“Armenian Massacres Blamed on Germans

T.P. O’Connor Puts Responsibility on Berlin Rulers Equally With Turks

Chautauqua, N. Y., Aug 11-T. P. O’Connor, M. P., the Irish nationalist leader, in an address on the Armenian situation here this afternoon, told of Germany’s responsibility for the slaughter of thousands in Armenia.

‘I am content,’ he said, ‘to have the merits and the aims of the two sets of belligerents tested by this case. For it is one of the most lamentable facts in this whole tragic story that the German rulers have played a terrible part in these massacres-I say rulers deliberately, for we have many Germans earnestly interested in the fate of the allies-I have met one of them at various Armenian conferences, Dr. Leipsius. There was a German consul in nearly every single one of the great Armenian settlements where the massacres took place. The wires were open, as we know, between the Armenian settlements and Constantinople, for the massacres were ordered by telegram from the government, in Constantinople. If the wires were open between Armenia and Constantinople they were open between Armenia and Berlin.

‘For a generation the voice of Berlin has been omnipotent in Constantiople. At the very moment the troops of Germany and Turkey were fighting side by side. It is not clear, therefore, that Berlin had only to say a word and the massacres would not have begun, and even if they had begun would not a word have brought them to an immediate end? For those reasons I feel entitled to say that the guilt of these hideous massacres lies at the door of the German as well as the Turkish authorities. If I needed further proof of this fact I would point to the action of the representatives of Germany’ to Wangenheim refusing your ambassador, Mr. Morgenthau’s, appeal for intervention’ the County Bernstorff’s attempt at Washington to deny the massacre; to the statement of Bethmann Hollweg, Zimmermann and other German officials in Berlin, which, if they did not justify at least extenuated, this horrible gigantic, unsurpassed crime against humanity.

‘And, having that conviction, how can I, how can any man who loves liberty, hates oppression, loathes cruelty and massacre, how can I help feeling that I am on the right side when I feel myself in hostility to the present regime in Germany? How can I look for hope for the Armenians except in the defeat of both Turkey and Turkey’s ally, the militarist party in Berlin? For these reasons I rejoice that your great country has entered the war, has made the wise and the just and the humane choice in the war.”