In 1893, the impoverished Armenians stripped of everything worth possessing, decided to resist further robberies. Early in the spring of that year, the Kurds came with demands more exorbitant than ever, the chiefs being escorted by a great number of armed men, but they were driven back by the brave villagers. When this became known to the Ottoman authorities, some of the more zealous of them applied for a large body of regular troops. The Turkish Government affected to believe that the secret political agitation which had been going on among the Armenians for some time had at length produced a serious revolt, and that it was necessary to quell it at once in energetic and relentless fashion.
Great Mosque and Interior of Urfah.
Orders were accordingly sent to Zekki Pasha, the Mushir commanding the troops at Erzinghian, to proceed to Sassoun with a sufficient force and suppress the disturbances. The precise terms of the instructions to this energetic Pasha never transpired and were never known to any one outside the Turkish official world. Whatever they were the Pasha evidently understood that he was literally to annihilate those who had resisted the authority of the local officials, and he executed what he supposed to be the wishes of his superiors with a barbarity towards both men and women, which deserves the reprobation of the civilized world. The Turkish soldiers hesitated to carry out such atrocious orders against defenceless women and men who offered no resistance, and they did not obey until threatened with condign punishment for disobedience. The protests of the Mutessarif, the civil Governor of the district, were disregarded.
The fixed hour of fate arrived.
In August 1894, Kurdish and Turkish troops came to Sassoun. Among them the famous Hamidieh troops, the specially organized Kurdish cavalry named after the Sultan, the name significant of the purpose for which they were organized.
Zekki Pasha who commanded on that infamous occasion was afterwards decorated by the Sultan as were four Kurdish chiefs who had been specially savage and merciless during the progress of the carnage, while the Civil Governor of the district who so humanely protested was summarily removed from his post.
The Kurds were newly armed with Martini rifles. Zekki Pasha, who had come from Erzingan, read the Sultan’s order for the attack, and then urged the soldiers to loyal obedience to their Imperial master. On the last day of August, the anniversary of Abdul Hamid’s accession to the throne, the soldiers were specially urged to distinguish themselves in making it the day of greatest slaughter. On that day the commander wore the edict of the Sultan on his breast. Kurds began the butchery by attacking the sleeping villagers at night and slaying men, women and children. For twenty-three days this horrible work of slaughter lasted. Some of the Kurds afterward boasted of killing a hundred Christians apiece. At one village, Galogozan, many young men were tied hand and foot, laid in a row, covered with brushwood and burned alive. Others were seized and hacked to death piecemeal. At another village, a priest and several leading men were captured and promised release if they would tell where others had fled; and, after telling, all but the priest were killed. A chain was put around his neck and pulled from opposite sides until he was several times choked and revived, after which bayonets were planted upright and he was raised in the air and dropped upon them. The men of one village, when fleeing, took the women and children, some five hundred in number, and placed them in a ravine where soldiers found them and butchered them. Little children were cut in two and mutilated. Women were subjected to fearful agonies, ending in death. A newly wedded couple fled to a hilltop; soldiers followed and offered them their lives if they would accept Islam, but they preferred to die bravely professing Christ. On Mount Andoke, south of Moush, about a thousand persons sought refuge. The Kurds attacked them, but for days were repulsed. Then Turkish soldiers directed the fire of their cannon on them. Finally the ammunition of the fugitives was exhausted, and the troops succeeded in reaching the summit unopposed and butchered them to a man. In the Talvoreeg district, several thousand Armenians were left in a small plain. When surrounded by Turks and Kurds they appealed to heaven for deliverance, but were quickly dispatched with rifles, bayonets and swords. The plain was a veritable shamble.
No accurate estimate of the number slain in the first massacre could be made. Forty villages were totally destroyed and the loss of life from ten to fifteen thousand. Efforts were made to conceal the real extent of the carnage, but the “blood-bath of Sassoun” has passed into history and cannot be forgotten.
At Bitlis there was a Kurdish raid on Armenian cattle, resulting in a fight in which two Kurds were killed.