Armenia and Her Troubles

How for Centuries the People Who Were the First to Embrace Christianity Have Suffered at the Hands of the Moslems.

This comparatively small race of people inhabiting a part of Russia and the Turkish Empire has been subjected to persecution for several centuries. At intervals the hatred of the Ottomans for Christians or others not followers of Mohammed breaks out with a ferocity known only to the Turks. These massacres take place notwithstanding the protests of Christian nations and after the promise of the Sultan to give protection to the Armenians in his kingdom.

During the present war these massacres have broken out afresh and two thirds of the two million Armenians of the Ottoman Empire have either been murdered in their native towns and villages of driven from their homes under what is called “deportation.”  Less than fifty percent of these ever reached their allotted destination. The rest were killed while traveling or died before their arrival from famine or disease. This method of destroying a nation has practiced in the near East since the days of the earliest Oriental Empire. Nebuchadnezzar and Darius set the precedent which followed by the Young Turks, who had means of carrying out the peculiar method of “deportation” which the former rulers never possessed, and the work proceeded with remarkable alacrity- the modern appliances used adding to the horror of the crime.

A Peaceful Race.

The Armenians are not a race of fighters, yet for centuries they have, like the Jews, suffered at the hands of various nations, and like the Jews have found a stimulus in adversity. They are keen witted business people, gifted with remarkable energy and with an industry which made the most of their work. By the year 1900 statistics show that they had spread themselves over the world from Calcutta to Singapore, to New York and California, and wherever they settled they made their way in the business world. They are peaceful and happy in their family life, preferring to choose the path of the least resistance. The vast majority of the nation, however, is still to be found within the frontiers of the Turkish and Russian Empires where today they are suffering untold miseries.

An Ancient Heritage.

The original home of the Armenian race and the seat of ancient Armenian kingdom was a plateau, the shores of which were washed by the Mediterranean, Caspian and Black Seas, and occupied all the region of Western Asia situated between the Southern boundary of the Caucasian Mountains and Mesopotamia. The authentic history of the people begins in the sixth, century, B.C. We then find King Tigranes the First, King of Armenia, maintaining his independence even against Cyrus the Great but like the successor of Cyrus, the successor of Tigranes succumbed to Alexander the Great, 328, B.C.

Just before the death of the Macedonian King he divided his first Asiatic Empire among his generals and Armenia fell to the lot of the Selucidea who governed it until the Parthians appeared and made themselves masters of that section. It was then ruled by a Parthian king who founded a new dynasty for the country. Tigranes the Second, who reigned many years, was at the time (90-55 B.C), the most formidable ruler in Asia. Indeed, Plutarch calls him “Tigranes the Great- a man who made Rome tremble before the power of his arms” After his death, however Armenia had great difficulty in maintaining her freedom, being compelled to go to war against other nations many times. The Kingdom of Armenia finally fell in 1375, and since that time no territory has been their exclusive possession. Even their native plateaus are tenanted by Kurdish shepherds, who pastured their flocks on the mountains and foothills, confining the Armenian cultivators to the valleys and plains.

Armenia is celebrated in ecclesiastical history as the first State to embrace Christianity. This was in the year 274 A.D., when the Armenian King, Tiridates, was baptized in the faith by St. Gregory. The race then embraced Christianity en masse-a faith in which they have never wavered. During the Crusades the Armenians lent assistance to the Crusaders and according to Pope Gregory XIII it was these people who made it possible for Crusaders to reach Antioch as promptly as they did. Yet this Christian race has for the last hundred years been crushed beneath the sabres of the Turks, and the whole period has been an uninterrupted record of violence and tyranny towards the Armenian people.

The Persians have been particularly bitter against the Armenians and as early as 1604 the Persian Shah Abbas laid waste the Armenian homes and carried off forty thousand of the race as slaves. Thousands of others were murdered either by the sword or put in prison to starve to death. This action has gone on from time to time until present day when the massacres have been given the name of “deportation,” which despite the protests of civilized nations is being carried on in a most brutal manner.

Suffered From Turkish Cruelty.

Ever since 1878, when Turkey had to cede the northeastern part of the Armenian plateau to Russia, the Armenians have been the special target of the Turkish soldiers and the most trivial incident cause for an outbreak against this unfortunate people. In 1878 over one hundred thousand of the race perished, but these figures are dwarfed by record of the past two years.

When Abdul Hamid was deposed the Armenian subjects thought that a better day was dawning and for a time all went well but with the opening of the present war the Turks found another opportunity to get at the Armenians and began by a wholesale requisitioning of private property for military purposes. They first seized the Armenian shops and “deported” the owners.

In Russia the Armenians joined the army, which further enraged the Turks and they vented their anger on the Armenians who lived under Turkish rule by making every man of the race give up his arms. The men were photographed as they gave up their weapons and the pictures were sent to Constantinople to prove that the Armenians were fomenting trouble. Order were at once sent from headquarters that the revolution must be crushed.

“Deportation.”

Then came the order of “deportation” and the Turks began their infamous work. Men and women were tortured into making confessions that they were revolutionists and their relatives were beaten and maimed as the result.

When the soldiers arrived in the Armenian towns the natives thought them merely a garrison and they were welcomed and well treated, but before very long the Turks began their work of “deportation,” driving the people from their homes. The latter were unable to make any resistance from the fact that their weapons had been taken from them although eyewitnesses declare that many of the men fought the soldier with their fists protecting the women.

This general extermination of the Armenian people was carried out in different ways in the different regions. From Van southward and southwest the country threatened by the immediate Russian advance was cleared of its Christian population by outright massacres on the spot. In the region northwest of Van extending to the Black Sea, which was close to the battlefields of Ardahan and Sarikamish (but the Russians were not yet across the frontier), the method of “deportation” was nominally employed but the exiles were murdered wholesale at the first convenient spot. Lastly the Armenian population in the west of Anatolia and the immediate neighborhood of the Turkish capital were really deported by rail.

The “deportation” usually began with a summons to all male Armenians to present themselves at the Government building. They were sometimes called by a house to house summons and sometimes by a bugle call. They were assured that the Government had benevolent intentions and they went willingly to the office. After a number had been collected they were marched out of the town without being given time to adjust their affairs or bid farewell to their families. They were usually murdered at the first lonely place on the road- stabbed to death because the Moslem butcher’s were unwilling to waste ammunition by shooting them. The men of Reason and Moush were stabbed and their bodies thrown into a stream. At trebizond they were driven on board sailing vessels- not only the men but the women and children as well. They were then taken out into the Black Sea and thrown overboard. At Angora Turks went out armed with axes and knives and slaughtered their Armenian fellow townsmen down as they would wild animals. Many of the children were handed over to the Dervishes, where they were tortured to death by these Moslem fanatics.

Few Give Up Faith.

In many instances the Armenians were told that if they would give up the Christian religion their lives would be spared. Only a few, however, consented to this, but the Turks failed to keep their promise and the converts met the same fate as those who clung to their faith. These women suffered all sorts of indignities before they were killed. Many of the best looking girls were seized by the Turks and carried off to the harems. Little children were beheaded before their mother’s’ eyes. The women were marched along rocky roads under the burning tropical sun and only permitted to drink in the streams if they had many to pay the soldiers. Residents of the town tried to assist the victims, but even when they were permitted it was too late and the women died.

A Danish missionary reports that he passed over the road between Ourfa and Aleppo and found the road strewn with dead Armenian women and children. Some were partly lying in the open and partly gnawed by dogs. Sometimes one or two were able to escape their captors by hiding in towns and from these, the missionaries obtained ful accounts of the brutality of the Turks who had charge of the deportation.

At Aleppo two streams of exile met- perhaps one-half of the number who had left their homes. They camped in the mud and filth, for there was no sanitation, and hundreds died of disease before they were put on the trains which were to carry them out of Turkey. Some of the refugees reached Port Said, where they were placed in refugee camps. Several French cruisers brought supplies and the Red Cross nurses attended the sick. A few of the children even reached New York, where they are being cared for by Armenian societies.