In the first outburst of righteous indignation that blazed out from all Europe, it seemed as if the Infidel Turkish Government condemned unanimously by the verdict of all nations for its crimes against God and humanity, would soon be swept out of Europe and that even its possessions in Asia Minor would be torn from its grasp and partitioned among civilized races.
Lord Salisbury, the British Premier, at a public dinner, made an address which plainly intimated that the patience of Europe was exhausted, and that the Sultan’s folly had sealed the doom of his own government, if not of the Ottoman Empire. Lord Salisbury recognized in the present condition of Turkey, the result of its offences against God. He said:
“Above all treaties, all combinations of the Powers, in the nature of things, is Providence. God, if you please to put it so, has determined that persistent and constant misgovernment must lead the government which follows it to its doom. The Sultan is not exempt any more than any other potentate from the law that injustice will bring the highest one on earth to ruin.”
These words sounded as if the Prime Minister really meant to do something to permanently better the condition of Christian Armenia, but in the light of after events it seemed that Lord Salisbury, after considerable reflection, concluded to let the Lord settle the account with Turkey without England’s intervention.
There was one man in Constantinople who played a mighty part in the life and death struggle between Christianity and Islam—Mattheos Ismirlian, the Armenian Patriarch, but great as was his influence, he was powerless to relieve the increasing mass of suffering and misery in all the provinces.
The story of Zeitoun, of its long and brave defence and of its final capitulation has been already told, but the distress which prevailed there was simply awful.
The five European Consuls who went to Zeitoun to negotiate for the submission of the Armenian insurgents telegraphed to their respective embassies that indescribable distress prevailed among the eight thousand refugees at that place. The sick, the dying and the dead were heaped together in all kinds of astonishing places where a little extra warmth was to be hoped for. Bitter cold prevailed and the women and girls were devoid of necessary clothing.
Although the inhabitants of Zeitoun gave up their arms, the refugees shrank from quitting the town through lack of confidence in the Turks. Only too well founded were their fears, as, a little while after this disarming, sixteen Zeitounlis were proceeding under the escort of one gendarme to Albistan to buy wheat or barley; they were suddenly fallen upon and nine of them were massacred.
It was an awful crime against humanity, the stupidest folly to put faith in the promises of the Turk where the welfare of a Christian was at stake.
Fifteen Armenian families were murdered by Kurds in the district of Tchabakeiour, Bitlis, because, having embraced Islamism, they returned to Christianity. The authorities declined to recognize them as Mohammedans, and are said even to have advised them to remain Christians. This exasperated the Kurds, who decided to exterminate them.