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.”