In 1893, the impoverished Armenians stripped of everything worth possessing, decided to resist further robberies. Early in the spring of that year, the Kurds came with demands more exorbitant than ever, the chiefs being escorted by a great number of armed men, but they were driven back by the brave villagers. When this became known to the Ottoman authorities, some of the more zealous of them applied for a large body of regular troops. The Turkish Government affected to believe that the secret political agitation which had been going on among the Armenians for some time had at length produced a serious revolt, and that it was necessary to quell it at once in energetic and relentless fashion. Orders were accordingly sent to Zekki Pasha, the Mushir commanding the troops at Erzinghian, to proceed to Sassoun with a sufficient force and suppress the disturbances. The precise terms of the instructions to this energetic Pasha never transpired and were never known to any one outside the Turkish official world. Whatever they were the Pasha evidently understood that he was literally to annihilate those who had resisted the authority of the local officials, and he executed what he supposed to be the wishes of his superiors with a barbarity towards both men and women, which deserves the reprobation of the civilized world. The Turkish soldiers hesitated to carry out such atrocious orders against defenceless women and men who offered no resistance, and they did not obey until threatened with condign punishment for disobedience. The protests of the Mutessarif, the civil Governor of the district, were disregarded. The fixed hour of fate arrived. In August 1894, Kurdish and Turkish troops came to Sassoun. Among them the famous Hamidieh troops, the specially organized Kurdish cavalry named after the Sultan, the name significant of the purpose for which they were organized. Zekki Pasha who commanded on that infamous occasion was afterwards decorated by the Sultan as were four Kurdish chiefs who had been specially savage and merciless during the progress of the carnage, while the Civil Governor of the district who so humanely protested was summarily removed from his post.