From The Times, Friday October 8, 1915

THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES

EXTERMINATING A RACE

A RECORD OF HORRORS

To one who remembers the rejoicings which welcomed the bloodless Turkish Revolution of 1908, the fraternization of Moslem and Christian, the confidence in a better future for the Armenians which survived even the Adana massacre of 1909, the story of the systematic persecution of the Armenians of Turkey is a bitter tale to tell. Talaat Bey and his extremist allies have out-Hamided Abdul Hamid. They have even shocked their German friends, thus attaining eminence in “frightfulness” to which the “Red Sultan” never soared.

When the Committee of Union and Progress finally decided to mobilize its forces against the Triple Entente, one of its first steps was to make an end of “all that nonsense about Armenian reforms,” as the Grand Vizier styled the latest reform scheme imposed by the Powers. One of the two European Inspectors-General, who were to watch over the Administration of the six Eastern Provinces of Turkey-in-Asia, had already set forth on his journey, greeted on his way by salaaming officials and escorted by respectful gendarmes. Then came the mobilization of the Turkish Army, and before he had even reached his destination he was bundled off, returning the Constantinople with a minimum of pomp and ceremony. At once occasional raids on Armenian villages began to be reported from the “Six Villayets”.

No massacre took place during the Turkish mobilization or the early stages of the Caucasus campaign. It was not until Enver Pasha’s Army had invaded Russian territory, and another Turkish force, composed in part of Kurdish irregulars, had invaded Azerbaijan, that massacres began. At Ardahan the Turkish regulars are said by the Russians to have killed 15 civilians during their brief occupation of the town, but their irregular allies and bands of Turkish fedais committed horrible crimes at Oity, Ardanush, Artum, and other places which they occupied, unchecked by the regulars. Armenians were thrown over cliffs, their women violated and abducted, their children frequently Islamised. The invasion of Azerbaijan was attended by similar excesses. The bulk of the Armenian population, after suffering great privations, escaped into Russian territory. According to Russian newspapers and American missionaries, over 2,000 were killed, often by order of Turkish Consuls, in North-West Persia. Kurdish tribesmen committed gruesome atrocities near Bayesid, and, when the worst of the winter was over, began to raid the Armenian villages near Van. The defeat of Sary Kamish, inflicted by an army which included many Armenians, had infuriated Enver’s ruthless temper. The systematic massacre of the 25,000 Armenians of the Bashkala district, of whom less than 10 per cent are said by Russian newspapers to have escaped slaughter or forced conversion, appears to have been ordered and carried out at this period.

The full description of the horrors that ensued along the frontier must be left to our Russian allies. Suffice it to say that late in April the Armenians in the Van district who had collected arms to defend themselves against the Kurds before the war were attacked by Kurds and Turkish gendarmes. In some places they were massacred; in others they more than held their own, and finally they captured the town of Van and took a bloody vengeance on their enemies. Early in May a Russo-Armenian army entered Van.

TALAAT BEY’S POLICY

It is said by the Turks in their defence that the decision to deport the Eastern Armenians was only arrived at after the discovery of an Armenian plot in Constantinople and after the Van outbreak. But the Armenians executed in Constantinople in April were men of the Hintchak society who had been in prison for over a year, and the deportation or massacre of Armenians had begun at many places before the Van Armenians were criminal enough to help themselves. There can be no doubt that Enver, who has never shrunk from violent methods, approved of the policy that was adopted. Commanding officers in the provinces received orders in April and May authorising them to deport all individuals or families whose presence might be regarded as politically or militarily dangerous, and in the case of some of the Cilician Armenians, deportation had begun earlier. But Talaat, who was in all probability the chief mover in the expulsion of Greeks from Western Anatolia, who has never scrupled to lie to an Ambassador or to encourage pro-Turkish intrigue in the dominions of friendly Powers, is the chief author of these crimes. “I intend to prevent any talk of Armenian autonomy for 50 years” and “The Armenians are a…race; their disappearance would be no loss” are sayings attributed to him on excellent authority. He has had worthy supporters among the extremists of the Committee of Union and Progress, such as Mukhlis Bey, Carusso Effendi and his Jewish revolutionary supporters, Midhat Shukri and others, among officials such as the Valis of Diarbekr and Angora, and among the officers of gendarmerie, who, if one-tenth of the tales told by European and American refugees is true, have cast off all trace of the European training which French and British officers laboriously tried to instil in them and have too often become little better than licentious banditti.

MASSACRE AREAS

Eastern Anatolia, Cilicia, and the Anti-Taurus region have been the scene of the worst cruelties on the part of the authorities and the population. In many cases the massacres were absolutely unprovoked. Thus at Marsovan, where there is an important American college, the authorities early in June ordered the Armenians to meet outside the town. They surrounded them there and the police and an armed mob killed, according to the Americans, 1,200 of the younger and more active Armenians whom the local Committee leaders and the gendarmerie most feared. The richer Armenians were allowed to avoid death by conversion to Islam, for which doubtful privilege they paid heavily. The poorer in some cases begged to be allowed to deny their faith and thus save their families, but as they had no money they were killed, or exiled. The younger women were distributed among the rabble. The rest of the community were driven across country to Northern Mesopotamia.

Times Recommends

• Heed the great stabiliser’s words
• How a voice for everyone led to stalemate
• Bakara market becomes a slaughterhouse