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THE BLIGHT OF ASIA
An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian
Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability
of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story
of the Burning of Smyrna
By
GEORGE HORTON
For Thirty Years Consul and Consul-General of the
United States in the Near East
With a Foreword by
JAMES W. GERARD
Former Ambassador to Germany
PUBLISHERS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY, INDIANAPOLIS
COPYRIGRT 1926
BY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
Printed In the United States of America
PRINTED AND BOUNDBY BRAUNWORTH & CO. INC. BROOKLYN N.Y.
“What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”
REVELATIONS, I:11
THE MARTYRED CITY
Glory and Queen of Island Sea
Was Smyrna, the beautiful city,
And fairest pearl of the Orient she—
O Smyrna the beautiful city!
Heiress of countless storied ages,
Mother of poets, saints and sages,
Was Smyrna, the beautiful city!
One of the ancient, glorious Seven
Was Smyrna, the sacred city,
Whose candles all were alight in Heaven—
O Smyrna the sacred city!
One of the Seven hopes and desires,
One of the seven Holy Fires
Was Smyrna, the Sacred City.
And six fared out in the long ago-
O Smyrna, the Christian city!
But hers shone on with a constant glow—
O Smyrna, the Christian city!
The others died down and passed away,
But hers gleamed on until yesterday—
O Smyrna, the Christian city!
Silent and dead are churchbell ringers
Of Smyrna, the Christian city,
The music silent and dead the singers
Of Smyrna, the happy city;
And her maidens, pearls of the Island seas
Are gone from the marble palaces
Of Smyrna, enchanting city!
She is dead and rots by the Orient’s gate,
Does Smyrna, the murdered city,
Her artisans gone, her streets desolate—
O Smyrna, the murdered city!
Her children made orphans, widows her wives
While under her stones the foul rat thrives—
O Smyrna, the murdered city!
They crowned with a halo her bishop there,
In Smyrna, the martyred city,
Though dabbled with blood was his long white hair—
O Smyrna, the martyred city!
So she kept the faith in Christendom
From Polycarp to St. Chrysostom,*
Did Smyrna, the glorified city!
*Martyred at Smyrna, September 1922.
FOREWORD
HERE at last is the truth about the destruction of Smyrna and the massacre of a large part of its Inhabitants by one who was present.
The writer of the following pages is a man, happily, who is not restrained from telling what he knows by political reasons or by any consideration of fear or self-interest. He gives the whole story of the savage extermination of Christian civilization throughout the length and breadth of the old Byzantine Empire in a clear and convincing manner
That it should have been possible twenty centuries after the birth of Christ for a small and backward nation, like the Turks, to have committed such crimes against civilization and the progress of the world, is a matter which should cause all conscientious people to pause and think; yet the writer shows conclusively that these crimes have been committed without opposition on the part of any Christian nation and that the last frightful scene at Smyrna was enacted within a few yards of powerful Allied and American battle fleet.
We turned a deaf ear to the dying Christians, when they called to us for aid, fully aware that America was their only hope, and now it would appear that there is a growing tendency in this country to whitewash the Turks and condone their crimes in order to obtain material advantages from them.
The author takes the position that this can not be done, as the Turks have put so great an affront upon humanity that it can not easily be overlooked, and the truth is sure to come out. He claims that high ideals are more than oil or railroads, and that the Turks should not be accepted into the society of decent nations until they show sincere repentance for their crimes.
Fraternizing with them on any other terms creates a suspicion of sordidness or even complicity. From the outspoken nature of this book it will be evident to the reader that the writing of it has required considerable courage and that it has been inspired by no other possible motive than a desire to make the truth known about matters which it is important for the world to know.
(Signed) JAMES W. GERARD
INTRODUCTION
THE editor of a great Paris journal once remarked that he attributed the extraordinary success of his publication to the fact that he had discovered that each man had at least one story to tell.
I have been for many years in the Near East—about thirty in all—and have watched the gradual and systematic extermination of Christians and Christianity in that region, and I believe it my duty to tell that grim tale, and to turn the light upon the political rivalries of the Western World, that have made such a fearful tragedy possible.
Though I have served for the major part of time as an American consular officer, I am no longer acting in that capacity, and have no further connection with the United States Government. None of the statements, which I make, therefore, has any official weight, nor have I in any way drawn upon State Department records or sources of information. I write strictly in my capacity as a private citizen, drawing my facts from my own observations, and from the testimony of others whom I quote.
I was in Athens in July, 1908, when, at the instigation of the Young Turks’ “Committee of Union and Progress” the Saloniki army revolted and demanded the immediate putting into effect of the Constitution of 1876, which had become a dead letter, and I noted the reaction produced upon Greece by that apparently progressive move.
I was in Saloniki shortly after and witnessed the sad awakening of the non-Mussulman elements of that part of the Balkans to the fact that the much vaunted “Constitution” meant no liberty for them, but rather suppression, suffering and ultimate extinction.
I was in Smyrna in May of 1917, when Turkey severed relations with the United States, and I received the oral and written statements of native-born American eye-witnesses of the vast and incredibly horrible Armenian massacres of 1915-16— some of which will be here given for the first time; I personally observed and otherwise confirmed the outrageous treatment of the Christian population of the Smyrna vilayet, both during the Great War, and before its outbreak. I returned to Smyrna later and was there up until the evening of September 11, 1922, on which date the city was set on fire by the army of Mustapha Khemal, and a large part of its population done to death, and I witnessed the development of that Dantesque tragedy, which possesses few, if any parallels in the history of the world.
One object of writing this book is to make the truth known concerning the very significant events and to throw the light on an important period during which colossal crimes have been committed against the human race, with Christianity losing ground in Europe and America as well as in Africa and the Near East.
Another object is to give the church people of the United States the opportunity of deciding whether they wish to continue pouring millions of dollars, collected by contributions small and great, into Turkey for the purpose of supporting schools, which no longer permit the Bible to be read or Christ to be taught; whether, in fact, they are not doing more harm than good to the Christian cause and name, by sustaining institutions which have accepted such a compromise!
Another object is to show that the destruction of Smyrna was but the closing act in a consistent program of exterminating Christianity throughout the length and breadth of the old Byzantine Empire; the expatriation of an ancient Christian civilization, which in recent years had begun to take on growth and rejuvenation spiritually, largely as a result of the labors of American missionary teachers. Their admirable institutions, scattered all ever Turkey, which have cost the people of the united States between fifty million and eighty million dollars, have been, with some exceptions closed, or irreparably damaged, and their thousands of Christian teachers and pupils butchered or dispersed. This process of extermination was carried on over a considerable period of time, with fixed purpose, with system, and with painstaking minute details; and it was accomplished with unspeakable cruelties, causing the destruction of a greater number of human beings than have suffered in any similar persecution since the coming of Christ.
I have been cognizant of what was going on for a number of years and when I came back to America after the Smyrna tragedy and saw the prosperous people crowded in their snug warm churches, I could hardly restrain myself from rising to my feet and shouting: “For every convert that you make here, a Christian throat is being cut over there; while your creed is losing ground in Europe and America, Mohammed is forging ahead in Africa and the Near East with torch and scimitar.”
Another reason is to call attention to the general hardening of human hearts that seems to have developed since the days of Gladstone—a less exalted and more shifty attitude of mind. This is partly due to the fact that men’s sensibilities have been blunted by the Great War, and is also in large measure a result of that materialism which is engulfing our entire civilization.
GEORGE HORTON
CONTENTS
I TURKISH MASSACRES
II GLADSTONE AND THE BULGARIAN ATROCITIES
III FIRST STEPS IN YOUNG TURKS’ PROGRAM
IV THE LAST GREAT SELAMLIK
V PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN SMYRNA DISTRICT
V I THE MASSACRE OF PHOCEA
VII NEW LIGHT ON THE ARMENIAN MASSACRE
VIII STORY OF WALTER M. GEDDES
IX INFORMATION FROM OTHER SOURCES
X THE GREEK LANDING AT SMYRNA
XI THE HELLENIC ADMINISTRATION IN SMYRNA
XII THE GREEK RETREAT
XIII SMYRNA AS IT WAS
XIV THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA
XV FIRST DISQUIETING RUMORS
XVI THE TURKS ARRIVE
XVII WHERE AND WHEN THE FIRES WERE LIGHTED
XVIII THE ARRIVAL AT ATHENS
XIX ADDED DETAILS LEARNED AFTER THE TRAGEDY
XX HISTORIC IMPORTANCE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF SMYRNA
XXI NUMBER DONE TO DEATH
XXII EFFICIENCY OF OUR NAVY IN SAVING LIVES
XXIII RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
XXIV ITALY’S DESIGNS ON SMYRNA
XXV FRANCE AND THE KHEMALISTS
XXVI MASSACRE OF THE FRENCH GARRISON AT UFRA
XXVII THE BRITISH CONTRIBUTION
XXVIII TURKISH INTERPRETATION OF AMERICA’S ATTITUDE
XXIX THE MAKING OF MUSTAPHA KHEMAL
XXX OUR MISSIONARY INSTITUTIONS IN TURKEY
XXXI AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS UNDER TURKISH RULE
XXXII THE REVEREND RALPH HARLOW ON THE LAUSANNE TREATY
XXXIII MOHAMMEDANISM AND CHRISTIANITY
XXXIV THE KORAN AND THE BIBLE
XXXV THE EXAMPLE OF MOHAMMED
XXXVI THE 50-50 THEORY
XXXVII ASIA MINOR, THE GRAVEYARD OF GREEK CITIES
XXVIII ECHOES FROM SMYRNA
XXXIX CONCLUSION
APPENDIX
THE BLIGHT OF ASIA
CHAPTER I
TURKISH MASSACRES, 1822-1909
MOHAMMEDANISM has been propagated by the sword and by violence ever since it first appeared as the great enemy of Christianity, as I shall show in a later chapter of this book.
It has been left to the Turk, however, in more recent years, to carry on the ferocious traditions of his creed, and to distinguish himself by excesses which have never been equaled by any of the tribes enrolled under the banner of the Prophet, either in ancient or in modern times.
The following is a partial list of Turkish massacres from 1822 up till 1904:
1822 Chios, Greeks 50,000
1823 Missolongi, Greeks 8,750
1826 Constantinople, Jannisaries 25,000
1850 Mosul, Assyrians 10,000
1860 Lebanon, Maronites 12,000
1876 Bulgaria, Bulgarians 14,700
1877 Bayazid, Armenians 1,400
1879 Alashguerd, Armenians 1,250
1881 Alexandria, Christians 2,000
1892 Mosul, Yezidies 3,500
1894 Sassun, Armenians 12,000
1895-96 Armenia, Armenians 150,000
1896 Constantinople, Armenians 9,570
1896 Van, Armenians 8,000
1903-04 Macedonia, Macedonians 14,667
1904 Sassun, Armenians 5,640
To this must be added the massacre in the province of Adana in 1909, of thirty thousand Armenians
So imminent and ever-present was the peril, and so fresh the memory of these dire events in the minds of the non-Mussulman subjects of the sultan, that illiterate Christian mothers had fallen into the habit of dating events as so many years before or after “such and such a massacre.”
CHAPTER II
GLADSTONE AND THE BULGARIAN ATROCITIES
IN THE list of massacres antedating the colossal crimes which have come under my own personal observation, is cited the killing of 14,700 Bulgarians in 1876. This butchery of a comparatively few—from a Turkish view-point—Bulgarians, some fifty years ago, provoked a splendid cry of indignation from Gladstone. As this narrative develops and reaches the dark days of 1915 to 1922, during which period whole nations were wiped out by the ax, the club and the knife, and the Turk at last found the opportunity to give full vent to his evil passions, it will appear that no similarly effective protest has issued from the lips of any European or American statesman.
The curious feature is that, owing to the propaganda carried on by the hunters of certain concessions, an anti-Christian and pro-Turk school has sprung up in the United States.
In “A Short History of the Near East”, Professor William Stearns Davis, of the University of Minnesota, referring to the Bulgarian atrocities 1876, says:
“What followed seems a massacre on a small scale compared with the slaughter of Armenians in 1915-16, but it was enough to paralyze the power of Disraeli to protect the Turks. In all, about twelve thousand Christians seem to have been massacred. At the thriving town of Batal five thousand out of seven thousand inhabitants seem to have perished. Of course neither age or sex was spared and lust and perfidy were added to other acts of devilishness. It is a pitiful commentary on a phase of British politics that Disraeli and his fellow Tories tried their best to minimize the reports of these atrocities. They were not given to the world by official consular reports, but by private English journalists.”
The above is interesting, as it illustrates a quite common method of government procedure in such cases. The Tory does not seem to be a unique product of British politics.
While I was in Europe recently, I talked with a gentleman who was in the diplomatic service of one of the Great Powers and was with me in Smyrna at the time that city was burned by the Turkish army. This gentleman was in complete accord with me in all details as to that affair, and asserted that his Foreign Office had warned him to keep silent as to the real facts at Smyrna, but that he had written a full memorandum on the subject, which be hopes to publish.
It is significant that the Turks in 1876 were championed by Jews, while to-day such Jews as Henry Morgenthau, Max Nordau and Rabbi Wise are prominent among that group of men who are raising their voices in behalf of oppressed Christians. It is due to their influence, and to the voices of such senators as King of Utah and Swanson of Virginia, that confirmation of the Lausanne Treaty has been deferred until the blood on the bayonets and axes of the Turks should get a little drier.
Speaking of Disraeli, Gladstone wrote to the Duke of Argyle: “He is not such a Turk as I thought. What he hates is Christian liberty and reconstruction.”
The Bulgarian massacres were made known by an American consular official, and denounced by Gladstone in a famous pamphlet. They led to the declaration of war by Russia, the treaty of San Stefano and the beginning of the freedom of Bulgaria.
In a speech at Blackheath in 1876, Gladstone said:
“You shall retain your titular sovereignty, your empire shall not be invaded, but never again, as the years roll in their course, so far as it is in our power to determine, never again shall the hand of violence be raised by you, never again shall the flood gates of lust be opened to you.”
In his famous pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East, we have the following, a thousand times truer to-day than when it was written:
“Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Blmhashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in an European jail, there is not a criminal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and over-boil at the recital of that which has been done, which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions which produced it and which may again spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil soaked and reeking with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that the door should be left open to the ever so barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the world.”
“We may ransack the annals of the world, but I know not what research can furnish us with so portentous an example of the fiendish misuse of the powers established by God for the punishment of evil doers and the encouragement of them that do well. No government ever has so sinned, none has proved itself so incorrigible in sin, or which is the same, so impotent in reformation”
The time will never come when the words of Gladstone, one of the wisest of English statesmen, will be considered unworthy of serious attention. The following characterization of the Turk by him has been more aptly verified by the events that have happened since his death than by those that occurred before:
“Let me endeavor, very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law.—Yet a government by force can not be maintained without the aid of an intellectual element.— Hence there grew up, what has been rare in the history of the world, a kind of tolerance in the midst of cruelty, tyranny and rapine. Much of Christian life was contemptuously left alone and a race of Greeks was attracted to Constantinople which has all along made up, in some degree, the deficiencies of Turkish Islam in the element of mind!”
To these words of Gladstone may appropriately be added the characterization of the Turk by the famous Cardinal Newman:
“The barbarian power, which has been for centuries seated in the very heart of the Old World, which has in its brute clutch the most famous countries of classical and religious antiquity and many of the most fruitful and beautiful regions of the earth; and, which, having no history itself, is heir to the historical names of Constantinople and Nicaea, Nicomedia and Caesarea, Jerusalem and Damascus, Nineva and Babylon, Mecca and Bagdad, Antioch and Alexandria, ignorantly holding in its possession one half of the history of the whole world.”
In another passage Newman describes the Turk as the “great anti-Christ among the races of men.”
CHAPTER III
FIRST STEP IN YOUNG TURKS’ PROGRAM (1908-1911)
TO COMPREHEND this narrative thoroughly, one must remember that the East is unchangeable. The Turks of to-day are precisely the same as those who followed Mohammed the Conqueror through the gates of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, and they have amply demonstrated that they do not differ from those whom Gladstone denounced for the Bulgarian atrocities of 1876. Those who are building hopes on any other conception will be deceived; they will be painfully deceived if they make treaties or invest large sums of money on Western ideas of the Oriental character.
I am neither “pro-Greek,” “pro-Turk,” nor anything except pro-American and pro-Christ. Having passed the most of my life in regions where race feeling runs high, it has been my one aim to help the oppressed, irrespective of race, as will be shown by documents submitted later, and I have won the expressed gratitude of numerous Turks for the aid and relief I have afforded them on various occasions.
I am aware of the many noble qualities of the Turkish peasant, but I do not agree with many precepts of his religion, and I do not admire him when he is cutting throats or violating Christian women. The massacres already enumerated are a sufficient blot upon the Turkish name. They were made possible by the teachings of the Koran, the example of Mohammed, lust and the desire for plunder. They sink into insignificance when compared with the vast slaughter of more recent years, conducted under the auspices of Abdul Hamid, Talaat and Company, and Mustapha Khemal.
It should be borne in mind, however, that it was not until after the declaration of the constitution that the idea “Turkey for the Turks” took definite shape and developed into the scheme of accomplishing its purpose by the final extinction of all the Christian populations of that blood-soaked land—a plan consistent with, and a continuation of, the general history of Mohammedan expansion in the ancient home lands of Christianity.
At the time of the declaration of the constitution in 1908, I was in Athens. My first intimation of the event was a procession of Greeks carrying Hellenic and Ottoman flags, marching through the streets on their way to the Turkish legation, where they made a friendly and enthusiastic demonstration.
The idea in Greece and the Balkans generally was that the constitution meant equal rights for all in Turkey, irrespective of religion—the dawn of a new era. Had this conception proved true, Turkey would to-day be one of the great, progressive, prosperous countries of the world. The weakness of the conception was that in an equal and friendly rivalry, the Christians would speedily have outstripped the Ottomans, who would soon have found themselves in a subordinate position commercially, industrially and economically. It was this knowledge which caused the Turks to resolve upon the extermination of the Christians. It was a reversal of the process of nature; the drones were about to kill off the working bees.
During these days a member of the Turkish Cabinet made a speech at Saloniki, advocating the closing of all the foreign missionary schools, as well as native Christian, arguing: “If we close the Christian institutions, Turkish institutions will of necessarily spring up to take their place. A country must have schools.”
Immediately after the fall of Abdul Hamid, I was transferred to Saloniki. There was great rejoicing over the fall of the “Bloody Tyrant,” and the certainty prevailed that the subjects of Turkey had at last united to form a kingdom where all should have full liberty to worship God and pursue their peaceful occupations in security. The fall of Abdul Hamid had been made possible by the cooperation and aid of the Christians.
But the latter — Greeks, Bulgars, Serbs — were soon cruelly disillusioned. A general persecution was started, the details of which were reported to their various governments by all the consuls of the city. This persecution first displayed itself in the form of sporadic murders of alarming frequency all over Macedonia, the victims being, in the beginning, notables of the various Christian communities. A favorite place for shooting these people was at their doorsteps at the moment of their return home. It became evident that the Turkish Government, in order to gain control of the territory, was bent upon the extermination of the non-Mussulman leaders. Many of those murdered had been prominent in the anti-Abdul movement.
From the extermination of notables, the program extended to people of less importance, who began to disappear. Bevies of despairing peasant women who bad come to visit the vali (Turkish governor) and demand news of their husbands, sons or brothers, appeared on the streets of Saloniki. The answers were usually sardonic; “He has probably run away and left you,” or “He has probably gone to America,” were favorite replies. The truth, however, could not long be hidden, as shepherds and others were soon reporting corpses found in ravines and gullies in the mountains and woods. The reign of terror, the Turks’ immemorial method of rule, was on in earnest, and the next step taken to generalize it was the so-called “disarming”. This meant, as always, the disarming of the Christian element, and the furnishing of weapons to the Turks.
An order was issued that all persons must give up their guns and other weapons, and squads of soldiers were sent out through villages to put this edict into effect. That the object was not so much to collect hidden arms as to terrorize the inhabitants was soon made evident from the tortures inflicted during the search. Bastinadoing was a favorite measure. The feet of the peasants, accustomed to going barefoot, were very tough; they were therefore tied down and their toes beaten to a pulp with clubs.
Another form of torment frequently resorted to by the “Government of Union and Progress,” was tying a rope around the victim’s waist and slipping a musket between the body and the cord and twisting until internal injury resulted. Priests were frequent victims of this campaign of terror and hate, the idea being to render them ridiculous as well as to inflict hideous suffering. The poor creatures were made to stand upon one foot while a soldier menaced them with a bayonet. If the priest, finally exhausted, dropped the upraised foot to the ground, he was stabbed with the bayonet.
The prisons were bursting with unfortunate people existing in starvation and filth. An American tobacco merchant related to me that a prominent Greek merchant disappeared from the streets and for several days screams were heard issuing from the second story of a certain building. This Greek was not killed, but was finally released. He showed the American round pits all over his body. He had been tied naked to a table and hot oil dropped on him. When he had asked, in his agony, “What have I done!” his persecutors replied, “We are doing this to show you that Turkey has been freed for the Turks.” He was doubtless let go to spread the glad news.
A well-known British correspondent, a pro-Bulgar, stated that he had sent reports of these persecutions to the British press, but could not get them published. He had the obsession that the reason was because the whole British press was owned by Jews, but it is not easy to follow him in this deduction. The true reason is to be found in some government policy of the moment.
It was this indiscriminate persecution of Greeks, Bulgars and Serbs which drove them into the same camp and enabled them to chase the Turk out of Macedonia, even though they did fall at one another’s throats as noon am they got rid of the common enemy. Any one inclined to doubt the veracity of the above description must understand, if he knows anything of Balkan matters, that it needed a pretty serious state of affairs to cause Greek and Bulgar to fight on the same side.
The persecution to which all the races in the Empire were subjected, with the exception of the Turks, is well-depicted in the following article in the “Nea Alethia”, a conservative journal published in the Greek language, in Saloniki, which used all its influence in favor of harmony and moderation. The following is from the issue of July 10, 1910, or about two years after the declaration of the famous “Constitution”:
“Before two years are finished a secret committee is unearthed in Constantinople, with branches all over in important commercial towns, whose intentions are declared to be subversive of the present state of affairs. In this committee are found many prominent men and members of Congress. All discontent seen in the kingdom has its beginning in this perverted policy. Our rulers, according to their newly adopted system of centralization upon the basis of the domination of the ruling race have given gall and wormwood to all the other races. They have displeased the Arabs by wishing them to abandon their language. They have alienated the Albanians by attempting to apply force, though conciliatory measures would have been better. They have dissatisfied the Armenians by neglecting their lawful petitions. They have offended the Bulgarians by forcing them to live with foreigners brought purposely from other places. They have dissatisfied the Serbians by using against them measures the harshness of which is contrary to human laws.”
“But for us Greeks words are useless. We have every day before us such a vivid picture of persecution and extermination that however much we might say, would not be sufficient to express the magnitude of the misfortunes, which since two years have come upon our heads. It is acknowledged that the Greek race ranks second as a pillar of the Constitution and that it is the most valuable of those contributing to the prosperity of the Ottoman fatherland.”
“We have the right to ask, what have we, Ottoman Greeks, done that we should be so persecuted? The law-abiding character of the Ottoman Greeks is indisputable. To us were given promises that our rights would remain untouched. Despite this, laws are voted through which churches, schools, and cemeteries belonging to us are taken and given to others. Clergymen and teachers are imprisoned, citizens are beaten, from everywhere lamentation and weeping are heard.”
“With what joy we Ottoman Greeks hailed the rise of the 10th of July! With what eagerness we took part in the expedition of April, 1909! With what hopes we look forward even to-day to the future of this country! It is ours, and no power is able to separate us from it.”
“The Greeks are a power in Turkey; a moral and material power. This power it is impossible for our compatriot Turks to ignore. When will that day come when full agreement will exist between the two races! Then only hand in hand will both march forward, and Turkey will reach the height which is her due.”
The following is from my Saloniki diary, dated December 11, 1910:
“Wholesale arrests, in some of the towns all the prominent citizens being thrown into jail together.”
“Series of assassinations of chiefs of communities, in broad day, in the streets. Fifty prominent Bulgarians thus shot down, and many Greeks.”
“The following figures were obtained from a report of the Turkish Parliament and locally confirmed:
In the Sandjack of Uskub, 1,104 persons bastinadoed; Villayet of Monastir, 285 persons bastinadoed; Saloniki, 464 persons bastinadoed; (of these 11 died and 62 were permanently injured.) Casas of Yenidje-Vardar, Gevgeli, Vodena, 911 persons were bastinadoed.
All the prisons are crowded with Christians; many have fled into Bulgaria and thousands of men, women and children are hiding in the mountains.”
This was the state of affairs two years after the declaration of the Constitution, and it was this common suffering which Greeks, Bulgars and Serbians endured, which drove them together and forced them to declare the First Balkan War, in October of 1912, in which the Turk was practically driven out of Europe until Christian statesmen of the Great Powers brought him back again. Turkish power has always been built upon Christian dissension and aid.
In the (at that time) pro-Turk “Progres de Saloniqne”, a journal published in the French language at Saloniki, appeared an article which expresses a state of feeling among Oriental peoples which has taken great distension since the date of the article (July 22, 1910). What was then a fire bids fair now to grow into a general conflagration, due to the building up, by Christian powers, of the sinister puissance of Mustapha Khemal:
“In the space of three years,” says the article, “the Orient, twice and from its two extremities, has marvelously astonished the civilized world: first, by the great victory won by the Japanese over the strongest of Occidental peoples, and next by the wonderful revolution in Turkey! In fact, it is a marvel, which is being accomplished to-day! There is no comparison between the Orient of to-day and that of ten years ago. What is more curious is that this Oriental movement has taken the form of two separate currents, which, starting from the two extremities of the Orient, are going to meet and their points of junction will be, in all probability, India.”
“At the head of these movement will be found the peoples belonging to the same race—the Mongolians. Each one possesses the unquestionable title to the moral and intellectual supremacy of the great countries over which their influence extents.”
“The Japanese are incontestably at the head of the peoples professing Buddhism, the doctrine of Confucius, etc.; the Turks, defenders of Islam for centuries, are the incontestable leaders of the people professing Islamism. Therefore, the two movements, starting from the two extremities of Asia, from the Bosphoros and Tokio, go spreading, each one in an appropriate field prepared in advance by history itself to accept it, then, since they are essentially the same, they will unite at their point of junction, to form a common and formidable Asiatic current. With this in view, the Occident is feeling uneasy and agitated.”
Immediately after the reestablishment of the Constitution, then, the first step of the dominant race was to solidify its supremacy by measures of suppression, oppression, and murder. The Turks also deliberately undertook to force all the non-Turkish races to become in language, laws, habits and almost all other particulars, “Ottomans.” (Professor Davis’ “Short History of the Near East”)
It is exactly this policy, in operation, which is referred to in the clipping from the “Nea Aletheia”, quoted above. A more foolish project was never conceived by the mind of man—that of forcing whole nations to change their languages and habits overnight. The impossibility of this scheme becomes all the more evident when the reader reflects that an inferior civilization was attempting to impose itself upon a superior one. The Turk never had any intention of giving equal liberty to all the peoples who were so unfortunate as to be in his power. Failing to “Turkify” them, as it has been called, his only next alternative was to massacre and drive them out, a policy not long in developing.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST GREAT SELAMLIK
(1911)
A PICTURESQUE incident in the process of “Turkifying” took place in Macedonia in May and June of 1911. Mehmet V arrived in Saloniki on May thirty-first of that year on a battle-ship escorted by the greater part of the Turkish fleet. It had been known for some days that he was coming, as his advance guard, in the shape of tall flabby eunuchs, cooks, etc., began to appear and lounge about in front of the principal hotels. The town was liberally beflagged, and the different communities made demonstrations in his honor, the Bulgarians showing especial enthusiasm. He visited Uskub and Monastir and, from the former place, proceeded to the Plain of Kossovo, where the decisive battle was fought, which brought the Turks and the Turkish blight into Europe. There on June 15, 1389, the Sultan Amurath defeated the heroic Lazarus, King of the Serbians. This Turkish victory, whose evil consequences have lasted down into our own times, was made possible by treachery of Christian allies, the real cause of all Turkish triumphs.
Amurath himself was slain, and it was in the plain where are found his simple monument and a mosque in commemoration of his name, that Mehmet V, the witless dotard and befuddled puppet of the Young Turk Committee, called together all the various picturesque tribes of Turkey in Europe for a grand selamlik, or service of prayer.
Besides civilians, some of whom are said to have walked for days to be present, there were thousands of troops, and many famous regiments, carrying ancient battle-torn flags. A huge tent had been erected for the sultan, and the vast throng seated itself upon the ground. As the priests recited the service and the thousands of worshippers bent their foreheads to, the earth and sat up again, the sea of red fezzes rose and fell rhythmically like a wide field of poppies swayed by the wind.
There have been in the world’s history few more picturesque and impressive sights than this last selamlik on the ill-omened “Plain of Blackbirds.”
I was presented to Mehmet (or Mohammed V) at Saloniki, and a more flabby, pitiful, witless countenance it would be difficult to imagine. The bleary eyes were puffy underneath, the lower lip dropped in slobbery fashion. His Imperial Majesty was accompanied by several shrewd-faced prompters, of the Europeanized type, and he never uttered a word without turning to one of them with a helpless and infantile expression for directions as to what to say or do. When the interview was finished, Mehmet turned his back and started to walk away. He had gone but a few steps when one of the prompters whispered to him, whereupon he faced about ponderously and slowly twisted his features into a ghastly and mechanical grin. It was as clear as any pantomime could be made that he had been instructed to smile when taking leave, and had forgotten a part of his lesson.
Mehmet V had been kept in confinement all his life, practically, by his brother, the great and cruel Abdul, by whom it was said that he had been encouraged to absorb daily incredible quantities of raki. He was a kindly harmless soul, who bad been selected by Enver and the rest because he had become practically an imbecile.
The great selamlik made a strong appeal to the Turks, deeply stirring their religious feelings, but it is needless to say that it did not accomplish much “Turkeifying” the Christian element. And all this time the crafty Abdul, the fatuous “Sick Man’’ of Europe, one of the greatest diplomats and murderers in the history of the world, was confined with a small array of wives in the Villa Allatini at Saloniki.
CHAPTER V
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN SMYRNA DISTRICT
(1911-1914)
IN 1911, I was transferred to Smyrna, where I remained till May of 1917, when the Turks ruptured relations with the United States. During the period from 1914 to 1917, I was in charge of the Entente interests in Asia Minor and was in close contact with Rahmi Bey, the famous and shrewd war governor-general.
The Greek subjects in Asia Minor were not disturbed for the reason, as explained by Rahmi Bey, that King Constantine was in reality an ally of Turkey and that he was preventing Greece from going into the war. The Rayas, or Greek Ottoman subjects, of the Port were, on the other hand, abominably treated. These people were the expert artisans, principal merchants and professional men of the cities, and the skilled and progressive farmers of the country. It was they who introduced the cultivation of the famous Sultanina raisins, improved the curing and culture of tobacco, and built modern houses and pretty towns. They were rapidly developing a civilization that would ultimately have approached the classic days of Ionia. A general boycott was declared against them, for one thing, and posters calling on the Mussulmans to exterminate them were posted in the schools and mosques. The Turkish newspapers also published violent articles exciting their readers to persecution and massacre. A meeting of the consular corps was held and the decision was taken to visit the vali and call the attention of His Excellency to the danger that these articles and this agitation might disturb the tranquility of a peaceful province.
The consuls visited the vali, with the exception of the German representative, who alleged that he could not join in such a move without the express authorization of his government. This action of the German official on the spot is another confirmation of the assertion that Germany was to a large extent co-guilty with her Turkish allies in the matter of the deportations and massacres of Christians. In fact, there is little doubt that Germany inspired the expulsion of the Ottoman Greeks of Asia Minor at that time, as one of the preliminary moves in the war, which she was preparing.
The ferocious expulsion and terrorizing by murder and violence of the Rayas along the Asia Minor littoral, which has not attracted the attention it merits, has all the earmarks of a war measure, prompted by alleged “military necessity,” and there is no doubt that Turks and Germans were allies during the war and were in complete cooperation. A study of this question may be found in Publication No. 3, of the American Hellenic Society, 1918, in which the statement is made that one million, five hundred thousand Greeks were driven from their homes in Thrace and Asia Minor, and that half these populations had perished from deportations, outrages and famine.
The violent and inflammatory articles in the Turkish newspapers, above referred to, appeared unexpectedly and without any cause. They were so evidently “inspired” by the authorities, that it seems a wonder that even ignorant Turks did not understand this. Cheap lithographs were also got up, executed in the clumsiest and most primitive manner—evidently local productions. They represented Greeks cutting up Turkish babies or ripping open pregnant Moslem women, and various purely imaginary scenes, founded on no actual events or even accusations elsewhere made. These were hung in the mosques and schools. This campaign bore immediate fruit and set the Turk to killing, a not very difficult thing to do.
A series of sporadic murders began at Smyrna as at Saloniki, the list in each morning’s paper numbering from twelve to twenty. Peasants going into their vineyards to work were shot down from behind trees and rocks by the Turks. One peculiarly atrocious case comes to mind: Two young men, who had recently finished their studies in a high-grade school, went out to a vineyard to pass the night in the coula (house in the country). During the night they were called to the door and chopped down with axes. Finally the Rayas, to the number of several hundred thousand, were all driven off from their farms or out of their villages. Some were deported into the interior, but many managed to escape by means of caiques to the neighboring islands, whence they spread over Greece. A few thousand Turks destroyed the region, which the Greeks were developing and rendering fertile, from Pergamus clear down the coast to Lidja. I went over the whole region and took photographs of the ruined farmhouses and villages. Goats had been turned into flourishing, carefully tended vineyards and acres of roots had been dug up for fuel.
Code: Select all
Most of the Christian houses in Asia Minor are built of a wooden framework, which serves as an earthquake proof skeleton for the walls of stone and mortar. The Turks pulled the houses down by laying a timber across the inside of the window—or doorframe—to which a team of buffaloes or oxen was hitched. A Turk would reside in one of the houses with his wife, or with his goats and cattle, and thus tear down a circle of houses about him. When the radius became too great for convenience, he moved into the center of another cluster of houses. The object of destroying the houses was to get the wooden timbers for firewood.
Both at this time and during the progress of the Great War, the Rayas were drafted into the army where they were treated as slaves. They were not given guns, but were employed to dig trenches and do similar work, and as they were furnished neither food, clothing nor shelter, large numbers of them perished of hunger and exposure.
The beginning of the work on the “Great Turkish Library” at Smyrna was peculiarly interesting as a revelation of the mentality of the race. Christians were used for the labor, the taskmasters, of course, being Turks armed with whips. When I called the attention of Rahmi Bey, the governor-general, one day to the fact that there were not sufficient books existing in his native tongue to justify the construction of so great an edifice, he replied:
“The first thing is to have a building. If we have a building the books will necessarily appear to fill it, and even if they don’t, we are going to translate all the German books into Turkish.”
The structure was never finished, and consequently the books have not been written.
CHAPTER VI
THE MASSACRE OF PHOCEA
(1914)
THE complete and documentary account of the ferocious persecutions of the Christian population of the Smyrna region, which occurred in 1914, is not difficult to obtain; but it will suffice, by way of illustration, to give only some extracts from a report by the French eye-witness, Manciet, concerning the massacre and pillage of Phocea, a town of eight thousand Greek inhabitants and about four hundred Turks, situated on the sea a short distance from Smyrna. The destruction of Phocea excited great interest in Marseilles, as colonists of the very ancient Greek town founded the French city. Phocea is the mother of Marseilles. Monsieur Manciet was present at the massacre and pillage of Phocea, and, together with three other Frenchman, Messieurs Sartiaux, Carlier and Dandria, saved hundreds of lives by courage and presence of mind.
The report begins with the appearance on the hills behind the town of armed bands and the firing of shots, causing a panic. Those four gentlemen were living together, but when the panic commenced they separated and each installed himself in a house. They demanded of the Kaimakam gendarmes for their protection, and each obtained one. They kept the doors open and gave refuge to all who came. They improvised four French flags out of cloth and flew one from each house. But, to continue the recital in Monsieur Manciet’s own words, translated from the French:
“During the night the organized bands continued the pillage of the town. At the break of dawn there was continual “tres nourrie” firing before the houses. Going out immediately, we four, we saw the most atrocious spectacle of which it is possible to dream. This horde, which had entered the town, was armed with Gras rifles and cavalry muskets. A house was in flames. From all directions the Christians were rushing to the quays seeking boats to get away in, but since the night there were none left. Cries of terror mingled with the sound of firing. The panic was so great that a woman with her child was drowned in sixty centimeters of water.”
“Mr. Carlier saw an atrocious spectacle. A Christian stood at his door, which the bandits wished to enter, as his wife and daughter were in the house. He stretched out his arms to bar the way. This motion cost him his life for they shot him in the stomach. As he was staggering toward the sea, they gave him a second shot in the back, and the corpse lay there for two days.”
“Fortunately there were two steamers in port, and we managed to embark the unfortunate Christians in small groups. Despite all our efforts, these wretched people were in such haste to depart that they upset the small boats. An odious detail proved the cynicism of this horde, which, under pretext of disarming those leaving, shamefully robbed these poor, terrified people of their last belongings. They tore away from old women packages and bedding by force. Anger seized me and I blushed to see these abominations and I told an officer of the gendarmerie that if this did not stop, I would take a gun myself and fire on the robbers. This produced the desired effect, and these unfortunates were enabled to embark with what they had saved from the disaster, which proves that the whole movement could have been easily controlled.”
“But the plundering was stopped only in our immediate neighborhood. Farther away we saw doors broken in and horses and asses laden with booty. This continued all day. Toward evening I mounted a little hill and saw a hundred camels laden with the pillage of the city. That night we passed in agony, but nothing happened.”
“The following day the methodical pillage of the city recommenced. And now the wounded began to arrive. There being no doctor, I took upon myself the first aid before embarking them for Mitylene. I affirm that with two or three exceptions, all these wounded were more than sixty years of age. There were among them aged women, more than ninety years of age, who had received gunshots, and it is difficult to imagine that they had been wounded while defending their possessions. It was simply and purely a question of massacre.”
This extract is given from Monsieur Manciet’s description of the sack of Phocea in 1914, of which he was an eye-witness, for several reasons. It is necessary to the complete and substantiated picture the gradual ferocious extermination of the Christians which had been going on in Asia Minor and the Turkish Empire for the past several years, finally culminating in the horror of Smyrna; it is a peculiarly graphic recital, bringing out the unchanging nature of the Turk and his character as a creature of savage passions, living still in the times of Tamerlane or Attila, the Hun;—for the Turk is an anachronism; still looting, killing and raping and carrying off his spoil on camels; it is peculiarly significant, also, as it tells a story strongly resembling some of the exploits of Mohammed himself; it also gives a clear idea of what happened over the entire coast of Asia Minor and far back into the interior in 1914, temporarily destroying a flourishing and rapidly growing civilization, which was later restored by the advent of the Greek army, only to go out in complete darkness under the bloody and lustful hands of the followers of Mustapha Khemal; it rings again the constant note, so necessary to be understood by the European or American, that this was an “organized movement,” as Monsieur Manciet says:
“We found an old woman lying in the street, who had been nearly paralyzed by blows. She had two great wounds on the head made by the butts of muskets; her hands were cut, her face swollen.”
“A young girl, who had given all the money she possessed, had been thanked by knife stabs, one in the arm and the other in the region of the kidneys. A weak old man had received such a blow with a gun that the fingers of his left hand had been carried away.”
“From all directions during the day that followed families arrived that had been hidden in the mountains. All had been attacked. Among them was a woman who had seen killed, before her eyes, her husband, her brother and her three children.”
“We learned at this moment an atrocious detail. An old paralytic, who had been lying helpless on his bed at the moment the pillagers entered, had been murdered.”
“Smyrna sent us soldiers to establish order. As these soldiers circulated in the streets, we had a spectacle of the kind of order which they established; they continued, personally, the sacking of the town.”
“We made a tour of inspection through the city. The pillage was complete; doors were broken down and that which the robbers had not been able to carry away they had destroyed. Phocea, which had been a place of great activity, was now a dead city.”
“A woman was brought to us dying; she had been violated by seventeen Turks. They had also carried off into the mountains a girl of sixteen, having murdered her father and mother before her eyes. We had seen, therefore, as in the most barbarous times, the five characteristics of the sacking of a city; theft, pillage, fire, murder and rape.”
“All the evidence points to this having been an organized attack with the purpose of driving from the shores the Rayas, or Christian Ottomans.”
“It is inconceivable that all these persons should have had in their possession so many army weapons if they had not been given them. As for the Christians of old Phocea, there was not for one instant an effort at defense. It was, therefore, a carnage.”
“We read in the journals that order had been established, and that, in the regions of which we speak, the Christians have nothing further to fear, neither for themselves, nor for their possessions. This is not a vain statement. Order reigns, for nobody is left. The possessions have nothing further to fear, for they are all in good hands— those of the robbers.”
CHAPTER VII
NEW LIGHT ON THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES
(1914-1915)
IN 1915, the time of the vast extermination of Armenians, Consul Jesse B. Jackson was stationed at Aleppo, and greatly distinguished himself by the aid, which he gave those unfortunate people. As Consul Jackson was in these horrible scenes, it would be interesting to read his reports, if they were obtainable, but unfortunately they are not. Quotation can fortunately be made from the account, here published for the first time, of a native-born American citizen who was at Aleppo and was an eye-witness of the things which he describes:
“The forerunner of events in which the unfortunate Armenians were to be massacred and forced to undergo the most severe hardships occurred at Zeitun, a town situated about five days’ journey north of Aleppo, in February, 1915, when, with great reluctance, the Armenians were made to submit to disarmament by the Turks. Following the Zeitun incident, similar action was taken in Aintab, Alexandretta, Marash, Urfa, etc.”
“Shortly after the disarmament of the Armenians in the above-mentioned places, the deportations began, which were so destructive to the Armenian race and were carried out on orders from the Turkish officials in Constantinople.”
“Throughout the terrible days of the deportation, Consul Jackson was repeatedly called upon to render assistance and to use every effort to prevent the deportation of any one in Aleppo. This, during the time when he represented fifteen different countries and was protecting their various interests. (This was during the war, of course, before Turkey severed relations with the United States.) It can be readily seen that his position was a very delicate one, and every move on his part had to be made with the utmost care in order not to call down upon him and especially his assistants, the displeasure of the Turkish authorities.”
“While Consul Jackson was endeavoring to the best of his ability to stop a massacre in Aleppo, news began to leak in of the terrible atrocities that were occurring in connection with the deportations from Sivas, Harput, Trebizonde, Bitlis, Diarbekir, Mardin, Caesarea, Konia, Adana, Mersina and other cities and towns in the district.”
“Gradually small numbers sent away from the above mentioned towns began to arrive in Aleppo, relating the harrowing details of the deportations, or the actual killing of relatives and friends, or the unbelievable brutalities of the gendarmes toward young girls, and more attractive women, or the carrying off by Turks and Kurds of beautiful girls and countless other atrocious crimes committed against them.”
“One of the most terrible sights ever witnessed in Aleppo was the arrival, early in August, 1915, of some five thousand terribly emaciated, dirty, ragged and sick women and children, three thousand on one day and two thousand the following day. These people were the only survivors of the thrifty and prosperous Armenians of the province of Sivas, carefully estimated to have been originally over three hundred thousand souls. And what became of the balance? From the most intelligent of those that reached Aleppo, it was learned that in early spring of 1915 the men and boys over fourteen years old had been called to the police stations in that province on different mornings stretching over a period of several weeks and had been sent off in groups of from one thousand to two thousand each, tied together with ropes and that nothing had over been heard of them thereafter. Their fate has been recorded in the annals of God, so is needles to dwell thereon here. These survivors related the most harrowing experiences that they endured en route, parting from their homes as they did before Easter, traveling perhaps a thousand miles and reaching Aleppo in August, about four months afterward, afoot, without sufficient food, and even denied drink by the brutal gendarmes when they came to the wells by the way side. Hundreds of the prettiest women and girls had been stolen by the Turkish tribes who came among them every day.”
Of the fate of the men and boys over fourteen, who were carried away and never heard of again, many corroborating accounts were received at Smyrna. It is certain that they were killed, the Turks chopping many of them to death with axes, to save ammunition.
As we are still dealing with the systematic extermination of Christians previous to the burning of Smyrna by the Turks, a few pages will be devoted to the destruction of the Armenian nation, the most horrible crime in the history of the human race in its details of lust and savagery and suffering, as well as in extent, and which definitely outlaws its perpetrators from the society of human beings and from the fellowship of civilized nations, until such time as full repentance is convincingly shown and an honest effort made, in so far as possible, to make reparation.
There have probably been destructive movements that have cost more lives than that of the extermination of the Christians by the Turks. Tamerlane, for instance, swept over vast stretches of country, killing and burning for the mere love of destruction. He spared neither Mussulman nor Christian. But there were features of fiendish cruelty and long-drawn-out suffering in the Ottoman persecution of the Christians that did not characterize the methods of Tamerlane.
Reference will be made to the most notable official collections of evidence on the subject, and two important documents, reports of American eyewitnesses, will be given. These latter have never before been published. One of the fullest and most reliable sources of information on the Armenian massacres is the official publication of the British Parliament, 1915 entitled “The Treatment of the Armenians”, containing documents presented to Viscount Grey of Falloden, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, by Viscount Brice. A copy can be found in the Library of Congress, at Washington. These documents really constitute a large volume, giving evidence from all sources as to the Armenian butcheries amid extermination by slow torture. Much of the testimony here given is so revolting, and so outrages all human feelings and sensibilities, that one refrains from quoting it.
Lord Grey, then British Secretary of State, on receiving these documents, wrote to Viscount Bryce:
“My Dear Bryce: It Is a terrible mass of evidence, but I feel it ought to be published and widely studied by all who have the broad interests of humanity at heart. It will be valuable, not only for the immediate information of public opinion as to the conduct of the Turkish Government toward this defenseless people, but also as a mine of information for historians in the future.
(Signed) GREY OF FALLODEN”
Various opinions of distinguished people are given as to the credibility of this evidence. Among others, Gilbert Murray, the famous scholar and poet, says:
“The evidence of these letters and reports will bear any scrutiny and overpower any skepticism.”
An expert on the matter of evidence, Moorfield Storey, formerly President of the American Bar Association, writes cautiously but conclusively:
“In my opinion, the evidence which you print is as reliable as that upon which rests our belief in many of the universally accepted facts of history, and I think it establishes beyond any reasonable doubt the deliberate purpose of the Turkish authorities practically to exterminate the Armenians, and their responsibility for the hideous atrocities which have been perpetrated upon that unhappy people.”
Other works to be consulted in this connection, filled with corroborating and overwhelming testimony are: “Beginning Again at Ararat”, by Doctor Mabel E. Elliott; “Shall This Nation Die”, by Reverend Joseph Naayem; and most convincing of all, the “Secret Report on the Massacres of Armenia”, by Doctor Johannes Lepsius, German missionary and President of the German Orient Mission. Doctor Lepsius’ explanation of the necessity for the secrecy of his report, which was made to his “friends of’ the mission, is illuminating:
“Dear Friends of the Mission: The following report which I am sending to you absolutely confidentiality, has been printed as a manuscript. It can not, either as a whole or in part, be given to the public, nor utilized. The censor can not authorize, during the war, publications concerning events in Turkey. Our political and military interests oblige us with imperious demands. Turkey is our ally. In addition to having defended her own country, she has rendered service to us ourselves by her valiant defense of the Dardanelles. Our fraternity of arms with Turkey imposes, then, obligations, but it does not hinder us from fulfilling the duties of humanity.”
“But, if we must be quiet in public, our conscience does not, however, cease to speak. The most ancient people of Christianity is in danger of being wiped out, in so far as it is in the power of the Turks; six sevenths of the Armenian people have been despoiled of their possessions, driven from their firesides, and, in so far as they have not accepted Islam, have been killed or deported into the desert. The same fate has happened to the Nestonians of Syria, and part of the Greek Christians have suffered.”
Doctor Lepsious prepares his report in the manner of true German scholar. It is detailed, exhaustive and authoritative.
A prominent foreign official, not a German, has already been mentioned, who was constrained to keep silent as to Turkish atrocities. How strong the Turk is! He can do what he pleases, can break a
