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#21 Ashot

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Posted 10 April 2008 - 08:31 PM

SAYS EXTINCTION MENACES ARMENIA

Dr. Gabriel Tells of More Than 450,000 Killed In Recent Massacres
600,000 DRIVEN INTO EXILE
Useless Neutral Powers Intervene, says Nubar *****, Almost the Whole People Is Doomed


SEPTEMBER 25, 1915

Dr. M. Simbad Gabriel, President of the Armenian General Progressive Association in the United States told a TIMES reporter last night that no American could possibly conceive of the atrocities which the Turks had perpetrated on the Christian Armenians. He said that from correspondence he had received from Nubar *****, the diplomatic representative in Paris of the Katholikos or head of the number of Armenians put to death as more than 450,000 , while 600,000 others had been driven from their homes to wander among the villages of Asia Minor all these out of a population of 1,500,000.

"We in America can't begin to realize the extent of this reign of terror," says Dr. Gabriel, "because Armenians in Turkey are nor allowed to write, nor even to converse with each other of what we are undergoing at the hands of the Turks. Nubar ***** writes that he has been informed by the Katholikos and also by prominent Armenians in Constantinople, who bind him by the most solemn oaths not to reveal deeds which have been pretreated by the Moslems on the Armenians.

"I was talking to an Armenian woman two or three days ago," he continued, "who had come from Constantinople last month her three children Beseeching me not to reveal her name, last vengeance be visited upon her husband, who is still in Constantinople, she told me of horrors that made my blood run cold. One morning twenty of her friends were taken out by the Turks and hanged in cold blood, for no other reason than that they were suspected of being unfriendly to the Turkish cause. This is but an example of what the Armenian in Turkey who has not bee exiled wakes every morning to fear."

The doctor said that greed, religion, and politics all combined to induce the Turks to massacre the Armenians. The Government was always behind every massacre, and the people were acting under orders.

"When the bugle blows in the morning," he said, " Turks rush fiercely to the work if killing the Christians and plundering them of their wealth. When it stops in the evening, or in two or three days, the shooting and stabbing stop just as suddenly then as it began. The people obey their orders like soldiers.

"The dead are really the happiest," he continued. "The living are forced to leave their homes and wander in an alien country amid a hostile population. They are allowed as a food ration by the Government only half a pound of grain a day. The youngest and strongest of the men are forced into the army but not to fight. They are not armed and have to do all the trench digging and the supply carrying for the Turkish soldiers. Do you blame them that they do not favor their country's cause?"

Nubar *****, in sending the correspondence he had received to Dr. Gabriel, wrote that the massacres of the Sultan Abdul Hamid in 1895, in which 300,000 Armenians fell, seemed insignificant in comparison with the butchery of 1915.

"What has occurred during the last few months in Cilicia and Armenia is unbelievable," he writes. " It is nothing more or less than the annihilation of a whole people."

A letter from Constantinople says that Armenians in all the cities and villages of Cilicia have been exiled to the desert regions south of Aleppo. They have not been allowed to carry any of their possessions with them, the letter goes on, and Moslems are occupying the lands and houses left vacant. The young men are kept for military service, and it is only the weak and aged who are deported.

"The court-martials are functioning everywhere," says another letter. "Numerous Armenians have been hanged, and many others sentenced to ten or fifteen years in prison. Many have been beaten to death, among them the priests of the village of Kurk. Churches and convents have been pillaged and destroyed, and almost all the Bishop have been arrested to be delivered up to court-martial.

"The villages in the vilayets of Van and Bitlis have been pillaged and the population put to the sword. We in Constantinople live at present isolated, as if in a fortress, and have no means of correspondence, either by mail or telegram. Christian martyrdom has at no time assumed such colossal proportions; and if the neutral powers, especially the united States of America, do not intercede, there will be very few left of the million and a half of the Christian Armenians in the Turkish Empire."

Dr. Gabriel says that the Armenian progressive Association was first organized in 1909 after the Young Turks had massacred 30,000 of the Armenians in Cilicia. He says the association attempted in various ways to promote a better understanding between the two races, but feels now that such efforts are useless. Nubar *****, who lives in Egypt, according to Dr. Gabriel, was called by the Katholicos once before at the end of the Balkan wars, to strive to arrange with the European powers some agreement concerning the rights of the Armenians.


New York Times


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Posted 10 April 2008 - 08:32 PM

TALES OF ARMENIAN HORRORS CONFIRMED


September 27, 1915

Committee on Atrocities Says 1,500,000 Victims Have Suffered Already.

Professor Samuel Train Dutton, Secretary of the Committee on Atrocities on Armenians, made public yesterday a preliminary statement of the committee outlining the result of its investigation of the terrible conditions existing among the Armenians. The committee says that the reports concerning the massacre, torture, and other maltreatment of Armenians of all ages abundantly are confirmed by its investigation.

Other members of the committee besides Professor Dutton are Cleveland H. Dodge, Arthur Curtis James, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, John R. Mott, Frank Mason North, James L. Barton, William Sloane, D. Stuart Dodge, and others.

The statement issued by the committee yesterday is as follows:

"A sub-committee has thoroughly investigated the evidence and has just made report to the full committee confirming in every particular the statement recently made by Viscount Bryce regarding the imprisonment, torture, murder, massacre, and exile into the deserts of Northern Arabia of defenseless and innocent Armenians, including decrepit men, women, and children, and their forcible conversion to Islam."

"Written testimonies of eyewitnesses whose names are known to the committee, but which obviously cannot now be made public, have been examined with utmost care. This testimony covers hundreds of pages, and the character and position of the authors and the positiveness of utterance carry absolute conviction."

"The witnesses examined include Armenians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Italians, Germans, Turks, Englishmen, Americans, business men, travelers and officials of great variety and rank. Not a single statement can be questioned as to the facts reported. These all agree in the declarations that from Smyrna on the west to Persia, and from the Black Sea to Arabia, a propaganda of extermination of non-Moslems is now being carried on by the Turkish Government far surpassing in ferocity and exceeding in destruction anything done by Abdul Hamid during his long career of massacre and extermination."

"The statements examined, many of which are in the possession of the committee, cover hundreds of towns and cities in which in many instances all of the Armenians have been killed outright, often after horrible torture, or sent to the desert to die of starvation, and that too, with diabolical cruelty. The ostensible deportation of men, women, and children toward Mesopotamia is usually but a form of marching those starving, helpless, and frequently naked refugees out into the mountains to be outraged and butchered, sometimes by the Kurds who gladly co-operate in the work of destruction."

"Included among these refugees and victims are pupils and graduates from the American schools and colleges, teachers and professional men who have taken degrees in American and European universities, men and women who have represented the brains and enterprise of the country for a generation or more."

"The plan of procedure, which is identical in all parts of the country, seem to aim at the complete elimination of all non- Moslem races from Anatolia, and already that aim is in fair way of accomplishment so far as the Armenians are concerned."

"In several places American property has been seized, Americans searched, imprisoned and expelled from the country, their letters and telegrams, even from United States Consular offices, intercepted and their lives put in jeopardy. This, however, is of trivial importance compared with the work of destruction going on toward the Armenians."

"Evidence seems to prove that probably 1,500,000 Armenians have already been murdered or forced to the desert where only death awaits them unless relief is secured at once. And all this has taken place since March, and is now at the height of its gruesome fury."

"The committee is confident that if the press of the country should, with all the emphasis at its command, voice its protest and call upon the Turkish Government to put an end to this crime against humanity and return the exiles who may yet be living to their homes it could hardly fail to produce results."

"In view of the great influence which Germany and Austria exercise over their ally the American people cannot fail to hold them morally responsible if these atrocities are permitted to continue."


New York Times


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Posted 10 April 2008 - 08:33 PM

THE DEPOPULATION OF ARMENIA



September 27, 1915

The shocking news of the massacres, torture and deportation of Armenian Christians makes a special appeal to American sympathy and helpfulness. From numerous and reliable sources in Turkey it seems certain that this is not a matter of local disorders or petty oppression, but a systematic effort to extirpate the Armenian race. Thousands of families have been driven from their homes to starve upon the roads. Towns and villages have been divested of their inhabitants. Many are being put to torture to force them to renounce their Christian faith. Women are interned in the harems and children are sold as slaves.

These outrages cannot be excused on the ground of military necessity, for the regions devastated are in some cases beyond the reach of any possible Russian invasion and the Armenians have not manifested any disposition to revolt except where, as at Van, they have been driven to it in self-defense. It looks as though the Turks, despairing of maintaining their supremacy, were resolved to crush out the Armenians so as to forestall forever the establishment of an autonomous Armenia in case the Allies conquer Turkey.

But this is something in which we have a deep interest, for American money and American lives have been spent for the uplift of the oppressed peoples of the Ottoman Empire. The American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions has been at work in the Ottoman Empire for almost a century and has expended some twenty million dollars. There are now maintained in the Ottoman Empire ten American colleges; Robert College, Constantinople; Constantinople College for Girls; Syrian Protestant College, Beirut; International College, Smyrna; Anatolia College, Marsovan; Euphrates College, Harpoot; Aintab College; Central Turkey College, Marash; St. Paul's College, Tarsus; and Teachers College, Sivas. In these institutions and other schools there are over 40,000 pupils, a large proportion of whom are Armenians.

Thousands of Armenians have sought refuge in America from Turkish tyranny and have become good citizens of the United States. The present distress and imminent danger of the Armenians in Asia Minor will cause wide-spread concern in the United States.


The Independent


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:12 AM

ARMENIAN WOMEN PUT UP FOR AUCTION


September 29, 1915

Refugee Tells of the Fate of Those in Turkish Hands

Speaking yesterday, his remarks being based on the authenticated data in his possession, Professor Dutton said he does not believe anything had happened in many centuries so terrible as is the studied and systematized effort on the part of a political coterie in Turkey - the Young Turks, led by Enver ***** - to exterminate a whole race of people. The whole plan involves the wiping out of the Armenians.

Only a day or two ago, added Professor Dutton, a young girl who left Turkey on Aug 18 called here to see him. She told of the fate of the 100 girls who were attending a mission school in Anatolia. These girls, who were of course Armenians, were divided into groups and those that were the best looking in the opinion of the Turkish officers were taken over by those officers. Those considered not quite so good looking were given over to the soldiers, while those still less attractive were put up for sale to the highest bidders.

Several Americans who have been in Turkey for many years have arrived here within the last few days. They all testify to the truthfulness of the reports that have come out of Turkey concerning the treatment of the Armenians, but in every instance they beg that their names be not used for fear that what they have said will find its way back to Turkey and friends or relatives they left behind will be punished by the Turks in retaliation.

Copies of two letters, in which the writers tell of the fate that is being meted out to the Armenians, were given to The Times yesterday by a man in close touch with Armenian conditions.

In one of these letters the writer among other things says:

In Urtab, Tukh, and about twenty other Armenian villages on the lake the entire population was found to have been massacred by the Turks - not a single living soul was found in these villages, which were now given over to howling dogs, while large numbers of corpses have been washed ashore from the lake and the rivers.

These corpses, which were ascertained to be all of males, were terribly mutilated, but nothing was discovered as to the whereabouts of women and children. By sunset of July 20 the Armenians captured the heights of Kerkur. When they reached the summit the town of Bitlis presented to their disappointed gaze a sheet of flames, and they knew that the worst had happened. Some female refugees, who managed to escape the Turkish cordon, have since related the story of fiendish massacres in the town and the wholesale deportation of women and children.

To a well known minister of the Armenian Church there came out of Turkey, by some mysterious underground route, a letter which is described as of "undoubted trustworthiness" Excerpts from their letter follow:

Armenia without the Armenians - such is the plan of the Ottoman Government, which has already begun to install Moslem families in the homes and property of the Armenians. Needless to say, the deported are not allowed by the Government to take any of their belongings with them, and as there is moreover, no means of transport owing to the exigencies of the military, they are forced to cover on foot the two or three months' journey to that corner of the desert region which is destined to be their sepulchre.


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:13 AM

ARMENIAN OFFICIALS MURDERED BY TURKS


September 30, 1915

Confirmation from Cairo of the Wholesale Atrocities That Von Bernstorff Belittles

London, Sep 29 -- The Cairo correspondent of The Times in a dispatch dated Sep 27 says:

Confirmation has reached here of reports of Armenian atrocities of a nauseating and appalling character. Undoubtedly, as on previous occasions, these outrages have been engineered from Istunbul [Constantinople]. There is reason to believe that the attack on the Armenians was decided upon on Enver *****'s return after his repulse in the Caucasus, when he appeared to be infuriated against the Armenians because they had greatly assisted the Russians.

Talaat Bey evidently seized the opportunity to retaliate upon the defenseless colonies in Asia Minor. The formula adopted as a cloak was an order for the expulsion of the Armenians and their deportation to centers in the interior. Resistance or delay in compliance with the order was made the excuse for murder, rape, and other savageries.

One instance in which leading Armenians were concerned shows the fate awaiting even those who obeyed the order. Vartkes Effendi and Zohrab Effendi, two prominent members of Parliament; Aghnuni one of the chief Dashnakists; Haladjian Effendi, ex-Minister of Public Works and Agriculture, were put in a carriage at Urfa for conveyance to Diarbekir, and then were murdered en route, their escort reporting that the murders were the work of brigands. Vartkes was but recently recipient of marks of Talaat Bey's friendship.

Refugees from Suedia now at Port Said appear to have fought most valiantly. When the deportation order came 4,800 of these took to the hills, where they resisted for seven weeks, one attack of the Turks lasting continuously for twenty-six hours. It is believed that Armenians elsewhere are resisting, but the case of the inland colons is almost hopeless.

The nature and scale of the atrocities dwarf anything perpetrated in Belgium or under Abdul Hamid, whose exploits in this direction now assume an aspect of moderation compared with those of the present Governors of Turkey. Talaat Bey, when ordering the deportation said:

After this, for fifty years there will not be an Armenian question.


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:14 AM

ASKS BERNSTORFF's AID TO PREVENT MASSACRES



October 1, 1915

State Department Makes Informal Request to Ambassador in Behalf of Armenians.

Washington Sep 29 -- The State Department has placed an informal request before Count Von Bernstorff the German Ambassador, asking that he use his influence with the German Government to interfere in behalf of the Armenians in Turkey.

The request, it became known today, was made some time ago, and as yet has not been directly answered by the Ambassador except with the text of a German consular dispatch which stated that conditions among the Armenians had been exaggerated. Officials here stated that no formal representations on the subject had been directed to the Berlin Foreign Office and no such steps were now contemplated by the Government.

State Department advises have shown that, while so far there has been no violation of American rights which would make a basis for formal protests evidence from unofficial sources indicate that American lives and property have been threatened.

Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople today sent a telegram to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions urging that contributions toward the fund for Armenian relief work be increased.


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:21 AM

TELL OF HORRORS DONE IN ARMENIA
MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1915

TELL OF HORRORS DONE IN ARMENIA
Report of Eminent Americans Says They are Unequaled in a Thousand Years.

-TURKISH RECORD OUTDONE -
A Policy of Extermination Put in Effect Against a Helpless People

-ENTIRE VILLAGES SCATTERED-
Men and Boys Massacred, Women and Girls Sold as Slaves and Distributed Among Moslems


The Committee on Armenian Atrocities, a body of eminent Americans which for weeks has been investigating the situation in Turkish Armenia, issued, yesterday, a detailed report of that investigation, in which it is asserted that in cruelty and in horror nothing in the past thousand years has equaled the present persecutions of the Armenian people by the Turks. The committee adds that the sources of its information are "unquestioned as to their veracity, integrity, and authority of the writers."

The data on which the report is based were gathered from all parts of the Turkish Empire.

The report tells of children under 15 years of age thrown into the Euphrates to be drowned of women forced to desert infants in arms and to leave them by the roadside to die; of young women and girls appropriated by the Turks, thrown into harems, attached, or else sold to the highest bidder, and of men murdered and tortured. Everything that an Armenian possesses, even to the clothes on his back, are stolen by his persecutors.

The report says the use of the bastinado has been revived, high dignitaries of the Church have been hanged, families scattered to the four winds, and thousands upon thousands of defenseless, miserable persons herded together like cattle and driven into the desert lands of the empire, there to starve and die.

Men Who Signed the Report

The men who signed this report are:


* The Right Rev. DAVID H. GREER, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New York.
* OSCAR S. STRAUS, former Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and ex-Ambassador to Turkey.
* CLEVELAND H. DODGE, of Phelps,Dodge & Company
* The Rev. Dr. STEPHEN S. WISE, , Rabbi of the Free Synagogue, N.Y.
* CHARLES R. CRANE of Chicago, Vice Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Democratic *National Committee during the last campaign.
* ARTHUR CURTISS JAMES, Director of many railroads and of the Hanover National Bank, the United *States Trust Co., and Phelps, Dodge & Co.
* The Rev. Dr. FRANK MASON NORTH of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
* JOHN R. MOTT of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association.
* WILLIAM W. ROCKHILL, former Ambassador to to Turkey and former Ambassador to Russia.
* WILLIAM SLOANE, President of W. & J. Sloane, 575 Fifth Avenue, NY
* The Rev. Dr. EDWARD LINCOLN SMITH of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
* The Rev. Dr. FREDERICK LYNCH of the New York Peace Society.
* GEORGE A. PLIMPTON of Ginn & Co., a trustee of Constantinople College.
* The Rev. Dr. JAMES L. BARTON, for many years a missionary in Turkey, and now the Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
* The Rev. Dr.WILLIAM J. HAVEN, one of the founders of the Epworth League.
* STANLEY WHITE, President of the White Advertising Corporation.
* Professor SAMUEL P. DUTTON, an authority on Balkan affairs.

Identity of Writers Concealed.

"For reasons that will be obvious to all," says the committee in a foreword to its report, "the names and positions of the various writers cannot be given at this time. These are known to the committee, who vouch for them and their statements. In most cases it will be necessary to conceal the place from which the statements were written, and even the names of the cities and towns referred to, in order that the writer or his interests may not suffer irreparable harm."

Sources of the information, it added, are Greek, Bulgarian, American, Turkish, German, British, and Armenian.

The report, which contains 20,000 words, is divided into twenty-five parts. The first, dated April 27, 1915, states that a "movement against Armenians forms part of a concerted movement against all non Turkish and mission and progress elements, including Zionists.

The second, dated three days later, tells of the persecution, plunder, and massacre in the interior of Turkey, and of "incredible severity" against Armenians in Zeitun and Marash.

July 10, the writer stated that it was then evident that a "systematic attempt to uproot the peaceful Armenian population had been decided upon. Torture, pillage, rape, murder, wholesale expulsion and deportation, and massacre, came from all parts of the empire and was due, not to fanatical or popular demand, but was purely arbitrary, and directed from Constantinople." July 16, another writer reported that "a campaign of race extermination is in progress."

Chapter VI, tells of the massacre in late July of women and children, most of whom had been deported from the Erzerum district. The massacre occurred near the town of Kemakh, between Erzerum and Harput.

Deportation Was Begun in Zeitun

Chapters VII, and VIII, form two of the most horrible of all the chapters of horrors, into which the report is divided. The are, in part, as follows:

June 20. The deportation began some six weeks ago with 180 families from Zeitun; since which time all the inhabitants of that place and its neighboring villages have been deported; also most of the Christians in Albustan, many from Hadjin, Sis, Kars Pazar, Hassan Beyil and Deort Yol. The numbers involved are approximately, to date, 26,5000. Of these, about 5,000 have been sent to the Konieh region, 5,500 are in Aleppo and surrounding towns and villages, and the remainder are in Der Zor, Racca, and various places in Mesopotamia, even as far as the neighborhood of Baghdad.The process is still going on, and there is no telling how far it may be carried. The orders already issued will bring the number of in this region up to 82,000, and there have been as yet none exiled from Aintab, and very few from Marsh and Oorfa.The orders of commanders may have been reasonably humane; but the execution of them has been for the most part unnecessarily harsh, and in many cases accompanied by horrible brutality to women and children, to the sick and the aged. Whole villages were deported at an hour's notice, with no opportunity to prepare for the journey, not even, in some cases, to gather together the scattered members of the family, so that little children were left behind. In Hadjin, well-to-do people who had prepared food and bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and afterward suffered greatly from hunger.

Women Driven Under the Lash

In many cases the men were (those of military age were nearly all in the army) bound tightly together with ropes or chains. Women with little children in their arms, or in the last days of pregnancy were driven along under the whip like cattle. Three different cases came under my knowledge where the woman was delivered on the road, and because her brutal driver hurried her along she died of hemorrhage. I also know of one case where the gendarme in charge was a humane man, and allowed the poor woman several hours rest, and then procured a wagon for her to ride in. Some women became so completely worn out and hopeless that they left their infants beside the road. Many women and firls have been outraged. At one place the commander of the gendarmerie openly told the men to whom he consigned a large company that they were at liberty to do what they chose with the women and girls. As to subsistence, there has been a great difference in different places. In some places the Government has fed them, in some places it has permitted others to do so. There has been much hunger, thirst and sickness, and some real starvation and death. These people are being scattered in small units, three or four families in a place, among a population of different race and religion, and speaking a different language. I speak of them as being composed of families, but fourth fifths of them are women and children, and what men there are for the most part old or incompetent. If a means is not found to aid them through the next few months, until they get established in their new surroundings, two thirds or three fourths of them will die of starvation and disease.

Prisoners' Feet Beaten to Pieces

I was called to a house one day where I saw a sheet which originated from the prison and which was being sent to wash. This sheet was covered with blood and running in long streams. I was also shown clothes which were drenched and exceedingly dirty. It was a puzzle to me what they could possibly have done to the prisoners, but I got to the bottom of the matter by the help of two very reliable persons who witnessed part of it themselves: The prisoner is put in a room (similar to the times of the Romans) Gendarmes standing in twos at both sides and two at the end of the room administer, each in their turn, bastinadoes as long as they have enough force in them. At the time of the Romans 40 strokes were administered at the very most; in this place, however, 200, 300, 500, even 800 strokes are administered. The foot swells up, then bursts open, due to the numerous blows, and thus the blood spurts out. The prisoner is then carried back into prison and brought to bed by the rest of the prisoners - this explains the bloody sheet. The prisoners who become unconscious after these blows are revived through the means of some cold water, which is thrown on their heads, and which accounts for the west and dirty clothes. A young man was beaten to death within the space of five minutes. Apart from the bastinadoing other methods were employed, too, such as putting hot irons on the chest. A forger, who was suspected to have forged the shells of the bombs, was let free only after his toes were burned off with sulphur, (called Kerab). The German Consul of Aleppo estimates the number of deported to be 30,000. Five thousand people were deported to the unhealthy spot of Sultani, in the District of Konia. The Government gave in the first days some bread. When the bread was finished they received none; the misery was heartrending. In Chapter 9 the writer tells of another reign of terror, during which the terrible bastinado was again brought into use, with torture by fire added. He had heard instances of this burning out of the eyes of the poor victims. In another instance some old bombs found in a cemetery and planted there probably during the reign of Abdul Hamid were used as an excuse to torture and kill hundreds who were accused of having hidden them there for use against the Turks. On June 26 the Armenian men of a certain town were ordered to leave the town. No exception was made; old and young, rich and poor, sick and well, all had to go. When seriously ill the victim was dragged from his bed into the streets. They were robbed of their shoes and clothing. They were thrown into prison and marched away in groups of thirty and more. Some groups were chained. A man in touch with the Turkish Government subsequently stated they had been killed.

Women of Sultan's Soldiers Deported

Following the deportation of the men the women and children were ordered to be ready to leave. They were told to be ready to leave on a Wednesday. This is what happened: On Tuesday, about 3:30 A.M., the ox carts appeared at the doors of the first district to be removed, and the people were ordered to depart at once. Some were dragged from their beds without even sufficient clothing. All the morning the ox carts creaked out of town, laden with women and children, and here and there a man who had escaped the previous deportations. In many cases the husbands and brothers of these same women were away in the army, fighting for the Turkish government. The panic in the city was terrible. The people felt that the Government was determined to exterminate the Armenian race, and they were powerless to resist. The people were sure that the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of the convicts in the prison had been released, and the mountains around______ were full of bands of outlaws. It was feared that the women and children were taken some from the city and left to the mercy of these men. However that may be, there are provable cases of the kidnapping of attractive young girls by the Turkish officials of _______. One Moslem reported that a gendarme had offered to sell him two girls for a medjidie ($4.00). The women believed that they were going to a fate worse than death, and many carried poison in their pockets to use if necessary. Some carried picks and shovels to bury those they knew would die by the wayside. During this reign of terror notice was given that escape was easy; that any one who accepted Islam would be be allowed to remain safely at home. The offices of the lawyers who recorded applications were crowded with people petitioning to become Mohammedans. Many did it for the sake of their women and children, feeling that it would be a matter of only a few weeks before relief would come. This deportation continued at intervals for about two weeks. It is estimated that out of about 12,000 Armenians in __________ only a few hundred were left. Even those who offered to accept Islam were sent away. At the time of writing no definite word has been heard from any of these groups.. Another chapter tells of the deportation of 12,000 Armenians, of all classes and ages,and that "the whole Mohammedan population knew these people were to ge their prey from the beginning, and they were treated as criminals." The route of this unhappy band was marked by corpses.

Beat Child's Brains Out on Rock This is what happened in a village in which many Armenians once lived: ______ a village about two hours from_________ is inhabited by Gregorian and Catholic Armenians and Turks. A wealthy and influential Armenian, together with his two sons, according to a reliable witness, were placed one behind the other and shot through. Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance from the village into a valley. The women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie, and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to this witness a child was killed by beating its brains out on a rock. The men were all killed and not a single person survived from this group of forty-five. Here is, in part, the story of another unhappy Armenian town: Daily, the police are searching the houses of the Armenians for weapons, and not finding any, they are taking the best and most honorable men and imprisoning them; some of them they are exiling, and others they are torturing with red hot irons to make them reveal the supposedly concealed weapons. The Gendarmerie Department seems to have full control of affairs and the Mutessarif upholds them. They are now holding about a hundred of the best citizens of the city in prison, and today the gendarmerie chief called the Armenian Bishop and told him that unless the Armenians deliver their arms and the revolutionists among them, that he has orders to exile the entire Armenian population of _____ as they did the people of _____. We know how the latter were treated, for hundreds of them have been dragged through _____ on their way to the desert whither they have been exiled. These poor exiles were mostly women, children and old men, and they were clubbed and beaten and lashed along as though they had been wild animals, and their women and girls were daily criminally outraged, both by their guards and the ruffians of eve village through which they passed.

Woman Writes of Horrible Experience

Another document in the hands of the American Committee states that "The Young Turk Government pursues unceasingly, and every day with added violence, the war to the finish that it was declared against its Armenian subjects." A letter from a woman in Turkey, of unquestioned integrity, reads, in part, as follows:

Our party left June 1, (old style) fifteen gendarmes going with us. The party numbered 400 or 500 persons. We had got only two hours away from home when bands of villagers and brigands in large numbers, with rifles, guns, axes, surrounded us on the road and robbed us of all we had. The gendarmes took my three horses an sold them to Turkish mouhadjirs, pocketing the money. They took my money and that from my daughter's neck, also all our food. After this they separated the men, one by one, and shot them all within six or seven days - every male above 15 years old. By my side were killed two priests, one of them over 90 years of age. These bandsmen took all the good looking women and carried them off on their horses. Very many women and girls were thus carried off to the mountains, among them my sister, whose one year old baby they threw away; a Turk picked it up and carried it off, I know not where. My mother walked till she could walk no further, and dropped by the roadside on a mountain top. We found on the road many of those who had been in previous sections carried from _____; some were among the killed, with their husbands and sons. We also came across some old people and little infants still alive, gut in a pitiful condition, having shouted their voice away. We were not allowed to sleep at night in the villages, but lay down outside. Under cover of the night indescribable deeds were committed by the gendarmes, bandsmen and villagers. Many of us died from hunger and strokes of apoplexy. Others were left by the roadside, too feeble to go on. One morning we saw fifty to sixty wagons with about thirty Turkish widows, whose husbands had been killed in the war; and they were going to Constantinople. One of these women made a sign to one of the gendarmes to kill a certain Armenian whom she pointed out. The gendarmes asked her if she did not wish to kill him herself, at which she said, "Why not?" and drawing a revolver from her pocket, shot and killed him. Each one of these Turkish hanums had five or six Armenian girls of 10 or under with her. Boys the Turks never wished to take, they killed all, of whatever age. These women wanted to take my daughter too but she would not be separated from me. Finally, we were both taken into their wagons on our promising to become Moslems. As soon as we entered the araba they began to teach us how to be Moslems, and changed our names, calling me_____ and her _____. The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the banks of the Euphrates and in the Erzingan Plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls, and little children made everybody shudder. The bandsmen were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls that were with us, whose cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates the bandsmen and gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining children under 15 years old. Those that could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water. After seven days we reached __________. Not a single Armenian was left alive there. The Turkish women took my daughter and me to a the bath, and there showed us many other women and girls that had accepted Islam.

Moslem Criminals Released for Pillage

Excerpts from various statements included in the report given out yesterday follow:

August 2. about 800 middle-aged and old women, and children under the age of 10 years, arrived afoot from Diarbekir, after forty-five days en route, and in the most pitiable condition imaginable. They report the taking of all the young women and girls by the Kurds, the pillaging even of the last bit of money and other belongings, of starvation, of privation, and hardship of every description. All over the country leading Armenians have been shot or hanged. Leading merchants have been beggared and exiled. Thirty thousand Mohammedan criminals have been released from jail and formed into bands under strict military discipline. One of the duties of these bands is to pillage villages and to rob and assassinate exiles. The Greek and Armenian patriarchs have been refused audiences with the Ministers of the Turkish Government. Foreign Ambassadors among them the United States Ambassador, have been rebuffed and told that what the Imperial Government wishes to do with its subjects is none of their business. The Turkish Ministers and other officials have repeatedly avowed the intention to smash the Christian nationalities and thus forever put an end to the Armenian question.. The important American religious and educational institutions in this region are losing their professors, teachers, helpers, and students, and even the orphanages are to be emptied of the hundreds of children therein, which ruins the fruits of fifty years of untiring effort in this field. The Government officials in a mocking way ask what the Americans are going to do with these establishments now that the Armenians are being done away with. The situation is becoming more critical daily, as there is no telling where this thing will end. The Germans are being blamed on every hand, for if they have not directly ordered this wholesale slaughter, (for it is nothing less than the extermination of the Armenian race) they at least condone it. The story of a visit to one of the desert camps to which the Armenians have been exiled is given near the close of the report. It tells of famished old men, women and children, reduced to the very lowest state or misery by their persecutors. There are only a few men in the camp, the report reads, "as most of them have been killed on the road." LIkewise many women and little children had been murdered.

"The condition of these people," says the report, "indicates clearly the fate of those who lave left and are bout to leave here. The system that is being followed seems to be to have bands of Kurds awaiting them on the road to kill the men especially, and incidentally some of the others. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organized and effective massacre this country has ever known."

Turks Foil Missionaries' Efforts.

The American Missionaries began considering plans to aid the women and children who would be left here with no means of support. It was thought that perhaps an orphanage could be opened to care for some of the children, and especially those who had been born in America, and then brought her by their parents, and also those who belonged to parents who had been connected in some way with the American mission and schools. There would be plenty of opportunity, though there might not be sufficient means, to care for children who reached here with the exiles from other villayets and whose parents had died on the way. I went to see the Vali about this matter yesterday and was met with a flat refusal. He said we could aid these people if we wished to do so, but the Government was establishing orphanages for the children and we could not undertake any work of that nature. An hour after I left the Vali the announcement was made that all the Armenians remaining here, including women and children, must leave by July 13. "In response to the urgent appeal of Ambassador Morgenthau," the report concludes, "the Committee on Armenian Atrocities, in co-operation with the Committee of Mercy, has decided to make a wide appeal for funds. "Several gentlemen have already pledged large contributions, but the need is very great, and it is expected that a good number of smaller gifts will be received." "The crimes now being perpetrated upon the Armenian people surpass in their horror and cruelty anything that history has recorded during the past thousand years. The educated and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, are all being subjected to every form of barbarity and outrage. It is understood, however, that very many Turks are opposed to this policy of persecution." "It is hoped that prompt action will make it possible to save a great many lives, and repatriate some at least of those who have been driven from their homes." "Funds will be forwarded to the Ambassador as fast as received. Donations should be sent to the Treasurer Charles R. Crane, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York.' "


New York Times

Edited by Ashot, 11 April 2008 - 01:27 AM.


#28 Ashot

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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:28 AM

GOVERNMENT SENDS PLEA FOR ARMENIA


October 4, 1915

Tell Turkey That a Continuation of the Atrocities Will Jeopardize American Good Feeling

Washington -- Further representations have been made to the Ottoman Government by the Government of the United States regarding the Armenian atrocities.

Secretary of State Lansing tonight sent to Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople a message voicing the interest of the American people in the Armenian situation, and urging that steps be taken by the Turkish Government for the protection and humane treatment of the Armenians.

The message did not take the form of a protest from the Government of the United States, but directed Mr. Morgenthau to inform the Ottoman Government that the atrocities inflicted upon the Armenian Christians had aroused strong sentiment among the American people and that a continuation of these atrocities would tend to jeopardize the good feeling of the people of the United States toward the people of Turkey.

Secretary Lansing said today that no representations had been made to Germany regarding the treatment of the Armenians by the Turks. It was learned, however that Ambassador Morgenthau had reported that the German Embassy at Constantinople had filed a protest on this subject with the Turkish Foreign Office. An announcement some time ago was to the effect that the State Department had asked Count Von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador here, to bring the matter to the attention of his Foreign Office.


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:30 AM

800,000 ARMENIANS COUNTED DESTROYED


October 7, 1915

LONDON, Oct.6. - Viscount Bryce, former British Ambassador to the United States, in the House of Lords today said that such information as had reached him from many quarters showed that the figure of 800,000 Armenians destroyed since May was quite a possible number. Virtually the whole nation had been wiped out, he declared, and he did not suppose there was any case in history of a crime "so hideous and on so large a scale."

"The death of these people," said Lord Bryce, "resulted from the deliberate and premeditated policy of the gang now in possession of the Turkish Government. Orders for the massacres came in every case direct from Constantinople. In some instances local Governors, being humane, pious men, refused to carry out the orders and at least two Governors were summarily dismissed for this reason.

"The customary procedure was to round up the whole of the population of a designated town. A part of the population was thrown into prison and the remainder were marched out of town and in the suburbs the men were separated from the women and children. The men were then taken to a convenient place and shot and bayoneted. The women and children were then put under a convoy of the lower kind of soldiers and dispatched to some distant destination.

"They were driven by the soldiers day after day. Many fell by the way and many died of hunger, for no provisions were furnished them. They were robbed of all they possessed, and in many cases the women were stripped naked and made to continue the march in that condition. Many of the women went mad and threw away their children. The caravan route was marked by a line of corpses. Comparatively few of the people ever reached their destination.

"The facts as to the slaughter in Trebizond are vouched for by the Italian Consul. Orders came for the murder of all the Armenian Christians in Trebizond. Many Mussulmans tried to save their Christian friends, but the authorities were implacable and hunted out all the Christians and then drove them down to the sea front. Then they put them aboard sail boats and carried them some distance out to sea and threw them overboard. The whole Armenian population, numbering 10,000, was thus destroyed in one afternoon." The Lord Mayor at a meeting at the Mansion House on Oct. 15, will start a fund for the aid of Armenian refugees. Among the speakers will be Lord Bryce, Cardinal Bourne and T. P. O'Connor.


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#30 Ashot

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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:31 AM

LETTERS TELL OF OUTRAGES


October 10, 1915

One from a Turk Laments Over Expulsions of the Armenians

"The cruelty of the authorities is beyond description. In some cases nails and sharp points are being driven into the ends of the fingers; men are beaten until they fall senseless on the ground; the soles of the feet are pounded, and then boiling water is poured upon the raw, bleeding flesh; in other cases the man is pounded and beaten until it is impossible to know who he is, even though he be a near friend. All of this torture is given to compel the person to reveal secrets and to inform the Government of plots and schemes that may or may not be planned against it."

Some five hundred of the worst criminals in the prisons, " the letter continues, " have been let loose and sent to the Russian frontier to burn villages and to destroy the lives and property of the enemy. We met bands of these men as we came across the country."

A second letter tells of the wholesale deportation of Armenians to the desert and other distant parts of the Turkish Empire....from a certain unnamed town, the writer states that "the 1st included the educated and leading men of thecommunity, some of whom had been subjected to indescribable tortures and were unable to walk."

A third letter is from a Turk, a Moslem to his son, who is now in the United States. This is the first letter published from a strictly Turkish source-and a most reliable one-which confirms the stories of frightfulness and torture and death, sent to this country from various non-Turkish sources.

"I am returning the check you sent, for we cannot cash it, there being no Raya (Christians) her any more. The inhabitants of our village are all Moslems now, for all our Raya neighbors were driven away by night, nobody knows where. There houses are now occupied by Kurd and Cherkes Bashibasooks with their one or two Raya slave girls each.

Times are bad, my son. The Raya was everything to us, and the thief Cherkes is by no means a fair substitute for us. All the elders of the village realize this, although there are few who sympathize with this unhappy people. I am only taking my chances to write to you the way they were treated. It being the harvest time, the poor Raya had not a handful of already ground flour in their home, and were largely living on vegetables. If there were any who had a bare subsistence at hand, they were not given the chance to take anything with them. Some were taken out from bed and not given the time to dress so many (mostly old women and children) went half naked and barefooted. We hear many of them died before the end of the first day.

There is no more business activity in the whole of _____. Everything is in an anarchical state. The wheatstacks, still in the field, are constantly being set on fire by the Bashibaseeks. It tell you when the Winter comes we ourselves will have to starve, for, as you know, we all live on Raya's crops.


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#31 Ashot

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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:33 AM

DEFENDS REPRESSION OF THE ARMENIANS
Nobody's Business What Turkey Does to Them, Count von Reventlow Declares


BERLIN, Oct. 9, (via London.)--Count Ernst von Reventlow, military writer for the Tagezzeitung, in an article in that paper under the headline, "The Uproar About 'The Armenian Atrocities' Berlin," declares flatly that it is Turkey's own affairs how she deals with Armenian uprisings. His article was inspired by the report that Henry Morgenthau, the United States Ambassador to Turkey, had given Turkey notice that her relations with the United States would be endangered if the Armenian massacres were not stopped.

Count von Reventlow declares that he is unable to discuss the matter as he would like, but expresses the hope that Turkey will not allow herself to be frightened. He continues:

"If Turkey considers it necessary that Armenian uprisings and other intrigues be suppressed with all means possible, so that a repetition will be impossible, that does not constitute massacres or a justified and necessary character, the more justified and the more necessary from the fact that the Turkish empire is in its hardest fight for existence and has enough foreign enemies. To demand that it shall also nourish an internal enemy on its bosom, because that would suit the British and Americans, so to demand a great deal.

"The Turkish Empire has long had to endure that all the great powers who please and who wished to destroy, plunder or rob the Turks, should mix in their affairs. Now we should think that these times were finally passed. And they will indeed be passed as soon as the German Empire determinedly takes the standpoint that what its Turkish ally does with his revolutionary Armenians is an internal affairs which concerns him alone."

The writer expressed indignation at a report published by the Frunkfurter Zeitung that German Consuls had endeavored to modify the hardships, and declared that this standpoint was incomprehensible to him and that he considered it politically false.

"We Germans have to give an account neither to enemies nor neutrals of what the Turks do with their Armenians or what the German Consuls say about it," he declares. "The place of the German Empire and of every individual German is at the side of our Turkish ally, and that without criticism."


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#32 Ashot

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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:34 AM

TURKISH STATESMAN DENOUNCES ATROCITIES


October 10, 1915 (II-19:3,4)

Cherif ***** Says Young Turks Long Planned to Exterminate the Armenian.

An arraignment of a Young Turks, or the Committee of Union and Progress, as having for years plotted the extermination of the Armenian people, is contained in a letter recently addressed by Mehmed Cherif ***** to the Editor of the Journal de Geneve. The views of this eminent exile should doubtless be considered in the light of the fact that he was obliged to fly from his native land because of his secession from the party now in power in Turkey, but even his enemies-and that he has formidable ones is evidenced by the nearly successful attempt made upon his life by Turkish police agents in Paris about two years ago-must admit that he has had excellent opportunities for observation of the Young Turks policy, since he was prominent in their councils when they first obtained power on the overthrow of the Abdul Hamid regime, and left their ranks to build up the Liberal opposition party only when he became convinced that their leaders had no intention of carrying out the program of reform to which they were pledged. He is the son of the late Said *****, who was one of the chief advisers of Abdul Hamid and the first Grand Visier under the new Constitution. His wife is Princess Emanine, the daughter of Prince Halim, and he is the brother-in-law of Prince Said Halim, the present Grand Visier. He, himself, was at one time Turkish minister to Sweden.

After branding the Armenian atrocities perpetrated under the present regime as a surpassing the savagery of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, Cherif ***** continues:

"To be sure, the state of mind of the Unionists was not revealed to the civilized world until they had openly taken sides with Germany; but for more than six years I have been at exposing them in the Mecheroutiette (his newspaper, published first in Constantinople and then in Paris) and indifferent journals and reviews, warning France and England of the plot against them and against certain nationalities within the Ottoman borders, notably the Armenians, that was being hatched.

"If there is a race which has been closely connected with the Turks by its fidelity, by its services to the country, by the statesman and functionaries of talent it has furnished, by the intelligence which is manifesting in all domains-commerce, industry, science, and the arts-it is certainly the Armenian. "

Cherif ***** then enumerates some of the contributions which Armenian have made to Turkish civilization, including the introduction of printing and the drama, and gives credit to an Armenian, Odian Effendi, for having collaborated with Midhat ***** in framing the Ottoman Constitution, and he lays stress upon their fine qualities as agitators against the despotisms of Turkey and Persia-qualities, one suspects which have not highly recommended them to the autocratic "reformers" of the Young Turk regime. And he continues:

"Alas! at the thought that a people so gifted, which has served as the fructifying soil for the renovation of the Ottoman Empire, is on the point of disappearing from history-not enslaved, as were the Jews by the Assyrians, but annihilated-even the most hardened heart must bleed: and I desire, through the medium of your estimable journal, to express to this race which is being a assassinated my anger toward the butchers and my immense pity for the victim's.

"Having fulfilled this pious duty, let me make some exceptions relating not to the unhappy Armenian nation but to certain individual Armenians and some propagandist groups who have for the last six years so maladroitly constituted themselves the defenders and apologists of this Committee of Union and Progress, the broader of all their present sufferings. How often have I warned them against the bad faith of the unionists, the perversity of whose black souls I knew only too well! Besides, the massacres of Adana, provoked by the Union's orders, to have brought them to a sense of the real state of affairs. Some of them by a wrong appreciation of their interest, others influenced by political alliances of an evil sort-like that poor Constantinople deputy, Zohrab Effendi, who has expiated his errors on the scaffold-all the Armenian political leaders, or almost all, by identifying themselves with the political fortune of the Union, have compromised, instead of serving their national cause.

"If, instead of enrolling themselves under the banner of that baneful and treacherous association, they had ranged themselves openly beside the true liberals who had long been pointing out the danger of their course, even at peril of their lives, they would not only have remained true to their principles, but they would also have spared their unfortunate brethren the persecutions they suffered before the war and their whole nation the prospect of an extermination unique in the annals of history."


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:36 AM

MASSACRES RENEWED, MORGENTHAU REPORTS
Fresh Outrages Upon Armenians Follow Bulgaria's Stand Favoring Turkey


OCTOBER 13, 1915

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12. --Armenian massacres in Asiatic Turkey have been renewed with vigor since Bulgaria's practical entrance into the war as Turkey's ally. This information reached the State Department today from Ambassador Morgenthaus, who stated that the majority of the Armenians in Asiatic Turkey had been killed.

Although representations were made by this Government, some time ago, warning Turkey that further atrocities against the Armenians would alienate the sympathies of the American people, no answer has been received.

Earlier representations were met with two concessions, promising that those Armenians who wished to leave the country would be spared. Information recently reaching this country, however indicates that these conditions have not been strictly ahead to. From one quarter it was asserted that "they were rescinded the next day."

Although has been placed at Ambassador Morgenthau's disposal, for distribution among the Armenian refugees now banished to desert towns, no arrangements have been made for bringing Armenians to this country, as was originally planned, except where friends or relatives send for them. Those Armenians who were spared are now gathered in the country between the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers.


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:37 AM

WE CAN DO NOTHING FURTHER
View of State Department as to Action Regarding Armenia


OCTOBER 16, 1915

WASHINGTON. Oct. 15. --The united States Government has done all it can, officially, toward relieving the condition of the Armenians in Turkey, in the opinion officials. They told Representative John J. Eagan of New Jersey today that beyond making informal representations to the Turkish Government through Ambassador Morgenthau, pointing out the bad effect upon public opinion in the United States of the treatment of the Armenians, nothing further could be done.

Representative Eagan had inquired as to the conditions among the Armenians and concerning the policy of the United States in the matter.


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:39 AM

ARMENIAN LEADERS ANSWERED DJELAL BEY
Call Turkish Consul's Denial of Atrocities Mass of Inaccuracies

EXPLAIN FIGHTING AT VAN
Say Christians There Acted in Self-Defense---Protest Meeting Today at the Century Theater


OCTOBER 17, 1915

Dr. M. Simbad Gabriel, President of the Armenian General Progressive Association, the leading Armenian organization in the United States, and Arshag D. Mahdesian of the Society of Armenians in America, issued replies yesterday to the statement made to THE TIMES last week by Consul General in New York, who branded as a fabrication the report made by the American Committee on Armenian Atrocities, and added whatever measures the Turks had been compelled to take against the Armenians were due to the hostile activities of the latter.

Mr. Mahdesian said that the Consul General's statement was a mass of inaccuracies, and was "a feeble effort on the part of Djelal Bey to prove his countrymen guiltless of the most terrible atrocities committee against a whole race of people in centuries."

"One statement that Djelal Bey makes," said Mr. Mahdesian, "and which he knows to be inaccurate, is when he refers to a visit to Van made by Noel Buxton visited the city of Van after present war started and, as he put it, attempted to start a revolution against the Turkish Government. The visit he so cleverly cites as a justification for what has happened occurred many months before the war started in the early part of 1914, and nobody knows that better than does Djelal Bey. Of course Mr. Buxton never tried to start any uprising before the war, during the war or at any other time.

Why Names Were Not Made Public.

"Then again Djelal Bey asks why the committee, on which are such men as Bishop Greer, Cardinal Gibbons, Rabbi Wise, Oscar S. Straus, and Cleveland H. Dodge, did not give the names of the people who had reported to them concerning the atrocities the Turks are now committing against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Well, I will tell him. It was because the committee knew that if they did Djelal Bey would cable all the names to Turkey, and that would mean the death or the torture of every person named.

Horrible as were the disclosures made in the report of the Atrocities Committee it did not disclose by any means all of the horrors of the present situation. For instance, it did not tell of the mutilation of young girls, the cutting up of their bodies, and the stringing up in the market places of the poor remains of their bodies, with signs on the limbs and torsos marked 'bir metallik' per pound. A metalik is one cent in America. This is one of the frightful things they have resorted to terrify the Armenian people, and it has happened in Harput, in Hadjim, in Malltieh and other places. This information comes to us from absolutely trustworthy sources.

"And furthermore that report did not state that the Turkish order to bombard the 'dirty Armenian' quarter of Van was signed by an officer with a German name and that the bombardment was directed principally against the Armenian section and the reservations of the American missionaries, and that during the bombardment five American flags were riddled by the shots directed by the officer with the German name."

Dr. Gabriel, who was one of the Ottoman delegates to the International Red Cross Congress held in Washington in 1912, said:

"It would seem that the Turks have only 'killed' Greeks, Manorites, Bulgars, Armenians, but never massacred them. The Turks have killed them when they have rebelled against Turkish rule. The Armenians in Van, says the Turkish Consul, had risen with arms in hand against Turkish authority, and therefore they could not be regarded otherwise than rebels, and the Turkish troops, after the recapture of the city, could not be expected to treat these revolutionists with glove hands.

"Such is the Consul's argument. It would be worth listening to if it were not horribly twisted to suit his case. The fact is that the Turks had already inaugurated the new reign of terror and massacre in the province of Van, and Van was compelled by the course of 'harrowing events' to resort to self defense. Other towns and villages had surrendered their arms, believing in the pledges if Turkish authorities that they would not be molested, and had been put treacherously to the sword. The Armenians of Van, warned by the experience of others, refused to hive up their arms, but took absolutely no revolutionary steps until the Turkish troops began to attack them and bombard their quarters, not sparing even the houses of the American missionaries.

"If some Armenians in city like Trebizond were of the 'suspected elements' they might be removed 'into the interior of the country' to such provinces as Sivas and Harput which are situated in the very interior of Asia Minor, but why should all the 10,000 Armenians, of Trebizond be evicted from their houses, and even then why should they be men, women, and children, dumped into the Black Sea? The Italian Consul was an eyewitness of this inconceivable savagery. Who dares to deny it? Ambassador Morgenthau telegraphed from Constantinople that the majority of the Armenians in Turkey have been killed. Would the Ambassador say so if he was not convinced of the certainly of the fact?

"How many does that majority mean? At least 800,000. That is the number mentioned in the latest reports and is a very conservative figure. Everything leads to believe that the number of victims is over one million."

Delegation from more than a thousand churches and religious organizations will attend the means meeting to be held today at the Century Theatre as a protest against the massacre of Armenians by the Turks. They will represent all denominations.

It was announced yesterday that Cardinal Farley had officially designated Mgr. Lavelle, rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, to represent him at the meeting. Some of the speakers are missionaries and travelers who have just arrived from the scene of the massacres. Other speakers will be W. Bourke Cochran, Rabbi Stephen S. Boston. Hamilton Holt will preside.

The doors of the theatre will be open at 8 o'clock. No tickets are required.


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:42 AM

THOUSANDS PROTEST ARMENIAN MURDERS
Only One Man and One Woman Dissent from Resolutions Denouncing Outrages

TURKS HAVE KILLED 500,000
Evidence, Taken form State Department, Shows Quarter of a Million Women Violated


OCTOBER 18, 1915

A great audience that packed the Century Theatre, Central Park West and Sixty-second Street, yesterday afternoon, had just acclaimed its approval of a resolution deploring the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Turks, when a man, who said his name was Brown, arose and demanded a chance to discuss the resolutions.

A woman, who said she was Mrs. Brooks, shouted encouragement to the disturber and demanded that he be heard. He was forcibly ejected from the theatre, but in a few minutes was back, angrily demanding to have his say.

The meeting, held to condemn atrocities in Armenia, was under the auspices of a committee of prominent Americans and well-known Armenians. Hamilton Holt, editor of The Independent, presided, and the speakers were the Rev. Dr. Lames L. Barton of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the Rev. Father John J. Wynne, S. J., editor of the Catholic Encyclopedia; W. Brouke Cochran, the Rev. Dr. Ernest Yarrow of Van. Turkey, and the Rev. Dr. William J. Haven.

The resolutions adopted read as follows:

Whereas, The civilized world has been shocked by a series of massacres and deportations of Armenians in the Turkish Empire; and

Whereas, These crimes and outrages committed upon an industrious, thrifty, and peace-loving people, find no justification, viewed either in the light of law or humanity; and

Whereas, Those Armenians who survive are in great hood of succor and relief, be it hereby

Resolved, That as American citizens, we make our most solemn practices and implore all officials and other having influence in the Turkish Empire, to put an end to these wrongs and to render every aid to the American Ambassador and others who would rescue and repatriate a people, who, by their history and achievements have been a credit to the empire.

Resolved, Further, That war, wherever and by whatever nation waged, affords no warrant for inhumanity toward innocent persons. The slaughter of noncombatant men, the tortures, mutilation, and outrages committed have given to the fairest places upon the earth the semblance of hell. In the name of the God of Nations and our common humanity, we call upon the nations at war to cease these crimes against civilization and morality.

Father Wynne seconded the resolutions and Mr. Holt had them up for approval when Brown arose, red with excitement.

Several men hurried to the disturber and started him down the aisle. Mrs. Brooks then demanded that the man be heard and followed those who were ejecting him.

The audience was on its feet as were those on the stage, among the latter Mgr. Lavelle, who represented Cardinal Earley, Charles R. Crane of Chicago the Rev. Dr. H. P. Mendes, Professor William W. Rockwell, Professor Samuel P. Dutton, and a score of other prominent men.

Angrily denouncing his ejectors and struggling every inch of the way the man was forced from the theatre.

"This meeting," said Mr. Holt in his opening address," is called for the purpose of deploring the greatest hecatomb known to history. The massacres now being perpetrated in Turkey are the most atrocious in the history of the world, and if they are to stop we must prevail upon Christian Germany, who alone can save the Armenians. The appeal may not be listened to in Constantinople, but it can be heard in Berlin."

Dr. Barton was the first speaker. "We are here," he said, "to consider facts that bear upon the Armenian situation in the Turkish Empire, facts from which we cannot escape." Referring to the report made by the Armenian Atrocities Committee, Dr. Barton said the disclosures were for the most part the disclosures were for the most part taken from official documents in the State Department at Washington.

"The committee," he said, "took steps to get only facts and went to Washington and examined the official reports to the State Department. They ask why we did not publish the names of the persons who made the reports. The reason as obvious. One of the laws of Turkey is retaliation. One of our Consuls asked that his name be withheld because he would have to quit his post if his name became known."

Dr. Barton held up a great mass of papers, all copies of official reports, to the State Department. Excerpts were read telling of terrible tortures, in thousands of instances causing death.

Dr. Barton read a statement by a well-known Armenian, a graduate of an American university, just arrived in this country. He told of the fate of 1,215 men. These men were herded together and then in groups of twenty-five were sent away "by order of the Government and all of them brutally slain." The executioners, he said, were Turkish gendarmes and murders and other criminals freed from jails to assist in the killing of Armenians.

"The reward of these murders," said the statement, "was the money and valuables founded on the bodies of their victims. One of these men boasted that he got 150 pounds in Turkish money for his night's work."

Bourke Cochran said he had been informed that between 500,000 and 800,000 Armenians had been massacred and that 250,000 women and girls had been outraged. The problem of Armenia, Mr. Cochran said, is the problem of the Cuba of 1898 aggravated a million times.

Rabbi Wise was the last speaker. He was present, he said, not as an opponent of Turkey, nor as a champion of Armenia, but to protest against inhumanity, whether committed by Germans against Belgians, by Russians against Jews, or by Turks against Armenians. He said that Germany and Austria could do much toward ending the Armenian atrocities, and if they did not do so, he said, those nations may find out that "certain victories are more disastrous than any defeats."

If the Germans would alienate the good will of those who still remain neutral," he said, "let these outrages go on unchecked. If they would rehabilitate themselves, let them say to the Turks: "Not one more drop of blood must be shed."

In all the seats were petitions, with blanks for signature, addressed to the Kaiser and the people of Germany, imploring them to use their good offices to end the atrocities in Armenian.


New York Times

Edited by Ashot, 11 April 2008 - 01:45 AM.


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:48 AM

TURKEY BARS RED CROSS


April 29, 1915

Will Not Permit America to Aid Armenian Sufferers

The Turkish government has informed the State Department at Washington that the Red Cross will not be permitted to send surgeons and nurses to the aid of the Armenian people of the Turkish empire. Not only are American Red Cross surgeons, nurses, and agents barred from Turkey, but also all other foreigners, foreigners in this instance undoubtedly meaning the nationals of neutral countries.

The State Department informed Ernest T. Bicknell and Miss Mabel Boardman of the executive staff of the American Red Cross of Turkey's decision, and Miss Boardman communicated the information to Dr. M. Simbad Gabriel of 410 West Twenty-third Street, this city, the President of the Armenian General Progressive Association in this country .

A few weeks ago Dr. Gabriel wrote to Miss Boardman concerning the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Turks. He asked the American Red Cross to send physicians and nurses to Turkey to aid the sufferers. In his letter Dr. Gabriel said:

"A hundred American Red Cross nurses and physicians can work miracles there not only by the bread and medicine they will give but by virtue of their personal presence. " He also suggested that Armenians in this country might raise $50,000 to be expended by the Red Cross.

Informing Dr. Gabriel of the inability to send Red Cross aid, Miss Boardman, writing from Washington under date of Oct. 16 said:

"Your letter of Sept. 21 arrived during my absence from Washington. On my return I made inquiries regarding the possibility of the American Red Cross sending surgeons and nurses for the aid of the Armenians if the Armenians in America raised funds for this purpose. Mr. Bicknell took the matter up with the State Department, and on inquiry we found that the Turkish government had declined to allow any foreign personnel to undertake this work. Therefore it would be impossible for us to do so, even if the money were secured, greatly to our regret.

"We find it also difficult at present, almost impossible, in fact, to send supplies to Turkey, everything is in such a fearful condition in Europe. We have notified those that desire to send contributions for Armenian relief that we would transmit them through the American Ambassador at Constantinople, as this seems to be the only method at present of aiding the Armenian population. We can only hope that this situation will before long come to an end. It is growing daily so much worse that it seems as if it could not last long."

"The letter from the Miss Boardman," Dr. Gabriel said yesterday, "speaks for itself, and I think in the eyes of all prejudiced persons it will prove convincing evidence of the truthfulness of the terrible stories that are coming out of Turkey regarding the persecution, murder, and torturing of the Armenian people. Perhaps the President might make it personal request of the authorities at Constantinople that the American Red Cross be permitted to undertake this mission of mercy in behalf of a people who are the victims of the greatest and most systematic series of massacres recorded in history."


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:51 AM

GERMANY SAYS SHE CANNOT STOP TURKS

Made Representations About Armenian Massacres, But Found Officials Uninterested.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22. - Confidential devices received today by the State Department said the German Government had officially made efforts to alleviate alleged atrocities upon Armenians in Turkey, but that Turkish officials apparently displayed lack of interest in such endeavors.

The representations were made by the United States through Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople some time ago, warning Turkey that continued persecution of Armenians would alienate the friendship of the American people. A number of dispatches on the subject have been received from Mr. Morgenthau but there has been no announcement of a definite answer from the Ottoman government.


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:57 AM

SLAY ALL ARMENIANS IN CITY IF KERASUNT
Turks Wipe Out Entire Population in Town on the Black Sea


OCTOBER 26, 1915

LONDON, Tuesday, Oct. 28.--A dispatch to The Daily Mail from Odessa says:

"The Turks have massacred the entire Armenian population of Kerasunt, on the Black Sea."

Kearsunt is a seaport in Asiatic Turkey, about seventy miles west of Trezbizond. It is situated on a rocky promontory with a spacious bay on the east side. The heights surrounding are covered with luxurious vegetation. The population of Karasunt is about 24,000.

LONDON, Oct. 25.--An eyewitness story of Armenian atrocities, given to the British staff at the Dardanelles by an Armenian prisoner who was serving in the Turkish Army, is sent by the Reuter correspondent with the Dardanelles fleet. This Armenian says the declaration of marital law at Zile included the confiscation of all Armenian property.

He describes how women were tied to the tails of oxcarts and exposed to hunger and rough weather until they accepted conversion to Islam or death; how mothers were bayoneted before the eyes of their children, and how Armenian girls were distributed as chattels among civil and military officials.

The prisoner says that as a soldier he was compelled to assist in many massacres, being on one occasion a member of a party of forty soldiers which superintended the death of 800 Armenians. His account close as follows:

"There is reason to believe that German advisers of the Turks have urged upon them the undesirability of allowing a large alien and presumably unfriendly population to inhabit ports which lie open to Russian attack."


New York Times


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Posted 11 April 2008 - 01:59 AM

AID FOR ARMENIANS BLOCKED BY TURKEY
Attempts to Send Food to Refugees Frustrated, Says the American Committee

PUTS VICTIMS AT 1,000,000
Careful Survey Shows 55,000 Persons Killed in the Vilayet of Van Alone


November 1, 1915

The American Committee on Armenian atrocities, among the members of which are Cardinal Gibbons, Cleveland H. Dodge, Bishop David H. Greer, Oscar S. Straus, Professor Samuel T. Dutton, Charles R. Crane, and many other prominent citizens, issued a statement yesterday in which it was said that authentic reports from Turkey proved that the war of extermination being waged by the Turks against the Armenians was so terrible that when all the facts were known the world would realize that what had been done was "the greatest, most pathetic, and most arbitrary tragedy in history."

A chance to furnish food to the Armenians, ordered deported to distant parts of the empire were blocked by the Turkish authorities, the committee said, the Turkish officials stating that "they wished nothing to be done that would prolong their lives. "

In the statement the committee makes public its report received a few days ago from an official representative of one of the neutral powers, who, reporting on conditions in of one of these Armenian camps, says:

"I have visited their encampment and a more pitiable site cannot be imagine. They are, almost without exception, ragged, hungry and sick. This is not surprising in view of the fact that they have been on the road for nearly two months, with no change of clothing, no chance to bathe, no shelter and little to eat. I watched them one time when their food was brought. Wild animals could not be worse. They rushed upon the guards who carried the food and the guards beat them back with clubs hitting hard enough to kill sometimes. To watch them one could hardly believe these people to be human beings. As one walks through the camp, mothers offer their children and beg you to take them. In fact, the Turks have been taking their choice of these children and girls for slaves or worse. There are very few men among them, as most of the men were killed on the road. Women and children were also killed. The entire movement seems to be the most thoroughly organized and effective massacre this country has ever seen."

"They all agree," adds the committee, referring to the reports, "as to the method of procedure, the thoroughness and cruelty of the destructive work, and the confessed purpose of the plan to wipe out the Armenian nation. The fact that the central government at Constantinople refuses to permit Armenians to leave the country is a further evidence of their purpose of extermination.

"The Turks do not deny the atrocities, but claim they are a military measure to protect them against a possible attack of a race that is disloyal.

"It is impossible to estimate how many have already perished. A careful survey in the Van Vilayet gathered the names of 55,000 persons who had been killed. Others were able to escape by flight to Persia or Russia. An eyewitness who has recently made an extended journey across Asia minor saw over 50,000 poor, dazed, helpless, starving refugees camped by the roadside in a region almost desert, with no provision for their food supply. Probably it is not an overestimate to say that 1,000,000 of the possible 2,000,000 Armenians in Turkey at the beginning of the war are either dead or in Moslem harems, or forced to profess Mohammedanism, or are on their sad journey to the desert and death."

The committee says it has cabled the $106,000 to Ambassador Morgenthau, at Constantinople, of which $100,000 was for relief of Armenians in Turkey, and the remainder for Armenians who had escaped into Egypt. The office of the committee, of which Mr. Crane is treasurer, is at 70 Fifth Avenue.


New York Times





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