The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 4, October 1909)American National Red Cross
History
The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol. IV, No. 4, October 1909)
American National Red Cross
American National Red Cross -- Periodicals; Red Cross and Red Crescent -- Periodicals
“Dick got into uniform the moment he arrived, and we saw no more of him
till 11 at night. He had been rescuing all the foreign subjects he could
find. The following day I saw more brutal murders. An Armenian quarter
near us was attacked by Arab soldiers from our guard and was practically
wiped out. Their officers and one or two decent soldiers stuck to the
guardhouse and took no part in the murders. The officers, at my earnest
appeal, even saved some women and children—but how dreadfully shot they
were.
“After an hour’s argument I got a Greek doctor to come out with me to
the guardhouse and dress the wounded women and children. The room was
a puddle of blood, and while we were working there a wounded Armenian,
who was staggering in to be dressed, was stabbed to death by some of the
soldiers. I saw many murders, and nobody seemed to care.
“The authorities did nothing, and the soldiers were worse than the crowd,
for they were better armed.
“One house in our quarter was burned with 115 people inside. We counted
the bodies. The soldiers set fire to the door, and as the windows had
iron bars nobody could get out. Everybody in the house was roasted alive.
They were all women and children and old people. It was in that part of
the town that Dick was wounded. They told him that some wounded Turkish
soldiers were lying among the burning houses, and he went to rescue them,
which they certainly did not deserve. The house from which he was shot
had a garden filled with dead women and children, and I have no doubt
that some Armenian, who had lost entire family and most of his friends,
shot him in a sort of mad fit, probably taking him for a Turk.
_Slaughter in the Fields._
“Outside Adana every Christian village—Greek, Syrian, or Armenian—has
been burned and every soul in them killed. Unfortunately, it was just
before harvest, and thousands of peasants from the mountains and other
districts were there to start work. From 100 to 200 men and women were
murdered on every farm. Turkish farms were not burned or looted, but the
Armenian servants were killed. I know of only one farmer—a friend of
ours—who had the nerve to save his Armenians.
[Illustration: MRS. DOUGHTY-WYLIE IN UNIFORM OF ARMY NURSE ON BALCONY OF
SURGICAL HOSPITAL.]
“The French engineer and an English traveler gallantly did some saving.
They had escorts, and the Frenchman stood a three-days’ siege and made
his escort fight some Circassians to save a dozen Armenians. It was
gallantly done. The Englishman, whose name is Gunter, refused to save
himself unless the Armenians who had thrown themselves on his protection
were saved. It was touch and go for the lot, but British pluck won and he
got his own terms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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