FROM THE TIMES ARCHIVES: ‘THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES’
The Times, London
Oct 11 2007
How The Times reported the story on Friday October 8, 1915
>From The Times, Friday October 8, 1915
THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES
EXTERMINATING A RACE
A RECORD OF HORRORS
To one who remembers the rejoicings which welcomed the bloodless
Turkish Revolution of 1908, the fraternization of Moslem and Christian,
the confidence in a better future for the Armenians which survived even
the Adana massacre of 1909, the story of the systematic persecution
of the Armenians of Turkey is a bitter tale to tell.
Talaat Bey and his extremist allies have out-Hamided Abdul Hamid.
They have even shocked their German friends, thus attaining eminence in
"frightfulness" to which the "Red Sultan" never soared.
When the Committee of Union and Progress finally decided to mobilize
its forces against the Triple Entente, one of its first steps was
to make an end of "all that nonsense about Armenian reforms," as the
Grand Vizier styled the latest reform scheme imposed by the Powers.
One of the two European Inspectors-General, who were to watch over
the Administration of the six Eastern Provinces of Turkey-in-Asia,
had already set forth on his journey, greeted on his way by salaaming
officials and escorted by respectful gendarmes. Then came the
mobilization of the Turkish Army, and before he had even reached his
destination he was bundled off, returning the Constantinople with a
minimum of pomp and ceremony. At once occasional raids on Armenian
villages began to be reported from the "Six Villayets".
No massacre took place during the Turkish mobilization or the early
stages of the Caucasus campaign. It was not until Enver Pasha’s Army
had invaded Russian territory, and another Turkish force, composed in
part of Kurdish irregulars, had invaded Azerbaijan, that massacres
began. At Ardahan the Turkish regulars are said by the Russians to
have killed 15 civilians during their brief occupation of the town, but
their irregular allies and bands of Turkish fedais committed horrible
crimes at Oity, Ardanush, Artum, and other places which they occupied,
unchecked by the regulars. Armenians were thrown over cliffs, their
women violated and abducted, their children frequently Islamised. The
invasion of Azerbaijan was attended by similar excesses. The bulk of
the Armenian population, after suffering great privations, escaped
into Russian territory. According to Russian newspapers and American
missionaries, over 2,000 were killed, often by order of Turkish
Consuls, in North-West Persia. Kurdish tribesmen committed gruesome
atrocities near Bayesid, and, when the worst of the winter was over,
began to raid the Armenian villages near Van.
The defeat of Sary Kamish, inflicted by an army which included many
Armenians, had infuriated Enver’s ruthless temper. The systematic
massacre of the 25,000 Armenians of the Bashkala district, of whom
less than 10 per cent are said by Russian newspapers to have escaped
slaughter or forced conversion, appears to have been ordered and
carried out at this period.
The full description of the horrors that ensued along the frontier
must be left to our Russian allies. Suffice it to say that late in
April the Armenians in the Van district who had collected arms to
defend themselves against the Kurds before the war were attacked
by Kurds and Turkish gendarmes. In some places they were massacred;
in others they more than held their own, and finally they captured
the town of Van and took a bloody vengeance on their enemies. Early
in May a Russo-Armenian army entered Van.
TALAAT BEY’S POLICY
It is said by the Turks in their defence that the decision to deport
the Eastern Armenians was only arrived at after the discovery of
an Armenian plot in Constantinople and after the Van outbreak. But
the Armenians executed in Constantinople in April were men of the
Hintchak society who had been in prison for over a year, and the
deportation or massacre of Armenians had begun at many places before
the Van Armenians were criminal enough to help themselves. There can
be no doubt that Enver, who has never shrunk from violent methods,
approved of the policy that was adopted. Commanding officers in
the provinces received orders in April and May authorising them to
deport all individuals or families whose presence might be regarded
as politically or militarily dangerous, and in the case of some of
the Cilician Armenians, deportation had begun earlier. But Talaat, who
was in all probability the chief mover in the expulsion of Greeks from
Western Anatolia, who has never scrupled to lie to an Ambassador or to
encourage pro-Turkish intrigue in the dominions of friendly Powers,
is the chief author of these crimes. "I intend to prevent any talk
of Armenian autonomy for 50 years" and "The Armenians are a…race;
their disappearance would be no loss" are sayings attributed to him on
excellent authority. He has had worthy supporters among the extremists
of the Committee of Union and Progress, such as Mukhlis Bey, Carusso
Effendi and his Jewish revolutionary supporters, Midhat Shukri and
others, among officials such as the Valis of Diarbekr and Angora,
and among the officers of gendarmerie, who, if one-tenth of the
tales told by European and American refugees is true, have cast off
all trace of the European training which French and British officers
laboriously tried to instil in them and have too often become little
better than licentious banditti.
MASSACRE AREAS
Eastern Anatolia, Cilicia, and the Anti-Taurus region have been the
scene of the worst cruelties on the part of the authorities and the
population. In many cases the massacres were absolutely unprovoked.
Thus at Marsovan, where there is an important American college,
the authorities early in June ordered the Armenians to meet outside
the town. They surrounded them there and the police and an armed mob
killed, according to the Americans, 1,200 of the younger and more
active Armenians whom the local Committee leaders and the gendarmerie
most feared. The richer Armenians were allowed to avoid death by
conversion to Islam, for which doubtful privilege they paid heavily.
The poorer in some cases begged to be allowed to deny their faith and
thus save their families, but as they had no money they were killed, or
exiled. The younger women were distributed among the rabble. The rest
of the community were driven across country to Northern Mesopotamia.
At Angora the Vali arrested the Armenian manager of the Imperial
Ottoman Bank, who was sent away in a carriage and killed by the Vali’s
orders some miles from the town. Mukhlis Bey, a prominent member of
the Committee of Union and Progress, then produced an order from the
Central Executive of the Committee ordering the slaughter of the
most prominent Armenians whether Gregorian or Catholic. The order
was served on the Military Commandant, who refused to obey it.
Mukhlis then armed the rabble and 683 unarmed Armenians were killed.
Many were Catholics, whose cruel fate is known to have aroused vigorous
protests on the part of the Vatican.
At Bitlis and Mush a large number, according to some accounts 12,000
Armenians, many of them women, are reported to have been shot or
drowned. At Sivas, Kaisari, and Diarbekr there were many executions,
and several Armenian villages are reported completely wiped out. At
Mosul the unhappy Armenians who were brought from the north in gangs
were set upon by the mob. Many were killed and turks and Kurds came
from as far as the Persian border to buy the women.
At Urfa, where the male Allied subjects formerly resident in Syria
and one of two prisoners of war are now interned by Djemal Pasha’s
orders, the first massacre took place in the third week of August. It
was witnessed by the some of the Allied women and children who
recently escaped from Syria. An English girl of 10 years of age saw an
Armenian’s brains blown out and the bodies of women and children burnt
with kerosene. Several smaller massacres followed the first outbreak,
in which about 150 Armenians were killed. The military took no part in
it, but left full freedom to the rabble, who slightly wounded several
French prisoners who has been allowed to walk in the town. It is not
surprising that the British, French, and Russian women who have escaped
from Uría should express the liveliest apprehensions as to the fate of
their menfolk prisoners in what is probably the most fanatical town
in Turkey, and the scene of the burning of about 6,000 Armenians of
both sexes in the Cathedral during the Hamidian massacres.
A DESPERATE RESISTANCE
The massacred Armenians had mostly given up their arms in accordance
with the advice of their clergy. At four widely separated places
resistance was offered. At Shaban Karahissar in North-East Anatolia,
the Armenians took up arms, held off the Turkish troops for some
time, and were finally overwhelmed. Some 4,000 were believed to have
been killed or sold – the fate of the women and children – at this
place. At Kharput, on hearing of the intention of the authorities to
deport them, the Armenians rose on June 3, and for a week held the
town. They were then overpowered by troops with artillery, and were
mostly killed. The outbreak at Zeitun seems to have taken place in
March and to have been a very trivial affair. The Armenians of the
town of Zeitun, though formerly a turbulent race, handed over the
few insurgents to the Turks, hoping thus to be spared, but Fakhry
Pasha, the author of the second Adana massacre, nevertheless killed
a few of the townsmen on the spot, and may have drafted the rest into
labour battalions. The women, children, and infirm were sent to Zor –
described by a most competent authority as a "human dustbin" where
they are reported to by dying in large numbers.
The Armenians of Jebel Musa were ordered to quit their homes late in
July. Believing very naturally that the Turks proposed to make away
with them, they rose in revolt to the number of 600. Though poorly
provided with arms, they held out for a month against about 4,000
Turkish troops. Their losses were slight. Those of the Turks, who
seem to have been troops of inferior quality, are said by refugees
from Syria to have amounted to from 300 to 400. The fighting was
ruthlessly waged. The Turks carried off some 20 Armenian women and
children, and executed 2 prisoners before the Armenian position. The
Armenians retaliated by executing a Turkish major, a notable who had
plundered one of their villages, and other prisoners whom they took.
Ammunition was running low early in September, and a massacre seemed
inevitable when French warships and a British vessel arrived and took
off the Armenians to the number of 4,000, mostly women and children.
It may be noted that the only massacres reported in the Arab countries
– namely, north of Baghdad, where about 1,000 Armenians are said
on Armenian authority to have been killed at the end of their long
journey from the North; and at Kebusie, in the Homs district, where
a body of 250 Armenian deportees were killed, forcibly converted or,
in the case of the girls, sold – were committed by the military,
apparently Turks and Kurds.
DEPORTATION OR STARVATION
It remains to describe Talaat Bey’s methods in detail. Massacre was
followed by a crueller system of persecution than Abdul Hamid ever
invented. The Red Sultan’s abominations were seldom accompanied by the
wholesale deportation of the survivors; the violation and abduction of
women and the conversion of children, though sadly frequent in some
places, were by no means general in the massacres of 1894-1896. Then
the wild beast was allowed to run amok for 24 hours, and was then
usually chained up.
In Talaat Bey’s campaign the preliminary massacre, which was sometimes
omitted, was followed by the separation of the able-bodied men from
their women folk. The former were drafted into labour battalions
or simply disappeared. The women, children, and old men were next
driven slowly across country. They were permitted to take no carts,
baggage animals, or any large stock of provisions with them. They
were shepherded from place to place by gendarmes, who violated some
of the women, sold others, and robbed most. Infirm or aged folk,
women great with child, and children were driven along till they
dropped and died by the way. Gendarmes who returned to Alexandretta
described with glee to Europeans how they robbed the fugitives. If
these refused to give up their money their escort sometimes pushed
them into streams or abandoned them in desolate places.
A European who witnessed the exodus of some of the Armenians of
Cilicia says that most were footsore, all looked half starved, and
no able-bodied man could be seen among them. At Osmanic on the road
between Aleppo and Adana they were given only 8 hours’ notice by the
town crier to make ready for their departure. The French and British
refugees from Urfa saw the bodies of "hundreds" of women and children
lying by the road and met another of these lamentable half-starved
caravans. An American who accompanied a group of Armenian exiles from
Malatia reports that the road to Urfa was marked all along its course
by the bodies of those who had died. Travellers by the Anatolian
Railway report that the hills near Bilejik Geive, and other stations
in the hinterland of Brusa were crowded with Armenians from Brusa,
Ismid, and other settlements near Constantinople, who had no shelter
and were begging their bread. Large bodies of the exiles are said to
have been simply led into the desert south of the Euphrates and left
there to starve.
THE TALLEST POPPIES
The policy which lost the Committee leaders Macedonia and is as old
as King Tarquin, seems to have been revived by Talaat. Just who had
been amnestied fell frequent victims to the bravi of the Committee,
so now the Armenians who had cooperated most loyally with the Turkish
Revolutionaries were among the first to feel the weight of Talaat’s
hand.
Haladijian Effendi, ex-Minister of Public Works, was arrested in
Constantinople after the discovery of an alleged Armenian plot, and in
spite of his friendly relations with the Committee, of which he was a
member, and his friendship with Talaat and Djavid Beys, was hurried
into Anatolia, where he has disappeared. It is not known whether he
is dead or alive. Garo Pasdermatjian, who took part in the attack on
the Imperial Ottoman Bank in 1896, and was one of Talaat’s intimates,
was also arrested. So were Vartkes, as popular a member of the Turkish
Chamber of Deputies as Pasdermatjian, Aghnuni, the very able leader
if the Dashnakist Society in Constantinople, Zohrab Effendi, M.P for
Constantinople, an able but unpopular lawyer, who belonged to the
Committee Party, Vartan Papazian, and other Armenians, several of
whom were members of Parliament.
According to Armenian refugees from Syria, whose story is largely
borne out by independent evidence, several of the prisoners arrived
at Urfa in July. They were there entertained to dinner by the Chief
of Police, who during the meal received a telegram from the Vali of
Diarbekr bidding him send the prisoners to Diarbekr at once. They
started before midnight, and early next morning were killed on the
way by ‘brigands’. Zohrab is known to have met his fate there, and
it is believed that Aghuni, Vartkes, Papazian and Pasdermatiijian
died with him. Of Aghnuni’s death and that of Vartkes and Papazian
there seems no doubt. A number of priests and at least one bishop
wren reported executed by military courts.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN SOLD
Torture has been frequently used in the case of Armenian prisoners and
suspects. The sale by Bird’s police of Armenian children of both sexes
to the keepers of disorderly houses and Turks of bad moral character
has provoked protest in Constantinople. The object of the conversion
of children reported from some districts and the very general sale
of women and girls appears to be political. Foreigners believe that
Talaat has countenanced these crimes with the object of breaking up
the strong social structure of the Armenian community in Turkey.
There are Turcophils who aver that the Armenians do not really object
to such proceedings. One is reminded of a youthful and "highly
well-born" traveller who, returning from Macedonia in the days of
band warfare, reported as proof of Ottoman lenity that he had seen
Slav girls dancing with Turkish irregulars. This cruel comedy had, of
course, been arranged by an officer of gendarmerie, for the average
Christian peasant girl in Macedonia would as soon dance with a Turk
as an Anglo-Indian lady would consent to divert an Afghan with the
danse du ventre. The belief that Armenians "do not mind" is a cruel
falsehood. The Armenian woman of the country towns is nowadays often
quite well educated and always strictly brought up, and her sufferings
are doubtless as great as those of the average English or French
farmer’s daughter would be were she subjected to similar cruelty.
GERMAN AND TURKISH PROTESTS
The attempts of the American Ambassador to procure some alleviation of
the lot of Armenians have thus far proved unsuccessful. Mr Morganthau,
in the opinion of good observers, wasted too much diplomatic energy
on behalf of the Zionists of Palestine, who were in no danger of
massacre, to have any force to spare. Talaat and Bedri simply own that
persecuting Armenians amuses them and turn a deaf ear to American
pleadings. German and Austro-Hungarian residents in Turkey at first
approved of the punishment of Armenian "traitors", but the methods of
the Turkish extremists have sickened even Prussian stomachs. True the
Jewish Baron von Oppendeim, now in Syria, has been preaching massacre,
and the German Consular officials al Aleppo and Alexandretta have
followed suit, perhaps with the idea of planting German colonists in
the void left b the disappearance of the Armenians when the war is
over. But the German Government has grown nervous. On August 31 the
German and Austro-Hungarian Ambassadors protested to the Grand Vizier
against the massacre of Armenians and demanded a written communication
to the effects that neither of the Government had any connexion with
these crimes. Turkey has not, so far, given her Allies a certificate
of unblemished character, and the bestowal of the Ordro pour la Merite
on Envor Pahsa by the Kaiser is not likely to give the impression
that Germany is in earnest.
There has been some Turkish protests against these abominations. The
Turks of Aintab refused to permit the exile of the local Armenians.
One of the Turkish Provincial Governors-General, who name had best
not be mentioned lest he be transferred to another post – or world –
has saved many exiles from starvation. Rahmi Boy, the bold Vali of
Smyrna who has treated the interned British and French residents of the
town right well, has repeatedly protested to the Porto against these
crimes and has refused to hand over suspected Armenians for trial. The
Sheikh-ul-Islam has salved his conscience by a tardy resignation,
and Djahid and Djavid Boys have uttered plaintive protests when it
was too late. In a few days’ time Parliament will meet and Talaat
and his colleagues will then explain and defend their Armenian policy
to the House. One can imagine what line their defence will follow –
the necessity of securing national unity at this critical hour,
the importance of checking dangerous and unpatriotic agitation,
the deplorable crimes committed by the Armenians, the sufferings
of tortured Muslims under British and Russian rule, and much more
rhetoric of this kind. One cannot, unfortunately, imagine the Chamber
of Deputies refusing to vote the fullest confidence in Talaat and
Enver. Massacres will probably cease and the Armenians to be left to
starve quietly.
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