GERMANY'S ALLY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16577, 28 December 1915, Page 6

GERMANY'S ALLY

THE TURKISH "METHOD."' AN ARMENIAN'S SIMPLE TALE. By Captain Bean, Official Correspondent ' with Australian Forces. (Copyright.—New Zealand Rights Secured by Outgo Daily Times.) GABA TEPE,. October 19. Tho other day there was captured an Armenian. The Turks are at the present moment engaged in an endeavour to wipe out the Armenian nation before they aro stopped. Tho prisoner came from a, district where this was going on. The cables must have already given his story in outline. Here it is in lull; except that I have left out what he heard from others. Here is his own account of what ho saw with his own eyes. As for its truth, ono can only lot tho reader judge for himself whether it sounds like the story of a inau who is lying. He said that at tho beginning of the war ho was fighting in tho Caucasus against tho Russians. After a battle lasting a week he became ill, and after protractcd illness was allowed with his brother, who was also at the front, to go home on leave. Their way home took them through the country of tho persecution; every village teemed with evidence of it—often with tho actual sight of it. "The Bishop of Sivas," said tho prisoner, "was arrested and exiled to a distant place. The Governor-general gave orders to shoo his bare feet just jike a horse, saying sarcastically: "He is an old man and the head of the Armenians of this district; so, as an honour to his office, and out of respect for his old age, we must see to it that he does not go barefooted.'" HE HUNG HIS HEAD. When tho narrator and his brother reacned their home the same stories met them there; the "method" had already begun us elsewhere by tho seizing and imprisonment of the leading Armenians. Four or five days after their arrival the Governor of the village ot Sivas arrived, and the people thought lie had come to protect them. In reality he had come to leave very different instructions, for he departed almost at once, and things began to happen which forccd the two bothers to go mto hiding in the cellar of a friend, wnere for a week they used to hear daily of the horrors happening in the town. At last tho good friend who was hiding them came to them. "Now my friends," he said, "I have been hiding you for a week, but I fear I can no longer give you the protection I have been giving, /ou two are all that is left of tho Christians in this city, and you had better run away." " When I asked him if my eldest brother was sate," says the narrator, " he hung his head and kept silent. Later on he told us that my brother was one of the victims killed. All that the friend that hid us said at first was, ' May God blind the eyes of those responsible.' " And here begins the narrative of what this Armenian actually saw himself" On the following day, at about dusk," he says, " we emerged from our underground hiding place to go wo knew not where. We were literally alone in the world. Even our so-far hospitable friend could no longer protect us. Run away? Yes, but where to? There was no safer place. Yet go we must, so we turned our steps towards a village where lived an old uncle. In five hours we reached this village. We told our uncle all about tho sad fate of our city, which he had already heard. When we asked him what he advised us to do, he said, much as he would have liked us to stay with him, ho did not think it was wise to do so, and advised us to rejoin the Turkish army as soon as wo could, lest we should be caught as deserters and court-martialled." GROWING TERROR. Leaving his brother for the time being, the narrator pushed on after an hour's rest to another Armenian village. Just as the sun wijs rising he arrived there. On the outskirts of it he met an Armenian peasant boy leading his sheep to pasture. He noticed that the boy shrank from him. Some Armenian women were reaping in ,the fields, and ho went over to them a question. The boy's father had been arrested the day before by some police, who arrived to " protect " the village. The women had heard of tho fate of the city of Zileh, and were in daily terror of a similar fate. He asked them if it were safe to go to a certain village, and they gave him the name of a good-natured Effendi, who would be sure to help him. This good man dressed him up in a white turban as a Moslem mullah, or priest. "In this costume," he said, " you will be perfectly safe." His brother afterwards joined him, and both, dressed as. mullahs, made their way in safety through country which it seemed they could have crossed safely by no other means. All the way there was enacted before their eyes one unbroken tragedy. " Wherever Armenians, singly or in groups of four or five or. more, were found, by Turkish reservists or Bashi Rasouks going to be enlisted, they were attacked by them and killed outright. Farmers returning from their fields, or even men who had delivered their tithes of tho crops to the Government and were returning homo, were killed in cold blood." At last they arrived at the garrison town wh : ch was the object of their journey. "We wont to the barracks and listed—of course, under feigned names, and describing ourselves as neighbours, not brothers.',' THE CLIMAX. "We stayed in that town three weeks. The things wc witnessed during those terrible days are the most awful of all the horrors we passed through," said the narrator; "not because they were different from those at other places, but because we to some extent took part in them. After wo had been two days at our new quarters an officer came to the barracks. and ordered all the men to be lined up in the yard. Then he said: ' I want a hundred men skilled in the use of bayonets. More than a hundred at once came for-' ward, we amongst them. We were then taken to a big building in the city, and wore the uniform of gendarmes, with rifles and ammunition, We then divided up into batches of eight or 10, and began to patrol the town, ostensibly to maintain order. While engaged in this duty we saw two priests and about 40 Armenians dragged by policemen towards the prison house, but, of course, we did not interfere. At every street corner a gendarme was standing on sentry duty. We were on patrol duty. Escape was impossible. " Then tho police began to enter the shops and turn the tenants into the streets, handcuff them, and take them to the prison house. All day long this business was kept up. The prisons not proving adequate, the old and spacious building I mentioned bofore was temporarily turned into a prison house. For three days there was no change in the programme. "WANT FORTY BAYONETERS." At the end of tho third day tho Major came and said, 'I want 40 of tho best bayonetcrs for a special business.' I took the bint, and did not move. My brother, who did not understand what was up, made a move, but stopped short at a push from my elbow. Tho 40 wont up, but returned tho following day. Could there bo any doubt any longer what this ' special business' was? Next day the same officer said ' I want 40 men, this time different ones.' We stood still. The officer noticed our apathy, and bawled out 'You blockheads; you ought to be ashamed of your big bodies. Line up quick, else I will break your heads.' Wo had no choice but to obey. lie also 6aid that a signal by whistling would be given at midnight, and we should bo ready to start immediately. 'We have,' he said, 'a special business on hand. I want everything to be done neatly and quietly. if anyone attempts to plunder tho prisoners I shall blow out his brains,' and ho showed us a big Mauser pistol, a foot uiid a-half long. AT SUNRISE. " Sure enough at midnight tho wln'stlo was heard, clear and sharp, and we immediately came forward and lined up. Wo marched through the streets, guarded by gendarmes, and at last halted at the big building, and as the gates opened and the poor unfortunates came out, four abreast and tied together with a rope, one of tho long lino of gendarmes stepped out to escort each four until all 800 were out, and each of us had his share of prisoners to look out for. We marched them through the dimly lit streets out into the open air. At sunrise we reached a place where we found six or seven policemen, a few gendarmes, and an officer. After some consultation with our own officer we saw tho ground covered with swarming gendarmes—not less than 100, I should judge. How they, came thero, and why 1 did not see them at first, is a mystery to mo. Then our officer gavo the command 'About turn.' I was mystified, and could not toll why he had escorted tho prisoners up to there, and what was the business of those gendarmes there. We inarched back, however, leaving our prisoners there, lying on the ground, four by four, tied together. After ten minutes' march we came to a knoll, when our officer gave the order: 'About tnrn; halt.' Then he said: 'Now, boys, don't let me see your face saddened—l had planned otherwise, but never mind. Now, though you will bo denied the pleasure of killing infidels, you will enjoy the sight of it nevertheless. Watch now.' The rest is too horrible to describe."

WORK OF WOLVES. When ho came to this point in his story the man broko down, ami could not for a Lime go on. Afterwards ho continued: — "Wiiat I siiw was about ono hundred human wolves plunge among about ten times as many defenceless beings, ulso human, tearing them to pieces with bayonets. The Armenians wore unable to run away; they were tied together four by four, and were utterly exhausted. The assassins simply, nailed them to the ground. One strange' thing was that we found the road on the way back strewn with money. The prisoners, knowing well what was in store for them, had thrown the-ii money away. Thcro was no shooting. Preference was given to bayoneting as the quietest method. We came back to our barracks. Next day about 400 Armenian soldiers from ' labour corps' were brought and delivered to the headquarters commandant. _ These, too, wore sent on a similar expedition. I was not in the escorting this time, but I saw by the light of the lamps these unfortunates pass through the street 50 metres from my window in the same manner, and to meet the same fate as the previous ones. THE MARKET OF WOMEN. "Two days after this, for a whole day and a-half, some 20 carriages were kept busy conveying women and children to the railway station. They were placed like so many cattle in an enclosure, with guards all round. Great crowds gathered about the place. An officer made a speech to the effect that these women and girls were now public property. Half a dozen policemen not inside the enclosure .separated the boys and curried them to the public garden. Tho younger girls were last brought back to the city. while tho marriageable ones were placed for exhibition in the great building before mentioned. Married women were sent to a prison house. What bccamc of them ultimately I cannot tell, as I left the town soon after, but I presume they did not fare any better than their sisters of Zileh." THE WOMEN OF ZILEII. That is the story of the Turkish "method" from the inside by a man who actually took part in it. The last sentence refers to what happened to the women of another town through which the two brothers passed, but as the_ story was only brought to them in their hiding place, and not actually seen by them /witn their own eyes, I have not quoted it above. Tho narrative referred to, however, is as follows:— " While my brother and I were ftjdmg here a friend brought us news of what was happening in the city. This news wa» most heartrending. He said most of the men had already been massacred. _ The remainder were waiting for their turns in the pr.son. As to the women, these, together with their children, were placed in ox carts and turned out of their homes with very few clothes and bedding, and were carried to a plain two hours distant. Day after day, night after night, they were exposed to hunger iind cold, until it was thought they would accept a change of condition on any terms. They were approached and reasoned with by their captors in tho following strain: 'Now your husbands have all been killed; if you will accept tho true religion you will be allowed to go home with your children. But if vou refuse, you will follow your husbands.' The captives, without an exception, chose the latter fate. Then the chief officer said, ' that a thorough infidel will never become a Moslem seems to be true! At'the fame time he gave orders to separate the young women and put them in carts. While these were torn from their mothers a company of gendarmes who were in ambuscade came out of their hiding place and bayoneted their mothers before the eyes of the little ones. The boys were separated from the girls, and taken to mosque schools :o be brought up as Mohammedans. Then the town crier went forth announcing that "Allah has been so good as to hand over to lis these Giaours; it is both a virtue and a privilege to go and have a look at these girls and pick for himself.' The Governor himself went and picked up two of them for his sons. Day after day the unhappy girls were there like so many sheep for sale in the market." Tho friend told them that the men had previously been taken out, tied four abreast, and marched off ostensibly to court-mar-tial, but really to a certain marsh where thev wore massacred. This is the story from the inside. There is no question that these things are going on. The Turks are trying to exterminate one of their subject races. The Germans could stop it, as they could have stopped this war, by raising a little finger.