The method in the cities has been to kill within a limited period
the largest number of Armenians,--especially men of business,
capacity, and intelligence,--and to beggar their families by
robbing them, as far as possible, of their property. Hence, in
almost every place the massacres have been perpetrated during
the business hours, when the Armenians could be caught in their
shops. In almost every place, the Moslems made a sudden and
simultaneous attack just after their noonday prayer. The surprised
and unarmed Armenians made little or no resistance, and where,
as at Diarbekir and Gurun, they undertook to defend themselves,
they suffered the more. The killing was done with guns, revolvers,
swords, clubs, pick-axes, and every conceivable weapon, and many
of the dead were horribly mangled. The shops and houses were
absolutely gutted.
Upon hundreds of villages the Turks and Kurds came down like the
hordes of Tamerlane, robbed the helpless peasants of their flocks
and herds, stripped them of their very clothing, and carried away
their bedding, cooking utensils, and even the little stores of
provisions which they had with infinite care and toil laid up for
the severities of a rigorous winter. Worst of all is the bitter
cry that comes from every quarter that the Moslems carried off
hundreds of Christian women and children.
The number killed in the massacres thus far is estimated at fifty
thousand, which includes the majority of the well-to-do, capable,
intelligent Armenians in the six provinces that were to have
been reformed. The property plundered or destroyed is estimated
at $40,000,000. Not less than three hundred and fifty thousand
wretched survivors, most of whom are women and children, are in
danger of perishing by starvation and exposure unless foreign
aid is promptly sent and allowed to reach them.