Unfortunately the Turk never deigns to explain his own case, and thus the pro-Armenians always manage to hold the field, appalling the public by incessant reiteration and exaggeration as to the number of victims, and apparently valuing to its full extent the wisdom of the old Eastern proverb: Give a lie twenty-four hours’ start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it. Later on, when the true figures become available, only a very few inquisitive people realize the falsity of the earlier stories. Thus Lord Bryce, speaking in the House of Lords on October 6th, 1915, said that the information he had received went to show that 800,000[8] was a possible number of the Armenians destroyed since May last. By adding to this figure the 250,000 refugees in Russia for whom funds are requested, and 13,000 refugees in Egypt, we arrive at a grand total of 1,063,000 Armenians, while, according to Sir Charles Wilson, the total Armenian population of the nine Provinces most thickly populated by them is only 925,000, which he describes as an outside estimate. The total number of Arabs killed by the Italian newspapers in the Tripolitan war exceeded three times the population of the country. It would seem that the advocates of the Armenians are imitating the Italian Press.
An example of the most extraordinary reports anent the so-called massacres, furnished to and circulated through the English newspapers by Lord Bryce, is that of Mersina:
The number of Armenians sent from this city now totals about 25,000, and this in addition to the many thousands coming from the north that pass through.
Yet the total population of Mersina as given in the official returns for 1908 was 20,966 persons, of whom 11,246 were Moslems, 2,441 Jews, and the remaining 7,279 Christians of various sects, Greek, Armenian, Latin and Nestorian. How 25,000 Armenians could have been sent from Mersina out of a total Christian population of 7,279 (at least one half of whom were Greeks), is difficult to understand.
The Times report of Lord Bryce’s statement in the House of Lords quotes him as saying, that at Trebizond
the facts as to the slaughter were vouched for by the Italian Consul, who was there at the time. The Turkish authorities hunted out all the Christians, gathered them together and drove them down the streets to the sea. They were all put on sailing boats and carried out some distance into the Black Sea, and there thrown overboard and drowned; the whole Armenian population of from 8,000 to 10,000 was destroyed in that way in one afternoon.[9] After that any other story becomes credible.
Indeed any other story would be more credible. Consider (apart from the time that would be required for the collection and embarkation of the victims) the number of sailing boats necessary to carry 8,000 or 10,000 people “some distance” out to sea, even if the boats were able to make more than one journey! And still this was the preposterous story vouched for, according to Lord Bryce, by the Italian Consul, Signor Corrini, who was there at the time. Yet the account of the same event, as given in the Rome Messagero, is entirely different, the Consul being made to say that the banishment of Armenians under escort, and wholesale shootings in the streets, continued for a whole month, while there is nothing about the Armenians having been shipped out to sea and drowned en masse in one afternoon.
It is interesting to compare the original accounts relating to the number of Bulgarians killed in the popular risings of 1876 and of Armenians killed in the Sassun disturbances of 1896, with the subsequent official estimates.
Original Estimates.