Armenia: A Martyr Nation, by M. C. Gabrielian

A Historical Sketch of the Armenian People from Traditional Times to the Present Tragic Days

BY
M. C. GABRIELIAN

Author of
“The Armenians, or the People of Ararat,” “The Armenian Question and the Massacres of the Christians”

The history of Armenia is a history at once ancient, romantic, tragic and instructive. One of the peoples early mentioned in the Old Testament, the Armenians have maintained themselves for thousands of years, in a region close to the birthplace of mankind and associated historically with the greatest of the cataclysms which have afflicted the world, the Noahic Deluge. That God, in His providence, should have preserved them as a people through so many centuries and amidst such changeful circumstances of peace and war, joy and sorrow, suggests that the Nation has yet before it an important mission in connection with the destinies of Western Asia. The present great World Conflict has brought the Armenians through the persecutions and martyrdoms which they have endured from the cruel and heartless Turkish Government, very close to the hearts of Americans. They appeal to our people on the basis of race, for they are substantially Indo-Europeans; on the basis of faith, for they were the first of Christian Nations; and on the basis of Humanity, for their indescribable sufferings have evoked the sympathies of the world.

The author of the History of Armenia, as exhibited in this volume, the Reverend M. C. Gabrielian, M.D.,[Pg 6] is a native of Armenia, was first trained in the American Mission at Marsovan, Asia Minor, came to the United States in 1881, and completed his theological studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J., in 1888. He then took up a course of study at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and received in 1892 the degree of Doctor of Medicine. It gives me great pleasure to write this brief foreword to the History, congratulating the author upon the excellence of his work.

Book-writing is neither a profession nor a passion with me. But a former attempt, on a small scale, was so favorably received by the public, that I conceived the thought that a brief history of the Armenians, the first Christian Nation in the world, who have, for centuries, swelled the noble army of martyrs, would fill a gap that much needed filling.

Although born an Armenian, I am also an American by adoption and, having a deep conviction and a desire to “do my bit,” I thought I could probably better serve the cause of justice and humanity by devoting considerable space in setting forth in order the Turkish Government’s atrocities, both during the reign of Abdul Hamid and under the rule of the Young Turks, since that unhappy government became a tool in the hands of the intolerable German power. The rulers of Turkey, the Young Turks, have learned of late from their Prussian masters, both by precept and example, a barbaric tyranny which utterly surpasses that of their Mongol predecessors.

In order to make this volume of permanent value, I have endeavored to consult all available and authentic sources of information, both ancient and modern.

I prayerfully hope that this book will be the last to speak of the deplorable condition of the Armenian people; that the next writer will be able to describe the happy and prosperous state of the country and its people. For surely God in His good providence, has raised the mighty Nations in defence of the oppressed small ones to secure for them inalienable rights, protection, justice and liberty.

CHAPTER	PAGE
I. Armenia	17
Mohammedan Intolerance—Location and Boundary of Ancient Armenia—Divisions—Earliest Name—Mountains—Volcanic Action and Earthquakes—Mt. Ararat—The Garden of Eden—Beauty of Scenery—Rivers—Lakes—Altitude and Climate—Fertility—Flowers, Birds and Animals—Mines and Mineral Springs—Ancient and Modern Cities—Suffering under Turkish Rule—England’s Responsibility—Hope for a Bright Future.
II. The Armenians	37
Ancestry Traced to Scriptural Progenitor—Traditional Origin of Name—The First Battle for Liberty—Early Kings—Testimony from Cuneiform Inscriptions—Relation to Contemporaneous Nations—Babylonia—Assyria—The Medo-Persian Empire—Macedonia—Parthia—Names and Derivations—Tigranes the Great—Roman Ascendancy—Armenians Continued Struggle for Independence—The First Christian Prince.
III. The Religion of the Ancient Armenians	59
Primitive Religion a Pure Monotheism in Patriarchal Form—Abraham—Melchizadek—The Bible Not a Universal History—Human Tendency Toward Retrogression—Divine Aid Necessary for True Progress—Influence of Surrounding Nations—Assyrian Idolatry—The Pantheism of Babylon—Semitic Theological Conceptions—Zoroastrianism—The Magi—Armenia Affected by Grecian Polytheism but not by Roman Deification of Her Emperors.
IV. The Conversion of the Armenians	65
The Religious Condition of the World at the Time of Christ’s Birth—Christianity Carried to Armenia by Three of the Apostles—An Early Tradition of the Armenian Church—The King’s Decree that “Henceforth the Religion of Christ is the Religion of Armenia”—St. Gregory, “The Illuminator,” Ordained Bishop of Armenia—Idol Temples Pulled Down—Christian Training and Literatures—Translation of Old and New Testaments—Persian Oppression and Armenian Loyalty and Bravery—A Desperate Struggle—Address of the Armenian Commander-in-Chief—The Army of the Holy League—A Desertion—Confusion and Discouragement—A Hymn of High Resolve—Persian Conquest[Pg 10] and Oppression—Armenian Faithfulness to Principle—Terms of Peace Leading to an Edict of Toleration—A Period of Tranquillity.
V. Conflicting Forces	80
Changes Among the Nations—Division of Roman Empire—Constantinople—Political and Religious Facts—Unfortunate Misunderstanding between Greek and Armenian Christians—Persian Attitude—Persecution and Division—Rise and Spread of Mohammedanism—35,000 Armenian Captives—Saracen Policy of Cruelty—Armenia Humiliated, but not Crushed—Again Strong Independent Kingdom—A Period of Progress—Mongolian Tartar Tribes—A King Treacherously Dethroned—Turkish Cruelty—Armenians in Cappadocia and Cilicia—Reuben the First of Cilicia—The First Crusade—Attempt to Bring Armenian Church Under Control of Pope of Rome—Genghis Khan—Capture of Jerusalem from Crusaders—Capture of Constantinople by Crusaders—Ignominious Treatment of Christians—Christian Armenia Entirely Surrounded by Foes of Christianity—The Country Rendered Desert—An Opportunity for Victory through United Forces of Grecian and Armenian Christianity Lost—Resultant Suffering.
VI. The Armenian Church	102
Apostolic in Origin—National in Extent—Her Defense against Zoroastrianism—Oppressed by Mohammedans—Formalism in Greek Church—Roman Attempt at Subordination—The Election and Ordination of Armenian Bishops—Doctors of Theology—Customs of Armenian Church—Points of Difference between Armenian and Roman Churches—Church Councils and Their Decrees—Statement of Armenian Belief—Tribute to the Bible—Superiority of Armenian Translation—Greek Invasion—Saracen Desecration—Loyalty of Armenian Christians under Persecution.
VII. The Period of Subjection	117
The Armenians in Cilicia—Mongolian Invaders—Condition of Western Asia—Rise and Growth of Ottoman Power—The Standing Army—Compulsory Service of Conquered Christians—A Tax of Every Fifth Child—A Military Caste—Extent of Turkish Empire—Armenian Exiles—A New Calamity—Treachery and Cruelty—“The Lord of Asia”—Crossing the Bosphorus—The Turkish Capture of Constantinople—All Europe Filled with Consternation—Luther’s Hymn Containing Prayer for Deliverance—Divisions and Famine—God’s Purpose in Sparing Armenia—Bitterness between Turkish and Persian Mohammedans—Deportation of 25,000 Families—Comparative Rest for Eighty Years—Hope for Emancipation—Russia Offers Protection—Faithless to Promises—Russian Armies in Armenia.[Pg 11]
VIII. A General Survey	133
Armenians Compared to Jews, because of Persecution—Number of Armenians in Different Countries—Description of Armenian Village Life—Agricultural Methods and Implements—Patriarchal Life—Shepherds—Absence of Means of Transportation—Various Trades and Callings—Churches and Schools—“The Anglo-Saxons of the East”—Popular Prejudices against the Armenians—Armenian Boats—Armenian Commerce—Accumulation of Wealth—Jealousy of Turks—An Inscription from a Tomb—Armenian Constitution of 1860—The General Assembly—The Ecclesiastical Council—Revocation of Constitution in Turkish Armenia (Aug. 12, 1916)—The Armenians in Western Persia—Russia and the Armenians—The Armenians of the Aryan Race—Testimony of the Language—Armenian Literature—Catholic and Protestant Missionaries and Impetus to Education—Armenians in Schools and Colleges of the World—An Armenian Poem.
IX. The Reformed Church	153
Condition of Church which Needed Reformation—Roman Catholic Missionaries—Catholic Armenian Church—Effect upon Armenia of the European Reformation—Work of the British and Russian Bible Societies—American Missionaries—“An Oriental Melancthon”—Translation of New Testament into Armeno-Turkish—Need of Wise Leadership—Roman and Greek Opposition—Attitude of American Board of Foreign Missions—A Turkish Pledge Unkept—A Separate Organization—New Churches—Progress of the Reformation—Preaching Tours—Family Worship—A Seminary for Women—Anathemas upon the “Heretics”—The Crimean War—An Edict of Equality Rendered Null and Void—Continued Persecution—Growth of Evangelical Churches and Doctrine—Statistics of the Work for 1914.
X. Causes of Progress, and Hindrances	169
I. The Bible. Armenian Reverence for the Word of God—Translations—Co-operation between Bible Societies and Missionaries—Personal Experiences—A Refusal Turned to a Blessing in Disguise—“The Two Edged Sword”—Banishment by Turks, for Carrying a Scripture Test in Armenian. II. Education: Ancient Centers of Learning—Turkish Destruction—Activity of Armenian Press in Seventeenth Century—Work of the Enemies of Protestantism—Revival of Learning in 1835—The Seminary at Bebek—The English Language Proscribed—Discussion and Opposition—Armenians Going Abroad for College Training—Personal Mention of Men Who Had Excelled—The Advantages of General Culture—List of Native Colleges and Seminaries—Standing at Beginning of War. III. Christian Literature: Translation of Bible Followed by that of Other Books—The Mission[Pg 12] Press—A Means of Helping Students. IV. Medical Work: Limited Knowledge of Early Native Physicians—Meaning of Christ’s Commission—Mission Hospital Work at Beginning of War—Letter from Dr. Barton. Hindrances: Poverty of Protestant Communities—The Mohammedan Government.
XI. The Armenian Question	186
The Question Not a New One—Resistance of Zoroastrianism—Of Mohammedanism—Of Pagan-Mohammedanism—Turkish Misrule—“Tears of Armenia”—Cause of the Russo-Turkish War—“The Infidels Must be Killed”—Testimony of an Eye-witness—The Treaty of San Stefano (1878)—Promises of Reform—Anglo-Turkish Convention of Cypress—The Treaty of Berlin—England’s Contract with Turkey—Disturbance among Kurds—The Abandonment of the Cause of Justice—Arms Denied the Armenians, but Granted All Others—The Turkish “Court of Mockery”—Correspondence of the London Daily News—Revision of the Treaty of Berlin—England’s Responsibility—Statement of the Armenian Question—Turkish Disregard for Pledged Treaty—Indifference of Other Nations—An Instance of Cruelty—Simply One of Many—“A Revolutionary Poem.”
XII. The Gospel and the Koran	204
Growing Indications of Turkish Misrule—Underlying Causes—Teachings of Christ and of Mohammed Contrasted—The Attitudes of Each Toward Women—Toward Holiness—Toward Forms and Ceremonies—The Revival of Mohammedanism Means the Suppression of All Other Religions—The Sword of the Prophet—Choice of Islam, Slavery or Death—A Mohammedan Prayer—Impossible for a Mohammedan to Keep Promises—War on All Infidels, Commanded—Subjugation of a Jewish Colony—Division of the Spoils.
XIII. Massacre of the Christians	212
Faithfulness, at What Cost?—The Greek Revolution—In the Island of Chios—An Explorer’s Description of an Assault—Massacre in Syria in 1860—Scenes in Damascus—Letter from American Consul-General—Correspondence in London Times—Testimony of American Missionaries—A Noted Change of Sentiment—Sultan Abdul Hamid—A False Accusation—Condoning Injustice—An Armenian Revolution Impossible and Absurd—Kurdish Chiefs Armed for Suppression—A Medical Missionary’s Letter—Who Posted the Placards?—Two College Professors Unjustly Imprisoned—Moslem Mobs in Possession of Cæsarea—Official Reports of Turkish Outrages—Rev. Father Endeavor Clark’s Experiences—So-called “Agitators”—Result of Trial—Why Their Anchors Could Not be Lifted—Enquiry in the English[Pg 13] House of Commons—Memorial Sent by the Society of Friends to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—Reply to Memorial A Difference of Opinion.
XIV. The Massacre at Sassoun	235
Location and People of Sassoun—Vexatious Conditions—Self-defense Miscalled Insurrection—A Cruel Order—Harrowing Details of Massacre—An “Agitator’s” Appeal to the Sultan and Reward for Service Rendered—England’s Position—Armenian Mothers—Turkish Attempt to Conceal Facts—Denial of Truthfulness of Report of British Vice-Consul—Mohammedanism and Barbarism—Sultan’s Refusal to Receive President Cleveland’s Appointed Representation of the U. S.—The Sultan’s Commission and Its Work—How the Result was Received by Other Nations—A Humiliating Failure—Address of Hon. W. E. Gladstone—Rupture between Turkish and European Commissioners—Report of European Delegates—A Just Request Refused.
XV. The Massacres of 1895-6	250
A Scheme of Reform Presented by the British, French, and Russian Governments—The Sultan’s Promise—Unfulfilled—Abdul Hamid II—The Truth about Armenia—Biased Statements of the German Press—Turkey’s Uncertainty as to the Action of the Powers, an Encouragement to Her Misrule—Refusal to Receive an Armenian Petition—Letter from an American Resident of Constantinople—Statistical Table of the Massacres of 1895-6—Summary—A War of Desolation—Pretense of “Suppressing a Revolution”—“Horrible Details of Butchery”—Churches Invaded and Burned—Indignities to Women and Girls—Many of Them Commit Suicide—A Daughter’s Sacrifice—Germany’s Friendship—Quotation from a German Paper—Dr. Lapsius’ Reply—More Statistics—Compulsory Conversions to Mohammedanism—Individual Instances of Faithfulness—Faithfulness to Christ Reported as Obstinacy—At Cæsarea—Report of the British Vice-Consul—Work of Miss Corinna Shattuck—Other Missionaries Give Personal Experiences—Atrocities of Soldiers and Officers—England’s Professed Inability to Act—The Massacre at Constantinople—Plans Known to Turkish Government and Made Occasion of Outbreak—Persecution Following Worse in Its Effects than Massacre Itself—“Conduct of European Powers”—Result of a Disagreement—Germany Seeking Expansion—Emperor’s Tribute to Mohammedanism.
XVI. The Revolution and Massacres at Adana, 1908-9	282
The Enemies of the Sultan—Demand for the Restoration of the Constitution—Abdul Hamid’s Insincere Acquiescence—Joy of the People—Instigation to Mutiny—The Night of April 13, 1909—Character of the Sultan’s Success—The Young Turks Take[Pg 14] Possession of the Palace of the Sultan—Abdul Hamid Sent into Exile—Mohammedan Massacre of Christians—Disease and Starvation Follow in Wake of Murder—Letter from Wife of British Consul of Adana—Kessab—Testimony of President of St. Paul’s Institute at Tarsus—Turkish Determination to Annihilate the Armenians—“The Armenian Question” a One Sided One—Under Mohammedan Rule Reform Impossible.
XVII. The Reign of the Young Turk	290
Mohammed V.—Divisions of Empire for Administrative Purposes—Troublesome Times for the Young Turks—Surrounding Peoples—The Bosnians and Servians—Austro-Hungarians—The Bulgarian’s Declaration of Independence—Turco-Italian War—The First Balkan War and Its Results—Second Balkan War—Reverses of the Young Turks—Plan to Use Armenians to Instigate a Revolt—Offers of Reward Refused—Modified Demands on the Armenians—Still Refused—A Peaceful Endeavor.
XVIII. The Massacres of 1915-16	298
Why the Young Turks Declared War—Reasons for the Beginning of the Massacres—A Draft of Armenians with the Army—Disarmed and Made to Work on the Roads—Turkish Proclamation of “A Holy War”—A Holy War Explained—Proclamation Favorably Received by Mohammedans Everywhere—Suffering Syrian Christians—“A Price on Every Christian Head”—Consequences—Letter from a Medical Missionary—Heart-rending Scenes—A Catholic Priest Who Refuses to Confess Mohammed as God’s Prophet and His Fate—Report of Dr. Vanneman—Urumia—Native Christian Preachers Crucified—Inhabitants of Van Resist—Timely Arrival of Russian Forces—Succor only Temporary—Turks and Kurds Return—“Suppressing Armenian Rebellion”—Turkish Treachery—Scenes along the Road—Christians Held in Prison and then Slain—Atrocities Miscalled “Justifiable and Necessary Measures”—Wholesale Drownings—“Turkey for the Turks”—Testimony of Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons—The Turks not Satisfied with Less than the Complete Extermination of all Who Oppose Mohammedanism.
XIX. The Deportations of 1915-16	316
Deportation and Its Consequences: Orders from Constantinople—German Influence—No Exceptions to be Made—Reasons for Scheme of Transportation—A Procession of Doomed Victims—Unparalleled Savagery—Character of Armenian People—Turks Encourage Armenian Organizations which, Later, They Brand as “Revolutionary”—“The Blackest Page in Modern History”—Five Hundred Men Imprisoned in an Armenian Church—Awaiting Orders to March into Exile—Allowed to Take[Pg 15] but Few Possessions—Searching Out Armenian Names—The Procession as Seen from a College Compound—A Hopeless Journey of a Thousand Miles—Forced to Abandon Food and Bedding on the Road—Uncertainty of the Fate of Loved Ones—The Minds of Some Become Unbalanced—Boys and Girls Sold to Mohammedans to be Reared in that Faith—Two Girls Sold for Eighty Cents—A Loyal Priest of Ninety—Women and Girls Carried off to an Unknown Fate—At the Euphrates River—A Faithful Teacher Accompanies Her School Girls on Their Way to Exile—Extracts from Her Letters—“Getting Accustomed to Being Robbed”—Exiles from Tocat—Men Tied Together for Execution Overtaking Those Who Had Fallen by the Way from Former Deportations—Not Allowed to Go Further—No Later Word from Her Companions—Dual Orders Issued from Constantinople: One to be Made Public, the Other to Deal with Armenians.
XX. Camps of Refuge, 1915-17	332
Physical Suffering Compared with the Deeper Anguish of Mind and Heart—Why the Young Turks Continued Their Barbarity—An American Missionary’s Experience—Martyrdom of First Christian Century Compared with Scenes in 1915—An American Woman’s Appeal Unheeded—Absurdity of Turkish Excuse—Inefficiency of Armenian Defense—Cilician Armenians Disarmed by Misrepresentation—Evacuated Homes Given to Mohammedan Refugees—More than 20,000 Armenians Forced to Emigrate from One Province—An Almost Miraculous Escape—“Christians in Distress. Rescue!”—The Third Stage of the Turk’s Plan of Extermination: “Agricultural Colonies”—Most Undesirable Sites Chosen—A Thousand Families with only Fifty Grown Men—Unwholesome Climatic Influences—Scenes in the Refugee Camps—American Embassy Refused Permission to Carry Help—The Sufferings of Shelterless Exiles—The Unburied Dead—Epidemic of Typhoid Fever—Exhausted Exiles Driven Forward at Point of Soldiers’ Bayonets—What a Missionary Saw—Distributing Bread to the Hungry—Children Sold to Prevent Starvation—580 Buried in One Day—A Town in the Desert—Instant Death Preferred to Long Suffering—A Protest from German Missionaries—Heart-rending Scenes—Massacres Still Going On—Late News—Present Conditions—Accessories to Turks’ Crime—U.S.A. Entering into the Conflict. Encouraging Signs—God rules.
Map	352

Through all this golden sunshine there peals a mournful cry,
Help, help us, or we perish—help, help us, or we die!
Our babes are begging wildly for one small crust of bread,
They faint, they die with hunger—is there a God o’erhead?

Oh, haste with friendly succor, we are starving while we wait,
To thousands sinking graveward your help may come too late;
Our gaunt forms totter feebly; our lips grow wan and white,
Oh, God, how hard it is to starve beneath a sky so bright!

Your hearths are crowned with plenty, your homes with blessings rife;
The scattered crumbs that strew your floor might save a human life;
Oh, can you hear, unmoved and calm, of all our bitter need,
Nor feel your quivering heart-strings with throbs of pity bleed?

Dear brethren, would ye follow Christ, our starving children save,
Keep back the shuddering feet that tread the margin of the grave;
Send on your bounty quickly, with timely comfort haste,
For human lives are ebbing out each moment that you waste.

Within the last few years Armenia has been attracting the attention of the civilized and Christian world. Those parts of Armenia, which were in the Turkish and Persian empires, have been turned by the devotees of the Mohammedan faith into altars upon which human sacrifices have been offered. Yea, not only the Turkish and Persian Armenia but also the whole of Asia Minor, and in fact every city, town, and village in the Turkish Empire where Armenians were found, the high priests and low priests of Islam were intensely engaged in the slaughter of the Christians as sacrifices acceptable to Allah. It is a lamentable fact that according to the teaching of Mohammed the severer the Mohammedan is to his unbelieving or non-Mohammedan neighbor the greater will be his reward, and the better his position in paradise.

It may not, therefore, be amiss if we say a few words about the original and ancestral home of the Armenians, whence they have been at times driven and scattered throughout the Mohammedan dominions and have become the victims of cruelty and massacre for ages.

Armenia lies directly north of Mesopotamia. It is bounded on the north by the Caucasian Mountains, on the south by the Mesopotamian plains, on the east it extends to the Caspian Sea and Media and on the west to the Black Sea and Asia Minor.[1]

Its boundaries varied at different times. According to the native historians, the country reached its greatest extent under the reigns of the Kings Aram and Tigranes II. The former is mentioned by the Assyrian kings, the latter was well-known in the first century B.C. “It (Armenia) varied in extent at different epochs, but it may be regarded as lying between lat. 36° 50´ and 41° 41´ N., and lon. 36° 20´ and 48° 40´ E.” It must have been between six and seven hundred miles from east to west and from two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles from north to south.

The country of Armenia was divided into two main divisions, namely, Armenia Major and Armenia Minor, or the Greater and Less Armenia. Greater Armenia which comprised the larger part of the country extended from the eastern boundary to the Euphrates river, and Armenia Minor extended from the Euphrates to Asia Minor. This ancient river thus made a dividing line between the two main divisions of the country. Armenia Major was again divided into fifteen provinces.

Armenia is a highland from 4000 to 7000 feet above the level of the sea. Its surface is undulated[Pg 19] with beautiful dells and hills, with fertile valleys and forest covered mountains, with richly productive and extensive plains and pasture lands, and lofty snow capped mountains with glittering snowy peaks, piercing the clear blue sky.

The highest mountain of western Asia is situated at the center of Armenia. It is the Mount Masis of the natives, and Mount Ararat of the Europeans, and is of unsurpassed beauty, magnificence and grandeur. No traveler has ever yet seen it and not spoken of it with admiration. “The impression made by Ararat upon the mind of every one who has any sensibility of the stupendous works of the Creator, is wonderful and overpowering, and many a traveler of genius and taste has employed both the power of the pen and of the pencil in attempting to portray this impression, but the consciousness that no description, no representation can reach the sublimity of the object thus attempted to be depicted, must prove to the candid mind that whether we address the ear or eye, it is difficult to avoid the poetic in expression and exaggeration in form, and confine ourselves strictly within the bound of consistency and truth.

“Nothing can be more beautiful than its shape, more awful than its height. All the surrounding mountains sink into insignificance when compared to it. It is perfect in all its parts; no hard rugged features, no unnatural prominence; everything is in harmony, and all combined to render it one of the sublimest objects in nature.

“The fabric of Ararat composes an elliptic figure with an axis from northwest to southeast. The base plan measures about twenty-eight miles in length, and about twenty-three miles in width. The fabric is built up by two mountains. Greater Ararat (16,916 feet above the sea) and Little Ararat (12,840 feet above the sea). Their bases are contiguous at a level of 8800 feet, and their summits are seven miles apart. Both are due to eruptive volcanic action; but no eruption of Ararat is known to have occurred during the historical period, and the summit of the greater mountain presents all the appearance of a very ancient and much worndown volcano with a central chimney or vent, long since filled in.”[2]

From this central plateau, the highest mountain in Armenia, the land slopes down in all directions. On the south it inclines toward the Lake of Van and the plains of Mush; on the east toward the lower valley of Araxes, on the north to the middle valley of Araxes, and on the northeast and east toward the plains of Kars and Erzerum. “Along the line of the fortieth degree of latitude a succession of plains extend across the tableland, varying in their depression below the higher levels, watered by the Araxes and by the upper course of the western Euphrates, and each giving access to the other by natural passages. The first is the valley of the Araxes, with its narrower continuation westwards through the district between Kagyzman and Khorasan;[Pg 21] the second is the plain of Pasin; the third the plain of Erzerum. Yet while the plains of Pasin and Erzerum are situated respectively at an altitude of fifty-five hundred feet and fifty-seven hundred and fifty feet, the valley of the Araxes in the neighborhood of Erivan is only twenty-eight hundred feet above the sea. Both on the north and south of this considerable depression, even the plainer levels of the tableland attain the imposing altitude of seven thousand feet, while its surface has been uplifted by volcanic action into long and irregular convexities of mountain and hill and hummock.”[3]

Instances of earthquake are not uncommon but fortunately not very frequent. In the early part of the eleventh century of the Christian era, King John was frightened by an earthquake and an eclipse of the moon as forebodings of coming calamity upon his kingdom and capital Ani. It is believed by some that the isolation of the rock of Van itself might have been due to some violent earthquake in the remote past causing its present separation, from the heights adjacent on the east. “Several visitations (earthquake) of considerable severity have probably occurred during the historical period, thus we learn that in the year 1648 of the Christian era, one-half of the wall of the fortified city, as well as churches, mosques, and private houses were shattered by successive shocks, and fell to the ground.”[4]

In the beginning of the year of our Lord, 1840,[Pg 22] there stood the ancient village of Aicori (vineyards), happy and apparently sheltered in the shadow of the Armenian giant. Not far from the village at the foot of Mount Ararat were situated the old Monastery of St. James and its numerous buildings. But on the twentieth of June, a terrible earthquake shook the mighty mountain from its foundations. The avalanche, of rocks, earth, ice and snow from the mountain sides, rushed swiftly down upon the village and the monastery, the houses and buildings already tottering, crushed them and buried the inhabitants alive—about one thousand in number. The cities Nakhejevan and Erivan did not escape the calamity. In both of these cities also hundreds of houses were thrown down and thousands of lives were lost.

The following despatch will show that not only the sword and incendiary fire of the Turk has been pursuing the poor Armenian but even the elements of nature seem to militate against his mundane existence. May the good Lord save him from suffering in the hereafter!

Paris, May 17, 1891.—“The Dix-Neuvième Siècle states that commercial advices have been received at Marseilles from Trebizond to the effect that a new volcano has appeared in Armenia at the summit of Mount Minrod, in the district of Van, vomiting forth flames and lava. The villages at the base of the mountain have been destroyed, and many persons are said to have been killed or injured....”

The earliest name of Armenia appears to be Ararat; by that name it was known to the ancient[Pg 23] Hebrews, Babylonians and Assyrians. We are told, in connection with the Deluge, that when the waters of the flood subsided “the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” “The geography of Genesis starts from the north. It was on the mountains of Ararat or Armenia that the ark rested, and it was accordingly with this region of the world that our primitive chart begins.”[5]

It was generally—we might say universally—believed by all Christians, almost of all ages, before the days of the higher critics, that the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) was written by Moses. It is not improbable that when he composed or compiled the book of Genesis he was in possession of oral traditions and traditional documents, handed down to his time from these sources. It is one of these older written accounts which states that the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat. Another old tradition handed down and preserved in writing is that of another Moses. Moses of Khorene, the Armenian Herodotus, who states that this central part of Armenia was formerly called Ararat. The author of the Book of Genesis is accurate and precise in his knowledge of the fact that Ararat is the name of the country upon whose mountains the tempest-tossed vessel of the Patriarch rested. Whether his knowledge was due to Divine inspiration, or to a historical fact preserved and handed down to his time (it may be both), we cannot tell. But the accuracy of the statement, which stood the criticisms of centuries,[Pg 24] and especially this age of criticism, had a rightful claim to acceptance by all.

Ararat is also mentioned in three other books of the Old Testament, namely, II Kings 19:37, Isaiah 37:36, and Jeremiah 51:27. The first two passages are identical in import and speak of the escape of Adrammelech and Sharezer “into the land of Ararat” after having committed the crime of patricide. In the third passage, Jeremiah summons the forces of Armenia to join the Medes to overthrow Babylon in these words: “Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her (Babylon), call together against her the Kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashchenaz.... Prepare against her the nations with the Kings of the Medes.”

The following is from an inscription of Assur-Natsir-Pal the King of Assyria, and the date of his reign is assigned by Prof. Sayce from B.C. 883 to 858. “The cities of Khatu, Khotaru, Nistun, Irbidi ... the cities of Qurkhi which in sight of the mountains, of M’su, Arua and Arardhi, mighty mountains, are situated, I captured.” Professor Sayce remarks that “Arardhi seems to be the earliest form of Urardhu (of later Assyrian inscriptions), the Biblical Ararat.”[6]

The passages from the Bible and the Assyrian inscriptions show beyond doubt that Ararat was the earliest name of Armenia, and it was not the name[Pg 25] of a mountain; and that the ark of Noah rested upon “the mountains of” Ararat or Armenia.

The great rivers of western Asia take their origin from the highlands of Armenia. The river Acampsis of the ancients, identified by some with the Pison of the Bible, has its source southwest of Erzerum, it receives several other streams and with beautiful windings, flows into the Black Sea. About the Araxes, according to some the Gihon of the Bible, I find an interesting statement in an Armenian history: “Aramais (King of Armenia) built a city of hewn stone on a small eminence in the plain of Aragay, and near the bank of a river before mentioned, which had received the name of Gihon. The new city which afterwards became the capital of his kingdom, he called Armavir, after his name, and the name of the river he changed to Arax after his son Arast.” The river Araxes is fed and swollen by many streams, rivulets and brooks, which run from the sides of numerous glens, through picturesque ravines, and mingle with it. Its tortuous course irrigates the lands adjacent carrying great fertility, and finally joins the famous river Kur (Cyrus) and pours itself into the bosom of the Caspian Sea.

The other two great rivers of Armenia Major are the Euphrates and Tigris, whose identity with those mentioned in connection with the Garden of Eden is beyond doubt. Both of these rivers also take their origin in the highlands of Armenia. The Euphrates, whose springs are not very far from Mount Ararat (Masis of the Armenians) takes a westward course[Pg 26] along the Taurus mountain chain on the northern side of the mountain, runs north of Kharput, then turns westward, and about forty miles west of Kharput unites with the western branch of the Euphrates; near Malateah the river turns towards the southeast and nearly approaches the sources of the Tigris. From this point onward with a southeasterly course, these rivers flow and finally they unite and pour into the Persian Gulf. The students of the ancient Babylonian and Assyrian history and civilization need not to be told what fertility these rivers carried along their course through the Mesopotamian plain, and how, with numerous canals and channels, they irrigated the land of these great empires, and became the means of commercial intercourse with the neighboring nations.

Armenia’s claim to the possession of the Garden of Eden within her bosom ought not to be disputed. Indeed no other country has attempted to contend for this honor. Her natural beauty, salubrious climate, her exuberant fertility, the fragrance of her flowers, the variety of her singing birds, above all her mountainous bosom and overflowing rivers through which mighty waters run down on her mountain sides and fill the great channels, which fertilize the subjacent countries and replenish the two adjacent seas and distant ocean in the south; all these justify her claim, and render it almost a historical fact, that Armenia was the cradle of infant humanity. “Ancient traditions place the province of Eden in this highest portion of Armenia, anciently called Ararat;[Pg 27] and it appears to furnish all the conditions of the Mosaic narrative.[7] A distinguished writer, well-known in this country, who had the pleasure of looking from the top of Ararat over the countries around, makes the following remark: “Below and around including in this single view, seemed to lie the whole cradle of the human race, from Mesopotamia in the south to the great wall of Caucasus that covered the northern horizon, Mount Kaf, the boundary for so many ages of the civilized world. If it was indeed here that men set foot again on the unpeopled earth, one could imagine how the great dispersion went as the races spread themselves from these sacred heights along the courses of the great rivers down to the Black and Caspian Seas, and over the Assyrian plain to the shores of the Southern Ocean, whence they were wafted away to other continents and isles. No more imposing center of the earth could be imagined.”[8]

If variety makes beauty, Armenia furnishes such a variety, making her one of the most beautiful countries in the world; not only has she those gigantic mountains with their snow crowned heads, looking down upon the clouds that envelop their skirts while they mock at the air and the winds, not only has she hundreds of murmuring streams and rippling brooks, gliding along the sides of thousands of hills, which swell those kingly rivers and cause them to overflow their banks; but she has also some beautiful[Pg 28] lakes like jewels set in their respective caskets. The Sevan, which lies between the Araxes and the Kur (Cyrus), occupies the center of a fertile plain in the northern part of Armenia and is called “Sweet Lake,” in contradistinction to the others which are salt water lakes. The Lake Sevan is about thirty miles northeast of Erivan, and is in the Russian provinces of Armenia. The Lake Urmi, or Urumia, lies in the southern and southeastern part of the country, and is now in the Persian province of Armenia. These lakes and some others are surrounded by magnificent views, but Lake of Van, surpassing them in size, in importance and splendor, will attract us to linger with her a little longer.

The area of Lake Van is about fourteen hundred square miles, its surface is over five thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is embosomed in the center of a rich and verdant plain, and this in turn is encircled by an exceedingly beautiful, romantic, undulating mountain chain which culminates, on the north, in the sublime monarch of the mountains of western Asia, “The Armenian giant Mount Ararat.”

The beauty of Lake Van and its surroundings always did, and will more intensely enchant the poets and artists—who are more fortunate and enjoy the beauty of nature more than the rest of us. The following is the description of a distinguished explorer: “A range of low hills now separated us from the plain and lake of Van. We soon reached their crest and a landscape of surpassing beauty was before us. At our feet intensely blue and sparkling[Pg 29] in the rays of the sun, was the inland sea, with the sublime peak of the Subbon Dagh (mountain) mirrored in its transparent water. The city (of Van), with its castle crowned rock and its embattled walls and towers, lay embowered in orchards and gardens. To our right, a rugged snow-capped mountain opened midway into an amphitheater in which, amid lofty trees, stood the Armenian convent of Seven Churches. To the west of the lake was the Nimrod Dagh and the highlands nourishing the sources of the great rivers of Mesopotamia. The hills forming the foreground of our picture were carpeted with the brightest flowers, over which wandered the flocks, while the gaily dressed shepherds gathered around as we halted to contemplate the enchanting scene.”[9]

Many a scene like the above has enchanted the foreign traveler and inspired the native authors and poets, and caused the wandering, expatriated sons and daughters of Armenia to remember her former glory and splendor, now marred by the vicissitudes of the ages (especially under the iron heel of the Turkish tyranny), and in indescribable misery to weep, like the ancient Hebrew prophet “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.” (Lam. 3:48.)

It will be easily understood that the climate of Armenia cannot be mild in winter on account of the altitude of the country, which is from four thousand to seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. In general it is very healthful, but in winter the[Pg 30] cold is severe and lasts from the middle of October until the beginning of May. In the valleys the weather is mild and very pleasant. The summer is short but warm, especially in certain valleys, which are far away from the reach of the sea breeze, too much enclosed by high mountains and too deep for mountain air. “And while the climate of the city (Alexandropol) on the Arpa may compare with St. Lawrence in North America, that of Erivan resembles Palermo or Barcelona.”[10] The length of the winter should not mislead the reader for neither is it uniformly long, nor is the degree of cold the same all over the country.

The reader’s expectation of such a variety of climate, combined with a naturally fertile soil, of a rich production both in quality and in quantity is perfectly justifiable. Barley, cotton, tobacco, grapes and wheat are almost unexcelled in quality; although these are cultivated with very rude instruments and in very primitive ways. Almost all the fruits and vegetables raised in gardens, in this country, are in the list of the products of Armenia.

It is due to the natural fertility of the country, when we remember the fact that the land is not only very old, and, therefore, more or less, would necessarily decline in its productivity, but the method of cultivation itself is also very old, started, probably by Adam, Noah and their immediate descendants, compelled by the necessities of life.

In spite of ancient traditions, which locate the[Pg 31] Garden of Eden in Armenia, no explorer as yet has been able to discover it. Some signs and symptoms, however, seem still to linger in that unhappy land, even the curse of the flaming sword included.[11] The flowers of Armenia are some of these signs, though they grow wild and uncultivated, yet they are of rare beauty, fragrance and hue, and hardly are they known to the Europeans and Americans. They should surely give a paradisical aspect to the place and furnish the conditions of Eden.

The writer well remembers, while the snow had hardly melted away from the ground, going out into the fields with a missionary of his native city, who was eagerly digging up some of these flowers to send to his friends in England. “Some slight remains of Paradise are left even to our days, in the form of most lovely flowers, which I gathered on the very hill from whence the three rivers take their departure to their distant seas. Though one of them has a Latin scientific name, no plant of it has ever been in Europe, and by no manner of contrivance could we succeed in carrying one away. This most beautiful production was called in Latin Ravanea, or Philipea Coscinea, a parasite on absinthe or wormwood. This is the most beautiful flower conceivable, it is in the form of a lily, about nine to twelve inches long, including the stalk, the flower, the stalk and all the parts of it, resembles crimson velvet; it has no leaves, it is found on the side of the mountains near Erzerum, often in company with Morans Orientalis,[Pg 32] a remarkable kind of thistle, with flowers all up the stalk, looking and smelling like the honeysuckle. An iris, of a most beautiful flaming yellow, is found among the rocks and it, as well as all the more beautiful flowers, blooms in the spring soon after the melting of the snow.”[12]

We must not omit the mention of the singing birds of Armenia, for surely they must have performed a noble service by their melodious music in that great assembly of all creation, gathered to witness the nuptials of our innocent parents in their sinless state. Some of the descendants of Adam and Eve, who are still living in Armenia, have no other singers than the posterity of those, who sang for the first happy pair, while in the state of their innocency. The birds in general are numerous, belonging to various tribes “which” says the author, above quoted, “in thousands and millions would reward the toil of the sportsman and naturalist on the plains and mountains of the highlands of Armenia.”

Nothing was more delightful and amusing to the writer when a child, than to watch the armies of birds flying towards the north in the spring, or south in the autumn, in a grand array, led by a general as it were, until they were lost from sight in the clear and bright Oriental sky; and even now, it would give him no little delight were it possible, to retire into one of those quiet cottages in the vineyards or orchards of the east and listen to the most melodious anthems of those songsters, who were then,[Pg 33] it seems to him now, vying with one another to make their praises more acceptable to their Creator than do many of our noted singers in the magnificent churches and cathedrals of to-day.

The animals of Armenia—beside the human—are in general about the same as are found in the United States, though perhaps the domestic animals of Armenia, like cows, oxen, horses, mules and donkeys, sheep and goats, are a little smaller in size than are found in America. In olden times, the Armenian horses were as famous as are the Arabian horses now. “The rich pastures of Media and Armenia furnished excellent horses for the Medo-Persian Army.” (See Ezek. 27:14.)

There are some valuable mines in Armenia. Traces of old gold mines are found midway between Trebizond and Erzerum. Some even think that the locality of “Ophir,” from whence King Solomon fetched gold to decorate the temple at Jerusalem, was in this region. It may be interesting to some to repeat that the ancient river Acampsis, identified by some with the Pison of the Bible, “which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold,” does really run through this part of the country.[13]

There are rich silver and copper mines in the vicinity of Karpert (Harput), the copper mines alone yield 2,250,000 pounds annually. There are mines of sulphur, sulphurate of lead, antimony and silver. The mines of coal and iron are found in abundance, but[Pg 34] not in full use, those that are operated are very poorly done. There is a little town situated on one of the tributaries of western Euphrates, called Divrig, where the writer spent some time in the two-fold capacity of a teacher and preacher for the reformed Armenian Church, and he well remembers how the people used easily to avail themselves of the native masses of iron, with primitive skill, converting them into rude implements for farming or other purposes.

There are mineral springs, hot and cold, at various places, with their peculiar curative powers; they have become “Bethesdas” of the invalids, and are frequented like the places of pilgrimage, by those who suffer any ailment which may be amenable to treatment and who are able to repair to such restorative resorts. Rock salt and salt springs also abound in Armenia. They are especially inexhaustible in the vicinity of Moosh. A salt stream, whose springs are through and from the salt rocks, which would bring a good income in the hands of a wise government, unprofitably flows into, and mingles, with the waters of the Euphrates.

Some of the ancient and modern cities of Armenia still in existence are the following: Van, Amid—now Diarhekie—Palu, Malatia, Kars, Erzerum, Etchmeadsin, Erivan, Sivas, Karpert (Harput), Manazgherd, Bitles and Moosh. The following is a list of some of the ancient cities in ruins: Armanir, Ardashad, Valarshabad, Dicranagherd and Ani.

The largest part of Armenia until the present year[Pg 35] (1916) was under the Turkish rule. Since the spring of this year, the Russians have been occupying the country, and the fate of Armenia is still uncertain, but the hope and the prayer of all good people is that Armenia will be free from the yoke of the bloody Turk, whose reign in western Asia and in eastern Europe has been a curse to humanity in general and to the Armenians in particular.

The English traveler Sandys, who visited the Turkish empire nearly three centuries ago (about 1638) “has described with truth and eloquence the unhappy condition of the regions subject to the destructive despotism,” in the following words:

“These countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate, are now, through vice and ingratitude become the most deplorable spectacles of extreme misery. The wild beasts of mankind have broken in upon them, and rooted out all civility, and the pride of a stern, and barbarous tyrant, possessing the thrones of ancient dominions, who aims only at the height of greatness and sensuality hath reduced so great and goodly a part of the world to that lamentable distress and servitude under which it now faints and groans. Those rich lands at this present time remain waste and overgrown with bushes and receptacles of wild beasts, of thieves and murderers; large territories dispeopled or thinly inhabited; goodly cities made desolate, sumptuous buildings become ruins, glorious temples either subverted or prostituted to impiety; true religion discountenanced and opposed; all nobility extinguished; no light of learning permitted, no virtue cherished; violence and rapine exulting over all, and leaving no security, save an abject mind and unlooked on poverty.”

What would Mr. Sandys—this good Englishman—say if he were alive now and had seen what happened within the last hundred years; how these “wild beasts of mankind” again and again broke in upon the defenceless Christians, and the barbarous tyrants ordered their wholesale massacres; and how England protected and prolonged the lives of these wild beasts and barbarous tyrants over a hundred years; and how goodly cities have been made desolate and the ancient dominions have been turned into a veritable hell by the sword and the fire by these despots; and how England is now paying dearly for her past sins against humanity and Christianity for defending such a lowering faith, whose votaries defied Jesus to come and save His followers from the burning churches, after they had set fire to them to consume the helpless Christian men, women, and children who had fled thither for refuge from the sword? He would have said like others of his mold—England lacked men of Cromwell’s type.

The friends of Armenia still hope that she may have yet a bright future before her, when peace and tranquillity is restored; that she may yield, or contribute many valuable discoveries and manuscripts from the old monasteries and ruined churches and furnish a fuller knowledge of the history of the early Christian churches in the east; and that they may swell the band of missionaries of the cross and render good to her foes for the evil she has received for centuries.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Pliny agrees with the Armenian historians in bringing the eastern boundary to the Caspian Sea, and Herodotus makes Armenia to border on Cappadocia and Cilicia.

[2] Lynch, “Armenia, Travels and Studies”; Vol. I. pp. 197-8. London, 1901.

[3] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 146.

[4] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. II, p. 76.

[5] Sayce, “The Races of the Old Testament,” p. 44.

[6] Sayce, “Records of the Past,” Vol. II, p. 140.

[7] Van Lennep, “Bible Lands,” p. 21.

[8] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 298.

[9] Layard, “Nineveh and Babylon,” pp. 333-4.

[10] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 445.

[11] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 312.

[12] Curzon, “Armenia,” p. 117.

[13] Genesis 2:11.

It is generally accepted, even by the higher critics, that the present Armenians are descended from Togarmah of the Scriptures (Genesis 10:3). The traditions of the Armenians also happily agree with this. It was common in the olden times for the Armenian writers to call the people “the house of Togarmah,” as did also the prophet Ezekiel (27:14).

There is a happy agreement among the commentators on the subject of “Togarmah” or “the house of Togarmah,” all seeming to accept these words as representing the Armenians. Here we may adduce the statements of a few distinguished writers on this subject. “The third son of Gomer is Togarmah; the people descending from him is called the house of Togarmah—(Ezekiel 27:14)—where they are named after Javan, Tubel, and Meshech, as bringing horses and mules to the mart of Tyre; and 38:6, where it appears after Gomer as a component of the army of Gog. The Armenians regarded Thorgom (Togarmah), the father of Haick, as their ancestor; and even granting that the form of the name Thorgom was occasioned by Thorgama of the LXX[Pg 38] (Septuagint version), still the Armenian tradition is confirmed by Tilgarimmu being in the cuneiform inscription the name of a fortified town in the subsequent district of Melitem (Malatiah), on the southwestern boundary of Armenia.”[14] “TOGARMAH.” “The people thus designated are mentioned twice by Ezekiel: in the former passage as trading in the fairs of Tyre with horses and mules, in the latter as about to come with Gomer out of the north quarter against Palestine. Neither passage does much toward fixing a locality, but both agree with the hypothesis which has the support alike of etymology and of national tradition, that the people intended are the ancient inhabitants of Armenia. Grimm’s view that Togarmah is composed of two elements: Taka, which is in Sanskrit ‘tribe’ or ‘race,’ and Armah (Armenia), may well be accepted. The Armenian tradition which derived the Haikian race from Thorgon (m), as it can scarcely be a coincidence, must be regarded as having considerable value. Now, the existing Armenians, the legitimate descendants of those who occupied the country in the time of Ezekiel, speak a language which modern ethnologists pronounce to be decidedly Indo-European; and thus, so far the modern science confirms the Scriptural account.”[15]

This Armenian tradition which the great scholars say “must be regarded as having considerable value,” runs somewhat like the following: About 2300 B.C.,[Pg 39] Haig, the son of Togarmah, like the rest of the descendants of Noah, was in pursuit of a new home for himself and for his posterity, and had descended with the multitude into the country of Shinar. Here the people, for fear of another destructive flood, attempted to build a high tower, “the tower of Babel.” Haig and his sons distinguished themselves by wisdom and virtue in the erection of this tower; but Belus ambitious for supremacy, yea, even requiring homage to his image, became too repulsive to the virtuous Haig and his sons. Haig, therefore, left the plains of Shinar with his large family and turned back to the home of his nativity, the land of Ararat, in the vicinity of the Lake of Van.

Belus, on hearing that Haig had withdrawn from his authority, pursued him with a large force. Haig, on hearing of the purpose of Belus’ pursuit, mustered all the male members of his family who were able to fight, and all those who were willing to cast their lot with him and willingly put themselves under his authority, and he armed them as best he was able and set out to meet the enemy. He charged his little army to attack that part of the enemy’s force where Belus commanded in person. “For,” said he, “if we succeed in discomfiting that part the victory is ours; should we, however, be unsuccessful in our attempt let us never survive the misery and disgrace of a defeat, but rather perish, sword in hand, defending the best and dearest right of reasonable creatures—our liberty.” Then did the brave leader move on with his little force and encountered the[Pg 40] invaders. After a bloody conflict Belus fell by an arrow discharged at him by Haig. The army of Belus, soon after this, was dispersed. Thus the first battle for liberty the progenitor of the Armenians fought and won for himself and his posterity. The Armenians, therefore, call themselves after this hero Haigs and the country Haiasdan.

Haig, following the manner of the patriarchs, built many towns and villages and after a long and useful life, died in peace.

Haig was succeeded by his son Armenag—some think Armenia is named after this prince. The son of Armenag, whose name was Aramais, succeeded him. The son and successor of Aramais was Amasia, who, soon after the decease of his father took the lead of the government. According to our tradition it was this king who gave the name Masis, after himself, to that magnificent and huge mountain, now called Mount Ararat. After the death of his father Harmah ascended the throne.

Aram, about 1300 B.C.,[16] the son and successor of Harmah, towers among the kings of the first period of the Armenian history; he was, like King David, a great warrior and conqueror. He chased out the Babylonian and Median invaders, penetrated into the heart of Cappadocia, and the countries which he thus subjected to the west of the Euphrates composed the Armenia Minor.

After the long and glorious reign of Aram the country slowly came into a subordinate condition to[Pg 41] the Assyrian empire and though the kings of the Haikian dynasty continued to rule over Armenia, they were according to our traditional history much overshadowed when the southern empire was at the zenith of her glory.

The famous inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I, the king of Assyria (1110-1090 B.C.) throws some light on the condition of Armenia, and some of those districts which never knew subjection: “The lands of Laraus and Ammous, which from the days immemorial had not known subjection, like the flood of a deluge I overwhelmed. With their armies on the mountains of Aruma, I fought, and a destruction of them I made.... At the mountain of Aruma, a difficult district which for the passage of my chariots was not suited, I left the chariots, I took the lead of my soldiers.”

It is apparent from the discoveries of the cuneiform inscriptions, both in Armenia and in Assyria, and their decipherment by the modern scholars, that our ancient historians, who depended largely on traditions, were misled or mistaken with regard to the Assyrian supremacy over Armenia at this period—1100-626 B.C. Instead of Assyrian supremacy, a new dynasty had sprung up in the regions of Lake Van, north, west, and south of the lake, and become a worthy antagonist of the Assyrians. They had probably pushed the Haikian dynasty further north and northwest for a few centuries.

The following is a brief account of this period and dynasty: It may be interesting and also important[Pg 42] to state that the kings of this dynasty are known to the Assyrian monarchs as the kings of Urartu (Ararat) or Nairi, and in the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions, they are so named. Neither do they call themselves the kings of Urartu, but they designate themselves as the Kings of Nairi and Biainia.

They call themselves also the children of Khaldis, after their supreme God. Of late the modern writers call them Chaldians or Khaldians, but they are pleased to call themselves the children of Khaldis, and never Khaldians. They seem to have a sort of theocratic reign.

Following is a list of the kings of this dynasty; Arame—He has no inscriptions; he is known only through those of the Assyrian kings, in which he is styled the king of Urartu (Ararat). He was attacked in his capital, Arzaskum, by Shalmaneser II in 860 and again in 856 B.C.

1. Sarduris I—Son of Lutipris, was attacked by the general of Shalmaneser II in about 833 B.C. Called King of Urartu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

2. Ispuinis—Son of Sarduris, 825-812 B.C., mentioned in his own inscriptions, styled himself King of Nairi of Soura (Northern Syria), inhabiting the city of Dhuspas.

3. Menuas—Son of Ispuinis, “may be regarded as the founder of the original garden city of Van.” He calls himself the great King of Biania, inhabiting the city of Dhuspas (Van).

4. Argistis—his son—Numerous inscriptions of[Pg 43] his are found as far north as Alexandropol—He described his conquests of the Assyrians southeast of Lake Urumia. Lynch thinks “He was the founder of the City of Armanir in the valley of the Araxes.”

5. Sarduris II—Son of Argistis—His numerous inscriptions are scattered over a large area of the country as far as Malatia. He probably reigned from 754-727 B.C. He is called the King of Urardhu in the Assyrian inscriptions.

6. Rusas—his son. He has at least two important inscriptions. He came in contact with Sargon, the King of Assyria (722-705 B.C.)

7. Argistis II—Son of Rusas. The mention of this ruler in a Vannic text was discovered by Messrs. Beliek and Lehman in an inscription on a shield in the temple at Tobrak Kala, near Van; now in the British Museum.

8. Rusas II—The son of the above. He is mentioned on the shield above mentioned, and also in two new inscriptions found by Dr. Belek, in which it is told that he conquered the Hittites and Moschians. He was a contemporary of Esarhaddon of Assyria (681-668 B.C.).

9. Erimenas—He is mentioned in an inscription on the shield as the father of Rusas III.

10. Rusas III—He rebuilt the temple of Khaldis (god) on the Tobrak Kala. An inscription of this king has been found at Armauir.

11. Sarduris III—He is known through the Assyrian inscriptions as having sent an embassy an embassy to[Pg 44] Ashur-Bani-Pal for a treaty of peace, about 644 B.C.[17]

The succession of the kings of this dynasty has been recently corrected by inscriptions discovered by Drs. Belek and Lehmann. They put (1) Lutipris, (2) Sarduris I, (3) Arame, (4) Sarduris II.... They suppose a Sarduris II, the son of Arame, as the antagonist of Shalmaneser II, and suggest that Sarduris I was a contemporary of Ashur-Naser-Pal II (885-860 B.C.).

“The original capital of the land was named Arzashkun, and was situated in the valley of Araxes. The first kings mentioned in the inscription are Lutipris and Sarduris I, who were contemporary with Ashur-Naser-Pal (885-860 B.C.). In the account of the sweeping operations from end to end of the northern regions, which marked the beginning and end of that great warrior’s reign, no mention is made of Sarduris, but it is more than probable that he felt the weight of Ashur-Naser-Pal’s arm. Shalmaneser II is the first Assyrian king who states that he came into actual hostile contact with Urartu, whose king was Arame. In 860, 857, and 845 Shalmaneser ravaged Arame’s country and finally destroyed Arzashkun. Later, when Sarduris II had succeeded Arame, the Assyrian turtan (general) Ashurdayan attacked (in 833 and 829 B.C.). Ten years later again the turtan of Shamshi-Adod led an expedition against Ishpuinis, the successor of Sarduris II. These successive attacks seem to have strengthened rather than weakened the hardy mountain state, while the Assyrians gained no real advantage from them. In alliance, apparently, with Urartu, stood the Mannai, an Iranian folk of Median stock,[Pg 45] and Protomedes, to whom the name Madai properly belonged (it now first appears in history), in the country east of Lake Urmia.... Meanwhile Menuas, the son of Sarduris II, had extended the dominion of Urartu to the western shores of Lake Urmia. Argistis I, his son, conquered the whole of Kurdistan and Armenia as far west as Meled or Meleten (Malatia). The proximity of the territory of Urartu to the center of the Assyrian power now became directly dangerous to the empire.”[18]

It is more than probable that our esteemed reader’s patience has been taxed beyond measure by reading a history furnished by the Assyrian and Armenian inscriptions, but then hardy states, the kingdoms of Ararat have rendered a noble service to mankind by checking the Assyrian kings from doing more mischief in other parts of western Asia. Not infrequently these kings had to quit in the midst of their campaign in Syria, Palestine or in Asia Minor and run back to stop the avalanche coming down from the “Mountains of Aruma” to sweep the Assyrians down. With all their boasting, the Assyrian kings never conquered the kingdoms of Ararat.

“The great undertaking of the 4th year of the King’s reign was a campaign into the lands of Nairi. By this, the annals of Tiglathpileser I clearly mean the lands about the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, lying north, west and south of Lake Van.... One only of these twenty-three kings—Pierri, the king of Dayami (near Maleshgert)—refused to surrender as the others did but resisted to the last. He was therefore carried in chains to Assyria.... This episode in the[Pg 46] king’s conquests is concluded with the claim that the whole of the lands of Nairi were subdued, but later history shows clearly that further conquest was necessary.”[19]

Tiglathpileser IV, the king of Assyria, made several attempts (in 739, 736, 735 B.C.) to reduce the kingdoms of Ararat, but he completely failed to conquer them. The authority above quoted concludes the history of their campaigns in these words: “After some ineffectual fighting about the Capital (Van) Tiglathpileser raised the siege and departed. He had not succeeded in adding the kingdom of Urartu to Assyria.”[20]

According to Dr. Belek, the last work of the last king, Sarduris IV, of Ararat is written in the records of Ashurbanipal of Assyria (668-626 B.C.). Sarduris sent messengers, with presents and words of friendliness to the Assyrian king. Assyria had abandoned its attempts to wreck the kingdom of Ararat and the two powers now were friends. Some of the modern kings would have saved untold misery and millions of lives had they done likewise.

It is very probable that Aram of the Armenian historians, Aruma of Tiglath-Pileser I (1090 B.C.) and Arame of Shalmaneser II (860 B.C.) are the same name. Tiglath-Pileser may have used it as a certain district, for his expression would justify this supposition: “On the mountains of Aruma I fought.” And again: “At the mountain of Aruma, a difficult[Pg 47] district....”[21] No name of a king is mentioned at this date. But in the time of Shalmaneser’s invasion into Armenia (860 B.C.), we are distinctly told: “The inscription of Kurkh (twenty miles from Diarhekir) informs us that Shalmaneser had already, in the year of his accession, come in conflict with Arrame (or Arame, as the name is there written). After leaving the city of Khupuscia, in the land of Nahri, he had attacked Sugunia, a stronghold of Arame, ‘King of Urardlians,’ and there marched to the Sea of the land of Nahri; or Lake Van, where a figure of himself and a cuneiform inscription were engraved on the rack.”[22]

A probable hypothesis is that Aram of the Armenian historians, by his conquests and wise administration, had formed a dynasty, that the early Assyrians knew his country and some of his successors by his name, that Arame of the time of Shalmaneser may have been the last of that dynasty and on account of his reverses with the Assyrian King, his reign came to an end. The following quotation from Professor Sayce seems to confirm this view: “A more serious difficulty exists in the fact that Sarduris I calls himself the son of Lutipris, whereas the king of Uradhu, against whom Shalmaneser had to contend in 857 and 845 B.C., was Arame, and already, in 833 B.C., only twelve years later, his antagonist was Sarduris. It is, however, quite possible that the reign of Lutipris had been a short one of less than[Pg 48] twelve years. But I am more inclined to conjecture that Sarduris I was the leader of a new dynasty, the ill successes of Arame in his wars with Assyrians forming the occasion for his overthrow.” This conjecture also explains why the kings of this dynasty do not call themselves the kings of Ararat, and have no reference to Arame, while much Assyrianism exists in their culture.

In regard to the origin of Ararat, or Arardhi, it is certainly not a Semitic word, neither is it an Accadian, were it so, we would have been told. Moses of Khorene thought it was called Ara-ard, in reference to a defeat of Ara, the king of Armenia, in a bloody conflict with the Babylonians about eighteen centuries before our era. Another Armenian historian makes Arardhi to derive its name from King Ara, in honor of the king, it being composed of Ara and Ardh, “field” or “plain,” on account of his wise administration and the improvements which he made in the land.[23]

Brockhous’ definition and derivation of Arardhi is the most satisfactory of all, namely, Ar, in Sanskrit the root of “Aryan” or “nobles,” and ardh, in ancient Armenian the “plains” or “field,” thus Arardhi or Ararat meaning “the plains of nobles” or “Aryans.”[24]

The antiquity of the name of Ararat is not disputed. It first comes to our notice in the book of Genesis, as we have seen in connection with the[Pg 49] resting of the ark “upon the mountains of Ararat.” The book of Genesis is considered by the best critics to be the oldest book, or at least, having the oldest documents that compose the book in the Scriptures, and its authorship is assigned to Moses, who lived in the fifteenth century before the Christian era. Ararat was known as the name of Armenia even several centuries before the time of Moses. “An ancient bilingual tablet (W. A. I., II 48, 13) makes Urdhu the equivalent of tilla, the latter, as Sir H. Rawlinson long ago pointed out, being probably a semitic loan-word, and meaning “the highlands.” Tilla, the equivalent of Urdhu, usually signifies that land of Accad or northern Babylonia, but since it is not glossed in this passage, and stands, moreover, between Akharu or Palestine, and Kutu Kurdistan, it would seem that it is here employed to denote Armenia. Urardhu, therefore, contracted into Urdhu, would have been the designation of the highlands of Armenia among the Babylonians as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth century B.C.”[25]

We know that the Assyrians sprang out of the ancient Babylonian people; they were of the same blood and race. Assyria was colonized from Babylonia.[26] Thus, their early acquaintance with the highlands of Armenia, by the name of Urardhu, accounts for their calling the Kings of Armenia the kings of Urardhu or Ararat.

There has been a great deal of discussion among[Pg 50] the scholars as to whether these Vaunic kings and people belong to the Aryan race or not, and whether their language belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. The question may be considered still a debatable one, though the consensus of opinion of the modern writers is in the negative. Yet a man like the late Dr. Hincks, who was the first to begin the decipherment of the Vaunic inscriptions, has recorded his opinion in the following words: “I flatter myself, that those who read this paper will admit that I have made a beginning, and gone a considerable way in the decipherment and interpretation of a set of inscriptions, which, however slight may be their value in a historical point of view, are invaluable to the philologer, as being beyond all comparison the oldest specimens of the Asiatic branch of the Indo-Germanic family; nay, for aught we know to the contrary, they are more ancient than any Greek which has come down to us.”[27]

The name Armenia was differently spelled by the ancients. In the old Persian it is written Armina, and in the Armondian, Kharminya. It first appears in the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius Hystospis (522-486 B.C.), which supplanted the earlier name Arardu, or Ararat. According to the Armenian historians it is called after King Armenag, but according to others its origin is unknown. “It may be connected with the Vaunic word armeini-lio ‘a stele’ (monument), or with Arman, an Aramaean district south of Lake Van.”[28]

It must have been during the reign of Rusas II, the King of Ararat, that the sons of Sennacherib, Adrammelech and Shareser, after their assassination of their father, escaped into the land of Ararat or Armenia (see Isaiah 37:37-38). For we know that Rusas II was contemporary of Esar-haddon, Sennacherib’s son, who succeeded him (681-668 B.C.). The Armenian history makes Sgaiordi the king who welcomed the Assyrian princes in to his realm: probably it is a mistake.

Ashurbanipal was the last king of Assyria who had anything to do with the Kings of Ararat. As we have seen he made the treaty of peace with Sarduris III or IV, but his long reign (from 668-626 B.C.) was a period of gradual waning of the power of the vast empire. Babylon, hitherto a tributary of Assyria, became independent under Nabopolassar about 625 B.C., and by the aid of the King of Ararat and their ally, Nabopalassar succeeded in overthrowing the Assyrian empire, and about 607 B.C. Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, fell before Nabopolassar and his allies. The supremacy of the East was thus transferred to Babylon.

According to our history, Prince Baruir was an ally of Nabopalassar. It is not said that he was an ally when the latter established the independence of Babylon (though he might have been), but he was an ally when Nabopalassar finished the work of overthrowing the Assyrian empire. Thirty-seven years before the latter event Sarduris was the King of Ararat. There is a great probability that Baruir[Pg 52] of the Armenian history and Sarduris of the cuneiform inscription are either the same person, or Baruir is a successor of Sarduris, by the same name; and that the name Baruir is a misspelled form of Sarduris.[29] Again, the son and successor of Baruir (or Sarduris V) is called H’rasha or H’racha. It is surely more than probable that this is the name of Rusas of the inscriptions. I would not insist that he is Rusas III, who lived before Sarduis IV, but if Baruir is identical with Sarduris IV, or he is his successor, then is H’rasha his son and successor Rusas IV. He was a contemporary and an ally of Nebuchadnezzar, who succeeded his father Nabopolassar about 606 B.C.

H’racha, as the ally of Nebuchadnezzar, marched at the head of his forces with the Babylonian monarch against Syria and Palestine. On his return, he brought with him a small colony from Judea, mostly nobles,[30] among whom was a prince by the name of Shambat, whose posterity in the middle ages furnished the kings of Pagradit dynasty in Armenia.

Among the successors of H’racha, as the rulers of Armenia, Tigranes I is spoken of, by our historians, as really royal; wise in his administration of the affairs of the State and just in his dealings with the high and low. In the revolt of the Persians, and consequent defeat of Astyages (the Median King) and the Medes; which resulted in the accession of Cyrus to the throne of the united Medo-Persian[Pg 53] empire; Tigranes must have rendered some valuable service to the son of Cambyses. This may account for the great friendship that existed between these two worthy champions of human liberty.[31] And according to the summons of Prophet Jeremiah (51:27-28), the forces of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz joined the Medo-Persian army and accomplished the overthrow of the wicked empire of Babylonia (538 B.C.).

The descendants of Tigranes I maintained some sort of a tributary rule over the northeastern part of the country, but the major part of the country was ruled by the governors appointed by the Medo-Persian kings. Yet little as this tributary state was, judging by the references found in the Behistan inscriptions, revolts were not infrequent. The following is from Darius Hystaspis’ inscriptions (521-486 B.C.).

“... Afterwards I sent Dadarshesh the Armenian, he is my servant, I said to him, ‘go and crush that rebellious army, which revolts against.’ Dadarshesh went to subdue Armenia. The rebels fought against him, Ormazd came to my help. My army destroyed many of the enemy’s army.”

King Vahi was the last of the descendants of Tigranes I, who at the head of his army was fighting[Pg 54] with the Persian forces against the Macedonian invaders under Alexander the Great. King Vahi valiantly fought against the Grecian armies in defense of the rights of his people and country, and in the terrible conflict he fell (330 B.C.). From this time on the Macedonian rulers controlled all of Armenia, except a small district between the rivers Araxes and Kur in the remote northeastern mountain fastnesses. After the defeat of Antiochus the Great by the Romans, Armenia recovered her independence; it, however, did not last very long.

On the east and southeast of the Caspian Sea, a mountainous district is marked on the ancient maps of the east—Parthia. It is generally believed by the learned that the people who occupied this country and were called Parthians, were of Scythian origin, and that the word Parthian in the Scythian language means exile. They were nomadic in their habits, but noted horsemen and well skilled in handling the bow and arrow. They were patient in bearing the yoke under the Assyrian, Median, and Persian governments. After the conquests of Alexander the Great they shared the fate of their more enlightened and powerful neighbors; but even the Parthians could not stand any longer the miserable rule of the successors of the Macedonian king. They revolted against Antiochus II, in 256, and during the reign of Seleucus II, under the leadership of Arsaces, they established their complete independence (238 B.C.), and began to extend their dominions into the east, and west, and north and south.[Pg 55] Within less than a century, the Arsacide dynasty extended the boundaries of the Parthian empire from the Indus to the Euphrates and from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.

Arsaces VI, or the Great, appointed his brother Valarsaces king over Armenia (149 B.C.), and these two countries, governed by one reigning family, were in full sympathy and accord with each other and for a long time in a firm alliance, becoming worthy antagonists of the Romans, who were pushing eastward over the territories once subdued by Alexander the Great.

Among the successors of Valarsaces of the Arsacide dynasty of Armenia, Tigranes II, or the Great, immortalized himself, not only in the history of Armenia, but also in universal history. He had a long and glorious reign (98-36 B.C.). His name was the glory of his people, as it was also a terror to his foes. He extended his dominions from the Caucasian mountains to the Mesopotamian plains and from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.

“Tigranes (II) had hitherto been continually increasing in strength. By the defeat of Artunes, king of Sopheni or Armenia Minor, he had made himself master of Armenia in its widest extent; by his wars with Parthia herself, he had acquired Gordyene, or Northern Mesopotamia, and Adiabeni or the entire rich tract east of the middle Tigris (including Assyria proper and Arbelitis), as far, at any rate, as the course of the lower Zab; by means which are not stated, he had brought under subjection the king of the important country of Media Atropatene, independent since the time of Alexander.[Pg 56] Invited into Syria, about B.C. 83, by the wretched inhabitants, wearied with perpetual civil wars between the princes of the house of Seleucidae, he had found no difficulty in establishing himself as a king over Cilicia, Syria and most of Phœnicia. About B.C. 80, he had determined on building himself a new capital in the province of Gordieni, a capital of vast size, provided with all the luxuries required by an Oriental court, and fortified with a wall which recalled the glories of the ancient cities of Assyria.”[32]

This magnificent capital was called after him—Tigranaghert[33] (built by Tigranes).

Long before this time the Romans had been following the track of the Macedonian conqueror to snatch the fragments of his broken Eastern empire from his successors. But Tigranes the Great was like a great wall before their fast advance. Now he was dead. Still worse, there was not, as before, that firm alliance between the Parthians and Armenians, which had been the foundation of their stability. Had the Parthian and Armenian monarchs recognized the fact that Rome was a common enemy to both, and kept their alliance firm and unshaken by the intrigues and enticements of the Roman generals, and had encountered the common foe with their united forces, the Roman power would never have been able to make her appearance, or maintain it, in western Asia. However, whether with bravery[Pg 57] or treachery (we rather think with a combination of the two), the Romans pushed their way into that country.

Antony, the Roman general, in his expedition into Parthia entered into alliance with Artavasdes, the son and successor of Tigranes II, and he was allowed to attack Media through Armenia. Media was dependent on Parthia, at this time (35 B.C.). Ill success compelled him to retreat into Armenia and winter there. Meanwhile, the king of Media, having been provoked by the Parthians, and with the hope of a possible recovery of his country’s independence by the Roman aid, entered into an alliance with the Roman general. Antony, then desiring to reduce Armenia to a vassal state, by enticing Artavasdes to enter into his power, while the Roman legions were stationed at the most important posts in the country which had afforded them such a hospitable shelter during the severe winter, “he (Antony) professed the most friendly feeling towards Artavasdes, even promising an alliance between their families, that prince (Artavasdes), after some hesitation, at length entered into his presence. He was immediately seized and put in chains, and carried off Artavasdes and a rich bounty into Egypt.”[34]

Artavasdes was kept in prison for about two years and afterwards beheaded (30 B.C.). According to some his son recovered the country by the aid of the Parthians and was avenged for the wrong done to his father, by massacring all the perfidious Romans[Pg 58] found in the country. Armenia, after this, was for a long time in a perpetual turmoil, between the Romans on one side and the Parthians on the other. Almost a hundred years after the death of Ardashes II (21 B.C.-85 A.D.), the condition of the country was most deplorable. The internal dissensions among the nobility of the inhabitants, and the contentions of the Romans and Parthians externally, resulting in the clash of arms often between these two powers. Intrigues and assassinations among the princes and notables, fill the country with horror and the people with misery.

A fragment of the great empire of Tigranes II, the northwestern part of Mesopotamia was made a principality, the soldiers and the nobility made Artavasdes’ cousin, Arsham, king, under the protectorate of Rome (33-3 B.C.). The king made Edessa his capital. His son and successor was called Abgarus by the Assyrians. He was contemporary with Christ and was the first Christian Prince (3 B.C.-35 A.D.). In the north Ardashes (III) seems to have a stormy time for a while, but he had a long and useful reign (85-131 A.D.). His three sons successively succeeded him (131-193).

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Delitzsch, “Commentary on Genesis,” Vol. I, p. 310.

[15] Rawlinson, “The Origin of Nations,” p. 183.

[16] The dates of this traditional period are uncertain.

[17] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. II, pp. 71-76.

[18] Hall, “The Ancient History of the Near East,” pp. 458-9.

[19] Rogers, “History of Babylonia and Assyria,” Vol. II, pp. 171-2.

[20] Rogers, “History of Babylonia and Assyria,” Vol. II, pp. 284-5.

[21] See p. 41.

[22] Sayce, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XIV, p. 393.

[23] Chamich, “History of Armenia,” p. 22.

[24] Brockhous, “Lexico II,” p. 60.

[25] Sayce, “Cuneiform Inscriptions of Van,” Journal R.A.S., Vol. XIV, p. 392.

[26] Rogers, “History of Babylonia and Assyria,” Vol. I, pp. 455-6

[27] Hincks, Journal Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. IX, p. 422.

[28] Hastings’ “Dictionary of the Bible,” under the article Ararat.

[29] From Sarduris, by dropping d and by the exchange of B for S, we have Baruris or Baruros, vice versa.

[30] See II Kings, 24:11-16. This is the first captivity, about 597 B.C.

[31] This friendship between Cyrus and Tigranes furnished Xenophon with a fertile subject to expand his romantic genius. “And you, Tigranes,” said he (Cyrus), “at what rate would you purchase the regaining of your wife?” Now he happened to be but lately married and had a very great love for his wife. “Cyrus,” said he (Tigranes), “to save her from servitude, I would ransom her at the expense of my life.”

“Cyropædia,” Book III, Chapter I.

[32] Rawlinson, “The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,” pp. 140-1.

[33] According to Strabo, 12 Greek cities were depopulated to furnish Tigrancerta with inhabitants (XI, 14 Sect. 15). According to Appean 300,000 Cappadocians were translated thither (Methrice, page 216 C). Plutarch speaks of the population as having been drawn from Cilicin, Cappadocia, Gordyene, Assyria and Adeabeni (Lucu, 11 26).

[34] Rawlinson, “The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy,” XIII, p. 206.

“And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord.” Gen. 9:20. “Our earth owes the seeds of all higher culture to religious traditions, whether literary or oral.”—Herdee.

The Bible, modern scholarship and Armenian traditions agree that the ark of Noah rested “upon the mountains of Ararat,” or Armenia. We learn from the Bible, that Noah came out of the ark and all those that were with him, and he builded an altar unto the Lord “and offered burnt offerings on the Altar.” This fact justifies Armenia’s claim to be the first country where a true and pure divine worship was again practised after the Deluge. The tradition of the Armenians coincides with the truth revealed in the Bible and with the results of modern scholarship, that the primitive religion of mankind was a pure and simple monotheism, in form patriarchal. Prof. Max Müller of Oxford, England, says “Religion is not a new invention. It is, if not as old as the world, at least as old as the world we know. As soon almost as we know anything of the[Pg 60] thoughts and feelings of man, we find him in possession of religion, or rather possessed by religion.”

The Bible furnishes sufficient facts to assert that this pure monotheism in its patriarchal form was perpetuated among the immediate descendants of Noah, and later especially in the line of Abraham. Many centuries after the building of the first altar unto the Lord we find Abraham called by Jehovah out of his country and from his people to become the head of a nation through whom the knowledge of the only one true God should be perpetrated. God’s call of Abraham was not for the purpose of making a true worshiper of him, but that through him the true worship of Jehovah might be perpetuated. The Lord said “I will make of thee a great nation.”

Another example of the true worshiper of God in the time of Abraham was Melchizedek (King of righteousness), King of Salem (peace), “who was the high priest of the most high God.”[35] Melchizedek was not only a monotheist, but also the priest of a monotheistic faith. He reigned over his people on whose behalf he officiated as the high priest of the most high God. Now, therefore, it ought to be admitted that not only solitary individuals, like Abraham and Melchizidek, but the people of the latter also were true worshipers of God.

The Bible is not a universal history of mankind. Were it so, well might we have expected it to mention other nations and their early religious beliefs; though what little it incidentally states in regard to[Pg 61] them is marvelously accurate. The Armenian tradition that their primitive religion was monotheism, therefore, is neither incredible nor inconceivable, but on the contrary, it is most probable and is supported by the analogy of the Bible record.

The investigations of modern scholarship maintain the idea and render it almost a moral demonstration that the primitive religions of the ancient nations were of a monotheistic type or if not a pure monotheism, at least not very far from it. Prof. Max Müller, in his lectures on the “Origin and Growth of Religion,” says: “The Ancient Aryans felt from the beginning, aye, it may be more in the beginning than afterwards, the presence of a Beyond[36] of an Infinite, of a Divine, or whatever else we may call it now; and they tried to grasp and comprehend it, as we all do, by giving to it name after name.” It is conceded by the scholars that the ancient Armenians were closely connected with the ancient Aryans (See Chap. II), indeed that they were Aryans, and their legitimate descendants now speak a language which modern ethnologists decidedly pronounce to belong to Aryan or Indo-Germanic origin. Although we do not know when the separation of the Aryans took place, we can safely say that the above statement[Pg 62] of Prof. Max Müller is also perfectly applicable to the ancient Armenians; yet we are not able to say how long such a purity of faith prevailed in Armenia.

The human mind is capable of progress, but when it is left to itself is sure to retrograde and degenerate. This is verified in the case of almost all nations and in the history of all the religions of the world. “That religion is liable to corruption is surely seen again and again. In one sense the history of most religions might be called a slow corruption of their primitive purity.” Divine aid, especially in religion, is therefore absolutely necessary for a true progress. Armenia left to herself fell into a gross form of idolatry. Her fall must have been hastened, if not caused, by her idolatrous neighbors, the Babylonians and Assyrians. For the idolatry which we find in the early history of the country is decidedly like that of Assyro-Babylonian. It is not the same religion adopted and practised by the inhabitants, but it is modeled after the Assyrian.

Anterior to the cuneiform inscriptions of Armenia the people must have had an idolatry similar to the Sabeism (Sabianism) of Babylonia, which was afterwards modeled to the Assyrian style, with its distinctive character. One of the inscriptions furnishes a long list of the gods and the regulations for sacrifices daily to be offered to them. There are, however, three other gods, which stood apart by themselves at the head of the Pantheon. These are Khaldis, Tusbas (the air god) and Adinis (the sun god). But Khaldis is the supreme god and the father of other[Pg 63] gods; and in addition to these every tribe, and city and fortress seem to have its respective god. Some other gods are Avis or Auis (the water god), Agas (the earth god), Dhuspuas (the god of Tosp, the City of Van), Selardis (the moon god), Sardis (the year god). The Armenians, in this period, do not seem to have any goddess. Saris is found only mentioned once in the inscriptions and is translated “queen,” yet it is supposed to have been borrowed from the Assyrian Istar. Whether all the other gods are the children of the supreme god Khaldis, or are subordinate to him and separate from his numerous offsprings, it is not quite clear; the latter, however, is most likely the case, because the Kaldians (the children of Khaldis) and other gods have their separate offerings assigned to them according to their importance.

With the rise of the Medo-Persian empire a new religion rises from obscurity to prominence in western Asia. This is the religion of Zoroaster. It is generally believed that Zoroaster was a real person and the founder of this religion, which is called after his name, Zoroastrianism. There is, however, great uncertainty about the period of his existence; some would make him contemporary with David or Solomon. It is probable that he lived in a much later time than these Israelitish kings.

The religion of Zoroaster is dualistic. It teaches that there are two uncreated beings. Ormazd, the supreme good, and Ahriman, the evil; that Ormazd created the earth, the heavens, and man, and that[Pg 64] man is created free; Ahriman is the evil and evil-doer, and in constant war with Ormazd; this world is their battlefield. There are inferior (good and bad) spirits which are called genii, who are the instruments of Ormazd (the good spirits) and Ahriman (the bad spirits). Fire alone was the personification of the son of Ormazd, and therefore an object of veneration.[37]

The Magi were the priests of Zoroastrianism, with a high priest of this order who was called in the Armenian language Mogbed (the head or the leader of Magi). No doubt this was the religion of the Armenians for nearly eight centuries (550 B.C. to 275 or 280 A.D.), possibly with some modifications and additions from the Grecian polytheism after the conquest of Alexander the Great. The Roman deifications of her emperors did not effect Armenia.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Genesis, 14:18.

[36] The following three Armenian words will show what they believed before the Christian religion was introduced into the country:

(a) Asd-u-adz means God, and is made up of asd and adz—“here” and “He brought,” namely—God is the one who brought us here.

(b) Mart=man, is composed Mi=no or not, art=now or the present-meaning not for the present. The man is made for the future or hereafter.

[37] A sample of the polytheistic Babylonian’s prayer:

“May the god whom I know not be appeased!
May the goddess whom I know not be appeased!
May both the god I know and the god I know not be appeased!”

Hardly will it be necessary to turn the attention of the reader to the condition of the world, especially in western Asia, at the time of Christ’s Advent. Sabeism or Sabianism of Ancient Babylonia had not quite expired yet, though her votaries, in despair, were getting ready to give her a magnificent burial. In vain had the Assyrians tried to resuscitate her (fancying that the number of gods was not sufficient to keep Sabeism alive), by raising some imaginary powers into the dignity of deities. The Persians thought Zoroastrianism a plausible hypothesis to account for the constant conflict of the good and evil in the world by assuming Ormazd the supreme good god and Ahriman the evil being, but they were conscious of its insufficiency and following the example of the Assyrians and Babylonians, they adopted other gods and a goddess, too. Yet these additions, instead of improving the faith of Zoroaster corrupted it with the impurities of immorality. The Grecian invasion of western Asia was the means of introducing there a gross polytheism which increased the darkness of the moral and religious condition of the East. The[Pg 66] noble religion of the patriarchs and the prophets had fallen into a ritualistic literalism in the hands of the Pharisees; and in the hand of skeptical Saducees it had become an object of incredulity. In one word, the world was lying in wickedness, enveloped in the darkest clouds of idolatry, superstitions and sin.

Then it was that the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings and chased away the darkness which had enveloped the whole world. Christ’s fame had already spread far and nigh and reached the ear of the Armenian Prince of Edessa, and it had revived in his heart hopes of recovery from an incurable disease. Therefore sent he for Christ, according to the tradition of the entire Christian Church. Soon after the ascension of Christ three of His apostles, Thaddeus, Bartholomew and Jude, successively and successfully preached the gospel in Armenia. Some even affirm that not only the seed of the gospel was planted there by these apostles, and they watered it by their blood—having suffered martyrdom there—but by the apostolic preaching of Gregory the Illuminator, the churches which they organized survived all manner of persecution till the final conquest of Christianity over Armenia.

The following is from the pen of H. B. Tristram, D.D., LL.D., F.R.S., canon of Durham, England, writing on the subject: “There were certain Greeks.”[38] “It is a very early tradition, and the pretended letter of Abgarus, and the reply of Jesus, are recorded by Eusebius, and were accepted in his time. He professes[Pg 67] to have obtained them from the archives of Edessa. The Armenians identify the messengers with their nationality and claim that Abgarus was King of Armenia. But, though all historical critics agree in pronouncing the letters apocryphal, there is less reason for rejecting the tradition that Thaddæus, soon after the dispersion of the disciples from Jerusalem, carried the gospel into Armenia. We know that when Gregory the Illuminator, who was born A.D. 257, proclaimed the message throughout Armenia, he found Christians everywhere, and a church which though sorely persecuted and oppressed, had existed from apostolic times. He was, in fact, rather the restorer than the founder of the Armenian church, which became the Church of the whole nation half a century before the cross was emblazoned on the standard of Rome. The Armenians may justly claim to be the oldest Christian nation in the world.”

Though Christianity was first introduced into Armenia by the Apostles, who laid the foundation of the ennobling, regenerating, purifying religion of Christ so early as in the middle of the first century of the Christian era, yet the completion of that work and the demolition of heathenism were reserved for St. Gregory.

Prince Anak, Gregory’s father, was of the royal family of Arsacidae of Parthia, whose reign was overthrown by Artaxerxes, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty of Persia. But the Armenian branch of Arsacidae was still in full vigor in the person of Chosroves I, the King of Armenia, who had[Pg 68] tried to restore the seized scepter of power to the deprived royal family of Parthia from the revolter, Artaxerxes, the Persian. The latter could not be secure on his throne, so long as Chosroves was the ruler of Armenia. So he attempted to reduce Armenia. But, failing to do this, by force of arms, he resorted to treachery. Anak, who was related to Chosroves, was induced by Artaxerxes, with promises of large reward, to play the part of an assassin. It was so arranged that Anak would be driven out of Persia as a person dangerous to the safety of the newly established sovereignty there because he was a member of the Arsacide dynasty. “Anak, with his wife, his children, his brother, and a train of attendants, pretended to take refuge in Armenia from the threatened vengeance of his sovereign, who caused his troops to pursue him, as a rebel and deserter, to the very borders of Armenia.”[39] Anak was received by Chosroves, who listened to his story with great credulity and sympathy. With the first opportunity, Anak committed the crime of assassination of the king, but the latter lived long enough to request the complete destruction of the assassin and his family. Anak had no time to effect his escape and being seized, he and his brother received the due punishment of their crime. His son, Gregory, however, who was only an infant, was saved by the faithfulness of his nurse, who took the child and escaped into the city of Cæsarea, Cappadocia, where he was[Pg 69] brought up in a Christian family, with a thorough Christian education.

On the other hand, Artaxerxes attained his object without paying for it, and, hearing of the condition of affairs in Armenia, he immediately hastened thither with his army and took the people by surprise. He doomed the royal family of Arsacidae to death, so as not to leave any to rival him for the throne. However, Tiridates, the son of Chosroves, escaped into the Roman province of Armenia, and thence to Rome, where he received a military training. His sister was hid in the stronghold of Ani.

Tiridates found favor with the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who, with a great force, sent him to Armenia to retake his father’s throne from the Persians. He was welcomed by his people, who joined his army and drove out of the country their common enemy (A.D. 286). It appears that Gregory had sought Tiridates and found him in Rome and entered his services, his sole “purpose being to win over to eternal life, through the gospel of Christ, the son of him who had been slain by his father, and thus to make amends for his father’s crime.” Though Gregory suffered many a torture and torment and a long period of imprisonment, yet this noble Christian hero and apostle was determined “to win (the king) over to eternal life, through the gospel of Christ.”

The king, finally, was converted and baptized by St. Gregory. Tiridates himself became a worthy champion of the truth, and the first honored king who proclaimed throughout his dominions that henceforth[Pg 70] the religion of Christ is the religion of Armenia. The Armenians were nationally converted to Christianity, from the king down to the servant; we must not forget, however, that there were some especially among the nobility, who with a heathenish tenacity held on to the Zoroastrian faith, but this was for mercenary purposes rather than a real appreciation of Zoroastrianism. For Christianity had made a great advance in the country. Moreover, the apostle of Armenia, by his evangelistic spirit and labors, had laid a firm foundation for the religion of Christ in the land of Ararat (A.D. 289). He was, by the request of the king, sent to Cæsarea, Cappadocia, to be ordained bishop over Armenia (A.D. 302).[40]

The temples of the idols in every important city and town were pulled down and Christian churches in their stead were built. The most splendid of all these churches was Etchmiadsin, “the descent of the only begotten,” which was afterwards clustered about with other buildings and became a monastery and to this day the seat of St. Gregory’s successors to his prelatic chair.

In those days, and during a century afterwards, Christian training was carried on by the catechisers, for very few had access to the Syriac or Greek literature, and the Armenian literature also was written[Pg 71] in either of these characters; the characters of the Armenian alphabet were not yet wholly discovered or completed. So the reader will bear in mind that the advantages of imparting or disseminating a thorough Christian knowledge, if not lacking wholly, were very inadequate. After a long and useful life St. Gregory entered into the joy of the Lord and Master (A.D. 332).

Ten years after the death of this noble apostle of Armenia, the valiant defender of that divine faith also ended his useful career (342), after seeing the prosperous condition of the Church, which they loved and for which they toiled. Both were succeeded by their sons. The power of Armenia, however, was not equal to the conflicting forces on either side, though the descendants of Tiridates held the scepter of Armenia nearly a century longer, it was in a very enervated state. Nevertheless the Church of Christ made a decided advance within this period. The Armenian alphabetic characters[41] were recovered and completed by the distinguished scholar and prelate Mesrob, who, with St. Isaac, the patriarch, or bishop, translated the Scriptures into the Armenian language, the Old Testament from the Septuagint version and the New Testament from the original Greek.[42] After the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity not a few of the youths of[Pg 72] Armenia flocked into the schools of Athens, Alexandria, and Constantinople, to sate their avidity for learning, who, afterwards, rendered great service to the nation, both by their writings, and many valuable translations from the Greek. Some of these originals have been lost and the world now has them in Armenian only.

The rise of the Sassanian dynasty in Persia was a source of more or less perpetual misery and bloodshed in Armenia. The Persians had two reasons for their cruel attitude toward Armenia. The first was the continued existence of the Arsacide reign in Armenia; the second was Armenia’s conversion to Christianity, while Zoroastrianism was revived in Persia by the Sassanian Kings. Christianity was the permanent occasion for which Armenia has suffered and is still suffering indescribable miseries and innumerable cruelties. The Persians imagined that as long as the Armenians were Christians they were in alliance with the Greeks, while in reality the Greeks were no more in sympathy with them than the Persians were.

Yasgerd II, the King of Persia (A.D. 450), decreed thus: “All peoples and tongues throughout my dominions must abandon their heresies and worship the Sun, bring to him their offerings, and call him God; they shall feed the holy fire, and fulfill all the ordinances of Magi.” Accordingly, Mihrnerseh, the grand vizier of the Persian court, wrote a long letter to the Armenians, polemic in character, persuasive in style, and menacing in tone. The Synod[Pg 73] of the Armenian bishops was convened at once and it was unanimously decided to defend their religion at any cost. The synod also agreed upon answering the letter of the grand vizier in which they both refuted the charges brought against Christianity, undauntedly defended their faith, showing the absurdity of Zoroastrianism, and concluded the epistle with these words: “From this belief no one can move us, neither angels nor men, neither fire nor sword, nor water, nor any other horrid torture, however they be called. All our goods and our possessions are before thee, dispose of them as thou wilt, and if thou only leave us to our belief, we will here below choose no other lord in Thy place, and in heaven have no other God but Jesus Christ, for there is no other God save only him. But shouldst Thou require something beyond this great testimony, behold our resolution; our bodies are in Thy hands—do with them according to Thy pleasure; tortures are thine, and patience ours; Thou hast the sword, we the neck; we are nothing better than our forefathers, who, for the sake of their faith, resigned their goods, possessions and life. Do Thou, therefore, inquire of us nothing further concerning these things, for our belief originates not with men, we are not taught like children, but we are indissolubly bound to God, from whom nothing can detach us, neither now, nor hereafter, nor for ever, and ever.”

As soon as this letter arrived at the royal court of Persia, King Yasgerd read it; he was enraged and summoned the Armenian princes immediately to repair[Pg 74] to his majesty’s presence. There in the presence of the king they manifested a great resolution in their faith, for which they were ignominiously treated and confined in prison. Having been threatened while in their confinement they devised a scheme; they thought it is better to apparently comply with the demands of the king, but inwardly to remain true to their convictions. God, who is able to bring good out of evil, indeed did so in this case. When it was made known to the king that the Armenian princes were willing to accept his terms, at once they were liberated and returned with distinctions to their homes. And a large army with over seven hundred magi were exultantly marching on to Armenia to raze to the ground every Christian Church and school and disciple the people into the mysterious absurdities of Zoroastrianism.

No sooner had the news of the apostacy of the princes reached Armenia than the bishops, priests, and the laity condemned the weakness and the folly of the princes. When the princes returned to Armenia they found no one ready or willing to listen to any explanation, but everywhere and everybody was ready and willing to defend his religion at the cost of his life. A large multitude, made up of clergy and laity, among whom were many women, gathered for immediate action, for the enemy was marching on. Some of the princes could not endure the contempt of the people nor the unrelenting remorse of their consciences, so they were ready to expiate their folly at any cost.

Prince Vartan, the Mamigonian, was unanimously appointed the commander-in-chief of the Armenian forces, and the multitude—66,000 volunteers—was formed into three divisions and each division was entrusted to a prince, Vartan, Nershebuh and Vasag. All knew that the struggle and the strife was a desperate one. But brave Vartan and the rest were not dismayed, though they knew that they alone could not conquer the immense army of the enemy already in the country, with a small and inexperienced force of his own, yet there was no other choice; they were not fighting for victory, but for their convictions and for their chosen religion, the religion of Christ.

The address of Vartan, the commander-in-chief, is most beautiful and touching: “I have been,” said he, “in many battles, and you also with me; we have sometimes bravely vanquished the foe; sometimes they vanquished us, but on all these occasions we thought only of worldly distinction, and we fought merely at the command of a mortal king. Behold, we have all many wounds and scars upon our persons, and great must have been our bravery to have won these great marks of honor. But useless and empty I deem these exploits whereby we have received these honorable marks, for they pass away. If, however, you have done such valiant deeds in obedience to a mortal ruler, how much more will you do them for our immortal King, who is Lord of life and death, who judges every one according to his works.

“Now, therefore, I entreat you, my brave companions,[Pg 76] and more so as you—albeit in bravery, worth, and inherited honors greater than I—have of your own free will and out of your love elected me your leader and chief; I entreat that my words may be favorably received by the high and the low. Fear not the numbers of the heathen; withdraw not necks from the terrific sword of a mortal man in order that the Lord may give the victory into our hands, that we may annihilate their power and lift on high the standard of truth.”

On the morning of the day (2d of June, 451, old style) of the battle the little army of the Holy League received the Eucharist (holy communion) and marched on with these words: “May our death be like to the death of the just, and may the shedding of our blood resemble the bloodshedding of the prophets! May God look in mercy on our voluntary self-offering, and may He not deliver the Church into the hands of the heathen!”

With amazing bravery and valor must they have fought. But alas; there was treachery and treason among the little army of the Holy League. Vasag, who was in command of the third division of the Armenian forces, deserted the holy cause with his force, and still worse, he sided with the enemy and decided the battle against the Armenians. The fall of the noble commander Vartan and some others also disheartened the rest. Had Vasag not acted the part of Judas, had he not betrayed his Master and Master’s cause the Armenians would have achieved a signal victory in the annals of Church history, and[Pg 77] also might have regained their political independence. The fall of the leaders left the people in confusion, the enemy then fell upon them, seized many and indiscriminately slaughtered them. Many of the bishops and priests were captured, some were martyred on the spot, others were carried to Persia and there executed. The patriarch Joseph, in whose character and life shine forth piety, courage, and devotion, was one of those carried to Persia.

This was one of the many contests which the Armenians had with the fire-worshiping Persian. The Armenians were defeated, the Persians had the battlefield, but the real victory, the moral and religious victory, was won by the Armenians.

Indeed did the sons and daughters of Armenia prefer a Christian’s grave to the heathen’s home.

“Her head was crowned with flowers,
Her feet were bathed with spray,
Hers were the land of Eden,
The cradle of our race.

“But then upon her borders,
Shouted the Persian horde:
‘Fall down and worship fire,
Or perish by the sword.’

“Then up sprang Armenia
And raised her voice on high,
And back to haughty Persia
Rang loud the warlike cry:

“‘I will not be a heathen,
I will not be a slave,
If I cannot have a Christian’s home,
I’ll find a Christian’s grave.’”

From this time on the Armenians have never shrunk from defending their religion and rights against any odds. If they have no way to defend these rights as has been the case recently, they still would rather suffer torture and death than purchase life and freedom at the cost of principle and right.

The Persians, after their conquest of Armenia, destroyed many of the churches and schools, persecuted the Christians with indescribable tortures and cruelties, and forced them to become like themselves, fire-worshipers. The Armenians, in return, most cordially hated both the religion of Zoroaster and its defenders and teachers, and were anxious for an opportunity to drive out these usurpers and unwelcomed teachers of a philosophized religion, spun out of Zoroaster’s or somebody else’s imagination. Christianity and Zoroastrianism had many a battle in the land of Ararat, until the latter, in total despair, was willing to submit to the former, on some amicable terms to be suggested by a brave son of Armenia, a worthy member of the house of Mamigonians. This valiant champion of Christianity was Vahan Mamigonian, whose father and uncle, Prince Vartan, led the Holy League in battle and with the heroism and courage of the martyrs defended their rights and religion and had sealed their testimony to the truth of Christianity by their blood in that battle.

The long-looked for opportunity had come; the northern provinces rebelled against the Persians; the latter, therefore, attempted to subdue them. The Armenians availed themselves of this ample occasion,[Pg 79] armed themselves, and urged Vahan to take the lead of the army to clear out the country of the troops of the enemy left there. The attempt was made. The Persian forces stubbornly resisted the Armenians, but several reverses had convinced them that further resistance was useless and when a new governor, Nikhor, was appointed by Balas, the King of Persia (A.D. 485), he, instead of attacking Vahan, who held almost the entire country, wished to come to an arrangement agreeable to the Armenians. Prince Vahan, therefore, proposed the following terms:

“1. The existing fire-altars should be destroyed, and no others should be erected in Armenia.

“2. The Armenians should be allowed the free and full exercise of Christian religion, and no Armenian should be in future tempted or bribed to declare themselves disciples of Zoroaster.

“3. If converts were nevertheless made from Christianity to Zoroastrianism, places (of honor) should not be given to them.

“4. The Persian King should in person and not by deputy administer the affairs of Armenia.”[43]

These terms proposed by Prince Vahan were favorably received by Nikhor, and an edict of toleration was issued and proclaimed that every one be at liberty to adhere to his own religion, and that no one should be driven to apostatize. Afterwards Vahan himself was appointed by the king, governor of Armenia, and the church thus enjoyed a period of tranquillity from the persecutions.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] John 12:20, 21.

[39] Rawlinson, “The Seventh Oriental Monarchy,” p. 51.

[40] “The Armenian King became a convert before their [emperor’s] revival (of persecution) under Diocletian (284-305 A.D.); and Christianity was adopted as the religion of the State in Armenia some thirty years prior to its triumph in the West by the decisive action of the Melvian Bridge (312), and over 100 years before the edicts of Theodosius the First against the practice of paganism.” Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 293.

[41] The translation of Scriptures was completed A.D. 436. “A statement found in Philostratus (about 200 A.D.) would point to the existence of an Armenian alphabet at the beginning of our era.” Appleton’s, “The Universal Cyclopedia,” Vol. I, p. 321.

[42] The final translation and revision of the Scriptures was completed in A.D. 436.

[43] Rawlinson, “The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy,” pp. 334-4.

Some great changes were slowly taking place in the East as well as in the West. These changes were to give a different aspect to the history of future nations. As we have seen the Parthian Empire had been overthrown; Persia proper regained her independence. The Parthian branch of the Assacide dynasty in Armenia also came to an end after a reign of almost six centuries (150 B.C.-432 A.D.). On the other hand the Roman Empire was too large to be under one emperor; the leading people of the empire were divided into two, the Greeks and the Latins. The division of the empire into the eastern and western was not only natural, but also desirable. The Greek city Byzantium was rebuilt and honorably made the capital of the Eastern empire, and called Constantinople[44] after the name of Emperor Constantine the Great (about A.D. 328). This metropolis of the Eastern Empire soon became a worthy rival of Rome, both in civil and ecclesiastical matters.

The above brief survey of these conflicting forces—and[Pg 81] others which will be mentioned in their order—show that they were naturally of two kinds, namely, political and religious. Though we may make such a division, and even admit, that politics can be divorced from religion, yet we must confess that this has not been done in the East to this present time. It may be, therefore, stated that Christianity, as a religion, was, and is, one of the most powerful of the conflicting forces in the East. It is true that its Founder is called the Prince of Peace, and He was and is, and ever shall be, yet the very principles of His religion uncompromisingly militate against the domestic, social and political evils. The baser natures—many of them, even among the so-called Christians—therefore, run to the sword to settle their disputes.

The enforcement of the religion of Christ upon the millions by Constantine or other emperors did not change their hearts. It is to our credit to confess, that though the Armenians nationally accepted Christianity, and no doubt it had taken a firm root in the hearts of the most of the people, yet there were many Vasags that had clung to their idols, and had not failed to give much trouble to the truly patriotic followers of Christ. It was due to this lack of true Christianity that increased troubles arose between the Greek and Armenian Christians.

The Greeks feared and hated the Armenians, for the latter were in alliance with the Persians when they invaded Greece; and later the conquests of the distinguished monarchs of Armenia, like Tigranes[Pg 82] the Great and others, over the Greeks, recorded by their own historians in a more exaggerated manner than by the Armenians themselves,[45] would most naturally make them to foster such a deep rooted malice in their hearts and cause them to wish for opportunities to avenge themselves. We do not fail to find them doing so whenever an opportunity was offered them.

Hardly would Armenia sound pleasantly to the ear of the Persian any longer. Armenia had lived in peace with Persia for centuries. The reason of these comparatively peaceful relations between these two countries was two-fold; both the Armenians and Persians were Aryans and co-religionists. But Armenia, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, had apostatized from her former religion, Zoroastrianism, and forsaken her devotion to Magism. The revival of Zoroastrian faith and its enforcement upon the inhabitants of the country in Persia was insisted upon by the founder of the Sassanian dynasty. In his charge to his son and successor before his departure from this life Artaxerxes dilated on the subject of religion, maintaining and enforcing it upon the Iran or non-Iran to become worshipers of the Zoroastrian faith as a necessary basis for the stability of the empire. His successors were found very faithful and zealous in their endeavors to execute their master’s orders. In Armenia, however, the fire-temples and the temples of the leading deities[Pg 83] were swept out of existence, and Christian churches and schools were established all over the country. Zoroastrianism had received such a blow from the hand of King Jesus that it had fallen in pieces, like Dagon of Ashdod, before the ark of the Lord in the days of old, and now seven hundred Magi and an immense army of the Persians could not gather its fragments or keep the fires unquenched on its altars in Armenia.

The establishment of a Christian empire, in the West by the Greeks, would most naturally force upon the Persians the idea that these two nations now united by a common faith will be their formidable enemies. But how naturally do the heathen think, and how unnaturally do the so-called Christians act, is shown by the succeeding events of the conflicting forces in Western Asia. It was perfectly natural for the Persians to think, that a common religion or faith should produce a harmonious relation between, and a united action of, these two nations. Accordingly did the Persians look upon the Armenians with the profoundest suspicion and dealt towards them with relentless cruelty.

We have made passing reference to one other disturbing cause, namely, some of the nobility in Armenia, unfortunately not being in full sympathy with the faith of the majority, did ignobly act by uniting with the Persian hordes (whether with a mercenary object in view or with a blind zeal for the restoration of the abolished Zoroastrianism), thus aggravating the misery of their own people and[Pg 84] causing much bloodshed in the country. Such persons are found in all ages and among all nations, but fortunately have not been many.

It will be impossible, in a small work like this to enumerate all the agencies, the internal (and not less infernal), and the external and occasional causes which precipitated the country into indescribable misery. However, we have endeavored to review some of these facts, which, the reader bearing in mind, will have the key to unlock the mystery of the Armenian troubles and miseries.

After the political existence of Armenia was brought to an end, the country was divided between the Eastern Empire and Persia, the former having the western part of the country, and the eastern part being occupied by the latter. The usurpers of Armenia tried to govern their respective possessions by various methods, but they succeeded better when they had native rulers, or princes had their contingent forces under them. Whenever their respective sovereigns called upon them to assist in their wars, they responded with readiness. There was, however, this trouble in either province: the ever-ready endeavor on the one hand to bring the independent Armenian church under the influence of the Greek Church; and in the Persian province of Armenia, under some fanatic rulers, who attempted to apostatize them from their chosen faith; otherwise the Armenians seemed to have enjoyed a tolerable freedom. This form of government lasted until new[Pg 85] actors and more conflicting forces began to appear on the stage.

A new and a more formidable force than Zoroastrianism made its appearance in the form of a religion in the East. Western Asia seems to have been made for a theater and almost all the great actors in the annals of the dramatic history of the world enacted their roles there. Towards the close of the sixth century the sunny and sandy plains of Arabia became the home of a male child who was to be a hero, a warrior, a law-giver, and the founder of a new religion which shaped the destiny of millions of human beings and flooded many a country with the blood of its inhabitants. “Mohammed, half imposter, half enthusiast, enunciated a doctrine, and by decrees worked out a religion, which proved capable of uniting in one the scattered tribes of the Arabian desert, while at the same time it inspired them with a confidence, a contempt for death, and a fanatic valor, that rendered them irresistible by the surrounding nations.”[46] This self-made and self-called apostle of Arabia, Mohammed, had the greatest difficulty in finding few adherents in his native city, Mecca,[47] he found the opposition to his claims too great and his life in danger and fled to Medina, where he received a welcome. At the head of his adherents he commenced to attack unawares wayfaring merchants on their way from the northern[Pg 86] countries; of course, seeing that these merchants are of his former opponents. The plunder and the booty taken from the robbed or conquered were freely distributed among his followers. This surely was a great inducement to the pillage-loving and war-delighting Arabs to swell the army of Mohammed. His followers have been doing the same ever since, unless restrained by a superior force. Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia, one after the other, within a comparatively short time, fell under the sway of the followers of Mohammed.

Bagdad was made the capital of the successors, or Caliphs of Mohammed, from whence the hordes of Arabs or Saracens—so were they called by the western writers—spread death and destruction east, west, and north. The first Saracenic invasion into Armenia took place during the caliphate of Omar (A.D. 640), under the generalship of Abdurahman, who marched through Assyria and entered Armenia unopposed. Diran Mamiganian with some difficulty mustered a small force hardly as large as one-third of that of the enemy, but he made a noble defense of his country against the new enemy of the home and religion. Alas! in the little army of Diran there was another like Vasag, a man by the name Sahurr, who hastened the defeat and the annihilation of noble Diran’s little force; the fire and the sword of the enemy soon swept the country. Abdurahman returned to Bagdad with 35,000 Armenian captives.

The Saracenic policy was quite different from that of the Persians. The latter were not so intensely[Pg 87] cruel, and were anxious to unify the two peoples by the enforcement of their religion upon the Armenians. But the Saracens were the very prototype of the Turks in cruelty and in oppression. They kept on their regular incursions and inroads into the country at short intervals, and spread death and destruction, and carried many away as captives or hostages; these captives and hostages were often forced to become Mohammedans, or they were massacred. A picture drawn by the wildest imagination will fall far below the suffering of the people and the atrocities of the followers of Mohammed. The Armenians were often willing to let everything else go if they were left with their preferred faith, the religion of Christ. Even then they were not left alone. They often, compelled to do so, took arms to defend their religion and rights and perished, sword in hand. Thus it was and is since the introduction of Christianity into Armenia: “The history of Armenia presents but a melancholy picture to the friend of humanity. Rapacious neighbors, the enemies of Christianity, found a theater for their unheard-of cruelties and oppressions in that beauteous land, the inhabitants of which were equally exposed to the outrages of Paganism and Islam.”

The condition of the provinces of Armenia governed by the Greeks was hardly better. The Saracens were pushing their way northward and westward. The Greeks were becoming unbearable on account of their prejudices and persecutions occasioned by such comparatively trifling differences[Pg 88] from the Greek Church, in the rituals and ceremonies of the Armenian Church. The state of things, indeed, was in a most deplorable condition.

The Armenians were subdued and ruled over with a rod of iron, by the Saracens, but they were by no means completely conquered or crushed. The love for independence and self government was still rife in them. They made several attempts at different times to revolt. Their attempts failed and they paid dearly for them. But towards the middle of the ninth century the reign of the Caliphs of Bagdad was weakened by dissensions. A prince of the Pagradit family had proved himself very prudent as a governor of Armenia, so much so that he had received from the Caliph the title of “Prince of Princes,” in 859, and in 885 he was crowned as King of Armenia. Ashdod I the King of Armenia was the first of the Pagradit (Pagradeonian) dynasty.

The Pagradit family was old, influential and rich, according to our Herodotus, Moses of Khoren, King H’rache brought a small colony of the Hebrews from Judea when he returned with the armies of Nebuchadnezzar in B.C. 597,[48] and a prince by the name Shampat was the head of this Pagradit family. This dynasty lasted only from 885-1045, and had a stormy time, yet it shows what a grand and glorious period it must have been. Hundreds of churches in the city of Ani and its suburbs, magnificent castles, palaces, forts and numerous defenses of the city and throughout the country, though to-day in ruins,[Pg 89] eloquently declare the glory of the Pagradit dynasty of Armenia in the middle ages.

There is something marvelous in the annals of the Armenian history. Though they are surrounded by hostile and uncivilized nations and with such internal and infernal dissensions and contentions, yet the spirit of bravery, courage and unconquerable love of liberty, as it were, sprang up from the very ashes and the dust of the burnt and ruined cities and towns; yea, even from the carcass-covered and blood-drenched soil of Armenia. Thus it was that during this dynasty a marvelous civilization flourished amid the savage and barbarous nations, and this dynasty would have maintained its independence to the present had the rulers found any sympathy or toleration in the western Christian nations.

It was in the period of this dynasty that the Mongolian Tatar tribes, who were scattered over the plains and table-lands of central and northern Asia, began to move westward in search of plunder and pasture-lands. These tribes had distinctive names in their own country, but after leaving that they began to be denominated by the names of their leaders, like Seljukians, after Seljuk; Othmanlis or Ostmanlis, after Othman or Osman. They were pastoral in their occupations; warlike in disposition; rapacious and predatory in their habits; nomadic in their mode of life, and surely pagans in practice of religion. They first settled in Persia, and there they came in contact with the religion of Mohammed. They accepted it and entered the Mohammedan[Pg 90] army. They excelled the Arabs in enthusiasm, in intolerance, and cruelty, especially upon the Christians. Indeed, the entry of the Mongolian hordes, or the Turks into Western Asia was and still is the worst of all evils and the severest of all the calamities that ever was inflicted upon the Armenians or any other Christian nation in western Asia.

But the downfall of that dynasty which had maintained its existence over a century and a half was not brought about by the hands of the merciless Arabs, nor even by those of the barbarous Turks, though cruel and savage they were. In those days, they did not often do with treachery what they could not with bravery. Even the Turks were somewhat more honest than they are now.

Cakig,[49] the last king of this dynasty, had made himself both popular and beloved on account of his just and wise administration of the government. The Greek Emperor, Monamaches, demanded from Cakig for some pretense the surrender of the Capital Ani. Cakig’s reply to the Emperor was “I can never be prevailed upon quietly to relinquish my paternal inheritance to any individual.” Hereupon the emperor sent a large force against the king; however, the troops were defeated. He again tried by force to accomplish his object, but his attempt was unsuccessful; he then entered into an alliance with the Mohammedan governor of the districts bordering on the provinces of Cakig to ruin the latter;[Pg 91] but this also proved to be a failure. Then the emperor pretended to be appeased and entered into friendship, inviting the king on a visit to Constantinople. Cakig doubted the apparent friendship and the sincerity of the emperor, but alas, some of his chiefs who had conspired against him and were sharers of the guilt of the emperor prevailed upon him. Confiding in the solemn assurances of the emperor, and in compliance with the requests of his chiefs, he went to Constantinople. First he was exiled by this perfidious emperor to an island, then to Asia Minor. This dethroned king, deprived of his rightful crown and scepter and paternal inheritance, after a period of thirty-five years of exile, was assassinated by the Greeks.

While King Cakig was an exile the Greeks took possession of the capital, the City of Ani, and a large territory. The Seljukian Turks, who had settled themselves in Persia, were increasing in number and in power, finding the country in a defenseless condition, invaded Armenia. At this first incursion they desolated twenty-four provinces; at their second attack ruined many cities and towns and carried an immense number of the inhabitants into captivity. In the third, they laid siege to the city of Arzu, where many had taken refuge, it being a walled city. The inhabitants made a desperate resistance, but the enemy was too strong, and the Armenians, too fatigued to fight any longer, surrendered. The Seljukian Turks, after having taken possession of the city, displayed a barbarism which was a true[Pg 92] example and an equal to those of later cruelties of the Mongolian Tatars. Of the one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and those who had taken refuge in the city, some were butchered in cold blood, some were roasted to death, and the rest carried into captivity. This doleful calamity, one of many, took place in the year of our Lord, 1049.

Several times during every year, the Seljukian Turks and Tatars repeated their incursions, devastated and plundered the country, and indiscriminately massacred the people or enslaved them. Togrul Beg, for fourteen years, before he went to meet the Judge of Nations, tormented, tortured and butchered the Christian Armenians, and dyed the land of Ararat crimson with the blood of her inhabitants. These persecutions and massacres compelled the people to migrate into safer districts. Some of the Armenian princes who were assuming royal titles, instead of uniting their forces against a common enemy, fell prey to the foe, or exchanged their vast territories with the Greek emperor for other provinces. Thus King Sennacherib transferred his immense estates of Vaspuragian and took instead of them the city of Sebastea (now Sivas) and the country about it, extending to the banks of the Euphrates on the east.

The Armenians were rapidly increasing in the provinces of Cappadocia and Cilicia on account of the frequent invasions and incursions of the Seljukian Turks. Alp Arslan, the nephew of Togrul Beg, succeeded him 1063. In the following year, Arp[Pg 93] Arslan (valiant lion) invaded Armenia, laid siege to the royal city of Ami, and took it. “It is impossible to describe the destruction and slaughter wrought by the hands of these barbarians, the blood of thousands and ten thousands dyed the waters of Aphour (the river that runs through the city), and the magnificent buildings were set on fire, and numerous bodies, the carcasses, were covered under the ashes and ruins.”[50] Arp Arslan invaded Armenia, again, in battle against the Greeks and captured emperor Romanus Diogenes (1071) and wrested the entire country from the Greeks. His fearful career came to an end by the dagger of a captive enemy in the following year in Turkestan. His son, Malick Shah, succeeded him, and extended the empire from the shores of the Mediterranean on the west to the borders of China on the east. “In religion Seljukian sovereigns surpassed the other moslems of their age in fierce intolerance, and thereby inadvertently provoked the famous Crusades of the western nations. Upon wresting Jerusalem for a time from the dominion of the Egyptian Caliphs, they visited with such hardships the resident and pilgrim Christians, that Europe armed for their deliverance from oppression.”[51]

Many of the Armenians, driven by these powerful invaders and oppressors, had made their way into Cappadocia and Cilicia, and both in the plains and also in the Tauros Mountain districts they formed[Pg 94] a strong colony. A young man, who was a relative and a companion with two others, of the unfortunate King Cakig, had made his escape from the plans of the assassins who intended to kill these also after they had done away with the king, found refuge in the mountains. This man, whose name was Reuben, was a center of attraction among the Armenians, a man of warlike disposition and personal prowess, and bent on vengeance. He resided with his son Constantine in Cilicia; his condition must have been very much like that of David when he was a fugitive from the face of Saul. Reuben cautiously avoided conflicts with the Greeks when he was not sure of success, but such contests that he had with them he was invariably victorious. He attacked and wrested the fortress of Parzherpert (lofty fort), and from this time (A.D. 1080) he styled himself Reuben the First, assuming independent reign over the Armenians, who were increasing year by year. Thus began the Reubenian dynasty of the Armenians in Cilicia.

It was during the reign of Constantine, the son and successor of Reuben I, that the immense army of the Crusaders for the first time marched into Western Asia, took the city of Nice and various other places, and laid siege to Antioch. But a terrible famine broke out in their camp. When Constantine and his chiefs were informed of the condition of the Crusaders, he sent an abundance of provisions to the army of the defenders of the Cross. This last dynasty of the Armenians in Cilicia covers[Pg 95] a period of almost three centuries. It was by no means in a favorable condition, while Western Asia was in a fearful turmoil and agitation, the conflicting forces by no means disappearing.

The Seljukian Turks, after losing their capital, Nice, made Iconium (which over ten centuries before had listened to the famous missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, tell the story of the Cross) their capital, and made it resound with the “ezzen” of the “Muezzin” from the numerous minarets. It became a source of great trouble to the Armenians. The Greeks, inflamed with like hatred and malice as before, were more or less in constant conflict with them. The Armenians, over-exultant on account of the presence of the Christian forces of the Western nations in the East, were willing to enlist in aid of their cause by entering into an alliance with them, but by doing so they intensified the jealousy and hatred of the Greeks and the wrathful cruelty of the Turks. Moreover, the suspicions of some that these foreigners were anxious to bring the Armenian church under the control of the Pope of Rome were sustained by the facts revealed in due time.

It may be interesting to give a sample of the zeal of the Armenians in their effort to assist the Crusaders and the consequences: King Leo I of Cilicia was in an alliance with the Latin princes of Antioch. The emperor of Constantinople was bent on recovering that famous city from the Crusaders. Consequently to accomplish his purpose he marched on to Cilicia with a large army. The emperor and his[Pg 96] generals seem to have been strategists and good warriors. They wrested the city of Antioch and reduced many Cilician provinces and took Leo and his two sons, Reuben and Toros, captives and carried them to Constantinople (1136). The cruel Greeks, after tormenting and torturing their captives, deprived the crown-prince, Reuben, of his eye-sight, then, still not satisfied, they put him to death in the presence of his father, the king. This barbarity so affected him that he died heart-broken in his dungeon (1141). The history of Armenia presents a melancholy picture to the friend of humanity and Christianity; especially when you find some so-called Christians worse than pagans, you still feel thankful that they are at least nominally Christians; what would have happened if they were heathen? Arp Arslan did not treat Emperor Romanus in that manner, because he was not a Greek Christian.

A new tremendous army of the Mongolians, under the command of Genghis Khan, made its appearance in Western Asia; and spread all over Persia, Armenia, Caucasus, Russia, and part of Asia Minor destruction, devastation, and death; committing wholesale massacres, consuming the cities and towns by fire, and carrying away hundreds and thousands into captivity. “Seven years in succession was the conqueror (Genghis Khan) busy in the work of destruction, pillage, and subjugation, and extended his ravages to the banks of the Dnieper.” Armenia has been, over and over, inundated with the blood of her inhabitants, enriched with the carcasses of her people[Pg 97] upon her face; her beautiful and bright sky was often rendered dark by the smoke of the conflagrations of her immense cities and numerous towns, kindled by her enemies; her fair sons and graceful daughters were torn away from her maternal bosom, carried into captivity and sold for slaves; her magnificent churches and monasteries were converted into mosques and “tekes.” Yet the “The House of Togarmah” marches on through these tremendous seas of injustice, oppression, persecution, cruelty, and bloodshed, from a remote antiquity to the end of the fourteenth century of our era, lifting up the old, centuries-old flag of liberty, torn to pieces and ready to fall into an irreparable dissolution.

Toros, the son of the unfortunate King Leo I, effected his escape from the Greek army and returned to Cilicia (1145). He gathered about him a nucleus and gradually recovered Cilicia from the Greeks and after a reign of twenty-three years, he died in peace (1168). Reuben II succeeded his uncle, Mileh, and reigned until his retirement in 1185, and his brother Leo II followed him. It was during the reign of Leo II that Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders (1187), a terrible slaughter of the Christians had been committed by the defender of the Mohammedan faith, which caused the western nations to call for the third crusade, headed by Frederick I, surnamed Barbarossa, a German emperor of Rome. He marched with his army opposed by the Greek emperor and the sultan of Iconium. From the latter place he sent a letter to[Pg 98] Leo II, asking his assistance and telling of his need of supplies. Leo, Catholicos and Bishop Nerses, with abundant provisions, set out to meet him. But they did not have the pleasure of seeing him; for he was drowned while crossing a stream. What a pity! He was going to fight in defense of the Oriental Christians, not to put a crown on Saladin’s head, nor a wreath on his tomb; he was not going to offer his unsought-for friendship to the bloodthirsty followers of Mohammed, neither was he going to encourage them to massacre the lowly followers of the lowly Nazarene. Yet he was drowned. Surely “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” We do not question His wisdom nor His goodness.

No doubt the object of the popes, who urged the Western sovereigns to raise crusades against the Mohammedans, and kept them engaged in this unsuccessful enterprise for a long time at the expense of immense wealth and the sacrifice of millions of human lives, was two-fold; to exercise their sublunary power over these potentates, and to further their influence over other Christian nations in the East. But they failed in both of these purposes. There came a time when the popes had no influence over the kings of Europe. And the Crusaders in the East rendered their names detestable forever, both to Christians and to non-Christians.

“In 1204 A.D., the Capital (Constantinople) was captured by the Crusaders, whose conduct fixed an indelible stain upon the name of the Franks throughout the East,[Pg 99] especially as it is contrasted with that of the Mohammedans, who, a few years before, had conquered Jerusalem. When Saladin entered the latter city the church of the Holy Sepulchre was respected, and the conquered Christians remained in possession of their property; no confiscations were made of the wealth of the non-combatants. But the vaunted chivalry of the Papal church plundered a Christian city without remorse, desecrated its shrines, and maltreated its inhabitants, while the profane cry of ‘God Wills It,’ was raised to excite each other to act the part of brigands and debauchees. Sacred plate, golden images of saints, and silver candelabra from the altars; bronze statues of heathen idols and heroes, precious works of Hellenic art; crowns, coronets, thrones, vessels of gold and silver; ornaments of diamonds, pearls, and precious stones from the imperial treasury and the palaces of the nobles; jewelry and precious metals from the shops of the goldsmiths; silks, velvets and brocaded tissues from the warehouses of the merchants, together with coined money, were accumulated in vast heaps as spoils to be divided by the victors. A few of the crusading clergy endeavored to moderate the fury which the bigoted prejudices of the Latin Church had instilled into the minds of the soldiery against the Greeks, but many priests were as forward as the most abandoned of the troops in robbing the temples of a kindred faith.”[52]

Our Saviour’s words were literally fulfilled; with what measure the Greeks so often had measured and dealt with the Armenian, it was meted to them by the hands of the Crusaders; yet such a conduct of the Crusaders with the Christian, and undoubtedly a conduct a good deal worse than this towards Mohammedans, accounts for the determination and fury[Pg 100] of the latter against the Christians. The reply of Meleck Nasr Mohmud, the Egyptian Sultan, to an application of the Armenian king Leo V, for a treaty of peace was the following: “I will never make peace with you until you promise on oath not to hold any correspondence or communication with Western nations.” Often did the Mohammedan powers imagine that the Armenians had again stirred up the Western nations, that they were marching against them in greater forces than ever before, and then they would attack the cities and towns of the Armenians and commit all manner of atrocities, thinking that that might be their last opportunity.

After the withdrawal of the Western nations—or rather their being driven out from the East—in full satisfaction of their complete failure, either to maintain their position or ameliorate the oppressed condition of the Oriental Christians under the Mohammedans, the latter had first little difficulty in destroying the independence of the Armenians in Cilicia. By various incursions of the Mohammedans of Egypt into Cilicia, the Armenians were reduced in strength and in numbers; finally a vast army of the enemy marched against them. Those missionary soldiers of Mohammed, indeed brutes in character and nature, though clad in clayey garments of human forms, spread themselves all over the country. No city, town, or village, or building of any value, whether church, monastery or dwelling, and no human being of any age or either sex that fell into their hands, was spared; they slaughtered every human being and[Pg 101] burnt to ashes every building or razed it to the ground. In the execution of their unfortunate victims they did not leave any mode of torture untried. “The deceitful above all things and desperately wicked heart” of a depraved human creature could not have suggested any other method of torment and torture that these Mohammedans did not devise and experiment upon their captives. The Turks of to-day must have been studying their predecessors in faith and practice. King Leo VI and the garrison surrendered on condition that their lives would be spared; the Egyptian general promised this on oath; Leo was fettered, and with his family carried to Cairo in the eleventh year of his reign (A.D. 1375).

The king and family, after serving a period of imprisonment at Cairo, were freed by the mediation and valuable presents of the King of Spain. Leo with his queen and daughter, went to Jerusalem; there he left them at their own request, then visited the European countries. On the 19th of November, A.D. 1393, he ended his mortal career in Paris. “Leo King of Armenia, was of a small stature, but of intelligent expression and well-formed features. His body was carried to the tomb clothed in royal robes of white, according to the custom of Armenia, with an open crown upon his head and a golden scepter in his hand. He lay in state upon an open bier hung with white and surrounded by the officers of his household, clothed, all of them, in white robes. He was buried by the high altar of the Church of the Celestine.”

FOOTNOTES:

[44] According to ancient authorities, Byzantium was built by a Grecian colony about 658 B.C.

[45] An Armenian historian says, Tigranes translated thirty thousand inhabitants of Cappadocia, the Greek historian three hundred thousand.

[46] Rawlinson, “The Seventh Oriental Monarchy,” p. 546.

[47] Mohammed was born in Mecca 570, he fled to Medina 622. “Hegira” (the flight), and he died in the latter city A.D. 632, after two weeks of intense suffering which began before his death. See Chap XII, p. 204.

[48] See p. 52.

[49] The Kings of this dynasty: Ashod I, Sumpat I, Ashod II, Abas, Ashod III, Sumpat II, Cakig I, John Sumpat, Cakig II.

[50] Balasanian, “History of Armenia,” p. 285. (This work is written in Armenian language.)

[51] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” p. 5.

[52] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” London, pages 238-9.

The Armenian church claims to be apostolic in its origin, Christianity having been introduced into Armenia by the Apostles, and having survived the persecutions of heathenism during the first three centuries, had finally, about the end of the third century, subdued the entire nation. As has been said before, St. Gregory the Illuminator was sent to Cæsarea, Cappadocia, to be, and was, ordained Bishop of Armenia, A.D. 302.

The Armenian church, therefore was and still is, a national church; the prosperity of the nation also was the prosperity of the church. The nation had but little rest after her embrace of Christianity. Christian Armenia, during the first three centuries of her acceptance and existence as a Christian state, however, made such a noble defense of her faith against Zoroastrianism that the latter was completely paralyzed, and no longer able to lift up the sword against the followers of Christ. But with the rise of Mohammedanism, a more formidable, cruel, unjust, and inhuman enemy arose. The Saracens or the Arabs, who were both the soldiers and missionaries of the Mohammedan faith, literally panted after the[Pg 103] blood of the Christians. Even these, after sucking all the blood that they could imbibe, fell off like swollen leeches and were swallowed up by the Seljukian, Tatar, and Mongolian Turks, who surpassed even the Arabs in cruelty and indisputably deserved to be called “the unspeakable Turk.” The Greeks, with all their subtility, volatility, perfidy, intrigues, and intolerable bigotry, could do no more than to cause some of their formalism to creep into the Armenian church.

But this is not all; for while the Armenians were driven into the mountainous districts of Cilicia, the land of the brave apostle Paul, by the Mongolian and Tatar invaders who spread desolation, destruction, and death wherever their feet touched the soil, there came with the appearance of the Crusaders into the East a number of zealous missionaries of the Romish church, who neglected even to attempt a quiet missionary work among the Mohammedans, but insidiously first, then openly, tried to bring the Armenian church into a subordination and under the jurisdiction of the popes of Rome.

The papal missionaries, under the order of the Unitors, who had insidiously sown the seeds of dissension in the Armenian church, availed themselves of every misfortune that befel the people, and later, being augmented by the Jesuits and their intrigues, until about the beginning of the eighteenth century, they converted this dissension into a volcanic eruption. Consequently thousands of the Armenians avowed their spiritual allegiance to the pope of Rome.

“Fortunately for the Catholics, they found a powerful protector in DeFeriol, the French ambassador, who obtained an order from the Porte, in 1703, for the deposition and banishment of the (Armenian) patriarch Avedik. Exiled to Chios, he was clandestinely carried off during the passage and conducted, some say to Messina, others to Marseilles, and thence to the Island of St. Marguerite, where he died of martyrdom. There were strong grounds for suspecting the Jesuits established in Chios and Galata of having contrived this plot in concert with the French ambassador.”[53]

The Mohammedan rulers always dealt with their Christian subjects with the utmost contempt, unmodified injustice, and with relentless cruelty and persecution. Many of the people did undoubtedly delude themselves with the idea that by uniting with the Romish church they would secure protection from the Turkish cruelty and oppression, through the influence of Romish France, which was then more influential in the East. For it is quite improbable that they could believe that the Roman church was any better in simplicity and purity than the Armenian church.

Returning to the history of the Armenian church from the schism in the church, it may be well to state that for over half a century (302-363) it was the custom of the Armenian bishops to be ordained at Cæsarea, Cappadocia, but during the patriarchate of Nerses the Great, the clergy and laity unanimously agreed to have their bishops ordained in Armenia[Pg 105] by the Armenian bishops. It is therefore evident from this fact that there was no higher rank or order than that of a bishop or presbyter, which names are interchangeably used in the New Testament as Vartabed (doctor) M. Muradian, of St. James’ Monastery at Jerusalem, correctly states in his “History of the Apostolic Church of Armenia.”[54] It may also be interesting to add as a fact of history that in the time of St. Gregory and his successors for several centuries, the bishops were married and heads of families. Celibacy was not required of them, neither separation, but it was optional with them to choose either or none.

“The election of the bishops, like that of all the Armenian clergy, takes place by universal suffrage,” the ordinations take place generally at either Etchmiadzin, Akhtamar, or Sis, by the presiding bishop and his associates. The priests or presbyters (Yeretzk) are chosen by the people among themselves. They are expected to have tolerable knowledge of the Bible and the liturgy of the church (some in former years knew very little of either) and are ordained by the bishops. The priests live with their families among the people and attend their daily duties in the church services morning and evening; they perform baptism for the infants, and marry and bury the young and old as the occasion may require.

“The Armenian clergy receive no stipends, and exact no contributions like those of the Greek church; their[Pg 106] revenues depend entirely on the voluntary contributions of the faithful; it is therefore rare to meet with a wealthy priest, though some few were in easy circumstances. With respect to morals, also, though it is difficult to pronounce absolutely on the subject, the Armenian clergy appear to be very superior to the Greeks.”[55] The deacons are elected and ordained like the priest, and have no income whatever; they serve the church and assist the priests in the daily ministrations and attend to their business, whatever it may be.

There is another class of the clergy of the Armenian church called Vartabeds, or doctors in theology. It is very probable that the very necessity of the case created this order. In former years, after the conversion of the Armenians to Christianity, most of the literary men were of the clergy, and the monasteries became the seats of learning. Those who loved a literary life would retire to those places and pursue such a course. Asceticism of the East also must have played a good part in it. Those who were ordained evangelists to visit the churches and to preach the gospel to the people, who were so often persecuted and oppressed by their enemies, at first, most likely voluntarily preferred celibacy in order to devote their whole time to the work of the church. But what was with them optional has become now a condition for that order, though “the Vartabeds form the most enlightened and learned portion of the Armenian clergy,” from whom the bishops are elected and ordained, are unfortunately “restricted to celibacy.”

“The monks or celibate priests are, I believe, always connected with convents, they are known under the style of Vardabets or doctors, this title being attached to their individual names. They are governed according to the rule of St. Basil of Cæsarea, the contemporary and monitor of the Armenian pontiff, Nerses the Great (A.D. 340-374). They do not practice the tonsure, and they wear their beards. They are attired in long black robes with conical cowls.... At present there are in all not more than some fifty Vardabets within the wide limits of the Russian province (of Armenia). Of these about half reside at Edgmiatsin.... All monks in Russian territory are ordained at Edgmiatsin, and it is the custom for all bishops, whether in Russian Armenia, or abroad, to be consecrated in the Church of the Illuminator.”[56]

The Armenian church differs from that of Rome on the following points: (1) It denies the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome. (2) It has not accepted the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon as ecumenic. (3) It rejects the introduction of filioque into the creed, but admits that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. (4) It rejects the Romish doctrine of purgatory. (5) It rejects indulgences. (6) It has no equivalent word for Transubstantiation. (7) It does not withhold the Bible from the people, but encourages them to read it.

In the very year while the Armenians were alone fighting with the Persians in defense of Christianity, and the verdant fields of Ararat were dyed with the blood of the martyrs, the Greek and Latin theologians were holding their council at Chalcedon, engaging the[Pg 108] influence of the Emperor to condemn Eutychus. He had gone to the other extremity of the question with regard to the person of Christ, for which Nestorius had been condemned in the previous council (at Ephesus A.D. 431). The latter was supposed to teach two personalities in Christ, on account of his emphasizing the distinctive characteristics of Christ’s divine and human nature. Eutychus was condemned because he made the divine nature of Christ to absorb his human nature, he, therefore, was called a monophysite.

The Armenians did not accept the decision of the Chalcedonian council, not because they were in sympathy with Eutychus’ doctrine, but because the question did not concern them. Moreover some other questions decided in that council were objectionable. “From the council of Chalcedon to the death of Boniface II, bishop of Rome, was a period of rivalry for sole dominion in the church between the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople. By the council they had been recognized as entitled to higher honors than the rest. From that date it became an object of ambition with both to secure, each for his own self, the admitted title of sole superiority.”[57] Such being the case the decision of the council of Chalcedon is like the Mohammedan creed, part truth and part lie. The Armenians had already accepted the truth. They were satisfied with the orthodoxy delivered to them by the teachings of the Apostles and the three former councils, held at Nice A.D. 325; at Constantinople A.D.[Pg 109] 381; and at Ephesus, A.D. 431. The pity of it all is that the Greek and Latin writers represented and condemned the Armenians as Monophysites and the Armenian church was cut off from the Western (Latin) and the Eastern (Greek) Churches.

The following is from the long defense and confession of the Synod of the Armenian bishops who answered the Persian grand vizier, Mihrenerseh, in A.D. 450, a year before the Council of Chalcedon: “He (Christ) was in reality God and in reality man. The Godhead was not withdrawn through the human nature, nor was the human nature destroyed by his remaining God; but he is both one and the same.”

Another writer says: “It is now evident that the Armenian church, of St. Gregory, wholly rejects the heresy of Eutychus, condemned by the council of Chalcedon; and she does so as much as the Eastern (Greek) church.”[58] Though this charge of heresy brought against the Armenian church by the Greek and Latin churches was absolutely unfounded, yet it was a fertile source of much trouble, oppression, persecution, and bloodshed, and almost the sole occasion of the overthrow of the last two Armenian dynasties.

The influence of the Greeks in the Grecian provinces of Armenia often outweighed in appointing a bishop over the Armenians, who would be favorably inclined to the acceptance of the decision of the Chalcedonian council and some other rites of the Greek Church. Such appointments often took place and furnished new sources of dissensions and contentions[Pg 110] among the clergy and laity. The Greeks, taking advantage of such internal contentions, did their best to unite the Armenian church with the Greek church, but they invariably failed. “The more attractive the offer of the Greeks, the greater grew the hatred of them; nor have the popes met with better success. When we reflect that this obstinate people are as intelligent as any in the world in various pursuits of civilized life, our anger at such conduct, which gave away the cause of civilization, may be tempered by a different feeling. The Armenians have fought at all hazards to preserve their individuality, and the bulk of the nation have perished in the attempt. The remnant may be destined, like the son of Anak, to redress the wrongs inflicted by their ancestors upon the common Christian weal.”[59]

The Armenians have fought at all hazards not only to preserve their individuality, but especially to preserve their church from an ecclesiastical vassalage. They fought for principle, not for policy. Their descendants seem to have inherited the same spirit. On account of their adherence to principles of right and justice, they are brought to the very verge of national annihilation. It is not the Armenians of the past or the present that have inflicted wrongs upon the common Christian weal, but on the contrary, the so-called Christian nations of the past and the present are responsible for the wrongs that have been inflicted upon the defenseless Armenians.

It is the shallow and narrow-minded student of history and Christianity, who, seeing the great Christian nations at war says: Christianity has failed as a religion, or as a civilizing force. It is not the fault of Christianity, it is the lack of it. As it is now, so it was in the past. Had the Greeks the true spirit of Christianity, or even had they some far-sighted statesmen, they would have encouraged and strengthened the Armenians on the east, instead of weakening and hastening the overthrow of the Armenian independence. They could have made them like a strong stone wall against the Mongolian hordes, who not only swept over Armenia, but within a short time swept and reduced the Eastern empire. The City of Constantine the Great became for centuries the seat of the assassins.

Towards the end of the seventh century the Greeks invaded Armenia, devastated twenty-five provinces and carried away eight thousand families into captivity. Not very long after this event the Saracens invaded the country again and secured the entire subjugation of the people. The news of this event enraged the Greek emperor Justinius II again, who with an immense army attacked the Armenians and captured the prelate Isaac and five other bishops. After receiving a sufficient number of hostages, he left the prelates alone and returned to Constantinople.

It was only a few weeks after this that the Saracens, under the leadership of Abdullah, returned to Armenia and fell upon the people and plundered[Pg 112] the churches and monasteries, and desecrated the sacred edifices and the unfortunate prelate Isaac was carried to Damascus in chains, where he ended his eventful life of martyrdom while a prisoner. Isaac was succeeded by Elias, the archbishop of Armenia, and Gashim was appointed by the Caliph governor of the country. Gashim was by no means inferior in cruelty to the previous Arab generals. In fact, all the followers of Mohammed, from the beginning well learned the behest of their lord, “To do aught good never will be your task, but to do evil ever your sole delight.” Gashim gathered all the leading men into the church of Nachichavan, on pretense of making a treaty of peace with them; he then set the church on fire and burned them alive.

The orthodoxy of the Armenian church would not have been questioned by some of the Western writers had they not drawn their information from the Greek and Latin sources only. This could not have been avoided in the early years of the middle ages on account of the scarcity of the Armenian scholars among the Western nations. Even now the Armenian language is studied by very few. Yet a careful and happy writer, like the following, is apt to avoid mistakes: “In points of doctrine and ritual the Armenian church is extremely conservative, and has been wise or fortunate enough to avoid defining her faith with the particularity which had produced so many schisms farther west. Her formulas do not commit her to Monophysite views, although, chiefly owing to a national jealousy of Constantinople, she[Pg 113] has refused to accept the decrees of Chalcedon.... She has avoided the use of any word corresponding to the term Transubstantiation....”[60]

The following, from “the History of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia,” by Vartabed M. Muradian, of St. James’ Monastery, at Jerusalem, may show the orthodoxy of the Armenian Church:

“It is sweet and comforting to discourse on the revealed truths of the Bible which is the only foundation of undefiled doctrine, to which always have the holy church-fathers trusted for the defense of faith.

“The Bible teaches concerning God two things: first that God is one and there is no other God beside Him; second, that divine nature is common to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, and these three persons have one Godhead. This is the faith of the Christians in harmony with the manifest words of the Bible. This Trinity is the foundation of the Christian faith, and the three persons have one influence for our salvation, but in different ways of manifesting it; that is, the Father calls and causes us to approach His Son, whom He begat from eternity and prepared His coming. The Son came from heaven and was united with human nature that He might save us from sin and give us eternal life. The Holy Spirit is our regenerator, Who re-establishes in us the likeness of God, making us receptive of the Salvation offered by God.

“The Bible teaches that Christ, on account of His eternal generation from the Father, is called the Son of God, but for His incarnation in time, the Son of Man, brother of men, through whom we obtain the right to call God our Father, and for this reason the Church confesses in the personality of Christ two natures,[Pg 114] the divine and the human, distinct and inseparable in their union. This mystery of incarnation is the great mystery of God’s love for the world; and as much of this is incomprehensible and inconceivable by human intelligence, so much is it natural with divine love and omnipotent nature. In this great mystery was the salvation of mankind, for this the entire humanity waited, and, therefore, the law and the prophets in this mystery of incarnation were fulfilled. Because Christ, as the true Messiah, performed prophetic, priestly, and kingly offices, and became for us the true Prophet, true Priest, and true King; teaching the doctrine of redemption, elucidating the past, the present, and the future of mankind, forgiving and redeeming us through the sacrifice of Himself and reigning over us with a heavenly and spiritual kingdom.

“The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds and flows from the Father, not as a common influence of God, but as a person of the Holy Trinity, infinite, eternal, a true God. But with respect to us the Holy Spirit is the Fountain of God’s union with man, and the seal by which we are known as Christians; because without the Holy Spirit’s dwelling in us, His help and guidance we are alive only (carnally), for the Holy Spirit is co-worker with the Father and the Son for our salvation; and as the manifestation of God through (or in) Christ to the world is called REDEMPTION, so also the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit is denominated REGENERATION and SANCTIFICATION.

“At this present day there is not a book like the Bible from which the intellectual world has been able to derive so much good for the real well-being and progress of human society. There is not a book, and cannot be, that is translated into so many languages and is distributed so extensively as the Bible. Our immortal translators felt this great want and they began the[Pg 115] first step of the nation’s enlightenment and progress by the translation and study of the Holy Scriptures, and this translation is so choice, that with various praises bestowed upon it by the European scholars of the present century, who know the Armenian language, it is called the ‘Queen of Versions.’ But we will be giving a still greater praise to our forefathers if we generalize the study of the Holy Scriptures among our people and rear the edifice of education upon that solid foundation of the Word of God.”[61]

By no means should the reader think that the writer is partial in not telling something of the superstitions, formalism, and ignorance still in existence and practice among the Armenians and in their church. These have often been written and spoken of, even with a great deal of lack of knowledge and charity. Had those writers on these aspects of the Armenian Church and people remembered that for almost sixteen centuries this Church has been in constant conflict with paganism, Zoroastrianism, Mohammedanism, and the evil influences of the so-called other Christian Churches, they would not have been so severe in their denunciations of that old relic of the ancient Christian Church. Often were the bishops and priests in the battlefield with their flocks against the enemy of the Church. Often were they in chains, in imprisonment, in hostage at the pagan, Mohammedan and so-called Christian Courts; often were they carried away into captivity and massacred by their captors because they would not denounce[Pg 116] their faith in Christ. In the massacre of 1895-6 not one out of one hundred and seventy Armenian priests and twenty-one Protestant Armenian ministers, who were cruelly butchered by a slow torture for their faith, was willing to exchange his Christian faith for his life. The same was true for centuries. How could they give more attention than they did to the education and enlightenment of their people and to the purity of the Church? Even to-day the best intellects of the Armenian church, the educators and lovers of reform and the purity of the Church and the people have been butchered by the unspeakable Turks with the consent of their allies or have chosen voluntary exile. Certainly these circumstances will not justify the condition of the church, but they ought to modify the severity of our judgment and fill us with a deeper sympathy, with a truer Christian love and activity for its reform, purity, and spiritual prosperity. (See Chapter XV.)

FOOTNOTES:

[53] Ubicini, “Letters on Turkey,” Vol. II, pp. 256-7.

[54] Muradian, “The History of the Apostolic Church of Armenia,” p. 35. (This work is in the Armenian language.)

[55] Ubicini, “Letter on Turkey,” Vol. II, pp. 285-6.

[56] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 275.

[57] Moffat, “Church History in Brief,” p. 142.

[58] Malon, “The Life and Times of St. Gregory,” p, 31. London.

[59] Lynch, “Armenia,” Vol. I, p. 314.

[60] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” pp. 341-2.

[61] Muradian, “The History of the Apostolic Church of Armenia,” pp. 117-121, 127-128.

The Mameluke Sultans of Egypt were the unhappy instruments of harassing and finally overthrowing the Armenian independence in Cilicia, but they did not enjoy the pleasure of ruling over Armenia, nor Cilicia and the Armenians. The course of events was taking a different shape in Western Asia.

By a succession of influxes of the Mongolian hordes into the country, during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, the power of the Caliphs of Bagdad was broken into pieces and a vast empire was formed by the Seljukian Turks. After the death of the third sovereign, Malek Shah, the empire was divided into various principalities. One of these became a kingdom of considerable importance, lying on the frontier of the Greek empire, having Nice, afterwards Iconium (now Koniah), its capital. The same influx of the Mongolian invaders had not yet stopped on the one hand; on the other hand the Western Crusaders did render some service in annoying this kingdom, while the Mameluke Sultans by no means were at peace with the Seljukian Turks.

The turbulent condition of Western Asia at this[Pg 118] period (13th century) could well afford the growth of a new power, or dynasty, provided this power was in sympathy with the prevalent religion, Mohammedanism, and congenial with the invading hordes. Unfortunately for the Christians, both in Western Asia, and later in Eastern Europe, we find a power, growing out of a nomadic tribe into a formidable empire, which held the Christian world in terror for several centuries. The following is the origin of this empire:

“About the middle of the thirteenth century a tribe of Turks, not of the stock of Seljuk, driven forward by the Mongol invaders, left their camping grounds in Khorasan and wandered into Armenia in search of undisturbed pasturage. After seven years of exile, deeming the opportunity favorable to return, they set out to their ancient possessions. But while fording the Euphrates, the horse of their leader fell with him and he perished in the river. A spot upon its banks now bears the name of the tomb of the Turk. Upon this accident occurring the tribe was divided by his sons into four companies and Ertogrul, the warlike head of one division, resolved to return to the westward and seek a settlement in Asia Minor. While pursuing his course he spied two armies in hostile array. Not willing to be a neutral spectator of the battle he joined himself to the apparently weaker party and his timely aid decided the victory. The conquered were an invading horde of Mongols, the conqueror was Aladdin, the Seljukian Sultan of Iconium, and Ertogrul received from the grateful victor an assignment of territory in his dominions for himself and his people. It consisted of the rich plains around Shughut, in the valley of the Sangarins (called the “country of pasture”), and[Pg 119] of the Black Mountains on the borders of Phrygia and Bithynia. The former district was for his winter abode; the latter for his summer encampment. In this domain was nurtured his son Othman, or Osman, who became the founder of a dynasty and an empire. From him the Turks of the present day have the name of Ottoman, or Osmanli, which they universally adopt, rejecting that of Turk with disdain as synonymous with barbarian.”[62]

Othman began to reign about A.D. 1289. The shepherd, warrior, and freebooter were united in his character. He was dependent on the Sultan of Iconium during the life of the latter, but otherwise he was free to prey upon his neighbors and govern his people. After the death of the sultan, who had no sons to succeed him, his kingdom was divided, and Othman became, practically, an independent ruler. He increased and extended his power and territories by gradual encroachments upon the Grecian dominions, and by repeated inroads year after year. He captured Brousa and made it the capital of his government. His son and successor, Orchan, extended the bounds of Othman’s territories with astonishing rapidity. He crossed the Straits of Hellespont and Bosphorus. He appointed his brother, Aladdin, vizier. Aladdin created the system of the standing army in the year 1330.

“But the soldiers (taken from the Turks) proved intractable and could not be brought to submit to the strict discipline involved in military organizations. To obviate this difficulty the expedient was resorted to of rearing up in the doctrine of Islam the children of the[Pg 120] conquered Christians inuring them from youth to the profession of arms and forming them into a separate corps. This black invention, as Von Hammer truly characterizes it, was adopted by Aladdin at the instance of Kara (black) Chalil Chenderli, the judge of the Army, and he adds, has ‘a diabolical complexion, much blacker than the gunpowder almost contemporaneously discovered by Schwartz (black) in Europe.’ Hence arose the Janissaries, a name which the westerns have corrupted from the Turkish Jenicheri, signifying the ‘new troops.’ The Corps continued to be recruited from the children of the captives taken in war, or from those Christian subjects, an inhuman tax of every fifth child or one child every fifth year, being rigorously levied upon the families. The number of the Janissaries, originally one thousand, was successively raised to twelve, to twenty, and to forty thousand, immediately connected with the Court, besides a much larger number scattered through the provinces. Hence it has been estimated that not less than half a million Christian children were cruelly torn from their parents, compelled to embrace Islamism, and trained to maintain it with the sword. At length, in the reign of Mohammed IV (A.D. 1648-1687) began the custom of admitting into the regiment the children of the soldiers themselves; and after this innovation, the Janissaries became a kind of military caste, transmitting from father to son the profession of arms.

“In the days of their pristine vigor, the new troops were distinguished by their fanaticism and valor. Through upwards of three centuries, marked by a long series of great battles, they sustained only four single reverses, chiefly from Tamerlane in 1402, and John Humades, the Hungarian general, in 1442. During that period they extended the petty kingdom of Brousa over the vast dominions of Constantine the Great, and made known their prowess from the walls of Bagdad[Pg 121] to the gate of Vienna, and from the Caspian Sea to the Nile, while their name was the common terror of Christendom.”[63]

The reason of our apparent deviation by giving at this time an account of the origin and growth of the Turkish empire, will be readily seen in the succeeding pages; for it was with the Turks that the Armenians have mostly had to do during the last five hundred years. Moreover, we would call attention to the fact that the brilliant conquests have not been accomplished by the Tatar Turks, but by the Christian youths, who from their early childhood were cruelly torn away from their parents and paternal Christian religion and compelled to embrace Islamism, and inured to the profession of arms to maintain with the sword the religion of Mohammed.

A considerable number of Armenians driven from the face of the Mongolian invaders, had chosen for themselves the life of voluntary exiles in the Grecian provinces, and towards the end of the fourteenth century after the overthrow of their Cilician independence, the Turkish empire then being nearly a century old, many Armenians became a ready prey to the fanaticism of the Turks.

It has been estimated that not less than 500,000 Christian children were thus cruelly torn from their parents, compelled to embrace Islamism, and trained to maintain it with the sword. How many thousands of families were compelled to exchange their religion, the religion of love and chastity,[Pg 122] for the religion of Mohammed, the religion of sensualism and tyranny; how many thousands were massacred because they would not obey such an infernal behest, it is impossible to tell. Suffice it to say that these questions are not imaginary possibilities, but attested facts of history which make up the darkest pages of the Ottoman chronicles. Indeed we would be unwilling to believe them if we had not seen and heard even worse things in the early part of the twentieth century.

While the expatriated Armenians were cruelly treated by the Turks, who were growing in power and increasing in numbers at the expense of the Christians in western and central Asia Minor, those still in Armenia proper received one of the severest calamities ever inflicted upon humanity. The executor of this terrible infliction was the famous Mongolian savage and warrior, Lenk Temur, commonly called Tamerlane (Temur the lame). He made himself the master of an empire extending from the great wall of China to Moscow and to the Mediterranean, having Samarcand his capital. He marched with an immense army against the Persians and in a short time subdued them. He subjugated Bagdad, plundered Aleppo (Hallep), burned down the greater part of Damascus and wrested Syria from the Mameluke Sultan. From the city of Van to the city of Sebastia (Sivas), from one end to the other of Armenia, no city, town or village of any size escaped the notice of the rapacious potentate; he reduced them all to ruinous heaps and ashes. The foreign[Pg 123] rulers of the different parts of Armenia had no power whatever, to withstand the terrible army of Temur, which covered the land like an army of locusts. A Kurd, chief by the name of Kara (black) Yusuf, who was assuming control over the Sasoun district and southern part of Armenia, fled from the face of Temur into the mountain fastnesses, where with some of his subjects he wandered until the calamity was past. The city of Van, after a feeble resistance surrendered; the youths were carried as captives, the rest were massacred in various forms. The inhabitants of Sivas surrendered on his solemn promise that “no soldier of his will lift up the sword on them.” He was true to the letter, but not to the spirit of his promise. Four thousand soldiers were roasted to death, and as many were buried alive, and thousands of the very young and old whose hands and feet were tied, were thrown together and trampled under the hoofs of the horses. The spot upon which this barbarous mode of massacre took place, to this day, bears the name of Sev Hokher, signifying in the Armenian language the “Black Plains.” He then marched to meet the Ottoman ruler Bajazet I. Bajazet may deserve a word or two before we hand him over to the tender mercies of Temur—his three predecessors had borne the title of emir, commander, but Bajazet changed it for that of Sultan. He was the first also to set the example of fratricide in the royal family, for he caused his only brother to be put to death. The Mohammedan historian trying to justify him, says, “remembering the[Pg 124] text of the Koran, that disturbance is worse than execution.” Sigismund of Hungary, with his allies, “a body of French and German knightly auxiliaries, endeavored to cope with the fiery Turk, but was defeated with terrible loss in the battle of Nicopolis in 1396.”

Bajazet, fierce and proud, warlike and bloodthirsty (in the above battle ten thousand prisoners were put to death by his order), acquired the name of Ylderum, ‘lightning,’ on account of his energy and quickness of action. “Elated by his successes, he contemplated a campaign into the heart of Europe, and boasted that he would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.”[64] He who has the destinies of men in His hand, had differently mapped the career of Bajazet, the Ylderum. The lame Temur with his immense army moved westward, and Bajazet eastward to meet the Tatar warrior. The latter fully confident of a victory courted an encounter with the former. Their armies met one another on the plains of Angora. Fierce must have been the conflict. There is always some reason, or excuse for a defeat. It is said that Bajazet was ill at the time and though he was riding on one of the fleetest horses in the field, he could not effect his escape. He was captured and his army scattered in 1402. It is supposed that he died in the following year from natural causes, “aggravated by his inability to brook a reverse of fortune so signal and complete.”

For a few years Temur, the lame, was the lord of Asia and the master of the original seat of the Ottoman. He returned with an immense number of captives and the plunder to the ancient city of the caliphs; there in Samarcand, he was preparing for another campaign into China, when he was removed to the presence of the eternal Judge, the King whose laws he had violated and whose creatures he had destroyed. He died in 1405, in his capital Samarcand, and his vast empire quickly crumbled into small fragments.

The magnificent city of Constantinople, after being the metropolis of a Christian nation over eleven centuries, fell into the hands of the barbarian Turks (1453). In vain, and too late, did the Greeks realize their critical condition, and struggle against the angel of death. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks filled the European nations with consternation. The following is a portion of the letter of Pius II, the Pope who tried to raise a crusade against the Turks:

“The strait of Cadiz has been passed, and the poison of Mohammed penetrates even into Spain.... In other directions, where Europe extends eastward, the Christian religion has been swept away from all the shores. The barbarian Turks, a people hated by God and man, issuing from the east of Scythia, have occupied Cappadocia, Pontus, Bithynia, Troas, Pisidia, Cilicia and all Asia Minor. Not yet content, counting on the weakness and dissensions of the Greeks, they have passed the Hellespont and got possession of nearly all the Grecian cities of Attica ... Achaia, Macedonia, and Trace.

[Pg 126]

“Still, the royal city of Constantinople did remain the pillar and head of all the East, the seat of patriarch and emperor, the sole dwelling place of Grecian wisdom.... This too, in our own day while the Latins, divided among themselves, forsook the Greeks, has that cruel nation of Turks invaded and spoiled, triumphing over the city that once gave laws to all the East.

“Nor is their savage appetite yet satiated. The lord of the unrighteous people, who is rather to be called a dark brute than a king, a venomous dragon than emperor, he, athirst for human blood, brings down huge forces upon Hungary. Here he harasses the Epirates and here the Albanians; and swelling in his own pride, boasts that he will abolish the lowly gospel and all the law of Christ, and threatens Christians everywhere with chains, stripes, death, and horrid torments....”

Even the great reformer, the immortal Luther, “composed a once popular prayer, suited to the times, to be sung as a hymn in the churches; and Robert Wisdome, afterwards Archdeacon of Ely, appended a translation of it to the metrical version of the Psalms, by Steinhold and Hopkins. It commenced with the lines:

‘Preserve us, Lord, by thy dear word,
From pope and Turk, defend us Lord.’”[65]

After the death of Temur, all the rulers whom he had subdued, began to rise and recover their respective reigns. Kara Yusuf returned to Sasoun and resumed his rule over southern Armenia. Temur’s son Sharukh was reigning in Persia and over the eastern portion of Armenia. Iskander (Alexander)[Pg 127] the son and successor of Yusuf and Sharukh had a long contest over the southern and eastern part of Armenia (1421-1437). Sharukh finally subdued Iskander—who was also called Shahi Armen, Shah of Armenians—and set his brother Jihan Shal as a ruler, whose seat was in Tabriz, in the province of Azerbaijan, his reign extended over eastern and southern Armenia. Meanwhile in Mesopotamia, a Tatar prince, a Turcoman, by the name of Jehankir, was rapidly growing in power. His son, Uzun (long) Hasan, succeeded the father, and after the death of Jinan Shah he seized the throne of Persia and also reigned over the entire Armenia (1468).

In my endeavor to be brief, I have crowded the history of almost a century into less than a page, but these continuous wars, between the rival princes and rulers, have decimated and destroyed a large portion of the population of Armenia, the Armenians. And when the combatants were exhausted and ceased for a time, then the inevitable sequel of wars, famine, had to take its fearful toll of human life.

It is a miracle that any Armenians at all have been left to the present time. But it seems to me, that God purposely preserved some of them even to the beginning of the twentieth century to prove two things, namely, that the boasted Christian civilization of Europe is a Christless civilization, that Mohammedanism, after thirteen centuries of opportunity and trial has proved itself not a whit better than the barbarism of the past, and even worse in many respects.

Some new warriors were preparing themselves to enter into the arena. Shah Ismail established and founded the Suffavean dynasty of Persia (1499). The Suffaveans claimed that Ali, the fourth Caliph, would have been the successor of Mohammed and the head of Islamism had not Abubeker, Omar, and Osman, usurped his right. They, moreover, claimed lineage from Ali, and thus to be the lawful successor of Mohammed. The Osmali sultans repudiated this right and descent. Though both the Persians and Turks venerate the false prophet, yet they divide the Mohammedans into two sects. The Turks are sunees, or sonees, orthodox, and they call the Persians Sheahs or heterodox. This difference and the national jealousies between the Turks and Persians furnished these two Islam nations with an occasion for constant war and bloodshed which lasted over two centuries. But alas! the noble land of Ararat had to furnish them the battle-field, and the unfortunate “House of Torgarmah” to suffer the doleful consequence of their bloody conflicts.

Sultan Selim I, who merited the title of “the cruel,” is believed to have caused the death of his father, Bajazet II. He had forced him to abdicate, and while on his way to Adrianople as an exile, he was murdered. Selim was fiercely intolerant in religion. Naturally, all the fanatics loved him. Turning his army of 140,000 eastward he subdued Armenia and Mesopotamia and conducted a successful war in Persia against Shah Ismail. The latter was defeated and barely escaped from capture (1514).[Pg 129] Selim captured Tabriz and there he found a dethroned prince of Temur’s race and carried him to Constantinople.

It was a fortunate thing for the Christians, that though this eastern campaign was a religious war it was conducted against the Sheahs or the heterodox Mohammedans; and a formal expression of opinion by the Ulema was, that there was “more merit in killing one Sheah than in shedding the blood of seventy Christians.” Selim’s savage intolerance was so fierce that he thought to annihilate every member of the sect in his dominions.[66]

The conflict between the successors of Selim I and Shah Ismail in Armenia continued with varying fortunes. But one of the notable misfortunes that befel the people was in the reign of Shah Abbas, a magnificent barbarian. He was one of the Shahs of the Suffavian dynasty, and was preparing for a conflict with the Turks in 1605. Pretending that he was afraid he might be compelled to cede the province which he had conquered to the enemy, he gave orders to his army to vacate immediately as many cities and towns as possible, burn them to ashes, and drive the inhabitants into Persia. Within a short time many a city and town lay in ashes, and the country was reduced to a fearful condition of desolation. Thousands sought refuge in mountains and[Pg 130] caves. Some found a refuge but others were found by the enemy, and twenty-five thousand families—some before and some after this event—were led into captivity.

This great host of captives was composed of the venerable patriarchs, bishops, priests, old men and women; children of all ages; mothers with their infants in their arms, baptizing them with their tears; gallant young men and beautiful maidens. These all were indiscriminately driven by the Persian soldiers to the banks of the Araxes, where rafts and galleys were in readiness to hasten their crossing the swift waters of the river. With the pretense that the enemy was pressing hard, they compelled many to hasten the crossing by swimming the river, many of them were carried in the current.

Opposite Ispahan these captives were settled and built New Jula (some write Julfa). The Jula proper in Armenia was destroyed by Shah Abbas. The Persians were conquerors in this war: “Upon the sword being drawn the Persians rapidly recovered the provinces wrested from them by Selim and Solimon; and a large Turkish army was signally defeated August the 24th, 1605. Five pashas were slain; the same number were taken prisoners; and the victor continued to receive the heads of his enemies till midnight, when more than twenty thousand had been counted. Shah Abbas performed pilgrimages on foot to the shrines of Moslem saints, and swept their tombs. Yet while doing this he allowed a Roman Catholic convent to be established at Ispahan,[Pg 131] stood godfather to the child of Sir Robert Shirley, and even formally received baptism—events to which the Jesuits ascribed his execrable triumphs.”[67]

Sultan Amurath (Murath) IV marched, with a large army, against the Persians, and recovered the provinces of Armenia from the Persians. He then marched and laid siege to Baghdad which the Persians had taken. Ten thousand of the Persian garrison lost their lives during the siege; and twenty thousand more, being the whole number in the town, were massacred during and immediately after the capture. A few days afterwards an equal number of the inhabitants, who were Sheahs, were slaughtered by the triumphant Sonnees (1638).

After this the Armenians in Armenia enjoyed a comparative rest of over eighty years. They had some time to repair their churches and schools, monasteries and homes. They did all these and they also recuperated and raised a new and sturdy posterity to meet the hardships of the eighteenth century.

During the early part of the eighteenth century some disturbances in Persia and Armenia made the Armenians in both of these countries greatly to suffer. Then again the Turks and the Persians were not always at peace with one another. The Russians, moreover, were slowly moving southward and preparing to enter into the contest. They contended with the Persians over the northwestern portion of Armenia and other provinces belonging to the latter from 1772-1828. In their contest the Armenians rendered[Pg 132] a signal service to the Russians and decided the victory for them.

“From 1813 to 1829 the Armenians appear to think their emancipation at hand. Russia stood in need of them to make a diversion against the Ottoman forces and held out to them the hope of becoming an independent principality, under the protection of the Czar. Her promises were believed, and, in their devotion to their destined liberator, they withstood for more than six weeks an army of eighty thousand Persians who were marching against Russia, and prevented them from crossing their frontier; but these services reaped a poor reward, for not only were the Russians faithless to their promises, but they seized the opportunity of some trifling disturbance in the country to lay violent hands on the venerable Archbishop Narses, who was dragged first to St. Petersburg and afterward banished to Bessarabia, whilst several of the Armenian chiefs were scattered in exile through foreign countries, or carried off to Russia, to be heard of no more.”[68]

Russia also wrested from the degenerate Turkish Empire at times, especially in 1878, a large territory and the important city of Kars of Armenia, and now the Russian armies are occupying almost all of Armenia, and it is hoped that not a foot of ground in Armenia will be returned to the “unspeakable Turk.”

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 6-7.

[63] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 18-20.

[64] Milner, “Turkish Empire,” p. 33.

[65] Happily, Luther did not live in the days of William II of Germany.

[66] In his campaign against Syria and Egypt, Selim captured Cairo, deposed the last Caliph Al-mutawakkel. Selim was invested with the dignity by the sheriff of Mecca, who consigned the keys of Kaaba to his custody. He added the title of defender of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. His successors have since been regarded as the supreme chiefs of the orthodox Moslem world. Milner, “Turkish Empire,” p. 105.

[67] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 135, 138.

[68] Ubicini, “Letters on Turkey,” Vol. II, p. 340.

From the foregoing history it will easily be understood that the Armenians have been subjected to all kinds of cruelties. Owing to calamitous wars, merciless persecutions, voluntary and involuntary exiles, and emigrations into different countries, they have been justly compared to the Jews. Like them scattered all over the globe the Armenians are met with in every commercial city throughout Europe and Asia. However, until the beginning of 1915 the great majority of them still dwelled in the land of Ararat in the Turkish empire. There were over two hundred thousand Armenians in the city of Constantinople, and as many in other European countries. The number of the Armenians in Turkish Armenia and in Asia Minor was not considered to be below two millions and a half.[69]

The Armenians lived (before this world war) in their respective villages, towns and cities. If a town, or village is not exclusively occupied by the Armenians, then they had their own district clustered by[Pg 134] themselves with sufficient churches and schools for their religious and educational needs. The dwellings in the villages and towns are of primitive style in the interior being built either of unhewn stone entirely, or half of stone and half of sun-dried bricks. The roofs are flat. Large logs or beams are laid crosswise, supported by strong pillars. These are covered with planks and earth to a thickness of two or three feet, and then hardened to prevent leaking. But in spite of all sometimes “through idleness of lands, the house droppeth through.”[70]

Some of these villages are built on the hillsides, and the roofs of the lower row of houses are on the level with the streets above, or with the yards of the houses above. Some travelers, careless in their observations or basing their statements on the information of others, betray incorrectness in their assertions in regard to them when they say that “the inhabitants are literally dwelling under ground.”

The villagers and some dwellers in towns were and are (what is left of them in Asia Minor) exclusively engaged in agricultural pursuits and the raising and tending of cattle and sheep, their land and fold, being within a distance of several miles from the villages and towns. The farmers go to their fields of labor in the morning early and return in the evening to their homes. They could not do like the farmers in this country, live on or near their farms on account of insecurity of life and property. The Turkish government had determined for[Pg 135] years to expose the Armenians to all manner of oppressions, thefts, plunders and murders perpetrated by the Circassians, Kurds and Turks, especially the former two, who have been human parasites on the Christian inhabitants of Turkey.

In Armenia many families formerly could be found (still some may be found) living in a patriarchal style like the families of Abraham, Job and Jacob, who could raise a force and chase the invaders from their borders; the younger sons and grandsons with the hired servants tending the flocks and following the herds like Jesse’s younger son, and not a few of them had the fate that Job’s servants had.

Many Armenian youths have been like Jesse’s youngest son, leading the sheep on the lonely hills of Armenia. Yet none finds the life of an Oriental shepherd an easy and pleasant one, not only because it is exposed to dangerous conflicts with robbers, thieves, wild beasts and ravenous wolves, but also the irksome anxiety to find green pastures and still waters to lead the flocks thereto. Added to this is the feeling of loneliness day and night and compulsive association with the mute creature whom they call by their names. Some shepherds again, like David, have a source of comfort, not the harp, but their flutes, and the sheep seem to delight to listen to those pensive melodies, when the shepherds play, while the shepherd-dogs with their accredited faithfulness, always follow the flocks.

The farming implements are also in primitive simplicity, like the mode of cultivation. The western[Pg 136] plows, planters, sowers, cultivators, reapers, and self-binders and threshing machines are comparatively unknown in most of the places in the Turkish Armenia. The employment of oxen and tamed buffaloes, instead of horses in some hilly and rocky districts, for hauling and farming might be justifiable, but in many places and for many many purposes on the farm the horses could be used with advantage. They are not, however, except for riding and traveling.

It is due to the inexhaustive fertility of the land and to the industry of the people, and not to the modern improvements or advantageous circumstances, that the inhabitants of Armenia have not starved long ago. If we, moreover, remember the absence of railroads and good roads, the difficulty of transportation of the products into the market, the dangers from the highway robbers encountered in traveling which paralyze the spirit of enterprise and energy of the farmer, we well may be surprised to know that they not only make a living, but that thousands of bushels of grain were annually exported into the European countries.

In every village, town and city of Armenia and in Asia Minor where there were and are Armenians, churches and schools are found, one, two, or more of them according to the numbers of the Armenian inhabitants. Some of these villages and towns are wholly inhabited by the Mohammedans who have seized the property of the Christians and have also[Pg 137] converted their churches into mosques and their schools into tekes (schools).

Many of the churches are of great antiquity, but some only a few centuries old. They are invariably of substantial characters. One of the peculiarities of the older churches is that their entrances or doors are quite small and low. The reason of this was and still is in the interior to prevent the enemies of their religion from desecrating the sacred edifices by putting their horses into the churches and converting them into stables, as the greatest insult to Christianity and a single triumph of Mohammedanism. Sultan Bajazet himself boasted he “would one day feed his horse at Rome with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter’s.” What Bajazet and others of his type and character boasted that they would do in Europe, so both long before and after him, others have done it in Armenia and elsewhere; and even worse, as the following verse, composed by our immortal “prince of poets.” Nerses Shnorhali (graceful or gracious), who lived in the twelfth century:

“Close by the altar in the sacred fane,
Where daily God’s own paschal lamb was slain,
Hadji, the impious, made vile harlots sing,
And drunken broils throughout the temple ring.”

The Armenians, living in large towns and cities, were and are engaged in various occupations. The following trades were almost exclusively in the hands of the Armenians in Asiatic and partly in European Turkey: Blacksmithing, goldsmithing, coppersmithing, locksmithing, watchmaking, shoemaking, tailoring,[Pg 138] weaving, printing, dyeing, carpentry, masonry, architecture, etc. Some are storekeepers of all sorts. Others are merchants and traveling merchants, money-brokers, bankers, lawyers and physicians. “The Armenian nation,” says a writer, “is the life of Turkey.” But the Turks have been committing suicide by attempting to annihilate the Armenians in the Empire. Another says, “They are a noble race and have been called ‘the Anglo-Saxons of the East.’ They are an active and enterprising class. Shrewd, industrious and persevering, they are the bankers of Constantinople, the artisans of Turkey, and the merchants of Western and Central Asia.”

One of the first missionaries of the American Board, the Rev. Dr. H. G. O. Dwight, says: “The principal merchants are Armenians, and so are nearly all the great bankers of the Turkish government; and whatever arts there are that require peculiar ingenuity and skill, are almost sure to be in the hands of Armenians.”

“In these Armenian provinces of Russia the machinery of administration is conducted by a handful of Russian officials through Armenians, who are employed even in the higher grades. The Armenian is a man of ancient culture and high national capacity; neither the instinct nor the quality would be claimed by his Russian superior.... Moreover, the Russian official gives the impression of being overwhelmed by his system, like a child to whom his lessons are new, and when you see him at work among such a people as the Armenians, you ask yourself[Pg 139] how it has happened that a race with all the aptitudes are governed by such wooden figures.”[71]

One more quotation from another Englishman, which will be an exception from the other testimonies, yet the exception proves the rule: “As a people (the Armenians) there are few who have a good word for them. They are said to be cowardly and treacherous, to be mere money grubbers, and so on ad nauseum. The charges vary; but all agree that the objects of them are objectionable somehow. They seem, in fact, to be a sort of ‘Dr. Fell’ of nationalities for every one dislikes them, though often enough they cannot tell the reason. Even the writer, who has not the least objection to thieves, murderers, and devil-worshipers, who has kindly feeling for a successful cheat, admits to getting on less well with Armenians than with other Orientals.”[72] Surely does the exception prove the rule. Every Armenian ought to be thankful that he is not a thief, he is not a murderer, he is not a devil-worshiper or even a successful cheat, so as to merit this Rev. Dr. Wigram’s approval. However, there are some things that man cannot deny; so this writer is compelled to say, “And yet there is much about them that anyone must admire.... In the massacres of 1895, armed men were butchering unarmed, and there was no test of anything but passive endurance. Yet how many could have saved their lives by a mere verbal acceptance (of Mohammedanism)?” But they did not.

In the days of old the Armenians were also noted as merchants and traders in Western Asia. Herodotus, the great historian who lived in the fifth century before Christ, tells us that next to the marvelous city Babylon were the boats constructed in Armenia by the Armenian merchants in the following manner:

“But the greatest wonder of all that I saw in the land, after the city itself, I will now proceed to mention. The boats which came down the river (Euphrates) to Babylon are circular and made of skin. The frames which are of willow, are cut in the country of the Armenians above Assyria and on these, which serve for hulls, a covering of skin is stretched outside and thus the boats are made, without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield. They are then entirely filled with straw, and their cargo is put on the board, after which they are suffered to float down the stream. Their chief freight is wine, stored in casks made of the wood of the palmtrees.

“They are managed by two men, who stand upright in them, each plying an oar, one pulling and the other pushing. The boats are of various sizes, some larger, some smaller; the biggest reach as high as five thousand talents burthen. Each vessel has a live ass on board; those of larger size have more than one. When they reach Babylon the cargo is landed and offered for sale, after which the men break up their boats, sell the straw and frames, and, loading their asses with the skins, set off on their way back to Armenia. The current is too strong to allow a boat to return upstream, for which reason they make their boats of skin rather than wood. On their return to Armenia they build fresh boats for the next voyage.”[73]

The prophet Ezekiel, more than a hundred and fifty years before the time of Herodotus, in his enumeration of the ancient merchant nations who were engaged in mercantile pursuits with the Phœnicians in the markets of Tyre, speaks of the Armenians under the popular appellation of “the house of Togarmah.” “They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.”[74]

The descendants of Togarmah, on account of their ingenuity and intelligence, have accumulated great wealth, and demanded, by fitness, from the indolent Turk, many high trusts in the government and its affairs, but by the jealousy, cruelty, and cupidity of the latter many of them have been precipitated from their elevated state and prosperity into terrible misery, often ending in execution.

“The most remarkable circumstance is that these Armenians who have undergone execution have the modes of their death commemorated on their sepulchres by the effigies of men being hung, strangled or beheaded. In explanation it is stated that having become wealthy by their industry, they suffered as victims to the cupidity of former governments, not as criminals; and hence their ignominious death was really honorable to them and worthy of a memorial. An inscription on one of the tombs of this class is as follows:

“You see my place of burial here in this verdant field,
I give my goods to the robber,
My soul to the regions of death;
The world I leave to God,
And my blood I shed in the Holy Spirit.[Pg 142]
You who meet my tomb,
Say for me
‘Lord, I have sinned.’
1197.”[75]

Sultan Mohammed II after he made Constantinople his capital appointed Bishop Onaghim, of Brousa, patriarch over the Armenians in his dominions in 1461, as the head of his people with certain privileges. This custom of appointing the patriarchs by the Sultans continued for a long time. But it did not prove to be the popular way, on account of abuses of procuring the offices, and unqualified persons often obtaining the appointment by the influence of their friends. The nation, therefore, obtained the right from the Porte to choose her own patriarch by suffrage. The appointment, however, had to be ratified by the Sultan of Turkey.

Some prominent Armenians drew up a Constitution in 1860 and presented it to the Turkish government for approval. The Porte approved it with a few changes. The following is the introduction of the Constitution:

“The privileges granted by the Ottoman Empire to its non-Mohammedan subjects are in their principles equal for all, but the mode of their execution varies according to the requirements of the particular customs of each nationality.

“The Armenian patriarch is the head of his nation,[Pg 143] and in particular circumstances the medium of execution of the orders of the government. There is, however, in the patriarchate a Religious Assembly for particular affairs. In case of necessity these two unite and form the mixed Assembly. Both the patriarch and members of these Assemblies are elected in a general Assembly composed of honorable men of the nation.

“As the office and duties of the above Assemblies and the mode of their formation are not defined by sufficient rules, for this reason different inconveniences and special difficulties in the formation of the general Assembly has been noticed.

“As each community is bound according to the new Imperial Edict (Hatti Humayan 6-18 of Feb., 1856) to examine within a given time its rights and privileges and after due deliberation to present to the sublime Porte the reforms required by the present state of things and progress of civilization of our times.

“As it is necessary to harmonize the authority and power to the religions of each nationality with the new condition and system secured to each community.

“A committee of some honorable persons of the nation was organized, which committee prepared the following Constitution.”

The General Assembly is the principal body of the national representative administration, which is composed of one hundred forty members, twenty of these are clergymen, elected from Constantinople, forty are representatives elected from provinces, and eighty are representatives from the districts of the capital. This assembly is elected for ten years, but one-fifth of its membership is changed by election every two years. Thus the whole Assembly is changed every ten years. The General Assembly assumes[Pg 144] the entire responsibility of the national affairs; the patriarch is the presiding officer. There are two other assemblies or councils: Ecclesiastical or religious and political or civil. The former consists of fourteen clergymen, the latter is composed of twenty lay members. The members of these councils are also elected from the General Assembly for two years.

The ecclesiastical council has its sphere of action in religious matters and is the highest religious authority in the Turkish empire. The political or civil council is the civil authority, and has four sub-councils or committees under its supervision through which to operate, namely, council of Revenues, council of Expenditures, Judicatory Council and Educational Council (or the committee on Education). These names indicate the sphere of their activities or duties.

This mode of operation or division of the work is carried out into the provinces wherever Armenians are found. The Bishops or their substitutes are the presidents of these provincial councils. And all the councils and sub-councils in the provinces and in the districts of Constantinople are amenable to the General Assembly, and the Assembly and the Patriarch to the Porte.[76]

Oppressions, resulting from wars, political and[Pg 145] religious, persecutions, the division of the country among different powers, and the desire of the people to better themselves have caused the people to scatter from their paternal homes all over the world. An early company of emigrants entered India via Persia. After the appearance of the East India Company, the Armenians rendered the Company very important services, acting as interpreters. Thus they also received special privileges as traders and became very wealthy. In every important city they have their churches and schools and printing press. They have been also liberal in giving large sums for the education of the poor and orphan Armenian children.

The Armenians in Persia, or under the Persian rule, are not in a very desirable condition, from a religious and educational point of view. Especially those living in Western Persia, or Pers-Armenia, are subject to all sorts of cruelties at the hands of the Kurds, with whom they unfortunately neighbor. But the presence of the Russian armies who occupy these regions may be the end of oppression in the East.

Russia having in the last century wrested from Persia and Turkey a large portion of Armenia, there are over a million of Armenians in the Armenian provinces of Russia, besides those who reside in the commercial cities of the same empire. Their financial and intellectual condition is far better than that of those living in Persia, or in the interior of the Turkish provinces of Armenia. Now that the entire Armenia is occupied by the Russian forces, the prospect[Pg 146] is that probably the dawn of the liberty of the long oppressed Armenians is at hand. Russia of this century is different from the Russia of the past. She will be liberty-loving, the good company that she is in will guide her to heal the wounds made in the past, and make those who have served her faithfully, both in the past and at the present, acknowledge her as their liberator.

A proximate estimate of the number of Armenians in different countries in the world may be given as follows: Two millions in the Turkish empire, before the war; one million and three hundred thousand in Russian Armenia and in the same empire; one hundred and fifty thousand in Persia and in other eastern countries; one hundred thousand in European countries and a hundred thousand in America; total three million and six hundred fifty thousand.

The Armenians belong to the branch of the human family which is commonly called the Aryan Race. The nations of Aryan stock extend from Hindustan or India to Europe, for this reason it is also called Indo-European or Indo-Germanic. This Aryan race is geographically divided into two branches, the eastern and the western. The western branch comprehends the inhabitants of Europe with the exception of the Turks and others of Mongolian origin. The eastern branch comprehends the Armenians, the Persians, the ancient Medes and Afghans and the inhabitants of Northern Hindustan.

The studies of anthropology, philology, psychology and sociology have confirmed the original unity of[Pg 147] these nations. The Armenian language also, therefore, belongs to the Indo-European family (the occidental branch) of languages. This is proved not only by numerous words with the identical sense in this family of languages, but also by the very construction of the language itself. “In any case it is clear that many of the oldest forms which the Armenian shared with other Indo-Germanic dialects were lost and replaced by forms of which the origin is obscure.... The attempt made by S. Bugge to assimilate Old Armenia (language) to Etruscan, and by P. Jesen to explain from it the Hittite inscriptions, appear to be fanciful.”[77]

There are, however, two Armenian languages, the ancient and the modern; the former was the language of the pre-Christian era, and after the conversion of the nation, and the translation of the Bible into the same, it became the standard language of literature. “In its syntactical structure the Old Armenian resembles most nearly the classical Greek.” The modern Armenian is not a distinct language, but it is simplified and adapted to the present use of the most of the people. Within little more than a century it has become a very rich language by numerous original and translated works, by periodicals and papers published in various centers of learning, and especially by the translation of the Bible. The relations of the modern to the ancient Armenian might well be compared with that of the modern Greek to ancient Greek language.

The Armenian literature of the pre-Christian era has not survived, excepting a few fragmentary songs, which lingered until the time of Moses of Khorene, in whose history of Armenia they are preserved; and the inscriptions of Van, which some claim as “the oldest specimens of the Asiatic branch of the Indo-Germanic family.”

Christianity brought with it into Armenia a great love for learning. After the conversion of the nation, Armenian youths flocked into the schools of Alexandria, Constantinople and Athens. Most of them engaged in translating valuable works from the Greek and other languages into the Armenian. A writer speaks of these translators in this manner: “Some of them attained celebrity in this chosen pursuit. To this tendency we owe the preservation, in Armenian, of many works that have perished in their original languages.” “Hundreds of other translations from Syriac and Greek writers soon followed (the translations of the Bible), some of which are extant only in Armenian.”

The original works consist of theological and expository discourses, commentaries, histories, sacred songs, devotional works, etc. “The existing literature of the Armenians dates from the fourth century and is essentially and exclusively Christian.” This “literature is rich and continuous, uninterrupted through all the middle ages. It has furnished the philosophers, historians, theologians, and poets.” The catalogue of the works in the library of Etchmiadsin contains about 5000 titles.

“They (the Armenians) are a people of fine physical development, often of high stature and powerful frame, industrious and peaceable, yet more jealous of their rights and liberties than any other Oriental race. They passionately cherish the memory of their fathers, and preserve the use of their national language, which belongs to the Indo-European family, and possess a literature of considerable importance.”[78]

“These Armenians are a superb race of men ...; their physiognomy is intelligent. They are the Swiss of the East. Industrious, peaceable, regular in their habits, they resemble them also in calculation and love of gain. The women are lovely; their features are pure and delicate, and their serene expression recalls the beauty of the women of the British Islands or the peasants of Switzerland.”[79]

“By nature the Armenians are deeply religious, as their whole literature and history show. It has been a religion of the heart, not of the head. Its evidence is not to be found in metaphysical discussions and hair-splitting theology, as in the case of the Greek, but in a brave and simple record written with the tears of saints and illuminated with the blood of martyrs.”[80]

There is no nation in the world which has suffered as much persecution, oppression, injustice and martyrdom as the Armenians, yet there is not a nation, even with less advantages, that can compare with them in education. They are like the Jews also in this respect that wherever there is a sufficient number, they have a church and close by is a school. There is less illiteracy among the Armenians than among some Roman Catholic countries.

Since the coming of the Catholic and Protestant missionaries a new impetus has been imparted to the Armenians in the line of education. Mukhetar of Sebaste, an Armenian monk, established an order of the Catholic monks at the convent of St. Lazarus in Venice (1717), which became a great center of learning. The monks of this order and monastery have rendered great service for the education of the Armenians in general, and the Catholic Armenians in particular. “These fathers have won the interest and admiration of European scholars by their publication of Armenian classics, together with many learned original contributions.”[81]

The Armenian youths also, like in the olden times, flocked into other centers of learning both in Europe and America. Roberts’ College, in Constantinople, had the largest number of Armenian students from its beginning (1860). The native schools, in every town and city in the provinces, were also very much improved; moreover, the Protestant mission schools of all grades were also freely patronized by many.[82] The Christian civilization and education brought out the metal and character of the Armenians, and also created in the hearts of the Mohammedan rulers the rankest kind of hatred against the former. So they have decided to destroy both the Christian and Christianity in their native home. Mohammedanism is a moral and religious photophobia; it dreads the light[Pg 151] of civilization and Christianity. So the ministers, priests and teachers are slaughtered; the churches and schools are burnt down by the followers of the false prophet.

A few samples of Armenian poems also might have been given but my determination not to write a large book restrains me. The following is a poem—one of many—written by Father Leo Alishan, a monk of the Mukhetarist order of the convent at Venice, translated by Alice Stone Blackwell:

Why art thou troubled, wandering heart?
Why dost thou sigh with pain?
From whom do all thy sufferings come?
Of whom dost thou complain?

Is there no cure for wounds, no friend
To lend a pitying ear?
Why art thou troubled, wandering heart?
Weep not! See Jesus near!

Sorrow and hardship are for all
Though differing forms they wear.
The path He gave us teems with thorns,
The feet must suffer there.

What life, though but a day’s brief span,
Is free from pain and woe?
’Tis not for mortals born in grief
To live at ease below.

Not, for the transient joys of earth
Thy heart to thee was given,
But for an instrument of grief
[Pg 152]To raise thy life toward heaven.

If joys be few, if pains abound,
If balms bring slow relief,
If wounds be sore and nature weak,
Thy earthly life is brief.

This is the vale of death and pain,
Ordained for ancient sin,
Except through anguish, Eden’s gate
No soul shall enter in.

Justice ordained it; mercy then
Made it more light to bear.
Unasked by thee, Christ sweetened it,
His love infusing there.

From heaven’s height He hastened down,
Pitying thy trouble sore;
With thee a servant He became
Himself thy wounds he bore.

He filled His cup celestial
Full of thy tears and pain,
And tremblingly, yet freely,
He dared the dregs to drain.

Remembering this, wilt thou not drink
Thy cup of tears and care?
’Tis proffered by thy Saviour’s hand,
His love is mingled there.

He feels and pities all thy woes,
He wipes away each tear;
Love He distils into thy griefs;
Weep not, for He is near.

Blackwell, “Armenian Poems,” pp. 112-114.

FOOTNOTES:

[69] The total number of Armenians was estimated by some as follows: 2,900,000. In Turkey 1,500,000; in Russia 1,000,000; in Persia 150,000; in Europe, America, and East Indies 250,000. But this is quite a low estimate. (See p. 146.)

[70] Ecclesiastes 10:18. Prov. 19:13 and 27:15.

[71] Lynch, “Armenia, Travels and Studies,” Vol. I, p. 60.

[72] Wigram, “The Cradle of Mankind,” p. 237.

[73] Rawlinson, “Herodotus,” Book I, p. 194.

[74] Ezekiel 27:14.

[75] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” p. 264. The date possibly is the Armenian which begins 551, and which brings up to A.D. 1748. About this time, two wealthy and influential Armenians, who were especially connected with the government, were beheaded, and four others, who also were holders of high places in the governmental affairs, were executed in 1817.

[76] The Turkish government promulgated a decree, on August 12, 1916, which revokes the Constitution of the Armenian community in Turkey, and creates an ecclesiastical head for the administration of religious matters with his seat in Jerusalem, thus abolishing the office of Armenian patriarch in Constantinople.

[77] Encyclopedia Britannica, the 11th ed., under the article, “The Armenian Language.”

[78] Van Lennep, “The Bible Lands,” p. 367.

[79] Lamartine, “Voyage en Orient,” Vol. II, p. 190.

[80] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” p. 140.

[81] The Mukhitarists also have translated from the Greek, French and English classics. The writer read Milton’s “Paradise Lost” first in Armenian translated by the fathers of Mukhitar’s order.

[82] See Chapter X, pp. 122 and 123.

It has seemed to the writer unnecessary in the preceding pages to say much about the unimportant ceremonies, forms and certain superstitious practices which have crept into the Armenian church. But it has been admitted that, owing to various causes and corrupt influences of both so called Christian and non-Christian nations about them, the Armenians were unable to preserve the noble apostolic Church in its simplicity and purity.

A brief reference already has been made to the emissaries and missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, who early, though unsuccessfully, endeavored to bring the Armenian Church under the influence and control of the popes of Rome. Yet it may not be considered a complete failure, especially after the establishment of the Mukhetarist convent and the activities of its monks, who edited many ancient Armenian works of those who were leaning toward the papal views. As the result about one hundred thousand Armenians cut loose from the Mother Church and formed the Catholic Armenian Church. This separation was completed by the appointment in 1830 of the Sultan of Turkey a patriarch over the[Pg 154] Catholic Armenians. This missionary work has not advanced much since.

A few centuries ago news traveled a great deal slower than it does now. The great Reformation in Europe, which shook the foundations of some governments, and shaped the destiny of the nations in the west, was not expected to die out without some little stir in the east. An Armenian priest wrote a book in 1760, praising the great reformer, Martin Luther, and his work, and called the attention of the people to the need for reformation in their own church. It is a pity that his book was never printed. It was, however, more or less, circulated and did its good work. The publication and circulation of the Bible by the British and Russian Bible Societies succeeded the above incident in the beginning of the last century. These events paved the way for a greater movement.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was organized at Bradford, Mass., June 29, 1810. Mr. Parsons “on his first visit to Jerusalem in 1821 encountered some Armenian pilgrims, whose interesting conversation drew from him the suggestion of a mission to Armenia itself. ‘We shall rejoice,’ said they, ‘and all will rejoice when they arrive.’”

Several Armenian clergymen espoused the cause of reformation in 1826 at Beirut, Syria. Two of them, Bishop Dionysius and Krikor Vartabed, like Paul and Barnabas, traveled through Asia Minor preaching the Gospel to the people with great acceptance.[Pg 155] “These brethren assured the missionaries that the minds of the Armenian people were wonderfully inclined towards the pure gospel, and that should preachers go among them doubtless thousands would be ready to receive the truth. They themselves wrote letters to their countrymen, which excited no little attention.”[83]

The publication and circulation of several thousand copies of the Scriptures and their being eagerly read by the leading men, the labors of these and other Armenian ecclesiastics, and especially the training school for priests at Constantinople, which was committed to the charge of Peshtimaljian, “a profound scholar, a theologian, and an humble student of the Bible—a sort of an Oriental Melancthon, even in his timidity”—were indubitable signs of a wonderful reformation.

Revs. W. Goodell and Bird were appointed by the board to join the Syrian Mission, which was established by Rev. Pliny Fisk and Rev. Levi Parsons, who had left America in 1819. On account of the Greek revolution then in progress, Christians everywhere, and especially in the seaports, were treated by the Turks with the greatest barbarity as they are now. Dr. Goodell wrote from Beirut, May 15, 1826:

“Human beings, whose guilt is no greater than that of their proud oppressors, are condemned without a trial, their flesh trembling for fear, their religion blasphemed, their Saviour insulted, their comforts despoiled,[Pg 156] their lives threatened, and their bodies filled with pain, and deeply marked with the blows inflicted by Turkish barbarity.”

The condition of affairs compelled the American and English missionaries and their Armenian assistants to repair for protection under the British flag to the Island of Malta. Here Dr. Goodell and his co-workers completed the translation of the New Testament into the Armeno-Turkish in 1830.[84]

The following year Dr. Goodell was instructed by the Board to go to Constantinople and commence a distinct mission there among the Armenians. He was followed in due time by the Revs. Dwight, Schauffer, Riggs, Bliss, Hamlin, Van Lennep, Wood and others. Their work largely consisted in opening schools, translating, publishing and printing religious tracts and portions of the Scriptures, and holding religious services. In the absence of much reading material in those days, these tracts, pamphlets and portions of the Bible were eagerly sought and read by the people, and not without good results.

Indeed, a profound love for the reformation of the Armenian Church had taken possession of the minds of many leading men among the nation, who were trying to do all they could. But both their knowledge and their experience were limited; they needed a wise leader or leaders who could direct the movement in a way that would accomplish the desired end. Some of them, when they came in contact with[Pg 157] the missionaries, thought Divine Providence had sent these men to take the lead of this noble movement. They implicitly confided in the wisdom and ability of the missionaries to do this.[85]

The wisdom, magnanimity, and the piety of those missionaries were unquestionable. They showed their wisdom in the fact that they “steadily pursued the policy of disseminating the truth without making attacks upon the Armenian Church.”

The silent influence of this reformation spread far and wide in the city of Constantinople and its suburbs. The Roman Church, through its Jesuit missionaries, had carried on the work of proselyting the Armenians for centuries, and she had thousands of adherents. As a Church she had had her experience with the Reformation in the West. She was alarmed and made the first attempt to stop its progress in the East. The patriarch of the Roman Catholic Armenians publicly denounced the missionaries and their books in 1836. His evil example was followed four years later by the Greek and Armenian patriarchs of Constantinople.

Thus the spirit of hatred and persecution was instilled by their respective representatives into the minds and hearts of different communities. But this movement being mostly among the Armenians, their patriarch took a more active part in issuing anathemas and sending them to the provinces, and he caused them to be read in all the churches.

The Armenian Church was sorely wounded by the Roman Church and its missionaries. The national church meant and still means to the Armenians a national unity, and a separation from the Church was considered a division in the nation. Ever since the Armenians lost their independence, they were known as a religious community in the Turkish empire and their patriarch as the representative of the whole people. The patriarch, as the head of the nation, and other leaders, therefore, thought the suppression of this evangelical work might be a prevention of such a division as had taken place in the case of the followers of the Roman missionaries in 1830. The patriarch and his advisers, who took violent measures of persecution against those who favored and labored for the reformation of the Church, unhappily were not aware of the fact that the intentions of the missionaries of the American Board, were very different from those of the missionaries of the Roman Church. The following is the statement written at the time by Rev. Dr. Goodell:

“We ourselves, at this place, have nothing to do with the Church, its dogma, ceremonies, and superstitions.... Nor do we make any attempt to establish a new Church, to raise a new party. We disclaim everything of the kind. We tell them frankly, you have sects enough among you already, and we have no design of setting up a new one, or of pulling down your churches, or drawing members from them in order to build ours over.”[86]

And we find this policy adhered to in the case of the brethren in Nicomedia. The bishop, priests, and the leading men of that city formed a council, and this council drew up a new confession of faith.

“Thus all who were suspected of Protestantism were asked to acknowledge by affixing thereunto their signatures. Those who would refuse to do so were to be anathematized and expelled from the Church. As soon as Rev. Dwight and Dr. Goodell were informed of the Council’s proceedings they advised the brethren not to separate themselves from the Armenian communion, saying that, if they did so, the work would not advance so rapidly.”[87]

In 1843 a young Armenian embraced Mohammedanism. But he became a prey to the remorse of his conscience for his apostacy. He, therefore, renounced Mohammedanism and reconfessed Christianity. He was seized upon and beheaded in the streets of Constantinople by the Turkish authorities, and his corpse was exposed to the public gaze for several days, as an insult to Christianity. This event aroused the indignation of the European ambassadors, who, through the English ambassador, Sir Stratford Canning, demanded and extorted from the Sultan the following written pledge: “The sublime Porte engages to take effectual measures to prevent henceforward the execution and putting to death of the Christian who is an apostate.”

The imprudent conduct of the patriarch, Bishop Matteos, by his anathemas and excommunicating[Pg 160] those who were favorably disposed, and were endeavoring to reform the Church, exposed them to all manner of maltreatment. They “were stoned in the streets, unjustly imprisoned, ejected from their shops, invaded and plundered in their houses, bastinadoed and abandoned by their friends.” These persecutions were severe and extended into the provinces wherever there were those who loved the cause of reformation. The unwise course pursued by the patriarch to prevent separation by persecution indeed hastened the division in the church. Vartabed M. Muradian’s statement in regard to Bishop Matteos’ conduct is as follows:

“Patriarch Matteos had already begun religious controversies with the Protestant missionaries, these same controversies were travails of a new eruption. Those inclined to Protestantism were about to appear and the anathematizing course taken by Matteos very materially aided the purpose of the Protestant missionaries, because to persecute is to spread. And, behold, thus on the one hand the inconsiderateness of those inclined to Protestantism, and on the other hand the imprudent conduct of Patriarch Matteos, caused a number of our people to depart from the maternal bosom of the church and adhere to Protestantism, which forms a distinct body, choosing for itself a separate civil head.”[88]

The persecutions and the consequent sufferings of the people were severe, unnecessary, and unjustifiable. Yet whether there were sufficient reasons for a separate organizations it is difficult to say. The[Pg 161] missionaries, however, yielding to the desire of those who wished to form a separate organization, gathered them together, forty in number, and constituted July 1st, 1846, the first Evangelical Armenian Church of Constantinople. On the following Sabbath Mr. Apisoghom Khachadurian was ordained by the missionaries and installed the pastor of this new church.

On the 20th of July, 1846, another church was organized at Nicomedia and during that summer two more churches were organized, one at Ada-Bazar and the other at Trebizond. These organizations were followed by others in different parts of the country.

The Protestant Armenians, thus organized into separate churches, formed a new community, yet were under the jurisdiction of the patriarch and up to 1847 not quite free from molestation and privation. “In the temporary absence of Sir Stratford Canning, Lord Cawley negotiated the matter with the government, and on the 15th of November, 1847, the grand vizier issued a paper declaring that the ‘Christian subjects of the Ottoman Government professing Protestantism would constitute a separate community, with all the rights and privileges permitted in their temporal or spiritual concern on the part of the patriarch, monks, or priests of other sects.’”. In November, 1850, a decree was issued proclaiming the professors of all religions equal in the eye of the law. The Protestants then were organized[Pg 162] as a distinct civil community, having equal religious rights with the older Christian bodies.

Up to this time the work of reformation spread and progressed with wonderful rapidity, though through persecutions and privations. The readiness of those who knew the truth to spread it; the eagerness of the people to receive the truth; the unconsciously employed means of those who tried to stop this movement, by trying so to do thus spreading it, are well condensed in the following paragraphs:

“When the patriarch had hurried Bedros, the Vartabed, out of the city for his Protestant tendencies, and Vartabed had gone distributing books and preaching throughout the whole region of Aleppo and Aintab. When he had sent priest Vartanes a prisoner to the monastery of Marash, and then banished him to Cæsarea, Vartanes had first awakened the monks, and then preached the gospel all the way to Cæsarea.

“The missionaries wisely availed themselves of this rising interest in tours for preaching, conversing, and distributing religious treatises. Messrs. Powers, Johnson, Van Lennex, Smith, Peabody, Schneider, Goodell, Everett, and Benjamin, pushed forth to Tintab, Aleppo, Brousa, Harpoot, Sivas, Diarbekir, Cæsarea, and various other places through the empire.

“They soon found that they were in the midst of one of the most extraordinary religious movements of modern times, silent, and sometimes untraceable, but potent and pervasive. In every important town of the empire where there were Armenians, there were found to be as early as 1849, one or more lovers of evangelical truth. But it was no causeless movement. The quiet working of the ‘little leaven’ was traceable almost from its source by indubitable signs. It was a notable sight[Pg 163] to see when, in 1838, the Vartabed and the leading men of Orta Keuy, on the Bosphorus, where the missionaries first gained access to the Armenians, went and removed the pictures from the village church. It was another landmark when, in 1842, the fervor of the converts not only filled the city with rumors of the new doctrines, but, after a season of special prayer, held in a neighboring valley, sent forth priest Vartanes on a missionary tour into the heart of Asia Minor. A still more significant fact was when, in that year and the next, the Armenian women were effectually reached and roused, till family worship began in many a household, and a female seminary at Pera became (in 1845) a necessity. The brethren had observed the constant increase of the inquiries, often from a distance, and they had found, even in 1843, such a demand for their books as the press at Smyrna was unable to supply. In many places and at Nicomedia, Adabar and Aintab, books and tracts began the work.

“The preaching services at Constantinople would be occasionally attended by individuals from four or five other towns. At Erzroom one Sabbath (February, 1846), there were attendants from six different places. The seminary for young men at Bebek (a suburb of Constantinople) drew visitors from great distances and from all quarters, as far as Alexandria, St. Petersburg, and the Euphrates. The native brethren also had been engaged in disseminating the truth, and the first awakenings at Killis, Kessab, and Eodosta, for example, were due to their labors.

“From this time forth the enterprise became too broad even to trace in this rapid way. If the whole movement shall ever be suitably recorded the history of this reformation will be second in interest to no other than has ever been written. There are scores and scores of villages, each of which would furnish material for a[Pg 164] volume, and multitudes of cases that recall the fervor, faith, and fortitude of apostolic times.”[89]

Although a decree issued in November, 1850, proclaimed the Protestants equal in the eye of the law, and accorded to them protection from persecutions, yet the condition of the brethren was very miserable. Many of the younger brethren were disinherited by their parents, and thrown out of employment by their employers, for their espousal of the cause of reformation. The anathemas of the patriarch upon “the heretics” and those who would have any dealings with them, shut out the Protestants from the society of, and the business intercourses with, the people. Many, therefore, had to sell and sacrifice their properties for the necessities of life, and fell into abject poverty and had almost reached the verge of starvation.

Russia’s desire and demand to establish a protectorate over the Greek Christians in the Turkish empire, and the latter government’s refusal, led these two powers into, what is generally known in history, as the Crimean war. England and France were the allies of the Turk in that war, 1853. This Crimean war also greatly added to the misery of the Protestant community and threatened the existence of the little flock. But the ingenuity of the Rev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, the noble missionary, did ameliorate the condition of the Protestants. He established industries, especially the mill and bakery, where he found sufficient[Pg 165] work for them to do; he also was able to build a few churches, in which these brethren might worship. These churches were greatly needed, and he had some balance left in hand after building them.[90]

Some good people thought that “the Crimean war was overruled for the furtherance of the Gospel by becoming the occasion, if not the actual means, for securing another concession from the Turkish government on the subject of religious liberty, a new Magna Charter for the Christian subjects of the Porte.” Some regarded this edict (the Hatti Humayaun) as a complete grant of freedom to all Christians or Mohammedans, to follow the dictates of their consciences without any molestation whatever. A few high-sounding sentences from it will show what great contentment it would have given to the subjects of the Porte if it had been meant to be fulfilled:

“Every distinction or designation tending to make any class whatever of the subjects of my empire inferior to another class on account of their religion, language, or race, shall be forever effaced from the administrative protocol.

“As all forms of religion are and shall be freely professed in my dominions, no subject of my empire shall be hindered in the exercise of the religion that he professes, nor shall be in any way annoyed on this account. NO ONE SHALL BE COMPELLED TO CHANGE HIS RELIGION.”

It is, however, nothing uncommon with the sultans and other officials of the Turkish government to promise a good deal, with the full determination not to fulfill the least.

“By the terms of the treaty of 1856 (signed at Paris), Turkey was bound in the face of the world to redress the inveterate evils and abuses of her government, and to extend to all her subjects the blessings of civil and religious freedom. There was accordingly promulgated the Hatt-y-Humayoun of 1856, in which the principles of reform embodied in the Tanzimat were renewed and extended, but the edict, like those which preceded it, remained in effect null and void. The grievances and wrongs endured since that time, especially by the Christian population, the perversion of justice, the gross administrative corruption, furnish a sufficient commentary of the futility of the attempted or promised reform of the Porte.”[91]

Had public opinion in Great Britain not been outraged by the Bulgarian massacre, the Conservative government of Lord Beaconsfield would have given armed support to the Turks even in 1877, in spite of “the perversion of justice, the gross administrative corruption” of the Turkish government, and “the grievances and wrongs endured since that time, especially by the Christian population” of the Porte.[92]

The number of the reformed churches in ten years increased to thirty, organized at different places in the empire. And it was only twenty-one years after the organization of the first Reformed Armenian[Pg 167] Church, that the late Rev. Dr. H. J. Van Lennep reported, before the Evangelical Alliance at Amsterdam, Holland:

“There were now (1867) fifty-six churches, with two thousand adherents.” And he adds, “The use of such means [for reformation] soon produced a marked effect not so much upon the volatile Greek as upon the sober-minded Armenian, and evangelical doctrines were soon spreading among the latter with amazing power and rapidity. Providence raised from among the people men of eloquence, power, and influence, whose labors were wonderfully blessed; and great numbers soon rejoiced in the precious doctrine ‘Christ crucified.’ The young converts, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, went about lighting the torch of truth and salvation throughout the land.”

It is impossible, and incompatible with our present purpose, to give a fuller account of the grand work of reformation, which is bound to triumph and reconquer the countries once under the sway of the power of the gospel of our Lord.

Twenty-five years ago, there were one hundred and ten churches and eleven thousand and ninety-five members, seventy-four ordained ministers and one hundred and twenty-nine preachers, and eighty-five other helpers, and two hundred and three places for stated preaching, with thirty-one thousand six hundred and eighteen average attendants to services, twenty thousand six hundred Sabbath school scholars and a community of forty-five thousand Protestants, who had contributed $48,941 for all purposes during the year (1890-1891).

Within the last twenty-five years the missionary work has been steadily growing in spite of hindrances, persecutions, massacres and forced conversions to Mohammedanism by the Turks. The following brief table of statistics for 1914 may give an idea how the work was progressing before the terrible war of 1915:

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Bartlett, “Historical Sketch of the Missions of The American Board in Turkey,” p. 3.

[84] The Armeno-Turkish is not a distinct language; it is the Turkish written in Armenian characters.

[85] “The Orientals have an admirable kind of coolness and courage. Give them a leader in whom they have confidence, and they will follow him to the death.”—“Cyrus Hamlin.”

[86] Prime, “Forty Years in the Turkish Empire,” pp. 173-4.

[87] Nergararian, “The History of the Beginnings of Missionary Work in Nicomedia,” pp. 20-21.

[88] Muradian, “The History of the Holy Apostolic Church of Armenia,” pages 607-8. (This work is in the original Armenian.)

[89] Bartlett, “The Historical Sketch of Missions of A.B.C.F.M. in Turkey,” pp. 10-12 and 14.

[90] Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” page 258. “It had been no object of mine to have any balance in hand. It amounted, with what had already been expended for churches mentioned, to $25,000.”

[91] Milner, “The Turkish Empire,” pp. 223-4.

[92] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” pp. 519-20, the 4th edition.

The progress of this wonderful reformation may be ascribed to a few causes or agencies.

1. THE BIBLE: The Armenian Church not only encourages, but almost enforces the reading of the Scriptures among the people. They reverence the word of God. When the missionaries came into Armenia they found a common ground on the “Thus saith the Lord” to deal with the people and the clergymen. The absolute necessity of the Bible as the only standard was felt by the missionaries, as our forefathers felt it after the conversion of the nation to Christianity, and the ablest intellects have been engaged in its translation into the vernacular dialects. Rev. Dr. Goodell, nearly seventy-five years ago, wrote “Turn now to our labor among the Armenians, our whole work with them is emphatically a Bible work. The Bible is our only standard, and our final appeal. It is even more necessary for us than it was for the reformers in England, because we are foreigners. Without it we could say one thing and the priests and bishops could say another; but where would be the umpire? It would be nowhere,[Pg 170] and all our efforts would be like ‘beating the air.’”[93]

The British and the American Bible Societies greatly aided the publication and circulation of the Scriptures through their agents in co-operation with the missionaries among the people and in many a family, town, and city the Bible itself has proved to be the mightiest means of the conversion of many. “The entrance of thy word giveth light.” “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.”

The writer’s father was engaged in business in Constantinople over fifty years ago, and when he returned home to Sivas, he brought with him a copy of the New Testament, which he had bought from a colporteur. This copy of the New Testament was read by him and his sons, and the simple reading of the word of God resulted in the conversion of the writer and several members of the family. His only sister was employed by the missionaries for over thirty years as a Bible-woman, until her deportation in 1915.

After his conversion and study a few years in the mission school at Marsovan, it was the privilege of the writer to spend some time in teaching in a small town. The Protestant people, whose children he taught, had no preacher and they urged him to preach for them. Not ability nor preparedness, but necessity, compelled him to engage in this double duty. One day he was asked by a man who belonged to the Armenian church, and whose brother (deceased then)[Pg 171] was one of the first converts to Protestantism, whether he knew how the Protestant work began there. His reply was “No,” and what the man told him is something like the following:

The first Protestant brother who came to the town went to a coffee-house,[94] and took out his Bible and attempted to read it to the men there; but they refused to listen to him. He was so grieved that he burst into tears. This attracted the attention of an elderly man, well-known in the town as “Uncle Toros.” He came to him and asked what was the matter. He answered that he would like to read the Bible and speak to them about the wonderful love of God, but they objected to his so doing. Uncle Toros was much interested in the earnestness of the man and his plans, and, being very hospitable, on learning that he was a stranger in the town invited him to his own house. According to the custom of the country everybody that is able has a guest-chamber for guests. Uncle Toros also was a very influential man in the town and he had many friends and relatives, who with the neighbors used to come to his sitting-room and spend the early part of every night.

Thus our brother had a good audience every evening to whom he could read and expound the Bible. No one could insult or molest him—he was Uncle Toros’ guest. This was the beginning of the work at Zara, about thirty miles northeast of Sivas, and[Pg 172] when the writer was there, nearly fifteen years later, he found about twenty families composing the Protestant community.

The “two-edged sword” of the Spirit, “the Word of God” on the one hand and “the young converts, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” on the other hand, have been still going about “lighting the torch of truth and salvation throughout the land” and have thus wrought this marvelous reformation which until within a short time has been progressing rapidly. The Turkish government is trying a plan, which the Roman emperors tried in the early Christian centuries, namely to destroy the Christians and Christianity in the empire.

The following instance combines three phases in one, to wit: the mighty power of the word of God, heroism of those who believe in the power of that Word and the violation of all promises of religious freedom, the marked cruelty and perversion of justice of the Turkish officials.

Avedis (good news) Zotian was a boy of ten or twelve years of age when the writer was acquainted with him, over forty years ago. He was quiet, unassuming, skillful and industrious and was engaged in his father’s trade, copper-smithing. Through his cousin, who was a constant reader of the Bible and a friend of the writer, and still better a warm friend of the reformation, Avedis was brought under the influence of the Word of God. He finally, about 1885, avowed himself a Protestant and joined that community. He became very active, and, like the[Pg 173] prophet Jeremiah, felt that “His word was in his heart as a burning fire.” He had a long distance to go to the services and would not be able to stop on his way and speak to others on the topic of religion. He, therefore, thought one Sunday in 1889 to have a verse on a piece of board and to carry it along so that the people could see and read it. The words from Matt. 4:17, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” were written in the Armenian, and Avedis had his friend Sahag, another Protestant Armenian, to write the same in the Turkish language. Avedis started to church with the above text. He was arrested on his way by the Turkish officers and thrown into prison. His friend Sahag also was arrested for his share of the crime and shared the corner of the prison with Avedis. The charge against these young men was that they were political agitators.

After several months’ imprisonment the unrighteous judge declared them guilty and sentenced them to be exiled for life. They, with tearful eyes, bade adieu to their friends, relatives, brothers, sisters, aged parents, and to their newly married wives, who in vain had tried to wipe away their overflowing tears. They were driven like cattle by the mounted officers to Smyrna, then sent to Africa. They were so cruelly ill-treated on their way that, not very long after their exile, Avedis was taken away by his Heavenly Father to rest from his labors. And what became of Sahag no one knows. The Turkish government’s early determination to root out the Christians and Christianity[Pg 174] from the empire lacks no evidences. Only the selfish European powers, the guardians of the Christian subjects of the Porte, were unwilling to see them.

2. EDUCATION. Next in importance to the Bible and the activity of the natives in spreading it, the superiority of the educational institutions of the mission and the love for the truth in the native youth will claim our attention, as potent factors in the progress of this reformation.

Since the entrance of the Turks into Western Asia the ancient centers of learning have been lying in ruins; the photophobic malady of Mohammedanism and its fanatic devotees had extinguished the numerous lights which have been burning for centuries on the altars of learning. These wild beasts of mankind had broken in upon these countries, once so glorious and famous for their happy estate of civilization and culture, who had given religion and laws to the world, but now, through ignorance, superstition, and vice had become the most deplorable spectacle of extreme misery. The barbarous tyrants—the sultans of the Ottoman empire—who gloried in cruelty and aimed only at the height of greatness through sensuality, had reduced so great and goodly a part of the world to that lamentable distress and servitude under which it now faints and groans. “The true religion discountenanced and oppressed (insulted); no light of learning permitted, nor virtue cherished, violence and rapine exulting over all and leaving no security, save to an abject mind and unlooked-on poverty.”

The above description of an eye-witness was uttered two centuries before the coming of the missionaries, who have found it literally true when they came into the East. They also found in this unhappy empire “a noble race”—the Armenians—“the Anglo-Saxons of the East,” whose “standard of moral purity is also said to be immeasurably above that of the Turks around them, and they have a conscience which can be touched and roused.” Their higher standard of moral purity and superior intelligence are due to their religion—Christianity—and to their better education. For as far back as the middle of the seventeenth century, the Armenian press was in full activity in Constantinople.

It was no wonder that the Armenians had welcomed the missionaries and had they been left alone they would not have attempted to prevent the work of reformation at all.

“When the missionaries came to Turkey they were kindly received by the patriarch and clergymen, who showed great hospitality and favor to them, and encouraged them to build up schools, which they promised to support by sending their young men and priests to be educated. But afterwards the Jesuits, who are ever the uncompromising enemies of Protestantism, secretly stirred up the Armenian and Greek leaders against the missionaries and their work, whom they now began to regard with suspicion and envy. Even among the Armenian priests and college-men were those who, though they at first persecuted the Protestants, became not only their stanchest friends, but also earnest workers for the cause of Christ.”

The above quotation from a native writer is well supported by the following statement of an American writer, a returned missionary of the American Board:

“In 1834 these schools had two thousand scholars, and though supported by the people, yet, having been established by the advice and assistance of the mission, their influence was great in its favor, till the monks and priests began to preach violently against the mission and schools, ‘and even against the patriarch for favoring them.’ But it was too late to destroy their influence. The Armenians had become roused by the spreading light,” and “in 1835 the revival of learning and piety among the Armenians continued to advance hand in hand.”[95]

The Seminary at Bebek in 1840 commenced with three scholars. The following year the number of the students had increased to twenty-four, and many had been refused for want of funds. A few years later a female seminary was started at Pera, Constantinople, and this had a wonderful effect upon the community. Education of the female, neglected for centuries, began to revive in the East, even the adult women and matrons attempted to learn to read their Bibles and they generally succeeded well. “Fifty adult females have begun to learn to read during the year; more than fifty have already learned to read well, and many others are in the process of learning.” Wherever the missionaries went there they started schools, and these schools were not only the centers[Pg 177] from which the light of truth radiated around, but they also became in many places nuclei for new churches.

The Bebek Seminary, in 1854, reported its number of students as fifty, and “its former pupils are employed as preachers, teachers, translators, and helpers in many places.” In the following year the demand for teachers and preachers from the seminary was so great that other schools were started—one at Tokat, and another at Aintab. The number of free schools had increased this year (1855) to thirty-eight, and the whole number of pupils nine hundred and sixty.

It was in the same year that the American Board sent the Rev. Dr. Anderson and Thompson to India and Turkey. In the previous year the Baptist Missionary Society also had sent its deputation to India. “The result of these delegations was that the character of the education of nearly all the missionary institutions of the highest grade was wholly changed. The English language was proscribed and the curriculum of studies reduced to a vernacular basis. Many schools were closed and some missionaries came home, and considerable friction was occasioned, but the new system was rigidly enforced.”[96]

Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, Dr. H. J. Van Lennep, and some other missionaries advocated the importance of a thorough education and the knowledge of the English language for the native ministry, believing that “no country was ever reformed but by its sons, and that for such a great work a better education IS[Pg 178] necessary.” They, however, met not a little opposition from the Board and some of their associates in the mission.

“The American Board’s change of base on the matter of education” furnished an occasion—for some trouble in the field—for some Armenian young men who sought a better education abroad. But their aspiring and venturing into England and America for a thorough English education, subjected them to opposition, from some of the missionaries, and afterwards, when they attempted to secure employment in the mission-fields, they met discouragement and disappointment. Even as late as in 1880 Dr. Hamlin, advocating his position, wrote:

“Every young man who started with a good foundation of English, and of character, has done well. I recall at this moment five such cases: (1) Alexan Bezjian, now professor in Aintab College; (2) Alexander Djijisian, who spent one or two years in Edinburgh, now pastor at Ada Bazar. He is a noble and strong man in judgment and power of argument, in true insight, in theological training and as a preacher, the supervisor of many a missionary; (3) The late Broasa pastor, now head of the High School, who studied at Basle. No one will dare to impugn his character and ability; (4) Pastor Keropé, like the others, a Bebek Seminary student. He went to England and Mr. Farnsworth, instead of opposing him, had the grace to aid him. He made a good impression in England and obtained aid to build a church; Mr. Farnsworth pronounced it the best church that has been erected among the Protestants in Turkey; (5) Pastor Thomas, of Diarbekir. I do not know of a man who speaks the[Pg 179] Armenian language who is his equal for a platform speech. He carries his audience with him. He is clear and logical. He lifts his audience to higher planes of principle, thought and feeling.”

The late Rev. Dr. Tracy, a former teacher of the writer and the ex-president of Anatolia College, Marsavan, wrote in 1904:

“During the prosecution of this [mission] work in the Turkish Empire, wise attention has been given all along to the education of the young, both in the common branches with reference to good and intelligent social and family Christian life; and in the more advanced, with reference to the Christian leadership so vitally important in the development of a community. That this principle, discerned by our own American forefathers, as a corner stone in our national structure, is just as applicable to and important in the building of Christian communities in mission lands as at home, has dawned at last upon the minds of all who seriously prosecute this foreign work. The position which Christian education has taken in missions is impregnably strong. Not only does such education improve, inform, enable young men and young women, but it finds out the able and gathers up the natural leaders; it not only educates, but makes educators. It is a means without which no Christian country, community, or enterprise has ever held permanent leadership, or ever can. The day of light is advancing in the East with the rise of the Christian colleges.

“Very great and far-reaching was the influence of that school established in early times by Cyrus Hamlin in the village of Bebek, on the Bosphorus. The first venture, though so small a craft compared with what has followed, made the wake for a whole fleet of mighty vessels coming after—Robert College at Constantinople,[Pg 180] the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, the Central Turkey College at Aintab, Euphrates College at Harpoot, Anadolia College at Marsovan, the American College for Girls at Sculari, the Institute at Samakov in Bulgaria, St. Paul’s Institute at Tarsus, the International College at Smyrna, with leading schools for girls in the interior like those at Marash, Marsovan (Sivas Girls’ High School, and Sivas Teachers’ College, etc.), and elsewhere. Another most important class of institutions took its rise from the same fountain—the theological seminaries at Marash, Marsovan, Harpoot, without which the others would hardly have come into existence. They introduced the gospel widely and educational progress followed. Here we have a dozen or more institutions which are the leaders of thought and makers of character in the empire.”[97]

With one or two exceptions these colleges and high schools are, or were, crowded by the Armenian boys and girls: Sivas Teachers’ College—“This College has occupied a unique position in its training teachers for important positions in the mission and in the government schools. During the last year (1914) there were more pupils than at any time in the past. The exact figures are not obtainable, but the total enrollment for the previous year was over 500.”[2]

St. Paul’s College, Tarsus—“The enrollment was the largest recorded: in the College 118, academy 142; total, 260. Of these, thirty-five were Moslems, the greatest in the history of the school. Nearly two hundred were Armenians, but Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Syrians, were represented in the student body.”[98]

Before the spring of 1915 twenty-five thousand and one hundred and thirty-four pupils were attending and receiving Christian training from the kindergarten schools up to the highest colleges in the land.[99]

3. THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE; another cause of progress of the reformed and evangelical work was and is the necessity of a Christian literature. It has been stated that the Armenian literature is largely of religious and Christian character, but the most and best of it is in the ancient Armenian language. After the translation of the Bible into the modern Armenian a new literature in the same was necessitated. This necessity was gradually being met until the war broke out. “THE AVEDAPER—an Armenian paper, published in weekly and monthly editions. It was the most attractively printed Armenian paper in the empire. It is under efficient Armenian management. There was an encouraging increase in subscriptions until the war conditions interfered with the mails and returns fell off. It was finally decided to discontinue the paper for the present.”[100] Within the last fifty or sixty years a goodly number of useful books have been written and translated into the modern Armenian language; such as school books, commentaries, Sunday School lesson helps, dictionaries, religious treatises, hymn books—“whatever is most necessary for the healthy nourishment of awakening minds in the families, the[Pg 182] schools, the communities is published, but with sad insufficiency.”

“The mission press is connected with Central Turkey College (at Aintab). Some of the students are given aid in the printing department and in the book bindery. Besides the regular job work the press prints a monthly religious paper in Armeno-Turkish (Armenian letter in Turkish language) called the New Life. No figures are at hand for the total output, but the usual number of pages printed exceeds 700,000.”[101] If this terrible war had not interfered with the missionary work, the annual output would have been between nine and ten million pages of print.

4. THE MEDICAL WORK. The last but not the least of the causes of the progress of the evangelical work in the East is the medical work or the hospitals. Before the coming of the missionaries into the East, and the medical missionaries following them, there were some native physicians, mostly Armenians, in the country. But their knowledge of the art of healing must naturally have been in a crude state. It is no wonder when we remember the fact, that though the East, especially Western Asia, has been the seat of ancient learning, yet it has been for over five hundred years under the rule of the tyrants, the sultans, who delighted more in injustice, cruelty, and sensuality than in learning. So the reflex light of the Sun of righteousness from the West brought also healings in His wings.

Some churches and missionary organizations have been slow to learn the meaning of Christ when He “sent them (His disciples) to preach the Kingdom of God and heal the sick.” (Luke ix: 2.)

“Regular medical departments, with hospitals, are of late growth. In view of the healing mercy and saving power exerted through them, it now seems strange that their development should have been so belated. When, however, it is remembered that in missions almost everything in the way of means and measures is experimental it is not so strange that among the forces born into life and action the ‘noblest offspring’ should ‘be the last.’”[102]

Before the war there were fifteen missionary stations in Asiatic Turkey. Nine of these stations had medical departments with hospitals connected with them; 39,503 patients have been treated in these hospitals and the total number of treatments during the year of 1914 reached 134,357. This is a tremendous power for good and a marvelous blessing for a country like Turkey, yet the rulers of that unhappy country have been destitute of any sense of justice or gratitude, as the following, a few sentences from Dr. Barton’s letter to the writer, show:

Congregational House, 14 Beacon St.,
Boston, Mass.,
July 20, 1916.

My Dear Dr. Gabrielian:

You ask with reference to the situation in Turkey. We have but very little definite information. Our missionaries of Marsovan have just come out under compulsion[Pg 184] by the Turkish Government and all of the mission property in Marsoval is in the hands of the Government; also the same is true of Sivas, except that Miss Graffam and Miss Fowle were allowed to remain, and in Talas they have taken possession of the public buildings, but the missionaries at last reports were there, hoping to be allowed to remain....

Very faithfully yours,
James L. Barton.

One of the hindrances to the work of still greater progress of reformation was, and is, the poverty of the Protestant community. The condition of the Protestant Armenians was very much like that of a young man falling in love with a pure, virtuous, and noble yet poor girl. The rash youth, disregarding the opposition of his parents, married the woman he loved, and on account of this he has been disinherited. Those who espoused the cause of reformation were driven out, not only from their homes and employments, but also from the use of the churches and school-houses, and even were not allowed to bury their dead in the old cemeteries. It was not very difficult for the American Board to meet some of the needs of the Protestant community, while that community was small and its needs few. But by the increase of the community its needs also multiplied. However, knowing the people as we do, their poverty was not a great hindrance. For the generous poor man is richer than the rich miser.

“Many a poor Armenian in the Koodish mountains, many a tattered villager on the Harpoot plains, used to the suffering of robbery and inured to want, brings[Pg 185] for the support and propagation of the gospel his poor pittance, more munificent, measured by the sacrificing devotion of it, than the gifts of princes sounding aloud as they fall into the treasury. In other parts of the country there are those so humble that the dwelling of the family would hardly be valued at $25, who yet bring $25 to help build the house of worship, where they and their poor neighbors may hear the sound of the gospel.”[103]

The most prolific source of all evil influences and hindrances against the progress of reformation in the East is the Mohammedan Government. Prof. Vambery’s words might have been heeded twenty-five or thirty years ago, and many hundred thousands of lives would have been saved:

“The conviction is inevitable that until the power of Islamism is broken the true reformation of this land is an impossibility. At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? That the solution of the vexed question of the political status of Turkey involves great difficulties cannot be denied. But those [the European powers] that are pleased to preserve the existing state of things, as a barrier for themselves against the encroachments of an already overgrown European power, ought to take into consideration the result of encouraging the continuance of a power at once so poisonous and so suicidal as that of the waning crescent.”

FOOTNOTES:

[93] Primce, “Memoirs of Rev. William Goodell, D.D.,” p. 282.

[94] The coffee-houses in the East are much like the saloons in this country, except that no alcoholic liquors are sold. People go there to smoke and sip coffee in small cups and while the time away.

[95] Wilder, “Mission Schools of the A.B.C.F.M.,” p. 375.

[96] Hamlin, “Among the Turks,” p. 275.

[97] Tracy, “Historical Sketch of Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” pp. 20-21, (A.B.C.F.M.)

[98] The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 100, 105, for year 1915.

[99] The Armenian common and high schools—beside the Mission institutions—were many, but Abdul Hamid had reduced them. Since his overthrow they were again flourishing before the war.

[100] The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103, 107 for year 1915.

[101] The Annual Report of the American Board, pp. 103-107 for the year 1918.

[102] Tracy, “Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” p. 34.

[103] Tracy, “The Historical Sketch of the Missions in Asiatic Turkey,” page 16.

The previous brief history of this people, especially since the introduction of Christianity into Armenia, has furnished the reader with sufficient facts to show him that the real trouble of this nation began from the time of its conversion to Christianity, and has come down to the present time.

What the Armenians have been suffering now is just a little more intensified than what they have suffered in the past by the hands of the fire-worshiping Persians. Had they received Zoroastrianism, forced upon them in the fifth century, they might have changed the entire aspect of the history of Western Asia. Or, had they embraced Mohammedanism in the seventh century, when fanatic missionary soldiers of Mohammed fell upon them, sword in hand, and massacred thousands upon thousands in cold blood, because they refused to accept the sensual religion of a sensual and bloody man, again the history of Western Asia might have been differently written.

When their infant sons were torn away from their parental bosom by the Ottoman rulers, and reared[Pg 187] in Islamism and inured to the profession of arms, whose skill, vigor, and courage shook the foundations of the then civilized world, then, we say, had the Armenians renounced their religion and professed the Mohammedan faith and entered the army, they would have brought “to bear on the problems of the battlefield all the subtlety of intellect developed by ages of mental activity,” unquestionably would they have saved the Turkish Empire from the inevitable dissolution into which she has plunged herself. This also would have undoubtedly given a different feature to the Ottoman history.

Why have the Armenians been so cruelly persecuted, oppressed, tortured and butchered? Why were their beautiful daughters abducted, their wives ravished, they themselves massacred by the Kurds, Circassians, and Turks? Not because they belong to a different nationality—though they do—but because they belong to a different religion—they are Christians. So I beg the reader to bear in mind that the real trouble or the Armenian question, at the bottom, is the old conflict, first between Christianity and Paganism, then between Christianity and Mohammedanism, and now with Pagan-Mohammedanism.

The Turkish government found a convenient excuse for persecuting Christian Armenians under the garb of suppressing a revolutionary movement. But this movement was of a very recent origin, and altogether “harmless as to any effective force.” The Turkish misrule in Armenia, and in all parts of the Ottoman empire, persecutions, confiscations of property,[Pg 188] forcible conversions to Islam, imprisonments, exiles, and massacres, have begun since the entrance of the Turks into Western Asia; at times they have been intensified; they are now at their height.

“Tears of Armenia” was the title of a little book which contained the report of Vartabed Paul Nathanian, who was appointed in 1878 by Bishop Nerses, the patriarch, and the civic and ecclesiastical councils of Constantinople, to take charge of the diocese of Palu in Armenia. While there, this noble prelate, following the example of the Good Shepherd, traveled through the country, visited his flock, and reported the condition of the people. His report was published. With great propriety he begins the preface in the following manner: “Tears and misery, behold, these two painful words are chosen for the theme of this present work, of which with an aching heart will I speak, and still more painful it is, that the esteemed reader will hear undeniable truths.”

The facts recorded in this pamphlet are too painful to be translated into the English language. The crimes of the Kurds and the injustice and cruelty of the government’s officers perpetrated upon the Christian Armenians run from the simplest forms of robbery and cruelty to the vilest forms of abduction, assault, outrage, torture, and murder.

The report of this venerable Vartabed Nathanian was only the confirmation and verification of the oppressed condition of the Armenians in the interior, more or less known before. For, when, in the autumn of 1876, the European powers sent their representatives[Pg 189] to meet at Constantinople to consider the cruelties of the Turkish government, the massacre of the Bulgarians and other disturbances in the empire, Bishop Nerses attempted then to draw attention to the condition of the Armenians. But his efforts were fruitless, as the conference itself was futile; a peaceful adjustment of the differences was not agreed upon. The Russo-Turkish war consequently broke out. Again Armenia had to furnish the battle-field for these two formidable combatant nations in Asia.

Russia was apparently fighting for the oppressed Christians. The Turks were called upon to combat with a Christian nation, which was fighting as the champion of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman government. The officials of the government well may say: what do we care for these wretched Christians who are a constant source of trouble to us? The ignorant Turkish soldiers and the bashi-bazouks,[104] Circassians and Kurds were incapable of knowing the difference between an Armenian and a Russian, between a Greek and a Bulgarian, it was enough that all of them went under the name “Christian.” It was their frequent utterance, “Ghiaurlari kesmeli, the infidels must be killed.” Even when the government had no war whatever there was no safety for the Christian; how much less could any tranquillity now be expected. The mountains especially were infested by those who deserted the army, and the highway robbers were at the fullest exercise of their predatory powers.

Who suffered the worst, served the most, and received nothing in Asiatic Turkey? The Armenians. The Turkish troops, by all means, would avoid on their way to the battle-field lodging at a Turkish, but always at an Armenian village, where even the most insignificant soldier was a despot. He must have everything he wished for nothing, and not depart in peace, but give some trouble to his Christian host. The writer, who was not very far from the battle-field, being on the main road leading to it, has seen these things with his own eyes. He may, therefore, say with perfect truthfulness, that these soldiers did not leave out from the category of their deeds anything evil, but the good only.

“Turkey bears a striking resemblance to the infernal regions, which good George Herbert said are paved with broken promises; her conduct in this war has been marked by the vilest crimes of which a nation can be guilty. She has not only committed the crime of arming and letting loose bands of undisciplined, fanatic robbers, whose passions, fed by the religious exhortations of their bigoted priest, and strengthened by the proclamation of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, have led, as the Porte knew full well and firmly intended that they should lead, to the brutal massacre of the survivors of the Bulgarian rebellion and the cold blooded murders of the inoffensive Christians in Armenia.”[105]

The fearful consequence of this war was the ignominious defeat of Turkey, and her readiness to come to terms with Russia whose armies were almost at the gates of Constantinople. So the representatives[Pg 191] of these two combatant powers met at San Stefano, in March, 1878, and drew out the treaty which bears the name of the place. The 16th article of this Treaty was suggested and by the earnest solicitation of the patriarch and the leading Armenians of Constantinople, the Russian representative inserted the article for the express purpose of securing the protection of the Armenians. This article runs: “As the evacuation by the Russian troops of the territory which they occupy in Armenia, and which is to be restored to Turkey, might give rise to conflicts and complications detrimental to the maintenance of good relations between the two countries, the sublime Porte engages to carry into effect, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by Armenians, and to guarantee their security from Kurds and Circassians.”

It is the opinion of some of the best Englishmen, that had the conservative government of England let the Treaty of San Stefano stand, Russia would have forced the Turkish government to fulfill her promises of reform in Armenia. But England upset and made it of non-effect by her interference merely for selfish ends. She negotiated with Turkey through the Cyprus convention of June, 1878. The following is the first article of this Anglo-Turkish convention: “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[Pg 192] and other subjects of the Porte in these territories [Armenia], and in order to enable England to make necessary provision for executing her engagement (keeping Russia out of Armenia), His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further consents to assign the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England.”

The Anglo-Turkish Convention of Cyprus was a dagger thrust by a friend into the heart of Armenia; it may have been done unwittingly, yet Armenia has been bleeding ever since.

In the following month, July, 1878, the Congress of the Great Powers met in Berlin, to adjust the differences and make a smaller map for Turkey both in Europe and Asia. The indefatigable Patriarch, Bishop Nerses, sent a special deputation[106] to Berlin to petition the Congress for a Christian governor over Armenia, like that of Lebanon since 1861, and the European Powers themselves constituting the guardians of the Christian Armenians. The Congress of Berlin saw at once the justice and moderation of the Armenian request, and as a result we have the sixty-first Article of the Treaty of Berlin. But with an inexplicable stupidity, and with a criminal credulity, this Congress left the whole matter in the hands of the Turkish government, as if that wicked power was ever ready and willing to do what is right and proper, and the European Powers were to take the simple attitude of “watching over their [reforms] application.”

“The sublime Porte engages to realize without delay those ameliorations and reforms which local needs require in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It undertakes to make known from time to time, the measures taken with this object to the powers who will watch over their application.”

It is not enough to say that the Turkish government has failed to introduce necessary reforms, to ameliorate the condition of the Christians, or protect them from the atrocities of the Kurds, Circassians, and the Turks, since the signing of the Treaty of Berlin, for it has done more. It has determined, one way or the other, gradually to decimate and finally to exterminate the entire Armenian population in the empire. The facts of the history of the last thirty-five years bear out this assertion.

It was only two years after the signing of the Treaty of Berlin and England’s contract with Turkey that “the disturbances among the Kurds assumed a more general character in September (1880), when new troubles were reported in the district south of New Bajazid in the Sanjak of Mush, and in other parts of the same region. Incendiary proclamations were addressed to the Armenians by the insurgent chiefs, and the governor-general of Van applied to Constantinople for reinforcements but was answered that none could be spared. On the 20th of September the Kurds had destroyed thirteen Armenian villages.”

The powers who fixed their signatures through their representatives to the treaty of Berlin, “through Mr. Goschen, presented a collective note, on September 7, 1880. It refuted the statement of Abedden Pasha, that the government had already begun the work of reform, and after criticising the projected reforms, declared that they had been inadequate to the object in view and that a much greater development of the principles of decentralization and religious equality, the organization of a better police force, more energetic protection against the Kurds, a more definite provision concerning the functions of Governor-General, could alone satisfy the rights and expectations created by the sixty-first article of the Treaty of Berlin.”[107]

“On October 3, without making the slightest references to censures which had been addressed to it, and even appearing completely to ignore the collective note, the Porte, assuming a haughty tone, merely notified the Powers of what it intended to do.”[108]

From this time on it appears that the Powers thought they had done enough. It is also reported that Prince Bismarck expressed the opinion that there would be “serious inconvenience” in raising the Armenian question and the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Mr. Goschen, in anticipation, wrote to Earl Granville: “If they (the Powers) refuse, or give only lukewarm support, the responsibility will not lie with Her Majesty’s Government.”

Thus the abandonment of the cause of justice by the Powers, thus leaving the Armenians at the pleasure of the Turks, paved the way for successive massacres by the latter under various pretenses.

The Circassians, Kurds, and Turks, have always been at liberty to go about well armed, but no Christian was allowed to carry arms of any kind, not even for self-defense. In case he was found with arms, he was arrested and cast into a dungeon of indescribable torture. If the Armenians would protect themselves against their enemies, they were seized upon by military force as insurgents. Yea, a groundless suspicion was enough for the officers, who entered, by force of arms, into the Armenian Church in Erzroum (1890), desecrated the sacred edifice, disturbed the religious services of the Christians, under the pretext of searching for arms. The indignation of the Christians at the violation of their rights cost the lives of several persons, including that of the Armenian bishop of Erzroum.

Notorious Mousa Bey, a Kurdish chief, after committing numerous robberies and cruelties, murdered an Armenian and abducted his daughter; at Bitlis, he tortured an Armenian to death with red-hot iron. At the head of his brigands he fell upon another Christian family and destroyed the entire family, and ravished the women in the village of Dabovank. Many complaints and a multitude of witnesses of his outrages could hardly effect his being brought to Constantinople to answer for those charges. After all these crimes, the Turkish court of Justice—rather of[Pg 196] “Mockery,” as the distinguished statesman, the late Mr. Gladstone, called it—acquitted him.

In the summer of 1890 it looked as if the persecution had reached its climax. The London Daily News sent special correspondents to Armenia, and their reports leave no doubt that for some reason or other the Turkish government have resolved to make the lives of the Armenians unbearable.

“There is a well-founded suspicion that the sultan is deluding himself with the idea that, by supplanting the Christian Armenians by Mohammedan Kurds, he can raise up a formidable barrier to the Russian conquest of the province. The immediate result of his asinine policy is to make the Armenians look to the czar as their only powerful friend, and the feeling of indignation in this country is so strong on the subject that it is probable Lord Salisbury would not dare to interfere should Russian troops enter Armenia.”

“Mampre Benglian, the Armenian bishop of Alashgerd, has arrived at Constantinople by way of Trebizond, under guard as a criminal. The charge against him is that he advised his flock to leave Armenia and seek refuge in Persia. The Bishop was arrested and subjected to the most outrageous indignities, insulted, spat at, and flogged, thrown into a dungeon and there confined for some time before being sent to Constantinople. Owing to the remonstrances by the British and Russian ambassadors, he has been given his freedom on parole. A letter from Alashgerd says: ‘We can neither depart nor stay, and no other course is left us but to perish where we are. The Kurds and Turks openly declare that they mean to kill as many Armenians as they can, and that they have full permission.’ The Kurds have set fire to the crops of the Armenians in[Pg 197] many places in the vicinity of Bitlis. The situation in Armenia is daily becoming more deplorable. There has been a wholesale massacre of Christians at Moosh.”

The Turkish government has revised the sixty-first article of the Treaty of Berlin, and the other signatory Powers have silently consented to it. The following is the Turkish revision: “The sublime Porte engages to realize without delay such maltreatments, persecutions, oppressions, outrages, cruelties, and murders in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and guarantees the security of their enemies, the Kurds, Circassians and the Turks, and will acquit them in case of their being brought to justice, and will assist them in case the Armenians rise against them in self-defense, by force of arms, and will declare the Christians as rebels. It, moreover, undertakes to make known to the civilized and Christian powers from time to time, that Mohammedanism and barbarism go hand in hand.” This is just what Turkey has been doing with the silent consent of the European Powers. Of course, Turkey is the chief criminal in the case and the other Powers have been accessories of her crime. And England’s share of that crime is confessed by the best of England’s sons:

“The only effect of the Anglo-Turkish convention has been to increase the confidence of the sultan that he can do as he pleases in Armenia notwithstanding Article LXI of the Berlin Treaty.

“England, therefore, is responsible in three ways. She destroyed the Russian guarantee exacted by the Treaty[Pg 198] of San Stefano. She framed the ‘watching’ clause of the Berlin Treaty, and then, to preclude all possibility of effective pressure upon the Turk, she concludes the Cyprus convention which established an illegal British protectorate over the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan.”[109]

“In the field of Eastern politics generally the conspicuous result has been the failure—the complete, humiliating, and irretrievable failure—of the traditional policy pursued by England of supporting the Turk against Russia. That policy, first attempted by Mr. Pitt, in 1791, against the vehement protests of Mr. Burke[110] but presently abandoned, was warmly espoused by Lord Palmerston. It prompted the Crimean war of 1853, and was embodied in the Treaty of Paris of 1856. It had the lifelong support of Lord Beaconsfield, who by refusing to join Russia, Austria, and Prussia in 1876 in applying pressure to the sultan, brought on the war of 1877. Public opinion in Great Britain, outraged by the Bulgarian massacre, prevented him from giving the armed support of Great Britain to the Turks in that year. But he was able to revert to and enforce that policy in the negotiations of 1878, which substituted the Treaty of Berlin for the Treaty of San Stefano, and it dictated the provisions of the Anglo-Turkish convention.”[111]

The Armenian question is simply this: Whether the Armenians should enjoy the liberty of[Pg 199] conscience and of action according to the laws of civilization and Christianity, or whether they should be annihilated by the inveterate enemies of civilization and Christianity, the Turkish rulers. The Armenians brought this question to the decision of the Berlin Congress. The Congress decided that the Armenians must enjoy freedom of conscience and action according to the laws of civilization and Christianity. Turkey, by her representatives, agreed and consented to the decision and promised to have civilized laws, and give freedom to Christianity. But no sooner was the Congress dissolved and the representatives of the nations returned to their respective governments, than the Turkish government took up the work of annihilation of the Christian Armenians. The decision, without any action on the part of the Powers, encouraged the Turk to return to his mire to wallow in.[112] The historian’s sad duty is to describe the beast and his bestial acts, so far as it is permissible, and to point out the sources wherefrom he derives his power.

This work of extermination has been carried on in different ways in certain parts of the country. While in the interior small groups of Armenians have been killed and done away with, in the cities imprisonments, tortures, exiles, assassinations and compulsive conversions to Ismal have been in vogue. The following letter dated June 26, 1891,[113] published in L’Observateur, from its Constantinople correspondent,[Pg 200] will show some ways of doing away with the Armenians:

“I have already written you, that in consequence of the late disturbances at Constantinople most of the Armenian prisoners have been banished, in small groups, to various distant places, in order not to attract the attention of the public. Is it possible ever to pen the tortures that these unfortunates are suffering in Turkish prisons? The penal system in Turkey is still in its primitive state, and has undergone no improvement since the time of Sultan Mehmed II (1451-1481). Many prisoners have not been able to stand the tortures inflicted upon them, and the death of one of them, Vartan Calousdian (a young man twenty-six years of age), is a new proof of their atrocities.

“The parents of this young man, hearing of his death in prison, succeeded in securing, through the almighty ‘backshish,’ the remains of their beloved in order to inter him in their family grave. While the attendants of the Church at Galata were washing the body according to the custom of the Armenian Church, they could not withhold their tears, and they were awe-stricken at the sight of numerous wounds which marked the body. The poor young man had many of his ribs broken, the palms of his hands and the bottom of his feet were burned and his breast and back striped with long burns....

“Similar cases occur quite often in Asia Minor, but the local authorities conceal them with the utmost care, and make every effort to keep them from the people. The Armenians have not even the right to emigrate from this barbarous country. I telegraphed to you yesterday that the governor of Trebizond prohibited about one hundred Armenian emigrants from leaving the port on the Massangeric steamer ‘Niger.’”

Without the slightest fear of exaggeration the reader can stretch the compass of his imagination to picture to himself the pitiable condition of those prisoners and their families in Asia Minor and Armenia proper. There was neither press nor the influence of the foreign powers; neither facilities of rapid communication, nor the possible use of the telegraph system which is controlled by the government; nor did any safety exist in the post-office system; letters were often torn open with the pretense of suspicion, where “similar cases occur quite often, but the local authorities concealed them with utmost care.” These unfortunate prisoners were tortured and starved to death in those filthy and infectious jails; their wives were exposed to the assaults and outrages of the enemies of their religion, their daughters were abducted and proselyted by threats, their little ones were crying for bread, but there was none to provide for them. They and their homes and families were completely ruined. Like the lambs on the thousand hills of Armenia, the Christian inhabitants of Western Asia were turned over to the Mohammedan wolves by the European Powers.

The following poem, which is translated and recomposed from the original by Mr. Thomas G. Allen, Jr., appeared with an article by the same gentleman in the New York Herald, about twenty-five years ago. The object of the writer was to show how the inflammatory and revolutionary literature had provoked the Turks, who, almost driven out of Europe,[Pg 202] were also threatened in Asia. The following is his closing words:

“And now the Turks are threatened in Asia itself. Is there no possible reconciliation between the conflicting elements? Is the unity of civilization to be had only by the sacrifice of whole populations, and those above all, which [the Turks] are distinguished by the highest moral qualities—Uprightness, truth, manliness, courage and tolerance?”

Tastes surely differ. Even the bloodthirsty and bestial Turks are distinguished by the highest moral qualities according to Mr. Allen. Here is the revolutionary poem:

Stand firm, O Armenians! Stand firm for the land
That gave thee in childhood her cherishing hand;
Stand firm for thy country, thy cradle, thy grave,
The country that reeks with the blood of the brave.

’Tis here in their dungeons, ’mid torture and moan
The blood of thy fathers so freely has flown;
And this is the land where still thou hast saved,
Great glories and names, on thy memory engraved.

’Tis here, for his home, and the pleasures it brought,
Our ancestor, Haik, so courageously fought;
And Vartan, that champion of sweet liberty,
Broke asunder the chains of foul slavery.

O Freedom, thou blessing that nations have craved,
How long has thy ensign and emblem here waved!
How many Armenians, so noble and brave,
[Pg 203]For thee have gone down to a premature grave!

Though fortune has struck it with terrible blows,
And left alone Armenia a prey to its foes,
Though subdued, yet unconquered, our nation still lives,
To break the slave bonds that a base tyrant gives.

Armenia still lives, and out to the world
Her flag of distress she now has unfurled;
In torture and pain she utters the cry,
“With freedom to live; with slavery to die.”

Oh, why should our strife be rewarded with pain,
And the blood of our bravest be poured out in vain!
Oh, why should our country’s most sorrowful wail,
Have stirred noble souls to a cause that must fail!

Oh, why should this effort of unceasing pace,
These brave souls, be given without even a trace!
For this can it be that our country fares worse,
And even must bear with this terrible curse?

Nay, never! Thank God, the day’s soon at hand
When victory shall marshal our patriot band!
For this we have prayed—but alas! ever so,
Our prayers are unanswered as years come and go.

But if ever thus the fates may decree,
Then welcome we death that our souls may be free;
Let kind Mother Earth to her bosom enfold
The corpse of a nation, all bloodless and cold.

The nations, astonished, may view her dark grave,
And see the ruined homes they neglected to save;
And thousand of hearts with repentance may grieve
For the lost Christian nation they failed to relieve.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] Literally, “Loose-headed,” in the sense of undisciplined volunteers.

[105] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 372.

[106] This deputation consisted of Bishops Mugurdich, Khrimian, Khorene NerBey, DeLusignan and Prof. Minas Tcheraz.

[107] Appelton, Annual Cyclopædia, 1880, p. 689.

[108] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” p. 78.

[109] The Westminster Gazette, Dec. 12, 1894, reprinted in the Armenia, London, Jan. 1, 1895.

[110] The following is part of Burke’s address quoted by Bryce: “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.” Quoted from Bryce’s.

[111] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 519, 4th ed.

[112] II Peter, 2:22.

[113] Reprinted in The Ararat, New York, July 30, 1891.

The condition of affairs in Turkey since the signing of the Treaty of Berlin has been growing from bad to worse. The persecutions, unjust imprisonments, constant tortures, exiles and executions of the Armenians have been pointing to such terrible massacres as have been taking place.

The real and underlying cause of this state of things must now be more emphatically pointed out than it has yet been. In order to do this, certain facts of history must be briefly rehearsed. No Mohammedan can be expected to be any better than Mohammed himself; that he was a sensual, cruel and bloodthirsty man, and a relentless enemy to Christianity, Christians and the Jews, is manifest from the facts of history, his life and his teaching. “Christianity finds its ideal man in the Christ of the Gospels; the Moslem finds his in the Prophet of the Koran and the traditions.”

Some of the teachings of Christ and His disciples, and Mohammed and his followers will be put side by side to show the incompatibility of the one with the other, on account of the Heavenliness of the former and the infernality of the latter.

The New Testament

Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself. Matt. 22:39.

Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them even as Elias did? He rebuked them.... For the Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. Luke 9:54-56.

There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. I Tim. 2:5.

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Mat. 5:44.

Jesus said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. Matt. 22.29-30.

We are the sons of God, we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. I John 3:2.

The Koran

O true believers, wage war against such of infidels as are near you, and let them find severity in you. Al Koran, chap. 9.

Verily the worst cattle in the sight of God are those who are obstinate infidels, and will not believe. Al Koran, chap. 8.

When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads until ye have made a great slaughter among them. Al Koran, chap. 47.

There is no God but God, and Mohammed is His apostle.[114] The Mohammedan Creed.

O prophet, wage war against the unbelievers, and be severe unto them, for their dwelling shalt be hell. Al Koran, chap. 9.

“The meanest moslem (the Mohammedan) will have in Paradise, 80,000 servants, seventy-two houris or girls of Paradise.[2]

“Mohammed declared that when he looked down into hell, he found the greater part of the wretches confined there to be women.”[115]

Go ye, therefore and make disciples of all nations. Matt. 28:19.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. Luke 23-34.

Fight thou against them until they pay tribute by right of subjection, and they be reduced low. Al Koran, chap. 9:29.

“The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians.”[116] Mohammed.

(The above is Mohammed’s last prayer before he died.—Author).

The Bible gives women a place of great importance and service both in the Old and New Testaments. The temple had its women’s court, the synagogues and early churches had their respective places for women. Their importance and helpfulness both in the church at home and abroad are of inestimable value. But Mohammed confined them, wholesale, to the infernal regions. Ali Bey (1807) (a great authority on Mohammedanism, and a devout Mohammedan himself, whom the late Dr. Jessup quotes in his work above referred to), says: “As the prophet has not assigned any place for women in his Paradise, the Mohammedans give them no places in the mosques and have exempted them from the obligation of frequenting the public prayer.”

There is one more point of the Koran that might be contrasted with the teaching of the Bible, namely, that Mohammed fostered the arrogance and pride of his followers, without substantiating his claim:

“Ye are the best nation that has been raised up unto mankind.” Al Koran, Chap. 3:106.

The Bible gives us some passages like the above, but they are infinitely different in depth, height and breadth. “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” I Peter 2:9. Christian religion requires “holiness, without which no man shall see God.” Heb. 12:14. “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” Matt. 5:8. Christ requires of His followers an inward, as well as an outward, conformity to the Character of God. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” is the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount. Mohammedanism requires of its devotees the following five things: A confession of faith that there is but one God and that Mohammed is his prophet, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and a pilgrimage to Mecca. For salvation, repentance is the only means.

“Christianity recognizes the freedom of man, and magnifies the guilt and corruption of sin, but at the same time offers a way of reconciliation and redemption from sin, and its consequence through the atonement of a divine Saviour and regeneration by the Holy Spirit.

“Mohammedanism minimizes the freedom of man and the guilt of sin, makes little account of its corrupting influence in the soul, and offers no plan of redemption except that of repentance and good works.”[117]

Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who reigned from 1876-1909, was considered by many to be a conscientious Mohammedan. Claiming also—as all the sultans from the time of Selim I—to be the lawful successor of the prophet and Defender of the faith. He was, therefore, both the head of the Mohammedan religion and also the ruler over the Mohammedan states. In the mind of a faithful successor of Mohammed, the prophet is the only ideal and his conduct the only guide to follow. To revive Mohammedanism then means the suppression of all other religions as well as the building up of all the Moslem institutions. These he continued to do until the time of his deposition.

Mohammed and his immediate successors offered to the conquered the choice of one of three things—Islam, slavery, or death. Some of the conquered accepted Islam, and thus ended their trouble on earth; others were put to death by the conquerors, who saved their victims from the misery of the world; those who neither accepted Islam nor were put to death were made semi-slaves. Both the Arabs and later the Turks needed some source of revenue which they derived from the subject nations, and also needed a class of skilled artisans and laborers. The Greeks and Armenians were very important for the maintenance of the Turkish empire, especially in its early years, and up to the middle of the last century. These nations, whether Armenians, Greeks, Jews or Syrians, however, were considered no more than prisoners of war, and were always liable to have[Pg 209] the offer of Islam or death presented to them at any time as the caprice of the ruler may choose.

Again, the hatred and arrogance instilled into the minds of the devotees of the religion of Mohammed by the prophet and his imitators, fill every devout Mohammed with the desire, not so much to see the conversion of the world to Mohammedanism, as to wish and pray that Allah may destroy the infidels—non-Moslems—and give all their possessions to the Mohammedans. Hence, the official prayer of the Mohammedans which was used throughout Turkey and daily repeated in the Cairo Azhar University by the ten thousand Mohammedan students from all lands. It is translated from the Arabic:

“I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the regiem (the accursed). In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful! O Lord of all Creatures! O Allah! Destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of religion! O Allah! Make their children orphans, defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip; and give them, and their families, and their households, and their women, and their children and their relatives by marriage, and their brothers, and their friends, and their possessions, and their race, and their wealth, and their lands, as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all creatures.”[118]

The writer has attempted in the preceding few pages to show, from the Koran and from such writers as the late Dr. Jesup of Beirut (Syria) and the late Dr. Washburn of Constantinople, who had been in[Pg 210] contact with Mohammedanism and Mohammedans almost half of a century or more, whose authority and integrity cannot be questioned, what Mohammedanism is and what it teaches. No Mohammedan ruler, or a common believer in Mohammed’s religion, especially one who claims to be his successor, dare do otherwise than what the Koran and the example of the prophet teach him. Not one of the grants, permits, promises of reform, liberty of religion, protection of persons, honor and property of the Christian subjects in the empire, made by the sultans under pressing circumstances, or by pressure from without, were ever intended to be kept. Because they could not conscientiously fulfill those promises and remain faithful Mohammedans.

One more thing which deserves to be noted is the missionary fire kindled in the heart of every Mohammedan by the Koran and the Mohammedan divines; we refer to the propagation of Islam by the sword. The extension of the Mohammedan religion depends on the expansion of the Mohammedan reign. Hence the sword is the great Mohammedan Missionary.

“Under the head of the civil laws [of Mohammedanism] may be comprehended the injunction of warring against the infidel, which is repeated in several passages of the Koran, and declared to be of high merit in the sight of God; those who are slain fighting in defense of the faith being reckoned martyrs, and are promised immediate admission into paradise. Hence this duty is greatly magnified by the Mohammedan[Pg 211] divines, who call the sword the key of heaven and hell.”[119]

Mohammed himself inaugurated this by his teaching and example as the following incident—one of many—shows: There was a Jewish colony settled within a short distance from the city of Medina. They have been happily and prosperously living there for a long time in all things like the Arabs except their religion. They adhered to their ancestral faith and refused to believe in Mohammed as the apostle of God. This was like a thorn in Mohammed’s flesh. He gathered a sufficient force and attacked them. The Jews thought their fortified town was a secure refuge for them wherein they sheltered themselves. Mohammed besieged the town and in a short time reduced it to submission by starvation. Then followed the terrible slaughter of all the men—about eight hundred. It took a whole day, beginning early till late at night, to chop off their heads and throw their bodies into a trench. And the booty, and some women and children, he divided among his faithful warriors, and the rest he sold to the Arabs. But for himself—for his sensual gratification—he selected the most beautiful Jewess, Rihanah by name, and he kept her.

In the following pages the reader will see more of the sequel of his infernal teaching and example in the lives and acts of his followers.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] “When Gibbon declared that Islamic motto ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his apostle,’ asserts an eternal truth and an eternal lie, he truly expressed its duplex and inconsistent character.”—Jesup, “The Mohammedan Missionary Problem,” p. 15.

[115] Jesup, “The Mohammedan Missionary Problem,” (published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Phila.), p. 38.

[116] Schaff’s Religious Encyclopædia, Vol. II, p. 1542.

[117] Barrows, “The World’s Parliament of Religions,” Vol. I, p. 579, the paper on Mohammedanism by Washburn.

[118] Jesup, “The Mohammedan Missionary Problem,” p. 31. Presbyterian Board of Publication, Phila.

[119] Sale’s “Koran,” preliminary discourses, p. 110.

The history of Mohammedanism is a continuous warfare against Christianity, and the latter alone has firmly and heroically stood against Islam in Western Asia. But through what tortures, martyrdoms, and massacres did the followers of Christ pass from the beginning of Mohammed’s religion to the present time? The answer to this question would fill volumes.

Hitherto the Turks have shown relentless barbarity, unabated intolerance and unprovoked massacres of the Christians. A very conservative estimate will not allow less than two hundred thousand Christians massacred during the last century by the fanatic followers of the self-made prophet of Arabia.

In 1821-7, during the Greek revolution, thousands of Greeks were put to death who had no other crime than being of the same religion and nationality. “Sultan Mohammed was in the habit of replying to every success of the Greek insurgents by ordering massacres, violations and enslavement in regions without defense, where there were none but women, children and inoffensive merchants.... The Turkish admiral was beaten at Samos; for that reason[Pg 213] thirty days were spent in Cyprus in cutting off heads.... The Sultan wished to take new reprisal to terrify the rayas (Christian subjects) and cause the nations of Europe to reflect.” In the island of Chios, though the inhabitants were not in rebellion, but most docile and inoffensive, yet “above forty thousand of both sexes had either fallen victims to the sword, or were selected for sale in the bazaars.” Some fled to the more inaccessible parts of the island. They were assured of their safety by the Turks, guaranteed by the European consuls. But no sooner did they descend from the heights than the Turks put them to death. “The number of those, who became victims of this perfidious act, were estimated at seven thousand.”[120]

“The women and children escaped death, their beauty and youth saving them from massacre. They were, however, to be delivered over at once to the outrageous assaults or to be reserved for the shameful fate of the harem. They were led off in long troops; they were put on the market and sold in the bazaars of Smyrna, Constantinople and Brousa.”[121] Large numbers also suffered death or the worst form of slavery, by the hands of the “unspeakable Turks,” who were neither Greeks nor belonged to the same church, and their only crime also was that they, too, were Christians.

During the war between Russia and Turkey, the Kurds, finding the country in a disturbed condition,[Pg 214] plundered many a village and massacred not a few Armenians. But the Turks seem to vie with the Kurds in cruelty. An Englishman, writing of the war between Russia and Turkey, says:

“The Turks with their usual ferocity, commenced a system of carnage at Akhalzik in 1829; every Christian inhabitant was slain.”

In 1843, in the southern mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan, ten thousand Nestorian and Armenian Christians were massacred by the faithful Moslems of Mohammed’s type, and as many women and children were taken captives and sold for slaves. The great explorer, A. H. Layard, three years after this fearful carnage, describes it in the following language:

“When the salughter of the people of Ashita (9000) became known in the valley of Liza, the inhabitants of the villages (1000) took refuge on a lofty platform of rock, where they hoped either to escape notice or to defend themselves against any number of assailants. Bedr Khan Bey (the officer of the sultan, who had charge of the massacre) surrounded the place and watched until hunger and thirst, in hot sultry weather, had done their work. After three days a regular capitulation was signed and sworn on the Koran; their arms were delivered up; the Kurds were admitted on the platform. Then did the slaughter begin. To save the trouble of killing them, they were pitched into the Zab (river) below. Out of about one thousand only one escaped from the massacre. The face of the rock below is still covered with scattered bones of the dead, bleached[Pg 215] skulls, long locks of women’s hair, and torn portions of garments they had worn.”[122]

In regard to the massacre of the eleven thousand Christians in Syria in 1860, a very trustworthy writer states:

“The officials of the Porte at Constantinople formed a conspiracy for the blotting out of the Christian name in those parts, they appointed their own creatures to the governments of Damascus, Beirut, Sidon, and furnished them with soldiers, who were posted as garrison in the chief towns inhabited by Christians, under pretense of defending them against the Druses. When all was ready the savage Druses of Hauron were summoned, and they and their brethren of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon immediately set themselves to burning the villages and killing the people without any provocation. They put to death every male, even the infants at the breast, and enslaved as many of the women and girls as they chose. The Turkish garrison at first simply looked on; then they urged the Christians to take refuge in the castles on condition of delivering up whatever weapons they might possess. They swore by the Koran that no harm should be done them. But no sooner were they thus entrapped than the Druses were called in and every one of these helpless victims was shot down or his throat cut in cold blood. The streets of Deirel-Kamr, Hosbayan, and Zahlah flowed with human gore, in which men waded ankle deep. The worst scenes occurred in Damascus, the center of Moslem fanaticism. Here the pasha himself directed the operations, and after the butchery of the Christians and the plunder of their property, their quarter of the city was set on fire and burned down.”[123]

It was due to the same bloodthirstiness of the Turks, inculcated by the infernal teaching of the Koran, and the examples of the former Mohammedan rulers, that the horrible massacres of the Bulgarians took place in 1876. Hon. Eugene Schuyler, then American consul-General, in his preliminary report to the Hon. Horace Maynard, the American minister, at Constantinople, wrote:

“Philippopolis, August 10, 1876.

Sir: In reference to the atrocities and massacres committed by the Turks in Bulgaria, I have the honor to inform you that I have visited the towns of Adrianople, Philippopolis, and Tatar, Bazardjik, and villages in the surrounding districts. From what I have personally seen, and from the inquiries I have made, and the information I have received, I have ascertained the following facts:

“The insurgent villages made little or no resistance. In many instances they surrendered their arms upon the first demand. Nearly all the villages which were attacked by the Bashi-bazouks (irregulars) were burned and pillaged, as were also all those which had been abandoned by the terrified inhabitants. The inhabitants of some villages were massacred after exhibitions of the most ferocious cruelty, and the violation not only of women and girls, but even of persons of the other sex. Those crimes were committed by the regular troops as well as by the bashi-bazouks. The number of villages which were burned in whole or in part in the districts of Philippopolis, Roptchus, and Tatar-Bazardjik is at least sixty-five.

“Particular attention was given by the troops to the churches and schools, which in some cases were destroyed with petroleum and gunpowder.

[Pg 217]

“It is difficult to estimate the number of Bulgarians who were killed during the few days that the disturbances lasted; but I am inclined to put fifteen thousand as the lowest for the districts I have named.

“... This village after a promise of safety without firing a shot surrendered to the bashi-bazouks, under command of Ahmed Aga, a chief of rural police. Despite his promise, the arms once surrendered, Ahmed Aga ordered the destruction of the village and the indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants, about a hundred young girls being reserved to satisfy the lust of the conqueror before they too should be killed. Not a house is now standing in this lovely valley. Of the eight thousand inhabitants not two thousand are known to survive.

“Ahmed Aga, who commanded the massacre, has since been decorated and promoted, to the rank of yus bashi (centurion).

“I am, sir, yours very truly,

“Eugene Schuyler.

“The Hon. Horace Maynard, etc.”[124]

It was in the following year, 1877, that Armenia witnessed new horrors. The correspondent of the London Times wrote of the massacre of the Armenians at Bayazid:

“The scene that ensued [the massacre] was one of unparalleled horror. The town contained one hundred and sixty-five Christian families, and all the men, women and children were ruthlessly put to the sword. A Turkish officer, who visited the town a few days subsequently, states that there was not a single inhabitant left.... In every house he entered small groups of[Pg 218] dead were lying shockingly mutilated, and in the most revolting, indecent positions. Captain McCalmont, who visited the place shortly after the Russian relief, states that it is entirely deserted and a mere heap of ruins; also that soldiers were employed for six days in burying the dead, the number of whom it was impossible to estimate.”[125]

“The American missionaries have been forced, for fear of their lives, to take refuge in a boat on the Lake (of Van).... Their Christian charges have been subjected to the grossest treatment—crops cut and carried away, cattle killed, villages burnt, men murdered, and worst of all, women and even children violated. Churches afford no refuge for these wretched mortals. Ten who fled for safety into the church at Utch-Kilissa were there foully murdered.... Hundreds of Christian villages in Armenia, having been gutted and fired by these miscreants, are completely abandoned, and their inhabitants have fled for refuge into the Russian camps. Hordes of fanatics, led by Moolahs (learned), have joined the Turkish army. Their fury is daily fed by the exhortations and addresses of the priests, who have denounced the war as a menace to the Ottoman (Mohammedan) religion, and they are led to commit every conceivable excess against the defenseless Christians, whom they accuse of furnishing information to the enemy. Facts prove the reverse, for as yet not a single Armenian spy has been discovered by the authorities, while several Kurds and Circassians, preferring money to-faith, have paid for their treachery with their lives; in short every spy hanged during this war has been a Mohammedan....

“Outrages on Mohammedans, being against the Koran, are visited with great severity; outrages against Christians, who are considered beyond the pale of the[Pg 219] law, are left unnoticed. The massacre at Bayazid, the desecration of Russian graves, mutilation of corpses, violation of a flag of truce, and the recent cruelties towards the Christians at Van, all furnish excuses, and valid excuses, too, for a continuance of the war. We cannot hope that a great power like Russia will sit quietly down under the reverses her arms have sustained during the past month, and will permit the Christians, on whose behalf she has ostensibly made war, to be treated in Armenia as they were last year in Bulgaria. She must compel the Porte, by force of arms, to respect the rights of all her Christian subjects, and afford to them equal protection and privilege as to Mohammedans. At present this is far from being the case, Mussulman officials literally treating them worse than the dogs which act as scavengers in their streets. I mean this as no mere figure of speech, but as an actual fact, borne out not only by what I myself have witnessed, but also by reports of occurrences which have come under the notice of many of the American missionaries in Armenia, who daily receive complaints from their Christian congregations of the cruelties and acts of oppression they endure at the hands of the Kurds, whom the Ottoman government have now let loose in Anatolia.”[126]

I have quoted a long passage from Mr. Norman’s book to show the miserable condition of the Armenians who were treated worse than the street-dogs by the Mohammedans, the officers and the rest, and that these outrages were well known in England, yet in the following year, “England at the Berlin Congress, and England alone—for none of the other powers took any interest in the matter—destroyed the security which Russia had extorted from the Turkish[Pg 220] government at San Stefano, and substituted for the sterling guarantee of Russia, the worthless paper money of Ottoman promises.”[127]

Mr. Norman himself wrote: “Naturally, since I have been here (in Armenia) I have had many, very many, opportunities of conversing with Turkish officers and men on the so-called Eastern question; and the consequence is that, arriving in the country a strong philo-Turk, deeply impressed with the necessity of preserving the ‘integrity of the Empire’ in order to uphold ‘British interests,’ I now fain would cry with Mr. Freeman, ‘Perish British interests, perish our dominion in India, rather than that we should strike a blow on behalf of the wrong against the right.’”[128] England, however, did strike a fatal “blow on behalf of the wrong against the right,” in the negotiations of 1878, when Lord Beaconsfield “substituted the Treaty of Berlin for the Treaty of San Stefano, and dictated the provisions of the Anglo-Turkish convention.”

Sultan Abdul Hamid not only henceforth had a new lease of life for his empire, but by the British illegal protectorate over his Asiatic provinces, he had also her protection against Russia. And while thus protected, he determined to settle his internal affairs, not by doing what he promised, to the European powers collectively and to England separately, to do, namely, to protect his Christian subjects against robberies, oppressions, outrages and murders,[Pg 221] but by systematic and gradual extermination of the Armenians in order to rid himself of the Armenian question. Vambery’s description of the character of Sultan Abdul Hamid II may give us some idea how this crafty man would act: “I never met with a man the salient features of whose character were so contradictory, so uneven, and disproportionate, as with Sultan Abdul Hamid. Benevolence and wickedness, generosity and meanness, cowardice and valor, shrewdness and ignorance, moderation and excess, and many other qualities have alternately found expression in his acts and words.”[129] Sultan Abdul Hamid could do like his master of whom Paul wrote to the Corinthians, and said: “No marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” (II Cor. 11:14). He was too shrewd to openly inaugurate the work of extermination of the Christians and the persecution of Christianity, but he did it, first underhandedly, until some Armenians, driven to desperation, resorted to self-defense. Of course in the case of a Christian’s self-defense his resentment of the outrages against the oppressor is considered an act of rebellion, and the acts of robbery, outrage, and murder perpetrated by the Mohammedan upon the defenseless Christians are considered meritorious virtues. St. Paul said, “No marvel”; Sultan Abdul Hamid is transformed into an angel of light, what else can we expect? There were, undoubtedly, many Armenians who did revolt against such perversions of truth. Who can always sit still and look like a[Pg 222] statue while the wrong-doer is robbing, outraging and murdering his loved ones, and not revolt against such acts, and not give a blow against the wrong-doer, even if we know that he may be cut to pieces for his doing so? This was the kind of rebellion that some Armenians were accused of.

The Turkish government’s accusation of the Armenians with the device of a revolution was simply made up of the tissues of falsehood, and woven by the iniquity of the head of the government, to shroud the just and righteous cause of the Armenian question; to bury it in an ignominious grave of a rebellion that failed. But there was no rebellion, there could be no rebellion. It was, however, convenient for the British government and some other, equally guilty, governments of Europe, to justify their criminal indifference, or self interests, to pretend that it was and that the Armenians were not persecuted for their religion. The Mohammedan government would not say—for she had no regard for the truth—that she was torturing and slaughtering the Armenians because they were Christians. It is perfectly natural for a corrupt and depraved heart to falsify and declare to those, who ask the reason of her murdering the Christians, to say that she is suppressing a revolution. But for any so-called Christian nation and government, like that of England, accepting Hamid’s excuse and explanation, and declaring that to the world was plainly protecting and defending the criminal at the bar of justice and humanity.

The Turkish government knew, so did the European[Pg 223] governments, that an Armenian revolution was an impossibility, and such an excuse was an absurdity. The Armenians, who hardly number two millions, scattered among the eighteen millions of the Mohammedans, the latter having a standing army of several hundred thousand soldiers at their command, would indeed have been fools, and the Turks equal fools to be afraid of such a rebellion, and, therefore, had taken such severe measures to suppress it. Such a thing was not only an absurdity but it was also the most wicked thing both on the part of the Turks and on the part of the friends of the Moslems, who pretended to believe it.

About 1892 Sultan Abdul Hamid called the Kurdish chiefs to Constantinople and supplied them with military titles, uniforms, and modern weapons of war, and sent them back to organize their tribes into “Hamidieh” cavalry regiments, which numbered about twenty-two thousand and five hundred men. The Sultan thus “obtained a power eager in time of peace to crush the Armenian growth and spirit.” The Armenians “besought the protection of the co-signatory powers to the Berlin guarantees against the ruthless oppression of the lawless and ruffianly Kurds, and with the tacit consent, if not the approbation of the powers, the Porte now appoints their worst enemies as their guardians.”

A few fragmentary instances may show what these—the government’s—licensed robbers and murderers have done. The following is part of a letter written[Pg 224] by an American missionary in the summer of 1892 from Southern Armenia:

“We journeyed east of north over the hills, and dropped down into another valley, in the bosom of which nestled the Armenian village of Khundik, of about twenty houses. It was a charming spot, but the oppression of surrounding Kurdish begs (chiefs) was depleting the population. Their church has been reduced to a heap, and they were not allowed to restore it.”

Dr. ——, a medical missionary, writing of his tour under date of October 20, 1892, stated:

“It was somewhat risky going among the Arabkir villages. Robberies were of almost daily occurrence, and the villagers were in a state of constant alarm at night on account of the raids of the Kurds.... The village of Horesik is in a district of perhaps thirty Armenian villages; but it is one of the most oppressed districts in the empire. A long time ago some Turkish feudal chiefs came from abroad, and gradually gained possession of the whole district. They now claim to own all the land, and even the houses which the people occupy, and which the occupants built, and the gardens and vineyards which they planted.”

It was not the Kurds, and some Turkish feudal chiefs alone, but the officers of the government who carry the sword for the punishment of the evil-doer were also among the worst kind of tormentors and evil-doers themselves.

“October, 1892: At all the villages on the lake (Van) soldiers were stationed to keep boats from landing, on account of cholera.... Then the quartering of the soldiers in the villages. You can imagine what that[Pg 225] means for the poor Armenians, you can sympathize with them in the idea that the cure is worse than the disease; that they would much rather take the risk of having the cholera than have the soldiers about. And it is not only the soldiers and underpaid gendarmes that oppress the villagers, extorting the best and making no return. An officer, the captain of one thousand, with seven horsemen, had just been at a village we visited. They and their horses were fed with the best and went off without paying anything.”

On the night of the 5th of January, 1893, in several important cities of Asia Minor placards were posted attacking the Turkish government. Who did this was a mystery. A prominent editor of a leading periodical in this country, who was well informed of the condition of affairs in Turkey, said, “the general belief of all classes is that the more fanatical softas (students in the mosques) are the real offenders.” That may have been the case. But later events and instances positively show that the government’s emissaries had done it in order to furnish an excuse for the officers of the government to accuse the Armenians of sedition, and blindfold the European powers who were overanxious to abandon the cause of justice and humanity for any pretext.

Two of these placards were affixed to the gate of the mission premises at Marsovan, but were soon seen and pulled down by persons belonging to the college. Husrev Pasha was appointed to investigate the matter. This official himself had threatened in violent terms both the college and its teachers, “Charging the institution with being a source of sedition, and affirming[Pg 226] that the placards were issued from the college.” Those very officials themselves had “declared that the place where the college stood should be as a plowed field.”

On the 29th of January, Professor Thoumanian and later Professor Kayayan, two Armenian teachers of the college, were arrested and imprisoned. There was no evidence of their having issued these placards. On the night of February 1st, the girls’ school was set on fire. The Turkish authorities who declared that they were going to burn the building, after so doing, began to charge the crime upon the college authorities “either for the purpose of exciting the Armenians to revolt, or to cover up the fact that arms and ammunition were concealed in the building. These most absurd charges were sent to Constantinople, and the corrupt officials, who have themselves been implicated in the burning were charged with the duty of investigating the affair. Meantime numberless arrests were made, not only in Marsovan but in all parts of the province. United States Consul, Mr. Jewett, who was stationed at Sivas, went to Marsovan. But his dispatches to our minister at Constantinople, and the minister’s dispatches to him, were interfered with, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he secured any communication with his superior officer.”

The Turkish government could, and had created riots at will, and thus have an excuse to fall upon the defenseless Christians to torture and butcher them: London, February 14, 1893—“A despatch[Pg 227] from Vienna says that one hundred and twenty-five Armenians were killed and three hundred and forty were wounded during the recent riot at Yosgat, Turkey.” Constantinople, July 14, 1893—“The British Embassy has received news that three hundred police and Bashi-Bazouks were sent out from Cæsarea in February to arrest so-called refugees in Everek. They looted every Armenian house in the town, and abused the women.”

“Moslem mobs have possession of Cæsarea. They have established a reign of terror over the Armenian churches, have robbed hundreds and have killed many. During services in three Armenian churches the other day the mob burst in the doors, stripping the women of their jewelry and beat and cut the men. After the Armenians fled the Moslems sacked the churches. They afterwards went through the streets attacking all the Armenians they met, bursting into private houses, and sacking shops. All places of business are closed and trade is utterly stagnant. Violence and theft are said to continue day and night. Furthermore, Christian caravans are being robbed and the merchants murdered. The prisons are crowded with Armenian prisoners. Most of the conspicuous Armenians of Cæsarea and Marsovan have been imprisoned.”

The following British Consular reports were despatched from London, April 10, 1893:

“Advices from Constantinople show that the British consuls at Smyrna, Trebizond, and other places in Anatolia, have sent in official reports of Turkish outrages on[Pg 228] native Christians. These reports include the names of eighteen hundred Armenians who are imprisoned on various charges in the several consular jurisdictions. Among other matters the serious charge is preferred that it is a common occurrence for the Turks to kidnap Christian girls and dispose of them to the owners of harems. If the relatives and friends of the girls attempt to regain them, they are met with the statement that the girls have embraced Mohammedanism, and this, as a rule, ends the matter so far as the Armenians are concerned; the Christians are ridiculed and subjected to gross outrages, and if they object to their treatment they find themselves arrested on trumped up charges, and are always found ‘guilty.’”

The Rev. Dr. F. E. Clark, the President of the U. S. C. E., while in Turkey on his tour around the world, wrote:

“I could not use the words society or organization, endeavor, union, etc., without the risk of getting my interpreter, my audience, and myself into an unspeakable Turkish dungeon. In one village a poor broken-hearted woman came to tell us that her husband, who was a Protestant preacher, had utterly disappeared. Three weary months of anxious, heart-sick watching had passed away, and she had had no message. What his alleged offense was she had no idea. Whether he is dead or alive, in prison or in exile, she could not tell; and perhaps the mystery of his disappearance will never be solved.” After giving several instances of this kind, Dr. Clark adds: “These are only isolated instances of hundreds that might be cited.”[130]

In the above pages a very few instances were given, which could be multiplied by the hundred, if the[Pg 229] time and space would permit, but there is no need. For neither did the Turks nor their friends deny them. Moreover, some of the instances of cruelty and outrage are too painful to be put in print.

The attention of the reader may now be directed to the condition of the so-called “agitators,” who have been arrested and imprisoned in various cities. According to the British consular “reports included the names of eighteen hundred Armenians.” Some of these prisoners, after having been well fleeced, were likely set free while at their respective cities, others possibly left still in prisons, and a great number of them were probably done away with in various ways;[131] for we were informed by the following despatch that only fifty-six were tried at Angora: Constantinople, June 18, 1893—“The trial of Armenians[Pg 230] accused of being concerned in rioting at Cæsarea and Marsovan last spring has just been concluded at Angora. Seventeen of the prisoners, including Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan, were condemned to death; six, including the Protestant pastor at Goemerek, were sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment; eighteen—one was a woman, thirty-three years old—were sentenced to imprisonment for terms ranging from seven to ten years, and fifteen were acquitted.” Three others tortured to death in prison.

Professors Thoumanian and Kayayan were pardoned by the sultan on the condition that “they should leave the Turkish territories and never return.”

The following despatch is reproduced to show what impression the Foreign office of Her Majesty’s government had received with regard to the trials of those unfortunate Armenians, and their execution:

London, August 2, 1893—“The question of Turkish outrages upon the Armenian Christians was brought up in the House of Commons to-day. Several members asked for information as to the charges made that the Turkish officials had tortured the prisoners who were some time ago arrested for complicity in the seditious rioting in Cæsarea and Marsovan in their efforts to get the accused to implicate themselves and others. In response to the questions Sir Edward Grey, Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign office, said that what little information the Foreign Office had on the subject was very painful. Fifty-six persons had been (tried) arrested and of this number seventeen had been condemned[Pg 231] to death, and many of the others sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Subsequently the Sultan of Turkey commuted the death sentence of all but five of the prisoners. These five men have been executed within the past two or three days. From the evidence that had been given at the trials, all of which had been carefully investigated by the British representative in Turkey, and a report thereon forwarded to the Foreign Office, it was clear that two of the men executed, and probably more, were innocent of the charges made against them. The British representative in Constantinople had used his influence to convince the Ottoman authorities that the trials were unfair, but his efforts to have the wrong righted were in vain.”

These political “agitators” and “seditious rioters,” terms applied to the Armenians by the Turkish government and its officials, only were mere inventions. As it has been said the oppression, cruel persecutions, and outrages drove the Armenians to desperation, and when they did anything in self-defense, or even if they attempted to consult what they should do against the assaults, they were set upon and treated still worse. The disturbance at Yozgat, for instance, was stated in the following manner: An Armenian spy in the employ of the Turkish government was murdered by an Armenian revolutionist from Russia. Instead of the murderer being found and arrested, all the men of the village where the murder had taken place were arrested and taken to Yozgat. The four police officers who remained in the village committed every outrage upon the defenseless women, who went in a body to Yozgat and[Pg 232] marched through the market calling upon the Armenians of the city to avenge their wrongs. “Some one rang the bell of the church, and a large number of Armenians closed their shops and collected at the church for consultation. Military commander of the town heard this and hastened to the church, where he tried to calm the people and persuaded them to disperse, assuring them the guilty officer should be punished. He was meeting with some success when the troops sent by the governor arrived.” The troops had come there for business. A riot was created, and a “hundred and twenty-five Armenians were killed and three hundred and forty wounded,” as the result of this riot.

A commission was sent from Constantinople to investigate, and a reign of terror in the town was the result. Under cover of searching the houses of all the Armenians, they were plundered and outraged without mercy, and a great number thrown into prison, and tortured to force them to give evidence against one another.

I believe the Sultan, who had fashioned himself into an angel of light had chosen this method to feel his way and see whether the guardians of his Christian subjects could see through the tissue of his falsehood and call him to halt, or they would be willing for their own conveniences to accept his construction of suppressing a “sedition.”

The Representative Committee of the society of Friends in Great Britain addressed a memorial to the Earl of Kimberley, the Secretary of State for[Pg 233] Foreign Affairs. (See “Minutes” of 1894, held in London.)

“The Representative committee of the society of Friends in Great Britain have had their attention recently directed to the suffering and persecuted condition of the Armenian Christian subjects of the Porte, and have been at some pains to investigate the facts of the case. They are compelled to conclude that persecution of a cruel character has been and is being carried on by Turkish officials, which is a disgrace to any government, and to the age in which we live.

“They desire to point out that Article I, of the Cyprus convention of June, 1878, and Articles LXI and LXII of the Treaty of Berlin, July, 1878, give this country a position of responsibility and authority upon this subject which it ought not to ignore.

“The committee believes that, though these engagements were made nearly fourteen years ago, it is not alleged that their performance has been even entered upon. On the contrary, great numbers of the Christian Armenians have been from time to time arbitrarily arrested, and are now in prison on charges strongly suspected of being false, whilst many of the proceedings in the courts of law are clearly a mere travesty of justice.”

“Sir: I am directed by the Earl of Kimberley to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 17th instant (April, 1894), and the memorial. In reply I am to state that the information in the possession of Her Majesty’s government does not confirm the widely-spread belief that the arrest and imprisonment of the[Pg 234] Armenians in Asiatic Turkey are attributable to their religious faith.”

The great “assassin” well might have congratulated himself that whether Her Majesty’s government believed it or not, at least, declared to the world that the Armenians were not persecuted on account of their faith.

“The Armenians are still found in goodly numbers, aggregating nearly one-third of some eighteen thousand inhabitants in the city (Moosh), constituting more than half in the region, if we include the 155 villages of this large plain. But so lamentably have they been subdued by the long oppression and misrule, that none of their old-time spirit remains.

“We might point to a village of more than 300 houses and 2,000 inhabitants, who live in constant terror from a little Kurdish village of desperadoes not one-tenth as large!”

It is no wonder that these poor and oppressed Armenians “live in constant terror.” The Turkish government, the author of all injustice and cruelty in Armenia, had decreed even the mere possession of arms a serious crime in the case of Christians, while the Kurds, the worst enemies of law and order were well equipped with all sorts of modern weapons, and were enlisted into His Majesty the Sultan’s army. They were, therefore, authorized to rob, steal, and kill the Armenians.

FOOTNOTES:

[120] Comstock, “Greek Revolution,” p. 222.

[121] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” p. 98.

[122] Layard, “Nineveh,” Vol. I, pp. 165-6.

[123] Van Lennep, “The Bible Lands,” pp. 745-6.

[124] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 101-2.

[125] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 273.

[126] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” pp. 234-5.

[127] The Westminster Gazette, Dec. 12, 1894, reprinted in the Armenia, London, Jan., 1895.

[128] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” pp. 158-9.

[129] The 19th Century, July, 1909.

[130] The Independent, June 15, 1893, New York.

[131] The following explains itself: The private advices from Constantinople give the Press information of a tragic discovery. The harbor of that city has no wharves. Vessels, after discharging their cargoes at the custom-house, anchor in the harbor and receive their cargoes. On September 30, 1893, a Russian merchantman anchored off Seraglio Point, and, having received her cargo, would raise her anchor to sail for home. The anchor seemed to be caught in something heavy. After long efforts it was raised. It brought up with it fifteen large haircloth sacks, such as are used by Turkish merchants in packing goods for shipment.

“At first the Russian captain thought he had disclosed a smuggling scheme. Upon investigation he discovered that the sacks were filled with human bodies, each sack containing from fifteen to twenty. Further investigation disclosed that they were the bodies of Armenian political prisoners.

“Foreign ambassadors to Turkey had recently complained that the prisons were overcrowded with Armenian prisoners, and the government decided to remove the cause of complaint. Accordingly about three hundred prisoners were taken on board of a Turkish man-of-war, ostensibly for transportation to Africa. In the night, however, the fellows were murdered, their bodies placed in sacks, which were tied one to the other, and thrown into the harbor. This is in keeping with the Grand Vizier’s declaration a short time ago, that he would settle the Armenian question by annihilating the Armenians as a race. A discovery similar to this was made in the harbor of Salonica a year ago.”

Sassoun is the name of a district south of the Plain of Moosh. It is a mountainous country, containing about one hundred and fourteen villages and hamlets. The inhabitants, about seventy thousand persons, were mostly Armenians, under a resident Turkish governor, called Kaimakam.

The inhabitants of this region, like the rest of the people in Armenia, were agricultural and pastoral in their occupation, and they were also surrounded by their tormentors, the Kurds. It is not improbable that the inaccessibility of the district and the number and hardiness of the people, may have impressed the Turkish authorities with the desirability of reducing them into a complete docility. So when the “Hamidieh” cavalry regiments were formed a few years before they were entrusted with this work.

The Kurdish chiefs, in some districts in Armenia, were in the habit of demanding, and extorting from the people some kind of tribute. The raids of the Kurds and Circassians were not infrequent. The taxes of the government were ever increasing, and[Pg 236] were always in demand. This vexatious condition of affairs was sufficient to drive any peaceful people to desperation.

In one instance, when the Kurds had raided an Armenian village, and carried away the cattle, the villagers armed themselves as best as they could and pursued the raiders, like Abraham,[132] to recover their herds. In the encounter several Kurds were killed. It is probable that some Armenians also were killed, but that is of no consequence. Those unfortunate Kurds who suffered for their crime were the members of the “Hamidieh” cavalry. Then false reports were sent to Constantinople that the Armenians were in arms, and had rebelled against the authority of the government and had killed some of the soldiers of the sultan.

The sultan, who had been planning ever since the signing of the Treaty of Berlin to exterminate the Armenians, seized upon this opportunity, which was of his own making, and at once sent orders to Mushir at Erzinghian to exterminate them, root and branch. “The order as read before the army, collected in haste from all the chief cities of Eastern Turkey, was: ‘Whoever spares man, woman, or child, is disloyal.’”

The massacre took place in the early part of September, 1894. The following letter, written at Bitlis, September 26, 1894, gives the first evidence:

“The troops have been massed in the region of the large plain (of Moosh) near us. Some sickness broke out among them which took off two or three victims[Pg 237] every few days.... I suppose that one reason for placing quarantine was to hinder the information as to what all these troops were about in that region. There seems little doubt that there has been in that region back of Moosh what took place in 1876 in Bulgaria. The sickening details are beginning to come in.”

“Bitlis, October 9, 1894.

“All these things (following facts) were related here and there by soldiers who took part in the horrible carnage. Some of them, weeping, claim that the Kurds did more, and declare that they only obeyed the order of others. It is said one hundred fell to each of them to dispose of. No compassion was shown to age or sex, even by the regular soldiery, not even when the victims fell suppliant at their feet. Six to ten thousand persons met such a fate as even the darkest ages of darkened Africa hardly witnessed, for there women and tender babes might at least have had a chance of a life of slavery, while here womanhood and innocency were but a mockery before the cruel lust that ended its debauch by stabbing women to death with the bayonet, while tender babes were impaled with the same weapon on their dead mother’s breast, or perhaps seized by the hair to have their heads lopped off with the sword.

“In one place, three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve vile purposes by the merciless soldiery, were hacked to pieces by sword and bayonet in the valley below. In another place, some two hundred weeping and wailing women begged for compassion, falling at the commander’s feet, but the bloodthirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed his soldiers to dispatch them in a similar way. In another place, some sixty young brides and more attractive girls were crowded into a church, and after violation were slaughtered, and human gore was seen flowing from the church door.

[Pg 238]

“At another place still, a large company under the leadership of their priest, fell down before them begging for compassion, and averring that they had nothing to do with the culprits (?). But, all to no purpose. All were called to another place, and a proposal was made to several of the more attractive women to change their faith, in which case their lives were to be spared. They said: ‘Why should we deny Christ? We are no more than these’ (pointing to the mangled form of their husbands and brothers). ‘Kill us too’; and they did so. A great effort was made to save one beauty, but three or four quarreled over her, and she sank down like her sisters.

“But why prolong the sickening tale? There must be a God in heaven who will do right in all these matters, or some of us would lose faith. One or more consuls have been ordered that way to investigate the matter. If the Christians, instead of the Turks, reported these things in the city of Bitlis, and the region where I have been touring, the case would be different. But now we are compelled to believe it.

“It seems safe to say that forty villages were totally destroyed, and it is probable that sixteen thousand at least were killed. The lowest estimate is ten thousand, and many put it much higher. This is allowing for more fugitives than it seems possible can have escaped.”[133]

It is useless now, after twenty-three years, to add the testimony of the eye-witnesses and fugitives to show the barbarity of the soldiers and officers of the sultan, who had been inadvertently encouraged to go on in his career of assassination by the declaration of Her Majesty’s government that the imprisonments,[Pg 239] tortures and massacres of the Armenians were not attributable to their religious faith.

It appears from the following statement made by reliable persons that the sultan himself not only ordered the massacre, but he prepared an occasion for that deviltry. “To what extent Armenian agitation has provoked the terrible massacre it is difficult to determine. For a year or more there seems to have been an Armenian from Constantinople staying in the region as an agitator. For a long time he skilfully evaded his pursuers, but was at last caught and taken to Bitlis. He demanded to be taken to Constantinople and to the sultan, and it is said, he is now living at the Capital, receiving a large salary from the government. Evidently he has turned state’s evidence.” This mean creature, who ever he was, was an emissary of the Turkish government. He and his mission were not known to the officers at Bitlis. So he demanded that he should be taken to Constantinople, and to the sultan. There he was rewarded for the mischief that he was hired to do: he had paved the way for a great massacre.

But by a most influential paper of Great Britain the crime at Sassoun was laid primarily at the door of England:

“The crime at Sassoun lies primarily at the door of England. It is one of the many disastrous results of that ‘peace with honor’ which the English government, represented by Lord Beaconsfield, claimed to have brought back from Berlin in 1878. Why was it that the Armenians at Sassoun were left as sheep before the[Pg 240] butcher? Why was it that the sultan and his pashas felt themselves perfectly free to issue what order they pleased for the massacre of the poor Armenians? The answer is, unfortunately, only too simple. It is because England, at the Berlin Congress, and England alone—for none of the other powers took any interest in the matter—destroyed the security which Russia had extorted from the Turkish government at San Stefano, and substituted for the sterling guarantee of Russia the worthless paper money of Ottoman promises.”[134]

The Sultan publicly endorsed the massacre and decorated Zeki Pasha, the commander of the Fourth Army Corps, and sent four flags to the Kurdish cavalry regiments.

Well said a prominent American: “The sultan’s act is a sort of insolent challenge to Christendom.” Why should he not challenge Christendom? There were some so-called Christian rulers back of him. Though the civilized world was filled with righteous indignation at the cruelty and insolence of the successor of Mohammed, yet he was only true to the teaching and example of the prophet in thus violating all the laws of civilization and humanity.

It is the characteristic of the Armenian mothers to teach their children to cling to the religion of Christ, let come what may. And it is due to this fact that the Armenian nation, after having undergone fifteen centuries of persecution for their faith, still exists as a Christian people. “The permanence of the Armenian race has been ascribed to the virtue[Pg 241] of their women and exceptional purity and stability of their family life.”

The Turkish government, as might have been expected, first tried to conceal the facts or even admit the occurrence of such a massacre. However, under some pressure from the British ambassador, she made the following report:

Constantinople, November 16, 1894—“The Porte has issued an account of the last Armenian troubles in Sassoun district. The responsibility is laid upon the Kurdish brigands, who murdered a Mussulman and committed many other excesses. The Turkish troops called to Sassoun are said to have restored order and protected all law-abiding persons.”

But when Sir Phillip Currie sent Mr. Hallward’s (British vice-consul at Van) report of the massacre to the Porte, the Turkish minister positively denied the facts, asserting that Mr. Hallward’s report was untrue. The Porte further “stated outright, that he (Mr. Hallward) had encouraged the Armenians to revolt.” Another report received from a Turkish official source was “that at Sassoun all the Armenians fell in open combat. The troops killed two thousand of them.”

The friends of Christianity and humanity, who sincerely sympathized with the martyred Christian Armenians, have learned that the Mohammedan rulers and the Turkish officials in the past centuries, and in the present, have given us enough instances of cruelty to convince the world that Mohammedanism and barbarism, if not identical, surely go hand[Pg 242] in hand. Furthermore, the Turkish government and its officers have shown to the world that they were, and are, destitute of truthfulness. A well-informed recent writer says: “As rulers of subject races, the Turks have shown themselves incapable of anything except cruelty and corruption.” “Has Turkey one whit improved in the last five centuries? No. The Porte’s diplomatists have learned to tell falsehoods with more freedom, and more unblushingly; her cruelties and oppressions are practiced more vigorously but more secretly; and she is far more steeped (her higher classes) in vice and barbarism than she was five hundred years ago.”[135]

The sultan, with an air of frankness, though compelled by the demand of the British ambassador, and with a desire to postpone immediate action, so that the indignation of the Christian world might subside, appointed a commission to make an investigation of the massacre. He depended too much on the friendly relations of the United States with Turkey, through Minister Terrell. The sultan asked the President to appoint a representative of this country; but when President Cleveland appointed Mr. Jewett, consul at Sivas, to make an independent investigation and report to our government, the sultan refused his appointment. How could he allow such an honest man as Mr. Jewett to make an independent investigation? Mr. Jewett knew the corruption of the sultan’s officers; he had some experience in the Marsovan trouble; his despatches were detained and his letters[Pg 243] were meddled with by His Majesty’s faithful servants, who, at the head of a Turkish mob, had burned the mission school.

The sultan’s commission was composed of the Turkish officers appointed by the Sultan and the consuls of France, England and Russia, who were in Asiatic Turkey. The commission was to decide who was to be examined, and whose testimony was to be taken. The European representatives were not privileged to make an independent investigation of the matter. Such being the case it was evident what might be expected from the Commission.

In such a country as Turkey, where justice is unknown, and for a Christian to protect his property, home, and life from plunder and violence is considered a “political offense” against the State, how could Christians dare to come forth and testify against the officers and the government, to whose cruelties and murderous propensities they were again to be left, when the European representatives departed? Even if they did dare, the testimony of the Christian is worthless against the faithful followers of Mohammed, who were the defendants in the case. Hopelessness of the condition of the Armenians was manifest.

Hardly will it be necessary to say that the universal impression was that the Sultan’s investigating commission was a farce, and perilous, yet it suited the sultan and his friends. St. Petersburg (Petrograd), December 30, 1894: “The Moscow Gazette pillories the Sassoun investigating Commission as a farce.[Pg 244] It asks why the Powers do not give the Porte so many days in which to decide whether it will fulfill the Treaty of Berlin, and if an unsatisfactory answer be given, co-operate to enforce the Treaty.”

This leading journal revealed the mind of the Russians. That England could have had the support of France. That, even, if Germany had sided with Turkey (which she most probably would), she would then have been half-prepared than twenty years later, at this terrible conflict. That the Powers would have had the universal moral support of the whole civilized world, especially at that time (preceding the Balkan wars), when the Balkan nations would have been in full sympathy with the entente, to drive the Turk out of Europe.

But England’s delay of action before the massacre, for she was aware of its coming, and her hesitation and distrust of Russia after the massacre, gave ample time to the crafty Abdul Hamid to create discord among the Powers, and he thus thwarted England’s belated attempts to redress the wrong that was committed.

The following quotation from “Our Responsibility for Turkey,” by the Duke of Argyle, confirms the above facts:

“That the Powers should have consented even to allow their representatives to spend time in such attempts as those [a commission to investigate the massacre and a scheme or reform for the Armenian provinces], after the experience of half a century of the hopeless bad faith and of the cunning procrastination of the Porte,[Pg 245] is indeed astonishing. As usual, we seem to have been the leaders in this farce. Our Foreign Office boasted from time to time that we had got all the Powers to act ‘in line,’ which was, indeed, true. But what was the line doing? It was what is called in the language of military drill ‘practicing the Goose Step’—going through the form of taking steps, but not advancing one inch towards any practical result. The whole time occupied by Lord Rosebery’s Government, after they first heard of the impending dangers—which was at least eleven months from the beginning of August, 1894, to the middle of July, 1895—was wasted in this idle and grotesque procedure. And yet there really had been some encouraging symptoms of the disposition of Russia, if we had taken earnest and immediate advantage of them. And not less really had we very early noticed of what was coming from the Turks. So early as September 10, we knew that they were actually engaging a Kurdish chief of notoriously bad character to command three regiments of Kurdish irregular cavalry, as part of the forces destined for putting down what they were pleased to call the insurrection.”

“In the field of Eastern politics generally the conspicuous result has been the failure—the complete humiliating and irretrievable failure—of the traditional policy pursued by England of supporting the Turk against Russia.”[136]

An Armenian deputation called on the late Hon. W. E. Gladstone on the occasion of his birthday (December 29, 1894). He delivered an address on the[Pg 246] Sassoun massacre. A few paragraphs of his speech may be here reproduced:

“The history of Turkey is a sad and painful one.... I have lived to see the empire of Turkey in Europe reduced to less than one-half of what it was when I was born, and why? Simply because of its misdeeds, and the great record written by the hand of Almighty God against this injustice, lust, and most abominable cruelty. If, happily (I speak, hoping against hope), the reports be disproved or mitigated, let us thank God. If, on the other hand, they be established, it will more than ever stand before the world that there is a lesson, however severe it may be, that can teach certain people the duty of prudence and the necessity of observing the laws of decency, humanity, and justice.... If the facts are established, it should be written in letters of iron upon the records of the world that a government which could be guilty of countenancing and covering up such atrocities is a disgrace to Mohamet, the prophet; a disgrace to civilization at large, and a disgrace to mankind.... I have counseled you to be still and keep your judgments in suspense; but as the evidence grows the case darkens and my hopes dwindle and decline; and as long as I have voice, it will be uttered on behalf of humanity and truth.”[137]

Mr. Gladstone’s address on the Bulgarian massacre of 1876 was reprinted in the Christian Register, Boston, Mass., Dec. 1, 1894. I quote the following passage from it:

“There is not a criminal in a European jail, there is not a cannibal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation[Pg 247] would not arise and overboil at the recital of that which has been done; which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged; which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions that produced it; and which may again spring up, in another murderous harvest, from the soil soaked and reeked with blood, and in the air, tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that a door should be left open for their ever-so-barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the whole.”

The door in Bulgaria was closed, but a wide door was left open in Armenia, and England made herself a defender of the Turk that he may do as he pleases.[138]

According to the following despatch after six or more months of dilly-dallying, the European delegates to the Commission quitted their Turkish colleagues in disgust.

Constantinople, June 10, 1895.—“The Moosh Commission closed on Friday, so far as the work of the European delegates is concerned. They were compelled to tell the Turkish delegates that they could have nothing more to do with them. From the first the attitude of the Turkish delegates has been invariably and increasingly dishonest. According to the statements of those interested in the workings of the commission, the representatives of the sultan have not manifested honor, truth, or decency. They have made no efforts to determine the cause of the outrages in Armenia.

“The rupture between the Turkish and European commissioners was caused by the refusal of the Turks,[Pg 248] on purely farcical grounds, to hear important witnesses upon matters pertaining to the questions at issue. It was evident that the Turks were afraid that the tissue of falsehoods that they have thrown around the situation in Armenia would be broken down....”

“We [Wilbert, Shipley, and Pyevalsky, the French, English and Russian consuls] have, in our report, given it as our conviction, arrived at from the evidence brought before us, that the Armenians were massacred without distinction of age or sex; and indeed, for a period of some three weeks, viz.: from the 12th of August to the 4th of September (1894 O. S.), it is not too much to say that the Armenians were absolutely hunted like wild beasts, being killed wherever they were met; and if the slaughter was not greater, it was, we believe, solely owing to the vastness of the mountain ranges of that district, which enabled the people to scatter, and so facilitated their escape. In fact, and speaking with a full sense of responsibility, we are compelled to say that the conviction has forced itself upon us that it was not so much the capture of the agitator Mourad, or the suppression of a pseudo-revolt, as the extermination, pure and simple, of the Gheligrizan and Talori districts.”[139]

Before closing this chapter I quote one more reference to the Sassoun massacre and the work of the commission from Dr. J. Lepsius of Berlin, whose book was published in 1896, under the title of “Armenia and Europe.”

“Turkish Commission was appointed to inquire into occurrences which took place at Sassoun in the autumn of 1894, when in the massacre in which Turkish soldiers took part, twenty-seven Christian villages were destroyed and thousands of Armenians were murdered. Delegates from the English, French, and Russian consulates were appointed to attend the Commission. At the second sitting held at Moosh, on January 26, 1895, they made what according to European ideas of justice was the natural request that the commissioners, before inquiring into any other matter, should take evidence as to the massacre of Armenians by Turks. The commissioners (Turkish) however alleged that according to their instructions from the Porte they were only to inquire “into the criminal proceeding of the Armenian brigands,” they denied that there had been any massacre of Armenians, and rejected the request of the delegates. The commission sat from January 24 to July 21 at Moosh. Some fifteen to thirty miles from the seat of the massacre, and held one hundred and eight sittings. They declined to listen to the Christian witnesses brought forward by the delegates and would only accept the testimony of Turks, who had been carefully instructed to give such evidence as would prove that the Armenians were alone to blame. Witnesses who ventured to give evidence in favor of the Armenians atoned for their rashness by immediate imprisonment. The consular delegates at last refused to have anything more to do with this farce; they therefore went to Sassoun, and by evidence there obtained established the terrible facts and the innocence of the peaceful Armenian population.”[140]

FOOTNOTES:

[132] Genesis 14:14.

[133] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 17-24. (See fuller accounts.) Published by Putnam and Sons, N. Y. and London.

[134] The Westminster Gazette, December 12, 1894, reprinted in the Armenia, London, Jan., 1895.

[135] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 378.

[136] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 522, 4th ed.

[137] The London Times, Weekly Edition, Jan. 14, 1895.

[138] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 129, 130. (See the entire address quoted by Greene.)

[139] Blue-Book, Turkey, No. 1, 1895, p. 206.

[140] Lepsius, “Armenia and Europe,” published in Berlin, 1896. I quote from The New Armenia, reprinted June 15, 1916.

“We must beg the reader of the following statements to remember that the Armenian massacres, in which 100,000 innocent people have perished, were directed against a peaceful and defenceless nation.—J. Lepsius.”

While the investigating commission was carrying on its work in the usual Turkish fashion, the British, French, and Russian governments drew out a scheme of reforms for Armenia and submitted it to the Porte through their ambassadors at Constantinople on May 11, 1895.

According to the press despatches the brief outline of this scheme contained the following points:

2. The governors and vice-governors of Van, Erzroum, Sivas, Bitlis, Kharput, and Trebizond be Christians or Mohammedans according to the inclination of the population; but either the governor or the vice-governor to be a Christian, and the appointments are to be confirmed by the Powers.

4. The appointment of a Commission to sit at Constantinople, charged with the application of the reforms and working in concert with the High Commissioner.

5. Complete changes will be made in judicial system—tortures will be abolished.

8. The local and not State officials are to collect the taxes and enough money is to be retained, before it is forwarded to Constantinople, to pay the expenses of the local administration.

Supposing that the above synopsis of the reforms demanded of the Porte is true—though these reforms were not officially published—the reader can easily see that the source of the Armenian trouble starts from the head of the government and runs through all its branches down to the very insignificant, yet well-armed peasant, Kurd who may happen to be a member of the Hamilieh regiment.

The evident reason also why the Powers did not wait for the report of the commission and then present their scheme of reforms was three-fold, namely, they had all the facts with regard to the massacre at Sassoun in their possession; they were aware of[Pg 252] the dilatory manner the indolent Turk generally moves, and they would thus save time and prevent the unspeakable Turk from committing something worse. They, however, signally failed in all these. If they ever intended to accomplish anything, they indeed did not succeed, and still worse, they provoked the beast.

After a prolonged pressure had been brought to bear on the sultan by the British, French, and Russian governments he seemed to give up his opposition to their demands and in the autumn in order to pacify England—for England, to her credit, was the leading power that took real interest in the matter, realizing her greater responsibility in the case—the sultan wrote to Lord Salisbury and gave his word that the reforms should be literally and immediately carried out. Meanwhile oppressions and imprisonments were still going on as usual.

St. Paul says, “Render to all their dues....” With all sincerity and truthfulness we must say that Abdul Hamid II, the ex-Sultan of Turkey, was the shrewdest, the most wicked and most diabolical ruler that ever sat on the Ottoman throne. He was sure that there was no concert among the signatory powers. The Triple Alliance, then made up of Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany, was not opposing his policy. More than this, his dear friend, the ruler and the press of Germany had suppressed the true nature of the trouble in Turkey, and had created in Germany the false impression that the Turkish government was at the point of being overthrown by the Armenians[Pg 253] who were in revolt; that the sultan was justly trying to suppress this rebellion and maintain his divine right to rule.

Dr. J. Lepsius, from whose work—Armenia and Europe—we quoted in the preceding chapter, and whose words stand at the head of this chapter, is the author of the following statement: “Truth about Armenia must be made known at last. During the past nine months (1896) the German press has been flooded with statements not merely biased, but, as we shall be able to show, false, and deliberately intended to deceive Europe. Care has been taken that the conduct of the so-called ‘rebellious’ Armenians should be set forth in the strongest light as the cause of all the mischief, and at the same time the story of how a great Christian nation has been subjected to massacre and pillage, and how multitudes have been compelled to abjure their faith, is practically unknown in Germany.”

Thus the sultan was sure of the support of Germany. Then again, he was not quite sure whether England could hold with her the other two powers, France and Russia. So he took the traditional course pursued by his predecessors, to move slowly, so far as the reforms were concerned, but the work of the extermination of the Armenian nation must by no means be slackened; every opportunity must be seized, and if no opportunity was forthcoming, one must be devised for excuses of slaughter.

In Armenia and Asia Minor, where most of the Armenians used to live, there was and is hardly any[Pg 254] industry. Though a rich country in mineral and agricultural products, yet on account of the absence of good roads and markets, and of robberies and misrule, all efforts toward securing a livelihood have been paralyzed. Money consequently has always been scarce. Continual demand of the government for taxes—sometimes a year in advance—the exactions of the tax-collectors and petty officials keep the Armenians in abject poverty and distress. For these reasons thousands of young men flock to Constantinople to earn money to support their families and to meet these demands.

These men have been hearing of heartrending calamities which had fallen upon their families. Some had heard of the confiscation of their properties, some of their young wives being abducted, some of their sisters being violated, and their aged parents and tender children butchered. A year had passed since the massacre at Sassoun, yet the so-called Christian powers, under whose protection the Christian subjects of the sultan were placed by the Treaty of Berlin, had apparently done nothing. But by attempting to do something and failing, they had actually aggravated their misery.

An open enemy is not as implacable as a secret foe. The Armenians may have also thought that they would, by petitioning the sultan, emphasize the pressure of the Powers for the fulfillment of the promises of reform contained in the Treaty of Berlin. Anyhow the Armenians had prepared a petition to present to the grand vizier in which their complaints[Pg 255] and requests were set forth. The authorities were aware of the matter and had instructed the police to prevent the presentation of the petition and had prepared also a counter demonstration against the petitioners by a large number of softas and Turks. On September 30th, 1895, the petitioners started towards the Sublime Porte with their petition to present it to the grand vizier. The police ordered them to disperse and the softas and Turks attacked them. The peaceful procession of the petitioners was turned into a riot, and some five or six hundred Armenians were killed, some of them were arrested and taken to prisons and were there stabbed to death.

The following letter, written by an American resident in Constantinople, who had ample opportunity to verify the facts, will suffice to show how the sultan could and did create opportunities to slaughter the Christians:

“It was very astonishing that the Turks were so foolish as to resist the efforts of the Armenians to present their petition to the sublime Porte. It was contrary to the usage of the country to do so, and could only be explained as a wilful act of hostility to the Armenians; unless the Armenians had broken the peace before the Turks attacked them—which is denied. When the grand vizier, Said Pasha, told the sultan that the demonstration was to take place and asked for his will, the sultan committed the matter to the grand vizier and the minister of the interior to arrange together, giving them full powers. They decided to allow the petitioners to present their grievances, merely taking the precaution to have troops in the neighborhood, out[Pg 256] of sight, but so posted as to prevent any surprise in case the Armenians should prove to be riotous. All was ready, and the Grand Vizier was just setting out for the Porte to receive the Armenians, when he was informed by the sultan that he (the sultan) had decided against the demonstration, and had already ordered his troops to resist and disperse any groups of Armenians that might appear. So the whole responsibility for the carnage falls upon the foolish (wicked) decision to override the plans of the ministers.”

If in the capital of the empire, in the presence of the ambassadors of the Powers who were demanding the protection of the Christians from cruelty and oppression, such a barbarism can be permitted, what could prevent the bloodthirsty wretch from inaugurating a general slaughter of the defenseless Armenians throughout his dominions? Thus this terrible occurrence on the 30th of September, of 1895, was the signal for hundreds of other massacres which followed one after the other, not only in the provinces where the reforms were expected to make the people happy, but throughout the empire. And not only over one hundred thousand Christians were in the most frightful manner slaughtered and burnt, but two or three times as many more were left in such destitution, that they had to choose between starvation and apostasy. “Over the most fruitful provinces of the Turkish Empire, a country as large as Germany a stream of blood and desolation was poured forth which was intended to destroy a whole Christian people.... There can be no doubt that the Turks enjoyed the work of massacre, and carried it[Pg 257] out with admirable exactness, according to a previously arranged programme, with processions, blowing of trumpets, and prayers from the mullahs, who from the highest minarets invoked the blessing of Allah on the butchery.”[141]

According to press reports, the scheme of reforms submitted by Great Britain, France, and Russia to the Turkish government on the 11th of May, 1895, was signed in due form and on the 17th of October, 1895, handed over to the ambassadors of the powers. Before this, however, the general massacres had begun.

It should not be considered that the number given as killed are exact, for some of those reports have gone through the Ambassadors’ revisions, and some places where massacres have taken place have never been noticed, because there was no foreigner, and no native that was able to report was left alive.

“From that date (October 8, 1895) until the end of the year the wave of massacre swept over the six eastern[Pg 259] provinces, engulfing the villages, towns, and cities where Armenians lived; innumerable houses, and schools, and churches were burned, a vast amount of property was stolen or destroyed, a great number of women and girls were carried off by Turks and Kurds, multitudes of people were forced to accept the Mohammedan religion, 100,000 Armenian men and boys were slain, and 500,000 Armenian women and children were reduced to beggary. Everywhere it was understood by the Mohammedan population that they were authorized by order from Constantinople, to kill all Armenian men and boys and seize their property. In many places soldiers and officers joined with the mob and shared the plunder. The massacres were perpetrated in contempt and defiance of Europe; they were an expression of Turkish wrath and vengeance; they were in short, an attempt to end the Armenian question by the destruction of the Armenians. Europe raised the hope of the Christian population of Turkey, and Europe left them to their fate.”[144]

We had the pleasure, before, of quoting from the work of Dr. J. Lepsius of Berlin, “Armenia and Europe.” We are tempted to quote more for a few reasons: First, because he so fearlessly exposed the studied efforts of the official press of Germany to mislead the people with regard to the true nature of the condition of the Armenians who were massacred for their Christian faith, even though it was made to appear that the Turkish government was endeavoring to suppress a revolution which did not exist. Second, because of his courageous exposition of the criminal indifference of Europe to abandon the defenseless Armenians to the ruthless and barbarous[Pg 260] tendencies of the Turks. Third, because of his faithfully exposing and showing the true nature of the followers of Mohammed, the absurdity, falsehood, and deviltry of the Turkish government’s excuse of putting down a revolt.

“The Turkish people, equipped and armed by the authorities, were delighted to take their share in the work of murder side by side with the military, the Radifs (Eeserves), the Zaptiehs (Gendarmes), and the lately formed Kurdish Irregulars, called the Hamidieh-Regiment after the reigning sultan. Every one was in the best humor.... A savage and murderous spirit took possession of the people. And what else could be expected? Here an officer urged them on with the cry, ‘Down with the Armenians, it is the sultan’s will!’ Here a Vali exhorted them to ‘Look sharp! Kill! Plunder! and pray for the sultan!’ What inducement had they to cease from murder or from prey! The reward of piety lay before their eyes, for all that they could seize and carry away was to be their own.... The monotonous work of dragging hundreds of defenceless Armenians out of their homes and hiding-places merely to behead, stab, throttle, hang, or beat them, soon palled. The merry mob wanted variety. Simple murder became dull, and the business must now be made more amusing. How would it do to light a fire and roast the wounded at it? To gibbet a few head-downwards? Drive nails into others? Or tie fifty of them together and fire into the coil?... Putting out eyes and cutting off ears and noses was a special accomplishment. Christian priests who refused to become Mohammedans were considered particularly worthy of this fate.... Petroleum and kerosene were at hand. It is true that the authorities intended them to be used only for the purpose of burning down houses and destroying grain. But why not put them to other and more useful purposes?

[Pg 261]

“There was a certain photographer, by the name Mardiros (martyr, or witness), who had a fine beard, petroleum was poured over it and set on fire. Several Christians were gathered together, kerosene poured over them, and, as they burnt, others were thrown into the fumes and suffocated. A woman with luxuriant hair had gunpowder sprinkled on it, and her head was blown off. In a monastery at Kaghtzorhayatz, an Effendi, by name Abdullah, had a young man and a girl placed close together and with one stroke cut off both their heads. But sword and fire can be dispensed with. The Kurdish Sheikh, Djevher of Gabars, proved this by binding two brothers with ropes and pegging them to the ground with stakes.... The baker in Kesserek, who had already murdered ninety-seven Armenians, which he proved by exhibiting their ears and noses, declared that he would not rest until he had brought up the number to one hundred. But he found his master in Hadji Bego of Tadem, who had butchered more than a hundred Christians, and who, as a sign of his prowess, cut a woman into four pieces and put them on posts to public view. The butcher of Aintab, who stuck the heads of six Armenians on his spit, was outdone by the Turk at Subaschigulp, who slaughtered Armenians like sheep and hung their bodies on meat-hooks. The people of Trebizond brought out the humor of the thing; they shot Adam, the Armenian butcher, and his son, cut them in pieces, stuck the limbs separately on sticks and offered them for sale to passers-by: ‘Who will buy an arm, a leg, feet or hands? Cheap! Who will buy?’ But innocence must be spared. The Sultan had commanded that Christians under seventeen should not be killed. But who heeds such caution?... The Mohammedans of a large village in Marash, saved at least one small child from this fate by throwing it into the fire.

“In Baiburt the destroyers were merciful enough in[Pg 262] fourteen houses to burn the babies with their mothers. Ohannes Avakian, a rich civilian of Trebizond, offered the raging mob all his possessions if they would spare his family and himself. His three-year-old child was in his arms. Both were murdered before the eyes of the mother and the other children, and then the crowd seized the spoil. A valiant Turk thinks nothing of strangling children on the knees of their mothers. To play at ball with a baby, and toss it from one bayonet to another before its mother’s eyes seemed pleasant sport for the soldiers of Bitlis.... Although it is a fact that dozens of women and children perished in all the massacres, that in Kiauta and Lessouk a hundred women were mutilated, and amongst the victims at Bitlis were little boys (from five to twelve years of age) of the Church School of Surp Serkis, we must do the Turk the justice to acknowledge that these cruelties were not invariably approved by the head officials.... The populace went beyond their actual instructions when we find that amongst the 450 corpses buried in the cemetery at Sivas all the women had been mutilated. As a rule, however, the authorities did nothing to check the bloodthirstiness of the masses, and whenever the work of murder was too great for the people alone, the soldiers were speedily summoned to help.

“Many of the fleeing Armenians were simple enough to believe that their Churches would be a place of safety; that in the sanctuary they would be spared. But as hundreds of churches and convents had to be reduced to ashes, since the aim was to do away with every trace of the hated Christian faith, what mattered the trifling fact that men, women, and children were inside them? In Ressuan the doors of the church were broken open and all the refugees murdered. Three hundred Armenians escaped to the monastery of Maghapayetzatz only to be butchered with the brotherhood. In Indises (district of Luk-Shehri) and in Habusu (district of Harpoot)[Pg 263] the churches were burned over the heads of the Christians; but here we cannot blame the people for the soldiers set the example. In Shabin Kara Hissar more regard was paid to the church, the two thousand people who had taken refuge there were at least killed outside the doors....

“It is worthy of record that the dead bodies of Christians were dragged naked out of the towns and villages, horribly mutilated, and then cast out in heaps on the streets, or on dung-hills, or thrown into streams and drains, till asses and Jews were requisitioned to carry the corpses away like the carrion of dead animals. Among the mass of mutilated human flesh no one was able to recognize his own dead. When the dead bodies were not left as food for dogs, or when they were not burned with petroleum, a hole was dug into which they were thrown in a mass. But to men of importance special funeral honors were paid. The priest Mattheas of Busseyid, had his head cut off and placed between his legs, and the young Turks of the town amused themselves by flogging the body. The priest, Der-Harutiun of Diarbekir, and his colleague from the church at Alipunar, together with ten other priests from the district of Tadem, had the skin flayed from their bodies. A special monument was erected to the Abbot Sahag, prior of the monastery of Surp Katch in the district of Kizan, and to his young assistant; their skins were stuffed with straw and hung on trees. The Turks of Arabkir with an imagination worthy of Nero set up the heads of Armenians in rows on long poles, and the commander of the gendarmes at Baiburt, who, on the 26th of October, received from the women of the village of Ksauta five hundred pounds sterling in money and jewels as a ransom for the lives of their husbands and who, a few days later, changed his mind, and collecting together in a field the women and children of the village,[Pg 264] had them all pitilessly slaughtered, is worthy of being chief of Tamerlane’s bodyguard.

“At the beginning of the disturbance the inhabitants of twelve villages north and west of Marash fled for refuge to the town of Turnus with the intention of escaping from thence to the mountains near Zeitoun. About four thousand of them were suddenly one morning surrounded by soldiers. A terrible butchery began, and all were slain except three hundred and eighty women and children; these were collected together and driven by the soldiers for two days like a flock of sheep to Marash. The government of the sultan must show how merciful it could be to the innocent, even though these unfortunate women were obliged in the month of December to wade through the mountain snow, and to leave many of their starving children by the wayside, as no halt was permitted. One mother tells us that when she could not carry her two children any longer, she put them on a horse that belonged to the soldiers, and at the next river the little ones were thrown into the water. Would it not have been more merciful to have slain all the 4000 together?

“Has not enough blood been shed? When will the cry of this tortured people reach the ear of Christendom? What answer will those Christian Powers make who, eighteen years ago (1878), stretched a protecting hand over Armenia and presented her with paper reforms, signed and sealed in the name of the Almighty? But enough of this, for there is yet another page of horror to be disclosed.

“‘Kill the men! Their wives, their daughters, and their property are ours.’ That was the watchword with which the soldiers of Cæsarea urged on the armed mob to murder, plunder, and outrage. And this watchword was heard and obeyed in all the hundreds of towns and villages where the work of murder was carried out. Even before the commencement of the massacres the[Pg 265] shameless Turkish soldiers had dared to ask the Christian mothers to keep their daughters for them, saying that soon all the Christian girls in the country would belong to them.

“We must already reckon the number of slain at 85,000 in the massacres of 1895-1896, but who can count all the deeds of shame and infamy, who can number the tens of thousands who were driven into the mountains, sold into harems, exposed in the slave-markets, or who, after having been outraged, were secretly murdered?

“It seems necessary to give some idea of the shame and dishonor to which even at the present time women are exposed. The scoundrel Hadji Bego, who boasted of having killed a hundred Armenians with his own hand, hunted a Christian girl naked through the streets of the town. The Turkish people of Cæsarea, who burnt thirty Armenian houses with their inhabitants, also helped to storm the women’s baths at the bathing hour. And with what reception did those thirty women of Koschmad meet, who wandered over the mountains without any clothes, till they reached Shinas and fell into the hands of the soldiers there? But that was nothing unusual. There was no massacre in which the murder of the men was not followed by outrage on the women and girls; no plunder in which they were not offered for sale, carried off as spoils, exchanged for horses and donkeys, or exposed in the slave market. The Agas or officers distributed the girls among the Zaptiehs and soldiers.

“Not safe in their own houses under the eye of their husbands, who had often, bound to door-posts, to witness their fate, outraged and robbed of all protection, hunted from house to house till they fell a prey to dishonor—that, Christian women, is the fate of your sisters in Armenia.

“Which of the two do you most pity—the widowed or orphaned girl cowering among rags in some corner of[Pg 266] her ruined home, trembling at every footstep of a man, be he Turk or Kurd, who may force his way in and outrage her before her children, or her brothers and sisters; or that other girl who, distinguished perhaps for beauty, has pleased the eye of some Turkish Aga, and, in spite of her cries and tears, has been dragged into his harem, and forced to give up at once her honor and her faith? Can we understand now what drove hundreds of Armenian women to suicide? Or why those fifty women of Lessouk and Krauta threw themselves into the wells, or leapt from the edge of precipices? We can realize the horror that filled the soul of that highborn Armenian lady who was carried off with a troop of women and children and a few men from Uzounova (twenty-five miles east of Harpout). When they reached the banks of the Euphrates she called to her companions, and, rushing to the river, threw herself in. That dishonor is worse than death is proved by the fact, that fifty-five women and children followed her example, and perished in the waters.

“Who would not feel compassion for the unfortunate old man who thus expresses his nameless grief in a letter to his son: ‘Oh, I dare not tell you ... they came and threatened to kill me if I refused to give up your sister. After they had taken everything else—blankets, beds, clothes, provisions, and even fuel—they returned to demand our daughter. I was prepared to withstand to the end, but when she saw that they were about to kill me, she threw herself at their feet, and cried out: “Spare my father! Here I am.”’

“Admirers of Turkish army organization and of Mohammedan civilization ought to know that even the brutality of the Kurdish hordes and the cynicism of the townspeople were thrown completely into the shade by the infamous conduct of the soldiers and officers. Although it fills me with disgust to dip my pen into this sink of corruption, I feel it is necessary that the[Pg 267] world should know what deeds are done in this home of promised reforms by the guardians of law and order.

“The truth of the following account is established by two independent testimonies which lie before me: ‘In the village of Husseyinik (vilayet of Harpout), six hundred soldiers (and their officers) collected together in the military depot about the same number of women and young girls; they first outraged them, and then murdered the unhappy victims of their horrible lust.’

“Does not this blood cry to Heaven? And even though the kings of the earth be deaf to its cry, will not God hear?”

It should not be considered superfluous to state that even these facts were brought by such an able and honest man as Dr. Lepsius before the attention of the German people, the German government still courted the friendship of the Turkish government, and have succeeded in keeping the masses of the honest and good Christian people to believe that the Armenians were receiving from the hands of the Turks what they deserved. Strange as it may appear, yet nevertheless it is true, that the Germans were more willing to believe than the Englishmen—like her Majesty’s Government—that Armenians were not suffering all these atrocities on account of “their religious faith.” It is a disgrace to humanity, and especially to the German Kultur, that Germans who are so thorough in almost everything, should still be so superficial in this one particular, that they should not see the underlying fact. Dr. Lepsius quotes from a German daily paper which, in discussing the massacre at Sassoun, wrote:

“In the absence of other reasons for European intervention, the English and American press have been obliged to take up the Christian religion of the Armenians. Gladstone, indeed, on the occasion of the farce of the reception of the deputation from Sassoun, did not shrink from speaking of the ‘Armenians persecuted for their Christian faith.’ That is a palpable falsehood. What reason could the Porte have had for suddenly setting on foot a religious persecution, when in the course of hundreds of years it had taken no notice of the Armenian religion? As a matter of fact, a genuine persecution of Christians has never taken place in the Turkish Empire. Moreover, it would be the most imprudent thing the Porte could do to increase the manifold difficulties of its position by a religious persecution....”

The following is the answer which Dr. Lepsius gives, and he also sets an array of facts against biassed opinions:

“It is worth while to reproduce this pregnant summary of a widespread opinion ... for still the German press daily tells the same tale.... We confine ourselves to Armenia, and here we must indeed agree that it not only would be, but was ‘the most imprudent thing the Porte could do,’ to inaugurate a persecution of Christianity. For the Christians number one-third of the subjects of his majesty, the sultan, and—if we weigh instead of counting them—in intelligence, education, practical ability, and moral energy, they take up two-thirds of the entire population of the Turkish empire.... We cannot blame him [the journalist], then, if he is ignorant of the fact that the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire and the ‘manifold difficulties of its position’ can be traced back in every case to the opposition between Islam and Christianity[Pg 269] as well as to the circumstance that the religious law of Islam—which during the last decades has been more than ever the standard of Ottoman policy—does not admit equality of civil rights, and that any concession in this direction from the Porte can only be regarded ‘in principle,’ i.e., on paper....

“What are the Armenian massacres then? Without any question their origin was purely political, or to state it more exactly, they were an administrative measure. But facts go to prove that, considering the character of the Mohammedan people, whose very political passions are roused only by religious motives, this administrative measure must and did, take the form of a religious persecution on a gigantic scale. Are we then, simply because of the political origin of this religious persecution, to be forbidden to speak of the Armenians as ‘persecuted on account of their religious belief’? If so, there have never been any religious persecutions in the world; for all such without exception have been associated with political movements, and even the death of Christ was nothing but a political event, for political moves turned the balance at His condemnation.

“We have lists before us of 559 villages whose surviving inhabitants were converted to Islam with fire and sword, of 568 churches thoroughly pillaged, destroyed, and razed to the ground, of 282 Christian churches transformed into mosques, of 21 Protestant preachers and 170 Gregorian (Armenian) priests who were after enduring unspeakable tortures murdered on their refusal to accept Islam. We repeat, however, that these figures express only the extent of our information, and do not, by a long way, reach to the extent of the reality. Is this a religious persecution or is it not?... The most shameful desecration of the churches everywhere, the pollution of sacred vessels ... the spitting on Gospels and Bibles which were then torn into a[Pg 270] thousand pieces—these were the mere accessories to the drama of vandalism.

“The method adopted for the work of compulsory conversion was everywhere the same.... In some towns and villages, even before the outbreak of the massacres, the choice was given of averting the threatened fate by embracing Islam. Mere threats of death were seldom sufficient; bayonets were pointed at the heart, swords at the throat. When this did not avail, tortures were employed. The priests and preachers, especially who refused to renounce their faith, had to endure absolutely inconceivable tortures before they received the coup de grace. The priest Der Hagop of Harpout, became insane, when, clad only in his shirt, he saw the swords of fifty soldiers pointed at him. What was to be done with him? As the Mullahs declared that a madman could not be received into Islam he was for the present thrown into prison for contumacy.

“In the monastery at Tadem the Venerable Archimandrite, Ohannes Papazian, had first his hands and afterwards his arms up to the elbows cut off, on his refusal to accept Islam. When, even then, he would not yield, he was beheaded on the pavement of the church. At Biredjik an old man who refused to renounce his faith was thrown down, live coals were heaped upon him, and, when he writhed in his agony, the fiends held a Bible before his eyes and mockingly bade him read to them some of the promises on which he had pinned his faith.

“At Diarbekir, the great stone church of the Syrian order of St. James, in which a number of refugees were sheltering, was surrounded by Kurds who fired on it, broke open the roof, threw down combustibles and at last succeeded in bursting open the door. Amid the joyous shouts of the mob the refugees were driven into the open in dense masses, and received with a hail of bullets. When the pastor, Jirjs Khatherschian, from[Pg 271] Egypt, who happened to be visiting his relations, was recognized as an ecclesiastic he was thrown to the ground, and beaten till he became unconscious. One of the sacred books scattered around was pushed into his mouth, and he was mockingly called upon to preach a sermon. Burning brands fell on him, and when he was aroused from his unconscious state by the pain, and attempted to crawl away, he was seized and hurled into the blazing fire and burnt to death. Are we not reminded of the heroism of the Maccabees by a mother at Ourfa, who, when an attempt was made to force her sons to renounce their religion, came running up and besought them: ‘Let them kill you, but do not deny the Lord Jesus’—and the steadfast pair suffered death by the sword. The women and children followed the men to martyrdom. At Bitlis a hundred women, whose husbands had been slain, were conducted by soldiers to an open place. What was their answer when they were called upon to renounce Jesus and save their lives: ‘No, our husbands died for Him, and we will do the same.’ They were massacred.”

At Cassarea, in the massacre of November 30th, Rev. Dr. Avedis Yeretzian, a pastor and physician, his wife, his eldest son and his brother-in-law were ruthlessly butchered by the Turks and thrown into the flames of their burning house. In another house a Protestant alone with his twelve year old daughter, the mother being absent, a Turk burst into the room where the father was, and killed him on his refusal to embrace the Mohammedan faith. He then went into the room where the girl, unaware of the affair, was sitting. He said to her: “Your father is dead because he would not embrace Islam, now I must make you a Mohammedan, then I shall take you to my home[Pg 272] and you will be treated as my daughter. Are you willing?” Her answer was, “I believe in Jesus. He is my Saviour, and I love Him. I cannot do what you wish, even if you kill me.” He fell upon her in his fury and stabbed her in twelve different places. The house was plundered and burnt with the father’s corpse lying therein. The same evening, in another part of the town, a cart drove up to the house where the girl’s mother was staying. A neighbor, a kindly disposed Turk, entered and said: “I have brought you the body of your little daughter. You are a friend of mine, I could not leave it lying there. I am sorry this has happened.”

The British Vice-Consul, Mr. Fitzmaurice, who was sent to Urfa to make an investigation of the massacre, made the following report:

“On Saturday night (the 28th of December, 1895) crowds of Armenian men, women and children took refuge in their fine cathedral, capable of holding some eight thousand persons. They administered the sacrament, the last sacrament, as it proved to be, to eighteen hundred souls, recording the figure on one of the pillars of the church.

“Those remained in the cathedral overnight, and were joined on Sunday by several hundred more, who sought the protection of a building which they considered safe from the mob-violence of the Musulman even in his fanaticism. At least three thousand individuals were congregated in the building when the mob attacked it. They first fired in through the windows, then smashed in the iron door, and proceeded to massacre all those, the majority on the ground floor being men. Having thus disposed of the men, and having[Pg 273] removed some of the young women, they rifled the church treasure, shrines, and ornaments to the extent of some four thousand pounds (Turkish—$17,600), destroying pictures and relics, mockingly calling on Christ now to prove Himself a greater prophet than Mohammed.

“A huge, partly stone, partly wooden, gallery, running round the upper portion of the cathedral, was packed with a shrieking and terrified mass of women, children and some men.

“Some of the intruders jumping on the raised altar platform, began picking off the latter with revolver shots, but as this process seemed too tedious, they bethought themselves of a more expeditious method employed against those who had hidden in the wells. Having collected a quantity of bedding and the church matting, they poured some thirty cans of kerosene upon it and then set fire to the whole. The gallery beams and wooden frame work soon caught fire, whereupon, blocking up the staircases leading to the gallery with similar inflammable material, they left the mass of struggling human beings to become the prey of the flames.

“During several hours the sickening odor of roasting flesh prevailed in the town; and even to-day, two months and a half after the massacre, the smell of charred remains in the church is unbearable.

“At 3.30 P.M. at the Moslem afternoon prayer, the trumpet again sounded, and the mob drew off from the Armenian quarter. Shortly afterward the Mufte and other notables, preceded by music, among which were brass military instruments, went round the quarter announcing that the massacre was at an end, and that there would be no more killing of Christians.

“No distinction was made between Gregorians, Protestants, and Roman Catholics, whose churches, also, were rifled. The thoroughness with which some of the work[Pg 274] was done may be understood from the fact that one hundred twenty-six Armenian families have been absolutely wiped out, not even a woman or a baby remains. ... After very close and minute inquiry, I believe that close on eight thousand Armenians perished in the two days’ massacre, between 2500 and 3000 of whom were killed or burned in the cathedral. I should not, however, be at all surprised if nine thousand or ten thousand were subsequently found to be nearer the mark.”[145]

Miss Corinna Shattuck, the noble American lady missionary, was alone in the city of Urfa during the massacres. She was both lion-hearted and tender-hearted. She wrote: “It was apparent that the utmost was done (by the officials) to protect me, but how willingly I would have died that thousands of parents might be spared to their children.” It is stated that seventeen Armenian houses and two hundred forty persons were saved from the massacre by her special efforts. “Pastor Abouhaiydian with his six motherless children and many others had fled to the house of an Armenian doctor. The Turks attacked the house and killed forty-five men. The pastor plead for life for the sake of his children, but when he refused to accept the Islam faith they shot him through the heart. The eldest daughter, then in her 17th year, ran to her father, who said to her, ‘Fear not, the Lord is with you. I have no fear for I am going to my dear Saviour.’ The Turks took the children to a mosque, but after three days they[Pg 275] were recovered by Miss Shattuck who kept them until claimed by friends.”[146]

The pastor of the Protestant Armenian church at Sivas, Garabed Kuludjizn, was visiting some strangers in a khan; he was seized upon and the demand made of him to deny Christ and accept the Mohammedan faith. On his refusal, he was shot to death by Mohammed’s followers.

The massacre at Marash was—like the rest of massacres in other places—carefully planned by the authorities and carried out with utmost cruelty and barbarism. On the 26th of October about forty Armenians were killed and some shops and houses were looted. But the plans for the general massacre must not have been quite matured, nevertheless, fifteen thousand Armenians, about one-third of the entire population of the city, were completely terrorized. The Christians fled and hid themselves in their houses for a while. On the 18th of November, at 8 A.M., the fearful slaughter and plunder began. The near neighbors of the missionaries fled into the missionaries’ houses for safety, and about two hundred persons were saved. We reproduce the following statements of our missionaries who witnessed the horrors:

“The massacre in the city was fearful beyond words to express. Three Christian quarters, covering a large area, were burned. Two Gregorian Armenian Churches were burned and in one of them the women and children, who had sought refuge there, perished in the flames. The Second and Third Evangelical Churches were looted[Pg 276] and the inside of the building was cut to pieces. The venerable pastor of the native church connected with the Church of England, after suffering tortures, was killed. The two head teachers of the American Academy, one of whom was also acting pastor of the First Evangelical Church, were killed, and one of them was flayed alive and then cut to pieces. In all some 1000 Armenians, to whom generally the alternative of Islam or death was given, were most cruelly slain. Children were disemboweled, and the dissevered heads of men and women were kicked about by the soldiers as balls or were carried on pikes through the streets. And this dire work of murdering, robbing and burning was done, not by Kurds, but by the regular soldiers of the Ottoman Government, assisted by the Moslem population of the city, and here, as in so many other places, the Armenians were utterly passive victims, without arms or possible means of self-defense. So far as is known, not a Turk was hurt in all the eight hours’ carnage....

“Such is the preparation which his majesty is making, preliminary to the fulfillment of his promise to Lord Salisbury on his honor(?) to carry out the scheme of reform. Such is the state into which England (all unwittingly), by her initiative in elaborating and insisting on reforms, has plunged the Armenians. Is it to her honor that she now leaves them to be murdered, robbed, burned and martyred?”

England’s enemies—the enemies she had made in almost a hundred years of defending the barbarous Turk, and her jealous neighbors who were already her enemies—were secretly and openly encouraging the beast in human form to humiliate England through him, and also by befriending him, they were paving the way for their colonial and commercial ambitions.[Pg 277] Thus the Armenians were abandoned to their fate. The following statement was made, it may be an attempt of England to throw off her responsibility: “In February, 1896, the cabinet of Lord Salisbury, the minister who had concluded the Convention (both of Cyprus and of Berlin in 1878), confessed that as the Turks had refused to carry out reforms promised in that instrument, it was impossible for England, notwithstanding the possession of Cyprus, to occupy Armenia and prevent the massacres which had happened there, and that it had become practically impossible for her any longer to give either moral or material support to the Turkish power.”[147]

England’s confession of her inability—rather her unwillingness—encouraged the great assassin, the sultan, to do still more of his bloody work. The following statement is given by Dr. Lepsius: “The massacres of Van, Niksar, and Eghin in June of 1896, although in their course, 20,000 Armenians were slaughtered, have, in spite of the details given in the Frankfort Journal, made not the slightest impression on the continental press. For the culture of Central Europe, such events lie too far away in the depths of Turkish territory.”

There is one more incident which belongs to this chapter. It is the massacre at Constantinople. The simple narrative of this horrible crime against humanity in general, and the Armenians in particular, is another indictment not only against the sultan, but also against the European Powers.

On good authority we are informed, that the Turkish government knew beforehand that certain revolutionary Armenians from Russia would make an attack on the Ottoman Bank, and had taken the necessary measures, not to prevent the revolutionary action, but to organize, owing to this welcome opportunity, a universal massacre of the peaceful Armenians of Constantinople.

“About noon (on the 26th of August, 1896) a band of Armenians, most of them from Russia, entered the Ottoman Bank, with arms and dynamite, took the employees prisoners and barricaded themselves in the building, with threat that, unless the ambassadors secure a pledge from the sultan of certain reforms, they would blow up the bank with dynamite. To finish with this part of the story, soldiers soon surrounded the bank, and negotiations began with the captors which in the evening resulted in their being permitted to leave the bank, go on board the yacht of the chief manager and leave the country unmolested.

“Who originated this plot I do not know, but it is certain that the Turkish government knew all about it, many days before, even to the exact time when the bank was to be entered, and the minister of police had made elaborate arrangements, not to arrest these men or prevent the attack on the bank, but to facilitate it and make it the occasion of a massacre of the Armenian population of the city. This was to be the crown of all the massacres of the year, one worthy of the capital and the seat of the sultan, a final defiance to the Christian world. Not many minutes after the attack on the bank, the band of Turks, who had been organized by the minister of police in Stamboul and Galata, commenced the work of killing every Armenian they could[Pg 279] find. They were protected by large bodies of troops, who in some cases took part in the slaughter. Through Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, and Thursday night the massacre went on unchecked. An open telegram was sent by the ambassadors to the sultan Thursday night, which perhaps influenced him to give orders to stop the massacre, and not many were murdered on Friday. I do not care to enter at all into the horrible details of this massacre of some ten thousand Armenians.

“The massacre of the Armenians came to an end on Friday, ... but the persecution of them which went on for months was worse than the massacre. The business was destroyed, they plundered and blackmailed without mercy, they were hunted like wild beasts, they were imprisoned, tortured, killed, deported, fled the country, until the Armenian population of the city was reduced by some seventy-five thousands, mostly men, including those massacred.... The poverty and distress of those left alive in Constantinople was often heartrending, and many women and children died of slow starvation.

“Sir Michael Herbert, the British charge d’affaires, and some of the ambassadors did what they could to stop the massacre of the Armenians, ... but the ‘concert of Europe’ did nothing. It accepted the situation. The Emperor of Germany went farther. He sent a special embassy to present to the sultan a portrait of his family as a token of his esteem.”[148]

We would have thought it would have been better to give Sultan Hamid enough time to wash his hands of the blood of the Armenians before giving him the portrait of the imperial family. But the King of Prussia thought that Abdul Hamid needed a friend then more than any other time, and the world also[Pg 280] may know that Emperor William II of Germany was the friend of the great assassin. We wonder whether congeniality is a condition of friendship among rulers as it is among individuals.

In his Guildhall speech, November 9, 1896, Lord Salisbury was heard again. He declared that England would adhere to the European concert, yet the veto of any one power, meant that the concert could not act, he also admitted that to act separately from the concert would bring about a war; England was not prepared for this, because her strength consisted in her navy, and no fleet in the world could “get over the mountains of Taurus to protect the Armenians.” Thus the European Powers agreed to disagree to force the sultan to be truthful and fulfill his promises of reform, or even to stop his cruel work of extermination of a nation. The result of this disagreement to coerce the sultan to act humanely, and the Powers hiding themselves behind the European concert, was to leave Abdul Hamid to do as he pleased. And he pleased thus: From Constantinople to Van, from the shores of the Black Sea to the shores of the Mediterranean, “with inexpressible cruelty 150,000 men, women, and children were killed, burned or buried alive, and yet Europe seemed powerless.”[149] Why was (or seemed) Europe powerless? Because the veto of any one power meant that the Concert could not act. What power or powers did the vetoing? We have no desire to incriminate any power, for all[Pg 281] are guilty. But the evidence, judging by the events past and present, strongly points to the power which has been in desperate love with the modern Jezebel, the only Mohammedan power, for a political wedlock. This political matrimony has been consummated in the autumn of 1914. But let us look back to the time of the courtship.

In 1888 German financiers secured concession from the sultan for a railroad in Asia Minor. And German colonists and expansionists “dreamed of linking the Baltic Sea with the Persian gulf and carrying the Teutonic empire across Asia.” Since then “the government had sedulously cultivated its influence over Turkey.” And shortly after the massacre of ten thousand Armenians in Constantinople, the kaiser, by a special embassy presented to the sultan the Imperial Family Portrait as a “token of esteem.”

FOOTNOTES:

[141] Lepsius, “Armenia and Europe.” See The New Armenia of June 15, 1916, New York.

[142] The Public Ledger (Philadelphia), Feb. 17, 1896, had the following editorial comment on a local Turkish official report: “What purports to be an official list of Turkish outrages in the Province of Harpoot and some of the neighboring villages, prepared by a local Turkish authority, is published. The total number killed is given as 39,234, and the number of destitute as 94,770. The account is somewhat mysterious, as it does not show for what purpose it was made, nor does the report state how a matter, usually so jealously guarded, came to be made public, but it is authoritative, and the details are more sickening than the bare aggregate, as they show the number of persons burned to death; the number who perished from hunger and cold; the number of women outraged; the number of forcible conversions to Islam; the number forcibly married to Moslems, etc. It is a chapter more worthy of the Dark Ages than modern civilization, but modern civilization does not seem able to prevent its repetition at the pleasure of the Turk.”

[143] Bliss, “Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 553-4.

[144] Greene, “Leavening the Levant,” p. 36.

[145] Report of Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice, Turkey, No. V., 1896.

[146] Greene, “Leavening the Levant,” pp. 177-8.

[147] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 520, 4th edition.

[148] Washburn, “Fifty Years in Constantinople,” pp. 245-9.

[149] Andrews, “A History of All Nations,” Vol. XX, p. 341. Published by Lea Brothers and Co., Philadelphia.

Sultan Abdul Hamid’s despotism during his long and bloody reign had alienated not only all the decent people in his realm, but even some of the worse classes, who, for their liberal views, not for better lives, were listed as his enemies. These were not Turks by descent, neither Mohammedans by choice, but being the children of renegades, whose forefathers professed themselves Mohammedans in order to save their lives, their honor, and their property. Thus these European Mohammedans were largely of Christian extract, and naturally had better chances to learn from the Western nations, especially the army officers, some of whom had been educated in military schools in Europe. Others, who were known and dogged by the numerous spies of Abdul Hamid, fled the country into Europe, and in Paris and other places, carried on a revolutionary propaganda.

The leaders of this movement first influenced the army and navy officers. The latter in turn appealed to their regiments. When they were sure of success, and everything in readiness, then they demanded[Pg 283] from Abdul Hamid the restoration of the constitution which he had suppressed in 1877, and other reforms. Their demands were accompanied by the threat to march upon Constantinople with 60,000 men, if they were not immediately granted. Abdul Hamid was shocked. Some thought he would commit suicide. But he was too self-willed and shrewd; and not without some hope of frustrating their plans. He must act at once. There was no chance of doing anything by which he could avoid an immediate disaster. He must have time. He can have it by apparently and gracefully yielding. He said he was now sure that his people were prepared for a constitutional government, that he was willing to govern the nation according to the constitution.

So on the 24th of July, 1908, “by the command of the sultan, telegrams were sent to all divisions of the army and to the governors of the provinces announcing that his Imperial Majesty, Sultan Abdul Hamid, was graciously pleased to proclaim a constitutional form of government. The people were dazed and bewildered, not knowing what to believe, and when reassured their outbursts of joy defied description. Turks, Christians, and Jews joined indiscriminately in their joyful demonstrations.”

The sultan having solemnly sworn that he would rule as a constitutional king and as he appeared to be doing so, he was permitted to remain upon the throne. But he made no delay in attempting to overthrow the individuals and the Parliament as a whole. He used various means by the hands of his underlings[Pg 284] and hirelings—softas and mullahs—to whom he shipped unlimited sums of money. Within nine months Abdul Hamid succeeded in inducing half of the garrison of Constantinople, about 12,000 men, to espouse his cause and rise in mutiny.

On the night of April 13th, 1909, these mutinous soldiers did rise and fall upon their officers. They killed some of them and imprisoned others; then they marched into the streets, and went over to Stamboul, and took possession of the House of Parliament. The president of parliament and the minister of justice escaped with their lives, but other ministers fell by the assassins’ bullets. Sultan Hamid’s success, however, was transient. Within a week the Young Turks rallied and hastened their forces from Albania and Macedonia, some 45,000 men well equipped with artillery, ammunition, and provisions. On the 23d of April the commander of the Young Turkey army heard a rumor that Sultan Abdul Hamid in disappointment and rage had planned on the following day a general massacre of Christians and his opponents. General Mohammed Shevket Pasha, the commander, moved his army in the afternoon and night of the same day.

One division occupied the old city, Stamboul, and the other division marched around the Golden Horn and moved upon Pera, the European quarter (on the 24th). Here the defenders of Abdul Hamid showed considerable resistance and a severe battle followed, but by night the mutinous soldiers were defeated, and the Young Turkey army surrounded the hill of Yildiz,[Pg 285] situated three-quarters of a mile from the shore of the Bosphorus and separated from Pera by a valley. He was deposed from caliphate by the Sheikh-ul-Islam. He was dethroned by a resolution of Parliament. On the morning of the 27th, the sultan, seeing that there was no more hope for him, surrendered. “The bodyguard was marched out and new troops were sent in. That night several young officers went to the palace of the sultan and summoned him to their presence. He came in, pale as a sheet, trembling like a leaf, and begging for his life. He was told that his life would be spared, but that for the good of the country he must leave the city that night. The Young Turks dealt mercifully with the cruel monarch and allowed him to choose, as his companions in exile, eleven women, one child, two eunuchs, and five servants. These were placed in carriages, and after midnight were driven to the railway station in Stamboul. From here they were sent by a special train to Salonica, three hundred miles west, and were consigned to a strong house prepared for him.”[150] This ended the career as a ruler of Abdul Hamid, who was distinguished for his cruelty, perfidy, and infamy.

On the same day (the 13th of April, 1909) that the mutiny took place in Constantinople, the Mohammedans of the city and province of Adana, fell upon the Christian inhabitants, and within a few days, they killed the people and looted and plundered their property. The massacres were committed in[Pg 286] the following places: Adana, Alexandretta, Marash, Mersina, Hadjin, Kessab, Zeitoon, Kirikon, and all the villages. The number of the killed was estimated from 25,000 to 50,000. And those who suffered from diseases and starvation exceeded 150,000.

The following is an extract from a letter written by Mrs. Doughty Wylie, wife of the British Consul at Adana. It was published in the London Daily Mail:

“We are having a perfectly hideous time here. Thousands have been murdered—25,000 in this province they say; but the number is probably greater, for every Christian village is wiped out. In Adana about 5,000 have perished. After Turks and Armenians had made peace, the Turks came in the night with hose and kerosene and set fire to what remained of the Armenian quarter. Next day the French and Armenian Schools were fired. Nearly every one of the Armenian Schools perished, anybody trying to escape being shot down by the soldiers.

“The Turkish authorities do nothing except arrest unoffending Armenians, from whom by torture they extort the most fanciful confessions. Even the wounded are not safe from this injustice. For fiends incarnate commend me to the Turks. Nobody is safe from them. They murder babies in front of their mothers, they half murder men, and violate the wives while the husbands are lying there dying in pools of blood. The authorities did nothing, and the soldiers were worse than the crowd, for they were better armed. One house in our quarter was burned with 115 people inside. We counted the bodies. Soldiers set fire to the door and as the windows had iron bars, nobody could get out. Every one in the house was roasted alive. They were all women and children and old people.”

The following is a portion of a letter, by Stephen Van R. Trowbridge. It describes the condition of Kessab and the surrounding villages after the butchery:

“Kessab was a thrifty Armenian town of eight thousand inhabitants, situated on the landward slope of Mt. Cassius (Arabic, Jebel Akra) which stands out prominently upon the Mediterranean seacoast, half way between Alexandretta and Latakia. Kessab is now a mass of blackened ruins, the stark walls of the churches and houses rising up out of the ashes and charred timber heaped on every side. What must it mean to the five thousand men, women, and little children who have survived a painful flight to the seacoast and now returned to their mountain homes sacked and burned! There were nine Christian villages which cloistered about Kessab in the valleys below. Several of them have been completely destroyed by fire. All have been plundered and the helpless people driven out or slain.”

One more witness of the crimes committed against humanity and Christianity may suffice. Rev. Dr. Christie, the President of St. Paul’s Institute, Tarsus, wrote:

April 24th, 1909.—“I doubt if ever a massacre equal in atrocities to this has been known in history.... Among the wounded there are multitudes of men, women and children; we hear of a pastor and his family, seven people burned together in their house; hosts of young women have been assaulted and carried away to harems, and their names changed to Moslem ones. Christian villages like Osmanieh, Baghchi, Hamidieh, Kara Tash, Kristian Keoy, Kozolook, have people in each, eighty or so are left, nearly all women and children.[Pg 288] It is the same in the chiftliks (farms); there are hundreds of these on this wide and fertile plain; in every one that we have heard of in the neighborhood of Tarsus or Adana there has been unsparing slaughter of the Christian workers, even the Greeks and Syrians dying as martyrs with the Armenians.

“The annual (Synodical) meeting was to have been held in Adana. So the pastors and delegates of the churches were on the road to the north and east of that city when the trouble began. We have now the names of twenty-seven killed with the particulars of their deaths. Twenty-two churches are left pastorless. It is a fearful blow. Our two missionaries, (Henry) Maurer and Daniel M. Rogers, bring the number up to twenty-nine.”

There was a general impression at the time of the massacres of Adana, that the butchery and plunder in the cities, towns, and in the villages, were due to the reaction, that, “The mutiny and the massacre were the last stroke of the dying monster Sultan Abdul Hamid.” It appeared plausible, and it was even probable. But it was and is firmly believed by others that it was the work of the Young Turks.[151] They did not dethrone Abdul Hamid because he was too cruel to his Christian subjects. Oh! no. They dethroned him, because they wanted to have the glory of finishing the work of the extermination of the Armenian nation. The Young Turks are the legitimate successors of Abdul Hamid, so far as the latter’s determination to annihilate the Armenians was concerned, and this massacre was another step towards[Pg 289] their goal. It may be questioned why they should do such a thing at such a time. The answer is that, because there was an easy and plausible way of shoving off the responsibility for the crime on the monster Sultan Abdul Hamid.[152] We are told that Talaat Bey boasted that he had done more in destroying the Armenians in thirty days than Abdul Hamid in thirty years. It is, moreover, stated that when Talaat Bey gave the final signal for the massacre and deportation of the Armenians in 1915, he said, “After this there will be no Armenian question for fifty years.” There would be no Armenian question if the Young Turks intended to rule and run the government according to the Constitution. Armenians would have been satisfied even under the monarchy had they received what was promised to them, namely, religious liberty, the protection of their lives, honor, and property. These, oft-made promises fulfilled, there could be no Armenian question. Why should the Young Turks resort to the cruel process of annihilation of a nation to solve such a simple problem? We have to repeat Vambery’s words: “The conviction is inevitable that until the power of Islamism is broken the true reformation of this land is an impossibility.” (Whether the government is monarchical or constitutional, it made no difference.) “At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? (First at England’s, now at Germany’s.)”

FOOTNOTES:

[150] Greene, “Leavening the Levant,” pp. 41-2.

[151] It was established. See The New Armenian, N. Y., August 1, 1916, p. 260.

[152] Abdul Hamid died on the 10th of February, 1918.

After the deposal of Abdul Hamid, his brother, the third son of Sultan Medjid, was put upon the throne of the Ottoman Empire, as Mohammed V. He was born in 1844: he is now the head of a constitutional hereditary monarchy. A grand vizier is appointed by the sultan who forms a cabinet. According to the Mohammedan law and tradition, the sultan being the head of both the state and religion, he also, therefore, appoints a chief to act as the head of the Mohammedan religion—Islam. He is called Sheikh-ul-Islam.

“The constitution provides for a Parliament of two houses, the Senate, and the Chamber of Deputies.” For administrative purposes the empire is divided into Vilayets (states), Sanjaks (counties), Cazas (districts), and Naheyes (smaller districts).

The rulers of these divisions are respectfully called: Vali, Mutassarrif, Kaymakam and Mudeer.

Before the restoration of the Constitution, the Turkish army was entirely made up of the Mohammedans, but since (1908) non-Mohammedans also were drafted into the army.

From the beginning of the new régime, the Young[Pg 291] Turks have been having some troublesome times. The first of these troubles was Austria’s annexing Bosnia and Herzegovnia, two Turkish provinces.[153] The inhabitants of these provinces were mostly of Slavonian origin, mainly speaking the Servian language—excepting the Mohammedans, whose forefathers were Christians, but who after the Mohammedan occupation of the country in 1401, and in 1463, had abjured their faith on account of the Turkish oppression.

This oppression and extortionate taxation caused a revolution of the Christians in 1849, but this rebellion was suppressed by Omar Pasha. A more determined uprising against the unjust government took place in 1875. This the Turks failed to put down, and this failure led to the occupation of these provinces by Austria-Hungarians. The Treaty of Berlin entrusted the administration of these provinces to Austria-Hungary, and she has been governing since 1880, finally annexing them.

This annexation was not resented by the Young Turks so much as it was by the Bosnians and Servians. Their desire and hopes of uniting these co-religionists and members of the same Slavonian stock, were now ended. This resentment was intensified after the conquests of the Servians in both of the Balkan wars. Some of these Bosnians and Servians, who had been thus disappointed, formed a conspiracy and committed the awful crime of assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, and his wife,[Pg 292] while they were on a visit to Bosnia. The Servian government was accused by Austria of this conspiracy and assassination; then came Austria’s ultimatum to Servia and then the war.

The Powers did not consult the governed; the Bosnians wanted to unite with the Servians their kindred, both in religion and race. Why should not the people have the right to say who should rule over them? The refusal to allow this simple act of justice, like a spark set the world on fire.

The next trouble was Bulgaria’s declaration of independence.[154] Bulgaria had been a principality since 1878, and had been paying annual tribute to the Turkish government. Then came the resistless demand of the Greeks of Crete to unite with Greece. Then the war between Turkey and Italy in 1911-1912.

Still worse than the above incidents was the Balkan war between Turkey on one side and the Balkan States and Greece on the other side. The Balkan allies were Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenigro. The causes of this war were just the same: the Turkish oppression and massacres, and the ineffectual meddling of the European powers. “Macedonia was ceded by Turkey to Bulgaria in 1878 pursuant to the Treaty of San Stefano, but the Congress of Berlin in the same year revised (substituted) this treaty through the insistence of Great Britain and Austria, and restored the province to Turkey. In article XXIII of the Treaty of Berlin, the signatory[Pg 293] powers bound themselves to establish an organic law providing for good government in Macedonia and to see that it was applied. During thirty-four years that followed, this promise was unfulfilled, despite the frequent complaints of the Christian peoples—Bulgars, Greeks, and Serbs—of Turkish misgovernment and atrocities.”[155]

It is the same old story. The Great Powers who made the treaty, article by article, and signed the instrument, then turned and left the Turks to do the rest. That “rest” was for them to go on as usual until the four Balkan states formed an alliance and declared war against Turkey in October of 1912.

The war was fortunately of short duration, but it was the most decisive and humiliating defeat that the Turks had received for a long time. Macedonia was freed from the bloody reign of the Turks, who for nearly five hundred years had held that beautiful country under their iron heel. Nearly two millions of people, three-fourths of whom were Christians, were emancipated from a worse form of slavery. The defeat of the Turkish armies was not due to lack of courage of the Ottoman soldiers. It was solely due to the Turkish unpreparedness, their lack of organization and arrangements for food supply for the army, and to the inferiority of the Turkish artillery. The non-Moslem soldiers for the first time fought alongside of the Moslem soldiers. “The bravery and loyalty of the Armenian soldiers in the Turco-Balkan[Pg 294] war were commended by Nazim Pasha, then minister of war.” This Turco-Balkan war ended in May, 1913.

As the consequence of this war, many Mohammedans from Macedonia left their homes, unwilling to become subjects of their former “slaves.” They crowded into Constantinople and other places. The Young Turks tried to settle these refugees in Asiatic provinces of the empire where the Armenian populations made the majority. The object of the Young Turkey government was to reduce the Armenian majority so as to prevent them from asking or expecting any local reforms. The Armenians protested through their representative—the patriarch and the national council.

The second Balkan war, in July, 1913, was a very sad one. This war was between Bulgaria and her former allies, Turkey and Rumania. This war was occasioned by the unwillingness of the victors in the former war, to settle the division of the conquered territory by mutual concessions.

These successive reverses of the Young Turks, who so easily overthrew the despotic reign of Abdul Hamid, must have filled their enemies at home with indignation against and contempt for them. Well may they have said: “Less than half a dozen years, but thousands of square miles of land and millions of peoples have been lost to the empire both in Europe and Africa; and if these fools will rule a little longer the whole empire will be lost.” So shall it be. They made their best friends abroad, their enemies by their[Pg 295] wicked deeds. Their new friends abroad were anxious to help them in order to be helped by them. Who can doubt that the Young Turks, the present rulers of the Ottoman empire, longed for an opportunity to receive the approval of the fanatics at home and gladden the hearts of their new friends abroad?

The opportunity came. The European war broke out. Even before the war the Turkish rulers had planned a policy of unifying and Turkifying the Moslem State. Their experiences with the Balkan nations had taught a lesson that they would not soon forget. But they did not start their work at once when the war began. They had another scheme or use for the Armenians.

“Before declaring war upon Russia, the Government of the Young Turks which had long ago decided upon this course, sought to have the Armenians instigate a revolt among their co-nationalists in the Russian provinces of the Caucasus. This suggestion was presented to the Armenians at the very opening of the war by a deputation composed of Nadji Bey, Boukar-Eddin-Shakri Bey, and Hilmi Bey. Some Armenian notables were assembled in Erzerum to exchange views concerning the European war and its effects upon the interests of Armenia. The deputation from the government in Constantinople visited the assembly and revealed unreservedly the reason of their visit. It declared that Enver Pasha and his colleagues were ready to declare war upon Russia and expected from the Armenians invaluable assistance. The Armenians were requested to form volunteer legions that, with the Turkish propagandists, should cross the Russian frontier, and incite the population of the Caucasus to revolt. Nadji Bey[Pg 296] was so sure of the success of the proposition that he had brought with him to Erzerum twenty-seven Persian, Turkish, and Circassian propagandists who with the assistance of Armenian volunteers would foment disaffection in the Caucasus.

“Nadji Bey spoke in a tone of perfect cordiality and confidence. He described in glowing terms the compensation that would accrue to the Armenians if their services, solicited by him, were forthcoming. He endeavored to persuade the Armenians that a revolution in the Caucasus was inevitable.[156] After having contributed to the victory, the Armenians would be granted autonomy, under the protection of Turkey, thus reuniting all their dispersed compatriots on both sides of the frontier. Enver Pasha’s delegates were ready to remake the map of the Caucasus by a single stroke of the pen. The Georgians and the Tartars were allotted their share of the territory, and the Armenians would receive Kars, the province of Erivan, Van, and Bitlis. But the Armenians categorically refused these attractive propositions and entrusted Nadji Bey with their advice to Enver Pasha not to become embroiled in the European catastrophe, as it would lead to the downfall of Turkey.

“‘This is treason,’ exclaimed Bouka-Eddin-Shakri Bey. ‘You refuse to succor the Empire, forgetting that you enjoy its hospitality.’

“Notwithstanding the violent objurgations, the Armenians stood firm in their refusal.

“However, these emissaries of the Young Turks still hoped to convert the Armenians to their views, and a few weeks later, on the eve of the declaration of war upon Russia, they convoked the assemblies of notables in all the vilayets, and once more presented their suggestions—this[Pg 297] time considerably modified. They no longer demanded that the Armenians take the initiative of an uprising in the Caucasus, but merely endeavored to convince them of the imminence of a revolution and of the advisability of their joining in it. For the second time the Armenians remained imperturbable in their refusal.

“Finally war was declared between Russia and Turkey. Would the Armenians shirk performing their military duty? Not at all. They answered the call, reporting at the mobilization stations.”[157]

The Armenians’ reform movement in 1912-3, under the presidency of Boghos Nubar Pasha, who was appointed by the Catholicos, was a peaceful effort to solicit the signatories of Berlin Treaty (1878) to induce the Turkish government to put into execution the reforms guaranteed in that treaty for Armenia.

After the consent of all the Powers was obtained, then “the Russian draft [of reforms] was revised by the ambassadors of the Powers at Constantinople, accepted with modifications, by the Young Turkish Government, and actually promulgated by them on the 8th of February, 1914.”[158]

Could such a peaceful procedure have offered the Young Turks an excuse of provocation for their atrocities committed in the following year?

FOOTNOTES:

[153] October, 1908.

[154] On the 8th of Oct., 1908.

[155] The New International Year Book for the Year 1912, p. 734. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.

[156] Expected by the Holy War that was to be declared by Sheikh-ul-Islam; as it has been done since Turkey joined the Central Powers.

[157] The “Martyrdom of Armenia,” by Paul Perrin, in The New Armenia, May 15, 1916, New York.

[158] “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16,” Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce, p. 635, London.

There were two things which induced the Young Turks to declare war on the Allies in the latter part of October, 1914. They were positive of a victory as the early events of the war and agents of the Teutonic alliance easily could, and did, persuade them. The assurance of conquests and would-be acquisition of territories, which would restore to the Young Turkish government its lost prestige both at home and abroad. But their dreams were not speedily realized, and probably never will be.

The real reasons, however, for the beginning of the massacres at this time were the opportune moment, the European war; the carrying out a former well-laid policy of a unified and Turkified State; the diversion of the attention of the Moslem populace from failures and mistakes of the Young Turks, and the congeniality of the work of plunder and murder which very few followers of Mohammed would refuse to enjoy. They delight to see Christians and Christianity trampled under their feet. Thus the Young Turks, the rulers of Turkey, gave the greatest pleasure to a large number of Mohammedans by assigning[Pg 299] to them the work of annihilation of the oldest Christian nation in the empire.

The sufferings of the Armenians began right after the declaration of war—or rather simultaneously with it. All the males between the ages of twenty and forty-five, and soon those of eighteen to fifty, were called to arms. Some paid commutation in place of enrolment, and others who had passed the age of military training before the ratification of the new military service law of 1908, as were entitled to exemption, as long as they paid the annual commutation tax. Yet these also were drafted in violation of their rights. However, they were not left in the army very long, but were deprived of their arms by order of the government, and put into groups of laborers to work on the roads. A “gang of unscrupulous ruffians,” had control of the Turkish government, but whether they had not quite matured their plans, or whether they were in consultation with their foreign advisers, or whether they hesitated to put their plans into action, they waited until the spring.

The massacres began in the spring of 1915, but even before massacres immediately after the declaration of war, the Turkish government also proclaimed “a holy war”—jehad. In the fewest words, a holy war is this: Ever since the reign of Sultan Selim I,[159] the Sultans of Turkey claimed a lawful successorship to the Caliphs of Baghdad and the Sultans of Egypt. The Sultan of Turkey is the head[Pg 300] of Islam and the defender thereof. Whenever, therefore, the Mohammedan faith is in danger, the Sultan, the pretended successor of Mohammed, theoretically has the power to call upon the faithful throughout the world to rise in arms against the enemies of their religion.

The Turkish government was induced by her allies not only to enter this terrible conflict, but also to proclaim this holy war. The object of the latter was to rouse the passions of the Mohammedans throughout the world against those powers which were fighting the Turco-Teutonic alliance, with the hope of creating disastrous revolts in British, French, and Russian possessions, where about 150,000,000 Mohammedan subjects were peacefully living. The following exultant announcement was made from Berlin by the German government, on November 20th, 1914:

“From all sections of Egypt come reports of enthusiastic manifestations in favor of a holy war. The Sheikh-ul-Islam has communicated with a majority of the Mohammedan princes of Asia and Africa, who declare they will assist Turkey in a war against England.”[160]

We are glad to say that, as is now well known, this project completely failed in those countries where it would have done the most harm, but it had its dire consequences in Persia. Immediately after their declaration of war on the Allies the Turks took the offensive on a large scale. One army invaded the Russian territory, and another crossed the Persian[Pg 301] frontier and entered the province of Azerbaijan. In this province were many Syrians (Nestorians) and Armenians, who were living in villages and towns. These Syrian Christians—like the Armenians—have suffered many vicissitudes, including massacres by the hands of the Turks and Kurds. But the Turkish invasion and short occupation of this province in winter and early spring brought new horrors upon the Christian inhabitants both Armenians and Syrians.

The moment hostilities broke out, the Turco-Kurdish soldiery began to indulge itself in atrocities. The Persian province of Azerbaijan contains a large population of Syriac Christians, and the suffering of these people at the hands of the invading hordes are described with terrible detail in letters from German missionaries[161] resident among them, letters which were published on October 18 (1915), in the Dutch newspaper de Neimve Rotterdamshe Courant. From the contents of these letters we select the following:

“The latest news is that 4000 Syrians and one hundred Armenians have died of disease alone, at the missions, within the last few months. All villages in the surrounding districts, with two or three exceptions, have been plundered and burnt, 20,000 Christians have been slaughtered in Ourmia and its environs. Many churches have been destroyed and burnt, and also many houses in the town....”

“In Hoftewan and Solast 850 corpses, without heads, have been recovered from the wells and cisterns alone.[Pg 302] Why? Because the commanding officer had put a price on every Christian head. In Hoftewan alone more than 500 women and girls were delivered to the Kurds at Sandjbulak. One can imagine the fate of these unfortunate creatures. In Diliman crowds of Christians were thrown into prison and compelled to accept Islam. The men were circumcised. Gulpardjin, the richest village in the Ourmia province, has been razed to the ground. The men were slain, the good-looking women and girls carried away. The same in Babaru. Hundreds of women jumped into the deep river, when they saw how many of their sisters were violated by the bands of brigands, in broad daylight, in the middle of the road. So also at Miandoab in the Suldus district.”[162]

Dr. Sargis, an Armenian by nationality, a Persian by birth, and an American citizen by choice, was doing medical missionary work in Persia. He has recently returned by way of Russia. He stated, that in the city of Urumia alone, ten thousand copies of the proclamation of the “holy war” were received and distributed among the Mohammedans. Dr. Sargis further stated in an interview[163] as follows:

“Followers of Mohammed have been expecting a ‘holy war’ for ages. They have been taught to expect the coming of Mehdi, their Messiah, and the spread of Mohammed rule over the earth. Now they are preaching in their mosques that Emperor William of Germany is Mehdi.” He further stated that German soldiers foster this fanaticism, until the Mohammedan has the idea that the kaiser and all Germany have been converted[Pg 303] to Islam. Officers of German army wear bands on their arms with the creed of Islam—‘There is only one God and Mohammed is His prophet.’ At Ispahan the German officers enter the mosque and say Mohammedan prayers. The massacres in Urumia began a year ago, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops. The Russians had been gone only five hours when the murder and plunder began. Of the 113 Christian villages in Persia, not one escaped.

“In Ada was an Armenian merchant, Havil by name.... Havil was shot down in the street, both legs broken and he lay helpless until he died. Death didn’t come soon enough, however, to prevent him seeing his eight-year-old daughter captured by the fanatic Kurds and outraged before his eyes. That happened on January 3, 1915.

“In the town of Kousi was a very old Christian church. The fanatics entered it, took the Bible from the pulpit, tore out its pages and carpeted the floor with them. Here they led hundreds of girls and women—many of whom never left the building.

“At Gulpashan, seventy-nine men were tied hand to hand and killed. Not one girl in the village escaped. The Turkish officers entered one home and carried off several girls, who were weeping around the body of their brother, a victim of the massacre.

“At a house in Urumia, where I was called to treat an army officer, I found a girl. She told me she had been brought there from a nearby Armenian village, which had been raided. Then days before the massacre she had been married, and she saw her husband killed before her eyes. She was taken to the city and held there by three officers. I got them to release her, but she died—she had suffered too much.

“A Turkish soldier killed a young Armenian at Garojaln and carried off his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. In leaving the city, the soldiers had to[Pg 304] cross a bridge spanning the river. The soldiers dropped the two children into the river, one on either side of the bridge, and led the mother away captive.

“There was a Catholic priest, Yahmaruvi, who had endeared himself to the people of the village. He acted as peacemaker in the quarrels between the Armenians and the Mohammedans. All Christians in the village were slaughtered but this priest. The soldiers came and told him if he became a priest of Islam they would let him live, because even the Mohammedans in the village loved him. They tried to get the old priest to repeat their creed. He started with them: ‘There is only one God—and Jesus Christ, His son, is my Saviour,’ the priest uttered at the end. They cut off his head....”

A doctor by name Shimmon was educated in this country and naturally became a citizen. Of him Dr. Sargis said: “They tried to get him to renounce Christianity. When he refused, they poured oil on his body and set fire to him.”

Dr. W. S. Vanneman, the head of the mission hospital at Tabris, Persia, wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, N. Y. City, under date of March 14, 1915:

“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 eight hundred. Four hundred were sent to Khosrova and four hundred to Haft Dewan under the pretense of giving them bread. They were held a few days and then tortured and massacred. Many women and children were taken away and ill-treated. This happened a day or two before the advancing Russian army took Salmas.

“We are very anxious about Urumia. A letter dated March 1st from Dr. Shedd came through two days ago.[Pg 305] He said things were getting worse. Gulpashan, which hitherto had not been disturbed, had been plundered and ruined. I think this was the only village which remained. Fifty-one of the most prominent men of this village were taken out and shot. The women and girls were violated. This was done by the Turkish soldiers.

“Forty men had been taken from the Roman Catholic mission in Urumia city, kept prisoners a few days, then shot.”

“We are more anxious than ever about Urumia. On March 17th, Turkish troops attacked our mission and the Roman Catholic mission and took five native Russian priests from our compound and treated them badly. We do not know yet if they were killed. Mr. Allen was also treated badly because he had sent out three messengers away from Urumia.

“Some native Christian preachers have been crucified and some burned....”

The testimonies of the German and American missionaries confirm and supplement one another, and show the fearful results of the holy war. For the Persian Armenians and Nestorians—Persia itself—had nothing to do with Turkey. But the object of the Young Turks and their allies was to arouse the Mohammedans of Persia—the only Mohammedan power besides Turkey—against Russia, and Turks and Tatars in Transcaucasia, and that thus they might spread the fire of the holy war. But they have signally failed in the main.

When the Turkish army had to retreat from Persia before the advancing Russians and fell back into[Pg 306] Armenia proper in Turkish territory, they let loose the demons—the Turkish regular and Kurdish irregular troops upon the Armenian population. Their barbarities, outrages, mutilations, murders, the devastations of numerous Armenian villages, by the sword and fire, are beyond the possibility of description. The few that could escape came to Van and told the people of the horrors they witnessed and passed through.

The Armenians of Van knew that the same fate would soon come to them. What should they do? Be loyal, submissive, passive, be butchered by the Turkish soldiers and by their inveterate enemies, the Kurds? Or should they make an attempt of self-defense, and let it cost the Turks and Kurds something more than the mere time, labor and ammunition to massacre the Armenians of Van? And that even if they should be declared rebels against the lawful authorities by the Prussian and Turkish officials? They decided upon the latter. And they did not decide too soon either. For on the 20th of April, Jevdet Bey, the governor of Van, and the Turkish soldiers commenced an attack on the city. The Armenians armed themselves as best they could, and making such barricades and defenses as time and materials could permit, they stood a siege of twenty-seven days—only about 1500 defenders against 5000 assailants well equipped with artillery. The Turks and Kurds on hearing of a Russian force approaching left them and fled southward. On the 17th of May, the Russians occupied Van.

This is one of only two instances where the Armenians disappointed the Turkish government and her Teutonic and Kurdish allies, and deprived them of the pleasure of massacring the Christians. No wonder that in the face of such instances Count Ernst von Reventlow resented the American protest against Turkish massacres of the Armenians. We reproduce only one paragraph from Reventlow’s article:[164]

“Indeed, the Turkish empire has been long enough compelled to allow all powers who would destroy and rob her have their say in her affairs. To-day the time for this is past. It will be past for ever, so soon as the German empire takes up determinedly the standpoint that the question as to what it intends to do with the bloodthirsty Armenians is one that concerns her Turkish ally alone.”

Resuming our doleful narrative in this Section, we regret to say that the first occupation of Van by the Russians was not the last. For towards the end of July, the Turks, being strongly reinforced, took the offensive and succeeded in occupying Van. Although the Turkish offensive and occupation of Van lasted only a short time—about three weeks—yet within that time they exterminated all the Armenians behind their lines, and in the country through which they marched. The retiring Russians, however, contested stubbornly every mile of ground, and gained time for the Armenians to escape the country, while the Russians fought rear-guard actions and held back[Pg 308] the Turks and Kurds from cutting the line of retreat of the Armenian refugees. The sufferings of those panic-stricken people were terrible. One of the German missionaries, in Persia, wrote:

“On the road, I found four little children. The mother sat on the ground, her back resting against a wall. The hollow-eyed children ran up to me, stretching out their hands and crying ‘Bread! Bread!’ When I came closer to the mother, I saw that she was dying.”

“I wonder if it is possible to witness a more agonizing sight than the present one. Human beings are dying in hundreds from hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, and the means for relieving the distress are very scanty. There is absolutely no possibility of even buying bread. The first contingent of refugees has already reached this place (Igdir). Owing to congestion on the roads, the human tide had to be broken up into two channels; about 100,000 walked through the plain of Abagha, their rear being guarded by the Russian army under General N. and the Armenian regiments under Andrianig and Dero; another 50,000 from the city of Van were diverted into Persia, their rear being defended by the mounted regiments of Keri and Hamazasp. Bloody rear-guard actions are being fought to stem the Turks and Kurds, who are pressing forward in order to cut the line of retreat of the Armenians.”

We will at present leave these suffering thousands in the hands of their sympathizing friends, the Russians, and the Russian Armenians, and return to Armenia to see the condition of those who could not flee the country.

The news of what was taking place behind the Turkish army lines reached the Novaye Vryemya of Petrograd on July 22d.

“The Turkish atrocities in the district of Bitlis are indescribable. After having massacred the whole male population of this district, the Turks collected 9000 women and children from the surrounding villages, and drove them in upon Bitlis. Two days later they marched them out to the bank of the Tigris, shot them all, and threw the 9000 corpses into the river.

“On the Euphrates, the Turks have cut down more than 1000 Armenians, throwing their bodies into the river. At the same time, four battalions were ordered to march upon the valley of Moosh to finish with the 12,000 Armenians inhabiting this valley. According to the latest information, the massacre has already begun.... All the Armenians in the Diarbekir region will likewise be massacred.”

Here is another instance of suppressing the Armenian rebellion. The detailed news was published on September 4th, by the Armenian journal, Gotchnag of New York:

“Incredible news comes in about the massacres at Bitlis. In one village 1000 Armenians—men, women, and children—have been crowded into a wooden house, and the house set on fire. In another large village of the district, only thirty-six people have escaped the massacre. In another, they roped together men and women by dozens, and threw them into the Lake of Van. A young Armenian of Bitlis, who was in the army, and who, after being disarmed and employed on road-making, succeeded in escaping and reaching Van, related that the ex-vali of Van, Djevdet Bey, has had males[Pg 310] between the ages of fifteen and forty massacred at Bitlis. He has had their families deported in the direction of Sert, but has kept with him all the prettiest girls. Bitlis is now occupied by tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish mouhadjirs (refugees).”

The condition of affairs in northwestern and western Armenia and in the provinces of Asia Minor was not any better. It was, in fact, a great deal worse. Because there was no Russian army to protect them, or in case of danger, to take them into a friendly country, no matter with what terrible hardships they may get there. They were absolutely helpless and completely at the mercy of the ruthless cruelty of the Turkish officials and mobs.

In April, the central government, from Constantinople, sent orders to the local authorities in Armenia and Asia Minor to the effect that the Armenians having been found to be a great danger to the security of the state, they should be severely suppressed in advance in order that they might be made harmless, and the empire might be safe. Most of the local authorities at once understood what the orders meant, and were not slow to undertake the work. The orders were carried out in the following manner:

On an appointed day, the governor of a town or city, whichever it might happen to be, summoned all able bodied men of Armenian race to present themselves either in a government building or some such designated place. A sufficient number of police and gendarmes are on hand to see that this demand is obeyed by all. If any Armenian has the audacity[Pg 311] to disobey, he is dragged there by force. Then these men were led into a lonely spot and were disposed of. The gendarmes or the police who did the work of execution returned into the town. If the number was too large to take them all at once, the process was repeated until all the work was done in the same manner.

“In the town of Agantz a list of those to be executed was sent to the local governor, and 2500 (men) were summoned to appear at the governor’s house and listen to the reading of a proclamation. The natives knew the meaning of the order, and many of them ignored it. They were later dragged to prison by gendarmes and held for execution.

“It is conservatively estimated that 2500 listed men were held in prison here. They were taken out in groups of fifty, led to a trench and there shot down. The fifty dead were tossed to one side, a fresh group of fifty led to the trench. This tremendous execution was continued until the entire 2500 men were massacred.”

“... One night towards the end of June (1915), suddenly, without any warning, the houses of most of all of the Armenians who still remained in the city were forcibly entered by the police and gendarmes. The men were arrested and held as prisoners in the soldiers’ barracks at one side of the city. Their whole number amounted to 1213.[165] Two more of our leading Armenian[Pg 312] professors were arrested on this occasion....” These men “were told that they were to be sent away into exile at Mosul, in the deserts of Mesopotamia, six or seven hundred miles away.... These 1213 men, after being held for a few days, were bound together in small groups of five or six men each, and sent off at night in companies of from fifty to one hundred fifty under the escort of gendarmes. Some fifteen miles from the city they were set upon by the gendarmes and by bondsmen called chettes and cruelly murdered with axes.... One of the gendarmes who helped drive away these 1213 men boasted to our French teacher that he had killed fifty Armenians with his own hands, and had obtained from them 150 Turkish Pounds. The chief of police at —— stated that none of these 1213 men remained alive. Our Consular Agent visited the place of this slaughter early in August, and brought back with him Turkish ‘Nufus tezkereses,’ identification papers, taken from the bodies of the victims. I personally saw these papers. They were all besmeared with blood.”

There is no need to tell the same monotonous tale of most fiendish murders which took place all over Armenia and Asia Minor wherever the Armenians were found; and the local authorities with scrupulous exactness obeyed the behests of their superiors, the arch fiends at Constantinople. Some of our Prussian friends, in spite of all, still say: “If the Porte deems it necessary that the Armenian rebellions and other riotous proceedings be repressed with all available means, so that a repetition becomes impossible, such actions are not to be designated either as murders or as atrocities. They are simply justifiable and necessary measures....”

Woe to the men, women and children of the Armenian race, that have been judged and dealt with by the Prussian sense of justice! The Belgians in the West, the Armenians in the East were treated by the same Prussian sense of justice.

Here is another instance of the “bloodthirsty Armenian rebellions” whose suppression is “simply justifiable and necessary,” as Count Ernst von Reventlow says:

“To give one instance of the thorough and remorseless way in which the massacres were carried out, it may suffice to refer to the case of Trebizond, a case vouched for by the Italian Consul, who was present when the slaughter was carried out, his country not having then declared war against Turkey. Orders came from Constantinople that all the Armenian Christians in Trebizond were to be killed. Many of the Moslems tried to save their Christian neighbors, and offered them shelter in their houses, but the Turkish authorities were implacable. Obeying the orders which they had received, they hunted out all the Christians, gathered them together, and drove a great crowd of them down the streets of Trebizond, past the fortress, to the edge of the sea. There they were all put on board sailing boats, carried out some distance on the Black Sea, and there thrown overboard and drowned. Nearly the whole Armenian population of from 8000 to 10,000 were destroyed—some in this way, some by slaughter, some being sent to death elsewhere.”[166]

Allowing that, at the least there were 1,500,000 Armenians in the Turkish empire in the autumn of[Pg 314] 1914, the government could draw out at least 100,000 soldiers—most probably she did draw twice as many. These soldiers could and gladly would render excellent service to the empire. Their loyalty has not been suspected, neither has their fidelity been in question. What a criminal folly to disarm them, what an unpardonable sin, and a suicidal act to massacre them. But that is what the Young Turks did. They are trying to get rid of the Christian population of Turkey by the sword and fire on the one hand, on the other hand, they were letting the Germans take charge and have control of the army and navy and make the Turkish government a German vassalage; and yet they say they are going to “have Turkey for the Turks.”

The following is from the pen of Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, who tells us what the Armenian ex-soldiers were doing and how they were treated by the government which they were serving:

“In the autumn of 1914, the Turks began to mobilize Christians as well as Moslems for the army. For six months, in every part of Turkey they called upon the Armenians for military service. Exemption money was accepted for those who could pay. A few weeks later the exemption certificates were disregarded, and their holders enrolled. The younger classes of Armenians, who did not live too far from Constantinople, were placed, as in the Balkan wars, in the active army. The older ones, and all the Armenians enrolled in the more distant region, were utilized for road, railway, and fortification building. Wherever they were called, and to whatever task they were put, the Armenians did their[Pg 315] duty and worked for the defense of Turkey. They proved themselves brave soldiers and intelligent and industrious laborers....

“... In order to prevent the possibility of trouble from Armenians mobilized for railway and road construction, they were divided into companies of from three to five hundred, and put to work at intervals of several miles. Regiments of the Turkish regular army were sent ‘to put down the Armenian revolution,’ and came suddenly upon the little groups of workers plying pickaxe, crowbar, and shovel. The ‘rebels’ were riddled with bullets before they knew what was happening. The few who managed to flee were followed by mounted men, and shot or sabred.

“Telegrams began to pour in upon Talaat Bey at Constantinople, announcing that here, there, and everywhere Armenian uprisings had been put down, and telegrams were returned, congratulating the local officials upon the success of their prompt measures. To neutral newspaper men at Constantinople, to neutral diplomats, who had heard vaguely of a recurrence of Armenian massacres, this telegraphic correspondence was shown as proof that an imminent danger had been averted. ‘We have not been cruel, but we admit having been severe,’ declared Talaat Bey. ‘This is war time.’”[167]

FOOTNOTES:

[159] See the footnote on p. 129.

[160] See The North American (Phila.), Mar. 8, 1915.

[161] Members of the “Deutsch Orient-Mission.”

[162] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 85-86. Published by Hodder and Stoughton, London and New York.

[163] This interview was published in The North American, Phila., Feb. 14, 1916.

[164] Von Reventlow’s article was published in the Deutsche Tages Zeitung, reported in the Dailies. I quote from the North American, Oct. 15, 1915.

[165] The Armenian population of this city was 12,000, but all the males between 18 and 50 were drafted into the army and taken away before this.

[166] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 10-11. This quotation is from Lord Bryce’s report, published by Hodder and Stoughton.

[167] Gibbons, “The Blackest Page of Modern History,” pp. 17, 18, 21, 23, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1916.

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

By the help of the sultan, who marshaled his hosts against Heaven, of whom John Milton wrote centuries ago, the arch fiends at Constantinople hatched out this plan of deportation of the entire Armenian population to Mesopotamia, a distance of from 300 to 700 miles away from the Armenian communities. Orders came from the central government at Constantinople to the local authorities in the provinces of Asia Minor and Armenia. “These orders were explicit and detailed. No hamlet was too insignificant to be missed. The news was given by town criers that every Armenian was to be ready to leave at a certain hour for an unknown destination. There were no exceptions for the aged, the ill, the women in pregnancy. Only rich merchants and bankers and good-looking women and girls were allowed to escape[Pg 317] by professing Islam; and let it be said to their everlasting honor that few availed themselves of this means of escape.”

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

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

“We are shocked at the cruelties perpetrated in these massacres. Trenchant pens have portrayed the horrors. Even some Germans have been found to denounce these massacres and to accuse the infamous ally of the Teutonic kaisers of the most terrible cruelties. Witness the following narrative which I quote from the November, 1915, issue of the Allegemeine Missione Zeitschrift, published in Berlin.

[Pg 318]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Adabazar 500 leading Armenians were arrested and imprisoned in the Armenian church. They had their daily tortures and beatings to induce them to implicate one another, and to deliver their arms.[Pg 321] Whether they were all the members of a society or not it did not matter. For ten days these men have been tortured, and the whole population of the Armenians—some 20,000 or more—were terrorized and paralysed. Towards the end of this time, the head of the society who had been an exile suddenly returned. At the trial—or rather at the Inquisition—he boldly answered: “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it is mine, and yet I also am guiltless. This society was organized with the permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain firearms.”

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

“The people who had any money went to Konia by freight cars, being allowed to take only a few possessions with them. They were told to leave their possessions in the churches and they would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the people were out of the city; so nobody trusted this promise. The exiles were crowded on top of their possessions, sixty to eighty people in a car marked forty people.

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

“Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich or poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left in the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.... The promise of three days was not kept. The very next morning the local police with gendarmes well armed with Mauser rifles began to enter the Armenian houses and drive the women and children into the streets and lock the doors of their houses behind them and sealed them with the government’s seal, thus dispossessing them of all their worldly possessions. They then assigned four or five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had brought with them with which to send the people away. But the carts were not intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed covering for each person. When they had gotten from 500 to 1000 persons ready in this manner they were set moving, a doleful procession, driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning after morning, during the month of July (1915) we saw groups of this kind pass by the college compound, the women carrying their babies in their arms and leading their little children by the hand, without anything left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey of a thousand miles into the wilderness, to miserably die or to be captured by Turks. By the end of July, the city was emptied in this manner of its 12,000 Armenian population.”

“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty household furniture[Pg 323] or implements of agriculture, but for the most part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where there was time to do so.”

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

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

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

“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the gaze of the drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought in from other regions....

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

[Pg 324]

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

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

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

Another report says that the dervishes, the fanatical Moslem devotees, met the caravans of the deported Armenians on their road and carried off children, shrieking with terror, to bring them up as Moslems in their savage fraternity. Here another: “Many of the boys appear to have been sent to another district, to be distributed among the farmers. The best looking[Pg 325] of the older girls are kept in houses for the pleasure of members of the gang who seem to rule affairs here....”

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

“A telegram from Bukarest states that the Turks have sent from Anatolia (Asia Minor) four railway-vans full of Armenian orphans from the interior of the country, to distribute them among Moslem families.

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

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

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

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

“Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance. The women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness, a child was killed by having its brains beaten out on a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single person survived out of this group of forty-five.

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

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

The following is a portion of a detailed description by an eye-witness, who was in the company on[Pg 327] the march, and saw the third batch, above mentioned, of 5000 to melt out before they stopped in a halting place after thirty-two days:

“... The rest of the population was sent off in three batches; I was among the third batch.... Our party left on June 1st (old style), fifteen gendarmes going with us.... Very many women and girls were carried off to the mountains, among them my sister, whose one-year-old baby they threw away. A Turk picked it up and carried it off. I know not where. My mother walked till she could walk no further, and dropped by the roadside, on a mountain top. We found on the road many who had been in the previous batches; some women were among the killed, with their husbands and sons. We also came across some old people and infants still alive, but in a pitiful condition....

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

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

Miss Mary Louise Graffam secured the permission of the governor of Sivas to accompany her school[Pg 328] girls on their way to exile—supposedly—to Mesopotamia, but actually to their destruction. After about ten days’ journey she was not permitted to go any further. At Malatia, where she had to give up her charge, she remained a few days; from there she wrote a letter to a friend in Constantinople. We reproduce a few excerpts from her letter.

“When we were ready to leave Sivas, the government gave forty-five ox-carts for the Protestant townspeople and eighty horses, but had none at all for our pupils and teachers; so we bought ten oxcarts, two horses, arabas (wagons), and five or six donkeys, and started out. In the company (of 2000) were all our teachers in the college, about twenty boys from the college, and about thirty of the girls’ school. It was a special favor to the Sivas people, who had not done anything revolutionary (?) that the Vali allowed the men who were not yet in prison[172] to go with their families.

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

“We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new fear took possession of us, and that was that[Pg 329] the men were to be separated from us at Kangal.... At Kangal they said that a valley near there was full of corpses. Here also we began to see exiles from Tocat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart. There were a company of old women who had been robbed of absolutely everything. At Tocat the government had first imprisoned the men, and from the prison had taken them on the road.[173] The preacher’s wife was in the company and told us the story. After the men were gone they arrested the old women and the older brides. There were very few young women or children. All the younger women and children were left in Tocat. Badvelli (Rev.) Avedis has seven children. One was with our schoolgirls and the other six remained in Tocat, without father or mother to look after them. For three days these Tocat people had been without food, and after that lived on the Sivas Company, who had not yet lost much.

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

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

“Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey.[Pg 330] ... The mudir said the men had gone back to Sivas. The villagers whom we saw all declared that all those men were killed at once....

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

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

“The hills on each side were white with Kurds who were throwing stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending their way to the bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the midst of a crowd of Kurds until I was used up.... After crossing the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left before us, waiting by the river, as well as companies[Pg 331] from Samsoun (a city on the Black Sea), Amasia, and other places.

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two reasons why the Young Turks still continue their practice of barbarity and abominations: the first is that they are defended by the greatest military powers, the Teutonic arms; the second is the indifference of the neutral states. The United States was first “too proud to fight” for the suffering humanity. And again, “With the causes and issues of this war we have no concern.” Some American[Pg 333] missionaries have died as the result of their ill-treatment by the Turks. American properties worth several millions were seized and occupied by the Turkish government and the missionaries compelled to leave the country. One of these missionaries writes:

“I have received the farewell kiss and parting embrace of men, cultured Christian gentlemen, some of whom held university degrees from our best American institutions in this country; men with whom I have co-operated, and at whose sides I have labored for ten years in the work of education in that land, while at their sides stood brutal gendarmes, sent there by the highest authorities of the Government to drive them with their wives and children away from their homes, from their work, and from all the associations which they held most dear, into exile or to death; some of them to a condition worse than either. We had no better friends in this world than those people. To part with them under such circumstances was harder than I can say, and yet but few tears were shed on either side. Our feelings were too deep for idle tears! I have often seen pictures of the early Christian martyrs crouching together in the arena of the Coliseum expecting any moment to be torn to pieces by the hungry lions which were being turned loose upon them, while the eager spectators were watching from their safe seats, and waiting to be amused by that spectacle. And I had supposed that such cruelties and such amusements were impossible in this twentieth Christian century; but I was mistaken. I have seen sixty-two Armenian women and girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, huddled together in the rooms of the principal of our American Girls’ School at ——, while outside were waiting men more cruel than beast, ready to carry them[Pg 334] off; and who backed by the highest authorities of the Government, were demanding that we should deliver these defenseless girls into the hands of these brutal men to do with them what they would. I have supposed that there was no man in the world to-day who could be amused by such a spectacle as that. In this, too, I was mistaken; for when the wife of our American Ambassador at Constantinople made a personal appeal to Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior in the Turkish cabinet, the man who more than any one else has devised and executed this deportation of the Armenians, and who has boasted that he has been able to destroy more Armenians in thirty days than Abdul Hamid was able to destroy in thirty years—when she made an appeal to this Turkish Minister, begging him to stop this cruel persecution of Armenian women and girls, only answered, ‘All this amuses us.’”[176]

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

When the people of Shabin Karahussar, a town about 100 miles southwest of Trebizond, were ordered to prepare for deportation, they took up arms, and defended themselves against the Turkish troops from the middle of May to the end of June. Then the[Pg 335] Turks, with more reinforcements and artillery, had no difficulty in overwhelming them. They massacred not only about 4000 people who had taken arms to defend themselves, but also the entire population of the country districts, “not excepting the bishop himself. Nothing could show better than this how little the Turkish government had to fear from the Armenians, and how eagerly it seized upon the quickest means to their extermination, as soon as an opportunity appeared.”

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

“The bloody curtain has fallen over Zeitoun, and the fighting stock of these brave mountaineers has been subdued in this memorable year of crime! As the faithful[Pg 336] followers and remnants of the Reubenian dynasty, they had hitherto kept their homes intact and had successfully withstood the Turkish inroads. They have at last been overcome by heavy Turkish forces, and the stronghold of Zeitoun is now in the hands of the enemy....”[177]

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

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

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

“The Turks are continuing their work of exterminating the Armenians. From Constantinople they have deported the Armenian men. Ten thousand deported men have already been massacred in the mountains of Ismid.

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

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

“As soon as the Armenian refugees left their houses,[Pg 337] mouhadjirs from Thrace took possession of them. The former had been forbidden to take anything with them, and they themselves saw all their goods pass into other hands. There must be about 20,000 to 25,000 in this town now, and the name of the town seems to have been changed to a Turkish one.”[178]

Four thousand and two hundred Armenians were almost miraculously saved in the following manner: When the orders came to about half a dozen villages near Antioch for them to prepare for deportation the inhabitants, knowing the purpose of the government, held a meeting and decided to resist the orders. One pastor dissented and with his flock of about sixty families was deported; nothing has been heard from that party since. The rest hastened to gather all available provisions, ammunition and arms and drove their herds and cattle into the mountain west of Antioch on the Mediterranean shore. Here they had the sea behind them for protection. On the land side, they protected every possible approach to the mountain, and with some modern weapons and old flintlocks, they were ready to defend themselves. They had some good swimmers on the shore watching for some friendly ship which they could petition for help. They also set up two large white flags, one with a red cross in the center, and the other with these words, “Christians in distress—Rescue!” They were surrounded on the land side by 3000 regular soldiers[Pg 338] of then Turkish army, and about 15,000 Turkish mobs of Aleppo and Antioch slums. They had a very slim chance of escaping annihilation, and this chance was in their heroic defense. On the 53d day of their siege, when their food and ammunition was almost exhausted, the French cruiser Guicher sighted the cross and drew near; the swimmers hastened and bore the message to it. Other ships were called by wireless, and the whole refugees were taken off and transported to Port Said, Egypt. They thus saved their lives by their bravery, and saved also the Turks from some more shame and sin.

The Young Turks’ plan to exterminate the Armenian race was cunningly complete from the beginning to the end. The three different stages or steps by which they hoped to finish the work are now clear. In the first stage, knowing that the able-bodied men would survive the horrors of deportation, or at least most of them would, so in order to hasten the end, they were massacred; in the second stage, they were sure that delicate women and children could not stand the horrors of deportation on foot over the rugged mountains and deep valleys under the burning sun, half naked, and without food and water, so they consigned the largest number of the Armenians to such a process of death and destruction. This procedure, moreover, would give to their representatives, whether German or Turkish, at the courts of the neutral powers, the right to say that the Turks are not killing the women and children. Yet they were not unmindful of the possibility of their disappointment by[Pg 339] the survival of some even from this process of death. Thus we have the third stage for the unfortunate survivors. These survivors, mostly women and children, make up the “agricultural colonies.”

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

“But Sultanieh was by no means the worst of the charnel-house to which the remnant of the Armenian race was consigned.” The most of the refugees were sent to Aleppo (Halep), the seat of Northern Syria. The Armenians who were living in Asia Minor and Armenia were used to a temperate climate, but the climate in lower Mesopotamia and Syria is semi-tropical, and the places to which the survivors of the deportation have been consigned are considered “some[Pg 340] of the most sultry regions on the face of the earth.” A day’s journey from Aleppo southeastward the traveler reaches a swampy region. “These swamps were allotted to the first comers; but they did not suffice for so great a company, and the later batches were forwarded five days’ journey, on to the town of Der-el-Zor, the capital of the next province down the course of the Euphrates, where the river takes its way towards the Persian Gulf through the scorching steppes of the Arabian amphitheater.

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

There is one more thing to be noted, namely, that these survivors of the deportation have not only a torrid climate as “a sentence of death” to suffer and die thereby, but they have also a new set of tormentors, the Arabs, who are more wicked and fanatical than the Turks and Kurds, because they are, besides being Mohammed’s followers, akin to him in blood and race. Moreover, these poor refugees are not even left at Der-el-Zor. The latest information comes from there that the refugees have to move further southeast. “The misery among the people is not to be described. All are making things ready for the journey; all are breaking up the tents; Der-el-Zor is as destroyed, by the general upheaval. They say we will be sent to the bank of the river Chebar.[Pg 341] I pray God that—like he did for Ezekiel—so now He make this place a blessing. Our joy will be to do His will.”

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

“I have just returned, November 16, 1915, from a ride on horseback through Baghche Osmanie Plain, where thousands of exiles are lying upon the fields and streets, without any shelter, exposed to the depredations of all kinds of brigands. Last night, at about twelve o’clock, a little camp of from fifty to sixty persons was suddenly attacked. I found men and women badly wounded, with broken skulls, their bodies cut upon, or in a terrible condition from knife stabs. Fortunately, I was provided with linen, so that I could change their bloody clothing. Then I brought them to the nearest inn where they could be nursed. Many of them were so exhausted from the great loss of blood that they died.

“In another camp we found from thirty to forty thousand Armenians. I was able to distribute some bread among them. Desperate and half starved, they[Pg 342] fell upon it; several times I was almost unseated from my horse. A great many dead were lying about unburied, and only through bribes could the gendarmes be persuaded to permit their burial. Generally the Armenians are not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives. Bad epidemics of typhoid fever had broken out everywhere; a patient lay in almost every third tent.

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

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

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

[Pg 343]

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

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

“We have a detailed account of what is happening at Der-el-Zor, from a particularly trustworthy source—the[Pg 344] testimony of Fraulein Beatrice Rohner, a Swiss missionary from Basle. Fraulein Rohner has personally witnessed the sufferings of the Armenians at Der-el-Zor, and has published her description of them in the ‘Sonnenaufgang’ (Sunrise), the organ of the ‘Deutscher Hilfsbund für Christliches Liebeswerk in Orient’ (German League of Help for Work of Christian Charity in the East). Here are some extracts from her narrative:

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

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

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

“We feel it our duty to call the attention of the foreign office to the fact that our school work, the formation of a basis of civilization and instilling of respect in the natives will be henceforward impossible if the German Government is not in a position to put an end to the brutalities inflicted here on the exiled wives and children of murdered Armenians. In face of the horrible scenes which take place daily near our school buildings, before our very eyes, our school work has sunk to a level which is an insult to all human sentiments....

“Girls, boys, and women, all practically naked, lie on the ground breathing their last sighs amid the dying and among the coffins put out ready for them. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are all that is left of the 2000 to 3000 healthy peasant women driven down here from Upper Armenia. The good-looking ones are decimated by the vice of their gaolers, whilst the ugly ones are victimized by beatings, hunger, and thirst. Even those lying at the water’s edge are not allowed to drink. Europeans are prohibited from distributing bread among them. More than a hundred corpses are taken out daily from Aleppo. All this is taking place[Pg 346] before the eyes of highly placed Turkish officials. Forty to fifty people reduced to skeletons are lying heaped up in a yard near our school. They are practically insane and have forgotten how to eat. If one offers them bread they push it indifferently aside. They utter low groans and await death. Ta-a-lim el almon (the cult of the Germans) is responsible for this, the natives declare. It will always remain a terrible stain on Germany’s honor among the generations to come.

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

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

“I am going to tell you more about the Armenian episode, for this time the question was not one of the traditional massacres, but of nothing more or less than the complete extermination of the Armenians in Turkey. This fact Talaat Bey’s Turkish officials cynically admitted with some embarrassment to the German Consul.[Pg 347] The government first made out that they only wanted to clear the war zone and to assign new dwellings to the emigrants.

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

“The Germans, with a number of laudable exceptions, witnessed these things quite unperturbed, holding out the following excuse: ‘We just need the Turks, you see!’ I know for a fact, moreover, that an employee of the German Cotton Association and one of the Bagdad railway were forbidden to help the Armenians. German officers have also raised a complaint against their consul for his sympathy with the Armenians, and a German teacher, although most capable, was not appointed to a school of the Turco-German Association, on account of[Pg 348] his having an Armenian wife. They are afraid that the Turks might take offense at this. The Turks are less considerate. ‘The question is one of a Turkish internal affair, we must not mix ourselves up in it!’ This is what one constantly hears people say. Once it was a question, however, of persuading the Armenians to yield, they did mix themselves up in it!

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

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

“The Turk, if he is now asked what he is doing with the Armenians, simply replies, he is deporting them. The town of Kessab has been completely emptied.... All had been deported to places where they are sure to die, even the Home was not exempt this time, the government ordering the deportation of the children to Aleppo. This was protested against but the protest amounted to little, and the children were finally taken on a four days’ wearisome journey over mountain and valley to Aleppo, one of our workers (Miss Louisa Stahl) accompanying them that far, and paying sufficient money to a native pastor to look after them while she returned to Kessab to talk over matters with the others.

“Some time afterwards it was learned that the dear pastor in whose hands the money was entrusted was not[Pg 349] permitted by the authorities to have anything to do with the children, and they were transferred to the building in which they were housed to another building where they were sure to be infested with disease, and this so happened, and the majority of them [about 36 out of 39] succumbed to the privations and to death.”[183]

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

In conclusion, let us state a few facts: The extermination of two millions of innocent, “loyal to a fault,” Christian subjects of the Sultan of Turkey was planned at, and ordered from, Constantinople. This crime has been committed. The young Turks have proved themselves unfit to rule even under a constitution. The Turkish government has forfeited its right to exist as a government. She has been weighed and found wanting. The Young Turks[Pg 350] would not have dared to commit this awful crime, if this horrible war had not been brought about. Even after the war broke out, they hesitated until they were dragged into the war. Then those who are responsible for this war, and those who dragged the Turkish government into the conflict, must share the crime of the Turk. Again, the governments which had the sole influence over the unspeakable Turk to stop him from his barbarities, but did not for fear of offending him, or for other consideration are accessories to his crime.

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

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

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

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

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

The revolution in March (1917) in Russia was a great rejoicing for the lovers of freedom. But when some extreme Socialists claimed self-assumed authority as the deputies of the Socialistic Council of Soldiers and Workmen and seized the Provisional government and set up the Bolshevik reign by violence in November, they did not think that they were depriving themselves of the fruits of the revolution and democracy. And when they were intent to give peace to the war-worn nations of the world that they did neither think of their inability nor the Teutonic duplicity. And when their delegates met with the[Pg 352] delegates of the Germanic Allies in peace conference in January (1918), then they, for the first time, learned that they had to submit to the victor’s terms or fight. But to fight was impossible. They had already demoralized and demobilized the Russian army. The German forces began their advance into Russia at once. The Bolshevik delegates, who had broken off the conference and refused to sign the treaty, hurried back and signed it in February.

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

“Ye fearful Saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

“Judge not the Lord by feeble Sense,
But trust Him for His Grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

“Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own Interpreter,
And He will make it plain.”

FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcriber’s Notes

Errors in punctuation have been fixed.

In the table of contents, “Perisan Oppression” changed to “Persian Oppression”, “Rissian Armies in Armenia” changed to “Russian Armies in Armenia”, “Effect upon Armenian” changed to “Effect upon Armenia”, “Mohamedans” changed to “Mohammedans”

Page 31: “Morans Orienlatis” changed to “Morans Orientalis”

Page 51 and 52: “Nabopalassar” changed to “Nabopolassar”

Page 58: “called Apgarus” changed to “called Abgarus”

Page 60: “Melchezidek” changed to “Melchizidek”

Page 71: “the Armenia language” changed to “the Armenian language”

Page 75: “the Mamigomian” changed to “the Mamigonian”

Page 82: “Zoroastianism” changed to “Zoroastrianism”

Page 89: “to the pressent” changed to “to the present” “after Orthman or Osman” changed to “after Othman or Osman”

Page 91: “Seljinkian Turks” changed to “Seljukian Turks”

Page 92: “indiscrimimately” changed to “indiscriminately” “King Sennecherib” changed to “King Sennacherib”

Page 93: “Egyptian Calipths” changed to “Egyptian Caliphs” In the footnote, “Armenian langauge” changed to “Armenian language”

Page 103: “the Armenia church” changed to “the Armenian church”

Page 105: “Armedian bishops” changed to “Armenian bishops”

Page 117: “Afrer the death” changed to “After the death”

Page 127: “sequel or wars, famine,” changed to “sequel of wars, famine,” “of Azerbijan” changed to “of Azerbaijan”

Page 128: “to Adrianopole” changed to “to Adrianople”

Page 149: “possess a literture” changed to “possess a literature”

Page 166: “accordingly promulmated” changed to “accordingly promulgated”

Page 196: “from Alashgert” changed to “from Alashgerd”

Page 198: “complete, humuliating” changed to “complete, humiliating”

Page 205: “an dan eternal” changed to “and an eternal”

Page 207: “Mohammedansim minimizes” changed to “Mohammedanism minimizes”

Page 210: “Christion subjects” changed to “Christian subjects”

Page 229: In the footnote, “each sack containg” changed to “each sack containing”

Page 244: “esperially at that time” changed to “especially at that time”

Page 268: “moral eneregy” changed to “moral energy”

Page 287: “about Kassab” changed to “about Kessab” “assaulted and caried” changed to “assaulted to carried”

Page 291: “Bosnia and Herzehovnia” changed to “Bosnia and Herzegovnia”

Page 296: “in the Causasus” changed to “in the Caucasus”

Page 301: “is a decription” changed to “is a description”

Page 317: “following narative” changed to “following narrative”

Page 321: “who have been” changed to “who had been”

Page 323: “woman kidnaped” changed to “window kidnapped”

Page 332: “tortures and masmacres” changed to “tortures and massacres”

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The number of stations and out stations	370
The total number of missionaries	162
The total native workers	1204
Congregations	272
Organized churches	137
Communicants	13,891
Armenian Protestants	50,900
Sunday Schools	270
Sunday School Membership	29,686
Schools (total) Colleges, 8; Theological Schools, 3; Boarding, etc.	426
Total students	25,134
Hospitals and Dispensaries	19
Patients	39,503
Treatments	134,357
Native Contributions	$192,127

Constantinople	Sept. 30, 1895	500
Trebizond	Oct. 8, 1895	1,100
Ak Hissar	Oct. 9, 1895	45
Gumush Khana	Oct. 11, 1895	350
Baiburt	Oct. 13, 1895	800
Erzingian	Oct. 21, 1895	2,000
Bitlis	Oct. 26, 1895	3,000
Palu	Oct. 25, 1895	650
Diarbikir	Oct. 25, 1895	3,000
Kara Hissar	Oct. 25, 1895	800
Ersorum	Oct. 30, 1895	1,500
Boulouik and Khnus	Oct. 30, 1895	700
Tomzara	Oct. 28 and Nov. 8, 1895	700
Malatia	Nov. 6, 1895	5,000
Arabkir	Nov. 6, 1895	4,000
Harput[142]	Nov. 11, 1895	2,000[Pg 258]
Gurin	Nov. 10, 1895	2,000
Sivas	Nov. 12, 1895	1,500
Moosh	Nov. 15, 1895	350
Marsovan	Nov. 15, 1895	125
Aintab	Nov. 15, 1895	400
Marash	Nov. 18, 1895	1,000
Zilleh	Nov. 26, 1895	300
Cæsarea	Nov. 30, 1895	400
Urfa	Oct. 28 and Dec. 28-29, 1985	10,000
Biredjik	Jan. 1, 1896	900
Van Niksar	June, 1896	20,000
Eghin	June, 1896	20,000
Constantinople	Aug. 26-27, 1896	10,000

The number of persons killed, about	100,000
The number of houses and shops burnt	12,000
The number of houses plundered	47,000
The persons forced to accept Mohammedanism	40,000
The number of persons left destitute	400,000[143]

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Armenia, a martyr nation

ARMENIAA Martyr Nation

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

CONTENTS

A CRY FROM ARMENIA

IARMENIA

FOOTNOTES:

IITHE ARMENIANS

FOOTNOTES:

IIITHE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT ARMENIANS

FOOTNOTES:

IV.THE CONVERSION OF THE ARMENIANS

FOOTNOTES:

VTHE CONFLICTING FORCES

FOOTNOTES:

VITHE ARMENIAN CHURCH

FOOTNOTES:

VIITHE PERIOD OF SUBJECTION

FOOTNOTES:

VIIIA GENERAL SURVEY

FOOTNOTES:

IXTHE REFORMED CHURCH

FOOTNOTES:

XCAUSES OF PROGRESS, AND HINDRANCES

FOOTNOTES:

XITHE ARMENIAN QUESTION

FOOTNOTES:

XIITHE GOSPEL AND THE KORAN

FOOTNOTES:

XIIIMASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS

FOOTNOTES:

XIVTHE MASSACRE AT SASSOUN

FOOTNOTES:

XVTHE MASSACRE OF 1895-6

FOOTNOTES:

XVITHE REVOLUTION AND MASSACRES OF ADANA, 1908-1909

FOOTNOTES:

XVIITHE REIGN OF THE YOUNG TURKS

FOOTNOTES:

XVIIITHE MASSACRES OF 1915-16

FOOTNOTES:

XIXTHE DEPORTATIONS

FOOTNOTES:

XXCAMPS OF REFUGE

FOOTNOTES:

Transcriber’s Notes

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

ARMENIA
A Martyr Nation

I
ARMENIA

II
THE ARMENIANS

III
THE RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT ARMENIANS

IV.
THE CONVERSION OF THE ARMENIANS

V
THE CONFLICTING FORCES

VI
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

VII
THE PERIOD OF SUBJECTION

VIII
A GENERAL SURVEY

IX
THE REFORMED CHURCH

X
CAUSES OF PROGRESS, AND HINDRANCES

XI
THE ARMENIAN QUESTION

XII
THE GOSPEL AND THE KORAN

XIII
MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS

XIV
THE MASSACRE AT SASSOUN

XV
THE MASSACRE OF 1895-6

XVI
THE REVOLUTION AND MASSACRES OF ADANA, 1908-1909

XVII
THE REIGN OF THE YOUNG TURKS

XVIII
THE MASSACRES OF 1915-16

XIX
THE DEPORTATIONS

XX
CAMPS OF REFUGE