Armenia and the WarHacobian, A. P. (Avetoon Pesak)
History
Armenia and the War
Hacobian, A. P. (Avetoon Pesak)
Armenian question; World War, 1914-1918 -- Armenia
It must not be supposed from what I have said that all, or the majority,
of rich Armenians have been deaf or indifferent to their country's need.
That would be a mistake and an injustice. On the whole their response to
the call of their afflicted country has been satisfactory, considering
that they had obligations to the belligerent countries to which they
owed allegiance. I know of one contribution of £30,000,[22] while ten
Moscow merchants raised a million roubles between them for their
nation's needs. A prominent Armenian physician has relinquished a large
and remunerative practice at Petrograd to superintend personally the
administration of an orphanage at Erzerum, which he has opened on his
own private account. The Catholicos's palace at Etchmiadzin was
converted into a hospital for refugees in the early months of 1915.
Almost every Armenian peasant family in the Caucasus have housed and
cared for one or more refugees in their humble cottages ever since the
influx of their distressed kinsmen from the other side of the frontier
in the spring and summer of 1915. I have not marshalled these facts in a
spirit of flaunting the virtues of my race--we certainly hold no
monopoly of all the virtues, or indeed of all the vices, to which human
nature is heir--but I know of no better way to disprove the baseless
aspersions assiduously disseminated by some interested people for
purposes of pro-Turkish propaganda and accepted by the credulous as
true.
Lord Bryce has known the Armenian people longer and more intimately than
any eminent European statesman, historian and diplomatist has ever done
before, and his dictum will no doubt be generally accepted as that of a
great and final authority. I therefore make no apology for quoting his
lordship's most recent utterance on the subject reported in the _Journal
of the Royal Society of Arts_, February 2, 1917--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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