Extermination as a national policy

nection we shall say a word concerning wanton bloodshed and spoliation as a national policy. It is not often that the purpose of extermination is deliberately adopted and put into execution by an organized government. There are, to be sure, some historic precedents for this ghastly project, but they have usually taken the form of plots or conspiracies rather than an accepted and predetermined plan of action conceived and executed by the government itself.1 That this policy is still a possibility of Oriental statecraft hardly admits of question, however, to any intelligent student of events in the Turkish Empire at the present time. The Armenian nation, a Christian people who are so unhappy as to be among the subject races of the Ottoman Porte, numbering within Turkish territory possibly two millions, have become the victims of the political rage and the fanatical barbarity of their Turkish masters. In common with other Christian races, they have a long and serious grievance against Ottoman misrule, which the Powers of Europe have hitherto sought through vain and empty diplomatic pledges to remedy.2

The Armenian massacres.

A few restless spirits among the Armenians, with vague revolutionary aims, and inspired by hopes of European intervention in the event of disorder, sought to arouse resistance to the intolerable exactions and oppressive wrongs which characterize Turkish rule. The effort was abortive and hopeless from the start and in no way involved the Armenian people as a whole. It served, however, to arouse the wrath of the Turkish rulers, especially the Sultan Abdul Hamid, to be known forever after in history as the "Great Assassin," and a policy of extermination was entered upon. Its execution has found willing instruments in the Kurdish brigands, organized by the Government under the name of the Hamidieh Cavalry, and the Moslem populace, who have joined in the bloodshed and pillage with relish. The awful results are well known to the world.3 The fiendish cruelty of these

1 Cf. The Contemporary Review, September, 1896, article by Professor W. M. Ramsay, on "Two Massacres in Asia Minor," and "Harper's Book of Facts," under the heading "Massacres," p. 494, for many illustrations.

2 Treaty of Berlin, Article 61: "The Sublime Porte engages to realize without delay those ameliorations and reforms which local needs require in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and guarantees their security against the Circassians and the Kurds. It undertakes to make known, from time to time, the measures taken with this object to the Powers, who will watch over their application."

3 The Rev. Edwin M. Bliss, D.D., in his volume on "Turkey and the Armenian Atrocities," published in the spring of 1896, gives (p. 554) the following summary

massacres has never been surpassed. Spoliation, rape, torture, agonizing assaults upon the person, dastardly sport with children, loathsome brutality which no civilized journal would dare to describe, living holocausts, wholesale murder of an inoffensive population, carried on for hours without cessation, and renewed day after day, robbery, looting, burning of homes, and horrible criminal orgies have combined to make a record of inhuman outrage upon Armenians, which the onlooking Christian nations of the world have as yet utterly failed to restrain, a fact which casts a shadow of ignominy over all Christendom.1 Sources for the verification of these facts are not wanting. That the facts themselves should be doubted or called in question by any one is due either to a desire to cover them up, or is the result of that strange passion for incredulity which asserts itself sooner or later in some minds concerning almost every great historic incident. This story of massacre, we fear, is not yet ended, and unless European Powers can agree upon some policy of intervention, the Turkish Government will pursue it to the bitter end. Massacre as a policy or as a military expedient is not new in Turkey; it has been put into practice many times before.3

of results up to the beginning of that year. Since then other massacres have occurred, notably that of Van in June, and of Constantinople in August, 1896, numbering, according to a conservative estimate, not less than 18,000 victims all told up to November, 1896, which must now be added to the statements given below:

"Number of persons killed (almost entirely men)..

"houses and shops burned..

50,000

12,600

47,000

40,000

400,000"

1 As these sheets are going through the press (December, 1896), there are some indications of impending intervention, which, let us hope, will result in effective measures for securing better order throughout Turkey.

2 Blue Books of the British Government, Turkey, Nos. 2 and 3, 1896, entitled "Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 1892–93”; ibid., Turkey, No. 6, 1896, entitled" Correspondence Relating to the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey, 1894-95"; The Contemporary Review, August, 1895, article by E. J. Dillon on "The Condition of Armenia"; January, 1896, article by Mr. Dillon entitled "Armenia: An Appeal"; Christian Literature, February, 1896 (reprint of the above articles); Greene, " The Armenian Crisis in Turkey"; Bliss, "Turkey and the Armen an Atrocities"; correspondence of the London Times, April 5, 1895; symposium on "The Turkish Question" in The Independent, March 5, 1896; article on "The Situation in Armenia," by Grace N. Kimball, M.D., in The Outlook, November 21, 1896; Bryce, “Transcaucasia and Ararat,” new ed.; MacColl, “The Sultan and the Powers." See also Scribner's Magazine, January, 1897, p. 48.

3 The following figures, summarizing, with minor omissions, the Turkish massacres of this century, are taken from the best authorities:

Graduating Class, 1894, American College for Girls, Constantinople.

Armenian Girls, Harpoot, Turkey.

WARDS OF AMERICAN MISSIONS IN TURKEY.

The Kurds are not capable of conducting warfare on any other plan. Their murderous raid into Persia in 1880, under Sheikh Obeidullah, was marked by similar atrocities.1

We turn from this recent illustration of Armenia as representative of the policy of massacre, to look at the history of other nations. China, upon occasion, resorts to indiscriminate

slaughter in order to exterminate her enemies, and Blood-thirst in China, especially those in rebellion against her authority.

India, and Africa.

If the Chinese officials could have their own way with foreign residents throughout the empire, it is probable that massacre would be the order of the day. Indian history has its bloody record of wholesale slaughter, especially in connection with the invasion of Timur and his Tartar horde in the fourteenth century. The Afghan invasions of the last century were simply a succession of massacres, and "form one of the most appalling tales of bloodshed and wanton cruelty ever inflicted on the human race." In one of the civil wars which also afflicted India, the Sultan of Gulburga, a fanatical Moslem, took an oath upon the Koran that "he would not sheathe the sword till he had put to death a hundred thousand infidels." Mohammedan historians record in this connection that, from first to last, not less than five hundred thousand "infidels' were butchered by the "true believers." The massacres of 1857 indicate that the old spirit would quickly revive were British Government to be supplanted by native rule.

In African warfare a general massacre is sure to follow a victory. The Matabele, the Zulus, the Kaffirs, and numerous other bloodthirsty tribes know no method of subjugation more attractive than this.2

1822. In Scio and vicinity, 50,000 Greeks (R. G. Latham," Russian and Turk," P. 417).

1843. In Kurdistan, 10,000 Nestorians and Armenians (Layard, "Nineveh," vol. i., p. 153, Amer. ed., and The Contemporary Review, January, 1895, p. 16). 1860. In Lebanon, 11,000 Syrians (Churchill, "Druses and Maronites," p. 219).

1876. In Bulgaria, 15,000 Bulgarians (Schuyler, quoted in The Independent, January 10, 1895). See Senate Ex. Doc. No. 24, 44th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 8. 1877. In Bayazid, 1100 Armenians (C. B. Norman, " Armenia and the Campaign of 1877," p. 296).

1892. In Mosul, 2000 Yezidis (Parry's Report to the British Government). 1894. In Sassun, 12,000 Armenians (Greene, The Armenian Crisis in Turkey," chap. i.).

Cf. article by Theodore Peterson, B.D., on Turkey and the Armenian Crisis," in The Catholic World, August, 1895, p. 667.

1 Wilson, "Persian Life and Customs," pp. 109-124.

2 Wilmot, "The Expansion of South Africa," pp. 100, 119, 181, 186, 188.