And now for nearly thirty years Turkey gave the world an illustration of government by massacre. We in Europe and America heard of these events when they reached especially monstrous proportions, as they did in 1895-96, when nearly 200,000 Armenians were most atrociously done to death. But through all these years the existence of the Armenians was one continuous nightmare. Their property was stolen, their men were murdered, their women were ravished, their young girls were kidnapped and forced to live in Turkish harems. All these things happened daily. Yet Abdul Hamid was not able to accomplish his full purpose; had he had his will, he would have massacred the whole nation in one hideous orgy. He attempted to do this in 1895, but found certain insuperable obstructions to his plan. Chief of these were England, France, and Russia. These atrocities called Gladstone, then eighty-six years old, from his retirement, and his speeches, in which he denounced the Sultan as “the Great Assassin” and “Abdul the Damned,” aroused the whole world to the enormities that were taking place. It became apparent that, unless the Sultan desisted, England, France, and Russia would intervene, and the Sultan well knew that, in case this intervention took place, such remnants of Turkey as had survived earlier partitions would disappear. Thus Abdul Hamid had to abandon his satanic enterprise of destroying a whole race by murder; yet Armenia continued to suffer the slow agony of pitiless persecution. Up to the outbreak of the European war not a day had passed in the Armenian vilayets without its outrages and its murders. The Young Turk régime, despite its promises of universal brotherhood, brought no respite to the Armenians. A few months after the love-feastings already described, one of the worst massacres took place at Adana, in which 35,000 people were destroyed.