Only a third of the two million Armenians in Turkey have survived, and
that at the price of apostatising to Islam or else of leaving all they
had and fleeing across the frontier. The refugees saw their women and
children die by the roadside, and apostacy too, for a woman, involved
the living death of marriage to a Turk and inclusion in his harem. The
other two-thirds were “deported”—that is, they were marched away from
their homes in gangs, with no food or clothing for the journey, in fierce
heat and bitter cold, hundreds of miles over rough mountain roads. They
were plundered and tormented by their guards, and by subsidised bands of
brigands, who descended on them in the wilderness, and with whom their
guards fraternised. Parched with thirst, they were kept away from the
water with bayonets. They died of hunger and exposure and exhaustion,
and in lonely places the guards and robbers fell upon them and murdered
them in batches—some at the first halting place after the start, others
after they had endured weeks of this agonising journey. About half the
deportees—and there was at least 1,200,000 of them in all—perished thus
on their journey, and the other half have been dying lingering deaths
ever since at their journey’s end; for they have been deported to the
most inhospitable regions in the Ottoman Empire: the malarial marshes in
the Province of Konia; the banks of the Euphrates where, between Syria
and Mesopotamia, it runs through a stony desert; the sultry and utterly
desolate track of the Hedjaz Railway. The exiles who are still alive have
suffered worse than those who perished by violence at the beginning.
The same campaign of extermination has been waged against the Nestorian
Christians on the Persian frontier, and against the Arabs of Syria,
Christians and Moslems without discrimination. In Syria there is a
reign of terror. The Arab leaders have been imprisoned, executed, or
deported already, and the mass of the people lie paralysed, expecting
the Armenians’ fate and, dreading every moment to hear the decree of
extermination go forth.
This wholesale destruction, which has already overtaken two of the
subject peoples in Turkey, and threatens all that 60 per cent. of the
population which is not Turkish in language, is the direct work of the
Turkish government. The “Deportation Scheme” was drawn up by the central
government at Constantinople and telegraphed simultaneously to all the
local authorities in the Empire; it was executed by the officials,
the Gendarmerie, the Army, and the bands of brigands and criminals
organised in the government’s service. No State could be more completely
responsible for any act within its borders than the Ottoman State is
responsible for the appalling crimes it has committed against its subject
peoples during the War.
“RADICALLY ALIEN TO WESTERN CIVILISATION.”
These crimes, and the phases of Ottoman History which lead up to them,
demonstrate, in the language of the Allies’ Note, that “_the Ottoman
Empire has proved itself radically alien to Western Civilisation_.” Where
Ottoman rule has spread, civilisation has perished. While Ottoman rule
has lasted, civilisation has remained in abeyance. It has only sprung
up again when the oppressed peoples, at the cost of their own blood and
by the aid of civilised nations more fortunate than themselves, have
succeeded in throwing off the Turkish yoke; and these struggles have
been so much regained for liberty and progress in the world, because the
infliction of Turkish rule upon any other people has been an incalculable
loss.
To this long history of horror the Allies are determined to put an end.
They will “_liberate the peoples who now lie beneath this murderous
tyranny_.” But they proclaim no tyrannous intention against the Turks
themselves. In another clause of their note, they put it on record that
“_it has never been their intention to seek the extermination or the
political extinction of the Germanic peoples_.” The declaration holds
good, by implication, for the Magyar, Bulgar, and Turkish peoples who are
the Germanic peoples’ allies. There are regions in Asia Minor where the
Turk is undisputed occupant of the land. The Allies have no intention of
“deporting” or exterminating the Turk from these regions, as the Turk has
deported the Armenians from the regions that are theirs. The Turk, like
the German, Magyar and Bulgar, will remain where he belongs. Out of the
broad territory over which he at present domineers, he will be allowed
to keep his just pound of flesh, but woe to him hereafter if he sheds one
drop of Christian blood....