Crescent and Iron Cross

by E. F. Benson

It is impossible to leave this heart-rending tale of the sufferings of the Armenian people under the Turks without some account of that devoted band of American missionaries who, with a heroism unsurpassed, and perhaps unequalled, so eagerly sacrificed themselves to the ravages of pestilence and starvation in order to alleviate the horrors that descended on the people to whom they had been sent. Often they were forcibly driven from the care of their flocks, often in the extermination of their flocks there was none left whom they could shepherd, but wherever a remnant still lingered there remained these dauntless and self-sacrificing men and women, regardless of everything except the cause to which they had devoted themselves. They recked nothing of the dangers to which they exposed themselves so long as there was a child or a woman or a man whom they could feed or nurse. Terrible as were the sufferings through which the Armenians passed, they must have been infinitely more unbearable had it not been for these American missionaries; small as was the remnant that escaped into the safety of Persia or Russian Trans-Caucasia, their numbers must have been halved had it not been for the heroism of these men and women. While the German Consuls contented themselves with a few faint protests to their Ambassador at Constantinople, followed by an acquiescence of silence, the missionaries constituted themselves into a Red Cross Society of intrepid workers, and, as one well-qualified authority tells us, 'suffered as many casualties from typhus and physical exhaustion as any proportionate body of workers on the European battlefields.' Fully indeed did they live up to the mandate of the American board that sent them out: 'Your great business is with the fundamental doctrines and duties of the Gospel.'

At the opening of the European War the American Missions had been at work for nearly a hundred years, and were disseminated over Anatolia and Armenia. They had opened 163 Protestant churches and 450 schools, they established hospitals, and in every possible way spread civilisation in a country where the spirit of the governing class was barbarism. It was not their object to proselytise. 'Let the Armenian remain an Armenian if he will,' so ran the instructions from which I have already quoted, 'the Greek a Greek, the Nestorian a Nestorian, the Oriental an Oriental,' and in the same wise and open-minded spirit they encouraged native Protestant Churches which were independent of them and largely self-supporting. Naturally in a country governed by monsters like Abdul Hamid and Enver Pasha in later days, they earned the enmity which is the tribute of barbarians to those who stand for civilisation, and when, owing to the extermination or flight of their Armenian flocks, they were left without a charge, and their schools were closed, we find a paean of self-congratulation going up from the Turkish press inspired by the butchers of Armenia. But till the massacres and the flight were complete, they gave themselves to the 'duties of the Gospel,' and their deeds shine like a star into the blackness of that night of murder.

I will take as an example of the superb heroism of those men and women the diary of an American lady attached to the mission at Urmia, a document that, anonymously, is one of the noblest, least self-conscious records I have ever read. The period of it extends over five months.

Early in January 1915 the Russian troops were withdrawn from Urmia, which lies on the frontier between Turkey and Persia, and simultaneously the Moslem population began to plunder the Christian villages, the inhabitants of which fled for refuge to the missions in the city. Talaat's official murder-scheme was not completed yet, but the Kurds, together with the Turks, had planned a local massacre at Geogtapa, which was stopped by the American doctor of this mission, Dr. Packard, who, at great personal risk, obtained an interview with the Kurdish chief, and succeeded in inducing him to spare the lives of the Christians, if they gave up arms and ammunition and property. The American flag was hoisted over the Mission buildings, and before a week was out there were over ten thousand refugees housed in the yards and rooms, where they remained for five months, the places of the dead being taken by fresh influxes. The dining-room, the sitting-room, the church, the school, were all given over to these destitute people, and from the beginning fear of massacre, as well as prevalence of disease, haunted the camp. It was impossible to move dead bodies outside; they had to be buried in the thronged yards, and every day children were born. But here is the spirit that animated their protectors. 'We have just had a Praise meeting,' records the diarist at the close of the first fortnight, 'with fifty or sixty we could gather from the halls and rooms near, and we feel more cheerful. We thought if Paul and Silas, with their stripes, could sing praises in prison, so could we.'

The weeks, of which each day was a procession of hours too full of work to leave time for anxiety, began to enrol themselves into months, and the hope of rescue by a Russian advance made their hearts sick, so long was it deferred. Refugees from neighbouring villages kept arriving, and there was the constant problem before these devoted friends of their flock, as to how to feed them. All such were welcome, and eager was the welcome they received, though every foot of space in the buildings and in the yards was occupied. But somehow they managed to make room for all who came, and for those villagers who, under threat of torture and massacre, had apostatised, there was but yearning and sorrow, but never a word of blame or bitterness. Sometimes there was a visit of Turkish troops to search for concealed Russians, and, as our diarist remarks, 'We can't complain of the monotony of life, for we never know what is going to happen next. On Tuesday morning we had a wedding in my room here. The boy and girl were simple villagers.... The wedding was fixed for the Syrian New Year, but the Kurds came and carried off wedding clothes and everything else in the house. They all fled here, and were married in the old dirty garments they were wearing when they ran for their lives.... Their only present was a little tea and sugar that I tied up in a handkerchief and gave to the bride.'

The eternal feminine and the eternal human speak there; and there, for this gallantest of women, were two keys that locked up the endless troubles and anxieties that ceased not day or night. But sometimes the flesh was weak, and in the privacy of her diary she says, 'How long, O Lord?' But for that there was the master-key that unlocks all wards, and a little further on we read, 'One of the verses that helps to keep my faith steady is, "He that spared not His own Son." For weeks we have had no word from the outside world, but we "rest in Jehovah and wait patiently for Him."'

The conditions inside the crowded yards grew steadily worse. Dysentery was rife, and the deaths from it in that narrow space averaged thirty a day. The state of the sufferers grew so terrible that it was difficult to get any one to look after them at all, and many were lying in the open yards, and the weather, which hitherto had been warm, got cold, and snow fell. It was with the greatest difficulty that food could be obtained for those in health, and that of a kind utterly unsuitable to the sick, while in the minds of their nurses was the bitter knowledge that with proper diet hundreds of lives could have been saved, and hundreds of cases of illness avoided.

For the dead there was but a small percentage of coffins available, and 'the great mass are just dropped into the great trench of rotting humanity (in the yard). As I stand at my window I see one after another of the little bodies carried by ... and the condition of the living is more pitiful than that of the dead--hungry, ragged, dirty, sick, cold, wet, swarming with vermin. Not for all the wealth of all the rulers of Europe would I bear for one hour their responsibility for the suffering and misery of this one little corner of the world alone. A helpless unarmed Christian community turned over to the sword and the passion of Islam!'

On the top of this came an epidemic of typhoid, twenty-seven cases on the first day. Outside in the town the Turkish Consul began hanging Christians, and the missioners were allowed to take the bodies and bury them. There were threats that the mission would be entered, and all young men (possible combatants) killed, but this fear was not realised. The typhoid increased, and the doctor of the mission and others of the staff fell ill with it; but the patience and service of the remainder never faltered, while the same spirit of uncomplaining suffering animated the refugees. 'Mr. McDowell,' so the diarist relates, 'saw a tired and weary woman with a baby in her arms, sitting in one of the seats, and said to her, "Where do you stay?" She said "Just here." "How long have you been here?" "Since the beginning." (two months) she replied. "How do you sleep at night?" "I lay the baby on the desk in front of me, and I have this post at the back to lean against. This is a very good place. Thank you very much."'

In April there comes a break in the diary after the day on which the following entry is made:--