Martyrdom Enequaled – Estimated that 450,000 Armenians Have Been Massacred

Dr. M. Simba Gabriel, president of the Armenian General Progressive Association in the United States, has received from Nubar Pasha, diplomatic representative in Paris in the Katholikos, or head of the Armenian church advices in regard to the massacres of Armenians in Turkey, in which it is stated that “Christian martyrdom has at no time assumed such colossal proportions,” says a New York press dispatch.

The letters containing the advices were received by Pasha from “authoritative sources” in Constantinople and Athens and contains an appeal to the United States “to intercede and stop the persecutions.”

Dr. Gabriel, in making public letters, stated that information contained in them and from other reports he had received directly, he estimated that 450,000 Armenians had been put to death and 600,000 rendered homeless or exiled out of a population of 1,500,000.

“What has occurred in a few months in Armenia,” wrote Nubar Pasha, in transmitting the correspondence, “is unbelievable.”

“The great massacres of Abdul Hami seem insignificant in the history of our nation’s martyrology.  It is nothing more or less than the annihilation of the whole people.  But Armenia is so far away that scarcely anything has been yet heard about this frightful tragedy in Europe and America.”

A letter from Constantinople source says that Armenians in all the cities and villages of the province of Cilicia have been deported en masse to the desert regions south of Aleppo.

“Moslems have occupied houses and lands, abandoned by the Armenians” the letter reads.  “Those deported are not allowed to carry with them anything.  They have to travel on foot distances requiring a month or two of walking in order to arrive at the desert assigned for their habitation, where they will find no houses, no work, no livelihood, but their graves.

“Let it be borne in mind that persons from 20 to 45 are at the front.  Those from 45 to 65 are employed in the military convoys.  As to those who had paid the required sums for exemptions from military service, they have been either exiled or imprisoned on some pretext.  So the aged, the women and children are only deported.

“The court martials have been functionary everywhere.  Numerous Armenians have been hanged and others condemned to 10 or 15 years of hard labor.  The latter are honest merchants, having no relations whatever with any political parties.  Many have succumbed to cruel beating.  The priests of the village of Kurs, have, with their companions been subjected to the same fate on their way from Sou Chehrk, Sivas.  Even the churches and convents have been pillaged and destroyed.  Almost all the bishops have been arrested and delivered up to court martial.”