THE BLUE-BOOK--THE EPIC OF ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM, THE REVELATION OF
HER SPIRIT AND CHARACTER--"TRUTH" ON THE ARMENIANS: A DIGRESSION
To realize, even approximately, the unimaginable barbarities that have
been committed by the Turks during the Great Armenian Tragedy of 1915,
it is necessary to read the Blue-book itself. But the Blue-book is a
bulky volume, and the average man or woman has so many calls on his or
her attention in these stirring and momentous times, that I fear it will
not be read as widely as it deserves to be read in the interests of
humanity, Christianity, and civilization. I have, therefore, thought it
desirable to quote a number of extracts which will give the reader some
idea of the nature and magnitude of the horrors chronicled in that
fearful epic of a nation's martyrdom, in the hope that they may thereby
reach a wider circle of the public.
Apart from giving the reader a general idea of the atrocities
themselves, I have selected and grouped the extracts with the object of
calling attention to the incidental or subsidiary morals and lessons
they convey, which have received little or no notice in the Press
reviews. The Blue-book reveals the spirit, the character and the ideals
which lay hidden under the unattractive outside appearance of the
Armenians, upon which has been based their mostly superficial judgment
of them by European travellers. Often under the influence of a sense of
indebtedness for an escort of Zaptiehs "graciously placed at their
disposal by a kindly vali" (in whose harem were probably languishing a
dozen or more enslaved women), they have seldom paused to understand the
tragedy of the dour, subdued, anxious mien of the Armenian peasant seen
trudging wearily along in the highways and byways of Asia Minor. They
little realized that the Armenian lived under the strain of constant
terrorism; that he never knew when the honour of his wife or sister
might be violently assaulted; when he might be stabbed in the back; when
his cattle might be driven away or his crops burned or stolen. He was
afraid even of a too attractive personal appearance, lest he should
excite the cupidity and jealousy of his Turkish neighbour. If he fell
upon his persecutor and slew him in defence of the honour of his
womenfolk, it meant the wiping out not only of his family but of his
whole village. His own government was his deadly enemy, bent upon his
destruction. This has been the tragedy of the Armenian's life for
generations. It has been little known in the West because Armenia is a
long way off, and few European travellers have stopped to look below the
surface. He has lived with the _yatagan_ hanging over his head, like the
sword of Damocles, from birth to death. Virile, industrious, patient,
long-suffering, but never despondent, he has clung to his faith, his
soil, his ancient culture, his nationality and ideals of civilization
with a tenacity that centuries of "bloody tyranny" have tended only to
steel more and more. That he has succeeded in preserving the ideals
which have cost his nation such heartbreaking sacrifices is abundantly
proved by the Blue-book. Here is one evidence: "Mr. Yarrow, seeing all
this, said, 'I am amazed at the self-control of the Armenians, for
though the Turks did not spare a single wounded Armenian, the Armenians
are helping us to save the Turks'" (p. 70).
But of all the tales of calm, dignified heroism in face of death
recorded in the Blue-book, W. Effendi's letter (p. 133, and 504 of the
Blue-book) written on the eve of his, his young wife's and infant
child's deportation to what he knew to be certain death, will ever stand
out as an impressive example of the noblest heroism, the highest
conception of the teaching of Christ and a complete triumph of the
spirit, unsurpassed in the annals of Christian martyrdom. "May God
forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing," wrote
this true follower of Christ, while he was making ready for his and his
loved ones' journey to sorrow and death. It recalls the story of St.
Stephen's martyrdom. W. Effendi's letter and Nurse Cavell's immortal
words, "patriotism is not enough," strike me as the two most remarkable
utterances delivered spontaneously by heroic spirits in proof of the
bankruptcy of the "frightfulness" to which they were on the point of
falling victims.
There was a short notice in _Truth_ of January 31, 1917, in connection
with Armenia Day which contained the following remark: "Some people
despise these 'eleventh Allies' as a mercenary race, but others, like
Mr. Noel Buxton, depict them in a much more attractive light."
With the reader's indulgence I will digress for a moment to deal briefly
with this totally unjustified stigma cast wantonly upon the character of
a sorely tried nation.
In the unoffensive sense of the word the whole human family may be
called "mercenary." I have not met or heard of a race of men in any of
the explored parts of the earth, whatever their colour, creed, or degree
of civilization, who had any conscientious objection to the acquiring of
as much money as they could acquire by legitimate and honourable means.
I do not suppose _Truth_ itself is dispensing its very helpful "Rubber
tips" week by week solely for the good of humanity. But if it is
asserted that the Armenian race puts the love of gold before everything
else in life, such an assertion at this juncture is a particularly
ill-timed, offensive and unworthy aspersion. A mercenary race, forsooth!
If the Armenian race had valued gold above its loyalty to its faith and
nationality; if it had attached greater value to material prosperity
than to spiritual ideals and principles, it would have accepted Islam
centuries ago--Heaven knows the temptation was great--and won a
predominant position for itself in Asia Minor. It would be counted
to-day not by two or three, but by twenty or thirty millions. But under
the longest and bloodiest pressure endured by any people in history,
culminating almost in its extermination, it refused to sell its soul.
Thousands of Armenians could have saved their lives by feigning to
accept Islam, but, with few exceptions, they refused to commit even
that measure of spiritual dishonesty, which would perhaps not have been
considered unpardonable under the circumstances. There is scarcely any
instance of an Armenian woman trafficking her honour for money; which
is, perhaps, the most eloquent refutation of the calumny.
What good object has _Truth_ served by giving currency in its columns to
this libel against an oppressed people, almost wiped out because of its
Christian faith and its sympathy for and support of the Allied cause?
Even if there were the remotest justification for it one would have
thought that _Truth_ would have shrunk, at this dark and bitter hour,
from adding insult to the agony of a people plunged into sorrow and
mourning for the loss of half its number. But the assertion that the
Armenians are a mercenary race is not true. It is part of the propaganda
carried on by a very few people who are either blinded by unreasoning
prejudice, or have some special purpose to serve, or believe that they
are discharging some kind of duty by whitewashing the Turk and
blackening the Armenian. I believe that these admirers of the votaries
of "bloody tyranny" on the Bosphorus are very few indeed in this
country. Whoever they are and whatever their motives, conscious of my
obligations to the generous hospitality of this country--for which I
cannot be too grateful--but taking my stand on the broader ground of
Humanity, I wish to say to them, "Though you are in Great Britain, you
are not of it; though this great, humane and Christian country may be
your physical home by accident of birth, you will find your congenial
'spiritual home' in the offices of Count Reventlow and the _Tanine_.
Charity, after all, is a matter between a man and his conscience and his
God. If you cannot give your money to a starving woman or child without
massacring them morally, while the Turk is taking their life, pray spare
your money and let the Armenian die; it will please the Turk and his
allies. Perhaps it would be more in harmony with your sentiments and
political faith to lend your money to your friend the Turk. When the war
is over he may need a fresh supply of arms, for even the tender limbs of
the countless women and children on whom he has practised his
'chivalry' may well have blunted and worn his old stock."
There are mercenary Armenian individuals as there are mercenary persons
in every nation. It may be that, debarred from government posts except
when he was indispensable, the town Armenian in Turkey, like the Greek
and Syrian, has been compelled to direct his energies into commercial
channels in a larger proportion than free and independent nations.
Naturally, also, through generations of ruthless persecution, the
Armenian nation has thrown up a flotsam and jetsam of indigents
wandering far and wide in search of security and the means of earning a
living. But to brand the whole Armenian race as "mercenary" is
malevolent nonsense, or credulity due to a total ignorance of the facts.
Seventy or eighty per cent. of the Armenians in Turkish as well as
Russian Armenia are peasants, farmers and artisans. That is
approximately true also of the Persian Armenians. Even in the United
States the majority of the immigrants have taken to fruit-growing in
California. Armenians who have the means to give their sons a good
education almost invariably make them follow a profession in preference
to commerce, as witness the number of Armenian university professors,
doctors, lawyers and some artists and painters of considerable merit in
the United States.[21] Probably no people have made the sacrifices made
by Armenians, in proportion to their means, for the relief of distress
during the war. There have been a few exceptions among the very rich
whose moral sense has been blunted by luxury and self-indulgence. They
can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They belong to that class of
cosmopolitan financiers and traders who are no more thrilled by the
music of their country's or any country's name; who are unmoved by the
cry of starving women and children of their own or any race; whose home
is the world and whose god is gold; who are no more the masters but the
slaves of money. But this, again, is not peculiar to Armenians; very far
from it. It is a fraternity that embraces members of every, or almost
every, race; and Armenians are barely represented upon it. It is
palpably misleading as it is inaccurate to assert that these represent
the Armenian nation. In fact, as far as my knowledge goes, the masses of
the Armenian people are ashamed of them, because their worship of gold
and vanity are alien to the national spirit, and bring discredit upon
the nation. For generations Armenian educational and religious
institutions have been maintained by voluntary grants; and I do not know
that any European citizen bears a heavier burden for the needs of his
nation than does the individual Armenian.
It must not be supposed from what I have said that all, or the majority,
of rich Armenians have been deaf or indifferent to their country's need.
That would be a mistake and an injustice. On the whole their response to
the call of their afflicted country has been satisfactory, considering
that they had obligations to the belligerent countries to which they
owed allegiance. I know of one contribution of £30,000,[22] while ten
Moscow merchants raised a million roubles between them for their
nation's needs. A prominent Armenian physician has relinquished a large
and remunerative practice at Petrograd to superintend personally the
administration of an orphanage at Erzerum, which he has opened on his
own private account. The Catholicos's palace at Etchmiadzin was
converted into a hospital for refugees in the early months of 1915.
Almost every Armenian peasant family in the Caucasus have housed and
cared for one or more refugees in their humble cottages ever since the
influx of their distressed kinsmen from the other side of the frontier
in the spring and summer of 1915. I have not marshalled these facts in a
spirit of flaunting the virtues of my race--we certainly hold no
monopoly of all the virtues, or indeed of all the vices, to which human
nature is heir--but I know of no better way to disprove the baseless
aspersions assiduously disseminated by some interested people for
purposes of pro-Turkish propaganda and accepted by the credulous as
true.
Lord Bryce has known the Armenian people longer and more intimately than
any eminent European statesman, historian and diplomatist has ever done
before, and his dictum will no doubt be generally accepted as that of a
great and final authority. I therefore make no apology for quoting his
lordship's most recent utterance on the subject reported in the _Journal
of the Royal Society of Arts_, February 2, 1917--
"Having known a very large number of Armenians, he had been greatly
struck, not only with their high level of intelligence and
industry, but also by their intense patriotism. He did not know of
any people who had shown greater constancy, patience and patriotism
under difficulties and sufferings than the Armenians. He personally
had always found them perfectly loyal. He had frequently had
occasion to give them confidential advice and to trust them with
secrets, and never on any occasion had he found that confidence
misplaced.... As a proof of their loyalty and devotion to their
country he might mention that the Armenians living in America had
contributed sums enormous in proportion to their number and
resources, for they were nearly all persons of small means, for the
relief of the refugees who had been driven out by the Turkish
massacres. No people during the war had done more in proportion to
their capacities than the Armenians had done for the relief of
their suffering fellow-countrymen. A large number of them were also
fighting as volunteers in the armies of France, where they had
displayed the utmost courage and valour in the combats before
Verdun."
To return to the extracts from the Blue-book. Group "A" affords a
melancholy abundance of indisputable evidence that it was not Kurds and
brigands alone who did Satan's work in Armenia, but that the chief
culprits were Turkish officials, high and low, officers, soldiers,
gendarmes and rabble; even a member of parliament took a turn! They not
only played the principal part in the vast and revolting carnival of
blood, lust and savagery, but they took a delight and pride in the part
they played, and laughed at the sufferings and tortures of their
victims.[23]
Group "B" bears evidence of a heroism and fidelity in torture and death,
to faith, honour and the ideal of nationality, unsurpassed in the
history of mankind, which must redound to the eternal glory of
Christianity and to the honour of the Armenian name. I respectfully
suggest for consideration by the Heads of the Christian Churches that a
day should be fixed to commemorate annually the martyrdom of this vast
number of Armenian Christians.
Group "C" contains proofs of the conduct of insurgent Armenians in the
unequal struggles for self-defence, and it should be remembered that
these are but a few instances, mainly of what was seen or heard of by
foreigners. The ruined towns and villages, the silent fields and
highways of this land of blood and tears, what secrets of desperate
heroism in defence of wife and child, mother and sister, these guard
will probably never be known. Group "C" also contains evidence of the
fact that the Turks had to employ considerable bodies of troops to
overcome the desperate resistance of Armenians in many places, such as
Moush, Sassoon, Van, etc. A third feature in this group is, that the
Turks attributed their defeats in the Caucasus to the Armenians.[24]
Taken together, these extracts, and the Blue-book from which they are
taken, form a better mirror of the characteristics of the two races than
all that has been written on the subject for a century. They show the
radical dissimilarity of their natures, and the vast difference between
the respective stages of civilization in which the two races find
themselves.
Was it Buddha or Confucius who said that the principal difference
between man and the rest of the animal world is, that man possesses the
feeling of pity for the pain and suffering of his fellow-men or animals?
What would they think of this strange race of human beings who delight
in torture and murder, sparing neither sex nor age, nor even unborn
babes and their mothers; who inflict pain and jeer at their victims?
I remember reading in one of Mr. Lloyd George's speeches not long ago:
"It is not the trials one has to go through in life, but the way one
faces them that matters," or words to that effect. This is as true of
nations as it is of individuals. "In the reproof of chance lies the true
proof of men," and of nations. How has the Armenian nation conducted
itself in this great upheaval and borne the terrible ordeal revealed by
the Blue-book: an ordeal the horror and magnitude of which it is
absolutely beyond the power of the human mind to imagine? The Blue-book
itself furnishes the answer. From the first day of the war, Armenians in
all countries understood the nature of the issues involved. They had no
doubt on which side lay their sympathies, which were never influenced by
the varying fortunes of the war. They were exposed to grave risks and
paid a terrible price. Could there be a better proof of intellectual
rectitude and the sincerity of sentiment? This, I trust, will silence
for ever the dastardly reflections often cast upon the honesty of the
Armenian people. There are some dishonest Armenians as there are some
dishonest men in all nations. But, whether through prejudice, malice, or
ignorance of the facts, to brand as dishonest a whole people who have
been on the Cross for half a millennium for their religion and
patriotism, is unworthy of civilized and right-minded men.
There are two other important facts which the Blue-book establishes
beyond dispute. There was no revolt. Indeed, it would have been sheer
madness on the part of the Armenians to attempt a rising when their
able-bodied manhood was with the colours. The second fact the Blue-book
reveals is, that the Armenian party leaders did their utmost to dissuade
the Young Turks from joining the war. When the veil of war has lifted,
and Europe comes to know more of what took place behind the scenes in
Constantinople prior to Turkey's entry into the war, it will be seen how
near the personal influence and eloquence of the Armenian deputy Zohrab
came to turning the scale against the fateful and suicidal decision.
This brilliant young jurist, an intimate personal friend of Enver and
Talaat who sought his advice almost daily, was murdered by their orders
on the way to Diyarbekir. Armenians have been charged with a lack of
political aptitude as well as with treachery to the Ottoman Empire. I
would specially call the attention of those who hold these
views--Europeans, Moslems, and thinking Turks themselves--to the fact
that, at a time of crisis, it was the Armenians who saw clearly the path
of safety for the empire, and showed their loyalty to it, in spite of
all they had suffered in the past, by their councils of prudence to
which the Young Turks lent a deaf ear.
While on the subject of the Blue-book, I cannot refrain from saying
that I noted with profound regret the distinction that was evidently
made, in many cases, between Catholic and Protestant Armenians on the
one hand, and Gregorians on the other, in the efforts that were made to
save them from massacre or deportation. It is no secret that His
Holiness the Pope and President Wilson intervened through their
representatives in Constantinople, and possibly in Berlin and Vienna, to
stop the massacres. I record this fact with the deepest gratitude. Of
course no such distinction can possibly have been made by the Pope or
President Wilson, or their ambassadors; it was probably due to the
well-meant activities of subordinates or of local European or American
residents.
No doubt it was better to save Catholics and Protestants than none at
all, but the very idea of any distinction being thought of, under such
fateful circumstances, is obviously contrary to the spirit of
Christianity, and the passages referring to it make sad reading to a
Christian.