Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of IslamWilliams, Augustus Warner
History
Bleeding Armenia: Its history and horrors under the curse of Islam
Williams, Augustus Warner
Armenian question
"These are not hallucinations on my part, but are things which I myself
have lately seen with my own eyes. Unless these wretched people receive
immediate help, they will perish of starvation. They must have food
and clothing or they cannot possibly survive the winter. They are now
living on roots and herbs and edible grass, together with this terrible
hunger-bread, the mere odor of which is enough to make a strong man
shudder; but when winter begins, in October, the supply of edible grass
and roots and herbs will be cut off. What will become of them then?
"The Armenians have no wheat, and no money with which to buy food. The
Kurds and the Turks have taken everything, and the Armenians have
nothing.
"The Armenians planted only half a crop this year, owing to the
persecutions and exactions which beset them on all sides. In the
early summer, when the young grain was green, the Kurds pastured
their buffalos and their cattle in the growing wheat. Much of the
crop was thus destroyed. Later, when that which remained of the wheat
was ready for the harvest, the Kurds came down, cut off the heads of
the ripened grain, and left the worthless stubble for the Armenians
to live upon during the long and bitter winter. Even a persecuted
Armenian cannot hope to maintain his family on wheat straw.
"Now, we have this condition at the present moment in Armenia: The
crop planted this year was entirely inadequate to the needs of the
population, and when the Kurds got through pasturing their cattle in
the growing fields they harvested the ripened grain for their own use,
leaving only dry grass for the Armenians. The systematic persecutions
of the people, the exactions of the tax-gatherers, and the repeated
robberies by the Kurds have left the Armenians absolutely penniless
and foodless. Utterly unable to maintain life in their nearly ruined
and wasted villages, the country people are wandering about from place
to place, and crowding into the cities. There is no work for them to
be had, and no chance of earning enough to keep starvation at bay.
"It is for the youngest Christian nation on earth to say whether
the oldest shall perish and be no more, and whether the followers
of Mohammed shall be the sole inhabitants of that land which, in the
beginning of all things, was the Garden of Eden. If we turn a deaf ear
now to the supplications of the starving thousands of fellow-Christians
in Eastern Turkey, the coming of spring will see the troublous Armenian
question forever at rest. There will be no more Armenian question,
for there may be no more Armenians.
"If, on the contrary, the practical Christians of our own land desire
to assist in preserving this ancient Christian race in the land in
which it took descent from the grandson of Noah, the way is clear. A
little help extended now, will not only save the lives of those who
are dropping dead of hunger from day to day, but will provide work
during the coming winter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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