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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Martyred Armenia, by Fą'iz El-Ghusein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Martyred Armenia
+
+Author: Fą'iz El-Ghusein
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19986]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTYRED ARMENIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRED
+ARMENIA
+
+BY
+FĄ'IZ EL-GHUSEIN
+BEDOUIN NOTABLE OF DAMASCUS
+
+Translated from the Original Arabic
+All Rights of Translation Reserved
+
+NEW YORK
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+MCMXVIII
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+I am a Bedouin, a son of one of the Heads of the tribe of El-Sulūt, who
+dwell in El-Lejāt, in the Haurān territory. Like other sons of tribal
+Chiefs, I entered the Tribal School at Constantinople, and subsequently
+the Royal College. On the completion of my education, I was attached to
+the staff of the Vali of Syria (or Damascus), on which I remained for a
+long while. I was then Kaimakām of Mamouret-el-Azīz (Kharpout), holding
+this post for three and a half years, after which I practised as a
+lawyer at Damascus, my partners being Shukri Bey El-Asli and
+Abdul-Wahhāb Bey El-Inglīzi. I next became a member of the General
+Assembly at that place, representing Haurān, and later a member of the
+Committee of that Assembly. On the outbreak of the war, I was ordered to
+resume my previous career, that is, the duties of Kaimakām, but I did
+not comply, as I found the practice of the law more advantageous in many
+ways and more tranquil.
+
+I was denounced by an informer as being a delegate of a Society
+constituted in the Lebanon with the object of achieving the independence
+of the Arab people, under the protection of England and France, and of
+inciting the tribes against the Turkish Government. On receipt of this
+denunciation, I was arrested by the Government, thrown into prison, and
+subsequently sent in chains, with a company of police and gendarmes, to
+Aalīya, where persons accused of political offences were tried. I was
+acquitted, but as the Government disregarded the decisions given in such
+cases, and was resolved on the removal and destruction of all
+enlightened Arabs--whatever the circumstances might be--it was thought
+necessary that I should be despatched to Erzeroum, and Jemāl Pasha sent
+me thither with an officer and five of the regular troops. When I
+reached Diarbekir, Hasan Kaleh, at Erzeroum, was being pressed by the
+Russians, and the Vali of Diarbekir was ordered to detain me at that
+place.
+
+After twenty-two days' confinement in prison for no reason, I was
+released; I hired a house and remained at Diarbekir for six and a half
+months, seeing and hearing from the most reliable sources all that took
+place in regard to the Armenians, the majority of my informants being
+superior officers and officials, or Notables of Diarbekir and its
+dependencies, as well as others from Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-el-Azīz,
+Aleppo and Erzeroum. The people of Van had been in Diarbekir since the
+occupation of their territory by the Russians, whilst the people and
+officials of Bitlis had recently emigrated thither. Many of the Erzeroum
+officers came to Diarbekir on military or private business, whilst
+Mamouret-el-Azīz was near by, and many people came to us from thence. As
+I had formerly been a Kaimakām in that Vilayet, I had a large
+acquaintance there and heard all the news. More especially, the time
+which I passed in prison with the heads of the tribes in Diarbekir
+enabled me to study the movement in its smallest details. The war must
+needs come to an end after a while, and it will then be plain to
+readers of this book that all I have written is the truth, and that it
+contains only a small part of the atrocities committed by the Turks
+against the hapless Armenian people.
+
+After passing this time at Diarbekir I fled, both to escape from
+captivity and from fear induced by what had befallen me from some of the
+fanatical Turks. After great sufferings, during which I was often
+exposed to death and slaughter, I reached Basra, and conceived the idea
+of publishing this book, as a service to the cause of truth and of a
+people oppressed by the Turks, and also, as I have stated at the close,
+to defend the faith of Islam against the charge of fanaticism which will
+be brought against it by Europeans. May God guide us in the right way.
+
+_I have written this preface at Bombay, on the 1st of September, 1916._
+
+FĄ'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRED ARMENIA
+
+
+
+
+THE NARRATIVE
+
+
+OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.--In past ages the Armenian race was, like
+other nations, not possessed of an autonomous government, until God
+bestowed upon them a man, named Haig, a bold leader, who united the
+Armenians and formed them into an independent state. This took place
+before the Christian era. The nation preserved their independence for a
+considerable time, reaching the highest point of their glory and
+prosperity under their king Dikrān, who constituted the city of
+Dikrānokerta--Diarbekir--the capital of his Government. Armenia remained
+independent in the time of the Romans, extending her rule over a part of
+Asia Minor and Syria, and a portion of Persia, but, in consequence of
+the protection afforded by the Armenians to certain kings who were
+hostile to Rome, the Romans declared war against her, their troops
+entered her capital, and from that time Armenian independence was lost.
+The country remained tossing on the waves of despotism, now independent,
+now subjected to foreign rule, until its conquest by the Arabs and
+subsequently by the Ottoman power.
+
+THE ARMENIAN POPULATION.--The number of the Armenians in Ottoman
+territory does not exceed 1,900,000 souls. I have borrowed this figure
+from a book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the official
+computation made by the Government previous to the Balkan war; he
+estimates the Armenians residing in Roumelia at 400,000, those in
+Ottoman Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Russia and Persia are said
+not to exceed 3,000,000, thus bringing the total number of Armenians in
+the world to over four and a half millions.
+
+THE VILAYETS INHABITED BY ARMENIANS.--The Vilayets inhabited by
+Armenians are Diarbekir, Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Azīz, Sivas,
+Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constantinople. The numbers in
+Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diarbekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than
+those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they were fewer than the
+Turks and Kurds, with the exception of Van and Bitlis, where they were
+equal or superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vilayet of
+Bitlis) they were more numerous than the Kurds; all industry and
+commerce in those parts was in Armenian hands; their agriculture was
+more prosperous; they were much more advanced than the Turks and Kurds
+in those Vilayets; and the large number of their schools, contrasted
+with the few schools of their alien fellow countrymen, is a proof of
+their progress and of the decline of the other races.
+
+ARMENIAN SOCIETIES.--The Armenians possess learned and political
+Societies, the most important of which are the "Tashnagtziān" and the
+"Hunchak." The programme of these two Societies is to make every effort
+and adopt every means to attain that end from which no Armenian ever
+swerves, namely, administrative independence under the supervision of
+the Great Powers of Europe. I have enquired of many Armenians whom I
+have met, but I have not found one who said that he desired political
+independence, the reason being that in most of the Vilayets which they
+inhabit the Armenians are less numerous than the Kurds, and if they
+became independent the advantage to the Kurds would be greater than to
+themselves. Hitherto, the Kurds have been in a very degraded state of
+ignorance; disorder is supreme in their territory, and the cities are in
+ruins. The Armenians, therefore, prefer to remain under Turkish rule, on
+condition that the administration is carried on under the supervision of
+the Great European Powers, as they place no confidence in the promises
+of the Turks, who take back to-day what they bestowed yesterday. These
+two Societies thus earnestly labour for the propagation of this view
+amongst the Armenians, and for the attainment of their object by every
+means. I have been told by an Armenian officer that one of these
+Societies proposes to attain its end by means of internal revolts, but
+the policy of the second is to do so by peaceful means only.
+
+The above is a brief summary of the policy of these Societies. It is
+said, however, that the programme of one of them aims at Armenian
+political independence.
+
+Any who desire further details as to Armenian history or societies
+should refer to their historical books.
+
+THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES.--History does not record that the Kurds,
+fellow-countrymen of the Armenians in the Vilayets inhabited by both
+peoples, rose in conflict with the latter, or that the Kurds plundered
+the property of the Armenians, or outraged their women, until the year
+1888, when they rose by order of the Turkish Government and slaughtered
+Armenians in Van, Kharpout, Erzeroum, and Moush. Again, in the time of
+Abdul-Hamīd II., in 1896, when the Armenians rose and entered the
+Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, with the object of frightening the
+Sultan and compelling him to proclaim the Constitution, he ordered a
+massacre at Constantinople and in the Vilayets. But hitherto there has
+been no instance of the people of Turkey proceeding to the slaughter of
+Armenians on a general scale unless incited and constrained to do so by
+the Government. In the massacre of 1896, 15,000 were killed in
+Constantinople itself, and 300,000 in the Vilayets.
+
+Armenians were also killed in the Vilayet of Adana, some months after
+the proclamation of the Constitution, but this slaughter did not extend
+beyond the two Vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, where the influence of
+Abdul-Hamīd was paramount till the year 1909. I do not, however, find
+any detailed account of this massacre, or any information as to the
+numbers killed.
+
+The goods and cattle of the Armenians were plundered, and their houses
+wrecked, more especially in the slaughter of 1896, but many of their
+countrymen[A] protected them and concealed them in their houses from the
+officials of the Government.
+
+The Government consistently inflamed the Moslem Kurds and Turks against
+them, making use of the Faith of Islam as a means to attain their object
+in view of the ignorance of the Mohammedans as to the true laws of their
+religion.
+
+[Footnote A: Presumably amongst the Turks and Kurds.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+DECLARATION OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.--"Inasmuch as the Armenians are
+committing acts opposed to the laws and taking advantage of all
+occasions to disturb the Government; as they have been found in
+possession of prohibited arms, bombs, and explosive materials, prepared
+with the object of internal revolt; as they have killed Moslems in Van,
+and have aided the Russian armies at a time when the Government is in a
+state of war with England, France, and Russia; and in the apprehension
+that the Armenians may, as is their habit, lend themselves to seditious
+tumult and revolt; the Government have decreed that all the Armenians
+shall be collected and despatched to the Vilayets of Mosul, Syria, and
+Deir-el-Zūr, their persons, goods and honour being safeguarded. The
+necessary orders have been given for ensuring their comfort, and for
+their residence in those territories until the termination of the war."
+
+Such is the official declaration of the Ottoman Government in regard to
+the Armenians. But the secret resolution was that companies of militia
+should be formed to assist the gendarmes in the slaughter of the
+Armenians, that these should be killed to the last man, and that the
+work of murder and destruction should take place under the supervision
+of trusty agents of the Unionists, who were known for their brutality.
+Reshīd Bey was appointed to the Vilayet of Diarbekir and invested with
+extensive powers, having at his disposal a gang of notorious murderers,
+such as Ahmed Bey El-Serzi, Rushdi Bey, Khalīl Bey, and others of this
+description.
+
+The reason for this decision, as it was alleged, was that the Armenians
+residing in Europe and in Egypt had sent twenty of their devoted
+partisans to kill Talaat, Enver, and others of the Unionist leaders; the
+attempt had failed, as a certain Armenian, a traitor to his nation and a
+friend of Bedri Bey, the Chief of the Public Security at Constantinople
+(or according to others, Azmi Bey), divulged the matter and indicated
+the Armenian agents, who had arrived at Constantinople. The latter were
+arrested and executed, but secretly, in order that it might not be said
+that there were men attempting to kill the heads of the Unionist
+Society.
+
+Another alleged reason also was that certain Armenians, whom the
+Government had collected from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adrianople and
+had sent off to complete their military service, fled, with their arms,
+to Zeitoun, where they assembled, to the number of sixty young men, and
+commenced to resist the Government and to attack wayfarers. The
+Government despatched a military force under Fakhry Pasha, who proceeded
+to the spot, destroyed a part of Zeitoun, and killed men, women and
+children, without encountering opposition on the part of the Armenians.
+He collected the men and women and sent them off with parties of troops,
+who killed many of the men, whilst as for the women, do not ask what was
+their fate. They were delivered over to the Ottoman soldiery; the
+children died of hunger and thirst; not a man or woman reached Syria
+except the halt and blind, who were unable to keep themselves alive;
+the young men were all slaughtered; and the good-looking women fell into
+the hands of the Turkish youths.
+
+Emigrants from Roumelia were conveyed to Zeitoun and established there,
+the name of that place being changed to "Reshadīya," so that nothing
+should remain to remind the Turks of the Armenian name. During our
+journey from Hamah we saw many Armenian men and women, sitting under
+small tents which they had constructed from sheets, rugs, etc. Their
+condition was most pitiable, and how could it be otherwise? Many of
+these had been used to sit only on easy chairs [lit., rocking-chairs],
+amid luxurious furniture, in houses built in the best style, well
+arranged and splendidly furnished. I saw, as others saw also, many
+Armenian men and women in goods-wagons on the railway between Aleppo and
+Hamah, herded together in a way which moved compassion.
+
+After my arrival at Aleppo, and two days' stay there, we took the train
+to a place called Ser-Arab-Pounāri. I was accompanied by five Armenians,
+closely guarded, and despatched to Diarbekir. We walked on our feet
+thence to Serūj, where we stopped at a _khān_ [rest-house] filled with
+Armenian women and children, with a few sick men. These women were in a
+deplorable state, as they had done the journey from Erzeroum on foot,
+taking a long while to arrive at Serūj. I talked with them in Turkish,
+and they told me that the gendarmes with them had brought them to places
+where there was no water, refusing to tell them where water was to be
+found until they had received money as the price. Some of them, who were
+pregnant, had given birth on the way, and had abandoned their infants
+in the uninhabited wastes. Most of these women had left their children
+behind, either in despair, or owing to illness or weakness which made
+them unable to carry them, so they threw them on the ground; some from
+natural affection could not do this and so perished in the desert, not
+parted from their infants. They told me that there were some among them
+who had not been used to walk for a single hour, having been brought up
+in luxury, with men to wait on them and women to attend them. These had
+fallen into the hands of the Kurds, who recognize no divine law, and who
+live on lofty mountains and in dense forests like beasts of prey; their
+honour was outraged and they died by brutal violence, many of them
+killing themselves rather than sacrifice their virtue to these ravening
+wolves.
+
+We then proceeded in carts from Serūj to El-Raha (Urfa). On the way I
+saw crowds going on foot, whom from a distance I took for troops
+marching to the field of battle. On approaching, I found they were
+Armenian women, walking barefoot and weary, placed in ranks like the
+gendarmes who preceded and followed them. Whenever one of them lagged
+behind, a gendarme would beat her with the butt of his rifle, throwing
+her on her face, till she rose terrified and rejoined her companions.
+But if one lagged from sickness, she was either abandoned, alone in the
+wilderness, without help or comfort, to be a prey to wild beasts, or a
+gendarme ended her life by a bullet.
+
+On arrival at Urfa, we learned that the Government had sent a force of
+gendarmes and police to the Armenian quarters of the town to collect
+their arms, subsequently dealing with these people as with others. As
+they were aware of what had happened to their kinsmen--the _khāns_ at
+Urfa being full of women and children--they did not give up their arms,
+but showed armed resistance, killing one man of the police and three
+gendarmes. The authorities of Urfa applied for a force from Aleppo, and
+by order of Jemāl Pasha--the executioner of Syria--Fakhry Pasha came
+with cannon. He turned the Armenian quarters into a waste place, killing
+the men and the children, and great numbers of the women, except such as
+yielded themselves to share the fate of their sisters--expulsion on foot
+to Deir-el-Zūr, after the Pasha and his officers had selected the
+prettiest amongst them. Disease was raging among them; they were
+outraged by the Turks and Kurds; and hunger and thirst completed their
+extermination.
+
+After leaving Urfa, we again saw throngs of women, exhausted by fatigue
+and misery, dying of hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the
+dead lying by the roadside.
+
+On our arrival at a place near a village called Kara Jevren, about six
+hours distant from Urfa, we stopped at a spring to breakfast and drink.
+I went a little apart, towards the source, and came upon a most
+appalling spectacle. A woman, partly unclothed, was lying prone, her
+chemise disordered and red with blood, with four bullet-wounds in her
+breast. I could not restrain myself, but wept bitterly. As I drew out a
+handkerchief to wipe away my tears, and looked round to see whether any
+of my companions had observed me, I saw a child not more than eight
+years old, lying on his face, his head cloven by an axe. This made my
+grief the more vehement, but my companions cut short my lamentations,
+for I heard the officer, Aarif Effendi, calling to the priest Isaac, and
+saying, "Come here at once," and I knew that he had seen something which
+had startled him. I went towards him, and what did I behold? Three
+children lying in the water, in terror of their lives from the Kurds,
+who had stripped them of their clothes and tortured them in various
+ways, their mother near by, moaning with pain and hunger. She told us
+her story, saying that she was from Erzeroum, and had been brought by
+the troops to this place with many other women after a journey of many
+days. After they had been plundered of money and clothing, and the
+prettiest women had been picked out and handed over to the Kurds, they
+reached this place, where Kurdish men and women collected and robbed
+them of all the clothes that remained on them. She herself had stayed
+here, as she was sick and her children would not leave her. The Kurds
+came upon them again and left them naked. The children had lain in the
+water in their terror, and she was at the point of death. The priest
+collected some articles of clothing and gave them to the woman and the
+children; the officer sent a man to the post of gendarmes which was near
+by, and ordered the gendarme whom the man brought with him to send on
+the woman and children to Urfa, and to bury the bodies which were near
+the guardhouse. The sick woman told me that the dead woman refused to
+yield herself to outrage, so they killed her and she died nobly, chaste
+and pure from defilement; to induce her to yield they killed her son
+beside her, but she was firm in her resolve and died heart-broken.
+
+In the afternoon we went on towards Kara Jevren, and one of the drivers
+pointed out to us some high mounds, surrounded by stones and rocks,
+saying that here Zohrāb and Vartakis had been killed, they having been
+leading Notables among the Armenians, and their Deputies.
+
+KRIKŌR ZOHRĀB AND VARTAKIS.--No one is ignorant of who and what was
+Zohrāb, the Armenian Deputy for Constantinople, his name and repute
+being celebrated after the institution of the Chamber. He used to speak
+with learning and reflection, refuting objections by powerful arguments
+and convincing proofs. His speeches in the Chamber were mostly
+conclusive. He was learned in all subjects, but especially in the
+science of law, as he was a graduate of universities and had practised
+at the Bar for many years. He was endowed with eloquence and great
+powers of exposition; he was courageous, not to be turned from his
+purpose or intimidated from pursuing his national aims. When the
+Unionists realised that they were deficient in knowledge, understanding
+nothing about polity or administration, and not aware of the meaning of
+liberty or constitutional government, they resolved to return to the
+system of their Tartar forefathers, the devastation of cities and the
+slaughter of innocent men, as it was in that direction that their powers
+lay. They sent Zohrāb and his colleague Vartakis away from
+Constantinople, with orders that they should be killed on the way, and
+it was announced that they had been murdered by a band of brigands. They
+killed them in order that it might not be said that Armenians were more
+powerful, more learned, and more intelligent than Turks. Why should such
+bands murder none but Armenians? The falsity of the statement is
+obvious.
+
+Zohrāb and Vartakis fell victims to their own courage and firmness of
+purpose; they were killed out of envy of their learning and their love
+for their own people, and for their tenacity in pursuing their own path.
+They were killed by that villain, Ahmed El-Serzi, one of the sworn men
+of the Unionists, he who murdered Zeki Bey; his story in the Ottoman
+upheaval is well known, and how the Unionists saved him from his fitting
+punishment and even from prison. A Kurd told me that Vartakis was one of
+the boldest and most courageous men who ever lived; he was chief of the
+Armenian bands in the time of Abdul-Hamīd; he was wounded in the foot by
+a cannon-ball whilst the Turkish troops were pursuing these bands, and
+was imprisoned either at Erzeroum or at Maaden, in the Vilayet of
+Diarbekir. The Sultan Abdul-Hamīd, through his officials, charged him to
+modify his attitude and acknowledge that he had been in error, when he
+should be pardoned and appointed to any post he might choose. He
+rejected this offer, saying, "I will not sell my conscience for a post,
+or say that the Government of Abdul-Hamīd is just, whilst I see its
+tyranny with my eyes and touch it with my hand."
+
+It is said that the Unionists ordered that all the Armenian Deputies
+should be put to death, and the greater number of them were thus dealt
+with. It is reported also that Dikrān Gilikiān, the well-known writer,
+who was an adherent of the Committee of Union and Progress, was killed
+in return for his learning, capacity, and devotion to their cause. Such
+was the recompense of his services to the Unionists.
+
+In the evening we arrived at Kara Jevren, and slept there till morning.
+At sunrise we went on towards Sivrek, and half-way on the road we saw a
+terrible spectacle. The corpses of the killed were lying in great
+numbers on both sides of the road; here we saw a woman outstretched on
+the ground, her body half veiled by her long hair; there, women lying on
+their faces, the dried blood blackening their delicate forms; there
+again, the corpses of men, parched to the semblance of charcoal by the
+heat of the sun. As we approached Sivrek, the corpses became more
+numerous, the bodies of children being in a great majority. As we
+arrived at Sivrek and left our carts, we saw one of the servants of the
+_khān_ carrying a little infant with hair as yellow as gold, whom he
+threw behind the house. We asked him about it, and he said that there
+were three sick Armenian women in the house, who had lagged behind their
+companions, that one of them had given birth to this infant, but could
+not nourish it, owing to her illness. So it had died and been thrown
+out, as one might throw out a mouse.
+
+DEMAND FOR RANSOM.--Whilst we were at Sivrek, Aarif Effendi told
+me--after he had been at the Government offices--that the Commandant of
+Gendarmerie and the Chief of Police of that place had requested him to
+hand over to them the five Armenians who were with him, and that on his
+refusal they had insisted, saying that, if they were to reach Diarbekir
+in safety, they must pay a ransom of fifty liras for themselves. We went
+to the _khān_, where the officer summoned the priest Isaac and told him
+how matters stood. After speaking to his companions, the priest replied
+that they could pay only ten liras altogether, as they had no more in
+their possession. When convinced by his words, the officer took the ten
+liras and undertook to satisfy the others.
+
+This officer had a dispute with the Commandant of Gendarmerie at Aleppo,
+the latter desiring to take these five men on the grounds that they had
+been sent with a gendarme for delivery to his office. Ahmed Bey, the
+Chief of the Irregular band at Urfa, also desired to take them, but the
+officer refused to give them up to him--he being a member of the
+Committee of Union and Progress--and brought them in safety to
+Diarbekir.
+
+After passing the night at Sivrek we left early in the morning. As we
+approached Diarbekir the corpses became more numerous, and on our route
+we met companies of women going to Sivrek under guard of gendarmes,
+weary and wretched, the traces of tears and misery plain on their
+faces--a plight to bring tears of blood from stones, and move the
+compassion of beasts of prey.
+
+What, in God's name, had these women done? Had they made war on the
+Turks, or killed even one of them? What was the crime of these hapless
+creatures, whose sole offence was that they were Armenians, skilled in
+the management of their homes and the training of their children, with
+no thought beyond the comfort of their husbands and sons, and the
+fulfilment of their duties towards them.
+
+I ask you, O Moslems--is this to be counted as a crime? Think for a
+moment. What was the fault of these poor women? Was it in their being
+superior to the Turkish women in every respect? Even assuming that their
+men had merited such treatment, is it right that these women should be
+dealt with in a manner from which wild beasts would recoil? God has said
+in the Koran: "Do not load one with another's burthens," that is, Let
+not one be punished for another.
+
+What had these weak women done, and what had their infants done? Can the
+men of the Turkish Government bring forward even a feeble proof to
+justify their action and to convince the people of Islam, who hold that
+action for unlawful and reject it? No; they can find no word to say
+before a people whose usages are founded on justice, and their laws on
+wisdom and reason.
+
+Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to be the supports of
+Islam and the _Khilāfat_, the protectors of the Moslems, should
+transgress the command of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions of
+the Prophet, and humanity? Truly, they have committed an act at which
+Islam is revolted, as well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the
+earth, be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolators. As God lives, it
+is a shameful deed, the like of which has not been done by any people
+counting themselves as civilised.
+
+THE INFANT IN THE WASTE.--After we had gone a considerable distance we
+saw a child of not more than four years old, with a fair complexion,
+blue eyes, and golden hair, with all the indications of luxury and
+pampering, standing in the sun, motionless and speechless. The officer
+told the driver to stop the cart, got out alone, and questioned the
+child, who made no reply, and did not utter a word. The officer said:
+"If we take this child with us to Diarbekir, the authorities will take
+him from us, and he will share the fate of his people in being killed.
+It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move one of the Kurds to
+compassion, that he take him and bring him up." None of us could say
+anything to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leaving the child
+as we found him, without speech, tears, or movement. Who knows of what
+rich man or Notable of the Armenians he was the son? He had hardly seen
+the light when he was orphaned by the slaughter of his parents and
+kinsmen. Those who should have carried him were weary of him--for the
+women were unable to carry even themselves--so they had abandoned him in
+the waste, far from human habitation. Man, who shows kindness to beasts,
+and forms societies for their protection, can be merciless to his own
+kind, more especially to infants who can utter no complaint; he leaves
+them under the heat of the sun, thirsty and famishing, to be devoured by
+wild creatures.
+
+Leaving the boy, our hearts burning within us, and full of grief and
+anguish, we arrived before sunset at a _khān_ some hours distant from
+Diarbekir. There we passed the night, and in the morning we went on amid
+the mangled forms of the slain. The same sight met our view on every
+side; a man lying, his breast pierced by a bullet; a woman torn open by
+lead; a child sleeping his last sleep beside his mother; a girl in the
+flower of her age, in a posture which told its own story. Such was our
+journey until we arrived at a canal, called Kara Pounār, near
+Diarbekir, and here we found a change in the method of murder and
+savagery.
+
+We saw here bodies burned to ashes. God, from whom no secrets are hid,
+knows how many young men and fair girls, who should have led happy lives
+together, had been consumed by fire in this ill-omened place.
+
+We had expected not to find corpses of the killed near to the walls of
+Diarbekir, but we were mistaken, for we journeyed among the bodies until
+we entered the city gate. As I was informed by some Europeans who
+returned from Armenia after the massacres, the Government ordered the
+burial of all the bodies from the roadside when the matter had become
+the subject of comment in European newspapers.
+
+IN PRISON.--On our arrival at Diarbekir the officer handed us over to
+the authorities and we were thrown into prison, where I remained for
+twenty-two days. During this time I obtained full information about the
+movement from one of the prisoners, who was a Moslem of Diarbekir, and
+who related to me what had happened to the Armenians there. I asked him
+what was the reason of the affair, why the Government had treated them
+in this way, and whether they had committed any act calling for their
+complete extermination. He said that, after the declaration of war, the
+Armenians, especially the younger men, had failed to comply with the
+orders of the Government, that most of them had evaded military service
+by flight, and had formed companies which they called "Roof Companies."
+These took money from the wealthy Armenians for the purchase of arms,
+which they did not deliver to the authorities, but sent to their
+companies, until the leading Armenians and Notables assembled, went to
+the Government offices, and requested that these men should be punished
+as they were displeased at their proceedings.
+
+I asked whether the Armenians had killed any Government official, or any
+Turks or Kurds in Diarbekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but
+that a few days after the arrival of the Vali, Reshīd Bey, and the
+Commandant of Gendarmerie, Rushdi Bey, prohibited arms had been found in
+some Armenian houses, and also in the church. On the discovery of these
+arms, the Government summoned some of the principal Armenians and flung
+them into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated
+representations, asking for the release of these men, but the
+Government, far from complying with the request, imprisoned the
+ecclesiastics also, the number of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to
+nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant of Gendarmerie came and
+informed them that an Imperial Order had been issued for their
+banishment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the end of the war.
+They were rejoiced at this, procured all they required in the way of
+money, clothes, and furniture, and embarked on the _keleks_ (wooden
+rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabitants of that region
+for travelling on the Euphrates and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a
+while it was understood that they had all been drowned in the Tigris,
+and that none of them had reached Mosul. The authorities continued to
+send off and kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women and
+children, the first families sent from Diarbekir being those of
+Kazaziān, Tirpanjiān, Minassiān, and Kechijiān, who were the wealthiest
+families in the place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop named--as
+far as I recollect--Homandriās; he was the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a
+venerable and learned old man of about eighty; they showed no respect to
+his white beard, but drowned him in the Tigris.
+
+Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was also among the 700
+imprisoned. When he saw what was happening to his people he could not
+endure the disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petroleum over
+himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who was imprisoned for having
+written a letter to this bishop three years before the events, told me
+that he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted to his people,
+with no fear of death, but unable to submit to oppression and
+humiliation.
+
+Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Armenians in the gaol itself,
+and killed two or three of them out of greed for their money and
+clothing, but nothing was done to bring them to account. The Government
+left only a very small number of Armenians in Diarbekir, these being
+such as were skilled in making boots and similar articles for the army.
+Nineteen individuals had remained in the prison, where I saw and talked
+with them; these, according to the pretence of the authorities, were
+Armenian bravoes.
+
+The last family deported from Diarbekir was that of Dunjiān, about
+November, 1915. This family was protected by certain Notables of the
+place, from desire for their money, or the beauty of some of their
+women.
+
+DIKRĀN.--This man was a member of the central committee of the
+Tashnagtziān Society in Diarbekir. An official of that place, who
+belonged to the Society of Union and Progress, told me that the
+authorities seized Dikrān and demanded from him the names of his
+associates. He refused, and said that he could not give the names until
+the committee had met and decided whether or not it was proper to
+furnish this information to the Government. He was subjected to
+varieties of torture, such as putting his feet in irons till they
+swelled and he could not walk, plucking out his nails and eyelashes with
+a cruel instrument, etc., but he would not say a word, nor give the name
+of one of his associates. He was deported with the others and died nobly
+out of love for his nation, preferring death to the betrayal of the
+secrets of his brave people to the Government.
+
+AGHŌB KAITANJIĀN.--Aghōb Kaitanjiān was one of the Armenians imprisoned
+on the charge of being bravoes of the Armenian Society in Diarbekir, and
+in whose possession explosive material had been found. I often talked to
+him, and I asked him to tell me his story. He said that one day, whilst
+he was sitting in his house, a police agent knocked at the door and told
+him that the Chief of Police wished to see him at his office. He went
+there, and some of the police asked him about the Armenian Society and
+its bravoes. He replied that he knew nothing of either societies or
+bravoes. He was then bastinadoed and tortured in various ways for
+several days till he despaired of life, preferring death to a
+continuance of degradation. He had a knife with him, and when they
+aggravated the torture so that he could endure it no longer, he asked
+them to let him go to the latrine and on his return he would tell them
+all he knew about the Armenian matter. With the help of the police he
+went, and cut the arteries of his wrists[B] ... with the object of
+committing suicide. The blood gushed out freely; he got to the door of
+the police-office and there fainted. They poured water on his face and
+he recovered consciousness; he was brought before the officer and the
+interrogatory was renewed.[B] ... The Chief of Police was confounded at
+this proceeding and sent him to the hospital until he was cured. I saw
+the wounds on his hands, and they were completely healed. This was the
+story as he told it to me himself. He desired me to publish it in an
+Armenian newspaper called _Häyrenīk_ (Fatherland), which appears in
+America, in order that it may be read by his brother Garabet, now in
+that country, who had been convinced that the Government would leave
+none of them alive.
+
+I associated freely with the young Armenians who were imprisoned, and we
+talked much of these acts, the like of which, as happening to a nation
+such as theirs, have never been heard of, nor recorded in the history of
+past ages. These youths were sent for trial by the court-martial at
+Kharpout, and I heard that they arrived there safely and asked
+permission to embrace the Moslem faith. This was to escape from
+contemptuous treatment by the Kurds, and not from the fear of death, as
+their conversion would not save them from the penalty if they were shown
+to deserve it. Before their departure they asked me what I had heard
+about them, and whether the authorities purposed to kill them on the
+way or not. After enquiring about this, and ascertaining that they would
+not be killed in this way, I informed them accordingly; they were
+rejoiced, saying that all they desired was to remain alive to see the
+results of the war. They said that the Armenians deserved the treatment
+which they had received, as they would never see the necessity for
+taking precautions against the Turks, believing that the constitutional
+Turkish Government would never proceed to measures of this kind without
+valid reason. The Government has perpetrated these deeds although no
+official, Kurd, Turk, or Moslem, has been killed by an Armenian, and we
+know not what the weighty reasons may have been which impelled them to
+so unprecedented a measure. And if the Armenians should not be
+reproached with a negligence for which they have paid dearly, yet a
+people who do not take full precautions are liable to be taxed justly
+with blameworthy carelessness.
+
+[Footnote B: Episodes in the original are here omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+MY TRAVELLING-COMPANIONS.--From time to time I visited the men who had
+been in my company during the journey, but after my release the director
+of the prison would not permit me to go to them. I used, therefore, to
+ask for one of them and talk with him outside the prison in which the
+Armenians were confined. After a while I enquired for them and was told
+that they had been sent to execution, like others before them, and at
+this I cried out in dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been
+imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge of having stolen
+articles from the effects of dead Armenians, and as he knew my
+companions I asked him about them. He said that he had killed the
+priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gendarmes had laid wagers
+in firing at his clerical headdress. "I made the best shooting, hit the
+hat and knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second ball." My
+answer was silence. The man firmly believed that these murders were
+necessary, the Sultan having so ordered.
+
+THE SALE OF LETTERS.--When the Government first commenced the
+deportation of the 700 men, the officials were instructed to prepare
+letters, signed with the names of the former, and to send them to the
+families of the banished individuals in order to mislead them, as it was
+feared that the Armenians might take some action which would defeat the
+plan and divulge the secret to the other Armenians, thus rendering their
+extermination impracticable. The unhappy families gave large sums to
+those who brought them letters from their Head. The Government appointed
+a Kurd, a noted brigand, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to
+slaughter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their destination.
+When the Government was secure as to the Armenians, a man was despatched
+to kill the Kurd, whose name was Aami Hassi, or Hassi Aami.
+
+SLAUGHTER OF THE PROTESTANT, CHALDEAN, AND SYRIAC COMMUNITIES.--The
+slaughter was general throughout these communities, not a single
+protestant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the Syriac
+Community were exterminated, with a part of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir,
+and in its dependencies, none escaped save those in Madiāt and Mardīn.
+When latterly orders were given that only Armenians were to be killed,
+and that those belonging to other communities should not be touched,
+the Government held their hand from the destruction of the latter.
+
+THE SYRIACS.--But the Syriacs in the province of Madiāt were brave men,
+braver than all the other tribes in these regions. When they heard what
+had fallen upon their brethren at Diarbekir and the vicinity they
+assembled, fortified themselves in three villages near Madiāt, and made
+a heroic resistance, showing a courage beyond description. The
+Government sent against them two companies of regulars, besides a
+company of gendarmes which had been despatched thither previously; the
+Kurdish tribes assembled against them, but without result, and thus they
+protected their lives, honour, and possessions from the tyranny of this
+oppressive Government. An Imperial Irādeh was issued, granting them
+pardon, but they placed no reliance on it and did not surrender, for
+past experience had shown them that this is the most false Government on
+the face of the earth, taking back to-day what it gave yesterday, and
+punishing to-day with most cruel penalties him whom it had previously
+pardoned.
+
+CONVERSATION between a postal contractor from Bitlis and a friend of
+mine, as we were sitting at a café in Diarbekir:
+
+Contractor: I see many Armenians in Diarbekir. How comes it that they
+are still here?
+
+My Friend: These are not Armenians, but Syriacs and Chaldeans.
+
+Contractor: The Government of Bitlis has not left a single Christian in
+that Vilayet, nor in the district of Moush. If a doctor told a sick man
+that the remedy for his disease was the heart of a Christian he would
+not find one though he searched through the whole Vilayet.
+
+PROTECTION AFFORDED BY KURDS TO ARMENIANS ON PAYMENT.--The Armenians
+were confined in the main ward of the prison at Diarbekir, and from time
+to time I visited them. One day, on waking from sleep, I went to see
+them in their ward and found them collecting rice, flour and moneys. I
+asked them the reason of this, and they said: "What are we to do? If we
+do not collect a quantity every week and give it to the Kurds, they
+insult and beat us, so we give these things to some of them so that they
+may protect us from the outrages of their fellows." I exclaimed, "There
+is no power nor might but in God," and went back grieving over their
+lot.
+
+DESPATCH OF THE ARMENIANS TO THE SLAUGHTER.--This was a most shocking
+proceeding, appalling in its atrocity. One of the gendarmes in Diarbekir
+related to me how it was done. He said that, when orders were given for
+the removal and destruction of a family, an official went to the house,
+counted the members of the family, and delivered them to the Commandant
+of Militia or one of the officers of Gendarmerie. Men were posted to
+keep guard over the house and its occupants during the night until 8
+o'clock, thereby giving notice to the wretched family that they must
+prepare for death. The women shrieked and wailed, anguish and despair
+showed on the faces of all, and they died even before death came upon
+them.[C] ... After 8 o'clock waggons arrived and conveyed the families
+to a place near by, where they were killed by rifle fire, or massacred
+like sheep with knives, daggers, and axes.
+
+[Footnote C: A few sentences of immaterial description are here
+omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+SALE OF ARMENIAN EFFECTS, AND REMOVAL OF CROSSES FROM THE
+CHURCHES.--After the Armenians had been destroyed, all the furniture of
+their houses, their linen, effects, and implements of all kinds, as well
+as all the contents of their shops and storehouses, were collected in
+the churches or other large buildings. The authorities appointed
+committees for the sale of these goods, which were disposed of at the
+lowest price, as might be the case with the effects of those who died a
+natural death, but with this difference, that the money realised went to
+the Treasury of the Turkish Government, instead of to the heirs of the
+deceased.
+
+You might see a carpet, worth thirty pounds, sold for five, a man's
+costume, worth four pounds, sold for two medjidies, and so on with the
+rest of the articles, this being especially the case with musical
+instruments, such as pianos, etc., which had no value at all. All money
+and valuables were collected by the Commandant of Gendarmerie and the
+Vali, Reshīd Bey, the latter taking them with him when he went to
+Constantinople, and delivering them to Talaat Bey.[D] ...
+
+The mind is confounded by the reflection that this people of Armenia,
+this brave race who astonished the world by their courage, resolution,
+progress and knowledge, who yesterday were the most powerful and most
+highly cultivated of the Ottoman peoples, have become merely a memory,
+as though they had never flourished. Their learned books are waste
+paper, used to wrap up cheese or dates, and I was told that one high
+official had bought thirty volumes of French literature for 50 piastres.
+Their schools are closed, after being thronged with pupils. Such is the
+evil end of the Armenian race: let it be a warning to those peoples who
+are striving for freedom, and let them understand that freedom is not to
+be achieved but by the shedding of blood, and that words are the
+stock-in-trade of the weak alone.
+
+I observed that the crosses had been removed from the lofty steeples of
+the churches, which are used as storehouses and markets for the keeping
+and sale of the effects of the dead.
+
+[Footnote D: Some remarks in this connection are omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+METHODS OF SLAUGHTER.--These were of various kinds. An officer told me
+that in the Vilayet of Bitlis the authorities collected the Armenians in
+barns full of straw (or chaff), piling up straw in front of the door and
+setting it on fire, so that the Armenians inside perished in the smoke.
+He said that sometimes hundreds were put together in one barn. Other
+modes of killing were also employed (at Bitlis). He told me, to my deep
+sorrow, how he had seen a girl hold her lover in her embrace, and so
+enter the barn to meet her death without a tremor.
+
+At Moush, a part were killed in straw-barns, but the greater number by
+shooting or stabbing with knives, the Government hiring butchers, who
+received a Turkish pound each day as wages. A doctor, named Azīz Bey,
+told me that when he was at Marzifūn, in the Vilayet of Sivas, he heard
+that a caravan of Armenians was being sent to execution. He went to the
+Kaimakām and said to him: "You know I am a doctor, and there is no
+difference between doctors and butchers, as doctors are mostly occupied
+in cutting up mankind. And as the duties of a Kaimakām at this time are
+also like our own--cutting up human bodies--I beg you to let me see this
+surgical operation myself." Permission was given, and the doctor went.
+He found four butchers, each with a long knife; the gendarmes divided
+the Armenians into parties of ten, and sent them up to the butchers one
+by one. The butcher told the Armenian to stretch out his neck; he did
+so, and was slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was amazed at their
+steadfastness in presence of death, not saying a word, or showing any
+sign of fear.
+
+The gendarmes used also to bind the women and children and throw them
+down from a very lofty eminence, so that they reached the ground
+shattered to pieces. This place is said to be between Diarbekir and
+Mardīn, and the bones of the slain are there in heaps to this day.
+
+Another informant told me that the Diarbekir authorities had killed the
+Armenians either by shooting, by the butchers, or at times by putting
+numbers of them in wells and caves, which were blocked up so that they
+perished. Also they threw them into the Tigris and the Euphrates, and
+the bodies caused an epidemic of typhus fever. Two thousand Armenians
+were slaughtered at a place outside the walls of Diarbekir, between the
+Castle of Sultan Murad and the Tigris, and at not more than half an
+hour's distance from the city.
+
+BRUTALITY OF THE GENDARMES AND KURDISH TRIBES.--There is no doubt that
+what is related as to the proceedings of the gendarmes and the Kurdish
+tribes actually took place. On receiving a caravan of Armenians the
+gendarmes searched them one by one, men and women, taking any money they
+might find, and stripping them of the better portions of their clothing.
+When they were satisfied that there remained no money, good clothes, or
+other things of value, they sold the Armenians in thousands to the
+Kurds, on the stipulation that none should be left alive. The price was
+in accordance with the number of the party; I was told by a reliable
+informant of cases where the price had varied between 2,000 and 200
+liras.
+
+After purchasing the caravans, the Kurds stripped all the Armenians, men
+and women, of their clothes, so that they remained entirely naked. They
+then shot them down, every one, after which they cut open their stomachs
+to search for money amongst the entrails, also cutting up the clothing,
+boots, etc., with the same object.
+
+Such were the dealings of the official gendarmerie and the Kurds with
+their fellow-creatures. The reason of the sale of the parties by the
+gendarmes was to save themselves trouble, and to obtain delivery of
+further parties to plunder of their money.
+
+Woe to him who had teeth of gold, or gold-plated. The gendarmes and
+Kurds used to violently draw out his teeth before arriving at the place
+of execution, thus inflicting tortures before actual death.
+
+A KURDISH AGHA SLAUGHTERS 50,000 ARMENIANS.--A Kurd told me that the
+authorities of Kharpout handed over to one of the Kurdish Aghas in that
+Vilayet, in three batches, more than 50,000 Armenians from Erzeroum,
+Trebizond, Sivas, and Constantinople, with orders to kill them and to
+divide with themselves the property which he might take from them. He
+killed them all and took from them their money and other belongings. He
+hired 600 mules for the women, to convey them to Urfa, at the rate of
+three liras a head. After receiving the price, he collected mules
+belonging to his tribe, mounted the women on them, and brought them to a
+place between Malatīya and Urfa, where he killed them in the most
+barbarous way, taking all their money, clothes, and valuables.
+
+THE VIOLATION OF WOMEN BEFORE OR AFTER DEATH.--[E] ...
+
+[Footnote E: I refrain from particulars. The gendarmes and Kurds are
+stated to have been the perpetrators of these acts.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+INCIDENT OF THE SHEIKH AND THE GIRL.--I said above that the Armenian
+women were sent off in batches under guard of gendarmes. Whenever they
+passed by a village the inhabitants would come and choose any they
+desired, taking them away and giving a small sum to the gendarmes. At
+one place a Kurd of over 60 picked out a beautiful girl of 16. She
+refused to have anything to do with him, but said she was ready to
+embrace Islam and marry a youth of her own age. This the Kurds would not
+allow, but gave her the choice between death and the Sheikh; she still
+refused, and was killed.
+
+BARSOUM AGHA.--Whilst I was Kaimakām of the district of Kiakhta, in the
+Vilayet of Kharpout, I was acquainted with an Armenian Notable of that
+place, named Barsoum Agha. He was a worthy and courageous man, dealing
+well with Kurds, Turks, and Armenians, without distinction; he also
+showed much kindness to officials who were dismissed from their posts in
+the district. All the Kurdish Aghas thereabouts kept close watch over
+him, hating him because he was their rival in the supremacy of the
+place. When, after my banishment, I arrived at Sivrek and heard what had
+befallen the Armenians, I enquired about him and his family. I was told
+that when the Government disposed of the Armenians of Kiakhta he was
+summoned and ordered to produce the records of moneys owing to him
+(Kurds and Armenians in that district owed him a sum of 10,000 liras);
+he replied that he had torn up the records and released his debtors from
+their obligations. He was taken away with the other Armenians, and on
+arrival at the Euphrates he asked permission to drown himself. This was
+granted, and he endeavoured to do so, but failed, as he could not master
+himself. So he said to the gendarmes, "Life is dear and I cannot kill
+myself, so do as you have been ordered," whereupon one of them shot him
+and then killed the rest of the family.
+
+NARRATIVE OF A YOUNG TURK.--This youth, who had come to Diarbekir as a
+schoolmaster, told me that the Government had informed the Armenians of
+Broussa that their deportation had been decided, and that they were to
+leave for Mosul, Syria, or El-Deir three days after receiving the order.
+After selling what they could, they hired carts and carriages for the
+transport of their goods and themselves and started--as they
+thought--for their destination. On their arrival at a very rugged and
+barren place, far distant from any villages, the drivers, in conformity
+with their instructions, broke up the conveyances and left the people in
+the waste, returning in the night to plunder them. Many died there of
+hunger and terror; a great part were killed on the road; and only a few
+reached Syria or El-Deir.
+
+CHILDREN PERISHING OF HUNGER AND THIRST.--An Arab of El-Jezīra, who
+accompanied me on my flight from Diarbekir, told me that he had gone
+with a Sheikh of his tribe, men and camels, to buy grain from the sons
+of Ibrahim Pasha El-Mellili. On their way they saw 17 children, the
+eldest not more than 13 years old, dying of hunger and thirst. The Arab
+said: "We had with us a small water-skin and a little food. When the
+Sheikh saw them he wept with pity, and gave them food and water with his
+own hands; but what good could this small supply do to them? We
+reflected that if we took them with us to the Pasha, they would be
+killed, as the Kurds were killing all Armenians by order of the
+authorities; and our Arabs were at five days' distance from the place.
+So we had no choice but to leave them to the mercy of God, and on our
+return, a week later, we found them all dead."
+
+NARRATIVE OF A PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR.--We were talking of the courage and
+good qualities of the Armenians, and the Governor of the place, who was
+with us, told us a singular story. He said: "According to orders, I
+collected all the remaining Armenians, consisting of 17 women and some
+children, amongst whom was a child of 3 years old, diseased, who had
+never been able to walk. When the butchers began slaughtering the women
+and the turn of the child's mother came, he rose up on his feet and ran
+for a space, then falling down. We were astonished at this, and at his
+understanding that his mother was to be killed. A gendarme went and took
+hold of him, and laid him dead on his dead mother." He also said that
+he had seen one of these women eating a piece of bread as she went up to
+the butcher, another smoking a cigarette, and that it was as though they
+cared nothing for death.
+
+NARRATIVE OF SHEVKET BEY.--Shevket Bey, one of the officials charged
+with the extermination of the Armenians, told me, in company with
+others, the following story: "I was proceeding with a party, and when we
+had arrived outside the walls of Diarbekir and were beginning to shoot
+down the Armenians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and begged me
+to give him a girl of about ten years old. I stopped the firing and sent
+a gendarme to bring the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot
+to her and said, 'Sit there. I have given you to this man, and you will
+be saved from death.' After a while, I saw that she had thrown herself
+amongst the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to cease firing
+and bring her up. I said to her, 'I have had pity on you and brought you
+out from among the others to spare your life. Why do you throw yourself
+with them? Go with this man and he will bring you up like a daughter.'
+She said: 'I am the daughter of an Armenian; my parents and kinsfolk are
+killed among these; I will have no others in their place, and I do not
+wish to live any longer without them.' Then she cried and lamented; I
+tried hard to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her go
+her way. She left me joyfully, put herself between her father and
+mother, who were at the last gasp, and she was killed there." And he
+added: "If such was the behaviour of the children, what was that of
+their elders?"
+
+PRICE OF ARMENIAN WOMEN.--A reliable informant from Deir-el-Zūr told me
+that one of the officials of that place had bought from the gendarmes
+three girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. Another man told me
+that he had bought a very beautiful girl for one lira, and I heard that
+among the tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old furniture,
+at low prices, varying from one to ten liras, or from one to five
+sheep.[F] ...
+
+[Footnote F: An unimportant anecdote omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+THE MUTESARRIF AND THE ARMENIAN GIRL.--On the arrival of a batch of
+Armenians at Deir-el-Zūr from Ras-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to
+choose a servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell on a handsome
+girl, and he went up to her, but on his approach she turned white and
+was about to fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his servant
+to take her to his house. On returning thither he asked the reason for
+her terror of him, and she told him that she and her mother had been
+sent from Ras-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gendarme, many other
+Armenian women being with them. On the way, the gendarme called her
+mother, and told her to give him her money, or he would kill her; she
+said she had none, so he tortured her till she gave him six liras.[G]
+... He said to her: "You liar! You [Armenians] never cease lying. You
+have seen what has befallen, and will befall, all Armenians, but you
+will not take warning, so I shall make you an example to all who see
+you." Then he cut off her hands with his dagger, one after the other,
+then both her feet, all in sight of her daughter, whom he then took
+aside and violated, whilst her mother, in a dying state, witnessed the
+act. "And when I saw you approach me, I remembered my mother's fate and
+dreaded you, thinking that you would treat me as the gendarme treated my
+mother and myself, before each other's eyes."[H] ...
+
+[Footnote G: Unfit for reproduction.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+[Footnote H: Unimportant anecdote omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+"THE REWARD OF HARD LABOUR."--The Turks had collected all those of
+military age and dispersed amongst the battalions to perform their army
+service. When the Government determined on the deportation and
+destruction of the Armenians--as stated in their official
+declaration--orders were given for the formation of separate battalions
+of Armenians, to be employed on roads and municipal works. The
+battalions were formed and sent to the roads and other kinds of hard
+labour. They were employed in this manner for eight months, when the
+severity of winter set in. The Government, being then unable to make
+further use of them, despatched them to Diarbekir. Before their arrival,
+the officers telegraphed that the Armenian troops were on their way, and
+the authorities sent gendarmes, well furnished with cartridges, to meet
+the poor wretches. The gendarmes received them with rifle-fire, and 840
+men perished in this manner, shot close to the city of Diarbekir.
+
+A CARAVAN OF WOMEN.--[I] ...
+
+[Footnote I: Unimportant. The writer describes the inhabitants of
+Diarbekir, on the arrival of a party, as hastening to select women. Two
+doctors pick out twenty of them to serve as hospital
+attendants.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+A NIGHT'S SHELTER FOR FIFTY POUNDS.--The man who showed the greatest
+capacity for exterminating Armenians was Reshīd Bey, the Vali of
+Diarbekir. I have already stated how many were killed in his Vilayet.
+When news of his removal arrived, the remaining Armenians, and the
+Christians generally rejoiced, and shortly after the report was current
+some Armenians, who had hidden themselves, came out from their
+concealment and walked about the city. The Vali, who was anxious to keep
+his removal secret and to inspire terror, began deporting Armenians with
+still greater energy, and those who had come out returned to their
+hiding-places. One of the principal men of Diarbekir stated that one
+Armenian had paid fifty Turkish pounds to an inhabitant for shelter in
+his house during the night before the Vali's departure, and another told
+me that a man had received an offer of three pounds for each night until
+the same event, but had refused from fear of the authorities.
+
+CHASTITY OF THE ARMENIAN WOMEN.--[J] ... An Arab of the Akidāt told me
+that he was going along the bank of the Euphrates when he saw some of
+the town rabble stripping two women of their clothes. He expostulated
+and told them to restore the clothes, but they paid no attention. The
+women begged for mercy, and finding it unavailing they threw themselves
+into the river, preferring death to dishonour. He told me also of
+another woman who had a suckling child, and begged food from the
+passers-by, who were in too great fear of the authorities to help her.
+On the third day of starvation, finding no relief, she left the baby in
+the market of El-Deir and drowned herself in the Euphrates. In this way
+do they show high qualities, honour, and courage such as many men do not
+possess.
+
+[Footnote J: An official relates how he wanted to choose a servant from
+a boatload of victims, who said they were willing to come as servants,
+but as nothing else. He took one, and on coming home one night drunk he
+tried to offer her violence; she reproved him in suitable terms and he
+conducted himself well thenceforward.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+WOMEN-SERVANTS IN DIARBEKIR.--You cannot enter a house in Diarbekir
+without finding from one to five Armenian maid-servants, even the
+humblest shopkeepers having one, who probably in the lifetime of her
+parents would not have condescended to speak a word to the master whom
+she now has to serve in order to save her life. It is stated that the
+number of such women and girls in the city is over 5,000, mostly from
+Erzeroum, Kharpout and other Vilayets.
+
+NARRATIVE OF SHAHĪN BEY.--Shahīn Bey, a man of Diarbekir, who was in
+prison with me, told me that a number of Armenian men and women were
+delivered to him for slaughter, he being a soldier. He said: "Whilst we
+were on the way, I saw an Armenian girl whom I knew, and who was very
+beautiful. I called her by name, and said 'Come, I will save you, and
+you shall marry a young man of your country, a Turk or a Kurd.' She
+refused, and said: 'If you wish to do me a kindness I will ask one thing
+which you may do for me.' I told her I would do whatever she wished, and
+she said: 'I have a brother, younger than myself, here amongst these
+people. I pray you to kill him before you kill me, so that in dying I
+may not be anxious in mind about him.' She pointed him out and I called
+him. When he came, she said to him, 'My brother, farewell. I kiss you
+for the last time, but we shall meet, if it be God's will, in the next
+world, and He will soon avenge us for what we have suffered.' They
+kissed each other, and the boy delivered himself to me. I must needs
+obey my orders, so I struck him one blow with an axe, split his skull,
+and he fell dead. Then she said: 'I thank you with all my heart, and
+shall ask you one more favour'; she put her hands over her eyes and
+said: 'Strike as you struck my brother, one blow, and do not torture
+me.' So I struck one blow and killed her, and to this day I grieve over
+her beauty and youth, and her wonderful courage."
+
+PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARMENIANS lying in the road, dressed in turbans, for
+despatch to Constantinople. The Turkish Government thought that European
+nations might get to hear of the destruction of the Armenians and
+publish the news abroad so as to excite prejudice against the Turks. So
+after the gendarmes had killed a number of Armenian men, they put on
+them turbans and brought Kurdish women to weep and lament over them,
+saying that the Armenians had killed their men. They also brought a
+photographer to photograph the bodies and the weeping women, so that at
+a future time they might be able to convince Europe that it was the
+Armenians who had attacked the Kurds and killed them, that the Kurdish
+tribes had risen against them in revenge, and that the Turkish
+Government had had no part in the matter. But the secret of these
+proceedings was not hidden from men of intelligence, and after all this
+had been done, the truth became known and was spread abroad in
+Diarbekir.
+
+CONVERSION OF ARMENIAN WOMEN TO ISLAM.--When the Government undertook
+the extermination of the Armenians some of the women went to the Mufti
+and the Kadi, and declared their desire to embrace the Mohammedan faith.
+These authorities accepted their conversion, and they were married to
+men of Diarbekir, either Turks or Kurds.
+
+After a while, the Government began to collect these women, so the Mufti
+and the Kadi went to the Vali and said that the women in question were
+no longer Armenians, having become Mussulmans, and that by the Sacred
+Law the killing of Mussulman women was not permissible. The Vali
+replied: "These women are vipers, who will bite us in time to come; do
+not oppose the Government in this matter, for politics have no religion,
+and the Government know what they are about." The Mufti and the Kadi
+went back as they had come, and the women were sent to death. After the
+removal of the Vali--in consequence, as it was said, of abuses in
+connection with the sale of effects left in Armenian houses and
+shops--orders arrived that the conversion of any who desired to enter
+Islam should be accepted, be they men or women. Many of the Armenians
+who remained, of both sexes, hastened to embrace the Faith in the hope
+of saving their lives, but after a time they were despatched likewise
+and their Islamism did not save them.
+
+THE GERMANS AND THE ARMENIANS.--Whenever the talk fell on the Armenians
+I used to blame the Turks for their proceedings, but one day when we
+were discussing the question, an official of Diarbekir, who was one of
+the fanatical Young Turk Nationalists, said: "The Turks are not to blame
+in this matter, for the Germans were the first to apply this treatment
+to the Poles, who were under their rule. And the Germans have compelled
+the Turks to take this course, saying that if they did not kill the
+Armenians there would be no alliance with them, and thus Turkey had no
+choice."
+
+This is what the Turk said, word for word. And it was confirmed by what
+I heard from a Turk who was imprisoned with me at Aalīya, on the charge
+of corresponding with Abdul-Kerīm el-Khalīl. He said that when passing
+through Damascus he had visited the German Vice-Consul there, who had
+told him confidentially that Oppenheim had come on a special mission,
+which was to incite Jemāl Pasha to persecute the Arabs, with a view to
+causing hatred between the two races, by which the Germans might profit
+in future if differences arose between them and the Turks. This was a
+short time previous to the execution of Abdul-Kerīm.
+
+THE KILLING OF THE TWO KAIMAKĀMS.--When the Government at Diarbekir gave
+orders to the officials to kill the Armenians, a native of Baghdad was
+Kaimakām of El-Beshīri, in that Vilayet, and an Albanian was Kaimakām of
+Lījeh. These two telegraphed to the Vilayet that their consciences would
+not permit them to do such work, and that they resigned their posts.
+Their resignations were accepted, but they were both secretly
+assassinated. I investigated this matter carefully, and ascertained that
+the name of the Baghdad Arab was Sabat Bey El-Sueidi, but I could not
+learn that of the Albanian, which I much regret, as they performed a
+noble act for which they should be commemorated in history....[K]
+
+[Footnote K: The writer here describes how a Turkish judge (kādi), to
+whom the office of Kaimakām was entrusted after the murder of Sabat Bey,
+boasted in conversation that he had killed four Armenians with his own
+hand. "They were brave men," he said, "having no fear of
+death."--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+AN ARMENIAN BETRAYS HIS NATION.--[L] ...
+
+[Footnote L: The author tells the story of an Armenian of Diarbekir who
+gave information to the police against his own people, disclosing their
+hiding places. He saw him walking about the streets with an insolent
+demeanor, giving himself the airs of a person of great importance. He
+considers that such a traitor to his nation deserves the worst form of
+death.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+THE SULTAN'S ORDER.--Whilst I was in prison, a Turkish Commissioner of
+Police used to come to see a friend of his, who was also imprisoned. One
+day when I and this friend were together, the Commissioner came, and, in
+the course of conversation about the Armenians and their fate, he
+described to us how he had slaughtered them, and how a number had taken
+refuge in a cave outside the city, and he had brought them out and
+killed two of them himself. His friend said to him: "Have you no fear of
+God? Whence have you the right to take life in defiance of God's law?"
+He replied: "It was the Sultan's order; the Sultan's order is the order
+of God, and its fulfilment is a duty."
+
+ARMENIAN DEATH STATISTICS.--At the end of August, 1915, I was visited in
+prison by one of my Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend of
+one of those charged with the conduct of the Armenian massacres. We
+spoke of the Armenian question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone,
+570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from other Vilayets as
+well as those belonging to Diarbekir itself.
+
+If to this we add those killed in the following months, amounting to
+about 50,000; and those in the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the
+province of Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who perished in
+Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul, Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa,
+Zeitoun, and Aintab--estimated at upwards of 350,000--we arrive at a
+total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, hunger, or thirst, of
+1,200,000.
+
+There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet of Aleppo, in Syria, and
+Deir-el-Zūr (those deported thither), and in America and Egypt and
+elsewhere; and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the Balkan
+States, thus making a grand total of 1,900,000.
+
+The above is what I was able to learn as to the statistics of the
+slaughtered Armenians, and I would quote an extract from _El-Mokattam_,
+dealing with this subject:
+
+"The Basle correspondent of the _Temps_ states that, according to
+official reports received from Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there
+were 492,000 deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diarbekir,
+Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-Zūr. The Turkish Minister of the Interior,
+Talaat Bey, estimates the number of deportees at 800,000, and states
+that 300,000 of these have been removed or have died in the last few
+months.
+
+"Another calculation gives the number of deported Armenians as 1,200,000
+souls, and states that at least 500,000 have been killed or have died in
+banishment" (_El-Mokattam_, May 30th, 1916).
+
+THE ARMENIANS AND THE ARAB TRIBES.--As I approached Diarbekir, I passed
+through many Arab tribes, with whom I saw a number of Armenians, men and
+women, who were being well treated, although the Government had let the
+tribes know that the killing of Armenians was a bounden duty. I did not
+hear of a single instance of an Armenian being murdered or outraged by
+a tribesman, but I heard that some Arabs, passing by a well into which
+men and women had been thrown, drew them out when at the last extremity,
+took them with them, and tended them till they were recovered.
+
+THE ARAB AND THE ARMENIAN BEGGAR WOMAN.--[M] ...
+
+[Footnote M: The narrative concludes with the relation of an instance of
+courageous charity on the part of a Baghdad soldier to an Armenian woman
+begging in the streets of Diarbekir.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+If the Turkish Government were asked the reasons for which the Armenian
+men, women, and children were killed, and their honour and property
+placed at any man's mercy, they would reply that this people have
+murdered Moslems in the Vilayet of Van, and that there have been found
+in their possession prohibited arms, explosive bombs, and indications of
+steps towards the formation of an Armenian State, such as flags and the
+like, all pointing to the fact that this race has not turned from its
+evil ways, but on the first opportunity will kill the Moslems, rise in
+revolt, and invoke the help of Russia, the enemy of Turkey, against its
+rulers. That is what the Turkish Government would say. I have followed
+the matter from its source. I have enquired from inhabitants and
+officials of Van, who were in Diarbekir, whether any Moslem had been
+killed by Armenians in the town of Van, or in the districts of the
+Vilayet. They answered in the negative, saying that the Government had
+ordered the population to quit the town before the arrival of the
+Russians and before anyone was killed; but that the Armenians had been
+summoned to give up their arms and had not done so, dreading an attack
+by the Kurds, and dreading the Government also; the Government had
+further demanded that the principal Notables and leading men should be
+given up to them as hostages, but the Armenians had not complied.
+
+All this took place during the approach of the Russians towards the city
+of Van. As to the adjacent districts, the authorities collected the
+Armenians and drove them into the interior, where they were all
+slaughtered, no Government official or private man, Turk or Kurd, having
+been killed.
+
+As regards Diarbekir, you have read the whole story in this book, and no
+insignificant event took place there, let alone murders or breaches of
+the peace, which could lead the Turkish Government to deal with the
+Armenians in this atrocious manner.
+
+At Constantinople, we hear of no murder or other unlawful act committed
+by the Armenians, except the unauthenticated story about the twenty
+bravoes, to which I have already referred.
+
+They have not done the least wrong in the Vilayets of Kharpout,
+Trebizond, Sivas, Adana, or Bitlis, nor in the province of Moush.
+
+I have related the episode at Zeitoun, which was unimportant, and that
+at Urfa, where they acted in self-defence, seeing what had befallen
+their people, and preferring death to surrender.
+
+As to their preparations, the flags, bombs and the like, even assuming
+there to be some truth in the statement, it does not justify the
+annihilation of the whole people, men and women, old men and children,
+in a way which revolts all humanity and more especially Islam and the
+whole body of Moslems, as those unacquainted with the true facts might
+impute these deeds to Mohammedan fanaticism.
+
+To such as assert this it will suffice to point out the murders and
+oppressive acts committed by the Young Turks against Islam in Syria and
+Mesopotamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men of enlightenment,
+without fault on their part, such as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahhāb
+Bey El-Inglīzi, Selīm Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Husseini, Abdul-Ghani
+El-Arīsi, Shefīk Bey El-Moweyyad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Hamīd
+El-Zahrāwi, Abdul-Kerīm El-Khalīl, Emir Aarif El-Shehābi, Sheikh Ahmed
+Hasan Tabāra, and more than thirty leading men of this class.
+
+I have published this pamphlet in order to refute beforehand inventions
+and slanders against the faith of Islam and against Moslems generally,
+and I affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed
+to the Committee of Union and Progress, who deal with the empire as they
+please; it has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their
+jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is
+guiltless of their deeds.
+
+From the foregoing we know that the Armenians have committed no acts
+justifying the Turks in inflicting on them this horrible retribution,
+unprecedented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the reason which
+impelled the Turkish Government to kill off a whole people, of whom they
+used to say that they were their brothers in patriotism, the principal
+factor in bringing about the downfall of the despotic rule of
+Abdul-Hamīd and the introduction of the Constitution, loyal to the
+Empire, and fighting side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? The
+Turks sanctioned and approved the institution of Armenian political
+societies, which they did not do in the case of other nationalities.
+
+What is the reason of this sudden change of attitude?
+
+It is that, previous to the proclamation of the Constitution, the
+Unionists hated despotic rule; they preached equality, and inspired the
+people with hatred of the despotism of Abdul-Hamīd. But as soon as they
+had themselves seized the reins of authority, and tasted the sweets of
+power, they found that despotism was the best means to confirm
+themselves in ease and prosperity, and to limit to the Turks alone the
+rule over the Ottoman peoples. On considering these peoples, they found
+that the Armenian race was the only one which would resent their
+despotism, and fight against it as they previously fought against
+Abdul-Hamīd. They perceived also that the Armenians excelled all the
+other races in arts and industries, that they were more advanced in
+learning and societies, and that after a while the greater part of the
+officers of the army would be Armenians. They were confounded at this,
+and dreaded what might ensue, for they knew their own weakness and that
+they could not rival the Armenians in the way of learning and progress.
+Annihilation seemed to them to be the sole means of deliverance; they
+found their opportunity in a time of war, and they proceeded to this
+atrocious deed, which they carried out with every circumstance of
+brutality--a deed which is contrary to the law of Islam, as is shown by
+many precepts and historical instances.[N] ...
+
+In view of this, how can the Turkish Government be justified at the
+present time in killing off an entire people, who have always paid their
+dues of every kind to the Ottoman State, and have never rebelled against
+it? Even if we suppose the Armenian men to have been deserving of death,
+what was the offence of the women and children? And what will be the
+punishment of those who killed them wrongfully and consumed the innocent
+with fire?
+
+I am of opinion that the Mohammedan peoples are now under the necessity
+of defending themselves, for unless Europeans are made acquainted with
+the true facts they will regard this deed as a black stain on the
+history of Islam, which ages will not efface.
+
+From the Verses, Traditions, and historical instances, it is abundantly
+clear that the action of the Turkish Government has been in complete
+contradiction to the principles of the Faith of Islam; a Government
+which professes to be the protector of Islam, and claims to hold the
+_Khilāfat_, cannot act in opposition to Moslem law; and a Government
+which does so act is not an Islamic Government, and has no rightful
+pretension to be such.
+
+It is incumbent on the Moslems to declare themselves guiltless of such a
+Government, and not to render obedience to those who trample under foot
+the Verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet, and shed the
+innocent blood of women, old men and infants, who have done no wrong.
+Otherwise they make themselves accomplices in this crime, which stands
+unequalled in history.
+
+In conclusion, I would address myself to the Powers of Europe, and say
+that it is they themselves who have encouraged the Turkish Government
+to this deed, for they were aware of the evil administration of that
+Government, and its barbarous proceedings on many occasions in the past,
+but did not check it.
+
+_Completed at Bombay on the 3rd September, 1916._
+
+FĄ'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.
+
+[Footnote N: Fą'iz El-Ghusein here gives a list of citations from the
+Koran, the Traditions, and from Moslem history in support of this
+view.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+
+
+
+_Important Books of the Day_
+
+
+THE CRIME _By a German. Author of "I Accuse!"_
+
+An arraignment in even more cogent form than "I Accuse!" of the rulers
+and governments of Germany and Austria.
+
+Two vols. 8vo. Vol. I. Net, $2.50
+
+
+THE GREAT CRIME AND ITS MORAL _By J. Selden Willmore_
+
+A volume which is an invaluable library. An illuminating summary of the
+immense documentary literature of the war.
+
+8vo. Net, $2.00
+
+
+BELGIUM IN WAR TIME _By Commandant De Gerlache De Gomery_
+
+Translated from the French Edition by Bernard Miall
+
+The authoritative book essential to an understanding of the history, the
+position and the sufferings of the country that will not die, the title
+of the Norwegian and Swedish editions of this famous work set up under
+fire.
+
+Illustrations, maps and facsimiles. 8vo. Net, $2.00
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME _By John Buchan_
+
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+vast manoeuver and its tactical and strategic development through all
+four stages."--Springfield Republican.
+
+Illustrated. 12mo. Net, $1.50
+
+
+THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW _By D. Thomas Curtin_
+
+Revealing the Germany of fact in place of the Germany of tradition;
+telling the truth about Germany-in-the-third-year-of-the-war.
+
+12mo. Net, $1.50
+
+
+I ACCUSE! (J'ACCUSE!) _By a German_
+
+An arraignment of Germany by a German of the German War Party. Facts
+every neutral should know.
+
+12mo. Net, $1.50
+
+
+THE GERMAN TERROR IN FRANCE _By Arnold J. Toynbee_
+
+
+THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM _By Arnold J. Toynbee_
+
+"From the facts he places before his readers, it appears conclusive that
+the horrors were perpetrated systematically, deliberately, under orders,
+upon a people whose country was invaded without just
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+
+Each 8vo. Net, $1.00
+
+
+TRENCH PICTURES FROM FRANCE _By Major William Redmond, M.P._
+
+Biographical Introduction by Miss E. M. Smith-Dampier
+
+A glowing book, filled with a deep love of Ireland, by one of the most
+attractive British figures of the war.
+
+12mo. Net, $1.25
+
+
+WOUNDED AND A PRISONER OF WAR _By an Exchanged Officer_
+
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+
+12mo. Net, $1.25
+
+
+THE GERMAN FURY IN BELGIUM _By L. Mokveld_
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Martyred Armenia, by Fą'iz El-Ghusein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Martyred Armenia
+
+Author: Fą'iz El-Ghusein
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19986]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTYRED ARMENIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>MARTYRED<br />
+ARMENIA</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>F&Agrave;'IZ EL-GHUSEIN<br />
+BEDOUIN NOTABLE OF DAMASCUS</h2>
+
+<h4>Translated from the Original Arabic<br />
+All Rights of Translation Reserved</h4>
+
+<h5>NEW YORK<br />
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY<br />
+MCMXVIII</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+<h2>FOREWORD</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am a Bedouin, a son of one of the Heads of the tribe of El-Sul&ucirc;t, who
+dwell in El-Lej&acirc;t, in the Haur&acirc;n territory. Like other sons of tribal
+Chiefs, I entered the Tribal School at Constantinople, and subsequently
+the Royal College. On the completion of my education, I was attached to
+the staff of the Vali of Syria (or Damascus), on which I remained for a
+long while. I was then Kaimak&acirc;m of Mamouret-el-Az&icirc;z (Kharpout), holding
+this post for three and a half years, after which I practised as a
+lawyer at Damascus, my partners being Shukri Bey El-Asli and
+Abdul-Wahh&acirc;b Bey El-Ingl&icirc;zi. I next became a member of the General
+Assembly at that place, representing Haur&acirc;n, and later a member of the
+Committee of that Assembly. On the outbreak of the war, I was ordered to
+resume my previous career, that is, the duties of Kaimak&acirc;m, but I did
+not comply, as I found the practice of the law more advantageous in many
+ways and more tranquil.</p>
+
+<p>I was denounced by an informer as being a delegate of a Society
+constituted in the Lebanon with the object of achieving the independence
+of the Arab people, under the protection of England and France, and of
+inciting the tribes against the Turkish Government. On receipt of this
+denunciation, I was arrested by the Government, thrown into prison, and
+subsequently sent in chains, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span> company of police and gendarmes, to
+Aal&icirc;ya, where persons accused of political offences were tried. I was
+acquitted, but as the Government disregarded the decisions given in such
+cases, and was resolved on the removal and destruction of all
+enlightened Arabs&mdash;whatever the circumstances might be&mdash;it was thought
+necessary that I should be despatched to Erzeroum, and Jem&acirc;l Pasha sent
+me thither with an officer and five of the regular troops. When I
+reached Diarbekir, Hasan Kaleh, at Erzeroum, was being pressed by the
+Russians, and the Vali of Diarbekir was ordered to detain me at that
+place.</p>
+
+<p>After twenty-two days' confinement in prison for no reason, I was
+released; I hired a house and remained at Diarbekir for six and a half
+months, seeing and hearing from the most reliable sources all that took
+place in regard to the Armenians, the majority of my informants being
+superior officers and officials, or Notables of Diarbekir and its
+dependencies, as well as others from Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-el-Az&icirc;z,
+Aleppo and Erzeroum. The people of Van had been in Diarbekir since the
+occupation of their territory by the Russians, whilst the people and
+officials of Bitlis had recently emigrated thither. Many of the Erzeroum
+officers came to Diarbekir on military or private business, whilst
+Mamouret-el-Az&icirc;z was near by, and many people came to us from thence. As
+I had formerly been a Kaimak&acirc;m in that Vilayet, I had a large
+acquaintance there and heard all the news. More especially, the time
+which I passed in prison with the heads of the tribes in Diarbekir
+enabled me to study the movement in its smallest details. The war must
+needs come to an end after a while, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> it will then be plain to
+readers of this book that all I have written is the truth, and that it
+contains only a small part of the atrocities committed by the Turks
+against the hapless Armenian people.</p>
+
+<p>After passing this time at Diarbekir I fled, both to escape from
+captivity and from fear induced by what had befallen me from some of the
+fanatical Turks. After great sufferings, during which I was often
+exposed to death and slaughter, I reached Basra, and conceived the idea
+of publishing this book, as a service to the cause of truth and of a
+people oppressed by the Turks, and also, as I have stated at the close,
+to defend the faith of Islam against the charge of fanaticism which will
+be brought against it by Europeans. May God guide us in the right way.</p>
+
+<p><i>I have written this preface at Bombay, on the 1st of September, 1916.</i></p>
+
+<p>F&Agrave;'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h2>MARTYRED ARMENIA</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE NARRATIVE</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Outline of Armenian History.</span>&mdash;In past ages the Armenian race was, like
+other nations, not possessed of an autonomous government, until God
+bestowed upon them a man, named Haig, a bold leader, who united the
+Armenians and formed them into an independent state. This took place
+before the Christian era. The nation preserved their independence for a
+considerable time, reaching the highest point of their glory and
+prosperity under their king Dikr&acirc;n, who constituted the city of
+Dikr&acirc;nokerta&mdash;Diarbekir&mdash;the capital of his Government. Armenia remained
+independent in the time of the Romans, extending her rule over a part of
+Asia Minor and Syria, and a portion of Persia, but, in consequence of
+the protection afforded by the Armenians to certain kings who were
+hostile to Rome, the Romans declared war against her, their troops
+entered her capital, and from that time Armenian independence was lost.
+The country remained tossing on the waves of despotism, now independent,
+now subjected to foreign rule, until its conquest by the Arabs and
+subsequently by the Ottoman power.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Armenian Population.</span>&mdash;The number of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> Armenians in Ottoman
+territory does not exceed 1,900,000 souls. I have borrowed this figure
+from a book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the official
+computation made by the Government previous to the Balkan war; he
+estimates the Armenians residing in Roumelia at 400,000, those in
+Ottoman Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Russia and Persia are said
+not to exceed 3,000,000, thus bringing the total number of Armenians in
+the world to over four and a half millions.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Vilayets Inhabited by Armenians.</span>&mdash;The Vilayets inhabited by
+Armenians are Diarbekir, Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Az&icirc;z, Sivas,
+Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constantinople. The numbers in
+Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diarbekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than
+those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they were fewer than the
+Turks and Kurds, with the exception of Van and Bitlis, where they were
+equal or superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vilayet of
+Bitlis) they were more numerous than the Kurds; all industry and
+commerce in those parts was in Armenian hands; their agriculture was
+more prosperous; they were much more advanced than the Turks and Kurds
+in those Vilayets; and the large number of their schools, contrasted
+with the few schools of their alien fellow countrymen, is a proof of
+their progress and of the decline of the other races.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Armenian Societies.</span>&mdash;The Armenians possess learned and political
+Societies, the most important of which are the "Tashnagtzi&acirc;n" and the
+"Hunchak." The programme of these two Societies is to make every effort
+and adopt every means to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> attain that end from which no Armenian ever
+swerves, namely, administrative independence under the supervision of
+the Great Powers of Europe. I have enquired of many Armenians whom I
+have met, but I have not found one who said that he desired political
+independence, the reason being that in most of the Vilayets which they
+inhabit the Armenians are less numerous than the Kurds, and if they
+became independent the advantage to the Kurds would be greater than to
+themselves. Hitherto, the Kurds have been in a very degraded state of
+ignorance; disorder is supreme in their territory, and the cities are in
+ruins. The Armenians, therefore, prefer to remain under Turkish rule, on
+condition that the administration is carried on under the supervision of
+the Great European Powers, as they place no confidence in the promises
+of the Turks, who take back to-day what they bestowed yesterday. These
+two Societies thus earnestly labour for the propagation of this view
+amongst the Armenians, and for the attainment of their object by every
+means. I have been told by an Armenian officer that one of these
+Societies proposes to attain its end by means of internal revolts, but
+the policy of the second is to do so by peaceful means only.</p>
+
+<p>The above is a brief summary of the policy of these Societies. It is
+said, however, that the programme of one of them aims at Armenian
+political independence.</p>
+
+<p>Any who desire further details as to Armenian history or societies
+should refer to their historical books.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Armenian Massacres.</span>&mdash;History does not record that the Kurds,
+fellow-countrymen of the Ar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>menians in the Vilayets inhabited by both
+peoples, rose in conflict with the latter, or that the Kurds plundered
+the property of the Armenians, or outraged their women, until the year
+1888, when they rose by order of the Turkish Government and slaughtered
+Armenians in Van, Kharpout, Erzeroum, and Moush. Again, in the time of
+Abdul-Ham&icirc;d II., in 1896, when the Armenians rose and entered the
+Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, with the object of frightening the
+Sultan and compelling him to proclaim the Constitution, he ordered a
+massacre at Constantinople and in the Vilayets. But hitherto there has
+been no instance of the people of Turkey proceeding to the slaughter of
+Armenians on a general scale unless incited and constrained to do so by
+the Government. In the massacre of 1896, 15,000 were killed in
+Constantinople itself, and 300,000 in the Vilayets.</p>
+
+<p>Armenians were also killed in the Vilayet of Adana, some months after
+the proclamation of the Constitution, but this slaughter did not extend
+beyond the two Vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, where the influence of
+Abdul-Ham&icirc;d was paramount till the year 1909. I do not, however, find
+any detailed account of this massacre, or any information as to the
+numbers killed.</p>
+
+<p>The goods and cattle of the Armenians were plundered, and their houses
+wrecked, more especially in the slaughter of 1896, but many of their
+countrymen<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> protected them and concealed them in their houses from the
+officials of the Government.</p>
+
+<p>The Government consistently inflamed the Mos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>lem Kurds and Turks against
+them, making use of the Faith of Islam as a means to attain their object
+in view of the ignorance of the Mohammedans as to the true laws of their
+religion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Declaration of the Ottoman Government.</span>&mdash;"Inasmuch as the Armenians are
+committing acts opposed to the laws and taking advantage of all
+occasions to disturb the Government; as they have been found in
+possession of prohibited arms, bombs, and explosive materials, prepared
+with the object of internal revolt; as they have killed Moslems in Van,
+and have aided the Russian armies at a time when the Government is in a
+state of war with England, France, and Russia; and in the apprehension
+that the Armenians may, as is their habit, lend themselves to seditious
+tumult and revolt; the Government have decreed that all the Armenians
+shall be collected and despatched to the Vilayets of Mosul, Syria, and
+Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r, their persons, goods and honour being safeguarded. The
+necessary orders have been given for ensuring their comfort, and for
+their residence in those territories until the termination of the war."</p>
+
+<p>Such is the official declaration of the Ottoman Government in regard to
+the Armenians. But the secret resolution was that companies of militia
+should be formed to assist the gendarmes in the slaughter of the
+Armenians, that these should be killed to the last man, and that the
+work of murder and destruction should take place under the supervision
+of trusty agents of the Unionists, who were known for their brutality.
+Resh&icirc;d Bey was appointed to the Vilayet of Diarbekir and invested with
+extensive powers, having at his disposal a gang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> of notorious murderers,
+such as Ahmed Bey El-Serzi, Rushdi Bey, Khal&icirc;l Bey, and others of this
+description.</p>
+
+<p>The reason for this decision, as it was alleged, was that the Armenians
+residing in Europe and in Egypt had sent twenty of their devoted
+partisans to kill Talaat, Enver, and others of the Unionist leaders; the
+attempt had failed, as a certain Armenian, a traitor to his nation and a
+friend of Bedri Bey, the Chief of the Public Security at Constantinople
+(or according to others, Azmi Bey), divulged the matter and indicated
+the Armenian agents, who had arrived at Constantinople. The latter were
+arrested and executed, but secretly, in order that it might not be said
+that there were men attempting to kill the heads of the Unionist
+Society.</p>
+
+<p>Another alleged reason also was that certain Armenians, whom the
+Government had collected from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adrianople and
+had sent off to complete their military service, fled, with their arms,
+to Zeitoun, where they assembled, to the number of sixty young men, and
+commenced to resist the Government and to attack wayfarers. The
+Government despatched a military force under Fakhry Pasha, who proceeded
+to the spot, destroyed a part of Zeitoun, and killed men, women and
+children, without encountering opposition on the part of the Armenians.
+He collected the men and women and sent them off with parties of troops,
+who killed many of the men, whilst as for the women, do not ask what was
+their fate. They were delivered over to the Ottoman soldiery; the
+children died of hunger and thirst; not a man or woman reached Syria
+except the halt and blind, who were unable to keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> themselves alive;
+the young men were all slaughtered; and the good-looking women fell into
+the hands of the Turkish youths.</p>
+
+<p>Emigrants from Roumelia were conveyed to Zeitoun and established there,
+the name of that place being changed to "Reshad&icirc;ya," so that nothing
+should remain to remind the Turks of the Armenian name. During our
+journey from Hamah we saw many Armenian men and women, sitting under
+small tents which they had constructed from sheets, rugs, etc. Their
+condition was most pitiable, and how could it be otherwise? Many of
+these had been used to sit only on easy chairs [lit., rocking-chairs],
+amid luxurious furniture, in houses built in the best style, well
+arranged and splendidly furnished. I saw, as others saw also, many
+Armenian men and women in goods-wagons on the railway between Aleppo and
+Hamah, herded together in a way which moved compassion.</p>
+
+<p>After my arrival at Aleppo, and two days' stay there, we took the train
+to a place called Ser-Arab-Poun&acirc;ri. I was accompanied by five Armenians,
+closely guarded, and despatched to Diarbekir. We walked on our feet
+thence to Ser&ucirc;j, where we stopped at a <i>kh&acirc;n</i> [rest-house] filled with
+Armenian women and children, with a few sick men. These women were in a
+deplorable state, as they had done the journey from Erzeroum on foot,
+taking a long while to arrive at Ser&ucirc;j. I talked with them in Turkish,
+and they told me that the gendarmes with them had brought them to places
+where there was no water, refusing to tell them where water was to be
+found until they had received money as the price. Some of them, who were
+pregnant, had given birth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> on the way, and had abandoned their infants
+in the uninhabited wastes. Most of these women had left their children
+behind, either in despair, or owing to illness or weakness which made
+them unable to carry them, so they threw them on the ground; some from
+natural affection could not do this and so perished in the desert, not
+parted from their infants. They told me that there were some among them
+who had not been used to walk for a single hour, having been brought up
+in luxury, with men to wait on them and women to attend them. These had
+fallen into the hands of the Kurds, who recognize no divine law, and who
+live on lofty mountains and in dense forests like beasts of prey; their
+honour was outraged and they died by brutal violence, many of them
+killing themselves rather than sacrifice their virtue to these ravening
+wolves.</p>
+
+<p>We then proceeded in carts from Ser&ucirc;j to El-Raha (Urfa). On the way I
+saw crowds going on foot, whom from a distance I took for troops
+marching to the field of battle. On approaching, I found they were
+Armenian women, walking barefoot and weary, placed in ranks like the
+gendarmes who preceded and followed them. Whenever one of them lagged
+behind, a gendarme would beat her with the butt of his rifle, throwing
+her on her face, till she rose terrified and rejoined her companions.
+But if one lagged from sickness, she was either abandoned, alone in the
+wilderness, without help or comfort, to be a prey to wild beasts, or a
+gendarme ended her life by a bullet.</p>
+
+<p>On arrival at Urfa, we learned that the Government had sent a force of
+gendarmes and police to the Armenian quarters of the town to collect
+their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> arms, subsequently dealing with these people as with others. As
+they were aware of what had happened to their kinsmen&mdash;the <i>kh&acirc;ns</i> at
+Urfa being full of women and children&mdash;they did not give up their arms,
+but showed armed resistance, killing one man of the police and three
+gendarmes. The authorities of Urfa applied for a force from Aleppo, and
+by order of Jem&acirc;l Pasha&mdash;the executioner of Syria&mdash;Fakhry Pasha came
+with cannon. He turned the Armenian quarters into a waste place, killing
+the men and the children, and great numbers of the women, except such as
+yielded themselves to share the fate of their sisters&mdash;expulsion on foot
+to Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r, after the Pasha and his officers had selected the
+prettiest amongst them. Disease was raging among them; they were
+outraged by the Turks and Kurds; and hunger and thirst completed their
+extermination.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving Urfa, we again saw throngs of women, exhausted by fatigue
+and misery, dying of hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the
+dead lying by the roadside.</p>
+
+<p>On our arrival at a place near a village called Kara Jevren, about six
+hours distant from Urfa, we stopped at a spring to breakfast and drink.
+I went a little apart, towards the source, and came upon a most
+appalling spectacle. A woman, partly unclothed, was lying prone, her
+chemise disordered and red with blood, with four bullet-wounds in her
+breast. I could not restrain myself, but wept bitterly. As I drew out a
+handkerchief to wipe away my tears, and looked round to see whether any
+of my companions had observed me, I saw a child not more than eight
+years old, lying on his face, his head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> cloven by an axe. This made my
+grief the more vehement, but my companions cut short my lamentations,
+for I heard the officer, Aarif Effendi, calling to the priest Isaac, and
+saying, "Come here at once," and I knew that he had seen something which
+had startled him. I went towards him, and what did I behold? Three
+children lying in the water, in terror of their lives from the Kurds,
+who had stripped them of their clothes and tortured them in various
+ways, their mother near by, moaning with pain and hunger. She told us
+her story, saying that she was from Erzeroum, and had been brought by
+the troops to this place with many other women after a journey of many
+days. After they had been plundered of money and clothing, and the
+prettiest women had been picked out and handed over to the Kurds, they
+reached this place, where Kurdish men and women collected and robbed
+them of all the clothes that remained on them. She herself had stayed
+here, as she was sick and her children would not leave her. The Kurds
+came upon them again and left them naked. The children had lain in the
+water in their terror, and she was at the point of death. The priest
+collected some articles of clothing and gave them to the woman and the
+children; the officer sent a man to the post of gendarmes which was near
+by, and ordered the gendarme whom the man brought with him to send on
+the woman and children to Urfa, and to bury the bodies which were near
+the guardhouse. The sick woman told me that the dead woman refused to
+yield herself to outrage, so they killed her and she died nobly, chaste
+and pure from defilement; to induce her to yield they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> killed her son
+beside her, but she was firm in her resolve and died heart-broken.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon we went on towards Kara Jevren, and one of the drivers
+pointed out to us some high mounds, surrounded by stones and rocks,
+saying that here Zohr&acirc;b and Vartakis had been killed, they having been
+leading Notables among the Armenians, and their Deputies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Krik&ocirc;r Zohr&acirc;b and Vartakis.</span>&mdash;No one is ignorant of who and what was
+Zohr&acirc;b, the Armenian Deputy for Constantinople, his name and repute
+being celebrated after the institution of the Chamber. He used to speak
+with learning and reflection, refuting objections by powerful arguments
+and convincing proofs. His speeches in the Chamber were mostly
+conclusive. He was learned in all subjects, but especially in the
+science of law, as he was a graduate of universities and had practised
+at the Bar for many years. He was endowed with eloquence and great
+powers of exposition; he was courageous, not to be turned from his
+purpose or intimidated from pursuing his national aims. When the
+Unionists realised that they were deficient in knowledge, understanding
+nothing about polity or administration, and not aware of the meaning of
+liberty or constitutional government, they resolved to return to the
+system of their Tartar forefathers, the devastation of cities and the
+slaughter of innocent men, as it was in that direction that their powers
+lay. They sent Zohr&acirc;b and his colleague Vartakis away from
+Constantinople, with orders that they should be killed on the way, and
+it was announced that they had been murdered by a band of brigands. They
+killed them in order that it might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> not be said that Armenians were more
+powerful, more learned, and more intelligent than Turks. Why should such
+bands murder none but Armenians? The falsity of the statement is
+obvious.</p>
+
+<p>Zohr&acirc;b and Vartakis fell victims to their own courage and firmness of
+purpose; they were killed out of envy of their learning and their love
+for their own people, and for their tenacity in pursuing their own path.
+They were killed by that villain, Ahmed El-Serzi, one of the sworn men
+of the Unionists, he who murdered Zeki Bey; his story in the Ottoman
+upheaval is well known, and how the Unionists saved him from his fitting
+punishment and even from prison. A Kurd told me that Vartakis was one of
+the boldest and most courageous men who ever lived; he was chief of the
+Armenian bands in the time of Abdul-Ham&icirc;d; he was wounded in the foot by
+a cannon-ball whilst the Turkish troops were pursuing these bands, and
+was imprisoned either at Erzeroum or at Maaden, in the Vilayet of
+Diarbekir. The Sultan Abdul-Ham&icirc;d, through his officials, charged him to
+modify his attitude and acknowledge that he had been in error, when he
+should be pardoned and appointed to any post he might choose. He
+rejected this offer, saying, "I will not sell my conscience for a post,
+or say that the Government of Abdul-Ham&icirc;d is just, whilst I see its
+tyranny with my eyes and touch it with my hand."</p>
+
+<p>It is said that the Unionists ordered that all the Armenian Deputies
+should be put to death, and the greater number of them were thus dealt
+with. It is reported also that Dikr&acirc;n Giliki&acirc;n, the well-known writer,
+who was an adherent of the Committee of Union and Progress, was killed
+in return for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> learning, capacity, and devotion to their cause. Such
+was the recompense of his services to the Unionists.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening we arrived at Kara Jevren, and slept there till morning.
+At sunrise we went on towards Sivrek, and half-way on the road we saw a
+terrible spectacle. The corpses of the killed were lying in great
+numbers on both sides of the road; here we saw a woman outstretched on
+the ground, her body half veiled by her long hair; there, women lying on
+their faces, the dried blood blackening their delicate forms; there
+again, the corpses of men, parched to the semblance of charcoal by the
+heat of the sun. As we approached Sivrek, the corpses became more
+numerous, the bodies of children being in a great majority. As we
+arrived at Sivrek and left our carts, we saw one of the servants of the
+<i>kh&acirc;n</i> carrying a little infant with hair as yellow as gold, whom he
+threw behind the house. We asked him about it, and he said that there
+were three sick Armenian women in the house, who had lagged behind their
+companions, that one of them had given birth to this infant, but could
+not nourish it, owing to her illness. So it had died and been thrown
+out, as one might throw out a mouse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Demand for Ransom.</span>&mdash;Whilst we were at Sivrek, Aarif Effendi told
+me&mdash;after he had been at the Government offices&mdash;that the Commandant of
+Gendarmerie and the Chief of Police of that place had requested him to
+hand over to them the five Armenians who were with him, and that on his
+refusal they had insisted, saying that, if they were to reach Diarbekir
+in safety, they must pay a ransom of fifty liras for themselves. We went
+to the <i>kh&acirc;n</i>, where the officer summoned the priest Isaac and told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> him
+how matters stood. After speaking to his companions, the priest replied
+that they could pay only ten liras altogether, as they had no more in
+their possession. When convinced by his words, the officer took the ten
+liras and undertook to satisfy the others.</p>
+
+<p>This officer had a dispute with the Commandant of Gendarmerie at Aleppo,
+the latter desiring to take these five men on the grounds that they had
+been sent with a gendarme for delivery to his office. Ahmed Bey, the
+Chief of the Irregular band at Urfa, also desired to take them, but the
+officer refused to give them up to him&mdash;he being a member of the
+Committee of Union and Progress&mdash;and brought them in safety to
+Diarbekir.</p>
+
+<p>After passing the night at Sivrek we left early in the morning. As we
+approached Diarbekir the corpses became more numerous, and on our route
+we met companies of women going to Sivrek under guard of gendarmes,
+weary and wretched, the traces of tears and misery plain on their
+faces&mdash;a plight to bring tears of blood from stones, and move the
+compassion of beasts of prey.</p>
+
+<p>What, in God's name, had these women done? Had they made war on the
+Turks, or killed even one of them? What was the crime of these hapless
+creatures, whose sole offence was that they were Armenians, skilled in
+the management of their homes and the training of their children, with
+no thought beyond the comfort of their husbands and sons, and the
+fulfilment of their duties towards them.</p>
+
+<p>I ask you, O Moslems&mdash;is this to be counted as a crime? Think for a
+moment. What was the fault<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> of these poor women? Was it in their being
+superior to the Turkish women in every respect? Even assuming that their
+men had merited such treatment, is it right that these women should be
+dealt with in a manner from which wild beasts would recoil? God has said
+in the Koran: "Do not load one with another's burthens," that is, Let
+not one be punished for another.</p>
+
+<p>What had these weak women done, and what had their infants done? Can the
+men of the Turkish Government bring forward even a feeble proof to
+justify their action and to convince the people of Islam, who hold that
+action for unlawful and reject it? No; they can find no word to say
+before a people whose usages are founded on justice, and their laws on
+wisdom and reason.</p>
+
+<p>Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to be the supports of
+Islam and the <i>Khil&acirc;fat</i>, the protectors of the Moslems, should
+transgress the command of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions of
+the Prophet, and humanity? Truly, they have committed an act at which
+Islam is revolted, as well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the
+earth, be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolators. As God lives, it
+is a shameful deed, the like of which has not been done by any people
+counting themselves as civilised.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Infant in the Waste.</span>&mdash;After we had gone a considerable distance we
+saw a child of not more than four years old, with a fair complexion,
+blue eyes, and golden hair, with all the indications of luxury and
+pampering, standing in the sun, motionless and speechless. The officer
+told the driver to stop the cart, got out alone, and questioned the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+child, who made no reply, and did not utter a word. The officer said:
+"If we take this child with us to Diarbekir, the authorities will take
+him from us, and he will share the fate of his people in being killed.
+It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move one of the Kurds to
+compassion, that he take him and bring him up." None of us could say
+anything to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leaving the child
+as we found him, without speech, tears, or movement. Who knows of what
+rich man or Notable of the Armenians he was the son? He had hardly seen
+the light when he was orphaned by the slaughter of his parents and
+kinsmen. Those who should have carried him were weary of him&mdash;for the
+women were unable to carry even themselves&mdash;so they had abandoned him in
+the waste, far from human habitation. Man, who shows kindness to beasts,
+and forms societies for their protection, can be merciless to his own
+kind, more especially to infants who can utter no complaint; he leaves
+them under the heat of the sun, thirsty and famishing, to be devoured by
+wild creatures.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the boy, our hearts burning within us, and full of grief and
+anguish, we arrived before sunset at a <i>kh&acirc;n</i> some hours distant from
+Diarbekir. There we passed the night, and in the morning we went on amid
+the mangled forms of the slain. The same sight met our view on every
+side; a man lying, his breast pierced by a bullet; a woman torn open by
+lead; a child sleeping his last sleep beside his mother; a girl in the
+flower of her age, in a posture which told its own story. Such was our
+journey until we arrived at a canal, called Kara Poun&acirc;r, near<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+Diarbekir, and here we found a change in the method of murder and
+savagery.</p>
+
+<p>We saw here bodies burned to ashes. God, from whom no secrets are hid,
+knows how many young men and fair girls, who should have led happy lives
+together, had been consumed by fire in this ill-omened place.</p>
+
+<p>We had expected not to find corpses of the killed near to the walls of
+Diarbekir, but we were mistaken, for we journeyed among the bodies until
+we entered the city gate. As I was informed by some Europeans who
+returned from Armenia after the massacres, the Government ordered the
+burial of all the bodies from the roadside when the matter had become
+the subject of comment in European newspapers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In Prison.</span>&mdash;On our arrival at Diarbekir the officer handed us over to
+the authorities and we were thrown into prison, where I remained for
+twenty-two days. During this time I obtained full information about the
+movement from one of the prisoners, who was a Moslem of Diarbekir, and
+who related to me what had happened to the Armenians there. I asked him
+what was the reason of the affair, why the Government had treated them
+in this way, and whether they had committed any act calling for their
+complete extermination. He said that, after the declaration of war, the
+Armenians, especially the younger men, had failed to comply with the
+orders of the Government, that most of them had evaded military service
+by flight, and had formed companies which they called "Roof Companies."
+These took money from the wealthy Armenians for the purchase of arms,
+which they did not deliver to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> authorities, but sent to their
+companies, until the leading Armenians and Notables assembled, went to
+the Government offices, and requested that these men should be punished
+as they were displeased at their proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>I asked whether the Armenians had killed any Government official, or any
+Turks or Kurds in Diarbekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but
+that a few days after the arrival of the Vali, Resh&icirc;d Bey, and the
+Commandant of Gendarmerie, Rushdi Bey, prohibited arms had been found in
+some Armenian houses, and also in the church. On the discovery of these
+arms, the Government summoned some of the principal Armenians and flung
+them into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated
+representations, asking for the release of these men, but the
+Government, far from complying with the request, imprisoned the
+ecclesiastics also, the number of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to
+nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant of Gendarmerie came and
+informed them that an Imperial Order had been issued for their
+banishment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the end of the war.
+They were rejoiced at this, procured all they required in the way of
+money, clothes, and furniture, and embarked on the <i>keleks</i> (wooden
+rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabitants of that region
+for travelling on the Euphrates and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a
+while it was understood that they had all been drowned in the Tigris,
+and that none of them had reached Mosul. The authorities continued to
+send off and kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women and
+children, the first families sent from Diarbekir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> being those of
+Kazazi&acirc;n, Tirpanji&acirc;n, Minassi&acirc;n, and Kechiji&acirc;n, who were the wealthiest
+families in the place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop named&mdash;as
+far as I recollect&mdash;Homandri&acirc;s; he was the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a
+venerable and learned old man of about eighty; they showed no respect to
+his white beard, but drowned him in the Tigris.</p>
+
+<p>Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was also among the 700
+imprisoned. When he saw what was happening to his people he could not
+endure the disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petroleum over
+himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who was imprisoned for having
+written a letter to this bishop three years before the events, told me
+that he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted to his people,
+with no fear of death, but unable to submit to oppression and
+humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Armenians in the gaol itself,
+and killed two or three of them out of greed for their money and
+clothing, but nothing was done to bring them to account. The Government
+left only a very small number of Armenians in Diarbekir, these being
+such as were skilled in making boots and similar articles for the army.
+Nineteen individuals had remained in the prison, where I saw and talked
+with them; these, according to the pretence of the authorities, were
+Armenian bravoes.</p>
+
+<p>The last family deported from Diarbekir was that of Dunji&acirc;n, about
+November, 1915. This family was protected by certain Notables of the
+place, from desire for their money, or the beauty of some of their
+women.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dikr&acirc;n.</span>&mdash;This man was a member of the central committee of the
+Tashnagtzi&acirc;n Society in Diarbekir. An official of that place, who
+belonged to the Society of Union and Progress, told me that the
+authorities seized Dikr&acirc;n and demanded from him the names of his
+associates. He refused, and said that he could not give the names until
+the committee had met and decided whether or not it was proper to
+furnish this information to the Government. He was subjected to
+varieties of torture, such as putting his feet in irons till they
+swelled and he could not walk, plucking out his nails and eyelashes with
+a cruel instrument, etc., but he would not say a word, nor give the name
+of one of his associates. He was deported with the others and died nobly
+out of love for his nation, preferring death to the betrayal of the
+secrets of his brave people to the Government.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Agh&ocirc;b Kaitanji&acirc;n.</span>&mdash;Agh&ocirc;b Kaitanji&acirc;n was one of the Armenians imprisoned
+on the charge of being bravoes of the Armenian Society in Diarbekir, and
+in whose possession explosive material had been found. I often talked to
+him, and I asked him to tell me his story. He said that one day, whilst
+he was sitting in his house, a police agent knocked at the door and told
+him that the Chief of Police wished to see him at his office. He went
+there, and some of the police asked him about the Armenian Society and
+its bravoes. He replied that he knew nothing of either societies or
+bravoes. He was then bastinadoed and tortured in various ways for
+several days till he despaired of life, preferring death to a
+continuance of degradation. He had a knife with him, and when they
+aggravated the torture so that he could endure it no longer, he asked
+them to let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> him go to the latrine and on his return he would tell them
+all he knew about the Armenian matter. With the help of the police he
+went, and cut the arteries of his wrists<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> ... with the object of
+committing suicide. The blood gushed out freely; he got to the door of
+the police-office and there fainted. They poured water on his face and
+he recovered consciousness; he was brought before the officer and the
+interrogatory was renewed.<a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> ... The Chief of Police was confounded at
+this proceeding and sent him to the hospital until he was cured. I saw
+the wounds on his hands, and they were completely healed. This was the
+story as he told it to me himself. He desired me to publish it in an
+Armenian newspaper called <i>H&auml;yren&icirc;k</i> (Fatherland), which appears in
+America, in order that it may be read by his brother Garabet, now in
+that country, who had been convinced that the Government would leave
+none of them alive.</p>
+
+<p>I associated freely with the young Armenians who were imprisoned, and we
+talked much of these acts, the like of which, as happening to a nation
+such as theirs, have never been heard of, nor recorded in the history of
+past ages. These youths were sent for trial by the court-martial at
+Kharpout, and I heard that they arrived there safely and asked
+permission to embrace the Moslem faith. This was to escape from
+contemptuous treatment by the Kurds, and not from the fear of death, as
+their conversion would not save them from the penalty if they were shown
+to deserve it. Before their departure they asked me what I had heard
+about them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> and whether the authorities purposed to kill them on the
+way or not. After enquiring about this, and ascertaining that they would
+not be killed in this way, I informed them accordingly; they were
+rejoiced, saying that all they desired was to remain alive to see the
+results of the war. They said that the Armenians deserved the treatment
+which they had received, as they would never see the necessity for
+taking precautions against the Turks, believing that the constitutional
+Turkish Government would never proceed to measures of this kind without
+valid reason. The Government has perpetrated these deeds although no
+official, Kurd, Turk, or Moslem, has been killed by an Armenian, and we
+know not what the weighty reasons may have been which impelled them to
+so unprecedented a measure. And if the Armenians should not be
+reproached with a negligence for which they have paid dearly, yet a
+people who do not take full precautions are liable to be taxed justly
+with blameworthy carelessness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">My Travelling-Companions</span>.&mdash;From time to time I visited the men who had
+been in my company during the journey, but after my release the director
+of the prison would not permit me to go to them. I used, therefore, to
+ask for one of them and talk with him outside the prison in which the
+Armenians were confined. After a while I enquired for them and was told
+that they had been sent to execution, like others before them, and at
+this I cried out in dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been
+imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge of having stolen
+articles from the effects of dead Armenians, and as he knew my
+companions I asked him about them. He said that he had killed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gendarmes had laid wagers
+in firing at his clerical headdress. "I made the best shooting, hit the
+hat and knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second ball." My
+answer was silence. The man firmly believed that these murders were
+necessary, the Sultan having so ordered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Sale of Letters</span>.&mdash;When the Government first commenced the
+deportation of the 700 men, the officials were instructed to prepare
+letters, signed with the names of the former, and to send them to the
+families of the banished individuals in order to mislead them, as it was
+feared that the Armenians might take some action which would defeat the
+plan and divulge the secret to the other Armenians, thus rendering their
+extermination impracticable. The unhappy families gave large sums to
+those who brought them letters from their Head. The Government appointed
+a Kurd, a noted brigand, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to
+slaughter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their destination.
+When the Government was secure as to the Armenians, a man was despatched
+to kill the Kurd, whose name was Aami Hassi, or Hassi Aami.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Slaughter of the Protestant, Chaldean, and Syriac Communities</span>.&mdash;The
+slaughter was general throughout these communities, not a single
+protestant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the Syriac
+Community were exterminated, with a part of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir,
+and in its dependencies, none escaped save those in Madi&acirc;t and Mard&icirc;n.
+When latterly orders were given that only Armenians were to be killed,
+and that those belonging to other communities should not be touched,
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> Government held their hand from the destruction of the latter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Syriacs</span>.&mdash;But the Syriacs in the province of Madi&acirc;t were brave men,
+braver than all the other tribes in these regions. When they heard what
+had fallen upon their brethren at Diarbekir and the vicinity they
+assembled, fortified themselves in three villages near Madi&acirc;t, and made
+a heroic resistance, showing a courage beyond description. The
+Government sent against them two companies of regulars, besides a
+company of gendarmes which had been despatched thither previously; the
+Kurdish tribes assembled against them, but without result, and thus they
+protected their lives, honour, and possessions from the tyranny of this
+oppressive Government. An Imperial Ir&acirc;deh was issued, granting them
+pardon, but they placed no reliance on it and did not surrender, for
+past experience had shown them that this is the most false Government on
+the face of the earth, taking back to-day what it gave yesterday, and
+punishing to-day with most cruel penalties him whom it had previously
+pardoned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Conversation</span> between a postal contractor from Bitlis and a friend of
+mine, as we were sitting at a caf&eacute; in Diarbekir:</p>
+
+<p>Contractor: I see many Armenians in Diarbekir. How comes it that they
+are still here?</p>
+
+<p>My Friend: These are not Armenians, but Syriacs and Chaldeans.</p>
+
+<p>Contractor: The Government of Bitlis has not left a single Christian in
+that Vilayet, nor in the district of Moush. If a doctor told a sick man
+that the remedy for his disease was the heart of a Chris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>tian he would
+not find one though he searched through the whole Vilayet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Protection Afforded by Kurds to Armenians on Payment</span>.&mdash;The Armenians
+were confined in the main ward of the prison at Diarbekir, and from time
+to time I visited them. One day, on waking from sleep, I went to see
+them in their ward and found them collecting rice, flour and moneys. I
+asked them the reason of this, and they said: "What are we to do? If we
+do not collect a quantity every week and give it to the Kurds, they
+insult and beat us, so we give these things to some of them so that they
+may protect us from the outrages of their fellows." I exclaimed, "There
+is no power nor might but in God," and went back grieving over their
+lot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Despatch of the Armenians to the Slaughter</span>.&mdash;This was a most shocking
+proceeding, appalling in its atrocity. One of the gendarmes in Diarbekir
+related to me how it was done. He said that, when orders were given for
+the removal and destruction of a family, an official went to the house,
+counted the members of the family, and delivered them to the Commandant
+of Militia or one of the officers of Gendarmerie. Men were posted to
+keep guard over the house and its occupants during the night until 8
+o'clock, thereby giving notice to the wretched family that they must
+prepare for death. The women shrieked and wailed, anguish and despair
+showed on the faces of all, and they died even before death came upon
+them.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> ... After 8 o'clock waggons arrived and conveyed the families
+to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> place near by, where they were killed by rifle fire, or massacred
+like sheep with knives, daggers, and axes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sale of Armenian Effects, and Removal of Crosses from the
+Churches</span>.&mdash;After the Armenians had been destroyed, all the furniture of
+their houses, their linen, effects, and implements of all kinds, as well
+as all the contents of their shops and storehouses, were collected in
+the churches or other large buildings. The authorities appointed
+committees for the sale of these goods, which were disposed of at the
+lowest price, as might be the case with the effects of those who died a
+natural death, but with this difference, that the money realised went to
+the Treasury of the Turkish Government, instead of to the heirs of the
+deceased.</p>
+
+<p>You might see a carpet, worth thirty pounds, sold for five, a man's
+costume, worth four pounds, sold for two medjidies, and so on with the
+rest of the articles, this being especially the case with musical
+instruments, such as pianos, etc., which had no value at all. All money
+and valuables were collected by the Commandant of Gendarmerie and the
+Vali, Resh&icirc;d Bey, the latter taking them with him when he went to
+Constantinople, and delivering them to Talaat Bey.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p>The mind is confounded by the reflection that this people of Armenia,
+this brave race who astonished the world by their courage, resolution,
+progress and knowledge, who yesterday were the most powerful and most
+highly cultivated of the Ottoman peoples, have become merely a memory,
+as though they had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> never flourished. Their learned books are waste
+paper, used to wrap up cheese or dates, and I was told that one high
+official had bought thirty volumes of French literature for 50 piastres.
+Their schools are closed, after being thronged with pupils. Such is the
+evil end of the Armenian race: let it be a warning to those peoples who
+are striving for freedom, and let them understand that freedom is not to
+be achieved but by the shedding of blood, and that words are the
+stock-in-trade of the weak alone.</p>
+
+<p>I observed that the crosses had been removed from the lofty steeples of
+the churches, which are used as storehouses and markets for the keeping
+and sale of the effects of the dead.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Methods of Slaughter</span>.&mdash;These were of various kinds. An officer told me
+that in the Vilayet of Bitlis the authorities collected the Armenians in
+barns full of straw (or chaff), piling up straw in front of the door and
+setting it on fire, so that the Armenians inside perished in the smoke.
+He said that sometimes hundreds were put together in one barn. Other
+modes of killing were also employed (at Bitlis). He told me, to my deep
+sorrow, how he had seen a girl hold her lover in her embrace, and so
+enter the barn to meet her death without a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>At Moush, a part were killed in straw-barns, but the greater number by
+shooting or stabbing with knives, the Government hiring butchers, who
+received a Turkish pound each day as wages. A doctor, named Az&icirc;z Bey,
+told me that when he was at Marzif&ucirc;n, in the Vilayet of Sivas, he heard
+that a caravan of Armenians was being sent to execution. He went to the
+Kaimak&acirc;m and said to him: "You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> know I am a doctor, and there is no
+difference between doctors and butchers, as doctors are mostly occupied
+in cutting up mankind. And as the duties of a Kaimak&acirc;m at this time are
+also like our own&mdash;cutting up human bodies&mdash;I beg you to let me see this
+surgical operation myself." Permission was given, and the doctor went.
+He found four butchers, each with a long knife; the gendarmes divided
+the Armenians into parties of ten, and sent them up to the butchers one
+by one. The butcher told the Armenian to stretch out his neck; he did
+so, and was slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was amazed at their
+steadfastness in presence of death, not saying a word, or showing any
+sign of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The gendarmes used also to bind the women and children and throw them
+down from a very lofty eminence, so that they reached the ground
+shattered to pieces. This place is said to be between Diarbekir and
+Mard&icirc;n, and the bones of the slain are there in heaps to this day.</p>
+
+<p>Another informant told me that the Diarbekir authorities had killed the
+Armenians either by shooting, by the butchers, or at times by putting
+numbers of them in wells and caves, which were blocked up so that they
+perished. Also they threw them into the Tigris and the Euphrates, and
+the bodies caused an epidemic of typhus fever. Two thousand Armenians
+were slaughtered at a place outside the walls of Diarbekir, between the
+Castle of Sultan Murad and the Tigris, and at not more than half an
+hour's distance from the city.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Brutality of the Gendarmes and Kurdish Tribes</span>.&mdash;There is no doubt that
+what is related as to the proceedings of the gendarmes and the Kurdish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+tribes actually took place. On receiving a caravan of Armenians the
+gendarmes searched them one by one, men and women, taking any money they
+might find, and stripping them of the better portions of their clothing.
+When they were satisfied that there remained no money, good clothes, or
+other things of value, they sold the Armenians in thousands to the
+Kurds, on the stipulation that none should be left alive. The price was
+in accordance with the number of the party; I was told by a reliable
+informant of cases where the price had varied between 2,000 and 200
+liras.</p>
+
+<p>After purchasing the caravans, the Kurds stripped all the Armenians, men
+and women, of their clothes, so that they remained entirely naked. They
+then shot them down, every one, after which they cut open their stomachs
+to search for money amongst the entrails, also cutting up the clothing,
+boots, etc., with the same object.</p>
+
+<p>Such were the dealings of the official gendarmerie and the Kurds with
+their fellow-creatures. The reason of the sale of the parties by the
+gendarmes was to save themselves trouble, and to obtain delivery of
+further parties to plunder of their money.</p>
+
+<p>Woe to him who had teeth of gold, or gold-plated. The gendarmes and
+Kurds used to violently draw out his teeth before arriving at the place
+of execution, thus inflicting tortures before actual death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Kurdish Agha Slaughters 50,000 Armenians</span>.&mdash;A Kurd told me that the
+authorities of Kharpout handed over to one of the Kurdish Aghas in that
+Vilayet, in three batches, more than 50,000 Armenians from Erzeroum,
+Trebizond, Sivas, and Constantinople, with orders to kill them and to
+divide<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> with themselves the property which he might take from them. He
+killed them all and took from them their money and other belongings. He
+hired 600 mules for the women, to convey them to Urfa, at the rate of
+three liras a head. After receiving the price, he collected mules
+belonging to his tribe, mounted the women on them, and brought them to a
+place between Malat&icirc;ya and Urfa, where he killed them in the most
+barbarous way, taking all their money, clothes, and valuables.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Violation of Women before or after Death</span>.&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Incident of the Sheikh and the Girl</span>.&mdash;I said above that the Armenian
+women were sent off in batches under guard of gendarmes. Whenever they
+passed by a village the inhabitants would come and choose any they
+desired, taking them away and giving a small sum to the gendarmes. At
+one place a Kurd of over 60 picked out a beautiful girl of 16. She
+refused to have anything to do with him, but said she was ready to
+embrace Islam and marry a youth of her own age. This the Kurds would not
+allow, but gave her the choice between death and the Sheikh; she still
+refused, and was killed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Barsoum Agha</span>.&mdash;Whilst I was Kaimak&acirc;m of the district of Kiakhta, in the
+Vilayet of Kharpout, I was acquainted with an Armenian Notable of that
+place, named Barsoum Agha. He was a worthy and courageous man, dealing
+well with Kurds, Turks, and Armenians, without distinction; he also
+showed much kindness to officials who were dismissed from their posts in
+the district. All the Kur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>dish Aghas thereabouts kept close watch over
+him, hating him because he was their rival in the supremacy of the
+place. When, after my banishment, I arrived at Sivrek and heard what had
+befallen the Armenians, I enquired about him and his family. I was told
+that when the Government disposed of the Armenians of Kiakhta he was
+summoned and ordered to produce the records of moneys owing to him
+(Kurds and Armenians in that district owed him a sum of 10,000 liras);
+he replied that he had torn up the records and released his debtors from
+their obligations. He was taken away with the other Armenians, and on
+arrival at the Euphrates he asked permission to drown himself. This was
+granted, and he endeavoured to do so, but failed, as he could not master
+himself. So he said to the gendarmes, "Life is dear and I cannot kill
+myself, so do as you have been ordered," whereupon one of them shot him
+and then killed the rest of the family.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Narrative of a Young Turk</span>.&mdash;This youth, who had come to Diarbekir as a
+schoolmaster, told me that the Government had informed the Armenians of
+Broussa that their deportation had been decided, and that they were to
+leave for Mosul, Syria, or El-Deir three days after receiving the order.
+After selling what they could, they hired carts and carriages for the
+transport of their goods and themselves and started&mdash;as they
+thought&mdash;for their destination. On their arrival at a very rugged and
+barren place, far distant from any villages, the drivers, in conformity
+with their instructions, broke up the conveyances and left the people in
+the waste, returning in the night to plunder them. Many died there of
+hunger and terror; a great part were killed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> on the road; and only a few
+reached Syria or El-Deir.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Children Perishing of Hunger and Thirst</span>.&mdash;An Arab of El-Jez&icirc;ra, who
+accompanied me on my flight from Diarbekir, told me that he had gone
+with a Sheikh of his tribe, men and camels, to buy grain from the sons
+of Ibrahim Pasha El-Mellili. On their way they saw 17 children, the
+eldest not more than 13 years old, dying of hunger and thirst. The Arab
+said: "We had with us a small water-skin and a little food. When the
+Sheikh saw them he wept with pity, and gave them food and water with his
+own hands; but what good could this small supply do to them? We
+reflected that if we took them with us to the Pasha, they would be
+killed, as the Kurds were killing all Armenians by order of the
+authorities; and our Arabs were at five days' distance from the place.
+So we had no choice but to leave them to the mercy of God, and on our
+return, a week later, we found them all dead."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Narrative of a Provincial Governor</span>.&mdash;We were talking of the courage and
+good qualities of the Armenians, and the Governor of the place, who was
+with us, told us a singular story. He said: "According to orders, I
+collected all the remaining Armenians, consisting of 17 women and some
+children, amongst whom was a child of 3 years old, diseased, who had
+never been able to walk. When the butchers began slaughtering the women
+and the turn of the child's mother came, he rose up on his feet and ran
+for a space, then falling down. We were astonished at this, and at his
+understanding that his mother was to be killed. A gendarme went and took
+hold of him, and laid him dead on his dead mother."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> He also said that
+he had seen one of these women eating a piece of bread as she went up to
+the butcher, another smoking a cigarette, and that it was as though they
+cared nothing for death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Narrative of Shevket Bey</span>.&mdash;Shevket Bey, one of the officials charged
+with the extermination of the Armenians, told me, in company with
+others, the following story: "I was proceeding with a party, and when we
+had arrived outside the walls of Diarbekir and were beginning to shoot
+down the Armenians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and begged me
+to give him a girl of about ten years old. I stopped the firing and sent
+a gendarme to bring the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot
+to her and said, 'Sit there. I have given you to this man, and you will
+be saved from death.' After a while, I saw that she had thrown herself
+amongst the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to cease firing
+and bring her up. I said to her, 'I have had pity on you and brought you
+out from among the others to spare your life. Why do you throw yourself
+with them? Go with this man and he will bring you up like a daughter.'
+She said: 'I am the daughter of an Armenian; my parents and kinsfolk are
+killed among these; I will have no others in their place, and I do not
+wish to live any longer without them.' Then she cried and lamented; I
+tried hard to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her go
+her way. She left me joyfully, put herself between her father and
+mother, who were at the last gasp, and she was killed there." And he
+added: "If such was the behaviour of the children, what was that of
+their elders?"</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Price of Armenian Women</span>.&mdash;A reliable inform<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>ant from Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r told me
+that one of the officials of that place had bought from the gendarmes
+three girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. Another man told me
+that he had bought a very beautiful girl for one lira, and I heard that
+among the tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old furniture,
+at low prices, varying from one to ten liras, or from one to five
+sheep.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Mutesarrif and the Armenian Girl</span>.&mdash;On the arrival of a batch of
+Armenians at Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r from Ras-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to
+choose a servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell on a handsome
+girl, and he went up to her, but on his approach she turned white and
+was about to fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his servant
+to take her to his house. On returning thither he asked the reason for
+her terror of him, and she told him that she and her mother had been
+sent from Ras-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gendarme, many other
+Armenian women being with them. On the way, the gendarme called her
+mother, and told her to give him her money, or he would kill her; she
+said she had none, so he tortured her till she gave him six liras.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a>
+... He said to her: "You liar! You [Armenians] never cease lying. You
+have seen what has befallen, and will befall, all Armenians, but you
+will not take warning, so I shall make you an example to all who see
+you." Then he cut off her hands with his dagger, one after the other,
+then both her feet, all in sight of her daughter, whom he then took
+aside and violated, whilst her mother, in a dying state, witnessed the
+act. "And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> when I saw you approach me, I remembered my mother's fate and
+dreaded you, thinking that you would treat me as the gendarme treated my
+mother and myself, before each other's eyes."<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">The Reward of Hard Labour.</span>"&mdash;The Turks had collected all those of
+military age and dispersed amongst the battalions to perform their army
+service. When the Government determined on the deportation and
+destruction of the Armenians&mdash;as stated in their official
+declaration&mdash;orders were given for the formation of separate battalions
+of Armenians, to be employed on roads and municipal works. The
+battalions were formed and sent to the roads and other kinds of hard
+labour. They were employed in this manner for eight months, when the
+severity of winter set in. The Government, being then unable to make
+further use of them, despatched them to Diarbekir. Before their arrival,
+the officers telegraphed that the Armenian troops were on their way, and
+the authorities sent gendarmes, well furnished with cartridges, to meet
+the poor wretches. The gendarmes received them with rifle-fire, and 840
+men perished in this manner, shot close to the city of Diarbekir.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Caravan of Women.</span>&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">A Night's Shelter for Fifty Pounds.</span>&mdash;The man who showed the greatest
+capacity for exterminating Armenians was Resh&icirc;d Bey, the Vali of
+Diarbekir. I have already stated how many were killed in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Vilayet.
+When news of his removal arrived, the remaining Armenians, and the
+Christians generally rejoiced, and shortly after the report was current
+some Armenians, who had hidden themselves, came out from their
+concealment and walked about the city. The Vali, who was anxious to keep
+his removal secret and to inspire terror, began deporting Armenians with
+still greater energy, and those who had come out returned to their
+hiding-places. One of the principal men of Diarbekir stated that one
+Armenian had paid fifty Turkish pounds to an inhabitant for shelter in
+his house during the night before the Vali's departure, and another told
+me that a man had received an offer of three pounds for each night until
+the same event, but had refused from fear of the authorities.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Chastity of the Armenian Women.</span>&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_J_10" id="FNanchor_J_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_J_10" class="fnanchor">[J]</a> ... An Arab of the Akid&acirc;t told me
+that he was going along the bank of the Euphrates when he saw some of
+the town rabble stripping two women of their clothes. He expostulated
+and told them to restore the clothes, but they paid no attention. The
+women begged for mercy, and finding it unavailing they threw themselves
+into the river, preferring death to dishonour. He told me also of
+another woman who had a suckling child, and begged food from the
+passers-by, who were in too great fear of the authorities to help her.
+On the third day of starvation, finding no relief, she left the baby in
+the market of El-Deir and drowned herself in the Euphrates. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> this way
+do they show high qualities, honour, and courage such as many men do not
+possess.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Women-Servants in Diarbekir.</span>&mdash;You cannot enter a house in Diarbekir
+without finding from one to five Armenian maid-servants, even the
+humblest shopkeepers having one, who probably in the lifetime of her
+parents would not have condescended to speak a word to the master whom
+she now has to serve in order to save her life. It is stated that the
+number of such women and girls in the city is over 5,000, mostly from
+Erzeroum, Kharpout and other Vilayets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Narrative of Shah&icirc;n Bey.</span>&mdash;Shah&icirc;n Bey, a man of Diarbekir, who was in
+prison with me, told me that a number of Armenian men and women were
+delivered to him for slaughter, he being a soldier. He said: "Whilst we
+were on the way, I saw an Armenian girl whom I knew, and who was very
+beautiful. I called her by name, and said 'Come, I will save you, and
+you shall marry a young man of your country, a Turk or a Kurd.' She
+refused, and said: 'If you wish to do me a kindness I will ask one thing
+which you may do for me.' I told her I would do whatever she wished, and
+she said: 'I have a brother, younger than myself, here amongst these
+people. I pray you to kill him before you kill me, so that in dying I
+may not be anxious in mind about him.' She pointed him out and I called
+him. When he came, she said to him, 'My brother, farewell. I kiss you
+for the last time, but we shall meet, if it be God's will, in the next
+world, and He will soon avenge us for what we have suffered.' They
+kissed each other, and the boy delivered himself to me. I must needs
+obey my orders, so I struck him one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> blow with an axe, split his skull,
+and he fell dead. Then she said: 'I thank you with all my heart, and
+shall ask you one more favour'; she put her hands over her eyes and
+said: 'Strike as you struck my brother, one blow, and do not torture
+me.' So I struck one blow and killed her, and to this day I grieve over
+her beauty and youth, and her wonderful courage."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Photographs of Armenians</span> lying in the road, dressed in turbans, for
+despatch to Constantinople. The Turkish Government thought that European
+nations might get to hear of the destruction of the Armenians and
+publish the news abroad so as to excite prejudice against the Turks. So
+after the gendarmes had killed a number of Armenian men, they put on
+them turbans and brought Kurdish women to weep and lament over them,
+saying that the Armenians had killed their men. They also brought a
+photographer to photograph the bodies and the weeping women, so that at
+a future time they might be able to convince Europe that it was the
+Armenians who had attacked the Kurds and killed them, that the Kurdish
+tribes had risen against them in revenge, and that the Turkish
+Government had had no part in the matter. But the secret of these
+proceedings was not hidden from men of intelligence, and after all this
+had been done, the truth became known and was spread abroad in
+Diarbekir.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Conversion of Armenian Women to Islam.</span>&mdash;When the Government undertook
+the extermination of the Armenians some of the women went to the Mufti
+and the Kadi, and declared their desire to embrace the Mohammedan faith.
+These authorities<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> accepted their conversion, and they were married to
+men of Diarbekir, either Turks or Kurds.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, the Government began to collect these women, so the Mufti
+and the Kadi went to the Vali and said that the women in question were
+no longer Armenians, having become Mussulmans, and that by the Sacred
+Law the killing of Mussulman women was not permissible. The Vali
+replied: "These women are vipers, who will bite us in time to come; do
+not oppose the Government in this matter, for politics have no religion,
+and the Government know what they are about." The Mufti and the Kadi
+went back as they had come, and the women were sent to death. After the
+removal of the Vali&mdash;in consequence, as it was said, of abuses in
+connection with the sale of effects left in Armenian houses and
+shops&mdash;orders arrived that the conversion of any who desired to enter
+Islam should be accepted, be they men or women. Many of the Armenians
+who remained, of both sexes, hastened to embrace the Faith in the hope
+of saving their lives, but after a time they were despatched likewise
+and their Islamism did not save them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Germans and the Armenians.</span>&mdash;Whenever the talk fell on the Armenians
+I used to blame the Turks for their proceedings, but one day when we
+were discussing the question, an official of Diarbekir, who was one of
+the fanatical Young Turk Nationalists, said: "The Turks are not to blame
+in this matter, for the Germans were the first to apply this treatment
+to the Poles, who were under their rule. And the Germans have compelled
+the Turks to take this course, saying that if they did not kill the
+Ar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>menians there would be no alliance with them, and thus Turkey had no
+choice."</p>
+
+<p>This is what the Turk said, word for word. And it was confirmed by what
+I heard from a Turk who was imprisoned with me at Aal&icirc;ya, on the charge
+of corresponding with Abdul-Ker&icirc;m el-Khal&icirc;l. He said that when passing
+through Damascus he had visited the German Vice-Consul there, who had
+told him confidentially that Oppenheim had come on a special mission,
+which was to incite Jem&acirc;l Pasha to persecute the Arabs, with a view to
+causing hatred between the two races, by which the Germans might profit
+in future if differences arose between them and the Turks. This was a
+short time previous to the execution of Abdul-Ker&icirc;m.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Killing of the Two Kaimak&acirc;ms.</span>&mdash;When the Government at Diarbekir gave
+orders to the officials to kill the Armenians, a native of Baghdad was
+Kaimak&acirc;m of El-Besh&icirc;ri, in that Vilayet, and an Albanian was Kaimak&acirc;m of
+L&icirc;jeh. These two telegraphed to the Vilayet that their consciences would
+not permit them to do such work, and that they resigned their posts.
+Their resignations were accepted, but they were both secretly
+assassinated. I investigated this matter carefully, and ascertained that
+the name of the Baghdad Arab was Sabat Bey El-Sueidi, but I could not
+learn that of the Albanian, which I much regret, as they performed a
+noble act for which they should be commemorated in history....<a name="FNanchor_K_11" id="FNanchor_K_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_K_11" class="fnanchor">[K]</a></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class="smcap">An Armenian Betrays His Nation.</span>&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_L_12" id="FNanchor_L_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_L_12" class="fnanchor">[L]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Sultan's Order.</span>&mdash;Whilst I was in prison, a Turkish Commissioner of
+Police used to come to see a friend of his, who was also imprisoned. One
+day when I and this friend were together, the Commissioner came, and, in
+the course of conversation about the Armenians and their fate, he
+described to us how he had slaughtered them, and how a number had taken
+refuge in a cave outside the city, and he had brought them out and
+killed two of them himself. His friend said to him: "Have you no fear of
+God? Whence have you the right to take life in defiance of God's law?"
+He replied: "It was the Sultan's order; the Sultan's order is the order
+of God, and its fulfilment is a duty."</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Armenian Death Statistics.</span>&mdash;At the end of August, 1915, I was visited in
+prison by one of my Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend of
+one of those charged with the conduct of the Armenian massacres. We
+spoke of the Armenian question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone,
+570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from other Vilayets as
+well as those belonging to Diarbekir itself.</p>
+
+<p>If to this we add those killed in the following months, amounting to
+about 50,000; and those in the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the
+province of Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who perished in
+Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa,
+Zeitoun, and Aintab&mdash;estimated at upwards of 350,000&mdash;we arrive at a
+total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, hunger, or thirst, of
+1,200,000.</p>
+
+<p>There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet of Aleppo, in Syria, and
+Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r (those deported thither), and in America and Egypt and
+elsewhere; and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the Balkan
+States, thus making a grand total of 1,900,000.</p>
+
+<p>The above is what I was able to learn as to the statistics of the
+slaughtered Armenians, and I would quote an extract from <i>El-Mokattam</i>,
+dealing with this subject:</p>
+
+<p>"The Basle correspondent of the <i>Temps</i> states that, according to
+official reports received from Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there
+were 492,000 deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diarbekir,
+Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-Z&ucirc;r. The Turkish Minister of the Interior,
+Talaat Bey, estimates the number of deportees at 800,000, and states
+that 300,000 of these have been removed or have died in the last few
+months.</p>
+
+<p>"Another calculation gives the number of deported Armenians as 1,200,000
+souls, and states that at least 500,000 have been killed or have died in
+banishment" (<i>El-Mokattam</i>, May 30th, 1916).</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Armenians and the Arab Tribes.</span>&mdash;As I approached Diarbekir, I passed
+through many Arab tribes, with whom I saw a number of Armenians, men and
+women, who were being well treated, although the Government had let the
+tribes know that the killing of Armenians was a bounden duty. I did not
+hear of a single instance of an Armenian being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> murdered or outraged by
+a tribesman, but I heard that some Arabs, passing by a well into which
+men and women had been thrown, drew them out when at the last extremity,
+took them with them, and tended them till they were recovered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Arab and the Armenian Beggar Woman</span>.&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_M_13" id="FNanchor_M_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_M_13" class="fnanchor">[M]</a> ...</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONCLUSION</h2>
+
+
+<p>If the Turkish Government were asked the reasons for which the Armenian
+men, women, and children were killed, and their honour and property
+placed at any man's mercy, they would reply that this people have
+murdered Moslems in the Vilayet of Van, and that there have been found
+in their possession prohibited arms, explosive bombs, and indications of
+steps towards the formation of an Armenian State, such as flags and the
+like, all pointing to the fact that this race has not turned from its
+evil ways, but on the first opportunity will kill the Moslems, rise in
+revolt, and invoke the help of Russia, the enemy of Turkey, against its
+rulers. That is what the Turkish Government would say. I have followed
+the matter from its source. I have enquired from inhabitants and
+officials of Van, who were in Diarbekir, whether any Moslem had been
+killed by Armenians in the town of Van, or in the districts of the
+Vilayet. They answered in the negative, saying that the Government had
+ordered the population to quit the town before the arrival of the
+Russians and before anyone was killed; but that the Armenians had been
+summoned to give up their arms and had not done so, dreading an attack
+by the Kurds, and dreading the Government also; the Government had
+further demanded that the principal Notables and leading men should be
+given up to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> them as hostages, but the Armenians had not complied.</p>
+
+<p>All this took place during the approach of the Russians towards the city
+of Van. As to the adjacent districts, the authorities collected the
+Armenians and drove them into the interior, where they were all
+slaughtered, no Government official or private man, Turk or Kurd, having
+been killed.</p>
+
+<p>As regards Diarbekir, you have read the whole story in this book, and no
+insignificant event took place there, let alone murders or breaches of
+the peace, which could lead the Turkish Government to deal with the
+Armenians in this atrocious manner.</p>
+
+<p>At Constantinople, we hear of no murder or other unlawful act committed
+by the Armenians, except the unauthenticated story about the twenty
+bravoes, to which I have already referred.</p>
+
+<p>They have not done the least wrong in the Vilayets of Kharpout,
+Trebizond, Sivas, Adana, or Bitlis, nor in the province of Moush.</p>
+
+<p>I have related the episode at Zeitoun, which was unimportant, and that
+at Urfa, where they acted in self-defence, seeing what had befallen
+their people, and preferring death to surrender.</p>
+
+<p>As to their preparations, the flags, bombs and the like, even assuming
+there to be some truth in the statement, it does not justify the
+annihilation of the whole people, men and women, old men and children,
+in a way which revolts all humanity and more especially Islam and the
+whole body of Moslems, as those unacquainted with the true facts might
+impute these deeds to Mohammedan fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>To such as assert this it will suffice to point out the murders and
+oppressive acts committed by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> Young Turks against Islam in Syria and
+Mesopotamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men of enlightenment,
+without fault on their part, such as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahh&acirc;b
+Bey El-Ingl&icirc;zi, Sel&icirc;m Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Husseini, Abdul-Ghani
+El-Ar&icirc;si, Shef&icirc;k Bey El-Moweyyad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Ham&icirc;d
+El-Zahr&acirc;wi, Abdul-Ker&icirc;m El-Khal&icirc;l, Emir Aarif El-Sheh&acirc;bi, Sheikh Ahmed
+Hasan Tab&acirc;ra, and more than thirty leading men of this class.</p>
+
+<p>I have published this pamphlet in order to refute beforehand inventions
+and slanders against the faith of Islam and against Moslems generally,
+and I affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed
+to the Committee of Union and Progress, who deal with the empire as they
+please; it has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their
+jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is
+guiltless of their deeds.</p>
+
+<p>From the foregoing we know that the Armenians have committed no acts
+justifying the Turks in inflicting on them this horrible retribution,
+unprecedented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the reason which
+impelled the Turkish Government to kill off a whole people, of whom they
+used to say that they were their brothers in patriotism, the principal
+factor in bringing about the downfall of the despotic rule of
+Abdul-Ham&icirc;d and the introduction of the Constitution, loyal to the
+Empire, and fighting side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? The
+Turks sanctioned and approved the institution of Armenian political
+societies, which they did not do in the case of other nationalities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>What is the reason of this sudden change of attitude?</p>
+
+<p>It is that, previous to the proclamation of the Constitution, the
+Unionists hated despotic rule; they preached equality, and inspired the
+people with hatred of the despotism of Abdul-Ham&icirc;d. But as soon as they
+had themselves seized the reins of authority, and tasted the sweets of
+power, they found that despotism was the best means to confirm
+themselves in ease and prosperity, and to limit to the Turks alone the
+rule over the Ottoman peoples. On considering these peoples, they found
+that the Armenian race was the only one which would resent their
+despotism, and fight against it as they previously fought against
+Abdul-Ham&icirc;d. They perceived also that the Armenians excelled all the
+other races in arts and industries, that they were more advanced in
+learning and societies, and that after a while the greater part of the
+officers of the army would be Armenians. They were confounded at this,
+and dreaded what might ensue, for they knew their own weakness and that
+they could not rival the Armenians in the way of learning and progress.
+Annihilation seemed to them to be the sole means of deliverance; they
+found their opportunity in a time of war, and they proceeded to this
+atrocious deed, which they carried out with every circumstance of
+brutality&mdash;a deed which is contrary to the law of Islam, as is shown by
+many precepts and historical instances.<a name="FNanchor_N_14" id="FNanchor_N_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_N_14" class="fnanchor">[N]</a> ...</p>
+
+<p>In view of this, how can the Turkish Government<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> be justified at the
+present time in killing off an entire people, who have always paid their
+dues of every kind to the Ottoman State, and have never rebelled against
+it? Even if we suppose the Armenian men to have been deserving of death,
+what was the offence of the women and children? And what will be the
+punishment of those who killed them wrongfully and consumed the innocent
+with fire?</p>
+
+<p>I am of opinion that the Mohammedan peoples are now under the necessity
+of defending themselves, for unless Europeans are made acquainted with
+the true facts they will regard this deed as a black stain on the
+history of Islam, which ages will not efface.</p>
+
+<p>From the Verses, Traditions, and historical instances, it is abundantly
+clear that the action of the Turkish Government has been in complete
+contradiction to the principles of the Faith of Islam; a Government
+which professes to be the protector of Islam, and claims to hold the
+<i>Khil&acirc;fat</i>, cannot act in opposition to Moslem law; and a Government
+which does so act is not an Islamic Government, and has no rightful
+pretension to be such.</p>
+
+<p>It is incumbent on the Moslems to declare themselves guiltless of such a
+Government, and not to render obedience to those who trample under foot
+the Verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet, and shed the
+innocent blood of women, old men and infants, who have done no wrong.
+Otherwise they make themselves accomplices in this crime, which stands
+unequalled in history.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, I would address myself to the Powers of Europe, and say
+that it is they themselves who have encouraged the Turkish Govern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>ment
+to this deed, for they were aware of the evil administration of that
+Government, and its barbarous proceedings on many occasions in the past,
+but did not check it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Completed at Bombay on the 3rd September, 1916.</i></p>
+
+<p>F&Agrave;'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><i>Important Books of the Day</i></h2>
+
+
+<p><b>THE CRIME</b> <i>By a German. Author of "I Accuse!"</i></p>
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+
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+<p>&nbsp;</p>
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+
+<p>8vo. Net, $2.00</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
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+
+<p>Translated from the French Edition by Bernard Miall</p>
+
+<p>The authoritative book essential to an understanding of the history, the
+position and the sufferings of the country that will not die, the title
+of the Norwegian and Swedish editions of this famous work set up under
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrations, maps and facsimiles. 8vo. Net, $2.00</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME</b> <i>By John Buchan</i></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Buchan's account is a clear and brilliant presentation of the whole
+vast manoeuver and its tactical and strategic development through all
+four stages."&mdash;Springfield Republican.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrated. 12mo. Net, $1.50</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE LAND OF DEEPENING SHADOW</b> <i>By D. Thomas Curtin</i></p>
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+<p>Revealing the Germany of fact in place of the Germany of tradition;
+telling the truth about Germany-in-the-third-year-of-the-war.</p>
+
+<p>12mo. Net, $1.50</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>I ACCUSE!</b> (<span class="smcap lowercase">J'ACCUSE</span>!) <i>By a German</i></p>
+
+<p>An arraignment of Germany by a German of the German War Party. Facts
+every neutral should know.</p>
+
+<p>12mo. Net, $1.50</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GERMAN TERROR IN FRANCE</b> <i>By Arnold J. Toynbee</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GERMAN TERROR IN BELGIUM</b> <i>By Arnold J. Toynbee</i></p>
+
+<p>"From the facts he places before his readers, it appears conclusive that
+the horrors were perpetrated systematically, deliberately, under orders,
+upon a people whose country was invaded without just
+cause."&mdash;Philadelphia <i>Public Ledger</i>.</p>
+
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+
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+
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+
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+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>THE GERMAN FURY IN BELGIUM</b> <i>By L. Mokveld</i></p>
+
+<p>"Some of the most brilliant reporting of all times was done by a few
+quiet individuals. Among the men who did the most brilliant work,
+Mokveld, of the Amsterdam <i>Tijd</i>, stands foremost."&mdash;Dr. Willem Hendrik
+Van Loon.</p>
+
+<p>Net, $1.00</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>MY HOME IN THE FIELD OF MERCY</b> <i>By Frances Wilson Huard</i></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><b>MY HOME IN THE FIELD OF HONOUR</b> <i>By Frances Wilson Huard</i></p>
+
+<p>The simple, intimate, classic narrative which has taken rank as one of
+the few distinguished books produced since the outbreak of the war.</p>
+
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+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY <i>Publishers</i> New York</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Presumably amongst the Turks and Kurds.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Episodes in the original are here omitted.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> A few sentences of immaterial description are here
+omitted.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Some remarks in this connection are omitted.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> I refrain from particulars. The gendarmes and Kurds are
+stated to have been the perpetrators of these acts.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> An unimportant anecdote omitted.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> Unfit for reproduction.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> Unimportant anecdote omitted.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Unimportant. The writer describes the inhabitants of
+Diarbekir, on the arrival of a party, as hastening to select women. Two
+doctors pick out twenty of them to serve as hospital
+attendants.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_J_10" id="Footnote_J_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_J_10"><span class="label">[J]</span></a> An official relates how he wanted to choose a servant from
+a boatload of victims, who said they were willing to come as servants,
+but as nothing else. He took one, and on coming home one night drunk he
+tried to offer her violence; she reproved him in suitable terms and he
+conducted himself well thenceforward.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_K_11" id="Footnote_K_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_K_11"><span class="label">[K]</span></a> The writer here describes how a Turkish judge (k&acirc;di), to
+whom the office of Kaimak&acirc;m was entrusted after the murder of Sabat Bey,
+boasted in conversation that he had killed four Armenians with his own
+hand. "They were brave men," he said, "having no fear of
+death."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_L_12" id="Footnote_L_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_L_12"><span class="label">[L]</span></a> The author tells the story of an Armenian of Diarbekir who
+gave information to the police against his own people, disclosing their
+hiding places. He saw him walking about the streets with an insolent
+demeanor, giving himself the airs of a person of great importance. He
+considers that such a traitor to his nation deserves the worst form of
+death.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_M_13" id="Footnote_M_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_M_13"><span class="label">[M]</span></a> The narrative concludes with the relation of an instance of
+courageous charity on the part of a Baghdad soldier to an Armenian woman
+begging in the streets of Diarbekir.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator.</span></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_N_14" id="Footnote_N_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_N_14"><span class="label">[N]</span></a> F&agrave;'iz El-Ghusein here gives a list of citations from the
+Koran, the Traditions, and from Moslem history in support of this
+view.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Translator</span>.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Martyred Armenia, by Fą'iz El-Ghusein
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Martyred Armenia, by Fa'iz El-Ghusein
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Martyred Armenia
+
+Author: Fa'iz El-Ghusein
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2006 [EBook #19986]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARTYRED ARMENIA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRED
+ARMENIA
+
+BY
+FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN
+BEDOUIN NOTABLE OF DAMASCUS
+
+Translated from the Original Arabic
+All Rights of Translation Reserved
+
+NEW YORK
+GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+MCMXVIII
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+I am a Bedouin, a son of one of the Heads of the tribe of El-Sulut, who
+dwell in El-Lejat, in the Hauran territory. Like other sons of tribal
+Chiefs, I entered the Tribal School at Constantinople, and subsequently
+the Royal College. On the completion of my education, I was attached to
+the staff of the Vali of Syria (or Damascus), on which I remained for a
+long while. I was then Kaimakam of Mamouret-el-Aziz (Kharpout), holding
+this post for three and a half years, after which I practised as a
+lawyer at Damascus, my partners being Shukri Bey El-Asli and
+Abdul-Wahhab Bey El-Inglizi. I next became a member of the General
+Assembly at that place, representing Hauran, and later a member of the
+Committee of that Assembly. On the outbreak of the war, I was ordered to
+resume my previous career, that is, the duties of Kaimakam, but I did
+not comply, as I found the practice of the law more advantageous in many
+ways and more tranquil.
+
+I was denounced by an informer as being a delegate of a Society
+constituted in the Lebanon with the object of achieving the independence
+of the Arab people, under the protection of England and France, and of
+inciting the tribes against the Turkish Government. On receipt of this
+denunciation, I was arrested by the Government, thrown into prison, and
+subsequently sent in chains, with a company of police and gendarmes, to
+Aaliya, where persons accused of political offences were tried. I was
+acquitted, but as the Government disregarded the decisions given in such
+cases, and was resolved on the removal and destruction of all
+enlightened Arabs--whatever the circumstances might be--it was thought
+necessary that I should be despatched to Erzeroum, and Jemal Pasha sent
+me thither with an officer and five of the regular troops. When I
+reached Diarbekir, Hasan Kaleh, at Erzeroum, was being pressed by the
+Russians, and the Vali of Diarbekir was ordered to detain me at that
+place.
+
+After twenty-two days' confinement in prison for no reason, I was
+released; I hired a house and remained at Diarbekir for six and a half
+months, seeing and hearing from the most reliable sources all that took
+place in regard to the Armenians, the majority of my informants being
+superior officers and officials, or Notables of Diarbekir and its
+dependencies, as well as others from Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-el-Aziz,
+Aleppo and Erzeroum. The people of Van had been in Diarbekir since the
+occupation of their territory by the Russians, whilst the people and
+officials of Bitlis had recently emigrated thither. Many of the Erzeroum
+officers came to Diarbekir on military or private business, whilst
+Mamouret-el-Aziz was near by, and many people came to us from thence. As
+I had formerly been a Kaimakam in that Vilayet, I had a large
+acquaintance there and heard all the news. More especially, the time
+which I passed in prison with the heads of the tribes in Diarbekir
+enabled me to study the movement in its smallest details. The war must
+needs come to an end after a while, and it will then be plain to
+readers of this book that all I have written is the truth, and that it
+contains only a small part of the atrocities committed by the Turks
+against the hapless Armenian people.
+
+After passing this time at Diarbekir I fled, both to escape from
+captivity and from fear induced by what had befallen me from some of the
+fanatical Turks. After great sufferings, during which I was often
+exposed to death and slaughter, I reached Basra, and conceived the idea
+of publishing this book, as a service to the cause of truth and of a
+people oppressed by the Turks, and also, as I have stated at the close,
+to defend the faith of Islam against the charge of fanaticism which will
+be brought against it by Europeans. May God guide us in the right way.
+
+_I have written this preface at Bombay, on the 1st of September, 1916._
+
+FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.
+
+
+
+
+MARTYRED ARMENIA
+
+
+
+
+THE NARRATIVE
+
+
+OUTLINE OF ARMENIAN HISTORY.--In past ages the Armenian race was, like
+other nations, not possessed of an autonomous government, until God
+bestowed upon them a man, named Haig, a bold leader, who united the
+Armenians and formed them into an independent state. This took place
+before the Christian era. The nation preserved their independence for a
+considerable time, reaching the highest point of their glory and
+prosperity under their king Dikran, who constituted the city of
+Dikranokerta--Diarbekir--the capital of his Government. Armenia remained
+independent in the time of the Romans, extending her rule over a part of
+Asia Minor and Syria, and a portion of Persia, but, in consequence of
+the protection afforded by the Armenians to certain kings who were
+hostile to Rome, the Romans declared war against her, their troops
+entered her capital, and from that time Armenian independence was lost.
+The country remained tossing on the waves of despotism, now independent,
+now subjected to foreign rule, until its conquest by the Arabs and
+subsequently by the Ottoman power.
+
+THE ARMENIAN POPULATION.--The number of the Armenians in Ottoman
+territory does not exceed 1,900,000 souls. I have borrowed this figure
+from a book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the official
+computation made by the Government previous to the Balkan war; he
+estimates the Armenians residing in Roumelia at 400,000, those in
+Ottoman Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Russia and Persia are said
+not to exceed 3,000,000, thus bringing the total number of Armenians in
+the world to over four and a half millions.
+
+THE VILAYETS INHABITED BY ARMENIANS.--The Vilayets inhabited by
+Armenians are Diarbekir, Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Aziz, Sivas,
+Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constantinople. The numbers in
+Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diarbekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than
+those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they were fewer than the
+Turks and Kurds, with the exception of Van and Bitlis, where they were
+equal or superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vilayet of
+Bitlis) they were more numerous than the Kurds; all industry and
+commerce in those parts was in Armenian hands; their agriculture was
+more prosperous; they were much more advanced than the Turks and Kurds
+in those Vilayets; and the large number of their schools, contrasted
+with the few schools of their alien fellow countrymen, is a proof of
+their progress and of the decline of the other races.
+
+ARMENIAN SOCIETIES.--The Armenians possess learned and political
+Societies, the most important of which are the "Tashnagtzian" and the
+"Hunchak." The programme of these two Societies is to make every effort
+and adopt every means to attain that end from which no Armenian ever
+swerves, namely, administrative independence under the supervision of
+the Great Powers of Europe. I have enquired of many Armenians whom I
+have met, but I have not found one who said that he desired political
+independence, the reason being that in most of the Vilayets which they
+inhabit the Armenians are less numerous than the Kurds, and if they
+became independent the advantage to the Kurds would be greater than to
+themselves. Hitherto, the Kurds have been in a very degraded state of
+ignorance; disorder is supreme in their territory, and the cities are in
+ruins. The Armenians, therefore, prefer to remain under Turkish rule, on
+condition that the administration is carried on under the supervision of
+the Great European Powers, as they place no confidence in the promises
+of the Turks, who take back to-day what they bestowed yesterday. These
+two Societies thus earnestly labour for the propagation of this view
+amongst the Armenians, and for the attainment of their object by every
+means. I have been told by an Armenian officer that one of these
+Societies proposes to attain its end by means of internal revolts, but
+the policy of the second is to do so by peaceful means only.
+
+The above is a brief summary of the policy of these Societies. It is
+said, however, that the programme of one of them aims at Armenian
+political independence.
+
+Any who desire further details as to Armenian history or societies
+should refer to their historical books.
+
+THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES.--History does not record that the Kurds,
+fellow-countrymen of the Armenians in the Vilayets inhabited by both
+peoples, rose in conflict with the latter, or that the Kurds plundered
+the property of the Armenians, or outraged their women, until the year
+1888, when they rose by order of the Turkish Government and slaughtered
+Armenians in Van, Kharpout, Erzeroum, and Moush. Again, in the time of
+Abdul-Hamid II., in 1896, when the Armenians rose and entered the
+Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, with the object of frightening the
+Sultan and compelling him to proclaim the Constitution, he ordered a
+massacre at Constantinople and in the Vilayets. But hitherto there has
+been no instance of the people of Turkey proceeding to the slaughter of
+Armenians on a general scale unless incited and constrained to do so by
+the Government. In the massacre of 1896, 15,000 were killed in
+Constantinople itself, and 300,000 in the Vilayets.
+
+Armenians were also killed in the Vilayet of Adana, some months after
+the proclamation of the Constitution, but this slaughter did not extend
+beyond the two Vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, where the influence of
+Abdul-Hamid was paramount till the year 1909. I do not, however, find
+any detailed account of this massacre, or any information as to the
+numbers killed.
+
+The goods and cattle of the Armenians were plundered, and their houses
+wrecked, more especially in the slaughter of 1896, but many of their
+countrymen[A] protected them and concealed them in their houses from the
+officials of the Government.
+
+The Government consistently inflamed the Moslem Kurds and Turks against
+them, making use of the Faith of Islam as a means to attain their object
+in view of the ignorance of the Mohammedans as to the true laws of their
+religion.
+
+[Footnote A: Presumably amongst the Turks and Kurds.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+DECLARATION OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.--"Inasmuch as the Armenians are
+committing acts opposed to the laws and taking advantage of all
+occasions to disturb the Government; as they have been found in
+possession of prohibited arms, bombs, and explosive materials, prepared
+with the object of internal revolt; as they have killed Moslems in Van,
+and have aided the Russian armies at a time when the Government is in a
+state of war with England, France, and Russia; and in the apprehension
+that the Armenians may, as is their habit, lend themselves to seditious
+tumult and revolt; the Government have decreed that all the Armenians
+shall be collected and despatched to the Vilayets of Mosul, Syria, and
+Deir-el-Zur, their persons, goods and honour being safeguarded. The
+necessary orders have been given for ensuring their comfort, and for
+their residence in those territories until the termination of the war."
+
+Such is the official declaration of the Ottoman Government in regard to
+the Armenians. But the secret resolution was that companies of militia
+should be formed to assist the gendarmes in the slaughter of the
+Armenians, that these should be killed to the last man, and that the
+work of murder and destruction should take place under the supervision
+of trusty agents of the Unionists, who were known for their brutality.
+Reshid Bey was appointed to the Vilayet of Diarbekir and invested with
+extensive powers, having at his disposal a gang of notorious murderers,
+such as Ahmed Bey El-Serzi, Rushdi Bey, Khalil Bey, and others of this
+description.
+
+The reason for this decision, as it was alleged, was that the Armenians
+residing in Europe and in Egypt had sent twenty of their devoted
+partisans to kill Talaat, Enver, and others of the Unionist leaders; the
+attempt had failed, as a certain Armenian, a traitor to his nation and a
+friend of Bedri Bey, the Chief of the Public Security at Constantinople
+(or according to others, Azmi Bey), divulged the matter and indicated
+the Armenian agents, who had arrived at Constantinople. The latter were
+arrested and executed, but secretly, in order that it might not be said
+that there were men attempting to kill the heads of the Unionist
+Society.
+
+Another alleged reason also was that certain Armenians, whom the
+Government had collected from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adrianople and
+had sent off to complete their military service, fled, with their arms,
+to Zeitoun, where they assembled, to the number of sixty young men, and
+commenced to resist the Government and to attack wayfarers. The
+Government despatched a military force under Fakhry Pasha, who proceeded
+to the spot, destroyed a part of Zeitoun, and killed men, women and
+children, without encountering opposition on the part of the Armenians.
+He collected the men and women and sent them off with parties of troops,
+who killed many of the men, whilst as for the women, do not ask what was
+their fate. They were delivered over to the Ottoman soldiery; the
+children died of hunger and thirst; not a man or woman reached Syria
+except the halt and blind, who were unable to keep themselves alive;
+the young men were all slaughtered; and the good-looking women fell into
+the hands of the Turkish youths.
+
+Emigrants from Roumelia were conveyed to Zeitoun and established there,
+the name of that place being changed to "Reshadiya," so that nothing
+should remain to remind the Turks of the Armenian name. During our
+journey from Hamah we saw many Armenian men and women, sitting under
+small tents which they had constructed from sheets, rugs, etc. Their
+condition was most pitiable, and how could it be otherwise? Many of
+these had been used to sit only on easy chairs [lit., rocking-chairs],
+amid luxurious furniture, in houses built in the best style, well
+arranged and splendidly furnished. I saw, as others saw also, many
+Armenian men and women in goods-wagons on the railway between Aleppo and
+Hamah, herded together in a way which moved compassion.
+
+After my arrival at Aleppo, and two days' stay there, we took the train
+to a place called Ser-Arab-Pounari. I was accompanied by five Armenians,
+closely guarded, and despatched to Diarbekir. We walked on our feet
+thence to Seruj, where we stopped at a _khan_ [rest-house] filled with
+Armenian women and children, with a few sick men. These women were in a
+deplorable state, as they had done the journey from Erzeroum on foot,
+taking a long while to arrive at Seruj. I talked with them in Turkish,
+and they told me that the gendarmes with them had brought them to places
+where there was no water, refusing to tell them where water was to be
+found until they had received money as the price. Some of them, who were
+pregnant, had given birth on the way, and had abandoned their infants
+in the uninhabited wastes. Most of these women had left their children
+behind, either in despair, or owing to illness or weakness which made
+them unable to carry them, so they threw them on the ground; some from
+natural affection could not do this and so perished in the desert, not
+parted from their infants. They told me that there were some among them
+who had not been used to walk for a single hour, having been brought up
+in luxury, with men to wait on them and women to attend them. These had
+fallen into the hands of the Kurds, who recognize no divine law, and who
+live on lofty mountains and in dense forests like beasts of prey; their
+honour was outraged and they died by brutal violence, many of them
+killing themselves rather than sacrifice their virtue to these ravening
+wolves.
+
+We then proceeded in carts from Seruj to El-Raha (Urfa). On the way I
+saw crowds going on foot, whom from a distance I took for troops
+marching to the field of battle. On approaching, I found they were
+Armenian women, walking barefoot and weary, placed in ranks like the
+gendarmes who preceded and followed them. Whenever one of them lagged
+behind, a gendarme would beat her with the butt of his rifle, throwing
+her on her face, till she rose terrified and rejoined her companions.
+But if one lagged from sickness, she was either abandoned, alone in the
+wilderness, without help or comfort, to be a prey to wild beasts, or a
+gendarme ended her life by a bullet.
+
+On arrival at Urfa, we learned that the Government had sent a force of
+gendarmes and police to the Armenian quarters of the town to collect
+their arms, subsequently dealing with these people as with others. As
+they were aware of what had happened to their kinsmen--the _khans_ at
+Urfa being full of women and children--they did not give up their arms,
+but showed armed resistance, killing one man of the police and three
+gendarmes. The authorities of Urfa applied for a force from Aleppo, and
+by order of Jemal Pasha--the executioner of Syria--Fakhry Pasha came
+with cannon. He turned the Armenian quarters into a waste place, killing
+the men and the children, and great numbers of the women, except such as
+yielded themselves to share the fate of their sisters--expulsion on foot
+to Deir-el-Zur, after the Pasha and his officers had selected the
+prettiest amongst them. Disease was raging among them; they were
+outraged by the Turks and Kurds; and hunger and thirst completed their
+extermination.
+
+After leaving Urfa, we again saw throngs of women, exhausted by fatigue
+and misery, dying of hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the
+dead lying by the roadside.
+
+On our arrival at a place near a village called Kara Jevren, about six
+hours distant from Urfa, we stopped at a spring to breakfast and drink.
+I went a little apart, towards the source, and came upon a most
+appalling spectacle. A woman, partly unclothed, was lying prone, her
+chemise disordered and red with blood, with four bullet-wounds in her
+breast. I could not restrain myself, but wept bitterly. As I drew out a
+handkerchief to wipe away my tears, and looked round to see whether any
+of my companions had observed me, I saw a child not more than eight
+years old, lying on his face, his head cloven by an axe. This made my
+grief the more vehement, but my companions cut short my lamentations,
+for I heard the officer, Aarif Effendi, calling to the priest Isaac, and
+saying, "Come here at once," and I knew that he had seen something which
+had startled him. I went towards him, and what did I behold? Three
+children lying in the water, in terror of their lives from the Kurds,
+who had stripped them of their clothes and tortured them in various
+ways, their mother near by, moaning with pain and hunger. She told us
+her story, saying that she was from Erzeroum, and had been brought by
+the troops to this place with many other women after a journey of many
+days. After they had been plundered of money and clothing, and the
+prettiest women had been picked out and handed over to the Kurds, they
+reached this place, where Kurdish men and women collected and robbed
+them of all the clothes that remained on them. She herself had stayed
+here, as she was sick and her children would not leave her. The Kurds
+came upon them again and left them naked. The children had lain in the
+water in their terror, and she was at the point of death. The priest
+collected some articles of clothing and gave them to the woman and the
+children; the officer sent a man to the post of gendarmes which was near
+by, and ordered the gendarme whom the man brought with him to send on
+the woman and children to Urfa, and to bury the bodies which were near
+the guardhouse. The sick woman told me that the dead woman refused to
+yield herself to outrage, so they killed her and she died nobly, chaste
+and pure from defilement; to induce her to yield they killed her son
+beside her, but she was firm in her resolve and died heart-broken.
+
+In the afternoon we went on towards Kara Jevren, and one of the drivers
+pointed out to us some high mounds, surrounded by stones and rocks,
+saying that here Zohrab and Vartakis had been killed, they having been
+leading Notables among the Armenians, and their Deputies.
+
+KRIKOR ZOHRAB AND VARTAKIS.--No one is ignorant of who and what was
+Zohrab, the Armenian Deputy for Constantinople, his name and repute
+being celebrated after the institution of the Chamber. He used to speak
+with learning and reflection, refuting objections by powerful arguments
+and convincing proofs. His speeches in the Chamber were mostly
+conclusive. He was learned in all subjects, but especially in the
+science of law, as he was a graduate of universities and had practised
+at the Bar for many years. He was endowed with eloquence and great
+powers of exposition; he was courageous, not to be turned from his
+purpose or intimidated from pursuing his national aims. When the
+Unionists realised that they were deficient in knowledge, understanding
+nothing about polity or administration, and not aware of the meaning of
+liberty or constitutional government, they resolved to return to the
+system of their Tartar forefathers, the devastation of cities and the
+slaughter of innocent men, as it was in that direction that their powers
+lay. They sent Zohrab and his colleague Vartakis away from
+Constantinople, with orders that they should be killed on the way, and
+it was announced that they had been murdered by a band of brigands. They
+killed them in order that it might not be said that Armenians were more
+powerful, more learned, and more intelligent than Turks. Why should such
+bands murder none but Armenians? The falsity of the statement is
+obvious.
+
+Zohrab and Vartakis fell victims to their own courage and firmness of
+purpose; they were killed out of envy of their learning and their love
+for their own people, and for their tenacity in pursuing their own path.
+They were killed by that villain, Ahmed El-Serzi, one of the sworn men
+of the Unionists, he who murdered Zeki Bey; his story in the Ottoman
+upheaval is well known, and how the Unionists saved him from his fitting
+punishment and even from prison. A Kurd told me that Vartakis was one of
+the boldest and most courageous men who ever lived; he was chief of the
+Armenian bands in the time of Abdul-Hamid; he was wounded in the foot by
+a cannon-ball whilst the Turkish troops were pursuing these bands, and
+was imprisoned either at Erzeroum or at Maaden, in the Vilayet of
+Diarbekir. The Sultan Abdul-Hamid, through his officials, charged him to
+modify his attitude and acknowledge that he had been in error, when he
+should be pardoned and appointed to any post he might choose. He
+rejected this offer, saying, "I will not sell my conscience for a post,
+or say that the Government of Abdul-Hamid is just, whilst I see its
+tyranny with my eyes and touch it with my hand."
+
+It is said that the Unionists ordered that all the Armenian Deputies
+should be put to death, and the greater number of them were thus dealt
+with. It is reported also that Dikran Gilikian, the well-known writer,
+who was an adherent of the Committee of Union and Progress, was killed
+in return for his learning, capacity, and devotion to their cause. Such
+was the recompense of his services to the Unionists.
+
+In the evening we arrived at Kara Jevren, and slept there till morning.
+At sunrise we went on towards Sivrek, and half-way on the road we saw a
+terrible spectacle. The corpses of the killed were lying in great
+numbers on both sides of the road; here we saw a woman outstretched on
+the ground, her body half veiled by her long hair; there, women lying on
+their faces, the dried blood blackening their delicate forms; there
+again, the corpses of men, parched to the semblance of charcoal by the
+heat of the sun. As we approached Sivrek, the corpses became more
+numerous, the bodies of children being in a great majority. As we
+arrived at Sivrek and left our carts, we saw one of the servants of the
+_khan_ carrying a little infant with hair as yellow as gold, whom he
+threw behind the house. We asked him about it, and he said that there
+were three sick Armenian women in the house, who had lagged behind their
+companions, that one of them had given birth to this infant, but could
+not nourish it, owing to her illness. So it had died and been thrown
+out, as one might throw out a mouse.
+
+DEMAND FOR RANSOM.--Whilst we were at Sivrek, Aarif Effendi told
+me--after he had been at the Government offices--that the Commandant of
+Gendarmerie and the Chief of Police of that place had requested him to
+hand over to them the five Armenians who were with him, and that on his
+refusal they had insisted, saying that, if they were to reach Diarbekir
+in safety, they must pay a ransom of fifty liras for themselves. We went
+to the _khan_, where the officer summoned the priest Isaac and told him
+how matters stood. After speaking to his companions, the priest replied
+that they could pay only ten liras altogether, as they had no more in
+their possession. When convinced by his words, the officer took the ten
+liras and undertook to satisfy the others.
+
+This officer had a dispute with the Commandant of Gendarmerie at Aleppo,
+the latter desiring to take these five men on the grounds that they had
+been sent with a gendarme for delivery to his office. Ahmed Bey, the
+Chief of the Irregular band at Urfa, also desired to take them, but the
+officer refused to give them up to him--he being a member of the
+Committee of Union and Progress--and brought them in safety to
+Diarbekir.
+
+After passing the night at Sivrek we left early in the morning. As we
+approached Diarbekir the corpses became more numerous, and on our route
+we met companies of women going to Sivrek under guard of gendarmes,
+weary and wretched, the traces of tears and misery plain on their
+faces--a plight to bring tears of blood from stones, and move the
+compassion of beasts of prey.
+
+What, in God's name, had these women done? Had they made war on the
+Turks, or killed even one of them? What was the crime of these hapless
+creatures, whose sole offence was that they were Armenians, skilled in
+the management of their homes and the training of their children, with
+no thought beyond the comfort of their husbands and sons, and the
+fulfilment of their duties towards them.
+
+I ask you, O Moslems--is this to be counted as a crime? Think for a
+moment. What was the fault of these poor women? Was it in their being
+superior to the Turkish women in every respect? Even assuming that their
+men had merited such treatment, is it right that these women should be
+dealt with in a manner from which wild beasts would recoil? God has said
+in the Koran: "Do not load one with another's burthens," that is, Let
+not one be punished for another.
+
+What had these weak women done, and what had their infants done? Can the
+men of the Turkish Government bring forward even a feeble proof to
+justify their action and to convince the people of Islam, who hold that
+action for unlawful and reject it? No; they can find no word to say
+before a people whose usages are founded on justice, and their laws on
+wisdom and reason.
+
+Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to be the supports of
+Islam and the _Khilafat_, the protectors of the Moslems, should
+transgress the command of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions of
+the Prophet, and humanity? Truly, they have committed an act at which
+Islam is revolted, as well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the
+earth, be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolators. As God lives, it
+is a shameful deed, the like of which has not been done by any people
+counting themselves as civilised.
+
+THE INFANT IN THE WASTE.--After we had gone a considerable distance we
+saw a child of not more than four years old, with a fair complexion,
+blue eyes, and golden hair, with all the indications of luxury and
+pampering, standing in the sun, motionless and speechless. The officer
+told the driver to stop the cart, got out alone, and questioned the
+child, who made no reply, and did not utter a word. The officer said:
+"If we take this child with us to Diarbekir, the authorities will take
+him from us, and he will share the fate of his people in being killed.
+It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move one of the Kurds to
+compassion, that he take him and bring him up." None of us could say
+anything to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leaving the child
+as we found him, without speech, tears, or movement. Who knows of what
+rich man or Notable of the Armenians he was the son? He had hardly seen
+the light when he was orphaned by the slaughter of his parents and
+kinsmen. Those who should have carried him were weary of him--for the
+women were unable to carry even themselves--so they had abandoned him in
+the waste, far from human habitation. Man, who shows kindness to beasts,
+and forms societies for their protection, can be merciless to his own
+kind, more especially to infants who can utter no complaint; he leaves
+them under the heat of the sun, thirsty and famishing, to be devoured by
+wild creatures.
+
+Leaving the boy, our hearts burning within us, and full of grief and
+anguish, we arrived before sunset at a _khan_ some hours distant from
+Diarbekir. There we passed the night, and in the morning we went on amid
+the mangled forms of the slain. The same sight met our view on every
+side; a man lying, his breast pierced by a bullet; a woman torn open by
+lead; a child sleeping his last sleep beside his mother; a girl in the
+flower of her age, in a posture which told its own story. Such was our
+journey until we arrived at a canal, called Kara Pounar, near
+Diarbekir, and here we found a change in the method of murder and
+savagery.
+
+We saw here bodies burned to ashes. God, from whom no secrets are hid,
+knows how many young men and fair girls, who should have led happy lives
+together, had been consumed by fire in this ill-omened place.
+
+We had expected not to find corpses of the killed near to the walls of
+Diarbekir, but we were mistaken, for we journeyed among the bodies until
+we entered the city gate. As I was informed by some Europeans who
+returned from Armenia after the massacres, the Government ordered the
+burial of all the bodies from the roadside when the matter had become
+the subject of comment in European newspapers.
+
+IN PRISON.--On our arrival at Diarbekir the officer handed us over to
+the authorities and we were thrown into prison, where I remained for
+twenty-two days. During this time I obtained full information about the
+movement from one of the prisoners, who was a Moslem of Diarbekir, and
+who related to me what had happened to the Armenians there. I asked him
+what was the reason of the affair, why the Government had treated them
+in this way, and whether they had committed any act calling for their
+complete extermination. He said that, after the declaration of war, the
+Armenians, especially the younger men, had failed to comply with the
+orders of the Government, that most of them had evaded military service
+by flight, and had formed companies which they called "Roof Companies."
+These took money from the wealthy Armenians for the purchase of arms,
+which they did not deliver to the authorities, but sent to their
+companies, until the leading Armenians and Notables assembled, went to
+the Government offices, and requested that these men should be punished
+as they were displeased at their proceedings.
+
+I asked whether the Armenians had killed any Government official, or any
+Turks or Kurds in Diarbekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but
+that a few days after the arrival of the Vali, Reshid Bey, and the
+Commandant of Gendarmerie, Rushdi Bey, prohibited arms had been found in
+some Armenian houses, and also in the church. On the discovery of these
+arms, the Government summoned some of the principal Armenians and flung
+them into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated
+representations, asking for the release of these men, but the
+Government, far from complying with the request, imprisoned the
+ecclesiastics also, the number of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to
+nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant of Gendarmerie came and
+informed them that an Imperial Order had been issued for their
+banishment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the end of the war.
+They were rejoiced at this, procured all they required in the way of
+money, clothes, and furniture, and embarked on the _keleks_ (wooden
+rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabitants of that region
+for travelling on the Euphrates and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a
+while it was understood that they had all been drowned in the Tigris,
+and that none of them had reached Mosul. The authorities continued to
+send off and kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women and
+children, the first families sent from Diarbekir being those of
+Kazazian, Tirpanjian, Minassian, and Kechijian, who were the wealthiest
+families in the place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop named--as
+far as I recollect--Homandrias; he was the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a
+venerable and learned old man of about eighty; they showed no respect to
+his white beard, but drowned him in the Tigris.
+
+Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was also among the 700
+imprisoned. When he saw what was happening to his people he could not
+endure the disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petroleum over
+himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who was imprisoned for having
+written a letter to this bishop three years before the events, told me
+that he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted to his people,
+with no fear of death, but unable to submit to oppression and
+humiliation.
+
+Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Armenians in the gaol itself,
+and killed two or three of them out of greed for their money and
+clothing, but nothing was done to bring them to account. The Government
+left only a very small number of Armenians in Diarbekir, these being
+such as were skilled in making boots and similar articles for the army.
+Nineteen individuals had remained in the prison, where I saw and talked
+with them; these, according to the pretence of the authorities, were
+Armenian bravoes.
+
+The last family deported from Diarbekir was that of Dunjian, about
+November, 1915. This family was protected by certain Notables of the
+place, from desire for their money, or the beauty of some of their
+women.
+
+DIKRAN.--This man was a member of the central committee of the
+Tashnagtzian Society in Diarbekir. An official of that place, who
+belonged to the Society of Union and Progress, told me that the
+authorities seized Dikran and demanded from him the names of his
+associates. He refused, and said that he could not give the names until
+the committee had met and decided whether or not it was proper to
+furnish this information to the Government. He was subjected to
+varieties of torture, such as putting his feet in irons till they
+swelled and he could not walk, plucking out his nails and eyelashes with
+a cruel instrument, etc., but he would not say a word, nor give the name
+of one of his associates. He was deported with the others and died nobly
+out of love for his nation, preferring death to the betrayal of the
+secrets of his brave people to the Government.
+
+AGHOB KAITANJIAN.--Aghob Kaitanjian was one of the Armenians imprisoned
+on the charge of being bravoes of the Armenian Society in Diarbekir, and
+in whose possession explosive material had been found. I often talked to
+him, and I asked him to tell me his story. He said that one day, whilst
+he was sitting in his house, a police agent knocked at the door and told
+him that the Chief of Police wished to see him at his office. He went
+there, and some of the police asked him about the Armenian Society and
+its bravoes. He replied that he knew nothing of either societies or
+bravoes. He was then bastinadoed and tortured in various ways for
+several days till he despaired of life, preferring death to a
+continuance of degradation. He had a knife with him, and when they
+aggravated the torture so that he could endure it no longer, he asked
+them to let him go to the latrine and on his return he would tell them
+all he knew about the Armenian matter. With the help of the police he
+went, and cut the arteries of his wrists[B] ... with the object of
+committing suicide. The blood gushed out freely; he got to the door of
+the police-office and there fainted. They poured water on his face and
+he recovered consciousness; he was brought before the officer and the
+interrogatory was renewed.[B] ... The Chief of Police was confounded at
+this proceeding and sent him to the hospital until he was cured. I saw
+the wounds on his hands, and they were completely healed. This was the
+story as he told it to me himself. He desired me to publish it in an
+Armenian newspaper called _Haeyrenik_ (Fatherland), which appears in
+America, in order that it may be read by his brother Garabet, now in
+that country, who had been convinced that the Government would leave
+none of them alive.
+
+I associated freely with the young Armenians who were imprisoned, and we
+talked much of these acts, the like of which, as happening to a nation
+such as theirs, have never been heard of, nor recorded in the history of
+past ages. These youths were sent for trial by the court-martial at
+Kharpout, and I heard that they arrived there safely and asked
+permission to embrace the Moslem faith. This was to escape from
+contemptuous treatment by the Kurds, and not from the fear of death, as
+their conversion would not save them from the penalty if they were shown
+to deserve it. Before their departure they asked me what I had heard
+about them, and whether the authorities purposed to kill them on the
+way or not. After enquiring about this, and ascertaining that they would
+not be killed in this way, I informed them accordingly; they were
+rejoiced, saying that all they desired was to remain alive to see the
+results of the war. They said that the Armenians deserved the treatment
+which they had received, as they would never see the necessity for
+taking precautions against the Turks, believing that the constitutional
+Turkish Government would never proceed to measures of this kind without
+valid reason. The Government has perpetrated these deeds although no
+official, Kurd, Turk, or Moslem, has been killed by an Armenian, and we
+know not what the weighty reasons may have been which impelled them to
+so unprecedented a measure. And if the Armenians should not be
+reproached with a negligence for which they have paid dearly, yet a
+people who do not take full precautions are liable to be taxed justly
+with blameworthy carelessness.
+
+[Footnote B: Episodes in the original are here omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+MY TRAVELLING-COMPANIONS.--From time to time I visited the men who had
+been in my company during the journey, but after my release the director
+of the prison would not permit me to go to them. I used, therefore, to
+ask for one of them and talk with him outside the prison in which the
+Armenians were confined. After a while I enquired for them and was told
+that they had been sent to execution, like others before them, and at
+this I cried out in dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been
+imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge of having stolen
+articles from the effects of dead Armenians, and as he knew my
+companions I asked him about them. He said that he had killed the
+priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gendarmes had laid wagers
+in firing at his clerical headdress. "I made the best shooting, hit the
+hat and knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second ball." My
+answer was silence. The man firmly believed that these murders were
+necessary, the Sultan having so ordered.
+
+THE SALE OF LETTERS.--When the Government first commenced the
+deportation of the 700 men, the officials were instructed to prepare
+letters, signed with the names of the former, and to send them to the
+families of the banished individuals in order to mislead them, as it was
+feared that the Armenians might take some action which would defeat the
+plan and divulge the secret to the other Armenians, thus rendering their
+extermination impracticable. The unhappy families gave large sums to
+those who brought them letters from their Head. The Government appointed
+a Kurd, a noted brigand, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to
+slaughter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their destination.
+When the Government was secure as to the Armenians, a man was despatched
+to kill the Kurd, whose name was Aami Hassi, or Hassi Aami.
+
+SLAUGHTER OF THE PROTESTANT, CHALDEAN, AND SYRIAC COMMUNITIES.--The
+slaughter was general throughout these communities, not a single
+protestant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the Syriac
+Community were exterminated, with a part of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir,
+and in its dependencies, none escaped save those in Madiat and Mardin.
+When latterly orders were given that only Armenians were to be killed,
+and that those belonging to other communities should not be touched,
+the Government held their hand from the destruction of the latter.
+
+THE SYRIACS.--But the Syriacs in the province of Madiat were brave men,
+braver than all the other tribes in these regions. When they heard what
+had fallen upon their brethren at Diarbekir and the vicinity they
+assembled, fortified themselves in three villages near Madiat, and made
+a heroic resistance, showing a courage beyond description. The
+Government sent against them two companies of regulars, besides a
+company of gendarmes which had been despatched thither previously; the
+Kurdish tribes assembled against them, but without result, and thus they
+protected their lives, honour, and possessions from the tyranny of this
+oppressive Government. An Imperial Iradeh was issued, granting them
+pardon, but they placed no reliance on it and did not surrender, for
+past experience had shown them that this is the most false Government on
+the face of the earth, taking back to-day what it gave yesterday, and
+punishing to-day with most cruel penalties him whom it had previously
+pardoned.
+
+CONVERSATION between a postal contractor from Bitlis and a friend of
+mine, as we were sitting at a cafe in Diarbekir:
+
+Contractor: I see many Armenians in Diarbekir. How comes it that they
+are still here?
+
+My Friend: These are not Armenians, but Syriacs and Chaldeans.
+
+Contractor: The Government of Bitlis has not left a single Christian in
+that Vilayet, nor in the district of Moush. If a doctor told a sick man
+that the remedy for his disease was the heart of a Christian he would
+not find one though he searched through the whole Vilayet.
+
+PROTECTION AFFORDED BY KURDS TO ARMENIANS ON PAYMENT.--The Armenians
+were confined in the main ward of the prison at Diarbekir, and from time
+to time I visited them. One day, on waking from sleep, I went to see
+them in their ward and found them collecting rice, flour and moneys. I
+asked them the reason of this, and they said: "What are we to do? If we
+do not collect a quantity every week and give it to the Kurds, they
+insult and beat us, so we give these things to some of them so that they
+may protect us from the outrages of their fellows." I exclaimed, "There
+is no power nor might but in God," and went back grieving over their
+lot.
+
+DESPATCH OF THE ARMENIANS TO THE SLAUGHTER.--This was a most shocking
+proceeding, appalling in its atrocity. One of the gendarmes in Diarbekir
+related to me how it was done. He said that, when orders were given for
+the removal and destruction of a family, an official went to the house,
+counted the members of the family, and delivered them to the Commandant
+of Militia or one of the officers of Gendarmerie. Men were posted to
+keep guard over the house and its occupants during the night until 8
+o'clock, thereby giving notice to the wretched family that they must
+prepare for death. The women shrieked and wailed, anguish and despair
+showed on the faces of all, and they died even before death came upon
+them.[C] ... After 8 o'clock waggons arrived and conveyed the families
+to a place near by, where they were killed by rifle fire, or massacred
+like sheep with knives, daggers, and axes.
+
+[Footnote C: A few sentences of immaterial description are here
+omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+SALE OF ARMENIAN EFFECTS, AND REMOVAL OF CROSSES FROM THE
+CHURCHES.--After the Armenians had been destroyed, all the furniture of
+their houses, their linen, effects, and implements of all kinds, as well
+as all the contents of their shops and storehouses, were collected in
+the churches or other large buildings. The authorities appointed
+committees for the sale of these goods, which were disposed of at the
+lowest price, as might be the case with the effects of those who died a
+natural death, but with this difference, that the money realised went to
+the Treasury of the Turkish Government, instead of to the heirs of the
+deceased.
+
+You might see a carpet, worth thirty pounds, sold for five, a man's
+costume, worth four pounds, sold for two medjidies, and so on with the
+rest of the articles, this being especially the case with musical
+instruments, such as pianos, etc., which had no value at all. All money
+and valuables were collected by the Commandant of Gendarmerie and the
+Vali, Reshid Bey, the latter taking them with him when he went to
+Constantinople, and delivering them to Talaat Bey.[D] ...
+
+The mind is confounded by the reflection that this people of Armenia,
+this brave race who astonished the world by their courage, resolution,
+progress and knowledge, who yesterday were the most powerful and most
+highly cultivated of the Ottoman peoples, have become merely a memory,
+as though they had never flourished. Their learned books are waste
+paper, used to wrap up cheese or dates, and I was told that one high
+official had bought thirty volumes of French literature for 50 piastres.
+Their schools are closed, after being thronged with pupils. Such is the
+evil end of the Armenian race: let it be a warning to those peoples who
+are striving for freedom, and let them understand that freedom is not to
+be achieved but by the shedding of blood, and that words are the
+stock-in-trade of the weak alone.
+
+I observed that the crosses had been removed from the lofty steeples of
+the churches, which are used as storehouses and markets for the keeping
+and sale of the effects of the dead.
+
+[Footnote D: Some remarks in this connection are omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+METHODS OF SLAUGHTER.--These were of various kinds. An officer told me
+that in the Vilayet of Bitlis the authorities collected the Armenians in
+barns full of straw (or chaff), piling up straw in front of the door and
+setting it on fire, so that the Armenians inside perished in the smoke.
+He said that sometimes hundreds were put together in one barn. Other
+modes of killing were also employed (at Bitlis). He told me, to my deep
+sorrow, how he had seen a girl hold her lover in her embrace, and so
+enter the barn to meet her death without a tremor.
+
+At Moush, a part were killed in straw-barns, but the greater number by
+shooting or stabbing with knives, the Government hiring butchers, who
+received a Turkish pound each day as wages. A doctor, named Aziz Bey,
+told me that when he was at Marzifun, in the Vilayet of Sivas, he heard
+that a caravan of Armenians was being sent to execution. He went to the
+Kaimakam and said to him: "You know I am a doctor, and there is no
+difference between doctors and butchers, as doctors are mostly occupied
+in cutting up mankind. And as the duties of a Kaimakam at this time are
+also like our own--cutting up human bodies--I beg you to let me see this
+surgical operation myself." Permission was given, and the doctor went.
+He found four butchers, each with a long knife; the gendarmes divided
+the Armenians into parties of ten, and sent them up to the butchers one
+by one. The butcher told the Armenian to stretch out his neck; he did
+so, and was slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was amazed at their
+steadfastness in presence of death, not saying a word, or showing any
+sign of fear.
+
+The gendarmes used also to bind the women and children and throw them
+down from a very lofty eminence, so that they reached the ground
+shattered to pieces. This place is said to be between Diarbekir and
+Mardin, and the bones of the slain are there in heaps to this day.
+
+Another informant told me that the Diarbekir authorities had killed the
+Armenians either by shooting, by the butchers, or at times by putting
+numbers of them in wells and caves, which were blocked up so that they
+perished. Also they threw them into the Tigris and the Euphrates, and
+the bodies caused an epidemic of typhus fever. Two thousand Armenians
+were slaughtered at a place outside the walls of Diarbekir, between the
+Castle of Sultan Murad and the Tigris, and at not more than half an
+hour's distance from the city.
+
+BRUTALITY OF THE GENDARMES AND KURDISH TRIBES.--There is no doubt that
+what is related as to the proceedings of the gendarmes and the Kurdish
+tribes actually took place. On receiving a caravan of Armenians the
+gendarmes searched them one by one, men and women, taking any money they
+might find, and stripping them of the better portions of their clothing.
+When they were satisfied that there remained no money, good clothes, or
+other things of value, they sold the Armenians in thousands to the
+Kurds, on the stipulation that none should be left alive. The price was
+in accordance with the number of the party; I was told by a reliable
+informant of cases where the price had varied between 2,000 and 200
+liras.
+
+After purchasing the caravans, the Kurds stripped all the Armenians, men
+and women, of their clothes, so that they remained entirely naked. They
+then shot them down, every one, after which they cut open their stomachs
+to search for money amongst the entrails, also cutting up the clothing,
+boots, etc., with the same object.
+
+Such were the dealings of the official gendarmerie and the Kurds with
+their fellow-creatures. The reason of the sale of the parties by the
+gendarmes was to save themselves trouble, and to obtain delivery of
+further parties to plunder of their money.
+
+Woe to him who had teeth of gold, or gold-plated. The gendarmes and
+Kurds used to violently draw out his teeth before arriving at the place
+of execution, thus inflicting tortures before actual death.
+
+A KURDISH AGHA SLAUGHTERS 50,000 ARMENIANS.--A Kurd told me that the
+authorities of Kharpout handed over to one of the Kurdish Aghas in that
+Vilayet, in three batches, more than 50,000 Armenians from Erzeroum,
+Trebizond, Sivas, and Constantinople, with orders to kill them and to
+divide with themselves the property which he might take from them. He
+killed them all and took from them their money and other belongings. He
+hired 600 mules for the women, to convey them to Urfa, at the rate of
+three liras a head. After receiving the price, he collected mules
+belonging to his tribe, mounted the women on them, and brought them to a
+place between Malatiya and Urfa, where he killed them in the most
+barbarous way, taking all their money, clothes, and valuables.
+
+THE VIOLATION OF WOMEN BEFORE OR AFTER DEATH.--[E] ...
+
+[Footnote E: I refrain from particulars. The gendarmes and Kurds are
+stated to have been the perpetrators of these acts.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+INCIDENT OF THE SHEIKH AND THE GIRL.--I said above that the Armenian
+women were sent off in batches under guard of gendarmes. Whenever they
+passed by a village the inhabitants would come and choose any they
+desired, taking them away and giving a small sum to the gendarmes. At
+one place a Kurd of over 60 picked out a beautiful girl of 16. She
+refused to have anything to do with him, but said she was ready to
+embrace Islam and marry a youth of her own age. This the Kurds would not
+allow, but gave her the choice between death and the Sheikh; she still
+refused, and was killed.
+
+BARSOUM AGHA.--Whilst I was Kaimakam of the district of Kiakhta, in the
+Vilayet of Kharpout, I was acquainted with an Armenian Notable of that
+place, named Barsoum Agha. He was a worthy and courageous man, dealing
+well with Kurds, Turks, and Armenians, without distinction; he also
+showed much kindness to officials who were dismissed from their posts in
+the district. All the Kurdish Aghas thereabouts kept close watch over
+him, hating him because he was their rival in the supremacy of the
+place. When, after my banishment, I arrived at Sivrek and heard what had
+befallen the Armenians, I enquired about him and his family. I was told
+that when the Government disposed of the Armenians of Kiakhta he was
+summoned and ordered to produce the records of moneys owing to him
+(Kurds and Armenians in that district owed him a sum of 10,000 liras);
+he replied that he had torn up the records and released his debtors from
+their obligations. He was taken away with the other Armenians, and on
+arrival at the Euphrates he asked permission to drown himself. This was
+granted, and he endeavoured to do so, but failed, as he could not master
+himself. So he said to the gendarmes, "Life is dear and I cannot kill
+myself, so do as you have been ordered," whereupon one of them shot him
+and then killed the rest of the family.
+
+NARRATIVE OF A YOUNG TURK.--This youth, who had come to Diarbekir as a
+schoolmaster, told me that the Government had informed the Armenians of
+Broussa that their deportation had been decided, and that they were to
+leave for Mosul, Syria, or El-Deir three days after receiving the order.
+After selling what they could, they hired carts and carriages for the
+transport of their goods and themselves and started--as they
+thought--for their destination. On their arrival at a very rugged and
+barren place, far distant from any villages, the drivers, in conformity
+with their instructions, broke up the conveyances and left the people in
+the waste, returning in the night to plunder them. Many died there of
+hunger and terror; a great part were killed on the road; and only a few
+reached Syria or El-Deir.
+
+CHILDREN PERISHING OF HUNGER AND THIRST.--An Arab of El-Jezira, who
+accompanied me on my flight from Diarbekir, told me that he had gone
+with a Sheikh of his tribe, men and camels, to buy grain from the sons
+of Ibrahim Pasha El-Mellili. On their way they saw 17 children, the
+eldest not more than 13 years old, dying of hunger and thirst. The Arab
+said: "We had with us a small water-skin and a little food. When the
+Sheikh saw them he wept with pity, and gave them food and water with his
+own hands; but what good could this small supply do to them? We
+reflected that if we took them with us to the Pasha, they would be
+killed, as the Kurds were killing all Armenians by order of the
+authorities; and our Arabs were at five days' distance from the place.
+So we had no choice but to leave them to the mercy of God, and on our
+return, a week later, we found them all dead."
+
+NARRATIVE OF A PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR.--We were talking of the courage and
+good qualities of the Armenians, and the Governor of the place, who was
+with us, told us a singular story. He said: "According to orders, I
+collected all the remaining Armenians, consisting of 17 women and some
+children, amongst whom was a child of 3 years old, diseased, who had
+never been able to walk. When the butchers began slaughtering the women
+and the turn of the child's mother came, he rose up on his feet and ran
+for a space, then falling down. We were astonished at this, and at his
+understanding that his mother was to be killed. A gendarme went and took
+hold of him, and laid him dead on his dead mother." He also said that
+he had seen one of these women eating a piece of bread as she went up to
+the butcher, another smoking a cigarette, and that it was as though they
+cared nothing for death.
+
+NARRATIVE OF SHEVKET BEY.--Shevket Bey, one of the officials charged
+with the extermination of the Armenians, told me, in company with
+others, the following story: "I was proceeding with a party, and when we
+had arrived outside the walls of Diarbekir and were beginning to shoot
+down the Armenians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and begged me
+to give him a girl of about ten years old. I stopped the firing and sent
+a gendarme to bring the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot
+to her and said, 'Sit there. I have given you to this man, and you will
+be saved from death.' After a while, I saw that she had thrown herself
+amongst the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to cease firing
+and bring her up. I said to her, 'I have had pity on you and brought you
+out from among the others to spare your life. Why do you throw yourself
+with them? Go with this man and he will bring you up like a daughter.'
+She said: 'I am the daughter of an Armenian; my parents and kinsfolk are
+killed among these; I will have no others in their place, and I do not
+wish to live any longer without them.' Then she cried and lamented; I
+tried hard to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her go
+her way. She left me joyfully, put herself between her father and
+mother, who were at the last gasp, and she was killed there." And he
+added: "If such was the behaviour of the children, what was that of
+their elders?"
+
+PRICE OF ARMENIAN WOMEN.--A reliable informant from Deir-el-Zur told me
+that one of the officials of that place had bought from the gendarmes
+three girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. Another man told me
+that he had bought a very beautiful girl for one lira, and I heard that
+among the tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old furniture,
+at low prices, varying from one to ten liras, or from one to five
+sheep.[F] ...
+
+[Footnote F: An unimportant anecdote omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+THE MUTESARRIF AND THE ARMENIAN GIRL.--On the arrival of a batch of
+Armenians at Deir-el-Zur from Ras-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to
+choose a servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell on a handsome
+girl, and he went up to her, but on his approach she turned white and
+was about to fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his servant
+to take her to his house. On returning thither he asked the reason for
+her terror of him, and she told him that she and her mother had been
+sent from Ras-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gendarme, many other
+Armenian women being with them. On the way, the gendarme called her
+mother, and told her to give him her money, or he would kill her; she
+said she had none, so he tortured her till she gave him six liras.[G]
+... He said to her: "You liar! You [Armenians] never cease lying. You
+have seen what has befallen, and will befall, all Armenians, but you
+will not take warning, so I shall make you an example to all who see
+you." Then he cut off her hands with his dagger, one after the other,
+then both her feet, all in sight of her daughter, whom he then took
+aside and violated, whilst her mother, in a dying state, witnessed the
+act. "And when I saw you approach me, I remembered my mother's fate and
+dreaded you, thinking that you would treat me as the gendarme treated my
+mother and myself, before each other's eyes."[H] ...
+
+[Footnote G: Unfit for reproduction.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+[Footnote H: Unimportant anecdote omitted.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+"THE REWARD OF HARD LABOUR."--The Turks had collected all those of
+military age and dispersed amongst the battalions to perform their army
+service. When the Government determined on the deportation and
+destruction of the Armenians--as stated in their official
+declaration--orders were given for the formation of separate battalions
+of Armenians, to be employed on roads and municipal works. The
+battalions were formed and sent to the roads and other kinds of hard
+labour. They were employed in this manner for eight months, when the
+severity of winter set in. The Government, being then unable to make
+further use of them, despatched them to Diarbekir. Before their arrival,
+the officers telegraphed that the Armenian troops were on their way, and
+the authorities sent gendarmes, well furnished with cartridges, to meet
+the poor wretches. The gendarmes received them with rifle-fire, and 840
+men perished in this manner, shot close to the city of Diarbekir.
+
+A CARAVAN OF WOMEN.--[I] ...
+
+[Footnote I: Unimportant. The writer describes the inhabitants of
+Diarbekir, on the arrival of a party, as hastening to select women. Two
+doctors pick out twenty of them to serve as hospital
+attendants.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+A NIGHT'S SHELTER FOR FIFTY POUNDS.--The man who showed the greatest
+capacity for exterminating Armenians was Reshid Bey, the Vali of
+Diarbekir. I have already stated how many were killed in his Vilayet.
+When news of his removal arrived, the remaining Armenians, and the
+Christians generally rejoiced, and shortly after the report was current
+some Armenians, who had hidden themselves, came out from their
+concealment and walked about the city. The Vali, who was anxious to keep
+his removal secret and to inspire terror, began deporting Armenians with
+still greater energy, and those who had come out returned to their
+hiding-places. One of the principal men of Diarbekir stated that one
+Armenian had paid fifty Turkish pounds to an inhabitant for shelter in
+his house during the night before the Vali's departure, and another told
+me that a man had received an offer of three pounds for each night until
+the same event, but had refused from fear of the authorities.
+
+CHASTITY OF THE ARMENIAN WOMEN.--[J] ... An Arab of the Akidat told me
+that he was going along the bank of the Euphrates when he saw some of
+the town rabble stripping two women of their clothes. He expostulated
+and told them to restore the clothes, but they paid no attention. The
+women begged for mercy, and finding it unavailing they threw themselves
+into the river, preferring death to dishonour. He told me also of
+another woman who had a suckling child, and begged food from the
+passers-by, who were in too great fear of the authorities to help her.
+On the third day of starvation, finding no relief, she left the baby in
+the market of El-Deir and drowned herself in the Euphrates. In this way
+do they show high qualities, honour, and courage such as many men do not
+possess.
+
+[Footnote J: An official relates how he wanted to choose a servant from
+a boatload of victims, who said they were willing to come as servants,
+but as nothing else. He took one, and on coming home one night drunk he
+tried to offer her violence; she reproved him in suitable terms and he
+conducted himself well thenceforward.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+WOMEN-SERVANTS IN DIARBEKIR.--You cannot enter a house in Diarbekir
+without finding from one to five Armenian maid-servants, even the
+humblest shopkeepers having one, who probably in the lifetime of her
+parents would not have condescended to speak a word to the master whom
+she now has to serve in order to save her life. It is stated that the
+number of such women and girls in the city is over 5,000, mostly from
+Erzeroum, Kharpout and other Vilayets.
+
+NARRATIVE OF SHAHIN BEY.--Shahin Bey, a man of Diarbekir, who was in
+prison with me, told me that a number of Armenian men and women were
+delivered to him for slaughter, he being a soldier. He said: "Whilst we
+were on the way, I saw an Armenian girl whom I knew, and who was very
+beautiful. I called her by name, and said 'Come, I will save you, and
+you shall marry a young man of your country, a Turk or a Kurd.' She
+refused, and said: 'If you wish to do me a kindness I will ask one thing
+which you may do for me.' I told her I would do whatever she wished, and
+she said: 'I have a brother, younger than myself, here amongst these
+people. I pray you to kill him before you kill me, so that in dying I
+may not be anxious in mind about him.' She pointed him out and I called
+him. When he came, she said to him, 'My brother, farewell. I kiss you
+for the last time, but we shall meet, if it be God's will, in the next
+world, and He will soon avenge us for what we have suffered.' They
+kissed each other, and the boy delivered himself to me. I must needs
+obey my orders, so I struck him one blow with an axe, split his skull,
+and he fell dead. Then she said: 'I thank you with all my heart, and
+shall ask you one more favour'; she put her hands over her eyes and
+said: 'Strike as you struck my brother, one blow, and do not torture
+me.' So I struck one blow and killed her, and to this day I grieve over
+her beauty and youth, and her wonderful courage."
+
+PHOTOGRAPHS OF ARMENIANS lying in the road, dressed in turbans, for
+despatch to Constantinople. The Turkish Government thought that European
+nations might get to hear of the destruction of the Armenians and
+publish the news abroad so as to excite prejudice against the Turks. So
+after the gendarmes had killed a number of Armenian men, they put on
+them turbans and brought Kurdish women to weep and lament over them,
+saying that the Armenians had killed their men. They also brought a
+photographer to photograph the bodies and the weeping women, so that at
+a future time they might be able to convince Europe that it was the
+Armenians who had attacked the Kurds and killed them, that the Kurdish
+tribes had risen against them in revenge, and that the Turkish
+Government had had no part in the matter. But the secret of these
+proceedings was not hidden from men of intelligence, and after all this
+had been done, the truth became known and was spread abroad in
+Diarbekir.
+
+CONVERSION OF ARMENIAN WOMEN TO ISLAM.--When the Government undertook
+the extermination of the Armenians some of the women went to the Mufti
+and the Kadi, and declared their desire to embrace the Mohammedan faith.
+These authorities accepted their conversion, and they were married to
+men of Diarbekir, either Turks or Kurds.
+
+After a while, the Government began to collect these women, so the Mufti
+and the Kadi went to the Vali and said that the women in question were
+no longer Armenians, having become Mussulmans, and that by the Sacred
+Law the killing of Mussulman women was not permissible. The Vali
+replied: "These women are vipers, who will bite us in time to come; do
+not oppose the Government in this matter, for politics have no religion,
+and the Government know what they are about." The Mufti and the Kadi
+went back as they had come, and the women were sent to death. After the
+removal of the Vali--in consequence, as it was said, of abuses in
+connection with the sale of effects left in Armenian houses and
+shops--orders arrived that the conversion of any who desired to enter
+Islam should be accepted, be they men or women. Many of the Armenians
+who remained, of both sexes, hastened to embrace the Faith in the hope
+of saving their lives, but after a time they were despatched likewise
+and their Islamism did not save them.
+
+THE GERMANS AND THE ARMENIANS.--Whenever the talk fell on the Armenians
+I used to blame the Turks for their proceedings, but one day when we
+were discussing the question, an official of Diarbekir, who was one of
+the fanatical Young Turk Nationalists, said: "The Turks are not to blame
+in this matter, for the Germans were the first to apply this treatment
+to the Poles, who were under their rule. And the Germans have compelled
+the Turks to take this course, saying that if they did not kill the
+Armenians there would be no alliance with them, and thus Turkey had no
+choice."
+
+This is what the Turk said, word for word. And it was confirmed by what
+I heard from a Turk who was imprisoned with me at Aaliya, on the charge
+of corresponding with Abdul-Kerim el-Khalil. He said that when passing
+through Damascus he had visited the German Vice-Consul there, who had
+told him confidentially that Oppenheim had come on a special mission,
+which was to incite Jemal Pasha to persecute the Arabs, with a view to
+causing hatred between the two races, by which the Germans might profit
+in future if differences arose between them and the Turks. This was a
+short time previous to the execution of Abdul-Kerim.
+
+THE KILLING OF THE TWO KAIMAKAMS.--When the Government at Diarbekir gave
+orders to the officials to kill the Armenians, a native of Baghdad was
+Kaimakam of El-Beshiri, in that Vilayet, and an Albanian was Kaimakam of
+Lijeh. These two telegraphed to the Vilayet that their consciences would
+not permit them to do such work, and that they resigned their posts.
+Their resignations were accepted, but they were both secretly
+assassinated. I investigated this matter carefully, and ascertained that
+the name of the Baghdad Arab was Sabat Bey El-Sueidi, but I could not
+learn that of the Albanian, which I much regret, as they performed a
+noble act for which they should be commemorated in history....[K]
+
+[Footnote K: The writer here describes how a Turkish judge (kadi), to
+whom the office of Kaimakam was entrusted after the murder of Sabat Bey,
+boasted in conversation that he had killed four Armenians with his own
+hand. "They were brave men," he said, "having no fear of
+death."--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+AN ARMENIAN BETRAYS HIS NATION.--[L] ...
+
+[Footnote L: The author tells the story of an Armenian of Diarbekir who
+gave information to the police against his own people, disclosing their
+hiding places. He saw him walking about the streets with an insolent
+demeanor, giving himself the airs of a person of great importance. He
+considers that such a traitor to his nation deserves the worst form of
+death.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+THE SULTAN'S ORDER.--Whilst I was in prison, a Turkish Commissioner of
+Police used to come to see a friend of his, who was also imprisoned. One
+day when I and this friend were together, the Commissioner came, and, in
+the course of conversation about the Armenians and their fate, he
+described to us how he had slaughtered them, and how a number had taken
+refuge in a cave outside the city, and he had brought them out and
+killed two of them himself. His friend said to him: "Have you no fear of
+God? Whence have you the right to take life in defiance of God's law?"
+He replied: "It was the Sultan's order; the Sultan's order is the order
+of God, and its fulfilment is a duty."
+
+ARMENIAN DEATH STATISTICS.--At the end of August, 1915, I was visited in
+prison by one of my Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend of
+one of those charged with the conduct of the Armenian massacres. We
+spoke of the Armenian question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone,
+570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from other Vilayets as
+well as those belonging to Diarbekir itself.
+
+If to this we add those killed in the following months, amounting to
+about 50,000; and those in the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the
+province of Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who perished in
+Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul, Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa,
+Zeitoun, and Aintab--estimated at upwards of 350,000--we arrive at a
+total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, hunger, or thirst, of
+1,200,000.
+
+There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet of Aleppo, in Syria, and
+Deir-el-Zur (those deported thither), and in America and Egypt and
+elsewhere; and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the Balkan
+States, thus making a grand total of 1,900,000.
+
+The above is what I was able to learn as to the statistics of the
+slaughtered Armenians, and I would quote an extract from _El-Mokattam_,
+dealing with this subject:
+
+"The Basle correspondent of the _Temps_ states that, according to
+official reports received from Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there
+were 492,000 deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diarbekir,
+Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-Zur. The Turkish Minister of the Interior,
+Talaat Bey, estimates the number of deportees at 800,000, and states
+that 300,000 of these have been removed or have died in the last few
+months.
+
+"Another calculation gives the number of deported Armenians as 1,200,000
+souls, and states that at least 500,000 have been killed or have died in
+banishment" (_El-Mokattam_, May 30th, 1916).
+
+THE ARMENIANS AND THE ARAB TRIBES.--As I approached Diarbekir, I passed
+through many Arab tribes, with whom I saw a number of Armenians, men and
+women, who were being well treated, although the Government had let the
+tribes know that the killing of Armenians was a bounden duty. I did not
+hear of a single instance of an Armenian being murdered or outraged by
+a tribesman, but I heard that some Arabs, passing by a well into which
+men and women had been thrown, drew them out when at the last extremity,
+took them with them, and tended them till they were recovered.
+
+THE ARAB AND THE ARMENIAN BEGGAR WOMAN.--[M] ...
+
+[Footnote M: The narrative concludes with the relation of an instance of
+courageous charity on the part of a Baghdad soldier to an Armenian woman
+begging in the streets of Diarbekir.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+If the Turkish Government were asked the reasons for which the Armenian
+men, women, and children were killed, and their honour and property
+placed at any man's mercy, they would reply that this people have
+murdered Moslems in the Vilayet of Van, and that there have been found
+in their possession prohibited arms, explosive bombs, and indications of
+steps towards the formation of an Armenian State, such as flags and the
+like, all pointing to the fact that this race has not turned from its
+evil ways, but on the first opportunity will kill the Moslems, rise in
+revolt, and invoke the help of Russia, the enemy of Turkey, against its
+rulers. That is what the Turkish Government would say. I have followed
+the matter from its source. I have enquired from inhabitants and
+officials of Van, who were in Diarbekir, whether any Moslem had been
+killed by Armenians in the town of Van, or in the districts of the
+Vilayet. They answered in the negative, saying that the Government had
+ordered the population to quit the town before the arrival of the
+Russians and before anyone was killed; but that the Armenians had been
+summoned to give up their arms and had not done so, dreading an attack
+by the Kurds, and dreading the Government also; the Government had
+further demanded that the principal Notables and leading men should be
+given up to them as hostages, but the Armenians had not complied.
+
+All this took place during the approach of the Russians towards the city
+of Van. As to the adjacent districts, the authorities collected the
+Armenians and drove them into the interior, where they were all
+slaughtered, no Government official or private man, Turk or Kurd, having
+been killed.
+
+As regards Diarbekir, you have read the whole story in this book, and no
+insignificant event took place there, let alone murders or breaches of
+the peace, which could lead the Turkish Government to deal with the
+Armenians in this atrocious manner.
+
+At Constantinople, we hear of no murder or other unlawful act committed
+by the Armenians, except the unauthenticated story about the twenty
+bravoes, to which I have already referred.
+
+They have not done the least wrong in the Vilayets of Kharpout,
+Trebizond, Sivas, Adana, or Bitlis, nor in the province of Moush.
+
+I have related the episode at Zeitoun, which was unimportant, and that
+at Urfa, where they acted in self-defence, seeing what had befallen
+their people, and preferring death to surrender.
+
+As to their preparations, the flags, bombs and the like, even assuming
+there to be some truth in the statement, it does not justify the
+annihilation of the whole people, men and women, old men and children,
+in a way which revolts all humanity and more especially Islam and the
+whole body of Moslems, as those unacquainted with the true facts might
+impute these deeds to Mohammedan fanaticism.
+
+To such as assert this it will suffice to point out the murders and
+oppressive acts committed by the Young Turks against Islam in Syria and
+Mesopotamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men of enlightenment,
+without fault on their part, such as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahhab
+Bey El-Inglizi, Selim Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Husseini, Abdul-Ghani
+El-Arisi, Shefik Bey El-Moweyyad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Hamid
+El-Zahrawi, Abdul-Kerim El-Khalil, Emir Aarif El-Shehabi, Sheikh Ahmed
+Hasan Tabara, and more than thirty leading men of this class.
+
+I have published this pamphlet in order to refute beforehand inventions
+and slanders against the faith of Islam and against Moslems generally,
+and I affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to be attributed
+to the Committee of Union and Progress, who deal with the empire as they
+please; it has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their
+jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the Faith of Islam is
+guiltless of their deeds.
+
+From the foregoing we know that the Armenians have committed no acts
+justifying the Turks in inflicting on them this horrible retribution,
+unprecedented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the reason which
+impelled the Turkish Government to kill off a whole people, of whom they
+used to say that they were their brothers in patriotism, the principal
+factor in bringing about the downfall of the despotic rule of
+Abdul-Hamid and the introduction of the Constitution, loyal to the
+Empire, and fighting side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? The
+Turks sanctioned and approved the institution of Armenian political
+societies, which they did not do in the case of other nationalities.
+
+What is the reason of this sudden change of attitude?
+
+It is that, previous to the proclamation of the Constitution, the
+Unionists hated despotic rule; they preached equality, and inspired the
+people with hatred of the despotism of Abdul-Hamid. But as soon as they
+had themselves seized the reins of authority, and tasted the sweets of
+power, they found that despotism was the best means to confirm
+themselves in ease and prosperity, and to limit to the Turks alone the
+rule over the Ottoman peoples. On considering these peoples, they found
+that the Armenian race was the only one which would resent their
+despotism, and fight against it as they previously fought against
+Abdul-Hamid. They perceived also that the Armenians excelled all the
+other races in arts and industries, that they were more advanced in
+learning and societies, and that after a while the greater part of the
+officers of the army would be Armenians. They were confounded at this,
+and dreaded what might ensue, for they knew their own weakness and that
+they could not rival the Armenians in the way of learning and progress.
+Annihilation seemed to them to be the sole means of deliverance; they
+found their opportunity in a time of war, and they proceeded to this
+atrocious deed, which they carried out with every circumstance of
+brutality--a deed which is contrary to the law of Islam, as is shown by
+many precepts and historical instances.[N] ...
+
+In view of this, how can the Turkish Government be justified at the
+present time in killing off an entire people, who have always paid their
+dues of every kind to the Ottoman State, and have never rebelled against
+it? Even if we suppose the Armenian men to have been deserving of death,
+what was the offence of the women and children? And what will be the
+punishment of those who killed them wrongfully and consumed the innocent
+with fire?
+
+I am of opinion that the Mohammedan peoples are now under the necessity
+of defending themselves, for unless Europeans are made acquainted with
+the true facts they will regard this deed as a black stain on the
+history of Islam, which ages will not efface.
+
+From the Verses, Traditions, and historical instances, it is abundantly
+clear that the action of the Turkish Government has been in complete
+contradiction to the principles of the Faith of Islam; a Government
+which professes to be the protector of Islam, and claims to hold the
+_Khilafat_, cannot act in opposition to Moslem law; and a Government
+which does so act is not an Islamic Government, and has no rightful
+pretension to be such.
+
+It is incumbent on the Moslems to declare themselves guiltless of such a
+Government, and not to render obedience to those who trample under foot
+the Verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the Prophet, and shed the
+innocent blood of women, old men and infants, who have done no wrong.
+Otherwise they make themselves accomplices in this crime, which stands
+unequalled in history.
+
+In conclusion, I would address myself to the Powers of Europe, and say
+that it is they themselves who have encouraged the Turkish Government
+to this deed, for they were aware of the evil administration of that
+Government, and its barbarous proceedings on many occasions in the past,
+but did not check it.
+
+_Completed at Bombay on the 3rd September, 1916._
+
+FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN.
+
+[Footnote N: Fa'iz El-Ghusein here gives a list of citations from the
+Koran, the Traditions, and from Moslem history in support of this
+view.--TRANSLATOR.]
+
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