Armenian Genocide Contemporary Articles

[Ashot]

WHOLE PLAIN STREWN BY ARMENIAN BODIES

 

March 20, 1915

 

WHOLE PLAIN STREWN BY ARMENIAN BODIES - Turks and Kurds Reported to Have Massacred Men, Women and Children.

 

LONDON, March 19.-Appalling accounts of conditions in Armenia have reached the officials in London of the Armenian Red Cross Fund and have been given out by them.

 

The latest recital is from an Armenian doctor named Derderian, who says that the whole plain of Alashgerd is virtually covered with the bodies of men, women and children.

 

When the Russian forces retreated from this district the Kurds fell upon the helpless people and shut them up in mosques. The men were killed and the women were carried away to the mountains.

 

The organizers of the Red Cross Fund say there are 120,000 destitute Armenians now in the Caucasus.

 

PETROGRAD, March 19.-A telegram from Urumiah, Northwestern Persia, says that prior to the evacuation of towns between Julfa and Tabriz the Turks and Kurds, who were retreating before the Russian advance, pillaged and burned the villages and put to death some of the inhabitants.

 

At Salmaz, Pagaduk, and Sarna orders are said to have been given by the Turkish Commissioner for the destruction of the Towns.

 

All the Armenian inhabitants of Antvat were collected and, according to this message, 600 males were put to death, and the women, after being compelled to embrace the Mohammedan faith, were divided into parties and sent to various interior towns.

New York Times

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APPEAL TO TURKEY TO STOP MASSACRES

 

April 28, 1915

 

APPEAL TO TURKEY TO STOP MASSACRES - Ambassador Morganthau Instructed to Make Representations on Request of Russia.

 

WASHINGTON, April 27.-An appeal for relief of Armenian Christians in Turkey, following reported massacres and threatened further outrages, was made to the Turkish Government today by the United States.

 

Acting upon the request of the Russian Government, submitted through Ambassador Bakhmeteff, Secretary Bryan cabled to Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople to make representations to the Turkish authorities asking that steps be taken for the protection of imperiled Armenians and to prevent the recurrence of religious outbreaks.

 

Ambassador Bakhmeteff called at the State Department late today with a dispatch from his government, which included an appeal to the President of the United States for aid, forwarded through the Russian Government from the Catholicos of the Armenian Church at Etchmiadzin, in the Caucasus.

 

"The request from the head of the Armenian Church to this Government, forwarded through the Russian Ambassador," said Secretary Bryan, "is the first official notice the department has received of the reported Armenian massacres. Our action was taken as a matter of humanity."

 

The Russian Embassy today gave out a translation of a recent speech by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Duma, in which the presence of Russian troops in Persia was explained. The Foreign Minister said:

 

"The presence of our troops in Persian territory by no means involves a violation of Persian neutrality. Our detachments were sent to that country some years ago for the definite purpose of establishing and maintaining order in districts contiguous to our possessions, of high economic importance to us, also to prevent the seizure of some of these districts by the Turks, who openly strove to create for themselves there, especially in Urumiah, a convenient base for military operations against the Caucasus. The Persian Government, not having the actual power to maintain its neutrality, met the Turkish violation of the latter with protests, which, however, had no results."

 

New York Times

Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

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MORGENTHAU INTERCEDES

 

April 29, 1915

 

Reports Great Uneasiness Over Treatment of Armenians

 

Special to The New York Times

 

WASHINGTON, April 28. - Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople today notified Secretary of State Bryan that he and other members of the diplomatic corps in the Turkish capital had taken up with the Ottoman Government the complaints of the Katolikos, head of the Armenian Greek church at Etchmiadzin, on behalf of Armenian Christian who have been massacred by Turks and Kurds in the Transcaucasian region. George Bakhmetoff, Russian Ambassador to the United States, called on Secretary Bryan yesterday and delivered a message which the Katolikos had sent to Russia and which the Russian Government asked the United States Government to present to the Turkish Government.

 

Secretary Bryan said today that it appeared that the message which he had yesterday sent to Ambassador Morgenthau crossed the message which Ambassador Morgenthau had sent, showing he had already taken up this matter with the proper authorities. Ambassador Morgenthau's cablegram reported that there was great uneasiness in the Near East over the treatment of the Armenians. The message did not speak definitively of the reported massacres or give details, but assured Secretary Bryan that the matter was being taken up vigorously with the Ottoman Authorities.

 

New York Times

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6,000 ARMENIANS KILLED

 

May 18, 1915

 

Turkish and Kurdish Atrocities at Van Rival Those of 1895

 

London -- Six thousand Armenians have been massacred at Van, in Armenia, according to a dispatch received in official quarters in London today from the Russian consul at Urumiah, Persia.

 

This message is dated May 15. It adds that the Armenians are defending themselves to the utmost against them, but that help is urgently needed.

 

New York Times

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ALLIES TO PUNISH TURKS WHO MURDER

 

May 24, 1915

 

Notify Porte That Government Heads Must Answer to Armenian Massacres.

 

London -- A joint official statement by Great Britain, France, and Russia issued tonight says:

 

"For the past month Kurds and the Turkish population of Armenia have been engaged in massacring Armenians with connivance and help of the Ottoman authorities. Such massacres took place about the middle of April at Erzerum, Dertshan, Moush, Zeitun, and in all Cilicia."

 

"The inhabitants of about a hundred villages near Van were all assassinated. In the town itself the Armenian quarter is besieged by Kurds. At the same time the Ottoman Government at Constantinople is raging against the inoffensive Armenian population."

 

"In the face of these fresh crimes committed by Turkey, the allied Governments announce publicly to the Sublime Porte that they will hold all members of the Government as well as such of their agents as are implicated, personally responsible for such massacres."

 

By the middle of February reports of the slaughter of Armenians began to come to America, and the days of 1895-6 when to be an Armenian Christian was to be in constant danger were recalled.

 

On April 24, according to report, all of the inhabitants of ten villages near Van in Armenia, were massacred. Soon after this, on April 27, the State Department at Washington received a request from the head of the Armenian Church for intercession and relief.

 

This was the first official notice conveyed to this Government of prevailing conditions, and Secretary Brian at once cabled Ambassador Morgenthau in Constantinople to make a personal investigation of the extent of the massacres and to appeal in the name of this Government to the Turkish Government to exert its power and influence to stop the slaughter.

 

The massacres did not stop with the appeal from the Government, according to reports that continued to reach America. Less than three weeks ago news was received that the Armenians had barricaded the town of Van against the Kurds and Turks and had held it for a week. Simultaneously came the report that the Young Turks had adopted the policy of Abdul Hamid in 1905 -- the annihilation of the Armenians.

 

No one has attempted to estimate the number of those who have been massacred nor the amount of the property destroyed. The extent of the destruction and slaughter may be only imagined from the fact that scarcely a report coming from the affected regions that does not tell of troubles resulting usually in the deaths of hundreds of Armenians.

 

New York Times

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TURKS ARE EVICTING NATIVE CHRISTIANS

 

Greeks and Armenians Driven From Homes and Converted by the Sword, Assert Americans.

 

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES

ATHENS, July 11. (Dispatch to the London Morning Post) - American travelers coming from Turkey have given such eyewitness accounts of the treatment of the Christian population as fully bear out reports received here from native sources to the effect that the Christians in the Ottoman Empire have never been in such stress and peril since the Turk first invaded the Byzantine Empire.

 

Both Armenians and Greeks, the two native Christian races of Turkey, are being systematically uprooted from their homes en masse and driven forth summarily to distant provinces, where they are scattered in small groups among Turkish Villages and given the choice between immediate acceptance of Islam or death by the sword or starvation. Their homes and property meanwhile are being immediately taken possession of by immigrants from Macedonia.

 

Throughout the vilayets of Erzerum, Van, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Harput, Sivas, and Adana the Armenians have been pitilessly evicted by tens of thousands and driven off to die in the desert near Konia or to Upper Mesopotamia or the Iberian desert. These figures do not include thousands massacred by the Kurds or hanged without trial by the Turkish authorities all over Armenia.

 

The Greeks are faring little better, except that they are not being massacred. Apart from the hundred and eighty thousand who last year were driven out of their homes in Thrace and Asia Minor and deported to purely Turkish districts without being allowed to take with them more than clothes on their backs. Fifty-six thousand thus have been evicted from the Gallipoli Peninsula and both shores of the Dardanelles, fifteen thousand from Pinkipo Islands, forty-two thousand from Thrace up to the suburbs of Constantinople, nineteen thousand from Ismid Province, sixty thousand from the vilayet of Bremussa and this wholesale uprooting of the native population is increasing in extent and ferocity.

 

Able-bodied men are being drafted into the Turkish Army, and the rest broken up into little groups and distributed among Turkish villages of Asia Minor, care being taken to break up families and separate women and girls from their friends and relatives. Children are being kidnapped by the wholesale along the route of those wretched exiles, to be brought up as Moslems, and girls are given in so-called marriage to Turkish peasants.

 

The remaining adults have to choose between death and apostasy.

 

It is safe to say that unless Turkey is beaten to its knees very speedily there will soon be no more Christians in the Ottoman Empire.

 

Turkish government trying to make sleep all the world for many years by taking advantage of silent Armenians since genocide years and there was not good enough media,such as more films and photos.

 

Today's Turks are grand children of those killers in genocide years.Before was Ottoman Empire but now Turkish Republic.It is all same thing.Still today some very old age Turkish choppers lives in Turkey and they feel proud with it.

 

New York Times

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WHOLESALE MASSACRES OF ARMENIANS BY TURKS

 

July 29, 1915

 

Lord Crewe Denounces Influence of the Germans as "Unmitigated Curse."

 

London -- The Earl of Crewe, Lord President of the Council, replying today to a question by Viscount Bryce, concerning the killing of Christians in Armenia by the Turks, said the information received at the Foreign Office showed that such crimes had recently increased both in number and in degree of atrocity. They include, Lord Crewe declared, both wholesale massacre and wholesale deportations, which were carried out under the guise of enforced evacuation. Similar crimes, he added, had been committed by the Turks against Christians on the Persian border.

 

The presence of the Germans and the influence they exercised had been, Lord Crewe continued, "an absolute and unmitigated curse both to the Christian and Moslem population. They have shown a most complete cynical disregard for the country and the people who inhabit it."

 

Lord Crewe said he regretted that it was impossible to take immediate steps for the suppression of such atrocities, but that those responsible for them would ultimately receive just punishment.

 

New York Times

Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

[Ashot]

REPORT TURKS SHOT WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Nine Thousand Armenians Massacred and Thrown Into Tigris, Socialist Committee Hears.

PARIS, Aug. 3. - B. Varazdate, a member of the Executive Committee of the Armenian Social Democratic Party, writing to L'Humanite, the Socialist Daily, says that the committee has received word to the effect that Turks, after massacring all the males of the population in the region of Bitlis, Turkish Armenia, assembled 9,000 women and children and drove them to the banks of the Tigris, where they shot them and threw the bodies into the river.

These advices have not been substantiated by any other source.

The Armenian population of Cilicia, in the Turkish Vilayet of Adana, also has been subjected to persecutions, according to the reports of the committee. More than 40,000 persons already are dead and it is feared that the Armenians at Moush and Diarbekr, in Kurdestan, also have been massacred.

Twenty members of the Armenian Social Democratic Party, M. Varsadate says, have been publicly hanged in Constantinople after being charged with wishing to found an Independent Armenia.

New York Times Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

[Ashot]

ARMENIAN HORRORS GROW

 

Massacres Greater Than Under Abdul Hamid, London Paper Says

 

AUGUST 6, 1915

 

Special Cable To THE NEW YORK TIMES. LONDON, Friday, Aug 6. The Daily Chronicle says:

 

"A tragic explode of the war in the East is the wholesale massacre of the Armenians in the eastern villages of Asia Minor by the Turks and Kurds. Regarding the terrible scale of these massacres, greater than any which occurred under Abdul Hamid, there is now no room for doubt, and the statements made on the subject last week by Lord Bryce in the House of Lords were officially corroborated by Lord Crewe.

 

"In certain cases the Armenians have defended themselves successfully. At the town of Van, for instance, to which Enver ***** sent his brother-in-law with a commission of extermination, the victims rose after the massacres had begun, barricaded the Armenian quarter, and held out against the Turkish siege for four weeks until relieved by the advent of the Russian army. But with this and some similar exceptions they have been powerless. Tens and probably hundreds of thousands have been butchered, and great numbers more have been deported by road hundreds of miles to Western Anatolia under conditions amounting to slow extermination.

 

"The Germans, who are masters of the Central Ottoman Administration, have to their everlasting shame not only permitted, but rather encouraged these horrors. The allied powers have notified the Turkish officials that they will hold them personally responsible, and at this stage they can do no more. There is perhaps room for an effective American protest, though we have not yet heard of one."

 

The Chronicle concludes by making an appeal to British private charity, citing the following terrible account of ruin and devastation following the Turkish massacres in Northeastern Armenia, telegraphed by Ayadian the Archbishop of Van, and Aram, the Governor of Van, to the honorary secretary of the Armenian Red Cross and Refugee Fund:

 

"Besides Van, the Provinces of Chatakh, Moks, Sparkert, Matertank, and Khizan are saved. The rest are ruined and devastated. Men, women, and children are massacred. Twenty thousand people are homeless. Famine and infectious disease prevail. Many volunteers are sick and wounded. Notwithstanding assistance from the Russian Government and the Armenians in the Caucasus, there is great want of doctors, drugs, ambulances, and food. The situation in Bitlis, Moush, and Diarbekir is terrible. We beg urgently for immediate help."

 

New York Times

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ARMENIANS ARE SENT TO PERISH IN DESERT

 

August 18, 1915

 

Turks Accused of Plan to Exterminate Whole Population--People of Karahissar Massacred.

 

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES. London, Wednesday, Aug. 18. - The Daily News has received from Aneurin Williams, M.P., a copy of a letter to from Constantinople, dated July 18, describing the terrible plight of the Armenians in Turkey. The letter says:

 

"We now know with certainty from a reliable source that the Armenians have been deported in a body from all the towns and villages in Cilicia to the desert regions south of Aleppo. The refugees will have to traverse on foot a distance, requiring marches of from one to two or even more months.

 

"We learned, besides, that the roads and the Euphrates are strewn with corpses of exiles, and those who survive are doomed to certain death, since they will find neither house, work, nor food in the desert. It is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people.

 

"Courts-martial operate everywhere without cessation. Twelve Armenians were hanged at Caesarea on the charge of having obeyed instructions which they had received from a meeting secretly held at Bucharest by the Trocohak and Hunchak societies. Many have fallen from blows from clubs. Thirteen Armenians were killed in this way at Diarbekr and six at Caesarea. Thirteen others were killed on their way from Chabine-Karahissar to Sivas. The priest of the village of Kurk with their five companions suffer the same fate on the road to Sou-Chehrksivas, although they had their hands bound.

 

"Hundreds of women and young girls and even children groan in prisons. Churches and convents have been pillaged, defiled, and destroyed. The villages around Van and Bitlis have been pillage and inhabitants put to the sword.

 

"At the beginning of this month all the inhabitants of Karahissar were pitilessly massacred, with the exception of a few children."

 

New York Times

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BURN 1,000 ARMENIANS

 

August 20, 1915

 

Turks Lock Them In a Wooden Building and Then Apply the Torch

 

London -- A Reuter dispatch from Petrograd says:

 

Almost unbelievable details of Turkish massacres of Armenians in Bitlis have reached Petrograd.

 

In one village 1,000 men, women and children are reported to have been locked in a wooden building and burned to death.

 

In another large village only thirty six persons, it is said, escaped massacre.

 

In still another instance, it is asserted, several scores of men and women were tied together by chains and thrown into Lake Van.

 

ARMENIANS EXPELLED

 

Sofia -- About 40 notable Armenian families consisting only of women, children, and old men, from Constantinople, arrived this morning at Philippopolis, their menfolk having been exiled to the interior of Asia Minor.

 

New York Times

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ARMENIANS DYING IN PRISON CAMPS

Hundreds of Thousands Still in Danger from Turks, Refugees Fund Secretary Says.

 

GERMANS WON'T INTERFERE

 

About 1,000,000 Victims Deported and 500,000 Massacred, the Rev. Harold Buxton Reports.

Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.

 

LONDON, Monday, Aug. 21. -The Rev. Harold Buxton, Secretary of the Armenian Refugees Fund, has just returned to England after devoting three months to relief work in the devastated villages. In an interview the Rev. Mr. Buxton gave details which entirely confirm the grave statements made by Lord Bryce some months ago in the House of Lords. Asked whether he had any proof that the deportation of Armenians last summer was due to German instigation, he said:

 

"All I can say is that the German Government did nothing to stop the massacres. During the whole business German influence was supreme at Constantinople, and German Consuls were at their posts in all the chief centres through Asia Minor. Besides, the people were swept away with a methodical thoroughness which one does not expect from the Turk, who, when left to himself, acts rather with sudden spasms of fury.

 

"I have evidence from an American missionary that certain of the German Consuls did their best on behalf of the Armenian people. For instance, the German Consul at Erzerum wired to his Ambassador in Constantinople vigorously protesting at the order of deportation. He received a reply in these words: 'We cannot interfere in the internal affairs of Turkey'.

 

"I don't think there has been any exaggeration as to losses as published in England. The Armenian race numbered over 4,000,000, of whom 2,000,000 were Turkish Armenians, and of these perhaps 1,000,000 have been deported and 500,000 massacred. Only 200,000 escaped into the mountains, and so across to Russian soil. There are some hundreds of thousands in concentration camps between Aleppo and Mosul and in the neighboring regions of Mesopotamia, where Turkey continues to be supreme over their fate.

 

"To this considerable population we have no access, and it is still in danger. According to reports which come through, it is being ravaged by sickness, famine, privations of all kinds, outrages, and murder, all of which means high mortality among the victims."

 

New York Times

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TURKS DEPOPULATE TOWNS OF ARMENIA
Traveler Reports Christians of Great Territory Have Been Driven from Homes

600,000 STARVING ON ROAD
Adds That More Than 100,000 Greeks Have Deported from the Mediterranean Coast

AUGUST 27, 1915

A traveler who has just arrived in New York from Turkey, where he was long a resident, told THE TIMES yesterday of conditions as he found them in Constantinople, and of the wholesale deportations of Armenians from the interior districts of Asiatic Turkey. For reasons that are valid the narrator does not wish to have his name published, but THE TIMES can vouch for his qualifications as an observer, especially of conditions in the Armenian district.

Leaving Sivas, where he spent some time, he proceeded to Constantinople and thence to Athens, from which port he sailed for New York. When in Constantinople about four weeks ago, he said, the tension was pretty high. In official circles it was maintained that everything was proceeding smoothly for the Turks, but there were many individuals, he said, who expressed discouragement. These put little faith in Germany's motives in aiding Turkey, and some even charged Enver ***** with having sold out to Germany for money.

German doctors and nurses told him that long after beginning or hostilities Germany had got more than 2,000 officers into Turkey through Rumania, disguised as surgeons and Red Cross helpers. The ruses of false bottoms in care and the labeling of monitions as other commodities to smuggle supplies through Rumania were also the subjects of boast. From what he observed in Constantinople and from the dispatches since leaving there, he judged the Allies were about through with the Gallipoli end of the campaign and ready to chase the Turks out of Europe. In case it should become necessary to evacuate Constantinople he said Konia would become the new capital, and that he understood some of the records had already been removed there.

"The Armenians of the interior," he said, "have been deported in the direction of Mosul. At the I left Sivas two-thirds of them had gone from the city, including all Protestants, teachers, and pupils. According to my best knowledge and opinion, with best exception of Armenian soldiers and prisoners, and a very few exceptions, who for various reasons were necessary to the Government, all Armenians are gone from Sivas. According to what I consider good authority, I believe it to be true that the entire Armenian population from Erzerum to and including Gemereh, near Cesarea, and from Samsoun to and including Harpoot has been deported, There is also a movement in the central field which had not become general, but will doubtless become so. More than 100,000 Greeks from the Marmora and Mediterranean coast have been deported.

"We heard many rumors of massacres, but I have no evidence on the subject. To my knowledge no general massacres have occurred in the Sivas villages. Not a few men have been killed in one way and another.

"This general movement against Armenians began months ago in arrests for alleged revolutionary activity and in search of guns and bombs.

"After I had seen thousands of people start out I came to the conclusion that if anything could be done to stop this terrible crime, which impresses me as ten times worse than any massacre, it must be done in Constantinople. In Constantinople I found that the whole plan of deportation was one of the Central Government and that no pressure from the Embassies had been able to do anything to stop it.

"I believe there is imminent danger of many of these people, which I estimate for the Sivas, Erzerum, and Harpoot villages to be 600,000, starving to death on the road. They took food for a few days but did not dare much money with them as if they did so, it is doubtful whether they would be allowed to keep it. Our Ambassador promised to do what he could and gave me some hope that some relief funds might be sent to Harpoot at once. it is questionable whether relief work will ever be allowed, but it ought to be undertaken if possible.

"It was impossible to carry out of Turkey one address or a scrap of writing of any kind. I bought an empty account book and started a new traveling expense account after crossing the border.

"I met on the road near Talas the people of two villages. They were going on foot, with less than a donkey to a family, no food, no bedding, hardly any men, and many of the women barefooted and carrying children. A case in Sivas worthy of notice was that of a woman whose husband had worked in a hospital as a soldier nurse for many months. She contracted typhus and was brought to the hospital. Her mother a woman between 60 and 70, got up from a sick bed to go and care for their seven children, the eldest of which was about 12. A few days before the deportation the husband was imprisoned and exiled without examination or fault. When the quarter in which they lived went the another got out of bed in the hospital and was put on an oxcart to go with her children."

New York Times Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

[Ashot]

TURKS MASSACRE ARMENIANS OF ISMID

 

September 3, 1915

 

London, Sept. 3- A dispatch to the Exchange Telegram Company from Athens says:

 

"Travelers arriving from Constantinople announce that on Friday last Turks burned the town of Ismid and massacred a large number of the Armenian inhabitants."

 

Ismid lies at the head of the Gulf of Ismid in Asia Minor, about fifty-six miles southeast of Constantinople. It has been the residence of both Greek and Armenian Archbishops. Its population is about 25,000.

 

New York Times

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1,500,000 ARMENIANS STARVE

 

September 5, 1915

 

Relief, Committee Asks Aid for Victims of Turkish Decrees

 

The American Armenian Relief Fund Committee has received two letters from Constantinople describing the horrors to which the Armenian Christians in Turkey are being subjected. One letter, dated June 15, says in part:

 

"The Turkish Government is executing today the plan of scattering the Armenians of the Armenian provinces, profiting from the troubles of the European powers and from the acquiescence of Germany and Austria."

 

"These people are being removed without any of their goods and chattels, and to places where the climate is totally unsuited to them. They are left without shelter, without food, and without clothing, depending only upon the morsels of bread which the Government will throw before them, a Government which is unable even to feed its own troops."

 

"It is impossible to read or to hear, without shedding tears, even the meager details of these deportations. Most of the families have traveled on foot, old men and children have died on the way, young women in child-birth have been left on mountain passes, and at least ten deaths a day are recorded among them even in their place of exile victims of hunger and sickness. It has not been possible as yet to forward any help to Sultanieh, owing to the interdiction of the Government, in spite of the efforts of the American Ambassador, whose philanthropic and generous endeavors in aid of the Armenians are gratefully acknowledged."

 

The second letter, dated July 12 says:

 

"The condition of the Armenians is extremely aggravated since my last letter. It is not the Armenian population of Cilicia only which has been deported wholesale and exiled to the deserts. Armenian communities from all the provinces of Armenia, from Erzerum, Trebizond, Sivas, Harput, Bitlis, Van, and Diarbekir, also from Samsun, Caesarea and Urfa - a population of 1,500,000 are marching today, the stick of forced pilgrimage in hand, toward the Mesopotamian wilderness, to live among Arabian and Kurdish savage tribes. Very few of them will be able to reach the spots designated for their exile, and those who do will perish from starvation, if no immediate relief reaches them."

 

"It is in the name of a starving population of 1,500,000 that urgent appeals should be made to the charitable public of America."

 

The Armenian Relief Fund Committee believes that unless immediate aid is forthcoming future efforts will be unavailing. The Treasurers of the committee are Brown Brothers Co. 59 Wall Street.

 

New York Times

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An Autocratic Triumvirate

 

Tuesday, September 14, 1915

 

According to this information, Turkish affairs are under the control of a triumvirate with autocratic powers, consisting of Enver *****, Minister of War, Talaat Bey, Minister of the Interior, and Bedrl Bey, Chief of Police of Constantinople. Dissatisfaction among the Moslems is reported and it is said that the Sheik ul Islam was displeased because he did not approve of measures taken against the Armenians. The Committee of Union and Progress is reported to have been virtually superseded by a secret committee which is responsive to the wishes of the triumvirate.

 

The American's informant asserts that Armenians are being shipped to concentration camps at various points, being driven afoot or forwarded in box cars. He adds that the earlier massacres of Christians in Asia Minor are being duplicated in the present instance, and that in some cases only a comparatively small part of the expelled Armenians reach the concentration camps alive. Henry Morgenthau, American Ambassador at Constantinople, has exerted every effort to protect the Armenians but apparently his endeavors have been unavailing. It is stated that American women who attempted to go with the refugees to look out for Armenian children were turned back, and that a number of young Armenian girls who were students at the American college at Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks.

 

Owing to the interruption of sea transportation, it is almost impossible to purchase coal in Constantinople and wood is being used for locomotives. The crops were good, but it has been almost impossible to harvest them. Petroleum costs $1 a gallon and the price of sugar has increased sevenfold.

 

The American's informant says that the agreement said to have been reached between Turkey and Bulgaria has not effected a definite settlement of relations, but that, on the contrary, the Turks are hastily erecting defenses against the Bulgarians.

 

New York Times

Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

[Ashot]

ANSWER MORGENTHAU BY HANGING ARMENIANS

He Protests Against the War of Extermination Now in Progress.

 

September 16, 1915

 

London -- A Times corespondent lately in Salonika, says that all the reports from Turkey are agreed as to the terrible character of the Turkish atrocities against Armenians. It is believed that it is the official intention that this shall be a campaign of extermination, involving the murdering of 800,000 to 1,000,000 persons. Christians can escape murder by embracing Mohamedism, in which case all the female members of the convert's family of marriageable age - wife, sister, or children - are distributed around to other Turks, making the reversion to Christianity in future practically impossible.

 

The American Minister at Constantinople is said to have protested recently against the massacre, in view of the danger to which they exposed the American missionaries. The only response to his protest was the hanging of twenty leading Armenians the next day in the streets of Constantinople.

 

New York Times

Edited April 9, 2008 by Ashot

[Ashot]

MISSION BOARD TOLD OF TURKISH HORRORS

 

September 17, 1915

 

Correspondents Confirm the Reports of the Wiping Out of Armenians

 

Scattered Over Empire

 

Christian Cities Cease to Exist as Such and Inhabitants Are Driven Far from Home.

 

Under the caption "In Darkest Turkey" the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions says that it has at hand "abundant and undeniable evidence" confirmatory of the newspaper reports concerning the persecution of the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire.

 

"This evidence," says the board, "does not come through letters from the missionaries; they write briefly and of their own affairs; they refrain from discussing political affairs. They seek to maintain a neutral attitude in this time of strife."

 

"But from other sources, in round-about but absolutely reliable ways, come to the board rooms accounts of proceedings in many parts of Turkey that are so appalling as to be almost beyond belief. They indicate a systematic, authorized and desperate effort on the part of the rulers of Turkey to wipe out the Armenians."

 

Apparently the uprising of Armenian revolutionists at Van, which paved the way for Russian occupation of that city without resistance, has been seized by the Turks as a pretext for a general attack upon the Armenians everywhere. In some cases by massacre, more often through torture and exile, they are being eliminated from the field; they are being put where they need no longer be considered.

 

Along the track of the Russian armies toward the Persian border, from Van to Moush and Bitlis, in the cities of Western Armenia such as Diarbekir, Harpoot, and Mardin, and especially in Central Turkey and the region stretching to the south, this cruel, relentless persecution has been for some time under way.

 

REPORT OF A BRITISH RESIDENT

 

A British resident of Constantinople who had left that city and was temporarily at a Mediterranean port beyond the reach of the censor, writes as follows:

 

You have probably learned something of the sad condition of the Armenians from the papers, but probably nothing gets through that in any adequate way portrays the desperate straits in which these poor people find themselves.

 

You may have heard that Zeitoon has ceased to exist as an Armenian town. The inhabitants have been scattered, the city occupied by Turks and the very name changed. The same is true to a large extent of Hadjin, except, I believe, the name has not been altered. The Armenians of the regions of Erzerum, Bitlis, and Erzingan have, under torture been converted to Islam. Mardin reports 1895 conditions (the year of the infamous massacres) as prevailing there. The tale is awful to the last degree.

 

More than a thousand families from Hadjin recently arrived in Aleppo in the last degree of misery and yet the purpose is to send them much further. Husbands are forcibly separated from wives and sent to places long distances apart. Children are similarly separated from parents.

 

The board also makes the following report from persons in Northern Syria not connected with the missionary circle, but said to be of unquestioned reliability.

 

Between 4,300 and 4,500 families - about 28,000 persons - are being removed by order of the Government from the districts of Zeitoon and Marash to distant places, where they are unknown, and in distinctly non-Christian communities. Thousands have already been sent to the northwest into the provinces of Konia, Cesarea, Castiamount, &c, while others have been taken southeasterly as far as Dier-el-Zor, and reports say to the vicinity of Baghdad. The misery these people are suffering is terrible to imagine. To go into details would be useless waste of time, for all the sufferings that a great community would be subject to in such circumstances are being experienced.

 

About 300 persons, heads of prominent families, have been imprisoned in Marash, of which some fifty are from Zeitoon, and about 2,000 persons, have been sent to Marash and from there to Aintab, and are expected to arrive in Aleppo about May 15 to be sent to Meskene, while about 250 or more families are expected to follow before May 20, to report to the Governor of Aleppo. These latter are more fortunate than the first mentioned, as there is a different opinion prevailing in the competent official circles of that city. Seventy-one families were sent to Konia about April 25.

 

New York Times

[Ashot]

BRYCE ASKS US TO AID ARMENIA

 

Tuesday, September 21, 1915

 

Says That All the Christians in Trebizond, Numbering 10,000 Were Drowned.

WOMEN SEIZED FOR HAREMS

 

Only Power That Can Stop the Massacres is Germany and We Might Persuade Her to Act.

 

London, Sept. 20- Viscount Bryce, formerly Ambassador to the United States, has sent to the Associated Press a plea that America try to stop the slaughter of Armenians. He says:

 

"The civilized world, especially Americans, ought to know what horrors have been passing in Asiatic Turkey during the last few months, for if anything can stop the destroying hand of the Turkish Government it will be an expression of the opinion of neutral nations, chiefly the judgement of humane America.

 

"Soon after war broke out between Turkey and the Allies, the Turkish Government formed, and since has been carrying out with relentless cruelty, a plan for extirpating Christianity by killing off Christians of the Armenian race. Accounts from different sources agree that over the whole of Eastern and Northern Asia Minor and Armenia the Christian population is being deliberately exterminated, the men of military age being killed and the younger women seized for Turkish harems, compelled to become Mohammedans, and kept, with the children, in virtual slavery. The rest of the inhabitants, old women, men and children, have been driven under convoy of Turkish soldiers into unhealthful parts of Asia Minor, some to the deserts between Syria and the Euphrates. Many die or are murdered en route and all perish sooner or later.

 

"In Trebizond City, where the Armenians numbered over 10,000, orders came from Constantinople to seize all Armenians. Troops hunted them, drove them to the shore, took them to sea, threw them overboard and drowned them all -men, women, and children. This was seen and described by the Italian Council.

 

"Some in the country escaped by professing to accept Islam, and a quarter of a million escaped over the Russian frontier, but perhaps half a million were slaughtered or deported, and those deported are fast dying from ill-treatment, disease, or starvation. The roads and the hillsides are strewn with corpses of innocent peasants.

 

"We can all try to send aid to the miserable refugees now in Russian territory, but what can stop the massacres? Not the allied powers at war with Turkey. Only one power can take action for that purpose. It is Germany. Would not the expression of American public opinion, voicing the conscience of neutral nations, lead Germany to check the Turkish government?"

 

New York Times

[Ashot]

500,000 ARMENIANS SAID TO HAVE PERISHED

 

Tuesday, September 24, 1915

 

Washington Asked to Stop Slaughter of Christians by Turks and Kurds.

 

Special to The New York Times.

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23.-Charles R. Crane of Chicago, a Director of Roberts College, Constantinople, and James L. Burton of Boston, Foreign Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, visited the State Department today and conferred with Acting Secretary of State Polk and other officials regarding the slaughter of Armenians by Turks and Kurds in Asia Minor. They will attend a meeting of a general committee, to be held in New York within a few days, to devise a plan for appealing to the American people for funds and aid for as many of the unfortunate Armenians as can be helped.

 

It was learned, in connection with the conferences held here today, that general representations have from time to time been made to the Ottoman Government by Ambassador Morgenthau for humane treatment of Armenians. Despite these representations, the slaughter of Armenians has continued.

 

The records of the State Department are replete with detailed reports from American Consular officers in Asia Minor, which give harrowing tales of the treatment of the Armenian Christians by the Turks and the Kurds. These reports have not been made public. They indicate that the Turk has undertaken a war of extermination on Armenians, especially those of the Gregorian Church, to which about 90 per cent of the Armenians belong. The Turkish Government originally ordered the deportation of all Armenians, but, some time ago, after representations had been made by Ambassador Morgenthau, the Ottoman Government gave assurances that the order would be modified so as not to embrace Catholic and Protestant Armenians.

 

Reports reaching Washington indicate that about 500,000 Armenians have been slaughtered or lost their lives as a result of the Turkish deportation order and the resulting war of extinction. Turkish authorities drove the Gregorian Armenians out of their homes, ordered them to proceed to distant towns in the direction of Bagdad, which could only be reached by crossing long stretches of desert. During the exodus of Armenians across the deserts they have been fallen upon by Kurds and slaughtered, but some of the Armenian women and girls, in considerable numbers, have been carried off into captivity by the Kurds. The reports that have been sent to the State Department by its agents in Asia Minor fully confirm these statements made in the appeal sent to this country by Viscount Bryce, formerly British Ambassador to the United States, to try stop the slaughter of the Armenians. Viscount Bryce stated that the horrors through which the Armenians have passed have been unparalleled in modern times.

 

New York Times

[Ashot]

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

[Ashot]

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

[Ashot]

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

[Ashot]

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

[Ashot]

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