The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon
History
The treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire: Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon
Armenian question; Armenians; World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Refugees
I doubt whether the story of that awful flight can ever adequately
be told. Few tales that I have ever heard can compare with it in
heart-rending interest. The whole northern section of the Urmia
plain learned of the departure of the Russian troops about ten
o’clock on the night of Saturday, the 2nd January (1915). By
midnight the terrible exodus had begun, and by morning the Christian
villages of that district were practically deserted. People left
their cattle in the stables and all their household goods in their
homes, just as they were, and hurried away to save their lives. If
anyone possessed a horse or a donkey or any other beast of burden he
was fortunate, and if he happened to have ready cash in his home he
was even more so; but, well-to-do as a man may be, cash is not
always on hand in the villages, and so many who, according to the
standards of the country, were rich, started on their long journey
with a mere pittance, and the vast majority of men and women and
children were on foot. Before the seven days’ hard walking through
the slush and mud to the Russian border was accomplished, all
encumbrances were cast aside, quilts, extra clothing, and even
bread, for it became a question with the poor, tired, struggling
crowd which they would carry—their bedding or their babies. Of
course, very many of the weaker ones never reached Djoulfa at all,
but lay down by the roadside for their last long rest, and those who
did reach the Russian border were so haggard and emaciated that
their own friends did not recognise them. Almost worse than the
weary tramping by day, in the most terrible mud, were the nights in
the villages by the way. Every possible shelter was so crowded that
there was no room whatever to lie down, and the air became so foul
before morning that the occupants were nearly suffocated; and yet
those who could find no shelter and lay out all night in the wet
were even more miserable. As one has heard the same sad story
repeated a score of times with only a difference in details, one has
wondered what human flesh and blood can stand in a great crisis like
this. I should like to give two instances that have come under my
personal knowledge; such stories might be multiplied a thousand
times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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