Sunday, 14th March, 1915.

This morning I had a long conversation with Mr.—— about events at Zeitoun. He has managed to obtain some information regarding the little Armenian town, although all direct communication with it has been interrupted. Turkish troops have left Aleppo for Zeitoun—some say 4,000, some 6,000, others 8,000. With what intention, one wonders? Mr.——, who has been there himself during last summer and this winter, assures me that the Armenians have no wish to revolt, and are prepared to put up with anything the Government may do. Contrary to the old-established custom, a levy was made at Zeitoun at the time of the August mobilisation, and they did not offer the slightest resistance. None the less, the Government has played them false. In October, 1914, their leader, Nazaret Tchaoush, came to Marash with a “safe conduct” to arrange some special points with the officials. In spite of the “safe conduct,” they imprisoned him, tortured him and put him to death. Still the people of Zeitoun remained quiet. Bands of zaptiehs (Turkish gendarmes), quartered in the town, have been molesting the inhabitants, raiding shops, stealing, maltreating the people and dishonouring their women. It is obvious that the Government are trying to get a case against the Zeitounlis, so as to be able to exterminate them at their pleasure and yet justify themselves in the eyes of the world.

—th April, 1915.

Three Armenians from DÖrt YÖl were hanged last night in the chief square of Adana. The Government declare that they had been signalling to the British warship or warships stationed in the Gulf of Alexandretta. This is untrue, for I know, though I dare not put the source of my information on paper, that only one Armenian from DÖrt YÖl has had any communication with the English.

—th April.

Two more Armenians from DÖrt YÖl have been hanged at Adana.

—th April.

Three Armenians have been hanged at Adana. We were out riding to-day, and the train came into the station just as we reached the railway. Imagine our indignation when we saw a cattle-truck filled with Armenians from Zeitoun. Most of these mountaineers were in rags, but a few were quite well dressed. They had been driven out of their homes and were going to be transplanted, God knows where, to some town in Asia Minor. It seems we have returned to the days of the Assyrians, if whole populations can be exiled in this way, and the sacred liberty of the individual so violated.

—th April (the next day).

We were able to see the unfortunate refugees, who are still here to-day. These are the circumstances of their departure from Zeitoun, or rather this is the tragedy which preceded their exile, though it was not the cause of it.

The Turkish gendarmes outraged several girls in the town, and were attacked in consequence by about twenty of the more hot-headed young men. Several gendarmes were killed, though all the while the population as a whole was opposed to bloodshed, and desired most earnestly to avoid the least pretext for reprisals. The twenty rebels were driven out of the town and took refuge in a monastery about three-quarters of an hour’s distance from the town. At this point the troops from Aleppo arrived. The Zeitounlis gave them lodging, and it seemed that all was going excellently between the populace and the 8,000 soldiers under their German officers.

The Turks surrounded the monastery and attacked it for a whole day; but the insurgents defended themselves, and, at the cost of one man slightly wounded, they killed 300 of the regular troops. During the night, moreover, they managed to escape.

Their escape was as yet unknown to the town when, about nine o’clock on the following morning, the Turkish Commandant summoned about 300 of the principal inhabitants to present themselves immediately at the military headquarters. They obeyed the summons without the least suspicion, believing themselves to be on excellent terms with the authorities. Some of them took a little money, others some clothing or wraps, but the majority came in their working clothes and brought nothing with them. Some of them had even left their flocks on the mountains in the charge of children. When they reached the Turkish camp, they were ordered to leave the town at once without returning to their homes. They were completely stupefied. Leave? But for where? They did not know.

They had been unable even yet to learn their destination, but it is probable that they are being sent to the Vilayet of Konia. Some of them have come in carriages and some on foot.

—th April.

I heard to-day that the whole population of DÖrt YÖl has been taken away to work on the roads. They continue to hang Armenians at Adana. It is a point worth remembering that Zeitoun and DÖrt YÖl are the two Armenian towns which held their own during the Adana massacres of 1909.

—th May.

A new batch of Zeitounlis has just arrived. I saw them marching along the road, an interminable file under the Turkish whips. It is really the most miserable and pitiable thing in the world. Weak and scarcely clothed, they rather drag themselves along than walk. Old women fall down, and struggle to their feet again when the zaptieh approaches with lifted stick. Others are driven along like donkeys. I saw one young woman drop down exhausted. The Turk gave her two or three blows with his stick and she raised herself painfully. Her husband was walking in front with a baby two or three days old in his arms.

Further on an old woman had stumbled, and slipped down into the mud. The gendarme touched her two or three times with his whip, but she did not stir; then he gave her several kicks with his foot; still she did not move; then he kicked her harder, and she rolled over into the ditch; I hope that she was already dead.

These people have now arrived in the town. They have had nothing to eat for two days. The Turks forbade them to bring anything with them from Zeitoun, except, in some cases, a few blankets, a donkey, a mule, or a goat. But even these things they are selling here for practically nothing—a goat for one medjidia (3s. 2d.), a mule for half a lira (nine shillings). This is because the Turks steal them on the road. One young woman who had only been a mother eight days, had her donkey stolen the first night of the journey. What a way of starting out! The German and Turkish officers made the Armenians leave all their property behind, so that the mouhadjirs (refugees) from Thrace might enter into possession. There are five families in ——’s house! The town and the surrounding villages (about 25,000 inhabitants) are entirely destroyed.

Between fifteen and sixteen thousand exiles have been sent towards Aleppo, but they are going to be taken further. Perhaps into Arabia? Can the real object be to starve them to death? Those who have passed through our town were going to the Vilayet of Konia; there too there are deserts.

—th May.

Letters have come which confirm my fears. It is not to Aleppo that the Zeitounlis are being sent, but to Der-el-Zor, in Arabia, between Aleppo and Babylonia. And those we saw the other day are going to Kara-Pounar, between Konia and Eregli, in the most arid part of Asia Minor.

Certain ladies here have given blankets and shoes to some of the poorest. The local Christians, too, have shown themselves wonderfully self-sacrificing. But what can one do? It is a little drop of charity in the ocean of their suffering.

—th May.

News has come from Konia. Ninety Armenians have been taken to Kara-Pounar. The Zeitounlis have arrived at Konia. Their sufferings have been increased by their having had to wait—some of them 8, some 15, some 20 days—at Bozanti (the terminus of the Anatolian Railway in the Taurus, 2,400 feet above sea level). This delay was caused by the enormous masses of troops passing continually through the Cilician Gates; it is the army of Syria which is being recalled for the defence of the Dardanelles.

When the exiles reached Konia, they had eaten nothing, according to our news, for three days. The Greeks and Armenians at once collected money and food for their relief, but the Vali of Konia would not allow anything of any kind to be given to the exiles. They therefore remained another three days without food, at the end of which time the Vali removed the prohibition and allowed food to be served out to them under the supervision of the zaptiehs.

My informant tells me that, after the departure of the Armenians from Konia for Kara-Pounar, he saw an Armenian woman throw her new-born baby into a well; another is said to have thrown hers out of the window of the train.

—th May.

A letter has come from Kara-Pounar. I know the writer of it, and can have no doubt of his truthfulness. He says that the 6,000 or 8,000 Armenians from Zeitoun are dying there from starvation at the rate of 150 to 200 a day. So from 15,000 to 19,000 Zeitounlis must have been sent into Arabia, the total population of the town and the outlying villages having been about 25,000.

—th May.

The whole garrison of —— and of Adana have left for the Dardanelles. There are no troops left to defend the district if it should be attacked from outside.

—th May (the next day).

New troops have arrived, but they are untrained.

—th May.

The last batch of Zeitounlis passed through our town to-day, and I was able to speak to some of them in the han where they had been put. I saw one poor little girl who had been walking, barefoot, for more than a week; her only clothing was a torn pinafore; she was shivering with cold and hunger, and her bones were literally pushing through her skin.

About a dozen children had to be left on the road because they could not walk any further. Have they died of hunger? Probably, but no one will ever know for certain. I also saw two poor old women without any hair left, or with hardly any. When the Turks drove them out of Zeitoun they had been rich, but they could not take anything with them beyond the clothes they were wearing. They managed somehow to hide five or six gold pieces in their hair, but, unfortunately for them, the sun glinted on the metal as they marched along and the glitter attracted the notice of a zaptieh. He did not waste any time in picking out the pieces of gold, but found it much quicker to tear the hair out by the roots.

I came across another very characteristic case. A citizen of Zeitoun, formerly a rich man, was leading two donkeys, the last remnants of his fortune. A gendarme came along and seized their bridles; the Armenian implored him to leave them, saying that he was already on the verge of starvation. The only answer he received from the Turk was a shower of blows, repeated till he rolled over in the dust; even then the Turk continued beating him, till the dust was turned into a blood-soaked mud; then he gave a final kick and went off with the donkeys. Several Turks stood by watching; they did not appear to be at all surprised, nor did any of them attempt to intervene.

—th May.

The authorities have sent a number of people from DÖrt YÖl to be hanged in the various towns of Adana Vilayet.

—th May.

There is a rumour of a partial exodus from Marash. It is going to be our town next.

DÖrt YÖl has also been evacuated and the inhabitants sent into Arabia. Hadjin is threatened with the same fate. There has been a partial clearing out of Adana; Tarsus and Mersina are threatened too, and also Aintab.

This testimony is especially significant because it comes from a German source, and because the German Censor made a strenuous attempt to suppress it.

The same issue of the “Sonnenaufgang” contains the following editorial note:—

“In our preceding issue we published an account by one of our sisters (Schwester MÖhring) of her experiences on a journey, but we have to abstain from giving to the public the new details that are reaching us in abundance. It costs us much to do so, as our friends will understand; but the political situation of our country demands it.”

In the case of the “Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift,” the Censor was not content with putting pressure on the editor. On the 10th November, he forbade the reproduction of the present article in the German press, and did his best to confiscate the whole current issue of the magazine. Copies of both publications, however, found their way across the frontier.

Both the incriminating articles are drawn from common sources, but the extracts they make from them do not entirely coincide, so that, by putting them together, a fuller version of these sources can be compiled.

In the text printed below, the unbracketed paragraphs are those which appear both in the “Sonnenaufgang” and in the “Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift”; while paragraphs included in angular brackets [< >] appear only in the “Sonnenaufgang,” and those in square brackets ([ ]) only in the “Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift.”

Between the 10th and the 30th May, 1,200 of the most prominent Armenians and other Christians, without distinction of confession, were arrested in the Vilayets of Diyarbekir and Mamouret-ul-Aziz.

<It is said that they were to be taken to Mosul, but nothing more has been heard of them.>

[On the 30th May, 674 of them were embarked on thirteen Tigris barges, under the pretext that they were to be taken to Mosul. The Vali’s aide-de-camp, assisted by fifty gendarmes, was in charge of the convoy. Half the gendarmes started off on the barges, while the other half rode along the bank. A short time after the start the Armenians were stripped of all their money (about £6,000 Turkish) and then of their clothes; after that they were thrown into the river. The gendarmes on the bank were ordered to let none escape. The clothes of these victims were sold in the market of Diyarbekir.]

<About the same time 700 young Armenian men were conscribed, and were then sent to build the KarabaghtchÉ-Habashi road. There is no news of these 700 men either.

It is said that in Diyarbekir five or six priests were stripped naked one day, smeared with tar, and dragged through the streets.

In the Vilayet of Aleppo they have evicted the inhabitants of Hadjin, Shar, Albustan, GÖksoun, Tasholouk, Zeitoun, all the villages of Alabash, Geben, Shivilgi, Furnus and the surrounding villages, Fundadjak, Hassan-Beyli, Harni, Lappashli, DÖrt YÖl and others.>

[They have marched them off in convoys into the desert on the pretext of settling them there. In the village of Tel-Armen (along the line of the Bagdad Railway, near Mosul) and in the neighbouring villages about 5,000 people were massacred, leaving only a few women and children. The people were thrown alive down wells or into the fire. They pretend that the Armenians are to be employed in colonising land situated at a distance of twenty-four to thirty kilometres from the Bagdad Railway. But as it is only the women and children who are sent into exile, since all the men, with the exception of the very old, are at the war, this means nothing less than the wholesale murder of the families, since they have neither the labour nor the capital for clearing the country.]

A German met a Christian soldier of his acquaintance, who was on furlough from Jerusalem. The man was wandering up and down along the banks of the Euphrates searching for his wife and children, who were supposed to have been transferred to that neighbourhood. Such unfortunates are often to be met with in Aleppo, because they believe that there they will learn something about the whereabouts of their relations. It has often happened that when a member of a family has been absent, he discovers on his return that all his family are gone—evicted from their homes.

[For a whole month corpses were observed floating down the River Euphrates nearly every day, often in batches of from two to six corpses bound together. The male corpses are in many cases hideously mutilated (sexual organs cut off, and so on), the female corpses are ripped open. The Turkish military authority in control of the Euphrates, the Kaimakam of Djerablous, refuses to allow the burial of these corpses, on the ground that he finds it impossible to establish whether they belong to Moslems or to Christians. He adds that no one has given him any orders on the subject. The corpses stranded on the bank are devoured by dogs and vultures. To this fact there are many German eye-witnesses. An employee of the Bagdad Railway has brought the information that the prisons at Biredjik are filled regularly every day and emptied every night—into the Euphrates. Between Diyarbekir and Ourfa a German cavalry captain saw innumerable corpses lying unburied all along the road.]

<The following telegram was sent to Aleppo from Diyarbekir:—“We have accepted the True Religion. Now we are all right.” The inhabitants of a village near Anderoum went over to Islam and were allowed to stay. At Hadjin six families wanted to become Mohammedans. They were told: “Nothing under one hundred families will be accepted.”

Aleppo and Ourfa are the assembling-places for the convoy of exiles. There were about 5,000 of them in Aleppo during June and July, while during the whole period from April to July many more than 50,000 must have passed through the city. The girls were abducted almost without exception by the soldiers and their Arab hangers-on. One father, on the verge of despair, besought me to take with me at least his fifteen-year-old daughter, as he could no longer protect her from the persecutions inflicted upon her. The children left behind by the Armenians on their journey are past counting.

Women whose pains came upon them on the way had to continue their journey without respite. A woman bore twins in the neighbourhood of Aintab; next morning she had to go on again. She very soon had to leave the children under a bush, and a little while after she collapsed herself. Another, whose pains came upon her during the march, was compelled to go on at once and fell down dead almost immediately. There were several more incidents of the same kind between Marash and Aleppo.1

The villagers of Shar were permitted to carry all their household effects with them. On the road they were suddenly told: “An order has come for us to leave the high road and travel across the mountains.” Everything—waggons, oxen and belongings—had to be left behind on the road, and then they went on over the mountains on foot. This year the heat has been exceptionally severe, and many women and children naturally succumbed to it even in these early stages of their journey.

There are about 30,000 exiles of whom we have no news at all, as they have arrived neither at Aleppo nor at Ourfa.>

Between the 28th July and the 20th August, 1915, I travelled to Marash. At BeshgÖz, between Killis and Aintab, it was a subject of conversation among the villagers that the deportation of the Armenians would begin at Aintab too on the following day. A little while after, a well-dressed gentleman, a Circassian, according to his appearance, being partly in mufti and partly in officer’s uniform, joined the group of talkers and asked: “From what part of the town are people being sent away? By what road do they go? What kind of people are they? Are they people from whom anything is to be got?” When one of the persons present asked him whether he was a civilian or in military service, he said smilingly: “Is there a finer opportunity of being a soldier than now?” The same person said afterwards: “This time Germany has given these unbelieving swine a lesson which they will not forget.”2

On hearing this, I could not refrain from replying that it was soiling the name of Germany to mention it in connection with the things which I had just been compelled to hear. On my return journey I heard that the first convoys from Aintab, consisting almost exclusively of well-to-do families, were stripped to their shirts, and I was assured from several sides that this was done with the connivance of the Government authorities, with whom the above-mentioned questionable gentleman must, according to all appearances, have been in relation. At KarabÖyÜk, between Aintab and Marash, I met a convoy of Armenians, consisting of about forty women and children and five or six men. Close in front of them, at a distance of about 180 yards, 100 newly-enlisted soldiers were marching. There was a young lady among the women, a teacher, who for several years had been in German employment; she had just recovered from a serious attack of typhoid fever. The soldiers wanted her and a young wife, whose husband is at present a soldier in Damascus, to spend the night with them, and used force to make them. It was only through the Mohammedan mule drivers coming to the assistance of the women, that the soldiers could be kept off during their three attacks.

On the 6th August the Armenian village of Fundadjak, near Marash, a place of about 3,000 inhabitants, was battered down to the ground. The population, consisting almost exclusively of mule drivers, had, during the preceding three months, been frequently compelled to transport Armenians in the direction of the Euphrates. They had seen the corpses in the Euphrates, and had also observed with their own eyes the selling and raping of women and girls.

In an Armenian school at Marash I saw over 100 women and children with bullet wounds in their legs and their arms, and with all sorts of mutilations; among them were children of one to two years.

On the 13th August, 34 Armenians, including two boys twelve years old, were shot at Marash. Again, on the 15th August, 24 were shot and 14 were hanged. The 24 who were shot were tied together with a heavy chain that went round their necks, and were made to stand up together in one mass. They were shot in the presence of the Mohammedan population behind the American College. With my own eyes I saw the bodies, while still convulsed by the agonies of death, being abandoned to the license of the rough civilian mob, who pulled the hands and feet of the corpses; and during the next half-hour the policemen and gendarmes shot continuously with revolvers on these corpses, some of which were terribly disfigured, while the population looked on with amusement. Afterwards the same people marched up and down in front of the German Hospital and shouted, “Vashasin Almanya” (Long live Germany).3 Again and again I have been told by Mohammedans that it was Germany which caused the Armenians to be extirpated in this way.

On the way from the town to the farm I saw, on the outskirts of the town, a human head lying on a dung-heap, which was used as a target by Turkish boys. In Marash itself, during my stay there, Armenians were every day killed by the civil population, and the corpses were left for days in the open sewers or elsewhere.

Kadir Pasha said to me at Marash: “I know that, in pursuance of an order from the Government, the whole male population within the area of the 4th Army Corps was killed.”

On the 20th August, 19154, at six o’clock in the evening, it was proclaimed at Marash that, according to the order of the Vali of Adana, all males over 15 years of age (5,600 altogether) must be assembled outside the town, ready for marching, by mid-day on Saturday; any one of them found in the town after 12 o’clock would be shot on the spot. Everyone knew the meaning of this order, and we lived through hours of most awful terror. At the last moment the Vali’s order, owing to the intervention of the very humane Governor of Marash, was modified to the extent that the men would be allowed to leave with their families. Only on the 18th August the Vali had sent for the clerical authorities, and had given them an assurance that the Armenians in Marash would not be deported. Thus the first who had to leave the town had to do so without any previous preparation.

In the village of BÖveren, near Albistan, all the Armenian inhabitants, 82 in number, with the exception of a boy twelve years old, who jumped into the water and escaped, were killed.

In the neighbourhood of Zeitoun the inhabitants of a village infested by the smallpox were deported. The patients suffering from smallpox, including those whose eyesight had been destroyed by the illness, were lodged in hans (i.e. inns) at Marash, in which deported persons from other districts were lodged already.

At Marash I saw a convoy, consisting of about 200 persons, among whom were several blind. A mother, of the age of about 60, led her daughter, who was lame from birth; in this manner they started on their journey on foot. After an hour’s march a man collapsed near the Erkeness bridge; he was robbed and killed. Four days afterwards we still saw his corpse lying in a ditch.

Last night I called on an acquaintance; he had given hospitality to a mother and her child who had been deported from Sivas—the two survivors of a family of 26 persons who had been deported from Sivas three months before and had reached Marash in the last few days.

In Aintab I saw a written order of the Governor of the town, prohibiting the purchase on the part of the Mohammedan population of any objects belonging to the deported Armenians. The same Governor caused preparations to be made for a raid on the deported persons. Two convoys were robbed of everything, down to the shirts of the people belonging to them.

About 2,800 persons deported from GÜrÜn were attacked and robbed at Airan-Pounar (12 hours to the north-east of Marash) by eight brigands, who wore uniforms, partly officer’s uniform and partly private’s. At Kisyl Gedjid, 1½ hours short of Airan-Pounar, the eight brigands joined the gendarmes escorting the convoy and had a long conversation with them. At Airan-Pounar the gendarmes ordered the people to divide into two parties; the few men formed one party, and the women the other party. The women were stripped naked and robbed of everything; four women and two girls were dragged away in the night and violated; five of them returned on the following morning. In a defile of the Engissek-Dagh the whole convoy was completely plundered by Turks and Kurds. In this assault 200 persons were killed; 70 severely wounded persons had to be left behind, and more than 50 more were taken along with the convoy. I met the convoy, then consisting of about 2,500 persons, at KarabÖyÜk. The people were in an indescribable state of misery; one hour short of KarabÖyÜk two men were lying on the road, one with two and the other with seven knife-wounds; further on there were two exhausted women; still further four women, including a girl of 13, with a two days’ old baby in her arms, wrapped in rags. A man of about 60, who was lying in the road with a deep wound (inflicted by a dagger), as long as a finger and two fingers wide, told me that he had left GÜrÜn with 13 animals. All the animals and all his goods were taken away from him at Airan-Pounar, and he had dragged himself away on foot, until he reached a place about an hour short of KarabÖyÜk, where he fell down exhausted.

These people had all been in easy circumstances; the value of the goods, the animals and the money of which they were robbed, is estimated at T£8,000. Those who were exhausted were left lying on the road; corpses can be seen lying on both sides of it. Among the 2,500 persons of whom this convoy was composed I saw no males, with the exception of about 30–40. All males over the age of 15 were taken away in the sight of the women, and were probably killed. These Armenians were intentionally transported by circuitous routes and over dangerous paths. By the direct road to Marash they would have arrived in four days, and they have been on the road for over a month. They had to travel without animals, without beds, without food; once in every day they received a thin slice of bread, and then not enough to satisfy their hunger. Four hundred of them (Protestants) have in the meantime arrived at Aleppo; out of these two or three die every day.

The raid at Ainar-Pounar was carried out with the connivance of the Kaimakam at Albistan, who made them pay him T£200, and promised the people that he would see that they reached Aintab safely. The Kaimakam at GÜrÜn made them pay him T£1,020, and gave the same assurances. I saw a man who, together with others, handed this sum to the Kaimakam in the club room at GÜrÜn. In the neighbourhood of Aintab several women belonging to this convoy were violated in the night by civilian inhabitants of Aintab. On the occasion of the raid at Airan-Pounar men were tied to trees and burnt alive. While the Armenians at GÜrÜn were actually leaving the town, the Mollahs called the faithful to prayer from the roofs of the Christian Churches. An eye-witness told me about a dispute between two brothers relating to the booty at Airan-Pounar; one of them said: “For these four loads I have killed forty women.”

At Marash a Mohammedan of the name of Hadji, whom I have known for years, told me the following incident: “At Nissibin, I and all the mule-drivers were locked up in a han; several young women belonging to Furnus were violated during the night by the gendarmes escorting the convoy and by civilians.”

At Aintab, at the office of the Commissioner of Police, a Mohammedan Agha said in my presence to an Armenian: “In such and such places letters have been found. What are your relations with this man? I have often told you to become a Mohammedan: if you had listened to me, you would have escaped all the disagreeable things to which your nation is exposed.”

Out of 18,000 persons who were deported from Kharput and Sivas, 350 arrived at Aleppo (consisting of women and children); out of 1,900 deported from Erzeroum, only eleven—one sick boy, four girls and six women—reached that town. A convoy of women and girls had to walk the 65 hours from Ras-el-Ain to Aleppo along the railway line, notwithstanding the fact that at the same time the railway carriages, which had been used for the transport of soldiers, were returning empty. Mohammedan travellers, who came along this way, report that the roads are impassable owing to the many corpses lying unburied on both sides of the road, the smell of which is poisoning the air. Of those “remaining over,” who so far have not been sent further on, 100–120 persons have died at Aleppo up to the present, in consequence of the hardships of the journey. The starving and emaciated women and children, on their arrival at Aleppo, fell on the food like wild beasts. In the case of many of them the digestive organs had ceased to work; after having devoured one or two spoonfuls they put the spoon aside. The Government alleges that the deported persons receive food, but in the case of the above-mentioned convoy, which came from Kharput, a distribution of bread took place only once in three months.

The Government does not merely neglect to make any provision for the people; on the contrary, it causes everything to be taken away from them. At Ras-el-Ain a convoy of 200 girls and women arrived in a state of complete nudity; their shoes, their chemises, everything, in short, had been taken away from them, and they were made to walk for four days under the hot sun—the temperature was 122 degrees in the shade—in their condition of nakedness, jeered at and derided by the soldiers of their escort. Mr. X. told me that he himself had seen a convoy, consisting of 400 women and children, in the same state. Whenever the wretched exiles appealed to the humanity of the officials, the reply was: “We have strict orders from the Government to treat you in this way.”

At first the dead in Aleppo were brought to the cemetery in the coffins provided by the Armenian Church. This was done by “Hamals” (professional porters), who received two piastres for each dead. When the “Hamals” were unable to cope with the whole work, the women themselves brought their dead to the cemetery—the babies in their arms, the bigger children laid on sacks and carried by four women, one at each corner. I saw corpses carried to the cemetery across a donkey’s back. A friend of mine saw a dead body tied to a stick, which was carried by two men. Another friend saw a cart drawn by oxen going to the cemetery with a full load of corpses. The two-wheeled cart was too large to pass the narrow cemetery-gate, whereupon the driver, without any hesitation, turned it round and emptied it; then he dragged the dead bodies to their respective graves by the arms and legs. At the present moment five or six carts are in use, which take the dead to the cemetery. In one of the hans, which is called a hospital, I saw on a Sunday something like 30 corpses lying about in a yard, which was about 25 yards wide and 50 yards long. About 20 had already been buried on that day. The 30 corpses remained lying there until the evening. My wife got them carried away in the darkness by engaging three “Hamals,” to whom she gave a medjidiÉ (about 3s. 2d.) each. In the case of one of the corpses the skin adhered to the hands of the “Hamals,” showing how far the process of decomposition had already gone. Dying persons and persons suffering from serious illnesses, about 1,000 altogether, were lying among the dead, under the burning sun. The whole scene was more terrible than anything I had ever seen, even than the shooting of the 24 people at Marash in the summer, which has been described above. Nearly all the people suffered from diarrhoea. Channels had been dug in the ground within the courtyard, by the side of which the dying were placed, with their backs towards the channel, so that the emptyings of their bowels could pass into it at once. Whenever anyone died, he was removed, and his melancholy place was filled by another. It happened frequently that persons who were carried away as dead gave signs of life when they were near the grave; they were dragged aside, until it was certain that death had supervened. One young girl recovered so far that she could be carried back to the town, and one person who had been buried in the evening was found sitting on his grave the next morning. Several corpses had been thrown into one grave, and he was on the top; in the twilight only a thin layer of earth had been put over him. In Tel-Abiad Mr.— saw open graves with 20–30 corpses. The graves were filled up with earth when it was no longer possible to put any more corpses into them. Mr.— told me that it was impossible to go near these places owing to the stench, and yet the deported persons had to encamp in the immediate vicinity. Out of 35 orphans who were kept in one room at Aleppo, 30 died in a week for want of nourishment. Mr.— says that on his journey to this place he saw corpses everywhere on the road, and that a Kurd boasted to him of having killed 14 children.

On Sunday, the 12th August, 1915, I had to go to the station of the Damascus railway at Aleppo, and was able to see the loading into cattle trucks of about 1,000 women and children. With us in Germany the cattle are allowed more space than those wretched people; 90 per cent. of them had death written on their faces. There were people among them who literally had no time allowed them for dying. On the previous evening a convoy had been taken away, and on the next morning the dead bodies of two children, about half grown up, were found, who had died during the loading of the trucks and had been left lying on the platform.

On the 13th September, 1915, the following telegraphic order from the Commander-in-Chief of the 4th Army, Djemal Pasha, was brought to the notice of the inhabitants: “All photographs, which may have been taken by the engineers or other officers of the Bagdad Railway Construction Company relating to the convoys of Armenians, are to be delivered within 48 hours, together with the negatives, to the Military Commissariat of the Bagdad Railway at Aleppo. Any contravention of this order will be punished by court-martial.”

Several times I saw women and children search for scraps of food in the dustheaps: anything that was found was devoured immediately. I saw the children gnawing at raw bones which they had picked up in corners used as urinals.

On the road between Marash and Aintab the Mohammedan population of a village wanted to distribute water and bread among a convoy of 100 families, but the soldiers escorting the convoy prevented this. Four-fifths of the deported persons are women and children; the majority of the men have been called up for the Army.

Twenty thousand persons who had been deported by way of Marash were not allowed to pass on to Aintab and obtain supplies of food, though the direct caravan route goes through Aintab.

At Ras-el-Ain there are at present about 1,500 women and children, the only survivors out of several thousands, who, together with their husbands and fathers, were deported from Kharput and the surrounding country. Among these 1,500 persons there is not a single male over the age of 10–12 years. These people, healthy or sick, are left lying from morning till evening in the sun without food and without protection against a temperature of 109½ degrees in the shade, and they are in the arbitrary power of their guards. Mr. L.— who during the last month had, in conversation with me, used the expression “Armenian rabble”—spoke literally as follows: “I am not a man who is easily touched, but after what I have seen at Ras-el-Ain I cannot keep the tears away. I did not think it possible that such acts of ill-treatment and violence, outraging all rules of humanity, could be perpetrated in our century.”

A “Tchaoush” (Sergeant-Major) of the name of Suleiman took 18 women and girls and sold them to Arabs, charging 2–3 mejidiÉs (6s. 4d.—9s. 6d.) for each of them. A Turkish police-commissary said to me: “We have lost all count of the numbers of women and girls who were taken away by the Arabs and Kurds, either by force or with the connivance of the Government. This time we have carried out our operations against the Armenians according to our heart’s desire; not one out of ten has been left among the living.”

While I am writing this down, my wife has returned from a walk into the town, and reports tearfully that she met a convoy of over 800 Armenians, all bare-footed, with torn clothes, carrying their scanty possessions on their backs, together with their babies.

In BesnÉ the whole population, consisting of 1,800 souls, principally women and children, were expatriated; it was alleged that they were to be deported to Ourfa. When they reached the GÖksu, a tributary of the Euphrates, they were compelled to take their clothes off, and thereupon they were all massacred and thrown into the river.

On a single day latterly 170 corpses were observed drifting down the Euphrates, on other days 50–60. Mr. A., an engineer, saw 40 corpses in the course of one ride. Those which are stranded on the river bank are devoured by the dogs, those on sandbanks in mid-stream by the vultures.

The above-mentioned 800 Armenians had been deported from the district of Marash. They had been told that they would be taken to Aintab, and they were to provide themselves with food for two days. When they reached the neighbourhood of Aintab the soldiers said: “We have made a mistake, we were meant to go to Nissibin.” No food was supplied by the authorities, and no opportunities for the purchase of provisions were given. At Nissibin the word went round: “We came the wrong way; we were meant to go to Mumbidj.” There again the soldiers said: “We came the wrong way; we were meant to go to Bab.” In this manner they had to wander about for seventeen days, abandoned to the arbitrary pleasure of their escort. During the whole time no provisions were supplied by the Government, and their scanty possessions had to be given away in exchange for bread.

One mother, whose eldest daughter was taken away by force, threw herself in despair into the Euphrates with her two remaining children.

Said, an emigrant from Tripoli, who had been a groom in Mr. L.’s stables for four years with a monthly salary of 400 piastres (about £3), enlisted as a volunteer for the war, in order to be able, according to his own statement, to take part in the slaughter of a few Armenians. A nice house in an Armenian village near Ourfa was promised him (he hinted) by way of reward.

Two Circassians who were in the service of Mr. E., a storekeeper, enlisted as volunteers for the war on the same ground.

The head of a Circassian village community, Tchordekli, speaking of the war volunteers from his village, said to an acquaintance of mine: “Ev yikmak itchun giderler” (They go in order to ruin whole families).

At Arab Pounar a Turkish Major, who spoke German, expressed himself as follows: “I and my brother took possession of a young girl at Ras-el-Ain, who had been left on the road. We are very angry with the Germans for doing such things.” When I contradicted them, they said: “The Chief of the General Staff is a German; von der Goltz is Commander-in-Chief, and ever so many German officers are in our Army. Our Koran does not permit such treatment as the Armenians have to suffer now.”5 At Nuss Tell a Mohammedan inspector made similar remarks to a clerk. When I taxed him with this utterance in the presence of others, he said: “It is not only I who say this; everyone will tell you the same tale.”

At Biredjik the prisons are filled every day and emptied over night. Tell Armen, a village of 3,000 inhabitants, was raided, the inhabitants were massacred, thrown dead or alive into the wells, or burnt. Major von Mikusch was a witness of the devastation. A German cavalry captain saw unburied corpses between Diyarbekir and Ourfa on both sides of the road, with their throats cut. Innumerable unburied corpses of children were seen on the way by Mr. S.

At Tel-Abiad seventeen dead or dying persons were left behind near the station, on the departure of a convoy. Two railway officials afterwards had all seventeen buried.

All the convoys of Armenians have for the last few days been taken into these parts. The statement made by Mr. N. is entirely in accord with the reply given to me by the Chairman of the Deportation Commission, when I made an application in favour of four Armenian children: “You do not grasp our intentions; we want to destroy the Armenian name. Just as Germany will only let Germans exist, so we Turks will only let Turks.”6

When the inhabitants of the Cilician villages left their homes, many of them still had donkeys for riding or carrying packs, but the soldiers escorting the convoys would only allow the “Katerdjis” (donkey-drivers) to ride on these animals, saying that strict orders had been given that no deported persons, whether male or female, might ride. In the case of the convoy starting from Hadjin the “Katerdjis” simply took all the pack animals which they suspected of carrying money or valuables straight to their own villages. Other animals, which the people had taken with them, were taken away from them by force or purchased for prices so absurdly low that it would hardly have made any difference if they had been given away gratis. A woman whose family is known to me sold 90 sheep for a hundred piastres, which at any other time would have realised about T£60 to £70; in other words, she had to sell ninety animals for the proper price of one animal. The villagers of Shar had received permission to take away their oxen, carts and pack animals. Near GÖkpunar they were forced to leave the carriage road and to take the shorter footpath which crosses the mountains. They had to march on without any food, for their journey or other equipment. The escort simply said that these were their orders.

At the beginning each deported person received from the Government one kilogram (2 lbs.) of bread per month (not per day). They lived on the provisions which they had taken with them. Small sums of money were afterwards paid to them. I was told of about 30 persons who had formerly been in good positions in the Circassian village of Bumbudj (Mumbidj, on the ruins of the ancient Bambyke), 1½ days’ journey from Aleppo, who had received 20 piastres in thirty days—not per head; but the 30 between them. That meant a penny a month each. About four hundred barefooted women, each with one child on her arm, one child on her back (often enough a dead one) and one held by the hand, passed through Marash during the first days. The Armenians of Marash—who afterwards were themselves deported—purchased £50 (Turkish) worth of shoes to supply those who passed through the town. Between Marash and Aintab the Mohammedan population in a Turkish village wished to give water and bread to a convoy of about 100 families. The soldiers refused to permit this. The American mission and the Armenians of Aintab—who later on were also deported—managed to bring bread and money during the night to the convoys which passed Aintab, and which totalled about 20,000 persons, mostly women and children. These were the villagers of the Sandjak of Marash. The convoys were not allowed to enter Marash, but encamped in the open. The American missionaries found it possible to provision them thus by night as far as Nisib (nine hours to the south-east of Aintab, on the way to the Euphrates).

While on the march the deported Armenians were at first robbed of their ready money, and afterwards of all their possessions. A deported Protestant minister saw T£43 being taken away from one family and £28 from another. This minister was himself newly married, and was compelled to leave his young wife at Hadjin, expecting her first child. Four-fifths of the deported persons are women and children. Three-fifths of them are barefooted. A former inhabitant of Hadjin who is known to me personally and who had a fortune of at least T£15,000 had, like everybody else, been robbed of his clothes, and clothes had to be begged for him here. The deported Armenians are specially troubled by the fact that they are unable to bury their dead. They are left dying anywhere on the road. The women often carry their dead children for days on their backs. At Bab, ten hours to the east of Aleppo, those who came through were lodged provisionally for a week or two, but they were not allowed to retrace their steps to bury the companions who had died on the way.

The hardest fate is that of the women who are confined on the way. They are hardly allowed sufficient time to bring their child into the world. One poor woman gave birth to twins during the night. In the morning she had to march on, carrying the two newly-born children on her back. After a two hours’ march she collapsed. She had to put the children on the ground under a bush, and the soldiers compelled her to walk on with her companions. Another woman was confined during the march and was forced to proceed on her march immediately; she fell down dead. A third woman was surrounded by ladies belonging to the American mission, while she was confined in the neighbourhood of Aintab. They only succeeded in obtaining permission for her to ride an animal, and she continued her journey in this manner, holding the child in her lap with a few rags round it. These cases were witnessed merely on the section of road between Marash and Aintab. At Aintab the people clearing up a han, which an hour before had been left by a convoy, found a new-born child. In the Tash-Han, in Marash, three new-born children were found buried in dung.

Innumerable corpses of children are found lying unburied on the road. A Turkish Major, who returned with me three days ago, said that many children were abandoned by their mothers on the way because they could not feed them any more. Older children are taken away from their mothers by the Turks. The Major, as well as each of his brothers, had an Armenian child with him; they intended to educate them as Mohammedans. One of the children speaks German. It must be one of the inmates of a German orphanage. It is thought that about 300 of the women who passed through here were confined on the way.

In this place a family, in its dire poverty and despair, sold a girl of the age of 18 years to a Turk for T£6. The husbands of most of the women had been called up for service in the Army. Anyone who does not obey the summons calling him up is hanged or shot; there were seven cases lately at Marash. The conscripts are, however, generally used merely for mending the roads, and are not allowed to carry arms. Those who return home find their houses empty. Two days ago I met an Armenian soldier at Djerabulus, who had come from Jerusalem, having obtained leave to visit his native village, Geben (situate between Zeitoun and Sis). I have known this man for years. Here he heard that his mother, his wife and three children had been deported into the desert. All inquiries as to the fate of his family were fruitless.

Corpses drifting down the Euphrates have been observed every day during the last 28 days, pairs of them being tied together back to back, while others are tied three to eight together by the arms. A Turkish Colonel who is stationed at Djerabulus was asked why he did not have the corpses buried, whereupon he replied that he had no orders to do so, and that, moreover, it was impossible to ascertain whether they were Mohammedans or Christians, as their sexual organs had been cut off. (They would bury Mohammedans, but not Christians.) The corpses which had been stranded on the shore were eaten by the dogs. Others which had stuck on the sandbanks became the prey of the vultures. A German, in the course of one ride, saw six pairs of corpses drifting down stream. A German cavalry captain said he had, in the course of a ride from Diyarbekir to Ourfa, seen innumerable unburied corpses on both sides of the road, all corpses of young men whose throats had been cut. (These were the Armenians called up for military service and used for mending the roads.) A Turkish Pasha, addressing a distinguished Armenian, expressed himself as follows: “Be thankful, if at least you find a grave in the desert; many of you have to do without this.”

Not one half of the deported persons remain alive. The day before yesterday one woman died here in the station yard; yesterday there were 14 deaths, and this morning a further 10. A Protestant minister from Hadjin said to a Turk at Osmanieh: “Not one half of these deported persons remain alive.” The Turk replied: “That is what we are after.”

It ought not to be overlooked that there are some Mohammedans who disapprove of the horrible deeds done against the Armenians. A Mohammedan Sheikh, a person of great authority at Aleppo, said in my presence: “When I hear talk about the treatment of the Armenians, I am ashamed of being a Turk.”

Anyone who wishes to remain alive is compelled to go over to Islam. In order to promote this, isolated families are in certain cases sent to purely Mohammedan villages.

The number of deported persons who have passed through here and at Aintab has so far reached about 50,000. Nine-tenths of them were told on the evening before their deportation that they had to start in the morning. The majority of the convoys go through Ourfa, the minority through Aleppo. The first mentioned take the road for Mosul, the others for Der-el-Zor. The authorities say that they are to be settled there, but those who escape the knife will certainly perish of hunger. Some 10,000 persons have reached Der-el-Zor on the Euphrates; no news has so far been received of the others. As regards those who were sent towards Mosul, it is said that they are to be settled at a distance of about 16 miles from the railway; this probably means that they are to be driven into the desert, where their extirpation can proceed without witnesses.

What I have written down is only a small fraction of all the cruelties which have been practised here during the last two months, and which assume larger proportions every day. It is only a fraction of the things which I have seen with my own eyes and heard from acquaintances and friends who were eye-witnesses. I am prepared at any time to mention the dates of the events and to give the names of the witnesses.

(a) Report by FrÄulein M., dated 16th November, 1915.

I have just returned from a ride on horseback through the BaghtchÉ-Osmania plain, where thousands of exiles are lying out in the fields and on the roads, without any shelter and completely at the mercy of all manner of brigands. Last night, about 12 o’clock, a little camp was suddenly attacked. There were between 50 and 60 persons in it. I found men and women badly wounded—bodies slashed open, broken skulls and terrible knife-wounds. Fortunately I was provided with clothes, so I could change their blood-soaked things and then bring them to the next inn, where they were nursed. Many of them were so much exhausted from the enormous loss of blood that they died, I fear, in the meantime. In another camp we found thirty or forty thousand Armenians. I was able to distribute bread among them! Desperate, and half-starved, they fell upon it; several times I was almost pulled off my horse. A number of corpses were lying about unburied, and it was only by bribing the gendarmes that we could induce them to allow their burial. Usually the Armenians were not allowed to perform the last offices of love for their relatives. Dreadful epidemics of typhoid-fever broke out everywhere; there was a victim of it practically in every third tent. Nearly everything had to be transported on foot; men, women and children carried their few belongings on their backs. I often saw them break down under their burden, but the soldiers kept on driving them forward with the butt-ends of their rifles, even sometimes with their bayonets. I have dressed bleeding wounds on the bodies of women that had been caused by these bayonet thrusts. Many children had lost their parents and were now without any support. Three hours’ distance from Osmania two dying men were lying absolutely alone in the fields. They had been here for days without food or even a drop of water, after their companions had continued their march. They had grown as thin as skeletons, and only their heavy breathing showed that there was still life in them. Unburied women and children were lying in the ditches. The Turkish officials in Osmania were very obliging; I succeeded in obtaining many concessions from them, and many hardships were remedied. I obtained carriages to pick up the dying people and bring them in to town.

(b) Report by FrÄulein O. on a visit to the exiles’ camp at Mamouret, 26th November, 1915.

We saw thousands of tiny low tents, made of thin material. An innumerable crowd of people, of all ages and every class of society! They were looking at us partly in surprise, partly with the indifference of desperation. A group of hungry, begging children and women were at our heels: “Hanoum, bread! Hanoum, I am hungry; we have had nothing to eat to-day or yesterday!”

You had only to look at the greedy, pale, suffering faces to know that their words were true. About 1,800 loaves could be procured. Everybody fell greedily upon them; the priests who were charged with the distribution of the bread had almost to fight for their lives; but it was by no means sufficient, and no further bread was to be had. A crowd of hungry people stood imploringly before us. The gendarmerie had to keep them back by force. Suddenly the order for departure was given. If anybody was slow in striking their tent, it was torn down with the bayonet. Three carriages and a number of camels were held in readiness. A few wealthy people quickly hired the carriages, while others less well-to-do loaded a camel with their things. The wailing of the poor, the old and the sick filled the air: “We can’t go any further, let us die here.” But they had to go on. We were at least able to pay for a camel for some of them, and to give small change to others in order to buy bread at the next station; clothes, sewn at the Mission Station in Adana, were also distributed. Soon the immense procession was moving on. Some of the most miserable were left behind (others rested there already in the newly-dug graves). As many as 200—destitute, old or sick—are said to have waited there for help to come. The misery was increased a hundredfold by the severe rain and cold that had set in. Everywhere convoys left dying people in their track—little children and invalids perishing. Besides all this the epidemic was spreading more and more.

(c) Report by FrÄulein M. on a visit to the exiles’ camp at Islohia, 1st December, 1915.

It had rained three days and three nights; even in our houses we were acutely sensible of the cold and damp. As soon as possible, I set out on my way. About 200 families had been left behind at Mamouret. They were unable to proceed through exhaustion or illness. In this rain the soldiers, too, felt no inclination to rouse them up and drive them on, so they were lying about in what might have been a lake. There was not a single dry thread left in their ragged bedding. Many women had their feet frost-bitten; they were quite black and in a state for amputation. The wailing and groaning was horrible. Everywhere there were dying people in their last agonies or dead bodies lying in front of the tents. It was only by “bakshish” that the soldiers could be persuaded to bury them. It seemed a comfort to them when we came with dry clothes; they could change their things and get some bread and small change. Then I drove in a carriage along the whole route to Islohia. Though I had seen much distress before, the objects and the scenes I saw here defy description. A frailly-built woman was sitting by the roadside with her bedding on her back, and a young baby strapped on at the top of it; in her arms she had a two-year-old child—its eyes were dim and it was at its last gasp. The woman had broken down in her distress and was weeping in a heartbreaking way. I took her with me to the next camp, where the child died; then I took care of her and sent her on her way. She was so grateful. The whole carriage was packed with bread. I kept on distributing all the time. We had three or four opportunities of buying fresh supplies. These thousands of loaves were a great help to us. I was also able to hire some hundreds of animals to help the poor people forward. The camp at Islohia itself is the saddest thing I have ever seen. Right at the entrance a heap of dead bodies lay unburied. I counted 35, and in another place 22, in the immediate neighbourhood of the tents of those who were down with virulent dysentery. The filth in and around these tents was something indescribable. On one single day the burial committee buried as many as 580 people. Men were fighting for bread like hungry wolves. One saw hideous scenes. With what timidity and apathy these poor people often stared at me, as though they wondered where this assistance came from! For some weeks now many camps have been provided daily with bread. Of course, everything has to be done as unobtrusively as possible. We are so thankful to God that we may at least do something.

(d) Letter from FrÄulein M. to Mr. N., dated 13th December, 1915, on the way to Aleppo.

I should have written long before this, but during these last weeks I have been more on the road than at home, and the work in the camps was often so urgent that I could not find time for anything else. I suppose you have had, in the meantime, the receipt for the 200 liras you sent me. Many thanks for the quick response. I only wish you could see these poor people yourself; you would get an impression of the absolutely dreadful need and distress that these camps conceal. It is simply indescribable; one has to have seen it oneself. So far I have had no difficulty whatever; on the contrary, the officials here are most obliging, and grateful for everything we are doing for the poor people. You will find some reports enclosed which Miss O. copied for you as well; they will give you an idea of what we are doing here. Up to the present we have worked in four camps, twelve hours distant. We were often able to distribute about 10 to 20 liras’ worth of bread a day; besides this, we gave flour, clothes and nirra to many sick people, to help them on the long journey. Sometimes it happened that in some places we did not have nearly enough bread—in such cases we provided the people with money to buy bread at the next bakery along the route.

Now we are on our way to Aleppo, and Miss O. will stay there some weeks, D.V., to prepare everything for another journey to Der-el-Zor. I intend to come back soon, since there is still much work to do on the Mamouret-Islohia route, and it seems to me that we ought not to give up the work among the distressed so long as any of them are left in this place, for if we did they would absolutely die of starvation. Judging by our recent experience, we shall need about 300 to 400 liras a month. Dr. L. told me to send you word about this, because I should get the money from you. It would be better not to stop the work for lack of money, because the poor people would suffer by it. If, however, you think that less money ought to be spent, or that the whole work should be given up, please send me a telegram in time, so that we may stop doing it. If not, will you please be so kind as to send me the amount. To-day I have asked you by wire to send me 400 liras—200 for Mamouret and 200 for Islohia-Hassan-Beyli.

I hope you are well. We got a message that Dr. L. is down with typhoid. I hope that God will soon give him new strength. FrÄulein O. and I both send you our best wishes.