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
alone, now in my dining-room all the Americans ate together,
nineteen adults and a number of children! By this time almost all
the Europeans had left the city, including the Consuls of the Allied
Powers; the banks were closed and the Indo-European telegraph office
was shut. The Europeans who were left in the city came to us for
refuge, all except one family of Italians and a few Germans,
Austrians and Turkish subjects who thought they would be safe. But
even these asked to have a place reserved in case of need, for no
one knew what might happen when a horde of undisciplined Kurds
entered the city. Not only this, but a number of prominent
Mohammedans came to ask protection, and very many more left the city
to flee to Teheran, knowing that they might be molested or
blackmailed.
On Tuesday, the 5th January, the Russian troops left the city and
encamped on its outskirts; the next day they started north towards
Djoulfa, and on Friday, the 8th, the Turks and Kurds entered. For
the next three weeks they were in possession of Tabriz. We were cut
off from the outside world, without news of what was occurring
elsewhere, practically shut up in this compound with the four
hundred who had taken refuge with us. We had as our guests Belgians
from the Customs and Finance Departments, French Catholic Sisters
with forty or fifty of their school-children, two German ladies who
had been sick and unable to go with the rest of the German colony, a
Russian lady, and two American Seventh Day Adventist missionaries
from Maragha, but most of the people were Armenian and Nestorian. As
you see, they were of all nationalities and religions, but all lived
together in the greatest goodwill, and things moved with a
remarkable lack of trouble or friction.
We had planned to observe the regular Week of Prayer with nightly
services in our church, but our church had to be abandoned, for
almost every Christian from that quarter of the city had fled, and
no one dared to stir out of doors after dark. But we were given a
greater opportunity. Instead of a week’s services attended by fifty
or sixty people, we had Evangelistic services in the assembly room
of the Memorial School every night for a full four weeks, with a
hundred to a hundred and fifty in attendance, and all listening with
the most earnest attention. And as we had with us refugee families
from Soudjboulak, Maragha and other places, we had a chance to
preach the Gospel to those rarely, if ever, reached by the truth.
Instead of having to seek a congregation, we had it ready within our
gates, and one composed of those whose hearts were softened in the
fact of our common danger and life together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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