Part 1

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ARMENIA AND THE WAR

An Armenian's Point of View with an Appeal to Britain and the Coming Peace Conference

by

A. P. HACOBIAN

With a Preface by the Rt. Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M.

Hodder and Stoughton London New York Toronto MCMXVII

"They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak: They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think: They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three."

LOWELL.

"_To serve Armenia is to serve civilization._"

_W. E. GLADSTONE._

"_We have put our money on the wrong horse._"[1]

_THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY._

" ... _a Government incurably barbarous and corrupt._"

_THE DUKE OF ARGYLL._

" ... _the Ottoman Empire ... decidedly foreign to Western civilization._"

_ALLIES' NOTE TO PRESIDENT WILSON, January 11, 1917._

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The end of the war will leave Great Britain and her Allies the practical arbiters of the destinies of Europe and the Near East. The predominant part played in the prosecution of the war by Great Britain and the British Empire will entitle them to an equally decisive voice in the councils of the Peace Conference. That proud position carries with it a supreme privilege as well as a heavy moral responsibility. That the voice and weight of Britain and Greater Britain will be cast, on all occasions, on the side of justice and liberty, there cannot be the slightest doubt. But however just and fair-minded a judge may be, it is impossible for him to dispense justice without hearing all sides of the case before him.

That is my plea for placing this statement of the cause of my afflicted country before the British public, confident that, with its inherent love of fair play, it will give my pleading a fair hearing.

I am anxious to make one point clear. I hold no authority and claim no right whatever to speak for the nation or any national or local organization of any kind. The views set forth in this little volume are the views of an individual Armenian who feels, as do no doubt all his compatriots, that the Armenian blood that has flowed so freely in this war, imposes upon every living Armenian the sacred duty of employing all legitimate means in his power to secure to the survivors the justice and reparation to which their numerous fallen relatives have given them an overwhelming and indisputable title. They are my views, and the responsibility for them rests on myself and myself alone.

I have stated my views frankly. One or two of my friends were kind enough to express the opinion that that might injure our cause. While I appreciate their interest and solicitude, I do not share their fears. I am convinced that the truth can never be unpopular with the British public or prejudice a good cause.

I have, of necessity, had to quote freely from many sources, and I take this opportunity to express my apologies and indebtedness to the authorities quoted, in particular to Lord Bryce and Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee for very kindly permitting me to quote extracts from the Blue Book.

A. P. HACOBIAN.

_London, February, 1917._

PREFACE

Of all the peoples upon whom this war has brought calamity and suffering, the Armenian people have had the most to endure. Great as has been the misery inflicted by the invaders upon the non-combatant populations of Belgium and Northern France, upon Poland, upon Serbia, the misery of Armenia, though far less known to the outer world, has been far more terrible.

When the European War broke out, in 1914, the Government of the Turkish Empire had fallen into the hands of a small gang of unscrupulous ruffians calling themselves the Committee of Union and Progress, who were ruling through their command of the army, but in the name of the harmless and imbecile Sultan. By means which have not been fully disclosed, but the nature of which can be easily conjectured, this gang were won over to serve the interests of Germany; and at Germany's bidding they declared war against the Western Allies, thus dragging all the subjects of Turkey, Muslim and Christian, into a conflict with which they had no concern. The Armenian Christians scattered through the Asiatic part of the Turkish dominions, having had melancholy experience in the Adana massacres some years previously of what cruelties the ruling gang were capable of perpetrating, were careful to remain quiet, and to furnish no pretext to the Turkish authorities for an attack upon them. But the rulers of Turkey showed that they did not need a pretext for the execution of the nefarious purposes they cherished. They had formed a design for the extermination of the non-Mohammedan elements in the population of Asiatic Turkey, in order to make what they called a homogeneous nation, consisting of Mohammedans only. The wickedness of such a design was equalled only by its blind folly, for the Christian Armenians of Asia Minor and the north-eastern provinces constituted the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the best-educated part of the population. Most of the traders and merchants, nearly all the skilled artisans, were Armenians, and to destroy them was to destroy the chief industrial asset which these regions possessed. However, this was the plan of the Committee of Union and Progress, and as soon as they began to feel, in the spring of 1915, that the Allied expedition against the Dardanelles was not likely to succeed, they proceeded to execute it. They first disarmed all the Armenians in order to have them at their mercy; and in some cases, in order to make it appear that the Armenians were intending to take up arms, they actually sent weapons into the towns and then had them seized as evidence against the Christians. When such arms as the Christians possessed had been secured, orders for massacre were issued from Constantinople to the local governors. The whole Armenian population was seized. The grown men were slaughtered without mercy. The younger women were sold in the market place to the highest bidder, or appropriated by Turkish military officers and civil officials to become slaves in Turkish harems. The boys were handed over to dervishes to be carried off and brought up as Muslims. The rest of the hapless victims, all the older men and women, the mothers and their babes clinging to them, were torn from their homes and driven out along the tracks which led into the desert region of northern Syria and Arabia. Most of them perished on the way from hardships, from disease, from starvation. A few were still surviving some months ago near Aleppo and along the banks of the Euphrates. Many, probably thousands, were drowned in that river and its tributaries, martyrs to their Christian faith, which they had refused to renounce; for it was generally possible for women, and sometimes for men, to save themselves by accepting Mohammedanism. By these various methods hundreds of thousands--the number is variously estimated at from 500,000 to 800,000--have perished. And all this was done with the tacit acquiescence of the German Government, some of whose representatives on the spot are even said to have encouraged the Turks in their work of slaughter, while the Government confined its action to propagating in Germany, so as to deceive its own people, false stories which alleged that the Armenians had been punished for insurrectionary movements.

All these facts, with many details too horrible to be repeated here, are set forth in the Blue Book recently published in England, containing accounts based upon incontrovertible evidence, and to which no reply has been made, though some denials, palpably false, have emanated from the Turkish gang, and some others from the German Government.

The victims who have thus been put to death, a large part of the whole Armenian people, belong to what is one of the oldest nations in the world, which has been Christian and civilized ever since the third century of our era. If any people ever deserved the sympathy of the civilized world, it is they who have clung to their faith and the traditions of their ancient kingdom ever since that kingdom was overthrown by the Turkish invaders many centuries ago. They now appeal to the Allied Nations who are fighting the battle of Right and Humanity against the German Government and its barbarous Turkish allies, asking that when the end of the war comes their case may be considered and they may be for ever delivered from the Turkish yoke. Nowhere is their hard case better known than in the United States, for it is the American missionaries who have, by their admirable schools and colleges planted in many cities of Asiatic Turkey, done more for them than any other country has done, giving them light, consolation and sympathy.

The author of this little book is an Armenian gentleman belonging to a family originally from Ispahan in Persia, but now settled in England. He speaks with intimate knowledge as well as with patriotic feeling, and states the case of his countrymen with a moderation well fitted to inspire confidence. Upon the arguments he puts forward I do not venture to express any opinion in detail. But those who know something of Asiatic Turkey will recognize with him that the Armenians are, by their intelligence and their irrepressible energy, the race best fitted to restore prosperity to regions desolated by Turkish oppression. The educated Armenians, notwithstanding all they have suffered, are abreast of the modern world of civilization. Among them are many men of science and learning, as well as artists and poets. They are scattered in many lands. I have visited large Armenian colonies as far west as California, and there are others as far east as Rangoon. Many of the exiles would return to their ancient home if they could but be guaranteed that security and peace which they have never had, and can never have, under the rule of the Turk. May we not confidently hope that the Allied Powers will find means for giving it to them at the end of this war, for extending to them that security which they have long desired and are capable of using well?

BRYCE.

_May, 1917._

FOOTNOTE:

[1] _After the massacres of 1895-1896, Lord Salisbury, who had himself taken a prominent part in the consummation of the Treaty of Berlin and the Cyprus Convention, frankly admitted the failure of the policy which gave birth to these treaties, and the futility of relying upon Turkish promises._

CONTENTS

PAGE I. ARMENIA AS A WAR ISSUE--GREATEST SUFFERER FROM TURKO-PRUSSIAN "FRIGHTFULNESS"--EFFECT ON AMERICAN OPINION 1

II. ARMENIA AND REPARATION--ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM--CONDEMNATION AND DEMAND FOR REPARATION INADEQUATELY EXPRESSED 10

III. "THE GENTLE AND CLEAN-FIGHTING TURK" 22

IV. ANGLO-RUSSIAN FRIENDSHIP A VITAL NECESSITY FOR PEACE AND PROGRESS IN ASIA--MOSLEMS AND TURKISH RULE--ARMENIANS PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC BY TEMPERAMENT 40

V. ARMENIA AS A PEACE PROBLEM--VIEWS OF THE "MANCHESTER GUARDIAN" AND THE "SPECTATOR"--CAN ARMENIANS STAND ALONE AMONG THE KURDS?--AMERICAN OPINION AND THE FUTURE OF ARMENIA 50

VI. ARMENIA'S SERVICES IN THE WAR 66

VII. ARMENIA THE BATTLE-GROUND OF ASIA MINOR AND VICTIM OF CONTENDING EMPIRES 81

VIII. THE BLUE-BOOK--THE EPIC OF ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM, THE REVELATION OF HER SPIRIT AND CHARACTER--"TRUTH" ON THE ARMENIANS: A DIGRESSION 94

IX. EXTRACTS FROM THE BLUE BOOK 114

X. GREAT BRITAIN AND ARMENIA--THE LATE DUKE OF ARGYLL'S VIEWS--AN APPEAL TO BRITAIN 140

XI. AN APPEAL TO THE COMING PEACE CONFERENCE 160

POSTSCRIPT 181

APPENDIX 189

ARMENIA AND THE WAR

I

ARMENIA AS A WAR ISSUE--GREATEST SUFFERER FROM TURKO-PRUSSIAN "FRIGHTFULNESS"--EFFECT ON AMERICAN OPINION

The first official advance for peace made by Germany and her Allies, although couched in defiant and menacing terms, was nevertheless an unmistakable signal of distress, and has brought the world within measurable distance of that just and durable peace which the Allies have set out to achieve. The prospect of approaching peace has set on foot a general reiteration of the issues at stake, and consideration of the terms and problems of peace. Public attention in this country will naturally be occupied, in the first place, with the momentous issues and interests of the United Kingdom, the British Empire and her Allies raised by the war and to be settled and secured by the impending peace. It will therefore, I hope, not be considered amiss or premature for a member of one of those small and oppressed peoples engulfed in the vortex of the war who look to Great Britain and her Allies for deliverance, reparation and the security of their future liberty, to put before the British public his views, as well as facts and arguments that may be of some service in enabling it to form a just estimate of the claims and merits of one of the smaller problems which run the risk of not receiving a full hearing at the Peace Conference, in the presence of a multitude of larger and more important questions.

The item in the Allied peace terms stated in their reply to President Wilson's note, "the setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks," is the bearer to Armenians of a message of comfort and hope. It heralds the dawn of a new day that will mark the end of the long and hideous nightmare of Turkish tyranny.

If President Wilson, the American people, or other neutrals were in search of evidence that would prove to them conclusively which of the two groups of belligerents is sincere in its professions of regard for "the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small states"; if Belgium had not been violated and ravaged; if the _Lusitania_ and so many hospital ships, liners and merchantmen had not been sunk without any care as to the fate of the wounded, the children and women, the non-combatant men and crews; if Zeppelins had not spread death and destruction among women and children in their homes in the night; if all these and so many other outrages had not been committed, and there had been, in the whole course of the war, no other act of the Quadruple Alliance in any degree contrary to the laws and usages of civilized warfare and dictates of humanity, the single word ARMENIA would provide that proof--a crushing, monumental proof--as to who is and who is not sincere in the professions of regard for right, justice and humanity. The spirit of desolated Armenia stands at the head of the phantom spirits of outraged humanity, which must rise and shatter to atoms every mask of benevolence, righteousness and injured innocence that the protagonists of "frightfulness" may assume for the deception of their own peoples and neutrals.

But in the United States at least there is no need for any fresh proof or explanation of the issue at this stage, and the martyrdom of Armenia has contributed largely to that state of American opinion. I have little doubt that President Wilson's Peace Note and speech to the Senate are the first steps towards America casting her whole weight into the scale, aiming at the realization of a just and lasting peace.

The intense interest evinced by the people and Government of the United States in the fate of Armenia and the Armenians is abundantly shown not only by the generous gifts of money for the relief of the survivors and the noble personal services by devoted missionaries and relief agents, some of whom lost their lives in their work of mercy; but also by diplomatic action on behalf of the Armenians in Constantinople (where Mr. Morgenthau, to his great honour, struggled valiantly to stay the hand of the ruthless oppressor), and by the prominence given to any and every scrap of news concerning the holocaust in Armenia. It is no exaggeration to say that, military operations apart, no incident of the war, not excepting the violation and martyrdom of Belgium, has been given more space and prominence in the American Press than anything connected with the martyrdom of Armenia and Syria and the relief of the refugees and exiles.

In his reply to the Armenian deputation who on December 14, 1916, presented to him an illuminated parchment from the Catholicos expressing His Holiness's gratitude and thanks to the American nation, President Wilson said, _inter alia_--

"We have tried to do what was possible to save your people from the ravages of war. My great regret is, that we have been able to accomplish so little. There have been many suffering peoples as the result of that terrible struggle, and _the lot of none has touched the American heart more than the suffering of the Armenians_."[2]

Nothing in the war has brought home to the people of the United States the moral issues of the war more strongly and vividly than the unprecedented barbarities committed by the Turks in their diabolical attempt to wipe out the Armenian race. No event of the war has been more damaging to the Central Powers in the eyes of the United States. Here they have seen the ruthless spirit of the twin enemies of humanity and liberty--the Turkish _yatagan_ supported by the Prussian jack-boot--in its hideous nakedness, at work in the depths of Asia, unrestrained and unperceived, as they thought, by the light of civilization.

This gospel of the jack-boot and the _yatagan_ will be best illustrated by putting side by side two quotations, one from the _Tanine_, the official organ of the Committee of Union and Progress in Constantinople, and the other from a statement made by Count Reventlow in October 1915. The _Tanine_ "invited the Government to exterminate or forcibly convert to Islam all Armenian women in Turkey as the only means of saving the Ottoman Empire."[3] Count Reventlow, the high priest of the gospel of Brute Force and Militarism, writing in the _Tageszeitung_ in defence and approval of Turkey's appalling crime, said that it was the Ottoman Government's obvious right and duty to take the strongest repressive measures against "the bloodthirsty Armenians"--the measures advocated by the _Tanine_, which were carried out by Count Reventlow's worthy allies on the Bosphorus with a completeness and ferocity that must have greatly pleased him.

The German Government and German apologists have made a great parade of the use of Indian and African troops in Europe by the Allies. By all reports, these troops have fought as clean a fight as any troops in the war. I think that in the judgment of future historians no incident of this war, whose history is so heavily shadowed on one side with outrages and violations of the laws of civilized warfare, will meet with so strong a condemnation as Germany's alliance with the Young Turks, the declaration of a "holy war" at her behest, and its dire consequences for the already sorely tried Christian subjects of the Turks. (It should be remembered that Germany and Austria are signatories to the Treaty of Berlin, Art. 61 of which was to have brought about "the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians," and to have "guaranteed their security against the Kurds and Circassians." This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.) She could have foreseen these consequences; and if she did not foresee them, she could have stopped them when they made themselves apparent. Turkey's entry into the war placed her Christian subjects in a position of great peril, as it has been her custom to wreak upon them her vengeance for defeats; while a state of war freed her from the moral restraint of Europe. It was hoped that German and Austrian influence would check this tendency. How cruelly events have shattered that hope! They have proved that it was too much to expect humanity and the ordinary feelings of chivalry and compassion for the honour and suffering of women and children from the State policies of these great Christian Governments and the majority of their agents in Turkey. I do not believe that this ungodly and inhuman policy has received general approbation either in Germany or Austria-Hungary. This is evident from the quotations from German missionary journals in the Blue-book on the "Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire."[4] It is also proved by the protests addressed to the Imperial Chancellor by several Catholic and Protestant organizations.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Quoted in _The New Armenia_ of New York, January 1, 1917. The italics are mine.

[3] Quoted in _Guerre Sociale_ (Paris), September 16, 1915.

[4] _The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire._ Documents presented to Viscount Grey of Fallodon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with a preface by Viscount Bryce (Hodder & Stoughton).

II

ARMENIA AND REPARATION--ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM--CONDEMNATION AND DEMAND FOR REPARATION INADEQUATELY EXPRESSED

The Governments of the Allies have unanimously declared that peace is only possible on the principles of adequate reparation for the past, adequate security for the future, and recognition of the principle of nationalities and of the free existence of small states.

"Reparation" means no doubt in the first place reparation for the wanton and ruthless destruction of unoffending and defenceless civilian lives and property.

It is characteristic of the British sense of justice and fair play that Belgium, France and Serbia should be given the first place in their demand for reparation, for, of course, there are the British victims of "frightfulness," Zeppelin and submarine victims and the victims of judicial murders to be atoned for and recompensed.

This unanimous demand for reparation to the smaller nations for all they have suffered as a result of the brutal and unscrupulous aggression of their more powerful neighbours, and their security and free development, augurs well for the future. It is an earnest given by the Entente Powers to the world, of the sincerity of their declarations regarding the unselfish, just and worthy objects which they entered the war to attain.

I must be excused, however, if I confess to feeling not a little perplexity at the fact that, in discussing the peace terms, the great organs of British public opinion, with some notable exceptions,[5] have made little or no reference to Armenia in the demand for penalties, reparation and redemption. This fact must have impressed Mr. Arthur Henderson, who, in his reference to Armenia quoted more fully elsewhere, remarked that " ... Armenian atrocities _were not much talked about_ here ... etc." My anxiety will be understood when I point out that for us it is not a question of a little more or less territory, a little larger or smaller indemnity. For us more than for any other race involved in the war it is a question of "to be or not to be" in a real and fateful sense: the rebirth of Armenian nationality from the profusion of its lost blood and heaps of smouldering ashes, or the end of that long-cherished and bled-for aspiration, and the consummation of the "policy" of Abdul Hamid and the Young Turks.