BLEEDING ARMENIA
Its History and Horrors
Under the Curse of Islam
BY
Rev. A. W. WILLIAMS, of Chicago
For twenty years a close student of Missionary work
in the East--Syria, Turkey and Persia
AND
Dr. M. S. GABRIEL
President of the Armenian Patriotic Alliance, New York
CONTAINING ALSO THE VIEWS OF
HON. WM. E. GLADSTONE
ON THE TURKISH ATROCITIES
THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY
ON ENGLAND'S ATTITUDE
AND
EDWARD A. FREEMAN, the Historian
ON THE EASTERN QUESTION
Fully and Appropriately Illustrated.
PUBLISHERS' UNION
1896
Copyright 1896
BY
A. W. Williams
PREFACE.
In offering to the public this volume on Bleeding Armenia under the
Curse of Islam the writer does not seek to harrow the feelings of
sensitive readers by the recital of blood-curdling outrages, tortures,
murders, and butcherings; neither does he aim to discuss at any length
the involved problems of the Eastern Question, but he does definitely
seek to awaken interest in the history and fate of what may truly be
called the Martyr Nation of the World.
It is not the isolated fact that Armenia is now undergoing a most
terrible persecution, that fifty thousand or sixty thousand helpless
men, women and children have already suffered death in every form
which the most depraved nature, the most cruel instincts, the most
bitter and fanatical hatred could devise, that so deeply arouses us;
but the fact that for more than a thousand years this has been the
bitter and bloody story of her wrongs--this is what staggers us.
That the reader may have some clearer conceptions of the present
terrible situation in Armenia and of the causes which make her general
condition one most deplorable to contemplate, its early history,
civilization and conversion to Christianity is briefly sketched, and
attention is called to the fact that its very geographical position
has for many centuries made it the highway for the contending armies
of the East and West.
Armenia has been the battle ground where diverse systems of religion
and civilization have fought for supremacy. Its fate has always been
to suffer, whichever power was for the time victorious. It has been
sometimes ground to powder between the upper and nether millstone.
The rise of that alien system of religion which is the most bitter
and relentless persecutor of the Christian faith the world has
ever seen is accurately sketched, and careful attention given to it
because Christian people believe it to be true that the cause of the
fiercest and most vindictive hatred of the Turk to Greek, Bulgarian
or Armenian is primarily his loyalty to Mohammed and his hatred of
Jesus as the Christ.
It were not in the heart of humanity to kindle the passions into a
flame so fierce as to consume every element of mercy and compassion,
unless these were set on fire by fiendish fanaticism or religious
bigotry.
In this light these persecutions are but the irregular outbreak of
that spirit of opposition which will never cease so long as Islam
has power to draw the sword. From the hour that the Ottoman Turk was
securely seated on that eastern throne of the Cæsars, there never
has been peace, and there never can be while he holds the keys to
the gateway of nations.
Without laborious disquisition, with only a sincere desire to let
history tell its own story, some phases of the struggle for place,
preëminence and power between England and Russia, which form the
heart of the Eastern Question are also presented.
No one can be in the slightest doubt as to which side of the
Turkish-Armenian question the policy of England leans. There is no
question as to the fact that England has been the firmest friend to
Turkey for more than sixty years, and that the more she has feared
the growing power of Russia the more resolutely she has stood by
the Porte in spite of the atrocities which have marked the frequent
persecutions of the Christian races under the sway of Islam.
Her purely selfish and commercial "interests" have caused the English
government to be deaf to the cry of the decimated Bulgarians, and
of Armenians to-day. The part that England played in elaborating the
great treaties of Paris and of Berlin which controlled the issues of
the Crimean and the Russo-Turkish wars stamps the character of her
interests in the affairs of Turkey.
There is thus furnished in this historical data a broad ground on
which public opinion in this country may call upon Great Britain in
this hour of remorseless cruelty that she shall fulfil the treaty
obligations which she most solemnly and publicly accepted and assumed
and demand of the Porte at the mouth of shotted guns if need be, that
the rights of Christian Armenians shall be defended and maintained
by the whole power of the Turkish Empire.
The situation in Armenia is given with considerable fulness, though
volumes could not contain a complete account of the sufferings that
this long-doomed race has endured under the Curse of Islam.
The position that our government should occupy is that of high moral
equity, the insistence upon the preservation of common rights of
humanity irrespective of race or creed.
The immediate duty lying at our doors is to assist in relieving
the distress even unto starvation, which hundreds of thousands of
Armenians are now enduring. Many will perish before aid can reach
them. What is to be done must be done quickly.
This book while making little pretension to literary polish is the
result of wide historical research and has been carefully written and
edited, and is now cast upon the great tide of public opinion with the
hope that it may stimulate permanent interest in the great problems
which are at issue in the conflict between Christianity and Islam--that
it may reach and move the springs of deepest sympathy for suffering
Armenians; that it may rouse a more vigorous moral indignation against
such crime and cruelty, and thereby assist in creating such a just
and righteous public sentiment that our government may take such a
stand as shall tell speedily for the bettering of the conditions of
human existence in far off Armenia.
Thus confiding in the kindly consideration of a generous public, I
send forth this book on the mission to which it is hereby dedicated,
viz:--to plead the cause of Bleeding Armenia which is being done to
death under the Curse of Islam.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY OF ARMENIA.
A Martyr Nation--Need of a Voice--Historical Annals at
Nineveh--Abgar's Letter to Jesus of Nazareth--Acceptance
of Christianity--Council of Nice--Persian Conquests--Bible
Translated--Great Persecutions--Dying for the Faith--Magi
Driven Out--Saracens in Armenia--Fearful Tortures--Burned
Alive--Bogha the Tyrant--Sultan of Turkey--Islam or Death
--Yussuf the Persian--Great Horrors Repeated--Starvation
--Peace Returns 21
CHAPTER II.
THE RISE OF ISLAM.
Arabia--Mecca--Idolatry--Mohammed's Birth--Carlyle on Islamism
--The Hegira--Battle of Beder--Mecca Captured--Death of Mohammed
--Golden Era of the Saracens--Khaled at Damascus--City Captured--
Jerusalem Besieged--Capitulates--Persia Conquered--Egypt Won
in a Day--Constantinople Besieged 44
CHAPTER III.
THE STORY OF THE FIRST CRUSADE.
Origin--Jerusalem Captured by the Turks--Peter the Hermit--
Pope Urban--Crusade of the Mob--Walter the Penniless--Battle
of Nicomedia--300,000 Perished in all--Crusade of the Kings
and Nobles--Godfrey of Bouillon--Europe Moves Westward--
Antioch--Jerusalem Captured July 14th, 1099--Godfrey
Elected King 72
CHAPTER IV.
THE GREAT TARTAR INVASIONS.
The Turcomans--Seljuks--Persia Conquered--Armenia Wasted--
140,000 Slain--Ani with 1,001 Churches Falls--Awful Slaughter
--Asia Minor Ravaged--Emperor of Constantinople Defeated--
Damascus Falls--Saladin--Jerusalem Capitulates--Silence on
the Coast--Jenghiz Khan--Armenia in Great Distress--Turks in
Europe--Tamerlane--Armenia again in Torture--Pyramids of
Human Skulls--Death of Tamerlane 104
CHAPTER V.
THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Ottoman Empire Rising--Danger to Europe--Mohammed II. the
Conqueror--Fortress Built at Gallipoli--Emperor Alarmed--
Europe Indifferent--First Great Siege with Artillery--Seven
Weeks Bombardment--Final Assault--50,000 Ottomans Fall--Charge
of the Janissaries--Constantine Died at His Post--Church of
St. Sophia is turned into a Mosque--Islam sits on the Throne
of Christianity 135
CHAPTER VI.
THE BULGARIAN MASSACRE.
Four Centuries of Misrule--Chios, 40,000 Slain--Christians
in Turkey Persecuted--Russia Demands their Protection--France
and England against Russia--Czar's Army Crosses into
Moldavia--Sultan Declares War--Siege of Sebastopol--Treaty of
Paris 1856--Turkish Loans--Revolt in Servia--Andrassy Note--
Reforms Promised--Bulgarian Massacres--England Horror Struck--
Gladstone on the Massacres--15,000 Butchered--Russia Arms for
the Deliverance of the Christians 159
CHAPTER VII.
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.
War Declared--Crossing the Danube--Siege of Plevna--
Skobeleff's Gallant Charge--Third Siege--Plevna Reduced and
Surrenders--Alexander at the Danube--Shipka Pass--The Valley
of Roses--Turkey Conquered--Adrianople--San Stefano--Berlin
Treaty--Russia Robbed of her Victories 185
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SULTAN ABDUL HAMID.
Questions of Policy--Palace Rule--Alarm of the Porte--Shrewd
Diplomacy--Playing off the Powers--Balance of Power--Reforms
Promised--Never Fulfilled 213
CHAPTER IX.
PROGRESS AND POWER OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
The First Chapter in Turkish Missions--Have Missions been a
Failure--Modern Triumphs of the Gospel 250
CHAPTER X.
THE KURDS AND ARMENIANS.
Territory--Origin--Occupation--Character--Agriculture--Robbers
--Cruelty of Warfare--Language--Homes--Women--Ruined Castles--
Churches 277
CHAPTER XI.
THE REIGN OF TERROR--SASSOUN 303
CHAPTER XII.
THE REIGN OF TERROR--TREBIZOND AND ERZEROUM 341
CHAPTER XIII.
THE REIGN OF TERROR--VAN AND MOUSH 360
CHAPTER XIV.
THE REIGN OF TERROR--HARPOOT AND ZEITOUN 383
CHAPTER XV.
RELIEF WORK IN ARMENIA.
Mission Stations--The Christian Herald--Red Cross Society--
Miss Clara Barton 400
CHAPTER XVI.
THE CURSE OF ISLAM.
Despotic in Government--Intolerant in Religion--Evils
of Polygamy--Degradation of Women--Ignorance--Cruelty of
Officials--Extortion--Universal Distress--No Advance Possible
--The Turk never Improves--Islam--Worse and Worse--Its Rule is
against Humanity 423
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GREATEST CRIME OF THE CENTURY.
England's Inactivity--Her Solemn Obligation--Treaty of San
Stefano--Berlin--Convention with Turkey--Cyprus--Occupation
of Egypt--Position of the English Government--Difficulties
in the Way--But the Suffering Awful--Freeman--Gladstone 433
CHAPTER XVIII.
AMERICA'S DUTY AND PRIVILEGE.
Possible Solution--Universal Arbitration--Constantinople a
Free City--Europe Free--Armenia's Sorrows Healed--The Dawning
of the Twentieth Century 470
APPENDIX.
DESCRIPTION OF ILLUSTRATIONS 495
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
Massacre of Armenians by Police, Softas and Kurds Frontispiece.
Great and Little Ararat from the Northeast 19
Armenian Types and Costumes 38
Monastic Rock Chambers at Gueremeh 55
The Sultan Abdul Hamid in the Park of the Yildiz Palace 74
Types of Softas 91
"The Turks are upon us," A Panic in Stamboul 110
The New Grand Vizier on His Way to the Sublime Porte 127
Explaining the Inflammatory Placards 146
Taking Armenian Prisoners to the Grand Zaptie Prison 163
British Cabinet Debating the Armenian Question 182
The British Mediterranean Fleet 199
Types and Costumes.--Kurdish Gentlemen 218
A Common Scene in the Streets of Erzeroum 235
Armenian Peasant Women Weaving Turkish Carpets 254
Armenian Peasants Fleeing to Russia 271
Armenian Women, Province of Van 290
Armenian Mountaineer of Shadokh 307
Grand Mosque and Interior of Urfah 324
Passage Boat on the Arras 343
Arresting the Murderers of Armenians 362
Sketches of Armenia and Kurdestan 379
Refugees and Policemen at an Armenian Church 398
A Prayer for Revenge 415
Massacre of Armenians at Erzeroum 422
Burying the Bodies After the Massacre at Erzeroum 431
A Grim Corner of the Cemetery, Erzeroum 438
The Prison at Erzeroum 444
Trebizond 453
Principal Street and Bazaars of Erzeroum 459
Town and Citadel of Van 466
Armenian Refugees at the Labor Bureau at Van 475
MAPS.
Map of Turkey in Asia 284-285
Map of Armenia 321
INTRODUCTION.
At no time of the world's history have there ever been two months so
rich in grand tragedy as the Armenian period of November and December,
1895. It is not the enormous number of the killed nor the frightful
suffering of the survivors that give this period its unique character,
but the fact that the great majority of the 75,000 or more of the
massacred Christians had a free choice to make between life and
death, and they chose death. Civilized humanity is bound to take
a supreme interest in the action of those heroes and heroines who
sacrificed all the interests of existence to their moral ideal of
life,--in those women who, in order to escape from the outrage of
a bestial soldiery, threw themselves into the river Euphrates and
were drowned,--in those virgins who, captured by the brutal Moslems,
received twenty, thirty sword cuts in defending their honor,--in those
men who, when threatened with instant death if they would not embrace
Islam, answered, "we are ready to be immolated for the love of Christ,"
and they were slaughtered like sheep. The historian and the dramatic
writer, the poet and the painter will soon follow the diplomatist and
the journalist to take up the matter, and the Christian peoples of
all lands will continue to receive now a thrill of pious admiration,
now a tremendous shock at the recital of these events.
In fact, the Armenian occurrences have two sides, one glorious, and
one of hellish darkness. They bring out in the most striking fashion,
the infernal genius of the Mahommedan religion. The Moslems, high
and low, exhibited such foul sensuality, such satanic cruelty and
such delight in ferocity of which even the savages are incapable. And
these qualities are precisely those which Mohammedanism cultivates.
The Armenian crisis served also as a test to bring out the actual
degree of European morality. Alas! who would have believed a year ago
that the Christian powers of Europe would permit the Turk to attempt
before their eyes the extermination of a Christian nation and church
by wholesale massacre and forced conversions? Such is, nevertheless,
the dreadful revelation of the year. They did not prevent the most
colossal crime of the century, nor did they punish the criminal
who by their mercy alone had the power of committing such a crime;
moreover, they had the front, at least some of them, to declare that,
for reasons of high diplomacy, they were ready to support the authority
of the monstrous criminal over his victims.
What makes this infamous course of the Christian governments the
more ominous, is the fact that the Christian peoples and churches did
not seem to be shocked. They stifled their indignation and swallowed
their own protests if they felt or uttered any, and we see no nation
whatever boiling with the sacred rage of revolting conscience.
The British government and press have tried hard to show that England
has done all she could in order to protect the Armenians. Russia has
yet her national conscience very imperfectly developed, Germany's
conscience is nearly dead under the curse of her success against
France. It is only the government of Great Britain that feels the
obligation of executing itself. But its failure in protecting Armenia
is not merely the forced consequence of the course of the other powers
in the matter, as it would like to make the public believe. England had
sinned against Armenia during all the long period of 18 years before
the matters came to a crisis. She had been, in 1878, the champion
of the Turk against Russia, and in order to justify her support of
a Moslem power which had been the curse of its Christian subjects,
Great Britain pledged herself by the Cyprus Convention to protect
the Christians against Turkish misrule as she would protect Turkish
territory against Russian aggression.
Did England fulfill her solemn obligation toward Armenia? No! The
British consuls in Armenia did report to the government that the
Turkish authorities and Kurdish beys and Hamidieh troops continued to
oppress the Armenians just as before, nay, worse than before,--that
their worthiest leaders, bishops, professors, influential men were
being exiled, the benevolent associations scattered, the useful books
censured, the peasantry ground to dust, and hundreds of innocent
men flung into prison and tortured--but the British Government did
not move.
Let there be no misunderstanding as to my meaning. I do not mean
England remained absolutely indifferent, but she never acted in time,
and with adequate energy. She remained always behind the times. She
brought to bear upon the Sultan a pressure of 1,000 tons when a
weight of 10,000 was required, and used 10,000 when 100,000 was
needed, with the result that Abdul-Hamid, instead of coming to his
senses, grew bolder after each successful resistance. With trifling
concessions he pushed his way and had the Kurdish brigands organized
into imperial troops, acquitted Moossa Beg, enjoyed the Erzeroum
massacre, undertook the more important massacre of Sassoon, and after
all, the crowning massacres of 1895. Had England insisted upon Moossa
Beg's being hung, the Erzeroum slaughter would not have been allowed,
and if the leaders of the Erzeroum carnage at least were punished,
the greater devastation of the Sassoon province would have been
prevented. Evidently it was much easier for the British government to
successfully coerce the Sultan for the exemplary punishment of the
first criminals than later to check the greater tides of sweeping
evils. To judge aright, we must consider the whole course of the
British in the matter and not merely what happened at the critical
moment when the task was so much harder. And even then, namely in
October last, did England show herself equal to the requirements of
the crisis? Whatever Lord Salisbury and his party organs may say,
he must have many times since avowed to himself that he did not act
then as he could and ought to. He lacked courage and now the prestige
of Great Britain has sunk to a miserably low degree in the Orient.
For the present the Sultan reigns in Constantinople and the Czar
governs. The situation is evidently an unsettled one, as Hamid's
suicidal policy has prostrated the whole country, and a radical
change is to come in the near future. The final doom of the Ottoman
Empire can not delay much longer. The world expects to see some sudden
developments in the affairs of the East. The fate of agonizing Armenia
will be decided, and the relations of the Christian with the Moslem
world will enter on a new phase.
This book therefore, is devoted to "Bleeding Armenia," Under the
Rule of Islam; will touch problems of the highest importance and
command general interest. It can not give a definite solution to the
multitudinous questions raised by the condition of Armenia, but will
contribute to bring them to public comprehension and right judgment.
M. S. Gabriel.
BLEEDING ARMENIA.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY HISTORY OF ARMENIA.
"Gather you, gather you angels of God
Chivalry, Justice and Truth:
Come, for the earth has grown cursed and old
Come down and renew us her youth!
Freedom, self-sacrifice, mercy and love,
Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above
To the Day of the Lord at Hand."
"Who would sit down and sigh for a lost age of gold
While the Lord of all ages is here?
True hearts will leap up at the trumpet of God,
And those who can suffer can dare
Each past age of gold was an iron age too,
And the meanest of saints may find work to do
In the Day of the Lord at Hand."
Kingsley.
The history of Armenia is a chapter of horrors unequalled by the
history of any other nation under the sun. The record should arouse
interest in the fate of this ancient and most remarkable people,
who have suffered the most cruel outrages--the victims of the most
horrible crimes that have ever stained the pages of history with
tears and blood. As we read the heart rending story of their awful
fate, we can scarcely wonder that a heartbroken mother, as she gazed
on the lifeless form of a beloved daughter whom she had sought in
vain to preserve from a ruffian band of Turks, should cry out in the
frenzy of her grief that God himself had gone mad, and that maniacs
and demons incarnate were stalking through the earth.
Where is there a voice with passion and fire enough in it to arouse
the hearts of Christian America to demand, in the name of a common
humanity, that the massacres and outrages of the fierce and fanatical
Turks shall cease? In what nobler cause did ever Christian knight
draw sword, or a nation ever spend treasure and blood.
Ours is not the terrible responsibility of the British nation which
has suffered commercial considerations to outweigh frenzied appeals
for justice and toleration, but it is a weight of shame that will be
equally hard to bear in the Day of the Lord, if we, the mightiest
Christian nation on the face of the globe, in the darkest night of
religious persecution shall put forth no effective hand to deliver this
most ancient Christian race from the clutch of fiendish fanaticism.
The cause of Armenia is founded on facts which exalt this people to
the loftiest heights of martyrdom and have made them literally for
eighteen centuries "The Blazing Torch of Asia." Her tortures will not
cease until the mailed hand of Christendom shall smite into the dust
the power of the Prophet. The blood of probably a million martyrs to
Christianity has drenched the soil of Armenia. Its fair proportions
have been curtailed by conqueror after conqueror, its fields pillaged,
its homes devastated and at no time has this devoted nation been
without the presence of the sword suspended by the single hair. Embrace
the creed of Islam, or the scimitar of the fanatic Moslem severs the
hair which separates an existence of fear from the martyr's crown,
is forever in the thoughts of every Armenian.
The historians of this people of Armenia claim for them a very ancient
heritage--a career which though narrow, is one of thrilling interest.
About the year 150 B. C., by the might of conquest a Parthian King
came to the throne of Armenia; and wishing to know something of
the origin of the race and of the history of the country, and not
finding anything satisfactory in Armenia, he sent the most learned
man in all his dominions to consult the old Chaldean manuscripts and
tablets that were to be found in the Royal Archives of Nineveh. Every
facility was afforded him in his search, and among the archives he
found a manuscript written in the Greek characters with this label:
"This book containing the annals of ancient history was translated from
Chaldean into Greek by order of Alexander the Great." He extracted
from that the history of Armenia as written and continuing it down
to his own times presented it to the King, who ordered it preserved
with great care in his treasury.
The principal sources of their national history rests upon the works
of a celebrated Armenian writer of the fifth century, who claims to
have derived his information from the above mentioned manuscript. They
derive their parentage from Gomer, the son of Japhet, or rather from
Haig, a grandson of Gomer, who moving northward from the plains of
Shinar, settled with his families and followers in the country round
about Ararat. This interesting story, which touches in many points
the authentic histories of Nineveh and Babylon, cannot here be told;
but we hastily sketch the succeeding eras in the ever fateful history
of this primitive race of people.
The grandson of the founder of this Parthian race of kings, Ardashes
I., brought all Persia under his sway, and then turned westward with an
army so vast he did not know their number. He subdued the whole of Asia
Minor--passed the Hellespont, conquered Thrace and Greece, destroying
many cities. Returning to Armenia, he planned another expedition into
Persia in which he was defeated, wounded, and in dying, exclaimed,
"Alas, how transient and unsatisfactory is glory."
A little later an immense army of allied Persians and Armenians
invade Palestine and Phenicia, the Roman armies being unable to
stop their progress. For an immense bribe of one thousand talents of
gold, Antigonus secures their assistance in dethroning Hyrcanus and
establishes himself upon the throne of Jerusalem.
In the second year of Abgar (or Agbarus) (B. C. 3,) a decree was issued
by Augustus that all the kingdoms acknowledging the Roman dominion
should be taxed, and that statues of himself should be erected in
the religious temples of every nation. Herod, King of the Jews,
puffed up with pride, also sent statues of himself to be placed near
those of Augustus. Abgar refusing to comply with this request, Herod
sent a mighty force against him into Armenia, but the invaders were
met and defeated with great loss. Abgar now determined to shake off
the Roman yoke, and built the city of Edessa and strongly fortified
it. Accused to Tiberius, the succeeding Emperor, of inciting the
Persians to rebellion, he sent messengers to justify himself.
During their stay in Palestine they heard all the wonders which were
related to them of the extraordinary power of Christ. To gratify their
curiosity they went to Jerusalem, witnessed the miracles performed
by our Lord, and then returned to Armenia. Abgar, listening to
their accounts, became satisfied that Jesus was the Son of God, and
immediately sent back his messengers to Jerusalem with a letter to
Christ in which acknowledging Him to be the true and only Son of God,
he says: "Therefore, now I have written and besought Thee to visit me,
and to heal the disease with which I am afflicted. I have also heard
that the Jews murmur against Thee and are plotting to injure Thee;
I have, however, a very small but noble state which is sufficient
for us both."
The authenticity of this letter and the answer which Jesus sent
in reply has been questioned: but truth is often stranger than
fiction. Eusebius (Ecc'l Hist. Bk. I., chap. 13), declares that in
the public registers of the city of Edessa these letters and records
of the transactions following them were still to be found in his day.
The story is that St. Thomas, directed by our Lord, wrote a reply
to this letter, promising to send to them an apostle after His
resurrection. Accordingly Thaddeus was afterwards sent to Edessa,
where King Abgar was instructed and baptized.
Many believed and were baptized. So gladly was the truth received,
that tradition says that Bartholomew and Jude also were sent into
Armenia, but later rulers apostatizing from the faith, began a fierce
persecution. Bartholomew was crucified, the others also suffered
martyrdom with multitudes of their disciples.
Thus early was the infant church of Armenia baptized in its own blood,
and for scarcely a generation has its blood ever ceased to flow. It
is the martyr church and race of Christendom. Its persecutors have
literally bathed themselves in the blood of the slain.
Witness the horrible barbarity of a Persian Governor of Armenia
in 1038, who, upon the capture of a city which had dared to rebel
against their oppressors, was so wild with rage that he ordered all
the Greek and Armenian captives to be slain; and when a trench that
had been dug was filled with the blood of his butchered victims he
satiated his revenge by bathing in it.
In 286 A. D., there was a revival of Christianity in
Armenia. Diocletian, Emperor of Rome, restored Tiridates to his
throne, driving out the Persian usurper. With Tiridates there came
from Rome Gregory the Illuminator. By his preaching of the Gospel
the whole nation was converted to Christianity; and in the year 302
A.D., on the occasion of his going to Cæsarea Gregory was consecrated
Archbishop of Armenia by Leontius the Metropolitan. Later, when the
news reached Armenia that the Emperor Constantine was a convert,
Tiridates and St. Gregory undertook the journey to Rome, when an
alliance was solemnly agreed upon between the two nations. At the
Council of Nice, A. D. 325, the church of Armenia was represented by
bishops who brought back with them the Creed of the Fathers. Thus
the true light began to shine in fuller splendor in the midst of
Cimmerian darkness.
The Armenians seem to have been born for sorrow. Their provinces were
the highways of hostile nations. The armies of Rome and of Persia
passing through always carried desolation and ruin with them. Compelled
to yield to the demands of one conquering army, they became objects of
vengeance to the other when the former had withdrawn. In the year 369,
Shabuh, King of Persia, sent a large army against Arshag of Armenia,
who, being caught in a fortress which could not stand a siege,
determined to deliver himself to the Persian general with a view of
pleading his cause before the king.
Upon his arrival in Persia a palace was given him for his residence
and that of his court. But Shabuh immediately compelled him to write
to his Queen to join him in Persia; an order was also sent to the
chiefs and nobles to proceed with their Queen to the Persian capital.
The Armenian chiefs, alarmed at the order, begged to be excused,
but the King being inexorable, they attacked the troops he had sent
for their escort, put them to flight, and then fled into distant
provinces. The Queen also taking the treasures of the royal palace
retired to a strong fortress and wrote to Bab, a royal prince held
as hostage at Constantinople, to raise an army of Greeks and hasten
to the rescue of his father.
Shabuh angry at these events caused Arshag to be loaded with chains
and cast into the castle of Oblivion, where, once immured, no one
was ever heard of again.
The King of Persia sent a powerful army against the Queen headed by
two apostate Armenians. They found the country in a most deplorable
condition and at once laid siege to the fortress in which the Queen
had sought safety. The siege became a blockade, until despairing
of relief the inhabitants opened the gates and surrendered. The
castle was plundered with horrible atrocities, while the Queen and
captives who were spared were taken to Persia and by various and
satanic methods of torture compelled to abjure their faith. Arshag,
the imprisoned King, finding his bondage hopeless, driven to despair,
fell on his sword and expired, having reigned eighteen years.
Shabuh sent Merujan the apostate again into Armenia with a large army
and a company of magi, promising him the sovereignty of the country if
he succeeded in subduing the chiefs and in forcing the Armenians to
embrace the Persian religion. A most dreadful persecution followed,
priests and bishops and people were exiled, and multitudes put to
death. All the books found in the country written in Greek characters
were destroyed, and an order issued that no Armenian should learn
that tongue, and that thenceforth all writings must be in the Persian
characters. The magi and the executioners were distributed among
the towns and villages, the miserable inhabitants having only the
alternative of abjuring their religion or meeting instant death.
This reads like a chapter of recent horrors. Finally Eastern Armenia
became a province of Persia and after the death of Shabuh enjoyed
a little tranquillity. At this time a certain Christian, Mesrob by
name, became famous for sanctity and wisdom. He invented an Armenian
alphabet, in the year 406. Learning began to flourish. Many schools
were founded, and the Armenian youth were taught their language in
their own alphabet. The Persian division of Armenia became celebrated
throughout the East for its knowledge. The Old Testament was translated
into Armenian from the Syriac, the New Testament having already been
translated by St. Mesrob.
A few years later, A. D. 428, the dominion of the Arsacides ceased
forever, after having lasted for nearly six hundred years: and Armenia
came under the dominion of Persia and was ruled by Prefects for four
hundred and fifty-six years.
In A. D. 441 Hazguerd (Yezdiged) II. came to the throne of Persia
and meditated the forcible conversion of all Armenia to the worship
of the sun (fire worship) and the doctrines of Zoroaster. He exhorted
the chiefs and people to embrace the doctrine of the magi, but without
effect. He sent officers to collect most extortionate taxes with power
to torture at discretion. Many chiefs and nobles and multitudes of
people were tortured, thrown into dungeons, suffered most terrible
forms of martyrdom, yet remained steadfast in faith. Some few yielded
under the fierceness of persecution and kissed their hands to the
sun--but only a few.
Pleading in vain for mercy, they resolved to sell their lives as
dearly as possible. The bishops and chiefs called a great assembly
where they swore to fight for the honor and in defence of the Holy
Church. They gathered an army of one hundred thousand men and attacked
all the Persians in the kingdom. The magi were put to death and their
temples were demolished. Fresh armies were poured in from Persia and
the carnage increased. Fire worship was reëstablished, the former
tragedies of blood and torture were reënacted, many churches were
demolished, the priests dying under most excruciating torture. Is it
the fifth century or the nineteenth that we are describing?
In A. D. 451, Hazguerd ordered his generals to proceed into Armenia
with a large army and put the entire Christian population to the
sword. They were opposed by Vartan, who by sending heralds throughout
the country, warned the inhabitants of the threatened doom and gathered
an army of sixty-six thousand determined men. The two armies faced each
other late in the day with only a river between. That night Vartan,
with priests and bishops, passed through the army exhorting them to
fight manfully against the invaders. The Armenians all received the
sacrament that night, and inflamed with love of Christ and country,
were ready to do and die.
On the following day which was the 2d of June the Armenians, eager
to shed their blood for their faith, crossed the river and commenced
the attack.
At first they were successful and cut down the Persians with great
slaughter. But there was treason in their ranks; and in the midst of
the battle five thousand men drew off and joined their enemies. The
fortunes of the day changed and the Armenians were routed. The glorious
Vartan and eight allied chiefs and two hundred and eighty-six warriors
were left on the field. Hundreds of wounded were taken prisoners and
immediately put to death.
These outrages so exasperated the Armenians that again they rallied,
defeated their enemies and pursuing them into Persian territory
ravaged the country, burning towns and villages. The Persian King
now offered terms of peace, promising to forbear persecuting them on
account of their religious faith; and for a time the war ceased. But
he did not deliver up his prisoners. Many bishops and priests suffered
martyrdom in 454; not until 456 did the chiefs and nobles, who had
been languishing in prison for years rather than deny their faith,
regain their freedom and return into Armenia.
From the year 600 no Persian Prefect was ever again sent into Armenia,
that office being held by men of their own race; but on the West,
however, a power was rising up that would prove a fearful scourge,
a relentless and most bitter persecutor--The Saracenic Power.
THE SARACENS IN ARMENIA.
About the year 636 Armenia was invaded by the Saracens. This was the
beginning of the most unhappy era in the annals of Armenia. The whole
country was shortly plunged into ruin and desolation.
Nothing at first could withstand the onslaught of these fierce
warriors, Saracens, Infidels, who knew no word for mercy and regarded
all women as but slaves to their worse than bestial passions.
After a fierce battle in which the Armenians were defeated with great
slaughter the whole country was ablaze with conflagrations. A city
captured after a siege of months was taken by storm. The most dreadful
havoc ensued, twelve thousand inhabitants were massacred, churches,
palaces pillaged and burned and thirty-five thousand citizens carried
into captivity.
These were but the beginning of sorrows and horrors. Invasion after
invasion followed until at last peace was bought at the cost of an
immense yearly tribute which impoverished the whole people.
Justinian, the Greek Emperor, disregarding all ties of a common faith
and heedless of the common danger from the rising power, demanded
that they should renounce obedience to the Saracens and return to
his authority. They replied: "How often have we been subject to the
rule of Greeks, yet how little assistance have they rendered us in
time of our distress. * * * Should we at present submit ourselves to
your power, our kingdom would be exposed to invasion, we should be
delivered up to the sword and our habitations to fire and pillage. *
* * We beseech you, therefore to let us remain under the dominion of
our present masters by which alone our safety and the safety of our
nation can be secured."
The Emperor enraged at this humble pleading, sent an army to
invade Armenia. Twenty-five provinces were almost depopulated by
its ravages and thousands were carried away and sold as slaves in
foreign lands. The following year another army of forty thousand
men came to ravage the remaining territory. The nation was driven to
madness and despair by the devastations committed. But as if all the
vials of wrath and the horrors of hell were to be let loose at once,
the Saracens, believing they had returned to the subjection of the
Greeks, again invaded Armenia. They destroyed every town and village
on their line of march, and carried away vast multitudes of captives.
Again they returned with greater numbers than before. Cities,
towns, villages, fortresses, were razed to the ground, garrisons and
people either butchered or carried away captive. What could the poor
Armenians do but yield up their country to the power and government
of the Saracens?
Again the Greeks returned with a large army, and the weakened,
disheartened, impoverished people could only bow in subjection. The
emperor taking hostages from among the most distinguished chiefs
returned to Constantinople, leaving behind an army of thirty thousand
men to protect his vassals. At the expiration of three years all
these had departed and the country lay open to the inroads of their
fiercest enemies.
The Saracens soon reëstablished their power; the governors being
appointed from Damascus. To punish the Armenians for what they termed
their rebellion, many of the nobility were decoyed into churches which
were then set on fire and the poor Armenians were burnt alive. Their
property was then confiscated, their families siezed and put to death
with fiendish cruelty on account of their religious faith.
This reads like a chapter of living horrors: for the photographs of
to-day are only those of yesterday retouched with human blood.
The governors everywhere oppressed the Armenians with little
intermission, levying heavy taxes and inflicting extortionate fines
for their own private use. When the Saracens began the building of
Bagdad, the tribute was mercilessly increased. The greatest distress
prevailed, the evil became intolerable, a dreadful dearth occurred
in their harvests because of the furious hailstorms that swept over
wide regions of country. Clouds of locusts devoured what the hail
had spared and famine and misery untold desolated the land.
BOGHA THE TYRANT.
It was in the year 850 that the most awful calamities fell upon this
devoted race. Bogha the Tyrant, marched with a vast army to the utter
ruin of Armenia. Everywhere terror and consternation prevailed as
at their first entrance into the upper valleys, they cut off utterly
every living soul they found. The Armenians who inhabited the summits
of the mountains, beholding the awful massacres, rushed down in great
numbers to attack their enemies, but the Saracens taking possession of
all the passes cut off their retreat. A great many were killed, and
many more were taken alive. These were bound with ropes and dragged
into the presence of the governor. Bogha selected the finest looking
men and put them in confinement, intending to force them to renounce
their religion; the remainder he ordered slain before his eyes.
This horrible carnage was repeated in several provinces. One of the
most famous chiefs sought to make his peace with costly gifts, but was
seized with his wife and children and sent in chains to Bagdad. Then
Bogha marched his army into the province of Vasburagan with orders to
seize and bind all who were able to carry arms. Separating the finest
men again for confinement and torture, the others were inexorably
consigned to death. The slaughter was immense, as the records state,
human blood fertilized the land, and the valleys were choked up with
the bodies of former inhabitants. Those whom he had spared resolutely
refusing to deny their faith were tortured with fiendish ingenuity
until death relieved them of their sufferings.
In the extremity of their anguish they cried out: "How long O Lord? How
Long?" A thousand years has brought no adequate reply. You recall the
exclamation of Sojourner Truth's humble piety when Frederick Douglas
was fiercely lamenting the death of Abraham Lincoln, "Frederick,
is God dead?" and we wonder how the faith of the harried Armenians
lived when to swear by Mohammed would have delivered them from their
horrible sufferings.
Is the heart of this nation dead? Are we so taken up with the greed
for gold, the establishment of commerce, the extension of trade,
the rivalries of political ambitions, that the bleeding arms of the
Armenians are still stretched forth in vain, and their cries drowned
by the din of business or the revels of pleasure.
But no deliverer was nigh. The mountains and the rocks reëchoed in
vain their cries for help, their appeals for mercy.
Bogha was drunk with blood. The nation must perish. Province after
province was swept of its cities, many thousands slain and massacred;
and still the nobles and the chief men were spared for torture. Many
were tortured to such an extent that scarcely a feature remained by
which to distinguish them. When every art, device and glittering
promise had failed to induce them to apostatize, and the cruel
ingenuity of their tormentors could devise no more appalling agony,
they were crucified.
The persecutions lasted almost without intermission for five years till
the earth itself was sickened with the blood of innocent men. When
almost the whole land lay desolate and many provinces were more like
slaughterhouses than inhabited countries, Bogha gathered multitudes
of captives for slavery, and the noblest, bravest men for sacrifice,
and set out for Bagdad. In the presence of the Caliph and the chief and
flower of Saracenic nobility, the most horrible scenes were reënacted
in the capital of the Saracens. This only now remains for the Sultan
of Turkey, the head of the Mohammedan religion to do, to equal in
barbarity the deeds of Bogha the tyrant; and perhaps this alone will
rouse all Christendom, viz: Drive the miserable and starving remnants
left in his eastern provinces in chains to Constantinople and repeat
in the eyes of all Europe the awful crimes with which in the blazing
light of modern civilization he has darkened the face of all the East.
The Caliph gave these hapless victims but one alternative--the only
alternative Islam ever offers when it has the power, viz: either to
renounce Christianity and embrace Islamism, or be put to torture and
to death. We shall learn what torture is when we come to rehearse
in your tingling ears the devilish cruelties under which upwards of
sixty thousand Armenians have perished within the last few months.
Many outwardly renounced Christianity as the sight of the prolonged
tortures lacerated their hearts and smote them with weakness. Many
others, more firm, gloriously died in defence and confirmation of
their faith.
THE THIRD ARMENIAN DYNASTY. (A. D. 856.)
The pressure on the reader's sympathy will be relieved by the portrayal
of a brief reign of peace in Armenia, but righteous indignation will
not be lessened.
Ashod I., the son of Sumpad, the Confessor who died in chains
at Bagdad, gathered the remains of his tribe together, after the
retirement of Bogha, the Tyrant, and by his courage, wisdom and
humanity became greatly esteemed. The Caliph of Bagdad in an hour of
strange friendliness conferred on him the government of Armenia.
He sent him also a special messenger, bearing rich presents and
splendid official robes, directing him to invest Ashod with the
supreme power.
His first effort was to restore confidence and improve the condition
of the country, to the great satisfaction of all the Armenians. George
II., Pontiff, and all the chiefs united in drawing up a petition to
the Caliph soliciting him to bestow a crown upon Ashod, promising at
the same time not to falter in their allegiance to the authority of
Bagdad. To the great joy of all Armenians, their prayer was heard and
a crown of royalty was sent. Basilius, the Emperor of Constantinople,
who was an Armenian of the family of the Arsacids also sent him a
magnificent crown. Thus patronized by two emperors, Ashod ascended with
great splendor the throne of Armenia. All the ancient royal customs
were restored and Armenia again became a great and flourishing country.
Armenia being now at peace, Ashod set out to visit Western Armenia,
and thence he passed on to Constantinople to visit Emperor Leo,
son of Basilius. His reception was magnificent. On his returning he
fell sick--his malady increasing he sent for George, the Pontiff,
and received the sacrament, after which he appointed that large sums
should be distributed to the poor at the church doors and to hospitals,
convents and almshouses. He died in his seventy-first year, having
governed Armenia thirty-one years, viz: Twenty-six as governor and
five as king. He was buried with all the royal magnificence due to
an eastern Monarch.
In 892 the Caliph confirmed the crown to Sumpad, eldest son of
Ashod and the ceremony of coronation was again performed. The treaty
of his father was renewed with the Emperor of Constantinople, but
his reign proved to be a stormy one through successive invasions of
the Persians. At length he was enticed into the power of Yussuf, the
Persian, bound in chains and cast into a dark dungeon for a year. From
prison he was taken before the walls of a castle which was being
besieged. Furious with rage because of the continued resistance,
Yussuf caused the most horrible barbarities to be executed upon
the unfortunate Sumpad in sight of the beleaguered Armenians. The
torture was renewed daily to cause him to deny Christ. Then hourly
until death released his unshaken spirit.
Ashod II., surnamed the Iron-hearted, famed for bravery and
extraordinary strength, son of Sumpad, now gathered a small body of
six hundred men like himself and began to drive out the Persians. Soon
he cleared the country of them and in gratitude the Armenians placed
him on the throne. But many chiefs refused him their allegiance. They
were a restless, jealous set of nobles, and these quarrels among
themselves are by all their historians denounced as the chief source
of their national weakness.
Nobles and peasants rose in rebellion, and Yussuf taking advantage
of the anarchy again brought upon them his fiercest bands.
The former cruelties, and persecutions and barbarities were
repeated. Aged men and women were tied together and then cut to pieces,
babes were tossed in the air to be caught on the points of the spears
or cut in twain with their swords, or dashed to the ground in the
presence of their distracted and dishonored mothers.
Religious fanaticism was burning like the fires of hell in the breast
of Yussuf and yet these Armenians though ready to fight against each
other would die the death of martyrs rather than deny their Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ.
Greater horrors followed on the devastation of their fields. Sore
and dreadful famine began its cruel work. Thousands died of
starvation. Cities and villages were attacked solely for the sake of
devouring the slain. Individuals were seized and slain by bands of
men driven to madness by their hunger.
There was no Red Cross Committee in those days for the relief of
the starving populations and even if so, no person wearing a cross
would have been permitted to carry to them a loaf of bread lest the
religious sensibilities of Yussuf and his Infidel hordes should be
deeply wounded.
Starvation was his best ally. It swept off multitudes he could not
reach with the sword. The tender heart of the Sultan of Turkey must not
to-day be lacerated with even suggestion that there is more mercy under
the cross than under his own blood-red crescent. He turns fair and
fertile provinces into cemeteries and makes of villages heaps of ruins,
then publishes to Europe that he has restored peace to his people.
Peace returned to Armenia for twenty-five years however after the
driving out of the Persians, Apas succeeding his brother Ashod
II. Multitudes of self-exiled Armenians returned to their deserted
fields and ruined villages, and peace soon made the valleys smile
again.
Cities were restored, magnificent churches erected. The city of Ani
was chosen as the new capital. But Ashod III., derives his greatest
fame from his private virtues. Having built a number of hospitals,
infirmaries and almshouses for the poor and suffering he gave his
personal attention to their management. He visited them frequently,
indulging in kindliest familiarity with the poorest.
He even invited the poor, the sick and the maimed to eat with him at
his own table. So unbounded was he in his donations to the poor and
distressed that on his death not a single piece of money was found
in his treasury. Hence he was surnamed the charitable.
These are the kind of men whom for more than a thousand years
the Saracens and Turks have been trying to exterminate as dogs of
Christians. And the work still goes fearfully on because the great
Christian Powers of Europe say the Turk must be upheld and reverenced
because he holds the balance of power. It would not do to offer him
anything more than a diplomatic hint that some slight reform might be
acceptable even if only put on paper to show to the guardians of poor,
perishing Armenia.
Sumpad II., succeeded his father and completed the fortifying of the
city of Ani. He surrounded it with a wall of exceeding height and
thickness on which he raised lofty towers for the stations of its
defenders. The wall was protected from assault by a wide, deep moat
encompassing the city the whole being faced with stone and brick. It
took him eight years to finish it. This city became the center of
power and influence. A very large number of churches were erected
so that in all they reached the surprising number of one thousand
and one. The next largest city was Ardgen containing three hundred
thousand souls and eight hundred churches.
The Empire was consolidated and strong and retained its prosperity and
power until some years after the close of the century, (A. D., 1020).
Let us leave for a while this ancient race at the height of its power
and glory, the only Christian Nation that western Asia has ever had,
and take a glance at the uprising of that power of Islam which to-day
is, as for more than a thousand years it has been, the bitterest foe
of the Church of Christ, the most ruthless destroyer of human life,
the most brutal oppressor of enslaved humanity, which has always and
everywhere robbed woman of her honor and immortality, motherhood of
its glory, childhood of its innocence, the Deity of His mercy and
even Heaven itself of its purity, making of Paradise its vestibule
only a Mohammedan Seraglio.