The Constantinople Horror.

Hastings Standard, Issue 145, 14 October 1896, Page 4

The Constantinople Horror.

PARTICULARS BY MAIL

DREADFUL INCIDENTS OF THE

SLAUGHTER

English papers just to hand but deepen the horror awakened by the necessarily brief cabled accounts of the slaughter of Armenians which took place in the Turkish capital towards the end of August. We make the following extracts: '■ The fact that the 2o men who broke into the Ottoman Dank escaped, whilst a thirty hours' butchery of innocent Armenians by an armed mob followed in the streets of the city, has lent color to the suspicion that the whole affair was a piece of Turkish intrigue.'' The riots, according to one version, began in this way ; —On Wednesday, 20th August, thirty members of an Armenian revolutionary society, which had resolved upon a ''demonstration" to force the Powers to press on the reforms promised by the Sultan, obtained entrance to the Ottoman Dank. At a given signal they exploded bombs and lired revolvers, frightening the employees out of the building, in which the invaders afterwards barricaded themselves, resolving not to leave until their demands for reform were complied with. Sir Edgar Vincent, the director of the bank, escaped by the roof, and proceeded to \ i'ldiz Kicsk, where he had an interview with the Sultan. Meanwhile, the marauders holding the bunk, who were said to be members of the Armenian Revolutionary Committee. communicated their desire to surrender upon certain terms. Sir E. Vincent returned to the bank, and held a parley with them, which resulted in the revolutionists being taken to the director's vacht. with a view to their removal from Turkish territory. Of the revolutionaries, live were killed and five more were wounded. When they finally quitted the bank they left behind them 17 kilos of dynamite. N7 bombs, and a quantity of cartridges. The !■"> survivors sailed for Marseilles. At the news of the attempt on the bank the streets of Constantinople filled witli mobs of armed Turks, who slew all Armenians and other refugees that they could lay their hands on. All niglH the massacre went on, and the killed are estimated by thousands, one eye-witness stating that late in the afternoon he saw six large manure waggons iilled with corpses in one street alone. It is averred that the police, instead of at tempting to preserve order, distributed weapons to the Moslem mobs, and afterwards assisted in the work of murder and pillage, while the troop-; were quietly withdrawn without any attempt being made on their part to quell the savage tumult. The latest telegrams state that the city is now quiet. New and terrible details are forthcoming daily of the massacres. The number of victims is now estimated at about r>,ooo, and in some districts of Constantinople scarcely a single male Armenian escaped the fury of the mob, while in one house -15 women and children who had taken refuge on the roof were all murdered anil their bodies thrown into the street. The arrests of some hundreds of Mahommedans reported on Sunday are understood to be connected with the agitation of the " Young Turkey" party. Some tenable particulars are furnished by the Constantinople correspondent of the Derliner Tageblatt, a man hitherto known, says the Daily News, for his extreme Tureophil attitude. He says : —" I saw thousands of Turkish hamals running through the streets bent on murder. Thirty, forty at a time I saw crouching at .street corners armed with clubs and cudgels in order to catch one single Armenian and to fell him down with cruelty such as one would not kill a mad dog with. Before my eyes an Armenian priest was beaten into a shapeless mass with wooden sticks by a horde of these savages. I saw the policeman stand close by and smile. I saw a patrol of cavalry keep guird near the place to make sure that no help should be rendered the unfortunate man." Here is another incident of the massacre : " Young Turkish boys went round putting their knives into the bodies of the dead." One naturalised British subject was killed, and one Austrian subject, while the British Embassy has received numerous claims for compensation for damage to property. A Russian subject, a victim of the massacre, was, at the instance of the Russian Ambassador buried with military honors. It- is well known (Reuter states) that orders were given to the Bashi-Bazouks to cease the slaughter on Thursday, two hours after sunset : the massacre thus lasted thirty hours, during which time the troops and the police remained completely passive. It is a fact, also, that hundreds of men weie brought over to the town from the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, evidently to take part in the massacres, and were afterwards sent back to their homes. The suspicion that itiirnts-prnrnra-tfvrs may have been at work gathers strength.* The following Constantinople telegram of the Imperial Telegraphic Bureau de Correspondence at Vienna is reproduced without comment by the semi-official Norddeutsche Allgem'eine Zeitung : —" On Thursday when the three dragomaus_ of_ the Embassies drove to the Yildiz Kiosk in order to address representations there, an Armenian was killed before Dolma Iksgtsche by four Turks. The Russian dragoman, Maximoff, jumped off, took the clubs from the Turks, and took them to the nearest guard-room. As the guard refused to arrest the Turks, M. Maximoff took them, together with the Commissary of Police, who refased to arrest them, to Yildiz Kiosk. There it turned out thai one of the criminals was a Court servant.

On many sides the belief, founded on various facts, is expressed that the throwing of a bomb 011 Thursday was a ' put up job ' on the part of the Turks in order to justify further persecutions of the Ar nenians and to incite the mob fuivher. It seems proved that on Wednesday the police expected some acts of violence by the Armenians, and instructed the lower classes to keep in readiness." Again, the semi-official Ivolnische Zeitung, cautious and by 110 means anti-Turkish as it is, states in a Constantinople message that during the slaughter the rumor was current among the Turks that the Sultan had given permission for a massacre of the Armenians which was to last fifty hours. Mr Herbert, the British Charge d' Affaires, landed marines from 11.M.5. Dryad, on the 2Gth August, to protect the British Post Office and Embassy against the mob, and sent Dragoman Marintich to inform the Sultan, who begged that the marines might be reembarked, promising every necessary measure to restore order. Mr Herbert stoutly refused, however, and later in the afternoon the French, Italian, and Russian Embassies, following Mr Herbert's example, had detachments lauded from their respective despatch vessels. One of the most dramatic incidents of the disturbances was the attack of a party of British blue-jackets upon a number of Mussulmans who were violently assaulting some Armenians. The following has been communicated to the First Lord of the Admiralty : '• Lords Admiralty, London. —Armenian Defence League deeply grateful gallant protection British blue-jackets, Constantinople. God save the Queen. Mmi:ax 1 an, President." An Imperial Rescript was issued 011 the Monday at Constantinople asking that 110 excursions, such as are customary on the anniversary of the Sultan's accession, should be undertaken. The Embassies decided not to illuminate 011 that day. It appears that the Sultan was " so annoyed " on learning that the Embassies would not be illuminated on the anniversary of his accession, that he sent the Foreign Minister to expostulate with the foreign representatives. The reply lie received was that, after the events of the past few days, the Embassies must observe mourning, and rejoicings would be out of place. Some Turks illuminated their houses, but the streets were deserted, and the effect produced was most melancholy. The Porte forwarded two despatches to its representatives abroad, containing the names of persons who had been apprehended for being concerned in recent riots. The Turkish Embassy in London has declared that the reports of the massacres in the papers are " grossly exaggerated." Mr A. Iloggan, of Baillieston, who wrote to Mr Gladstone suggesting that lie should point out some way of putting an end to the Armenian and other actroeities, has received the following autograph post - card from Chester :—Dear sir—l wish it were in your power or mine to awaken the heart and conscience of Europe to the guilty horrors of the Armenian and. in a lesser degree, of the Cretan question, and to that I would add the ignominious censure which the voice of history will pass upon the Governments, if not the nations, of the day, with Russia, which was once a champion, at the head of them ; but I fear the figures of our ages suffice of themselves to show how absolutely this is beyond our power. —Yours very faithfully, \V. E. Gladstonk. 24th August."