[1]

THE ARMENIANS

By
C. F. DIXON-JOHNSON

“Whosoever does wrong to a Christian
or Jew shall find me his accuser on
the day of judgment” (EL KORAN).

Printed and Published by
GEO. TOULMIN & SONS, LTD.,
Northgate, Blackburn.

1916.

[2]

The following pages were first read as a paper before the “Société d’Etudes Ethnographiques.” They have since been amplified and are now being published at the request of a number of friends, who believe that the public should have an opportunity of judging whether or not “the Armenian Question” has another side than that which has been recently so assiduously promulgated throughout the Western World.

Though the championship of Greek, Bulgarian and other similar “Christian, civilized methods of fighting,” as contrasted with “Moslem atrocities” in the Balkans and Asia Minor, has been so strenuously undertaken by Lord Bryce and others, the more recent developments in the Near East may perhaps already have opened the eyes of a great many thinking people to the realization that, in sacrificing the traditional friendship of the Turk to all this more or less sectarian clamour, British diplomacy has really done nothing better than to exchange the solid and advantageous reality for a most elusive and unreliable, if not positively dangerous, set of shadows.

It seems illogical that the same party which recalled the officials (and among them our present War Minister) appointed by Lord Beaconsfield to assist the Turkish Government in reforming their administration and collecting the revenue in Asia Minor, and which on the advent of the Young Turks refused to lend British Administrators to whom ample and plenary powers were assured, should now, in its eagerness to vilify the Turk, lose sight of their own mistakes which have led in the main to the conditions of which it complains, and should so utterly condemn its own former policy. Whatever hardships the Armenians may within recent years have suffered, the responsibility for them must surely to a great extent rest with the well-meaning idealists who, instead of trying to improve existing conditions, inspired their helpless dupes with impracticable aspirations which were bound to lead to disaster.

[4]

The writer desires to thank those authors and travellers whose works he has so freely quoted, and upon whose information he has relied for the historical and geographical notes, as well as Professor Henry Léon, Mr. Robert Fraser, and other friends, who have afforded him their most valuable assistance.

The reasons for dealing with the subject at this particular juncture are given in the text and will, he hopes, prove satisfactory to the reader.

C. F. DIXON-JOHNSON.

Croft-on-Tees, Yorkshire.
February, 1916.

The earliest history of Armenia, as Kurdistan was called previous to its conquest by the Osmanli Turks, is lost in the mists of mythology. But even in the pre-Persian era we find Armenia existing as a separate state, populated by a number of fierce and diverse tribes who were continually contending amongst themselves, the victor for the time being imposing its own chieftain as suzerain over the remainder. These tribes differed greatly in their racial characteristics, the main divisions being the Kurds, who were then called Karduchians, the Chaldeans, from whom the Nestorians are probably descended, and the Haikians. The latter race, who are known to us to-day as Armenians, although they still retain the name Haik amongst themselves, do not appear to have had a common origin. They may be divided, at the present time, into two distinct groups: the round-headed and the long-headed. Both, as a rule, are of short stature, with thick necks, and rather solidly built. Many of them possess peculiarly semitic features, amongst these the prominent nose which is generally considered a characteristic of the Jew. This fact has led some ethnologists to advance the theory that one of the lost tribes of Israel wandered to the shores of Lake Van and settled there, intermarrying with the Haikian inhabitants, while others assign these physiological characteristics to the incursion of certain[10] Afghan tribes. It is worthy of note in connection with this latter theory, that the Afghans are likewise, by some writers, believed to be descendants of one of the lost tribes.

If the theory that the Armenian race is descended from one of the missing tribes be correct, it is not improbable, judging from their aptitude in financial affairs and the manner in which they have made usury and money-changing a fine art, that these people may be the lineal descendants of the money-changers whom Christ scourged and drove from the Temple at Jerusalem. Even at the present day most of the sarafs, or money-lenders and changers, in the Ottoman Empire are Armenians, and their sharp practice and unscrupulousness in commercial pursuits is so notorious that it has given rise to the saying: “It takes ten Turks to cheat one Jew, ten Jews to cheat one Greek, but twenty Greeks assisted by seven Jews and five Turks to cheat one Armenian.”

It would be a tedious endeavour to follow the changes in the rulers whom the alternate ascendancies of Persia, Parthia, Greece, Rome and Byzantium subsequently imposed upon the territory of Armenia. The court, which at one time was modelled on that of Persia, became a centre of intrigue. The rulers of the contending Empires controlled the destinies of the kingdom by political rather than by forcible means, finding it easier, as a rule, to remove an unamenable king by assassination, bribery, or by fomenting revolution, than by sending armed forces into an inaccessible country populated by fierce tribes. For this reason the Kings of Armenia practically became puppets in the hands of their more powerful neighbours.

The most important event in the early history of Armenia came with the accession in 284 A.D. of Diocletian as Emperor of Rome. Diocletian, desirous of establishing his influence there, sent from Rome a young Armenian by name Tiridates, the last living representative of the Armenian branch[11] of the Arsacid dynasty, which was originally of Persian origin. Tiridates rallied the nobles, and supported by them and a few Roman troops who had accompanied him, drove out the Persian governors. A decade or so after being proclaimed king, Tiridates became a convert to Christianity, and with the help of his cousin, St. Gregory the Illuminator, established the Christian faith in Armenia.

The priestly families, when they heard that the new religion required no sacrifices, were much perturbed and threatened violent opposition. But astute St. Gregory was equal to the occasion. He not only promised that the sacrifices should continue, but that the priestly share of the slaughtered animals should be greater than ever before, and he furthermore assured to them the hereditary succession of the priesthood. Thus thoroughly satisfied, the priests unanimously adopted the new doctrines and became servants of the new religion.

The change was nominal rather than real; the new religion was grafted on to the old, and ancient rites were maintained under fresh names. In order to ensure to the priesthood their full share of the slaughtered animals, it was ordered that no animal except those slain in the chase should be killed by anyone but the priests themselves. Animal sacrifice still forms an important part of the ritual of the Gregorian, or, as it is called, the Armenian Church. Even to-day the priests are able to terrify recalcitrant members of the church by threatening to withhold the matal or sacrifice made for the ablution of sins after death.

In the cities and plains, where the population was engaged in commerce, agriculture and other peaceful pursuits, St. Gregory, with the aid of his newly converted priests, had little difficulty in imposing the new religion. The people, freed by the apostacy of the priesthood, were glad to rid themselves of the Zoroastrian religion, which they disliked because it had been imposed upon them under the domination of the Persians.[12] It should be noted that what is termed the Orthodox Armenian Church stands apart and distinct, both in its doctrines and ritual, from either the Greek or Protestant Churches. It was not represented at the Council of Chalcedon and never signified its acceptance of, or adherence to the doctrines there promulgated. It holds to a certain extent what is known as the Monophysite doctrine: that the mortal body of Jesus was incorruptible. Many of the Orthodox Armenian clergy still cling to the tradition that after the entombment of Jesus His body was conveyed by angels to Mount Ararat and deposited beside the remains of Noah’s Ark, which, according to them, are still to be found there. During the period when He made Himself visible to His disciples, as related in the New Testament, Christ again assumed this earthly body, which after His ascent to Heaven was re-conveyed by the angels to Mount Ararat, where it still lies in a secret tomb, uncorrupted and ready to be reassumed once more at His second coming upon earth.

Mass is celebrated in the Armenian Church with a very elaborate ritual entirely distinct from and much more ornate and oriental than that of either the Latin or Greek Churches. During the celebration the assistants at the ceremonial rattle a curious instrument, not unlike the ancient Egyptian sistrum, composed of a huge cross set with jangling brass rings.

The head of the Church is styled in Armenian Katoghikos (Catholicos). The Armenian clergy is none too well educated, and is extremely superstitious and bigoted. All other forms of Christianity are denounced by them as heretical, and they have not scrupled to persecute those of their flock who have listened to the persuasive appeals of Protestant missionaries.

Mr. Grattan Geary, when at Mosul, found that each of the churches belonging to the warring sects had a guard of Turkish soldiers to keep the peace. Camp bedsteads were placed outside the church doors, on which these soldiers slept at night, and the[13] sentries pacing up and down presented arms as he entered. When he endeavoured to get some definite knowledge respecting the various antagonistic sects of native Christians, the one distinctive idea which he derived from their answers was that, in the opinion of each sect, all the others were hopelessly perverse, besotted, ignorant and dishonest, and that, in a word, they were somewhat worse than Mussulmans. He tells us (in his book “Through Asiatic Turkey”) that

In the meantime, while the Armenian of the plains had accepted St. Gregory’s teaching, the mountaineers, who had never adopted the religion of their alien rulers, continued to remain pagans. This circumstance was an important factor in accentuating the natural cleavage between the cultivators of the plains and the pastoral mountaineers, a cleavage due, in a great measure, to the physical conditions of the country, the plains being wide and extensive and the mountains distant and not very accessible, with the result that the population of Armenia at that time was more acutely divided than the Highlanders and the Lowlanders of Scotland a few centuries ago.

So far as archæological remains are concerned, practically no trace is to be found of this early Armenian kingdom.[14] Whatever towns there may have been were probably constructed chiefly of wood or mud, and the cultural level of the inhabitants seems to have been far below that of their neighbours. This is not to be wondered at when we take into account the climatic conditions of the country, the lack of communications and the state of anarchy into which it was so frequently plunged. Although for a brief period under Tigranes II. Armenia in alliance with Mithridates, king of Pontus, became a kingdom of considerable importance, it reverted to its former dimensions after his defeat by Lucullus in the year 69 B.C. To speak of “the glories” historical or material, of ancient Armenia is simply a misuse of words.

After the abdication in the year 430 A.D. of King Bahram, who was the last really independent ruler, although the kingdom was nominally divided between the Eastern and Western Empires, the condition of Armenia became worse than ever before. Anarchy and disunion reigned supreme. The nobles, jealous, intriguing, covetous and mercenary, continually transferred their allegiance from one side to another, or, when not busy fighting as partisans for Rome or Persia occupied their time congenially in warring amongst themselves and ravaging each others’ territories.

In the year 1079 the Seljuks swept through the land, and with the fall of King Hagig II. the last remaining semblance of an independent Armenia disappeared. The Seljuks respected the Christian religion of the plain dwellers but converted the mountaineers to the Islamic faith, thus still further accentuating the line of demarcation between what may fairly be described as the Highlanders and Lowlanders of the district.

The rule of the Seljuks, who showed their tolerance by allowing the Lowlanders to remain Christians, was mild and liberal. They greatly improved the condition of the country, restored law and order and erected many public buildings and[15] mosques, traces of which are still visible. On the other hand the country suffered grievously during the subsequent invasions of the Mongol hordes.

The year following the invasion of the Seljuks the Pagatrid Rhupen founded a small principality in Cilicia, which by gradually extending its boundaries became known later as the kingdom of Lesser Armenia. Internal disputes between the Catholics and Gregorians weakened this little State and facilitated its conquest by Egypt in 1375.

In 1414 Selim I., Osmanli Sultan of Constantinople, drove out the Mongols, and with their disappearance Armenia was incorporated in the Ottoman Empire under the name of Kurdistan.

The physical features of Kurdistan have an important bearing on the political history of the country. It is a high tableland 6,000 feet or so above the sea level. On the north it descends somewhat abruptly to the Black Sea, on the south it exhibits a series of rugged terraces ending in the lowlands of Mesopotamia, while on the east and west it slopes more gradually, until it reaches the low plateaux of Persia and Asia Minor.

The general appearance of this tableland is uninteresting and monotonous. Most of the hills are grass-covered and[16] treeless except for patches of scrubby looking bushes, while the plains are wide and cultivated. The winters are long and severe; the summers, which last about five months, are very hot and almost without rain.

The population falls into three distinct groups: sedentary, semi-nomadic and nomadic.

THE FIRST GROUP, consisting of Armenians, Greeks, Turks, Jews, and some few Kurds, lives in the plains, chiefly as agriculturists, merchants and traders, but their staple means of livelihood is undoubtedly agriculture. During the short summer months they till the fields, and in the winter retire to their towns and villages. They are a hard-working, thrifty and prosperous race.

THE SECOND GROUP, the semi-nomads, are Kurds. They migrate with their flocks along the valleys in the spring, the slopes in summer, and the mountain tops in autumn. They sell wool, butter, goats’ hair, skins, and animals for slaughter to the traders in the plains, and in return purchase domestic necessaries such as barley, petroleum and sugar for their own use, and hay for their herds. Thus provided they move, as winter approaches, to the mountain villages, there to await the coming of the following spring.

These Kurds are a truculent, warlike, yet simple, generous and industrious race. They live in separate tribes or communities under their own chieftains. The character of the tribes varies considerably, some being fiercer than others. Some regard all strangers with suspicion and repel them, while others welcome and confide in them. In this respect, and in fact in many other characteristics, they very much resemble the Scotch Highland clans of some two hundred years ago. Like these they at times war with one another, the usual cause for dispute being either the ownership of the ground on which the flocks are grazed, or the proprietorship of a well.

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Mr. Grattan Geary, who travelled through Asiatic Turkey in 1878, describes the Kurds as “fine, strong fellows, with well marked features, which are, however, often marred by a sinister expression and a furtive glance, for which it is not easy to account in the descendants of a race of martial mountaineers who have never bowed the neck to any yoke. They have a reputation for treachery and cruelty, which I am afraid is not undeserved.” Mr. Geary during his journey found that the outlying Christian and Moslem villages were again being plundered by the Kurdish mountaineers although

but in the opinion of those with whom he spoke on the subject

The success of General Hawker, an officer of the Guards placed by the Turkish Government in command of a well equipped and regularly paid gendarmerie (an appointment which he held until the outbreak of the present European war) has amply verified the correctness of these views.

It is worthy of observation that as a means of “civilizing” the Kurds, and accustoming them to discipline, and at the same time suitably utilizing their warlike propensities as a frontier guard against Cossack raids, Sultan Abdul Hamid formed nearly 10,000 of these Kurds into cavalry regiments, styling them the “Hamidieh Cavalry.” The bravery, hardihood and energy of these men rendered them particularly fit for such[18] an operation, and the experiment proved a complete success. It was largely from time-expired men of these regiments that many of the gendarmes, who proved themselves so efficient under General Hawker’s command, were enlisted.

THE THIRD GROUP, the nomadic Kurds, have largely intermarried with the Arabs of the South, where they winter their flocks and herds, and are therefore really semi-Arab rather than pure Kurd. They are neither so industrious nor so reliable as the Kurds proper, but are quicker witted and more intelligent. During the summer months they graze their flocks on the mountain slopes, and as winter approaches migrate to the warmer regions bordering on Mesopotamia, to return again in the early summer.

It is important to note that the four great mountain strongholds of the Hakkiari, the Dersim, the Zeitun and the Sassun form an exception to the general rule that the plains are populated by a tenacious but unwarlike race of farmers and merchants, largely composed of Armenians, while the mountains are occupied by warlike nomadic and semi-nomadic Kurds. The sturdy warlike agriculturists of these four rough inaccessible regions have never, from the earliest until comparatively recent times, really acknowledged the control of a central government. Originally refugees from persecution, they in their turn offered shelter to lawbreakers and bandits. A large proportion of the Hakkiari are Nestorians, while the Dersimli are Kurds and the Zeitunli and Sassunli Gregorian Armenians. Mr. Geary, who believes the Nestorians to be the descendants of the ancient Chaldeans, says:—“They are unquestionably as fine a people, physically, as are to be found anywhere and their well-shaped heads and expressive features denote great natural intelligence.”

Having thus sketched as briefly as possible the early history, ethnology and physical features of the country, we shall be better able to understand what is commonly known as the “Armenian Question.”

When the Ottoman rule was established, the plain-dwellers and the pastoral tribes of the mountain slopes still preserved their national customs, language and vices, and they have retained these to this day. The waves of conquest had swept over the cold, inhospitable plateau into the richer and warmer plains beyond; but while the conquerors had established governors and garrisons, they had never planted colonists; this is the principal reason why there has been so little change in this strange country. When we hear of the aspirations of the Armenians for independence or absorption by Russia, we must always remember that from all accounts the mountaineers, or Kurds, have been as long established in Kurdistan as the plain-dwellers, usually called by the name of Armenians, and have consequently an equal right to a voice in the matter.

How then is it that the Armenians have developed a national sentiment, whereas the Kurds, who equally retain their former customs and language, are bitterly opposed to any alteration in their present condition?

We all know that Constantinople was captured by the Osmanli Turks in the year 1453. Their sultan, Mahomed II., a liberal and wise ruler, granted religious freedom to the conquered races in his dominions and, in order not to be troubled with their continual disputes, organized all the non-Moslems into communities or “millets” under their own ecclesiastical chiefs, with absolute authority in civil and religious matters. There was already at this time a large[20] number of Armenians in Stambul, who in due course were formed into a community of this kind under their own Ecclesiastikos or Patriach. When Selim I. conquered Armenia the Gregorian Christians of that country were by an imperial iradé incorporated under the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople, while the Kurds, who had embraced Islam under the Seljuk rule, received no special treatment since they were of the same religion as their rulers.

The formation of the conquered races into separate communities under their own ecclesiastical chiefs, though inspired by the most benevolent principles, has, by fostering centrifrugal aspirations, been the root evil of all the subsequent internal troubles in the Ottoman Empire. Sir Charles Wilson in his article on Armenia, in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” explains how this happened in the case of the Armenians:

But there the process of evolution stopped, for although the national idea became familiar to the Armenian population, there was no real aspiration for a national or separate existence. A well-informed and acute writer, ‘Odysseus,’ in his book[21] “Turkey in Europe” tells us that until the years succeeding the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878:

The toleration of the Government and the friendly relations which existed at that time between the Turks and the Armenians, as described by ‘Odysseus,’ is fully corroborated by the following passages from Mr. Geary’s book “Through Asiatic Turkey”:

It should be observed that the Armenians as a race are considerably scattered. The original territory known as Armenia having been annexed by Russia, Persia, and Turkey, the bulk of the Armenian population is divided between these three Powers. They are estimated to number in Russia about 1,000,000, in Persia 150,000, and in Turkey, including Salonika and the lost European Provinces, 1,500,000. In addition to these there are about 250,000 Armenians scattered through Europe, America, the East Indies and Egypt. As we shall subsequently see, all the troubles originated from outside and not in Kurdistan itself. The first disturbing element, in the opinion of ‘Odysseus,’ was the arrival of a number of Protestant and other foreign missionaries. This judgment, disappointing as it must be to many who are deeply interested in the religious side of missionary work, is amply corroborated by Sir Edwin Pears, who admits in his book, “Forty Years in Constantinople,” that “In a very real sense it may be said that the fomenters of political agitation in Armenia, as in Bulgaria, were the schoolmasters and the missions, Catholic or Protestant.” These good men, as we are told by Sir Mark Sykes, in his interesting and most important work entitled “Dar-ul-Islam,” soon found that

But the process of turning a Jacobite into an American Keswickian Presbyterian spoilt a good Oriental and made him a discontented and semi-europeanised Asiatic.

The first Armenian converts to Protestantism were subjected to fierce persecutions by their fellow Armenians who clung to their old form of faith, and for their protection from this persistent annoyance and cruelty the Sultan about 1857 issued an iradé recognizing the Protestants as a separate religious community independent from the Orthodox Armenian Church and free from any interference by its officials.

The second disturbing factor were the clauses inserted, at the request of Russia, in the Berlin Treaty of July 13th, 1878, whereby the six signatory Powers acquired the right of superintendence and interference in the internal affairs of Kurdistan. The clauses of this treaty imbued the Armenians with the idea that they were entitled to the grant of special privileges from the Porte, and this was easily fomented into the notion of founding an Armenian kingdom, or at least an Armenian autonomous state. These ideas were further encouraged by the formation of the Bulgarian Principality and by the foundation in London in the year 1890 of the Anglo-Armenian Society “whose laudable object was hampered by their invincible ignorance of the spirit and methods of the East.”[3]

The third disturbing element was the development, after the Russo-Turkish war, of the Nihilist movement in Russia. The persecuted Armenians of the Caucasus readily entered into the conspiracy, the Armenian branch of which had its headquarters at Tiflis.

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The Czar’s Government increased its severity towards the Armenians, and when the Russian police made the existence of the secret societies at Tiflis too precarious, the Armenian revolutionaries moved their headquarters and branches to New York, Paris, London, and Geneva, where, between the years 1889 and 1892, they founded their secret societies the Hintchak, the Aptak and subsequently the most diabolical of them all, the Dashnahsutium. They also founded a regular revolutionary propaganda publishing their own papers and reviews.

These societies, by blackmailing and preying upon the rich Armenian financiers and traders of Europe and America, soon became wealthy corporations. Hunted out of Russia, they sent their emissaries into Kurdistan, where they renewed their nefarious campaign. Although denounced and hated by the respectable resident Armenians and the priests, whom they blackmailed and murdered as occasion offered, they even tried to embroil the central government with the European Powers by committing crimes, the responsibility for which they attempted by false evidence to fix on the Missionary Colleges. They committed murders in the streets of London. In New York the police unearthed a conspiracy of blackmail, bomb outrages and murder, which completely terrorized the rich Armenian bankers and merchants. A little over two years ago the London Press reported the discovery by the New York police of a further conspiracy of terrorism and assassination.

The advent of these revolutionary agents into Kurdistan had the inevitable result of embittering the former good relations of the Turkish Government and the resident Moslem population with the Christian, and especially the Orthodox Armenian section of the inhabitants.

This was natural for the reason that in Turkey the people have a horror of secret societies and plots, founded on the[25] experience of their own suffering at the hands of the Greek Hetairia and the Bulgarian Komitadjis. The fears of the Turks and the Kurds were genuine. They believed that the members of the once loyal “millet-i-sadika” no longer merited that title, and that they were arming and preparing to massacre the Moslems. The whole country became like a powder magazine, and Europe had not long to wait for the inevitable spark which started what are known as the Armenian massacres of 1894 and 1896.

We shall better understand the question of these massacres, if we first study the Armenian character, at the same time noticing the aptitude and fitness of the race for self-government.

The Pro-Armenian societies in this country would have us believe that the native Armenians are as a race poor, gentle, honest, agricultural folk, persecuted by wicked officials, robbed of their hard-earned savings by the wild Kurds and cruel Circassians, and periodically martyred for their Christian faith; and to give vividness to this pleasant picture one or two europeanized, highly-veneered Armenians are usually produced on our public platforms as living specimens of this “harmless, inoffensive” people. In this manner Lord Bryce, speaking recently at Manchester, pictured the life of mingled simplicity[26] and refinement lived by this Christian race in Moslem Turkey, and went on to say that the Armenians were amongst the most orderly subjects of the Turks, well educated and accustomed to the refinements of civilization as much as ourselves. If this were true it would imply that civilization, as we understand the word, must have made tremendous progress in Kurdistan within recent years under Turkish rule, but this Lord Bryce will probably not admit.

Lord Bryce proceeded to add that for the past sixteen centuries the Armenians had been a Christian people, clinging to their religion in spite of constant persecution, while all the time they might have secured complete immunity from such by renouncing their Christian faith.

It is fair to presume that Lord Bryce struck this anti-Moslem note in order to command sympathy by appealing to the religious prejudices of his audience, for the observation was not only inopportune but entirely unnecessary, in as much as later in the same speech he stated that “there was no fanaticism about the massacres and no outbreak of Moslem fury on the part of the people.”

How utterly false is his estimate of the character of the native Armenian will be shown by the testimony of competent and observant travellers and orientalists, who have studied this people in their own homes. Let us see first what Sir Charles Wilson, the great traveller and Orientalist, author of the article on Armenia in the Encyclopædia Britannica, says:

Lord Salisbury, in a letter to Sir Henry Layard, British Ambassador at Constantinople, dated May 30th, 1878, gives expression to the following opinion:

This letter confirms the contention that at that time there was no real demand for independence.

Mr. Grattan Geary, in “Through Asiatic Turkey,” says:

These words of Mr. Geary are the more interesting as they[28] so closely resemble the opinion expressed by Lord Salisbury in his letter quoted above.

‘Odysseus,’ in his “Turkey in Europe,” says:

To this testimony may be added the observations of Col. Fred Burnaby (“On horseback through Asia Minor”):

Sir Mark Sykes, who has travelled far and often into Kurdistan, certainly formed a very unsatisfactory opinion of the Armenians as a whole, especially of the town Armenians, who are quite a distinct race from the villagers, with whom they seldom intermarry. He has noticed, however, the same regrettable characteristics in the villagers as in the townsmen, though with the former he believes they are not innate, but rather imposed by the upper clergy and bishops, who are nearly all recruited from the town-folk. His remarks are deserving of careful attention. The following passage, which we venture to quote in extenso from his recently published book, “The Caliph’s Last Heritage,” throws into relief the principal characteristics of the Armenian people:

His description of the Armenians of the Mush Plain is instructive and interesting:

The following pen picture of the young Armenian who wept over the punishment of his great nation is a study in itself:

It would be unfair to suggest that these very unfavourable descriptions are intended otherwise than as generally characteristic of the Armenian race. The experience of every traveller is that there are both good and bad people to be found in all races, but unfortunately in some races the good are few and the bad are many.

[31]

Armenians, as we know, have risen to the highest positions as soldiers, statesmen and financiers both in Turkey and Russia, and have proved themselves good and devoted subjects of their respective governments. Armenian soldiers fought bravely and loyally on the Turkish side in the Balkan war at the very time when their compatriots were pillaging the shops of their Moslem fellow-citizens in Adrianople. The near East is full of these strange contradictions. In Kurdistan Armenians have risked their own lives in protecting Moslems from assassination.

It is important to notice that the so-called Armenian Atrocities have a remarkable family likeness to the “Bulgarian Atrocities,” over which a large number of sentimental people in England developed a frenzy of indignation.

A comparison of Sir Henry Layard’s despatch to Lord Derby on the “Bulgarian Atrocities,” dated 1877, with Sir Mark Sykes’ account of the happenings which commenced with the disturbances at Zeitun in 1895, show exactly how both these events originated and were grossly exaggerated. The history of every alleged massacre in Turkey is almost the same, whether we consider the Bulgarian “atrocities” in 1876, the disturbances in Sassun in 1896, those in[32] Constantinople in the same year, or those at Van in 1915. In every case we find the same charges of connivance by local officials acting under orders from Constantinople, the same gross exaggerations and the same stories of bestiality, in which the traducers of the Turks seem to take a special delight. And it is these same people, as the Near East said in a leading article, who compel the Turks “to listen to sermons about disorders which were deliberately fomented by the preachers themselves or by men preaching in their name.”

Referring, to these “hellish” and “unutterable” forms of torture of which the Turks are so freely accused, ‘Odysseus’ says:

Sir Henry Layard wrote as follows to Lord Derby:

Sir Mark Sykes writes (and his account is so graphic that the author makes no apology for quoting him in full):

The same writer points out that the massacres of Malatia, in the year 1896, were an exception to the general rule, because in this instance the Moslems struck first, fearing a general rising and slaughter of their wives and families.

‘Odysseus’ says:

Sir Mark Sykes’s remarks also deserve quotation:

The falsity of the suggestion of the Pro-Armenians that these were unprovoked massacres inspired by the Turkish Government working upon Moslem fanaticism and Kurdish greed, is also shown by the following passage from Sir Edwin Pears’ book:[7]

The only apparent reason why Sir Edwin Pears regarded as “mischievous” these revolts, resulting in the sacrifice of hundreds of innocent persons, is indicated by his adding that[37] “such intervention was useless so long as Russia was hostile,” and it is interesting also to note the callousness with which the extremists at the cost of hundreds of innocent victims endeavoured to provoke a massacre of thousands of their compatriots.

In August 1896 the revolutionaries, having failed to stir up a general rising in Asia determined to adopt desperate measures in Constantinople in the hope of forcing the hands of the Ambassadors. About 1 p.m. on an August afternoon they suddenly attacked with bombs and revolvers the guard of the Ottoman Bank, twelve of whom they killed. They then broke in and seized the European staff as hostages. Besieged in the top story of the bank they threatened to blow up the building with all who were in it, rather than surrender. The Ambassadors hastily appealed to the Porte, who yielded to their importunities on behalf of their nationals and allowed them to guarantee a safe conduct to the conspirators. That night they were quietly smuggled away on Sir Edgar Vincent’s yacht.

Bombs were also thrown in the Grand Rue de Pera, near the Galata Serai, and some of the conspirators who had taken a position upon the roofs of the houses in that, the principal thoroughfare of Constantinople, fired upon the populace in the street below.

There seems little doubt that the revolutionists had contemplated a series of attacks at different important points, to be followed by a more or less general rising of the Armenian population, which numbered from 200,000 to 400,000.

A cry went through the city that the Armenians had risen in revolt and were massacreing the other citizens. Many persons armed themselves with cudgels and, joined by a cosmopolitan mob from Pera and Galata, many of whom were Greeks anxious to pay off old scores on their hated commercial rivals, wreaked vengeance on the Armenian population. The[38] soldiers and police took no part in the killing. It is estimated that about 1,000 persons perished, including those killed by the bombs and revolvers of the conspirators. What happened in London and Liverpool after the sinking of the “Lusitania” affords an idea of how the East End people of London, who claim to be far more highly educated than the Constantinople rabble, would have behaved if German desperados, after murdering twelve of the sentinels on guard at the Bank of England, had been allowed to escape free in deference to the representations of the American and Spanish Ambassadors, especially after the fears and passions of the mob had been aroused by German aliens shooting and bombing from the roofs of the houses. In considering the question of massacre we must always bear in mind that mob law is inevitably cruel and senseless, as witness the excesses committed during the French Revolution and the Commune, the lynchings in America of to-day, and the pogroms of Russia.

Mr. Sidney Whitman was in Constantinople at the time as special correspondent for the New York World in connection with the “so-called Armenian atrocities,” as he terms them. The instructions sent him by Mr. Gordon Bennett were very precise:

Mr. Sidney Whitman’s book of “Turkish Memories” throws many interesting side-lights on these events. He says:

Writing of the Press, he observes:

He mentions that:

And yet not a single Christian other than the Orthodox Armenians was molested. With regard to the Jews he tells us how a Jewish money-changer, mistaken for an Armenian, had been set on by the mob: when it was ascertained that he was a Jew, he was released, but the crowd ran after him, and brought him back to collect his money, which was scattered on the ground. Would any other mob in the world have acted thus under similar conditions?

It is a noteworthy fact that from the time when the Jews first found shelter in Turkey from their Christian persecutors and the terrors of the Inquisition in Spain, until the present date, no one has ever even suggested that they have been ill-treated in the Ottoman Dominions; on the contrary, thousands of fugitive Jews, escaping from pogroms in Russia have within the last quarter of a century found security and peace in Turkey. Many Poles fleeing from persecution have found a safe asylum in Turkey, as well as the Hungarian leaders Kossuth, Gorgey and many others after their abortive revolution against Austrian domination. Although threatened with war by both Austria and Russia unless he surrendered the fugitives, the Sultan of Turkey refused to break the sacred laws of hospitality enjoined by Mohammed. On an earlier occasion a Sultan of Turkey had similarly refused to surrender to Russia the King of Ukraine (Lesser Russia), who was a refugee at his court,[40] although he was offered a great reward should he comply, with war as the alternative in case of refusal.

If the Turk were a fanatical persecutor of all persons professing another faith than his own, how is it that for centuries Jews, Roman Catholic and Greek Christians have been allowed free exercise of their religion in all parts of the Turkish Empire, and that Protestant missionaries of many sects have not been interfered with in that country? Does not all this tend to prove that the Armenian trouble is a political and not a religious one?

Mr. Sidney Whitman further says, that in one hospital he visited he found that about forty Turkish soldiers, who were lying there, were wounded by Armenian bombs or revolver shots during the street fighting, and that the correspondents of the different European papers, when asked to inspect a large quantity of bombs found in a house at Pera, refused to do so.

The sad case of the late Mr. Melton Prior shows a pleasing exception to the general attitude adopted by the foreign journalists:

And now within the last two months we find once more the same influences at work, and many of the same men who promulgated the Bulgarian atrocities exploiting fresh massacres of Armenians. There is absolutely no reason why we should implicitly believe the reports which have been so assiduously circulated in the Press and on the platform, simply because, owing to the unfortunate war with Turkey, we are unable to ascertain what has really happened. The exploiters of these stories are under the same disability, having only heard one side, and that an extremely biassed one. The value of certain newspaper information is curiously illustrated by Sir Edwin Pears who, writing about the Bulgarian “atrocities,” says, “I collected a number of rumours (sic!) and made much use of the information which Dr. Long furnished me ... [my account] appeared in the Daily News, on the 23rd (June 1876).” Dr. Long, according to Sir Edwin, was a former missionary and correspondent to “an obscure newspaper in America,” and relied for his information entirely upon Bulgarian letters and not on personal investigation. No Englishman worthy of the name would condemn a prisoner on the evidence of the prosecution alone, without first hearing the evidence for the defence. Yet that is exactly what we are now asked to do. The Editor of the Economist is right when he says “Certainly we must not allow our standards of proof to decline in judging reports of atrocities,” and this is especially necessary at a time when truth seems rarer than fiction, and when sensational stories are passed as authentic reports for the acceptance of a public prone to believe anything (witness the stories, all since proved to be entirely fictitious, of the fatal accident, the suicide, and finally the burial of the German Crown Prince).

[42]

Captain Granville Fortescue, the well-known American war correspondent, in his recently published book, “What of the Dardanelles,” gives an example of how stories—not to call them by another name—are manufactured and disseminated by means of the Press all over the world:

Sir William Osler, the eminent physician, in a speech recently delivered at the Leeds Luncheon Club, said that:

Russians, mutilated Belgians and “war-babies,” were said to be in our midst, and yet it took us weeks to learn the truth. We shall indeed be hysterical if we allow ourselves to be hoaxed about alleged events in the recesses of Asia Minor.

It is well to recall that Sir Henry Layard in the report of the Bulgarian atrocities, from which we have quoted, stated that: “there are persons, and amongst them I grieve to say Englishmen, who boast that they invented those stories with the object of writing down Turkey, to which they were impelled by a well-known hand.”

No one believes that gentlemen in the position of Lord Bryce, Mr. Noel Buxton, Mr. Aneurin Williams and[43] Sir Edwin Pears would for a minute willingly deceive the British public; but it is indeed more than possible that some “well-known hand” has been deceiving them. May not this hand have been that of the wealthy Armenian Committees which are spread over Europe and America, and who have never hesitated as to the means chosen for the attainment of their objects, because with them the end justifies the means? Even the Earl of Crewe, when on October the 5th, 1915, he replied in the House of Lords to the Earl of Cromer’s question as to “whether His Majesty’s Government had received any information confirmatory of the statements made in the Press to the effect that renewed massacres of Armenians had taken place on a large scale,” based his information on a report he had received from His Majesty’s Consul at Batum, and which he acknowledged was founded upon the statements published in a newspaper at Tiflis. It is certainly most significant that the British Consul at Batum,—a town actually on the frontier—should have had to rely for his information on a newspaper published at Tiflis, nearly 200 miles further back. This newspaper was probably “The Horizon,” an Armenian propagandist organ, and therefore quite unreliable. Likewise, unless he had been wilfully misinformed, it would be difficult to account for Lord Bryce’s statement at the Mansion House, that there was not the slightest basis for the report that the Armenians had themselves provoked the massacre by rising in conspiracy. The facts and probabilities, so far as we know them, are otherwise.

The Turks had just sustained in the Caucasus a severe defeat. They needed every available man and every round of ammunition to check the advancing Russians. It is therefore incredible that without receiving any provocation they should have chosen that particularly inopportune moment to employ[44] a large force of soldiers and gendarmes with artillery to stir up a hornet’s nest in their rear. Military considerations alone make the suggestion absurd.

The Germans had failed in their projected attack on Calais and Dunkirk after suffering enormous losses. The Franco-British forces were massing for the counter-stroke. Russia was almost at the gates of Cracow, Przemysl had fallen, and her armies were descending into the plains of Hungary. The Servians had retaken Belgrade after inflicting a disastrous defeat on the Austrians. The Allied fleets were hammering at the Dardanelles. Greece, Roumania and possibly Bulgaria might at any moment join the Entente Powers. The position of Turkey and the Central Powers appeared worse than it has ever been before or since. It is therefore most unlikely that the Turkish Government without receiving any provocation, and even if, as suggested by Lord Bryce, they entertained the idea of exterminating the Armenians, should have chosen so inopportune a moment to damn themselves and forfeit all hope of magnanimous treatment for their country if defeated, besides running the risk of prejudicing the Christian Balkan States against them. Lord Bryce’s accusation, from the point of view of political expediency, carries its own refutation.

In peace the Turks are a good-natured, easy-going race, hospitable, generous to the poor, and particularly fond of animals and children—a sure sign of a kindly and humane disposition, long-suffering, but when provoked, like all the near Eastern races both Moslem and Christian, exhibiting a fury out of all proportion to the insult according to our Western ideas. In war time the Turks are neither fanatical nor intolerant. They are indeed less so than any of the Western nations with all their supposed superiority.

When Greece was fighting Turkey, the Greeks of Constantinople, although Ottoman subjects, actually dared to[45] fly the Greek flag over their houses, and after the death of their archbishop, which occurred at that same time, paraded his dead body, seated upon the episcopal throne, through the streets of Pera, escorted by their prelates and clergy, without being subjected to any molestation. Annually, too, the Host is borne in procession through the streets of the City of the Khalif. Contrast this extraordinary tolerance with present conditions in London, where German subjects are forbidden to pray in their own churches in the German tongue and where, only a few years ago, the British Government on the occasion of the Eucharistic Congress refused to allow the Host to be borne through the streets of Westminster.

During the Balkan war, when even the mosques were crowded with sick and starving refugees and only the most heroic efforts of the Turkish army, decimated with cholera, were able to keep the victorious Bulgars outside the gates of the city whose very foundations were shaking under the vibration of the enemy’s guns, Greeks, Bulgars and foreign adventurers of every description feasting and making merry in the cafés of Pera openly rejoiced at the misfortune of the Turkish Empire. The principal of Robert College, a Christian school on the shores of the Bosphorus, allowed full play to his sectarian bias, boasting that many of the enemy’s successful generals had been educated at the College, which was founded under the protection and goodwill of the Sultan. Yet during those bitter days, in spite of all this provocation, not a single alien enemy was interfered with by those “fanatical Moslems,” whose hierarchial chief, the Sheik-ul-Islam, set an example by continuing to employ the Greek gardener who had been in his service for many years. The Turks were either too tolerant or too contemptuous to even notice the unseemly and licentious behaviour of the enemies within their gates. Such is the character of a people who would rather go without their[46] dinner than see a poor man hungry, and who, even at a period when Jews were being burnt alive in Christian Spain, Huguenots hunted out of France and priests guilty of saying Mass executed in England, allowed perfect freedom to every race and sect within her dominions.

In the present war we have the overwhelming and convincing testimony of all ranks, from Lord Kitchener downwards, that the Turks have fought gallantly and cleanly, and have treated our wounded and prisoners with kindness and humanity. It is inconceivable, therefore, that these same Turks without any provocation (and Lord Bryce himself has said that there was no religious fanaticism), should have committed the devilries of which they are accused, and in this connection we have the curiously illuminating observation by a celebrated correspondent, on his return from the seat of the last Balkan war, that “paradoxical as it might seem, the Turks were the only Christians in the Balkans”!

This brief examination of the Turkish military and political situation, and of Turkish character, ought sufficiently to refute the suggestion that the Turks were the aggressors and acted without provocation.

On the other hand these same military and political factors, when applied to the Armenian point of view and seen in conjunction with the character of these people, afford good and sufficient reasons for believing that the Armenians themselves commenced the troubles by rising in rebellion. It would indeed have been more than extraordinary had the rebellious section, armed and ready for any mischief, remained quiet under circumstances which were so entirely in their favour.

The defeat of the Turkish army in the Caucasus and the absence of the greater part of the local garrisons and gendarmery, as well as of the able-bodied Moslems, at the front, were entirely favourable to the long matured but[47] hitherto abortive schemes of the revolutionists and russophile Armenians for raising an armed rebellion. Bands of armed Armenian volunteers called “Fedais,” estimated by Lord Bryce at over 8,000, with a probable increase “in the near future” to between 20,000 and 25,000, were already operating in the country as early as last March, and Lord Bryce and the “Friends of Armenia” were appealing for funds to clothe and equip the Armenian Volunteers on April 2nd, almost one month before these alleged unprovoked “massacres.” Furthermore Russia was undoubtedly arming the population and assisting in fomenting a revolution; nor can Russia be blamed for this, seeing that she was then at war with Turkey. Finally the character of the Armenians, so graphically described by Sir Mark Sykes in his account of the people of the Mush plain, and by other travellers whom we have quoted, leaves no doubt that the majority of the Armenian population were quite ready and willing to take advantage of the situation.

What really seems to have occurred in this: about the end of April the Armenians of the Van district believing, after the defeat of Sary Kamish in the Caucasus, that the complete victory of Russia was assured, thought that their opportunity had at last arrived. Urged on by the revolutionaries and Russian agents, and hoping to co-operate with the “Fedais” who had already seized the town of Baskale, 50 miles to the East on the main road from Van to the Persian frontier, they rose in revolt and, as a correspondent of the Times, perhaps in an unguarded moment, admits, “finally captured the town of Van and took a bloody vengeance on their enemies.” It was the old story of the massacre of the Zeitun garrison over again. Early in June the revolutionists betrayed the town to the Russian troops.

What happened afterwards is more or less conjecture, but reading the accounts, even those evidently inspired from[48] Armenian sources, it would appear that there were organized risings in other parts of Asia Minor also. For Mr. Henry Wood, the special correspondent at Constantinople of the United Press Agency of America, reported that the Armenians not only were in open revolt but were actually in possession of Van and several other important towns. At Zeitun he said that on the participation of Turkey in the war, when the authorities tried to enforce military service upon the young Armenians (as they were entitled to do by the Constitution), the soldiers were attacked and 300 killed. The town was subsequently retaken, and the population was dispersed and deported. It appears obvious that the Turkish authorities, anxious for the safety of their lines of communication, had no other alternative than to order the removal of their rebellious subjects to some place distant from the seat of hostilities, and their internment there. The enforcement of this absolutely necessary precaution led to further risings on the part of the Armenians. The remaining Moslems were almost defenceless, because the regular garrisons were at the front as well as the greater part of the police and able-bodied men. Already infuriated at the reports of the atrocities committed at Van by the insurgents, in fear for their own lives and those of their relatives, they were at last driven by the cumulative effect of these events into panic and retaliation and, as invariably happens in such cases, the innocent suffered with the guilty.

The Turkish Government has repeatedly been accused of trying to “end the Armenian question by ending the Armenians,” but the evidence of many persons who travelled through the country shortly after the previous disturbances is, that with very rare exceptions only able-bodied men were slain, and not the women, children, or aged. This in itself would confirm the opinion that the measures were purely repressive and, however severe, were taken in the interest of public safety.

Unfortunately the Turk never deigns to explain his own case, and thus the pro-Armenians always manage to hold the field, appalling the public by incessant reiteration and exaggeration as to the number of victims, and apparently valuing to its full extent the wisdom of the old Eastern proverb: Give a lie twenty-four hours’ start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it. Later on, when the true figures become available, only a very few inquisitive people realize the falsity of the earlier stories. Thus Lord Bryce, speaking in the House of Lords on October 6th, 1915, said that the information he had received went to show that 800,000[8] was a possible number of the Armenians destroyed since May last. By adding to this figure the 250,000 refugees in Russia for whom funds are requested, and 13,000 refugees in Egypt, we arrive at a grand total of 1,063,000 Armenians, while, according to Sir Charles Wilson, the total Armenian population of the nine Provinces most thickly populated by them is only 925,000, which he describes as an outside estimate. The total number of Arabs killed by the Italian newspapers in the Tripolitan war exceeded three times the population of the country. It would seem that the advocates of the Armenians are imitating the Italian Press.

An example of the most extraordinary reports anent the so-called massacres, furnished to and circulated through the English newspapers by Lord Bryce, is that of Mersina:

Yet the total population of Mersina as given in the official returns for 1908 was 20,966 persons, of whom 11,246 were Moslems, 2,441 Jews, and the remaining 7,279 Christians of various sects, Greek, Armenian, Latin and Nestorian. How[50] 25,000 Armenians could have been sent from Mersina out of a total Christian population of 7,279 (at least one half of whom were Greeks), is difficult to understand.

The Times report of Lord Bryce’s statement in the House of Lords quotes him as saying, that at Trebizond

Indeed any other story would be more credible. Consider (apart from the time that would be required for the collection and embarkation of the victims) the number of sailing boats necessary to carry 8,000 or 10,000 people “some distance” out to sea, even if the boats were able to make more than one journey! And still this was the preposterous story vouched for, according to Lord Bryce, by the Italian Consul, Signor Corrini, who was there at the time. Yet the account of the same event, as given in the Rome Messagero, is entirely different, the Consul being made to say that the banishment of Armenians under escort, and wholesale shootings in the streets, continued for a whole month, while there is nothing about the Armenians having been shipped out to sea and drowned en masse in one afternoon.

It is interesting to compare the original accounts relating to the number of Bulgarians killed in the popular risings of 1876 and of Armenians killed in the Sassun disturbances of 1896, with the subsequent official estimates.

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Original Estimates.

Subsequent Official Estimates.

We thus see that the total number of victims amounted to only about 6.4 per cent. of the figures originally circulated. Such exaggeration, deliberately made with the object of appealing to the imagination of sentimental people, is astounding in its mendacity. When we can apply the test of investigation to Lord Bryce’s estimate of 800,000 killed in the present alleged “massacres” we shall in all probability find these figures similarly excessive.

All the stories of Turkish misdeeds have proved on investigation to be gross exaggerations beyond the belief of any thoughtful person. Anyone gifted with imagination and a sufficiently prurient mind could write up the stories now being so assiduously circulated to the Press by Armenian agencies acting, undoubtedly, under instructions from a central Bureau.[10]

“The Bulgarian atrocities,” to which reference has already been made, afford a very good example of how easily a prejudiced sentimentalist can be deceived. The late Canon McColl, at Mr. Gladstone’s request, went out to the[52] Balkans to collect evidence. On one occasion his guide (presumably a Levantine, over-anxious to please his employer and to earn some extra backsheesh) pointed out on the horizon a large number of erections, which he asserted were “hundreds of impaled Christians.” The report of this was sent home to England, where it made a great sensation as apparently irrefutable first-hand evidence, on good authority. But in the sequel conclusive proof came forth that no Christians had been either massacred or crucified anywhere near that district, and furthermore that the supposed figures were nothing but the common haycocks of the country, which are built up around a pole, and which—after the hay has been eaten by the cattle until only a few bunches are left—might bear rather the appearance suggested by the guide. Canon McColl acknowledged his mistake, but of course the mischief had been done.

Leaving aside these stories of “massacres” and extermination of the Armenians, which we believe to be, in the main, a tissue of exaggerations and invention, let us now turn to the question of “Armenian Independence” and examine whether their claim to any such independence is founded on the inherent right which all united races however small, possess to choose their own form of government.

The answer must be an emphatic negation, for the reason that the Armenians are neither the most numerous nor the most homogeneous section of the population of the country in which they live.

Sir Charles Wilson, an unbiassed authority, estimates the total Armenian population of the nine provinces of Kurdistan as being 925,000 at the most, or only 15 per cent. of the total population of 6,130,000, which is made up of 4,460,000 Moslems, 645,000 Greeks and other Christians, plus 100,000 Jews and Gypsies. And General Zelenyi, in a census made for the[53] Caucasus Geographical Society in 1896, estimates that even in the five provinces which they most largely inhabit, the Armenians form only 26 per cent. of the entire population.

In order to make this minority less apparent, the pro-Armenians take the figures of only 6 provinces—choosing of course those most thickly populated with their friends—and add to them the Greeks, other Christians and Jews; but even then the Moslems are in large majority.

The following are the figures for 1908 of the population of the nine vilayets specified below, as ascertained by an official census taken by the Ottoman Government:—

Even if for the sake of argument we were to grant (although such is far from being the case), that the Christian and Jewish population does form a majority over the Moslem one, it proves no case for the pro-Armenians, because all the Moslems are solidly united in opposition to any alteration of the status quo, while the Christians have no common idea or policy.

Thus a large majority of the Roman Catholics and Protestants,[54] including even the Armenian Roman Catholics and Protestants, as well as the orthodox Greeks, favour the status quo, as do also the Jews and Gypsies.

The Gregorians are hopelessly divided: some want a national existence when even their friends, like Mr. Buxton, agree that “the population is too divided to permit success,” while others desire annexation by Russia, and on the other hand Boghos Nubar Pasha, the leader of the largest section, declares that they desire to remain with their fellow Moslems an integral part of the Ottoman Empire.

The stories that have been so assiduously circulated about wholesale “massacres” of Armenians have a distinct object in view, viz: to influence the future policy of the British Government and to prepare the public mind for the desired settlement—the incorporation of Armenia in the Russian Empire.

The advocates of this arrangement naturally uphold the correlative policy of Great Britain annexing Mesopotamia. Superficially considered the idea looks attractive, however opposed it may be to the proclaimed objects with which we embarked on this war. It would appear, however, that the supporters of the scheme have not properly considered the[55] profound underlying dangers of their project. The very fact of the great importance attached to the Anglo-Russian Alliance should inspire one with the gravest doubts as to the wisdom of the suggestion. Two great Powers with frontiers meeting along such a tract of country may at any moment not see eye to eye on every question. There is no continuity in international politics; they change from day to day according to the needs of a situation which can never be permanently fixed. It is the duty of statesmen to look further than the immediate present, and England will never forgive it, if in the settlement at the conclusion of the war they permit mistakes, which would almost inevitably lead to friction between two prospective neighbours and present friends.

In this connection it may be useful to recall the prophetic words of Sir Henry Layard, one of our ablest and most far-sighted diplomatists:

Mr. Grattan Geary, than whom no writer has studied more closely the question at issue, speaks thus of the enormous advantage which the Power in possession of highland Kurdistan would have over the one that ruled lowland Mesopotamia:

It is interesting to note that in Mr. Grattan Geary’s opinion a powerful nation holding Kurdistan could equally from Diarbekir overrun Syria and seriously menace Egypt.

It may therefore not be out of place to consider how the Armenian question stood immediately before the outbreak of the European war.

The policy of the British Government, bound by the Cyprus Convention to maintain the integrity of the Sultan’s dominions in Asia, had been to strengthen the position of Turkey by loyally endeavouring to ameliorate the unrest which the revolutionary societies had stirred up amongst the Armenians. It is well known that all schemes of reform proposed by Great Britain or by Turkey herself, had been without exception cold-shouldered or openly opposed by Russia, firstly because they would, if successful, destroy any excuse for intervention and subsequent annexation; secondly because they contained some form or other of self-government, which Russia feared would not only encourage the national feeling of the Ottoman Armenians (who would look to England as their protector rather than to Russia), but would also encourage a similar national sentiment amongst the Armenians in the Caucasus.

With the advent of the Anglo-Russian Entente, our policy was revised. There are many Englishmen who believed, and still firmly believe, that wise and prescient statesmanship[57] should have succeeded in reconciling, or at least allaying, the hereditary animosity which existed between our new friend and our old, traditional ally, and that in any case it would have been more worthy and more dignified, besides being to the advantage of this country, had we openly declared that under no circumstances would we sacrifice sacred obligations and old friendships to a policy of expediency. Public opinion, awakened by recent occurrences in the Near East, at last realizes how mistaken was the attitude of our Government towards Turkey. Official Russia, we believe, would have appreciated and accepted our point of view. Progressive Russia most certainly would have done so.

Unfortunately the British Government apparently thought otherwise. In 1912, the Porte without any outside pressure and being genuinely anxious to improve the condition of her Asiatic provinces, demanded (under the terms of the Cyprus Convention) that they should be supplied with British administrators, but these were refused.

The Russian Government then took up the question of reforms, and Turkey appealed to Germany to protect her from the very unpalatable scheme put forward by Russia. Germany gained a nominal victory, but success really rested with Russia. As a compromise a thoroughly unpracticable scheme was adopted, by which two Inspector Generals were appointed, one of whom was a Dutchman and the other a Norwegian. Neither had any knowledge of the Near East: one spoke no language other than his own, and the other in addition spoke only a few words of French. Then came the European War, and neither of these gentlemen ever reached Kurdistan. The scheme was foredoomed to failure, as was, indeed, expected. In this connection the Russian “Orange Book” is full of interest. We find there that during the negotiations, on July 8th, 1913, M. Sazanoff sent the Porte a vigorous despatch, in[58] which he laid stress on the fact that the integrity of the Ottoman Empire largely depended upon the degree of pacification of the Armenian provinces. He further declared that:

Further light is thrown on the situation as it was then, by an article published at that time in the “Nineteenth Century” by Mr. Noel Buxton, who had been travelling in Kurdistan. Mr. Buxton is all the more convincing because the object of the article apparently was to prove, that the only salvation of the district was annexation by Russia. Mr. Noel Buxton wrote:

Mr. Buxton then proceeds to justify this policy of creating disorder. It was the policy his friends the Bulgars had pursued with such success in Macedonia with the Komitadjis[11] (as was to be expected, we now find Mr. Buxton taking a prominent role in damning the Turks for the recent alleged massacres). Mr. Walter Guinness, M.P., in his description of a tour made in Kurdistan about the same time as Mr. Buxton, corroborates the evidence of that gentleman. He mentions numerous indications of an active Russian propaganda not only amongst the Armenians, but among the Kurds as well. He adds:

Russia was arming both the Kurds and the Orthodox[59] Armenians. The object was two-fold: the Kurds would resist the measures taken by the local officials to enforce the decree against the carrying of rifles, which had been promulgated by the Turkish Government in order to enforce law and order, and the Armenians, excited by agents-provocateur and revolutionaries, would be encouraged to revolt. In either event there would be disturbances, which would enable Russia to point to the failure of European control as justification for her armed intervention followed by annexation, on the ground that this was the only possible solution. The observant student of current history will no doubt perceive in this desired end an interesting and instructive parallel to the handing over to Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and her final cynical annexation of those provinces; whether the parallel would stop here, if the object is gained, may be told by some future historian.

Some people, perhaps, will say that whether these stories of massacres be true or false, it is inopportune to defend the reputation of a nation with whom we are at war. If this argument were true, it would apply with equal force as a criticism of the officers and men who have written home from Gallipoli, giving spontaneously such wholehearted and generous[60] testimony to the bravery and chivalry of the Turks. Truth can never be inopportune so long as our conscience is clear, which it would not be if we allowed false stories to remain uncontradicted simply because the untrue assertions might be detrimental to an enemy. But at this advanced stage of the war such stories are scarcely likely to have any effect on the neutral nations, who are, indeed, more likely to be influenced in our favour if we show ourselves fair-minded and willing to investigate the truth. Their object is simply to bias public opinion in this country still further against an already misjudged and badly maligned enemy.

Some good-natured people have indeed gone so far as to say, that “the fact of the Armenians rising in rebellion and butchering the Moslems of Van and only waiting an opportunity to do so in other places, was no justification for the severity of the Turkish Government, or for the reprisals of the local Turks and the cruelties of the Kurds.” But even admitting, all exaggeration apart, the severity of the Turkish Government’s action in ordering the removal of the Armenian population and the methods adopted by local officials to stamp out disaffection, it must not be forgotten how critical the situation was for Turkey: that for her it was a matter of life and death. There is not the slightest doubt that, unless the incipient revolution had been immediately crushed and further danger removed, the Turkish army on the Caucasus would have been hopelessly cut off and the Moslem population exterminated at the hands of the revolutionaries. The British Government has never hesitated under much less critical conditions to suppress rebellion within its borders with an iron hand and by measures which, surveyed after the time of stress and danger was past, have appeared both harsh and cruel in the extreme.

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It is possible that a certain number of innocent Armenians may have been killed by the mob who, infuriated and panic-stricken by the reports they had received of the butchery of their co-religionists at Van, and the slaughter of the soldiers at Zeitun, believed that should the Armenians get the upper hand they would suffer in the same manner; but for the fate of these poor victims, or for the excesses committed by the Kurds, it would hardly be just to hold either the Turkish Government or the local Turkish officials responsible. These had done everything possible to disarm the tribes so as to make them amenable to law and order, but despite their endeavours the Kurds were being continually armed by outside agencies. One of the principal causes of the Albanian revolution was the attempt to disarm the mountaineers, and after that experience it is greatly to the credit of the Turkish Government that they still persisted in trying to deprive the Kurds of their rifles.

We have no hesitation in repeating that these stories of wholesale massacre have been circulated with the distinct object of influencing, detrimentally to Turkey, the future policy of the British Government when the time of settlement shall arrive. No apology, therefore, is needed for honestly endeavouring to show how a nation with whom we were closely allied for many years and which possesses the same faith as millions of our fellow-subjects, has been condemned for perpetrating horrible excesses against humanity on “evidence” which, when not absolutely false, is grossly and shamefully exaggerated.

During the Boer war the most horrible charges were made on the Continent against the conduct of our troops. One picture, for example, in the then famous and widely circulated French Assiette de Beurre, showed a number of British soldiers lining a trench and firing on the advancing Boers, who were unable to reply because a number of their own women-folk were[62] tied to stakes along the front of the British trenches. By pictures such as these the fury of the European nations was roused against us, and there was hardly a single one we could call a friend. Turkey, however, stood true: thousands of her Moslem subjects volunteered to fight for us, and prayers were offered up in her mosques for the success of the British arms. And over a score of influential Moslems, headed by Obeid-Ullah Effendi, formerly Minister of Education for Syria and to-day a member of the Ottoman Legislative Assembly, attended at the British Embassy at Pera, and there openly made prayers for the success of the British Arms in South Africa.

The Turks are one of the few races who have always found themselves in full sympathy with the British character, and to whom we appeared neither “cold” nor “perfidious.” This is not surprising, because the characteristics of the two peoples are very similar, with the exception that the Turk is not a sportsman for the reason that he objects to taking life unnecessarily; which fact does not however prevent the British soldier from referring to him as a “good sport.”

Although the Turks may at times have expressed regret and disappointment at some action of the British Government, they always ended by saying: “ah, if only Beaconsfield or Palmerston were alive; they were men!” This liking is reciprocated by most Englishmen, and especially by those who have lived for any length of time in close contact and community with the Turks (such as the Whittalls, one of the great families of English merchants who have made Constantinople their home). On the occasion of King Edward’s telegram of congratulation to Sultan Abdul Hamid after the grant of the Turkish Constitution, Sir William Whittall wrote in the Near East October 1908:

Unfortunately these high expectations remain unfulfilled.

British officers and soldiers fighting in Gallipoli have under strange conditions developed this sentimental liking for their opponents. The Rev. Dr. Ewing, a Scottish chaplain serving with the forces in Gallipoli, relates the appreciation shown by a captured Turkish officer when, being led behind our lines, he saw the care with which the clergyman had fenced round the little Moslem cemetery to protect “God’s acre” from destruction, and writes:—“Such little amenities may do something to soften the asperities of war, and make easier the resumption of friendly relations when the war is over.” “On the whole, however,” he adds, “I can hardly imagine a war waged with less animosity on both sides, than this between ourselves and the Turks.” If such are the impressions and experience gathered on the battlefield itself, it would behove us here at home in England to treat with the greatest circumspection, at least, the accusations against an honourable foe and—mindful of the many “God’s acres” that have been consecrated on the fire-swept slopes of Gallipoli by the blood of Christian and Moslem heroes alike—to be careful lest any wanton or unqualified word of ours make more difficult “the resumption of friendly relations when the war is over.”