I have stated my views frankly. One or two of my friends were kind enough to express the opinion that that might injure our cause. While I appreciate their interest and solicitude, I do not share their fears. I am convinced that the truth can never be unpopular with the British public or prejudice a good cause. I have, of necessity, had to quote freely from many sources, and I take this opportunity to express my apologies and indebtedness to the authorities quoted, in particular to Lord Bryce and Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee for very kindly permitting me to quote extracts from the Blue Book. A. P. HACOBIAN. _London, February, 1917._ PREFACE Of all the peoples upon whom this war has brought calamity and suffering, the Armenian people have had the most to endure. Great as has been the misery inflicted by the invaders upon the non-combatant populations of Belgium and Northern France, upon Poland, upon Serbia, the misery of Armenia, though far less known to the outer world, has been far more terrible. When the European War broke out, in 1914, the Government of the Turkish Empire had fallen into the hands of a small gang of unscrupulous ruffians calling themselves the Committee of Union and Progress, who were ruling through their command of the army, but in the name of the harmless and imbecile Sultan. By means which have not been fully disclosed, but the nature of which can be easily conjectured, this gang were won over to serve the interests of Germany; and at Germany's bidding they declared war against the Western Allies, thus dragging all the subjects of Turkey, Muslim and Christian, into a conflict with which they had no concern. The Armenian Christians scattered through the Asiatic part of the Turkish dominions, having had melancholy experience in the Adana massacres some years previously of what cruelties the ruling gang were capable of perpetrating, were careful to remain quiet, and to furnish no pretext to the Turkish authorities for an attack upon them. But the rulers of Turkey showed that they did not need a pretext for the execution of the nefarious purposes they cherished. They had formed a design for the extermination of the non-Mohammedan elements in the population of Asiatic Turkey, in order to make what they called a homogeneous nation, consisting of Mohammedans only. The wickedness of such a design was equalled only by its blind folly, for the Christian Armenians of Asia Minor and the north-eastern provinces constituted the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the best-educated part of the population. Most of the traders and merchants, nearly all the skilled artisans, were Armenians, and to destroy them was to destroy the chief industrial asset which these regions possessed. However, this was the plan of the Committee of Union and Progress, and as soon as they began to feel, in the spring of 1915, that the Allied expedition against the Dardanelles was not likely to succeed, they proceeded to execute it.