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Title: Armenia and Her People
or The Story of Armenia by an Armenian
Author: George H. Filian
Release Date: April 13, 2019 [EBook #59270]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE ***
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ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE
OR
The Story of Armenia
BY AN ARMENIAN
A description of the land of Armenia: its ancient and
modern history; its physical features; its people, their
religious beliefs, customs, etc., from the oldest dates,
as recorded in Armenian Histories and Church Records. A
presentation of the true causes of the recent atrocities
and a detailed account of the massacres.
By
Rev. George H. Filian
A native pastor, banished by the Turkish Government
from the City of Marsovan, Armenia
HARTFORD, CONN.
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
1896
DEDICATION
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE MARTYRS OF ARMENIA WHO
SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES FOR CHRIST THIS
VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
CONTENTS.
I. PAGE.
The Land of Armenia, 21
II.
The People of Armenia, 39
III.
The Armenian Dynasties, 45
IV.
Rulers of The Ottoman Empire, 132
V.
The Great Powers and The Armenian Question, 175
VI.
The Causes of the Atrocities, 217
VII.
The Turkish Atrocities in Armenia, 239
VIII.
The Armenians of To-Day, 334
IX.
The Future of Armenia and the Battle of Armageddon, 350
X.
Poems on the Armenian Question, 362
ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACE PAGE
Portrait of Armenian Catholicos, 1
Portrait of Author, 12
City of Antioch, 17
Map of Armenia, 21
Mount Ararat, 23
Kurdish Bandits, 35
Oriental Threshing Floor, 35
Armenian Flags--Coats of Arms, 45
Lake and City of Van, 49
Oldest Church Edifice in the World, 101
Portrait of Armenian Patriarch, 108
Recent Portrait of Sultan of Turkey, 139
Early Portrait of Sultan of Turkey, 143
A Bread Seller, 166
A Zeibeck, 166
A Softa, 166
Group of Circassians, 217
Group of Georgians, 217
Kurdish Home, 239
Kurd Chiefs, 239
Kurd Woman, 239
Massacre at Sassoun, 247
Massacre at Erzeroum, 247
Massacre at Stamboul, 257
City of Harpoot, 264
Armenian Peasant Girl, 272
Mousa Beg, Kurd Chief, 272
Rev. Prof. Thourmain, 272
City of Marsovan, 280
A Water Peddler, 280
City of Trebizond, 300
Group of Armenian Children, 319
Group of Young Armenian Women, 319
Anatolia College, 335
Armenian Family, 335
PREFACE.
The problem of Armenia and the Turkish atrocities there, is in the very
forefront of the world's burning questions at the present time. In
every civilized land it is ranked alongside their own pressing local
issues; everywhere there is not only sympathy and indignation, but a
feeling of real responsibility. We are a group of Christian nations,
and the first Christian nation is being exterminated. Within a few
months the unspeakable Turks and barbarous Kurds destroyed more than
a thousand villages and towns, murdered a hundred thousand Armenian
Christians,--men, women, and innocent children,--and left 500,000
others without homes, clothing, or food, thousands of women shamefully
defiled, and thousands of men put to horrible tortures. Dying in
the streets, in the fields, on the mountains; dying of hunger, of
cold, of storm, and of diseases bred of all these; dying of broken
hearts and despair, even more, of shame and mental torture. Yet all
these Armenians who thus suffered and were driven forth to starve
and die like deserted animals, were absolutely peaceable,--indeed,
they were totally unarmed and could not have been otherwise if they
wished,--perfectly respectable, most of them comfortably off, and
some of them rich. One who was last week a banker is to-day a beggar;
yesterday a merchant, to-day a tramp. Why? For the main reason that he
is a Christian, and the Sultan has resolved to have no more Christians
in his dominion; the doom of Islamism is hanging over their heads. "If
you accept Islam," they are told, "well and good; if you do not,
you shall be killed--or worse--as your fellows have been."
These are all facts, proved to superfluity, though the Sultan denies
them and instructs his ministers everywhere to deny them. How often
has the Turkish minister in Washington, Mavroyeni Beg, officially
(?) declared the Armenian atrocities to be fiction, giving the
papers lying statements (which come from the Sublime Porte), and
asserted that the Armenians were the aggressors! It is precisely
as though one should account for a devastated sheepfold, with the
wolves raging about in it, by alleging that the lambs had wantonly
assailed and slain the wolves first. Some pretended to believe this
rubbish; but most people, to their credit, are only the more angered
and disgusted by it. The Turkish proverbs, occasionally good, are
generally evil,--a significant index to the race; one of the commonest
is this: "Yalan yigitin kullesi dir" (A lie is the fortress of the
brave). Kill, plunder, ravish, and then deny it; not simply deny it,
but charge those very things to your enemy, and make them an excuse
for all you do to him or his. Such are the principles of the Sultan,
the false successor of the false prophet of Arabia. At the very time
when noble American and European Christians are sending help to the
survivors of his massacres, to the half-million homeless, naked,
starving, heart-broken beggars he has made from prosperous citizens,
he coolly denies that anything has happened but the putting down of
a few local riots. He writes to Queen Victoria sympathizing with her
expressions of humane sentiment, but declaring that the reports were
invented by evil-disposed persons; that on the exact contrary, it was
the Turks who were first attacked while praying in the mosques. He
assures the Queen that his measures have succeeded in restoring order.
And this same Sultan a few months ago, before the greatest of the
recent massacres, wrote to Lord Salisbury as follows:--"Take the words
of my honor, I will make reforms in Armenia. I will keep before me
every article of the desired reforms, and will order the governors
of the provinces to carry them into effect." He at once began to put
this pledge of his "honor" into effect, by sending orders from Yildiz
Kiosk to the provincial governors in Armenia to root out or convert
the accursed infidels. Since that promise of his "honor" months
have passed away; and during the time at least eighty thousand more
Armenian Christians have been killed, and even death has been the most
merciful "reform" he has bestowed on the land. The word in his mouth
means beggaring, burning, ravaging, violating, mutilating, torturing,
and assassinating. When all the leading Armenians are slain and their
helpless families forced to become Mohammedans, after the women have
been dishonored,--in a word, when all the Armenian Christians are
exterminated, then Armenia will have been reformed. A special chapter
is devoted to the person and doings of this eminent reformer.
THE AUTHOR.
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND BIRTHPLACE.
I was born January 20, 1853, in a suburb of Antioch; twelfth child and
youngest son of a family of nine boys and four girls, and therefore
considered the Joseph of the family, and as a small boy went to a
missionary school with my elder brothers. My father was a banker and
merchant. His partner in the former business was Mr. Edward Barker,
English consul at Aleppo; in the latter a Greek, Jabra Antaki, their
traffic being in raw silk, for which and for silk-worms Antioch is
a great center. Millions of dollars passed through his hands, and he
was considered one of the wealthiest men in the city. A common saying
was, "If you can drain the Mediterranean dry, you can drain Filian's
money dry." This saying roused the cupidity of the local governor;
he imprisoned my father, and proposed to torture and kill him, and
confiscate his property. Americans would relish living under this
sort of government. His partner, the consul, saved him, however,
and won his undying gratitude; and when Mr. Barker died, my father
gave his son a part of his own orchard for a burial ground. The
son erected a beautiful $25,000 monument there, which still stands,
the ground being owned by my brother, Moses Filian.
When I was fourteen or fifteen, my father lost all his money through
the failure of others, became hopelessly bankrupt, and was too old
to regain his position, and sank into a poor and broken-hearted old
man: his Mediterranean was not inexhaustible. He often patted me and
said, "My dear boy, I am sorry--I helped your brothers and gave them
good educations, and I meant to do the same by you; but I cannot,
for I am too poor. You will have to make your own way." He was a
devoted friend of education, himself highly educated, master of three
languages,--Armenian, Arabic, and Turkish,--and of strong reasoning
powers, logical, imaginative, profound, and far-sighted. Moreover, he
was a zealous Christian, greatly respected and liked. In person he was
tall, and very stout, with large, bright eyes, and full, rosy cheeks;
built like my great-grandfather, from whose elephantine figure the
family took its surname. Filian means "Son of an elephant," and his
descendants--about 150 in all, one of the largest single families in
the Orient--have been mostly large-framed men and women.
At about fifteen I had to go to work. One of my brothers being
a weaver, I learned that trade from him, and kept at it for three
years, weaving both cotton and silk, and not only supporting myself,
but helping support my father. Then I took up shoemaking, which
paid better, but neither my father nor myself was satisfied to have
me remain a common workman. He wanted me to become a banker and
merchant, as he had been, and his old friends, who respected him,
would have given me a chance to start; but I had always been devout
from a little boy, and felt that I had a call to be a minister. While
making shoes, I prayed the Lord to open the way. I often thought,
"Suppose I become the richest shoemaker or even the richest banker in
Antioch, what then? Shall I ever be happy? No. Then Lord, what is my
call?" I believed I heard the answering voice of God in my soul saying,
"I have created thee to become a minister of the gospel." So I went
to a missionary of the American Board in Antioch, and consulted him;
by his encouragement I went to the Theological Seminary at Marash, in
Armenia Minor, and studied there three years in the preparatory course.
Before taking my theological lessons I was sent by the missionaries
to Caesarea (Kayserieh) to teach in a town near by. On reaching the
city the pastor of the Protestant Church invited me to preach to his
congregation the following Sunday morning. I did so; the missionaries
heard me, changed their minds, said I was better fitted for a preacher
than a teacher, and sent me to preach at a village named Chomakli,
near Mt. Argaeus. The Lord seemed to fill me with eloquence, and
crowds flocked to hear me. Then the missionaries called me to a larger
field, Talas, their central town; the same fortune attended me there,
and steadily followed me in the other places to which I went. I will
not make a long story of it. Enough to say that I always felt utterly
helpless before preaching, empty of matter and words; I went to my room
and cried to my Heavenly Father, and always overflowed with things
to say when the time came. There was no limit to my imagination;
illustrations thronged upon me by hundreds; I felt inspired from
Heaven. I never wrote a sermon before preaching it, but wrote it down
literally as soon as I had finished.--I wrote every Monday.--And they
are all ready to be published in both Armenian and Turkish.
I was a successful preacher, but I had no theological education (though
I studied my Bible hard), and felt that I needed one. I decided to go
to America for it, but the missionaries opposed the plan bitterly. One
of the ladies told me plainly it was a sin; that I had no right to
give up a successful and useful ministry to go there. I replied that
giving up the ministry would be a sin, but not going away to prepare
for higher usefulness, and coming back to carry it out. Then she said
I had no money to go, and did not understand English. I answered that
I had faith that God would create the means. She laughingly bade me
give her best regards to her friends when I came. She meant it for
a joke, but I carried it out in earnest.
How I finally came to this country would take too long to tell. I will
only say that I crossed the ocean by faith. When I reached New York in
July, 1879, I had only 15 cents in my pocket. I worked hard day and
night in a rag felt factory in the Bowery, and slept on the rags on
the floor, covering myself with a piece of flannel. But the Lord opened
the way. I went to Oberlin, Ohio, and studied there, supporting myself
by sawing wood for the professors of the Theological Seminary. In six
months I could talk English well enough to lecture, and after that time
I supported myself by lecturing. Finally I was sent to Nebraska as
a home missionary during the summer vacation. On my return I entered
the Chicago Theological Seminary, and graduated there in 1882, after
which I lectured rather widely through the country. Then I went
home, and for a time was pastor of the Constantinople Evangelical
Armenian Church. Later I had a call from Marsovan, accepted it,
and had so large a congregation there that a church with a capacity
of 2,000 was needed. I returned to this country, raised the money,
left it in a Chicago bank (where it still lies in trust), and went
back to build the church. That very success aroused the jealousy of
some wicked men, and they falsely charged me with being the leader of
the revolutionary societies in Turkey. On this charge I was banished,
and now I am here again,--free and happy with my family, but full of
sorrow for my dear people daily martyred by the Turks.
ANTIOCH.
The city of Antioch, where the disciples were first called Christians,
(Acts xi. 26.) was built by Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C., and enlarged
by Antiochus Epiphanes. All the civilized world was then under Roman
rule; Rome, Antioch, and Jerusalem were the leading cities. Jerusalem
being a Jewish city, and Rome being a Roman heathen city, there was
no room in either to preach the gospel freely; nor indeed in any
other--the disciples were persecuted and martyred everywhere. There
was just one exception--the city of Antioch; that was as free as
any American city is to-day. This arose from the fact that when
in the Asiatic campaign of Pompey the Great, he came about 65
B.C. to Antioch, he was received by the people with great honors;
and was so charmed with the city, and his treatment, that he made
it an absolutely free city for all, for every nation and for every
religion, and the Roman emperors continued its privileges. When
Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem the disciples were scattered; some
of them reached Antioch, 300 miles north, and began to preach freely,
making many converts. Barnabas was in Jerusalem, but hearing of his
brethren's success, he also went to Antioch and began to preach; as
he was a great orator, full of enthusiasm and faith, thousands were
converted. But he was not satisfied. Crossing the Bay of Iskenderoon,
about eighty miles off, he went to Tarsus, where Paul, now a convert,
was living, and induced Paul to return with him to Antioch that they
might preach the gospel together.
Only scholars have any idea of the greatness and beauty of Antioch at
this time; it was second only to Rome, and was the second largest city
in the world, with nearly a million people; so rich and luxurious as
to be called the Golden City; so lovely and architecturally imposing
as to be called the Queen City. The finest street ran east and west
for several miles; it was of great width, paved from end to end with
vari-colored marble blocks, and with marble pillars on both sides along
its whole extent, on which were magnificent marble palaces of the
Roman officers. In that same grand avenue were theaters, singers of
both sexes, fortune-tellers, great heathen orators and philosophers,
and throngs of people passing along. Paul and Barnabas stood on the
marble pavement month after month for a year, full of the Holy Ghost,
and proclaimed the everlasting gospel. Crowds gathered to hear them;
even the officers and their wives, stretching their heads from the
windows of their palaces, listened to them; they gained disciples
from every rank for Christ and His religion, and the converts there
first received the name of Christians.
This was my birthplace and my relatives still live there. Since the
time of Christ and his disciples, Antioch has been ten times destroyed
by earthquakes. In the fourth century the whole city was destroyed,
and 250,000 people were buried under the ruins. That beautiful street
and its magnificent palaces are now buried two or three yards below
the surface of the ground. In 1872, when I was there, an earthquake
destroyed the whole city, and almost in a moment several thousand
people perished. Several of my own relatives and many of my friends
were killed. The city has now only 25,000 people, most of them
Mohammedan Turks. There are many Fellahin, and perhaps 2,000 Greeks,
and 500 Armenians, but in the suburbs the Armenians are more numerous,
and are the intellectual heads of the whole.
Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great center for
licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest soap is manufactured
there. About thirty factories make it, from pure olive oil and daphne
oil, the latter giving it a sweet fragrance. The daphne groves
are very numerous. The city has excellent orchards and vineyards,
orange trees, olive trees, fig trees, yeniduinya trees, palm trees,
pomegranate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the year,
are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earthquakes, it would
be a queen city yet; none could surpass its beauty or fruitfulness.
GEORGE H. FILIAN.
Translation of a letter (see opposite page) written in 1842 by the
District Catholicos at city of Sis to Kevork Filian (father of the
author) in Antioch:
+------------+
| Red Seal |
| of |
| Catholicos.|
+------------| +--------------+
| Symbol in |
+--------------+ | colors |
| Symbol in | | representing |
| colors | | an Altar. |
| representing | +--------------+
| the name | Michael Catholicos, The servant of Jesus Christ
| Jesus Christ.| by the grace of our Lord, the supreme father of
+--------------+ all Armenians who live in Great Seleucia. I the
servant of St. Gregory's right hand and most Holy
throne of the Holy Mother Church. Greetings of love and blessings
upon my spiritual son Kevork Filian esteemed and honored and to all
who belong to his family, perpetual happiness through Jesus Christ.
Honorable Gentleman. You will be informed through my letter of
spiritual greetings and blessings that truly and earnestly, more than
a father, I am willing to bestow upon you my blessings and praises,
and in order to show my respect practically, I feel it my duty to
thank you for your hospitality, when I came to your blessed home,
as a spiritual father, where I was entertained and received proper
honors. The Lord bless your valuable soul and keep you prosperous and
happy through the mediation of Jesus and St. Gregory. The Lord give
you and to all those who belong to you, power and ability in doing
good. For a long time I have desired to send to you this letter of
blessing; but I have not been able. Now I am glad to send to you one
of my spiritual sons Rev. Sarkis Vartabed (a preacher). When he comes
he will see your good deeds and enjoy your hospitality. May 4. 1842.
AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION.
The author feels that it is due to both his Armenian readers and
himself to explain why, in some points, he has deviated alike from
the Armenian historians and his own conviction. It is because on
these points, the Armenian records are in irreconcilable conflict
with those of Rome or Persia, or both, and in a book mainly for
Anglo-Saxon readers it is not possible to defy the general consensus
of western scholarship, which, in my judgment, has not given proper
weight to Armenian sources. I will specify only two or three items;
if my Armenian friends notice other contradictions of their accepted
history they will be safe in setting them down to the same cause.
It is a commonplace of Armenian history that St. Gregory, the
Illuminator, the Christianizer of Armenia, was the son of Anag, the
murderer of King Chosroes (see page 72) born about the time of the
murder, and made himself the companion of Chosroes' son, Tiridates,
partly in order to atone for his father's crime. I am very reluctant
to omit this fact; but the birth of Gregory and the death of Ardashir
will not fit according to western dates, though they are coherent
from Armenian.
I have also given twenty years' rule and a good character to King
Artavasdes, who reigned three and was a coward.
Most unwillingly of all, I have changed a very full and eulogistic
account of Moses Khorenatzi, the great national historian of Armenia,
for a meager and depreciating one. That he lived in the fifth century
and wrote as an eye and ear witness, instead of being a not wholly
veracious compiler of two centuries later, and that his history is
sound and consistent, is my firm belief. That his work is better
known than all other Armenian works together, and is the one native
book that has become a standard western classic, shows the powerful
genius of the man.
GEORGE H. FILIAN.
I.
THE LAND OF ARMENIA.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
Where is Armenia? It seems a simple question, yet during my lecturing
in the United States I have met far more people who did not know than
who did. That is natural enough, for until the late horrors, it seemed
little more than a name of old history, of no present importance; but
there is a further reason. The present Sultan forbids the use of the
name altogether, and insists on the district being termed Kurdistan,
or called by the names of its vilayets, Diarbekr, Van, Erzroom,
etc. Many maps do not have the name Armenia at all. A few years ago,
when the missionaries of the American Board were organizing the college
at Harpoot, now so bloodily famous, they named it Armenia College;
but the Sultan forbade it on the ground that there was no longer an
Armenia, and the use of the name would encourage the Armenians [1] to
revolt. The missionaries were forced to change the name to Euphrates
College. If any Turkish subject uses the word, he is fined and
imprisoned; if it is used in any book, the book is confiscated, and the
author banished or killed. The study of Armenian history is forbidden
to the Armenians; they must be kept in ignorance about their own land,
so that many of them do not know where Armenia was or what Armenia
is. A letter directed to any person or place in Armenia will never
reach its destination; for the Turkish postal authorities recognize
no such address. There is still another cause for the widespread
ignorance concerning Armenia. It has been partitioned between three
different powers, Turkey, Russia, and Persia. The northern part, from
Batoum on the Black Sea to Baku on the Caspian,--the river Araxes being
the boundary to near Mt. Ararat,--belongs to Russia; the southeastern
course of the Araxes from near Mt. Ararat, to Persia; the largest and
most fertile part, the western, from Mt. Ararat to the Black Sea and
the Kizil-Irmak to Turkey. But at the time of its greatest extent and
power, when its people were great and its kings were great, long before
Alexander's conquest,--Armenia covered about 500,000 square miles,
and stretched from the Black Sea and the Caucasus on the north to
Persia, and Syria on the south, from the Caspian and a much smaller
Persia on the east, to Cilicia and far beyond the Halys (Kizil-Irmak)
on the west, but including also old Media and a part of Mesopotamia.
It is one of the most picturesque of countries; travelers call it
the Switzerland of Asia. Its general character is that of a plateau
some 4,000 feet above the sea, a natural garden watered by noble
streams and studded with beautiful lakes; but the mountain ranges
are 7,000 to 8,000 on the average, while that historic land-mark,
the superb snow-capped Mt. Ararat, is about 18,000,--towering toward
Heaven nearly in the center of Armenia, piercing and ruling over the
clouds and the storms.
Armenia is the mother land, the cradle of humanity, and all other
lands are her daughters; but she is fairer than any other. Even her
mountain tops of perpetual snow are a crown of glory; the sun kisses
her brow with the smile of morning; and she supplies the beautiful
rivers, Euphrates, Tigris, Pison, Araxes, and many others from the
jewels of her crown. These rivers penetrate to every corner of the
land; traverse many hundreds of miles to give life to the fields,
the vineyards, and the orchards, to turn the mills, and finally close
their course in the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, and the Gulf of Persia,
carrying the bounty and good-will messages of the mother land to her
children in remote parts, to Persia, India, and Russia. From the same
inexhaustible reservoir she feeds her noble lakes; Sevan (Gokche),
Urumiah, Van and the rest. Lake Sevan is the only sweet-water lake;
the others are salt. The most important is Lake Van, probably the
most elevated of any large-sized lake in the world; it is 5,400 feet
above sea level, and its area is 1,400 square miles. A few words from
the author's respected teacher, Professor Philip Schaff, will not
be amiss. Schaff's Bible Dictionary, page 68, "Physical Features of
Armenia," says: "It is chiefly an elevated plateau about 7,000 feet
above the level of the sea, the highest peak being Mt. Ararat. The
lower portions of the plateau are broken by valleys and glens,
including the fertile valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris. It is
watered by four large streams, the Araxes, the Kur, the Euphrates,
and the Tigris; also by numerous lakes, one of the largest, the salt
Lake Van, being over 5,400 feet above the sea."
NATURAL RESOURCES.
The mineral wealth of Armenia is very great; but like the other
potential riches of the Turkish Empire, it profits nobody, not
even the greedy despot whose word is death. Gold, silver, copper,
iron, and minor metals, besides marble and other beautiful stones,
are present in abundance. About three miles from Marsovan, where
I preached, is a mountain called Tarshan Dagh (rabbit mountain),
rich in gold; another called Goomish Dagh, about eight miles west,
is laden with silver; and they are likely to remain so, for no one
will rifle them of their treasures while Turkey endures. The Sultan,
it is true, sends an officer from Constantinople under large salary,
to take out the precious metals, but that person does very little
work. He lives like a lord, lets things go as they will, bribes the
palace officials, and all the gold and silver extracted does not
pay his wages. The Sultan will not permit Christians to work mines,
and if they did, he would rob them of the proceeds. Everywhere the
condition is the same. Though Armenia is the oldest inhabited country,
she is, in utilization, the newest; much newer than the United States,
for indeed she does not exist yet. She is a virgin land, her mines
not open, her soil not half tilled. The Turks and the Kurds are lazy
and stagnant; they will do nothing, and they will not permit the
industrious Armenian Christians to do anything of importance.
The country has all the old fertility which made Asia Minor under
the Byzantine Empire the garden of the world, till the Turks half
turned it into a desert, as they do every spot accursed by their
presence. The grain, the fruit, the vegetables are hardly, if at all,
to be equaled. The watermelons raised on the banks of the Euphrates
and the Tigris are the largest and sweetest of their kind; two
melons are sometimes a camel's load. It is impossible for a family
to use the whole of such a melon, which has to be cut up and sold in
pieces. The grapes, either fresh or in the shape of wine or raisins,
are of the first rank. Many varieties when cured and dried as raisins
exceed in size the plumpest grapes of other lands. Nearly everything
is raised or grows wild in Armenia which is to be had in the Northern
or Southern States of America, though of course each country has some
things peculiar to itself. The products of the North are paralleled by
those of the rugged picturesque highlands of North Turkish and Russian
Armenia, with their cold, snowy winters, short, hot summers, and mild
intervening seasons; those of the South find their counterparts from
the rich upland valleys, or the lowland plains needing irrigation,
of Kurdistan and Persian Armenia (Azerbijan), with its semi-tropical
climate, and alternations of wet and dry seasons. The grain crops
are wheat, Indian corn, barley, and oats. Cotton is one of the main
products; a great deal of tobacco and rice are raised; and sugar is
made in the Persian part. In the fields and gardens you can find not
only the wonderful melons I have just spoken of, but pumpkins and
squashes, lettuce and egg-plant, and indeed most of the vegetables
that come to an American table. As to fruits, all that you know we
know also, only of finer flavors. Asia Minor is the original home
of the quince, the apricot, and the nectarine, and I believe of the
peach too; while our apples, pears, and plums are incomparable. The
Muscat apples of Amassia are exceptional even there. After eating them,
one hardly wonders that Adam and Eve could not resist the temptation
of doing the same, at the cost of innocence and Eden. The pears of
Malatia keep them company; and the quince grows sometimes as large
as a man's head. Another fruit equally important is the mulberry
for silk-worms. The olive and fig are cultivated and also grow wild,
and filberts and walnuts can be gathered anywhere in the woods, as
well as orchards; of course not the American "hickory nuts," but the
"English walnuts" of the groceries.
In spite of the dreadful roads, and the lack of protection for
travelers, the Armenians manage to send a good deal of grown
or manufactured stuff to the ports on the Black and Caspian
seas,--Trebizond, Batoum, Poti, Baku,--silk and cotton, and fabrics
made from them; hides and leather, including lambskins; wine, dried
fruits, raisins, tobacco, drugs, and dyestuffs, wax, and other things.
Methods of cultivation are probably much like what they were in
Abraham's time; there are no very modern machines or even tools. The
plough is not quite the mere scratching-stick of the savages, to
be sure; but it is only a crooked piece of wood with a bit of iron
fastened to the end that touches the ground, drawn by oxen and held
by the farmer. The fields of grain are reaped by the sickle as of
old; it takes as long to cut down one acre so as fifty by a common
mowing machine. The sheaves are carried to a gal or threshing floor
near the house, an open platform, not sheltered from the weather; and
there the grain is separated from the straw by a process so curious
that I doubt if any American, save a missionary to Armenia, has ever
heard of it. It is not treading it out under the feet of the cattle,
as pictured in the Bible, nor beating it out with a flail; both these
methods kept the straw whole. A threshing board is made by fastening
hundreds of sharp flints into a wooden frame; the grain is placed
between this and the threshing floor, the oxen attached to the board,
and the farmer sitting on it drives them round and round in a circle
until the straw is cut fine, and the grain well rubbed and shaken
loose. Then, on the first windy day, he takes the old hand fan or
winnow, and separates the grain from the straw, keeping the latter to
feed the animals in winter; for the long grass of American plateaus,
and the barns of hay from them, are seldom seen in Armenia.
The wheat crops are extraordinary; not only great in yield, but the
grains often double the size of ordinary American wheat, as compared
with specimens from the large and representative fields of Minnesota
and Nebraska.
TAXATION.
But when this wheat is threshed out, the farmer cannot shovel it up
and grind, or sell, or put it into bins; no indeed! He cannot take
up a quart of it without permission from the government; for the
government claims one-eighth of it as a tax,--it was always a "tithe"
or tenth from the oldest historic times down to the present Sultan,
but he raised the percentage to an eighth,--and it must stay on that
exposed threshing floor, in rain or winds, or any sort of weather,
till the tax-gatherer comes and measures it, which may be a week,
or two weeks, or a month, and will be forever unless he is bribed
to come. Nor is even this double tax all; the tax-gatherer is a tax
farmer,--that is, he pays a lump sum to the government for the taxes of
a district, and all he can get above that is so much profit to him; so
if the grain on a threshing floor actually measures ten bushels, say,
he will write it fifteen. After the farmer has paid first the tax on
the land to the government direct, then the double, or rather treble,
tax to the gatherer on the crops, more than half the income he can get
from the land has gone to the government. I do not know an Armenian
farmer who is not in debt; they work hard, but the products of their
labor go to the government and the Kurds, and any one who complains
is considered a revolutionist, and imprisoned or killed. The simple
unvarnished truth is that an Armenian Christian has no rights of life
or property whatever; and all he keeps of either (not very much) is
what the regularly appointed officials or the self-appointed Kurdish
fleecers choose to leave him.
This, however, is anticipating. I have only begun on the catalogue
of taxes which strip most Armenians, and are intended to strip them,
of everything but the means of sustaining life and perpetuating their
race. When a boy is born, a poll-tax is laid on him,--two dollars
on the average,--which must be paid every year as long as he lives,
whether he remains in Armenia or leaves it. Of course, during boyhood
the parents have to pay this tax on every male child; if a woman
is widowed, she has to go on paying these capitation taxes just
the same. They are assumed to be taxes in lieu of military service;
the Sultan takes no soldiers from the Armenians,--does not dare,--and
this poll-tax is used to raise and pay that very Turkish army which in
return butchers the Armenians, just as the old tribute of Christian
children was used to butcher their parents. (That the Armenians are
unwarlike and would not make good soldiers is ridiculously untrue;
many of the best soldiers and best officers, even commanders-in-chief,
in the Russian service are Armenians.) When the boy has attained
manhood he pays his own tax,--he must have a paper of citizenship,
which must be renewed every year, and for which he must pay; but
he is not allowed to leave the country without providing absolute
security, either in property or bondsmen, for paying that tax through
life, wherever he may be. Of course this is utterly impossible in
most cases,--men of property do not often migrate, and men without
property do not easily get people to be responsible for lifelong
obligation to let them emigrate; which is one chief reason why so few
Armenians, except banished ones, or runaways, are seen in foreign
countries. Furthermore, as I have said, he must pay for a passport
every time he stirs from home. Land, houses, cattle, crops, are all
separately taxed. Suppose an Armenian owns a vineyard. First, the
land is taxed; there is a separate tax for irrigation, a third for
the grapes, a fourth if you make wine from them. In all, a vineyard
pays five taxes, and the government gets more than the owner.
Why don't they emigrate? ask my American friends. I have given one
explanation. Pharaoh would not permit the Hebrews to go away, nor
will the Sultan permit the Armenians. Another reason is that even if
one has property, it is very hard to sell it. Turks have no money
and Armenians no confidence. And to run away to a foreign country,
whose language you do not know, wholly without money, is so desperate
a remedy that most of them shrink from it.
THE CLIMATE.
Armenia, in my belief, is the healthiest country in the world; I do
not say one of the healthiest, but the very healthiest. The climate
is excellent all the year round, and, though the winters are severe,
and much of the country is covered with snow, yet on account of the
elevation--being several thousand feet above sea level, and in latitude
36° to 42°, or say from North Carolina to Massachusetts--the air is
dry, pure, and agreeable, a preventative of disease, and conducive
to longevity. The dread disease, consumption, does not exist there,
while dyspeptics, if any are to be found, must have been imported. The
perfect type of physical vigor is to be seen there. Generally the
Armenians are tall, powerful, and ruddy cheeked, full of endurance
and energy. Shrewd and enterprising they are, as reputed; but pure
and honest too. They are longer lived than any other people. I have
known Armenians of 115 and even 125 years of age; one old lady of my
acquaintance at 115 was full of life and fun; I have seen her dance at
wedding festivities like a girl of 15. An old gentleman of 125 was my
neighbor; he worked on his farm as if he were not over 25. He could
run and jump and was as gay as a boy, and greatly enjoyed children's
society. If the people of Armenia could have the same government,
the same encouragements, the same freedom from horrible fears, as the
people of the United States, they would live many, many years longer
than they do, till it might be necessary to kill the old folks in
order to get rid of them. The most of the American missionaries in
Armenia would be sure to echo these words. A returned missionary gave
a striking testimony to this effect. He was addressing the students
of the Chicago Theological Seminary, and spoke as follows:--"Before
I became a missionary I had very poor health; most of my family died
of hereditary consumption, and I was attacked by it. My physicians
strongly protested against my becoming a missionary, saying that
if I went to a foreign land I would grow worse, and probably die
there. I paid no attention to this; I presumed they were right, but
I was determined to go anyway, and if I must die, to die in my chosen
work. When I offered myself to the American Board, I was allotted to
Armenia, and thither I went; my disease disappeared and now I am as
healthy as any missionary in the world. You see how stout and vigorous
I look, and I do not expect to die soon. But I feel sure that if I
had stayed in America to save my life, I should have lost it before
this time." He is still living in Armenia, and I hope will live to
be over a hundred, as many of the natives do.
The reader will smile at all this as the patriotic boastfulness of an
Armenian, and say perhaps that he can make as fabulous declarations
for his own land, wherever he may be; but such claims cannot be
substantiated by records and personal observations as these for Armenia
can. Take the Bible; some of the Patriarchs lived to be 700, 800,
one even to 969, if indeed he ever died a natural death; some were
taken up to heaven without knowing death; and all these long lives,
as will be shown, were lived in Armenia. God's judgment was good. He
did not create man in America, Europe, or India, or anywhere but in
Armenia. He came down there from Heaven, planted the Garden of Eden
there, and from the dust of that land created the first man. When the
race had become sinful and only Noah's family were preserved, the ark
was not brought to rest on the Rockies, the Alps, or the Himalayas,
but on Ararat in Armenia.
Where was the Garden of Eden? In my belief, around Lake Van, the
highest lake, the largest lake, and the most picturesque lake in
the Bible lands; its surrounding country, mountains, plains, flower
gardens, and orchards, make it a most charming spot, and quite worthy
to have been the seat of Paradise on earth. As the wickedest cities,
Sodom and Gomorrah, were on the lowest, ugliest, and nastiest lake,
the Dead Sea, it is natural that Paradise should be on the highest
and loveliest one. A certain very learned Gospel minister, who desired
to change my views respecting the Garden of Eden, declared that when
the North Pole was discovered the Garden of Eden would be. Some think
it was in India, and there are about as many opinions as there are
countries on the earth. The Bible, however, seems to be pretty clear
about it and settles the question to the Armenian mind; we feel,
therefore, that we cannot be far from the Scriptural descriptions.
TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION.
Both are as hard in Armenia as they can be, short of impossibility. In
the Russian section the roads are as good as in any part of Russia,
and there are railroads; but in Persian and Turkish Armenia there are
none of the latter, and the roads are very poor bridle-paths. A few
years ago the government levied an extra tax to build "Shosse Yolou"
or macadamized roads for carriages; but most of the money was spent
as usual, in a good time for the Turkish officials; the roads built
were wretched, and riding over them in the springless carriages of
the country is weariness and torture. Most of the traveling is done
on horseback or muleback, while the transportation of goods is almost
entirely by camels and donkeys.
An hour's journey in America in distance is a two days' journey
in Armenia, and it must be accomplished on horseback, muleback, or
foot; or perhaps in a wagon without springs. Almost all the horse and
mule keepers are Turks, Kurds or Circassians, all Mohammedans and of
the lowest types,--which does not increase either the comfort or the
security of a journey. The tenders and drivers of animals are never of
a very high order of men in any country; in Armenia they are specially
vulgar, dirty, and sometimes dangerous brutes. If you wish to travel
with your family, you must arrange with the horse-keeper several days
or even weeks beforehand; if he is ready when the time comes, he calls
at your house and tells you. If animals are used and the family large,
baskets will be needed to put the children in; they are put on the
animals like panniers, one on each side with the mother between. This
is attended with more or less danger from accidents of various kinds,
liable to occur on the unkept paths, which, rough in some places and
horribly muddy in others, are used for roads. As in the case of the
writer, who, when an infant, nearly lost his life before he could be
pulled out of the mud into which he had fallen from his mother's arms,
she being thrown from the stumbling horse she was riding.
A more modern way of travel is in springless carriages; which on the
rough roads means racking your body horribly, bones, nerves, and all,
into outright and often severe suffering, a pain and fatigue which the
traveler feels for a long time. At evening all travelers must go to a
caravanserai or khan; often they are all huddled into a single room,
men, women, and children, and the room is invariably filthy, and full
of every kind of vermin. Such getting about is constant torment.
There is no safety in traveling; Kurdish, Circassian, or Georgian
brigands may meet you on the roads anywhere, and plunder, torture,
or perhaps kill you. A few years ago, when traveling in Armenia with
a company of about forty persons of both sexes, we came to a forested
pass between two mountains. Suddenly three men leaped out in front
of us; they were Georgian brigands (Mohammedans), armed from top
to toe. They stopped the caravan, picked out the rich persons and
the Christians, and robbed them of all their valuables. They did not
search the writer, probably supposing that as a minister he was too
poor to be worth troubling. The women were dreadfully frightened, for
the robbers declared that if they did not give up their earrings their
ears would be cut off, and if they did not give up their bracelets
their hands would be cut off. It can easily be imagined that they made
haste to relinquish all their valuables. Such robberies take place
every day in Armenia, for there is no protection or redress whatever;
it is a matter of indifference at best, and probably of satisfaction,
to the Sultan and his governors.
The brigands are not the only robbers. Bear in mind that before any one
in Armenia can travel at all, the government officials plunder him. He
must get a passport first; I do not mean when he goes to foreign
countries, for an Armenian is forbidden to go there at all,--all who
are in other lands reached there by bribing the police and running
away,--but when he goes to another place or town in Armenia itself,
even if it is not over fifteen or twenty miles off. This passport will
cost him from two to five dollars in bribes to the officials to let
him have it. When he reaches his destination, the officials of the
latter place must examine his passport, and they force him to pay for
the examination, else they will not let him enter the town. So the
Armenians are robbed at every step whether they travel or stay at home.
Transportation of goods is even harder. Nearly all goods are carried
on camels or donkeys which never go more than ten miles a day, and
of course much less in bad spots; it takes months and even a year to
get goods if they have to come very far, or may never be received. If
an Armenian merchant orders goods from Constantinople, say 500 miles
away, it takes five or six months at best from the time of sending the
order to the time of receiving the goods, even if he ever gets them,
no matter what condition they are in.
The difficulties of transportation prevent the export, to any extent,
of Armenian products to foreign countries, and even between neighboring
cities exchange of supplies is well-nigh impossible. As all through
the East, there is often famine in one part of Armenia, while there
is plenty in other parts; one city may be hungry while another is
feasting; one willing to pay any price but unable to buy, another
eager to sell but with no one to sell to; because there is no way
to transport the grain or produce. Yet good highways are not built
because the officials embezzle the funds, railroads are not built
because it would hinder the Sultan from crushing the people.
It may be asked, Are there no railroads in Turkey? and will not the
Sultan permit them, and are there not Armenians in the places along
their route? Yes, there are a few short lines; one from Constantinople
to Adrianople, one from Constantinople to Angora, one from Smyrna to
Aiden, one from Mersina to Adana, one from Joppa to Jerusalem. I think
there is also one lately built from Beirout to Damascus. The length
of the whole system is not over 1,000 miles, one of them is in Europe,
part of them are tourist lines, along routes that streams of Europeans
would traverse anyway. Some of them were built before the time of
the present Sultan; some of them are near the seashore, where there
are some Armenian emigrants; but none of these roads are in Armenia.
Plenty of money has always been available from European and even
Armenian sources to build railroads; syndicates and private capitalists
have tried again and again to get permission to build them; but the
Sultan will not grant it, for it runs counter to his fixed policy
of isolating the Armenians, to make their oppression or destruction
easier. Railroads would mean not only prosperity and strength for
the people, but easy gathering and sending out of news to the world,
easy bringing of help from the world, lighting up the dark places,
and exposing the horrors of the hell now existing. When they are built,
commerce will follow; Europeans will flock in, and a new era dawn. Who
are the commercial class? The Armenian Christians or Europeans; not a
Turk or a Kurd among them. Commerce means, then, the increase of the
Christian population; wealth, greatness, security for the Armenians;
finally freedom from the Ottoman power. Therefore that power forbids
any improvement of the backward conditions.
II.
THE PEOPLE OF ARMENIA.
THEIR LINEAGE.
Who are the Armenians? The average American knows very little about
them, while few even of the educated classes have much knowledge of the
race or its history. Many people regard them as barbarians, partially
Christianized. Some think them of Chinese type; most often they are
considered as Turks because the chief portion of Armenia is part of the
Turkish Empire; every Armenian feels justly indignant at the latter
classification. The old story applies of the Irishman who refused to
consider himself an American though born in America, on the ground that
"being born in a stable did not make one a horse"; we know that the
Scotch and English in Ireland do not consider themselves Irish; we
know it would be worse than absurd to call the English children born
in India Hindoos. When the missionaries of the American Board first
went to Turkey, the people there supposed from the name American,
that they must be Indians, and crowded to see them out of curiosity,
but they were much surprised and probably somewhat disappointed when
they found them very like themselves. In the same way, being born in
Turkish Armenia does not make one a Turk. The Turks are one race, the
Armenians a totally different one, and different in the very foundation
type. The Turks are Turanian, the Armenians Aryan. The Turks belong
to the Turko-Tataric stock; they are kinsmen of the Tartars.
The primal origin of the Armenians will be found in Genesis,
Chapter 10,--from Togarmah, the son of Gomer, the son of Japheth;
the Armenians are sometimes called the Sons of Togarmah. Togarmah
had a son named Haig (the Armenian records tell us), and Armenians
call themselves Haigian or Haigazian from him; and the land of
Armenia is called Hayasdan or the land of Haig. He was a powerful
warrior and the founder of the Armenian Kingdom, which began 2350
B.C., and ended with Levon VI., 1375 A.D.; thus lasting 3725 years,
though with intervals of extinction. Their own kings did not always
reign in Armenia; sometimes other nations ruled over it; by way of
compensation, sometimes the Armenians ruled over other nations. The
people never call themselves Armenians, or their country Armenia;
they use the name simply for the sake of foreigners. But where did the
name come from? Of course as with many very old ones, the origin is
somewhat a matter of guesswork. Some derive it from the great King,
Aram, the seventh from Haig; some from Armerag or Armen, the eldest
son of Haig,--the more probable supposition of the two; still others
connect it with the Hebrew Aram (Aramea), the district of Mesopotamia
and North Syria, and derive both from a word meaning "man," most old
names of nations having meant that originally. Whatever its origin,
it is certain that the Armenians are a very ancient nation,--as
ancient as the Assyrians or Persians.
The people belong to the stock formerly known as Japhetic, later as
Caucasian (from the Caucasus Mountains on the north of Armenia), then
as Indo-European, now as Aryan; the most advanced type of mankind,
and the most physically beautiful. And what are the people of the
United States? Hamitic or Negroid? Of course not. Semitic (Arab,
Jew)? Certainly not. They are Japhetic or Aryan too--exactly the same
as the Armenians. Indeed, the type of face is the same, and the type
of character. The Armenians are often called the Anglo-Saxons of the
East; they are the same blood, features, religion, and civilization
as those of the West, and are true brothers and sisters, though the
opportunities of the latter have been greater; however, the ancestors
of the former were Christians in Asia before those of the latter were
in Europe, and they kept the mother land faithfully while the others
ran away.
THEIR LANGUAGE.
The tongue spoken by the Armenians is one of the great family now
known as the Aryan languages; certainly one of the oldest of them
if there is any difference in the ages of the different branches,
though that really means nothing. It has no relation whatever to the
Semitic tongues like Chaldee or Phoenician, nor the Tataric tongues of
Scythia, though those were in the earlier ages its nearest neighbors,
while it is blood brother to languages so widely separated as Irish
on the west and Hindoo on the east, to Gothic and Greek, Lithuanian
and Latin. Linguists think the whole Aryan family much younger than
the Semitic or the Turko-Tataric or the Mongoloid, but this would
not be granted by the Armenians without much more solid proof than
has yet been brought forward. They claim first that Noah and his sons
lived in Armenia, which has been shown must be true; second, that they
spoke the Armenian language, which therefore was the very oldest. Some
of the arguments in favor of this are as follows:--In Armenia, near
Mt. Ararat, are places with Armenian names, which have preserved the
same names from the time of Noah till now. North of Ararat is a city
named Erivan, which in Armenian means "appearance"; after Noah's ark
rested on the mountain, the first place he saw was Erivan. Another city
southeast of Ararat is called Nakhichevan, which in Armenian means
"the first station"; it was the first stopping-place of Noah when
he came out of the ark. The first chief or King of the Armenians,
Haig, built a village and called it Hark, which means "fathers," as
he was the father of the Armenians; and when Haig fought with Belus
and killed him, the place was called Kereznank, meaning "grave" or
"graves." There are many such places in Armenia, where the names have
always been the same and are certainly Armenian now, indicating that
the language has always been the same; here are a few: Arakaz, Armavir,
Shirag, Ararat. The latter took its name from Ara, the Armenian king
who was the son of Aram, that great King who ruled in Armenia for
fifty years; the name means "lofty" or "holy." These instances show
the antiquity of the language; but even if they were not sufficient, it
would not affect the antiquity of the race. Many very old races speak
languages much less old. The mass of people in Tuscany are Etruscans,
a race which some people hold to be much older than the whole Aryan
family; but they speak Italian, a very modern tongue. A large part
of the Basques, believed by many scientists to be the oldest race in
Europe, older even than the Tuscans, speak Spanish, much more modern
even than Italian. So that it does not follow that the Armenian race,
aside from the language, may not be the oldest in the world.
The old Armenian classic language is very difficult, from the number
of particles and participles in it; but modern Armenian is one of the
easiest of languages to learn, very regular in inflection and the
spelling entirely phonetic. There are no exceptions or anomalies;
for instance, to pluralize a noun, you invariably add the particle
ner or er. Thus, doon means "house;" the plural is dooner. Manch is
"boy"; plural mancher; mannugh is "child," mannughner "children." The
irregularities of English in these forms are too well-known to need
illustration. The Armenian tongue is not only very regular, but very
sweet, as well to the ears of foreigners as of natives. The testimony
of "Sunset" Cox of Ohio is worth citing on this point. He was United
States minister to Turkey some years ago, and as such presided at
the Commencement Exercises of Robert College in Constantinople, that
being the rule of the college. In his address on this occasion, he
said he did not like Bulgarian (which is a Turkish tongue), because
it had no sweetness;--indeed, there is none in any of the Turkish
languages, which are strong and emphatic, but harsh. But he said he
liked Armenian; it was the "sweetest language he ever heard." He went
on to say that Adam talked Armenian in the Garden of Eden, proposed
to Eve in that language, and succeeded in winning her heart; in any
other language he might not have done it. "It is the loveliest of
tongues to make love to a woman in, and sure of success if the lady
knows Armenian." I think he was right; but I think too, that next
to Armenian, if not equal to it, is English. It sounds as sweetly
to my ears as Armenian. I am an Armenian and my wife is an Armenian;
but I proposed to her in English and was successful; not a sure test,
perhaps, for any language is beautiful when words of love are uttered
in it to ears that are willing to hear; and true love may be successful
without any words at all.
III.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES.
According to the histories written by native historians from the old
Armenian records.
1. THE HAIGAZIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 2350 years before Christ, and ended in the time
of Alexander the Great, 328 B.C. No other recorded dynasty has so
long an unbroken succession.
2. THE ARSHAGOONIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 150 years B.C. and ended 428 A.D.
3. THE PAKRADOONIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 885 A.D. and ended 1045 A.D.
4. THE RUPENIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 1080 A.D. and ended 1375 A.D.
I shall try to show the condition of the Armenians under the rule of
these different dynasties.
1. THE HAIGAZIAN DYNASTY.
As already mentioned, Haig was the founder of the Armenian kingdom. He
can scarcely be called a king, because in his time there was not a
great Armenian nation; it was rather a tribe, and Haig was chief or
governor. His position was like that of Abraham; what would now be
called a sheikh; and like Abraham, he was a worshiper of the true God.
Haig went from the highlands of Armenia to the plains of Shinar to
help build the Tower of Babel. During the progress of the work, Belus,
a warlike giant, descended from Ham, assumed to direct the enterprise;
Haig would not submit to this, and so returned to his own country. When
the undertaking failed, all the tribes became scattered. To wreak
vengeance on Haig, Belus resolved to go to Armenia, kill him in fight,
and reign over his land. When he reached Armenia with his men on
his errand, Haig went with a force to meet him; a great battle took
place and Haig was victorious, killing Belus and saving his country
from being overwhelmed by the Hamites. His spirit was inherited
by his posterity, though recent irresistible force and refusal of
permission to bear arms may seem to make them submissive. They have
battled stoutly against awful odds and with insufficient means for
liberty and for freedom of thought and conscience; and millions have
lost their lives for those principles; if they could now have arms
and help, they would fight and die again for them.
After the repulse of this Hamitic invasion, the Armenians increased
so rapidly that Haig became a real king and took that title, thus
actually founding the Armenian Kingship. They were free, lived long
lives, and married only one wife each,--all favorable conditions for
growth of population,--it need not be pointed out how slavery and
polygamy check national growth. And they kept their faith in the one
true God, as their ancestor Noah did.
Haig's son Armen succeeded his father, and greatly enlarged the
kingdom. He subdued a large district northeast of Mt. Ararat and
built cities and towns there. It is most likely the name Armenia comes
from him. Some recent foreign writers have the impudence to say that
there was no such king, but that his name was made up to account for
that of Armenia; but the same records which tell us of Haig, tell us
of his son. After Armen we find his son Armaiss, who built the city
of Armavir.
I will not enumerate all the names of the dynasty; it would only be a
tedious catalogue without profit. I will only mention the most noted
ones, and those most interesting from their relations with the Jews
or the heathen nations.
One of the notable kings is Aram, the seventh in succession, and the
greatest of Armenian conquerors. He raised and drilled an army of
50,000 men, whose efficiency and his own military skill and energy
are proved by his invading and conquering Media. He then invaded
Assyria and conquered a part of that country. Next he marched
westward and subjugated some of the eastern portion of Asia Minor
inhabited by the Greeks,--the later Cappadocia, along the Halys or
Kizil-Irmak. Aram named this district the Hayasdan, translated by
the Romans as "Armenia Minor"; which, oddly enough, in later times
became Greater Armenia or Armenia Proper. Aram set over this province a
governor named Mishag, with instructions to compel the Greeks to speak
Armenian. Mishag built a city which exists in Cappadocia (Karamania)
to-day, frightfully familiar from recent events. He called it by his
own name; the Greeks mispronounced it as Mazag; the Roman emperors
afterwards named it Caesarea, which the Turks corrupted into Kayseri,
and several thousand Armenians were massacred there some months ago,
which will be described further on. The richest and most enterprising
Armenians in the Turkish Empire are from Kayseri, and it is a leading
missionary station of the American Board. The writer preached there
and in that vicinity for four years.
The enormous growth of the Armenian Kingdom under Aram, and its
conquest of part of Assyria, excited the alarm of the Assyrian king,
Ninos. Not feeling strong enough to engage in open warfare with him,
he thought to compass his destruction by winning his friendship and
then putting him out of the way, and, as a first step, sent him a
costly jeweled crown. The intrigue failed, however, and Aram lived
to a great age, reigning fifty years.
Aram was succeeded by his son Ara, called "Ara the Beautiful." The
fame of his beauty went abroad through the world; the Assyrian queen
Semiramis was so enchanted by the sight of his person that she fell
madly in love and proposed marriage to him, but he refused her. This
military Amazon was not to be balked so. She resolved to marry him
by force, and came with a great army to Armenia to capture the prize;
but he was killed in the war, and she took possession of the country,
with which she was so charmed that she decided to remain; she removed
the capital of the enlarged Assyrian Kingdom to the lovely shores of
Lake Van, erecting a palace there for herself, and building on the
eastern side a city named "Shamiramaguerd" (built by Semiramis). Many
years later, a king of the Haigazian Dynasty whose name was Van rebuilt
it and called it after himself. This was the present city of Van,
another great center of the American Board and of Turkish horrors.
The next great interesting event was in 710 B.C. when Sennacherib of
Assyria was assassinated by his two sons, Adramelich and Sharezer, who
escaped into Armenia. The king of Armenia at this time was Sgayorti,
which means "son of a giant." He received the sons of Sennacherib
with great kindness; they married Armenian women, and remained in
the country till their death. Their descendants were great Armenian
princes, bearing the titles Prince Arziroonian and Prince Kinoonian.
Armenia comes to view again in connection with Biblical history in the
capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, 600 B.C., and the deportation
of the Judean people; the Armenian king, Hurachia, was one of his
allies in the siege, and on returning to Armenia carried with him a
Hebrew prince named Shampad. This was a very intelligent man, and made
himself greatly loved and esteemed by the Armenians; a sort of Daniel
or Joseph. He, too, married an Armenian noblewoman, and his descendants
became the very foremost of the noble families and ecclesiastical
functionaries of the country, crowning the kings on occasion. They
were called Pakradoonian Princes, and at last one of them founded the
third dynasty of Armenian kings, the Pakradoonian. Though the nation
is Aryan, there is noble Hebrew (Semitic) blood mixed with it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Haigazian Dynasty comes
just before the end; the time of Dikran or Tigranes I. In him both
wisdom and valor were combined to an eminent degree. As soon as he
succeeded his father, Yerevant, he instituted great reforms to improve
the state of the country. He not only enlarged it by conquest, but he
greatly improved public education and morals, removed obstructions to
international commerce, introduced navigation on the lakes and rivers,
encouraged cultivation; trade flourished, every acre of ground was
tilled, the country was alive with energy and hope. This vigor and
prosperity aroused the envy of Ashdahag, King of Media; he resolved
to kill Dikran, and to throw him off his guard married his sister,
Princess Dikranoohi. A plot to murder Dikran was then set on foot;
the princess learned of it, warned her brother, whom she loved,
and ran away. Dikran collected an army, made a rapid march to Media,
surprised and slew Ashdahag, and brought back a vast amount of spoils
in captives and goods. He built a fine city on the banks of the Tigris,
and called it Dikranagerd, the city of Dikran; it was afterwards the
residence of the sister who had saved his life. It is now called by
the Turks Diarbekr, and was the scene of a frightful massacre a few
months since. The most important political achievement of his life was
assisting Cyrus in the capture of Babylon 538 B.C.; the two monarchs
were very friendly, and Dikran's Armenian army was a chief factor in
the conquest. In Jeremiah's prophecy of the capture, about a century
before it occurred, he mentions the Armenian Kingdom as one of the
actors: "The Kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz." (Jer. li. 27.)
After Dikran's death his son Vahakn succeeded him; he was considered
a god by the people, and worshiped as such through a monument after
his death. Thus far the people had mostly worshiped the one true God,
but from this time they relapsed into heathenism for a while on account
of the influences pressing on them from outside. The last king of the
Haigazian Dynasty was Vahe. When Alexander the Great invaded Persia,
Vahe went to Darius' help with 40,000 infantry and 7,000 cavalry;
but Alexander conquered first Darius and then Vahe (328 B.C.),
and annexed both Persia and Armenia. Thus came to an end the first
Armenian dynasty, after an existence of 1922 years.
ARSHAGOONIAN OR ARSACID DYNASTY.
This dynasty began not far from 150 B.C.,--close to the time when
Carthage was utterly destroyed, and Greece was finally subjugated;
it ended 428 A.D., about half a century before the extinction of the
Western Roman Empire, and about the time Genseric and his Vandals
conquered Africa. It is by far the most famous of the Armenian royal
houses; for it embraces the very heart of the classic times with
which all educated people are familiar, it brings us perpetually in
contact with the most brilliant and best-known of classic names, it
is sprinkled itself with names towering up familiar and powerful, even
among the Greek and Roman magnates; and, in spite of political ups and
downs, it covers a time of immense expansion for the Armenian people,
of a firmly rooted growth in numbers, wealth, and consciousness of
national unity, which has enabled the nation to survive and keep its
united being through many centuries of dismemberment, impoverishment,
massacre, and attempts at outright extermination again and again. More
than all, it covers the time of Jesus Christ, and the conversion
of Armenia to his religion, first of all the nations of the earth,
as by its history and traditions it ought to have been.
During the time between the disappearance of the line of Haig and
the rise of the line of Arshag, Armenia was not by any means wholly
without kings of its own; but it was mostly a dependency.
Alexander the Great, after his conquest, put a native governor named
Mihran over it; but on Alexander's death, five years later (323 B.C.),
his generals partitioned the Macedonian Empire among themselves, and
Armenia fell to Neoptolemus. His government was at once so oppressive,
and so contemptuous of native feeling (he and his court were Greeks,
and despised all Asiatics), that the people rose and drove him
out in 317, under the lead of one Arduat (Ardvates), who remained
their king for thirty-three years; but he left no successor, and
Armenia was conquered by and became part of the great Syrian Empire
founded by Seleucus. It remained so in the main for about three
quarters of a century, though the eastern part (Kurdistan), fell
under the Parthian kings. Armenia was never a very quiet province,
however, and its revolts against the Syrian satraps kept it much
of the time in a half-anarchic state. About 210 B.C. Antiochus the
Great quelled one of these uprisings, and divided the country into
Greater and Lesser Armenia (whose boundaries I have described),
putting a separate deputy over each. But after his crushing defeat
by the Romans at Magnesia in 189 B.C., and having to buy peace by
giving up everything beyond the Halys, each governor proclaimed
his province an independent kingdom. Zadriades (Zadreh), in Lesser
Armenia founded a family which kept their hold for almost exactly a
century, when Tigranes II once more united the two Armenias. Artaxias
(Ardashes), in Greater Armenia was powerful as long as he lived, and
sheltered Hannibal at his court when the Romans had set a price on
the head of their great foe; but about the middle of the century his
family was dispossessed by Mithridates of Parthia, who conquered the
country. The family name of this Parthian house was Arshag, rendered
by the Greeks Arsakes, spelled by the Romans Arsaces. Mithridates made
Greater Armenia a kingdom for his brother Wagh-arshag (Val-arsaces),
whose family remained in succession to the throne, though sometimes
eclipsed for long periods from actual occupation of it, for six hundred
years. The new king had the great hereditary ability both in war and
statesmanship which characterized the whole Arsacid line, and the
Mithridates in particular, and its great knowledge of men. He knew
an able man when he saw him, and liked to raise him up; he promoted
industry and built cities; he reformed the system of laws and their
administration as well.
The new line did not escape the usual fate of Eastern dynasties,
of having disputes over the succession, in which their neighbors
interfered. In 94 B.C., Dikran or Tigranes II (great-grandson of
Wagh-Arshag), owed his possession of the throne of Greater Armenia
to his third cousin, Mithridates II (the Great), of Parthia, who
exacted seventy Armenian valleys as the price; probably part of
Kurdistan. Tigranes, however, paid no more blood-money to anybody
when once on the throne. On the contrary, he began at once to overrun
and annex the neighboring states. He first conquered Lesser Armenia,
and made it one with its sister again; then part of Syria, so long
the mistress of his own state; then, in a series of wars with the
weak successors of Mithridates, he half destroyed the Parthian
Empire itself, not only recovering the seventy valleys he had paid
for his throne, but conquering Media, and annexing Mesopotamia and
Adiabene. After these conquests he called himself "King of Kings"
(that is, emperor, king with other kings under him), which title
the Parthian kings had claimed theretofore. He would probably have
ended by mastering and restoring the unity of the old Seleucid
Kingdom in its widest extent, the whole heart of Western Asia, had
he not in an evil hour been induced by that reckless old fighter,
his father-in-law, Mithridates of Pontus, to join him in war against
the Romans. Tigranes' own son had quarreled with him, and taken
refuge with the King of Parthia, whose daughter he married; and now
offered to guide his father-in-law into Armenia if he would invade
it as the ally of the Romans. This was done, and Tigranes the elder
had to fly to the mountains; but the Parthian king grew tired of the
siege of rock castles, and went home, leaving his son-in-law to carry
on operations with part of the army. The great Armenian king at once
broke loose and annihilated the forces of his son, who fled to Pompey,
just invading Armenia with the Roman army. Even the great Tigranes was
no match for Rome, and had to surrender. Pompey was not harsh with him,
but left him Armenia (except Sophene and Gordyene, which were made
into a kingdom for his son), and his Parthian conquests; even going so
far as to send a Roman division to wrest these from the Parthian king,
who had re-conquered them on Tigranes' defeat, and restore them to the
latter. On the departure of Pompey the Parthian once more reclaimed
them, but a compromise was finally made. Phraates of Parthia, however,
resumed once more the title of "King of Kings." Tigranes remained the
ally of the Romans till his death in 55 B.C.; a reign of thirty-nine
years, on the whole of great glory and usefulness.
He was succeeded by his son, Artavasdes (Ardvash) II, who inherited
that most dreadful of legacies, a place between the hammer and the
anvil. For the next quarter of a century the Romans, and the steadily
growing and consolidating power of the Parthian Empire were alternately
irresistible in Eastern Anatolia; it was impossible to avoid taking
sides, for neutrality meant invasion by one party or the other;
and whichever side he took he was sure to be punished for as soon
as the other came uppermost. If Artavasdes had been as dexterous as
Alexius Comnenus himself, he could hardly have escaped ruin; that
he kept his throne for over twenty years is proof that he was not
unworthy of his father. First came the invasion of Parthia by Crassus;
Artavasdes, faithful to his father's Roman allegiance; asked him to
make the invasion by way of Armenia, and offered to help him. Crassus
refused, but the Parthian king, Orodes, invaded Armenia; however,
he made peace, and betrothed his eldest son, Pacorus, to Artavasdes'
daughter, just before news was brought him of the annihilation of
Crassus' army, guaranteed by Crassus' severed head and hand. The
civil wars at Rome for years to come broke the Roman power, and the
Parthians (with the good-will of the inhabitants, who detested the
Roman proconsuls), swept westward, compelled submission or alliance
from all the countries to the Taurus, and even annexed all Syria for
a time, just as seven centuries later the Syrians, from hate of the
Byzantine governors, gave up their cities to the Saracens. But the
Roman power once more rallied; the Parthians were driven out of Syria,
and Pacorus was killed; the aged Orodes, under whom the Parthian
Empire proper reached its pinnacle, died, leaving the throne to one
of those jealous murderous despots so familiar in Eastern history,
who made a general slaughter of his brothers, and even murdered
his son, to remove any possible leader of a revolt, and Artavasdes
once more returned to the Roman alliance. In the year 36 A.D., Mark
Antony undertook the task Crassus had so terribly failed in seventeen
years before, of striking at the heart of Parthia; but this time the
invasion was by way of Armenia. It was almost as frightful a disaster
as the former; a third of the army of 100,000 men was destroyed by
the enemy, 8,000 died of cold and storm in the Armenian mountains,
the wounded died in enormous numbers; but that Artavasdes let the
army winter in his country it would have perished as completely as
Crassus' did. In spite of this, the Romans, wanting a scapegoat,
laid the whole blame on Artavasdes, without a shadow of reason that
can be shown. It was the last time for a century and a half that the
Romans attacked Parthia. In default of that plunder, they resolved
to have Armenia, and a couple of years later, in the year 33 A.D.,
they seized Artavasdes by treachery, and occupied the country. The
Parthians at once took up the cause of his son, Artaxes, and made war
on the Romans to seat him on the throne; and when the Roman troops
were withdrawn to help Antony's cause, which was lost in the battle
of Actium, the Parthians overran Armenia, and killed all the Romans
in the country, and made their candidate king as Artaxes II. This was
in 30 B.C., and in the same year his father, Artavasdes, who had been
carried to Alexandria by Antony, was beheaded by Cleopatra. But the
very next year the worthless tyrant Phraates of Parthia was driven
from the throne by a rebellion, and Artaxes made peace with Rome.
The history of Artavasdes' reign is in essence the history of the next
four centuries, save that the results were incomparably worse. We have
been dealing with a time at least of steady, single-handed government,
of able rulers either inside or outside, of some sort of ability to
keep the civil structure of the country from breaking to pieces; but
even that disappears over long periods in the early centuries of the
Roman Empire. One great secret of Armenia's misery during these ages
of woe--indeed, to a large extent during all the ages since--lies in
the fact that she is a borderland; a buffer between great states, and
indeed between great natural divisions of climate and society. She is
the boundary between semi-tropic Central Asia and temperate Eastern
Europe, touching the land of the fig and the silk-worm on the one
side, and that of the apple and the mountain goat on the other;
between Scythian steppes and Syrian deserts. In these earlier ages
she was fought for between east, west, and south,--Parthia, Rome,
and a Syro-Egyptian power of some sort; in these days divided between
east, west, and north,--Persia the successor of Parthia, Turkey the
successor of Rome, while the southern power is ages dead, and a great
northern power, Russia, has grown up in the steppes. Had Armenia been
smaller, or more level, she would have perished without a struggle,
perhaps rather would never have existed; but her territory is so large
and so defensible that her history could have been predicted,--final
dismemberment between great states surrounding her, yet not without
ages of desperate struggle. She was not large enough to be permanently
the seat of empire; she was far too large for either rival to let pass
wholly into the hands of the other--so she was pulled to pieces. But
she wanted to control her own destiny, and made a long and heroic
fight before being dismembered.
To write the history of the next few centuries would tire out all my
readers, and would not do any good; it was a long duel between Rome
and Persia for the ownership of Armenia, in which the prosperity
and happiness of their unhappy foot-ball nearly perished. Almost
the whole foreign policy of Parthia was to control, or to have a
paramount influence in Armenia; almost the whole foreign policy of
Rome in the East was to do the same thing. For nearly a century
following Artavasdes' deposition, though the Romans professed to
govern the country and the Parthians sometimes held it, and both sides
repeatedly put kings on its throne, it was actually in a state of pure
anarchy. Every great family, seeing it must depend on its own strength
for preservation, extended its rule over as wide a district as would
submit; nearly two hundred houses acted with perfect independence
of each other, and of the nominal government, and some of them
established principalities of considerable size. After this, though
the country was for century after century just the same shuttlecock
between the rival states, the feudal anarchy was somewhat reduced, the
turbulent nobility better held in check, but it was impossible that
there should be really firm and orderly government when a king could
not be secure of his throne for a year on one side or the other, and
dared not render his powerful subjects disaffected by making them obey
the laws. We may be sure that the government was really an oligarchy
under the forms of a monarchy, and even the title "King of Armenia"
during this period must not be taken to mean too much. There were
sometimes separate kings of Upper and Lower Armenia, one under Roman,
and one under Parthian influence; the independent princes often made
head against both, and outlying principalities, like those of Osrhoene
and Gordyene probably got hold of more or less Armenian territory in
the melee. No king of Armenia after Tigranes ever held sway over all of
old Armenia for any length of time, if at all. But any king who got an
acknowledged position at all was invariably an Arshagoonian; the people
considered that line the only rightful kings. Artavasdes III, whom the
Romans seated in power just before the birth of Christ; Tigranes IV,
who expelled him by Parthian aid the year of Christ's birth; Vonones,
a deposed Parthian king, who got himself chosen king as the Roman
favorite in 16 A.D., but was persuaded by Tiberius to retire; Arsaces,
son of the king of Parthia, assassinated by the king of Iberia whose
brother was the Roman candidate, about the time of the crucifixion;
Ervand, who made himself master of the land after a fashion, in 58;
Dertad (Tiridates), set up by the Parthians in 52, and acknowledged by
the Romans in 66; Exedarus (Eshdir?) son of the Parthian king, given
the throne with Roman consent about 100, pulled down by his uncle in
114, resulting in the conquest of the country by Trajan; Sohaemus,
set up by the Romans about 150, dethroned by the Parthians in 162 in
favor of another Arsacid, restored by the Romans in 164; and the other
fleeting monarchs of this long nightmare were all of the same line of
Arshag, which in Armenia survived for over two centuries its brother
line in Parthia, the last of whom, Ardvan (Artabanus), was slain in
battle in 224 by Ardashir (Artaxerxes), first of the Sassanian house,
and founder of the Persian Empire. But I must go back a little.
The most important event in the history of any nation is its conversion
to Christianity, and therefore we wish to know when the Armenians first
came to believe in Christ, and how it came about. Of course it did not
come all at once; but it came very early, and the story of the first
converts is very curious. According to the Armenian church history,
and also the great Christian father Eusebius, it came through King
Abgar or Apkar (Abgarus), the fifteenth king of the little kingdom of
Osrhoene, in northern Mesopotamia, whose capital was the flourishing
city of Edessa, now Oorfa; it lay next the southern border of Armenia.
The church history gives the following account:
"The origin of Christianity in Armenia dates from the time of its
king Abgar, who reigned at the beginning of the Christian era; he
had his seat of government in the city of Edessa, and was tributary
to the Romans.
"Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Judea, was hostile to king Abgar,
but was unable to injure him except by exciting the Romans against
him. He therefore accused him falsely, to the Emperor Tiberius,
of rebellious projects. King Abgar, on being made acquainted with
this accusation, hastened to send messengers to the Roman general
Marinus, then governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, for
the purpose of vindicating himself. During their stay in Palestine
these messengers--among whom was Anane, Abgar's confidant--hearing
of the wonders that were wrought by our Saviour, determined to visit
Jerusalem, in order to gratify their curiosity.
"When, therefore, their mission was concluded, they proceeded thither
and were filled with wonder at witnessing the miracles performed by
Jesus our Lord.
"On returning to Armenia they related all the particulars to their
master. Abgar, after having listened to their narrative, became
satisfied that Jesus was the son of God, and immediately wrote to
him as follows:
"'Abgar, son of Arsham, to Jesus, the great healer, who has appeared
in the country of Judea at the city of Jerusalem--greeting Lord,--I
have heard that thou dost not heal by medicines but only through the
Word; that thou makest the blind to see, the lame to walk; that thou
cleansest the lepers and makest the deaf to hear; that thou castest
out devils, raiseth the dead, and healest through the word only. No
sooner had the great miracles that thou performest been related to me,
than I reflected, and now believe that thou art God and the son of God,
descended from heaven to perform these acts of beneficence. For this
reason I have written thee this letter, to pray thee to come to me,
that I may adore thee and be healed of my sickness by thee, according
to my faith in thy power. Moreover, I have heard that the Jews murmur
against thee, and seek to slay thee. I pray thee, therefore, come
to me; I have a good little city, which is enough for both of us,
and there we can peaceably live together.'"
The messengers sent with the letter were instructed to offer sacrifices
for the King at the temple in Jerusalem; and one of them was a painter,
who was to make a portrait of the Saviour, that if he would not come,
the king might at least have his features. Jesus received the letter
joyfully,--as it was the day of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
the messengers did not venture to approach him, and it was taken to
him by the apostles Philip and Andrew,--and dictated the following
answer to the apostle Thomas:
"Blessed be he who believes in me without having seen me; for thus
it is written of me: Those who see me shall not believe in me; and
those who do not see me, they shall believe and be saved. Inasmuch
as you have written to me to go to you, know that it is necessary I
should fulfill here all for which I have been sent. And when I shall
have done so, I shall ascend to Him who sent me; and then I will send
you one of my disciples, who shall remove your pain, and shall give
life to you and those around you."
The painter could not execute his order on account of the multitude;
the Saviour at last noticed him, and causing him to approach, passed a
handkerchief over his face and miraculously imprinted on it a perfect
likeness of his countenance, and then gave it to him, and bade him
take it to his master as a reward for his faith. The king received
the letter and portrait with great joy, and put them in safe custody,
and awaited the fulfillment of our Lord's promise.
After the Ascension, Thomas, the disciple, sent Thaddeus, one of the
seventy, to Abgar, as our Lord had directed. Thaddeus went to Tobias, a
prince of the Pakradoonian tribe, and consequently a Jew by blood, who
received the apostle into his house, and became a believer. Thaddeus
then began to perform many miracles upon sick people, and his fame
being spread throughout the city, reached King Abgar, who sent for
Prince Tobias and desired him to bring the apostle to him. This was
done, and Thaddeus healed the king in his sickness, and instructed
him in the faith. He did likewise to all the people of the city,
and baptized them, together with the king and his court. All the
temples dedicated to idols were shut up, and a large church was
built. Thaddeus then created a bishop to rule the new congregation,
selecting a silk-mercer, the king's cap-maker, for that office, and
giving him the name of Adde. It is related that upon the principal gate
of Edessa was the statue of a Greek idol, which all who entered the
city were obliged to reverence. King Abgar ordered this to be taken
away, and placed in its stead the sacred portrait of our Lord, with
this inscription: "Christ God, he who hopes in thee is not deceived
in his hope;" at the same time ordering all those who entered the
city to give it divine honor. This conversion of King Abgar and of
the Edessians took place in the thirtieth year of the Vulgar Era,
or in the thirty-third year after the birth of Christ.
Shortly after, Thaddeus, desiring to spread the light of the Gospel in
other parts of the country, went to Inner Armenia to visit Sanadrug,
who then resided in the province of Shavarshan or Ardaz. Sanadrug
soon became a Christian and was baptized, together with his daughter
Santukht, and a great number of the chiefs and common people. Here
Thaddeus also consecrated a bishop, named Zachariah, and then proceeded
to Upper Armenia; but finding the people there unwilling to listen
to his preaching, he left them and went to the country of the Aghuans.
Abgar, in his zeal for the faith he had just embraced, wrote to
the Emperor Tiberius in favor of Christ, informing him how the Jews
unjustly crucified him, exhorting him at the same time to believe
and command others to adore the Saviour. Many letters passed between
the two monarchs on the subject of his divine mission. He also wrote
to Ardashes, king of Persia, and to his son Nerseh, the young king
of Assyria, exhorting them to become believers in Christ. However,
before he received replies to these, he died, in the third year of
his conversion to Christianity.
His death seemed at first to have undone all his work. His son Anane
apostatized and tried to make his people do the same; he reopened the
heathen temples, resumed the public worship of the idols, and ordered
the sacred handkerchief removed from the city gate. Adde the bishop
walled up the latter. The king ordered the bishop to make a diadem
for him as he had for his father; the bishop refused to make one for
a head that would not bow to Christ, and the king had the bishop's
feet cut off while he was preaching, causing his death,--the first
Christian martyr on record. By a just retribution, the savage king
met his own death by a marble pillar in his palace falling on him
and breaking his legs.
Meantime Abgar's nephew, Sanadrug, had set up his standard in
Shavarshan or Ardaz, proclaiming himself king of Armenia,--one of the
countless chieftains who took advantage of Armenian anarchy to carve
out principalities for themselves. On the death of Anane he marched
to Edessa, claiming it as his own inheritance. The people admitted
him on his oath not to harm them; but once inside he massacred all
the males of the house of Abgar. He spared his aunt, Queen Helena,
Abgar's widow, who became widely famed as a Christian philanthropist,
and was buried with great pomp before one of the gates of Jerusalem,
where a splendid mausoleum was erected over her remains. He himself
had apostatized, and ordered all his people to do likewise; but most
of them refused to obey, and Thaddeus, hearing of it at Caesarea,
in Cappadocia, started for Edessa to reconvert him. On his way he
fell in with a Roman embassy to Sanadrug, composed of five patricians
headed by one Chrysos; he converted and baptized them all, conferred
priest's orders on Chrysos, and they gave up all their property and
became preachers of Christ. They were known as followers of Chrysos,
and all eventually obtained the crown of martyrdom.
On the news of these conversions, Sanadrug invited Thaddeus to
Shavarshan; on his arrival he put him to death, and with him his own
daughter, Santukht, who would not give up her faith in Christ. At her
death various miracles were wrought, which caused many conversions to
Christianity; among them a notable chief, who was baptized with all his
family, was renamed Samuel, and was put to death by the king's order.
A princess named Zarmantukht also became a convert, with all her
household, two hundred people in all; the whole of them suffered
martyrdom in consequence.
Dr. Philip Schaff says: "It is now impossible to decide how much
truth there may be in the somewhat mythical stories of correspondence
between Christ and Abgarus, and the missionary activity and martyrdom
of Thaddeus, Bartholomew, Simon of Cana, and Judas Lebbeus. But it is
certain that Christianity was introduced very early in Armenia." I,
however, consider what I have told to be true.
After this time, Christianity spread in Armenia as it did in other
parts of the Greek Empire; rapidly in the cities, where intelligence
was quick, and new ideas were welcomed; slowly in the country
districts, where people did not readily change. Its first result
everywhere was not so much to make people believe in it as to make
them disbelieve in Paganism; for every person who actually came to
believe in Christ, there were fifty who ceased to believe in Jupiter,
or Bel, or Thoth, Venus or Astarte. There would be a flourishing
Christian church in a great city when most of the people did not
have any faith in any religion. But everybody who had a family came
gradually to think very well of a religion that gave them the power
to teach children righteousness, and enforce it by the command of
God; and the respectable classes became more and more Christian. But
the fact that till two or three centuries after Christ there was no
general attempt on the part of the pagan governments to put down the
Christians by persecution, shows that not till then did they become
so numerous as to frighten the governments for fear they would before
long have a majority; persecution means fear. The governments let the
Christians pretty much alone, except for little fits of anger now and
then, till they were afraid the growth of the sect would overthrow
themselves or bring on civil war. The Christians had become well
established in Armenia within a century or so after the death of
Christ; but it was over a century and a half before they seemed an
imminent menace to the ruling class. Then a furious persecution began,
about the same time as that of Diocletian in the Roman Empire, and
indeed, part of the same movement. Diocletian had set the persecuting
King Tiridates on his throne, and Tiridates had passed his life from
boyhood almost to old age in the Roman service, and had the same ideas
as the pagan Roman upper classes. Yet in the providence of God this
same Tiridates made Christianity supreme in Armenia, fifteen years
before Constantine made it supreme in the Roman Empire, thus making
Armenia the first Christian nation.
GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR AND KING DERTAD.
In the continual struggle between Rome and Parthia for the control
of Armenia, the Parthian kings had one great advantage; they were
Arsacids, and could put their sons or brothers on the Armenian throne
with the good-will of the people, thus strengthening their dynastic
position without much cost in military force. Often, too, the Armenian
kingship was obtained by Parthian princes, who fled after a family
quarrel, or after deposition or other misfortune. One of these Armenian
kings was Chosroes, who reigned in the time of Ardashir, the first king
of Persia, before spoken of. It is not certain just who he was; some
say a brother of Ardvan, the last king of Parthia; some say the son
of Ardvan, who fled after his father's death. Anyway, he was a mortal
enemy of Ardashir, and was at first supported by the Romans. Ardashir
invaded Armenia, but was beaten later. Chosroes quarreled with the
Romans, who withdrew their support, and assailed him, but he defeated
them; and when Ardashir again invaded the country, Chosroes again
drove him back. The old days of Tigranes seemed to have returned, and
Armenia to be on the road again to unity and independence; and Chosroes
was called the Great. Ardashir was furious at being baffled, and is
said to have offered his daughter's hand and a share in the kingdom
to any one of his leading nobles who would assassinate Chosroes. An
Arsacid named Anag accepted the offer, though he had a wife already,
and went with his family to Armenia, pretending to be in flight from
Persian troops. Chosroes gave him a military escort into the province
of Ardaz, where he lived for a time in the very place St. Thaddeus'
bones were deposited. Later on, Anag removed to Vagharshabad (the
present city of Etchmiazin, where the Armenian Catholicos resides),
Chosroes' royal city. Here Anag seizing his opportunity, stabbed
Chosroes to the heart. In his flight he was drowned in trying to
cross the Aras, and his family were massacred by the soldiery.
Ardashir had gotten rid of his unconquerable enemy, and without having
to pay the stipulated price. He at once entered Armenia and put to
death every member of Chosroes' family save a boy and a girl, Tiridates
and Chosrovitukht, who were somehow smuggled away, and the old game
of Perso-Roman foot-ball over Armenia went on as before. Tiridates
entered the Roman army, when grown up, and became distinguished there,
evidently inheriting his father's military ability; and remained in
the Roman service certainly to the age of over 45, and perhaps till
over 50. That the Romans waited all this time before using him as
a candidate for the Armenian throne seems strange; but the reason
probably is that the early years of his manhood fell in a time when
Rome was weak and Persia strong. The great Shahpur, Ardashir's son,
reigned in Persia till about 272; the imbecile Gallienus of Rome
reigned from 260 till 268, and was succeeded by a crowd of emperors
able indeed, but too short-lived to carry out any steady policy,
or drive the Persians out of their strong places. The first emperor
who found himself in a position to restore the Roman power in the
East was Diocletian, who came to the Roman throne in 284, and it is
significant that he made Tiridates king of Armenia only two years
later. As Diocletian was a soldier of fortune, probably he had known
and respected Tiridates long before. Anyway, in 286 Rome once more
had her turn in Armenian affairs, and with one short interval, kept
absolute control of the country for over half a century.
Now there had been born in Armenia about 257 a child who had early
been taken to Caesarea by Christian relatives, baptized, named
Gregory, and reared in the Christian faith. On reaching maturity
he married a Christian girl by whom he had two sons; but after
three years they separated by mutual consent. The wife entered a
convent. Gregory, hearing of Tiridates' renown in the Roman army,
went and obtained service near the prince's person, to be able to have
influence with him if he ever regained his kingdom. They became fast
friends. When Tiridates was proclaimed king, he went first to Erija,
in the province of Egueghatz, where was a temple of Anahid (Diana),
whom the Armenians worshiped as guardian goddess of the country;
and making offerings to her of garlands and crowns, asked Gregory to
join him in his idolatry. Gregory refused to worship anything but the
one God. Tiridates ordered him imprisoned for a while, thinking the
loathsome dungeon of that time would change his resolution; finding
him still firm, he had him tortured in a dozen frightful ways, and
at last taken to the fortress of Ardashad and thrown into a deep pit,
where criminals were left to starve. There Gregory remained fourteen
years, supported all that time by the charity of a pious Christian
woman. After about ten years of reign, Tiridates was driven from
his throne by Persians, and once more became a wanderer; but two
years later he was reinstated by the Romans, and finished his life
on the throne. In gratitude for this second restoration, he had daily
offerings made to the heathen gods all over his kingdom; and on being
told that the Christians refused to comply, ordered all recusants to
be tortured, and their property confiscated.
About this time Diocletian determined to find and marry the handsomest
woman in his empire, and sent officers all over in search of noted
beauties. One party, hearing that a nun named Ripsime was very
beautiful, entered her convent by force, had a portrait made of her,
and carried it to the emperor. Diocletian was enchanted with it, and
ordered preparations made for the nuptials; but the abbess, Kayane,
to save the nun from sin, and the community from danger, broke up the
convent, and the inmates with several priests--seventy in all--went
to the East, and scattered themselves in different localities. Ripsime
and Kayane, with thirty-five companions, reached Ardashad in Armenia,
and took refuge in a building among the vineyards, where wine vats
were stored. Diocletian had search made for his flown bird, and,
hearing that her company had gone to Armenia, commanded Tiridates
to send her back to him unless he wished to keep her for his own
wife. Tiridates had her hunted out, and the officers bringing a report
of her extraordinary beauty, so great that people flocked to admire
her, he ordered her brought to him, intending to marry her. Kayane
exhorted her not to deny Christ for the sake of earthly honors,
and she refused to go. She was carried by force, however, and the
king undertook to gain a husband's rights at once; but the virgin,
strengthened by divine power, resisted him successfully. Tiridates then
had the Abbess Kayane brought to him to overcome the girl's scruples;
but instead, she once more exhorted Ripsime to keep herself pure
in spite of all offered grandeur. The king once more endeavored to
deflower the maiden, and was once more beaten; and Ripsime, opening
the doors and passing out through the astonished guards, walked out
of the city, to her companions in the vineyard, went to a high place,
and knelt down in prayer. The incensed Tiridates sent a body of guards
to put her to death by the most dreadful tortures, which was done,
and her body cut into small pieces. Her companions gathered to bury
her remains, and were at once butchered by the soldiery, as well as a
sick one, who had stayed behind in the wine press. The bodies of the
thirty-four martyrs were thrown into the fields as food for the beasts
of prey. The next day Tiridates had Kayane and two other companions
put to death. These events occurred on the 5th and 6th of October, 301.
Shortly after, God visited the king and many of his household with a
dreadful disease for his persecution of the saints. They ran around
like mad people or demoniacs. While they were in this state, the
king's virgin sister Chosrovitukht had a divine revelation that she
should go to Ardashad and release Gregory from the pit, and he would
heal them all. As he had been thrown there fourteen years ago, and
was believed to be long dead, no attention was paid to it; but the
next day it was repeated five times with threats, and a chief named
Oda was sent, who brought him back alive, to their great amazement
and joy. They prostrated themselves before him and asked forgiveness,
but he told them to worship only their Creator. Then he demanded to
be shown the bodies of the holy martyrs lately just slain for belief
in Christ; they were found after nine days and nights untouched,
and he gathered them up and put them into the wine press, where
he also established himself. First he ordered the king and all the
people to fast five days, and commended them to the mercy of God; and
after that for sixty consecutive days he preached the word of God,
instructing them in all the mysteries of the Christian religion. On
the sixty-sixth day they again besought him to heal them, but first
he made them build three chapels for the relics of the martyrs, each
in a separate coffin, wall in the place where he had seen a vision of
the Son of God coming down from heaven, and erect a crucifix before
which the people should prostrate themselves. Finally, seeing that
they all believed in the true God, St. Gregory bade them kneel down
and pray to Him for healing; he himself prayed for them at the same
time, and a miraculous cure was at once effected on all the sufferers.
This done, Gregory and Tiridates set about exterminating idolatry;
they smashed the idols and demolished the temples, the new converts
joyfully assisting them. The work of conversion went on rapidly,
under the wonderful preaching of the Saint, and the zeal of the king;
all the people converted were baptized by immersion. In eight years
the majority of the Armenian nation, many millions in number, had
become Christians. That religion was made the State creed of Armenia
in 310, while the Council of Nice, which did the same work for Rome,
was not held till 325.
Gregory deserves every credit for this magnificent work; but I
cannot help wishing he had been less zealous in destroying the
pagan literature, which is a very great loss to the world. However,
Christianity is worth it, if we could not have it at a less price.
Schools, as well as churches and benevolent institutions, were
organized in great numbers under Christian auspices during the next
two or three centuries, and a brilliant band of scholars and preachers
went out from them, the equals of any in their age, and perhaps in
any age. I will give sketches of some of the principal figures, but
first let me briefly tell the history of Armenia during that period.
The rivalry between Rome and Persia grew fiercer than ever with the
introduction of Christianity, for now religious hate was added to
political ambition; and on the side of Persia the Armenian difficulties
were doubled, for a considerable part of the Armenians were still
Zoroastrians, and sympathized with the Persians against their own
government, while many of the Persians had become Christian, and
opposed their pagan rulers. Thus the Persians felt that they had
a civil war on their hands as well as foreign wars, and persecuted
their Christians horribly. On the other hand, they had the help of the
pagan part of the Armenians in invading or controlling that state;
still again, the Armenian Christians now favored the Romans much
more strongly than they had before, because Rome was now Christian;
while on top of all were the great barons, almost independent of
the nominal kings, and who favored neither party but wanted their
feudal independence. Yet the Roman control of the kingship, for
what it was worth, lasted without a break for over half a century
after the victory of Christianity, and over three-quarters of a
century from the accession of Tiridates; which was due largely to
the great ability of the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine,
and the excellent administration and military organization they left,
which saved the eastern provinces from Persia for over a quarter
of a century after Constantine's death. Shahpur II, of Persia, won
many victories, but he could not hold even the places he captured,
and he gained no territory till the death of "Julian the Apostate"
in his Persian campaign of 363. His weak and frightened successor
Jovian surrendered a great section of the Eastern Roman territory,
and still more disgracefully agreed that the Romans should not help
their ally Arshag (Arsaces), king of Armenia, against Shahpur. Armenia
was at once invaded, but she felt her national existence at stake, and
fought with desperation. Though Shahpur had the help of two apostate
Armenian princes, Merujan and Vahan, and other native traitors, who
ravaged the country and fought their king because he was a Christian,
Arshag held out four years, aided by his heroic though unprincipled
wife Parantzem, and his able chief commander Vashag. Vagharshabad,
Ardashad, Ervandshad, and many other cities were taken and destroyed;
finally Arshag and Vashag were captured. Arshag's eyes were put out,
and he was thrown into a Persian dungeon in Ecbatana; Vashag was
flayed alive, and his skin stuffed and set near the king. Queen
Parantzem still refused to surrender, and with 11,000 soldiers and
6,000 fugitive women held the fortress of Ardis fourteen months,
till nearly all of them were dead from hunger or disease; then she
opened the gates herself. Instead of honoring her, Shahpur, who was a
worthy predecessor of the Turks, had her violated on a public platform
by his soldiers, and then impaled (368). Meantime, her and Ashag's
son, Bab (Papa), had escaped to Constantinople and asked the help of
the co-Emperor Valens. That emperor hated to break the treaty, and
involve Rome in a new eastern war; but he could not suffer Persia to be
strengthened by the possession of all Armenia, and the Roman statesmen
had determined to end the long struggle over Armenia by dividing it
between Persia and themselves. Bab was secretly helped by the Romans;
he kept up a guerrilla warfare in the mountains, and a large part of
the Armenian people were prepared to welcome him back to his rightful
throne. The Romans tried to keep within the letter of their treaty
by not letting him assume the title of king. The Persians considered
his support by Greek troops a breach of the treaty, none the less,
and Valens alternately aided and disavowed him. The matter was not
mended by the worthless character of Bab himself, who murdered his
best friends on the least suspicion, and had the incredible baseness
to hold a secret correspondence with Shahpur, the worse than murderer
of his parents. Finally the Romans, convinced that he must be under
their watch if they were to have any security of him, tolled him down
to Cilicia, and prevented him from returning by guards of soldiers. He
made his escape, and professed his allegiance to the Romans as before;
but Valens resolved to be rid of him, and had him murdered by Count
Trajan, the Roman commander in the East.
Meantime a powerful Roman army under Count Trajan, and the chief
Persian host, had actually camped opposite each other on the borders of
Armenia (371); but neither side wanted a general war just then,--Rome
must have her hands free for the Goths, and Persia hers for the
Mongols. Finally, in 379, Shahpur died, and there was an instant
and entire change in Persian policy toward Rome, and even toward
Christianity for a while. His brother and successor, Ardashir, was an
old man, and reigned but four years; his successor, Shahpur III, at
once sent embassies to Rome, and made a treaty of peace (384). Finally,
on the succession of Bahram IV (Kirman Shah), in 390, that monarch
arranged a treaty of partition with Theodosius, the Roman emperor,
by which Armenia ceased to exist. The western portion became a Roman
province; the then reigning sovereign, Arshag IV, was made governor to
keep the people contented. The eastern, and much the larger section,
was annexed to Persia, under the name of Persarmenia; and to please
the people, an Arsacid, Chosroes IV, was made governor, and the
dynasty was continued in its rule over the Armenians till after the
great Perso-Roman war of 421-2, and the persecution of Christians by
Persia, which was the pretext of it. The persecution and the war led
to a movement for Armenian independence; after it was over, Bahram V
of Persia (Gor, the Wild Ass, "the mighty hunter") put a new vassal,
Ardashes IV, into the governorship; but the great Armenian barons
would not give up the struggle, and this last of the Arshagoonian
dynasty was removed in 428 and Persian governors substituted.
Thus ended the rule of the line of Arshag. It was a mighty race, and
swarms with brilliant names; but in Persia it was justly displaced
by one of better public policy, and in Armenia the position of the
country was fatal to it.
THE INTERREGNUM.
PROMINENT MEN; LITERATURE; THE CHURCH AND THE CLERGY.
From the time of the partition to the succession of the Pakradoonian
dynasty there was not in name an Armenian kingdom; but it must not
be supposed that there was not an Armenian nation. No matter how its
neighbor nations changed, that country was always called Armenia,
and the people held to their Armenian ways and feelings. The national
feeling was as strong as before, and above all the feeling of church
unity was very intense. No one will ever understand Armenian history,
or indeed any Oriental history at all, who does not realize that
religious questions come first, and political questions second. The
Armenian church was, it is true, a Christian church; but it was the
Armenian Christian church, not the Greek church, and the Syrian and
African churches had their separate creeds and preferences, and the
Greek church, which was the official church of the Greek Empire, was
always trying to root out their "heresies" and make them Greek. That
was one reason why the Mohammedans conquered those countries so
easily. The Africans would rather be ruled by the Mohammedans than
by the Greek church, the Syrians were angry because the Greek church
wanted to take away their own church and give them the Greek. But the
Armenians would not take either the Greek or the Mohammedan or the
Zoroastrian; they wanted their own. So they were persecuted terribly
by the Greek Christians and the Persian fire-worshipers alike. Just
as before the partition, each country invaded the other's part of
Armenia whenever they got into war; and whichever won, the Armenians
were the losers. When the Greeks won, they tortured the Armenians;
when the Persians won, they tortured the Armenians; later, when the
Mohammedans won, they also tortured the Armenians. The mediaeval
history of Armenia is that of a battle-ground between contending
races--Greeks, Persians, Scythians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks,
Mongols, and so on. Millions of its people were slain; millions died
of famine and disease; millions of its women were forced to embrace
Mohammedanism and become the wives and mothers of Mohammedans,--half
the blood of those who are called Turks at this day is Armenian;
millions of its boys were forced into the Turkish service, so that
many of the best-known names in Turkish history, and in the Turkey
of to-day, are Armenian names. Yet through all these calamities and
decimations Armenia has kept its national life and national religion.
From 390 to 640 the history of both sections of Armenia is little
more than an account of religious persecutions and their results;
the persecutors on the one side were Christians, and on the other
side Zoroastrians, but the results to the Armenians were much the
same. The Persian atrocities, however, were on the larger scale,
and the outcome was a chronic state of revolt, which will be alluded
to in the sketch of Vartan the defender. But the rise of the Saracen
power changed Armenia's greatest foe from the Persian to the Arab,
from the fire-worshipers to the Mohammedans. Persia was invaded by
the forces of the caliph Omar in 634, and about 640-2 the decisive
battle of Nehavend annihilated the last great Persian army, though
scattered places held out much longer. The Armenian highlands at once
resumed their independence, and their chiefs, with those of the western
section belonging to the Byzantine Empire, fought for their own hand
in lack of a true national chief whom all could look up to, but allied
themselves mainly with the Greek power against the barbarians; and
for two entire centuries, and more, Armenia was a furious and bloody
battle-ground between Greeks and Saracens, while internally in a state
of feudal anarchy. Then a prince of the family of Pakrad or Bagrat
(well-known to students of the last century's history in the form
of Bagration), of Jewish descent, as has already been mentioned,
which had obtained power over the central and northern parts of
Armenia, was recognized by the caliph as an independent monarch; and
thus founded the Pakradoonian dynasty, which lasted till Armenia's
independence was once more extinguished by the Byzantine Empire,--a
crime almost immediately punished by the overwhelming of Asia Minor
by the Seljuk Turks.
PROMINENT MEN OF THE PERIOD.
NIERSES THE GREAT.
This was the great creator of Armenian scholarship. He was a descendant
of St. Gregory; studied in the Greek schools of Caesarea during
boyhood; later in those of Constantinople, where he became famous for
learning, married a Greek princess of a distinguished house, and on
his return to Armenia was made pontiff. (All the clergy were married
then, as the Greek priests are now.) He founded over 2,000 schools,
and benevolent institutions, as well as great numbers of churches,
was a powerful and persuasive preacher, and a considerable writer,
part of the Church history being his. From these schools went forth
a very brilliant band of scholars, preachers and orators, the equals
of any in the world.
It was during his pontificate that the affairs of Arshag and Bab took
place, and he was intimately connected with them till his death at
the hands of the latter. Previous to the desertion of Armenia by the
Romans in 363, they had quarreled with Arshag, and sent an army to
punish him; but on Nierses' intercession with Valens it was recalled,
and the Saint obtained high favor with the emperor. Arshag's conduct,
however, grew too bad for endurance; he had his father and a relative
named Kuenel (or Gnel) killed, and married Kuenel's wife, Parantzem
(who afterwards met such a horrible fate), though his own wife,
Olympias, was still alive. Nierses, finding admonition of no avail,
quitted Vagharshabad and went into a convent. But Arshag, getting into
fresh difficulties with the emperor and his own rebellious vassals,
besought the saint to assist him once more, and once more Nierses
complied. He first pacified the turbulent nobility; then interceded
with the Roman commander to such effect that the general withdrew his
army and went to Constantinople to justify himself to the emperor,
taking a letter to him from Arshag, and hostages for the latter's
loyalty, and also inducing Nierses to accompany him. But Valens was
enraged at the withdrawal, would neither read the letter nor see the
saint, and ordered the hostages killed and Nierses banished. The former
sentence was revoked on the general's intercession, but Nierses was
shipped for his place of exile; on the way a storm wrecked the vessel
on a desert island, but he and the crew were saved. It was winter,
and they could find no food but the roots of trees, but in a short
time the sea miraculously cast abundance of fish on shore, and for
eight months they never suffered for sustenance. At the end of that
time the saint was set free.
After the restoration of Bab to the land, though not the acknowledged
throne of his fathers, Nierses convened an assembly of Armenian princes
and ecclesiastical heads, with the king, and swore them all to mutual
concord and good behavior, to unite the land against the Persians;
but Bab, like so many Eastern potentates and indeed his father, cared
for nothing but to indulge his own passions, and would have sold his
country to Shahpur if he could have got his price. Nierses in vain
tried to turn him from his evil ways; Bab merely hated him for it,
and finally had him poisoned, in the village of Khakh in the province
of Eghueghiatz. Nierses had been pontiff eight years, but they were
crowded with labors of immense variety and usefulness. He left one son
(Isaac), who eventually became pontiff also.
SAHAG AND MESROB.
Isaac was educated at Constantinople like his father, and had at first
no thought of being a great churchman, but only of leading the life of
a noble. He was always, however, of a very pure and lofty character,
a marked contrast to the proud and dissolute nobility around him;
and after the early death of his wife, devoted himself to religious
seclusion, into which he was followed by sixty disciples. In 389,
a few years after his father's death, he was called out to fill the
pontificate, once more vacant. This was the year before the partition
of Armenia; but even after that, though the country was divided,
the church was not. The Armenian Church was still one, with a single
head; but the appointment of that head was of such immense political
importance that, as the king had before claimed the deciding voice
in it, so now each power insisted on being satisfied,--no easy
matter. Some of the nobles who opposed Chosroes of Persarmenia
now complained to the king of Persia that the appointment of the
new pontiff had been made without his consent, in order to foment
a rebellion, and make Armenia independent again; and the king
deposed Isaac. Shortly after, however, a new king reinstated him;
and a new vassal king being put in Chosroes' place, and the country
more quiet, St. Isaac began to repair the churches, which had fallen
into decay,--rebuilding that of St. Ripsime, destroyed by Shahpur,
in the course of which he discovered St. Gregory's urn sealed with
his cross-engraven signet.
About this time St. Mesrob began to be famous for sanctity. He was
a scholar well versed in Greek, Syrian, and Persian, as well as
his native tongue; had been secretary to St. Nierses, and after his
death remained at court under the patronage of a prince named Aravan,
where he became chancellor. Finally he became wearied of earthly glory
and court corruptions, and entered a convent, whither many disciples
were attracted by his learning and sanctity. Hearing of St. Isaac's
beneficent deeds, however, he left the convent and attached himself
to him; and under his authority preached and taught in all parts of
the province. We are told that by the aid of the chief of Koghten he
extirpated a diabolic heathen sect in that province. But his fame
is chiefly as having begun with Isaac the Golden Age of Armenian
literature; I shall speak of this a little later.
BAROUYR OR BROYERIOS.
We must not judge the ability and reputation of men in their own
ages solely by the familiarity of their names to us; those that have
come down to us are a mere handful, and not by any means always the
greatest of their time. Much depends on chance--the preservation
of certain works, and the loss of others, or certain men happening
to do something dramatic. Great orators are especially likely to be
forgotten; they leave no written works of their own, and not being in
political life, the common histories do not mention them. The name of
Barouyr is wholly unknown to this age; but we have the testimony of
a contemporary writer, Eunapius of Sardis,--not a countryman of his,
and therefore free from all suspicion of patriotic brag, and most
unlikely to make out an Armenian greater than he was,--that he was the
most wonderful orator of his time, famous all over the Roman world,
and greatly admired even by the emperors. He was one of those men to
whom all languages seem alike to come by nature, and his oratory was
as easy and as perfect in one as in the other; in Latin or Greek as
in his national Armenian. The only comparison I can give in modern
times is Louis Kossuth. That Barouyr has not the fame of Cicero or
Demosthenes, Kossuth or Gladstone, is probably because under the
circumstances of the time he could not engage in political life;
military service or high birth were about the only avenues to that. I
will quote in substance what Eunapius says of this brilliant orator,
whom he probably knew all about, as our boys know Gladstone,--for he
was born in 347, and Barouyr was certainly alive in the time of the
Emperor Julian, who came to the throne in 361:--
Barouyr lived to be ninety, and was beautiful even in old age, having
the vigor of youth in his looks. He was eight feet high. When a boy he
left Armenia and went to Antioch, the first seat of the Christians,
and entered the school of oratory under the celebrated Albianos,
where he shortly became the foremost pupil. Thence he went to Athens
and studied under Julian, the greatest of the teachers of oratory
there,--supporting himself by working meantime, as he was very poor;
in no long time he was recognized as the leading orator of Athens,
and taught the art to the Athenians. The other teachers were so angry
that they bribed the governor to banish him; but on the governor's
removal some time after, he was permitted to return. The new governor
instituted an oratorical competition; whoever could deliver the best
extempore oration on a subject to be given out on the spot, should
receive great honors. Barouyr took part on condition that the auditors
should take careful notes, and should not cheer; but they were so
fascinated that they broke both conditions, listening in rapture and
applauding repeatedly. The governor offered him his chair, and honored
him as the greatest orator in Athens. Later, the Emperor Constans was
so struck with his wisdom and oratorical power that he called him first
to Gaul and then to Rome, where he delivered his greatest orations,
and the Romans erected a bronze monument in his honor, inscribed
"Regina Rerum Romae, Regi Eloquentiae" (Rome Queen of Affairs, to the
King of Eloquence). From Rome he returned to Athens, and taught there
many years with great repute, up to the time of the Emperor Julian,
who honored him, and spoke as follows of him: "Barouyr was a flowing
river of oratory, and in power and persuasiveness of speech was
like Pericles." And I must add that with all this he was a thorough
Christian man,--not a priest, but a great Christian layman and teacher.
VARTAN, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.
Vartan Mamigonian is the most esteemed and beloved name in Armenian
history. Tiridates founded the Christian kingdom; but when the religion
was in danger of extermination throughout Persian Armenia at the hands
of the fire-worshipers, Vartan saved it, and died for it, a faithful
servant of God and his Saviour. It was said of him that he was an
honest, modest, wise, brave, true, pure, childlike, and Christ-like
Christian commander, a great soldier of the Cross. He was a lamb in
nature, but when he came to defend his religion he was a lion. As a
little boy he was so full of grace that the Pontiff Sahag adopted him
as his son; and through this companionship of the aged ecclesiastic
and the religious boy, the latter developed into a great spiritual
light. In 421 he went to Constantinople with St. Mesrob, and was much
loved and esteemed by the emperor (Theodosius II) and the court; then
to Persia, where the king honored him and gave him the title of prince.
In 439 Yazdegerd II of Persia succeeded his father, Bahram V, the
destroyer of the Arsacid dynasty, and began a furious persecution
of both Jews and Christians, which lasted a dozen years, and ended
in a complete victory for religious freedom. The king, like James I
of England, fancied himself a great theologian, and could always be
victorious in a debate by killing his opponent. One specimen will
suffice. He called a convocation of Armenian priests and noblemen,
and commanded them to embrace fire-worship on pain of death. "Your
Christ cannot save you," said he, "for He is crucified and dead." "Oh
my gracious king," replied a young nobleman, "why did you not read
further about Christ? He was indeed crucified, but rose again,
ascended to Heaven, and is living now and our Saviour." The king in
a rage had his head struck off.
Finally in 450 the people of Persian Armenia rose in revolt, and
determined to fight for their religion. Vartan took command of them,
and showed himself the ablest commander of his time. For a year he
held at bay the overwhelming forces of the Persian Empire, and was
victorious in every battle, even to the last,--a striking parallel
to Judas Maccabaeus in historical position, as well as military
ability. Finally the forces were arrayed for battle on the banks of
the Dughmood river, in the plains of Avarayr, near the present city of
Van. Vartan had 66,000 men, the Persians several times as many. Vartan
prayed to God for help, and to Christ for his own salvation; then he
made a speech to his soldiers, in substance as follows:--"Soldiers,
as Christians we are averse from fighting; but to defend the Christian
religion and our own freedom we have to fight. Surely our lives are
not as valuable as Christ's, and if he was willing to die on the
cross for us, we ought to be willing to die in battle for him." Then,
with his troops, he crossed the river, fell on the enemy's center,
and scattered the huge army in rout, killing 3,544 men besides nine
great princes, and losing 1,036 of his own; but alas! one of these
was himself, dying from a mortal wound not long after. Nevertheless,
he had won the victory he was striving for. Yazdegerd saw it was
impossible to conquer the Armenians in a war for religion, and granted
entire liberty to the Christians to believe and preach as they pleased.
ARMENIAN LITERATURE.
FIFTH CENTURY.
The Armenian schools and universities and their outpour of great
scholars and writers have already been spoken of, but of course
Armenian youths, eager for the best of the world's learning,
did not confine themselves to their own country; they studied in
Constantinople, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and wherever great
teachers were located. All were zealous Christians, and the books
they have left behind were Christian literature, not works of mere
enjoyment. A very rich and valuable literature it is, too, in my
judgment the most so of any single body that exists; though much of
it has perished in the recent destruction of everything Christian
the Turks can reach. My readers will not credit my opinion of it,
because most of it has never been translated, but that makes it all
the more valuable now, it has so much that is new to add to the stores
of the world. It is not necessary to give them all, but to point out
the chief writers.
The fifth century is called the Golden Age of Armenian
literature. First in point of time as well as importance comes the
Armenian Bible. The furious opposition of the Church in the Middle Ages
to letting the people have the Bible to read in their own tongues seems
perfectly ridiculous, when we remember that in the early Christian
church every people had it in their own language, and it was thought
to be the greatest work for a heathen people that could be done, to
translate the Bible for them. It was not thought needful then to keep
the word of God in a strange tongue, so that the people could neither
read it for themselves nor understand it when it was read to them.
There were probably some books of popular tales and songs in Armenia
before the fifth century, for we are told that there was an Armenian
alphabet to write them in as early as the second, but if so they
have all perished, and the alphabet was doubtless a poor and meager
one. Armenian scholars and writers read Greek or Latin books, and
occasionally Hebrew or Syriac ones, and wrote in Greek or Latin
themselves; if it was necessary to write Armenian, as in letters,
they made the Greek, Syriac, or Persian characters, which of course
were insufficient to give the Armenian sounds. They would have got
along with this, however, if it had not been for the eagerness of
Christian enthusiasm which made them wish to give the Bible to Armenia;
it was to spread the word of God, not to write books, that they were
anxious. St. Mesrob set to work and invented a very perfect alphabet
of thirty-six letters, to which two have been added since. According
to one of his disciples, having vainly sought help from the learned,
he prayed to God, and received the new alphabet in a vision. This was
about 405. He and Sahag the Pontiff at once began to translate the New
Testament and the Book of Proverbs from a poor Greek version, the best
they had, with the assistance of two pupils, John of Eghueghiatz and
Joseph of Baghin. This was finished in 406. Many years later (seemingly
about the time Persian Armenia was made a satrapy), they undertook the
translation of the Old Testament; but as the Persians had destroyed
all the Greek MSS., it was necessary to use a Syriac version. The
same two assistants aided them; but being sent to the Council of
Ephesus in 431, they brought back copies of the Greek Septuagint,
and the old translation was at once dropped, and a new one put under
way. But all found their knowledge of Greek too imperfect to rely on,
and the pupils were sent to Alexandria and Athens to complete their
education; on their return they seem to have brought a new Alexandrian
version, and corrections were made from that, and the work completed,
most likely about 435.
The Bible completed, they turned to other labors. The Saints Sahag and
Mesrob are said to have written six hundred books themselves, all in
Christian theology and instruction; and the pupils from the schools
St. Nierses and themselves had founded--the chief of their own were at
Noravank, Ayri, and Vochkhoroz--wrote great numbers besides. The first
original work of Sahag was one on Pastoral Theology, setting forth
that the Church of Christ is the Bride of Christ, and the ministers
must therefore be holy, pure, and obedient. He wrote many epistles to
kings and emperors, all of whom reverenced and were greatly influenced
by him. He wrote a large part of the Armenian Church History, composed
many hymns, and translated many commentaries and theological works
from the Greek.
Fortunately during this period the government of Armenia was very good,
with the exception of one period of two years or so; even after its
partition, for close on forty years it had practically self-government
in internal affairs, and for another decade the Christians enjoyed full
rights of worship. Bahram IV of Persia (389-399), who helped divide
it, was a monarch who loved peace above all things, both with foreign
countries and his own people; his successor, Yazdegerd I (399-420),
went even further, employed the Catholicos or Pontiff on embassies
to Constantinople, and as mediator with his own brother, and made
his son, Shahpur, governor of Persian Armenia, continuing the Arsacid
dynasty. He was murdered by his nobles, instigated by the Zoroastrian
priests, for being too tolerant to the Christians, and his successor
Bahram V, who got the throne by favor of the rebellious elements,
tried to please them by persecuting the Christians; this involved him
in a war with Rome, as I have said, and after a couple of years he
made peace and gave toleration again. The turning of Persian Armenia
into a satrapy in 428 I have already told; but no fresh persecution
was undertaken till that of Yazdegerd II, in 439, ending in Vartan's
revolt just detailed. Shahpur of Armenia was a prince of great wisdom,
generosity, and public spirit; he patronized men of learning, founded
schools, made large grants from the treasury for scholarship, and
sent scholars to all the great seats of learning to teach and acquire
the languages, literature, and history of other nations, after which
they wrote and translated hundreds of volumes. Among them were Tavit,
Khosrov, Mampre, and Zazar; a great historian, Eghishe (Elisaeus),
author of the Life of Vartan; and a great philosopher, Yeznic. These
are only a few out of scores worthy of mention.
Dr. Philip Schaff says:--"In spite of the unfavorable state of
political and social affairs in Armenia during this epoch, more than
six hundred Greek and Syrian works were translated within the first
forty years after the translation of the Bible; and as in many cases
the original works have perished, while the translations have been
preserved, the great importance of this whole literary activity is
apparent. Among works which in this way have come down to us are
several books by Philo-Alexandrinus, on Providence, on reason,
commentaries, etc.; the Chronicle of Eusebius, nearly complete;
the epistles of Ignatius, translated from a Syrian version; fifteen
Homilies by Severianus; the exegetical writings of Ephraim Syrus,
previously completely unknown, on the historical books of the Old
Testament, the synoptical gospels, the parables of Jesus, and the
fourteen Pauline epistles; the Hexahemeron of Basil the Great; the
Catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem; several homilies by Chrysostom,
etc. The period, however, was not characterized by translations
only. Several of the disciples of Mesrob and Sahak left original
works. Esnik wrote four books against heretics, printed at Venice
in 1826, and translated into French by Le Vailliant de Florival,
Paris, 1853. A biography of Mesrob by Koriun, homilies by Mambres,
and various writings by the Philosopher David, have been published;
and the works of Moses Chorenensis, published in Venice in 1842,
and again in 1864, have acquired a wide celebrity; his history of
Armenia has been translated into Latin, French, Italian, and Russian."
SIXTH CENTURY.
The leading authors in this century are Abraham Mamigonian, who wrote
on the Council of Ephesus; and Bedross Sounian, who wrote on the Life
of Christ. There are, however, many others of merit.
SEVENTH CENTURY.
By far the greatest name in this century, and indeed the best-known
and most important name in Armenian literature altogether, is
the writer who calls himself Movses Khorentzi, well known to all
historical scholars as Moses of Chorene, author of the History of
Armenia. For more than a thousand years, up to this century, indeed,
this was practically the only source of Armenian history to the world;
the other writers were inaccessible. And it is still very valuable,
though not in just the way it was once thought to be. It preserves
a vast amount of Armenian tradition, stories and ballads, and real
history, which have perished except for this work; but he seems not to
have had the Greek and Latin histories to draw from, and makes a great
many mistakes. He gives a life of himself, and says he is writing in
the fifth century, and knew Sahag and Mesrob when he was young; but he
really lived in the seventh, and wrote history about the year 640. But
still he is a great writer, and one of Armenia's literary lights;
and we do not need to claim for him anything more than he deserves.
Besides Movses, the chief authors were Gomidas, Yezr, Matossagha,
Krikoradour, Hovhannes, Vertanes, and Anania. They wrote chiefly
religious books; but Anania Shiragatzi is the author of a valuable
work on astronomy.
EIGHTH CENTURY.
The leading authors were: Hovhan Imassdasser, Sdepannoss Sounetzi,
and Levont Yeretz. They wrote hymns, books on oratory, etc.
NINTH CENTURY.
Zakaria Shabooh, Tooma, Kourken, etc.
TENTH CENTURY.
The chief authors were Anania, Khasrov, and Krikor Naregatzi. The
latter wrote a prayer book in ninety-five chapters, which one of the
missionaries of the American Board thinks the best in the world. He
says that only Beecher was able to offer such prayers as Krikor
Naregatzi.
ELEVENTH CENTURY.
The leading writers were Hovhannes, Krikor, and Aristagues. In this
century some of the best commentaries were written on the Bible.
TWELFTH CENTURY.
Leading authors: Nerses Shinorhali is the foremost of Armenian poets,
and a thoroughly converted and consecrated man of God. His hymns were
intensely spiritual, and the Armenians still chant them in their
churches. They are worthy to be translated into English. Nerses
Lampronatzi, the greatest scholar ever born in Armenia, was a
distinguished commentator on the Old Testament, and wrote many other
books. Another is Yeremia.
Again I quote from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopaedia:--"Another
nourishing period falls in the twelfth century, during the Rubenian
dynasty. Nerses Klagensis and Nerses Lambronensis belong to this
period; also Ignatius, whose commentary to the Gospel of St. Luke
appeared in Constantinople in 1735 and 1824; Sargis Shnorhali, whose
commentary on the Catholic Epistles was published in Constantinople in
1743, and again in 1826; Matthew of Edessa, whose history, comprising
the period from 952 to 1132, and continued by Gregory the Priest to
1163, contains many interesting notices concerning the Crusaders;
Samuel Aniensis, the chronologist; Michael Syrus, whose history
has been edited with a French translation by V. Langlois, Paris,
1864; Mekhitar Kosh, of whom a hundred and ninety fables appeared
at Venice, 1780 and 1812. A most powerful impulse the Armenian
literature received in the eighteenth century by the foundation of
the Mekhitarist monastery in Venice, from whose press the treasures
of the Armenian literature were spread over Europe, and new works,
explaining and completing the old, were added. The Armenian liturgy
was published in 1826, the breviary in 1845, the ritual in 1831."
THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
Leading authors:-- Krikor Sguevratzi, Kevork Sguevratzi, Mukhitar
Anetzi, Vanagan Vartabed, Vartan Vartabed, etc. They wrote histories,
commentaries, etc. As the Armenian dynasties ended in the fourteenth
century, I will reserve my notes on the later literature till towards
the end of the book.
The peculiar value of the Armenian literature is not realized as it
should be, by European and American scholars; the language is well
worth learning for what it can give the student. Not alone is the
original work that comes from the first Christian nation specially
valuable for its bearing on primitive Christianity, but the Armenian
scholars translated great numbers of works from other languages,
and these translations are preserved in Armenian monasteries when
the originals have been irretrievably lost in the wars, and burnings,
and devastations of other countries. Six hundred volumes of this old
literature are known to exist now, two hundred in Europe, and four
hundred in different places in Armenia.
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH.
The first thing to remember about this is, that it is an independent
and separate body as much as the Greek or the Roman Catholic church,
and older than either of them. I often hear such expressions as "the
Armenian Catholic Church," and many people think it simply a "branch"
of the great Eastern or Greek Church. It would be just as sensible
to consider the Greek a branch of the Armenian Church. Each of them
represents a form of church organization and body of doctrine which
best satisfied the representatives of certain races or nations;
the advantage of the Greek was that that race--or at least its
speech and thought--happened to be dominant in the Roman Empire at
the time when Christianity won the battle, and so had the official
backing of the empire, and was able to outgrow and crush down the
others. It was not any truer, any more the real Church of Christ,
than the Syrian or African or Armenian; it was not the earliest,
for the very first Christian churches sprang from the Jews; it was
not even the earliest great national church body, for the Armenian
church has that distinction. It had the most soldiers back of it to put
down its opponents, that is all. I have already told the story of the
foundation of the Armenian church by St. Gregory and Tiridates. That
church has its own head--the Catholicos or Pontiff, who is no more a
subordinate of either the Pope or the Greek Patriarch than the Grand
Llama is, or Dr. Parkhurst--and its own self-subsistent being.
As to the differences between them, in the first place the Armenian
is a purely Trinitarian. There is no room for Unitarianism within
its lines. When Gregory the Illuminator was preaching his sermons
on the hills and plains of Armenia, he laid the foundation of the
national church in the Trinity. His first sermon was on the Trinity;
his last sermon was on the Trinity. In all his sermons he asserted
the Trinity,--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus Christ
being a perfect Man and a perfect God; in his person we see God in man
and man in God; a perfect Emmanuel, God with us. We see in him that
man can be united with God. The only possible way of salvation is
through Jesus Christ. He is the Saviour of the world and none else,
and whosoever believeth in Him shall be saved. This is the belief
and the only belief of the Armenian Church. Its members repeat the
Apostolic Creed and the Lord's Prayer every day in their churches. I
say every day because Armenians go to church every day,--twice,
morning and evening, and three times on Sunday.
Secondly, the Armenian has never been a persecuting church, and
every other one of the great Christian churches has been. The Armenian
church, as befits the first and most Christ-like of all the bodies that
professed Christ before Luther's time, has always been the broadest,
the most inclusive, the most untechnical of churches. It fellowships
with all other churches. It demands only that men shall profess and
believe in Christ, and live Christian lives; not that one shall belong
to its own church body. Its canons are conversion and regeneration,
purity, holiness, being born again from the Holy Spirit and becoming
Christ-like. It holds that Christianity is brotherhood through Jesus
Christ, and gives no warrant for oppression or persecution, curses
or anathemas. I need hardly say that it is alone in this of the
older churches. The others hold that no one can be saved outside of
their own bodies; hence they fulminate anathemas against all others,
and have the anathemas read in their churches, and they persecute
others to compel them to join themselves, or rid the world of a
possible danger that their own members may be tolled outside. The
Greek Church, where it has full power, will not even allow people
of other creeds to come into its country; for example, in Croatia a
Protestant is not allowed to live there at all, and the people said
in the Hungarian Diet that "intolerance was the most precious of
their rights." The Russian Greek Church will not permit a Protestant
missionary in Russia. Where the Roman Catholic power is complete,
it is just as intolerant. The Armenian church has been repeatedly
persecuted by both, and has always protested against the principle
of it, as well as against the pretensions of the Popes to universal
sway. It is fairly entitled to be called the first Protestant Church.
That the Armenian contention is for freedom of will, freedom of
conscience, freedom of worship, and political freedom, is the cause
of their being hated both by the Mohammedans and by their so-called
Christian neighbors; but it ought to be also a reason why Americans,
who believe in these things themselves, should sympathize with us. If
the Armenians would accept Mohammedanism, would the Turks persecute
them? No. If they would accept Roman Catholicism would the Turks
persecute them? No, for the Catholic states would not permit it. If
they would accept the Greek Church, would the Turks persecute them? No,
for Russia would not permit it. But as they are an independent church
the others are interested in persecuting them, and nobody is interested
in defending them. If there is any help to come to them it will not
be from the old churches of Europe, but from Protestant Anglo-Saxons
helping their spiritual brethren, the Anglo-Saxons of the East; and
it will be found, when the great battle comes, that the Slavonic,
Greek, and Catholic churches will be on the side of the Mohammedans
against the Armenian Christians. But that battle will come, and the
victory will be on the side of freedom and righteousness.
As to theological questions, the Armenian Church fathers did not pay
much attention to them. Not because they were not able, but because
they were too able, and very far-sighted. They knew well that such
questions can never be solved, no matter how many centuries pass away,
no matter how great scholars the world produces; therefore they would
not enter into the debate. And so every Armenian scholar has his own
theology. I confess that the Armenian Church has not a theology, or an
especial official doctrine; and this is a very fortunate thing for the
Armenians. They care more for righteousness of life than for particular
beliefs about the way of getting it. When there was a great controversy
in the Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D., about the nature of Christ,
Armenians did not care about it. Some of the great theologians said
Christ had two natures; some said he had only one nature; the Armenian
bishops would not give any opinion. They believe in Christ as their
Saviour, that is the essential thing; but whether He has two natures
or one nature is not essential. Then came the controversy about the
Holy Spirit. Whence does the Holy Spirit proceed? Some say from the
Father and the Son, some simply from the Father. When the question came
before the Armenian bishops they replied that they did not care whence
He proceeds. They know that they need the Holy Spirit for guidance
in spiritual life, for regeneration; they know that the Holy Spirit
is one of the persons in the Trinity; and that is enough for them.
Now I would ask, do the theologians of the nineteenth century agree on
such questions, or any other theological question? Are the theologians
of the coming centuries going to agree on them? I leave this to the
scholars of Europe and America. I simply state that I studied in three
different theological seminaries in America; first in Oberlin, in 1880;
second in Union Theological Seminary, New York, in 1881; and finally
I was graduated from the Chicago Theological Seminary. But I never saw
a theologian who could agree with any other, and have no hope ever to
see any such. President Fairchild of Oberlin differed from Professor
Shedd of New York, and Professor Boardman of Chicago did not agree
with either of them; and I never agreed with any of them, and as an
Armenian I have my own theology. So every reader of this book will see
that the Armenian scholars had the best judgment, far-sightedness,
and common sense of those in any or all the communions. Instead of
theological controversies, they preached the gospel and reached the
masses, for the Kingdom of Christ.
THE ARMENIAN CLERGY.
The Armenian clergy are divided into three classes: the pastor,
the preacher, and the presiding bishop. The pastor is called Yeretz,
the preacher is called Vartabed, and the presiding bishop is called
Yebisgobos (Episcopus). The presiding bishop ordains the preacher and
the teacher. The Armenians believe in apostolic succession, and they
believe in immersion. Baptism can be administered both to grown people
and to children, if they are the children of members of the church;
but always by immersion, and in the name of the Father, the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost. If you unite the present Episcopal church with
the Baptist, you will make an Armenian church. All the clergy of the
Armenian church, bishops, preachers, and teachers, were married in the
early centuries. Gregory the Illuminator, the first bishop of Armenia,
was married. His sons were bishops, and were married. There was no
church law whatever against marriage of the clergy. At present the
bishop and the preacher, or the Yebisgobos and the Vartabed, cannot
marry, but the pastor or Yeretz must be married. No Armenian pastor
can be ordained if he is not married.
Of course I am not writing here an Armenian church history; the main
object in writing this book is to inform the American public about the
causes of the atrocities, and the atrocities themselves. Therefore
I consider the above information about the Armenian church enough;
but I will add that the Armenian church until the twelfth century
was as simple in ceremonial as any American Protestant church is
to-day. But when their kingdom was coming to an end, and they were in
a life-and-death struggle with the Mohammedan powers, Popes Innocent,
Benedict, and others promised to help them if they would accept some
of the Roman doctrines and ritual; and since that time--the twelfth
century--there has been more or less similarity in the ceremonial of
the two churches. But Armenians have never believed in the Pope, and
now they are getting rid of the Roman ritual also, as it is foreign
to them.
Before I finish this subject, I must give a little information about
the Armenian Patriarch in Constantinople, and the Armenian Catholicos
of Etchmiazin. There are many people in this country who do not know
the difference between the Patriarch and the Catholicos. The difference
between them is as follows: The Patriarch at Constantinople has nothing
to do with religion, though he is a bishop. As a personal bishop, he
goes to the church, and occasionally preaches and leads the pastors,
but his duty is political. He is the political head of the Armenians
in Constantinople, and responsible to the Sultan for the Armenian
nation who live in Turkey. The Armenians are not anxious to have
such a political head; it is simply the wish of the Sultan, or it
has been the wishes of the Sultans in centuries gone by. The present
Patriarch, Right Rev. Bishop Izmirlian, is a very learned, experienced,
and eloquent bishop. He is very popular; the whole Armenian nation
love and esteem him; but the Sultan hates him, because he is brave,
honest, and true. The Sultan ordered him to send out false reports,
alleging that the Armenians were not being massacred, but were safe
and prospering under Abdul Hamid's reign; but the Patriarch refused
to issue any such documents while in fact the Armenians were being
plundered, tortured, outraged, and killed. The Patriarch's life is
consequently in great danger, but the Patriarch says that if it is
necessary to sacrifice his life for his beloved nation, he is ready
to die.
The Armenian Catholicos is the spiritual head of the Armenian
church; he has nothing to do with politics. He is considered to
be fallible, and he is elected both by bishops and laymen; and if
the nation is not satisfied with him, they may remove him and elect
another. He is a presiding bishop. He lives at Etchmiazin (the former
Vagharshabad) north of Mt. Ararat in Russia; it has been the seat of
the Pontiff since the time of St. Gregory. The present Catholicos is
Rt. Rev. Bishop Mugurditch Kirimian. He is very much esteemed and loved
by the Armenians throughout the world. Before he became Catholicos,
he was Patriarch in Constantinople, and was the most popular and
the ablest of Patriarchs, but the present Sultan of course hated
him, and according to stories I heard from good authority, when I
was in Constantinople, tried repeatedly to kill him. One day he was
summoned to the palace to see the Sultan; but on arriving there, was
instead locked into a room with a brazier of burning charcoal, and
left to die. Before it was too late, however, the Russian Ambassador,
being informed of the attempt, saved his life. Failing to get rid of
him that way, the Sultan banished him to Jerusalem, but sent false
reports to the newspapers, that he thought highly of the Patriarch,
and had given him money to go to Jerusalem that he might improve his
health and enjoy himself. The Sultan lives and breathes falsehood.
While in Jerusalem, Kirimian was shadowed by the Sultan's detectives;
but about three years ago he was elected Catholicos by the Armenians,
and the Russian Czar (not the present one, but his father, Alexander),
sanctioned his election. The Armenians are proud of him, for he
is worthy of his office. He is a great scholar, and the author of
several books which are worthy of translation into English. His book
Traghti Endanik (the family of Paradise), is the best book I ever saw
or read in any language on family life. In it he describes the first
holy family, which was created in the Garden of Eden, in Armenia,
and then goes on to describe a holy family, the ideal family, a true
home. It is full of the Holy Spirit. Catholicos Kirimian was married
and had a family, and really his family was a holy family and he had an
ideal home,--therefore Armenians call him Kirimian Hayrig or "father,"
and he is worthy of the title; but his wife died. He is also a great
orator, preaching fiery gospel sermons as our greatest revivalists
preach them. He loved the American missionaries in Constantinople,
and they returned the feeling. Kirimian was born in Van April 16,
1820; therefore he is now 76 years old, but full of life and vigor. I
hope he will live longer, to see his beloved nation and country saved
from the oppressions of the cruel Turkish Sultan. I could write a
book on the life of Kirimian and his great deeds in Armenia, for the
Armenians; how he opened schools and established printing presses;
how he went to the Congress in Berlin and championed the Armenian
cause; and all his noble works. But this is not the place.
THE PAKRADOONIAN DYNASTY.
For a century after the Mohammedan conquest of Persia, the fortunes
of Armenia were apparently at their lowest ebb, and as a country it
almost disappears from history; but by one of the compensations of
nature, which provides that human force, like other force, cannot be
extinguished, but if suppressed will find an outlet elsewhere, its
people began a career of brilliancy and power unequaled in its history,
and broadened from the rule of a tormented buffer-state to that of
the great Byzantine Empire itself. The Saracen torrent flowed over
Armenia's lowlands and up to the base of its mountain fortresses, but
never overcame them; generation after generation the contending forces
battled together, surging back and forth, and filling the beautiful
valleys with fire and blood, but Armenia proper was never added to
the list of Saracen conquests, never made a part of the Mohammedan
Empire or strengthened Mohammedanism till four centuries later through
Byzantine greed and folly. Internally it was all in feudal anarchy
again so far as concerned any one central focus of government. Even
the Persian satraps had gone from the Persian side, and with them the
half-control they had kept over the turbulent baronage; on the Roman
side from early in the seventh century to early in the eighth, the
throne of Constantinople was filled with weak and unstable monarchs,
fighting for Anatolia against the Saracens, and unable to exercise
any effective control over Armenia, to which indeed they looked as
a frontier defense against those very foes.
But let us not attach too harsh a meaning to "anarchy." There were a
hundred rulers, it is true, great dukes and barons, each supreme in
his own district; but because they held power by the sword against
a savage enemy, their subjects had to be a strong, independent race,
with arms in their hands, which they would use against their chiefs
as well as the foreigners if there was great oppression. In this
fiery school, Armenia learned the sternest lessons of self-help
and discipline. With no interference from outsiders to fear, and no
help from them to be got, it became even more confirmed in its own
independent isolated ways, a world to itself as it has been ever
since. Its cultivators tilled their fields as they had done for
so many centuries, and its scholars read such books as they had,
and wrote such as their own minds furnished. But vast numbers of its
hardy sons took service in the Greek armies, and became the bone and
sinew of the defense of Asia Minor against the caliphs; not only so,
but they rose by hundreds to the highest commands in the empire, both
civil and military. They formed the best "society" in Constantinople
itself; and to crown all, a score of emperors and empresses in four
different lines, including the most illustrious ones that ever sat
on the throne from Constantine down, and who ruled the empire for
two hundred and seventy-seven years, were Armenians.
It is within the truth, and can be justified from the greatest of
English historians, to say that for four centuries the Byzantine
Empire was not a Greek but an Armenian empire. Armenians by blood
filled all the great offices of state, commanded the armies, occupied
the throne for nearly three hundred years, preserved the empire from
external invasion and internal disintegration. It was the accession
of an Armenian dynasty that turned it from a decaying power to one
that expanded steadily for two centuries, from one falling into
anarchy to one the glory of the world for scientific organizations;
and it was the final overthrow of Armenian influence that ruined
the empire, being followed almost at once by the loss of half its
territory and the richest part, and the break-up of its system of civil
administration. Everywhere in the time of Byzantine glory you find the
list full of Armenian names. The appearance of "Bardas" as the name of
generals or civil magnates is always proof of Armenian blood, and that
name is monotonously common; it is the Greek form of "Vartan," though
now and then they make it "Bardanes." One of the greatest conquerors
in Byzantine history, John Kurkuas, was an Armenian, from a family
which supplied three generations of statesmen and generals, and two
great emperors. And this is part of what the immortal historian of
"Greece Under Foreign Domination," George Finlay, has to say:--
"At the accession of Leo III (717), the Hellenic race occupied a
very subordinate position in the empire. The predominant influence
in the political administration was in the hands of Asiatics,
and particularly of Armenians, who filled the highest military
commands. Of the numerous rebels who assumed the title of emperor,
the greater part were Armenians. Artabasdos, who rebelled against his
brother, Constantine V, was an Armenian. Alexios Mousel, strangled
by order of Constantine VI, in the year 790; Bardan called the
Turk, who rebelled against Nicephorus I; Arsaber [Arshavir] the
father-in-law of Leo V, convicted of treason in 808; and Thomas,
who revolted against Michael II, were all Asiatics, and most of them
Armenians. Many of the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire belonged to
the oldest and most illustrious families in the Christian world; and
their connection with the remains of Roman society at Constantinople,
in which the pride of birth was cherished, was a proof that Asiatic
influence had eclipsed Roman and Greek in the government of the
empire. An amazing instance of the influence of Asiatic prejudices
at Constantinople will appear in the eagerness displayed by Basil I,
a Sclavonian groom from Macedonia, to claim descent from the Armenian
royal family." (But I shall show that he was an Armenian.)
Let us note the Armenian sovereigns of the Byzantine Empire. First the
great Iconoclast house, of Leo the so-called Isaurian, the saviour and
restorer of the empire, which reigned from 716 to 797. Leo considered
himself an Armenian, and he ought to have known best, and he married
his daughter to an Armenian. He saved Constantinople from capture
by the Saracens, causing the destruction of the finest Mohammedan
army ever got together; of its 180,000 men only 30,000 got back home,
according to the Mohammedan historians. Twenty-two years later another
great Moslem army was annihilated by Leo, and for two centuries
the Saracens scarcely troubled the empire again. But not only so,
he remodeled the whole administration so effectively that no serious
break-down occurred for three centuries, and he put new life into the
whole society, so that it began to outgrow its enemies, as well as
outfight them. After his able dynasty ended, another Armenian, Leo V,
reigned seven and a half years, from 813 to 820. About half a century
later began the Basilian dynasty, under which the laws were codified,
and Bulgaria destroyed. Basil was born in Macedonia, but the name
of his brother, Symbatios, Armenian Simpad, shows that he was of an
Armenian family, the colonies of Armenians having spread all over the
civilized world. His line reigned without a break from 867 to 963,
when the beautiful widow Theophano was pushed aside for sixteen
years by another Armenian house, Nikephoros Phokas and his nephew
John Zimiskes, two of the ablest generals and statesmen ever on the
throne, descendants of a brother of the great commander, John Kurkuas,
before spoken of; then Theophano's son, Basil II--Boulgaroktonos,
the Bulgarian slayer, and the ultimate destroyer of Armenia as
well--took the throne, 979, and the dynasty continued till 1057,
when it had run to dregs, and had just before finally ruined Armenia,
and by so doing ruined the empire.
To go back to Armenia itself. The reason a feudal anarchy always ends
in a military monarchy, no matter how able or self-willed every one of
the separate chiefs may be, is that this very class most interested
in perpetuating it grow weary of it. The stronger barons oppress and
plunder the weaker, who are always superior in numbers, and in united
strength if they will act together. A small lord may like to be free
from control by the king's officers as well as a great one; but if he
can only have that privilege by letting his overbearing neighbor be
free from it too, and rob him, he finds it does not pay, and sighs
for a law that will control everyone alike, and a strong ruler to
enforce it. So if a chief in such a community comes to be known as
having a hard hand and letting no one be above the law but himself,
the small landholders flock under his banner; he grows into a prince,
and eventually some prince of such a family will make himself king,
with the goodwill and help of all but a few great houses, who feel
able to take care of themselves and desirous of taking care of others.
This happened in Armenia. In 743, a century after the battle of
Nehavend and four years after Leo's crushing defeat of the second
great Saracen army, we find that a chief named Ashod, of the family
of Pakrad or Bagrat, claiming descent from the ancient Jews (see
the Haigian dynasty in this book), had managed to win control over
central and northern Armenia; how long it had been exercised, or
what it grew from, no one knows. Ashod I is the first known founder
of the Pakradoonian dynasty, though it is counted as beginning from
the recognition of its independence by the caliphs over a century
later. He recovered some parts of Armenia proper, and fought hard for
Lesser Armenia. The family had vigorous blood in it, and somewhere
in the ninth century--885 is the date fixed--it was recognized by the
caliphs as an independent house of kings, and Armenia as a kingdom. But
it had really been so for over a hundred years before.
Ashod II, "the Iron," gained his title from his stern military power;
he beat back the Arabs and gave the land peace for a considerable
time. He left no son, and his brother Appas succeeded him; another
brave and wise ruler, who brought back the Armenian captives held in
bondage by the Saracens. He made the city of Kars his capital. It
is now owned by Russia, having been captured by her forces in the
Russo-Turkish war of 1878. He greatly improved the city, and built
a beautiful cathedral there. After a reign of twenty-four years he
died in peace, and his son succeeded him as Ashod III.
This was the glory of the line in prowess and generosity; he reminds
one of Alfred the Great, in England. He was the terror of his country's
enemies; not one of them--Arab, Greek, or Persian--dared to invade
Armenia, and they sent presents to conciliate his friendship. It was
under him that the country became formally independent again. He filled
it with fortified places. He gave all his personal income in charity,
and established almshouses and state charities. He was so benevolent
and so interested in the destitute that he was called The Merciful. He
ruled over Armenia twenty-six years, and was succeeded by his son
Simpad. This was neither a good man nor good ruler; corrupt, cruel,
and ambitious only for selfish purposes. He made the city of Ani, on
the north side of Mt. Ararat, the royal capital, built strong walls and
lofty towers around it, and is said to have erected 1001 churches in
it--which he might do, and still be a bad man. The extent of its still
existing ruins of palaces, churches, towers, and castles testifies that
it was one of the great cities of the world, like Babylon and Antioch.
For more than a century Armenia flourished and grew rich; then it
disappeared once more under the hammer and anvil of Byzantine and
Saracen, aided by internal disruption--the traitorousness of its great
nobles, who hated the kings for controlling their lawlessness. Let
us take in just its situation. It included the heart of the Armenian
highlands; but it had not the extent of old Armenia, several Armenian
districts being independent of it, and either free or tributary to
the Byzantine Empire. Ani was its seat; but the district around Kars,
fifty miles northwest, had split off into a separate principality, the
boundary between the two being the Aras; on the east was Vaspourakan,
another princedom; on the west Sebaste, another; on the north Iberia,
and Abkhasia or Abasgia or Albania, the realms of the Georgians; and
one or two others not quite certain,--but all these ruled by Armenian
princes, mostly of the Pakradoonian house. Though Armenia was in
fragments, therefore, the pieces formed a sort of family confederacy,
and often acted together, as they did to their eventual ruin. Their
folly paved the way for the destruction of Armenian national existence,
and the worse folly of a Byzantine emperor accomplished it. About
1020 the Seljuk Turks were pressing so hard on Vaspourakan that the
prince, Sennacherib, was unable to hold out, and ceded his dominion to
Basil II of Constantinople in return for the sovereignty of Sebaste,
which he agreed to hold as a Byzantine governor; great numbers of
his subjects went with him. Something about this transaction roused
the Armenian national feeling to resentment; for John Simpad, king of
Armenia (known at this time as the Kingdom of Ani, from its capital),
joined with George the Pakradoonian king; of Iberia, to promise help
to a couple of discontented generals, one at least an Armenian, who
were to raise the standard of revolt in Cappadocia and call on all
Armenians to rise. It was to have been a general revolt of all eastern
Asia Minor. But the mighty Basil, conqueror of Bulgaria, and nearing
the end of his half-century's reign, first crushed the rebellion by
buying up one of the generals and getting him to assassinate the other
(the Armenian), and then crushed the league of Bagratian kings. The
king of Armenia, as the price of retaining his throne, was compelled
to sign a treaty ceding the kingdom to the Byzantine Empire after
his death.
John Simpad was succeeded by his nephew Kakig, an able ruler and
good general. But in 1042 there was placed on the Byzantine throne
the fourth husband of the despicable old female (Zoe), whose male
creatures, married or not married to her, misgoverned the empire for
nearly thirty years. The reign of Constantine Monomachos stands out
black in the history of the world; it not only destroyed Armenia,
but it fatally wounded the Greek Empire; it gave Asia Minor to
the Turks; it was the first great step towards subjecting Eastern
Christianity to the Mohammedans; it began the Eastern Question. The
sack of Constantinople by the Turks, four centuries later, was
directly due to it. Almost never has sheer contemptible negative
good-for-nothingness produced such awful results. He was a worthless
man and an utterly incapable statesman; a libertine without decency,
a spend-thrift without generosity or taste, a ruler without sense
of responsibility. Having spent on debauchery or his favorites,
or diversions, or palaces in Constantinople, or other selfish,
short-sighted gratifications, or on the church to win its indulgence
for them, all the money he could wring from his subjects without
risking his throne, he bethought himself of another resource. The
provinces on the frontiers of Iberia, Armenia, and Syria, were exempted
from taxation, and the small dependent states in that region from
tribute, in consideration of maintaining bodies of militia to defend
their territories, and save the central government from keeping
regular troops there. The emperor ordered the militia disbanded,
and the taxes and tribute collected and remitted to Constantinople
as from other places. This monstrous piece of imbecility laid the
southeastern frontier open to the Turks at once; and the money was
quickly wasted in the emperor's pleasures. But even this was not
enough, and he cast his eyes on Armenia as a rich country to squeeze
taxes out of, and sent word to Kakig to fulfill his uncle's will, and
yield up his kingdom. Kakig refused. Constantine formed an alliance
with the Saracen emir of Tovin (on the east flank of Armenia),
and sent an army to attack Ani; and a number of the great Armenian
nobles turned traitors and joined the Byzantine forces. Kakig could
not make head against the three allies with the slender forces left
him; and choosing to yield to Christians rather than Saracens, though
Constantine evidently had no such scruples, surrendered Ani to the
imperial forces (1045), and went to Constantinople to plead his cause
with the emperor. Constantine would not yield, and Kakig resigned
his kingship for a magistracy, and large estates in Cappadocia. The
emperor forced the Catholicos to leave Ani and live at Arzen, then
at Constantinople; finally the Comnenian house allowed him to settle
in Sebaste among his people. The princedom of Kars alone preserved
its independence against both Christians and Saracens, and thus the
Armenian life still beat; but as a kingdom, Armenia perished and the
Pakradoonian dynasty with it when Ani surrendered.
This piece of wanton foolishness and criminality had its immediate
reward; it laid all Asia Minor open to the Turks--for the Armenians
after they had lost their independence would not fight for their
oppressors as they had fought for themselves; and the Turks were
ready. Three years before the capture of Ani, a Turkish chief, cousin
of Togrul Beg, flying after a defeat, had asked the Byzantine governor
of Vaspourakan to let him pass through that district; on being refused,
he attacked the imperial troops, routed them, captured the governor,
and on reaching Turkish ground sold him as a slave, and urged Togrul
to invade the Byzantine territories, as they were of matchless
fertility and wealth, and the troops not formidable. Togrul sent
his nephew Ibrahim to do so in 1048; the timid Byzantine commanders,
after defeating a detachment of his troops, waited for reinforcements
before encountering the main body, and Ibrahim, finding the movable
wealth mostly stored up in fortresses, assailed the rich, unfortified
city of Arzen, with 300,000 people, who had neglected to transfer
their possessions to Theodosiopolis, the nearest fortress. It was
one of the chief seats of Asiatic commerce, full of the warehouses of
Armenian and Syrian merchants. They defended themselves for six days
with such desperation that Ibrahim, giving up the hope of plunder,
and wishing at once to secure his rear from attack while retreating,
and to injure Byzantine resources, set fire to the city, and reduced it
to ashes. Few such conflagrations have ever been witnessed on earth;
perhaps Moscow and Chicago are the only things comparable. It is said
that 140,000 persons perished in the fire and in the massacre by the
Turks that followed, and the prisoners taken were such a multitude
that the slave markets of Asia were filled with ladies and children
from Arzen. This was the first of the many such calamities that
have dispersed the Armenians all over the world, like the Jews, have
reduced one of the richest and most populous countries on the earth
to a poor and thinly populated one, and turned Asia Minor practically
into a desert. The next year Kars was overrun; but in 1050 an attack
on Manzikert failed, and after an unsuccessful invasion again in 1052,
the Turks retired for a while, but only for a more terrible onslaught.
Before going on to the next dynasty, I will finish the story of
Kakig. In his Cappadocian magistracy he was still called King Kakig
and honored as a king. One day he heard that a Greek bishop had
called his dog "Armen" to insult the Armenians, and went to his
house to make sure, and to exact vengeance if it were true. They
drank heavily together, and Kakig ordered the bishop to call his dog;
the bishop, too drunk to know what he was about, called him "Here,
Armen." Kakig, in a rage, ordered his retainers to put the bishop
and his dog into a bag together, and then beat the dog till he bit
his master to death. The church was too powerful for even a king
to murder a bishop with impunity, and Kakig was hanged on a castle
wall. This gave rise to the Turkish proverb, "Kart Giavour musliman
almaz, Room Ermenie dost almaz" (An infidel never becomes a Moslem,
a Greek never loves an Armenian). The Turks have always acted on this,
and used the Greeks against the Armenians; but the old hate has died
out now under common oppression.
THE RUPENIAN DYNASTY.
The imbecile policy of the Byzantine Court continued after the
suppression of the line of Pakrad, and with even worse results. Having
destroyed the interest and even the right of Armenia to keep up
an army of her own, and confiscated her revenues applied to that
purpose, the loss of defenders should have been made good as far
as possible, by keeping a large regular army there in their place;
but the same corrupt and profligate court avarice which had caused
the one, prevented the other. Not only did Constantine X (1059-67)
actually reduce the number of his army, leave it unprovided with arms
and ammunition and other supplies, let the frontier fortifications
fall out of repair, and leave the garrison unpaid, to save money
for his overgrown court of costly favorites (the Byzantine court a
little later cost $20,000,000 a year by itself), and let the officers
put civilians on the rolls, and made artisans and shop-keepers of
their real soldiers to pocket fraudulent pay for themselves, as the
Persians do now, but he used to disband most of his army after every
campaign to save paying them, letting them have free quarters on the
citizens. The Seljuks were prompt to take advantage of this. In 1060
Togrul sacked Sebaste. In 1063 his greater nephew Alp Arslan began
a series of raids that soon reduced Iberia and Northern Armenia
almost to a waste. The systematic policy of the Turks was to make
any country they invaded impossible of civilized habitation again,
by obliterating all the results and "plant" of civilization which
many ages of labor and money had enriched it with. They deliberately
cut down all the vineyards, orchards, and olive groves, wrecked the
aqueducts, filled up the wells and cisterns, broke up the bridges,
and in short made the land (except for a few fortresses) a mere
desert pasture ground to feed their cattle on. They were only nomad
shepherds and cattle-men, despised cities as at best necessary evils,
and did not care for tilling the soil. Whatever spot the Turk has
set his foot on, he has blasted like a breath from hell, turning to
naught the labors of thousands of years at a blow; and he has never
put anything of his own in place of what he has destroyed. Where are
the Turkish great cities developed by them, the Turkish flourishing
agricultural regions, the Turkish manufactures, the Turkish literature
or art? At most they have not quite been able to exterminate others'
progress, because they must perish themselves in doing it.
The Armenian king of Iberia had to submit; the Armenian prince of
Lorhi close by had to give his daughter's hand to Alp Arslan; and
at last the royal city of Ani, though strongly situated on a rocky
peninsula and protected on two sides by a rapid river and a deep
ravine, was left without help by the Byzantines, and in spite of a
heroic defense, was taken by storm, June 6, 1064. This convinced the
Armenian prince of Kars (another Kakig), that he could not hold out;
he surrendered his province to the Byzantine Empire for the appanage of
the district of Amassia. This removed the last Armenian prince from the
old seats of the race, which were now all occupied by the Turks; and
the Armenians emigrated in vast numbers to the districts west and south
(old Cappadocia and Cilicia), where their native princes were living
as great Byzantine dukes and governors. A number of semi-independent
vassal principalities were soon formed, making as before an Armenian
wall between the Turks and the empire; but only part way, and far
weaker, having left its impregnable mountains, and being much poorer,
and having lost heart. The upper part, through Old Armenia, was left
wholly open; and the Seljuks poured into Asia Minor like a flood,
ruining the country beyond reparation as they went. Within a dozen
years from the capture of Ani, the Seljuk dominion reached to Nicaea,
fifty miles from Constantinople, and the seat of the first Christian
church council. Its lands could be seen from St. Sophia; the Byzantine
Empire retained only a strip of Asia Minor along the sea-coast.
But the Armenian courage and national spirit, and the political
and military ability which had governed the Eastern Empire so many
centuries, were not extinct. The heart of the nation, forced out of
its immemorial lands, still beat strongly, and animated their mass
of dukedoms, now forming a compact body in the center of Asia Minor,
with a common life and national instinct, which was soon to weld
them into a new Armenian kingdom, as true and real a one as the
old, Armenians under an Armenian prince, but in a wholly different
territory, south and southwest of the former. Among the great barons
of this district was one Rupen (Reuben), a relative of the slain Kakig;
it is said that he saw him hanged. At any rate, no sooner was the deed
accomplished than he retired to the mountains of Northeastern Cilicia,
and raised the standard of Armenian independence, with himself as
king. There was absolutely no reason why it should not be gained;
the Seljuk conquests had cut the Armenian districts wholly off from
the Greek Empire, so that a Greek army could not come upon them to
punish them for revolt without traversing at least a hundred miles
of Turkish or other Mohammedan territory. The Armenian settlements
were an island in a sea of Mohammedanism. The new kingdom of Cilicia
or Lesser Armenia grew with a rapidity that would seem miraculous,
only it was a mere coalescing of the fragments of Armenia into their
old unity; in no long time it had spread east to the Euphrates,
taking in Melitene (Malatia), and Samosata, north fully half way to
the Black Sea, and south to the Mediterranean, occupying the coast
from Tarsus almost to Antioch. This kingdom played a part of the first
importance in the history of Asia Minor for close on three centuries;
its territories were gradually whittled away by Turks and Mongols, but
it kept the Eastern Mediterranean open for Christian action against the
Mohammedans to the last. To their shame, the Byzantine emperors were
much more hostile to it than to the Turks, with whom they often allied
themselves against it; for some years it was vassal to the Byzantine
Empire; later it was overwhelmed by the Mameluke deluge from Egypt,
and allied itself with Jenghiz Khan's Mongol hordes against them;
but the Mongols passed and the Mamelukes remained, and exacted a
terrible vengeance, putting an end to the kingdom with the usual
horrors of Oriental conquest in 1375.
Rupen's son Constantine succeeded him. It was by his help that
the leaders of the first crusade captured Antioch. Constantine was
succeeded by his two sons, Leo and Theodore jointly, but finally
Leo reigned alone; he was an able prince, fought the Saracens with
success, and much enlarged his kingdom, and at last made a naval
attack on Isaurian Seleucia, the frontier fortress of the Byzantine
Empire in this part, and an important seaport. This brought "Handsome
John," the ablest of the Comnenian line of Byzantine Emperors, into
the field; he stormed the Cilician seaports, and then reduced the
chief interior fortresses; Leo fled to the Taurus Mountains, but was
captured, and died in captivity at Constantinople. His son Rupen had
his eyes put out on a charge of treason, and died of it; but his other
son, Toros, escaped, and after John's death restored the Cilician
kingdom, which had temporarily been made vassal by John. Toros is
the glory of the whole Rupenian line; he was of the first rank, both
as a general and a statesman. He scarcely ever suffered a military
reverse. He beat the Byzantine armies in campaign after campaign, and
the Seljuks as well; under him the new Armenia was almost a match for
all its enemies combined, and no one of them dreamed of attacking it
single-handed. Levon was another able ruler, who maintained the power
and prosperity of the kingdom; he was an ally of the great Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa in the Third Crusade, assisted him in capturing
Iconium (1190), and both Frederick and the Greek Emperor Alexius III
sent him crowns,--the second no great honor, as Alexius was one of
the most contemptible of human beings. In Levon's time the capital
of the kingdom was Cis, where there is now a great Armenian monastery
with rare manuscripts, the residence of a Catholicos. The changes in
the extent of the kingdom are very curious; perhaps most curious of
all (since the Armenians were always a race of inland and highland
farmers, not seamen), the new kingdom was gradually crowded down on
the north and lost two-thirds of its territory in that direction,
but steadily extended along the coast until it came to include not
only all Cilicia but all of old Isauria clear to its western mountain
barrier; hundreds of miles of seaboard, from close to Antioch on the
one side, to far west of Cyprus on the other, being indeed a strong
maritime power. At the end it had lost these western coast extensions,
but still had an area larger than that of the Crimea now, a very
considerable power to hold the northeast corner of the Mediterranean.
It was during these times that the hard-pressed Armenians received
promises from the Popes to help them against their enemies if they
would use the Roman ritual and ceremonial, and submit themselves
to the papacy. The country never did accept Romanism, though some
churches introduced the ritual and images, and conformed to the Roman
fashion; and of course it never did get any help from the popes, who
had nothing to give but recommendations, which the temporal powers
paid no attention to.
Levon VI was the last of the line. He was a weak, easy-going man,
handsome and popular, but not of much ability; perhaps he could not
have saved his country if he had been. I have told of the Mamelukes and
their invasion; they overran the country, and treated the people as the
Turks have done lately, striking terror to them by terrific massacres,
satiating their lust on the women, and carrying off many thousands of
captives for wives or slaves. Levon was taken captive also; after some
years in Egypt, he was permitted to go free, wandered through Europe
for a dozen years, and finally settled in Paris, where he died in
1393. He was buried by the high altar of the Church of the Celestine;
the following epitaph is on his monument, which still exists to-day:
Here lies Levon VI, the noble Lousinian Prince,
the King of Armenia,
who died 1393, A.D., Nov. 23d, in Paris.
I have been dealing here with the special kingdom of Armenia, under a
regular king; but it must not be forgotten that the older sections,
ruled by Greek or Turk, were Armenia still, inhabited largely by
Armenians, in spite of emigration and Turkish settlement, and their
fortunes really part of this history. Under both Jenghiz Khan and his
successors, and Timour, every horror was let loose on the unhappy
lands. For nearly a century the first Tatar invasion cursed and
devastated it; hundreds of villages were destroyed, the inhabitants
slain or at the mercy of the savages, and vast numbers emigrated in
despair. Among others, the cities of Ani and Erzeroum were captured,
and every inhabitant put to the sword, each soldier being given
his portion to kill, so that none should escape. Timour compelled
all whom he spared to become Mohammedans. When he took the city of
Van, he threw the inhabitants from the castle walls until the dead
bodies reached to the height of the walls. A great famine followed,
and many thousands died of it; the starving wretches sometimes ate
their children or parents to sustain life a little longer. The reader
will see later whether the modern Turks have any superiority over
the hordes of the thirteenth or fifteenth century.
IV.
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
SULTANS OF THE PAST.
The Ottoman Empire begins with Othman, born 1258 A.D.; the dynasty is
usually counted from the time of his being given a local governorship
by the last of the Seljuk Sultans, in 1289. The tribe was simply one
small group of families when we first hear of it; Othman's father
Ertogrul entered the Seljuk dominion not many years before that
date with only four hundred tents, say two thousand people in all,
counting women and children. They had been driven from their homes
in Central Asia by the Mongols. The Seljuk Sultan Ala-ed-din III
made Othman governor of Karadja-hissar (Melangeia). Now Othman,
though a plundering marauder like other tribal chiefs, turbulent
and cruel, knew some things that better men never find out. He
knew that impartial justice is a greater strength to a state and a
greater lure to draw others to it than anything else; he made the
fair at Karadja-hissar a model of business equity for all races and
religions, it was thronged with traders, and other Turkish tribes
soon flocked to the banner of the man who never broke his promises
and dealt out even-handed justice. The lying Greeks never learned the
lesson in all their history. In a dozen years he was able to collect
an army of 5,000 soldiers, beat a Byzantine force sent against him,
overrun a large province of Asia Minor, and with the plunder greatly
increased his following. He realized too that education and thorough
practical training and moral discipline were the foundations of
success; most of us know that now, but few understood it then. But
the wild and barbarous Turks could not be educated and disciplined
as he wished,--would not stand it and were incapable of profiting
by it,--and so he or his son Orkhan developed the terrible system
which for centuries made the "Turks" irresistible, which made the
"Turks" seem to increase rapidly, and makes the "Turks" to-day
appear numerous while in fact not one drop in ten of the blood in
their veins is Turkish at all. This was to exact from the Christian
population--Greek or Armenian chiefly--a regular tribute of boys as
well as money. These were taken from their parents at about eight
years old, educated and trained in the household of the Ottoman Sultan
himself, of course drilled in the Mohammedan religion, and gradually
inducted into the highest posts, civil or military, if fit for them,
or made into a special body guard for the Sultan. These were called
"yeni cheri" (new soldiers), which is familiar to everybody in the
form "Janissaries." From that day to this, the Turkish system has
been built up by foreign blood, and outside of the Sultanate pretty
much entirely by foreign brains; it was the constant infusion of
fresh civilized Christian ability and moral character into it that
kept its inherent defects and vices from bringing it to an end long
ago. Finally the system partly rotted out and partly became impossible
to enforce for fear of revolution (Sultan Mahmoud ended it in 1826);
but never outside of this has a tribe of barbarians ever succeeded
so completely in impressing into its own service the powers of a
higher race. It is as though horses should have regularly broken and
driven teams of men for centuries; even more usefully to the Turks,
because intermarriage (largely by force on their part) has filled
their own veins with civilized Armenian and other blood. As soon as
this reinforcement stopped, the Turks began to decay.
I cannot enter even in outline into the political history of the
Armenians during the next few centuries. The country has been torn
into fragments, and each fragment has a history so separate that
there would be no unity between them. One section of what was once
Armenia would be governed by Persian officials; another occupied by
the savage Kurds; another mis-governed and oppressed by the Turks;
another under the rule of Russia; and so on. Persia, when she recovered
her national being, held and still holds a small part of the eastern
section, as I stated earlier in the book, Russia the north; but the
heart of old Armenia is in Turkish hands. The Sultans have succeeded
in mixing themselves with the natives and occupying their confiscated
lands till the Armenians are put in a minority in their own country.
I must correct here a notion fostered by historical writers, that
the Turks are very brave. They may have been once, though I doubt it
and there is no proof of it; but they certainly have gotten over it
now. In the last Turko-Russian war (1878), they ran by thousands to
Christian houses for protection. They are just like wild dogs: savage
and ferocious, but not brave. Nor are they wise: they have some low
cunning, but no practical sagacity--that too is a thing of the past. As
to industrial talents they have simply none whatever; they depend on
foreigners for everything: they will not learn and indeed cannot learn,
and never try to learn. They have never made a cannon or even a gun,
they never built a war vessel and very few if any other kinds, they
make neither powder nor shot; all come from Europe or America. Nor
have they even decent military talent, the very thing they pretend is
their special business: their best generals are Germans, their admiral
for a long time was the Englishman Hobart, I think the Englishman
Woods is so now. As to civil ability, their best administrators have
always been Armenians. Bezjian Amira was Sultan Mahmoud's adviser;
Haroun Dadian, another Armenian, is the chief adviser in foreign
affairs of the present Sultan. His personal treasurer is an Armenian,
Portucalian Pasha. Is this inconsistent with what I have said of his
hating the Armenians for their intelligence? Not in the least: he
employs them in spite of his hatred, because he can trust no others:
the Turks are too stupid and all others too unsafe.
LIST OF OTTOMAN SULTANS AND DATE OF ACCESSION.
A.D. | A.D.
1. Othman I, gazi, 1299 | 18. Ibrahim I, 1640
2. Orkhan I, gazi, 1327 | 19. Mohammed IV, 1648
3. Murad I, gazi, 1360 | 20. Suleyman II, 1687
4. Bayazid I, yelderim, 1389 | 21. Ahmed II, 1691
5. Mohammed I, chelebi, 1413 | 22. Mustafa II, 1695
6. Murad II, gazi, 1421 | 23. Ahmed III, gazi, 1702
7. Mohammed II, fatih, 1451 | 24. Mahmud I, gazi, 1730
8. Bayazid II, gazi, 1481 | 25. Othman III, 1754
9. Selim I, yavouz, 1512 | 26. Mustafa III, gazi, 1757
10. Suleyman I, kanooni, 1520 | 27. Abdul Hamid I, gazi, 1773
11. Selim II, gazi, 1566 | 28. Selim III, 1789
12. Murad III, gazi, 1574 | 29. Mustafa IV, 1807
13. Mohammed III, gazi, 1595 | 30. Mahmud II, adil, 1808
14. Ahmed I, gazi, 1603 | 31. Abdul Mejid I, gazi, 1839
15. Mustafa I, 1617 | 32. Abdul Aziz I, 1861
16. Othman II, guendj, 1618 | 33. Murad V, 1876
17. Murad IV, gazi, 1622 | 34. Abdul Hamid II, gazi, 1876
Some of the above Sultans have special titles, like our "William the
Conqueror," "Charles the Bold," "Henry Beauclerk," etc. Thus, gazi and
fatih mean conqueror; adil, righteous; guendj, young; yavouz, brave;
kanooni, law-giver; yelderim, lightning; chelebi, gentleman. Most
of them have the title gazi, or conqueror; the present Sultan bears
it because he fought with Russia. He was beaten, to be sure, but he
took the title all the same.
Sultan Mohammed II, who captured the city of Constantinople,
established an Armenian Patriarchate there in 1461 A.D. The first
Patriarch was Hovaguem, the Bishop of Broosa, a friend of the
Sultan. Mohammed II had two motives in this: first, to have an
Armenian ecclesiastical center in Constantinople for the nucleus of
a strong Armenian settlement there, to play off against the Greeks
from whom the city was taken and who might be dangerous, whereas the
feud between Armenians and Greeks would make each weaken the other;
second, to have a hostage for the Armenians, responsible for their not
breaking into revolt; not at all for the benefit of the Armenians,
but for that of the Sultan. The same reason obtains to this day. If
there was no Patriarch, their cause would be much better off. After
the establishment of this Patriarchate the Armenians had no more
kings or princes; their political head was the Patriarch. Even after
the Patriarchate was established they were not safe. They yielded
to the Sultans, they became slaves to the Sultans, but the Persian
Mohammedans were foes of the Turkish Mohammedans, and Armenia, as
of old in Roman times, was the battle-ground. In the time of Sultan
Ahmed and Shah Appas, the latter overran Armenia and carried away
the people to captivity, besides killing hundreds of thousands. Then
it was retaken by the Turks. Then a part of it was captured by the
Russians. Historians write of the Huguenots and their sufferings; of
the conflicts in Europe between the Catholics and the Protestants. How
many centuries were the Protestants persecuted and martyred? How many
millions were killed by the Roman Catholics? Do all the Protestant
martyrs in Europe number as many as the Armenian martyrs? I doubt it.
And let it not be said that these were not religious martyrs, but
merely victims of the fortunes of war or political conflicts. The
wars were three times out of four based on real if not nominal
grounds of religious antagonism,--Mohammedan or Zoroastrian against
Christian,--or claims of religious protectorate, as Russia over
the Armenian Christians; the political exigencies which called or
formed a pretext for the massacre of myriads of men and old women,
the outrage of the young brides and maidens, the enslavement of the
children, were without a single exception created by the resistance
of Christians to forced conversion, or the fear of Mohammedan rulers
that as Christians they meant to revolt, or sheer blind hatred to
men of another creed. The victims were truly martyrs to Christianity.
THE PRESENT SULTAN, HAMID II.
This is the thirty-fourth Sultan in the Ottoman line, and probably
the worst, the least, and the last. It is not likely the Turks will
ever have another Sultan, for this one is pretty sure to bring the
Sultanate to an end. His days are numbered, he knows it well, and the
Turks know it well too. Before his life and his kingdom are finished,
he has resolved to end the Armenian nation; that, however, will not
be ended, the people will not be exterminated; when the Turkish Empire
is abolished the remaining Armenians will have freedom.
Hamid II was born September 22, 1842, second son of Abdul Mejid,
and wrested the throne from his brother Mourad August 31, 1876. He
is not a legitimate Sultan, but a usurper. When but a little boy he
manifested a savage and cruel spirit. While the Dalma Bagsh Palace,
the largest in Constantinople, perhaps in the world--was going up,
he went to visit it; seeing it unfinished, he called the Armenian
architect and told him it must be finished by the next day. "My dear
prince and lord," said the architect, "I wish I could finish it, but it
is impossible; and especially not to-morrow, since it is Sunday, and we
Christians do not work on Sundays." "You heathen dog, you Armenian,"
said the boy Hamid, "if I grow up, and some day become a Sultan,
I will force all the Armenians to break the Sabbath, and if they do
not, I will order the soldiers to kill them all." He is carrying
out his threat. He grew to manhood without becoming any milder,
and is morally corrupt besides. He has drunken bouts with worthless
associates, and spent his time in all sorts of monstrous debauchery
and brutality. He was such a miserable wretch that it is impossible
to describe his beastly life on paper. There is no humanity in him,
no grace, no sympathy, no brains, no strength; he is pale and sick,
well worthy to be called the "sick man of Turkey."
This is a very different description of him from that given by
General Lew Wallace and Mr. Terrell. I can only say that I know what
I am talking about, and they do not. I lived in Constantinople, as
a native of Turkey, and with means of knowing, seeing him often, and
hear authentic stories of his doings day by day. General Wallace was
invited to the palace, feasted and flattered, and his wife decorated
with jewels; naturally, he thinks no ill of a man who treated him so
well, and with whom he hopes for more good times when he goes back. He
has done infinite harm to the cause of Armenia by his popular lectures,
declaring the atrocities "exaggerated" (he evidently thinks that if
a newspaper report gives ten thousand men murdered when there were
only five, and all the women of a city violated when a dozen of them
got away, you are entitled to dismiss the whole thing from your mind
as of little account), and the Sultan a good man, incapable of such
things. People are bewildered, and ask, "How can we doubt a good
American who was minister there?" Why, good people, what has his
ministry got to do with it? He was hundreds of miles from Armenia,
and did not know any of the chief languages of Constantinople,--either
Armenian, Turkish, or Romanic; and what could he tell of his host,
except of the quality of his hospitality? A man usually shows his
best side to those he entertains; did he suppose the Sultan was going
to amuse his guests by having one Armenian disemboweled, and another
emasculated or impaled on red-hot iron rods, and a couple of women
ravished, as a light and playful interlude between the main dishes and
the dessert? His praise of the Sultan is as valuable as his praise
of the Grand Llama would be,--he knows nothing of either; and his
inference from the Sultan's pleasant talk that he could not order
a nation extirpated with hideous cruelties, is simply imbecile. And
since he has given all this loose talk, the consular reports, from
English residents among the very scenes, have been published, showing
that the atrocities have not only not been exaggerated, but are even
worse than reported. In this case, even the newspapers were unable to
come up to the truth; their rhetoric fell short of the full measure
of the awful truth.
To go back a little: Twenty years ago Abdul Aziz, uncle of the present
Sultan, was the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. He cared little for
the country or the people; he wanted only to eat and drink, and have
good times. He was a very strong and hearty man, and I was told he
could eat a whole roast lamb for dinner, and think it probable. He
had the innate cruelty of his family, their love of blood for its
own sake. He had tigers and lions fight together; he would order a
live lamb flung to a lion, and laugh to see the lion tear and devour
it. He married all the handsome girls he could find, but for pure
animality; he cared nothing for their education or virtue, and his
several hundred wives were what you might expect. One of them fell in
love with the commander-in-chief, or Minister of War, Heussein Avni
Pasha, a very ambitious and daring adventurer, who had gained the
confidence of the Sultan, and went often to the palace. The Sultan
heard of the intrigue, went to the woman's room, kicked her fatally,
and threw her out of the window. But before her death, she sent word
to Heussein to avenge her on the Sultan. Heussein's position was very
critical; evidently it was a race between him and the Sultan which
should kill the other first. He went to Midhad, the Grand Vezir,
and to Kaysereli Ahmed, the admiral, both liberal-minded pashas,
in favor of establishing a constitutional (or even if they could,
a republican) government, and without telling them his relations
to and fears from the Sultan, persuaded them that now was the time
to depose the Sultan, and establish liberal institutions, and told
them it must be done that night, or the Sultan would get wind of
it, and then good-by to all of them. And he clinched the argument
by telling them he would order his soldiers to kill both of them if
they refused to join him, and then depose the Sultan just the same;
"as commander-in-chief," he said, "I can compel obedience, and I am
in earnest." They consented, and while the Sultan was asleep that
night the commander's soldiers and the admiral's sailors surrounded
the palace by the land and sea. This was the Dalma Bagsh, the largest
and handsomest palace in Constantinople. Heussein entered, saying he
had important news for the Sultan. Going to the chamber where Aziz
was sleeping, he awakened him, and said, "In the name of your nephew,
Sultan Murad, I depose you." Then he compelled him to go down-stairs
to a boat in waiting, filled with soldiers, carried him to Cheragan
Palace, and imprisoned him there; after which he informed the Sultan's
nephew, then Prince Murad, that his uncle had been deposed because the
people would not endure him, and added, "As the oldest in the royal
family you succeed him, and I, as commander-in-chief, have the honor
and privilege of humbly serving my master, and leading your majesty
to the throne of the Ottoman Empire."
Murad was too astonished to know what to do or say; but Heussein was
resolute, and Murad reluctantly followed him to the Dalma Bagsh;
there the commander ordered the soldiers to cry out three times
"Padishahum chock yasa" (Long live the Sultan). All this was about
midnight; and meantime printed notices were prepared and scattered
throughout Constantinople that Sultan Aziz was deposed and Sultan
Murad was on the throne. After a few days the commander-in-chief
sent a eunuch and a physician to Cheragan Palace, with orders to
put Aziz to death. They did so by chloroforming him and cutting his
blood-vessels with scissors. Heussein prepared a false report stating
that he had committed suicide, and brought it to Sultan Murad. The
latter did not believe it, and said, "you killed my uncle." Heussein
left the Sultan's presence in great anger, and went to Midhad's
palace to confer with him, calling in also Kaysereli Ahmed and other
officers. While they were together, another officer, Cherkez Hassan
by name, brother-in-law of the dead Sultan, came to the palace,
informing the guard that he had a message from the Sultan to the
pashas, who were in conference. The guard admitted him, and he went
to the parlor. After the usual salutations the commander asked him,
"Hassan, why did you come here?" Hassan replied, "I came to kill you,
dog," and fired three shots at him from his revolver, stretching
him dead on the floor. Then, before the others could assail him,
he killed every one present, except Midhad, who escaped. Hassan
was finally captured and hanged, but Murad was established on the
throne. He was a good-natured and liberal-minded man; he believed in
constitutional government, and organized a working system. There was
to be a parliament, one-third Christians and two-thirds Mohammedans,
elected by the people of the provinces or vilayets. Each vilayet
furnished three members, two Mohammedans and one Christian, all
indorsed by the clergymen. During the elections I was pastor of Adana
in Armenia Minor, and had to endorse our members. The Adana member
was an Armenian named Krikor Bizdigian, the richest man of that
city, perhaps in Turkey; if still living, he must be ninety. When
the parliament was opened in Constantinople, Sultan Murad presided,
and told the members to discuss any questions freely. He said, "We are
here for the good of the country, and the empire needs to be reformed;
how can we reform it?" This was an entire novelty; "government by
discussion" is not the Oriental way, and not the Oriental liking
either. The Mohammedan members were astonished, and they were wrathful
at the Christian members when the latter began to make free and able
speeches. They said, "Are we going to be governed by these heathen
dogs, the Christian hogs? We will have no parliament where every dog
is free to open his mouth. We want the good old ways of Mohammed." They
were like mad dogs, ready to bite. They hated the Christians, and they
hated the Sultan. They went to his younger brother, the present Sultan,
and told him his brother Murad was insane. "He makes Christian dogs
equal to Mussulmen; he will ruin the country; you must become Sultan to
save the Turkish Empire." This suited Abdul Aziz exactly; he headed a
revolt, deposed his good brother, dissolved the parliament, imprisoned
Murad in the palace where his uncle was assassinated, and since then
has been carrying the country to destruction. He is a perfect devil
in all respects. A devil can take the guise of an angel, and the
Sultan has the cunning to make himself appear a perfect gentleman,
a benevolent and humane person. The devil can cheat most people,
and so can the Sultan, all but the native Christians in Turkey,
to whom he shows his horns, and hoofs, and tail.
The nauseous praise of the Sultan from travelers and ministers reminds
me of a Turkish brigand named Guro, who infested Asia Minor a quarter
of a century ago. He robbed year after year all travelers who had
anything worth taking; but when he met tramps he gave them money,
and even a roasted lamb to eat now and then. The tramps all praised
him; he was a benevolent, humane, kind-hearted man; they had never
seen anything cruel or dishonest about him. So the Sultan robs the
Armenians, and uses their money to feast the American ministers and
decorate their wives. Oh, but the Sultan sent money to the sufferers
from famine in the Western States of America; so generous of him! I am
glad to say the money was refused. All Americans who praise the Sultan
are like the tramps and the brigand. They are either ignorant or in
effect bribed. And then there is the affectation of impartiality,
so easy a cover for ignorance, coldness, and laziness. You must say
some good things about a scoundrel, and some ill ones about a saint,
or you will be considered a partisan. You must not tell even the
truth, if the truth is all on one side. If the Sultan massacres all
the Christians in Turkey, why, there are two sides to the question;
perhaps the Christians were not agreeable people, and if so, you cannot
wonder he has them exterminated by sword, and fire, and torture, and
rape; it is really the only way he could get rid of them. And then,
he is king, and has a right to do what he pleases with his own; nobody
has any business to interfere. Of course a President could not order
three millions of people put to death by letting loose all the savage
Indians of the West on them to do as they pleased with them, for the
sake of making them worship the Big Manitou; but a Sultan--that is
different, even though a Kurd is exactly as bad as an Indian, and
an Indian's knife does not cut throats any more effectively, nor an
Indian's tortures inflict more unnamable horrors of suffering, nor an
Indian's torch burn houses any better, nor an Indian's beastly lust
defile women any worse. Are all the writers, then, who have praised
him ignorant or silly? Yes; the Sultan's deeds, proved by countless
thousands of witnesses, set forth in the consular reports, show that
they are.
As soon as Abdul Hamid had seized the throne, he girded on the sword of
Osman, which I will explain later is equivalent to coronation. The keys
of the palace where Murad was imprisoned he keeps in his pocket. The
nominal ground of his imprisonment is insanity, but he was not insane;
it was his liberality of mind, his greatness of heart, and his mild
and kind spirit. He was an exceptional Turk. Then Hamid called Midhad
Pasha to him, gave him $25,000, and told him to leave the country and
never come back. The country was thus left without a single man of any
force of character and a large position combined. After the death of
Aziz the two greatest Turks were Sultan Murad and Midhad Pasha, and
had Murad not been imprisoned, and Midhad banished, the Turkish Empire
would be an entirely different country, and have a different future.
Midhad was finally recalled, but only to be murdered. As the Sultan
felt his position secure, he began to get rid of all men of superior
character and education. Some he banished, some he imprisoned, some he
killed. But Midhad, as the greatest, was the most obnoxious. He was
of course not dispatched at once. He was invited back, made governor
of Smyrna, given the highest emoluments, paid the greatest honors;
then one night he was suddenly summoned to Constantinople by the
Sultan. He knew it was the death-call, and fled to the French consulate
for shelter, but the consul was afraid to protect him. Finally he was
taken by force to Constantinople, tried before a tribunal of course
packed by the Sultan, and condemned to death. But the kind-hearted
Sultan commuted the death sentence to banishment and hard labor for
life, and quietly ordered the officers who were going to take him to
banishment to kill him instead, which they did.
After he had got rid of all the great Turks, he appointed a host
of ignorant and cruel ruffians as governors, sub-governors, and
generals; like Hadjii Hassan Pasha, governor of Beshick-Tash near
the Sultan's palace, and whose business is to watch over the Sultan,
and who cannot read or write. He prefers ignorance, because it means
fanaticism, and he thinks cannot plot against him. He dreads and hates
education and the educated, though he makes a show of encouraging
them. He taxed the people for public schools and put up magnificent
buildings, but there are few if any scholars in them; they were not
built for educational purposes, but for a show, and if necessary,
for barracks in the future. All the same, he has his agents in Europe
and America chant his praises as a lover of learning. Parents will
not send their children to them anyway, for there are not competent
teachers in them; there are a very few ignorant Mohammedan teachers,
but even they are so corrupt morally that no one dares trust his boy or
girl with them. The Sultan professed that people of all nationalities
and religions would have equal privileges in his public schools,
therefore he ordered all to contribute money for them. He raised the
farmers' tax from one-tenth to one-eighth of the crops on pretense
of supporting the public schools. Of course he got most of it from
the Armenians, but there is not an Armenian teacher or child in them.
Abdul Hamid is a stupendous hypocrite and charlatan; he makes a great
pretense of wisdom, religion, and morality, and he has not a spark of
either one. His wisdom is only the animal cunning of a jealous, cruel,
suspicious brute, his morals simply do not exist, and his religion
is pure sham. It is often reported that he is very religious. All
that it amounts to is that every Friday (the Mohammedan Sunday)
he goes to the mosque to worship (a ceremony called selamlik), with
several thousand soldiers lining the roads from the palace to the
mosque to prevent his assassination, of which he is in hourly fear;
that once a year he goes to the old Seraglio and pays tribute to
the mantle of Mohammed and other relics, kissing the slipper, coat,
and beard of the prophet; and he worships in the mosque of St. Sophia
as a conqueror. All this is merely for show, to please the fanatic
Mohammedans. He advertises himself as a temperance man, too, but he
drinks to excess privately. In a word, he is thoroughly false from
top to bottom, pretending all good, and doing all evil.
His officers of course imitate him; most of them are absolute
infidels, believing in nothing, but professing great devotion. I
knew a governor of this stamp. He used to worship at the mosque,
and even ordered a hair of Mohammed's whiskers to be brought from
Constantinople to please the Mohammedan population. He never drank a
drop of liquor in public, but privately drank all he could hold. He
had plenty of fellows. For instance, Khalil Rifat Pasha, the present
Grand Vezir, appointed a few months ago, has been governor of several
different provinces, and notorious in all as a great hypocrite and a
thoroughly corrupt man, full of lust and profligacy. When a European
or a native Christian of high position called on him, he would treat
the visitor with great politeness, promise anything he asked, say,
"take my word of honor," and assure him of his entire sincerity; as
soon as he was gone, Khalil would curse him, and call him a heathen
dog, say to another Mohammedan, "See how that Christian hog believed
what I said!" and keep not a word of his promises.
The Sultan is just the same. He is outwardly very pleasant, very
gentlemanly, very humane. He will promise almost anything, but he will
do nothing, and he calls his enraptured guests dogs and hogs behind
their backs. Who knows how many times he has called Lord Salisbury,
the German Emperor, or the Russian Czar, who are helping him to kill
the Armenians, heathen dogs? See the promises of the Sultan in 1878,
in the Berlin Treaty, Article 61:--"The Sublime Porte undertakes to
carry out without further delay the improvements and reforms demanded
by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians,
and to guarantee their security against Circassians and Kurds. It
will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the
powers, who will superintend their application." These promises were
made eighteen years ago, and the reforms were to be made "without
further delay." His reforms have consisted in ordering Circassians
and Kurds to murder and plunder them. Since the Berlin Treaty, the
Sultan, calling the European kings, emperors, and princes heathen
hogs and Christian dogs, directly and indirectly has killed 200,000
Armenians. That was his reform.
When he seized the throne, Turkey had 40,000,000 people, and the
Sultan thought his power was irresistible. He let loose a horde of
Circassians to massacre the Bulgarians, just as he has let loose
the Kurds to massacre the Armenians. But the Bulgarians are Slavs,
and belong to the Greek Church, and the Russian Czar, Alexander,
grandfather of the present Czar, interfered in their favor. This
excited the fears of the other powers, and a Congress was held in
Constantinople to settle the question. Lord Salisbury came from
England, Count Ignatieff from Russia, and others from other parts
of Europe, gathered in a beautiful palace (now the admiralty) on the
shores of the Golden Horn of sweet waters, discussed the question, and
decided that the Bulgarian atrocities must stop, Bulgaria be reformed
and allowed to govern itself internally, and that Turkey must not fight
Russia because it was too weak. This decision was communicated to the
Sultan, and he was furious: he would not grant freedom or a government
to Bulgaria, and he was quite able to fight Russia. Finally he refused
flatly to accept the decision, and called a Turkish Congress to give
their "opinion." Of course they gave what was wanted, and pronounced
in favor of a war with Russia. A few were bold enough to disfavor it,
and the Sultan punished them. One of these was Hagop Efendi Madteosian,
the representative of the Protestant Armenian community. Another was
a thoughtful, experienced Turk, and when the Sultan asked him his
reason for opposing the war, he related the following parable:
"There was once a miser whom the king gave his choice of three
things: to eat five pounds of raw onions without bread at one meal,
to receive five hundred lashes on the bare back, or to pay $5,000. The
miser could not bear to lose so much money; he could not endure such
a flogging; and he chose to eat the onions. After eating a pound or
so their bitterness and rankness nauseated him, and he concluded to
take the whipping. He stood about a hundred lashes, and saw that he
should die under it; and decided to pay the $5,000 after all." "Now,"
said the wise Turk, "this illustrates what I mean. If you go to war
with Russia, you will sacrifice many thousands of soldiers, which is
a very bitter thing to digest; then you will lose European Turkey,
and finally you will have to pay millions of dollars indemnity and
ruin the country. I cannot approve the war." The Sultan cried out in
rage, "Begone, you old crank! I will not listen to any more foolish
words from you. I shall conquer the Czar, enlarge the country, and
strengthen my kingdom." He did go to war in 1876, was whipped by the
Czar, and lost almost the whole of European Turkey and other parts
of the empire, with 22,000,000 people: Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia,
Bosnia, Herzegovina, part of Macedonia, part of Armenia, Cyprus, and
afterwards Egypt. He lost many thousands of soldiers and millions of
dollars, and besides has had to pay millions of dollars indemnity to
Russia. And the Sultan is called an "able man" and "wise ruler"! These
things look like it.
After the war and the loss of the provinces, he encouraged the
Mohammedan population of European Turkey to emigrate to Asiatic
Turkey, that they might not live under Christians, and that they
might increase the number of Mohammedans in the Asiatic part. The
slaughter of the Armenians and the confiscation of their property
forms part of the scheme to make room for them. Before his time the
Armenians in Armenia outnumbered the Turks; but the massacres, the
occupation of the farms and houses by the savages let loose on them,
and the emigration of many more Armenians to Persia and Russia, have
greatly diminished their numbers. Of course they are not permitted to
emigrate, they simply fly. About 200,000 have actually perished. As
to the forced conversions, the Sultan does not care a particle for
Islamism, but wants to please the Moslem and finds this an agreeable
way to do it. As to the converts from Islamism to Christianity, they
are ordered to go to Constantinople and are killed there. Hundreds
and thousands of the Mohammedan Turks are Christians in secret,
but do not dare to confess it. These are the ones who helped and
protected the Armenians during the recent atrocities. Some six years
ago a number of such professed the Christian religion publicly;
they were at once ordered to go to Constantinople and every one of
them was murdered by order of the Sultan. When the representatives
of the Christian powers asked about them the Sultan denied that they
had come there at all. This was the method of their assassination:
The Sultan has several pleasure boats, and in one of these boats he
fitted up an air-tight room with an air-pump; each night one of the
converts was taken from prison and put into this room, the air was
pumped out, and he was suffocated; then an iron chain was hooked
round him, and he was thrown into the Bosphorus. One by one all of
them were so murdered. How did the author of this book discover the
secret? Well, when in Constantinople, I had an intimate friend among
the engineers; the engineer of this death boat told my friend about
it, and he told me.
And the Sultan is not simply a murderer by proxy and official
order; he is a murderer himself personally. When in Constantinople,
I learned from several authoritative sources that he killed with
his own revolver several of his servants, for no cause whatever,
but merely from suspicion or rage. He always keeps a revolver in his
pocket, and whomever in the palace he suspects, he shoots. He is a
great coward. I heard there that he has more than 10,000 detectives,
at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars a year. He lives in
Yildiz Palace, about two miles from the Bosphorus, on a hill on the
European shore; he has built new barracks, and keeps a large army
around the palace to protect him from assassination. His "wisdom" is
merely care for his skin. He cares nothing for the prosperity of the
country; it is steadily growing poorer, while he is personally growing
very rich. That is one reason why he keeps an Armenian treasurer,
that the Turks may not know his secrets. Even the Turks are disgusted
with him. I often used to hear the Turks say, "God deliver us from the
Sultan and send another master, even if he is the Czar of Russia." His
immense family costs him from $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 a year; it is
the largest in the world. I was told that it consists of 5,000 persons,
counting the eunuchs, the servants, and all. He has about 500 wives;
he did not marry them all; he inherited most of them. When a Sultan
dies, his successor has everything that belonged to him, including
his wives. And besides, he has to marry a new wife every year, by the
Mohammedan and governmental law; he has no choice in the matter. That
makes twenty wives in the twenty years of Abdul Hamid's reign. This
is the system: He has at present nearly one hundred young girls in
the harem, supposed to be the most beautiful in the world; they are
presented to him by the governor-generals, who get them from the local
governors, who get their offices by sending their superiors the finest
looking girls, or the best Arabian horses, and the governor-generals
get theirs by passing the gifts on to the Sultan. That is the way to
get office in Turkey. You may be a murderer, a thief, or an ignoramus,
but you can be sure of an office if you can furnish a handsome girl,
or a fine stallion, or a few thousand dollars. When I was pastor in
Marsovan, the local governor, Sudduc Bey, bought a very pretty girl,
and sent her to the governor-general of Beshick-Tash in Constantinople,
Hadji Hassan Pash, the Sultan's special guard; he had got his office
from that functionary. As to how the girls are got, it depends;
if they are Mohammedan, they are bought; if they are Christian
they are seized by force, for the Christians will not sell their
daughters. Several months ago Bahri Pasha, the governor-general of
Van, carried off several Armenian girls and presented them to the
Sultan, who decorated him for the service, and appointed him Vali or
governor-general of Adana, in Armenia Minor. These girls are kept in
the harem of the Sultan. When the time comes to marry another wife,
he has the girls stand in a row, and chooses one of them by covering
her face with a silk handkerchief; then she is taken by the eunuchs to
the quarters allotted to the Sultanas, and can have separate servants,
carriages, and eunuchs. The life of the Sultan and his big family is
the most miserable in the world. The palace is a focus of discontent,
quarrels, jealousy, lust, and cruelty; in a word, it is a perfect
hell. The women have nothing to do, and nothing to think of; they do
not read, they have no work, and no share even in household management;
they are idle, and unspeakably bored, and they do what most idle
people of both sexes do all over the world--excite their nerves with
sensual cravings, and then try to satisfy them. They often manage
to bring boys to their quarters by stealth, and keep them there for
weeks for purposes of lust, and the Sultan knows nothing about it;
often they bribe their eunuchs, and go to other places to satisfy
their desires, and the Sultan never hears of it. Aziz lost his life
through an intrigue of one of his wives. With so large and exacting
a family, it is no wonder the Sultan has no time or energy left for
improving his administration. He only finds a little time to send
telegrams to the governors to exterminate the Armenians.
THE SULTANATE AND ITS POWERS.
There is no coronation in Turkey; instead the Sultans gird on the
sword of Osman, the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty, which is kept in
the mosque of Ayoob, in Constantinople. When a Sultan is proclaimed,
he goes to that mosque with great pomp, and all the members of
the Sublime Porte, the civil officers, the generals, commanders,
soldiers, patriarchs of different religions, and the Sheik-ul-Islam,
the Mohammedan religious head, follow him. But no Christians enter
that holy place, as it is forbidden them. After impressive service,
the chief of the dervishes of the order of Mevlair girds the Sultan
with the sword; then he is officially recognized as emperor. Then,
as God's will be done, Sultan's will be done, because the Sultan
represents God in heaven, Mohammed in Paradise, Osman on the earth. He
has three offices, God's office, Mohammed's office, Osman's office. He
is as infallible as the Pope of Rome, and temporally everything belongs
to him without exception, men, women, children, money, property,
just as everything belongs to God. A Turkish proverb says, "Mal,
jan, erz, Padishahin dir" (Property, soul, and virtue belong to the
Sultan). He can claim any man's wife for his enjoyment at any time;
his son, or his daughter, or his money, or his property of any sort;
there is no use refusing--a man does not own himself, or his wife, or
his children; the Sultan owns them all, and it is only by his grace
that he permits his subjects to have anything, and he can resume it
at any time, for half an hour, or forever. Besides, anybody's head
would come off that refused. If the Sultan asks a millionaire in
Constantinople to send him half his wealth, the millionaire must not
refuse; he himself is simply a steward; if the Sultan wants it all it
must go to him, and the millionaire must beg bread for a living. At
the same time he must praise the Sultan, because the Sultan is God
on earth. If he refuses to send his wife or daughter to the Sultan's
bed, or his son or money for whatever uses they are wanted to supply,
the Sultan has a right to kill him, and take all his possessions by
force, because the man was not a faithful slave.
"But I cannot believe this," says the American in his free, peaceful
country. "It is not natural. How can a man be considered as God,
owning everything, not in a spiritual sense, but in a very material,
pecuniary, and male sense?"
Go to Turkey, get naturalized there, become a Turkish subject, and
you will understand it fully, and perhaps shockingly. Of course, if
you go as an American citizen, with plenty of money, travel under
the escort of soldiers, or Zapties, get presented by the American
minister to the Sultan, are entertained in the palace, and receive
handsome presents, you will not understand it at all; very likely
not believe it; you may come home and praise the Sultan like the rest.
The natural question is, I know, "Do the Sultans, any of them, carry
this theory into practice? Has the present Sultan?" Yes; and not once
or twice, but thousands of times. To be sure, they do not go in person
on such errands; they depute their officers and soldiers to do what
they wish. I have shown how the history of the Armenians illustrates
it, in the seizure of their property, the forced conversion of their
boys into troops to fight against their parents, the appropriation of
their wives and daughters, to be given to the Sultan. As to the present
Sultan, I have already spoken of Bahri Pasha's exploit in carrying off
by force several Armenian young brides, and girls, and presenting them
to the Sultan, and his being decorated and promoted for it. While on
his way, he had to pass through Trebizond, and the Armenians fired
on him to rescue the women, but failed. They forgot that all women
belong to the Sultan, and they made a mistake in firing on one of
his officers. He at once ordered all the Armenians in Trebizond to
be slaughtered. Some of the richest of the nation lived there; every
penny was taken from them, most of them were killed, and their wives
and children, and those of them who survived are begging bread. And
all through Armenia the girls and young brides are being looked over
to pick out the best looking ones for the Sultan's harem.
Once for all, Armenia is not America. The Turks, the Kurds, the
Circassians, the Georgians, though they may be like Americans, are like
American Indians only. The Sultan is not a president, and his divine
right to kill any man, appropriate any property, or enjoy any woman,
is not like the Constitution of the United States. People who think
that the Sultan would not do or be allowed to do such things because
no ruler they are familiar with does them, that it is impossible they
can happen in Armenia because they could not happen in America, that
the Armenians must have provoked them in some way, because it is hard
to believe any ruler could do so in pure wantonness or from deliberate
policy, are reasoning from wrong premises. They did happen, and are
happening,--see the consular reports; were perfectly unprovoked,--see
the plentiful proofs that the Armenians carry no arms, and cannot
even defend themselves from murder, or their wives from dishonor
before their eyes. Why it is done, and how much more is to be done,
I have explained repeatedly.
THE SUBLIME PORTE AND THE MOHAMMEDAN RELIGION.
The Sublime Porte, or in Turkish Babi-Ali, is the cabinet of the
Turkish government, as follows:--
1. The Grand Vezir, or Prime Minister.
2. The Minister of the Interior.
3. The Minister of Foreign Affairs.
4. The Superintendent of the Cabinet Council.
5. The Commander-in-chief, or Minister of War.
6. The Minister of the Navy.
7. The Minister of Finance.
8. The Minister of Commerce and Public Buildings.
9. The Minister of Sacred Properties.
10. The Minister of Education.
11. The Sheik-ul-Islam, or religious head.
There is no election in Turkey; all officers are appointed by the
Sultan, who can dismiss any of them at any time, and appoint some one
else, and I have already explained why he almost always appoints bad
ones. The Sublime Porte has no power to decide anything; it is simply
a farce council to cheat the European powers; a dumb tool in the
hands of the Sultan. For instance, the Sultan calls the Grand Vezir,
the president of the Sublime Porte, into his presence, and tells him
such a question is to be discussed in such a way, and this or that
conclusion reached. "Very well, my Lord and Master," says the Grand
Vezir; he goes to the Sublime Porte palace, and says to the council:
"To-day I was permitted to come into the presence of His Majesty the
Sultan, and he instructed me that I must bring such a question before
you, and after we discuss it in such a manner, we must come to such
a decision." Then all of them stand up and say, "Sultan's will be
done," and that is all; their "decision" is announced to the Sultan,
and he "sanctions" it. There is no discussion for days or weeks, as
in England or here; it is all cut short. The Sublime Porte can decide
any question in a few minutes. This is the sort of thing Mr. Carlyle
wanted. You have seen the beautiful effects of it.
The question naturally arises, Why does the Sultan keep a Sublime
Porte, since he decides everything himself?
There are three reasons.
First, it is the old custom. All the other Sultans have had one,
and he might offend the Turks if he abolished it.
Second, as the Sultan can do no wrong, there must be somebody else to
lay blame on. He is the representative of God and Prophet Mohammed. If
there is any mistake in any decision, he is not responsible for it;
the Sublime Porte is responsible.
Third, because he has relations with the European powers, and if any
decision needs to be reversed, it can be if it is that of the Sublime
Porte; but if it were the personal decision of the Sultan it could
not be changed, because he is considered immutable, just as God is.
When people read about the Sublime Porte after this, I hope they will
understand that there is not really any Sublime Porte; that it is a
mere name, an echo, a farce, a show to bunco the world with.
Some newspaper and other writers think it is "impartial" to say that
the Sultan means well, but he has a "corrupt ministry"; that it is the
Sublime Porte that ruins the Turkish Empire; if it were left to the
Sultan, he would reform the country; he would not let the Armenians be
massacred. Put no faith in such ignorant rubbish. The Sultan dictates
everything; and if any minister has the sense and courage to suggest
any improvement, the Sultan dismisses him, saying that it is his own
business to consider the improvements of the country and not that
of any one else. The governors would not dare to order the Kurds
and the Turks to wreak their worst and vilest will on the Armenians
without direct orders from the Sultan. The Sultan originates all these
cruelties. The recent Grand Vezir, Said Pasha, at one time was a very
decent Turk. When he differed with the Sultan about massacreing the
Armenians, the Sultan threatened to kill him, and he had to fly to
the English embassy for protection. Murad Bey was another good Turk
who remonstrated against the cruelties; his life was threatened, and
he fled to Europe; now he is in Egypt, denouncing the Sultan in the
press and in letters. The Sultan sentenced him to death, and asked
the British government to hand him over to the Turkish officers; but
the representative of the British government in Cairo refused. Just
before the Armenian atrocities in Constantinople, the members of
the Sublime Porte tried to have the Armenian grievances redressed,
and the people pacified; the Sultan would have no such pottering,
and ordered the soldiers to kill the Armenians in the streets. But
this was a rare piece of virtue in the Porte. Mostly they are as bad
as the Sultan himself, for he appoints men of his own stripe. Good men
would not be useful tools. The Sultan has another trick of management;
before making any one a member of the Porte, he tries to find out
whether he is a friend to any of the ministers already in; if so,
he will not appoint him. On the other hand, if the man happens to be
an enemy to one of the members, he is almost sure of appointment. The
Sublime Porte, therefore, is a group of mutual enemies, hating one
another, and ready to betray one another at any time. He thinks if
they are friendly, they may unite and depose him some day. Besides
this, there are more detectives in the Sublime Porte, watching the
ministers on behalf of the Sultan, than there are members. They keep
the Sultan informed about the situation. If any minister or officer
acts contrary to the wishes of the Sultan, he is marked for death.
THE SHEIK-UL-ISLAM.
Sheik-ul-Islam means chief of Islam--the Mohammedan religion. His
office is solely religious; he has nothing to do with politics. He sees
that the mosques and priests are kept in order, and the religious
services properly conducted; and there are many questions among
the Mohammedans which are settled without going to a magistrate,
by the Sheik-ul-Islam, or by his deputies, called Muftees. These
Muftees can be found in every city in Turkey. The Sheik-ul-Islam and
his representatives issue Fetvas (religious decrees) according to
the Koran.
There is no inconsistency between this and what I have said before
about the Sultan being the representative of Mohammed, and therefore
the chief of his religion. Both the Sultan and the Sheik-ul-Islam
are the heads of it, just as the Greek emperor and the Patriarch
were of the Greek church, and the relative position is about the
same. The Sheik-ul-Islam is the special head of the ecclesiastical
organization. The Sultan appoints him, but once appointed, if
he is insubordinate and opposes the Sultan, the latter cannot
suppress or replace him without grave scandal to the Mohammedan
world. It is like Henry II and Becket; it is easier to make a head
of a church than to rule him afterwards. It is like the Emperors
and the Popes in the Middle Ages; and as with them, sometimes the
Sheik-ul-Islam joins with political officers to depose the Sultan,
and his fetva, or decree, makes it legal. When Abdul Aziz was deposed,
the then Sheik-ul-Islam, Khairollah Effendi, issued the fetva for it,
reluctantly, for Heussein Avni Pasha forced him to do it under threat
of death. As Heussein's own head was in immediate peril, he had no
scruples about the Sheik-ul-Islam's. Every fetva has two questions
and one answer. A case is set forth; after a brief discussion the
question Olourni (To be?) and Olmazmi (Not to be?) are asked, and the
answer is given as either Olour or Olmaz (To be, or Not to be). The
fetva which Heussein forced the Sheik-ul-Islam to sign was something
like this:--"If a Sultan should prove to be unworthy to govern his
people, is it necessary to uphold him or not?" The answer was Olmaz,
and Abdul Aziz was deposed.
MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE INTERNAL STATE OF TURKEY.
Nobody who has not lived in Turkey can realize how hopeless, almost
self-contradictory, it is to talk of "reforming" Turkey. It could
not be reformed and be Mohammedan Turkey; the lack of reform or power
of reform is just what makes it what it is. The root of the evil is
Mohammedanism itself; it is embodied social stagnation, corruption,
ultimate ruin. Neither the Sultan nor the Turks can improve the state
of the Empire, even if they wished. The usual "broad-minded" statements
about Mohammed and his religion are simply elaborations of ignorance,
made up out of men's own minds, and what they think must be true. It
is customary for writers to talk in this fashion:--"Mohammedanism is a
half-way house to Christianity; Mohammed converted the heathen Arabs
to a belief in the true God. Mohammed established a great religion
and a great Empire," etc., etc. There is no truth in this, for all its
plausible sound. Mohammedanism is not even on the road to Christianity;
and Arabia, Asia Minor, and Palestine were all much better off before
the Mohammedan conquest than after it. Buddhism and Brahmanism are
better religions than Mohammedanism. The Chinese, the Japanese, the
people of India are much better than the Turks. The Chinese Emperor and
the Japanese Mikado are far better men than the Mohammedan Sultan. The
heathen religions rear better men than Mohammedanism. The Mongols
are more humane and sympathetic than the Turks. Heathenism at its
worst, though a low form of religion, is really a form of religion;
but Mohammedanism is not a religion at all. Then what is it? It is a
system of imposture and false pretense, and of lives of human lust
and cruelty. Mohammed practiced all these, and his successors have
done the same, and taught the same ever since; and the system means
just that now, and nothing else. There is neither love nor sympathy,
manliness nor humanity in Mohammedanism. Can a system lacking all
these be considered a religion? This is the substance of Mohammed's
teachings:--"Love your fellow believers, hate and slay all who refuse
to accept your religion. Marry as many wives as you can afford; if you
can afford but one do not repine, for you shall have seven thousand
to enjoy in Paradise. If you conquer a country, show no mercy to the
people unless they embrace Islam; if they refuse, either kill them or
make slaves of them." What sort of reforms can you expect in Armenia,
or in Turkey, when the very religion that is to make people better,
inculcates such principles? If one does not know a language he cannot
speak it; if he has not a principle he will not practice it; how
can the Sultan, a vicious man to begin with, trained in a religion
calculated to make a cruel and licentious animal even out of a decent
man, reform anything? His very religion forbids it; he cares nothing
for the religion when it stands in his way, but he will follow its
injunctions to please the Mohammedans, especially when they gratify
and justify his worst passions.
I shall be asked if the Mohammedans do not believe in one God,
and the same God as the Christian; and if that does not make it
a religion, and very near that of Christians. Yes, they do; and
so do the devils. That is what Mohammedanism is, the religion of
devils. Most of the Turkish conversation consists of oaths and smut. I
do not mean among the common people--theirs is nothing else--but
of the educated upper classes, their scholars, teachers, governors,
and priests. I came in contact with them for years, and I hated to
listen to them, their talk was so full of cursing and filth. You
never see the fruits of the spirit in them; only the fruits of the
flesh. They do not understand what spiritual life is; with them all
is sense,--eating and drinking, finery and lust,--lust above all,
everywhere and always, like cattle. They seem never able to forget
sex and its uses. Some people think the climate makes the Turks lazy;
it is enough on that point to say that Constantinople is almost exactly
in the same latitude as New York, and Smyrna as St. Louis. The Turkish
climate is a temperate and salubrious one, with no greater extremes of
temperature than the United States; not tropical or enervating. Nor
is it their race that makes the Turks lazy; they were not so at the
outset. It is their religion and the habits it breeds. Their minds
and bodies are enervated by the unwholesome nervous excitation of
lust, their energies further sapped by a falsehood that leaves no
room for aspiration, their vanity as a military caste in not working
takes all the spirit of manly enterprise out of them. If the climate
enervates the Turks, why does it not the Christians? In the very same
cities you find the Christians rich, enterprising, full of energy; the
Turks poor, ignorant, unambitious, and lazy. The religion makes all
the difference. Christianity teaches purity, sympathy, and industry;
Mohammedanism teaches impurity, hate, and sloth. The pure life of the
Christian conserves all the energies; the hopes of Christianity give
vigor and endurance. The promise of each for the future gives the
clue to the history of each; the Christian heaven of unity with God,
the Mohammedan heaven of a lot of street dogs and sluts.
Here I must comment on the extraordinary statement of Alexander
Webb, at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Mr. Webb was an
American consul in the East, and became a convert to Mohammedanism,
or professes to have done so; it is not very hard to guess what
part of that so-called religion attracted him. He said the religion
of Mohammed teaches the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of
Humanity. Now, as a fact, Mohammedans believe in neither one. As to
God, they believe he is a monarch, and that no one can approach him;
they have the same idea the Jews had. "Our Father who art in Heaven"
is a purely Christian aspiration, not that of any other religion
on earth; it is Christianity alone that teaches the Fatherhood of
God. And Mohammedans directly ridicule the idea of God the Father, or
of a Son of God. They say God is not married, and cannot be a father;
and that when they go to heaven they will not be in his presence,
nor wish to be, but will have a separate heaven, to enjoy their wives
in. They look at everything from a sexual or sensual standpoint. As
to brotherhood, there is no such thing in Mohammedanism; even sons
of the same mother are not brothers in feeling. A Mohammedan has not
confidence enough, even in his brother, to show his wives to him, and
even in heaven they will have to live in different places on account of
their wives. How can there be brotherhood without love or purity? And
we have seen and know what the "brotherhood" of Mohammedans to other
nations and religions is; there can be no relations whatever but of
master and slave, or murderer and corpse, or violator and victim. The
impudence of this talk of brotherhood is fathomless.
And then he said he was proud to be a convert to Islam, because
that meant believing in purity! This is more outrageously impudent
still. His ideal of purity must be a curious one if he finds more
in Mohammedanism than in Christianity; in a religion with a heaven
stuffed with concubines than in one where even earth is sprinkled with
nuns; in one that makes Titanic lust its crowning reward, as if men
were so feeble in sexual desires that they needed to be stimulated,
than in one which makes chastity its key-note, and pronounces the
very coveting of more than one wife a spiritual adultery; in one
that prescribes polygamy (that is, keeping erotic turbulence stirred
up much oftener and longer than it naturally would be), than in one
that allows but one wife, and smiles on getting along without that;
in one whose devotees are ashamed of foul language, and even of foul
thoughts, than in one whose devotees are rank and rotten with lustful
ideas and talk to correspond.
The whole Mohammedan system is designed to make the gratification of
lust as easy and plentiful as possible short of a promiscuity that
would lead to civil anarchy. A Mohammedan can divorce his wife any time
he pleases by paying back her dower, and marry another and do likewise;
every week, or day if he sees fit, and he can remarry and redivorce
the first one as often as he pleases. It is like trading horses;
as little sentiment or morality in one as the other; the slightest
possible regulation of sheer animal desire. There is, however, one
form or divorce which is complete, and does not allow of remarriage
until another marriage has intervened; that is called the achden
docuza (three to nine) divorce, from the terms the husband uses in
doing it, "I divorce you three to nine." Nobody knows what it means or
meant. After this, if he wants his wife back, he must get somebody else
to marry and divorce her regularly; and as this is perilous, because
the second husband after marrying her may take a notion to keep her,
or anyway keep her much longer than the first one relishes, or demand
a large sum of money, the usual plan is to fix on a very poor man,
or a blind beggar (preferably blind, so that he cannot see the wife,
and be so charmed by her beauties that he will wish to keep her),
get him to become the woman's husband for a few days, and then pay
him something to divorce her. Then the first can marry her again if
he chooses.
There are many more specimens of Mohammedan "purity" too shameful
to write, and too shameful to read; I cannot soil the paper with
them. Doubtless they are part of Mr. Webb's pride in being a
Mohammedan. But I must mention one more engine of corruption which
lies at the very root of Mohammedanism itself: the pilgrimage
to Mecca, to the birthplace of Mohammed in Arabia. Once a year
Mohammedan pilgrims from every quarter of the world go to Mecca to
pay homage to their beloved prophet; averaging a million a year. It
is their duty to sacrifice animals there, and about a million are
so sacrificed. This is done on the hills which surround the great
temple, the greatest mosque in the world. It is a square building,
which covers several acres of land. Just in the cluster is the Holy
Well, called Zemzem. Mohammedans believe that if they drink of that
water, hell-fire cannot burn them, and every pilgrim does so; then
they begin to die from cholera to the tune of fifty thousand a year
or so, for the well is a mere cesspool. You see, after cutting the
throats of the animals, they leave the filth and blood just as they
are, for the Mohammedan religion does not allow the sacrifice to be
touched. The sandy soil absorbs this putrid filth, which leaches into
the well. But it is a great merit to die on the spot where Mohammed
was born; one goes straight to heaven if he does. That is not the
worst, however; they fill bottles with that water, and carry it to
their families, and friends throughout the Turkish Empire, Persia,
and India, from which cholera is spread abroad over the world.
The pilgrims do not take their wives as far as the birthplace
of Mohammed, but leave them half-way, and on reaching Mecca they
marry temporarily. About 20,000 prostitutes there make a business of
being short-term wives of the pilgrims, getting $5 to $25 from each,
and being his wife for anywhere from a day to a fortnight, so that
each woman marries from fifty to a hundred pilgrims a year. This is
not prostitution; it is religion--and Mohammedan "purity." Mecca is
considered the most holy spot on earth by Mohammedans; but it is the
most corrupt spot. It is a hell. And the Mohammedan Paradise is worse
than Mecca.
In one word, Mohammedans have no right to exist, politically,
socially, or religiously. In the first they have wrought nothing but
ruin; in the second nothing but corruption; in the third nothing
but devilishness. They are working nothing else now in either
of the three. They have never built up anything; they are pure
destroyers. Anything which is built in any Mohammedan country is built
both by Christian money and by Christian architects; Mohammedans
have neither the money, the architects, nor the sense. The day one
becomes a Mohammedan he loses his intellect, his skill, and his common
sense. Mohammedanism is a poison fatal to any good gifts or graces;
it cultivates in him falsehood, cruelty, and lust. It was sent by
God for a curse to the Christians; as a punishment, just as the
Philistines were sent to the people of Israel.
V.
THE GREAT POWERS AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
There was no Armenian question till the time of the present
Sultan; under Abdul Aziz, whatever his faults as a ruler or a
man, the Armenians prospered well, and though the whole system of
administration is bad, corrupt, and uncertain, they had no special
grievance as a race to complain of. I have already referred to Abdul
Hamid's usurpation, his Bulgarian atrocities, his famous war against
Russia, and the Congress in Berlin in which the powers ordered him
to execute reforms in Armenia, and report to them, and the Sultan
signed the treaty promising to do it. This was in 1878. The Sultan
lost no time in violating the treaty, and not only so, but in acting
grossly contrary to it. He called in Circassians and Kurds to settle
in the midst of Armenians, and confiscated Armenian lands for them to
settle on. The Armenians were far worse off than before the treaty; but
foolishly depending on the powers, they did not try to arm themselves
for the future. They have had plenty of chance to repent in blood
and tears, agony and shame, their faith that Christian nations would
not ignore a solemn obligation, voluntarily entered into, to save a
whole people from being exterminated by fire and sword. England was
the worst of these sinners, for she had taken on special obligations
by a separate treaty, and forced those who would have taken the Sultan
by the throat to let go.
THE ANGLO-TURKISH CONVENTION.
This took place at the same time as the Berlin Congress; it was simply
between Turkey and England.
Article I. "If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall be
retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be made at any future
time by Russia to take possession of any further territory of His
Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in Asia, as fixed by the Definitive
Treaty of Peace, England engages to join His Imperial Majesty,
the Sultan, in defending them by force of arms.
"In return, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, promises England
to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon later between
the two powers, into the government and for the protection of the
Christian and other subjects of the Porte in these territories;
and in order to enable England to make necessary provisions
for executing her engagement, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan,
further consents to assign the Island of Cyprus to be occupied
and administered by England.
Article VII. "If Russia restores to Turkey Kars and the other
conquests made by her in Armenia during the last war, the Island
of Cyprus will be evacuated by England, and the convention of
the 4th of June, 1878, will be at an end."
When England was preparing this private treaty, the English
fleet was on the Sea of Marmora, at the gate of the Bosphorus,
threatening Russia, to make her withdraw her soldiers from the
gates of Constantinople, for the conquering Russian army had reached
the suburbs, and encamped at San Stefano, only eight or ten miles
away. But for England, Russia would have captured Constantinople,
and kept it. But England backed Turkey, and the other powers backed
England, and Russia reluctantly withdrew her troops. But Russia has
never forgiven England for it; and if England wishes to help the
Armenians, no matter how many are massacred, Russia will help Turkey,
while the others side with neither. As to there ever being a European
concert to reform Armenia, a pleasant dream which has deluded many
thousands, I have always laughed at it, and I laugh at it still. The
powers will never act together for any such purpose. It is not
"practical politics" to think of it. The real center of action is
not Germany or Russia, but England, for several reasons. One is that
London is the money capital of the world. Money rules; money buys
force. The richest nation is the strongest. What does Lombard street
say? is the vital question. The second is her navy, the strongest
in the world; stronger that that of any other two nations combined;
perhaps in actual fight a match for all combined. The third is that
her possessions are everywhere; she is a local power in every quarter
of the globe; she has to pass by everybody's doors in managing her
colonies. So I will begin with England.
ENGLAND AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
If England had wished to solve this question, she could have done it
long ago; but she never cared to. When Mr. Gladstone was in power,
he tried to do it, but his Cabinet overbore him. He did, however,
show by isolated cases what power England had if she chose to
exercise it. After I was banished by the Turkish government, two
native Christian ministers supplied my pulpit. They were sentenced
to death on a false charge, but Gladstone threatened the Sultan,
and the latter commuted the sentence to banishment. These ministers
were Professors Thoumaian and Kayayian, who are now in England with
their families. What could be done on a small scale could be done on
a large one. I will give here some of the speeches of Gladstone on the
Armenian question; then compare Lord Salisbury with him and his policy.
W. E. Gladstone.
He assails Turkey's Intolerable Misgovernment and Emphasizes the
Value of Impartial American Testimony.
[By Cable to The New York Herald.]
London, Aug. 6, 1895.--A pro-American meeting, presided
over by the Duke of Westminster, was held at Chester this
afternoon. Mr. Gladstone was among those present, and upon entering
the hall was received with great enthusiasm.
In addressing the meeting, Mr. Gladstone said he had attended
rather to meet the expectation that he would be present than
because he had any important contribution to make to the
discussion of the subject under consideration. The question
before the meeting, he said, was not a party question, neither
was it strictly a religious question, although the sufferers,
on whose behalf the meeting was called, were Christians. The evil
arose from the fact that the sufferers were under an intolerably
bad government--one of the worst, in fact, that ever existed. A
resolution would be proposed presenting, with justice and firmness,
the true view of the matter. Mr. Gladstone added that as America
had no political interest in the Levant her witnesses were doubly
entitled to credit.
Important Treaty Provisions.
The treaty of 1856, Mr. Gladstone continued, gave the powers
the right to march into Armenia and take the government of the
country out of the hands of Turkey, and under the treaty of 1878
the Sultan was bound to carry out reforms. The ex-Premier made
three proposals:--First, that the demands of the powers should
be moderate; second, that no promises of the Turkish authorities
should be accepted; and third, that the powers should not fear
the word "coercion."
"We have reached a critical position," said Mr. Gladstone,
in conclusion, "and the honor of the powers is pledged to the
institution of reforms in Armenia."
A resolution was then proposed expressing the conviction that
the government would have the support of the entire nation in any
measures it might adopt to secure in Armenia reforms guaranteeing
to the inhabitants safety of life, honor, religion, and property,
and that no reforms can be effected which are not placed under the
continuous control of the great powers of Europe. The resolution
was seconded by the Rev. Canon Malcolm MacColl, and was adopted.
Says Baseness and Villany Have Reached a Climax in Turkey's Treatment
of Armenia.
[From The New York Herald.]
London, Dec. 27, 1895.--Murad Bey, formerly Ottoman Commissioner
of the Turkish debt, who recently fled from Constantinople to
Paris, sent to Mr. Gladstone a few days ago a pamphlet which
he had published in Paris, entitled "The Yildiz Palace and the
Sublime Porte," with a view to enlightening public opinion on
Turkish affairs. In the course of his reply acknowledging the
receipt of the pamphlet, Mr. Gladstone disavowed any feeling of
enmity toward the Turks and Mussulmans generally. He said:--"I have
felt it my duty to make it known that the Mohammedans, including
the Turks, suffer from the bad government of the Sultan. I have
heartily wished success to every effort made toward ending the
great evil. Still, Turks and other Mohammedans are not, so far
as I know, plundered, raped, murdered, starved, and burned;
but this is the treatment that the Sultan knowingly deals out
to his Armenian subjects daily. There are degrees of suffering,
degrees of baseness and villany among men, and both seem to have
reached their climax in the case of Armenia."
His Masterly Speech in Chester Re-enforced with a letter to a Turk.
[From The New York Sun.]
London, Aug. 10.--Once more have the wonderful power and the true
greatness of England's Grand Old Man been demonstrated in the
remarkable revival of popular interest in the fate of Armenia. The
whole nation is marveling over his great speech at Chester, and
there are no words, even among those who have always been his
political opponents, save those of sympathy and admiration. Nobody
is any longer foolish enough to deny the main features of the
fearful atrocities in Armenia, and there is no possible doubt of
the accuracy of the latest reports that thousands near the scene
of the massacres are perishing of starvation.
The only protest against Mr. Gladstone's speech has been a long
letter from Khalef Khalid, a conspicuous Turk, who asks the Grand
Old Man why he hates and denounces the Turks so indiscriminately,
when as many and as great outrages against the Mohammedans have
been perpetrated by Christians as were ever committed by the
subjects of Islam.
Mr. Gladstone's reply was made public to-day. It is one of the
most pointed epistles the old man ever wrote. He says:--"I entirely
disclaim the hatred and hostility to the Turks, or any race of men,
which you ascribe to me. I do not doubt that you write in entire
good faith, but your statements of facts are unauthenticated. I
proceed only upon authenticated statements. I make no charge
against the Turks at large, but against a Turkish government. I
make the charges which they have been proved guilty of by public
authority. In my opinion, I have been a far better friend to the
Ottoman Empire than have the Sultan and his advisers. I have
always recommended the granting of reasonable powers of local
self-government, which would have saved Turkey from terrible
losses. This good advice has been spurned, and in consequence
Turkey has lost 18,000,000 of people, and may lose more. Pray
weigh these words."--
The birthday of the Ex-Premier was made the occasion for an
anti-Turkish demonstration.
Outrages and Abominations of 1876 in Bulgaria Repeated in Armenia
in 1894.
[From The New York Herald.]
London, Dec. 29, 1894.--Mr. Gladstone celebrated his eighty-fifth
birthday to-day, and was the recipient of hundreds of letters
and telegrams of congratulation and parcels containing birthday
gifts. Mr. Gladstone was in remarkably good health and spirits,
and, despite the stormy weather, drove through the village of
Hawarden to the church, where he met a deputation of Armenian
Christians from Paris and London. The deputation presented a
silver chalice to the church. The chalice was presented to the
Rev. Stephen Gladstone, son of the ex-Premier, and rector of the
Hawarden church, in recognition of the interest his father has
taken in the Armenian outrages. Mr. Gladstone, in his reply to the
deputation's address, said that it was not their duty to assume
that all the allegations of outrages were true, but rather to await
the result of the inquiry which had been instituted. However, he
said, the published accounts pointed strongly to the conclusion
that the outrages, sins, and abominations committed in 1876
in Bulgaria had been repeated in 1894 in Armenia. Continuing,
Mr. Gladstone said: "Don't let me be told that one nation has no
authority over another. Every nation, aye, every human being,
has authority in behalf of humanity and justice." He had been
silent, he said, because he had full confidence that the government
knew its duty. If the allegations made should prove to be true,
it was time that the execration of humanity should force itself
upon the ears of the Sultan of Turkey, and make him sensible of
the madness of such a course as was being pursued. Mr. Gladstone,
in conclusion, said:--"The history of Turkey is a sad and painful
one. The Turkish race has not been without remarkable, even fine
qualities, but from too many points of view it has been a scourge
which has been made use of by a wise Providence for the sins
of the world. If these tales of murder, violation, and outrage
be true, well, then, they cannot be overlooked, nor can they be
made light of. I have lived to see the Empire of Turkey in Europe
reduced to less than one-half of what it was when I was born. And
why? Simply because of its misdeeds, and the great record written
by the hand of Almighty God against its injustice, lust, and most
abominable cruelty. I hope and feel sure that the government of
Great Britain will do everything that can be done to pierce to
the bottom of this mystery, and make the facts known to the world.
"If happily (I speak hoping against hope) the reports be disproved
or mitigated, let us thank God. If, on the other hand, they
be established, it will more than ever stand before the world
that there is a lesson, however severe it may be, that can
teach certain people the duty of prudence, and the necessity
of observing the laws of decency, humanity, and justice. If
the allegations are true, it is time that there should be one
general shout of execration against these deeds of wickedness
from outraged humanity. If the facts are well established, it
should be written in letters of iron upon the records of the
world that a government which could be guilty of countenancing
and covering up such atrocities is a disgrace to Mohammed the
prophet, a disgrace to civilization at large, and a disgrace to
mankind. Now that is strong language, but strong language ought
to be used when the facts are strong. But strong language ought
not to be used without the strength of facts.
"I have counseled you to be still and keep your judgment in
suspense; but as the evidence grows, the case darkens, and my
hopes dwindle and decline, and as long as I have voice it will
be uttered in behalf of humanity and truth. I wish you heartily
every blessing, and also wish with every heartiness prosperity
to your nation, however dark the present may seem."
Lord Salisbury.
Now we come to the present Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury. He is
reputed a great statesman. That should mean that he has accomplished
something great. Well, what? I know of nothing, have heard of
nothing. Has he saved any country? Has he elevated any? Has he
done any public action that can be set down to his credit? He has
hindered some good ones, that is all. On the Armenian question he
has done enormous harm. If he is not a great hypocrite, there is no
use comparing a man's words with his actions. I have always told my
friends that nothing good could be hoped for from him, for morally he
is worse than the Sultan. An eminent English clergyman told me that
Lord Salisbury is another Sultan, and I believe him. Here are a few
of Lord Salisbury's deliverances; see how they agree:--
[From The New York World, August 16, 1895.]
Lord Salisbury to Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador to
Constantinople:--"The Porte must accept the proposals of the Powers
unconditionally, or England would use sharper means than those
adopted by Lord Rosebery to settle affairs in Armenia."--[July
30, 1895.
Lord Salisbury, in a speech in London about the time of the
above, said, "The concert of Europe on the Armenian question is
complete, and England has the loyal support of other powers to
reform Armenia."
At another time we note:--"There is every reason to believe that
the Chinese government is sincerely desirous of punishing the
perpetrators of the outrages and those who connived at them. Should
any lukewarmness become discernible, it will become our duty to
supply its defect.
"With respect to Armenia, we have accepted the policy which
our predecessors initiated, and our efforts will be directed
to obtaining an adequate guarantee for the carrying out of
reform. We have received the most loyal support from both France
and Russia. The permanence of the Sultan's rule is involved in
the conduct he pursues. If the cries of misery continue, the
Sultan must realize that Europe will become weary of appeals, and
the fictitious strength which the powers have given the empire
will fail it. The Sultan will make a calamitous mistake if he
refuses to accept the advice of the European powers relative to
the reforms." The House of Lords adopted the address in reply to
the Queen's speech.
After the above strong words, Lord Salisbury backed down and sneaked
out of his bold attitude in this way. (Jan. 31, 1896.) See how he
asserts, first that England cannot do anything for the Armenians,
and second that it is not her duty to do anything:--
[From The New York Tribune.]
"The Prime Minister expressed sympathy with the Armenians, but
denied that Great Britain was under obligation to declare war
against the Sultan of Turkey in order to compel him to govern
justly, and cited the treaties in proof of his contention. He
ascribed the atrocities to the passions of race and creed. He
believed that the Sultan's government was wretched and impotent,
but there was no ground for imagining that the Sultan had
instigated the massacres. It might be asked why Europe did not
interfere. He could only answer for England. She had lacked the
power to do the only thing necessary to end the troubles, namely,
to militarily occupy Turkish provinces. None of the powers wished
so to occupy them.
"Lord Salisbury said he concurred in the belief that the only
authority, albeit it was an evil one, in that country was the
prestige of the Sultan's name. Patience must be exercised, and
time must be given to His Majesty to enforce the reforms he had
promised. He remarked upon the gradual return of order in Anatolia
during the last few weeks, although he admitted that these signs
should not be trusted too much. He concluded by declaring that
if Great Britain did not co-operate with the other powers, she
must act against them, which would lead to calamities far more
awful than the Armenian massacres."
Ambassador Currie instructed not to exert Undue Pressure on the Sultan.
[From The New York World, 1895.]
London, Nov. 23, 1895.--It can be authoritatively stated that
Lord Salisbury's instructions to Sir Philip Currie, the British
Ambassador to Turkey, who left England a few days ago on his return
to his post of duty, are to refrain from exerting undue pressure on
the Sultan for the execution of the reforms in Armenia, and to give
the Porte time to recover from the existing administrative anarchy,
and appoint authorities through whom the reforms must be effected.
Sir Philip has taken with him an autograph letter from the Queen to
the Sultan. This is supposed to be a reply to a letter the Sultan
sent to her with the communication he sent to Lord Salisbury,
which the latter read at the meeting of the National Union of
Conservatives at Brighton, on Tuesday night last.
It is reported that the Queen will invite the Sultan to visit
England, when the time shall be auspicious. The anxiety at the
Foreign Office in regard to the East has greatly lessened during
the week.
England possessed the Island of Cyprus, and it became her duty
to look after the reforms in Turkey. But now Salisbury denies it,
saying that it is not her duty, and meantime says that time must be
given to the Sultan of Turkey, as if all the time had not been given
him since the Berlin treaty of 1878.
Salisbury used another silly trick, persuading the Queen of England
to write a letter to the Sultan and appeal to his good nature; as if
the Sultan had a good nature; but the Queen wrote the letter.
A strong criticism by the editor of the New York "Press" on Lord
Salisbury's speech.
February 3, 1896.
"We confess that we are at a loss to comprehend the meaning of Lord
Salisbury's Armenian speech. We do not know what to make of it when
he says that the Berlin Treaty "bound the signatory powers, that,
if the Sultan promulgated certain reforms, they would watch over
the progress of these reforms. Nothing more." We cannot understand
him when he declares that the Cyprus Convention 'contains no
trace of an understanding to interfere in behalf of the Sultan's
subjects.' When Russia made, in March, 1878, a treaty with Turkey,
called the treaty of San Stefano, Great Britain became alarmed lest
Russia should secure too much influence in Constantinople. Russia
then held some Armenian provinces bordering on her territory, and
it seemed clear that it was her purpose to seize others. England
protested to the Sultan against the treaty of San Stefano, but
the government of the Ottoman Porte was helpless against the Czar,
and the Sultan declared that he must adhere to the treaty. Great
Britain then secretly bound herself to aid Turkey by force of arms
in preventing Russia from appropriating further Armenian provinces,
Turkey agreeing, on her part, to reform her local administration
in her remaining Armenian provinces and assigning the island of
Cyprus to be occupied and administered by Great Britain.
"Great Britain, meanwhile, had incited the other powers of Europe
to take action against the treaty of San Stefano. Austria was
induced to suggest a European Congress. Russia at first refused
to go into this Congress; but, seeing that all the great powers
were uniting against her, she consented to attend. The result
of this Congress was the Treaty of Berlin, signed by the six
powers,--England, Russia, Germany, France, Austria, and Italy. By
this treaty Turkey was stripped of Bulgaria, Servia, and Roumania,
and Russia was deprived of all she had won during the Turko-Russian
war, except the Armenian provinces which she still controls. By
this treaty, also, the signatory powers became guardians and
trustees of the Ottoman Porte, pledging themselves that religious
freedom should be secured in the Turkish Empire, and that Armenian
Christians should be protected against the Circassians and Kurds.
"We are puzzled, therefore, to understand Lord Salisbury when
he says that all these promises did not mean anything. Certainly
he ought to know, for, as the agent of the Disraeli government,
it was Lord Salisbury who drafted the agreements and drew up the
promises. For eighteen years Christian civilization has supposed
that they did mean something. But Lord Salisbury says not. He
says that all the powers agreed to do was to 'watch over the
execution of those reforms' if they were promulgated.
"What does that mean, anyway? Does it mean, as the Christian
world has all along supposed, that the six powers would engage
themselves to see that these reforms were carried out by Turkey,
or does it mean that if the reforms were carried out they would
simply look on; and if the reforms were not carried out, if ten
thousand Armenian homes were destroyed, and four times ten thousand
Armenian citizens were butchered, they would still simply look on?
"Nor do we understand Lord Salisbury when he pleads that
it requires time for the Turkish government to carry out the
reforms 'which the Sultan recently has accepted.' Why the Turkish
government? There is no Turkish government. There is a Mohammedan
administration, but the government of the Ottoman Porte expired
with the Treaty of Berlin. The Turkish government is vested de
facto in the six signatory powers of the Berlin Congress. Even
the local government of Constantinople itself lies in the hands
of these powers. The capital is divided into six sections, each
controlled by a treaty power. Each has its own courts, its own
military, even its own police. When Englishmen wish a wrong to
be righted in the Turkish Empire, or a reform to be executed,
they do not request the 'Turkish government' to listen to their
appeal. The British Minister summons the Grand Vezir and orders
him to do what is wished. And he does it forthwith, so far as he
is permitted by the orders of the representatives of the other
treaty powers. It is in London, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg,
in Paris, in Vienna, and in Rome that the Turkish government rests.
"It is for these reasons that we are unable to understand what
Lord Salisbury means when he says that the Berlin Treaty and the
Cyprus Convention impose no responsibility for Armenian reforms
upon any one save the Sultan. The Cyprus Convention specifies:--
"Treaty of Defensive Alliance between the British Government and
the Sublime Porte, signed on June 4, 1878:--
Article I. If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them shall
be retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be made at
any future time by Russia to take possession of any further
territories of his imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in Asia, as
fixed by the definitive treaty of peace, England engages to
join His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in defending them by
force of arms. In return, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan,
promises to England to introduce necessary reforms, to be
agreed upon later between the two powers, into the government,
and for the protection of Christian and other subjects of the
Porte in these territories; and in order to enable England
to make necessary provision for executing her engagement, His
Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further consents to assign the
Island of Cyprus, to be occupied and administered by England.
"Why, then, does not Lord Salisbury carry out England's pledges,
for which he is directly responsible, since he made them in
her name?
"England must be held to an accounting for the disorders in
Armenia. There are no such disorders in the provinces administered
by the Czar, provinces adjoining those where for the last six years
pillage, destruction, and murder have swept away every sign of
government. In the provinces controlled by the Czar the Armenians
have been so well treated, enjoying unquestioned religious freedom
and rights, that there have been not the slightest disorders. But
in the provinces where England pledged reform, the Armenian is
butchered daily.
"Does Lord Salisbury mean that so long as Great Britain occupies
Cyprus, pending the execution of reforms, it is better for England
that the reforms should not be executed and that England should
'watch over them; nothing more'?"
Note carefully what Salisbury says first; then what he says
afterward. First he says there is complete concert among the powers,
then he says there is not; first he threatens the Sultan, then he is
friendly. First he seems to be a brave and noble statesman, then a
cowardly politician.
Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador at Constantinople, is a
brave and noble gentleman. He was sent there by the Liberal government,
before Salisbury's accession. He has done a great deal for the Armenian
cause. But after Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister, he called him
to London and instructed him to have cordial relations with the Sultan,
and now he can do nothing.
Finally there appear to be two Englands, conservative England and
liberal England, slave England and free England, selfish England and
noble and sympathetic England, false England and true England. The
head of conservative, selfish, false, oppressive England is Lord
Salisbury. The head of liberal, free, noble, and true England is
Mr. Gladstone. Therefore nothing for Armenia can be expected from the
Conservatives, while much may be hoped from the Liberals. Gladstone
is an old man, but God will raise a Joshua to succeed Moses; Gladstone
will see the Armenian nation free, and then he will die.
GERMANY AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
Listen to what the haughty young ruler of Germany says:--"It
is better that the Armenians be killed than the peace of Europe
be disturbed." The explanation is easy enough. When he visited
Constantinople half a dozen years ago, the Sultan presented him with
Arabian horses, jewelry of massive gold, and many other valuable
articles, worth in all several hundred thousand dollars; and last
summer sent him a beautiful and valuable sword made in Constantinople
by Armenians, which was carried to him by Shakir Pasha, the butcher
who was afterwards appointed by the Sultan to reform Armenia,--the
commander of the "Hamidieh Cavalry," whose work I tell of later
on. This embassy was to secure the alliance of Germany against
molestation by Russia.
The German Emperor has three motives in his present action. One is
to show gratitude for the Sultan's generosity--as though it were not
the easiest thing in the world to be munificent when it all comes
out of other people. The second is to punish Lord Salisbury for not
getting England to join the Triple Alliance, when the Emperor asked
him in person on his journey to England. When Salisbury threatened
the Sultan in the interest of Armenia, the German Emperor said,
"The English government has no right to interfere with the Turkish
Empire. Every sovereign must have the right to govern as he thinks
necessary, or he is no sovereign." He afterwards sent his Chancellor,
Prince Hohenlohe, to the Czar to arrange united resistance to England,
and afterwards sent Count Von Moltke on the same errand. And the
Czar instructed his Ambassador at Constantinople, M. Nelidoff, to
inform the Sultan that he would not support the English government
in coercing Turkey. The Sultan therefore refused Salisbury's demands,
and he dared not go on alone. The Emperor's third motive was to gain
the friendship of the Czar against France, which had lately been
taking up the Russian alliance with great fervor. Another reason is
that he hates the Armenians for having bought the German factories
and property in Amassia. He is very anxious to plant German colonies
in Turkey, of all places in the world, for profit. There are about
fifty families in Amassia, near Marsovan, and they had started various
kinds of factories there; but the shrewd and wealthy Armenians bought
them out. The Emperor is angry because his colony was not successful.
For all these reasons the German Emperor refused to send gunboats
to the Bosphorus when the other powers did; he said he saw no need
of it. He was right so far as Germans were concerned; the Sultan
was not going to allow his ally's subjects to be slaughtered and
the ally turned into an enemy. And if he could stop the massacre of
one sort of people, he could of another; nothing shows the Sultan's
deliberate purpose in the massacres better than the fact that when he
chose not to let any particular sort of people be harmed, that sort
were not harmed. But as to Germany, what hope for Armenia is there
from it? The Emperor has his own interests, and the Armenians might
be tortured or outraged to death, and he would not stir a finger.
RUSSIA AND THE ARMENIANS.
The present Czar, Nicholas II, is a corrupt weakling, who is on the
throne by the law of heredity, against the will of his father. Morally
he is as bad as the Sultan; not so cruel yet, though he may develop
that in time, but fully as sensual and devoid of principle. I have had
it from good Russian authority that his life before his marriage was
so bad that it has rendered him entirely impotent. "Birds of a feather
flock together." No wonder he helps the Sultan. His political aims
and character are wholly selfish. He, too, like the German Emperor,
is continually exchanging presents with the Sultan. Here is a press
notice of Feb. 26, 1896:--"M. Nelidoff, the Russian Ambassador,
has presented to the Sultan a pair of jasper vases from the Czar,
together with an autograph letter from His Majesty thanking the Sultan
for the gifts sent to him." Not only so, but they have concluded an
alliance. Read the following dispatch of Jan. 23, 1896:--
"London, Jan. 23, 1896.--A dispatch to the Pall Mall Gazette
from Constantinople, dated yesterday, says that an offensive
and defensive alliance has been concluded between Russia and
Turkey. The Pall Mall Gazette correspondent adds that the treaty
was signed at Constantinople, and that the ratifications were
exchanged at St. Petersburg between Arifi Pasha and the Czar.
"The basis of the treaty is declared to be on the lines of the
Unkiarskelessi agreement of 1833, by which Turkey agreed, in the
event of Russia going to war, to close the Dardanelles to war-ships
of all nations. The Pall Mall Gazette's correspondent then says
the treaty will soon be abandoned, owing to the refusal of the
powers to recognize it. He also says that the French Ambassador,
M. Cambon, conferred with the Sultan yesterday, and that it is
probable France will be included in the new alliance.
"The Pall Mall Gazette says: 'We regard the news as true, and the
result of the treaty is that the Dardanelles is now the Southern
outpost of Russia, and Turkey is Russia's vassal. We presume the
British government will protest against the treaty for all it
is worth.
"'The information is plainly of the very gravest importance. The
first intimation reached us four days ago; but we withheld it
until the arrival of strong confirmation, which we received
this morning. This brings Russia into the Mediterranean with a
vengeance, and may necessitate the strengthening of our fleet in
those waters. Politically, the effect will be far greater. The
treaty means that Turkey has realized her own impotence against
disorders both from within and without, and has decided to throw
herself for safety into the arms of Russia. She is now Russia's
vassal, and Russia is entitled to dispatch troops to any part
of the Sultan's dominions whenever there is the least breach of
order--and when is there not?
"'We presume the arrangement will give the keenest satisfaction
to the Anglo-American section of our people. With them lies the
chief blame for the complete alienation of Turkey, though it must
be owned that it has been sedulously fostered by a long term of
weak policy at Constantinople.'"
For the present the Czar will do no more mischief, because he is
to have his coronation in May, and prefers to put on the smoothest
outside to every nation; but after that is over he will show his
hand. His father and his grandfather favored the Armenians in Russia,
and they prospered wonderfully, but this one proposes to persecute
them to please the Sultan. The two will join in a common policy
toward the unhappy race, till not less than a million are slain. The
Czar's motive is not love of the Sultan, whom he hates in spite of
their community of character; it is simply that he wishes to get
Constantinople peaceably if he can. The Sultan knows this quite well,
but he is too weak in military power, and too poor, and owes too large
an indemnity to the Czar to be able to help himself. He is compelled
to throw himself on the Czar for protection.
Will the Czar succeed in getting Constantinople? No; the attempt will
ruin and break up the Russian Empire. All the European powers would
resist it; some of them may seem friendly to the Czar now, but when
he comes to seize Constantinople every one of them will be against
him. He will try it, none the less. The famous "will" of Peter the
Great, though a patent and notorious forgery of Napoleon's,--never
seen till 1812, just before the Russian campaign, and circulated
then to influence Europe against Russia,--was the most magnificent
piece of forgery ever committed, for it has actually become a guiding
policy to the country it was aimed against, just as if it had been
real. Nothing in history equals this for impudence and success
combined; it is a true Napoleonism. This bogus "will" has become
the "Monroe doctrine" of Russia; I am not entitled to say whether
the latter is as mischievous as the former. That most Russian of all
Russian journals, the "Ruskija Vjadomosti," has lately been having one
of its periodical spasms of hysterical hatred toward all policy not
"good Russian," and boldly proclaims that Russia must follow the
precepts laid down in this will! Since, therefore, it is just as
important as if it were not the greatest of all "fakes," I give it
here that the reader may know what Russian policy is to be:--
Will of Peter the Great.
In the name of the most holy and indivisible Trinity, we,
Peter the Great, unto all our descendants and successors to the
throne and government of the Russian nation: the All-Powerful,
from whom we hold our life and our throne, after having revealed
unto us his wishes and intentions, and after being our support,
permits us to look upon Russia as called upon to establish her
rule over all Europe. This idea is based upon the fact that all
nations of this portion of the globe are fast approaching a state
of utter decrepitude. From this it results that they can be easily
conquered by a new race of people when it has attained full power
and strength. We look upon our invasion of the West and East as
a decree of divine providence, which has already once regenerated
the Roman Empire by an invasion of "barbarians."
The emigration of men from the North is like the inundation of
the Nile, which, at certain seasons, enriches with its waters
the arid plains of Egypt. We found Russia a small rivulet; we
leave it an immense river. Our successors will make it an ocean,
destined to fertilize the whole of Europe if they know how to
guide its waves. We leave them, then, the following instructions,
which we earnestly recommend to their constant meditation.
I. To keep the Prussian nation in constant warfare, in order always
to have good soldiers. Peace must only be permitted to recuperate
finance, to recruit the army, to choose the moment favorable for
attack. Thus peace will advance your projects of war, and war those
of peace, for obtaining the enlargement and prosperity of Russia.
II. Draw unto you by all possible means, from the civilized nations
of Europe, captains during war and learned men during peace,
so that Russia may benefit by the advantages of other nations.
III. Take care to mix in the affairs of all Europe, and in
particular of Germany, which, being the nearest nation to you,
deserves your chief attention.
IV. Divide Poland by raising up continual disorders and jealousies
within its bosom. Gain over its rulers with gold influence and
corrupt the Diet, in order to have a voice in the election of the
kings. Make partisans and protect them; if neighboring powers raise
objections and opposition, surmount the obstacles by stirring up
discord within their countries.
V. Take all you can from Sweden, and to this effect isolate her
from Denmark, and vice versa. Be careful to rouse their mutual
jealousy.
VI. Marry Russian princes to German Princesses; multiply these
alliances, unite these interests, and by the increase of our
influence attach Germany to our cause.
VII. Seek the alliance with England on account of our commerce,
as being the country most useful for the development of our navy,
merchants, etc., and for the exchange of our produce against
her gold. Keep up continual communication with her merchants
and sailors, so that ours may acquire experience in commerce
and navigation.
VIII. Constantly extend yourselves along the shores of the Baltic
and the borders of the Euxine.
IX. Do all in your power to approach closely Constantinople and
India. Remember that he who rules over these countries is the
real sovereign of the world. Keep up continued wars with Turkey
and with Persia. Establish dockyards in the Black Sea. Gradually
obtain the command of this sea as well as of the Baltic. This
is necessary for the entire success of our projects. Hasten the
fall of Persia. Open for yourself a route toward the Persian
Gulf. Re-establish as much as possible, by means of Syria,
the ancient commerce of the Levant, and thus advance toward
India. Once there you will not require English gold.
X. Carefully seek the alliance of Austria. Make her believe that
you will second her in her projects for dominion over Germany,
but secretly stir up other princes against her, and manage so
that each be disposed to claim the assistance of Russia; and
exercise over each a sort of protection, which will lead the way
to a future dominion over them.
XI. Make Austria drive the Turks out of Europe, and neutralize
her jealousy by offering to her a portion of your conquests,
which you will further on take back.
XII. Above all, recall around you the schismatic Greeks who are
spread over Hungary and Poland. Become their center, and support
a universal dominion over them by a kind of sacerdotal autocracy;
by this you will have many friends among your enemies.
XIII. Sweden dismembered, Persia conquered, Poland subjugated,
Turkey beaten, our armies united, the Black and Baltic seas guarded
by our vessels, prepare, separately and secretly, first the court
of Versailles, then that of Vienna, to share the empire of the
universe with Russia. If one accept, flatter her ambition and
vanity, and make use of one to crush the other by engaging them
in war. The result cannot be doubted; Russia will be possessed
of the whole of the East and a great portion of Europe.
XIV. If, which is not probable, both should refuse the offer of
Russia, raise a quarrel between them, and one which will ruin
them both; then Russia, profiting by this decisive movement, will
inundate Germany with the troops which she will have assembled
beforehand. At the same time two fleets full of soldiers will leave
the Baltic and the Black Sea, will advance along the Mediterranean
and the ocean, keeping France in check with the one and Germany
with the other. And these two countries conquered, the remainder
of Europe will fall under our yoke. Thus can Europe be subjugated.
But aside from this, no help could be expected from Russia in
any event, because she needs all her strength to save herself from
destruction by her own internal decay. She is a great tree, hollow in
the inside. The Nihilists and the Constitutional Reformers are both
against her, and, in my belief, she will go to pieces in the present
Czar's lifetime. The Sultan's days are numbered, but the Czar's and
the Emperor's are too; their own people will rise and depose them. It
is against Socialists and Nihilists that they are massing such great
armies. How can they spare any service for a people being murdered
off the earth?
FRANCE AND ARMENIA.
Of the other powers, little need be said. France has lost all her
great men, and become a tail to Russia, and is ready to be moved
blindly, as Russia may direct. And as part of the people are infidels,
and the rest fanatical Catholics, there is no religious motive to
prompt them to come to the rescue. France, in a word, can or will do
nothing directly; all it can do is to threaten the haughty Emperor
of Germany. Italy is bankrupt, and even the throne of King Humbert
is in danger, and that country will follow in the wake of Austria.
THE POPE OF ROME AND THE ARMENIANS.
Pope Leo XIII sent 70,000 lire to the Armenian sufferers; probably to
the Catholics alone, for there are about 100,000 Catholic Armenians
in Turkey. But the Armenians can expect no help from the Pope; he
has no troops; he has no great fund of spare money, and he would be
very unlikely to use either if he had them. The motive of all the
Popes has been to convert the Protestant Armenian Church to become a
part of the Roman Catholic Church,--to acknowledge the Papacy. I say
Protestant, for before Martin Luther was born, the Armenian Church
protested against the popes of Rome age after age, and was persecuted
by them. The Armenians offer their thanks to the Pope for his gifts,
but they cannot accept his dominion.
[Press dispatch, N.Y. Herald.]
"Rome, Dec. 16, 1895.--The Pope has sent 20,000 lire for the relief
of the sufferers from Turkish misrule in Anatolia, in addition
to the 50,000 lire previously given by him for the same purpose."
The European edition published recently in a dispatch from Rome the
following passage dealing with the Eastern question in the allocution
delivered by Leo XIII at the consistory on November 29:--
"The whole of Europe in anxious expectation looks toward its
eastern neighbor, troubled by grievous events and internal
conflicts. The sight of towns and villages defiled by scenes of
blood and of vast extents of territory ravaged by fire and sword
is a cruel and lamentable spectacle.
"While the powers are taking counsel together in the laudable
effort to find means of putting an end to the carnage and restore
quiet, we have not omitted to defend this noble and just cause
to the extent of our power. Long before these recent events,
we voluntarily intervened in favor of the Armenian nation. We
advised concord, quiet, and equity.
"Our counsels did not appear to give offense. We mean to pursue
the work we have begun, for we desire nothing so much as to see
the security of persons and all rights safeguarded throughout
the immense empire.
"In the meantime we have decided to send help to the most tried
and the most needy of the Armenians."
AMERICA AND ARMENIA.
Now we cross the ocean and come to the United States. Everywhere here
the people have shown the greatest sympathy for us; and the Armenians
are deeply moved and exceedingly grateful for it. The newspapers have
almost uniformly been on our side also; the only exception of any
moment has been the New York "Herald," which has steadily favored the
Sultan. The reason is the same as for General Wallace's like opinion
of that worthless animal,--mistaking his entertainments and gifts for
proofs of good character, humanity, and statesmanship. Mr. Bennett,
too, knows the taste of the dinners at the palace, and perhaps the
weight of the golden ornaments he gives out. Fortunately his paper
has very little influence on public opinion; and the real leaders of
it have remained true.
I believe it will be the Americans who will finally put an end to
the Armenian atrocities; but the time has not come yet. It will take
two years more, then this 70,000,000 of people will be aroused as one
man and stop them. I should like here to give an account of the many
mass meetings held here for our cause; but I can only take space for
two, one which I organized in Baltimore, and one held in New York,
at which I was present.
Mass-Meeting at Levering Hall, Baltimore
[Report From Baltimore Sun.]
December 11, 1894.--An enthusiastic meeting of Baltimoreans
was held last night at Levering Hall, Johns Hopkins University,
to make an emphatic protest against the Turkish outrages upon
Christian Armenians, and to urge the United States government to
do all in its power to remedy the existing evils.
The meeting was called by a committee of Baltimore ministers. It
was presided over by Attorney-General John P. Poe, and the
Rev. T. M. Beadenkoff was the secretary.
Addresses were made by Mr. Poe, Rev. George H. Filian, an
exiled Armenian Christian Minister, Rabbi Wm. Rosenan, and
Rev. Dr. F. M. Ellis.
Cardinal Gibbons and Judge Harlan sent letters regretting their
inability to be present, and expressing sympathy with the object
of the gathering.
Mr. Poe, in taking the chair, said:--"The accounts which have
reached us of the indescribable atrocities recently committed
upon the Christians in Armenia have stirred the indignation and
aroused the sympathy of the whole country.
"At first the nameless outrages inflicted upon them were received
with incredulity, for it seemed almost impossible that they could
be true. But there is now no reason to discredit the harrowing
details. Indeed, denial is hardly any longer attempted, nor is it
claimed that the reports of the cruelties of which these helpless
people are the victims have been exaggerated.
"Conscious that the facts cannot be suppressed or belittled,
the representatives and apologists of the ruthless perpetrators
of these atrocities are endeavoring to palliate and excuse the
enormities which they cannot truthfully deny. In order to shield
themselves and their governments from universal execration, the
world is asked to believe that the Christians of Armenia were
themselves the aggressors, and that the horrors of massacre and
rapine which have been visited upon them with such relentless
fury were but necessary and pardonable measures of punishment and
repression. The long record of the patient and submissive sufferers
is a silent yet unanswerable refutation of this falsehood.
"In their misery and woe these sufferers lift their eyes to us,
and ask us to extend to them such sympathy and assistance as will
rescue them from total ruin.
"We are met here to-night to express these feelings--to declare
that we cannot look unmoved upon the calamities of our Christian
brethren, though separated from us by thousands of miles, and to
recommend to Congress the adoption of such measures as, without
departure from the well-settled policy of our government, will
bring to them speedy and effectual deliverance, safety, and peace."
Cardinal Gibbons' letter sent to the meeting was as follows:
"I regret my inability to attend the meeting to protest against
the alleged outrages recently committed in Armenia.
"The reports of these outrages have been published with harrowing
details throughout the civilized world, and I am not aware that
these circumstantial details have been successfully denied.
"The Christians of Armenia have been conspicuous among their
Oriental co-religionists for their enlightened and progressive
spirit.
"It is earnestly to be hoped that these alleged deeds of
lawless violence will be thoroughly investigated in a calm and
dispassionate spirit, so that the whole truth may be brought
to light, and that outraged law may be vindicated. The recital
of these inhuman cruelties is calculated to fill every generous
heart with righteous indignation.
"The commercial and social ties that now bind together the human
family quicken our sympathy for our suffering brethren, though
separated from us by ocean and mountains, and this sympathy is
deepened by the consideration that many of their countrymen have
cast their lot among us, and that they and their persecuted
brethren are united to us in the sacred bonds of a common
Christian faith.
"It is gratifying to note, from recent publications, that a mixed
commission, to make thorough investigation, has been appointed
by the Sublime Porte."
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin of Lexington, Mass., whose article on the outrages
in Armenia, published in the "Congregationalist," has been used by
the Turkish government as a defense of the recent actions of the
soldiers of the Porte, was asked to be present at the meeting, and
was also asked to define his position as to the probable accuracy of
the reports from Armenia, and as to the responsibility of the Sultan
for the occurrence of the massacre.
His letter of reply was read at the meeting. He stated emphatically
that he believed the accounts of the horrible atrocities to be in
the main true, and added that he believed the Sultan of Turkey was
perfectly cognizant of them, and should be held responsible for them.
Extracts were also read from a letter from some Congregational
missionaries now near the seat of the massacres. The stories which
they told, having been written nearly a month after the occurrences,
showed that the earlier dispatches did not enlarge upon or exaggerate
the horror of the scenes.
Much interest was manifested in the address of Mr. Filian, who
feelingly described the pitiable condition of his country and his
countrymen, and graphically portrayed the extent of the recent
massacres, illustrating his talk with references to a large map of
Turkey and Armenia.
"Armenia," he said, "was mentioned in the Bible 700 years before
Christ. It then had an area of 1,000,000 square miles, and it was
in that land that the Garden of Eden was situated. Adam was created
there, and within its confines, upon Mt. Ararat, the ark of Noah
found a resting place after the flood. Armenia was named after Armen,
the great-grandson of Japhet, one of the three sons of Noah. In the
time of Christ the population of the country was 40,000,000. It was
fully Christianized in 310 A.D., and was not only the first Christian
nation of the earth, but the first civilized nation. And now, from
all these glories, the people of Armenia have dwindled to 4,000,000."
He concluded by citing the cause of the massacre as the desire of
the Turks to check the rapid growth and improvement of the Armenians.
The following resolutions, which had been prepared by a
committee composed of Rev. Dr. Conrad Clever, Rev. W. T. McKenney,
Rev. Y. T. Tagg, and Rev. C. A. Fulton, were, after some discussion,
passed:
"It has come to our knowledge through sources that cannot
be disputed that an outrageous massacre of Armenians has been
executed within the boundaries of the Turkish empire.
"These outrages have been committed by soldiers who are in the
employ and under the direction of the Sultan at Constantinople.
"The thousands who have been murdered were Christians and peaceably
disposed citizens.
"We, representatives of the citizens of Baltimore, prompted by
motives of Christianity and common brotherhood, do call upon our
government to use every power in its control, in harmony with that
international law which governs nations in their relationship
with each other, to aid these sufferers, and if possible to
bring such influence to bear upon the Turkish government as
will render justice to those who have been deprived of their
rightful liberties as honest and industrious citizens of one of
the recognized empires of the earth."
It was also resolved that a committee of five, with Mr. John P. Poe
chairman, should be appointed to present the resolutions to the
president at the earliest opportunity, and "to gratefully acknowledge
the steps already taken in the appointment of an American member of
the committee of investigation."
Mass Meeting In Dr. Greer's Church.
[Report from N.Y. Tribune.]
The interest which the American Christian feels in the Armenian
question was shown by the large attendance at St. Bartholomew's Church,
last night, when a special service was held under the direction of
Rev. Dr. David H. Greer. The object was to express indignation at
Turkey's acts of violence toward Armenians, and to enter a protest
against a course of conduct which is not in keeping with the spirit
of the nineteenth century.
The main body of the church was reserved for Armenians, of whom there
were about 500 present.
After the processional hymn, "The Son of God Goes Forth," had been
given, the full choir sang the anthem, "I Will Mention the Loving
Kindnesses of the Lord."
Dr. Greer then spoke of the outrages committed last September in
Armenia, the particulars of which had only recently become known. He
said in part:
"The purpose of this meeting is not only to express sympathy with
those who have suffered, and are suffering now from the atrocities and
barbarous cruelties inflicted by Turkish soldiers, but for protesting
against the further infliction of such atrocities. What has been done
is done, and cannot be undone; but if it is possible to prevent in any
measure a repetition of it in the future, it should become everyone
who is not a Christian merely, but a man, to exert himself to the
utmost in that direction."
The speaker told of the untrustworthiness of reports from Turkey,
and said that letters recently received from good sources give the
following details:
Early in September some Kurds--the brigands of that region--robbed
some Armenian villages of their flocks. The Armenians tried to recover
their property, and about a dozen Kurds were killed. The authorities
then telegraphed to the Sultan that the Armenians had killed some
of the Sultan's troops. The Sultan on hearing this ordered the army,
infantry, and cavalry, to put down the rebellion; and not finding any
rebellion to put down, they cleared the country so that none should
occur in the future. A number of towns and villages--the estimate
varying from twenty-four to forty-eight--were destroyed. Men, women,
and children were put to the sword, and from six to ten thousand
persons massacred in the district of Sassoun. As the result of this
wholesale butchery and slaughter, an epidemic of cholera has broken
out, which is still ravaging the country.
The Turk has always been a cruel force, and has practiced his cruelties
hitherto with impunity. But he cannot do so now. An enlightened
public opinion is to-day the governing power of the world. It is to
that we have to trust to accomplish moral reforms, not only here, but
everywhere. It is stronger than states; it is mightier than empires,
and the most arbitrary and autocratic of despots feel its controlling
force. It is the force that moves the world. If meetings similar to
this are held in different parts of the country and public sentiment
aroused, even the Turkish authorities will not be impervious to it.
Dr. Greer read a letter from Bishop Potter, in which he expressed
his regret at being unable to be present at the meeting. "I am,"
he wrote, "A Monroe-doctrine disciple, first, last, and all time,
but I am a human being also, and while I think our competency as a
nation to send a commissioner to Turkish-Armenia is open to question,
I am quite clear that our duty as something else than savages is to
protest against barbarism wherever it is to be found."
The Rev. Abraham Johannan then spoke in Armenian, and was followed by
the Rev. Dr. George H. McGrew, who, during years of missionary work
in Armenia, had become familiar with the people and their customs,
and gave vivid pictures of the hatred of the Turks toward any who
acknowledges Christ as the Son of God.
Mr. Depew's Speech.
Chauncey M. Depew was then introduced, and made an eloquent appeal
for the Armenians. He said in part:
"The closing days of 1894 could not be passed more appropriately than
in a protest by the Christian peoples of the world against the outrages
upon humanity which will be the ever-living disgrace of the dying
year. The industrial and financial disturbances which have convulsed
the world, and caused such widespread distress during the last twelve
months, are of temporary and passing importance compared with the
merciless persecutions of a people because of their religious faith.
"It is a criticism upon the boastfulness of the nineteenth century that
there should be any occasion for this meeting, but it is also a tribute
to the spirit of the century that this meeting is held. There have
been religious wars and persecutions, and bloody reprisals, in all ages
of modern times. They arouse our indignation and our horror, but they
excited little attention beyond the countries where they occurred from
the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. The distinguishing feature
of our period is an international public opinion. It came with steam
and electricity; it is the child of liberty of conscience. The Turkish
government, founded by the sword of Islam, is a hierarchy and a creed,
and not a government of liberty and law."
Mr. Depew then described the disadvantages under which Christians dwell
in Turkey, and how their standing before the law amounts to nothing.
"It was the atrocities incident to such institutions," he said, "which
aroused Europe and liberated Greece, which caused the other nations to
stand still and risk the balance of power, while Russia freed Bulgaria,
Roumania, and Servia, and made them practically independent states. It
was to assure religious liberty that the treaty of Berlin recognized
the autonomy of the states, and bound the Christian nations of Europe
to protect the Christian people still within the Turkish dominion."
After holding up to ridicule the European "peace" which is
being maintained with continually growing armies, Mr. Depew said:
"The Armenians are the New Englanders of the East. Their intellect,
industry, and thrift make them prosperous." He spoke of their being the
oldest Christian people, and of the sacrifices which they have made
and which they daily make in the cause of their faith. The horrible
outrages committed against the peasants in Armenia were graphically
described, and in this connection Mr. Depew said:
"The story of the attacks of these savage hordes and no less savage
troops reads as if fourteenth-century conditions, repeated with all
their horrors in 1894, were the means adopted by Providence to shame
the civilized world into the performance of its duty, and to stir
the Christian conscience to a sense of its neglect of it."
Mr. Depew's description of the heroism of the Armenian women who,
rather than be captured by the Turks and suffer defilement, threw
themselves into the ravine which surrounded their village, moved the
audience deeply. He went on:
"The world has taken little note of this supreme tragedy. Fifty years
from now, and some painter will become immortal by putting it upon
canvas. A few years, and some novelist will mount to enduring fame
by a romance, of which it will be the center. A few years, and some
poet will embalm it in verse which will stand in literature alongside
of the battle lyrics of Campbell, Macaulay, and Tennyson. Some orator
will give to the narrative and its lesson a setting and an inspiration,
so that from the stage of the school and the academy, from the lips of
the boys and the girls, it will teach down the centuries the triumphs
of patriotism and faith.
"Yesterday an old man of world-wide fame celebrated his eighty-fifth
birthday. He had been the ruler of the British Empire--he is a
private citizen. Among the utterances which he deemed appropriate,
in reply to the congratulations which came to him from every land,
was an indignant protest against the outrages against the Armenian
Christians, and a demand upon the Christian people of the earth to
compel their governments to call upon Turkey for a halt.
"This warning and appeal from the lips of Mr. Gladstone was flashed
across continents and under oceans; it penetrated cabinets, it
thundered in the ears of sovereigns, and through the great journals
it thrilled every household and every church of every race and of
every tongue.
"To-morrow--aye, to-day--Rosebery is consulting with the French
Premier, and France and England are speaking to the Emperor of Germany,
and the young Czar and the King of Italy, and the Emperor of Austria
for united action, which will bring the Turk to mercy, peace, and
liberty for the Armenian Christian without destroying the equilibrium
of Europe.
"We seek no foreign alliances, we court no international complications,
but we claim the right under the Fatherhood of God to demand for our
brother and our sister in the distant East, law, justice, and the
exercise of conscience."
Dr. Greer then read resolutions expressing sympathy for the Armenians,
and protesting against further outrages. The document closes as
follows:
"Resolved, That we hereby extend our deepest sympathy to the
Armenian people who, for their Christian faith, have repeatedly
suffered unspeakable cruelties from their Turkish rulers and
Kurdish neighbors;
"Resolved, That we hereby express to our Christian brethren in
England and on the continent, who are endeavoring to investigate
these outrages and to bring the perpetrators of them to justice,
our hearty good-will and godspeed. We hope and believe that they
will not pause until the extent of these atrocities is clearly
ascertained and the responsibility for them finally fixed;
"Resolved, That in their efforts to provide against the recurrence
of similar acts of oppression in the future, they shall receive
our hearty and unwavering moral support;
"Resolved, That we earnestly call upon our Christian
fellow-citizens everywhere throughout the country to organize and
express an indignant and universal protest against the continuance
of a state of affairs under which it is possible for women and
children to be murdered simply because they are Christians."
The resolutions were adopted by a rising vote, and the
Rev. Dr. Tiffany, Archdeacon of New York, pronounced the benediction.
Very many such mass meetings were held in different cities of the
United States. The U. S. Senate discussed the question and made
similar resolutions. Mr. Call submitted the following as a substitute
for the committee resolutions:
"'That humanity and religion, and the principles on which all
civilization rests, demand that the civilized governments shall,
by peaceful negotiations, or, if necessary, by force of arms,
prevent and suppress the cruelties and massacres inflicted on the
Armenian subjects of Turkey, by the establishment of a government
of their own people, with such guarantees by the civilized powers
of its authority and permanence as shall be adequate to that end.'"
All these resolutions, both of the people and the Senate, went to
President Cleveland, but he has not seen fit to act on them. It would
be absurd to impute this to weakness or unwillingness to decide a
new question: Mr. Cleveland, whatever his limitations, has never
lacked firmness or decision. Doubtless it is because he thinks this
country ought not to break away from its old traditions and involve
itself with European concerns. But this is not a European concern;
it is European, Asiatic, American, the world's; the concern of all
humanity, not to say Christianity.
It concerns the lives and result of sixty years' work of American
missionaries; the government cannot wash its hands of all concern
or responsibility for them, and alone of all great powers declare
that its Christian citizens may not spread Christianity. And a great
and rich nation has no more right to go off with its hands in its
pockets, and declare that it has no obligation to the well-being of
the world, than a great, rich man has a right to declare that he has no
obligation to society. The rich man only keeps his money because there
is a civilized society with laws and policemen to protect him in it;
this nation only keeps at peace because other nations' civilization
and international law prevent a great combination to plunder it. It
ought to accept its share of the general social duty--man the fire
pumps, and do police work if needed; and not let a thug murder one
of its companions--nay, relatives--before its eyes. It is bound as a
Christian state not to let a bloody and sensual Mohammedan barbarism
extinguish the light of a sister Christian community; it is bound
as a nation of civilized beings not to let a horde of savages like
its own Indians stamp out a civilized nation millions in number
by horrors unspeakable, every atrocity of butchery, and rape, and
torture that ever sprung from the cruelty or the lust of man. These
things are as awful, as hideous to the Armenians as they would be to
you if fifty thousand Indians overflowed Colorado and inflicted them
on your American families. What would you feel and do if most of that
State were turned into a burnt desolation, with here and there a cabin
standing, Denver half obliterated and ten thousand of its inhabitants
slaughtered in cold blood, hundreds impaled, or burnt, or flayed alive,
the sisters and daughters of your own households by thousands violated
over and over, thousands made slaves and concubines in the wigwams
of dirty Indian brutes, and others wandering as naked beggars in the
wintry snows about the ruins of their once happy homes? Yet this is
a picture of what happened over part of Armenia; can you think it is
of no concern to you? Ought Congress and the President to think it
of no concern to them? Surely there are some things where national
lines ought not to count.
Mr. Cleveland has been unfortunate in his advisers, partly chosen by
himself, and partly inherited. Minister Terrill has taken the word of
the Sultan and the palace clique, and made no attempt to investigate
for himself; consequently he is full of respect for the Mohammedans,
and scorn for the Armenians. Admiral Kirtland visited a few seaports,
found the Armenians there working as usual (of course--the massacres
were carried on where news could be intercepted and suppressed by the
Turks), and reports that he didn't find any evidence of outrages or
disorders, and considers the stories false, or much exaggerated. And
such lazy or prejudiced negatives as these are to be counted as
outweighing the sworn official reports of consuls on the spot, and of
pitiful letters from the survivors among the very victims themselves!
I have said that Mr. Cleveland does not lack firmness. He does not in
internal policy, but he certainly did not show enough in the matter of
these atrocities. The Sultan asked him to nominate a commissioner to
join those of other powers in investigating the Sassoun massacres. He
appointed Milo A. Jewett, consul at Sivas; but Mr. Jewett was much
too keen and forcible a man for the Sultan, who refused to let him
take his place on the commission. Mr. Cleveland did not insist,
as he ought. The very fact that the Sultan did not want it, was the
best of reasons for persisting.
Again, last year, the Senate voted to send two more consuls to Armenia;
Mr. Cleveland appointed Messrs. Chilton and Hunter to go to Erzeroum
and Harpoot respectively, but the Sultan refused to accept them,
and they had to come back. To consent to this was wrong and weak;
the American government should firmly declare its right to protect
its own interests in its own way.
But the President will act if the American people will stand at his
back. When will they send forth a mandate that these horrors must stop?
VI.
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES.
THE GREAT QUESTION.
The Armenian atrocities can never be fully understood by those who
may be born in a free land, where there are no Turks, no Kurds, no
Circassians, no Georgians, no Zeibecks, and no Mohammedan religion,
with its oppressions and persecutions.
Why the Sultan orders the Turks, Kurds, or other followers to destroy
the Armenians, whereby more than 100,000 of them have recently
been killed, and 500,000 been rendered homeless and left to die of
starvation in the streets and fields, or why the Sultan ordered all
who are spared to accept the Mohammedan religion, is never referred
to with any sort of correctness by the newspapers or periodicals in
their accounts of the dreadful atrocities taking place in Armenia,
and therefore the people are left in ignorance and doubt respecting
the true situation both as to the causes and the atrocities themselves.
FIRST CAUSE.
The first cause is a very simple one. That the Armenians are
Christians, and the Turks, Kurds, Circassians, and Georgians in Turkey
are Mohammedans, and the Mohammedan religion urges brutality. It has
already been shown to be not a religion, but a system of falsehood,
hatred, cruelty, lust, and sensuality; of course, these things combined
can only result in corruption. It would seem that Mohammed must
have taken his inspiration from both the domestic fowl and a bull. A
rooster is a polygamist; he has his hens without limit. So Mohammed,
the professed prophet, had wives without limit. He claimed to have
received a revelation from Heaven directing him to take to himself
any woman he pleased, no matter whether she was married and had a
husband or not; that made no difference with Mohammed. He took any
woman he wanted, and if her husband objected he was sure to be put to
death. Mohammedans cannot differ from their prophet, they follow him,
they strive to imitate him just as much as true Christians strive to
follow and imitate Christ. Further, cocks, as a rule, have crowing
spells five times in twenty-four hours, and generally mount a high
place and do their screaming there. So the Mohammedan priests, who
are called Moezzins, ascend a minaret, or a tower, and five times in
twenty four hours they call the people to worship. There is so little
confidence placed in the priests or criers that the people prefer to
have a blind one go on the minaret to give the calls, so that he may
not see their women unveiled in their houses.
From a bull, because he is not only immoderately lustful, but
fierce and destructive; and the farmers say that the older he
grows, the worse he is in both respects. It is certainly so with
Mohammedans,--naturally enough, for nothing is so lickerish as an old
man who has been sensual all his life, and cruelty is a trait which
grows with indulgence. The Sultan grows more of a beast, and more of
a fiend as he grows older, and all the Mohammedans are of the same
stripe. Armenian men and Armenian women alike dread the approach of
an old Turk far more than of a young one. Unless one has witnessed a
fight between bulls, he can have little idea of Turkish warfare. No
animal fight can approach it in ferocity or insatiability; when a bull
conquers another, he never leaves him until he gores him to death. So
when Mohammedans conquer a nation, be sure they will exterminate
it. To them mercy means apostasy; to leave a man alive or a woman
unravished is to be false to the precepts of Mohammed. They cannot
help it, it is their religion; a religion for wild animals. Their
priests go to the mosques and preach to them thus: "Believers in
Mohammed, love your fellow believers, but hate and kill all others;
they are Giaours, heathen dogs, filthy hogs." To kill a Christian and
to kill a hog is all the same to a Mohammedan; there is as little sin
in one as the other. The priests say, "Ask them to accept our religion;
if they do, you must not harm them; but if they will not, kill them,
for they have no right to live in a Mohammedan country. It is not only
no sin, but a great virtue; the more Christians you kill, the greater
reward you will have from Allah and his prophet Mohammed." The Turks
are slaughtering the Armenians to earn this reward. Of course if the
men apostatize they are spared; but the Turk has no notion of losing
the gratification of his lust on the women in that way. A woman who
falls into their hands need not hope to keep her virtue on any terms,
even by abjuring her religion; they violate her first, and force her
to become a Mohammedan afterwards.
Let it be fully understood throughout the Christian world that
the massacre is a religious demand; the Turks have to comply. As
a Christian tries to be faithful to Christ and his teachings, so
the Turks are trying to be faithful to their prophet and his. They
go to the mosques and pray, "Allah, help us; strengthen our hands
and sharpen our swords to kill the infidel Armenians." Then they
come from the mosques and begin to kill, and plunder, and outrage,
and commit every sort of indescribable atrocities on the peaceable
and defenseless Armenians. And it will grow worse instead of better,
since so-called Christian nations have given the Sultan public notice
that they will not interfere with him. Do not be deceived by his
lying reports; there was no Armenian rebellion; they could not rebel;
they did not kill the Turks, they never dreamed of such madness. This
awful fate has fallen on them purely and simply for being Christians.
SECOND CAUSE.
This seems frivolous and incredible, but it is true; namely, a dream
of the Sultan.
Some six years ago, a report was circulated in Constantinople about
this dream. It was, that in his sleep the Sultan saw a little tree
planted in the center of his kingdom. It began to grow larger and
larger, till it covered the whole Turkish Empire, and overshadowed even
the mountains. All the nations of Turkey dwelt under its glorious and
majestic shade. Still it grew, till the branches crossed the oceans
and covered all the other kingdoms, finally the whole world. He
woke, but the dream troubled him deeply, and he called some of the
ulemas or wise men, of whom he always has a number in his palace, to
interpret it for him. They explained it by saying that the tree was
Christianity; Christian missionary work in the heart of his empire. It
was a menace to his throne and country, and would grow till it covered
the world. The Sultan, alarmed and angry, asked what he should do. The
ulemas advised him to cut it down while it was small, and he has been
doing his best to follow their advice. He did not dare to kill the
missionaries, but he is accomplishing the same result by destroying
their churches and schools and forbidding any more to be built,
confiscating all religious books, and killing the native Christian
ministers. He has employed every device to force the missionaries
to depart by paralyzing their work; if they chose to stay, he would
accuse them of inciting the natives to revolt. He has succeeded so far;
plunder, burning, torture, murder, violation and forced conversion of
Christian women, have practically put an end to missionary work. Now
the time has come to kill the missionaries; and he will very likely
find some excuse for doing it--he has an arsenal of falsehoods always
at his command. Quite likely he will say the Armenians killed them,
and then murder more Armenians in reprisal. His cunning is as infinite
as his cruelty. He gives a charter to a missionary institution and
destroys ten others. He invites Minister Terrell to the palace, gives
him grand receptions, and loads him with promises and flatteries,
and all the time goes on obliterating the schools and churches and
killing the native pastors. He creates a ruin; when the European powers
protest, he says he will make amends, and he does it by perpetrating
a greater one, in which the first is forgotten. He massacres hundreds
in a city; when the powers protest, he says he will restore order,
and does it by ordering thousands killed in another city, and the
first is again forgotten. His atrocities increase as he finds that he
is to be unmolested; he is resolute to cut down that spreading tree,
and has already cut thousands of branches from it. And the Christian
nations look on and say they cannot help it. They know perfectly well
what is going on, but their "interests" of one sort or another will
not permit them to remove that awful blot on civilization.
THIRD CAUSE.
The Mohammedan population in Turkey is decreasing, and the Christians
are increasing. When the present Sultan captured the throne from his
brother Murad, Turkey had 40,000,000 people; as soon as he girded
the sword of Osman, he began the great battle with Russia, and after
the Turko-Russian war he found himself with 18,000,000. Who are the
lost? Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina,
a part of Macedonia, Cyprus, and a part of Armenia. Practically the
whole of Europe was lost for Turkey except Constantinople and the
district Edirne or Adrianople. Turkey is not an empire any more, but it
is a little kingdom; rather a little feudal system, or more accurately
still, a little anarchy. If it were not for mutual European jealousy,
the Sultan could not keep his anarchism. Yet many still think that
the Ottoman Empire is a great one, a powerful government. They look
at the Sultan and his dominion through a magnifying glass. This shows
ignorance. The Turks are decayed and are decaying. The sick man of
Turkey is the dead man of Turkey, and ought to be buried, but the
European powers do not bury him because there are precious stones
and jewelry in the coffin; no matter how bad the corpse smells,
they will endure it. And the bad smell of the Sultan is killing
hundreds of thousands of Christians; but the dead stays where it is,
and may stay for some years, but the end will come before many have
gone by. When I say that the days of the Sultan are numbered, and
the brutal Turkish mis-rule will cease, many Americans will rejoin
"that the same has often been said long years since, though the empire
remains to-day, and seems likely to remain." The fact is, however,
that during my own life more than half of it has gone to pieces,
and the fragment which remains will go to pieces soon. Permit me to
say that all former prophecies have been mistaken because those who
made them have judged and misjudged the situation from an occidental
standpoint; I judge it from that of a native, who knows the realities
as only a native can. What can an English ambassador or an American
minister in Constantinople, staying perhaps two or three years,
and entertained and decorated by the crafty Sultan, know about the
internal state of Turkey? Having traveled through the country, lived
and preached for years at a time; preached in different cities,
including Constantinople, I can see signs of a break-up that a
foreigner would not notice.
The reason the Turkish population does not increase is this: The
army has to be made up of Mohammedans, partly because the Sultan does
not put arms into the hands of the Christians, for obvious reasons,
since they have no motive to uphold and every motive to fight him,
and partly because to be a soldier in Turkey is a holy service, the
privilege of Mohammedans alone. As there is a large standing army,
nearly all the Mohammedan youths have to become soldiers. Their service
begins when they are about twenty years old. The shortest term is
five years; for many it is ten; and even after that, there are many
who cannot escape. If a young Mohammedan is not married at twenty,
obviously he cannot marry until twenty-five anyway, and perhaps
thirty,--very late for a country population; if he is married his
wife is virtually a widow for five to ten years. Now the reader can
see my drift. With marriages so late, and husbands so long absent,
Turkish families are small; they do not make good the deaths. And
there is a still plainer cause: The soldiers being very poorly fed,
and constant fighting going on, ninety per cent. die in the army,
and so never have any families; the flower of the nation perishes
barren. Those who survive and return are pale and sick, good for
nothing, a burden to their families and to the nation. The Armenians
have to support the Sultan's army, since they do not furnish it,
but they rear families, and are drowning out the Turks.
Another cause of decrease is the pilgrimage to Mecca, where Mohammed
was born. On an average, a million pilgrims go there every year,--of
course not all from Turkey, but most of them, and every year about
50,000 of them die of cholera before reaching home, from the Holy Well
(Zemzem sooyi), which is full of unholy foulness; even those who live
and return home take that water to their families, and many of the
latter die too. Cholera is perpetual in Turkey, and it originates at
Mecca. When I was in Marsovan twelve at one time went on the pilgrimage
and only four returned. It is a great virtue to die where Mohammed was
born, or to drink that water and die, and they are going to him at a
rapid rate. Last year, when the English, Russian, and French consuls
at Jiddeh, the seaport of Mecca, established a quarantine to detain
those coming from Mecca and bringing cholera, they were murdered by
the Mohammedan Arabs, who said they were interfering with the sacred
religion, and the Sultan had to pay the indemnity.
Still another reason is the shocking increase of abortions among the
wealthy town dwellers. The Mohammedan women are growing to love selfish
indulgences better than the duties and delights of motherhood. They
do not wish to be "bothered" by children, and they take medicine to
prevent having them. Where the women come to this, it is better for
a race to die out; they have outlived their purpose.
A fourth cause is polygamy. People naturally think that marrying more
than one wife should increase the number of children; but the facts
emphatically prove the reverse. The polygamous Turks do not increase
as fast as the Christians who have but one wife.
For the fifth, the Turks are an exceedingly sensual race, by nature and
education, as I have shown. The very religion that should help to make
them pure, helps to make them vile. Lust leads them, and they follow;
nature prompts, and their religion requires it. I am truly ashamed
to tell it, but even when they go to their mosques to worship, they
manifest their sensuality. Not only the relations of male and female
are very rank, but between male and male they are worse; between
the old Turks and young Turks, the very boys, the relations are too
disgusting to describe. All such moral corruptions not only weaken a
people's forces morally, but physically as well; they substitute barren
lusts for legitimate gratifications, selfish passions for mutual ones.
Hence the Mohammedans are fast decreasing in Turkey, and the Sultan
is terrified, and hopes by killing a large part of the Christians,
and forcing the survivors to accept Mohammedanism, that their power
of multiplication may be the boon of a Mohammedan people. Out of the
18,000,000 inhabitants of Turkey, 6,000,000 are native Christians,
about half of them Armenians. This leaves only 12,000,000 for the
whole Mohammedan population in the present Turkish dominion; and
it grows less, while the Christian part grows greater. To check
this increase, the Sultan a few years ago made the obtaining of a
marriage certificate compulsory, and the Turkish authorities have
understood that they are to make it as hard as possible to get; it
has cost great sums of money to obtain it. But for many months now,
there have been no marriages at all in Armenia; the authorities will
not grant certificates on any terms, and to prevent any more Christians
being born, the daughters and young brides of the murdered thousands
are made mothers through violation by the Turks and Kurds.
The Christians have been increasing not only from within, but from
without. Europeans have begun to go wherever railroads go. Hence
another reason for massacre and forced conversion. That the Sultan
has been planning this massacre ever since the Turko-Russian war is
evidenced by the fact that after the war he encouraged or ordered
a number of Mohammedan tribes--Circassians, Georgians, Kurds, and
Lazes--to emigrate from Russia to Armenia, confiscated masses of
Christians' property, and gave it to them, and directed them to
reduce the number of Armenian Christians by any way they saw fit,
giving them full license to do what they would with Armenians, without
penalty. You know what that means with fierce tribes of human wild
animals, cruel and foul, and he knew what it meant too, and intended
it to mean that. Before his time the Christians far outnumbered
the Mohammedans in Armenia proper; but under his "government"--his
deliberate policy of extermination--great numbers fled the country,
numbers were killed and their women made concubines to Mohammedans,
and now the Mohammedans are more numerous in Armenia than the Armenian
Christians. And if the Sultan is permitted to go on, he will kill a
million more, the rest will be "converted," and then he will call the
attention of the European powers to this fact, and say, "See here, you
ask me to reform Armenia; Armenia is reformed. There is no Armenia;
there are no Armenians; the people in that part of my empire are
Mohammedans, and they are satisfied with my government. What do you
want from me? What right have you to interfere with my country and
religion?" That is his plan. When the Berlin Congress was held, the
Armenians were the majority in their own country, and the Congress
decided on reforms for it; the Sultan promised them, with the full
intention of depopulating and converting it, and then telling the
powers there was no need of reform there. He is doing this now
incessantly, and as remorselessly as a fiend.
FOURTH CAUSE.
The Armenians are rich and educated, and the Mohammedans are poor and
ignorant. The Turks have never cared for money or education. They have
always said, "Let the Christians make the money, and we will take it
from them whenever we choose. We will be the rulers, the soldiers,
the police; we will have the sword in our hands. Then their property,
and their women too, will be ours at will, and we can force them to
become Mohammedans." Such being their reasoning, they took good care
of their swords and their guns, which were furnished to them from
Europe and the United States. The Christian Armenians believing that
the great Christian powers would never permit the Turks to wreak their
murderous and shameful will on them, did not risk the vengeance of
the Turks by secretly buying weapons, nor train themselves in the use
of arms. They trained their minds, got education, traveled in Europe
and this United States, enlightened themselves in every way they
could; they sharpened their intellects rather than their swords. They
learned to make money also; they established all the business houses
in Turkey; all the Turks that get employment in the cities get it from
the Armenian merchants. As far as Turkey has any finances, they are
in the hands of Armenians. Go where you will in Turkey, seaboard or
interior, all the money and education belong to the Armenians, poverty
and ignorance are the portion of the Turks. Ninety per cent. of the
Armenians know how to read and write, while ninety per cent. of the
Turks do not. Sixty per cent. of the Mohammedan property has been
sold to the Christian Armenians within twenty years. When I was in
Armenia, the Mohammedans were always selling and the Christians always
buying. One day a Turk was going to sell his field to an Armenian, and
they went to the government office to make the transfer. The officer
in charge said he could not transfer the property of a Mohammedan to
a Christian. This was something new. "Why is that?" they asked. "The
governor forbids it," said the officer, "he told me that hereafter it
should not be done." Finally both went to the governor and asked him
why he forbade it. The governor replied, "Of late the Armenians have
bought up the fields of the Mohammedans, till they own the greater
part of them; if we let them go on they will own everything, and the
Mohammedans will be left without property. Therefore I forbid it; no
Mohammedan shall hereafter sell any property to a Christian." He told
the Turk he might sell his field to another Mohammedan, but not to a
Christian. "All right," said the Turk, "I will sell it to you, then,
at the same price, or maybe a little less; will you buy it? I need the
money to support my family." "I cannot buy it," said the governor;
"I have no money." "I know that," replied the Turk; "and not only
you, but all the other Mohammedans have no money either. They are
all poor. I cannot find any Turk who has the money to buy my field,
and I need money, and I have to sell it to that Christian." Finally
the governor was forced to give the permission, and the Armenian
bought the field. This is only one case, but it is typical. There are
thousands of just such. And this is another cause which aroused the
jealousy of the Sultan and his subordinates to order the massacre of
the Armenians, and the seizure of their property.
I often hear it said in this country, "Let us help the poor Armenians";
and I feel very indignant. Poor Armenians! There are poor among the
Armenians, as among all nations; but the Armenians as a body are not
poor. They are the richest people in Turkey. That is one reason why
they are plundered and killed. I do not want the American people to
help the Armenians as a poor, ignorant, miserable people, but because
they deserve help as a rich, noble, Christian nation being rooted out
by plunder and murder, for the benefit of, and by means of a horde
of savages. I will illustrate by a very little story.
When Alexander the Great reached the mountains of Afghanistan on
his way to India, the Afghan king refused to let him pass through
his country. After a great battle, and the slaughter of thousands on
both sides, Alexander was victorious. The king himself was captured,
and brought before Alexander, who said to him, "You are my captive;
how shall I treat you?" "As a king," said the prisoner. Alexander
was charmed with the dignity of the answer, and replied, "You shall
be treated as one, and a brave one. I leave you on your throne;
but permit me to pass on to India." So the king kept his royalty as
before, and Alexander continued his conquests.
Such is the Armenian question. They are a noble people, an enterprising
people, but captives in the hands of the Turks. But the Turks have not
the magnanimity of Alexander. We need a nation which does have it, to
say to the Armenians, "Remain where you are, in your ancient home, and
rule there; govern yourselves freely as a Christian nation. You have
fought centuries after centuries for home and honor, and now we come
to your help, to establish you on the old Armenian throne." Do not help
the Armenians merely as a poor people, but help them because they were
rich, and now they are stripped and poor, without fault of their own,
from hate of their (and your) religion, and envy of their superiority.
FIFTH CAUSE.
This is perhaps the greatest of all. It is the American missionary
work in Armenia. It was in 1831 that the American Board of Foreign
Missions established the first Protestant mission there. Their purpose
was to send missionaries, not simply to the Armenians, but to all
classes and sects in Turkey. Those pioneer American missionaries were
among the noblest of men, and greatest of teachers, preachers, and
organizers. I will name a few: Dr. Goodell, Dr. Dwight, Dr. Schaffler,
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, founder of Robert College, living now at Lexington,
Mass., 86 years old, one of the greatest missionaries ever born,
Dr. H. Van Lennep, another great missionary, greatly beloved by
the Armenians. Books could be written about these Christian chiefs,
to whom, and to the American people who sent them, we Armenians are
grateful. When Dr. Van Lennep died at Great Barrington, Mass., about
six years ago, the author was raising money here to build a church
in Armenia, as already told. He went to condole with Mrs. Van Lennep,
and told her not to put any monument over the doctor's grave. He would
see the other Armenians, and as a grateful people they would erect
him a beautiful one. He kept his word, and his faith was justified;
they raised the funds and put up the monument. It stands in the
cemetery at Great Barrington, with the following inscription:--
Henry John Van Lennep, D.D.
1815-1889.
For Thirty Years Missionary in Turkey.
This monument is erected by his Armenian friends
in grateful appreciation of his heroic virtues,
and endearing services rendered to their people.
The beloved Missionary
Van Lennep.
When the noble missionaries went to Turkey, the Turks hated them, the
Jews hated them, the Greeks hated them, and these three peoples hate
them still. But the Armenians welcomed them; they loved and esteemed
them, and they love and esteem them more than ever now. The question
is often asked "Are not the Armenians a Christian people? Then why
did the missionaries go there?" Yes, they are; but still they needed
the missionaries, and need them now more than ever. Why? Well, for
two reasons. Their churches and schools having been destroyed by
the long oppression by the Turks, they needed help from a sister
Christian church to help them educate themselves, and build up
churches, schools, and colleges, benevolent institutions, printing
offices. The missionaries have done that great work in Armenia, but
I am sorry to say that some of their creations have been destroyed
by the Turks during the recent atrocities.
The second reason is that the Armenian church stood in great need of
reformation. I have already explained in this book (see "The Armenian
Church") how in the last desperate struggle for national existence,
a part of the people reluctantly accepted help from the Pope of
Rome, at the price of uniting with the Roman church, and using its
rituals, images, etc. Hence, in many of the Armenian churches there
was no pure gospel preaching; rituals were the leading element of the
services. There was therefore great need that such preaching should be
introduced; the missionaries did so, and the Armenian church has been
greatly reformed. My purpose here is not to write a church history,
nor to give an account of missionary work in Turkey. I mention it
incidentally as a chief cause of the atrocities.
The missionaries have trained both boys and girls in their schools
for sixty-five years now; many thousands of them. The Turks have
not been permitted to go to them, the Greeks are too proud to
send their children, but the Armenians were hungry for education,
especially for an American education. The new-born baby of the time
when the missionaries arrived is now sixty-five years old, with his
American education, which has wonderfully elevated the Armenians,
and turned Armenia almost into a second America, educationally. The
American colleges in different parts of Turkey are great centers
of light; about ninety per cent. of the students and the leading
native professors and teachers are Armenians. I will mention a few:
Robert College and the Woman's College in Constantinople; the Ladies'
Seminary in Smyrna; Anatolia College, the Ladies' Seminary, and the
Theological Seminary in Marsovan; the writer's pastorate, Central
Turkey College and the Ladies' College at Aintab, Euphrates College
(first called Armenia College, but the name is forbidden by the Turks,
as encouraging Armenian independence) and the Ladies' Department at
Harpoot; the Academy and the Theological Seminary at Marash, where I
studied three years; the colleges both for girls and boys at Beirut;
and many high schools and primary schools throughout Armenia. The
American Bible House is a great depot of Christian literature. These
are all American Christian institutions, and nine-tenths of their
inmates are Armenians.
The reader can clearly see how the Armenians have become a wholly new
race; they have had the advantage of American education, and it has
revolutionized the nation. It has elevated, refined, and prospered
them. This great improvement among the Armenians aroused the jealousy
of the Sultan and his underlings. He first began to close the schools;
then to imprison the native Armenian teachers and preachers; then to
kill the Armenians and destroy the missionary institutions, that no
Armenian may be left to go to any American school, and that if any
escapes, there may be no American school to receive him. I consider
this missionary education the very greatest cause for the atrocities,
and the Armenian bishops agree with me. Here is what the Armenian
bishop of Oorfa (Edessa), where about 8,000 Armenians were massacred,
has to say:
TO THE AMERICANS. March 12, 1896.
"We have been strenuously opposed to your mission work among us,
but these bloody days have proven that some of our Protestant
brothers have been staunch defenders of our honor and faith. You
at least know that our crime, in the eyes of the Turk, has been
that we have adopted the civilization you commended. Behold
the missions and schools which you planted among us, and which
cost millions of dollars, and hundreds of precious lives, now in
ruins. The Turk is planning to rid himself of missionaries and
teachers by leaving them nobody to labor among."
It is very significant that wherever there was a missionary
institution, and especially a missionary Theological Seminary to
train Armenian ministers, there has been the greatest atrocity. This
shows how the Sultan hates Americans, and American education. There
are nearly two hundred American male and female missionaries in
Turkey. They are in great danger. The Turks have determined to kill
them, and the Sultan can no longer control them, for he gave the
order and put the sword into their hands. The Kurds and the Turks
say, "The missionaries have better things than the Armenians had. We
killed the Armenians and got their valuables, and we enjoy them. We
are richer now, and we did not work for it; we did not waste time in
hard labor; the only thing we had to do was to obey the Sultan and
kill the Armenians and get their property. Why not kill the Americans
and get richer?" Reader, keep in your mind that the Turks will kill
the missionaries also. The horrible time is coming, in spite of what
your minister to Turkey says, and partly because he believes Turkish
lies, and says there was no need of sending missionaries there.
Another point worthy of consideration is this: Russia and Turkey made
an alliance. Russia is as much opposed to the missionaries as Turkey
is, and perhaps the Czar is secretly encouraging the Sultan to get
rid of them. Undoubtedly Russia is trying to get rid of Protestant
influence in Turkey, and therefore sacrifices the old Protestant
Armenian nation to Turkey. In my belief, the time is coming when
the Protestant nations will unite and protest practically against
the outrages of Turkey and Russia. They have no right to persecute
Turks or Russians, but they have a perfect right to protect an old
Protestant church and the American missionaries. No matter how much
it costs, it pays to protect them, and, pay or no pay, it is the duty
of America and England to unite and protect them. And if England and
America should really unite, Turkey and Russia will yield. I do not
at all concur with Americans who favor Russia and hate England. Lord
Salisbury is too timid to do it, but Lord Salisbury is not England. The
English people are a noble people, and if the American noble people
unite with them, they can accomplish a great work for God and humanity,
for peace and liberty, for freedom and happiness in Armenia.
As far as I can judge, the foregoing are the causes of the atrocities
in Armenia. Perhaps there may be other minor ones, but they are not
worthy of discussion.
VII.
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA.
THE BEGINNING.
Turkish atrocities in Armenia are no new thing; they have gone on
for centuries, and left but a fraction of the population it once
had. But let us disregard old history, and come to the subject
of to-day. Practically that begins with Hamid II, the present
Sultan. He began his persecutions nearly twenty years ago, but on a
small scale. He has continually devised new methods of getting rid of
the Armenians without responsibility; finally he hit on the plan of
arming the Kurds and letting them loose with full power to do their
worst. When I was in Constantinople he summoned the Kurdish chiefs,
hundreds of them--I have seen them with my own eyes--entertained them
in the palace, armed them with modern rifles, and sent them to Armenia
on their mission. The pretense under which he did it was worthy of
him: he called them the "Hamidieh Cavalry," and pretended that they
were a sort of mounted police, who were to keep order and protect the
Armenians. This was exactly as though a regiment of red Indians should
be armed and sent to Oregon to protect the inhabitants, and called,
say, the Presidential Guard, and the Armenians knew well what they were
for. But the European travelers and newspaper correspondents took it
all seriously, and talked of his "civilizing the Kurds," etc. Now these
were only the chiefs; each chief had a large following of tribesmen,
so that about 30,000 Kurds in all were given arms and ordered to go
to work exterminating the Armenians. This work began in 1891, but on
a small scale, and in a very crafty way, so that it should not have
the appearance of a premeditated massacre; then it was stopped till
about sixteen months ago, when they were encouraged to begin again,
publicly, and with full swing. It was decided to begin in Sassoun, a
district far from the sea, with no roads and a sparse population; if
successful in escaping report there, he could carry out the massacre
through all Armenia, for which "reforms" were asked and promised. He
ordered Zekii Pasha to have his soldiers ready, and meantime to have
the "Hamidieh Cavalry" the Kurdish chiefs and tribesmen, ready to
attack and kill all the Armenians in Sassoun. This city lies between
Moosh and Bitlis, in a mountainous country, and the Sassounites
are a brave people, as much so as the Zeitoonlis are. The district
had about sixty villages and towns, and about 20,000 people sixteen
months ago, but it has none now. The regular soldiers and the armed
Kurds surrounded the district from all sides, and in about a month
had slaughtered the entire population. It was reported that Zekii
Pasha carried on his breast an order from the Sultan as follows:
"Whoever spares man, woman, or child is disloyal." After he had
finished his task, he received great rewards from the Sultan, and is
now one of his most esteemed commanders.
Zekii Pasha is said to have had 40,000 Kurds and regular soldiers
under his command when he began the massacre. The people of Sassoun,
knowing that they were doomed, fought desperately. They repulsed the
Kurds several times, and killed many of them; but finally the regular
soldiers took part, pretending to come in aid of the Armenians,
and overbore them, killing all without quarter. The Sultan's order
was to spare neither man, woman, nor child; but as the men met the
enemy first, they were killed first. When the women's turn came,
the Turks and Kurds abused all they could get hold of, and then told
them that if they would deny Christ and accept Mohammed and become
their wives, they should live; but if they refused, every one of them,
according to the Sultan's order, should be killed. "Now," said they,
"choose between Islam and death." These noble Armenian Christian women
said:--"We are Christians, we can never deny Christ. Jesus Christ
is our Saviour. He came down from Heaven and died on the cross for
us. For that dying and loving Christ we are Christians; we are ready
to die for Him who died for us." And they added further, "We are no
better than our husbands were; you killed them, kill us too." Then
the horrible butchery began on those defenseless women. Thousands
of them were slaughtered, and thousands ran to different churches,
hoping that perhaps they might find protection in some way in those
holy walls, or hoping that God in his great mercy might shelter
them. But the ferocious Kurds and Turkish soldiers pursued them,
sword in hand, violated them, even in the churches, and cut their
throats there until the floors were streaming with blood. Then they
poured kerosene on the buildings and burned them.
They went to one village and killed every man; the women of course,
knowing their fate was soon to be worse than their husbands'. One of
the leading women, named Shaheg, perceiving that the Turks and Kurds
were getting ready to seize and ravish them, called the other women
and said, "Sisters, our husbands are killed, and you know what is in
store for us and our children. Don't let us fall into the hands of
these savage beasts; we have to die anyway, and can die easier, and
without being defiled first, and perhaps tortured. Let us go to the
precipice and jump off." So saying, she took her baby on her arm, ran
to the rock, and threw herself over; the others followed her, and thus
all were killed. The Turks captured many boys and girls, six, or eight,
or ten years of age, held them by an arm or foot, and hacked them to
pieces with their swords. Sometimes they stood the boys in a row and
shot them, to see how many could be killed by a single bullet. They
wrenched babies from their mothers' arms, cut their throats while the
mothers shrieked and pleaded, and boiling them in kettles, forced the
mothers to eat the flesh. They cut open women about to become mothers,
tore out the unborn babes, and marched triumphantly with the ghastly
trophies on their spears--something almost surpassing the savagery of
the Apache Indian. Even their worst horrors they made worse yet by
the way they did them; they took a gloating delight in doubling the
cruelty or the shame by making it torture others too. The husband
was forced to look on while his wife was violated, and she in turn
while he was mutilated, tortured, and murdered; the father while his
daughters, even little girls of ten or twelve, were deflowered and
their throats cut, the son while his parents had every form of shame
and torture inflicted on them, and were killed before him, or saw him
killed first. They tortured their victims like Indians or Inquisitors,
in every fashion of lingering death and torment that makes the heart
sicken and the blood run cold to read of. Crucifying head downward,
and pouring boiling water or ice-cold water on them, leaving them so
till death came; flaying alive; cutting off arms, feet, nose, ears,
and other members, and leaving them to die; thrusting red-hot wires
into and through their bodies. They pulled out the eyes of several
Christian pastors, said, "Now dance for us," poured kerosene on them
and burned them to death. They put a Bible and a cross before others,
and ordered them to first spit and then trample on both, and deny
Christ; on their refusal they were butchered. The handsomest girls
and young matrons were not murdered, but worse; each one was kept as
a spoil of some Turk or Kurd, who carried her to his house, and made
a slave and concubine of her. Many hundreds of them are there to this
day, enduring the awful fate of having been dragged from happy and
virtuous homes, seen their husbands, or parents, or brothers, or all of
them horribly murdered, and passing their lives each in doing menial
labor and serving the lust of a brutal master, and all the other men
he lets have their will of her, without hope, or comfort, or decency,
and a long life of shame and misery yet to look forward to. This is
another specimen of Mohammedan purity, and it all happens because the
Armenians are Christians. If my readers think I am exaggerating, I
refer them to the consular reports. All this was done by the barbarians
con amore, with relish and delight. They boasted of it, they plumed
themselves on it, they praised the Sultan for ordering them to do it,
and he praised them for doing it, and decorated all the officers.
The condition of those who were murdered out-right was much better
than that of those who were imprisoned and tortured. The following
was written by an Armenian from one of the prisons:--
"Our condition in prison passes description. Only he who sees can
understand it. Most of the occupants of every room are Christians,
but many are Moslems. Life would be a shade more tolerable if the
subject race were not compelled thus to associate with the dominant
race, whose temper, tastes, and habits are so different. Into one
small room twenty persons are crowded. Except for a few Moslems,
not a single person has room enough on the bare floor to stretch
out and lie down. For fully sixteen hours in the night, the doors
of the rooms are all locked. In one of these small rooms, sometimes
twenty cigarettes are smoking at once. Out of the small amount of
food which reaches us, instead of eating themselves, the Christians
are obliged to feed the Moslems confined there. Moslem oppression
continues, even here; it is a tyranny within a tyranny. In
every room there are a few Aghas or principal Moslems, and every
Christian must contribute money to their lordships. Those who
withhold such contributions are not allowed to sit down.
"Among the inmates of the prison are twenty or thirty rowdies
and bullies, under whom the Christians must serve as menial
slaves. There is no respect, no pity. The horrible blasphemies
cannot be described. There is no book, no Bible, no work, no
sleep. Every man is covered with the swarming vermin with which
the unwashed rooms of the prison teem. To clean ourselves is
impossible. Now and then the rumor sweeps through the prison that
we are all to be put to death, and all our hearts melt like water.
"The terrible darkness of the night, the curses and stripes
inflicted from time to time, cause us to live in the valley
of the shadow of death. It is a living grave, a visible hell,
a world without God. Out of this throng of prisoners more than a
hundred are in daily suffering from the gnawing of hunger, and
from nakedness, but there is no one to pity. Many praying men
are tempted to cease praying, many are tempted to change over
to the Moslem faith. In truth, all of us are dumb; what to say
we know not. We are wearied of the long silence; our eyes are
strained with watching, our bones ache, our prayers are despised
by the revilers. Night is not night, and day is not day. Our
grief is our food, our sleep is weeping, for how long a time
must we cry? O Lord, wilt Thou hide Thyself forever? How long
will Thy anger burn like fire? And yet some of us are saying:
'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'
"When will the Christian statesmen and philanthropists of the world
find a way to cleanse these Augean stables all over Turkey? Long
centuries cry out for redress. Within a month the following
incidents have occurred: A Christian confined in this prison was
ordered to receive 400 stripes. After 300 had been inflicted he
cried out that he could endure no more or he must die. An officer
then presented to him a paper with the names of fifty Christians
in the city who were accused therein of sedition. In his great
agony he signed it, and this is to be used to incriminate others,
wholly regardless of their guilt or innocence. The other victim
of unendurable stripes was an old man. When he could endure no
more of this inhuman treatment, he also was asked to sign a paper
implicating others indiscriminately.
"Can any one living in a free country for a moment understand what
it is to live under such a government? There is a great flourish
just at present over the reforms that are being instituted in
certain parts of this land. No resident of this country can have
confidence in the superficial operations. What will you do with
a land where lying is the simplest of mental exercises, and where
no one was ever known to blush over it if exposed?"
I give here the testimony of a gentleman from Sassoun who escaped the
atrocities. He is an Armenian from Sassoun, and my personal friend. I
quote this from a little pamphlet, entitled "Facts About Armenia."
The Massacre of 1894.
"The Armenians of Sassoun were fully aware of the hostile intention
of the government, but they could not imagine it to be one of
utter extermination.
"The Porte had prepared its plans, Sassoun was doomed. The Kurds
were to come in much greater number, the government was to furnish
them provision and ammunition, and the regular army was to second
them in case of need.
"The various tribes received invitations to take part in the
great expedition, and the chiefs, with their men, arrived one
after the other. The total number of the Kurds who took part in
the campaign may be estimated at 30,000. The Armenians believed in
the beginning that they had to do only with the Kurds. They found
out later that an Ottoman regular army, with provisions, rifles,
cannons, and kerosene oil, was standing at the back of the Kurds.
"The plan was to destroy first Shenig, Semal, Guelliegoozan,
Aliantz, etc., and then to proceed toward Dalvorig. The Kurds,
notwithstanding their immense number, proved to be unequal
to the task. The Armenians held their own, and the Kurds got
worsted. After a two weeks' fight between Kurd and Armenian, the
regular army entered into an active campaign. Mountain pieces
began to thunder. The Armenians, having nearly exhausted their
ammunition, took to flight. Kurd and Turk pursued them, and
massacred men, women, and children. The houses were searched
and then set on fire. From certain villages groups of men,
tax receipts in their hands, went to the camp and asked to be
protected, but were slaughtered.
"A great number of villages outside of the Dalvorig district,
which had in no wise been concerned in the conflicts of the
previous years, were also attacked, to the unspeakable horror
of the populations. The troops climbed up even the Mount Antok,
where a multitude of fugitives had taken refuge, and massacred
them. A number of women and girls were taken to the church of
Guelliegoozan, and after being frightfully abused, were tortured
to death.
"When the work of destruction was nearly accomplished in the other
districts, some of the Kurdish armies were set on Dalvorig. The
people defended themselves against the overwhelming number of the
barbarians, but after four or five days they saw other tribes and
regular Turkish troops marching on them from every side, and they
took to flight, but were overtaken and massacred. The scene was
most horrible. The enemy took a special delight in butchering the
Dalvorig people. An immense crowd of Turkish and Kurdish soldiery
fell upon the villages, busily searching the houses and rooting out
hidden treasures, and then setting fire to the village. While the
troops were so occupied, a number of the fugitives fled wildly to
get out of the district, and tried to hide themselves in caves,
between rocks, or among bushes. Three days after the complete
destruction of Dalvorig villages, the Kurds and the regular
soldiers divided among themselves the result of the plunder,
and the Kurds returned to their own mountains."
As my use of English is defective, I take the liberty here of quoting
from a long letter by E. J. Dillon to the Contemporary Review,
January, 1896.
Dr. Dillon is an Englishman who was the special correspondent of the
London "Daily Telegraph," a most accurate and conscientious reporter,
who writes as an eye-witness:
"If a detailed description were possible of the horrors which our
exclusive attention to our own mistaken interests let loose upon
Turkish Armenians, there is not a man within the kingdom of Great
Britain whose heart-strings would not be touched and thrilled by
the gruesome stories of which it would be composed.
"During all those seventeen years, written law, traditional custom,
the fundamental maxims of human and divine justice were suspended
in favor of a Mohammedan saturnalia. The Christians, by whose
toil and thrift the empire was held together, were despoiled,
beggared, chained, beaten, and banished or butchered. First
their movable wealth was seized, then their landed property
was confiscated, next the absolute necessaries of life were
wrested from them, and finally honor, liberty, and life were
taken with as little ado as if these Christian men and women
were wasps or mosquitoes. Thousands of Armenians were thrown
into prison by governors like Tahsin Pasha and Bahri Pasha, and
tortured and terrorized till they delivered up the savings of a
lifetime, and the support of the helpless families, to ruffianly
parasites. Whole villages were attacked in broad daylight by
the Imperial Kurdish cavalry without pretext or warning, the
male inhabitants turned adrift or killed, and their wives and
daughters transformed into instruments to glut the foul lusts
of these bestial murderers. In a few years the provinces were
decimated, Aloghkerd, for instance, being almost entirely 'purged'
of Armenians. Over 20,000 woe-stricken wretches, once healthy
and well-to-do, fled to Russia or Persia in rags and misery,
deformed, diseased, or dying; on the way they were seized over
and over again by the soldiers of the Sultan, who deprived them
of the little money they possessed, nay, of the clothes they were
wearing, outraged the married women in the presence of their sons
and daughters, deflowered the tender girls before the eyes of
their mothers and brothers, and then drove them over the frontier
to starve and die. Those who remained for a time behind were no
better off. Kurdish brigands lifted the last cows and goats of the
peasants, carried away their carpets and their valuables, raped
their daughters and dishonored their wives. Turkish tax-gatherers
followed these, gleaning what the brigands had left, and, lest
anything should escape their avarice, bound the men, flogged
them till their bodies were a bloody, mangled mass, cicatrized
the wounds with red-hot ramrods, plucked out their beards hair by
hair, tore the flesh from their limbs with pincers, and often, even
then, dissatisfied with the financial results of their exertions,
hung the men whom they had thus beggared and maltreated from the
rafters of the room, and kept them there to witness with burning
shame, impotent rage, and incipient madness, the dishonoring of
their wives and the deflowering of their daughters, some of whom
died miserably during the hellish outrage.
"In accordance with the plan of extermination, which has been
carried out with such signal success during these long years
of Turkish vigor and English sluggishness, all those Armenians
who possessed money, or money's worth were for a time allowed to
purchase immunity from prison, and from all that prison life in
Asia Minor implies. But as soon as terror and summary confiscation
took the place of slow and elaborate extortion, the gloomy dungeons
of Erzeroum, Erzinghan, Marsovan, Hassankaleh, and Van were filled,
till there was no place to sit down, and scarcely sufficient
standing room. And this means more than English people can realize,
or any person believe who has not actually witnessed it. It would
have been a torture for Turkish troopers and Kurdish brigands,
but it was worse than death to the educated school-masters,
missionaries, priests, and physicians who were immured in these
noisome hotbeds of infection, and forced to sleep night after
night standing on their feet, leaning against the foul, reeking
corner of the wall which all the prisoners were compelled to use
as.... The very worst class of Tartar and Kurdish criminals were
turned in here to make these hell-chambers more unbearable to the
Christians. And the experiment was everywhere successful. Human
hatred and diabolical spite, combined with the most disgusting
sights, and sounds, and stenches, with their gnawing hunger and
their putrid food, their parching thirst and the slimy water, fit
only for sewers, rendered their agony maddening. Yet these were
not criminals nor alleged criminals, but upright Christian men,
who were never even accused of an infraction of the law. No man
who has not seen these prisons with his own eyes, and heard these
prisoners with his own ears, can be expected to conceive, much
less realize, the sufferings inflicted and endured. The loathsome
diseases, whose terrible ravages were freely displayed; the still
more loathsome vices, which were continually and openly practiced;
the horrible blasphemies, revolting obscenities, and ribald jests
which alternated with cries of pain, songs of vice, and prayers
to the unseen God, made these prisons, in some respects, nearly
as bad as the Black Hole of Calcutta, and in others infinitely
worse. In one corner of this foul fever-nest a man might be heard
moaning and groaning with the pain of a shattered arm or leg; in
another, a youth is convulsed with the death spasms of cholera
or poison; in the center, a knot of Turks, whose dull eyes are
fired with bestial lust, surround a Christian boy, who pleads for
mercy with heart-harrowing voice while the human fiends actually
outrage him to death.
"Into these prisons venerable old ministers of religion were
dragged from their churches, teachers from their schools,
missionaries from their meeting-houses, merchants, physicians,
and peasants from their firesides. Those among them who refused
to denounce their friends, or consent to some atrocious crime,
were subjected to horrible agonies. Many a one, for instance, was
put into a sentry-box bristling with sharp spikes, and forced to
stand there motionless, without food or drink, for twenty-four and
even thirty-six hours, was revived with stripes whenever he fell
fainting to the prickly floor, and was carried out unconscious at
the end. It was thus that hundreds of Armenian Christians, whose
names and histories are on record, suffered for refusing to sign
addresses to the Sultan accusing their neighbors and relatives of
high treason. It was thus that Azo was treated by his judges, the
Turkish officials, Talib Effendi, Captain Reshid, and Captain Hadji
Fehim Agha, for declining to swear away the lives of the best men
of his village. A whole night was spent in torturing him. He was
first bastinadoed in a room close to which his female relatives
and friends were shut up so that they could hear his cries. Then
he was stripped naked, two poles extending from his armpits to his
feet were placed on each side of his body and tied tightly. His
arms were next stretched out horizontally and poles arranged to
support his hands. This living cross was then bound to a pillar,
and the flogging began. The whips left livid traces behind. The
wretched man was unable to make the slightest movement to ease
his pain. His features alone, hideously distorted, revealed the
anguish he endured. The louder he cried, the more heavily fell the
whip. Over and over again he entreated his tormentors to put him
out of pain, saying, 'If you want my death, kill me with a bullet,
but for God's sake don't torture me like this!' His head alone
being free, he at last, maddened by excruciating pain, endeavored
to dash out his brains against the pillar, hoping in this way
to end his agony. But this consummation was hindered by the
police. They questioned him again; but in spite of his condition,
Azo replied as before: 'I cannot defile my soul with the blood of
innocent people. I am a Christian.' Enraged at this obstinacy,
Talib Effendi, the Turkish official, ordered the application of
other and more effective tortures. Pincers were fetched to pull
out his teeth, but, Azo remaining firm, this method was not long
persisted in. Then Talib commanded his servants to pluck out the
prisoner's moustachios by the roots, one hair at a time. This order
the gendarmes executed, with roars of infernal laughter. But this
treatment proving equally ineffectual, Talib instructed the men to
cauterize the unfortunate victim's body. A spit was heated in the
fire. Azo's arms were freed from their supports, and two brawny
policemen approached, one on each side and seized him. Meanwhile
another gendarme held to the middle of the wretched man's hands
the glowing spit. While his flesh was thus burning, the victim
shouted out in agony, 'For the love of God kill me at once!'
"Then the executioners, removing the red-hot spit from his hands,
applied it to his breast, then to his back, his face, his feet,
and other parts. After this, they forced open his mouth, and burned
his tongue with red-hot pincers. During these inhuman operations,
Azo fainted several times, but on recovering consciousness
maintained the same inflexibility of purpose. Meanwhile, in the
adjoining apartment, a heart-rending scene was being enacted. The
women and the children, terrified by the groans and cries of the
tortured man, fainted. When they revived, they endeavored to rush
out to call for help, but the gendarmes, stationed at the door,
barred their passage, and brutally pushed them back. [2]
"Nights were passed in such hellish orgies and days in inventing
new tortures or refining upon the old; with an ingenuity which
reveals unimagined strata of malignity in the human heart. The
results throw the most sickening horrors of the Middle Ages into
the shade. Some of them cannot be described, nor even hinted
at. The shock to people's sensibilities would be too terrible. And
yet they were not merely described to, but endured by men of
education and refinement, whose sensibilities were as delicate
as ours.
"And when the prisons in which these and analogous doings were
carried on had no more room for new-comers, some of the least
obnoxious of its actual inmates were released for a bribe, or,
in case of poverty, were expeditiously poisoned off.
"In the homes of these wretched people the fiendish fanatics were
equally active and equally successful. Family life was poisoned at
its very source. Rape and dishonor, with nameless accompaniments,
menaced almost every girl and woman in the land. They could not
stir out of their houses in broad daylight to visit the bazaars,
or to work in the fields, nor even lie down at night in their
own homes, without fearing the fall of that Damocles' sword ever
suspended over their heads. Tender youth, childhood itself, was no
guarantee. Children were often married at the age of eleven, even
ten, in the vain hope of lessening this danger. But the protection
of a husband proved unavailing; it merely meant one murder more,
and one 'Christian dog' less. A bride would be married in church
yesterday, and her body would be devoured by the beasts and
birds of prey to-morrow,--a band of ruffians, often officials,
having within the intervening forty-eight hours seized her and
outraged her to death. Others would be abducted, and, having for
weeks been subjected to the loathsome lusts of lawless Kurds,
would end by abjuring their God and embracing Islam; not from any
vulgar motive of gain, but to escape the burning shame of returning
home as pariahs and lepers, to be shunned by those near and dear to
them forever. Little girls of five and six were frequently forced
to be present during these horrible scenes of lust, and they,
too, were often sacrificed before the eyes of their mothers,
who would have gladly, madly accepted death, ay, and damnation,
to save their tender offspring from the corroding poison.
"One of the abducted young women who, having been outraged by the
son of the Deputy-Governor of Khnouss, Hussein Bey, returned,
a pariah, and is now alone in the world, lately appealed to
her English sisters for such aid as a heathen would give to a
brute, and she besought it in the name of our common God. Lucine
Mussegh--this is the name of that outraged young woman whose
Protestant education gave her, as she thought, a special claim to
act as the spokeswoman of Armenian mothers and daughters--Lucine
Mussegh besought, last March, the women of England to obtain for
the women of Armenia the 'privilege' of living a pure and chaste
life! This was the boon which she craved--but did not, could
not obtain. The interests of 'higher politics,' the civilizing
missions of the Christian powers, are, it seems, incompatible
with it! 'For the love of the God whom we worship in common,'
wrote this outraged, but still hopeful, Armenian lady, 'help us,
Christian sisters! Help us before it is too late, and take the
thanks of the mothers, the wives, the sisters, and the daughters
of my people, and with them the gratitude of one for whom, in
spite of her youth, death would come as a happy release.'
"Neither the Christian sisters nor the Christian brethren
in England have seen their way to comply with this strange
request. But it may perhaps interest Lucine Mussegh to learn
that the six great powers of Europe are quite unanimous, and are
manfully resolved, come what will, to shield His Majesty the Sultan
from harm, to support his rule, and to guarantee his kingdom from
disintegration. These are objects worthy of the attention of the
great powers; as for the privilege of leading pure and chaste
lives--they cannot be importuned about such private matters.
"In due time they began. Over 60,000 Armenians have been butchered,
and the massacres are not quite ended yet. In Trebizond, Erzeroum,
Erzinghan, Hassankalek, and numberless other places the Christians
were crushed like grapes during the vintage. The frantic mob,
seething and surging in the streets of the cities, swept down upon
the defenseless Armenians, plundered their shops, gutted their
houses, then joked and jested with the terrified victims, as cats
play with mice. As rapid, whirling motion produces apparent rest,
so the wild frenzy of those fierce fanatical crowds resulted in
a condition of seeming calmness, composure, and gentleness which,
taken in connection with the unutterable brutality of their acts,
was of a nature to freeze men's blood with horror. In many cases
they almost caressed their victims, and actually encouraged them
to hope, while preparing the instruments of slaughter."
After the horrible scenes at Sassoun, and other places, the Armenian
protests shamed the European powers, who signed the treaty of Berlin,
to send a commission and investigate the atrocities. It found the
stories quite true, laid the facts before the Sultan--and that was
the end of it. The Armenians asked, "Since you admit the truth of
these things, why do you not punish the criminals, stop the outrages,
and compel the payment of indemnity to those who were outraged and
who lost their dear ones and their property?" The powers were deaf to
all this. Then the Armenians prepared an appeal (several months ago)
and carried it to the Sublime Porte, asking it to do them justice. As
soon as the Sultan heard of this, he ordered his soldiers to fire on
them if they presented it. The appeal was presented, and before the
eyes of the European Ambassadors in Constantinople, the brave soldiers
of the kind-hearted Sultan butchered about 3,000 Armenian Christians,
several thousand were imprisoned, and several hundred were murdered
in the Central Prison. Then the cold, wise, and considerate European
powers began to move very slowly, not for the sake of the Armenians,
but for their own, their citizens in Constantinople and elsewhere.
They ordered the Sultan to reform Armenia, brought their fleets
to the Dardanelles near Constantinople to overawe him, prepared a
scheme of reform for Armenia, and made huge threats to the Sultan
if he did not accept it. But he knew that this pretended concert of
the powers for Armenian reform was a mere trick and sham, as I have
persistently asserted all along in the face of my hopeful European
and American friends; in fact, the Russian government at this very
time was secretly urging him to stand firm and refuse to accept the
reforms. He did so, broached a scheme of his own as a substitute, and
the powers accepted it as such; and then the whole thing was dropped,
the Sultan did nothing whatever about it, as he had never intended
to. The European countries were hoodwinked, and the Armenian massacres
and conflagrations, plundering and deflowering, went on at a greater
pace than ever. Then the powers dropped the Armenian question, and
took up that of gunboats in the Bosphorus, to protect their citizens
against a rising in Constantinople; that they forced the Sultan to
permit, because their own interests were concerned in it,--which shows
that they could have forced him to stop exterminating the Armenians if
they had cared. All joined in this except Germany; the German Emperor
is the Sultan's friend, and backs him up. So now Germany, Russia, and
the Sultan are hand in hand, leagued to prevent any of the miserable
victims of his tyranny from escaping his clutches, and the Sultan has
the best possible encouragement to go on killing the Armenians. The
German Emperor says, "Better that Armenians be killed than have a
war in Europe and lose the lives of some of my soldiers." The Czar
says, "Time must be given to the Sultan to reform his country." Lord
Salisbury says, "The Sultan has promised, and we must wait and see what
he will do." And the Sultan, cursing every Emperor and lord of them all
as a set of Christian hogs, orders the soldiers and the Kurds to go on
with the good work in Armenia. And when we come to America, the Monroe
doctrine obliges it to quarrel over Venezuela, and not only refuse
help itself, but give Lord Salisbury a good excuse to give none either.
Such is the situation; the massacres are going on in Armenia and the
Armenians in despair are crying, "O Lord, how long, how long!"
Mass meetings are good as far as they go; raising money and sending
it to relieve the Armenians is good as far as it goes; the Red Cross
Society is good as far as it goes; there are no objections to any of
them; they are all noble and Christian. But, reader, don't you think
all these good movements with good motives will hurt the Armenian
cause, as there is nothing to aid that cause directly? All these
mass-meetings merely irritate the Sultan into carrying on the murders
more strenuously, since there is no force back of them. Don't you think
the Armenian question being discussed in the United States Congress,
and resolutions made without any action, will hurt the Armenians
more than anything else? If you can't tread down the Sultan, don't
stir him up. Miss Clara Barton, that noble woman, is in Armenia to
help the Armenians. The Red Cross Society is there and is feeding
the Armenians. I thank her, every Armenian thanks her. But do you
think that that will relieve the situation? Spring has come, and what
now? Will the Armenians have any crops? Did they, or could they sow any
seed? Is there any farmer left alive? Has any farmer, if he is alive,
any oxen or horses? If he has, will he dare go to his field, sow, reap,
and thresh? Reader, consider all these things, and reconsider them,
and I am sure you will come to the same conclusion I did many years
ago, that Turkey does not need a Red Cross Society, but a Red Cross
crusade, not like the medieval crusades, but a Protestant American
crusade in the nineteenth century. Let me illustrate this Armenian
question by the following parable:--
Suppose a lamb is torn by a wolf, and the wolf lies in wait to
finish it. You go to the lamb with a bundle of grass in your hand,
pat it and say, "Here, poor lamb, I pity you, I give you grass; take
it and eat it." Then you leave the lamb and go away. Do you think
you have helped the lamb? As soon as you have gone, the wolf will
come and tear the lamb to pieces. If you are going to help the lamb,
you must kill the wolf, else no matter how much grass you give the
wounded lamb, it will do it no good. You will do no good by sending
Red Cross societies to Armenia to feed the Armenians if you have not
the power or the will to keep the wild beasts off. You will feed them,
and then the wolves will kill them.
Now I will pass in review some of the leading cities in Armenia
where there have been great persecutions. Before beginning, however,
I must state that it is impossible to give an accurate census of
the population in the Armenian cities, or the number who have been
massacred; for the Turkish government never takes a correct census, and
never gives or will give the true number of those it has murdered. But
I think I can make a fair approximation of both. I will begin with
the city of Harpoot. [3]
HARPOOT AND ITS VICINITY.
This is one of the most important Armenian districts, because the
Armenians outnumber the Mohammedans there; in the city the Turks are
the more numerous, but there are many Armenian towns and villages which
make up. The district has about 150,000 people, most of them Armenians,
and about 40,000 were killed in the recent massacre. Harpoot is built
on three hills, and has a commanding view. Here is located a great
American missionary institution, the Euphrates College; it has three
departments, the college, the Theological Seminary, and the Girls'
Seminary. There were twelve buildings, eight of which were burned in
the outrages, a loss of $100,000.
Almost all the outlying villages were burned, and the movables carried
off. Women were made prey, boys and girls were kidnapped; the horrors
can never be described. I give here a few words from a private letter,
written by a Mohammedan Turk to his brother in this country. I have the
letter in my possession, written in the Turkish language. He says:--
"My dear brother:
"All the Christian villages which belong to Harpoot district,
we plundered and destroyed, and killed the inhabitants. We killed
them both with our swords and with our rifles. The bullets of our
rifles poured upon them like rain; none of them are left, neither
any dwelling was left, we burnt all their houses. We thank God
that not a single Mohammedan was killed. Everywhere throughout
Armenia the Christians were punished in the same manner."
Another testimony from another Mohammedan, an officer; he says nearly
40,000 were killed in Harpoot province, February 26, 1896:--
"A petition in behalf of the Armenians was given to the powers
in the hope of improving their condition. An imperial firman was
issued for carrying out the reforms suggested by the powers. On
this account the Turkish population was much excited, and thought
that an Armenian principality was to be established, and they
began to show great hostility to the poor Armenians, who had
been obedient to them and with whom they had lived in peace for
more than 600 years. To the anger of the people were added the
permission and help of the government; and so, before the reforms
were undertaken, the whole Turkish population was aroused, with the
evil intent of obliterating the Armenian name; and so the Turks of
the province, joining with the neighboring Kurdish tribes by the
thousand, armed with weapons which are allowed only to the army,
and with the help and under the guidance of Turkish officials,
in an open manner, in the daytime, attacked the Armenian houses,
shops, stores, monasteries, churches, schools, and committed
the fearful atrocities set forth in the accompanying table. They
killed bishops, priests, teachers, and common people with every
kind of torture, and they showed special spite toward ecclesiastics
by treating their bodies with extra indignity, and in many cases
they did not allow their bodies to be buried. Some they burned,
and some they gave as food to dogs and wild beasts.
"They plundered churches and monasteries, and they took all
the property of the common people, their flocks and herds, their
ornaments and their money, their house furnishings and their food,
and even the clothing of the men and women in their flight. Then
after plundering them, they burned many houses, churches,
monasteries, schools, and markets, sometimes using petroleum,
which they had brought with them to hasten the burning; large
stone churches which would not burn they ruined in other ways.
"Priests, laymen, women, and even small children were made Moslems
by force. They put white turbans on the men and circumcised them
in a cruel manner. They cut the hair of the women in bangs, like
that of Moslem women, and made them go through the Mohammedan
prayers. Married women and girls were defiled, against the sacred
law, and some were married by force, and are still detained in
Turkish houses. Especially in Palu, Severek, Malatia, Arabkir,
and Choonkoosh, many women and girls were taken to the soldiers'
barracks and dishonored. Many, to escape, threw themselves into
the Euphrates, or committed suicide in other ways.
"It is clear that the majority of those killed in Harpoot, Severek,
Husenik, Malatia, and Arabkir were killed by the soldiers, and also
that the schools and churches of the missionaries and Gregorians
in the upper quarter of Harpoot City, together with the houses,
were set on fire by cannon balls.
"It is impossible to state the amount of the pecuniary loss. The
single city of Egin has given 1,200 (some say 1,500) Turkish
pounds as a ransom.
"These events have occurred for the reasons I have mentioned. I
wish to show by this statement, which I have written from love to
humanity, that the Armenians gave no occasion for these attacks."
The Turk, whose document is thus translated, figures that the total
deaths in the province of Harpoot during the scenes, have been 39,334;
the wounded 8,000; houses burned, 28,562; and that the number of the
destitutes is 94,870.
"In a letter just received (Jan. 18, 1896) from the
Rev. H. N. Barnum, D.D., of Harpoot, Eastern Turkey, where
the property of the American Board was burned, he says that
reports have been secured from 176 villages in the vicinity of
Harpoot. These villages contained 15,400 houses belonging to
Christians. Of this number 7,054 have been burned, and 15,845
persons are reported killed. Dr. Barnum adds: 'The reality,
I fear, will prove to be much greater.'"
A letter from an Armenian named Kallajian, written from Husenik,
a town about three miles from Harpoot, addressed to his brother in
this country, says:
"Sunday, November 11, the government came to our town, Husenik,
and asked the Armenians to give up their arms, and they surrendered
all they had; and in the evening asked them to take the church bell
down. They also obeyed, and by night the Turkish soldiers surrounded
the town until the morning, and in the morning early they sounded the
bugle. When they sounded the bugle, about 25,000 Kurds made an attack
on the town, and plundered all the houses, killing 700 men, women,
and children, besides the wounded. When the attack was made, we left
our house, with two of our neighbors' families and many others from our
town, about thirty in all. One little boy, my nephew, I carried on my
shoulders, and the other was carried by its mother, and we ran up the
hill toward Harpoot. The bullets were showering upon us by hundreds,
and father fell. He was shot once in the head and once in the belly,
and stabbed with a sword through his chin. When we reached the top
of the hill, about twenty Kurds came down from Harpoot, and took all
our clothes and money, and left us naked; and a little after, a band
of Turks came down and made so much trouble for us that I am unable
to describe it. They took us to the city, and we finally succeeded
in getting to the house of Sadukh Effendi, formerly of our town,
but now living in the city. We went to his house, and this kind man
kept us there for two days in his house, and on Tuesday evening he
took us to our own town, and as we came near to our house I found
that father was dead under a tree. We went to the house; we saw that
our house was open and stripped of everything, and father's trunk was
broken open, and his papers were soaked in kerosene and set on fire,
and twenty-five houses were destroyed on our street. We are hungry and
in destitute condition; help us if you can. Our little nephew says:
'O Jesus, keep us afar from such trouble.'"
There are other letters also from Harpoot, but this is enough to
show the nature of the scenes there.
PALOO AND WHAT HAPPENED THERE.
Paloo is one of the oldest cities in Armenia. It had 15,000 population,
5,000 Armenians and 10,000 Mohammedans, and there were over forty
Armenian villages in the district around. About 5,000 Christians were
killed during the recent massacre.
Personal Letters From Paloo.
December 15, 1895.
"Paloo is in a miserable condition. All the houses and shops have
been robbed. About 2,000 persons have perished, and few have
survived this great ruin; but we thank God all our family is
in safety. Just to-day I received a letter from our home; they
write: 'We are alive, but hungry.' They have no bread to eat,
and no clothes to wear; our only hope is God. If the country is
soon reformed we can get our living, but if not we shall all
perish. Turks, Kurds, and soldiers united, plundered, robbed,
and burned the houses of Paloo and the neighboring villages. You
can guess very well who has given the order."
A personal letter received by the Armenian Relief Association, in this
city, under date of Paloo, Armenia, November 24, presents an awful
picture of the horrors to which the people there are subjected. The
letter is in part as follows:--
"On November 3, the Turks of the town armed themselves, attacked
the stores, plundered their contents, and killed those who
attempted to defend themselves. A few days later the Turks left the
town, joined a band of 10,000 Kurds, and began a general assault
upon the surrounding villages, pillaging and burning the houses,
and killing all the men. They poured kerosene oil on all the
stored grain and set it on fire, and mixed the flour with filth,
so that it could not be used. The beautiful women were delivered
to the Kurds, who committed the most indescribable outrages. Many
were carried off to slavery, and forced to accept Mohammedanism.
"In Habab Village, where the people defended themselves for
six days, the government soldiers were called to the aid of the
Kurds, and the united forces overpowered the village and burned
all except fifteen of their three hundred houses.
"All of the forty-one Armenian villages around Paloo are in ashes,
the fields laid waste, and the inhabitants massacred. Nothing is
left but death and desolation.
"On November 11, 10,000 armed Kurds fell upon the city of
Paloo. They plundered the houses, even pulling down the walls with
hooks to discover anything valuable that might be hidden. All the
large houses were burned. Ten of the wealthy Armenians, who have
always cared for the poor, and sheltered the distressed, are left
without a pair of shoes or a blanket, 1,732 men were butchered
in cold blood, and of the 10,000 population, two hundred men only
are left, saved on condition that they serve the Turks as slaves.
"More than 5,000 women and children are left without any means
of living. They are begging from door to door for even a meagre
pittance of bran, which is all that is left, and every day death
claims more and more of the victims by starvation. All of the more
beautiful women have been taken by the Kurds. The Armenian youths
who have been forced to accept Mohammedanism are also forced to
take Turkish wives to prove their sincerity.
"All of my relations, save two, have been killed in my
presence. Our priests have all been butchered, except one, who
was forced to accept Islamism. Our churches have been turned into
mosques, where the remaining women and old men are compelled to
go and be taught Islam by the Mohammedan priest."
But here is another letter, from an Armenian mother to her son in
this country, which brings us still closer to the actual horrors, for
this woman was herself a victim--turned at a blow from a comfortable
matron to a naked beggar, in winter, among the ruins of her village,
her own friends killed, herself foully abused. Read this, and then
talk, if you dare, about "exaggerated accounts"!
"December 12, 1895.
"My Dear Son:--
"We received your letter dated November 14th, which we read
with great pleasure. You asked for information about us, as to
how we are, etc. Except your father, we are all still alive,
with our relatives, and long to see you very much. It is very
hard to describe with the pen all the misfortunes that we have
undergone. They cannot be told; but since you are very eager to
know, I will try to write it down for you very briefly. My dear
son, on Tuesday, November 28th, they took by force the oxen that
are used for ploughing the fields. Until the evening of that
day they gathered all the oxen for ploughing from Paloo and the
neighboring Armenian villages, and took them for themselves, and
gave us notice that they should attack the village. Wednesday
morning all the people of the surrounding Turkish villages
gathered round about our village, and our village was besieged
until about noontime. From ten to fifteen persons were killed
up to that time from our side, and the village was surrounded
by more than twenty-two thousand Turks and Kurds, who bear
arms. It was impossible for us to protect our village. We
applied to the government, there was no government to hear us;
despair reigned in the hearts of all. They fought until evening,
and before they had reached us, we, all the villagers, left
everything, even not taking bread for one meal with us, went
to the monastery and left the village to the Turks. We passed
the night in the monastery, hungry and thirsty; the number of
the killed reached to thirty by morning. Then we learned that it
was not safe, even in the monastery, although they had plundered
it two or three times. Thursday, by noontime, the monastery was
full of villagers. At noon there was a blow on the door of the
monastery. Ravenous Turks, Zazes, and others were besieging the
building. Until evening they beat at the iron door to break it;
fifteen persons were at it, but it was impossible for them to open
it. Within, the shrieks and the cries of the people reached up to
heaven. Men, in order to save their lives, dressed themselves in
women's clothes, and covered their heads. Your brother wrapped
his moustaches so thickly that he should not be known, as the
Turks were after him by name. About 3 p. m., when the Turks
saw that it was not possible for them to open the gate of the
monastery, they broke in one of the stones in the wall, and the
plunderers entered.... I cannot describe here the sufferings
of the people.... Within one hour they robbed and violated a
population of 1,500 people, five times each woman, married or
maiden, and then left the monastery. The villagers, every one
to save her or his life, left everything, property, cattle,
merchandise, and provisions, and fled, the man leaving his wife,
the wife her child, the son his mother, the brother his sister,
and they dispersed in the adjoining mountains, plains, valleys,
and hills, with only their under-garments on, as the Turks and
Kurds had stripped them of everything else. Friday morning the
number of the killed had reached about fifty. Your father was
shot on the plain of Sacrat, but the wound was not dangerous. For
three days the people gathered in Sacrat, hungry and thirsty;
from Sacrat they were given over to the Zazes, to take them to
the city.... I can not write down here all the things we endured
at the hands of the Zazes.... Finally, after we had suffered
unmentionable cruelties, being twice plundered in the city and
violated, three brides and maidens were carried away as slaves by
the Kurds, more than one hundred persons were martyred, among whom
were two priests, and the rest were forced to accept Mohammedanism,
and after that the massacre ceased. For twenty days we remained in
the city, naked, hungry, and thirsty, also hopeless. The city was
rescued from the massacre after having suffered the loss of six
hundred houses, together with all the property of the shops and
stores, and the total sum of the martyred being 2,000. Our village
was given over to be burned for twenty days successively. Out
of two hundred houses, there are hardly thirty left sound; the
rest are all razed to the ground.... The rest of this story will
follow by next mail. I wanted to tell you a little about our hard
situation. Saved with only our undergarments, hungry and thirsty,
our whole family came back from the city, among the ruins. I,
your mother, had to go begging wholly naked and barefoot to the
familiar Kurd neighbors. I had only one shirt, which I made into a
bag to put the things in which I begged from the Kurds. For fifty
days I have provided thus for the family; after this I commit it
to your care; you know best what to do. We have not got even a head
covering; nothing to carry the water home in from the fountain. It
is the month of December, and you know well it is the first month
of the winter; we have two and a half months yet before coming
to the spring. We are all of us very, very, hungry. Those Turks
who were so friendly before have turned now not to know us, they
don't even give a penny. We have no hope from anywhere else; if
you do not come to our help, we shall perish! perish! perish! We,
with all the villagers shall die. Behold the description of our
misery. Read this to all the villagers that are there with you,
and notify them that all of you must be the helpers and deliverers
of our people, especially to us who are all helpless and on the
verge of starvation. Send us help. I remain
"Your affectionate mother."
MALATIA AND ITS HARDSHIPS.
Malatia is located about midway between Marash and Harpoot, a little
distance from the Euphrates river. More fruit is raised in and about
there than in any other section of Armenia. The assortment is large,
but the apples and pears are especially fine, perhaps better than those
of any part of the world. It has about 20,000 population, two-thirds
being Mohammedans, and one-third Armenians. The private letters
which have been received from there do not state, and cannot state
how many Armenians have been killed during the period of the present
persecutions, and it is not likely there ever will be any correct
estimate of them. The region has suffered immensely, and letters from
there reveal a most distressing condition of affairs. The people were
plundered and violated in every conceivable way until there was nothing
more for the time being for the fiends to wreak their cruelty upon.
Letters from Malatia.
Malatia, Dec. 22, 1895.
My Very Dear Son:--
We greet you with the fondest greeting, and it is the desire of our
hearts that the good Lord should enable us to see each other again
in this mortal flesh. In regard to ourselves, as to how we were,
and what we are doing. We are all alive yet with our whole family,
no loss of persons from among us. Don't mourn for us. Others
are mourning for their loved ones. Though in truth the grief and
mourning of others belong to us also because we are all Armenians,
one flesh and blood, and we all belong to the same nation.
I did not go to bring up the bride of our neighbor's with the rest,
so I was at home when the massacre began. You remember that there
was a well in that quarter. The Turks killed the bridegroom, his
brother, the priest, together with sixty-five other men, and threw
them into that well. In another house they burned seventy-five
men, and in still another forty-five men. Finally, I am unable
to describe with my pen all that passed in those days and hours.
May the Lord preserve your dear lives, and give you peace and
happiness. Your father.
Another Letter.
Malatia, Dec. 22, 1895.
My Dear Friend:--
I received your very kind letter about a week ago, for which I
thank you very much, and I read it with great pleasure. But we
do not get the boys' letters regularly. It is nearly two months
since the disaster occurred, and in that time I have received
but one letter. The other day an Armenian handed me a letter
that was torn into nearly a hundred pieces. I put all the pieces
together and read it. It was also from the boys, and I read and was
very glad. Now I will try to give you a little information about
us. The first Monday I did not go to the market, for from Saturday
I got somehow suspicious that there was something impending over
the city, and I did not let father go either. My brother was to
accompany those who were going to bring up a bride for my brother's
partner in business. While my brother was at the wedding house,
they sent him on an errand to go and get a few policemen to
accompany them as protection in bringing the bride. Just at the
moment when my brother was on his way to the station-house, he
sees there was confusion in the market; then he drops the matter
of bringing a policeman, but goes to the market and closes the
shop, and then turns towards home in a hurry. While on his way,
some men fired at him several times, but fortunately he was not
hurt. He comes as far as to one of our neighbors, and there drops
down exhausted. They came and brought me the news that he was
there. Then I plucked up all the courage I could, and went and
brought him home. An hour or so after, the Turks came and besieged
that same quarter and killed about thirty persons. On Tuesday,
very early in the morning, we left everything, house, property,
and goods, and just to save our lives we fled to the new church,
and I don't know what became of the rest. We remained there in the
church until Friday; after that we came out of the church, being
a little assured of safety, and have been living on the provision
that the government allowed us, but that also ceased a few days
since. When we came back home again we did not find a single
thing; they had swept off everything. We brought a matting from
some place, and six of us sleep in one bed. Some sleep on hay. May
you never have to endure such hardships. This incident seems worse
than the earthquake or the cholera, or the fire. May the good Lord
preserve us from things worse than these. Our life is not worth
the living. We don't know the exact number of the killed. Malatia
is altogether a ruin. It is a worse ruin than the city of Anni,
and even worse than Sassoun. It is beyond conception, one cannot
keep account of it. May the Lord write it down in his own account
book, so that he should take the account in the day of judgment.
Please excuse all my shortcomings, because I am out of myself. Our
love to all the friends over there.
Yours truly,
P.S. Please tell the boys to know the value of money, and not
waste neither their time nor their money in vain. For we have no
one to look for but to God in heaven, and after Him to them on
earth. For the value of a son is known in the time of adversity,
when he helps his elders or parents. Let them not yet send any
money, for there are no brokers left where we can change it.
THE CITY OF SIVAS AND THE ATROCITIES.
Sivas is the seat of the vilayet or province of Sivas. The
Governor-General of that province resides there. The population
is about 30,000; one-third are Christian Armenians, and there are
many Armenian Christian towns and villages round about, so that,
if the Armenians are not more numerous than the Mohammedans, they
equal them in number. Sivas is a missionary station, and during the
atrocities, the Protestant Armenian pastor also was killed. His name
was Garabet-Kilitjiam, one of the most gifted ministers of the gospel,
my personal friend and successor. After I resigned my pastorate
at Talas, Cesarea, he succeeded me. He was offered the choice of
accepting Mohammedanism, but refused it, and then he was martyred.
In the city and province of Sivas during the recent atrocities
about 10,000 Armenians were killed, and many villages and towns were
plundered and destroyed.
The following is a press dispatch:--
London, Nov. 16, 1895.--The representative of the United Press
at Constantinople reports, under the date of November 15th, that
at six o'clock, on the evening of November 14th, M. A. Jewett,
United States consul at Sivas, sent a telegram to United States
Minister Terrell informing him that in the disturbances which had
taken place at Sivas, eight hundred Armenians and ten Turks had
been killed, and that, according to official reports, a large
body of Kurds were then approaching the town. Mr. Jewett gave
no details of the disorders, but the discrepancy in the figures
shows that the Turkish allegations that the Armenians were the
aggressors are absolutely untrue, and that the Armenians were
deliberately massacred.
From a private letter from Sivas, Nov. 21, 1895.
"The air was full of wild rumors--but we could get at nothing that
seemed to have any substantial truthful basis. Dr. Jewett--our
consul--was on the alert. He interviewed the Governor-General,--and
asked for protection for us, for the U.S.A. vice-consul, for our
schools, and for the American Consulate. These were cheerfully
promised, and the next day, Tuesday, November 12th, at midday, like
a cyclone, Sivas was smitten, as I wrote you last week. Mr. P. and
I had steadfastly refused to believe that such violence could
take place in our city, and we were totally unprepared for the
shock. Our walls had been taken down,--that is, our front wall
had been,--a distance of 125 feet. Our girls' school-building had
been cut off seven and a half feet on the southwest corner, and
both our schools and our dwellings were in an entirely unprotected
state. The day of the terrible disaster, the city water was cut
off from our street, and for several days the heat was unusual
for this time of the year. The dead were buried on Thursday,
under the direction of the government, in the Armenian graveyard,
a priest of the Gregorian faith being present to offer a prayer.
"Our good native pastor was in the market to attend to the
interests of his people, when, at a given signal, a tribe of
mountaineers, known as Karsluks suddenly fell upon the Armenians
with clubs, and were soon followed by Circassians and local
Mussulmen, with knives and pistols; quickly and lastly the
police force and regular soldiers joined in with their Martini
rifles. It was a combined onslaught of four other races against
the Armenians. It has been declared that the Armenians were in
armed revolt against the government, and this was done to put
down the revolution. When the attack was made against them, we
fail to find that there was any armed resistance, so far as we
can learn. If the Armenians were premeditating an armed attack
upon the Mussulmen, we never could find it out, but that proves
nothing here or there, as missionaries are well known not to
sympathize with revolutionists.
"Badveli Garabed died a martyr; his life being offered him three
times if he would deny Christ. He bore noble testimony before
many witnesses, then fell in their presence, sealing his faith
and testimony with his blood.
"Yours affectionately,"
Further Information about Sivas by the Missionaries who wrote to
their friends Nov. 12, 1895.
"The cyclone which struck on the 12th reached Marsovan on the
15th. Don't be deceived by any of the silly government statements
which attribute all these massacres to the Armenians. It was
a deliberate plan on the part of the government to punish the
Armenians. The Sultan was irritated because he was forced to give
them reforms, so he has had 7,000 Armenians killed to show his
power since he signed the scheme of reform.
"The killing was permitted to go on here all last week; forty-six
were killed Saturday, November 16; sixteen on Sunday, and many
more on the following day. The total number killed is about 1,200
Armenians and ten Turks.
"It is a fact that the Kaimakam of Gurun telegraphed to the Vali
at Sivas, saying in effect that there is not an Armenian left at
Gurun. The Armenians at Sivas made no resistance, but at Gurun
they tried to defend themselves from the butchery, and suffered
the worse for it.
"In order to have an excuse for attacking the Armenians at Sivas,
the government smashed the windows of Turkish shops and charged
it to the Armenians. Food is scarce, and everything was carried
off from the Armenian shops. There will be terrible suffering
all over this country."
Another letter from Sivas, according to the Constantinople
correspondent, gives many details which all go to show that the whole
movement against the Armenians is directly traceable to the head
of the Turkish government, who proclaimed that his great desire was
to keep always in view, "The safeguard of the rights of the people,
and the maintenance of public confidence."
"What cruel mockery; Trebizond, Erzeroum, Bitlis, Marash,
Harpoot and how many more towns rise up and point the finger
of everlasting scorn and indignation to fix on Abdul Hamid
Khan the stigma of everlasting infamy! The deliberate murder
of thousands of innocent and industrious men, the exposure of
ten times that number of women and children and aged persons to
absolute degradation and destitution, will justify the name of
Kanukiar--the Bloodletter--which has been applied to the head
authority of the Empire."
The Riot in Sivas.
"Last week, Monday, November 11, was one of the loveliest days
Sivas ever had. Although there were many rumors of trouble afloat,
we could get at nothing which seemed to have any greater foundation
than the fear that something might happen.
"I went unattended to the boys' school. On my way to school
that afternoon, I met a group of excited soldiers. They said
nothing to me, but their strangely excited manner impressed me
as being out of the usual order. When I began my class work,
the boys, instead of answering my questions, broke forth with
inquiries. They wanted to know if the soldiers were going to
shoot them, and if they were going to be killed. That was the
rumor afloat. I hushed them up as best I could, and told them it
was not right to speak of such things. I succeeded in quieting
the children, but went home full of anxiety.
"The next day, Tuesday, a large gang of Turkish workmen gathered in
our street to continue the public work of building up some walls
which had been torn down at the Vali's orders, for the purpose
of widening the street. Armenian carpenters were employed on our
building. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred until the workmen's
'bread time,' about 11 o'clock, was finished.
"Then all the Osmanli (Turkish) gang suddenly raised a hue and
cry; each one grabbed a pick or club, anything he could lay his
hands on, and a wild rush was made for the market-place. The air
was filled with yells of the furious men, who rushed along madly.
"The Protestant pastor remained at home on the day before,
but on Tuesday was in a shop when the signal for the raid was
given. A perfect cyclone of marauders rushed in and clubbed the
unsuspecting men in the stores to death before they could offer
any resistance. After the outbreak there was not a single Armenian
place of business left in the market.
"No list of the dead was made out, and none could be. The victims
were all buried in an immense trench in the Armenian burying-ground
two days afterwards. There were between seven and eight hundred
bodies thus buried."
MARSOVAN AND THE ATROCITIES THERE.
Marsovan has 25,000 population, 10,000 being Armenians, and the
remainder Mohammedans. Marsovan is one of the greatest stations of
the American missionaries. Anatolia College is there; a theological
seminary for young men; and a seminary for girls. The writer was the
pastor of the Evangelical Armenian church there till he was banished,
for the reasons stated in the sketch of him. After this the Turks
burned the girls' school; they tried to burn the boys' college building
also, but did not succeed. Finally they several times massacred the
Armenian Christians, and forced many to accept Mohammedanism.
I have not been able to get exact information about the number of
the martyred Christians in Marsovan, but it is believed that in that
missionary station about 1,000 were massacred altogether. The richest
men among the congregation were murdered, and so thoroughly plundered
that their children are left wholly destitute; and the lives of the
missionaries are in danger.
CESAREA (KAISERIEH).
The writer is well acquainted with this city, as he was the pastor
at Talas, only three miles away, for years. It has about 50,000
population, one-third being Christians; a few hundred Greeks only,
but more than 15,000 Armenians. The richest and ablest Armenians
live in that city, or in Constantinople, and came from there; its
people are the leaders of the Armenian nation, both in business
and intellect. For the story of its foundation, see "The Haigazian
Dynasty," under King Aram. It is a typical Armenian city; and has
several great Armenian churches, with flourishing schools. There is
a beautiful evangelical church also, and it is a great missionary
station, with several American missionaries, and several missionary
schools, both for boys and for girls.
The Rev. Dr. Avedis Yeretzian, one of the greatest of scholars,
teachers, and preachers, and my personal friend, was martyred in
that city during the recent atrocities. He was shot dead in his own
house by a Mohammedan mob, then his wife was shot, then his son,
and the remainder of his children were captured by the mob. About
3,000 Armenians were killed and wounded there, besides the loss of
property. The Mohammedan population of the city is very savage;
side by side in the same city, the Christians are rich, refined,
intelligent, and the Mohammedans poor, lazy, sensual, and cruel. I
give here two letters from Cesarea.
A Private Letter from a Girl.
Cesarea, Turkey, Dec. 31, 1895.
My Dear Brother:--
Before the massacre, everybody was in fear; several families
would gather in one house to protect themselves, and all the
Armenian stores were closed for twenty days; but as the government
guaranteed that there would be no danger, and told everybody to
attend to their business, and open their shops, they did so. It
was the 16th of November, on Saturday, that all opened their shops
again, and the transaction of business commenced in full force. At
2 p. m., at the doors of the market, bugles sounded, and several
hundred bashi-bazook [irregular soldiers] were at the doors of the
bazaar, every one of them having in his hands stilettos, swords,
yataghans, guns, revolvers, hammers, axes, hatchets, sickles,
poniards, daggers, and heavy sticks with twenty or thirty nails
fastened to them. Then they blew horns, the signal to start the
massacre. Cries were heard, "First kill, cut, and butcher the
Giavours; the property already belongs to us; cut, cut, kill, don't
care for plundering at present." Then they rushed into the market
and slaughtered all they met. Oh! you can imagine what became of
those who fell into the hands of those brutes. Alas! alas! how
unspeakable! They butchered them like cattle; cut their heads
off like onions. Some tried to run, but could not, others tried
to escape, but were brought back and killed. The bazaar was
full of dead bodies. People hid themselves among the goods,
and in the cellars, and were saved; ten or fifteen days after,
people were found there in a starving condition, not having dared
to come out. They killed in Avsharaghus factory thirty-eight men;
in Kayanjilar everybody was slain. After the massacre was over, the
governor, Ferick Pasha, sent soldiers around, and they discovered
many people hiding, and took them back to the government house
(seray), examined their pockets for revolvers and knives, and
not finding any, the governor sent them to their homes.
They plundered the bazaar of all its goods, and then, oh, my
Lord! they rushed upon the houses and upon the women's Turkish
baths.... I cannot describe this; when I think of it, my whole
body trembles. The people in the baths were killed and wounded,
and they carried away the young girls; every one was killed that
they came in contact with. The houses were plundered of all their
contents, and buildings were torn down, and houses full of people
were burned. Oh, how terrible! What I say you cannot imagine to be
so; you may think it is a dream, because your eyes have not seen
nor your ears heard the screams, wailings, weeping, shrieks, and
groaning; that even our forefathers have not heard, but of which
our ears are full day and night. My brother was in the bazaar,
but fortunately he had occupied a private room, where he was safe.
Some of the kidnapped girls were brought back by the government,
but most of them were wounded, and half dead from fright. Thank
God, we are safe, but we are not better than those girls. We are
in Mr. Wingate's house, where many lives were saved. He carried
beds and clothing to the people, who were stripped of all. A
few Mussulmans also protected in their homes some Armenians;
for example, James Imuroglov, Gojaki Ogloo.
Yeretzian Avedis Effendi's house is ruined, himself, his son,
and wife are killed, and the rest, five of them, are carried
away. Our block and their block is ruined. They butchered Avjinury,
Yuzukji, Dirnhitza and carried away her three daughters, but
later on brought two of them back. I mentioned them, as you
know. They also butchered Yuzikji Apraham and his wife Gaga Haji,
Gemerlkli Ohanness, Mustaamelji Gobra, Terrzi Artin, Erzurumli,
servant boy. Avedis Ago and his daughter were carried away. Gussi
Hamimon's mother is low. Oh, pity the intolerable many, many, I
cannot write by my pen, or describe with my tongue the terrible
sufferings. O Lord, have mercy upon us! To my knowledge there
were five hundred killed, six hundred wounded; many are dying from
their wounds and fright. Eight hundred houses are plundered, and
the tenants flocked to the churches. I cannot write one hundredth
part of what happened.
We are lost, lost, ruined, no work, no business, every one of us
looking for safety. Happy, happy be you that are in America and
have nothing to fear. They say to me, you ought to be with your
brother in America now. If the way was opened, everybody would
like to go.
If you are not in good circumstances there, you must feel satisfied
and give the thanks to God always. We also have to thank God that
we are still living. It is one month now that we have not been able
to go out in the streets. O Lord, help us, Oh! what shall we come
to? Oh, my dear brother, if you can help us in any way please do
so; make lectures, get some help; everybody is dying of hunger. I
cannot write any longer; we leave all to your conscience. I do
not write this letter only to you, but to all. Do whatever you can
for us, we are in a terrible condition. I thank you, my brother,
for the money that you sent to me, thank you very much.
We send our best regards to every one of you. I wrote this
letter with the tears in my eyes. We beg of you to write us good
letters. Vaham, the little boy, is in good health. We are all
well including
Your sister,
Letter from Cesarea.
Cesarea, Nov. 20, 1895.--While the Armenians were engaged
in their business, as usual, the Turkish mob fell upon them,
killing 600 defenseless men and wounding 1,000 more. The mob
divided into four parts. The first part plundered the stores,
the second looted the houses, the third secured the maidens and
young brides, while the fourth, fiends incarnate, attacked the
public baths. These human devils killed six naked women in the
presence of the others, snatching their babies from their arms and
bayoneting the mothers. The shrieks and agonizing cries of these
poor creatures made no impression upon the minds of the savage
Turks, who laughed at their death agonies. They then took some
of the young girls, who were with their mothers at the bath,
and dragged them naked, by their feet, through the streets,
followed by a jeering and hooting mob.
The Turks who attacked the houses then killed them and fired the
houses. The cries of the women, mingled with the hoarse shouts of
the Turks, can never be forgotten. The men who survived the sword
were discovered, taken to the magistrate and searched, but no arms
were found in their possession, not even a knife. When released,
and allowed to return to their homes, they were confronted by a
most ghastly picture. Some found their wives dead, others horribly
mutilated; daughters were bleeding. My hand almost fails me to
write the awful particulars. It took three or four days to remove
the bodies of the dead with forty carts. Add to this the want,
the desolation. Oh, my God, for how long, how long! Where are
those Christian powers who saved African slaves? Where are those
Christians who advocated brotherly love and mercy, sending their
missionaries to teach us? Are they deaf to our piercing cry?
AINTAB AND ITS HORRORS.
The writer is well acquainted with Aintab, and some of his best
friends live there, if they have not been killed. It has about 40,000
population, one-third of it being Armenian. There are great scholars
among them. Central Turkey College is there. It is an American college,
but most of the professors are native Armenians, graduates of Yale
College. There is also a woman's American College and a hospital. The
Evangelical Armenians are the strongest; they have three large
churches. They are considered to be the richest Evangelical Armenians
in Turkey. But hundreds of them were killed, wounded and plundered;
in all about 4,000 of the Armenian population were killed.
A Letter from Aintab, November 23, 1895.
Aintab has had its baptism of blood and fire, and we sit in grief
among ruins. We had been hoping that the many things which seemed
to combine for our security would save our city from the fury
of the storm which is desolating so many places about us. Our
Christian community is large (about one-fourth of the whole
population), and the Christians, as a class, are exceptionally
intelligent and influential; the leading Moslems of the city
are intelligent and able men, and have shown themselves to a
degree tolerant and even friendly to Christians; the governor
has seemed disposed, beyond most Turkish officials, to respect
the rights of Christians. There is a considerable number of
foreign residents sure to be witnesses of any violence done to
Christians. The college and hospital have for years commanded a
powerful influence in the city; the hospital especially has the
good-will of all classes; the college, its students and teachers
were no doubt regarded by many with much suspicion on account of
the latent antagonisms inevitably existing between progressive and
conservative ideas, but personal relations were, so far as I know,
always friendly. Another thing in our favor has been the fact that
the Christians of Aintab have given very little countenance to the
ultra-revolutionists, who have no doubt provoked trouble in some
places. Relying upon all these things, we had for nearly three
weeks been hearing reports of fighting and massacre at Zeitoon,
Marash, and Oorfa, and other places, with comparatively little
anxiety for ourselves. It is true we were frequently hearing of
fearful threats and warnings of what the Moslems were preparing
to do in Aintab, but we had got hardened to that sort of thing,
and regarded it as largely the invention of cowardly roughs to
terrify those whom they did not dare attack. The most alarming
thing in the situation was that the government was disarming the
Christians, and at the same time giving out rifles and ammunition
to Moslems. This, however, was attributed to an exaggerated fear
of a Christian rising, of which they profess to have information.
Meantime the Moslems liable to military service were called out
and equipped and hurried off toward Zeitoon, where it was reported
that the Christians were in rebellion. This, no doubt, was the
occasion of intense irritation, and both the soldiers and their
friends were saying, "If we must fight Christians we will begin
with those close at hand." Under these circumstances the native
Christians became very anxious, and made such preparations for
defense as circumstances permitted, at the same time keeping as
quiet as possible, and avoiding all controversy and altercations
with the Moslems. The government increased the police force in the
city, and held a considerable force of troops at the barracks near
the town, and the governor and principal men seemed to be making
much effort to quiet the people. Several considerable tumults
had occurred and been promptly suppressed without bloodshed;
so day after day dragged on, each hour increasing the hope that
we should tide over the crisis.
Saturday morning, November 16, more than three weeks after the
first riot in Marash, at about half past seven, just as we were
rising from breakfast, our people came in with white faces saying,
"The day of judgment has come in the city." We hastened to the
door, and sure enough the mob was at work; all the west and
south part of the city seemed to be in an uproar; crowds of
people rushing in every direction, roofs covered with excited
men, women, and children; the strange mingling of cries of fear,
anger, and defiance, with occasional gun and pistol shots, made
an exhibition of the most fearful tumult and confusion.
Already troops were hurrying forward, and soon a company of some
sixty soldiers were stationed in front of the Girls' Seminary,
with pickets out to cover the approaches to the hospital and
college. Dr. Shepherd and Mr. Sanders mounted their horses
and hastened to the hospital and seminary, where they remained
until the rioting ceased. The college is about half a mile west
of the seminary and hospital, and commands a full view of these
buildings, and of the whole west end of the city, where most of
the rioting occurred.
What we, who were looking on, saw from this point was the narrow
streets densely crowded with intensely excited people, now and then
a rush made upon some house or gate, the rally of defenders on the
roofs, among whom women were often foremost, using stones, clubs,
and sometimes guns and pistols as best they could. Sometimes the
attack is beaten off, and the assailants withdraw to organize a
new assault, sometimes a gate or wall is broken down, and then the
noise of conflict subsides and the work of massacre and plunder
begins. Later on, long lines of people moving off to their homes
laden with plunder, and later still the flames and smoke rising
from the burning houses.
What we heard was the indescribable roar of the mob, pierced by
the sharp reports of pistols and guns, with now and then shrieks
of agony and fear, and shouts of defiance or command, and over all,
and most horrible of all, the loud shrill "Zullghat," (wedding cry)
very like the cry of our northern loons prolonged and sharpened,
raised by Turkish women crowded on their roofs and cheering on
their men to attack. The massacre and pillage began in the markets,
and in those parts of the city where Christians' houses, surrounded
by Moslem neighbors, offered easy points of attack; these places
having been looted, the mob moved on towards what are known as the
Christian quarters of the town. There the resistance became more
obstinate; in two of these quarters the old street gates were still
in use, by shutting which, the district enclosed becomes a small
fortified community capable of making a strong resistance to an
organized mob. The assailants were at last beaten off and arrested.
Under such general conditions the storm of mob violence raged
on without much abatement till the middle of the afternoon, when
the tumult gradually subsided, and night at last brought quiet,
except in the vicinity of burning houses, where the uproar went
on till near midnight. By morning, arrangements seemed to have
been made which gave us hope that order would be maintained;
the guard for our mission premises had been increased, and the
soldiers posted at intervals around the Christian quarters of the
city. Very early in the morning of the 17th, crowds, evidently
eager to share the plunder, were seen hurrying towards the city
from every direction. The soldiers met and turned them back, and
even beat some of them and chased them off. They soon returned,
however, increased in numbers, and being joined by friends from
the city, became very turbulent. About noon we saw through our
glass an officer, apparently a captain, ride forward into a mob,
and address them at some length; we could not hear what he said,
but immediately, without any show of opposition from any one, the
whole crowd came pell-mell with the soldiers into the city. This
was at the southwest corner of the town, and immediately under
our eyes. At the same time much the same thing was occurring at
the northwest corner; then for an hour chaos was let loose again,
and the horrors of the previous day were repeated, only that this
time the Christians were prepared, and, being in a strong position,
were generally able to beat off their assailants. At one point
of the line of defense were a few Moslem houses, and we were
delighted to learn that the men heartily and bravely joined in
the defense with their neighbors; the gallantry of this act was
somewhat marred, however, by the demand which they made the next
day for a large sum of money for their service; these men actually
demanded and received about $5 apiece for this neighborly help.
When it became apparent that the mob could not force their way
into the places held by the besieged, the soldiers, perhaps having
received new orders, resumed a show of activity, fired a few shots
into the air, and drove the mob out of the city and dispersed
them; this is the last serious fighting that has occurred up to
the present time, though local tumults have broken out frequently,
several houses have been pillaged and burned, and two Christians
at least were shot while being conducted through the streets by
soldiers. Strict military rule is now established, and special
care is taken to safeguard the lives of property of foreigners. We
are kept under very close restriction, and not allowed to visit
the city except for special objects, and then under a strong
guard. The amount of damage we can only estimate; as nearly as
we can judge, the figures will be about 200 killed, 400 wounded,
nearly all the Christian shops and 250 houses pillaged, and a
considerable number burned. Some 1,000 men who in the first panic
took refuge in khans and mosques are still held as prisoners,
for purposes which we can only surmise.
P.S. Dec. 17. Quiet has for the most part been maintained under
strict military rule. No Christian can yet venture out without
armed escort, and there are not wanting signs that there is waiting
and even expectation of another signal from above. The government,
however, seems to be trying to restore order and confidence. We
are glad to say that we have heard of no cases of special violence
or abuse offered to women.
The above-named prisoners have been gradually released, till
now there are only some six of the principal Christians still in
confinement. The number of killed just now must be set down at
over 400; the butchery in the markets where the first attacks
began far exceeded our belief. A great number of bodies were
thrown together into some distilleries, and these buildings
set on fire and burned to the ground, thus removing for a time
much of the terrible evidence of the extent of the massacre. The
attack being made in the morning and beginning in the markets, it
happened that the killed are about wholly from the "bread-winners"
among the Christians. As a result, there are now in Aintab more
than 4,000 people dependent on charity for daily bread, and most
of those to whom they would naturally look for aid are utterly
impoverished; the outlook for the winter is simply appalling. We
appeal for aid speedily in the name of humanity.
THE CITY OF BIRIJIK AND THE ATROCITIES.
The city of Birijik is on the shores of the Euphrates; it has a
beautiful appearance from the other side of the river. The Mohammedan
population there are very wild and ignorant.
The Massacre at Birijik (Province of Aleppo).
Birijik had about 300 Christian houses, or say about 1,000
souls, in the midst of the Mussulman population of about 9,000
souls. After the massacre at Oorfa on the 27th of October, 1895,
the authorities at Birijik told the Armenians that the Muslims
were afraid of them, and that therefore they (the Armenians) must
surrender to the government any arms that they possessed. This
was done, the most rigid search being instituted to assure the
authorities that nothing whatever in the way of arms remained in
the hands of the Armenians. This disarmament caused no little
anxiety to the Armenians, since the Muslim population was very
generally armed, and was constantly adding to its arms. In fact,
during the months of November and December the Christians have
kept within their houses because the danger of appearing upon
the streets was very great.
Troops were called out by the government to protect the
people. Since the soldiers had come to protect the Christians,
the Christians were required to furnish animals for them to carry
their goods. Then they were required to furnish them beds and
carpets to make them more comfortable. Finally they were required
to furnish the soldiers with food, and they were reduced to a
state bordering on destitution by these increasing demands.
The end came on the first of January, 1896, when the news of
the massacre of several thousands of Christians at Oorfa by the
soldiers appointed to guard them incited the troops at Birijik
to imitate this crime. The assault on the Christian houses
commenced at about nine o'clock in the morning and continued until
night-fall. The soldiers were aided by the Muslims of the city in
the terrible work. The object at first seemed to be mainly plunder,
but after the plunder had been secured the soldiers seemed to
make a systematic search for men, to kill those who were unwilling
to accept Mohammedanism. The cruelty used to force men to become
Muslims was terrible. In one case the soldiers found some twenty
people, men, women, and children, who had taken refuge in a sort
of cave. They dragged them out and killed all the men and boys,
because they would not become Muslims. After cutting down one
old man who had thus refused, they put live coals upon his body,
and as he was writhing in torture, they held a Bible before him,
and asked him mockingly to read them some of the promises in
which he had trusted. Others were thrown into the river while
still alive, after having been cruelly wounded. The women and
children of this party were loaded up like goods upon the backs
of porters and carried off to the houses of Muslims. Christian
girls were eagerly sought after, and much quarreling occurred
over the question of their division among their captors. Every
Christian house except two, claimed to be owned by Turks, was
plundered. Ninety-six men are known to have been killed, or about
half of the adult Christian men. The others have become Mussulmans
to save their lives, so that there is not a single Christian left
in Birijik to-day. The Armenian Church has been made into a mosque,
and the Protestant Church into a Medresse Seminary.--[Dr. Dillon.
OORFA AND ITS ATROCITIES.
Oorfa, the old Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham, the old patriarch of
the Bible, was born, was called Edessa in the time of Christ. I have
told the story of King Abgar and his conversion in the historical part
of this book. It had about 50,000 population, about 20,000 of whom
were Armenians before the massacres. Out of that number 8,000 were
slaughtered, according to Mr. Fitzmaurice, the British vice-consul
who returned from Oorfa to Constantinople on March 21. The Evangelical
Armenian pastor, the Rev. Hagop Abuhayatian, was also martyred. I knew
him personally. He was educated in Germany, a man of great ability;
a great scholar, and a great and forcible preacher.
A Letter from Oorfa, Jan. 28, 1896.
Dear Friend:--
Your only remaining brother sends you a letter, but no letters
can begin to explain the sad state of this city. The massacre of
Dec. 28 and 29 has left all homes except Catholics and Syrians
entirety empty of any comforts. Many families have not one bed
even; all cooking utensils, clothing, bedding, carpets, etc.,
were taken. Most have a little zakhere left, though some have
not that. We are feeding about 175 of the most needy, and more
will come to us every week. The loss by death is between 4,000
and 5,000. Our pastor, the Rev. Hagop Abouhayatian, Dr. Kivorc,
and brother Harotoun, Sarkis Varjebed Chubukian and brother and
son, Garabed Roumian, Habbourjou Avedis and brother Sarkis, old
sexton Garabed and other sexton Bogos, Majar Kivorc and brother
Bogos and Berber Monofa and two sons, Eskejiyan Marderos, Zarman
Roomian's three eons, are some of the dead. In all, our Protestant
dead are 115. Some of our people perished in the Gregorian Church,
where 1,500 or 2,000 went for refuge Saturday night, and on Sunday
were murdered or burned, very few escaping. It was the most awful
of all the terrible events of those two days.
Thank God, two hundred and forty were saved by coming to me; sixty
of them were men. I could not keep the men in my house or yard,
because it was forbidden by the guards, but I hid them elsewhere,
and fed them for three or four days. The government carefully
protected me, and killed as many of my friends as possible. We
have our house and all the schoolrooms full of the wounded and
the most forlorn.
Our Oorfa redeefs leave to-morrow; we have new soldiers now for
guard of the city, and Christians especially. Oorfa redeefs have
been poor guards, and but for them the awful work would not have
been accomplished. The pastor of Severek, the Rev. Marderos,
was killed. The Rev. Vartan remains alive in Adayaman. Both in
Severek and Adayaman the number of the killed was very great. In
Birijik about two hundred were killed, and all remaining have
become Moslems; they have been circumcised.
In Aintab about three hundred were killed, 847 shops plundered
and 417 houses.
During our first disturbance, six to seven hundred shops here
were plundered, and about 175 houses. Then the Christians used
arms to defend themselves. Since then all arms have been taken by
the government from the Christians, and the leaders were forced
to sign a paper stating the city as "in peace and harmony, thanks
to the rulers," etc.; twenty-five signed it, and now almost all
of these have been killed. Our pastor signed for Protestants.
Only two of the Gregorian priests remain, and they are wounded. The
bishop is alive, but feeble, and does not work publicly now. Their
state is very sad. We desire your prayers, and the aid of all
who can give us help by money at this time.
Sincerely your friend,
P.S. Your brother asks you to send a letter to him by me.
DIARBEKIR AND ITS STORY.
Diarbekir (see the historical part for its foundation) has about 40,000
population. Nearly half of them are Christians, but not all of them are
Armenians. There are Chaldeans also. The Armenian population numbered
about 12,000, of which 5,000 were killed during the recent atrocities.
A Letter from Diarbekir, Nov. 20, 1895.
My Dear Sir:--
After salutation, I offer my thanks to God that after great
dangers and tribulation we have reached the present time. God's
will be done. How can I describe the horrors in our city to
you? Can any pen or any language tell them? No, but I shall try
to write at least a very short description of them. But who knows
if this letter will reach you, because of the letters we write,
very few reach you, and very few of your letters reach us, since
the government has control of the mail, and it is the government
that persecutes us. Our age is a peculiar age. God look at our
misery and save us.
How happy were those who were martyred on Nov. 1, and have gone to
their reward. The atrocities which happened here on November 1, 2,
3, cannot be matched in the history of the civilized world. I do
not think they can be in that of heathen lands, where the people
are barbarous.
When I write these lines to you, I hardly know what I am writing;
the darkness of Egypt covers all around me. The former millionaires
in the city have nothing and are begging bread. Nov. 1 was a black
day for the Armenians. Many were separated from their loved ones,
even parents from their children. Many merchants and rich people
were so thoroughly plundered and stripped that they are literally
left naked and hungry, and numbers have been put to unspeakable
tortures by the Turks and Kurds. Nov. 1 was Friday; it was about
noon when the Mohammedans came out from their mosques. The native
Turks, the Kurds who were brought from outside, and the soldiers
all united, swords, pistols, guns, axes, and clubs in their hands,
fell upon the Armenians in the market place or business place,
cut them to pieces, and plundered what they had. If they had
been all killed by bullets it would have been a sudden death, and
easier. But they cut them to pieces bit by bit with their axes,
and made holes in the bodies with their swords.
When they were killing the Armenians, they were repeating the
following words, "Bring testimony to prophet Mohammed. Our Sultan
ordered us to kill these heathen dogs, the Armenians." The governor
of the city, and all other officials, with the commander of the
soldiers, during the time of the atrocities were sitting near
the great mosque, and while listening to the cries and screams of
the martyred Armenians, they were laughing and joking with great
pleasure, and ordering the soldiers to carry the most valuable
things to their houses.
After they had killed everybody, and plundered everything in the
business place, they turned to the residences where Armenians
lived, and began to burn and kill. Some of the soldiers went to
the tops of the minarets or high towers, and began to shoot the
Armenians from there. What a pitiful scene was the condition
of the Armenian ladies, who were running from house to house,
from street to street, and were shot dead, and their children
left orphans. During the three days' massacre 4,000 Armenians
were killed, and the burning of the houses and stores continued
twenty-four hours. From the gate of the mosque to the place
where they make saddles, and from the twin caravansary to the new
caravansary, from Sheik Uatad to Melik Ahmed, all the buildings,
1,400 stores, were burnt and turned to ashes. There are other
stores also which were not burnt, but everything was taken from
them. The stores where goldsmiths worked every article is taken
from.
When the Armenians go among the ruins to see if they can find
any article, they are forbidden; and if some one manages to
find anything, the Mohammedans take it from him, cursing him,
and calling him a heathen dog at the same time.
When we come to the residences near your house, from the house of
Darakji to the covered place of Sheytan aglou, all are destroyed;
from Alo-Pasha bath to the Jemil Pasha Palace, all destroyed. But
the church of the Patrees is not destroyed. St. Sarkis's church
was plundered and afterwards burned. Before the church was burnt,
they killed the priests, and unspeakable violations took place in
the church. In that quarter half of the population were killed,
and the other half, who survive, are naked, barefooted, hungry,
and are begging bread.
Now the government pretends to give bread to the hungry, but
nothing is given, and those who have a little give to the others
who have nothing; but after a few days nothing will be left to
eat. Thank the Lord, the Kurds went out of the city. But it is
twenty days now since the massacre took place, and nobody dares
to go out to the streets.
We have no stores, no money, nothing to eat. Though my personal
house was not robbed, but I have ten orphans whose fathers and
mothers were killed; I am taking care of them. We have a little;
we shall eat that, and see what the Lord will provide.
From the Rev. Dr. Tomy's house to the church of the Evangelical
people all the houses were burned. Hovhanness's loss is about
$1,000. Those who hid themselves in Konsol Khan and in the church
of the Patrees escaped death. But every one who escaped was left
hungry and thirsty from twelve to fifteen days in their places
of confinement, because they were afraid of going out.
All the suburban towns and villages were totally destroyed. In
Sevorag both the Armenian church and the Evangelical Armenian
church were destroyed, and only from fifty to one hundred persons
were left alive. The monastery of Argen was destroyed, and the
teachers and all the inmates were killed.
They burnt the church of Ali-Punar and killed the priest. From
that place only five or ten persons were left alive. Your brother
at Kitibel with all his family are killed, and both the churches
are burned. They forced the ministers to accept the Mohammedan
religion; on refusal all three were killed, the Rev. Abosh, the
Rev. Khidershap, and the priest. All who were left alive at Kitibel
are only about forty persons. Afram's brother Kisho with all his
family were killed. At Renjil nobody is left. At Kara Bash only
fifty persons are left alive. The village of Satou is entirely
out of existence. In all this province all the towns and villages
are destroyed, and the people are killed, except the village of
Haziro, which is not destroyed, and the reason is that a Turk,
Sevdim Beg, did not permit the Kurds and the Turks to destroy it.
What will become of us hereafter we do not know. We are still
in danger, but we trust first in God, then in such friends as
you. My personal damage is $5,000 and now is the time to show us
sympathy and help us.
If you cannot do it yourself personally, can you not tell the
people of the United States of America to help us and relieve
our suffering?
Sincerely yours,
TREBIZOND AND ITS ATROCITIES.
Trebizond is built on the shores of the Black Sea, and is a part
of Armenia. The population is estimated at 40,000; only 10,000 are
Christians; perhaps about half of them are Armenians, and nearly
half of the Armenians were killed and wounded during the recent
savageries. Mr. Chelton, who was going to Armenia to organize
consulates, was in Trebizond, saw the massacre of Christians, and
reported to the government at Washington:--
"Trebizond, Oct. 9, 1895.--Many Armenians were killed here in
conflicts yesterday with Turks. No attempt was made to stop the
massacre of the Armenians. The Turks were armed, and the number of
troops present here is small. It is even stated that soldiers took
part in the slaughter, and in the pillage which accompanied it."
"London, Oct. 17, 1895.--The 'Daily News' publishes a dispatch
from Constantinople giving a description by an eye-witness of
the rioting at Trebizond. He says that four separate Moslem mobs
surrounded the Armenian quarters at eleven o'clock on the morning
of Oct. 8, and then began to pillage the shops. Being opposed,
they fired on the Armenians, and soon a general massacre began.
"Soldiers joined the mob in firing on the Armenians and in
pillaging the shops and houses. The scene continued until 4
o'clock in the afternoon, when nothing was left to pillage and
nobody remained to be killed. The mob then began to disperse. The
better class of Turks did their best to protect the lives of the
Armenians. They sheltered the women and children and many men
in their houses. The mob attacked only the orthodox Armenians,
leaving Catholics alone."
An Armenian Massacre. Money Cabled to London by the Local Relief
Association, Dec. 31, 1895.
"Recent letters telling of the massacres in various Armenian
cities contain information that helps to explain many points in
the awful outbreak of so-called Mohammedan fanaticism. A letter
from Trebizond says:--
"'Bahri Pasha, governor of Van, started to come to Constantinople,
and it was learned that he was bringing with him four of
the fairest young maidens of Sassoun, who had been spared
in the massacre, to make an acceptable present of them to his
Sultan. This aroused the Armenian people of Trebizond to a frenzy,
and it was impossible to restrain the young men, the more daring
of whom fired upon Bahri Pasha, wounding him. But he carried out
his mission to Constantinople, and was honored with the highest
decoration and appointed governor of Adana.
"'Afterward the pasha of Trebizond, calling twelve of the leading
men of the city, demanded that they should hand over the young
men who attacked the governor, and gave them just a few hours
in which to carry out his orders. The next day they answered him
that the government had no means of finding the men out.
"'When the mails had arrived, and the people went toward the
postoffice, the trumpet was sounded three times, and both the
soldiers and the mob rushed upon the people. It is impossible
to describe the horror of the scene--the roar of the murderers,
like that of wild beasts, the shrieks of the women in the houses
from whose arms their husbands and sons were torn and murdered
before their eyes, and universal tumult, added to the sighs and
groans of the dying. And this we know is only one, and not even
the most terrible of the massacres.'"
BAIBURT.
"Constantinople, Oct. 28, 1895.--Another massacre of Armenians,
accompanied by the outraging of women, is reported to have
occurred recently in the districts of Baiburt, between Erzeroum
and Trebizond. According to the news received here, a mob of
about 500 Mussulmans and Lazes, the greater majority of whom
were armed with Martini-Henry rifles, made an attack upon the
Armenians inhabiting several villages of that vicinity, and set
fire to their houses and schools. As the Armenians fled in terror
from their dwellings they were shot down as they ran, and a number
of men and women who were captured by the rioters, it is added,
were fastened to stakes and burned alive.
"The Armenian women who fell into the hands of the mob, it is
asserted, were outraged and brutally mutilated. It is also stated
that the churches were desecrated and pillaged, the cattle, and
all the portable property of any value belonging to the Armenians
being carried off by the marauders. During the disturbance
150 Armenians are reported to have been killed. The surviving
villages applied for protection to the governor of Baiburt, who,
after hearing their complaint, sent three policemen to the scene
of the massacre after the slaughter was ended.
"The Turkish officials, it is claimed, know the ringleaders of
the outbreak in the Baiburt district; but apparently no steps
have been taken to arrest them."
Another Letter from Baiburt.
"The Armenian bishop's vicar was killed, the teachers in the
schools and many other men and women were massacred. Women jumped
into open wells to escape worse deaths; the villages round about
were laid waste.
"Following this was the Erzinghan massacre. On Friday, the 25th
of October, 1895, the Moslems finished their noon hour of prayer
by pouring out of the mosques and attacking the Armenians in the
market, who, taken by surprise, were shot and cut down to the
number of 500; their shops being all plundered."
(Signed) An American Missionary.
ERZEROUM.
This is a large city, almost on the boundary line between Russia and
Turkey, in Turkish Armenia. It has about 60,000 people, one-third of
whom are Armenians. Several times since the last Turko-Russian war
the Christian Armenians have been massacred there by the Turks and
the regular soldiers, and during the recent atrocities also there
were massacred, and in all about 3,000 Armenians were killed.
Letter from Erzeroum.
"Nov. 27, 1895.--The massacre evidently was pre-arranged. It began
all over the city at the same moment. The bugle was sounded,
and the soldiers began. They first said, "No harm to women or
children," but they soon passed those bounds. A soldier who was
on guard says the order was given by the Porte. We made ready
for defense, but it soon appeared that the soldiers had cut off
the rabble from our section, for no mob passed our street. A few
men tried to open the door, but three well-directed shots from
our balcony sent them off.
"The soldiers at the head of our street, apparently to guard it,
broke open three or four houses within a stone's throw of us,
and carried off everything they found. We saw loads of plunder
carried away by soldiers. A large number of women engaged in the
same work. The affair began shortly after noon and continued about
six hours. One Armenian was called to the door by an officer, who
professed to be friendly, and was cut down in cold blood. Others
were cruelly murdered. The death roll must be towards 300, if
not more. Between fifty and sixty wounded are in the hospital.
"Two hundred were gathered in the Armenian cemetery, some horribly
mutilated. There must be many wounded in the different houses. The
pillaged houses are to be counted by the hundred. No house attacked
was left until it was emptied of every movable thing. The next
day we went to an Armenian home. In the middle of a small room
(the kitchen), lying side by side on a mat, were the bodies of
two young women, almost naked, a light covering thrown over their
heads. At the other side of the room a grief-stricken woman was
trying to make bread from a little flour that had been left. She
had to borrow utensils to do it. She left her work, came forward
and removed the covering from the bodies. They were those of
young women developing into motherhood. The head and face of
one was covered with blood, and she was also badly wounded in
the hand. The other had a bullet wound through the abdomen from
the right side. A companion of these two had been carried off,
and was lying dead in another house. Their lives were sacrificed
in defense of honor.
"We passed through the ruins to other rooms. Boxes and
furniture were in splinters, windows smashed, walls ploughed
with bullets. The floor was covered with big patches of
blood. The bodies lying in the cemeteries are simply wrecks of
human beings. The majority have bullet wounds. Nearly all have
bayonet, sword and dagger wounds, some badly mutilated. Two or
three were skinned, and some were burned with kerosene. A great
many women are missing. Very many dead have been disposed of by
the Turks. Hundreds have nothing to eat, and no means of getting
anything. The villages of the plain have suffered awfully. No
definite news has come; only the news that columns of smoke tell."
MARASH.
The writer became acquainted with many noble Armenians here during his
three years in the Theological Seminary, and almost all his friends
were killed. Among them were the Rev. Sdepan Jirnazian, a noble
Christian minister,--when I was a little boy he was my pastor in the
suburbs of Antioch;--Bedros Iskiyan, an American citizen, butchered
before his wife and children; Garabed Popalian, another noble man, and
the richest among the Armenian Evangelical people; Dr. Kevork Gulizian;
Khacher Bayramian and his family; Garabed Salibian, in whose house
I used to take my meals. A private letter says that about half the
Armenians were killed by the Turks. Marash had about 35,000 population;
about 15,000 were Armenians, of whom about 7,000 were killed. It has
four Evangelical Armenian churches there, a theological seminary,
and a ladies' college. The local governor led the regular soldiers
to plunder and kill the people.
Letter from Marash.
London, Nov. 28, 1895.--The correspondent of the United Press in
Constantinople telegraphs, under date of November 27, that a second
terrible massacre has occurred in Marash, and that the houses there
have been pillaged without regard to who their occupants might
be. It is reported that thousands of persons were killed and many
hundred wounded. The American Theological Seminary was plundered
and burned, and two of the students in that institution were shot,
one being fatally wounded. The hotels and boarding houses also
were plundered. The Christians at Marash, and in that vicinity,
thousands of whom are destitute, have appealed for aid.
The following letter, under date of November 25, has been
received here:
"I will report the events of the 18th in this city. At 7 a. m.,
almost simultaneously the firing of Martini rifles was heard all
over the city, with conflagrations in three Christian quarters.
"We understood the meaning of it. Soldiers began firing against two
Christian houses, and their inmates fled into missionary houses,
and soon the soldiers were looting their buildings, followed by
a mob, who smashed doors and windows, and carried away property.
"Towards noon a squad of soldiers approached the missionary
grounds, and it was thought that a guard had been sent in behalf
of the missionaries. They entered the grounds of the seminary
and academy boarding department. Two seminary students, who had
concealed themselves in a cave, were discovered, and one of them
fatally shot, while the other was badly wounded.
"The soldiers looted the missionary academy boarding department
of all the students' clothing and bedding, and a part of the
year's provisions in store. Other soldiers joined and looted
the seminary. They repeatedly went to an Armenian house near by,
but did not force it.
"Three-quarters of that terrible day the missionaries were left
to any chance fate that might befall them. They had been informed
by a Moslem of a purpose to burn the Girls' College that day, and
a note had been sent to the local governor asking for a special
guard. He replied that the barracks near by were charged to care
for them. It was soldiers in relays from that very place that
were wrecking everything.
"In the afternoon four or five soldiers entered the seminary, and
soon after, fire broke out in the rear. As the flames wrapped the
building, a trustworthy captain with thirty soldiers appeared at
the gate, and the missionaries were assured of safety. The soldiers
still continue with the missionaries. We cannot estimate the loss
of life. Leaders of society have been struck down everywhere,
two missionary academy teachers among them."
AKHISAR.
The valley of the Sakaria (the ancient Sangarius), is, through a
part of its course, followed by the Anatolia line of railway. At a
spot ninety miles from Constantinople, where the valley broadens out
into a considerable plain, is the station and town of Akhisar. This
town was, until the tenth of this month, the center of a considerable
trade. The plain is dotted with vineyards, olive orchards, mulberry
gardens, fields of cotton, wheat, etc. The town consists of about
160 houses of immigrants from Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Rumelia (who,
having been concerned in the celebrated Bulgarian massacres, found
refuge in Turkish territory), and sixty houses of Armenians.
A Letter Oct. 15, 1895.
Thursday, Oct. 10 (a bright, beautiful day), was market
day. Numbers of people from the surrounding villages had come with
the fruits of their various industries. The market place consisted
of sixty-three permanent shops, and about 150 temporary places
of trade, where traders from the surrounding country exposed
their wares for sale. The market was almost exclusively in the
hands of Armenians, 200 of the shops and trading places being
in their hands. Rumors of danger were afloat, but the Armenians
anticipated no attack on market-day. They had no arms, or means
of defense, and had taken no precautions. They soon began to
notice, however, that their Mussulman neighbors had mysterious
whisperings among themselves, and that some of them were searching,
as with official authority, the persons of Armenian young men,
who were supposed to have knives or revolvers about them. Those
searching at last found a young Armenian, a seller of calico,
who had a knife in his possession. At once they fell upon him,
but he escaped in the crowd that gathered, and the Mussulmans
turned upon the Armenians, saying, "We must kill them all. Let
him who loves his religion join and help." With knives and
clubs the work was carried on, the Armenians fleeing, or hiding
themselves in or about their shops. Turkish officials encouraged
the killers. A herald was sent through the market calling,
"Let the Moslems go to the government house." They did go,
and immediately returned with rifles and revolvers. Then the
slaughter increased in madness. The piteous entreaties of the
threatened, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying,
the shouts of the killers, and the hysterical cries of some of
the Christians, who, to save their lives were calling out with
desperate energy the Mohammedan formula of faith, rose to the deaf
heavens. Ten-year-old Turkish boys, as though hunting rats, rushed
into holes and corners, and discovering the hiding-places of the
merchants and traders, called to their fathers and big brothers,
"Here is a Giavour!" and while that one was being dispatched they
rushed off to ferret out another. For four hours the slaughter
continued. Ropes were attached to the feet of the corpses, which
were dragged like the carcasses of dogs through the streets to
dry wells, into which they were thrown. An old man, aged 75,
was tumbled in alive, and left to die among the dead bodies of
his friends. The money and watches of the merchants were secured
by the ruffians. The notes of hand and account books were torn
into shreds (the killers were debtors to the merchants), and the
shops were looted. Not so much as a pin or needle was left in the
200 shops. Then the cry was raised, "To the houses!" to complete
the destruction of the Christian inhabitants.
Twenty-nine bodies were afterward recovered for burial;
thirty-three persons (some of whom afterward died), were
found to be wounded, and about forty are still missing. The
lieutenant-governor arrived that night on the scene, and sent an
official report (by telegram) to Constantinople, to the effect
that a row had occurred between Turks and Armenians, in which three
Armenians had been killed and two wounded, but that order had been
restored! Efforts were made to cover the matter up. Christians were
imprisoned for talking about the massacre, or for sending the news
to friends. A prominent man, well-known throughout the country,
wished to let his circle of friends know that he was still alive,
and was permitted to advertise that he had met with an accident,
but was quite well.
Great patches of dried blood in the shops presented the appearance
of places used for the slaughter of sheep. Groups of people were
standing before the houses, statue-like, bewildered and hopeless,
while other groups were wailing over the news of the corpses of
friends, just recovered from the wells. I saw one of the mutilated
corpses, and have seen it night and day since.
An American Missionary.
The above missionary also says not only common people, but
also officers of high rank, made free threats of massacre, and
ostentatiously sharpened their swords and cleaned their weapons in
the presence of their Armenian neighbors. Great care was taken by
the authorities to deprive the Armenians of arms; but the Mussulmans
were allowed to carry arms freely. The Constantinople demonstration
and consequent massacre aggravated the situation. It was pitiable to
see the fear that held the Armenians as in a nightmare, and to hear
the threats and observe the bearing of the Turks.
A soldier, passing the door of a Christian house and observing a young
woman sitting on the door-step, ground his teeth and called out to her,
"You may sit there four days more, and then I will have you on the
point of this bayonet." The girl fled in terror into the house.
ZEITOON.
Zeitoon is fifteen miles from Marash. The Zeitoonlis are the bravest
of all the Armenians; there are about 15,000 in the city, and no
Mohammedans, save a dozen or two Turkish families, and they talk
the Armenian language. Until about thirty years ago Zeitoon was a
free city; but they were conquered by craft, and became tributary to
Turkey. The Sultan garrisoned the place to keep them down, and the
troops committed every sort of iniquity. Finally, about two years ago,
the Sultan sent physicians there to poison the Armenian boys. These
assassins professed to have come to vaccinate the boys; every boy
who was vaccinated died. Then the Zeitoonlis revolted, captured the
barracks from the soldiers, took all the guns, cannon, and ammunition,
and sent the soldiers away. This action enraged the Sultan, and he
sent some 20,000 regular soldiers and 30,000 bashi-bazooks to punish
them; but they were repulsed with heavy loss by the Zeitoonlis. It
has been reported that during the battle between the Zeitoonlis and
Turks about 15,000 of the latter were killed. Finally the Sultan
lost hope of conquering them, and asked the European powers to use
their good offices to restore peace in Zeitoon, and the consuls of the
different powers induced them to resume peaceful work by guaranteeing
that the Zeitoonlis shall not be molested. But who believes a word of
it? We know, with horrible clearness, of how much value the powers'
"guarantee" is; they say there is no obligation but to keep count of
the massacres.
A Few statements from Zeitoon.
"Turkish mendacity is again asserting itself. A few days ago
the Sublime Porte set afloat the official report that Zeitoon
has fallen, after hard fighting, in which 2,500 Armenians were
said to have been killed as against 250 Turks. Now these official
reports turn out to have been official lies. News from independent
sources shows that Zeitoon has not yet fallen; that its gallant
defenders are still holding out their own. To Armenians who
understand Ottoman tactics, the alacrity with which Abdul Hamid
sent abroad the news of the supposed victory of his troops is a
sign of misfortunes and reverses. The Turks control the avenues of
communication at Marash, and it is not surprising that they attempt
to win victories upon telegraphic despatches--but not at Zeitoon.
"The Armenians at Zeitoon are rebels against organized
assassination, plunder, and arson. They have been unwilling to
submit meekly to Turkish outrages, and are determined to defend
their lives, their homes, and their property. They have vanquished
Turkish armies before, and strewn the ground with thousands
of Turkish carcasses. They need fear nothing but the lack of
supplies. Will not Christian nations intervene to save a valiant
people who are defending their homes and their liberties, and who
cannot be conquered by force of arms, yet who may be compelled
to surrender to inexorable hunger?--[Tigram H. Suni, Dec. 31.
"London, Feb. 3.--A dispatch from Constantinople to the 'Daily
News' says: 'Reports from Turkish sources believed to be fairly
accurate state that it is believed that the Zeitoonlis are still
holding out. The Turks have made seven different attacks upon
the town, but all have failed, and their losses are reported to
amount to 10,000. It is alleged that 50,000 troops will be needed
to capture Zeitoon.
"'It is believed that the Zeitoonlis number from 15,000 to 20,000,
well armed, and provisioned for a year. There is a doubtful report
that 4,000 Russian Armenians crossed the Persian frontier, and
defeated the Turks at Siz, eighteen hours from Zeitoon, and have
joined the Zeitoonlis.'"
MISCELLANEOUS
In the province of Aleppo, the village of Chizek, the Armenian priest
was killed for refusing to become a Mohammedan.
In the province of Erzeroum and the district of Erzinghan, six separate
attacks for pillage have been made upon the village of Zimara, and
great pressure is being used to force the people of the village to
become Mohammedans.
At the village of Gazma the houses have been pillaged, and numbers
of the people have become Mohammedans to save their lives.
In the province of Bitlis a considerable number of Armenians at Sert
have been forced to become Mohammedans. In the district of Shirvan,
out of twenty-two Armenian villages, the inhabitants of four entire
villages have become Mohammedans to save their lives. The priests
also accepted Mohammedanism, and the churches have been changed
into mosques. At a little village at which the inhabitants could
not disperse over the mountains a considerable number were killed,
and the survivors accepted Mohammedanism. This village is called
Kourine. In the district of Chilain, returns from six villages have
come in which show a considerable number of persons killed for refusing
to accept Islamism.
In the province of Van the stuffed skin of the superior of the
monastery of Khizan was still hanging from a tree in front of the
monastery three weeks after the massacre took place; that is, at the
date of the last news from there, Nov. 27. At Kharkotz in this province
three priests accepted Mohammedanism, and were paraded through the
streets in the dress of Mohammedan ulema in order to influence the
people to follow their example.
In the province of Harpoot in many of the smaller villages, where
the people have been supposed by the Turks to be mere peasants,
without ideas of their own, the offer of Islamism has not been made,
but the people seized without ceremony and circumcised by force,
and are considered now as Mohammedans. At Haboosi, in this province,
the Christian dead were left unburied in the streets for the dogs
to eat. The Armenian church and the Protestant chapel and parsonage
were burned.
At Peri, in the same province, 450 Christians were made Mohammedans
by threats of death.
At Aivos in the same province, all the buildings were destroyed. The
Armenian priest was forced to give the call to prayer, and was then
shot for refusing to become a Moslem.
At Garmuri the Christians accepted Mohammedanism at the edge of the
sword, and have been circumcised. The Protestant chapel and parsonage
were burned, and the Armenian church has been seized and made into
a mosque.
At Hokh the Armenian church and Protestant chapel and parsonage
were burned.
At Houilu in the province of Harpoot, 266 out of 300 Christian houses
were burned, among them the fine new Protestant church. Two priests
were killed. Many of the people succeeded in escaping from the
village. The rest have been forced to declare themselves Mohammedans.
The events above mentioned took place in the main between Nov. 6
and Nov. 20. But the process of forced conversion and the murder of
individuals who refuse to accept Mohammedanism was still going on
as lately as the 20th of December, when the Turkish government was
assuring the European Ambassadors that all is quiet in Asiatic Turkey,
and that all that is necessary to complete the work of pacification
is for Turkey to be let alone.
The nature of the pacification which may be expected if Turkey is left
free to carry out its schemes for these provinces may be judged from
the following list of educated and influential Protestant ministers,
who have been put to death for refusing to embrace Mohammedanism. In
every case the offer of life on these terms was made; in several cases
time was allowed for consideration of the proposal; and in each case
faith in Jesus Christ was the sole crime charged against the victim.
1. Rev. Krikor, pastor at Ichme, killed Nov. 6, 1895.
2. Rev. Krikor Tamzarien.
3. Rev. Boghos Atlasian, killed Nov. 13.
4. Rev. Mardiros Siraganian, of Arabkir, killed Nov. 13.
5. Rev. Garabed Kilijjian of Sivas, killed Nov. 12.
6. Rev. Mr. Stepan, of the Anglican Church at Marash, killed
Nov. 18.
7. The preacher of the village of Hajin, killed at Marash Nov. 18.
8. Rev. Krikor Baghdasarian, retired preacher at Harpoot, Nov. 18.
9. Retired preacher at Divrik, killed Nov. 8.
10. Rev. Garabed Resseian, pastor at Cherwouk, Nov. 5.
11. Rev. Metean Minasian, pastor at Sherik, Nov.
12. Pastor at Cutteroul, Nov. 6.
13. Preacher at Cutteroul, Nov. 6.
14. Rev. Sarkis Narkashjian, pastor at Chounkoush, Nov. 14.
15. The pastor of the church at Severek, November.
16. The pastor of the church at Adiyaman.
17. Rev. Hohannes Hachadorian, pastor at Kilisse, Nov. 7.
18. The preacher at Karabesh, near Diarbekir, Nov. 7.
19. Rev. Mardiros Tarzian, pastor at Keserik, near Harpoot,
November.
TELEGRAMS FROM HAJIN (ARMENIA).
To the English Consul at Aleppo, and to the English Ambassador of
Constantinople.
All the suburban towns of Hajin where Christians live were
plundered by Mohammedans, and some of the Christians were
killed. The people of Hajin and we are in danger; immediate help
is needed.--Nov. 5, 1895.
To the American Minister at Constantinople.
The Christian villages of Hajin were totally plundered by the
Mohammedans. About two thousand, naked and hungry, ran away and
came to Hajin. Both the Christian people at Hajin and we are in
danger; immediate help is needed.--Nov. 5, 1895.
Extracts From a Hajin Letter.
My Dear Sir:-- Nov. 25, 1895.
The situation is growing worse here. All the suburban Christian
villages were plundered by Mohammedans. Some of the villages which
were plundered were as follows:--Shar-Dere, Roumlou, Kokooun,
and Dash-olouk. All of them are left naked and hungry. Came here
to our city, and we are taking care of them. And the government
never punished any of the plunderers. They were encouraged, and
surrounded our city, and nobody can go out of the city, and if this
continues so, we shall have a famine soon, and die in the city. The
government does not protect us, but helps the plunderers, and we
are continually threatened to be killed. Our only hope is in God.
Another Extract From a Letter of an Armenian.
Nov. 25, 1895.
My Dear Uncle:--
If you ask our condition, thank God that we are alive. But beside
life we have nothing, no comfort, no happiness, no property, no
church, no religion, all are taken from us. Though we are alive,
many of our number were killed, and those who survive are wandering
here and there, naked and hungry, and are dying in that manner.
God is angry, and exceedingly angry to us. Perhaps he will hear
your prayers; pray for us, or else all of us shall perish. I can
never describe the horrible situation in which we are put.
Yours truly,
From Hadish Village, Armenia.
My Dear Friend:-- Dec. 2, 1895.
In great sorrow and in despair I am compelled to write to you a
few lines to inform you of our most miserable condition.
The Turks and Kurds came to our village, plundered everything we
had, killed more than 600 persons, violated the women and girls,
tortured the pregnant women, and now we who survive have nothing to
live on. Naked, hungry, cold, hopeless, we are crying bitterly. I
write these few lines; perhaps you can inform the Christian world
and they may help us and relieve our sufferings.
Yours truly,
There are many other cities, towns, and villages in Armenia, where
thousands of people were tortured and killed, their houses burned and
plundered, their children kidnapped, the women violated. But there
is no space to put all here in this book. I am sure the reader will
be satisfied with reading this long chapter of Armenian horrors,
and the letters on the atrocities from different reliable sources.
To sum up, during these frightful scenes in Armenia more than 100,000
Armenians were killed, and half a million left without food, homes,
or clothing; they are dying in heaps; and there is no hope of getting
any help from Armenia itself, even when the spring comes, for those who
would have supported them are killed, and most of the destitute are
women and children. Everything, even to clothes, is taken from them,
the head of the family is killed, and they are left hopeless and in
despair. How long can the Red Cross Society help them? How long can
the American people help them? Not very long; when spring comes they
will say, "We have done all we could for the Armenians; let them take
care of themselves." But will they stop to think how the Armenians can
take care of themselves? Have they oxen and horses to plough? No. Is
there any man left to support his wife and children? No. Suppose here
and there an Armenian is left (I mean in the country places, not in
the cities), dare he go out to his field and work? No. Were any of
those who plundered and killed punished? No. What guarantee can we
have, then, that those who survive will not be killed or plundered
in their turn? None. Will the European powers who signed the Berlin
Treaty give any assurance to the Armenians that they will be protected
hereafter? No. Is the Sultan a better man since the massacre? No. Are
the Turks and Kurds better people since the atrocities? No. They are
worse than ever before, because they have a freer hand, and all their
passions are roused to greater strength. Well, then, if these are
all facts, what is the use of feeding people a few weeks merely to
keep them alive for another massacre that will finish the rest of them?
O reader, do not be cheated. The Armenians need practical aid, not
deceptive aid. I mean the Armenians must be liberated from the cruel
Sultan; if not, no aid is given to the Armenians. Because the future
will be worse than ever before.
Thus far I have continually assumed and tried to prove that the Sultan
of Turkey deliberately ordered all these atrocities committed. But
perhaps you will doubt the statement of a native; you will think
I am prejudiced. Therefore I will give you American testimonies
from reliable sources. Please read the following from the "Review
of Reviews":--
THE MASSACRES IN TURKEY.
From Oct. 1, 1895, to Jan. 1, 1896.
Certain persons in Europe and America, misled by statements of
the Turkish government, have ascribed the dreadful massacres
which have taken place in Asia Minor to sudden and spontaneous
outbreaks of Moslem fanaticism, caused by a revolutionary
attitude among the Armenians themselves. The truth is that
these massacres, while sudden, have taken place according to a
deliberate and preconcerted plan. According to the statement of
many persons, French, English, Canadian, American, Turk, Kurd and
Armenian,--persons trustworthy and intelligent, who were in the
places where the massacres occurred, and who were eye-witnesses of
the horrible scenes,--the outbreaks were under careful direction
in regard to place, time, nationality of the victims and of the
perpetrators, were prompted by a common motive, and their true
character has been systematically concealed by Turkish official
reports. The following paper is based upon full accounts of the
massacres, written on the ground by the parties above referred
to. Their names, for obvious reasons, cannot be made public.
I. In Regard to Place.
With only four exceptions of consequence, the massacres have been
confined to the territory of the six provinces where reforms
were to be instituted. When a band of two thousand Kurdish and
Circassian raiders approached the boundary between the provinces
of Sivas and Angora, they were turned back by the officials, who
told them that they had no authority to pass beyond the province
of Sivas. The only large places where outrages occurred outside
of the six provinces are Trebizond, Marash, Aintab, and Cesarea,
in all of which the Moslems were excited by the nearness of the
scenes of massacre, and by the reports of the plunder which other
Moslems were securing.
II. In Regard to Time.
The massacre in Trebizond occurred just as the Sultan, after six
months of refusal, was about to consent to the scheme of reforms,
as if to warn the powers that in case they persisted, the mine
was already laid for the destruction of the Armenians. In fact,
the massacre of the Armenians is Turkey's real reply to the
demands of Europe that she reform. From Trebizond the wave of
murder and robbery swept on through almost every city, and town,
and village in the six provinces where relief was promised
to the Armenians. When the news of the first massacre reached
Constantinople, a high Turkish official remarked to one of the
Ambassadors that massacre was like the small-pox; they must all
have it, but they wouldn't need it the second time.
III. The Nationality of the Victims.
They were exclusively Armenians. In Trebizond there is a large
Greek population, but neither there nor elsewhere have the Greeks
been molested. Special care has also been taken to avoid injury to
the subjects of foreign nations, with the idea of escaping foreign
complications and the payment of indemnities. The only marked
exceptions were in Marash, where three school buildings belonging
to the American Mission were looted, and one building was burned;
and in Harpoot, where the school buildings and houses belonging
to the American Mission were plundered and eight buildings were
burned, the total losses exceeding $100,000, for which no indemnity
has yet been paid.
IV. The Method of Killing and Pillaging.
The method in the cities has been to kill within a limited period
the largest number of Armenians,--especially men of business,
capacity, and intelligence,--and to beggar their families by
robbing them, as far as possible, of their property. Hence, in
almost every place the massacres have been perpetrated during
the business hours, when the Armenians could be caught in their
shops. In almost every place, the Moslems made a sudden and
simultaneous attack just after their noonday prayer. The surprised
and unarmed Armenians made little or no resistance, and where,
as at Diarbekir and Gurun, they undertook to defend themselves,
they suffered the more. The killing was done with guns, revolvers,
swords, clubs, pick-axes, and every conceivable weapon, and many
of the dead were horribly mangled. The shops and houses were
absolutely gutted.
Upon hundreds of villages the Turks and Kurds came down like the
hordes of Tamerlane, robbed the helpless peasants of their flocks
and herds, stripped them of their very clothing, and carried away
their bedding, cooking utensils, and even the little stores of
provisions which they had with infinite care and toil laid up for
the severities of a rigorous winter. Worst of all is the bitter
cry that comes from every quarter that the Moslems carried off
hundreds of Christian women and children.
The number killed in the massacres thus far is estimated at fifty
thousand, which includes the majority of the well-to-do, capable,
intelligent Armenians in the six provinces that were to have
been reformed. The property plundered or destroyed is estimated
at $40,000,000. Not less than three hundred and fifty thousand
wretched survivors, most of whom are women and children, are in
danger of perishing by starvation and exposure unless foreign
aid is promptly sent and allowed to reach them.
V. The Perpetrators.
They were the resident Moslem population, reinforced by Kurds,
Circassians, and in several cases by the Sultan's soldiers and
officers, who began the dreadful work at the sound of a bugle,
and desisted when the bugle signaled to them to stop. This was
notoriously true in Erzeroum. In Harpoot, also, the soldiers
took a prominent, part, firing on the buildings of the American
Mission with Martini-Henry rifles and Krupp cannon. A shell from
one of the cannon burst in the house of the American Missionary,
Dr. Barnum. In most places the killing was by the Turks, while
the Kurds and Circassians were intent on plunder, and generally
killed only to strike terror or when they met with resistance. It
is an utter mistake to suppose, as some have, that the local
authorities could not have suppressed the "fanatical" Moslem mobs
and restrained the Kurds. The fact is that the authorities, after
looking on while the massacres were in progress, did generally
intervene and stop the slaughter as soon as the limited period
during which the Moslems were allowed to kill and rob had expired.
At Marsovan the limit of time was four hours. In several places
the slaughter and pillage continued from noon till sundown, or
later. At Sivas they continued for a whole day. In every place
the carnage stopped as soon as the authorities made an earnest
effort, and had it not been for their intervention after the set
time of one, two, or three days, the entire Armenian population
might have been exterminated.
VI. The Motive of the Turks.
This is apparent to the superficial observer. The scheme
of reforms devolved civil officers, judgeships, and police
participation on Mohammedans and non-Mohammedans in the six
provinces proportionately. This, while simple justice, was a
bitter pill to the Mohammedans, who had ruled the Christians with
a rod of iron for five hundred years. All that was needed to make
the scheme of reforms inoperative was to alter the proportion of
Christians to Mohammedans. This policy was at once relentlessly
and thoroughly executed. The number of the Armenians has been
diminished, first by killing at a single blow those most capable
of taking a part in any scheme of reconstruction, and secondly
by compelling the survivors to die of starvation, exposure,
and sickness, or to become Moslems.
It is the very essence of Mohammedanism that the "ghiavour"
has no right to live, save in subjection. The abortive scheme of
Europe insisting on the rights of Armenians as men, has enraged
the Moslems against them. The arrogant and non-progressive Turks
know that in a fair and equal race the Christians will outstrip
them in every department of business and industry, and they see
in any fair scheme of reforms the handwriting on the wall for
themselves. If the scheme of reforms had applied to regions where
Greeks predominate, the latter would have been killed and robbed
as readily as the Armenians have been. Are the Greek massacres of
1822 forgotten, when 50,000 were killed, or the slaughter of 12,000
Maronites and Syrians in 1860, and of 15,000 Bulgarians in 1876?
VII. Turkish Official Reports.
The refinement of cruelty appears in this, that the Turkish
government has attempted to cover up its hideous policy by the
most colossal lying and hypocrisy. It is true that on Sept. 30,
1895, some hot-headed young Armenians, contrary to the entreaties
of the Armenian patriarch and the orders of the police, attempted
to take a well-worded petition to the Grand Vezir, according
to a time-honored custom. It is also true that the oppressed
mountaineers of Zeitoon drove out a small garrison of Turkish
soldiers, whom, however, they treated with humanity; it is likewise
true that in various places individual Armenians, in despair,
have advocated violent methods. But the universal testimony of
impartial foreign eye-witnesses is that, with the above exceptions,
the Armenians have given no provocation, and that almost, if not
quite, all the telegrams purporting to come from the provincial
authorities accusing the Armenians with provoking the massacres,
are sheer fabrications of names and dates. If the Armenians made
attacks, where are the Turkish dead?
And the dreadful alternative of Islam or death was offered by
those who have dazzled and deceived Europe with Hatti Shereps
and Hatti Humayouns, promulgating civil equality and religious
liberty for their Christian subjects.
Strangest of all, he who is the head of all authority in Turkey,
and responsible above any and all others for the cold-blooded
massacres and plundering of the past two months, wrote a letter to
Lord Salisbury, and pledged his word of honor that the scheme of
reforms should be carried out to the letter, at the very moment
when he was directing the massacres. And the six great Christian
powers of Europe, as well as the United States, still treat this
man with infinite courtesy and deference; their representatives
still dine at his tables, and some of them still receive his
decorations.
VIII. The Solution.
If the Armenians are to be left as they are, it is a pity that
Europe ever mentioned them in the treaty of Berlin or subsequently;
and to intrust reforms in behalf of the Armenians to those who
have devoted two months' time to killing and robbing them is
simply to abandon the Armenians to destruction, and to put the
seal of Europe to the bloody work. The only way to reform Eastern
Turkey is by forcible foreign intervention--not the threat of it,
but the intervention itself.
The position and power of Russia give her a unique call to this
work. Should she enter on it at once, the whole civilized world
would approve her course.
Russia should have as free a hand in Kurdistan as England has
insisted on having in Egypt. By frankly admitting this, England
would gain in the respect and sympathy of the world, and strengthen
her own position.
INFERENCES FROM THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.
First: That devotion to Christ is not lessened but increased. Many
people think the spirit of unbelief and indifferentism has spread
so widely that in this nineteenth century people will no longer
die for Christ. But out of 100,000 Armenians massacred, 90,000 were
actually martyred because they would not deny Christ. In all lands,
Christians praise the old martyrs, the church fathers: let them know
that there are as noble church sons and daughters to-day in Armenia
as there were church fathers anywhere in the early centuries. Thus
these hideous scenes ought to awaken a true Christian spirit both in
this country and in Europe.
Second: That it was a religious persecution. Though the false and cruel
Sultan gave a political color to it, his universal order was to offer
the Armenians the choice of Mohammedanism or death. This is proved
by the fact that the leading gospel ministers were specially chosen
for martyrdom. And some of the Armenian priests, after having been
converted by force, to escape unbearable tortures, were led through
the streets, followed by great crowds, as a warning to the remaining
Armenians that they must follow the same road. When some of them did
it, the Turks forced them to take arms and kill their brothers and
sisters for refusing to accept Mohammedanism. To speak of the massacres
as political affairs is doing injustice to the cause of Christ.
Third: That whatever a man sows, he shall reap the same. The Sultan
and the Turks are sowing,--they are killing, and thousands of the
Christians are converted by force to Mohammedanism; but the time is
coming when more Mohammedans will be killed than Armenians have been,
and thousands, and even millions of the Mohammedans will be converted
to Christianity, and the blood of the Armenian martyrs will be the
means of their salvation through Jesus Christ. The time is coming
when out of this great persecution a great and happy freedom will
proceed. Out of this great darkness a very bright light shall shine.
Fourth: Some of the Turks helped and saved the Armenians. Certainly
these were secret converts to Christianity, but their lives being
in danger, they cannot confess Christ publicly. All they can do
for the present is to help the needy Christians and save them
from murder. Another class of Turks who helped is those who were
themselves getting a living out of the Armenians. The Armenians gave
them employment, and if their employers were killed, how could they
get a living? Still another class protected the Armenians, because if
the Armenian houses were burned, their houses also would be burned;
and they asked and got money from the Armenians as a reward for having
saved them. It is a mistake to think that there are good Mohammedans,
who, from a good Mohammedan motive helped the Armenians. There cannot
be a good Mohammedan motive towards a Christian; if there is a good
motive, it is not a Mohammedan motive.
Fifth: That the time has come when American and European Christians
should trust no longer in the promises of the Sultan and the European
governments, but as Christian people must use something more than
"moral principle" before all the Armenians and American missionaries
are killed. Moral influence is very good as far as it goes; being a
Christian minister, I also believe in it. But as far as the Turks
are concerned it can do nothing, because they do not know what
morals are, or what moral character is. All the Turks are morally
corrupt. They know only two things; one is the sword, the other is
moral corruption. They came and captured that country by the sword,
and they must go by the sword; there is no other way. Europe tried the
experiment century after century, but could find no other way. Moral
advice, wise counsel have never moved the Turks, and will never move
them hereafter. Europe and a part of Armenia were taken from them by
the sword, and the only way Armenia and the Armenians can be saved
is by using the sword. When Christ comes again He will never yield;
He will never be crucified, but he will judge and condemn. The time
has come when Christians have suffered enough; they must unite and
remove that great curse, the Mohammedan power, and make free that
happy and beautiful Bible Land, Armenia and Palestine.
Reader, you cannot go and visit to-day the places where man was
created, where Noah's ark rested. You cannot go in safety to visit
the places where Christ was born and walked. Why? Simply because a
corrupt Mohammedan power wills there, and will not permit you. Is
it not a shame to mighty Christian nations and powers that this is
so? Will not the Christian nations be aroused with great indignation
and give the last blow to such a cruel Mohammedan tyranny?
Sixth: That Turkey is a mere barbarism; it is not to be considered or
treated as a nation, for it is not one in any sense. International
law cannot be applied to Turkey. The Sultan must be considered as a
brigand, a mere lawless oppressor, and the Turks as mere murderers, and
dealt with accordingly. The powers must give up the farce of treating
the Sultan as a national sovereign, who speaks for his people, and may
govern, therefore, much as he pleases. As Mr. W. W. Howard says, "The
blackest spot in the round world is the heart of the Sultan of Turkey."
A Farewell Letter from a Prominent Armenian. March 24, 1896.
"We are evidently a doomed people. A hundred thousand of us have
been butchered, and more than a million of us are in extreme
suffering from hunger, and cold, and nakedness. Multitudes beyond
the reach of foreign aid must inevitably perish before spring. As
to the rest of us, our supplies of food and money are rapidly
diminishing. We can prosecute no business, we are not at liberty
to earn our daily bread, and for even the most fortunate, the
future has only the prospect of starvation a little later than
our poor brethren.
"We hear the announcement that order and peace are being restored,
but to us these are empty words. The terrible and wholesale
massacre at Oorfa and Birijik occurred long subsequent to the
most solemn and emphatic assurances that nothing more of the
kind was to be apprehended,--long after the commission sent out
from Constantinople to carry the message of peace and reform to
Armenia had reached its field of labor.
"Massacres are not now so frequent as they were a few months
ago, but the attitude of relentless hostility on the part of
the government towards us, the ferocious aspect of our Moslem
neighbors, has not a whit improved. They seem to be eagerly
watching for an opportune moment in which to finish their bloody
work, and rid themselves forever of this troublesome demand
for reform.
"May we not then rightfully offer our farewell message to our
fellow men?
"First--To our Moslem fellow countrymen:
"We desire to express our deepest gratitude to those of you who
have sympathized with and helped us in these days of calamity
and bloodshed. Towards those who have robbed and massacred us,
and plundered and burned our houses, we have chiefly feelings of
compassion. You have perhaps done these terrible things in what
has seemed to you the service of your religion and government.
"Second--To our Sultan--most dread and potent sovereign:
"Apparently you have been persuaded that we are a rebellious people
deserving only utter and speedy extermination. For such as you,
this work of destruction is no doubt an easy one, the more so as
we have had neither the means nor the disposition to resist it.
"Third--To the European powers:
"We have not been an importunate nor a turbulent people. We did not
incite the Crimean War, nor any of the subsequent wars which have
stricken this empire. It is not of our will that we were begotten
to a new political life by the treaty of 1856. Our complaints
and appeals have been based solely on the sentiment of humanity
and the common rights of man. It was you who arranged the "scheme
of reforms," and urged it upon our Sultan till he was irritated
to the extent that he seems to have adopted the plan of ridding
himself finally of this annoyance by exterminating us as a people;
and now, while he is relentlessly carrying out this plan, you
are standing by as spectators and witnesses of this bloody work.
"We wonder if sympathy and the brotherhood of man and chivalry
are wholly things of the past, or are the material and political
interests dividing you so great that the massacre of the whole
people is a secondary thing? In either case "We who are about to
die salute you."
"Fourth--To the Christians of America:
"Although we have cherished strong prejudice against your mission
work among us, recent events have proved that our Protestant
brethren are one with us, and have shared fully our anxieties
and our perils. You have labored through them to promote among us
the peace and prosperity of the gospel. It is not your fault that
one result of their teaching and example has been to excite our
masters against us. The Turkish government dreads and dislikes
nothing so much as the ideas of progress which you have sent us."
VIII.
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY.
There are about five millions of Armenians in the world at present:
three millions in the Turkish Empire, a million and a half in Russian
Armenia, and half a million more scattered through Persia, India,
and Burmah, Egypt, Europe (there are two or three hundred thousand
in the Austrian Empire), and America. There are poor and ignorant
people among them, as among every people; the majority, however, are
(or were before the late horrors) well off, and many of them rich,
educated, refined, and, in a word, modern Christian people. Of
all the impudent inversions of truth ever perpetrated, the most
outrageously impudent and shamelessly the exact contrary of fact is
the assertion of Mavroyeni Bey, the Turkish minister at Washington,
that the case of the Turks against the Armenians is like that of the
whites against the Indians in this country; that the American whites
must be allowed to keep the Indians down, and the Turks must be allowed
to keep the Armenians down. If the Indians possessed all the money,
all the intelligence, all the cultivation, and all the morals in
America, and the whites were a mob of ignorant, cruel, lustful ruffians
holding them down by the organized power of the sword, the comparison
would be just. As it is, the Turks correspond fairly enough with the
Indians, and the Armenians to the whites, in every other respect than
military power. Does a Turk--a true Turk--ever write a book? Does he
ever publish a newspaper, or read one? Does he ever build a church,
or pay attention to the moral precepts taught in one? Does he ever
found or manage a business, or even an estate? In a word, does he have
any more intellectual, moral, or business part in the life of modern
civilization than a Hottentot or a Matabele? And do not the Armenians
do and have all these things? Are they not in the stream of the same
kind of cultivated Christian life led by Americans? Nowhere else on
earth, but in the Turkish Empire, can one find millions of gentlemen
and ladies and civilized modern citizens ruled over, oppressed, and
massacred in hundreds of thousands by a gang of mediaeval Asiatic
barbarians, not advanced from the time of Timour or Jenghiz Khan. It
is the greatest anachronism and monstrosity of modern times.
If my work is thought prejudiced, listen to what is said of them by
men of the first authority,--the greatest statesmen, the best informed
special correspondent, and one of the chief historians of England at
the present time. First the statesman:--
"The Armenians are the representatives of one of the oldest
civilized Christian races, and beyond all doubt one of the
most pacific, one of the most industrious, and one of the most
intelligent races in the world."--[Gladstone.
Next the special correspondent:--
"The Armenians constitute the whole civilizing element in Anatolia
(Asia Minor); peaceful to the degree of self-sacrifice, law-abiding
to their own undoing, and industrious and hopeful under conditions
which would appall the majority of mankind. At their best, they are
the stuff of which heroes and martyrs are moulded."--[E. J. Dillon.
Lastly the historian:--
"The best chance for the future of the Asiatic provinces of Turkey
lies in the uprising of a progressive Christian people, which may
ultimately grow into an independent Christian state. The Armenians
have, alone among the races of Western Asia, the gifts that can
enable them to aspire to this mission. They are keen-witted,
energetic, industrious, apt to learn, and quick in assimilating
western ideas."--[James Bryce.
IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE.
There are about two millions of Armenians in Armenia Proper, and
another million scattered through the rest of the empire. The absurd
figures given by some writers, making them greatly less than this (one
magazine editor got it down to 300,000! It is significant that he was
a strong apologist for the massacre, and laid all the blame to the
Armenians) result mostly from taking the official statistics of the
Turkish government. Now, there are three reasons why these are always
grossly wrong; of no more value than the weather predictions in an
almanac, and always wrong in the direction of understating the numbers.
One is that it is the Sultan's interest to make them as small as
possible, that the Armenians may not be considered to have the right
to autonomy as a nation; the fewer they are, and the more outnumbered
by the Turks, the less right they seem to have. "An independent
Armenia?" shriek the Turkish ministers and officers. "Why, there are
only a few hundred thousand Armenians in their so-called country, and
even so, there are three Turks to one Armenian in that very district!"
The second is that in an Oriental country a census is not a means
of knowledge but an engine of taxation. The ruler has no care for
information on the subject for his own sake, as Western governments
have. What he wants is to see how many people and in what places he
can screw more taxes out of. The people know this as well as he, and
use every effort to outwit his agents, and prevent them from knowing
their numbers. This is why even civilized governments ruling over
Oriental nations can rarely get any nearer than a rough guess at the
numbers of the nation; the inhabitants are suspicious, and resort to
falsehood. In the case of the Armenians, remember what I said in the
first chapter about an Armenian being taxed for every male child he
has, every year as long as the child lives; naturally, he will not
tell the number of his children unless he has to. Here is a practical
illustration. Some years ago I was in an Armenian village when the
Sultan's officers came to take the census. There were about 300 persons
in the village; the officer wrote 200, because only a few names of boys
were given him out of the whole. The tax is based on the registration,
and if you can keep off the registers you can escape the tax.
The third is the gross incompetence, the corruption, and the
drunkenness of the officers. The Turkish officials, governors,
mayors, clerks, generals, soldiers, all drink any sort of liquor
they can lay hands on, and are drunk as often and as long as sober;
they are so ignorant that they cannot do their work decently even
when they are sober; and they are utterly venal, without the least
sense of official obligation. What sort of a census is likely to be
taken by these ignorant, whiskey-swilling, venal barbarians? One of
these officials, whom I know well, once came to a village to take
the census. The Armenians got him so drunk that he barked like a dog,
bribed him, and he put down about half the number of the population.
How, then, do I know the correct number? From a knowledge of the
districts, the numbers of villages, and statistics resting on a better
foundation than the above. I do not pretend that the number is exact;
but it is near enough for practical purposes.
The Armenians in Turkey are divided into four classes. The first
comprises merchants and bankers. The second is the professional class:
physicians, professors, teachers, and preachers. The third is that
of artisans: weavers, blacksmiths, copper, silver, and gold smiths,
tailors, shoemakers, etc. The finest Oriental rugs are made by the
Armenians, and there are weavers of silk and cotton goods, and all
kinds of hand-made embroidery. There are no factories in Armenia. The
fourth class is that of farmers, a pure, simple, industrious class,
with beautiful farms, vineyards, and orchards, whose products I
have described.
One-tenth of all the Armenians in Turkey are in Constantinople. Many
of them are poor, in the nature of things; but the leading bankers,
merchants, and capitalists there are Armenians, surpassing even
the Greeks and Jews. I give a few representative names: Gulbenkian,
Essayian, Azarian, Mosditchian, Manougian, Oonjian. The physicians in
largest practice are Armenians: Khorassanjian, Mateosian, Dobrashian,
Vartanian, etc. The Sultan's personal treasurer is an Armenian,
Portukalian Pasha. The chief counselor in the foreign office
in Constantinople is an Armenian, Haroutiune Dadian Pasha. The
greatest lawyers are Armenians: Mosditchian, Tinguerian, etc. The
chief photographers of the Sultan are Armenians, Abdullah Brothers
and Sebah, the former considered one of the best photographic firms
in the world. The personal jeweler of the Sultan is an Armenian,
Mr. Chiboukjian. For all his hate of the Armenians, he has to employ
them, for no others are competent or trustworthy. The best musicians
are Armenians: Chonkhajian Surenian, Doevletian, and an Armenian young
lady named Nartoss, who often plays the piano before the Sultan. The
greatest orator in Constantinople is an Armenian and a professor in
Robert College, Prof. H. Jejizian, to my thinking, superior to either
Beecher, Wendell Phillips, or Robert Ingersoll, all of whom I have
heard. Finally, the Armenians, as a whole, form the best "society"
in Constantinople, and their modes of living, dress, houses, and
ways are precisely like those of Americans or Europeans. These are
Mavroyeni Bey's "Indians"!
Smyrna is a city of 150,000 or more population. About 80,000 are
Greeks; you may call it a Greek city. The Armenians there number about
8,000, or one-tenth of the Greeks, but are ten times richer than all
the Greeks together. The principal buildings are owned by Armenians;
the business is in the hands of the Armenians. The chief business men
are well-known in Europe. Mr. Balyivzian owns many steamers which ply
on the Mediterranean. Mr. Spartalian is another very rich and very
benevolent man; he built a magnificent hospital at Smyrna. In Samsoun,
Marsovan, Cesarea, Adana, Amassia, Tocat, Sivas, Harpoot, Mesere,
Malatia, Diarbekir, Arabkir, Oorfa, Aintab, Marash, Tarsus, Angora,
Erzeroun, Erzinghan, Moosh, Bitlis, Baiburt, Trebizond,--in a word,
everywhere it is the same. Go where you like in Turkey, you find the
Armenians at the top.
When I say they are the richest, I mean until early in 1894 they
were the richest. But now, in many cities of Armenia proper, since
the recent atrocities, they have become the poorest.
Leading citizens, and the fathers of families, for the reasons I have
mentioned, were specially singled out for vengeance. Their stores,
banks, and houses were plundered and then burnt, their money and
jewelry taken from them, and then they were murdered wholesale. Now
the Turks and the Kurds for a time are rich with Armenian property;
wearing the gold watches of Armenian gentlemen, their women wearing
the jewelry of Armenian ladies.
IN RUSSIA.
The Armenians in Russia are the richest and the most cultivated of any
in the world, and have great influence. Mr. Kasbarian, an Armenian,
is considered the richest even of them. The rich city of Tiflis is
practically an Armenian city.
There are about 50,000 regular Armenian soldiers in the Russian army,
and some of its greatest generals have always been Armenians.
If the Czar would permit this force and the capitalists to settle
the Armenian question, they would do it in a month, and make
Armenia free. The Armenians have so far been treated very kindly
and have prospered exceedingly in Russia, but I do not believe it
will last. In my opinion, the young Czar is only waiting for his
coronation to oppress the Armenians as he has the Jews. Yet the Czar's
ablest servants and advisers have been Armenians. The body-guard of
Nicholas' grandfather Alexander was the Armenian Count Loris Melikoff,
universally known; three times wounded by Nihilists on account of his
position. During the last Turko-Russian war some of the generals who
accomplished the most with the least sacrifice were Armenians: Der,
Lucasoff, Lazareff, Melikoff. There are now no less than eighteen
Armenian generals in the Russian service. I will mention a part:
General Sdepan Kishmishian, commander of Caucasus; General Hagop
Alkhazian, General Alexander Lalayian, General Demedr Der Asadoorian,
General Ishkhan Manuelian, General Alexander Gorganian, General
Ishkhan Gochaminassian, General Khosros Touloukhanian, General Arakel
Khantamirian, General H. Dikranian. There are many other prominent
Armenian officers.
In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other great cities in Russia there
are many Armenian professors in the universities, mayors of cities,
judges of courts, and high civil officers. I will give a few of their
names, to show that I am not talking blindly:
Count Hovhannes Telyanian, minister of education, etc.
Gamazian, minister of foreign affairs in Asia.
Muguerditch Emin, counselor of education.
Nerses Nersessian, professor in Moscow in the Royal University.
Dr. Shilantz, professor in the medical college at Kharcof.
Boghos Gamparian, superintendent of the Royal army of Riza.
Melikian, professor of natural sciences in the University at
Odessa.
A. Madinian, mayor of Tiflis.
V. Keghamian, mayor of Erevan.
H. Moutaffian, mayor of Akheltzka.
Hundreds and thousands are high officers in different departments of
the Russian government, but there is no space to give a roll of them.
One, however, a personal friend, I must write a few words of, namely,
Professor John Ayvazovski, of the council of the St. Petersburg
Academy of Fine Arts, a marine painter of the first rank. He is now
79, but looks scarcely 60, with beautiful large, bright eyes. He came
to the World's Fair, where fifteen of his pictures were exhibited
in the Russian section; and he presented two other fine ones to the
American people in recognition of their help to the Russian famine
sufferers,--one showing the arrival in port of a steamer with its
cargo of grain, the other the advent of a drosky at a village of
starving people, with a man in front waving an American flag. He
visited and painted an excellent picture of Niagara. He had seven
pictures at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. His paintings are
mostly in royal palaces: there are 120 in that of the Russian imperial
family, and 34 in the Sultan's. His own gallery, at Theodosia, Russia,
has 84. He has received many prizes from expositions. He is also a
great scholar and a good Christian. His brother, who lately died,
was one of the greatest bishops of the Armenian church.
There is a very interesting story about Professor Ayvazovski's boyhood
which I will give here:
His parents were Armenian peasants, living in a village not far from
Moscow. One day Nicholas I was passing by the hamlet on horseback,
and dropped his whip. The Emperor beckoned to young Ayvazovski,
and told him to pick it up. The boy approached boldly and asked,
"Who are you?" Nicholas replied, "I am the Emperor." The boy rejoined,
"If you cannot take care of your whip, how can you take care of your
subjects?" The Emperor was pleased at this remark, and ordered him
to be educated at his own expense, and in any profession he chose. He
took to the brush, and is the pride of his nation.
IN PERSIA, INDIA, ETC.
The Armenians of Persia are great merchants, and high civil officers
of the Shah. I name only a few:
Chahanguir Khan is minister of arts and superintendent of the arsenal.
Nirza Melkoum Khan was the former ambassador of the Shah at London;
a man of great wealth and learning, and an able diplomat. He retired
on account of age, and lives in London.
Nazar Agha was ambassador of the Shah at Paris.
General Sharl Bezirganian is the general superintendent of the
telegraph service in Persia.
In India and Burmah there are great Armenian merchants, who are
millionaires, and respected by the governments and the peoples.
In Egypt, though few in number, they are the ruling element. Nubar
Pasha was the prime minister of the Egyptian government until a few
weeks ago; one of the richest men in Egypt, and the greatest statesman
in Africa. He speaks several languages, and spends his summers in
France, owning property in Paris. Dikran Pasha is another rich and
very gifted Armenian, and Boghos Pasha another man of power.
IN EUROPE.
There are very rich merchants among the Armenians at Vienna, Paris,
Marseilles, London, and Manchester. There is a strong Armenian
colony at Manchester. All of them are merchants, and some of them
millionaires. Almost the whole clothing trade between England and
Turkey is in their hands. They have a beautiful Armenian church
there, and always a learned Armenian bishop; I speak from knowledge
and observation. They are much respected by the English. Some of the
Armenian gentlemen are married to English ladies of good family, and
their domestic life is very happy. Prince Loosinian, an Armenian,
a very great scholar, and much respected by the French, lives in
Paris; he is descended from the last Armenian dynasty. His brother
Khoren Nar-Bey Loosinian was one of the foremost Armenian bishops;
the Sultan of course hated him, and it is said had him poisoned while
imprisoned in Constantinople.
The Armenian scholars in Europe are well-known, and on a level with the
best of any country. There is not an institution of learning in Europe
where they are not to be found, either as students or professors;
and the prizes and medals they win are many.
There are two great centers in Europe for the Armenian scholars and
authors: one at Vienna and the other at Venice. They have colleges
and printing presses in these places; and they write, translate, and
publish themselves in nearly all languages all sorts of valuable
books. So the Armenian people are well supplied with the best
modern books. But it must be remembered that these valuable books
are forbidden by the Sultan to go into Turkish Armenia; he wants
the people kept ignorant. Some of their great scholars came home
from Europe to preach and teach in Armenia, to elevate their nation;
but some were killed and some banished during the recent atrocities.
IN AMERICA.
The Armenians are a new people in America. Seventeen years ago,
when the writer first came to this country, there were not more than
a hundred in the United States; since then about 10,000 have come,
most of them within ten years. The first ones came about forty-five
years ago, among them Mr. Minasian and Mr. Sahagian,--both poor young
men, now both rich. Mr. Minasian lives at Brooklyn; Mr. Sahagian at
Yonkers, N.Y. Those who have come lately are mostly the poorer class;
they fled from the "order" of the Sultan, and not being allowed to
leave Turkey, bribed the police and ran away. Not knowing the English
language, they work in factories in various States. There are some
well-to-do merchants, however, doing business in New York, Boston,
and elsewhere, handling Oriental rugs, dry-goods, etc. Some of the
New York names are Gulbenkian, Topakian, Tavshandjian, Yardimian,
Chaderdjian, Telfeyian, Kostikian. In Boston are Ateshian, Bogigian,
etc. Mr. Kebabian is in New Haven; Mr. Enfiyedjian in Denver. There
are many others also in other large cities.
Besides merchants, there are many professional men among them, about a
dozen physicians in New York city alone: Dr. Dadirian, Dr. Gabrielian,
Dr. Ayvazian, Dr. Apkarian, Dr. Altarian, Dr. Koutoojian. Some of them
are engravers and photographers. In New York city there are Hagopian,
Kasparian, Matigian, and others, very skillful engravers. In Boston
there is the New England Engraving Co., who are Armenians; the manager
is Mr. G. Papazian.
There are about half a dozen Armenians who are pastors of American
churches in different states. About a dozen are special lecturers
on the Armenian atrocities: Mr. H. Kiretchjian, the secretary of
the American Relief Association, Mr. Samuelian, Rev. A. Bulgurgian,
Rev. S. Deviryian, Mr. S. Yenovkian, etc.
There are hundreds of Armenian students distributed among nearly all
the universities, colleges, and theological seminaries in America,
and most of them are of a superior sort. The greatest physicians
in Turkey are Armenians, who were graduated from different medical
colleges in this country. Some of the leading pastors and professors
in Armenia, who were banished and killed during the recent atrocities,
were graduated in this country.
Of the factory hands mentioned, there are about 1,000 in Worcester,
Mass.; about 800 in New York and Brooklyn; about 400 in Boston, and
the remainder are scattered everywhere from New York to California,
from Maine to Florida.
A number of Armenian young men have married American women; I believe
ninety per cent. are happy. After forty or fifty years, there will
be a large class of American citizens of Armenian blood, and many
millionaires among them. They are gifted in business, and they are
a sober, honest, and faithful people. I do not think that there is
a single criminal among the 10,000 Armenians in this country.
Some of the Armenian daily and weekly newspapers are as follows:
In Constantinople: Arevelk, Avedaper, Puragn, Dyaghig, Hayrenik,
Masis, Pounch.
In Smyrna: Arevlian Mamoul.
In Etchmiazin: Ararat.
In Tiflis: Aghpour, Artzakank, Mishag, Murj, Nor-Tar, Darak.
In Venice: Pazmaveb.
In Vienna: Hantes Arnsoria.
In Marseilles: Armenia.
In London: L'Armenic.
In New York: Haik.
Wherever the Armenians go they carry with themselves the church,
the school, and the press.
THE ARMENIAN RELIEF ASSOCIATION.
This association is putting forth every effort to alleviate the
sufferings of needy Armenians wherever they may be found; their work
has already resulted in untold blessings and it deserves the hearty
support and contributions of the benevolent public. The officers of
the association are the following well-known American and Armenian
gentlemen:
Right Rev. Bishop H. Y. Satterlee, D.D., president.
Hon. Levi P. Morton, first vice-president.
Right Rev. Bishop Potter, D.D., second vice-president.
Charles H. Stout, Esq., treasurer.
J. Bleeker Miller, Esq., chairman executive committee.
Nicholas R. Mersereau, Esq., secretary.
Herant M. Kiretchjian, general secretary.
Rev. J. B. Haygooni, A.M., organizing secretary.
Mr. H. K. Samuelian, agent.
The headquarters of the association is in New York.
IX.
THE FUTURE OF ARMENIA AND THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON.
I am going to predict the future of Armenia. Not in the usual sense of
guessing at it, but in the literal sense of foretelling the truth. I
am not a prophet of God, yet my prediction is based on facts, and
its accuracy should be given some credit from the way my predictions
two or three years ago about the recent atrocities that have already
taken place, have come true to the letter. At that time no American
or European could be made to believe that such horrors would be
perpetrated; but I said they would be, and they were. And even now
the Western peoples are nearly as blind as ever; they cannot see the
future of Armenia even with all the facts before them. Many have
lost hope in it altogether; they think Turkey will exist forever,
and exterminate the last of the Armenians. Doubtless I should in
their place, but I was born in Turkey and know the situation.
This, then, is the truth as I forecast it:--
Till the end of next year the Armenians will suffer more than ever
before. Perhaps a million will be massacred yet, not only in Turkey,
but in Russia. The Jews, also, in great numbers, and not only the
Jews and the Armenians, but the Americans and Englishmen too. The key
rests in the character of the present Czar. Nicholas II is not like
his father or grandfather, a strong man. I will not discuss the moral
character of the two Alexanders, but I allow their powerful intellects
and strong wills. They favored the Armenians. But the present Czar
has no strength of character at all; he is weak both in intellect and
morals. The Sultan is called the sick man of Turkey, but the Czar is
the sick man of Russia. His short-sightedness in upholding Turkey is
one proof. Up to the time of the coronation next May you will see no
more massacres, for the Czar has ordered the Sultan to hold his hand,
that there may be a peaceful ceremony, not clouded with horrors; that
over, he will not only give the Sultan leave to unchain his dogs,
but he will unchain his own. The atrocities in Turkish Armenia will
be redoubled, and the Czar himself inflict on the Armenians all that
has been inflicted on the Jews. Even this is not all: The Czar will
instruct the Sultan to get rid of all American missionaries, either
banishing them as breeders of sedition, or, if they refuse to go,
requiring the United States government to order them back. Probably the
government will obey. Probably, also, the missionaries will not obey
the government; they will stay where they are. Then the Sultan will
say he is not responsible for their lives, and will issue secret orders
to kill them, which will be carried out. Further, the Czar will begin
a fresh persecution of the Jews, and order the Sultan to follow suit
on the Jews in Turkey, which will be done; no fear of the Sultan's
refusing an order to butcher anybody. Still more, the Czar will
command him in secret to banish the English missionaries from Turkey;
the Sultan will request the English government to call them back,
and there is little doubt that Lord Salisbury will comply; but they,
like the Americans, will refuse to go. Then they will be murdered by
secret orders from the Sultan, who will say he is not responsible for
it. These massacres will continue for two years more. The victims will
cry aloud, the Americans and English will have greater mass-meetings,
but the governments of both will do nothing. And Germany, Austria,
and Italy will look calmly on; if they act it will be with the Czar,
and not against him. Meantime both in Europe and America the war
preparations will continue with greater zeal and energy, until the
cup is full, until the crisis comes; then the noble blood of the
Anglo-Saxon race will begin to boil, and the English and American
people at once will be aroused like one man, and the governments
will have to yield. The wrathful Jews will contribute Jewish capital
for the war expenses; the wrathful Armenians throughout the world
will give both money and soldiers to the governments fighting their
battles. And a fierce battle will be fought between Russia, Turkey,
and France on one side; America, England, the Jews, and the Armenians
on the other. The former alliance will be beaten: the Czar's Greek
Church bigotry, the Sultan's Mohammedan fanaticism, and France's
infidelity together will be crushed; Russia will go to pieces, Turkey
will go to pieces, France will go to pieces; Armenia will be free,
Judea will be free. The scattered Armenians will return to Armenia,
the scattered Jews will return to Judea. Both the Armenians and the
Jews will have their separate governments; not kings, not princes,
but a clean republican form of government. Russia and Turkey will
be opened to the gospel work. Where now hundreds of missionaries
are going from England and America to other lands, then thousands
of them will go; and Christian America and England will open their
hearts and purses together to send as many missionaries as they can
to Russia, to Turkey, and to France. They will hasten the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ. They will prepare the way for the coming King,
who has the power both in heaven and on the earth.
What will become of Germany, Austria, and Italy, who form the Triple
Alliance? That alliance will be dissolved. The German Emperor is trying
hard to maintain it, but he will fail. France will once in a while
threaten Germany with vengeance, but she will never be able to carry
it out, and there is no need for it, because the German people during
this century will get rid of their Emperor. There will be a great
civil war in Germany, between the people and the army. If the German
emperor could do it, he would begin to crush the Socialists now. He
will order his soldiers to kill their brothers and fathers, but they
will not,--they are not as foolish as the Emperor; the only result
will be the break-up of the German Union, and the division of Germany
into small republican governments. Italy, Austria, and Spain will all
have the same fate: civil war, and splitting into small republics. No
czars, no emperors, no princes, no lords will remain. Government will
be for the people, of the people, by the people. The time has come;
this century will purify the whole world. But until it is purified,
a great deal of fire will burn, very great battles will be fought,
until freedom and peace shall reign. And the Armenian blood, now
continually pouring like a river in Armenia, will be the cause and
the foundation of the coming freedom of the world. For the present,
the world is not free; it is not civilized. It cannot be with such
rulers. To be free and happy, the people must be aroused, and get rid
of them. The United States must be the example to the older nations;
they must embrace Washington's principles.
It is true that England and America will never go regularly to work
to give freedom to Judea and Armenia, nor with that intention. Their
immediate motive will be to punish Russia and Turkey for the murder
of the missionaries, and after the victory is won, by the help of
Jewish and Armenian purses and swords, the Armenians and Jews will
be rewarded by giving them their original homes and mother-lands.
This will be laughed at by many, perhaps most, as a romantic and
pleasant dream. They will say it can never be accomplished during this
century; perhaps in the future, after a century or two, but not now. I
am used to this incredulity; my predictions are never believed at the
time: but after they come true they are. This century is not like the
other centuries; a day in this century is equal to a year of those
which have passed away. We may expect from a year of it as much as
from a century in the ancient times. This world is a wonderful world
now, and will be more wonderful hereafter. The future of the world
is bright, and the world will be brighter and happier.
Why do I keep repeating "two years"? Why do I not say one year or three
years, or a few years? I have reasons for it: one is the political
situation in Europe, and the other is the Bible prophecy in the Book
of Revelation.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN EUROPE.
The Europeans have already made great preparations for battle. Every
one of them preaches peace and prepares for war; and none of them have
finished their preparations yet,--if they had, they would be in the
thick of it by this time. Each of them declares that its preparations
will be finished about the end of 1897. Russia is building war-ships,
England is building war-ships, France is building war-ships, and all
will be finished about the end of 1897. All preparations converge on
the end of 1897. When all are ready, they will begin. When newspapers
write about an immediate European war, I do not believe it. There
will be no European war for two years; but after that there is no
escape from it,--they have to fight, and will fight. The war-ships
will be ready, the cannon will be ready, the guns will be ready,
the ammunition will be ready, the soldiers will be ready.
The cunning Sultan knows all this, and is in a hurry to exterminate
the Armenians, so that when they start in earnest with guns to reform
Armenia, he can say there is no Armenia or Armenians to reform. But
that makes no difference for the European powers: Turkey is doomed,
and the Turkish Empire will come to an end forever within this
century. There will never be any more Turkish Empire or Mohammedan
government; all the Mohammedan powers will be under Christian rule.
The second reason is my belief in the Bible prophecies. The close
resemblance of the Jews and Armenians will be observed by the reader:
both the chosen people of God. The children of Israel were the chosen
people before Christ, and as the Armenians became the first Christian
nation after Christ, they became the chosen people after Christ. And
these chosen people have suffered more than any other nations on the
globe; they have had more martyrs than any other nation, and have
been carried into captivity, and finally scattered throughout the
world. The Bible lands are Palestine and Armenia, where the first
man, Adam, was created, and where Christ was born and was crucified;
and so these lands after Christ, becoming the first Christian lands,
became the Temple of God.
We have a prophecy in the eleventh chapter of Revelation that the
court of the Temple will be given unto the Gentiles, and the Holy City
shall they tread under foot forty and two months; "and I will give
power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophecy a thousand two
hundred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth." (Rev. xi, 2-3.)
Forty and two months and a thousand two hundred and three score
days are just the same thing. Each day in the Bible prophecy is one
year. According to this interpretation, which I consider correct, the
Holy City will be trampled by the Gentiles one thousand, two hundred
and sixty years. Now the question is this, Where is the Holy City,
and who are the Gentiles who will trample the Holy City? First,
the Holy City is both literally the Holy City before Christ, and
spiritually the Holy City after Christ.
Literally, the Holy City is Jerusalem, where the Temple of God was;
this is very clear. Spiritually, the Holy City is Christianity;
wherever there are Christians, there is the Holy City. But this is
very general, and takes the whole world after it is Christian. But
before we come to that general Holy City, we find in the third verse of
the same chapter the following words: "I will give power unto my two
witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hundred and three
score days, clothed in sackcloth." So from these statements we find
that two especial witnesses in that Holy City, clothed in sackcloth,
will testify. Who are these two witnesses? My interpretation is that
they are the two chosen peoples of God and Christ. And the two chosen
peoples are the Jews and the Armenians. The Jews were the chosen
people before Christ, and the Armenians became the chosen people
after Christ, as King Abgarus, the Armenian king, believed in Christ
before Christ was crucified, and afterwards, in the time of Gregory
the Illuminator, the whole Armenian nation became a Christian nation,
in 310 A.D. Before Palestine was considered a holy country, Armenia
was considered a holy land, because the first man was created there,
and Noah's ark rested on Mount Ararat. And as the Armenians became
the first Christian nation on the globe, Palestine and Armenia were
the holy countries or the Holy City. Although this is so, after all
the literal Holy City, Jerusalem, remains a holy city; and she will
be after Christ, under the rule of Gentiles one thousand two hundred
and sixty years, while the two witnesses will testify there under
sackcloth for one thousand two hundred and sixty years.
Now the question is this, How long is it since the city of Jerusalem
was captured by the Gentiles, or more correctly by the "beast
that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit" (Rev. ii. 7), which is
the Mohammedan power? The Mohammedan power in different places in
Revelation is called the Beast, the Dragon, the Whore or Harlot, and
the False Prophet, and it is the Gentile kingdom after Christ. And
the time which is given to the Mohammedan power to rule, to destroy,
and to kill the Jews and the Christians in Jerusalem or in the Bible
lands, is only one thousand two hundred and sixty years. Since the
city of Jerusalem was captured by the Mohammedans is 1258 years,
and when this present year and the next come to an end in 1897, the
Mohammedan power will also come to an end, and the city of Jerusalem
will be restored to the Jews, and Armenia to the Armenians.
Towards the end of the Mohammedan power, Mohammedans will begin
to kill both the Jews and the Armenians for three and a half years
(see Rev. xi, 7, 8, 9). Now, for a year and a half the Mohammedans
have been killing the Christians,--which the author predicted two or
three years ago; and they will kill two years more. "And the sixth
Angel poured out his vial upon the Great River Euphrates and the water
thereof was dried up." (See Rev. xvi, 12.) That means that the people
on the shores of the Euphrates were killed, namely the Armenians.
I am not writing a commentary on Revelation, but simply bringing in
a few passages to enlighten the mind of the reader about the future
of Armenia and the battle of Armageddon.
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON.
(See Rev. xvi, 13-16.)
The battle of Armageddon is the final and the greatest battle. All the
nations will take part in it; but the leaders in the battle will be the
ones I have said, and the other will be their followers on the one side
or the other. And this battle will settle all the questions which are
not settled now. The great Eastern question will be settled, the great
question between capital and labor will be settled, all the emperors
and czars, kings, and princes will come down from their thrones, and
permanent international arbitration will be established. The questions
which are asked now will never be asked: What do the emperors say? What
do the czars say? What do the Sultans say? Men will ask then, What
do the people say? What is the wish of the people?
Then the question comes, where is Armageddon? Armageddon is Armenia. Of
course this is entirely a new interpretation to European and American
scholars; no one has ever been certain where Armageddon is, but it
is generally thought to be somewhere near Jerusalem, a little hill
called Mount Megiddo. In the time of Judges, "The kings came and
fought, then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of
Megiddo." (Judges v, 19.) But as a native of the Bible lands, and as
a native minister, I am positive about it. The first question is,
What does Armageddon mean? It means the High Lands. Is there any
higher land in the Bible lands than Armenia? The main land is from
4,000 to 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, and Mount Ararat
is about 18,000 feet high. Another question is, What does Armenia
mean? It means precisely the high lands, as Armageddon does. Armenia
took her name from King Aram or Armenag; both mean high lands, or
the possessors of high lands; and Armenia also means the high lands.
Again, what does Ararat mean, which is just in the center of Armenia
proper? It means the holy or high land. Now bring all together,
Armageddon, Armenia, Ararat, all mean just the same: high lands. Not
only high lands, but holy high lands. Long before Palestine was called
a holy land, Armenia had the name of Holy land, and the Armenians
were called the Highlanders.
In a word, Armageddon is the combination of three different words,
Armenia--Garden--Eden: Armageddon.
So the final battle will be fought in Armenia. The nation with the
greatest part will have the greatest future. As man fell from grace
in Armenia, man will be restored to peace and holiness in Armenia. And
before that peace, holiness, and restoration come, the greatest battle
will be fought in Armenia. After the fall of man, disgrace and curse
went forth from Armenia; so prosperity and blessings will come forth
from Armenia. As the first battle in the world was fought in Armenia,
between Cain and Abel, and the other battles followed, so the last
battle will be fought in Armenia, and the universal peace will come
out of it. As the first martyrdom in the world was in Armenia, so the
last and greatest martyrdom will be in Armenia. And from the blood of
Armenian martyrs everlasting happiness will follow to all nations. And
the kingdom of Christ will be established throughout the world.
X.
POEMS ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
[From the New York Independent, by special permission.]
LORD SALISBURY.
By the Rev. T. S. Perry.
"Oh! for a year, a month, a day of Oliver Cromwell."--The Independent.
"What Lord Salisbury seems to lack is a little Cromwellian courage."--A
Speaker in City Temple, London.
1.
Oh! for an hour of Cromwell,
For a leader brave and grand
To guide the wrath, and point the path,
Of a mighty Christian land!
To heed the cry of innocent blood,
To blush for the world's disgrace,
With hand to deal a blow of steel
In the murderous Moslem's face!
2.
Alas! for a leader heedless
While massacred villages flame,
Unmoved by shrieks of maidenhood
At wrong too foul for name!
Strong to throttle the feeble,
Feeble to beard the strong,
With eye o'er-meek, and blanching cheek,--
How long, O Lord, how long?
3.
And women cover their faces,
And men are fain to hiss.
Cromwell's head upon Temple Bar
Were a leader better than this!
And heaven grows black with horror,
And earth grows red with wrong,
And martyrs cry from earth and sky,
How long, O Lord, how long?
Orange Park, Florida.
DEUS VULT.
By Allen Eastman Cross.
"It is time that one general shout of execration--not of men, but
of deeds--one general shout of execration, directed against deeds of
wickedness, should rise from outraged humanity."--Gladstone's Armenian
address at Chester.
No tomb of death shall be our guest
Wherein the Lord of Life may rest.
No empty sepulcher of stone
Across the world makes bitter moan,
But Christian hearts that break and bleed
For our avenging pity plead.
O brothers, for our brothers' sake
Let the crusading spirit wake!
O Christian England, 'tis the Christ
By Moslem hands is sacrificed!
Away, away with hollow words,
Now sheath our speech, unsheath our sword!
God wills: The guns of Christendom
Proclaim the tyrant's doom has come!
Manchester, N. H.
TWO SONNETS.
By Henry Van Dyke.
I.
The Turk's Way.
"Stand back, ye messengers of mercy! Stand
Far off, for I will save my troubled folk
In my own way." So the false Sultan spoke;
And Europe, harkening to his base command,
Stood still to see him heal his wounded land.
Through blinding snows of winter and through smoke
Of burning towns she saw him deal the stroke
Of cruel mercy that his hate had planned.
Unto the prisoners and the sick he gave
New tortures, horrible, without a name;
Unto the thirsty, blood to drink; a sword
Unto the hungry; with a robe of shame
He clad the naked, making life abhorred.
He saved by slaughter, but denied a grave.
II.
America's Way.
But thou, my country, tho' no fault be thine
For that red horror far across the sea;
Tho' not a tortured wretch can point to thee,
And curse thee for the selfishness supine
Of those great powers who cowardly combine
To shield the Turk in his iniquity;
Yet, since thy hand is innocent and free,
Rise, thou, and show the world the way divine.
Thou canst not break the oppressor's iron rod,
But thou canst minister to the oppressed;
Thou canst not loose the captive's heavy chain,
But thou canst bind his wounds and soothe his pain.
Armenia calls thee, Empire of the West,
To play the Good Samaritan for God.
New York City.
TO THOSE WHO DIED FOR THEIR FAITH.
Armenia, 1894 to 189--?
By Mrs. Merrill E. Gates.
"These loved their lives not, to the death!"
But we at ease to-day, who claim
Allegiance to the One great Name,
Could we as nobly die for Faith?
We challenge not the crucial test!
Self cannot prove to self its power
If e'er should come that testing hour
God give us grace to choose the Best!
But these have overcome! Their Lord
In bitter death have not denied!
Have chosen still the Crucified
In face of bayonet and sword!
Our age heroic looms! Our eyes
Behold white martyr brows! Still hears
Our sin-gray world with unthrilled ears
Once more the martyr-chorus rise!
Come Thou to succor the great need!
Thy judgment shall not long delay!
God doeth his strange work to-day!
The Judge is at the door! Take heed!
Amherst, Mass.
ARMENIA.
By Willimina L. Armstrong.
Out of storms and peace light, out of confusing things,
Bound in mysterious fashion by the bindings of blood and hate,
Lo, are the Nations assembled now
At the Twentieth Century Gate.
Leaning beside the portal: Close! in the name of God!
Over the Garden of Eden, in the evening of this our Day.
Over the breast of the Mountain old
Where the Ark of deliverance lay.
Leaning beside the portal: Hark to the clashing arms!
Hark to the voice in the Garden, to the Nations of Earth it calls,
"Bid! for the Woman is Christian blood;
And the sword and the bayonet falls!"
Sold! A Christian Woman! Sold in the name of Christ!
Sold to her death in the Eden with its soil by her blood made damp!
Sold in the eve of our Mighty Age!
With the light of our Age for a lamp!
New York City.
ARMENIA'S BITTER CRY.
By Hetta Lord Hayes Ward.
I.
World, world, hear our prayer
Oh where is Russia, where?
A fearful deed is done,
Its glare affronts the sun.
Smoke! Flame! Fire!
Rouse thee, great Russian Sire!
When Christian homes are ablaze,
Hast thou no voice to raise?
Thy neighbor to thee has cried,
Pass not on the other side.
Look on our dire despair!
Where art thou, Czar, oh, where?
II.
Land of the sun and sea,
Wake, Rome and Italy!
Our ancient Church in vain
Calls thee to break her chain.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
Where sleeps thy early fame?
To death our priests are led,
Their flocks lie slaughtered, dead.
Awake, good Pope of Rome!
Our saints through blood go home;
Hear thou their dying plea,
Where, where is Italy?
III.
Land of Fraternite,
Brave France, turn not away!
Shall blood thy lilies stain?
Wilt bear the curse of Cain?
Wake! Wake! Wake!
For God and glory's sake!
On a ghastly funeral pyre,
Brave men are burned with fire;
God calls to France, the free,
"Thy brother, where is he?"
Lest God in wrath requite,
Awake, befriend the right!
IV.
Where is good Frederick's son
When evil deeds are done?
Shall prisons reek and rot,
His mother's blood speak not?
Haste! Haste! Haste!
Time runs too long to waste.
If halts the Kaiser dumb,
Let all the people come.
Your oath must sacred stand,
Treaties of Fatherland;
Victims of Turk and Kurd,
Rest on your plighted word.
V.
Your sisters' shame and blood
Cry out to England's God.
Slain on the church's floor,
Their blood flowed out the door.
Speak! Speak! Speak!
The strong must help the weak.
Leave Turkish bonds unsold;
Betray not Christ for gold.
Let the Moslem dragon feel
Once more Saint George's heel.
England, awake, awake!
World, hear, for Jesus' sake!
Newark, N.J.
ARMENIA.
By Geo. W. Crofts.
Tune: "Maryland, My Maryland."
Where'er thy martyr blood has run
Armenia!
Shed by the fierce Mohammedan,
Armenia!
There nations gather in their grief--
There would they bring in swift relief--
Oh, may thy agony be brief,
Armenia!
God's eye of pity glances down,
Armenia!
He sees thy rudely broken crown,
Armenia!
His heart is touched with all thy woes,
His mighty arm will interpose,
He'll save thee from thy cruel foes,
Armenia!
All o'er thy verdant plains shall spread,
Armenia!
The golden grain where thou hast bled,
Armenia!
Thy harvest song shall yet arise
To him who rules in yonder skies,
Whose ear has heard thy bitter cries,
Armenia!
America extends to thee,
Armenia!
The cordial of her sympathy,
Armenia!
And every soul in this free land
Would give to thee the helping hand,
And near thee in thy sorrow stand,
Armenia!
In this dark hour be brave and strong,
Armenia!
The right shall triumph over wrong,
Armenia!
'Twill not be long till thou shalt see
The glorious dawn of liberty,
When thou shalt be forever free,
Armenia!
ARMENIAN HYMN.
By Alice Stone Blackwell.
[From the Armenian of Nerses the Graceful; born 1102, died 1172.]
O Dayspring, Sun of righteousness, shine forth with light for me!
Treasure of mercy, let my soul thy hidden riches see!
Thou before whom the thoughts of men lie open in thy sight,
Unto my soul, now dark and dim, grant thoughts that shine with
[ light!
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Almighty One in Three,
Care-taker of all creatures, have pity upon me!
Awake, O Lord, awake to help, with grace and power divine;
Awaken those who slumber now, like Heaven's host to shine!
O Lord and Saviour, life-giver, unto the dead give life,
And raise up those that have grown weak and stumbled in the strife!
O Skillful Pilot! Lamp of light, that burneth bright and clear!
Strength and assurance grant to me, now hid away in fear.
O Thou that makest old things new, renew me and adorn;
Rejoice we with salvation, Lord, for which I inly mourn.
Giver of good, unto my sins be thy forgiveness given!
Lead Thy disciples, Heavenly King, unto the flocks of Heaven.
Defeat the evil husbandman that soweth tares and weeds;
Wither and kill in me the fruits of all his evil seeds!
O Lord, grant water to my eyes, that they may shed warm tears
To cleanse and wash away the sin that in my soul appears!
On me, now hid in shadow deep, shine forth, O glory bright!
Sweet juice, quench thou my soul's keen thirst! Show me the path
[ of light!
Jesus, whose name is love, with love crush thou my stony heart;
Bedew my spirit with thy blood, and bid my griefs depart!
O thou that even in fancy art so sweet, Lord Jesus Christ,
Grant that with Thy reality my soul may be sufficed!
When thou shalt come again to earth, and all thy glory see,
Upon that dread and awful day, O Christ, remember me!
Thou that redeemest men from sin, O Saviour, I implore,
Redeem him who now praiseth Thee, to praise Thee evermore.
Dorchester, Mass.
Miss Alice Stone Blackwell is a noble Boston woman who is greatly
interested in the Armenians. She has written many articles and poems,
and done much toward arousing public sentiment throughout the United
States in behalf of the Armenians.
The author of this book esteems it a privilege to offer his personal
thanks, as well as those of his persecuted nation, to Miss Blackwell,
by whose kind permission the following poems from her book, "Armenian
Poems," are here reprinted.
THE LAMENT OF MOTHER ARMENIA.
I.
In alien lands they roam, my children dear;
Where shall I make appeal, with none to hear?
Where shall I find them? Far away from me
My sons serve others, thralls in slavery.
Chorus.
Oh, come, my children, back to me!
Come home, your motherland to see!
II.
Ages have passed, no news of them I hear;
Dead, dead are they, my sons that knew not fear.
I weep, the blood is frozen in my veins;
No one will cure my sorrows and my pains.
Chorus.
III.
My blood is failing and my heart outworn,
My face forever mournful and forlorn;
To my dark grave with grief I shall descend,
Longing to see my children to the end.
Chorus.
IV.
O wandering shepherd, you whose mournful song
Rings through the valleys as you pass along!
Come, let us both, with many a bitter tear,
Weep for the sad death of our children dear!
Chorus.
V.
Crane of the fatherland, fly far away,
Fly out of sight, beyond the setting day;
My last sad greetings to my children bear,
For my life's hope has died into despair!
Chorus.
LIBERTY.
Michael Ghazarian Nalbandian was born in Russian Armenia in 1830;
graduated at the University of St. Petersburg with the title of
Professor; was active as a teacher, author, and journalist; fell
under suspicion for his political opinions, and underwent a rigorous
imprisonment of three years, after which he was exiled to the province
of Sarakov, and died there, in 1866, of lung disease contracted in
prison. It is forbidden in Russia to possess a picture of Nalbandian;
but portraits of him, with his poem on "Liberty" printed around the
margin, are circulated secretly.
I.
When God, who is forever free,
Breathed life into my earthly frame,--
From that first day, by his free will
When I a living soul became,--
A babe upon my mother's breast,
Ere power of speech was given to me,
Even then I stretched my feeble arms
Forth to embrace thee, Liberty!
II.
Wrapped round with many swaddling bands,
All night I did not cease to weep,
And in the cradle, restless still,
My cries disturbed my mother's sleep.
"O mother!" in my heart I prayed,
"Unbind my arms and leave me free!"
And even from that hour I vowed
To love thee ever, Liberty!
III.
When first my faltering tongue was freed,
And when my parents' hearts were stirred
With thrilling joy to hear their son
Pronounce his first clear-spoken word,
"Papa, mamma," as children use,
Were not the names first said by me;
The first word on my childish lips
Was thy great name, O Liberty!
IV.
Liberty answered from on high
The sovereign voice of Destiny:
"Wilt thou enroll thyself henceforth
A soldier true of Liberty?
The path is thorny all the way,
And many trials wait for thee;
Too strait and narrow is this world
For him who loveth Liberty."
V.
"Freedom!" I answered, "on my head
Let fire descend and thunder burst;
Let foes against my life conspire,
Let all who hate thee do their worst:
I will be true to thee till death;
Yea, even upon the gallows tree
The last breath of a death of shame
Shall shout thy name, O Liberty!"
THE WANDERING ARMENIAN TO THE SWALLOW.
By C. A. Totochian.
I.
O swallow, gentle swallow,
Thou lovely bird of spring!
Say, whither art thou flying
So swift on gleaming wing?
II.
Fly to my birthplace, Ashdarag,
The spot I love the best;
Beneath my father's roof-tree,
O swallow, build thy nest.
III.
There dwells afar my father,
A mournful man and gray,
Who for his only son's return
Waits vainly, day by day.
IV.
If thou shouldst chance to see him,
Greet him with love from me;
Bid him sit down and mourn with tears
His son's sad destiny.
V.
In poverty and loneliness,
Tell him, my days are passed:
My life is only half a life.
My tears are falling fast.
VI.
To me, amid bright daylight,
The sun is dark at noon;
To my wet eyes at midnight
Sleep comes not, late or soon.
VII.
Tell him that, like a beauteous flower
Smit by a cruel doom.
Uprooted from my native soil,
I wither ere my bloom.
VIII.
Fly on swift wing, dear swallow,
Across the quickening earth,
And seek in fair Armenia
The village of my birth.
NOTICE.
The author of this book delivers lectures on the following subjects:
Armenia, Armenians, and the recent Atrocities.
The Sultan of Turkey, Hamid the II.
American Missions in Turkey.
Social and Political Life in Turkey.
About 400 stereopticon views, as well as large maps, and costumes are
used to illustrate the various lectures, which are highly instructive
and entertaining, and never fail of interesting the most critical
audiences.
The lectures are delivered upon very reasonable terms. For particulars
address,
Rev. Geo. H. Filian,
Cor. Eastern Parkway and Cresent St., Brooklyn, N.Y.
From the testimonials of prominent clergymen, authors, and secretaries
of Y.M.C.A.'s, the following few are selected.
From Dr. R. S. Storrs, President of the American Board of Foreign
Missions.
Your address to my congregation was admirable in its tone, and its
entire impression upon those who heard it. Your knowledge of the
facts presented is, of course, accurate and complete; and your method
of presenting the facts is clear, impressive, and leaves the minds
instructed and the hearts quickened.
From the Faculty of Chicago Theological Seminary.
This will introduce to you Rev. George H. Filian, a graduate of this
Seminary, a man of true character and devotion. He has been obliged
to suspend work for a time in Turkey, owing to his faithfulness
in preaching the truth, and is recommended to the consideration of
Christians throughout America.
By order of the Faculty, H. N. Scott, Secretary.
From Prof. G. B. Wilcox, D.D., Chicago Theological Seminary.
Rev. G. H. Filian, a graduate of this Seminary in 1882, and
since pastor of Armenian Evangelical Church, Marsovan, Turkey, is
lecturing on Turkish missions and Turkish manners and customs. He
is an exceptionally able speaker, and may with all confidence be
introduced by any pastor to his congregation. I speak from long and
intimate acquaintance.
G. B. Wilcox.
From Rev. John H. Barrows, D.D., Pastor First Presbyterian Church.
Rev. Geo. H. Filian, of Syria, lectured on Constantinople to my people
last night, greatly interesting them. His illustrations are excellent,
and he speaks with great enthusiasm. The evening's entertainment was
very wholesome, and I cordially commend his worthy lecture. My people
have heard him also with pleasure on "Social Life in Turkey."
From the Department Secretary Y.M.C.A. of Chicago, Illinois.
Rev. Geo. H. Filian delivered before one of our meetings his
interesting lecture on "Missions in Turkey." I have never heard a
speaker more interesting, and that held the attention of the audience
in a greater measure than Mr. Filian. He is intelligent upon such
a subject. He is versatile in expression, enthusiastic in delivery,
and certainly very devout in heart.
Daniel Sloan.
From the Secretary in charge Central Building, Y.M.C.A., Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rev. Geo. H. Filian gave his stereopticon lecture on "Constantinople"
before our young men last night, and I am pleased to say that it is
a lecture of rare interest and enjoyment. The views are beautiful and
very instructive, as they are rarely thrown upon a screen. Mr. Filian
has the advantage of speaking from actual experience, and his eloquent
words, devoted spirit, and fund of humor quickly win the attention
and sympathy of any audience.
Arthur B. Wood.
From Rev. Henry Van Dyke, D.D., Pastor of the Brick Church, New York.
Your lecture before our Young Men's Society on Monday was a decided
success. Every one was interested in what you had to say, and the
pictures were excellent. We shall be glad when the time comes to have
you with us again.
From Rev. George M. Stone, D.D., Hartford.
Mr. Filian is thoroughly intelligent on the whole Eastern question,
and gives a view of Armenia and its present trial which is exceedingly
valuable.
From A. C. Dixon, D.D., Pastor Hanson Place Baptist Church, Brooklyn,
N.Y.
Rev. George H. Filian has lectured twice in the Hanson Place Baptist
church, and it gives me pleasure to say that his lectures are
interesting and instructive. They stir the heart to work and pray
for the relief of persecuted Armenia.
From Louis Albert Banks, D.D., Pastor of Hanson Place M. E. Church,
Brooklyn, N.Y.
I take great pleasure in saying that the Rev. Geo. H. Filian, who has
spoken from the platform at Hanson Place M. E. church in behalf of the
Armenian Christians, and also lectured in our church on Constantinople,
is a very eloquent and earnest speaker, who will attract attention
and arouse interest anywhere.
NOTES
[1] The word "Armenian" is not altogether indicative of race, it refers
more particularly to those who are Christians. Any who have forsaken
the faith and become Mohammedans are no longer regarded as Armenians,
but are Turks.
[2] The above description is taken literally from a report of the
British Vice-Consul of Erzeroum. Copies are in possession of the
diplomatic representatives of the powers at Constantinople. The scene
occurred in the Village of Semal before the massacres, during the
normal condition of things.
[3] Extracts from letters are left unsigned for fear of endangering
the writers' lives.
End of Project Gutenberg's Armenia and Her People, by George H. Filian
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