[142]. Date unspecified.
[143]. Kiangri, Kingri.
100. ADRIANOPLE: DESPATCH FROM THE CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON “TIMES” AT BUKAREST, DATED 18th DECEMBER AND PUBLISHED ON THE 21st DECEMBER, 1915.
I have received information in regard to the wholesale extirpation of the Armenian population of Adrianople.
On the 10th October the Turkish police arrested 45 Armenian inhabitants who had become Bulgarian subjects. The prisoners were transported to Constantinople, and thence to Asia Minor, with the exception of 10 who escaped and took refuge in the Bulgarian Legation at Pera. On the intervention of the Bulgarian Government these persons obtained liberty to return to Karagatch. In regard to the fate of the remaining 35 the Porte professes ignorance.
Shortly afterwards, all the Armenians in Adrianople—about 1,600 persons—were arrested, and the men immediately deported to Asia Minor. The women and children were detained two days in prison before removal, and were subjected to brutal treatment by their captors. Several were subsequently placed in sailing vessels for transportation to Asia Minor. Two of the vessels foundered off Rodosto and most of those on board were drowned. Some of the exiled families were sold at derisory prices, for the most part to Jews.
A deputation from Karagatch proceeded to Sofia to invoke the intervention of the Government, but have received no reply to their petition. A memorial previously addressed to the Bulgarian Government by another deputation gives a frightful picture of the sufferings of Armenian prisoners in Asia Minor at the hands of the Turkish authorities.
The document furnishes a list of 29 districts in which the whole Armenian population, numbering some 835,000 persons, have been either killed or exiled or forcibly converted to Islam. One ecclesiastic was burnt alive, five were hanged or otherwise killed, and ten were imprisoned.
101. BROUSSA: REPORT BY A FOREIGN VISITOR TO THE CITY, DATED 24th SEPTEMBER, 1915; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
It was inevitable that the Armenians, whose deportation from Broussa and the environs had been ordered a few days before my arrival, should occupy some of my attention. It is doubtful whether the full significance of this measure can be realized without a visit to the interior, where the results may be seen in all their appalling details. Words are inadequate to describe the utter misery and destitution of these hordes of emigrants who are to-day roaming all over Asia Minor. The roads are crowded with thousands upon thousands of these unfortunate wretches, considering themselves lucky if they are able to procure—at the sacrifice of a small fortune—an ox-cart for their families and a few belongings; many of them journeying on foot—men, women and children, tired, haggard, and half-starved—the pictures of want and desolation. Broussa was among the last of the more important cities to receive the order for the deportation of the Armenians, so that I had occasion to see the application of the measure from the very beginning. Thus I met the first contingents of the exiles between Broussa and Yeni-Shehr. The authorities had given them three days in which to clear out, with the result that they could not sell any of their property, even had there been buyers. All personal property, such as furniture, clothes, tools, etc., which they could not take with them, had to be left behind, and the Turks quite openly distributed them among themselves, often even in the presence of their owners! As regards the houses evacuated by the Armenians, a little more red tape was gone through, but the effect was the same. The Armenian proprietor was called before a magistrate, made to sign a document that he had sold the house to a certain individual (of course always a Moslem), and was given a roll of banknotes. No sooner had he left the room than the money was taken from him by the police and returned to the magistrate, to be used in hundreds of similar cases!