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
No distinctions were made between persons or villages, as to whether
they were loyal and had paid their taxes or not. The orders were to make
a clean sweep. A priest and some leading men from one village went out
to meet an officer, taking in their hands their tax receipts, declaring
their loyalty, and begging for mercy; but the village was surrounded,
and all human beings put to the bayonet. A large and strong man, the
chief of one village, was captured by the Kourds, who tied him, threw
him on the ground, and, squatting around him, stabbed him to pieces.
At Galogozan many young men were tied hand and foot, laid in a row,
covered with brushwood and burned alive. Others were seized and hacked
to death piecemeal. At another village a priest and several leading men
were captured, and promised release if they would tell where others had
fled, but, after telling, all but the priest were killed. A chain was
put around the priest’s neck, and pulled from opposite sides till he was
several times choked and revived, after which several bayonets were
planted upright, and he raised in the air and let fall upon them.
The men of one village, when fleeing, took the women and children, some
five hundred in number, and placed them in a sort of grotto in a ravine.
After several days the soldiers found them, and butchered those who had
not died of hunger.
Sixty young women and girls were selected from one village and placed in
a church, when the soldiers were ordered to do with them as they liked,
after which they were butchered.
In another village fifty choice women were set aside and urged to change
their faith and become _hanums_ in Turkish harems, but they indignantly
refused to deny Christ, preferring the fate of their fathers and
husbands. People were crowded into houses which were then set on fire.
In one instance a little boy ran out of the flames, but was caught on a
bayonet and thrown back.
Children were frequently held up by the hair and cut in two, or had
their jaws torn apart. Women with child were ripped open; older children
were pulled apart by their legs. A handsome, newly wedded couple fled to
a hilltop; soldiers followed, and told them they were pretty and would
be spared if they would accept Islam, but the thought of the horrible
death they knew would follow did not prevent them from confessing
Christ.
The last stand took place on Mount Andoke [south of Moosh], where some
thousand persons had sought refuge. The Kourds were sent in relays to
attack them, but for ten or fifteen days were unable to get at them. The
soldiers also directed the fire of their mountain guns on them, doing
some execution. Finally, after the besieged had been without food for
several days, and their ammunition was exhausted, the troops succeeded
in reaching the summit without any loss, and let scarcely a man escape.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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