Turkish atrocities in Armenia are no new thing; they have gone on
for centuries, and left but a fraction of the population it once
had. But let us disregard old history, and come to the subject
of to-day. Practically that begins with Hamid II, the present
Sultan. He began his persecutions nearly twenty years ago, but on a
small scale. He has continually devised new methods of getting rid of
the Armenians without responsibility; finally he hit on the plan of
arming the Kurds and letting them loose with full power to do their
worst. When I was in Constantinople he summoned the Kurdish chiefs,
hundreds of them--I have seen them with my own eyes--entertained them
in the palace, armed them with modern rifles, and sent them to Armenia
on their mission. The pretense under which he did it was worthy of
him: he called them the "Hamidieh Cavalry," and pretended that they
were a sort of mounted police, who were to keep order and protect the
Armenians. This was exactly as though a regiment of red Indians should
be armed and sent to Oregon to protect the inhabitants, and called,
say, the Presidential Guard, and the Armenians knew well what they were
for. But the European travelers and newspaper correspondents took it
all seriously, and talked of his "civilizing the Kurds," etc. Now these
were only the chiefs; each chief had a large following of tribesmen,
so that about 30,000 Kurds in all were given arms and ordered to go
to work exterminating the Armenians. This work began in 1891, but on
a small scale, and in a very crafty way, so that it should not have
the appearance of a premeditated massacre; then it was stopped till
about sixteen months ago, when they were encouraged to begin again,
publicly, and with full swing. It was decided to begin in Sassoun, a
district far from the sea, with no roads and a sparse population; if
successful in escaping report there, he could carry out the massacre
through all Armenia, for which "reforms" were asked and promised. He
ordered Zekii Pasha to have his soldiers ready, and meantime to have
the "Hamidieh Cavalry" the Kurdish chiefs and tribesmen, ready to
attack and kill all the Armenians in Sassoun. This city lies between
Moosh and Bitlis, in a mountainous country, and the Sassounites
are a brave people, as much so as the Zeitoonlis are. The district
had about sixty villages and towns, and about 20,000 people sixteen
months ago, but it has none now. The regular soldiers and the armed
Kurds surrounded the district from all sides, and in about a month
had slaughtered the entire population. It was reported that Zekii
Pasha carried on his breast an order from the Sultan as follows:
"Whoever spares man, woman, or child is disloyal." After he had
finished his task, he received great rewards from the Sultan, and is
now one of his most esteemed commanders.
Zekii Pasha is said to have had 40,000 Kurds and regular soldiers
under his command when he began the massacre. The people of Sassoun,
knowing that they were doomed, fought desperately. They repulsed the
Kurds several times, and killed many of them; but finally the regular
soldiers took part, pretending to come in aid of the Armenians,
and overbore them, killing all without quarter. The Sultan's order
was to spare neither man, woman, nor child; but as the men met the
enemy first, they were killed first. When the women's turn came,
the Turks and Kurds abused all they could get hold of, and then told
them that if they would deny Christ and accept Mohammed and become
their wives, they should live; but if they refused, every one of them,
according to the Sultan's order, should be killed. "Now," said they,
"choose between Islam and death." These noble Armenian Christian women
said:--"We are Christians, we can never deny Christ. Jesus Christ
is our Saviour. He came down from Heaven and died on the cross for
us. For that dying and loving Christ we are Christians; we are ready
to die for Him who died for us." And they added further, "We are no
better than our husbands were; you killed them, kill us too." Then
the horrible butchery began on those defenseless women. Thousands
of them were slaughtered, and thousands ran to different churches,
hoping that perhaps they might find protection in some way in those
holy walls, or hoping that God in his great mercy might shelter
them. But the ferocious Kurds and Turkish soldiers pursued them,
sword in hand, violated them, even in the churches, and cut their
throats there until the floors were streaming with blood. Then they
poured kerosene on the buildings and burned them.
They went to one village and killed every man; the women of course,
knowing their fate was soon to be worse than their husbands'. One of
the leading women, named Shaheg, perceiving that the Turks and Kurds
were getting ready to seize and ravish them, called the other women
and said, "Sisters, our husbands are killed, and you know what is in
store for us and our children. Don't let us fall into the hands of
these savage beasts; we have to die anyway, and can die easier, and
without being defiled first, and perhaps tortured. Let us go to the
precipice and jump off." So saying, she took her baby on her arm, ran
to the rock, and threw herself over; the others followed her, and thus
all were killed. The Turks captured many boys and girls, six, or eight,
or ten years of age, held them by an arm or foot, and hacked them to
pieces with their swords. Sometimes they stood the boys in a row and
shot them, to see how many could be killed by a single bullet. They
wrenched babies from their mothers' arms, cut their throats while the
mothers shrieked and pleaded, and boiling them in kettles, forced the
mothers to eat the flesh. They cut open women about to become mothers,
tore out the unborn babes, and marched triumphantly with the ghastly
trophies on their spears--something almost surpassing the savagery of
the Apache Indian. Even their worst horrors they made worse yet by
the way they did them; they took a gloating delight in doubling the
cruelty or the shame by making it torture others too. The husband
was forced to look on while his wife was violated, and she in turn
while he was mutilated, tortured, and murdered; the father while his
daughters, even little girls of ten or twelve, were deflowered and
their throats cut, the son while his parents had every form of shame
and torture inflicted on them, and were killed before him, or saw him
killed first. They tortured their victims like Indians or Inquisitors,
in every fashion of lingering death and torment that makes the heart
sicken and the blood run cold to read of. Crucifying head downward,
and pouring boiling water or ice-cold water on them, leaving them so
till death came; flaying alive; cutting off arms, feet, nose, ears,
and other members, and leaving them to die; thrusting red-hot wires
into and through their bodies. They pulled out the eyes of several
Christian pastors, said, "Now dance for us," poured kerosene on them
and burned them to death. They put a Bible and a cross before others,
and ordered them to first spit and then trample on both, and deny
Christ; on their refusal they were butchered. The handsomest girls
and young matrons were not murdered, but worse; each one was kept as
a spoil of some Turk or Kurd, who carried her to his house, and made
a slave and concubine of her. Many hundreds of them are there to this
day, enduring the awful fate of having been dragged from happy and
virtuous homes, seen their husbands, or parents, or brothers, or all of
them horribly murdered, and passing their lives each in doing menial
labor and serving the lust of a brutal master, and all the other men
he lets have their will of her, without hope, or comfort, or decency,
and a long life of shame and misery yet to look forward to. This is
another specimen of Mohammedan purity, and it all happens because the
Armenians are Christians. If my readers think I am exaggerating, I
refer them to the consular reports. All this was done by the barbarians
con amore, with relish and delight. They boasted of it, they plumed
themselves on it, they praised the Sultan for ordering them to do it,
and he praised them for doing it, and decorated all the officers.
The condition of those who were murdered out-right was much better
than that of those who were imprisoned and tortured. The following
was written by an Armenian from one of the prisons:--
"Our condition in prison passes description. Only he who sees can
understand it. Most of the occupants of every room are Christians,
but many are Moslems. Life would be a shade more tolerable if the
subject race were not compelled thus to associate with the dominant
race, whose temper, tastes, and habits are so different. Into one
small room twenty persons are crowded. Except for a few Moslems,
not a single person has room enough on the bare floor to stretch
out and lie down. For fully sixteen hours in the night, the doors
of the rooms are all locked. In one of these small rooms, sometimes
twenty cigarettes are smoking at once. Out of the small amount of
food which reaches us, instead of eating themselves, the Christians
are obliged to feed the Moslems confined there. Moslem oppression
continues, even here; it is a tyranny within a tyranny. In
every room there are a few Aghas or principal Moslems, and every
Christian must contribute money to their lordships. Those who
withhold such contributions are not allowed to sit down.
"Among the inmates of the prison are twenty or thirty rowdies
and bullies, under whom the Christians must serve as menial
slaves. There is no respect, no pity. The horrible blasphemies
cannot be described. There is no book, no Bible, no work, no
sleep. Every man is covered with the swarming vermin with which
the unwashed rooms of the prison teem. To clean ourselves is
impossible. Now and then the rumor sweeps through the prison that
we are all to be put to death, and all our hearts melt like water.
"The terrible darkness of the night, the curses and stripes
inflicted from time to time, cause us to live in the valley
of the shadow of death. It is a living grave, a visible hell,
a world without God. Out of this throng of prisoners more than a
hundred are in daily suffering from the gnawing of hunger, and
from nakedness, but there is no one to pity. Many praying men
are tempted to cease praying, many are tempted to change over
to the Moslem faith. In truth, all of us are dumb; what to say
we know not. We are wearied of the long silence; our eyes are
strained with watching, our bones ache, our prayers are despised
by the revilers. Night is not night, and day is not day. Our
grief is our food, our sleep is weeping, for how long a time
must we cry? O Lord, wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? How long
will Thy anger burn like fire? And yet some of us are saying:
'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'
"When will the Christian statesmen and philanthropists of the world
find a way to cleanse these Augean stables all over Turkey? Long
centuries cry out for redress. Within a month the following
incidents have occurred: A Christian confined in this prison was
ordered to receive 400 stripes. After 300 had been inflicted he
cried out that he could endure no more or he must die. An officer
then presented to him a paper with the names of fifty Christians
in the city who were accused therein of sedition. In his great
agony he signed it, and this is to be used to incriminate others,
wholly regardless of their guilt or innocence. The other victim
of unendurable stripes was an old man. When he could endure no
more of this inhuman treatment, he also was asked to sign a paper
implicating others indiscriminately.
"Can any one living in a free country for a moment understand what
it is to live under such a government? There is a great flourish
just at present over the reforms that are being instituted in
certain parts of this land. No resident of this country can have
confidence in the superficial operations. What will you do with
a land where lying is the simplest of mental exercises, and where
no one was ever known to blush over it if exposed?"
I give here the testimony of a gentleman from Sassoun who escaped the
atrocities. He is an Armenian from Sassoun, and my personal friend. I
quote this from a little pamphlet, entitled "Facts About Armenia."
The Massacre of 1894.
"The Armenians of Sassoun were fully aware of the hostile intention
of the government, but they could not imagine it to be one of
utter extermination.
"The Porte had prepared its plans, Sassoun was doomed. The Kurds
were to come in much greater number, the government was to furnish
them provision and ammunition, and the regular army was to second
them in case of need.
"The various tribes received invitations to take part in the
great expedition, and the chiefs, with their men, arrived one
after the other. The total number of the Kurds who took part in
the campaign may be estimated at 30,000. The Armenians believed in
the beginning that they had to do only with the Kurds. They found
out later that an Ottoman regular army, with provisions, rifles,
cannons, and kerosene oil, was standing at the back of the Kurds.
"The plan was to destroy first Shenig, Semal, Guelliegoozan,
Aliantz, etc., and then to proceed toward Dalvorig. The Kurds,
notwithstanding their immense number, proved to be unequal
to the task. The Armenians held their own, and the Kurds got
worsted. After a two weeks' fight between Kurd and Armenian, the
regular army entered into an active campaign. Mountain pieces
began to thunder. The Armenians, having nearly exhausted their
ammunition, took to flight. Kurd and Turk pursued them, and
massacred men, women, and children. The houses were searched
and then set on fire. From certain villages groups of men,
tax receipts in their hands, went to the camp and asked to be
protected, but were slaughtered.
"A great number of villages outside of the Dalvorig district,
which had in no wise been concerned in the conflicts of the
previous years, were also attacked, to the unspeakable horror
of the populations. The troops climbed up even the Mount Antok,
where a multitude of fugitives had taken refuge, and massacred
them. A number of women and girls were taken to the church of
Guelliegoozan, and after being frightfully abused, were tortured
to death.
"When the work of destruction was nearly accomplished in the other
districts, some of the Kurdish armies were set on Dalvorig. The
people defended themselves against the overwhelming number of the
barbarians, but after four or five days they saw other tribes and
regular Turkish troops marching on them from every side, and they
took to flight, but were overtaken and massacred. The scene was
most horrible. The enemy took a special delight in butchering the
Dalvorig people. An immense crowd of Turkish and Kurdish soldiery
fell upon the villages, busily searching the houses and rooting out
hidden treasures, and then setting fire to the village. While the
troops were so occupied, a number of the fugitives fled wildly to
get out of the district, and tried to hide themselves in caves,
between rocks, or among bushes. Three days after the complete
destruction of Dalvorig villages, the Kurds and the regular
soldiers divided among themselves the result of the plunder,
and the Kurds returned to their own mountains."
As my use of English is defective, I take the liberty here of quoting
from a long letter by E. J. Dillon to the Contemporary Review,
January, 1896.
Dr. Dillon is an Englishman who was the special correspondent of the
London "Daily Telegraph," a most accurate and conscientious reporter,
who writes as an eye-witness:
"If a detailed description were possible of the horrors which our
exclusive attention to our own mistaken interests let loose upon
Turkish Armenians, there is not a man within the kingdom of Great
Britain whose heart-strings would not be touched and thrilled by
the gruesome stories of which it would be composed.
"During all those seventeen years, written law, traditional custom,
the fundamental maxims of human and divine justice were suspended
in favor of a Mohammedan saturnalia. The Christians, by whose
toil and thrift the empire was held together, were despoiled,
beggared, chained, beaten, and banished or butchered. First
their movable wealth was seized, then their landed property
was confiscated, next the absolute necessaries of life were
wrested from them, and finally honor, liberty, and life were
taken with as little ado as if these Christian men and women
were wasps or mosquitoes. Thousands of Armenians were thrown
into prison by governors like Tahsin Pasha and Bahri Pasha, and
tortured and terrorized till they delivered up the savings of a
lifetime, and the support of the helpless families, to ruffianly
parasites. Whole villages were attacked in broad daylight by
the Imperial Kurdish cavalry without pretext or warning, the
male inhabitants turned adrift or killed, and their wives and
daughters transformed into instruments to glut the foul lusts
of these bestial murderers. In a few years the provinces were
decimated, Aloghkerd, for instance, being almost entirely 'purged'
of Armenians. Over 20,000 woe-stricken wretches, once healthy
and well-to-do, fled to Russia or Persia in rags and misery,
deformed, diseased, or dying; on the way they were seized over
and over again by the soldiers of the Sultan, who deprived them
of the little money they possessed, nay, of the clothes they were
wearing, outraged the married women in the presence of their sons
and daughters, deflowered the tender girls before the eyes of
their mothers and brothers, and then drove them over the frontier
to starve and die. Those who remained for a time behind were no
better off. Kurdish brigands lifted the last cows and goats of the
peasants, carried away their carpets and their valuables, raped
their daughters and dishonored their wives. Turkish tax-gatherers
followed these, gleaning what the brigands had left, and, lest
anything should escape their avarice, bound the men, flogged
them till their bodies were a bloody, mangled mass, cicatrized
the wounds with red-hot ramrods, plucked out their beards hair by
hair, tore the flesh from their limbs with pincers, and often, even
then, dissatisfied with the financial results of their exertions,
hung the men whom they had thus beggared and maltreated from the
rafters of the room, and kept them there to witness with burning
shame, impotent rage, and incipient madness, the dishonoring of
their wives and the deflowering of their daughters, some of whom
died miserably during the hellish outrage.
"In accordance with the plan of extermination, which has been
carried out with such signal success during these long years
of Turkish vigor and English sluggishness, all those Armenians
who possessed money, or money's worth were for a time allowed to
purchase immunity from prison, and from all that prison life in
Asia Minor implies. But as soon as terror and summary confiscation
took the place of slow and elaborate extortion, the gloomy dungeons
of Erzeroum, Erzinghan, Marsovan, Hassankaleh, and Van were filled,
till there was no place to sit down, and scarcely sufficient
standing room. And this means more than English people can realize,
or any person believe who has not actually witnessed it. It would
have been a torture for Turkish troopers and Kurdish brigands,
but it was worse than death to the educated school-masters,
missionaries, priests, and physicians who were immured in these
noisome hotbeds of infection, and forced to sleep night after
night standing on their feet, leaning against the foul, reeking
corner of the wall which all the prisoners were compelled to use
as.... The very worst class of Tartar and Kurdish criminals were
turned in here to make these hell-chambers more unbearable to the
Christians. And the experiment was everywhere successful. Human
hatred and diabolical spite, combined with the most disgusting
sights, and sounds, and stenches, with their gnawing hunger and
their putrid food, their parching thirst and the slimy water, fit
only for sewers, rendered their agony maddening. Yet these were
not criminals nor alleged criminals, but upright Christian men,
who were never even accused of an infraction of the law. No man
who has not seen these prisons with his own eyes, and heard these
prisoners with his own ears, can be expected to conceive, much
less realize, the sufferings inflicted and endured. The loathsome
diseases, whose terrible ravages were freely displayed; the still
more loathsome vices, which were continually and openly practiced;
the horrible blasphemies, revolting obscenities, and ribald jests
which alternated with cries of pain, songs of vice, and prayers
to the unseen God, made these prisons, in some respects, nearly
as bad as the Black Hole of Calcutta, and in others infinitely
worse. In one corner of this foul fever-nest a man might be heard
moaning and groaning with the pain of a shattered arm or leg; in
another, a youth is convulsed with the death spasms of cholera
or poison; in the center, a knot of Turks, whose dull eyes are
fired with bestial lust, surround a Christian boy, who pleads for
mercy with heart-harrowing voice while the human fiends actually
outrage him to death.
"Into these prisons venerable old ministers of religion were
dragged from their churches, teachers from their schools,
missionaries from their meeting-houses, merchants, physicians,
and peasants from their firesides. Those among them who refused
to denounce their friends, or consent to some atrocious crime,
were subjected to horrible agonies. Many a one, for instance, was
put into a sentry-box bristling with sharp spikes, and forced to
stand there motionless, without food or drink, for twenty-four and
even thirty-six hours, was revived with stripes whenever he fell
fainting to the prickly floor, and was carried out unconscious at
the end. It was thus that hundreds of Armenian Christians, whose
names and histories are on record, suffered for refusing to sign
addresses to the Sultan accusing their neighbors and relatives of
high treason. It was thus that Azo was treated by his judges, the
Turkish officials, Talib Effendi, Captain Reshid, and Captain Hadji
Fehim Agha, for declining to swear away the lives of the best men
of his village. A whole night was spent in torturing him. He was
first bastinadoed in a room close to which his female relatives
and friends were shut up so that they could hear his cries. Then
he was stripped naked, two poles extending from his armpits to his
feet were placed on each side of his body and tied tightly. His
arms were next stretched out horizontally and poles arranged to
support his hands. This living cross was then bound to a pillar,
and the flogging began. The whips left livid traces behind. The
wretched man was unable to make the slightest movement to ease
his pain. His features alone, hideously distorted, revealed the
anguish he endured. The louder he cried, the more heavily fell the
whip. Over and over again he entreated his tormentors to put him
out of pain, saying, 'If you want my death, kill me with a bullet,
but for God's sake don't torture me like this!' His head alone
being free, he at last, maddened by excruciating pain, endeavored
to dash out his brains against the pillar, hoping in this way
to end his agony. But this consummation was hindered by the
police. They questioned him again; but in spite of his condition,
Azo replied as before: 'I cannot defile my soul with the blood of
innocent people. I am a Christian.' Enraged at this obstinacy,
Talib Effendi, the Turkish official, ordered the application of
other and more effective tortures. Pincers were fetched to pull
out his teeth, but, Azo remaining firm, this method was not long
persisted in. Then Talib commanded his servants to pluck out the
prisoner's moustachios by the roots, one hair at a time. This order
the gendarmes executed, with roars of infernal laughter. But this
treatment proving equally ineffectual, Talib instructed the men to
cauterize the unfortunate victim's body. A spit was heated in the
fire. Azo's arms were freed from their supports, and two brawny
policemen approached, one on each side and seized him. Meanwhile
another gendarme held to the middle of the wretched man's hands
the glowing spit. While his flesh was thus burning, the victim
shouted out in agony, 'For the love of God kill me at once!'
"Then the executioners, removing the red-hot spit from his hands,
applied it to his breast, then to his back, his face, his feet,
and other parts. After this, they forced open his mouth, and burned
his tongue with red-hot pincers. During these inhuman operations,
Azo fainted several times, but on recovering consciousness
maintained the same inflexibility of purpose. Meanwhile, in the
adjoining apartment, a heart-rending scene was being enacted. The
women and the children, terrified by the groans and cries of the
tortured man, fainted. When they revived, they endeavored to rush
out to call for help, but the gendarmes, stationed at the door,
barred their passage, and brutally pushed them back. [2]
"Nights were passed in such hellish orgies and days in inventing
new tortures or refining upon the old; with an ingenuity which
reveals unimagined strata of malignity in the human heart. The
results throw the most sickening horrors of the Middle Ages into
the shade. Some of them cannot be described, nor even hinted
at. The shock to people's sensibilities would be too terrible. And
yet they were not merely described to, but endured by men of
education and refinement, whose sensibilities were as delicate
as ours.
"And when the prisons in which these and analogous doings were
carried on had no more room for new-comers, some of the least
obnoxious of its actual inmates were released for a bribe, or,
in case of poverty, were expeditiously poisoned off.
"In the homes of these wretched people the fiendish fanatics were
equally active and equally successful. Family life was poisoned at
its very source. Rape and dishonor, with nameless accompaniments,
menaced almost every girl and woman in the land. They could not
stir out of their houses in broad daylight to visit the bazaars,
or to work in the fields, nor even lie down at night in their
own homes, without fearing the fall of that Damocles' sword ever
suspended over their heads. Tender youth, childhood itself, was no
guarantee. Children were often married at the age of eleven, even
ten, in the vain hope of lessening this danger. But the protection
of a husband proved unavailing; it merely meant one murder more,
and one 'Christian dog' less. A bride would be married in church
yesterday, and her body would be devoured by the beasts and
birds of prey to-morrow,--a band of ruffians, often officials,
having within the intervening forty-eight hours seized her and
outraged her to death. Others would be abducted, and, having for
weeks been subjected to the loathsome lusts of lawless Kurds,
would end by abjuring their God and embracing Islam; not from any
vulgar motive of gain, but to escape the burning shame of returning
home as pariahs and lepers, to be shunned by those near and dear to
them forever. Little girls of five and six were frequently forced
to be present during these horrible scenes of lust, and they,
too, were often sacrificed before the eyes of their mothers,
who would have gladly, madly accepted death, ay, and damnation,
to save their tender offspring from the corroding poison.
"One of the abducted young women who, having been outraged by the
son of the Deputy-Governor of Khnouss, Hussein Bey, returned,
a pariah, and is now alone in the world, lately appealed to
her English sisters for such aid as a heathen would give to a
brute, and she besought it in the name of our common God. Lucine
Mussegh--this is the name of that outraged young woman whose
Protestant education gave her, as she thought, a special claim to
act as the spokeswoman of Armenian mothers and daughters--Lucine
Mussegh besought, last March, the women of England to obtain for
the women of Armenia the 'privilege' of living a pure and chaste
life! This was the boon which she craved--but did not, could
not obtain. The interests of 'higher politics,' the civilizing
missions of the Christian powers, are, it seems, incompatible
with it! 'For the love of the God whom we worship in common,'
wrote this outraged, but still hopeful, Armenian lady, 'help us,
Christian sisters! Help us before it is too late, and take the
thanks of the mothers, the wives, the sisters, and the daughters
of my people, and with them the gratitude of one for whom, in
spite of her youth, death would come as a happy release.'
"Neither the Christian sisters nor the Christian brethren
in England have seen their way to comply with this strange
request. But it may perhaps interest Lucine Mussegh to learn
that the six great powers of Europe are quite unanimous, and are
manfully resolved, come what will, to shield His Majesty the Sultan
from harm, to support his rule, and to guarantee his kingdom from
disintegration. These are objects worthy of the attention of the
great powers; as for the privilege of leading pure and chaste
lives--they cannot be importuned about such private matters.
"In due time they began. Over 60,000 Armenians have been butchered,
and the massacres are not quite ended yet. In Trebizond, Erzeroum,
Erzinghan, Hassankalek, and numberless other places the Christians
were crushed like grapes during the vintage. The frantic mob,
seething and surging in the streets of the cities, swept down upon
the defenseless Armenians, plundered their shops, gutted their
houses, then joked and jested with the terrified victims, as cats
play with mice. As rapid, whirling motion produces apparent rest,
so the wild frenzy of those fierce fanatical crowds resulted in
a condition of seeming calmness, composure, and gentleness which,
taken in connection with the unutterable brutality of their acts,
was of a nature to freeze men's blood with horror. In many cases
they almost caressed their victims, and actually encouraged them
to hope, while preparing the instruments of slaughter."
After the horrible scenes at Sassoun, and other places, the Armenian
protests shamed the European powers, who signed the treaty of Berlin,
to send a commission and investigate the atrocities. It found the
stories quite true, laid the facts before the Sultan--and that was
the end of it. The Armenians asked, "Since you admit the truth of
these things, why do you not punish the criminals, stop the outrages,
and compel the payment of indemnity to those who were outraged and
who lost their dear ones and their property?" The powers were deaf to
all this. Then the Armenians prepared an appeal (several months ago)
and carried it to the Sublime Porte, asking it to do them justice. As
soon as the Sultan heard of this, he ordered his soldiers to fire on
them if they presented it. The appeal was presented, and before the
eyes of the European Ambassadors in Constantinople, the brave soldiers
of the kind-hearted Sultan butchered about 3,000 Armenian Christians,
several thousand were imprisoned, and several hundred were murdered
in the Central Prison. Then the cold, wise, and considerate European
powers began to move very slowly, not for the sake of the Armenians,
but for their own, their citizens in Constantinople and elsewhere.
They ordered the Sultan to reform Armenia, brought their fleets
to the Dardanelles near Constantinople to overawe him, prepared a
scheme of reform for Armenia, and made huge threats to the Sultan
if he did not accept it. But he knew that this pretended concert of
the powers for Armenian reform was a mere trick and sham, as I have
persistently asserted all along in the face of my hopeful European
and American friends; in fact, the Russian government at this very
time was secretly urging him to stand firm and refuse to accept the
reforms. He did so, broached a scheme of his own as a substitute, and
the powers accepted it as such; and then the whole thing was dropped,
the Sultan did nothing whatever about it, as he had never intended
to. The European countries were hoodwinked, and the Armenian massacres
and conflagrations, plundering and deflowering, went on at a greater
pace than ever. Then the powers dropped the Armenian question, and
took up that of gunboats in the Bosphorus, to protect their citizens
against a rising in Constantinople; that they forced the Sultan to
permit, because their own interests were concerned in it,--which shows
that they could have forced him to stop exterminating the Armenians if
they had cared. All joined in this except Germany; the German Emperor
is the Sultan's friend, and backs him up. So now Germany, Russia, and
the Sultan are hand in hand, leagued to prevent any of the miserable
victims of his tyranny from escaping his clutches, and the Sultan has
the best possible encouragement to go on killing the Armenians. The
German Emperor says, "Better that Armenians be killed than have a
war in Europe and lose the lives of some of my soldiers." The Czar
says, "Time must be given to the Sultan to reform his country." Lord
Salisbury says, "The Sultan has promised, and we must wait and see what
he will do." And the Sultan, cursing every Emperor and lord of them all
as a set of Christian hogs, orders the soldiers and the Kurds to go on
with the good work in Armenia. And when we come to America, the Monroe
doctrine obliges it to quarrel over Venezuela, and not only refuse
help itself, but give Lord Salisbury a good excuse to give none either.
Such is the situation; the massacres are going on in Armenia and the
Armenians in despair are crying, "O Lord, how long, how long!"
Mass meetings are good as far as they go; raising money and sending
it to relieve the Armenians is good as far as it goes; the Red Cross
Society is good as far as it goes; there are no objections to any of
them; they are all noble and Christian. But, reader, don't you think
all these good movements with good motives will hurt the Armenian
cause, as there is nothing to aid that cause directly? All these
mass-meetings merely irritate the Sultan into carrying on the murders
more strenuously, since there is no force back of them. Don't you think
the Armenian question being discussed in the United States Congress,
and resolutions made without any action, will hurt the Armenians
more than anything else? If you can't tread down the Sultan, don't
stir him up. Miss Clara Barton, that noble woman, is in Armenia to
help the Armenians. The Red Cross Society is there and is feeding
the Armenians. I thank her, every Armenian thanks her. But do you
think that that will relieve the situation? Spring has come, and what
now? Will the Armenians have any crops? Did they, or could they sow any
seed? Is there any farmer left alive? Has any farmer, if he is alive,
any oxen or horses? If he has, will he dare go to his field, sow, reap,
and thresh? Reader, consider all these things, and reconsider them,
and I am sure you will come to the same conclusion I did many years
ago, that Turkey does not need a Red Cross Society, but a Red Cross
crusade, not like the medieval crusades, but a Protestant American
crusade in the nineteenth century. Let me illustrate this Armenian
question by the following parable:--
Suppose a lamb is torn by a wolf, and the wolf lies in wait to
finish it. You go to the lamb with a bundle of grass in your hand,
pat it and say, "Here, poor lamb, I pity you, I give you grass; take
it and eat it." Then you leave the lamb and go away. Do you think
you have helped the lamb? As soon as you have gone, the wolf will
come and tear the lamb to pieces. If you are going to help the lamb,
you must kill the wolf, else no matter how much grass you give the
wounded lamb, it will do it no good. You will do no good by sending
Red Cross societies to Armenia to feed the Armenians if you have not
the power or the will to keep the wild beasts off. You will feed them,
and then the wolves will kill them.
Now I will pass in review some of the leading cities in Armenia
where there have been great persecutions. Before beginning, however,
I must state that it is impossible to give an accurate census of
the population in the Armenian cities, or the number who have been
massacred; for the Turkish government never takes a correct census, and
never gives or will give the true number of those it has murdered. But
I think I can make a fair approximation of both. I will begin with
the city of Harpoot. [3]