What we saw here in Aleppo with our own eyes was, in fact, only the last scene of the great tragedy of the extirpation of the Armenians; only a trifling fraction of the horrors which were being perpetrated simultaneously in the other Turkish provinces. The engineers of the Bagdad railway, on their return from the section under construction, and German travellers, who on their way had met the caravans of the deported, spoke of still more abominable horrors. Many of these men could eat nothing for days; the impression of the loathsome things they had seen was too overpowering.
One of them (Herr Greif, of Aleppo) reported that heaps of corpses of violated women were lying naked on the railway embankment near Abiad and Ras-el-Ain. In the case of many, sticks had been driven into the anus. Another (Herr Spiecker, of Aleppo) saw Turks tie Armenian men together, fire several volleys of small shot with fowling pieces into the human mass, and go off laughing, while their victims slowly perished in frightful convulsions. Other men were sent rolling down steep slopes with their hands tied behind their backs. Below there were women, who slashed those who had rolled down with knives until they were dead. A Protestant minister who two years ago had given a most cordial reception to my colleague, Dr. Graeter, had his finger nails torn out.
The German Consul at Mosul said in my presence in the German Club at Aleppo that he had seen so many children’s hands lying hacked off on his way from Mosul to Aleppo, that one could have paved the road with them.[5]
In the German Hospital at Ourfa there is also a little girl, both of whose hands have been hacked off. Herr Holstein, the German Consul at Mosul, also saw, in the neighbourhood of an Arab village, shortly before reaching Aleppo, shallow graves with freshly-buried Armenian corpses. The Arab villagers asserted that they had killed these Armenians by order of the Government. One of them said proudly that he personally had killed eight.
In many houses in Aleppo, inhabited by Christians, I found Armenian girls hidden away, whom some accidental circumstances had enabled to escape death; they had either remained behind in a state of exhaustion, having been taken for dead when their convoy was driven on; or some European had found an opportunity to purchase these miserable beings for a few shillings from the Turkish soldier who had last violated them. All these girls are in a state of mental collapse. Many had been compelled to look on while their parents had their throats cut. I know some of these pitiable creatures, who for months were unable to utter a word, and even now cannot be coaxed into a smile. A girl of the age of 14 was received into the home of the depôt-manager of the Bagdad railway at Aleppo, Herr Krause. The child had been raped so many times by Turkish soldiers during one night that she had completely lost her reason. I saw her tossing on her pillow in delirium with hot lips, and I found it difficult to make her drink some water.
A German who is known to me witnessed the following incident in the neighbourhood of Ourfa; hundreds of Christian peasant women were forced by Turkish soldiers to take off all their clothes. For the amusement of the soldiers they had to drag themselves through the desert for days together in a temperature of 40° Centigrade, until their skin was completely burnt. Another person saw a Turk tear a child out of the womb of its Armenian mother, and throw it against the wall.
Other facts, some of them worse than the few instances given here, are recorded in the numerous reports of the German Consuls at Alexandretta, Aleppo and Mosul.[6] The Consuls are of opinion that, up to the present date, about a million Armenians have perished by the massacres of the last months. Women and children, who either were killed or died from starvation, probably form one half of this number.
Conscience compels us to call attention to these things. Though the Government, by the annihilation of the Armenian people, only intends to further internal political objects, the execution of the scheme has in many respects the character of a persecution of Christians.
All the tens of thousands of young girls and women, who have been dragged away to Turkish harems, and the masses of children who have been collected by the Government and distributed among Turks and Kurds, are lost to the Christian Churches and are compelled to go over to Islam. The opprobrious name of “Giaour” is again used against the Germans.
In Adana I saw a troop of Armenian orphans marching through the streets under the escort of Turkish soldiers. The parents have been slaughtered; the children must become Mohammedans. It has happened everywhere that adult Armenians were able to save their lives by declaring their readiness to go over to Islam. In some places, however, Turkish officials, wishing to throw dust in the eyes of Europeans, replied grandiloquently to Christians who had applied for admission into the Mohammedan fold, that religion is not a thing to play with, and preferred to have the petitioners killed. Men like Talaat Bey and Enver Pasha have repeatedly said, thanking distinguished Armenians, who brought them gifts, that they would have been still better pleased if the givers had presented them as Mohammedans. One of these gentlemen said to a newspaper reporter: “Certainly we are now punishing many innocent people, but we must protect ourselves, even from those who might become guilty in the future.” Such reasons are adduced by Turkish statesmen in justification of the indiscriminate slaughter of defenceless woman and children. A German Catholic priest reports that Enver Pasha had told Monsignore Dolci, the Papal representative at Constantinople, that he would not rest while one single Armenian was still living.