In ancient days they lived within fluctuating frontiers, under several dynasties, probably a primitive race of shepherds, until Alexander the Great passed through their country in 328 B.C. and brought them into contact with the great world. After Alexander’s fleeting visit they broke up into several small states, and were hardly conscious of political life; they certainly formed no political entity. Thus they were easily absorbed into the Roman Empire, under Lucullus and Pompey, what time those great men passed through Armenia on their campaigns against the Tigranes. They were only nominally under Roman domination, actually they were a prey to any despot who arose out of the prevailing anarchy to call himself King and establish some semblance of order. One of those monarchs marked the temporary union of those sons of Japheth by a massacre of Romans.
The gradual rise of Persian power affected Haiasdan, which was absorbed by Persian Shahs of the Sassanid dynasty, one of whom defeated the Emperor Valerian. But Diocletian broke Persian rule in Armenia, and set up Tiridales as King over its people. This King looked with disfavour upon Christianity, which had recently come to the people of Armenia, and imprisoned its apostle, St. Gregory the Illuminator, in a dry well for the space of fourteen years, during which protracted period the light dawned upon Tiridales, and he too became converted.
The Persians became sufficiently powerful to take Armenia away from the Eastern Empire in the reign of Theodosius II, and appointed native governors over their new province, Persarmenia. When Islam spread over Asia Minor, Armenia was torn in pieces during the wars between that force and the Emperor of Byzant, then became united under the dynasty of one Ruben, and by alliances with the encroaching Mongols, with the Crusaders, and Imperial Byzant, contrived to maintain some semblance of independence. But fate overtook this unhappy people when Ghevout was King over them, and had to abandon the struggle against the might of Islam, ending his days as exile in Paris towards the end of the fourteenth century. Ever since then clouds of troubles have hung heavily over the Armenians, bursting in furious storms of Moslem fanaticism, drenching the land with the blood of Christians, for those children of Japheth never could unite for purposes of self-preservation, and have therefore been made to suffer whenever the Ottoman arms or policy met with ill-success in other parts of the Turkish Empire.
Like the sons of Shem these descendants of Japheth are most tenacious of their faith, their speech, written in Cyrillic script, and their ancient customs, but they have shown little taste for les belles lettres, and have added little to the world’s store of literature. Again, like the Jews, they have a great gift for commerce and affairs of state; several Armenians rose to high estate in the Byzantine Empire, witness Leo V, one of the great Emperors of the East.
The Armenians were never in complete sympathy with the Greek Orthodox Church, and separated from it early in the history of the Greek Empire; their country was so far removed from the influence of Constantinople, and linguistic difficulties widened the breach caused by the failure of the delegates from the Armenian communities in attending the Councils of the Eastern Church. In many matters of ritual and observance the divergence became more marked, and as the Armenians laid more stress on retaining these than on combined action against their Moslem rulers and the enemies of the Christian faith, subsequent efforts at reconciliation have proved abortive.
The Armenians, through their lack of political solidarity, have always been exposed to aggression from the fierce tribes beyond their elastic frontiers, and of these the Kurds were the most formidable. The Kurds are a race of Iranian extraction, speaking a Persian dialect, and, whether settled on the lands of other races, or wandering at large in them as nomads, have ever proved troublesome as neighbours. The Armenians thought to protect themselves by entering into an understanding with these people, and by putting themselves under the protection of the Kurds, chiefly in the eastern provinces of the district inhabited by the sons of Japheth. The Kurds had their own notions of protection, which they expressed by frequent robbery and pillage, varied by an occasional massacre. The Turkish authorities, who had but a feeble hold over the Kurds, seldom interfered in the interests of Christian subjects; moreover, these latter were seldom at one, as instanced by the constant friction between the Armenians and the Georgians whose ancient Church was influenced by Rome in the time of the Crusaders, and has in recent years been almost entirely absorbed into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church.
When Peter the Great ruled over Russia, and again during the reign of Catherine II, attempts were made, chiefly through external agencies, to arouse nationalist aspirations among the Armenians. A college was opened in Paris, and endeavoured to consolidate Armenian interests and to make the voice of this people heard and considered in Constantinople. But the Turks were not alarmed at this, as they well knew the Armenian incapacity for concerted action, and had no reason to think an understanding between them and the Phanar a likely event. So enthusiasm subsided, and the Armenians, in spite of the peculiar protection afforded them by the Kurds, and the arbitrary methods of Turkish tax-gatherers, lived at peace with the Porte and prospered greatly.
Though the last Russo-Turkish war raised no particular enthusiasm among the Armenians, the Turks thought fit to take precautions against them, and resorted to massacres, so that the treaty-makers of S. Stefano insisted on the insertion of a clause safeguarding Armenian interests against the reprisals of Kurds and Circassians. A number of Armenians had settled in Russia, others belonged to those who lived in that part of their former country long since annexed by Russia, and these people took kindly to nihilism, forming secret societies to foster their ambitions and make propaganda. Secret societies, whatever their object, have always been a terror to the Porte, so Turkish feeling towards the Armenians underwent a change.
The Turks, themselves afraid of massacre at the hands of the Armenians, met any such possibility by massacring Armenians, and thus commenced that series of atrocities which induced the Great Powers of Europe to intervene. This made the situation worse: Musa Bey, the notorious bandit chief, was indeed summoned to Constantinople to answer for his share in the lurid transactions, was tried before a Turkish Court, which found him guiltless of all blame, and eventually acquitted, even commended him for his behaviour. Thereupon Armenian Churches were desecrated as suspected of being secret armouries, and a small massacre, only some fifteen killed, attended this exhibition of Turkish policy. The Armenian Patriarch, Ashikian, lodged a protest with the Porte in 1890, and three years later the college of Marsovan was burnt amidst scenes of horror. Four years later a massacre on a large scale was arranged and executed; nine hundred Armenians of the mountainous Sasun district were murdered, because the tax-gatherers had so far been unable to penetrate into that almost inaccessible region. The Armenians pointed out that if they were protected from the Kurds a tax-collector’s visit might be worth the while, as matters stood the Kurds had left nothing taxable.
By this time the Armenian problem had become acute, and Abdul Hamid could think of no other method of solving it than by exterminating the people who had provoked it by their mere existence. So massacres became a recognized feature of the Armenian question, even those who lived in Constantinople were not spared, the capital and other towns, Erzeroum, Diabekr, Bitlis, all contributing, until the number of victims to this system of statecraft amounted to about twenty-five thousand. To these must be added many who escaped the sword to perish from cold, hunger, and exposure in the following winter.