The Armenian Church <at X.> was sealed up and guarded by soldiers. The Protestant Church was just finished and ready to be used. We might not enter it for prayer, not even once. Someone said that O. had promised to bear the expense of adding the minarets to it. Of course, he may have said it to save his own position....
All the Catholics and Gregorians of S. were carried off. By that time I was in Constantinople. The men, it is said, were killed; of the women, those that had become Moslems were allowed to stay, the rest were sent on to Mesopotamia. Mosul is their ultimate destination.
You will find hardly an Armenian left in Trebizond, Ordou, Samsoun, or the districts of Marsovan, Köprü, Amasia, Tokat, Sivas, Harpout—excepting just a few who became Moslems. The vilayets of Harpout and Sivas, it seems, had the worst treatment, but I cannot say—it was bad everywhere. Again, the Protestants were left alone at S. and R.; they were likewise spared in the towns of Kaisaria and Talas, but not in the surrounding villages....
93. X.: NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM X. TO CONSTANTINOPLE, BY PROFESSOR QQ. OF THE COLLEGE AT X.; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Under the pretext of transportation for political reasons, the Young Turks are carrying out a well-planned, systematic process of extermination. Beginning in April, they imprisoned the leaders and many other prominent people in X. In order to exact confession they used all sorts of torture, only to be paralleled in the records of Mediævalism and the Inquisition. I saw people unable to walk brought on donkeys to Dr. BB. for treatment of their wounds and sores that they got from torturing and beating. GG., a strong young man, an employee of the College, was beaten so terribly that he was unable to walk for weeks. I saw him moaning in bed.[[130]]
I heard from the lips of Professors FF. and E., as well as from many others, our graduates, etc., of the terrible condition of those imprisoned in a subterranean place under the barrack in X. People were literally packed there—the air suffocating. Happily they were kept there only for a short time; but—unhappily—they were taken away from there in groups and put to death, at a distance of three or four hours from X. This was openly confessed by the Turks to many Greeks. I heard it from a Greek gendarme who was compelled to take part in the killing. Axes were used for killing them. The condemned were stripped of all but their underclothing and led to the brink of a great ditch. There they knelt with their hands bound behind their backs, and were despatched by axe-blows on the head—as the scene was described by an eye-witness to Mr. NN., the representative of the Greek bishop in X. The Armenian priests were killed likewise. One of them, KK., was killed in the attitude of prayer—praying with his son beside him.
Women, children and old men were carried away on ox-carts. The sight was tragic[[131]]. Women of good family were dressed like peasants and driven away on ox-carts, accompanied by wild, savage-looking gendarmes and Turkish drivers. On one cart I saw the aged mother, wife, sister and two-year-old daughter of Mr. OO., one of our teachers[[132]]. As they passed by our door they bade us good-bye. The old mother, waving her hand upward, said to us, “Pray for us,” and so they went on. The little child was smiling. On one cart there was a woman expecting childbirth. Miss K., a nurse in the Hospital, saw her as she was driven past the Hospital windows. She begged the gendarmes to let her stay in the Hospital until she was delivered, and they let her. She was delivered within a few days. Others, however, were not so fortunate and were carried mercilessly along.
I left X. on the 3rd August, accompanied by Pastor CC. with his wife and niece[[133]]; Mr. DD. of our College, with his wife, mother and daughter; and Mrs. MM. with her four daughters. The first family travelled by the permission—officially given—of the authorities at X. The other two had a special permit from the Minister of War, Enver Pasha. Mr. DD. was an American subject.
Two days short of S., near the village RR., we were stopped by a gendarme. Standing near him were several men with axes in their hands. He asked me whether there were any Armenians in our company. He said all Armenians had to go back—anyone of my own nationality could go on. I tried to reason with him and pressed the point that they travelled by the special order of Enver Pasha. He replied that “he could not read, so he had to carry out the orders given him.” In a few minutes 56 men came up, on horseback and armed. One of them could read. They repeated the same order—“All Armenians back.”
All the arabadjis—Turks, all of them—pleaded hard with the man[[134]]. They all said: “These are all others and not Armenians. They had already finished off the Armenians in X. before we started.” There was only one Armenian family in the group, they said, and they had the order of Enver Pasha. The document was presented to the leader, EE. He read it aloud. Then I told him that I was from S., and that I had a friend, a medical doctor, in military service in S. I described him and gave his name to the leader. It so happened that he knew my friend and regarded him with much esteem, so when he heard this he laughed and shook hands with me, and begged me to take his compliments to my friend, adding: “Excuse us, this gendarme made a mistake in stopping you. Go on.” The whole party went on. We were told afterwards that this leader was a well-known criminal robber, and that the whole group were chettis—bandits—armed by the order of the Government and let loose to harry the Armenians. During this scene of anxiety, Mr. CC. and Mr. DD. were perspiring the cold sweat of agony. Mrs. MM. was in a tremor.