RECENT TROUBLES: Unfair Exploitation of One-sided Reports—Standards of Proof declining in Times of Trouble—Captain Fortescue on the Looting of Pera Palace—Sir William Osler on Emotional Instability—“A Well-known Hand”—Sources of Lord Crewe’s Information—Improbability of Unprovoked Turkish Action:—Military and Political Situation—Habitual Calm and Tolerance of the Turk—Conditions Favourable to Armenian Rising—What Actually Happened—Armenians Capture Van Butcher the Inhabitants—Further Risings—Necessity of Repressive Measures—Moslems alarmed for own Safety—Panic and Retaliation 41 VII. FIGURES AND FANCIES: Exaggerated Estimates—Over One Million Victims out of 900,000 Inhabitants!—The Mystery of Mersina—The Drownings at Trebizond vouched for by Italian Consul—Different Story by the same Authority—The Curious Case of Canon McColl—Unfounded Armenian Claims to Independence—The Armenians Minority of Population 49 VIII. BRITISH POLICIES AND RUSSIAN AIMS: Object of Agitation to Influence British Policy—Kurdistan the Key of Mesopotamia—Sir Henry Layard’s and Mr. Grattan Geary’s Opinion—The Danger to Egypt—Cyprus Convention—Russian Opposition to Reforms—Anglo-Russian Entente followed by Reversion of British Policy—Turkish Request for British Administrators Refused—Russian Proposals—Turkey Appeals to Germany—An Impossible Compromise—Band-Warfare and Propaganda 54 IX. CONCLUSIONS 59 Principal Authors consulted and quoted in the following pages: BURNABY, Captain Fred: On Horseback through Asia Minor (Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London 1877). GEARY, Grattan: Through Asiatic Turkey (Sampson, M. S. & R., London, 1878). ‘ODYSSEUS’: Turkey in Europe (Edw. Arnold, London 1900). PEARS, Sir Edwin: Forty Years in Constantinople (Herbert Jenkins, 1915). SYKES, Sir Mark: Dar-ul-Islam (Bickers & Son, London 1904). ” ”: The Caliph’s Last Heritage (Macmillan & Co., London 1915). WHITMAN, Sidney: Turkish Memories (Wm. Heinemann, London 1914). WILSON, Sir Charles: Article on “ARMENIA” in the Encyclopædia Britannica. THE ARMENIANS I.