the battles at some of the villages, though there were a couple of
thousand Syrians killed too in the villages, before they escaped to
the slender protection offered by six unarmed American men in our
mission compound. Our flag was put up, not only on our own property
here in the city but on all the adjoining block of Christian
property in the city; doors were made or holes in the walls between
all that adjoining property, to bring it under our control, and only
our principal big street-gate was allowed to be opened, all others
being barricaded. There in the city between ten and fifteen
thousand, many thousands of them destitute, congregated and sat
huddled in rooms, a hundred in a room or more, sometimes unable to
lie down at night on account of the crowding.
We had a good deal of money entrusted to us by the people who had to
flee, and as most of it is in silver ten-penny pieces, there being
no paper money in circulation here, they could carry away but
little, and we took charge of large sums without interest, to be
used by us if necessary and repaid when banking was resumed. With
this we began to feed the people. It was the system in the city to
sell bread until noon, and after that to distribute one of the thin
sheets of bread to every one who had nothing to eat and no money to
buy anything. This distribution took a force of about twenty or
thirty men seven hours to get through.
The city church is in the enclosure under the American flag, and it
held three thousand ill-smelling people with their few earthly
possessions remaining to them.
Here at the College we had about two thousand, and as we have few
buildings the housing was a problem.
We had five hundred in the hospital. Our largest ward has only ten
beds in it, and by putting people on the floor between the beds we
could get in about twenty, but in two other large wards that we took
the bedsteads out of, over a hundred apiece sat huddled together on
the floor, without fire or lights, as we could not afford them for
them. We had those who were destitute here; those who had escaped
with their cattle and a sack of flour or some bedding or a carpet we
put over on the other side of the avenue in the College buildings.
I fed those on the hospital side besides attending to the regular
hospital routine, which was heavier on account of the wounded
Christians who were being brought in every day.
My own rooms consist of my dining room and sitting room, in one of
which I have a couch to sleep on, a kitchen and a little room
downstairs for my man.
I reserved one room for myself for living, dining and bedroom
combined, and took in seven of the College boys, students from the
mountains, who are here all the year round and whom I knew pretty
well, to bring their native beds to live in my dining room. Seakhan
had the kitchen full of her people and friends, seven or eight of
them, and Choban took two families into his room downstairs.
The boys helped me by distributing the bread in the hospital and
holding evening prayers in the different rooms in the hospital.
Then we all began to get the typhoid fever. We had some Turkish
soldiers in the hospital with it, and the people were ignorant and
careless, so we had an epidemic of it. We have seven hundred
new-made graves in our compound here at the College, as the result
of it.
I have had it and recovered, and am as strong and well as ever,
though somewhat thinner, fortunately. I had a Syrian trained nurse,
the only one in Urmia, as I was the first missionary to go down with
it, being in the most direct contact with it in the hospital (though
Dr. Packard went down the day after I did). He also recovered. The
little Swiss governess the Coans brought out with them was the first
to die of the foreigners, and then followed the death of Mrs.
McDowell and, this week, my dear Louise Shedd, my best friend here—a
friend of fifteen years’ standing from the time we were together in
charge of the seminary. All my boys went down too, and my favourite
one died—such a simple, sweet Christian boy. Others of the
missionaries who have had it or are having it are Dr. Coan and
Elizabeth, Bertha Shedd and Mrs. Müller. Mrs. Müller gave birth to a
seven months’ baby boy, who lived a day, and then she went on to
have typhoid. Besides these there were Miss Lewis, Miss Schoebel,
Miss Lamme and Mr. Allen.
In the hospital there was a time when the head physician-assistant,
Dr. Daniel (who died of it), the matron, the druggist, all the
nurses, the cook and the bake-woman, the steward and the
washer-women were all down together, and two hundred and fifty
patients to be taken care of. You can imagine, or rather you can’t
begin to imagine, the disorganisation of the place. Elizabeth Coan
took my place at first, and in two weeks was having it. Then Miss
Lamme came to take her place and in two weeks she, too, was on her
back. The Syrian woman who came next to fill the vacancy is still at
it, though I am back at some work, being now safe from infection. My
man had it, but my woman has weathered the gale so far, and after
three months we have to record to-day that for ten days past not one
new case has come down here. One of the boys, Seakhan’s mother and
two of the men in Choban’s room have died of it in my “family.”
In the city it was even worse. It is raging in our big compound,
though from the first they had from ten to forty deaths a day from
cold, privation, illness of one kind and another, and perhaps shock
from fright. In another part of the city, where we have a big school
building for our Moslem boys’-school, three thousand people were
rescued and brought in by Dr. Packard s valiant intervention, when
he rode up to the Kurdish chief in the thick of a fight between
Kurds and the villagers entrenched in Russian trenches and fighting
for their lives, begged the lives of the inhabitants, and after
parleying awhile succeeded in buying the souls of the people in
exchange for their guns. He rode back to the city with them after
the sun had set on a January night, reaching the city about nine
o’clock, their homes being robbed and burned behind them by the
Kurds.
Turkish rule and Kurdish plundering have reduced the inhabitants to
the verge of starvation, and as yet the end is not in sight.
Yesterday the Turks and Kurds arose and departed, and it is supposed
that the Russians are about to return. They are only a day’s journey
distant, having just been successful in a long fight with a Turkish
army that came from Constantinople via Mosul, and after a three
months’ march was cut to pieces by the Russians near Gavilan, a
day’s journey from here. There were twenty thousand or more of them,
well equipped, but the Russians had the advantage of a fortified
position, a knowledge of the lie of the land and perhaps superior
numbers. We don’t know anything definite about that.
We haven’t had a word of war news during 1915 so far, and feel as if
we were in the bottom of a well as far as seeing what is going on
about us is concerned.
No mail has penetrated the veil that hides the world from us, but we
have had a telegram from the American Ambassador in Constantinople
inquiring for our safety, and have sent telegrams saying we had not
been disturbed personally, which is one of the miracles of missions,
by the way. Just now things are very tense here; the Moslem Governor
is doing well in trying to control things, but the Moslems hate the
Christians, so that they are killing some of those who have gone
back to their ruined villages to live.
There is no power of description that can overdraw the picture, that
is and has been before our eyes constantly, of misery and distress.
Instead we have to veil it, for details are too horrible, too
revolting to try to convey to people who are not called upon by God
to go through it. But whatever the end may be for me, I am sure I
can only be thankful God has given me such an unlimited opportunity
for service as these past months have been.
If the Russians come back or the Turks stay away, we shall have a
mail system established again, if there is such a thing going on
across the world nowadays. Since last July we have had little mail
on account of the war, but some did leak through till the 1st
January (1915), since when we have been like Moses when the light
went out.
We are still feeding thousands of people—just enough bread every day
to keep life in their bodies—and have saved the Syrian nation but
have accumulated thirty or forty thousand dollars (six to eight
thousand pounds sterling) of debt, which we don’t know where to find
money to repay. We only know of six thousand dollars (£1,200
sterling) that were telegraphed as relief two or three months ago.
But we hope the Red Cross Society and charitable people in America
will send us money.
We haven’t even been able to get our money from the Board sent to
Tabriz, but even what could be paid on our regular salaries has been
paid out of these borrowed funds. However, when things settle down a
little we can get at that if there are any of us left by that time.
Just now I have regularly one school-boy and often a few others at
my table, as they are all hungry with the hunger that comes after
typhoid and the College fare is reduced to bread and cheese.
The one who eats with me all the time is a boy from the village Dr.
Packard delivered, Geogtapa, and his father was killed and his house
burned and goods carried off or destroyed. Their food supplies were
left, mostly, as the robbers got their fill and could only destroy
the rest. For instance, a cellar had jars of molasses smashed and
into that was thrown their flour, and on that pickles by
jars-full—the big earthen pointed-bottomed jars that household
supplies are all stored in here. Into this pudding were thrown their
books, few in number, perhaps, but all the more valued for that.
Then this boy, because he belongs to a village where soldier guards
have been placed and some degree of safety assured, was told that he
must go home. That was a general rule, and when I learned the state
of things I told him he could eat with me till things cleared up.
Then they have fields and vineyards that can be worked, and he has
older brothers in America and Tiflis who will look after him. He is
about eighteen, the youngest of the family and the only one left at
home. He is only one case out of thousands equally at a loss just
now. He has his room at the College and sleeps over there with other
students.
I hope you have all been kept in safety during these months and will
write to me all about yourselves and the world at large.
33. URMIA: LETTER, DATED URMIA, 25th MAY, 1915, FROM THE REV. Y.M.
NISAN TO THE REV. F.N. HEAZELL, ORGANISING SECRETARY OF THE
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY’S ASSYRIAN MISSION.
The day after the departure of our missionaries from Urmi, that is,
the 3rd January (1915), the Kurds and Turks, and with them a great
number of the Moslems of Urmi, began to raid and kill and to make
captives from a large part of the Christian villages.
The majority of the Christians, to the number of about 25,000, took
refuge in the courtyards of the Americans and French and in our own
premises. Up to the present time there is a large number of the
Syrians in our yard; another portion, we do not know how many, fled
to Russia with the Russian army. The besieged people here were
provided with bread, one portion each per day, by the missionaries;
but many have not escaped death. People died from the following
causes:—(1) From fear; (2) from their bad dwelling places; (3) from
cold; (4) from hunger; (5) from typhoid fever—the dead up to now
from this disease, as far as we can tell, are from 800 to 1,000.
Those who died from the slaughter and raiding of villages numbered
6,000. Many died in the houses of their refuge from the causes
mentioned above. About 2,000 died of those who fled (to Russia),
either on the road or after their arrival there. In our house my
daughter Beatrice died from fright, and, 25 days after Beatrice,
Mrs. Nisan died from grief at the loss of her daughter; also
Michael, nephew of Khan Audishu, my relative, and to-day his wife,
too. Nanajan, my daughter-in-law, and her two sisters are now in bed
with typhoid fever.
One day 48 people were seized in the yard of the French Mission. Mar
Dinkha, bishop of the Old Church, was one of them. As they were
keeping him in prison some days, I tried to buy off Mar Dinkha with
the promise of 50 gold pieces, but they asked 100. I was outwitted
at that time, for as often as I raised my offer they would advance
the price. Then they carried them outside, and when they were bound
arm to arm they were all shot.
Once they went to the village of Gulpashan and demanded a sum of
money; they took money and carried off everything else as well; 45
men who were on the watch were killed that night.
At the beginning of events, the Turks demanded, in the name of the
Persian Government, every kind of weapon for hewing and cutting
(instead of knives); these were all seized in the name of the
Persian Government. Afterwards two Osmanli officers and some
soldiers came to the houses and searched for weapons and men in our
yards, and so to every room and cupboard. Boxes were opened and
examined, and the people were in the greatest fear.
One day afterwards they entered the yard and seized Mar Elia, the
Russian Bishop and Doctor Lokman. After a long imprisonment the
Bishop was ransomed for 6,500 tomans, and the doctor for 2,000
tomans. The Melet Bashi of the French was taken from their yard and
afterwards ransomed for 3,000 tomans. Shamasha Lazar, whose house is
just by the American gate, was seized and bought off for 4,500
tomans. The enemy had one list of 80 names, written by their own
hand, of men who were doomed to be killed, or bought off at a great
price.
Audishu Khan fled from our house to the house of a Moslem friend,
and remained hidden for two months, but by the rogues of the village
and the commander here he was robbed of 27,000 tomans.
One night two Turkish officers with some soldiers descended by means
of a ladder into our yard; they seized Mr. George, our neighbour,
and the brother-in-law of Mr. Comin, who was groom in his house;
also Jawar, our gatekeeper, and Babu our cook and his son; also
Kasha Pilipus, _natir kursi_ of Mar Yohannan, and Asakhan my
servant. At that time, because I had two persons very ill, I was
watching from the balcony of my house so that they might not enter
my rooms. Twice they came beneath the balcony and looked up, and
when they saw me they went away. There is no doubt that the angels
were watching over us and sent these men away.
At first Jawar’s brother and his son were seized, when carrying
bread for him (Jawar). After an imprisonment of two nights and one
day we got them out by paying 68 tomans for the two of them. A
friend of mine worked this for my sake.
The Osmanlis and the Kurds left Urmi two days ago. The Russian army
is now a little way from Urmi. To-day we are very confused and
fearful; they are saying that the Russian army will return. One part
of the Syrians have fled and left Urmi.
One letter previous to this one—I doubt if it has reached you. I
shall be glad if you will let me know quickly what is to be my work
here in the future, because just now I am like a bird without a nest
and without companions. There is no word from Samuel my son, and I
do not know where he is.
34. URMIA: NARRATIVE OF DR. JACOB SARGIS, RECORDED IN A DESPATCH,
DATED PETROGRAD, 12th FEBRUARY, 1916, FROM THE CORRESPONDENT AT
PETROGRAD OF THE AMERICAN “ASSOCIATED PRESS.”
Dr. Jacob Sargis, an American Methodist medical missionary, who has
arrived in Petrograd after narrowly escaping death at the hands of
the Turks and Kurds in Urmia, Persian Armenia, asserts that among
the outrages committed against the Christian refugees was the
burning to death of an American doctor named Simon, or Shimmun, as
he was known there. His identity was not further established, but
the story of the outrage, as told by Dr. Sargis, was as follows:
“Dr. Shimmun was in the village of Supurghan when the Turks attacked
that place. He was among those who took refuge on a mountain near
the lake. He was captured and told that since he had been a good
doctor and had helped the wounded, they would not kill him, but that
he must accept the Mohammedan faith. He refused, as almost all
Christians did. They poured oil on him, and, before applying the
torch, they gave him another chance to forsake his religion. Again
he refused, and they set his clothes afire. While he was running in
agony from the flames, the Turks shot him several times. After he
fell to the ground unconscious, they hacked his head off. Mr. Allen,
an American missionary, who went from village to village burying the
victims of this butchery, found the body of Shimmun half eaten by
dogs.
“The Catholic Mission there took 150 Christians of all sects, and
kept them in a small room and tried to save them; but at least 49 of
them, among them one Bishop Dinkha, of the Episcopal Mission, were
bound together one night, taken to Gagin mountain and there shot
down.”
Mr. Sargis was born in Persia, but went to America in 1893, and was
educated there by the assistance of Dr. W.F. Oldham, former Bishop
of India. He is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan and Ohio Medical
University, and was for a time resident physician of the Protestant
hospital at Columbus, Ohio.
Dr. Sargis was doing relief work in Urmia on the 1st January last
year when the Russian army retired from that city, followed by
14,000 refugees from Urmia and a hundred surrounding villages. The
hardships and sufferings endured by those refugees were described in
Associated Press despatches. There were still left in Urmia and the
villages 45,000 persons, chiefly Armenian refugees, when the Turks
and Kurds entered. The latter at once began the work of
exterminating the Christian population. In one town alone,
Gulpashan, in one night, according to Dr. Sargis, 79 men and boys
were tied hand to hand, taken to a hill outside the village and
shot. Their wives and daughters were distributed among the Turks,
Kurds and Persian Mohammedans.
Dr. Sargis’ story continues:
“On the second day after the Turkish officers came, they had a good
many wounded and sick. As soon as they heard that I was an able
physician, they took me, gave me a bodyguard, and put me in charge
of Urmia Hospital. That was how I came to learn most of their
secrets; I helped their wounded and sick. One day there were sixty
men brought from Bashkala, all well-to-do citizens, some of them
noted men of that place. They were used as beasts of burden and
forced to carry rolls of barbed wire into Urmia. The next day they
were all taken to the Castle of Ismayil[49] and every one was shot
or hacked to death.
“About that time Nuri, the governor of Gawar, told me that he had
received word from the Turkish commander to kill all the Armenian
soldiers in the Turkish army. He said that, for my sake, he would
not do it, but that somebody else would. Twenty-nine were killed
about fifteen miles from Urmia, at Karmad. We had eight of them in
the city, fine fellows, some of them educated in Beirout. They had
been disarmed, and one night they took them to the suburbs and shot
them. But one of them, named Aslam[50], escaped. He dropped with the
others, but was not hit. After the butchers left, he made his way to
the Presbyterian mission college. I was notified and asked to take
care of him. I kept him until the Russian army came. He joined, and
is now fighting with them.
“In the First Turkish corps, commanded by Halil Bey, there were
about 400 Armenians. One of them, Gulbenkian, a graduate of Beirout,
told me that they were all doomed to be butchered. When they
appointed me head physician of the hospital, they gave me plenty of
helpers, including seven Christian nurses, six Arabs and one Greek.
Gulbenkian told me that if I did not help them they would be killed.
An Arab doctor, Bahadin Effendi, was appointed to work under my
direction. My Greek nurse warned me that Bahadin had already killed
more than fifty Armenian Christians, and cautioned me to watch him.
One night about ten o’clock, Bahadin sent for me, saying that he was
sick. Fortunately for me, the Greek and two Armenian nurses went
with me. When I reached the hospital, I found that Bahadin was not
sick at all. He said to me: ‘What business have you to disturb me at
this time of the night? Your coming shows that you have some designs
upon my life.’ I told him that it was a mistake, that I had been
told he was sick, and went away. At the bottom of the stairs I was
overtaken by an officer, who said that the doctor had not done with
me. I protested, but was ordered to go back. So I put my trust in
the Lord and went.
“The doctor greeted me with the question: ‘Who gave you permission
to leave the room?’ and continued: ‘You are a prisoner, and you will
never see the light of to-morrow’s sun.’ I told him that I was an
American citizen, and that I was helping the wounded for the sake of
humanity. He cut me off by saying: ‘This is wartime. The top of your
cap is green. That means that you are a descendant of the prophet,
and it will give me pleasure to destroy your life to-night. I must
think how I shall kill you. I could throw you out of the window, but
that would be too quick. I could shoot you, but that also is too
good for you. I shall have to use my sword. You sit down there in
that corner, and these Turkish nurses will sing your funeral before
I begin to cut you up.’
“The Turks began to sing a droning chant and I had no choice but to
sit and listen. My bodyguard, the Greek nurse Theodore and two
Armenian soldiers, the latter my servants, stood outside the door,
and when they heard the chanting they thought it was all over with
me. The Greek, who was a shrewd fellow, told my bodyguard to enter,
and, if he saw me, to say that the patients wanted to see the
doctor. All of a sudden I saw him enter with a lantern. He saluted
the effendi and said: ‘The patients want the doctor.’ I didn’t give
Bahadin a chance to say a word. I was up and out and down in the
street in about two seconds. When I got to the outpost they yelled
from the window to stop me, but they were too late. My bodyguard and
the Armenians and the Greek followed close behind me, and I got
away. I reached home at midnight. My wife and children thought I was
already dead.”
Dr. Sargis turned the tables on the Arab doctor by alleging that he
was insane, and having him put under guard and on a milk diet,
notwithstanding that he was a doctor in Halil Bey’s army.
“Soon after the Russians left Urmia a German machinist, Neumann, who
came in with the Turks, announced himself as German Consul. By his
orders a Christian of the name of Moushi was hanged. Neumann had
promised me to release Moushi, but overnight he sold him to the
Turks for £50. An Englishman named Jonathan George, well known in
Tabriz, a relative of my wife, was whipped on Neumann’s orders. In
the village of Karadjalu a young Christian with a wife and two
children was killed by a Mohammedan. The murderer took the wife and
children, promising to protect them; but while crossing a bridge he
threw the children into the river. At Ardishai 75 women and girls
ran into the sea[51] to escape the Turks. They refused to trust
promises of safety if they came out, and were all shot as they stood
in the water. Eight thousand five hundred died in the vicinity of
Urmia in five months; 1,500 were killed, and the rest died of cold
and hunger.
“During the days of the Turkish occupation it was no unusual sight
to see an old woman carrying the body of her daughter or son to a
place of burial, digging the grave herself or with the aid of other
women.”
-----
Footnote 49:
Ismael Agha’s Kala. See page 162 below.
Footnote 50:
Arslan (?).
Footnote 51:
_i.e._, Lake Urmia.
35. URMIA: EXTRACTS FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT (FOR THE YEAR 1915)
PRESENTED BY THE MEDICAL DEPARTMENT AT URMIA TO THE BOARD OF
FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U.S.A.