XXCAMPS OF REFUGE

We have been looking only at the physical sufferings of these people. Terrible as they have been who could realize or imagine the spiritual, the mental agony of those refined souls, who have seen day by day the fiendish deeds more abominable than the tortures and massacres? “The spiritual torment could perhaps only be fathomed by actual experience.”

We could not think that in the second decade of the 20th century a small “gang of unscrupulous ruffians” could and did defy the laws of humanity and decency; and still be permitted to continue to practice such barbarities in the face of an outraged human conscience. Indeed, if these were not well established facts, we would not believe them.

There are two reasons why the Young Turks still continue their practice of barbarity and abominations: the first is that they are defended by the greatest military powers, the Teutonic arms; the second is the indifference of the neutral states. The United States was first “too proud to fight” for the suffering humanity. And again, “With the causes and issues of this war we have no concern.” Some Americanmissionaries have died as the result of their ill-treatment by the Turks. American properties worth several millions were seized and occupied by the Turkish government and the missionaries compelled to leave the country. One of these missionaries writes:

“I have received the farewell kiss and parting embrace of men, cultured Christian gentlemen, some of whom held university degrees from our best American institutions in this country; men with whom I have co-operated, and at whose sides I have labored for ten years in the work of education in that land, while at their sides stood brutal gendarmes, sent there by the highest authorities of the Government to drive them with their wives and children away from their homes, from their work, and from all the associations which they held most dear, into exile or to death; some of them to a condition worse than either. We had no better friends in this world than those people. To part with them under such circumstances was harder than I can say, and yet but few tears were shed on either side. Our feelings were too deep for idle tears! I have often seen pictures of the early Christian martyrs crouching together in the arena of the Coliseum expecting any moment to be torn to pieces by the hungry lions which were being turned loose upon them, while the eager spectators were watching from their safe seats, and waiting to be amused by that spectacle. And I had supposed that such cruelties and such amusements were impossible in this twentieth Christian century; but I was mistaken. I have seen sixty-two Armenian women and girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, huddled together in the rooms of the principal of our American Girls’ School at ——, while outside were waiting men more cruel than beast, ready to carry themoff; and who backed by the highest authorities of the Government, were demanding that we should deliver these defenseless girls into the hands of these brutal men to do with them what they would. I have supposed that there was no man in the world to-day who could be amused by such a spectacle as that. In this, too, I was mistaken; for when the wife of our American Ambassador at Constantinople made a personal appeal to Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior in the Turkish cabinet, the man who more than any one else has devised and executed this deportation of the Armenians, and who has boasted that he has been able to destroy more Armenians in thirty days than Abdul Hamid was able to destroy in thirty years—when she made an appeal to this Turkish Minister, begging him to stop this cruel persecution of Armenian women and girls, only answered, ‘All this amuses us.’”[176]

The absurdity of the Turkish excuses that the Armenians were preparing, or intending to revolt is plainly seen by the following instances: In places where the people knew the object of the government was to massacre them, they resisted the government and the authorities had no difficulty in subduing them. The Turks had indeed a better excuse for massacre and the people their choice of an immediate, instead of a lingering, death.

When the people of Shabin Karahussar, a town about 100 miles southwest of Trebizond, were ordered to prepare for deportation, they took up arms, and defended themselves against the Turkish troops from the middle of May to the end of June. Then theTurks, with more reinforcements and artillery, had no difficulty in overwhelming them. They massacred not only about 4000 people who had taken arms to defend themselves, but also the entire population of the country districts, “not excepting the bishop himself. Nothing could show better than this how little the Turkish government had to fear from the Armenians, and how eagerly it seized upon the quickest means to their extermination, as soon as an opportunity appeared.”

The reader will remember the Reubenian Dynasty in Cilicia which came to an end in 1375. From that time to the present many Armenians remained in Cilicia. The Armenians who lived in the Cilician mountains were a sort of semi-independent tribe. They were not rebellious, but they exerted their rights often by the force of arms. This year of crimes had included in its plans to crush this people also. The Turkish government “without waiting to summon them for deportation, at once attacked them nakedly with the sword.” It is, moreover, stated that “they were disarmed, by the promise that, if they submitted, their defenseless brethren in the lowland villages would be ransomed from destruction by their act. The Turkish promise was broken, of course, as soon as the Turkish object was secured; and taken at such a disadvantage, the heroic mountaineers inevitably succumbed.”

“The bloody curtain has fallen over Zeitoun, and the fighting stock of these brave mountaineers has been subdued in this memorable year of crime! As the faithfulfollowers and remnants of the Reubenian dynasty, they had hitherto kept their homes intact and had successfully withstood the Turkish inroads. They have at last been overcome by heavy Turkish forces, and the stronghold of Zeitoun is now in the hands of the enemy....”[177]

It was begun on the 8th of April and finished about the end of May, 1915. The Turks massacred some of the inhabitants.... And the rest, with the old men and women, were deported to Mesopotamia.

The fate of the people of Sassoun was not quite known for some time. But the Turks and Kurds have finally completely exterminated them also.

Both in Constantinople and in the districts nearby, the Armenians have been thinned out, and in some towns they have been cleared out to make room for the Mohammedan refugees from Thrace and Macedonia.

“The Turks are continuing their work of exterminating the Armenians. From Constantinople they have deported the Armenian men. Ten thousand deported men have already been massacred in the mountains of Ismid.“Four districts have been cleared of Armenians: Bosnian Mouhadjirs (refugees) replace the Armenians thus exiled....“More than 20,000 Armenians that have been forced to emigrate from a certain province, are being thrown into the deserts amid nomadic tribes, leaving their houses, gardens and tilled lands to the Turkish mouhadjirs....“As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses,mouhadjirs from Thrace took possession of them. The former had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about 20,000 to 25,000 in this town now, and the name of the town seems to have been changed to a Turkish one.”[178]

“Four districts have been cleared of Armenians: Bosnian Mouhadjirs (refugees) replace the Armenians thus exiled....

“More than 20,000 Armenians that have been forced to emigrate from a certain province, are being thrown into the deserts amid nomadic tribes, leaving their houses, gardens and tilled lands to the Turkish mouhadjirs....

“As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses,mouhadjirs from Thrace took possession of them. The former had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about 20,000 to 25,000 in this town now, and the name of the town seems to have been changed to a Turkish one.”[178]

Four thousand and two hundred Armenians were almost miraculously saved in the following manner: When the orders came to about half a dozen villages near Antioch for them to prepare for deportation the inhabitants, knowing the purpose of the government, held a meeting and decided to resist the orders. One pastor dissented and with his flock of about sixty families was deported; nothing has been heard from that party since. The rest hastened to gather all available provisions, ammunition and arms and drove their herds and cattle into the mountain west of Antioch on the Mediterranean shore. Here they had the sea behind them for protection. On the land side, they protected every possible approach to the mountain, and with some modern weapons and old flintlocks, they were ready to defend themselves. They had some good swimmers on the shore watching for some friendly ship which they could petition for help. They also set up two large white flags, one with a red cross in the center, and the other with these words, “Christians in distress—Rescue!” They were surrounded on the land side by 3000 regular soldiersof then Turkish army, and about 15,000 Turkish mobs of Aleppo and Antioch slums. They had a very slim chance of escaping annihilation, and this chance was in their heroic defense. On the 53d day of their siege, when their food and ammunition was almost exhausted, the French cruiserGuichersighted the cross and drew near; the swimmers hastened and bore the message to it. Other ships were called by wireless, and the whole refugees were taken off and transported to Port Said, Egypt. They thus saved their lives by their bravery, and saved also the Turks from some more shame and sin.

The Young Turks’ plan to exterminate the Armenian race was cunningly complete from the beginning to the end. The three different stages or steps by which they hoped to finish the work are now clear. In the first stage, knowing that the able-bodied men would survive the horrors of deportation, or at least most of them would, so in order to hasten the end, they were massacred; in the second stage, they were sure that delicate women and children could not stand the horrors of deportation on foot over the rugged mountains and deep valleys under the burning sun, half naked, and without food and water, so they consigned the largest number of the Armenians to such a process of death and destruction. This procedure, moreover, would give to their representatives, whether German or Turkish, at the courts of the neutral powers, the right to say that the Turks are not killing the women and children. Yet they were not unmindful of the possibility of their disappointment bythe survival of some even from this process of death. Thus we have the third stage for the unfortunate survivors. These survivors, mostly women and children, make up the “agricultural colonies.”

The annihilation of the Armenian race being the aim of the government, we must surely expect the selection of such places as will accomplish their purpose. We, unfortunately, do not fail in this expectation. One such called Sultanieh, in the province of Konia, is a veritable desert, south ofTuz Gul(Salt Lake). At this place, “a thousand families of Armenian townspeople, assembled by weary marches from every quarter, were given a taste of the wilderness, a thousand families, and only fifty grown men among them to provide for the needs of this helpless flock of women, children and invalids flung thus suddenly upon their own resources, in an environment as abnormal to them as it would be to the middle-class population of any town in England or France.” Having established this “agricultural colony” on the waste, the government was content, and troubled itself about its colonies no more.

“But Sultanieh was by no means the worst of the charnel-house to which the remnant of the Armenian race was consigned.” The most of the refugees were sent to Aleppo (Halep), the seat of Northern Syria. The Armenians who were living in Asia Minor and Armenia were used to a temperate climate, but the climate in lower Mesopotamia and Syria is semi-tropical, and the places to which the survivors of the deportation have been consigned are considered “someof the most sultry regions on the face of the earth.” A day’s journey from Aleppo southeastward the traveler reaches a swampy region. “These swamps were allotted to the first comers; but they did not suffice for so great a company, and the later batches were forwarded five days’ journey, on to the town of Der-el-Zor, the capital of the next province down the course of the Euphrates, where the river takes its way towards the Persian Gulf through the scorching steppes of the Arabian amphitheater.

“This amphitheater has witnessed many ghastly dramas in its day, but none, perhaps, more ghastly than the tragedy that is being enacted in it now, when its torrid climate is being inflicted as a sentence of death upon the Armenians deported thither from their temperate homes in the north.”

There is one more thing to be noted, namely, that these survivors of the deportation have not only a torrid climate as “a sentence of death” to suffer and die thereby, but they have also a new set of tormentors, the Arabs, who are more wicked and fanatical than the Turks and Kurds, because they are, besides being Mohammed’s followers, akin to him in blood and race. Moreover, these poor refugees are not even left at Der-el-Zor. The latest information comes from there that the refugees have to move further southeast. “The misery among the people is not to be described. All are making things ready for the journey; all are breaking up the tents; Der-el-Zor is as destroyed, by the general upheaval. They say we will be sent to the bank of the riverChebar.I pray God that—like he did for Ezekiel—so now He make this place a blessing. Our joy will be to do His will.”

It may be sufficient to reproduce a few extracts from the reports of eye-witnesses of the scenes in the refugee camps. In regard to the condition of the refugees at Sultanieh, we have very little information, the reason for this having been thus stated: “A sum of money has been sent from Constantinople to the Catholikos of Cilicia who is now at Aleppo, witnessing the misery and agony of his flock. Here at least, authorities allow the distribution of succor to those unfortunates. At Sultanieh it has so far proved impossible to bring help within their reach, for the government refuses permission, in spite the efforts of the American embassy.”

“I have just returned, November 16, 1915, from a ride on horseback through Baghche Osmanie Plain, where thousands of exiles are lying upon the fields and streets, without any shelter, exposed to the depredations of all kinds of brigands. Last night, at about twelve o’clock, a little camp of from fifty to sixty persons was suddenly attacked. I found men and women badly wounded, with broken skulls, their bodies cut upon, or in a terrible condition from knife stabs. Fortunately, I was provided with linen, so that I could change their bloody clothing. Then I brought them to the nearest inn where they could be nursed. Many of them were so exhausted from the great loss of blood that they died.“In another camp we found from thirty to forty thousand Armenians. I was able to distribute some bread among them. Desperate and half starved, theyfell upon it; several times I was almost unseated from my horse. A great many dead were lying about unburied, and only through bribes could the gendarmes be persuaded to permit their burial. Generally the Armenians are not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives. Bad epidemics of typhoid fever had broken out everywhere; a patient lay in almost every third tent.“Nearly everything was transported on foot; men, women, and children carried their few belongings on their backs. I often saw them collapse under their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with their bayonets. I have dressed bleeding wounds of women that resulted from these bayonet thrusts. Many children lost their parents.... Three hours from Osmanie, two dying men were there for days without any food or even a drop of water.... They were as thin as skeletons.... Unburied women and children were lying in the ditches....“I visited the camp of Islahié on the first of December, 1915. It had rained for three days and three nights.... As soon as the weather permitted, I set out on my way to the exiles’ camp. About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouret, being unable to proceed on account of misery and illness ... the rags of their beds did not have a single dry thread in them. Many women had their feet frozen—they were entirely black and ready to be amputated. The wailing and the groaning was heart-rending. Everywhere the dead, and the dying in their last agonies, lay about before the tents. Only bybaksheesh(bribes) could the soldiers be persuaded to bury them.“The whole carriage was packed with bread; I just kept on distributing all the time. Three or four times there was an opportunity to buy some fresh bread. These thousands of loaves were a great help to us.“The camp Islahié itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted thirty-five; and in another place twenty-two; right close by were the tents of those people who were down with bad dysentery. In one single day the burial commission buried as many as 580 dead. For weeks many camps have been daily supplied with bread. Of course, everything has to be done as clandestinely as possible....”[179]

“In another camp we found from thirty to forty thousand Armenians. I was able to distribute some bread among them. Desperate and half starved, theyfell upon it; several times I was almost unseated from my horse. A great many dead were lying about unburied, and only through bribes could the gendarmes be persuaded to permit their burial. Generally the Armenians are not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives. Bad epidemics of typhoid fever had broken out everywhere; a patient lay in almost every third tent.

“Nearly everything was transported on foot; men, women, and children carried their few belongings on their backs. I often saw them collapse under their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with their bayonets. I have dressed bleeding wounds of women that resulted from these bayonet thrusts. Many children lost their parents.... Three hours from Osmanie, two dying men were there for days without any food or even a drop of water.... They were as thin as skeletons.... Unburied women and children were lying in the ditches....

“I visited the camp of Islahié on the first of December, 1915. It had rained for three days and three nights.... As soon as the weather permitted, I set out on my way to the exiles’ camp. About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouret, being unable to proceed on account of misery and illness ... the rags of their beds did not have a single dry thread in them. Many women had their feet frozen—they were entirely black and ready to be amputated. The wailing and the groaning was heart-rending. Everywhere the dead, and the dying in their last agonies, lay about before the tents. Only bybaksheesh(bribes) could the soldiers be persuaded to bury them.

“The whole carriage was packed with bread; I just kept on distributing all the time. Three or four times there was an opportunity to buy some fresh bread. These thousands of loaves were a great help to us.

“The camp Islahié itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted thirty-five; and in another place twenty-two; right close by were the tents of those people who were down with bad dysentery. In one single day the burial commission buried as many as 580 dead. For weeks many camps have been daily supplied with bread. Of course, everything has to be done as clandestinely as possible....”[179]

An eye-witness at Aleppo says:

“... On August 2 (1915), about eight hundred middle-aged and old women, accompanied by children under the age of ten years, arrived afoot from Diyarbekir, after forty-five days en route. They were in the most pitiable condition imaginable. They report the taking of all the young women and girls by the Kurds, the pillaging even of the last bit of money and other belongings and scenes of starvation, or privation, and hardship of every description. I am informed that 4500 persons were sent from Sughurt to Ras-el-Ain, over 2000 from Mezereh to Diyarbekir, and that all the cities of Bitlis, Mardin, Mosul, Severeh, Malatia, Besneh, etc., have been depopulated of Armenians; the men and boys, and many of the women killed and the balance scattered throughout the country.... The Governor of Der-el-Zor, who is now at Aleppo, says there are 15,000 Armenians in his city. Children are frequently sold to prevent starvation, as the government furnished practically no subsistence.”

I quote the following from Toynbee:

“We have a detailed account of what is happening at Der-el-Zor, from a particularly trustworthy source—thetestimony of Fraulein Beatrice Rohner, a Swiss missionary from Basle. Fraulein Rohner has personally witnessed the sufferings of the Armenians at Der-el-Zor, and has published her description of them in the ‘Sonnenaufgang’ (Sunrise), the organ of the ‘Deutscher Hilfsbund für Christliches Liebeswerk in Orient’ (German League of Help for Work of Christian Charity in the East). Here are some extracts from her narrative:“At Der-el-Zor, a large town in the desert, about six days’ drive from Aleppo, we saw a big khan, all the rooms, the roof and the verandahs of which were crowded with Armenians, mostly women and children, with a few old men. They had slept on their blankets wherever they could find any shade.... For these mountaineers the desert climate is terrible. On the next day I reached a large Armenian camp of goatskin tents, but most of the unfortunate people were sleeping out in the sun on the burning sands. The Turks had given them a day’s rest on account of the large number of sick. It was evident from their clothing that these people had been well-to-do; they were natives of Geben, another village near Zeitoun, and were led by their religious head. It was a daily occurrence for five or six of the children of these people to die by the wayside.“On the next day I met another camp of these Zeitoun Armenians. There were the same indescribable sufferings, the same accounts of misery—‘why do they not kill us once for all?’ asked they. ‘For days we have no water to drink, and our children are crying for water. At night the Arabs attack us; they steal our bedding; our clothes that we have been able to get together; they carry away by force our girls and outrage our women. If any of us are unable to walk, the convoy ofgendarmesbeat us. Some of our women threw themselves down from the rocks into the Euphrates in order to save their honor—some of these with their infants in their arms.’”

“At Der-el-Zor, a large town in the desert, about six days’ drive from Aleppo, we saw a big khan, all the rooms, the roof and the verandahs of which were crowded with Armenians, mostly women and children, with a few old men. They had slept on their blankets wherever they could find any shade.... For these mountaineers the desert climate is terrible. On the next day I reached a large Armenian camp of goatskin tents, but most of the unfortunate people were sleeping out in the sun on the burning sands. The Turks had given them a day’s rest on account of the large number of sick. It was evident from their clothing that these people had been well-to-do; they were natives of Geben, another village near Zeitoun, and were led by their religious head. It was a daily occurrence for five or six of the children of these people to die by the wayside.

“On the next day I met another camp of these Zeitoun Armenians. There were the same indescribable sufferings, the same accounts of misery—‘why do they not kill us once for all?’ asked they. ‘For days we have no water to drink, and our children are crying for water. At night the Arabs attack us; they steal our bedding; our clothes that we have been able to get together; they carry away by force our girls and outrage our women. If any of us are unable to walk, the convoy ofgendarmesbeat us. Some of our women threw themselves down from the rocks into the Euphrates in order to save their honor—some of these with their infants in their arms.’”

The German missionaries, who have been witnessing these terrible cruelties, have made a protest to their foreign office. This protest was signed by the following persons: Director Huber,Dr.Niepage,Dr.Graetner, and M. Spieler, who constituted the faculty of the German High School at Aleppo, Turkey. A copy of this protest and a letter fromDr.Graetner were secured by the New YorkTimesand were published in its issue of September 20th, 1916. We quote the following extracts:

“We feel it our duty to call the attention of the foreign office to the fact that our school work, the formation of a basis of civilization and instilling of respect in the natives will be henceforward impossible if the German Government is not in a position to put an end to the brutalities inflicted here on the exiled wives and children of murdered Armenians. In face of the horrible scenes which take place daily near our school buildings, before our very eyes, our school work has sunk to a level which is an insult to all human sentiments....“Girls, boys, and women, all practically naked, lie on the ground breathing their last sighs amid the dying and among the coffins put out ready for them. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are all that is left of the 2000 to 3000 healthy peasant women driven down here from Upper Armenia. The good-looking ones are decimated by the vice of their gaolers, whilst the ugly ones are victimized by beatings, hunger, and thirst. Even those lying at the water’s edge are not allowed to drink. Europeans are prohibited from distributing bread among them. More than a hundred corpses are taken out daily from Aleppo. All this is taking placebefore the eyes of highly placed Turkish officials. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are lying heaped up in a yard near our school. They are practically insane and have forgotten how to eat. If one offers them bread they push it indifferently aside. They utter low groans and await death.Ta-a-lim el almon(the cult of the Germans) is responsible for this, the natives declare. It will always remain a terrible stain on Germany’s honor among the generations to come.“... Perhaps the German people, too, are ignorant of these events. How would it be possible otherwise for the usually truth-loving German press to report the humane treatment of Armenians accused of high treason? But it may be that the German government’s hands are tied by reason of certain contracts.... Every cultured human being is competent to intervene, and it is, in fact, his sacred duty to do so. Our esteem among the generations to come is at stake. The more refined Turks and Arabs shake their heads sorrowfully when they see brutal soldiers bringing convoys through the town of women far advanced in pregnancy, whom they beat with cudgels, these poor wretches being hardly able to drag themselves along.”[180]

“Girls, boys, and women, all practically naked, lie on the ground breathing their last sighs amid the dying and among the coffins put out ready for them. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are all that is left of the 2000 to 3000 healthy peasant women driven down here from Upper Armenia. The good-looking ones are decimated by the vice of their gaolers, whilst the ugly ones are victimized by beatings, hunger, and thirst. Even those lying at the water’s edge are not allowed to drink. Europeans are prohibited from distributing bread among them. More than a hundred corpses are taken out daily from Aleppo. All this is taking placebefore the eyes of highly placed Turkish officials. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are lying heaped up in a yard near our school. They are practically insane and have forgotten how to eat. If one offers them bread they push it indifferently aside. They utter low groans and await death.Ta-a-lim el almon(the cult of the Germans) is responsible for this, the natives declare. It will always remain a terrible stain on Germany’s honor among the generations to come.

“... Perhaps the German people, too, are ignorant of these events. How would it be possible otherwise for the usually truth-loving German press to report the humane treatment of Armenians accused of high treason? But it may be that the German government’s hands are tied by reason of certain contracts.... Every cultured human being is competent to intervene, and it is, in fact, his sacred duty to do so. Our esteem among the generations to come is at stake. The more refined Turks and Arabs shake their heads sorrowfully when they see brutal soldiers bringing convoys through the town of women far advanced in pregnancy, whom they beat with cudgels, these poor wretches being hardly able to drag themselves along.”[180]

Dr.Edward Graetner’s letter was dated July 7, 1916, and was written from Basle, Switzerland, to a German theologian in a neutral country:

“I am going to tell you more about the Armenian episode, for this time the question was not one of the traditional massacres, but of nothing more or less than the complete extermination of the Armenians in Turkey. This fact Talaat Bey’s Turkish officials cynically admitted with some embarrassment to the German Consul.The government first made out that they only wanted to clear the war zone and to assign new dwellings to the emigrants.“They began by enticing the most warlike of the mountaineers out of their rocky fastnesses. This they did with the help of the securities [promises] of the Turkish Empire, of the heads of their own churches, of the American missionaries and of one German consul.[181]Thereupon began expulsions from everywhere, even from districts to which the war will never be carried. How these were affected is shown from the fact that out of the 18,000 people driven out of Harpoot and Sivas only 350 reached Aleppo, and only eleven out of the 1900 from Erzerum. Once at Aleppo the poorest of these were by no means at the end of their troubles. Those who did not die here (the cemeteries are full) were driven by night to the Syrian steppes, toward the Zor on the Euphrates. Here a very small percentage drag out their existence, threatened by starvation. I state this as an eye-witness. I was there in October of last year and saw with my own eyes several Armenian corpses floating in the Euphrates and lying about the steppes.“The Germans, with a number of laudable exceptions, witnessed these things quite unperturbed, holding out the following excuse: ‘We just need the Turks, you see!’ I know for a fact, moreover, that an employee of the German Cotton Association and one of the Bagdad railway were forbidden to help the Armenians. German officers have also raised a complaint against their consul for his sympathy with the Armenians, and a German teacher, although most capable, was not appointed to a school of the Turco-German Association, on account ofhis having an Armenian wife. They are afraid that the Turks might take offense at this. The Turks are less considerate. ‘The question is one of a Turkish internal affair, we must not mix ourselves up in it!’ This is what one constantly hears people say. Once it was a question, however, of persuading the Armenians to yield, theydidmix themselves up in it!“The Armenians of Urfa, seeing the fate which had befallen their compatriots from other districts, refused to leave their city and offered resistance. Thereupon no less a person than Count Wolf von Walfskehl ordered the town to be bombarded, and after the surrender of 1000 Armenian men he had not the power to prevent their being massacred.”[182]

“They began by enticing the most warlike of the mountaineers out of their rocky fastnesses. This they did with the help of the securities [promises] of the Turkish Empire, of the heads of their own churches, of the American missionaries and of one German consul.[181]Thereupon began expulsions from everywhere, even from districts to which the war will never be carried. How these were affected is shown from the fact that out of the 18,000 people driven out of Harpoot and Sivas only 350 reached Aleppo, and only eleven out of the 1900 from Erzerum. Once at Aleppo the poorest of these were by no means at the end of their troubles. Those who did not die here (the cemeteries are full) were driven by night to the Syrian steppes, toward the Zor on the Euphrates. Here a very small percentage drag out their existence, threatened by starvation. I state this as an eye-witness. I was there in October of last year and saw with my own eyes several Armenian corpses floating in the Euphrates and lying about the steppes.

“The Germans, with a number of laudable exceptions, witnessed these things quite unperturbed, holding out the following excuse: ‘We just need the Turks, you see!’ I know for a fact, moreover, that an employee of the German Cotton Association and one of the Bagdad railway were forbidden to help the Armenians. German officers have also raised a complaint against their consul for his sympathy with the Armenians, and a German teacher, although most capable, was not appointed to a school of the Turco-German Association, on account ofhis having an Armenian wife. They are afraid that the Turks might take offense at this. The Turks are less considerate. ‘The question is one of a Turkish internal affair, we must not mix ourselves up in it!’ This is what one constantly hears people say. Once it was a question, however, of persuading the Armenians to yield, theydidmix themselves up in it!

“The Armenians of Urfa, seeing the fate which had befallen their compatriots from other districts, refused to leave their city and offered resistance. Thereupon no less a person than Count Wolf von Walfskehl ordered the town to be bombarded, and after the surrender of 1000 Armenian men he had not the power to prevent their being massacred.”[182]

The poor refugees are on the move all the time, from privation to starvation, from pest-hole to pest-hole. We quote the following from two different quarters of the country which tell the same tale:

“The Turk, if he is now asked what he is doing with the Armenians, simply replies, he is deporting them. The town of Kessab has been completely emptied.... All had been deported to places where they are sure to die, even the Home was not exempt this time, the government ordering the deportation of the children to Aleppo. This was protested against but the protest amounted to little, and the children were finally taken on a four days’ wearisome journey over mountain and valley to Aleppo, one of our workers (Miss Louisa Stahl) accompanying them that far, and paying sufficient money to a native pastor to look after them while she returned to Kessab to talk over matters with the others.“Some time afterwards it was learned that the dear pastor in whose hands the money was entrusted was notpermitted by the authorities to have anything to do with the children, and they were transferred to the building in which they were housed to another building where they were sure to be infested with disease, and this so happened, and the majority of them [about 36 out of 39] succumbed to the privations and to death.”[183]“The misery and hopelessness of the situation are such that many are reported to resort to suicide. In illustrating the methods employed, report is made of the gathering of a group of one hundred children whom they placed in care of an educated young widow from ——. Two weeks later these children were deported, and from two survivors found further down the caravan route it was learned that the rest had perished. The house-mother, crazed by this treatment of her charges, was among the deported who were moving on. Boatloads sent from —— down the river, arrived at ——, —— miles away, with three-fifths of the passengers missing. There appears, in short, a steady policy to exterminate these people, but to deny charge of massacre. Their destruction from so-called natural causes seems decided upon.”[184]

“Some time afterwards it was learned that the dear pastor in whose hands the money was entrusted was notpermitted by the authorities to have anything to do with the children, and they were transferred to the building in which they were housed to another building where they were sure to be infested with disease, and this so happened, and the majority of them [about 36 out of 39] succumbed to the privations and to death.”[183]

“The misery and hopelessness of the situation are such that many are reported to resort to suicide. In illustrating the methods employed, report is made of the gathering of a group of one hundred children whom they placed in care of an educated young widow from ——. Two weeks later these children were deported, and from two survivors found further down the caravan route it was learned that the rest had perished. The house-mother, crazed by this treatment of her charges, was among the deported who were moving on. Boatloads sent from —— down the river, arrived at ——, —— miles away, with three-fifths of the passengers missing. There appears, in short, a steady policy to exterminate these people, but to deny charge of massacre. Their destruction from so-called natural causes seems decided upon.”[184]

In conclusion, let us state a few facts: The extermination of two millions of innocent, “loyal to a fault,” Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey was planned at, and ordered from, Constantinople. This crime has been committed. The young Turks have proved themselves unfit to rule even under a constitution. The Turkish government has forfeited its right to exist as a government. She has been weighed and found wanting. The Young Turkswould not have dared to commit this awful crime, if this horrible war had not been brought about. Even after the war broke out, they hesitated until they were dragged into the war. Then those who are responsible for this war, and those who dragged the Turkish government into the conflict, must share the crime of the Turk. Again, the governments which had the sole influence over the unspeakable Turk to stop him from his barbarities, but did not for fear of offending him, or for other consideration are accessories to his crime.

Again, in spite of the horrors of this World-War and the greatest calamity which ever fell upon the loyal and innocent Armenians, men, women, and children, there are some positive signs that the dawn of liberty is at hand. That soon will the morning light break upon the suffering humanity. There is the liberation of 175,000,000 Russians from the tyranny of autocracy. Here America’s inexhaustible sources of wealth and power, both material and moral, are also thrown against the Turco-Teutonic barbarism. That 100,000,000 peace-loving Americans finally have been forced by the enemies of mankind to declare by their leader and head, President Wilson: “We enter this War only where we are clearly forced into it, because there are no other means of defending our rights....

“It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into War—into the most terrible and disastrous of all Wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.

“But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to a voice in their own governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

“To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.”

Within the last few months some changes have taken place which injures the cause of the Entente and will endanger the lives of many Christians.

The revolution in March (1917) in Russia was a great rejoicing for the lovers of freedom. But when some extreme Socialists claimed self-assumed authority as the deputies of the Socialistic Council of Soldiers and Workmen and seized the Provisional government and set up the Bolshevik reign by violence in November, they did not think that they were depriving themselves of the fruits of the revolution and democracy. And when they were intent to give peace to the war-worn nations of the world that they did neither think of their inability nor the Teutonic duplicity. And when their delegates met with thedelegates of the Germanic Allies in peace conference in January (1918), then they, for the first time, learned that they had to submit to the victor’s terms or fight. But to fight was impossible. They had already demoralized and demobilized the Russian army. The German forces began their advance into Russia at once. The Bolshevik delegates, who had broken off the conference and refused to sign the treaty, hurried back and signed it in February.

Accordingly the Russian armies are vacating Turkish Armenia, which they had occupied since the summer of 1915. Russia has also to return to Turkey her former conquests in Armenia. Thus about 1,500,000 Russian Armenians and 300,000 Armenian refugees from Turkey are to be exposed to the Turco-Teutonic outrages and massacres. It is the most gloomy outlook. Yet God still reigns.

“Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take;The clouds ye so much dreadAre big with mercy, and shall breakIn blessings on your head.“Judge not the Lord by feeble Sense,But trust Him for His Grace;Behind a frowning providenceHe hides a smiling face.“Blind unbelief is sure to err,And scan His work in vain;God is His own Interpreter,And He will make it plain.”

FOOTNOTES:[176]“Don’t let me be told that one nation has no authority over another. Every nation, ay, every human being has authority in behalf of humanity and justice.”—Gladstone.[177]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 71-2.[178]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pages 78-80.See fuller accounts in “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16. Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce.” London.[179]Report of Sister Paula Schafer, a Swiss missionary from Basle. I quote fromThe New Armenia, N. Y., June 1, 1916.[180]This protest was under date October 8, 1915. These good men suffered for their protest. WhenDr.Neipage returned to Germany, he was arrested by his Government and imprisoned for six months.—Author.[181]See page 335. The Turkish Government promised the Zeitoun people their security from attack, and persuaded them to give up their arms, and used the influence of the Armenian clergy and foreign missionaries and a German consul.—Author.[182]The New Armenia, Oct. 1, 1916. New York, reprinted.[183]“God’s Dealing,” August, 1916.The Christ’s Homepaper, Philadelphia and Warminster, Pa.[184]The Missionary Herald, September, 1916. The American Board’s monthly paper.

[176]“Don’t let me be told that one nation has no authority over another. Every nation, ay, every human being has authority in behalf of humanity and justice.”—Gladstone.

[177]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 71-2.

[178]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pages 78-80.See fuller accounts in “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16. Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce.” London.

[178]Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pages 78-80.

See fuller accounts in “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16. Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce.” London.

[179]Report of Sister Paula Schafer, a Swiss missionary from Basle. I quote fromThe New Armenia, N. Y., June 1, 1916.

[180]This protest was under date October 8, 1915. These good men suffered for their protest. WhenDr.Neipage returned to Germany, he was arrested by his Government and imprisoned for six months.—Author.

[181]See page 335. The Turkish Government promised the Zeitoun people their security from attack, and persuaded them to give up their arms, and used the influence of the Armenian clergy and foreign missionaries and a German consul.—Author.

[182]The New Armenia, Oct. 1, 1916. New York, reprinted.

[183]“God’s Dealing,” August, 1916.The Christ’s Homepaper, Philadelphia and Warminster, Pa.

[184]The Missionary Herald, September, 1916. The American Board’s monthly paper.

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