SYSTEMATIC ANNIHILATION

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 97, 17 January 1918, Page 4

SYSTEMATIC ANNIHILATION

The deliberate attempt of Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey, with the connivance of Germany, to annihilate the Serbian nation cannot fail to arouse the passionate indignation of civilised humanity. The perpetration of such acts of calculated savagery places the Germans and their bloodthirsty satellites on the level of beasts of prey. That the deliberate murder of two Dations, Serbia and Armenia, should be planned and systematically carried out in the twentieth century gives a rude shock to the moral sense of mankind. Such outrages are the natural consequences of the German theory that the State owes no allegiance 'to the moral law and is not called upon to recognise any moral obligations to the people of other countries. The treatment which is being meted out to the Serbians and Armenians shows what the Prussian doctrine of "frightfulness" really means. Goaded to desperation, the Serbians rose in revolt in April last. The insurrection had no chance of success, and the brutalities which followed it were eve'n worse than those which provoked it. The Serbian manifesto mentioned in our cable columns to-day tells a ghastly story, and yet it only relates a few items in the horrible catalogue of crime. A letter which a Serbian wrote in bis own blood was recently published by the Paris newspapers. It told of the forcible deportation of thousands of children to Constantinople; of the tortures inflicted upon Serbians before execution, such as hanging by_the tongue; of gibbets erected everywhere to dispose of prisoners of war. He asserted that tho Bulgarians wore proceeding systematically to exterminate tho Serbian race. Statistics show that in

1910 the population of Serbia was ■4,:t00,000, and that it has now been reduced by 1,1)52,000. j Li an article on "The Agony m Serbia" Kosta Novakovitcii, Secretary of the Serbian Trade Unions in France, states: — Dr. Otokiir Hibar, the Austrian Ifciclisrat deputy, declared in tho Vienna Parliament on Juno % last: "Serbia will be saved, but there will b<! no Sorbs." He said those words when protesting against Iho greatest crime- committed iu this war, tne deportation of 311,000 Serbian women, children, and men from iho departments of Yraiije. Kisli, and Pirot, mid their internment iu Asia M'' lo *; fugitives relate that ninoiif! Hwsn .;O,floO thoro were S(KM) women ami young ifirls handed over to tho Turks. 01 these ;i groat number courted deata by Hi rowin"- themselves out of the trains conveying them to Asia-.Minor. War prisoners and those interned are sulleriuK actual martyrdom. They are ravaged by hunger and disease. Their number decreases daily. The deaths are put by all at (iO,OOO, by some as ni|?h as SO.OOO. _ Tho Germans are joint criminals with the Austriiins and Bulgarians in this attempt to murder a nation, and history will also hold them largely responsible for the Armenian outrages aud the systematic massacre of Greeks in Turkey which has been going on during the last three years and more. Under the title of 'The Persecutions of tho Greeks in Turkey Since the Beginning of the European Vvar tlw Grcek Ministry of foreign Allan's gives a terrible description of tho horrors perpetrated by the Ottoman Government and its aiders and abettors, the Germans. "No such grave indictment," says the Morning, Post, "has probably ever been brought against two nations since the advent of Christianity. , ' Tho evidence adduced makes it clear that the persecution is par,t of a diabolical plan to annihilate the Greeks in Turkey.

The climax; of horrors is readied when one reads of the doporta-tion of wholo towns and villages. These people were driven out of their homes to tne mountains. They were not allowed to take nnvtliing with them, iiiml many wore without boots and stockings. On tho wny they were beaten by bands of rutliiiiis, mid Jjnge numbers perisned. \Vomen who gave birth to children wero made to abandon their infants and continue their march on pain of instant death. Tho populations of Aiva i and the Black Sea coast were tnose who siitfered most in this way. After the people had left their homes these wero ourned lo the ground. ; As far back as April, 10M, Hkrr von Jagow, the Gorman Minister of Foreign Affairs, know and admitted that the Greeks in Turkey were being brutally treated, out the Berlin authorities would not do anything that might cause friction with those with whom they already intended to enter into alliance, even, if the alliance had not then been actually arranged. The Gorman newspapers were forbidden to publish accounts of the outrages, and the Kaiser himself endeavoured to shield the Turkish Government from blame. The recital of the crimes against humanity committed by the Central Powers in this war will form one of the blackest chapters in tho history of the world—and the arch-criminal is Germany. When the war is over are we to grasp in friendship ■ the foul and bloodstained hands of this enemy of the human race? Is an unrepentant Germany fo bo welcomed again as an honoured member of the family of nations? The very idea is repulsive