A BOOK OF HORRORS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17394, 3 February 1917, Page 12

A BOOK OF HORRORS.

WTPTNG OUT THE ARMENIANS. < UNSPEAKABLE TURKISH ATROCITIES. [From Oxjb OoßKisroNDisxT.] LONDON December 14. There are evidently Turks and Turks. Our boys who had most to do with the Turks in Gallipoli gave them an excellent character ji.s bravo men, clean fighters and chivalrous to an unexpected degree. It was indeed good to hear the A tissues talk about ''Johnny Turk," and their tributes to him made one wonder whether unlimited credence .should bo given to tho never-ending succession of tales concerning Turkish brutality towards .the Armenians, and whether, if thpy were guilty of tJie infamies attributed to them, they had not received provocation which, whilst not excusing their excesses, might be pleaded in palliation. Such thought* are hardly likely to survive the fearful indictment of the Turk compiled by Viscouut Bryce. This eminent, jurist has just collected into a volume of nearly 700 pages the evidence that has been accumulating tor tho past year of tho "wiping out. ' of the Armenians by ,cho 'j arks. His book is truly an appalling compilation. There are horrors in every page, and if only ouohalf of the narratives set forth are true in substance and fact, there should no longer be room in a civilised world for tho Turkish nation. It should be •' wiped oil " the map. Space forbids more than a few quotationes from Viscount Bryce's booii of horrors. Let us take tho story of the massacres of Hrzindjan, as told by two Danish Red Cros« nurses.

"In March, 1915, we learned through an Armenian doctor that the Turkish Government' was preparing for a massacre on a grand scale. . . At the beginning of Juno. Staff-Surgeon A. told us that the whole Armenian population of Erssindjan and tho neigh-; bourhood would be transported to Mesopotamia. On Juno 11 a party of regular troops (belonging to tho Eighty-sixth Cavalry Brigade) were sent out ' to keep the Kurds in order.' We hoard subsequently from these, soldiers bow the defenceless Armenians had been massacred to the last one. Tho butchery had taken four hours. The soldiers told us that there were ox carts ready to carry the corpses to the river and remove every trace of the massacre. " Next day there was a regular battue through the cornfields. From that time on convoys of exiles were continually arriving;, all on 'their way to the slaughter. . . The victims had their hands tied behind their hacks, and were thrown down from the cliffs into the river." The narrative goes on to describe how, one by one, a large convoy of exiles from Baibourt bad been massacred and cast, into the depths of the gorge; how women were violated, and children had their brains battered out. G Ell MAN TESTIMONY. .A German eye-witness, recounting the terrible story of tho massacre in ihe Moush district, eays:—-"In Harpont and Menzre the people . . . havo had their eyebrows plucked put and their breasts cut off, their nails torn off; their torturers hew off their feet or eke hammer nails into them, just as they do in shoeing horses." Another German religious organ, the " Sonnenaufgang." described the massacre of about 5000 people from TelArmen and neighbouring villages. "The people were thrown alivo down wells or into the fire," which had been kindled for that purpose. "For a whole month corpses were seen floating down the River Euphrates nearly every day,' often in batches of from two to six corpses bound together. Tlie male corpses are in many oases hideously mutilated, and tho female corpses are ripped open." Roupen', one of tho lenders in Sassoun, states that early in July, 1915, after tho Turkish authorities had " explained earlier massacres as due to a deplorable misunderstanding." the authorities ordered the Armenians in Moush to Jay down their arms and pay a large money ransom. The leading Armenians were subjected to revolting tortures. Their finger nails and their too nails were forcibly extracted; their teeth ivere knocked out, and in some cases their noses were whittled down, tibe victims being thus- dono to death under shocking lingering agonies. The female relatives of the victims were outraged in public before the Oyes of their mutilated husbands and brothers. " Hie shrieks and death cries of the victims filled the air. and yet they did not move the Turkish beast. "Many were herded into various camps and bayoneted in cold blood. . . . Tho shortest method of disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various camps was to burn them." UNIMAGINABLE HOBBORS.

An Armenian lady whoso narrative has been communicated by the American Relief Committee, says: "The worst and most "unimaginable horrors were reserved for us at the banks of the Euphrates. The mutilated bodies of women, girls and little children made everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of awful deeds to the women and girls. . . The brigands and gendarmes threw into . the river all the remaining children uuder fifteen years old. Those that could swim were shot down as they struggled in the water." Another document communicated by tho American committee tells bow a convoy of 18,000 Armenians, with the exception of 185 women and children, were massacred in batches in the course of a seventy-days' march after all the women and girls had been violated. On the fifty-second day they were all stripped and compelled to march completely naked under a scorching sun. On tho sixtieth day all but 300 had been murdered. On tho sixty-fourth day a number were burned alive.