XIXTHE DEPORTATIONS

The second act was far more diabolical and hellish than the first, because it was not an instant death by shooting or knocking on the head with an axe, or sabring, or throwing boat-loads of human beings into the sea.It was death by starvation, by rape, by disease and by a slavery far worse than all.By what process was this to be accomplished? By deportation.

By the help of thesultan, who marshaled his hosts against Heaven, of whom John Milton wrote centuries ago, the arch fiends at Constantinople hatched out this plan of deportation of the entire Armenian population to Mesopotamia, a distance of from 300 to 700 miles away from the Armenian communities. Orders came from the central government at Constantinople to the local authorities in the provinces of Asia Minor and Armenia. “These orders were explicit and detailed. No hamlet was too insignificant to be missed. The news was given by town criers thateveryArmenian was to be ready to leave at a certain hour for an unknown destination. There were no exceptions for the aged, the ill, the women in pregnancy. Only rich merchants and bankers and good-looking women and girls were allowed to escapeby professing Islam; and let it be said to their everlasting honor that few availed themselves of this means of escape.”

There were several reasons for the scheme of deportation: one of them was the helpless women, children, the ill and the aged men were still menacing the safety of the empire! Another, and the most fundamental reason was the government’s determination to get rid of the Armenians so as to get rid of the Armenian question once for all. Still another reason was that the homes of the Armenians were wanted in advance. The Moslem refugees from Macedonia must be settled in the provinces which were occupied by the Armenians. Another reason was to show how the association of the Turk with the highly cultured and civilized nation, the German, had mollified the brutal heart of the Turk, who did not, and would not massacre the defenseless women, children, the ill, the aged men—for such stories are “fabrications!”

We reproduce a few instances of these stories which the Turkish Ambassador—it may be the German too—declares are “fabrications, no women and children have been killed.”

“We are shocked at the cruelties perpetrated in these massacres. Trenchant pens have portrayed the horrors. Even some Germans have been found to denounce these massacres and to accuse the infamous ally of the Teutonic kaisers of the most terrible cruelties. Witness the following narrative which I quote from the November, 1915, issue of theAllegemeine Missione Zeitschrift, published in Berlin.“‘A gendarme related to us, in such details as to make us shudder, how the Turks had maltreated a group of women and children, who were driven into exile. They slaughtered the Armenians without any hindrance. Each day ten or twelve men are hurled down into the ravines. They crush the skulls of those children who are too weak to walk.“‘One day, early, we heard the procession of those doomed victims. Their misfortune was indescribable. They were in absolute silence—the young and old, even grandfathers advancing under such burdens as even their asses could hardly carry. All were to be chained together and then precipitated from the highest summit of a steep rock into the torrent of the Euphrates river. This froze our hearts. Our gendarme tells us that he had driven from Mama-Khatoun a similar group of people, composed of 3000 women and children,who were exterminated.“‘On the 30th day of May, 674 Armenians were embarked in 13 sloops on the Tigris. Gendarmes were in each embarkation. These sloops departed towards Mosul. On the way the gendarmes threw all the unfortunates into the river, after having robbed them of their money and clothing. They kept the money and sold the clothing in the markets.“‘An employee of the Bagdad railway related that the Armenians were imprisoned wholesale in the dungeons of Biredjik to be thrown into the Euphrates river at night. The corpses washed on to the river banks became a prey for dogs and vultures.’“What law of retaliation could ever account for such abominable crimes? And moreover, what price must be exacted for the crimes ofKulturin Belgium, France, Serbia and Armenia?”[168]

“‘A gendarme related to us, in such details as to make us shudder, how the Turks had maltreated a group of women and children, who were driven into exile. They slaughtered the Armenians without any hindrance. Each day ten or twelve men are hurled down into the ravines. They crush the skulls of those children who are too weak to walk.

“‘One day, early, we heard the procession of those doomed victims. Their misfortune was indescribable. They were in absolute silence—the young and old, even grandfathers advancing under such burdens as even their asses could hardly carry. All were to be chained together and then precipitated from the highest summit of a steep rock into the torrent of the Euphrates river. This froze our hearts. Our gendarme tells us that he had driven from Mama-Khatoun a similar group of people, composed of 3000 women and children,who were exterminated.

“‘On the 30th day of May, 674 Armenians were embarked in 13 sloops on the Tigris. Gendarmes were in each embarkation. These sloops departed towards Mosul. On the way the gendarmes threw all the unfortunates into the river, after having robbed them of their money and clothing. They kept the money and sold the clothing in the markets.

“‘An employee of the Bagdad railway related that the Armenians were imprisoned wholesale in the dungeons of Biredjik to be thrown into the Euphrates river at night. The corpses washed on to the river banks became a prey for dogs and vultures.’

“What law of retaliation could ever account for such abominable crimes? And moreover, what price must be exacted for the crimes ofKulturin Belgium, France, Serbia and Armenia?”[168]

There was no possible excuse for such barbarities to be poured upon the Armenians. Had there been any excuse the German, American, and Swiss missionaries, and the consuls of the neutral nations who witnessed these atrocities would have pointed it out. In fact, the whole civilized world stood “with shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast” at the unparalleled savagery of the Turks, except those who were intoxicated with Prussian militarism, the advocates and defenders of the booty-loving and obscene Mohammedan fiends.

“It is hardly possible to imagine to oneself the implication of such a decree [of deportation]. These [Armenians] were not savages, like the Red Indians who retired before the White man across the American continent. They were not nomadic shepherds like their barbarous neighbors the Kurds. They were people living the same life as ourselves, townspeople established in the town for generations and the chief authors of its local prosperity. They were sedentary people, doctors and lawyers and teachers, business men and artisans and shopkeepers, and they had raised solid monuments to their intelligence and industry. Costly churches and well-appointed schools. Their women were as delicate, as refined, as unused to hardships and brutality as women in Europe or the United States. In fact, they were in the closest personal touch with Western civilization, for many of the Armenian centers upon which the crime was perpetrated had been served by the American missions and colleges for at least fifty years, and were familiar with the fine men and women who directed them.”[169]

The government’s determination to exterminate the Armenian race was not a sudden impulse. It was a deliberate scheme of long standing. After the overthrow of the Hamidian despotism, the Young Turks encouraged the Armenians to organize societies and even permitted them to possess firearms. Their diabolical purpose was not suspected by the trusting Armenians. But when war broke out, the Turks joined the Teutons in hopes to share the rich booty of the war. When this was not forthcoming, they bethought that the opportune moment had come to loot the Armenians, and carry out the plan of annihilation. They had not much difficulty in making out a case against these societies, saying that they were of a revolutionary character; and their possession of firearms was taken as a proof of the same.

Dr.Gibbons gives in his excellent little book, “The Blackest Page of Modern History,” the following statement which was made by the Turkish Consul General in New York: “‘However much to be deplored may be these harrowing events, in the last analysis we can but say the Armenians have only themselves to blame.’ Djelal Munif Bey went on to explain that the Armenians had been planning a revolution, and were killed by the Turkish soldiers only after they had been caught ‘red-handed with arms in their hands, resisting lawful authority.’”

In Adabazar 500 leading Armenians were arrested and imprisoned in the Armenian church. They had their daily tortures and beatings to induce them to implicate one another, and to deliver their arms.Whether they were all the members of a society or not it did not matter. For ten days these men have been tortured, and the whole population of the Armenians—some 20,000 or more—were terrorized and paralysed. Towards the end of this time, the head of the society who had been an exile suddenly returned. At the trial—or rather at the Inquisition—he boldly answered: “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it is mine, and yet I also am guiltless.This society was organized with the permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain firearms.”

The eye-witness further states that soon after this the whole Armenian population of Adabazar was “turned into the streets to wait their turn to go. There they waited, with their baggage, for days by the roadside near the station. As soon as they vacated their houses, refugees (Mohammedans) from Macedonia took possession of them.”

“The people who had any money went to Konia by freight cars, being allowed to take only a few possessions with them. They were told to leave their possessions in the churches and they would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the people were out of the city; so nobody trusted this promise. The exiles were crowded on top of their possessions, sixty to eighty people in a car marked forty people.“From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert place called Mosul (province) in Mesopotamia. Those who had no money must take the entire journey (about 1000 miles) by foot.”

“From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert place called Mosul (province) in Mesopotamia. Those who had no money must take the entire journey (about 1000 miles) by foot.”

Here is a portion of the description of an eye-witness:

“Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich or poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left in the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.... The promise of three days was not kept. The very next morning the local police with gendarmes well armed with Mauser rifles began to enter the Armenian houses and drive the women and children into the streets and lock the doors of their houses behind them and sealed them with the government’s seal, thus dispossessing them of all their worldly possessions. They then assigned four or five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had brought with them with which to send the people away. But the carts were not intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed covering for each person. When they had gotten from 500 to 1000 persons ready in this manner they were set moving, a doleful procession, driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning after morning, during the month of July (1915) we saw groups of this kind pass by the college compound, the women carrying their babies in their arms and leading their little children by the hand, without anything left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey of a thousand miles into the wilderness, to miserably die or to be captured by Turks. By the end of July, the city was emptied in this manner of its 12,000 Armenian population.”“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furnitureor implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.”“In Hadjin well-to-do people who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.” “In one place the people had been given notice to depart on Wednesday; the carts appeared on Tuesday at 3.30A.M., and the people were ordered to leave at once. ‘Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing.’”

“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furnitureor implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.”

“In Hadjin well-to-do people who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.” “In one place the people had been given notice to depart on Wednesday; the carts appeared on Tuesday at 3.30A.M., and the people were ordered to leave at once. ‘Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing.’”

The kind-hearted eye-witness suffered almost as much as the exiles. Here is a description:

“The weeping and wailing of the women and children was most heartrending. Some of these people were from wealthy and refined circles, some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There were clergymen, merchants, bankers, mechanics, tailors, and men from every walk of life. The whole Mohammedan population knew from the beginning that these people were to be their prey, and they were treated as animals.”

Here is one more from a different place:

“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of the drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions....“The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains around were full of bands of outlaws....“Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope.... Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently.”[170]

“The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains around were full of bands of outlaws....

“Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope.... Under the severe strain many individuals became demented, some of them permanently.”[170]

Thousands of boys and girls of assimilable age have been torn away from the bleeding hearts of their parents, and sold and distributed among the Mohammedans, and many thousands more have perished by disease, by exhaustion, by starvation, and by cruel murder.

The following description was written from Malatia:

“Boys under ten and girls under fourteen are accepted here as orphans (by the Mohammedans). More than 800, practically all from Sivas province, are here.... Many have become sick, and they are dying off pretty rapidly. It is evident that many will die on the way....”

Another report says that thedervishes, the fanatical Moslem devotees, met the caravans of the deported Armenians on their road and carried off children, shrieking with terror, to bring them up as Moslems in their savage fraternity. Here another: “Many of the boys appear to have been sent to another district, to be distributed among the farmers. The best lookingof the older girls are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang who seem to rule affairs here....”

The Armenian journalHorizon, of Tiflis, reported in its issue of Aug. 22d (old style), that:

“A telegram from Bukarest states that the Turks have sent from Anatolia (Asia Minor) four railway-vans full of Armenian orphans from the interior of the country, to distribute them among Moslem families.“Some were sold into shame before the march began. ‘One Moslem reported that gendarmes had offered to sell him two girls for a medjikieh (about eighty cents).’ They sold the youngest and most handsome at every village where they passed the night; and these girls have been trafficked in hundreds through the brothels of the Ottoman Empire. Abundant news has come from Constantinople itself of their being sold for a few shillings in the open markets of the capital; and one piece of evidence in Lord Bryce’s possession comes from a girl no more than ten years old, who was carried with this object from a town of North Eastern Anatolia to the shores of Bosphorus. These were Christian women, as civilized and refined as the women of Western Europe, and they were enslaved into degradation.”[171]

“Some were sold into shame before the march began. ‘One Moslem reported that gendarmes had offered to sell him two girls for a medjikieh (about eighty cents).’ They sold the youngest and most handsome at every village where they passed the night; and these girls have been trafficked in hundreds through the brothels of the Ottoman Empire. Abundant news has come from Constantinople itself of their being sold for a few shillings in the open markets of the capital; and one piece of evidence in Lord Bryce’s possession comes from a girl no more than ten years old, who was carried with this object from a town of North Eastern Anatolia to the shores of Bosphorus. These were Christian women, as civilized and refined as the women of Western Europe, and they were enslaved into degradation.”[171]

It was estimated that the exiles from three viliayets alone numbered about 600,000.

“We believe there is imminent danger for the Sivas, Erzroom and Harpoot viliayets to be 600,000 will starve to death on the road. They took food for a few days, but did not dare take much money with them, as, if they did so, it is doubtful whether they would be allowed to keep it.”

We must now follow the exiles on the way to death and destruction. In the following case the officers seem to think it not worth their while to drive so few away; and they may have been very poor:

“Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance. The women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness, a child was killed by having its brains beaten out on a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single person survived out of this group of forty-five.“The forced exodus of the last part of the Armenian population from a certain district took place on June 1st, 1915. All the villages as well as three-quarters of the town, had already been evacuated. An escort of fifteen gendarmes followed the third convoy, which included 4000 to 5000 persons. The prefect of the city had wished them a pleasant journey. But at a few hours’ distance from the town, the caravan was surrounded by bands of a brigand-tribe, and by a mob of Turkish peasants armed with guns, axes, and clubs. They first began plundering their victims, searching carefully even the very young children. The gendarmes sold to the Turkish peasants what they could not carry away with them. After they had taken even the food of these unhappy people, the massacre of the males began, including two priests, one of whom was ninety. In six or seven days all males above fifteen years of age had been murdered.“It was the beginning of the end. People on horseback raised the veils of the women, and carried off the pretty ones.”

“The forced exodus of the last part of the Armenian population from a certain district took place on June 1st, 1915. All the villages as well as three-quarters of the town, had already been evacuated. An escort of fifteen gendarmes followed the third convoy, which included 4000 to 5000 persons. The prefect of the city had wished them a pleasant journey. But at a few hours’ distance from the town, the caravan was surrounded by bands of a brigand-tribe, and by a mob of Turkish peasants armed with guns, axes, and clubs. They first began plundering their victims, searching carefully even the very young children. The gendarmes sold to the Turkish peasants what they could not carry away with them. After they had taken even the food of these unhappy people, the massacre of the males began, including two priests, one of whom was ninety. In six or seven days all males above fifteen years of age had been murdered.

“It was the beginning of the end. People on horseback raised the veils of the women, and carried off the pretty ones.”

The following is a portion of a detailed description by an eye-witness, who was in the company onthe march, and saw the third batch, above mentioned, of 5000 to melt out before they stopped in a halting place after thirty-two days:

“... The rest of the population was sent off in three batches; I was among the third batch.... Our party left on June 1st (old style), fifteen gendarmes going with us.... Very many women and girls were carried off to the mountains, among them my sister, whose one-year-old baby they threw away. A Turk picked it up and carried it off. I know not where. My mother walked till she could walk no further, and dropped by the roadside, on a mountain top. We found on the road many who had been in the previous batches; some women were among the killed, with their husbands and sons. We also came across some old people and infants still alive, but in a pitiful condition....“We were not allowed to sleep at night in the villages, but lay down outside. Under cover of the night indescribable deeds were committed by the gendarmes, brigands and villagers. Many of us [the company] died from hunger and strokes of apoplexy. Others were left by the roadside too feeble to go on.“The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the banks of the (Western) Euphrates and the Erzindjan plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls and little children made everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls who were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates, the brigands and gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining children under fifteen years old. Those who could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water.”

“We were not allowed to sleep at night in the villages, but lay down outside. Under cover of the night indescribable deeds were committed by the gendarmes, brigands and villagers. Many of us [the company] died from hunger and strokes of apoplexy. Others were left by the roadside too feeble to go on.

“The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the banks of the (Western) Euphrates and the Erzindjan plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls and little children made everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls who were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates, the brigands and gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining children under fifteen years old. Those who could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water.”

Miss Mary Louise Graffam secured the permission of the governor of Sivas to accompany her schoolgirls on their way to exile—supposedly—to Mesopotamia, but actually to their destruction. After about ten days’ journey she was not permitted to go any further. At Malatia, where she had to give up her charge, she remained a few days; from there she wrote a letter to a friend in Constantinople. We reproduce a few excerpts from her letter.

“When we were ready to leave Sivas, the government gave forty-five ox-carts for the Protestant townspeople and eighty horses, but had none at all for our pupils and teachers; so we bought ten oxcarts, two horses, arabas (wagons), and five or six donkeys, and started out. In the company (of 2000) were all our teachers in the college, about twenty boys from the college, and about thirty of the girls’ school. It was a special favor to the Sivas people, who had not done anything revolutionary (?) that the Vali allowed the men who were not yet in prison[172]to go with their families.“... We were so near Sivas (the first night) that the gendarmes protected us and no special harm was done; but the second night we began to see what was before us. The gendarmes would go ahead and have long conversations with the villagers, and then stand back and let them rob and trouble the people until we began to scream and then they would come and drive them away.Yorgans(blankets) and rugs and all such things disappeared by the dozens and donkeys were sure to be lost. Many had brought cows, but from the first day those were carried off one by one until not a single one remained.“We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new fear took possession of us, and that was thatthe men were to be separated from us at Kangal.... At Kangal they said that a valley near there was full of corpses. Here also we began to see exiles from Tocat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart. There were a company of old women who had been robbed of absolutely everything. At Tocat the government had first imprisoned the men, and from the prison had taken them on the road.[173]The preacher’s wife was in the company and told us the story. After the men were gone they arrested the old women and the older brides. There were very few young women or children. All the younger women and children were left in Tocat. Badvelli (Rev.) Avedis has seven children. One was with our schoolgirls and the other six remained in Tocat, without father or mother to look after them. For three days these Tocat people had been without food, and after that lived on the Sivas Company, who had not yet lost much.“... The next day we heard that a special Kaimakam had come to Hassan Chalebe to separate the men.... But we encamped and ate our supper in peace, and even began to think that perhaps it was not so, when the mudir came around with gendarmes and began to collect the men, saying that the Kaimakam wanted to write their names and that they would be back soon.“The night passed, only one man came back to tell the story of how every man was compelled to give up all his money, and that all were taken to prison. The next morning they collected the men who had escaped the night before and extorted forty-five lires....“Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey.... The mudir said the men had gone back to Sivas. The villagers whom we saw all declared that all those men were killed at once....“As soon as the men left us the Turkish drivers began to rob the women, saying, ‘You are all going to be thrown into the Tokma Su, so you might as well give your things to us and then we will stay by you and try to protect you.’ Every Turkish woman that we met said the same thing. The worst were the gendarmes, who really did more or less bad things. One of the schoolgirls was carried off by the Kurds twice, but her companions made so much fuss that she was brought back. I was on the run all the time from one end of the company to the other....“As we approached the bridge over the Takma Su, it was certainly a fearful sight. As far as the eye could see over the plain was this slow-moving line of ox-carts. For hours there was not a drop of water on the road and the sun poured down its very hottest. As we went on, we began to see the dead from yesterday’s company and the weak began to fall by the way. The Kurds working in the fields made attacks continually and we were half-distracted. I piled as many as I could on our wagons, our pupils, both boys and girls, worked like heroes. One girl took a baby from its dead mother and carried it until evening. Another carried a dying woman until she died. I counted forty-nine deaths, but there must have been many more. One naked body of a woman was covered with bruises. I saw the Kurds robbing the bodies of these not yet entirely dead....“The hills on each side were white with Kurds who were throwing stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending their way to the bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the midst of a crowd of Kurds until I was used up.... After crossing the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left before us, waiting by the river, as well as companiesfrom Samsoun (a city on the Black Sea), Amasia, and other places.“My friends here (in Malatia) are very glad to have me with them, for they have a very difficult problem on their hands, and are nearly crazy with the horrors they have been through here. The mutessarif and other officials here and at Sivas have again and again read me orders from Constantinople to the effect that the lives of these exiles are to be protected, and from their actions I should judge that they must have received such orders;[174]but they certainly have murdered a great many in every city. Here there were great trenches dug by the soldiers (for the purpose beforehand) for drilling purposes. Now these trenches are all filled up, and our friends saw carts going back from the city by night. A man I know told me that when he was out to inspect some work he was having done, he saw a dead body which had evidently been pulled out of one of these trenches, probably by dogs.... The Beledieh Reiz here says that every male over ten years old is being murdered, that not one is to live, and no woman over fifteen.”[175]

“... We were so near Sivas (the first night) that the gendarmes protected us and no special harm was done; but the second night we began to see what was before us. The gendarmes would go ahead and have long conversations with the villagers, and then stand back and let them rob and trouble the people until we began to scream and then they would come and drive them away.Yorgans(blankets) and rugs and all such things disappeared by the dozens and donkeys were sure to be lost. Many had brought cows, but from the first day those were carried off one by one until not a single one remained.

“We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new fear took possession of us, and that was thatthe men were to be separated from us at Kangal.... At Kangal they said that a valley near there was full of corpses. Here also we began to see exiles from Tocat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart. There were a company of old women who had been robbed of absolutely everything. At Tocat the government had first imprisoned the men, and from the prison had taken them on the road.[173]The preacher’s wife was in the company and told us the story. After the men were gone they arrested the old women and the older brides. There were very few young women or children. All the younger women and children were left in Tocat. Badvelli (Rev.) Avedis has seven children. One was with our schoolgirls and the other six remained in Tocat, without father or mother to look after them. For three days these Tocat people had been without food, and after that lived on the Sivas Company, who had not yet lost much.

“... The next day we heard that a special Kaimakam had come to Hassan Chalebe to separate the men.... But we encamped and ate our supper in peace, and even began to think that perhaps it was not so, when the mudir came around with gendarmes and began to collect the men, saying that the Kaimakam wanted to write their names and that they would be back soon.

“The night passed, only one man came back to tell the story of how every man was compelled to give up all his money, and that all were taken to prison. The next morning they collected the men who had escaped the night before and extorted forty-five lires....

“Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey.... The mudir said the men had gone back to Sivas. The villagers whom we saw all declared that all those men were killed at once....

“As soon as the men left us the Turkish drivers began to rob the women, saying, ‘You are all going to be thrown into the Tokma Su, so you might as well give your things to us and then we will stay by you and try to protect you.’ Every Turkish woman that we met said the same thing. The worst were the gendarmes, who really did more or less bad things. One of the schoolgirls was carried off by the Kurds twice, but her companions made so much fuss that she was brought back. I was on the run all the time from one end of the company to the other....

“As we approached the bridge over the Takma Su, it was certainly a fearful sight. As far as the eye could see over the plain was this slow-moving line of ox-carts. For hours there was not a drop of water on the road and the sun poured down its very hottest. As we went on, we began to see the dead from yesterday’s company and the weak began to fall by the way. The Kurds working in the fields made attacks continually and we were half-distracted. I piled as many as I could on our wagons, our pupils, both boys and girls, worked like heroes. One girl took a baby from its dead mother and carried it until evening. Another carried a dying woman until she died. I counted forty-nine deaths, but there must have been many more. One naked body of a woman was covered with bruises. I saw the Kurds robbing the bodies of these not yet entirely dead....

“The hills on each side were white with Kurds who were throwing stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending their way to the bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the midst of a crowd of Kurds until I was used up.... After crossing the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left before us, waiting by the river, as well as companiesfrom Samsoun (a city on the Black Sea), Amasia, and other places.

“My friends here (in Malatia) are very glad to have me with them, for they have a very difficult problem on their hands, and are nearly crazy with the horrors they have been through here. The mutessarif and other officials here and at Sivas have again and again read me orders from Constantinople to the effect that the lives of these exiles are to be protected, and from their actions I should judge that they must have received such orders;[174]but they certainly have murdered a great many in every city. Here there were great trenches dug by the soldiers (for the purpose beforehand) for drilling purposes. Now these trenches are all filled up, and our friends saw carts going back from the city by night. A man I know told me that when he was out to inspect some work he was having done, he saw a dead body which had evidently been pulled out of one of these trenches, probably by dogs.... The Beledieh Reiz here says that every male over ten years old is being murdered, that not one is to live, and no woman over fifteen.”[175]

Miss Graffam’s letter was dated Aug. 7, 1915, at Malatia; not a word has been heard from the company of 2000 exiles, whom she so heroically defended until her separation from them near Malatia. The author’s sister and brothers, and their families were in this company. The probability is that all have perished by this time, if not massacred soon after their guardian angel left them.

FOOTNOTES:[168]The New Armenia, May 15, 1916, New York; the articleThe Martyrdom of Armenia, by Paul Perrin.[169]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 30-1.[170]A repetition of a case which is reported from the massacres of 1909 when a woman who had seen her child burnt alive in the village church, answered her would-be comforters: “Don’t you see what has happened? God has gone mad.” Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” p. 38.[171]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 39, 40.[172]There were about 1500 or more of the Armenians in prison in Sivas, waiting to be massacred.[173]The men at Tocat, like those in many other places, were taken on the road and killed. An Armenian soldier, serving in the Turkish army was captured by the British at the Dardanelles. This soldier stated, “How men of Tocat were tied together in groups of four and taken 100 at a time to the marshy districts for massacre.”[174]These local officials receive two orders from the central government: the one to be shown to the neutrals, the other to deal with the Armenians. The latter order is to kill the Armenians in any manner they please.[175]The Missionary Herald, Dec., 1915. Boston, Mass.

[168]The New Armenia, May 15, 1916, New York; the articleThe Martyrdom of Armenia, by Paul Perrin.

[169]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 30-1.

[170]A repetition of a case which is reported from the massacres of 1909 when a woman who had seen her child burnt alive in the village church, answered her would-be comforters: “Don’t you see what has happened? God has gone mad.” Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” p. 38.

[171]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 39, 40.

[172]There were about 1500 or more of the Armenians in prison in Sivas, waiting to be massacred.

[173]The men at Tocat, like those in many other places, were taken on the road and killed. An Armenian soldier, serving in the Turkish army was captured by the British at the Dardanelles. This soldier stated, “How men of Tocat were tied together in groups of four and taken 100 at a time to the marshy districts for massacre.”

[174]These local officials receive two orders from the central government: the one to be shown to the neutrals, the other to deal with the Armenians. The latter order is to kill the Armenians in any manner they please.

[175]The Missionary Herald, Dec., 1915. Boston, Mass.

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