FOOTNOTES:
[141] Lepsius, “Armenia and Europe.” See The New Armenia of June 15, 1916, New York.
[142] The Public Ledger (Philadelphia), Feb. 17, 1896, had the following editorial comment on a local Turkish official report: “What purports to be an official list of Turkish outrages in the Province of Harpoot and some of the neighboring villages, prepared by a local Turkish authority, is published. The total number killed is given as 39,234, and the number of destitute as 94,770. The account is somewhat mysterious, as it does not show for what purpose it was made, nor does the report state how a matter, usually so jealously guarded, came to be made public, but it is authoritative, and the details are more sickening than the bare aggregate, as they show the number of persons burned to death; the number who perished from hunger and cold; the number of women outraged; the number of forcible conversions to Islam; the number forcibly married to Moslems, etc. It is a chapter more worthy of the Dark Ages than modern civilization, but modern civilization does not seem able to prevent its repetition at the pleasure of the Turk.”
[143] Bliss, “Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 553-4.
[144] Greene, “Leavening the Levant,” p. 36.
[145] Report of Vice-Consul Fitzmaurice, Turkey, No. V., 1896.
[146] Greene, “Leavening the Levant,” pp. 177-8.
[147] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 520, 4th edition.
[148] Washburn, “Fifty Years in Constantinople,” pp. 245-9.
[149] Andrews, “A History of All Nations,” Vol. XX, p. 341. Published by Lea Brothers and Co., Philadelphia.
XVI
THE REVOLUTION AND MASSACRES OF ADANA, 1908-1909
Sultan Abdul Hamid’s despotism during his long and bloody reign had alienated not only all the decent people in his realm, but even some of the worse classes, who, for their liberal views, not for better lives, were listed as his enemies. These were not Turks by descent, neither Mohammedans by choice, but being the children of renegades, whose forefathers professed themselves Mohammedans in order to save their lives, their honor, and their property. Thus these European Mohammedans were largely of Christian extract, and naturally had better chances to learn from the Western nations, especially the army officers, some of whom had been educated in military schools in Europe. Others, who were known and dogged by the numerous spies of Abdul Hamid, fled the country into Europe, and in Paris and other places, carried on a revolutionary propaganda.
The leaders of this movement first influenced the army and navy officers. The latter in turn appealed to their regiments. When they were sure of success, and everything in readiness, then they demanded from Abdul Hamid the restoration of the constitution which he had suppressed in 1877, and other reforms. Their demands were accompanied by the threat to march upon Constantinople with 60,000 men, if they were not immediately granted. Abdul Hamid was shocked. Some thought he would commit suicide. But he was too self-willed and shrewd; and not without some hope of frustrating their plans. He must act at once. There was no chance of doing anything by which he could avoid an immediate disaster. He must have time. He can have it by apparently and gracefully yielding. He said he was now sure that his people were prepared for a constitutional government, that he was willing to govern the nation according to the constitution.
So on the 24th of July, 1908, “by the command of the sultan, telegrams were sent to all divisions of the army and to the governors of the provinces announcing that his Imperial Majesty, Sultan Abdul Hamid, was graciously pleased to proclaim a constitutional form of government. The people were dazed and bewildered, not knowing what to believe, and when reassured their outbursts of joy defied description. Turks, Christians, and Jews joined indiscriminately in their joyful demonstrations.”
The sultan having solemnly sworn that he would rule as a constitutional king and as he appeared to be doing so, he was permitted to remain upon the throne. But he made no delay in attempting to overthrow the individuals and the Parliament as a whole. He used various means by the hands of his underlings and hirelings—softas and mullahs—to whom he shipped unlimited sums of money. Within nine months Abdul Hamid succeeded in inducing half of the garrison of Constantinople, about 12,000 men, to espouse his cause and rise in mutiny.
On the night of April 13th, 1909, these mutinous soldiers did rise and fall upon their officers. They killed some of them and imprisoned others; then they marched into the streets, and went over to Stamboul, and took possession of the House of Parliament. The president of parliament and the minister of justice escaped with their lives, but other ministers fell by the assassins’ bullets. Sultan Hamid’s success, however, was transient. Within a week the Young Turks rallied and hastened their forces from Albania and Macedonia, some 45,000 men well equipped with artillery, ammunition, and provisions. On the 23d of April the commander of the Young Turkey army heard a rumor that Sultan Abdul Hamid in disappointment and rage had planned on the following day a general massacre of Christians and his opponents. General Mohammed Shevket Pasha, the commander, moved his army in the afternoon and night of the same day.
One division occupied the old city, Stamboul, and the other division marched around the Golden Horn and moved upon Pera, the European quarter (on the 24th). Here the defenders of Abdul Hamid showed considerable resistance and a severe battle followed, but by night the mutinous soldiers were defeated, and the Young Turkey army surrounded the hill of Yildiz, situated three-quarters of a mile from the shore of the Bosphorus and separated from Pera by a valley. He was deposed from caliphate by the Sheikh-ul-Islam. He was dethroned by a resolution of Parliament. On the morning of the 27th, the sultan, seeing that there was no more hope for him, surrendered. “The bodyguard was marched out and new troops were sent in. That night several young officers went to the palace of the sultan and summoned him to their presence. He came in, pale as a sheet, trembling like a leaf, and begging for his life. He was told that his life would be spared, but that for the good of the country he must leave the city that night. The Young Turks dealt mercifully with the cruel monarch and allowed him to choose, as his companions in exile, eleven women, one child, two eunuchs, and five servants. These were placed in carriages, and after midnight were driven to the railway station in Stamboul. From here they were sent by a special train to Salonica, three hundred miles west, and were consigned to a strong house prepared for him.”[150] This ended the career as a ruler of Abdul Hamid, who was distinguished for his cruelty, perfidy, and infamy.
On the same day (the 13th of April, 1909) that the mutiny took place in Constantinople, the Mohammedans of the city and province of Adana, fell upon the Christian inhabitants, and within a few days, they killed the people and looted and plundered their property. The massacres were committed in the following places: Adana, Alexandretta, Marash, Mersina, Hadjin, Kessab, Zeitoon, Kirikon, and all the villages. The number of the killed was estimated from 25,000 to 50,000. And those who suffered from diseases and starvation exceeded 150,000.
The following is an extract from a letter written by Mrs. Doughty Wylie, wife of the British Consul at Adana. It was published in the London Daily Mail:
“We are having a perfectly hideous time here. Thousands have been murdered—25,000 in this province they say; but the number is probably greater, for every Christian village is wiped out. In Adana about 5,000 have perished. After Turks and Armenians had made peace, the Turks came in the night with hose and kerosene and set fire to what remained of the Armenian quarter. Next day the French and Armenian Schools were fired. Nearly every one of the Armenian Schools perished, anybody trying to escape being shot down by the soldiers.
“The Turkish authorities do nothing except arrest unoffending Armenians, from whom by torture they extort the most fanciful confessions. Even the wounded are not safe from this injustice. For fiends incarnate commend me to the Turks. Nobody is safe from them. They murder babies in front of their mothers, they half murder men, and violate the wives while the husbands are lying there dying in pools of blood. The authorities did nothing, and the soldiers were worse than the crowd, for they were better armed. One house in our quarter was burned with 115 people inside. We counted the bodies. Soldiers set fire to the door and as the windows had iron bars, nobody could get out. Every one in the house was roasted alive. They were all women and children and old people.”
The following is a portion of a letter, by Stephen Van R. Trowbridge. It describes the condition of Kessab and the surrounding villages after the butchery:
“Kessab was a thrifty Armenian town of eight thousand inhabitants, situated on the landward slope of Mt. Cassius (Arabic, Jebel Akra) which stands out prominently upon the Mediterranean seacoast, half way between Alexandretta and Latakia. Kessab is now a mass of blackened ruins, the stark walls of the churches and houses rising up out of the ashes and charred timber heaped on every side. What must it mean to the five thousand men, women, and little children who have survived a painful flight to the seacoast and now returned to their mountain homes sacked and burned! There were nine Christian villages which cloistered about Kessab in the valleys below. Several of them have been completely destroyed by fire. All have been plundered and the helpless people driven out or slain.”
One more witness of the crimes committed against humanity and Christianity may suffice. Rev. Dr. Christie, the President of St. Paul’s Institute, Tarsus, wrote:
April 24th, 1909.—“I doubt if ever a massacre equal in atrocities to this has been known in history.... Among the wounded there are multitudes of men, women and children; we hear of a pastor and his family, seven people burned together in their house; hosts of young women have been assaulted and carried away to harems, and their names changed to Moslem ones. Christian villages like Osmanieh, Baghchi, Hamidieh, Kara Tash, Kristian Keoy, Kozolook, have people in each, eighty or so are left, nearly all women and children. It is the same in the chiftliks (farms); there are hundreds of these on this wide and fertile plain; in every one that we have heard of in the neighborhood of Tarsus or Adana there has been unsparing slaughter of the Christian workers, even the Greeks and Syrians dying as martyrs with the Armenians.
“The annual (Synodical) meeting was to have been held in Adana. So the pastors and delegates of the churches were on the road to the north and east of that city when the trouble began. We have now the names of twenty-seven killed with the particulars of their deaths. Twenty-two churches are left pastorless. It is a fearful blow. Our two missionaries, (Henry) Maurer and Daniel M. Rogers, bring the number up to twenty-nine.”
There was a general impression at the time of the massacres of Adana, that the butchery and plunder in the cities, towns, and in the villages, were due to the reaction, that, “The mutiny and the massacre were the last stroke of the dying monster Sultan Abdul Hamid.” It appeared plausible, and it was even probable. But it was and is firmly believed by others that it was the work of the Young Turks.[151] They did not dethrone Abdul Hamid because he was too cruel to his Christian subjects. Oh! no. They dethroned him, because they wanted to have the glory of finishing the work of the extermination of the Armenian nation. The Young Turks are the legitimate successors of Abdul Hamid, so far as the latter’s determination to annihilate the Armenians was concerned, and this massacre was another step towards their goal. It may be questioned why they should do such a thing at such a time. The answer is that, because there was an easy and plausible way of shoving off the responsibility for the crime on the monster Sultan Abdul Hamid.[152] We are told that Talaat Bey boasted that he had done more in destroying the Armenians in thirty days than Abdul Hamid in thirty years. It is, moreover, stated that when Talaat Bey gave the final signal for the massacre and deportation of the Armenians in 1915, he said, “After this there will be no Armenian question for fifty years.” There would be no Armenian question if the Young Turks intended to rule and run the government according to the Constitution. Armenians would have been satisfied even under the monarchy had they received what was promised to them, namely, religious liberty, the protection of their lives, honor, and property. These, oft-made promises fulfilled, there could be no Armenian question. Why should the Young Turks resort to the cruel process of annihilation of a nation to solve such a simple problem? We have to repeat Vambery’s words: “The conviction is inevitable that until the power of Islamism is broken the true reformation of this land is an impossibility.” (Whether the government is monarchical or constitutional, it made no difference.) “At whose door shall we lay the blame of cherishing such a viper? (First at England’s, now at Germany’s.)”