A Fatal Treaty—Gladstone's Opinion—The Concert of Europe—The Unspeakable Turk and His Methods—England's Responsibility—Mr. Gladstone's Energetic Action—Lord Rosebery Resigns—Gladstone's Astounding Letter—"I Shall Keep Myself to Myself"—"Abdul the Damned"—"A Man whose every Impulse is Good"—The Convention of Cyprus—Russia and England
There is an old and cynical saying that no lawyer draws up an agreement or contract without an eye to the future. If ever a document left trouble for the future it was the Berlin Treaty. The clause referring to Armenia was tantamount to handing over the wretched Armenians to the Turks; for the Concert of Europe, that misbegotten child of the Treaty of Paris, has failed consistently in its futile endeavours.
The contention of Russia has never been better expressed than by Gladstone in a letter to me dated January 2, 1877, in which he wrote: "A guarantee dependent on the Turk for its execution becomes thereby no guarantee at all." Again, on February 6, he wrote: "The real issue, so far as I can see, will arise when the question shall assume this form: Is Russia to be left alone to execute the will and work of Europe?" This is exactly what Russia did in 1876, unless it be contended that the "will of Europe" sanctioned the wholesale massacre of harmless citizens by the very power ordained to protect them—the Ruling Power.
The Sublime Porte has been as consistent as the Concert of Europe in evading its responsibilities, and it is needless to say that it as carefully refrained from carrying out its undertaking with regard to Armenia as the Powers on their part did from insisting on the reforms. Possibly the argument of the Concert was that, as there were no "ameliorations and reforms" on the part of the Sublime Porte, there was no opportunity for them to "superintend their application."
None of us who knew the Turk had any doubts as to the truth of the atrocities at Sassoun. These things were too common. The scale differed, the crime was always the same. And what was it?
The crime was the establishment—or the re-establishment—of Turkish Mussulman authority over a Christian race. If that were the crime, who were the criminals? On that point I should like to be allowed to say some plain truths, hoping that my English friends will tolerate the candour in others which they never hesitate to practise themselves. The real criminals who were responsible for the atrocities which horrified the civilised world were not the Kurds—who at first got all the blame. The criminals who perpetrated the massacre were Turkish regular troops, commanded by Turkish officers acting in direct obedience to explicit orders from the Turkish Government.
But although the direct complicity of the "Sublime" Porte in these hideous crimes was not disputed even by the Pashas of Stamboul, it was not with them that the responsibility of these horrors originally lay.
The crime at Sassoun lay primarily at the door of Disraeli. It was one of the many disastrous results of that "peace with honour" which Mr. Gladstone had the courage to describe as a peace that was no peace, with the honour that prevailed among thieves.
That may seem to be a hard saying to those who do not know the facts. To those who do it will be a mere truism.
Why was it that the Armenians at Sassoun were left as sheep before the butcher? Why was it that the Sultan and his Pashas felt themselves perfectly free to issue what order they pleased for the massacre of the poor Armenians? The answer is, unfortunately, only too simple. It was because England at the Berlin Congress, and England alone—for none of the other Powers took any interest in the matter—destroyed the security which Russia had extorted from the Turkish Government at San Stéfano, and substituted for the sterling guarantee of Russia the worthless paper-money of Ottoman promises. Was it not, then, England's doing that these poor wretches were outraged and murdered by the rulers, to whose tender mercies England insisted upon consigning them?