THE MOSES OF THE ASSYRIANS
_William Ambrose Shedd_
(1865-1918)
I
A dark-haired American with black, penetrating eyes that looked you
steadily in the face, and sparkled with light when he laughed, sat on
a chair in a hall in 1918 in the ancient city of Urumia in the land of
Assyria where Persia and Turkey meet.
His face was as brown with the sunshine of this eastern land as were
the wrinkled faces of the turbaned Assyrian village men who stood
before him. For he was born out here in Persia on Mount Seir.[63]
And he had lived here as a boy and a man, save for the time when his
splendid American father had sent him to Marietta, Ohio, for some of
his schooling, and to Princeton for his final training. His dark brown
moustache and short beard covered a firm mouth and a strong chin.
His vigorous expression and his strongly Roman nose added to the
commanding effect of his presence.
A haunting terror had driven these ragged village people into the city
of Urumia, to ask help of this wonderful American leader whom they
almost worshipped because he was so strong and just and good.
For the bloodthirsty Turks and the even more cruel and wilder Kurds
of the mountains were marching on the land. The Great War was raging
across the world and even the hidden peoples of this distant mountain
land were swept into its terrible flames.
For Urumia city lies to the west of the southern end of the extremely
salt lake of the same name. It is about 150 miles west from the
Caspian Sea and the same distance north of the site of ancient
Nineveh. It stands on a small plain and in that tangle of lakes,
mountains and valley-plains where the ambitions of Russia, Persia and
Turkey have met, and where the Assyrians (Christians of one of the
most ancient churches in the world, which in the early centuries had
a chain of missions from Constantinople right across Asia to Peking),
the Kurds (wild, fierce Moslems), the Persians, the Turks and the
Russians struggled together.
In front of Dr. William Ambrose Shedd there stood an old man from
the villages. His long grey hair and beard and his wrinkled face were
agitated as he told the American his story. The old man's dress was
covered with patches--an eyewitness counted thirty-seven patches--all
of different colours on one side of his cloak and loose baggy
trousers.
"My field in my village I cannot plough," he said, "for we have no ox.
The Kurds have taken our possessions, you are our father. Grant us an
ox to plough and draw for us."
Dr. Shedd saw that the old man spoke truth; he scribbled a few words
on a slip of paper and the old man went out satisfied.
So for hour after hour, men and women from all the country round
came to this strange missionary who had been asked by the American
Government to administer relief, yes, and to be the Consul
representing America itself in that great territory.
They came to him from the villages where, around the fire in the
Khans at night, men still tell stories of him as one of the great
hero-leaders of their race. These are the kind of stories that they
tell of the courage and the gentleness of this man who--while he was a
fine American scholar--yet knew the very heart of the Eastern peoples
in northwestern Persia as no American has ever done in all our
history.
"One day," says one old village Assyrian greybeard, "Dr. Shedd was
sitting at meat in his house when his servant, Meshadi, ran into the
room crying, 'The Kurds have been among our people. They have taken
three girls, three Christian girls, and are carrying them off. They
have just passed the gate.' The Kurds were all bristling with daggers
and pistols. Dr. Shedd simply picked up the cane that he holds in his
hand when he walks. He hurried out of the house with Meshadi, ran up
the hill to the Kurd village that lies there, entered, said to the
fierce Kurds, 'Give back those girls to us.' And they, as they looked
into his face, could not resist him though they were armed and he was
not. So they gave the Assyrian girls back to him and he led them down
the hill to their homes."
So he also stood single-handed between Turks and five hundred
Assyrians who had taken refuge in the missionary compound, and stopped
the Turks from massacring the Christians.
But even as he worked in this way the tide of the great war flowed
towards Urumia. The people there were mostly Assyrians with some
Armenians; they were Christians. They looked southward across the
mountains to the British Army there in Mesopotamia for aid.
But, as the Assyrians looked up from Urumia to the north they could
already see the first Turks coming down upon the city. Thousands upon
thousands of the Assyrians from the country villages crowded into the
city and into the American missionary compound, till actually even in
the mission school-rooms they were sleeping three deep--one lot on the
floor, another lot on the seats of the desks and a third on the top of
the desks themselves.
"Hold on; resist; the help of the British will come," said Dr. Shedd
to the people. "Agha Petros with a thousand of our men has gone to
meet the British and he will come back with them and will throw back
the Turks."
The Turks and the Kurds came on from the north; many of the Armenian
and Assyrian men were out across the plains to the east getting in the
harvest; and no sign of succour came from the south.
II
Through the fierce hot days of July the people held on because Dr.
Shedd said that they must; but at last on the afternoon of July 30th
there came over all the people a strange irresistible panic. They
gathered all their goods together and piled them in wagons--food,
clothes, saucepans, jewelry, gold, silver, babies, old women,
mothers,--all were huddled and jumbled together.
The wagons creaked, the oxen lurched down the roads to the south, the
little children cried with hunger and fright, the boys trudged
along rather excited at the adventure yet rather scared at the awful
hullabaloo and the strange feeling of horror of the cruel Kurdish
horsemen and of the crafty Turk.
Dr. Shedd made one last vain effort to persuade the people to hold on
to their city; but it was impossible--they had gone, as it seemed, mad
with fright.
He and his wife went to bed that night but not to sleep. At two
o'clock the telephone bell rang.
"The Turks and Kurds are advancing; all the people are leaving," came
the message.
"It is impossible to hold on any longer," said Dr. Shedd to his wife.
"I will go and tell all in the compound. You get things ready."
Mrs. Shedd got up and began to collect what was needed: she packed
up food (bread, tea, sugar, nuts, raisins and so on), a frying pan,
a kettle, a saucepan, water jars, saddles, extra horse-shoes, ropes,
lanterns, a spade and bedding. By 7.30 the baggage wagon and two
Red Cross carts were ready. Dr. Shedd and Mrs. Shedd got up into the
wagon; the driver cried to his horses and they started.
As they went out of the city on the south the Turks and Kurds came
raging in on the north. Within two hours the Turks and Kurds were
crashing into houses and burning them to the ground; but most of
the people had gone--for Dr. Shedd was practically the last to leave
Urumia.
Ahead of them were the Armenians and Syrians in flight. They came to
a little bridge--a mass of sticks with mud thrown over them. Here, and
at every bridge, pandemonium reigned. This is how Mrs. Shedd describes
the scene:
"The jam at every bridge was indescribable confusion. Every kind of
vehicle that you could imagine--ox carts, buffalo wagons, Red Cross
carts, troikas, foorgans like prairie schooners, hay-wagons, Russian
phaëtons and many others invented and fitted up for the occasion. The
animals--donkeys, horses, buffaloes, oxen, cows with their calves,
mules and herds of thousands of sheep and goats."
All through the day they moved on, at the end of the procession--Dr.
Shedd, planning out how he could best get his people safely away from
the Turks who--he knew--would soon come pursuing them down the plain
to the mountains. Night fell and they were in a long line of wagons
close to a narrow bridge built by the Russians across the Baranduz
river. They had come some eighteen miles from Urumia.
So they lay down in the wagons to try to sleep. But they could not and
at two o'clock in the night they moved on, crossed the river and drove
on for hour after hour toward the mountains that rose in a wall before
them.
The poor horses were not strong so the wagon had to be lightened.
Assyrian boys took loads on their heads and trudged up the rocky
mountain road while the wagon jolted and groaned as it bumped its way
along. The trail of the mountain pass was littered with samovars (tea
urns), copper kettles, carpets, bedding; and here and there the body
of someone who had died on the way. At the very top of the pass lay a
baby thrown aside there and just drawing its last breath.
So for two days they jolted on hardly getting an hour's sleep. At last
at midday on the third day they left Hadarabad at the south end of
Lake Urumia. Two hours later the sound of booming guns was heard. A
horseman galloped up.
"The Turks are in Hadarabad," he said. "They are attacking the rear of
the procession."
"It seemed," said Mrs. Shedd, "as if at any moment we should hear the
screams of those behind, as the enemy fell upon them."
The wagons hurried on to the next town called Memetyar and there Dr.
Shedd waited, lightening his own wagons by throwing away everything
that they could spare--oil, potatoes, charcoal, every box except his
Bible and a small volume of Browning's Poems.
Then they started again, along a road that was littered with the
discarded goods of the people. Then they saw on the road-side a little
baby girl that had been left by her parents. She was not a year old
and sat there all alone in a desolate spot. Left to die. Dr. Shedd
looked at his wife and she at him.
He pulled up the horse and jumped down, picked up the baby and put her
in the wagon. They went along till they came to a large village. Here
they found a Kurdish mother.
"Take care of this little girl till we come back," said Dr. Shedd,
"and here is some money for looking after her. We will give you more
when we come back if she is well looked after."
III
Suddenly cannon were fired from the mountains and the people in
panic threw away their goods and hurried in a frenzy of fear down the
mountain passes. They passed on to the plain, and then as they were
in a village guns began to be fired. Three hundred Turks and Persians
were attacking under Majdi--Sultana of Urumia. Dr. Shedd, riding his
horse, gathered together some Armenian and Assyrian men with guns and
stayed with them to help them hold back the enemy, while the women
drove on. He was a good target sitting up there on his horse; but
without thinking of his own danger he kept his men at it. For he felt
like a shepherd with a great flock of fleeing sheep whom it was his
duty to protect.
Panic seized the people. Strong men left their old mothers to die.
Mothers dropped their babies and ran.
"One of my school-girls," Mrs. Shedd says, "afterward told me how she
had left her baby on the bank and waded with an older child through
the river when the enemy were coming after them. She couldn't carry
both. The memory of her deserted baby is always with her."
The line of the refugees stretched for miles along the road. The enemy
fired from behind boulders on the mountain sides. The Armenians and
Syrians fired back from the road or ran up the mountains to chase
them. It was hopeless to think of driving the enemy off but Dr.
Shedd's object was to hold them off till help came. So he went up and
down on his horse encouraging the men; while the bullets whizzed over
the wagons.
"I feared," said Mrs. Shedd, "that the enemy might get the better of
us and we should have to leave the carts and run for our lives. While
they were plundering the wagons and the loads we would get away. I
looked about me to see what we might carry. There was little May,
six years old (the daughter of one of their Syrian teachers) who had
unconcernedly curled herself up on the seat for a nap. I wrapped a
little bread in a cloth, put my glasses in my pocket, and took the bag
of money so that I should be ready on a moment's notice for Dr. Shedd
if they should swoop down upon us."
All day long the firing went on from the mountain side as the tired
horses pulled along the rough trail. The sun began to sink toward the
horizon. What would happen in the darkness?
Then they saw ahead of them coming from the south a group of men in
khaki. They were nine British Tommies with three Lewis guns under
Captain Savage. They had come ahead from the main body that had moved
up from Baghdad in order to defend the rear of the great procession.
The little company of soldiers passed on and the procession moved
forward. That tiny company of nine British Tommies ten miles farther
on was attacked by hundreds of Turks. All day they held the road, like
Horatius on the bridge, till at night the Cavalry came up and drove
off the enemy, and at last the Shedds reached the British camp.
"Why are you right at the tail end of the retreat?" asked one of the
Syrian young men who had hurried forward into safety.
"I would much rather be there," said Dr. Shedd with some scorn in
his voice, "than like you, leave the unarmed, the sick, the weak, the
women and the children to the mercy of the enemy."
He was rejoiced that the British had come.
"There was," said Mrs. Shedd, "a ring in his voice, a light in his
eyes, a buoyancy in his step that I had not seen for months."
He had shepherded his thousands and thousands of boys and girls, and
men and women through the mountains into the protection of the British
squadron of troops.
IV
Later that day Dr. Shedd began to feel the frightful heat of the
August day so exhausting that he had to lie down in the cart, which
had a canvas cover open at both ends and was therefore much cooler
than a tent. He got more and more feverish. So Mrs. Shedd got the
Assyrian boys to take out the baggage and she made up a bed for him on
the floor of the cart.
The English doctor was out with the cavalry who were holding back and
dispersing the Turkish force.
Then a British officer came and said: "We are moving the camp forward
under the protection of the mountains."
It was late afternoon. The cart moved forward into the gathering
darkness. Mrs. Shedd crouched beside her husband on the floor of the
cart attending to him, expecting the outriders to tell her when they
came to the British Camp.
For hours the cart rolled and jolted over the rough mountain roads. At
last it stopped, it was so dark they could not see the road. They were
in a gully and could not go forward.
"Where is the British camp?" asked Mrs. Shedd.
"We passed it miles back on the road," was the reply.
It was a terrible blow: the doctor, the medicines, the comfort, the
nursing that would have helped Dr. Shedd were all miles away and he
was so ill that it was impossible to drive him back over that rough
mountain track in the inky darkness of the night.
There was nothing to do but just stay where they were, send a
messenger to the camp for the doctor, and wait for the morning.
"Only a few drops of oil were left in the lantern," Mrs. Shedd tells
us, "but I lighted it and looked at Mr. Shedd. I could see that he was
very sick indeed and asked two of the men to go back for the doctor.
It was midnight before the doctor reached us.
"The men," Mrs. Shedd continues, "set fire to a deserted cart left
by the refugees and this furnished fire and light all night. They
arranged for guards in turn and lay down to rest on the roadside.
Hour after hour I crouched in the cart beside my husband massaging his
limbs when cramps attacked him, giving him water frequently, for while
he was very cold to the touch, he seemed feverish. We heated the hot
water bottle for his feet, and made coffee for him at the blaze; we
had no other nourishment. He got weaker and weaker, and a terrible
fear tugged at my heart.
"Fifty thousand hunted, terror-stricken refugees had passed on; the
desolate, rocky mountains loomed above us, darkness was all about us
and heaven seemed too far away for prayer to reach. A deserted baby
wailed all night not far away. When the doctor came he gave two
hypodermic injections and returned to the camp saying we should wait
there for him to catch up to us in the morning. After the injections
Mr. Shedd rested better but he did not again regain consciousness.
"When the light began to reveal things, I could see the awful change
in his face, but I could not believe that he was leaving me. Shortly
after light the men told me that we could not wait as they heard
fighting behind and it was evident the English were attacked, so in
his dying hour we had to take him over the rough, stony road. After
an hour or two Capt. Reed and the doctor caught up to us. We drew the
cart to the side of the road where soon he drew a few short, sharp
breaths--and I was alone."
So the British officers, with a little hoe, on the mountain side dug
the grave of this brave American shepherd, who had given his life
in defending the Assyrian flock from the Turkish wolf. They made the
grave just above the road beside a rock; and on it they sprinkled dead
grass so that it might not be seen and polluted by the enemy.
* * * * *
The people Dr. Shedd loved were safe. The enemy, whose bullets he had
braved for day after day, was defeated by the British soldiers. But
the great American leader, whose tired body had not slept while the
Assyrians and Armenians were being hunted through the mountains, lies
there dreamless on the mountain side.
These are words that broke from the lips of Assyrian sheiks when they
heard of his death:
"He bore the burdens of the whole nation upon his shoulders to the
last breath of his life.
"As long as we obeyed his advice and followed his lead we were safe
and prosperous, but when we ceased to do that destruction came upon
us. He was, and ever will be, the Moses of the Assyrian people."
He lies there where his heart always was--in that land in which the
Turk, the Assyrian, the Armenian, the Persian, the Russian and the
Arab meet; he is there waiting for the others who will go out and
take up the work that he has left, the work of carrying to all those
eastern peoples the love of the Christ whom Dr. Shedd died in serving.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 63: Born January 25th, 1865. Graduated Marietta College,
Ohio, 1887, and Princeton Theological Seminary, 1892.]