I had suggested that particular Americans should go to Tarsus and Marsovan.
“If they should go there, I am afraid that the local people in those cities would become angry and they would be inclined to start some disturbance which might create an incident. It is better for the Armenians themselves, therefore, that the American missionaries should keep away from them.”
“But you are ruining the country economically,” I said at another time, making the same point that I had made to Talaat. And he answered it in almost the same words, thus showing that the subject had been completely canvassed by the ruling powers.
“Economic considerations are of no importance at this time. The only important thing is to win. That’s the only thing we have on our mind. If we win, everything will be all right; if we lose, everything will be all wrong anyhow. Our situation is desperate, I admit it, and we are fighting as desperate men fight. We are not going to let the Armenians attack us in the rear.”
The question of relief to the starving Armenians became every week a more pressing one, but Enver still insisted that Americans should keep away from the Armenian provinces.
“How can we furnish bread to the Armenians,” Enver declared, “when we can’t get enough for our own people? I know that they are suffering and that it is quite likely that they cannot get bread at all this coming winter. But we have the utmost difficulty in getting flour and clothing right here in Constantinople.”
I said that I had the money and that American missionaries were anxious to go and use it for the benefit of the refugees.
“We don’t want the Americans to feed the Armenians,” he flatly replied. “That is one of the worst things that could happen to them. I have already said that it is their belief that they have friends in other countries which leads them to oppose the Government and so brings down upon them all their miseries. If you Americans begin to distribute food and clothing among them, they will then think that they have powerful friends in the United States. This will encourage them to rebellion again and then we shall have to punish them still more. If you will give such money as you have received to the Turks, we shall see that it is used for the benefit of the Armenians.”
Enver made this proposal with a straight face, and he made it not only on this occasion but on several others. At the very moment that Enver suggested this mechanism of relief, the Turkish gendarmes and the Turkish officials were not only robbing the Armenians of all their household possessions, of all their food and all their money, but they were even stripping women of their last shreds of clothing and prodding their naked bodies with bayonets as they staggered across the burning desert. And the Minister of War now proposed that we give our American money to these same guardians of the law for distribution among their charges! However, I had to be tactful.
“If you or other heads of the Government would become personally responsible for the distribution,” I said, “of course we would be glad to entrust the money to you. But naturally you would not expect us to give this money to the men who have been killing the Armenians and outraging their women.”