Forty armed young men from the village of Lsounk and 20 from Varvan escaped to the mountains. They were pursued by regular soldiers and forced to fight. Both sides lost heavily, and finally 12 of the Armenians, by the help of Greek villagers, reached Caucasia.
61. BAIBOURT, KEGHI, AND ERZINDJAN: LETTER[[72]], DATED ERZEROUM, 25th MAY/7th JUNE, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
The districts of Erzindjan, Keghi, and Baibourt have been devastated by forced emigrations. The Armenian population of the city of Erzeroum has also received categoric orders to leave the city. They will be deported en masse; 160 merchants are already en route with their families. The Government has confiscated their goods. We have no information about the deported people; they say they will be sent to Mosul.
[72]. Name of author withheld
62. ERZINDJAN: STATEMENT BY TWO RED CROSS NURSES OF DANISH NATIONALITY, FORMERLY IN THE SERVICE OF THE GERMAN MILITARY MISSION AT ERZEROUM[[73]]; COMMUNICATED BY A SWISS GENTLEMAN OF GENEVA.
In March, 1915, we learnt through an Armenian doctor, who died later on of typhus, that the Turkish Government was preparing for a massacre on a grand scale. He begged us to find out from General Passelt whether the rumour were true. We heard afterwards that the General (a gallant officer) had his own fears of it, and asked, for that reason, to be relieved of his post.... We fell sick of typhus and ... in consequence of a number of changes in the hospital staff ... we were obliged to leave Erzeroum. Through the good offices of the German Consul at Erzeroum, who also possessed the confidence of the Armenians, we were engaged by the Red Cross at Erzindjan, and worked there seven weeks.
At the beginning of June, the head of the Red Cross Mission at Erzindjan, Staff-Surgeon A., told us that the Armenians had revolted at Van, that measures had been taken against them which would be put into general execution, and that the whole Armenian population of Erzindjan and the neighbourhood would be transported to Mesopotamia, where it would no longer find itself in a majority. There was, however, to be no massacre, and measures were to be taken to feed the exiles and to secure their personal safety by a military escort. Wagons loaded with arms and bombs were reported, he said, to have been discovered at Erzindjan, and many arrests were to be made. The Red Cross staff were forbidden to have any relations with the exiles, and prohibited any excursions on foot or horseback beyond a certain radius.
After that, several days’ grace was given to the population of Erzindjan for the sale of their property, which was naturally realised at ludicrous prices. In the first week of June,[[74]] the first convoy started; the rich people were allowed to hire carriages. They were to go to Harpout. The three succeeding days, further deportations followed[[75]]; many children were taken charge of by Moslem families; later on, the authorities decided that these children must go into exile as well.
The families of the Armenians employed in our hospital had to go with the rest, including a woman who was ill. A protest from Dr. Neukirch, who was attending her, had no effect except to postpone her departure two days. A soldier attached to our staff as cobbler said to Sister B.[[76]]: “I am now forty-six years old, and yet I am taken for military service, although I have paid my exemption-tax regularly every year. I have never done anything against the Government, and now they are taking from me my whole family, my seventy-year-old mother, my wife and five children, and I do not know where they are going.” He was especially affected by the thought of his little daughter, a year and a half old; “She is so sweet. She has such pretty eyes”; he wept like a child. The next day he came back; “I know the truth. They are all dead.” And it was only too true. Our Turkish cook came to us crying, and told us how the Kurds had attacked the unhappy convoy at Kamakh Boghaz[[77]], had pillaged it completely, and had killed a great number of the exiles. This must have been the 14th June.