The American Ambassador at Constantinople, after asking the Turkish Government to stop the massacres, went to the German Ambassador. But Herr Wangenheim said he could not interfere in any way with Turkey’s internal affairs!!!
All these informants do not hide their belief, based on what they have actually seen, that German policy is at the back of the movement for a clean Mohammedan “Turkey for the Turks.”
I will give your Excellency another coincident piece of evidence. In May, 1914, I travelled with Dr. Niazim Bey, who is the spirit of the Union and Progress Party, when he was on the mission of establishing a boycott—nominally against the Greeks only, though it proved to be against the Armenians as well. The Doctor said that the work of the Turkish Government was very complicated, and he laid all the fault of it on the ancestors of the modern Turks, who, in spite of their being victorious and defying all Europe, nay all the world, had not been far-sighted enough to cleanse all the country they ruled of the Christian element, but had yielded to their chivalrous feelings and allowed the Christians to live. Had they done this bit of cleaning up at a time when nobody could protest, there would have been an easy task now for the heads of the Government in governing, and so on.
The Russian retreat has intoxicated the Turks. They think they have their chance now, and evidence shows that their almighty ally Germany encourages them in their effort at house cleaning. The note of the Allied Powers is no deterrent, even if the Turkish officials were not sure of final victory, because they feel that, if they lose, Turkey is not the place to offer them a happy shelter, and, with the money they are making now, the officials responsible can hide themselves in a country where they cannot be found or cannot be extradited. And some of the bolder spirits, like Talaat and Enver, have openly said that they do not expect to live if defeated, even without the threat of the Allies to bring them to account.
The Armenians in Turkey have not been able to conceal their feelings, and when I myself was in Constantinople, prudent man though I am, I was unable to conceal my feelings myself, or at least so effectively as not to be perceived by the Turks.
As early as September last, the Turkish comic paper Karagoz had written one day that “If the Armenians were cheerful, there was certainly news of victory for the Allies; if not, it had been the reverse.” But if, in spite of the Armenians concealing their feelings, the Turks had definitely adopted the policy—as no doubt they had—of exterminating the Christians in Turkey, then we have at least the satisfaction that we have hurt them with the display of what we felt.
I believe that the Germans did not want to exterminate the Armenians unless the latter proved of military danger in the present game; but I imagine the Armenians have incurred the Germans’ displeasure in this regard.
That Germany, or the Germans in Turkey, are for the above reason encouraging the Turks in their attempt at extermination, is proved by the fact that wholesale massacres and deportations have been specific to regions of which the inhabitants might be of especial help to an invading army. For instance, Dört Yöl and Zeitoun would be of excellent help had the Allies made a landing at Payas. Bitlis is next door to Van; the Russian army is getting towards Bitlis, and naturally the Armenians of Bitlis would be of great value to them, as indeed the Armenians of Van have been already.
Take the case of Erzeroum, again a frontier town, which, besides individual hangings, has been the scene of wholesale massacres; while towns far away from the theatre of war, such as Angora, Broussa, Konia, Constantinople, etc., although not exempted from persecution, have still not been subjected to wholesale massacres and deportations.