and children. The gendarmes told us that they would be exiled next
morning, but they did not know that yet; they did not know what had
become of the men of the house; they were restless, but not yet
desperate.
Just after I had gone to sleep, I was awakened by shots in our
immediate neighbourhood. The reports followed one another rapidly,
and I distinctly heard the words of command. I realised at once what
was happening, and actually experienced a feeling of relief at the
idea that these poor creatures were now beyond the reach of human
cruelty.
Next morning our people told us that ten Armenians had been
shot—that was the firing that we had heard—and that the Turkish
civilians of the place were now being sent out to chase the
fugitives. Indeed, we saw them starting off on horseback with guns.
At the roadside were two armed men standing under a tree and
dividing between them the clothes of a dead Armenian. We passed a
place covered with clotted blood, though the corpses had been
removed. It was the 250 roadmaking soldiers, of whom our gendarme
had told us.
Once we met a large number of these labourers, who had so far been
allowed to do their work in peace. They had been sorted into three
gangs—Moslems, Greeks and Armenians. There were several officers
with the latter. Our young Hassan exclaimed: “They are all going to
be butchered.” We continued our journey, and the road mounted a
hill. Then our driver pointed with his whip towards the valley, and
we saw that the Armenian gang was being made to stand out of the
highroad. There were about 400 of them, and they were being made to
line up on the edge of a slope. We know what happened after that.
Two days before we reached Sivas, we again saw the same sight. The
soldiers’ bayonets glittered in the sun.
At another place there were ten gendarmes shooting them down, while
Turkish workmen were finishing off the victims with knives and
stones. Here ten Armenians had succeeded in getting away.
Later on, in the Mission Hospital at Sivas, we came across one of
the men who had escaped. He told us that about 100 Armenians had
been slaughtered there. Our informant himself had received a
terrible wound in the nape of the neck and had fainted. Afterwards
he had recovered consciousness and had dragged himself in two days
to Sivas.
Twelve hours’ distance from Sivas, we spent the night in a
government building. For hours a gendarme, sitting in front of our
door, crooned to himself over and over gain: “Ermenleri hep
kesdiler—the Armenians have all been killed!” In the next room they
were talking on the telephone. We made out that they were giving
instructions as to how the Armenians were to be arrested. They were
talking chiefly about a certain Ohannes, whom they had not succeeded
in finding yet.
One night we slept in an Armenian house where the women had just
heard that the men of the family had been condemned to death. It was
frightful to hear their cries of anguish. It was no use our trying
to speak to them. “Cannot your Emperor help us?” they cried. The
gendarme saw the despair on our faces, and said: “Their crying
bothers you; I will forbid them to cry.” However, he let himself be
mollified. He had taken particular pleasure in pointing out to us
all the horrors that we encountered, and he said to young Hassan:
“First we kill the Armenians, then the Greeks, then the Kurds.” He
would certainly have been delighted to add: “And then the
foreigners!” Our Greek driver was the victim of a still more ghastly
joke: “Look, down there in the ditch; there are Greeks there too!”
At last we reached Sivas. We had to wait an hour in front of the
Government Building before the examination of our papers was
completed and we were given permission to go to the Americans.
There, too, all was trouble and sorrow.
On the 1st July we left Sivas and reached Kaisaria on the 4th. We
had been given permission to go to Talas, after depositing our
baggage at the Jesuit School; but when we wanted to go on from
Kaisaria, we were refused leave and taken back to the Jesuit School,
where a gendarme was posted in front of our door. However, the
American Missionaries succeeded in getting us set at liberty.
We then returned to Talas, where we passed several days full of
commotion, for there, as well as at Kaisaria, there were many
arrests being made. The poor Armenians never knew what the morrow
would bring, and then came the terrifying news that all Armenians
had been cleared out of Sivas. What happened there and in the
villages of the surrounding districts will be reported by the
American Mission.
When we discovered that they meant to keep us there—for they had
prevented us from joining the Austrians for the journey—we
telegraphed to the German Embassy, and so obtained permission to
start. There is nothing to tell about this part of our journey,
except that the locusts had in places destroyed all the fruit and
vegetables, so that the Turks are already beginning to have some
experience of the Divine punishment.
63. KAMAKH AND ERZEROUM: STATEMENT[83] PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK
JOURNAL “GOTCHNAG,” 4th SEPTEMBER, 1915.
The Armenian villages of the Kamakh district have been visited with
the most ghastly horrors. The Turks began by perpetrating massacres,
and subsequently deported the survivors to various places—the men in
one direction and the women in another. The houses and property
belonging to the Armenians have been taken possession of by the
Turks and Kurds, who have come to this district as refugees from the
Vilayet of Van.
The Armenian villages in the plain west of Erzeroum have all been
cleared of their inhabitants. After all the men who were physically
fit had been mobilised, the remainder were deported. The Armenian
houses are being handed over to Turkish immigrants. The
Archimandrite Kevork Tourian, Metropolitan of the Armenians of
Trebizond, has been brought to Erzeroum, where he will be tried by
court-martial.
-----
Footnote 73:
They were at work in the German hospital at Erzeroum from October,
1914, to April, 1915.—EDITOR.
Footnote 74:
7th June—_Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915.
Footnote 75:
Amounting to about 20,000-25,000 people in all—_Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915.
Footnote 76:
One of the two authors of the present statement, which has been
drafted in the first person by the other witness, but represents
the experiences of both. The Editor is in possession of the
drafter’s name, but does not know the identity of Sister B., Dr.
A., or Mr. G.—EDITOR.
Footnote 77:
A defile, 12 hours’ journey from Erzindjan, where the Euphrates
flows through a narrow gorge between two walls of rock.
Footnote 78:
_i.e._, after the departure of the last convoy of exiles from
Erzindjan (10th June), _not_ after the narrators were informed of
the massacre by their cook and by the two Armenian girls. The
passages about the cobbler, the cook, and the two girls are
evidently in parenthesis, and interrupt the sequence of the
narrative.—EDITOR.
Footnote 79:
The further details are given in the _Allgemeine
Missions-Zeitschrift_, November, 1915: “When we exclaimed in
horror: ‘So you fire on women and children!’ the soldiers
answered: ‘What could we do? It was our orders.’ One of them
added: ‘It was a heart-breaking sight. For that matter, I did not
shoot.’”—EDITOR.
Footnote 80:
On the evening of the 11th, we saw soldiers returning to town
laden with loot. We heard from both Turks and Armenians that
children’s corpses were strewn along the road.
Footnote 81:
Every day ten or twelve of the men had been killed and thrown into
the ravines.—_Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift._
Footnote 82:
This was not the route followed by the convoys of exiles.
Footnote 83:
Source unspecified.
VII.
VILAYET OF MAMOURET-UL-AZIZ.
_This province lies south-west of Erzindjan, where the Kara-Su bends
from west to south and effects its junction with the Mourad-Su, to
form the united stream of the Euphrates. The remnant of the convoys
from the Vilayet of Erzeroum passed through this district on their
way to Mesopotamia, and the Armenian inhabitants of Mamouret-ul-Aziz
itself were sent after them in the first weeks of July._
_The great advance of the Russians in the winter of 1915-6 brought
this province within the immediate war zone, and apparently provoked
a second outburst of persecution. On the 24th February, 1916, the
Paris journal “Le Temps” published the following telegram from Rome:
“According to information that has reached the Vatican, the Turks
have carried fire and sword through the region of Mamouret-ul-Aziz,
killing all the Christians, including the Catholic Armenian Bishop,
Mgr. Ivraklon, who was subjected to prolonged and fearful
tortures.”_
_The name of the town to which most of the documents in this section
relate is, for obvious reasons, withheld._
64. H.: STATEMENT MADE BY MISS DA., A DANISH LADY IN THE SERVICE OF
THE GERMAN RED CROSS AT H., TO MR. DB. AT BASLE, AND
COMMUNICATED BY MR. DB. TO LORD BRYCE.
Sister DA. left the German Red Cross Mission at H. in April, 1916,
travelling through Ourfa to Aleppo, and thence by road and railway
across Anatolia to Constantinople. Mr. DB. met her at Basle, on her
way from Constantinople to Denmark, in the house of a mutual friend.
Sister DA. told Mr. DB. that on the 16th March, 1915, the German
Vice-Consul appointed provisionally to Erzeroum (the Consul himself
being interned in Russia) was passing through the town of H.,
accompanied by two German officers, and arranged to dine that
evening with the German Red Cross Staff, after paying his respects
to the Vali. At the hour fixed, only the two officers appeared. They
said that they had called, with the Vice-Consul, upon the Vali, but
that after a time the Vali had shewn signs of being irked by their
presence, and so they had taken their departure, leaving the Vali
and the Vice-Consul together. The company waited for the Vice-Consul
about two hours. He arrived about 9.30 p.m., in a state of great
agitation, and told them at once the purport of his interview. The
Vali had declared to him that the Armenians in Turkey must be, and
were going to be, exterminated. They had grown, he said, in wealth
and numbers until they had become a menace to the ruling Turkish
race; extermination was the only remedy. The Vice-Consul had
expostulated and represented that persecution always increased the
spiritual vitality of a subject race, and on grounds of expediency
was the worst policy for the rulers. “Well, we shall see,” said the
Vali, and closed the conversation.
This incident occurred on the 16th March, 1915, and Mr. DB. points
out that it must have been practically simultaneous with an
interview given by Enver Pasha at Constantinople to the Gregorian
Bishop of Konia in the course of February, 1915, Old Style. In this
interview the Bishop had asked Enver whether he were satisfied with
the conduct of the Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman Army, and Enver
had testified warmly to their energy, courage and loyalty—so warmly,
in fact, that the Bishop at once asked whether he might publish this
testimonial over Enver’s name. Enver readily consented, and the
Gregorian Patriarchate at Constantinople accordingly circulated an
authorised account of the interview to the Armenian, and even to the
Turkish, press.[84] Thus, in the latter part of February, 1915, the
Central Government at Constantinople was advertising its friendly
feelings towards its Armenian subjects, while by the 16th March,
less than a month later, it had given its representative in a remote
province to understand that a general massacre of these same
Armenians was imminent.
To return to Sister DA.’s narrative—she told Mr. DB. that between
February and the beginning of May, 1915, about 400 Armenians had
been arrested and imprisoned at H. They were the young men, the
strong in body and the intellectuals. Most of their kind had been
taken for the Army in the mobilisation of the previous autumn, but
these 400 had been left, and were now thrown into prison instead of
being conscribed.
At the beginning of May, the Vali of H. sent for the head of the
German Protestant Mission Station in the town, and requested him to
tell the Armenians that they must surrender their arms. Otherwise,
he said, the most stringent measures would be taken against them.
The missionaries must persuade them to deliver up the arms quickly.
The head of the Mission Station called a meeting of Armenian
notables, and put to them what the Vali had said. The Armenians
decided to consult with their Turkish fellow-townsmen, and so a
mixed meeting was held of all the Turkish and Armenian notables of
H. At this meeting the Turkish notables urged the Armenians to give
up their arms and promised that, if they did so, they themselves
would guarantee their security, and would see that they suffered
nothing at the Government’s hands.
This promise induced the Armenians to comply. They collected their
arms and presented them to the Vali, but the Vali declared that all
had not been brought. The newest and most dangerous weapons, he
said, had been in the hands of the 400 prisoners. These must be
surrendered also, or the penalties he had threatened would still be
inflicted on the whole Armenian community at H. So the notables went
to the men in prison, and besought them to reveal where their arms
were hidden; all the Gregorian priests went, and the head of the
German Mission Station went with them. The 400 were obstinate at
first, but it was represented to them that, if they refused, they
would be responsible for the destruction of the whole community, and
at last they gave in. They revealed the hiding-places, and the arms
were duly found and delivered up to the Vali.
The Vali immediately had photographs taken of all the arms
collected, and sent them to Constantinople as evidence that an
Armenian revolution was on the point of breaking out at H. He asked
for a free hand to suppress it, and an order came back from
Constantinople that he was to take whatever measures he considered
necessary on the spot.
After that, the 400 young men were conveyed out of the town by night
and never heard of again. Shots were said to have been heard in the
distance.
Three days later, the rest of the Armenian community at H. was
summoned by bugle to assemble before the Government Building, and
then deported. The men were first sent off in one direction, and
later the women and children, on ox-carts, in another. They were
only given a few hours to make their preparations, and Sister DA.
described their consternation as being terrible. They tried to
dispose of their property, which the Turks bought up for practically
nothing. Sewing-machines, for instance, sold for two or three
piastres (4_d._ to 6_d._). The process of deportation was extended
to the whole Vilayet.
The Armenian children in the German Orphanage at H. were sent away
with the rest. “My orders,” said the Vali, “are to deport _all_
Armenians. I cannot make an exception of these.” He announced,
however, that a Government Orphanage was to be established for any
children that remained, and shortly afterwards he called on Sister
DA. and asked her to come and visit it. Sister DA. went with him,
and found about 700 Armenian children in a good building. For every
twelve or fifteen children there was one Armenian nurse, and they
were well clothed and fed. “See what care the Government is taking
of the Armenians,” the Vali said, and she returned home surprised
and pleased; but when she visited the Orphanage again several days
later, there were only thirteen of the 700 children left—the rest
had disappeared. They had been taken, she learnt, to a lake six
hours’ journey by road from the town and drowned. Three hundred
fresh children were subsequently collected at the “Orphanage,” and
Sister DA. believed that they suffered the same fate as their
predecessors. These victims were the residue of the Armenian
children at H. The finest boys and prettiest girls had been picked
out and carried off by the Turks and Kurds of the district, and it
was the remainder, who had been left on the Government’s hands, that
were disposed of in this way.
As soon as the Armenians had been deported from H., convoys of other
exiles began to pass through from the districts further north.
Sister DA. did not see these convoys, because they made a detour
round the town, and she never left the town precincts; but she
talked with many people who did see them, and they gave a terrible
description of their plight. The roads near the town, they said,
were littered with the corpses of those who had died of sickness or
exhaustion, or from the violence of their guards. And these accounts
were confirmed by her own experience last April (1916), on her
journey to Aleppo. On the road to Aleppo from Ourfa she passed
numbers of corpses lightly buried under a layer of soil. The
extremities of the limbs were protruding, and had been gnawed by
dogs. She was told by people she met that unheard-of atrocities had
been committed, and that there were cases of women who had drowned
themselves to escape their tormentors.
It was Sister DA.’s impression that the deportation and massacre of
the Armenians had ruined Turkey economically. The Armenians had been
the only skilled workers in the country, and industry came to a
standstill when they were gone. You could not replace copper vessels
for your household; you could not get your roof re-tiled. The
Government had actually retained a few Armenian artisans—bakers,
masons, &c.—to work for the Army, and whatever work was still done
was done by these and by a few others who had gone over to Islam.
But though the sources of production were cut off, the Turks had not
begun to feel the pinch. Having laid hands on all the property of
the Armenians, they were richer, for the moment, than before. During
the past year bread had been plentiful and cheap, cattle and meat
had been abundant, and there were still enough supplies, she
thought, to last for some time yet. Under these circumstances, the
Turkish peasantry were well content—except for the women, who
resented the absence of their husbands at the war. The dearth of
men, Sister DA. said, was everywhere noticeable. She had been told,
however, that some Kurdish tribes had refused to furnish recruits,
and that the Kizil Bashis of the Dersim had furnished none at all.
The Government had been preparing an expedition against the Kizil
Bashis to extort a toll of conscripts, but the plan had been
thwarted by the Russian advance. In the Turkish villages
agricultural work was being largely carried on by the Armenian women
and children, who had been handed over to the Moslem peasants by the
authorities. Sister DA. saw quantities of them everywhere,
practically in the condition of slaves. They were never allowed to
rest in peace, but were constantly chivied about from one village to
another.
As she came down to Aleppo she found the country under good
cultivation. Great stores of bread had been accumulated for the army
in Mesopotamia. In Anatolia, on the other hand, the fields were
neglected, and she thought that there famine was not far off. But it
was not till she reached Constantinople that she found any present
scarcity. In the provinces only sugar and petrol had been scarce; at
Constantinople all commodities were both scarce and dear.
Sister DA. was told at Constantinople that Turks of all parties were
united in their approval of what was being done to the Armenians,
and that Enver Pasha openly boasted of it as his personal
achievement. Talaat Bey, too, was reported to have remarked, on
receiving the news of Vartkes’[85] assassination: “There is no room
in the Empire for both Armenians and Turks. Either they had to go or
we.”
-----
Footnote 84:
This incident was communicated to Mr. DB. by DC. Effendi, a
gentleman who had held high office under the Ottoman Government
till the outbreak of the War.
Footnote 85:
Mr. Vartkes was an Armenian deputy in the Ottoman Parliament, who
was murdered, together with another deputy, Mr. Zohrab, when he
was being escorted by gendarmes from Aleppo to be court-martialled
at Diyarbekir (see Docs. 7 and 9).—EDITOR.
65. H.: REPORT, DATED 11th JULY, 1915, FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT
H.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
If it were simply a matter of being obliged to leave here to go
somewhere else, it would not be so bad, but everybody knows that it
is a case of going to one’s death. If there was any doubt about it,
it has been removed by the arrival of a number of convoys,
aggregating several thousand people, from Erzeroum and Erzindjan. I
have visited their encampment a number of times, and talked with
some of the people. A more pitiable sight cannot be imagined. They
are, almost without exception, ragged, filthy, hungry and sick. That
is not surprising, in view of the fact that they have been on the
road for nearly two months, with no change of clothing, no chance to
wash, no shelter and little to eat. The Government has been giving
them some scanty rations here. I watched them one time when their
food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed upon
the guards who carried the food, and the guards beat them back with
clubs, hitting hard enough to kill them sometimes. To watch them,
one could hardly believe that these people were human beings.
As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children and beg
one to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice
of these children and girls for slaves, or worse. In fact, they have
even had their doctors there to examine the more likely girls and
thus secure the best ones.
There are very few men among them, as most of them have been killed
on the road. All tell the same story of having been attacked and
robbed by the Kurds. Most of them were attacked over and over again,
and a great many of them, especially the men, were killed. Women and
children were also killed. Many died, of course, from sickness and
exhaustion on the way, and there have been deaths each day that they
have been here. Several different parties have arrived, and, after
remaining a day or two, have been pushed on with no apparent
destination. Those who have reached here are only a small portion,
however, of those who started. By continuing to drive these people
on in this way, it will be possible to dispose of all of them in a
comparatively short time. Among those with whom I have talked were
three sisters. They had been educated at —— and spoke excellent
English. They said their family was the richest in Erzeroum and
numbered twenty-five when they left; but there were now only
fourteen survivors. The other eleven, including the husband of one
of them and their old grandmother, had been butchered before their
eyes by the Kurds. The oldest male survivor of the family was eight
years of age. When they left Erzeroum, they had money, horses and
personal effects, but they had been robbed of everything, including
even their clothing. They said that some of them had been left
absolutely naked, and others with only a single garment. When they
reached a village, their gendarmes obtained clothes for them from
some of the native women. Another girl with whom I talked is the
daughter of the Protestant pastor of Erzeroum. She said that every
member of her family with her had been killed and that she was left
entirely alone. These and some others are a few survivors of the
better class of people who have been exiled. They are being detained
in an abandoned school-house just outside the town, and no one is
allowed to enter it. They said that they were practically in prison,
although they were allowed to visit a spring just outside the
building. It was there I happened to see them. All the others are
camped in a large open field, with no protection at all from the
sun.