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
At Kaisaria they hanged eight Armenians. About the same time they
hanged twenty-six at Constantinople, and this immediately after the
note of the Powers threatening to hold Turkish officials responsible
for massacres of Armenians. Imprisonment and exile are common
things, and the Reverend Missionary finished by saying that “I ought
to be glad I was out of it.”
Dr. C., coming from Constantinople, gave me the further information
that massacres had been going on round Bitlis for some time. And
then, from correspondents at Bitlis, his informants had had news
that whole villages were embracing Mohammedanism in order to escape
tortures, because the object of the massacres was not simply to
kill, but to torture.
A resident at Mardin had telegraphed by code to Constantinople
informing his correspondent there that the same conditions existed
at Mardin as during 1895.
The American Ambassador at Constantinople, after asking the Turkish
Government to stop the massacres, went to the German Ambassador. But
Herr Wangenheim said he could not interfere in any way with Turkey’s
internal affairs!!!
All these informants do not hide their belief, based on what they
have actually seen, that German policy is at the back of the
movement for a clean Mohammedan “Turkey for the Turks.”
I will give your Excellency another coincident piece of evidence. In
May, 1914, I travelled with Dr. Niazim Bey, who is the spirit of the
Union and Progress Party, when he was on the mission of establishing
a boycott—nominally against the Greeks only, though it proved to be
against the Armenians as well. The Doctor said that the work of the
Turkish Government was very complicated, and he laid all the fault
of it on the ancestors of the modern Turks, who, in spite of their
being victorious and defying all Europe, nay all the world, had not
been far-sighted enough to cleanse all the country they ruled of the
Christian element, but had yielded to their chivalrous feelings and
allowed the Christians to live. Had they done this bit of cleaning
up at a time when nobody could protest, there would have been an
easy task now for the heads of the Government in governing, and so
on.
The Russian retreat has intoxicated the Turks. They think they have
their chance now, and evidence shows that their almighty ally
Germany encourages them in their effort at house cleaning. The note
of the Allied Powers is no deterrent, even if the Turkish officials
were not sure of final victory, because they feel that, if they
lose, Turkey is not the place to offer them a happy shelter, and,
with the money they are making now, the officials responsible can
hide themselves in a country where they cannot be found or cannot be
extradited. And some of the bolder spirits, like Talaat and Enver,
have openly said that they do not expect to live if defeated, even
without the threat of the Allies to bring them to account.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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