Later in the year there was a distinct effort to save many of the Armenians. This effort synchronised with the order to exempt Catholics and Protestants. It seemed a success, and everybody was greatly encouraged. But an emissary from the Committee of Union and Progress at Constantinople arrived at that time, and was able to overturn the arrangement and secure an order for the immediate deportation of all. Exception was later made of some widows, of the wives and children of men serving in the labour regiments, and of men working in mills under Government contract and in the Baghdad Railway construction.
The great drive took place in the first week of September, when two-thirds of the Armenian population of Adana City were deported. Hadjin and Dört Yöl were treated very much more harshly, both in the process of eviction and on the road. The people were allowed to dispose of some of their properties, which they did at a great sacrifice; still, they had to abandon the great mass of their properties, which was later confiscated. I would call attention to the fact that the appalling nature of the deportation is none the less appalling because there was comparatively less torture and outrage. It is only fair to state that one Moslem was scourged to death for participation in the robbery of some Christians that were being deported.
It is not merely the suffering of the outlawed and deported people that is appalling, but the effect of it all on the country. Two-thirds of the business of Adana City was dependent on Armenians, and the markets seemed deserted after they were driven out. The disaster to the whole province from the material standpoint is beyond calculation. However, it would appear that the whole scheme was intended to be a relentless effort on the part of the central authorities either to exterminate the Armenian nation or to reduce them to a condition like that of the people of Moab, as described by Isaiah in the last clause of the 16th chapter: “A remnant very small and of no account.” The enormity is not so much in the torture, massacring, outrage, etc., as in the intention and effort to exterminate a nation. The Armenians have endured massacre and outrage and persecution and oppression; this, however, shatters all hope of life and a future.
The Armenian Protestant communities are all deported with the pastors and leaders, but the men deported are a tower of strength to the suffering people in their exile. Let me quote from W. Effendi, from a letter he wrote a day before his deportation with his young wife and infant child, and with the whole congregation: “We now understand that it is a great miracle that our nation has lived so many years amongst such a nation as this. From this we realise that God can and has shut the mouths of lions for many years. May God restrain them! I am afraid they mean to kill some of us, cast some of us into most cruel starvation and send the rest out of this country; so I have very little hope of seeing you again in this world. But be sure that, by God’s special help, I will do my best to encourage others to die manly. I will also look for God’s help for myself to die as a Christian. May this country see that, if we cannot live here as men, we can die as men. May many die as men of God. May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing. May the Armenians teach Jesus’ life by their death, which they could not teach by their life or have failed in showing forth. It is my great desire to see a Reverend Ali, or Osman, or Mohammed. May Jesus soon see many Turkish Christians as the fruit of his blood.
“May the war soon end, in order to save the Moslems from their cruelty (for they increase in that from day to day), and from their ingrained habit of torturing others. Therefore we are waiting on God, for the sake of the Moslems as well as of the Armenians. May He appear soon.”
129. ADANA: STATEMENT, DATED 9th MAY, 1916, BY MISS Y., A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT ADANA, RECORDING HER EXPERIENCES THERE FROM SEPTEMBER, 1914, TO SEPTEMBER, 1915.
From the time Turkey began to mobilise in the autumn of 1914, before entering into the war, fear and questioning naturally took hold of the Armenians. First there was the unreasonable and irregular way in which the men were drafted into the Army or Labour Regiments; and then there was the news concerning the harsh and cruel treatment of the male population of Dört Yöl, where all from the ages of about 16 to 70 years were suddenly sent away en masse to work on the roads in the Hassan Beyli district—this, on the mere rumour that fruit and food had been conveyed from Dört Yöl to one of the Allies’ warships.
This was followed by a few selected men from Dört Yöl being hanged at intervals in the streets of Adana. One night in the winter (1914-15) the Government sent officers round the city into all Armenian houses, knocking the families up and demanding that all weapons should be given up, or actually searching for them. Think of the fright of many of them, thus rudely awakened; this action was the death-knell to many hearts. Soon after this, Armenians whose names had been registered as having escaped or defended themselves during the massacres of 1909, or who were found in possession of arms, or were under some other accusation, were collected and imprisoned. I am not sure what happened to these.
Then came the news of Zeitoun being deported. These hardy mountaineers were destined for Sultania, a low malarial district on the plain beyond Konia. Most of these villagers passed through Tarsus en route, save those who had died on the way. A Tarsus graduate from Zeitoun who had hoped to become a teacher, voluntarily followed his mother, a widow, to Sultania, for the reason that she had no one to take care of her, neither she nor his sister with her four children, as the latter’s husband was imprisoned in Marash.
“Why imprisoned?” I asked. “I do not know any reason,” the boy replied. This boy recounted to me how the people had to live in this sultry region. Some one hundred souls, regardless of any distinction, among them a College Professor and a few leading people from Konia, were for a time crowded into the largest house in the place. They could not sleep, many were sick, children and babies crying, the heat great. Other houses were occupied likewise; probably many people camped around. These poor people were not allowed to do anything to earn money or to go beyond a certain distance. Those who still had money for food helped the more needy as far as they could. This same student told me that while he was in Sultania 750 had died. Then the remainder were all despatched back to Tarsus to be forwarded to the Arabian desert.