The sultan’s commission was composed of the Turkish officers appointed by the Sultan and the consuls of France, England and Russia, who were in Asiatic Turkey. The commission was to decide who was to be examined, and whose testimony was to be taken. The European representatives were not privileged to make an independent investigation of the matter. Such being the case it was evident what might be expected from the Commission.
In such a country as Turkey, where justice is unknown, and for a Christian to protect his property, home, and life from plunder and violence is considered a “political offense” against the State, how could Christians dare to come forth and testify against the officers and the government, to whose cruelties and murderous propensities they were again to be left, when the European representatives departed? Even if they did dare, the testimony of the Christian is worthless against the faithful followers of Mohammed, who were the defendants in the case. Hopelessness of the condition of the Armenians was manifest.
Hardly will it be necessary to say that the universal impression was that the Sultan’s investigating commission was a farce, and perilous, yet it suited the sultan and his friends. St. Petersburg (Petrograd), December 30, 1894: “The Moscow Gazette pillories the Sassoun investigating Commission as a farce. It asks why the Powers do not give the Porte so many days in which to decide whether it will fulfill the Treaty of Berlin, and if an unsatisfactory answer be given, co-operate to enforce the Treaty.”
This leading journal revealed the mind of the Russians. That England could have had the support of France. That, even, if Germany had sided with Turkey (which she most probably would), she would then have been half-prepared than twenty years later, at this terrible conflict. That the Powers would have had the universal moral support of the whole civilized world, especially at that time (preceding the Balkan wars), when the Balkan nations would have been in full sympathy with the entente, to drive the Turk out of Europe.
But England’s delay of action before the massacre, for she was aware of its coming, and her hesitation and distrust of Russia after the massacre, gave ample time to the crafty Abdul Hamid to create discord among the Powers, and he thus thwarted England’s belated attempts to redress the wrong that was committed.
The following quotation from “Our Responsibility for Turkey,” by the Duke of Argyle, confirms the above facts:
“That the Powers should have consented even to allow their representatives to spend time in such attempts as those Here we also add Lord Bryce’s words which are emphatically true: “In the field of Eastern politics generally the conspicuous result has been the failure—the complete humiliating and irretrievable failure—of the traditional policy pursued by England of supporting the Turk against Russia.”[136] An Armenian deputation called on the late Hon. W. E. Gladstone on the occasion of his birthday (December 29, 1894). He delivered an address on the Sassoun massacre. A few paragraphs of his speech may be here reproduced: