“These people,” he said, “refused to disarm when we told them to. They opposed us at Van and at Zeitoun, and they helped the Russians. There is only one way in which we can defend ourselves against them in the future, and that is just to deport them.” “Suppose a few Armenians did betray you,” I said. “Is that a reason for destroying a whole race? Is that an excuse for making innocent women and children suffer?” “Those things are inevitable,” he replied. This remark to me was not quite so illuminating as one which Talaat made subsequently to a reporter of the _Berliner Tageblatt_, who asked him the same question. “We have been reproached,” he said, according to this interviewer, “for making no distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty; but that was utterly impossible, in view of the fact that those who were innocent to-day might be guilty to-morrow”! One reason why Talaat could not discuss this matter with me freely, was because the member of the embassy staff who did the interpreting was himself an Armenian. In the early part of August, therefore, he sent a personal messenger to me, asking if I could not see him alone--he said that he himself would provide the interpreter. This was the first time that Talaat had admitted that his treatment of the Armenians was a matter with which I had any concern. The interview took place two days afterward. It so happened that since the last time I had visited Talaat I had shaved my beard. As soon as I came in the burly Minister began talking in his customary bantering fashion. “You have become a young man again,” he said; “you are so young now that I cannot go to you for advice any more.” “I have shaved my beard,” I replied, “because it had become very gray--made gray by your treatment of the Armenians.” After this exchange of compliments we settled down to the business in hand. “I have asked you to come to-day,” began Talaat, “so that I can explain our [Illustration: ARMENIAN SOLDIERS Until 1908 no Armenian was allowed to serve in the Ottoman army. In the Balkan Wars, they distinguished themselves by their bravery and skill. In the present war, the Turks have taken away their arms and transformed them into pack animals and road labourers. ] [Illustration: THOSE WHO FELL BY THE WAYSIDE Scenes like this were common all over the Armenian provinces, in the spring and summer months of 1915. Death in its several forms--massacre, starvation, exhaustion--destroyed the larger part of the refugees. The Turkish policy was that of extermination under the guise of deportation. ] [Illustration: A VIEW OF HARPOOT Where massacres of men took place on a large scale]