had some difficulty in getting permission to start, as the Vali was
away. I had to wait until he returned. He said he would see that I
got as far as Talas safely, and he told me which places to stop at;
but because of some trouble with the driver, I was unable to stop at
the hans he told me to stop at, and the first night the han was
filled with Armenians who were being deported from X., both men and
women. They were wealthy people who had become Moslems. My driver
told me that they had not become true Moslems and for that reason
were being sent away. The soldiers with them were very evil-looking
men. I noticed that they had many beautiful rugs and carpets in
their wagons. In the next room there were some Turks who were
talking of the killing of the Armenians; however, nothing happened
to them that night. The second night I had to stop at a han which
had been very prosperous a few months before, but was now half
wrecked and deserted. It was dark and we could not go on, and we
found that the son and brother of the former handji had become
Moslems, and that the Government had allowed them to take charge of
the han on condition that they turned over all the money they made
to the Government. These two men were in the most pitiable condition
from fear, and they both told me horrible tales of how the men of
Gemerek had been killed; this han was outside the town of Gemerek.
They said they had hidden in the mountains for three weeks until
driven out by starvation, and then had given themselves up to the
Government and become Moslems, but they added: “We are only Moslems
with our mouths, but Christians in our hearts.” Still, they were
very fearful, and not at all sure that they would not be killed
later. In the village of Gemerek, they said, most of the girls had
been forced into marriage with the Turks, and many of the old women
had been killed and the rest deported. I had seen them on my way to
Sivas going out, so I knew this to be true. The next night I heard
two hodjas talking, under my window, of a terrible massacre of the
Armenians that had just taken place in the mountains; they seemed to
be very sorry about it and spoke of it with horror; they did not
know, of course, that I was listening. When I reached Talas, the
people had almost all gone from there and from Kaisaria. The
Kaisaria Protestants, or at least a number of Protestant families,
were sent out to Talas and given houses there, while the Talas
Protestants were sent to neighbouring villages; but their condition
was much better than that of any of the Armenian people in our Sivas
region. The Girls’-School was filled with girls from Kaisaria, most
of them the daughters of wealthy Gregorian and Catholic families.
The Kaisaria people had been allowed to leave their daughters
behind. While I was there, a woman and two men arrived from one of
the Kaisaria out-stations and told of the terrible massacre of the
whole village. First the little boys up to ten were taken outside
the village and killed. There were only a few men in the village, so
the women dressed as men and held the village against the Kurds and
Turks for three weeks, keeping them off with stones; they had fled
to the hills. These people said that the Turks used to call to them
to come down and become Moslems and their lives would be spared;
this they refused to do. Later, the village Turks were reinforced by
the soldiers from Kaisaria, who shot them down, only these three
people escaping. They had been weeks reaching Talas, having to hide
by day and travel very slowly at night for fear of being caught.
This village had many of our Protestant people, and among those
killed was the mother of one of the teachers and the wife of
another. We heard that all the villages in that region were treated
in this way, instead of being deported. While in Talas I had a
telegram from Sivas asking me to wait for a professor of the
Sanasarian College, who was coming from Sivas with his wife and
little boy. The Vali had given them permission to go on to
Constantinople; he had been educated in Vienna and his wife in this
country; they were very fine people. I waited several days and they
did not come. I found that they had left Sivas as they planned and
disappeared between Sivas and Talas—they have never been heard from.
I know a number of people that disappeared in just this way on that
road, after the Vali had given them permission to travel and the
promise of a safe escort.
The rest of the way from Kaisaria to the railway I went under the
protection of the Military Transportation Company. I passed through
many deserted towns, but saw no dead bodies on the road, only one
between Sivas and Talas. On the railway we passed truck-load after
truck-load of Armenians—exiles being sent into the interior. All
were in cattle-trucks, huddled together like animals. We met these
trucks every day; often they were shunted on the siding. All along
the Konia plain were tens of thousands of people; some had tents,
many of them had nothing. The weather at that time was warm, so they
were not suffering specially from the cold. Later, while in
Constantinople, we heard that these people on the Konia plain were
being sent into the interior and not allowed to take any food with
them, so that they would die quickly.
On the train, in the compartment with me, was the wife of the
Mutessarif of Erzindjan. She had several Armenian girls with her—one
of them in the compartment with us to wait on her children. She was
kind to this child, who was only about nine years old, but she
treated her like a little slave. She told another Turkish woman that
her parents had been sent away and she had taken her from the
streets. The Armenians in Constantinople had not been deported, only
the men who were suspected of revolutionary tendencies, but there is
great suffering among them for lack of food, and they need work.
Professor —— told me, the week before I left, that the Turks in
Constantinople were saying: “The Armenians from Constantinople must
go,” and that great pressure was being brought to bear upon them by
the Turks to become Moslems and stay. We had a number of Armenian
young women employed in the Red Cross work, and they all showed a
most beautiful Christian spirit, were always kind and gentle to the
soldiers, and never showed in any way that they felt any bitterness
toward them. Several of them had come from the interior and had
relatives that had been deported; one of them was from Trebizond,
where there had been that terrible massacre of children, and her
little baby of seven months was, she fears, among them. This young
woman went into exile with her husband, and lost everything and
everyone in Trebizond. She was a most beautiful Christian, and was
loved and respected by the people that worked with her.
81. SIVAS: THE ADVENTURES OF MURAD; NARRATED BY “S.H.S.,” IN THE
JOURNAL “THE NEW ARMENIA,” OF NEW YORK, 1st MARCH, 1916.
In December, 1914, Murad was peacefully at work in his native
village of Govdoun. Then he was apprised of the troubles brewing in
the city of Sivas, the capital of the Vilayet. He hastened there to
find the Armenians panic-stricken. All the Armenians of military
age, as well as all the prominent Armenian business men, had been
imprisoned on the pretext that the bread supplied to the Turkish
soldiers was poisoned by the Armenian bakers. The Armenian
physicians in the city went to the military commander and protested
against this outrage, offering to prove that the accusation was
false. As the military commander was not on good terms with the
Vali, he ordered some of the bread to be brought, and the physicians
ate it before him without any bad results. Then he ordered the
prisoners to be released. However, matters grew steadily worse,
persecution increased, and spread finally to the surrounding
villages.
Murad, with a group of brave Armenians, resisted the outrages of the
Turkish Government for several months, until he was obliged to take
refuge in the mountains. In March, 1915, Turkish soldiers were sent
to capture Murad and his band, but they were defeated and repulsed.
The Armenians fought their way slowly over the mountains in a
continual guerilla warfare. The Government became so exasperated
that it placed a price on Murad’s head.
Murad was stricken with typhus as a result of the privations and
hardships the band endured, and his comrades had to carry him from
snow-clad mountain to mountain, and from cave to cave, in order to
save him from capture. At Mount Sachar Murad and his comrades were
surrounded by three hundred Turkish cavalrymen, but they succeeded
in escaping to an Armenian village in Khantzart. The peasants nursed
Murad, and said: “Remain here, and we will die by hundreds to
protect you.” Murad did not wish to expose them to danger. When he
heard that the Turkish cavalry were approaching, he requested his
comrades to remove him to the mountains.
In the milder weather of May, Murad began to recover. A company of
Turkish cavalrymen renewed the search for the little band of
Armenian warriors. Murad and his seven men opened fire upon the
Turks, wounding several of them. The Turks beat a hasty retreat, but
returned soon with reinforcements. These also were put to flight by
the Armenians. Murad then withdrew from the mountain and travelled
for some days through the woods and valleys.
Because of the extraordinary prowess of the Armenians, it was
rumoured that Murad had a thousand men with him. The Vali of Sivas
determined to capture him at any cost. At a place called
Telouk-Khaina a hundred Turkish infantry advanced upon Murad’s army
of eight, but Murad decided to save his ammunition, and retreated.
Near Tedjir a Turkish regiment with seven guns advanced to give
battle to the supposed Armenian army, but the Armenians again used
discretion. Murad’s men had armed themselves well at the beginning,
and replenished their stock of ammunition constantly from the
soldiers whom they killed. They frequently found on the slain Kurds
and Turks jewelry and other ornaments that had belonged to Armenian
women, and Murad still has in his possession some of these jewels.
After numerous victorious encounters and skirmishes with the Turks,
Murad turned toward Samsoun, in the autumn of 1915. His band had
been increased by seven Armenians and three Greeks. Having reached
the village of Tchamulan, not far from Samsoun, they were welcomed
by a prominent Greek named Constantine. The Turks had burned and
destroyed all the boats owned by Constantine, who was also subjected
to other persecutions. Defying the Turks, he harboured the eighteen
rebels in his house, and defended them. One day three hundred
Turkish soldiers surrounded the Greek’s house and opened fire. The
besieged band so successfully defended itself that the enemy could
not approach the house. Every new attack was repulsed successfully,
and many of the Turks were killed. In the evening the siege was
raised and the enemy withdrew. Murad and his comrades, together with
Constantine and his family, evacuated their stronghold and proceeded
toward Samsoun.
The party finally reached the woods of Hodjadagh, near the Black
Sea. There they remained in hiding, and sent scouts to reconnoitre
the country and find a way of escape. Having replenished their stock
of food and ammunition, the brave warriors hastened one night to the
sea coast. They found there a Turkish sailing vessel at anchor, and
captured it with its Turkish crew of five. They loaded the vessel
with their supplies and set sail, taking with them the Turkish crew
to man the boat.
After eight days and nights on the Black Sea, their water supply was
exhausted and they were compelled to make bread with sea-water.
Meanwhile they suffered terribly from thirst. The vessel passed
Samsoun and Kerasond, and approached Riza. While they were still
about three or four hours’ distance from the Russian coast, two
Turkish motor-boats were seen pursuing. The Turks had learned of
Murad’s escape and had dispatched a force to capture him at sea. The
Turks opened fire on the rebels. The Armenian sharpshooters replied
effectively. The motor-boats turned back after many of the soldiers
had been killed. In Murad’s party brave Yegho was killed, and one of
the Greeks wounded.
A heavy storm arose, and the superstitious Turkish sailors begged
that the body of Yegho might be thrown into the sea, because they
feared that the boat would be wrecked if the corpse remained on
board. The vessel finally reached Batoum, and the party landed
safely on Russian soil. Murad buried Yegho and then went to Tiflis,
where he joined the other Armenian Volunteers.
82. SIVAS: RECORD OF AN INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE REFUGEE MURAD TO MR.
A.S. SAFRASTIAN AT TIFLIS.
Once more the curtain drawn over the heinous details of Armenian
massacres in Asia Minor is raised by that well-known fighter, Murad
of Sivas, the Armenian leader of the province. Starting from
Sharkishla, some twenty miles south-west of Sivas, with a small
force, he opened his way to Divrig, lying about sixty miles
south-east of Sivas; and after a great number of encounters with
regular Turkish troops, he eventually entrenched himself on the
heights of Yaldiz Dagh, north-east of Sivas, where, surrounded by
large numbers of the enemy, he kept up desperate fighting for eight
days. Most of his comrades were killed in this unequal combat. He
himself, however, succeeded in breaking through the Turkish lines
and emerged on the coast, somewhere near Samsoun. Here he forced
some Turkish boatmen to set sail in the direction of Batoum. On the
voyage, his boat was chased by Turkish motor launches and fired on,
and in this encounter one of his comrades was killed by a bullet. He
has just reached here to throw more light upon the horrors which
have been committed in the Vilayet of Sivas and in parts of Harpout
and Western Dersim.
For about twenty years Murad (a brother-in-arms of Andranik, the
organiser of the present volunteer regiments) has been in the front
ranks of the Armenian movement as a leading fighter, and the
circumstances of his struggle since last March, and the story of his
adventurous escape to Russia when all was over, would fill volumes.
He has come to tell the outside world the news that, of 160,000
Armenians inhabiting the province of Sivas, there remain now, or,
rather, remained a month ago, when he left, some 10,000, who have
either been spared as useful artisans toiling in the labour
battalions and the prisons, or were old people left in their homes.
The remaining 150,000 souls have either been massacred outright or
deported to the area bounded by the right bank of the Euphrates and
Northern Mesopotamia.
The story which Murad gave me reveals once more the thorough
organisation of these massacres by an overmastering hand, and the
ruthless processes by which the details were carried out. Anybody
listening to Murad, who had been cut off from the rest of the world
for eight months, would at once have thought it to be the story of
the massacres at Bitlis or one of the other places, there is such a
striking resemblance of detail in the work of destruction.
The persecutions began with the outbreak of the Turkish war. The
Armenians of Sivas did all they could to help the Red Crescent work
of the Turkish army, either by personal service or contributions.
Notwithstanding all these efforts, the Armenian element in
particular was unscrupulously robbed under the cloak of military
requisitions. In the meantime, the Turks of Sivas did not conceal
their intention of settling old scores with the Armenians, who had
applied to Europe for reforms.
The storm broke over the question of Armenian deserters from the
Turkish army and the disarming of civilian Armenians. The Divisional
Commander of Sivas had ordered that able-bodied men above
thirty-three years of age and liable to service should get a permit
from the military authorities for temporary exemption from entering
the field; whereas Muamer Pasha, the Vali of Sivas, looked upon such
a step as a sign of Armenian disloyalty. During December and January
most Armenian soldiers in the Turkish service were either disarmed
and sent to the labour battalions, or were imprisoned as
‘suspicious’ characters. The treatment they received in the army was
of a most unenviable kind. A Holy War had been proclaimed by the
Caliph, and the fate of the Infidels was in the Moslems’ hands. To
mention an instance: on an unfounded charge of desertion six
Armenians were hanged in Gurin, three of them being brothers, who
were absolutely innocent.
For disarming the Armenians, the Turks employed the most fiendish
methods. The order for delivering up all arms in the possession of
civilians was nominally universal, but in fact it was directed
against the Armenians. In Khourakhon, a village near Sivas, one man
(Harutune) was actually shod like a horse, one (Muggerdich) was
castrated, and another (Puzant) was done to death by putting a
red-hot iron crown on his head. Under threats of such tortures many
Armenians were compelled to buy arms and give them up to the
authorities. The tragi-comical part of the whole business was that
the Turkish officials entrusted with the mission of collecting arms
were themselves selling them to Armenians at a good profit[100]. The
object of these infamous proceedings seems to have been the wish of
the Turkish Government to place the Armenians in the category of
rebels, and accuse them of having hidden arms in spite of official
warnings.
Then, again, with a view to striking terror among the Armenians,
four or five of the leading men in every town or village were
mysteriously shot, while most of the Government officials of
Armenian nationality were dismissed without any reason. Nishan
Effendi, the sub-governor of Kotchesur[101] (Province of Sivas), a
man of good record, was peremptorily dismissed from his post with
many others.
Towards the end of January last (1915), Odabashian Vartabed (the
Armenian bishop-elect of Sivas) was proceeding to his post from
Angora, when he was attacked on the way and killed in his carriage.
It has now been proved beyond doubt that the plot was hatched with
the cognisance of Muamer Pasha, the Governor, as among the murderers
were Mahil Effendi of Zara, his aide-de-camp, Tcherkess Kior Kassim,
his chief hangman, and two others.
During the course of February, Armenian soldiers on active service
and Armenian bakers were accused by the authorities of having
poisoned the soldiers’ bread and food. The subsequent medical
inquiry instituted by Turkish and Greek doctors easily proved the
baselessness of so gross a charge.
The billeting of Turkish soldiers upon Armenians throughout the
province, and their uninterrupted movement from one front to the
other[102], Sivas being on the main road between Angora and
Erzeroum, caused indescribable suffering to the defenceless
population. Like famished wolves, the Turkish soldiers ate up
everything they saw, and took everything they could lay hands on. In
Ketcheurd, an Armenian village east of Sivas, the women were
horribly outraged by the soldiers, six of the best-looking of them
being so atrociously treated that they succumbed before the very
eyes of their tormentors; and this is only a typical example.
Another incident of a quite impersonal character greatly embittered
the relations between the Armenians and the Turks. About 1,700
Russian prisoners of war, captured by the Turks in February, were
brought to Sivas in a deplorable condition. The Russian soldiers of
Moslem origin had already been released at Erzeroum, most of the
Armenians had been killed, and the Russians were stripped of their
clothing. On their way to Sivas they were grossly insulted, spat on
by every Moslem passer-by, and whipped by their escort into quicker
march. Half their number reached Sivas almost naked, covered with
filthy rags, their feet swollen and in some cases with their
sheepskin coats glued to their sore bodies. In face of such an
outrageous treatment of these Russian prisoners, the Armenians of
Sivas provided them with medical help and various comforts. This
trivial manifestation of humane feeling displayed by the Armenians,
however, caused great resentment among the Moslems. In spite of all
such efforts, only some sixty Russians survived out of the
contingent of 1,700 prisoners. The Turks picked quarrels with the
Armenians when the latter tried to bury the Russian dead.
In the last days of March, Murad and other Armenian leaders were
asked by the Vali of Sivas to attend a meeting for the deliberation
of some important questions. Murad had, however, been privately
informed by some Turkish friends that there was a plot against him
and his comrades, so he very naturally failed to comply with the
Vali’s request. The consequence of this was that the relatives of
these men were subjected to shameful treatment at the hands of the
Turks. Nevertheless, the Armenians throughout Sivas, Erzindjan,
Harpout,
Tchemesh-Getzak and the other districts thought it wise to endure
these persecutions, so as not to give any grounds for harsher
measures. Fresh contingents of troops were sent to each village in
April to collect an imaginary number of arms, and such arms were
provided for the authorities in the manner already described.
Courts-martial were set up in many places and people were summarily
tried and sentenced. Hovhannes Poladian, Vahan Vartanian, Murad of
Khourakhon and twelve other leaders were shot. Men belonging to the
_Dashnaktzoutioun_ and the _Huntchak_ parties were subjected to 110
strokes each. These terrorising methods were carried out in thorough
earnest in Oulash, Sharkishla, Kotchan, Gemerek, Gurin, Derenda,
Divrig, and other districts.
More dreadful days for the Armenians began in June. On the
assumption that every Armenian soldier was a deserter, and that his
people at home had secreted numberless arms, the Turks never relaxed
their policy of squeezing out of the Armenians every _piastre_ they
could get by employing the most brutal means. Towards the end of
June and the beginning of July, massacres on a far vaster scale were
carried out in various parts of the area referred to. The methods
pursued in these massacres were precisely the same as everywhere
else in Armenia. The men were separated from their women, and the
latter driven in a south-easterly direction. The able-bodied men
were first imprisoned and then massacred in small batches under
blood-curdling circumstances. For the space of two weeks, Murad
thinks, 5,000 Armenians were daily disposed of in the various
districts of the province. At Maltepé, a village an hour’s ride east
of Sivas, some twenty Armenian officials in the Government service
were hacked to pieces with pointed and spiked hatchets. At Duzasar,
another Armenian village near Sivas, 32 Armenians were done to death
in the same manner.
At Habesh, near Zara, east of Sivas, 3,800 Armenians of the
neighbourhood were poleaxed, stoned or bayoneted in a fiendish
manner. In Khorsan, the headman of the village, named Nigoghos, was
hanged upside down on the Boghaz bridge near the village. At Gotni,
another village with 120 Armenian families, Turkish bashi-bazouks,
mostly released convicts organised into “Chetti” bands, gloried in
the achievement of having killed every male above twelve and
outraged every woman above the same age.
At Herag, a village near Sivas, the men were killed, the young women
carried away and about 600 children detained by the Vali, perhaps to
be converted to Islam. The women of Malatia were stripped naked and
driven out from their homes, amid the gibes and jeers of the Moslem
rabble; many young women actually went mad, others resorted to
hideously painful means to put an end to their lives. At Niksar,
north of Sivas, most of the young women were distributed among the
Turks, and the remainder were deported to the south.
During his wanderings Murad happened to see that only 300 children
and old people were left in the town of Tchar-Shamba, near the
coast, where there was a large, prosperous colony before. The young
people of both sexes had been either killed, abducted or deported
from their homes; no child above ten years of age remained among the
survivors.
In the territory extending from Amasia, north-west of Sivas, to
Erzindjan and Harpout, the Armenian element has been reduced to the
same condition. In certain centres like Arabkir, Tchemesh-Getzak,
etc., some families escaped persecution by adopting Islam.