THE TURKS AND THE CHRISTIAN TRIBES
Guerrilla warfare--Who the Nestorian and other Christian tribes
are--Turkish massacres--Russian withdrawal and its effect--British
intervention.
The Nestorians, Jelus, and other racially connected Christian groups
who, in the region around Lake Urumia, had been carrying on a
guerrilla warfare against the Turks, at the beginning of July were
reduced to very sore straits indeed by losses in the field, disease,
and famine.
As already related in a previous chapter, Lieutenant Pennington, a
British aviator, flew into Urumia in the first week in July, carrying
General Dunsterville's assurance of speedy help. The leaders of
these Christian peoples, in full accord with the British, decided
that after evacuating Urumia an attempt should be made to break
through to the south in the direction of Sain Kaleh and Bijar, in
order to get in touch with the British relieving column which was
marching north from Hamadan bringing ammunition and food supplies.
For the better understanding of this narrative, some explanation is
due to the reader as to who and {220} what are the Nestorians and
their kindred Christian clans who were now about to run the gauntlet
of the Turkish Army operating in the Lake Urumia district.
The Nestorians are the followers of the Patriarch of Constantinople
who was condemned for heresy in the year A.D. 431. They inhabit
Kurdistan and north-western Persia, are also known as Assyrians, and
are indeed often loosely referred to as Syrians. They live in that
portion of the country which the Bible has familiarized to us as
Assyria, and are confusedly termed Syrians, not because they come
from Syria proper on the Mediterranean littoral, with its cities of
Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus, but rather because their rubric and
sacred writings are in ancient Syriac, while the language of the
people themselves is modern Syriac.
Hundreds of years ago the seat of the Nestorian or Assyrian
Patriarchate was near Ctesiphon on the Tigris, a short distance below
Bagdad. But the Turkish conquerors persecuted the Christians, the
Patriarch was forced to flee, and finally took refuge at Qudshanis,
in the highlands of Kurdistan. The present spiritual head of the
Assyrians, who is ecclesiastically designated Mar Shimun, is said to
be the one hundred and thirty-eighth Catholicos, or Patriarch, of the
Nestorian Church.
At the outbreak of the European War there were three distinguishable
main groups of Assyrian Christians. One inhabited the Upper Tigris
Valley beyond {221} Mesul and the hilly country towards Lake Van; a
second was to be found on the Salmas-Urumia plateau and in the
mountainous country bordering on the Persian-Turkish frontier; the
third group lived on the Turkish side of the frontier between Lake
Van and Urumia. Roughly they may be classified as Highlanders and
Lowlanders, with various tribal subdivisions, of which one of the
better known is the Jelu group.
Urumia itself is the scene of considerable foreign missionary
activity, and is the headquarters of the Anglican, American, French,
and Russian religious missions to the Assyrian Christians. Each had
its own well-defined sphere of influence, and worked in the broadest
spirit of Christian tolerance. When war burst upon this unhappy
land, anything in the nature of sectarian rivalry and proselytizing
zeal vanished, to give place to a united effort to aid and materially
comfort the victims of Turkish fury.
The retreat of the Russians from Urumia, at the beginning of January,
1915, left some thousands of Urumia Christians who were unable to
accompany them at the mercy of the Turks and their savage
auxiliaries, the Kurds; and the usual massacre followed. The
Christians, though poorly armed, defended themselves as best they
could, and the survivors were driven to seek sanctuary in the
American Mission Compound. Those who surrendered and gave up their
arms to the Turks were put to death without mercy. At the beginning
of May, 1915, the {222} army of Halil Bey, operating in North-Western
Persia, was routed by the Russians, who reoccupied Urumia. But the
beaten Turks in their retreat westwards killed every Christian
tribesman they could find. A second Russian evacuation of Urumia in
August, 1915, led to a fresh exodus of the able-bodied Assyrian
fighting men, and to another massacre of those who remained behind.
From then until 1918 they had endured all the horrors and
vicissitudes of war, with its fluctuations of victory and defeat.
The Christian army had put up a brave fight against the Turks after
the final Russian withdrawal from North-Western Persia. Now, hemmed
in and suffering from hunger, they were about to attempt a third
exodus, this time towards the South into the British lines.
During the last week in July the Christian army--probably about
10,000 fighting men, but with its ranks swelled to 30,000 by women
and children refugees--withdrew from Urumia and marched southwards.
The Turks gave pursuit and much harried their rearguard, which they
subjected to artillery fire, inflicting severe losses. Ultimately
the retreat under Turkish pressure degenerated into a rout, during
which the mass of fugitives was severely cut up. In the course of
the panic which prevailed, the Nestorian Army lost its artillery and
its remaining supplies, while many of the women and children were
abandoned in the general _sauve qui pent_, and fell into the hands of
the enemy.
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The Turks reoccupied Urumia on August 1st, and vented their
displeasure upon the defenceless people in the customary Turkish way.
The aged were killed, and young girls were carried off and subjected
to a fate worse than death.
Mgr. Sontag, the head of the French Lazarist Mission, a saintly man
who was revered even by the local Moslems amongst whom he had lived
for many years, was one of those who fell victims to the blind fury
of the Turkish soldiery when they found themselves once more masters
of Urumia.
At Sain Kaleh and Takan Teppeh, to the north-west of Bijar, the
British were able to intervene between pursuers and pursued. The
Nestorians, a sadly diminished band, were drafted back to Bijar and
thence south to Hamadan. Harbouring vindictive feelings against
Moslems in general as a result of the atrocities perpetuated upon
them by the Turks, it is not perhaps surprising that they in their
turn made an onslaught upon the inhabitants of the Persian villages
encountered _en route_, and left them in much the same condition as
the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves.
Mar Shimun, the spiritual head, and Agha Petros, the recognized
military leader, accompanied the Nestorians from Urumia. The
survivors of the exodus were put in a concentration camp at Hamadan
with their women and children. The able-bodied and healthy amongst
the men were subsequently drafted out and sent to Bakuba near Bagdad,
where {224} an attempt was made by the British to organize and train
them into fighting units. They received good pay and rations, but
proved very difficult material to handle. Their wild, free lives had
apparently unfitted them for a régime of discipline and ordered
restraint. A large contingent refused to sign attestation papers
lest they should be sent to fight overseas. It was useless
attempting to reassure them on this point, and to tell them that all
the military service they were expected to render in return for
British pay and British rations was that of defending their own
country against the common enemy, the Turk. It may be that their
physical sufferings had demoralized them, but the irregulars of Agha
Petros were incapable of attaining an ordinary degree of military
efficiency as judged by British standards. They were a perpetual
source of embarrassment to the British officers entrusted with their
training. The experiment proved a failure, and at last, on the Turks
suing for an armistice, the men of Agha Petros' command were
disbanded and sent back to their own country.
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