province of the Arabic language and the Semitic race, and the only
considerable Armenian communities it contains are the villages of
Jibal Mousa (which have been dealt with already) and an urban colony
in the town of Aintab. In the city of Aleppo itself the Armenian
element is altogether insignificant, and it was not as a centre of
population, but as a junction of routes, that Aleppo played an
important and terrible part in the Armenian deportations of 1915._
_Aleppo is the natural meeting-place of all the roads and railways
in Asiatic Turkey. It lies immediately south of the great Taurus
barrier, which divides the Turco-Armenian provinces of the
north-west from the Arabian provinces of the south-east; and it also
lies midway between the course of the Euphrates and the
Mediterranean coast, at the point where the two approach most
closely to one another. On the north-west, the railway leading to
Aleppo from Constantinople and Konia over the Taurus and Amanus
ranges has practically been completed; from the north a route comes
down over the Cilician mountains through Marash and Aintab; from the
north-east, through Ourfa, a carriage road converges on Aleppo from
Diyarbekir, while southward and eastward the routes radiate out from
Aleppo again—the Baghdad Railway, which proceeds due eastward across
the Euphrates, and is already complete in this section as far as
Ras-ul-Ain; the carriage road south-eastward down the Euphrates to
Der-el-Zor; and, finally, the Syrian Railway, which runs due south
from Aleppo to Damascus, Beirout and Medina._
_All these routes were traversed by the convoys of Armenian exiles,
and from the very beginning of the deportations they were
continually arriving at Aleppo and leaving again, after a longer or
shorter delay in the congested city, for their final destinations
beyond._
_Batches of Zeitounlis were already passing through Aleppo by the
beginning of May, 1915, and the current of exiles from Cilicia went
on flowing in a comparatively thin but steady stream during the next
three months. At the beginning of August the volume was suddenly
increased by the arrival of the first convoys, or remnants of
convoys, from the north-east. These first arrivals were from
Diyarbekir, and even they had been forty-five days on the road. They
were followed in due course by all who survived the far longer
journey from the Vilayets of Mamouret-ul-Aziz and Erzeroum.
Meanwhile, an even greater mass of exiles had been converging on
Aleppo along the Anatolian Railway from all the Armenian districts
which its branches tap; but this stream was dammed up indefinitely
by the mountain barriers where the railway was still incomplete, and
even in December the convoys were still bivouacked on the slopes of
Amanus. What was their subsequent fate—whether they died where they
lay at Osmania and Islohia, or got through to Aleppo in any
considerable numbers—there is little evidence to show. It is only
known that 500,000 exiles altogether, out of those who converged
upon Aleppo in 1915 from all the quarters above mentioned, were
supposed to be still alive, in the spring of 1916, in the region
between Aleppo, Damascus and Der-el-Zor._
139. ALEPPO: SERIES OF REPORTS FROM A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT ALEPPO;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
(=a.=) =Report dated 12th May, 1915.=
Between 4,300 and 4,500 families, that is, about 28,000 persons, are
being removed by order of the Government from the districts of
Zeitoun and Marash to distant places where they are unknown.
Thousands have already been sent to the north-west into the
provinces of Konia, Kaisaria, Kastamouni, &c., while others have
been taken south-eastwards as far as Der-el-Zor, and report says to
the vicinity of Baghdad. A traveller coming from Constantinople said
that he met about 4,500 unfortunates on their way to Konia. The
Armenians themselves say that they would by far have preferred a
massacre.
(=b.=) =Report dated 3rd August, 1915.=
The idea of direct attack and massacre that was carried out in
former times has been altered somewhat, in that the men and boys
have been deported from their homes in great numbers and disappeared
_en route_, and later on the women and children have been made to
follow. For some time stories have been prevalent from travellers
arriving from the interior of the killing of the males; of great
numbers of bodies along the roadside or floating in the Euphrates
River; of the delivery to the Kurds by the gendarmes accompanying
the convoys of women and children and of all the younger members of
the convoys; of unthinkable outrages committed by gendarmes and
Kurds, and even of the killing of many of the victims.
At first these stories were not given much credence, but as many of
the refugees are now arriving in Aleppo, no doubt any longer remains
of the truth of the matter. On the 2nd August about 800 middle-aged
and old women, and children under the age of ten years, arrived
afoot from Diyarbekir, after forty-five days _en route_, in the most
pitiable condition imaginable. They report the taking of all the
young women and girls by the Kurds, the pillaging even of the last
bit of money and other belongings, of starvation, of privation and
hardship of every description. Their deplorable condition bears out
their statements in every detail.
I am informed that 4,500 persons were sent from Sughurt[179] to
Ras-ul-Ain, over 2,000 from Mezré to Diyarbekir, and that all the
cities of Bitlis, Mardin, Mosul, Suverek[180], Malatia, Besné, &c.,
have been depopulated of Armenians, the men and boys and many of the
women killed, and the balance scattered throughout the country. If
this is true, of which there is little doubt, even the latter must
naturally die of fatigue, hunger and disease. The Governor of
Der-el-Zor, on the Euphrates River, who is now in Aleppo, says that
there are 15,000 Armenian refugees in that city. Children are
frequently sold to prevent starvation, as the Government furnishes
practically no subsistence. The following statistics show the number
of families and persons arriving in Aleppo, places whence deported,
and number sent further on, up to and including the 30th July:—
WHERE FROM. FAMILIES. PERSONS. SENT AWAY.
Tcheuk-Merzemen (Dört Yöl) 400 2,109 734
Odjakli 115 537 137
Euzerli 116 593 173
Hassan Beyli 187 1,118 514
Harni 84 528 34
Karspazar 51 340 —
Hadjin 592 3,988 1,025
Roumlou 51 388 296
Shar 150 1,112 357
Sis 231 1,317 —
Baghtché 13 68 —
Dengala 126 804 —
Drtadli 12 104 —
Zeitoun 5 8 —
Yarpouz 22 97 —
Albustan 10 44 —
—— —— ——
Total 2,165 13,155 3,270
2,100 persons more arrived since the above figures were compiled.
Now all Armenians have been ordered to be deported from the cities
of Aintab, Mardin, Bitlis, Antioch, Alexandretta, Kessab, and all
the smaller towns in the Aleppo Province, estimated at 60,000
persons in all. It is natural to suppose that they will suffer the
fate of those that have gone before, which is appalling to
contemplate. The result is that, as 90 per cent. of the commerce of
the interior is in the hands of the Armenians, the country is facing
ruin. The great bulk of business being done on credit, hundreds of
prominent business men other than Armenians face bankruptcy. There
will not be left in the places evacuated a single tanner, moulder,
blacksmith, tailor, carpenter, clay worker, weaver, shoemaker,
jeweller, pharmacist, doctor, lawyer, or any of the professional
people or tradesmen, with very few exceptions, and the country will
be left in a practically helpless state.
The important American religious and educational institutions in
this region are losing their professors, teachers, helpers and
students, and even the orphanages are to be emptied of the hundreds
of children therein, which ruins the fruits of fifty years of
untiring effort in this field. The Government officials in a mocking
way ask what the Americans are going to do with these establishments
now that the Armenians are being done away with.
The situation is becoming more critical daily, as there is no
telling where this thing will end. The Germans are being blamed on
every hand, for if they have not directly ordered this wholesale
slaughter (for it is nothing less than the extermination of the
Armenian race), they at least condone it.
(=c.=) =Report dated 19th August, 1915.=
The city of Aintab is being rapidly depopulated of Armenians,
several thousands having already passed through Aleppo on their way
to the south. The accompanying gendarmes do nothing to protect their
charges against attack by the way. The Armenian community of Aintab
is the wealthiest of the kind in this part of the Empire. Their
household belongings were left behind to be taken by the first
plunderer to arrive. Most of the merchants of the city being
Armenians, their stocks are likewise disappearing. It is a gigantic
plundering scheme, as well as a final blow to extinguish the race.
Since the 1st August the German Baghdad Railway has brought nine
trains of these unfortunate people to Aleppo, each of fifteen
truck-loads and each truck containing from thirty-five to forty
persons. All these in addition to many thousands that came on foot.
Since the 1st August 20,000 have so far arrived in Aleppo. The
trains were mostly switched to the Damascus-Hama line, and run on
south to disperse their contents among the Arabs and Druses, while a
small proportion were permitted to remain in Aleppo for the time
being. They all relate harrowing tales of hardships, abuse, robbery
and atrocities committed _en route_, and, with the exception of
those from Aintab, there were few if any men, girls over ten years
or becoming young married women among them. Travellers from the
interior have related to the writer that the beaten paths are lined
with corpses of the victims. Between Ourfa and Arab-Pounar, a
distance of about twenty-five miles, there were seen more than 500
unburied corpses along the highway.
On the 17th instant an order arrived from the Minister of the
Interior to permit the Armenian Protestants to remain where they
were. On the 19th another order came that all Armenians without
distinction should be deported.
From Mardin the Government deported great numbers of Syrians,
Catholics, Chaldeans and Protestants, and it is feared that all
Christians may later be included in the order, and possibly even the
Jews. The cry is “Turkey for the Moslems!” Judicious persons, well
informed on the question, place the total loss of life up to the
15th August at over 500,000. The territory affected includes the
provinces of Van, Erzeroum, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-ul-Aziz,
Angora and Sivas; in these the Armenians have already been
practically exterminated. This leaves Aleppo and Adana to be
completed, and here the movement is in rapid progress.
(=d.=) =Report dated 8th February, 1916.=
I transmit herewith a copy of a report received from reliable
sources in reference to the number of Armenian immigrants in this
vicinity, between here and Damascus and in the surrounding country,
and down the Euphrates River as far as Der-el-Zor, showing a total
of about 500,000 persons. In connection with the relief sent by Mr.
N. for these people, it would seem proper to state that the sum of
£500 (Turkish) weekly is entirely inadequate to aid even a small
part thereof. In fact, as a person cannot live on less than two gold
piastres per day, it will require the sum of £10,000 (Turkish)
(about £9,000 sterling) a day to keep those alive who are in good
health, to say nothing of the sick.
The following are the statistics of Armenian immigrants according to
the best information, up to the 3rd February, 1916:
Damascus as far as Ma’an, more than 100,000
Hama and surrounding villages 12,000
Homs and surrounding villages 20,000
Aleppo and surrounding villages 7,000
Ma’ara and surrounding villages 4,000
Bab and surrounding villages 8,000
Mumbidj and surrounding villages 5,000
Ras-ul-Ain and surrounding villages 20,000
Rakka and surrounding villages 10,000
Der-el-Zor and surrounding villages, more than 300,000
———
Total 486,000
———
140. ALEPPO: MEMORANDUM[181], DATED ALEPPO, 18th JUNE/1st JULY,
1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
The number of people from Zeitoun exiled to Konia is more than
6,000; they have been put in the Sandjak of Sultania or Kara-Pounar.
More than 20,000 Armenians who have been forced to emigrate are
being cast into the deserts amid nomadic tribes, leaving their
houses, gardens and tilled lands to the Turkish mouhadjirs. Deprived
of all that they possessed, the unfortunate people have not even any
graves for their dead.
At Aleppo all the churches and schools are full of exiled Armenians.
Rich and poor, teachers and pupils, all are brothers there, victims
of the same blow. The inhabitants of the city do their utmost to
alleviate the suffering. Those that are deported—women, old men,
children—are obliged to cross the deserts on foot, under the burning
sun, often deprived of food and water. The most modest complaint is
stifled by the most barbarous threats. Overpowered by fatigue,
exhausted by hunger, mothers in despair leave on the way their
infant children, often only six months old, and continue their
journey.... Even in this deplorable state, rapes and violent acts
are everyday occurrences.... The Armenians deported from Hadjin
could not be recognised as a result of their twelve days’ journey.
-----
Footnote 179:
Sairt (?).
Footnote 180:
Severeg.
Footnote 181:
Name of author withheld.
141. ALEPPO: MEMORANDUM[182] BY A FOREIGN WITNESS[183] FROM ALEPPO;
COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN
RELIEF.
Speaking generally on the question of the expulsion of the Armenians
from their native places, you are perhaps not aware that they have
all been exiled from the towns in Northern Armenia and Anatolia,
such as Harpout, Diyarbekir, Bitlis, Moush, Marash, Zeitoun, Sivas,
Erzeroum, etc. They are all being sent south and are gradually moved
on from one place to another until they reach the borders of the
Syrian Desert. They are met with as far south as Mayadin, an Arab
village one day south of Der-el-Zor or seven days’ carriage journey
south of Aleppo. Practically all the towns in Syria (Aleppo,
Damascus, etc.) are full of these exiles, whose condition is most
pitiable, as may be imagined when one considers that some of them
have been four or even six months on the road from their native
places, passing through country which is practically barren and
devoid of any means of obtaining proper sustenance. The Armenians
are allowed to accumulate in a town until the numbers become so
large that it is necessary to move them on to some other town
further south, and the population commences to protest against their
presence. One sees them in Aleppo on pieces of waste ground, in old
buildings, courtyards and alleyways, and their condition is simply
indescribable. They are totally without food and are dying of
starvation. If one looks into these places where they are living one
simply sees a huddled mass of dying and dead, all mixed up with
discarded, ragged clothing, refuse and human excrement, and it is
impossible to pick out any one portion and describe it as being a
living person. A number of open carts used to parade the streets,
looking out for corpses, and it was a common sight to see one of
these carts pass containing anything up to ten or twelve human
bodies, all terribly emaciated. These carts have since been provided
with a lid and painted black, and one constantly sees bodies, mostly
of women and children, being dragged out of courtyards and alleyways
and thrown into them as one would throw a sack of coal. It is
impossible to gauge the number of deaths per diem, but in the
Armenian Cemetery trenches are dug and the bodies are simply brought
there and thrown in indiscriminately. A number of priests remain at
the cemetery all day, and perform some kind of funeral rite as the
so-called interment is made. Every now and again an order is given
for the town to be cleaned up, and the gendarmes and municipal
guards go round and drive out the Armenians from their places of
refuge, hustle them down to the railway station, pack them into the
trucks like cattle and forward them to Damascus and different towns
in the Hidjaz. Occasionally a large convoy is collected and put on
the road to Der-el-Zor. Unnecessary brutality is shown in the
expulsion of these people, the majority of whom are simply living
skeletons, and one sees emaciated and hunger-stricken women and
children beaten with whips like dogs in order to make them move.
If one walks round certain quarters of Aleppo at night, one sees an
indescribable “something” lying on the ground; one hears a groan,
and knows that it is one of these human wrecks who, the following
morning, will be thrown into a cart and taken to the cemetery. Many
of these people refuse to accept any help whatever, and say that
they prefer to die and end their suffering rather than prolong it,
since the future gives no hope of any alleviation. The stories they
tell are beyond description. When they were expelled from any of the
towns in Northern Asia Minor, all the men between the ages of
fifteen and sixty were shot down before the eyes of the women and
children, either before starting or some little way on the road.
Some idea of the decimation of their numbers may be obtained when
one learns that out of a convoy of 2,500, which left a village in
the vicinity of Harpout, only 600 arrived in Der-el-Zor. One learns
from their own stories that many of the women drowned their children
in the river en route, since there was no visible means of
nourishing them; and practically every family has been depleted
through the men being killed, the children dying en route and many
of the girls having been carried off by roving bands of Kurdish and
Arab robbers on the way. One boy of fourteen years old, from
Diyarbekir, described how his father and mother were shot and two of
his sisters dragged away en route, so that there remained to him
only two little sisters out of the whole family. English-speaking
girl students of the American College in H. told stories of the
torture of various priests and professors in H., in order to make
them divulge the location of supposed arms and ammunition. One girl,
who was a nurse in the Military Hospital, swore that one of their
professors was attended to by her after having had the hair torn
from his face and his finger and toe-nails pulled out[184]. One
Armenian priest was said to have suffered the same torture, and
finally to have been burned alive; the veracity of this, however,
seems impossible in the Twentieth Century. It is no uncommon thing
for women and girls who have any claim to good looks to be violated
by the different Kurds and Arabs whom they meet on the way, and
against whom it is impossible for them to defend themselves.
Practically all these convoys are composed of women and children,
and men between the ages of fifteen and sixty are rarely met with.
Many of these people have been considerably well off, and brought
away with them large sums of money secreted on their persons. This,
of course, became known to the gendarmes and robbers en route, and
they were despoiled of practically everything—not only their money,
but their jewellery, clothing, bedding and everything else. Outside
practically every town from Mayadin, on the Euphrates, up to Konia,
one sees a camp containing anything from 2,000 up to 20,000 of these
refugees, and one can imagine that such a large crowd of people,
being thrown on to a population which already finds it difficult to
obtain employment and food, would cause the position to become
intolerable; they must naturally die of starvation, since food
cannot be found for such extra numbers.
On all the main routes one finds a continual stream of refugees
dragging themselves wearily along and going for ever southwards.
Their ultimate destination is unknown to them, but apparently they
have a dim hope of at last reaching some place where they will be
able to live in comparative comfort and find nourishment. If they
knew, however, what they would find and what would ultimately happen
to them, they would no doubt prefer simply to sit down and wait for
death without going any further.
One woman in Aleppo was raving mad, owing to having lost her child
and being unable to ascertain his whereabouts.
Any attempts to help the refugees are immediately nipped in the bud
by the authorities, and spies are continually watching the foreign
consulates. Several Armenians who called at one of them were
afterwards put in prison, and one woman was cruelly beaten by a
gendarme, after being compelled to leave the consulate.
142. ALEPPO: MESSAGE DATED 17th FEBRUARY, 1916, FROM FRÄULEIN O.;
PUBLISHED IN THE GERMAN JOURNAL “SONNENAUFGANG,” APRIL, 1916.
I want to beg our friends at home not to grow weary of making
intercession for the members of the Armenian nation who are in exile
here. If there is no visible prospect of a change for the better, a
few months more will see the end of them all. They are succumbing in
thousands to famine, pestilence and the inclemency of the weather.
The exiles at Hama, Homs and in the neighbourhood of Damascus are
comparatively better of. They are left where they are, and can look
about for means of subsistence. But further East, along the
Euphrates, they are driven from place to place, plundered and
maltreated. Many of our friends are dead.
XIX.
VILAYET OF DAMASCUS AND SANDJAK OF
DER-EL-ZOR.
_Aleppo was not intended to be the final destination of the Armenian
exiles. A certain number of the earlier arrivals were sent to the
swampy, malarious districts a short distance to the south and
south-east of the city, but by far the greater number were forwarded
at least several days’ journey further afield._
_Aleppo lies on the inner edge of a great desert amphitheatre, which
is buttressed by the Lebanon, the Taurus and the mountains of
Kurdistan, and slopes very gradually south-eastward towards the
alluvial lowlands at the head of the Persian Gulf, while southward
it passes insensibly into the high desert lands of the Arabian
Peninsula. This region presents a sharp climatic contrast to the
tablelands of Anatolia and Armenia, which are the native country of
the Armenian race. Climatically and geographically, Armenia and
Anatolia are an integral part of Europe, while Syria and Mesopotamia
are the outer fringe of Arabia, and akin, like it, to the Sahara
region of North Africa. The frontier between the two climates is
formed by the southward escarpment of the Taurus, and the transition
between them is abrupt._
_The ostensible motive for deporting the Armenians to this country
was to remove them from the neighbourhood of the frontiers and from
the coast and to plant them among a compact Moslem population of
alien (Arabic) speech, where they would find themselves in political
isolation as well as in a decisive numerical minority. The actual
result was to subject people accustomed to a temperate climate to a
climate of a Saharan character, and this under the worst conceivable
conditions for such a change of environment—when the victims were
destitute of food, clothing and shelter, and physically exhausted by
months of travelling on foot over the roughest of roads._
_The two chief places selected by the Ottoman Government as
destinations for the exiles were Damascus, which lies due south of
Aleppo, and is close, like Aleppo itself, to the inner rim of the
amphitheatre, and Der-el-Zor, which lies considerably further
inwards—six days’ journey by carriage from Aleppo down the course of
the Euphrates, where the river cuts through the desert between the
mountains of Armenia and the alluvium of the Gulf. Some batches had
been sent a further day’s journey still, to Mayadin (Doc. 141, while
there are even rumours of their presence (Docs. 11 and 121) within
forty-eight hours’ journey of Baghdad._