were important Armenian colonies in the chief places along its
course, as well as in places lying off the railway towards the
north-east. But the track of the line forms the general limit of
Armenian expansion, and defines the Armenian “sphere of influence”
in Asiatic Turkey as against the Greek. The only considerable colony
of Armenians south-west of the Anatolian Railway is at Smyrna, where
they seem to have suffered less severely than in other parts of the
Ottoman Empire—we know no more than that a few of the leading
Armenians there were hanged._
_The deportation of the Armenian colonies in the railway zone
appears to have been started during the months of June and July.
Their numbers were soon swelled by the still larger streams of
exiles from the metropolitan districts (see section XIII. above),
and the traffic on the line became hopelessly congested. The
hardships of travel in crowded cattle-trucks were painful enough,
but now at every station on the line crowds of exiles were detrained
to await their turn for transport for interminable periods. The
central table-land of Anatolia, which the railway traverses, has a
very high average altitude, and even in summer the climate is
severe. The exiles were turned out on to the open plateau in an
absolutely destitute condition, without food or shelter—here 2,000,
here 5,000, here 11,000, here 12,000, here 15,000, here 30,000.
These facts_ _and figures are vouched for, by a number of
unimpeachable witnesses, in the documents contained in this section.
The witnesses write from half-a-dozen different points along the
railway, and one of them was himself an exile, experiencing in
person the horrors of a concentration camp. But the misery of
detention was as nothing compared with what the exiles suffered when
their turn came to be carried on to rail-head and driven across the
mountains on foot. There are frightful descriptions of their
condition by a witness who saw them when they had reached the Adana
Plain, and still more terrible accounts of the survivors who had
lived to traverse the second mountain barrier and were dragging
themselves towards Aleppo._
_This agonising journey along the route of the railway was
protracted for more than three months. The exiles were mostly
uprooted from their homes in August; the first documents date from
the beginning of September, and by that date the foremost batches
had hardly begun their marches across the first mountain range;
the last documents were written in November, and still the vast
body of the exiles had not reached Adana, but were huddled
together—stationary through exhaustion—on the south-eastern slopes
of Taurus and Amanus, between the summits and the plain. One of
the latest witnesses reckons the number here at 150,000._
104. THE ANATOLIAN RAILWAY: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, DURING THE
DEPORTATION OF THE ARMENIANS, BY A PHYSICIAN OF FOREIGN
NATIONALITY, WHO HAD BEEN RESIDENT IN TURKEY FOR TEN YEARS;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
A journey through Asia Minor even in “normal” times can be
understood only by those who have had the “experience” of travel in
Turkey. During war-time there is simply no accommodation at all.
Passenger traffic was limited to one train a week until shortly
after the time of which I write, when that was cut off too, leaving
no train connection with the interior open to the civilian.
On this particular journey, not many hours elapsed before the fact
was forced upon one’s consciousness that things were not as they
used to be. One felt the sense of unwelcomeness, the aloofness of
all fellow-passengers. Conversations were in an undertone, no
joviality—looks of suspicion, as if to say: “Who is that infidel who
dares intrude himself in such times as these?”
At the first large station a sight burst upon my view which,
although I knew and was prepared for it, was nevertheless a shock.
There was a mob of a thousand or more people huddled about the
station and environs, and long strings of cattle-trucks packed to
suffocation with human beings. It was the first glimpse of the
actual deportation of the Armenians. Our train drew up to the
station, but there was no confusion, no wailing, no shouting, just a
mob of subdued people, dejected, sad, hopeless, past tears—looking
backward to abandoned homes, to husbands, fathers, brothers who had
been torn from them; looking forward to a death in the desert, or to
a living death in the hands of captors who were compelled, “by
political and military necessity,” to free their land of the curse
of a nation which had grown powerful while they themselves
stagnated. There were guards everywhere among the people, making
communication with them impossible. The advent of a foreigner among
them was the sign for eager enquiring looks from some, as if to say:
“Can it be that he brings deliverance for us;” while others seemed
to accept their lot in settled despair.
The town from which many of these had come, I learned later, was
cleaned out completely, except for perhaps a dozen old women too
feeble to undertake the journey. A missionary compound in the same
town was left unguarded by the Government while, for four successive
nights, marauders from a neighbouring village came, and, smashing
doors and windows, helped themselves to such things as they could
carry away.
Our train sped away, taking with us as many cattle-trucks, packed
with men, women and children, as the locomotive could pull. In these
trucks one could see improvised hammocks swung above the crowd
squatting upon the floor, and in these hammocks the tiny babies—the
only individuals in all that crowd oblivious to the horrors of the
situation, but doomed nevertheless, in all their innocence, to pay
the penalty of human jealousy and greed.
The scenes just described were repeated at various stations; but at
the station of ——, as I looked across the fields to the river, I
heard the Turkish commander say: “Yes, I have 30,000 here under my
charge.” Then I looked as far along the river as I could see, and it
was one mass of improvised blanket tents, their only protection from
the parching heat of the mid-summer sun. Where this multitude were
to get food for their long journey I was unable to see, for although
most of them were as yet but a few days’ journey from their homes,
they could take but a bit of grain and almost no money with them.
Can you imagine the sanitary condition of a camp of 30,000, when
absolutely no provision is made, not even as much as would be made
for so many cattle?
During the weary days of travel I had as my companion a Turkish
captain, who, as the hours dragged by, came to look on me with less
of suspicion, growing quite friendly at times. Arrived at ——, the
captain went out among the Armenian crowd and soon returned with an
Armenian girl of about fifteen years. She was forced into a
compartment of an adjoining railway coach, in company with a Turkish
woman. When she saw that her mother was not allowed to accompany her
she began to realise something of the import of it all. She grew
frantic in her efforts to escape, scratching at the window, begging,
screaming, tearing her hair and wringing her hands, while the
equally grief-crazed mother stood on the railway platform, helpless
in her effort to save her daughter. The captain, seeing the
unconcealed disapproval in my face, came up and said: “I suppose,
Effendi, you don’t approve of such things, but let me tell you how
it is. Why, this girl is fortunate. I’ll take her home with me,
raise her as a Moslem servant in my home. She will be well cared for
and saved from a worse fate—besides that, I even gave the mother a
lira gold piece for the girl.” And, as though that were not
convincing enough, he added: “Why, these scoundrels have killed two
of our Moslems right here in this city within the last few days,” as
though that were excuse enough, if excuse were needed, for
annihilating the whole Armenian race. I could not refrain from
giving him my version of the rotten, diabolical scheme, which,
however, fell from his back like water.
It was pitiful to see rough Turkish hawkers offering for sale, from
wagons in the street, articles of all kinds stolen or bought for a
pittance from the Armenians. As I passed by, one held up for the
inspection of a number of Turkish women a child’s white coat, and as
I looked at it a vision flashed through my mind of a little girlie
across the sea, whom I had seen in a little coat of just about that
size, and who looked up into my face and called me “Daddy.”
I learned here, too, of a nurse who had been in one of the mission
hospitals, who two days before my arrival there had become almost
crazed by the fear of falling into the hands of the human fiends,
and had ended her life with poison. Were these isolated or unusual
instances, it would excite no comment in this year of unusual
things, but when we know of these things going on all over the
Empire, repeated in thousands of instances, we begin to realise the
enormity of the crimes committed. I spoke again to the captain: “Why
are you taking such brutal measures to accomplish your aim? Why not
accept the offer of a friendly nation, which offers to pay
transportation if you will send these people out of your country to
a place of safety?” He replied: “Why, don’t you understand, we don’t
want to have to repeat this thing again after a few years. It’s hot
down in the deserts of Arabia, and there is no water, and these
people can’t stand a hot climate, don’t you see?” Yes, I saw. Anyone
could see what would happen to most of them, long before Arabia was
reached.
Leaving the railway, I travelled several days by wagon across
country. Arrived at ——, I found the process of deportation in full
swing, the streets of the Armenian quarter of the city thronged with
Armenians, Turkish civilians and Turkish officials. Officers
standing in the street directed lesser officers in their work of
turning out the households, one after another. The men of these
households hurried about to find animals or wagons, paying
exorbitant prices out of the little sum which represented all their
savings, while others offered rugs and articles of all sorts for
sale, that they might get enough money to hire a donkey. Most were
unable to get animals at any price, and simply bundled together a
few personal belongings and set out, in a dazed condition, not
realising what it meant, except that they must go. One old Armenian
gentleman, on leaving, accosted his Turkish neighbour, kissing his
hand and bidding affectionate good-bye, which was reciprocated by
the Turk; evidently these two had for long years been ‘good
neighbours.’ Crowds of Turkish women were going about insolently
prying into house after house to find valuable rugs or other
articles. After being accosted by the police, I returned to my
wagon, and, while waiting there, heard the inn-keeper call to one of
his men, and say in a stage whisper: “You go out and get
_rugs_—_rugs_, you understand, by all means get _rugs_; and, say,
don’t pay too much; not more in any case than two medjids (6_s._
4_d._).” While I waited, the man brought rugs by the armload; they
were placed in a room in the inn, while the innkeeper and other men
discussed their value and gloated over the purchase for a mere
pittance. Four men came by, bearing a corpse covered with a black
cloth. Fearing lest they might in this way smuggle out valuables,
the innkeeper strode out and flung up the cloth, exclaiming: “What
have you fellows got there?”
This general plan of deportation I saw carried out in several towns.
Such animals and carriages as were available were loaded with goods
and sent to the outskirts of the town, where they waited until all
were ready; then they were joined by the crowds on foot and all went
off together. It was pitiful enough as they set out, but I met group
after group on the road “on the march”—and these travel-stained,
worn and haggard—on and on, and on to their death. Ah, yes, one can
stand almost any hardship if hope fills the breast and home and
friends are at the journey’s end.
We passed one group of about 900 souls and only two mounted and
armed gendarmes. “Why didn’t they kill the gendarmes?” has been
asked me. That is easy enough, to be sure, but, having killed their
guards, they remain at the mercy of the first band of armed men they
meet, and they must go to villages, for the mountains of Turkey
cannot support life. My wagon driver showed the tenderness (?) of
his heart by remarking, as we passed this group: “Effendi, it is
almost more than I can stand to see women and little children in
such condition. But,” he continued, “there are some fine-looking
girls in that bunch. I’ll get one when I get to the next town.” He
then started to tell me some of the atrocious things of which the
Armenians are accused. I found that, as time went on and the
deportation gained momentum, the common people came to believe more
and more the grossly exaggerated stories and whole-cloth lies
manufactured for the very purpose of exciting the sympathy of the
common people towards the scheme. Arrived at ——, I found the
Armenian market-place closed and the shop doors shut and sealed by
the Government, although as yet but a small proportion of the
Armenian population had been deported from that particular place.
Fourteen prominent Armenian merchants were hanged that night in this
city. Passing to ——, I found the missionaries besieged with
terror-stricken Armenian friends and neighbours who were living in
daily terror of orders to move. The general deportation orders came
a day or two later, and the people swarmed about the missionaries,
beseeching help for life and protection of property. One can
scarcely understand the strain to which the missionaries were
subjected; and yet how helpless they were, imprisoned, as it were,
in a country which was in the throes of war and shut off from
intervention by foreign powers.
Rich, proud Armenians, crushed by the blow, seemed to age years in
these days. Some, with tears streaming down their faces, came
beseeching us to find a way out for them. Public auction of
household and private effects was held in the market square. No one
was allowed to buy by private sale, and the prices had to be
approved by the officials. Orders came permitting the sale of houses
and lands at auction, which raised the question in their minds: “If
we sell for cash, in all probability our money will be taken from
us, or if for Government promissory notes, will they have any
value?” An order came exempting Protestants from the general
deportation, and we rejoiced at the prospect of saving even a few.
The result of this favour was, however, a distribution of
Protestants, five to ten families each, to surrounding Turkish
villages, where, surrounded by a Moslem community, they were forced
to become Moslem or to suffer terrible persecution. As far as I can
learn, no one attempts to pass judgment on any Armenian Protestant
or Gregorian who has so “turned.” All we could do was to advise
against it, realising as we did what it meant for them to marry into
Moslem homes, as those who “turned” were forced to do. God alone
knows the tremendous pressure brought to bear upon them, and the
self-sacrificing spirit in which many of them sought in this way to
save their own families from death by signing a scrap of paper.
These papers were printed forms, indicating that the signer accepts
of his free will and in full conscience the tenets of the Moslem
faith.
When we consider the number forced into exile and the number beaten
to death and tortured in a thousand ways, the comparatively small
number that turned Moslem is a tribute to the staunchness of their
hold on Christianity. Those who “turned” found that the Moslems were
not true to their promise to leave such unmolested, for in many
places these were forced to go into exile later on, although they
were counted as Moslems. In one city about 1,000 families turned
Moslem, but this being too large a number might be considered a
menace, so they were deported all the same.
If the events of the past year demonstrate anything, they show the
practical failure of Mohammedanism in its struggle for existence
against Christianity—in its attempt to eliminate a race which,
because of Christian education, has been proving increasingly a
menace to stagnating Moslem civilisation. We may call it political
necessity or what not, but in essence it is a nominally ruling
class, jealous of a more progressive Christian race, striving by
methods of primitive savagery to maintain the leading place.
105. ESKI SHEHR: LETTER FROM AN ARMENIAN VICTIM[144] PUBLISHED IN
THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL “HORIZON,” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th
NOVEMBER, 1915.
We shall perish of hunger; we have had to leave behind us everything
we possess, and they are robbing us of the little money that we have
brought with us, robbing us even of our clothes. Most of us have not
a penny left. It is a cruel situation. The ferocity of the minor
officials passes all limits. The evening before last, two gendarmes
looted the tents of the exiles from the village of Kelidj (who had
only arrived that day). Incidentally they wounded some of them with
a perfect rain of blows. They also tried to carry off forty or fifty
tents, and then one of them came to announce that the Tchaoush must
be conciliated. We collected 400 piastres (£3 6s. 8d.) and handed it
over to them on condition they left us in peace; one of the exiles
sold his single blanket for 4 piastres in order to pay his share of
the subscription. Most of us were plundered on the road. Before the
exiles reach a station they are told: “You can start off, we will
see that your baggage follows you;” and they are sent on their
journey after their money, too, has been taken from them. During the
journey the sick were abandoned by the roadside. Some threw their
children into the rivers, others committed suicide. Why don’t people
at least send us some relief?
Many have lost members of their family, and no one knows where they
are. The exiles from the districts of Ismid and Broussa have been
exposed at each station to indescribable sufferings, and are only
waiting for the approach of death. From Eski Shehr to Konia the
uplands are covered with the tents occupied by the Armenians. This
frightful suffering inspires no pity in the ruthless officials, who
throw themselves upon their wretched victims, armed with whips and
cudgels, without distinction of sex or age.
During the last two days they have begun to transport the exiles
further afield—free of charge! All that has happened here is nothing
compared with what has been going on beyond Eregli and Bozanti. I
have seen with my own eyes the convoy that marched to Konia on foot,
and I simply cannot describe the condition of the old women and
children. They had ceased to be human. Having obeyed the deportation
order, they had paid a toll of 300 victims, and the widows had been
marched over the mountains. As for the men, there were not many of
them. There were other exiles who had been forced to come on foot,
from all parts, because no general order has been issued for
transporting the exiles by railway. The gendarmes demand enormous
sums for granting the exiles permission to encamp from place to
place and rest. But whether they go by train or on foot, the exiles
are condemned in any case to pillage and ill-usage.
They are now beginning to deport the people in Syria and the Lebanon
as well, and the first convoy of them has reached Konia. They are
filling their places with Mohammedan emigrants from Europe. They
distribute thirty loaves among 130 people, and even that not
everywhere.
106. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER[145] DATED AFIUN KARA HISSAR,
10th/23rd SEPTEMBER, 1915; PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN JOURNAL
“HORIZON” OF TIFLIS, 30th OCTOBER/12th NOVEMBER, 1915.
Some of the exiles have been sent to Konia, but on the bleak uplands
of Afiun Kara Hissar, under canvas, or, in many cases, without tents
at all, there are about 11,000 exiles in misery. Most of them have
been reduced to an indescribable condition. They endured all kinds
of hardships on their journey, and a large proportion of them died
on the road. Many fathers have been compelled to abandon their
children on the road. They have been obliged to march day after day
on foot, pricked on at the point of yataghans and deluged with
curses. In the struggle to keep up this unending journey on foot,
they have been forced to abandon by the road such possessions as
they had taken with them, even the most necessary articles, and they
are now naked and shelterless on the frozen plateau.
This pitiful mass of sufferers is composed of Armenians from the
towns and villages of Balikesri, Panderma, Erendjik, Hai Keui,
Mikhalidj, Kassaba, Broussa, Gemleyik, Benli, Marmardjik, Karsakh,
Gurlé, Yenidjé, Djera, Ezli, Adapazar, Karasu, Yalova, Tchoukour,
Karsz, Kelidj, Shaklak, Mess Nor Keui, Tchingiler, Orta Keui and
Keremet.
There are about ten priests from these villages among them.
The rich have become poor, and the poor, naked, famished and
deplorably miserable, without help and without hope, are compassed
by all the terrors of death. Exposed to freezing blasts and
drenching rain, their life is one long agony. One would rather die
than see such a spectacle.
The railway has been requisitioned for the transport of troops, so
they have decided to leave this unfortunate mass of people here for
an indefinite period. There is no means of escaping from this
terrible life of exposure to the elements. The only means is death,
and they are dying in numbers every day. There have been twelve
deaths only to-day.
-----
Footnote 144:
Name withheld.
Footnote 145:
Name of writer withheld.
107. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: RESUMÉ OF A LETTER[146] DATED AFIUN KARA
HISSAR, 2nd/15th OCTOBER, 1915; APPENDED TO THE MEMORANDUM (DOC.
11), DATED 15/28th OCTOBER, 1915, FROM A WELL-INFORMED SOURCE AT
BUKAREST.
The 16,000 deported Armenians who were living in the tents have been
sent to Konia, in cattle-trucks. At night, while thousands of these
unfortunate people, without food or shelter, shiver with cold, those
brutes who are supposed to be their guardians attack them with clubs
and push them towards the station. Women, children and old men are
packed together in the trucks. The men have to climb on to the top
of the trucks, in spite of the dreadful cold. Their cries are
heart-breaking, but all is in vain. Hunger, cold and fatigue,
together with the Government’s deeds of violence, will soon achieve
the extermination of this last remnant of the Armenian people, the
former inhabitants of the Sandjak of Ismid, the Vilayet of Broussa
and the neighbourhood. In spite of the great misery that prevails
among the exiles, the Government took from them by force one hundred
Turkish liras for the “Defense Nationale.”
-----
Footnote 146:
Name of writer withheld.
108. AFIUN KARA HISSAR: LETTER, DATED MASSACHUSETTS, 22nd NOVEMBER,
1915, FROM AN AMERICAN TRAVELLER; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN
COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Mr. and Mrs. A., Miss B., a Greek student from our College who
wished to come to America to study, my husband and I left BO., and,
after travelling all day and night, reached Afiun Kara Hissar about
nine o’clock the next morning. We had three hours to wait in Kara
Hissar, so we took a carriage at the station and drove to the home
of an Armenian doctor there—a well educated, fine young doctor, whom
we had met on our previous visit to Kara Hissar. We found his wife
and two small children at home, but the doctor had been taken a year
ago to work for the wounded Turkish soldiers.
The wife had heard of the exiling of all the Armenians from
different towns around her, and so she was packing a few things to
take with her when her hour came to go. That hour arrived while we
were in her home. All the Armenians were ordered to be at the
station in twenty-four hours, to be sent—where? They did not know,
but they did know that they had to leave everything—the little homes
they had worked for for years, the few little things they had
collected—all must be left to the plunder of the Turks.