are women and the balance girls. Dr. Case had six Armenians in his
house when he left Erzeroum. Four of these went to Mr. Stapleton,
and one he takes with him to Constantinople, and one he expects to
leave at Marsovan for training in the Hospital. The Vali granted a
special permit for these two girls to travel with Dr. Case, and also
handed to him a letter of appreciation for the work he had done in
his hospital for Turkish officers.
Mr. Stapleton’s relations with the Vali, Tahsin Bey, are good, and
indeed the latter, who was Mutessarif of Pera a few years ago,
impressed me as being a very reasonable man, who desired to do the
right thing and entertain good relations with the Americans....
55. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY MR. B.H. KHOUNOUNTZ,
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION,” ON A VISIT TO
ERZEROUM AFTER THE RUSSIAN OCCUPATION; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 25th FEBRUARY, 1916.
There are between 80 and 100 Armenians left in Erzeroum—according to
other reports 130—and about 25,000 Turks, who dare not come out of
their houses. The sanitary condition of the city is deplorable. Mr.
Khounountz had interviews with a number of Armenian and foreign
eye-witnesses. He met an Armenian officer who had escaped from the
Turks, who told him of the deportation and massacre of the
Armenians. He said that the attitude of the Turks towards the
Armenians was more or less good at the beginning of the war, but it
was suddenly changed after the Turkish defeat at Sari-Kamysh, as
they laid the blame for this defeat upon the Armenians, though he
could not tell why.
After that, they separated the Armenian soldiers from the Turks as a
dangerous element, and removed them from the fighting line. They put
them on the roads to work as ordinary labourers.
At the same time terror reigned in the city. Mr. Pasdermadjian, a
well-known Armenian, was assassinated, and a number of prominent
young men were hanged or exiled. A number of Armenians were forced
to go to the cemetery and destroy the statue which was erected to
the memory of martyred Russian soldiers in 1829. They were also
forced to open hospitals for the wounded Turkish soldiers at their
own expense.
On the 5/18th April, by an order received from Constantinople, the
Turks held a big meeting in which the hodjas (religious heads)
openly preached massacre, casting the responsibility for the defeat
upon the Armenians. The Armenians appealed to them and implored for
mercy, but in vain. The Vali was rather inclined to spare the
Armenians, but the order from Constantinople had tied his hands.
The deportation of all the Armenians in the Vilayet of Erzeroum
began on the 4th June. It was carried out promptly, and took the
Armenians by surprise. Gendarmes were sent to the Armenian villages
at night, who entered the houses, separated all the men from their
families and deported them. The deportation of the men of
Erzeroum—the city proper—was carried out less cruelly, the Vali
giving them 15 days’ notice.
But as the refugees were escorted by brutal gendarmes and chettis
(bands of robbers) many of them were massacred in a most cruel
manner, and very few of them reached their destination, which was
the district of Kamakh, west of Erzindjan.
According to the officer, the plan of deportation was exactly the
same as in other vilayets. None were spared, not even certain women
teachers—Protestant and Roman Catholic—who were foreign subjects and
had taught in foreign colleges.
Only 15 skilled labourers were left, with their families, as they
were needed for war work. These were massacred before the Turks left
Erzeroum.
56. ERZEROUM: ABSTRACT OF A REPORT BY DR. Y. MINASSIAN, WHO
ACCOMPANIED MR. KHOUNOUNTZ TO ERZEROUM AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE
CAUCASIAN SECTION OF THE “ALL-RUSSIAN URBAN UNION”; PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” OF TIFLIS, 8th MARCH, 1916.
Dr. Minassian gathered his information from the following sources:
The American Vice-Consul at Erzeroum, Mr. Stapleton; Mrs. Stapleton;
Dr. Case of the American Mission Hospital; an educated Armenian
lady—Zarouhi—from Baibourt, who escaped the massacres by a miracle;
an Armenian soldier who had accepted Islam; an old man from
Erzeroum; and many others.
Before Turkey’s entry into the war, the Young Turks saw that war
between them and Russia was inevitable, so they tried to win the
Armenians over to their side by promising them all kinds of
privileges.
As soon as war was declared, they confiscated everything from the
shops of the Turks, Greeks, Armenians and Syrians, without any
distinction of race or religion. The Armenians lost more than the
other nationalities, as they were the wealthiest commercially.
The Turks asked the Armenians to join with them, but they declined,
saying that if they fought against the Russians they would endanger
the lives of their brothers in Caucasia. This seemed reasonable to
the authorities, and on the surface, at least, they left the
Armenians in peace.
The Armenians performed their civic duties faithfully and opened a
hospital for the Turkish wounded; later on they were forced to open
others.
Everything went smoothly until the first Turkish defeat, which
occurred at Keutag. It was then that the Turks found out that the
Armenian volunteers were fighting side by side with the Russians.
This was announced everywhere and excited the Turks; but no steps
were taken until it was reported that Garo Pasdermadjian, a member
of the Ottoman Parliament and one of the deputies for Erzeroum, was
commanding a body of volunteers in the Russian army. The result was
that Mr. Pasdermadjian’s brother was assassinated. Then Djemal
Effendi from Constantinople, with another Turk, Saifoullah, incited
the people to massacre the Armenians.
The Governor saw that the excitement was growing, so he called a
conference of all the prominent Turks. This was held at Pasha-Kiosk,
and Djemal and Saifoullah took part. These demanded an immediate
massacre, but the Governor requested them to hold their hand until
he could communicate with Constantinople about it.
After this the authorities disarmed and removed all the Armenian
soldiers from Erzeroum, and put them on the roads to work as
unskilled labourers. A number of wealthy Armenians were forced to
destroy the statue which was erected in memory of martyred Russian
soldiers in 1828, and transfer its stones to another place to build
a club-house for the Young Turks. Some could not stand the hard
work, yet could only obtain release from it by paying large sums.
Then the rich Armenians were asked to vacate their homes and to
transform them into hospitals. This was done willingly, and the
Armenians undertook to care for the wounded.
Then an order came to some Armenians to leave their homes and go.
But they begged to remain, and were allowed to do so on payment of
£1,500 (Turkish).
A week later, all the rich and educated men were imprisoned; many of
them died in prison under terrible tortures.
Then it was announced that they would all be deported. When the
Governor was asked where they would be sent, he replied: “To a safe
place, where the mob cannot hurt you.”
The Armenians packed all their valuables and left them at the
American Consulate, the missionary schools, and at the Armenian
Church.
To obviate any possibility of resistance, the villagers were first
deported towards Kamakh, and when the Erzeroum Armenians followed
them they saw heaps of ruins in place of prosperous villages.
The deportation of the Armenians of Baibourt was more terrible. They
were all taken by surprise at midnight.
“Where are you taking us?” they asked. “To a safe place,” was the
reply, “away from the Turks, where the mob cannot massacre you. It
is the duty of the Government to protect its subjects. You will
remain there until peace is re-established.”
The Armenians believed them and followed the gendarmes without
resistance. After they had travelled several miles, they noticed
that the attitude of the guards changed and that they had been
deceived. By and by they were asked to pay fifty pounds, which they
paid. Towards nightfall they asked for two girls. The next day they
asked for five hundred pounds. They had to pay that also. That night
they asked for five girls and took them. Then every day they were
robbed. They lost all their valuables and provisions. The Turkish
villagers stole the best looking girls and boys.
Just before they reached Erzindjan, their outer clothing was taken
away from them and they were left in their underclothes. When they
reached Erzindjan they protested to the Kaimakam. The Kaimakam
promised to accompany them. The next day they started for Kamakh.
After they had travelled a few miles, they were attacked by chettis
from all sides. The Armenians wanted to run back to Erzindjan, but
the gendarmes opened fire on them. Many of them were thus massacred,
and the remainder were driven towards Kamakh.
It was discovered that these chettis had been organised by Djemal
Effendi, and it was by deliberate design that all the refugees were
left in their white underclothes, so that no one could run away or
hide himself.
When the refugees reached a gorge of the Euphrates River they were
attacked again, and many of them were drowned in the river.
Zarouhi—who related the above story—said that the river was filled
with corpses. She also was thrown into the river, but clung to a
rock behind some bushes and remained there until the gendarmes and
chettis had gone away.
Coming out of the river she met a kind Kurdish shepherd, who wrapped
her in a blanket and took her to the house of a Turk who knew her.
The Turk took her to Erzeroum and kept her in his home.
In speaking of the responsibility of the Germans for the massacres
and deportations, Dr. Minassian says that, before the deportation,
the Armenians went to the German Consul and asked his assistance.
His answer was: “I do not want to mix in other people’s affairs,
and I have no authorisation to do so from my Ambassador at
Constantinople.”
The German officers at Erzeroum helped the Turks to organise the
deportation, and also took their share of the booty. Almost every
one of them had kidnapped Armenian girls.
An officer called Schapner, for instance, took with him four girls;
another called Karl, two girls; and so on—there was a long fist of
names which the reporter could not remember.
57. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY MR. A.S. SAFRASTIAN, DATED TIFLIS, 15th
MARCH, 1916.
Since last October, when the Armenian atrocities were disclosed to
the world at large, we had hoped against hope that, in spite of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary, all that was said to have
occurred might not be confirmed; that there might have been outlying
districts in Turkish Armenia where the local Armenians had been
spared the horrors that had accompanied their destruction in areas
situated on the main roads. Unfortunately, now that the entire
provinces of Erzeroum and Bitlis have been cleared of the Turk and
one is able to see for oneself what actually has taken place, one is
simply staggered at the depth and extent of the great crime, and the
unprecedentedly cruel means by which the Armenians were cleared out
of those two provinces, as well as the adjacent districts.
After seeing something with my own eyes in Erzeroum and Van, and
compiling the facts about Bitlis, Moush and Khnyss from Russian
official and other sources, my impression is that, out of the
250,000 Armenians of the Erzeroum and Bitlis Vilayets that remained
under the dominion of the Turk in April, 1915 (exclusive of some
50,000 who saved themselves last summer, either by fighting their
way out or by the advance of the Russians, and are now in
Trans-Caucasia), only some 10,000 can be accounted for since an
estimate was made possible by the death-blow which the Turks
suffered last month. The remaining 240,000 or so have apparently
perished under circumstances of the most extreme violence and
inhumanity of which any human being is capable.
I am now in a position to state that all the accounts of Armenian
atrocities which have been published in Europe and the United States
are not only completely true, but that they represent merely such
facts as have come under the eyes of consular officers or
missionaries of neutral states; whereas the most ghastly and heinous
crimes have been committed in the unfrequented parts of the country,
out of sight of any observer.
The city of Erzeroum, the great military stronghold in Turkish
Armenia, contained some 50,000 inhabitants before the war, of whom
20,000 were Armenians. The so-called plain of Erzeroum, a fertile
alluvial plateau extending north-west of the city, contained some 60
Armenian villages with at least 45,000 inhabitants, almost all of
them belonging to a sturdy race of peasants.
As soon as the European war broke out, the Central Committee of the
Young Turks sent one Boukhar-ed-Din-Shakir-Bey, one of the Committee
leaders, to Erzeroum, to organise the annihilation of the Armenians.
Another, Djemal Effendi, a fanatic of the foulest type, was sent
later on to help him in the work. These two Committee stalwarts sent
from Constantinople were assisted in their fiendish business by two
notorious natives—Edib Hodja and Djafer Bey.
At Erzeroum, as everywhere else, the Armenians in particular were
ruthlessly robbed of most of the goods they possessed under the
cloak of military requisitions. The Turkish defeat at Sarikamysh in
January, 1915, and the exaggerated accounts of the part played by
Armenian Volunteers in that battle, envenomed relations at Erzeroum.
A Turkish officer who returned from Sarikamysh told the Armenian
Bishop Sempad at Erzeroum that they chiefly met Armenians on the
battlefields: “Many of our soldiers were shot by Armenians,” he
said, “and it was the Volunteers who destroyed our villages and
scouting parties.”
Subsequently a campaign of slander and provocation was started by
the Young Turk leaders against the Armenian people. Armenian
soldiers in the Turkish army were disarmed and sent to labour
battalions, and further severe measures were taken to squeeze every
available asset out of the helpless people. A great mass meeting was
held by the Turks on the 18th April just outside the city, in which
the Armenians were publicly denounced as “traitors” and “dangerous
to the Empire” and as supporters of the enemies of Turkey. Strict
orders were issued to all Moslems who were inclined to shield their
Armenian friends that they would be punished as severely as their
protégés if they dared to protect them.
Fully aware of the fate that awaited them, the Armenians of Erzeroum
made desperate appeals to Tahsin Bey, the Vali of the province, for
protection. The latter’s reply was that he could not defy the
instructions sent by the Central Government. The answer of Herr
Anders, the German Consul at Erzeroum, to whom the Armenians
appealed again for protection, seems to have been still more brutal.
He definitely stated that the persecutions levelled by the Turkish
Government and the mob against the Armenians were quite lawful, and
that he could not interfere in the matter.
By an exercise of imagination one may perhaps visualise to some
extent the anguish and agony those poor Armenians suffered during
April and May. Trapped on all sides by the ruthless enemy and
deprived of all means of armed or legal protection, they attempted
to make the best of an unprecedentedly tragic situation. Almost all
the intellectual leaders and teachers were openly done to death in
prison under horrible tortures. Pilos, Atrouni and several others
have never been heard of since their imprisonment. Pasdermadjian, a
leading citizen of the town, was shot dead in the streets. This
reign of terror also prevailed in the villages of the plain.
The capture of Van by the Armenians on the 16th May and the entry of
the Armenian Volunteers, followed by the Russian Army, made a great
impression on the Turkish authorities at Erzeroum. On the same day,
the Armenians of Khnyss and of the neighbouring 38 villages were
butchered almost to a man, and the women and children distributed
among the Kurds. During the recent capture of Khnyss by the
Russians, some 3,000 women and children were rescued in and around
Khnyss. Apparently these represent the remnant of the 22,000
Armenians of the Sandjak of Khnyss.
In the meantime the Russians were advancing towards Melazkerd and
Bitlis, and the Turks deported the Armenian peasants from Melazkerd
and Passin and drove them towards Erzeroum. These half-starved
peasants, exhausted and harried by forced marches, were not allowed
to enter Erzeroum; they were kept out in the rain for seven days.
Their situation became so shocking in May (1915) that even the
German Consul was moved at the spectacle, and took some clothing and
bread in his own car to distribute among “these rebellious
scoundrels.” Later on they were driven towards Erzindjan and drowned
in the Euphrates.
On the 4th June, the first batch of Armenian peasants from the plain
of Erzeroum, amounting to some 15,000 persons, were forced by the
gendarmes to leave their homes and proceed to Mamahatoun, west of
Erzeroum. They were escorted by chetti (Moslem Volunteer) bands
consisting of criminals released from prison since the proclamation
of the Holy War. In the ankle-deep mud and along the rugged roads,
children and weak women fell by the wayside amid the laughter of the
chettis. Every evening a forced tribute was levied upon the
peasants. Gradually they were robbed of everything they
possessed—money, clothing, horses, etc. Girls and women were
distributed among the Turks as they passed through Turkish villages.
A few hours’ distance beyond Mamahatoun, at the entrance of a valley
called the Kamakh gorge, this convoy was “ambushed by unknown
robbers.” The signal was given by a revolver shot, whereupon a
volley of fire was poured upon the Armenians. One of the survivors
of this batch, a lad of 18 whom I saw in Erzeroum, told me that the
shrieks and cries of the women and weeping children under fire were
distracting. Many attempted to escape, but they were fired upon by
their own escort. In two hours’ time the valley had become a vast
cemetery of unburied human bodies. Out of the 15,000 thus disposed
of, a few escaped and reached Erzeroum in the guise of Turkish
peasants.
On the 18th June it was the turn of the city. A fortnight’s
time-limit was given to the Armenians for settling their affairs;
they packed their property in boxes and bales and stored them with
Mr. Stapleton, the head of the American Mission, and in the Armenian
Cathedral. The Governor took £1,000 (Turkish) from them in payment
for a safe-conduct before their departure. A hundred and sixty
leading families were selected first for deportation. They were all
people of means and education. The German officers in Erzeroum
behaved in an outrageous manner towards the Armenian women torn away
from their men. The Germans, in fact, seem to have set the example
of wrenching women from their homes. One Captain Schapner (?) is
said to have forced Miss Tchilingarian, a handsome girl, to follow
him. On her resisting and crying, she was dragged about in the
streets and roughly handled. This worthy German also carried off
Mrs. Sarafian, a young woman educated in Switzerland. Another German
lieutenant, Karl (?), dragged five women to his rooms, and so on.
The convoy of 160 families started out with carriages and some
luggage, and were sent off in the same direction as their
predecessors—towards Mamahatoun and Erzindjan. As they travelled
they were robbed of everything and even stripped of their clothing.
They are reported as having skirted the town of Erzindjan, but
beyond that nothing has since been heard of them.
Bishop Sempad was sent off alone in his own carriage to Erzindjan,
and never heard of again.
In the last week of June, several parties of Erzeroum Armenians were
deported on successive days and most of them massacred on the way,
either by shooting or drowning. One, Madame Zarouhi, an elderly lady
of means, who was thrown into the Euphrates, saved herself by
clinging to a boulder in the river. She succeeded in approaching the
bank and returned to Erzeroum to hide herself in a Turkish friend’s
house. She told Prince Argoutian (Argoutinsky), the representative
of the “All-Russian Urban Union” in Erzeroum, that she shuddered to
recall how hundreds of children were bayoneted by the Turks and
thrown into the Euphrates, and how men and women were stripped
naked, tied together in hundreds, shot and then hurled into the
river. In a loop of the river near Erzindjan, she said, the
thousands of dead bodies created such a barrage that the Euphrates
changed its course for about a hundred yards. Several Armenians of
this last party, however, seem to have survived this dreadful
journey. Recently some of them wrote from Rakka, in northern Syria,
to Mr. Stapleton imploring money and help, as they were in the
direst distress.
After the recent capture of the city by the Russians, there were
some 100 Armenians altogether in Erzeroum and some 25,000 Turks.
Thirty girls and women were protected by Mr. Stapleton in his house.
A certain number of women are gradually being rescued from the Turks
in the city, and perhaps thousands more may be saved, if the
military authorities take the necessary measures and help the
Armenians to discover their own people.
Most of the children converted to Islam are quite used to Moslem
habits; they speak and behave as if they were Turks by birth. They
are now changing these habits again in Armenian hands.
When one stood at the gate called Kars Kapou, the eastern entrance
to the city, and looked at the panorama it presented in March, 1916,
Erzeroum did not seem to have suffered great changes in its general
aspect. But I suffered a rude shock in the interior of the city,
when I saw Armenian houses occupied by Turks still gloating over
their booty, the city deprived of its Armenian element, and the dome
of the Cathedral broken away at its base.
The Armenians of Erzeroum to whom I have talked here about
their prospects are consoling themselves—though it is a poor
consolation—with the thought that thousands of them had left the
city before the war, and that they will all return home and take
possession of their property as soon as the conditions there become
better defined.
58. ERZEROUM: STATEMENT BY THE KURD ALI-AGHAZADÉ FARO, PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “MSCHAK,” 19th DECEMBER, 1915.
Ali-Aghazadé Faro, a Kurd, related to some Armenians of St. Garabed,
who reached Caucasia as refugees, that he had gone to Erzeroum last
September to sell sheep, &c., and to get his share of the booty from
the Armenians if possible. Faro remained in Erzeroum for five or six
days, during which time he did not see a single Armenian. He only
saw Turks sitting in the shops of the Armenians. When he asked how
it was that they were in these shops, some answered that they had
bought them, while others said that they were gifts to them from the
Government.
Faro spent the night in a Turkish house, and asked his host what had
become of the Armenians. The latter replied as follows:—
“It was at the end of May when the Governor asked all the leaders
and prominent Armenians to go to him. He told them that they were
obliged to abandon the city to the enemy, consequently the army
would retreat from the place. Therefore he instructed them to get
ready and join him within twenty-four hours. They had to get ready,
but as all means of transport had been requisitioned, they could
take practically nothing with them. Before the twenty-four hours
were up, they all gathered near the Government Building without
knowing what was impending. Several hundred gendarmes surrounded
them immediately and drove them out of the city towards the west.
They were taken as far as Charuk-Dersim (Doujik). The Kurds of
Dersim had already received their orders. They attacked them and
killed every one. Another batch of Armenians was deported towards
Sivas. They were seen passing through the Kamakh Pass, but what
happened to them afterwards has never been known. A few hundred of
their most beautiful girls were captured by certain Turks, and the
Government was still looking for them.”
59. BAIBOURT: NARRATIVE OF AN ARMENIAN LADY DEPORTED IN THE THIRD
CONVOY; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.