ERNEST YARROW, CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY AND WITNESS TO THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
February 24, 2015
In 1924, Yarrow petitioned the United States State Department to
restore Armenian territory that was lost to Turkey
Ernest Alfred Yarrow (21 February 1876 – 26 October 1939) was a
Christian missionary and a witness to the Armenian Genocide. He is
also known for his leadership of a relief effort carried out by the
Near East Foundation that saved and cared for tens of thousands of
Armenian refugees.
Yarrow was stationed in Van vilayet, Turkey, in 1915 when an
estimated 55,000 Armenians were massacred there by Turkish troops in
the earliest stages of the genocide, and he was also an eyewitness
to the subsequentdefense of Van. He later publicly declared that
“the Turks and Kurds have declared a holy war on the Armenians and
have vowed to exterminate them.” He also described the Van massacres
and those which followed across Turkey as an “organized, systematic
attempt to wipe out the Armenians.”
Early Life
Ernest Yarrow was born in London, England, to a Primitive Methodist
family. He and his family moved to the United States when Yarrow
was one year old. Once in the United States, Yarrow attended the
Northfield Seminary founded by Evangelist preacher Dwight L. Moody.
After graduating from there in 1897, he continued his education in
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, graduating in 1901. At
Wesleyan, he also played football, acquiring a reputation for strong
tackling. He joined the local First Congregational Church then took
theological courses at the Hartford Seminary. Upon graduating from the
Hartford Seminary in May 1904, Yarrow married his roommate’s sister,
Jane Tuckley, in August of that year. Yarrow then joined the world
missionary movement and was sent to Van, Ottoman Empire by the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Yarrow became very active
in the Van college where he was in charge of the boys’ school.
After serving for several years, Yarrow returned to the United
States for a brief visit in 1912. In 1913, however, Yarrow and his
wife returned to Van to continue with missionary duties. He became
president of the Van college right beforeWorld War I began.
Armenian Genocide witness
Having lost its Christian-majority Balkan possessions in the First
Balkan War of 1912-13, fears had intensified in the Ottoman government
that a similar push for independence by the Armenians–Turkey’s largest
remaining Christian minority, situated in the heart of Anatolia–might
lead to the breakup of Turkey itself. Aware of the Ottomans’ growing
hostility, some Armenians, particularly in the vilayet of Van, had
begun stockpiling weapons and ammunition for self-defence, fearing
a repetition of the massacres of 1909, but these activities only
strengthened Ottoman suspicions of Armenian intentions.
Following the outbreak of World War I, mutual distrust between Turks
and Armenians reached almost intolerable levels when, in early 1915,
Turkey was invaded both by the British at Gallipoli and Russia
from the north. The Russian thrust into Van vilayet, spearheaded by
Russo-Armenian units, was quickly blamed by the Ottoman leadership
on alleged collaboration by the Van Armenians, and extreme measures
against the mostly defenceless Armenian populace were authorized,
resulting in massacres and the siege of Van, and precipitating the
Armenian genocide.
Van massacres
In February 1915, the “strong and liberal-minded” governor or vali
of Van vilayet was replaced with Cevdet Bey, brother-in-law of the
Turkish Commander-in-Chief, Enver Pasha. The new vali, a subscriber to
the view that a nascent Armenian “rebellion” was under way in Van, was
unable to travel there until late March, when he arrived “accompanied
by several thousand soldiers and Kurdish and Circassian irregulars”.
Cevdet quickly repeated an earlier demand that the Van Armenians
supply 4,000 able-bodied men for work in labour battalions, but
the Armenian leadership, fearful of the fate of such conscripts and
concerned that full compliance would leave them defenceless, offered
500 men and payment of the standard exemption fee for the rest.
Cevdet’s response was to have four Armenian leaders killed and a
fifth–an Armenian community leader in the town of Shadakh–arrested,
but when the townsfolk surrounded the building where the latter was
detained, demanding his release, Cevdet responded by ordering one of
his regiments to “go to Shadakh and wipe out its people”. The troops
however, for reasons unknown, attacked and perpetrated massacres in
several defenceless Armenian villages instead.
By this time, the alarmed Armenians were openly preparing for a defence
of the city of Van. An attempt to avoid further bloodshed was made at
this point by Yarrow himself and fellow American missionary Clarence
Ussher, who met directly with Cevdet on the Armenians’ behalf. At this
meeting, Cevdet demanded that fifty Turkish soldiers be stationed in
the American missionary compound in Van, but this was rejected by the
Armenians on the grounds that it would compromise their defensive
positions. On April 19, Cevdet issued the following order to his
forces in the vilayet:
The Armenians must be exterminated. If any Muslim protect a Christian,
first, his house shall be burned; then the Christian killed before
his eyes, and then his [the Moslem’s] family and himself.
An estimated 55,000 Armenians in the vilayet were subsequently
slaughtered by Cevdet’s troops; however, several localities were able
to successfully resist the Turkish attacks, most notably the city of
Van itself, which would hold out for almost a month.
Siege of Van
After the massacres ordered by Cevdet Bey on April 19 were largely
concluded, the vali redeployed his troops for an attack on the city
of Van itself. On the Turkish side were about 4,000 well-armed troops
supported by artillery, while the city was defended by about 1,500
Armenian militia, who according to Yarrow were obliged to resort
to “all kinds of weapons including blunderbusses, Colt pistols,
old-fashioned rifles and even … a couple of small cannon [made]
out of old metal”. This poorly armed force would nonetheless prove
sufficient to hold off the Turks for almost a month until the relief
of the city by Russian forces.
Yarrow and other members of the American mission were still located in
the city when the siege began, and were thus able to provide eyewitness
accounts. In an interview with an American newspaper a year later,
Yarrow provided some details of the siege. Of the initial stages,
he says:
When the people in the city heard of the coming of the Turks they
knew that no mercy would be shown them, for half the population
were Armenians and Syrians [Assyrians] and they knew the Turks would
massacre them. There was great commotion and nobody knew what to do.
The people decided to make a stand against the Turks … The battle
started when the Turks fired upon and killed a group of women outside
of the city. The besieged area was about one mile across and a
veritable hail of bullets swept over the walls for 28 days that the
city of Van was under fire.
Yarrow himself assisted the Armenian defenders in maintaining
governance during the siege. Yarrow’s colleague, fellow missionary
Clarence Ussher, notes that as the Armenians remaining in Van “had
small experience in organization”, it was “absolutely necessary” that
someone with the right abilities attend to governance. Ussher states
that Yarrow stepped into this role, taking the lead on many emergency
committees and eventually “organiz[ing] a government with a mayor,
judges, police, and board of health”. Yarrow also helped organize a
soup kitchen along with the manufacture and distribution of bread to
those in need.
Toward the end of the siege, Turkish forces bombarded the American
missionary compound, a violation of diplomatic immunity that Ussher
suggests was made because of Turkish suspicion that the Americans
had aided the city’s defence. Of the bombardment, Yarrow states:
We had flying over the building where the missionaries were staying
five American flags. One day the Turks turned their fire on the
building and for two days they kept up an incessant firing of rifle
bullets and shrapnel. Why they did this we do not know. The Turks
knew, however, that we had helped the Armenians with their sick and
had bettered sanitary conditions etc. We did nothing to assist them
in a military way.
On 14 May, after almost a month of siege, Turkish forces withdrew due
to the advance of Russian forces, who relieved the city a few days
later. It was then discovered, in the words of Yarrow, that “while
the siege was going on the Turks [had] killed every Armenian that they
could find in the vicinity of the city”, including women and children.
After making this discovery, some Armenians began killing some of
the city’s surviving Turks in revenge. Later however, after order
had been restored, Yarrow expressed surprise “at the self-control of
the Armenians, for though the Turks did not spare a single wounded
Armenian, the Armenians are helping us to save the Turks – a thing
that I do not believe even Europeans would do.”
With the lifting of the siege, the Armenians were to enjoy a brief
ten-week period of self-governance, before advancing Turkish forces
brought the city under threat once again. Thousands of Armenians fled
the city rather than fall once more into Turkish hands, fleeing across
the border to the relative safety of the Russian Caucasus, and Yarrow,
by now sick with typhus, and the other American missionaries also
decided to leave. Along the way, Yarrow describes how “in one locality
the Turkish advance guard, secluded in the hills, poured rifle shots
down upon the fleeing people. Hundreds of them were killed by the
firing.” Yarrow eventually made his way to Tiflis, and from there
back to the United States where he would resume efforts to assist
the Armenian people.
Conclusion
Speaking later of his experiences, Yarrow said “the Turks and Kurds
have declared a holy war on the Armenians and have vowed to exterminate
them.” Of the overall genocide, he said: “It isn’t war that the Turks
carry on. It is nothing but butchering. The Turkish atrocities have not
been exaggerated. From 500,000 to 1,000,000 Armenians and Syrians were
slaughtered in a year.” He described the massacres as an “organized,
systematic attempt to wipe out the Armenians.”
Relief Work
By 1916, some 300,000 refugees of the Armenian Genocide and other areas
had settled in Russian Armenia under impoverished conditions. In a
response to the crisis, in 1916, a relief committee was set up which
aimed at assisting at least 250,000 Armenian refugees by providing
food and shelter. Yarrow believed a stronger and independent Armenia
would alleviate the refugee problems.
After staying for two years in the United States, Yarrow began
helping the refugees in Armenia and became a staff officer for
Colonel Haskell’s mission by 1919. Of the later stages of theCaucasus
Campaign, Yarrow said “the Turkish advance terrifies the Armenians;
and the Caucasian tartars who are unfriendly to the Armenians surround
them. There is danger that the whole Armenian race will be exterminated
should the combination of these forces be successful.”
Yarrow helping Armenian orphans
In 1920, Yarrow took charge as the director of the Near East
Foundation. At one point as director, he had responsibility for
30,000 children who had sought refuge in the Caucasus. In Armenia,
Yarrow started a street cleaning program and other irrigation projects
which provided jobs to some 150,000 refugees; through the program,
many of the refugees earned wages which helped them finance their
daily activities independently. He later remarked that “in training
30,000 children for future citizenship I feel that I have a real part
in the development of the new Armenia.”
In 1924, Yarrow petitioned the United States State Department to
restore Armenian territory that was lost to Turkey in 1920 and 1921.
Awards
Ernest A. Yarrow was awarded the Order of the Lion and the Sun by
the Persian government for his relief efforts in the region. He also
received four decorations from the Russian government and a medal
from the Armenian government.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
http://www.horizonweekly.ca/news/details/62227