Part 9

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 Romanism, 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 thousands of captives for wives or slaves. Levon was taken captive also; after some years in Egypt, he was permitted to go free, wandered through Europe for a dozen years, and finally settled in Paris, where he died 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 Armenians, in spite of emigration and Turkish settlement, 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 devastated 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 thousands 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.

RULERS 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 time 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 hundred 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). Now Othman, though a plundering marauder like other tribal chiefs, turbulent 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 able to collect an army of 5,000 soldiers, beat a Byzantine 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 barbarous 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 developed 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 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 centuries. 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 Persian 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 Armenians are put in a minority in their own country.

I must correct here a notion fostered by historical 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 thousands 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 cunning, 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 everything: 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 Armenian, 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.

LIST OF OTTOMAN SULTANS AND DATE OF ACCESSION.

A.D. | A.D. 1. Othman I, gazi, 1299 | 18. Ibrahim I, 1640 2. Orkhan I, gazi, 1327 | 19. Mohammed IV, 1648 3. Murad I, gazi, 1360 | 20. Suleyman II, 1687 4. Bayazid I, yelderim, 1389 | 21. Ahmed II, 1691 5. Mohammed I, chelebi, 1413 | 22. Mustafa II, 1695 6. Murad II, gazi, 1421 | 23. Ahmed III, gazi, 1702 7. Mohammed II, fatih, 1451 | 24. Mahmud I, gazi, 1730 8. Bayazid II, gazi, 1481 | 25. Othman III, 1754 9. Selim I, yavouz, 1512 | 26. Mustafa III, gazi, 1757 10. Suleyman I, kanooni, 1520 | 27. Abdul Hamid I, gazi, 1773 11. Selim II, gazi, 1566 | 28. Selim III, 1789 12. Murad III, gazi, 1574 | 29. Mustafa IV, 1807 13. Mohammed III, gazi, 1595 | 30. Mahmud II, adil, 1808 14. Ahmed I, gazi, 1603 | 31. Abdul Mejid I, gazi, 1839 15. Mustafa I, 1617 | 32. Abdul Aziz I, 1861 16. Othman II, guendj, 1618 | 33. Murad V, 1876 17. Murad IV, gazi, 1622 | 34. Abdul Hamid II, gazi, 1876

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; chelebi, 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 Hovaguem, 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 off 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 off. 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 were foes of the Turkish Mohammedans, and Armenia, as of old in Roman times, was the battle-ground. In the time of Sultan Ahmed and Shah Appas, the latter overran Armenia and carried away the people to captivity, 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 Roman 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 outrage 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.

THE PRESENT SULTAN, HAMID II.

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 Sultan, 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 born September 22, 1842, second son of Abdul Mejid, and wrested the throne from his brother Mourad August 31, 1876. He is not a legitimate 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 especially 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 carrying out his threat. He grew to manhood without becoming any milder, and is morally corrupt besides. He has drunken bouts with worthless associates, and spent his time in all sorts of monstrous debauchery 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 murdered 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 ministry got to do with it? He was hundreds of miles from Armenia, and did not know any of the chief languages of Constantinople,--either Armenian, Turkish, or Romanic; and what could he tell of his host, except of the quality of his hospitality? A man usually shows his best side to those he entertains; did he suppose 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 interlude 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 Sultan's 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 exaggerated, 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 measure 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 was 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 cruelty of his family, their love of blood for its own sake. He 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 handsome 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 between 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 compel obedience, and I am in earnest." They consented, and while the Sultan was asleep that night the commander's soldiers and the admiral's sailors surrounded 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 depose 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 commander 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 Constantinople 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. 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 believe 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, "Hassan, why 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. Hassan 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 government, 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 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 discuss any questions freely. He said, "We are here for the good of the country, and the empire needs to be reformed; how can we reform it?" This was an entire novelty; "government by discussion" is not the Oriental way, and not the Oriental liking either. The Mohammedan members were astonished, and they were wrathful at the Christian members when the latter began 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 destruction. 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 gentleman, a benevolent and humane person. The devil 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.