From then until 1918 they had endured all the horrors and vicissitudes of war, with its fluctuations of victory and defeat. The Christian army had put up a brave fight against the Turks after the final Russian withdrawal from North-Western Persia. Now, hemmed in and suffering from hunger, they were about to attempt a third exodus, this time towards the South into the British lines.
During the last week in July the Christian army—probably about 10,000 fighting men, but with its ranks swelled to 30,000 by women and children refugees—withdrew from Urumia and marched southwards. The Turks gave pursuit and much harried their rearguard, which they subjected to artillery fire, inflicting severe losses. Ultimately the retreat under Turkish pressure degenerated into a rout, during which the mass of fugitives was severely cut up. In the course of the panic which prevailed, the Nestorian Army lost its artillery and its remaining supplies, while many of the women and children were abandoned in the general sauve qui pent, and fell into the hands of the enemy.
The Turks reoccupied Urumia on August 1st, and vented their displeasure upon the defenceless people in the customary Turkish way. The aged were killed, and young girls were carried off and subjected to a fate worse than death.
Mgr. Sontag, the head of the French Lazarist Mission, a saintly man who was revered even by the local Moslems amongst whom he had lived for many years, was one of those who fell victims to the blind fury of the Turkish soldiery when they found themselves once more masters of Urumia.
At Sain Kaleh and Takan Teppeh, to the north-west of Bijar, the British were able to intervene between pursuers and pursued. The Nestorians, a sadly diminished band, were drafted back to Bijar and thence south to Hamadan. Harbouring vindictive feelings against Moslems in general as a result of the atrocities perpetuated upon them by the Turks, it is not perhaps surprising that they in their turn made an onslaught upon the inhabitants of the Persian villages encountered en route, and left them in much the same condition as the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves.
Mar Shimun, the spiritual head, and Agha Petros, the recognized military leader, accompanied the Nestorians from Urumia. The survivors of the exodus were put in a concentration camp at Hamadan with their women and children. The able-bodied and healthy amongst the men were subsequently drafted out and sent to Bakuba near Bagdad, where an attempt was made by the British to organize and train them into fighting units. They received good pay and rations, but proved very difficult material to handle. Their wild, free lives had apparently unfitted them for a régime of discipline and ordered restraint. A large contingent refused to sign attestation papers lest they should be sent to fight overseas. It was useless attempting to reassure them on this point, and to tell them that all the military service they were expected to render in return for British pay and British rations was that of defending their own country against the common enemy, the Turk. It may be that their physical sufferings had demoralized them, but the irregulars of Agha Petros were incapable of attaining an ordinary degree of military efficiency as judged by British standards. They were a perpetual source of embarrassment to the British officers entrusted with their training. The experiment proved a failure, and at last, on the Turks suing for an armistice, the men of Agha Petros' command were disbanded and sent back to their own country.