GIFT OF
HORACE W. CARFENTIER
C^
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
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RIGHT REV. BISHOP M. KHIRIMIAN.
The Armenian Catholicos.
RMENIA AND
HER PEOPLE
OR
iSl\)t Storn of Armenia
BY AN ARMENIAN
A description of the land of Armenia :
its ancient and modem history; its
physical features; its people, their re-
ligious beliefs, customs, etc,, from the
oldest dates, as recorded in Armenian
Histories and Church Records. A
presentation of the true causes of the
recent atrocities and a detailed account
of the massacres ^ ^ ^ ji ^ ^ ^
By
Rcv^ George H. Filian
A native pastor, banished by the Turkish Government
from the Gty of Marsovan, Armenia
jt^jt
HARTFORD, CONN.
AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
1896
r)SI75
F5
CARPENTIER
CoPTRieHT 1896
By American Publishing Company
Hartford, Conn.
(AU rights reserved)
BeMcatfott
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE MARTYRS OF ARMENIA WHO
SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES FOR CHRIST THIS
VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
(8^
839050
CONTENTS.
I- PAGE.
The Land op Armenia, 21
II.
The People of Armenia, .... .39
III.
The Armenian Dynasties, 45
IV.
Rulers of The Ottoman Empire, 132
V.
The Great Powers and The Armenian Question, . 175
VI.
The Causes of the Atrocities 217
VII.
The Turkish Atrocities in Armenia, .... 239
VIII.
The Armenians of To-Day, 334
IX.
The Future of Armenia and the Battle of Arma-
geddon, 850
X.
Poems on the Armenian Question,
(V)
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PACE PAGE
Portrait of Armenian Catholicos, .... 1
Portrait of Author, ....
12
City of Antioch,
17
Map of Armenia,
21
Mount Ararat,
23
Kurdish Bandits,
35
Oriental Threshing Floor, .
35
Armenian Flags — Coats of Arms,
45
Lake and City of Van, ....
40
Oldest Church Edifice in the World,
101
Portrait of Armenian Patriarch,
108
Recent Portrait of Sultan of Turkey,
139
Early Portrait of Sultan of Turkey,
143
A Bread Seller,
166
A Zeibeck,
166
A SOFTA
166
Group of Circassians, ....
217
Group of Georgians,
217
Kurdish Home,
239
Kurd Chiefs
239
Kurd Woman,
239
Massacre at Sassoun,
247
(vii)
viii ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACE PAGE
Massacre at Erzeroum, 247
]VL\ssACRE AT Stamboul, 257
City of Harpoot, 264
Armenian Peasant Girl, 272
MousA Beg, Kurd Chief 272
Rev, Prof. Thourmain, 272
City of Marsovan, 280
A Water Peddler, . . 280
City of Trebizond, 300
Group of Armenian Children, ..... 319
Group of Young Armenian Women, .... 319
Anatolia College, 335
Armenl\n Family, 335
PREFACE.
The problem of Armenia and the Turkish atrocities there,
is in the very forefront of the world's burning questions at
the present time. In every civilized land it is ranked along-
side their own pressing local issues; everywhere there is
not only sympathy and indignation, but a feeling of real re-
sponsibility. We are a group of Christian nations, and the
first Christian nation is being exterminated. Within a few
months the unspeakable Turks and barbarous Kurds de-
stroyed more than a thousand villages and towns, murdered
a hundred thousand Armenian Christians,— men, women, and
innocent children,— and left 500,000 others without homes,
clothing, or food, thousands of women shamefully defiled,
and thousands of men put to horrible tortures. Dying in
the streets, in the fields, on the mountains; dying of hunger,
of cold, of storm, and of diseases bred of all these; dying of
broken hearts and despair, even more, of shame and mental
torture. Yet all these Armenians who thus suffered and
were driven forth to starve and die like deserted animals,
were absolutely peaceable,— indeed, they were totally un-
armed and could not have been otherwise if they wished,—
perfectly respectable, most of them comfortably off, and
some of them rich. One who was last week a banker is to-
day a beggar; yesterday a merchant, to-day a tramp. Why ?
For the main reason that he is a Christian, and the Sultan
has resolved to have no more Christians in his dominion; tlie
doom of Islamism is hanging over their heads. " If you
accept Islam," they are told, "well and good; if you do
(ix)
X PREFACE.
not, you shall be killed — or worse — as your fellows have
been."
These are all facts, proved to superfluity, though the Sul-
tan denies them and instructs his ministers everywhere to
deny them. How often has tlie Turkish minister in Wash-
ington, Mavroyeni Beg, oflicially (?) declared the Armenian
atrocities to be fiction, giving the papers lying statements
(which come from the Sublime Porte), and asserted that the
Armenians were the aggressors ! It is precisely as though
one should account for a devastated sheepfold, with the
wolves raging about in it, by alleging that the lambs had
wantonly assailed and slain the wolves first. Some pre-
tended to believe this rubbish; but most people, to their
credit, are only the more angered and disgusted by it. The
Turkish proverbs, occasionally good, are generally evil;—
a significant index to the race; one of the commonest is this:
" Yalan yigitin kullesi dir " (A lie is the fortress of the
brave). Kill, plunder, ravish, and then deny it; not sim-
ply deny it, but cliarge those very things to your enemy,
and make them an excuse for all you do to him or his. Such
are the principles of the Sultan, the false successor of the
false prophet of Arabia. At the very time when noble
American and European Christians are sending help to the
survivors of his massacres, to the half-million homeless,
naked, starving, heart-broken beggars he has made from
prosperous citizens, he coolly denies that anything has hap-
pened but the putting down of a few local riots. He writes
to Queen Victoria sympathizing with her expressions of
humane sentiment, but declaring that the reports wei-e in-
vented by evil-disposed persons; that on the exact contrary,
it was the Turks who were first attacked while praying in
the mosques. He assures the Queen that his measures
have succeeded in restoring order.
PREFACE. xi
And this same Sultan a few months ago, before the
greatest of the recent massacres, wrote to Lord Salisbury
as follows:— "Take the words of my honor, 1 will make
reforms in Armenia. I will keep before me every article of
the desired reforms, and will order the governors of the
provinces to carry them into effect." He at once began to
put this pledge of his " honor " into effect, by sending orders
from Yildiz Kiosk to the provincial governors in Armenia
to root out or convert the accursed infidels. Since that
promise of his "honor" months have passed away; and
during the time at least eighty thousand more Armenian
Christians have been killed, and even death has been the
most merciful " reform " he has bestowed on the land. The
word in his mouth means beggaring, burning, ravaging,
violating, mutilating, torturing, and assassinating. When
all the leading Armenians are slain and their helpless fami-
lies forced to become Mohammedans, after the women have
been dishonored,— in a word, when all the Armenian Chris-
tians are exterminated, then Armenia will have been re-
formed. A special chapter is devoted to the person and
doings of this eminent reformer.
THE AUTHOK.
A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AND BIRTHPLACE.
I was born January 20, 1853, in a suburb of Antioch;
twelfth child and youngest sou of a family of nine boys and
four girls, and therefore considered the Joseph of the fam-
ily, and as a small boy went to a missionary school with my
elder brothers. :My father was a banker and merchant.
His partner in the former business was Mr. Edward Barker,
English consul at Aleppo; in thfe latter a Greek, Jabra An-
taki, their traffic being in raw silk, for which and for silk-
worms Antioch is a great center. Millions of dollars passed
through his hands, and he was considered one of the wealth-
iest men in the city. A common saying was, " If you can
drain the Mediterranean dry, you can drain Filian's money
dry." This saying roused the cupidity of the local governor;
he imprisoned my father, and proposed to torture and kill
him, and confiscate his property. Americans would relish
living under this sort of government. His partner, the
consul, saved him, however, and won his undying gratitude;
and when Mr. Barker died, my father gave his son a part
of his own orchard for a burial ground. The son erected a
beautiful $25,000 monument there, which still stands, the
ground being owned by my brother, Moses Filian.
When I was fourteen or fifteen, my father lost all his
money through the failure of others, became hopelessly
bankrupt, and was too old to regain his position, and sank
into a poor and broken-hearted old man: his Mediterranean
was not inexhaustible. He often patted me and said, " My
dear boy, I am sorry — I helped your brothers and gave
them good educations, and I meant to do the same by you;
but I cannoi, for I am too poor. You will have to make
your own way." He was a devoted friend of education,
himself highly educated, master of three languages,— Ar-
(xii)
s
^ ۩s'
i^
».*-«»
•': .•.'"
THE AUTHOR. ^.jjj
mouian, Arabic, and Turkish,— and of slronjj roaRoninjr
powers, lo^^ical, iniaj^inative, profound, an<l far-sl^litiMl.
Moreover, lie was a zealous Cliristian, jfreatly respected and
liked. In person he was tall, and very stout, with larjj:e,
hrijjht eyes, and full, rosy cheeks; built like luy great-j;rand-
father, from whose elephantine figure the family took its
surname. Filian means " Sou of an elephant," and his de-
scendants — about 150 in all, one of the largest single fami-
lies in the Orient — have been mostly large-framec! men and
women.
At about fifteen I had to go to work. One of my brothers
being a weaver, I learned that trade from him, and kept at
it for three years, weaving both cotton and silk, and not
only supporting myself, but helping support my father.
Then I took up shoemaking, which paid better, but neither
my father nor myself was satisfied to have me remain a
common workman. He wanted me to become a banker and
merchant, as he had been, and his old friends, who re-
spected him, would have given me a chance to start; but I
had always been devout from a little boy, and felt that I
had a call to be a minister. While making shoes, I prayed
the Lord to open the way. I often thought, " Suppose I
become the richest shoemaker or even the richest banker
in Antioch, what then? Shall I ever be happy? No. Then
Lord, what is my call ? " I believed I heard the answer-
ing voice of God in my soul saying, " I have created thee to
become a minister of the gospel." So I went to a missionary
of the American Board in Antioch, and consulted him; by
his encouragement I went to the Theological Seminary at
Marash, in Armenia Minor, and studied there three years
in the preparatoi-y course.
Before taking my tlieological lessons I was sent by the
missionaries to Caesarea (Kayserieh) to teach in a town
near by. On reaching the city the pastor of the Protestant
Church invited me to preach to his congregation the fol
lowing Sunday morning. I did so; the missionaries heard
me, changed their minds, said I was better fitted for a
preacher than a teacher, and sent me to preach at a vil-
lage named Chomakli, near Mt. Argaeus. The Lord seemed
to fill me with eloquence, and crowds flocked to hear me.
xiv THE AUTHOR.
Then the missionaries called me to a larger field, Talas, their
central town; the same fortune attended me thei-e, and
steadily followed me in the other places to which I went.
I will not make a long story of it. Enough to say that I
always felt utterly helpless before preaching, empty of
matter and words; I went to my room and cried to my
Heavenly Father, and always overflowed with things to
say when the time came. There was no limit to my im-
agination; illustrations thronged upon me by hundi-eds; I
felt inspired from Heaven. I never wrote a sermon before
preaching it, but wrote it down literally as soon as I had
finished. — I wrote every Monday. — and they are all ready
to be published in both Armenian and Turliish.
I was a successful preacher, but 1 had no theological ed-
ucation (though I studied my Bible hard), and felt that I
needed one. I decided to go to America for it, but the
missionaries opposed the plan bitterly. One of the ladies
told me plainly it was a sin; that I had no right to give up
a successful and useful ministry to go there. I replied that
giving up the ministry would be a sin, but not going away to
prepare for higher usefulness, and coming back to carry it
out. Then she said I had no money to go, and did not un-
derstand English. I answered that I had faith that God
would create the means. She laughingly bade me give her
best regards to her friends when I came. She meant it for
a joke, but I carried it out in earnest.
How I finally came to this country would take too long
to tell. I will only say that I crossed the ocean by faith.
When I reached New York in July, 1879, I had only 15
cents in my pocket. I worked hard day and night in a
rag felt factory in the Bowery, and slept on the rags on
the floor, covering myself with a piece of flannel. But the
Lord opened the way. I went to Oberlin, Ohio, and studied
there, supporting myself by sawing wood for the professors
of the Theological Seminary. In six months I could talk
English well enough to lecture, and after that time I sup-
ported myself by lecturing. Finally I was sent to Nebraska
as a home missionary during the summer vacation. On my
return I entered the Chicago Theological Seminary, and
graduated there in 1882, after which I lectured rather widely
THE AUTHOR. XV
tlirou;;h the country. Then I went home, and for a time
was pastor of the Constantinople KvanKelical Armenian
Church. Later I had a call from Marsovan, accepted it.
and had so lar}?e a congregation there that a church with a
capacity of 2,000 was needed. I returned to this country,
raised the money, left it in a Chicago bank (where it still
lies in trust), and went back to build the church. That very
success aroused the jealousy of some wicked men, and they
falsely charged me with being the leader of the revolution-
ary societies in Turkey. On this charge I was banished, and
now I am here again,— free and happy with my family, but
full of sorrow for my dear people daily martyred by the
Turks.
ANTIOCH.
The city of Autioch, where the disciples were first
called Christians, (Acts xi. 20,) was built by Seleucus Nica-
tor, 300 B. C, and enlarged by Antiochus Epiphanes. All
the civilized world was then under Roman rule; Rome.
Antioch, and Jerusalem were the leading cities. Jerusalem
being a Jewish city, and Rome being a Roman heathen
city, there was no room in either to preach the gospel freely:
nor indeed in any other — the disciples were persecuted and
martyred everywhere. There was just one exception — the
city of Antioch; that was as free as any American city is
to-day. This arose from the fact that when in the Asiatic
campaign of Pompey the Great, he cahie about 05 B. C. to
Antioch, he was received by the people with great honors:
and was so charmed with the city, and his treatment, that
he made it an absolutely free city for all, for every nation
and for every religion, and the Roman emperors continued
its privileges. When Stephen was martyred in Jerusalem
the disciples were scattered; some of them reached Antioch,
300 miles north, and began to preach freely, making many
converts. Barnabas was in Jerusalem, but hearing of his
brethren's success, he also went to Antioch and began to
preach: as he was a great orator, full of enthusiasm and
faith, thousands were converted. But he was not satis-
fied. Crossing the Bay of Iskenderoon, about eighty miles
ofif, he went to Tarsus, where Paul, now a convert, was liv-
XYi THE AUTHOR.
iiig, and indiu'ed Paul to retuiii with him to Antioch that
tliey might preach the gospel together.
Only scholars have any idea of the greatness and beauty
of Antioch at this time; it was second only to Rome, and
was the second largest city in the world, with nearly a
million people; so rich and luxurious as to be called the
Golden City; so lovely and architecturally imposing as to
be called the Queen City. The finest street ran east and
west for several miles; it was of great width, paved from
end to end with vari-colored marble blocks, and with marble
pillars on both sides along its whole extent, on which were
magnificent marble palaces of the Roman officers. In that
same grand avenue were theaters, singers of both sexes,
fortune-tellers, great heathen orators and philosophers, and
throngs of people passing along. Paul and Barnabas stood
on the marble pavement month after month for a year, full
of the Holy Ghost, and proclaimed the everlasting gospel.
Crowds gathered to hear them; even the oflScers and their
wives, stretching their heads from the windows of their
palaces, listened to them; they gained disciples from every
rank for Christ and His religion, and the converts there first
received the name of Christians.
This was my birthplace and my relatives still live there.
Since the time of Christ and his disciples, Antioch has
been ten times destroyed by earthquakes. In the fourth
century the whole city was destroyed, and 250,000 people
were buried under the ruins. That beautiful sti-eet and its
magnificent palaces are now buried two or three yards be-
low the surface of the ground. In 1872, w'hen I was there,
an earthquake destroyed the whole city, and almost in a
moment several thousand people perished. Several of my
own relatives and many of my friends were killed. The
city has now only 25,000 people, most of them Mohammedan
Turks. There are many Fellahin, and perhaps 2,000
Greeks, and 500 Armenians, but in the suburbs the Armen-
ians are more numerous, and are the intellectual heads of
the whole.
Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great
center fm- licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest
soap is manufactured there. About thirty factories make
THE AUTHOR.
xvii
it, from pure olive oil and dapbue oil, the latter giving it a
sweet fragrance. The daphne groves are very numerous.
The city has excellent orchards and vineyards, orange trees,
olive trees, tig trees, yoniduinya trees, palm trees, pome-
granate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the
year, are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earth-
quakes, it would be a queen city yet; none could surpass its
beauty or fruitfuluess.
GEORGE H. FILIAN.
CITY OF ANTIOCH.
-^5^^
.r/'>-'ii
*\ffn - 't . T/nnfr,
r4-f'^K\yii'
^•^•vv ' ^ ^A/* ^T^f -^^ V^^l^r^'
/*-c t^-'H'-vv^*" **• ^^*-i- v*r-t -f ' f^j'y^t w-vV •^^-r*
^■^-^4— -lr*T#t^*'**-'H* y^-^Vir -^-/Kr-/ W^^^^V
Translation of a letter (see opposite page) written in
1842 by the District Catlioiicos at city of Sis to Kevorli
Filiau (father of the author) in Antioch :
Red Seal
of
Catholicos.
Symbol
in colors
representing
an Altar.
Symbol
in colors
Michael Catholicos, The servant of Jesus
representing q^^^^^^ i,y ^i^^ gj.^ee of OUT Lord, the
the name supreme father of all Armenians who live
Jesus Christ, iu Great Seleucia. I the servant of St.
Gregory's right hand and most Holy throne
of the Holy Mother Church. Greetings of
love and blessings upon my spiritual son Kevork Filian
esteemed and honored and to all who belong to his family,
perpetual happiness through Jesus Christ.
Honorable Gentleman. You will be informed through
my letter of spiritual greetings and blessings that truly
and earnestly, more than a father, I am willing to bestow
upon you my blessings and praises, and in order to show
my respect practically, I feel it my duty to thank you for
your hospitality, when I came to your blessed home, as a
spiritual father, where I was entertained and received
proper honors. The Lord bless your valuable soul and
keep you prosperous and happy through the mediation of
Jesus and St. Gregory. The Lord give you and to all those
who belong to you, power and ability in doing good. For
a long time I have desired to send to you this letter
of blessing; but I have not been able. Now I am glad to
send to you one of my spiritual sons Rev. Sarkis Vartabed
(a preacher). When he comes he will see your good deeds
and enjoy your hospitality. May 4. 1842.
(xix)
AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION
The author feels that it is due to both his Armenian
readers and himself to explain why, in some points, he has
deviated alike from the Armenian historians and his own
conviction. It is because on these points, the Armenian
records are in irreconcilable conflict with those of Rome or
Persia, or both, and in a book mainly for Anglo-Saxon read-
ers it is not possible to defy the general consensus of western
scholarship, which, in my judgment, has not given proper
weight to Armenian sources. I will specify only two or
three items; if my Armenian friends notice other contra-
dictions of their accepted history they will be safe in setting
them down to the same cause.
It is a commonplace of Armenian history that St.
Gregory, the Illuminator, the Christianizer of Armenia, was
the son of Anag, the murderer of King Chosroes (see page 72)
born about the time of the murder, and made himself the
companion of Chosroes' son, Tiridates, partly in order to
atone for his father's crime. I am very reluctant to omit
this fact; but the birth of Gregory and the death of Ardashir
will not fit according to western dates, though they are
coherent from Armenian.
I have also given twenty years' rule and a good character
to King Artavasdes, who reigned three and was a coward.
Most unwillingly of all, I have changed a very full and
eulogistic account of Moses Khorenatzi, the great national
historian of Armenia, for a meager and depreciating one.
That he lived in the fifth century and wrote as an eye and
ear witness, instead of being a not wholly veracious com-
piler of two centuries later, and that his histoi-y is sound
and consistent, is my firm belief. That his work is better
known than all other Armenian works together, and is the
one native book that has become a standard western classic,
shows the powerful genius of the man.
GEORGE H. FILIAN.
(XX)
I .
THE LAND OF ARMENIA.
PHYSICAL FEATURES.
Where is Armenia ? It seems a simple question,
yet during my lecturing in the United States I have
met far more people who did not know than who did.
That is natural enough, for until the late horrors, it
seemed little more than a name of old history, of no
present importance ; but there is a further reason. The
present Sultan forbids the use of the name altogether,
and insists on the district being termed Kurdistan,
or called by the names of its vilayets, Diarbekr, Van,
Erzroom, etc. Many maps do not have the name
Armenia at all. A few years ago, when the mission-
aries of the American Board were organizing the col-
lege at Harpoot, now so bloodily famous, they named
it Armenia College; but the Sultan forbade it on
the ground that there was no longer an Armenia, and
the use of the name would encourage the Armenians*
to revolt. The missionaries were forced to change the
name to Euphrates College. If any Turkish subject
uses the word, he is fined and imprisoned; if it is used
in any book, the book is confiscated, and the author
banished or killed. The study of Armenian history
♦The word "Armenian" is not altogether indicative of race, it refers more
particularly to those who are Christianp. Any who have forsaken the faith and
become Mohammedans are no longer regarded as Armenians, bat are Turka.
(21)
22 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
is forbidden to the Armenians; they must be kept in
ignorance about their own land, so that many of them
do not know where Armenia was or what Armenia is.
A letter directed to any person or place in Armenia
will never reach its destination; for the Turkish pos-
tal authorities recognize no such address. There is
still another cause for the widespread ignorance
concerning Armenia. It has been partitioned be-
tween three different powers, Turkey, Russia, and Per-
sia. The northern part, from Batoum on the Black
Sea to Baku on the Caspian, — the river Araxes being
the boundary to near Mt. Ararat, — belongs to Rus-
sia; the southeastern course of the Araxes from near
Mt. Ararat, to Persia ; the largest and most fertile part,
the western, from Mt. Ararat to the Black Sea and
the Kizil-Irmak to Turkey. But at the time of its
greatest extent and power, when its people were great
and its kings were great, long before Alexander's con-
quest, — Armenia covered about 500,000 square
miles, and stretched from the Black Sea and the Cau-
casus on the north to Persia, and Syria on the south,
from the Caspian and a much smaller Persia on the
east, to Cilicia and far beyond the Halys (Kizil-Ir-
mak) on the west, but including also old Media and a
part of Mesopotamia.
It is one of the most picturesque of countries; tra-
velers call it the Switzerland of Asia. Its general
character is that of a plateau some 4,000 feet above
the sea, a natural garden watered by noble streams
and studded with beautiful lakes; but the mountain
*M*OUNt" ARARAT.
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 23
ranges are 7,000 to 8,000 on the average, while that
historic Land-mark, the superb snow-capped Mt. Ara-
rat, is about 1 8,000, — towering toward Heaven nearly
in the center of Armenia, piercing and ruling over the
clouds and the storms.
Armenia is the mother land, the cradle of human-
ity, and all other lands are her daughters; but she is
fairer than any other. Even her mountain tops of per-
petual snow are a crown of glory; the sun kisses her
Ijrow with the smile of morning; and she supplies the
beautiful rivei's, Euphrates, Tigris, Pison, Araxes,
and many others from the jewels of her crown. These
rivers penetrate to every corner of the land; traverse
many hundreds of miles to give life to the fields, the
vineyards, and the orchards, to turn the mills, and final-
ly close their course in the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea,
and the Gulf of Persia, carrying the bounty and good-
will messages of the mother land to her children in re-
mote parts, to Persia, India, and Russia. From the
same inexhaustible reservoir she feeds her noble
lakes; Sevan (Gokche), Urumiah, Van and the rest.
Lake Sevan is the only sweet-water lake; the
others are salt. The most important is Lake Van,
probably the most elevated of any large-sized lake in
the world; it is 5,400 feet above sea level, and its area
is 1,400 square miles. A few words from the author^s
respected teacher. Professor Philip Schaff, will not
be amiss. Schaff's Bible Dictionary, page 68,
"Physical Features of Armenia," says: "It is
chiefly an elevated plateau about 7,000 feet above
24 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the level of the sea, the highest peak being Mt. Ararat.
The lower portions of the plateau are broken by val-
leys and glens, including the fertile valleys of the Eu-
phrates and Tigris. It is watered by four large
streams, the Araxes, the Kur, the Euphrates, and the
Tigris; also by numerous lakes, one of the largest, the
salt Lake Van, being over 5,400 feet above the sea."
NATURAL RESOURCES.
The mineral wealth of Armenia is very great; but
like the other potential riches of the Turkish Em-
pire, it profits nobody, not even the greedy despot
whose word is death. Gold, silver, copper, iron, and
minor metals, besides marble and other beautiful
stones, are present in abundance. About three miles
from Marsovan, where I preached, is a mountain called
Tarshan Dagh (rabbit mountain), rich in gold; another
called Goomish Dagh, about eight miles west, is laden
with silver; and they are likely to remain so, for no
one will rifle them of their treasures while Turkey en-
dures. The Sultan, it is true, sends an officer from
Constantinople under large salary, to take out the pre-
cious metals, but that person does very little work.
He lives like a lord, lets things go as they will, bribes
the palace officials, and all the gold and silver extracted
does not pay his wages. The Sultan will not permit
Christians to work mines, and if they did, he would
rob them of the proceeds. Everywhere the condition
is the same. Though Armenia is the oldest inhabited
country, she is, in utilization, the newest; much newer
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 25
than the United States, for indeed she does not exist
yet. She is a virgin land, her mines not open, her
soil not half tilled. The Turks and the Kurds are
lazy and stagnant; they will do nothing, and they will
not permit the industrious Armenian Christians to do
anything of importance.
The country has all the old fertility which made
Asia Minor under the Byzantine Empire the garden
of the world, till the Turks half turned it into a desert,
as thoy do every spot accursed by their presence. The
grain, the fruit, the vegetables are hardly, if at all, to
be equaled. The watermelons raised on the banks
of the Euphrates and the Tigiis are the largest and
sweetest of their kind; two melons are sometimes a
(^ameFs load. It is impossible for a family to use the
whole of such a melon, which has to be cut up and sold
in pieces. The grapes, either fresh or in the shape
of wine or raisins, are of the first rank. Many varier
ties when cured and dried as raisins exceed in size
the plumpest grapes of other lands. Nearly every-
thing is raised or grows wild in Armenia which is to
be had in the Northern or Southern States of America,
though of course each country has some things pecu-
liar to itself. The products of the North are paral-
leled by those of the rugged picturesque highlands of
Xorth Turkish and Russian Armenia, with their cold,
snowy winters, short, hot summers, and mild inter-
vening seasons; those of the South find their counter-
parts from the rich upland valleys, or the lowland
plains needing irrigation, of Kurdistan and Persian
26 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE. /
Armenia (Azerbijan), with its semi-tropical climate,
and alternations of wet and dry seasons. The grain
crops are wheat, Indian corn, barley, and oats. Cot-
ton is one of the main products ; a great deal of tobacco
and rice are raised; and sugar is made in the Persian
part. In the fields and gardens you can find not only
the wonderful melons I have just spoken of, but
pumpkins and squashes, lettuce and egg-plant, and
indeed most of the vegetables that come to an Ameri-
can table. As to fruits, all that you know we know
also, only of finer flavors. Asia Minor is the original
home of the quince, the apricot, and the nectarine,
and I believe of the peach too ; while our apples, pears,
and plums are incomparable. The Muscat apples of
Amassia are exceptional even there. After eating
them, one hardly wonders that Adam and Eve could
not resist the temptation of doing the same, at the
cost of innocence and Eden. The pears of Malatia
keep them company; and the quince grows sometimes
as large as a man's head. Another fruit equally im-
portant is the mulberry for silk-worms. The olive
and fig are cultivated and also grow wild, and filberts
and walnuts can be gathered anywhere in the woods,
as well as orchards; of course not the American " hick-
ory nuts," but the " English walnuts " of the gro-
ceries.
In spite of the dreadful roads, and the lack of pro-
tection for travelers, the Armenians manage to send a
good deal of grown or manufactured stuff to the ports
on the Black and Caspian seas, — Trebizond, Batoum,
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 27
Poti, Baku, — silk and cotton, and fabrics made from
the?n; hides and leather, including lambskins; wine,
dried fruits, raisins, tobacco, drugs, and dyestuffs,
wax, and other things.
Methods of cultivation are probably much like
what they were in Abraham's time; there are no very
modern machines or even tools. The plough is not
quite the mere scratching-stick of the savages, to be
sure ; but it is only a crooked piece of wood with a bit
of iron fastened to the end that touches the ground,
drawn by oxen and held by the farmer. The fields of
grain are reaped by the sickle as of old ; it takes as long
to cut down one acre so as fifty by a common mowing
machine. The sheaves are carried to a gal or thresh-
ing floor near the house, an open platform, not shel-
tered from the weather; and there the grain is sepa-
rated from the straw by a process so curious that I
doubt if any American, save a missionary to Armenia,
has ever heard of it. It is not treading it out under
the feet of the cattle, as pictured in the Bible, nor
beating it out with a flail; both these methods kept
the straw whole. A threshing board is made by
fastening hundreds of sharp flints into a wooden
frame; the grain is placed between this and the
threshing floor, the oxen attached to the board, and
the farmer sitting on it drives them round and round
in a circle until the straw is cut fine, and the grain
well rubbed and shaken loose. Then, on the first
windy day, he takes the old hand fan or winnow, and
separates the grain from the straw, keeping the latter
28 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
to feed the animals in winter; for the long grass of
American plateaus, and the barns of hay from them,
are seldom seen in Armenia.
The wheat crops are extraordinary ; not only great
in yield, but the grains often double the size of ordi-
nary American wheat, as compared with specimens
from the large and representative fields of Minnesota
and Nebraska.
TAXATION.
But when this wheat is threshed out, the farmer
cannot shovel it up and grind, or sell, or put it into
bins; no indeed ! He cannot take up a quart of it
without permission from the government ; for the gov-
ernment claims one-eighth of it as a tax, — it was
always a ^' tithe " or tenth from the oldest historic
times down to the present Sultan, but he raised the
percentage to an eighth, — and it must stay on that
exposed threshing floor, in rain or winds, or any sort
of weather, till the tax-gatherer comes and measures
it, which may be a week, or two weeks, or a month,
and will be forever unless he is bribed to come. Nor
is even this double tax all; the tax-gatherer is a tax
farmer, — that is, he pays a lump sum to the govern-
ment for the taxes of a district, and all he can get
above that is so much profit to him; so if the grain
on a threshing floor actually measures ten bushels, say,
he will write it fifteen. After the farmer has paid
first the tax on the land to the government direct, then
the double, or rather treble, tax to the gatherer on the
crops, more than half the income he can get from the
THE LAND OP ARMENIA. 29
land has gone to the government. I do not know an
Armenian farmer who is not in debt; they work hanl,
but the products of their labor go to the government
and the Kurds, and any one who complains is con-
sidered a revolutionist, and imprisoned or killed. The
simple unvarnished truth is that an Armenian Chris-
tian has no rights of life or property whatever; and
all he keeps of either (not very much) is what the reg-
ularly appointed officials or the self-appointed Kurdish
fleecers choose to leave him.
This, however, is anticipating. I have only
begun on the catalogue of taxes which strip most
Armenians, and are intended to strip them, of every-
thing but the means of sustaining life and perpetuating
their race. When a boy is born, a poll-tax is laid on
him, — two dollars on the average, — which must be
paid every year as long as he lives, whether he remains
in Armenia or leaves it. Of course, during boyhood
the parents have to pay this tax on every male child ; if
a woman is widowed, she has to go on paying these
capitation taxes just the same. They are assumed to
be taxes in lieu of military service; the Sultan takes no
soldiers from the Armenians, — does not dare, — and
this poll-tax is used to raise and pay that very Tiirkish
army which in return butchers the Armenians, just
as the old tribute of Christian children was used to
butcher their parents. (That the Armenians are un-
warlike and would not make good soldiers is ridicu-
lously untrue; many of the best soldiers and best of-
ficers, even commanders-in-chief, in the Kussian ser-
30 AKMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
vice are Armenians.) When the boy has attained
manhood he pays his own tax, — he must have a paper
of citizenship, which must be renewed every year, and
for which he must pay; but he is not allowed to leave
the country without providing absolute security, either
in property or bondsmen, for paying that tax through
life, wherever he may be. Of course this is utterly
impossible in most cases, — men of property do not
often migrate, and men without property do not easily
get people to be responsible for lifelong obligation to
let them emigrate; which is one chief reason why so
few Armenians, except banished ones, or runaways,
are seen in foreign countries. Furthermore, as I have
said, he must pay for a passport every time he stirs
from home. Land, houses, cattle, crops, are all sep-
arately taxed. Suppose an Armenian owns a vine-
yard. First, the land is taxed; there is a separate tax
for irrigation, a third for the grapes, a fourth if you
make wine from them. In all, a vineyard pays five
taxes, and the government gets more than the owner.
Why don't they emigrate ? ask my American
friends. I have given one explanation. Pharaoh
would not permit the Hebrews to go away, nor will
the Sultan permit the Armenians. Another reason
is that even if one has property, it is very hard to sell it.
Turks have no money and Armenians no confidence.
And to run away to a foreign country, whose language
you do not know, wholly without money, is so desper-
ate a remedy that most of them shrink from it.
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 31
THE CLIMATE.
Armenia, in my belief, is the healthiest country in
t^e world ; I do not say one of the healthiest, but the
very healthiest . The climate is excellent all the year
round, and, though the winters are severe, and much of
the country is covered with snow, yet on account of the
elevation — being several thousand feet above sea
level, and in latitude 36^ to 42^, or say from North
Carolina to Massachusetts — thejair is dry, pure, and
agreeable, a preventative of disease, and conducive to /
longevity. The dread disease, consumption, does not ^
exist there, while dyspeptics, if any are to be found, j
must have been imported. The perfect type of physi-
cal vigor is to be seen there. Generally the Armen- i
ians are tall, powerful, and ruddy cheeked, full of en -
durance and energy. Shrewd and enterprising they
are, as reputed ; bjut pure and honest t90. T hey are
longer lived than any other people. I have known
Armenians of 115 and even 125 years of age; one old
lady of my acquaintance at 115 was full of life and
fuji; I have seen her dance at wedding festivities like
a girl of 15. An old gentleman of 125 was my neigh-
bor; he worked on his farm as if he were not over 25.
He could run and jump and was as gay as a boy, and
greatly enjoyed children's society. If the people of ;
Armenia could have the same government, the same
encouragements, the same freedom from horrible fears,
as the people of the United States, they would live
many, many years longer than they do, till it might be
32 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
necessary to kill the old folks in order to get rid of them.
The most of the American missionaries in Armenia
would be sure to echo these words. A returned mis-
sionary gave a striking testimony to this effect. He
was addressing the students of the Chicago Theological
Seminary, and spoke as follows: — '^ Before I became
a missionary I had very poor health ; most of my family
died of hereditary consumption, and I was attacked by
it. My physicians strongly protested against my
becoming a missionary, saying that if I went to a
foreign land I would grow worse, and probably die
there. I paid no attention to this; I presumed they
Avere right, but I was determined to go anyway, and if
I must die, to die in my chosen work. When I offered
myself to the American Board, I was allotted to
Armenia, and thither I went; my disease disappeared
and now I am as healthy as any missionary in the
world. You see how stout and vigorous I look, and
I do not expect to die soon. But I feel sure that if I
had stayed in America to save my life, I should have
lost it before this time." He is still living in Armenia,
and I hope will live to be over a hundred, as many of
the natives do.
The reader will smile at all this as the patriotic
boastfulness of an Armenian, and say perhaps that he
can make as fabulous declarations for his own land,
wherever he may be; but such claims cannot be sub-
stantiated by records and personal observations as
these for Armenia can. Take the Bible ; some of the
Patriarchs lived to be 700, 800, one even to 969, if
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 33
indeed he ever died a natural death; some were taken
up to heaven without knowing death; and all those
long lives, as will be shown, were lived in Armenia.
God's judgment was good. He did not create man
in America, Europe, or India, or anywhere but in
Armenia. He came down there from Heaven, planted
the Garden of Eden there, and from the dust of that
land created the first man. When the race had be-
come sinful and only Noah's family were preserved, the
ark was not brought to rest on the Rockies, the Alps,
or the Himalayas, but on Ararat in Armenia.
Where was the Garden of Eden ? In my belief,
around Lake Van, the highest lake, the largest lake,
and the most picturesque lake in the Bible lands; its
surrounding country, mountains, plains, flower gar-
dens, and orchards, make it a most charming spot, and
quite worthy to have been the seat of Paradise on
earth. As the wickedest cities, Sodom and Gomorrah,
were on the lowest, ugliest, and nastiest lake, the Dead
Sea, it is natural that Paradise should be on the highest
and loveliest one. A certain very learned Gospel
minister, who desired to change my views respecting
the Garden of Eden, declared that when the North
Pole was discovered the Garden of Eden would be.
Some think it was in India, and there are about as
many opinions as there are countries on the earth.
The Bible, however, seems to be pretty clear about it
and settles the question to the Armenian mind; we
feel, therefore, that we cannot be far from the Scrip-
tural descriptions.
3
34 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION.
Both are as hard in Armenia as they can be, short
of impossibility. In the Russian section the roads
are as good as in any part of Russia, and there are
railroads; but in Persian and Turkish Armenia there
are none of the latter, and the roads are very poor
bridle-paths. A few years ago the government levied
an extra tax to build " Shosse Yolou " or macadam-
ized roads for carriages; but most of the money
was spent as usual, in a good time for the Turkish
officials; the roads built were wretched, and riding
over them in the springless carriages of the country
is weariness and torture. Most of the traveling is
done on horseback or muleback, while the transporta-
tion of goods is almost entirely by camels and don-
keys.
An hour's journey in America in distance is a two
days' journey in Armenia, and it must be accomplished
on horseback, muleback, or foot; or perhaps in a
wagon without springs. Almost all the horse and
mule keepers are Turks, Kurds or Circassians, all
Mohammedans and of the lowest types, — which does
not increase either the comfort or the security of a
journey. The tenders and drivers of animals are
never of a very high order of men in any country; in
Armenia they are specially vulgar, dirty, and some-
times dangerous brutes. If you wish to travel with
your family, you must arrange with the horse-keeper
several days or even weeks beforehand; if he is ready
when the time comes, he calls at your house and tells
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 35
you. If animals are used and the family large, bas-
kets will be needed to put the children in; they are
put on the animals like panniers, one on each side
with the mother between. This is attended with more
(►r less danger from accidents of various kinds, liable to
occur on the unkept paths, which, rough in some
places and horribly muddy in others, are used for
roads. As in the case of the writer, who, when an
infant, nearly lost his life before he could be pulled
out of the mud into which he had fallen from his
mother's arms, she being thrown from the stumbling
horse she was riding.
A more modern way of travel is in springless
carriages; which on the rough roads means racking
your body horribly, bones, nerves, and all, into out-
right and often severe suffering, a pain and fatigue
which the traveler feels for a long time. At evening
all travelers must go to a caravanserai or khan ; often
they are all huddled into a single room, men, women,
and children, and the room is invariably filthy, and full
of every kind of vermin. Such getting about is con-
stant torment.
There is no safety in traveling; Kurdish, Circas-
sian, or Georgian brigands may meet you on the roads
anywhere, and plunder, torture, or perhaps kill you.
A few years ago, when traveling in Armenia with a
company of about forty persons of both sexes, we
came to a forested pass between two mountains. Sud-
denly three men leaped out in front of us; they were
Georgian brigands (Mohammedans), armed from top
36 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
to toe. They stopped the caravan, picked out the
rich persons and the Christians, and robbed them of
all their valuables. They did not search the writer,
probably supposing that as a minister he was too poor
to be worth troubling. The women were dreadfully
frightened, for the robbers declared that if they did not
give up their earrings their ears would be cut off, and
if they did not give up their bracelets their hands
would be cut off. It can easily be imagined that they
made haste to relinquish all their valuables. Such
robberies take place every day in Armenia, for there
is no protection or redress whatever; it is a matter of
indifference at best, and probably of satisfaction, to
the Sultan and his governors.
The brigands are not the only robbers. Bear in
mind that before any one in Armenia can travel at
all, the government officials plunder him. He must
get a passport first; I do not mean when he goes to
foreign countries, for an Armenian is forbidden to go
there at all, — all who are in other lands reached there
by bribing the police and running away, — but when
he goes to another place or town in Armenia itself,
even if it is not over fifteen or twenty miles off. This
passport will cost him from two to five dollars in
bribes to the officials to let him have it. When he
reaches his destination, the officials of the latter place
must examine his passport, and they force him to pay
for the examination, else they will not let him enter
the town. So the Armenians are robbed at every
step whether they travel or stay at home.
THE LAND OF ARMENIA. 87
Transportation of goods is even harder. Nearly
all goods are carried on camels or donkeys which never
go more than ten miles a day, and of course much less
in bad spots; it takes months and even a year to get
goods if they have to come very far, or may never be
received. If an Armenian merchant orders goods
from Constantinople, say 500 miles away, it takes
five or six months at best from the time of sending the
order to the time of receiving the goods, even if he
ever gets them, no matter what condition they are in.
The difficulties of transportation prevent the ex-
port, to any extent, of Armenian products to foreign
countries, and even between neighboring cities ex-
change of supplies is well-nigh impossible. As
all through the East, there is often famine in one
part of Armenia, while there is plenty in other parts;
one city may be hungry while another is feasting; one
willing to pay any price but unable to buy, another
eager to sell but with no one to sell to; because there
is no way to transport the grain or produce. Yet good
highways are not built because the officials embezzle
the funds, railroads are not built because it would
hinder the Sultan from crushing the people.
It may be asked. Are there no railroads in Turkey ?
and will not the Sultan permit them, and are there not
Armenians in the places along their route ? Yes,
there are a few short lines; one from Constantinople
to Adrianople, one from Constantinople to Angora,
one from Smyrna to Aiden, one from Mersina to
Adana, one from Joppa to Jerusalem. I think there
g8 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
is also one lately built from Beirout to Damascus. The
length of the whole system is not over 1,000 miles,
one of them is in Europe, part of them are tourist
lines, along routes that streams of Europeans would
traverse anyway. Some of them were built before
the time of the present Sultan ; some of them are near
the seashore, where there are some Armenian emi-
grants; but none of these roads are in Armenia.
Plenty of money has always been available from
European and even Armenian sources to build rail-
roads; syndicates and private capitalists have tried
again and again to get permission to build them; but
the Sultan will not grant it, for it runs counter to his
fixed policy of isolating the Armenians, to make their
oppression or destruction easier. Railroads would
mean not only prosperity and strength for the people,
but easy gathering and sending out of news to the
-world, easy bringing of help from the world, lighting
up the dark places, and exposing the horrors of the
hell now existing. When they are built, commerce
will follow; Europeans will flock in, and a new era
dawn. Who are the commercial class ? The Armen-
ian Christians or Europeans; not a Turk or a Kurd
among them. Commerce means, then, the increase
of the Christian population; wealth, greatness, security
for the Armenians; finally freedom from the Ottoman
power. Therefore that power forbids any improve-
ment of the backward conditions.
II.
THE PEOPLE OF ARMENIA.
THEIR LINEAGE.
Who are the Armenians ? The average Ameri-
can knows very little about them, while few even
of the educated classes have much knowledge of the
race or its history. Many people regard them as bar-
barians, partially Christianized. Some think them of
Chinese type; most often the^^ are considered as Turks
because the chief portion of Armenia is part of the
Turkish Empire; every Armenian feels justly indig-
nant at the latter classification. The old story applies
of the Irishman who refused to consider himself an
American though born in America, on the ground that
" being born in a stable did not make one a horse " ; we
know that the Scotch and English in Ireland do not
consider themselves Irish ; we know it would be worse
than absurd to call the English children bom in India
Hindoos. When the missionaries of the American
Board first went to Turkey, the people there supposed
from the name American, that they must be Indians,
and crowded to see them out of curiosity, but they
were much surprised and probably somewhat disap-
pointed when they found them very like themselves.
In the same way, being born in Turkish Armenia
does not make one a Turk. The Turks are one race,
(39)
40 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the Armenians a totally different one, and different in
the very foundation type. The Turks are Turanian,
the Armenians Aryan. The Turks belong to the
Turko-Tataric stock ; they are kinsmen of the Tartars.
The primal origin of the Armenians will be found
in Genesis, Chapter 10, — from Togarmah, the son of
Gomer, the son of Japheth; the Armenians are some-
times called the Sons of Togarmah. Togarmah had
a son named Haig (the Armenian records tell us), and
Armenians call themselves Haigian or Haigazian from
him; and the land of Armenia is called Hayasdan or
the land of Plaig. He was a powerful warrior and
the founder of the Armenian Kingdom, which began
2350 B. C, and ended with Levon YL, 1375 A. D.;
thus lasting 3725 years, though with intervals of ex-
tinction. Their own kings did not always reign in
Armenia; sometimes other nations ruled over it;
by way of compensation, sometimes the Armenians
ruled over other nations. The people never call them-
selves Armenians, or their country Armenia ; they use
the name simply for the sake of foreigners. But
where did the name come from ? Of course as with
many very old ones, the origin is somewhat a matter
of guesswork. Some derive it from the great King,
Aram, the seventh from Haig; some from Armerag
or Armen, the eldest son of Haig, — the more probable
supposition of the two; still others connect it with the
Hebrew Aram (Aramea), the district of Mesopotamia
and [NTorth Syria, and derive both from a word mean-
ing " man," most old names of nations having meant
THE PEOPLE OF ARMENIA. 41
that originally. "Whatever its origin, it is certain that
the Armenians are a very ancient nation, — as ancient
as the Assyrians or Persians.
The people belong to the stock formerly known as
Japhetic, later as Caucasian (from the Caucasus Moun-
tains on the jiorth of Armenia), then as Indo-Euro-
pean, now as iVryan; the most advanced type of man-
kind, and the most physically beautiful. And what
are the people of the United States ? Hamitic or
Negroid ? Of course not. Semitic (Arab, Jew) ?
Certainly not. They are Japhetic or Aryan too —
exactly the same as the Armenians. Indeed, the type
of face is the same, and the type of character. The
Armenians are often called the Anglo-Saxons of the
East; they are the same blood, features, religion, and
civilization as those of the West, and are true brothers
and sisters, though the opportunities of the latter have
been greater;"^ however, the ancestors of the former
were Christians in Asia before those of the latter were
in Europe, and they kept the mother land faithfully
while the others ran away.
THEIR LANGUAGE.
The tongue spoken by the Armenians is one of the
great family now known as the Aryan languages; cer-
tainly one of the oldest of them if there is any dif-
ference in the ages of the different branches, though
that really means nothing. It has no relation what-
ever to the Semitic tongues like Chaldee or Phoenician,
nor the Tataric tongues of Scythia, though those were
42 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
in the earlier ages its nearest neighbors, while it is
blood brother to languages so widely separated as Irish
on the west and Hindoo on the east, to Gothic and
Greek, Lithuanian and Latin. Linguists think the
whole Aryan family much younger than the Semitic
or the Turko-Tataric or the Mongoloid, but this would
not be granted by the Armenians without much more
solid proof than has yet been brought forward. They
claim first that Noah and his sons lived in Armenia,
which has been sliown must be true ; second, that they
spoke the Armenian language, which therefore was
the very oldest. Some of the arguments in favor of
this are as follows: — In Armenia, near Mt. Ararat,
are places with Armenian names, which have preserved
the same names from the time of Noah till now.
North of Ararat is a city named Erivan, which in
Armenian means "appearance"; after Noah's ark
rested on the mountain, the first place he saw was Eri-
van. Another city southeast of Ararat is called
Nakhichevan, which in Armenian means " the first
station " ; it was the first stopping-place of Noah when
he came out of the ark. The first chief or King of
the Armenians, Haig, built a village and called it Hark,
which means " fathers,'' as he was the father of the
Armenians; and when Haig fought with Belus and
killed him, the place was called Kereznank, meaning
" grave " or " graves." There are many such places
in Armenia, where the names have always been the
same and are certainly Armenian now, indicating that
the language has always been the same; here are a
THE PEOPLE OF ARMENIA. 48
few: Arakaz, Armavir, Shirag, Ararat. The latter
took its name from Ara, the Armenian king who was
the son of iVram, that great King who ruled in Armenia
for fifty years; the name means " lofty " or " holy."
These instances show the antiquity of the language;
but even if they were not sufficient, it would not affect
the antiquity of the race. Many very old races speak
languages much less old. The mass of people in Tus-
cany are Etruscans, a race which some people hold to
be much older than the whole Aryan family; but they
speak Italian, a very modern tongue. A large part
of the Basques, believed by many scientists to be the
oldest race in Europe, older even than the Tuscans,
speak Spanish, much more modern even than Italian.
So that it does not follow that the Armenian race,
aside from the language, may not be the oldest in the
world.
The old Armenian classic language is very dif-
ficult, from the number of particles and participles in
it; but modern Armenian is one of the easiest of lan-
guages to learn, very regular in inflection and the spell-
ing entirely phonetic. There are no exceptions or
anomalies; for instance, to pluralize a noun, you in-
variably add the particle ner or er. Thus, doon means
"house;" the plural is dooner. Manch is "boy";
plural mancher; mannugh is "-child," mannughner
" children." The irregularities of English in these
forms are too well-known to need illustration. The
Armenian tongue is not only very regular, but very
sweet, as well to the ears of foreigners as of natives.
44 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
The testimony of '^ Sunset '' Cox of Ohio is worth
citing on this point. He was United States minister
to Turkey some years ago, and as such presided at the
Commencement Exercises of Robert College in Con-
stantinople, that being the rule of the college. In
his address on this occasion, he said he did not like
Bulgarian (which is a Turkish tongue), because it had
no sweetness ; — indeed, there is none in any of the
Turkish languages, which are strong and emphatic,
but harsh. But he said he liked Armenian ; it was the
" sweetest language he ever lieai-d." lie went on to
say that Adam talked Armenian in the Garden of
Eden, proposed to Eve in that language, and succeeded
in winning her heart ; in any other language he might
not have done it. "It is the loveliest of tongues to
make love to a woman in, and sure of success if the
lady knows Armenian." I think he was right; but
I think too, that next to Armenian, if not equal tait, is
English. It sounds as sweetly to my ears as Armenian.
I am an Armenian and my wife is an Armenian; but
I proposed to her in English and was successful; not
a sure test, perhaps, for any language is beautiful when
words of love are uttered in it to ears that are willing
to hear; and true love may be successful without any
words at all.
Coal of Arms and Flags of Ancient Armenia.
yV/{ /pusf 'iT/lti^^ • • • • • J' J. * 'fAe Dynasty of Pakr
l^ia lfyH,}styjiliArskiigiit\iiaii\ ,] '^. Tkf Kingdom of Rou
• '.••••.■• i
douniun
bin I an
III.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES.
According to the liistoiies written by native his-
torians from the old Armenian records.
1. THE HAIGAZIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 2350 years before Christ, and
ended in the time of Alexander the Great, 328 B. C.
No other recorded dynasty has so long an unbroken
Buccession.
2. THE ARSHAGOONIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 150 years B. C. and ended
428 A. D.
3. THE PAKRADOONIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 885 A. D. and ended 1045
A. D.
4. THE RUPENIAN DYNASTY.
This dynasty began 1080 A. D. and ended 1375
A. D.
I shall try to show the condition of the Armenians
under the rule of these different dynasties.
(45)
46 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
1. THE HAIGAZIAN DYNASTY.
As already mentioned, Haig \ras the founder of
the Armenian kingdom. He can scarcely be called a
king, because in his time there was not a great Armen-
ian nation; it was rather a tribe, and Haig was chief
or governor. His position was like that of Abraham;
what would now be called a sheikh ; and like Abraham,
he was a worshiper of the true God.
Haig went from the highlands of Armenia to the
plains of Shinar to help build the Tower of Babel.
During the progress of the work, Belus, a warlike giant,
descended from Ham, assumed to direct the enter-
prise; Haig would not submit to this, and so returned
to his own country. When the undertaking failed,
all the tribes became scattered. To wreak vengeance
on Haig, Belus resolved to go to Armenia, kill him in
fight, and reign over his land. When he reached
Armenia with his men on his errand, Haig went with
a force to meet him ; a great battle took place and Haig
was victorious, killing Belus and saving his country
from being overwhelmed by the Hamites. His spirit
was inheritedjby his posterity, though recent irresist-
ible force and refusal of permission to bear arms may
seem to make them submissive. They have battled
stoutly against awful odds and with insufficient means
for liberty and for freedom of thought and conscience ;
and millions have lost their lives for those principles;
if they could now have arms and help, they would fight
and die again for them.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 47
After the repulse of this Hamitic invasion, the
Armenians increased so rapidly that Haig became a
real king and took that title, thus actually founding
the Armenian Kingship. They were free, lived long
jives , and married only one wife each, — all favorable
conditions for growth of population, — it need not be
pointed out how slavery and polygamy check national
growtib And they kept their faith in the one true
God, as their ancestor Noah did.
Haig's son Armen succeeded his father, and
greatly enlarged the kingdom. He subdued a large
district northeast of Mt. Ararat and built cities and
towns there. It is most likely the name Armenia
comes from him. Some recent foreign writers have
the impudence to say that there was no such king, but
that his name was made up to account for that of
Armenia; but the same records wdiich tell us of Haig,
tell us of his son. After Armen we find his son Arma-
iss, w^ho built the city of Armavir.
I will not enumerate all the names of the dynasty;
it would only be a tedious catalogue without profit.
T will only mention the most noted ones, and those
most interesting from their relations with the Jews
or the heathen nations.
One of the notable kings is Aram, the seventh in
succession, and the greatest of Armenian conquerors.
He raised and drilled an army of 50,000 men, whose
efficiency and his own military skill and energy are
proved by his invading and conquering Media. He
then invaded Assyria and conquered a part of that
48 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
country. Next he marched westward and subjugated
some of the eastern portion of Asia Minor inhabited by
the Greeks, — the later Cappadocia, along the Halys
or Kizil-Irmak. Aram named this district the Hayas-
dan, translated by the Komans as " Armenia Minor ";
which, oddly enough, in later times became Greater
Armenia or Armenia Proper. Aram set over this
province a governor named Mishag, with instructions
to compel the Greeks to speak Armenian. Mishag
built a city which exists in Cappadocia (Karamania)
to-day, frightfully familiar from recent events. He
called it by his own name; the Greeks mispronounced
it as Mazag; the Roman emperors afterwards named
it Caesarea, which the Turks corrupted into Kayseri,
and several thousand Armenians were massacred there
some months ago, which will be described further on.
Th^ richest and most enterprising Armenians in the
Turkish Empire are from Kayseri, and it is a leading
missionary station of the American Board. The
writer preached there and in that vicinity for four
years.
The enormous growth of the Armenian Kingdom
under Aram, and its conquest of part of Assyria,
excited the alarm of the Assyrian king, Ninos. ^ot
feeling strong enough to engage in open warfare with
him, he thought to compass his destruction by winning
his friendship and then putting him out of the way,
and, as a first step, sent him a costly jeweled crown.
The intrigue failed, however, and Aram lived to a
great age, reigning fift;y years.
• * i
» » 1 1
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 49
Aram was succeeded by his son Ara, called " Ara
theJBeautiful." The fame of his beauty went abroad
through the world; the Assyrian queen Semiramis
was so enchanted by the sight of his person that she
fell madly in love and proposed marriage to him, but
he refused her. This military Amazon was not to
be balked so. She resolved to marry him by force,
and came with a great army to Armenia to capture
the prize; but he was killed in the war, and she took
possession of the country, with which she was so
charmed that she decided to remain; she removed the
capital of the enlarged Assyrian Kingdom to the lovely
shores of Lake Van, erecting a palace there for her-
self, and building on the eastern side a city named
" Shamiramaguerd " (built by Semiramis). Many
years later, a king of the Haigazian Dynasty whose
name was Van rebuilt it and called it after himself.
This was the present city of Van, another great center
of the American Board and of Turkish horrors.
The next great interesting event was in 710 B. C.
when Sennacherib of Assyria was assassinated by his
two sons, Adramelich and Sharezer, who escaped into
Armenia. The king of Armenia at this time was
Sgayorti, which means " son of a giant." He received
the sons of Sennacherib with great kindness; they
married Armenian women, and remained in the coun-
try till their death. Their descendants were great
Armenian princes, bearing the titles Prince Arziroo-
nian and Prince Kinoonian.
Armenia comes to view again in connection with
4
50 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Biblical history in tlie capture of Jerusalem by N^ebu-
cliadnezzar, 600 B. C, and the deportation of the
Judean people; the Armenian king, Hurachia, was
one of his allies in the siege, and on returning to
Armenia carried with him a Hebrew prince named
Shampad. This was a very intelligent man, and made
himself greatly loved and esteemed by the Armenians;
a sort of Daniel or Joseph. He, too, married an Ar-
menian noblewoman, and his descendants became the
very foremost of the noble families and ecclesiastical
functionaries of the country, crowning the kings on
occasion. They were called Pakradoonian Princes,
and at last one of them founded the third dynasty
of Armenian kings, the Pakradoonian. Though the
nation is Aryan, there is noble Hebrew (Semitic) blood
mixed with it.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Haigaz-
ian Dynasty comes just before the end; the time of
Dikran or Tigranes I. In him both wisdom and
valor were combined to an eminent degree. As soon
as he succeeded his father, Yerevant, he instituted
great reforms to improve the state of the country. He
not only enlarged it by conquest, but he greatly im-
proved public education and morals, removed obstruc-
tions to international commerce, introduced naviga-
tion on the lakes and rivers, encouraged cultivation;
trade flourished, every acre of ground was tilled, the
country was alive with energy and hope. This vigor
and prosperity aroused the envy of Ashdahag, King
of Media; he resolved to kill Dikran, and to throw
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 51
him off his guard married his sister, Princess Dik-
raiioohi. A plot to murder Dikran was then set on
foot; the princess learned of it, warned her brother,
whom she loved, and ran away. Dikran collected an
army, made a rapid march to Media, surprised and
slew Ashdahag, and brought back a vast amount of
spoils in captives and goods. He built a fine city on
the banks of the Tigris, and called it Dikranagerd, the
city of Dikran; it was afterwards the residence of the
sister who had saved his life. It is now called by the
Turks Diarbekr, and was the scene of a frightful mas-
sacre a few months since. The most important politi-
cal achievement of his life was assisting Cyrus in the
capture of Babylon 538 B. C; the two monarchs
were very friendly, and Dikran's Armenian army was
a chief factor in the conquest. In Jeremiah^s proph-
ecy of the capture, about a century before it occurred,
he mentions the Armenian Kingdom as one of the
actors : " The Kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ash-
chenaz." (Jer. li. 27.)
After Dikran's death his son Vahakn succeeded
him; he was considered a god by the people, and wor-
shiped as such through a monument after his death.
Thus far the people had mostly worshiped the one true
God, but from this time they relapsed into heathenism
for a while on account of the influences pressing on
them from outside. The last king of the Haigazian
Dynasty was Vahe. When Alexander the Great in-
vaded Persia, Vahe went to Darius' help with 40,000
infantry and 7,000 cavalry ; but Alexander conquered
52 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
first Darius and then Valie (328 B. C), and annexed
both Persia and Armenia. Thus came to an end the
first Armenian dynasty, after an existence of 1922
years.
ARSHAGOONIAN OR ARSACID DYNASTY.
This dynasty began not far from 150 B. C, —
close to the time when Carthage was utterly destroyed,
and Greece was finally subjugated; it ended 428 A. D.,
about half a century before the extinction of the West-
ern Roman Empire, and about the time Genseric and
his Yandals conquered Africa. It is by far the most
famous of the Armenian royal houses ; for it embraces
the very heart of the classic times with which all ed-
ucated people are familiar, it brings us perpetually in
contact with the most brilliant and best-known of
classic names, it is sprinkled itself with names tower-
ing up familiar and powerful, even among the Greek
and Roman magnates; and, in spite of political ups and
downs, it covers a time of immense expansion for the
Armenian people, of a firmly rooted growth in num-
bers, wealth, and consciousness of national unity,
which has enabled the nation to survive and keep its
united being through many centuries of dismember-
ment, impoverishment, massacre, and attempts at out-
right extermination again and again. More than all,
it covers the time of Jesus Christ, and the conversion
of Armenia to his religion, first of all the nations of
the earth, as by its history and traditions it ought to
have been.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 53
During the time between the disappearance of
the line of Ilaig and the rise of the line of Arshag,
Armenia was not by any means wholly without kings
of its own ; but it was mostly a dependency.
Alexander the Great, after his conquest, put a
native governor named Mihran over it; but on Alex-
ander's death, five years later (323 B. C), his generals
partitioned the Macedonian Empire among themselves,
and Armenia fell to ^N'eoptolemus. His government
was at once so oppressive, and so contemptuous of
native feeling (he and his court were Greeks, and de-
spised all Asiatics), that the people rose and drove him
out in 317, under the lead of one Arduat (Ardvates),
who remained their king for thirty-three years; but
he left no successor, and Armenia was conquered by
and became part of the great Syrian Empire founded
by Seleucus. It remained so in the main for about
three quarters of a century, though the eastern part
(Kurdistan), fell under the Parthian kings. Armenia
was never a very quiet province, however, and its re-
volts against the Syrian satraps kept it much of the
time in a half-anarchic state. About 210 B. C. An-
tiochus the Great quelled one of these uprisings, and
divided the country into Greater and Lesser Armenia
(whose boundaries I have described), putting a separate
deputy over each. But after his crushing defeat by
the Romans at Magnesia in 180 B. C, and having to
buy peace by giving up everything beyond the Halys,
each governor proclaimed his province an independ-
ent kingdom. Zadriades (Zadreh), in Lesser Armenia
54 ARJ^IENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
founded a family which kept their hold for almost
exactly a century, when Tigranes II once more united
the two Armenias. Artaxias (Ardashes), in Greater
Armenia was powerful as long as he lived, and sheltered
Hannibal at his court when the Romans had set a
price on the head of their great foe; but about the
middle of the century his family was dispossessed by
Mithridates of Parthia, who conquered the country.
The family name of this Parthian house was Arshag,
rendered by the Greeks Arsakes, spelled by the Ro-
mans Arsaces. Mithridates made Greater Armenia
a kingdom for his brother Wagh-arshag (Yal-arsaces),
whose family remained in succession to the throne,
though sometimes eclipsed for long periods from actual
occupation of it, for six hundred years. The new king
had the great hereditary ability both in war and states-
manship which characterized the whole Arsacid line,
and the Mithridates in particular, and its great knowl-
edge of men. He knew an able man when he saw
him, and liked to raise him up; he promoted industry
and built cities; he reformed the system of laws and
their administration as well.
The new line did not escape the usual fate of
Eastern dynasties, of having disputes over the succes-
sion, in which their neighbors interfered. In 94 B.
C, Dikran or Tigranes II (great-grandson of Wagh-
Arshag), owed his possession of the throne of Greater
Armenia to his third cousin, Mithridates II (the
Great), of Parthia, who exacted seventy Armenian
valleys as the price; probably part of Kurdistan. Ti-
THE ARMENIAN nVNASTIES. 55
granes, however, paid no more blood-money to any-
body when once on the throne. On the contrary, he
began at once to overrun and annex the neighboring
states. He first conquered Lesser Armenia, and made
it one with its sister again ; then part of Syria, so long
the mistress of his own state; then, in a series of wars
with the weak successors of Mithridates, he half de-
stroyed the Parthian Empire itself, not only recovering
the seventy valleys he had paid for his throne, but con-
quering Media, and annexing Mesopotamia and Adia-
bene. After these conquests he called himself " King
of Kings " (that is, emperor, king with other kings
under him), which title the Parthian kings had
claimed theretofore. He would probably have ended
by mastering and restoring the unity of the old Seleu-
cid Kingdom in its widest extent, the whole heart of
Western Asia, had he not in an evil hour been in-
duced by that reckless old fighter, his father-in-law,
Mithridates of Pontus, to join him in war against the
Romans. Tigranes' own son had quarreled with him,
and taken refuge with the King of Parthia, whose
daughter he married; and now offered to guide his
father-in-law into Armenia if he would invade it as the
ally of the Romans. This was done, and Tigranes
the elder had to fly to the mountains; but the Parthian
king grew tired of the siege of rock castles, and went
home, leaving his son-in-law to carry on operations with
part of the army. The great Armenian king at once
broke loose and annihilated the forces of his son, who
fled to Pompey, just invading Armenia with the Ro-
/
• /
^e ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
man army. Even the great Tigranes was no match for
Eome, and had to surrender. Pompey was not harsh
with him, but left him Armenia (except Sophene and
Gordjene, which were made into a kingdom for his
son), and his Parthian conquests; even going so far
as to send a Roman division to wrest these from the
Parthian king, who had re-conquered them on Ti-
granes' defeat, and restore them to the latter. On the
departure of Pompey the Parthian once more re-
claimed them, but a compromise was finally made.
Phraates of Parthia, however, resumed once more the
title of " King of Kings.'' Tigranes remained the
ally of the Romans till his death in 55 B. C. ; a reign
of thirty-nine years, on the whole of great glory and
usefulness.
He was succeeded by his son, Artavasdes ( Ardvash)
II, who inherited that most dreadful of legacies, a
place between the hammer and the anvil. For the
next quarter of a century the Romans, and the steadily
growing and consolidating power of the Parthian Em-
pire were alternately irresistible in Eastern Anatolia;
it was impossible to avoid taking sides, for neutrality
meant invasion by one party or the other; and which-
ever side he took he was sure to be punished for as soon
as the other came uppermost. If Artavasdes had been
as dexterous as Alexius Comnenus himself, he could
hardly have escaped ruin ; that he kept his throne for
over twenty years is proof that he was not unworthy of
his father. First came the invasion of Parthia by
Crassus; Artavasdes, faithful to his father's Roman
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 57
allegiance; asked him to make the invasion by
way of Armenia, and offered to help him. Crassus
refused, but the Parthian king, Orodes, invaded Ar-
menia; however, he made peace, and betrothed his
eldest son, Pacorus, to Artavasdes* daughter, just be-
fore new^s was brought him of the annihilation of
Crassus^ army, guaranteed by Crassus' severed head
and hand. The civil wars at Rome for years to come
broke the Roman power, and the Parthians (with the
good-will of the inhabitants, who detested the Roman
proconsuls), swept w^estward, compelled submission or
alliance from all the countries to the Taurus, and even
annexed all Syria for a time, just as seven centuries
later the Syrians, from hate of the Byzantine gover-
nors, gave up their cities to the Saracens. But the
Roman power once more rallied; the Parthians were
driven out of Syria, and Pacorus was killed ; the aged
Orodes, under whom the Parthian Empire proper
reached its pinnacle, died, leaving the throne to
one of those jealous murderous despots so familiar
in Eastern history, who made a general slaughter of
his brothers, and even murdered his son, to remove
any possible leader of a revolt, and Artavasdes once
more returned to the Roman alliance. In the year
36 A. D., Mark Antony undertook the task Crassus
had so terribly failed in seventeen years before, of
striking at the heart of Parthia; but this time the in-
vasion was by way of Armenia. It was almost as
frightful a disaster as the former; a third of the army
of 100,000 men was destroyed by the enemy, 8,000
58 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
died of cold and storm in the Armenian mountains,
the wounded died in enormous numbers; but that Ar-
tavasdes let the army winter in his country it would
have perished as completely as Crassus' did. In spite
of this, the Romans, wanting a scapegoat, laid the
whole blame on Artavasdes, without a shadow of rea-
son that can be shown. It was the last time for a
century and a half that the Romans attacked Parthia.
In default of that plunder, they resolved to have Ar-
menia, and a couple of years later, in the year 33 A. D.,
they seized Artavasdes by treachery, and occupied the
country. The Parthians at once took up the cause
of his son, Artaxes, and made war on the Romans
to seat him on the throne ; and when the Roman troops
were withdrawn to help Antony's cause, which was lost
in the battle of Actium, the Parthians overran Ar-
menia, and killed all the Romans in the country, and
made their candidate king as Artaxes II. This was
in 30 B. C, and in the same year his father, Artavas-
des, who had been carried to Alexandria by An-
tony, was beheaded by Cleopatra. But the very next
year the worthless tyrant Phraates of Parthia was
driven from the throne by a rebellion, and Artaxes
made peace with Rome.
The history of Artavasdes' reign is in essence the
history of the next four centuries, save that the results
were incomparably worse. We have been dealing
with a time at least of steady, single-handed govern-
ment, of able rulers either inside or outside, of some
sort of ability to keep the civil structure of the coun-
/
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 59
try from breaking to pieces; but even that disappears
over long periods in the early centuries of the Roman
Empire. One great secret of Armenia's misery dur-
ing these ages of woe — indeed, to a large extent dur-
ing all the ages since — lies in the fact that she is a
borderland; a buffer between great states, and indeed
between great natural divisions of climate and society. '
She is the boundary between semi-tropic Central
Asia and temperate Eastern Europe, touching the
land of the fig and the silk-worm on the one
side, and that of the apple and the mountain
goat on the other; between Scythian steppes and
Syrian deserts. In these earlier ages she was
fought for between east, west, and south, — Par-
tliia, Eome, and a Syro-Egyptian power of some
sort; in these days divided between east, west, and
north, — Persia the successor of Parthia, Turkey the
successor of Rome, while the southern power is ages
dead, and a great northern power, Russia, has grown
up in the steppes. Had Armenia been smaller, or
more level, she would have perished without a strug-
gle, perhaps rather would never have existed ; but her
territory is so large and so defensible that her history
could have been predicted, — final dismemberment be-
tween great states surrounding her, yet not without
ages of desperate struggle. She was not large enough
to be permanently the seat of empire; she was far too
large for either rival to let pass wholly into the hands
of the other — so she was pulled to pieces. But she
60 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
wanted to control her own destiny, and made a long and
heroic fight before being dismembered.
To write the history of the next few centuries
would tire out all my readers, and would not do any
good; it was a long duel between Rome and Persia
for the ownership of Armenia, in which the prosperity
and happiness of their unhappy foot-ball nearly per-
ished. Almost the whole foreign policy of Parthia
was to control, or to have a paramount influence in
Armenia; almost the whole foreign policy of Rome in
tlie East was to do the same thing. For nearly a
century following Artavasdes' deposition, though the
Romans professed to govern the country and the
Parthians sometimes held it, and both sides repeatedly
put kings on its throne, it was actually in a state of pure
anarchy. Every great family, seeing it must depend
on its own strength for preservation, extended its rule
over as wide a district as would submit; nearly two
hundred houses acted with perfect independence of
each other, and of the nominal government, and some
of them established principalities of considerable size.
After this, though the country was for century after
century just the same shuttlecock between the rival
states, the feudal anarchy was somewhat reduced, the
turbulent nobility better held in check, but it was im-
possible that there should be really firm and orderly
government w^hen a king could not be secure of his
throne for a year on one side or the other, and dared
not render his powerful subjects disaffected by making
them obey the laws. We may be sure that the gov-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 61
ernment was really an oligarchy under the forms of
a monarchy, and even the title '^ King of Armenia "
during this period must not be taken to mean too much.
There were sometimes separate kings of Upper and
Lower Armenia, one under Roman, and one under
Parthian influence; the independent princes often
made head against both, and outlying principalities,
like those of Osrhoene and Gordyene probably got
hold of more or less Armenian territory in the melee.
No king of Armenia after Tigranes ever held sway
over all of old Armenia for any length of time, if at
all. But any king who got an acknowledged position
at all was invariably an Arshagoonian ; the people con-
sidered that line the only rightful kings. Artavasdes
III, whom the Romans seated in power just before the
birth of Christ; Tigranes IV, who expelled him by
Parthian aid the year of Christ's birth; Vonones,
a deposed Parthian king, who got himself chosen king
as the Roman favorite in 16 A. D., but was persuaded
by Tiberius to retire; Arsaces, son of the king of Par-
thia, assassinated by the king of Iberia whose brother
was the Roman candidate, about the time of the
crucifixion; Ervand, who made himself master of tHe
land after a fashion, in 58; Dertad (Tiridates),
set up by the Parthians in 52, and acknowledged by
the Romans in 66; Exedarus (Eshdir ?) son of the
Parthian king, given the throne with Roman consent
about 100, pulled down by his uncle in 114, resulting in
the conquest of the country by Trajan ; Sohaemus, set
up by the Romans about 150, dethroned by the Par-
62 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
thians in 162 in favor of another Arsacid, restored by
the Romans in 164; and the other fleeting monarchs
of this long nightmare were all of the same line of
Arshag, which in Armenia survived for over two
centuries its brother line in Parthia, the last of whom,
Ardvan (Artabanus), was slain in battle in 224 by Ar-
dashir (Artaxerxes), first of the Sassanian house, and
founder of the Persian Empire. But I must go back
a little.
The most important event in the history of any na-
tion is its conversion to Christianity, and therefore we
wish to know when the Armenians first came to believe
in Christ, and how it came about. Of course it did
not come all at once; but it came very early, and the
story of the first converts is very curious. According
to the Armenian church history, and also the great
Christian father Eusebius, it came through King Ab-
gar or Apkar (Abgarus), the fifteenth king of the little
kingdom of Osrhoene, in northern Mesopotamia, whose
capital was the flourishing city of Edessa, now Oorfa;
it lay next the southern border of Armenia.
The church history gives the following account:
" The origin of Christianity in Armenia dates
from the time of its king Abgar, who reigned at the
beginning of the Christian era; he had his seat of gov-
ernment in the city of Edessa, and was tributary to the
Romans.
" Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Judea, was hostile
to king Abgar, but was unable to injure him except by
exciting the Romans against him. He therefore ac-
cused him falsely, to the Emperor Tiberius, of rebel-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 68
lious projects. King Abgar, on being made ac-
quainted with this accusation, hastened to send mes-
sengers to the Roman general Marinus, then governor
of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, for the purpose of
vindicating himself. During their stay in Palestine
these messengers — among whom was Anane, Ab-
gar's confidant — hearing of the wonders that were
wrought by our Saviour, determined to visit Jerusa-
lem, in order to gratify their curiosity.
" When, therefore, their mission was concluded,
they proceeded thither and were filled with wonder at
witnessing the miracles performed by Jesus our Lord.
" On returning to Armenia they related all the par-
ticulars to their master. Abgar, after having listened
to their narrative, became satisfied that Jesus was the
son of God, and immediately wrote to him as fol-
lows :
" ' Abgar, son of Arsham, to Jesus, the great
healer, who has appeared in the country of Judea at
the city of Jerusalem — greeting Lord, — I have heard
that thou dost not heal by medicines but only through
the Word ; that thou makest the blind to see, the lame
to walk ; that thou cleansest the lepers and makest the
deaf to hear; that thou castest out devils, raiseth the
dead, and healest through the word only. iN"© sooner
had the great miracles that thou performest been re-
lated to me, than I reflected, and now believe that thou
art God and the son of God, descended from heaven
to perform these acts of beneficence. For this reason
I have written thee this letter, to pray thee to come
to me, that I may adore thee and be healed of my
sickness by thee, according to my faith in thy power.
Moreover, T have heard that the Jews murmur against
thee, and seek to slay thee. T pray thee, therefore,
come to me ; I have a good little city, which is enough
64 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
for both of us, and there we can peaceably live to-
gether.' "
The messengers sent with the letter were instructed
to offer sacrifices for the King at the temple in Jerusa-
lem ; and one of them was a painter, who was to make
a portrait of the Saviour, that if he would not come,
the king might at least have his features. Jesus re-
ceived the letter joyfully, — as it was the day of liis
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the messengers did
not venture to approach him, and it was taken to him
by the apostles Philip and Andrew, — and dictated the
following answer to the apostle Thomas:
" Blessed be he who believes in me without having
seen me; for thus it is written of me: Those who see
me shall not believe in me; and those who do not see
me, they shall believe and be saved. Inasmuch as
you have written to me to go to you, know that it is
necessary I should fulfill here all for which I
have been sent. And when I shall have done so, I
shall ascend to Him who sent me ; and then I will send
you one of my disciples, who shall remove your pain,
and shall give life to you and those around you."
The painter could not execute his order on account
of the multitude; the Saviour at last noticed him, and
causing him to approach, passed a handkerchief over
his face and miraculously imprinted on it a perfect like-
ness of his countenance, and then gave it to him, and
bade him take it to his master as a reward for his
faith. The king received the letter and portrait with
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 65
great joy, and put them in safe custody, and awaited
the fulfillment of our Lord's promise.
After the Ascension, Thomas, the disciple, sent
Thaddeus, one of the seventy, to Abgar, as our Lord
had directed. Thaddeus went to Tobias, a prince of
the Pakradoonian tribe, and consequently a Jew by
blood, who received the apostle into his house, and be-
came a believer. Thaddeus then began to perform
many miracles upon sick people, and his fame being
spread throughout the city, reached King Abgar, who
sent for Prince Tobias and desired him to bring the
apostle to him. This was done, and Thaddeus healed
the king in his sickness, and instructed him in the
faith. He did likewise to all the people of the city,
and baptized them, together with the king and his
court. All the temples dedicated to idols were shut
up, and a large church was built. Thaddeus then
created a bishop to rule the new congregation, select-
ing a silk-mercer, the king's cap-maker, for that of-
fice, and giving him the name of Adde. It is related
that upon the principal gate of Edessa was the statue of
a Greek idol, which all who entered the city were
obliged to reverence. King Abgar ordered this to be
taken away, and placed in its stead the sacred portrait
of our Lord, with this inscription: " Christ God, he
who hopes in thee is not deceived in his hope;" at
the same time ordering all those who entered the city
to give it divine honor. This conversion of King
Abgar and of the Edessians took place in the thirtieth
66 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
year of the Vulgar Era, or in the thirty-third year
after the birth of Christ.
Shortly after, Thaddeus, desiring to spread the
light of the Gospel in other parts of the country, went
to Inner Armenia to visit Sanadrug, who then resided
in the province of Shavarshan or Ardaz. Sanadrug
soon became a Christian and was baptized, together
with his daughter Santukht, and a great number of
the chiefs and common people. Here Thaddeus also
consecrated a bishop, named Zachariah, and then pro-
ceeded to Upper Armenia ; but finding the people there
unwilling to listen to his preaching, he left them and
went to the country of the Aghuans.
Abgar, in his zeal for the faith he had just em-
braced, wrote to the Emperor Tiberius in favor of
Christ, informing him how the Jews unjustly cru-
cified him, exhorting him at the same time to believe
and command others to adore the Saviour. Many let-
ters passed between the two monarchs on the subject
of his divine mission. He also wrote to Ardashes,
king of Persia, and to his son Nerseh, the young king
of Assyria, exhorting them to become believers in
Christ. However, before he received replies to these,
he died, in the third year of his conversion to Chris-
tianity.
His death seemed at first to have undone all his
work. His son Anane apostatized and tried to make
his people do the same ; he reopened the heathen tem-
ples, resumed the public worship of the idols, and
ordered the sacred handkerchief removed from the
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 67
city gate. Adde the bishop walled up the latter. The
king ordered the bishop to make a diadem for him as
he had for his father; the bishop refused to make one
for a head that would not bow to Christ, and the king
liad the bishop's feet cut off while he was preaching,
causing his death^ — the first Christian martyr on
record. By a just retribution, the savage king met
his own death by a marble pillar in his palace fall-
ing on him and breaking his legs.
Meantime Abgar's nephew, Sanadrug, had set up
his standard in Shavarshan or Ardaz, proclaiming
himself king of Armenia, — one of the countless chief-
tains who took advantage of Armenian anarchy to carve
out principalities for themselves. On the death of
Anane he marched to Edessa, claiming it as his own
inheritance. The people admitted him on his oath
not to harm them; but once inside he massacred all
the males of the house of Abgar. He spared his aunt,
Queen Helena, Abgar's widow, who became widely
famed as a Christian philanthropist, and was buried
with great pomp before one of the gates of Jerusalem,
where a splendid mausoleum was erected over her re-
mains. He himself had apostatized, and ordered all
his people to do likewise ; but most of them refused to
obey, and Thaddeus, hearing of it at Caesarea, in Cap-
padocia, started for Edessa to reconvert him. Oh his
way he fell in with a Roman embassy to Sanadrug,
composed of five patricians headed by one Chrysos ; he
converted and baptized them all, conferred priest's or-
ders on Chrysos, and they gave up all their property
68 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
and became preachers of Christ. They were known
as followers of Chrysos, and all eventually obtained
the crown of martyrdom.
On the news of these conversions, Sanadrug in-
vited Thaddeus to Shavarshan; on his arrival he put
him to death, and with him his own daughter, San-
tukht, who would not give up her faith in Christ. At
her death various miracles were wrought, which caused
many conversions to Christianity; among them a
notable chief, who was baptized with all his family,
was renamed Samuel, and was put to death by the
king's order.
A princess named Zarmantukht also became a con-
vert, with all her household, two hundred people in
all; the whole of them suffered martyrdom in con-
sequence.
Dr. Philip Schaff says: " It is now impossible to
decide how much truth there may be in the somewhat
mythical stories of correspondence between Christ and
Abgarus, and the missionary activity and martyrdom
of Thaddeus, Bartholomew, Simon of Cana, and Judas
Lebbeus. But it is certain that Christianity was in-
troduced very early in Armenia." I, however, con-
sider what I have told to be true.
After this time, Christianity spread in Armenia as
it did in other parts of the Greek Empire; rapidly in
the cities, where intelligence was quick, and new ideas
were welcomed ; slowly in the country districts, where
people did not readily change. Its first result every-
where was not so much to make people believe in it
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 69
as to make them disbelieve in Paganism; for every
person who actually came to believe in Christ, there
were fifty who ceased to believe in Jupiter, or Bel, or
Thoth, Venus or Astarte. There would be a flourish-
ing Christian church in a great city when most of
the people did not have any faith in any religion. But
everybody who had a family came gradually to think
very well of a religion that gave them the power to
teach children righteousness, and enforce it by the
command of God; and the respectable classes became
more and more Christian. But the fact that till two
or three centuries after Christ there was no general
attempt on the part of the pagan governments to put
down the Christfans by persecution, shows that not till
then did they become so numerous as to frighten the
governments for fear they would before long have a
majority; persecution means fear. The governments
let the Christians pretty much alone, except for little
fits of anger now and then, till they were afraid the
growth of the sect would overthrow themselves or
bring on civil war. The Christians had become well
established in Armenia within a century or so after
the death of Christ; but it was over a century and a
half before they seemed an imminent menace to the
ruling class. Then a furious persecution began, about
the same time as that of Diocletian in the Roman Em-
pire, and indeed, part of the same movement. Diocle-
tian had set the persecuting King Tiridates on his
throne, and Tiridates had passed his life from boyhood
almost to old age in the Roman service, and had the
70 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
same ideas as the pagan Roman upper classes. Yet
in the providence of God this same Tiridates made
Christianity supreme in Armenia, fifteen years before
Constantino made it supreme in the Eoman Empire,
thus making Armenia the first Christian nation.
Gregory the Illuminator and King Dertad.
In the continual struggle between Rome and Par-
thia for the control of Armenia, the Parthian kings
had one great advantage; they were Arsacids, and
could put their sons or brothers on the Armenian
throne with the good-will of the people, thus strength-
ening their dynastic position without much cost in
military force. Often, too, the Armenian kingship
was obtained by Parthian princes, who fled after a
family quarrel, or after deposition or other misfortune.
One of these Armenian kings was Chosroes, who
reigned in the time of Ardashir, the first king of Per-
sia, before spoken of. It is not certain just who he
was; some say a brother of Ardvan, the last king of
Parthia; some say the son of Ardvan, who fled after
his father's death. Anyway, he was a mortal enemy
of Ardashir, and was at first supported by the Romans.
Ardashir invaded Armenia, but was beaten later.
Chosroes quarreled with the Romans, who withdrew
their support, and assailed him, but he defeated them;
and when Ardashir again invaded the country, Chos-
roes again drove him back. The old days of Tigranes
seemed to have returned, and Armenia to be on the
road again to unity and independence; and Chosroes
was called the Great. Ardashir was furious at being
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 71
baffled, and is said to have offered his daughter's hand
and a share in the kingdom to any one of his leading
nobles who would assassinate Chosroes. An Arsacid
named Anag accepted the offer, though he had a
wife already, and went with his family to Armenia,
pretending to be in flight from Persian troops. Chos-
roes gave him a military escort into the province of
Ardaz, where he lived for a time in the very place
St. Thaddeus' bones were deposited. Later on, Anag
removed to Vagharshabad (the present city of Etch-
miazin, where the Armenian Catholicos resides), Chos-
roes' royal city. Here Anag seizing his opportunity,
stabbed Chosroes to the heart. In his flight he was
drowned in trying to cross the Aras, and his family
were massacred by the soldiery.
Ardashir had gotten rid of his unconquerable en-
emy, and without having to pay the stipulated price.
He at once entered Armenia and put to death every
member of Chosroes' family save a boy and a girl,
Tiridates and Chosrovitukht, who were somehow smug-
gled away, and the old game of Perso-Roman foot-ball
over Armenia went on as before. Tiridates entered
the Roman army, when grown up, and became dis-
tinguished there, evidently inheriting his father's mil-
itary ability; and remained in the Roman service cer-
tainly to the age of over 45, and perhaps till over 50.
That the Romans waited all this time before using
him as a candidate for the Armenian throne seems
strange; but the reason probably is that the early
years of his manhood fell in a time when Rome was
72 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
weak and Persia strong. The great Shahpur, Ar-
dasliir's son, reigned in Persia till about 272; the imbe-
cile Gallienus of Eome reigned from 260 till 268, and
was succeeded by a crowd of emperors able indeed,
but too short-lived to carry out any steady policy, or
drive the Persians out of their strong places. The
first emperor who found himself in a position to re-
store the Eoman power in the East. was Diocletian,
who came to the Koman throne in 284, and it is sig-
nificant that he made Tiridates king of Armenia only
two years later. As Diocletian was a soldier of for-
tune, probably he had known and respected Tiridates
long before. Any^vay, in 286 Rome once more had
her turn in Armenian affairs, and with one short in-
terval, kept absolute control of the country for over
half a century.
iN'ow there had been bom in Armenia about 257
a child who had early been taken to Caesarea by Chris-
tian relatives, baptized, named Gregory, and reared in
the Christian faith. On reaching maturity he mar-
ried a Christian girl by whom he had two sons; but
after three years they separated by mutual consent.
The vnie entered a convent. Gregory, hearing of Ti-
ridates' renown in the Roman army, went and obtained
service near the prince's person, to be able to have
influence with him if he ever regained his kingdom.
They became fast friends. When Tiridates was pro-
claimed king, he went first to Erija, in the province of
Egueghatz, where was a temple of Anahid (Diana),
whom the Armenians worshiped as guardian goddess
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 78
of the country; and making offerings to her of gar-
hjnds and crowns, asked Gregory to join liim in his
idolatry. Gregory refused to worship anything hut
the one God. Tiridates ordered him imprisoned for
a while, thinking the loathsome dungeon of that time
would change his resolution; finding him still firm, he
had him tortured in a dozen frightful ways, and at
last taken to the fortress of Ardashad and thrown into
a deep pit, where criminals were left to starve. There
Gregory remained fourteen years, supported all that
time by the charity of a pious Christian woman.
After about ten years of reign, Tiridates was driven
from his throne by Persians, and once more became a
w^anderer; but two years later he was reinstated by the
Romans, and finished his life on the throne. In grat-
itude for this second restoration, he had daily offerings
made to the heathen gods all over his kingdom; and
on being told that the Christians refused to comply,
ordered all recusants to be tortured, and their prop-
erty confiscated.
About this time Diocletian determined to find and
marry the handsomest woman in his empire, and sent
officers all over in search of noted beauties. One
party, hearing that a nun named Ripsime was very
beautiful, entered her convent by force, had a portrait
made of her, and carried it to the emperor. Diocle-
tian was enchanted with it, and ordered preparations
made for the nuptials; but the abbess, Kayane, to
save the nun from sin, and the community from dan-
ger, broke up the convent, and the inmates with sev-
74 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
eral priests — seventy in all — went to the East, and
scattered themselves in different localities. Ripsime
and Kayane, with thirty-five companions, reached Ar-
dashad in Armenia, and took refuge in a building
among the vineyards, where wine vats were stored.
Diocletian had search made for his flown bird, and,
hearing that her company had gone to Armenia, com-
manded Tiridates to send her back to him unless he
wished to keep her for his own wife. Tiridates had
her hunted out, and the officers bringing a report of
her extraordinary beauty, so great that people flocked
to admire her, he ordered her brought to him, intend-
ing to marry her. Kayane exhorted her not to deny
Christ for the sake of earthly honors, and she refused
to go. She was carried by force, however, and the
king undertook to gain a husband's rights at once; but
the virgin, strengthened by divine power, resisted him
successfully. Tiridates then had the Abbess Kayane
brought to him to overcome the girl's scruples; but
instead, she once more exhorted Ripsime to keep her-
self pure in spite of all offered grandeur. The king
once more endeavored to deflower the maiden, and
was once more beaten; and Ripsime, opening the doors
and passing out through the astonished guards, walked
out of the city, to her companions in the vineyard,
went to a high place, and knelt down in prayer. The
incensed Tiridates sent a body of guards to put her to
death by the most dreadful tortures, which was done,
and her body cut into small pieces. Her companions
gathered to bury her remains, and were at once
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 75
butchered by the soldiery, as well as a sick one, who
had stayed behind in the wine press. The bodies of
the thirty-four martyrs were thrown into the fields as
food for the beasts of prey. The next day Tiridates
had Kayane and two other companions put to death.
These events occurred on the 5th and 6th of October,
301.
Shortly after, God visited the king and many of
his household with a dreadful disease for his perse-
cution of the saints. They ran around like mad peo-
ple or demoniacs. While they were in this state, the
king's virgin sister Chosrovitukht had a divine revela-
tion that she should go to Ardashad and release Gre-
gory from the pit, and he would heal them all. As he
had been thrown there fourteen years ago, and was
believed to be long dead, no attention was paid to it;
but the next day it was repeated five times with
threats, and a chief named Oda was sent, who brought
him back alive, to their great amazement and joy.
They prostrated themselves before him and asked for-
giveness, but he told them to worship only their Cre-
ator. Then he demanded to be shown the bodies of
the holy martyrs lately just slain for belief in Christ;
they were found after nine days and nights untouched,
and he gathered them up and put them into the wine
press, where he also established himself. First he
ordered the king and all the people to fast five days,
and commended them to the mercy of God ; and after
that for sixty consecutive days he preached the word
of God, instructing them in all the mysteries of the
7G ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ChFistian religion. On the sixty-sixth day they again
besought him to heal them, but first he made them
build three chapels for the relics of the martyrs, each
in a separate coffin, wall in the place where he had
seen a vision of the Son of God coming down from
heaven, and erect a crucifix before which the people
should prostrate themselves. Finally, seeing that
they all believed in the true God, St. Gregory bade
them kneel down and pray to Him for healing; he
himself prayed for them at the same time, and a mira-
culous cure was at once effected on all the sufferers.
This done, Gregory and Tiridates set about ex-
terminating idolatry; they smashed the idols and de-
molished the temples, the new converts joyfully as-
sisting them. The work of conversion went on rapidly,
under the wonderful preaching of the Saint, and the
zeal of the king; all the people converted were baptized
by immersion. In eight years the majority of the
Armenian nation, many millions in number, had be-
come Christians. That religion was made the State
creed of Armenia in 310, while the Council of Nice,
which did the same work for Rome, was not held till
325.
Gregory deserves every credit for this magnificent
work ; but I cannot help wishing he had been less zeal-
ous in destroying the pagan literature, which is a very
great loss to the world. However, Christianity is
worth it, if we could not have it at a less price.
Schools, as well as churches and benevolent in-
stitutions, were organized in great numbers under
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 77
Christian auspices during the next two or three cen-
turies, and a brilliant band of scholars and preachers
went out from them, the equals of any in their age,
and perhaps in any age. I will give sketches of some
of the principal figures, but first let me briefly tell the
history of Armenia during that period.
The rivalry between Rome and Persia grew fiercer
than ever with the introduction of Christianity, for
now religious hate was added to political ambition;
and on the side of Persia the Armenian difficulties
were doubled, for a considerable part of the Armenians
were still Zoroastrians, and sympathized with the Per-
sians against their own government, while many of
the Persians had become Christian, and opposed their
pagan rulers. Thus the Persians felt that they had a
civil war on their hands as well as foreign wars, and
persecuted their Christians horribly. On the other
hand, they had the help of the pagan part of the Ar-
menians in invading or controlling that state; still
again, the Armenian Christians now favored the Ro-
mans much more strongly than they had before, be-
cause Rome was now Christian ; while on top of all were
the great barons, almost independent of the nominal
kings, and who favored neither party but wanted their
feudal independence. Yet the Roman control of the
kingship, for what it was worth, lasted without a break
for over half a century after the victory of Christian-
ity, and over three-quarters of a century from the ac-
cession of Tiridates; which was due largely to the
great ability of the Roman emperors Diocletian and
78 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Constantine, and the excellent administration and mil-
itary organization they left, which saved the eastern
provinces from Persia for over a quarter of a century
after Constantine's death. Shahpur II, of Persia,
won many victories, but he could not hold even the
places he captured, and he gained no territory till the
death of " Julian the Apostate " in his Persian cam-
paign of 363. His weak and frightened successor
Jovian surrendered a great section of the Eastern Ro-
man territory, and still more disgracefully agreed that
the Eomans should not help their ally Arshag (Ar-
saces), king of Armenia, against Shahpur. Armenia
was at once invaded, but she felt her national existence
at stake, and fought with desperation. Though Shah-
pur had the help of two apostate Armenian princes,
Merujan and Vahan, and other native traitors, who
ravaged the country and fought their king because he
was a Christian, Arshag held out four years, aided by
his heroic though unprincipled wife Parantzem, and
his able chief commander Yashag. Vagharshabad,
Ardashad, Ervandshad, and many other cities were
taken and destroyed ; finally Arshag and Yashag were
captured. Arshag's eyes were put out, and he was
thrown into a Persian dungeon in Ecbatana; Yashag
was flayed alive, and his skin stuffed and set near the
king. Queen Parantzem still refused to surrender,
and with 11,000 soldiers and 6,000 fugitive women held
the fortress of Ardis fourteen months, till nearly all of
them were dead from hunger or disease; then she
opened the gates herself. Instead of honoring her,
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 79
Shahpur, who was a worthy predecessor of the Turks,
had her violated on a public platform by his soldiers,
and then impaled (368). Meantime, her and Ashag'a
son, Bab (Papa), had escaped to Constantinople and
afeked the help of the co-Emperor Valens. That em-
peror hated to break the treaty, and involve Rome in
a new eastern war; but he could not suffer Persia to
be strengthened by the possession of all Armenia, and
the Roman statesmen had determined to end the long
struggle over Armenia by dividing it between Persia
and themselves. Bab was secretly helped by the Ro-
mans; he kept up a guerrilla warfare in the mountains,
and a large part of the Armenian people were pre-
pared to welcome him back to his rightful throne.
The Romans tried to keep within the letter of their
treaty by not letting him assume the title of king.
The Persians considered his support by Greek troops
a breach of the treaty, none the less, and Valens al-
ternately aided and disavowed him. The matter was
not mended by the worthless character of Bab himself,
who murdered his best friends on the least suspicion,
and had the incredible bareness to hold a secret cor-
respondence with Shahpur, the worse than murderer of
his parents. Finally the Romans, convinced that he
must be under their watch if they were to have any
security of him, tolled him down to Cilicia, and pre-
vented him from returning by guards of soldiers. He
made his escape, and professed his allegiance to the
Romans as before; but Yalens resolved to be rid of
80 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
him, and had him murdered by Count Trajan, the
Roman commander in the East.
Meantime a powerful Roman army under Count
Trajan, and the chief Persian host, had actually
camped opposite each other on the borders of Armenia
(371) ; but neither side wanted a general war just then,
— Rome must have her hands free for the Goths, and
Persia hers for the Mongols. Finally, in 379, Shah-
pur died, and there was an instant and entire change in
Persian policy toward Rome, and even toward Chris-
tianity for a while. His brother and successor, Ar-
dashir, was an old man, and reigned but four years;
his successor, Shahpur III, at once sent embassies to
Rome, and made a treaty of peace (384). Finally,
on the succession of Bahram IV (Kirman Shah), in
390, that monarch arranged a treaty of partition with
Theodosius, the Roman emperor, by which Armenia
ceased to exist. The western portion became a Ro-
man province ; the then reigning sovereign, Arshag IV,
was made governor to keep the people contented. The
eastern, and much the larger section, was annexed to
Persia, under the name of Persarmenia; and to please
the people, an Arsacid, Chosroes IV, was made gov-
ernor, and the dynasty was continued in its rule over
the Armenians till after the great Perso-Roman war of
421-2, and the persecution of Christians by Persia,
which was the pretext of it. The persecution and the
war led to a movement for Armenian independence;
after it was over, Bahram V of Persia (Gor, the Wild
Ass, " the mighty hunter ") put a new vassal, Ar-
THE AR^IENIAN DYNASTIES. 81
dashes IV, into the governorship; but the great Ar-
menian barons would not give up the struggle, and
this last of the Arshagoonian dynasty was removed in
428 and Persian governors substituted.
Thus ended the rule of the line of Arshag. It was
a mighty race, and swarms with brilliant names; but in
Persia it was justly displaced by one of better public
policy, and in Armenia the position of the country
was fatal to it.
THE INTERREGNUM.
Prominent Men; Litera.ture; The Church and the Clergy.
yFrom the time of the partition to the succession
of the Pakradoonian dynasty there was not in name
an Armenian kingdom; but it must not be supposed
that there was not an Armenian nation. No matter
how its neighbor nations changed, that country was
always called Armenia, and the people held to their
Armenian ways and feelings. The national feeling
was as strong as before, and above all the feeling of
church unity was very intense. No one will ever
understand Armenian history, or indeed any Oriental
history at all, who does not realize that religious ques-
tions come first, and political questions second. The
Armenian church was, it is true, a Christian church;
but it was the Armenian Christian church, not the
Greek church, and the Syrian and African churches
had their separate creeds and preferences, and the
Greek church, which was the official church of the
Greek Empire, was always trying to root out their
6
82 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
" heresies " and make them Greek. ) That was one rea-
son why the Mohammedans conquered those countries
so easily. The Africans would rather be ruled by
the Mohammedans than by the Greek church, the
Syrians were angry because the Greek church wanted
to take away their own church and give them the
Greek. But the Armenians would not take either
the Greek or the Mohammedan or the Zoroastrian;
they wanted their own. So they were persecuted ter-
ribly by the Greek Christians and the Persian fire-
worshipers alike. Just as before the partition, each
country invaded the other's part of Armenia when-
ever they got into war; and whichever won, the Ar-
menians were the losers. When the Greeks won, they
tortured the Armenians; when the Persians won, they
tortured the Armenians; later, when the Mohamme-
dans won, they also tortured the Armenians. The
mediaeval history of Armenia is that of a battle-
ground between contending races — Greeks, Per-
sians, Scythians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks,
Mongols, and so on. Millions of its people were slain;
millions died of famine and disease; millions of its
women were forced to embrace Mohammedanism and
become the wives and mothers of Mohammedans, —
half the blood of those who are called Turks at this
day is Armenian; millions of its boys were forced into
the Turkish service, so that many of the best-known
names in Turkish history, and in the Turkey of to-
day, are Armenian names. Yet through all these ca-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 83
lamities and decimations Armenia has kept its national
life and national religion.
From 390 to 640 the history of both sections of
Armenia is little more than an account of religious
persecutions and their results; the persecutors on the
one side were Christians, and on the other side Zoroas-
trians, but the results to the Armenians were much
the same. The Persian atrocities, however, were on
the larger scale, and the outcome was a chronic state
of revolt, which will be alluded to in the sketch of
Vartan the defender. But the rise of the Saracen
power changed Armenians greatest foe from the Per-
sian to the Arab, from the fire-worshipers to the Mo-
hammedans. Persia was invaded by the forces of
the caliph Omar in 634, and about 640-2 the decisive
battle of ^N^ehavend annihilated the last great Persian
army, though scattered places held out much longer.
The Armenian highlands at once resumed their inde-
pendence, and their chiefs, with those of the western
section belonging to the Byzantine Empire, fought for
their own hand in lack of a true national chief whom
all could look up to, but allied themselves mainly with
the Greek power against the barbarians; and for two
entire centuries, and more, Armenia was a furious
and bloody battle-ground between Greeks and Sar-
acens, while internally in a state of feudal anarchy.
Then a prince of the family of Pakrad or Bagrat (well-
known to students of the last century's history in the
form of Bagration), of Jewish descent, as has already
been mentioned, which had obtained power over the
84 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
central and northern parts of Armenia, was recognized
by the caliph as an independent monarch; and thus
founded the Pakradoonian dynasty, which lasted till
Armenia's independence was once more extinguished
by the Byzantine Empire, — a crime almost immedi-
ately punished by the overwhelming of Asia Minor by
the Seljuk Turks.
PROMINENT MEN OF THE PERIOD.
NiERSEs The Great.
This was the great creator of Armenian scholar-
ship. He was a descendant of St. Gregory; studied
in the Greek schools of Caesarea during boyhood ; later
in those of Constantinople, where he became famous
for learning, married a Greek princess of a distin-
guished house, and on his return to Armenia was made
pontiff. (All the clergy were married then, as the
Greek priests are now.) He founded over 2,000
schools, and benevolent institutions, as well as great
numbers of churches, was a powerful and persuasive
preacher, and a considerable writer, part of the Church
history being his. From these schools went forth a
very brilliant band of scholars, preachers and orators,
the equals of any in the world.
It was during his pontificate that the affairs of
Arshag and Bab took place, and he was intimately con-
nected with them till his death at the hands of the lat-
ter. Previous to the desertion of Armenia by the
Eomans in 363, they had quarreled with Arshag, and
sent an army to punish him ; but on Merses' interces-
sion with Yalens it was recalled, and the Saint obtained
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 85
high favor with the emperor. Arshag's conduct, how-
ever, grew too bad for endurance; he had his father
and a rehitive named Kuenel (or Gnel) killed, and mar-
ried KueneFs wife, Parantzem (who afterwards met
such a horrible fate), though his own wife, Olympias,
was still alive. Nierses, finding admonition of no
avail, quitted Vagharshabad and went into a convent.
But Arshag, getting into fresh difficulties with the
emperor and his own rebellious vassals, besought the
saint to assist him once more, and once more Nierses
complied. He first pacified the turbulent nobility;
then interceded with the Roman commander to such
effect that the general withdrew his army and went
to Constantinople to justify himself to the emperor,
taking a letter to him from Arshag, and hostages for
the latter^s loyalty, and also inducing Nierses to ac-
company him. But Valens was enraged at the with-
drawal, would neither read the letter nor see the saint,
and ordered the hostages killed and INTierses banished.
The former sentence was revoked on the general's in-
tercession, but Nierses was shipped for his place of
exile; on the way a storm wrecked the vessel on a
desert island, but he and the crew were saved. It was
winter, and they could find no food but the roots of
trees, but in a short time the sea miraculously cast
abundance of fish on shore, and for eight months they
never suffered for sustenance. At the end of that time
the saint was set free.
After the restoration of Bab to the land, though
not the acknowledged throne of his fathers, Nierses
86 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
convened an assembly of Armenian princes and eccle-
siastical heads, with the king, and swore them all to
mutual concord and good behavior, to unite the land
against the Persians; but Bab, like so many Eastern
potentates and indeed his father, cared for nothing but
to indulge his own passions, and would have sold his
country to Shahpur if he could have got his price.
Nierses in vain tried to turn him from his evil ways;
Bab merely hated him for it, and finally had him pois-
oned, in the village of Khakh in the province of Eghue-
ghiatz. Nierses had been pontiff eight years, but they
were crowded with labors of immense variety and use-
fulness. He left one son (Isaac), who eventually be-
came pontiff also.
Sahag and Mesrob.
Isaac was educated at Constantinople like his
father, and had at first no thought of being a great
churchman, but only of leading the life of a noble.
He was always, however, of a very pure and lofty char-
acter, a marked contrast to the proud and dissolute no-
bility around him; and after the early death of his
wife, devoted himself to religious seclusion, into which
he was followed by sixty disciples. In 389, a few
years after his father's death, he was called out to fill
the pontificate, once more vacant. This was the year
before the partition of Armenia; but even after that,
though the country was divided, the church was not.
The Armenian Church was still one, with a single
head; but the appointment of that head was of such
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 87
immense political importance that, as the king had be-
fore claimed the deciding voice in it, so now each power
insisted on being satisfied, — no easy matter. Some of
the nobles who opposed Chosroes of Persarmenia
now complained to the king of Persia that the ap-
pointment of the new pontiif had been made without
his consent, in order to foment a rebellion, and make
Armenia independent again; and the king deposed
Isaac. Shortly after, however, a new king reinstated
him; and a new vassal king being put in Chosroes'
place, and the country more quiet, St. Isaac began to
repair the churches, which had fallen into decay, —
entirely rebuilding that of St. Kipsime, destroyed by
Shahpur, in the course of which he discovered St.
Gregory's urn sealed with his cross-engraven signet.
About this time St. Mesrob began to be famous for
sanctity. He was a scholar well versed in Greek,
Syrian, and Persian, as well as his native tongue ; had
been secretary to St. Nierses, and after his death re-
mained at court under the patronage of a prince
named Aravan, where he became chancellor. Finally
he became wearied of earthly glory and court corrup-
tions, and entered a convent, whither many disciples
were attracted by his learning and sanctity. Hearing
of St. Isaac's beneficent deeds, however, he left the
convent and attached himself to him; and under his
authority preached and taught in all parts of the pro-
vince. We are told that by the aid of the chief of
Koghten he extirpated a diabolic heathen sect in that
province. But his fame is chiefly as having begun
88 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
with Isaac the Golden Age of Armenian- literature; I
shall speak of this a little later.
Barouyr or Bkoyebios.
We must not judge the ability and reputation of
men in their own ages solely by the familiarity of
their names to us; those that have come down to
us are a mere handful, and not by any means always
the greatest of their time. Much depends on chance
— the preservation of certain works, and the loss
of others, or certain men happening to do something
dramatic. Great orators are especially likely to be
forgotten; they leave no written works of their own,
and not being in political life, the common histories
do not mention them. The name of Barouyr is wholly
unknown to this age; but we have the testimony of a
contemporary writer, Eunapius of Sardis, — not a
countryman of his, and therefore free from all suspi-
cion of patriotic brag, and most unlikely to make out
an Armenian greater than he was, — that he was the
most wonderful orator of his time, famous all over the
Eoman world, and greatly admired even by the em-
perors. He was one of those men to whom all languages
seem alike to come by nature, and his oratory was as
easy and as perfect in one as in the other; in Latin or
Greek as in his national Armenian. The only com-
parison I can give in modem times is Louis Kossuth.
That Barouyr has not the fame of Cicero or Demosthe-
nes, Kossuth or Gladstone, is probably because under
the circumstances of the time he could not engage in
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. B^
political life ; military service or high birth were about
the only avenues to that. I will quote in substance
what Eunapius says of this brilliant orator, whom he
probably knew all about, as our boys know Gladstone,
— for he was born in 347, and Barouyr was certainly
alive in the time of the Emperor Julian, who came to
the throne in 361: —
Barouyr lived to be ninety, and was beautiful
even in old age, having the vigor of youth in his
looks. He was eight feet high. When a boy he left
Armenia and went to Antioch, the first seat of the
Christians, and entered the school of oratory under the
celebrated Albianos, where he shortly became the fore-
most pupil. Thence he went to Athens and studied
under Julian, the greatest of the teachers of oratory
there, — supporting himself by working meantime,
as he was very poor; in no long time he was recognized
as the leading orator of Athens, and taught the art to
the Athenians. The other teachers were so angry
that they bribed the governor to banish him; but on
the govenior's removal some time after, he was per-
mitted to return. The new governor instituted an
oratorical competition ; whoever could deliver the best
extempore oration on a subject to be given out on the
spot, should receive great honors. Barouyr took part
on condition that the auditors should take careful notes,
and should not cheer; but they were so fascinated that
they broke both conditions, listening in rapture and
applauding repeatedly. The governor offered him his
chair, and honored him as the greatest orator in Athens.
90 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Later, the Emperor Constans was so struck with his
wisdom and oratorical power that he called him first
to Gaul and then to Eome, where he delivered his
greatest orations, and the Romans erected a bronze
monument in his honor, inscribed " Regina Rerum
Romae, Regi Eloquentiae " (Rome Queen of Affairs,
to the King of Eloquence). From Rome he returned
to Athens, and taught there many years with great
repute, up to the time of the Emperor Julian, who
honored him, and spoke as follows of him : ^' Barouyr
was a flowing river of oratory, and in power and per-
suasiveness of speech was like Pericles." And I must
add that with all this he was a thorough Christian man,
— not a priest, but a great Christian layman and
teacher.
Vartan, Defender of the Faith.
Yartan Mamigonian is the most esteemed and be-
loved name in Armenian history. Tiridates founded
the Christian kingdom; but when the religion was in
danger of extermination throughout Persian Armenia
at the hands of the fire-worshipers, Vartan saved it,
and died for it, a faithful servant of God and his Sav-
iour. It was said of him that he was an honest, mod-
est, wise, brave, true, pure, childlike, and Christ-
like Christian commander, a great soldier of the Cross.
He was a lamb in nature, but when he came to defend
his religion he was a lion. As a little boy he was so
full of grace that the Pontiff Sahag adopted him as his
son; and through this companionship of the aged ec-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. ftl
clesiastic and the religious boy, the latter developed
into a great spiritual light. In 421 he went to Con-
stantinople with St. Mesrob, and was much loved and
esteemed by the emperor (Theodosius II) and the
court; then to Persia, where the king honored him
and gave him the title of prince.
In 439 Yazdegerd II of Persia succeeded his fa-
ther, Bahram V, the destroyer of the Arsacid dynasty,
and began a furious persecution of both Jews and
Christians, which lasted a dozen years, and ended in
a complete victory for religious freedom. The king,
like James I of England, fancied himself a great the-
ologian, and could always be victorious in a debate by
killing his opponent. One specimen will suffice. He
called a convocation of Armenian priests and noble-
men, and commanded them to embrace fire-worship on
pain of death. " Your Christ cannot save you," said
he, " for He is crucified and dead." " Oh my gracious
king," replied a young nobleman, " why did you not
read further about Christ ? He was indeed crucified,
but rose again, ascended to Heaven, and is living now
and our Saviour." The king in a rage had his head
struck off.
Finally in 450 the people of Persian Armenia rose
in revolt, and determined to fight for their religion.
Yartan took command of them, and showed himself the
ablest commander of his time. For a year he held at
bay the overwhelming forces of the Persian Empire,
and was victorious in every battle, even to the last, —
a striking parallel to Judas Maccabaeus in historical
92 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
position, as well as military ability. Finally the forces
were arrayed for battle on tlie banks of the Dugh-
mood river, in the plains of Avarayr, near the present
city of Van. Yartan had 66,000 men, the Persians
several times as many. Yartan prayed to God for
help, and to Christ for his own salvation ; then he made
a speech to his soldiers, in substance as follows: —
^* Soldiers, as Christians we are averse from fighting;
but to defend the Christian religion and our own free-
dom we have to fight. Surely our lives are not as val-
uable as Christ's, and if he was willing to die on
the cross for us, we ought to be willing to die in battle
for him." Then, with his troops, he crossed the river,
fell on the enemy's center, and scattered the huge army
in rout, killing 3,544 men besides nine great princes,
and losing 1,036 of his own; but alas ! one of these was
himself, dying from a mortal wound not long after.
Nevertheless, he had won the victory he was striving
for. Yazdegerd saw it was impossible to conquer the
Armenians in a war for religion, and granted entire
liberty to the Christians to believe and preach as they
pleased.
ARMENIAN LITERATURE.
Fifth Century.
The Armenian schools and universities and their
outpour of great scholars and writers have already
been spoken of, but of course Armenian youths, eager
for the best of the world's learning, did not confine
themselves to their own country ; they studied in Con-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 98
stantinople, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and wher-
ever great teachers were located. All were zealous
Christians, and the books they have left behind were
Christian literature, not works of mere enjoyment. A
very rich and valuable literature it is, too, in my judg-
ment the most so of any single body that exists; though
much of it has perished in the recent destruction of
everything Christian the Turks can reach. My
readers will not credit my opinion of it, because most
of it has never been translated, but that makes it all
the more valuable now, it has so much that is new to
add to the stores of the world. It is not necessary to
give them all, but to point out the chief writers.
The fifth century is called the Golden Age of Ar-
menian literature. First in point of time as well
as importance comes the Armenian Bible. The furi-
ous opposition of the Church in the Middle Ages to
letting the people have the Bible to read in their own
tongues seems perfectly ridiculous, when we remem-
ber that in the early Christian church every people had
it in their own language, and it was thought to be the
greatest work for a heathen people that could be done,
to translate the Bible for them. It was not thought
needful then to keep the word of God in a strange
tongue, so that the people could neither read it for
themselves nor understand it when it was read to them.
There were probably some books of popular tales
and songs in Armenia before the fifth century, for
we are told that there was an Armenian alphabet to
write them in as early as the second, but if so they have
94 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
all perished, and the alphabet was doubtless a poor
and meager one. Armenian scholars and writers read
Greek or Latin books, and occasionally Hebrew or
Syriac ones, and wrote in Greek or Latin themselves;
if it was necessary to write Armenian, as in letters,
they made the Greek, Syriac, or Persian characters,
which of course were insufficient to give the Armenian
sounds. They would have got along with this, how-
ever, if it had not been for the eagerness of Chris-
tian enthusiasm which made them wish to give the
Bible to Armenia; it was to spread the word of God,
not to write books, that they were anxious. St. Mes-
rob set to work and invented a very perfect alphabet
of thirty-six letters, to which two have been added
since. According to one of his disciples, having
vainly sought help from the learned, he prayed to God,
and received the new alphabet in a vision. This was
about 405. Lie and Saha^ the Pontiff at once began
to translate the New Testament and the Book of Pro-
verbs from a poor Greek version, the best they had,
with the assistance of two pupils, John of Eghueghi-
atz and Joseph of Baghin. This was finished in 406.
Many years later (seemingly about the time Persian
Armenia was made a satrapy), they undertook the
translation of the Old Testament; but as the Persians
had destroyed all the Greek MSS., it was necessary to
use a Syriac version. The same two assistants aided
them; but being sent to the Council of Ephesus in 431,
they brought back copies of the Greek Septuagint, and
the old translation was at once dropped, and a new one
THE ARIVLENIAN DYNASTIES. 95
put under way. But all found their knowledge of
Greek too imperfect to rely on, and the pupils were
sent to Alexandria and Athens to complete their educa-
tion ; on their return they seem to have brought a new
Alexandrian version, and corrections were made from
that, and the work completed, most likely about 435.
The Bible completed, they turned to other labors.
The Saints Sahag and Mesrob are said to have written
six hundred books themselves, all in Christian theology
and instruction; and the pupils from the schools St.
Nierses and themselves had founded — the chief of
their own were at ISToravank, Ayri, and Vochkhoroz
— wrote great numbers besides. The first orig-
inal work of Sahag was one on Pastoral Theol-
ogy, setting forth that the Church of Christ is the
Bride of Christ, and the ministers must therefore be
holy, pure, and obedient. He wrote many epistles to
kings and emperors, all of whom reverenced and were
greatly influenced by him. He wrote a large part of
the Armenian Church History, composed many
hymns, and translated many commentaries and theo-
logical works from the Greek.
Fortunately during this period the government of
Armenia was very good, with the exception of one
period of two years or so; even after its partition, for
close on forty years it had practically self-government
in internal affairs, and for another decade the Chris-
tians enjoyed full rights of worship. Bahram lY of
Persia (389-899), who helped divide it, was a mon-
arch who loved peace above all things, both with for-
96 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
eign countries and his own people; his successor, Yaz-
degerd 1 (399-420), went even further, employed the
Catholicos or Pontiff on embassies to Constantinople,
and as mediator with his own brother, and made his
son, Shahpur, governor of Persian Armenia, con-
tinuing the Arsacid dynasty. He was murdered by
his nobles, instigated by the Zoroastrian priests, for
being too tolerant to the Christians, and his successor
Bahram V, who got the throne by favor of the re-
bellious elements, tried to please them by persecuting
the Christians; this involved him in a war with Kome,
as I have said, and after a couple of years he made
peace and gave toleration again. The turning of Per-
sian Armenia into a satrapy in 428 I have already told;
but no fresh persecution was undertaken till that of
Yazdegerd II, in 439, ending in Yartan's revolt just
detailed. Shahpur of Armenia was a prince of great
wisdom, generosity, and public spirit; he patronized
men of learning, founded schools, made large grants
from the treasury for scholarship, and sent scholars to
all the great seats of learning to teach and acquire the
languages, literature, and history of other nations,
after which they wrote and translated hundreds of
volumes. Among them were Tavit, Khosrov, Mam-
pre, and Zazar; a great historian, Eghishe (Elisaeus),
author of the Life of Vartan ; and a great philosopher,
Yeznic. These are only a few out of scores worthy
of mention.
Dr. Philip Schaff says : — " In spite of the unfa-
vorable state of political and social affairs in Armenia
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 97
during this epoch, more than six hundred Greek and
Syrian works were translated within the first forty
years after the translation of the Bible; and as in
many cases the original works have perished, while
the translations have been preserved, the great im-
portance of this whole literary activity is apparent.
Among works which in this way have come down
to us are several books by Philo-Alexandrinus, on
Providence, on reason, commentaries, etc. ; the Chron-
icle of Eusebius, nearly complete ; the epistles of Igna-
tius, translated from a Syrian version; fifteen Homilies
by Severianus; the exegetical writings of Ephraim
Syrus, previously completely unknown, on the his-
torical books of the Old Testament, the synoptical gos-
pels, the parables of Jesus, and the fourteen Pauline
epistles; the Hexahemeron of Basil the Great; the Cat-
echesis of Cyril of Jerusalem; several homilies by
Chrysostom, etc. The period, however, was not char-
acterized by translations only. Several of the dis-
ciples of Mesrob and Sahak left original works. Es-
nik wrote four books against heretics, printed at
Venice in 1826, and translated into French by Le
Vailliant de Florival, Paris, 1853. A biography of
Mesrob by Koriun, homilies by Mambres, and various
writings by the Philosopher David, have been pub-
lished ; and the works of Moses Chorenensis, published
in Venice in 1842, and again in 1864, have acquired a
wide celebrity ; his history of Armenia has been trans-
lated into Latin, French, Italian, and Russian."
Sixth Century.
The leading authors in this century are Abraham
Mamigonian, who wrote on the Council of Ephesus;
and Bedross Sounian, who wrote on the Life of Christ.
There are, however, many others of merit.
98 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Seventh Century.
By far the greatest name in this century, and in-
deed the best-known and most important name in Ar-
menian literature altogether, is the writer who calls
himself Movses Khorentzi, well known to all his-
torical scholars as Moses of Chorene, author of the
History of Armenia. For more than a thousand
years, up to this century, indeed, this was practically
the only source of Armenian history to the world; the
other writers were inaccessible. And it is still very
valuable, though not in just the way it was once
thought to be. It preserves a vast amount of Ar-
menian tradition, stories and ballads, and real history,
which have perished except for this work; but he
seems not to have had the Greek and Latin histories
to draw from, and makes a great many mistakes. He
gives a life of himself, and says he is writing in the
fifth century, and knew Sahag and Mesrob when he
was young; but he really lived in the seventh, and
wrote history about the year 640. But still he is a
great writer, and one of Armenia's literary lights; and
we do not need to claim for him anything more than
he deserves.
Besides Movses, the chief authors were Gomidas,
Yezr, Matossagha, Krikoradour, Hovhannes, Yertanes,
and Anania. They wrote chiefly religious books;
but Anania Shiragatzi is the author of a valuable work
on astronomy.
Eighth Century.
The leading authors were: Hovhan Imassdasser,
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 99
Sdepannoss Sounetzi, and Levont Yeretz. They wrote
hymns, books on oratory, etc.
Ninth Century.
Zakaria Shabooh, Toonia, Kourken, etc.
Tenth Century.
The chief authors were Anania, Khasrov, and
Krikor ^aregatzi. The latter wrote a prayer book
in ninety-five chapters, which one of the missionaries
of the American Board thinks the best in the world.
He says that only Beecher was able to offer such
prayers as Krikor Naregatzi.
Eleventh Century.
The leading writers were Hovhannes, Krikor, and
Aristagues. In this century some of the best com-
mentaries were written on the Bible.
Twelfth Century.
Leading authors: Verses Shinorhali is the fore-
most of Armenian poets, and a thoroughly con-
verted and consecrated man of God. His hymns
were intensely spiritual, and the Armenians still chant
them in their churches. They are worthy to be trans-
lated into English. Nerses Lampronatzi, the greatest
scholar ever born in Armenia, was a distinguished
commentator on the Old Testament, and wrote many
other books. Another is Yeremia.
Again T quote from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclo-
paedia: — "Another flourishing period falls in the
twelfth century, during the Rubenian dynasty. IN'er-
100 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ses Klagensis and Nerses Lambronensis belong to this
period; also Ignatius, whose commentary to the Gos-
pel of St. Luke appeared in Constantinople in 1735
and 1824; Sargis Shnorhali, whose commentary on
the Catholic Epistles was published in Constantinople
in 1743, and again in 1826; Matthew of Edessa, whose
history, comprising the period from 952 to 1132, and
continued by Gregory the Priest to 1163, contains
many interesting notices concerning the Crusaders;
Samuel Aniensis, the chronologist; Michael Syrus,
whose history has been edited with a French transla-
tion by V. Langlois, Paris, 1864; Mekhitar Kosh, of
whom a hundred and ninety fables appeared at Venice,
1780 and 1812. A most powerful impulse the Ar-
menian literature received in the eighteenth century
by the foundation of the Mekhitarist monastery in
Venice, from whose press the treasures of the Ar-
menian literature were spread over Europe, and new
works, explaining and completing the old, were added.
The Armenian liturgy was published in 1826, the
breviary in 1845, the ritual in 1831."
Thikteenth Century.
Leading authors : — Krikor Sguevratzi, Kevork
Sguevratzi, Mukhitar Anetzi, Vanagan Vartabed, Var-
tan Vartabed, etc. They wrote histories, commen-
taries, etc. As the Armenian dynasties ended in the
fourteenth century, I will reserve my notes on the later
literature till towards the end of the book.
The peculiar value of the Armenian literature is
not realized as it should be, by European and Ameri-
can scholars; the language is well worth learning for
what it can give the student. IN'ot alone is the original
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 101
work that conies from the first Ohvi^tma Kation sp^
cially valuable for its bearing oii primitive Chris-
tianity, but the Armenian scholah^ translated; ^vMi
numbers of works from other languages, and these
translations are preserved in Armenian monaste-
ries when the originals have been irretrievably lost
in the wars, and burnings, and devastations of other
countries. Six hundred volumes of this old literature
are known to exist now, two hundred in Europe, and
four hundred in different places in Armenia.
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH.
The first thing to remember about this is, that it
is an independent and separate body as much as the
Greek or the Roman Catholic church, and older than
either of them. I often hear such expressions as
" the Armenian Catholic Church," and many people
think it simply a " branch " of the great Eastern or
Greek Church. It would be just as sensible to con-
sider the Greek a branch of the Armenian Church.
Each of them represents a form of church organization
and body of doctrine which best satisfied the repre-
sentatives of certain races or nations ; the advantage of
the Greek was that that race — or at least its speech
and thought — happened to be dominant in the Ro-
man Empire at the time when Christianity won the
battle, and so had the official backing of the em-
pire, and was able to outgrow and crush down the
others. It was not any truer, any more the real
Church of Christ, than the Syrian or African or Ar-
102 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
menian; It was next the earliest, for the very first
Christiaji .Qhurches sprang from the Jews; it was not
even the eaaiiest/gTGai: national church body, for the
Armenian church has that distinction. It had the
most soldiers back of it to put down its opponents, that
is all. I have already told the story of the foundation
of the Armenian church by St. Gregory and Tiridates.
That church has its own head — the Catholicos or Pon-
tiff, who is no more a subordinate of either the Pope
or the Greek Patriarch than the Grand Llama is, or
Dr. Parkhurst — and its own self-subsistent being.
- -As to the differences between them, in the first
place the Armenian is a purely Trinitarian. There
is no room for Unitarianism within its lines. When
Gregory the Illuminator was preaching his sermons
on the hills and plains of Armenia, he laid the founda-
tion of the national church in the Trinity. His first
sermon was on the Trinity ; his last sermon was on the
Trinity. In all his sermons he asserted the Trinity,
— the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Jesus
Christ being a perfect Man and a perfect God; in his
person we see God in man and man in God; a perfect
Emmanuel, God with us. We see in him that man can
be united with God. The only possible way of salva-
tion is through Jesus Christ. He is the Saviour of
the world and none else, and whosoever believeth in
Him shall be saved. This is the belief and the only be-
lief of the Armenian Church. Its members repeat
the Apostolic Creed and the Lord's Prayer every day
in their churches. I say every day because Armen-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 103
ians go to church every day, — twice, morning and
evening, and three times on Sunday.
Secondly, the Armenian has never been a per-
secuting church, and every other one of the great
Christian churches has been. The Armenian church,
as befits the first and most Christ-like of all the bodies
that professed Christ before Luther's time, has always
been the broadest, the most inclusive, the most un-
technical of churches. It fellowships with all other
churches. It demands only that men shall profess
and believe in Christ, and live Christian lives ; not that
one shall belong to its own church body. Its canons
are conversion and regeneration, purity, holiness, being
bom again from the Holy Spirit and becoming Christ-
like. It holds that Christianity is brotherhood
through Jesus Christ, and gives no warrant for op-
pression or persecution, curses or anathemas. I need
hardly say that it is alone in this of the older churches.
The others hold that no one can be saved outside of
their own bodies; hence they fulminate anathemas
against all others, and have the anathemas read in
their churches, and they persecute others to compel
them to join themselves, or rid the world of a possible
danger that their own members may be tolled outside.
The Greek Church, where it has full power, will not
even allow people of other creeds to come into its coun-
try ; for example, in Croatia a Protestant is not allowed
to live there at all, and the people said in the Hungar-
ian Diet that " intolerance was the most precious of
their rights." The Russian Greek Church will not
104 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
permit a Protestant missionary in Kussia. Where the
Koman Catholic power is complete, it is just as intoler-
ant. The Armenian church has been repeatedly per-
secuted by both, and has always protested against the
principle of it, as well as against the pretensions of
the Popes to universal sway. It is fairly entitled to be
called the first Protestant Church.
That the Armenian contention is for freedom of
will, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship, and
political freedom, is the cause of their being hated
both by the Mohammedans and by their so-called Chris-
tian neighbors; but it ought to be also a reason why
Americans, who believe in these things themselves,
should sympathize with us. If the Armenians would
accept Mohammedanism, would the Turks persecute
them ? Xo. If they would accept Koman Catholic-
ism would the Turks persecute them ? No, for the
Catholic states would not permit it. If they would
accept the Greek Church, would the Turks persecute
them ? No, for Eussia would not permit it. But j,s
they are an independent church the others are in-
terested in persecuting them, and nobody is interested
in defending them. If there is any help to come to
them it will not be from the old churches of Europe,
but from Protestant Anglo-Saxons helping their spirit-
ual brethren, the Anglo-Saxons of the East; and it
will be found, when the great battle comes, that the
Slavonic, Greek, and Catholic churches will be on the
side of the Mohammedans against the Armenian Chris-
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 105
tiaiis. But that battle will come, and the victory will
be on the side of freedom and righteousness.
As to theological questions, the Armenian Church )
fathers did not pay much attention to them. Not be-
cause they were not able, but because they were too
able, and very far-sighted. They knew well that such
questions can never be solved, no matter how many
centuries pass away, no matter how great scholars
the world produces; therefore they would not enter
into the debate. And so every Armenian scholar has
his own theology. I confess that the Armenian
Church has not a theology, or an especial official doc-
trine; and this is a very fortunate thing for the Ar-
menians. They care more for righteousness of life
than for particular beliefs about the way of getting
it. When there was a great controversy in the Coun-
cil of Chalcedon, 451 A. D., about the nature of Christ,
Armenians did not care about it. Some of the great
theologians said Christ had two natures; some said he
had only one nature; the Armenian bishops would
not give any opinion. They believe in Christ as their
Saviour, that is the essential thing; but whether He
has two natures or one nature is not essential. Then
came the controversy about the Holy Spirit. Whence
does the Holy Spirit proceed ? Some say from the
Father and the Son, some simply from the Father.
When the question came before the Armenian bishops
they replied that they did not care whence He pro-
ceeds. They know that they need the Holy Spirit
for guidance in spiritual life, for regeneration; they
106 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
know that the Holy Spirit is one of the persons in the
Trinity; and that is enough for them.
No\v I would ask, do the theologians of the nine-
teenth century agree on such questions, or any other
theological question ? x\re the theologians of the
coming centuries going to agree on them ? I leave
this to the scholars of Europe and America. I sim-
ply state that I studied in three different theological
seminaries in America; first in Oberlin, in 1880; sec-
ond in Union Theological Seminary, New York, in
1881; and finally I was graduated from the Chicago
Theological Seminary. But I never saw a theologian
who could agree with any other, and have no hope
ever to see any such. President Fairchild of Oberlin
differed from Professor Shedd of New York, and Pro-
fessor Boardman of Chicago did not agree with either
of them; and I never agreed with any of them, and as
an Armenian I have my own theology. So every
reader of this book will see that the Armenian scholars
had the best judgment, far-sightedness, and common
sense of those in any or all the communions. In-
stead of theological controversies, they preached the
gospel and reached the masses, for the Kingdom of
Christ.
THE ARMENIAN CLERGY.
The Armenian clergy are divided into three
classes: the pastor, the preacher, and the presiding
bishop. The pastor is called Yeretz, the preacher is
called Yartabed, and the presiding bishop is called
Yebisgobos (Episcopus). The presiding bishop or-
- THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 107
(lains the preacher and the teacher. The Armenians
believe in apostolic succession, and they believe in
immersion. Baptism can be administered both to
grown people and to children, if they are the children
of members of the church ; but always by immersion,
and in the name of the Father, the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. If you unite the present Episcopal
church with the Baptist, you will make an Armenian
church. All the clergy of the Armenian church,
bishops, preachers, and teachers, were married in
the early centuries. Gregory the Illuminator, the
first bishop of Armenia, was married. His sons were
bishops, and were married. There was no church law
whatever against marriage of the clergy. At present
the bishop and the preacher, or the Yebisgobos and the
Vartabed, cannot marry, but the pastor or Yeretz
must be married. Xo Armenian pastor can be or-
dained if he is not married.
Of course I am not writing here an Armenian
church history; the main object in writing this book
is to inform the American public about the causes of
the atrocities, and the atrocities themselves. There-
fore I consider the above information about the Ar-
menian church enough; but I will add that the Ar-
menian church until the twelfth century was as sim-
ple in ceremonial as any American Protestant church
is to-day. But when their kingdom was coming to an
end, and they were in a life-and-death struggle with
the Mohammedan powers, Popes Innocent, Benedict,
and others promised to help them if they would ac-
108 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
cept some of the Roman doctrines and ritual; and
since that time — the twelfth century — there has
been more or less similarity in the ceremonial of the
two churches. But Armenians have never believed in
the Pope, and now they are getting rid of the Roman
ritual also, as it is foreign to them.
Before I finish this subject, I must give a little
information about the Armenian Patriarch in Con-
stantinople, and the Armenian Catholicos of Etch-
miazin. There are many people in this country who
do not know the difference between the Patriarch and
the Catholicos. The difference between them is as fol-
lows: The Patriarch at Constantinople has nothing
to do with religion, though he is a bishop. As a per-
sonal bishop, he goes to the church, and occasionally
preaches and leads the pastors, but his duty is political.
He is the political head of the Armenians in Con-
stantinople, and responsible to the Sultan for the Ar-
menian nation who live in Turkey. The Armenians
are not anxious to have such a political head ; it is sim-
ply the wish of the Sultan, or it has been the wishes of
the Sultans in centuries gone by. The present Patri-
arch, Right Rev. Bishop Izmirlian, is a very learned,
experienced, and eloquent bishop. He is very popu-
lar; the whole Armenian nation love and esteem him;
but the Sultan hates him, because lie is brave, honest,
and true. The Sultan ordered him to send out false
reports, alleging that the Armenians were not being
massacred, but were safe and prospering under Abdul
Hamid's reign ; but the Patriarch refused to issue any
\
1
THE ARMENIAN PATRIARCH.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 109
such documents while in fact the Armenians were
being phmdered, tortured, outraged, and killed. The
Patriarch's life is consequently in great danger, but the
Patriarch says that if it is necessary to sacrifice his life
for his beloved nation, he is ready to die.
<^ The Armenian Catholicos is the spiritual head of
the Armenian church; he has nothing to do with
politics. He is considered to be fallible, and he is
elected both by bishops and laymen; and if the na-
tion is not satisfied with him, they may remove him
and elect another. He is a presiding bishop. He
lives at Etchmiazin (the former Vagharshabad) north
of Mt. Ararat in Russia; it has been the seat of the
Pontiff since the time of St. Gregory. The present
Catholicos is Rt. Rev. Bishop Mugurditch Kirimian.
He is very much esteemed and loved by the Armenians
throughout the world. Before he became Catholicos,
he was Patriarch in Constantinople, and was the most
popular and the ablest of Patriarchs, but the present
Sultan of course hated him, and according to stories
I heard from good authority, when I was in Constan-
tinople, tried repeatedly to kill him. One day he
was summoned to the palace to see the Sultan ; but on
arriving there, was instead locked into a room w^ith a
brazier of burning charcoal, and left to die. Before
it was too late, however, the Russian Ambassador,
being informed of the attempt, saved his life. Fail-
ing to get rid of him that way, the Sultan banished
him to Jerusalem, but sent false reports to the news-
papers, that he thought highly of the Patriarch, and
110 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
had given him money to go to Jerusalem that he
might improve his health and enjoy himself. The
Sultan lives and breathes falsehood.
While in Jerusalem, Kirimian was shadowed by
the Sultan's detectives; but about three years ago he
was elected Catholicos by the Armenians, and the Rus-
sian Czar (not the present one, but his father, Alex-
ander), sanctioned his election. The Armenians are
proud of him, for he is worthy of his office. He is a
great scholar, and the author of several books which
are worthy of translation into English. His book
Traghti Endanik (the family of Paradise), is the best
book I ever saw or read in any language on family
life. In it he describes the first holy family, which
was created in the Garden of Eden, in Armenia, and
then goes on to describe a holy family, the ideal fam-
ily, a true home. It is full of the Holy Spirit. Cath-
olicos Kirimian was married and had a family, and
really his family was a holy family and he had an
ideal home, — therefore Armenians call him Kirimian
Hayrig or "father,'' and he is worthy of the title;
but his ^vife died. He is also a great ora-
tor, preaching fiery gospel sermons as our great-
est revivalists preach them. He loved the Am-
erican missionaries in Constantinople, and they
returned the feeling. Kirimian was born in Van
April 16, 1820; therefore he is now T6 years old, but
full of life and vigor. I hope he will live longer, to
see his beloved nation and country saved from the
oppressions of the cruel Turkish Sultan. I could
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. HI
write a book on the life of Kirimian and his great
deeds in Armenia, for the Armenians ; how he opened
schools and established printing presses; how he went
to the Congress in Berlin and championed the Armen-
ian cause; and all his noble works. But this is not
the place.
THE PAKRADOONIAN DYNASTY.
For a century after the Mohammedan conquest
of Persia, the fortunes of Armenia were apparently at
their lowest ebb, and as a country it almost disappears
from history; but by one of the compensations of na-
ture, which provides that human force, like other
force, cannot be extinguished, but if suppressed will
find an outlet elsew^here, its people began a career of
brilliancy and power unequaled in its history, and
broadened from the rule of a tormented buffer-state
to that of the great Byzantine Empire itself. The
Saracen torrent flowed over Armenia's lowlands and
up to the base of its mountain fortresses, but never
overcame them; generation after generation the con-
tending forces battled together, surging back and forth,
and filling the beautiful valleys with fire and blood,
but Armenia proper was never added to the list of
Saracen conquests, never made a part of the Moham-
medan Empire or strengthened Mohammedanism
till four centuries later through Byzantine' greed and
folly. Internally it was all in feudal anarchy again
so far, as concerned any one central focus of gov-
ernment. Even the Persian satraps had gone from
the Persian side, and with them the half-control they
112 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
had kept over the turbulent baronage; on the Roman
side from early in the seventh century to early in the
eighth, the throne of Constantinople was filled with
weak and unstable monarchs, fighting for Anatolia
against the Saracens, and unable to exercise any ef-
fective control over Armenia, to which indeed they
looked as a frontier defense against those very foes.
But let us not attach too harsh a meaning to ^' an-
archy." There were a hundred rulers, it is true, great
dukes and barons, each supreme in his own district;
but because they held power by the sword against a
savage enemy, their subjects had to be a strong, inde-
pendent race, with arms in their hands, which they
would use against their chiefs as well as the foreign-
ers if there was great oppression. In this fiery school,
Armenia learned the sternest lessons of self-help and
discipline. With no interference from outsiders to
fear, and no help from them to be got, it became even
more confirmed in its own independent isolated ways,
a world to itself as it has been ever since. Its culti-
^ators tilled their fields as they had done for so many
centuries, and its scholars read such books as they
had, and wrote such as their own minds furnished.
'But vast numbers of its hardy sons took service in
the Greek armies, and became the bone and sinew of
the defense of Asia Minor against the caliphs ; not only
so, but they rose by hundreds to the highest commands
in the empire, both civil and military. They formed
the best " society " in Constantinople itself; and to
crown all, a score of emperors and empresses in four
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 113
different lines, including the most illustrious ones that
ever sat on the throne from Constantine down, and
who ruled the empire for two hundred and seventy-
seven years, were Armenians.
It is within the truth, and can be justified from the
greatest of English historians, to say that for four
centuries the Byzantine Empire was not a Greek but
an Armenian empire. Armenians by blood filled all
the great offices of state, commanded the armies, occu-
pied the throne for nearly three hundred years, pre-
served the empire from external invasion and internal
disintegration. It was the accession of an Armenian
dynasty that turned it from a decaying power to one
that expanded steadily for two centuries, from one
falling into anarchy to one the glory of the world for
scientific organizations; and it was the final overthrow
of Armenian influence that ruined the empire, being
followed almost at once by the loss of half its territory
and the richest part, and the break-up of its system of
civil administration. Everywhere in the time of
Byzantine glory you find the list full of Armenian
names. The appearance of " Bardas " as the name of
generals or civil magnates is always proof of Ar-
menian blood, and that name is monotonously com-
mon; it is the Greek form of " Vartan,*^ though now
and then they make it " Bardanes.'' One of the
greatest conquerors in Byzantine history, John Kur-
kuas, was an Armenian, from a family which sup-
plied three generations of statesmen and generals, and
two great emperors. And this is part of what the
8
114 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
immortal historian of " Greece Under Foreign Dom-
ination/' George Finlay, has to say: —
" At the accession of Leo III (717), the Hellenic
race occupied a very subordinate position in the em-
pire. The predominant influence in the political ad-
ministration ^yas in the hands of Asiatics, and par-
ticularly of Armenians, who filled the highest mili-
tary commands. Of the numerous rebels who as-
sumed the title of emperor, the greater part were Ar-
menians. Artabasdos, who rebelled against his broth-
er, Constantine V, was an Armenian. Alexios Mou-
sel, strangled by order of Constantine VI, in the
year 790; Bardan called the Turk, who rebelled
against Mcephorus I; Arsaber [Arshavir] the
father-in-law of Leo V, convicted of treason in
808; and Thomas, who revolted against Mich-
ael II, were all Asiatics, and most of them Ar-
menians. Many of the Armenians in the Byzan-
tine Empire belonged to the oldest and most illustrious
families in the Christian world; and their connection
mth the remains of Roman society at Constantinople,
in which the pride of birth was cherished, was a proof
that Asiatic influence had eclipsed Roman and Greek
in the government of the empire. An amazing in-
stance of the influence of Asiatic prejudices at Con-
stantinople will appear in the eagerness displayed by
Basil I, a Sclavonian groom from Macedonia, to claim
descent from the Armenian royal family." (But I
shall show that he was an Armenian.)
Let us note the Armenian sovereigns of the
Byzantine Empire. First the great Iconoclast house,
of Leo the so-called Isaurian, the saviour and restorer
of the empire, which reigned from 716 to 797. Leo
considered himself an Armenian, and he ought to have
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 115
known best, and he married his daughter to an Ar-
menian, lie saved Constantinople from capture by
the Saracens, causing the destruction of the linest
Mohammedan army ever got together; of its 180,000
men only 30,000 got back home, according to the
Mohammedan historians. Twenty-two years later
another great Moslem army was annihilated by Leo,
and for two centuries the Saracens scarcely troubled
the empire again. But not only so, he remodeled the
whole administration so effectively that no serious
break-down occurred for three centuries, and he put
new life into the whole society, so that it began to
outgrow its enemies, as well as outfight them. After
his able dynasty ended, another Armenian, Leo Y,
reigned seven and a half years, from 813 to 820.
About half a century later began the Basilian dy-
nasty, under which the laws were codified, and Bul-
garia destroyed. Basil was born in Macedonia, but
the name of his brother, Symbatios, Armenian Simpad,
shows that he was of an Armenian family, the col-
onies of Armenians having spread all over the civilized
world. His line reigned without a break from 867
to 963, when the beautiful widows Theophano was
pushed aside for sixteen years by another Armenian
house, !N^ikephoros Phokas and his nephew John Zim-
iskes, two of the ablest generals and statesmen ever on
the throne, descendants of a brother of the great com-
mander, John Kurkuas, before spoken of; then Theo-
phano's son, Basil II — Boulgaroktonos, the Bulga-
rian slayer, and the ultimate destroyer of Armenia as
116 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
well — took the throne, 979, and the dynasty con-
tinued till 1057, when it had run to dregs, and had
just before finally ruined Armenia, and by so doing
ruined the empire.
To go back to Armenia itself. The reason a feu-
dal anarchy always ends in a military monarchy, no
matter how able or self-willed every one of the sepa-
rate chiefs may be, is that this very class most in-
terested in perpetuating it grow weary of it. The
stronger barons oppress and plunder the weaker, who
are always superior in numbers, and in united strength
if they will act together. A small lord may like to
be free from control by the king's officers as well as
a great one ; but if he can only have that privilege by
letting his overbearing neighbor be free from it too,
and rob him, he finds it does not pay, and sighs for a
law that will control everyone alike, and a strong ruler
to enforce it. So if a chief in such a community comes
to be known as having a hard hand and letting no one
be above the law but himself, the small landholders
flock under his banner; he grows into a prince, and
eventually some prince of such a family will make
himself king, with the goodwill and help of all but a
few great houses, who feel able to take care of them-
selves and desirous of taking care of others.
This happened in Armenia. In 743, a century
after the battle of l^ehavend and four years after Leo's
crushing defeat of the second great Saracen army, we
find that a chief named A shod, of the family of Pak-
rad or Bagrat, claiming descent from the ancient Jews
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 117
(see the Haigian dynasty in this book), had man-
aged to win control over central and northern Ar-
menia; how long it had been exercised, or what it
grew from, no one knows. Ashod I is the first known
founder of the Pakradoonian dynasty, though it is
counted as beginning from the recognition of its in-
dependence by the caliphs over a century later. He
recovered some parts of Armenia proper, and fought
hard for Lesser Armenia. The family had vigorous
blood in it, and somewhere in the ninth century — 885
is the date fixed — it was recognized by the caliphs as
an independent house of kings, and Armenia as a king-
dom. But it had really been so for over a hundred
years before.
Ashod II, " the Iron," gained his title from his
stern military power; he beat back the Arabs and gave
the land peace for a considerable time. He left no
son, and his Jbrother Appas succeeded him; another
brave and wise ruler, who brought back the Armen-
ian captives held in bondage by the Saracens. He
made the city of Kars his capital. It is now owned by
Russia, having been captured by her forces in the
Russo-Turkish war of 1878. He greatly improved
the city, and built a beautiful cathedral there. After
a reign of twenty-four years he died in peace, and his
son succeeded him as Ashod III.
This was the glory of the line in prowess and gen-
erosity; he reminds one of Alfred the Great, in Eng-
land. He was the terror of In's country's enemies;
not one of them — Arab, Oroek, or Persian — dared
118 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
to invade Armenia, and they sent presents to conciliate
his friendship. It was under him that the country be-
came formally independent again. He filled it with
fortified places. He gave all his personal income in
charity, and established almshouses and state chari-
ties. He was so benevolent and so interested in the
destitute that he was called The Merciful. He ruled
over Armenia twenty-six years, and was succeeded by
his son Simpad. This was neither a good man nor
good ruler; corrupt, cruel, and ambitious only for
selfish purposes. He made the city of Ani, on the
north side of Mt. Ararat, the royal capital, built strong
walls and lofty towers around it, and is said to have
erected 1001 churches in it — which he might do, and
still be a bad man. The extent of its still existing
ruins of palaces, churches, towers, and castles testifies
that it was one of the great cities of the world, like
Babylon and Antioch.
For more than a century Armenia flourished and
grew rich; then it disappeared once more under the
hammer and anvil of Byzantine and Saracen, aided by
internal disruption — the traitorousness of its great
nobles, who hated the kings for controlling their law-
lessness. Let us take in just its situation. It included
the heart of the Armenian highlands; but it had not
the extent of old Armenia, several Armenian districts
being independent of it, and either free or tributary to
the Byzantine Empire. Ani was its seat; but the dis-
trict around Kars, fifty miles northwest, had split off
into a separate principality, the boundary between the
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 119
two being the Aras; on the east was Vaspourakan,
another princedom; on the west Sebaste, anotlier; on
the north Iberia, and Abkhasia or Abasgia or Albania,
the reahns of the Georgians; and one or two others not
quite certain, — but all these ruled by Armenian
princes, mostly of the Pakradoonian house. Though
Armenia was in fragments, therefore, the pieces
formed a sort of family confederacy, and often acted
together, as they did to their eventual ruin. Their
folly paved the way for the destruction of Armenian
national existence, and the worse folly of a Byzan-
tine emperor accomplished it. About 1020 the Sel-
juk Turks were pressing so hard on Vaspourakan that
the prince, Sennacherib, was unable to hold out, and
ceded his dominion to Basil II of Constantinople in
return for the sovereignty of Sebaste, which he agreed
to hold as a Byzantine governor; great numbers of
his subjects went with him. Something about this
transaction roused the Armenian national feeling to
resentment; for John Simpad, king of Armenia
(known at this time as the Kingdom of Ani, from its
capital), joined with George the Pakradoonian kinj]j
of Iberia, to promise help to a couple of discontented
generals, one at least an Armenian, who were to raise
the standard of revolt in Cappadocia and call on all
Armenians to rise. It was to have been a general re-
volt of all eastern Asia Minor. But the mighty Basil,
conqueror of Bulgaria, and nearing the end of his half-
century's reign, first crushed the rebellion by buying
up one of the generals and getting him to assassinate
120 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the other (the Armenian), and then crushed the league
of Bagratian kings. The king of Armenia, as the
price of retaining his throne, was compelled to sign a
treaty ceding the kingdom to the Byzantine Empire
after his death.
John Simpad was succeeded by his nephew Kakig,
an able ruler and good general. But in 1042 there was
placed on the Byzantine throne the fourth husband
of the despicable old female (Zoe), whose male crea-
tures, married or not married to her, misgoverned
the empire for nearly thirty years. The reign of Con-
stantine Monomachos stands out black in the history
of the world; it not only destroyed Armenia, but it
fatally wounded the Greek Empire; it gave Asia
Minor to the Turks; it was the first great step towards
subjecting Eastern Christianity to the Mohammedans;
it began the Eastern Question. The sack of Constan-
tinople by the Turks, four centuries later, was directly
due to it. Almost never has sheer contemptible neg-
ative good-for-nothingness produced such awful re-
sults. He was a worthless man and an utterly incap-
able statesman; a libertine without decency, a spend-
thrift without generosity or taste, a ruler without sense
of responsibility. Having spent on debauchery or his
favorites, or diversions, or palaces in Constantinople,
or other selfish, short-sighted gratifications, or on the
church to win its indulgence for them, all the money
he could wring from his subjects without risking his
throne, he bethought himself of another resource.
The provinces on the frontiers of Iberia, Armenia,
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 121
and Syria, were exempted from taxation, and the small
dependent states in that region from tribute, in con-
sideratioD of maintaining bodies of militia to defend
their territories, and save the central government from
keeping regular troops there. The emperor ordered
the militia disbanded, and the taxes and tribute col-
lected and remitted to Constantinople as from other
places. This monstrous piece of imbecility laid the
southeastern frontier open to the Turks at once; and
the money was quickly wasted in the emperor's pleas-
ures. But even this was not enough, and he cast his
eyes on Armenia as a rich country to squeeze taxes
out of, and sent word to Kakig to fulfill his uncle's will,
and yield up his kingdom. Kakig refused. Con-
stantino formed an alliance with the Saracen emir of
Tovin (on the east flank of Armenia), and sent an
army to attack Ani; and a number of the great Ar-
menian nobles turned traitors and joined the Byzan-
tine forces. Kakig could not make head against the
three allies with the slender forces left him ; and choos-
ing to yield to Christians rather than Saracens, though
Constantino evidently had no such scruples, surren-
dered Ani to the imperial forces (1045), and went to
Constantinople to plead his cause with the emperor.
Constantino would not yield, and Kakig resigned his
kingship for a magistracy, and large estates in Cappa-
docia. The emperor forced the Catholicos to leave
Ani and live at Arzen, then at Constantinople; finally
the Comnenian house allowed him to settle in Sebaste
among his people. The princedom of Kars alone
/
122 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
preserved its independence against both. Christians
and Saracens, and thus the Armenian life still beat;
but as a kingdom, Armenia perished and the Pakra-
doonian dynasty with it when Ani surrendered.
This piece of wanton foolishness and criminality
had its immediate reward; it laid all Asia Minor open
to the Turks — for the Armenians after they had lost
their independence would not fight for their oppress-
ors as they had fought for themselves; and the Turks
were ready. Three years before the capture of Ani,
a Turkish chief, cousin of Togrul Beg, flying after
a defeat, had asked the Byzantine governor of Yas-
pourakan to let him pass through that district; on
being refused, he attacked the imperial troops, routed
them, captured the governor, and on reaching Turkish
ground sold him as a slave, and urged Togrul to in-
vade the Byzantine territories, as they were of match-
less fertility and wealth, and the troops not formid-
able. Togrul sent his nephew Ibrahim to do so in
_1048;, the timid Byzantine commanders, after defeat-
ing a detachment of his troops, waited for reinforce-
ments before encountering the main body, and Ibra-
him, finding the movable wealth mostly stored up in
fortresses, assailed the rich, unfortified city of Arzen,
with 300,000 people, who had neglected to transfer'
their possessions to Theodosiopolis, the nearest fortress.
It was one of the chief seats of Asiatic commerce, full
of the warehouses of Armenian and Syrian merchants.
They defended themselves for six days with such des-
peration that Ibrahim, giving up the hope of plunder,
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 123
and wishing at once to secure bis rear from attack
while retreating, and to injure Byzantine resources,
set fire to the city, and reduced it to ashes. Few such
conflagrations have ever been witnessed on earth ; per-
haps Moscow and Chicago are the only things com-
parable. It is said that 140,000 persons perished in
the fire and in the massacre by the Turks that fol-
lowed, and the prisoners taken were such a multi-
tude that the slave markets of Asia were filled with
ladies and children from Arzen. This was the first of
the many such calamities that have dispersed the Ar-
menians all over the world, like the Jews, have re-
duced one of the richest and most populous countries
on the earth to a poor and thinly populated one, and
turned Asia Minor practically into a desert. The next
year Kars was overrun; but in 1050 an attack on
Manzikert failed, and after an unsuccessful invasion
again in 1052, the Turks retired for a VA^hile, but only
for a more terrible onslaught.
Before going on to the next dynasty, I will finish
the story of Kakig. In his Cappadocian magistracy
he was still called King Kakig and honored as a king.
One day he heard that a Greek bishop had called his
dog " Armen " to insult the Armenians, and went to
his house to make sure, and to exact vengeance if it
were true. They drank heavily together, and Kakig
ordered the bishop to call his dog; the bishop, too
drunk to know what he was about, called him " Here,
Armen.'' Kakig, in a rage, ordered his retainers
to put the bishop and his dog into a bag together,
124 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
and then beat tlie dog till he bit his master to death.
The church was too powerful for even a king to murder
a bishop with impunity, and Kakig was hanged on a
castle walh This gave rise to the Turkish proverb,
" Kart Giavour musliman almaz. Room Ermenie
dost almaz " (An infidel never becomes a Moslem, a
Greek never loves an Armenian). The Turks have
always acted on this, and used the Greeks against the
Armenians; but the old hate has died out now under
common oppression.
THE RUPENIAN DYNASTY.
The imbecile policy of the Byzantine Court con-
tinued after the suppression of the line of Pakrad, and
with even worse results. Having destroyed the in-
terest and even the right of Armenia to keep up an
army of her own, and confiscated her revenues ap-
plied to that purpose, the loss of defenders should have
been made good as far as possible, by keeping a large
regular army there in their place; but the same cor-
rupt and profligate court avarice which had caused
the one, prevented the other. Not only did Constan-
tine X (1059-67) actually reduce the number of his
army, leave it unprovided with arms and ammunition
and other supplies, let the frontier fortifications fall
out of repair, and leave the garrison unpaid, to save
money for his overgrown court of costly favorites
(the Byzantine court a little later cost $20,000,000 a
year by itself), and let the officers put civilians on the
rolls, and made artisans and shop-keepers of their
real soldiers to pocket fraudulent pay for themselves,
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 126
as the Persians do now, but he used to disband most of
his army after every campaign to save paying them,
letting them have free quarters on the citizens. The
Seljuks were prompt to take advantage of this. In
lOGO Togrul sacked Sebaste. In 1063 his greater
nephew Alp Arslan began a series of raids that soon
reduced Iberia and Northern Armenia almost to a
waste. The systematic policy of the Turks was to
make any country they invaded impossible of civilized
habitation again, by obliterating all the results and
" plant " of civilization which many ages of labor and
money had enriched it with. They deliberately cut
down all the vineyards, orchards, and olive groves,
wrecked the aqueducts, filled up the wells and cisterns,
broke up the bridges, and in short made the land (ex-
cept for a few fortresses) a mere desert pasture ground
to feed their cattle on. They were only nomad shep-
herds and cattle-men, despised cities as at best neces-
sary evils, and did not care for tilling the soil. What-
ever spot the Turk has set his foot on, he has blasted
like a breath from hell, turning to naught the laboi*s
of thousands of years at a blow ; and he has never put
anything of his own in place of what he has destroyed.
Where are the Turkish great cities developed by them,
the Turkish flourishing agricultural regions, the Turk-
ish manufactures, the Turkish literature or art ? At
most they have not quite been able to exterminate
others' progress, because they must perish themselves
in doing it.
The Armenian king of Iberia had to submit; the
126 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Annenian prince of Lorlii close by had to give his
daughter's hand to Alp Arslan; and at last the royal
city of Ani, though strongly situated on a rocky penin-
sula and protected on two sides by a rapid river and
a deep ravine, was left without help by the Byzan-
tines, and in spite of a heroic defense, was taken by
storm, June 6, 1064. This convinced the Armenian
prince of Kars (another Kakig), that he could not
hold out; he surrendered his province to the Byzan-
tine Empire for the appanage of the district of Amas-
sia. This removed the last Armenian prince from
the old seats of the race, which were now all occupied
by the Turks; and the Armenians emigrated in vast
numbers to the districts west and south (old Cappado-
cia and Cilicia), where their native princes were liv-
ing as great Byzantine dukes and governors. A num-
ber of semi-independent vassal principalities were soon
formed, making as before an Armenian wall between
the Turks and the empire ; but only part way, and far
weaker, having left its impregnable mountains,' and
being much poorer, and having lost heart. The upper
part, through Old Armenia, was left wholly open; and
the Seljuks poured into Asia Minor like a flood, ruin-
ing the country beyond reparation as they went.
Within a dozen years from the capture of Ani, the
Seljuk dominion reached to N^icaea, fifty miles from
Constantinople, and the seat of the first Christian
church council. Its lands could be seen from St. So-
phia; the Byzantine Empire retained only a strip of
Asia Minor along the sea-coast.
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 127
But the Armenian courage and national spirit,
and the political and military ability which had gov-
erned the Eastern Empire so many centuries, were not
extinct. The heart of the nation, forced out of its
immemorial lands, still beat strongly, and animated
their mass of dukedoms, now forming a compact body
in the center of Asia Minor, with a common life and
national instinct, which was soon to weld them into a
new Armenian kingdom, as true and real a one as the
old, Armenians under an Armenian prince, but in a
wholly different territory, south and southwest of the
former. Among the great barons of this district was
one Rupen (Reuben), a relative of the slain Kakig; it
is said that he saw him hanged. At any rate, no sooner
was the deed accomplished than he retired to the moun-
tains of N^ortheastem Cilicia, and raised the standard
of Armenian independence, with himself as king.
There was absolutely no reason why it should
not be gained; the Seljuk conquests had cut the
Armenian districts wholly off from the Greek
Empire, so that a Greek army could not come
upon them to punish them for revolt without
traversing at least a hundred miles of Turkish or
other Mohammedan territory. The Armenian set-
tlements were an island in a sea of Mohammedanism.
The new kingdom of Cilicia or Lesser Armenia grew
mth a rapidity that would seem miraculous, only it
was a mere coalescing of the fragments of Armenia
into their old unity; in no long time it had spread east
to the Euphrates, taking in Melitene (Malatia), and
128 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Samosata, north 'fully half way to the Black Sea, and
south to the Mediterranean, occupying the coast from
Tarsus almost to Antioch. This kingdom played a
part of the first importance in the history of Asia
Minor for close on three centuries; its territories
were gradually whittled away by Turks and Mongols,
but it kept the Eastern Mediterranean open for Chris-
tian action against the Mohammedans to the last. To
their shame, the Byzantine emperors were much more
hostile to it than to the Turks, with whom they often
allied themselves against it; for some years it was vas-
sal to the Byzantine Empire; later it was overwhelmed
by the Mameluke deluge from Egypt, and allied itself
with Jenghiz Khan's Mongol hordes against them;
but the Mongols passed and the Mamelukes remained,
and exacted a terrible vengeance, putting an end to
the kingdom with the usual horrors of Oriental con-
quest in 1375.
Rupen's son Constantine succeeded him. It was
by his help that the leaders of the first crusade captured
Antioch. Constantine was succeeded by his two sons,
Leo and Theodore jointly, but finally Leo reigned
alone; he was an able prince, fought the Saracens with
success, and much enlarged his kingdom, and at last
made a naval attack on Isaurian Seleucia, the frontier
fortress of the Byzantine Empire in this part, and an
important seaport. This brought " Handsome John,"
the ablest of the Comnenian line of Byzantine Em-
perors, into the field ; he stormed the Cilician seaports,
and then reduced the chief interior fortresses; Leo fled
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 129
to the Taurus Mountains, but was captured, and died
in captivity at Constantinople. His son Rupen had
his eyes put out on a charge of treason, and died of
it; but his other son, Toros, escaped, and after John's
death restored the Cilician kingdom, which had tem-
porarily been made vassal by John. Toros is the
glory of the whole llupenian line; he was of the first
rank, both as a general and a statesman. He scarcely
ever suffered a military reverse. He beat the Byzan-
tine armies in campaign after campaign, and the Sel-
juks as well; under him the new Armenia was almost
a match for all its enemies combined, and no one of
them dreamed of attacking it single-handed. Levon
was another able ruler, who maintained the power
and prosperity of the kingdom ; he was an ally of the
great Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the Third
Crusade, assisted him in capturing Iconium (1190),
and both Frederick and the Greek Emperor Alexius
III sent him crowns, — the second no great honor, as
Alexius was one of the most contemptible of human
beings. In Levon's time the capital of the kingdom
was Cis, where there is now a great Armenian mon-
astery with rare manuscripts, the residence of a Cath-
olicos. The changes in the extent of the kingdom
are very curious; perhaps most curious of all (since the
Armenians were always a race of inland and high-
land farmers, not seamen), the new kingdom was grad-
ually crowded down on the north and lost two-thirds
of its territory in that direction, but steadily extended
along the coast until it came to include not only all
130 ARIVIENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Cilicia but all of old Isauria clear to its western moun-
tain barrier; hundreds of miles of seaboard, from close
to Antioch on the one side, to far west of Cyprus on tbe
other, being indeed a strong maritime power. At the
end it had lost these western coast extensions, but still
had an area larger than that of the Crimea now, a very
considerable power to hold the northeast corner of the
Mediterranean.
It was during these times that the hard-pressed
Armenians received promises from the Popes to help
them against their enemies if they would use the
Roman ritual and ceremonial, and submit themselves
to the papacy. The country never did accept Ro-
manism, though some churches introduced the ritual
and images, and conformed to the Roman fashion;
and of course it never did get any help from the popes,
who had nothing to give but recommendations, which
the temporal powers paid no attention to.
Levon VI was the last of the line. He was a weak,
easy-going man, handsome and popular, but not of
much ability; perhaps he could not have saved his
country if he had been. I have told of the Mamelukes
and their invasion; they overran the country, and
treated the people as the Turks have done lately,
striking terror to them by terrific massacres, satiating
their lust on the women, and carrying off many thou-
sands of captives for wives or slaves. Levon was taken
captive also; after some years in Egypt, he was per-
mitted to go free, wandered through Europe for a
dozen years, and finally settled in Paris, where he died
^2
■^,
'^*tc-^
■-:■>■.
ft < « .
THE ARMENIAN DYNASTIES. 131
in 1393. He was buried by the high altar of the
Church of the Celestine; the following epitaph is on
his monument, which still exists to-day :
Here lies Levon VI, the noble Lousinian Prince,
the King of Armenia,
who died 1393, A.D., Nov. 23d, in Paris.
I have been dealing here with the special kingdom
of Armenia, under a regular king; but it must not
be forgotten that the older sections, ruled by Greek
or Turk, were Armenia still, inhabited largely by Ar-
menians, in spite of emigration and Turkish settle-
ment, and their fortunes really part of this history.
Under both Jenghiz Khan and his successors, and
Timour, every horror was let loose on the unhappy
lands. For nearly a century the first Tatar invasion
cursed and devasted it; hundreds of villages were
destroyed, the inhabitants slain or at the mercy of
the savages, and vast numbers emigrated in despair.
Among others, the cities of Ani and Erzeroum were
captured, and every inhabitant put to the sword, each
soldier being given his portion to kill, so that none
should escape. Timour compelled all whom he
spared to become Mohammedans. When he took the
city of Van, he threw the inhabitants from the castle
walls until the dead bodies reached to the height of
the walls. A great famine followed, and many thou-
sands died of it; the starving wretches sometimes ate
their children or parents to sustain life a little longer.
The reader will see later whether the modern Turks
have any superiority over the hordes of the thirteenth
or fifteenth century.
IV.
EULEKS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
SULTANS OF THE PAST.
The Ottoman Empire begins with Othman, born
1258 A.D. ; the dynasty is usually counted from the
tinie of his being given a local governorship by the last
of the Seljuk Sultans, in 1289. The tribe was simply
one small group of families when we first hear of it;
Othman's father Ertogrul entered the Seljuk dominion
not many years before that date with only four hun-
dred tents, say two thousand people in all, counting
women and children. They had been driven from
their homes in Central Asia by the Mongols. The
Seljuk Sultan Ala-ed-din III made Othman governor
of Karadja-hissar (Melangeia). ^N'ow Othman, though
a plundering marauder like other tribal chiefs, turbu-
lent and cruel, knew some things that better men
never find out. He knew that impartial justice is a
greater strength to a state and a greater lure to draw
others to it than anything else; he made the fair at
Karadja-hissar a model of business equity for all races
and religions, it was thronged with traders, and other
Turkish tribes soon flocked to the banner of the man
who never broke his promises and dealt out even-
handed justice. The lying Greeks never learned the
lesson in all their history. In a dozen years he was
(132)
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 138
able to collect an army of 5,000 soldiers, beat a Byzan-
tine force sent against him, overrun a large province
of Asia Minor, and with the plunder greatly increased
his following. He realized too that education and
thorough practical training and moral discipline were
the foundations of success; most of us know that now,
but few understood it then. But the wild and bar-
barous Turks could not be educated and disciplined
as he wished, — would not stand it and were incapable
of profiting by it, — and so he or his son Orkhan de-
veloped the terrible system which for centuries made
the " Turks " irresistible, which made the '' Turks "
seem to increase rapidly, and makes the " Turks " to-
day appear numerous while in fact not one drop in ten
of the blood in their veins is Turkish at all. This was
to exact from the Christian population — Greek or
Armenian chiefly — a regular tribute of boys as well
as money. These were taken from their parents at
about eight years old, educated and trained in the
household of the Ottoman Sultan himself, of course
drilled in the Mohammedan religion, and gradually
inducted into the highest posts, civil or military, if
fit for them, or made into a special body guard for the
Sultan. These were called " yeni cheri " (new
soldiers), which is familiar to everybody in the form
" Janissaries." From that day to this, the Turkish
system has been built up by foreign blood, and outside
of the Sultanate pretty much entirely by foreign
brains; it was the constant infusion of fresh civilized
Christian ability and moral character into it that kept
134 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
its inherent defects and vices from bringing it to an
end long ago. Finally the system partly rotted out
and partly became impossible to enforce for fear of
revolution (Sultan Mahmoud ended it in 1826); but
never outside of this has a tribe of barbarians ever
succeeded so completely in impressing into its own
service the powers of a higher race. It is as though
horses should have regularly broken and driven teams
of men for centuries ; even more usefully to the Turks,
because intermarriage (largely by force on their part)
has filled their own veins with civilized Armenian
and other blood. As soon as this reinforcement
stopped, the Turks began to decay.
I cannot enter even in outline into the political
history of the Armenians during the next few cen-
turies. The country has been torn into fragments,
and each fragment has a history so separate that there
would be no unity between them. One section of
what was once Armenia would be governed by Per-
sian officials; another occupied by the savage Kurds;
another mis-governed and oppressed by the Turks;
another under the rule of Russia; and so on. Persia,
when she recovered her national being, held and still
holds a small part of the eastern section, as I stated
earlier in the book, Russia the north; but the heart
of old Armenia is in Turkish hands. The Sultans
have succeeded in mixing themselves with the natives
and occupying their confiscated lands till the Armen-
ians are put in a minority in their own country.
I must correct here a notion fostered by historical
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 135
writers, that the Turks are very brave. They may
have been once, though I doubt it and there is no proof
of it; but they certainly have gotten over it now. In
the last Turko-Russian war (1878), they ran by thous-
ands to Christian houses for protection. They are
just like wild dogs: savage and ferocious, but not
brave. Nor are they wise: they have some low cun-
ning, but no practical sagacity — that too is a thing of
the past. As to industrial talents they have simply
none whatever; they depend on foreigners for every-
thing: they will not learn and indeed cannot learn, and
never try to learn. They have never made a cannon
or even a gun, they never built a war vessel and very
few if any other kinds, they make neither powder nor
shot; all come from Europe or America. Nor have
they even decent military talent, the very thing they
pretend is their special business: their best generals
are Germans, their admiral for a long time was the
Englishman Hobart, I think the Englishman Woods
is so now. As to civil ability, their best administrators
have always been Armenians. Bezjian Amira was
Sultan Mahmoud's adviser; Haroun Dadian, another
Armenian, is the chief adviser in foreign affairs of the
present Sultan. His personal treasurer is an Ar-
menian, Portucalian Pasha. Is this inconsistent with
what I have said of his hating the Armenians for their
intelligence ? Not in the least: he employs them in
spite of his hatred, because he can trust no others: the
Turks are too stupid and all others too unsafe.
136 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
List of Ottoman Sultans and date of accession.
A.D.
1. Othman I, gazi, 1299
2. Orkhan I, gazi, 1327
3. Murad I, gazi, 1360
4. Bayazid I, yelderim, 1389
5. Mohammed I, chelebi, 1413
6. Murad II, gazi, 1421
7. Mohammed II, fatih, 1451
8. Bayazid II, gazi, 1481
9. Selim I, yavouz, 1512
10. Suleyman I, kanooni, 1520
11. Selim II, gazi, 1566
12. Murad III, gazi, 1574
13. Mohammed III, gazi, 1595
14. Ahmed I, gazi, 1603
15. Mustafa I, 1617
16. Othman II, guendj, 1618
17. Murad lY, gazi, 1622
18. Ibrahim I, 1640
19. Mohammed TV, 1648
20. Suleyman II, 1687
21. Ahmed II, 1691
22. Mustafa II, 1695
23. Ahmed III, gazi, 1702
24. Mahmud I, gazi, 1730
25. Othman III, 1754
26. Mustafa III, gazi, 1757
27. Abdul Hamid I, gazi, 1773
28. Selim III, 1789
29. Mustafa IV, 1807
30. Mahmud II, adil, 1808
31. Abdul Mejid I, gazi, 1839
32. Abdul Aziz I, 1861
33. Murad Y, 1876
34. Abdul Hamid II, gazi, .... 1876
RULERS OP^ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 137
Some of the above Sultans have special titles, like
our '' William the Conqueror," '' Charles the Bold,"
** Henry Beauclerk," etc. Thus, gazi and fatih mean
conqueror; adil, righteous; guendj, young; yavouz,
brave; kanooni, law-giver; yelderim, lightning; che-
lebi, gentleman. Most of them have the title gazi, or
conqueror; the present Sultan bears it because he
fought with Russia. He was beaten, to be sure, but
he took the title all the same.
Sultan Mohammed II, who captured the city of
Constantinople, established an Armenian Patriarchate
there in 1461 A. D. The first Patriarch was Hova-
guem, the Bishop of Broosa, a friend of the Sultan.
Mohammed II had two motives in this: first, to have
an Armenian ecclesiastical center in Constantinople
for the nucleus of a strong Armenian settlement there,
to play oif against the Greeks from whom the city was
taken and who might be dangerous, whereas the feud
between Armenians and Greeks would make each
weaken the other; second, to have a hostage for the
Armenians, responsible for their not breaking into
revolt; not at all for the benefit of the Armenians, but
for that of the Sultan. The same reason obtains to
this day. If there was no Patriarch, their cause
would be much better oif. After the establishment
of this Patriarchate the Armenians had no more kings
or princes; their political head was the Patriarch.
Even after the Patriarchate was established they were
not safe. They yielded to the Sultans, they became
slaves to the Sultans, but the Persian Mohammedans
188 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
were foes of the Turkish Mohammedans, and Armenia,
as of old in Koman times, was the battle-ground. In
the time of Sultan Ahmed and Shah Appas, the latter
overran Armenia and carried away the people to cap-
tivity, besides killing hundreds of thousands. Then
it was retaken by the Turks. Then a part of it was
captured by the Russians. Historians write of the
Huguenots and their sufferings; of the conflicts in
Europe between the Catholics and the Protestants.
How many centuries were the Protestants persecuted
and martyred? How many millions were killed by
the Eoman Catholics? Do all the Protestant martyrs
in Europe number as many as the Armenian martyrs ?
I doubt it.
And let it not be said that these were not religious
martyrs, but merely victims of the fortunes of war or
political conflicts. The wars were three times out of
four based on real if not nominal grounds of religious
antagonism, — Mohammedan or Zoroastrian against
Christian, — or claims of religious protectorate, as
Russia over the Armenian Christians; the political
exigencies which called or formed a pretext for the
massacre of myriads of men and old women, the out-
rage of the young brides and maidens, the enslavement
of the children, were without a single exception created
by the resistance of Christians to forced conversion, or
the fear of Mohammedan rulers that as Christians
they meant to revolt, or sheer blind hatred to men of
another creed. The victims were truly martyrs to
Christianity.
• »»_»- • ».
•M
l/l «4f • *fCHE:srLTAN« FROM A RECENT PORTRAIT.
(By permission of "The Youths Companion.")
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 130
THE PRESENT SULTAN, HAMID IL
This is the thirty-fourth Sultan in the Ottoman
line, and probably the worst, the least, and the last.
It is not likely the Turks will ever have another Sul-
tan, for this one is pretty sure to bring the Sultanate
to an end. His days are numbered, he knows it well,
and the Turks know it well too. Before his life and
his kingdom are finished, he has resolved to end the
Armenian nation; that, however, will not be ended,
the people will not be exterminated ; when the Turkish
Empire is abolished the remaining Armenians will
have freedom.
Hamid II was bom September 22, 1842, second
son of Abdul Mejid, and wrested the throne from his
brother Mourad August 31, 1876. He is not a legiti-
mate Sultan, but a usurper. When but a little boy
he manifested a savage and cruel spirit. While the
Dalma Bagsh Palace, the largest in Constantinople,
perhaps in the world — was going up, he went to
visit it; seeing it unfinished, he called the Armenian
architect and told him it must be finished by the next
day. " My dear prince and lord," said the architect,
" I wish I could finish it, but it is impossible ; and es-
pecially not to-morrow, since it is Sunday, and we
Christians do not work on Sundays." " You heathen
dog, you Armenian," said the boy Hamid, " if I grow
up, and some day become a Sultan, I will force all the
Armenians to break the Sabbath, and if they do not,
I will order the soldiers to kill them all." He is carry-
140 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ing out his threat. He grew to manhood without be-
coming any milder, and is morally corrupt besides*
He has drunken bouts with worthless associates,
and spent his time in all sorts of monstrous debauch-
ery and brutality. He was such a miserable wretch
that it is impossible to describe his beastly life on
paper. There is no humanity in him, no grace, no
sympathy, no brains, no strength; he is pale and sick,
well worthy to be called the " sick man of Turkey.'^
This is a very different description of him from that
given by General Lew Wallace and Mr. Terrell. I
can only say that I know what I am talking about, and
they do not. I lived in Constantinople, as a native of
Turkey, and with means of knowing, seeing him often,
and hear authentic stories of his doings day by day.
General "Wallace was invited to the palace, feasted
and flattered, and his wife decorated with jewels;
naturally, he thinks no ill of a man who treated him so
well, and with whom he hopes for more good times
when he goes back. He has done infinite harm to the
cause of Armenia by his popular lectures, declaring
the atrocities " exaggerated " (he evidently thinks that
if a newspaper report gives ten thousand men mur-
dered when there were only five, and all the women of
a city violated when a dozen of them got away,
you are entitled to dismiss the whole thing from your
mind as of little account), and the Sultan a good man,
incapable of such things. People are bewildered, and
ask, " How can we doubt a good American who was
minister there ? " Why, good people, what has his
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 141
ministry got to do with it ? He was hundreds of miles
from Armenia, and did not know any of the chief lan-
guages of Constantinople, — either Armenian, Turk-
ish, or Romanic ; and what could he tell of his host, ex-
cept of the quality of his hospitality ? A man usually
shows his best side to tli<%e he entertains; did he sup-
pose the Sultan was going to amuse his guests by
having one Armenian disemboweled, and another
emasculated or impaled on red-hot iron rods, and a
couple of women ravished, as a light and playful inter-
lude between the main dishes and the dessert ? His
praise of the Sultan is as valuable as his praise of the
Grand Llama would be, — he knows nothing of either;
and his inference from the Sultanas pleasant talk that
he could not order a nation extirpated with hideous
cruelties, is simply imbecile. And since he has given
all this loose talk, the consular reports, from English
residents among the very scenes, have been published,
showing that the atrocities have not only not been ex-
aggerated, but are even worse than reported. In
this case, even the newspapers were unable to come up
to the truth ; their rhetoric fell short of the full meas-
ure of the awful truth.
To go back a little: Twenty years ago Abdul
Aziz, uncle of the present Sultan, was the ruler of the
Ottoman Empire. He cared little for the country or
the people; he wanted only to eat and drink, and have
good times. He w^as a very strong and hearty man,
and I was told he could eat a whole roast lamb for
dinner, and think it probable. He had the innate
142 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
cruelty of his family, their love of blood for its Own
sake, lie had tigers and lions fight together; he
would order a live lamb flung to a lion, and laugh to see
the lion tear and devour it. He married all the hand-
some girls he could find, but for pure animality; he
cared nothing for their education or virtue, and his
several hundred wives were what you might expect.
One of them fell in love with the commander-in-chief,
or Minister of War, Heussein Avni Pasha, a very
ambitious and daring adventurer, who had gained the
confidence of the Sultan, and went often to the palace.
The Sultan heard of the intrigue, went to the woman's
room, kicked her fatally, and threw her out of the
window. But before her death, she sent word to
Heussein to avenge her on the Sultan. Heussein's
position was very critical; evidently it was a race be-
tween him and the Sultan which should kill the other
first. He went to Midhad, the Grand Vezir, and to
Kaysereli Ahmed, the admiral, both liberal-minded
pashas, in favor of establishing a constitutional (or
even if they could, a republican) government, and
without telling them his relations to and fears from
the Sultan, persuaded them that now was the time to
depose the Sultan, and establish liberal institutions,
and told them it must be done that night, or the Sultan
would get wind of it, and then good-by to all of them.
And he clinched the argument by telling them he
would order his soldiers to kill both of them if they
refused to join him, and then depose the Sultan just
the same; " as commander-in-chief," he said, " I can
PRESENT SULTAN, HAMID II.
From an early portrait.
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. I43
compel obedience, and I am in earnest." They con-
sented, and while the Sultan was asleep that night the
commander's soldiers and the admiral's sailors sur-
rounded the palace by the land and sea. This was
the Dalma Bagsh, the largest and handsomest palace
in Constantinople. Heussein entered, saying he had
important news for the Sultan. Going to the chamber
where Aziz was sleeping, he awakened him, and said,
"In the name of your nephew. Sultan Murad, I de-
pose you." Then he compelled him to go down-stairs
to a boat in waiting, filled with soldiers, carried him to
Cheragan Palace, and imprisoned him there; after
which he informed the Sultan's nephew, then Prince
Murad, that his uncle had been deposed because the
people would not endure him, and added, "As the
oldest in the royal family you succeed him, and I, as
commander-in-chief, have the honor and privilege of
humbly serving my master, and leading your majesty
to the throne of the Ottoman Empire."
Murad was too astonished to know what to do or
say; but Heussein was resolute, and Murad reluctantly
followed him to the Dalma Bagsh; there the com-
mander ordered the soldiers to cry out three times
" Padishahum chock yasa " (Long live the Sultan).
All this was about midnight; and meantime printed
notices were prepared and scattered throughout Con-
stantinople that Sultan Aziz was deposed and Sultan
Murad was on the throne. After a few days the
commander-in-chief sent a eunuch and a physician to
Cheragan Palace, with orders to put Aziz to death.
144 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
They did so by chloroforming him and cutting his
blood-vessels with scissors. Heussein prepared a false
report stating that he had committed suicide, and
brought it to Sultan Murad. The latter did not be-
lieve it, and said, " you killed my uncle." Heussein
left the Sultan's presence in great anger, and went to
Midhad's palace to confer with him, calling in also
Kaysereli Ahmed and other officers. While they were
together, another officer, Cherkez Hassan by name,
brother-in-law of the dead Sultan, came to the palace,
informing the guard that he had a message from the
Sultan to the pashas, who were in conference. The
guard admitted him, and he went to the parlor. After
the usual salutations the commander asked him, " Has-
san, w^hy did you come here ? '' Hassan replied, " I
came to kill you, dog," and fired three shots at him
from his revolver, stretching him dead on the floor.
Then, before the others could assail him, he killed
every one present, except Midhad, who escaped. Has-
san was finally captured and hanged, but Murad was
established on the throne. He was a good-natured and
liberal-minded man; he believed in constitutional gov-
ernment, and organized a working system. There was
to be a parliament, one-third Christians and two-thirds
Mohammedans, elected by the people of the provinces
or vilayets. Each vilayet furnished three members,
two Mohammedans and one Christian, all indorsed
by the clergymen. During the elections I was pastor
of Adana in Armenia Minor, and had to endorse our
members. The Adana member was an Armenian
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. I45
named Krikor Bizdigian, the richest man of that city,
perhaps in Turkey; if still living, he must be ninety.
When the parliament was opened in Constantinople,
Sultan Murad presided, and told the members to dis-
cuss any questions freely. He said, " We are here for
the good of the country, and the empire needs to be re-
formed ; how can we reform it ? " This was an entire
novelty; " government by discussion '^ is not the Orien-
tal way, and not the Oriental liking either. The Mo-
hammedan members were astonished, and they were
wrathful at the Christian members when the latter be-
gan to make free and able speeches. They said, " Are
we going to be governed by these heathen dogs, the
Christian hogs ? We will have no parliament where
every dog is free to open his mouth. We want the
good old ways of Mohammed." They were like mad
dogs, ready to bite. They hated the Christians, and
they hated the Sultan. They went to his younger
brother, the present Sultan, and told him his brother
Murad was insane. " He makes Christian dogs equal
to Mussulmen; he will ruin the country; you must
become Sultan to save the Turkish Empire." This
suited Abdul Aziz exactly ; he headed a revolt, deposed
his good brother, dissolved the parliament, imprisoned
Murad in the palace where his uncle was assassinated,
and since then has been carrying the country to de-
struction. He is a perfect devil in all respects. A
devil can take the guise of an angel, and the Sultan has
the cunning to make himself appear a perfect gentle-
man, a benevolent and humane person. The devil
146 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
can cheat most people, and so can the Sultan, all but
the native Christians in Turkey, to whom he shows
his horns, and hoofs, and tail.
The nauseous praise of the Sultan from travelers
and ministers reminds me of a Turkish brigand named
Guro, who infested Asia Minor a quarter of a century
ago. He robbed year after year all travelers who had
anything worth taking; but when he met tramps he
gave them money, and even a roasted lamb to eat now
and then. The tramps all praised him; he was a
benevolent, humane, kind-hearted man ; they had never
seen anything cruel or dishonest about him. So the
Sultan robs the Armenians, and uses their money to
feast the American ministers and decorate their wives.
Oh, but the Sultan sent money to the sufferers from
famine in the Western States of America; so generous
of him ! I am glad to say the money was refused.
All Americans who praise the Sultan are like the
tramps and the brigand. They are either ignorant
or in effect bribed. And then there is the affectation
of impartiality, so easy a cover for ignorance, coldness,
and laziness. You must say some good things about
a scoundrel, and some ill ones about a saint, or you
will be considered a partisan. You must not tell even
the truth, if the truth is all on one side. If the Sul-
tan massacres all the Christians in Turkey, why, there
are two sides to the question; perhaps the Christians
were not agreeable people, and if so, you cannot won-
der he has them exterminated by sword, and fire, and
torture, and rape; it is really the only way he could get
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 147
rid of them. And then, he is king, and has a right to
do what he pleases with his own ; nobody has any busi-
ness to interfere. Of course a President could not
order three millions of people put to death by letting
loose all the savage Indians of the West on them to do
as they pleased with them, for the sake of making them
worship the Big Manitou ; but a Sultan — that is dif-
ferent, even though a Kurd is exactly as bad as an
Indian, and an Indian's knife does not cut throats any
more effectively, nor an Indian's tortures inflict more
unnamable horrors of suffering, nor an Indian's torch
burn houses any better, nor an Indian's beastly lust
defile women any worse. Are all the writers, then,
who have praised him ignorant or silly ? Yes; the
Sultan's deeds, proved by countless thousands of wit-
nesses, set forth in the consular reports, show that they
are.
As soon as Abdul Hamid had seized the throne, he
girded on the sword of Osman, which I will explain
later is equivalent to coronation. The keys of the
palace where Murad was imprisoned he keeps in his
pocket. The nominal ground of his imprisonment is
insanity, but he was not insane; it was his liberality
of mind, his greatness of heart, and his mild and kind
spirit. He was an exceptional Turk. Then Hamid
called Midhad Pasha to him, gave him $25,000, and
told him to leave the country and never come back.
The country was thus left without a single man of
any force of character and a large position combined.
After the death of Aziz the two greatest Turks were
148 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Sultan Murad and Midhad Pasha, and had Murad not
been imprisoned, and Midhad banished, the Turkish
Empire would be an entirely different country, and
have a different future.
Midhad was finally recalled, but only to be mur-
dered. As the Sultan felt his position secure, he be-
gan to get rid of all men of superior character and ed-
ucation. Some he banished, some he imprisoned,
some he killed. But Midhad, as the greatest, was the
most obnoxious. He was of course not dispatched at
once. He was invited back, made governor of
Smyrna, given the highest emoluments, paid the
greatest honors ; then one night he was suddenly sum-
moned to Constantinople by the Sultan. He knew it
was the death-call, and fled to the French consulate
for shelter, but the consul was afraid to protect him.
Finally he was taken by force to Constantinople, tried
before a tribunal of course packed by the Sultan, and
condemned to death. But the kind-hearted Sultan
commuted the death sentence to banishment and hard
labor for life, and quietly ordered the officers who
were going to take him to banishment to kill him in-
stead, which they did.
After he had got rid of all the great Turks, he ap-
pointed a host of ignorant and cruel ruffians as gov-
ernors, sub-governors, and generals; like Hadjii Has-
san Pasha, governor of Beshick-Tash near the Sultanas
palace, and whose business is to watch over the Sultan,
and who cannot read or write. He prefers ignorance,
because it means fanaticism, and he thinks cannot
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 149
plot against him. He dreads and hates education
and the educated, though he makes a show of en-
couraging them. He taxed the people for public
schools and put up magnificent buildings, but there
are few if any scholars in them; they were not built
for educational purposes, but for a show, and if neces-
sary, for barracks in the future. All the same, he
has his agents in Europe and America chant his
praises as a lover of learning. Parents will not send
their children to them anyw^ay, for there are not com-
petent teachers in them ; there are a very few ignorant
Mohammedan teachers, but even they are so corrupt
morally that no one dares trust his boy or girl with
them. The Sultan professed that people of all nation-
alities and religions would have equal privileges in
his public schools, therefore he ordered all to contribute
money for them. He raised the farmers' tax from one-
tenth to one-eighth of the crops on pretense of support-
ing the public schools. Of course he got most of it
from the Armenians, but there is not an Armenian
teacher or child in them.
Abdul Hamid is a stupendous hypocrite and char-
latan; he makes a great pretense of wisdom, religion,
and morality, and he has not a spark of either one.
His wisdom is only the animal cunning of a jealous,
cruel, suspicious brute, his morals simply do not exist,
and his religion is pure sham. It is often reported that
he is very religious. All that it amounts to is that
every Friday (the Mohammedan Sunday) he goes to
the mosque to worship (a ceremony called selamlik).
150 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
with several thousand soldiers lining the roads from
the palace to the mosque to prevent his assassination,
of which he is in hourly fear; that once a year he goes
to the old Seraglio and pays tribute to the mantle of
Mohammed and other relics, kissing the slipper, coat,
and beard of the prophet; and he worships in the
mosque of St. Sophia as a conqueror. All this is
merely for show, to please the fanatic Mohammedans.
He advertises himself as a temperance man, too, but he
drinks to excess privately. In a word, he is thoroughly
false from top to bottom, pretending all good, and
doing all evil.
His officers of course imitate him; most of them
are absolute infidels, believing in nothing, but pro-
fessing great devotion. I knew a governor of this
stamp. He used to worship at the mosque, and even
ordered a hair of Mohammed's whiskers to be brought
from Constantinople to please the Mohammedan pop-
ulation. He never drank a drop of liquor in public,
but privately drank all he could hold. He had plenty
of fellows. For instance, Khalil Rifat Pasha, the
present Grand Yezir, appointed a few months ago,
has been governor of several different provinces, and
notorious in all as a great hypocrite and a thoroughly
corrupt man, full of lust and profligacy. When a
European or a native Christian of high position called
on him, he would treat the visitor with great polite-
ness, promise anything he asked, say, " take my word
of honor," and assure him of his entire sincerity; as
soon as he was gone, Khalil would curse him, and call
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 151
him a heathen dog, say to another Mohammedan, " See
how that Christian hog believed what I said 1 " and
keep not a word of his promises.
The Sultan is just the same. He is outwardly
very pleasant, very gentlemanly, very humane. He
will promise almost anything, but he will do nothing,
and he calls his enraptured guests dogs and hogs behind
their backs. Who knows how many times he has
called Lord Salisbury, the German 'Emperor, or the
Russian Czar, who are helping him to kill the Ar-
menians, heathen dogs ? See the promises of the
Sultan in 1878, in the Berlin Treaty, Article 61: —
" The Sublime Porte undertakes to carry out without
further delay the improvements and reforms de-
manded by local requirements in the provinces in-
habited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their
security against Circassians and Kurds. It will
periodically make known the steps taken to this ef-
fect to the powers, who will superintend their applica-
tion." These promises were made eighteen years
ago, and the reforms were to be made " without further
delay." His reforms have consisted in ordering Circas-
sians and Kurds to murder and plunder them. Since
the Berlin Treaty, the Sultan, calling the European
kings, emperors, and princes heathen hogs and Chris-
tian dogs, directly and indirectly has killed 200,000
Armenians. That was his reform.
When he seized the throne, Turkey had 40,000,000
people, and the Sultan thought his power was irresis-
tible. He let loose a horde of Circassians to massacre
152 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the Bulgarians, just as he has let loose the Kurds to
massacre the Armenians. But the Bulgarians are
Slavs, and belong to the Greek Church, and the Rus-
sian Czar, Alexander, grandfather of the present Czar,
interfered in their favor. This excited the fears of
the other powers, and a Congress was held in Con-
stantinople to settle the question. Lord Salisbury
came from England, Count Ignatieff from Russia, and
others from other parts of Europe, gathered in a beauti-
ful palace (now the admiralty) on the shores of the
Golden Horn of sweet waters, discussed the question,
and decided that the Bulgarian atrocities must stop,
Bulgaria be reformed and allowed to govern itself in-
ternally, and that Turkey must not fight Russia be-
cause it w^as too weak. This decision was communi-
cated to the Sultan, and he w^as furious: he would not
grant freedom or a government to Bulgaria, and he
was quite able to fight Russia. Finally he refused
flatly to accept the decision, and called a Turkish Con-
gress to give their " opinion." Of course they gave what
Avas wanted, and pronounced in favor of a war with
Russia. A few were bold enough to disfavor it, and
the Sultan punished them. One of these was Hagop
Efendi Madteosian, the representative of the Protes-
tant Armenian community. Another was a thought-
ful, experienced Turk, and when the Sultan asked him
his reason for opposing the war, he related the follow-
ing parable:
" There was once a miser whom the king gave his
choice of three things : to eat five pounds of raw onions
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 153
without bread at one meal, to receive five hundred
lashes on the bare back, or to pay $5,000. The miser
could not bear to lose so much money; he could not
endure such a flogging; and he chose to eat the onions.
After eating a pound or so their bitterness and rank-
ness nauseated him, and he concluded to take the
whipping. He stood about a hundred lashes, and saw
that he should die under it; and decided to pay the
$5,000 after all." " [NTow," said the wise Turk, " this
illustrates what I mean. If you go to war with Russia,
you will sacrifice many thousands of soldiers, which is
a very bitter thing to digest ; then you will lose Euro-
pean Turkey, and finally you will have to pay millions
of dollars indemnity and ruin the country. I cannot
approve the war." The Sultan cried out in rage,
" Begone, you old crank! I will not listen to any more
foolish words from you. I shall conquer the Czar,
enlarge the country, and strengthen my kingdom."
He did go to war in 1876, was whipped by the Czar,
and lost almost the whole of European Turkey and
other parts of the empire, with 22,000,000 people:
Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina,
part of Macedonia, part of Armenia, Cyprus, and after-
wards Egypt. He lost many thousands of soldiers
and millions of dollars, and besides has had to pay mil-
lions of dollars indemnity to Russia. And the Sultan
is called an " able man " and " wise ruler " ! These
things look like it.
After the war and the loss of the provinces, he en-
couraged the Mohammedan population of European
154 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Turkey to emigrate to Asiatic Turkey, that they
might not live under Christians, and that they might
increase the number of Mohammedans in the Asiatic
part. The slaughter of the Armenians and the con-
fiscation of their property forms part of the scheme
to make room for them. Before his time the Arme-
nians in Armenia outnumbered the Turks; but the
massacres, the occupation of the farms and houses by
the savages let loose on them, and the emigration of
many more Armenians to Persia and Russia, have
greatly diminished their numbers. Of course they
are not permitted to emigrate, they simply fly. About
200,000 have actually perished. As to the forced
conversions, the Sultan does not care a particle for
Islamism, but wants to please the Moslem and finds
this an agreeable way to do it. As to the converts
from Islamism to Christianity, they are ordered to go
to Constantinople and are killed there. Hundreds
and thousands of the Mohammedan Turks are Chris-
tians in secret, but do not dare to confess it. These are
the ones who helped and protected the Armenians
during the recent atrocities. Some six years ago a
number of such professed the Christian religion pub-
licly ; they were at once ordered to go to Constantinople
and every one of them was murdered by order of the
Sultan. When the representatives of the Christian
powers asked about them the Sultan denied that they
had come there at all. This was the method of their
assassination: The Sultan has several pleasure boats,
and in one of these boats he fitted up an air-tight room
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 165
with an air-pump; each night one of the converts was
taken from prison and put into this room, the air
was pumped out, and he was suffocated ; then an iron
chain was hooked round him, and he was thrown into
the Bosphorus. One by one all of them were so mur-
dered. How did the author of this book discover the
secret ? Well, when in Constantinople, I had an in-
timate friend among the engineers; the engineer of
this death boat told my friend about it, and he told me.
And the Sultan is not simply a murderer by proxy
and official order; he is a murderer himself personally.
When in Constantinople, I learned from several au-
thoritative sources that he killed with his own revolver
several of his servants, for no cause whatever, but
merely from suspicion or rage. He always keeps a
revolver in his pocket, and whomever in the palace he
suspects, he shoots. He is a great coward. I heard
there that he has more than 10,000 detectives, at a
cost of several hundred thousand dollars a year. He
lives in Yildiz Palace, about two miles from the Bos-
phorus, on a hill on the European shore; he has built
new barracks, and keeps a large army around the
palace to protect him from assassination. His " wis-
dom " is merely care for his skin. He cares nothing
for the prosperity of the country; it is steadily growins^
poorer, while he is personally growing very rich.
That is one reason why he keeps an Armenian treas-
urer, that the Turks may not know his secrets. Even
the Turks are disgusted with him. I often used to
hear the Turks say, " God deliver us from the Sultan
156 ARI^IENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
and send another master, even if he is the Czar of
Russia.'' His immense family costs him from $10,-
000,000 to $15,000,000 a year; it is the largest in the
world. I was told that it consists of 5,000 persons,
counting the eunuchs, the servants, and all. He has
about 500 wives; he did not marry them all; he in-
herited, most of them. When a Sultan dies, his suc-
cessor has everything that belonged to him, including
his wives. And besides, he has to marry a new wife
every year, by the Mohammedan and governmental
law; he has no choice in the matter. That makes
twenty wives in the twenty years of Abdul Hamid's
reign. This is the system: He has at present nearly
one hundred young girls in the harem, supposed to be
the most beautiful in the world; they are presented to
him by the governor-generals, who get them from the
local governors, who get their offices by sending their
superiors the finest looking girls, or the best Arabian
horses, and the governor-generals get theirs by pass-
ing the gifts on to the Sultan. That is the way to get
office in Turkey. You may be a murderer, a thief,
or an ignoramus, but you can be sure of an office
if you can furnish a handsome girl, or a fine stallion,
or a few thousand dollars. When I was pastor in
Marsovan, the local governor, Sudduc Bey, bought a
very pretty girl, and sent her to the governor-general
of Beshick-Tash in Constantinople, Hadji Hassan
Pash, the Sultan's special guard ; he had got his office
from that functionary. As to how the girls are got,
it depends; if they are Mohammedan, they are bought;
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 167
if they are Christian they are seized by force, for the
Christians will not sell their daughters. Several
months ago Bahri Pasha, the governor-general of Van,
carried off several Armenian girls and presented them
to the Sultan, who decorated him for the service, and
appointed him Vali or governor-general of Adana, in
Armenia Minor. These girls are kept in the harem
of the Sultan. When the time comes to marry
another wife, he has the girls stand in a row, and
chooses one of them by covering her face with a silk
handkerchief; then she is taken by the eunuchs to
the quarters allotted to the Sultanas, and can have
separate servants, carriages, and eunuchs. The life
of the Sultan and his big family is the most miserable
in the world. The palace is a focus of discontent,
quarrels, jealousy, lust, and cruelty ; in a word, it is a
perfect hell. The women have nothing to do, and
nothing to think of; they do not read, they have no
work, and no share even in household management;
they are idle, and unspeakably bored, and they do what
most idle people of both sexes do all over the world —
excite their nerves with sensual cravings, and then
try to satisfy them. They often manage to bring boys
to their quarters by stealth, and keep them there for
weeks for purposes of lust, and the Sultan knows
nothing about it; often they bribe their eunuchs, and
go to other places to satisfy their desires, and the Sul-
tan never hears of it. Aziz lost his life through an
intrigue of one of his wives. With so large and
exacting a family, it is no wonder the Sultan has no
158 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
time or energy left for improving his administration.
He only finds a little time to send telegrams to the
governors to exterminate the Armenians.
THE SULTANATE AND ITS POWERS.
There is no coronation in Turkey; instead the
Sultans gird on the sword of Osman, the founder of the
Ottoman Dynasty, which is kept in the mosque of
Ayoob, in Constantinople. "When a Sultan is pro-
claimed, he goes to that mosque with great pomp, and
all the members of the Sublime Porte, the civil of-
ficers, the generals, commanders, soldiers, patriarchs
of different religions, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the
Mohammedan religious head, follow him. But no
Christians enter that holy place, as it is forbidden
them. After impressive service, the chief of the der-
vishes of the order of Mevlair girds the Sultan with
the sword; then he is officially recognized as emperor.
Then, as God's will be done. Sultan's will be done,
because the Sultan represents God in heaven, Moham-
med in Paradise, Osman on the earth. He has three
offices, God's office, Mohammed's office, Osman's of-
fice. He is as infallible as the Pope of Rome, and
temporally everything belongs to him without excep-
tion, men, women, children, money, property, just as
everything belongs to God. A Turkish proverb says,
"Mai, jan, erz, Padishahin dir " (Property, soul,
and virtue belong to the Sultan). He can claim any
man's wife for his enjoyment at any time ; his son, or
his daughter, or his money, or his property of any
sort; there is no use refusing — a man does not own
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 169
fiimself, or his wife, or his children; the Sultan owns
them all, and it is only by his grace that he permits
his subjects to have anything, and he can resume it at
any time, for half an hour, or forever. Besides, any-
body's head would come off that refused. If the Sul-
tan asks a millionaire in Constantinople to send him
half his wealth, the millionaire must not refuse; he
himself is simply a steward; if the Sultan wants it all
it must go to him, and the millionaire must beg bread
for a living. At the same time he must praise the
Sultan, because the Sultan is God on earth. If he
refuses to send his wife or daughter to the Sultan's
bed, or his son or money for whatever uses they are
wanted to supply, the Sultan has a right to kill him,
and take all his possessions by force, because the man
was not a faithful slave.
" But I cannot believe this," says the American in
his free, peaceful country. " It is not natural. How
can a man be considered as God, owning everything,
not in a spiritual sense, but in a very material, pecun-
iary, and male sense ? "
Go to Turkey, get naturalized there, become a
Turkish subject, and you will understand it fully, and
perhaps shockingly. Of course, if you go as an Amer-
ican citizen, with plenty of money, travel under the
escort of soldiers, or Zapties, get presented by the
American minister to the Sultan, are entertained in
the palace, and receive handsome presents, you will
not understand it at all ; very likely not believe it ; you
may come home and praise the Sultan like the rest.
160 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
The natural question is, I know, " Do the Sultans,
any of them, carry this theory into practice ? Has
the present Sultan ? '' Yes; and not once or twice,
but thousands of times. To be sure, they do not go in
person on such errands; they depute their officers and
soldiers to do what they wish. I have shown how the
history of the Armenians illustrates it, in the
seizure of their property, the forced conversion
of their boys into troops to fight against their parents,
the appropriation of their wives and daughters, to be
given to the Sultan. As to the present Sultan, I have
already spoken of Bahri Pasha's exploit in carrying off
by force several Armenian young brides, and girls,
and presenting them to the Sultan, and his being dec-
orated and promoted for it. While on his way, he
had to pass through Trebizond, and the Armenians
fired on him to rescue the women, but failed. They
forgot that all women belong to the Sultan, and they
made a mistake in firing on one of his officers. He
at once ordered all the Armenians in Trebizond to be
slaughtered. Some of the richest of the nation lived
there; every penny was taken from them, most of
them were killed, and their wives and children,
and those of them who survived are begging bread.
And all through Armenia the girls and young brides
are being looked over to pick out the best looking ones
for the Sultan's harem.
Once for all, Armenia is not America. The
Turks, the Kurds, the Circassians, the Georgians,
though they may be like Americans, are like
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 161
American Indians only. The Sultan is not a
president, and his divine right to kill any man, appro-
priate any property, or enjoy any woman, is not like
the Constitution of the United States. People who
think that the Sultan would not do or be allowed to do
such things because no ruler they are familiar with
does them, that it is impossible they can happen in Ar-
menia because they could not happen in America, that
the Armenians must have provoked them in some way,
because it is hard to believe any ruler could do so in
pure wantonness or from deliberate policy, are reason-
ing from wrong premises. They did happen, and are
happening, — see the consular reports; were perfectly
unprovoked, — see the plentiful proofs that the Ar-
menians carry no arms, and cannot even defend them-
selves from murder, or their wives from dishonor
before their eyes. Why it is done, and how much
more is to be done, I have explained repeatedly.
THE SUBLIME PORTE AND THE MOHAMMEDAN
RELIGION.
The Sublime Porte, or in Turkish Babi-Ali, is the
cabinet of the Turkish government, as follows: —
1. The Grand Vezir, or Prime Minister.
2. The Minister of the Interior.
3. The Minister of Foreign Affairs.
4. The Superintendent of the Cabinet Council.
5. The Commander-in-chief, or Minister of War.
6. The Minister of the T^avy.
7. The Minister of Finance.
11
162 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
8. The Minister of Commerce and Public Buildings.
9. The Minister of Sacred Properties.
10. The Minister of Education.
11. The Sheik-ul-Islam, or religious head.
There is no election in Turkey; all officers are
appointed by the Sultan, who can dismiss any of them
at any time, and appoint some one else, and I have
already explained why he almost always appoints bad
ones. The Sublime Porte has no power to decide any-
thing; it is simply a farce council to cheat the Euro-
pean powers; a dumb tool in the hands of the Sultan.
For instance, the Sultan calls the Grand Yezir, the
president of the Sublime Porte, into his presence, and
tells him such a question is to be discussed in such a
way, and this or that conclusion reached. ^^ Very
well, my Lord and Master," says the Grand Vezir;
he goes to the Sublime Porte palace, and says to the
council: " To-day I was permitted to come into the
presence of His Majesty the Sultan, and he instructed
me that I must bring such a question before you,
and after we discuss it in such a manner, we must
come to such a decision." Then all of them stand up
and say, " Sultan's will be done," and that is all;
their " decision " is announced to the Sultan, and he
" sanctions " it. There is no discussion for days or
weeks, as in England or here; it is all cut short. The
Sublime Porte can decide any question in a few min-
utes. This is the sort of thing Mr. Carlyle wanted.
You have seen the beautiful effects of it.
The question naturally arises. Why does the Sul-
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 163
tan keep a Sublime Porte, since he decides everything
himself ?
There are three reasons.
First, it is the old custom. All the other Sultans
have had one, and he might offend the Turks if he
abolished it.
Second, as the Sultan can do no wrong, there must
be somebody else to lay blame on. He is the repre-
sentative of God and Prophet Mohammed. If there
is any mistake in any decision, he is not responsible
for it : the Sublime Porte is responsible.
Third, because he has relations with the European
powers, and if any decision needs to be reversed, it
can be if it is that of the Sublime Porte; but if it
were the personal decision of the Sultan it could not
be changed, because he is considered immutable, just
as God is.
When people read about the Sublime Porte after
this, I hope they will understand that there is not
really any Sublime Porte; that it is a mere name, an
echo, a farce, a show to bunco the world with.
Some newspaper and other writers think it is
" impartial '' to say that the Sultan means well, but he
has a " corrupt ministry "; that it is the Sublime Porte
that ruins the Turkish Empire; if it were left to the
Sultan, he would reform the country; he would not let
the Armenians be massacred. Put no faith in such
ignorant rubbish. The Sultan dictates everything;
and if any minister has the sense and courage to sug-
gest any improvement, the Sultan dismisses him, say-
164 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ing that it is his own business to consider the improve-
ments of the country and not that of any one else. The
governors would not dare to order the Kurds and the
Turks to wreak their worst and vilest will on the Ar-
menians without direct orders from the Sultan. The
Sultan originates all these cruelties. The recent
Grand Yezir, Said Pasha, at one time was a very
decent Turk. When he differed with the Sultan
about massacreing the Armenians, the Sultan threat-
ened to kill him, and he had to fly to the English
embassy for protection. Murad Bey was another
good Turk who remonstrated against the cruelties ; his
life was threatened, and he fled to Europe; now he is
in Egypt, denouncing the Sultan in the press and in
letters. The Sultan sentenced him to death, and
asked the British government to hand him over to
the Turkish officers; but the representative of the Brit-
ish government in Cairo refused. Just before the
Armenian atrocities in Constantinople, the members
of the Sublime Porte tried to have the Armenian
grievances redressed, and the people pacified ; the Sul-
tan would have no such pottering, and ordered the sol-
diers to kill the Armenians in the streets. But this
was a rare piece of virtue in the Porte. Mostly they
are as bad as the Sultan himself, for he appoints men
of his own stripe. Good men would not be useful
tools. The Sultan has another trick of management;
before making any one a member of the Porte, he
tries to find out whether he is a friend to any of the
ministers already in; if so, he will not appoint him.
RULERS OP THE OTTOMAN EiMPIRE. 166
On the other hand, if the man happens to be an
enemy to one of the members, he is ahnost sure of
appointment. The Sublime Porte, therefore, is a
group of mutual enemies, hating one another, and
ready to betray one another at any time. He thinks
if they are friendly, they may unite and depose him
some day. Besides this, there are more detectives in
the Sublime Porte, watching the ministers on behalf
of the Sultan, than there are members. They keep
the Sultan informed about the situation. If any min-
ister or officer acts contrary to the wishes of the Sul-
tan, he is marked for death.
THE SHEIK-UL-ISLAM.
Sheik-ul-Islam means chief of Islam — the Mo-
hammedan religion. His office is solely religious;
he has nothing to do with politics. He sees that the
mosques and priests are kept in order, and the reli-
gious services properly conducted ; and there are many
questions among the Mohammedans which are set-
tled without going to a magistrate, by the Sheik-ul-
Islam, or by his deputies, called Muf tees. These Muf-
tees can be found in every city in Turkey. The Sheik-
ul-Islam and his representatives issue Fetvas (religious
decrees) according to the Koran.
There is no inconsistency between this and what I
have said before about the Sultan being the repre-
sentative of Mohammed, and therefore the chief of
his religion. Both the Sultan and the Sheik-ul-Islam
are the heads of it, just as the Greek emperor and the
Patriarch were of the Greek church, and the relative
166 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
position is about the same. The Sheik-ul-Islam is
the special head of the ecclesiastical organization.
The Sultan appoints him, but once appointed, if he is
insubordinate and opposes the Sultan, the latter can-
not suppress or replace him without grave scandal to
the Mohammedan world. It is like Henry II and
Becket; it is easier to make a head of a church than
to rule him afterwards. It is like the Emperors and
the Popes in the Middle Ages; and as with them, some-
times the Sheik-ul-Islam joins with political officers to
depose the Sultan, and his fetva, or decree, makes it
legal. When Abdul Aziz was deposed, the then
Sheik-ul-Islam, Khairollah Effendi, issued the fetva
for it, reluctantly, for Heussein Avni Pasha forced
him to do it under threat of death. As Heussein's
own head was in immediate peril, he had no scruples
about the Sheik-ul-Islam's. Every fetva has two
questions and one answer. A case is set forth; after
a brief discussion the question Olourni (To be ?) and
Olmazmi (Not to be ?) are asked, and the answer
is given as either Olour or Olmaz (To be, or ^ot to
be). The fetva which Heussein forced the Sheik-ul-
Islam to sign was something like this: — " If a Sultan
should prove to be unworthy to govern his people, is
it necessary to uphold him or not ? " The answer
was Olmaz, and Abdul Aziz was deposed.
MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE INTERNAL STATE OF
TURKEY.
l^obody who has not lived in Turkey can realize
how hopeless, almost self-contradictory, it is to talk
RULERS OP THE OTTOMAN EiMPIRE. 167
of " reforming " Turkey. It could not be reformed
and be Mohammedan Turkey; the lack of reform or
power of reform is just what makes it what it is. The
root of the evil is Mohammedanism itself; it is em-
bodied social stagnation, corruption, ultimate ruin.
Neither the Sultan nor the Turks can improve the
state of the Empire, even if they wished. The usual
*'* broad-minded " statements about Mohammed and
his religion are simply elaborations of ignorance, made
up out of men's own minds, and what they think must
be true. It is customary for wTiters to talk in
this fashion : — " Mohammedanism is a half-way
house to Christianity; Mohammed converted the hea-
then Arabs to a belief in the true God. Mohammed
established a great religion and a great Empire," etc.,
etc. There is no truth in this, for all its plausible
sound. Mohammedanism is not even on the road
to Christianity; and Arabia, Asia Minor, and Pales-
tine were all much better off before the Mohammedan
conquest than after it. Buddhism and Brahmanism
are better religions than Mohammedanism. The
Chinese, the Japanese, the people of India are much
better than the Turks. The Chinese Emperor and
the Japanese Mikado are far better men than the Mo-
hammedan Sultan. The heathen religions rear bet-
ter men than Mohammedanism. The Mongols are
more humane and sympathetic than the Turks. Hea-
thenism at its worst, though a low form of religion, is
really a form of religion; but Mohammedanism is
not a religion at all. Then what is it ? It is a svstem
168 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
of imposture and false pretense, and of lives of human
lust and cruelty. Mohammed practiced all these,
and his successors have done the same, and taught the
same ever since; and the system means just that now,
and nothing else. There is neither love nor sympa-
thy, manliness nor humanity in Mohammedanism.
Can a system lacking all these be considered a religion?
This is the substance of Mohammed's teachings: —
'* Love your fellow believers, hate and slay all who
refuse to accept your religion. Marry as many wives
as you can afford; if you can afford but one do not
repine, for you shall have seven thousand to enjoy
in Paradise. If you conquer a country, show no
mercy to the people unless they embrace Islam; if
they refuse, either kill them or make slaves of them."
What sort of reforms can you expect in Armenia, or in
Turkey, when the very religion that is to make people
better, inculcates such principles ? If one does not
know a language he cannot speak it; if he has not a
principle he will not practice it; how can the Sultan,
a vicious man to begin with, trained in a religion cal-
culated to make a cruel and licentious animal even out
of a decent man, reform anything ? His very religion
forbids it; he cares nothing for the religion when it
stands in his way, but he will follow its injunctions to
please the Mohammedans, especially when they grat-
ify and justify his worst passions.
I shall be asked if the Mohammedans do not be-
lieve in one God, and the same God as the Christian;
and if that does not make it a religion, and very near
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 1G9
that oi Christians. Yes, they do; and so do the devils.
That is what Mohammedanism is, the religion of
devils. Host of the Turkish conversation consists of
oaths and smut. I do not mean among the common
people — theirs is nothing else — but of the ed\icated
upper classes, dieir scholars, teachers, governors, and
priests. I came in contact with them for years, and
I hated to listen to them, their talk was so full of curs-
ing and filth. You never see the fruits of the spirit
in them; only the fruits of the flesh. They do not
understand what spiritual life is ; with them all is sense,
— eating and drinking, finery and lust, — lust above
all, everywhere and always, like cattle. They seem
never able to forget sex and its uses. Some people
think the climate makes the Turks lazy; it is
enough on that point to say that Constantinople is
almost exactly in the same latitude as New York, and
Smyrna as St. Louis. The Turkish climate is a tem-
perate and salubrious one, with no greater extremes of
temperature than the United States; not tropical or
enervating. Nor is it their race that makes the Turks
lazy; they were not so at the outset. It is their reli-
gion and the habits it breeds. Their minds and
bodies are enervated by the unwholesome nervous
excitation of lust, their energies further sapped by a
falsehood that leaves no room for aspiration, their
vanity as a military caste in not working takes all the
spirit of manly enterprise out of them. If the cli-
mate enervates the Turks, why does it not the Chris-
tians ? In the very same cities you find the Chris-
170 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
tians rich, enterprising, full of energy; the Turlts poor,
ignorant, unambitious, and lazy. The religion makes
all the difference. Christianity teaches purity, sym-
pathy, and industry; Mohammedanism teaches im-
purity, hate, and sloth. The pure life of the Chris-
tian conserves all the energies; the hopes of Christian-
ity give vigor and endurance. The promise of each
for the future gives the clue to the history of each;
the Christian heaven of unity with God, the Moham-
medan heaven of a lot of street dogs and sluts.
Here I must comment on the extraordinary state-
ment of Alexander Webb, at the Parliament of Ee-
ligions in Chicago. Mr. Webb was an American
consul in the East, and became a convert to Moham-
medanism, or professes to have done so; it is not very
hard to guess what part of that so-called religion at-
tracted him. He said the religion of Mohammed
teaches the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood
of Humanity. Now, as a fact, Mohammedans believe
in neither one. As to God, they believe he is a mon-
arch, and that no one can approach him ; they have the
same idea the Jews had. " Our Father who art in
Heaven " is a purely Christian aspiration, not that
of any other religion on earth ; it is Christianity alone
that teaches the Fatherhood of God. And Moham-
medans directly ridicule the idea of God the Father, or
of a Son of God. They say God is not married, and
cannot be a father; and that when they go to heaven
they will not be in his presence, nor wish to be, but will
have a separate heaven, to enjoy their wives in. They
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 171
look at everything from a sexual or sensual stand-
point. As to brotherhood, there is no such thing in
Mohammedanism; even sons of the same mother are
not brothers in feeling. A Mohammedan has not con-
fidence enough, even in his brother, to show his wives to
him, and even in heaven they will have to live in dif-
ferent places on account of their wives. How can
there be brotherhood without love or purity ? And
we have seen and know what the '' brotherhood " of
Mohammedans to other nations and religions is; there
can be no relations whatever but of master and slave,
or murderer and corpse, or violator and victim. The
impudence of this talk of brotherhood is fathomless.
And then he said he was proud to be a convert to
Islam, because that meant believing in purity ! This
is more outrageously impudent still. His ideal of
purity must be a curious one if he finds more in Mo-
hammedanism than in Christianity; in a religion with
a heaven stuffed with concubines than in one where
even earth is sprinkled with nuns; in one that makes
Titanic lust its crowning reward, as if men were so
feeble in sexual desires that they needed to be stim-
ulated, than in one which makes chastity its key-note,
and pronounces the very coveting of more than one
wife a spiritual adultery; in one that prescribes poly-
gamy (that is, keeping erotic turbulence stirred up
much oftener and longer than it naturally would be),
than in one that allows but one wife, and smiles on
getting along without that ; in one whose devotees are
ashamed of foul language, and even of foul thoughts,
172 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
than in one whose devotees are rank and rotten with
lustful ideas and talk to correspond.
The whole Mohammedan system is designed to
make the gratification of lust as easy and plentiful
as possible short of a promiscuity that would lead
to civil anarchy. A Mohammedan can divorce his
wife any time he pleases by paying back her dower,
and marry another and do likewise; every week, or
day if he sees fit, and he can remarry and redivorce
the first one as often as he pleases. It is like trading
horses; as little sentiment or morality in one as the
other; the slightest possible regulation of sheer animal
desire. There is, however, one form or divorce which
is complete, and does not allow of remarriage until
another marriage has intervened; that is called the
achden docuza (three to nine) divorce, from the terms
the husband uses in doing it, "I divorce you three to
nine." Nobody knows what it means or meant.
After this, if he wants his wife back, he must get
somebody else to marry and divorce her regularly;
and as this is perilous, because the second husband after
marrying her may take a notion to keep her, or any-
way keep her much longer than the first one relishes,
or demand a large sum of money, the usual plan is
to fix on a very poor man, or a blind beggar (preferably
blind, so that he cannot see the wife, and be so
charmed by her beauties that he will wish to keep her),
get him to become the woman's husband for a few
days, and then pay him something to divorce her.
Then the first can marry her again if he chooses.
RULERS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE. 173
There are many more specimens of Mohamme-
dan " purity " too shameful to write, and too shame-
ful to read ; I cannot soil the paper with them. Doubt-
less they are part of Mr. Webb's pride in being a Mo-
hammedan. But I must mention one more engine of
corruption which lies at the very root of Mohamme-
danism itself: the pilgrimage to Mecca, to the birth-
place of Mohammed in Arabia. Once a year Mo-
hammedan pilgrims from every quarter of the world
go to Mecca to pay homage to their beloved prophet;
averaging a million a year. It is their duty to sac-
rifice animals there, and about a million are so sac-
rificed. This is done on the hills which surround the
great temple, the greatest mosque in the world. It
is a square building, which covers several acres of
land. Just in the cluster is the Holy Well, called
Zemzem. Mohammedans believe that if they drink
of that water, hell-fire cannot burn them, and every
pilgrim does so; then they begin to die from cholera
to the tune of fifty thousand a year or so, for the well
is a mere cesspool. You see, after cutting the throats
of the animals, they leave the filth and blood just as
they are, for the Mohammedan religion does not allow
the sacrifice to be touched. The sandy soil absorbs
this putrid filth, which leaches into the well. But it
is a great merit to die on the spot where Mohammed
was born ; one goes straight to heaven if he does. That
is not the worst, however; they fill bottles with that
water, and carr}^ it to their families, and friends
throughout the Turkish Empire, Persia, and India,
from which cholera is spread abroad over the world.
174 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
The pilgrims do not take their wives as far as tlie
birthplace of Mohammed, but leave them half-way,
and on reaching Mecca they marry temporarily.
About 20,000 prostitutes there make a business of
being short-term wives of the pilgrims, getting $5
to $25 from each, and being his wife for anywhere
from a day to a fortnight, so that each woman marries
from fifty to a hundred pilgrims a year. This is not
prostitution; it is religion — and Mohammedan
'' purity." Mecca is considered the most holy spot
on earth by ^lohammedans; but it is the most corrupt
spot. It is a hell. And the Mohammedan Paradise
is worse than Mecca.
In one word, Mohammedans have no right to exist,
politically, socially, or religiously. In the first they
have wrought nothing but ruin ; in the second nothing
but corruption; in the third nothing but devilishness.
They are working nothing else now in either of the
three. They have never built up anything ; they are
pure destroyers. Anything which is built in any Mo-
hammedan country is built both by Christian money
and by Christian architects; Mohammedans have nei-
ther the money, the architects, nor the sense. The
day one becomes a Mohammedan he loses his intellect,
his skill, and his common sense. Mohammedanism is a
poison fatal to any good gifts or graces ; it cultivates in
him falsehood, cruelty, and lust. It was sent by God
for a curse to the Christians; as a punishment, just as
the Philistines were sent to the people of Israel.
THE GREAT POWERS AND THE ARME-
NIAN QUESTION.
There was no Armenian question till the time
of the present Sultan; under Abdul Aziz, whatever
his faults as a ruler or a man, the Armenians prospered
well, and though the whole system of administration
is bad, corrupt, and uncertain, they had no special
grievance as a race to complain of. I have already
referred to Abdul Hamid's usurpation, his Bulgarian
atrocities, his famous war against Russia, and the
Congress in Berlin in which the powers ordered him
to execute reforms in Armenia, and report to them,
and the Sultan signed the treaty promising to do it.
This was in 1878. The Sultan lost no time in violat-
ing the treaty, and not only so, but in acting grossly
contrary to it. He called in Circassians and Kurds to
settle in the midst of Armenians, and confiscated Ar-
menian lands for them to settle on. The Armenians
were far worse off than before the treaty; but foolishly
depending on the powers, they did not try to arm
themselves for the future. They have had plenty of
chance to repent in blood and tears, agony and shame,
their faith that Christian nations would not ignore a
solemn obligation, voluntarily entered into, to save
(175)
176 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
a whole people from being exterminated by fire and
sword. England was the worst of these sinners, for
she had taken on special obligations by a separate
treaty, and forced those who would have taken the
Sultan by the throat to let go.
THE ANGLO-TURKISH CONVENTION.
This took place at the same time as the Berlin
Congress; it was simply between Turkey and Eng-
land.
Article I. " If Batoum, Ardahan, Kars, or any of them
shall be retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be
made at any future time by Russia to take possession of
any further territory of His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in
Asia, as fixed by the Definitive Treaty of Peace, England
engages to join His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in defend-
ing them by force of arms.
" In return, His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, promises
England to introduce necessary reforms, to be agreed upon
later between the two powers, into the government and for
the protection of the Christian and other subjects of the
Porte in these territories; and in order to enable England to
make necossaiT provisions for executing her engagement.
His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further consents to assign
the Island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by
England.
Article VIL " If Rissia restores to Turkey Kars and the
other conquests made by her in Armenia during the last war,
the Island of Cyprus will be evacuated by England, and the
convention of the 4th of June, 1878, will be at an end."
When England was preparing this private treaty,
the English fleet was on the Sea of Marmora, at the
gate of the Bosphorus, threatening Russia, to make
her withdraw her soldiers from the gates of Constanti-
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 177
nople, for the conquering Russian army had reached
the suburbs, and encamped at San Stefano, only eight
or ten miles away. But for England, Russ ia would
have captured Constantinople, and ke2)t it. But Eng-
land backed Turkey, and the other powers backed
England, and Russia reluctantly withdrew her troops.
But Russia has never forciven England for it; and if
England wishes to help tlie Armenians, no matter
how many are massacred, Russia will help Turkey,
while the others side with neither. As to there ever
being a European concert to reform Armenia, a pleas-
ant dream which has deluded many thousands, I have
always laughed at it, and I laugh at it still. The
powers will never act together for any such purpose.
It is not " practical politics " to think of it. The real
center of action is not Germany or Russia, but Eng-
land, for several reasons. One is that London is the
money capital of the world. Money rules; money
buys force. The richest nation is the strongest.
What does Lombard street say ? is the vital question.
The second is her navy, the strongest in the world;
stronger that that of any other two nations combined ;
perhaps in actual fight a match for all combined. The
third is that her possessions are everywhere; she is a
local power in every quarter of the globe; she has to
pass by everybody's doors in managing her colonies.
So I will begin with England.
ENGLAND AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
If England had wished to solve this question, she
could have done it long ago; but she never cared to.
12
178 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
When Mr. Gladstone was in power, he tried to do
it, but his Cabinet overbore him. He did, however,
show by isolated cases what power England had if she
chose to exercise it. After I was banished by the
Turkish government, two native Christian ministers
supplied my pulpit. They were sentenced to death
on a false charge, but Gladstone threatened the Sul-
tan, and the latter commuted the sentence to ban-
ishment. These ministers were Professors Thoum-
aian and Kayayian, who are now in England with
their families. What could be done on a small scale
could be done on a large one. I will give here some
of the speeches of Gladstone on the Armenian ques-
tion; then compare Lord Salisbury with him and his
policy.
W. E. Gladstone.
He assails Turkey's Intolerable Misgovemment and BmpTiasizes the
Value of Impartial American Testimony.
[By Cable to The New York Herald.]
London, Aug. 6, 1895. — A pro-American meet-
ing, presided over by the Duke of Westminster, was
held at Chester this afternoon. Mr. Gladstone was
among those present, and upon entering the hall was
received with great enthusiasm.
In addressing the meeting, Mr. Gladstone said he
had attended rather to meet the expectation that he
would be present than because he had any important
contribution to make to the discussion of the subject
under consideration. The question before the meet-
ing, he said, was not a party question, neither was it
strictly a religious question, although the sufferers, on
whose behalf the meeting was called, were Christians.
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 179
The evil arose from the fact that the sufferers were
under an intolerably bad government — one of the
worst, in fact, that ever existed. A resolution would
be proposed presenting, with justice and firmness, the
true view of the matter. Mr. Gladstone added that
as America had no political interest in the Levant her
witnesses were doubly entitled to credit.
Important Treaty Promsiom.
The treaty of 1856, Mr. Gladstone continued,
gave the powers the right to march into Armenia and
take the government of the country out of the hands
of Turkey, and under the treaty of 1878 the Sultan
was bound to carry out reforms. The ex-Premier
made three proposals: — First, that the demands of
the powers should be moderate ; second, that no prom-
ises of the Turkish authorities should be accepted ; and
third, that the powers should not fear the word " coer-
cion."
" We have reached a critical position," said Mr.
Gladstone, in conclusion, " and the honor of the pow-
ers is pledged to the institution of reforms in Ar-
menia."
A resolution was then proposed expressing the
conviction that the government would have the sup-
port of the entire nation in any measures it might
adopt to secure in Armenia reforms guaranteeing to
the inhabitants safety of life, honor, religion, and
property, and that no reforms can be effected which
are not placed under the continuous control of the
great powers of Europe. The resolution was sec-
onded by the Kev. Canon Malcolm MacColl, and was
adopted.
180 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Says Baseness and Villany Have Beached a Climax in Turkey's
Treatment of Aiifnenia.
[From The New York Herald.]
London, Dec. 27, 1895. — Murad Bey, formerly
Ottoman Commissioner of the Turkish debt, who re-
cently fled from Constantinople to Paris, sent to Mr.
Gladstone a few days ago a pamphlet which he had
published in Paris, entitled " The Yildiz Palace and
the Sublime Porte," with a view to enlightening public
opinion on Turkish affairs. In the course of his reply
acknowledging the receipt of the pamphlet, Mr.
Gladstone disavowed any feeling of enmity toward the
Turks and Mussulmans generally. He said: — "I
have felt it my duty to make it known that the Mo-
hammedans, including the Turks, suffer from the bad
government of the Sultan. I have heartily wished
success to every effort made toward ending the great
evil. Still, Turks and other Mohammedans are not,
so far as I know, plundered, raped, murdered, starved,
and burned; but this is the treatment that the Sultan
knowingly deals out to his Armenian subjects daily.
There are degrees of suffering, degrees of baseness
and villany among men, and both seem to have
reached their climax in the case of Armenia."
His Masterly Speech in Chester Be-enforced with a letter to a
Turk.
[From The New York Sun.]
London, Aug. 10. — Once more have the wonder-
ful power and the true greatness of England's Grand
Old Man been demonstrated in the remarkable re-
vival of popular interest in the fate of Armenia. The
whole nation is marveling over his great speech at
Chester, and there are no words, even among those
who have always been his political opponents, save
THE GREAT POWERS AND AR:^rENIA. 181
those of sympathy and admiration. Nobody is any
longer foolish enough to deny the main features of
the fearful atrocities in Armenia, and there is no possi-
ble doubt of the accuracy of the latest reports that
thousands near the scene of the massacres are per-
ishing of starvation.
Tlie only protest against Mr. Gladstone's speech
has been a long letter from Khalef Khalid, a con-
spicuous Turk, who asks the Grand Old Man why
he hates and denounces the Turks so indiscriminately,
when as many and as great outrages against the Mo-
hammedans have been perpetrated by Christians as
were ever committed by the subjects of Islam.
Mr. Gladstone's reply was made public to-day. It
is one of the most pointed epistles the old man ever
wrote. He says: — " I entirely disclaim the hatred
and hostility to the Turks, or any race of men, which
you ascribe to me. I do not doubt that you write in
entire good faith, but your statements of facts are
unauthenticated. I proceed only upon authenticated
statements. I make no charge against the Turks at
large, but against a Turkish government. I make
the charges which they have been proved guilty of
by public authority. In my opinion, I have been a
far better friend to the Ottoman Empire than have
the Sultan and his advisers. I have always recom-
mended the granting of reasonable powers of local self-
government, which would have saved Turkey from ter-
rible losses. This good advice has been spurned, and
in consequence Turkey has lost 18,000,000 of people,
and may lose more. Pray weigh these words." —
The birthday of the Ex-Premier was made the oc-
casion for an anti-Turkish demonstration.
182 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Outrages and Abominations of 1876 in Bulgaria Repeated in
Armenia in 1894.
[From The New York Herald.]
London, Dec. 29, 1894. — Mr. Gladstone cele-
brated his eighty-fifth birthday to-day, and was the
recipient of hundreds of letters and telegrams of con-
gratulation and parcels containing birthday gifts. Mr.
Gladstone was in remarkably good health and spirits,
and, despite the stormy weather, drove through
the village of Hawarden to the church, where he met
a deputation of Armenian Christians from Paris and
London. The deputation presented a silver chalice to
•the church. The chalice was presented to the Rev.
Stephen Gladstone, son of the ex-Premier, and rector
of the Hawarden church, in recognition of the interest
his father has taken in the Armenian outrages. Mr.
Gladstone, in his reply to the deputation's address, said
that it was not their duty to assume that all the allega-
tions of outrages were true, but rather to .await the re-
sult of the inquiry which had been instituted. How-
ever, he said, the published accounts pointed strongly
to the conclusion that the outrages, sins, and abomina-
tions committed in 1876 in Bulgaria had been repeated
in 1894 in Armenia. Continuing, Mr. Gladstone said:
" Don't let me be told that one nation has no authority
over another. Every nation, aye, every human being,
has authority in behalf of humanity and justice." He
had been silent, he said, because he had full confidence
that the government knew its duty. If the allegations
made should prove to be true, it was time that the
execration of humanity should force itself upon the
ears of the Sultan of Turkey, and make him sensible of
the madness of such a course as was being pursued.
Mr. Gladstone, in conclusion, said: — "The history of
Turkey is a sad and painful one. The Turkish race
has not been without remarkable, even fine qualities,
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 183
but from too many points of view it has been a scourge
which has been made use of by a wise Providence for
the sins of the world. If these tales of murder, viola-
tion, and outrage be true, well, then, they cannot be
overlooked, nor can they be made light of. I have
lived to see the Empire of Turkey in Europe reduced
to less than one-half of what it was when I was born.
And why ? Simply because of its misdeeds, and the
great record written by the hand of Almighty God
against its injustice, lust, and most abominable cruelty.
I hope and feel sure that the government of Great
Britain will do everything that can be done to pierce to
the bottom of this mystery, and make the facts known
to the world.
" If happily (I speak hoping against hope) the re-
ports be disproved or mitigated, let us thank God. If,
on the other hand, they be established, it will more
than ever stand before the world that there is a lesson,
however severe it may be, that can teach certain people
the duty of prudence, and the necessity of observing
the laws of decency, humanity, and justice. If the
allegations are true, it is time that there should be one
general shout of execration against these deeds of wick-
edness from outraged humanity. If the facts are well
established, it should be written in letters of iron upon
the records of the world that a government which
could be guilty of countenancing and covering up
such atrocities is a disgrace to Mohammed the prophet,
a disgrace to civilization at large, and a disgrace to
mankind. Now that is strong language, but strong
language ought to be used when the facts are strong.
But strong language ought not to be used without the
strength of facts.
" I have counseled you to be still and keep your
judgment in suspense; but as the evidence grows, the
case darkens, and my hopes dwindle and decline, and
184 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
as long as I have voice it will be uttered in behalf of
humanity and truth. I wish you heartily every bless-
ing, and also wish with every heartiness prosperity to
your nation, however dark the present may. seem."
Lord Salisbury.
"Now we come to the present Prime Minister, Lord
Salisbury. He is reputed a great statesman. That
should mean that he has accomplished something
great. Well, what ? I know of nothing, have heard
of nothing. Has he saved any country ? Has he
elevated any ? Has he done any public action that
can be set down to his credit ? He has hindered some
good ones, that is all. On the Armenian question he
has done enormous harm. If he is not a great hypo-
crite, there is no use comparing a man's words with his
actions. I have always told my friends that nothing
good could be hoped for from him, for morally he is
worse than the Sultan. An eminent English clergy-
man told me that Lord Salisbury is another Sultan,
and I believe him. Here are a few of Lord Salis-
bury's deliverances; see how they agree: —
[From The New York World, August 16, 1895.]
Lord Salisbury to Sir Philip Currie, the British
Ambassador to Constantinople: — "The Porte must
accept the proposals of the Powers unconditionally, or
England would use sharper means than those adopted
by Lord Rosebery to settle affairs in Armenia." —
[July 80, 1895.
Lord Salisbury, in a speech in London about the
time of the above, said, " The concert of Europe
on the Armenian question is complete, and England
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 186
has the loyal support of other powers to reform Ar-
menia."
At another time we note: — " There is every rea-
son to believe that the Chinese government is sincerely
desirous of punishing the perpetrators of the outrages
and those who connived at them. Should any luke-
warmness become discernible, it will become our duty
to supply its defect.
" With respect to Armenia, we have accepted the
policy which our predecessors initiated, and our efforts
will be directed to obtaining an adequate guarantee
for the carrying out of reform. We have received the
most loyal support from both France and Russia. The
permanence of the Sultan's rule is involved in the con-
duct he pursues. If the cries of misery continue, the
Sultan must realize that Europe will become weary
of appeals, and. the fictitious strength which the pow-
ers have given the empire will fail it. The Sultan will
make a calamitous mistake if he refuses to accept the
advice of the European powers relative to the re-
forms." The House of Lords adopted the address
in reply to the Queen's speech.
After the above strong worda, Lord Salisbury
backed down and sneaked out of his bold attitude in
this way. (Jan. 31, 1896.) See how he asserts, first
that England cannot do anything for the Armenians,
and second that it is not her duty to do anything : —
[From The New York Tribune.]
" The Prime Minister expressed sympathy with
the Armenians, but denied that Great Britain was
under obligation to declare war against the Sultan
of Turkey in order to compel him to govern justly,
and cited the treaties in proof of his contention. He
ascribed the atrocities to the passions of race and creed.
186 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE. /
He believed that the Sultan's government was wretched
and impotent, but there was no ground for im-
agining that the Sultan had instigated the massacres.
It might be asked why Europe did not interfere. He
could only answer for England. She had lacked the
power to do the only thing necessary to end the trou-
bles, namely, to militarily occupy Turkish provinces.
None of the powers wished so to occupy them.
'^ Lord Salisbury said he concurred in the belief
that the only authority, albeit it was an evil one, in
that country was the prestige of the Sultan's name.
Patience must be exercised, and time must be given
to His Majesty to enforce the reforms he had prom-
ised; He remarked upon the gradual return of order
in Anatolia during the last few weeks, although he
admitted that these signs should not be trusted too
much. He concluded by declaring that if Great
Britain did not co-operate with the other powers, she
must act against them, which would lead to calamities
far more awful than the Armenian massacres."
Ambassador Currie instructed -not to exert Undue Pressure on the
Sultan.
[From The New York World, 1895.]
London, Nov. 23, 1895. — It can be authoritatively
stated that Lord Salisbury's instructions to Sir Philip
Currie, the British Ambassador to Turkey, who left
England a few" days ago on his return to his post of
duty, are to refrain from exerting undue pressure on
the Sultan for the execution of the reforms in Ar-
menia, and to give the JPorte time to recover from
the existing administrative anarchy, and appoint au-
thorities through whom the reforms must be effected.
Sir Philip has taken with him an autograph letter
from the Queen to the Sultan. This is supposed to
be a reply to a letter the Sultan sent to her with the
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 187
communication he sent to Lord Salisbury, which the
latter read at the meeting of the National Union of
Conservatives at Brighton, on Tuesday night last.
It is reported that the Queen will invite the Sul-
tan to visit England, when the time shall be auspi-
cious. The anxiety at the Foreign Office in regard
to the East has greatly lessened during the week.
England possessed the Island of Cyprus, and it be-
came her duty to look after the reforms in Turkey.
But now Salisbury denies it, saying that it is not her
duty, and meantime says that time must be given to
the Sultan of Turkey, as if all the time had not been
given him since the Berlin treaty of 1878.
Salisbury used another silly trick, persuading the
Queen of England to write a letter to the Sultan and
appeal to his good nature; as if the Sultan had a good
nature; but the Queen wrote the letter.
A strong criticism by the editor of the New York
" Press " on Lord Salisbury's speech.
February 3, 1896.
" We confess that we are at a loss to comprehend
the meaning of Lord Salisbury's Armenian speech.
We do not know what to make of it when he says that
the Berlin Treaty " bound the signatory powers; that,
if the Sultan promulgated certain reforms, they would
watch over tlie progress of these reforms. Nothing
more." We cannot understand him when he de-
clares that the Cyprus Convention ^ contains no trace
of an understanding to interfere in behalf of the Sul-
tan's subjects.' When Russia made, in March, 1878,
a treaty with Turkey, called the treaty of San Stefano,
Great Britain became alarmed lest Russia should se-
188 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
cure too much influence in Constantinople. Kussia
then held some Armenian provinces bordering on her
territory, and it seemed clear that it was her purpose to
seize others. England protested to the Sultan against
the treaty of San Stefano, but the government of the
Ottoman Porte was helpless against the Czar, and the
Sultan declared that he must adhere to the treaty.
Great Britain then secretly bound herself to aid Tur-
key by force of arms in preventing Russia from ap-
propriating further Armenian provinces, Turkey
agreeing, on her part, to reform her local administra-
tion in her remaining Armenian provinces and as-
signing the island of Cyprus to be occupied and ad-
ministered by Great Britain.
" Great Britain, meanwhile, had incited the other
powers of Europe to take action against the treaty of
San Stefano. Austria was induced to suggest a Euro-
pean Congress. Russia at first refused to go into this
Congress; but, seeing that all the great powers were
uniting against her, she consented to attend. The re-
sult of this Congress was the Treaty of Berlin, signed
by the six powers, — England, Russia, Germany,
France, Austria, and Italy. By this treaty Turkey
was stripped of Bulgaria, Servia, and Roumania, and
Russia was deprived of all she had won during
the Turko-Russian w^ar, except the Armenian pro-
vinces which she still controls. By this treaty, also,
the signatory powers became guardians and trustees of
the Ottoman Porte, pledging themselves that religious
freedom should be secured in the Turkish Empire, and
that Armenian Christians should be protected against
the Circassians and Kurds.
" We are puzzled, therefore, to understand Lord
Salisbury when he says that all these promises did not
mean anything. Certainly he ought to know, for, as
the agent of the Disraeli government, it was Lord
THE GREAT P0WJ)U8 AND ARMENIA. 189
Salisbury who drafted the agreements and drew up
the promises. For eighteen years Christian civiliza-
tion has supposed that they did mean something. But
Lord Salisbury says not. He says that all the powers
agreed to do was to ^ watch over the execution of those
reforms ' if they were promulgated.
" What does that mean, anyway ? Does it mean,
as the Christian world has all along supposed, that the
six powers would engage themselves to see that these
reforms were carried out by Turkey, or does it mean
that if the reforms were carried out they would simply
look on; and if the reforms were not carried out, if ten
thousand Armenian homes were destroyed, and four
times ten thousand Armenian citizens were butchered,
they would still simply look on ?
" I^or do we understand Lord Salisbury w^hen he
pleads that it requires time for the Turkish govern-
ment to carry out the reforms ^ which the Sultan re-
cently has accepted.' Why the Turkish govern-
ment ? There is no Turkish government. There is
a Mohammedan administration, but the government
of the Ottoman Porte expired mth the Treaty of Ber-
lin. The Turkish government is vested de facto in
the six signatory powers of the Berlin Congress. Even
the local government of Constantinople itself lies in
the hands of these powers. The capital is divided into
six sections, each controlled by a treaty power. Each
has its own courts, its own military, even its own police.
When Englishmen wish a wrong to be righted in the
Turkish Empire, or a reform to be executed, they do
not request the ' Turkish government ' to listen to
their appeal. The British Minister summons the
Grand Yezir and orders him to do what is wished.
And he does it forthwith, so far as he is permitted by
the orders of the representatives of the other treaty
powers. It is in London, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg,
190 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
in Paris, in Vienna, and in Eome that the Turkish
government rests.
" It is for these reasons that Ave are unable to un-
derstand what Lord Salisbury means when he says
that the Berlin Treaty and the Cyprus Convention
impose no responsibility for Armenian reforms upon
any one save the Sultan. The Cyprus Convention
specifies: —
" Treaty of Defensive Alliance between the British
Government and the Sublime Porte, signed on June
4, 1878:—
Article I. If Batoum, Ardahau, Kars, or any of them
shall be retained by Russia, and if any attempt shall be
made at any future time by Russia to take possession of
any further territories of his imperial Majesty, the Sultan,
in Asia, as fixed by the definitive treaty of peace, England
engages to join His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, in defend-
ing them by force of arms. In return. His Imperial Majesty,
the Sultan, promises to England to introduce necessary
reforms, to be agreed upon later between the two powers,
into the government, and for the protection of Christian and
other subjects of the Porte in these territories; and in order
to enable England to make necessai*y provision for executing
her engagement. His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan, further
consents to assign the Island of Cyprus, to be occupied and
administered by England.
" Why, then, does not Lord Salisbury carry out
England's pledges, for which he is directly responsi-
ble, since he made them in her name ?
^•' England must be held to an accounting for the
disorders in Armenia. There are no such disorders
in the provinces administered by the Czar, provinces
adjoining those where for the last six years pillage,
destruction, and murder have swept away every sign
of government. In the provinces controlled by the
Czar the Armenians have been so well treated, enjoy-
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 191
ing unquestioned religious freedom and rights, that
there have been not the slightest disorders. But in
the provinces where England pledged reform, the Ar-
menian is butchered daily.
" Does Lord Salisbury mean that so long as Great
Britain occupies Cyprus, pending the execution of re-
forms, it is better for England that the reforms should
not be executed and that England should * watch
over them ; nothing more ' ? "
Note carefully what Salisbury says first; then what
he says afterward. First he says there is complete
concert among the powers, then he says there is not;
fii-st he threatens the Sultan, then he is' friendly.
First he seems to be a brave and noble statesman, then
a cowardly politician.
Sir Philip Currie, the British Ambassador at Con-
stantinople, is a brave and noble gentleman. He was
sent there by the Liberal government, before Salis-
bury's accession. He has done a great deal for the
Armenian cause. But after Lord Salisbury became
Prime Minister, he called him to London and in-
structed him to have cordial relations with the Sultan,
and now he can do nothing.
Finally there appear to be two Englands, con-
servative England and liberal England, slave Eng-
land and free England, selfish England and noble
and sympathetic England, false England and true
England. The head of conservative, selfish, false, op-
pressive England is Lord Salisbury. The head of
liberal, free, noble, and true England is Mr. Glad-
stone. Therefore nothing for Armenia can be ex-
192 AR^lENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
pected from the Conservatives, while much may be
hoped from the Liberals. Gladstone is an old man,
but God will raise a Joshua to succeed Moses; Glad-
stone will see the Armenian nation free, and then he
will die.
GERMANY AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.
Listen to what the haughty young ruler of Ger-
many says: — '^ It is better that the Armenians be
killed than the peace of Europe be disturbed." The
explanation is easy enough. When he visited Con-
stantinople half a dozen years ago, the Sultan pre-
sented him with Arabian horses, jewelry of massive
gold, and many other valuable articles, worth in all
several hundred thousand dollars; and last summer
sent him a beautiful and valuable sword made in Con-
stantinople by Armenians, which was carried to him
by Shakir Pasha, the butcher who was afterwards
appointed by the Sultan to reform Armenia, — the
commander of the " Hamidieh Cavalry," whose work
I tell of later on. This embassy was to secure the al-
liance of Germany against molestation by Russia.
The German Emperor has three motives in his
present action. One is to show gratitude for the Sul-
tan's generosity — as though it were not the easiest
thing in the world to be munificent when it all comes
out of other people. The second is to punish Lord
Salisbury for not getting England to join the Triple
Alliance, when the Emperor asked him in person
on his journey to England. When Salisbury threat-
ened the Sultan in the interest of Armenia, the Ger-
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 193
man Emperor said, " The English government has
no right to interfere with the Turkish Empire. Every
sovereign must have the right to govern as he thinks
necessary, or he is no sovereign." He afterwards
sent his Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe, to the Czar
to arrange united resistance to England, and after-
wards sent Count Von Moltke on the same errand.
And the Czar instructed his Ambassador at Con-
stantinople, M. I^elido£F, to inform the Sultan that
he would not support the English government in
coercing Turkey. The Sultan therefore refused Sal-
isbury's demands, and he dared not go on alone. The
Emperor's third motive was to gain the friendship of
the Czar against France, which had lately been taking
up the Russian alliance with great fervor. Another
reason is that he hates the Armenians for having
bought the German factories and property in Amas-
sia. He is very anxious to plant German colonies in
Turkey, of all places in the world, for profit. There
are about fifty families in Amassia, near Marsovan,
and they had started various kinds of factories there ;
but the shrewd and wealthy Armenians bought them
out. The Emperor is angry because his colony was
not successful.
For all these reasons the German Emperor refused
to send gunboats to the Bosphorus when the other
powers did; he said he saw no need of it. He was
right so far as Germans were concerned; the Sultan
was not going to allow his ally's subjects to be slaugh-
tered and the ally turned into an enemy. And if he
13
194 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
could stop the massacre of one sort of people, he could
of another; nothing shows the Sultan's deliberate
purpose in the massacres better than the fact that
when he chose not to let any particular sort of people
be harmed, that sort were not harmed. But as to
Germany, what hope for Armenia is there from it ?
The Emperor has his own interests, and the Armen-
ians might be tortured or outraged to death, and
he would not stir a finger.
RUSSIA AND THE ARMENIANS.
The present Czar, Nicholas II, is a corrupt weak-
ling, who is on the throne by the law of heredity,
against the will of his father. Morally he is as bad
as the Sultan; not so cruel yet, though he may de-
velop that in time, but fully as sensual and de-
void of principle. I have had it from good Russian
authority that his life before his marriage was so bad
that it has rendered him entirely impotent. " Birds
of a feather flock together." No wonder he helps
the Sultan. His political aims and character are
wholly selfish. He, too, like the German Emperor,
is continually exchanging presents with the Sultan.
Here is a press notice of Feb. 26, 1896: — " M.
Nelidoff, the Russian Ambassador, has presented
to the Sultan a pair of jasper vases from the
Czar, together with an autograph letter from His Ma-
jesty thanking the Sultan for the gifts sent to him."
Not only so, but they have concluded an alliance.
Read the following dispatch of Jan. 23, 1896: —
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 195
" London, Jan. 23, 1896.— A dispatch to the Pall
Mall Gazette from Constantinople, dated yesterday,
savs that an offensive and defensive alliance has been
concluded between Russia and Turkey. The Pall Mall
Gazette correspondent adds that the treaty was signed
at Constantinople, and that the ratifications were ex-
changed at St. Petersburg between Arifi Pasha and
the Czar.
" The basis of the treaty is declared to be on the
lines of the Unkiarskelessi agreement of 1833, by
which Turkey agreed, in the event of Russia going
to war, to close the Dardanelles to war-ships of all
nations. The Pall Mall Gazette's correspondent then
says the treaty will soon be abandoned, owing to the
refusal of the powers to recognize it. He also says
that the French Ambassador, M. Cambon, conferred
with the Sultan yesterday, and that it is probable
France will be included in the new alliance.
"The Pall Mall Gazette says: MVe regard the
news as true, and the result of the treaty is that the
Dardanelles is now the Southern outpost of Russia,
and Turkey is Russia's vassal. AVe presume the
British government wdll protest against the treaty for
all it is worth.
" ^ The information is plainly of the very gravest
importance. The first intimation reached us four
days ago; but we withheld it until the arrival of strong
confirmation, which we received this morning. This
brings Russia into the Mediterranean with a ven-
geance, and may necessitate the strengthening of our
fleet in those waters. Politically, the effect will be
far greater. The treaty means that Turkey has real-
ized her own impotence against disorders both from
within and without, and has decided to throw herself
for safety into the arms of Russia. She is now Rus-
sia's vassal, and Russia is entitled to dispatch troops
196 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
to any part of the Sultan's dominions whenever there
is the least breach of order — and when is there not ?
" ^ We presume the arrangement will give the keen-
est satisfaction to the Anglo-American section of our
people. With them lies the chief blame for the
complete alienation of Turkey, though it must be
owned that it has been sedulously fostered by a long
term of weak policy at Constantinople.' ''
For the present the Czar will do no more mischief,
because he is to have his coronation in May, and pre-
fers to put on the smoothest outside to every nation;
but after that is over he will show his hand. His
father and his grandfather favored the Armenians in
Russia, and they prospered wonderfully, but this one
proposes to persecute them to please the Sultan. The
two will join in a common policy toward the unhappy
race, till not less than a million are slain. The Czar's
motive is not love of the Sultan, whom he hates in
spite of their community of character; it is simply
that he wishes to get Constantinople peaceably if he
can. The Sultan knows this quite well, but he is too
weak in military power, and too poor, and owes too
large an indemnity to the Czar to be able to help him-
self. He is compelled to throw himself on the Czar
for protection.
Will the Czar succeed in getting Constantinople ?
^o; the attempt will ruin and break up the Russian
Empire. All the European powers would resist it;
some of them may seem friendly to the Czar now, but
when he comes to seize Constantinople every one of
them will be against him. He Avill try it, hone the
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 197
less. The famous " will " of Peter the Great, though
a patent and notorious forgery of Napoleon's, — never
seen till 1812, just before the Russian campaign, and
circulated then to influence Europe against Russia, —
was the most magnificent piece of forgery ever com-
mitted, for it has actually become a guiding policy to
the country it was aimed against, just as if it had
been real. Nothing in history equals this for impu-
dence and success combined ; it is a true Xapoleonism.
This bogus '' will " has become the " Monroe doc-
trine " of Russia; I am not entitled to say whether
the latter is as mischievous as the former. That most
Russian of all Russian journals, the " Ruskija Yja-
domosti," has lately been having one of its periodical
spasms of hysterical hatred toward all policy not
"^ good Russian," and boldly proclaims that Russia
must follow the precepts laid down in this will !
Since, therefore, it is just as important as if it were
not the greatest of all " fakes," I give it here that the
reader may know what Russian policy is to be : —
Will of Peter the Great.
In the name of the most holy and indivisible Trinity,
we, Peter the Great, unto all our descendants and succes-
sors to the throne and f?overnment of the Russian nation: the
All-Powerful. from whom we hold our life and our throne,
after having: i-evealed unto us his wishes and intentions,
and after bein^ our support, permits us to look upon Russia
as called upon to establish her rule over all Europe. This
idea is based upon the fact that all nations of this portion
of the globe are fast approaching: a state of utter decrepi-
tude. From this it results that they can be easily conquered
by a new race of people when it has attained full power
and strength. We look upon our invasion of the West and
198 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
East as a decree of divine providence, which has already
once regenerated the Roman Empire by an invasion of
"barbarians."
The emigration of men from tlie North is lilie the inunda-
tion of tlie Nile, which, at certain seasons, enriches with its
waters the arid plains of Egypt. We found Russia a small
rivulet; we leave it an immense river. Our successor will
make it an ocean, destined to fertilize the whole of Europe if
they know how to guide its waves. We leave them, then,
the following iusti lutions, which we earnestly recommend
to their constant meditation.
I. To keep the Prussian nation in constant warfare, in
order always to have good soldiers. Peace must only be
permitted to recuperate tinance, to recruit the army, to
choose the moment favorable for attack. Thus peace will
advance your projects of war, and war those of peace, for
obtaining the enlargement and prosperity of Russia.
II. Draw unto you by all possible means, from the
civilized nations of Europe, captains during war and learned
men during peace, so that Russia may benefit by the ad-
vantages of other nations.
III. Take care to mix in the affairs of all Europe, and
in particular of Germany, which, being the nearest nation
to you, deserves your chief attention.
IV. Divide Poland by raising up continual disorders
and jealousies within its bosom. Gain over its rulers with
gold influence and corrupt the Diet, in order to have a
voice in the election of the kings. Make partisans and pro-
tect them; if neighboring powers raise objections and op-
position, surmount the obstacles by stirring up discord
within their countries.
V. Take all you can from Sweden, and to this effect
isolate her from Denmark, and vice versa. Be careful to
rouse their mutual jealousy.
VI. Marry Russian princes to German Princesses;
multiply these alliances, unite these interests, and by the in-
crease of our influence attach Germany to our cause.
VII. Seek the alliance with England on account of our
commerce, as being the country most useful for the develop-
ment of our navy, merchants, etc., and for the exchange ot
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 199
our produce against hor gold. Keep up continual communi-
cation with her merchants and sailors, so that ours may ac-
quire experience in commerce and navigation.
VIII. Constantly extend yourselves along the shores of
the Baltic and the borders of the Euxine.
IX. Do all in your power to approach closely Constan-
tinople and India. Remember that he who rules over these
countries is the real sovereign of the world. Keep up con-
tinued wars with Turkey and with Persia. Establish dock-
yards in the Black Sea. Gradually obtain the command of
this sea as well as of the Baltic. This is necessary for the
entire success of our projects. Hasten the fall of Persia.
Open for yourself a route toward the Persian Gulf.
Re-establish as much as possible, by means of Syria, the
ancient commerce of the Levant, and thus advance toward
India. Once there you will not require English gold.
X. Carefully seek the alliance of Austria. Make her
believe that you will second her in her projects for dominion
over Germany, but secretly stir up other princes against
her, and manage so that each be disposed to claim the
assistance of Russia; and exercise over each a sort of pro-
tection, which will lead the way to a future dominion over
them.
XI. Make Austria drive the Turks out of Europe, and
neutmlize her jealousy by offering to her a portion of your
conquests, which you will further on take back.
XII. Above all, recall around you the schismatic Greeks
who are spread over Hungary and Poland. Become their
center, and support a universal dominion over them by a
kind of sacerdotal autocracy; by this you will have many
friends among your enemies.
XIII. Sweden dismembered, Persia conquered, Poland
subjugated, Turkey beaten, our armies united, the Black
and Baltic seas guarded by our vessels, prepare, separately
and secretly, first the court of Versailles, then that of
Vienna, to share the empire of the universe with Russia.
If one accept, flatter her ambition and vanity, and make
use of one to crush the other by engaging them in war. The
result cannot be doubted; Russia will be possessed of the
whole of the East and a great portion of Europe.
200 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
XIV. If, which is not probable, both should refuse the
offer of Russia, raise a quarrel between them, and one which
will ruin them both; then Russia, profiting by this decisive
movement, will inundate Germany with the troops which she
will have assembled beforehand. At the same time two
fleets full of soldiers will leave the Baltic and the Black
Sea, will advance along the Mediterranean and the ocean,
keeping France in check with the one and Germany with
the other. And these two countries conquered, the re-
mainder of Europe will fall under our yoke. Thus can
Europe be subjugated.
But aside from this, no help could be expected
from Kussia in any event, because she needs all her
strength to save herself from destruction by her own
internal decay. She is a great tree, hollow in the in-
side. The Nihilists and the Constitutional Reform-
ers are both against her, and, in my belief, she will go
to pieces in the present Czar's lifetime. The Sul-
tan's days are numbered, but the Czar's and the Em-
peror's are too; their own people will rise and depose
them. It is against Socialists and Nihilists that they
are massing such great armies. How can they spare
any service for a people being murdered off the earth ?
FRANCE AND ARMENIA.
Of the other powers, little need be said. France
has lost all her great men, and become a tail to Rus-
sia, and is ready to be moved blindly, as Russia may
direct. And as part of the people are infidels, and
the rest fanatical Catholics, there is no religious mo-
tive to prompt them to come to the rescue. France,
in a word, can or will do nothing directly; all it can
do is to threaten the haughty Emperor of Germany.
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 201
Italy is bankrupt, and ovon the throne of King Hum-
bert is in danger, and that country will follow in the
wake of Austria.
THE POPE OF ROME AND THE ARMENIANS.
Pope Leo XIII sent 70,000 lire to the Armenian
sufferers; probably to the Catholics alone, for there
are about 100,000 Catholic Armenians in Turkey.
But the Armenians can expect no help from the Pope ;
he has no troops ; he has no great fund of spare money,
and he would be very unlikely to use either if he had
them. The motive of all the Popes has been to con-
vert the Protestant Armenian Church to become a
part of the Roman Catholic Church, — to acknowledge
the Papacy. I say Protestant, for before Martin Lu-
ther was born, the Armenian Church protested against
the popes of Rome age after age, and was persecuted
by them. The Armenians offer their thanks to the
Pope for his gifts, but they cannot accept his domin-
ion.
[Press dispatch, N. Y. Herald. 1
Rome, Dec. 16, 1895.— The Pope has sent 20,-
000 lire for the relief of the sufferers from Turkish
misrule in Anatolia, in addition to the 50,000 lire
previously given by him for the same purpose."
The European edition published recently in a
dispatch from Rome the following passage dealing
with the Eastern question in the allocution delivered
by Leo XIII at the consistory on November 29 : —
" The whole of Europe in anxious expectation
looks toward its eastern neighbor, troubled by griev-
202 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ons events and internal conflicts. The sight of towns
and villages defiled by scenes of blood and of vast ex-
tents of territory ravaged by fire and sword is a cruel
and lamentable spectacle.
'' While the powers are taking counsel together
in the laudable effort to find means of putting an end
to the carnage and restore quiet, we have not omitted
to defend this noble and just cause to the extent of
our power. Long before these recent events, we vol-
untarily intervened in favor of the Armenian nation.
We advised concord, quiet, and equity.
'' Our counsels did not appear to give offense. We
mean to pursue the work we have begun, for we desire
nothing so much as to see the security of persons and
all rights safeguarded throughout the immense em-
pire.
" In the meantime we have decided to send help
to the most tried and the most needy of the Armen-
AMERICA AND ARMENIA.
!N^ow we cross the ocean and come to the United
States. Everywhere here the people have shown the
greatest sympathy for us; and the Armenians are
deeply moved and exceedingly grateful for it. The
newspapers have almost uniformly been on our side
also; the only exception of any moment has been the
!N'ew York " Herald," which has steadily favored the
Sultan. The reason is the same as for General Wal-
lace's like opinion of that worthless animal, — mis-
taking his entertainments and gifts for proofs of good
character, humanity, and statesmanship. Mr. Ben-
nett, too, knows the taste of the dinners at the palace,
and perhaps the weight of the golden ornaments he
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 203
gives out. Fortunately his paper has very little in-
lluence on public opinion; and the real leaders of it
have remained true.
I believe it will be the Americans who will finally
put an end to the Ariuonian atrocities; but the time
has not come yet. It will take two years more, then
this 70,000,000 of people will be aroused as one man
and stop them. I should like here to give an account
of the many mass meetings held here for our cause;
but I can only take space for two, one which I organ-
ized in Baltimore, and one held in New York, at
which I was present.
Mass-Meeting at Levering Hall, Baltimore
[Report from Baltimore Sun.]
December 11, 1894. — An enthusiastic meeting of
Baltimoreans was held last night at Levering Hall,
Johns Hopkins University, to make an emphatic pro-
test against the Turkish outrages upon Christian Ar-
menians, and to urge the United States government
to do all in its power to remedy the existing evils.
The meeting was called by a committee of Balti-
more ministers. It was presided over by Attorney-
General John P. Poe, and the Rev. T. M. Beadenkoff
was the secretary.
Addresses were made by Mr. Poe, Rev. George H.
Filian, an exiled Armenian Christian Minister, Rabbi
Wm. Rosenan, and Rev. Dr. F. M. Ellis.
Cardinal Gibbons and Judge Harlan sent letters
regretting their inability to be present, and express-
ing sympathy with the object of the gathering.
Mr. Poe, in taking the chair, said: — "The ac-
counts which have reached us of the indescribable
atrocities recently committed upon the Christians in
204 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Armenia have stirred the indignation and aroused the
sympathy of the whole country.
'' At first the nameless outrages inflicted upon
them were received with incredulity, for it seemed al-
most impossible that they could be true. But there is
now no reason to discredit the harrowing details. In-
deed, denial is hardly any longer attempted, nor is it
claimed that the reports of the cruelties of which these
helpless people are the victims have been exaggerated.
*' Conscious that the facts cannot be suppressed
or belittled, the representatives and apologists of the
ruthless perpetrators of these atrocities are endeavor-
ing to palliate and excuse the enormities which they
cannot truthfully deny. In order to shield them-
selves and their governments from universal execra-
tion, the world is asked to believe that the Christians
of Armenia were themselves the aggressors, and that
the horrors of massacre and rapine which have been
visited upon them with such relentless fury were but
necessary and pardonable measures of pimishment and
repression. The long record of the patient and sub-
missive sufferers is a silent yet unanswerable refuta-
tion of this falsehood.
" In their misery and woe these sufferers lift their
eyes to us, and ask us to extend to them such sympathy
and assistance as will rescue them from total ruin.
" We are met here to-night to express these feel-
ings — to declare that we cannot look unmoved upon
the calamities of our Christian brethren, though sep-
arated from us by thousands of miles, and to recom-
mend to Congress the adoption of such measures as,
without departure from the well-settled policy of our
government, will bring; to them speedy and effectual
deliverance, safety, and peace."
Cardinal Gibbons' letter sent to the meeting was
as follows:
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 205
" I regret my inability to attend the meeting to
protest against the alleged outrages recently com-
mitted in Armenia.
" The reports of these outrages have been pub-
lished with harrowing details throughout the civilized
world, and I am not aware that these circumstantial
details have been successfully denied.
" The Christians of Armenia have been conspicu-
ous among their Oriental co-religioni§ts for their en-
lightened and progressive spirit.
"It is earnestly to be hoped that these alleged
deeds of lawless violence will be thoroughly investi-
gated in a calm and dispassionate spirit, so that the
whole truth may be brought to light, and that out-
raged law may be vindicated. The recital of these in-
human cruelties is calculated to fill every generous
heart with righteous indignation.
" The commercial and social ties that now bind
together the human family quicken our sympathy for-
our suffering brethren, though separated from us by
ocean and mountains, and this sympathy is deepened
by the consideration that many of their countrymen
have cast their lot among us, and that they and their
persecuted brethren are united to us in the sacred
bonds of a common Christian faith.
" It is gratifying to note, from recent publications,
that a mixed commission, to make thorough investiga-
tion, has been appointed by the Sublime Porte."
Dr. Cyrus Hamlin of Lexington, Mass., whose
article on the outrages in Armenia, published in the
"Congregationalist," has been used by the Turkish gov-
ernment as a defense of the recent actions of the sol-
diers of the Porte, was asked to be present at the meet-
ing, and was also asked to define his position as to the
probable accuracy of the reports from Armenia, and as
206 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
to the responsibility of the Sultan for the occurrence
of the massacre.
His letter of reply was read at the meeting. Ho
stated emphatically that he believed the accounts
of the horrible atrocities to be in the main true, and
added that he believed the Sultan of Turkey was per-
fectly cognizant of them, and should be held respon-
sible for them.
Extracts were also read from a letter from some
Congregational missionaries now near the seat of the
massacres. The stories which they told, having been
written nearly a month after the occurrences, showed
that the earlier dispatches did not enlarge upon or ex-
aggerate the horror of the scenes.
Much interest was manifested in the address of
Mr. Filian, who feelingly described the pitiable con-
dition of his country and his countrymen, and graph-
ically portrayed the extent of the recent massacres,
illustrating his talk with references to a large map
of Turkey and Armenia.
" Armenia,'' he said, " was mentioned in the Bible
700 years before Chris!. It then had an area of 1,-
000,000 square miles, and it was in that land that the
Garden of Eden was situated. Adam was created
there, and within its confines, upon Mt. Ararat, the
ark of Noah found a resting place after the flood. Ar-
menia was named after Armen, the great-grandson of
Japhet, one of the three sons of Noah. In the time
of Christ the population of the country was 40,000,-
000. It was fully Christianized in 310 A. D., and
was not only the first Christian nation of the earth,
but the first civilized nation. And now, from all
these glories, the people of Armenia have dwindled
to 4,000,000."
He concluded by citing the cause of the massacre
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 207
as the desire of the Turks to check the rapid growth
and improvement of the Armenians.
The following resolutions, which had been pre-
pared by a committee composed of Rev. Dr. Conrad
Clever, Rev. W. T. McKenney, Rev. F. T. Tagg, and
Rev. C. A. Fulton, were, after some discussion,
passed:
" It has come to our knowledge through sources that
cannot be disputed that an outrageous massacre of Ar-
menians has been executed within the boundaries of the
Turkish empire.
" These outrages have been committed by soldiers who
are in the employ and under the direction of the Sultan at
Constantinople.
" The thousands who have been murdered were Chris-
tians and peaceably disposed citizens.
" We, representatives of the citizens of Baltimore,
prompted by motives of Christianity and common brother-
hood, do call upon our government to use every power in its
control, in harmony with that international law which
governs nations in their relationship with each other, to aid
these sufferers, and if possible to bring such influence to
bear upon the Turkish government as will render justice to
those who have been deprived of their rightful liberties as
honest and industrious citizens of one of the recognized em-
pires of the earth."
It was also resolved that a committee of five, with
Mr. John P. Poe chairman, should be appointed to
present the resolutions to the president at the earliest
opportunity, and " to gratefully acknowledge the steps
already taken in the appointment of an American
member of the committee of investigation."
Mass Meeting In Dr. Greer's Church.
[Report from N. Y. Tribane.]
The interest which the American Christian feels
in the Armenian question was show^n by the large at-
tendance at St. Bartholomew's Church, last night,
when a special service was held under the direction of
Rev. Dr. David H. Greer. The object was to express
208 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
indignation at Turkey's acts of violence toward Ar-
menians, and to enter a protest against a course of con-
duct which is not in keeping with the spirit of the
nineteenth century.
The main body of the church was reserved for
Armenians, of whom there were about 500 present.
After the processional hymn, " The Son of God
Goes Forth," had been given, the full choir sang the
anthem, " I Will Mention the Loving Kindnesses of
the Lord."
Dr. Greer then spoke of the outrages committed
last September in Armenia, the particulars of which
had only recently become known. He said in part:
" The purpose of this meeting is not only to ex-
press sympathy with those who have suffered, and are
suffering now from the atrocities and barbarious cruel-
ties inflicted by Turkish soldiers, but for protesting
against the further infliction of such atrocities. What
has been done is done, and cannot be undone; but if
it is possible to prevent in any measure a repetition
of it in the future, it should become everyone who is
not a Christian merely, but a man, to exert himself
to the utmost in that direction."
The speaker told of the untrustworthiness of re-
ports from Turkey, and said that letters recently re-
ceived from good sources give the following details:
Early in September some Kurds — the brigands
of that region — robbed some Armenian villages of
their flocks. The Armenians tried to recover their
property, and about a dozen Kurds were killed. The
authorities then telegraphed to the Sultan that the
Armenians had killed some of the Sultan's troops.
The Sultan on hearing this ordered the army, infan-
try, and cavalry, to put down the rebellion; and not
finding any rebellion to put down, they cleared the
country so that none should occur in the future. A
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 200
number of towns and villages — the estimate varying
from twenty-four to forty-eight — were destroyed.
Men, women, and children were put to the sword, and
from six to ten thousand persons massacred in the dis-
trict of Sassoun. As the result of this wholesale
butchery and slaughter, an epidemic of cholera has
broken out, which is still ravaging the country.
The Turk has always been a cruel force, and has
practiced his cruelties hitherto with impunity. But
he cannot do so now. An enlightened public opinion
is to-day the governing power of the world. It is to
that we have to trust to accomplish moral reforms,
not only here, but everywhere. It is stronger than
states; it is mightier than empires, and the most ar-
bitrary and autocratic of despots feel its controlling
force. It is the force that moves the world. If meet-
ings similar to this are held in different parts of
the country and public sentiment aroused, even the
Turkish authorities will not be impervious to it.
Dr. Greer read a letter from Bishop Potter, in
which he expressed his regret at being imable to be
present at the meeting. " I am," he wrote, " A Mon-
roe-doctrine disciple, first, last, and all time, but I
am a human being also, and while I think our com-
petency as a nation to send a commissioner to Turk-
ish-Armenia is open to question, I am quite clear that
our duty as something else than savages is to protest
against barbarism wherever it is to be found."
The Rev. Abraham Johannan then spoke in Ar-
menian, and was followed by the Rev. Dr. George
11. McGrew, who, during years of missionary work
in Armenia, had become familiar with the people and
their customs, and gave vivid pictures of the hatred
of the Turks toward any who acknowledges Christ as
the Son of God.
14
210 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Mr. Depew'8 Speech,
Chauncey M. Depew was then introduced, and
made an eloquent appeal for the Armenians. He said
in part:
'' The closing days of 1894 could not be passed
more appropriately than in a protest by the Christian
peoples of the world against the outrages upon human-
ity which will be the ever-living disgrace of the dying
year. The industrial and financial disturbances which
have convulsed the world, and caused such widespread
distress during the last twelve months, are of tem-
porary and passing importance compared with the
merciless persecutions of a people because of their
religious faith.
'^ It is a criticism upon the boastfulness of the
nineteenth century that there should be any occasion
for this meeting, but it is also a tribute to the spirit of
the century that this meeting is held. There have
been religious wars and persecutions, and bloody re-
prisals, in all ages of modern times. They arouse our
indignation and our horror, but they excited little at-
tention beyond the countries where they occurred
from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. The
distinguishing feature of our period is an internation-
al public opinion. It came with steam and electricity;
it is the child of liberty of conscience. The Turkish
government, founded by the sword of Islam, is a hier-
archv and a creed, and not a government of liberty and
law."
Mr. Depew then described the disadvantages
under which Christians dwell in Turkey, and how
their standing before the law amounts to nothing.
" It was the atrocities incident to such institutions,"
he said, " which aroused Europe and liberated Greece,
which caused the other nations to stand still and risk
the balance of power, while Russia freed Bulgaria,
THE GREAT POWERS AND AHxMENlA. 211
Roumania, and Servia, and made them practically in-
dependent states. It was to assure religious liberty
that the treaty of Berlin recognized the autonomy
of the states, and bound the Christian nations of Eu-
rope to protect the Christian people still within the
Turkish dominion."
After holding up to ridicule the European
" peace " which is being maintained with continually
growing armies, Mr. Depew said: *' The Armenians
are the Kew Englanders of the East. Their intel-
lect, industry, and thrift make them prosperous." He
spoke of their being the oldest Christian people, and
of the sacrifices which they have made and which they
daily make in the cause of their faith. The horrible
outrages committed against the peasants in Armenia
were graphically described, and in this connection Mr.
Depew said:
" The story of the attacks of these savage hordes
and no less savage troops reads as if fourteenth-cen-
tury conditions, repeated with all their horrors in
1894, were the means adopted by Providence to
shame the civilized world into the performance of its
duty, and to stir the Christian conscience to a sense
of its neglect of it."
Mr. Depew's description of the heroism of the Ar-
menian women who, rather than be captured by the
Turks and suffer defilement, threw themselves into the
ravine which surrounded their village, moved the
audience deeply. He went on:
" The world has taken little note of this supreme
tragedy. Fifty years from now, and some painter
wall become immortal by putting it upon canvas. A
few years, and some novelist will mount to enduring
fame by a romance, of which it will be the center.
A few years, and some poet will embalm it in verse
which will stand in literature alongside of the battle
212 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
lyrics of Campbell, Macaulay, and Tennyson. Some
orator will give to the narrative and its lesson a setting
and an inspiration, so that from the stage of the school
and the academy, from the lips of the boys and the
girls, it will teach down the centuries the triumphs
of patriotism and faith.
'^ Yesterday an old man of world-wide fame cel-
ebrated his eighty-fifth birthday. He had been the
ruler of the British Empire — he is a private citizen.
Among the utterances which he deemed appropriate,
in reply to the congratulations which came to him
from every land, was an indignant protest against
the outrages against the Armenian Christians, and a
demand upon the Christian people of the earth* to
compel their governments to call upon Turkey for a
halt.
" This warning and appeal from the lips of Mr.
Gladstone was flashed across continents and under
oceans; it penetrated cabinets, it thundered in the
ears of sovereigns, and through the great journals it
thrilled every household and every church of every
race and of every tongue.
" To-morrow — aye, to-day — Rosebery is con-
sulting with the French Premier, and France and Eng-
land are speaking to the Emperor of Germany, and
the young Czar and the King of Italy, and the Em-
peror of Austria for united action, which will
bring the Turk to mercy, peace, and liberty for the
Armenian Christian without destroying the equili-
brium of Europe.
" We seek no foreign alliances, we court no inter-
national complications, but we claim the right under
the Fatherhood of God to demand for our brother and
our sister in the distant East, law, justice, and the
exercise of conscience.''
Dr. Greer then read resolutions expressing sympa-
THE GREAT POWERS AND ARMENIA. 213
thy for the Armenians, and protesting against further
outrages. The document closes as follows;
" Resolved, That we hereby extend our deeiiest sympathy
to the Armeuiau people who, for their Christian faith, have
repeatedly suffered unsijeakable cruelties from their Turkish
rulers and Kurdish neijjlihors;
** Resolved, Tliat we hereby express to our Christian
brethren in England and on the continent, who are en-
deavoring to investigate these outrages and to bring the
perpetrators of them to justice, our hearty good-will and
godspeed. We hope and believe that they will not pause
until the extent of these atrocities is clearly ascertained
and the responsibility for them finally fixed;
" Resolved, That in their efforts to provide against the re-
currence of similar acts of oppression in the future, they
shall receive our hearty and unwavering moral support;
" Resolved, That we earnestly call upon our Cliristian
fellow-citizens everywhere throughout the country to organ-
ize and express an indignant and universal protest against
the continuance of a state of affair* under which it is
possible for women and children to be murdered simply be-
cause they are Christians."
The resolutions were adopted by a rising vote,
and the Rev. Dr. Tiffany, Archdeacon of New York,
pronounced the benediction.
Very many such mass meetings were held in dif-
ferent cities of the United States. The U. S. Senate
discussed the question and made similar resolutions.
Mr. Call submitted the following as a substitute for
the committee resolutions:
** 'That humanity and religion, and the principles on which
all civilization rests, demand that the civilized governments
shall, by peaceful negotiations, or, if necessary, by force of
arms, prevent and suppress the cruelties and massacres in-
flicted on the Armenian subjects of Turkey, by the establish-
ment of a government of their own people, with such guaran-
tees by the civilized powers of its authority and permanence
as shall be adequate to that end.' "
All these resolutions, both of the people and the
Senate, went to President Cleveland, but he has not
seen fit to act on them. It would be absurd to impute
this to weakness or unwillingness to decide a new ques-
214 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
tion: Mr. Cleveland, whatever his limitations, has
never lacked firmness or decision. Doubtless it is be-
cause he thinks this country ought not to break away
from its old traditions and involve itself with Euro-
pean concerns. But this is not a European concern;
it is European, Asiatic, American, the world's; the
concern of all humanity, not to say Christianity.
It concerns the lives and result of sixty years'
work of American missionaries; the government can-
not wash its hands of all concern or responsibility for
them, and alone of all great powers declare that its
Christian citizens may not spread Christianity. And
a great and rich nation has no more right to go off
with its hands in its pockets, and declare that it has
no obligation to the well-being of the world, than a
great, rich man has a right to declare that he has no
obligation to society. The rich man only keeps his
money because there is a civilized society with laws
and policemen to protect him in it; this nation only
keeps at peace because other nations' civilization and
international law prevent a great combination to plun-
der it. It ought to accept its share of the general
social duty — man the fire pumps, and do police work
if needed; arid not let a thug murder one of its com-
panions — nay, relatives — before its eyes. It is
bound as a Christian state not to let a bloody and
sensual Mohammedan barbarism extinguish the light
of a sister Christian community; it is bound as a na-
tion of civilized beings not to let a horde of savages
like its own Indians stamp out a civilized nation mil-
THE GREAT POWEUS AND AUMKNIA. 215
lions in number by horrors unspeakable, every atroc-
ity of butchery, and rape, and torture that ever sprung
from the cruelty or the lust of man. These things
are as awful, as hideous to the Armenians as they
would be to you if fifty thousand Indians overflowed
(yolorado and inflicted them on your American fam-
ilies. What would you feel and do if most of that
State were turned into a burnt desolation, with here
and there a cabin standing, Denver half obliterated
and ten thousand of its inhabitants slaughtered in
cold blood, himdreds impaled, or burnt, or flayed
alive, the sisters and daughters of your own house-
holds by thousands violated over and over, thousands
made slaves and concubines in the wigwams of dirty
Indian brutes, and others wandering as naked beggars
in the wintry snows about the ruins of their once happy
homes ? Yet this is a picture of what happened over
part of Armenia ; can you think it is of no concern to
you ? Ought Congress and the President to think it
of no concern to them ? Surely there are some things
where national lines ought not to count.
Mr. Cleveland has been unfortunate in his advisers,
partly chosen by himself, and partly inherited. Min-
ister Terrill has taken the word of the Sultan and the
palace clique, and made no attempt to investigate for
himself; consequently he is full of respect for the
Mohammedans, and scorn for the Armenians. Ad-
miral Kirtland visited a few seaports, found the Ar-
menians there working as usual (of course — the mas-
sacres were carried on where news could be inter-
216 ARI^IENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
cepted and suppressed by the Turks), and reports that
he didn't find any evidence of outrages or disorders,
and considers the stories false, or much exaggerated.
And such lazy or prejudiced negatives as these are
to be counted as outweighing the sworn official re-
ports of consuls on the spot, and of pitiful letters from
the survivors among the very victims themselves !
I have said that Mr. Cleveland does not lack firm-
ness. He does not in internal policy, but he cer-
tainly did not show enough in the matter of these
atrocities. The Sultan asked him to nominate a com-
missioner to join those of other powers in inves-
tigating the Sassoun massacres. He appointed Milo
A. Jewett, consul at Sivas; but Mr. Jewett was much
too keen and forcible a man for the Sultan, who re-
fused to let him take his place on the commission. Mr.
ClcA^eland did not insist, as he ought. The very fact
that the Sultan did not want it, was the best of reasons
for persisting.
Again, last year, the Senate voted to send two
more consuls to Armenia; Mr. Cleveland appointed
Messrs. Chilton and Hunter to go to Erzeroum and
Harpoot respectively, but the Sultan refused to accept
them, and they had to come back. To consent to this
was wrong and weak; the American government
should firmly declare its right to protect its own in-
terests in its own way.
But the President will act if the American people
will stand at his back. When will they send forth
a mandate that these horrors must stop ?
i I ^. ' '.
-«-.'%
tit'-' ''%i
CIUCASSIANS.
aEOllOlAXS.
VI.
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES.
THE GREAT QUESTION.
The Armenian atrocities can never be fully under-
stood by those who may be born in a free land, where
there are no Turks, no Kurds, no Circassians, no Geor-
gians, no Zeibecks, and no Mohammedan religion, with
its oppressions and persecutions.
Why the Sultan orders the Turks, Kurds, or other
followers to destroy the Armenians, whereby more
than 100,000 of them have recently been killed, and
500,000 been rendered homeless and left to die of star-
vation in the streets and fields, or why the Sultan
ordered all who are spared to accept the Mohammedan
religion, is never referred to with any sort of correct-
ness by the newspapers or periodicals in their accounts
of the dreadful atrocities taking place in Armenia, and
therefore the people are left in ignorance and doubt
respecting the true situation both as to the causes and
the atrocities themselves.
FIRST CAUSE.
The first cause is a very simple one. That the Ar-
menians are Christians, and the Turks, Kurds, Circas-
sians, and Georgians in Turkey are Mohammedans,
and the Mohammedan religion urges brutality. It
(217)
218 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE. /
has already been shown to be not a religion, but a
system of falsehood, hatred, cruelty, lust, and sensual-
ity; of course, these things combined can ocly result
in corruption. It would seem that Mohammed must
have taken his inspiration from both the domestic fowl
and a bull. A rooster is a poly gamist ; he has his hens
without limit. So Mohammed, the professed prophet,
had wives without limit. He claimed to have received
a revelation from Heaven directing him to take to him-
self any woman he pleased, no matter whether she was
married and had a husband or not; that made no dif-
ference with Mohammed. He took any woman he
wanted, and if her husband objected he was sure to
be put to death. Mohammedans cannot differ from
their prophet, they follow him, they strive to imitate
him just as much as true Christians strive to follow
and imitate Christ. Further, cocks, as a rule, have
crowing spells five times in twenty-four hours, and gen-
erally mount a high place and do their screaming there.
So the Mohammedan priests, who are called Moezzins,
ascend a minaret, or a tower, and five times in twenty
four hours they call the people to worship. There
is so little confidence placed in the priests or criers
that the people prefer to have a blind one go on the
minaret to give the calls, so that he may not see their
women unveiled in their houses.
From a bull, because he is not only immoderately
lustful, but fierce and destructive; and the farmers
say that the older he grows, the worse he is in both re-
spects. It is certainly so with Mohammedans^, —
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 210
naturally enough, for nothing is so lickerish as an old
man who has been sensual all his life, and cruelty is a
trait which grows with indulgence. The Sultan grows
more of a beast, and more of a fiend as he grows older,
and all the Mohammedans are of the same stripe.
Armenian men and Armenian women alike dread the
approach of an old Turk far more than of a young
one. Unless one has witnessed a fight between bulls,
he can have little idea of Turkish warfare. No animal
fight can approach it in ferocity or insatiability ; when
a bull conquers another, he never leaves him until he
gores him to death. So when Mohammedans conquer
a nation, be sure they will exterminate it. To them
mercy means apostasy ; to leave a man alive or a woman
unravished is to be false to the precepts of Mohammed.
They cannot help it, it is their religion; a religion
for wild animals. Their priests go to the mosques and
preach to them thus: " Believers in Mohammed, love
your fellow believers, but hate and kill all others; they
are Giaours, heathen dogs, filthy hogs." To kill a
Christian and to kill a hog is all the same to a Moham-
medan ; there is as little sin in one as the other. The
priests say, " Ask them to accept our religion; if they
do, you must not harm them ; but if they will not, kill
them, for they have no right to live in a Mohammedan
country. It is not only no sin, but a great virtue; the
more Christians you kill, the greater reward you will
have from Allah and his prophet Mohammed." The
Turks are slaughtering the Armenians to earn this re-
ward. Of course if the men apostatize they are
220 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
spared; but the Turk lias no notion of losing the grat-
ification of his lust on the women in that way. A
woman who falls into their hands need not hope to
keep her virtue on any terms, even by abjuring her
religion ; they violate her first, and force her to become
a Mohammedan afterwards.
Let it be fully understood throughout the Chris-
tian world that the massacre is a religious demand;
the Turks have to comply. As a Christian tries to be
faithful to Christ and his teachings, so the Turks are
trying to be faithful to their prophet and his. They
go to the mosques and pray, ^^ Allah, help us;
strengthen our hands and sharpen our swords to kill
the infidel Armenians.'' Then they come from the
mosques and begin to kill, and plunder, and outrage,
and commit every sort of indescribable atrocities on the
peaceable and defenseless Armenians. And it will
grow worse instead of better, since so-called Christian
nations have given the Sultan public notice that they
will not interfere with him. Do not be deceived by
his lying reports; there was no Armenian rebellion;
they could not rebel ; they did not kill the Turks, they
never dreamed of such madness. This awful fate has
fallen on them purely and simply for being Christians.
SECOND CAUSE.
This seems frivolous and incredible, but it is true;
namely, a dream of the Sultan.
Some six years ago, a report was circulated in Con-
stantinople about this dream. It was, that in his sleep
THE CAUSES OF THE ATUOCITIES. 221
the Sultan saw a little tree planted in the center of
his kingdom. It began to grow larger and larger,
till it covered the whole Turkish Empire, and over-
shadowed even the mountains. All the nations of
Turkey dwelt under its glorious and majestic shade.
Still it grew, till the branches crossed the oceans and
covered all the other kingdoms, finally the whole
world. He woke, but the dream troubled him deeply,
and he called some of the ulemas or wise men, of whom
he always has a number in his palace, to interpret it
for him. They explained it by saying that the tree
was Christianity; Christian missionary work in the
heart of his empire. It was a menace to his throne
and country, and would grow till it covered the world.
The Sultan, alarmed and angry, asked what he should
do. The ulemas advised him to cut it down while it
was small, and he has been doing his best to follow
their advice. He did not dare to kill the missionaries,
but he is accomplishing the same result by destroying
their churches and schools and forbidding any more
to be built, confiscating all religious books, and killing
the native Christian ministers. He has employed
every device to force the missionaries to depart by
paralyzing their work ; if they chose to stay, he would
accuse them of inciting the natives to revolt. He has
succeeded so far; plunder, burning, torture, murder,
violation and forced conversion of Christian women,
have practically put an end to missionary work. Now
the time has come to kill the missionaries; and he will
very likely find some excuse for doing it — he has
222 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
an arsenal of falsehoods always at his command.
Quite likely he will say the Armenians killed them, and
then murder more Armenians in reprisal. His cun-
ning is as infinite as his cruelty. He gives a charter
to a missionary institution and destroys ten others. He
invites Minister Terrell to the palace, gives him grand
receptions, and loads him with promises and flatteries,
and all the time goes on obliterating the schools and
churches and killing the native pastors. He creates
a i-uin; when the European powers protest, he says he
will make amends, and he does it by perpetrating a
greater one, in which the first is forgotten. He mas-
sacres hundreds in a city ; when the powers protest, he
says he will restore order, and does it by ordering thou-
sands killed in another city, and the first is again for-
gotten. His atrocities increase as he finds that he
is to be unmolested; he is resolute to cut down that
spreading tree, and has already cut thousands of
branches from it. And the Christian nations look on
and say they cannot help it. They know perfectly
well what is going on, but their " interests " of one
sort or another will not permit them to remove that
awful blot on civilization.
THIRD CAUSE.
The Mohammedan population in Turkey is decreas- )
ing, and the Christians are increasing. When the
present Sultan captured the throne from his brother
Murad, Turkey had 40,000,000 people; as soon as he
girded the sword of Osman, he began the great battle
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 223
with Russia, and after the Turko-Russian war ho found
himself with 18,000,000. Who are the lost i Rou-
mania, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herze-
govina, a part of Macedonia, C'yprus, and a part of
Armenia. Practically the whole of Europe was lost
for Turkey except Constantinople and the district
Edirne or Adrianople. Turkey is not an empire any
more, but it is a little kingdom; rather a little feudal
system, or more accurately still, a little anarchy. If
it were not for mutual European jealousy, the Sultan
could not keep his anarchism. Yet many still think
that the Ottoman Empire is a great one, a powerful
government. They look at the Sultan and his domin-
ion through a magnifying glass. This shows ignor-
ance. The Turks are decayed and are decaying. The
sick man of Turkey is the dead man of Turkey, and
ought to be buried, but the European powers do not
bury him because there are precious stones and jewelry
in the coffin; no matter how bad the corpse smells,
they will endure it. And the bad smell of the Sultan
is killing hundreds of thousands of Christians; but the
dead stays where it is, and may stay for some years,
but the end will come before many have gone by.
AVTien I say that the days of the Sultan are numbered,
and the brutal Turkish mis-rule will cease, many Amer-
icans will rejoin " that the same has often been said long
years since, though the empire remains to-day, and
seems likely to remain." The fact is, however, that
during my own life more than half of it has gone to
pieces, and the fragment which remains will go to
224 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
pieces soon. Permit me to say that all former proph-
ecies have been mistaken because those who made
them have judged and misjudged the situation from
an occidental standpoint; I judge it from that of a
native, who knows the realities as only a native can.
What can an English ambassador or an American min-
ister in Constantinople, staying perhaps two or three
years, and entertained and decorated by the crafty
Sultan, know about the internal state of Turkey ?
Having traveled through the country, lived and
preached for years at a time; preached in different
cities, including Constantinople, I can see signs of a
break-up that a foreigner would not notice.
The reason the Turkish population does not in-
crease is this: The army has to be made up of Mo-
hammedans, partly because the Sultan does not put
arms into the hands of the Christians, for obvious rea-
sons, since they have no motive to uphold and every
motive to fight him, and partly because to be a soldier
in Turkey is a holy service, the privilege of Mohamme-
dans alone. As there is a large standing army, nearly
all the Mohammedan youths have to become soldiers.
Their service begins when they are about twenty years
old. The shortest term is five years; for many it is
ten; and even after that, there are many who cannot
escape. If a young Mohammedan is not married at
twenty, obviously he cannot marry until twenty-five
anyway, and perhaps thirty, — very late for a country
population; if he is married his wife is virtually a
widow for five to ten years. Now the reader can
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 225
see my drift. With marriages so late, and liusbands
so long absent, Turkish families are small; they do
not make good the deaths. And there is a still plainer
cause: The soldiers being very poorly fed, and con-
stant fighting going on, ninety per cent, die in the
army, and so never have any families; the flower of
the nation perishes barren. Those who survive and
return are pale and sick, good for nothing, a burden
to their families and to the nation. The Armenians
have to support the Sultan's army, since they do not
furnish it, but they rear families, and are drowning
out the Turks.
Another cause of decrease is the pilgrimage to
Mecca, where Mohammed was born. On an average,
a million pilgrims go there every year, — of course not
all from Turkey, but most of them, and every year
about 50,000 of them die of cholera before reaching
home, from the Holy Well (Zemzem sooyi), which is
full of unholy foulness; even those who live and return
home take that water to their families, and many of
the latter die too. Cholera is perpetual in- Tu rkey , and
it originates at Mecca. When I was in Marsovan
twelve at one time went on the pilgrimage and only
four returned. It is a great virtue to die where !Mo-
hammed was bom, or to drink that water and die,
and they are going to him at a rapid rate. Last year,
when the English, Russian, and French consuls at
Jiddeh, the seaport of Mecca, established a quarantine
to detain those coming from Mecca and bringing
cholera,^ they were murdered by the Mohammedan
226 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Arabs, wlio said they were interfering with the
sacred religion, and the Sultan had to pay the in-
demnity.
Still another reason is the shocking increase of
abortions among the wealthy town dwellers. The
Mohammedan women are growing to love selfish in-
dulgences better than the duties and delights of
motherhood. They do not wish to be " bothered " by
children, and they take medicine to prevent having
them. Where the women come to this, it is better for
a race to die out; they have outlived their purpose.
A fourth cause is polygamy. People naturally
think that marrying more than one wife should increase
the number of children; but the facts emphatically
prove the reverse. The polygamous Turks do not in-
crease as fast as the Christians who have but one wife.
For the fifth, the Turks are an exceedingly sensual
race, by nature and education, as I have shown. The
very religion that should help to make them pure, helps
to make them vile. Lust leads them, and they follow;
nature prompts, and their religion requires it. I am
ti'uly ashamed to tell it, but even when they go to their
mosques to worship, they manifest ^heir sensuality.
Xot only the relations of male and female are very
rank, but between male and male they are worse; be-
tween the old Turks and young Turks, the very boys,
the relations are too disgusting to describe. All such
moral corruptions not only weaken a people's forces
morally, but physically as well; they substitute barren
THE CAUSES OP THE ATROCITIES. 227
lusts for legitimate gratifications, selfish passions for
mutual ones.
Hence the Mohammedans are fast decreasing in
Turkey, and the Sultan is terrified, and hopes by kill-
ing a large part of the Christians, and forcing the sur-
vivors to accept Mohammedanism, that their power
of nuiltiplication may be the boon of a ^lohammedan
people. Out of the 18,000,000 inhabitants of Tur-
key, 6,000,000 are native Christians, about half of
them Armenians. This leaves only 12,000,000 for
the whole Mohammedan population in the present
Turkish dominion; and it grows less, while the Chris-
tian part grows greater. To check this increase, the
Sultan a few years ago made the obtaining of a mar-
riage certificate compulsory, and the Turkish authori-
ties have understood that they are to make it as hard as
possible to get; it has cost great sums of money to ob-
tain it. But for many months now, there have been
no marriages at all in Armenia; the authorities will not
grant certificates on any terms, and to prevent any
more Christians being bom, the daughters and young
brides of the murdered thousands are made mothers
through violation by the Turks and Kurds.
The Christians have been increasing not only from
within, but from without. Europeans have begim to
go wherever railroads go. Hence another reason for
massacre and forced conversion. That the Sultan has
been planning this massacre ever since the Turko-Rus-
sian war is evidenced by the fact that after the war he
encouraged or ordered a number of Mohamme-
228 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
dan tribes — Circassians, Georgians, Kurds, and
Lazes — to emigrate from Russia to Armenia, con-
fiscated masses of Christians' property, and gave
it to them, and directed them to reduce the
number of Armenian Christians by any way they
saw fit, giving them full license to do what
they would with Armenians, without penalty. You
know what that means with fierce tribes of human wild
animals, cruel and foul, and he knew what it meant
too, and intended it to mean that. Before his time
the Christians far outnumbered the Mohammedans in
Armenia proper; but under his ^' government '^ — his
deliberate policy of extermination — great numbers
fled the country, numbers were killed and their women
made concubines to Mohammedans, and now the Mo-
hammedans are more numerous in Armenia than the
Armenian Christians. And if the Sultan is permitted
to go on, he will kill a million more, the rest will be
" converted," and then he will call the attention of
the European powers to this fact, and say, " See here,
you ask me to reform Armenia ; Armenia is reformed.
There is no Armenia; there are no Armenians; the
people in that part of my empire are Mohammedans,
and they are satisfied with my government. What do
you want from me ? What right have you to inter-
fere with my country and religion ? " That is his
plan. When the Berlin Congress was held, the Ar-
menians were the majority in their own country, and
the Congress decided on reforms for it; the Sultan
promised them, with the full intention of depopulating
THE CAUSES OF THE ATHOCITIES. 220
and converting it, and then tolling the powers there
was no need of reform there, lie is doing this now
incessantly, and as remorselessly as a fiend.
FOURTH CAUSE.
The Armenians are rich and educated, and the
Mohammedans are poor and ignorant. The Turks
have never cared for money or education. They have
always said, '' Let the Christians make the money,
and we will take it from them whenever we choose.
We will be the rulers, the soldiers, the police ; we will
have the sword in our hands. Then their property,
and their women too, will be ours at will, and we can
force them to become Mohammedans. '^ Such being
their reasoning, they took good care of their swords
and their guns, which were furnished to them from
Europe and the United States. The Christian Ar-
menians believing that the great Christian powers
w^ould never permit the Turks to wreak their murder-
ous and shameful will on them, did not risk the ven-
geance of the Turks by secretly buying weapons, nor
train themselves in the use of arms. They trained
their minds, got education, traveled in Europe and
this United States, enlightened themselves in every
way they could ; they sharpened their intellects rather
than their swords. They learned to make money also ;
they established all the business houses in Turkey;
all the Turks that get employment in the cities get it
from the Armenian merchants. As far as Turkey has
any finances, they are in the hands of Armenians. Go
230 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Avhere yon will in Tnrkey, seaboard or interior, all the
money and education belong to the Armenians, pov-
erty and ignorance are the portion of the Turks.
Ninety per cent, of the Armenians know how to read
and write, while ninety per cent, of the Turks do not.
Sixty per cent, of the Mohammedan property has
been sold to the Christian Armenians within twenty
years. When I was in Armenia, the Mohammedans
were always selling and the Christians always buying.
One day a Turk was going to sell his field to an Armen-
ian, and they w^ent to the government office to make
the transfer. The officer in charge said he could not
transfer the property of a Mohammedan to a Chris-
tian. This Avas something new. " Why is that ? "
they asked. " The governor forbids it," said the of-
ficer, " he told me that hereafter it should not be
done." Finally both went to the governor and asked
him why he forbade it. The governor replied, ^' Of
late the Armenians have bought up the fields of the
Mohammedans, till they own the greater part of them;
if we let them go on they will own everything, and the
Mohammedans will be left without property. There-
fore I forbid it; no Mohammedan shall hereafter sell
any property to a Christian." He told the Turk he
might sell his field to another Mohammedan, but not
to a Christian. " All right," said the Turk, '' I will
sell it to you, then, at the same price, or maybe a little
less; will you buy it ? I need the money to support
my family." '^ I cannot buy it," said the governor; "I
have no money." " I know that," replied the Turk;
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 2.31
" and not only you, but all the other Mohammedans
have no money either. They are all poor. I cannot
find any Turk who has the money to buy my field, and
I need money, and I have to sell it to that Christian."
Finally the governor was forced to give the permission,
and the Armenian bought the field. This is only one
case, but it is typical. There are thousands of just
such. And this is another cause which aroused the
jealousy of the Sultan and his subordinates to order
the massacre of the Armenians, and the seizure of
their property.
I often hear it said in this country, " Let us help
the poor Armenians " ; and I feel very indignant.
Poor Armenians ! There are poor among the Ar-
menians, as among all nations; but the Armenians as
a body are not poor. They are the riclu^t pc-.plc in
Turkey. That is one reason why they are plundered
and killed. I do not want the American people to
help the Armenians as a poor, ignorant, miserable peo-
ple, but because they deserve help as a rich, noble,
Christian nation being rooted out by plunder and
murder, for the benefit of, and by means of a horde of
savages. I will illustrate by a very little story.
When Alexander the Great reached the moun-
tains of Afghanistan on his way to India," the Afghan
king refused to let him pass through his country.
After a great battle, and the slaughter of thousands
on both sides, Alexander was victorious. The king
himself was captured, and brought before Alexander,
\vho said to him, *' You are my captive; how shall I
282 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
treat you ? '' " As a king/' said the prisoner. Alex-
ander was charmed with the dignity of the answer, and
replied, " You shall be treated as one, and a brave one.
I leave you on your throne; but permit me to pass on
to India." So the king kept his royalty as before,
and Alexander continued his conquests.
Such is the Armenian question. They are a noble
people, an enterprising people, but captives in the
hands of the Turks. But the Turks have not the mag-
nanimity of Alexander. We need a nation which does
have it, to say to the Armenians, " Remain where you
are, in your ancient home, and rule there; govern
yourselves freely as a Christian nation. You have
fought centuries after centuries for home and honor,
and now we come to your help, to establish you on the
old Armenian throne." Do not help the Armenians
merely as a poor people, but help them because they
were rich, and now they are stripped and poor, with-
out fault of their own, from hate of their (and your)
religion, and envy of their superiority.
FIFTH CAUSE.
This is perhaps the greatest of all. It is the Amer-
ican missionary work in Armenia. It was in 1831
that the American Board of Foreign Missions estab-
lished the first Protestant mission there. Their pur-
pose was to send missionaries, not simply to the Ar-
menians, but to all classes and sects in Turkey. Those
pioneer American missionaries were among the noblest
of men, and greatest of teachers, preachers, and or-
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 233
ganizers. T will name a few: Dr. Ooo<lell, Dr.
Dwight, Dr. SchafHer, Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, founder
of Robert College, living now at I^xington, Mass., 86
years old, one of the greatest missionaries ever bom,
Dr. H. Van Lennep, another great missionary, greatly
beloved by the Armenians. Books could be written
about these Christian chiefs, towhom,and to the Amer-
ican people who sent them, we Armenians are grate-
ful. When Dr. Van Lennep died at Great Barring-
ton, Mass., about six years ago, the author was raising
money here to build a church in Armenia, as already
told. He went to condole with Mrs. Van Lennep,
and told her not to put any monument over the doctor's
grave. He would see the other Armenians, and as a
grateful people they would erect him a beautiful one.
He kept his word, and his faith was justified; they
raised the funds and put up the monument. Tt
stands in the cemetery at Great Barrington, with the
following inscription : —
Henry John Van Lennep, D.D.
1815 — 1889.
For Thirty Years Missionary in Turkey.
This monument is erected by his Armenian friends in grate-
ful appreciation of his heroic virtues, and endearing services
rendered to their people.
The beloved Missionary
Van Lennep.
When the noble missionaries went to Turkey, the
Turks hated them, the Jews hated them, the Greeks
hated them, and these three peoples hate them still.
034 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
But tlie Armenians welcomed them; they loved and
esteemed them, and they love and esteem them more
than ever now. The question is often asked '' Are
not the Armenians a Christian people ? Then why
did the missionaries go there ? " Yes, they are; but
still they needed the missionaries, and need them now
more than ever. Why ? Well, for two reasons.
Their churches and schools having been destroyed by
the long oppression by the Turks, they needed help
from a sister Christian church to help them educate
themselves, and build up churches, schools, and col-
leges, benevolent institutions, printing offices. The
missionaries have done that great work in Armenia,
but I am sorry to say that some of their creations have
been destroyed by the Turks during the recent atroci-
ties.
The second reason is that the Armenian church
stood in great need of reformation. I have already
explained in this book (see " The Armenian Church ")
how in the last desperate struggle for national exis-
tence, a part of the people reluctantly accepted help
from the Pope of Kome, at the price of uniting with
the Roman church, and using its rituals, images, etc.
Hence, in many of the Armenian churches there was
no pure gospel preaching; rituals were the leading ele-
ment of the services. There was therefore great need
that such preaching should be introduced ; the mission-
aries did so, and the Armenian church has been greatly
reformed. My purpose here is not to write a church
history, nor to give an account of missionary work in
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 235
Turkey. I mention it incidentally as a chief cause of
the atrocities.
The missionaries have trained both boys and girls
in their schools for sixty-five years now; many thou-
sands of them. The Turks have not been permitted
to go to them, the Greeks are too proud to send their
children, but the Armenians were hungry for educa-
tion, especially for an American education. The
new-born baby of the time when the missionaries ar-
rived is now sixty-five years old, with his American
education, which has wonderfully elevated the Ar-
menians, and turned Armenia almost into a second
America, educationally. The American colleges in
different parts of Turkey are great centers of light;
about ninety per cent, of the students and the leading
native professors and teachers are Armenians. I will
mention a few: Robert College and the Woman's
College in Constantinople; the Ladies' Seminary in
Smyrnia; Anatolia College, the Ladies' Seminary,
and the Theological Seminary in Marsovan; the
writer's pastorate. Central Turkey College and the
Ladies' College at Aintab, Euphrates College (first
called Armenia College, but the name is forbidden by
the Turks, as encouraging Armenian independence)
and the Ladies' Department at Harpoot; the Academy
and the Theological Seminary at ^farash, where I
studied three years; the colleges both for girls and
boys at Beirut; and many high schools and primary
schools throughout Armenia. The American Bible
House is a great depot of Christian literature. These
236 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
are all American Christian institutions, and nine-tentlis
of their inmates are Armenians.
The reader can clearly see how the Armenians
have become a wholly new race ; they have had the ad-
vantage of American education, and it has revolution-
ized the nation. It has elevated, refined, and pros-
pered them. This great improvement among the Ar-
menians aroused the jealousy of the Sultan and his
underlings. He first began to close the schools; then
to imprison the native Armenian teachers and preach-
ers; then to kill the Armenians and destroy the mission-*
ary institutions, that no Armenian may be left to go
to any American school, and that if any escapes, there
may be no American school to receive him. I con-
sider this missionary education the very greatest cause
for the atrocities, and the Armenian bishops agree
with me. Here is what the Armenian bishop of Oorf a
(Edessa), where about 8,000 Armenians we^e mas-
sacred, has to say :
TO THE AMERICANS.
March 12, 1896.
" We have been strenuously opposed to your mis-
sion work among us, but these bloody days have proven
that some of our Protestant brothers have been staunch
defenders of our honor and faith. You at least know
that our crime, in the eyes of the Turk, has been that
we have adopted the civilization you commended.
Behold the missions and schools which you planted
among us, and which cost millions of dollars, and hun-
dreds of precious lives, now in ruins. The Turk is
THE CAUSES OF THE ATROCITIES. 237
planning to rid himself of missionaries and teachers by
leaving them nobody to labor among."
It is very significant that wherever there was a mis-
sionary institution, and especially a missionary Theo-
logical Seminary to train Armenian ministers, there
has been the greatest atrocity. This shows how the
Sultan hates Americans, and American education.
There are nearly two hundred American male and fe-
male missionaries in Turkey. They are in great dan-
ger. The Turks have determined to kill them, and
the Sultan can no longer control them, for he gave the
order and put the sword into their hands. The Kurds
and the Turks say, " The missionaries have better
things than the Armenians had. We killed the Ar-
menians and got their valuables, and we enjoy them.
We are richer now, and we did not work for it ; we did
not waste time in hard labor; the only thing we had to
do was to obey the Sultan and kill the Armenians and
get their property. Why not kill the Americans and
get richer ? " Reader, keep in your mind that the
Turks will kill the missionaries also. The horrible
time is coming, in spite of what your minister to Tur-
key says, and partly because he believes Turkish lies,
and says there was no need of sending missionaries
there.
Another point worthy of consideration is this:
Russia and Turkey made an alliance. Russia is as
much opposed to the missionaries as Turkey is, and per-
haps the Czar is secretly encouraging the Sultan to get
rid of them. Undoubtedly Russia is trying to get rid
238 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
of Protestant influence in Turkey, and therefore sac-
rifices the old Protestant Armenian nation to Turkey.
In my belief, the time is coming when the Protestant
nations will unite and protest practically against the
outrages of Turkey and Russia. They have no right
to persecute Turks or Russians, but they have a perfect
right to protect an old Protestant church and the
American missionaries. Xo matter how much it costs,
it pays to protect them, and, pay or no pay, it is the
duty of America and England to unite and protect
them. And if England and America should really
unite, Turkey and Russia will yield. I do not at
all concur with Americans who favor Russia and hate
England. Lord Salisbury is too timid to do it, but
Lord Salisbury is not England. The English people
are a noble people, and if the American noble people
unite with them, they can accomplish a great work
for God and humanity, for peace and liberty, for free-
dom and happiness in Armenia.
As far as I can judge, the foregoing are the causes
of the atrocities in Armenia. Perhaps there may be
other minor ones, but they are not worthy of discus-
sion.
• » »
» » »
a* • *
t • I
« « •
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA.
THE BEGINNING.
Turkish atrocities in Armenia arc no new thing;
they have gone on for centuries, and left but a fraction
of the population it once had. But let us disregard
old history, and come to the subject of to-day. Prac-
tically that begins with Hamid II, the present Sultan.
He began his persecutions nearly twenty years ago, but
on a small scale. He has continually devised new meth-
ods of getting rid of the Armenians without responsi-
bility ; finally he hit on the plan of arming the Kurds
and letting them loose with full power to do their
worst. When I was in Constantinople he summoned
the Kurdish chiefs, hundreds of them — I have seen
them with my own eyes — entertained them in the
palace, armed them with modern rifles, and sent them
to Armenia on their mission. The pretense under
which he did it was worthy of him: he called them
the " Hamidieh Cavalry," and pretended that they
were a sort of mounted police, who were to keep order
and protect the Armenians. This was exactly as
though a regiment of red Indians should be anned and
sent to Oregon to protect the inhabitants, and called,
say, the Presidential Guard, and the Armenians knew
well what they were for. But the European travel-
(239)
240 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ers and newspaper correspondents took it all seriously,
and talked of his ^' civilizing the Kurds," etc. Now
these were only the chi^s; each chief had a large fol-
lowing of tribesmen, so that about 30,000 Kurds in
all were given arms and ordered to go to work extermi-
nating the Armenians. This work began in 1891, but
on a small scale, and in a very crafty way, so that it
should not ha,ve the appearance of a premeditated
massacre ; then it was stopped till about sixteen months
ago, when they were encouraged to begin again, pub-
licly, and with full swing. It was decided to begin
in Sassoun, a district far from the sea, with no roads
and a sparse population ; if successful in escaping report
there, he could carry out the massacre through all
Armenia, for Avhich " reforms " were asked and prom-
ished. He ordered Zekii Pasha to have his soldiers
ready, and meantime to have the " Ilamidieh Cav-
alry " the Kurdish chiefs and tribesmen, ready to at-
tack and kill all the Armenians in Sassoun. This
city lies between Moosh and Bitlis, in a mountainous
country, and the Sassounites are a brave people, as
much so as the Zeitoonlis are. The district had about
sixty villages and towns, and about 20,000 people
sixteen months ago, but it has none now. The regular
soldiers and the armed Kurds surrounded the dis-
trict from all sides, and in about a month had slaugh-
tered the entire population. It was reported that
Zekii Pasha carried on his breast an order from the
Sultan as follows: "Whoever spares man, woman,
or child is disloyal." After he had finished his task.
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 241
he received great rewards from the Sultan, and is now
one of his most esteemed commanders.
Zekii Pasha is said to have had 40,000 Kurds and
regular soldiers under his command when he began
the massacre. The people of Sassoun, knowing that
they were doomed, fought desperately. They re-
pulsed the Kurds several times, and killed many of
them; but finally the regular soldiers took part, pre-
tending to come in aid of the Armenians, and overbore
them, killing all without quarter. The Sultan's order
was to spare neither man, woman, nor child; but as
the men met the enemy first, they were killed first
When the women's turn came, the Turks and Kurds
abused all they could get hold of, and then told them
that if they would deny Christ and accept Mohammed
and become their wives, they should live; but if they
refused, every one of them, according to the Sultan's
order, should be killed. " Now," said they, " choose
between Islam and. death." These noble Armenian
Christian women said : — " We are Christians, we can
never deny Christ. Jesus Christ is our Saviour. He
came down from Heaven and died on the cross for us.
For that dying and loving Christ we are Christians;
we are ready to die for Him who died for us." And
they added further, " We are no better than our hus-
bands were; you killed them, kill us too." Then the
horrible butchery began on those defenseless women.
Thousands of them were slaughtered, and thousands
ran to different churches, hoping that perhaps they
might find protection in some way in those holy walls,
242 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
or hopiug that God in liis great mercy might shelter
them. But the ferocious Kurds and Turkish soldiers
pursued them, sword in hand, violated them, even in
the churches, and cut their throats there until the
floors were streaming with blood. Then they poured
kerosene on the buildings and burned them.
They went to one village and killed every man;
the women of course, knowing their fate was soon to
be worse than their husbands'. One of the leading
women, named Shaheg, perceiving that the Turks and
Kurds were getting ready to seize and ravish them,
called the other women and said, '' Sisters, our hus-
bands are killed, and you know what is in store for
us and our children. Don't let us fall into the hands
of these savage beasts; we have to die anyway, and
can die easier, and without being defiled first, and per-
haps tortured. Let us go to the precipice and jump
off." So saying, she took her baby on her arm, ran
to the rock, and threw herself over; the others fol-
lowed her, and thus all were killed. The Turks cap-
tured many boys and girls, six, or eight, or ten years of
age, held them by an arm or foot, and hacked them to
pieces wdth their swords. Sometimes they stood the
boys in a row and shot them, to see how many could
be killed by a single bullet. They wrenched babies
from their mothers' arms, cut their throats while the
mothers shrieked and pleaded, and boiling them in
kettles, forced the mothers to eat the flesh. They cut
open women about to become mothers, tore out the
unborn babes, and marched triumphantly with the
THE TURKISH ATU0C1T1K8 IN ARMENIA. 243
ghastly trophies on their spears — something ahnost
surpassing the savagery of the Apache Indian. Even
their worst horrors they made worse yet by the way
they did them; they took a gloating delight in doubling
the cruelty or the shame by making it torture others
too. The husband was forced to look on while his
wife was violated, and she in turn while he was nm-
tilated, tortured, and murdered; the father while his
daughters, even little girls of ten or twelve, were de-
flowered and their throats cut, the son while his pa-
rents had every form of shame and torture inflicted
on them, and were killed before him, or saw him killed
first. They tortured their victims like Indians or
Inquisitors, in every fashion of lingering death and
torment that makes the heart sicken and the blood
run cold to read of. Crucifying head downward,
and pouring boiling water or ice-cold water on them,
leaving them so till death came; flaying alive; cutting
off arms, feet, nose, ears, and other members, and
leaving them to die; thrusting red-hot wires into and
through their bodies. They pulled out the eyes of
several Christian pastors, said, " Xow dance for
us," poured kerosene on them and burned them to
death. They put a Bible and a cross before others, and
ordered them to first spit and then trample on both,
and deny Christ; on their refusal they were butchered.
The handsomest girls and young matrons were not
murdered, but worse; each one was kept as a spoil of
some Turk or Kurd, who carried her to his house, and
made a slave and concubine of her. Many hundreds
244 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
of them are there to this day, enduring the awful fate
of having been dragged from happy and virtuous
homes, seen their husbands, or parents, or brothers, or
all of them horribly murdered, and passing their lives
each in doing menial labor and serving the lust of a
brutal master, and all the other men he lets have their
will of her, without hope, or comfort, or decency, and
a long life of shame and misery yet to look forward
to. This is another specimen of Mohammedan purity,
and it all happens because the Armenians are Chris-
tians. If my readers think I am exaggerating, I re-
fer them to the consular reports. All this was done
by the barbarians con amore, with relish and delight.
They boasted of it, they plumed themselves on it, they
praised the Sultan for ordering them to do it, and he
praised them for doing it, and decorated all the of-
ficers.
The condition of those who were murdered out-
right was much better than that of those who were im-
prisoned and tortured. The following was written
by an Armenian from one of the prisons: —
" Our condition in prison passes description. Only'
he who sees can understand it. Most of the occupants
of every room are Christians, but many are Moslems.
Life would be a shade more tolerable if the subject
race were not compelled thus to associate with the dom-
inant race, whose temper, tastes, and habits are so
different. Into one small room twenty persons are
crowded. Except for a few Moslems, not a single per-
son has room enough on the bare floor to stretch out
and lie down. For fully sixteen hours in the night,
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 245
the doors of the rooms are all locked. In one of these
small rooms, sometimes twenty cigarettes are smoking
at once. Out of the small amount of food which
reaches us, instead of eating themselves, the Chris-
tians are obliged to feed the ^loslems confined there.
Moslem oppression continues, even here; it is a t/ranny
within a tyranny. In every room there are a few
Aghas or principal Moslems, and every Christian must
contribute money to their lordships. Those who with-
hold such contributions are not allowed to sit down.
" Among the inmates of the prison are twenty or
thirty rowdies and bullies, under whom the Chris-
tians must serve as menial slaves. There is no respect,
no pity. The horrible blasphemies cannot be de-
scribed. There is no book, no Bible, no work, no
sleep. Every man is covered with the swarming ver-
min with which the unwashed rooms of the prison
teem. To clean ourselves is impossible. Now and
then the rumor sweeps through the prison that we are
all to be put to death, and all our hearts melt like
water.
" The terrible darkness of the night, the curses
and stripes inflicted from time to time, cause us to live
in the valley of the shadow of death. It is a living
grave, a visible hell, a world without God. Out of this
throng of prisoners more than a hundred are in daily
suffering from the gnawing of hunger, and from na-
kedness, but there is no one to pity. Many praying
men are tempted to cease praying, many are tempted
to change over to the ^loslem faith. In truth, all of
us are dumb; what to say we know not. We are
w^earied of the long silence; our eyes are strained
with watching, our bones ache, our prayers are de-
spised by the revilers. Xight is not night, and day is
not day. Our grief is our food, our sleep is weeping,
for ho\v long a time must we cry ? Lord, wilt
246 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Thou hide Thyself forever ? How long will Thy
anger burn like fire ? And yet some of us are saying:
* Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'
" When will the Christian statesmen and philan-
thropists of the world find a way to cleanse these Au-
gean stables all over Turkey ? Long centuries cry out
for redress. Within a month the following incidents
have occurred: A Christian confined in this prison
was ordered to receive 400 stripes. After 300 had
been inflicted he cried out that he could endure no
more or he must die. An officer then presented to
him a paper with the names of fifty Christians in the
city who were accused therein of sedition. In his
great agony he signed it, and this is to be used to in-
criminate others, wholly regardless of their guilt or
innocence. The other victim of unendurable stripes
was an old man. When he could endure no more of
this inhuman treatment, he also was asked to sign a
paper implicating others indiscriminately.
^^ Can any one living in a free country for a mo-
ment understand what it is to live under such a gov-
ernment ? There is a great flourish just at present
over the reforms that are being instituted in certain
parts of this land. No resident of this country can
have confidence in the superficial operations. What
will you do with a land where lying is the simplest of
mental exercises, and w^here no one was ever known
to blush over it if exposed ? "
I give here the testimony of a gentleman from
Sassoun who escaped the atrocities. He is an Ar-
menian from Sassoun, and my personal friend. I
quote this from a little pamphlet, entitled " Facts
About Armenia."
THE TUItKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 247
The Massacre of 1894,
" The Armenians of Sassoun were fully aware of
the hostile intention of the government, but they could
not imagine it to be one of utter extermination.
" The Porte had prepared its plans, Sassoun was
doomed. The Kurds were to come in much greater
number, the government was to furnish them provision
and ammunition, and the regular army was to second
them in case of need.
*^ The various tribes received invitations to take
part in the great expedition, and the chiefs, with their
men, arrived one after the other. The total number
of the Kurds who took part in the campaign may
be estimated at 30,000. The Armenians believed in
the beginning that they had to do only with the Kurds.
They found out later that an Ottoman regular army,
with provisions, rifles, cannons, and kerosene oil, was
standing at the back of the Kurds.
^' The plan was to destroy first Shenig, Semal,
Guelliegoozan,Aliantz,etc.,and then to proceed toward
Dalvorig. The Kurds, notwithstanding their im-
mense number, proved to be unequal to the task. The
Armenians held their own, and the Kurds got worsted.
After a two weeks' fight between Kurd and Armenian,
the regular army entered into an active campaign.
Mountain pieces began to thunder. The Armenians,
having nearly exhausted their ammunition, took to
flight. Kurd and Turk pursued them, and massacred
men, women, and children. The houses were searched
and then set on fire. From certain villages groups
of men, tax receipts in their hands, went to the camp
and asked to be protected, but were slaughtered.
" A great number of villages outside of the Dal-
vorig district, which had in no wise been concerned in
the conflicts of the previous years, were also attacked,
to the unspeakable horror of the populations. 'J'h6
248 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
troops climbed up even the Mount Antok, where a
multitude of fugitives had taken refuge, and mas-
sacred them. A number of women and girls were
taken to the church of Guelliegoozan, and after being
frightfully abused, were tortured to death.
^' When the work of destruction was nearly accom-
plished in the other districts, some of the Kurdish ar-
mies were set on Dalvorig. The people defended
themselves against the overwhelming number of the
barbarians, but after four or five days they saw other
tribes and regular Turkish troops marching on them
from every side, and they took to flight, but were over-
taken and massacred. The scene was most hor-
rible. The enemy took a special delight in
butchering the Dalvorig people. An immense
crowd of Turkish and Kurdish soldiery fell upon the
villages, busily searching the houses and rooting out
hidden treasures, and then setting fire to the village.
"While the troops were so occupied, a number of the
fugitives fled Avildly to get out of the district, and tried
to hide themselves in caves, between rocks, or among
bushes. Three days after the complete destruction
of Dalvorig villages, the Kurds and the regular sol-
diers divided among themselves the result of the plun-
der, and the Kurds returned to their own mountains."
As my use of English is defective, I take the lib-
erty here of quoting from a long letter by E. J. Dillon
to the Contemporary Review, January, 1896.
Dr. Dillon is an Englishman who was the special
correspondent of the London " Daily Telegraph," a
most accurate and conscientious reporter, who writes
as an eye-witness:
" If a detailed description were possible of the hor-
rors which our exclusive attention to our own mistaken:
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 249
interests let loose upon Turkish Armenians, tliere is
not a man within the kingdom of CJreat Britain whose
heart-strings would not be touched and thrilled by the
gruesome Jitories of which it would be composed.
*' During all those seventeen years, written law,
traditional custom, the fundamental maxims of human
and divine justice were suspended in favor of a ^lo-
hammedan saturnalia. The Christians, by whose
toil and thrift the empire was held together, were de-
spoiled, beggared, chained, beaten, and banished or
butchered. First their movable wealth was seized,
then their landed property was confiscated, next the ab-
solute necessaries of life were wrested from them, and
finally honor, liberty, and life were taken w4th as lit-
tle ado as if these Christian men and women were
wasps or mosquitoes. Thousands of Armenians were
thrown into prison by governors like Tahsin Pasha and
Bahri Pasha, and tortured and terrorized till they de-
livered up the savings of a lifetime, and the support
of the helpless families, to ruffianly parasites. Whole
villages were attacked in broad daylight by the Im-
perial Kurdish cavalry without pretext or warn-
ing, the male inhabitants turned adrift or killed, and
their wives and daughters transformed into instru-
ments to glut the foul lusts of these bestial murderers.
In a few years the provinces were decimated, Alogh-
kerd, for instance, being almost entirely ' purged '
of Armenians. Over 20,000 woe-stricken wretches,
once healthy and well-to-do, fled to Russia or Persia
in rags and misery, deformed, diseased, or dying; on
the way they were seized over and over again by the
soldiers of the Sultan, who deprived them of the little
money they possessed, nay, of the clothes they were
wearing, outraged the married women in the pres-
ence of their sons and daughters, deflowered the tender
girls before the eyes of their mothers and brothers,
250 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE. /
and then drove them over the frontier to starve and
die. Those- who remained for a time behind v^ere no
better off. Kurdish brigands lifted the last cows and
goats of the peasants, carried away their carpets and
their valuables, raped their daughters and dishonored
their wives. Turkish tax-gatherers followed these,
gleaning what the brigands had left, and, lest any-
thing should escape their avarice, bound the men,
flogged them till their bodies were a bloody, mangled
mass, cicatrized the wounds with red-hot ramrods,
plucked out their beards hair by hair, tore the flesh
from their limbs with pincers, and often, even then,
dissatisfied with the financial results of their exertions,
hung the men whom they had thus beggared and mal-
treated from the rafters of the room, and kept them
there to witness with burning shame, impotent rage,
and incipient madness, the dishonoring of their wives
and the deflowering of their daughters, some of whom
died miserably during the hellish outrage.
" In accordance with the plan of extermination,
which has been carried out with such signal success
during these long years of Turkish vigor and English
sluggishness, all those Armenians who possessed mo-
ney, or money ^s worth were for a time allowed to pur-
chase immunity from prison, and from all that prison
life in Asia Minor implies. But as soon as terror and
summary confiscation took the place of slow and elab-
orate extortion, the gloomy dungeons of Erzeroum,
Erzinghan, Marsovan, Ilassankaleh, and Van were
filled, till there was no place to sit down, and scarcely
sufficient standing room. And this means more than
English people can realize, or any person believe who
has not actually witnessed it. It would have been a
torture for Turkish troopers and Kurdish brigands,
but it was worse than death to the educated school-
masters, missionaries, priests, and physicians who were
THE TCRKISH ATROCITIES IN AnMENIA. 261
immured in these noisome hotbeds of infection, and
forced to sleep nii»ht after night standing on their
feet, leaning against the foul, reeking corner of the
wall which all the prisoners were compelled to use as
The very worst class of Tartar and
Kurdish criminals were turned in here to make these
hell-chambers more unbearable to the. Christians.
And the experiment was everywhere successful. Hu-
man hatred and diabolical spite, combined with the
most disgusting sights, and sounds, and stenches, with
their gnawing hunger and their putrid food, their
parching thirst and the slimy water, fit only for sew-
ers, rendered their agony maddening. Yet these were
not criminals nor alleged criminals, but upright Chris-
tian men, who were never even accused of an infrac-
tion of the law. No man who has not seen these
prisons with his own eyes, and heard these prisoners
with his own ears, can be expected to conceive, much
loss realize, the sufferings inflicted and endured. The
loathsome diseases, whose terrible ravages were freely
displayed; the still more loathsome vices, which were
continually and openly practiced; the horrible blas-
phemies, revolting obscenities, and ribald jests which
alternated with cries of pain, songs of vice, and pray-
ers to the unseen God, made these prisons, in some
respects, nearly as bad as the Black Hole of Calcutta,
and in others infinitely worse. In one comer of this
foul fever-nest a man mi^ht be heard moaning and
groaning with the pain of a shattered arm or leg; in
another, a youth is convulsed with the death spasms
of cholera or poison; in the center, a knot of Turks,
whose dull eyes are fired with bestial lust, surround a
Christian boy, who pleads for mercy with heart-har-
rowing voice while the human fiends actually outrage
him to death.
" Into these prisons venerable old ministers of
252 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
religion were dragged from tlieir cliurches, teachers
from tlieir schools, missionaries from their meeting-
houses, merchants, physicians, and peasants from their
firesides. Those among them who refused to de-
nounce their friends, or consent to some atrocious
crime, were subjected to horrible agonies. Many a
one, for instance, was put into a sentry-box bristling
with sharp spikes, and forced to stand there motionless,
without food or drink, for twenty-four and even thir-
ty-six hours, was revived with stripes whenever he fell
fainting to the prickly iloor, and was carried out un-
conscious at the end. It was thus that hundreds of
Armenian Christians, whose names and histories are
on record, suffered for refusing to sign addresses to
the Sultan accusing their neighbors and relatives of
high treason. It was thus that Azo was treated by
his judges, the Turkish officials, Talib Eifendi, Cap-
tain Reshid, and Captain Hadji Fehim Agha, for de-
clining to swear away the lives of the best men of his
village. A whole night was spent in torturing him.
He Avas first bastinadoed in a room close to which his
female relatives and friends were shut up so that they
could hear his cries. Then he was stripped naked,
two poles extending from his armpits to his feet were
placed on each side of his body and tied tightly. His
arms were next stretched out horizontally and poles
. arranged to support his hands. This living cross was
then bound to a pillar, and the flogging began. The
whips left livid traces behind. The wretched man
was unable to make the slightest movement to ease his
pain. His features alone, hideously distorted, re-
vealed the anguish he endured. The louder he cried,
the more heavily fell the whip. Over and over again
he entreated his tormentors to put him out of pain,
saying, ^ If you want my death, kill me with a bullet,
but for God's sake don't torture me like this ! ' His
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 253
head alone being free, he at last, maddened by ex-
cruciating pain, endeavored to dash out his brains
against the pillar, hoping in this way to end his agony.
But this consummation was hindered by the police.
They questioned him again; but in spite of his con-
dition, Azo replied as before: * I cannot defile my
soul with the blood of innocent people. I am a Chris-
tion.' Enraged at this obstinacy, Talib Effendi, the
Turkish official, ordered the application of other and
more effective tortures. Pincers were fetched to
pull out his teeth, but, Azo remaining firm, this
method was not long persisted in. Then Talib com-
manded his servants to pluck out the prisoner's mous-
tachios by the roots, one hair at a time. This order
the gendarmes executed, with roars of infernal laugh-
ter. But this treatment proving equally ineffectual,
Talib instructed the men to cauterize the unfortunate
victim's body. A spit was heated in the fire. Azo's
arms were freed from their supports, and two brawny
policemen approached, one on each side and seized
him. Meanwhile another gendarme held to the mid-
dle of the wretched man's hands the glowing spit^
While his flesh was thus burning, the victim shouted
out in agony, ^ For the love of God kill me at once ! '
" Then the executioners, removing the red-hot
spit from his hands, applied it to his breast, then to his
back, his face, his feet, and other parts. After this,
they forced open his mouth, and burned his tongue
with red-hot pincers. During these inhuman opera-
tions, Azo fainted several times, but on recovering con-
sciousness maintained the same inflexibility of pur-
pose. Meanwhile, in the adjoining apartment, a
heart-rending scene was being enacted. The wo-
men and the children, terrified by the groans and
cries of the tortured man, fainted. When they re-
vived, they endeavored to rush out to call for help,
254 AR^IENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
but the gendarmes, stationed at the door, barred their
passage, and brutally pushed them back. *
*' lights were passed in such hellish orgies and
days in inventing new tortures or refining upon the
old, with an ingenuity which reveals unimagined
strata of malignity in the human heart. The results
throw the most sickening horrors of the Middle Ages
into the shade. Some of them cannot be described,
nor even hinted at. The shock to people's sensibili-
ties would be too terrible. And yet they were not
merely described to, but endured by men of education
and refinement, whose sensibilities were as delicate
as ours.
'^ And when the prisons in which these and analo-
gous doings were carried on had no more room for
new-comers, some of the least obnoxious of its actual
inmates were released for a bribe, or, in case of pov-
erty, were expeditiously poisoned off.
^' In the homes of these wretched people the fiend-
ish fanatics were equally active and equally success-
ful. Family life was poisoned at its very source.
Rape and dishonor, with nameless accompaniments,
menaced almost every girl and woman in tlie land.
They could not stir out of their houses in broad day-
light to visit the bazaars, or to work in the fields,
nor even lie down at night in their own homes, with-
out fearing the fall of that Damocles' sword ever sus-
pended over their heads. Tender youth, childhood
itself, was no guarantee. Children were often mar-
ried at the a2:e of eleven, even ten, in the vain hope of
lessening this danger. But the protection of a hus-
* The above description is taken literally from a report
of the British Vioe-Consnl of Erzeronm. Copies are in pos-
session of the diplomatic representatives of the powers at
Constantinople. The scene oecnrred in the Village of Semal
before the massacres, during the normal condition of things.
THE TURKISH ATKOCITIES IN ARMENIA. 256
band proved unavailing; it merely meant one murder
more, and one ' Christian dog' less. A bride would
be married in church yesterday, and her body would
be devoured by the beasts and birds of prey to-mor-
row, — a band of ruffians, often officials, having with-
in the intervening forty-eight hours seized her and
outraged her to death. Others would be abducted,
and, having for weeks been subjected to the loathsome
lusts of lawless Kurds, would end by abjuring their
God and embracing Islam; not from any vulgar mo-
tive of gain, but to escape the burning shame of re-
turning home as pariahs and lepers, to be shunned by
those near and dear to them forever. Little girls of
five and six were frequently forced to be present dur-
ing these horrible scenes of lust, and they, too, were
often sacrificed before the eyes of their mothers, who
would have gladly, madly accepted death, ay, and
damnation, to save their tender offspring from the
corroding poison.
" One of the abducted young women who, having
been outraged by the son of the Deputy-Governor of
Khnouss, Hussein Bey, returned, a pariah, and is now
alone in the world, lately appealed to her English
sistei's for such aid as a heathen would give to a brute,
and she besought it in the name of our common God.
Lucine Mussegh — this is the name of that outraged
young woman whose Protestant education gave her,
as she thought, a special claim to act as the spokes-
woman of Armenian mothers and daughters — Lu-
cine Mussegh besought, last March, the women of
England to obtain for the women of Armenia the
* privilege ' of living a pure and chaste life ! This
was the boon which she craved — but did not, could
not obtain. The interests of ' higher politics,' the
civilizing missions of the Christian powers, are, it
seems, incompatible with it ! ' For the love of the God
256 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
whom we worship in common/ wrote this outraged,
but still hopeful, Armenian lady, ^ help us, Christian
sisters ! Help us before it is too late, and take the
thanks of the mothers, the wives, the sisters, and the
daughters of my people, and with them the gratitude
of one for whom, in spite of her youth, death would
come as a happy release.'
" Neither the Christian sisters nor the Christian
brethren in England have seen their way to comply
with this strange request. But it may perhaps in-
terest Lucine IMussegh to learn that the six great pow-
ers of Europe are quite unanimous, and are manfully
resolved, come what will, to shield His Majesty the
Sultan from harm, to support his rule, and to guar-
antee his kingdom from disintegration. These are
objects worthy of the attention of the great powers;
as for the privilege of leading pure and chaste lives —
they cannot be importuned about such private mat-
ters.
" In due time they began. Over 60,000 Armen-
ians have been butchered, and the massacres are not
quite ended yet. In Trebizond, Erzeroum, Erzin-
ghan, Hassankalek, and numberless other places the
Christians were crushed like grapes during the vin-
tage. The frantic mob, seething and surging in the
streets of the cities, swept down upon the defenseless
Armenians, plundered their shops, gutted their houses,
then joked and jested with the terrified victims, as
cats play with mice. As rapid, whirling motion pro-
duces apparent rest, so the wild frenzy of those fierce
fanatical crowds resulted in a condition of seeming
calmness, composure, and gentleness which, taken in
connection with the unutterable brutality of their
acts, was of a nature to freeze men's blood with hor-
ror. In many cases they almost caressed their vie-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 257
tims, and actually encouraged them to hope, while pre-
paring the instruments of slaughter."
After the horrible scenes at Sassoun, and other
places, the Armenian protests shamed the European
powers, who signed the treaty of Berlin, to send a com-
mission and investigate the atrocities. It found the
stories quite true, laid the facts before the Sultan —
and that was the end of it. The Armenians asked,
" Since you admit the truth of these things, why do
you not punish the criminals, stop the outrages, and
compel the payment of indemnity to those who were
outraged and who lost their dear ones and their prop-
erty ? " The powers were deaf to all this. Then the
Armenians prepared an appeal (several months ago)
and carried it to the Sublime Porte, asking it to do
them justice. As soon as the Sultan heard of this, he
ordered his soldiers to fire on them if they presented
it. The appeal was. presented, and before the eyes
of the European Ambassadors in Constantinople, the
brave soldiers of the kind-hearted Sultan butchered
about 3,000 Armenian Christians, several thousand
were imprisoned, and several hundred were murdered
in the Central Prison. Then the cold, wise, and con-
siderate European powers began to move very slowly,
not for the sake of the Armenians, but for their own,
their citizens in Constantinople and elsewhere.
They ordered the Sultan to reform Armenia,
brought their fleets to the Dardanelles near Constan-
tinople to overawe him, prepared a scheme of reform
for Armenia, and made huge threats to the Sultan
17
258 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
if he did not aocept it. But lie knew that this pre-
tended concert of the powers for Armenian reform
was a mere trick and sham, as I have persistently as-
serted all along in the face of my hopeful European
and xVmerican friends; in fact, the Kussian govern-
ment at this very time was secretly urging him to stand
firm and refuse to accept the reforms. He did so,
broached a scheme of his own as a substitute, and the
powers accepted it as such; and then the whole thing
was dropped, the Sultan did nothing whatever about
it, as he had never intended to. The European coun-
tries were hoodwinked, and the Armenian massacres
and conflagrations, plundering and deflowering, went
on at a greater pace than ever. Then the powers
dropped the Armenian question, and took up that of
gunboats in the Bosphorus, to protect their citizens
against a rising in Constantinople; that they forced
the Sultan to permit, because their own interests were
concerned in it, — which shows that they could have
forced him to stop exterminating the Armenians if
they had cared. All joined in this except Germany;
the German Emperor is the Sultan's friend, and backs
him up. So now Germany, Russia, and the Sultan
are hand in hand, leagued to prevent any of the mis-
erable victims of his tyranny from escaping his clut-
ches, and the Sultan has the best possible encourage-
ment to go on killing the Armenians. The German
Emperor says, '' Better that Armenians be killed
than have a war in Europe and lose the lives of some
of my soldiers." The Czar says, "Time must be
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 250
given to the Sultan to reform his country.** Lord
Salisbury says, '' The Sultan has promised, and we
nuist wait and see what lie will do." And the Sultau,
cursing every Emperor and lord of them all as a set
of Christian hogs, orders the soldiers and the Kurds to
go on with the good work in Armenia. And when we
come to America, the Monroe doctrine obliges it to
quarrel over Venezuela, and not only refuse help
itself, but give Lord Salisbury a good excuse to give
none either.
Such is the situation; the massacres are going on
in Armenia and the Armenians in despair are crying,
" O Lord, how long, how long ! "
Mass meetings are good as far as they go; raising
money and sending it to relieve the Armenians is good
as far as it goes; the Hed Cross Society is good as far
as it goes; there are no objections to any of them; they
are all noble and Christian. But, reader, don't you
think all these good movements with good motives
will hurt the Armenian cause, as there is nothing to
aid that cause directly ? All these mass-meetings
merely irritate the Sultan into carrying on the mur-
ders more strenuously, since there is no force back
of them. Don't you think the Armenian question
being discussed in the United States Congress, and
resolutions made without any action, will hurt the
Armenians more than anything else ? If you can't
tread down the Sultan, don't stir him up. Miss Clara
Barton, that noble woman, is in Armenia to help the
Armenians. The Red Cross Society is there and is
260 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
feeding the Armenians. I thank her, every Armen-
ian thanks her. But do you think that that will re-
lieve the situation ? Spring has come, and what
now ? Will the Armenians have any crops ? Did
they, or could they sow any seed ? Is there any far-
mer left alive ? Has any farmer, if he is alive, any
oxen or horses ? If he has, will he dare go to his field,
sow, reap, and thresh ? Eeader, consider all these
things, and reconsider them, and I am sure you will
come to the same conclusion I did many years ago,
that Turkey does not need a Ked Cross Society, but
a Red Cross crusade, not like the medieval crusades,
but a Protestant American crusade in the nineteenth
century. Let me illustrate this Armenian question
by the following parable : —
Suppose a lamb is torn by a wolf, and the wolf lies
in wait to finish it. You go to the lamb with a bundle
of grass in your hand, pat it and say, " Here, poor
lamb, I pity you, I give you grass; take it aud eat it."
Then you leave the lamb and go away. Do you think
you have helped the lamb ? As soon as you have
gone, the wolf will come and tear the lamb to pieces.
If you are going to help the lamb, you must kill the
wolf, else no matter how much grass you give the
wounded lamb, it will do it no good. You will do no
good by sending Eed Cross societies to Armenia to feed
the Armenians if you have not the power or the will
to keep the wild beasts off. You will feed them, and
then the wolves will kill them.
JsTow I will pass in review some of the leading cities
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 261
in Armenia where there have been great persecutions.
Before beginning, however, I must state that it is
impossible to give an accurate census of the popula-
tion in the Armenian cities, or the number who have
been massacred; for the Turkish government never
takes a correct census, and never gives or will give
the true number of those it has murdered. J^ut I
think I can make a fair approximation of both. I
will begin with the city of Harpoot. *
HARPOOT AND ITS VICINITY.
This is one of the most important Armenian dis-
tricts, because the Armenians outnumber the Mo-
hammedans there; in the city the Turks are the more
numerous, but there are many Armenian towns and
villages which make up. The district has about 150,-
000 people, most of them Armenians, and about 40,-
000 w^ere killed in the recent massacre. Harpoot is
built on three hills, and has a commanding view.
Here is located a great American missionary institu-
tion, the Euphrates College; it has three departments,
the college, the Theological Seminary, and the Girls'
Seminary. There were twelve buildings, eight of
which were burned in the outrages, a loss of $100,-
000.
Almost all the outlying villages were burned,
and the movables carried off. Women were made
prey, boys and girls were kidnapped; the horrors can
never be described. T give here a few words from a
private letter, written by a Mohammedan Turk to
his brother in this countrv. T have the letter in mv
♦ Extracts from letters are left unsigned for fear of en-
dangering the writers' lives.
262 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
possession, written in the Turkish language. He
says : —
" Mj dear brother:
All the Christian villages which belong to Har-
poot district, we plundered and destroyed, and killed
the inhabitants. We killed them both with our
swords and with our rifles. The bullets of our rifles
poured upon them like rain; none of them are left,
neither any dwelling was left, we burnt all their
houses. We thank God that not a single Mohamme-
dan was killed. Everywhere throughout Armenia
the Christians were punished in the same manner."
Another testimony from another Mohammedan,
an officer; he says nearly 40,000 were killed in Har-
poot province, February 26, 1896: —
" A petition in behalf of the Armenians was given
to the powers in the hope of improving their condi-
tion. An imperial firman was issued for carrying out
the reforms suggested by the powers. On this ac-
count the Turkish population was much excited, and
thought that an Armenian principality was to be es-
tablished, and they began to show great hostility to
the poor Armenians, who had been obedient to them
and with whom they had lived in peace for more
than 600 years. To the anger of the people were
added the permission and help of the government;
and so, before the reforms were undertaken, the whole
Turkish population was aroused, with the evil intent
of obliterating the Armenian name; and so the Turks
of the province, joining with the neighboring Kurd-
ish tribes by the thousand, armed with weapons which
are allowed only to the army, and with the help and
under the guidance of Turkish officials, in an open
manner, in the daytime, attacked the Armenian
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 268
houses, shops, stores, monasteries, churches, schools,
and committed the fearful atrocities set forth in the
accompanying tabic. They killed bishops, priests,
teachers, and common people with every kind of tor-
ture, and they showed special spite toward ecclesias-
tics by treating their bodies with extra indignity, and
in many cases they did not allow their bodies to be
buried. Some they burned, and some they gave as
food to dogs and wild beasts.
" They plundered churches and monasteries, and
they took all the property of the common people, their
flocks and herds, their ornaments and their money,
their house furnishings and their food, and even the
clothing of the men and women in their flight. Then
after plundering them, they burned many houses,
churches, monasteries, schools, and markets, some-
times using petroleum, which they had brought with
them to hasten the burning ; large stone churches which
would not burn they ruined in other ways.
" Priests, laymen, women, and even small chil-
dren were made Moslejns by force. They put white
turbans on the men and circumcised them in a cruel
manner. They cut the hair of the women in bangs,
like that of Moslem women, and made them go
through the Mohammedan prayers. Married women
and girls were defiled, against the sacred law, and
some were married by force, and are still detained in
Turkish houses. Especially in Palu, Severek, Ma-
latia, Arabkir, and Choonkoosh, many women and
girls were taken to the soldiers' barracks and dis-
honored. Many, to escape, threw themselves into the
Euphrates, or committed suicide in other ways.
" It is clear that the majority of those killed in
Harpoot, Severek, Husenik, Malatia, and Arabkir
were killed by the soldiers, and also that the schools
and churches of the missionaries and Gregorians in the
264 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
upper quarter of Harpoot City, together with the
houses, were set on fire by cannon balls.
" It is impossible to state the amount of the pecu-
niary loss. The single city of Egin has given 1,200
(some say 1,500) Turkish pounds as a ransom.
^* These events have occurred for the reasons I
have mentioned. I Avish to show by this statement,
which I have written from love to humanity, that the
Armenians gave no occasion for these attacks."
The Turk, whose document is thus translated,
figures that the total deaths in the province of Har-
poot during the scenes, have been 39,334; the wound-
ed 8,000; houses burned, 28,562; and that the num-
ber of the destitutes is 94,870.
" In a letter just received (Jan. 18, 1896) from the
Kev. H. N. Barnum, D.D., of Harpoot, Eastern Tur-
key, where the property of the American Board was
burned, he says that reports have been secured from
176 villages in the vicinity of Harpoot. These vil-
lages contained 15,400 houses belonging to Christians.
Of this number 7,054 have been burned, and 15,845
persons are reported killed. Dr. Barnum adds : ^ The
reality, I fear, will prove to be much greater.' "
A letter from an Armenian named Kallajian,
written from Husenik, a town about three miles from
Harpoot, addressed to his brother in this country, says :
" Sunday, November 11, the government came
to our town, Husenik, and asked the Armenians to
give up their arms, and they surrendered all they had;
and in the evening asked them to take the church bell
down. They also obeyed, and by night the Turkish
« << *
I « c , «-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 265
soldiers surrounded the town until the morning, and
in the morning early they sounded the bugle. When
they sounded the bugle, about 25,000 Kurds made an
attack on the town, and plundered all the houses, kill-
ing 700 men, women, and children, besides the
wounded. When the attack was made, we left our
house, with two of our neighbors' families and many
others from our town, about thirty in all. One little
boy, my nephew, I carried on my shoulders, and the
other was carried by its mother, and we ran up the
hill toward Harpoot. The bullets were showering
upon us by hundreds, and father fell. He was shot
once in the head and once in the belly, and stabbed
with a sword through his chin. When we reached
the top of the hill, about twenty Kurds came down
from Harpoot, and took all our clothes and money,
and left us naked; and a little after, a band of Turks
came down and made so much trouble for us that I
am unable to describe it. They took us to the city,
and we finally succeeded in getting to the house of
Sadukh Effendi, formerly of our town, but now living
in the city. We went to his house, and this kind man
kept us there for two days in his house, and on Tuesday,
evening he took us to our own town, and as we came
near to our house I found that father was dead under
a tree. We went to the house ; we saw that our house
was open and stripped of everything, and father's
trunk was broken open, and his papers were soaked in
kerosene and set on fire, and twenty-five houses were
destroyed on our street. We are hungry and in des-
titute condition; help us if you can. Our little
nephew savs: ^ O Jesus, keep us afar from such trou-
ble.' "
There are other letters also from Harpoot, but
this is enough to show the nature of the scenes there.
266 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
PALOO AND WHAT HAPPENED THEHE.
Paloo is one of the oldest cities in Armenia. It
had 15,000 population, 5,000 Armenians and 10,000
Mohammedans, and there were over forty Armenian
villages in the district around. About 5,000 Chris-
tians were killed during the recent massacre.
Personal Letters From Paloo,
December 15, 1895.
" Paloo is in a miserable condition. All the
houses and shops have been robbed. About 2,000 per-
sons have perished, and few have survived this great
ruin; but we thank God all our family is in safety.
Just to-day I received a letter from our home; they
write: ^ We are alive, but hungry.' They have no
bread to eat, and no clothes to wear; our only hope is
God. If the country is soon reformed we can get our
living, but if not we shall all perish. Turks, Kurds,
and soldiers united, plundered, robbed, and burned the
houses of Paloo and the neighboring villages. You
can guess very well who has given the order."
A personal letter received by the Armenian Relief
Association, in this city, under date of Paloo, Ar-
menia, November 24, presents an awful picture of
the horrors to which the people there are subjected.
The letter is in part as follows: —
" On November 3, the Turks of the town armed
themselves, attacked the stores, plundered their con-
tents, and killed those who attempted to defend them-
selves. A few days later the Turks left the town,
joined a band of 10,000 Kurds, and began a general
assault upon the surrounding villages, pillaging and
burning the houses, and killing all the men. They
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 267
poured kerosene oil on all the stored grain and set it
on fire, and mixed the flour with filth, so that it could
not be used. The beautiful women were delivered to
the Kurds, who committed the most indescribable out-
rages. Many were carried oif to slavery, and forced
to accept Mohammedanism.
" In Habab Village, where the people defended
themselves for six days, the government soldiers were
called to the aid of the Kurds, and the united forces
overpowered the village and burned all except fifteen
of their three hundred houses.
" All of the forty-one Armenian villages around
Paloo are in ashes, the fields laid waste, and the in-
habitants massacred. Nothing is left but death and
desolation.
" On [N'ovember 11, 10,000 armed Kurds fell upon
the city of Paloo. They plundered the houses, even
pulling down the walls with hooks to discover any-
thing valuable that might be hidden. All the large
houses were burned. Ten of the wealthy Armenians,
who have always cared for the poor, and sheltered
the distressed, are left without a pair of shoes or a
blanket, 1,732 men were butchered in cold blood,
and of the 10,000 population, two hundred men only
are left, saved on condition that they serve the Turks
as slaves.
" More than 5,000 women and children are left
without any means of living. They are begging from
door to door for even a meagre pittance of bran, which
is all that is left, and every day death claims more
and more of the victims by starvation. All of the
more beautiful women have been taken by the Kurds.
The Armenian youths who have been forced to accept
[Mohammedanism are also forced to take Turkish wives
to prove their sincerity.
268 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
" All of my relations, save two, have been killed
in my presence. Our priests have all been butchered,
except one, who was forced to accept Islamism. Our
churches have been turned into mosques, where the
remaining women and old men are compelled to go
and be taught Islam by the Mohammedan priest."
But here is another letter, from an Armenian
mother to her son in this country, which brings us still
closer to the actual horrors, for this woman was herself
a victim — turned at a blow from a comfortable ma-
tron to a naked beggar, in winter, among the ruins of
her village, her own friends killed, herself foully
abused. Read this, and then talk, if you dare, about
" exaggerated accounts " !
" December 12, 1895.
"My Dear Son:—
" We received your letter dated November 14thj
which we read with great pleasure. You asked for
information about us, as to how we are, etc. Except
your father, we are all still alive, with our relatives,
and long to see you very much. It is very hard to
describe with the pen all the misfortunes that we
have undergone. They cannot be told ; but since you
are very eager to know, I will try to write it down
for you very briefly. My dear son, on Tuesday,
November 28th, they took by force the oxen that are
used for ploughing the fields. Until the evening of
that day they gathered all the oxen for ploughing from
Paloo and the neighboring Armenian villages, and
took them for themselves, and gave us notice that they
should attack the village. Wednesday morning all
the people of the surrounding Turkish villages gath-
ered round about our village, and our village was be-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 2()!)
sieged until about noontime. From ten to fifteen
persons were killed up to that time from our side, and
the village was surrounded by more than twenty-two
thousand Turks and Kurds, who bear arms. It was
impossible for us to protect our village. We applied
to the government, there was no government to hear
us; despair reigned in the hearts of all. They fought
until evening, and before they had reached us, wo,
all the villagers, left everything, even not taking
bread for one meal with us, went to the monastery
and left the village to the Turks. We passed the
night in the monastery, hungry and thirsty ; the num-
ber of the killed reached to thirty by morning.
Then we learned that it was not safe, even in the
monastery, although they had plundered it two or
three times. Thursday, by noontime, the monastery
was full of villagers. At noon there was a blow on
the door of the monastery. Ravenous Turks, Zazes,
and others were besieging the building. Until evening
they beat at the iron door to break it; fifteen persons
were at it, but it was impossible for them to open it.
Within, the shrieks and the cries of the people reached
up to heaven. Men, in order to save their lives, dressed
themselves in women^s clothes, and covered their
heads. Your brother wrapped his moustaches
so thickly that he should not be known, as the Turks
were after him by name. About 3 p. m., when the
Turks saw that it was not possible for them to open the
gate of the monastery, they broke in one of the stones
in the wall, and the plunderers entered. ... I
cannot describe here the sufferings of the people. . .
Within one hour they robbed and violated a popula-
tion of 1,500 people, five times each woman, mar-
ried or maiden, and then left the monastery. The
villagers, every one to save her or his life, left every-
270 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
thing, property, cattle, merchandise, and provisions,
and fled, the man leaving his wife, the wife her child,
the son his mother, the brother his sister, and they dis-
persed in the adjoining mountains, plains, valleys,
and hills, with only their under-garments on, as the
Turks and Kurds had stripped them of everything
else. Friday morning the number of the killed had
reached about fifty. Your father was shot on the
plain of Sacrat, but the wound was not dangerous.
For three days the people gathered in Sacrat, hungry
and thirsty; from Sacrat they were given over to
the Zazes, to take them to the city. ... I can
not write down here all the things we endured at the
hands of the Zazes. . Finally, after we had suffered
unmentionable cruelties, being twice plundered in
the city and violated, three brides and maidens were
carried away as slaves by the Kurds, more than one
hundred persons were martyred, among whom were
two priests, and the rest were forced to accept Mo-
hammedanism, and after that the massacre ceased.
For twenty days we remained in the city, naked, hun-
gry, and thirsty, also hopeless. The city was rescued
from the massacre after having suffered the loss of six
hundred houses, together with all the property of the
shops and stores, and the total sum of the martyred
being 2,000. Our village was given over to be burned
for twenty days successively. Out of two hundred
houses, there are hardly thirty left sound; the rest
are all razed to the ground. . . . The rest of
this story will follow by next mail. I wanted to tell
you a little about our hard situation. Saved with only
our undergarments, hungry and thirsty, our whole
family came back from the city, among the ruins. I,
your mother, had to go begging wholly naked and
barefoot to the familiar Kurd neighbors. I had only
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 271
one shirt, which I made into a bag to put the things
in which I begged from the Kurds. For fifty days I
have provided thus for the family; after this I com-
mit it to your care; you know best what to do. We
have not got even a head covering; nothing to carry
the water home in from the fountain. It is the month
of December, and you know well it is the first month
of the winter; we have two and a half months yet be-
fore coming to the spring. We are all of us very, very,
hungry. Those Turks who were so friendly before
have turned now not to know us, they don^t even give
a penny. We have no hope from anywhere else; if
you do not come to our help, we shall perish ! perish !
perish ! We, with all the villagers shall die. Be-
hold the description of our misery. Read this to all
the villagers that are there with you, and notify them
that all of you must be the helpers and deliverers of our
people, especially to us who are all helpless atid on the
verge of starvation. Send us help. I remain
" Your affectionate mother."
MALATIA AND ITS HARDSHIPS.
Malatia is located about midway between Marash
and Harpoot, a little distance from the Euphrates
river. More fruit is raised in and about there than
in any other section of x\rmenia. The assortment is
large, but the apples and pears are especially fine, per-
haps better than those of any part of the world.
It has about 20,000 population, two-thirds being
Mohammedans, and one-third Armenians. The
private letters which have been received from there
do not state, and cannot state how many Armenians
272 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
have been killed during the period of the present perse-
ciitions, and it is not likely there ever will be any cor-
rect estimate of them. The region has suffered im-
mensely, and letters from there reveal a most distress-
ing condition of affairs. The people were plundered
and violated in every conceivable way until there was
nothing more for the time being for the fiends to wreak
their cruelty upon.
Letters prom Malatia.
Malatia, Dec. 22, 1895.
My Very Dear Son:—
We greet you with the fondest greeting, and it
is the desire of our hearts that the good Lord shovild
enable us to see each other again in this mortal flesh.
In regard to ourselves, as to how we were, and what
we are doing. We are all alive yet with our whole
family, no loss of persons from among us. Don't
mourn for us. Others are mourning for their loved
ones. Though in truth the grief and mourning of
others belong to us also because we are all Armenians,
one flesh and blood, and we all belong to the same
nation.
I did not go to bring up the bride of our neigh-
bor's with the rest, so I was at home when the mas-
sacre began. You remember that there was a well
in that quarter. The Turks killed the bridegroom,
his brother, the priest, together with sixty-five other
men, and threw them into that well. In another
house they burned seventy-five men, and in still an-
other forty-five men. Finally, I am unable to der
scribe with my pen all that passed in those days and
hours.
i MA N I'KASANT OIUL. MOUSA IJEG. Kurd tliivf.
Moasa Beg was specially reward«'iJ for his outrapreous ami brutal treatment
ofthiss^rl. He killed her father by thruHtiuK red-hot wires Into his body.
THE TL'UKISH ATIIOCITIES IN ARMENIA. 273
May the Lord preserve your dear lives, and give
you peace and happiness. Your fatiier.
Another Letter.
Malatia, Dec. 22, 1895.
My Dear Friend : —
I received your very kind letter about a week ago,
for which I thank you very much, and I read it with
great pleasure. But we do not get the boys' letters
regularly. It is nearly two months since the disas-
ter occurred, and in that time I have received but one
letter. The other day an Armenian handed me a let-
ter that was torn into nearly a hundred pieces. I
put all the pieces together and read it. It was also from
the boys, and I read and was very glad. Now I will
try to give you a little information about us. The
first Monday I did not go to the market, for from Sat-
urday I got somehow suspicious that there was some-
thing impending over the city, and I did not let father
go either. My brother was to accompany those who
were going to bring up a bride for my brother's part-
ner in business. . While my brother was at the wed-
ding house, they sent him on an errand to go and get
a few policemen to accompany them as protection in
bringing the bride. Just at the moment when my
brother was on his way to the station-house, he sees
there was confusion in the market; then he drops the
matter of bringing a policeman, but goes to the mar-
ket and closes the shop, and then turns towards home
in a hurry. While on his way, some men fired at
him several times, but fortunately he was not hurt.
He comes as far as to one of our neighbors, and there
drops do^vn exhausted. They came and brought me
the news that he was there. Then I plucked up all
the courage I could, and went and brought him home.
An hour or so after, the Turks came and besieged that
18
274 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
same quarter and killed about thirty persons. On
Tuesday, very early in the morning, we left every-
thing, house, property, and goods, and just to save our
lives we fled to the new church, and I don't know
what became of the rest. We remained there in the
church until Friday; after that we came out of the
church, being a little assured of safety, and have been
living on the provision that the government allowed
us, but that also ceased a few days since. When we
came back home again we did not find a single thing;
they had swept off everything. We brought a mat-
ting from some place, and six of us sleep in one bed.
Some sleep on hay. May you never have to endure
such hardships. This incident seems worse than the
earthquake or the cholera, or the fire. May the good
Lord preserve us from things worse than these. Our
life is not worth the living. We don't know the exact
number of the killed. Malatia is altogether a ruin.
It is a worse ruin than the city of Anni, and even worse
than Sassoun. It is beyond conception, one cannot
keep account of it. May the Lord write it down in
his own account book, so that he should take the ac-
count in the day of judgment.
Please excuse all my shortcomings, because I am
out of myself. Our love to all the friends over there.
Yours truly,
P. S. Please tell the boys to know the value of
money, and not waste neither their time nor their mo-
ney in vain. For we have no one to look for but to
God in heaven, and after Him to them on earth. For
the value of a son is known in the time of adversity,
when he helps his elders or parents. Let them not yet
send any money, for there are no brokers left where
we can change it.
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 275
THE CITY OF SIVAS AND THE ATROCITIES.
Sivas is the seat of the vilayet or province of Sivas.
The Governor-General of that province resides there.
The population is about 30,000; one-third are Chris-
tian Armenians, and there are many Armenian Chris-
tian towns and villages round about, so that, if the
Armenians are not more numerous than the Moham-
medans, they equal them in number. Sivas is a mis-
sionary station, and during the atrocities, the Protes-
tant Armenian pastor also was killed. His name was
Garabet-Kilitjiam, one of the most gifted ministers of
the gospel, my personal friend and successor. After
I resigned my pastorate at Talas, Cesarea, he succeeded
me. He was offered the choice of accepting Moham-
medanism, but refused it, and then he was martyred.
In the city and province of Sivas during the recent
atrocities about 10,000 Armenians were killed, and
many villages and towns were plundered and de-
stroyed.
The following is a press dispatch: —
Loudon, Nov. KJ, 1895.— The representative of the United
Press at Constantinople reports, under the date of November
15th, that at six o'clock, on the evening of November 14th,
M. A. Jewett, United States consul at Sivas, sent a telegram
to United States Minister Terrell informing him tliat in the
disturbances which had taken place at Sivas, eight hundred
Armenians and ten Turks had been killed, and that, ac-
cording to official reports, a large body of Kurds were then
approaching the town. Mr. Jewett gave no details of the
disorders, but the discrepancy in the figures shows that the
Turkish allegations that the Armenians were the aggressors
are absolutely untrue, and that the Armenians were deliber-
ately massacred.
276 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
From a private letter from Sivas, Nov. 21, 1895.
" The air was full of wild rumors — but we could
get at nothing that seemed to have any substantial
truthful basis. Dr. Jewett — our consul — was on
the alert. He interviewed the Governor-General, —
and asked for protection for us, for the U. S. A. vice-
consul, for our schools, and for the American Consvi-
late. These were cheerfully promised, and the next
day, Tuesday, November 12th, at midday, like a cy-
clone, Sivas was smitten, as I wrote you last week.
Mr. P. and I had steadfastly refused to believe that
such violence could take place in our city, and we were
totally unprei:)ared for the shock. Our walls had
been taken down, — that is, our front wall had been, —
a distance of 125 feet. Our girls' school-building
had been cut off seven and a half feet on the south-
Avest comer, and both our schools and our dwellings
were in an entirely unprotected state. The day of
the terrible disaster, the city water was cut off from
our street, and for several days the heat was unusual
for this time of the year. The dead were buried on
Thursday, under the direction of the government,
in the Armenian graveyard, a priest of the Gregorian
faith being present to offer a prayer.
" Our good native pastor was in the market to at-
tend to the interests of his people, when, at a given
signal, a tribe of mountaineers, known as Karsluks
suddenly fell upon the Armenians with clubs, and
were soon followed by Circassians and local Mussul-
men, with knives and pistols; quickly and lastly the
police force and regular soldiers joined in with their
Martini rifles. It was a combined onslaught of four
other races against the Armenians. It has been de-
clared that the Armenians were in armed revolt
against the government, and this was done to put down
the revolution. When the attack was made against
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 277
them, we fail to find that there was any armed re-
sistance, so far as we can learn. If the Armenians
were premeditating an armed attack upon the Mus-
snlmen, we never could find it out, but that proves
nothing here or there, as missionaries are well known
not to sympathize with revolutionists.
" Badveli Garabed died a martyr; his life being
offered him three times if he would deny Christ. He
bore noble testimony before many witnesses, then
fell in their presence, sealing his faith and testimony
with his blood.
" Yours affectionately,"
Fu7'tlier Infoi*mation about Sivas by tlie Missionaries wJu> wrote to
tlieir friends Nov. 12, 1895.
" The cyclone which struck on the l'2th reached
Marsovan on the 15th. Don't be deceived by any of
the silly government statements which attribute all
these massacres to the Armenians. It was a deliber-
ate plan on the part of the government to punish the
Armenians. The Sultan was irritated because he
was forced to give them reforms, so he has had 7,000
Armenians killed to show his power since he signed
the scheme of reform.
** The killing was permitted to go on here all
last week; forty-six w^ere killed Saturday, November
16; sixteen on Sunday, and many more on the follow-
ing day. The total number killed is about 1,200 Ar-
menians and ten Turks.
*' It is a fact that the Kaimakam of Gurun tele-
graphed to the Yali at Sivas, saying in effect that there
is not an Armenian left at Gurun. The Armenians
at Sivas made no resistance, but at Gurun they tried
to defend themselves from the butchery, and suffered
the worse for it.
" In order to have an excuse for attacking the Ar-
278 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
menians at Sivas, the government smashed the win-
dows of Turkish shops and charged it to the Armen-
ians. Food is scarce, and everything was carried off
from the Armenian shops. There will be terrible
suffering all over this country.''
Another letter from Sivas, according to the Con-
stantinople correspondent, gives many details which
all go to show that the whole movement against the
Armenians is directly traceable to the head of the
Turkish government, who proclaimed that his great
desire was to keep always in view, " The safeguard
of the rights of the people, and the maintenance of
public confidence."
"What cruel mockery; Trebizond, Erzeroum,
Bitlis, Marash, Harpoot and how many more towns
rise up and point the finger of everlasting scorn and
indignation to fix on Abdul Hamid Khan the stigma
of everlasting infamy ! The deliberate murder of
thousands of innocent and industrious men, the ex-
posure of ten times that number of women and chil-
dren and aged persons to absolute degradation and
destitution, will justify the name of Kanukiar — the
Bloodletter — which has been applied to the head
authority of the Empire."
The Riot in Sivas.
" Last week, Monday, November 11, was one of
the loveliest days Sivas ever had. Although there
were many rumors of trouble afloat, we could get at
nothing which seemed to have any greater founda-
tion than the fear that something might happen.
" I went unattended to the boys' school. On my
way to school that afternoon, I met a group of ex-
cited soldiers. They said nothing to me, but their
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 279
strangely excited manner impressed me as being out
of the usual order. When I began my class work,
the boys, instead of answering my questions, broke
forth with inquiries. They wanted to know if the
soldiers were going to shoot them, and if they were
going to be killed. That was the rumor afloat. 1
hushed them up as best I could, and told them it was
not right to speak of such things. I succeeded in
quieting the children, but went home full of anx-
iety.
'* The next day, Tuesday, a large gang of Turkish
workmen gathered in our street to continue the public
work of building up some walls which had been torn
down at the Vali's orders, for the purpose of widen-
ing the street. Armenian carpenters were employed
on our building. Nothing out of the ordinary oc-
curred until the workmen's * bread tirae^ about 1 1
o'clock, was finished.
" Then all the Osmanli (Turkish) gang sudden-
ly raised a hue and cry; each one grabbed a pick or
club, anything he could lay his hands on, and a wild
rush was made for the market-place. The air was
filled with yells of the furious men, who rushed along
madly.
" The Protestant pastor remained at home on the
day before, but on Tuesday was in a shop when the
signal for the raid was given. A perfect cyclone of
marauders rushed in and clubbed the unsuspecting
men in the stores to death before they could offer any
resistance. After the outbreak there was not a sin-
gle Armenian place of business left in the market.
" No list of the dead was made out, and none
could be. The victims were all buried in an immense
trench in the Armenian burying-ground two days
afterwards. There were between seven and eight
hundred bodies thus buried."
280 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
MARSOVAN AND THE ATROCITIES THERE.
Marsovan has 25,000 population, 10,000 being Ar-
menians, and the remainder Mohammedans. Mar-
sovan is one of the greatest stations of the American
missionaries. Anatolia College is there ; a theological
seminary for young men; and a seminary for girls.
The writer was the pastor of the Evangelical Ar-
menian church there till he was banished, for the
reasons stated in the sketch of him. After this the
Turks burned the girls' school; they tried to burn
the boys' college building also, but did not succeed.
Finally they several times massacred the Armenian
Christians, and forced many to accept Mohammedan-
ism.
I have not been able to get exact information about
the number of the martyred Christians in Marsovan,
but it is believed that in that missionary station about
1,000 were massacred altogether. The richest men
among the congregation were murdered, and so
thoroughly plundered that their children are left
wholly destitute; and the lives of the missionaries are
in danger.
CE8AREA (KAISERIEH).
The writer is well acquainted with this city, as he
was the pastor at Talas, only three miles away, for
years. It has about 50,000 population, one-third
being Christians; a few hundred Greeks only, but
more than 15,000 Armenians. The richest and
ablest Armenians live in that city, or in Constantino-
ple, and came from there; its people are the leaders of
U ATKH PKI)l.. i.r.
THE TUKKISU ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 281
the Armenian nation, both in business and intellect.
For the story of its foundation, see " The Haigazian
Dynasty,'^ under King Aram. It is a typical Ar-
menian city ; and has several great Armenian churches,
with flourishing schools. There is a beautiful evangel-
ical church also, and it is a great missionary station,
with several American missionaries, and several mis-
sionary schools, both for boys and for girls.
The Rev. Dr. Avedis Yeretzian, one of the great-
est of scholars, teachers, and preachers, and my per-
sonal friend, was martyred in that city during the
recent atrocities. He was shot dead in his own house
by a Mohammedan mob, then his wife was shot, then
his son, and the remainder of his children were cap-
tured by the mob. About 3,000 Armenians were
killed and wounded there, besides the loss of property.
The Mohammedan population of the city is very
savage; side by side in the same city, the Christians
are rich, refined, intelligent, and the Mohammedans
poor, lazy, sensual, and cruel. I give here two let-
ters from Cesarea.
A Private Letter from a Girl.
Cesarea, Turkey, Dec. 31, 1895.
My Dear Brother: —
Before the massacre, everybody was in fear; sev-
eral families would gather in one house to protect
themselves, and all the Armenian stores were closed
for twenty days; but as the government guaranteed
that there would be no danger, and told everybody to
attend to their business, and open their shops, they
did so. It was the 1 6th of T^ovember, on Saturday,
282 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
that all opened their shops again, and the transaction
of business commenced in full force. At 2 p. m., at
the doors of the market, bugles sounded, and several
hundred bashi-bazook [irregular soldiers] were at the
doors of the bazaar, every one of them having in his
hands stilettos, swords, yataghans, guns, revolvers,
hammers, axes, hatchets, sickles, poniards, daggers,
and heavy sticks with twenty or thirty nails fastened
to them. Then they blew horns, the signal to start
the massacre. Cries were heard, " First kill, cut, and
butcher the Giavours; the property already belongs
to us; cut, cut, kill, don^t care for plundering at pres-
ent." Then they rushed into the market and slaugh-
tered all they met. Oh ! you can imagine what
became of those who fell into the hands of those brutes.
Alas ! alas ! how unspeakable ! They butchered
them like cattle ; cut their heads off like onions. Some
tried to run, but could not, others tried to escape, but
were brought back and killed. The bazaar was full
of dead bodies. People hid themselves among the
goods, and in the cellars, and were saved ; ten or fifteen
days after, people were found there in a starving con-
dition, not having dared to come out. They killed in
Avsharaghus factory thirty-eight men; in Kayanjilar
everybody was slain. After the massacre was over,
the governor, Ferick Pasha, sent soldiers around, and
they discovered many people hiding, and took them
back to the government house (seray), examined their
pockets for revolvers and knives, and not finding any,
the governor sent them to their homes.
They plundered the bazaar of all its goods, and
then, oh, my Lord ! they rushed upon the houses and
upon the women's Turkish baths. ... I can-
not describe this; when I think of it, my whole body
trembles. The people in the baths were killed and
wounded, and they carried away the young girls; every
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 283
one was killed that they came in contact with. The
houses were plundered of all their contents, and build-
ings were torn down, and houses full of people were
burned. Oh, how terrible ! What I say you can-
not imagine to be so; you may think it is a dream,
because your eyes have not seen nor your ears heard
the screams, wailings, weeping, shrieks, and groan-
ing; that even our forefathers have not heard, but of
which our ears are full day and night. My brother
was in the bazaar, but fortimately he had occupied
a private room, where he was safe.
Some of the kidnapped girls were brought back
by the government, but most of them were wounded,
and half dead from fright. Thank God, we are safe,
but we are not better than those girls. We are in
Mr. Wingate's house, where many lives were saved.
He carried beds and clothing to the people, who were
stripped of all. A few ^lussulmans also protected
in their homes some Armenians; for example, James
Imuroglov, Gojaki Ogloo.
Yeretzian Avedis Effendi's house is ruined, him-
self, his son, and wife are killed, and the rest, five of
them, are carried away. Our block and their block
is ruined. They butchered Avjinury, Yuzukji, Dirn-
hitza and carried away her three daughters, but later
on brought two of them back. I mentioned them, as
you know. They also butchered Yuzikji Apraham
and his wife Gaga Ilaji, Gemerlkli Ohanness, Mus-
taamelji Gobra, Terrzi Artin, Erzurumli, servant boy.
Avedis Ago and his daughter were carried away.
Gussi Hamimon's mother is low. Oh, pity the intol-
erable many, many, I cannot write by my pen, or de-
scribe with my tongue the terrible sufferings. O
Lord, have mercy upon us ! To my knowledge there
were five hundred killed, six hundred wounded; many
are dying from their wounds and fright. Eight hun-
284 * ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
dred houses are plundered, and the tenants flocked
to the churches. I cannot write one hundredth part
of what happened.
We are lost, lost, ruined, no work, no business,
every one of us looking for safety. Happy, happy be
you that are in America and have nothing to fear.
They say to me, you ought to be with your brother
in America now. If the way was opened, everybody
would like to go.
If you are not in good circumstances there, you
must feel satisfied and give the thanks to God always.
We also have to thank Cfod that we are still living.
It is one month now that we have not been able to
go out in the streets. O Lord, help us. Oh ! what
shall we come to ? Oh, my dear brother, if you can
help us in any way please do so; make lectures, get
some help; everybody is dying of hunger. I cannot
write any longer; we leave all to your conscience. I
do not write this letter only to you, but to all. Do
whatever you can for us, we are in a terrible condi-
tion. T thank you, my brother, for the money that
you sent to me, thank you very much.
We send our best regards to every one of you. I
wrote this letter with the tears in my eyes. We beg
of you to write us good letters. Yaham, the little
boy, is in good health. We are all well including
Your sister,
Letter from Cesar ea.
Cesarea, Ts'ov. 20, 1805. — While the Armenians
were engaged in their business, as usual, the Turkish
mob fell upon them, killing 600 defenseless men and
wounding 1,000 more. The mob divided into four
parts. The first part plundered the stores, the second
looted the houses, the third secured the maidens and
young brides, wdiile the fourth, fiends incarnate, at-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 285
tacked the public baths. These human devils killed
six naked women in the presence of the others, snatch-
ing their babies from their arms and bayoneting the
mothers. The shrieks and agonizing cries of these
poor creatures made no impression upon the minds of
the savage Turks, who laughed at their death agonies.
They then took some of the young girls, who were
with their mothers at the bath, and dragged them
naked, by their feet, through the streets, followed by
a jeering and hooting mob.
The Turks who attacked the houses then killed
them and iired the houses. The cries of the women,
mingled with the hoarse shouts of the Turks, can never
be forgotten. The men who survived the sword were
discovered, taken to the magistrate and searched, but
no arms were found in their possession, not even a
knife. When released, and allowed to return to their
homes, they were confronted by a most ghastly pic-
ture. Some found their wives dead, others horribly
mutilated; daughters were bleeding. My hand
almost fails me to write the awful particulars. It took
three or four days to remove the bodies of the dead
with forty carts. Add to this the want, the desola-
tion. Oh, my God, for how long, how long ! Whore
are those Christian powers who saved African slaves ?
Where are those Christians who advocated brotherly
love and mercy, sending their missionaries to teach
us ? Are they deaf to our piercing cry ?
AINTAB AND ITS HORRORS.
The writer is well acquainted with Aintab, and
some of his best friends live there, if they have not
been killed. It has about 40,000 population, one-
third of it being Armenian. There are great schol-
ars among them. Central Turkey College is there.
286 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
It is an American college, but most of the professors
are native Armenians, graduates of Yale College.
There is also a woman's American College and a hos-
pital. The Evangelical Armenians are the strongest;
they have three large churches. They are con-
sidered to be the richest Evangelical Armenians in
Turkey. But hundreds of them were killed, wounded
and phmdered; in all about 4,000 of the Armenian
population were killed.
A Letter from Aintab, November 23, 1895.
Aintab has had its baptism of blood and fire, and
we sit in grief among ruins. We had been hoping that
the many things which seemed to combine for our
security would save our city from the fury of the
storm which is desolating so many places about us.
Our Christian community is large (about one-fourth
of the whole population), and the Christians, as a
class, are exceptionally intelligent and influential;
the leading Moslems of the city are intelligent and
able men, and have shown themselves to a degree
tolerant and even friendly to Christians; the gov-
ernor has seemed disposed, beyond most Turkish of-
ficials, to respect the rights of Christians. There is
a considerable number of foreign residents sure to
be witnesses of any violence done to Christians. The
college and hospital have for years commanded a
powerful influence in the city; the hospital especially
has the good-will of all classes; the college, its stu-
dents and teachers were no doubt regarded by- many
with much suspicion on account of the latent antag-
onisms inevitably existing between progressive and
conservative ideas, but personal relations were, so
far as I know, always friendly. Another thing in our
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 287
favor has been the fact that the Christians of Aintab
have given very little countenance to the ultra-revo-
lutionists, who have no doubt provoked trouble in
some places, lielying upon all these things, we had
for nearly three weeks been hearing reports of fighting
and massacre at Zeitoon, Marash, and Oorfa, and other
places, with comparatively little anxiety for ourselves.
It is true we were freipiently hearing of fearful
threats and warnings of what the Moslems were pre-
paring to do in Aintab, but we had got hardened to
that sort of thing, and regarded it as largely the in-
vention of cowardly roughs to terrify those whom they
did not dare attack. The most alarming thing in the
situation was that the government was disarming the
Christians, and at the same time giving out rifles and
ammunition to Moslems. This, however, was at-
tributed to an exaggerated fear of a Christian rising,
of which they profess to have information.
Mefintime the Moslems liable to military service
were called out and equipped and hurried off toward
Zeitoon, where it was reported that the Christians
were in rebellion. This, no doubt, was the occasion
of intense irritation, and both the soldiers and their
friends were saying, " If we must fight Christians we
will begin with those close at hand." Under these
circumstances the native (^hrisdans became very
anxious, and made such preparations for defense as
circumstances permitted, at the same time keeping as
quiet as possible, and avoiding all controversy and al-
tercations with the Moslems. The government in-
creased the police force in the city, and held a con-
siderable force of troops at the barracks near the
town, and the governor and principal men seemed to
be making much effort to quiet the people. Several
considerable tumults had occurred and been promptly
suppressed without bloodshed; so day after day
288 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
dragged on, each hour increasing the hope that we
should tide over the crisis.
Saturday morning, November 16, more than
three weeks after the first riot in Marash, at about
half past seven, just as we were rising from break-
fast, our people came in with white faces saying, " The
day of judgment has come in the city." We hastened
to the door, and sure enough the mob was at work;
all the west and south part of the city seemed to be
in an uproar; crowds of people rushing in every
direction, roofs covered with excited men, women, and
children ; the strange mingling of cries of fear, anger,
and defiance, with occasional gun and pistol shots,
made an exhibition of the most fearful tumult and
confusion.
Already troops were hurrying forward, and soon
a company of some sixty soldiers were stationed in
front of the Girls' Seminary, with pickets out to
cover the approaches to the hospital and college. Dr.
Shepherd and Mr. Sanders mounted their horses and
hastened to the hospital and seminary, where they
remained until the rioting ceased. The college is
about half a mile west of the seminary and hospital,
and commands a full view of these buildings, and of
the whole west end of the city, where most of the
rioting occurred.
What we, who were looking on, saw from this
point was the narrow streets densely crowded with in-
tensely excited people, now and then a rush made upon
some house or gate, the rally of defenders on the
roofs, am one; whom women were often foremost, using
stones, clubs, and sometimes guns and pistols as best
they could. Sometimes the attack is beaten off, and
the assailants withdraw to organize a new assault,
sometimes a gate or wall is broken down, and then
the noise of conflict subsides and the work of mas-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 289
sacre and plunder begins. Later on, long lines of
people moving off to their homes laden with plunder,
and later still the flames and smoke rising from the
burning houses.
What we heard was the indescribable roar of the
mob, pierced by the sharp reports of pistols and guns,
with now and then shrieks of agony and fear, and
shouts of defiance or command, and over all, and most
horrible of all, the loud shrill " Zullghat," (wedding
cry) very like the cry of our northern loons prolonged
and sharpened, raised by Turkish women crowded on
their roofs and cheering on their men to attack. The
massacre and pillage began in the markets, and in
those parts of the city where Christians' houses, sur-
rounded by Moslem neighbors, offered easy points of
attack; these places having been looted, the mob
moved on towards what are known as the Christian
quarters of the town. There the resistance became
more obstinate ; in two of these quarters the old street
gates were still in use, by shutting which, the district
enclosed becomes a small fortified community capable
of making a strong resistance to an organized mob.
The assailants were at last beaten off and arrested.
Under such general conditions the storm of mob
violence raged on without much abatement till the
middle of the afternoon, when the tumult gradually
subsided, and night at last brought quiet, except in
the vicinity of burning houses, where the uproar went
on till near midnight. By morning, arrangements
seemed to have been made which gave us hope that
order would be maintained; the guard for our mis-
sion premises had been increased, and the soldiers
posted at intervals around the Christian quarters of
the city. Very early in the morning of the 17th,
crowds, evidently eager to share the plunder, were
seen hurrying towards the citv from every direction.
19
290 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
The soldiers met and turned them back, and even
beat some of them and chased them off. They soon
returned, however, increased in numbers, and being
joined by friends from the city, became very turbu-
lent. About noon we saw through our glass an of-
ficer, apparently a captain, ride forward into a mob,
and address them at some length; we could not hear
what he said, but immediately, without any show of
opposition from any one, the whole crowd came pell-
mell with the soldiers into the city. This was at
the southwest corner of the town, and immediately
under our eyes. At the same time much the same
thing was occurring at the northwest corner; then for
an hour chaos was let loose again, and the horrors of
the previous day were repeated, only that this time
the Christians were prepared, and, being in a strong
position, w^ere generally able to beat off their assail-
ants. At one point of the line of defense were
a few Moslem houses, and we were delighted to learn
that the men heartily and bravely joined in the de-
fense with their neighbors; the gallantry of this act
was somewhat marred, however, by the demand which
they made the next day for a large sum of money for
their service; these men actually demanded and re-
ceived about $5 apiece for this neighborly help.
When it became apparent that the mob could not
force their way into the places held by the besieged,
the soldiers, perhaps having received new orders, re-
sumed a show of activity, fired a few shots into the
air, and drove the mob out of the city and dispersed
them; this is the last serious fighting that has oc-
curred up to the present time, though local tumults
have broken out frequently, several houses have been
pillaged and burned, and two Christians at least were
shot while being conducted through the streets by
soldiers. Strict military rule is now established, and
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 291
special care is taken to safeguard the lives of property
of foreigners. We are kept under very close re-
striction, and not allowed to visit the city except for
special objects, and then under a strong guard. The
amount of damage we can only estimate ; as nearly as
we can judge, the figures will be about 200 killed,
400 wounded, nearly all tlie Christian shops and 250
houses pillaged, and a considerable number burned.
Some 1,000 men who in the first panic took refuge in
khans and mosques are still held as prisoners, for
purposes which we can only surmise.
P. S. Dec. 17. Quiet has for the most part
been maintained under strict military rule. No Chris-
tian can yet venture out vdthout armed escort, and
there are not wanting signs that there is waiting and
even expectation of another signal from above. The
government, however, seems to be trying to restore
order and confidence. We are glad to say that we
have heard of no cases of special violence or abuse
offered to women.
The above-named prisoners have been gradually
released, till now there are only some six of the princi-
pal Christians still in confinement. The number of
killed just now must be set down at over 400; the
butchery in the markets where the first attacks began
far exceeded our belief." A great number of bodies
were thrown together into some distilleries, and these
buildings set on fire and burned to the ground, thus
removing for a time much of the terrible evidence of
the extent of the massacre. The attack being made in
the morninj}: and beginning in the markets, it happened
that the killed are about wholly from the " bread-win-
ners " among the Christians. As a result, there are
now in Aintab more than 4,000 people dependent on
charity for daily bread, and most of those to whom
they would naturally look for aid are utterly impov-
292 ARJVIENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ei'ished; the outlook for tlie winter is simply appall-
ing. We appeal for aid speedily in the name of hu-
manity.
THE CITY OF BIRIJIK AND THE ATROCITIES.
The city of Birijik is on the shores of the Euphra-
tes; it has a beautiful appearance from the other side
of the river. The Mohammedan population there are
very wild and ignorant.
The Massaci'e at Birijik {Province of Aleppo).
Birijik had about 300 Christian houses, or say
about 1,000 souls, in the midst of the Mussulman pop-
ulation of about 9,000 souls. After the massacre at
Oorfa on the 27th of October, 1895, the authorities
at Birijik told the Armenians that the Muslims were
afraid of them, and that therefore they (the Armen-
ians) must surrender to the government any arms
that they possessed. This was done, the most rigid
search being instituted to assure the authorities that
nothing whatever in the way of arms remained in the
hands of the Armenians. This disarmament caused
no little anxiety to the Armenians, since the Muslim
population was very generally armed, and was con-
stantly adding to its arms. In fact, during the months
of November and December the Christians have kept
within their houses because the danger of appearing
upon the streets was very great.
Troops were called out by the government to pro-
tect the people. Since the soldiers had come to pro-
tect the Christians, the Christians were required to
furnish animals for them to carry their goods. Then
they were required to furnish them beds and carpets
to make them more comfortable. Finally they were
required to furnish the soldiers with food, and they
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 203
were reduced to a state bordering on destitution by
these increasing demands.
The end came on the first of January, 1896, when
the news of the massacre of several thousands of Chris-
tians at Oorfa by the soldiers appointed to guard them
incited the troops at Birijik to imitate this crime. The
assault on the Christian houses commenced at about
nine o'clock in the morning and continued until night-
fall. The soldiers were aided by the Muslims of the
city in the terrible work. The object at first seemed
to be mainly plunder, but after the plunder had been
secured the soldiers seemed to make a systematic
search for men, to kill those who were unwilling to
accept Mohammedanism. The cruelty used to force
men to become ^luslims was terrible. In one case
the soldiers found some twenty people, men, women,
and children, who had taken refuge in a sort of cave.
They dragged them out and killed all the men and
boys, because they would not become Muslims. After
cutting down one old man who had thus refused, they
put live coals upon his body, and as he was writhing
in torture, they held a Bible before him, and asked
him mockingly to read them some of the promises in
which he had trusted. Others were thrown into the
river while still alive, after having been cruelly
wounded. The women and children of this party
were loaded up like goods upon the backs of porters
and carried off to the houses of Muslims. Christian
girls were eagerly sought after, and much quarreling
occurred over the question of their division among
their captors. Every Christian house except two,
claimed to be owned by Turks, was plundered. Nine-
ty-six men are known to have been killed, or about
half of the adult Christian men. The others have
become Mussulmans to save their lives, so that there
is not a single Christian left in Birijik to-day. The
294 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Armenian Church has been made into a mosque, and
the Protestant Church into a Medresse Seminary.
—[Dr. Dillon.
OORFA AND ITS ATROCITIES.
Oorfa, the old Ur of the Chaldees, where Abra-
ham, the old patriarch of the Bible, was born, was
called Edessa in the time of Christ. I have told the
story of King Abgar and his conversion in the his-
torical part of this book. It had about 50,000 pop-
ulation, about 20,000 of whom were Armenians be-
fore the massacres. Out of that number 8,000 were
slaughtered, according to Mr. Fitzmaurice, the British
vice-consul who returned from Oorfa to Constantino-
ple on March 21. The Evangelical Armenian pastor,
the Rev. Hagop Abuhayatian, was also martyred. I
knew him personally. He was educated in Germany,
a man of great ability; a great scholar, and a great and
forcible preacher.
A Letter from Oorfa, Jan. 28, 1896.
Dear Friend: —
Your only remaining brother sends you a letter,
but no letters can begin to explain the sad state of this
city. The massacre of Dec. 28 and 29 has left
all homes except Catholics and Syrians entirely
empty of any comforts. Many families have not
one bed even; all cooking utensils, clothing, bed-
ding, carpets, etc., were taken. Most have a little
zakhere left, though some have not that. We are
feeding about 175 of the most needy, and more will
come to us every week. The loss by death is between
4,000 and 5,000. Our pastor, the Rev. Hagop Ab-
ouhayatian. Dr. Kivorc, and brother Harotoun, Sar-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 21*5
kis Varjebed Chubukian and brother and son, Garabed
Rouniian, Habbourjou Avedis and brother Sarkis, old
sexton (iarabed and other sexton Bogos, Ma jar Kiv-
orc and brother Bogos and Berber Monofa and two
sons, Eskejiyan ^larderos, Zarman Roomian's three
sons, are some of the dead. In all, our Protestant
dead are 115. Some of our people perished in the
Gregorian Church, where 1,500 or 2,000 went for
refuge Saturday night, and on Sunday were mur-
dered or burned, very few escaping. It was the most
awful of all the terrible events of those two days.
Thank God, two hundred and forty were saved
by coming to me; sixty of them were men. I could
not keep the men in my house or yard, because it was
forbidden by the guards, but I hid them elsewhere,
and fed them for three or four days. The govern-
ment carefully protected me, and killed as many of
my friends as possible. We have our house and all
the schoolrooms full of the wounded and the most
forlorn.
Our Oorfa redeefs leave to-morrow; we have
new soldiers now for guard of the city, and Christians
especially. Oorfa redeefs have been poor guards,
and but for them the awful work would not have
been accomplished. The pastor of Severek, the Rev.
Marderos, was killed. The Rev. Vartan remains
alive in Adayaman. Both in Severek and Adayaman
the number of the killed was very great. In Birijik
about two hundred were killed, and all remaining have
become Moslems; they have been circumcised.
In Aintab about three hundred were killed, 847
shops plundered and 417 houses.
During our first disturbance, six to seven hundred
shops here were plundered, and about 175 houses.
Then the Christians used arms to defend themselves.
Since then all arms have been taken by the govern-
296 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ment from the Christians, and the leaders were forced
to sign a paper stating the city as "in peace and har-
mony, thanks to the rulers," etc. ; twenty-five signed it,
and now almost all of these have been killed. Our
pastor signed for Protestants.
Only two of the Gregorian priests remain, and
they are wounded. The bishop is alive, but feeble,
and does not work publicly now. Their state is very
sad. We desire your prayers, and the aid of all who
can give us help by money at this time.
Sincerely your friend,
P. S. Your brother asks you to send a letter to
him by me.
DIARBEKIR AND ITS STORY.
Diarbekir (see the historical part for its founda-
tion) has about 40,000 population. Nearly half of
them are Christians, but not all of them are Arme-
nians. There are Chaldeans also. The Armenian
population numbered about 12,000, of which 5,000
were killed during the recent atrocities.
A Letter from Diarbekir, Nov. 20, 1895.
My Dear Sir: —
After salutation, I offer my thanks to God that
after great dangers and tribulation we have reached
the present time. God's will be done. How can I
describe the horrors in our city to you ? Can any pen
or any language tell them ? ]N'o, but I shall try to
write at least a very short description of them. But
who knows if this letter will reach you, because of the
letters we write, very few reach you, and very few of
your letters reach us, since the government has control
of the mail, and it is the government that persecutes
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 207
us. Our age is a peculiar age. God look at our
misery and save us.
How liappy were those who were martyred on
Nov. 1, and have gone to their reward. The atrocities
which happened here on November 1, 2, 3, cannot be
matched in the history of the civilized world. 1 do
not think they can be in that of heathen lands, where
the people are barbarous.
When I write these lines to you, I hardly know
what I am writing; the darkness of Egypt covers all
around me. The former millionaires in the city have
nothing and are begging bread. Nov. 1 was a
black day for the Armenians. Many were separated
from their loved ones, even parents from their chil-
dren. Many merchants and rich people were so thor-
oughly plundered and stripped that they are literally
left naked and hungry, and numbers have been put
to unspeakable tortures by the Turks and Kurds.
Nov. 1 was Friday; it was about noon when the
Mohammedans came out from their mosques. The
native Turks, the Kurds who were brought from
outside, and the soldiers all united, swords, pistols,
guns, axes, and clubs in their hands, fell upon the Ar-
menians in the market place or business place, cut
them to pieces, and plundered what they had. If they
had been all killed by bullets it would have been a
sudden death, and easier. But they cut them to pieces
bit by bit with their axes, and made holes in the bodies
with their swords.
When they were killing the Armenians, they were
repeating the following words, " Bring testimony to
prophet Mohammed. Our Sultan ordered us to kill
these heathen dogs, the Armenians.'^ The governor
of the city, and all other officials, with the commander
of the soldiers, during the time of the atrocities were
sitting near the great mosque, and while listening to
298 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the cries and screams of the martyred Armenians,
they were laughing and joking with great pleasure,
and ordering the soldiers to carry the most valuable
things to their houses.
After they had killed everybody, and plundered
everything in the business place, they turned to the
residences where Armenians lived, and began to bum
and kill. Some of the soldiers went to the tops of
the minarets or high towers, and began to shoot the
Armenians from there. What a pitiful scene was the
condition of the Armenian ladies, who were running
from house to house, from street to street, and were
shot dead, and their children left orphans. During
the three days' massacre 4,000 Armenians were killed,
and the burning of the houses and stores continued
twenty-four hours. From the gate of the mosque
to the place where they make saddles, and from the
twin caravansary to the new caravansary, from
Sheik Uatad to Melik Ahmed, all the buildings, 1,400
stores, were burnt and turned to ashes. There are
other stores also which were not burnt, but everything
was taken from them. The stores where goldsmiths
worked every article is taken from.
When the Armenians go among the ruins to see
if they can find any article, they are forbidden; and
if some one manages to find anything, the Moham-
medans take it from him, cursing him, and calling
him a heathen dog at the same time.
When we come to the residences near your house,
from the house of Darakji to the covered place of
Sheytan aglou, all are destroyed; from Alo-Pasha
bath to the Jemil Pasha Palace, all destroyed. But
the church of the Patrees is not destroyed. St. Sar-
kis's church was plundered and afterwards burned.
Before the church was burnt, they killed the priests,
and unspeakable violations took place in the church.
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 299
In that quarter half of the population were killed,
and the other half, who survive, are naked, bare-
footed, hungry, and are begging bread.
Now the government pretends to give bread to
the hungry, but nothing is given, and those who have
a little give to the others who have nothing; but after
a few days nothing will be left to eat. Thank the
Lord, the Kurds went out of the city. But it is twenty
days now since the massacre took place, and nobody
dares to go out to the streets.
We have no stores, no money, nothing to eat.
Though my personal house was not robbed, but I have
ten orphans whose fathers and mothers were killed;
I am taking care of them. We have a little; we shall
eat that, and see what the Lord will provide.
From the Rev. Dr. Tomy's house to the church
of the Evangelical people all the houses were burned.
Hovhanness's loss is about $1,000. Those who hid
themselves in Konsol Khan and in the church of the
Patrees escaped death. But every one who esca})ed
was left hungry and thirsty from twelve to fifteen
days in their places of confinement, because they were
afraid of going out.
All the suburban towns and villages were totally
destroyed. In Sevorag both the Armenian church
and the Evangelical Armenian church were destroyed,
and only from fifty to one hundred persons were left
alive. The monastery of Argen was destroyed, and
the teachers and all the inmates were killed.
They burnt the church of Ali-Punar and killed
the priest. From that place only five or ten persons
were left alive. Your brother at Kitibel with all
his family are killed, and both the churches are burned.
They forced the ministers to accept the Mohammedan
religion; on refusal all three were killed, the Rev.
Abosh, the Rev. Khidershap, and the priest. All
300 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
who were left alive at Kitibel are only about forty
persons. Afram's brother Kisho with all his family
were killed. At Kenjil nobody is left. At Kara
Bash only fifty persons are left alive. The village
of Satou is entirely out of existence. In all this
province all the towns and villages are destroyed, and
the people are killed, except the village of Haziro,
which is not destroyed, and the reason is that a Turk,
Sevdim Beg, did not permit the Kurds and the Turks
to destroy it.
What will become of us hereafter we do not know.
We are still in danger, but we trust first in God, then
in such friends as you. My personal damage is $5,000
and now is the time to show us sympathy and help us.
If you cannot do it yourself personally, can you
not tell the people of the United States of America
to help us and relieve our suffering ?
Sincerely yours,
TREBIZOND AND ITS ATROCITIES.
Trebizond is built on the shores of the Black Sea,
and is a part of Armenia. The population is estimated
at 40,000; only 10,000 are Christians; perhaps about
half of them are Armenians, and nearly half of the
Armenians were killed and wounded during the recent
savageries. Mr. Chelton, who was going to Armenia
to organize consulates, was in Trebizond, saw the mas-
sacre of Christians, and reported to the government
at Washington : —
" Trebizond, Oct. 9, 1895. — Many Armenians
were killed here in conflicts yesterday with Turks,
^o attempt was made to stop the massacre of the Ar-
menians. The Turks were armed, and the number of
troops present here is small. It is even stated that
w'iii^'
ws,-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 301
soldiers took part in the slaughter, and in the pillage
which accompanied it."
" London, Oct. 17, 1895.— The ' Daily News '
publishes a dispatch from Constantinople giving a de-
scription by an eye-witness of the rioting at Trebizond.
He says that four separate Moslem mobs surrounded
the Armenian quarters at eleven o^clock on the morn-
ing of Oct. 8, and then began to pillage the shops.
Being opposed, they fired on the Armenians, and soon
a general massacre began.
" Soldiers joined the mob in firing on the Arme-
nians and in pillaging the shops and houses. The scene
continued until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when noth-
ing was left to pillage and nobody remained to be
killed. The mob then began to disperse. The better
class of Turks did their best to protect the lives of the
Armenians. They sheltered the women and children
and many men in their houses. The mob attacked
only the orthodox Armenians, leaving Catholics
alone."
An Armenian Massacre. Money Cabled to London by the Local
Relief Association, Bee. SI, 1895.
" Recent letters telling of the massacres in various
Armenian cities contain information that helps to ex-
plain many points in the awful outbreak of so-called
Mohammedan fanaticism. A letter from Trebizond
says : —
"^Bahri Pasha, governor of Van, started to come
to Constantinople, and it was learned that he was
bringing with him four of the fairest young maidens
of Sassoun, who had been spared in the massacre,
to make an acceptable present of them to his Sultan.
This aroused the Armenian people of Trebizond to a
frenzy, and it was impossible to restrain the young
302 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
men, the more daring of whom fired upon Bahri
Pasha, wounding him. But he carried out his mis-
sion to Constantinople, and was honored with the high-
est decoration and appointed governor of Adana.
"^Afterward the pasha of Trebizond, calling twelve
of the leading men of the city, demanded that they
should hand over the young men who attacked the
governor, and gave them just a few hours in which to
carry out his orders. The next day they answered him
that the government had no means of finding the men
out.
" ' When the mails had arrived, and the people
went toward the postoffice, the trumpet was sounded
three times, and both the soldiers and the mob rushed
upon the people. It is impossible to describe the
horror of the scene — the roar of the murderers, like
that of wild beasts, the shrieks of the women in the
houses from whose arms their husbands and sons were
torn and murdered before their eyes, and universal
tumult, added to the sighs and groans of the dying.
And this we know is only one, and not even the most
terrible of the massacres.' "
BAIBURT.
" Constantinople, Oct. 28, 1895. — Another mas-
sacre of Armenians, accompanied by the outraging of
women, is reported to have occurred recently in the
districts of Baiburt, between Erzeroum and Trebizond.
According to the news received here, a mob of about
500 Mussulmans and Lazes, the greater majority of
whom were armed with Martini-Henry rifles, made an
attack upon the Armenians inhabiting several villages
of that vicinity, and set fire to their houses and schools.
As the Armenians fled in terror from their dwellings
they were shot down as they ran, and a number of men
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 303
and women who were captured by the rioters, it is
added, were fastened to stakes and burned alive.
" The Armenian women who fell into the hands
of the mob, it is asserted, were outraged and brutally
mutilated. It is also stated that the churches were
desecrated and pillaged, the cattle, and all the portable
property of any value belonging to the Armenians
being carried off by the marauders. During the dis-
turbance 150 Armenians are reported to have been
killed. The surviving villages applied for protec-
tion to the governor of Baiburt, who, after hearing
their complaint, sent three policemen to the scene of
the massacre after the slaughter was ended.
" The Turkish officials, it is claimed^ know the
ringleaders of the outbreak in the Baiburt district;
but apparently no steps have been taken to arrest
them."
Another Letter from Baiburt.
" The Armenian bishop's vicar was killed, the
teachers in the schools and many other men and women
were massacred. Women jumped into open wells
to escape worse deaths; the villages round about were
laid waste.
" Following this was the Erzinghan massacre. On
Friday, the 25th of October, 1895, the Moslems fin-
ished their noon hour of prayer by pouring out of the
mosques and attacking the Armenians in the market,
who, taken by surprise, were shot and cut down to
the number of 500; their shops being all plundered."
(Signed) An American Missionary.
ERZEROUM.
This is a large city, almost on the boundary line
between Russia and Turkey, in Turkish Armenia. It
has about 00,000 people, one-third of whom are Ar-
304 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
menians. Several times since the last Turko-Kussian
war the Christian Armenians have been massacred
there by the Turks and the regular soldiers, and dur-
ing the recent atrocities also there were massacred, and
in all about 3,000 Armenians were killed.
Letter from Erzeroum.
" Nov. 27, 1895. — The massacre evidently was
pre-arranged. It began all over the city at the
same moment. The bugle was sounded, and the sol-
diers began. They first said, " No harm to women or
children," but they soon passed those bounds. A sol-
dier who was on guard says the order was given by
the Porte. We made ready for defense, but it soon
appeared that the soldiers had cut off the rabble from
our section, for no mob passed our street. A few men
tried to open the door, but three well-directed shots
from our balcony sent them off.
" The soldiers at the head of our street, apparent-
ly to guard it, broke open three or four houses within
a stone's throw of us, and carried off everything
they found. We saw loads of plunder carried away
by soldiers. A large number of women engaged in
the same work. The affair began shortly after noon
and continued about six hours. One Armenian was
called to the door by an officer, who professed to be
friendly, and was cut down in cold blood. Others
Avere cruelly murdered. The death roll must be
towards 300, if not more. Between fifty and sixty
wounded are in the hospital.
" Two hundred were gathered in the Armenian
cemetery, some horribly mutilated. There must be
many wounded in the different houses. The pillaged
houses are to be counted by the hundred. No house
attacked was left until it was emptied of every movable
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 30-')
thing. The next day we went to an Armenian home.
In the middle of a small room (the kitchen), lying
side by side on a mat, were the bodies of two young
women, almost naked, a light covering thrown over
their heads. At the other side of the room a grief-
stricken woman was trying to make bread from a little
flour that had been left. She had to borrow utensils
to do it. She left her work, came forward and re-
moved the covering from the bodies. They were
those of young women developing into motherhood.
The head and face of one was covered with blood,
and she was also badly wounded in the hand. The
other had a bullet wound through the abdomen from
the right side. A companion of these two had been
carried off, and was lying dead in another house. Their
lives were sacrificed in defense of honor.
" We passed through the ruins to other rooms.
Boxes and furniture were in splinters, windows
smashed, walls ploughed with bullets. The floor was
covered with big patches of blood. The bodies lying
in the cemeteries are simply wrecks of human beings.
The majority have bullet wounds. Nearly all have
bayonet, sword and dagger wounds, some badly muti-
lated. Two or three were skinned, and some were
burned with kerosene. A great many women are
missing. Very many dead have been disposed of by
the Turks. Hundreds have nothing to eat, and no
means of getting anything. The villages of the plain
have suffered awfully. Xo definite news has come;
only the news that columns of smoke tell."
MARASH.
The writer became acquainted with many noble
Armenians here during his three years in the Theolog-
ical Seminary, and almost all his friends were killed.
306 ARMENIA AND HEH PEOPLE.
Among them were the llev. Sdepan Jirnazian, a noble
Christian minister, — when I was a little boy he was
my pastor in the snburbs of Antioch; — Bedros Iski-
yan, an American citizen, butchered before his wife
and children; Garabed Popalian, another noble man,
and the richest among the Armenian Evangelical
people; Dr. Kevork Gulizian; Khacher Bayramian
and his family; Garabed Salibian, in whose house I
used to take my meals. A private letter says that
about half the Armenians were killed by the Turks.
Marash had about 35,000 population; about 15,000
were Armenians, of whom about 7,000 were killed.
It has four Evangelical Armenian churches there,
a theological seminary, and a ladies' college. The
local governor led the regular soldiers to plunder and
kill the people.
Letter from Marash.
London, Nov. 28, 1895. — The correspondent of
the United Press in Constantinople telegraphs, under
date of November 27, that a second terrible massacre
has occurred in Marash, and that the houses there
have been pillaged without regard to who their occu-
pants might be. It is reported that thousands of per-
sons were killed and many hundred wounded. The
American Theological Seminary was plundered and
burned, and two of the students in that institution
were shot, one being fatally wounded. The hotels
and boarding houses also were plundered. The
Christians at Marash, and in that vicinity, thousands
of whom are destitute, have appealed for aid.
The following letter, under date of November 25^
has been received here:
Tin: TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 307
'* 1 will report the events of the 18th in this city.
At 7 a. ni., almost simultaneously the firing of
Martini rifles was heard all over the city, with confla-
grations in three Christian quarters.
'' We understood the meaning of it. Soldiers
began firing against two Christian houses, and their
inmates fled into missionary houses, and soon the sol-
diers were looting their buildings, followed by a mob,
who smashed doors and windows, and carried away
property.
" Towards noon a squad of soldiers approached
the missionary grounds, and it was thought that a guard
had been sent in behalf of the missionaries. They
entered the grounds of the seminary and academy
boarding department. Two seminary students, who
had concealed themselves in a cave, were discovered,
and one of them fatally shot, while the other was
badly woimded.
" The soldiers looted the missionary academy board-
ing department of all the students' clothing and bed-
ding, and a part of the year's provisions in store.
Other soldiers joined and looted the seminary. They
repeatedly went to an Armenian house near by, but
did not force it.
" Three-quarters of that terrible day the mission-
aries were left to any chance fate that might befall
them. They had been informed by a Moslem of a
purpose to burn the Girls' College that day, and a
note had been sent to the local governor asking for a
special guard. He replied that the barracks near by
were charged to care for them. It was soldiers in re-
lays from that very place that were wrecking every-
thing.
" In the afternoon four or five soldiers entered the
seminary, and soon after, fire broke out in the rear.
As the flames wrapped the building, a trustworthy
308 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
captain with thirty soldiers appeared at the gate, and
the missionaries were assured of safety. The soldiers
still continue with the missionaries. We cannot es-
timate the loss of life. Leaders of society have been
struck down everywhere, two missionary academy
teachers among them."
AKHISAR.
The valley of the Sakaria (the ancient Sangarius),
is, through a part of its course, followed by the Ana-
tolia line of railway. At a spot ninety miles from
Constantinople, where the valley broadens out into a
considerable plain, is the station and town of Akhisar.
This town was, until the tenth of this month, the
center of a considerable trade. The plain is dotted
with vineyards, olive orchards, mulberry gardens,
fields of cotton, wheat, etc. The town consists of
about 160 houses of immigrants from Bulgaria, Bos-
nia, and Rumelia (who, having been concerned in the
celebrated Bulgarian massacres, found refuge in Turk-
ish territory), and sixty houses of Armenians.
A Letter Oct. 15, 1895.
Thursday, Oct. 10 (a bright, beautiful day),
was market day. Numbers of people from the sur-
rounding villages had come with the fruits of their
various industries. The market place consisted of
sixty-three permanent shops, and about 150 tempo-
rary places of trade, where traders from the surround-
ing country exposed their wares for sale. The mar-
ket was almost exclusively in the hands of Armenians,
200 of the shops and trading places being in their
hands. Rumors of danger were afloat, but the Ar-
menians anticipated no attack on market-day. They
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IX ARMENIA. 309
had no arms, or moans of defense, and had taken no
precautions. They soon began to notice, however,
that their Mussulman neighbors had mysterious whis-
perings among themselves, and that some of them were
searching, as with oHicial authority, the persons of
Armenian young men, who were supposed to have
knives or revolvers about them. Those searching at
last found a young Armenian, a seller of calico, who
had a knife in his possession. At once they fell upon
him, but he escaped in the crowd that gathered, and
the Mussulmans turned upon the Armenians, saying,
" AVe must kill them all. Let him who loves his
religion join and help." AVith knives and clubs the
work was earned on, the Armenians fleeing, or hiding
themselves in or about their shops. Turkish officials
encouraged the killers. A herald was sent through
the market calling, '' Let the Moslems go to the gov-
ernment house." They did go, and immediately re-
turned with rifles and revolvers. Then the slaughter
increased in madness. The piteous entreaties of the
threatened, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of
the dying, the shouts of the killers, and the hysterical
cries of some of the Christians, who, to save their lives
were calling out with desperate energy the Moham-
medan formula of faith, rose to the deaf heavens.
Ten-year-old Turkish boys, as though hunting rats,
mshed into holes and corners, and discovering the
hiding-places of the merchants and traders, called
to their fathers and big brothers, ^' Here is a Gia-
vour ! " and while that one was beins: dispatched they
rushed off to ferret out another. For four hours the
slaughter continued. Ropes were attached to the
feet of the corpses, which were dragged like the car-
casses of dogs through the streets to dry wells, into
which they were thrown. An old man, aged 75, was
tumbled in alive, and left to die among the dead bodies
310 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
of his friends. The money and watches of the mer-
chants wore secnred by the rviffians. The notes of
hand and account books were torn into shreds (the
killers were debtors to the merchants), and the shop^.
were looted. Xot so much as a pin or needle was
left in the 200 shops. Then the cry was raised, '' To
the houses ! " to complete the destruction of the Chris-
tian inhabitants.
Twenty-nine bodies were afterward recovered for
burial; thirty-three persons (some of whom afterward
died), were found to be wounded, and about forty are
still missing. The lieutenant-governor arrived that
night on the scene, and sent an official report (by tele-
gram) to Constantinople, to the effect that a row had
occurred between Turks and Armenians, in which
three Armenians had been killed and two wounded,
but that order had been restored ! Efforts were made
to cover the matter up. Christians were imprisoned
for talking about the massacre, or for sending the news
to friends. A prominent man, well-known through-
out the country, wished to let his circle of friends
know that he was still alive, and was permitted to ad-
vertise that he had met with an accident, but was
quite well.
Great patches of dried blood in the shops pre-
sented the appearance of places used for the slaughter
of sheep. Groups of people were standing before the
houses, statue-like, bewildered and hopeless, while
other groups were wailing over the news of the corpses
of friends, just recovered from the wells. I saw one
of the mutilated corpses, and have seen it night and
day since.
An American Missionary.
The above missionary also says not only common
people, but also officers of high rank, made free threats
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 311
of massacre, and ostentatiously sharpened their swords
and cleaned their weapons in the presence of their
Armenian neighbors. Great care was taken by the
authorities to deprive the Armenians* of arms; but the
Mussulmans were allowed to carry arms freely. The
Constantinople demonstration and consequent mas-
sacre aggravated the situation. It was pitiable to see
the fear that held the Armenians as in a nightmare,
and to hear the threats and observe the bearing of the
Turks.
A soldier, passing the door of a Christian house
and observing a young woman sitting on the door-
step, ground his teeth and called out to her, " You
may sit there four days more, and then I will have
you on the point of this bayonet." The girl fled in
terror into the house.
ZEITOON.
Zeitoon is fifteen miles from Marash. The Zeitoon-
lis arc the bravest of all the Armenians; there are about
15,000 in the city, and no Mohammedans, save a
dozen or two Turkish families, and they talk the Ar-
menian language. Until about thirty years ago Zei-
toon was a free city ; but they were conquered by craft,
and became tributary to Turkey. The Sultan gar-
risoned the place to keep them dowm, and the troops
committed every sort of iniquity. Finally, about two
years ago, the Sultan sent physicians there to poison
the Armenian boys. These assassins professed to have
come to vaccinate the boys; every boy who was vac-
cinated died. Then the Zeitoonlis revolted, captured
312 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the barracks from the soldiers, took all the guns,
cannon, and ammunition, and sent the soldiers away.
This action enraged the Sultan, and he sent some 20,-
000 regular soldiers and 30,000 bashi-bazooks to punish
them; but they were repulsed with heavy loss by the
Zeitoonlis. It has been reported that during the bat-
tle between the Zeitoonlis and Turks about 15,000 of
the latter were killed. Finally the Sultan lost hope
of conquering them, and asked the European powers
to use their good offices to restore peace in Zeitoon,
and the consuls of the different powers induced them
to resume peaceful work by guaranteeing that the
Zeitoonlis shall not be molested. But who believes
a word of it ? We know, with horrible clearness, of
how much value the powers' " guarantee '^ is; they
say there is no obligation but to keep count of the
massacres.
A Few statements from Zeitoon.
" Turkish mendacity is again asserting itself. A
few days ago the Sublime Porte set afloat the official
report that Zeitoon has fallen, after hard fighting,
in which 2,500 Armenians were said to have been
killed as against 250 Turks. Now these official re-
ports turn out to have been official lies. News from
independent sources shows that Zeitoon has not yet
fallen; that its gallant defenders are still holding
out their own. To Armenians who understand Ot-
toman tactics, the alacrity with which Abdul Hamid
sent abroad the news of the supposed victory of his
troops is a sign of misfortunes and reverses. The
Turks control the avenues of communication at Mar-
ash, and it is not surprising that they attempt to win
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 313
victories upon telegraphic despatches — but not at
Zeitoon.
The Armenians at Zeitoon are rebels against or-
ganized assassination, ])lunder, and arson. They have
been unwilling to submit meekly to Turkish outrages,
and are determined to defend their lives, their homes,
and their property. They have vanquished Turkish
armies before, and strewn the ground with thousands
of Turkish carcasses. They need fear nothing but
the lack of supplies. Will not Christian nations inter-
vene to save a valiant people who are defending their
homes and their liberties, and who cannot be conquered
by force of arms, yet who may be compelled to sur-
render to inexorable hunger ? — [Tigram H. Suni,
Dec. 81.
" London, Feb. 3. — A dispatch from Constanti-
nople to the ^ Daily Xews ' says: 'Reports from
Turkish sources believed to be fairly accurate state
that it is believed that the Zeitoonlis awi still holding
out. The Turks have made seven different attacks
upon the town, but all have failed, and their losses
are reported to amount to 10,000. It is alleged that
50,000 troops will be needed to capture Zeitoon.
" It is believed that the Zeitoonlis number from
15,000 to 20,000, well armed, and provisioned for a
year. There is a doubtful report that 4,000 Russian
Armenians crossed the Persian frontier, and defeated
the Turks at Siz, eighteen hours from Zeitoon, and
have joined the Zeitoonlis."
MISCELLANEOUS
In the province of Aleppo, the village of Chizek,
the Armenian priest was killed for refusing to become
a Mohammedan.
In the province of Erzeroum and the district of
314 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Erzinghan, six separate attacks for pillage have been
made upon the village of Zimara, and great pressure
is being used to force the people of the village to be-
come Mohammedans.
At the village of Gazma the houses have been pil-
laged, and numbers of the people have become Mo-
hammedans to save their lives.
In the province of Bitlis a considerable number
of Armenians at Sert have been forced to become Mo-
hammedans. In the district of Shirvan, out of twen-
ty-two Armenian villages, the inhabitants of four en-
tire villages have become Mohammedans to save their
lives. The priests also accepted Mohammedanism,
and the churches have been changed into mosques.
At a little village at which the inhabitants could not
disperse over the mountains a considerable number
were killed, and the survivors accepted Mohammedan-
ism. This village is called Kourine. In the district
of Chilain, returns from six villages have come in
which show a considerable number of persons killed
for refusing to accept Islamism.
In the province of Van the stuifed skin of the su-
perior of the monastery of Khizan was still hanging
from a tree in front of the monastery three weeks
after the massacre took place; that is, at the date of
the last news from there, T^ov. 27. At Khar-
kotz in this province three priests accepted Moham-
medanism, and were paraded through the streets in
the dress of Mohammedan ulema in order to influence
the people to follow their example.
THE TrUKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 816
In the province of Ilarpoot in many of the smaller
villages, where the people have been supposed by the
Turks to be mere peasants, without ideas of their own,
the offer of Islamism has not been made, but the people
seized without ceremony and circumcised by force,
and are considered now as Mohammedans. At Ha-
boosi, in this province, the Christian dead were left
unburied in the streets for the dogs to eat. The Ar-
menian church and the Protestant chapel and par-
sonage were burned.
At Peri, in the same province, 450 Christians were
made Mohammedans by threats of death.
At Aivos in the same province, all the buildings
were destroyed. The Armenian priest was forced to
give the call to prayer, and was then shot for refusing
to become a Moslem.
At Garmuri the Christians accepted Mohamme-
danism at the edge of the sword, and have been cir-
cumcised. The Protestant chapel and parsonage were
burned, and the Armenian church has been seized and
made into a mosque.
At Ilokh the Armenian church and Protestant
chapel and parsonage were burned.
At Houilu in the province of Harpoot, 266 out of
300 Christian houses were burned, among them the
fine new Protestant church. Two priests were killed.
Many of the people succeeded in escaping from the
village. The rest have been forced to declare them-
selves Mohammedans.
The events above mentioned took place in the main
316 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
between Xov. 6 and Xov. 20. But the process
of forced conversion and the murder of indi-
viduals who refuse to accept Mohammedanism was
still going on as lately as the 20th of December, when
the Turkish government was assuring the European
Ambassadors that all is quiet in Asiatic Turkey, and
that all that is necessary to complete the work of paci-
fication is for Turkey to be let alone.
The nature of the pacification which may be ex-
pected if Turkey is left free to carry out its schemes
for these provinces may be judged from the following
list of educated and influential Protestant ministers,
who have been put to death for refusing to embrace
Mohammedanism. In every case the offer of life
on these terms was made; in several cases time was
allowed for consideration of the proposal ; and in each
case faith in Jesus Christ was the sole crime charged
against the victim.
1. Rev. Krikor, pastor at Ichme, killed ^N'ov. 6, 1895.
2. Rev. Knkor Tamzarien.
3. Rev. Boghos Atlasian, killed Xov. 18.
4. Rev. Mardiros Siraganian, of Arabkir, killed
mv. 13.
5. Rev. Garabed Kilijjian of Sivas, killed Nov. 12.
6. Rev. ^fr. Stepan, of the Anglican Church at Ma-
rash, killed Xov. 18.
7. The preacher of the village of Hajin, killed at
Marash Xov. 18.
8. Rev. Krikor Baghdasarian, retired preacher at
Harpoot, Xov. 18.
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 317
9. Retired preacher at Divrik, killed Nov. 8.
10. Eev. Garabed Resseian, pastor at Cherwouk,
JS^v. 5.
11. Rev. Metean Minasian, pastor at Sherik, Nov.
12. Pastor at Ciitteroul, Nov. 6.
13. Preacher at Ciitteroul, Nov. 6.
14. Rev. Sarkis Narkashjian, pastor at Chounkoush,
Nov. 14.
1 5. The pastor of the church at Severek, November.
16. The pastor of the church at Adiyaman.
17. Rev. Hohannes Hachadorian, pastor at Kilisse,
Nov. 7.
18. The preacher at Karabesh, near Diarbekir,
Nov. 7.
19. Rev. Mardiros Tarzian, pastor at Keserik, near
Harpoot, November.
TELEGRAMS FROM HAJIN (ARMENIA).
To the English Consul at Alepjjo, and to the English Ambassador
of Constantinople.
All the suburban towns of Hajin where Christians
live were plundered bv Mohammedans, and some of
the Christians were killed. The people of Hajin and
we are in danger; immediate help is needed. — Nov. 5,
1895.
To the American Minister at Constantinople.
The Christian villages of Hajin were totally plun-
dered by the Mohammedans. About two thousand,
naked and hungry, ran away and came to Hajin.
Both the Christian people at Hajin and we are in dan-
ger; immediate help is needed. — Nov. 5, 1895.
318 ARMENIA AND HER I'EOPLE.
Extracts prom a Hajin Letter.
My Dear Sir:— Nov. 25, 1895.
The situation is growing worse here. All the
suburban Christian villages were plundered by Mo-
hammedans. Some of the villages which were plun-
dered were as follows: — Shar-Uere, Koumlou, Kok-
ooun, and Dash-olouk. All of them are left naked
and hungry. Came here to our city, and we are taking-
care of them. And the government never punished
any of the plunderers. They were encouraged, and
surrounded our city, and nobody can go out of the
city, and if this continues so, we shall have a famine
soon, and die in the city. The government does not
protect us, but helps the plunderers, and we are con-
tinually threatened to be killed. Our only hope is
in God.
Another Extract from a Letter op an Armenian.
I^ov. 25, 1895.
My Dear Uncle : — *
If you ask our condition, thank God that we are
alive. But beside life we have nothing, no comfort,
no happiness, no property, no church, no religion, all
are taken from us. Though we are alive, many of
our number were killed, and those who survive are
wandering here and there, naked and hungry, and
are dying in that manner.
God is angry, and exceedingly angry to us. Per-
haps he Avill hear your prayers; pray for us, or else
all of us shall perish. I can never describe the hor-
rible situation in which we are put.
Yours truly,
ft e e
i;Kol-p OF \KViKNf \.\ f'HIi J>MKX.
kiln>\-ViiV vrti'NU AlliSEXlAX WnMlIN
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 319
FROM HADISH VILLAGE, ARMENIA.
My Dear Friend:— Dec. 2, 1895.
In great sorrow and in despair 1 am compelled to
write to you a few lines to inform you of our most
miserable condition.
The Turks and Kurds came to our village, plun-
dered everything we had, killed more than 600 per-
sons, violated the women and girls, tortured the preg-
nant women, and now we who survive have nothing to
live on. Naked, hungry, cold, hopeless, we are cry-
ing bitterly. I write these few lines; perhaps you
can inform the Christian world and they may help us
and relieve our sufferings. Yours truly.
There are many other cities, towns, and villages in
Armenia, where thousands of people were tortured
and killed, their houses burned and plundered, their
children kidnapped, the women violated. But there
is no space to put all here in this book. I am sure the
reader will be satisfied with reading this long chapter
of Armenian horrors, and the letters on the atrocities
from different reliable sources.
To sum up, during these frightful scenes in Ar-
menia more than 100,000 Armenians were killed, and
half a million left without food, homes, or clothing;
they are dying in heaps; and there is no hope of getting
any help from Armenia itself, even when the spring
comes, for those who would have supported them are
killed, and most of the destitute are women and chil-
dren. Everything, even to clothes, is taken from
them, the head of the family is killed, and they are
left hopeless and in despair. How long can the Ked
320 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Cross Society help them ? How long can the Ameri-
can people help them ? jN'ot very long; when spring
comes they will say, '' We have done all we could for
the Armenians; let them take care of themselves."
But will they stop to think how the Armenians can
take care of themselves ? Have they oxen and horses
to plough ^ Ko. Is there any man left to support
his wife and children ? No. Suppose here and there
an Armenian is left (I mean in the country places,
not in the cities), dare he go out to his field and work '(
Xo. Were any of those who plundered and killed
punished ? No. What guarantee can we have, then,
tliat those who survive will not be killed or plundered
in their turn ? None. Will the European pOAvers
who signed the Berlin Treaty give any assurance to
the Armenians that they will be protected hereafter ?
No. Is the Sultan a better man since the massacre ?
No. Are the Turks and Kurds better people since
the atrocities ? No. They are worse than ever
before, because they have a freer hand, and all their
])assions are roused to greater strength. Well, then,
if these are all facts, what is the use of feeding people
a few weeks merely to keep them alive for another mas-
sacre that will finish the rest of them ?
O reader, do not be cheated. The Armenians need
practical aid, not deceptive aid. I mean the Armen-
ians must be liberated from the cruel Sultan; if not,
no aid is given to the Armenians. Because the fu-
ture will be worse than ever before.
Thus far I have continually assumed and tried to
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN AHMEXIA 321
prove that the Sultan of Turkey deliberately ordered
all these atrocities committed. But perhaps you will
doubt the statement of a native; you will think I am
prejudiced. Therefore I will give you American tes-
timonies from reliable sources. Please read the fol-
lowing from the " Review of Reviews " : —
THE MASSACRES IN TURKEY.
From Oct. 1, 1895, to Jan. 1, 1896.
Certain persons in Europe and America, misled by
statements of the Turkish government, have ascribed
the dreadful massacres which have taken place in
Asia Minor to sudden and spontaneous outbreaks of
Moslem fanaticism, caused by a revolutionary attitude
among the Armenians themselves. The truth is that
these massacres, while sudden, have taken place ac-
cording to a deliberate and preconcerted plan. Ac-
cording to the statement of many persons, French,
English, Canadian, American, Turk, Kurd and Ar-
menian, — persons trustworthy and intelligent, who
were in the places where the massacres occurred, and
who were eye-witnesses of the horrible scenes, — the
outbreaks were under careful direction in regard to
place, time, nationality of the victims and of the per-
petrators, were prompted by a common motive, and
their true character has been systematically concealed
by Turkish official reports. The following paper is
based upon full accounts of the massacres, written on
the ground by the parties above referred to. Their
names, for obvious reasons, cannot be made public.
I. In Regard to Place.
"With only four exceptions of consequence, the
massacres have been confined to the territory of the
six provinces where reforms were to be instituted.
21
322 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
AVhen a band of two tlioiisand Kurdish and Circas-
sian raiders approached the boundary between the
provinces of Sivas and Angora, they were turned back
by the officials, who told them that they had no author-
ity to pass beyond the province of Sivas. The only
large places where outrages occurred outside of the
six provinces are Trebizond, Marash, Aintab, and
Cesarea, in all of which the Moslems were excited
by the nearness of the scenes of massacre, and by the
reports of the plunder which other Moslems were
securing.
II. In Regard to Time.
The massacre in Trebizond occurred just as the
Sultan, after six months of refusal, was about to con-
sent to the scheme of reforms, as if to warn the powers
that in case they persisted, the mine was already laid
for the destruction of the Armenians. In fact, the
massacre of the Armenians is Turkey's real reply to
the demands of Europe that she reform. From Tre-
bizond the wave of murder and robbery swept on
through almost every city, and town, and village in
the six provinces where relief was promised to the Ar-
menians. When the news of the first massacre
reached Constantinople, a high Turkish official re-
marked to one of the Ambassadors that massacre was
like the small-pox; they must all have it, but they
wouldn't need it the second time.
III. The Nationalitt op the Victims.
They were exclusively Armenians. In Trebi-
zond there is a large Greek population, but neither
there nor elsewhere have the Greeks been molested.
Special care has also been taken to avoid injury to the
subjects of foreign nations, with the idea of escaping
foreign complications and the payment of indemni-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIBB IN ARMENIA. 823
ties. The only marked exceptions were in Marasli,
where three school buildings belonging to the Ameri-
can Mission were looted, and one building was burned ;
and in Harpoot, where the school buildings and houses
belonging to the American Mission were plundered
and eight buildings were burned, the total losses ex-
ceeding $100,000, for which no indemnity has yet
been paid.
IV. The Method op Killing and Pillaging.
The method in the cities has been to kill within
a limited period the largest number of Armenians, —
especially men of business, capacity, and intelligence,
— and to beggar their families by robbing them, as
far as possible, of their property. Hence, in almost
every place the massacres have been perpetrated during
the business hours, when the Armenians could be
caught in their shops. In almost every place, the
Moslems made a sudden and simultaneous attack just
after their noonday prayer. The surprised and un-
armed Armenians made little or no resistance, and
where, as at Diarbekir and Gurun, they undertook to
defend themselves, they suffered the more. The kill-
ing was done with guns, revolvers, swords, clubs, pick-
axes, and every conceivable weapon, and many of the
dead were horribly mangled. The shops and houses
were absolutely gutted.
Upon hundreds of villages the Turks and Kurds
came down like the hordes of Tamerlane, robbed the
helpless peasants of their flocks and herds, stripped
them of their very clothing, and carried away their
bedding, cooking utensils, and even the little stores
of provisions which they had with infinite care and
toil laid up for the severities of a rigorous winter.
"Worst of all is the bitter cry that comes from every
324 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
quarter that tlie [Moslems carried off hundreds of Chrig-
tian women and children.
The number killed in the massacres thus far is
estimated at hftv thousand, which includes the major-
ity of the well-to-do, capable, intelligent Armenians
in tlie six provinces that were to have been refoi'med.
The property plundered or destroyed is estimated at
$40,000,000^. Xot less than three hundred and fifty
thousand wretched survivors, most of whom are wo-
men and children, are in danger of perishing by star-
vation and exposure unless foreign aid is promptly
sent and allowed to reach them.
V. The Perpetrators.
They were the resident Moslem population, rein-
forced by Kurds, Circassians, and in several eases by
the Sultan's soldiers and officers, who began the dread-
ful work at the sound of a bugle, and desisted when the
bugle signaled to them to stop. This was notoriously
true in Erzeroum. In Harpoot, also, the soldiers took
a prominent part, firing on the buildings of the Ameri-
can Mission with Martini-Henry rifles and Krupp
cannon. A shell from one of the cannon burst in the
house of the American Missionary, Dr. Barnum. In
most places the killing was by the Turks, while the
Xurds and Circassians were intent on plunder, and gen-
erally killed only to strike terror or when they met with
resistance. It is an utter mistake to suppose, as some
have, that the local authorities could not have sup-
pressed the " fanatical " Moslem mobs and restrained
the Kurds. The fact is that the authorities, after
looking on while the massacres were in progress, did
generallv intervene and stop the slaughter as soon as
the limited period during which the Moslems were
allowed to kill and rob had expired.
TUE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. :j25
At Marsovan the limit of time was four hours. In
several places the slaughter and pillage continued
from noon till sundown, or later. At Sivas they con-
tinued for a whole day. In every place the carnage
stopped as soon as the authorities made an earnest ef-
fort, and had it not been for their intervention after
the set time of one, two, or three days, the entire Ar-
menian population might have been exterminated.
VI. The Motive of the Turks.
This is apparent to the superficial observer. The
scheme of reforms devolved civil officers, judgeships,
and police participation on Mohammedans and non-
^lohammedans in the six provinces proportionately.
This, while simple justice, was a bitter pill to the Mo-
hammedans, w^io had ruled the Christians with a rod
of iron for five hundred years. All that was needed
to make the scheme of reforms inoperative was to
alter the proportion of Christians to Mohammedans.
This policy was at once relentlessly and thoroughly ex-
ecuted. The number of the Armenians has been dimin-
ished, first by killing at a single blow those most capa-
ble of taking a part in any scheme of reconstruction,
and secondly by compelling the survivors to die of
starvation, exposure, and sickness, or to become Mos-
lems.
It is the very essence of ^Mohammedanism that the
'"' ghiavour '^ has no right to live, save in subjection.
The abortive scheme of Europe insisting on the rights
of Armenians as men, has enraged the Moslems against
them. The arrogant and non-progressive Turks know
that in a fair and equal race the Christians will out-
strip them in every department of business and in-
dustry, and they see in any fair scheme of reforms the
handwriting on the wall for themselves. If the
scheme of reforms had applied to regions where
326 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Greeks predominate, the latter would have been killed
and robbed as readily as the Armenians have been.
Are the Greek massacres of 1822 forgotten, w^hen
50,000 were killed, or the slaughter of 12,000 Maron-
ites and Syrians in 1800, and of 15,000 Bulgarians in
1876 'i
VII. Turkish Official Reports.
The refinement of cruelty appears in this, that the
Turkish government has attempted to cover up its
hideoiis policy by the most colossal lying and hypoc-
risy. It is true that on Sept. 30, 1895, some
hot-headed young Armenians, contrary to the entrea-
ties of the Armenian patriarch and the orders of the
police, attempted to take a well-worded petition to
The Grand Vezir, according to a time-honored custom.
It is also true that the oppressed mountaineers of
Zeitoon drove out a small garrison of Turkish soldiers,
whom, however, they treated with humanity; it is like-
wise true that in various places individual Armenians,
in despair, have advocated violent methods. But the
universal testimony of impartial foreign eye-witnesses
is that, with the above exceptions, the Armenians have
given no provocation, and that almost, if not quite,
all the telegrams purporting to come from the provin-
cial authorities accusing the Armenians with provoking
the massacres, are sheer fabrications of names and
dates. If the Armenians made attacks, where are the
Turkish dead ?
And the dreadful alternative of Islam or death
was offered by those who have dazzled and deceived
Europe with Hatti Shereps and Hatti Humayouns, pro-
mulgating civil equality and religious liberty for their
Christian subjects.
Strangest of all, he who is the head of all authority
in Turkey, and responsible above anv and all others
for the cold-blooded massacres and plundering of the
The TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 327
past two months, wrote a letter to Lord Salisbury, and
pledged his word of honor that the scheme of reforms
should be carried out to the letter, at the very moment
when he was directing the massacres. And the six
great Christian powers of Europe, as well as the United
States, still treat this man with infinite courtesy and
deference; their representatives still dine at his tables,
and some of them still receive his decorations.
VIII. The Solution.
If the Armenians are to be left as they are, it is a
pity that Europe ever mentioned them in the treaty of
Berlin or subsequently; and to intrust reforms in be-
half of the Armenians to those who have devoted
two months' time to killing and robbing them is sim-
ply to abandon the Armenians to destruction, and to
put the seal of Europe to the bloody work. The only
way to reform Eastern Turkey is by forcible foreign
intervention — not the threat of it, but the inter-
vention itself.
The position and power of Russia give her a imique
call to this work. Should she enter on it at once, the
whole civilized world would approve her course.
Russia should have as free a hand in Kurdistan
as England has insisted on having in Egypt. By
frankly admitting this, England would gain in the
respect and sympathy of the world, and strengthen
her own position.
INFERENCES FROM THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.
First : That devotion to Christ is not lessened but
increased. Many people think the spirit of unbelief
and indifferentism has spread so widely that in this
nineteenth century people will no longer die for Christ.
But out of 100,000 Armenians massacred, 90,000
328 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
were actually martyred because tliey would not deny
Christ. In all lands, Christians praise the old martyrs,
the church fathers: let them know that there are as
noble church sons and daughters to-day in Armenia
as there were church fathers anywhere in the early
centuries. Thus these hideous scenes ought to awaken
a true Christian spirit both in this country and in Eu-
rope.
Second: That it was a religious persecution.
Though the false and cruel Sultan gave a political
color to it, his universal order was to offer the Ar-
menians the choice of Mohammedanism or death.
This is proved by the fact that the leading gospel min-
isters were specially chosen for martyrdom. And
some of the Armenian priests, after having been con-
verted by force, to escape unbearable tortures, were
led through the streets, followed by great crowds, as a
warning to the remaining Armenians that they
must follow the same road. When some of them did
it, the Turks forced them to take arms and kill their
brothers and sisters for refusing to accept Mohamme-
danism. To speak of the massacres as political affairs
is doing injustice to the cause of Christ.
Third : That whatever a man sows, he shall reap
the same. The Sultan and the Turks are sowing, —
they are killing, and thousands of the Christians are
converted by force to Mohammedanism; but the time
is coming when more Mohammedans will be killed
than Armenians have been, and thousands, and even
millions of the Mohammedans will be converted to
THE TURKISH ATHOCITIHS IN ARMENIA. 329
Christianity, and the blood of the Armenian martyrs
will be the means of their salvation through Jesus
Christ. The time is coming when out of this great
persecution a great and happy freedom will proceed.
Out of this great darkness a very bright light shall
shine.
Fourth: Some of the Turks helped and saved
the Armenians. Certainly these were secret converts
to Christianity, but their lives being in danger, they
cannot confess Christ publicly. All they can do for
the present is to help the needy Christians and save
them from murder. Another class of Turks who helped
is those who were themselves getting a living out of the
Armenians. The Armenians gave them employment,
and if their employers were killed, how could they
get a living ? Still another class protected the Ar-
menians, because if the Armenian houses were burned,
their houses also would be burned; and they asked
and got money from the Armenians as a reward for
having saved them. It is a mistake to think that there
are good Mohammedans, who, from a good Mohamme-
dan motive helped the Armenians. There cannot be
a good Mohammedan motive towards a Christian; if
there is a good motive, it is not a Mohammedan motive.
Fifth: That the time has come when American
and European Christians should trust no longer in the
promises of the Sultan and the European governments,
but as Christian people must use something more than
" moral principle " before all the Armenians and Am-
erican missionaries are killed. Moral influence
830 ARMENIA ANf) HER PEOPLU.
is very good as far as it goes; being a Christian minis-
ter, 1 also believe in it. But as far as the Turks are
concerned it can do nothing, because they do not know
what morals are, or what moral character is. All the
Turks are morally corrupt. They know only two
things; one is the sword, the other is moral corrup-
tion. They came and captured that country by the
sword, and the}- must go by the sword ; there is no other
way. Europe tried the experiment century after cen-
tury, but could find no other way. Moral advice, wise
counsel have never moved the Turks, and will never
move them hereafter. Europe and a part of Armenia
were taken from them by the sword, and the only way
Armenia and the Armenians can be saved is by using
the sword. When Christ comes again He will never
yield; He will never be crucified, but he will judge
and condemn. The time has come when Christians
have suffered enough; they must unite and remove
that great curse, the Mohammedan power, and make
free that happy and beautiful Bible Land, Armenia
and Palestine.
Reader, you cannot go and visit to-day the places
where man was created, where Noah's ark rested. You
cannot go in safety to visit the places where
Christ was born and walked. Why ? Simply
because a corrupt Mohammedan power wills there,
and will not permit you. Is it not a shame to mighty
Christian nations and powers that this is so ? Will
not the Christian nations be aroused with great indig-
THE TURKISH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 831
nation and give the last blow to such a cruel Moham-
medan tyranny ?
Sixth: That Turkey is a mere barbarism; it is
not to be considered or treated as a nation, for it is not
one in any sense. International law cannot be ap-
plied to Turkey. The Sultan must be considered as a
brigand, a mere lawless oppressor, and the Turks as
mere murderers, and dealt with accordingly. The
powers must give up the farce of treating the Sultan
as a national sovereign, who speaks for his people, and
may govern, therefore, much as he pleases. As Mr.
W. W. Howard says, '' The blackest spot in the round
world is the heart of the Sultan of Turkey."
A Farewell Letter from a Prominent Armenian.
March 24, 1896.
" We are evidently a doomed people. A hundred
thousand of us have been butchered, and more than
a million of us are in extreme suffering from hunger,
and cold, and nakedness. Multitudes beyond the
reach of foreign aid must inevitably perish before
spring. As to the rest of us, our supplies of food
and money are rapidly diminishing. We can prose-
cute no business, we are not at liberty to earn our
daily bread, and for even the most fortunate, the
future has only the prospect of starvation a little later
than our poor brethren.
" We hear the announcement that order and peace
are being restored, but to us these are empty words.
The terrible and wholesale massacre at Oorfa and Bir-
idjik occurred long subsequent to the most solemn and
emphatic assurances that nothing more of the kind
was to be apprehended, — long after the commission
sent out from Constantinople to carry the message of
332 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
peace and reform to Armenia had reached its field of
labor.
^' Massacres are not now so frequent as they were
a few months ago, but the attitude of relentless hos-
tility on the part of the government towards us, the
ferocious aspect of our Moslem neighbors, has not a
whit improved. They seem to be eagerly watching
for an opportune moment in which to finish their
bloody work, and rid themselves forever of this trouble-
some demand for reform.
" May we not then rightfully offer our farewell
message to our fellow men ?
^' First — To our Moslem fellow countrymen:
" We desire to express our deepest gratitude to
those of you who have sympathized with and helped
us in these days of calamity and bloodshed. Towards
those who have robbed and massacred us, and plun-
dered and burned our houses, we have chiefiy feel-
ings of compassion. You have perhaps done these
terrible things in what has seemed to you the service
of your religion and government.
" Second — To our Sultan — most dread and
potent sovereign:
" Apparently you have been persuaded that we
are a rebellious people deserving only utter and speedy
extermination. For such as you, this work of de-
struction is no doubt an easy one, the more so as
we have had neither the means nor the disposition to
resist it.
" Third — To the European powers :
" We. have not been an importunate nor a turbu-
lent people. We did not incite the Crimean War, nor
any of the subsequent wars which have stricken this
empire. It is not of our will that we were begotten
to a new political life by the treaty of 1856. Our
complaints and appeals have been based solely on
THE TUKlvlSH ATROCITIES IN ARMENIA. 333
the sentiment of humanity and the common rights of
man. It was you who arranged the '^ scheme of re-
forms," and urged it upon our Sultan till he was ir-
ritated to the extent that he seems to have adopted
the plan of ridding himself finally of this annoyance
by exterminating us as a people; and now, while he
is relentlessly carrying out this plan, you are standing
by as spectators and witnesses of this bloody work.
^' We wonder if sympathy and the brotherhood of
n.an and chivalry are wholly things of the past, or
are the material and political interests dividing you
so great that the massacre of the whole people is a
secondary thing ? In either case " We who are about
to die salute you."
" Fourth — To the Christians of America:
" Although we have cherished strong prejudice
against your mission work among us, recent events
have proved that our Protestant brethren are one with
us, and have shared fully our anxieties and our perils.
You have labored through them to promote among us
the peace and prosperity of the gospel. It is not your
fault that one result of their teaching and example
has been to excite our masters against us. The Turk-
ish government dreads and dislikes nothing so much as
the ideas of progress which you have sent us."
VIII.
THE AEMENIANS OF TO-DAY.
There are about five millions of Armenians in the
world at present: three millions in the Turkish Em-
pire, a million and a half in Russian Armenia, and
half a million more scattered through Persia, India,
and Burmah, Egypt, Europe (there are two or three
hundred thousand in the Austrian Empire), and
America. There are poor and ignorant people among
them, as among every people; the majority, however,
are (or were before the late horrors) well off, and
many of them rich, educated, refined, and, in a word,
modern Christian people. Of all the impudent inver-
sions of truth ever perpetrated, the most outrageously
impudent and shamelessly the exact contrary of fact
is the assertion of Mavroyeni Bey, the Turkish min-
ister at Washington, that the case of the Turks against
the Armenians is like that of the whites against the
Indians in this country; that the American whites
must be allowed to keep the Indians down, and the
Turks must be allowed to keep the Armenians down.
If the Indians possessed all the money, all the intel-
ligence, all the cultivation, and all the morals in Amer-
ica, and the whites were a mob of ignorant, cruel, lust-
ful ruffians holding them down by the organized
(334)
5 • » » » 9
AN ARMENIAN FAMILY.
ANATOLIA COLLEGE AT MARSOVAN.
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 386
power of the sword, the comparison would be just. As
it is, tlie Turks correspond fairly enough with the In-
dians, and the Armenians to the whites, in every other
respect than military power. Does a Turk — a true
Turk — ever write a book ? Does he ever publish
a newspaper, or read one i Does he ever build a
church, or pay attention to the moral precepts taught
in one '( Does he ever found or manage a business,
or even an estate ? In a word, does he have any more
intellectual, moral, or business part in the life of mod-
em civilization than a Hottentot or a Matabele ? And
do not the Armenians do and have all these things ?
Are they not in the stream of the same kind of cul-
tivated Christian life led by Americans ? Nowhere
else on earth, but in the Turkish Empire, can one find
millions of gentlemen and ladies and civilized modem
citizens ruled over, oppressed, and massacred in hun-
dreds of thousands by a gang of mediaeval Asiatic
barbarians, not advanced from the time of Timour or
Jenghiz Khan. It is the greatest anarchronism and
monstrosity of modern times.
If my work is thought prejudiced, listen to what
is said of them by men of the first authority, — the
greatest statesmen, the best informed special corre-
spondent, and one of the chief historians of England
at the present time. First the statesman: —
" The Armenians are the representatives of one
of the oldest civilized Christian races, and beyond all
doubt one of the most pacific, one of the most industri-
ous, and one of tlic most intelligent races in the world."
— [Gladstone.
386 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Xext tlie special correspondent: —
*^ The Armenians constitute the whole civilizing ele-
ment in Anatolia (Asia Minor) ; peaceful to the degree
of self-sacritice, law-abiding to their own undoing,
aiul industrious andTEopeful under conditions which
would appall the majority of mankind. At their best,
they are the stuff of which heroes and martyrs are
moulHed."— [E. J. Dillon.
Lastly the historian : —
'^ The best chance for the future of the Asiatic
provinces of Turkey lies in the uprising of a progress-
ive Christian people, which may ultimately grow into
an independent Christian state. The Armenians have,
alone among the races of Western Asia, the gifts that
can enable them to aspire to this mission. They are
keen-witted, energetic, industrious, apt to learn, and
quick in assimilating western ideas.'' — [James Bryce.
IN THE TURKISH EMPIRE.
There are about two millions of Armenians in Ar-
menia Proper, and another million scattered through
the rest of the empire. The absurd figures given by
some writers, making them greatly less than this (one
magazine editor got it down to 300,000 ! It is sig-
nificant that he was a strong apologist for the mas-
sacre, and laid all the blame to the Armenians) result
mostly from taking the official statistics of the Turk-
ish government, ^ow, there are three reasons why
these are always grossly wrong; of no more value than
the weather predictions in an almanac, and always
Avrong in the direction of understating the numbers.
One is that it is the Sultan's interest to make them
as small as possible, that the Armenians may not be
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 337
considered to have the right to autonomy as a nation ;
the fewer they are, and the more outnumbered by the
Turks, the less right they seem to have. " An in-
dependent Armenia ? " shriek the Turkish ministers
and ojfficers. " Why, there are only a few hundred
thousand Armenians in their so-called country, and
even so, there are three Turks to one Armenian in
that very district ! "
The second is that in an Oriental country a census
is not a means of knowledge but an engine of taxation.
The ruler has no care for information on the subject
for his own sake, as Western governments have. What
he wants is to see how many people and in what places
he can screw more taxes out of. The people know
this as well as he, and use every effort to outwit his
agents, and prevent them from knowing their num-
bers. This is why even civilized governments ruling
over Oriental nations can rarely get any nearer than a
rough guess at the numbers of the nation; the inhabi-
tants are suspicious, and resort to falsehood. In the
case of the Armenians, remember what I said in the
first chapter about an Armenian being taxed for every
male child he has, every year as long as the child lives;
naturally, he will not tell the number of his children
unless he has to. Here is a practical illustration.
Some years ago I was in an Armenian village when
the Sultan's officers came to take the census. There
were about 300 persons in the village; the officer
wrote 200, because only a few names of boys were
given him out of the whole. The tax is based on
338 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
the registration, and if you can keep off the registers
you can escape the tax.
The third is the gross incompetence, the corrup-
tion, and the drunkenness of the officers. The Turk-
ish officials, governors, mayors, clerks, generals, sol-
diers, all drink any sort of liquor they can lay hands
on, and are drunk as often and as long as sober; they
are so ignorant that they cannot do their work decently
even when they are sober; and they are utterly venal,
without the least sense of official obligation. What
sort of a census is likely to be taken by these ignorant,
whiskey-swilling, venal barbarians ? One of these
officials, whom I know well, once came to a village
to take the census. The Armenians got him so drunk
that he barked like a dog, bribed him, and he put down
about half the number of the population.
How, then, do I know the correct number ? From
a knowledge of the districts, the numbers of villages,
and statistics resting on a better foundation than the
above. I do not pretend that the number is exact;
but it is near enough for practical purposes.
The Armenians in Turkey are divided into four
classes. The first comprises merchants and bankers.
The second is the professional class: physicians, pro-
fessors, teachers, and preachers. The third is that of
artisans: weavers, blacksmiths, copper, silver, and
gold smiths, tailors, shoemakers, etc. The finest
Oriental rugs are made by the Armenians, and there
are weavers of silk and cotton goods, and all kinds of
hand-made embroidery. There are no factories in
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 339
Armenia. The fourth class is that of farmers, a pure,
simple, industrious class, with beautiful farms, vine-
yards, and orchards, whose products I have described.
One-tenth of all the Armenians in Turkey are in
Constantinople. Many of them are poor, in the na-
ture of things; but the leading bankers, merchants,
and capitalists there are Armenians, surpassing even
the Greeks and Jews. I give a few representative
names: Gulbenkian, Essayian, Azarian, Mosditchian,
Manougian, Oonjian. The physicians in largest
practice are Armenians: Khorassanjian, Mateosian,
Dobrashian, Yartanian, etc. The Sultan's personal
treasurer is an Armenian, Portukalian Pasha. The
chief counselor in the foreign office in Constantino-
ple is an Armenian, Haroutiune Dadian Pasha. The
greatest lawyers are Armenians: Mosditchian, Tin-
guerian, etc. The chief photographers of the Sultan
are Armenians, Abdullah Brothers and Sebali, the
former considered one of the best photographic firms
in the world. The personal jeweler of the Sultan is
an Armenian, Mr. Chiboukjian. For all his hate of
the Armenians, he has to employ them, for no others
are competent or trustworthy. The best musicians are
Armenians: Chonkhajian Surenian, Doevletian, and
an Armenian young lady named Nartoss, who often
plays the piano before the Sultan. The greatest ora-
tor in Constantinople is an Armenian and a professor
in Robert College, Prof. H. Jejizian, to my thinking,
superior to either Beecher, Wendell Phillips, or Robert
Ingersoll, all of whom I have heard. Finally, the Ar-
340 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
menians, as a whole, form the best " society " in Con-
stantinople, and their modes of living, dress, houses,
and ways are precisely like those of Americans or
Europeans. These are Mavroyeni Bey's " Indians " !
Smyrna is a city of 150,000 or more population.
About 80,000 are Greeks; you may call it a Greek
city. The Armenians there number about 8,000, or
one-tenth of the Greeks, but are ten times richer than
all the Greeks together. The principal buildings are
owned by Armenians; the business is in the hands of
the Armenians. The chief business men are well-
known in Europe. Mr. Balyivzian owns many steam-
ers which ply on the Mediterranean. * Mr. Spartalian is
another very rich and very benevolent man; he built
a magnificent hospital at Smyrna. In Samsoun, Marso-
van, Cesarea, Adana, Amassia, Tocat, Sivas, Har-
poot, Mesere, Malatia, Diarbekir, Arabkir, Oorf a, Ain-
tab, iMarash, Tarsus, Angora, Erzeroun, Erzinghan,
Moosh, Bitlis, Baiburt, Trebizond, — in a word, every-
where it is the same. , Go where you like in Turkey,
you find the Armenians at the top.
When I say they are the richest, I mean until
early in 1894 they were the richest. But now, in
many cities of Armenia proper, since the recent atroci-
ties, they have become the poorest.
Leading citizens, and the fathers of families, for
the reasons I have mentioned, were specially singled
out for vengeance. Their stores, banks, and houses
were plundered and then burnt, their money and
jewelry taken from them, and then they were mur-
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 341
dered wholesale. Xow the Turks and the Kurds for
a time are rich with Armenian property; wearing the
gold watches of Armenian gentlemen, their women
wearing the jewelry of Armenian ladies.
IN RUSSIA.
The Armenians in Russia are the richest and the
most cultivated of any in the world, and have great in-
fluence. Mr. Kasbarian, an Armenian, is considered
the richest even of them. The rich city of Tiflis is
practically an Armenian city.
There are about 50,000 regular Armenian sol-
diers in the Russian army, and some of its greatest
generals have always been Armenians.
If the Czar would permit this force and the capi-
talists to settle the Armenian question, they would do
it in a month, and make Armenia free. The Arme-
nians have so far been treated very kindly and have
prospered exceedingly in Russia, but T do not believe
it will last. In my opinion, the young Czar is only
waiting for his coronation to oppress the Armenians
as he has the Jews. Yet the Czar's ablest servants
and advisers have been Armenians. The body-guard
of Mcholas' grandfather Alexander was the Arme-
nian Count Loris ^TelikoflF, universally known; three
times wounded by Xihilists on account of his position.
During the last Turko-Russian war some of the gen-
erals who accomplished the most with the least sacri-
fice were Armeniaiis: Der, Lucasoff, Lazareff, Meli-
koiT. There are now no less than eighteen Arme-
nian generals in the Russian service. I will mention
342 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
a part: General Sdepan Kislimishian, commander of
Caucasus; General Hagop Alkhazian, General Alex-
ander Lalayian, General Demedr Der Asadoorian,
General Ishkhan Manuelian, General Alexander Gor-
ganian, General Ishkhan Gochaminassian, General
Khosros Touloukhanian, General Arakel Khantamir-
ian, General H. Dikranian. There are many other
prominent Armenian officers.
In Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other great cities
in Russia there are many Armenian professors in the
universities, mayors of cities, judges of courts, and
high civil officers. I will give a few of their names,
to show that I am not talking blindly:
Count Hovhannes Telyanian, minister of educa-
tion, etc.
Gamazian, minister of foreign affairs in Asia.
Muguerditch Emin, counselor of education.
Nerses Nersessian, professor in Moscow in the
Royal University.
Dr. Shilantz, professor in the medical college at
Kharcof.
Boghos Gamparian, superintendent of the Royal
army of Riza.
Melikian, professor of natural sciences in the Uni-
versity at Odessa.
A. Madinian, mayor of Tiflis.
V. Keghamian, mayor of Erevan.
H. Moutaffian, mayor of Akheltzka.
Hundreds and thousands are high officers in dif-
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 343
ferent departments of the Russian government, but
there is no space to give a roll of them.
One, however, a personal friend, I must write a
few words of, namely. Professor John Ayvazovski, of
the council of the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine
Arts, a marine painter of the first rank. He is now
79, but looks scarcely 60, with beautiful large, bright
eyes. He came to the World's Fair, where fifteen of
his pictures were exhibited in the Russian section ; and
he presented two other fine ones to the American peo-
ple in recognition of their help to the Russian famine
sufferers, — one showing the arrival in port of a
steamer with its cargo of grain, the other the advent of
a drosky at a village of starving people, with a man in
front waving an American flag. He visited and
painted an excellent picture of Niagara. He had
seven pictures at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.
His paintings are mostly in royal palaces: there are
120 in that of the Russian imperial family, and 34 in
the Sultan's. His own gallery, at Theodosia, Russia,
has 84. He has received many prizes from exposi-
tions. He is also a great scholar and a good Chris-
tian. His brother, who lately died, was one of the
greatest bishops of the Armenian church.
There is a very interesting story about Professor
Ayvazovski 's boyhood which I will give here:
His parents were Armenian peasants, living in a
village not far from Moscow. One day Nicholas I
was passing by the hamlet on horseback, and dropped
his whip. The Emperor beckoned to young Ayvaz-
344 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ovski, and told him to pick it up. The boy approached
boldly and asked, " Who are you ? " iSTicholas re-
plied, " I am the Emperor." The boy rejoined, " If
you cannot take care of your whip, how can you take
care of your subjects ? " The Emperor was pleased
at this remark, and ordered him to be educated at his
own expense, and in any profession he chose. He
took to the brush, and is the pride of his nation.
IN PERSIA, INDIA, ETC.
The Armenians of Persia are great merchants,
and high civil officers of the Shah. I name only a
few:
Chahanguir Khan is minister of arts and superin-
tendent of the arsenal.
Nirza Melkoum Khan was the former ambassador
of the Shah at London; a man of great wealth and
learning, and an able diplomat. He retired on ac-
count of age, and lives in London.
!N^azar Agha was ambassador of the Shah at Paris.
General Sharl Bezirganian is the general superin-
tendent of the telegraph service in Persia.
In India and Burmah there are great Armenian
merchants, who are millionaires, and respected by the
governments and the peoples.
In Egypt, though few in number, they are the
ruling element. Xubar Pasha was the prime minister
of the Egyptian government until a few weeks ago;
one of the richest men in Egypt, and the greatest
statesman in Africa. He speaks several languages,
and spends his summers in France, owning property in
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 346
Paris. Dikran Pasha is another rich and very gifted
Armenian, and Jioghos Pasha another man of power.
IN EUROPE.
There are very rich merchants among the Ar-
menians at Vienna, Paris, Marseilles, London, and
Manchester. There is a strong Armenian colony at
Manchester. All of them are merchants, and
some of them millionaires. Almost the whole clothing
trade between England and Turkey is in their hands.
They have a beautiful Armenian church there, and
always a learned Armenian bishop; I speak from
knowledge and observation. They are much respected
by the English. Some of the Armenian gentlemen
are married to English ladies of good family, and
their domestic life is very happy. Prince Loosinian,
an Armenian, a very great scholar, and much respected
by the French, lives in Paris; he is descended from'
the last Armenian dynasty. His brother Khoren
!N^ar-Bey Loosinian was one of the foremost Armenian
bishops; the Sultan of course hated him, and it is said
had him poisoned while imprisoned in Constantinople.
The Armenian scholars in Europe are well-known,
and on a level with the best of any country. There
is not an institution of learning in Europe where they
are not to be found, either as students or professors;
and the prizes and medals they win are many.
There are two great centers in Europe for the
Armenian scholars and authors: one at Vienna and
the other at Venice. They have colleges and printing
presses in these places; and they write, translate, and
346 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
publish themselves in nearly all languages all sorts
of valuable books. So the Armenian people are well
supplied with the best modern books. But it must
be remembered that these valuable books are forbidden
by the Sultan to go into Turkish Armenia; he wants
the people kept ignorant. Some of their great schol-
ars came home from Europe to preach and teach in
Armenia, to elevate their nation; but some were killed
and some banished during the recent atrocities.
IN AMERICA.
The Armenians are a new people in America.
Seventeen years ago, when the writer first came to
this country, there were not more than a hundred in
the United States; since then about 10,000 have come,
most of them within ten years. The first ones came
about forty-five years ago, among them Mr. Minasian
and Mr. Sahagian, — both poor young men, now both
rich. Mr. Minasian lives at Brooklyn; Mr. Sahagian
at Yonkers, N. Y. Those who have come lately are
mostly the poorer class; they fled from the " order " of
the Sultan, and not being allowed to leave Turkey,
bribed the police and ran away. ISTot knowing the
English language, they work in factories in various
States. There are some well-to-do merchants, how-
ever, doing business in ^ew York, Boston, and else-
where, handling Oriental rugs, dry-goods, etc. Some
of the "New York names are Gulbenkian, Topakian,
Tavshandjian, Yardimian, Chaderdjian, Telfeyian,
Kostikian. Tn Boston are Ateshian, Bogigian, etc.
Mr. Kebabian is in ^ew Haven; Mr. Enfiyedjian in
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 347
Denver. There are many otkers also in other large
cities.
Besides merchants, there are many professional
men among them, abont a dozen physicians in New
York city alone: Dr. Dadirian, Dr. Gabrielian, Dr.
Ayvazian, Dr. Apkarian, Dr. Altarian, Dr. Koutoo-
jian. Some of them are engravers and photographers.
In New York city there are llagopian, Kasparian,
Matigian, and others, very skillful engravers. In
Boston there is the New England Engraving Co.,
who are Armenians; the manager is Mr. G. Papazian.
There are about half a dozen Armenians who are
pastors of American churches in different states.
About a dozen are special lecturers on the Armenian
atrocities: Mr. H. Kiretchjian, the secretary of the
American Relief Association, Mr. Samuelian, Rev.
A. Bulgurgian, Rev. S. Deviryian, Mr. S. Yenovkian,
etc.
There are hundreds of Armenian students dis-
tributed among nearly all the universities, colleges,
and theological seminaries in America, and most of
them are of a superior sort. The greatest physicians
in Turkey are Armenians, who were graduated from
different medical colleges in this country. Some of
the leading pastors and professors in Armenia, who
were banished and killed during the recent atrocities,
were graduated in this country.
Of the factory hands mentioned, there are about
1,000 in Worcester, Mass.; about 800 in New York
and Brooklyn; about 400 in Boston, and the remainder
348 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
are scattered everywhere from 'New York to Califor-
nia, from Maine to Florida.
A number of Armenian young men have married
American women; I believe ninety per cent, are happy.
After forty or fifty years, there will be a large class
of American citizens of Armenian blood, and many
millionaires among them. They are gifted in busi-
ness, and they are a sober, honest, and faithful people.
I do^hot think that there is a single criminal among
t he 10 ,000 Armenians in this country.
Some of the Armenian daily and weekly news-
papers are as follows:
In Constantinople: Arevelk, Avedaper, Puragn,
Dyaghig, Ilayrenik, Masis, Pounch.
In Smyrna: Arevlian Mamoul.
In Etchmiazin: Ararat.
In Tiflis: Aghpour, Artzakank, Mishag, Murj,
N^or-Tar, Darak.
In Venice: Pazmaveb.
In Vienna: Hantes Arnsoria.
In Marseilles: Armenia.
In London: L'Armenic.
In New York: Haik.
Wherever the Armenians go they carry with them-
selves the church, the school, and the press.
THE ARMENIAN RELIEF ASSOCIATION.
This association is putting forth every effort to
alle'vnate the sufferings of needy Armenians wherever
they may be found; their work has already resulted in
untold blessings and it deserves the hearty support and
THE ARMENIANS OF TO-DAY. 349
contributions of the benevolent public. The officers
of the association are the following well-known An_eri-
can and Armenian gentlemen;
Right Rev. Bishop H. Y. Satterlee, D.D., presi-
dent.
Hon. Levi P. Morton, first vice-president.
Right Rev. Bishop Potter, D.D., second vice-pres-
ident.
Charles H. Stout, Esq., treasurer.
J. Bleeker Miller, Esq., chairman executive com-
mittee.
Nicholas R. Mersereau, Esq., secretary.
Herant M. Kiretchjian, general secretary.
Rev. J. B. Haygooni, A.M., organizing secretary.
Mr. H. K. Samuelian, agent.
The headquarters of the association is in New
York.
IX.
THE FUTUKE OF ARMENIA AND THE
BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON.
I am going to predict the future of Armenia. Not
in the usual sense of guessing at it, but in the literal
sense of foretelling the truth. I am not a prophet of
God, yet my prediction is based on facts, and its ac-
curacy should be given some credit from the way my
predictions two or three years ago about the recent
atrocities that have already taken place, have come
true to the letter. At that time no American or Euro-
pean could be made to believe that such horrors would
be perpetrated; but I said they would be, and they
were. And even now the Western peoples are nearly
as blind as ever; they cannot see the future of Arme-
nia even with all the facts before them. Many have
lost hope in it altogether; they think Turkey will exist
forever, and exterminate the last of the Armenians.
Doubtless I should in their place, but I was born in
Turkey and know the situation.
This, then, is the truth as I forecast it: —
Till the end of next year the Armenians will
suffer more than ever before. Perhaps a million will
be massacred yet, not only in Turkey, but in Russia.
(350) ' •
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 351
The Jews, also, in great numbers, and not only the
Jews and the Armenians, but the Americans and
Englishmen too. The key rests in the character of the
present Czar. Nicholas II is not like his father or
grandfather, a strong man. I will not discuss the
moral character of the two Alexanders, but I allow
their powerful intellects and strong wills. They
favored the Annenians. But the present Czar has no
strength of character at all; he is weak both in intellect
and morals. The Sultan is called the sick man of
Tjm-key, but the Czar is the sick man of Russia. His
short-sightedness in upholding Turkey is one proof.
T"p to the time of the coronation next May you will
see no more massacres, for the Czar has ordered the
Sultan to hold his hand, that there may be a peaceful
ceremony, not clouded with horrors; that over, he will
not only give the Sultan leave to unchain his dogs,
but he will unchain his own. The atrocities in Turk-
ish Armenia will be redoubled, and the Czar him-
self inflict on the Armenians all that has been in-
flicted on the Jews. Even this is not all: The Czar
will instruct the Sultan to get rid of all American mis-
sionaries, either banishing them as breeders of sedition,
or, if they refuse to go, requiring the United States
government to order them back. Probably the govern-
ment will obey. Probably, also, the missionaries will
not obey the government; they will stay where they
are. Then the Sultan will say he is not responsible for
their lives, and will issue secret orders to kill them,
which will be carried out. Further, the Czar will
352 ARMENIA AND HER l^EOPLE.
begin a fresh persecution of the Jews, and order the
Sultan to follow suit on the Jews in Turkey, which
will be done ; no fear of the Sultan's refusing an order
to butcher anybody. Still more, the Czar will com-
mand him in secret to banish the English missionaries
from Turkey; the Sultan will request the English
government to call them back, and there is little doubt
that Lord Salisbury will comply; but they, like the
Americans, will refuse to go. Then they will be mur-
dered by secret orders from the Sultan, who will say he
is not responsible for it. These massacres will continue
for two years more. The victims will cry aloud, the
Americans and English will have greater mass-meet-
ings, but the governments of both will do nothing. And
Germany, Austria, and Italy will look calmly on; if
they act it will be with the Czar, and not against him.
Meantime both in Europe and America the war pre-
parations will continue with greater zeal and energy,
until the cup is full, until the crisis comes; then the
noble blood of the Anglo-Saxon race will begin to
boil, and the English and American people at once will
be aroused like one man, and the governments will
have to yield. The wrathful Jews will contribute
Jewish capital for the war expenses ; the wrathful Ar-
menians throughout the world will give both money
and soldiers to the governments fighting their battles.
And a fierce battle will be fought between Russia,
Turkey, and France on one side; America, England,
the Jews, and the Armenians on the other. The
former alliance will be beaten: the Czar's Greek
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. ;]63
Church bigotry, the Sultan's Mohammedan fanati-
cism, and France's infidelity together will be crushed ;
"Russia will go to pieces, Turkey will go pieces, Franco
will go to pieces; Armenia will be free, Jndea will bo
free. The scattered Ai'iiicninns will i-ciiini to Ai-mc-
nia, the ^cnltci-cd -1('\\> will i-ctiirii to Judc;!. Doth
the ArnicniiUH niul the -lews will have tlicir scpnratc
govei'iiiiK'iits; not liings, not princes, but a clean re-
publican form of government. Russia and Turkey
will be opened to the gospel work. Where now hun-
dreds of missionaries are going from England and Am-
erica to other lands, then thousands of them will go;
and Christian America and England will open their
hearts and purses together to send as many mission-
aries as they can to Russia, to Turkey, and to France.
They will hasten the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They will prepare the way for the coming King, who
has the power both in heaven and on the earth.
What will become of Germany, Austria, and Italy,
who form the Triple Alliance ? That alliance will be
dissolved. The German Emperor is trying hard to
maintain it, but he will fail. France will once in a
while threaten Germany with vengeance, but she
will never be able to carry it out, and there is no need
for it, because the German people during this cen-
tiTry will get rid of their Emperor. There will be a
great civil war in Germany, between the people and
the army. If the German emperor could do it, h0
would begin to crush the Socialists now. He ml)
order his soldiers to kill their brothers and fathers.
354 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
but tliey will not, — tliey are not as foolish as the
Emperor; the only result will be the break-up of the
German Union, and the division of Germany into
small republican governments. Italy, Austria, and
Spain will all have the same fate: civil war, and
splitting into small republics. 'No czars, no emperors,
no princes, no lords will remain. Government will be
for the people, of the people, by the people. The
time has come; this century will purify the whol^
world. But until it is purified, a great deal of fire
will burn, very great battles will be fought, until free- '
dom and peace shall reign. And the Armenian blood,
n ow cont inually pouring like a river in Armenia, will
be the cause and the foundation of the coming freedom
of the world. For the present, the world is not free;
it is not civilized. It cannot be with such rulers. To
be free and happy, the people must be aroused, and get
rid of them. The United States must be the example
to the older nations ; they must embrace Washington's
principles.
It is true that England and America will never
go regularly to work to give freedom to Judea and
Armenia, nor with that intention. Their immediate
inotive will be to punish Russia and Turkey for the
murder of the missionaries, and after the victory is
won, by the help of Jewish and Armenian purses and
swOrds, the Armenians and Jews will be rewarded by
giving them their original homes and mother-lands.
This will be laughed at by many, perhaps most, as
a romantic and pleasant dream. They will say it can
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 355
never be accomplished during this century; perhaps
in the future, after a century or two, but not now. I
am used to this incredulity; my predictions are never
b elieved at the time : but after they come true jthey
are. This century is not like the other centuries; a
day in this century is equal to a year of those which
have passed away. We may expect from a year of
it as much as from a century in the ancient times.
This w orld is a wonderful world now, and will be more
wonderful hereafter. The future of the world is
bright, and the world will be brighter and happier.
Why do I keep repeating " two years " ? Why
do I not say one year or three years, or a few years ?
I have reasons for it: one is the political situation in
Europe, and the other is the Bible proplicfj in the
Book of Revelation.
THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN EUROPE.
The Europeans have already made great prepara-
tions for battle. Every one of them preaches peace
and prepares for war; and none of them have finished
their preparations yet, — if they had^ they would_be
in the thick of it by this time. Each of them declares
that its preparations will be finished about the end
of 1897. Russia is building war-ships, England is
building war-ships, France is building war-ships, and
all will be finished about the end of 1897. All pre-
parations converge on the end of 1897. When all
are ready, they will begin. When newspapers write
about an immediate European war, I do not believe it.
There will be no European war for two years; but
356 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
after that there is no escape from it, — they have to
fight, and will fight. The war-ships will be ready,
the cannon will be ready, the guns will be ready, the
ammunition will be ready, the soldiers will be ready.
The cunning Sultan knows all this, and is in a
hurry to exterminate the Armenians, so that whe©
they start in earnest with guns to reform Armenia,
he can say there is no Armenia or Armenians to re-
form. But that makes no difference for the European
powers: Turkey is doomed, and the Turkish Empire
will come to an end forever within this century.
There will never be any more Turkish Empire or Mo-
hammedan governiiu'iit; all the Mohammedan powers
will be under Christian rule.
The second reason is my belief in the Bible prophe-
cies. The close resemblance of the Jews and Arme-
nians will be observed by the reader: both the
chosen people of God. The children of Israel
were the chosen ])oople before Christ, and as the Arme-
nians became the first Christian nation after Christ,
they became the chosen people after Christ. And
these chosen people have suffered more than any other
nations on the globe ; they have had more martyrs than
any other nation, and have been carried into captivity,
and finally scattered throughout the world. T^e
Bible lands are Palestine and Armenia, where the first
man, Adam, was created, and where Christ was born
and was crucified; and so these lands after ChristTlfe-
coming the first Christian lands, became the Temple
of God,
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. SoT
We have a prophecy in the eleventh chapter of
Revelation that the court of the Temple will be given
unto the Gentiles, and the Holy City shall they tread
under foot forty and two months; " and I will give
power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophecy
a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed
in sackcloth." (llev. xi, 2-3.)
Forty and two months and a thousand two hundred
and three score days are just the same thing. Each
day in the Bible prophecy is one year. According to
this interpretation, which I consider correct, the Holy
City will be trampled by the Gentiles one thousand,
two hundred and sixty years. Xow the question is this,
Where is the Holy City, and who are the Gent ilmw ho
will trample the Holy City ? First, the Holy City, is
both literally the Holy City before Christy and spirit-
ually the Holy City after Christ.
Literally, the Holy City is Jerusalem, where the
Temple of God was; this is very clear. Spiritually,
the Holy City is Christianity; wherever there are
Christians, there is the Holy City. But this is very
general, and takes the whole world after it is Chris-
tian. But before we come to that general Holy City,
we find in the third verse of the same chapter the fol-
lowing words: " I will give power unto my two wit-
nesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand, two hun-
dred and three score days, clothed in sackcloth." So
from these statements we find that two especial wit-
nesses in that Holy City, clothed in sackcloth, will tes-
tify. Who are these two witnesses ? My interpreta-
358 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
tion is that they are the two chosen peoples of God and
Christ. And the two chosen peoples are the Jews
and the Armenians. The Jews were the chosen peo-
ple before Christ, and the Armenians became the
chosen people after Christ, as King Abgarus, the Ar-
menian king, believed in Christ before Christ was
crucified, and afterwards, in the time of Gregory the
Illuminator, the whole Armenian nation became a
Christian nation, in 310 A. D. Before Palestine was
considered a holy country, Armenia was considered a
holy land, because the first man was created there, and
Noah's ark rested on Mount Ararat. And as the Ar-
inenians became the first Christian nation on the globe,
Palestine and Armenia were the holy countries or the
Holy City. Although this is so, after all the literal
Holy City, Jerusalem, remains a holy city; and she will
be after Christ, under the rule of Gentiles one thou-
sand two hundred and sixty years, while the two wit-
nesses will testify there under sackcloth for one thou-
sand two hundred and sixty years.
Now the question is this. How long is it since the
city of elerusalem was captured by the Gentiles, or
more correctly by the " beast that ascelideth out of
the bottomless pit " (Rev. ii. 7), which is the Moham-
medan power ? The Mohammedan power in dif-
ferent places in Pevelation is called the Beast, the
Dragon, the Whore or Harlot, and the False Prophet,
and it is the Gentile kingdom after Christ. And the
time which is given to the Mohammedan power to
rule, to destroy, and to kill the Jews and the Chris-
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 359
tiaus iu Jcriisaleiii or in the Bible lands, is only one
thousand two hundred and sixty years. Since the
city of Jerusalem was captured by the Mohammedans
is 1258 years, and when this present year and the next
come to an end in 1807, the Mohammedan power will
also come to an end, and the city of Jerusale m will j)e , ,
re stored to the Jew s, and Armenia to the Armenians. '
Towards the end of the Mohammedan power, Mo-
hammedans will begin to kill both the Jews and the
Armenians for three and a half years (see Rev. xi, 7,
8, 9). Now, for a year and a half the Mohammedans
have been killing the Christians, — wdiich the author
predicted two or three years ago; and they will kill
two years more. " And the sixth Angel poured out
his vial upon the Great River Euphrates and the water
thereof was dried up.'' (See Rev. xvi, 12.) That
means that the people on the shores of the Euphrates
were killed, namely the Armenians.
I am not writing a commentary on Revelation,
but simply bringing in a few passages to enlighten the
mind of the reader about the future of Armenia and
the battle of Armageddon.
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON.
(See Rev. xvi, 13-16.)
The battle of Armageddon is the final and the
greatest battle. All the nations will take part in it;
hut the leaders in the battle will be the ones I have
said, and the other wnll be their followers on the one
side or the other. And this battle will settle all the
questions which are not settled now. The great East-
360 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE. /
em question will be settled, the great question between
capital and labor will be settled, all the emperors and
czars, kings, and princes will come down from their
thrones, and permanent international arbitration will
be established. The questions which are asked now
will never be asked: AVhat do the emperors say ?
"What do the czars say ? What do the Sultans say ?
Men will ask then, What do the people say ? What is
the wish of the people ?
Then the question comes, where is Armageddon ?
Armageddon is xVrmenia. Of course this is entirely
a new interpretation to European and American schol-
ars; no one has ever been certain where Armageddon
is, but it is generally thought to be somewhere near
J erusalem , a little hill called Mount Megiddo. In the
time of Judges, " The kings came and fought, then
fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters
of Megiddo." (Judges v, 19.) But as a native of the
Bible lands, and as a native minister, I am positive
about it. The first question is, What does Armaged-
don mean ? It means the High Lands. Is there any
higher land in the Bible lands than Armenia ? The
main land is from 4,000 to 7,000 feet above the level
of the sea, and Mount Ararat is about 18,000 feet
high. Another question is. What does Armenia
mean ? It means precisely the high lands, as Ar-
mageddon does. Armenia took her name from King
Aram or Armenag; both mean high lands, or the
possessors of high lands; and Armenia also means the
high lands.
THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON. 361
Again, what does Ararat mean, which is just in
the center of Armenia proper ? It means the holy or
high land. JS'ow bring all together, Armageddon,
Armenia, Ararat, all mean just the same: high lands.
Not only high lands, but holy high lands. Long be-
fore Palestine was called a holy land, Armenia had
the name of Holy land, and the Armenians were called
the Highlanders.
In a word, Armageddon is the combination of
three different words, Armenia - Garden - Eden: Arm-
ageddon.
So the final battle will be fought in Armenia. The
nation with the greatest part will have the greatest
future. As man fell from grace in Armenia, man
will be restored to peace and holiness in Armenia.
And before that peace, holiness, and restoration come,
the greatest battle will be fought in Armenia. After
the fall of man, disgrace and curse went forth from
Armenia; so prosperity and blessings will come forth
from Armenia. As the first battle in the world was
fought in Armenia, between Cain and Abel, and the
other battles followed, so the last battle will be fought
in Armenia, and the universal peace will come out of
it. As the first martyrdom in the world was in Arme-
nia, so the last and greatest martyrdom will be in Ar-
menia. And from the blood of Armenian martyrs
everlasting happiness will follow to all nations. And
the kingdom of Christ will be established throughout
the world.
POEMS OX THE AEMEXIAK QUESTION.
[From the New York Independent, bv (special permission.]
LORD SALISBURY.
By the Rev. T. S. Perry.
*'0h! for a year, a month, a day of Oliver Cromwell." — Tlte
Independent.
*• What Lord Salisbuiy seems to lack is a little Cromwellian
courage." — A Speaker in City Temple, London.
1.
Oh! for an hour of Cromwell,
For a leader brave and grand
To guide the wrath, and point the path,
Of a mighty Christian land !
To heed the cry of innocent blood,
To blush for the world's disgrace,
With hand to deal a blow of steel
In the murderous Moslem's face !
Alas ! for a leader heedless
While massacred villages flame,
Unmoved by shrieks of maidenhood
At wrong too foul for name !
Strong to throttle the feeble,
Feeble to beard the strong,
With eye o'er-meek, and blanching cheek,
How long, O Lord, how long ?
(362)
POEMS ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION. 363
And women cover their faces,
And men are fain to liiss.
Cromweil's Iiead upon Tenipie Bar
Were a leader better tlian tliis !
And lieaven grows blaeli witli liorror,
And eartli grows red witli wrong,
And martyrs cry from eartli and sky,
How long, O Lord, bow long ?
Orange Park, Florida.
DEUS VULT.
By Allen Eastman Cross.
'* It is time that one general shout of execration — n^t of men,
but of deeds — one general shmit of execration, directed against deeds
of icickedness, should rise from outraged humanity." — Oladston^'s
Armenian address at Chester.
No tomb of death shall be our guest
Wherein the Lord of Life may rest.
No empty sepulcher of stone
Across the world makes bitter moan.
But Christian hearts that break and bleed
For our avenging pity plead.
O brothers, for our brothers' sake
Let the crusading spirit wake !
O Christian England, 'tis the Christ
By Moslem hands is sacrificed !
Away, away with hollow words.
Now sheath our speech, unsheath our sword !
God wills: The guns of Christendom
Proclaim the tyi-ant's doom has come !
Manchester, N. H.
364 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
TWO SONNETS.
By Henry Van Dyke.
Tlie Turk's Way.
" S' and back, ye messengers of mercy ! Stand
Far ofif, for I will save my troubled folk
In my own way." So the false Sultan spoke;
And Europe, barkening to his base command.
Stood still to see him heal his wounded land.
Through blinding snows of winter and through
smoke
Of burning towns she saw him deal the stroke
Of cruel mercy that his hate had planned.
Unto the prisoners and the sick he gave
New tortures, horrible, without a name;
Unto the thirsty, blood to drink; a sword
Unto the hungry; with a robe of shame
He clad the naked, making life abhorred.
He saved by slaughter, but denied a grave.
II.
America's Way.
But thou, my countiy, tho' no fault be thine
For that red horror far across the sea;
Tho' not a tortured wretch can point to thee,
And curse thee for the selfishness supine
Of those great powers who cowardly combine
To shield the Turk in his iniquity;
Yet, since thy hand is innocent and free,
Rise, thou, and show the world the way divine.
Thou canst not break the oppressor's iron rod,
But thou canst minister to the oppressed;
Thou canst not loose the captive's heavy chain.
But thou canst bind his wounds and soothe his pain.
Armenia calls thee, Empire of the West,
To play the Good Samaritan for God.
Nfew York City.
POE.MS ON tup: AUME^'IAN QUESTION. 365
TO THOSE WHO DIED FOR THEIR FAITH.
At-menia, 1894 to lS9—f
By Mrs. Merrill E. Gates.
" These loved their lives not, to the death ! "
But we at ease to-day, who claim
Allegiance to the One great Name,
Could we as nobly die for Faith ?
We challenge not the crucial test !
Self cannot prove to self its power
If e'er should come that testing hour
God give us grace to choose the Best !
But these have overcome ! Their Lord
In bitter death have not denied !
Have chosen still the Crucified
In face of bayonet and sword !
Our age heroic looms ! Our eyes
Behold white martyr brows ! Still hears
Our sin-gray world with unthrilled ears
Once more the martyr-chorus rise !
Come Thou to succor the great need !
Thy judgment shall not long delay !
God doeth his strange work to-day !
The Judge is at the door ! Take heed !
Amherst, Mass.
ARMENIA.
By Willimena L. Armstrong.
Out of storms and peace light, out of confusing tilings.
Bound in mysterious fashion by the bindings of blood
and hate,
Lo, are the Nations assembled now
At the Twentieth Century Gate.
Leaning beside the portal: Close ! in the name of God !
Over the Garden of Eden, in the evening of this our Day.
Over the breast of the Mountain old
Where the Ark of deliverance lay.
366 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Leaning beside tlie portal: Hark to the clashing arms I
Hark to the voice in the Garden, to the Nations of Earth
it calls,
"Bid! for the Woman is Christian blood;
And the sword and the bayonet falls ! "
Sold ! A Christian Woman ! Sold in the name of Christ!
Sold to her death in the Eden with its soil by her blood
made damp !
Sold in the eve of our Mighty Age !
With the light of our Age for a lamp !
New York City.
ARMENIA'S BITTER CRY.
By Hetta Lord Hayes Ward.
I.
World, world, hear our prayer
Oh where is Russia, where ?
A fearful deed is done,
Its glare affronts the sun.
Smoke ! Flame ! Fire !
Rouse thee, great Russian Sire !
When Christian homes are ablaze,
Hast thou no voice to raise ?
Thy neighbor to thee has cried.
Pass not on the other side.
Look on our dire despair !
Where art thou, Czar, oh, where ?
II.
Land of the sun and sea.
Wake, Rome and Italy !
Our ancient Church in vain
Calls thee to break her chain.
Shame ! Shame ! Shame !
Where sleeps thy early fame ?
To death our priests are led,
Their flocks lie slaughtered, dead.
Awake, good Pope of Rome !
Our saints through blood go home;
Hear thou their dying plea,
Where, where is Italy ?
Newark, N. J.
POEMS ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION. 367
III.
Land of Frateniite,
Brave France, turn not away !
Shall blood thy lilies stain ?
Wilt bear the curse of Cain ?
Wake ! Wake ! Wake !
For God and glory's sake !
On a ghastly funeral pyre.
Brave men are burned with fire;
God calls to France, the free,
" Thy brother, where is he V "
Lest God in wrath requite,
Awake, befriend the right !
IV.
Where is good Frederick's son
When evil deeds are done ?
Shall prisons reek and rot,
His mother's blood speak not ?
Haste ! Haste ! Haste !
Time runs too long to waste.
If halts the Kaiser dumb,
Let all the people come.
Your oath must sacred stand,
Treaties of Fatherland;
Victims of Turk and Kurd,
Rest on your plighted word.
V,
Your sisters' shame and blood
Cry out to England's God.
Slain on the church's floor,
Their blood flowed out the door.
Speak ! Speak ! Speak !
The strong must help the weak.
Leave Turkish bonds unsold;
Betray not Christ for gold.
Let the Moslem dragon feel
Once more Saint George's heel.
England, awake, awake !
W^orld, hear, for Jesus' sake !
368 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
ARMENIA.
By Geo. W. Crofts.
Tune : " Maryland, My Maryland."
Where'er thy martyr blood has run
Armenia !
Shed by the fierce Mohammedan,
Armenia !
There nations gather in their grief —
There would they bring in swift relief —
Oh, may thy agony be brief,
Armenia !
God's eye of pity glances down,
Armenia !
He sees thy rudely broken crown,
Armenia !
His heart is touched with all thy woes,
His mighty arm will interpose.
He'll save thee from thy cruel foes,
Armenia !
All o'er thy verdant plains shall spread,
Armenia !
The golden grain where thou hast bled,
Armenia !
Thy harvest song shall yet arise
To him who rules in yonder skies.
Whose ear has heard thy bitter cries,
Armenia !
America extends to thee,
Armenia !
The cordial of her sympathy,
Armenia !
And every soul in this free land
Would give to thee the helping hand.
And near thee in thy sorrow stand,
Armenia I
POEMS ON THE ARMENIAN QUESTION. 860
In this dark hour be brave and ■troug,
Anneuia !
The riijht shall triumph over wrong,
Armeuia I
'Twill not be long till thou shalt see
The glorious dawn of liberty,
When thou shalt be forever free,
Armenia !
ARMENIAN HYMN.
By Alice Stone Blackwell.
[From the Armenian of Nerses the Graceful ; born 1102, died 117S.]
O Dayspring, Sun of righteousness, shine forth with light
for me !
Treasure of mercy, let my soul thy hidden riches see !
Thou before whom the thoughts of men lie open in thy
sight,
Unto my soul, now dark and dim, grant thoughts that
shine with light !
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Almighty One in Three,
Care-taker of all creatures, have pity upon me !
Awake, O Lord, awake to help, with grace and power
divine;
Awaken those who slumber now, like Heaven's host to
shine !
O Lord and Saviour, life-giver, unto the dead give life,
And raise up those that have grown weak and stumbled
in the strife !
O Skillful Pilot : Lamp of light, that burneth bright
and clear !
Strength and assurance grant to me, now hid away in
fear.
O Thou that makest old things new, renew me and adorn;
Rejoice we with salvation. Lord, for which I Inly mourn.
Giver of good, unto my sins be thy forgiveness given !
Lead Thy disciples, Heavenly King, unto the flocks of
Heaven.
24
370 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
Defeat the evil husbandman that soweth tares and weeds;
Wither and kill in me the fruits of all his evil seeds !
O Lord, gi-ant water to my eyes, that they may shed
warm tears
To cleanse and wash away the sin that in my soul ap-
pears !
On me, now hid in shadow deep, shine forth, O glory
bright !
Sweet juice, quench thou my soul's keen thirst ! Show
me the path of light !
Jesus, whose name is love, with love crush thou my
stony heart;
Bedew my spirit with thy blood, and bid my griefs depart !
O thou that even in fancy art so sweet, Lord Jesus Christ,
Grant that with Thy reality my soul may be sutficed !
When thou shalt come again to earth, and all thy glory
see.
Upon that dread and awful day, O Christ, remember me!
Thou that redeemest men from sin, O Saviour, I implore,
Redeem him who now praiseth Thee, to praise Thee ever-
more.
Dorchester, Mass.
Miss Alice Stone Blackwell is a noble Boston
woman who is greatly interested in the Armenians.
She has written many articles and poems, and done
much toward arousing public sentiment throughout
the United States in behalf of the Armenians.
The author of this book esteems it a privilege to
oifer his personal thanks, as well as those of his per-
secuted nation, to Miss Blackwell, by whose kind per-
mission the following poems from her book, " Ar-
menian Poems," are here reprinted.
POEMS ON THE AHMENIAM QUESTION. 371
THE LAiVIENT OF MOTHER ARMENIA.
In alien lands they roam, my children dear;
Where shall I make apiK^al, with none to hear ?
Where shall I find them ? Far away from me
My son.s serve others, thralls in slavery.
Chorus.
Oh, come, my children, back to me !
Come home, your motherland to see !
II.
Ajrds have passed, no news of them I hear;
Dead, dead are they, my sons tJiat knew not fear.
I weep, the blood is frozen in my veins:
No one will cure my sorrows and my pains.
Chorus.
III.
My blood is failing and my heart outworn,
My face forever mournful and forlorn;
To my dark grave with grief 1 shall descend.
Longing to see my children to the end.
Chorus.
O wandering shepherd, you whose mournful song
Rings through the valleys as you pass along !
Come, let us both, with many a bitter tear.
Weep for the sad death of our children dear !
Chorus.
Crane of the fatherland, fly far away.
Fly out of sight, beyond the setting day:
My last sad greetings to my children bear.
For my life's hope has died into despair !
Chorus.
372 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
LIBERTY.
^tichael Ghazarian Nalbandian was born in Russian Armenia in 1830; graduated
at the University of St. Petersburg with the title of Professor ; was active as a
teacher, author, and journalist ; fell under suspicion for his political opinions,
and underwent a rigorous imprisonment of three years, after which he was exiled
to the province of Sarakov, and died there, in 18(3(3, of lung disease contracted
ill prison. It is forbidden in Russia to possess a picture of Nalbandian ; but
portraits of him, with his poem on "Liberty" printed around the margin, are
circulated secretly.
I.
When God, who is forever free.
Breathed life into my earthlj' frame, —
From that first day, by his free will
When I a living soul became, —
A babe upon my mother's breast,
Ere power of speech was given to me,
Even then I stretched my feeble arms
Forth to embrace thee, Liberty!
II.
Wrapped round with many swaddling bands,
All night I did not cease to weep.
And in the cradle, restless still,
My cries disturbed my mother's sleep.
" O mother ! " in my heart I prayed,
" Unbind my arms and leave me free ! "
And even from that hour I vowed
To love thee ever, Liberty !
III.
When first my faltering tongue was freed.
And when my parents' liearts were stirred
With thrilling joy to hear their son
Pronounce his first clear-spoken word,
" Papa, mammn," as children use,
Wei-e not the names first said by me;
The first word on my childish lips
Was thy great name, O Liberty !
I'OKMS oN THE ARMENIAN QUESTION. 373
IV.
Liberty answered from on hi^xli
The sovereijjn voice of Destiny:
" Wilt tliou enroll thyself hencelorth
A soldier true of Liberty V
The path is thorny all the way,
And many trials wait for thee;
Too strait and narrow is this world
For him wlio loveth Lil)erty. "
V.
" Freedom ! " I answered. " on my head
Let fire descend and thnnder burst;
Let foes ajjainst my life conspire.
Let all who hate thee do their worst:
1 will be true to thee till death:
Yea, even upon the gallows tree
The last breath of a death of shame
Shall shout thy name. () Liberty!"
THE WANDERING ARMENIAN TO THE SWALLOW.
By C. a. ToTOCiriAN.
O swallow, f?entle swallow,
Thou lovely bird of sprinjj !
Say, whither art thou flyinj;
So swift on jjleaminj? wing ?
IT.
Fly to my birthplace. Ashdarag,
The spot I love the best;
' Beneath my father's roof-tree,
O swallow, build thy nest.
III.
There dwells afar my father,
A mournful man and gray.
Who for his only son's return
Waits vainly, day by day.
374 ARMENIA AND HER PEOPLE.
IV.
If thou shouldst chance to see him,
Greet him with love from me;
Bid him sit clown and mourn with tears
His son's sad destiny.
V.
In poverty and loneliness,
Tell him, my days are j^assed:
My life is only half a life,
My tears are falling fast.
VT.
To me, amid bri^erht daylight,
The sun is dark at noon;
To my wet eyes at midnight
Sleep comes not, late or soon.
VII.
Tell him that, like a l)eauteous flower
Smit by a cruel doom.
Uprooted from my native soil,
I wither ere mj* bloom.
VIII.
Fly on swift wing, dear swallow,
Across the quickening earth.
And seek in fair Armenia
The village of my birth.
NOTICE.
The author of this book delivers lectures on the following
subjects :
Akmekia, Armenians, and tuk recent Atrocities.
The Sultan of Turkey, Hamid the II.
American Missions in Turkey.
Social and Political Like in Turkey.
About 400 stereopticon views, as well as large maps, and
costumes are used to illustrate the various lectures, which are
highly instructive and entertaining, and never fail of interesting
the most critical audiences.
The lectures are delivered upon very reasonable terms. For
particulars address, Rev. GEO. H. FILIAN,
Cor. Eastern Parkway and Gresent St., Brooklyn, N. Y.
From the testimonials of prominent clergymen, authors, and
secretaries of Y. M. C. A.'s, the following few are selected.
From Dr. R. S. Storrs, President of the American Board
of Foreign Hissions.
Your address to my congregation wan admirable in it» tone, and its entire
impression upon those who heard it. Your knowledge of the facts presented is,
of course, accurate and complete ; and your method of presenting the facts is
clear, impressive, and leaves the minds instructed and the hearts quickened.
From the Faculty of Chicago Theological Seminary.
This will introduce to you Rev. George H. Filian, a graduate of this Semi-
nary, a man of true character and devotion. He has been obliged to suspend
work for a time in Turkey, owing to his faithfulness in preaching the truth, and
18 recommended to the consideration of Christians throughout America.
By order of the Faculty, H. N. Scott, Secretary.
From Prof. G. B. Wilcox, D.D., Chicago Theological
Seminary.
Rev. Q. H. Filian, a graduate of this Seminary in 1882, and since pastor of
Armenian Evangelical Church, Marsovan, Turkey, is lecturing on Turkish
missions and Turkish manners and customs. He is an erceptumally able speaker,
and may with all confidence be introduced by any pastor to his congregation.
I speak from long and intimate acquaintance. G. B. Wuxrox.
(375)
From Rev. John H. Barrows, D.D., Pastor First
Presbyterian Church.
Rev. Geo. H. Filiau, of Syria, lectlued on Constantinople to my people last
night, greatly interesting them. His illustrations are excellent, and he speaks
with great enthusiasm. The evening's entertainment was very wholesome, and
I cordially commend his worthy lecture. My people have heard him also with
pleasure on "Social Life in Turkey."
From the Department Secretary Y. fl. C- A. of Chicago,
Illinois.
Rev. Geo. H. Filian delivered before one of la^ir meetings his interesting lecture
on " Missions in Turkey." I have never heard a speaker more .interesting, and
that held the attention of the audience in a greater measure than Mr. Filian. He
is intelligent upon such a subject. He is versatile in .expression, enthusiastic in
delivery, and certainly very devout in heart. * Daniel Sloan.
From the Secretary in charge Central Building, Y. fl. C. A.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rev. Geo. H. Filian gave his stereopticon lecture on " Constantinople " be-
fore our young men last night, and I am pleased to say that it is a lecture of rare
interest and enjoyment The views are beautiful and very instructive, as they
are rarely thrown upon a screen. Mr. Filian has the advantage of speaking
from actual experience, and his eloquent words, devoted spirit, and fund of
humor quickly win the .attention and sympathy of any audience.
Arthur B. Wood.
From Rev. Henry Van Dylce, D.D., Pastor of the Bricic
Church, New Yorlc.
Your lecture before our Young Men's Society on Monday was a decided suc-
cess. Every one was interested in what you had to say, and the pictures were
excellent. We shall be glad when the time comes to have you with us again.
From Rev. George fl. Stone, D.D., Hartford.
Mr. Filian is thoroughly intelligent on the whole Eastern question, and gives
a view of Armenia and its present trial which is exceedingly valuable.
From A. C. Dixon, D.D., Pastor Hanson Place Baptist
Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Rev. George H. Filian has lectured twice in the Hanson Place Baptist church,
and it gives me pleasure to 'say that his lectures are interesting and instructive.
They stir the heart to work and pray for the. relief of persecuted Armenia.
From Louis Albert Banks, D.D., Pastor of Hanson Place
n. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
I take great pleasure in saying that the Rev. Geo. H. Filian. who has spoken
from the platform at Hanson Place M. E. church in behalf of the Armenian
Christians, and also lectured in our church on Constantinople, is a very eloquent
and earnest speaker, who will attract attention and arouse interest anywhere.
(376)
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LD21A-50W-3
.General Library
Umversity of California
YB 26508