Crescent and Iron Cross Part 2

There is the text that was expanded into the discourse of murder; it is the definition of a policy. Within a few years there followed the European War, and that probably was the immediate cause of its being put into effect. No more admirable opportunity for Ottomanisation could present itself, for the entry of Turkey into the war was most unpopular with the bulk of the Turkish population, and it was advisable to bribe them into acceptance of it. The bribe was the houses, the property, the money and the trade that throughout the length and breadth of Turkey was in Armenian hands. For the Armenians were by far the wealthiest of the alien populations, and some 90 per cent. of Turkish trade pa.s.sed through their shops and offices. Here, then, was the psychological moment: Turkey for the Turk was the aim of the Committee of Union and Progress, and with a discontented population, unwilling to fight, the moment had come for restoring to the Turk this ma.s.s of property which at present belonged to an alien race. War might have its drawbacks and its clouds, but war would be seen to have its advantages and its silver linings, if out of it there came this legacy of Armenian wealth. And by the same stroke Turkey could get rid of those thousands of meddlesome missionaries, American and French, who spread religion and learning and other undesirable things among the cursed race. Once remove the cursed race, and there would be an end of their instructors also, for there would be none to instruct. 'Thanks to their schools,' so we read in the _Hilal_, an organ of the Young Turks, 'foreigners were able to exercise great moral influence over the young men of the country.... By closing them (i.e. by exterminating their pupils) the Government has put an end to a situation as humiliating as it was dangerous.'

Such, then, was the spirit that animated Enver and Talaat, and during the winter of 1914-15 they perfected their plans. The Armenian race was to cease, and the Valis and other officials were, each in his district, to see to the thoroughness of its cessation. Sometimes, as happened at Erzerum, the Vali in question, not having the broad out-look of Enver, or quaintly and curiously having a womanish objection to the national duty of flogging men to death and giving over young girls to a barbarous soldiery, remonstrated with the authorities, or even refused to obey orders. Such a one was instantly removed from his office, and a stauncher patriot subst.i.tuted. All was put on an orderly footing: here Kurds were to be employed on the old Abdul Hamid formula, who by way of wage would enjoy the privilege of raping as many women and girls out of their hapless convoy as seemed desirable, while in agricultural districts they were allowed also to take over the sheep and cattle of their murdered victims. Here, in towns where there was more chance of resistance than in scattered homesteads, it would be wise to employ regular troops, backed, if necessary, by artillery, to whom would be entrusted the murder of the whole male population, after suitable tortures, supposing the executioners had a taste for the sport, and to them was given the right of general plunder. Then, as soon as the number and capacity of the vacant houses were telegraphed to Constantinople, occupiers from the discontented townsfolk and natives of Thrace were a.s.signed to them. Sometimes there would be a big school building to give away as well, but that was not always so, for it might be more convenient to a.s.semble Armenians there for purposes of registration or so forth, and then, if it happened to catch fire, why Enver would understand that such accidents would occur. Among other careful and well-thought-out instructions came the order that, when possible, the murders should not take place in the town, but outside it, for clean Allah-fearing Moslems would not like to live in habitations defiled by Christian corpses. But, above all, there must be thoroughness; not a man must be left alive, not a girl nor a woman who must not drag her outraged body, so long as breath and the heart-beat remained in it, to, or rather towards those 'agricultural colonies,' as Talaat Bey, in a flash of whimsical Prussian humour, called them. One was advantageously situated in the middle of the Anatolian desert at the village of Sultanieh. There, for miles round, stretched the rocks and sands of a waterless wilderness, but no doubt the women and children of this very industrious race would manage to make it wave with cornfields. Another agricultural colony, by way of contrast, should be established a couple of days' journey south of Aleppo, where the river loses itself in pestilential and malarious swamps. Arabs could not live there, but who knew whether those hardy Armenians (the women and children, of them at least who had proved themselves robust enough to reach the place) would not flourish there out of harm's way? After the swamps one came to the Arabian desert, and there, a hundred miles south-east, was a place called Deir-el-Zor; wandering Arab tribes sometimes pa.s.sed through it, but, arrived there, the Armenians should wander no more. In those arid sands and waterless furnaces of barren rock there was room for all and to spare. Sultanieh, the swamps, and Deir-el-Zor: these were the chief of Talaat Bey's agricultural colonies.

There must be collecting stations for these tragic colonists, centres to which they must be herded in from surrounding districts: one at Osmanieh, let us say, one at Aleppo, one at Ras-el-Ain, one at Damascus.

And since it would be a pity to let so many flowers of girlhood waste their sweetness on the desert air of Deir-el-Zor, slave markets must be established at these collecting stations. There would be plenty of girls, and prices would be low, but the reverend ministers of Allah the G.o.d of Love, the Ulemas, the Padis and the Muftis, should be accorded a preferential tariff. Indeed they should pay nothing at all; they should just choose a girl and take her away, and, with the help of Allah the G.o.d of Love, convert her to the blessed creed. No one was too young for these lessons.... A little abstemiousness would not hurt these pampered Christians, so when they set out on their marches they need not be provided with rations or water. Perhaps some might die, but Talaat had no use for weaklings at his agricultural colonies. Nor must there be any poking and prying on the part of those interfering American missionaries; and so Talaat Bey put all the agricultural colonies out of bounds for foreigners....

There was no hurry over these deportations, for the plea of military exigencies, which had caused the deportations in Armenia itself to be terminated by ma.s.sacre with a rapidity almost inartistic, did not apply to Armenians so far from the seat of war. Their picnics could be conducted quietly and pleasantly in the leisurely Oriental manner. Even the men need not be murdered absolutely out of hand. Strong young fellows might be stripped and tied down and then beaten to death by bastinadoing the feet till they burst, or by five hundred blows on the chest and stomach. Their cries would mingle with the screams of their sisters in the embrace of Turkish soldiers. And, talking of embraces, if a woman was desirable, she need not walk all the way to Deir-el-Zor, but by embracing Islamism be transferred to a harem. But these were details that might be left to individual taste: there were no precise instructions save that no Armenian men must be discoverable in the Ottoman Empire at all, and no women save those who had become Turkish women, or who were at work on the waterless and the malarial agricultural colonies.

Talaat Bey reviewed his finished scheme. He thought it would do, and Enver Pasha agreed with him, and Jemal Bey (who soon after styled himself Jemal the Great), the Military Governor of Syria, and so responsible for the last stages of their pilgrimage, thought it would do very well indeed. And instructions were sent out to every town in the Empire where there were Armenians, in accordance with the programme of Talaat Bey.

How Enver carried out his part of the programme in Armenia itself we have seen, and by the end of the year (1915) his work was done, and Armenia was Armenia no longer. But operations, as I have said, were conducted in a more leisurely manner elsewhere, and the agony of that butchery protracted. But Jemal got to work at once in the thickly populated district round Zeitun. He had had no success in the campaign of the winter in the direction of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and his troops were hungry for some sort of victory. The Zeitunlis were hardy independent mountaineers, who were possessed of arms, and Jemal thought it more prudent not to dally with deportations, but conduct a regular campaign against them. For two or three months they resisted, entrenching themselves in the hills, but they could not hold out against artillery and the modern apparatus of war, and the whole tribe was wiped out. That done, Jemal became Jemal the Great by reason of his national services, and paid a visit to Germany. On his return we shall hear of him again.

Meanwhile, from all the reports that have arrived from missionaries and others, we may take one or two, almost at random. At certain places, as in the governments of Ismid, Angora and Diarbekr, the Armenian population was completely wiped out. Sometimes tortures were added, as at a certain Anatolian town where there was a big Armenian school, in which a number of professors and instructors, some of whom had studied in America, in Scotland, and in Germany, had for years been working.

What happened to them was this:--

(1) Professor A served the College thirty-five years, and taught Turkish and history. He was arrested without charge, the hair of his head and beard were pulled out in order to secure damaging confessions.

He was starved and hung up by the arms for a day and a night and repeatedly beaten. He was then murdered.

(2) Professor B, who had served the College thirty-three years, and taught mathematics, suffered the same fate.

(3) Professor C, head of the preparatory department, had served the College for twenty years. He was made to witness the spectacle of a man being beaten almost to death, and became mentally deranged. He was murdered with his family.

(4) Professor D, who taught mental and moral sciences, was treated in the same way as Professor A. He also had three finger nails pulled out by the roots, and was subsequently murdered.

Similarly, at Diarbekr, the Armenians were collected in batches of 600, taken out of the town, and killed to the last man. Among them was the Armenian Archbishop; his eyes and nails were dragged out before he was butchered.

Or let us take a look at some of the collecting camps. At one, described by an eye-witness, we find that the convoy had arrived after several months of travel. More than half were already dead, they had been pillaged by bandits and Kurds seven times. They were forbidden to drink water when they pa.s.sed by a stream, three-quarters of the young women and girls had been kidnapped, the rest were compelled to sleep with the gendarmes who conducted them. At Osmanieh it was decided to deport the women and children by train. They lay about the station starving and fever-stricken. When the train arrived many were jostled on to the line, and the driver yelled with joy, crying out, 'Did you see how I smashed them up?'

At another camp typhus broke out; those who died of it were left unburied, as vouched for by a Turkish officer, in order to increase the infection....

Urfa was another collecting camp for the Armenians in that district, and the following account is based on the information of an eye-witness.

Here, before the concentration began, the Armenians living in the town offered resistance to the Turks, and held out until Fahri Bey, second in command to Jemal the Great, arrived with artillery, bombarded the town, and ma.s.sacred every Armenian there. Quiet being thus restored, the bands of deported began to arrive. They came by rail or on foot, and, with the Prussian love of tabulation, were divided into three groups.

The first group consisted of old men, old women, and young children.

They, guarded by gendarmes, were sent marching through the desert to Deir-el-Zor. Few, if any, ever arrived there, all dying by the way.

The second group, consisting of able-bodied men, was led off in batches and slaughtered. Among them were Zohrab and Vartkes, Armenian deputies who had been brought there from Constantinople.

The third group consisted of young marriageable girls. Some, perhaps, found their way into harems.

From Aleppo (one of the final concentration camps before such as were left of the convoys set forth for their goal, the swamps or the desert round Deir-el-Zor) we have the detailed evidence of Dr. Martin Niepage, High Grade teacher in the German Technical School. This gentleman, with a courage and a humanity to which the highest tribute must be paid, addressed a report of protest to the German Amba.s.sador at Constantinople, and wrote an open letter to the Reichstag on the subject of what he had seen with his own eyes in that town. In his preliminary matter he speaks as follows:--

'In dilapidated caravanserais I found quant.i.ties of dead, many corpses being half-decomposed, and others still living among them who were soon to breathe their last. In other yards I found quant.i.ties of sick and dying people, whom n.o.body was looking after.... We teachers and our pupils had to pa.s.s them every day. Every time we went out we saw through the open windows their pitiful forms, emaciated and wrapped in rags. In the morning our school children, on their way through the narrow streets, had to push past the two-wheeled ox-carts on which every day, from eight to ten rigid corpses without coffin or shroud, were carried away, their arms and legs trailing out of the vehicle.'

From the report itself:--

'Out of convoys which, when they left their homes on the Armenian plateau, numbered from two to three thousand men, women, and children, only two or three hundred survivors arrived here in the south. The men were slaughtered on the way, the women and girls, with the exception of the old, the ugly and those who are still children, have been abused by Turkish soldiers and officers.... Even when they are fording rivers they do not allow those dying of thirst to drink. All the nourishment they receive is a daily ration of a little meal sprinkled on their hands....

Opposite the German Technical School at Aleppo, a ma.s.s of about four hundred emaciated forms, the remnant of such convoys, is lying in one of the caravanserais. There are about a hundred children (boys and girls) among them, from five to seven years old. Most of them are suffering from typhoid and dysentery. When one enters the yard, one has the impression of entering a madhouse. If one brings food, one notices that they have forgotten how to eat.... If one gives them bread, they put it aside indifferently. They just lie there quietly waiting for death.'

Dr. Niepage wrote this report in the hope of saving such as then (1915) survived. No notice whatever was taken of it, and his postscript, written in May 1916, records the fact that 'the exiles encamped at Ras-el-Ain on the Bagdad Railway, estimated at 20,000 men, women and children, were slaughtered to the last one.'[1]

[Footnote 1: It is right to add that at Aleppo an officer called Bekir Sami guarded 50,000 Armenians whom he had collected from neighbouring districts, who were threatened with ma.s.sacre, and I find that a German missionary states that there were 45,000 Armenians alive in Aleppo. This forms confirmatory evidence, but at the same time there is nothing to show that they were not subsequently deported to Deir-el-Zor. In this case it is highly improbable that any survive.]

In Dr. Niepage's view, as I have stated elsewhere, the Germans are directly responsible for the continuance of the ma.s.sacres. Such, too, is the opinion, he tells us, of the educated Moslems, and his courage in stating this has lost him his post at Aleppo. It is to be sincerely hoped that he has escaped the fate of a certain Dr. Lepsius, who, for drawing attention to the fact that Germany allowed the Armenian ma.s.sacres, has been arrested for high treason.

Before the end of 1915 the German authorities, who had refused to interfere in the ma.s.sacres, and both in the official press and through official utterances had expressed their support of this Ottomanisation of the Empire, began to think that you might have too much of a good thing, and that the ma.s.sacres had really gone far enough. Their reason was clear and explicit: there would be a very serious shortage of labour in the beet-growing industry and in the harvest-fields, for which they had sent grain and artificial manures from Germany. There had been some talk, they said, of saving 500,000 Armenians out of the race, but, in the way things were going on, it seemed that the remnant would not nearly approach that figure. Would not the great Ottomanisers temper their patriotism with a little clemency? Talaat Bey disagreed: he wanted to make a complete job of it, but Jemal the Great, fresh from his visit to Germany, supported the idea, and, in spite of Talaat's opposition, made a spectacular exhibition of clemency, in which, beyond doubt, we can trace an 'Imitatio Imperatoris,' in the following manner.

There was at the time a large convoy of men and women in Constantinople which was to be led out for murder and deportation, and Jemal gave orders that it should be spared and sent back to its highland home. He gave orders also that the entire convoy should be informed who was their saviour, and should be led in procession past his house and show their grat.i.tude. All day the sorry pageant lasted, the ragged, half-starved crowd streamed by the house of Jemal the Great, with murmurs of thanksgiving and uplifted hands, and all manner of obeisances, while Jemal the Great stood in his porch with stern, impa.s.sive face, and hand on his sword-hilt in the best Potsdam manner, and acknowledged these thanksgivings....[1]

[Footnote 1: In support of Jemal's claim to clemency it must be added that, according to a report coming from Alexandria, he hanged twelve of the worst a.s.sa.s.sins sent to Syria as ringleaders of the ma.s.sacres. I cannot find corroboration of this.]

Here, then, is the absurd, the Williamesque side of this ludicrous popinjay, Jemal the Great, and it contains not only the obvious seeds of laughter, but the more helpful seeds of hope. He has a strong hand on the very efficient army of Syria, and his visits to Berlin seem perhaps to have turned his head not quite in the direction that the Master-egalo-megalomaniac of Berlin intended. I gather that Jemal the Great was not so much impressed by the magnificence of William II. as to fall dazzled and p.r.o.ne at the Imperial feet, and lick with enraptured tongue the imperial boot polish, but rather to be inspired to do the same himself, to become the G.o.d-anointed of the newly acquired German province, which is Turkey, and make a Potsdam of his own. This is only a guess, but the conduct of Jemal the Great in the matter of these Armenian refugees, and in other affairs, has been distinctly imperial.

In June of this year, for instance, he telegraphed to H.E. the Vali of Syria, and an extract from his text is truly Potsdamish. 'One and a half million of sandbags,' he wrote, 'are required for the fortress of Gaza.... The bags should be made, if necessary, of all the silk-hangings in houses of Syria and Palestine.' With his army behind him, he has twice already defied the orders of Talaat, and I am inclined to think that he is the coming Strong Man of the effete Empire with whom it would be well worth while to make friends, even at a highish price. The Allied Powers should keep an undazzled eye on him, for it is quite possible that, having defied Talaat successfully, he may go on to defy the real rulers of Turkey, who live in Berlin. His Syrian army, from such sources as are available, appears to be more efficient than any other body of troops the Turks can put into the field, and he has them in control.

Probably in the winter of 1917-1918 our troops will come into collision with them. But in the interval, also quite probably, Jemal the Great may resent German superintendence.[1]

[Footnote 1: See note at end of this chapter.]

But in addition to his ludicrous side, there is in him a refined hypocrisy and a subtle cruelty worthy of Abdul Hamid. One instance will suffice.

There had been some talk that at certain of these concentration camps there was no water supply, and he gave orders, did Jemal the Great and the Merciful, that water should be sent. A train consisting of trucks of water accordingly was despatched to one of those camps, situated in the desert, with no supply nearer than six miles, and an eye-witness describes its arrival. The mob of Armenians, mad with thirst, surrounded it, and, since everything must be done in an orderly and seemly manner, were beaten back by the Turkish guards, and made to stand at a due distance for the distribution. And when those ranks, with their parched throats and sun-cracked lips, were all ready, the Turkish guards opened the taps of the reservoirs, and allowed the whole of their contents to run away into the sand. Whether Jemal the Great planned that, or whether it was but a humorous freak on the part of the officials, I cannot say.

But as a refinement of cruelty I have, outside the page of Poe's tales, only once come across anything to equal it, and that in a letter from the _Times'_ correspondent at Berne on April 11, 1917. He describes the treatment of English prisoners in Germany: 'An equally common entertainment with those women (German Red Cross nurses) was to offer a wounded man a gla.s.s, perhaps, of water, then, standing just outside his reach, to pour it slowly on the ground.' Could those sisters of mercy have read the account of Jemal's clemency, or is it merely an instance of the parallelism of similar minds?

So the empty train returned, and Jemal the Great caused it to be known in Berlin that he was active in securing a proper water supply for the famous agricultural settlements in the desert, and loud were the encomiums in the press of the Central Powers over the colonisation of Syria by the Armenians, the progress and enlightenment of the Turks, and the skilful and humane organisation of Jemal the Great.

There is no difficulty in estimating to-day the number of Armenian men who survive in the Turkish Empire. All appeals to the Prussian overlords, such as were made by Dr. Niepage, and the belated remonstrance of the Prussians themselves when they foresaw a dearth of labour for the husbandry of beet and cereals, fell on deaf ears, and I cannot see any reason for supposing that Armenian men exist any more in the Empire. It is more difficult to judge of the numbers of women who, by accepting the Moslem creed and the harems, are still alive. Certainly in some districts there were considerable 'conversions,' and Dr. Niepage rates them as many thousands. But the willingness to accept those conditions was not always a guarantee for their being granted, and I have read reports where would-be converts were told that 'religion' was a more serious matter than that, and, instead of being accepted, they were ma.s.sacred. But even if Dr. Niepage is right, we can scarcely consider these women as const.i.tuting an Armenian element any more in the country. The work of butchery, the torture, the long-drawn agonies of those inhuman pilgrimages have come to an end because there are no more Armenian victims available. Apart from those who escaped over the Russian frontier, and the handful who sought refuge in Egypt, the race exists no longer, and the seal has been set on the bloodiest deed that ever stained the annals of the barbarous Osmanlis. It is not in revenge on the murderers, but in order to rescue the other subject peoples, Arabs, Greeks, Jews, who are still enclosed within the frontiers of the Empire, that the Allied Governments, in their answer to President Wilson, stated that among their aims as belligerents, was the 'liberation of the peoples who now lie beneath the murderous tyranny of the Turks.' There is defined their irreducible demand: never again, after peace returns, will the Turk be allowed to control the destinies of races not his own. Too long already--and to their disgrace be it spoken--have the civilised and Christian nations of Europe tolerated at their very doors a tyranny that has steadily grown more murderous and more monstrous, because they feared the upset of the Balance of Power.

Now at least such Powers as value national honour, and regard a national promise as something more than a gabble of ink on a sc.r.a.p of paper, have resolved that they will suffer the tyranny of the Turk over his alien subject peoples to continue no longer. It is the least they can do (and unhappily the most) to redeem the century-long neglect of their duty.

Even now, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, the direst peril threatens those other peoples who at present groan under Turkish rule, and we can but pray that the end of the war will come before Arabs or Greeks or Jews suffer the same fate as has exterminated the Armenians.

Too often have we been too late; we must only hope that another item will not have to be added to that miserable list, and that, when the day of reckoning comes, no half-hearted and pusillanimous policy will stay our hands from the complete execution of that to which we stand pledged.

The Balance of Power has gone the way of other rickety makeshifts, but there must be no makeshift in our dealings with the Turk, no compromise and no delay. What shall be done with those who planned and executed the greatest ma.s.sacres known to history matters little; let them be hanged as high as Haman, and have done with them. But what does matter is that at no future time must it be in the power of a Government that has never been other than barbaric and butcherous, to do again as it has done before.

NOTE ON JEMAL THE GREAT

Jemal the Great has very obligingly done what I suggested we might expect him to do, and has kicked against the German control of the Syrian army. General von Falkenhayn was sent to take supreme command, and on June 28th of this year Jemal the Great refused to receive orders from him. In consequence General von Falkenhayn refused responsibility for any offensive movement there if Jemal remained in command.

This promised well for trouble between Turks and Germans, but we must not, I am afraid, build very high hopes on it, for Germany has dealt with the situation in a masterly manner. Jemal was already Minister of Marine as well as commander of the Syrian army, so the Emperor asked him to pay another visit to Berlin, and he has been visiting Krupp's works and German naval yards, and we shall find probably that in the future his activities will be marine rather than military, and that von Falkenhayn will have a free hand in Syria.

But this will prove rather disappointing for Jemal, since it seems beyond mere coincidence that towards the end of August Herr von Kuhlmann, the new German Foreign Minister, induced the Turkish Government (while Jemal was at Berlin) to put their navy and their merchant fleet under the orders of the German Admiralty, and already many Turkish naval officers have been replaced by Germans. Thus Jemal will find himself deprived of his military command, because the navy so urgently needed his guiding hand, while his guiding hand over the navy will be itself guided by the German Admiralty.... In fact, it looks rather like checkmate for Jemal the Great, and an end to the trouble he might have given the German control.

On the eve of his leaving Germany, as yet unconscious probably of the subordination of the entire Turkish fleet to the German Admiralty, he gave an interview to a representative of the _Cologne Gazette_, which deserves more than that ephemeral appearance. It shows Jemal the Great in a sort of hypnotic trance induced at Potsdam. 'The German fleet,' he says, 'is simply spotless in its power, and a model for all states which need a modern navy--a model which cannot be surpa.s.sed.' ... He went for a cruise in a submarine which proceeded 'so smoothly, elegantly, calmly and securely that I had the impression of cruising in a great steamship.' ... He was taken to Belgium, and describes the 'idyllic life there': in the towns 'the people go for walks all day long,' and in the country the peasants blithely gather in the harvest with the help of happy prisoners.' (He does not tell us where the harvest goes to, any more than the Germans tell us where the Turkish harvests go to.) He was taken to General Headquarters, which he describes as 'majestic.' Finally he was taken into the presence of the All-Highest, and seems to have emerged in the condition in which Moses came down from Sinai.... But one must not altogether despair of Jemal the Great. It is still possible that, on his return to Constantinople, when he found that his position, as Minister of Marine was but a clerkship in the German Admiralty, the hypnotic trance began to pa.s.s off, and his ambitions to re-a.s.sert themselves. He may yet give trouble to the Germans if properly handled.

_Crescent and Iron Cross, Chapter IV_

THE QUESTION OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE