"Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child and with the whole congregation—
"'We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realize that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God's special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God's help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus' life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of His blood.
"'May the war end soon, in order to save the Moslems from their cruelty (for they increase in that from day to day) and from their ingrained habit of torturing others. Therefore we are waiting on God, for the sake of the Moslems as well as of the Armenians. May He appear soon'" (p. 504).
"Before the girls were taken, the Kaimakam asked each one, in the presence of the Principal of the College, whether they wanted to become Mohammedans and stay, or go. They all replied that they would go. Only Miss H. became a Mohammedan, and went to live with G. Professors E. and F. F. had been arrested with other Armenians, but in the name of all the teachers some £250 to £300 were presented to the officials, and so they were let free" (p. 370).
"The priests were among the first to be sent off. A Turk described how K. K. was killed. They stripped him of all his clothes, excepting his underclothing. With his hands bound behind his back, he knelt, with his son beside him, and they finished him off with axes, while he was praying. The same description was given of the execution of L. L.—how they took off his head by hacking down into his shoulders with axes and carving the head out like a bust" (p. 371).
Group C
"But the [Armenian] revolutionists conducted themselves with remarkable restraint and prudence; controlled their hot-headed youth; patrolled the streets to prevent skirmishes; and bade the villagers endure in silence: better a village or two burned unavenged than that any attempt at reprisals should furnish an excuse for massacre" (p. 33).
"Some of the rules for their men [the Armenian defenders of Van] were: 'Keep clean; do not drink; tell the truth; do not curse the religion of the enemy'" (p. 35).
"But, enraged as Djevdet was by this unexpected and prolonged resistance, was it to be hoped that he could be persuaded to spare the lives of one of these men, women and children?" (p. 39).