the official or village Turk. Our situation was often delicate, and,
in such a case as the affair connected with the Government
Industrial, the Kaimakam ignored our rights and courteously took
everything into his own hands; but, on the whole, we were well
treated. When we asked Mr. H. to come to our aid from Marash and the
Government prevented him from coming, the Kaimakam sent the chief of
police to explain the case to us, and assured us that we need not
fear, that we were the guests of the Government, and that not a hair
of our heads should be injured. When I left AF., although I had the
escort of Miss J., the Consul’s kavass and their gendarme, the
captain in AF. sent with me as a personal escort his best horseman.
The postal official showed himself very friendly, and did us many
personal favours. When money was sent us through the post office, he
tried always to pay in gold or silver, and in such a way that we
might get it quickly into the hands of the people. He knew we used
it to help those condemned to be exiled. When the first convoys of
exiles were driven out of AF. his mother was unable to leave her bed
for two weeks, she was so depressed by what she saw and heard. She
spoke with great vigour against the terrible events that were
happening.
Our head teacher, Miss K., and her mother were with us in the
compound. They have Moslem relatives, two of whom were officers’
families in AF. These were especially friendly to us, and visited us
frequently. They were all outspoken against the horrors. One time U.
Effendi had failed to visit us, as was his custom, and, when we
asked the reason, he said he was ashamed to come because he could
bring us no good news. We saw Moslem women loudly wailing with the
Christians when the first families were sent out. When the Alai Bey
first came, he called the Mufti and asked his approval of what he
was about to do; but the Mufti refused to sanction it, and said he
could see no good in it. This same Mufti was a strong personal
friend of one of the leading Protestant Armenians (our special
friend and adviser), and he tried in every way to save him from
exile, but in vain. When M. Agha left, the Mufti took possession of
his house and all his properties for him. He also said he would
stand as protector of the Americans and the American compound after
M. Agha was gone.
Some of the village aghas also expressed themselves freely to us,
both on the matter of the war and on the calamity which had befallen
the Armenians. They said that such cruelty would not go unavenged,
and that their day of reckoning would come. They complained bitterly
that there were now no artisans or shopkeepers left to supply their
wants, and that in a short time they themselves would be in
desperate want. Our watchman at the summer residence showed us his
foot half-naked, because he could not find a shoemaker in all AF. to
mend it. All the surrounding Turkish, Kurdish and Circassian
villages were in the same need.
A Kurdish Sheikh, N. Effendi, from a village not far from AF.,
visited the city twice only during the summer. The first time he
only remained about an hour, and, with the tears streaming down his
cheeks, he said he would return to his village at once; that he
could not endure such sights. The second time he came to bid
farewell to O. Effendi, his Armenian friend. He kissed each of his
children, pressing them to his heart, and left again in tears. A
Kurd also brought us the secret information that the new Shar church
building had been partially destroyed by dynamite.
The Moslems of AK. and A J. were very much opposed to the exiling of
the Armenians from those villages. They said they were not guilty of
anything, possessed no weapons, lived peacefully and were friends
with them, and were, besides, their artisans and tradesmen. Through
their efforts they put off the deportation about three months; but,
in the end, even they were unable to save them. The Turks of AK.
ought to have special mention for their honourable attitude
throughout the whole affair. Miss K.’s uncle, an officer in AK.,
broke a water jar over the head of a young Moslem who had entered
into a room to molest an Armenian soldier’s wife. He said he was
obliged to defend the unprotected who dwelt under the shadow of his
house. Once when Miss B. was passing through the streets of AF., she
was appealed to by two gendarmes who had been ordered to expel from
their home for deportation an aged man and his wife and their
bed-ridden son. The gendarmes said: “How shall we do this thing?”
and begged Miss B. to beseech the authorities for mercy. These are
samples of faint gleams of light in the midst of four months of
horrible darkness. Pages and pages might be written on the barbaric
and relentless cruelty of the many.
Throughout the summer Miss B. and I were confronted with the
question whether we had come to Turkey only to work for the
Christians, or whether we would also be willing, now that the
Armenians were gone, to take Moslem children into our school. These
inquiries finally resulted in expressions on the part of several
officers’ families of a desire to place their daughters in our
school. Every week there were inquiries as to when a decision would
be made as to the opening of our school. One Moslem woman even went
so far as to inquire about the clothing necessary to prepare for her
daughter. Whether they were sincere or not, of course, we cannot
tell; but the desire seemed to be a general one.
There is yet one more phase in connection with the summer’s events.
Shortly after the deportation of the Armenian families of AF. took
place, about thirty families of Mouhadjirs were sent in by the
Government to take their place. These unfortunate people were
refugees from Roumelia since the time of the Balkan War. For two
years they had been wandering, always sent on by the Turkish
Government from place to place, and finally placed in the houses
just vacated by those who were likewise to face months of wandering
and homelessness. Four families came to live close to our end of the
city. We at once decided to show them friendliness. They responded
in a touching way, came frequently to call, and poured out their
over-burdened hearts. When they first came, the men were too weak to
work; all were subject to chills and fever, and, of the whole
village from which these people had come, only two children were
living. One of the women spoke with horror at having to live in a
house with such associations, saying that only they knew what such
suffering meant. The morning when I left and bade them good-bye, one
of these Mouhadjir women threw her arms about me and begged me not
to go.
Miss Vaughan and I saw the departure of hundreds of Armenians into a
hopeless exile. It was heart-breaking and too awful even to imagine
in detail; yet we praise the God of all mankind, whether Moslem or
Christian, that we were permitted to see the spirit of Christian
faith and humility manifested by so many in the darkest period of
Armenian history. There may have been examples of hard-heartedness
and cursing against God and an utter losing of faith, but we did not
personally come in contact with them. How often did we pray together
with those about to go and, with the tears streaming down our faces,
beseech God to keep our faith sure! How often did men and women
clasp our hands at parting, saying: “Let God’s will be done. We have
no other hope!” P. Effendi, the Protestant preacher, came to our
compound the morning of his leaving and asked that, with the girls
and teachers, we might all have worship together. His young wife,
who was about to become a mother, was left to our care. Whether they
were ever reunited I do not know. With entire calm he read from
God’s word, and prayed God’s protection for all of us who were left
behind. At the close he asked that the girls should sing “He leadeth
me.”
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”
127. AF.: RECORD OF INDIVIDUAL CASES, DRAWN UP BY THE AUTHOR OF THE
PRECEDING STATEMENT, AND DATED 17th DECEMBER, 1915.
1. Q. was a young man who had graduated from the law school at
Constantinople, and in the winter and early spring of 1915 had
served in the Mounted Imperial Guard. Not being well, he returned to
his home in AF. a few weeks before the deportation began. Upon the
arrival of the court-martial and army officers, he was at once
chosen to serve them as a military attendant, and was dressed in
full uniform. He was in constant attendance upon them till the
evening of the 3rd June, when he was roughly stripped of his uniform
and told to be ready for exile in the morning. We saw him go off
with the convoy on foot, not even an animal having been granted him.
2. R. was for years a Government officer at AF. At the time when the
officers and army entered AF., he was away in the villages on
Government business. Two days before the day set for deportation,
his wife was notified. She and the four small children were left
alone to prepare for the journey. The husband returned from the
villages a few hours before the time when the families were
deported, having had no information whatever of what was taking
place.
3. S.’s husband had been in Syracuse, N.Y., for two years, and she
was left alone in AF. with two small children. He intended to send
for her as soon as conditions were favourable. Her parents were
deported early in the season, and, at the time, she asked permission
of the Alai Bey to go with them, as otherwise she was left
friendless. She even begged to go. He refused and said: “Have no
fear, my daughter, you will not be sent off. Remain quietly in your
place.” Early in September, she was deported in company with a great
many other defenceless women.
4. When the soldiers were digging for ammunition and guns in the
walls and refuse heaps of AF., they found in a wall close to a house
an iron ball wrapped in a piece of cloth. The woman of the house, a
young bride, happened to be standing before the door, and the
soldiers noticed that the cloth of her apron was the same as that in
which the ball was wrapped. The woman was seized, sent to Adana and
thrown into prison. This was on the last day of May, and in October
she was still in prison. The Bible Woman in Adana discovered her
there, and said her condition was horrible. She is confined in a
small room with three or four Turkish women of desperate character,
living in terrible filth and mostly without food.
5. The pastor of Tchomakly, a village near Everek, passed through
AF. en route for the desert. He is a Marsovan graduate and a pastor
in the Kaisaria district. He had been assured by the Everek Kaimakam
that nothing should happen to him, and that, even if the village
were deported, he would not be included, as he was not a native of
the place. At three o’clock in the morning soldiers entered the
village, roused all the inhabitants and told them to be ready to
depart in two hours. When they came to the pastor’s door, they said:
“You also must go. You went to Talas to talk with the Americans a
few days ago.” His wife, not having suitable shoes, had her feet
bound up in skins.
6. Lydia was the wife of a soldier who, at the time when the
court-martial officer came to AF., was a deserter and in hiding.
However, he surrendered to the authorities, was pardoned, and was
sent to the coast with the labour gang. She was assured by the
court-martial officer (and, after his departure, by many of the
local officers) that she should never be deported, in consideration
of her being a soldier’s wife. Throughout the summer, however, they
played with her. Again and again she was given notice to leave, and
then, upon entering a personal petition at the Government House and
stating her case, she would be assured upon their word of honour
that she would never be deported. The chief of police gave us the
same assurance. Finally, early one morning, gendarmes came to her
door and roughly told her to be ready to go in a few hours. She
again took her three small children and went to the Government
House. All in vain. She was given two camels for herself, the loads
and the children. A fourth child was born under the burning sun of
AG., and when she arrived in Aleppo with the child dead, she was
only able to reach the hospital.
7. T. was for four years in charge of the Government Industrial in
AF. This was closed when deportation began. He did his work so well
that this Industrial was the best business in AF. He was living
quietly in the building, guarding the property and stock of the
Industrial. In the middle of September, when almost all the rest of
AF. were exiled, he also received notification to go. Gendarmes came
in the evening after dark and drove him, his invalid wife, and four
children to the Government Building. There they were to wait for
animals or a cart to take them on their journey. In company with
hundreds of others, they sat down on the bare ground in front of the
Government Building, gathering their few possessions close to them
lest they should be stolen. He and his family remained there two
days and three nights before being sent on, and were exposed during
one of these nights to a terrible rainstorm. They were within ten
minutes of their home, but were not permitted to go there for
shelter. His wife secretly made her way to our compound to ask for a
little bread, as their supply for the journey was already gone.
128. ADANA: STATEMENT, DATED 3rd DECEMBER, 1915, BY A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT ADANA; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR
ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
When Turkey became a belligerent in the November of last year
(1914), there were Armenians and other Christians serving in the
Army under arms. Many of these came under fire both at the
Dardanelles and in the expedition against Egypt. Later, the arms
were taken away from the Armenians, and those in the Army were
converted into “Labour Regiments,” to which were attached the very
considerable number of Armenians drafted into the Army later. These
men were employed in road building, transport, trenching, etc., and
rendered extensive and very important service. When the arms were
taken from them, a feeling of anxiety took possession of the
Armenians, in the thought that this action of the authorities might
portend something. However, much was done in the Adana Province to
reassure the people that Governmental action would be discriminating
and severity exercised only against blameworthy or suspected people.
In pursuance of this policy a number of men whose names had been
listed during and after the massacre period of 1909 were put under
arrest or surveillance.
In the early winter, the British and French war-vessels in the
Eastern Mediterranean bombarded some points on the Gulf of
Alexandretta, notably the town of Alexandretta and the branch line
of the Baghdad Railway that runs to Alexandretta. The town of Dört
Yöl—almost entirely Armenian—lies quite near the head of the Gulf on
the plain of Issus about 20 miles from Alexandretta, and is a
station on the line. That branch line of the railway was put out of
commission. The Government officials made charge that the Dört Yöl
people had communication with the hostile ships, affording them
valuable information. A number of them were brought before the
court-martial and imprisoned, of whom some were executed by hanging.
Men were arrested and imprisoned in other places, notably Hadjin,
and brought before the court-martial. These and other acts of the
Government officials increased the anxiety, but in April the exiles
from Zeitoun on their way to Konia (Iconium) passed through the city
of Adana. They had suffered terribly, but they had considerable
property with them, and also cattle and sheep. It was announced that
these people would be settled on lands in the Konia district. This
was somewhat reassuring, and there was hope that wholesale
deportation or massacre was not in contemplation.
However, this assurance was converted into consternation. At
midnight, in the latter part of April, gendarmes went through the
city rapping at certain doors, searching the houses for arms and
informing the inmates that in three days they were to be deported.
In the third week in May, 70 families (three to four hundred
people—men, women and children) were sent off in the direction of
Konia. They had not reached the Cilician Gates Pass in the Taurus
Mountains when they were turned back with the announcement that they
had been pardoned and were to return to their homes. The joy of
their return was almost equal to the consternation caused by the
order for deportation. However, exiles from north of the Taurus
(Marsovan, Kaisaria, etc.) in considerable numbers were passing
through Adana to the Aleppo district. The explanation given was that
that was being done because of revolutionary agitation in those
districts. As nothing of overt import had been done on the part of
the Armenians in Cilicia, the people of the district were reassured.
There was an influential element among the Moslems—including
influential officials—who opposed oppressive measures. The Governor
was, to all appearances, strongly opposed. Insistent orders from
Constantinople forced the deportation of groups of Armenians. Early
in the movement towards Aleppo, men were left free to take their
families or leave them. No massacring was done, though there was an
uneasy feeling that it might occur. In this way various batches were
deported, from whom word was received of their safe arrival in the
Aleppo district. However, the suffering of deportation—abandonment
of home and property and friends, the exposure and hunger on the
road, the insanitary state of the concentration camps, and the rough
treatment by gendarmes, and in many cases outrage and pillage—all
this, though heart-breaking in itself, was not as bad as, or rather
was much less horrible than, the torture of the crowds that suffered
in the north and east.
Later in the year there was a distinct effort to save many of the
Armenians. This effort synchronised with the order to exempt
Catholics and Protestants. It seemed a success, and everybody was
greatly encouraged. But an emissary from the Committee of Union and
Progress at Constantinople arrived at that time, and was able to
overturn the arrangement and secure an order for the immediate
deportation of all. Exception was later made of some widows, of the
wives and children of men serving in the labour regiments, and of
men working in mills under Government contract and in the Baghdad
Railway construction.
The great drive took place in the first week of September, when
two-thirds of the Armenian population of Adana City were deported.
Hadjin and Dört Yöl were treated very much more harshly, both in the
process of eviction and on the road. The people were allowed to
dispose of some of their properties, which they did at a great
sacrifice; still, they had to abandon the great mass of their
properties, which was later confiscated. I would call attention to
the fact that the appalling nature of the deportation is none the
less appalling because there was comparatively less torture and
outrage. It is only fair to state that one Moslem was scourged to
death for participation in the robbery of some Christians that were
being deported.
It is not merely the suffering of the outlawed and deported people
that is appalling, but the effect of it all on the country.
Two-thirds of the business of Adana City was dependent on Armenians,
and the markets seemed deserted after they were driven out. The
disaster to the whole province from the material standpoint is
beyond calculation. However, it would appear that the whole scheme
was intended to be a relentless effort on the part of the central
authorities either to exterminate the Armenian nation or to reduce
them to a condition like that of the people of Moab, as described by
Isaiah in the last clause of the 16th chapter: “A remnant very small
and of no account.” The enormity is not so much in the torture,
massacring, outrage, etc., as in the intention and effort to
exterminate a nation. The Armenians have endured massacre and
outrage and persecution and oppression; this, however, shatters all
hope of life and a future.
The Armenian Protestant communities are all deported with the
pastors and leaders, but the men deported are a tower of strength to
the suffering people in their exile. Let me quote from W. Effendi,
from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young
wife and infant child, and with the whole congregation: “We now
understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so
many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realise that
God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God
restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some
of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this
country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this
world. But be sure that, by God’s special help, I will do my best to
encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God’s help for
myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we
cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of
God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without
knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus’ life by their death, which
they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth.
It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed.
May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of his
blood.
“May the war soon end, in order to save the Moslems from their
cruelty (for they increase in that from day to day), and from their
ingrained habit of torturing others. Therefore we are waiting on
God, for the sake of the Moslems as well as of the Armenians. May He
appear soon.”
129. ADANA: STATEMENT, DATED 9th MAY, 1916, BY MISS Y., A FOREIGN
RESIDENT AT ADANA, RECORDING HER EXPERIENCES THERE FROM
SEPTEMBER, 1914, TO SEPTEMBER, 1915.
From the time Turkey began to mobilise in the autumn of 1914, before
entering into the war, fear and questioning naturally took hold of
the Armenians. First there was the unreasonable and irregular way in
which the men were drafted into the Army or Labour Regiments; and
then there was the news concerning the harsh and cruel treatment of
the male population of Dört Yöl, where all from the ages of about 16
to 70 years were suddenly sent away _en masse_ to work on the roads
in the Hassan Beyli district—this, on the mere rumour that fruit and
food had been conveyed from Dört Yöl to one of the Allies’ warships.
This was followed by a few selected men from Dört Yöl being hanged
at intervals in the streets of Adana. One night in the winter
(1914-15) the Government sent officers round the city into all
Armenian houses, knocking the families up and demanding that all
weapons should be given up, or actually searching for them. Think of
the fright of many of them, thus rudely awakened; this action was
the death-knell to many hearts. Soon after this, Armenians whose
names had been registered as having escaped or defended themselves
during the massacres of 1909, or who were found in possession of
arms, or were under some other accusation, were collected and
imprisoned. I am not sure what happened to these.
Then came the news of Zeitoun being deported. These hardy
mountaineers were destined for Sultania, a low malarial district on
the plain beyond Konia. Most of these villagers passed through
Tarsus _en route_, save those who had died on the way. A Tarsus
graduate from Zeitoun who had hoped to become a teacher, voluntarily
followed his mother, a widow, to Sultania, for the reason that she
had no one to take care of her, neither she nor his sister with her
four children, as the latter’s husband was imprisoned in Marash.
“Why imprisoned?” I asked. “I do not know any reason,” the boy
replied. This boy recounted to me how the people had to live in this
sultry region. Some one hundred souls, regardless of any
distinction, among them a College Professor and a few leading people
from Konia, were for a time crowded into the largest house in the
place. They could not sleep, many were sick, children and babies
crying, the heat great. Other houses were occupied likewise;
probably many people camped around. These poor people were not
allowed to do anything to earn money or to go beyond a certain
distance. Those who still had money for food helped the more needy
as far as they could. This same student told me that while he was in
Sultania 750 had died. Then the remainder were all despatched back
to Tarsus to be forwarded to the Arabian desert.