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
Events have moved rapidly since I sent my appeal of the 18th
February. In the intervening month the Russian army has made
splendid progress and driven the Turks back many miles beyond
Erzeroum and Van. The capture of Bitlis, Moush and Mamahatoun
(Derdjan) has given assurance to the Government, to the Armenians
and to us all. The return of the refugees to the Van province has
been officially authorized. Men are hastening back even while the
snow is on the ground. The 12,000 already there will soon be 20,000
and 30,000. Reports say: “Men are going in large numbers.”—“Every
day caravans of those returning to the fatherland enter,” via Igdir.
Most of these have returned from the Erivan province to Van. Others,
of whom 500 are women, have settled in Alashkerd. Fifty-three
hundred have gone back from Russian Passin to the Turkish province
of the same name. The Governor of Kars reports that from Olti and
that region refugees are returning to the districts of Erzeroum, and
that many of them are women and children. In Bashkala there are
nearly 3,000 refugees, said to be in great wretchedness and in need
of daily sustenance.
Besides these, numbers are coming forth from their places of
concealment, or from the houses of certain friendly Kurds, or from
their captivity in Moslem harems. These are indeed but hundreds
compared with the thousands who have been massacred or driven into
the wildernesses. But it is a gratification to hear that from
Sassoun 160 men came forth; that in Khnyss there have appeared more
than a thousand new refugees; that in Riza on the Black Sea more
than 200 Armenian children were discovered after the taking of the
town by the Russians; that in Bitlis men, women and children have
come forth in large numbers (2,800); that in Moush nearly 3,000
souls have been freed. Erzeroum seems to have been dealt with most
savagely. Less than 200 Armenians out of 20,000 in the city itself
escaped death or deportation, that is, exile. Of these, thirty were
saved in the house of Mr. Stapleton. The Armenians report that when
the Moslems came and demanded that these girls should be delivered
over to them, Mr. Stapleton replied: “You must kill me before you
can touch them.” Recent reports say that in the villages round
Erzeroum Armenian women and children are appearing, singly and in
groups, and are in the greatest need. Whose heart is not moved with
pity for and desire to preserve these remnants who have escaped from
the greatest destruction! Our opportunity is a wonderful one—to save
the remnant, to aid in the restoration, to prepare for the return of
the 200,000 fugitives now in Persia and the Caucasus.
Our call to help is both general and specific. A specific and
unusual call has reached us from the Russian Governor of Van, Mr.
Alfred Teremin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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