Germany, Turkey, and Armenia: A Selection of Documentary Evidence Relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other SourcesAnonymous
History
Germany, Turkey, and Armenia: A Selection of Documentary Evidence Relating to the Armenian Atrocities from German and other Sources
Anonymous
Armenian question; World War, 1914-1918 -- Armenia
When Field-Marshal von der Goltz travelled to Bagdad and had to
cross the Euphrates at Djerabulus, there was a large encampment
of half-starved, deported Armenians there. Shortly before the
Field-Marshal's arrival these wretched people, as I was told in
Djerabulus, were driven under the whip a few miles off over the hills,
sick and dying persons among the number. When von der Goltz passed
through, all traces of the repulsive spectacle had been removed. When,
soon afterwards, I visited the place with a few colleagues, we still
found in the more out of the way places corpses of men and children,
remnants of clothes, and skulls and bones which had been partly
stripped of the flesh by jackals and birds of prey.
The author of this report considers it out of the question that the
German Government, if it were seriously inclined to stem the tide
of destruction even at this eleventh hour, could find it impossible
to bring the Turkish Government to reason. If the Turks are really
so well disposed to us Germans as people say, then it is surely
permissible to show them to what an extent they compromise us before
the whole civilised world, if we, as their Allies, are to look
on calmly, when hundreds of thousands of our fellow-Christians in
Turkey are slaughtered, when their wives and daughters are violated,
and their children brought up in the faith of Islam. [31] Do not
the Turks understand that their barbarous acts are imputed to us,
and that we Germans shall be accused either of criminal connivance
or of contemptible weakness if we shut our eyes to the abominable
horrors which this war has brought forth, and attempt to ignore facts
which are already known to the whole world? If the Turks are really
as intelligent as people say, it should surely not be impossible
to convince them of the fact that, by extirpating the Christian
nations in Turkey, they are exterminating the productive factors and
the intermediaries of European trade and general civilisation? If
the Turks are really as far-seeing as people say, they will not
be blind to the danger, that all civilized European States, after
having discovered the things which were done in Turkey during the
war, must form the conclusion that Turkey has forfeited the right
of governing herself, and has, once for all, destroyed all belief
in her capacity for becoming civilized, and in her tolerance. Will
not the German Government be acting in Turkey's own best interests,
if she prevents her from committing economic and moral suicide?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account