THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1204, 29 March 1895, Page 27

THE ARMENIAN ATROCITIES.

: : A TERRIBLE TALE. DISEMBOWELLING PREGNANT WOMEN. Front Our Special Correspondent. London, February 8. . A month ago the man in the street, whilst exulting over the evidence of Mr Gladstone's renewed ''Vitality and unimpaired oratorical powers as given in his famous speech upon the Armenian atrocities, gently chidec the G.O.M. for so hotly attacking the ruler of the " unspeakable Turk" upon the unconfirmed allegations of biased and imaginative busy bodies. To-day the man in the street is racking his brains to findg, words strong enough to express his true opinion of the Sultan and his subjects. And he finds, like the cbs* er " mon S er wno could only say ** Well, I'm jiggered " when a hansom cab upset his barrowful of flowers-at Hyde Park Corner, that his vocabulary is too limited for him to Teally relieve himself in words. The imaginative reports of the Armenian horrors circulated by the Armenian Society Were bad enough in all consience, but they were as milk and water to raw spirit side by -side with the narrative of events supplied by Beuter's Special Commissioner, which I append hereto. The restraint the writer put upon himself is apparent throughout the story. The temptation to " paint in red" must have been great, but he has used sober word-colouring, and yet his picture is full of horror.. He was sent to get " full and impartial" details of the atrocities reported at Sassoun and elsewhere, and writing from Tiflis on January Bth, says: "My journey hither, en route for Erzeroum, was broken at Constantinople, Samsoun, Kerrasund, Trebizond, and Bitlis. At each of these places I endeavoured to ascertain from the most trustworthy sources open to me the latest phases of the situation in Armenia.

" It became apparent in the course of these preliminary inquiries that the task of establishing the facts of the case in relation to the Sassoun atrocities which have excited so much horror and indignation throughout Christendom will be an extremely difficult one. There are undoubtedly two sides to the question. An impartial survey of the evidence I have so far collected tends to show that both Turk and Armenian are in the wrong, and that, as very often happens, it is the innocent who have suffered for the wrong-doings of the guilty. "When it is asserted on behalf of the Turks that they are engaged in suppressing a revolutionary movement in Armenia, the statement is fully justified by the facts of the case. There does exist in Armenia an extremely vigorous revolutionary movement, and it is equally beyond question that the methods of some of the leaders of this movement are no less shocking than the barbarity of the Turk in suppressing it. At ever step I became more and more convinced that the inhuman ferocity displayed in this terrible struggle for the mastery has not been in the least exaggerated in the reports of the massacres already published in England. At Bitlis I heard the story of * Turkish soldier who boasted, as one who had achieved a glorious feat, that he had taken part in the disembowelling of thirty pregnant women. ' Two lives in one ' was the rallying cry of the armed men who perpetrated this butchery. Another soldier, who had taken part in a massacre in a church, ■ described, gloating upon every j ghastly detail, how ho had slipped and

slid along the blood-washed floor while the inhuman proceeded. "Unfortunately, something very like a counterpart of these atrocities is presented by the methods of some: of the leaders of the Armenian revolutionary movement. I believe there is no doubt of the fact that certain of these Armenian conspirators arranged to murder the Rev Dr Edward Riggs and two other American missionaries at Marsovan, and fasten the blame upon the Turks, in order that, as they imagined, the United States might inflict summary punishment upon the Turkish Government, thereby rendering Armenian independence possible. The missionaries only escaped through a timely warning which they received from an Armenian friend. Dr Riggs has devoted his life to the education of Armenian youth in the missionary schools, but the conspirators, in their blind fanaticism, gave this fact little heed. The. Turkish officials, in their extreme irritation at the growth of the revolutionary movement, have more than once attempted to make the American missionaries responsible for it. As a matter of fact, the missionaries are responsible for it in a sense, but not in the way the Turk believes. They are responsible for educating the raw Armenian youth, and inspiring them with cravings for better things. It is the story of Bulgaria over again. It should be borne in mind, in connection with this view of the situation, that the missionaries in Armenia do not try to make religious converts. They content themselves with educating all who are willing to receive instruction. They would educate the Turks as well, but they are not permitted. As to the charge that they directly inspire insurrection, there appears to be no ground whatever for this contention. " The whole truth as to the Sassoun massacre will probably never be known, for the dead tell no tales. A careful sifting of the statements I have received, however, points to the conclusion that what really happened was this.

•' Certain Armenian peasants, to the number of several thousands, were tending their herds and flocks in their summer pastures in the Sassoun mountains along the borders of Kurdistan. They were living in mere temporary villages, which they inhabited only during the summer pasture season, their winter homes being far down the valleys. They were under the protection of a tribe of Kurds, who were under contract to defend them against the raids of cattle-stealers and Kurdish bandits. A short time before the villagers were ready to return to their homes in the valleys with their fattened Cattle, a horde of Kurdish bandits, industriously searching for a winter's supply of provisions, raided their stock. " The villagers and their Kurdish protectors made a vigorous defence. They would have won the fight and driven off the thieves, and that would have ended it; but before the fighting was over the Turkish officials intervened, and then the real trouble began. Some excited official telegraphed to Constantinople that a revolution was in progress among the Armenians in the Sassoun mountain villages, and the order came back, ' Punish the villages to the utmost extremity/ " The officers entrusted with the execution of this order did not pause to investigate the facts when the troops arrived on the ground. The Kurdish bandits joined forces with the Turkish regulars, and even the Kurds who had been defendiug the Armenians turned against them and swelled the niimbers of the Government troops. The poor

Armenian peasants were thus left at the mercy of a force of Turkish regulars and two bands of Kurds. Then the massacre, began. For the Armenians it was a fight without hope, but still they fought as only men can fight who defend their wives and children from outrage and death. They took refuge in their houses and barricaded themselves in* but the Turkish cannon made short Work of that,-'and when they ran in terror from hiding-place to hidingplace, they Were slain Without mercy man, woman and child. The outrage of Armenian women and children by Turks in that part of the country is so common a thing even in times of absolute quiet that there can be no doubt this massacre was attended with outrage and atrocity too horrible to think of. The Armenians in Athens and Constantinople assert that forty-two Villages were destroyed and nearly IOjOOO persons massacred, but more impartial and equally well-informed persons elsewhere put the number at twentyfive villages and from 1000 to 3000 persons. The exact number never will be known.

"I have the highest authority for saying that all of the facts that are known to be facts in the case of the Sassoun massacre have been sent to the State Department at Washington. Not only are innocent women and children made to suffer hideous cruelty and unspeakable outrage as a result of Armenian plots and Turkish retaliation, but the revolutionary agitation and disturbed condition of the country are used by the wicked and unscrupulous to oppress the poor and satisfy the thirst for petty revenge.

"The state of morals in Armenia, and especially along - the Kurdish frontier, should receive the closest scrutiny. The facts that are now and then told as merest matters of course are most appalling in the depth of the depravity they reveal. When an Armenian girl is to be married she is taken from her home and outraged by armed bands of Turks and Kurds, and any member of her family who lifts a hand in defence of her honour is shot down like a dog. On the Kurdish frontier the ravagers do not even wait for the approach of a girl's wedding, but seize her when she reaches a certain age and carry her off to the mountains, where she is most shamefully treated. In a few days she is allowed to return home. This infamous practice is so common that it is declared that there is not a young Armenian woman living along the Kurdish frontier who has not been a victim of it. Even children of tender years are not exempt, and some have actually died in most frightful agony. Any attempt of the Armenians to combat this custom or to punish the perpetrators of the outrages is met by severe measures. "A young Armenian of moderate wealth and excellent education, whose intended bride had been ravished by a band of Turks, sought to have the miscreants punished. The only charge that would hold against them was that of murdering the girl's father for trying to defend her. Some slight punishment was inflicted on the leaders of the band, but they retaliated by having the young man arrested on a charge of being concerned in a revolutionary riot. Although he proved an alibi, yet he was thrust into gaol. He is there still, with small chance of release. "The Turkish Commission will not investigate cases like this, and yet the state of society which makes these things possible is responsible for not only the Sassoun massacre, but for the hundreds of isolated cases of outrage, murder, and false imprisonment of which the outside world knows nothing-. It is a significant fact that out-

rages are not perpetrated by Turks upon other Turks, or by Kurds upon their fellow tribesmen; it is always upon the Armenian Christians that the Turk and the Kurd let loose their ingenious depravity. It is the indifference of religion that is the basis of all the injustice, oppression and wrong. " Already the Turk shows signs of keeping this Commission away from the contaminating influence of facts. Armenians' in the disturbed district are arrested Wholesale and removed to distant prisons. Money has been sent from Constantinople to repair as far as possible the damage done to the Sassoun villages, and nature has come in to help to obliterate all traces of the massacre. An unusual fall of snow has buried the ruined villages and blotted out the roads. Even the caravan routes to Persia and Russia are blocked with snow, and the snow is still falling. From 3amsoun, on the Black Sea, to this city, the mountains are masses of unbroken white. It is snowing here to-day, and all the roads. to the south are blocked with snow." I