This preamble in the first person is reluctantly written. But I feel that it must be given, in order that I may anticipate exception to my statements on the ground that I am “not acquainted with the problem,” and that “it is impossible for an outsider to form a judgment on these matters.” For I have always found that the Turk _and his friends_, when you speak to them on the Armenian question, flatly deny your facts and challenge the competency of your judgment. It is necessary, then, for me to state that the facts set forth here are given with intimate personal knowledge of their authenticity, and that the judgments passed upon these facts are the result of years of study and observation at close range. CHAPTER I IN APRIL, 1915, THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT BEGAN TO PUT INTO EXECUTION THROUGHOUT TURKEY A SYSTEMATIC AND CAREFULLY-PREPARED PLAN TO EXTERMINATE THE ARMENIAN RACE. IN SIX MONTHS NEARLY A MILLION ARMENIANS HAVE BEEN KILLED. THE NUMBER OF THE VICTIMS AND THE MANNER OF THEIR DESTRUCTION ARE WITHOUT PARALLEL IN MODERN HISTORY. In the autumn of 1914, the Turks began to mobilize Christians as well as Moslems for the army. For six months, in every part of Turkey, they called upon the Armenians for military service. Exemption money was accepted from those who could pay. A few weeks later the exemption certificates were disregarded, and their holders enrolled. The younger classes of Armenians, who did not live too far from Constantinople, were placed, as in the Balkan wars, in the active army. The older ones, and all the Armenians enrolled in the more distant regions, were utilized for road, railway, and fortification building. Wherever they were called, and to whatever task they were put, the Armenians did their duty, and worked for the defence of Turkey. They proved themselves brave soldiers and intelligent and industrious labourers. In April, 1915, orders were sent out from Constantinople to the local authorities in Asia Minor to take whatever measures were deemed best to paralyse in advance an attempt at rebellion on the part of the Armenians. The orders impressed upon the local authorities that the Armenians were an extreme danger to the safety of the empire, and suggested that national defence demanded imperatively _anticipatory_ severity in order that the Armenians might be rendered harmless. In some places, the local authorities replied that they had observed no suspicious activity on the part of the Armenians and reminded the Government that the Armenians were harmless because they possessed no arms and because the most vigorous masculine element had already been taken for the army. There are some Turks who have a sense of pity and a sense of shame! But the majority of the Turkish officials responded with alacrity to the hint from Constantinople, and those who did not were very soon replaced. A new era of Armenian massacres began.