SOME PARTICULARS OF A FEAREUL MASSACRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1193, 11 January 1895, Page 38

SOME PARTICULARS OF A FEAREUL MASSACRE.

Mr G. Hagopian, chairman of the Armenian Patriotic Association, has sent Lord Kimberley the following letter, along with a memorial begging that Armenia should be given a new administration worked under the immediate supervision of the Berlin Treaty Powers : "'Bitlis, October 9, 1894.—Y0u have queried as to soldiers being at Moush, and so bringing cholera. Prudence hints brevity and an indirect route. Our chief magnate seems like another Nero. Last year great things were going on in the mountains south of Moush. Though only a few Nationalists seem to have been there, a battle took place in their self-defence, the magnate got his medal from Constantinople as having wiped out a big rebellion. This year a few more Nationalists, perhaps 10 to 15, were said to be there. The leading Sheikh was forced to set the ball rolling to escape a trap for himself. The Kurds made a dash and carried off oxen of Armenians ; the latter find their oxen, one just killed, and beg the Kurds to give them the live one ; this not being done, a fight ensues, in which two Kurds are killed and three wounded. The Kurds at once carried their dead down to Moush and threw them down before the Government, saying Armenian soldiers have overrun the land, killing and plundering them, &c. This furnished the desired pretext for massing troops from far and near, cholera or no cholera. Erzingan (?), pasha of soldiers, made a desperate race on, the marshal coming a little later; the pasha is said to have hung from his breast, after reading it to his soldiers, an order from Constantinople to cut the' Armenians up, root and branch, adjuring them to do so if they loved their King and Government. Nearly all these things are related here and there by the soldiers

who participated in the horrible carriage, some of them weeping l , claiming that the Kurds did more, and declaring that what they did was to obey orders. Others have said that a hundred fell to each of them to dispose of. No compassion was shown to age or sex, even by the regular soldiery, not even when their victims fell suppliant at their feet, Six to ten thousand met such a fate as even the darkest ages of darkened ! Africa have hardly witnessed, for there ] women and tender babes might have at i least the chance of a life of slavery, while j here womanhood and innocency were but a cruel mockery before the cruel lust had ended its debauch by stabbing to death with the bayonet, while tender babes were impaled with the same weapon on their dead mothers' breasts, or perhaps seized by the hair to have the head lopped off bv» the sword. In one place three or four hundred women, after being forced to serve the vile purposes of a merciless soldiery, were hacked to pieces by sword and bayonet in a valley below. In another place some 200, weeping and wailing, begged for compassion, falling at the commander's feet, but the bloodthirsty wretch, after ordering their violation, directed the solders to despatch them in a similar way. In another place some GO young brides and more attractive girls were crowded into a church, and after violation were slaughtered, and human gore was seen flowing from the church door. In another place a large company, under the lead of their " priest, fell down before them begging compassion, averring that they had nothing to d.o with the culprits, but all to no purpose —all were killed. In another place propo- ; sition was made to several of the more attractive women to chang3 their faith, in which case their lives might be spared. I « Why should we deny Christ ?" they say :

"we are no more than these," pointing to the mangled forms of their husbands and | brothers before them, " kill us too " —and 1 they did. Great effort was made to save , one, the beauty.but three or four quarrelled over her, and she sank down like her sisters. But why prolong the sickening tale ? , There must be a God in Heaven who will do right in all these matters, or some of us ■ would lose faith. One or more consuls have been ordered that way to investigate. If ! Christians instead of Turks had reported j these things in the cityof Bitlis and the region where 1 have been touring, the case would be different, but now we are compelled to believe most of it. Now the magnate is having papers circulated, and trying to compel Christians to sign them, expressing satisfaction that justice has been dealt out to rebels, and thanking the king and the magnate himself. Christians here in Bitlis do not sign, though it is said that in the outlying districts some have signed. It has not yet been offered to the Protestants, and as yet Protestants have not been thrust into chains or blackmailed very much, though lately things are beginning to look that way/ "Another letter says:—'The manner even as reported by regular soldiers themselves, some of whom admit of having disposed of 100 persons, is most fiendish—rape, followed by the bayonet, 20 to 30 villages wholly destroyed, some people burned with kerosene in their own houses.'" LORD KIMBERLEY'S REPLY. Lord Kimberley has replied that the Government have learnt with satisfaction of the commission of investigation. Her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople is impressing on the Porte the importance of avoiding delay and of making the investigation thoroughly searching and impartial. HOW OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS READ. An official account published at Constantinople lays the blame on the Armenians themselves, saying:— " Some Armenian brigands, provided with arms of foreign origin, joined an insurgent Kurd tribe for the purpose of committing outrages, and they burned and devastated several Mussulman villages. To give an idea of the ferocity of these Armenian bands, it is reported that, among other abominable crimes, they burned alive a Mussulman notable. I " Regular troops were sent to the scene to protect the peaceable inhabitants from these depredations. The Ottoman troops not only protected and respected the submissive portion of the population, as well as the women and children, but reestablished order and tranquillity to the general satisfaction. It is not true that the Kurds seized the furniture, effects, and cattle of the fugitive Armenians. The latter took their property into the'mountains before breaking out into revolt and confided them to the care of their Kurdish acolytes. The Armenian women at-present with the Kurds belong to the families of the brigands, and went of their own accord with their husbands to the insurgent Kurds. "As regards the Armenian villages which are said to have been destroyed, it was the Armenians who carried off all their belongings from their own villages before giving themselves up to brigandage."

A second Constantinople version, though also described as official, attributes quite a different cause to the disturbances, which seem to have occurred at the end of August. The Turkish authorities, according to this version, declare that the disorders were merely due to the refusal of the Armenian peasants to pay the tithes. It would appear that the Vali of the place, fearing a rising, summoned a detachment of Kurdish troops. The latter were met on their arrival by a body of armed Armenians, who resisted them, whereupon they fired upon the Armenians, killing and wounding many of them. The Armenians, however, maintained that the Kurds, without any reason, invaded the village, set fire to the houses, massacred the people, and committed various aets of pillage. Constantinople, January 5. Turkey has appealed to the Powers to moderate the British and Russian demands respecting Armenia. London, January 7. Further details of the massacres in Armenia relate that the Turkish soldiery put out the eyes of Armenian pi-iests with hot irons, and compelled them to dance, which thoy did, at the same time praising God. It is assorted that others were flayed alive. It is reported that ZakKi Pasha has offered the Armenians in the Sassoun. district an amnesty if they will return to their homes.