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MARTYRED ARMENIA 
 
 BY 
 
 FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN 
 
 Bedouin Notable of Damascus 
 
 Translated from the Original Arabic 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 MCDXVIII 
 PRICE 25 CENTS 
 
MARTYRED ARMENIA 
 
MARTYRED 
 ARMENIA 
 
 BY 
 
 FA'IZ EL-GHUSEIN 
 
 BEDOUIN NOTABLE OF DAMASCUS 
 
 Translated from the Original Arabic 
 All Rights of Translation Reserved 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 MCMXVIII 
 

FOEEWOED 
 
 I AM a Bedouin, a son of one of the Heads of 
 the tribe of El-Sulut, who dwell in El-Lejat, in 
 the Hauran territory. Like other sons of tribal 
 Chiefs. I entered the Tribal School at Constanti- 
 nople, and subsequently the Eoyal College. On 
 the completion of my education, I was attached to 
 the staff of the Vali of Syria (or Dar.ascus), on 
 which I remained for a long while. I was then 
 Kaimakam of Mamouret-el-Aziz (Kharpout), hold- 
 ing this post for three and a half years, after which 
 I practised as a lawyer at Damascus, my partners 
 being Shukri Bey El-Asli and Abdul- Wahhab Bey 
 El-Ingiizi. I next became a member of the General 
 Assembly at that place, representing Hauran, and 
 later a member of the Committee of that Assembly. 
 On the outbreak of the war, I was ordered to resume 
 my previous career, that is, the duties of Kaimakam, 
 but I did not comply, as I found the practice of 
 the law more advantageous in many ways and more 
 tranquil. 
 
 I was denounced by an informer as being a 
 delegate of a Society constituted in the Lebanon 
 with the object of achieving the independence of the 
 Arab people, under the protection of England and 
 France, and of inciting the tribes against the 
 Turkish Government. On receipt of this denuncia- 
 tion, I was arrested by the Government, thrown into 
 prison, and subsequently sent in chains, with a 
 
vi Foreword 
 
 company of police and gendarmes, to Aaliya, where 
 persons accused of political offences were tried. I 
 was acquitted, but as the Government disregarded 
 the decisions given in such cases, and was resolved 
 on the removal and destruction of all enlightened 
 Arabs — whatever the circumstances might be — it 
 was thought necessary that I should be despatched 
 to Erzeroum, and Jemal Pasha sent me thither with 
 an officer and ^ve of the regular troops. When I 
 reached Diarbekir, Hasan Kaleh, at Erzeroum, 
 was being pressed by the Eussians, and the Vali of 
 Diarbekir was ordered to detain me at that place. 
 After twenty-two days' confinement in prison 
 for no reason, I was released; I hired a 
 house and remained at Diarbekir for six and 
 a half months, seeing and hearing from the 
 most reliable sources all that took place in regard 
 to the Armenians, the majority of my informants 
 being superior officers and officials, or Notables of 
 Diarbekir and its dependencies, as well as others 
 from Van, Bitlis, Mamouret-el-Aziz, Aleppo and 
 Erzeroum. The people of Van had been in Diar- 
 bekir since the occupation of their territory by the 
 Eussians, whilst the people and officials of Bitlis had 
 recently emigrated thither. Many of the Erzeroum 
 officers came to Diarbekir on military or private 
 business, whilst Mamouret-el-Aziz was near by, and 
 many people came to us from thence. As I had 
 formerly been a Kaimakam in that Vilayet, I had a 
 large acquaintance there and heard all the news. 
 More especially, the time which I passed in prison 
 with the heads of the tribes in Diarbekir enabled me 
 to study the movement in its smallest details. The 
 war must needs come to an end after a while, and 
 
Foreword vii 
 
 it will then be plain to readers of this book that all 
 1 have written is the truth, and that it contains only 
 a small part of the atrocities committed by the 
 Turks against the hapless Armenian people. 
 
 After passing this time at Diarbekir I fled, both 
 to escape from captivity and from fear induced by 
 what had befallen me from some of the fanatical 
 Turks. After great sufferings, during which I was 
 often exposed to death and slaughter, I reached 
 Basra, and conceived the idea of publishing this 
 book, as a service to the cause of truth and of a 
 people oppressed by the Turks, and also, as I have 
 stated at the close, to defend the faith of Islam 
 against the cuarge of fanaticism which will be 
 brought against it by Europeans. May God guide 
 us in the right way. 
 
 / have written this preface at Bombay, on the 
 1st of September, 1916. 
 
 fI'IZ EL-GHUSEIN. 
 
MARTYRED ARMENIA 
 
MARTYRED ARMENIA 
 
 THE NAEEATIVE 
 
 OUTLINE OF Armenian History. — In past ages 
 the Armenian race was, like other nations, 
 not possessed of an autonomous government, until 
 God bestowed upon them a man, named Haig, a bold 
 leader, who united the Armenians and formed them 
 into an independent state. This took place before 
 the Christian era. The nation preserved their inde- 
 pendence for a considerable time, reaching the high- 
 est point of their glory and prosperity under their 
 king Dikran, who constituted the city of Dikranok- 
 erta — Diarbekir — the capital of his Government. 
 Armenia remained independent in the time of the 
 Romans, extending her rule over a part of Asia 
 Minor and Syria, and a portion of Persia, but, in 
 consequence of the protection afforded by the Ar- 
 menians to certain kings who were hostile to Rome, 
 the Romans declared war against her, their troops 
 entered her capital, and from that time Armenian 
 independence was lost. The country remained toss- 
 ing on the waves of despotism, now independent, 
 now subjected to foreign rule, until its conquest 
 by the Arabs and subsequently by the Ottoman 
 power. 
 
 The Armenian Population. — The number of the 
 
2 Martyred Armenia 
 
 Armenians in Ottoman territory does not exceed 
 1,900,000 souls. I have borrowed this figure from a 
 book by a Turkish writer, who states that it is the 
 official computation made by the Government pre- 
 vious to the Balkan war ; he estimates the Armeni- 
 ans residing in Eoumelia at 400,000, those in Otto- 
 man Asia at 1,500,000. The Armenians in Eussia 
 and Persia are said not to exceed 3,000,000, thus 
 bringing the total number of Armenians in the world 
 to over four and a half millions. 
 
 The Vilayets Inhabited by Armenians. — -The 
 Vilayets inhabited by Armenians are Diarbekir, 
 Van, Bitlis, Erzeroum, Mamouret-el-Aziz, Sivas, 
 Adana, Aleppo, Trebizond, Broussa, and Constan- 
 tinople. The numbers in Van, Bitlis, Adana, Diar- 
 bekir, Erzeroum, and Kharpout were greater than 
 those in the other Vilayets, but in all cases they 
 were fewer than the Turks and Kurds, with the ex- 
 ception of Van and Bitlis, where they were equal or 
 superior in number. In the province of Moush (Vil- 
 ayet of Bitlis) they were more numerous than the 
 Kurds; all industry and commerce in those parts 
 was in Armenian hands ; their agriculture was more 
 prosperous; they were much more advanced than 
 the Turks and Kurds in those Vilayets; and the 
 large number of their schools, contrasted with the 
 few schools of their alien feUow countrymen, is a 
 proof of their progress and of the decline of the 
 other races. 
 
 Armenian Societies. — The Armenians possess 
 learned and political Societies, the most important 
 of which are the ^'Tashnagtzian'* and the *^Hun- 
 chak.'' The programme of these two Societies is 
 to make every effort and adopt ^very means to 
 
Martyred Armenia 8 
 
 attain that end from which no Armenian ever 
 swerves, namely, administrative independence 
 under the supervision of the Great Powers of 
 Europe. I have enquired of many Armenians whom 
 I have met, but 1 have not found one who said that 
 he desired political independence, the reason being 
 that in most of the Vilayets which they inhabit the 
 Armenians are less numerous than the Kurds, and 
 if they became independent the advantage to the 
 Kurds would be greater than to themselves. Hith- 
 erto, the Kurds have beon in a very degraded state 
 of ignorance ; disorder is supreme in their territory, 
 and the cities are in ruins. The Armenians, there- 
 fore, prefer to remain under Turkish rule, on con- 
 dition that the administration is carried on under 
 the supervision of the Great European Powers, as 
 they place no confidence in the promises of the 
 Turks, who take back to-day what they bestowed 
 yesterday. These two Societies thus earnestly 
 labour for the propagation of this view amongst the 
 Armenians, and for the attainment of their object 
 by every means. I have been told by an Armenian 
 officer that one of these Societies proposes to attain 
 its end by means of internal revolts, but the policy 
 of the second is to do so by peaceful means only. 
 
 The above is a brief summary of the policy of 
 these Societies. It is said, however, that the pro- 
 gramme of one of them aims at Armenian political 
 independence. 
 
 Any who desire further details as to Armenian 
 history or societies should refer to their historical 
 books. 
 
 The Armenian Massacres. — History does not re- 
 cord that the Kurds, fellow-countrymen of the Ar- 
 
4 Martyred Armenia 
 
 menians in the Vilayets inhabited by both peoples, 
 rose in confli<?t with the latter, or that the Kurds 
 plundered the property of the Armenians, or out- 
 raged their women, until the year 1888, when they 
 rose by order of the Turkish Government and 
 slaughtered Armenians in Van,, Kharpout, Erze- 
 roum, and Moush. Again, in the time of Abdul- 
 Hamid II., in 1896, when the Armenians rose and en- 
 tered the Ottoman Bank at Constantinople, with the 
 object of frightening the Sultan and compelling him 
 to proclaim the Constitution, he ordered a mas- 
 sacre at Constantinople and in the Vilayets. But 
 hitherto there has been no instance of the people of 
 Turkey proceeding to the slaughter of Armenians 
 on a general scale unless incited and constrained to 
 do so by the Government. In the massacre of 1896, 
 15,000 were killed in Constantinople itself, and 
 300,000 in the Vilayets. 
 
 Armenians were also killed in the Vilayet of 
 Adana, some months after the proclamation of the 
 Constitution, but this slaughter did not extend be- 
 yond the two Vilayets of Adana and Aleppo, where 
 the influence of Abdul-Hamid was paramount till 
 the year 1909. I do not, however, find any detailed 
 account of this massacre, or any information as to 
 the numbers killed. 
 
 The goods and cattle of the Armenians were 
 plundered, and their houses wrecked, more espe- 
 cially in the slaughter of 1896, but many of their 
 countrymen* protected them and concealed them in 
 their houses from the officials of the Government. 
 
 The Government consistently inflamed the Mos- 
 
 Presumablj. amongst the Turks and Kurds. — Translator. 
 
Martyred Armenia 5 
 
 lem Kurds and Turks against them, making use of 
 the Faith of Islam as a means to attain their object 
 in view of the ignorance of the Mohammedans as to 
 the true laws of their religion. 
 
 Declaration of the Ottoman Government. — 
 '^Inasmuch as the Armenians are committing acts 
 opposed to the laws and taking advantage of all 
 occasions to disturb the Government; as they have 
 been found in possession of prohibited arms, bombs, 
 and explosive materials, prepared with the object 
 of internal revolt; as they have killed Moslems in 
 Van, and have aided the Eussian armies at a time 
 when the Government is in a state of war with 
 England, France, and Russia; and in the apprehen- 
 sion that the Armenians may, as is their habit, lend 
 themselves to seditious tumult and revolt; the Gov- 
 ernment have decreed that all the Armenians shall 
 be collected and despatched to the Vilayets of Mosul, 
 Syria, and Deir-el-Zur, their persons, goods and 
 honour being safeguarded. The necessary orders 
 have been given for ensuring their comfort, and for 
 their residence in those territories until the termi- 
 nation of the war." 
 
 Such is the official declaration of the Ottoman 
 Government in regard to the Armenians. But the 
 secret resolution was that companies of militia 
 should be formed to assist the gendarmes in the 
 slaughter of the Armenians, that these should be 
 killed to the last man, and that the work of murder 
 and destruction should take place under the super- 
 vision of trusty agents of the Unionists, who were 
 known for their brutality. Reshid Bey was ap- 
 pointed to the Vilayet of Diarbekir and invested 
 with extensive powers, having at his disposal a gang 
 
6 Martyred Armenia 
 
 of notorious murderers, such as Ahmed Bey El- 
 Serzi, Euslidi Bey, Khalil Bey, and others of this 
 description. 
 
 The reason for this decision, as it was alleged, 
 was that the Armenians residing in Europe and 
 in Egj^pt had sent twenty of their devoted partisans 
 to kill Talaat, Enver, and others of the Unionist 
 leaders; the attempt had failed, as a certain Ar- 
 menian, a traitor to his nation and a friend of Bedri 
 Bey, the Chief of the Public Security at Constanti- 
 nople (or according to others, Azmi Bey), divulged 
 the matter and indicated the Armenian agents, who 
 had arrived at Constantinople. The latter were 
 arrested and executed, but secretly, in order that it 
 might not be said that there were men attempting 
 to kill the heads of the Unionist Society. 
 
 Another alleged reason also was that certain 
 Armenians, whom the Government had collected 
 from the Vilayets of Aleppo and Adrianople and 
 had sent off to complete their military service, fled, 
 with their arms, to Zeitonn^ where they assembled, 
 to the number of sixty young men, and commenced 
 to resist the Government and to attack wayfarers. 
 The Government despatched a military force under 
 Fakhry Pasha, who proceeded to the spot, destroyed 
 a part of Zeitoun, and killed men, women and chil- 
 dren, without encountering opposition an the part 
 of the Armenians. He collected the men and women 
 and sent them off with parties of troops, who killed 
 many of the men, whilst as for the women, do not 
 ask what was their fate. They were delivered over 
 to the Ottoman soldiery ; the children died of hunger 
 and thirst ; not a man or woman reached Syria ex- 
 cept the halt and blind, who were unable to keep 
 
Martyred Armenia 7 
 
 themselves alive; the young men were all slaugh- 
 tered; and the good-looking women fell into the 
 hands of the Turkish youths. 
 
 Emigrants from Roumelia were conveyed to 
 Zeitoun and established there, the name of that place 
 being changed to ^^Keshadiya," so that nothing 
 should remain to remind the Turks of the Armenian 
 name. During our journey from Hamah we saw 
 many Armenian men and women, sitting under small 
 tents which they had constructed from sheets, rugs, 
 etc. Their condition was most pitiable, and how 
 could it be otherwise! Many of these had been used 
 to sit only on easy chairs [lit., rocking-chairs], amid 
 luxurious furniture, in houses built in the best style, 
 well arranged and splendidly furnished. I saw, as 
 others saw also, many Armenian men and women 
 in goods-wagons on the railway between Aleppo 
 and Hamah, herded together in a way which moved 
 compassion. 
 
 After my arrival at Aleppo, and two days^ stay 
 there, we took the train to a place called Ser-Arab- 
 Pounari. I was accompanied by five Armenians, 
 closely guarded, and despatched to Diarbekir. We 
 walked on our feet thence to Seruj, where we 
 stopped at a Jchdn [rest-house] filled with Armenian 
 women and children, with a few sick men. These 
 women were in a deplorable state, as they had done 
 the journey from Erzeroum on foot, taking a long 
 while to arrive at Seruj. I talked with them in 
 Turkish, and they told me that the gendarmes with 
 them had brought them to places where there was 
 no water, refusing to tell them where water was to 
 be found until they had received money as the price. 
 Some of them, who were pregnant, had given birth 
 
8 Martyred Armenia 
 
 on the way, and had abandoned their infants in the 
 uninhabited wastes. Most of these women had left 
 their children behind, either in despair, or owing to 
 illness or weakness which made them unable to carry 
 them, so they threw them on the ground ; some from 
 natural affection could not do this and so perished 
 in the desert, not parted from their infants. They 
 told me that there were some among them who had 
 not been used to walk for a single hour, having been 
 brought up in luxury, with men to wait on them and 
 women to attend them. These had fallen into the 
 hands of the Kurds, who recognize no divine law, 
 and who live on lofty mountains and in dense forests 
 like beasts of prey; their honour was outraged and 
 they died by brutal violence, many of them, killing 
 themselves rather than sacrifice their virtue to these 
 ravening wolves. 
 
 We then proceeded in carts from Seruj to El-Raha 
 (Urfa). On the way I saw crowds going on foot, 
 whom from a distance I took for troops marching 
 to the field of battle. On approaching, I found they 
 were Armenian women, walking barefoot and weary, 
 placed in ranks like the gendarmes who preceded 
 and followed them. Whenever one of them lagged 
 behind, a gendarme would beat her with the butt of 
 his rifle, throwing her on her face, till she rose ter- 
 rified and rejoined her companions. But if one 
 lagged from sickness, she was either abandoned, 
 alone in the wilderness, without help or comfort, to 
 be a prey to wild beasts, or a gendarme ended her 
 life by a bullet. 
 
 On arrival at Urfa, we learned that the Govern- 
 ment had sent a force of gendarmes and police to 
 the Armenian quarters of the town to collect their 
 
Martyi^ed Armenia 9 
 
 arms, subsequently dealing with these people as with 
 others. As they were aware of what had happened 
 to their kinsmen — the khans at Urfa being full of 
 women and children — they did not give up their 
 arms, but showed armed resistance, killing one man 
 of the police and three gendarmes. The authorities 
 of Urfa applied for a force from Aleppo, and by 
 order of Jemal Pasha — the executioner of Syria — 
 Fakhry Pasha came with, cannon.. He turned the 
 Armenian quarters into a waste place, killing the 
 men and the children, and great numbers of the 
 women, except such as yielded themselves to share 
 the fate of their sisters — expulsion on foot to Deir- 
 el-Zur, after the Pasha and his officers had selected 
 the prettiest amongst them. Disease was raging 
 among them; they were outraged by the Turks and 
 Kurds; and hunger and thirst completed their ex- 
 termination. 
 
 After leaving Urfa, we again saw throngs of 
 women, exhausted by fatigue and misery, dying of 
 hunger and thirst, and we saw the bodies of the dead 
 lying by the roadside. 
 
 On our arrival at a place near a village called 
 Kara Jevren, about six hours distant from Urfa, we 
 stopped at a spring to breakfast and drink. I went 
 a little apart, towards the source, and came upon a 
 most appalling spectacle. A woman, partly un- 
 clothed, was lying prone, her chemise disordered 
 and red with blood, with four bullet-wounds in her 
 breast. I could not restrain myself, but wept bit- 
 terly. As I drew out a handkerchief to wipe away 
 my tears, and looked round to see whether any of 
 my companions had observed me, I saw a child not 
 more than eight years old, lying on his face, his head 
 
10 Martyred Armenia 
 
 cloven by an axe. This made my grief the more 
 vehement, but my companions cut short my lamenta- 
 tions, for I heard the officer, Aarif Eifendi, calling 
 to the priest Isaac, and saying, ^^Come here at 
 once,^' and I knew that he had seen something which 
 had startled him. I went towards him, and what 
 did I behold? Three children lying in the water, in 
 terror of their lives from the Kurds, who had 
 stripped them of their clothes and tortured them 
 in various ways, their mother near by, moaning 
 with pain and hunger. She told us her story, saying 
 that she was from Erzeroum, and had been brought 
 by the troops to this place with many other women 
 after a journey of many days. After they had been 
 plundered of money and clothing, and the prettiest 
 women had been picked out and handed over to the 
 Kurds, they reached this place, where Kurdish men 
 and women collected and robbed them of all the 
 clothes that remained on them. She herself had 
 stayed here, as she was sick and her children would 
 not leave her. The Kurds came upon them again 
 and left them naked. The children had lain in the 
 water in their terror, and she was at the point of 
 death. The priest collected some articles of cloth- 
 ing and gave them to the wopaan and the children; 
 the officer sent a man to the post of gendarmes which 
 was near by, and ordered the gendarme whom the 
 man brought with him to send on the woman and 
 children to Urfa, and to bury the bodies which were 
 near the guardhouse. The sick woman told me that 
 the dead woman refused to yield herself to outrage, 
 so they killed her and she died nobly, chaste and 
 pure from defilement; to induce her to yield they 
 
Martyred Armenia 11 
 
 killed her son beside her, but she was firm in her re- 
 solve and died heart-broken. 
 
 In the afternoon we went on towards Kara Jev- 
 ren, and one of the drivers pointed out to us some 
 high mounds, surrounded by stones and rocks, say- 
 ing that here Zohrab and Vartakis had been killed, 
 they having been leading Notables among the Ar- 
 menians, and their Deputies. 
 
 Krikor Zohrab and Vartakis. — No one is igno- 
 rant of who and what wcs Zohrab, the Armenian 
 Deputy for Constantinople, his name and repute 
 being celebrated after the institution of the Cham- 
 ber. He used to speak with learning and reflection, 
 refuting objections by powerful arguments and con- 
 vincing proofs. His speeches in the Chamber were 
 mostly conclusive. He was learned in all subjects, 
 but especially in the science of law, as he was a 
 graduate of universities and had practised at the 
 Bar for many years. He was endowed with elo- 
 quence and great powers of exposition; he was 
 courageous, not to be turned from his purpose or 
 intimidated from pursuing his national aims. When 
 the Unionists realised that they were deficient in 
 knowledge, understanding nothing about polity or 
 administration, and not aware of the meaning of 
 liberty or constitutional government, they resolved 
 to return to the system of their Tartar forefathers, 
 the devastation of cities and the slaughter of inno- 
 cent men, as it was in that direction that their pow- 
 ers lay. They sent Zohrab and his colleague Var- 
 takis away from Constantinople, with orders that 
 they should be killed on the way, and it was an- 
 nounced that they had been murdered by a band of 
 brigands. They killed them in order that it might 
 
12 Martyred Armenia 
 
 not be said that Armenians were more powerful, 
 more learned, and more intelligent than Turks. 
 Why should such bands murder none but Armeni- 
 ans? The falsity of the statement is obvious. 
 
 Zohrab and Vartakis fell victims to their own 
 courage and firmness of purpose; they were killed 
 out of envy of their learning and their love for their 
 own people, and for their tenacity in pursuing their 
 own path. They were killed by that villain, Ahmed 
 El-Serzi, one of the sworn men of the Unionists, he 
 who murdered Zeki Bey; Ms story in the Ottoman 
 upheaval is well known, and how the Unionists saved 
 him from his fitting punishment and even from 
 prison. A Kurd told me that Vartakis was one of 
 the boldest and most courageous men who ever 
 lived; he was chief of the Armenian bands in the 
 time of Abdul-Hamid; he was wounded in the foot 
 by a cannon-ball whilst the Turkish troops were 
 pursuing these bands, and was imprisoned either at 
 Erzeroum or at Maaden, in the Vilayet of Diarbekir. 
 The Sultan Abdul-Hamid, through his officials, 
 charged him to modify his attitude and acknowledge 
 that he had been in error, when he should be par- 
 doned and appointed to any post he might choose. 
 He rejected this offer, saying, ^^I will not sell my 
 conscience for a post, or say that the Government of 
 Abdul-Hamid is just, whilst I see its tyranny with 
 my eyes and touch it with my hand. ' ' 
 
 It is said that the Unionists ordered that all the 
 Armenian Deputies should be put to death, and the 
 greater number of them were thus dealt with. It is 
 reported also that Dikran Gilikian, the well-known 
 writer, who was an adherent of the Committee of 
 Union and Progress, was killed in return for his 
 
Martyred Armenia 13 
 
 learning, capacity, and devotion to their cause. Such 
 was the recompense of his services to the Unionists. 
 
 In the evening we arrived at Kara Jevren, and 
 slept there till morning. At sunrise we went on 
 towards Sivrek, and half-way on the road we saw 
 a terrible spectacle. The corpses of the killed were 
 lying in great numbers on both sides of the road; 
 here we saw a woman outstretched on the ground, 
 her body half veiled by her long hair ; there, women 
 lying on their faces, the dried blood blackening their 
 delicate forms; there again, the corpses of men, 
 parched to the semblance of charcoal by the heat of 
 the sun. As we approached Sivrek, the corpses be- 
 came more numerous, the bodies of children being in 
 a great majority. As we arrived at Sivrek and left 
 our carts, we saw one of the servants of the khan 
 carrying a little infant with hair as yellow as gold, 
 whom he threw behind the house. We asked him 
 about it, and he said that there were three sick 
 Armenian women in the house, who had lagged be- 
 hind their companions, that one of them had given 
 birth to this infant, but could not nourish it, owing 
 to her illness. So it had died and been thrown out, 
 as one might throw out a mouse. 
 
 Demand for Eansom. — ^Whilst we were at Sivrek, 
 Aarif Effendi told me— after he had been at the 
 Government offices— that the Commandant of Gen- 
 darmerie and the Chief of Police of that place had 
 requested him to hand over to them the five 
 Armenians who were with him, and that on his 
 refusal they had insisted, saying that, if they were 
 to reach Diarbekir in safety, they must pay a ransom 
 of fifty liras for themselves. We went to the khan, 
 where the officer summoned the priest Isaac and told 
 
14 Martyred Armenia 
 
 him how matters stood. After speaking to his com- 
 panions, the priest replied that they could pay only 
 ten liras altogether, as they had no more in their 
 possession. When convinced by hi? words, the 
 officer took the ten liras and undert jk. to satisfy 
 the others. 
 
 This officer had a dispute with the Commandant 
 of Gendarmerie at Aleppo, the latter desiring to 
 take these ^ye men on the grounds that they had 
 been sent with a gendarme for delivery to his office. 
 Ahmed Bey, the Chief of the Irregular band at Urfa, 
 also desired to take them, but the officer refused 
 to give them up to him — he being a member of the 
 Committee of Union and Progress- — and brought 
 them in safety to Diarbekir. 
 
 After passing the night at Sivrek we left early 
 in the morning. As we approached Diarbekir the 
 corpses became more numerous, and on our route 
 we inet companies of women going to Sivrek under 
 guard of gendarmes, weary and wretched, the traces 
 of tears and misery plain on their faces — a plight 
 to bring tears of blood from stones, and move the 
 compassion of beasts of prey. 
 
 What, in God's name, had these women done? 
 Had they made war on the Turks, or killed even 
 one of them! What was the crime of these hapless 
 creatures, whose sole offence was that they were 
 Armenians, skilled in the management of their 
 homes and the training of their children, with no 
 thought beyond the comfort of their husbands and 
 sons, and the fulfilment of their duties towards 
 them. 
 
 I ask you, Moslems — is this to be counted as 
 a crime ? Think for a moment. What was the fault 
 
Martyred Armenia 15 
 
 of these poor women! Was it in their being superior 
 to the Turkish women in every respect? Even 
 assuming that their men had merited such treat- 
 ment, is it right that these women should be dealt 
 with in a manner from which wild beasts would 
 recoil! God has said in the Koran: *^Do not load 
 one with another's burthens/' that is, Let not one 
 be punished for another. 
 
 What had these weak women done, and what had 
 their infants done! Can the men of the Turkish 
 Government bring forward even a feeble proof to 
 justify their action and to convince the people of 
 Islam, who hold that action for unlawful and reject 
 it! No; they can find no word to say before a 
 people whose usages are founded on justice, and 
 their laws on wisdom and reason. 
 
 Is it right that these imposters, who pretend to 
 be the supports of Islam and the Khildfat, the pro- 
 tectors of the Moslems, should trangress the com- 
 mand of God, transgress the Koran, the Traditions 
 of the Prophet, and humanity! Truly, they have 
 committed an act at which Islam is revolted, as 
 well as all Moslems and all the peoples of the earth, 
 be they Moslems, Christians, Jews, or idolaters. As 
 God lives, it is a shameful deed, the like of which 
 has not been done by any people counting them- 
 selves as civilised. 
 
 The Infant in the Waste. — After we had gone 
 a considerable distance we saw a child of not more 
 than four years old, with a fair complexion, blue 
 eyes, and golden hair, with all the indications of 
 luxury and pampering, standing in the sun, motion- 
 less and speechless. The officer told the driver to 
 stop the cart, got out alone, and questioned the 
 
16 Martyred Armenia 
 
 child, who made no reply, and did not utter a word. 
 The officer said r ^ ' If we take this child with us to 
 Diarbekir, the authorities will take him from us, and 
 he will share the fate of his people in being killed. 
 It is best that we leave him. Perhaps God will move 
 one of the Kurds to compassion, that he take him 
 and bring him up.'' None of us could say anything 
 to him; he entered the cart and we drove on, leav- 
 ing the child as we found him, without speech, tears, 
 or movement. Who knows of what rich man or 
 Notable of the Armenians he was the son! He had 
 hardly seen the light when he was orphaned by 
 the slaughter of his parents and kinsmen. Those 
 who should have carried him were weary of him — 
 for the women were unable to carry even them- 
 selves — so they had abandoned him in the waste, far 
 from human habitation. Man, who shows kindness 
 to beasts, and forms societies for their protection, 
 can be merciless to his own kind, more especially 
 to infants who can utter no complaint; he leaves 
 them under the heat of the sun, thirsty and famish- 
 ing, to be devoured by wild creatures. 
 
 Leaving the boy, our hearts burning within us, 
 and full of grief and anguish, we arrived before 
 sunset at a kJidn some hours distant from Diar- 
 bekir. There we passed the night, and in the morn- 
 ing we went on amid the mangled forms of the slain. 
 The same sight met our view on every side ; a man 
 lying, his breast pierced by a bullet ; a woman torn 
 open by lead ; a child sleeping his last sleep beside 
 his mother ; a girl in the flower of her age, in a post- 
 ure which told its own story. Such was our journey 
 until we arrived at a canal, called Kara Pounar, near 
 
Martyred Armenia 17 
 
 Diarbekir, and here we found a change in the method 
 of murder and savagery. 
 
 We saw here bodies burned to ashes. God, from 
 whom no secrets are hid, knows how many young 
 men and fair girls, who should have led happy lives 
 together, had been consumed by fire in this ill- 
 omened place. 
 
 We had expected not to find corpses of the killed 
 near to the walls of Diarbekir, but we were mis- 
 taken, for we journeyed among the bodies until we 
 entered the city gate. As I was informed by some 
 Europeans who returned from Armenia after the 
 massacres, the Government ordered the burial of all 
 the bodies from the roadside when the matter had 
 become the subject of comment in European news- 
 papers. 
 
 In Prisoist. — On our arrival at Diarbekir the offi- 
 cer handed us over to the authorities and we were 
 thrown into prison, where I remained for twenty- 
 two days. During this time I obtained full informa- 
 tion about the movement from one of the prisoners, 
 who was a Moslem of Diarbekir, and who related to 
 me what had happened to the Armenians there. I 
 asked him what was the reason of the affair, why 
 the Government had treated them in this way, and 
 whether they had committed any act calling for their 
 complete extermination. He said that, after the 
 declaration of war, the Armenians, especially the 
 younger men, had failed to comply with the orders 
 of the Government, that most of them had evaded 
 military service by flight, and had formed companies 
 which they called ''Roof Companies.'' These took 
 money from the wealthy Armenians for the pur- 
 chase of arms, which they did not deliver to the 
 
18 Martyred Armenia 
 
 authorities, but sent to their companies, until the 
 leading Armenians and Notables assembled, went 
 to the Government offices, and requested that these 
 men should be punished as they were displeased at 
 their proceedings. 
 
 I asked whether the Armenians had killed any 
 Government official, or any Turks or Kurds in Diar- 
 bekir. He replied that they had killed no one, but 
 that a few days after the arrival of the Yali, Eeshid 
 Bey, and the Commandant of Gendarmerie, Kushdi 
 Bey, prohibited arms had been found in some Ar- 
 menian houses, and also in the church. On the 
 discovery of these arms, the Government summoned 
 some of the principal Armenians and flung them 
 into prison; the spiritual authorities made repeated 
 representations, asking for the release of these men, 
 but the Government, far from complying with the 
 request, imprisoned the ecclesiastics also, the num- 
 ber of Notables thus imprisoned amounting to 
 nearly seven hundred. One day the Commandant 
 of Gendarmerie came and informed them that an 
 Imperial Order had been issued for their banish- 
 ment to Mosul, where they were to remain until the 
 end of the war. They were rejoiced at this, pro- 
 cured all they required in the way of money, clothes, 
 and furniture, and embarked on the heleks (wooden 
 rafts resting on inflated skins, used by the inhabi- 
 tants of that region for travelling on the Euphrates 
 and Tigris) to proceed to Mosul. After a while it 
 was understood that they had all been drowned in 
 the Tigris, and that none of them had reached 
 Mosul. The authorities continued to send off and 
 kill the Armenians, family by family, men, women 
 and children, the first families sent from Diarbekir 
 
Martyi-ed Armenia 19 
 
 being those of Kazazian, Tirpanjian, Minassian, and 
 Kechijian, who were the wealthiest families in the 
 place. Among the 700 individuals was a bishop 
 named — as far as I recollect — Homandrias ; he was 
 the Armenian Catholic Bishop, a venerable and 
 learned old man of about eighty; they showed no 
 respect to his white beard, but drowned him in the 
 Tigris. 
 
 Megerditch, the Bishop-delegate of Diarbekir, was 
 also among the 700 imprisoned. When he saw what 
 was happening to his people he could not endure the 
 disgrace and shame of prison, so he poured petro- 
 leum over himself and set it on fire. A Moslem, who 
 was imprisoned for having v/ritten a letter to this 
 bishop three years before the events, told me that 
 he was a man of great courage and learning, devoted 
 to his people, with no fear of death, but unable to 
 submit to oppression and humiliation. 
 
 Some of the imprisoned Kurds attacked the Ar- 
 menians in the gaol itself, and killed two or three 
 of them out of greed for their money and clothing, 
 but nothing was done to bring them to account. The 
 Government left only a very small number of Ar- 
 menians in Diarbekir, these being such as were 
 skilled in making boots and similar articles for the 
 army. Nineteen individuals had remained in the 
 prison, where I saw and talked with them; these, 
 according to the pretence of the authorities, were 
 Armenian bravoes. 
 
 The last family deported from Diarbekir was that 
 of Dunjian, about November, 1915. This family 
 was protected by certain Notables of the place, from 
 desire for their money, or the beauty of some of 
 their women. 
 
20 Martyred Armenia 
 
 DiKKAN. — This man was a member of the central 
 committee of the Tashnagtzian Society in Diarbekir. 
 An official of that place, who belonged to the Society 
 of Union and Progress, told me that the authorities 
 seized Dikran and demanded from him the names 
 of his associates. He refused, and said that he 
 could not give the names until the committee had 
 met and decided whether or not it was proper to 
 furnish this information to the Government. He 
 was subjected to varieties of torture, such as putting 
 his feet in irons till they swelled and he could not 
 walk, plucking out his nails and eyelashes with a 
 cruel instrument, etc., but he would not say a word, 
 nor give the name of one of his associates. He was 
 deported with the others and died nobly out of love 
 for his nation, preferring death to the betrayal of 
 the secrets of his brave people to the Government. 
 
 Aghob Kaitanjian. — Aghob Kaitanjian was one 
 of the Armenians imprisoned on the charge of being 
 bravoes of the Armenian Society in Diarbekir, and 
 in whose possession explosive material had been 
 found. I often talked to him, and I asked him to 
 tell me his story. He said that one day, whilst he 
 was sitting in his house, a police agent knocked at 
 the door and told him that the Chief of Police wished 
 to see him at his office. He went there, and some 
 of the police asked him about the Armenian Society 
 and its bravoes. He replied that he knew nothing 
 of either societies or bravoes. He was then bas- 
 tinadoed and tortured in various ways for several 
 days till he despaired of life, preferring death to 
 a continuance of degradation. He had a knife with 
 him, and when they aggravated the torture so that 
 he could endure it no longer, he asked them to let 
 
Martyred Armenia 21 
 
 him go to the latrine and on his return he would tell 
 them all he knew about the Armenian matter. With 
 the help of the police he went, and cut the arteries 
 of his wrists* . . . with the object of committing 
 suicide. The blood gushed out freely ; he got to the 
 door of the police-office and there fainted. They 
 poured water on his face and he recovered con- 
 sciousness; he was brought before the officer and 
 the interrogatory was renewed.* .... The Chief 
 of Police was confounded at this proceeding and 
 sent him to the hospital until he was cured. I saw 
 the w^ounds on his hands, and they were completely 
 healed. This was the story as he told it to me him- 
 self. He desired me to publish it in an Armenian 
 newspaper called Hdyrenik (Fatherland), which 
 appears in America, in order that it may be read by 
 his brother Garabet, now in that country, who had 
 been convinced that the Government would leave 
 none of them alive. 
 
 I associated freely wdth the young Armenians 
 who were imprisoned, and we talked much of these 
 acts, the like of which, as happening to a nation such 
 as theirs, have never been heard of, nor recorded in 
 the history of past ages. These youths were sent 
 for trial by the court-martial at Kharpout, and I 
 heard that they arrived there safely and asked per- 
 mission to embrace the Moslem faith. This was 
 to escape from contemptuous treatment by the 
 Kurds, and not from the fear of death, as their con- 
 version would not save them from the penalty if 
 they were shown to deserve it. Before their de- 
 parture they asked me what I had heard about them, 
 
 Episodes in the original are here omitted. — Translator. 
 
22 Martyred Armenia 
 
 and whether the authorities purposed to kill them 
 on the way or not. After enquiring about this, and 
 ascertaining that they would not be killed in this 
 way, I informed them accordingly; they were re- 
 joiced, saying that all they desired was to remain 
 alive to see the results of the war. They said that 
 the Armenians deserved the treatment which they 
 had received, as they would never see the necessity 
 for taking precautions against the Turks, believing 
 that the constitutional Turkish Government would 
 never proceed to measures of this kind without valid 
 reason. The Government has perpetrated these 
 deeds although no official, Kurd, Turk, or Moslem, 
 has been killed by an Armenian, and we know not 
 what the weighty reasons may have been which 
 impelled them to so unprecedented a measure. And 
 if the Armenians should not be reproached with a 
 negligence for which they have paid dearly, yet a 
 people who do not take full precautions are liable 
 to be taxed justly with blameworthy carelessness. 
 
 My Travelling-Compai^ions. — From time to time 
 I visited the men who had been in my company 
 during the journey, but after my release the director 
 of the prison would not permit me to go to them. 
 I used, therefore, to ask for one of them and talk 
 with him outside the prison in which the Armenians 
 were confined. After a while I enquired for them 
 and was told that they had been sent to execution, 
 like others before them, and at this I cried out in 
 dismay. One day I saw a gendarme who had been 
 imprisoned with us for a short time on the charge 
 of having stolen articles from the effects of dead 
 Armenians, and as he knew my companions I asked 
 him about them. He said that he had killed the 
 
Martyixd Armenia 23 
 
 priest Isaac with his own hand, and that the gen- 
 darmes had laid wagers in firing at his clerical head- 
 dress. ''I made the best shooting, hit the hat and 
 knocked it off his head, finishing him with a second 
 ball.'' My answer was silence. The man firmly 
 believed that these murders were necessary, the 
 Sultan having so ordered. 
 
 The Sale of Lettess. — When the Government 
 first commenced the deportation of the 700 men, 
 the officials were instructed to prepare letters, 
 signed with the names of the former, and to send 
 them to the families of the banished individuals in 
 order to mislead them, as it was feared that the Ar- 
 menians might take some action which would defeat 
 the plan and divulge the secret to the other Armeni- 
 ans, thus rendering their extermination impractic- 
 able. The unhappy families gave large sums to 
 those who brought them letters from their Head. 
 The Government appointed a Kurd, a noted brig- 
 and, as officer of the Militia, ordering him to slaugh- 
 ter the Armenians and deliver the letters at their 
 destination. When the Government was secure as 
 to the Armenians, a man was despatched to kill the 
 Kurd, whose name was xiami Hassi, or Hassi Aami. 
 
 Slaughter of the Protestant, Chaldean, and 
 Syriac Communities. — The slaughter was general 
 throughout these communities, not a single protes- 
 tant remaining in Diarbekir. Eighty families of the 
 Syriac Community were exterminated, with a part 
 of the Chaldeans, in Diarbekir, and in its depend- 
 encies, none escaped save those in Madiat and Mar- 
 din. When latterly orders were given that only 
 Armenians were to be killed, and that those belong- 
 ing to other communities should not be touched, the 
 
24 Martyred Armenia 
 
 Government held their hand from the destruction 
 of the latter. 
 
 The Sykiacs. — But the Syriacs in the province 
 of Madiat were brave men, braver than all the other 
 tribes in these regions. When they heard what had 
 fallen upon their brethren at Diarbekir and the 
 vicinity they assembled, fortified themselves in three 
 villages near Madiat, and made a heroic resistance, 
 showing a courage beyond description. The Gov- 
 ernment sent against them two companies of regu- 
 lars, besides a company of gendarmes which had 
 been despatched thither previously; the Kurdish 
 tribes assembled against them, but without result, 
 and thus they protected their lives, honour, and 
 possessions from the tyranny of this oppressive 
 Government. An Imperial Iradeh was issued, grant- 
 ing them pardon, but they placed no reliance on it 
 and did not surrender, for past experience had 
 shown them that this is the most false Government 
 on the face of the earth, taking back to-day what it 
 gave yesterday, and punishing to-day with most 
 cruel penalties him whom it had previously par- 
 doned. 
 
 CoNVEESATiON betwccu a postal contractor from 
 Bitlis and a friend of mine, as we were sitting at a 
 cafe in Diarbekir: 
 
 Contractor: I see many Armenians in Diarbekir. 
 How comes it that they are stil here? 
 
 My Friend: These are not Armenians, but Syri- 
 acs and Chaldeans. 
 
 Contractor: The Government of Bitlis has not 
 left a single Christian in that Vilayet, nor in the 
 district of Moush. If a doctor told a sick man that 
 the remedy for his disease was the heart of a Chris- 
 
Martyred Armenia 25 
 
 tian lie would not find one though he searched 
 through the whole Vilayet. 
 
 Protection Afforded by Kurds to Armenians on 
 Payment. — The Armenians were confined in the 
 main ward of the prison at Diarbeldr, and from time 
 to time I visited them. One day, on waking from 
 sleep, I went to see them in their ward and found 
 them collecting rice, flour and moneys. I asked 
 them the reason of this, and they said: ''What are 
 we to do? If we do not collect a quantity every 
 week and give it to the Kurds, they insult and beat 
 us, so we give these things to some of them so that 
 they may protect us from the outrages of their 
 fellows.'* I exclaimed, ''There is no power nor 
 might but in God,'' and went back grieving over 
 their lot. 
 
 Despatch of the Armenians to the Slaughter. — 
 This was a most shocking proceeding, appalling in 
 its atrocity. One of the gendarmes in Diarbekir 
 related to me how it was done. He said that, when 
 orders were given for the removal and destruction 
 of a family, an official went to the house, counted 
 the members of the family, and delivered them to the 
 Commandant of Militia or one of the officers of 
 Gendarmerie. Men were posted to keep guard over 
 the house and its occupants during the night until 
 8 o'clock, thereby giving notice to the wretched 
 family that they must prepare for death. The 
 women shrieked and wailed, anguish and despair 
 showed on the faces of all, and they died even be- 
 fore death came upon them.* .... After 8 o'clock 
 waggons arrived and conveyed the families to a 
 
 * A few sentences of immaterial description are here omitted. — 
 Translator. 
 
26 Martyred Armenia 
 
 place near by, where they were killed by rifle fire, 
 or massacred like sheep with knives, daggers, and 
 
 axes. 
 
 Sale of Aemenian Effects, and Eemoval of 
 Crosses from the Churches. — After the Armenians 
 had been destroyed, all the furniture of their houses, 
 their linen, effects, and implements of all kinds, as 
 well as all the contents of their shops and store- 
 houses, were collected in the churches or other large 
 buildings. The authorities appointed committees 
 for the sale of these goods, which were disposed of 
 at the lowest price, as might be the case with the 
 effects of those who died a natural death, but with 
 this difference, that the money realised went to the 
 Treasury of the Turkish Government, instead of to 
 the heirs of the deceased. 
 
 You might see a carpet, worth thirty pounds, sold 
 for ^ve, a man's costume, worth four pounds, sold 
 for two medjidies, and so on with the rest of the 
 articles, this being especially the case with musical 
 instruments, such as pianos, etc., which had no value 
 at all. All money and valuables were collected by 
 the Commandant of Gendarmerie and the Vali, 
 Eeshid Bey, the latter taking them with him when 
 he went to Constantinople, and delivering them to 
 Talaat Bey.* . . . 
 
 The mind is confounded by the reflection that this 
 people of Armenia, this brave race who astonished 
 the world by their courage, resolution, progress and 
 knowledge, who yesterday were the most powerful 
 and most highly cultivated of the Ottoman peoples, 
 have become merely a memory, as though they had 
 
 *Some remarks in this connection are omitted. — Translator. 
 
Martyred Armenia 27 
 
 never flourished. Their learned books are waste 
 paper, used to wrap up cheese or dates, and I was 
 told that one high official had bought thirty volumes 
 of French literature for 50 piastres. Their schools 
 are closed, after being thronged with pupils. Such 
 is the evil end of the Armenian race: let it be a 
 warning to those peoples who are striving for free- 
 dom, and let them understand that freedom is not 
 to be achieved but by the shedding of blood, and 
 that words are the stock-in-trade of the weak alone. 
 
 I observed that the crosses had been removed 
 from the lofty steeples of the churches, which are 
 used as storehouses and markets for the keeping 
 and sale of the effects of the dead. 
 
 Methods of Slaughtee. — These were of various 
 kinds. An officer told me that in the Vilayet of 
 Bitlis the authorities collected the Armenians in 
 barns full of straw (or chaif), piling up straw in 
 front of the door and setting it on fire, so that the 
 Armenians inside perished in the smoke. He said 
 that sometimes hundreds were put together in one 
 barn. Other modes of killing were also employed 
 (at Bitlis). He told me, to my deep sorrow, how 
 he had seen a girl hold her lover in her embrace, 
 and so enter the barn to meet her death without a 
 tremor. 
 
 At Moush, a part were killed in straw-barns, but 
 the greater number by shooting or stabbing with 
 knives, the Government hiring butchers, who re- 
 ceived a Turkish pound each* day as wages. A 
 doctor, named Aziz Bey, told me that when he was 
 at Marzifun, in the Vilayet of Sivas, he heard that 
 a caravan of Armenians was being sent to execution. 
 He went to the Kaimakam and said to him: ''You 
 
28 Martyred Armenia 
 
 know I am a doctor, and there is no difference be- 
 tween doctors and butchers, as doctors are mostly 
 occupied in cutting up mankind. And as the duties 
 of a Kaimakam at this time are also like our own — ■■ 
 cutting up human bodies — I beg you to let me see 
 this surgical operation myself/' Permission was 
 given, and the doctor went. He found four butchers, 
 each with a long knife; the gendarmes divided the 
 Armenians into parties of ten, and sent them up to 
 the butchers one by one. The butcher told the Ar- 
 menian to stretch out his neck; he did so, and was 
 slaughtered like a sheep. The doctor was amazed 
 at their steadfastness in presence of death, not say- 
 ing a word, or showing any sign of fear. 
 
 The gendarmes used also to bind the women and 
 children and throw them down from a very lofty 
 eminence, so that they reached the ground shattered 
 to pieces. This place is said to be between Diar- 
 bekir and Mardin, and the bones of the slain are 
 there in heaps to this day. 
 
 Another informant told me that the Diarbekir 
 authorities had killed the Armenians either by shoot- 
 ing, by the butchers, or at times by putting numbers 
 of them in wells and cave^, which were blocked up 
 so that they perished. Also they threw them into 
 the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the bodies caused 
 an epidemic of typhus fever. Two thousand Arme- 
 nians were slaughtered at a place outside the walls 
 of Diarbekir, between the Castle of Sultan Murad 
 and the Tigris, and ^t not more than half an hour's 
 distance from the city. 
 
 Brutality of the Gendarmes and Kurdish Tribes. 
 — There is no doubt that what is related as to the 
 proceedings of the gendarmes and the Kurdish 
 
Martyred Armenia 29 
 
 tribes actually took place. On receiving a caravan 
 01 Armenians the gendarmes searched them one by 
 one, men and women, taking any money they might 
 find, and stripping them of the better portions of 
 their clothing. When they were satisfied that there 
 remained no money, good clothes, or other things of 
 value, they sold the Armenians in thousands to the 
 Kurds, on the stipulation that none should be left 
 alive. The price was in accordance with the number 
 of the party; I was told by a reliable informant of 
 cases where the price had varied between 2,000 and 
 200 liras. 
 
 After purchasing the caravans, the Kurds 
 stripped all the Armenians, men and women, of their 
 clothes, so that they remained entirely naked. They 
 then shot them down, every one, after which they 
 cut open their stomachs to search for money 
 amongst the entrails, also cutting up the clothing, 
 boots, etc., with the same object. 
 
 Such were the dealings of the official gendarmerie 
 and the Kurds with their fellow-creatures. The 
 reason of the sale of the parties by the gendarmes 
 was to save themselves trouble, and to obtain deliv- 
 ery of further parties to plunder of their money. 
 
 Woe to him who had teeth of gold, or gold-plated. 
 The gendarmes and Kurds used to violently draw 
 out his teeth before arriving at the place of execu- 
 tion, thus inflicting tortures before actual death. 
 
 A KuKDisH Agha Slaughters 50,000 Armenians. 
 — A Kurd told me that the authorities of Kharpout 
 handed over to one of the Kurdish Aghas in that 
 Vilayet, in three batches, more than 50,000 Arme- 
 nians from Erzeroum, Trebizond, Sivas, and Con- 
 stantinople, with orders to kill them and to divide 
 
30 Martyred Armenia 
 
 with themselves the property which he might take 
 from them. He killed them all and took from them 
 their money and other belongings. He hired 600 
 mules for the women, to convey them to Urfa, at 
 the rate of three liras a head. After receiving the 
 price, he collected mules belonging to his tribe, 
 mounted the women on them, and brought them to 
 a place between Malatiya and Urfa, where he killed 
 them in the most barbarous way, taking all their 
 money, clothes, and valuables. 
 
 The Violation of Women befoke oe after 
 Death. — * .... 
 
 Incident of the Sheikh and the Girl. — ^I said 
 above that the Armenian women were sent off in 
 batches under guard of gendarmes. Whenever they 
 passed by a village the inhabitants would come and 
 choose any they desired, taking them away and giv- 
 ing a small sum to the gendarmes. At one place a 
 Kurd of over 60 picked out a beautiful girl of 16. 
 She refused to have an^^thing to do with him, but 
 said she was ready to embrace Islam and marry a 
 youth of her own age. This the Kurds would not 
 allow, but gave her the choice between death and the 
 Sheikh ; she still refused, and was killed. 
 
 Barsoum AoHA.—Whilst I was Kaimakam of the 
 district of Kiakhta, in the Vilayet of Kharpout, I 
 was acquainted with an Armenian Notable of that 
 place, named Barsoum Agha. He was a worthy 
 and courageous man, dealing well with Kurds, 
 Turks, and Armenians, without distinction; he also 
 showed much kindness to officials who were dis- 
 missed from their posts in the district. All the Kur- 
 
 * I refrain from particulars. The gendarmes and Kurds are stated 
 to have been the perpetrators of these acts. — Translatoe. 
 
Martyred i\rmenia 31 
 
 dish Aghas thereabouts kept close watch over him, 
 hating him because he was their rival in the suprem- 
 acy of the place. When, after my banishment, I 
 arrived at Sivrek and heard what had befallen the 
 Armenians, I enquired about him and his family. 
 I was told that when the Government disposed of 
 the Armenians of Kiakhta he was summoned and 
 ordered to produce the records of moneys owing 
 to him (Kurds and Armenians in that district owed 
 him a sum of 10,000 liras) ; he replied that he had 
 torn up the records and released his debtors from 
 their obligations. He was taken away with the other 
 Armenians, and on arrival at the Euphrates he 
 asked permission to drown himself. This was 
 granted, and he endeavoured to do so, but failed, as 
 he could not master himself. So he said to the gen- 
 darmes, ''Life is dear and I cannot kill myself, so 
 do as you have been ordered,'' whereupon one of 
 them shot him and then killed the rest of the family. 
 Narrative of a Young Turk. — This youth, who 
 had come to Diarbekir as a schoolmaster, told me 
 that the Government had informed the Armenians 
 of Broussa that their deportation had been decided, 
 and that they were to leave for Mosul, Syria, or El- 
 Deir three days after receiving the order. After 
 selling what they could, they hired carts and car- 
 riages for the transport of their goods and them- 
 selves and started — as they thought — for their des- 
 tination. On their arrival at a very rugged and 
 barren place, far distant from any villages, the 
 drivers, in conformity with their instructions, broke 
 up the conveyances and left the people in the waste, 
 returning in the night to plunder them. Many died 
 there of hunger and terror ; a great part were killed 
 
32 Martyred Armenia 
 
 on the road; and only a few reached Syria or El- 
 Deir. 
 
 Children Perishing of Hunger and Thirst. — An 
 Arab of El-Jezira, who accompanied me on my 
 flight from Diarbekir, told me that he had gone with 
 a Sheikh of his tribe, men and camels, to buy grain 
 from the sons of Ibrahim Pasha El-Mellili. On 
 their way they saw 17 children, the eldest not more 
 than 13 years old, dying of hunger and thirst. The 
 Arab said : ^ * We had with us a small water-skin and 
 a little food. When the Sheikh saw them he wept 
 with pity, and gave them food and water with his 
 own hands; but what good could this small supply 
 do to them? We reflected that if we took them with 
 us to the Pasha, they would be killed, as the Kurds 
 were killing all Armenians by order of the authori- 
 ties ; and our Arabs were at five days ' distance from 
 the place. So we had no choice but to leave them 
 to the mercy of God, and on our return, a week 
 later, we found them all dead.'' 
 
 Narrative of a Provincial Governor. — ^We were 
 talking of the courage and good qualities of the 
 Armenians, and the Governor of the place, who was 
 with us, told us a singular story. He said : *^ Accord- 
 ing to orders, I collected all the remaining Arme- 
 nians, consisting of 17 women and some children, 
 amongst whom was a child of 3 years old, diseased, 
 who had never been able to walk. When the butch- 
 ers began slaughtering the women and the turn of 
 the child's mother came, he rose up on his feet and 
 ran for a space, then falling down. We were aston- 
 ished at this, and at his understanding that his 
 mother was to be killed. A gendarme went and took 
 hold of him, and laid him dead on his dead mother. ' ' 
 
Martyred Armenia 33 
 
 He also said that he had seen one of these women 
 eating a piece of bread as she went np to the butcher, 
 another smoking a cigarette, and that it was as 
 though they cared nothing for death. 
 
 Narrative of Shevket Bey. — Shevket Bey, one of 
 the officials charged with the extermination of the 
 Armenians, told me, in company with others, the 
 following story: ''I was proceeding with a party, 
 and when we had arrived outside the walls of Diar- 
 bekir and were beginning to shoot down the Arme- 
 nians, a Kurd came up to me, kissed my hand, and 
 begged me to give him a girl of about ten years old. 
 I stopped the firing and sent a gendarme to bring 
 the girl to me. When she came I pointed out a spot 
 to her and said, * Sit there. I have given you to this 
 man, and you will be saved from death.' After a 
 while, I saw that she had thrown herself amongst 
 the dead Armenians, so I ordered the gendarmes to 
 cease firing and bring her up. I said to her, *I have 
 had pity on you and brought you out from among 
 the others to spare your life. Why do you throw 
 yourself with them? Go with this man and he will 
 bring you up like a daughter. ' She said : ^ I am the 
 daughter of an Armenian ; my parents and kinsfolk 
 are killed among these ; I will have no others in their 
 place, and I do not wish to live any longer without 
 them.' Then she cried and lamented; I tried hard 
 to persuade her, but she would not listen, so I let her 
 go her way. She left me joyfully, put herself be- 
 tween her father and mother, who were at the last 
 gasp, and she was killed there.'' And he added: 
 ''If such was the behaviour of the children, what 
 was that of their elders?" 
 
 Price of Armenian Women. — ^A reliable inform- 
 
34 Martyred Armenia 
 
 ant from Deir-el-Zur told me that one of the officials 
 of that place had bought from the gendarmes three 
 girls for a quarter of a medjidie dollar each. An- 
 other man told me that he had bought a very beauti- 
 ful girl for one lira, and I heard that among the 
 tribes Armenian women were sold like pieces of old 
 furniture, at low prices, varying from one to ten 
 liras, or from one to five sheep.* . . . 
 
 The Mutes aeeif and the Aemenian Girl. — On 
 the arrival of a batch of Armenians at Deir-el-Zur 
 from Eas-el-Ain, the Mutesarrif desired to choose a 
 servant-girl from amongst the women. His eye fell 
 on a handsome girl, and he went up to her, but on 
 his approach she turned white and was about to 
 fall. He told her not to be afraid, and ordered his 
 servant to take her to his house. On returning 
 thither he asked the reason for her terror of him, 
 and she told him that she and her mother had been 
 sent from Eas-el-Ain in charge of a Circassian gen- 
 darme, many other Armenian women being with 
 them. On the way, the gendarme called her mother, 
 and told her to give him her money, or he would kill 
 her ; she said she had none, so he tortured her till she 
 gave him six liras. f . . . He said to her: ^'You 
 liar! You [Armenians] never cease lying. You 
 have seen what has befallen, and will befall, all 
 Armenians, but you will not take warning, so I shall 
 make you an example to all who see you. ' ' Then he 
 cut off her hands with his dagger, one after the 
 other, then both her feet, all in sight of her daugh- 
 ter, whom he then took aside and violated, whilst her 
 mother, in a dying state, witnessed the act. ^ ' And 
 
 * An unimportant anecdote omitted. — Translator. 
 f Unfit for reproduction. — Translator. 
 
Martyred Armenia 35 
 
 when I saw you approach me, I remembered my 
 mother's fate and dreaded you, thinking that you 
 would treat me as the gendarme treated my mother 
 and myself, before each other's eyes."* . . 
 
 ''The Eewakd of Hard Labour." — The Turks had 
 collected all those of military age and dispersed 
 amongst the battalions to perform their army serv- 
 ice. When the Government determined on the de- 
 portation and destruction of the Armenians — as 
 stated in their official declaration — orders were 
 given for the formation of separate battalions of 
 Armenians, to be employed on roads and municipal 
 works. The battalions were formed and sent to the 
 roads and other kinds of hard labour. They were 
 employed in this manner for eight months, when the 
 severity of winter set in. The Government, being 
 then unable to make further use of them, despatched 
 them to Diarbekir. Before their arrival, the officers 
 telegraphed that the Armenian troops were on their 
 way, and the authorities sent gendarmes, well fur- 
 nished with cartridges, to meet the poor wretches. 
 The gendarmes received them with rifle-fire, and 
 840 men perished in this manner, shot close to the 
 city of Diarbekir. 
 
 A Caravan of Women. — t • . . 
 
 A Night's Shelter for Fifty Pounds. — The man 
 who showed the greatest capacity for exterminating 
 Armenians was Eeshid Bey, the Vali of Diarbekir. 
 I have already stated how many were killed in his 
 
 * Unimportant anecdote omitted.— Translator. 
 
 f Unimportant. The writer describes the inhabitants of Diarbekir, 
 on the arrival of a party, as hastening to select women. Two doctors 
 pick out twenty of them to serve as hospital attendants. — Trans- 
 lator. 
 
36 Martyred Armenia 
 
 Vilayet. When news of his removal arrived, the 
 remaining Armenians, and the Christians generally 
 rejoiced, and shortly after the report was current 
 some Armenians, who had hidden themselves, came 
 out from their concealment and walked about the 
 city. The Vali, who was anxious to keep his re- 
 moval secret and to inspire terror, began deport- 
 ing Armenians with still greater energy, and those 
 who had come out returned to their hiding-places. 
 One of the principal men of Diabekir stated that one 
 Armenian had paid fifty Turkish pounds to an in- 
 habitant for shelter in his house during the night 
 before the Vali's departure, and another told me 
 that a man had received an offer of three pounds 
 for each night until the same event, but had re- 
 fused from fear of the authorities. 
 
 Chastity of the Aemenian Women. — * .... 
 An Arab of the Akidat told me that he was going 
 along the bank of the Euphrates when he saw some 
 of the town rabble stripping two women of their 
 clothes. He expostulated and told them to restore 
 the clothes, but they paid no attention. The women 
 begged for mercy, and finding it unavailing they 
 threw themselves into the river, preferring death to 
 dishonour. He told me also of another woman who 
 had a suckling child, and begged food from the 
 passers-by, who were in too great fear of the author- 
 ities to help her. On the third day of starvation, 
 finding no relief, she left the baby in the market of 
 El-Deir and drowned herself in the Euphrates. In 
 
 * An official relates how he wantcc" to choose a servant from a 
 boatload of victims, vsrho said they were willing to come as servants, 
 but as nothing else. He took one, and on coming home one night 
 drunk he tried to offer her violence; she reproved him in suitable 
 terms and he conducted himself well thenceforward. — Translator. 
 
Martyred Armenia 37 
 
 this way do they show high qualities, honour, and 
 courage such as many men do not possess. 
 
 Women-Sekvants in Diarbekik. — You cannot en- 
 ter a house in Diarbekir without finding from one 
 to five Armenian maid-servants, even the hum- 
 blest shopkeepers having one, who probably in the 
 lifetime of her parents would not have condescended 
 to speak a word to the master whom she now has to 
 serve in order to save her life. It is stated that the 
 number of such women and girls in the city is over 
 5,000, mostly from Erzeroum, Kharpout and other 
 Vilayets. 
 
 Narrative of Shahin Bey. — Shahin Bey, a man 
 of Diarbekir, who was in prison with me, told me 
 that a number of Armenian men and women were 
 delivered to him for slaughter, he being a soldier. 
 He said: ^^ Whilst we were on the way, I saw an 
 Armenian girl whom I knew, and who was very 
 beautiful. I called her by name, and said ' Come, I 
 will save you, and you shall marry a young man of 
 your country, a Turk or a Kurd. ' She refused, and 
 said : ^If you wish to do me a kindness I will ask one 
 thing which you may do for me. ' I told her I would 
 do whatever she wished, and she said: ^I have a 
 brother, younger than myself, here amongst these 
 people. I pray you to kill him before you kill me, so 
 that in dying I may not be anxious in mind about 
 him.'- She pointed him out and I called him. When 
 he came, she said to him, ^My brother, farewell. I 
 kiss you for the last time, but we shall meet, if it be 
 God's will, in the next world, and He will soon 
 avenge us for what we have suffered.' They kissed 
 each other, and the boy delivered himself to me. I 
 must needs obey my orders, so I struck him one 
 
38 Martyred Armenia 
 
 blow with an axe, split his skull, and he fell dead. 
 Then she said: 'I thank you with all my heart, and 
 shall ask you one more favour'; she put her hands 
 over her eyes and said: 'Strike as you struck my 
 brother, one blow, and do not torture me/ So I 
 struck one blow and killed her, and to this day I 
 grieve over her beauty and youth, and her wonderful 
 courage. ' ' 
 
 Photogeaphs of Ahmenians lying in the road, 
 dressed in turbans, for despatch to Constantinople. 
 The Turkish Government thought that European 
 nations might get to hear of the destruction of the 
 Armenians and publish the news abroad so as to 
 excite prejudice against the Turks. So after the 
 gendarmes had killed a number of Armenian men, 
 they put on them turbans and brought Kurdish 
 women to weep and lament over them, saying that 
 the Armenians had killed their men. They also 
 brought a photographer to photograph the bodies 
 and the weeping women, so that at a future time 
 they might be able to convince Europe that it was 
 the Armenians who had attacked the Kurds and 
 killed them, that the Kurdish tribes had risen 
 against them in revenge, and that the Turkish Gov- 
 ernment had had no part in the matter. But the 
 secret of these proceedings was not hidden from 
 men of intelligence, and after all this had been done, 
 the truth became known and was spread abroad in 
 Diarbekir. 
 
 Conversion of Armenian Women to Islam. — • 
 When the Government undertook the extermination 
 of the Armenians some of the women went to the 
 Mufti and the Kadi, and declared their desire to 
 embrace the Mohammedan faith. These authorities 
 
Martyred Armenia 39 
 
 accepted their conversion, and they were married to 
 men of Diarbekir, either Turks or Kurds. 
 
 After a while, the Government began to collect 
 these women, so the Mufti and the Kadi went to the 
 Vali and said that the women in question were no 
 longer Armenians, having become Mussulmans, and 
 that by the Sacred Law the killing of Mussulman 
 women was not permissible. The Vali replied: 
 ^^ These women are vipers, who will bite us in time 
 to come; do not oppose the Government in this 
 matter, for politics have no religion, and the Gov- 
 ernment know what they are about.'' The Mufti 
 and the Kadi went back as they had come, and the 
 women were sent to death. After the removal of 
 the Vali — in consequence, as it was said, of abuses 
 in connection with the sale of effects left in Arme- 
 nian houses and shops — orders arrived that the con- 
 version of any who desired to enter Islam should be 
 accepted, be they men or women. Many of the Ar- 
 menians who remained, of both sexes, hastened to 
 embrace the Faith in the hope of saving their lives, 
 but after a time they were despatched likewise and 
 their Islamism did not save them. 
 
 The Germans and the Armenians. — Whenever 
 the talk fell on the x^rmenians I used to blame the 
 Turks for their proceedings, but one day when we 
 were discussing the question, an official of Diarbekir, 
 who was one of the fanatical Young Turk National- 
 ists, said: ''The Turks are not to blame in this mat- 
 ter, for the Germans were the first to apply this 
 treatment to the Poles, who were under their rule. 
 And the Germans have compelled the Turks to take 
 this course, saying that if they did not kill the Ar- 
 
40 Martyred Armenia 
 
 menians there would be no alliance with them, and 
 thus Turkey had no choice. * ' 
 
 This is what the Turk said, word for word. And 
 it was confirmed by what I heard from a Turk who 
 was imprisoned with me at Aaliya, on the charge of 
 corresponding with Abdul-Kerim el-Khalil. He said 
 that when passing through Damascus he had visited 
 the German Vice-Consul there, who had told him 
 confidentially that Oppenheim had come on a special 
 mission, which was to incite Jemal Pasha to perse- 
 cute the Arabs, with a view to causing hatred be- 
 tween the two races, by which the Germans might 
 profit in future if differences arose between them 
 and the Turks. This was a short time previous to 
 the execution of Abdul-Kerim. 
 
 The Killing of the Two Kaimakams. — ^When the 
 Government at Diarbekir gave orders to the officials 
 to kill the Armenians, a native of Baghdad was 
 Kaimakam of El-Beshiri, in that Vilayet, and an 
 Albanian was Kaimakam of Lijeh. These two tele- 
 graphed to the Vilayet that their consciences would 
 not permit them to do such work, and that they 
 resigned their posts. Their resigiaations were 
 accepted, but they were both secretly assassinated. 
 I investigated this matter carefully, and ascertained 
 that the name of the Baghdad Arab was Sabat Bey 
 El-Sueidi, but I could not learn that of the Albanian, 
 which I much regret, as they performed a noble act 
 for which they should be commemorated in his- 
 tory. . . .* 
 
 * The writer here describes how a Turkish judge (Tcddi), to whom 
 the office of Kaimakam was entrusted after the murder of Sabat Bey, 
 boasted in conversation that he had killed four Armenians with his 
 own hand. ''They were brave men,*' he said, ''having no fear of 
 death, ' ' — Translator. 
 
Martyred Armenia 41 
 
 An Akmenian Betkays His Nation. — * . . . 
 
 The Sultan's Order. — Whilst I was in prison, a 
 Turkish Commissioner of Police used to come to 
 see a friend of his, who was also imprisoned. One 
 day when I and this friend were together, the Com- 
 missioner came, and, in the course of conversation 
 about the Armenians and their fate, he described to 
 us how he had slaughtered them, and how a number 
 had taken refuge in a cave outside the city, and he 
 had brought them out and killed two of them him- 
 self. His friend said to him: ''Have you no fear 
 of God? Whence have you the right to take life 
 in defiance of God^s lawf He replied: ''It was 
 the Sultan's order; the Sultan's order is the order 
 of God, and its fulfilment is a duty." 
 
 Armenian Death Statistics. — At the end of 
 August, 1915, I was visited in prison by one of my 
 Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend 
 of one of those charged with the conduct of the 
 Armenian massacres. We spoke of the Armenian 
 question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone, 
 570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from 
 other Vilayets as well as those belonging to Diar- 
 bekir itself. 
 
 If to this we add those killed in the following 
 months, amounting to about 50,000; and those in 
 the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the province of 
 Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who per- 
 ished in Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul, 
 
 * The author tells the story of an Armenian of Diarbekir who gave 
 information to the police against his own people, disclosing their 
 hiding places. He saw him walking about the streets with an insolent 
 demeanor, giving himself the airs of a person of great importance. 
 He considers that such a traitor to his nation deserves the worst form 
 of death. — Translator. 
 
42 Martyred Armenia 
 
 Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa, Zeitomi, and 
 Aintab — estimated at upwards of 350,000 — we arrive 
 at a total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, 
 hunger, or thirst, of 1,200,000. 
 
 There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet 
 of Aleppo, in Syria, and Deir-el-Zur (those deported 
 thither), and in America and Egypt and elsewhere; 
 and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the 
 Balkan States, thus making a grand total of 
 1,900,000. 
 
 The above is what I was able to learn as to the 
 statistics of the slaughtered Armenians, and I would 
 quote an extract from El-Mohattam, dealing with 
 this subject: 
 
 ^*The Basle correspondent of the Temps states 
 that, according to official reports received from 
 Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there were 492,000 
 deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diar- 
 bekir, Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-Zur. The 
 Turkish Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, esti- 
 mates the number of deportees at 800,000, and states 
 that 300,000 of these have been removed or have 
 died in the last few months^ 
 
 ^* Another caculation gives the number of de- 
 ported Armenians as 1,200,000 souls, and states that 
 at least 500,000 have been killed or have died in 
 banishment'' {El-Mohattam, May 30th, 1916). 
 
 The Armenians and the Arab Tribes. — As I 
 approached Diarbekir, I passed through many Arab 
 tribes, with whom I saw a number of Armenians, 
 men and women, who were being well treated, al- 
 though the Government had let the tribes know that 
 the killing of Armenians was a bounden duty. I did 
 not hear of a single instance of an Armenian being 
 
Martyi'ed Armenia 43 
 
 murdered or outraged by a tribesman, but I heard 
 that some Arabs, passing by a well into which men 
 and women had been thrown, drew them out when 
 at the last extremity, took them with them, and 
 tended them till they were recovered. 
 
 The Akab and the Armenian Beggar 
 Woman. — .... 
 
 The narrative concludes with the relation of an instance of courage- 
 ous charity on the part of a Baghdad soldier to an Armenian v7onian 
 begging in the streets of Diarbekir. — Translator. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 IF the Turkish Government were asked the reasons 
 for which the Armenian men, women, and chil- 
 dren were killed, and their honour and property 
 placed at any man^s mercy, they would reply that 
 this people have murdered Moslems in the Vilayet 
 of Van, and that there have been found in their pos- 
 session prohibited arms, explosive bombs, and 
 indications of steps towards the formation of an 
 Armenian State, such as flags and the like, all point- 
 ing to the fact that this race has not turned from its 
 evil ways, but on the first opportunity will kill the 
 Moslems, rise in revolt, and invoke the help of Eus- 
 sia, the enemy of Turkey, against its rulers. That 
 is what the Turkish Government would say. I have 
 followed the matter from its source. I have en- 
 quired from inhabitants and officials of Van, who 
 were in Diarbekir, whether any Moslem had been 
 killed by Armenians in the town of Van, or in the 
 districts of the Vilayet. They answered in the nega- 
 tive, saying that the Government had ordered the 
 population to quit the town before the arrival of the 
 Eussians and before anyone was killed; but that 
 the Armenians had been summoned to give up their 
 arms and had not done so, dreading an attack by the 
 Kurds, and dreading the Government also ; the Gov- 
 ernment had further demanded that the principal 
 Notables and leading men should be given up to 
 
 47 
 
4B Conclusion 
 
 them as hostages, but the Armenians had not com- 
 plied. 
 
 All this took place during the approach of the 
 Eussians towards the city of Van. As to the adja- 
 cent districts, the authorities collected the Arme- 
 nians and drove them into the interior, where they 
 were all slaughtered, no Government official or pri- 
 vate man, Turk or Kurd, having been killed. 
 
 As regards Diarbekir, you have read the whole 
 story in this book, and no insignificant event took 
 place there, let alone murders or breaches of the 
 peace, which could lead the Turkish Government to 
 deal with the Armenians in this atrocious manner. 
 
 At Constantinople, we hear of no murder or other 
 unlawful act committed by the Armenians, except 
 the unauthenticated story about the twenty bravoes, 
 to which I have already referred. 
 
 They have not done the least wrong in the Vil- 
 ayets of Kharpout, Trebizond, Sivas, Adana, or Bit- 
 lis, nor in the province of Moush. 
 
 I have related the episode at Zeitoun, which was 
 unimportant, and that at Urfa, where they acted in 
 self-defence, seeing what had befallen their people, 
 and preferring death to surrender. 
 
 As to their preparations, the flags, bombs and the 
 like, even assuming there to be some truth in the 
 statement, it does not justify the annihilation of 
 the w^hole people, men and women, old men and chil- 
 dren, in a way which revolts all humanity and more 
 especially Islam and the whole body of Moslems, 
 as those unacquainted with the true facts might 
 impute these deeds to Mohammedan fanaticism. 
 
 To such as assert this it will suffice to point out 
 the murders and oppressive acts committed by the 
 
Martyred Armenia 49 
 
 Young Turks against Islam in Syria and Mesopo- 
 tamia. In Syria they have hanged the leading men 
 of enlightenment, without fault on their part, such 
 as Shukri Bey El-Asli, Abdul-Wahhab Bey El- 
 Inglizi, Selim Bey El-Jezairi, Emir Omar El-Hus- 
 seini, Abdul-Ghani El-Arisi, Shefik Bey El-Mowey- 
 yad, Rushdi Bey El-Shamaa, Abdul-Hamid El- 
 Zahrawi, Abdul-Kerim El-Khalil, Emir Aarif El- 
 Shehabi, Sheikh Ahmed Hasan Tabara, and more 
 than thirty leading men of this class. 
 
 I have published this pamphlet in order to refute 
 beforehand inventions and slanders against the faith 
 of Islam and against Moslems generally, and I 
 affirm that what the Armenians have suffered is to 
 be attributed to the Committee of Union and Pro- 
 gress, who deal with the empire as they please; it 
 has been due to their nationalist fanaticism and their 
 jealousy of the Armenians, and to these alone; the 
 Faith of Islam is guiltless of their deeds. 
 
 From the foregoing we know that the Armenians 
 have committed no acts justifying the Turks in in- 
 flicting on them this horrible retribution, unprece- 
 dented even in the dark ages. What, then, was the 
 reason which impelled the Turkish Government to 
 kill off a whole people, of whom they used to say 
 that they were their brothers in patriotism, the prin- 
 cipal factor in bringing about the downfall of the 
 despotic rule of Abdul-Hamid and the introduction 
 of the Constitution, loyal to the Empire, and fight- 
 ing side by side with the Turks in the Balkan war? 
 The Turks sanctioned and approved the institution 
 of Armenian political societies, which they did not 
 do in the case of other nationalities. 
 
50 Conclusion 
 
 What is the reason of this sudden change of atti- 
 tude? 
 
 It is that, previous to the proclamation of the 
 Constitution, the Unionists hated despotic rule ; they 
 preached equality, and inspired the people with 
 hatred of the despotism of Abdul-Hamid. But as 
 soon as they had themselves seized the reins of 
 authority, and tasted the sweets of power, they 
 found that despotism was the best means to confirm 
 themselves in ease and prosperity, and to limit to 
 the Turks alone the rule over the Ottoman peoples. 
 On considering these peoples, they found that the 
 Armenian race was the only one which would resent 
 their despotism, and fight against it as they pre- 
 viously fought against Abdul-Hamid. They per- 
 ceived also that the Armenians excelled all the other 
 races in arts and industries, that they were more ad- 
 vanced in learning and societies, and that after a 
 while the greater part of the officers of the army 
 would be Armenians. They were confounded at 
 this, and dreaded what might ensue, for they knew 
 their own weakness and that they could not rival the 
 Armenians in the way of learning and progress. 
 Annihilation seemed to them to be the sole means 
 of deliverance; they found their opportunity in a 
 time of war, and they proceeded to this atrocious 
 deed, which they carried out with every circum- 
 stance of brutality- — a deed which is contrary to the 
 law of Islam, as is shown by many precepts and his- 
 torical instances.* .... 
 
 In view of this, how can the Turkish Government 
 
 * Fa 'iz El-Ghusein here gives a list of citations from the Koran, 
 the Traditions, and from Moslem history in support of this view. — 
 
 Translator. 
 
Martyi'ed Armenia 51 
 
 be justified at the present time in killing off an en- 
 tire people, who have always paid their dues of 
 every kind to the Ottoman State, and have never 
 rebelled against it? Even if we suppose the Ar- 
 menian men to have been deserving of death, what 
 was the offence of the women and children? And 
 what will be the punishment of those who killed them 
 wrongfully and consumed the innocent with fire! 
 
 I am of opinion that the Mohammedan peoples 
 are now under the necessity of defending them- 
 selves, for unless Europeans are made acquainted 
 with the true facts they will regard this deed as a 
 black stain on the history of Islam, which ages will 
 not efface. 
 
 From the Verses, Traditions, and historical in- 
 stances, it is abundantly clear that the action of the 
 Turkish Government has been in complete contra- 
 diction to the principles of the Faith of Islam; a 
 Government which professes to be the protector of 
 Islam, and claims to hold the Khildfat, cannot act in 
 opposition to Moslem law ; and a Government which 
 does so act is not an Islamic Government, and has 
 no rightful pretension to be such. 
 
 It is incumbent on the Moslems to declare them- 
 selves guiltless of such a Government, and not to 
 render obedience to those who trample under foot 
 the Verses of the Koran and the Traditions of the 
 Prophet, and shed the innocent blood of women, old 
 men and infants, who have done no wrong. Other- 
 wise they make themselves accomplices in this crime, 
 which stands unequalled in history. 
 
 In conclusion, I would address myself to the 
 Powers of Europe, and say that it is they them- 
 selves who have encouraged the Turkish Govern- 
 
52 Conclusion 
 
 ment to this deed, for they were aware of the evil 
 administration of that Government, and its barbar- 
 ous proceedings on many occasions in the past, but 
 did not check it. 
 
 Completed at Bomhay on the Srd September, 
 1916. 
 
 FAIZ EL-GHUSEIN. 
 
E D - 7 5. 
 
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