attempt to wipe out the Armenian race. No event of the war has been more
damaging to the Central Powers in the eyes of the United States. Here
they have seen the ruthless spirit of the twin enemies of humanity and
liberty--the Turkish _yatagan_ supported by the Prussian jack-boot--in
its hideous nakedness, at work in the depths of Asia, unrestrained and
unperceived, as they thought, by the light of civilization.
This gospel of the jack-boot and the _yatagan_ will be best illustrated
by putting side by side two quotations, one from the _Tanine_, the
official organ of the Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople,
and the other from a statement made by Count Reventlow in October 1915.
The _Tanine_ "invited the Government to exterminate or forcibly convert
to Islam all Armenian women in Turkey as the only means of saving the
Ottoman Empire."[3] Count Reventlow, the high priest of the gospel of
Brute Force and Militarism, writing in the _Tageszeitung_ in defence and
approval of Turkey's appalling crime, said that it was the Ottoman
Government's obvious right and duty to take the strongest repressive
measures against "the bloodthirsty Armenians"--the measures advocated by
the _Tanine_, which were carried out by Count Reventlow's worthy allies
on the Bosphorus with a completeness and ferocity that must have greatly
pleased him.
The German Government and German apologists have made a great parade of
the use of Indian and African troops in Europe by the Allies. By all
reports, these troops have fought as clean a fight as any troops in the
war. I think that in the judgment of future historians no incident of
this war, whose history is so heavily shadowed on one side with
outrages and violations of the laws of civilized warfare, will meet with
so strong a condemnation as Germany's alliance with the Young Turks, the
declaration of a "holy war" at her behest, and its dire consequences for
the already sorely tried Christian subjects of the Turks. (It should be
remembered that Germany and Austria are signatories to the Treaty of
Berlin, Art. 61 of which was to have brought about "the improvements and
reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the
Armenians," and to have "guaranteed their security against the Kurds and
Circassians." This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.) She could
have foreseen these consequences; and if she did not foresee them, she
could have stopped them when they made themselves apparent. Turkey's
entry into the war placed her Christian subjects in a position of great
peril, as it has been her custom to wreak upon them her vengeance for
defeats; while a state of war freed her from the moral restraint of
Europe. It was hoped that German and Austrian influence would check
this tendency. How cruelly events have shattered that hope! They have
proved that it was too much to expect humanity and the ordinary feelings
of chivalry and compassion for the honour and suffering of women and
children from the State policies of these great Christian Governments
and the majority of their agents in Turkey. I do not believe that this
ungodly and inhuman policy has received general approbation either in
Germany or Austria-Hungary. This is evident from the quotations from
German missionary journals in the Blue-book on the "Treatment of
Armenians in the Ottoman Empire."[4] It is also proved by the protests
addressed to the Imperial Chancellor by several Catholic and Protestant
organizations.