“Turkish Commission was appointed to inquire into occurrences which took place at Sassoun in the autumn of 1894, when in the massacre in which Turkish soldiers took part, twenty-seven Christian villages were destroyed and thousands of Armenians were murdered. Delegates from the English, French, and Russian consulates were appointed to attend the Commission. At the second sitting held at Moosh, on January 26, 1895, they made what according to European ideas of justice was the natural request that the commissioners, before inquiring into any other matter, should take evidence as to the massacre of Armenians by Turks. The commissioners (Turkish) however alleged that according to their instructions from the Porte they were only to inquire “into the criminal proceeding of the Armenian brigands,” they denied that there had been any massacre of Armenians, and rejected the request of the delegates. The commission sat from January 24 to July 21 at Moosh. Some fifteen to thirty miles from the seat of the massacre, and held one hundred and eight sittings. They declined to listen to the Christian witnesses brought forward by the delegates and would only accept the testimony of Turks, who had been carefully instructed to give such evidence as would prove that the Armenians were alone to blame. Witnesses who ventured to give evidence in favor of the Armenians atoned for their rashness by immediate imprisonment. The consular delegates at last refused to have anything more to do with this farce; they therefore went to Sassoun, and by evidence there obtained established the terrible facts and the innocence of the peaceful Armenian population.”[140] FOOTNOTES: [132] Genesis 14:14. [133] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 17-24. (See fuller accounts.) Published by Putnam and Sons, N. Y. and London. [134] _The Westminster Gazette_, December 12, 1894, reprinted in the _Armenia_, London, Jan., 1895. [135] Norman, “Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,” p. 378. [136] Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” p. 522, 4th ed. [137] _The London Times_, Weekly Edition, Jan. 14, 1895. [138] Greene, “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey,” pp. 129, 130. (See the entire address quoted by Greene.) [139] _Blue-Book_, Turkey, No. 1, 1895, p. 206. [140] Lepsius, “Armenia and Europe,” published in Berlin, 1896. I quote from _The New Armenia_, reprinted June 15, 1916. XV THE MASSACRE OF 1895-6 “We must beg the reader of the following statements to remember that the Armenian massacres, in which 100,000 innocent people have perished, were directed against a peaceful and defenceless nation.--J. Lepsius.” While the investigating commission was carrying on its work in the usual Turkish fashion, the British, French, and Russian governments drew out a scheme of reforms for Armenia and submitted it to the Porte through their ambassadors at Constantinople on May 11, 1895.