During the four years after Adana, I spent most of my time in Constantinople, and I was constantly with the leaders of the Armenian race. Never once did I hear an Armenian ecclesiastic or other Armenian of weight and reputation speak against the Ottoman Government. I know positively that they were not working against the Ottoman Government. On the other hand, I am sure that the Turks knew they could count on the loyal support and co-operation of the Armenians. The Turks had proof of Armenian loyalty during the Italian war and the two Balkan wars. Armenians, enrolled in the Turkish army, fought bravely for the common fatherland beside their Moslem brethren. In the hour of danger and humiliation, the Armenians of Turkey stood by their fellow Ottoman subjects. They gave their blood for Turkey. Unlike the Ottoman Greeks, they could be suspected of no secret wishes for the success of the enemy.
It is unfair for the Ottoman Government to cite, as basis for its charges against its Armenian subjects, the fact that Armenians in large numbers are fighting in the Russian army. As a result of the war of 1877, Turkey was compelled to cede a portion of Armenia to Russia. The Armenians of these territories and of the Caucasus have been for nearly forty years under Russian rule, and are naturally, as Russian subjects, fighting against Turkey. In giving the fact that there are Armenians in the Russian armies as a reason for doubting the loyalty of the Armenians in Turkey, the Turks and their German apologists have traded upon European and American imperfect knowledge of the history and geography of the regions beyond Van. The formation of corps of Armenian volunteers in the Allied armies, and the open support of the cause of the Allies on the part of Armenian communities in France and Great Britain have been unfortunate. As individuals who have left Turkey, these exiled Armenians have a right to do as they choose, as communities, it would have been—it is now—better for them to keep quiet. Although they have no justification for doing so, the Turks and Germans have been using the manifestations made by these small communities outside of Turkey as reflecting the spirit and intentions of the Armenians in Turkey, and have succeeded in confusing many neutrals about the real facts of the Armenian situation.
If the Armenians, during the present massacres and forcible deportations, have in some places, as they did in Adana in 1909, defended, arms in hand, their homes and their loved ones, it has been only when the Ottoman Government failed them, and when they were convinced that their extermination had been decided upon. Even in these cases, as at Adana, when they received assurances of protection against local Moslem fanaticism from the Government at Constantinople, they trusted once more. In every instance of this kind—again let me remind my readers that I have authentic eye-witness testimony—their faith was betrayed. The Ottoman Government officials broke their word, and butchered the Armenians after they had laid down their arms.
With the possible exception of Van, there was no place where the Turks had the slightest ground for suspicion that the local attempt of the Armenians to defend their wives and children was in connivance with the enemy. And Van is only one of thirty centres of massacre and deportation in Asia Minor!
If the Ottoman Government has facts to establish its contention that the Armenians of Turkey were plotting against the security of the empire, let it lay these facts before the world.
CHAPTER III
The Preservation of the Armenian Element is Absolutely Indispensable to the Well-being and Prosperity of the Ottoman Empire. It has been Proved through Centuries that Christians and Moslems are Able to Live in Peace and Amity in Turkey, which is Equally the Country of Both.
ONE hesitates, on general principles, to attempt to advise, or to admonish, as to its best interests, a nation at war. In a life and death struggle such as this war has become, it would be naturally supposed that a nation and its rulers are the best judges of what it is to their interest to do. Advice from outside sources is open to the suspicion of being not disinterested. And does not admonition, if not sheer impertinence, betray impotence on the part of the admonisher?
But in the Ottoman Empire, the situation is different from that of any other country in Europe. There is not a sufficient number of educated men among the non-Christian elements of the Ottoman Empire to form, let alone to guide, public opinion. Consequently, there is no public opinion. The governing power has always been in the hands of a small and corrupt circle, and the Ottoman nation has not developed in self-government, in popular institutions, as have the other nations of Europe.
The new régime was hailed with joy by the outside world, and by the non-Moslem elements inside the empire as well, because the Constitution of 1908 was regarded as the starting point in a struggle of the people of the empire, irrespective of religion and race, against an absolutism that had in practice proved equally injurious, if not equally oppressive, to all the races subjected to the tyranny of Yildiz Kiosk.