Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

We have no time to follow the war as carried on in Armenia, but on November 17–18, the city and fortress of Kars was carried by assault, and the Russian officers remembering how the fanatical Turks had tortured and killed the wounded soldiers that had fallen into their cruel hands, expressed the fear lest their excited soldiers might put aside feelings of humanity and inflict summary vengeance.

But contrary to all expectations, Cossack and Russian put aside all thought of personal revenge; and not a single civilian was killed or insulted, and not a woman had to complain of insult or outrage. These facts are stated for the sake of those who may have thought that there is little to choose between the semi-barbarous hordes of Russia (as they call them) and the armies of Turks, Kurds and Circassians.

Another fact regarding the religious sentiment of the Russian peasant transformed into a soldier. A Frenchman who was at Plevna with the officers of the Commander-in-chief’s staff thus writes of Skobeleff: “He is a magnificent looking soldier, almost as tall as the Emperor. * * On the battlefield he is brave as a lion. * * * When ordering a retreat, he sheathes his sword, sends his white charger to the front and remains on foot, the last man in the rear, saying; ‘They may kill me if they like, but they shall not harm my horse unless he is advancing against the enemy.’ He has never quitted a battlefield without carrying off his wounded (unless in such retreat as from the third assault on Plevna), nor has he ever after a battle gone to rest without making an address to his men, and writing his own report to the commander-in-chief. He is adored by his soldiers. * * He is highly educated and a sincerely religious man. ‘No man can feel comfortable in facing death’ he has been heard to say ‘who does not believe in God and have hope of a life to come.’ Each evening in the camp he stood bareheaded taking part in the evening service which was chanted by fifty or sixty of his soldiers. * If the people of Paris who shed tears over the Miserére in Trovatore, could hear these simple soldiers in the presence of death addressing prayers and praises to the Almighty Father with their whole hearts, they would find it far more moving. Skobeleff is as distinguished for his modesty as his bravery. ‘My children,’ he says to his soldiers, ‘I wear these crosses, but it is you who have won them for me.’”

Attention is called to these things that you can compare for yourselves the morale of the Russian army with its reverence for woman and for God, with the grossness and corruption and wickedness that prevails in the mixed multitudes that form the soldiers of Islam.

Who is not touched by the deep sincerity of that word in his first address to his army, “while you are fighting I shall pray for you.”

So deep was his interest in the war that he could not content himself in St. Petersburg but felt that his place was on the Danube. When he reached the seat of war he assumed no command, but he endeavored to inform himself about everything. The failures before Plevna greatly troubled him. “If we lose I will never return to Russia. I will die here with my brave soldiers.” Hence it was with more than usual emotion that the Emperor reviewed the troops, seventy thousand men, at Plevna a few days after its fall.

The troops were drawn up in two lines of quarter columns at intervals of ten paces between regiments. The second line was about fifty paces in rear of the first. He embraced the Generals, greeted the officers and then accompanied by the Grand Duke and Prince Charles, attended by a brilliant staff, he passed down the front line and back by the second. His reception was most enthusiastic, every regiment cheering the moment it caught sight of the white flag with the ornamental cross that denoted the Emperor’s presence; and nothing could be more impressive than the enormous volume of sound produced by the triumphant cheers of seventy thousand men.

In a few days Skobeleff’s division was to cross the Balkans by a pass leading to Senova while the main army was to take the Shipka Pass. One order he gave caused much amusement among his brother officers. Each man of his division was ordered to carry a log of wood with him. “What will he think of next?” said some one. “If Skobeleff has ordered,” said the Grand Duke Nicholas, “he has some good reason for it.”

He had a good reason. There was no wood on the summit of the Balkans. He wanted his men to have three hot meals a day. And in consequence of his precautions not one man of his division arrived disabled or frozen on the other side; not one had straggled, and the only two who were lost had slipped and fallen over a precipice. The soldiers who crossed the Shipka Pass suffered frightfully. The passage to Senova was an awful journey. The men had to break their way through great snowdrifts. They had to drag their cannon on sledges by hand, but on the third day they descended into the Valley of Roses in splendid form.

In the battles that raged during the next few days Skobeleff was uniformly successful, and the regiments coming down the Shipka Pass went right into the thick of the fight. At last the Turks put out two white flags. The Pashas surrendered themselves and their whole army—thirty-five thousand men and one hundred and thirteen guns were given up.