THE BLUE-BOOK—THE EPIC OF ARMENIA'S MARTYRDOM, THE REVELATION OF HER SPIRIT AND CHARACTER—"TRUTH" ON THE ARMENIANS: A DIGRESSION
To realize, even approximately, the unimaginable barbarities that have been committed by the Turks during the Great Armenian Tragedy of 1915, it is necessary to read the Blue-book itself. But the Blue-book is a bulky volume, and the average man or woman has so many calls on his or her attention in these stirring and momentous times, that I fear it will not be read as widely as it deserves to be read in the interests of humanity, Christianity, and civilization. I have, therefore, thought it desirable to quote a number of extracts which will give the reader some idea of the nature and magnitude of the horrors chronicled in that fearful epic of a nation's martyrdom, in the hope that they may thereby reach a wider circle of the public.
Apart from giving the reader a general idea of the atrocities themselves, I have selected and grouped the extracts with the object of calling attention to the incidental or subsidiary morals and lessons they convey, which have received little or no notice in the Press reviews. The Blue-book reveals the spirit, the character and the ideals which lay hidden under the unattractive outside appearance of the Armenians, upon which has been based their mostly superficial judgment of them by European travellers. Often under the influence of a sense of indebtedness for an escort of Zaptiehs "graciously placed at their disposal by a kindly vali" (in whose harem were probably languishing a dozen or more enslaved women), they have seldom paused to understand the tragedy of the dour, subdued, anxious mien of the Armenian peasant seen trudging wearily along in the highways and byways of Asia Minor. They little realized that the Armenian lived under the strain of constant terrorism; that he never knew when the honour of his wife or sister might be violently assaulted; when he might be stabbed in the back; when his cattle might be driven away or his crops burned or stolen. He was afraid even of a too attractive personal appearance, lest he should excite the cupidity and jealousy of his Turkish neighbour. If he fell upon his persecutor and slew him in defence of the honour of his womenfolk, it meant the wiping out not only of his family but of his whole village. His own government was his deadly enemy, bent upon his destruction. This has been the tragedy of the Armenian's life for generations. It has been little known in the West because Armenia is a long way off, and few European travellers have stopped to look below the surface. He has lived with the yatagan hanging over his head, like the sword of Damocles, from birth to death. Virile, industrious, patient, long-suffering, but never despondent, he has clung to his faith, his soil, his ancient culture, his nationality and ideals of civilization with a tenacity that centuries of "bloody tyranny" have tended only to steel more and more. That he has succeeded in preserving the ideals which have cost his nation such heartbreaking sacrifices is abundantly proved by the Blue-book. Here is one evidence: "Mr. Yarrow, seeing all this, said, 'I am amazed at the self-control of the Armenians, for though the Turks did not spare a single wounded Armenian, the Armenians are helping us to save the Turks'" (p. 70).
But of all the tales of calm, dignified heroism in face of death recorded in the Blue-book, W. Effendi's letter (p. 133, and 504 of the Blue-book) written on the eve of his, his young wife's and infant child's deportation to what he knew to be certain death, will ever stand out as an impressive example of the noblest heroism, the highest conception of the teaching of Christ and a complete triumph of the spirit, unsurpassed in the annals of Christian martyrdom. "May God forgive this nation all their sin which they do without knowing," wrote this true follower of Christ, while he was making ready for his and his loved ones' journey to sorrow and death. It recalls the story of St. Stephen's martyrdom. W. Effendi's letter and Nurse Cavell's immortal words, "patriotism is not enough," strike me as the two most remarkable utterances delivered spontaneously by heroic spirits in proof of the bankruptcy of the "frightfulness" to which they were on the point of falling victims.
There was a short notice in Truth of January 31, 1917, in connection with Armenia Day which contained the following remark: "Some people despise these 'eleventh Allies' as a mercenary race, but others, like Mr. Noel Buxton, depict them in a much more attractive light."
With the reader's indulgence I will digress for a moment to deal briefly with this totally unjustified stigma cast wantonly upon the character of a sorely tried nation.
In the unoffensive sense of the word the whole human family may be called "mercenary." I have not met or heard of a race of men in any of the explored parts of the earth, whatever their colour, creed, or degree of civilization, who had any conscientious objection to the acquiring of as much money as they could acquire by legitimate and honourable means. I do not suppose Truth itself is dispensing its very helpful "Rubber tips" week by week solely for the good of humanity. But if it is asserted that the Armenian race puts the love of gold before everything else in life, such an assertion at this juncture is a particularly ill-timed, offensive and unworthy aspersion. A mercenary race, forsooth! If the Armenian race had valued gold above its loyalty to its faith and nationality; if it had attached greater value to material prosperity than to spiritual ideals and principles, it would have accepted Islam centuries ago—Heaven knows the temptation was great—and won a predominant position for itself in Asia Minor. It would be counted to-day not by two or three, but by twenty or thirty millions. But under the longest and bloodiest pressure endured by any people in history, culminating almost in its extermination, it refused to sell its soul.
Thousands of Armenians could have saved their lives by feigning to accept Islam, but, with few exceptions, they refused to commit even that measure of spiritual dishonesty, which would perhaps not have been considered unpardonable under the circumstances. There is scarcely any instance of an Armenian woman trafficking her honour for money; which is, perhaps, the most eloquent refutation of the calumny.
What good object has Truth served by giving currency in its columns to this libel against an oppressed people, almost wiped out because of its Christian faith and its sympathy for and support of the Allied cause? Even if there were the remotest justification for it one would have thought that Truth would have shrunk, at this dark and bitter hour, from adding insult to the agony of a people plunged into sorrow and mourning for the loss of half its number. But the assertion that the Armenians are a mercenary race is not true. It is part of the propaganda carried on by a very few people who are either blinded by unreasoning prejudice, or have some special purpose to serve, or believe that they are discharging some kind of duty by whitewashing the Turk and blackening the Armenian. I believe that these admirers of the votaries of "bloody tyranny" on the Bosphorus are very few indeed in this country. Whoever they are and whatever their motives, conscious of my obligations to the generous hospitality of this country—for which I cannot be too grateful—but taking my stand on the broader ground of Humanity, I wish to say to them, "Though you are in Great Britain, you are not of it; though this great, humane and Christian country may be your physical home by accident of birth, you will find your congenial 'spiritual home' in the offices of Count Reventlow and the Tanine. Charity, after all, is a matter between a man and his conscience and his God. If you cannot give your money to a starving woman or child without massacring them morally, while the Turk is taking their life, pray spare your money and let the Armenian die; it will please the Turk and his allies. Perhaps it would be more in harmony with your sentiments and political faith to lend your money to your friend the Turk. When the war is over he may need a fresh supply of arms, for even the tender limbs of the countless women and children on whom he has practised his 'chivalry' may well have blunted and worn his old stock."
There are mercenary Armenian individuals as there are mercenary persons in every nation. It may be that, debarred from government posts except when he was indispensable, the town Armenian in Turkey, like the Greek and Syrian, has been compelled to direct his energies into commercial channels in a larger proportion than free and independent nations. Naturally, also, through generations of ruthless persecution, the Armenian nation has thrown up a flotsam and jetsam of indigents wandering far and wide in search of security and the means of earning a living. But to brand the whole Armenian race as "mercenary" is malevolent nonsense, or credulity due to a total ignorance of the facts. Seventy or eighty per cent. of the Armenians in Turkish as well as Russian Armenia are peasants, farmers and artisans. That is approximately true also of the Persian Armenians. Even in the United States the majority of the immigrants have taken to fruit-growing in California. Armenians who have the means to give their sons a good education almost invariably make them follow a profession in preference to commerce, as witness the number of Armenian university professors, doctors, lawyers and some artists and painters of considerable merit in the United States.[21] Probably no people have made the sacrifices made by Armenians, in proportion to their means, for the relief of distress during the war. There have been a few exceptions among the very rich whose moral sense has been blunted by luxury and self-indulgence. They can be counted on the fingers of one hand. They belong to that class of cosmopolitan financiers and traders who are no more thrilled by the music of their country's or any country's name; who are unmoved by the cry of starving women and children of their own or any race; whose home is the world and whose god is gold; who are no more the masters but the slaves of money. But this, again, is not peculiar to Armenians; very far from it. It is a fraternity that embraces members of every, or almost every, race; and Armenians are barely represented upon it. It is palpably misleading as it is inaccurate to assert that these represent the Armenian nation. In fact, as far as my knowledge goes, the masses of the Armenian people are ashamed of them, because their worship of gold and vanity are alien to the national spirit, and bring discredit upon the nation. For generations Armenian educational and religious institutions have been maintained by voluntary grants; and I do not know that any European citizen bears a heavier burden for the needs of his nation than does the individual Armenian.
It must not be supposed from what I have said that all, or the majority, of rich Armenians have been deaf or indifferent to their country's need. That would be a mistake and an injustice. On the whole their response to the call of their afflicted country has been satisfactory, considering that they had obligations to the belligerent countries to which they owed allegiance. I know of one contribution of £30,000,[22] while ten Moscow merchants raised a million roubles between them for their nation's needs. A prominent Armenian physician has relinquished a large and remunerative practice at Petrograd to superintend personally the administration of an orphanage at Erzerum, which he has opened on his own private account. The Catholicos's palace at Etchmiadzin was converted into a hospital for refugees in the early months of 1915. Almost every Armenian peasant family in the Caucasus have housed and cared for one or more refugees in their humble cottages ever since the influx of their distressed kinsmen from the other side of the frontier in the spring and summer of 1915. I have not marshalled these facts in a spirit of flaunting the virtues of my race—we certainly hold no monopoly of all the virtues, or indeed of all the vices, to which human nature is heir—but I know of no better way to disprove the baseless aspersions assiduously disseminated by some interested people for purposes of pro-Turkish propaganda and accepted by the credulous as true.
Lord Bryce has known the Armenian people longer and more intimately than any eminent European statesman, historian and diplomatist has ever done before, and his dictum will no doubt be generally accepted as that of a great and final authority. I therefore make no apology for quoting his lordship's most recent utterance on the subject reported in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, February 2, 1917—
"Having known a very large number of Armenians, he had been greatly struck, not only with their high level of intelligence and industry, but also by their intense patriotism. He did not know of any people who had shown greater constancy, patience and patriotism under difficulties and sufferings than the Armenians. He personally had always found them perfectly loyal. He had frequently had occasion to give them confidential advice and to trust them with secrets, and never on any occasion had he found that confidence misplaced.... As a proof of their loyalty and devotion to their country he might mention that the Armenians living in America had contributed sums enormous in proportion to their number and resources, for they were nearly all persons of small means, for the relief of the refugees who had been driven out by the Turkish massacres. No people during the war had done more in proportion to their capacities than the Armenians had done for the relief of their suffering fellow-countrymen. A large number of them were also fighting as volunteers in the armies of France, where they had displayed the utmost courage and valour in the combats before Verdun."
To return to the extracts from the Blue-book. Group "A" affords a melancholy abundance of indisputable evidence that it was not Kurds and brigands alone who did Satan's work in Armenia, but that the chief culprits were Turkish officials, high and low, officers, soldiers, gendarmes and rabble; even a member of parliament took a turn! They not only played the principal part in the vast and revolting carnival of blood, lust and savagery, but they took a delight and pride in the part they played, and laughed at the sufferings and tortures of their victims.[23]
Group "B" bears evidence of a heroism and fidelity in torture and death, to faith, honour and the ideal of nationality, unsurpassed in the history of mankind, which must redound to the eternal glory of Christianity and to the honour of the Armenian name. I respectfully suggest for consideration by the Heads of the Christian Churches that a day should be fixed to commemorate annually the martyrdom of this vast number of Armenian Christians.
Group "C" contains proofs of the conduct of insurgent Armenians in the unequal struggles for self-defence, and it should be remembered that these are but a few instances, mainly of what was seen or heard of by foreigners. The ruined towns and villages, the silent fields and highways of this land of blood and tears, what secrets of desperate heroism in defence of wife and child, mother and sister, these guard will probably never be known. Group "C" also contains evidence of the fact that the Turks had to employ considerable bodies of troops to overcome the desperate resistance of Armenians in many places, such as Moush, Sassoon, Van, etc. A third feature in this group is, that the Turks attributed their defeats in the Caucasus to the Armenians.[24]
Taken together, these extracts, and the Blue-book from which they are taken, form a better mirror of the characteristics of the two races than all that has been written on the subject for a century. They show the radical dissimilarity of their natures, and the vast difference between the respective stages of civilization in which the two races find themselves.
Was it Buddha or Confucius who said that the principal difference between man and the rest of the animal world is, that man possesses the feeling of pity for the pain and suffering of his fellow-men or animals? What would they think of this strange race of human beings who delight in torture and murder, sparing neither sex nor age, nor even unborn babes and their mothers; who inflict pain and jeer at their victims?
I remember reading in one of Mr. Lloyd George's speeches not long ago: "It is not the trials one has to go through in life, but the way one faces them that matters," or words to that effect. This is as true of nations as it is of individuals. "In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men," and of nations. How has the Armenian nation conducted itself in this great upheaval and borne the terrible ordeal revealed by the Blue-book: an ordeal the horror and magnitude of which it is absolutely beyond the power of the human mind to imagine? The Blue-book itself furnishes the answer. From the first day of the war, Armenians in all countries understood the nature of the issues involved. They had no doubt on which side lay their sympathies, which were never influenced by the varying fortunes of the war. They were exposed to grave risks and paid a terrible price. Could there be a better proof of intellectual rectitude and the sincerity of sentiment? This, I trust, will silence for ever the dastardly reflections often cast upon the honesty of the Armenian people. There are some dishonest Armenians as there are some dishonest men in all nations. But, whether through prejudice, malice, or ignorance of the facts, to brand as dishonest a whole people who have been on the Cross for half a millennium for their religion and patriotism, is unworthy of civilized and right-minded men.
There are two other important facts which the Blue-book establishes beyond dispute. There was no revolt. Indeed, it would have been sheer madness on the part of the Armenians to attempt a rising when their able-bodied manhood was with the colours. The second fact the Blue-book reveals is, that the Armenian party leaders did their utmost to dissuade the Young Turks from joining the war. When the veil of war has lifted, and Europe comes to know more of what took place behind the scenes in Constantinople prior to Turkey's entry into the war, it will be seen how near the personal influence and eloquence of the Armenian deputy Zohrab came to turning the scale against the fateful and suicidal decision. This brilliant young jurist, an intimate personal friend of Enver and Talaat who sought his advice almost daily, was murdered by their orders on the way to Diyarbekir. Armenians have been charged with a lack of political aptitude as well as with treachery to the Ottoman Empire. I would specially call the attention of those who hold these views—Europeans, Moslems, and thinking Turks themselves—to the fact that, at a time of crisis, it was the Armenians who saw clearly the path of safety for the empire, and showed their loyalty to it, in spite of all they had suffered in the past, by their councils of prudence to which the Young Turks lent a deaf ear.
While on the subject of the Blue-book, I cannot refrain from saying that I noted with profound regret the distinction that was evidently made, in many cases, between Catholic and Protestant Armenians on the one hand, and Gregorians on the other, in the efforts that were made to save them from massacre or deportation. It is no secret that His Holiness the Pope and President Wilson intervened through their representatives in Constantinople, and possibly in Berlin and Vienna, to stop the massacres. I record this fact with the deepest gratitude. Of course no such distinction can possibly have been made by the Pope or President Wilson, or their ambassadors; it was probably due to the well-meant activities of subordinates or of local European or American residents.
No doubt it was better to save Catholics and Protestants than none at all, but the very idea of any distinction being thought of, under such fateful circumstances, is obviously contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and the passages referring to it make sad reading to a Christian.
