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From Groong: DAILY NEWSPAPER REPORTING OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:

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  • From Groong: DAILY NEWSPAPER REPORTING OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:

    DAILY NEWSPAPER REPORTING OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:
    COULD THEY ALL BE WRONG?

    Armenian News Network / Groong
    April 23, 2008

    By Katia M. Peltekian


    In a world where there were no radios, televisions or the internet,
    the only source of information for events occurring around the world
    was the newspaper. At the time, the news did not travel fast, but it
    did eventually reach the four corners of the world.

    Throughout the world, papers filled their pages with news from the
    Ottoman Empire. Towards the end of the 19th century, when European
    countries as well as the United States were on friendly terms with
    Turkey, thousands of reports about the on-going massacres and
    mistreatment of the Armenians were printed on the pages of such well-
    known newspapers in the English language as The Times (of London),
    The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The
    Toronto Star, The Montreal Gazette, etc. These newspapers included
    reports by correspondents, travelers, and consuls or ambassadors of
    different countries based in the different regions of the Ottoman
    Empire. But the more detailed reports came from the missionaries who
    witnessed the plight of the Armenians and tried to help the orphans
    and the survivors as best they could.

    It is to be noted that the Western press covered the Hamidian
    massacres much more extensively than the massacres of World War One
    period since many of the western countries broke diplomatic relations
    with Turkey when the Great War broke out. Not only diplomats left the
    Empire but for safety reasons their citizens left also. On the other
    hand, as a neutral country, the USA kept its ambassador, consuls and
    missionaries in Turkey for the first three years of the War. As the
    number and frequency of the reports in the British press dropped, for
    example, those in the American press were on the rise until America
    joined the War on the side of the Allies in April 1917.


    THE SOURCES

    A careful examination of various newspapers in the English language
    will show that the sources for information originated from what could
    be labeled as the best kind of evidence: eyewitnesses as well as
    victims themselves. Most of the news originated from the war zone and
    its vicinity where refugees were welcomed; the reports included the
    eyewitness accounts of missionaries, consuls, survivors and refugees.
    Other sources emerged from world capitals such as London, Paris,
    Berlin, Washington and, more importantly, from Constantinople where
    correspondents and diplomatic missions of neutral or allied countries
    resided.

    Thus most of the information about the ongoing massacres in the
    different regions of the Ottoman Empire came from diplomatic
    missions, religious missions, physicians, teachers and travelers.
    These sources were often referred to as sources of `unquestioned
    veracity, integrity and authority'; in many instances, the reports
    came from an eyewitness whose `reliability cannot be questioned', or
    from `well-known Americans who are cognizant of the actual situation
    in Turkey' who `produce absolutely trustworthy evidence and
    authenticated data.'

    The United States maintained a neutral position during the first
    three years of the Great War. It had an ambassador residing in
    Constantinople, and consuls and vice-consuls well-spread around the
    Ottoman Empire. In addition, the American missionaries were placed
    throughout the area where they could observe events or record
    eyewitness testimonies directly from survivors and victims. Since the
    missionaries were in daily contact with the people, they were able to
    provide credible testimony on the treatment of the Armenians during
    the deportations and about the mass murders.

    The British and the Commonwealth countries, on the other hand,
    depended on the British ex-residents of Turkey who left their homes
    as the war broke out. Also correspondents traveling with the Russian
    army on the Caucasus front reported the scenes of atrocities as the
    Russians liberated the Armenian cities of Erzurum, Bitlis and Trebizond.

    In many instances the British, Canadian and the American newspapers
    relied also on reports written by the foreign press or were released
    by foreign missionaries and diplomats. For example, the Italian
    consul of Trebizond Signor Giacomo Gorrini stated in a special cable
    dispatch to a Canadian newspaper in August 1915 the following:

    The decree, which was published on June 24, ordered the massacre of
    Armenians, and forms the blackest page in Ottoman history ... The
    result of the proclamation was carnage on a big and bloody scale ... I
    saw thousands of innocent women and children placed on boats which
    were capsized in the Black Sea. Thousands of young Armenian women
    were forcibly converted to Mohammedism ... I shall never forget the
    scenes of horror I witnessed from June 21 to July 23, when I left.'

    Another source of information came from the Germans themselves,
    Turkey's allies during the Great War. In October 1915, The Los
    Angeles Times published a translated version of what a German
    official had declared in German newspapers:

    If Turkey considers necessary that the Armenian uprising and other
    intrigues be suppressed with all means ... that does not constitute
    massacres nor atrocities, but simply a measure of a justified and
    necessary character ... `
    General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

  • #2
    cont. 2

    Occasionally, there also appeared the Turkish `version' of the events
    that occurred in the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, denying
    all the reports that diplomats and missionaries wrote. However, there
    was a Turkish statesman who denounced the atrocities committed by the
    Turkish authorities. According to a statement Cherif Pasha sent to
    The New York Times in October 1915

    ... the Young Turks, or the Committee of Union and Progress, ... for
    years plotted the extermination of the Armenian people.

    The answer of the Turkish Consul General in New York Djelal Bey to
    the same newspaper came as such:

    ... There may have been cases where inoffensive people shared the
    fate of the offender ... Unfortunately, in times of war, such
    discrimination is utterly impossible... However much to be deplored may
    be these harrowing events in the last analysis, we can but say that
    the Armenians have only themselves to blame.

    In 1916, The Times of London (Great Britain) printed an interview
    with Talaat Bey, the Turkish Minister of Interior. The source was a
    newspaper from Germany - an ally of Turkey. Talaat was quoted
    confessing the following:

    The removal of the Armenians from the eastern Vilayets of Turkey
    became in consequence a military, national and historical necessity ...
    The removal of the western group to Deyr-Zor was unfortunately
    entrusted to an incapable official and serious `excesses' followed ...
    We have been blamed for not making a distinction between the innocent
    and the guilty. It was impossible; the innocent of today might become
    the guilty of tomorrow.





    THE WORD `GENOCIDE'

    The word Genocide was not coined until the 1940s; however, other
    terms and phrases were used to describe the way the Armenians were
    treated in Ottoman Turkey not only by the Turkish and Kurdish
    population but by the Turkish authorities also.

    Some of these terms in the American and British press correspond
    partly or wholly to the definition of Genocide: `organized and
    systematic massacre,' `a systematic authorized and desperate effort
    on the part of the rulers of Turkey to wipe out the Armenians,' and
    `a war of extermination on Armenians,' `annihilation of the whole
    people,' or `the gradual destruction of the Armenians.'

    Although successive Turkish governments have denied that the Ottoman
    government had any intention to wipe out the Armenians, the reports
    coming out of Turkey confirmed that the `police massacre Armenians on
    orders of authorities,' that the Armenians were `exiled under
    conditions that mean slow extermination,' that the Armenians were
    `being exterminated as a result of an absolutely premeditated policy
    elaborately pursued by the gang now in control of Turkey,' or that
    `the massacres are the result of a deliberate plan of the Turkish
    Government to get rid of the Armenian question.'

    Many similar descriptions do in fact confirm that the Turkish
    authorities planned and executed the extermination of the Armenian
    population.


    PERIOD BEFORE THE GREAT WAR

    One reason Turkey and Turkish historians now give for the wholesale
    massacre of Armenians is that there was a war and just as Turks were
    killed, so were the Armenians. Of course, they also claim that many
    Armenians were punished because they were traitors and joined the
    Russian army fighting against Turkey. However, there is no
    explanation for the massacres that occurred prior to the Great War.
    During the Sultan Hamid era, hundreds of thousands of Armenians were
    killed in cold blood in such cities as Zeitoun, Sassoun, Ourfa,
    Erzurum and Van in the 1890s.

    At the time, the newspapers of the western world, which were on good
    terms with Turkey, printed thousands of reports describing the
    deplorable situation of the Armenians under Turkish rule. A small
    sampling of the headlines from the 19th century papers outlines the
    condition of the Armenians under Turkish rule:

    . Fresh Turkish Outrages: 700 Christians reported to have been
    massacred at Erzeroum. (The New York Times - Sept. 27, 1876)
    . The Erzeroum Massacre: Armenians slaughtered and the British
    Consulate stoned. (The New York Times - July 26, 1890)
    . Dungeons for Christians: Nearly 2,000 Armenians immured in Turkish
    prisons. (The Washington Post - April 10, 1893)
    . The Armenians: Innocent Christians executed by the Ottoman
    Authorities. (The Los Angeles Times - Aug. 4, 1893)
    . Armenians murdered in Turkey: Hundreds of bodies thrown into the
    harbor of Constantinople. (Chicago Daily Tribune - Oct. 20, 1893)
    . Massacre of Armenians: Horrible tales of butchery perpetrated by
    Turks - Thousands were killed. (The Halifax Herald - Nov. 20, 1894)
    . Massacre of the Armenians: Turkish troops made a solitude and called
    it peace in Sassoun. (The New York Times - Nov 27, 1894)
    . Disturbed Armenia: Massacres Confirmed. (The Times - Dec. 4, 1894)
    He Tells of the Sacking of Hadjin: Another story of the Armenian
    massacre from an eye-witness. (Chicago Daily Tribune - Dec. 8, 1894)
    . Horrible Massacres: Treacherous Turkish troops murder 360 Armenians
    of all ages and both sexes. (The Halifax Herald - Feb 28, 1895)
    . Eight Thousand Butchered: The horrors of the Armenian massacres only
    just beginning to be realized by the World. (The New York Times -
    March 25, 1895)
    . Turkish Atrocities: Pitiful stories of pillage, burning, torture and
    murder. (The Halifax Herald - June 13, 1895)
    . The Trebizond Massacre. (The Sunday Times - Oct. 27, 1895)
    . The Massacres in Erzurum. (The Times - Nov. 16, 1895)
    . Plunder and Outrage: Armenian villages for a distance of 200 miles
    are looted and burned and their inhabitants killed or put to flight.
    (The Los Angeles Times - Jan. 1, 1896)
    . 100,000 Massacred in Armenia and 250,000 Christians rendered
    homeless. (The Halifax Herald - Jan. 3, 1896)
    . Two Thousand Dead: The awful sweep of the ravenous Turk. (The Los
    Angeles Times - Feb. 12, 1896)
    . At Mercy of the Turks: Graphic picture of the suffering of the
    Armenians - Massacres the result of definite plan devised by the
    . Sultan and his advisers to annihilate the `Hated Christians' (Chicago
    Daily Tribune - Feb. 22, 1896)
    . Armenians Killed at Oorfa: 8,000 victims said to have been murdered.
    (The New York Times - May 19, 1896)
    . The Armenian Outrages: How the Christians were murdered by the cruel
    Turks - Stories of horror which are unequaled - Mothers killed in the
    presence of their husbands and children. (The New York Times - June
    1, 1896)
    . Fresh Disturbances in Van: Renewal of the Armenian massacres - 400
    people killed. (The Washington Post - June 25, 1896)
    . Deportation of the Armenians - (The New York Times - Sept. 7, 1896)
    . Armenians Slain by the Hundreds: British Ambassador Currie makes a
    protest. (The Halifax Herald - March 27, 1897)
    . The Tokat Massacre. (The Times - May 6, 1897)
    Wholesale Massacre: Secret Extermination. (The Halifax Herald - July
    13, 1897).


    And the massacres did not stop there. At different intervals of time,
    massacres of the Armenian population also took place during the first
    years of the 20th century.

    The following selective excerpts from different newspapers illustrate
    the situation of the Armenians between 1900 and 1914. The Armenians
    were exposed to not only massacres but also dislocation. They were
    disarmed, dispersed, pillaged, outraged and murdered in cold blood
    during peaceful times. The worst was in 1909 when the Turks and Kurds
    descended on the Armenians of the Vilayet of Adana and wiped out an
    estimated number of 30,000 in the towns and villages of the district.
    At the time, there was no Great War. The Armenians were not simply
    casualties of war. Their extermination was a premeditated plan set by
    the Turkish authorities.


    Chicago Daily Tribune - Oct. 21, 1900.
    According to a dispatch to a French newspaper, `frightful massacres
    of Armenians have just occurred in the district of Diarbekir.' The
    report asserts that for five days, the Turkish population of the city
    killed and outraged the Armenians as the Turkish troops watched. In
    addition, eight villages were entirely destroyed and burned and the
    residents were left homeless.

    The New York Times - Aug. 30, 1901.
    A reference is made to an article in the London-based newspaper The
    Daily Mail and written by Ali Nouri Bey, ex-Turkish Consul at
    Rotterdam with the heading that confirms the Porte intends to
    exterminate the Armenian race by a regular system. According to Ali
    Nouri Bey, the massacres that had recently restarted are `part of a
    regular system of extermination. The number of Armenians killed will
    depend upon the outcry raised in Europe and the pressure brought to
    bear upon the Sultan. The same horrible process will be repeated year
    by year until all are killed.'

    On September 20, 1901, the same paper reports briefly about The
    Armenian Troubles: It is believed that the Turks mean to exterminate
    the Mountaineers in Sassoun Vilayet.

    The Washington Post - May 14, 1904.
    Titled Sassoun Armenians practically exterminated by the Turks, an
    official dispatch received from Constantinople by the French Foreign
    Office confirms `the reports that Turkish troops have burned villages
    throughout the Sassoun district of Armenia, killing the
    inhabitants.' Together with the British and Russian Ambassadors, the
    French Ambassador M. Constans sent consuls to the Erzeroum area to
    try and stop further massacres from occurring. `However, the official
    advices indicate that the work of exterminating the Armenians
    occupying the mountainous district of Sassoun is practically
    accomplished.'
    General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

    Comment


    • #3
      cont. 3

      Chicago Daily Tribune - May 29, 1904.
      The headline reads Turks said to have destroyed forty-three villages
      and massacred the inhabitants. The news from Paris reports: `Deputy
      De Pressense (Socialist) has received a telegram from Baku saying the
      Turkish forces operating against the Armenians consisted of 12,000
      regulars and 10,000 Kurds, ... and that forty-three villages were
      burned and their inhabitants killed. The male Armenians are said to
      have made a desperate resistance on the summit of Mount Antok.'

      The Washington Post - July 13, 1906.
      The massacres have reached the city of Van. `Alarming news has been
      received [in Tiflis] of horrible ravages by Turkish troops across the
      border, in Turkish Armenia. Soldiers who were collecting taxes are
      said to have indulged in frightful outrages. The population of the
      city of Van is represented to have been nearly destroyed by the
      Turkish troops, who pulled down houses, assaulted the women, and
      acted generally like wild beasts ...'

      The New York Times - Oct. 18, 1908.
      This brief news comes from Berlin confirming that the Turkish troops
      committed many atrocities. According to a dispatch published by the
      German newspaper Berliner Tageblatt, `Armenians in Viran-Shehr have
      been massacred by Turkish troops. The women and children have been
      subjected to fearful treatment. The troops were sent to Viran-Shehr
      to overawe the mutinous townspeople, two-thirds of whom are
      Armenians, and they at once began to murder and plunder. They are
      said to have completely overrun the city.'

      The New York Times - April 25, 1909.
      The large title affirms 30,000 Killed in Massacres: Conservative
      Estimate of Victims of Turkish Fanaticism in Adana Vilayet. The news
      from Beirut describes the following: `At the town of Adana more than
      100 girls are missing. It is known that twenty-one native pastors
      have been killed. Fears are entertained that other American
      missionaries than those whose deaths have been reported, have been
      murdered. There are 15,000 refugees in Adana and Tarsus and 5,000 at
      Mersina.' The article also reports the following about different
      districts.

      `In Hadjin, an American lady missionary Miss Lambert has been killed
      in the streets two days after she sent an appeal to Constantinople.'

      `Dortyol is holding out.'

      `Antioch is quiet, there being no Armenians left in that town.'

      `The Armenian village of Kessab has been burned and many persons
      killed there. The women and children of Kessab are fugitives in the
      surrounding mountains, exposed to hunger and mob violence.'

      The New York Times - April 28, 1909.
      The Rev. Herbert Adams Gibbons of Hartford, Connecticut, a missionary
      of the American Board of Foreign Missions stationed in Adana and
      Tarsus writes a long report in which he describes the massacres as he
      witnessed them.

      `The entire Vilayet of Adana has been visited during the last five
      days with a terrible massacre of Armenians, the worst ever known in
      the history of the district.'

      The report continues: `Adana was a hell. The bazaars were looted and
      set on fire. There was continuous and unceasing shooting and killing
      in every part of the town, and fires raged in many quarters. Moslems
      from the neighborhood began pouring into the city and notwithstanding
      our protests, the Vali distributed arms to these men, alleging that
      they were Turkish reserves.'

      `Adana is in a pitiable condition. The town has been pillaged and
      destroyed, and there are thousands of homeless people here without
      means of livelihood ... The corpses lie scattered through the streets.
      Friday, when I went out, I had to pick my way between the dead to
      avoid stepping on them. Saturday morning I counted a dozen cartloads
      of Armenian bodies in one-half an hour being carried to the river and
      thrown into the water...'

      `The condition of the refugees is most pitiable and heartrending. Not
      only are there orphans and widows beyond number, but a great many,
      even the babies, are suffering from severe wounds.'

      The report by Rev. Gibbons also gives details on how the problems
      started between the Turks and the Armenians and how the British
      Consul and his wife personally helped the wounded and the refugees.

      Christian Science Monitor - Aug 21, 1913.
      Turks Resume Persecution of the Armenians is the headline in this
      journal which publishes information that was placed in its
      possession. It prints the following by the journal's informant who
      `is the most unimpeachable source.' The article says:

      `News also comes, our informant continues, from Diarbekir to the
      effect that Turks and Kurds are openly arming on a great scale with
      the connivance of the authorities; whereas the Christians have even
      their pocket revolvers taken away whenever the police can find them ...'

      `In spite of categorical assurances given by the Porte to the
      Patriarchate that no Moslem emigrants from Macedonia and Thrace would
      be sent to Armenia, the first contingent of Turks has already reached
      Diarbekir. It is stated authoritatively that about 1000 of such
      families are to be quartered in the district of Tidje, Diarbekir,
      where the Armenian element predominates ...'

      `The public debt department of the district has computed the loss
      suffered by the Armenians of Tchengiler (in Vilayet of Brusa) at
      #6000. This means that about 4000 Armenian peasants have been reduced
      to the brink of starvation for a whole year. This fact, out of many,
      is sufficient to demonstrate the policy adopted by the Turks to bring
      about the economic ruin of the Armenian element.'


      THE WORLD WAR ONE PERIOD

      And the Great War broke out in mid-1914. The Young Turks continued
      their policy of exterminating the Armenians and other minorities
      under the guise of war casualties.

      When the war broke out and Turkey joined Germany and Austria,
      diplomats, correspondents and residents of those countries at war
      with Turkey left the Ottoman Empire. Although prior to the Great War
      the British sources, for example, had provided extensive reports
      about the conditions under which the Armenians lived, once the war
      broke out, the American diplomats and missionaries became the
      eyewitnesses to the wholesale massacres that took place in Armenian
      towns and villages.

      The following handful of excerpts from the thousands of news reports
      printed in the British, American and Canadian press describe the
      horrible massacres and deportations which the Turkish authorities
      undertook.

      The Times - Jan. 13, 1915.
      The news received in Tiflis describes the frightful conditions in
      Azerbaijan as Turkey invades the region. The entire Armenian
      population in Tabriz is escaping towards the Caucasus as `the
      massacre of Armenians in the region of Bashkala, between Van and
      Urumia Lakes, continues.'

      The Times - Feb. 23, 1915.
      The details of the horrors perpetrated by the Turks during the
      occupation of Ardanuch are now available. According to a Tiflis
      correspondent, the Turks first `confined themselves to pillage, and
      slew only 15 civilians, but after December 30, when the news of our
      [Russian] occupation of Ardahan was received, the local Mussulmans
      threw off the mask, and the same evening organized a systematic
      massacre.. One hundred and fifty Armenians were led out into the
      street and shot, or had their throats cut ...'

      The Washington Post - Feb. 28, 1915.
      The details of further massacres are revealed: `Two hundred and fifty
      men were massacred at Tambot and their women carried into slavery.
      The Turks did not even permit internment of the bodies, but left them
      to be devoured by dogs.'

      The New York Times - March 20, 1915
      According to a report received by the Red Cross Fund in London, the
      `whole plain of Alashgerd is virtually covered with the bodies of
      men, women, and children.' The organizers of the Red Cross Fund say
      there are 120,000 destitute Armenians now in the Caucasus.

      The Washington Post - April 25, 1915.
      From Tabriz comes the following news: `Hundreds of Armenians in the
      Vilayet of Van have been massacred by Turkish troops, according to
      refugees who arrived here today. All the towns near Lake Van have
      been sacked, the Turkish police killing all the Christians who
      escaped the first attack on the troops...'

      Toronto Daily Star - April 26, 1915.
      In a Canadian Press dispatch from Tiflis, terrible tales of Armenian
      slaughter have been reported. According to the Associated Press, 800
      villagers of Urfa and 720 in Salmas were massacred. The report
      continues: `Three weeks had failed to obliterate the signs of the
      slaughter. Pools of blood still marked the execution places in
      Haltevan. The caps of 36 victims lay where a mud wall had been
      toppled over them...'

      The Washington Post - April 26, 1915
      According to American missions in Persia, many refugees were arriving
      at Julfa in deplorable conditions: `Maddened women threw their
      children into the Araxes River or into pools in order to end their
      sufferings from cold and hunger. The mud and the cold and the
      shelterless nights, during which the garments of the refugees were
      frozen knee high, continued for three weeks, until the people were
      slowly dispersed by rail.'

      The New York Times - April 29, 1915
      In a letter sent to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Dr.
      W.S. Vanneman, head of the Mission Hospital at Tabriz and the
      chairman of the relief committee appointed by the American Consul,
      writes the following: `About ten days ago the Kurds in Salmas, with
      the permission of the Turkish troops, gathered all the Nestorian and
      Armenian men remaining there, it is reported about 800. Four hundred
      were sent to Khosrova and 400 to Haft Dewan under the pretense of
      giving them bread. They were held a few days and then all of them
      were tortured and massacred. Many of the women and children were
      taken away and maltreated...'

      The Washington Post - May 16, 1915.
      The headline reads Kill 10,000 Christians: Turkish Regulars, with
      Artillery, Bombard Armenians. Van is again attacked. According to
      American missionary Robert M. Larabee and other aid agents, `this
      Armenian city in Asiatic Turkey was bombarded by 900 Turkish regular
      troops who had with them three pieces of artillery. Armenians
      numbering 860 assembled in the village of Saragunis to oppose the
      murderous bands of Kurds threatening that place, but the Kurds were
      aided by Turkish regulars, and after a long struggle the detachment
      of Armenians were all wiped out with the exception of eight men, who
      ultimately found shelter in the monastery of St. Tatius...'

      The Times - May 24, 1915.
      This London based newspaper has received the following from the Press
      Bureau. `His Majesty's Government, in common with the Governments of
      France and Russia, make the following public declaration: For about
      the last month the Kurds and the Turkish population of Armenia have
      been engaged in massacring Armenians, with the connivance and often
      the help of the Ottoman authorities. Such massacres took place about
      the middle of April at Erzerum, Dertchan, Egin, Bitlis, Sassoun,
      Moush, Zeitun, and in all Cilicia. The inhabitants of about 100
      villagers near Van were all assassinated, and in the town itself the
      Armenian quarter is besieged by Kurds. At the same time the Ottoman
      Government at Constantinople is raging against the inoffensive
      Armenian population. In the face of these fresh crimes, committed by
      Turkey, the Allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte
      that they will hold all the members of the Ottoman Government, as
      well as such of their agents as are implicated, personally
      responsible for such massacres.'
      General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

      Comment


      • #4
        cont. 4

        The Montreal Daily Star - July 23, 1915.
        Francis Lavelle Murray of the International News reports from
        Petrograd: `After looting and burning homes of Christians in Bitlis,
        and torturing or killing many of the residents of that city, the
        Turks gathered 9,000 men, women and children from the nearby villages
        and drove them more than thirty miles to the banks of the Tigris,
        where all were shot. Their bodies were then thrown into the river...'

        The Los Angeles Times - July 25, 1915.
        A report by an Associated Press foreign correspondent is titled Wells
        Filled With The Dead - Every Woman and Child in Heresan is Killed.
        The correspondent had been riding with general Antranik and the
        Russian army. At Heresan, he found `60 Armenian men, all that are
        known to remain alive and free in a population of 500... Half a dozen
        wells were crammed with the bodies of those who had not been carried
        away...'

        The Montreal Daily Star - Aug. 3, 1915.
        The United Press correspondent Henry Wood writes: `Atrocities that
        rival the outrages of Abdul Hamid are being inflicted on the
        2,000,000 Armenians in Turkey by the Young Turks Government. Official
        circles in Turkey are using every possible means to prevent the news
        from reaching the outside world ...'

        `Thousands of Armenians have been deported from their homes in Asia
        Minor, their property confiscated and their families broken up. Young
        Armenians have been hurriedly drafted into the army and rushed to
        Gallipoli Penninsula to meet a quick end in the trenches of the
        Dardanelles. Wives, mothers and young children have been left
        helpless in the streets or transported to strange cities and
        abandoned to the mercies of the Mussulman population...'

        `The order for the present cruelties was issued early in may and
        executed with all the extreme genius of the Turkish police system. At
        Broussa, in Asiatic Turkey, the city which it is expected the Turks
        will select for their capital if Constantinople falls, I investigated
        personally the manner in which the decree was carried out. From
        eyewitnesses from other towns of the interior, I found that the
        procedure in nearly every instance was the same...'

        `... the Constantinople police arrested the alleged leaders of an
        Armenian society who were charged with plotting the establishment of
        an independent Armenia. Nineteen of these men were convicted by a
        court-martial and hanged in front of the Ministry of War...'

        `Twenty thousand Turks from Thrace were taken to Zeitoun and
        established in houses that for generations belonged to the Armenians,
        while the former owners were scattered to the extreme ends of the
        Empire. One portion being sent to the sandy deserts of the head of
        the Persian Gulf and the other to malarial marshes in the interior.
        Eyewitnesses from the interior, coming to Constantinople describe the
        processions of these ragged, miserable Armenians as they poured off
        to Zeitoun, herded by soldiers in groups ranging from fifty to
        several hundred. Old men who could not maintain the pace were beaten
        by the soldiers until they died in their tracks. Children dropped out
        of the wayside to perish. Mothers unable any longer to nourish their
        babies, dropped them in wells as they passed, preferring to end their
        sufferings...'

        The Turkish government accused the Armenians of rebellion. It charged
        the Armenians of extending important aid to the Russian army as it
        entered Van. And at the same time, the authorities expressed `regret
        that it was found necessary to punish large numbers of Armenians, but
        declare[d] they found it impossible to search among two million men
        small group of offenders.'

        The Washington Post - Aug. 4, 1915.
        9,000 Women and Children Slain by Turks on Banks of the Tigris reads
        the headline. It reports how the `Turks, after massacring all the
        males of the population in the region of Bitlis,... assembled 9,000
        women and children and drove them to the banks of the Tigris where
        they shot them and threw the bodies into the river.'

        The New York Times - Aug. 18, 1915.
        In London, British parliamentarian Aneurin Williams presents a report
        which confirms the news that the Armenians of Cilicia have been
        deported into the Syrian Desert. He continues: `We learn, besides,
        that the roads and the Euphrates are strewn with corpses of exiles,
        and those who survive are doomed to certain death, since they will
        find neither house, work, nor food in the desert. It is a plan to
        exterminate the whole Armenian people...'

        The report continues describing the arrests and execution of men
        accused of `meeting secretly' in such places as Caesarea and Sivas.
        It adds, `Hundreds of women and young girls and even children groan
        in prisons. Churches and convents have been pillaged, defiled, and
        destroyed. The villages around Van and Bitlis have been pillaged and
        the inhabitants put to the sword. At the beginning of this month all
        the inhabitants of Karahissar were pitilessly massacred, with the
        exception of a few children.'

        The Washington Post - Sept. 3, 1915.
        Edgar A. Mowrer reports from Rome that the Armenian population of
        Istanbul has been reduced from 60,000 to 30,000 under cover of
        deportation. However, `the Turks indulged in murder, rapine and
        atrocities of all descriptions.'

        The Montreal Daily Star - Sept. 16, 1915.
        In a special cable from Constantinople by the United Press, `The
        Turks have resumed the methodical extermination of Armenians in all
        the provinces of the Empire. Frightful scenes are being enacted
        according to reports brought here. Women are being outraged or sold
        into slavery, males are being massacred, and whole communities driven
        off into the desert countries...'

        The cable also quotes from Le Tanine, the official organ of the Young
        Turk Party. The editorial reads: `Turkey will not be safe until the
        Armenians either are exterminated or forced to accept the Mohammedan
        religion.'

        The Times - Sept. 22, 1915.
        5,000 Armenians rescued by French Cruisers. The following official
        communication is issued by the French Ministry of Marine: `Pursued by
        the Turks, about 5,000 Armenians, nearly 3,000 of whom were women and
        children or old people, took refuge towards the end of July in the
        massif of Djebel Moussa, to the north of the Bay of Antioch. There
        they had succeeded in keeping off their aggressors until the
        beginning of September, but then their provisions and munitions began
        to fail and they seemed certain to fall into the hands of the Turks,
        when they succeeded in signaling to a French cruiser the dangerous
        position in which they were. The cruisers of the French squadron
        immediately went to their assistance and succeeded in assuring the
        escape of the 5,000 Armenians, who were conveyed by our warships to
        port Said, where they were heartily welcomed. They have been
        accommodated in a temporary camp.'

        Chicago Daily Tribune - Sept. 24, 1915.
        The paper quotes from British refugees who arrived at Alexandria and
        brought terrible tales of sufferings. These refugees witnessed the
        massacres of August 19 in Urfa. `The Turks systematically murdered
        the men and turned the women and children out into the desert where
        thousands perished of starvation ...'

        The New York Times - Sept. 24, 1915.
        Charles R. Crane, the Director of Roberts College, and James Burton,
        foreign Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign
        Missions, visited the State Department and conferred with the
        officials regarding the slaughter of Armenians by the Turks and
        Kurds. The article continues: `The records of the State Department
        are replete with detailed reports from American Consular officers in
        Asia Minor, which give harrowing tales of the treatment of the
        Armenian Christians by the Turks and the Kurds. These reports have
        not been made public. They indicate that the Turk has undertaken a
        war of extermination on Armenians, especially those of the Gregorian
        Church, to which about 90 per cent of the Armenians belong. The
        Turkish Government originally ordered the deportation of all
        Armenians, but, some time ago, after representations had been made by
        Ambassador Morgenthau, the Ottoman Government gave assurances that
        the order would be modified so as not to embrace Catholic and
        Protestant Armenians....'

        The Times - Sept. 30, 1915
        The headline reads Wholesale Murder in Armenia: Exterminating a Race.
        Reports confirming the current atrocities perpetrated against the
        Armenians are confirmed. According to the correspondent in Cairo, the
        attack on the Armenians began after Enver Pasha returned from the
        Caucasus front and was infuriated that the Armenians had assisted the
        Russians. Thus, Talaat Bey took the opportunity to retaliate on the
        unarmed Armenians of Asia Minor and ordered their expulsion. The
        reporter continues:

        `One instance, in which leading Armenians were concerned, shows the
        fate awaiting even those who obey the order. Vartkes Effendi and
        Zohrab Effendi, two prominent members of Parliament, Aghnuni, one of
        the chief Dashnakists, Haladjian Effendi and Pastermadjian Effendi,
        ex-minister of Public Works and Agriculture, were put in carriages at
        Urfa for conveyance to Diarbekir, and then were murdered en route,
        the escort reporting that the murders were the work of brigands...'

        `... The present atrocities are not confined to a definite area. From
        Samsun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Aintab, from Marash and Erzerum
        come the same tales of atrocities - of men shot down in cold blood,
        crucified, mutilated, or dragged off for labour battalions, of
        children carried off and forcibly converted to Islam, of women
        violated and enslaved in the interior, shot down, or sent off with
        their children to the desert west of Mosul ... or to Deir esZor ... to
        die miserably. Many of these unfortunates did not reach their
        destination, because the escort so overdrove the victims that many
        fell out, and, as flogging and kicking were unavailing, they were
        left to perish by the roadside, their corpses distinctly defining the
        route followed. Many were tied back to back in pairs and thrown into
        rivers alive ...'

        The Washington Post - Oct. 4, 1915.
        An American committee makes public the report it has prepared after
        careful and extensive investigation of the evidence on the atrocities
        inflicted on the Armenians. The committee was made up of Charles R.
        Crane, Samuel T. Dutton, Cleveland H. Dodge, Arthur C. James, Stephen
        S. Wise, Frank Mason North, John R. Mott, Stanley White, James L.
        Barton, William Sloane, William I Haven, George A. Plimpton, Carl
        Davis Robinson, Frederick lynch, Norman Hapgood, Edward Lincold
        Smith, Bishop David H. Greer, William W. Rockwell, Oscar S. Straus
        and others.

        According to this report, `more than 800,000 Armenians have been
        driven from their towns and cities into deserts where life is
        unsupportable, and where it is known thousands would die...'

        `In many cases the men [of military age] were bound tightly together
        with ropes or chains. Women with little children in their arms, or in
        the last days of pregnancy, were driven along under the whip like
        cattle. Some women so completely worn out and hopeless that they left
        their infants beside the road ...'

        The report continued describing how the Armenian prisoners were
        treated where the men received 200, 300, or even 800 bastinadoes
        (beating with a stick). The prisoners `all had their feet in such a
        state that they had to be amputated. A young man was beaten to death
        within the space of five minutes. Apart from the bastinadoing other
        methods were employed, too, such as putting hot irons on the chest ...'

        `The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the
        banks of the Euphrates and in the Erzingian plain. The mutilated
        bodies of women, girls and little children made everyone shudder. The
        bandsmen were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls
        that were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates,
        the bandsmen and gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining
        children under 15 years old ...'

        `On the way we constantly met murdered men and youth, all covered
        with blood. There were also women and girls killed near their
        husbands or sons. On the heights of the mountains and in the depths
        of the valleys numbers of old men and babies were lying on the ground
        dead. The poor people found themselves in the necessity of eating
        grass ...'
        General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

        Comment


        • #5
          cont. 5

          Toronto Daily Star - Oct. 9, 1915.
          Dr. A.H. Abbott of the University of Toronto has received a letter
          from a Canadian missionary Rev. E.O. Eshoo in which the latter
          describes the atrocities he has witnessed. The letter says that
          `Twelve thousand people in the city of Urumia alone were massacred
          outright, have since died of ill-treatment or starvation, or being
          taken as harem slaves.' Mr. Eshoo's two sons are safe. But his mother
          died of shock. `After hiding as a refugee for a week in the hay under
          a barn with her daughter, she was set upon, robbed and beaten by
          Kurds while on the road to Russian territory, and died a few days
          later.' Eshoo's aunt was killed in bed, her head and breast being
          crushed with stones. His uncle and nephew were both killed and one of
          them was literally skinned alive ...

          Eshoo further describes that `the Turks and Kurds were not mere
          outlaws and raiders. They were part of the Turkish army, the first
          lot being a detachment of 5,000 men under regular Turkish officers.'
          He tells of one case of how a child was roasted alive in front of his
          parents who were given the choice of either converting to Islam or
          eating the flesh of their child.

          Chicago Daily Tribune - Oct. 13, 1915.
          The news has reached the US State Department from Ambassador
          Morgenthau that the massacre of Armenians in Asiatic Turkey were
          renewed with vigor. Apparently the American government had warned
          Turkey that further atrocities against the Armenians would `alienate
          the sympathy of the American people.' But no warnings were given by
          the US government that diplomatic ties would be severed if these
          atrocities continued.

          The paper continues: `Earlier representations were met with two
          concessions promising that those Armenians who wished to leave the
          country would be permitted to do so unharmed and further that
          Protestant Armenians would be spared. Information recently reaching
          this country, however, indicates that these conditions have not been
          strictly adhered to. From one quarter it was asserted that `they were
          rescinded the next day.''

          The Times - Oct. 26, 1915.
          Addressing a large meeting in Manchester, Lord James Bryce made the
          following statements:

          `A large number of the young women were driven from their houses,
          somehow even stripped of their own clothes, taken into the street,
          and paraded before the Turkish officials, civil and military, who
          picked out those they wished to send to their harems, while others
          were publicly sold to anyone who would buy them - sold into a life of
          prostitution.'

          `The children shared a similar fate. The elder ones were mostly
          killed. The younger ones were put into the market, and were sold at
          prices which ran from 8s to 14 shillings, and sold only to Moslems on
          the condition that they were brought up as Mohamedans. The whole
          thing ... had come from the Government, so that there should be nothing
          but Moslems in the Turkish Empire ...'

          Chicago Daily Tribune - Nov. 4, 1915.
          An American resident of Chicago, Mrs. Samuel Byloz recently arrived
          back home from Marsovan, Turkey, where she was visiting when the war
          broke out. She relates the following: `When the war began more than a
          year ago the Turkish military authorities confiscated all brass and
          copper owned by Armenians, even tearing the hardware from the
          churches. This was followed by systematic pillage until the Armenians
          were destitute. Last August murder and rapine began. I was at
          Marsovan, a city of 12,000 located 75 miles west of the Black Sea
          port of Samsoun, and the seat of the largest Armenian college, early
          last August. I had been trying vigorously to secure a safe conduct
          from the country but had been unsuccessful. On Aug. 5 a general
          massacre of all Armenians in the city was declared by the priests
          [i.e. sheikhs] in the mosques, and the next day the soldiers began
          their work. I gained the protection of American Consul Petro of
          Samsoun, who chanced to be in Marsovan. For three days the soldiers
          stabbed and burned. The babies were thrown into the baths, and some
          of the streets were littered with dead bodies. Young girls were
          assaulted and older women killed. Then orders came to deport those
          still living. Deport! the word is a farce. With practically nothing
          to eat or wear, my countrymen were taken far into the AntiTaurus
          Mountains and abandoned.' She then recounts how she secured a passage
          to Bulgaria with the help of the American consul.

          The Sunday Times - Nov. 14, 1915.
          The paper gives excerpts of a book written by Arnold J. Toynbee. The
          book in its entirety was going to be released the following day on
          Nov. 15. Dealing with the outrages against the women, Toynbee states:
          `Abundant news has come from Constantinople itself of their being
          sold for a few shillings in the open markets of the capital; and one
          piece of evidence in Lord Bryce's possession comes from a girl no
          more than ten years old, who was carried with this object from a town
          of North-Eastern Anatolia to the shores of the Bosphorus. These were
          Christian women, as civilised and refined as the women of Western
          Europe, and they were enslaved into degradation ...'

          The report continues with the following description recounted by a
          lady: `The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us
          at the banks of the (Western) Euphrates (Kara Su) and the Erzinjan
          Plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls, and little children made
          everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds
          to the women and girls that were with us, whose cries went up to
          heaven. At the Euphrates the brigands and gendarmes threw into the
          river all the remaining children under fifteen years old. Those who
          could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water ...'

          The New York Times - Nov. 27, 1915.
          From London comes a report by Viscount Bryce, who made public the
          details of further Armenian massacres. He describes the Armenians'
          Heroic Stand in Mountains.

          `The surviving warriors found themselves surrounded at close quarters
          by 30,000 Turks and Kurds. Then followed one of those desperate,
          heroic struggles for life which have always been the pride of the
          mountaineers. Men, women, and children fought with knives, scythes,
          and stones, and anything else they could handle. They rolled blocks
          of stone down the steep slopes, killing many of their enemies. In the
          frightful hand-to-hand combats women were seen thrusting their knives
          into the throats of the Turks. When every warrior had fallen, several
          of the younger women who were in danger of falling into the hands of
          the Turks threw themselves from the rocks, some of them with infants
          in their arms ...'

          Another excerpt from Bryce's report describes the burning of women
          and children: `The ghastly scenes which followed may seem incredible,
          yet these reports have been confirmed beyond all doubt. The shortest
          means employed for disposing of the women and children in the various
          camps was by burning. Fire was set to the large wooden sheds in
          Alijan, Mograkom, Khasjogh, and other Armenian villages, and these
          absolutely helpless women and children were roasted to death ... The
          odor of burning flesh [according to witnesses] permeated the air for
          many days ...'

          Christian Science Monitor - Dec. 17, 1915.
          The paper reports that the Turkish government will not permit any
          investigation of the condition of those Armenians who escaped the
          massacres. The paper asserts that this is the most significant news
          coming out of the Turkish capital and it comes from an
          `unquestionable' source: Henry Mongenthau, the Ambassador of the
          United Stated in Constantinople, who has sent the report to the State
          Department asking for funds to help the remnants of the Armenian people.

          The paper gives details of the report by Mr. Morgenthau and the
          circumstances that had permitted this letter from reaching
          Washington. The paper then continues: `It seems unquestionable that
          everything which the United States can do to assist the people of
          Armenia has been already done. For the moment what assistance is
          possible seems to be reduced to financial aid. We are afraid that if
          anything further were attempted, at this particular juncture, only a
          remnant of the Armenian remnant would be left to cumber the earth.
          The fate of these people is unthinkably terrible. They are penned in
          the midst of an armed camp of religious fanatics, whose highest
          conception of right is to offer them the Koran or the sword ... What
          hope there would be for the Armenians inside the Ottoman gates, as it
          were, with an allied army outside those gates, may easily be
          imagined. Possibly the only remaining thing that could be done for
          their protection would be to make it perfectly clear to the Sublime
          Porte that its individual members would be held, in such
          circumstances, absolutely responsible for whatever occurred.'

          The Washington Post - Dec. 21, 1915.
          The paper quotes from a statement by Count Ernest Von Reventlow, a
          German naval expert, who was an advocate of the Turkish atrocities
          perpetrated against the Armenians. He states: `It is high time
          Germans comprehended the real meaning of Armenian atrocity affairs.
          They should finally understand that it is not our affair to feel or
          even express sympathy with Armenian revolutionaries and usurers, who
          form a great and malignant danger for our brave, tried and true
          Turkish allies and who are the tool of our mortal enemies - Great
          Britain and Russia. If the Turks did not defend themselves
          energetically and thoroughly against the Armenian danger whenever it
          arises, they would be doing their allies as well as themselves a bad
          service. Therefore we Germans must consider the handling of the
          Armenian question as an internal affair of the Turks.'

          The Times - Jan. 4, 1916.
          A young missionary of the American Board of Foreign Missions (Boston)
          writes from Egypt, where she recently arrived from Beirut. Other than
          describing outrages committed against Armenian refugees from Kharput,
          the young lady accounts the following: `In Marash an orphanage had to
          be given up to the Turks, who turned it over to men. Its occupants
          were girls and young women made orphans by the massacres of 1909 and
          preceding years. Many of them were cultured young women. The
          condition of those not yet dead is worse than death itself. In a
          German orphanage in Marash there were more than 1,000 girls. The
          order for expatriation came, and, in order that she might shield a
          few of the older girls, the headmistress kept them under her
          protection. Soon there came a telegram from the German Consul at
          Aleppo, saying, `You have hidden some girls. You have no business to
          do such a thing. Give them up.' The girls had to be given up, and
          were taken away to suffer the inevitable at the hands of their
          Turkish masters. This so angered the headmistress that she went to
          Constantinople to protest to the German Ambassador.' Although she
          tried hard to meet with the Ambassador, she failed and was told
          `curtly' that it was none of her business.

          The Washington Post - Feb. 6, 1916.
          More details of the atrocities perpetrated against the Armenians is
          reported by a young American woman who, after arriving in Cairo, gave
          an account of what she witnessed and went through herself. Although
          the official report submitted to the Board of Missions included all
          the names of people and places, she had asked that these names not be
          made public. The Post prints excerpts of her report: `At Aleppo she
          (the missionary) saw the remnants of 5,000 exiles who had started
          from ---. When they started they were of all ages and both sexes.
          They went toward Aleppo down the Euphrates. When they came to
          crossings of the rivers that flow into the Euphrates all the able-
          bodied men were drowned and their bodies left in the water. Farther
          on all the survivors, now only old men, women and children, were
          entirely stripped of their clothing ... Of the 5,000 that started only
          213 were left ...'

          The Halifax Herald - March 15, 1916.
          The terrifying tale of the Armenian massacres by a German mission is
          reported by this Canadian newspaper. The mission's report states:
          `Turkish soldiers who witnessed scenes of indescribable horror and
          fanatical savagery told our investigators they saw hundreds of
          terrified Armenian women slain outright as they pleaded for mercy on
          their knees.'

          `To save their babies from excruciating tortures, many of the women,
          driven to desperation, flung their infants to drown in the rivers
          Tigris and Euphrates, as the ravening hordes of religious intoxicated
          Turks bore down on their homesteads, killing as they came.
          Investigators asked the soldiers, `You mean to tell us you pitilessly
          shot down women and children?' The soldiers replied, `We had no
          choice; we only obeyed orders ...' '

          The Washington Post - May 7, 1916.
          Richard Hill, a local representative of the American Committee for
          Armenian and Syrian relief, reports that 15,000 Armenians were killed
          by Turks at Mamakhatun prior to the evacuation of Erzurum. According
          to Hill, `the whole of the province has been cleared of Armenians
          with the exception of those few who hid in the city. At the same time
          15,000 were sent away from villages nearby. These were taken as far
          as Mamakhatun, where they were killed. Other groups have been sent
          off at different times, many of them, too, no doubt, sharing the same
          fate as those from Erzurum, although some hope is entertained that
          many of them may still be found alive in the region of Aleppo.'

          The Sunday Times - May 14, 1916.
          The news this time comes from Trebizond where the children were the
          target for the atrocities. In Trebizond and its environs, the
          Armenians were all massacred or drowned by the Turks. The report
          continues saying: `It is unanimously declared that the atrocities
          committed on the Armenians at Trebizond surpassed all the Turkish
          cruelties towards the Armenians in other places. The expulsion of the
          Armenians in Trebizond began in July 1915, and to begin with several
          hundreds of young and influential Armenians were arrested on charges
          of treason and of aiding the Russians. They were embarked on boats,
          and drowned in the sea.'
          General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

          Comment


          • #6
            cont. 6

            `Other persons who were arrested were dispatched, men and women
            separately, to the village of Djivizlik, near Trebizond, where the
            women were violated and then killed, and the children bayoneted. The
            Turks also amused themselves with firing practice, taking the heads
            of the little children as targets. The survivors were sent to Erzurum.'

            The Washington Post - Aug. 6, 1916.
            A report comes from Paris in a special cable to the paper. It gives
            estimates that the Armenian population prior to 1915 was two and a
            half million, and then calculates that only some half a million were
            left. The report puts the blame on the Young Turk government. `The
            whole of the responsibility for the massacres rests with the Young
            Turk government and it is these young Turks who, under the eye of
            their accomplices, the German authorities in Constantinople,
            conceived and ordered the massacres and it is they who urged the
            savage Kurds to carry out the murders also, wherever possible, the
            Mussulmans, by means of arousing their fanaticism.'

            The Halifax Herald - Aug. 9, 1916.
            The details of the desperate condition of deported Armenians in the
            deserts of Northern Arabia and the lower Euphrates are made public by
            the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. According to
            eyewitnesses, the Armenians were seen `eating grass, herbs and
            locusts, and in desperation dead animals and human bodies are
            reported to have been eaten.'

            The New York Times - Aug. 21, 1916.
            After returning from a three-month relief work in the devastated
            villages in the Ottoman Empire, Rev. Harold Buxton, Secretary of the
            Armenian Refugee Fund, gives details that confirm the previous
            reports about the atrocities committed against the Armenians,
            especially those reports which Viscount Bryce had presented to the
            British House of Lords.

            Rev. Buxton states: `I don't think there has been any exaggeration as
            to the losses as published in England. The Armenian race numbered
            over 4,000,000 of whom 2,000,000 were Turkish Armenians and of these
            perhaps 1,000,000 have been deported and 500,000 massacred. Only
            200,000 escaped into the mountains, and so across to Russian soil.
            There are some hundreds of thousands in concentration camps between
            Aleppo and Mosul and in the neighboring regions of Mesopotamia, where
            Turkey continues to be supreme over their fate.'

            The Times - Aug. 24, 1916.
            According to Turkish and German sources, some 12,000 Armenian
            workers, including women and children, were collected in the vicinity
            of the xxxanti Tunnel through the Taurus Mountains to work under
            German supervision. Later the more intellectual and active among them
            were massacred with `utmost brutality.' The women were separated from
            the men and `suddenly ordered to move on in their emigration. This is
            the euphemistic term now employed by Turkish newspapers in referring
            to the gradual destruction of the Armenians. The Governor of Adana,
            brother-in-law of Enver Pasha, is entrusted with this task.'

            The Washington Post - Oct. 15, 1916.
            Letters have reached the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian
            Relief describing the `heart-rending' picture of the remnants of the
            Armenians and other Christians who were driven from their homes to
            die of disease, hunger, and torture.

            The first message comes from Der Zor, September 3, and reads in part:
            `Tell our missionaries that their college children, young men and
            girls are dying of hunger. To look at them breaks one's heart. But I
            am not thinking of myself, but of the crowds of children outside that
            are crying for bread, of the many pure young girls who, driven by
            hunger and loneliness at home, seek refuge at the hearths of Arabian
            men, to whom they are sold for bread; the women, mothers, who are
            wandering about in despair to find bread for the little ones; the
            young people, who, weakened by hunger, appear like old people,
            prematurely aged.'

            The letter continues: `We must daily buy back at least three or four
            young girls, else they will be completely lost.'

            `The people kill and eat the street dogs ... I saw a woman, who from
            the street ate the clotted blood of an animal ... `

            The Times - Nov. 24, 1916.
            According to Reuter news agency in Baku, the Turks have massacred
            some 5,000 to 6,000 Armenians in Sivas in Anatolia.

            The Times - Jan. 1, 1917
            The paper prints a report about how the Armenians were exterminated
            described by Moslem eyewitnesses who had former official standing.
            One of these eyewitnesses relates the following: `I saw in the
            suburbs of Mush large numbers of dead bodies of Armenian men, women
            and children lying in the fields. Some had been shot, some stabbed,
            and nearly all horribly mutilated. The women were mostly naked. In
            the same month I saw about 500 women, girls, and children, guarded by
            gendarmes in a camp outside Bitlis. The gendarme said that these
            people were being deported, but that the orders were to let the
            `shotas,' or bands of Kurds, Turkish gendarmes, and criminals, deal
            with them on the way. The bands had been organized by the Government
            for the purpose of massacring the Armenians. At Bitlis I saw a number
            of Armenian bodies floating in the water. Some had been washed up on
            the banks. The smell was terrible and the water undrinkable ...'

            The second Moslem eyewitness stated the following: `In April 1915, an
            order came from Constantinople to Erzurum, where I was quartered that
            the Armenians inhabiting frontier towns and villages should be
            deported into the interior. I saw large convoys of Armenians go
            through Erzurum. In May I was transferred to Trebizond. In July an
            order came that all the Armenians of that vilayet should also be
            deported to the interior. As I was a member of the Court-martial, I
            knew that deportation meant massacre. Besides the deportation order,
            an Imperial Iradeh commanded that all deserters, when caught, should
            be shot without trial. A secret order, however, said `Armenians'
            instead of `deserters.' A `fetva' from the Sheikh-ul-Islam
            accompanied the Iradeh, saying that the Armenians had shed Moslem
            blood, and it was lawful to kill them. I heard that all Armenian men
            were being massacred on their way into the interior. They were lined
            up on the edge of ditches, prepared beforehand, shot, and thrown into
            the ditches. The women and children were attacked by organized bands,
            called `Shotas,' plundered, outraged, and murdered. The children, of
            whom the government had taken charge, were also massacred ...'

            The Halifax Herald - Feb. 22, 1917.
            According to the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief,
            one third of the Armenian race has been massacred by the Turks and
            one half of the survivors are left homeless and dying in exile. The
            message from famous English writer John Massfield says in part: `Far
            away as she is from the main conflict, Armenia has suffered more in
            this war than any devastated land in Europe. She is like a victim met
            by troops on the march and beaten and stabbed and left to die. There
            is nothing in her misery to make a headline or a battle cry. It is
            just dumb suffering, lying by the road.'

            Note:
            The United States of America formally declared war on Germany and its
            allies on April 6, 1917.

            The Washington Post - May 28, 1917
            Henry Morgenthau, the former American Ambassador to Turkey, speaks at
            a Presbyterian church in New York describing the barbarities which
            the Turks practiced on their Christian subjects taking advantage of
            the war.

            Mr. Morgenthau stated: `While the attention of the world was absorbed
            in other things, the Turks felt that the time had come to strike.
            Political considerations prevented Germany and Austria from
            interfering with the outrages committed. Turks justify their conduct
            and the wholesale deportations on the ground of fear that the
            Armenians might revolt. As a matter of fact, they did not revolt in a
            single instance.'

            The report continues: `Mr. Morgenthau, who is giving a large amount
            of his time to the Armenian-Syrian Relief Committee, described the
            attempt of the Turks to annihilate the Armenian race. He mentioned
            the methods of extermination employed as follows: Requisitions,
            without payment, resulting in economic ruin; confiscation, forced
            exorbitant contributions and taxes; searches in Armenian houses for
            arms, but in reality, for purposes of pillage; beating to death;
            torture beyond imagination and too obscene to be related; forced
            conversions to Mohamedanism; massacres and deportations.'

            The Halifax Herald - Oct. 2, 1917.
            Rev. George E. White, president of Anatolia college recently returned
            to Canada. He described the following: `The slaughter with axes of
            all the Armenian faculty members of Anatolia College, Marsovan ...
            together with twelve hundred others, by Turkish peasants, whose pay
            for the work was the privilege of stripping the clothing of their
            victims' bodies ... The massacres were committed at night by order of
            the Turkish government, the Armenians being sent out in lots of one
            hundred and two hundred to their doom, and their bodies rolled into
            prepared burial trenches.'

            Christian Science Monitor - Nov. 5, 1917
            The report's headline states Turks Massacre Great Numbers of
            Armenians: Out of the 300,000 who left City of Sivas, only 5000
            arrived at Destination.

            `From Trebizond to Kermanshah, in Turkey, practically all the
            Armenians and Assyrians have been either deported or massacred, the
            deported population being sent to Mesopotamia, the destination the
            Turks had chosen, according to a statement made by E.W. MacCallum,
            chairman of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief's
            Caucasus Branch, whose headquarters were in Tiflis.'

            MacCallum is quoted saying: `Out of the 300,000 Armenians who started
            from the city of Sivas, moved by Turkish force, only 5000 arrived at
            their destination. The other 295,000 were either massacred or, in the
            cases of women and girls, taken by the Turks and Kurds for their
            harems or some other hiding places.'

            He continued: `The Armenians of Trebizond were taken in boats, on the
            pretense of conveying them to another port on the Black Sea, where
            they were all thrown overboard, the boats coming back empty in a few
            hours from a trip which takes days to make. Children were put in
            sacks and then the sacks were sewn up and thrown into the sea. This
            is not a story concocted for a purpose. We have the testimony of the
            American and Italian consuls of Trebizond to confirm it ...'

            The New York Times - March 4, 1918.
            A special cable to the paper reads: `The Copenhagen correspondent of
            the Exchange Telegraph Company says that information has been
            received there that Turkish soldiers have committed new massacres in
            the district of Armenia which has been deserted by the Russians.'

            The Times - March 8, 1918
            Reports have reached London that all Armenian males were put to the
            sword. `At Samsun, on the Black Sea, every Armenian male - man, boy,
            or baby - has been put to the sword, while similar atrocities are
            being perpetrated in towns and village.'

            The Times - May 25, 1918.
            Armenians saved by Arabs, reads the title. As the Arabs of the Hedjaz
            joined the British forces, many Armenians who were deported by the
            Turks were rescued. On the receipt of this news, Boghos Nubar Pasha
            sent the following telegram to Emir Feisal, the Commander of the
            Northern Meccan Army and a son of the King of Hedjaz:

            `To the noble-born Emir Feisal. - We have just learned of the rescue
            of our unfortunate fellow-countrymen through the efforts of your
            gallant troops in Southern Syria. May God bless and prosper the
            progress of your arms. The chivalrous act of the noble Moslems who
            fight under your banners adds fresh luster to the annals of the Arab
            race. Every Armenian throughout the world is today an ally of the
            Arab movement: the praises of your clemency and the justice of your
            cause shall be known wherever we can make our voices heard.'

            To this telegram, the King of the Hedjaz sent the following reply:

            `Your kind message to Feisal, of which I have heard, is a proof of
            good will and affection. We pray God to make us worthy of your kind
            thoughts. Feisal in assisting the oppressed has only performed one of
            the first duties of our religion and of Arabs' faith. I say with
            confidence and pride that the Armenian race and other races in
            similar plight are regarded by us as partners in our fortunes in weal
            and woe. We ask God before everything to give us strength to enable
            us to do them helpful service by which to prove to the world the true
            feelings of Islam, whose watchword is freedom. May God preserve you
            in health and bring desires to a successful attainment by His help
            and favour.'
            General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

            Comment


            • #7
              cont. 7

              THE POST-WAR PERIOD

              The Great War ended with the signing of the armistice on November 11,
              1918. Yet the massacres of the Armenians and other Christian
              minorities in Turkey continued. Reports coming out of Constantinople
              confirmed that Mustapha Kemal and his nationalists continued what
              their predecessors had started. They were determined to end the
              `minority question' by wiping out the minority.

              The New York Times - Nov. 25, 1918.
              According to a dispatch by the Associated Press, Enver Pasha's
              brother Nouffi Pasha resumes the massacres. `Attacks on the Armenians
              have been resumed in the district of Erzbeidjan [Azerbaijan], on the
              border of the Caucasus, by Turkish troops under the leadership of
              Nouffi Pasha, brother of Enver Pasha, former Minister of War. Nouffi
              Pasha declares that he is outside the authority of the present
              Constantinople Government, and that he has been delegated by the
              Moslems of the district to suppress the revolt of the Armenians.'

              Christian Science Monitor - Dec. 28, 1918.
              Reports reaching Washington, DC, claim that the Turkish Government
              has decided to court-martial all those who were responsible for the
              Armenian massacres. However, most of them have fled the country with
              Enver and Jemal Pashas.

              Toronto Daily Star - Jan. 29, 1919.
              Turks again slay 20,000 Armenians, this time in Baku and the
              surrounding regions. `Large bodies of Turkish troops are reported to
              have joined Tartar bands and are attacking Armenian villages. It is
              feared that still another chapter of atrocities will be added to the
              Turkish record before the allies are able to relieve the beleaguered
              Armenian towns.'

              Toronto Daily Star - Feb. 11, 1919.
              Canadian missionary Rev. L.W. Pierce and his wife reach Toronto from
              Turkey and tell of horrible tales that they have witnessed and
              experienced. `For 150 miles we traveled through a lane of dead
              Armenians. Men, women and children lay by the roadside decapitated,
              and otherwise mutilated. Some were sitting up as in life, but when we
              drew near, we found they had sat down on the roadside and died from
              the ravages of typhus ...'

              `One man had his brains knocked out before us as we went, a babe in
              arms was dragged from its mother's breast and thrown into a boiling
              caldron. Other children were caught by the heels and swung around ...
              and thrown far into the river ...'

              The Halifax Herald - April 18, 1919.
              The headline says Starving Women and Children Are Turned Loose By the
              Turks: Thousands are wandering about the country utterly destitute,
              some crazed from hunger and exposure. According to dispatches from
              Constantinople, these women and children were being released from
              Turkish harems in Asia Minor. One of the dispatches says: `Under
              normal conditions this would be glad news indeed, but with members of
              their families killed or deported in most instances and the remaining
              people reduced to the severest poverty, it will be impossible for the
              Armenians themselves to find shelter, clothing and food for hundreds
              of thousands of children and tens of thousands of women thus thrust
              upon them suddenly.'

              The New York Times - April 19, 1919.
              The murder of the Armenians is continuing. John H. Finley,
              Commissioner for the Red Cross for Palestine, who has just returned
              from a trip to the Near East states the following: `Throughout Asia
              Minor, beyond the points to which the British and French troops have
              advanced, the Armenians are still being persecuted by the Turks. The
              fact that the armistice has been signed makes no difference. In one
              way or another, by individuals and by groups, Armenians are being
              killed. I know of one case where 100 Armenians were slaughtered, and
              another where forty were shot down - all of this since the armistice
              was signed.

              The Washington Post - July 30, 1919.
              In Berlin, the German paper Tageblatt prints extracts from a book
              based upon diplomatic documents which the Foreign Ministry had
              commissioned John Lepsius to write. `The writer shows that the
              Turkish Committee of Union and Progress deliberately decided to
              realize national ideas by assimilating or destroying the Armenians,
              who in Turkey number about 1,850,000. He described the arrest and
              massacre of 600 Armenian leaders in April 1915, and how the previous
              so-called `Armenian rising' was provoked as a pretext for Young
              Turks' schemes.'

              The Halifax Herald - Sept. 18, 1919.
              `The Turks have resumed their attacks upon the Armenians, and the
              very existence of the nation is in danger.'

              Christian Science Monitor - Feb 16, 1920.
              Reports confirming the fresh massacre of Armenians reach London. Rev.
              Charles Boxton, the representative of the Lord Mayor's Armenian
              refugee fund, writes from Constantinople `confirming the massacre of
              1500 Armenians at the end of January, near Marash, in Cilicia, by
              Nationalist bands.

              Chicago Daily Tribune - Feb 17, 1920.
              A brief report reads the following: `Seven thousand Armenians have
              been massacred in Cilicia in a new attack by Mustapha Kemal's Turkish
              and Kurdish troops, which is still in progress.'

              Toronto Daily Star - April 21, 1920.
              The headline says Turks Still Slaying Helpless Armenians. Edgar A.
              Mowrer, a correspondent, writes the following: `The Turkish
              Nationalists in Cilicia are continuing to massacre Armenians ...'

              The New York Times - June 12, 1920
              The headline is explains the grave situation: Armenia Faces Butchers
              Anarmed: Only aid from Allies or America can save her, says Sir
              Philip Gibbs. The Subtitle continues: Turks Vow Extermination - `The
              West may make Armenia free,' they say; `We will make it a desert.'

              Christian Science Monitor - Oct 25, 1921
              The Constantinople correspondent of the paper writes: `Mustapha Kemal
              Pasha, remaining faithful to favorite Turkish methods, is now
              systematically carrying on the destructive processes of deportation,
              looting and massacre. Numerous reports reaching the Armenian and
              Greek Patriarchates in Constantinople reveal the tremendous
              destructive work done by the Kemalists. To escape future
              responsibilities, Mustapha Kemal has organized various lawless bands
              to strike the Christians ...'


              The papers continued reporting about new massacres perpetrated
              against the Armenians, Greeks and other Christian minorities. In
              fact, the next large-scale massacre was in Smyrna in September of
              1922 when the Turks under Mustapha Kemal massacred the Armenian and
              Greek population of that city, and destroyed it completely, leaving
              60,000 homeless. Although it had been almost 4 years since the end of
              the War, Turks continued implementing their plans to exterminate the
              Christian population under the watchful eyes of the western world.

              The Halifax Herald - Sept. 16, 1922.
              Smyrna is burning. Sixty thousand Armenians and Greeks are left
              homeless. Apparently, `the Kemalists deliberately set the city on
              fire in order to evacuate the entire Christian population, thereby
              relieving the Turks altogether of the problem of minorities in
              Anatolia ...'

              The Los Angeles Times - Sept. 16, 1922
              The horrors in Smyrna describe the `savagery of the Turks.' Both the
              Greek and Armenian citizens in that district are being massacred as a
              great number of them `were shot in masses on Turkish galleys.' The
              Associated Press cable also mentions that the Greek metropolitan was
              executed and the Armenian archbishop killed. `The details of the
              savages of the Turks passes all imagination. An American woman is
              said to have seen the bodies of women who had been killed by sword
              thrusts through their bodies.'

              The Halifax Herald - Sept. 18, 1922.
              Smyrna: Vast Sepulchre of Human Ashes reads the headline. `Only the
              shattered walls of 25,000 homes and the charred bodies of countless
              victims remain to tell the story of death and destruction unexampled
              in modern history ... Every building in the Armenian quarter has been
              burned, with the dead lying about ... `


              Following these atrocities, in December of 1922, the League of
              Nations tried to find a solution for the minorities living in Turkey.
              There was a plan drawn by the victorious powers for an independent
              Armenia. However, during the Lausanne meeting, Ismet Pasha, head of
              the Turkish delegation, adamantly refused to even discuss the
              `Armenian question,' claiming that any discussion of the minorities
              in Turkey would mean interference in Turkey's internal affairs by the
              League of Nations. He even declared that `the Armenians brought the
              massacres on themselves.'

              Lord Curzon, the head of the British delegation at Lausanne, demanded
              that Ismet Pasha explain what he meant by his accusations against the
              League of Nations. But what is more interesting in Lord Curzon's
              speech, reported by the majority of the press, is his defense of the
              Armenian people. He found it difficult to understand Ismet Pasha's
              statements that Turkey had given fair treatment to the minorities
              `with the fact that of the three million Armenians formerly resident
              in Anatolia, only 130,000 remained.'

              He then raised the following questions: `Did they kill themselves or
              did they voluntarily leave Anatolia? Why were the French troops
              leaving Anatolia followed by 80,000 Armenians, who deserted
              everything they had? Why are there hundreds of thousands of these
              miserable Armenians scattered over the neighboring countries? Why do
              they stay there if all they have to do is to return to Turkey and be
              embraced by the Turkish government? Why is the Armenian question one
              of the greatest scandals of the world?'

              Lord Curzon continued: `It is easy for the Turks to offer to live
              peacefully with a minority that has been reduced to a miserable
              handful, but the eyes of the world are upon the Armenians and Turkey
              and the world will not be content that the remnant of these wretched
              people be left without protection other than what Turkey may be
              pleased to accord.'

              Unfortunately for the persecuted people, these same powers -
              especially Great Britain and the United States of America - easily
              forgot those wretched Armenians. Their governments now dishonor their
              own past statesmen, diplomats and even citizens, whose only aim was
              to help humanity, by refusing to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and
              letting Turkey get away with the most atrocious crime of humanity,
              the `greatest scandal.' It is this impunity that has encouraged other
              nations to commit similar crimes against humanity. And the ones to be
              blamed more are those who claim to be defenders of humanity yet
              conveniently forget who the perpetrators of those crimes are. After
              all, those who deny a crime - a crime amply recorded in their own
              governmental archives - can only be called accomplices in the crime.

              Although successive Turkish governments and Turkish historians have
              denied and continue to deny that there ever was genocide, or that the
              authorities had planned the extermination of the Armenians, the above
              sample of extracts from thousands of accounts reported by
              eyewitnesses, diplomats and missionaries confirm the opposite. The
              Turkish governments before, during and after World War One were
              responsible for the ongoing massacres perpetrated against the
              Armenians and the other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire.

              And although successive Turkish governments have claimed that the
              Armenians were only casualties of the War, just as the Turks were,
              the above reports only confirm the opposite: that even in peaceful
              times, the Armenian population was massacred in cold blood with the
              intention of wiping them out completely.

              Could all those who had reported the cruelties be wrong? Were all the
              American missionaries who witnessed, investigated and reported the
              massacres wrong? Was the American Ambassador to Turkey, Mr. Henry
              Morgenthau, together with his consuls stationed in the different
              parts of Turkey, lying or making up stories? Were the British,
              French, Italian, German, Russian and other diplomats all wrong? Or
              were all the correspondents who reported from the scenes of the
              crimes all imagining the bloodshed? Of course, we shouldn't forget
              the hundreds of international scholars who have since proven that
              what happened to the Armenians at the hands of the Turks is Genocide.

              Could all of them be wrong and Turkey, the perpetrator of the
              Genocide, be right?



              Sources:

              All New York Times reports were taken from Richard D. Kloian's
              compilation The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts from the American
              Press:1915-1922. Published by Heritage Publishing, California.

              The news items from The Halifax Herald were taken from Katia
              Peltekian's compilation The Heralding of the Armenian Genocide:
              Reports in the Halifax Herald 1894 - 1922. Published in Halifax,
              Canada, 2000.
              General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

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