Ambassador von Wangenheim declared to Ambassador Morgenthau at Constantinople that Germany could not, upon request of the United States, intervene in the internal affairs of Turkey. Ambassador von Bernstorff at Washington, when he saw what a painful impression the newspaper accounts of the Armenian atrocities were producing on the American public, at first denied that there had been massacres, and, later, when it was impossible to maintain his denial in face of established facts, declared that what had happened in Turkey was a perfectly justifiable suppression of Armenian rebellions.
In one large city of Asiatic Turkey, an American missionary, a man whom I know personally and whose word can be trusted implicitly, saw a German officer directing the artillery fire of the Turks upon the Armenian civilian population. In two other places, at least, German consuls defended the Ottoman policy both of massacre and of deportation.
On the broader and more general moral ground of responsibility as brother’s keeper, the German, who alone of all European nations have had, and still have the power to stop these massacres, stand condemned. It is going to be difficult for their writers, who have been foremost in extolling the Armenian race, its virtues, and its contributions to civilization, to defend to the satisfaction of posterity the inertia of the German Government in the face of the extermination of the Armenian nation.
That they kept quiet, and refused to act, when they alone could have saved the Armenians from destruction, is the first count in the case against the Germans. It is serious. The second count is sinister.
When we try to find the purpose behind the Armenian massacres, we are confronted with what is, under the circumstances, an eloquent accusation against the German Government and the German people. The Germans, and the Germans alone, will benefit by the extermination of the Armenians. I have pointed out above how the Armenians are the essential factor, the guarantee indeed, of Turkish economic and political independence in Asia Minor. By the same token, they appear to be a stumbling-block to German domination. The Armenians, largely educated in French and American schools, speak French and English. Through their commercial relations with western Europe and America, with England most of all, they have naturally been “in the way” of the German commercial travellers. As the one commercial and agricultural element in the interior of Asia Minor, capable of holding its own against a penetration of European colonists, the Armenians are “in the way” of the schemes for the Germanization of Anatolia. It was not for the Bagdad Railway alone, but also for all that the Bagdad Railway implied, that Kaiser Wilhelm II. fraternized with Abdul Hamid, after the massacres of Armenians in 1895 and 1896.
I have not the slightest desire to be unfair to Germans as individuals, or to insinuate what cannot reasonably be proved to be in the German mind. Enlightened nations, however, are certainly responsible for the acts of their Governments. The Germans have assumed the responsibility for many terrible things in this war. They may hope, when passions have died down and both sides are known, to clear themselves of some charges. But there is no hope in regard to the charge of allowing the extermination of the Armenians—a crime by which they alone could hope to benefit.
CONCLUSION
AND now, in conclusion, let me pose frankly this question: Have neutral nations any responsibility in regard to the Armenians?
For neutral nations in general, the answer depends upon whether the influence and action of a nation ought to be confined wholly to internal affairs. Those who give to their own conscience and to God the answer of Cain, say frankly: “No, we are not our brother’s keeper. We have all that we can do to look after ourselves.” If this type of mentality had controlled the councils of the nations throughout the past twenty centuries, would there be a Christian civilization? Would history be able to record a single altruistic deed to a nation’s credit? Would slavery ever have been abolished? The other type is composed of those who believe that man does not live by bread alone, or for himself alone, and that nations, as well as individuals, have responsibilities towards others—especially if those others are weak and oppressed.
Let us leave wholly to one side the argument of higher morality, this abstract, intangible argument, which, when urged, causes many to shrug their shoulders and smile. Let us come to the concrete reason for the direct responsibility of two nations to intervene on behalf of the Armenians. Among neutral and passive onlookers, who have been silent while the darkest page of modern history is being written, the Americans and Swiss should not forget that their money and their representatives have been working for two generations in Turkey to elevate the Armenians. Together with French, British, Germans, and Italians, the Americans and Swiss have helped to reawaken the national spirit of the Armenian nation. They have infused new life into the Armenian Church. They have made researches into Armenian history and have given to the world the results of those researches. They have taught the Armenians European languages, and have imparted to a race that had become ignorant and backward, because separated from Europe, the spirit of Occidental civilization. Were they seeking out victims to deck with garlands for the sacrifice? Were they fatting the calf for the slaughter? Do not say no! For the practical result of their efforts to elevate the Armenian race is that long journey from home to the Valley of the Euphrates—now become the Valley of Death.