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Show BRITISH ME GIVING ARMENIANS RELIEF Survivors Tell Stories of Fiendish Treatment at Hands of Turks. SWORD FREELY USED German Officers Apparently Apparent-ly Acquiesce in Brutal Conduct. BAGDAD, July 21. "One of the , best things that is being done in Bagdad Bag-dad just now is the relief of Armenian iwracn and children who have survived vtho massacres and arc now living in Mussulman families," writes the British Brit-ish official eye-witness with the army in Mesopotamia. "Thoy are being gathered into hostels financed by the British government and their own people peo-ple are looking after them. "A visit to one of these institutions and a talk with the refugees there furnishes fur-nishes a convincing arraignment against the Turkish government. The inmates are all young, many of marriageable age, and a great number of children under 6 have already forgotten their language and their faith. ''There is a girl of 10 from a village vil-lage near Erzerum. She and her family fam-ily started on donkeys with a few of their belongings, but in three days the Kurds had left them nothing and they , had to walk. The Turks had issued a proclamation in all the villages that the Armenians were to be sent away to a colony that was being prepared for them, and that their property was to be kept under the care of the government govern-ment during the war and then restored. This was more than a year ago. Innocents Slaughtered. "The gendarmes were very pleasant to them in their homes, and told them that they would be given new land to cultivate" and that their journey would not bo long. The first assurance, as . they guessed, was visionary. In the ' second the gendarmes did not lie. " For many of them it was all over on the third day. Two or three hundred of ' the men were separated from the women and killed, shot or cut down with the Bword. "The same thing . happened, nearly I every day. The guards were very hap- hazard; there was no system. Some of ,the women were pushed into the river; .-'others thrust over precipices. Twelve ' tindred left tho two villages near Kzerum: 400 only reached Kas-el-Ain. 'le survivors were all women and chil-oTi, chil-oTi, there was not a man among them nor a male child over 9 years of age. "A man in a nearby hostel was the sole survivor of a group of refugees r who disappeared between Bas-el-Ain and Nisibm. They were taken, into the desert and formed up in line, as in a Chinese execution, to be dispatched by the sword. There was a shortage of ammunition and the sword was era-ploved era-ploved for reasons of economy. While waiting for his turn, it occurred to the , 'irmenian that a bullet, would be an vasior death, so he broke from the lino. In tho confusion the gendarmes missed him; ho hid in the brush, escaped and made his way to Bagdad. "The main features of all the massacres mas-sacres were much the same. Tho emigrants, emi-grants, if they were not killed on the road, were taken to some depot where - they were kept a few days. Hero they found a large camp where quickly the rationing became a difficult question. Then sotice came from Constantinnple that refugees of a certain district had been allotted land for cultivation, and they were started on a frosh journey. This, they knew, was probably a death sentence, but they, nourished a thin hope. 1 "For the first half day they were generally safe, as murder on a large scale is deprecated near a town. Nobody, No-body, for example, saw anyone killed in Trebizond, but a few days after the Armenians had loft the city their bodies camo floating down the river. The des-ert des-ert is a non-conductor. AVhnt is done thero leaves only a vague rumor. Turn on Assassins. "The refugees, although unarmed, sometimes turned on thoir guards. More than once thoy made the assassins pay , dearly. There is a woman in a Bagdad hostel who was ono of a bravo band of i two or three hundred Armenian women who held a pass near Urfa. Their men E'Cajk hid all been treacherously killed i oft' earlier, and they knew that obedi-1 obedi-1 ence to the proclamation of exile was as fatal as resistance. They held the pass with thoir rifles for nearly a week, ami tho Turks had to bring up artillery to break their resistance. Some fifty of Mhcm escaped. Tho woman, who is now ' in Bagdad, was rescued by a Turk of tho better school, who treated her as his own daughter. " Few Armenian women were so fortunate. for-tunate. Many were killed with as little scruple as tho men. Plainness and gnod looks were fatal in different ways. Tho old and ugly died by violence or were i larvcd; the young and handsome were taken into the households of the Turks. A traveler no. in Bagdad was given a letter by an official at Kas-el-Ain to deliver to the gendarme in charge of tho road. 'Choose a pretty one for me,' he wrote, 'anil leave her in the village , outside the town.' . Appear to Approve. "At Aleppo and Kas-el-Ain German officers stalked side by side with those specters of famine and murder and death, and not a finger was raised or a word said. ' "It is impolite to interfere, is the 1 German watchword. 1 "The German apathy, or synipathv, we can understand. The difficult thing is to reconcile the atrocities with what wo -havo seen of the Turk as a fighter. There are very few British officers who will not bear witness that, winning or , losing, he has fought cleanly on the I whojo. This Jekyll-and llyde qualitv in l nature of the Turk is a perpetual Tiddle. f "The Armenian refugees who reached " Bagdad during the Turkish occupation were often well treated. There n-ere I (-mail children of i and 5 vcars who wore adopted into Turkish families. Kindly Turks had picked them up, as one miffht a small npy or a kitten, and taken them in. After a year or su in their new environment thev have for gotten their own lanvjuajje. Th's is the Ottoman nature all over. The massacres are an unpleasant business. Th-? loss civilized civ-ilized elements of a heterogeneous army are turned onto the dirty work, and the better class Turk shuts his eyes to it as much as possible. Armenians within his household are often treated w?ll. An Armenian mistress enjoys the privileges privi-leges of the home. A servant is well eared for; children, when adopted, are treated kindly. It is good work for Allah to take an infant and make a good Moslem of it." |
