The New Map of Europe (1911-1914) / The Story of the Recent European Diplomatic Crises and Wars and of Europe's Present Catastrophe

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

In the second place, Armenians, unlike the Greeks, the Macedonians, and the Arabs, had, as a race, no separatist tendencies. They were not looking towards another state to come and redeem them. They feared Russia. They were too scattered to hope to form, by the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, a state of their own. They loved the land in which they lived with all the passion of their nature. In many regions, Turkish was their native tongue. They were industrious tillers of the soil, as well as merchants. The Sultan could have had no more loyal subjects than these, had he so desired.

Although the composition of the new Parliament chosen in October, 1908, and of the first constitutional Cabinet, was a prophecy of how they were to be left out in the cold, the Armenians were throughout that winter, when the constitution was new, firm and loyal, as well as intelligent, supporters of regenerated Turkey. The wish was father to the thought. For them there was no longer the barrier of race and creed. All were Osmanlis, and willing to lose their identity in the politically amalgamated race. The reign of Abdul Hamid was a nightmare, quickly forgotten. The future was full of hope. If only the Young Turks had realized what a tremendous influence the Armenians could have played in the creation of New Turkey, if only they had been willing to use these allies, we might have been able to write a different history of the past few years in Europe.

But the awakening was to be cruel. It came in a region of the Empire that never before experienced the horrors of a general massacre, where Christians felt not only at ease, but on friendly terms with their Moslem neighbours.

On April 14, 1909, on a morning when the sun had risen upon the peaceful and happy city of Adana, out of a clear sky came the tragedy which was the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. Without provocation, the Moslem population began to attack and kill the Christians. The Governor of the province and his military officials not only did nothing whatever to stop the bloodshed, but they actually handed out arms and munitions to the blood-frenzied mob of peasants, who were pouring into the city. For three days, killing, looting, and burning of houses were aided by the authorities. The massacres spread west through the great Cilician plain to Tarsus, and east over the Amanus Range into northern Syria, as far as Antioch, where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. The world, horrified by the stories which soon made their way to the newspapers, realized that the "bloodless revolution" had not regenerated Turkey. The blood had come at last, and without the regeneration! The Great Powers sent their warships to Mersina, the port of Tarsus and Adana. Even from the distant United States came two cruisers, under pressure, over six thousand miles.

In the meantime, events of great importance, but not of equal significance in the future of Turkey, were taking place at Constantinople. On the eve of the first Adana massacre, Abdul Hamid, having corrupted the soldiers of the Constantinople garrison, set in motion a demonstration against the constitution. The soldiers shot down their officers in cold blood, marched to Yildiz Kiosk, and demanded of the Sultan the abolition of the constitution, which they declared was at variance with the Sheriat, the sacred law of Islam. Abdul Hamid gladly consented. Popular sympathy in Constantinople and throughout the Empire was with the Sultan, as far as the object of the revolution went. But the way in which it was brought about made it impossible for the Sultan to remain within the pale of civilization. Of all nations, none relied on its army more than Turkey. Were the assassination of the officers to go unpunished, the disintegration of the Empire necessarily followed. So the military hierarchy, "Old" Turks as well as "Young," rose against the Sultan. The army corps in Salonika under the command of Mahmud Shevket pasha, marched against the capital and with very little resistance mastered the mutiny of the Constantinople garrison. Abdul Hamid was deposed, and sent into exile at the Villa Alatini at Salonika. His brother, Reshid Mohammed, came to the throne, under the title of Mohammed V.

As soon as the Young Turks found themselves again in control of the situation, even before the proclamation of the new Sultan, they sent from Beirut to Adana a division of infantry to "re-establish order." These regiments disembarked at Mersina on the day Mohammed V ascended the throne, April 25th. Immediately upon their arrival in Adana they began a second massacre which was more horrible than the first. Thousands were shot and burned, and more than half the city was in ruins. This second massacre occurred in spite of the fact that a dozen foreign warships were by this time anchored in the harbour of Mersina.

It is impossible to estimate the losses of life and property in the vilayets of Cilicia and northern Syria during the last two weeks of April, 1908. Not less than thirty thousand Armenians were massacred. The losses of property in Adana alone were serious enough to cause the foremost fire insurance company in France to fight in the courts for two years the payments of its claims. But it is not in the realm of our work to follow out the local aftermath of this terrible story. We are interested here only in its bearing on the fortunes of the Empire and of Europe.

From the very beginning, the Young Turks, now re-established in Constantinople with a Sultan of their own creation, and having nothing more to fear from the genius and bad will of Abdul Hamid, protested before Europe that the massacres were due to the old régime and that they had been arranged by Abdul Hamid, whose deposition cleared them of responsibility. But the revelations of the New York Herald, the Tribuna of Rome, and the Berliner Tageblatt, translated and reprinted in the British, French, and Russian press, were so moving that it was necessary for the Young Turks to send special commissions to the capitals of Europe to counteract the impression of these articles.

Europe was willing to accept the explanation of the Constantinople Cabinet, and to continue its faith, though shaken, in the intentions of the Young Turks to grant to the Christians of Turkey the régime of equality and security of life and property which the constitution guaranteed. Even the Armenians, terrible as this blow had been, were also willing to forgive and forget. But the condition of forgiveness, and the proof of sincerity of the declarations of the Young Turks, both to the outside world and to the Armenians, would be the punishment of those who had been guilty of this most horrible blot upon the civilization of the twentieth century. This was to be the test.