The Armenians even went so far as to speak Turkish among themselves, and their present language contains numerous Turkish words (to the extent of almost forty per cent.), and though Kurds and Zaptiehs perhaps rendered life at times a little too eventful, on the whole the “Sarafs” or money changers gained more than brigands and tax-collectors combined. The balance of wealth certainly remained with the Christians. The Turks Seated them with good humoured confidence and the phrase “millet-i-sadika,” the loyal community, was regularly applied to them.
The toleration of the Government and the friendly relations which existed at that time between the Turks and the Armenians, as described by ‘Odysseus,’ is fully corroborated by the following passages from Mr. Geary’s book “Through Asiatic Turkey”:
The Chief of the Dominican Mission, a very enlightened man who has been for some years resident in Mosul, did not share these misgivings. He did not consider that he ran any risk of losing his life through Mahommedan fanaticism. As for the Government, he said that the religious toleration enjoyed under it was complete. It never in any way interfered with what the Christians did or taught in the schools or the churches. It was impossible to desire more absolute liberty of worship or teaching. But in civil administration there was great scope for improvement, and, indeed, an absolute necessity for it. The laws were good, but they were not steadily applied. The laxity and want of thoroughness which characterised every department were inexplicable and allowed even the best conceived measures to result in mischief.... We found the village of Krelani to be one of considerable size: the inhabitants being half Christian and half Mohammedan. Religious differences seemed to be completely disregarded, Christian and Moslem being on the most friendly terms. The chief men of both sections were sitting in a little circle in front of the Kahia’s house when we arrived, and they rose and saluted me very civilly.... I can only say, that if there be any bigotry amongst these people, I saw no manifestation of it throughout my long journey: I could not have been received with greater courtesy if I had been myself a True Believer.... He is a very strict Mussulman, though, like most Turks, whether strict or not, he is very tolerant.
It should be observed that the Armenians as a race are considerably scattered. The original territory known as Armenia having been annexed by Russia, Persia, and Turkey, the bulk of the Armenian population is divided between these three Powers. They are estimated to number in Russia about 1,000,000, in Persia 150,000, and in Turkey, including Salonika and the lost European Provinces, 1,500,000. In addition to these there are about 250,000 Armenians scattered through Europe, America, the East Indies and Egypt. As we shall subsequently see, all the troubles originated from outside and not in Kurdistan itself. The first disturbing element, in the opinion of ‘Odysseus,’ was the arrival of a number of Protestant and other foreign missionaries. This judgment, disappointing as it must be to many who are deeply interested in the religious side of missionary work, is amply corroborated by Sir Edwin Pears, who admits in his book, “Forty Years in Constantinople,” that “In a very real sense it may be said that the fomenters of political agitation in Armenia, as in Bulgaria, were the schoolmasters and the missions, Catholic or Protestant.” These good men, as we are told by Sir Mark Sykes, in his interesting and most important work entitled “Dar-ul-Islam,” soon found that
It was as impossible to turn an Oriental Moslem into a Christian, as it would be to transform an English Christian into a Jew; hence their missionary effort was confined to turning one kind of Christian into some other kind.[2] Large sums of money were spent in transforming a Jacobite into a little Bethel Peculiar Anabaptist, in converting the little Bethel Anabaptist né Jacobite to Roman Catholicism, and in reforming the Roman Catholic late little Bethel Peculiar Anabaptist né Jacobite into an American Keswickian Presbyterian.
But the process of turning a Jacobite into an American Keswickian Presbyterian spoilt a good Oriental and made him a discontented and semi-europeanised Asiatic.
The first Armenian converts to Protestantism were subjected to fierce persecutions by their fellow Armenians who clung to their old form of faith, and for their protection from this persistent annoyance and cruelty the Sultan about 1857 issued an iradé recognizing the Protestants as a separate religious community independent from the Orthodox Armenian Church and free from any interference by its officials.
The second disturbing factor were the clauses inserted, at the request of Russia, in the Berlin Treaty of July 13th, 1878, whereby the six signatory Powers acquired the right of superintendence and interference in the internal affairs of Kurdistan. The clauses of this treaty imbued the Armenians with the idea that they were entitled to the grant of special privileges from the Porte, and this was easily fomented into the notion of founding an Armenian kingdom, or at least an Armenian autonomous state. These ideas were further encouraged by the formation of the Bulgarian Principality and by the foundation in London in the year 1890 of the Anglo-Armenian Society “whose laudable object was hampered by their invincible ignorance of the spirit and methods of the East.”[3]
The third disturbing element was the development, after the Russo-Turkish war, of the Nihilist movement in Russia. The persecuted Armenians of the Caucasus readily entered into the conspiracy, the Armenian branch of which had its headquarters at Tiflis.