The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and Significance, With a Consideration of Some of the Factors Which Enter Into the Solution of This Phase of the Eastern QuestionGreene, Frederick Davis
History
The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and Significance, With a Consideration of Some of the Factors Which Enter Into the Solution of This Phase of the Eastern Question
Greene, Frederick Davis
Armenian massacres, 1894-1896; Armenian question
The letters are arranged in chronological order. In view of the fact
that the names of the cities from which the various documents are dated
must be withheld at present, these places are designated by letters of
the alphabet. The separate extracts are also numbered to facilitate
reference. In order that there may be no confusion, all explanatory
comments of the author are enclosed in brackets.
THE EVIDENCE.
No. 1.
[The reader should take notice that this first letter was written over
four months before the massacre actually occurred.]
D..., April 3, 1894.
It does seem in this region as if the government were bent on reducing
all those who survive the process to a grovelling poverty, when they can
think of nothing more than getting their daily bread. There is good
reason for thinking that unless so-called Christian nations extend a
helping hand, they [the Armenians] will become wellnigh extinct. Of
course I do not sympathize in any way with the extremists in other lands
who are stirring things up here. Nor do I agree with those papers that
decry this movement as very foolish because there is no hope for
success. If I rightly interpret the movement in this region, the thought
is not revolution at all, but a desperate effort to call the attention
of Europe to the wrongs they are suffering and will ever continue to
suffer under this government. They feel that they will never succeed in
attracting that attention unless they show that they are desperate
enough to sacrifice their lives. _And there is no computing the lives
that are going, not in open massacre as in Bulgaria—the government knows
better than that,—but in secret, silent, secluded ways._ The sooner it
is known, the better. There never will be peaceful, prosperous
conditions here until others take hold with a strong hand.
[Illustration:
VICTIMS OF TURKISH TAXATION ABANDONING THEIR VILLAGE HOMES.
]
No. 2.
[This is the first report of the massacre.]
D..., Sept. 26, 1894.
Troops have been massed in the region of the large plain near us.
Sickness broke out among them, which took off two or three victims every
few days. It was a good excuse for establishing the quarantine around,
with its income from bribes, charges, and the inevitable rise in the
price of the already dear grain. I suspect that one reason for placing
quarantine was to hinder the information as to what all those troops
were about in that region. There seems little doubt that there has been
repeated in the region back of Moosh what took place in 1876 in
Bulgaria. The sickening details are beginning to come in. As in that
case, it has been the innocent who have been the greatest sufferers.
Forty-eight villages are said to have been wholly blotted out.
No. 3.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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