“Strong men, youths and women, and even babies in the cradles and unborn children were butchered with most awful savagery. Infants were stuck on bayonets and exposed to the agonized view of their helpless and frantic mothers. Young brides and girls were subjected to a fate far worse than death. No resistance was possible on the part of the Armenians. All the native teachers with a single exception were murdered with most cruel tortures. Baiburt became a slaughter house. Torrents of blood began to flow. The streets and bazaars were filled with dead bodies. On the following day the Turks did all in their power to conceal the bodies of those who had been pierced by bayonets. Similar scenes were enacted in all the surrounding villages.
“Mourning and lamentation prevail throughout Armenia. The churches are closed; no more can the sound of worshippers be heard. The pealing of the bells is silent. We have no more teachers to teach the remnant of Armenians who still live. Rich and poor alike have perished, and the survivors are in the direst indigence. No bread, no covering for their nakedness; they are shivering in the cold. Baiburt, until lately so generous to help others, is now helpless, and in need of moral and material assistance. Unless such assistance is soon received, nobody can live.
“After the massacres the government began to arrest the remaining Armenians who had escaped the slaughter. We hear that in the prisons the tortures have reached an extreme point of frightful cruelty. Thus the survivors of the massacre are now dying daily. Every moment we have the horrors of death.”
Turkish duplicity was fertile in its resources. Many documents were forwarded to the Grand Vizier at Constantinople from scenes of massacres, purporting to be signed by Armenian nobles, the signatures having been obtained by intimidation. One of the most remarkable was from Bitlis, and bore the signatures of thirty-one Armenian nobles. It proceeds to state that “some of our co-religionists have been deceived by instigators coming from certain parts, and have been the cause of deplorable events and have committed crimes contrary to the wishes of his Imperial Majesty, and against the government of his Imperial Majesty—a government to be whose subject had been for six hundred years a title of glory to us, and through whose benevolence we were enjoying religious liberty and a self-government, the like of which cannot be found under any administration. This being so there remains no hope for us but the mercy of our august sovereign, who deigns to accept all classes of his subjects with a benevolence worthy of the greatest of monarchs.
“On the other hand, everlasting happiness for us consists in preserving our national existence in the shadow of the imperial government. We dare to commend ourselves to the humanity and benevolence of our sovereign, who is an object of admiration for the whole world, and we implore his pardon, taking refuge in that heavenly power bestowed upon him for the pardon of criminals.”
Such is an example of similar documents that were drawn up by local Turkish officials, in fulsome praise of the Porte’s humanity, and which the leading Armenians were compelled to sign, under threats of imprisonment and torture. These spurious testimonials, like the manufactured reports of outrages by Armenians, were designed to influence public opinion in Turkey’s favor.
Even the Porte, accustomed to distort facts, found itself no longer able to conceal from the world the pitiable condition of the Armenians.
In Erzeroum, where a large tract of country, from the lofty mountains of Devi Boyen to the Black Sea shore was laid waste and completely purged of Armenians, similar scenes were enacted. The vilayet of Van, the town of Hassankaleh, and numerous other places were deluged with blood, and polluted with unbridled lust. A man in Erzeroum, hearing the tumult, and fearing for his children, who were playing in the street, went out to seek and save them. He was borne down upon by the mob. He pleaded for his life, protesting that he had always lived in peace with his Moslem neighbors, and sincerely loved them. The statement may have represented a fact, or it may have been but a plea for pity. The ringleader, however, told him that that was the proper spirit, and would be condignly rewarded. The man was then stripped, and a chunk of his flesh cut out of his body, and jestingly offered for sale: “Good fresh meat, and dirt cheap,” exclaimed some of the crowd. “Who’ll buy fine dogs’ meat?” echoed the amused bystanders. The writhing wretch uttered piercing screams as some of the mob, who had just come from rifling the shops, opened a bottle, and poured vinegar or some acid into the gaping wound. He called on God and man to end his agonies. But they had only begun. Soon, afterwards, two little boys came up, the elder crying, “Hairik, Hairik, (Father, father,) save me! See what they’ve done to me!” and pointed to his head, from which the blood was streaming over his handsome face, and down his neck. The younger brother—a child of about three—was playing with a wooden toy. The agonizing man was silent for a second and then, glancing at these, his children, made a frantic but vain effort to snatch a dagger from a Turk by his side. This was the signal for the renewal of his torments. The bleeding boy was finally dashed with violence against the dying father, who began to lose strength and consciousness, and the two were then pounded to death where they lay. The younger child sat near, dabbling his wooden toy in the blood of his father and brother, and looking up, now through smiles at the prettily-dressed Kurds, and now through tears at the dust-begrimed thing that had lately been his father. A slash of a sabre wound up his short experience of God’s world, and the crowd turned its attention to others.
In Erzeroum about seven hundred houses and about fifteen thousand shops were plundered. The number of killed was never known, for there were many strangers in the city. The condition of the people was about as bad as that of the Sassoun people after the massacre. Between two thousand and three thousand people were destitute of fuel, bedding and food, and the majority had only the clothes they had on their backs.
The Government made a show of distributing the plunder collected from the barracks to the rightful owners, but the attempt was farcical.