CHAPTER XXI

THE TURKS AND THE CHRISTIAN TRIBES

Guerrilla warfare--Who the Nestorian and other Christian tribes are--Turkish massacres--Russian withdrawal and its effect--British intervention.

The Nestorians, Jelus, and other racially connected Christian groups who, in the region around Lake Urumia, had been carrying on a guerrilla warfare against the Turks, at the beginning of July were reduced to very sore straits indeed by losses in the field, disease, and famine.

As already related in a previous chapter, Lieutenant Pennington, a British aviator, flew into Urumia in the first week in July, carrying General Dunsterville's assurance of speedy help. The leaders of these Christian peoples, in full accord with the British, decided that after evacuating Urumia an attempt should be made to break through to the south in the direction of Sain Kaleh and Bijar, in order to get in touch with the British relieving column which was marching north from Hamadan bringing ammunition and food supplies.

For the better understanding of this narrative, some explanation is due to the reader as to who and {220} what are the Nestorians and their kindred Christian clans who were now about to run the gauntlet of the Turkish Army operating in the Lake Urumia district.

The Nestorians are the followers of the Patriarch of Constantinople who was condemned for heresy in the year A.D. 431. They inhabit Kurdistan and north-western Persia, are also known as Assyrians, and are indeed often loosely referred to as Syrians. They live in that portion of the country which the Bible has familiarized to us as Assyria, and are confusedly termed Syrians, not because they come from Syria proper on the Mediterranean littoral, with its cities of Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus, but rather because their rubric and sacred writings are in ancient Syriac, while the language of the people themselves is modern Syriac.

Hundreds of years ago the seat of the Nestorian or Assyrian Patriarchate was near Ctesiphon on the Tigris, a short distance below Bagdad. But the Turkish conquerors persecuted the Christians, the Patriarch was forced to flee, and finally took refuge at Qudshanis, in the highlands of Kurdistan. The present spiritual head of the Assyrians, who is ecclesiastically designated Mar Shimun, is said to be the one hundred and thirty-eighth Catholicos, or Patriarch, of the Nestorian Church.

At the outbreak of the European War there were three distinguishable main groups of Assyrian Christians. One inhabited the Upper Tigris Valley beyond {221} Mesul and the hilly country towards Lake Van; a second was to be found on the Salmas-Urumia plateau and in the mountainous country bordering on the Persian-Turkish frontier; the third group lived on the Turkish side of the frontier between Lake Van and Urumia. Roughly they may be classified as Highlanders and Lowlanders, with various tribal subdivisions, of which one of the better known is the Jelu group.

Urumia itself is the scene of considerable foreign missionary activity, and is the headquarters of the Anglican, American, French, and Russian religious missions to the Assyrian Christians. Each had its own well-defined sphere of influence, and worked in the broadest spirit of Christian tolerance. When war burst upon this unhappy land, anything in the nature of sectarian rivalry and proselytizing zeal vanished, to give place to a united effort to aid and materially comfort the victims of Turkish fury.

The retreat of the Russians from Urumia, at the beginning of January, 1915, left some thousands of Urumia Christians who were unable to accompany them at the mercy of the Turks and their savage auxiliaries, the Kurds; and the usual massacre followed. The Christians, though poorly armed, defended themselves as best they could, and the survivors were driven to seek sanctuary in the American Mission Compound. Those who surrendered and gave up their arms to the Turks were put to death without mercy. At the beginning of May, 1915, the {222} army of Halil Bey, operating in North-Western Persia, was routed by the Russians, who reoccupied Urumia. But the beaten Turks in their retreat westwards killed every Christian tribesman they could find. A second Russian evacuation of Urumia in August, 1915, led to a fresh exodus of the able-bodied Assyrian fighting men, and to another massacre of those who remained behind.

From then until 1918 they had endured all the horrors and vicissitudes of war, with its fluctuations of victory and defeat. The Christian army had put up a brave fight against the Turks after the final Russian withdrawal from North-Western Persia. Now, hemmed in and suffering from hunger, they were about to attempt a third exodus, this time towards the South into the British lines.

During the last week in July the Christian army--probably about 10,000 fighting men, but with its ranks swelled to 30,000 by women and children refugees--withdrew from Urumia and marched southwards. The Turks gave pursuit and much harried their rearguard, which they subjected to artillery fire, inflicting severe losses. Ultimately the retreat under Turkish pressure degenerated into a rout, during which the mass of fugitives was severely cut up. In the course of the panic which prevailed, the Nestorian Army lost its artillery and its remaining supplies, while many of the women and children were abandoned in the general _sauve qui pent_, and fell into the hands of the enemy.

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The Turks reoccupied Urumia on August 1st, and vented their displeasure upon the defenceless people in the customary Turkish way. The aged were killed, and young girls were carried off and subjected to a fate worse than death.

Mgr. Sontag, the head of the French Lazarist Mission, a saintly man who was revered even by the local Moslems amongst whom he had lived for many years, was one of those who fell victims to the blind fury of the Turkish soldiery when they found themselves once more masters of Urumia.

At Sain Kaleh and Takan Teppeh, to the north-west of Bijar, the British were able to intervene between pursuers and pursued. The Nestorians, a sadly diminished band, were drafted back to Bijar and thence south to Hamadan. Harbouring vindictive feelings against Moslems in general as a result of the atrocities perpetuated upon them by the Turks, it is not perhaps surprising that they in their turn made an onslaught upon the inhabitants of the Persian villages encountered _en route_, and left them in much the same condition as the man who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves.

Mar Shimun, the spiritual head, and Agha Petros, the recognized military leader, accompanied the Nestorians from Urumia. The survivors of the exodus were put in a concentration camp at Hamadan with their women and children. The able-bodied and healthy amongst the men were subsequently drafted out and sent to Bakuba near Bagdad, where {224} an attempt was made by the British to organize and train them into fighting units. They received good pay and rations, but proved very difficult material to handle. Their wild, free lives had apparently unfitted them for a régime of discipline and ordered restraint. A large contingent refused to sign attestation papers lest they should be sent to fight overseas. It was useless attempting to reassure them on this point, and to tell them that all the military service they were expected to render in return for British pay and British rations was that of defending their own country against the common enemy, the Turk. It may be that their physical sufferings had demoralized them, but the irregulars of Agha Petros were incapable of attaining an ordinary degree of military efficiency as judged by British standards. They were a perpetual source of embarrassment to the British officers entrusted with their training. The experiment proved a failure, and at last, on the Turks suing for an armistice, the men of Agha Petros' command were disbanded and sent back to their own country.

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