“Hear then ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,They who allow Oppression share the crime.”
“Hear then ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,They who allow Oppression share the crime.”
“Hear then ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,
They who allow Oppression share the crime.”
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.”
In the twentieth century of the christian era, in the age of trumpeted progress, of boasted and vaunted civilization, there is a Ramah of countries, a desolated Ramah, blackened and calcined with the fires of oppression, and over her desolated wastes there flows, flows, continually flows, ever replenished and ever renewed, that red stream which crieth up from the earth to God: and out of this modern Ramah, a voice is heard of lamentation and bitter weeping, it riseth up in its boundless anguish to reach the heavens, it crieth out and will not be stopped, for it is the voice of the Rahel of nations weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are not.
Ah! thou Rahel of nations! to the cry of thy boundless anguish, to thy lamentation and bitter weeping, Christendom and Civilization, the Christendom and Civilization of Europe have replied “Are we thy children’s keepers?”
Who that has read the history of the Crusades has not turned with sickening disgust from the chapters wherein history has recorded the savage barbarities and fearful excesses of those christian warriors, who went to Palestine ostensibly fired with the enthusiasm of a holy cause, but in reality only to glut in slaughter and gratify brutal passions. Europe has, however, designated her past as the “dark ages” into which she has thrust back, the ferocious outbursts of religion, the merciless persecutions of the church, the savage sweep of the barbarians of the north, and the unbridled tyrannies of despotic power, from all which she loudly boasts to have emancipated herself, and like the evolution according to the Darwinian theory of the anthropomorphal ape, to have progressed into the state of civilization. But beginning from the last quarter of the nineteenth and on into the first decade of the twentieth century, the horrors of the darkest ages in human history have lain at her doors, and towards these horrors Europe has kept up the role of an extenuatingly disclaiming, a mildly rebuking, sweetly frowning, smilingly denouncing, Disapprover.
Half a million Armenians annihilated by organized massacres of the most ferocious and hideous natures, and perhaps a corresponding numberfated either to rot to death in Turkish prisons or made homeless and destitute to die of cold and starvation, with Europe nonchalantly looking on is surely convincing proof that the Humanity, Christianity and Civilization of Europe are whited sepulchres, hiding by the smooth outside the rottenness within; therefore ye priests of the gospel come down from your pulpits, close your churches, hold your tongues and be silent for ever, for the Christianity you preach has bowed itself out, if ever it existed, in Christian Europe. The Christ of Europe is the demon of greed and the demon of land hunger, and the god of civilization is Mammon.
In 1878 an astounding policy was carried out by Great Britain; it was the crowning act of her long continued support to Turkey, a government she knew to be hopelessly vicious and profoundly cruel and bad to the core. With this Power, England posing before the world as the home of freedom, the friend of the oppressed, and the defender of the rights and liberties of man, entered into a Convention. It was called the “Anglo-Turkish Convention,” of which Article I reads thus:
“If Batum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them, shall be retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be made at any future time by Russia to take possession of any further territories of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan in Asia, as fixed by the definitive Treaty of Peace, England engages to join his Imperial Majesty the Sultan in defending them by force of arms. In return his Imperial Majesty the Sultan promises to England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between the two Powers, into the government and for the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the Porte in these territories. And in order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her engagement, his Imperial Majesty the Sultan further consents to assign the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.”
It is well to remark here what was blazoned to the world at the time that part of those “necessary reforms” “in these territories” include twenty-two large organized massacres of Armenians (besides smaller ones) dating from September 30th, 1895 to December 29th, 1895; and be it remembered that these were massacres of a hideousness and ferocity of nature even devils could not rival; besides also other organized massacres by the Turkish Government of the same nature (large and small) both before and after that period.
The British press, followed by a large section of the British public, raged against what they called the advance of Russia in the East, as they had already raged for half a century past. It is astonishing how one nation can swallow its own camels and strain at the other’s gnats.
However, this Anglo-Turkish Convention and the Congress at Berlin was the crowning act of England’s support and defense of a power whose rule had been characterized by mis-rule, massacre and oppression. Her prime minister returned from the Congress of Berlin loudly proclaiming “Peace with Honour.” Of that “Honour” Time has been the test, and Time has revealed to the world that “Peace” in its true character.
Dating from the Congress of Berlin the supreme tragedy of Armenia begins; deliberately and without compunction England revived the dying tyranny of Turkey for the Armenians, deliberately and without compunction she took away from them (a people politically the most helpless and forlorn of all civilized nations) the only protection they had of a powerful neighbour willing and able to enforce its protection, and rivetted on their necks the yoke of the cruellest oppressor that the world had yet known. The history of the rule of the house of Osman up to the thirty-fourth Padishah was knowledge enough and experience enough for the British Government and the British people, and yet in the last quarter of the civilized nineteenth century, the great and enlightened Christian power of Great Britain proceeded to carry out and complete this gigantic political crime of fastening on the necks of a struggling Christian people, the last remnants of an ancient civilization, the merciless yoke of their oppressors. From that time onward history must mark the course of the supreme tragedy of Armenia.
The bold move taken by the Patriarch Nerses of sending delegates to the Congress of Berlin cost the renowned prelate his life, his firm refusal to recall his delegates aroused the last fury of Turkey’s Padishah; the Patriarch was stealthily murdered and his genius and great personal influence lost to the cause of his people.
But a loss greater than the loss of their beloved leader befell the Armenians in the assassination of the Emperor Alexander II, whose untimely death plunged Russia back into the night of ignorance, bigotry and superstition, of the savagery and slavery, out of the darkness of which he was leading her; the best and noblest of Czars was succeeded by a son whose policy shaped itself directly contrary to that of his father’s, and Russia from being the help of the Armenians under Turkish rule turned into one of the pillars of support of their oppressor.
“Since 1884,” writes Mr. James Bryce, “it has been generally understood in Constantinople that the Russian Embassy has made no serious effort to bring about any radical change in Turkish administration, and it was indeed believed that the more England remonstrated the more did Russia point out to the Sultan how much he had erred in supposing that England was his friend.”
We have it on the authority of Professor Arminius Vambéry that the Czar Alexander III had given assurances of his friendship and support to Sultan Abdul Hamid; and there are not wanting political students who affirm that the Armenian Massacres were in part instigated by Russian politicians who saw, or professed to see, in a free Armenia an impediment to Russia’s advance in the south and a fostering of the spirit of independence in the Russian provinces of Armenia.[9]This on the authority of Mr. James Bryce was the reason which Prince Lobanoff assigned for his refusal to give support to British proposals of coercion towards Turkey. “On January 16, 1896,” so writes Mr. Bryce, “when the massacres had gone on for more than three months, he (Prince Lobanoff) ‘saw nothing to destroy his confidence in the bonne volonté of the Sultan, who was’ (”he felt assured“) ‘doing his best.’” And Mr. Bryce continues to add “Turkey, which in 1877 had looked to England for help against Russia, now turned to Russia for support against the menaces of England.”
We have it also on the authority of Mr. Bryce that shortly after the terrible and cold-blooded massacre of Armenians at Constantinople “the German Ambassador presented to the Sultan a picture of the German Imperial family which he had asked for some time ago”[10]and the friendship of Kaiser Wilhelm for Abdul Hamid “his friend and brother,” as an American writer has called him; the costly gifts presented by the ex-Sultan to the German Imperial family, the magnificent reception of the Kaiser at Constantinople, and the still more magnificent concession of Turkish territory to Germany, are too well known to the world to need any further comment.
Thus it became the fate of the unfortunate Armenians to be the bruised and mangled shuttle-cock of powerful bats.
NERSES VARJABETIAN.(Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople).
NERSES VARJABETIAN.
(Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople).
Much has been written and much has been said by great authorities, (far more comprehensively and by pens much more forcible than my humble efforts could aspire to reach) against the selfishness and callousness, the inhumanity and cynicism of those great powers which have coldly looked on and permitted the hellish atrocities and horrors of the Armenian Massacres. The name of William Ewart Gladstone is loved and revered by Armenians all over the world; but the thunderings of that veteran statesman and the denouncing protests of those thoughtful men whose feelings of revolted humanity have made themselves heard in sounding language, have fallen on stony ground; they have been like the voices of men crying out in the wilderness. Europe has turned a deaf ear to the condemnations of justice and truth, even as she has turned a deaf ear to the voice of Rahel weeping for her slaughtered children.
The victim of Abdul Hamid’s revenge who was stealthily murdered in his bed. He was elected Patriarch in 1843 and held the highest place in the esteem and affection of his people. Mr. James Bryce gives his age at the time of his election in 1843 as seventy-three; if this is correct then he was over a hundred years old when he was foully murdered. Mr. Bryce writes of him as, “the worthy leader of his nation,” “a man of high character and great ability.”
A writer signing himself Beyzadé gives the following account of the Patriarch’s tragic death in the July number of “The Wide World:”
The attempted poisoning and subsequent death of Monseigneur Nercès Varjabétian, the Armenian Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople, was a revolting illustration of the inhuman and barbarous tactics of the Yildiz Kiosk “Camarilla.” Monseigneur Nercès Varjabétian was not only one of the most prominent prelates of the ArmenianChurch, but was also a fearless patriot—a distinguished linguist, an eloquent preacher, and a thorough gentleman in every sense of the word. When peace was concluded between Turkey and Russia, and preparations were being made for the Berlin Congress, it was he who, in spite of the feared fanatical uprising of the Turks, threw prudence to the winds and took a step that will long be remembered in the annals of Armenian history.At the first meeting of the Berlin Congress the Turkish delegates were thunderstruck to learn from official sources that an Armenian delegation had arrived from Constantinople, sent by Monseigneur Nercès, the Patriarch, their object being to request the signatory Powers of the Berlin Treaty to force a guarantee from the Turkish Government to make certain important improvements in Armenia.Abdul Hamid and his advisers were furious at this affront, and Monseigneur Nercès was summoned to the Palace. It is said that when he received the summons he simply smiled and asked one of his curates to read the Burial Service to him, as he did not expect to return alive. However, he went. No one has ever heard what passed between the Sultan and himself at the interview; suffice it to say that he immediately summoned the Armenian General Assembly and tendered his resignation. This was not accepted by the Assembly, and, amidst enthusiastic cheers, he was carried back to his apartments at the Patriarchate. Meanwhile a peremptory order reached him, signed by the Sultan, to recall the Armenian delegation from Berlin. This Monseigneur Varjabétian point-blank refused to do, and retired to his private residence at Haskeuy, a village on the Golden Horn. The success of the delegation, however, did not come up to his expectations. The Armenians, as it happened, could not be heard, but they were so far successful as to have an article inserted in the treaty.The Sultan and his advisers never forgave the Patriarch this, though they could not openly do anything to him on account of his enormous popularity. Time passed on, and to all appearance the incident was forgotten, but it was not so. One summer afternoon a most cordial invitation was sent by a very high dignitary of the Palace, requesting the Archbishop to dine with him informally. An invitation of this kind could not very well be refused, so the Archbishop, accompanied only by a body-servant named Vartan, repaired to the Pasha’s house. The Pasha received him at the door and escorted the visitor with much ceremony and extreme courtesy to a private apartment of the salamlik of his house (the men’s quarters), where dinner was served. The geniality displayed by his host dispelled any fears that the Archbishop might have had as to his personal safety.After dinner, as usual, coffee was served. Now, this serving of the coffee is rather a ceremonial according to high Turkish etiquette, and it is not unusual for guests to bring their owntchooboukdar(the servant who carries his master’s pipe and pouch and also superintends the making of his coffee). The Archbishop was presented with a “tchoobouk” (pipe) filled and lighted for smoking, and a servant followed with coffee. The Archbishop accepted both with due compliments to his host, and took a sip at his coffee. Just at that moment the heavy curtains over the doorway were thrown apart, revealing the ghastly pale face of his servant Vartan, who cried, in Armenian, in a voice trembling with emotion, “Monseigneur, I did not brew the coffee!”This was enough for the Archbishop; he pretended to be startled and spilt the coffee, but, alas! he had already drunk a small quantity of it. Meanwhile a scuffle was going on behind theportière, where his poor servant Vartan was paying the penalty of his devotion to his master. Concerning Vartan’s whereabouts or his ultimate end nothing was ever made public—the poor fellow simply vanished. Monseigneur Varjabétian, after a short interval thanked the Pasha for his generous and kind hospitality and took his departure. On the way home he was taken violently ill and a doctor was hastily summoned. The Patriarch took to his bed, and lost all his hair through the effects of the poison. Then, one morning, when a servanttook his breakfast upstairs he found, to his horror, that both the bedroom door and the window were wide open and his beloved master lay dead in his bed, which was covered with blood! There are no such things as coroners and juries in Turkey to ascertain the causes of mysterious deaths of this kind, but the news that the Patriarch was dead spread like wildfire through Constantinople. The Sultan himself thought it advisable to show some concern in the matter, and aides-de-camp from the Palace were sent to the Patriarchate to learn the full details of this “sad catastrophe,” as they termed it. The official statement was that the Archbishop died of dysentery. Only a very few know how the Archbishop had died, and they wisely kept their mouths shut.I was told the details of this story by a high official of the Armenian Patriarchate. It seems that as the poison did not act as quickly as the Patriarch’s enemies had anticipated, owing to his having been cautioned in the nick of time, they “had to resort to other means”! The funeral was the largest ever witnessed in Constantinople, with an escort of Turkish cavalry sent specially by the Sultan, and representatives of all the religious denominations and the Diplomatic Corps. I was myself present, representing a foreign Government.
The attempted poisoning and subsequent death of Monseigneur Nercès Varjabétian, the Armenian Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople, was a revolting illustration of the inhuman and barbarous tactics of the Yildiz Kiosk “Camarilla.” Monseigneur Nercès Varjabétian was not only one of the most prominent prelates of the ArmenianChurch, but was also a fearless patriot—a distinguished linguist, an eloquent preacher, and a thorough gentleman in every sense of the word. When peace was concluded between Turkey and Russia, and preparations were being made for the Berlin Congress, it was he who, in spite of the feared fanatical uprising of the Turks, threw prudence to the winds and took a step that will long be remembered in the annals of Armenian history.
At the first meeting of the Berlin Congress the Turkish delegates were thunderstruck to learn from official sources that an Armenian delegation had arrived from Constantinople, sent by Monseigneur Nercès, the Patriarch, their object being to request the signatory Powers of the Berlin Treaty to force a guarantee from the Turkish Government to make certain important improvements in Armenia.
Abdul Hamid and his advisers were furious at this affront, and Monseigneur Nercès was summoned to the Palace. It is said that when he received the summons he simply smiled and asked one of his curates to read the Burial Service to him, as he did not expect to return alive. However, he went. No one has ever heard what passed between the Sultan and himself at the interview; suffice it to say that he immediately summoned the Armenian General Assembly and tendered his resignation. This was not accepted by the Assembly, and, amidst enthusiastic cheers, he was carried back to his apartments at the Patriarchate. Meanwhile a peremptory order reached him, signed by the Sultan, to recall the Armenian delegation from Berlin. This Monseigneur Varjabétian point-blank refused to do, and retired to his private residence at Haskeuy, a village on the Golden Horn. The success of the delegation, however, did not come up to his expectations. The Armenians, as it happened, could not be heard, but they were so far successful as to have an article inserted in the treaty.
The Sultan and his advisers never forgave the Patriarch this, though they could not openly do anything to him on account of his enormous popularity. Time passed on, and to all appearance the incident was forgotten, but it was not so. One summer afternoon a most cordial invitation was sent by a very high dignitary of the Palace, requesting the Archbishop to dine with him informally. An invitation of this kind could not very well be refused, so the Archbishop, accompanied only by a body-servant named Vartan, repaired to the Pasha’s house. The Pasha received him at the door and escorted the visitor with much ceremony and extreme courtesy to a private apartment of the salamlik of his house (the men’s quarters), where dinner was served. The geniality displayed by his host dispelled any fears that the Archbishop might have had as to his personal safety.
After dinner, as usual, coffee was served. Now, this serving of the coffee is rather a ceremonial according to high Turkish etiquette, and it is not unusual for guests to bring their owntchooboukdar(the servant who carries his master’s pipe and pouch and also superintends the making of his coffee). The Archbishop was presented with a “tchoobouk” (pipe) filled and lighted for smoking, and a servant followed with coffee. The Archbishop accepted both with due compliments to his host, and took a sip at his coffee. Just at that moment the heavy curtains over the doorway were thrown apart, revealing the ghastly pale face of his servant Vartan, who cried, in Armenian, in a voice trembling with emotion, “Monseigneur, I did not brew the coffee!”
This was enough for the Archbishop; he pretended to be startled and spilt the coffee, but, alas! he had already drunk a small quantity of it. Meanwhile a scuffle was going on behind theportière, where his poor servant Vartan was paying the penalty of his devotion to his master. Concerning Vartan’s whereabouts or his ultimate end nothing was ever made public—the poor fellow simply vanished. Monseigneur Varjabétian, after a short interval thanked the Pasha for his generous and kind hospitality and took his departure. On the way home he was taken violently ill and a doctor was hastily summoned. The Patriarch took to his bed, and lost all his hair through the effects of the poison. Then, one morning, when a servanttook his breakfast upstairs he found, to his horror, that both the bedroom door and the window were wide open and his beloved master lay dead in his bed, which was covered with blood! There are no such things as coroners and juries in Turkey to ascertain the causes of mysterious deaths of this kind, but the news that the Patriarch was dead spread like wildfire through Constantinople. The Sultan himself thought it advisable to show some concern in the matter, and aides-de-camp from the Palace were sent to the Patriarchate to learn the full details of this “sad catastrophe,” as they termed it. The official statement was that the Archbishop died of dysentery. Only a very few know how the Archbishop had died, and they wisely kept their mouths shut.
I was told the details of this story by a high official of the Armenian Patriarchate. It seems that as the poison did not act as quickly as the Patriarch’s enemies had anticipated, owing to his having been cautioned in the nick of time, they “had to resort to other means”! The funeral was the largest ever witnessed in Constantinople, with an escort of Turkish cavalry sent specially by the Sultan, and representatives of all the religious denominations and the Diplomatic Corps. I was myself present, representing a foreign Government.
“Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people.”
“Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my people.”
A book has been written and published in Japan, its title “Niku Dan” translated into English, reads, “Human Bullets.” This little book, a narrative of the siege of Port Arthur, after being read through the length and breadth of the empire, found translators to translate it into the best known of languages; and its young author, himself an actor in the siege, was summoned to the presence of his sovereign to be thanked and praised. The book is a graphic narrative of the most terrible siege in history, wherein is vividly portrayed the deadly struggle of the besiegers. It contains as an acknowledgement of its merit, a page on which is recorded the Field Marshal’s appreciation, and another page bearing the Commanding General’s commendation.
In simple narrative the author carries the reader through appalling scenes of horror, and as we read we are made to realize the slaughter of the enemy’s machine guns, of their ground-mines, electric-wire entanglements, and exploding shells; we are made to hear the roar of the artillery fire dealing death and destruction, and there rises before us the mental vision of the fierce hand to hand conflict, and the dead and dying lying thickly in the dark ravine.
“For hill and battle plain,With dying men and slain,Grew mountain heights of pain,And mine is boundless woe.”
“For hill and battle plain,With dying men and slain,Grew mountain heights of pain,And mine is boundless woe.”
“For hill and battle plain,
With dying men and slain,
Grew mountain heights of pain,
And mine is boundless woe.”
The grim warrior who stormed and took the most impregnable fortress in the world gives expression to his feelings on his own great achievement, in saddest words.
“And mine is boundless woe,”
“And mine is boundless woe,”
“And mine is boundless woe,”
For the grim warrior’s heart is cleft in twain for the human bullets that under his command hurled themselves to their death.
In the world’s greatest war, human bullets were sacrificed for the protection of hearths and homes and a nation’s existence, moreover the human bullets were made of men who fought and died for sovereign and country.
But there is a counter picture of horrors in which also there has been a sacrifice of human bullets, made not only of men but of women and children, human bullets, not of soldiers, themselves fortified and equipped with instruments of slaughter for fighting and grappling with the foe, but human bullets of unarmed men, of helpless women and children, of youth and old age, caught like rats in a rat-trap; and these human bullets have been sacrificed to the savage lusts of murder and plunder of the world’s fiercest oppressors, and to the political and commercial interests of civilized nations.
In the first decade of the civilized twentieth century, a horrible and wanton slaughter of unarmed men, of helpless women and children has been perpetrated with all the accessories of cruelties unsurpassed for their fiendishness: whole towns and villages have been desolated, homes pillaged and destroyed, not only men, but women and children subjected to hideous deaths and nameless horrors, which no pen could depict in their true realism, and the details could never go into print, and this wanton slaughter, even as the many of a similar nature that have preceded it, has come and gone like a ripple on a smooth sea.
No cry of horror has risen from the hearts of civilized nations! Turkey can butcher the helpless victims of her greed and carnivorous instincts with impunity, since Christendom and Civilization are busy only with Turkish concessions, with land grabbing and money making.
“Human Bullets”! “Human Bullets”! here are human bullets of heavier rain than at the world’s grimmest siege; here are “sure death detachments” hurled to a more pitiful fate; and the civilized world does not care, for Armenian Massacres come and go, and the civilized world is getting used to them. But in the eternal order of things, a Nemesis follows human actions, be they of individuals or of nations. Material Prosperity is a great and good thing, but Moral Prosperity is greater and better. The Armenians may be done to their death, the last remnants of an ancient civilization may be exterminated and consigned in their blood to oblivion; but to the nations grown great in material prosperity that for their own selfish interests can allow and condone this hellish extermination, history teaches a mighty lesson. The moral cancer eating into the moral sense of nations, saps moral prosperity which in its turn undermines material prosperity. Great Empires once flourishing have decayed through moral poverty. History repeats itself.
A year has passed since the inauguration of the Turkish Constitution; since the first glad cries of “liberty, fraternity, equality” were resounded as heralds of the peace and prosperity that were to follow; but although a whole year has passed, the Turkish Constitution, thus far, has only paraded itself as a spectacular effect, and as a panorama on shifting sand.
A whole year has passed and the liberal Turks have produced neither a Prince Ito nor an Abraham Lincoln, though both were urgently needed to meet the pressing exigencies and heavy responsibilities of the times; and we may well ask now, Where is the man who is to hold the helm of the Constitutional ship and steer it over the turbulent waters?
The task of the new régime was the most difficult that could have fallen to any administration. Beset on the one hand by the jealousies, rivalries, and political intrigues of European Powers; on the other, by the machinations of that “Red Beast” the ex-Sultan and his murderous and corrupt clique, by disappointed plundering pashas and officials (compelled to grant their arch enemy the ex-Sultan a lease of life through fear of a fanatical populace), the liberal Turks on their own part have not brought to bear upon their work any administrative ability, when extraordinary powers of governing and the highest and strongest genius for administration were absolutely needed. The Turk has always shown to the world that he is a born fighter, but a puerile administrator.
For the Armenians the Constitution has resulted in two conditions—Massacre and Oppression; their hopes and aspirations have ended in the death throes of, as some accounts give, thirty thousand and others fifty thousand of their unhappy race, in homelessness and precipitation into absolute destitution of a few more thousands,[11]and in insecurity for the nation at large. An unarmed population scattered and dispersed among a hostile, murderous and fanatical populace; their position even under the new régime is to be compared to that of herbivorous animals standing at bay in the midst of ravening wolves.
His spiritual interests call upon the Moslem Turk and the Moslem Kurd to murder the Christian Armenian; his material interests to plunder and enrich his own idleness with the worldly goods the other has acquired by his industry and toil, and the prosperity and well-being that the Armenian labours to bring to the fairest provinces under the sun are swooped upon and devastated by the brigandage of his enemies. Religious fanaticism and lust of plunder have always been governing elements in the Turkish massacres, and against these same religious fanaticism and lust of plunder, the Armenians stand to-day in deadly peril under the new régime.
What more is to follow? Our hearts sicken to forecast, and our minds tremble to foresee. Are the balance of our striplings and our greybeards, our pen-men, and our ploughmen to be made to rot in Turkish dungeons, condemned to such loathsome horrors as can only be perpetrated in Turkish prisons? Are the balance of our women to be subjected to agonies so hideous and revolting that death at the fiery stake or on the iron rack were mercy and bliss? Are the balance of our babes and children to be exterminated like vermin? Are the balance of our people, the industrious, intelligent, clean, self-respecting element in the Turkish Empire, to be yet again hunted like wild beasts and killed like rats and flies?
We are not wild and lawless descendants of Jenghis Khan and Tamerlane: we are peace-loving, law-abiding citizens, lovers of language and literature, of the arts and sciences, energetic traders, hardworking tillers of the soil, industrious artizans and labourers, producing in ourselves all the elements that constitute the society and well-being of civilized man; and as the oldest Christians, we ask of Christian nations, if we are to be trodden out?
On the soil of our fatherland we are surrounded by a murderous, marauding, religion-frenzied populace, and neither Humanity nor Christianity will hold out to us a helping hand.
If nothing else were done for the Armenians, at least Christian governors should be appointed over the provinces inhabited by them: we do not expect the Turkish Government to do this of their own initiative, but we have a right to expect the European Powers that were signatories to the Treaty of Berlin to compel the new régime to do it. Since the signing of the famous Treaty of Berlin thirty-one years ago, the history of the Armenians has been written in blood and tears, as the history of no other nation has been written before or now; and we ask, How long? How long will the Christian Powers stand silent witnesses to the work of slaughter and oppression carried on under their eyes?
Alas! the weight of the Turkish bonds is too heavy in the scale, and Armenian life too light; the selfish interests of the European Powers involved in the Turkish Empire cannot be endangered to save the blood of three or four millions of Armenians, and the death warrant of an oppressed and bleeding nation can find no place on the table of the Hague Conference of Peace and Civilization.
In the closing pages of “Twenty Years of the Armenian Question” published in 1896, its distinguished author,[12]one of the greatest authorities on the subject, makes the following notable comment on the character and fate of the Armenian race.
“They had maintained their nationality from immemorial times, before history began to be written. They had clung to their Christian faith, under incessant persecution for fifteen centuries. They were an intelligent, laborious race, full of energy, and increasing in numbers wherever oppression and murder did not check their increase, because they were more apt to learn, more thrifty in their habits, and far less infected by Eastern vices than their Mahommedan neighbours. They were the one indigenous population in Western Asia which, much as adversity had injured them, showed a capacity for moral as well as intellectual progress, and for assimilating the civilization of the West. In their hands the industrial future of Western Asia lay, whatever government might be established there; and those who had marked the tenacity and robust qualities of the race looked to them to restore prosperity to these once populous and flourishing countries when the blighting shadow of Turkish rule had passed away. But now, after eighteen years of constantly increasing misery, a large part, and, in many districts, the best part, of this race has been destroyed, and the remnant is threatened with extinction.”
These remarks made in 1896 by a great and disinterested authority with a profound knowledge of the subject he was writing about, stand as true to-day as when they were written. From 1896 onwards, events following in succession one upon another have proved the truth and soundness of his opinions.
Can the Armenians hope now for any change in their condition under Turkish rule? To this question, we must answer an emphatic No!
The causes that must operate against any change are many and deep-seated. In the first place it cannot be expected that a few Turks of liberal ideas (or it may be French polished) at Constantinople, are going to change the thought and character of the nation. The characteristics of a people change very slowly, if they ever change at all, and the predominant national traits of the many-blooded modern Turk have been shown to the world to be, cruelty and fanaticism, combined with a fierce sensuality; and what is more than all, and which has to be remembered most, is, that they are a people accustomed to the unbridled gratification of their worst passions.
The ethnographic traits of the Turkman which history bears out, are wildness and fierceness, and it would not be incorrect to argue that with the instincts of his primitive ancestors have been assimilated the many cross currents that run in his veins, into all of which has been infused the doctrines of the religion of the sword, a religion which does not make for the peace or well being of mankind; a religion, also, which assigning one of the two sexes to the degraded position of being created solely for the gross pleasure of the other, does not make for the exaltation of mankind.
To quote again the eminent authority previously referred to: “No Mahommedan race or dynasty has ever shown itself able to govern well even subjects of its own religion, while to extend equal rights to subjects of a different creed is forbidden by the very law of its being.”
Not the Jewish conceit proclaiming itself God’s elect and chosen, and originating the name “heathen” which it scorned. Not the Christian conceit emanating from the Jewish source, and laying the flattering unction to its soul of superiority over the “heathen” of its own time. Not the unbending caste exclusiveness of the Brahman across whose path even the shadow of the despised Sudra falling would be deemed defilement. Not any of these, can equal the intolerant religious pride of the Mahommedan, or reach the pinnacle of religious self-sufficiency on which he has seated himself. To be a Mahommedan, is enough—Cela suffit.
To any one who has familiar acquaintance with Mahommedans, and intimate with Mahommedan thought, one fact must strike itself most forcibly, and that is, the Mahommedan is above all things a Mahommedan. His religion is the paramount question in his life, and remains its predominating feature above everything else. This should not be surprising, since to the “faithful” Paradise is secured, and all crimes and transgressions against “unbelievers” absolved.
Added to these important factors of racial characteristics, influences of religion, and long grown habits of the Turk, we have also in Turkish Armenia another evil, from which the other provinces of the Turkish Empire fortunately for themselves have been exempt; this super-added evil, is, the large neighbouring bodies of Kurds and Circassians, greater marauders and depredators than the Turks, the regular occupation of whose lives comprises murder and robbery, and who have through weary centuries unremittingly quartered themselves upon the industrious christian peasants, and lived on the fruits of their labour and toil. Indeed as the Hamidieh cavalry which was established expressly for the Hamidian massacres was composed of these Kurds, it ought to be matter of speculation what outlet these warriors, trained and practised in organized murder, can now find for those habits in which they were encouraged and trained to indulge by the Hamidian régime.
Under all such conditions no hope of better days can be forthcoming, no prospect of better times seems possible, for that unhappy portion of the Armenian race whom force of circumstances keeps on the soil of the fatherland.
The appointment of Christian governors over the provinces inhabited by them might ameliorate some of the evils, or the other alternative, of allowing the use of arms to all alike, irrespective of creed or nationality, would furnish some means of self-defence against the raids and barbarities of the oppressors; but even if such concessions were granted, life for the christian peasant subject to Turkish rule, and living in the midst of his enemies, must remain one long struggle and battle against pillage, murder, depredation, and offences of the worst nature. Not the most fertile soil, not the most favourable climatic conditions, not the most assiduous industry, not the most peace loving, law abiding instincts, can bring to the Armenian peasant under Turkish rule even a modicum of that comfort, happiness, and security of life and property, which the law of all civilized countries guarantees to the industrious labourer and tiller of the soil.
Excellent Sir,
You are the President of the mighty Republic of the United States of America, and I am only an obscure unit of a forlorn and helpless nation, but encouraged by the intrinsic qualities of your head and heart, and also by the record of great and noble services rendered in the cause of oppressed humanity, by certain of your predecessors in the presidential chair (so encouraged) I venture humbly to address you. The annals of that presidential chair on which you sit are clear and bright as the noonday sun; turning over the pages of their brightness, I am encouraged to address you its present occupant.
Your immediate predecessor rendered a great service in the interests of Humanity, by bringing a terrible and bloody war to its close. His staunch strong hand of friendship was held out to the gallant nation fighting heroically for its national existence, whilst the might of his iron will strenuously contested and made the peace which will ever be associated with his name, but there was a peace which his great heart wished to break but could not succeed in breaking, and which his upright mind has branded as “infamous”: such are his own words “the infamous peace kept by the joint action of the great powers, while Turkey inflicted the last horrors of butchery, torture and outrage upon the men, women and children of despairing Armenia.”[13]For thirty-one years the great European Powers kept up by joint action an infamous peace, and out of regard for their own selfish interests allowed a corrupt, vicious, gangrened and blood-thirsty power to wreak its hellish atrocities not only on the men, but on the women and children of a helpless nation.
These are strong words, but they are true, and you will agree with me that the meanest and humblest of God’s creatures has a right to speak the truth, and that greatest is the right to speak the truth, when it is spoken in the cause of murdered, outraged and misery-stricken humanity.
The yoke of Turkey rivetted on the necks of the Armenians by England in 1878, was rivetted again by Russia, and yet again rivetted by Germany. The political interests and the commercial interests of Europe have trampled us under foot; we have been sacrificed on the altar of the political animosities of England and Russia, and given over, men, women and children to butchery,slaughter, imprisonment, torture; we have been crushed under the iron wheels of the Baghdad railway, a greater Juggernauth for us, while the ex-Sultan received his payment and “bartered a kingdom for the Kaiser’s friendship”; and yet again we have been crushed when British diplomacy checkmated William of Hohenzollern’s dream.
The death warrant of our bleeding nation has found no place on the table of the Hague Conference of Peace and Civilization since the selfish interests of the European Powers would give it no abiding room. President of a great and free Republic, let it be the work of your mighty hands to lay it there. The Cabinets of Europe have turned a deaf ear to the death shriek of our bleeding nation, let our despairing cry be heard now in the Senate of the United States of America.
It remains for the historian of the future to record the Armenian Massacres as the foulest blot and the blackest stain on European Civilization and European International Morality, but in addressing you now I will turn down the pages of the hideous Past, and humbly lay open the pages of the Present, on which is clearly written the deadly peril in which our nation stands: the book is open, and who will may read. For it is not the goodwill of the new régime that has to be taken into calculation, as far as the Armenians are concerned, but the powerfulness or the powerlessness of the new régime to make for their protection.
How can we forget Adana? A whole town and villages sacked and desolated; fifty thousand of our men, women and children done to horrible deaths, and the residue left to homelessness and starvation. How can we forget that the arch-enemy of Christian and liberal Turk still lives, dethroned but not executed, and that through fear of his worshippers and his adherents the liberal Turks are compelled to pamper and support the monster assassin of the world? When such difficulties beset the path of the liberal Turks, the rulers, what security is there for a subject people, alien in race and religion?
President of a great and free Republic, we need a friend, we ask for your mighty hands to be held out to us in succour, since the number of our enemies are legion: even Nature has arrayed herself against us in the inexorable conditions of the physical geography of our country. Shall the President of a mighty Republic with noble traditions; shall the christian men and women of the United States leave us to our terrible fate?
“To serve Armenia is to serve Civilization.” These words were spoken by a great and revered statesman; the noble handiwork of his Creator (William Ewart Gladstone), now gone to his honored rest. “Donot let me be told that one nation has no authority over another” was his reply to the Armenian deputation which waited on him in 1894. Let his reply be your answer to us now, President of a mighty Republic; let it be your answer written in golden letters across the banner of that great civilization, of which you are the presiding head.
The Republic of the United States of America has been compared to that grain of mustard seed, which when planted in the earth budded forth and grew into such dimensions that the birds of the air lodged under the branches thereof. I pray that the shadow of those branches be extended over my bleeding nation.
A monster assassin! Has he been brought before the bar of his country, tried and condemned to the penalty of death, such as in the days of his power he meted out to hundreds of thousands of innocents? Has he been cast into a loathsome prison, such as the many in which thousands of his victims have rotted and died? Nay! not so! it is not so decreed in Turkey.
In Turkey, a camarilla of murderous and plundering pashas, and a fanatical and marauding populace stand behind a Padishah who knew how to furnish gratification for the murdering and marauding instincts of his adherents. Nay! neither death nor imprisonment for the Padishah whose sovereignty was the most auspicious for brigandage and murder. Who dares to slay or imprison the demigod of rapine and despotism? Such things cannot be done in Turkey.
For crimes that were in comparison as light as air, those puerile tyrants, Charles of England and Louis of France forfeited their heads. Poor Charles and Louis! Your heads chopped off and your bodies trundled away in a cart: no glorifying spiritualized titles of Zeid and Imam read out in your bills of indictment; such glorifying spiritualized titles are reserved for monster assassins in Turkey.
In Turkey, a monster assassin whose list of murders rank him as premier assassin of the world, who under heel of iron and fire annihilated the rights and liberties of his subjects is pensioned off to live in purple and fare sumptuously: housed in a luxurious palace, he sits on carpeted divans, supportedby silken and velvet pillows, with eleven ministering houris, the youngest and fairest of his past entourage, to solace the “dolce far niente” of his deposed Padishahdom. Ample leisure, possible opportunities to hatch plots for the subversion of law and order, and the revival of the reign of plunder and massacre. But it is so allowed in Turkey. It is enough to be a Caliph and a Padishah to be able to count victims, not by thousands, but by hundreds of thousands, and remain immune from punishment for mountains of crime.
What evil, what woe and desolation hast thou not wrought, spiritualized Zeid and Imam, Caliph and Padishah? And yet thou art allowed to live! Evil genius of thy people! thou hast worked out their moral degradation to the lowest depths that a nation could fall; but limitless evil, supremest woe, hast thou worked over the nation whose country thou turned into a charnel house of slaughter, and over whom thy reign of thirty-three years hung like a pestilence. Who can count the multitude of thy crimes against them, who can measure the height and the depth of the woe that thou laid over their lives. Hearths and homes pillaged and desolated, harvest fields turned into rivers of blood, not thousands upon thousands, but hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children tortured with devilish ingenuities of torture, imprisoned in loathsome dungeons, outraged, butchered, slaughtered, hunted like wild beasts, left to homelessness and starvation.
Enough blood to drown a leprous souled and gangrened souled Padishah and his gangrened pack of followers! Enough crime to hang a Caliph!
Out with thy Caliphate! even by the law of thy prophet, that fierce son of the desert, the Caliph is ordained protector of the weak and helpless; what didst thou with thy thirty-three years of Caliphal power, except crush the weak and annihilate the helpless.
The very earth has echoed with the dying cry of the least of them, those “christian puppies” with little bodies piled up one upon another, and little heads struck off together at one stroke; with the frenzied shrieks of mothers who have seen with their own eyes the slaughter of their children, with the anguished wail of women, with the death groans of youth and old age. Aye! the very earth has echoed with the dying gasp of that righteous man, the venerable sire of his people, the renowned nonagenarian whom thou stealthily silenced on a bloody bed into the sleep of death for trying to save his flock from thy hyena jaws.
An explosive bomb shattered the life of thy crowned opponent, (a noble life consecrated to the welfare of his people) but no chance or opportunity directed any explosive bomb to shatter thy cadaverous body. No jeweled pistol or secret dagger like the many that have dripped with the blood of thyvictims in thy Yildiz Kiosk, found its way to thy treacherous heart. No poisoned cup of coffee like the countless cups brewed in thy palaces trickled down thy throat to end thy vampire existence.
Thou hast lived! Protected from the Nemesis of thy crimes by the jealousies and rivalries of great powers which thou artfully played one against another; by the combined forces of religion and plunder which thou cunningly wielded into one. Even so thou livest! Peerless living example in the civilized twentieth century of the Triumph of Crime.
In the foregoing pages I have directed my humble efforts to sketch out what the Powers of Europe have done in the past, and how their actions have reflected on my unfortunate race.
It is considered good policy now by a certain class of European writers to ascribe all the horrors of the Armenian Massacres to Hamid the despot, to represent him as a tyrant as unassailable and unconquerable as he was implacable, in short as a sort of superhuman being who swept everything before him to the consummation of his own despotic will. The reason for this is not difficult to perceive. They would fain disavow the part Europe has played in the tragedy, and to do this successfully it becomes necessary also to present Turkey to the world now as a paradise (from whence the tyrant once removed) peopled only by saints and angels; so we have also many roseate colored word pictures of Constitutional Turkey.
The murders, deportations and imprisonments of the Turkish revolutionaries, or more correctly reformers, were undoubtedly the sole work of Abdul Hamid and his palace clique, but Abdul and his minions could not have carried out that hellish work of wholesale extermination of the Armenians without the perpetration and participation of the Turkish people. It is true the massacres were originated and organized in the Palace, the Palace clique stirred up religious fanaticism and race hatred, but the co-operation of the people was necessary; and the people co-operated in order to plunder and enrich themselves with the worldly goods that the Armenians always knew how to acquire by their own industry and toil; the appeal to their marauding and bestial instincts met with a ready response. It was moreover easy work for a race of brigands, especially as their numbers exceeded their victims by about ten to one and who were practically unarmed.
The first Armenian Massacres of Abdul Hamid were tentative; he began by feeling the pulse of Europe; he found that the six Signatories to the Treaty of Berlin accepted the situation, he was thus emboldened to carry out that long and awful list of horrors that stands without its parallel in history. Clearly it was in the power of Europe to have prevented both the massacres and all the agonizing sufferings that came in their train, but Europe took no preventive action.
Let us ask the question, Who and what are these Turks, whom Europe for her own sordid ends has petted and pampered and helped and supported? and the answer comes with striking force to-day over the lapse of a century, in the words of one of England’s greatest sons: “I have never before heard that the Turkish Empire has been considered any part of the balance of Powers in Europe. They despise and contemn all Christian princes as infidels, and only wish to subdue and exterminate them and their people. What have these worse than savages to do with the Powers of Europe but to spread war, destruction, and pestilence among them? The Ministers and the policy which shall give these people any weight in Europe will deserve all the bans and curses of posterity.”[14]
To-day the Powers of Europe are armed to the teeth. To-day they are groaning under the burden of armaments which they are increasing with breathless speed although the burden grows heavier. To-day all Europe is trembling lest the hell-hounds of war be let loose. Has any political student put his finger on the cause which began, the beginning and the source of the evil, the Alpha of the Omega. I have put my finger on it—the beginning and the source—The jealousies and rivalries of European Politics in the Turkish Empire. According to an Eastern proverb “The flies are always round the honey,” but sometimes the flies stick in the honey.
Politicians of the Governments of Europe have said in the pride of their hearts “There is no God.” Particularly has this spirit of cynicism and heartlessness governed the actions of Russian politicians after the death of Alexander II. Since 1881, they have looked upon the extermination of the Armenians just as the pathfinder in a forest would look upon a dense forest growth, the clearing away of which would make out a path for him and lead to running streams and harvest fields. In the eyes of Russian politicians the unfortunate Armenians have been the forest growth which has stood in the way of their advance to the South and into Persia, and they have looked on with intense satisfaction at the exterminating process of the Turk, which they have regarded as the helping hand that clears away the difficulty confrontingthem. But precisely whether Russia can grow strong by the pouring out of Armenian blood, and whether her empire will be extended by their hellish extermination remains to be solved by the future. One thing, however, the history of the world points out, that iniquity ends, not in strength, but in dissolution; and “The wages of sin is death.”
Politicians of Europe have, in the pride of their hearts, arrogated to themselves that power, which appertains to the Creator; they have imagined that they hold the world in the hollows of their hands, and the misery or happiness of millions of human beings has weighed as nothing in their estimation, against the interests of what they have designated “our sphere of influence,” but they have forgotten what they need to be reminded that the Creator is mightier than the creature and that the eternal law of heaven and earth changeth not for politicians.