_The most interesting document in this section is No. 12, which was compiled from German sources, published in a German journal, and immediately suppressed by the German Censorship._ 1. DESPATCH[8] FROM MR. HENRY WOOD, CORRESPONDENT OF THE AMERICAN “UNITED PRESS” AT CONSTANTINOPLE; PUBLISHED IN THE AMERICAN PRESS, 14th AUGUST, 1915. So critical is the situation that Ambassador Morgenthau, who alone is fighting to prevent wholesale slaughter, has felt obliged to ask the co-operation of the Ambassadors of Turkey’s two Allies. They have been successful to the extent of securing definite promises from the leading members of the Young Turk Government that no orders will be given for massacres. The critical moment for the Armenians, however, will come, it is feared, when the Turks may meet with serious reverses in the Dardanelles or when the Armenians themselves, who not only are in open revolt but are actually in possession of Van and several other important towns, may meet with fresh successes. It is this uprising of the Armenians who are seeking to establish an independent government that the Turks declare is alone responsible for the terrible measures now being taken against them[9]. In the meantime, the position of the Armenians and the system of deportation, dispersion, and extermination that is being carried out against them beggars all description. Although the present renewal of the Armenian atrocities has been under way for three months, it is only just now that reports creeping into Constantinople from the remotest points of the interior show that absolutely no portion of the Armenian population has been spared. It now appears that the order for the present cruelties was issued in the early part of May, and was at once put into execution with all the extreme genius of the Turkish police system—the one department of government for which the Turks have ever shown the greatest aptitude, both in organisation and administration. At that time sealed orders were sent to the police of the entire Empire. These were to be opened on a specified date that would ensure the orders being in the hands of every department at the moment they were to be opened. Once opened, they provided for a simultaneous descent at practically the same moment on the Armenian population of the entire Empire.