Wholesale Murder In Armenia -lt19150930
WHOLESALE MURDER IN ARMENIA
EXTERMINATING A RACE
TALAAT BEY'S TREACHERY
(FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT)
SEPTEMBER, 30 1915
CAIRO, Sept. 27.
Confirmation has reached here of the reports that have been current of Armenian atrocities of a appealing character. Undoubtedly, as on previous occasion these outrages have been engineered from Istanbul.
There is reason to believe that the attack on the Armenians was decided upon on Enver Pasha's return after the repulse in the Caucasus, when he appeared to be infuriated against the Armenians because they had greatly assisted the Russians. Talaat Bey evidently seized the opportunity to retaliate upon the defenseless colonies in Asia Minor. The formula adopted as a cloak was an order for the expulsion of Armenians and their deportation to centers in the interior and resistance or delay in compliance with the Government order was made an excuse for murder, rape, and other savageries.
COMPLIANCE UNAVAILING
One instance, in which leading Armenians were concerned, shows the fate awaiting even those who obey the order. Vartkes Effendi and Zohrab Effendi, two prominent members of Parliament, Aghnuni, one of the chief Dashnakists, Haladjian Effendi and Pastermadjian Effendi, ex-Ministers of Public Works and Agriculture, were put in carriages at Urfa for conveyance to Diarbekr, and then were murdered en route, the escort reporting that the murdered were the work of brigands. It is to be noted that Vartkes was but recently the recipient of marks of Talaat Bey's friendship.
The provincial authorities generally carried out the task entrusted to them only too thoroughly and unlike the previous historic massacres the present atrocities are not confined to a definite area. From Sansun and Trebizond, from Ordu and Aintab from Marash and Erzerum come the same tales of atrocities-- of men shot down in cold blood, crucilled, mutilated, or dragged off for labor battalion, of children carried off and forcibly converted to Islam of women violated and enslaved in the interior shot down or sent off with their children to the desert west of Mosul where there is neither water nor food, or to Derzor, between Aleppo and Baghdad, where there is no food, in either case to die miserably. Many of these unfortunates did not reach their destination because the violent escorting, so overdrove the victims that many fell out and were unavailing. They were left to perish by the roadside. Their corpses distinctly displaying the route that many followed. Armenians were tied back to bake in pairs and thrown into river alive. At Zeutun the Armenians were meanly tricked by promised relocations to Adana. Promises that lead to their eventual deaths.
Some German Consuls directed or encouraged the proceeding thus Rossler, the Consul at Aleppo a totting companion to his colleague at Haifa went to Aintab to superintend in person, and the notorious Baron Oppenheim Suggested the removal of women and children of the Allies to Urfa where they could not fail to witness the barbarities committed by the troops in the streets, which literally ran blood.
A VALIANT RESISTANCE
The refugees from Suedia now at Port Said appear to have fought. When the deportation order came 4,300 of these took to the hills where they resisted for seven weeks, the attack of the Turks lasting continuously for 20 hours. It is a remarkable fact that there were only 600 able-bodied men of whom but a quarter had rules and the rest muzzle-loading sporting guns. It is believed that the Armenians are elsewhere resisting, but the case of the inland colonies is almost hopeless. The Suedia Armenians owe their reseed from the terrible fate of their compatriots to the fact that they were on the coast.
The systematic butchery abduction and deportation to the desert which still continue point to a total loss of life probably exceeding the total of the Hanudian regime. The nature and scale of the atrocities dwarf anything perpetrated in Belgium or under Abdul Hamid, whose exploits in this detraction now assume an aspect of moderation compared with those of the present Governors of Turkey who certainly can outdo their former masters in the matter of evil. That Tallat Bey is responsible seem incontestable. It is proved by fact that when ordering the deportations he said. "After this for 50 years there the man who is chief of the Committee of Union and progress and Grand Venerable of the spurious Masonic Grand Orient of Turkey and who was one of the leading members of the Parliamentary deputation in 1909 to England where he was greeted as one of the regenerators of Turkey.
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922