The Cradle of Mankind; Life in Eastern Kurdistan

by W. A. Wigram; Edgar Thomas Ainger Wigram

One must own that the search was conducted as courteously as might be. A large proportion of the cartridges were found in a recess of the wall in the sanctuary of one specially prominent church; but every care was taken not to disturb the adornments of the altar, though irreverent conduct would not have been without excuse just then. Similarly, a young woman found alone in one of the houses that the searchers entered, was not only not molested, but was even allowed to exhaust a most copious vocabulary of abuse on the head of the informer. It was strange to see the Turkish soldiers knocking civilly at doors which could have been sent in by a blow from the butt of a rifle.

The Tashnakists did not part with these cherished treasures without at least a snap. The carts taking the plunder to the citadel were attacked in the street as they left the Armenian quarter; and a very pretty skirmish followed. The combatants took cover in the houses on opposite sides of the road, and fired at one another thence, while the prize of victory lay on the ground between them. With real politeness to the foreigner they selected a battle-ground[{254}] under the very windows of the British Consulate, so that that official and his guests enjoyed a most interesting view of the proceedings. As a matter of fact, however, it was not courtesy that dictated the choice, but the desire of the Fedais to have their right flank covered by the Consulate garden, which was necessarily neutral ground. The skirmish lasted for about an hour, during which time about twenty-five men (if you count every scratch) were killed or wounded; and the battle was finally brought to a close by a bullet striking the heap of dynamite that lay exposed in the road. Nobody knew whether this was accident or design; but naturally the blow detonated all that was there, and a magnificent explosion resulted. However, with its usual freakishness, the explosive only excavated a huge pit in the roadway, and did no other harm; not even injuring the overturned cart that lay by it!

Of course the Tashnakists vowed vengeance on David, who was made a sort of hero by the Turks, and granted a liberal pension; perhaps with the feeling that he was not likely to draw it for long. Various Mussulman officials declared openly that if he should be attacked, they would exact a hundred lives for his; and it is believed that the principal Tashnakists, hearing of this, ordered that no step should be taken against him. However, they were unable to control their followers; and after an interval of about six weeks, David was shot down in the street by a lad named Tirlamazian, and died a few days later. The assassin escaped for a time.

The Turks kept their word: for something over 100 Armenians (mostly honest shopkeepers returning from the market) were butchered at once by the “black-heads” (kara-bashlar, the low class civilian population).[124] Again it appeared that the troops, assisted by the Mussulman populace, would break into the Armenian quarters of the town, and that a most hideous massacre would follow. Both sides stood to arms, and for a matter of five weeks the tension was very great; hardly any Armenians venturing[{255}] to leave their quarters. On the other hand, the Turks had just as much fear of entering there, for the position was eminently defensible. The houses of the garden city were too solidly built to be much damaged by field artillery (which was all that was available); and standing as they do for the most part in large gardens surrounded by mud walls, there was a distinct possibility that the troops (if they entered the quarter at all) might be very seriously entangled in them. Further, all the Turkish and Kurdish forces had a very lively respect for the prowess of the Tashnakists, and an exaggerated idea of their numbers.

So the position continued; an anomaly that surely would be possible only in Turkey. A force of armed rebels standing at bay in one ward of the scattered town, and defying the Government in the other. While all the time (for men must eat and Armenians must trade) business was conducted pretty much as usual in the market of Hach Poghan, which stood conveniently on neutral ground at the edge of the two districts. The foreign Consuls, by the way, had insisted that food should not be cut off from the Armenian quarter, on proper payment for it!

Even in Turkey such a position could not continue indefinitely. As soon as a sufficient body of troops, regular and irregular, had been accumulated, and resistance was manifestly hopeless, the Armenian quarter was formally occupied, and regular search made for arms and revolutionaries. Many of the former were found and confiscated; and the twelve members of the “ring” endeavoured to effect their escape from the town. But this they now found impossible. After some searching, their place of concealment was disclosed; and they were marked to ground in one of the kerezes or subterranean channels that bring water from the mountains to the town.

These kerezes are made by sinking pits at intervals of about fifty yards, to a depth of about thirty feet, and tunnelling from one to the other. Many of them date back to the Urartian period of history. In this case, the troops were able to ascertain that the objects of their search were probably in a certain length of channel; but it was[{256}] difficult to devise any means of making sure, or of getting them out. One soldier, however, volunteered to be lowered down alone to investigate; a plucky act, for it entailed something like a descent into the den of wolves at bay. Down he went; and discovered that they had selected exactly the right one of the series of pits, for he was lowered into the very midst of the gang of Fedais. They seized him, of course, and were about to kill him, when he got his word in first. “Look here, you can kill me of course, but what good will it do you? When I do not come out, my officer will know that you are here, and you can just be smoked out like jackals. Your game is up, and you had better surrender to me.”

Well, the position was hopeless; and possibly eight and forty hours in a dark drain, sitting cramped together with your feet in cold water, and the prospect of slow suffocation to follow, has a damping effect on the courage of the bravest. Anyhow, these twelve men, maugre their vow never to surrender under any circumstances, did surrender to the one; and the soldier had the well-earned satisfaction of sending each of the party up in turn, in the bight of a rope, to where his comrades were waiting for them above ground. They were taken to the town prison, of course, and confined there.

Grim tales are told of torture in such places, when it is needful to extract information from the prisoner; and deprival of sleep and hammering the finger-ends are the reported methods. Still, nothing of the kind was inflicted on these men (save that one of them, the lad Tirlamazian, was flogged), though it was of course known that they had a good deal of important information to give. During their stay in Van jail, they had nothing worse than most uncomfortable detention to complain of; though confinement in a foul cell, swarming with vermin, may become a very fair imitation of torture after a few hours, particularly if the prisoner is chained so that he cannot scratch!

Orders were sent, we believe, for the forwarding of at least the chief of the Tashnakists, Aram, to Constantinople, under strong guard. Once in the clutches of Abdul Hamid[{257}] his fate would have been a grim one indeed. But before the decree was executed, a marvellous transformation took place. This was nothing less than the Turkish Revolution of 1908, with its consequent amnesty for all political offences. All proceedings were dropped, and the prisoners emerged to be greeted as national heroes after their confinement.