“If you condemn the Sultan for that, you astonish me. The Armenians? Bah! They ought to be exterminated en masse, and the Sultan did an excellent piece of work when he got rid of them. I have no use for them. Besides,’ he continued, ‘can’t you see that a free Armenia would be a serious obstacle to Russian expansion and to our advance to the south and into Persia? Abdul Hamid has proved himself a very valuable ally of Russia. He is the best Ambassador at Constantinople that we’ve ever had.”—Note to 2nd printing.
[10] This statement is corroborated by Dr. George Washburn in his account of the Constantinople Massacre: “But the Concert of Europe did nothing. It accepted the situation. The Emperor of Germany went further. He sent a special embassy to present to the Sultan a portrait of his family as a token of his esteem.”—“Fifty Years in Constantinople,” George Washburn. (Note to 2nd printing.)
[11] Since these lines were written later accounts show that over a hundred thousand have been precipitated into homelessness and destitution, and this misery is growing greater every day.—Note to 2nd printing.
[12] “Transcaucasia and Ararat: Twenty Years of the Armenian Question,” James Bryce.—Note to 2nd printing.
[13] “The Strenuous Life: Expansion and Peace,” Theodore Roosevelt.—Note to 2nd printing.
[14] Edmund Burke—Speech in Parliament in opposition to Mr. Pitt, 1791.—Note to 2nd printing.
[15] Nakhitchvan—Invaded and seized by the Persian Monarch Shah Abbas in 1603. Taken from Persia by Russia in 1827.
[16] Erivan—Invaded and seized by the Persian monarch Shah Abbas in 1603. Taken from Persia by Russia 1827.
[17] The Hittites flourished in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C. King Aram completed his conquest of Cappadocia in B.C. 1796.
[18] The orthodox church of Armenia is the church founded by Gregory. Since the loss of their independence, persecution has scattered and dispersed the people, thousands fleeing from their native home sought refuge in other countries and in some cases they or their descendants have come under the influence of other churches; thus the Mukhitharian monks of the monastery of St. Lazar in Venice have been drawn into the Romish Church and their influence has been extended over a small minority of laymen; also the influence of the American Missionaries in Asiatic Turkey has drawn others into Protestantism, but the bulk of the nation has remained Gregorians. It is well to remark here however that the orthodox Church, although calling herself “The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” has devoted her energies mainly to upholding the essential principles of Christianity and has not concerned herself much about dogmas. As for the modern Armenians of the Gregorian Church their religious views are characterized by liberalism, they look to the central figure of Christianity and regard dogmas as immaterial: their jealousy of their church is only actuated by the passionate feeling of preserving nationalism. They regard their church as the ark in which nationalism may be preserved until the dawn of better days.