Many of these horrors were told in detail in the monumental report of Viscount Bryce, portions of which were published in Current History Magazine, November, 1916. To these may be added a statement made to Mr. Morgenthau personally by an eyewitness—a German missionary!—and put into writing at the American Embassy in Constantinople, which reads in part as follows:
It was that very afternoon that I received the first terrible reports, but I did not fully believe them. A few millers and bakers, whose services were needed by the Government, had remained, and they received the news first. The men had all been tied together and shot outside of the town. The women and children were taken to the neighboring villages, placed in houses by the hundreds, and either burned alive or thrown into the river. (Our buildings being in the main quarter of the town we could receive the news quite promptly.) Furthermore, one could see women and children pass by with blood streaming down, weeping. * * * Who can describe such pictures? Add to all this the sight of burning houses and the smell of many burning corpses.
Within a week everything was nearly over. The officers boasted now of their bravery, that they had succeeded in exterminating the whole Armenian race. Three weeks later when we left Moush, the villages were still burning. Nothing that belonged to the Armenians, either in the city or the villages, was allowed to remain. In Moush alone there were 25,000 Armenians; besides, Moush had 300 villages with a large Armenian population.
We left for Mezreh. The soldiers who accompanied us showed us with pride where and how and how many women and children they had killed.
We were very pleased to see upon our arrival at Harpoot that the orphanages were full. This was, however, all that could be said. Mamuret-ul-Aziz has become the cemetery of all the Armenians; all the Armenians from the various vilayets were sent there, and those who had not died on the way came there simply to find their graves.
Another terrible thing in Mamuret-ul-Aziz were the tortures to which the people had been subjected for two months, and they had generally treated so harshly the families of the better class. Feet, hands, chests were nailed to a piece of wood; nails of fingers and toes were torn out; beards and eyebrows pulled out; feet were hammered with nails, as they do with horses; others were hung with their feet up and heads down over closets. * * * Oh! How one could wish that all these facts were not true! In order that people outside might not hear the screams of agony of the poor victims, men stood around the prison wherein these atrocities were committed, with drums and whistles.
On July 1 the first 2,000 were dispatched from Harpoot. They were soldiers, and it was rumored that they would build roads. People became frightened. Whereupon the Vali called the German missionary, Mr. ——, and begged him to quiet the people; he was so very sorry that they all had such fears, &c. They had hardly been away for a day when they were all killed in a mountain pass. They were bound together, and when the Kurds and soldiers started to shoot at them some managed to escape in the dark. The next day another 2,000 were sent in the direction of Diarbekr. Among those deported were several of our orphans (boys) who had been working for the Government all the year round. Even the wives of the Kurds came with their knives and murdered the Armenians. Some of the latter succeeded in fleeing. When the Government heard that some Armenians had managed to escape they left those who were to be deported without food for two days in order that they would be too weak to be able to flee.
All the high Catholic Armenians, together with their Archbishop, were murdered. Up to now there still remained a number of tradesmen whom the Government needed and therefore had not deported; now these, too, were ordered to leave, and were murdered.
TOTAL NUMBER MURDERED
The total Armenian population in the Turkish Empire in 1912 numbered between 1,600,000 and 2,000,000. Of these 182,000 escaped to the Russian Caucasus, where now again they have been placed in peril of extermination at the hands of the Turks. About 4,200 escaped into Egypt, while 150,000 still remain in Constantinople. To these figures must be added the relatively small number of survivors still in hiding or scattered in distant provinces. Mr. Morgenthau concludes that 1,000,000 Armenians were harried out of their homes in Asia Minor, that the murdered number between 600,000 and 800,000. The remainder, in pitiful want of the barest necessities of life, hold out their hands to the Christian fellowship of America for aid.
In how far was the German Government responsible for the murder and deportation of the Armenians in Turkey? Mr. Morgenthau, summing up the story of his own fruitless efforts to get Baron Wangenheim, the German Ambassador, to intervene in their behalf, says: "Let me say most emphatically, the German Government could have prevented it." Now again it is the German Government that has handed over the Armenian refugees in the Russian Caucasus to the tender mercy of the Turks.
President Wilson's Addresses
Important Utterances on War Themes
President Wilson delivered two public addresses in May, 1918, the first in New York City, May 17, to inaugurate the second Red Cross campaign, the second before a joint session of the United States Congress, May 27, on the subject of a Federal revenue bill. The speeches are given herewith.