was too ill at the time and for more than two weeks longer to be
told of his terrible loss. For three months preceding his illness he
had been the only physician in Van, and the strain of over-work and
sleeplessness told severely now. After he had passed his typhus
crisis, his life was in danger for a week longer from the pneumonia
which had been a complication from the first. Then followed another
not infrequent complication of typhus, an abscess in the parotid
gland which caused long-continued weakness and suffering, at one
time threatened life and reason, and has had serious consequences
which may prove permanent. Mr. Yarrow was so ill that his life was
quite despaired of. It was by a veritable miracle that he was
restored to us.
FLIGHT.
Meanwhile the Russian army had been slowly advancing westward.
It had not been uniformly successful as we had expected it to
be. Indeed, the Russians seemed to fight sluggishly and
unenthusiastically. The Russo-Armenian volunteers, who were
always sent ahead of the main army, did the heavy fighting. By
the last week of July the Russians had not yet taken Bitlis,
only ninety miles distant from Van. Suddenly the Turkish army
began to advance towards Van, and the Russian army to retreat.
On Friday, the 30th July, General Nicolaieff ordered all the
Armenians of the Van province, also the Americans and other
foreigners, to flee for their lives. By Saturday night the city was
nearly emptied of Armenians and quite emptied of conveyances. Nearly
all our teachers, nurses, employees had left. It was every man for
himself and no one to help us secure carriages or horses for our own
flight. We at Artamid, with a sick man to provide for, would have
had great difficulty in getting up to the city in time, had not Mrs.
Yarrow risen from her sick-bed to go to the General and beg him to
send us ambulances. These reached us after midnight.
There was little question in our minds as to our own flight. Our
experience during the siege had shown us that the fact of our being
Americans would not protect us from the Turks. Had not our two men,
Mr. Yarrow and Dr. Ussher, been absolutely helpless we might have
debated the matter. As it was, we women could not assume the
responsibility of staying and keeping them there, and even if we had
stayed we could have found no means to live in a deserted city.
We were fifteen Americans and had ten Armenian dependents—women and
children—to provide for. The head nurse of the hospital, Garabed,
plucky and loyal little fellow that he was, had sent on his mother
and wife and had remained behind to help us get out of the country.
Dr. Ussher’s man-cook, having been with us at Artamid when the panic
began, had been unable to secure conveyance for his sick wife. We
greatly needed his help on the journey, but this involved our
providing for a third sick person. We had three horses, an American
grocer’s delivery cart, really not strong enough for heavy work on
rough and mountainous roads, and a small cart that would seat three.
Our two other carts were not usable.
We begged the General to give us ambulances. He absolutely
refused—he had none to spare. But, he added, he was to be replaced
in a day or two by General Trokin; we could appeal to him when he
came; the danger was not immediate. Somewhat reassured and not
knowing how we could manage without help from the Russians, we made
no effort to leave that day. But the next day, Monday, we heard that
the volunteers who were trying to keep the road open to Russia would
not be able to do so much longer—there was no time to lose. We set
to work.
One of our teachers who had not succeeded in getting away before
Monday morning, kindly took a small bag of clothing on his ox-cart
for each of us. We spread the quilts and blankets we should need on
the way on the bottom of the delivery cart, intending to lay our
three sick people on these. Garabed, who had never driven a team in
his life, must drive two of our horses in this cart. Mrs. Raynolds
would drive the third horse harnessed to the small cart, and take
the babies and what food there was possibly room for; no provisions
could be bought on the way. The rest of us must walk, though Mrs.
Yarrow and Miss Rogers were newly risen from a sick bed and the
children were all under twelve. We put loads on the cows we must
take with us for the sake of the babies and the patients. But the
cows were refractory; they kicked off the loads and ran wildly about
the yard, tails up, heads down, whereupon the single horse broke
loose and “also ran,” smashing the small cart.
At this moment, the “psychological moment,” two doctors of the
Russian Red Cross rode into our yard. Seeing our plight they turned
and rode out again. They returned a little later and on _their own
responsibility_ promised to take us with the Red Cross caravan.
Thank the Lord!
We now put our loads on the delivery cart; put the wheels of the
smashed cart on the body of a wheelless cart, and now that we might
take a little more with us than food and bedding, packed in bags
what we felt to be absolutely necessary. What we left behind we
should never see again; we felt certain that the Russian soldiers
before they left would loot our houses and perhaps burn them to
forestall the Turks.
The Red Cross provided us with two ambulances with horses and
drivers, and a stretcher carried between two horses for Dr. Ussher.
He was usually taken into one of their sick tents when we camped at
night; most of the rest of us slept on the ground in the open.
We left on Tuesday, the 3rd August. The Russians appeared to have
received news that made them very uneasy, and, indeed, General
Trokin himself left Van that very afternoon, as we learned later.
The next day at sundown we heard the firing between the Kurds and
the volunteers who were so gallantly trying to keep them at bay, to
keep the road to Russia open as long as possible. It sounded
startlingly near. We travelled till two a.m. that night in order to
reach Bergri, where we should be, not safe, but beyond the line
along which the Turks would try to intercept travellers. We were
just in time. General Trokin’s party, that had left Van only a few
hours later than we, were unable to reach Bergri, and had to return
and get out by the longer route through Persia. Had we with our
slower rate of travel been obliged to do this, we might not have
been able to get out at all.
THE ARROW THAT FLIETH BY DAY.
That afternoon—Thursday afternoon—we forded a wide and deep river,
then entered a narrow valley, from the mountains commanding which
Kurds suddenly began to fire down on the Red Cross caravan and the
thousands of foot travellers. One man in an ambulance was killed,
others wounded. The drivers of ambulances and litters whipped up
their horses to a mad gallop. It was a race for life. The sight of
those gasping, terror-stricken thousands was one never to be
forgotten. The teacher who had taken our bags of clothing threw
everything off his ox-cart in order to escape with his life. The
Armenians on our long wagon threw off much of the luggage to lighten
it, and thus we lost most of what we had brought with us.
Once out of the valley we were comparatively safe. We met a force of
volunteers and Cossacks who entered the valley to engage with the
Kurds. Mrs. Raynolds had been riding in the small cart. After the
danger was over, while getting out of the cart, she fell and broke
her leg below the knee. The Red Cross physicians set it at once, but
she suffered greatly during the remainder of the journey over the
rough roads, though lying at full length in one of our ambulances.
She was quite helpless. Mr. Yarrow lay, too, in his ambulance, which
he was unable to leave day or night during the journey, except when
he was carried into a Red Cross tent on Sunday.
On Friday all but the four helpless ones and the babies walked over
Mt. Taparez. On Saturday we again climbed on foot a high mountain,
from sundown till three o’clock the next morning. The caravan rested
on Sunday at a Red Cross camp near the top of Tchingli Mt. at the
foot of Mt. Ararat. Here Dr. Ussher had two severe operations on his
face without anæsthetics. On Monday at sunset we reached Igdir. Dr.
Ussher was taken to a military hospital for officers, and the
military sent him on to Tiflis on Thursday. We could not secure
carriages until Wednesday morning to take us to the railway station
at Etchmiadzin. We arrived in Tiflis the next morning.
SAFE!—BUT SORROWING.
Most of us had lost nearly everything but the clothes we stood in,
and these we had worn day and night during the ten days’ journey.
Small wonder that the first hotel we went to had “no rooms.” Mr.
Smith, the American Consul, was most kind and did everything he
could for us. He secured a room in a private hospital for Mrs.
Raynolds and a bed in the city hospital for Dr. Ussher.
Dr. Ussher was again brought to death’s door by very severe
dysentery contracted on the road. He had become a nervous and
physical wreck and in appearance the ghost of himself.
Dysentery was epidemic among the scores of thousands of refugees
from Van Province who had crowded into Transcaucasia. The very air
seemed poisoned; our children were all ill, and it seemed to us that
they would not get well until we could leave Tiflis.
Mrs. Raynolds’ broken bone refused to knit. She seemed also to be
suffering from a collapse of her whole system. She would lie there
patient, indifferent to what was going on about her, sunk in
memories of the past, perhaps—who can say?
On the 24th August we were astounded at receiving a telegram from
Dr. Raynolds. We had not heard of his leaving America and here he
was at Petrograd! It seems he had started for Van as soon as he had
heard of the Russian occupation, in company with Mr. Henry White,
who was to teach in our college. At Petrograd he learned from the
ambassador that the Van missionaries were in Tiflis, but of the
reason therefor he had heard not a word, nor had he heard of his
wife’s condition.
Mrs. Raynolds brightened for a moment when told that her husband was
on the way to her. Then the things of earth seemed to slip away from
her; she might not tarry even for the dear one’s coming. On Friday,
the 27th August, her tired spirit found rest. Two days later Dr.
Raynolds arrived to find wife gone, house gone, the work of his
lifetime seemingly in ruins, the people he had loved exiles and
destitute.
On Tuesday Mrs. Raynolds was laid to rest in the German Lutheran
cemetery, and around her were gathered many of those whom she had
lived to serve.
Then Dr. Raynolds and Mr. White decided that there was nothing left
for them to do but return with us to America, and we left that week
for Petrograd. There the American managers of what corresponds to
our Y.M.C.A. were exceedingly kind and helpful. The city was so full
of refugees from Poland that we had to sleep on tables in the
Association halls the first night, but succeeded in securing rooms
the next day. The children recovered, and Dr. Ussher’s improvement
in health from the time of our arrival in Petrograd was simply
wonderful. Mr. Yarrow seemed now quite himself again, although in
reality he had not fully regained his strength.
Travelling up by rail round the Gulf of Bothnia, we spent a few days
in Stockholm and sailed from Christiania on the 24th September, on
the Danish ship “Hellig Olav.”
We had had absolutely no news from any station in Turkey since the
middle of April, and from America only what information Dr. Raynolds
had brought us. On our arrival in New York, on the 5th October, we
heard of the massacre of the Armenians in Bitlis by Djevdet Bey as
soon as he had reached there after having been driven from Van. We
heard of Miss Ely’s death there in July, and of my brother’s death,
on the 10th August, in Diyarbekir[30]; we heard that Miss McLaren
was ill with typhus in Bitlis, and later that she was well; we
learned of the massacre of Armenians all over Turkey and of their
deportation. The Van refugees have been fortunate by comparison in
that they could flee. Money for their relief has been sent to
Transcaucasia; a few of them have succeeded in securing passports
and getting to America.
-----
Footnote 29:
_The shelling of the mission buildings is also described by Mr.
Yarrow, in an interview published in the New York “Times” 6th
October, 1915, the day after his arrival in America:_—
“For twenty-seven days 1,500 determined Armenians held Van against
5,000 Turks and Kurds, and for the last three days they were
shelled with shrapnel from a howitzer brought up by a Turkish
company headed by a German officer. I myself saw him directing the
fire of the gun.
“Two days before the Russians came to Van, the Turks deliberately
fired at the mission buildings. They stood out prominently and
could not be mistaken, and also flew five American flags and one
Red Cross flag as a protection. The firing was so accurate that
the shots cut the signal halyards and brought the flags to the
ground.”
Footnote 30:
See Doc. 23, page 89.
16. VAN: LETTER DATED VAN, 7th JUNE, 1915, FROM MR. Y.K. RUSHDOUNI;
PUBLISHED IN THE “MANCHESTER GUARDIAN,” 2nd AUGUST, 1915.
The day after Germany’s declaration of war on Russia, martial law
was proclaimed in Van, and the Turkish Government set about the work
of mobilisation. The Armenians responded to the call in a better
mood than the Moslems, many of whom either ran away or did not
present themselves for service. But from the very beginning the
authorities adopted a harsh attitude towards the Armenians in the
Vilayet. Under the pretence of requisitioning, they ruthlessly
plundered and looted the Armenians. Business was brought to an
absolute standstill, and the import and sale of wheat in the city
was forbidden on the plea that it was needed to provision the
armies—though ways and means were always found if the applicant was
a Moslem. As for the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army, they
were neglected, half-starved, set to do all the menial work, and,
worst of all, disarmed and left over to the mercies of their Moslem
comrades, who managed to kill a few hundreds altogether in various
parts. It became evident that the Government was bent on the
systematic destruction of the Armenian population. A feeling of
despondency seized hold of all.
When Turkey went into the war the distress of the people reached an
even higher pitch, especially when the Government armed all the
males of the Moslem population between the ages of 15 and 60 and
gave up Christian villages to fire and sword at the slightest
pretext. Pelou, the largest village of the Kavash district, was
reduced to a heap of ruins. Twelve villages in the Gargar district,
on the Persian frontier, Bashkala, and Sarai, with the Nestorian and
Armenian villages round, were ruthlessly wiped out after the Russian
retreat[31], and of their population only a few old crippled women
were left as survivors. News of this sort was constantly being
brought to the town by refugees from distant places like
Boghaz-Kessen, Hazaren, Nordoz, &c. This pouring in of the refugees
aggravated the problem of living in the city of Van.
On the other hand, the three leaders of the former Revolutionary
Party called Dashnagists, who since the proclamation of the
Constitution had been changed into a political party and had come to
an understanding with the Young Turks, exhorted the people to endure
in silence. Better, they said, that some villages be burned and
destroyed unavenged than give the slightest pretext to the Moslems
for a general massacre. One of the first villages to defend itself
was Bairak, whose inhabitants succeeded in keeping the soldiers and
Kurdish mob from entering the village. The Turkish Government sent a
peace commission composed of Armenians and Turks to quiet down
matters there, which was done. At the same time a message was sent
to the Governor-General, Djevdet Bey, a brother-in-law of Enver
Pasha, then on the border, to come to Van. Djevdet Bey, on his
arrival, demanded 4,000[32] soldiers from the Armenians. The
Armenians were so anxious to keep the peace that they promised to
accede to this demand under an altered form approved by the
Government. But at this juncture trouble broke out between Armenians
and Turks in the Shadakh region. Some say that this was started at
the instigation of Djevdet Bey. This Governor had requested Ishkan,
one of the three Dashnagist leaders, to go there as peace
commissioner, accompanied by three other notable Armenians. On their
way there, however, on Friday, the 16th April, all four were
treacherously murdered.
The Armenians now felt that they could not trust the Governor, and,
instead of giving him the 4,000 men, they told him they would give
400 and pay the exemption tax for the rest, in instalments. In the
meantime they asked the American missionaries, Dr. Ussher and Mr.
Yarrow, and the Italian agent Signor Sbordone, to try to mollify the
Governor. The attitude of the Governor was wavering. At times he
would be moderate and swear that peace would be kept. At other times
he was harsh and irreconcilable, declaring that he intended to put
down “rebellion” at all costs. First he would punish Shadakh, then
he would attend to Van; if the rebels fired one shot it would be a
signal for him to attack, and neither Turks nor Armenians would be
left in the Vilayet.[33]
Things continued in this suspense till the 20th[34] April, when
some Turkish soldiers tried to seize some village women on their
way to the city. The women fled. Two Armenians came up and asked
the Turks what they were doing. The Turkish soldiers fired on the
Armenians and killed them. This served as a signal. The booming of
cannons and rattle of rifles began from every side, and it was
realised that the Armenian quarter was besieged. In the evening
houses in the Armenian quarter could be seen burning in every
direction. The Governor-General had sworn that not a single house
should be left in Van, except the one where his father had lived
as Governor-General. Under the command of Armenag Yegarian, of the
Ramgavar Party, the Armenians, nearly 30,000 in number now, began
to man and barricade houses and open trenches. Eighty such
barricaded positions, called in Armenian “teerks,” were held by
the Armenians, and the enclosed area of about two square miles was
gradually connected in between by deep trenches. To assure
regularity, a Provisional Government was set up, and a military
court was appointed to deal with military affairs. Everyone
capable of doing something, male or female, young or old, was set
to work. Women and girls were busy cooking, mending, sewing,
making bedding for homeless refugees and soldiers, and nursing
wounded people and motherless children. About 1,300[35] young men
were under arms day and night trying to hold the enemy at bay.
Lads were employed as messengers between the “teerks.” The rest of
the men were used as workmen to dig trenches and build new walls
and barricades, as the old ones crumbled before the cannon-fire.
About 16,000 cannon-shots were fired at the handful of inhabitants
in the old city under the Castle Rock.
After some days, refugees began to pour in from near and far.[36]
The Government had not succeeded in besieging the eastern side of
the Armenian quarter, and it was still possible to enter the city.
On the 16th May no less than 12,000 bread-tickets were issued to
refugees. At the same time, owing to privation and exposure, an
epidemic of measles broke out among the children, and dysentery and
pneumonia among the adults, and many who had escaped the sword of
the Moslem fell victims to disease.
As the supply of ammunition was very meagre and the intention of the
Armenians was to prolong their defence till help might come from
Armenian volunteers, they were very sparing in its use. They used
pistols when they could, and employed all kinds of devices to draw
the fire of the enemy and waste his ammunition. At the same time
they began to devise means of making bullets and cartridges, and
manufacturing smokeless gunpowder and bombs, and succeeded in
turning out daily 4,000[37] cartridges, and even in making three
mortars for throwing bombs and bursting shells. In the meantime the
Provisional Government issued strict orders for keeping the
neutrality of foreign institutions and premises, forbidding armed
men to pass through these parts or carry the wounded Armenian
soldiers to the American Mission Hospital. A manifesto was also sent
to the Turks to the effect that the quarrel was with one man,
Djevdet Bey, not with their Turkish neighbours. Governors come and
go, but the two races must continue to live together. Gradually,
however, the Armenians succeeded in ousting the Turks from their
positions. On the 17th May, after nearly four weeks’ resistance, it
became obvious that the enemy was putting forward his last efforts.
At sunset a daring dash put to flight the remaining Turkish soldiers
in the two northern barracks on Toprak-Kalé Hill and below. These
two barracks were at once burnt. About midnight another attack put
the southern great barracks in Armenian hands, and these, too, were
set on fire. Towards morning the news spread that the Turks and
soldiers had left the city. It was understood that the Government,
on hearing of the approach of the Russian army and the Armenian
volunteers, had ordered a systematic retreat some days before, and
the last regiment, with the Governor, had evacuated the town on the
night of the 18th May. Immediately hungry and starved people rushed
toward the Turkish quarters to satisfy their feelings of justice by
plundering and burning. Shortly after, news came that the Russian
army, with Armenian volunteers, was in sight. The joy of the people
was boundless; tears of gladness and of emotion for what they had
suffered during the past month, rolled down their cheeks as they
made them welcome. The keys of the captured city and of the castle
were immediately taken and laid at the feet of the Russian General,
who gave orders to the Armenians to organise a Provisional
Government for the affairs of the town.
-----
Footnote 31:
The Russians had made a preliminary incursion over the border
after the Turkish declaration of war.—_Editor._
Footnote 32:
Miss Knapp gives the number as 3,000 (Doc. 15.
Footnote 33:
_Miss Knapp makes the following observation at this point_:—
“The fact cannot be too strongly emphasised that there was no
‘rebellion.’ As already pointed out, the Revolutionists meant to
keep the peace if it lay in their power to do so. But for some
time past a line of Turkish entrenchments had been secretly drawn
round the Armenian quarter of the Gardens. The Revolutionists,
determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible, prepared a
defensive line of entrenchments.”
Footnote 34:
At 6.0 a.m. (Miss Knapp).
Footnote 35:
“About 1,500 trained riflemen possessing only about 300 rifles.”
(Miss Knapp).
Footnote 36:
“A man escaping from Ardjish related the fate of that town, second
in size and importance to Van in the Vilayet. The Kaimakam had
called the men of all the guilds together on the 19th April, and
as he had always been friendly to the Armenians they trusted him.
When they had all gathered, he had them mown down by his soldiers.
Many of the village refugees had stopped short of the city, at the
little village of Shushantz, on the mountain side near the city.
Here Aram bade them remain. On the 8th May, we saw the place in
flames, and Varak Monastery near by, with its priceless ancient
manuscripts, also went up in smoke. These villagers now flocked
into the city.” (Miss Knapp).
Footnote 37:
2,000. (Miss Knapp).
17. VAN: NARRATIVE BY MR. Y.K. RUSHDOUNI, PUBLISHED SERIALLY IN THE
ARMENIAN JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” OF NEW YORK.
Van is a city built on a level plain, and has at the present time an
area of about ten or twelve square miles.
The Old City is small (scarcely a single square mile in area); its
centre is the market place and an ancient rock fortress. The real
Van is the Aikesdan (the Vineyards), which rises slowly towards the
East on an imposing scale. In Aikesdan each house, with few
exceptions, has a vineyard and a garden. Its streets are broad and
tree-lined. On each side of these trees run small rivulets, which
are bordered by rows of willow and poplar trees. Van is in reality a
beautiful, extensive and attractive garden. On its western side,
about two or three miles distant, there stretches the beautiful blue
lake of Van, surrounded by high, snow-clad mountains, the most
prominent of which are Sipan, Nimroud, Kerkour and Azadk.