against the Russians on the Caucasian front, they sent a subsidiary
army, reinforced by Kurdish tribesmen, into Azerbaijan. The weak
Russian forces occupying the province retired northwards at the
beginning of January, and the Turco-Kurdish invaders penetrated as
far as Tabriz, while the Nestorian villages on the western side of
Lake Urmia remained in their possession for nearly five months. The
Russians were followed in their retreat by a considerable part of
the Christian population, who suffered terrible hardships on their
winter journey. Those that remained behind flocked into the town of
Urmia, and were subject to all manner of atrocities during the
twenty weeks that the Turks and Kurds controlled the place. The
Russians completed the re-occupation of Azerbaijan in May, 1915;
they entered the town of Urmia on the 24th May, five days after
their first entry into Van, and freed the people of Salmas and Urmia
from their oppressors. But they could not save the communities in
the Zab district, who suffered in June the same fate as the
Armenians of Bitlis, Moush and Sassoun; and when the Russians were
compelled to evacuate Van again at the end of July, the panic spread
from Van to Urmia, and a fresh stream of Nestorian refugees swelled
the general exodus of Christians into the Russian Provinces of the
Caucasus._
27. URMIA: STATEMENT BY THE REV. WILLIAM A. SHEDD, D.D., OF THE
AMERICAN (PRESBYTERIAN) MISSION STATION AT URMIA; COMMUNICATED
BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN
THE U.S.A.
Persia is not in the war, but the war has been in Persia ever since
its beginning. Indeed, the military movements of Russia and of
Turkey date back several years before its outbreak. The Turks in
1906 occupied a strip of territory along the Persian border
extending from a point south-west of Soujboulak to a point west of
Khoi. The purpose was no doubt to secure a boundary-line making it
more possible to move troops from the Mosul region into
Trans-Caucasia, as well as to make it easier to hold the frontier
against any Russian attack. In 1911, the Turks evacuated this strip
of territory and the whole boundary question was submitted to a
mixed commission, on which the British and Russian Governments were
represented as well as the Turkish and Persian. When war began in
August, 1914, this commission had completed its work from the
Persian Gulf to Salmas. The Russians, in connection with internal
disturbances in Persia, occupied with their troops a number of
cities in northern Persia. Tabriz was occupied in 1909; Urmia and
Khoi in 1910. This measure enabled the Russians not only to control
Persia, but also to secure the road from their rail-head at Djoulfa
to Van through Khoi. When the Great War began, Russia was therefore
in occupation.
Disturbances at once began along the border and at the beginning of
October, 1914, a determined attack was made on Urmia, ostensibly by
Kurds. It was afterwards clear, from statements made by Persians and
Turks who were engaged in the attack, that the nucleus of the
fighting force was made up of Turkish soldiers and that the attack
was under the command of Turkish officers. It was also clear from
statements made by Persians friendly with the Turks and unfriendly
towards the Russians, that the result of success in this attack
would have been the looting of the Christian population, with
probable loss of life.
About a month after this attack, war was declared between Russia and
Turkey. About the same time the Russians closed the Turkish
Consulates at Urmia, Tabriz and Khoi, and expelled the Kurds and
other Sunni Moslems from the villages near Urmia. Arms were given at
the same time to some of the Christians. The Turks in response
expelled several thousand Christians from adjoining regions in
Turkey. These refugees were settled in the villages vacated by the
Sunni Moslems who had been expelled. Turkish and Kurdish forces
gathered along the frontier and especially to the south in the
Soujboulak region.
In the latter part of December, two engagements took place—one 20
miles south of Urmia between Kurdish and Russian soldiers, in which
the latter were successful; the other was at Miandoab, at the south
end of Lake Urmia, in which the Russian forces, with some Persians,
were routed by Turks and Kurds. About the same time Enver Pasha
invaded Trans-Caucasia from Armenia at Sarikamysh in the Kars
region. This threatened to cut off Russia’s communications with
Persia, and orders were given for the evacuation of Tabriz, Urmia
and Khoi. The evacuation of Urmia took place on the 2nd January,
that of Salmas a day or two later, and that of Tabriz on the 5th.
Meanwhile, the military situation in Trans-Caucasia had changed with
the rout of Enver Pasha’s army, and Khoi was not evacuated.
For convenience it may be well to summarise the military events from
the 1st January to the 1st June. Tabriz was occupied by the Turks
and Kurds, but, about the 1st February, a crushing defeat a few
miles north of Tabriz led to its sudden evacuation and to the flight
of the Turkish forces back to Miandoab. The American Consul at
Tabriz, the Hon. Gordon Paddock, with the very effective
co-operation of the German Consul, who had previously been in the
American Hospital under the protection of the American Consul, kept
the city of Tabriz from loss of life and to a large extent from loss
of property. The Turks collected large Kurdish forces from the
Soujboulak region and from districts in eastern Turkey; these,
together with a smaller force of Turkish regulars, moved through
Urmia and Salmas against Khoi, joining Turkish forces from Van under
Djevdet Bey. This campaign against Khoi lasted until the 1st March,
and was unsuccessful. In March the Russian forces drove the Turks
from Salmas and occupied this region. Affairs remained in this
condition until April. In April the Van campaign of the Russians,
with the aid of Armenian volunteers, began. A Turkish force of
approximately 18,000 men with mountain guns under Halil Bey, an
uncle of Enver Pasha, reached Urmia on the 16th April. They had come
over the mountain passes from Mosul, having been sent from
Constantinople by way of Aleppo to Mosul. Halil Bey was defeated in
Salmas, and in May retreated towards Van. The Turkish forces were
finally withdrawn from Urmia on the 20th May, and the Russians
re-occupied that city on the 24th May. The region of Soujboulak was
occupied by the Turks for some months longer, but the campaign in
that region has no bearing on the Christian population, since there
are no Christians in the region.
The Christian population in this region is partly Armenian and
partly Nestorian—or Syrian, as they call themselves. The Armenian
element consisted of four or five thousand in Tabriz, ten thousand
or more in Salmas, a small number in Khoi, and some six or seven
thousand in the Urmia district. The Nestorians, except for less than
2,000 in Salmas, all lived in the Urmia district. Including refugees
from Turkey and the Armenians, there were in Urmia, at the beginning
of 1915, not far from 35,000 Christians. The Syrians or Nestorians
include not only members of the old Nestorian Church but also
Protestants, members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Roman
Catholics—or Chaldeans, as the last are generally called. In Maragha
there is a colony of Armenians numbering some hundreds. Excepting
the Christians in Tabriz, Maragha, and the city of Urmia, the last
numbering not more than 2,000, all these Christians live in
villages, Mohammedans and Christians sometimes sharing a village
between them and sometimes living in separate villages. These
Mohammedan villagers belong to the Shiah sect but speak the Turkish
language.
The evacuation of the Russians put all the Christians in peril. The
Salmas Christians (except about 800), most of the Christians of
Tabriz, and eight or ten thousand from Urmia fled with the
retreating Russians. They left on the shortest notice, without
preparation and in the heart of winter. Many perished by the way,
mothers dying in childbirth, old men and women and little children
falling by the way side from exhaustion. This fleeing army of
refugees, increased in numbers by several thousand from the regions
in Turkey between Khoi and Van, passed over the Russian border and
scattered in the villages and towns of Trans-Caucasia. Many of them
died of disease due to the privations and exposures of flight and
life as refugees.
This flight left some 25,000 Christians in Urmia. All of these
sought shelter from massacre. On the one hand the Kurds were pouring
into the plain, urged on and followed by Turkish officers and
troops; on the other hand the Moslem villagers set to work robbing
and looting, killing men and women and outraging the women. Several
thousand found refuge with friendly Mohammedans. Great credit is due
to no small number of Moslems, most of them humble villagers and
some men of higher rank, who protected the imperilled Christians. In
some cases safety was bought by professing Mohammedanism, but many
died as martyrs to the faith. In several places the Christians
defended themselves, but the massacring was not confined to these.
Villages that deliberately gave up their arms and avoided any
conflict suffered as much as those that fought. The mass of the
people fled to the city, and all, including the city people, took
refuge in the mission compounds. The French Roman Catholic Mission
sheltered about 3,000, and the compounds of the American
Presbyterian Mission about 17,000. The latter were enlarged by
joining up neighbouring yards and so enclosing in one connected
compound, with only one gate for entrance and exit, some fifteen to
twenty yards. The American flag was placed over the compounds of the
American Mission, and here people were safe from massacre. The
villages, in the meantime, with three or four exceptions, were a
prey to plunder and destruction. Everything movable that possessed
the least value was either carried away or destroyed.
During the months of Turkish occupation there was never a moment of
real safety for the Christians. The most unremitting efforts on the
part of the missionaries secured comparative safety within the city
walls, so that the people were scattered to some extent from the
Mission Compound; and a few villages, including two that were not
plundered at the beginning, were kept comparatively safe through the
efforts of the Persian Governor. Beyond these narrow limits the
Christians could not go. This was shown by constant robberies and
murders when Christians ventured forth. During this period the Turks
were guilty not only of failure to protect the Christians
effectively, but also of direct massacres under their orders. One
hundred and seventy men thus massacred were buried by the American
missionaries, their bodies lying in heaps where they had been shot
down and stabbed, tied together and led out to be murdered by
Turkish agents. These massacres took place on three different
occasions. Once men were seized by Turkish officers in the French
Mission and sent out from the Turkish headquarters to be killed;
once there were men seized in a village which was under the
protection of Turkish soldiers and had had its safety pledged
repeatedly by the highest Turkish officials; and once there were men
from just over the border in Turkey who had been forced to bring
telegraph wire down to Urmia and were then taken out and killed. In
each of these cases some escaped and crawled out, wounded and
bloody, from the heaps of dead and dying, to find refuge with the
American missionaries. Besides these, the Armenian soldiers in the
Turkish army, previously to the arrival of Halil Bey, were shot. In
Urmia, the total losses of this period, from the evacuation of the
town by the Russians on the 2nd January until their return on the
24th May, were the murder of over one thousand people—men, women and
children; the outraging of hundreds of women and girls of every
age—from eight or nine years to old age; the total robbing of about
five-sixths of the Christian population; and the partial or total
destruction of about the same proportion of their houses. Over two
hundred girls and women were carried off into captivity, to be
forced to embrace Islam and to accept Mohammedan husbands. The
Salmas district suffered quite as much as Urmia, excepting that the
mass of the people fled with the Russian troops, and consequently
the crimes against women were not so numerous. About 800 who
remained in Salmas, most of whom were old people, with some of the
poorer and younger women, were gathered together by Djevdet Bey
before his withdrawal from Salmas and were massacred. This happened
early in March. The Salmas villages were left in much the same
condition as those of Urmia.
The relief work began before the evacuation. Unsettled conditions
had frightened people, and many had brought their goods for safe
keeping to the American missionaries. With the evacuation many more
brought their property, whatever they could save from the general
riot. The protection of those under the American flag and of others
in the city and in Mohammedan homes was accomplished only by the
most constant vigilance during all those months. It was necessary to
feed thousands of the people, and over ten thousand people were fed
for about six months. Many of the girls and women who were taken
captive were found and returned to their homes; information was
secured as to others, which led to their subsequent rescue.
Conditions of life were such that it was impossible to prevent
epidemics, those that carried off the largest number being typhoid
and typhus. Both of these diseases were probably brought by Turkish
soldiers cared for in the American Hospital. The total number who
died of disease during the period of Turkish occupation was not less
than four thousand. Of eighteen adults connected with the American
Mission, thirteen had either typhus or typhoid, and three lost their
lives. The French missionaries suffered just as severely, and were
in greater peril of violence.
To assign guilt and analyse the causes of this terrible loss of life
and property is not an altogether easy task. There is no class of
Mohammedans that can be exempted from blame. The villagers joined in
the looting and shared in the crimes of violence, and Persians of
the higher class acquiesced in the outrages and shared in the
plunder. The Kurds were in their natural element. The Turks not only
gave occasion for all that happened, but were direct participants in
the worst of the crimes. On the other hand, individuals of every
class deserve credit. There were many villagers who showed only
kindness. The Persian Governor made it possible, by his
co-operation, for the American missionaries to do what they did; the
Kurds responded to appeals for mercy and, in some cases, returned
captive girls unsolicited and did other humane service. A few
individual Turkish officers and a number of their soldiers took
strong measures to keep order. One such officer saved the city from
loot when riot had already begun. There were various causes;
jealousy of the greater prosperity of the Christian population was
one, and political animosity, race hatred and religious fanaticism
all had a part. There was also a definite and determined, purpose
and malice in the conduct of Turkish officials. It is certainly safe
to say that a part of this outrage and ruin was directly due to the
Turks, and that none of it would have taken place except for them.
The duty of Americans, and especially the missionaries, is not so
much to apportion the blame as to repair the damages. The task in
Persia is very great, but the opportunities are equally as great.
The number of destitute persons has been increased by the influx of
forty or fifty thousand refugees from Turkey—Nestorians who lived in
the mountain region between Urmia and Van, and who were forced to
flee from their homes by the Turks and Kurds. In outlying districts
the men have been massacred, and those who have survived are mainly
women and children; but from the mountain valleys, where the bulk of
these people live, they were able to escape _en masse_.
28. FIRST EXODUS FROM URMIA, JANUARY, 1915: REPORT DATED 1st MARCH,
1915, FROM THE REVEREND ROBERT M. LABAREE, OF THE AMERICAN
MISSION STATION AT TABRIZ, TO THE HON. F. WILLOUGHBY SMITH, U.S.
CONSUL AT TIFLIS; COMMUNICATED BY THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.
In view of your interest in the welfare of the Persian Christian
refugees here in the Caucasus, and your efforts in their behalf, may
I submit to you a report on their condition as I have seen it in my
journey hither from Tabriz? Commissioned by the American
Presbyterian Mission of West Persia to investigate the affairs of
the many thousands who have fled recently from Persia into Russia in
order to escape the cruel vengeance of the Kurdish border tribes, I
left Tabriz over two weeks ago and have spent the intervening time
visiting the various centres where these refugees are congregated.
It is hard to estimate exactly the number of these refugees from
Persia, for mingled with them are a multitude of fugitives from
Turkey. The total number of all these unfortunates in the district
of Erivan, where most of them have found refuge, was stated by a
good authority to be seventy thousand. The Persian contingent is
pretty consistently estimated at from fifteen to twenty thousand.
The refugees from Turkey are almost entirely Armenian, and are being
taken care of by the wealthy Armenians of this province through
their well organised relief committees. Those from Persia are less
fortunate, for a majority of them are Syrian; and, although the
Armenians have been very generous to them also, they have no
influential friends to speak in their behalf and minister to their
needs. It is also safe to say that the fugitives from the Urmia
plain are the most sadly in need of assistance, for they had no
previous warning of the impending disaster, and most of them have
come out without any preparation whatever for their prolonged
sojourn in a strange land.
I doubt whether the story of that awful flight can ever adequately
be told. Few tales that I have ever heard can compare with it in
heart-rending interest. The whole northern section of the Urmia
plain learned of the departure of the Russian troops about ten
o’clock on the night of Saturday, the 2nd January (1915). By
midnight the terrible exodus had begun, and by morning the Christian
villages of that district were practically deserted. People left
their cattle in the stables and all their household goods in their
homes, just as they were, and hurried away to save their lives. If
anyone possessed a horse or a donkey or any other beast of burden he
was fortunate, and if he happened to have ready cash in his home he
was even more so; but, well-to-do as a man may be, cash is not
always on hand in the villages, and so many who, according to the
standards of the country, were rich, started on their long journey
with a mere pittance, and the vast majority of men and women and
children were on foot. Before the seven days’ hard walking through
the slush and mud to the Russian border was accomplished, all
encumbrances were cast aside, quilts, extra clothing, and even
bread, for it became a question with the poor, tired, struggling
crowd which they would carry—their bedding or their babies. Of
course, very many of the weaker ones never reached Djoulfa at all,
but lay down by the roadside for their last long rest, and those who
did reach the Russian border were so haggard and emaciated that
their own friends did not recognise them. Almost worse than the
weary tramping by day, in the most terrible mud, were the nights in
the villages by the way. Every possible shelter was so crowded that
there was no room whatever to lie down, and the air became so foul
before morning that the occupants were nearly suffocated; and yet
those who could find no shelter and lay out all night in the wet
were even more miserable. As one has heard the same sad story
repeated a score of times with only a difference in details, one has
wondered what human flesh and blood can stand in a great crisis like
this. I should like to give two instances that have come under my
personal knowledge; such stories might be multiplied a thousand
times.
One old man with two daughters-in-law and six grandchildren started
on that fatal night from the village of Karagöz. All were afoot, and
the women carried their little ones by turns, while the old man
stumbled along as best he could, unable to carry any burden. He at
last gave out, lay down by the roadside and died. The two women and
their little charges pressed on for a day or two longer, when one of
them gave birth to a baby, also by the roadside. The mother tore off
her dress, wrapped the baby in the pieces and resumed the weary
tramp. Fortunately for them, the two women found their husbands
waiting for them in Russian Djoulfa; but, alas, in the new
complications arising from the coming of the baby two of the other
children were separated from the party and lost. Two days the
parents waited in Djoulfa, until a wagon-load of little waifs was
brought in by kind-hearted soldiers. They found their two little
ones among the number, but so emaciated by their hardships that they
died shortly afterwards. People dying and children being born by the
way are commonplaces of this journey; but it is not every one that
has had a combination of such misfortunes.
Here, again, is another instance no less sad. The pastor of our Cosi
congregation set out, as others did, in the dark, together with his
wife, married daughter, and five-year-old granddaughter; but he
became separated from them very soon, so that the women were
compelled to make the journey alone. They reached the town of
Nahichevan, in Russian territory, with hundreds of others in a
wholly exhausted condition. All three of them were sick and were
taken to the local hospital, where a few days later the father of
the family found them. But shortly afterwards, when the thousands of
refugees were cleared out of the town and scattered in the villages,
he was forced to leave, and his family have not seen him since. The
daughter and grandchild were dismissed from the hospital, and the
old mother, rather than remain alone, sick as she was, left also.
For five days they stayed with a crowd of others in the railway
station, when they were moved on to another village; and there, the
old woman’s dysentery having become so bad and the little girl
having developed the prevailing scarlet fever, they were taken to
the village hospital. I found them there a couple of weeks later, or
rather the younger woman and her child; the mother had passed away
two hours before I arrived. I buried the dear old woman, in whose
house I have been many times. I gave her a better funeral than most
of the other dying refugees; but it was only a rough coffin with
shavings as a pillow for her poor tired head. And then, with a
little money put into the hand of the daughter and a promise to do
what I could to find her father, I left her, dazed as a woman in a
dream, and came away. The father cannot be found, and I fear that he
has dropped down in some unknown spot and died.
I have wondered time and time again whether this panic-stricken
flight was not some terrible mistake, and whether the people had not
better have stayed at home and cast themselves on the mercies of the
Kurds and their Moslem neighbours; but as the stories of the
sufferings of those who remained behind begin to reach us—stories of
bloodshed and forced apostacy, and of women and girls carried off to
a life worse than death—I have revised my judgment. Even all this
untold misery by the way and in a strange land is better than the
fate of those who remained at home.