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

by Augustus Warner Williams; M. Smbat Gabrielean

The Turks did not find it hard to pick flaws in the plan of administrative reform when they did not intend to have any reform. The whole scheme was without any security against the renewal of the Sassoun massacres. Everybody who was interested in Armenia protested against the plan, but it was the best that mere diplomacy could do.

Thus the summer passed filled with plenty of promises, but without any fulfilment, until suddenly the signal was given and the horrors of Sassoun were reënacted throughout all the provinces of Armenia.

At a mass meeting of Armenians held in New York, free expression was given to the feeling of horror with which the news of the Turks’ outrages was received there. There seemed to be no doubt in the minds of these people as to the truth of the reports from Asia Minor, and many were of the opinion that still more terrible news would be received. Mr. Dionian presided, and in calling the meeting to order, said that Armenia and Turkey could never be friends, and that Armenia must either be liberated or annihilated.

Dr. P. Ayvard also spoke, and then Dr. S. Aparcian offered resolutions, which were unanimously adopted, saying in part:—

Resolved, That we most respectfully and appealingly call upon all the great Powers of Europe, and of our adopted and well loved country of America, to the deplorable condition of Armenia, and trust that the moral interests of Europe will demand taking immediate steps to put an end to this rule of anarchy and lawlessness prevailing there, and that the United States of America will give their moral support.

Knowing the Turk as they did, the Armenians in this country were prepared for the confirmation of these reports. In due time it came.

A prominent Turk laughed when he saw the report, and said it was a mere fabrication, and that if there was any slaughter it was not committed by the Turks. As to the Turks being opposed to the Armenians because of their being Christians, he said: “People who have lived in the Orient know that to be absurd. We have Christians and Jews among us, and as long as they obey the laws of the land they are treated the same as the members of our faith. Of course,” he added, “when people become revolutionists and conspire against our Government, then we take measures to punish them. The Armenians are revolutionists, and their revolutionary societies exist in every city in this country, while the head-centre is at Naples.”

The Turk laughed and blamed the Armenian revolutionists. The Porte denied the outrages at first then charged the trouble to the Armenians, until the terrible situation at Trebizond and Erzeroum could no longer be kept from the knowledge of Christendom. The prisons in Trebizond were filled with wounded and helpless Armenians: the Mohammedans were well armed and the governor entirely in sympathy with, even if not the instigator of the outrages.

Meanwhile the European manager of the United Press at Constantinople gave the first detailed account of the appalling massacres to which Armenian Christians had been subjected since the Sultan Abdul Hamid gave perfidious assent to the reforms demanded by the European Powers. The harrowing and shameful facts were told on the authority of American Christian men, who witnessed them, and their narrative had the unqualified endorsement of Mr. Terrell, the United States Minister to Turkey. In view of such conclusive testimony to the duplicity and faithlessness of an incorrigible ruler, it seems incredible that Christian peoples will let their rescuing hands be stayed any longer by sordid jealousy and greed, or that they will any longer consent to bear a share of the responsibility for such crimes against humanity. The blood of the slaughtered thousands of their fellow Christians in Armenia cries against them from the ground.

By this trustworthy evidence the conclusion was justified that within the six provinces mainly concerned in the proposed reforms, no fewer than fifteen thousand Armenians were assassinated, while the number of those rendered homeless and robbed of all their possessions, did not fall short of two hundred thousand. The places and dates exposed the aim of the hellish atrocities committed, and drove home the guilt to their authors and accomplices. On October 20, the Sultan authorized Kiamil Pasha, his Grand Vizier, to accept the reforms proposed for the Armenian provinces by the European Powers, and to promise that they should be forthwith carried out. On the next day, October 21, when there had been ample time for the reception of orders telegraphed from Constantinople, the Kurds and Turks throughout Armenia, openly incited and assisted by the regular troops, entered on a scheme of wholesale murder and devastation. The purpose of this preconcerted iniquity, as disclosed by its disgraceful antecedents and its horrible results, was to vent upon the helpless Armenians the venom and the spite engendered by enforced submission to the will of the Christian Powers. It was to enforce at one vindictive stroke the programme of extermination devised in 1890, but prosecuted hitherto with some show of secrecy and caution. It was to make of Armenia a solitude, and then with satanic mockery, to offer exact fulfilment of the pledge of peace and of reform.