uncertain[271], but there is no uncertainty as to the responsibility
for its perpetration. This immense infliction of suffering and
destruction of life was not the work of religious fanaticism.
Fanaticism played no more part here than it has played in the
fighting at Gallipoli or Kut, and the “Holy War” which the Young
Turks caused to be proclaimed in October, 1914, was merely a
political move to embarrass the Moslem subjects of the Entente
Powers. There was no fanaticism, for instance, in the conduct of the
Kurds and chettis, who committed some of the most horrible acts of
all, nor can the responsibility be fixed upon them. They were simply
marauders and criminals who did after their kind, and the
Government, which not only condoned, but instigated, their actions,
must bear the guilt. The peasantry, again (own brothers though they
were to the Ottoman soldiery whose apparent humanity at Gallipoli
and Kut has won their opponents’ respect), behaved with astonishing
brutality to the Armenians who were delivered into their hands; yet
the responsibility does not lie with the Turkish peasantry. They are
sluggish, docile people, unready to take violent action on their own
initiative, but capable of perpetrating any enormity on the
suggestion of those they are accustomed to obey. The peasantry would
never have attacked the Armenians if their superiors had not given
them the word. Nor are the Moslem townspeople primarily to blame;
their record is not invariably black, and the evidence in this
volume throws here and there a favourable light upon their
character. Where Moslem and Christian lived together in the same
town or village, led the same life, pursued the same vocation, there
seems often to have been a strong human bond between them. The
respectable Moslem townspeople seldom desired the extermination of
their Armenian neighbours, sometimes openly deplored it, and in
several instances even set themselves to hinder it from taking
effect. We have evidence of this from various places—Adana[272], for
instance, and AF.[273] in Cilicia, the villages of AJ. and AK.[273]
in the AF. district, and the city of Angora. The authorities had
indeed to decree severe penalties against any Moslem as well as any
alien or Greek who might be convicted of sheltering their Armenian
victims. The rabble naturally looted Armenian property when the
police connived, as the rabble in European towns might do; the
respectable majority of the Moslem townspeople can be accused of
apathy at worst; the responsibility cannot rest with these.
The guilt must, therefore, fall upon the officials of the Ottoman
Government, but it will not weigh equally upon all members of the
official hierarchy. The behaviour of the gendarmerie, for example,
was utterly atrocious; the subordinates were demoralised by the
power for evil that was placed in their hands; they were egged on by
their chiefs, who gave vent to a malevolence against the Armenians
which they must have been harbouring for years; a very large
proportion of the total misery inflicted was the gendarmerie’s work;
and yet the gendarmerie were not, or ought not to have been,
independent agents. The responsibility for their misconduct must be
referred to the local civil administrators, or to the Central
Government, or to both.
The local administrators of provinces and sub-districts—Valis,
Mutessarifs and Kaimakams—are certainly very deeply to blame. The
latitude allowed them by the Central Government was wide, as is
shown by the variations they practised, in different places, upon
the common scheme. In this place the Armenian men were massacred; in
that they were deported unscathed; in that other they were taken out
to sea and drowned. Here the women were bullied into conversion;
here conversion was disallowed; here they were massacred like the
men. And in many other matters, such as the disposal of Armenian
property or the use of torture, remarkable differences of practice
can be observed, which are all ascribable to the good or bad will of
the local officials. A serious part of the responsibility falls upon
them—upon fire-eaters like Djevdet Bey or cruel natures like the
Governor of Ourfa[274]; and yet their freedom of action was
comparatively restricted. Where they were evilly-intentioned towards
the Armenians they were able to go beyond the Central Government’s
instructions (though even in matters like the exemption of Catholics
and Protestants, where their action was apparently most free, they
and the Central Government were often merely in collusion)[275]; but
they might never mitigate their instructions by one degree. Humane
and honourable governors (and there were a certain number of these)
were powerless to protect the Armenians in their province. The
Central Government had its agents on the spot—the chairman of the
local branch of the Committee of Union and Progress[276], the local
Chief of Gendarmerie, or even some subordinate official[277] on the
Governor’s own administrative staff. If these merciful governors
were merely remiss in executing the instructions, they were flouted
and overruled; if they refused to obey them, they were dismissed and
replaced by more pliant successors. In one way or another, the
Central Government enforced and controlled the execution of the
scheme, as it alone had originated the conception of it; and the
Young Turkish Ministers and their associates at Constantinople are
directly and personally responsible, from beginning to end, for the
gigantic crime that devastated the Near East in 1915.
-----
Footnote 213:
The Paulikian exiles inspired the South-Slavonic Bogomils; the
Bogomils inspired the Albigenses of Languedoc, and possibly sowed
some of the seeds of the Hussite movement among the Tchechs and
Slovaks.
Footnote 214:
With the possible exception of the Bulgars.
Footnote 215:
The Armenian Protestants have even been admitted to the Gregorian
National Assembly—a notable departure from Near Eastern tradition.
Footnote 216:
There is a flourishing colony of Armenian fruit-growers as far
afield as Fresno, California.
Footnote 217:
Though even in Irak there were Armenian settlers, especially at
Baghdad.
Footnote 218:
The nomadic Kurds, for that matter, are only skin-deep
Mohammedans.
Footnote 219:
Excluding the district of Hakkiari.
Footnote 220:
A Syrian sect whose doctrines diverged, like those of the
Nestorians, from the creed of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches,
but in the contrary direction.
Footnote 221:
It appears to be uncertain whether this is really the literal
meaning of the word, its current connotation being purely the
political one.
Footnote 222:
The word “Millet” means simply “religious sect” in the Arabic
language, from which it was borrowed by the Turks.
Footnote 223:
Erzeroum, Van, Bitlis, Diyarbekir, Mamouret-ul-Aziz, Sivas.
Footnote 224:
Article 61.
Footnote 225:
There was an equally vague clause to the same effect in the
special “Cyprus Convention” between Turkey and Great Britain, but
in neither treaty was there any guarantee of its observance. The
Berlin Treaty merely provided that the Ottoman Government should
communicate its measures of reform to the Powers, but, as they
were never carried out they were never reported.
Footnote 226:
Russia began to acquire territory south of the Caucasus at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, when the last King of Georgia
ceded his Kingdom to the Tsar, to save it from the hands of the
Turks and Persians.
Footnote 227:
Tiflis, the former capital of the Georgian Kingdom and now the
administrative centre of the Russian Provinces of the Caucasus,
has become practically an Armenian city in the course of the
nineteenth century, and Armenian settlements have spread far
further into the interior of Russia.
Footnote 228:
Though the British Government was the only Government that
attempted to put pressure on the Turks to desist. In Germany it
was the _mot d’ordre_ that the massacres were a British invention
with a political purpose, and the German Emperor shortly
afterwards sent his portrait to Abd-ul-Hamid as a complimentary
gift.
Footnote 229:
In such publications as _Vérité sur le mouvement révolutionnaire
Arménien et les mesures gouvernementales_ (Constantinople,
1916); or _Die Armenische Frage_, von C.A. Bratter (Berlin,
Concordia-Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915).
Footnote 230:
Doc. 138.
Footnote 231:
In the pamphlet _Vérité sur le mouvement révolutionnaire Arménien
et les mesures gouvernementales_, the following passages occur:
“The Imperial (Ottoman) Government abstained from exercising any
pressure or adopting any repressive measures against the Armenians
until the day the revolt broke out at Van towards the middle of
April, 1915” (page 10); “No coercive measure was decreed by the
Imperial Government against the Armenians until the date of their
armed revolt, which took place at Van and in the other military
zones in the course of the month of _June_, of the year 1915, and
until they had made common cause with the enemy forces” (page 15).
These statements are direct falsehoods, as is also the statement
(page 12) that—“After the occupation of Van by the Russians and
Armenians, the Moslem population of the town was pitilessly
massacred.” We have authoritative neutral testimony (_e.g._, Docs.
120, 121, 122 and 15) on both these points, by which the Turkish
statements are refuted. Yet these lying statements are the pivot
of the whole apologia presented in this pamphlet.
Footnote 232:
See Docs. 68, 82, 94 and 122.
Footnote 233:
Doc. 98.
Footnote 234:
Doc. 123.
Footnote 235:
Docs. 130 and 131.
Footnote 236:
According to an official calendar, published at Alexandropol by
authority of the Katholikos of Etchmiadzin, from which extracts
have been communicated to the Editor by Mr. H.N. Mosditchian, the
statistics of the Armenian population in Russia, up to date, are
1,636,486 for the Caucasus, and approximately two million for the
Empire as a whole. For the Ottoman Empire, statistics compiled at
the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1912 estimate the
Armenian population at 2,100,000; Turkish official statistics, on
the other hand, admit no more than 1,100,000, which on their own
showing would give Russia a majority.
Footnote 237:
For evidence of this loyalty, see Annexe B. to this summary.
Footnote 238:
Docs. 21 and 57.
Footnote 239:
The 25 recalcitrants at Zeitoun do not come into question, for the
Zeitounlis were excepted from military service by special charter,
and the attempt to conscribe them was a violation by the Ottoman
authorities of Ottoman law.
Footnote 240:
_Die Armenische Frage_, von C.A. Bratter, Berlin, Concordia
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1915. The reference is to pp. 9-10.
Footnote 241:
Reproduced in the Paris journal _Le Matin_, 6th May, 1916, in a
special despatch dated Zürich, 5th May.
Footnote 242:
The vast majority of secondary schools in the Empire being, of
course, American, Armenian or Greek, and practically none of them
Turkish.
Footnote 243:
See Annexe A.
Footnote 244:
The Delegation of 1912 was nominated by His Holiness the
Katholikos of Etchmiadzin. Its President was His Excellency Boghos
Nubar Pasha.
Footnote 245:
The Ottoman Government, for statistical reasons, added the Vilayet
of Trebizond to the original Six, the Moslem element being here in
a sufficient majority to balance, to some extent, the Armenian
majority in the rest.
Footnote 246:
Doc. 129.
Footnote 247:
Proclamations announcing and justifying the deportation of the
Armenians are quoted in Docs. 83 and 120 of this volume, while the
alleged text of one of them has been published complete in the
Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_ of the 5th February, 1915,
and is reproduced here as Annexe C. to this summary. The latter
document differs in its wording and in the order of its clauses
from the versions quoted in the places mentioned above, but there
is no reason to doubt its genuineness. Probably the Central
Government communicated its instructions to the local authorities
by telegraph or secret despatch, and the local authorities
embodied these instructions, at their own discretion, in a printed
proclamation to the inhabitants of their province.
Footnote 248:
See, however, Doc. 64.
Footnote 249:
These Moslem immigrants were particularly in evidence in Cilicia,
and in the Vilayets of Erzeroum and Trebizond.
Footnote 250:
Docs. 114 and 123.
Footnote 251:
Docs. 4 and 139.
Footnote 252:
Doc. 141.
Footnote 253:
Docs. 11 and 121.
Footnote 254:
Doc. 115.
Footnote 255:
Doc. 101.
Footnote 256:
Though not more extreme than in other parts of the Near Eastern
World, like Hungary, where statistics of nationality are a burning
question of political controversy.
Footnote 257:
For Armenian statistical material see Annexes D. and E. to this
summary.
Footnote 258:
The former figure is taken from the American Relief Committee’s
Fourth Bulletin, dated 5th April, 1916; the second from Doc. 131.
Footnote 259:
Doc. 88
Footnote 260:
Doc. 57 According to Doc. 53 the most authoritative of all those
relating to Erzeroum, the number was actually 22.
Footnote 261:
The western districts of Erzeroum, which the Turks still hold, may
be written off against Trebizond.
Footnote 262:
Bulletin of the 5th April, 1916.
Footnote 263:
Doc. 66
Footnote 264:
Doc. 137
Footnote 265:
Doc. 141
Footnote 266:
Doc. 70
Footnote 267:
Doc. 116
Footnote 268:
Doc. 139.
Footnote 269:
Doc. 143.
Footnote 270:
The items of this estimate are given in Doc. 139(d).
Footnote 271:
For further calculations see Annexe F.
Footnote 272:
Doc. 128
Footnote 273:
Doc. 126]
Footnote 274:
Doc. 119
Footnote 275:
See Doc. 87 relating to the town of X.
Footnote 276:
Docs. 72 and 128.
Footnote 277:
Doc. 70
ANNEXE A. “YESTERDAY A FIEF, TO-DAY OUR COUNTRY”; TRANSLATION OF AN
EDITORIAL ARTICLE IN THE TURKISH JOURNAL “HILAL,” 4th APRIL,
1916, COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND
SYRIAN RELIEF.
The telegraphic agencies gave us the day before yesterday a summary
of a lecture given in Vienna by the German deputy Traub, on his
return from a journey to Turkey. After having paid tribute to the
military qualities of the Turkish soldiers whom he had occasion to
know closely during his stay on the Peninsula of Gallipoli, the
eminent lecturer expressed the following opinion: “Turkey must not
be considered by Europeans as a country to be exploited.” Mr. Traub
added that he was opposed to all missionary activities in the
Turkish Empire.
These words are of the highest value to us, because in pronouncing
them the Honourable German deputy expressed and recognised the
profound change which has taken place in our country during these
last years. In stating that foreigners must no longer consider
Turkey as a vast field of exploitation, Mr. Traub has shown how the
present situation of the Ottoman Empire differs from that of
yesterday. At the same time he pointed out the necessity of
abandoning the old ideas which had taken root with most Europeans as
regards our country.
Turkey has always been considered by foreigners as a country where
one could and should enrich himself by every possible means and
without any charge or risk. For them it was a vast and magnificent
fief which was to be exploited as a feudal lord managed his estate.
Make as much money as possible, that was the motto of those who came
to our country and who, actuated solely by the grasping desire for
lucre, had no scruples or were untouched by the least noble or
elevated considerations.
Whatever this conception may have been, and however reprehensible
the conduct was of those to whom we refer, it would be unjust to
consider them solely the result of the temperament of the Europeans
living in Turkey. The regime of the Capitulations, odious for us,
but full of delights for them, had contributed powerfully to form in
our guests the strange ideas of which they were possessed. While the
Sultan’s own subjects had to submit to all kinds of charges and
taxes, the foreigners residing in this Empire were not only entirely
exempted, but also enjoyed privileges as numerous as they were
important. This strange distinction justified the privileged ones in
considering the others as creatures whose sole duty was to suffer
everything and to assure the happiness of those to whom they had
offered their hospitality.
The Hamidian administration also tended to support the point of view
of the foreigners by encouraging them and permitting them all sorts
of liberties.
The Sovereign, his ministers, and all officers of the administration
had only one sure object in view, to assure for themselves a
brilliant and easy life, without any anxiety. This confession alone
profoundly wounds our national self-respect. We do not hesitate, out
of respect for the truth, to call the old regime, which only
yesterday was still in force, the shameless exploitation of the
Turkish People. As regards the latter, it bore everything, it was
incapable of reacting, because it had not yet become self-conscious.
On the eve of the proclamation of the Constitution, Turkey resembled
rather closely Peru or Mexico, which, having been conquered by
Pizarro and Cortes, respectively, were for many centuries under an
administration totally devoid of all scruples.
This situation did not change immediately after the 23rd July, 1908;
a new regime had been introduced in Turkey, but a new spirit had not
yet entered the mind of the Turkish People. It required the great
shocks of the Balkan War to revolutionise profoundly our souls and
to give us self-consciousness. The day when under the influence of
anxiety and suffering the Turkish People asked themselves: “What am
I? What have I done? What shall I do?”—that day was the real
beginning of the new era for our country.
We need not dwell here at length on the changes which for nearly
four years have taken place in all departments in Turkey. It is not
our intention to write the history of the evolution of the soul of
the Turkish People, and of the progress it has made. What we wish to
speak of is the new situation which it has created for the
foreigners.
The Turkish People, while it saw its own individuality develop,
became conscious of its rights. It suddenly became evident to it
that it was the only master in its own house and that nobody should
exploit it or displace it in any field. The foreigners were in its
eyes nothing but guests, who were entitled to its respect, but whose
duty it was to become worthy of the hospitality they were enjoying.
The abolition of the Capitulations was the first manifestation of
this new spirit we have just mentioned. Henceforth foreign subjects
had to submit to the same burdens as the natives.
The suppression of the schools founded and directed by ecclesiastic
missions or by individuals belonging to enemy nations, a measure
which followed the abolition of the capitulary regime, was no less
important. Thanks to their schools foreigners were able to exercise
great moral influence over the young men of the country and they
were virtually in charge of the spiritual and intellectual guidance
of our country. By closing them the Government has put an end to a
situation as humiliating as it was dangerous, a situation which,
unfortunately, had already lasted too long. Other measures of a
political and economic nature were taken to complete a work which
might be called the taking possession of the country by its own
sons, who had too long been deprived of their rights.
Thanks to this awakening, a little late but still in time, and
thanks especially to this activity, Turkey has to-day become a
“Fatherland,” like Sweden, Spain, or Switzerland. Our country is no
longer an estate or fief for anybody; it is the country of a people
which has just been recalled to life, and which aspires, in its
independence and liberty, to happiness and glory.
It is to this happy change that Mr. Traub referred in his lecture.
The German deputy was one of the first to proclaim that henceforth
the Turkish People will be the only masters in their own house and
that nobody may any longer think of exploiting it or in any way
tread their rights under foot. We are particularly pleased that an
eminent representative of the noble nation which is our friend and
ally speaks in this manner.
ANNEXE B. LETTER FROM MR. E. VARTANIAN, AN ARMENIAN-AMERICAN
VOLUNTEER IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE, TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW IN
EGYPT; DATED 9th/22nd JULY, 1915, AND PUBLISHED IN THE ARMENIAN
JOURNAL “HOUSSAPER,” OF CAIRO.
We have been here three days. Some of us are going to be sent to
Erivan; the rest of us are starting in two days for Van.
The enthusiasm here is very great. There are already 20,000
volunteers at the front, and they are trying to increase the number
to 30,000. Each district we occupy is placed under Armenian
administration, and an Armenian post is running from Igdir to Van.
The Russian Government is showing great goodwill towards the
Armenians and doing everything in its power for the liberation of
Turkish Armenia.
When we disembarked at Archangel the Government gave us every
possible assistance. It even undertook the transport of our baggage,
and gave us free passes, second class, to Petrograd.
At Petrograd we received an equally hearty welcome, and the Governor
of the city presented each of us with a medal in token of his
sympathy. The Armenian colony put us up in the best hotels,
entertained us at the best restaurants, and could not make enough of
us. This lasted for five days, and then we continued our journey,
again at the Government’s expense, to Tiflis.
Everywhere on the way the population received us with cheers and
offerings of flowers. Just as we were leaving Archangel, a young
Russian lady came with flowers and offered one to each of us. I also
saw a quite poor man who was so moved by the speech in Russian that
one of our comrades had made, that he came and put his tobacco into
the pipe of a comrade standing next to me, and kept nothing for
himself but a bare half-pipeful. A third, an old man, was so moved
by the speech that he began to cry and nearly made off, but a little
while after I saw him standing in front of the carriage window and,
with a shaking hand, holding out a hard-boiled egg to our comrade
the chemist Roupen Stepanian. Probably it was his one meal for the
day.
And so at every step we found ourselves in the midst of affecting
scenes. At Petrograd Railway Station the crowd was enormous. There
was an Armenian lady there who offered each of us a rose. There were
boys and young men who wept because they could not come with us. At
Rostov a young Russian joined our ranks. He was caught more than
once by his parents at the stations further down the line, but he
always succeeded in escaping them and rejoining us. We have
christened him Stepan.
When we arrived at Tiflis, we marched singing to the offices of the
Central Armenian Bureau, with our flag unfurled in front of us, and
the people marched on either side of us in such a crowd that the
trams were forced to stop running.
That is enough for to-day. My next letter shall be written from
Armenia itself.
Please say nothing to my sister about this resolution that I have
taken. I hope, of course, that she would know how to sacrifice her
affection for her brother to her love for the nation and for
liberty. I should curse any of my relations who lamented my
resolution; they would have committed treason against the nation.
There are five of us brothers; was it not imperative that at least
one of us should devote himself to the cause of our national
emancipation? Let us keep up our courage, realise the urgency of the
moment and do our duty.
ANNEXE C. ALLEGED TEXT OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT’S PROCLAMATION
ORDERING THE DEPORTATION OF THE ARMENIANS; REPRINTED FROM AN
ARTICLE BY MISS ELEANOR FRANKLIN EGAN IN THE PHILADELPHIA
“SATURDAY EVENING POST,” 5th FEBRUARY, 1916[278].
Our fellow countrymen, the Armenians, who form one of the racial
elements of the Ottoman Empire, having taken up, as a result of
foreign instigation for many years past, with a lot of false ideas
of a nature to disturb the public order; and because of the fact
that they brought about bloody happenings and have attempted to
destroy the peace and security of the Ottoman state, and the safety
and interests of their fellow countrymen, as well as of themselves;
and, moreover, as they have now dared to join themselves to the
enemy of their existence[279] and to the enemies now at war with our
state—our Government is compelled to adopt extraordinary measures
and sacrifices, both for the preservation of the order and security
of the country and for the welfare and the continuation of the
existence of the Armenian community. Therefore, as a measure to be
applied until the conclusion of the war, the Armenians have to be
sent away to places which have been prepared in the interior
vilayets; and a literal obedience to the following orders, in a
categorical manner, is accordingly enjoined on all Ottomans:
First.—All Armenians, with the exception of the sick, are obliged to
leave within five days from the date of this proclamation, by
villages or quarters, and under the escort of the gendarmerie.
Second.—Though they are free to carry with them on their journey the
articles of their movable property which they desire, they are
forbidden to sell their lands and their extra effects, or to leave
the latter here and there with other people, because their exile is
only temporary and their landed property, and the effects they will
be unable to take with them, will be taken care of under the
supervision of the Government, and stored in closed and protected
buildings. Anyone who sells or attempts to take care of his movable
effects or landed property in a manner contrary to this order, shall
be sent before the Court Martial. They are free to sell to the
Government only the articles which may answer the needs of the Army.
Third.—Contains a promise of safe conduct.
Fourth.—A threat against anyone attempting to molest them on the
way.