“How many Armenians in the southern provinces are in need of help?” I asked.
“I do not know; I would not give you even an approximate figure.”
“Are there several hundred thousand?”
“I should think so,” Halil admitted, “but I cannot say how many hundred thousand.
“A great many suffered,” he added, “simply because Enver could not spare troops to defend them. Some regular troops did accompany them and these behaved very well; forty even lost their lives defending the Armenians. But we had to withdraw most of the gendarmes for service in the Army and put in a new lot to accompany the Armenians. It is true that these gendarmes committed many deplorable excesses.”
“A great many Turks do not approve these measures,” I said.
“I do not deny it,” replied the ever-accommodating Halil, as he bowed himself out.
Enver, Halil, and the rest were ever insistent on the point which they constantly raised, that no foreigners should furnish relief to the Armenians. A few days after this visit the Under-Secretary of State called at the American Embassy. He came to deliver a message from Djemal to Enver. Djemal, who then had jurisdiction over the Christians in Syria, was much annoyed at the interest which the American Consuls were displaying in the Armenians. He now asked me to order these officials “to stop busying themselves in Armenian affairs.” Djemal could not distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, this messenger said, and so had to punish them all! Some time afterward Halil complained to me that the American Consuls were sending facts about the Armenians to America and that the Government insisted that they should be stopped.
As a matter of fact, I was myself sending most of this information, and I did not stop.